Slightly Angry

Oh, uh

2009-02-02T08:11:00.000-08:00

Right, forgot this was here. Lots of stuff has happened since last ... July or thereabouts, none of which was particularly interesting or worth mentioning to the six-ish people that still read this, so I'm going to be breaking things over the next few days. If images and projects start disappearing, they aren't gone. They're moving.

Side note: irony

2008-07-26T18:09:00.000-07:00

I also realize there's a certain irony in writing about drawing and wanting to draw, but not actually drawing anything.

Seems like it'd be a good time to start speaking with lines and shapes instead of words, I'd say.

WHERE ARE YOU

2008-07-26T17:25:00.000-07:00

Same place I've always been.

Well, not entirely --- I'm about forty miles away from where I used to be. Metaphorically, I'm still working the same routine: I fix computers, I go home. The difference now is I still haven't found a decent liquor place at which to obtain beer, and I'm sleeping better because my commute is a half hour shorter than before.

Small steps.

Routine is a strange thing. Dull as life was, there was a certain comfort in being able to plan my week with three bullets:

Work x5.

Sleep in, play video game.

Laundry.

Comfort, however, it a terrible thing for someone looking to change careers. It's also tough to deny the marketability and financial stability of a tech monkey --- I could be drawing, I could be publishing, I could be printing. Why would I do any of those if I'm making decent money doing something that is fairly easy and only mildly annoying?

"Because it's not what you want," you say. And you're right. It's not entirely what I want. Ask me how many entry-level jobs are available for an aspiring pen-pusher in New Jersey.

That's right. I have no idea, because when I looked around two weeks ago there were three. As I recall, one didn't involve drawing, one was only about selling other people's drawings, and the last not only lacked drawing, but revolved entirely around telling other people in another country what to draw.

In all three instances, I would not touch a pencil. I would not touch a pen. I wouldn't touch a Wacom tablet, I wouldn't touch Illustrator or Photoshop --- which makes sense since they are software and have no physical manifestation to touch, save their packaging which would only be held while transferring the software to someone else entirely.

And that's where things stand. I lack opportunity and I lack connections. There isn't a door to put my foot in, and I'm strangely okay with it.

For now, at least.

Move like you've got a purpose

2008-05-26T17:07:00.000-07:00

I really shouldn't kid myself: I am, I will be, and I always have been an illustrator type of guy. I've done next to nothing with design and love things like ink and Speedball pens a little too much. That poses a problem, however. Illustration isn't entirely marketable. Design is in high demand, because if you can design, you can make websites. You can make commercial packaging. You can make T-shirts. What can you do if you draw really, really well?

Go into comics, I suppose. But where the hell do I start? I've already got my own personal projects, if I ever actually upload anything. I tried searching on Monster and CareerBuilder for anything in the way of traditional art, illustration, understudy ... ing -- anything. You know what I got? Results for telemarketing, sales and tech support.

Whoopdee-fucking-doo.

I suppose this blog now has purpose: it will follow the efforts of an aspiring dude with a pen as he tries to break into the industry. He has no formal art degree, he has no guidance, he has no presence, he has no clue. He has a portfolio which needs updating. He has talent. He has an ego. He has a degree in a field that is only barely related to what he wants out of life.

He doesn't have much else, but damn if that will stop him.

Keep an eye on the main website. Things will change. Whether they're for the better is anybody's guess, but things will change. I've got nothing to do otherwise.

Once again: not dead

2008-05-18T09:42:00.001-07:00

I am, however, graduated. Officially. I'm also employed. About a month after I last put something here, I was hired at a local company as a tech support monkey – the official title is something like "MIS administrator." If there is one thing that the last few months have taught me, it's that tech support is like a game of hackey sack that never ends; you just keep the ball in the air until someone or something comes around and punches you in the face.

I knew that. I'd worked in tech support for the entirety of my college career. When I graduated in December, I swore to myself I wouldn't work the field again.

After a month and a half of unemployment, I really didn't care where I worked.

Now that I'm not broke, bored, and starving, my standards have returned. The problem here is that I've got no vacation days with which to job hunt, nor do I have the documented professional experience required to break into the writing arena. Illustrators aren't in high demand, as far as I know.

Or are they?

And speaking of movies

2008-01-13T19:53:00.000-08:00

How does a film named "Love in the Time of Cholera" get released as a genuine, earnest romantic film?

How does that happen?

I suppose I should be asking how a novel gets released with that name, first of all, but come on. Really? I'm not sure cholera is something most people would reminisce about, let alone associate with romance.

Unless that was their thing.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

What's French for "holy crap"?

2008-01-13T19:37:00.001-08:00

Persepolis out of nowhere. I loved the graphic novels but never thought they'd end up animated.

House fever

2008-01-12T19:22:00.000-08:00

Because it's not really cabin fever unless I'm living in a cabin, is it? Or on a ship. I don't remember how that phrase came about.

Break time is over as far as I'm concerned. I did manage to revive my desktop, though I'm not sure how, but I'm poor as all get-out and jobs in my desired field are incredibly sparse. There are two options around here:

1. Work in marketing.
2. Commute four hours a day. Both ways.

Neither seems appealing. Ironic that my skills in information technology are probably my most profitable trait, since I've about had it with tech support and fixing things that enjoy breaking for no reason. I have to admit, however, that worrying about where I'll be working is strangely satisfying -- certainly more satisfying than worrying about papers and grades. It feels more ... immediate. Concrete.

