You gotta feel sorry for the guy...

I scanned an interview with Nolan Bushnell, the guy behind the Atari system back in the day. He was saying how video games should be a force for social good, how he wanted to save the world from Grand Theft Auto (probably the magazine's words...like I said, I only scanned the article). To this end, he's been working on a new multi-player, multi-color team Pong.

The whole time I read it, I couldn't help imagining Pandora trying to shove everything back in the box.

The problem is that what he's doing, essentially, is the same as colorizing Leave it to Beaver to save television. But nobody wants to watch Leave it to Beaver anymore. That's why its on TVLand and TVLand just happens to NOT be the most popular cable network.

I'm not suggesting that Grand Theft Auto is fine. Especially not for kids (I am guilty, however, of having taken out my frustrations on the citizens of Liberty City using a baseball bat. And a tank. And a sniper rifle. Etc.). I'm just saying, you can't fix anything by going backwards. You want to change the course of video games, make something that appeals to today's gamers, not some retro party game that doesn't have the staying power of something like, say, DDR. It reminds me of a couple of lines from Back to the Future: Part II (one of which was delivered by Elijah "Frodo" Woods):

Video Game Boy #1: You mean you have to use your hands?
Video Game Boy #2: That's like a baby's toy!

Mr. Bushnell, that's what gamers are going to call your "new" game. A baby's toy. You want to save the world? Try NOT ripping off yourself from 30 years ago.

That thing I did for Tuesday that I couldn't post...

Usually, when I can't post, it's because Keenspace/Comic Genesis/Herb is down and I can't FTP things. The other day, it was because my ISP went screwy for a bit. Seems they lost my password. Dunno how that happens, but it did. Anyway, this is a character sketch of the main guy from a story idea I had called, as it says on his shirt, Necessary Evil. I liked the concept, but I've been too busy to flesh it out much. I've been holding onto it for a while now, actually...

Anyway, I updated his look from my earlier sketches. Tried to make him dress a bit more like the kids these days (heh heh...I love using phrases like that...I'm so old...*sob*), but that's mostly because I don't remember exactly how I drew him before and I don't remember where I put the original drawings. It still needs work, but, then, so does the story.

Revoltin' Development

Well, I suppose you aren't missing much today. YOU SEE...Sunday night, my wife sprung on me that we were having dinner with my aunt and uncle (we'd talked about it, but I didn't realize that we were for sure going to do it Monday), that meant that ALL of my drawing time on Monday was occupied except for about 45 minutes before bed. So I get some crappy filler done and try to upload it, except I can't get online. Stupid internet was down. Of course, now that I'm at work, it's just fine, but that doesn't really help, does it? So you're spared the filler I had, or cursed with the continuation of Chuck's filler from yesterday, depending on how you view it. Either way, nothing from me today.

Sorry.

Lack of 'Vision

I'm over television.

What's left? I mean, seriously, I can't take another Survivor. I don't want another Apprentice. Forget two. Rockstar is over and, even though I enjoyed it, I don't know that I'd want another. Sitcoms, the first course of my previous televised entertainment meal, have died. They don't want to admit it, like the unfortunate characters on those even more unfortunate ghost shows, but they're still dead. Even the canned laughter seems hollow.

Hollower.

Crime dramas, the second course, are a dime a dozen these days. They took a good thing and cloned it so many times that even the originals are thin. Seems like the best thing to do is get off TV. Raymond knew it.

Oh, to have more than 3 channels, but in the end, I'm sure that I'd just realize that it was just 350,000 channels playing reruns of the same crap I was trying to escape in the first place.

My video collection is getting tired! I'm wearing the DVDs thin and the tapes are deteriorating so fast, I can't keep track of which ones are good enough to watch any more. I'm afraid to play the Star Wars Trilogy tapes, you know, the ones where Greedo shoots first and all the sets were physical, not digital. Soon, Lucas will have his way because the only version of his movies that will still be watchable will be the DVDs...and they've been monkied with. I'm mostly ok with that, but the thought of losing the original version irritates me.

Bah. I'm obviously getting old. Though my age says otherwise, I'm no longer the demographic they care about.

Guess I did have something to say, after all.

I Have Nothing to Say to You

There's something that's been nagging at me. It's there at the back of my brain where I can't quite get to it. It seems like there's something I wanted to say but I can't remember it.

I guess it was nothing. Oh well.

Inadvertant Celebration

Yeah, so today's strip (and by today's I mean tomorrow's, as I'm writing this Monday night but post-dating it so that it may show up at such a time as it is today, but more likely just showing up early with an illogical time) is an inadvertant, yet belated, celebration of "Talk Like a Pirate Day". The timing is purely coincidence, but there it is. Actually, I wanted badly to have Barry or Travis quote Will Turner's ill-conceived attempt at pirate-speak from Pirates of the Caribbean, but it was not to be.

Such is life...

Prerequisite

Sorry. Didn't mean to go all Penny Arcade and make a comic that you needed to read the rant to understand. All the places mentioned by Barry at the top are listed in the Beach Boys song Surfin' USA. Sometime, I'll probably go back and edit the comic so that he mentions that, but for now, that's why I titled it Surfin' USA.

