Here's an old "comic strip revision" from way back when. This time Garfield is the victim. If you don't get the reference then I suggest reading up on the works of H.P. Lovecraft.

According that little site-meter on the right, this blog has had 2,000 hits since December. Despite this website receiving a decent amount of traffic, I do not receive a lot feedback. I figure as long as people keep looking here for material, I'll do my best to keep providing that material. Of course this material will just be random images without any real content, but that's what I'm good for. With my ability to create meaningless eye candy, you'd think I would've tried to get a job working for Jerry Bruckheimer.

Soon I'll have some vector tracings of Fist of the Northstar up. Fist of the Northstar or known in Japan as "Hokuto no Ken," is an anime which no one in the United States has bothered to watch since the late 1980's. For good reason I suppose, since the show consists of a man who runs around in a post apocalyptic future and beats the living shit out of everything in his path. It's pretty terrible, but it appeals to my inner 14 year old.

Vector tracing is good exercise for someone like me, who up until recently has never done any work with vector graphics before. For years I was doing images in raster graphics on Photoshop without any cocern for that pesky little pen tool. Now that I've dipped my hands into the creative molten lava that is vector graphics, my hands have been charred with the painful but satisfying toil of manipulating curves and shapes. So for all you readers out there, email me screen caps of your favorite animated shows and I'll do my best to vector trace them into desktop sized images.

giiiultra@yahoo.com

FOOOOLISH SAMURAI

SOMETHING THIS SIMPLE SHOULD NOT HAVE TAKEN YOU SO LONG

I have spent a good portion of today vector tracing Aku from "Samurai Jack."



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ANOTHER TEST DOWN...

and many more to go, although I wouldn't say I passed the GMAT with "flying" colors. Unless by "flying" I really meant "get a shockingly average score."
What's left? GRE? Photoshop and Illustrator ACE? Maybe even an MCSE for good measure? SURE! WHY NOT?

I still have many items left on this list that I need to get rid of.

1. Build web server with John


2. Create new lay out for blog and other blogs


3. Create post about the wonders of drinking black lemonade


4. Create MAME box of own design.


5. Learn to how cook Agedashi Tofu for a pot luck


6. Sit in and use Dan McCleary's fabled computer chair


7. Defeat "Ghosts and Goblins" on the NES.


8. Finish and perfect my upcomming zombie tribute to DeChirico


9. Rewatch all the good movies from the past 2 years with Sara when she returns.


10. Study for and pass the GMAT with flying colors


11. Obtain MCSE certification


12. Get a job.


13. Go hiking in Havasupai


14. Go back to school

Just so this post isn't a complete waste, here's another twisted version of Family Circus made back in '01.

Well after studying for 4 hours straight and drinking 4 cups of coffee, I thought I'd take a little break and eat up some time.

Let's see what the crazy kids these days are doing with their quizes. Here's one for "what kind of classic movie are you?"

What Classic Movie Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

You have to wonder if these tests are accurate at all. I never thought of myself as being a thinly vieled adaptation of Heart of Darkness set in the Vietnam War. I would've prefered Dr. Strangelove.

Now let's see what type of famous world leader I could be compared to.

What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

What the hell? Mother Teresa? She wasn't a leader at all! Man these tests are bullshit! Oh well, at least she looks like a zombie in that picture. I was trying to score for Stalin but sadly I failed. Let's just hope that this isn't an ill omen for tomorrow.

Sorry folks... with all this vector tracing and GMAT only one day away I haven't had much time to devote to this blog.

To make up for my lack of decent updates I will post a silly image. I can't believe it's been 3 years since I made this.

Here, I made a quick zombie in adobe illustrator.

MISSING HALVES

While working on turning my friend Brian into a Zombie, vector tracing a screen cap from Hokuto No Ken, studying for GMAT, and hanging out with friends, I've neglected this blog for a bit. Back on the 27th I read a post on this young lady's blog about the idea of soulmates.

"I believe its possible to have a soul mate, but it is exceptionally rare. I do not at all believe that everyone has one. I believe that it isn't 2 souls coming together but 2 halves. And the only way i can justify them having ever been separated is if they willingly separated. "

This post got me thinking of how to represent a person missing half of themselves. How to make the intangible self cause a visual effect on the human body when half of the intangible self leaves or is removed. The image is crude, but it gets the point across.



More importantly, how would someone respond if they woke up one day and realized that half of themself is gone. I too have felt the need to search out for something I feel like I'm missing. As if somewhere out in the world my other half is waiting for me to come and claim it. What if I unwillingly and unknowingly became separated from my other half? Perhaps my other half ran off to complete and solve someone else's missing half dilemma. Perhaps my other half simply could not stand to be near the half that is still here with me. In either case, I feel like an imcomplete person... abandoned by my other half.

For these halves to willingly separate, then an agreement had to have been made. Neither half shared the same view on what they wanted in life. They call it quits and split, but will always feel empty and incomplete while not being together. Of course they should be together, they're two halves of the same person, but for some reason these halves could not co-exist. If the halves figure out over time that they do indeed belong together, how could they find each other? I suppose that's the real challenge in life. How to overcome impssible odds and find one's self in this vast lonely world.

Trying to overcome that challenge could be made easier if one knows what they are looking for. In my case, I was considering the old fashioned "milk carton" method of finding someone.

WARNING

VECTOR GRAPHICS MAY CAUSE BLOODSHOT EYES AND INSOMNIA

Here's my first attempt at vector tracing. This was pretty much just an exercise designed to help me learn how to use Adobe Illustrator CS. Either way I hope you enjoy the results. This vectorized screen cap is from the episode "Raging Bender."



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UPDATE: NEW BACKGROUNDS AND RESOLUTION ADDED

I just made this image for the Something Awful forums.

It's 3:11 AM right now. I've been up all night trying to turn Brian into a zombie as well as working on a massive new web design project. It's too bad there isn't another Fist of the Northstar marathon or else I might have to go bed soon. Nah, I'll just stay up even later and make a photoshop involving a lightsaber wielding ninja MacGuyver, more ninjas, the car from KnightRider, and a pirate Jesus.

100% HIGH OCTANE ACTION!

Well, I didn't get that job down in Sacaton. Apparently someone lost a vital piece of my application while it was being processed. Having found this out today, I called Gila River's department of human resources to see if this could be fixed. Of course with my luck, they would not budge. They made the error and now I can't get a job because of it. I've always told myself that when things get bad, I still have all my limbs. Now I have to wonder whether or not I'll lose my leg next week.

So, how are you doing?

Seeing as how these little emode quizes are quite the fad and that I don't have any originality what so ever...

here's a little quiz you can take to find out just how much or how little you know about me.

Yeah I know, exciting isn't it? To complete the quiz you will be required to sign up.

THE ORIGINAL NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD IS NOW PUBLIC DOMAIN!

You can now download the original theatrical version of George A. Romero's "Night of the Living Dead" for free. So go ahead, click on the picture or this link here to download the movie via streaming media, 1 cd sized mpeg1, or 1 dvd sized mpeg2.

Most people don't normally see pictures of a young lady cutting out the side of her cheek with a switchblade.



And here's the original.



This was sent to me by some guy wanting to play a prank on the girl in the picture. He wanted me to make the obvious joke, but I wouldn't have any of that. No, this had to be a picture of someone cutting up their face from inside their mouth.