Like "I need to pay my bills or the insurance company will laugh when I get sick" concrete.

Well, while I'm waiting for potential employer responses and twiddling my thumbs, I should probably do something with my website. It's not like I have much else to do.

Spare parts

2007-12-30T17:10:00.001-08:00

Well, after some four or five years of service, my one Windows desktop finally bit the big one. The problem with abstaining from incremental upgrades is what happens when something like a motherboard fails spectacularly: you have to replace everything. New motherboard, new memory, new CPU, new drives ...

Looks like there won't be any PC gaming for the better part of 2008. At least, nothing beyond Quake II. Keep on keeping on, dear Mini, for you're my last hope.

Now I've got a 9800 PRO and hard drives without a machine to put them in.

I'm a graduate.

2007-12-22T10:35:00.000-08:00

Huh.

Naturally, this means I have free time once again, and my work can -- at least in theory -- be easily separated from my personal life. It's sort of nice.

It also means I can finally stop making horrendous over-estimates as to how much time I have to do things, such as update the damned website or write up a few stories. Here's hoping 2008 will be more productive.

Also! I haven't forgotten about a4e. Not entirely, anyway. I just ended up getting a Mac a few months ago, and with the bevy of writing tools available for the platform, had no practical need to continue development. I might resume work on it as a pet project, assuming somebody else hasn't already picked up where I left off. If somebody has: kudos! Let me know what's been done. I'm interested to see.

a4e

2007-08-21T14:18:00.000-07:00

Since the whole *room editor thing is sort of a niche market on Linux -- well, anywhere -- I spent a long time looking for a proper penguin solution. I couldn't find anything that fit the bill, so I went to the Ubuntu forums and saw someone had posted some source code not a few days after I gave up.

With aedit in mind and Leafpad's source code in Ubuntu's repositories, I went to work.

Several days later, this was the result:

Download the source code here.

It's a heavily modified version of Leafpad. Nearly all the features are the same, though basic; open, save, search/replace, and modifying the font are all Leafpad. I added in the fullscreen mode, removed the menu bar, added the ability to change the text/background colors, prettied up the automatic text formatting for legibility, and a few other things.

So there you have it: Writeroom on Linux. Kind of.

Many thanks to Dicesquirrel and Arek (?) the Absolute for their work on aedit, and especially Tarot Osuji for the exceedingly speedy Leafpad.

Stealthy Edit

I got anxious and made a bunch more tweaks to the program. I think it looks pretty good.

Holy yes, Batman!

2007-07-20T12:04:00.000-07:00

Q10 Fullscreen Text Editor

It's Writeroom for Windows. Now, sure, there have been other programs such as Darkroom that seek to emulate it, but Q10 apparently doesn't use the .NET framework --- and as such, is insanely fast and lightweight.

-- Oh, right. The stories. Well, plans fall through.

Keep your eyes peeled anyway.

Two weeks give or take

2007-06-01T09:10:00.000-07:00

As you can tell, the update is taking a damn long time. Awhoops.

I need to find another way to say "deja vu"

2007-04-25T05:40:00.000-07:00

If it isn't a comic strip per se, is it still a web comic?

I've mumbled before about moving to a different format --- specifically ergodic literature --- and have proceeded to do so. Naturally, I haven't posted anything online.

Last night I decided it was time to throw caution to the wind. Up until now I've told myself I would never upload anything until I was satisfied with how it looked or read, but that's a death sentence for a perfectionist: nothing was ever perfect, and so nothing was ever good enough for publishing. I'm surprised it took me so long to realize the stupidity of perfectionism versus self-imposed deadlines.

My new goal is to upload at least one page a day, if not more: even if I have only filler to upload, it will be posted. If I wrote a page for an entirely unrelated story, it will be posted. If I think it's mediocre, I'll post it anyway and revise it later because technology is awesome. The point here is to keep content flowing. It might end up a little disjointed, but that's why I've also decided to rework my website to better organize things for your browsing convenience.

Also, I need to justify my purchase of PagePlus X2.

The plan will go into effect within the next two weeks, depending on how intense finals get this semester.

Props to the animator

2007-04-19T04:46:00.000-07:00

... at least until the video takes a turn for the fan fictitious.

No words here

2007-04-17T05:31:00.000-07:00

I suppose the snow yesterday morning was sort of an omen. By the time I woke up, somebody at Virginia Tech had begun killing people. When he finally offed himself over 30 people had died --- mostly random victims chosen for their convenience.

Naturally, Jack Thompson and Fred Phelps are all over this. One blames games, the other blames the victims and gay people. These men should know better than to capitalize on tragedy, but what can be said? One is a terrible lawyer, one is an extreme fundamentalist, and both are batshit insane.

Thirty-three people dead, two dingbats drumming up media attention, no justice served. Everything will be forgotten by summer.

So hey, how 'bout that war?

For those of you sexually attracted to electronics

2007-03-21T11:40:00.000-07:00

Apparently, Calvin Klein is releasing a fragrance called "in2u," wherein no capitalization is necessary. If I'm reading this correctly, it's the first scent designed specifically for people who boink their computers.

Or something.

I would like to take this opportunity to say bloggers are, in general, not very sexy. I'm also fairly certain most are more likely to engage in coitus with fellow human beings, or at least depictions thereof. I do not see a market.

I do, however, wonder what it could possibly smell like.

Oh

2007-03-09T18:14:00.000-08:00

hell.

Also

2007-02-09T20:11:00.001-08:00

Anna Nicole Smith is dead. Huh.

