I don't remember when I started reading For Better Or For Worse but I was very, very young. I didn't read comic books as a kid (except for one issue of Scrooge McDuck, the origins of which have become clouded) but I always read the daily newspaper strips. For Better Or For Worse, and later Bloom County and Calvin and Hobbes were my favourites. (Nobody ever really liked B.C.)

They were what started me on drawing.

They were also what hampered me on drawing for a long time, since I aped the symbolic, pared-down art of a finished cartoon without having learned the realism and basic anatomy that that art had been pared down from, much to my parents' consternation and frequent unheeded advice. But, like any kid who learns to draw from comic books who is not Rob Liefeld, I went back and picked up the starting points later, after the damage had only partially been done.

The thing about For Better Or For Worse that set it apart from every other strip is that time passes, so I shared the same age--and name, obviously--as Michael. We didn't have much else in common, apart from a younger sister who liked to scream, but I still related to the dude. We also both took journalism in college, now that I think of it.

This weekend, For Better Or For Worse has officially stopped advancing in time. And I am very relieved.

The reason I say "officially" is because the strip stopped advancing in time socially quite a while ago. What's happened to it isn't anything different than what one might expect when encountering a universe devised and controlled by a woman of retirement age whose children have grown: it's stuck in the values of the previous generation. Two generations ago, now.

When Michael married his childhood sweetheart it was cute. When he, after weeks of anvilicious foreshadowing, took over his parents' old house and their two-adults-two-kids nuclear family structure, it was disturbing. When Elizabeth decided that pursuing an independent life wasn't for her and fled back home to marry her blandtastic childhood sweetheart, it was absolutely wrenching, and not in that awesome dramatic way. (Everything you need to know about Anthony is here.)

I saw a parody comic a while back that I thought was particularly incisive.



Also, the blinking panel just kills me. I think the creator should have stopped the strip there, because the rest of it becomes a little too personal, and it's like being an unwilling witness to a domestic dispute at a grocery store. Seems like this artist knows things about real-Elizabeth we don't.

This one shares the theme, and is just as fantastic:



But, as of this weekend, all that stops. Elizabeth and Anthony, while claiming not to want to rush into things, had their wedding as soon as possible so as to get it done before the last sand falls out of Great-grandpa Jim's hourglass. This Sunday was the final chapter of Harry Potter when we meet Hermione's kids. Or whatever.



Every character in the ever-expanding Foobiverse experiences resounding, and often vastly unwarranted, success. They win awards. They own empires. When they do take jobs pumping gas or mowing lawns, the next time you see them they have car dealerships and landscaping companies. It's not good enough for Weed to just be a reasonably happy freelance photographer: he's got to be a world-famous award-winning jet-setting photographer. (Who married a down-home old-school-values girl, of course.) Johnston's been writing Mary Sue fan-fiction of her own work for a few years now--the only difference is that she's inserted herself into the role of God.

I get a little squicked whenever John announces his forever-love to Elly, as he has done frequently lately, because I know that real-life John ran off with a dental hygienist. I'm not saying Johnston should have written that into the strip; that would have been awful. But what she's put in is the polar fairy-tale opposite, and that's awful too.

And that's why I'm relieved it's over.

She's still doing new strips, but she's started back at Year One, when Michael's still getting started cleaning up the Gotham streets, and earning the grudging trust and respect of young police officer James Gordon. In today's strip we see the first Secret Origins of Farley the Dog. Guess which part of that paragraph I'm not kidding about.

Although actually what I like to imagine is that she's ending it the way Stephen King "ended" The Dark Tower, throwing Roland back to the start and forcing him to start the whole quest over. Which means that at this very moment, while five-year-old Michael is experiencing the first pangs of disappointment in his mother, two-year-old Elizabeth is waking up in a cold fever, racked by inexplicable and haunting images of a mustache. And blandness. And unspeakable, clammy horror.

See? For Better Or For Worse is awesome again.

snown

Example: It has frequently snown upon the Stampeders Labour Day Classic.

Since the past participles of grow and blow are neither "growed" nor "blowed," why are we asked to accept "snowed"? Break this rule and employ the logical and charming snown.

See also: snew

(Michael brought me this back from Comic-Con. Also a die-cast TARDIS which is actually in even better scale. Thanks mang!)

