All over the news, we’ve been watching and reading about the effect sky-high gas prices have had on tourism. Flight bookings are down, hotels are half-full, airlines are downsizing, and people are having “stay-cations” more and more.
“STAY-CATIONS” — what a mind-numbing word. So much for the imagination of journalists.
So what have I been doing for the last two weeks? Racking up over a thousand kilometers on my car (SOB!), chauffering my mother and my visiting Polish cousins around the province…busy being tourists (not extinct yet) & flying in the face of current vacation-rationing trends.
That’s a lot of gas money, I’ll have you know. 
Still, because all of the doom-and-gloom about tourism is actually TRUE, I’m not likely to be going anywhere for the rest of the summer. Perhaps a short road trip sometime in August…but other than that, I must wait until Japan comes calling in March 2009 before I once again break free of the continent.
In other words, I’m going to be in massive, addictive need for further reading material this summer…starting with a refresh copy of the graphic novel Watchmen — a graphic novel that re-wrote the rules about comics. A work of literature (yes, literature!) that sits comfortably on various “100 best reads of the century” lists…
…which is now harder to find than the lost city of Atlantis, after the movie trailer played just before the showing of The Dark Knight. Every comic store, ever Chapters, every Indigo I’ve been to visit…NOTHING! This has completely irritated me. All these new trendy comic readers coming out of the woodwork…when I was there when the actual comic came out in 1986!
Ok, at the time, I was too busy re-reading my issues of Crisis on Infinite Earths, but that’s a geeky-youth story for another day… 