Boston, in Stark Contrast

2007-02-09T20:09:00.000-08:00

I had learned that after the Boston Mooninite debacle, the head of Cartoon Network resigned. At first, I was outraged. The entire thing could only be described as idiotic, and to have someone so high up in the heirarchy be forced into resignation --- honestly, Boston, what?

And then I realized who the man was.

He was the one that canned Samurai Jack. He was the man that pushed Cartoon Network towards live action (confusing), implemented more commercial breaks (obnoxious), and placed emphasis on such quality programming as Tom Goes to the Mayor (fork to the eye).

Boston wasn't being hypersensitive. This was not stupidity.

This was justice.

We owe you an apology, Boston. Like the misunderstood antihero of noir, you have acted without letting anyone else in on the game, and you've taken flak for it.

Laryngitis! Also, Mall Ninja

2007-02-03T07:39:00.000-08:00

Faculty and students alike are dropping like flies thanks to a wave of laryngitis --- which sounds sort of nasty, now that I've typed it. A figurative wave. There we go. Either way, seems I've been affected too; for the time being, there'll be no booze, no smoke, and no wandering outside for me. I've run out of things to do. Heck, even assignments are few and far between. Strange as it sounds, I miss having tons of crap to write.

And that's where I turn to the Internet for my entertainment.

Go, go, Mall Ninja. Read on and be amazed as Gecko45 et al defend truth, justice, shoppers, and the Mayor's nephew's virginity.

Retro-retrograde

2006-12-28T12:50:00.000-08:00

I said I wanted an old typewriter, and lo, I did get one:

And I didn't even have to kill anybody. I won it on eBay earlier this month, but through a payment goof on my part the shipment was delayed for a good week and a half. Finals passed, Christmas passed, and then the typewriter appeared on the 26th in all its antique-smelling, dead-insects-and-old-machine-grease glory.

I spent most of yesterday cleaning the gunk off of it and trying my best to mend the carrying case, which you can see in the background on the left. Huzzah for duct tape! Also, the ink ribbon there is a universal one from Dataproducts. I chose poorly. Why? The corrective strip (the white part of the ribbon), unlike typical ink, is a dry powder --- as I wound the ribbon onto the spools and through the bars, Liquid Paper flaked off and flew everywhere. I learned from my mistake and bought a two-pack of red/black ink ribbons.

That modern ribbons still fit a typewriter made almost 100 years ago is a testament to standardization. My inner historian is pleased.

It types fine, too. Some of the grease seems to be making the gears slip or stick every once and again, so I'll have to get to a paint shop or auto place for some solvent and oil.

At any rate, all I need now is a bucket hat and a copious amount of drugs, and then I can start shouting about bat country.

And hey, for those of you who also end up stumbling over a poor, neglected piece of writing history, you might find this to be interesting. I know I did.

One might call it ... alarming?

2006-12-09T05:09:00.000-08:00

(Rimshot.)

It's a situation I certainly never considered --- in the summer, it was common to see brownouts as everyone in the neighborhood turned their air conditioning on to full blast, overloading the power grid.

Winter has finally caught up with us, and the temperatures have dropped rapidly. People have responded accordingly by turning their heat as high as comfortably possible. The power grid once again seems to be suffering, and that suffering is manifested in the anguished cries of every smoke alarm in my house.

Some are without batteries. When the power dips low enough for them to notice, they freak out --- the trouble is, the dips are so minuscule that the other appliances in the house don't even flinch. When the alarms first went off at 05'44 this morning, I assumed there was a power outage. I sat up and fumbled for my industrial hearing protection earphones (a very, very, useful holdover from a previous noise problem), then proceeded to stumble deafly in the dark as I sought my glasses.

I noticed a faint red glow on the floor.

My alarm clock was on, hence there was still power flowing through the house. I went back to sleep, confused. The heat came on ten minutes later.

Two minutes later, the alarm went off again.

Within the next hour and a half, it went off some eight or nine times, and other alarms in the house began to follow suit. The heat's been coming on every five minutes or so, which I guess gives some idea of how cold it is outside --- or how paranoid our central heat monitor is. Either way, the alarms in the house have been violently ripped from their perches until someone goes and gets a few 9-volt batteries.

It figures that the only batteries I don't have are freaking 9V. Damn rectangles.

WRITER'S CRAMP. AGH.

2006-11-27T19:26:00.000-08:00

I would kill for a typewriter right about now.

"But William!" you say. "You have a freakin' computer! Why not use that?"

Simple: the Internet.

It's true what they say about addicts --- they never realize it until it's too late. I can't go ten minutes without browsing forums or checking to see if anyone is online if I'm anywhere near a net-capable machine. To my right, video games. Behind me, television. Beyond that, a shelf full of novels I bought on impulse and haven't read yet.

There are so. Many. Distractions.

Even better? The Claw --- the result of writing quickly and too hard for a solid three hours. Holding a pen results in pain. Typing, ironically, does not: I am thus given even more reason to go back to the laptop, where Firefox waits with a sly grin and promises of hilarity.

You know what I want right now? One of these.

Hey, how's that for irony?

2006-11-08T17:40:00.000-08:00

It's strange --- after spending months working through a bunch of different story ideas and plotting out illustrations, I realize I have more pictures than words. You know what this means?

Back to comics.

Kind of.

WHY AM I STILL A JUNIOR

2006-10-25T12:28:00.000-07:00

Early registration started today, and I was of course all too ready to register for next semester's classes.