The girl btw, is the same one who sent me a picture of her chest asking me to make a creative photoshop out of it. This was the result.

Well as you can see I'm continuing to edit this place up. I will not rest until I can perfect this damned website, and besides... I've already had two cups of french roast and one black lemonade. My hands will jitter for the next 3 hours.

LEAVE A COMMENT AND LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK OF THE NEW DESIGN

Now onto the list.

1. Build web server with John


2. Create new lay out for blog and other blogs


3. Create post about the wonders of drinking black lemonade


4. Create MAME box of own design.


5. Learn to how cook Agedashi Tofu for a pot luck


6. Sit in and use Dan McCleary's fabled computer chair


7. Defeat "Ghosts and Goblins" on the NES.


8. Finish and perfect my upcomming zombie tribute to DeChirico


9. Rewatch all the good movies from the past 2 years with Sara when she returns.


10. Study for and pass the GMAT with flying colors


11. Obtain MCSE certification


12. Get a job.


13. Go hiking in Havasupai


14. Go back to school

As far as I'm concerned, I've redesigned and perfected enough web lay outs to cross that one off my list. I take the GMAT on April 6th and I may just get a job in about a week.

BACK TO SCHOOL

This is a long one folks, so get a snack. During Spring Break, I received an email from an old college buddy of mine named Shafik. Shafik invited me to come down to Tucson for one last "house party." Realizing that this party would be my last chance to see friends from college before they graduate and spread out into the world, I mustered up the will power to make my way down to Tucson. The "house party" was the be held at THE "house." A little house near the corner of Euclid Ave. and 6th st. For those of you not familiar with Tucson, this house is just acrossed the street from the U of A campus. After graduating over a year ago, I had problems with going back to Tucson for parties and other social functions. Having had a very miserable time in that city during my last semester, I was never fond with the idea of going back for any reason. This time, I'd make an exception.

The drive between Tucson and Phoenix, while short, is never pleasant. In my case, I was always traveling back up to Phoenix for weekends to visit family and friends while having to drive back to Tucson before classes began on monday. For nearly every trip, I was driving back and forth alone. There's something about driving through bleak desert landscape all by yourself with no one to talk to that can really bring the happiest of person down in the dumps. It doesn't matter how loud the music is playing in the car, sooner or later any bad feelings you were choking down will come bubbling up while on this drive. Needless to say, I did not arrive in Tucson a happy camper (whoa, big shock).

When I showed up at the house, Gergely was there to greet me. It was nice to see that many aspects of the house had not changed over the passed year. Expensive guitar cabs and amps were stashed away in the North East corner while the leopard print rug that I once owned (It was $30 at Target, lay off) lay underneath my feet. The next half hour was spent on the typical "catching up" conversations, although I got a kick out of telling Gergely that in the past year my friends were getting into watching and loving "Family Guy" ever since it debuted on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim line up. He got a good laugh at that, because while we lived in the Yavapai resident hall, everyone would make a trip up to the third floor to watch all the episodes on his computer. If it weren't for Family Guy, I probably wouldn't have made it through college. Before I grauated I must've seen each episode at least 10 times and ever since the show has been on Adult Swim I've probably seen each episode at least 20 times. By now, I can recite any quote from Family Guy faster than a priest trying to quote from the bible.

Shortly after my arrival, Shafik entered the house. Upon seeing me he said, "Holy crap! You lost like... 80 lbs! You're not even the same DoBell anymore!" He like many others learned of my woes that started back in december by following all the appropriate web links. "But hey dude, you look great!" Unfortunately for Shafik, he didn't seem to be doing so well. His girlfriend, Mandi, whom he had been with for almost 2 years had begun to pull out of the relationship. In short, Mandi is pulling the young girl in her twenties who doesn't want to be with one person routine. She claims to be feeling "claustrophobic" and of course did something incredibly petty and self indulgent to create a scenario that only has one conclusion. For obvious reasons, this behavior pisses me off, but at the same time conflicts with the fact that both of them are my friends. However, Shafik is a good guy. He's a brilliant programmer, a talented guitar player, and an all around funny chap. He doesn't deserve to have someone he loves cut out his heart all because she's getting bored. Shafik is handling it well enough on the surface, but I could see the sadness in his face. I could see the acid begin to well up in his stomach whenever he'd think about his situation. Seeing Shafik like this was a bit of an eye opener for it was like seeing an image of myself at the beginning of December.

Not even an hour into the trip and everything has already turned dour. I was hoping to go down to Tucson and have fun, but I'd soon learn that everyone was having problems on a massive scale. While eating dinner at "Mama's Pizzeria," I caught up with Kevin Wampler and Gary Yee. Gary by-the-way, was once given the title of "hottest chick in the CS department." This wasn't an insult towards him as it was an insult towards the fact that the CS department had almost no women attending its classes. Kevin is a cooky fellow who likes to build machines that can potentially kill a person and jump off walls like Spiderman. During our Senior year, I helped Kevin build a Tessla coil that could kill any person who walked within a 4 ft. radius from the device. In addition to being a snappy dresser, Kevi also a bonafied genius. Oddly enough, he too had troubles finding a job out of college. While I sympathized with that experience, there was something comforting to know that I was not the only one with employment woes. Luckily for him, he managed to get accepted for grad school at the University of Michigan. Apparently Kevin managed to have the record for highest CS GRE score at the UofA, so at least his story had a bit of a happy ending.

Gary on the other hand, was down in the dumps. Whenever someone would even mention grad school, Gary would curl up and look miserable. Apparently he tried to get into some of the top grad schools in the country for CS but got turned down by every one. He did however, manage to get accepted into the University of Colorado, but it would appear that Gary had higher hopes for continuing his education. "I once believe that if you really wanted something, and you tried as hard as you could, that there would at least be a chance." After hearing this all I could do was repeat a quote from Lenny Bruce. "Life isn't what should be, or what could be. Life just is." This is a phrase that in recent times I've grown to understand.

Gary's story was still not the only sad story I'd hear that night. Everyone I talked with seemed to have some form of difficulty that was causing them massive amounts of grief. Grief that is caused by personal relationships, future plans, or both. The growing hypothesis is that solar radiation storms that occur once in 12 years (this being one the 12 year in the cycle) is causing all these problems. Not a very good hypothesis, but good enough to give us all a little chuckle to forget our woes. The problem stemmed mostly from everyone hitting a big transition in their lives. The fun's over, and now it's time to be a full fledged adult and have the future already planned out. Graduating from college is an experience that makes one think that there are no more excuses for not having a direction, job, or plan for the future. The only problem is that getting through college guarantees neither.

Once the party began, I managed to catch up with a ton of old faces I haven't seen for well over a year. Upon seeing each person I'd receive one of these phrases that were repeated to me throughout the night.

"Wow, you lost a lot of weight!"

"You look great!"

"Oh no, that's terrible, I'm so sorry."

and

"We miss you. You need to come down and visit more often."

