an open letter to shane:

stay the hell away from rachel or I will break your god damn legs. do you understand me? I swear, go near her and you will never walk again.

that is all.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 29 June 2002 at 9:33 PM

There's a big air show here in Evansville this weekend and there are planes all over the place. The Blue Angels are here along with planes from the Royal Canadian Air Force, and a bunch of private planes dating from WWII to the present. Everyone I know is really excited about all these planes. The guys at work spend their breaks outside looking at the planes*, and the only thing everyone wants to talk about are these planes. One of the guys in my dad's department even took a half day off from work on Thursday and sat in a lawn chair in the parking lot watching the planes all afternoon.

Everyone is excited about these planes. Everyone except me, that is. I've been outside on my lunch break and had the Blue Angels zoom right over my head about 100 feet up and been very unimpressed. I stood outside with a bunch of guys on break a few days ago, and while they were busy talking about planes and staring up at the sky, I was busy thinking about how hot it was outside, and wondering whether I should work some overtime that day. These planes just don't interest me. Yet I can find no one else who shares my opinion; even my parents have more enthusiasm than I do. I think I agreed to go to one of the air shows tomorrow, but if I happen to sleep through the show, it's probably all for the best.

*The Whirlpool building is uniquely placed to provide a good vantage point for watching all these planes. The factory is literally right next to the airport. During World War II the factory was used to manufacture P-47s, and as the planes rolled off the assembly line they would be pushed out of the factory and onto the runway, where a pilot would get in the plane and fly it off. And things haven't changed much in 60 years. When I walk from the north lot where I park my car to building 12 where I work, I am directly lined up with one of the runways of the Evansville airport, so it isn't uncommon to have planes come in to land or take off right above your head as you walk to work or out to your car. (To help explain all of this, I marked up an image from terraserver showing Whirlpool and a bit of the airport. I labeled Building 12 and the North Lot. The red line is roughly the path between the two. And just for reference, everything south of the road running horizontally through the middle of the picture is part of the Whirlpool complex. The picture is here.)

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 29 June 2002 at 1:33 AM

Hello. This morning I became an ordained minister in the Universal Life Church. Befitting my new appointment, I'd prefer that I now be referred to as The Reverend David Warner in all future communications. Oh, and if you're thinking of getting married, I can perform the ceremony if you'd like. Now I just need to figure out where I can buy those robes that other ministers wear...

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 28 June 2002 at 8:02 AM

There seems to be a bit of thievery going on here at Whirlpool. You may recall that I had some headphones stolen from me when I first started working here this summer. And today Nick discovered that someone had taken three dollars that he kept in his desk for buying snacks and things. Scott had the lock to our office fixed today, but the consensus opinion seems to be that that isn't going to help much, since the guards and the cleaners all have keys, and they're the only ones in Building 12 at night. There is a rumor going around that they might set up a motion sensitive camera to catch the perpetrators; I can't wait to watch the video.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 26 June 2002 at 5:06 PM

As if I needed any more proof that my computer here at work is in need of some upgrades, when I added a wallpaper to my desktop today, it pretty much brought this computer to its knees. Minimizing and restoring windows is now slow and blocky (i.e., you can watch small blocks of the window disappear when you minimize it), and it takes at least 15-20 seconds for the icons on my desktop (there are only about 10 of them) to show up when I minimize all windows. I'm going to have to make my need for a slightly better computer very apparent during my presentation tomorrow. Hopefully that will persuade the right people that I need a faster computer (or at least more RAM in this one).

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 25 June 2002 at 8:17 AM

its way too early for me to be this tired. yawn.

anyway, minority report opens this weekend, and the reviews are insanely good. I was looking forward to it before, but now I cant wait. chris and dave mentioned maybe seeing it tomorrow, so Ill let you know how it is.

yeah. way too early for me to be this tired.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 22 June 2002 at 12:26 AM

After posting that last entry I was browsing web sites waiting for my CD to finish burning and I came across a site where the author described his car as a "pimp Volvo." Now, I may be out of the loop here but I'm pretty sure that there is no such thing as a "pimp" Volvo. Corrections can be sent here.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 21 June 2002 at 4:18 PM

I'm here in St. Louis now. In fact, I'm in the ACM Lounge burning some CDs and typing this on the computer that I left set up in the ACM office. As I type on the keyboard, I do find myself wondering if leaving the computer here was a good idea. I spent the first five minutes I was here scraping some kind of sticky goo off some of the keys, and I should probably spend some more time making sure I've gotten it all off. If I have time this weekend, I'm going to pack the computer up and take it back to Evansville with me. I've had too many keyboards ruined to let it hapen again.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 21 June 2002 at 4:12 PM

I resized my screen resolution here at work to be 1280x1024. I like a high resolution, but even I think think things might be a bit too small at this resolution. But Visual InterDev with all of its various panels and panes is unbearable at 1024x768, and not so great at 1152x864. So I'm using this new resolution and wondering if I could get a bigger monitor or a second monitor instead.

