Conventional Wisdom

(Historical Notes:  See, THIS is why staying at a hotel several blocks away was so bad.  It was freakin’ COLD that weekend.  I’m on record as loving the cold in ways that cannot be scientifically explained coming from a Southern Boy, but even I have my limits.  And those limits are a lot easier to reach when trudging half a mile through snow and ice and extreme wind chill while SEVERELY under-dressed.  See, the hotel I THOUGHT I’d be staying at was right across the street from the Gaylord, and I packed under the assumption that I only needed clothes warm enough to hold me for the minute or so it’d take to cross said street.  As you’ll see later on, I did bring some thick, heavy costumes, but nowhere near enough warm practical clothes.  I didn’t even think to bring gloves.  I’m surprised Past Me didn’t try to turn THIS into a comic, but dragging all my luggage from one end of National Harbor to the other on Sunday morning, in sub-freezing temperatures, with completely bare hands was one of the more painful things I’ve ever done.  Like, this sounds like hyperbole, but I unironically was afraid I was getting frostbite on my fingers by the time I finally reached the parking deck.  It was BAD… but I still like the cold when I’m dressed for it.

Oh, and this is another rare page that I did some meaningful re-editing to.  Specifically, the original was drawn and edited in two separate parts, then pasted together… VERY poorly.  I’m not sure what Past Me did wrong, but the SmackJeeves copy was scaled down horrendously, to the point that most of the screentone effects just looked like checkerboards.  Thankfully, Past Me also had the good sense to save those two separate sections on their own, at full size, so I was able to put the whole thing back together in a far less janky manner.)