9:14 AM

Blogging quickly on a Tuesday morning. I have a massive trip today with the first stop all of two hours away and the last stop an hour after that. Not at all looking forward to it, but that's part of life.

Really down right now. One of my volunteers died this weekend. He was a part time pro wrestler, full time dad, who had a massive heart attack after a match this weekend. While I didn't know him that well, he was the kind of guy that you felt good having in your area. He was just a good guy and right now facing going to work without him in my area is going to be totally different. The standard line when someone dies is to say "XXXX, rest in peace, you'll be missed." Well, that doesn't apply here, he's already missed. His death is a huge impact on the community and it really hurts. I don't know how we can fill his role in the community and it will be months or years before the area will be normal again.

For those following my XP ups and downs, we're currently in an up stage after some downs last night. My cache for this site crashed XP so bad I thought that some sort of evil force in the universe was laughing at that moment in time. Let's face it, there's about 130 HTML files to over 120,000 graphics files on my hard drive. That number is going up every day and I don't think Windows XP will be able to handle it even with 512megs of ram.

On that note, pretty soon I'll be switching to footage from the new season of the screen savers and techlive. That means that I will be retiring about 80 to 90 thousand techtv pictures from possible use on this site.

Right now I'm looking around our little techtv community and I see a lot of sites that need pictures or sites that should be out there but aren't, probably due to the fact that there's not a whole heck of a lot of places to get pictures from unless you take them yourself. I know that if I didn't have a capture card, I probably wouldn't have a web site because there's just not that many ways to get candid photos of TechTV folks acting weird otherwise.

With that, this announcement: When the retirement comes I will be making all 80 to 90 thousand pictures available to anyone who wants to use them. We'll work out the how's on how we're gonna do this later. I sure don't have the space to host them all, so if someone ideas please share their ideas. I also don't have a ton of time right now to devote to this, but I will do my best to make sure that everyone who needs or wants pictures from my collection (minus about 2 names -- hey, if you're spending your entire life bashing me, you ain't getting pics from me), will get them.

All I want is credit for providing them and I want them displayed with (c) 2001 TechTV on any page they appear.

Why do I want credit? Well, I don't just capture the pictures and throw them up on the web. I have an extensive process of quality control to make sure that every picture that goes up is of the highest quality and lowest download size that you're going to get from a screen capture. It takes hours and hours to process the pictures and I'd like to have some credit for my work. Blast me if you want to, but I'm proud of what I do here and would like credit for my work.

The second catch is that I'd like you to use them for fan sites. No commercial sites or adult sites. If you're selling stuff, you can afford far better video capturing units than I have at hand. For the adult stuff, no TechTV Lemons, please. You know what I mean. That stuff freaks out the folks at TechTV and will be the reason if TechTV ever cracks down on sites. The last thing I want to do is fund sites that will hurt the community or get my butt sued, so please, don't ask if your intent is to do stuff like that.

So, doing a Patrick site and need pictures? E-mail me.

Doing a Megan site and need pictures? There's Granny Megan and Super Megan pics I haven't used yet. E-mail me.

Doing a Scott Herriot web site? Seek help now, but I'll help with the pictures.

Anybody else? E-mail me and let's see what I have.

On that note, I'm sure I'll have details later. If you have ideas or immediate needs for pictures, please e-mail me at reallycoolsite@aol.com. It may take a couple of days to get back to you (it's one heck of a week right now), but I'll do my best to get back to you.

Take care all, BE SAFE.

-- k9

8:54 AM

Well, since I always have to be the first kid on the block to screw up a computer, err, upgrade to a new platform ... As you all know, on Friday I went ahead and upgraded to Windows XP Home edition.

You MAC users should take note that they ripped a lot of the appearance off from the new MAC OS X. It's a VERY friendly environment and frankly, this is the operating system that's finally going to get my mom to know what the heck she's doing on her system.

A lot of the complexities of the old Windows 9x (aka "search and pray for a function") have been replaced with easy to use menus and neato little icons that well, are just plain cool. It's fast, it's stable, and the blue screen of death is gone. I mean even AOL on a 56k modem flies with it. It's Niiiiiiiice.

Drawbacks: Even if you buy the upgrade, do a clean install. Back up EVERYTHING and reformat your hard disk like it wants you to do. Don't install it over a previous version of windows. Why? Well ....

I did the upgrade over an existing Win 98se system ... but even after buying the little $10 upgrade to play DVD movies on windows media player, my DVDs weren't working.

Tried upgrading the Video drivers for my video card. No dice. Tried upgrading the sound drivers to my sound card ... big trouble. If you have a sound blaster value make sure you know the model number. Sound blaster's new drivers were only released for current models, not older models. Installing their new drivers not only screwed up my system, it screwed up my DVD and CD player and there wasn't really a way to go back.