On an entirely different subject, if you're interested, like me, in one day becoming a super villain, I recommend http://www.villainsupply.com/.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 20 June 2002 at 2:42 PM

I never thought reclaiming my honor would feel so.. hollow.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 20 June 2002 at 2:21 PM

once again its nearing midnight and Im still at work. I think probably people are going to start worrying about me. but where there was bitterness and despair yesterday, today there is hope. first of all, I slept for about 15 hours yesterday after I got home. that helped my outlook a little. also, I am on the verge of a breakthrough in my color balancing problems.

early tests indicate that I should be able to define any color with the function

C = aR + bG + cP

where R, G, and P are reference colors. (uppercase letters denote vectors in uv space and the lowercase letters are scalars.) the only problem is that this equation has multiple solutions, and the only way to derive only one coordinate (a,b,c) is to plot multiple solutions from different locations and find their intersection. still, the fact that there is actually an intersection is very good news. (results were discouraging until I white balanced the images based on a common reference white.)

I need to talk to robert tomorrow and figure out what to do next. my intuition is that I will need to build a look-up table that maps from (u,v) to (a,b,c) as a function of R,G,P for a set of empirically gathered data and then interpolate for all other colors. this probably would work, but it would be time consuming, and so Im hoping someone with more math skills than me will have some insights.

anyway, I spent all day on that, but in the meantime, zach implemented the functions I drew up last week for estimating the (x,y,z) coordinates of a pixel. this is neat, because the robot can now tell how tall I am.

it feels good to finally be making some progress.

(and yeah, I know Im not supposed to post about work, but when you think about something for like 14 hours a day, its kind of hard not.)

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 19 June 2002 at 11:37 PM

So tired today. Combination of not enough sleep the past two nights and a few drinks last night, I guess. Regardless, I got a few big things done here at work today. I've been working on an Incident Tracking program, so when equipment breaks or people have questions about something they can log in, type up their incident report, and it will automatically be routed to the correct responders. It's not too complicated, but I have made 18 pages for the system. Anyway, today I rigged everything up so that the correct responders are emailed when new incidents are reported. The neat aspect is that all the guys here have cell phones that accept text messages, so we can have those email notifications routed to their cell phones. It seems to work pretty well. The only frustrating thing is that the IT system here is so screwy that the emails we send to their cellphones show up about 15 seconds after they're generated, but email sent to their work email address takes more than 15 minutes to show up.

Now that I have the email stuff out of the way, I don't really have any major components left to work on on any of my projects. This is the part of any project that I like the least. I have a huge list of small issues to tweak, but none of them are very exciting, so I have trouble getting excited about working on them. But I'm hoping to get my lists emptied out by the end of the week, leaving me free to work on the final piece of my first project, which I am looking forward to, so everything should be cool then.

If I have some time later this week, I'll provide more details about my projects, but I suspect I should be getting back to work now.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 19 June 2002 at 3:16 PM

I'm still upset about missing the earthquake. All of my friends have amusing anecdotes to tell, and the only thing I can come up with is "well, the CD skipped while we were driving down the highway."

For those who are interested, the earthquake is reported to have registered a 5.0 on the Richter scale and was centered in Darmstadt, IN, which is a couple of miles north of here (and the home of former NY Yankee Don Mattingly). To the best of my knowledge, there was no significant damage. The guys at work said the computers were shaking across their desks, but it wasn't strong enough to shake my computer out of its screensaver.

There was a bit of panic, however. Mike Blake, one of the anchors for the NBC affiliate here in Evansville was covering the earthquake, and at the end of his broadcast he said something like "We'll be back in a bit with details of the extensive damage." Of course, there was no extensive damage, and Mike had intended to say "We'll be back in a bit with details on the extent of the damage." Similar words, but very different meanings. Incidentally, my friend Jared works with Mike Blake at Channel 14, and he says Blake does stuff like that all the time. He recently opened a segment on racing by saying "I have the speed, the speed for need," and he's fond of quoting song lyrics out of the blue ("Jared, she's so fine, there's no telling where the money went.") and then walking off. But he seems like a cool guy.

