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Mark Trail, 12/30/04

White powder? Referred to as “stuff”? And … am I crazy … or is that a package wrapped in brown paper she’s reaching for? It’s too good to be true!

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Apartment 3-G, 12/29/04

Though I may on occasion fill this space with rants about my cranky opinions and/or the incredibly minor setbacks in my personal life that fill me with rage, I never lose sight of my “core mission” (as they used to say in the business world before I got laid off from it), which is, of course, to read the comics so you don’t have to. So, because I know all of you, especially those readers left bereft by the Baltimore Sun, want to know what’s happening to captive Margo, I’ll tell you: Eldon copped a plea, his slave-managing minions fled the sweatshop, the oppressed garment workers liberated themselves, and Margo, turning her back on her newfound friends as soon as she was no longer forced to spend her time or her rat-infested sleeping quarters with them, took a cab to Manhattan and headed for the tub. Problem solved. There’s no trauma that can’t be washed away by bubble bath!

A comment posted on an earlier strip in this storyline speculated that maybe the whole point of this plot was to force Margo to learn the true meaning of Christmas. I’m beginning to suspect that the real purpose was to create an excuse for another patented Apartment 3-G sexy bath scene.

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Cathy, 12/28/04

As I predicted, going through the wedding planning process at the same time as Cathy of Cathy has turned out to be a fairly unsettling and for the most part unpleasant experience. In the past couple of days, though, I’ve noticed something in the strip that perhaps looms much larger in my life than it does in the lives of most normal, non-wedding-planning persons: shameless plugs for Thebigday.com. This is an online gift registry where you can register for just about anything you want; people buy you stuff online, and you get a note telling you what people bought and a check with which to buy it all (or to spend on hookers and blow, if you prefer, although you probably shouldn’t mention that in your thank you notes).

Anyway, due to our aversion to acquiring more crap and desire to go on a fab honeymoon, my fianceé and I plan on registering at this site for our wedding later this year, and thus it’s deeply distressing to see it being shilled in Cathy. It’s hard enough getting married when you’re a pair of contrary, anti-establishment hipsters, but when the indie rock song you picked out for the ceremony gets covered in a cheesy movie starring J.Lo, the inexpensive yet nice-looking dress you want is the darling of all the ladies at Indiebride.com, and the cool wedding registry you plan on using is suddenly plastered all over Cathy — well, sometimes it seems that the whole world is against you. Our lives: a series of never-ending trials.

The last isn’t really so bad, though, if it introduces the concept to our elderly relatives who have apparently been waiting our entire lives to buy us some gold-rimmed piece of china that we’ll eat off of maybe once every other year. Of course, we’re going to be registering for fun vacation-related gifts so we can party hardy in the Mediterranean, not spaying and neutering services. Our cat is already spayed, and frankly, fixing the rest of them will not be high on our priority list on the big day. I do wonder if Thebigday.com paid Cathy for the prominent mention — in which case this may be the first instance of comic strip product placement that I can remember. Earlier today, I was unable to reach the site, which prompted the horrifying vision of millions of glassy-eyed Cathy minions, with that “Hang In There” kitten smiling down at them from the wall, all simultaneously visiting the site and overwhelming their Web servers.