Good god damn do I hate fonts right now.  Trying to choose the layout and style design of my comic is going to drive me up a goddamn wall.  But that's what I'm doing.  Poring over the multitude of fonts that Office 2007 supplies and trying to figure out why I like one more than another and trying to figure out why and if that reason is a reason to choose one over the other, etc....gah....

I'm also formatting stories, setting layouts, proofreading shit, and generally plotting to blow my own brains out.  It's gonna be so fucking cool when I'm done though.  Life After Death bitches.  Zombie apocalypse done our way (and I mean the right way).  Fucking A.  Met my photographer today.  He seemed pretty cool.  Only spoke with him for a minute but he should be around tomorrow so I'll chat with him more then.  Need to get my artists on the same page, but sweet sassy molassy I almost have everything I need for issue numero uno.  I hope anyone buys it because it is going to melt some fucking face.

Anyway, enough ranting for me.  I have to go back to making myself crosseyed.

You Better Run....FOR YOUR LIFE!

Bwahahhahaha.

(You Get a Lazy Title Line on the Day We All Say,) "It's Christmas Eve!"

Well, it's Christmas Eve. Presents are (mostly) wrapped (horribly). I've got to make some shrimp in a bit for appatizers. I'm also bringing a moleskine notebook over to big family Christmas tomorrow. I've included a bit of profanity. The idea is that we have this notebook at all the family parties and people add to it as the years go by and we can use it to track our family's comings and goings by holidanical increments. I hope it goes over in the old, family setting. Oh well, fuck it if it doesn't.

I got my first internetz bloggz0rz present this morning at around 9am. Some annonymous person stumbled on to this site and not only read what I wrote, but commented on it too. A true Christmas miracle. Yes, I agree mystery person, Dr. Dog is the shit and I will be purchasing many if not all of their albums in short order. As for now, I've only heard We All Belong.

Anyway person, you've nailed what Christmas is all about. Making people happy. I could give a crap about getting gifts that for the most part I'll never use again. What I do love is spending time with the family. It reminds me of back in the day when I would never want to leave those parties. Hanging with my cousins, listening to all the aunts and uncles prattle on about important adult matters like how stuffed they were on the apple pie ("Oh, that's interesting, I've stuffed myself on the peach cobbler.") ("Peach cobbler, guffaw! The lemon meringue was the absolute cat's pajamas.") [Because that's how people that grew up in the 60's and 70's talk. I'm serious, look it up on Wikipedia.] They also enjoyed talking about how different everything was from when they were younger (which is now a pastime of mine). Somehow, going back to that every year is comforting. So that's where I'm going.

Merry Christmas everyone. And I hope you've enjoyed your December holiday of choice if you don't celebrate Christmas. At least in a week I can wish everyone a happy New Year without feeling bigoted....though if you're from China I'll sure have egg on my face, won't I?

Music 2009 update

I've been buying a lot of new music over the last couple months...some awesome stuff:

Dr. Dog - Classic sound, might be my favorite find of the year.
Dinosaur Jr.'s new album - Wall of badass noise.  Sick guitars.
Future of the Left - Angry and fun.
Thao with the Get Down Stay Down - Upbeat, dancey.
Dead Man's Bones - Grim, backed by a children's choir.
Specials' and Buzzcocks' Best Of albums - Classic sound because they are classics.
Them Crooked Vultures - Dave Grohl, Josh Homme, and John Paul Jones, 'nuff said.
The Dead Weather - Another crazy super band.  Jack White and others...makes me think of the wild west, dunno why.
Modest Mouse's newest (No One's First and You're Next) - Not their best but still damn good.
The Thermals' newest (Now We Can See) - Been loving The Thermals last two albums.  Lyrically in a class of their own.
The Hold Steady - Springsteen-y sound is a good time.

Maybe more later if I think of them.

Enter the Flagon

I know, I know.  It's been a while.  Believe me, if I had anything intersesting to say, I'd be saying it.  As of now I've had a couple drinks so...

There's never a better time to take account of your life than at the end of the year, when you can at least pretend that you have a fresh start coming up.  I think my clean slate will be arriving right 'round May or June, at least I hope it will.  Then I'll have mighty and important things to say, oh yes...oh...shit.  We'll see.

As of right now I'm working on a short story that I'm almost done with.  It should be...interesting to say the least.  I'll link it here when I'm done.  Also I need to learn magazine design layout in a short amount of time.  I've got some things on the way to help with that hopefully. 

