Ugg.

Blogging again. I am going to nap in a few minutes and then, hopefully, I'm working 3 hours and that's that. I only have 3 for today and 3 for tomorrow. That's it. So umm, nothing can happen for the next two days. I'm demented enough to think I've forbidden it.

I feel tired. I also feel very old but I don't want to dwell on that right now. I'm stressed enough as is.

I haven't followed up on my critiques on TechTV shows in a while. I'll give some unlikely advice and that's all I'll say on the subject. I grew up watching pro wrestling. In the 90's I was in a position to get to know some of the mid-level guys from WCW. From what they told me and from what I observed, being booed is good. Being cheered is also good. No matter what your reaction is from the crowd, as long as the reaction was SOMETHING (even if you were a good guy and the crowed booed you; or a bad guy hearing cheers), if the crowd reacted to you then you play into it and you're doing your job. The very worst thing is to go out there to no response at all. If the crowd is dead, essentially, YOU SUCK.

Now you can go on and on that pro wrestling sucks, but that's what they want you to say. You're spending your time discussing pro wrestling. If someone hears that it sucks, then it serves as a weird sort of publicity. People check it out based on how poorly you rate it and how vigorously you say it sucks. So starting a campaign to get Pro Wrestling taken off the air is about the dumbest thing you could ever do. The more you protest, the more you advertise for them and the more people go to their shows.

TechTV is like that. There's a show on right now that is horrible. Well more than one. This one in particular WANTS negative feedback. There's nothing better in their eyes than getting a scathing review. They'll then put it up on their website and bask in the negative glory because it is some sort of publicity for them.

Letter writing campaigns, polls to say the show sucks, petitions, etc., all are the dumbest thing you can do because they show you care enough about the show that you MUST be watching (even if you hate it). They'll do something even MORE outrageous or outlandish just to keep you angry -- and watching. That's just how it works.

My advice? Stop everything. Don't watch (and don't send out letters to your friends not to watch because it just makes them watch even more). Don't mention them. No letters. No cards. No petitions. No reaction. It's the easiest way to kill a show that sucks.

I'm doing it. If you look at the percentage of stories some shows get on my site you can easily track which shows I think aren't worth it ...

k9
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I'm Gonna Break Soon ...

I haven't blogged in a while because I haven't had any time to say anything. Sure I've had "time off" but I've filled that time with writing strips or oh, being called back into work because Mike Tyson had to go and open his mouth and we had to put it on the service's main screen and ...

I thought Annika people were bad. They were one room of bigots. Last night we had 8 rooms of bigots. The worst things you could imagine. I did a 7 hour shift in them and I couldn't sleep afterwards. I literally couldn't close my eyes. Sleep just didn't work. I fear for the world right now.

I fear for myself too. I swear last night by midnight I wasn't thinking clearly. I was adding "ion" to words. So "words" would become "wordion" or "prodution request" would become "production requestion". I'm still afraid. I'm doing it now. I'm just exhausted.

At least the Spurs managed to win so there's no games until the 4th of June. I can try to sleep now. If it gets any worse, I don't know what I'm going to do. I feel like the old man and the sea right now. Just waiting and waiting.

I joined FRIENDSTER.com because the horrible evil STEF drug me into it. Well, she's not horrible or evil, but I think she gets tired of being called the nicest person on earth all the time and dragging me into that place was in fact an act of evil. I made her give me a testimonial so I wouldn't look like a loser. She's gone and hid her live journal again so people can't see it, but I don't care, since that was evil of her and I don't feel like stripping HTML out of this since I'm about to go fall over.

Well, no, I can't. I have to drag my butt to the shower then get in the car and go get a haircut. THEN fall over.

Life is like that sometimes.

k9
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Ugg Even Worse

Spent most of last night in golf chat again. Annika Sorenstam was the issue. I needed a break after two and a half hours in the room so I called a friend in. She laughed at me for giving up so easily. She's one of my best hosts. Doesn't back down from anything or anyone. Within a half an hour she was IM'ing me to come back into the room because she was going to kill them all. Yes, it was that bad.

I really don't know what it is about Annika playing in the PGA tournament that brings out the worst in guys, but I saw so many sexist, sometimes racist, sometimes right wing, comments that I started to get numb to them. As a host you have to try to stay impartial, as the boss of the hosts you have to be even better as an example to the hosts. Well, it was the most brain draining and mind numbing experience I've had in a while. We finally just joined in on chat and called another host in and my boss in. Between the 4 of us we got the racist and sexist comments to stop ... for about 10 minutes. I guess enlightenment is never gonna happen as long as guys honestly believe that women belong "barefoot and naked (???) serving me in my bed and the kitchen."

