The photo comes from John Morrison’s Eric Meyer Word Caption Contest, and the comic itself is my entry into that fun little affair. Some of you may ask: “Kyle, why does the squirrel care if he’s not wearing pants? He never wears pants!”

Why does Donald Duck cover his crotch, which is always exposed, only after he loses his shirt? There’s a subtle mystery to the whole affair of comic characters and pants that we should probably not try to dig too far into for the sake of our own sanity. It’s right up there with wondering what goes in your grandmother’s meatloaf.

I’m sure I could have made a nut joke, but I chose the high road.

If, like me, you’re not at An Event Apart, you can follow along with the wisdom, humor, and community at A Feed Apart. Which. Is. Awesome. I’m enjoying several of the new features that the feed supports, including Flickr appearing in the stream, session-based archives, etc. It’s all very sweet. Check it out if you’ve got the chance.

Yes, there’s a bit of an homage from this to the very first CSSquirrel comic, which portrayed Andy in an underwear-related situation at AEA: New Orleans in 2008. (I swear I’m not a stalker.)

Andrew’s entry into the CSSquirrel contest did not include an AEA presenter as requested, but (a) it was funny and (b) it was the only entry. Note to self: one-day contests on the weekend don’t get much results.

I’m not at An Event Apart: Chicago, which is currently going as I type these very words. Yes, this makes me very sad. I can only dream of the pizza bar, or the MT party, or more importantly, the loads of awesome web peeps coming together for some sort of geek gesalt where good ideas are spawned.

Good ideas like A Feed Apart. I’m really grateful this thing exists, as it lets me live by proxy as if I were somewhere in one of the rows of the conference, freezing in the morning sessions and digesting lunch in the later ones. As a public request to the AFA gents: Any chance at blending in some sort of Flickr feed to this? I’m sure there’s plenty of iPhone pictures cropping up, and it’d help enhance the experience for those of us visiting by proxy.

To those of you at AEA: Chicago, continue to enjoy. And if any one of you did happen to slip into Mr. Clarke’s water closet…