I'm working on getting this new computer up and running.  It's got a while to go, but the start is promising.  OpenOffice is downloading as we speak with other fun programs to follow.  Then I can sit down here in this freezing cold basement sanctuary, and just think...think my thoughts.  Also, there's a tv coming that will be down here soon enough.  That probably won't help things.

I saw some kids playing outside in the snow the other day, and I thought to myself, "Self, are you a fucked up, bad human being for imagining those bigger kids just burying the smaller kids in snow like one would bury another in sand and then just leaving them there?"  Someone would find them the next day, frozen, Shining style and scream.  It would be a great tragedy.  I might get on the news and say, "Yes, it really hits at the heart of all of us here."  But I'd be thinking, "I knew those big kids were murderers all along."  It would be a huge media event, maybe I could get off work for it.  I s'pose it would be kind of sad, but none of the goddamn parents watch their kids around here, it's like a fucking zoo.  Yeah, you're right, I am an asshole.  I can live with that.  I just wish there weren't midget humans with low IQs running around all over the place, especially in front of my car, what a mess.

A Bit of Explanation

You may notice a lot of overlapping information/linking in my posts recently.  That is because I'm trying to surround myself with information that prods me to finish some of the projects that I've started.  It's basically my way to keep myself from slacking and stopping halfway through like I do on most of the shit that I start.  So...that's why I'm linking to the same sites, etc...if you were interested.

Also, this is an awesome idea...doing pics of the previous night's dream.

Inspirations

A little about some of my inspirations:

- Ellis - "I'm always trying to force outbreaks of the future."

I'm reading his Print on Demand book SHIVERING SANDS, it's just a bunch of essays about...well...a bunch of stuff really, but with an eye to what the hell is next.  Something we should all always have an eye on.

- Ariana's Website - http://www.arianaosborne.com/

This is a source of inspiration mainly because it's a reason not to be a pussy about everything that I make...and it's got lot's of motivation for finishing...plus she gives help in whatever capacity she can to get that project up and running.  Love this blog.

- Myself - I am at this moment listening to an old mix cd I made for myself...very happy to note that I still enjoy everything on it quite a bit.  I've also been busy lately doing some creating, working on a couple of short stories at the moment and the LIFE AFTER DEATH mag.  It's a little behind schedule but I've just got to keep on pressing.

Fuck it, that's enough for now I guess...maybe more later...

Link Dumpage And Remember Items For Future Referential Treatment

Ariana's Black Friday List (I'm pretty sure none of which is actually discounted today [which means that it's Ariana's Every Day List])

Emma's Short Story Challenge Whitechapel Thread (Follow up to the last challenge [which was the reason I wrote Tacks and McGee], links in thread)

LaTeX Document Preparation Stuff to look into later: Tutorial, LyX Document Processor

Happy()Sad is making a splash (I agree with everyone...the episode with the dog)

Notes to self:
- Life After Death
Get/Learn PDF software for Life After Death, Continue design layout and start actually prepping final drafts, Do edits of all completed stories.

- *Figure out if Lulu Periodical Informant Project is feasible, If it isn't it's probably because you need more content you lazy slob, In that case -- write more content, Probably want to write an intro for this, Set up layout of book, Run through LaTeX -- which you will be a master of by then, ???, Profit.

- Uninstall Reality is coming back to life soon maybe, Do a couple of articles for that, Probably comi(c)(x) articles in January or February, That means think of topics for said articles.

- Build enormous fan base that pays you gross amounts of money just to be you ya goofy bastard, Easiest one, See for reference: Ashton Kutcher.

Comic Nerds and Non-comic Nerds Alike

Hey all,

This is more of a helping out someone who is doing research thing, but:

My name is Megan Milliken and I am a University of Chicago graduate student conducting research on comic book readership. I’m interested in demographic trends of comic book readers as well as the medium’s effect on readers’ consumption of other cultural goods and participation in civic activities. I’m motivated to do this research first and foremost because I am an avid comic book fan who has derived a great deal of pleasure and inspiration from both the content itself and the community. I’m interested in how comic books have impacted readers and hope to see what it is about a comic book that keeps a reader coming back month after month. That said I have two surveys (the first is for under 18 respondents, and the other is for respondents that are 18 and over) that I have assembled. Would you be interested in posting these surveys to your blogs and encouraging readers to participate? It is intended for comic book readers AS WELL AS NON-COMIC BOOK readers as I would like to compare responses between these two groups (so please pass it along to the norms as well). Please let me know if you could do this and if you have questions regarding the study.