So today is going to be spent putting everything back on the darn system. It's still very cool, but make sure you have the right drivers for your stuff and this little incident has convinced me to install the version of Roxio's go-back which comes with Norton System Works 2002. Just in case, just in case.

I uninstalled the DVD player since ATI's site said it was incompatible with windows xp, I uninstalled the ATI multimedia center, then ran the new ATI Windows XP driver and reinstalled the multimedia center (without the DVD playback) ... and TA DA! I could play DVDs in windows XP! Problem solved ... if only I had known about it before screwing things up. :)

So today is going to be spent putting everything back on the darn system. It's still very cool, but make sure you have the right drivers for your stuff and this little incident has convinced me to install the version of Roxio's go-back which comes with Norton System Works 2002. Just in case, just in case.

Oh, on the DVD front, a lot has been made about having to pay $10 for windows XP to be able to play DVDs. Here's the thing. As far as I can tell, that's just for XP's media player to do that. Windows XP seems to be able to play DVDs just fine if your DVD software is compatible with XP. So check DVD software's website for an upgrade BEFORE giving any money to mircrosoft.

Personally, I ended up paying $10 for the plug in and another $40 for a dedicated DVD software that was XP compatible since the plug in really really bit for media player. So save yourself $10 and ignore the plug in if you upgrade. If you don't have one, go get Cyberlink's PowerDVD and ignore the dinky media player. It's an awesome little program.

That's just IMODO.

Be bad all, yes new strips are coming. No I haven't fallen off the face of the earth and just wait until you see ...

:)

k9

PS "Sugar & Spice" was a very funny yet very dumb movie. Worth a watch but not as your first choice on a Saturday night while putting a computer back together. It's very odd.

6:51 PM

It's almost 7 PM! OMG!

LOL spent the the last couple of hours upgrading my computer to windows xp.

I know, I know, everyone says that it's the most evil thing on earth but so far ... it really isn't bad.

Downsides:

* Any version of AOL other than 6.0 or 7.0 WILL NOT WORK with XP. This sucks because my version of 4.0 is always more stable than any other version of AOL and now that I can't use it. Right now I'm stuck downloading a version of 7.0 on 56k. It really bites.

* It doesn't like my sat dish modem right now. Not sure why. Going to do a clean install of that version of AOL later on tonight.

* Tons of driver updates are coming and I still don't @#$@#$ know how to get the DVD patch to play dvds.

Upsides:

* The whole system FEELS cool so far. As much as I'm frustrated with it, I'm amazed that the thing seems to actually be learning how to run programs and what I like about my system. For example, it knows I like playing the little pinball game that comes with it. So the pinball is right there in my start menu. I don't have to add it there. I like that.

* I didn't lose my USB hard drive! Whoo hoo!

More in a bit but if you've been thinking of doing this upgrade, so far it's really really cool.

k9

9:17 AM

Taking a quick break from work to make a couple of notes as I'm watching the XP launch coverage.

First, after not really being home all week, I notice that the Ticker now has a bold white for the rotating tidbits area. It's a lot easier to read now and while the set up has still go to go, at least it's easier to read. Same thing goes with the scrolling ticker. The bold yellow is MUCH easier on the eyes than pale green and orange. The bar on the side either has to go or has to be stretched back to the top of the screen.

Second, XP. Hmm. I ordered the upgrade but now I'm not so sure. Just got the notice from Amazon.com that they processed the order and it'll probably be here monday.

So far the XP Upgrade advisor says that I'm losing my scanner, my usb network and my usb hard drive if I upgrade. I don't like this at all. I'm frantically trying to find xp compatible drivers to these devices. What sucks is that a lot of these products are from smaller companies who haven't had a chance to develop for XP as of yet so it's going to be a while before I see drivers for them. Bad Bad Bad.

I'm remembering the upgrade from Windows 3.11 (aka "windows for workgroups") to Windows 95. Pre-95 I had this really cool little stylus pointer. It was shaped like a pen and had a little mouse ball at the end of it. Instead of having to have a dedicated tablet or mouse pad, you could stick this little thing on just about any surface (including your own knee), and move it around to use it as a pointing device. It was the most awesome thing on earth. Guess what? Company went out of business, no 95 drivers. Useless. I still miss that thing. :(

I don't want to lose my little USB Cable network nor do I want to lose my external hard drive. My scanner is three years old, so I can get another scanner, but why should I have to? Oh well, I'm sure it will be a headache for a while now ...

On that note, back to work.

Take care,

--k9

8:07 AM

Blogging before a very long Wednesday. Today is the day for my second job and I'll spend the day driving through a good portion of the state that I live in.

While tiring, I really do love driving. I can clear my mind and think about life for a while and it's nice to get out of the house and do that exploring of life I was talking about yesterday.

It's a nice thing to take a step back for a while and just relax and see life for what it is. Some times you need to just chill and realize that the things that are making you so scary lately are not that important in reality.

