14th of February

Apologies for being offline for awhile, but the Banana is back! I've been away on the Gold Coast, flirting unsuccessfully with Korean girls, then back through Sydney flirting with the idea of flirting, then back right down to earth (earth being Sunshine hospital ED).
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Happy Valentine's Day to everyone who is single today! To the rest of you in relationships, if you didn't already hear it today, then...

...maybe you should try being single. Muhaha. Apparently the Koreans have a "Black" day in April where the singles from Valentine's Day commiserate by getting together and having black bean noodles (Jajangmyeon). Slightly morbid, but black is more hip than the extreme reds and whites of this Hallmark holiday ;)

Other noteworthy 14th February anniversaries -

1) St Valentine's Day Massacre of the Bugs Moran's henchmen by Al Capone's goons
2) Iranian leader Ruhollah Khomeini issues a fatwa encouraging Muslims to kill Salman Rushdie, the author of The Satanic Verses.
3) Discovery of Lawrencium, element 103

...hmm...

I guess none of those are really very noteworthy. I'm just hiding from Valentine's Day. I do want to thank the two sweet friends who sent thoughtful platonic messages to me today though, big hugs ;)

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The first printing of FALLING STARS NEED PARACHUTES rolled off the press today, and my Mum immediately picked up a glaring grammatical error (sigh). Remember kids - if it's a contraction it's I-T-APOSTROPHE-S, but if it's possessive it's just I-T-S. Download a low-res copy of the pdf (grammatical error corrected) here.

The colors were problematic. I had finished most of the book when I was advised to warm up the colours a bit, which I achieved on the original page by tinting some blues with green. Subsequently the transition from page to digital through a scanner robbed the pages of any subtlety in colour, and in particular, those greens I tried to get in there. So the pages you see in the pdf are a little too red and a little too blue. I tried to adjust the colours in Photoshop but it just looks odd, so I've left it for the moment.

I showed the book to my brother Tim, and being the enterprising chap he is, immediately seized on the idea of mass production. It could be, with the proper marketing, my ticket out of medicine! In the works already are a Star action figure with Kung-Fu grip and automatic parachute. For diversification Tim and I decided that in the next installment Saburo gets a car *and* a beach house and that way we'll have cornered the entire merchandising market. JK Rowling and Barbie hold on to your riches, we're coming after YOU!