I then found out I'm still technically a junior. This made no sense, as I certainly had enough credits.

Didn't I?

Oh, wait.

I have 89.50 credits. EIGHTY-NINE POINT FIVE.

I AM SHORT OF BEING A SENIOR BY A HALF POINT.

Attention, self from roughly 18 hours ago:

2006-10-25T05:12:00.000-07:00

What are you smoking?

After a good eight hours of rest, I've come back to my senses. Let this be a lesson to all of you: never try to make a decision while half asleep.

Or half drunk. It's kind of the same thing.

I can't keep doing this

2006-10-24T07:15:00.000-07:00

I've been kicking butt as a Journalism major, but I've started to realize I want a degree of creative freedom that not even magazine writing can afford.

Is it too late to become a Writing Arts major?

It was a controversial decision (for me, at least) to go into Communications in my fourth year, but ultimately it was for the better. Now, a semester later, I've discovered that my major is still technically Computer Science --- thanks, Rowan bureaucracy --- and so I've technically done nothing except waste a semester. My time and money are not infinite, and the patience of my family is running out; I can't stay in college much longer.

Man. People do say college is meant to be an exploration of one's self, but clearly they weren't referring to students that work on a budget.

And for something completely different

2006-10-08T08:05:00.000-07:00

Though I generally tend not to watch television and shield myself from advertising whenever possible, I have to give Mad Props to Burger King's advertising department.

Attention, BK advertisers: You are fucking geniuses. If you ever get out of the advertising business, get into comedy. Get into films. Do it. Do it now.

Love-hate relationship

2006-10-06T06:29:00.000-07:00

You know, I've come to realize something --- I am willing to put up with instability if it means there's less hassle with installing new software and hardware. I love Linux to death, and I swear by its unshakable rock foundation, but it doesn't change the fact that nearly every piece of popular hardware out there is meant to work best for or exclusively in Windows. Such is the nature of an almost-but-not-quite monopoly through insane market share, but whatever.

That being said, I've decided to install Windows again, and preferably Win2k so I don't get harassed by the activation crap that XP is subject to. My favorite *nix tools have all been ported to Win32, I am wise in the ways of avoiding the common pitfalls that cause BSODs --- though even I can't help the ones caused by bad software --- and with the ext2/3 driver now available I don't even have to reformat my /home partition to migrate. The hassle is gone.

I'll miss the ability to modify and compile whatever the hell I want, but I guess it's a sacrifice worth making if it means I can once again be on the bleeding edge of New Technological Stuff.

(I'm looking at you, Adobe-media. Macrodobe. Whatever. You kept promising us Linux freaks an updated version of Flash, and now we've skipped two whole version numbers with nothing to show for it. Ironically, I know why you're having trouble with the port. It's the same reason I'm going back.

STILL. >:| )

What can I say? I've become less patient over the years.

Monetary fugue

2006-10-04T19:35:00.000-07:00

I can't seem to keep cash in my wallet.

It's a strange problem, particularly because I have a job that pays well enough and no pressing expenses, bills, or outstanding debts. I don't struggle to make ends meet. I don't have to scrape together pennies just to get a decent meal during the day. I just can't stop buying things.

Granted, I use the majority of what I purchase --- I am, after all, very utilitarian. But how can I explain buying two tape recorders when I only needed one? How can I justify buying dozens of books a month, knowing full well I can't read them all so quickly? Why do I keep spending money?

Simple: I have to.

We all have to, yes. But I have to. I can't seem to bear the idea of not buying something superfluous once a week. When I'm not buried up to my neck in assignments and research, when I'm not trying to devote myself entirely to whatever game it is I've just purchased, my hand is at my wallet. It's strange, and it's unhealthy, but I have to wonder if it matters. I'm certainly not hurting myself financially. I'm using what I buy --- for the most part, anyway.

It feels hollow, though. The impulse buying isn't out of genuine necessity. Honestly, I think it's to distract myself from something.

Perhaps I've finally become materialistic without realizing it. Buying crap is all that makes me feel good anymore. I'm too tired to write or paint, I've got no girlfriend, my schedule is all askew and out-of-sync with those of my friends --- what do I have left?

Things.

I get tired just thinking about it.

WHERE IS WILLIAM

2006-10-03T19:38:00.000-07:00

William is punching himself in the face for letting his schedule get the better of him. I'll get back to writing my own stories when I stop having insane deadlines to keep up with.

Also, you know what's awesome? LaTeX. I know I've ranted about it in the past, but I finally put it through its printing paces --- alliteration aside, it really is freaking beautiful. I have always been a text geek. I have always loved written language. I have to say, LaTeX makes English look pretty, and if there has been any driving force behind my desire to publish a novel somehow it's the printed report that I submitted this morning in all its 12-point, Times-ish, paginated glory.

Even if it was one of the worst things I'd ever written.

LaTeX is that gorgeous.

So yeah, if anybody still gives a flying rat about what I'm doing with Andaari West and the others, it's true: I still want to put the stories online. I want to write interesting stories, and I want to render them in prettified glyphs for all to download.

Also, pictures. But those were a given.

Beginning of the end

2006-09-04T07:32:00.000-07:00

Summer is over, college approaches its final stretch, and just as I'm starting to get grimly existential:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/5311298.stm

This does not bode well. This does not bode well at all. Godspeed, Steve Irwin; may your poking stick be true as you aggravate wildlife in the great beyond.