I guess today's comic required a bit of Beach Boys knowledge before you came in.

Slammin' the 'Code'

No, I've never read the book. It may be everything people claim it is, in terms of story-telling, but people tend to take it too seriously and put stock in it when it's about as well researched as your average Stephen Ambrose book. Ask Cricket about that. I mean, one of the characters who is supposedly a historian cites, for example, the apocryphal Gospel of Philip as proof that Mary Magdalene was Jesus' wife because the word translated "companion" is an Aramaic word that literally means "spouse".

Which would've been a lot less embarrassing for the author if the Gospel of Philip hadn't been written in Greek.

So, yeah, I'd have problems with the book on a theological level anyway, but this is just shoddy research. I'll be doing something similar with a story point I'll reveal in the next couple comics, but only because I don't have access to certain materials that can be worked into the comic without messing with a lot of things like copyright violation and such.

But then, no one bases their beliefs on anything I do in Vapor Lock, anyway.

Put Some 'Stang on It!

There are exactly 3 of the new Mustangs in Clarksville. I like the look of them, though I've never been much of a car guy, but it kind of bothers me that they're all the same color. I know that they're different cars and not the same one in different places because one is a convertible, one has handicap tags and the other has no plate at all.

All of them are a light bluish gray. Seriously, people. There HAVE to be other colors...

I wonder if someone will spam this post with an ad for a dealership or something...

This is a Rantspace

This is a message to all those who are not seeing this blog in an iframe on Dim Bulb Comics.

This is a rantspace. Nothing more. It is a place for the few who read Vapor Lock, Troubled Times, and even Crooked Halo (though I have nothing to do with that) to see what I have to say about the comics and talk back with me. Mostly, that means Cricket. It is not a forum for you to put whatever kind of crap you are using your Blogger to sell in a free ad.

Especially poorly worded advertisements for books that twist Biblical passages to get-rich-quick schemes! Ads disguised as posts that point to dating sites I can stomach. A quick delete and its over. This ticks me off, though.

Heeeeere's Johnny

Alright, here's the comic I slaved over yesterday only to fail to upload it (in case you missed the couple hours it was up before the Friday update).

I'd actually uploaded SOMETHING, which is inconsequential to you unless you see it (I'm not telling), and I guess that fooled my brain into thinking that everything was taken care of. Oops.

I MIGHT've Deserved That

Well, I'm not sure why, but the comic is MIA, again (and not even in the files when I checked the Web-FTP...its linked from the CG forum). There's a possibility that in FTPing other things that I neglected to throw it up, but I don't remember not doing it. Anyway, if I did forget, I'll put it up when I get home....around 7ish tonight...sorry.

It's Not My Fault!

I uploaded the strip for Tuesday on Sunday night. Something's buggy with the autoupdate and until they fix it, I can't show the strip. I'd post it here, but I didn't know it wasn't up until I was at work and FTP is apparently also down.

Sorry folks.

King of the Couch

My wife and I bought a couch and love seat today. You see, the old couch reeks of cat pee, which is rather unfortunate, since we eat our meals on said couch. Not appetizing. Anyway, I just realize about 30 seconds ago that we just spent a little more than half of what I make in a month and we're already just squeaking by.

On a related note, my underwear has, within the last minute or so, began smelling a bit like pee.

I'm not at all nervous. Not even a little...

And a Dollar Short.

Well, as you may or may not have noticed, I never got Thursday's comic up. When I realized that I didn't have it done and it was already Sunday, I decided just to go ahead and put it up for Tuesday. As it looks now, if I had, there wouldn't have been time to get Tuesday's done (or maybe there would've been, I don't know), so I guess it's good we got it out of the way already. Besides, how many of you really would've gone back to see Thursday? I mean, there's the couple of you that read in chunks at a time, I guess, but then you'll just see it on Tuesday's archive page anyway, so you lost a click. Sorry. Anyway, I'm going to try not to miss days again (and also start doing Troubled Times again soon), but it may be a bit spotty as my hand starts getting used to this again. Not to mention that since my hand is a bit spastic it takes me a lot longer to finish strips that I've inked with it.

LOTS of clean up required.

Anyway, thanks for hanging with me. Both of you have been really patient. You can tell your friends to come back. Its ok, now!

This Seems Somehow...Familiar

It's kind of funny. I've been working for the U of O for nearly a month and a half and everything has been running smoothly. Well, most of that time anyway. You see, classes started back on Tuesday last week which meant it was almost time for that most eagerly anticipated event of the year.

That's right, the first major network outage of the year!

Since, presumably, Sunday night, getting to a website has been something akin to breaking out of Alcatraz. The thing is, though the network might be considered "down" right now, there are still a few sites that come up, no problem. Few of them I care about (they're usually unrelated to work or my own entertainment), but you can get to them. On the other hand, sites that I NEED for work have remained just outside my grasp (I can get to the log-in screen of a site I do some of my work on, but I can't actually log-in). It reminds me of this strip Cricket did a while back. Except, I'm not living at school...I just work here.