Well, I'm officially caught up now and can take a moment to write a little love note to my faithful readers.

Hi, guys :)

How are you doing?  Things have been busy for me.  So much so that just this morning it occured to me that I hadn't done a thing with krumbinesBRAIN is much too long ... worse, it was totally unintentional!  Hell, even as I write this, I can't even remember what the last episode was about ... lemme check!

... AH!  Right!  The 42nd episode.  Imagine that!

SERIOUSLY.

And I'm conflicted, too--which will undoubtedly end up in the script for the 43rd episode--because one of the reasons kB slipped so quickly through the cracks was because I've been focusing so intently on the webcomics.  Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, mind you, as part of me has been making that transition for a little while now ... at least mentally.

But as I focus more and more on the comics, it becomes more and more evident how crucial my other endeavors are to their success.  A great deal of my website traffic comes from youtube and when I slack off on my production of videos, the views on my website slack off, too.

What's also interesting to note is that I've had AMPLE time at home, to myself, to shoot and edit video.  But I haven't.  Because I totally forgot about it.

So, in short, absolutely NOTHING has happened to krumbinesBRAIN.  I'll eventually write some more episodes (probably just as soon as I finish writing this!) and I still intend to have some more guests including angrypunkbronxkid, Em, and others.

In other news, I teased it a short while ago, and last night Sam and I had the pleasure of watching the first episode of Dexter, season 4.  If you're a fan of the show and don't want to spoil the episode, don't click the "read more" link.

Okay, so first: the show premieres on Showtime on September 27th.  I have my calendar marked.  If you're unfamiliar with the production of Dexter, they shoot the entire season, all at once, before they air an episode.  Which explains how the first episodes sneaks out onto the internet a little over a month before its airdate.

One great thing about the Dexter series is that they cut brilliant "previously on" segments.  So much so that if you've missed any size chunk of the series, they pretty much have you covered.  (But you should still hang your head in shame for missing ANY episode of Dexter!)

Last we saw everyone's favorite serial killer, he was getting hitched to the lady he had impregnated with his soulless seed.  In fact, in the last shots of season 3, a drop of blood falls from Dex's injured hand and onto Rita's wedding dress, leading me to speculate that this was foreshadowing either the death of Dexter's unborn baby, the death of Rita, or perhaps even both.

Episode 4-01 does away with the idea that the baby (Harrison) is lost before birth as we rejoin Dexter and family a few months after Harrison is born.

And despite the anticipation and excitement Sam and I both were feeling towards this sneak peek, we both ended up yawning through-out the whole episode.  It was partly due to the fact that we were both tired from a long day at work, but mainly because the episode was SERIOUSLY yawn-worthy.

But not necessarily in a bad way.

While the episode did begin to drag towards the end, overall it was spot-on.  A primary theme of the episode (and of the season, I suspect) is that the serial killer is a daddy and a family man and blood spatter analyst for Miami Metro.  And that's a lot of work to squeeze into a 24 hour period.  Especially when you're trying to sleep, too.

So this entire episode has Dexter getting more and more tired and yawning incessantly.  In fact, Dexter gets so tired in this episode, that the show gets a little too self-aware and ends up doing a hilarious, remixed send-up of the excellent title sequence that will make you scratch your head at first and then laugh out loud by the time its over.  All this yawning eventually leads up to the fatal mistake that serves as what is surely one of the series best trademarks: the cliffhanger ending.

All the main characters are back and it looks like we're going to start to see some development with the two kids, Astor and Cody (who Dexter takes under his "dark wing" in the books ... a detail I'm waiting to see picked up in the TV series).  Also back is one of my favorite characters from seasons 2: Agent Lundy!  Playing the season's "big baddie" is John Lithgow, and if his performance from the first episode is any indication, it's going to be quite a thrilling ride.