Thank you and take care,

Megan Milliken

18 and over: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=U3RdP8YU4i41uSTJbGBaCg_3d_3dUnder

Under 18:https://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=e1kBsp0o_2fjjvJaTUc5uGpA_3d_3d

PS: I do not have administrative access to the survey (gragh life of a grad student), but I am aware of a few errors and awkwardly worded questions. The demographic questions are US centric, but I encourage everyone to take the survey. I am in our administrator's queue to fix a few typographical errors, so please mind the errors for now. Thanks!

Help her out if you've got about 4 minutes to spare.

Picture

Another Quick One

Short story, TACKS AND MCGEE: LIFE OF THE PARTY is up.  Click hnyah to read the other three stories.  This was fun.

Dicks

Harlequin Publishing is a bunch of dicks.

Life After Death

So I've got most of the crew on board for the magazine at least tentatively...for now...The tough part is keeping a) myself and b) everyone else interested in anything for long periods of time.  Hopefully hard deadlines and lots of kicking my own ass will help.

I think I've given up on Nanowrimo at around 11,000 words to work more on this.  It's a shame and I may work on it a bit more, but the LAD project is something that interstes me more and I have more invested in.  It's also very good training for a future novel I'm envisioning now.

Everyone is jumping on the POD bandwagon lately and why the hell not, it's a nothing to lose situation...I'm just hopeful the market doesn't get so saturated that things can't shine out....but then again, those diamonds in the rough always get discovered somehow.  Woot, exciting.

More POD Musings

So I think that Life After Death, which is linked up right over there on the right, is going to get the magazine treatment once we can build a buffer.  Hopefully it can be a monthly with a whole lot of cool stuff we have planned.  It'll probably be about $8...maybe cheaper for the first one to build up a customer base...I dunno.

Anyway, Arianna, Warren Ellis' chief mechanic at Whitechapel has been extolling the value of the whole print on demand sub culture.  Read what she thinks here.  All this talk has got me thinking about things in general, as a prospective creator who has never had a paying job for creating.  I'd like to get some stuff out into the world and just kind of see what takes.  POD is a cool way to do that.

I think this paragraph in particular has some really underutilized and fucking awesome implications:

Think about that for a moment: Lulu allow you to upload new guts and/or covers for a single book as many times as you want. What else could you do with a constantly updating physical object? Corrections and updates, surely — but what about yearly volumes that over-write the last? A URL-as-and-to-palimpsest of new-growth writing taking over the pages that may no longer be culturally relevant in this moment. Is it a counter-intuitive use of what we think of as a book? Perhaps. But its interesting, too, isn’t it?

I'm excited for a magazine.  Zombies will dance like sugar plums in my dreams tonight.  And who knows what the next step is...Maybe something other than print....just COD (create on demand).  Ideas(.)(?)(!) 

Nano (non)update

Nanowrimo progress has stalled horribly in the rash of shit since last weekend I've written maybe 2000 words since last Friday.  Not good.  I think I need to write about 2200 words a day from now until the end of the month to catch up.  Not a fan of that.  At this point it looks like I probably won't finish 50k but I'd like to get at least halfway there...hopefully a lot further...like all the way.  We'll see, I need to work out where I'm going with this because I'm just sputtering out every time I finish a section now.  Have to get a head of steam going.  More on this later.

The stuff I got from MagCloud

So, I got those MagCloud books.  They were good... looked good and all.  I just got some comics...

POTBOILER is a compilation of comics and art from author Mal Jones.  It was a good selection of art and was fun for just that reason.

PERIGREE: Stumped - Great and crazy, if not completely sense making (maybe part two will help with that) story about a patient in the psych ward who may or may not have some crazy ass powers...  The imagery is great and I like the writing style a lot.  No author listed in the book for this one, which was weird, something he/she should fix for the next mag.

Buy MagCloud motherfuckers.  Support starving artists!

MagCloud Stuff today

I just got my first two MagCloud books today in the mail.  I will look at them when I get home later and check out the quality, then I'll follow up maybe with pics n' junk.  Seemed to be ok on first glance over, might have slight issue with the binding (for lack of knowing a better term) but that's pretty minor.

Birthday bashiness has ensued/will ensue in the past/coming days, it's going to be lots of fun, but most assuredly keep me from being as productive as I'd like.  I'll probably be worthless this entire weekend, except maybe Friday night into Sat. morning during which I plan to be mostly sober...we'll see.

I also need the Yankees to win this series already...I can't not watch these games. 

Nanowrimo

So I started Nanowrimo on the 1st.  The amount of drinking I did last night is killing my inspiration today.  I'm about 4300 words in right now...need to get up to 5100 by the end of tonight to stay on schedule, though I'd like to do more.  And people are coming over later.  And I think I'm making a roast in a little bit.  And I'm hungover as hell.  No friggin excuses though.