So I'm tired. I slept in 30 minutes this morning. I had a weird dream that there was a war between vampires and werewolves. I was one of the werewolves. I got kicked out of hanging with the vampires so I recruited a ragtag bunch of werewolves, trolls, fairies, monsters and madmen (and women), to rumble with the vampires. After kicking their butts we had a showdown with a bunch of witches. From this the Green Lantern Corps was born.

Don't ask.

Leave it be.

So galleries update. For some reason the Jessica gallery is SMOKING the Morgan gallery by over 40 views. I don't know why this happened. All I know is that they were neck and neck yesterday. I put up the galleries because as most of the teenage webmasters are quitting the whole TechTV website thing in disgust over the changes, most of the sites that feature pictures of these people are going too. If you notice, other than the Kevin one, they do not include new pictures. They're the pictures from the strips. As I retire each batch of pictures (and I'm somewhere close to retiring the ones from last fall), I'll stick the ones that I've used in strips in the photo galleries. There are long and complicated reasons why I'm not putting new pictures up, the only one you have to care about is that this is a comic strip site, if I were just a picture server I'd run out of space with all the captures I have of these people.

k9
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Too Tired for Words

I overslept this morning. Thankfully it was only 20 minutes and I'm no longer scheduled to work a morning shift. I worked 10 hours yesterday, 7 of it moderating a golf room, and you know what? I hope the lady golfer misses the cut so I don't have to work in golf again. I'm out of hours anyway. They don't believe in overtime. Therefore you're only supposed to work the hours you're scheduled. If something happens and you're not scheduled, you get yelled at. That's just how life is. I went in early (charging them for the time) so I wouldn't be yelled at. That's just part of the whole thing. Don't get yelled at and you'll be okay.

Someone must be linking to the Jessica and Morgan galleries. Remember, it's okay to link to them as long as you don't link directly to the individual picture files. I am adament about it because it costs and arm and a leg in badwidth fees each time someone does it. If I find the link, I'll rename the picture and you'll get a picture not found error. If too many people do it, I'll take the whole gallery down or limit downloads. That's why I've disabled right clicking on the strips and why we're no longer listed at images.google.com. I just can't afford the higher bandwidth fees when it's caused by a picture of Ogre from "Revenge of the Nerds."

It's my site, I'd like to control when I have to pay extra for it. I'm not cheap, but I do like having some say in my destiny. While I'd gladly pay the fees if TechTV ever mentioned us, Joe Schmoe and the picture of Ogre (or Mr. Roper), generating thousands of hits in a couple hours is enough for me to go on a rampage.

Now I'm in allergy hell and I'm going to write some strips. The last of the Scott 2-parter goes today and get ready for the Scooby Doo ending on Sunday.

You've been warned.

k9
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One More Day

Yes, that's right. There's one more day until the 300th strip. Well until tomorrow anyway, which is in 11 hours or so. The thing is written and I could put it up at any time but I'm wondering about how life is and how things change. My world is very different since issue 200. People have come and people have gone. Loves have switched a number of times and it's interesting that I find myself where I am. It's an interesting place, a lonely place, but for the first time in a long time I'm thinking for me and not what would happen if person x and person y fight person z over issue W. Or if person M would yell at me if person R got more of my time. Or if the person E started thinking that M and C were really squared ... it's all so not my issue any more.

No more headaches.

No more hassles.

No more changing the world.

I don't have time for it. I seriously don't.

k9
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Insanity

Last night was the first of the really late games I was required to work. I was scheduled until midnight but really worked until 1 am or so. I charged them for that extra hour and have adjusted my schedule for the rest of the games in that series. It ain't good. I'm tired. I had a nightmare about a standard haunted house that woke me up early and my allergies are in full bloom on top of the cold symptoms I was having. I'm a mess. I feel like someone punched me in the face on top of a nasty hangover.

Burger King frozen sodas help. They coat my throat. The trouble with that is that I have to GO OUTSIDE to go get one. Outside right now has an air quality of "you'll die." When I tried going out there was so much bird poop and pollen stuck to the car that I tried to wash it with some crappy organic Windex my mom has and that just spread it around. I tried water (our hose isn't hooked up yet and barely stretches to the front of the house when it is), but that smeared it. I finally found a jug of windshield washer fluid and threw it at the windows. That got it so I could drive it. That's all that I cared about. I'll tell my mom to go to a car wash when she gets home.

My folks have been in Washington State visiting my sister for almost a week now. They come home this morning. Only looking forward to that because they didn't go shopping before they left and we ran out of all the cat food, litter, milk etc. while they were gone. Not a happy camper about that. They were in a hurry so it came down between grocery shopping and grass cutting and well, my allergies will KILL ME if I try to cut grass ...