We missed the Calgary show of Weird Al's first Straight Outta Lynwood tour last summer because of Comic-Con. Lisa and I headed down to Lethbridge to catch it there, but Kyle couldn't fit it into his schedule.

But this summer he's touring again, so he got his chance. And we'll certainly see an Al concert twice! I've only been to five of them.

Kyle and I wore our White & Nerdy hoodies, as lots of other people did, so that made it only the second goofiest thing we've ever worn to an Al concert.

The e-mail acknowledgement of my ticket purchase didn't say anything about not bringing cameras, so I brought my beat-up, five-year-old A70. It's got stuck pixels and it doesn't focus very well anymore and it gets uncomfortably warm. By the same token, I wouldn't have been especially heartbroken to have it confiscated, something Lisa and Kyle wouldn't risk with their much better, newer, and more difficult to conceal cameras. Nobody said boo to me about my camera, even when Al was right next to us; apparently they hassled Tony about his, though.

At the end of the concert, a girl asked for copies of my pictures, assuming I'd gotten good ones. I took about 200 of them, so here is where you can see the ones where the camera didn't get (as) confused by the floodlights. So here you go, curious girl who also turned out to be the first stranger to ask about my iPhone!

	Love Torpedo Didn't manage to catch a shot of the crotch-thrust that followed swiftly after this.
	Roadie! Roadie! Roadie! Waits angrily for his cue.
	The Saga Brings It Down For A Minute That's Tony again. "TELL me you got that shot," Kyle whispered. "I took three of them," I told him. I doubt Tony would have forgiven me for missing this shot.
	Yoda Al and Steve West kick it back up a bit. Jon Schwartz is vaguely visible in the back there.
	Sing Distinctly? We Don't Wanna. Every other time, when the eye-level floodlights were on, the shot didn't work. This is the only one that did.
	Gargle Bardle Zouss Know what happens when you're sitting in the sixth row? Yeah.
	Ho! "Steve, you're uh, receding a bit there, big guy." "Well, at least I've kept my figure!"
	Can You Make It Out To eBay? Little e, Big B... We lurked around the stage with Tony a bit after the concert, and I got Steve to sign my CD booklet. In the lobby, Lisa found Kyle a backstage pass, and he headed back there to get the rest of the band's autographs on my booklet and his ticket. Except Bermuda. Poor Bermuda. (My Running With Scissors CD is signed, too.)