Story is about a time traveling, world saving, dude.  Save the damn world bitch.

BAR!

Here're some pics of the bar...



Frame work:

More bar skeleton:

Finished top and sides:

Thanks to Ben, Steveo, Sam, Tom, Scott, JQ and Veronica for your help. And to my dad for letting me use his power tools, without which this would have sucked a whole lot more than it did. More pics to come.

Yeah...But Is It Marketable?

Ugh...somehow this post just got deleted. Let's try again, shall we?

So, I just purchased something pretty cool. Eilean Buntata by Will Ellwood is a short story that Will is selling on his blog site. He's posted the first 400 words on the site and you can get the other ~3500 by making a donation of $5 or more (that's approx. 3 pounds sterling, which is how you have to enter it, yeah, he's a Brit, don't hold it against him). The story itself is great, kind of a mix between Robinson Crusoe and Lost and X-Files and...uh, something with potatoes. Yeah, that oughta wet your appetites. The writing has an old feel to it....using context clues, Wikipedia tells me it takes place sometime between 1837 and 1901, which really comes through. Check it out, and toss the guy some money, it's tough being a writer.

This has also gotten me thinking about the ways to market my own writing. I think a system like this could be good for serialized stories and other such projects. I've got my own on the backburner right now and maybe I can get something like Will's approach working for me. I've had worse ideas.

In other news I've got a bar almost complete...I should post pictures...just as soon as I figure out how.

Conventional Knowledge

Hey all,

Here's where I want to go in 2010:

PAX East - Penny Arcade's Game Expo...I've watched from afar every year as this thing kicked ass over there on the west coast. Well now it's coming to Boston at the end of March. Be there biotches.

C2E2 - Chicago, the Windy City. This thing is in mid-April and looks like a lot of fun. It's comics and entertainment and stuffs. Good hold over until...

NYCC 2010 - We have to wait until friggin October for this thing. Hopefully it'll be worth it. I had a great time last year and hope to again in Oct. Those crazy Romitas are on Guest of Honor duty.

We'll see if I actually make it to all/any of these, but that's what I'm shooting for in 2010. If you're interested in going to any of them/meeting up there, let me know.

Online Comix Classes

Hey, it's my daily, bore-you-with-stuff-that-I-want-to-put-reminders-to-myself-in-as-many-places-as-possible-capade. Because the suffix -capade makes that ridiculous sentence ok.

A couple things from Bleeding Cool (where they really need a better system for finding articles that are part of a series):

Michigan State University’s History Of The Modern Comic Book By Professor Ethan Watrell - This link is for the first post and you can look up any others by searching 'Michigan' on the site. This is just a trimmed down version of the class that Prof. Watrell is actually teaching at MSU. It's fallen behind a bit because he's been sick of late, but more should be coming in the future. Good history lesson on comics. You can also visit the official class site where he posts podcasts of the class, PDFs of his class slides and the kids blog about the single floppies that they have to pick up and read on a weekly basis. Such a cool class.

How To Write Comics And Graphic Novels by Dennis O’Neil - Again, this is a link to the first in a series and you have to do a little searching to find the rest, but these are chock full of good tips on how to write comics from someone who's been in the industry a while.

I've been following both of these since they started and they've sparked some really interesting ideas for me, which I should be able to do a little fleshing out on in the near future.

Kbye.

News Blast: Top News of the Day...For Me Anyway

Learned about the existence of Them Crooked Vultures. Dave Grohl, Josh Homme and John Paul Jones, nuff said.

These fucking robots are going to kill us. Thanks a lot Switzerland, now we know why you were neutral during the human wars.

Geocities is shutting down today. XKCD has a tribute.

Yanks made it back to the World Series, but if you care at all you probably already know that.

Scott sent me this one today...Society made them that way. Killers and why they kill. It's your fault, and your fault, and especially YOUR fault.

More Comics Theoretical Stuff That YOU Don't Care About

Warren Ellis posted about this today and I think it's fucking rad: http://www.flickr.com/photos/warrenellis/4043479776/sizes/o/.

Basically its a cheat sheet that came out something like forever ago on the 22 panel formats that always work when illustrating a comic. It's fascinating to look at these and say to yourself, "Yep...they sure do." Good to know as someone who wants to write. I'm sure they are even more helpful for artists and editors.

Hey, does anyone want to do a magazine with me? Could really be about anything, but I think it would be cool to try MagCloud out. Basically you send this company PDFs that you want in a mag and they do all the distribution for you....You just set your own markup per issue and sell away. I think we'd need an artist, a photographer and someone to handle the PR at the very least. I've got some people in mind, but I don't know what their schedules are like. I'd love to be able to put something out in the next year or so. As always, anyone interested, give me a shout.