Got good news. They hired the new guy so I'm losing 3 of my 7 areas on June 2. That should cut down on some of the stress. Stef thinks I should stop doing daily strips until I can get my head together and Basketball is over. I don't know. I might do it. But right now, I'm going to plod along. There will be crappy strips from time to time. I hated Sunday's strip. I had absolutely no time between cleaning and work to do it. I hated it so much that I've been going back and changing it to try to make it work. That's the thing about daily strips, you'll get a crappy one here and there. That's just from time constraints. I'm not proud of it at all but I'm learning from each one and hopefully I'll be a better writer out of this whole tropic island mess.

Hopefully.

k9
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Monday Morning

It's Monday morning and I feel like hell. Friday I broke my computer chair. A typical event. I go through computer chairs right and left, at least 4 in the last 7 years or so. They just don't last since I sit in them 12 hours a day. I didn't think twice of going out in the pouring rain because I had to get things done NOW and get the whole process of finding one and putting one together out of the way before my evening shift. Of course, there's no surprise that I'm showing signs of a cold a couple of days later. Life is wonderful.

I'm working my regular morning shifts lately but my afternoon shift is now 8-midnight. Every night for the next 3 weeks until the NBA playoffs are over. I wouldn't mind it as much, however, my brain gets to be a total mush after 11 or so when I'm forced to think or work. I'm used to being ready for bed at that time of night, not getting 10 ims from volunteers on top of trying to update screens on top of watching a busy chat room and trying to figure out where my hosts are and hope I'm not doing anything wrong so I won't end up getting yelled at in the morning ... my brain just goes. Totally gone.

I have this morning off. I don't have to be to work until 8 PM or so. I plan on writing a lot today provided I can get the captures I want. I am still doing daily strips, though today's is going to be kind of late since I don't have the captures I need as of yet. We're almost to 300, I really don't want to poop out just yet.

Had a dream last night that Evil James was the president of the United States. He invited me to the white house and it turned out that the vast majority of the white house was blue screens and sets. He had a chief of staff who was even more evil than he was and he let me stay in the Lincoln bedroom. I got up in the middle of the night and started wandering around the place. In the cabinets and drawers I was finding weird documents that were obviously salvaged from old trunks or collections. One contained Benjamin Franklin's doodles of other members during the Colonial Congress. I wanted to keep that one, but figured of anything, since it was the funniest, it would probably be the first to be found missing.

The dream ended as I ran into Evil James and we decided to sneak out and have a pizza. Then he got arrested when we tried to sneak back in for pretending to be the president. He was rather pissed and ended up screaming "I'll get you for this, Knine, I'll get yoooooooooooooooooou!"

It wasn't as weird as the dream I had yesterday where I was wrestler "Stone Cold" Steve Austin crossed with Harry Potter. I had a wand, a six pack of beer, those funky classes and a bald head. When I realized who I was (the first time someone confronted me and I waved the goofy wand at them), I had to stop and kick my own ass.

My dreams scare me.

k9
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Happy Two Years

Not going to let work spoil this day. I almost quit my job last night but that's another story for another time. Right now I'd just like to thank some people before scampering back to the dreaded hellhole ...

To Brit Wilbert (who I always call Brit Wibert for some strange reason -- but she knows my brain isn't right ): Thank you for the picture that's currently on our main page and for always keeping the guestbook alive (and to those reading at home you can sign it too by CLICKING HERE.).

To Laura Burstein: To the drama, to the laughter, to the late night phone calls and everything that is friendship with the world's wildest former TechTV employee. You should visit her site to see how much hotter she looks since those TTV days ...

To Evil James & Family: For the curse that makes my life so darn interesting.

To Robyn the Huggiebear Heuseveldt: For the crush that started this site way back when.

To Stef: You are my strength and my stability. I would have gone coo-coo for cocoa puffs long ago if you weren't around.

To Rachel Ricer: For all your help on the site and all the fun times.

To Summa: My psychotic platonic lifemate, kill kill kill.

To the Okto-Girl: Well, the one Dr. Who is retired. We'll have to find which of the 7 others you like best now. Can we start my mid-life crisis now? I'll get the car.

To my unnamed best friend: For putting up with me for so long.

To Mandy: For never getting my jokes. EVER.

To Auntie Tabitha: Fix the Tinka, then we'll talk about that promised Attack of the 50 foot strip.

To everyone at TechTV: For not slapping my ass with lawsuits as of yet.

To my seven readers: hey, thanks for being here! Now go read some strips!

k9
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Monday Evening

Check my my webcam for a picture of the mni-pc. That little blurry box on the shelf is it.

k9
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Monday

It is Monday morning and it's raining. Okay done. That's my only point to write about right now.