I remember reading a fight on a message board once. Two guys fighting over a sword in a text based on-line game. One said the other cheated him out of this great sword by delivering something else and charging him too much game money for it. The other guy countered how the first guy was a loser and should have known by the auction what he was getting. It went back and forth and back and forth until they were threatening each other with legal action or violence and the whole time I'm reading, I sat there thinking:

"Man, don't these guys have lives?"

I mean to fight over something from an on-line game is one thing, but to carry it to the real world is another. No one cares about some obscure on-line thing. It's not life, it's not reality, and if you're mad at some guy because of something done in some on-line community to the point where it dominates your life, to the point where you're weirding out people by doing strange things, then maybe you should take a step back and get some air.

I've had 9 years now in on-line communities. I've seen it all. I've been stalked a few times and I'm careful about my identity and it's one of the reasons I'm so reclusive in the TechTV community. Now, more than ever, as there are some stalkers out there who carry things too far in their obsessions. I've had it happen to me and I've seen it happen to others and I've been on guard for it. The really spooky ones are the ones who take parts of your life and try to mimic them or make them their own. Those are the ones you have to watch out for, especially when the patterns go on for months. Those are the ones who need serious help and probably will never realize that they need help until they carry out actions that land them in jail.

So be careful out there folks. Watch your back and protect your ID while on-line. Especially if you do a web site and are involved in a community, please take steps to protect yourself.

With that, converted 12,000 files to jpg last night and sorted most of them early this morning. New strips up by the weekend. Have a few pretty good ideas to go with it and hey, got a great surprise in the fact that our server is only half full, so I won't have to worry about space for a while now.

-- k9

PS To one of my best friends who is down. I'm sorry I couldn't help more. I hope everything works out and I'm pulling for you. As always, I'm here if you need me for a smile. Try to keep your head up and you'll get through this. Just remember, you're stronger than they are.

PPS To Chellie the Okto-Fis, hey write me already! Haven't heard from you forever.

PPS And to that mysterious best friend, hurry home, the dog house is boring without you!

11:19 AM

Blogging on a Tuesday morning. Lately this is a rare thing for me. Between two jobs, attempts at an actual social life, and a lot more work than I'm used to, I haven't had a lot of time to spend with nothing to chat during the day. It's funny, I used to spend every morning in chat, but now, I'm either not home or something comes up with work so I'm not in chat as much as I'd like to, and even then I'm on a play name a lot. I still have honored the promise I made and I won't be back for the 2-5 PM ET chat. I'm true to my word. I don't like how TechTV treated their chat folks and I can't support them during those hours. Call me crazy, but if I don't like something and if I make a statement, I back that statement up through my actions.

I did notice some changes on call for help yesterday. I'd be delusional to think that they were based on things that were said here but hey, if the criticisms I've made here actually change the show for the better then I'm glad. I'm not going to think they did, but hey, if they help to make it a better show then I'll continue to provide the feedback here. I try to give them a fair shake and frankly, as a TechTV Fan, I don't like pointing out when things are wrong with the shows. However, while I'd love to gloss over things and say that everything's perfect with every show, years of working in pro wrestling areas has changed my views on how to observe things. I don't mark out for things as much as I used to, everything isn't perfect with TechTV (or anything for that matter), and frankly, feedback seems to be one of the things TechTV needs the most. So if you have feedback for them, use Feedback@techtv.com and tell them what you think.

I also don't mean to offend anyone by my statements in my blog. This is my blog. It's a personal diary of my life. These are my thoughts and my views and shouldn't be taken as anything more than that. I post what I see here from my observations on the world and frankly, it's a dinky blog on a dinky web site. It's not that important. If anyone takes my statements here and makes a big deal out of them, well, it's their decision to do that and I thank them for reading, but, god, there's more important things to do in the world than obsess over anything I say here.

I will also state that fandom is not a competition. Fandom is something that unites us all together in our appreciation for TechTV. If there are those who decide that it is anything more than that or decide that fandom is something that they must try to control, again, that's their decision. I don't have time to beat my chest or play the games. There's life outside of this little hobby of mine and it's a great thing to explore ...

On that note, I'm out of here.

Be bad!

-- k9

PS To Evil Jim, Summer & Angel. That was a wild wild night. I don't think the message boards will ever recover. :)

12:26 AM

A couple of feedback issues:

* The poll has had the IP Adress check cleared until oh, say, about 24 hours from now. So you can vote again since I changed some of the questions. So vote as many times as you like if you figure out how to do it, this isn't a scientific vote ...