To recap, I missed the earthquake, no major damage, Mike Blake has trouble with live TV. Later.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 18 June 2002 at 11:31 PM

day two of dreaming about work. this time, however, was not nearly so enlightening. it fell more under the nightmare category, at least for the three brief hours I managed to sleep. I woke up at 8 in the morning, and having found sleep so unpleasant, I gave up and went to the lab for 11 hours. now I am very very tired. I will sleep early tonight and not dream about work. for the love of god I will not dream about work.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 18 June 2002 at 8:59 PM

I feel so left out. We had a 5.0 earthquake centered 10 miles northwest of Evansville this afternoon, but I was riding back from a late lunch and didn't feel a thing. I did, however, get to stand outside for about 30 minutes while our building was checked for structural integrity. So I got all the negative aspects without any of the benefits. I guess that's what I get for taking a long lunch.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 18 June 2002 at 1:35 PM

oh, so this is the second article Ive read about this now, and neither has really explained what is actually going on. articles like this are never technical enough. I mean, I will admit that I dont have the slightest grasp of particle physics, so Im not asking cnn to publish the paper on it, Im just saying that I wish they would at least give the reader a basic idea of how it works.

yeah, I know. this post sucks, but I was in a hurry.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 17 June 2002 at 11:35 PM

Chris mentioned that today was Rusty Staub Bobblehead day in Montreal. Rusty Staub may not have been a stellar player, and he certainly didn't play with Montreal for very long, but at least the Expos are avoiding some of the embarrassment that Tampa Bay has been experiencing. First, Tampa had to cancel their June 2nd Bobblehead night because the player being honored, Jason Tyner, had been demoted to the minors. (Tampa is already 20.5 games out of first, so you have to wonder why they didn't just keep Tyner in the majors until after the Bobblehead promotion. It's not like they're going to make it to the playoffs.) Then, after the Tyner incident, they had to change their September 8th Bobblehead doll from Toby Hall to Steve Cox because of a similar situation. Namely because Mr. Hall had also been demoted to the minors.

I guess the Devil Rays should have just followed Montreal's example and gone with a Wade Boggs Bobblehead. It would have saved a lot of embarrassment.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 17 June 2002 at 4:52 PM

Okay, Jared's emails have been getting stranger and stranger. First it was a collection of strange words, then it was the dog sitting on a toilet wearing a beret, and now we have midgets playing basketball. And he finds these pictures when he's at work, when he's supposedly running master control at a local TV station. If I ever see 14 go black, I'll know that he's busy looking for weird pictures.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 17 June 2002 at 8:36 AM

so last night I dreamt that the solution to my skin identification problems would be to define the hue-saturation (hs) space in terms of three or four reference colors (mostly likely to be pieces of colored fabric) which could be photographed at various poses (x, y, theta) of the camera. the perceived color change of the reference colors would be used to appropriately shift the hs values of a previously trained skin look-up table to account for changing lighting conditions. if the colors were calibrated for a sufficient number of poses then its likely that the hs shift could be interpolated for all other positions.

you know, I used to have recurring nightmares about dying in elevator accidents. I didnt realize at the time how good I had it.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 16 June 2002 at 10:20 PM

I am going to go see the bourne identity tonight. I have been looking forward to seeing it since I read an interview with matt damon in one of rachels magazines. anyway, the interview was really stupid, but they mentioned the movie that he was working on, and that part was cool.

also, I bet I am a secret agent, and I just dont remember.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 15 June 2002 at 9:33 PM

A new day brings a new email from Jared. Where did he find that picture?

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 15 June 2002 at 10:48 AM

so its 10:30 and guess whos not still at work! I feel very good about this. Id feel better if I werent sitting at home with nothing to do, but oh well. Im kind of sleepy anyway, so I guess I wont complain. instead, I think I will fix dinner and watch television. I havent watched television in quite a while. I wonder if I remember how.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 14 June 2002 at 10:33 PM

I got this in the mail today. Jared is a weird guy.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 14 June 2002 at 5:41 PM

Lucas has some harsh words for Bill Walton, but the people at slate seem to have a slightly different opinion on him. I think I'm with slate on Bill Walton, but I'm in total agreement with Lucas's evaluation of the NBA. The NBA is infuriating to watch because the refs could call a foul on just about every play, but seem to just make arbitrary decisions about when they're going to call them. And then there's the whole issue about making fewer calls during the playoffs and "letting the players play." If it's a foul during the regular season, shouldn't it be a foul during the playoffs?