EDIT TO ADD (Because I think this should be part of this discussion as well): InPrint is another one of these DIY publishing companies. Basically the artists send in digital copies of their art and people can purchase them on a single print basis. No more doing expensive ass print runs only to not sell them all and end up in debt. Take a little bit of the starving out of the artist.

B+W v. Color: The Malice over Palettes

My take on why B+W comics are not more popular, basically boils down to, I think B+W is often used as a financial, rather than artistic decision, and that causes a whole bunch of other stuff. Original thread at http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=7057

Here's what I think. People will buy anything that is of high enough quality and has good enough advertisement and has little enough competition that it isn't drowned out.

There has been very good B+W work, but it is often drowned out in the market by so-so comics that are only in B+W because a big publisher wouldn't pick them up and self publishing is much cheaper in B+W. The color in comics often signals quality because it was worth shelling out the extra cash to print in color. Color basically means someone thought these comics would sell and B+W comics seem often a financial decision rather than an artistic one.

Really if a big comics writer, such as our curator here, wrote in B+W, I doubt sales on that book would be low. That is because Warren Ellis has no competition in his niche, he's fucking Warren Ellis. You see a book by him, you will buy it. You see a B+W book by Joe Shmoe 1 vs. a color book by Joe Shmoe 2 you're probably more inclined to buy color because hey, more production value often means better product. Don't get me wrong...a lot of times it doesn't, we all know there's a lot of crap with high production costs, but c'mon, there's a lot more crap with low production costs.

Disclaimer: I'm not saying this goes for everyone, just that it seems to me to be the general consensus.

Hey You, Get Off of McCloud

I've been doing a little reading about Scott McCloud's ideas re: the future of comics and have come to the conclusion that he's a pretty smart guy. His take on the medium as a whole has made me think a lot about the differences between print and digital and the myriad of new directions that the medium can take...

I've thought for some time that the possibilities in traditional comics themselves have barely been touched, let alone the artistic freedom you get from a completely digital canvas.

Check out McCloud's infinite canvas ideas here: http://scottmccloud.com/4-inventions/canvas/index.html, and this example he lists in the article is pretty eye opening.

I found some other great examples of tricks that digital comickery can pull where print wouldn't get away with it: here and here. The first one being a bit mind blowing (I originally got it off of a Pia Guerra post at Whitechapel, the Warren Ellis run message board) the second just good use of disestablishing the norms when it comes to comics (though a bunch of these conventions have been used in comic-TV or comic-movie conversion, Watchmen did one just before the movie came out).

Anyway, I wish I could draw because I have a couple of ideas swirling, but alas, I think I'm going to need to find an art-eest. All interested parties make yourselves known.

4th of Joolaii

Going down the shore today, going to bring a bunch of beer, a bunch of books and a bunch of steaks and see where that takes me.

Started up a new site. It's about zombies and life after them. Check it out, let me know if you want to post on it. With all the traffic I get through here I'd be surprised if I didn't get a few writers.

I was thinking about editing that joke because it was kinda opaque, but then I realized no one will read it anyway so it stays. And now I've described my joke to the no one who will read it...I think that means it's time to stop writing.

Me, Looking Crazy

TV Tropes

Just go there, you won't be disapointed.

Bye Bye Free Speech

This bitch wants to take away my ability to call her a bitch...fuck that shit.

A Note on Plinky

I think this would be cool if it wasn't so damn lame...http://www.plinky.com/. I dunno maybe you'll like it. It's a good idea that could have been a lot better but it seems like they cut some corners when fleshing it out, i.e. it doesn't really challenge you to write anything interesting...I don't care about the last time you went to a state park...again, maybe some people do but it's just not my cup of tea. Do the, 'I'll give you a topic' idea better and we can talk Plinky, until that day I shall shun you.

Linkity Links

Alright Ben, here ya go:

I keep an eye to the following,

Discovery: http://dsc.discovery.com/news/rss.html - Always interesting stories up on here.

Slashdot: http://rss.slashdot.org/Slashdot/slashdot - I think you look at this one from time to time as well...good tech news...sometimes.

BBC: http://newsrss.bbc.co.uk/rss/newsonline_uk_edition/front_page/rss.xml - More accurate foreign news than anything around here.

Scientific American: http://rss.sciam.com/ScientificAmerican-Global - Kinda like Discovery, still good though.

A bunch of newspaper feeds including New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post. Also Time Magazine feed.