Even after uninstallation, Windows is still a dick

2006-08-22T06:41:00.000-07:00

Insert Microsoft pun here.

It's been a long time since I've had to contend with Windows problems --- I've been using Linux for maybe three years now. My brother has also not had any problems, as he's been using an old G4 Mac tower I got from work; OS X has been good to him. My parents are not so lucky. Neither of them have the time or desire to futz with Linux, and aren't too keen on repurchasing the office software they require to work with their peers at their respective jobs. The Office suite for OS X is not exactly cheap. So, they've stuck with Windows.

And then Windows broke.

Malware of any kind is not exactly a unique occurrence on a Windows installation; it's something we have come to expect. But this wasn't malware: no, it was a security patch, courtesy of Windows Automatic Update. Two days ago, two of the Windows-based laptops ceased to work. Perhaps that's not entirely accurate; they DID work, but not quite. Networks were visible, but neither of the laptops could connect to any of them --- even the ones with no access key.

The third Windows laptop was lucky. The next day, its networking cards were still fully functional. My parents got their work done without a hitch and shut the computer down at the end of the day.

Uh oh.

Upon booting it back up in the morning, it couldn't connect to any network either. Whatever was in those updates had successfully broken all three laptops in a way I couldn't diagnose, because no errors were cropping up and nothing had changed to indicate a misconfiguration. I saw that the Add/Remove Software panel thing listed updates by their date of installation, so I removed everything from the previous two days in hopes that the problem would be fixed.

No dice. Their network cards are still blind. Way to go, Microsoft. Your XBox division may be a godsend, but your OS division remains a boil on the hairy underside of software design.

You cannot have Emo without EEEEEEEEEEEEEE

2006-08-21T06:21:00.000-07:00

I'd never imagined that pop music would turn towards vocalists that sound as if they have severe nasal impairment. It's "time," not "toiiime." It's "I," not "oooiiii." STOP STICKING IIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEE INTO EVERYTHING.

He is probably not lying

2006-07-23T12:07:00.000-07:00

The funny thing about openly admitting that you suck at a game is how nobody ever believes you. When someone says he's terrible, he is heard to say, "I am being modest." Such is not my case. I am constantly faced with a pressing question: if I am guaranteed to lose, should I play? It certainly doesn't stop me from picking up a controller, but damn if my teammates don't suffer for it. I do enjoy playing with people. Really. But when I say, "I will make you lose, and not by choice," it is not self-deprecating modesty --- it is a warning. When I tell you that I suck, take it as this: I am the plastic bag that suffocates your baby. The CAUTION! signs are there for a reason.

(Occam's) Razor Thin

2006-07-22T10:47:00.000-07:00

Also, after consistently tweaking and modifying the concept behind MoPED, I realized I was just making a menuless version of GNU nano. Rather than put my ideas into code, I just spent a few minutes making some tweaks to nano's source code. The result: thin nano, based off of the nano version found in Ubuntu Dapper's repository. I made the window stay 80 characters wide and center itself when the containing terminal is bigger. Oh, and the title bar text is bold now. That's all. The binary is already in the src/ directory.

Inquiring minds want to know

2006-07-22T10:41:00.000-07:00

Exactly what sort of video games is this man playing?

Writer's Blockade and Small Motorcycles

2006-07-17T17:34:00.000-07:00

PED, meet your angrier cousin, MoPED. After finally sitting down and working the rust out of my progra-matic skills, I hammered out a revision of the Page-based EDitor and dubbed it MoPED --- the Modified Page-based EDitor. Also acceptable: Mostly Page-based EDitor, and MasOchistic Page-based EDitor. And unlike its predecessor, MoPED actually works to some reliable degree! Download the binary, make sure you've got nCurses installed, and go nuts. It still works like a typewriter, but the big difference is it doesn't require paginated files. Either way I still wouldn't recommend using it as a primary text editor.

So, moving along: I take it back. Rowan didn't completely destroy my ability to write viable code, it just kicked my skillset in the gonads. 'S alright, though. He's getting better.

Also, as I'm nearing the final draft of the first Andaari West story, I have to consider what formats it's going to be released in. I'm a huge fan of LaTeX (rrowr?), kinky puns aside, and there just so happens to be a shit-ton of utilities that export the compiled .dvi files into things like PostScript, Adobe's PDF, HTML, XML, et cetera. I'm thinking PDF and collections of PNGs, since there ARE illustrations. I guess it just depends on whether anybody would actually go so far as to want eBook-ready versions of these books.

--- Eh, I'll figure it out.

Un-ped.

2006-07-10T18:18:00.000-07:00

Or not.

After messing with pointers and references and inexplicable problems for a good chunk of the day, I came to realize that my C++ knowledge had all but wasted away. Spending a year immersed in the safe, dumbed-down world of Java had nerfed me. It had turned my garbage-collecting, optimizing, memory-leak-finding programmer's mind into a Learn Java in 21 Weeks pile of easy-to-comprehend mush. I don't deny the power of Java. I do think that it's sort of fun to code in. I simply miss being able to throw down a miniscule executable that would run at blinding speed with no external dependencies.

Fatigue? Perhaps. But I'm begging to fully understand why it was a bad idea for Rowan to switch their CS program to Java. It takes the programming out of being a programmer.

Not that it matters to me now anyway, what with my having become a journalist.

Released from ancient time. TIME.

