The brainiacs who stole our car left a couple of their belongings behind. The first was an e-mail that was printed out for some clerk at Austin Community College. It has a couple names, a social security number, and a a post-it note with an e-mail password on it. The second thing was a pair of prescription, rose-colored sunglasses in a Laura Ashley case. The third was a piece of window metal from a 1995 Honda, which means they stole more than one car Saturday night. As for Betsy 2, I’m guessing that they had to abandon her quick. It probably had something to do with the crack in the windshield. Who knows.

Either way, we’re getting THE CLUB this week, and I’m also thinking about pulling the wire that runs from the distributor to the ignition every night. We’ll see. I’m also thinking about finding the person the e-mail was addressed to, and doing this.

My car is sitting in a tow yard in south Austin. The side of the driver’s window is messed up from the break-in, the ignition has been torn out, and the windshield looks like somebody threw a bottle at it. The thieves ate our Chex-Mix, took our Ipod adapter, but left our cowboy hats, umbrellas, and flip-flops. They took it for a 100-mile joyride (I know, because I had just got gas, and flipped the odometer) and dumped it in a parking lot.

Tommy-the-Tow-Guy and I, we put in the clutch, stuck a screwdriver in the ignition, and she fired up like nothing happened. It’s totally drivable, but we have to get the insurance company out to assess the damage before we can drive off with it and get it repaired.

So add this to the news that as of tomorrow, I will probably be employed, Meg and I are very happy. Here’s what I doodled last night, thinking I’d never see her again:

Even taking into account the car theft, we’re having a really fabulous time in Austin. Here’s the sunset over Lake Travis that we got to see last night:

Can’t beat that.

After putting a $1000 into my 1997 Honda Accord with 160,000 miles on it to get it to Texas, after it running like a freaking champ the whole 1500 miles down here, two days after it was full of expensive electronics, Ikea furniture, and my life — after all that, some asshole stole it out of our parking lot last night. The police officer I talked to said that 3 late-90s Hondas were stolen in the area last night, so most likely my beloved car is being chopped into a hundred pieces. We were having such great luck so far, too. Damn.

I’ve felt severe blogger’s guilt about not posting much new this week, so here are a couple scraps from a project I’ve been working on. I’m stranded at a library in Coventry, and I seem to have misplaced my Wacom pen, so I can’t complete the other two caricatures. (Not on the computer, anyways.)

This week I’ve had three phone interviews**, a busted radiator and bad ball joints on my car (there goes a paycheck), an album cover I’ve been trying to finish for Hawkline, and I’ve been going to work. Not a whole lot of time to blog.

If you wanted to, you could check out my Google Shared Items, which is pretty much like another blog without my commentary.

Next week we’re at the beach. I’m going to try my best not to blog from there. We’ll see.

**I can’t really complain about having three job interviews in three days. At the end of all this job search madness, I’m going to write a nice long blog post about any wisdom I’ve gleaned from the process. I will tell you the one thing I’ve learned this week: you have to be yourself. The interview process is a lot like dating: if you get into a relationship being someone you’re not, it’s not gonna work out in the long run. Have the faith that you’re a great mind, a great bargain, and a great person, most importantly.

Thus ends my public service announcement.

The B pipe on my Honda needed replaced, so I sat in a Starbucks all morning and drew the people passing by. I liked the drawings so much, I thought, what the hell, why not make them a comic?