Plus tv feeds CNN and ABC (not that ABC, this is the Australian Broadcasting Channel: http://www.abc.net.au/news/syndicate/topstoriesrss.xml).

And of course, my webcomics:
FreakAngels: http://feeds2.feedburner.com/freakangels
Penny-Arcade: Can't get the link at work.
Diesel Sweeties: http://www.dieselsweeties.com/feeds/
Got XKCD on there too.

No More Monkey-Fighters

Enjoyment: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4t6zNZ-b0A. Also check out http://www.adultswim.com/ for Warren Ellis' take on GI Joe. From what I've seen it's pretty damn good, which is weird, cuz he's British.

Annoyment: Swine Flu hasn't killed me yet. There are millions of articles all over the place and yeah, maybe its something to pay attention to but I can barely get news about anything else these days, all my feeds are clogged. I actually have to search for new news...what kind of 21st century is this?

Deployment: I've been running iGoogle for all my news feeds for the last 2 years or so...since it came out basically. I've had pretty much the same news feeds up there for a long time now and I was wondering if anyone who reads this (which should be read: 'if anyone reads this') has any new feeds to recommend to me, anything is fair game as long as it works and doesn't suck...just looking for a new point of view.

Reassignment: Just moved into a new apartment. Old landlady being a bitch, but she already gave me back my deposit so I kind of don't care. And neither do you.

Random Thoughts...

Hey, long time no talk at, adoring public. How have you been? I'm fine, if just a little bit depressed that it's only Monday. Oh well, at least I have legs. You never think about how much you'd miss them until somebody who doesn't have them is around. And you get kinda sad and you think, "damn...I feel like a jerk brandishing these badass walkin' appendages when that guy can't even walk..." so you kinda try not to mention it, because it's your Grandpa that can't walk. But hey, he had a good 80 years of tooling around, so I guess I'm entitled to something like that, right?

Work, work, work. Gotta love rat races and sitting in the same place every day and doing the same thing every day. Oh well, somebody up at the top will probably stumble across this blog and fire me for whatever...insubordination or something...fuck it. Just saying, work sucks and you all know it...don't shoot the messenger.

Moving from BB to Edison at month end. I look forward to living there, but I fucking hate moving. Party forthcoming, details to precede or follow (the event, not this sentence) depending on whether I know you or not.

For the Win

Colbert has won the Node 3 naming contest by over 40,000 votes. Now we get to find out if they'll honor the write in ballots.

Joe versus the

OMGWTFBBQ! - Nice fuckin underwater volcano.

I've got just about nothing to talk about...seriously...

March Madness just kicked off so that's cool. No pools for me this year. Uh...AC over the weekend was fun, but I lost money, damn you AC, you win again. St. Patty's day was toned down a bit from years past but enjoyable. Ummm....I guess that's it.

Oh...also, MORE LIKE WHORE-A THE EXPLORER! The actual new artwork for this makes me think parents are...for the most part, friggin morons, you can find a link to it in the comments of the article or right here.

So Lazy, Can't Title...Well

I know this is lazy, but I really need to get some work done soooo, interesting crap today includes:

1) Cell phone is the new wallet.
2) Space station almost gets fucked up by something a third of a fucking inch in diameter...must suck to live in fear of floating hardware scraps.
3) Madoff about to be butt raped.
4) And finally, yeah, Texas is using resources so stay at home moms can patrol the border now.

Plus!

5) http://godzillabukkake.com/!!!!!! It's gonna be a thing.


Sayonara suckers.

Saw That Coming

News and crap for you:

Colbert has taken the lead in the great node 3 name race. Though NASA did write an out into the contest, I hope that they follow through on whatever the people vote for.

Frank Miller's Charlie Brown. I don't have to say more, just go check it out.

Number one thing I care about the economy effecting.

The Netherlands reminds me of I dunno, Little Big League, although at least the guys in that movie made it to the majors. The no-name Dutch beat what's basically a major league all star team in the Dominican Republic squad ... twice. Isn't that weird?

Play Lexulous. It's like Scrabble but not copyrighted.

End News/Entertainment. Begin misery of 7 more hours of work.

Who Welches the Watchmen: Redux

Well, I saw Watchmen and it was between good and AWESOME depending on the frame of mind I'm in at the time I'm thinking about it. It definitely surpassed my expectations of how good it would be.

Now I read a lot of reviews that said the characters were one dimensional. What I want to know is what their understanding of one dimensional entails. There was definitely character growth and coming to terms with issues larger than oneself...by definition the Watchmen needs these changes, this growth to even be a cohesive story. I just don't think people know what the fuck they're talking about sometimes. They want to be looked at as intellectual but forget to learn the components of the subject they are discussing.