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 14 June 2002 at 7:40 AM

so its 11:34. and guess whos still at work? yeah, I know. last night I was sort of joking when I said that this was pathetic, but now Im really not so sure. I guess the problem is that I just dont really have anything to do once I go home, so theres no reason not to stick around here and at least get some work done. I mean, I had left over thai in the fridge here, so there was actually more food here than there is at my apartment, and I have 12 times as many computers here as I do in my room. so the way I see it, staying at work until midnight really isnt so bad.

right?

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 13 June 2002 at 11:25 PM

Tonight while driving home I noticed that the sign outside the Philips 66 gas station here in Evansville is advertising

THE MAGIC OF

HARRY POTTER

DVD AND VHS

Is every business in America selling Harry Potter DVDs?

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 13 June 2002 at 10:01 PM

so its 11:05 in the evening, and guess who is still at work? yeah, I know. pretty hardcore, huh?

or maybe the word Im looking for is "pathetic." sigh.. its time to go home.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 12 June 2002 at 11:07 PM

I am so bored right now that I think I may possibly die. Ive spent the whole evening browsing various geeky, technology related links and still the question remains.. why havent they invented artificially intelligent super robots yet? I mean, I read the "sci-tech" section of cnn.com every day, and I have yet to find the following article:

MASS (AP) -- Researchers at MIT announced Tuesday the development of a superior master-race of unstoppable, super-intelligent robots capable of outperforming human beings in all aspects of life and expected to render our dying race obsolete by as early as January 2004.

oh well. I guess the technology isnt there yet. but I like to think that Im doing my own small part to make that dream a reality for future generations.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 11 June 2002 at 10:05 PM

I am so bored right now that I think I may possibly die. Ive spent the whole evening browsing various geeky, technology related links and still the question remains.. why havent they invented artificially intelligent super robots yet? I mean, I read the "sci-tech" section of cnn.com every day, and I have yet to find the following article :

MASS (AP) -- Researchers at MIT announced Tuesday the development of a superior master-race of unstoppable, super-intelligent robots, capable of outperforming human beings in all aspects of life, expected to render our dying race obsolete by as early as January 2004.

oh well. I guess the technology isnt there yet. but I like to think that Im doing my own small part to make that dream a reality for future generations.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 11 June 2002 at 10:05 PM

I saw Superman IV on TV last weekend. It's the one with a story by Christopher Reeve where Superman rids the world of nuclear weapons and fights Nuclear Man. What an awful, awful movie. This thing rivals Highlander II as the worst movie of the 1980s. It had crappy special effects, ordinary humans being carried by Nuclear Man and Superman into outer space with no ill effects, and a horrible sub-plot involving a media tycoon (think Rupert Murdock) taking over the Daily Planet and installing his daughter as publisher. If someone ever says to you "Hey, let's watch Superman IV: The Quest for Peace," you should lock him or her in a small room with a mountain lion (or a cougar or puma) until he or she recants their suggestion.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 11 June 2002 at 12:28 PM

My computer here at work has lately been struggling to run all the apps that I need to run. Once I get Visual InterDev, Internet Explorer, SQL Server Enterprise Manager, and occasionally Excel open, its 128MB of RAM just can't keep up. This morning I thought that perhaps a trip to Windows Update might help things out. Well, 20 critical updates later, things seem to be going pretty well, but the only app I have open now is IE. I don't really think things are going to be any better once I get into development mode, but I can hope. And perhaps lobby for a bit more RAM for this guy.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 11 June 2002 at 8:27 AM

so Im not sure what to make of this at all. theres this part of me that thinks this is very ridiculous. or at least, not the right way to approach things. and yet theres also a part of me that really wants to see a demo.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 10 June 2002 at 11:19 PM

My dad went to a golf scramble today and managed to come home with a rather nice CD/MP3 player. Not the portable kind, but the boombox type thing. This one, in fact. I liked it quite a bit, and managed to take possession of it through the clever use of the following argument.