After Boy Human put pancakes on the bed in front of Girl Human for some unimportant reason (it was proven to be non-cat-related, and therefore unimportant, when Campingcat--at this time still just Regular Cat--attempted to insert her face into the pancakes and was scolded) many things were loaded into the van. Among them, Campingcat. Conversation reveals that it is apparently Girl Human's birthday. Whatever, thinks Campingcat, who has seen twelve birthdays and as a result has no time for people's shit anymore. Campingcat--still just Regular Cat at this point--is tolerant of the van. Often the van trips end at the vet's office, but frequently they are to pick up Girl Human, or to wait in parking lots while Boy Human shops for random things. Girl Human is in the van today so it's not that. Once the van trip was to Boy Human's parents' house, which did not go so well. Today the van trip is very long, so after a couple of hours Campingcat raises her concerns. As a result, the humans introduce her to a parking lot in Claresholm, which is full of rural people and large trucks. They show her her food, water, and litter box, in none of which Campingcat deigns to be interested, but she offers a compromise: she will keep her yap shut and sleep the rest of the way if she is not subjected to any more parking lots. Campingcat tries to be open-minded that way. She is rarely appreciated.
	Eventually Campingcat reaches the campsite, which is at Moyie Lake near Cranbrook, B.C., and finally becomes Campingcat in earnest. She is tied to a picnic table with her harness, which is not especially welcomed by Campingcat, but she has been subjected to her harness before. So long as the humans do not expect her to actually follow them anywhere, Campingcat puts up with their crap. Campingcat is long-suffering.
	Boy Human shows Campingcat her litter box which he has placed somewhere, but Campingcat will choose her own place to pee, thank you very much. Then Boy Human moves her litter box to Campingcat's chosen location, which shows that Boy Human knows what's good for everyone.
	Fat Marmot is very interesting. Campingcat employs her usual strategy with such small creatures, which is to crouch and watch them intently until they expire naturally of old age. Fat Marmot evidently has further days ahead of him, and eventually leaves, winning their battle of wits. Well played, Fat Marmot. Well played.
	Stupid deer rank high on the list of things about which Campingcat does not care. Also on that list are dogs, with which the campground apparently abounds. There are no other cats, which is right and good.
	Boy Human shows Campingcat the most water she has ever seen. Prior to this, the most water she has ever seen has been contained within the upstairs bathroom shower stall, which is never good times. This is much more water than that, but Campingcat greets it the same way: by howling brokenly at it. Luckily for him, Boy Human does not attempt to dunk Campingcat into the water, and she retreats quickly, never turning her back on it as it laps menacingly against the shore, seemingly of its own volition. Can it chase her up the beach? Campingcat does not know, and she spends the afternoon under the picnic table, watching the humans as they insanely paddle about in the water. She yowls warnings at them, but they do not understand, or care. Foolish humans.
	Campingcat does her part to keep the campsite free of weeds and grasses. She is a giver.
The best part of camping, as far as Campingcat is concerned, is the tent. It is almost entirely made up of bed, and Campingcat would spend most of the day in there, if the humans didn't keep the flap closed most of the time. This is partly because of bugs, and also because Campingcat, when relaxed, likes to pull the fur out of her back and leave it in tufts and the humans don't want that in their sleeping bag. Campingcat attempts to let herself into the tent a couple of times, with her claws through the screen, and is scolded. Campingcat is still in the tent when Boy Human packs up the campsite, and she stands her ground as he rolls up the sleeping bag and deflates the air mattress, even though he uses a noisy vacuum machine to do so. Well, technically she lies down her ground, but you get the idea. Eventually he bodily ejects her from the tent, and she retaliates by giving attitude to Girl Human, who is not her real mother anyhow. She alternately hides under the van and tries to knock things over in the back of it, until Boy Human scolds her. Then she behaves. Boy Human will only take so much of her lip. Campingcat sleeps the whole way home, as she has had almost none of her daily naps the whole weekend, which isn't very good. She also had nearly all of her insulin injections, which she doesn't like either. However, she ate a lot of the humans' turkey- and salmon-based food, which was good. Campingcat got to lie in camp chairs in front of the campfire, which was warm and good. So, all in all, Campingcat was tolerant about the whole experience. It certainly beats being left at home, with Boy Human's Friend coming to feed her. For one thing, Campingcat will only allow Boy Human to give her insulin shots; for another, Boy Human's Friend always brings along his Horrible, Horrible Miniature Human, and Campingcat has no patience with those things. Campingcat--just Regular Cat once again--shudders to even think about it. In fact, she's going to go pull out some fur on the humans' bed now.

Came home from a long day of being worried about possible van mechanical problems, and my boss being in Toronto (but ameliorated by a trip to White Spot), to this:





Missed the Macbook by about eight inches. Guess I should have bolted those things to the wall the way IKEA recommends.

Note: Sheba was not at fault.

Happy Canada Day!

I'm working today, but I had yesterday off to make a proper long weekend out of it.

No they don't.

We lived!

The trip and the wedding went fantastically! (Except for the Westjet flight home.) It is so much easier to have a resort take care of (most of) your wedding details for you. There's no having to sheepdog relatives around or trying to figure out what colour ribbon to tie around your cake lifter. So long as you have tolerant relatives that don't mind you flinging off to go elope in foreign countries, I heartily recommend it.



And now we're married in the eyes of Cuban law. We'll be married in the eyes of Canadian law as soon as the paperwork reaches the Canadian consulate. Should only be three months or so.

As for Cuba itself, any country that has bats and lizards is okay by me.



These little anoles lived on the balconies and walkways of the resort. On Tuesday morning one of these little guys darted by my feet and I crushed him, and I was devastated. There were also three other completely different types of lizards that lived on the boardwalk by the bar, and in the grasses near the beach, and on the beach itself.

The other thing Cuba has a lot of, besides cigars and rum to which I am largely indifferent but a significant quantity of which I nevertheless brought home, is giant 1950s American cars.

It's kind of for a sad reason, since because of the embargo they can't really import a lot of newer cars. So they keep these babies shiny and running. Sadly they don't keep them in line with North American emissions standards, so sitting next to the road in Varadero was headache time.

Our Westjet flight from Toronto that was supposed to land at midnight was five hours late. This is for the same reason that we get bad service at Starbucks every so often: it makes Michael scream, and his head spins around.

A longer, more detailed post will undoubtedly follow someday. I have 748 photos to sort through.