Tangents aside, this movie was well acted, and well directed. There were a couple parts that bogged down a little bit, but I used my severe curiosity to explore as much of the highly detailed and intricately designed sets when there was nothing incredibly interesting going on with the actors.

For anyone who reads this blog and hasn't read the book yet (i.e. no one, but it'd be cool to get a response). Did you find the plot hard to follow? Some friends of mine said they wouldn't be able to follow it if they hadn't read the comic because of all the flashbacks and time changes...I didn't think that'd be a problem, I'd love to hear from other people about it.

Soundtrack has been taking a little flak out there and I just wanted to say that I thought it was good. Very often the songs brought out an emotion that though it wasn't exactly what I'd expect, still seemed appropriate. Except the sex scene, I loved the music in that scene for a different reason. Ha. Haha. Hahahhahaha.

Anyway, in order from best to worst, characters:
1) Rorschach - Any surprise here? He is badass as fuck. "You're locked in with me." actually drew applause in my theater, which was annoying but made me smile none-the-less.
2) The Comedian - Part played to perfection.
3) Doc Manhattan - Big blue dong aside (or small blue dong if you're referring to the comic), he is one of the coolest superheroes ever.
4) Ozymandias - Didn't really like the actor for the role at first but he definitely grew on me.
5) Silk Specter - SS and Night Owl, while giving good performances, were the two weakest characters, however, she is way hotter naked than him, hence her #5 spot.
6) Night Owl - Cool owl ship bro.

In closing, go see it. If you don't like it, fuck you. I say, better than Dark Knight by about this much --. I'm sure no one will agree with that, but refer to two sentences ago.

Peace bitches.

Name That Ship

This was too cool to pass up mentioning, NASA is running a poll to determine the name of some spaceship or something...I dunno...anyway, the cool part is that the two top vote getters are Serenity and Colbert. Serenity is one of the names that NASA suggested and is winning by a ton of votes right now, but Colbert is coming on strong after Stephen Colbert made mention on his show that the ship should be named after him.

He passed Xanu (the second leading write in right now) in under 2 days and thank god that the ship won't be named after the stupid overlord of Scientology or whatever those idiots believe.

Vote at link below, hurry, hurry, voting ends March 20:

http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/name_ISS/index.html

I will tell you that I voted for Serenity as I was a big fan of the show and it actually had something to do with space...I mean, c'mon, no brainer. Colbert would be cool too though.

Who Welches the Watchmen?

Watchmen came out today. I'm still pretty worried about it...not that it won't be good, but that it won't be good enough. I think I'm worried because the expectations are impossible to live up to. I'm sure the movie will be just fine, but really it can't be as well executed as the book, it just wasn't written as a movie, it was written as a comic. Any other book and I wouldn't really care, but it is an important, scratch that, integral part of comic lore and I feel like this movie even if adequately enjoyable, cannot help but take away from that a little bit. It seems like from the outset, Zack Snyder has done nothing more than try to save the reputation of the Watchmen as much as possible (instead of being able to build it up further). It's a noble cause, especially since another director might have fucked this thing up royally, but in the end i think we all would've been better off if the studios had just left it alone.

Oh well, I still can't wait to see it, get goosebumps when I know the end is nigh, and give my two pennies on whether I thought the new ending detracted from the story. However, its with a feeling of trepidation rather than innocent wonder that I enter that theater, and I guess Zack Snyder ultimately decides how I leave it. I hope I'm pleasantly surprised, but my hopes are so high already that I dare not allow them to go any higher until I've seen the damn thing.

I'll let you know what I thought after I see it.

PS. The downloadable Watchmen game is so-so, gets kinda boring fairly quickly. I definitely do want to see Black Freighter when that DVD comes out.

Fun and Games and Mid-Winter Depression

Been playing some Kongregate again lately. Fun little flash games. They keep me occupied for short bursts of time.

Been getting really bored with the old life lately. Work is like an anchor weighing me down, drowning me in waves of mediocre existance. Never gonna find anything better that pays as well though, so its this for a while. Good times right? Feel fucking bad for me you bastards. I'm bitching as hard as I can.

Time to execute project 'renegotiate terms of boring life with yourself'. Gotta get going on some projects. Uninstall is an interesting diversion for now, but to be honest it doesn't really seem like it's taking off. Hopefully soon we can all get down to business on it.

That's it, random general musings for your consumption.

Blowed Up Space Stuff

I've been sick....I'm mostly better now, but my hands hurt like hell. I contracted some kind of rash on my hands and now they feel like someone has been high-fiving me with a porcupine.

