Why My Comic Was Late

I had work. What work...I cannot say. I can say that it will involve these images. Why they kept me from my solemn pledge, I will leave to your fertile imagination.

Test

Eh?

What I Did For Halloween

OK, you may have noticed the absence of a Halloween strip this year. And while it did fall on the typically content-free Saturday, I usually cook up something special for you anyway.

Well maybe this is what you had in mind:

Surely you have guessed it. I am wearing a steam-powered articulated work suit. I'm sure you have one of your own. I capped the outfit off with a pair of period goggles but some throwback from the human gene pool stole them while I was resting out of costume. If you see anyone around Southside wearing a pair of Qidditch Goggles...


...and it is not me.

You may assume they are a thief.

Because Something Like this needs To Be Seen

From the OMFG department NFW. Comes this little jewl.



It's in German but you'll quickly realize that astounding idiocy speaks a kind of universal language all its own.

TV Commercials And Comics

Among the many things I must do this weekend is a complete site redesign. I've been promising people updated links to their site (sorry Stephanie) and my twitter feed ought to be where people can see it.

Just a thought.

I am a strip behind now but I have scripts for two strips in the cue (yes I actually write this crap). And the script is the hardest part.

If I am late but not whining about how much work I have to do, likely it is because I haven't gotten 'the giggle'. See, when I write your comic, I have one rule. If it doesn't make me at least giggle, I don't write it down. So know that however putrid my comic offering, the script elicited at least a snerk from me. Take this as evidence of my commitment or the extent of my madness, either one.

So know that it was fully 3:00am before something funny crept into my fore brain (no parasite jokes). I quickly wrote down two ideas and finally went to sleep around 4:00am. Today I have spent too many hours trans coding HD media and cutting a 'simple' spot for the Birmingham News. I am no where near finished with either task.

The only good news I can put forth is that when I finally get this strip up and on the site, I don't have to bash my forehead against a wall to also produce Monday's strip. It's already on 'paper' as it were.



That and most of my 'sanity'.

Mac, Mice and Men

This is me, logging in at Best Buy. Apple has a new keyboard which is 40% less crappy than the design you see on Dr Who (which was so useless that the props department screwed them to the walls of the Tardis). I am happy to report that based on user feedback, Apple has restored a sense of key-press "feedback" to the little chiclet toy. So now you know if you tapped any given key past the pressure point required to place a character on the screen. While Apple still stubbornly refuses to place a physical, 2nd button on their mouse, the improved "Mighty Mouse" does function more like an actual user, pointer interface than in past incarnations. In short, the user input experience of the "nouveau" keyboard and mouse sucks considerably less than in models past. I still buy my classic G5 USB keyboards on eBay. Wouldn't have one of these Cal Arts design experiments in my office for love or money. Call me silly but I believe that carpal tunnel is a condition to be avoided, not aspired to. Steve Jobs may have a different opinion...

My Head Is Going To Explode

I just heard President Obama say in simple terms that carbon emissions "pollute our water and air". He said exactly that. Lord knows what he actually meant. It should be stated that at this moment, I am drinking a carbon-polluted can of Diet Code Red.

In an age where it is becoming apparent that atmospheric carbon does not increase terrestrial, ground-level temperatures (there is laboratory evidence that CO2 may in fact be a solar energy deflector akin to O3) we do not need to confuse CO2 with actual pollutants. Whatever your political (as opposed to scientific) position on CO2, it must be conceded that actual toxins such as PCBs need to be handled and regulated in very different ways.

How long before we simply referr to anything we do not like as an addiction?

End Of An Era - And It's A Good Thing

The Pontiac Aztec is dead. General Motors announced today that their nearly ten-year-old threat to shut down Pontiac is now a done deal. This is a surprise to anyone only recently immigrated to the Planet Earth. Pontiac has been on the cut list since 2001. So at last, it's possible to visit a GM dealership without wearing those goggles used for viewing Medusans.

Happy Birthday To Me!

For those of you who haven't guessed, I'm a year older. I'm 42. I wish Douglas Adams were still around to curse.

So either I am to ponder the question to the ultimate answer...or I'm to have my brains extracted by a couple of white mice.

Not sure which I would dread more.

At any rate, I'm 42 and no closer to understanding Life the Universe and Everything...

For Those Of You Playing At Home

Meet the engineering leads of the Protectorate Space Platform. Yes, I do name my aliens. I leave you to struggle with pronunciation. Don't email. I won't help you.

An Open Letter To the Sci Fi Channel and Mr. Tim Brooks

For those of you who don't know, the SciFi channel is changing its name to SyFy (pronounced SiFee and an accepted short name for syphilis). Stupid, yes but nothing worth getting worked up about. After all, we've known for some time now that the SciFi channel executives weren't the sharpest knives in the drawer. Spoons, some would say. What upsets me is the opinion that the SciFi channel has of its own viewership. Says Mr. Tim Brooks one of the "founders" of the network -

"The name Sci Fi has been associated with geeks and dysfunctional, antisocial boys in their basements with video games and stuff like that, as opposed to the general public and the female audience in particular..."

For those who wish to express a dissenting opinion, Mr. Brook's email can be found here. I sent him my thoughts. You may read them below, if you wish...