I wouldn't mind seeing some of these people more often. They're nerds like me after all. CS, EE, and Biochem freaks all chock full of technical skill, neurotic insecurities, intelligence, academic arrogance, freakish creativity, and a common love for hilarious animated T.V. shows cancelled by the Fox network. While I felt sad for saying goodbye for the last time to many people I once knew, I'm glad I went. The trip helped me come to terms with my overall feelings about the future. No matter what, the future will come and it will always be wide open. Everyone has a different path to follow and sometimes shit happens that will change the course of that path. We're all old farts now, dealing with adult drama as opposed to the immature and somtimes hilarious drama we experienced back in Yavapai. No matter what I'll always cherish the memories of watching movies in the lobby, the wall piercing twang of the 3rd floor electric guitars, the many nights spent on a bean bag chair watching episodes of family guy, the 1:00 am trips to Los Betos, and the assortment of wonderful people I had the pleasure of knowing.

So to Gergely, Shafik, Amy, Irene, Kevin, Gary, Kaylesh, Dave, Michelle, Kahtleen, Susan, Marc, Mandi, Jon, Steven, and Ron... goodbye. If I'm lucky, I'll see you all again sometime soon. I wish you all the best of luck as you struggle to find your place in the world.

As you may have noticed, things are looking a little different here at the Zombitorium. Can any of you think of a better way to test out my skill with Adobe Illustrator than to "vectorize" the original Dawn of the Dead poster? The site still needs a lot of tweaking, so don't be alarmed if things change on a whim. Stay tuned, because later today I'll have a neat "Back to School" story to post and an explanation for why I hardly take any pictures to come in a day or two.

ME AND THE BIKE: TOGETHER AGAIN

A few posts back you may remember a story of how an old bike was freed from an 8 year slumber. My bike, a 1994 Diamond Back "Traverse" was brought out of the shed in the back yard. For two weeks I spent cleaning this bike up and preparing it for the big moment. The moment when we'd conquer the roads of this desert city.

Luckily, my friends John and Nick had the week off for Spring Break, leaving us all plenty of time to partake in some outdoor activities. Realizing that I could not ride my cherished bike all the way out to my friends, I dismantled the bike and transported the parts by car. The bike was reassembled as soon as I arrived at John's humble abode.

To clean the chain from years of dust, dirt, and grease... I purchased a strange chain cleaning kit that involved a plastic clamping device full of wheels with brushes attached. The chain would pass through the device and be stripped clean by the thick brushes on the wheels. Despite making a bit of a mess on John's driveway, the device worked quite well and the bike was finally ready for action!

After so long, it's easy to foget the experience of screaming down steep hills at 40 mph's with nothing between you and the air scraping past your skin. The body is also reunited with the experience of trying to peddle back up a steep hill. The body's calves burn like fire as every pump of the leg feels like body's legs are trying to push their way through cement that has almost dried.

This past week I've gone bike riding, hiking, scavenger hunting, you name it. There's an desire within me to keep moving... to keep the blood pumping and to keep the endorphins running into my head. The only problem is, eventually it has to stop. Once you get used to moving around it's hard to sit still. To sit still would mean letting those endorphins die down, the adrenaline fade away, and all the bad feelings you were trying to avoid creep their way back in.

I wrote a severely melodramatic post about that last night, but I took it down as it was nothing more than a fool's lament over the lack of a high. A high that he was using to avoid pain.

EXTERNALLY LINKED STYLE SHEETS ROCK!

Code has been cleaned up and the style sheet is maximized to perfection. HUZZAH!

Just a reminder... the 100th episode of Strong Bad is finally up at Homestar Runner. Was it worth the wait? You'll have to click and watch to find out!

A STORY OF OLD AND NEW

Since you're all sick of the sap and the classic 80's Cinderella song, it's time to move on to more important topic. Up above this paragraph is the original poster for the original Dawn of the Dead. It was this movie that started my love for all things zombies. Back in late 1999 I had just transferred to the University of Arizona. Stuck in a dank basement dorm room with the most creepy of all roommates, trying to find ways to pass the time in a strange place wasn't easy. Before making any friends on campus, all I had to amuse myself was my small DVD collection and a few choice Japanese Sega Saturn games.

Requiring more video entertainment to help pass the time, because I sure as hell couldn't just spend that time studying... A trip to Casa Video was made. Casa Video is the biggest and best video rental store I've ever had the pleasure of entering. The store has every single video imaginable because people in the local community donate or sell their videos there. Everything from the best to the worst in DVD, VHS, betamax, and laser disc. While there, I picked up the first DVD printing of George Romero's 1978 sequel to "Night of the Living Dead."

"Dawn of the Dead," was the very first movie I ever rented from Casa Video. Having read numerous internet articles claiming Dawn of the Dead to be a true piece of classic cinema, I felt obligated to watch it. Why this feeling came up can only be described by a commonly understood idea that as soon as a person approaches the age of 24, they begin to enjoy less of the new and more of the old. It was at age 19 I began to search out for older and more obscure cinema to satisfy my entertainment needs. Luckily for myself, Casa Video was full of nothing but old and obscure cinema. As crummy as Tucson is, Casa Video made that city shine like a tiny oasis in the dry desert of the entertainment world.

The movie was a fairly original story. The slogan "When there's no more room in Hell, the dead will walk the Earth," kept its promise. Following the incident in "Night of the Living Dead," the dead do walk the Earth in great numbers. Society is crumbling and going into a state of panic as zombies begin to spread like an epidemic. Entire cities begin to fall into chaos and the government establishes martial law. While news footage of scientific conferences try to explain this apocalyptic epidemic of the undead, police squads rush into housing projects to wipe out any zombies. It is here director George Romero begins his social commentary. Police squads infiltrate housing projects inhabited mostly by African Americans and indiscriminately shoot what ever moves to bits, regardless if they're alive or undead. In 1978, the concept of corrupt and racist police forces were still very much a reality.

The focus of the movie lies within the main setting. Escaping the chaos and martial law, 2 police officers, one pilot and pregnant newscaster find themselves in a shopping mall to avoid the ever growing horde of zombies. It is here where Romero makes his statements. The mall is full of zombies, but they're on the ground floor. The zombies continue to roam about the mall in a circle, occasionally stopping by the shop windows to look inside. The zombies are not looking for live human beings to feed on but instead they were roaming about the mall just like they did while they were alive. These undead specimens were already zombies before they died, they were consumers.

In addition to having a slight hint of social commentary, I would not doubt that in 1978 this movie contained more gore than any other film at the time. The movie's make-up artist, Tom Savini is an interesting character. Being a veteran of the Vietnam war, he desired to recreate the effect of seeing a human body ripped and torn apart. There are a few scenes in this film and in its sequel "Day of the Dead," in which a human being pulled apart at the waist by attacking zombies. These scenes are very graphic and horrific.



Flash forward to March 16, 2004. Joey, Cory, Annie, and myself managed to make it over to Harkins at Arizona Mills for a nice free screening for the remake of Dawn of the Dead. Being such a fan of the original, I was more than skeptical about how the remake would turn out. Movie remakes always seem to turn out horrible with very few exceptions. In fact, the only decent movie remake that I can think of was John Carpenter's remake of "The Thing." But hey, the price was right and it was something to do on a Tuesday night.