I guess Uninstall Reality is up for real now, though it isn't much different than it was before. We've got a few more articles up, but that's about it. Check out my newest one here.

I've been missing a lot of work lately for sickness and other bullshit, and I can't help but think that this is going to fuck me over later in the year when I want to take off to have fun. Being a grown up blows ass huh?

Also, oops.

Considerations on the Genesis of an Office Related Global Meta-Culture

Fuck. This. Shit.

As a Follow Up to Yesterdays Post

yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?!?!?!?!?!??!!?!?!??!?!?!?!

What the fuck Ridley Scott? What the fuck is wrong with you?

Well, I guess I'll go see it.

Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?!?!?!??!?!??!??!

Why would anyone do this?

Mr. President, We've Lost the Internet

Obama, Obama, Obama. Don't you know that googling the word Google crashes your network?

Fuck, we're supposed to get all kinds of snow tonight and getting to work tomorrow is going to blow big time. Well, I guess that's if the weather men are right, which is kind of like putting your odds on that hooker you're sleeping with not having the Clap. Maybe she does, maybe she doesn't but the white flakes aren't putting your mind at ease.

Getting back into writing a little bit is nice. Getting a top 10 comics of all time list together, should be done by tomorrow and up on Uninstall by Thursday or Friday we hope. I need to take more time to write, but at this point I have little enough free time as it is and I spend a good portion of it drinking so I can forget how little free time I have.

Anyway, that's all the ranting for tonight...Goodnight you princes of interwebz, you kings of pwnage.

This is Why You Always Keep a Piece of Wood Handy

Wow, sucks for this dude.

Nothing all that interesting to report today, just wanted to share that article that Scott showed me. It wins my 'Most Ironic Shit I've Seen in a While' award.

Deadlines are for A-holes

I read the rough draft of my article for uninstall, and it was such a piece of shit that I scrapped it, straight up. Writing it at work was, I think, my biggest mistake. Anyway, the new article is getting pushed back until next week.

New President just got sworn in this week, it's nice to have someone different, you know? Obama has already started doing shit and I say, man, it's really nice that he's not at his ranch in Texas relaxing. It just kind of seemed like Bush would sit on his ass until something happened and then tried to clean it up whereas Obama, or anyone else for that matter, is actually taking proactive measures to try and fix some shit. I dunno, I'm not saying Obama was the greatest choice for Prez, yeah, he doesn't have a ton of experience, but Bush had nothing but experience and he was a worthless fuck....so there's that. It's been beaten to death and then dragged out back and shot in the face and then buried, dug up, beaten again and reburied, but a change is really friggin' nice. I was on the 'anything-but-Bush' train for the last 5 years and its weird, but a welcome change to be able to say that I don't have to look forward to him embarrassing our entire country with his idiotic speeches anymore.

God bless America.

Blog 2: Reblog

Ugh, I have to get back to business on this whole writing thing. I think the more I write the better I will be at it...that's what people tell me anyway, more on why that is important later. I've been about the same since you last heard from me. Still at that same ol' software reseller peddling my technologies. I inject all emails sent from my work address with brain damage particles, this way, if someone bugs me way too much they slowly lose their mind.

So about the things that I was supposed to do...my to-do list, if you will:
1) I quit smoking...for three days, have to try again soon.
2) Moved out of my parents' house, so that's awesome.
3) Still have the same job I hate, but I guess it's money and in this economy, I can't look a gift paycheck in the mouth.
4) I have not exercised since I can't remember when.
5) I'm doing this list off of memory...so if improve memory was one of the things I wanted to do...I can't remember how well that went.
6) I started contributing to a website, yay. http://www.uninstallreality.com/ (more on this in a minute)
7) I haven't written any fiction lately, boo for me.

Uninstallreality.com is a site run by my friend Mikey with several contributors so far. It is not incredibly far along yet and there is much to be done, but check out the primordial stages of it if you have an inkling. It was originally set up to be a video game review site, but then we all decided that just doing reviews is boring sooooo we've got a few articles up now. We've also expanded it to include pretty much every other medium out there. I've been writing about comic books and should have a new article out by week's end. I'll try to keep this up to date on the comings and goings of the site as more info becomes available.

I am going to NY Comic Con with a few friends on Feb. 6-8, should be a good time and not going to work that Friday will be nice. Looking forward to seeing the Penny Arcade duo of Tycho and Gabe there also so many other big name writers that I could be listing people for miles, so I won't.

Flogging Molly show in early March for Scotty's B-day, that and Watchmen coming out should be cool.