Now a second (twenty-something and girl-type) person has asked where we're going for a honeymoon. "A honeymoon? We're getting married in Cuba!" I asked. "Where else do we need to go?" This seems to be surprising.

For our honeymoon I think I want to go to Burger King. That would be swee.

The Spectacular Spider-Man version of Black Cat is so cute!


But then, every character design on the show is cute. Quentin friggin' Beck is cute.

The other thing I really like about this show is that they introduce most of the villains in the background three episodes before they officially appear.

Hearing the voice of Tricia Helfer flirting with a sixteen-year-old kid is a bit weird, though.

As you may have heard, we're going away in the second week of June.

In the past when we've gone away, we've just had someone--usually Jason--come in and fill her food dish every couple of days. She used to just browse some kibble when she felt the need, and she certainly doesn't require human companionship from people who are not us. But now, of course, she's diabetic so she needs more care.

I actually have two cats. The cat we see is Light Sheba. Light Sheba is affectionate, well-trained and respectful. She doesn't cross the carpet line into the kitchen when we're in there, and she doesn't jump up on counters unless invited.

The other cat is Dark Sheba. Dark Sheba comes out when there are other humans or cats. Especially cats. At her least worst, Dark Sheba will jump on a guy's lap and then hiss at him.

At her most worst, Dark Sheba is completely feral: snarling, growling. Peeing. Murderous.

The Calgary Cat Clinic said that they don't board cats, but they recommended a couple of places that do: one woman who'll come to your house that would have cost us about $1000, and the Cross Creek Cattery. The Cattery is run by a lovely English fellow named Steve, who recommended that we bring Sheba in for a trial weekend, to see how she handles it while we're still in town, in case it goes badly.

Last Friday we took her over there, after work. They have a good-kitty area, for the cats who can handle looking at other cats. And a bad-kitty area. Sheba went into the bad-kitty area, where the only other cat she could see was another tabby named Delilah. Who she hissed at.

9:30 Saturday morning Steve called. "I managed to give her insulin last night," he said, "but I can't get near her now. She's fighting me. I can't even get a towel over her. And she hasn't eaten anything."

"Well, it's okay for her to miss one injection," I said. "Maybe keep an eye on her and see if she eats anything later today and give us a call back?"

At 4:30 he called back. "Now she's in the litter box and I, um, can't get her out."

"We'll come get her," I said.

When we got there, we already heard her snarling. All that I could see in the opening of the litter box was

until she recognized me.

I put the litter box down on the floor and popped its clamps. She remained, frozen, hunched on the litter, so I picked her up and put her in her tote bag, where she crouched and hissed and was generally nutty until I released her into the van. Five minutes onto the road the furry weirdo was cheerfully watching trucks out of the side windows, because my cat who hates nearly everything loves car rides.

So, while we're in Cuba, Sheba will spend the week in one of my parents' upstairs bedrooms, suffering insulin withdrawal, but hopefully still eating. They don't have a cat, and Sheba doesn't care about their dog, so hopefully she'll only be somewhat leery instead of full-on feral. If she eats she'll be fine; if not, Mom can take her to the clinic.

My website used to update itself by automatically feeding anything I posted in my LJ, which was awesome because I am lazy. But the day after I handed out a bunch of business cards at the Expo, I took a look at my site and discovered it had broken. No other RSS adapter I could find would work either: LJ must have changed something, I guess.

So, the next best solution: a self-contained, separate blog. To which I'll have to manually, separately post, like it's 2005 or some shit.

So, in future, I'll be posting art there, at mikeintosh.net. Posts ABOUT drawing will also be there. Posts about watching cartoons, unnecessarily long words, and things I don't understand will be here, as usual.

I have no idea how secure that blog is, and will now begin taking bets to see how long it is before someone hacks the merry hell out of it.

Hoo, am I tired.



This year's Comic Expo was the first to run over two days, because last year's was packed full: 6000 people attended. It felt full, too; our table was frequently crowded. This year probably pulled in eight thousand--I'm just guessing--but spread out over two days it felt much more relaxed. Which I'm sure was nice for the attendees, but for us, sales were slow. Well, Lisa always does pretty well.



We lined up at the table along a spectrum: Marci was at one end, all cute and family-friendly and pure like the driven snow, and then Lisa, a little sassier, and then me darker yet, and finally Kyle and and his evil carnival of divination and sin.