2006-07-07T19:26:00.000-07:00

So Writeroom has been floating around the internet, its name whispered by excited members of the writing community and internet people at large. I was one of these Internet People. Thing is, I sold my Mac a while ago. I started searching forums for any mention of a Linux port or a clone. I found Darkroom, which was made for Windows and .NET; it would be of no help to me as a hardcore Linux hippie, even with the assistance of WINE.

Dismayed, I began to try and make vim work like it, awkwardly cutting the screen into several panes and going from there. It was, suffice to say, inelegant.

So I decided to write one myself.

I'm calling it the "Page-based EDitor," because that's what it is. It works like a typewriter: you can only add text, the buffer is one page (well, screen), and that's it. There's you, the screen, and the text there on it --- words upon a virtual page stuck in a hypothetical typewriter. I imagine I'll be adding more features as time goes on, but for the most part, that's all there's going to be. It's probably not for most people, but I like it well enough.

And maybe you'll like it too. Who knows?

I'll be posting more feature-heavy versions in the near future. For that binary you'll need the ncurses library, which is available on pretty much every Linux distro in existence. I tested it specifically with Ubuntu Dapper, so you crazy duck fans will have better luck than the rest.

--- Oh. And to get it looking like the screenshot:

1) Run a terminal app with Courier 10 Point font.

2) Make its foreground green and its background black.

3) Make it full-screen.

4) Run ped.

That's all there is to it.

Personal Space

2006-07-04T13:29:00.000-07:00

So as I sat there in front of my notebook, I began to wonder where my own sense of privacy had gone. For almost a year I'd been able to sit at my desk and relish the silence, the isolation --- in moderation, being alone can be a wonderful thing. Compelling, even. I've done my best thinking in absolute silence, apart from external influence and commotion. It's gotten to the point where I need silence, solitude, to concentrate on anything.

And then people get angry or offended when I ask for space.

"Why?" they ask with an injured look. "Don't you like people? Are you antisocial, you freakish mean person?"

"No," I growl. Perhaps I shouldn't growl. I imagine that doesn't help my case. "No," I growl, "that is not what I meant. I simply can't think with you blasting music and watching TV loudly and stomping around the place, which is apparently made with balsa wood and timpani drums."

They close their doors. I sigh, and turn back to my work.

Ten minutes later all doors are open and there is again loud, thumping music shaking the foundations and demanding all attention, all thought. They read websites and laugh as loud as they can in an attempt to gain attention. Out the corner of my eye I see them glancing over at me before each belly-guffaw, wondering why it's not working. I grit my teeth. I put on headphones.

Ten minutes later, someone is angrily tapping my shoulder.

"Why didn't you answer me?" they demand. "Didn't you hear me call you?"

I blink, holding one of the small speakers away from my ear. I quietly wonder if they've noticed the headset that I'm wearing.

"I'm sorry?"

A disgruntled snort. They're satisfied upon seeing how insensitive I am, using headphones when there are other people in the room, the house, the office. How dare I! How dare I attempt to drown out the outside, how dare I turn inward! You know who else turns inward? Serial killers. Perverts. Serial-killer perverts, that's who.

Now, this may sound like an exaggeration, but it really does seem like the line of thought employed by people who refuse to leave others alone. "Only the antisocial or terminally evil would ignore other people!" they say, thumping their chest with a resolute fist. "Who could possibly be opposed to my popular music or droll wit? It is not that I am oblivious to the personal space of other people; it is that they do not see there is no such thing as personal space!"

And I have to wonder: is it at all possible to isolate yourself without appearing to be an antisocial mad scientist in the making? Can I ask for space, for silence, without looking like a prick? Is this really a problem with me?

Answer me that, guy reading over my shoulder.

Yes. You.

Beep, beep.

2006-07-02T10:30:00.000-07:00

China has a death van.

I'm just trying to figure out what sort of tune it plays as it drives around the city picking up the condemned.

But seriously --- a death van? Portable execution chamber? There's something so morbidly funny about the idea of mobile death that it couldn't possibly be true. And then, it is. How are you supposed to react to that? What sort of social atmosphere actually necessitates a lethal injection on wheels, available at one's convenience? What are you doing, China?

Quadruple Whammy?

2006-07-01T15:19:00.000-07:00

It was one of those situations that, really, could never be anticipated -- one joystick, two hours left for overnight shipment, and multiple buyers all happening upon it and placing their order within minutes of eachother.

Or perhaps it wasn't so hard to foresee. Either way, I ordered a joystick off of Amazon on the 28th with overnight shipping, and it never went out; someone else had probably bought it in the thirty seconds it took me to place my order. No big deal, thought I, as I was on that whole Prime trial thing and it only put me out $4 extra. Perhaps it would come in two days instead of one.

No such luck. The 30th came and went, and I was still without a gaming peripheral. I received an email stating that there was a delay in shipping. New estimated day of arrival: July 4. Fair enough, I again thought. Even if I were to ask for my money back, ordering another stick from another store would still arrive no sooner.

Then I looked at my checking account.

I saw that there was significantly less money in my checking account than there should have been. I glanced at the transaction history: Amazon had charged me three times for the joystick I had yet to receive.

With a distressed grimace, I quickly went to their site and looked for anything that would allow me to contact customer support about ridiculous charges. Perhaps I was just stupid, or mostly blind, but it took me a good ten minutes to figure out how to fire them a generic support request. Moreover, it seems their list of anticipated message subjects did not include, "You have charged me far more than you said you did."

I await a response. Hopefully it'll arrive sooner than my unusually expensive joystick.