It's very rare for a movie to exceed expectations and this remake of "Dawn of the Dead" far exceeded mine. While much of the original film's social commentary was no longer present in this story, the pure action and terror more than makes up for it. This film is flashier and more intense than the original, but manages not to come off as being some cheap MTV knockoff. The Zombies in this movie take after the recent British zombie flick "28 days." Zombies run, claw, hiss, and brutally attack at amazing speeds rather than lumber around and grope. With respect to presentation, this film has an excellent set of opening credits and a set of ending credits that will keep you glued to your seat until the very last bit of text pops up on the screen.

Summary: You owe it to yourself to see the new "Dawn of the Dead" tomorrow or any time soon. Having exceeded my expectations, I can say without a doubt that this movie was the best horror movie I've seen in years. Now take a look at some poor son of a bitch getting his head blown apart by a shotgun.

I need to get this out of my system in the only way I know how. With a cheesy 80's glam rock ballad.

It's spring break. For someone like me who graduated from college, there isn't srping break anymore. You'd think the whole lot of us would just hop in the car and run out somewhere on some foolhardy adventure. If only I could convince someone to go to the beaches out in San Diego with me.

No, it's Sunday. Volleyball seems to be canceled and people are either at home sick or just plain lethargic. This is Arizona, I should be used to this by now. Unfortunately it is hard to be content when my mind and heart is always someplace else.

It's hard to fight back that feeling of doing something reckless. The difficulty is staying level headed when all I want to do is hop in the car and drive all the way back to the big city. Like many other happier moments in my life, I can't go back to that one. That one good day. Damn you Sierra, you made me believe I had unlimited tries to get that ball into the hoop.

Sorry, had to put out that little bit of sap.

Oh and just a little heads up for everyone. I redesigned Ms. Sagalow's Blog to be a little easier on the eyes. Enjoy.

Alright, I secured some decent webhosting, at least for myself. So no more images cutting out or any other annoying bullshit that you're used to with mywebpage.netscape.com

USE THE FORCE, LUKE!

What?

No penis?

Beno | Homepage | 03.11.04 - 11:43 pm | #




Here you go Ben. As for why this picture exists or why I made it... don't ask. Just don't.

As promised, here is the final picture of the series.



I don't have much else to post. I've been stuck in this house for the past 3 days sick as all hell. I really want to get out of here.

This picture I made is originally the same girl that provided her backside for the SHARK ASS picture.



There's one more of her, and I'll be posting that tomorrow.

Well, I decided to change things up a bit.

Sorry for the lack of good updates. I'm sick beyond all belief right now. Hopefully in the next few days I can put up a new template to spruce things up. Until then, I'll be passed out on my bed.

Sorry, nothing new today. I'm feeling a bit under the weather right now. All those late nights of watching anime and playing video games have really taken its toll on me. Hopefully I can be ready for a nice game of volleyball tomorrow.

HARD BOILED CALVIN

Here's another fun little photoshop carrying the Blade Runner theme. The dialogue is taken directly from the book, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. If you haven't read this wonderful Phillip K Dick story yet, I recommend you do so as soon as possible. Enjoy!


**click on image for full size version**

HOLY BULLSHIT BATMAN!

Jack T. Chick strikes again!

Jack T. Chick is a man who is a perfect fusion of religious zealotism and total fucking idiocy. For those of you not familiar with the work of Mr. Chick, take a look at his WEBSITE. There you will find his vast collection of comic strips, sometimes called "tracts," that depict people going to hell for not accepting Jesus Christ as their personal lord and savior. You'd think after one comic, Mr. Chick would've gotten his point across, but no! He's been illustrating these offensive little comics for more than a couple decades. To summarize his work, all you need to know is that evolution, dinosaurs, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Hare Krishna, Scientology, Rock N' Roll, homosexuality, Dungeons & Dragons, rational thought, ice cream Sundays, and Catholicism will all cause you to burn in a lake of fire for eternity.

That's right, being a ROMAN CATHOLIC means you will burn in hell. That's not all, Mr. Chick goes into detail about how the JESUITS WERE THE REAL CAUSE OF THE HOLOCAUST. It wasn't a holocaust, it was an inquisition! HA! Gotta love this guy, especially when he deems Islam invalid because of SCIENTIFIC ERRORS IN THE QUR'AN

Now that's just a laugh riot. It gets even funnier when you read through his latest strip: "APES, LIES, & MISS HENN," and about Mr. Chick's understanding of science. Here, let's take a look...



For a man who claims that the Qur'an is full of "contradictions and mistakes," to believe that dinosaurs and men lived together on Earth only 6,000 years ago is pure comedy gold. His evidence? God was there and the bible says so! Paleontology, Geology, Biology... they're all wrong!

Continuing on with the hilarity, let's take a look at Mr. Chick's blatantly racist caricatures of African Americans. Just look at that kid! He might as well be trying to sell Jell-O pudding with that picture.



This of course is not the first time Mr. Chick has tried to inject African Americans into his comic strips.


OH NO, IT'S LEROY BROWN!

You know, there's nothing quite like mixing blaxploitation with proselytization. Pimps, drug lords, and criminals are everything a young African American person can identify with! This will surely get their attention and show them the way to Jesus!

Go ahead and take a little romp through Mr. Chick's website. You are bound to find at least one thing that will piss you off, make you laugh, or make you weep for the world knowing people like him actually exist. An even more frightening notion is that people like Mr. Chick not only exist, but they also vote.



As you can tell, I'm a big fan of the JACK MEOFF CHICKS PUBLICATIONS parodies.

"THEY'RE SELLING JESUS AGAIN."

**WARNING: THE FOLLOWING PHOTOSHOPS MAY OFFEND**

BEHOLD! I'M GOING TO TURN THE CLOCK BACK TO FRIDAY NIGHT... ALRIGHT!

Friday was an interesting day. I tried to use the day for personal reflection and study. Having realized how my behavior has been affecting the people around me for the past month, something had to change. Keeping up with studying for GMAT, I headed out to Barnes & Noble to run through some practice exams. Many hours later I came home to learn that many of my friends called while I was away. Realizing the irony of the situation, I could only smile and laugh.

The evening rolled on and eventually I received a call from Brian. He informed me that Nick, Jessica, and himself had just seen the movie "The Passion of the Christ" while I was studying. I wasn't too dissapointed having missed my chance to see this movie, but the movie and its media coverage had peaked my interest. At the very least this movie's inerpretation of the Gospels could be interesting.

Later in the evening, we all converged at the Cornwell house. Sitting on the couch while Brian played Baulder's Gate, Gurg sleeping in a chair and John doing the same on the large sofa, I noticed something rather disturbing. On top of an in-table I found the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly addressed to our good friend Jesse Cornwell. Why anyone would read Entertainment Weekely let alone actually subscribe to the magazine is beyond me. However, that isn't what I found disturbing, because it was the cover image that bothered me the most. The issue's cover was dedicated to "The Passion of the Christ." The cover depicted Mel Gibson's head blown up like a large stone idol wearing a ribbon of motion picture film that had little thorn like barbs coming off the edges. I found the obvious symbolism of the image in the context of the magazine to be very offensive and I'm neither Christian or religious.

The creation and marketing of religion themed movies isn't new. The passion play itself is one that has been recreated thounsands of times acrossed many different media. What is shocking is how the advertising and the marketing has become much more pervasive in recent times. I realized that my desire to see the movie was tied up with the incredible amount of attention and scrutiny before it was even released. This provoked a few interesting thoughts on how easy it is to fall for a clever marketing campaign. The movie is being marketed heavily towards certain religious groups so as to maximize box office revenue.