Man, I wished I had comics to sell. Every time Michael showed someone the truncated one I died a bit, inside. But we networked with other folks about printers who are in town, or at least closer to it or, failing that, have phone numbers. I'll still upload books to Lulu so that people in Uruguay can order them, but that's it.

We also networked with the owners of the local comic book stores, who invited us to bring copies of Diaperman in. Which we would, if we hadn't sold out of the collection. But we did! --I think.



Derek France came by to chat us up about getting tables at Con-Version, and god help us, Kyle and I considered it. May Gord have mercy on us.

I guess I should have clicked the "Do Not Print At 6.63" W x 10" H And Then Cut It Down To 6 x 9 For Mysterious And Probably Intensely Stupid Reasons" checkbox. My bad.



I used their live chat to explain their error, and demand replacement books by the 25th. They asked that I e-mail pictures of the misprint to them and that they're very sorry but they have to follow their protocol about this, and that they'll e-mail me back in two business days. They could not give me a phone number to call to follow up if (when) they don't do that.

I guess I'm glad I have lots of practice dealing with stuff like this at work.


The reason is probably that I also ordered six of my sketchbook at its new 6x9 size, so they decided to cut the whole order to that size. Which certainly qualifies as Intensely Stupid.

Comic finished and ordered!

Sketchcards ordered. I wasn't originally going to bother having some for the Expo, but then I spent today setting them up, so I figured the hell with it and got the seven-day shipping on them. Last year I decided I didn't want business cards, and then I regretted that. Better to have them and not need them, than the alternative.

One more print finished today:

I'll probably try to crank out another one or two before the Expo.

The wedding trip is blessedly now booked--almost. The packages to the hotel we wanted from Calgary sold out before we had financing secured, unfortunately. However, the Toronto packages are still available. And, as it turns out, it's $800 cheaper to book a package leaving from Toronto than from Calgary, so we booked that. We'll get a separate flight to Toronto, stay there a couple of nights, see Niagara Falls and what not. And it feels great to have that done.

Rings still haven't arrived, but soon. I hope.

The wedding reception--which is June 21, the week after the wedding--has been moooostly taken care of. The B&B-slash-hall has been booked, for a year now actually. Since the event is still just in the barbecue-with-friends-in-someone-else's-house category, and not the do-the-whole-wedding thing, it makes it a lot easier to plan. Apart from the food, and the shuttling people to Bragg Creek and back.

Right now Lisa is assembling invitation prototypes. Artsy craftsy! And we're sorting out the guest list. Even eloping in a foreign country doesn't get you away from everything.

Took Sheba in for her glucose test yesterday, and it came back as 1.2, compared to 6.5 a couple of weeks ago when she had her teeth fixed, and 22 when she was first diagnosed with diabetes. I could pretty much tell, as she'd drank almost no water for the past three days. So the tech had me take her off insulin completely for a week--which seemed a little drastic to me, but I'm not a vet, and neither was I about to pass up the opportunity to sleep in Sunday morning. Unsurprisingly, going from six units of insulin a day down to zero has made Sheba queasy, sick and miserable, and I've spent the day keeping an eye on the poor kitty.

Well, maybe. They haven't called.

Lisa posted an ad on Craigslist to sell the dryer that had come with our house. It still works; we'd just gotten newer ones from Neil and Teri. She was contacted by a girl also named Lisa, who has actually not yet called.

Anyhoo, Lisa--our Lisa--was wondering why the e-mails from the other Lisa kept getting junked by Hotmail. Eventually she got Hotmail to unblock everything except the girl's website: michelleandlisa(dot)com. Hotmail does not approve, and neither might your workplace.

So she IMed me about it. "Malibu Stacy bought our dryer?" I asked.

But that's not the weird part. ( This is: )

I have four more pages of comic book left to ink--and then once I'm done that, about eight to scan, lay out, and letter. It might just be possible to finish by the Expo, maaaybe. What a load off that would be.

Speaking of the Expo, they've updated the guest list again. Finally, finally my life's dream can be realized: I can know if Iain's claim to have dated Tricia Helfer when he lived in Fort McMurray is even remotely based in fact.