UPDATE, PLUS ADDITIONAL WHAMMY?

So it turns out the extra charges were due to a technical error --- Amazon made three authorization requests instead of one, and my bank interpreted them all as complete transactions. Wheeee. As I write this, actions are being taken to rectify the problem. Huzzah for speedy service! (Not so much huzzah for multi-company errors.)

Also, Tag

2006-06-22T16:33:00.000-07:00

Perhaps you've seen the Tag commercials -- advertisements which, if taken a little too seriously, could prove offensive to women or militant feminists. Preposterous? I agree. They're all in good fun. But I feel that the commercials are not quite as direct as they should be; as my fellow men might agree, we're sort of dumb. We need it spelled out. Thus, I present an improved commercial:

Scene is variable. A college campus, a city, a park, a high school, a bus stop.

A very attractive woman, exactly the type who would be possessed by the animal magnetism of Tag (c)(r)(tm), walks onto the scene.

Woman: (looks seductive.)

A man walks onto the scene. Exactly the type of man who might buy Tag, unconvinced that his own masculinity is enough to lure throngs of women seeking to mate. He grins a clever grin and produces a can of Tag (c)(r)(tm).

Man: (punches woman in the face for fifteen seconds.)

The announcer cuts in. Display logo.

An.: Tag -- Reaffirm your manhood.

All in good fun.

Chew with Your Mouth Closed

2006-06-22T15:58:00.000-07:00

"Please.

"I know I'm neurotic. I know I notice insignificant details that people might generally miss. But for the love of Christ -- please chew with your mouth closed. Are manners that rare these days? Does etiquette sort of disappear over time, eventually becoming a vague childhood memory?

"Is it that hard to chew silently?

"Crunchy foods I can understand. When something is particularly difficult to bite down upon, all right, I can see how it might prove noisy. But there is no excuse -- no excuse -- to masticate like a cow. I am aware you are at the dinner table. I am aware you are eating. You do not need to remind me or the people around us, the people within earshot.

"No, no, don't get offended. I mean no harm by advising you to hold your breath before you chew. I am aware it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to breathe through your nose. I am not wishing you death by suffociation. I do not want you to choke upon the unchewed. But I would think I and the hundreds, even thousands of other people who can keep our lips sealed while we eat stand as testament to the fact that chewing with tact is not at all difficult.

"Yes, I know you are angry at me. Yes, I am aware I am an uptight prick who wants everyone to be completely perfect and prim and proper. Perhaps, then, I should state it plainly:

"I am disgusted when you chew with your mouth open. Every slurp, every lip-smack, every squish that gurgles forth from your gullet as you mash multicolored mush between your teeth makes my hair stand on end. My opinion of you, meaningless as it is, becomes abysmally low when I can both see and hear the food-slurry move about your cavernous maw. I hear you trying to retort, but fail to understand your words beneath the mashed potatoes. I'm sorry, what? Could you swallow first, please?"

And that's when the hostess told me to leave the restaurant. Rudeness would not be tolerated.

Prone to inaction

2006-06-05T19:48:00.000-07:00

Let it be known that I am an avid gamer, and in spite of Thompson's continued generalizations, I have not shot anyone in the face.

Two rounds to center mass is much cleaner.

*ba-dum PSH.*

Really, does anyone take him seriously these days? Anyone at all? I can't even get mad at him. Perhaps I've matured, or perhaps he's become less of a real-life forum troll, but the insanity he spews forth seems less and less offensive. It's just too nonsensical to strike a nerve. Regardless, many gamers find themselves drawn into the same old argument over game legislation: one side inevitably demands shady laws based on misinformation, the other cries out for their First Amendment rights.

What of the middle ground?

What of the middle ground? Many people would like to make this into a binary issue, but like many things in politics it isn't quite so cut-and-dry. It's not that the Man is trying to shut up the artists of the industry. It's not that all games are murder simulators that train our children to become ball-rolling machinations of catchy green death. The real issue is somewhere in the middle -- or perhaps, nowhere within the Venn diagram created by the sides of the argument.

But it's in our nature to desire an easy answer, or at least something we can point fingers at. If anything, our fingers should be pointed at ourselves. As parents, we have an obligation to know what our child is doing and raise them accordingly. That's not a job for the government. As gamers, we can recognize that maybe -- maybe -- it might not be such a great idea to let small children play Resident Evil 4. As people involved in the issue to any degree, we owe it to ourselves and everyone else to at least do the research, and be knowledgeable about the topic at hand.

Is it so much to ask? Apparently, yes.

Clarification

2006-04-30T12:37:00.000-07:00

After spending the larger part of a month being stressed out over one class in particular, it was revealed that the class was not necessary. I knew for a fact that three of the four classes really didn't count towards anything except a lower GPA, but that fourth class -- Physics -- was proving to be an immense thorn in my side. For a variety of reasons it seemed I would not pass the course, ever, and that it was a requirement was enough to slowly drive me insane. At my wit's end, I finally met with the Journalism department and discovered the physics class was not a requirement at all. In its stead? Psychology and sociology.

Hallelujah.

I hope that clears up the huzziwhuhBUH?! of the previous post.

At any rate, with the sudden amount of free time (job nonwithstanding) and desire to do things just for the hell of doing things, I've resumed a few projects. One: Continue studying Japanese, and probably other languages. Two: Start development of a game engine. The twist? It's not a 3D engine. Everybody and their mother does 3D these days, and there are dozens of engines out there that do it better than what I might have planned. I'm keen on minimalism, and that does not run well with the 3D crowd. Instead, I'll be concentrating on 2D -- old-school platforming, or perhaps new school. The newer Castlevania titles on the Nintendo DS have given me a lot of inspiration. Besides, 2D is cake.