It makes one wonder of an absurd future in which controversial interpretations of religious beliefs will be successfully fused with everyday products for the purpose of advertising.

The following photoshops, while no doubt offensive, are designed to show such absurdity. They are not designed to criticize, mock, or insult Christianity.

Yes, I have cousins.

With today being Febuary 29, I want to take this time to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my cousin Jackie. When I came home from my trip to Sedona, I was happy to learn that Jackie had spent the weekend down in Arizona. She grew tired of the fact that Salt Lake City didn't have a bit of sunshine for 15 days. Unfortunately for her, the skies were heavily overcast the entire time she was here. Being born on Leap Year always gave me the opportunity to pronounce seniority over her. Jackie always found such pronouncements amusing especially since she's my elder by 10 years.

During the 90's everyone in the family expected Jackie to get married and have children before she turned 30 like every other woman in our family. My father even made a bet with her. If she made it to age 30 without a ring on her finger or a child at home, my father would gladly pay her 500 dollars. Last year, Jackie turned 30 and my father had to pay up. My father, being the wise ass that he is, commented on how Jackie didn't really turn 30 since her birthday is Febuary 29th. Jackie only had to glare at my father for a few moments before he quietly handed over the 500 dollars.

My thoughts have been on my extended family recently. My aunt and her family all live in good old Salt Lake City, Utah. Ever since my grandfather passed away back in 1996, I have not been back to that city. Perhaps paying everyone a visit after all these years isn't a bad idea.

Brandon's new and improved webpage is all done. FINNENALALAH, by the way, is the name of the country in Brandon's novel, PiG. Brandon, to my knowledge, is the first person amongst my friends to actually write a full sized novel. His reason? "Because I've never written one before." With any luck, PiG will get edited and published. I've always been very proud of Brandon. Not only has he written a novel by age 23, but he's seen more of the world outside of this country than I may ever get to see in my lifetime.

So that's another blog down. 3 more to go.

SIGNS

Photoshop is a wonderful tool. With just a bit of clone stamping and the use of text it is possible to make a simple piece of humor.

Fix one problem and another one pops up. It's almost 5:00 in the morning and insomnia has come back to haunt yours truly.

Brain: A 2 hour "Fist of the Northstar" marathon? Fucking awesome! I love late night digital cable.

Body: What are you crazy? It's 3:00 AM! Shut off already, I'm fuckin beat.

Brain: Hey, it's not everyday we get to watch our good friend Kenshiro punch a villain so many times that it causes the villain's fucking skin to fly off.

Body: Oh good god! You know how stuff like that upsets my stomach. Just earlier today when our friends were describing the torture scenes in that new Jesus movie, I nearly tossed my cookies.

Brain: Oh you big pansy. Damn... I mean, lighten up. You're always complaining to me about this shit. "Waaah, that guy is cutting off his own tongue." "Waaah, that woman is getting her eye sliced open by a straight razor." Toughen up will ya? This is good entertainment!

Body: You're seriously messed up, man. I'm going to bed.

Oh, and I forgot to mention...

my progress on "Operation Rejoin the Human Race"

• Use my recent weight loss as an advantage to finally get fit again


• Bury the hatchets and get rid of grudges.


• Find employment and start looking for new goals to achieve


• Learn how to cook


• Get back into the world and meet new people

That's right. My hatchets are burried and my grudges have been put away. The past has been let go and all I want now is for everyone to be friends again.

The Real Friday Blues

Friday is here. Usually a person in my position wouldn't care at all since Friday is no different from any other day. The week has been long, and I've been spent the past month being extremely tense. When you're stressed out and worrysome, you don't notice how fast time is going by you. It's like walking in the middle of a freeway while cars zip on past you at 70 mph. Rather than attempt to write something profound, I think It's time I posted a picture

After scouring through the archives here, there's not much left except for Shark Ass.



In more ways than one I regret giving up visiting certain places on the internet. I gave up internet forums and other supreme wastes of time just to change up the daily routine. The interenet is full of strange and interesting people, many of which will take pictures of themselves nude and send them off to you. This particular girl, very proud of her backside, sent me a picture for a nice bit of photo-editing. Tired of my usual multi-layered zombie technique, I thought to do something simple yet terrifying.

REUNITING WITH AN OLD FRIEND



After waking up and performing my morning jog, the decision was finally made to get my old bicycle out of storage. Before I moved to Arizona, I was a quite the physically active fellow. Despite having humongous square rimmed glasses and hair so long it went down my back, I was in fact atheletic. In addition to practicing Shotokan Karate, I was an avid bike rider. Despite living nearly 8 miles away from my first high school, I woke up every morning at 6:15 to get to class on time. Back in Fresno, if you did not live at least 9 miles away from Clovis West High School then you could not ride the bus. You had to get to class all on your own. Knowing this, my parents purchased me a brand new bicycle to use for getting to and from school. Being 15 and having no car, this bike became a part of me.

At 15 years old, I was a stocky fellow. Riding my bike to school (uphill... BOTH WAYS!) gave me humongous legs and calves. In fact, the first positive comment I ever received from a girl was that I had attractive legs. Unfortunately it was my glasses and my hair that kept everyone else away. Luckily for all of you readers out there, no picture of me from that time period exists.

I moved away from Fresno. Said goodbye to all my old friends and promised to keep in touch with them via the internet. After landing here in Arizona I realized that outdoor physical activity was a bit more difficult due to the heat. Worse yet, I ended up living in an area very far away from the high school I transfered to. Because of this, the bike went in storage. There it sat for 9 years.

My good friend John Roland has heard me talk about this bike for too long. For quite some time now, he's been on my case to get the bike out of the shed in backyard and get it refurbished. Well Mr. Roland, the bike is out of the shed. Oddly enough, the tires are just fine and only needed a little bit of air. Granted much still needs to be done. The bike is in dire need of a washing along with some grease added to the chain. Despite all that, the bike is out of storage and it is rideable.

Bike: WHAT THE? What are you doing? I was sleeping damnit!

Me: Come on old friend, don't you remember me? We used to be best buds!

Bike: Yeah, and then you shoved me in a tool shed for 9 years. Great friend you are!

Me: Hey man, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have neglected you like that. I'll get you fixed up so we can go out riding with John this weekend.

Bike: I don't know... this just seems like some half assed attempt to "change up" your life.

Me: Hey now... anything that breaks up the daily routine is good right? Now come on old buddy, chin up.

Bike: Alright, alright. Just do me a favor and tell that busted ass old honda of your it can kiss my rear reflector.

Me: Will do my friend. Will do.


Now a small note to my friend Brandon. Brandon, I've been finishing the template for your new blog. It wont be long now, sorry I got a little side tracked.

Say hello to my friend from the VISIBILE HUMAN PROJECT



Also, check out this SUPER COOL VIDEO

Last night I was invited out to Barnes & Noble by my friends Nick and Brian. I got a call at around 9:00 from Brian, which surprised me since not only did he seem dead tired he also had a considerable amount of school work to do. Upon exiting my car in the parking lot of B&N, I heard a voice behind me say "EXCUSE ME SIR."