* I feel bad for being so hard on the Gnome. Maybe I was too hard on him but I'm still seeing red about his joking before the cancer segment. Breast cancer is a very serious issue. Any cancer, for that matter, is not a laughing matter. I've had many relatives die from it and I've even had a great uncle die from male breast cancer of all things. Gnome needs to learn that when you're dealing with an issue like cancer there are times to joke and there are times to be good. He wasn't. Firing may have been too much to call for, but he should have apologized for his conduct.

Out again,

-- k9

5:26 PM same day, early evening

I'm bored so I thought I'd share my feelings on "Call for Help" since I made a statement and really didn't back it up in my last blog.

Call for Help Pros:

* Gnome, with polishing can be a good host, someday. Sometimes, when he's working with someone that he has chemistry with (Brett, Laura, and Leo), he can really shine.

* Like the new format with Roger, Brett, a guest and a chat segment. It's not the same boring same old same old of the Gnome and Becky shows. It's more interesting and I like that they're mixing up topics to appeal to more viewers.

* Brett is funny. From his hatred of Windows ("oh go buy a mac" should preface any of his segments), to his "unique" segments, he could be the breakout star of this show.

* Anything can happen on the show. With the Gnome being so weird, they should go with the idea that nothing is off-limits and anything can happen if you tune in. Make it sort of like the old "Late Night with David Letterman" -- make it FUN after 8 or 9 hours of boring and serious TechLive ... I'd tune in for that.

* As much as I don't like to admit it, it's a better show than it had been before the loss of Becky. I still miss Becky, and I'd love to see her back for her own segment, but the past is the past.

Call for Help Cons:

* Ripping off the Screen Saver's crazy walk-in openings is lame. They should open the show with the Gnome doing a pitch for a funny segment or an interesting segment and have him on set already dressed or doing something weird. For example, if the segments on baseball on-line, he should be dressed as a baseball player for the coming-up hit and set and ready to go on set in his baseball player outfit when the show opens. No need for a lame walk-in (and they've been REALLY lame the last week), when he's dressed weird or opening the show with something weird.

* There's a chat person but that person is hardly ever in the room. It's the same thing they face with "the Screen Savers," they promote "come talk to a person" (Cat, etc.), but that person is never talking to the room. The only one who you know is actually going to be in the room is Laura, since she knows all those chat people. The rest (including Silicon one) either don't try or don't care. It's a shame that they promote chat so heavily yet you can't actually talk to people.

* Gnomie needs a LOT of work on his interviewing skills. He's too hyper and he never lets people come on the show and often he cuts people off while they're in mid-sentence. Gnomie is a poor-man's Leo, so he should watch Leo's interviews. Leo may make weird faces when it's called for but he always lets people finish their thoughts and is strong enough to carry the conversation when the interviewee is less than forthcoming. He should also watch Regis.

* Gnomie acts inappropriately in serious segments; his interruption of the breast cancer segment with attempts at sitting down gags was not at all funny and he should have been reprimanded for it. If not fired for it. You DO NOT make gags when you're doing a segment of that importance. At the very least the Gnome should have apologized on air. Shame on him and shame on TechTV's management for allowing such a thing to happen.

* Roger Chang needs to work on his delivery. I like Roger but he's not comfortable with the camera. He trips over his words a lot and he needs to slow down and relax when delivering his lines. I'm noticing it enough that if I get around to putting him in the strip it will be part of his character. So that's quite a bit.

* Shares the same set with TechLive and it's OLD after 8 hours or so of techlive. That's a gimmie. Did they lie to us when they promised a new Call for Help set in the big summer "feedback" chats?

* Too many distractions. The glass set looks neat but watching Gnome only to be distracted by Brett Larson laughing with people or drinking a soda or just plain acting weird in the background is already getting old. I don't even think the people in that area KNOW how much we see at home. It's very distracting especially with all the people who have nothing to do with on-air in the background. One example, they had a lady named Finch on last week. While she was disturbingly attractive, it was very distracting to have her go into that room

* Embarrassingly bad segments. Oh god, I tuned into the "Crafting and Computers" segment a couple of weeks back because my best friend is into crafting. I've watched crafting shows in the past and I know how they should work. I went into the show expecting to be able to learn something from the segment. Instead the Gnome rolled over the poor crafting lady and interrupted her to the point where you could see she was afraid to say anything. This was highly inappropriate. It was like he was trying to sabotage the segment with his outlandish actions and dang it, I wanted to hear what she had to say. I was embarrassed for her. Was going to share the video with my best friend in v-mail so she could show her crafting friends (and they may have tuned into the channel because all of them have computers and are novices and would benefit from this show), but now, no way. I'm glad they don't know about techtv, and I'm just going to quietly nuke it.

On those notes, I'm out.

-- k9

10:32 AM on a Sunday Morning.

Got home late after a trip down to Hershey to see evil Jim and to see the movie "From Hell." I know, I know, most people are thinking "Johnny Depp and Heather Graham -- it's going to be a Hollywood wonder!" Well, I'll tell ya ... the movie is very dark. It's a lot darker than "Sleepy Hollow" was so don't go in thinking that this is a franchise movie. It's dark. It's twisted. It's shocking, and it's a good movie.

