For those coming to the LA Festival of Books this weekend, here's a preview of the Sheldon poster which we'll have exclusively at the show: "What was going through the Balrog's mind when he fought Gandalf?":

(I'm still tinkering with background colors, but you can click [HERE] for a larger preview image]

If there's extra demand for it, we may bring it into the store, I suppose. But for now, come on out this Saturday and Sunday for your exclusive show poster! Only at the LA Festival of Books!

Sheldonista John J. sent me an interesting e-mail, today, that I thought I'd share. I don't know if it's true, per se, or even provable, but there's enough of a true-ism in there that it's an interesting food-for-thought.

Anyway, John was saying that the recent tech-support strips (especially the one where you had to bring *your* computer to the source of help): 1, 2, and this one 3 had reminded him of the death of doctor's house calls:

Supposedly the act of doctors making housecalls was killed by the rising popularity of telephones. The system was self-balancing when the patient (or their family) had to put in a little effort - namely, getting out of bed in the middle of the night and traveling to the doctor's residence in whatever weather they expected the doctor to travel in. But as soon as the investment became unbalanced - the doctor was expected to travel in any weather, but the family only had to pick up the phone - the writing was on the wall for house calls.