I turned around to find a rather disheveled african american man in a thick blue sports jacket. "Don't worry, I'm not going to shoot you!"

I always love hearing that expression, especially since I almost always carry some kind of edged weapon. Perhaps growing up in Fresno, CA has made me somewhat fearless of people I see out in the streets. Especially in a place like Ahwatukee. The man approached me and told me a story about how DPS impounded his car and that he needed some extra cash to get it back. He said he needed his car back so he could get to Tucson. Seeing as how no one in their right mind would ever lie about having to go to Tucson (no one ever really wants to go there), I did not think it would be a bad idea to help this man out. I reached into my pocket and pulled out what little cash I had in my wallet . 2 dollars (I need a job) is all. Upon handing it over and saying "Good luck," I was greeted with a big toothy smile.

"Thank you! You're one of the nicest people I've talked to in this neighborhood. What gives? Why is everyone an asshole and why aren't there any black people around here? Goddamn!"

'This is Awhatukee my friend. This place is full of stuck up assholes with no compassion for anyone.'

"Well thank you again for your help. I can tell you're not originally from here."

'Nah, I'm originally from San Diego. I moved around from place to place when I was a kid and by some odd force I managed to get stuck here.'

This part of the conversation made me realize that I've been here in Awhatukee for way too long. Sure I lived in Tucson for 3 1/2 years, but the issue about Ahwatukee and most of Phoenix remains the same. This place, this city, is not for young people like me. This is the place where seniors go to retire and 30 somethings go to buy their cheap mini-mansions. This is a city for lives that are on the decline. Despite being one of the hottest areas in this Country, my little patch of Arizona could easily be described as being a very cold and unfriendly place to live.

Me and this man walked into Barnes and Noble continuing our conversation. Apparrently he was traveling out to Tucson all the way from Boston. He asked me what I was doing in life. I unfortunately had to tell him that I wasn't sure anymore.

"Well things could be worse. You could be out in the middle of some parking lot asking people for spare change. You may not always end up where you want, but sometimes you are where you are. All you can do is try and hope for the best."

After that comment, I wished him luck and shook his hand. He made his way to the restroom and that was the last I saw of him. He never gave me his name. Whether or not his story about his car or having to go Tucson was true meant meant very little to me. What mattered was that I may have helped someone out ever so slightly while gaining an interesting conversation in return.

Today I had an interesting conversation with my body.

Me: Hello there, body.

My body: Hi there, David. How's it going?

Me: Not good.

My body: Not good? Why not good?

Me: When I weighed you this morning the scale said you were only 161 lbs. Why did the scale say you were only 161 lbs?

My body: Err.... umm.... hey don't look at me! You're the one in control here!

Me: The mere fact that I'm having a conversation with my body should make it clear that I'm in no way capable of controlling anything.

My body: True. I don't know what to tell you, man. I don't feel malnourished. We've been to the doctor twice already and he couldn't find anything wrong with us. This is clearly your responsibility.

Me: I've been feeding you just fine. With the exception of one week back in December, very little has changed about our diet.

My body: Hey, you're the one who wanted us to be thin again. Why so glum? I mean, if I feel fine... then that means you're the one not feeling well. How do you feel?

Me: I feel like I'm disappearing.

THOSE INTERVIEWS WERE TERRIBLE.

THIS POST IS NOW ABOUT BILL COSBY & FRACTALS

Time again for more pictures. Gather 'round, children. Here is a photoshop I made a while back for something awful. You no doubt figured that out based on the nice something awful tag on the bottom. This may have been posted already. If this picture is a repeat send me a message and I'll hopefully put up something that hasn't been seen yet.

This picture was interesting, because at the time Google's image search was only coming up with small & shitty pictures of our friend, Max Headroom. There was one picture of good old max that was of decent quality and size, but unfortunately the image was in grayscale. This means I had to color the damn thing myself. It's not perfect, but I feel I did a decent enough job.

Alright, time to post a picture. I haven't posted a picture in over a week. Here's a photoshop I did for someone, a college student somewhere out East. All these people live out in the Eastern end of the U.S. I never get requests from anyone I know. The girl is interesting. She likes to make things out of balloons. Not just the regular balloon animal, but she makes clothing out of balloons. Once she even made a Marge Simpson costume out of nothing but yellow paint for her skin, green balloons for the dress and lots of blue balloons for the hair. Did I say interesting, I meant to say was, "what an odd duck."

All I got in my email box was a picture of a girl with the caption "spill my guts." She was holding a knife in her hand and standing in front of a wall in her dorm room. Seeing as how I was lazy and didn't want to clone stamp off her tank top for a full texture lazyer, the decision to leave it on was not a difficult one to make.

I had some scans from Anatomica Encylcopedia of pictures that depicted a wax sculpture of a fetus still in the womb. So hey... why not?

**click on picture for full size**

As far as my pictures go, I always have one or two little details that are worthy of being proud of. For me, the best part of this image is the blood detail on her left hand (No, not the hand holding the knife. I said HER left hand).

FUCK THAT NOISE

As some of you probably know, I did not go to Sedona on Saturday. The weather report showed an 80% chance of rain with low temperatures at 30 degrees. So that's a big NO. As far as the score goes between me and Sedona it is as follows.

Me: 1 Sedona: 1

We're even now. Another battle will come, but much later from now. I decided to spend the day implementing a new operation. Operation: Rejoin the Human Race. More on that in future posts, all you need to know is that the operation has begun.

BACK TO SEDONA

That's right boy's and girls. Tomorrow I return to Sedona for another fun camping trip of freezing cold rain, cooky inner dialogues, and snooty cafe's. Instead of 4 of us, pretty much the whole gang will be there minus one or two people. This time I'm going to be EXTRA prepared and I'll be taking with me a nice homebaked loaf of delicious multi-grain bread. Unfortunately it would seem that there will be plenty of rain for Saturday and Sunday. Anyone reading this who's going should really think about getting a tarp, plastic bags, and a little shovel to help dig a trench around the camp site. Ahh... weather forecasts. Forecasting the weather is a lot like playing poker, except mother nature deals you a new hand every fifteen minutes.

Do not doubt that there will be plenty of funny stories to read about for the next week. Also, about 4 bottles of the potion,"blue life" has been acquired for the lovely Cecilia. They will be sent out on monday.

Your days are numbered my little list.

Time to re-evaluate some goals.

1. Build web server with John


2. Create new lay out for blog and other blogs


3. Create post about the wonders of drinking black lemonade (under construction as I type this all out)


4. Create MAME box of own design.


5. Learn to how cook Agedashi Tofu for a pot luck


6. Sit in and use Dan McCleary's fabled computer chair


7. Defeat "Ghosts and Goblins" on the NES.


8. Finish and perfect my upcomming zombie tribute to DeChirico


9. Rewatch all the good movies from the past 2 years with Sara when she returns.


10. Study for and pass the GMAT with flying colors


11. Obtain MCSE certification


12. Get a job.


13. Go hiking in Havasupai


14. Go back to school

The items placed in bold are about to get scratched out. After studying vigorously for the past month, I think I'm ready to kick the snot out of the GMAT. Additionally I'm almost done redesigning or retooling a lot of the blogs. They barely look any different but the code is much cleaner.

