So, I had a friend, whom here I shall name Emerson Dakota IX, because it’s my blog and I can. In the summer of 2009, I was in Ireland, learning Ancient Greek (get me), and Emerson was in Sweden, being kinda miserable. To cheer them up, I decided to send them a birthday present. After rejecting my previous idea of sending twenty packets of salt and vinegar crisps in a box, I ended up making a custom xkcd-style comic featuring both of us. We were both quite into Zen Buddhism at the time, so it seemed logical to make that the storyline. I lost the original file several computers ago, but in the our-friendship-has-burned-to-a-cinder house-cleaning recently, Emerson scanned the hard copy and sent it to me. Being as I’ve probably never spent more time on GIMP trying to get tiny black lines to fit together in my life, I’m quite pleased with it. And if you’re reading, Randall, I hope you enjoy your homage.