Big newspost today, all important stuff. So grab a cookie and sit back. Because you always read the news posts, where I explain this stuff, so you don’t have to email me asking about this exact same stuff later, right? Right?

A couple of short announcements first. As many of you have now heard, Christopher Reeve, who played Superman in the original movies, has passed away due to heart failure. He was a true man of steel, and he will be missed. I plan to watch the first Superman movie tonight in his honor.

I have finally broken down and signed up for Xbox Live. I never bothered before because there just weren’t enough Live games to justify the subscription. I’ve always been primarily a PC gamer, and there are plenty enough PC games online to keep me occupied. I always buy a game for the PC, if I have a choice. However, with games like Burnout 3 and soon Halo 2 now supporting online play, I decided to just go ahead and jump into the deep end. So some of you who are avid Xbox Live players may end up in a game with me. I’m not going to publish my gamer tag, but some of you smarter monkeys should be able to figure it out fairly easily.

Speaking of my Xbox, what the hell is up with the extinction of the High Definition pack for the Xbox? I can’t find one anywhere. Are the Monster Cable component cables just as good? I mean, as far as I know, as long as a device is outputting via component cables, that’s high definition, right? Some feedback would be helpful.

Books. Specifically, CAD Volume One. Now that I’m settled into the new apartment, I’m going to put them back up for sale. I did a count, and I only have about 700 books left from the first printing. After these are gone, I’ll have to have the second printing done, which will cause another period of unavailability, and I doubt they’d come in before Christmas.

I’m setting aside about 100 books to take to Ubercon, and 100 books to take to Nekocon. That leaves only 500 books to sell online for the rest of this year.

I have placed an order for a restock of the shipping envelopes I use, and as soon as I know when they’ll be arriving, I’ll start taking book orders again. So be prepared for the book to show up in the store again sometime this week or next week.

Now, all about Ubercon this weekend.

Ubercon is in New Jersey, October 15-17th. I have multiple panels, and I will be in the dealer’s room with some shirts, some copies with the book (only about 100 copies) and some posters. So you can come to a panel and ask me questions, or swing by the table and grab some merchandise.

Ubercon is having an auction to benefit the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. People at Ubercon will have a chance to bid on this piece of original CAD artwork.

I will also be raffling off an Xbox. This Xbox, to be exact. The Xbox is brand new, and features a one-of-a-kind console skin. The prototype, actually, for similar skins that will be available online soon. It is also signed by me. I plan to sell raffle tickets for $1 each, and you get a free ticket with any purchase of a shirt, book, or poster. Most likely I will sell tickets all of Friday and Saturday, and then Sunday morning I will draw a ticket at random and wait for the person with the winning ticket to show up to collect their prize. In the event that someone who can only attend the convention on Friday or Saturday buys a ticket, and then wins, and isn’t there to pick up the Xbox on Sunday, I will announce the winning raffle ticket here on Monday.

The person with the winning ticket will be required to send a clear photo or scan of their raffle ticket AND their convention badge to prove their attendance.