“Not everyone can be an artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere.” A lot of folks will vote that as the best line in Ratatouille, but my vote goes for this one: “What dad doesn’t know could fill a lot of books…which is why I read.”

Wonderful movie.

Crack open a cold one, light a sparkler, and read Howard Zinn’s essay, “Put Away The Flags.”  (Thanks, Gerry.)

This rating was determined based on the presence of the following words: ass (3x), crappy (2x), and limbs (1x). 

In a way, this goofy blog rating script could be more helpful than most of the other stupid things that make the blog rounds.  I did my own search for “dirty words” a while back, and cleaned things up a bit.  (Meg says that if you wouldn’t want your mom or your employer reading it, you probably shouldn’t post it to your blog.)  Unfortunately, I think this rating system falls short for me, as I have several cartoons featuring nudity and other weirdness on here.  So I guess it should be at least a PG-13.   

We are moving this week.  Not to Austin, not yet —  just out of our apartment and into Meg’s parents’ house temporarily.  I’m spending 3/4 of my time doing the grunt work, and 1/4 of the time playing Godfather: Blackhand Edition for the Wii.  (Looking something like this.)

Because of the 1400 mile trip and the ridiculous cost of renting moving trucks one-way, we are getting rid of most of our stuff.  Our bed, our desks, our dressers…everything.  It’s literally cheaper to just hit up IKEA when you get down there.

We had a yard sale of a tiny fraction of our stuff in front of our apartment yesterday and made $60.  Mostly, it was lamps, bookshelves, etc.  I thought I was going to be distraught, selling our posession at such cheap prices, but actually, it was a relief.

Saying goodbye to the good stuff, though — the books, the records, the CDs — man, that’s rough.  I’ve always liked to keep CDs and DVDs in their cases.  No more of that.  Bought three binders, filled them, and chucked the cases. We had six 50-pound book boxes, I narrowed it down to two.  Three crates of LPs, cut them down to one.

I suppose it’s cheating a little to be storing them at a parent’s house.  But still.

Moving is such a pain in the ass, but it can be a great time to take stock of things, if you put in a little effort.  Clearing out the junk, throwing out those old drafts of stories you’ll never draw, books you’ll never read, pens that the ink’s run out of…it sets you up for a new stories, new books, new pens…new beginnings.