The only thing I could say I would have liked changed would that it would have been a whole lot creepier if it were in black and white and filmed in the style of the old 40's or 30's movies. But, then again, that's me.

The movie was pretty shocking and evil Jim took great glee as he stood outside in the hall after the movie while I used the men's room and watched people come out of the theatre with shocked looks on their faces. I have this theory that it's based on those shocked looks that he took great glee in observing, he bluntly stated that he's going back with his Evil Sister to see it again. Evil Jim hates movies. This must have been good.

I'll give one more thing: not too gross. If you can handle going to the Jack the Ripper web sites and seeing the actual crime scene pictures (which are pretty bad), you won't have a problem with this. There's a couple of really intense moments and HEY! This is a movie about Jack the Ripper after all. Don't bring your kids and don't go in thinking that it's a Disney movie. Not a good family outing unless you want to put them into therapy for the rest of their lives ...

On a side note, wat up wif people bringing 4 year olds to R rated movies? While I didn't see any in "From Hell," when we went to see "Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back" there were tons of little kids. I mean, hello, drug humor, sexual humor, etc. It's your choice to take your kid, but I'd rather my kids (when I have them), go see Disney's latest crap then to come home calling everyone "You F*kers!" That's just me. Call me crazy.

Today features me getting off my butt and sorting things for the next rounds of strips. I have oh, 12,000 pictures to sort already and I still have some tape of this week's Call for Help to process, let alone the whole Screen Savers in Seattle mess. There was nothing scarier than Leo trying to duck walk with the guitar. Leo, middle aged overweight white guys should not duck walk. It only works for Eric Clapton because he is GOD. Or as close to it on guitar as you can get without actually leaving this realm of existence. :)

Leo, I've accepted it. I'm a white guy. I have no rhythm. I have no soul. I can't dance and the only way I could dance is to be in some boy band where the dance moves are preprogrammed into my cerebral cortex. YOU SHOULD NOT BE DANCING. Unless you're gong for the dancing Homer thing from the Simpsons, please, make the pain stop ...

Jessica was back for Seattle, which was okay. Though leather pants just sort of scared me. The girl has two thing legs then a butt that just sort of appears like one of those "hubba hubba hinies" from Laverne & Shirley. Don't know what I mean? Ask around. You'll laugh and I won't have to be too graphic here. Okay I'll be graphic, prosthetic butt enhancers. LOL Laverne got back when she's wearing them. Jessica had back the same way.

Finally, call for help still scares the hell out of me. Gnome rolls over guests and there should be some warning to guests that this guy is either insane or just on sugar and the producers should apologize to guests after each segments and give them large gift baskets and promises not to sue. You know the same sort of "We're so sorry, but she's insane ..." type of apologies they used to give guests of Rosanne. The Gnome should try downers. Or no water after midnight. I swear the boy is a gremlin.

I liked the fact that both Laura from the chat desk and Cat from Screen Savers got a chance to be on the show this week. Both are pretty good on the show and while I wouldn't tune in to the show to see either one on a regular basis (there are waaaaaay too many negatives about that show to get me to watch on a regular basis), it was a surprise to see that the Silicon One wasn't there this week and it was a different show without her. I hope that this means that others from the chat desk will be getting shots here and there. Shows that they can do more than just chat ...

On that note, the poll has 18 votes now. For a tiny little techtv site hey, that's pretty darn good. Patrick is losing ground to the Chat Girls in what you tune into TechTV to see -- so vote if you love Patrick ...

Take care,

k9

7:33 AM 10/19/01

So I'm Blogging again as I get ready to go out mystery shopping this morning. It's a lot of running around to here and there and the middle of nowhere. But at $11 a shop for a few hours of work I'm making pretty good money for just a little bit of driving.

So far the poll results aren't as surprising as I thought and they're not at all scientific. I think I voted twice myself and I'm sure others have voted multiple times so it's a tainted 13 votes. Yes, 13 votes, as we speak. Which is pretty good for us, since there's 10 questions and most of them have been designed to make you laugh or appeal to the many Patrick fans out there. Well, I can say I designed it to do that, but really, I made up the questions and answers at 2:30 am when I really should be sleeping so god only knows what's up there.

The results say that you all like Leo as an anchor on Techlive but you don't want to see him naked and his shirts aren't a drawing point.

So far Laura is leading the "sexiest" vote. Probably due to her many self pronounced stalkers voting en masse. Same goes with Patrick. He's tied or leading whatever category I put him in. What's disturbing is that "Kilt Enhanced" Patrick is leading plain old "Patrick" 5-0 in the sexiest vote. What's even scarier is that the Gnome and Adam have actual votes and there are 0 votes for Martin, Leo or Steve in that category. I mean come on folks, someone has to find Leo sexy. I mean they do don't they?