Mr. Brooks,

With all due respect, your expertise on television, the recording industry and copyright issues clearly has a hole in it where SciFi fandom is concerned. The impression that SciFi fans are dysfunctional only pervades those professions which require little if any creative work. I imagine that many investment brokers, accountants and bureaucrats would agree with you. But if you polled surgeons, pilots, editors and physicists, you would find many who not only vehemently disagree with your generalization but count themselves among those ranks.

In short, you are wrong.

So to say that the SciFi channel is stigmatizing itself by remaining with the ScFi moniker, is to ignore the fact that anyone who might watch the SciFi channel wouldn't be aware what a minority of the public feels about its name.

In short, your assessment skews well outside the SciFi channel's demographic.

I guess the reason that your assessment angers me so is not that I fear that it is right. Not that I fear others might agree. But that others, being uninformed might trust you because you should be. And sadly, you are not.

I could point out that there is (and verifiable so) a general belief that people who love books, write or pontificate on the value of literacy are antisocial, reclusive and add little of value to society. In short, they are 'bookish'. While both you and I know this to be false, it does little to dissuade the general public of this notion. Is Book TV doing itself a disservice by tying its programming to such an image? Should Book TV become BTV to avoid appearing 'bookish'?

All this is to say that only those who wish a stigma upon fans of science fiction see a stigma there at all. Science fiction is mainstream today and only those who are themselves reclusive and uninformed see a disconnect between SciFi and pop culture. I do not wish this letter to be a direct attack on you, Mr. Brooks because I truly wish no malice upon you. But I do honestly, keenly longingly hope that you take an opportunity to see where science fiction is today. Where its fans are. And generally notice how much science fiction shapes the way average people everywhere view their own lives, their jobs and their futures. You should take time to ask them but when you do, don't look in basements, libraries or comic book stores. Look in cockpits, barracks, hospitals, universities and the halls of government. Because that is where fans of SciFi hang out today.

With optimism,

Hunter Cressall

Mr. Brooks won't listen. Neither will SciFi. But we owe it to ourselves to be heard and not herded. I find it ironic that the group of Americans most unequivocally sheltered, secluded and uninformed - specifically network executives - believes that their own audience is more reclusive than themselves. Some support a wall along our southern border. I'm thinking that one around Rockefeller Plaza would do more to serve the interests and security of the United States.

I mean network execs - they are fine folks and all - but would you want your daughter to marry one?

Asteroid Misses Earth By Inches...Spotted Only Monday

That's right, an asteroid discovered only this Monday will whiz past only 85,000 km away or so this morning.

We didn't see it coming.

It didn't hit - this time. But had it been slightly closer and slightly larger, we would have had sufficient time only to rethink our transgressions. Nothing more.

I reiterate and I can not say this in a more serious or forthright manner: If you do not support the space program and Near Earth Asteroid intervention, please select another phylum to inhabit. Mine does not need you.

New Shirt! And it GLOWS!

Have you seen The Watchmen?

If not, why not? It's about as good an adaptation of The Watchmen as you are likely to get in a two hour and forty-five minute movie made by simian descendants.

If you have...then you saw it.

You know - IT.

So if your inner child was trampled flat by Dr. Manhattan and his...er...Lower East Side, then I have a shirt for you!



Buy this new, glow-in-the-dark shirt and proudly announce that you've been to see The Watchmen and that yes, it is impressive!

(and the movie is impressive as well)

Late late late

Traveled this weekend, Daylight Savings Time begins and I found an important meeting suddenly moved to Monday morning.

You know what this means...

Monday morning will begin at 4pm CST!

Or the comic will be a tad ate today...

Whichever.

The Oscars

This is the first and only thing I will say about his year's Oscars. Travesty.

It is clear that the academy has drifted too far from the process of making motion pictures and has a frail grasp of even the individual categories over which they preside. (BTW, I'm not really talking about actor/actress / leading / supporting here)

I saw nearly all of the Oscar contenders in the major categories. I enjoyed all of them. Virtually none of the winners displayed excellence in their field.

Loved Slumdog. Best editing? It would have been nice for that film to have been edited. Best makeup? Same complaint. The list goes on and on.

Academy: Retire. Leave. Change careers. Your gray is showing. Please let working filmmakers and professionals in their respective fields have a go.

One last thing. Is it time to allow a little transparency into the process?

You tell me.

No News is...Well...My Fault

I retro-reposted my News Section.

Read: wrote over the archives online with older archives from my laptop resulting in a loss of several recent postings.

Thank god for the cloud.

Let's Party Like It's 1234567890!

Because it is.

For those of you who are potentially nerdier than am I (I count six on Earth) you already know that at 23:31:30 UTC, the Unix epoch clock will tick up to 1234567890. That's an event worth cracking open a can of Jolt and watching your variable internet clock roll up to the sequentially significant digit.

Making this stranger for me is the fact that just last Tuesday, I deposited a Dollar amount which was exactly $1234.56 into my checking account. I noticed no significant folding of space or shifting of causality.

There was a mild odor of brimstone but I was at a bank...

Professionally Speaking

My professional website is up. I'm the professional. It isn't. AT the very least it shows what I do and why I ask for money when I do it. So if you need audio/video media produced for your business or sea monkey farm. Here is where you can find me.

(www.huntercressall.com)