I know it's kinda late for it as I type this, but...Happy Memorial Day. Or at least, a Not-Too-Sad Memorial Day, for those of you who actually celebrate its intended purpose as opposed to "the unofficial start of summer". Or the second unofficial...the first being, of course, whenever the Hollywood blockbuster season begins.

And with my extra day, I was able to finally work on some more comics. Not that you'll see them anytime soon. Plus, a new COLOR(!!!!1!111!) pic that I'm going to put up on the Cast page. Woo!
posted by Tim at 12:50 AM

Uh, yeah...so it's been a while since I've updated anything. I've been kinda busy. So I'm just gonna share a few thoughts now - a nice quickie entry. Some little thoughts that have been circling in my mind.

Theory: If you were to isolate every one of Ralph Wiggum's lines from every episode of The Simpsons, it wouldn't be very long, but it'd probably be the more hilarious few minutes of audio you'll ever hear. And it might work too, since most of his lines have kind of a non-sequiter feel to them anyway. Reminds me of something I heard on the radio a while back...they isolated every one of Shwartzeneggar's lines from Terminator 2...the entire movie boiled down to about 4 1/2 minutes.

About the Matrix:
As I write this, it's still in the middle of it's opening weekend. I'm debating whether or not to go see it tomorrow...I dunno, I've got some stuff at home that needs to get taken care of (like editing more comics, for one!). Funny how now, people are analyzing the movie more. It's not as reality-breaking (as opposed to just ground-breaking) as the original. Especially since it's been copied/parodied almost everywhere. But they're analyizing little details, such as this point. Why humans? If all the machines needed was an alternative source of fuel other than solar, why not something like wind power (the humans made it awfully stormy, I think)? Or hydro-electric? Nuclear? No, they've got to come up with some complex, convoluted scheme to enslave every human on the planet and hook them up to Jell-O bubbles. And make them not notice. Sure, it's creepy and makes for a nice story. At this point, I haven't seen The AniMatrix...and I've heard there's some explination as to how the whole Matrix started. Sounds like the humans were being dicks to the machines, which is kinda why the machines picked human batteries first. Like I said, I don't know...I'll probably look quite the fool once I do see it and look back at this post. An April fool, as it t'were. But anyway...first off, why were the humans maltreating the machines? It seems like humans maltreat everything. Then the machines are all hell-bent of destroying/enslaving all humans. Why is this a theme in almost every story that involves robots or artificial intelligences? I need to read I, Robot, but I would think the first thing you do when writing an AI is to include those rules.
It's funny, as I read the previous entries here and realize I was kinda drooling over the trailer. But now I'm a little more jaded...but more for the story and the fact that it's all anyone's been talking about for the last 10 days or so (after everyone got over X2, of course). Still, I'm looking forward to the special effects :-D

You might've heard about it...but the University of Massachusetts at Amherst (my alma mater!!!) was briefly considering changing their mascot. This was mostly the Athletic Department's doing. They paid $10,000 to a marketing firm in New York, and the idea proposed was to change the Minutemen to the Gray Wolves. The idea was that the wolf was a more marketable icon, whether it was cuddly or fierce, so they could sell more merchandise. They claimed the gray wolf was a Massachusetts-indiginous animal. The debate over it, of course, brought up the fact that they really weren't...or at least, not seen around here for a long time. Plus there was a lot of hoopla (with my thoughts included agreeing with this, as well) that the Minuteman was not only a unique nickname among college athletics, but a relatively unique identifier of Massachusetts history. And you get all the recent patriotism going in its favor. And, the New England Patriots don't seem to have a problem with their mascot. Another dumb thing about the debate was the gender issue...that some of the female student body couldn't identify with a masculine logo. It's dumb, and the point was brought up too that a gray wolf would've been a little more masculine anyways. Plus all the other schools with masculine mascots, ie USC, UNLV, Syracuse et al. One more thing...gray wolves would've been a little too close to neighboring UConn's and Northeastern's (where my sister goes!) Huskies.
But, it was finally announced that UMass is keeping the Minuteman...and now they're waiting a little bit to build up suspense to unveil a more updated logo. I hope it looks good. In short...gray wolves would've been really stupid.
Maybe I'll dig through some archives...but I might repost my thoughts on some other school nicknames that I thought were unusual. We'll see.

Thanks for checking in! Please continue to support Alternate Delusions...and for heaven's sake, if you like it, let me know! Write me or something! I've been toying with the idea of putting up a poll on the site, but I'm curious if people are just stopping in for the comic, or if they're really voting, or maybe I should set up a forum or something.
posted by Tim at 3:11 AM

I've got some thoughts about the storyline starting here.

This storyline was written well before President Bush got his Iraqi war on, and all of the events that have happened the last few months. So it is not, and was never intended as, some kind of satire about the French or their political position. It takes place in France since it is a French card game. I designed Jacques Pierre as over-the-top stereotypical as I could (which isn't all that original, since most over-the-top stereotypical French men are in striped shirts and berets) so that no one who could possibly be offended by it, could be offended by it, since it is over-the-top and in no way based in reality. I even have him smoking a cigarette in my original character sketches. In short, if you are offended by the character, then you have much more serious problems to work out, such as getting a sense of humor. I don't think I even have him say anything particularly outrageous.

And for those conspiracy wackos, the symbol that is regularly shown throughout the storyline is not supposed to be some kind of subliminal "peace" symbol that was altered. It supposed to look like a steering wheel of a car, since the card game has to do with driving. Nothing more. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Oh, and it's also not to be some kind of subliminal advertisement for Mercedes-Benz, either.

But one of the funniest, and irksome, things to have come out recently is the whole "Freedom Fries" thing. I think renaming French fries like that is one of the most hilarious things. Every day as I commute to work, I pass over the French River (though it's not a very large one), and every day I'm tempted to pull over and block out half the sign so it reads "Freedom River". Going to Freedom class and having to do Freedom homework, getting French Stewart to change his name...it's just a funny thing to do.
But...it's also a sign of how we as Americans can go way overboard about things. Sure, I think it's funny, but it's nothing we should be going out of our way to change. This is probably some kind of rumor, so please correct me if I'm wrong...but I think this whole Freedom fries thing started with the cafeteria at the Capitol building changing the name. This scares me a little, since it wouldn't surprise me at all if Congress actually spent time debating this change. I'm not saying they did, but I could see it happening. And that's not cool. Why? First off, Congress has MUCH better things to discuss than what to call a form of potatoes. Then there's the original name ot begin with. What's the number one question people always ask about French fries? "Duh...why are they called French fries when they're not really French?" (And yes, you have to include the "duh"). People generally seem to know that French fries don't come from France, even if they don't know where they do come from (Belgium). They're called French fries because "French-cut fried potatoes" is too long. And it's called French-cut since no one can be bothered to learn how to pronounce or spell "julienne". (Myself included, since that's probably not spelled right).

I apologize for that horrendous swear word I mentioned. Please pardon my Freedom.
posted by Tim at 12:03 AM