While I’m stuck with ineffective computing equipment(yeah, no comic today either), I’d like to share this Kickstarter project with you. There needs to be a documentary about the legendary Dr. Demento, and there are just a few days left to make it happen.

I expect this post to reach maybe 20 people. I’m going to bed.

Song is “Heart Skips A Beat” by Olly Murs. Nothing special, in my opinion, but it does inspire comics about heart problems.

In other news, the comics will be on a reduced schedule as a result of my hard drive dying, as well as not having enough money in general. Quite simply, they’ll be posted “when they’re done”. I’ll still only post comics on Mondays and Thursdays unless I have a good reason to post a comic on another day, BUT if I don’t have the comic finished before midnight Central Standard Time, there won’t be a post on that day. Quite simply, there will be no late comics, but sometimes there won’t be a comic at all. I’ve posted a blog entry with more details.

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The death of my laptop’s hard drive forced me to make some hard decisions this weekend. Should I put the comic on hiatus? No, I have too many ideas written down and they’re just going to keep building up. I’ve decided to change my update schedule to “when the comic is finished”. Quite simply, I’ll still update the comics on Mondays and Thursdays, but only if I have a comic finished before midnight. If there’s no new comic before 1:00 AM in the Central Standard Time Zone on Mondays and Thursdays, there won’t be a comic that day. On the bright side, that means that you won’t have to wait for late comics(also I get some sleep). If you check the comic at sunrise and there’s no comic, you can be sure that there is simply no comic instead of waiting and waiting. No second guessing.

As you may have noticed, I can still create comics without that computer. I have 2 other computers available to use, but one is shared and the other needs some fixing(5 years old). The comic keeps me awake at night enough already and has never shown any profit. It is time that I stop treating this comic like it’s my job. I need to focus on earning enough money to replace that 4 year old laptop with a powerful desktop, as well as various living expenses that I’m behind on. Because of this, just replacing the hard drive won’t get me to change the schedule back. My new pet project is going to be the software I’m developing, and it actually stands a chance of making a profit. I’m not revealing what it is until I have something to show off, though. I am excited about this project. The comic, however, just has me sleep-deprived. Having no deadlines for the comic will help me actually enjoy creating the comics again.

Surprisingly this won’t affect my traffic at all, since I get fewer than 50 visitors per day and a few hundred people just get the comics sent directly to them. If you’re not subscribed, there are several ways to get subscribed:
Via email or an rss reader. If you’re on the Furaffinity or Inkbunny art-sharing sites, you can subscribe there. You can click the comic in my Second Life theme park, although that’s basically an email subscription anyway. There’s Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and Google+, although updates are easily buried there.

And for more fun, I also run ICWutUDidThar.com which is still updating once daily for the foreseeable future because really, I’m mostly just reblogging things on Tumblr there. I have a decent queue of quick, funny posts.

I shouldn’t have expected him to take the same path. Still, I was able to easily get him into his cat carrier and he got his yearly vaccinations yesterday.

In other news, my hard drive died and I don’t know yet what the status of future comics will be. We had a tornado warning while I was inking the comic, and when the clouds that COULD turn into a tornado got close, I shut down the computer to prevent a power outage from damaging files while I took shelter. After the clouds passed by without producing a tornado, I turned the computer back on, but it couldn’t start Windows. I haven’t even gotten it to boot from my SD card with Linux on it(I’m sure I did that before on that computer).

I finished the comic on my mom’s computer thanks to frequent online backups, including one right before shutting down. I COULD continue to do the comic on her computer, but I’d rather not continuously borrow it. There’s another laptop I could use, but it’s older than my computer & has its own problems. It’s 5 years old and mine is 4 years old.

I’ll have an update on Monday letting you know how things work out, but the simple fact is that I can’t afford a new hard drive(or my car payments at the moment) and I’d rather put my money toward a replacement computer anyway. Considering this comic doesn’t earn any money, a hiatus is more likely than putting too much effort into using a different computer. Maybe having no computer will force me to sleep at NIGHT and maybe fill my morning hours with a second job? Seriously, I work fewer than 20 hours per week, so I should be using my time more productively.

Also, I DO have backups of my files. However, it’s online backup. The backup service(Carbonite) doesn’t back up all file types, so I don’t know what files I will lose if I can’t recover them directly. Online backup should really only be considered a supplement to an external hard drive. Ideally, you should have at least 2 backups of everything. Thankfully I do have 2 backups(or more) of some things.

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You’re such a doll.

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When a cartoonist watches a prescription drug commercial, especially those for allergies, this is what happens.

Also what happens when you watch Italian videos like this(all lyrics are gibberish intended to sound like English).

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I overheard the word “hissyfit” used on June 5th 2012 and my first thought was, “I should name a character that!”. My second thought was, “I should make note of when I got that idea”.

And don’t forget, you can edit the menu at Wiki Deli. I’ve been pleasantly surprised at the response so far. Some good edits from people who clearly understand what Wiki Deli is all about.

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Roger Ebert died yesterday and a comic naturally popped in my head. That comic was boring, but had the same idea as this one: Siskel & Ebert gave cancer two thumbs down and cancer took revenge on both of them. It was a long, valiant battle, and it ended yesterday.

Man, cancer is a jerk.

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I created Wiki Deli back when I was making Kenny Chronicles and have been waiting until the right storyline to introduce it. I had it installed and everything. The right time never happened in the plot.

BUT NOW, I have a character that can accurately relive things that happen at my workplace. Considering I’m not going to tell the internet where I work, Wiki Deli seems the perfect location for Ferret Williams to work. Wiki Deli also has a much wider variety of food than… well, anywhere. The menu may be small right now, but it’ll constantly change.