My Sat dish keeps coming and going and there's nothing going on at work. I'm bored. I'm tired. I have to take the cat to the vet this afternoon and oh, yah, Wednesday is our two year anniversary.

Two years. Well hopefully someone will remember. Site hits are down and that's a little daunting since I have to shell out $100 next week to renew the site for another year. People are reading my blog, which is a plus (or at least coming to the RSS feed), not exactly sure how to get you all to switch over and look at all the work I've done on strips over the years (god, I can use that line now). I think that if you limit yourself to reading my blog then you're missing out on what makes me, well, an insane little guy who spends most of his time on a computer.

There had to be said. So go read some strips. They make sense and you'll feel good about yourself after reading them ... since you're not as insane as I am.

Now, for those who follow these things: MAJOR CHANGES ARE COMING.

That's it. I'm back to work.

k9
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Friday Stuff

It's Friday afternoon and I'm currently reinstalling everything on my little computer. I got it back this week and put it back together (though they left a stick of PC 3200 RAM In it and forgot to give me my hard drive cables back when they fixed the problem with it at the place I got it from), and got it up and running enough to do a handful of captures. However, the first install really was just to show that the frigging thing could work and to get a number of screen captures so I could, oh, get on with the stories that have been building up for a while.

I'm cooking a pizza in the other room. I think I should be napping (since it's the first afternoon off all week), but my allergies interfered and I spent some time in bed with a horrible headache and no real way to let go of it long enough to sleep. Let alone I really had to go to the bathroom after a while and that really spoils my mood to sleep. I also did something incredibly dumb today and it bugged me enough to get up again.

Yes, I accidently killed my mp3 collection. Yes, the same mp3 collection that I've been dying to get back since they were stored on the other machine's hard drive. Yes, that same mp3 collection that I swore I'd never part with again ... The good news is that I have most of it backed up to about a hundred or so cds. So I can just go back and get them all off my disks again, of course, that's the bad news as well. All my favorite songs are scattered over nearly 100 little mp3 cds and I don't know where to start.

So I reformatted my windows partition and started over on the mini PC.

No no no, I didn't kill data or anything. I was only using the windows partition to store windows and the swap file. It's the first step in redoing the mini-PC. I figured the pain of actually getting the flipping thing to work properly was less painful then going through the mountain of mp3 cds. Really. THAT job scares the crap out of me. It's worse than last Summer when I was trying to explain to Laura that I didn't bring any clothes to go to a 4 star restaurant with because ... well, I don't have any clothes to go to a four star restaurant with ... but not quite as bad as trying to explain to Evil James that the Gnome may come back to the strip (in one form or another) the other day.

As he put it: "NO GNOMES."

"NO SIX MILLION DOLLAR GNOMES EITHER."

I am going my own route, of course, I have one last Gnome story to tell. It's my strip and I'll have to learn to live with the emotional and physical scars of having it in the back of my head until the story is told.

One week until the two year anniversary of this site.

13 more issues until 300.

Happy Happy Joy?

Who am I kidding?

I'm in allergy-killed my mp3 collection-reformatting my computer-the cat wants to go outside and kill-dodging Evil James because the Gnome is a coming back hell. Thank you very much.

k9
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X-Play Revisited

I felt bad about giving "X-Play" such a bad review so I decided to watch it again tonight on the reply after The Screen Savers.

Can I give a show negative stars?

This was the show's second night, you know, the one where Morgan Webb gets mean and disses Oracle (the wheelchair bound librarian -- aka the former Batgirl), who helps out Batman. Oh? Morgan doesn't know that? Dear god, girl, do your research before you start dissing people. Oracle rocks in more ways than one.

What doesn't rock? "X-Play." One thing I noticed was that they try to have a shaky camera and switch between black and white and color with every other shot. Oh, this was cool ... for five minutes in 1997 when I saw it as part of a NWO skit on WCW wrestling. That's right, they're trying to "be cool" by ripping off bad 1997 pro wrestling. Sad.

What doesn't rock? Morgan Webb's review. Yes, review. She had all of one on the show and besides being about as mean as Morgan Webb gets (see above), it sounded like she was calling from a phone booth. I realize she doesn't have a radio voice, but goodness gracious folks, at least enhance it during her reviews so she doesn't sound like she's talking in the next stall over.

What doesn't rock? Spastic Adam. Yes, that's right. Adam is finally spazzing out. Is it because Morgan is dressing like Morganna the kissing bandit? God only knows, but these people can do SO much better ... but they're not ... and they don't care that the show sucks.

I revise my review: I give X-Play a negative 5 stars.

I don't feel bad about calling a spade a spade either.

k9
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