It seems to me that Lando Calrissian was in a hell of a position. Professional gambler, and not a small one - he lost the Falcon playing cards against Han Solo, a whole frickin' space ship. Have you ever lost a space ship? No. Calrissian's got the desperation in him, he knows that when he gambles he can go too far and lose big, but it's the only thing he knows how to do. He's barely staying ahead of the curve at Bespin, and then the Dark Lord shows up on Cloud City and offers Lando a deal - Lando figures he can run with it, bide his time till the river turns over and make what he can make based on what's on the table. But Vader switches the game on him, the river never comes, and suddenly Lando's caught out dealing from the bottom of the deck by not just a Sith Lord, but by one of the best gamblers Lando ever knew: Hanwise J. Solo. Sure, it's a bad situation that he got himself into by thinking he could play one step ahead of a dirty game, but still, one sympathizes. How could he have known that for a few brief, terrifying hours, is little Tibana gas mine would be the hub around which the entire Galactic Civil War revolved?

It's election day in Ontario; I admit I haven't been as diligent as I might have been in selecting my candidate. I tend to vacillate between the Liberals and the NDP at both the Federal and Provincial levels of government, but I live in a strongly NDP riding right now. While I can support the NDP candidate at the Federal level (hey, it's Jack Layton, the man entrances me), something about the Provincial candidate makes me queasy. So I'm really not sure which way I'll go tonight, though I'll give it more thought today. We have a referendum this time around, too, but I don't think it's a very exciiting one. Still, decisions must be made.

Having mired up halfway through issue 4 of Snapdragon, I am reviewing and revising the earlier issues. This morning I finished issue 2 (again). I've also come up with at least two (maybe three?) new characters that I'd like to drop in there, but there isn't a lot of space. Page count is my nemesis. Advantage of writing comics: the dialogue can be a bit more "on the nose," which suits me; disadvantage: way, way shorter lines, which runs counter to my obvious tendencies towards verbotic overrun. It's a juggling act. And I'm trying not to get too ratholed on this single item that will, quite obviously, never see publication, but it's a logical puzzle to try to solve this thing, and I am engrossed.