Bringing Wiki Deli to Ferret Williams took longer than expected, though, because I also want to include the best spam-blocking, considering my experience with the foreign sound effects dictionary(which I moved to Wikia as a result). Wiki Deli is one page, so I expect it to be easier to manage, and I’ve installed a few more security plugins as well as blocked editing/creation of any other pages. However, if anybody knows how to require a piece of text to be on the page(bots like to replace ALL of the text), I’d really like to implement that. I couldn’t find that feature anywhere.

If you want to see what’s for dinner at the restaurant that Ferret Williams works at and maybe add some food you’d like to see in the comic, go to FerretWilliams.com/wikideli

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I’m doing my best to keep up with my tradition of making my big announcements on April Fools’ Day, preferably unbelievable ones like my amusement park that actually does exist(on Second Life). I wish my program was finished enough to announce what it is, but it’s best if I delay the announcement until I have something to show off. I considered posting an outright lie for April Fools’ Day, but I have STANDARDS here.

However on ICWutUDidThar.com, I don’t have such standards. I made an announcement there, as well.

UPDATE the next morning: Oh, I just realized I have sway over the software choices of 7 different churches(only 3 that could make use of it). Yeah, I live in a family of preachers. Not sure about business connections, but I expect it to be found by the right people.

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In February, we seemed to be sharing Australia’s weather.

Then 4 days after Spring started, on Palm Sunday, it snowed. FOUR DAYS AFTER THE FIRST DAY OF SPRING.

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Based on an actual contest that ends on April 4th. Seriously, it’s a speaking role, talking directly to the main characters in a clear voice. The scene is a video call, so they don’t require a high quality camera. That sort of part would typically require more than $100, a movie credit and access to the all-you-can-eat buffet backstage. Nowhere on the website does it mention getting anything in return.

I considered submitting a joke video that couldn’t possibly get selected. One that includes a snarky mention of my character doing this job for free and where I point out the product placement right in front of me(which I don’t get a dime from). However, I don’t think even that is worth my time. It would be tempting to throw in some CGI effects, for good measure.

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It especially scared him when he accidentally pulled it off the table, despite being secured with a suction cup. Even so, it only took a day for him to start ignoring it completely, even while it was moving.

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The Konami code was entered at one point.

The Metal Gear Solid reference made me laugh, as did many other things.

This movie makes me feel like designing a racing game track.

I took photos of several of the changes made to the Spanish version, too. Yes, photos. It’s hard to hit “Print screen” on a stand-alone Blu-ray player. Really interesting how they actually translate the printed text on things directly in many of their CGI movies. You can see the gallery here.

The line “Well milk my duds” was actually said in the movie.

Less than 12 hours after renting this at Redbox, I got a text message from them with a code for a free rental. Right. Nice timing, there.

I posted the following tweet on The Fake Death’s Twitter account last night…

Really holding my liquor well tonight. Ordered the most Irish-sounding beer I saw and have been drinking it all night. Mmm… O’Douls.

— Death Golden (@TheFakeDeath) March 18, 2013

…and after I scripted a different comic for today, I decided to go ahead and make that tweet be a comic. So, the comic I finished writing for today will instead be used for Thursday’s comic strip.

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It’s Pi Day! 3-14 as people in the United States write it, which looks very similar to the first three digits of the mathematical constant “pi”. That means that I either have to make a pi joke or at least throw a pie somewhere in the comic. Also, Saint Patrick’s Day is in a few days, which in the United States simply means green beer for no particular reason. Simple rule for United States holidays: if it’s a holiday that really only applies to another country, it’s a drinking day over here. Just look at Cinco De Mayo. That holiday only applies to one TOWN.

Oh yeah, and TV show hosts don’t know how to direct people to websites. As for the MySpace address, there’s a local business that kept using MySpace  for their main website long after MySpace was popular. Now they use Facebook and their own custom website, but they kept pointing people to MySpace for way too long.

Beer mug is a public domain image from this Wikipedia page.

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I know I still have some clocks to adjust for daylight saving time. Somewhere. Most likely out of reach.

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That’s right, I don’t pay for TV. I’d say that makes me rare, but there are a lot of people switching to the internet for their television content now, so I guess I’m ahead of the times. Except I don’t watch many shows online, either.

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The first 3D model I made in Blender was the snow man in this comic. It’s literally 5 spheres, a cone, a light(included in default scene) and a plane. It shouldn’t have been as difficult as it was to build, but the tutorial wasn’t written well for somebody just starting with the software. Tutorials for Blender have gotten a lot better over time, although they still seem stuck on using key combinations and they don’t always say what the key combination does. Just press O. Right. I knew that I’d eventually start using key combos eventually, since they are faster, but until I can remember if I press shift, control, alt, or some combination of those before I press the letter, I’m using the menus. Blender originally didn’t even have menus. I’d hate to have learned it at that point. Oh, and NO UNDO function in the original version!

And on the subject of nobody pronouncing Z as “Zee” in tutorials, with such a low percentage of tutorials made in the United States, I get the feeling Blender isn’t used very much here. That’s a shame, because it’s really a great program, albeit with a large learning curve. If you want to learn Blender, I recommend this page on CG Cookie to overcome the largest curve within 6 minutes(Interface and navigation video). Then head over to Blender’s tutorials list for more. The list was nowhere near as good as that when I tried to start using it in either 2007 or 2008. I didn’t return to Blender until 2011 starting with this comic(with another short try in 2009 where I used it for perspective).

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She said hair, not fur. It CAN’T be mine!

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