Martin is running away with the scariest thing on techtv category. This does not surprise me. Between the two categories he's leading the pack as both his skirt antics and speedo antics have apparently scarred people for life.

And wat up wif dat? NO votes for Kristen for anything? She's one hot mama jama folks! Vote for her even if it's so I don't use "wat up with dat?" again.

If you're from techtv or if you know anyone who hasn't voted yet, please do me a favor and either vote or encourage them to vote. That way, when I sneak these into the strips you can't say I was totally unfair. Hey the polls are open to anyone and if you think this one is bad ... wait until next week! Mohahahahahahaha! Only one question from now on so hopefully you'll stick around for that.

With that, I'm on the road now. Take care all. New strips hopefully tonight.

-- k9

10/16/01 1:28 PM
Writing again on a Tuesday afternoon. It's the second day of the ticker and goodness gracious, it's not growing on me. It looks good in still shots, but in action it's headache inducing and distracting.

To become the ultimate geek site, we added a horrible little message area and a poll to the site. How geeky is that? I was bored at midnight and came up with some ideas for a poll and went forward with it.

If you want to vote, go ahead and lie, cheat, steal, vote as many times as you want, report the results with great bias, and by god, have fun with the poll. The results are meaningless so vote what you feel at the time, then clear your cache and come back and vote again when you feel like it. It will probably stay up a week or so.

I put up message boards because I have this dream ... of empty message boards. So go ahead and look at them, laugh at them, but don't take them seriously. I'll probably get bored and talk to myself on them as I'm adding topics later today.

Take care,

-- k9

9:52 AM 10/15/01

Opening eyes early this morning. Had to help load a truck. Finished, came in, sat down and ...

Oh dear god.

Remember when I said:

"It's funny sometimes how folks never amaze to amaze me. Every time I think I've seen something that's got to top the all-time list of stupidity, someone else comes along to top it. Let's just leave it as that I'm amazed and frightened by the world today."

Well, TechTV just amazed me again.

All I can say about the new bottom of the screen ticker is that whomever came up with the design WAS ON CRACK. Or Dope or Speed or Uppers or Downers or BOTH.

I knew it was a California station but DANG FOLKS ugg.

There are hippies getting stoned and watching this right now. You know it.

Calming down, calming down. Think rationally.

First, NO ONE tunes into TechTV for the ticker. If they want ticker stuff they'd tune into a dedicated station.

The Ticker already took up about 1/3 of the screen in it's existing form.

"But k9, the bottom of the screen was blank before, it was just wasted space ..."

BULLPUCKEY.

An orange and green scrolling ticker is very distracting. In fact it's probably inducing seizures in small children as we speak. Remember the Pokemon cartoon that made all the Japanese kids sick a couple of years ago? By god, I swear there are computer geeks slumped over at their computers right now after a week of this.

This thing is giving ME a headache and dang it, TNN has taken away my WKRP.

See what happens when I go away for a week?

This has to be the dumbest thing they've ever done at TechTV, I mean it's more blinding than Scott Herriott's naked manboobs were a couple of months back.

How about this compromise: Run the scrolling ticker during the lame commercials during the breaks. That way we'd actually watch them because we'd be memorized into seizures and wouldn't be moving until the ambulances came ...

UGG.

Dope, they're all on dope.

-- k9

PS Mr. Hand rules.

PPS Remember when I said I would never repeat using my personal feelings to get a message over through a strip? It's out the window. UGG.

11:51 PM 10/14/01

It's funny sometimes how folks never amaze to amaze me. Every time I think I've seen something that's got to top the all-time list of stupidity, someone else comes along to top it. Let's just leave it as that I'm amazed and frightened by the world today.

I'm home. The house is filled with my sister and her family. They're leaving tomorrow. I will miss them more tomorrow than I did last night. Last night, I made the drive in 9 hours and 40 minutes or so. My travel planner said at least 10 hours and 40 minutes, so I'm happy that I beat the Microsoft travel planner by an hour or so.

Called home to find out that when I got home the kids were there, they were having trouble getting a u-haul, and oh yah, a couple of their friends would be over. The u-haul was doable but friends in the house for some sort of party after a 10 hour drive and 4 hours of sleep before that sounded bad.

Got worse as 14 or 15 ended up in the living room.

Mind you I don't know these people, I'm not a social genius, and after all day on the road and lack of sleep, I spent the party trying to get the computer back together and pretty much vegging in the computer room, avoiding everyone and catching up on some work. By three hours into the party I was just staring blankly, looking for an opportunity to sneak out and go back on the road or dear god, sleep sleep sleep.