Hey all, you might notice a few changes around here. The layout looks the same but the code is tons cleaner and the site no longer loads like shit.

HOORAY!

ADDICTED TO LOVE

I found this fun little article from the Economist off a link from slashdot.

http://www.economist.com/printedition/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=2424049

This paragraph provided me with the most amusement.

• The results were surprising. For a start, a relatively small area of the human brain is active in love, compared with that involved in, say, ordinary friendship. "It is fascinating to reflect", the pair conclude, "that the face that launched a thousand ships should have done so through such a limited expanse of cortex." The second surprise was that the brain areas active in love are different from the areas activated in other emotional states, such as fear and anger. Parts of the brain that are love-bitten include the one responsible for gut feelings, and the ones which generate the euphoria induced by drugs such as cocaine. So the brains of people deeply in love do not look like those of people experiencing strong emotions, but instead like those of people snorting coke. Love, in other words, uses the neural mechanisms that are activated during the process of addiction. "We are literally addicted to love," Dr Young observes. Like the prairie voles.

No wonder my nose bleeds whenever I watch a romantic comedy.

So who's going to be the first to sell "love morphine: to get over a break up or just feel like you're in love"?

Spending most of the day in the Hayden Library. Gonna learn me some new webdesign techniques. I managed to redesign JOEY'S SITE so it's not a total eye sore like it was before. I meant to make a huge Singles Awareness Day update for Chimera Eyes, but since I'm not home it's going to be a while before that goes up.

The hike was nice, and for the first time in 8 years I got to be on top of South Mountain. I see a lot of people making Valentine's Day style posts for their blogs. Some silly, some profound, some just poems stolen from someone else. Me, I'm not a poet and in fact I'm a bit of an uncharismatic bore. It seems that even the most profound statements out there about love can be broken down to these simple statements.

"Love is nice. I love someone very much. When they love me back, it makes me happy."

Add to that some descriptions about how an organ designed to pump blood is the source of all emotion. Balderdash! Everyone knows that true love can only come from the liver!

I've been alone every year on Valentine's Day for my entire life. This year is no different. ;) For a long time now I've been told "You'll find someone! I can't imagine someone like you being lonely for all this time!" Seems like I manage to prove them all wrong each and every year.

Rather than dwell on this fact, I'd rather spend the day conditioning my mind and my body. Despite losing tons of weight off my body, I'm still very out of shape. My mind has grown stale over the past few weeks. The mind needs to keep fresh with new ideas and challenges.

NOW IT'S TIME FOR AN APOLOGY

I'd like to take this time to formally apologize for posting a really nasty animated picture on Monday. Despite having complete control over the content of this site, I should consider those who read this page more than I have. I apologize to anyone I have offended. I promise you all that you will no longer see any animated images of women getting their eyeballs sliced open with razor blades, men cutting off their own tongues with a wakazashi, or anything remotely similar. If I do post such content, it will be linked and prefaced with a warning. Once again, I'm very sorry if I offended anyone. What I did was out of poor taste and that's why I replaced the image with one of Batman beating the living hell out of a shark eating his leg.

A MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE

Stranded in home.

No place for me to be and no place for me to go.

Please send help.

-D

Yes, you will need a magnifying glass for this.

Some of you may have learned that I have really tiny hand writing. For those of you who have only been exposed to my handwriting from letters I've written, then this will be a bit of a surprise for you. When I write letters, I purposefully write much larger than my normal handwriting so the reader of the letter can in fact actualy read the letter. Normally, I tend to write small enough to fit 3 lines of text per college rule. How did this come to be?

Around my sophomore year of college I began to be obsessed with fitting thing into boxes and other rectangular spaces. I was just getting into web-design and that should give anyone an understanding of how to fit things within boxes. When I take notes from a class, I usually take them verbatim from what the professor is saying. Doing this, I began to pick up speed in my writing... and as speed increased I found the need to write smaller so as to match that speed. The smaller the writing, the less amount of time it takes to write out a word. It got to the point where I was fitting 2 lines of text into each college rule, and by the end of my education at the University of Arizona it was 3 lines of text. Of course this is only possible with a REALLY fine tipped pen. The Pentel P-500 is my pen of choice.

You've read enough, now you get to see some samples. One is from an Introduction to Post-Modern Art class and the other is from an Introduction to Politics course. All 100 level courses that I had to cram in my schedule for my last semester just to graduate.

   

WORST PHOTOSHOP EVER

In response to Joey's posts in CHIMERA EYES and THIS THREAD on the discussion board, I made this image.

You'll have to click on those links above to find out why Robocop, a severed leg, and a veloci-raptor are on the poster of the movie adaptation of Bridget Jone's Diary (For the record, I have not read the book or seen the movie). The image is without a doubt one of the worst photoshops I've ever bothered to make. Of course it doesn't make any sense and took me less than a few minutes to make, but still... I usually do better work than this. Well at least it isn't as bad as my flagarantly bad Sadam Hussein in Super Mario Sunshine photoshop, but that wont be posted until another time, or never at all.

Just to let everyone know I'll be unavailable today as I'm working on too many projects at once. I'll most likely be stuck at borders reading the on CSS books I've been able to find in this blasted town.

But first...

a little administrative update.

As you might have noticed there's been a few little changes to the site. My goal now is to re design all the bloggs to be far less image intensive than what you're used to. It might make them bland, but until I can find good, cheap image hosting we're going to have to put up with some bland designs for a while. I can't stand seeing the nav images cutting in and out because mywebpage.netscape.com seems to be turning to shit. Plus, all my recent webdesign projects have to be put on hold until decent hosting can be found. If my friends and my own adventures on the world wide web are to continue either that web server needs to be built or I have to shell out cash for hosting.

Understanding Comcis. One would think that spending more than half a lifetime reading comics would provide me with everything I needed to know about Comic Books and the inner workings of sequential art. It is possible to know how something works on an abstract level for many years, but it is seemingly more difficult to comprehend the delicate mechanics of art and the philosophies that created them. Back in 1994 a comic book artist named SCOTT MCCLOUD wrote and illustrated UNDERSTANDING COMICS. A 215-page comic book about comics that explains the inner workings of the medium and examines many aspects of visual communication along the way. In short, he uses the structure of a comic book to explain the hidden language and mechanics of comic books themselves. The whole thing is quite brilliant and a damn good read for anyone who has 2-3 hours to kill. Over time you get a feeling for McCloud's voice as you read the book and view the images in proper sequence.

McCould's Website, as linked above, is something I think all you readers out there should check out. Not only does it provide you with a number of interesting webcomics like Zot!, but in McCloud's "I Can't Stop Thinking" section, he (using comic art of course) goes into depth about his feelings towards media industries and the rights of consumers. Just take a look at this lilttle WEB COMIC about the late great file sharing program that was Napster (not to be mistaken for Napster's new bastardized form as seen today). It's nice to see someone so enthusiastic about the rights of creators and consumers as McCloud seeks to find ways to deliver creative media directly to consumers without the need for an over-bloated industry hell bent on out-dated distribution methods.