Last week most of my tux arrived. We'd determined that the coat I want is only available for rental at the actual, physical stores we visited--and it costs $550 to do so at Black & Lee. Pft--for that much money I want to own it, and, tragically, wear it to LARP games. So I ordered it from uniformalwearhouse.com and for $370 got the penguin suit and a top hat and shoes and disappointing spats. Unfortunately, though the paperwork agrees that I bought a 2XL hat, the hat itself is only a large, and therefore insufficient to cover my buffalo head. I called them to have them ship out a replacement, which is something I have plenty of experience at, at work. There's still plenty of time. Since I'm returning things anyway I'm exchanging the spats, which were apparently only appealing in theory, for a bow tie.

The Batman cufflinks Lisa bought me for Valentine's Day fit perfectly.

What there isn't plenty of time for is my ring, which also came the wrong size. All of my other rings (I wear three) are size 11, so I felt confident in telling Lisa that she should order this one in an 11 as well. Turns out these rings are "comfort fit," a term which here means "will likely fly right the hell off if you whip your hand around." I'm not sure what's comfortable about that.

On Saturday Dad and I visited my grandparents, where I did, as planned, demonstrate the unsafety of the stairs in their house by flinging myself up and down them. I also demonstrated the unsafety of household appliances by displaying the branding I had given myself last weekend, with the toaster oven. As Lisa predicted, that was simply taken to prove that I am a spaz, not that they might hurt themselves. But then we caught Grandma climbing onto 60-year-old half-broken wooden furniture to reach her wall safe, and oh, did that give me ammunition. Ammunition for hours.

And now it is bedtime, so I must chart exactly how much water my crotchety, diabetic cat has converted into pee today, and then go to bed.

A couple of weeks ago, my wireless connection started to lose power in the living room. The neighbours probably got a new cordless phone, I figured, and I didn't think too much about it. Then, when my Macbook woke up from sleep it couldn't find the network at all, unless I took it upstairs and plugged it in. Then it worked, until it didn't again.

Lisa's iBook and the Wii still connected without any trouble, so I thought it was just me, and I reinstalled the OS three times. Then my Airport started to reboot whenever I connected to my AirDisk, which was actually a huge relief because that gave me something to point to.

I haven't had the Extreme for a full year yet, so Apple will fix it. I took it over to MyMacDealer on Monday, where the service counter guy apologetically showed me that my Future Shop receipt does not have the Airport's serial number. It has the word SERIAL: on it, and then the Airport's UPC code, which is not the serial number. The UPC number is the same for every Airport and doesn't do anything to prove when I bought that one. Which Apple, reasonably enough, needs to see before they'll fix it for free.

That meant a trip to Future Shop. Faboo.

We'd just been in the service-monkey line recently, since Lisa's old Palm had a magenta splotch on the screen and she wanted to take advantage of Future Shop's foolish commitment to replace it while there was still something to replace it with. She walked away with the only remaining Palm that Future Shop had, probably anywhere. But it took a hell of a long time and many explanations.

Today there wasn't anyone in the monkey line, which was lucky. I explained that my Airport had gotten squirrely, and that Apple would fix it if I could prove when I bought it, so I needed a receipt that actually had the serial number on it, please, and a date. Either today or June, when I'd bought it, whichever.

The monkey immediately fetched his higher-up monkey, who listened only a moment before asking me if they had any new Extremes in stock. I hadn't looked. They did--sort of, since the model had been updated with gigabit Ethernet a couple of months after I got mine. The supervisor-monkey ran through a return of my old one and a replacement with the new one--which seemed like a waste of effort and money when all I'd wanted was a piece of paper with some printing on it. But I wasn't going to argue.

Would I get away unscathed? It seemed unbelievable.

I was presented with a new Extreme and a receipt. Which didn't have a serial number on it. It had the model number on it.

"This doesn't have the serial number on it," I said to the low-ranking monkey. The higher-ranking monkey had left to do something else.

"You don't need it," he said.

What? "Yes, Apple needs it," I said.

"No, they don't need it any more," he repeated.

"Uh, yeah, they do," I said, "I just went through that with them. That's why I'm here."

"That was the old model," he said. "Now we don't put serial numbers on the receipts. They don't need it."

Apparently I was getting a $200 replacement for no reason then. Astonishing. I tried a different tack. "Can you just put the serial number on the receipt anyway, just to be on the safe side?"

"I have no way to put it on the receipt," he said.

I decided to gamble. Either the new one won't break within a year, or it will and I'll get Future Shop to replace that one too, since they're so happy to do that. To me, it'd be easier to just print numbers on paper, but what the hell.