Today was good. Got to spend some time with my niece and nephew. I can't believe how much they've changed in the year they've been gone. My nephew especially. Before he couldn't really talk, now he's telling jokes and trying to pick up girls. Yes, at 4 ... he likes blonde women. Always has. Ever since he was a baby. He would literally cry at restaurants if there was a blonde waitress and would only stop crying when she came back.

I love my niece and nephew. They're gonna go far, god I hope so. :)

With that, I'm out. More strips going up late this week.

-- k9

PS The elves say to break stuff.

2:02 PM ET 10/12/01

Blogging again before going out today. Not sure what's on the agenda but it's the last day of my vacation and I really don't want to be stuck in the room like yesterday when I worked a 14 hour day. Usual stuff, folks don't understand and like to bitch about things that they do wrong. Unfortunately, I'm the recipient of the complaint e-mail. 53 e-mails last night that I had to respond to and investigate and blah blah blah.

Today maid service again confused me. Tuesday I went out for a couple of hours and came back and they hadn't come yet. So I just got towels when they arrived. Wednesday I was away all afternoon so they did my room up. Yesterday I was working and I waited until they were going to be around before going out. Since I got mail bombed, I didn't go and I didn't hear a thing from maid service got a call from them at 4 PM wondering if I needed anything.

Today, pounding at 10 am. No one there. Pounding at noon (check out is noon), and the girl was perplexed why I only wanted towel service and to empty my garbage. Well, they have a policy where they don't like to change your sheets every day to save water. I take part in that. My floor is pretty clean and I haven't messed the room up. Since they weren't going to change the sheets, I can make my own bed and all I needed was garbage and towels. Okay, I'm weird, but I was working and didn't feel like sitting in the car until the girl finished 30 minutes later.

I take vacations to get 1000 or 2000 or 3000 miles from home. I can relax for a week and while I don't go out much, I really didn't go on vacation for an event filled schedule. I went to sleep. To relax, to enjoy myself in my own weird ways, and I hate having to interrupt that relaxation because the girl has to come in and make the room up. Are you not allowed to sleep in when you're at a hotel if they know you're not checking out for days?

Sigh. I know, I don't get out much. :)

Watching the news of Anthrax everywhere. I have this suspicion that Anthrax is a lot more common than we know and that there were a lot more cases of it than what we know about. I mean before this week they were saying how no one had Anthrax in the U.S. in 20 years or so. But I have a feeling that people did, but no one knew what to look for. Who knows? Anyway, be careful out there. Any nut with a grudge and access may be using it, so again BE SAFE and be smart in these days.

Got a cool game called Arcanum this week. It's a weird little game. It's like a D&D class world but set in the 19th century or so. Game play is a mix of Diablo and the old Fallouts or Ultima (no first person), and it seems to be fairly open to designing your own characters and classes. I like that. If I get more time to devote to it, I want to really get into the designer that comes with it. God, if I figure out how to do import art, lol I'll probably mess with a techtv little module. I'm no game designer so I'll never release what I come up with, but lol, it might be fine turning some of these people into video games.

Thank you again to those posting in the guest book. More Patrick? More Jean Lee? What do the rest of you think?

- k9

3:15 PM ET, 10/11/01

I'm writing from parts unknown on a working vacation. I love the term "working vacation." I go away for a week, I'm dumb enough not to take my vacation days (I didn't know when I was going so I couldn't take them), and I was also dumb enough to lug my PC with me in the car. So instead of going out all day, I'm spending the bare requirements on time on this computer doing actual work before getting out at night.

I have no techtv here, so it sucks big time. I'm hearing about things that are going on -- with the new ticker (more space for STOCKS???? what are they thinking???), and Laura Burstein's return for Friday chats (whoo hoo! now get Heather back too!), and I feel seriously out of the loop. If this site gets mentioned again this week, I'll miss it since I'm here vacationing and cranking out issues and trying to avoid real work.

Oh yah! Duh, our 100th issue went up today. 101st too.

I had big plans for the 100th issue. Our 101st issue really should have been our 100th issue. This is what I had in mind when I planned on getting here. A big cliffhanger on number 100, followed by a mind blowing surprise for issues 101. Well, as with all plans, things get changed. I guess I got too into things this morning and lost count. So ta-da, we're at 101 and if house keeping hadn't of interrupted me (lol "do not disturb" on the door and they knock anyway), we probably would have been up to 103 or 104 by now.

I didn't have a big speech planned so I'll just say thank you to all of you readers for hanging with us for so long. I also want to say thank you to Anne, Chris, Heather, Laura and Robyn in chat for helping to inspire the site. Believe it or not, this was supposed to be a tiny little project to make the chat people laugh. I also want to thank everyone at TechTV -- including the big bosses at the top who probably cringe every time we put an episode out. THANK YOU for letting me go for so long and THANK YOU for not suing my butt by now.

It has been a great ride and we'll keep on going for as long as we can.