On a more political note:

Colbert's Balls of Reinforced Titanium
When he mentioned being at the White House dinner conference the other day, I thought he was joking. I thought it was a part of the Colbert Report's usual schtick. I was wrong. Hats off to Mr. Colbert for lampooning the President et al from a mere six paces. It was a roundhouse kick of words -- a roundhouse kick to the neck.

What?

2006-04-24T20:06:00.000-07:00

Department A: "You need this class in any department. It's a university-wide requirement."

Ergo you will not pass without it, no matter where you are. Proceed to freak out over the next two weeks. THEN!

Department B: "You don't need that class."

What? I thought you guys had some level of central communi ... wh ... what? I THOUGHT -- WH -- ! BUH?

Right, so a lot of AWHAAA?!? over nothing. Moving on.

Confused? So am I. WELCOME.

Can you farm?

2006-04-17T07:57:00.000-07:00

There's an irony in having to do physics to prove I can write well. All colleges have a general education core that is required to graduate -- and it makes sense, at least in theory. Students are expected to do (moderately) well and thus gain a well-rounded education in fields that, in most cases, have nothing to do with their major. Why?

It depends on who you ask. In terms of practicality, these gen-ed courses allow a student to move between majors with relative ease. The variety of subject matter keeps the mind sharp in any field one might choose to enter; the problem is, what's the likelihood of an Art student suddenly wanting to study advanced chemistry? Or a die-hard physicist suddenly wanting to write poetry for a living? From the animosity displayed between the Humanities and Sciences, I would say "very small." That does not eliminate the possibility entirely, of course, and so one must be prepared.

Still, why force a student to do something else when they already know what they want? Worse, why make their success as a student depend upon their performance in a subject they have no interest in and no practical need for?

It's baffling. Speaking as someone who has jumped between drastically different fields, I find that same befuddlement in every college of study, regardless of the focus. There are engineers who don't know what 18th century literature has to do with electrical circuits. There are painters who don't know why they need to understand high-level calculus. There are computer scientists who scoff at geography, and just so grit their teeth at the memorization of places they'll never visit. And then there's me, a man who has been in each of those situations, wondering the same things, now confused as to why my success as a Journalism major is pinned on whether I can pass a class about electromagnetism.

So you want to be a writer. Can you explain how radio waves work?

Mitch Hedberg was right on so many counts.

Late on the draw

2006-04-13T15:09:00.000-07:00

Inkscape has been around for a long time, but I somehow managed to overlook it in my search for a great inking program. It makes perfect sense, even when you ignore the name. Vector graphics with pressure sensitivity? Sharp lines at any resolution, exportable to rasterized formats? A godsend, certainly. A free godsend. It's a shame that openCanvas has no Linux version and is sort of wonky via WINE. I need a speedy painting/color/traditional media program to complement the lines.

Cause for alarm

2006-04-13T14:17:00.000-07:00

Matt writes in: Cease the maudlin shit.

I guess the sarcasm in the previous post was too subtle. Buuuut, I'll stop, just in case. I guess? However, as its contents had little to do with anything of recent events, consider it deleted.

I am not dead

Just mildly insane. I guess I went a little nuts over winter break, and ended up with something just short of a mental episode. On the plus side, it left me with a lot of writing material. Vaguely psychotic ideas are the best kind.

Actually, I ended up having something of an epiphany over the two-month silence. It's fairly common (I think) in the web comic field, which is funny considering I've never actually published anything. Conversely, it might be good that I was hit with and overcame the issue before I ever put a pen to paper, or stylus to a tablet, as the case may be. At Men in Hats, you can see exactly what that issue was. I followed the comic for a long time and thought it to be excellent. Suddenly, the author just stopped updating -- disappeared entirely. After a few weeks of silence, I stopped following and forgot about MiH entirely. A year or two passed. (My sense of time is horrible.) Today, it just happened to come up on a forum, and I checked in to see if anything new had developed in the last few years. Indeed, the author had returned last summer and explained his absence. His decision to start anew with no forums and no contact information was a wise one, I think.

Many people start out with a love of the work and end up working so their audience might love them. I didn't even begin to work and I had already started to worry about what the hypothetical audience would think. That's right: I was concerned about the opinions of people who did not exist.

Stupid, yes?

Yes. So I realized only I was going to be doing the work and it had been pretty much more for my own amusement than anything else. Selfish as that sounds, it's what actually drove me to create things. We all know people don't need another bitter writer or illustrator dumping things on the Internet. I, however, want to leave things there for people to stumble across or look for. That is what should be driving the creative gears which slowly, loudly turn within my brain. That realization is why I have also begun to start over again, more or less sans a comment system. Audience? Great. But I'll be doing what I would like to do, thanks.

And now the crazy part

The title of this weblog is now 'Slightly Angry,' and it is without question an apt title. These days I seem to be mildly aggravated at all times. I haven't been able to explain it. Either way, it's slowly turned me into a Journalist: I'm switching majors for the last time, and doing what I can to force myself into Communications. It seems like there's a mountain of paperwork and debt standing in my way, but something tells me it's where I need to be -- it is, more or less, my future.

... Journalism, not paperwork and debt.

Not that they're mutually exclusive.