Me: You don't need a CD player.
Dad: You're right. I guess you can have it.

So now I have this little CD player to replace the CD player I have at school. It doesn't really compare to the stereo I have in my room here at home, but it's small, and that's what matters in my room in St. Louis.

I'd like to talk about my work (especially since I put in 90 minutes of overtime today, and very much enjoyed it), but that doesn't seem like the thing to do on weblogs these days. Instead, I'll tell you about the dream I had last night. I can only remember bits and pieces of it, but I was living with some people I don't think I knew in a very dilapidated duplex that had been converted into a one family residence. (On one day the family would live in one half of the house, on the next they'd live in the other half.) We all played a lot of volleyball, but not sand volleyball, which is what I play in the summer. We played volleyball in a gym, like I used to in middle school. That's all I remember of it, and it isn't very much, but what I do remember is quite vivid. More vivid than most of my dreams, anyway.

What else is going on here? All of my high school friends are growing up. My good friend Eric Hall is now engaged. He and Carla are going to get married in early May (the date hasn't yet been set). And my friend Kelly O'Donnell, who just graduated from Syracuse, has taken a sportscasting job in Alabama. He starts on Friday, so he and his family are planning a hurried move this week. And then there's me, unchanged since 1996. I work, come home, and then go out with my friends, just like I've done every summer since I was 16. Well, perhaps slightly changed, if only by association. As I hear about my friends and their jobs and lives I'm reminded that this is probably my last summer here in Evansville, and for the first time since I started college, I'm enjoying my summer break. No grueling third shift job, no eight hour surgical procedures followed by months and months of a wired shut jaw, and no well paid but tediously boring job. Just a very fun job with a bunch of cool people, and a great group of friends to hang out with. I couldn't be happier right now.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 10 June 2002 at 10:22 PM

yawn. lots of baseball. saturdays game was fun. it was a nice evening, and we beat them 11 to 3. todays game was less fun. because it was a raining, and because we lost to a long homerun in the bottom of the ninth. anyway, I can go into more detail later. I have to drive home now.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 9 June 2002 at 8:48 PM

It has recently come to my attention that you can buy Junkyard Wars toys. These look to be plastic replicas of some of the challengers' Junkyard Wars projects. Why on earth do these things exist?

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 9 June 2002 at 7:08 PM

I've been using my Visor rather extensively for the past few weeks, probably more extensively than I've ever used it before. And the more I use it, the more I wish the built-in applications were just a bit better design. Yes, the apps are easy to use, but why aren't they better integrated with each other? I should be able to associate a file from the memo app an appointment in the datebook, or link an email to an item on my todo list, but I can't. This seems like a really simple concept, and I'm surprised that it hasn't been implemented yet, especially since these apps have been around virtually unchanged for at least three or four years.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 9 June 2002 at 7:03 PM

yawn. 9:30 is entirely too early a time to wake up on a saturday. such things shouldnt be allowed. sadly, I must wipe the sleep from my eyes and drive. Im going out of town this weekend to see the cardinals play the royals in kansas city. we have tickets to saturday and sundays games, so Im probably going to get about as much baseball I can handle this weekend. but it will be fun. especially if the cardinals dominate as much as they did last night.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 8 June 2002 at 9:58 AM

I havent been getting enough sleep lately, and as a result, I am very tired right now, even though it is only 9:30. so tonight Im going to try to get to bed early, and hopefully I will manage to actually fall asleep shortly thereafter.

something tells me its not going to be quite that easy, though.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 7 June 2002 at 9:54 PM

I havent been feeling very well today. I dont know why. Ive had a lot of trouble concentrating, and my day at work was pretty much a waste. Ive just felt not entirely here. like a ghost. a very heavy ghost.

but maybe I just need some sleep.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 6 June 2002 at 7:38 PM

Some code I wrote a couple of weeks ago, which works fine on my computer and used to work fine on the server where it's supposed to run, has stopped working. I've spent all morning trying to figure things out without much success. Right now I'm just looking forward to lunch.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 6 June 2002 at 10:39 AM

I think my very least favorite thing about texas (and Im sure Ive said this before) is that it is 800 miles away. and I dont suppose it would be all that bad if it werent for the fact that my girlfriend (who is the peachy-keenest*) is spending her entire summer there. Im thinking of starting a campaign to get them to move the state closer. perhpas it could trade places with illinois or something.