The web comics themselves may seem like they're of crude quality, but McCloud is trying to maximize readership by allowing images to load as fast as possible. The images themselves are simple small sized .gifs. The effect is quite staggering as each webcomic is only one page (single html document) in size. McCloud understands that the "online canvas" is vertical and not horizontal. People naturally follow along single page content by scrolling upwards and downwards. Ther eis no need for multiple pages and navigation, just make one large page with many images stored vertically. Having them be optimized at such small sizes allows each page to load incredibly fast.

I like the way this man thinks. I definately recommend taking a look through his site as well as reading both UNDERSTANDING COMICS and REINVENTING COMICS. Of course you can also check out his trade paper back for the NEW ADVENTURES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN Yeah, that one doesn't make much sense to me either.

THE BEST BATMAN EVER

Man, you post one animated picture of a guy cutting off his tongue and everyone gets all pissy. Anyway, the Adam West Batman was the best on-screen Batman of all time. As you can clearly see, Mr. West obtained this status by beating up a shark that was chewing on his leg. Did Keaton, Kilmer, or Clooney fight a shark in their on-screen performances as Batman? No. Were they ever armed with a humongous can of Bat-Shark Repellant from their utility belts? No, but Adam West's Batman sure as hell did.

HOLY SHIT THAT'S COLD

My adventures as a polar bear.

Last nite I participated in Mr. Roland's annual "Midnite Swim." Having missed this event for the past few years I felt obligated to make an appearance this year. The concept of the event is easy to grasp. All anyone needs to do is follow these 3 steps.

1. Jump in boiling hot spa and heat up.
   
2. Jump in freezing cold pool.
   
3. Jump out of pool and back into spa.
   

The effect on the body this creates is very interesting. The reaction to the cold is one of complete shock. The first instinct is to GET THE FUCK OUT of the pool and back into the spa as quickly as possible. When the body goes back into the boiling hot spa there's a bit of a delayed reaction. The body goes numb, and in about 15-20 second later the stinging pain of the hot water starts to penetrate the skin. Imagine the feeling of hundreds of red hot sewing needles driving themselvs deep within the muscles. That's what a real rugged fellow would say is a "good kind of hurt," and it is.

For this particular event, it was Brandon, Brian, Joey, John, and myself. Brandon was the first to go into the pool after heating up in the spa. He just sat up on the edge and said the Eric Cartman catchphrase of "Screw you guys, I'm going home." Like a scuba diver, he just flopped backwards into the icy death that was the pool. Immediately after being submerged into the water, Brandon flies back into the spa as if some viscious sea monster decided to throw him away. I'm somewhat reminded of when R2-D2 was spit out of that swamp monster in Degobah.

The problem here was that I wanted to go first and be the big man. Brandon took that from me, so naturally I had to go next. Without any grace at all I jumped in the pool. The deadly cold took a hold of me and I shook violently. Knowing that I couldn't complete this task without dunking my head, I shoved my head underneath the water and whipped it back as fast as possible. Scurrying back into the spa, I was more than happy to have the feeling of red hot needles piercing my muscles. Everyone in the pool could not stop laughing. Apparently my violent shaking while in the pool made them all think I was being eaten by an invisible shark.

John and Brian were next, they're reactions were no less comical but they weren't as memorable. Joey ended up being last and at this time we were giving each other challenges. Brandon wanted to do laps and Joey was given a special task. He had to jump in the pool, swim out to the steps, get out of the pool and walk back to the spa without any screaming. I told him that if he were to do this it would be the best acting performance from him that I've ever seen. Of course he couldn't back down from a challenge like that. He jumped in the pool, swam out to the steps, got ouf of the pool, and walked back to the spa. All without any violent shaking or any screaming. I was impressed... of course once in the spa he bawled like a baby. That was alright, he earned it.

Supposedly doing this sort of activity is bad for your health. But hey, I'm still alive and the experience was a lot of fun. I can't wait until next year.

And now...

THE END OF THE WORLD!





"The beam is too large, there is no escape. Jumping is useless."



"This is an unbearable strain as I am doing it as hard as I've ever done it before.

As Jack Burton once said...

"SON OF A BITCH MUST PAY!"

Goddamnit. mywebpage.netscape.com hosting is getting worse every day. I may be mistaken, but I believe that one of my accounts was deleted. This explains all the goddamn broken pictures you see everywhere. This is all just more reason for me to get John on the horn and get started on that web server project again.

I can't upload anything for my current webdesign projects because of this. If any of you out there know of any decent image hosting service that allows remote linking, please let me know.

Ack, I missed a day! Holy shit. Well I've been busy working on a few project. I'll be sure to throw something up here soon. I miss hearing from people in lands far away, so if any of you out there are reading, send an email or two. ;)

NO DISASSEMBLE!

I just made this for SOMETHING AWFUL today. Interestingly enough, half way through making this image I went downstairs and turned on the T.V. The T.V., by the way, is a new Samsung 50" DLP Television. My dad felt that he couldn't make it through his 60's without a high definition television. Well I turned on the T.V. and found myself at channel 730 which is HBO HD. BEHOLD! HBO was playing Short Circuit! Yes, this is what I have for amusement these days. At least watching Short Circuit in 720p turned out to be a wonderful experience. Enjoy the image.

A REPLICANT'S TALE

Or how to use screen captures and the dry brush filter to make something cool!

It is no secret to anyone who knows me that the movie "Blade Runner" (director's cut) is one of my favorites. A few months ago there was a contest on Something Awful. The goal was to mimic the cut scenes from the video game Max Payne using whatever picture you can find. In this game, the cut scenes are all regular photographs arranged in comic book style panels. The photographs are subjected to the "dry brush" filtering process in Photoshop. The process is simple, duplicate the original layer, apply the dry brush filter, and then reduce the opacity of the filtered layer.

All the other entries for the contest were quite hilarious. Someone made a comic sequence from screen caps of the 1960's Batman movie. The scene in question is when the Adam West Batman is running around carrying an over-sized spherical bomb and having difficulties trying to get rid of it because of all the people in the way. Add comic panels, hard-boiled style narration, and you have instant comedy. When it came time for me to step up to the plate, I decided to do something a little different.

Upon entering this contest, I had just watched Blade Runner for the umpteenth time. This movie always fascinated me, not because of the awesome special effects, or the interesting concept of a race of artificial being, but because of the character, Roy Batty. Roy is the leader of a group of Nexus 6 replicants who escaped from their assigned posts and have illegally traveled to Earth.

The thing to note about Roy Batty, and the replicants that he leads, is that they are not villains. The society of the future treats them as such, but the replicants are living human beings with the unfortunate flaw of being artificial. In addition to that flaw, replicants have a shortened life span of 6 years as a way to control them. Roy and his group of replicants are at the end of their life spans. The replicants come to Earth and try to infiltrate the company that created them in hopes to find a way to prevent their own premature deaths. The Nexus 6 replicants are fighting for survival.

But now onto my entry. Keep in mind that if you haven't seen the movie, this will certainly spoil it for you. So if you haven't seen the movie, GO AWAY!

I Used the monologue Roy gives right before his life is terminated by the incept date built into his design as the content for the narration panels. The comic panels themselves are all screen caps made from PowerDVD. Once I posted this, I got a lot of praise... but soon I realized that creating humor was the purpose of the contest. Apparently I made this particular piece a little too artsy. Oh well, take a look for yourself.

**click on image to view full size**

**click on image to view full size**