Ah, this was going to be a big day. First, I was going to draw the strip with hours to spare and then I would write some site news to knock your socks off. Instead, I had deal with the fallout of some joker using my credit card to make unauthorized purchases for garden supplies, of all things. (Amazing site news postponed 'til Monday Wednesday. I apologize, D.)
Right now, I can only suppose that one of the sites where I purchased art supplies a few months back got hacked and my credit card information was stolen in the process. Anyway, over the course of the past few days some unknown party has used my credit card information to purchase goods.
Most of the purchases were for small amounts, which meant that the credit card company's fraud alarms were not triggered for several days. When they got greedy and tried to make bigger purchases, this finally alerted the credit card company to the fact that something was amiss. I only found out about the whole thing yesterday when suddenly my credit card no longer worked.
Overall, the unknown party or parties caused me approximately 900 US Dollars of damage. At least one of the online stores they used sells garden supplies and outdoor furniture. If you should see somebody, somewhere contentedly sitting in a brand new lawn chair, please give them a angry, accusing stare in my name.
The card is blocked now, the fraudulent charges will be contested by my bank and hopefully I'll have the money back within two to four weeks. Needless to say, Christmas shopping is cancelled. I went to the police and filed charges, but I doubt anything will happen. Right now, I'm really really angry, frustrated and, most of all, tired from this ordeal.
Again, sorry for the delayed strip, but somehow my mind was slightly preoccupied with other matters.