I wonder who would I have to talk to about that sort of thing. the governor maybe?

* no, he would definitely never say such a thing. especially not in any sort of public medium.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 5 June 2002 at 10:29 PM

I came across a very insightful article about possible solutions to global warming today, and I think you need to read it. It also has a bit of Europe-bashing, which I always enjoy.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 5 June 2002 at 12:25 PM

Mistake number 1: getting up early this morning and being ready to go to work at 10 'til 7.

Mistake number 2: arriving at Building 12 at 7:15, only to discover that no one else from my department was here yet, and that our office was locked.

Mistake number 3: drinking an entire 20 oz Diet Coke in the eight minutes I was sitting in the vending area waiting for someone to show up and unlock the office.

I'm hoping I filled my mistake quota for the day.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 5 June 2002 at 7:27 AM

I know, Im cutting it pretty close, huh? but I figure if aaron can get by with 8 words and a clever link, then I can definitely get away with 95 words and a link of my own.

theres been a lot of talk of crazy scientists lately, from alex chiu to timecube to the scientific proof of god. well, those guys arent alone. it turns out there are hundreds of crazy scientists out there, and they apparently all have webpages. in fact, this site has them all categorized and ranked. go take a look.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 4 June 2002 at 11:44 PM

After years and years of being the only person from Evansville to go to WashU, this year I know of three kids who decided to attend. And two of them went to my old high school. This is cool enough that I considered looking them up in the phonebook and calling them, but then Irealized that would be a bit weird, so I dropped that idea. But I still think this is pretty cool. The only downside is that all of them were undecided as to a major, which most likely means they're going to be in ArtSci. Fools. The engineering is the place to be (for scholarships if nothing else).

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 3 June 2002 at 8:57 AM

so I received an email about gloompuppy the other day. I thought Id share it with you:

from: QUIQUETX@aol.com
subject: your comic

your strip suxxors. seriously that goth shit is so passe.

isnt that just lovely? well, I figured since he took the time out of his busy day to share his valuable insights, he deserved as much from me. here is my response:

from: cold@negative273.com
subject: my comic

hi.

Im michael. I got your email, and I just wanted to thank you for the feedback. I havent done a new strip in quite a while, and it was partly because I didnt think anyone was really reading gloompuppy. I guess I didnt really expect people to. I considered it more of a personal project, something I did to try and challenge myself. (I had drawn comics before, but I had never been very good at working with the 3 or 4 panel format. as you can imagine, its very hard to condense a joke into three frames.) but anyway, I never really figured anyone but my friends would read it.

well, now that I think about it, I published it in student papers on two college campuses during the school year, so I guess its possible that as many as a couple thousand people have seen it, but I never really got that much feedback, so Im not really sure. oh well, Im not surprised. print media doesnt really encourage interaction. but thats whats great about the internet. with the world wide web, all you have to do is click a convenient hyper-link, and you get to tell the artist exactly what you think. and let me tell you, speaking as an artist, theres nothing more exciting than hearing from your readers.

I am sorry you didnt care for the strip, though. I hadnt realized that goth shit was passe. I am behind the times, I guess. thank you for bringing that to my attention. I had planned on drawing some more strips this summer, and when I do, I will definitely take your email under advisement. Ill try to make them more l33t from now on. Ive already got a few ideas. perhaps the strip could focus more on alans little brother, aaron. I havent really developed that character much, so it leaves me a lot of freedom. Im thinking maybe aaron could be a haxxor, and the comic would be all about his posts on slashdot. maybe then the comic wouldnt suxxor so much.

what do you think?

michael.

sadly, mr. quiquetx has yet to reply. oh well. I can only assume that he is too busy with his own, far superior webcomic.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 3 June 2002 at 4:29 AM

so I finally saw this "harry potter" thing today. well, technically, I saw half of it yesterday (specifically, the second half), but now I have also seen the first half. I have to say that it was pretty good. Im not sure if it really lived up to all the hype, though. Im told there are even entire books about this guy. weird.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 2 June 2002 at 9:34 PM

last night chris and I decided that what the world really needs is more hastily produced and badly sung cover songs. so he looked up a few tabs, broke out the amp, and we proceded to embarass ourselves quite thouroughly. all in all, it was quite fun. although Im not sure if the people in the apartment next door would agree.

(oh, and in case you were wondering, we made three songs, and no, you will never ever hear them.)

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 1 June 2002 at 1:50 PM