Now with that, I'm out for the night. Take care.

-- k9

1:49 PM on a Saturday Afternoon

Sitting at my computer desk, covered head to toe in old soda. I was dumb enough to take recycling over to the recycle place on one of the windiest days of the year. Not only did I find that nearly half of the cans of soda still contained soda, I also found that the wind was prone to shifting so that no matter what I did it would blow the horrible stuff in my face. I hate recycling.

Checking football scores now and then hopping in the shower. My second of the day if anyone is counting. When I got home I found the wood guy had visited, so I have this feeling that I'll be throwing wood down the hill in the morning so if I actually GO ON VACATION this week, my father won't be out there trying to throw it.

Yes, with a heart condition, a tube in his throat to breathe, asthma, high blood pressure and nearly everything else, if I'm not home for 2 minutes he'll be out there "trying to help." Well, that's the story he'll give in the emergency room anyway.

In other news, I have this feeling that the folks on the Screen Savers are trying to drive me insane. LOL. I've been flipping a lot lately because they put Sienfeld up against the screen savers, so I end up watching the replay of the screen savers a lot. So last night as I was flipping, well, I noticed Martin in a skirt. Then Patrick said something about it being Michaela's skirt and ... I think I'm going insane. :)

Thanks guys and gals.

Last night we hit 96 episodes. We'll probably hit 100 sometime next week and then, space permitting, we'll keep going for as long as we can. I may end up putting season one and two back on the old AOL Hometown site down the line in order to make room for new strips. I never thought we'd make it this far. I thought I'd retire after 50, but here we are in the middle of October and I have stories to tell. So as long as you're out there reading, I'll be here putting them out. So let me know you're out there and sign the guest book, dammit!

Kudos to those who noticed the homages in the past few strips. I've been sneaking them in here and it's great to know folks are paying attention. I still have no clue what Episode 100 will be like but to all of those Heather fans out there -- a SPOILER WARNING ... (if you don't want to read it, just page down to "end spoiler space.")

(scroll down)


S

P

O

I

L

E

R


S

P

A

C

E


She's not dead. But the only actual footage I had of her had Trip Hawkins in it. I have a way to work around it but ... umm, dear Heather, if you're out there, if you ever wanted to SEND ME VIDEO, now's the time to contact me!



S

C

R

O

L

L


D

O

W

N












END SPOILER SPACE


On that note, I'm now smelling like old diet Pepsi. Take care all,

k9

10/01/01 11:13 PM

It's getting close to a late night here. I have no plans on staying up late, but with anything and everything lately, I probably will.

The past week has been kind of crazy. I turned 31 yesterday and didn't really have a party or anything. It wasn't the greatest of birthdays. Since my vacation (set for THIS WEEK) was indefinitely postponed, my mom stayed away on her vacation another day so I was home alone with my dad. It could have turned into the birthday from hell but a couple of phone calls from friends and blowing some money at walmart made the day feel a little better than it could have been.

Today was kind of cool. Laura Burstein returned to fill in for an hour of chat. The past week has not been the same without her and I've actually changed my hours at work to take advantage of the now the huge hole in my afternoons. No offense to anyone, but I don't like how they handled this situation and I'm not supporting them right now until they start to treat their people better. You just don't yank two people that the viewers have grown to know and care about out of roles they're good at and replace them with ... well ... they didn't really replace them.

Instead of replacing the afternoon team, the chat host now doubles as the netcam person. As dumb as this sounds, it's true. The chat host -- the person we're all enticed to come and chat with -- spends half of his or her time getting up to go answer the phone in another chair or to make way for an anchor because someone in management seems to have it in their brains that the shot from the chat desk looks great with an anchor there instead of a chat host. DOH.

IMODO it's nuts to have the chat host get up in the middle of the conversation because the anchor is going to sit at the chat bar. That's something that makes little to no sense to me and, frankly, as someone with several years of chat hosting experience, it would tick me off to have to get up every 15 minutes because someone has to do segments from my seat. In the chat itself, it's disjointing. They put so much time and effort into getting us into chat only to have it flat on it's face because any sort of moderated conversation goes out the window when they force the chat host out of her or his chair every five minutes.

Rants aside, it was great to see Laura in chat again and good to see that maybe someone is coming to their senses. If you'd like to see her or Heather in chat more often -- or gosh darn it -- on the air again, let them know at feedback@techtv.com.

In other news, it was a surprise tonight as Leo honored this site by using my Bill Gates as Mr. Burns at the start of the newly redesigned screen savers show tonight. I'm glad someone up there likes the site. As far as the show goes, the new set was disjointed as heck and it seemed to me like the same folks who decided to screwed up chat are decided to screw up the set but hey, that's a rant for another time ...

I'm off to bed.

-- k9

PS To that friend in need, we're not ALL that way. You just have to sort the mice from the men.