Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later.

During my usual rounds of the factory floor where I work, I was approached by one of the other workers. Turns out, in a night of boredom, he Googled QB Soling, and ended up finding the comic. Which doesn't surprise me...I just did it myself right now, and I'm on the first page of results, 9th link down. Plus, I've been getting search words hits (or similar ones, like Quaboag or Vibram) for the last few months.

So now is the first confirmed case of someone who I work with (sorta) finding my comic. And he liked what he saw, which is a good sign. Though it makes me wonder. It's got to be weird for the person who's doing a serious Web search for footwear products, and ending up on my webcomic, which has decidedly little to do with footwear.


Couple other quick thoughts, while I'm at it...

On the way to work today, I was passed by an SUV on the highway. A New York license plate, and an obvious vanity plate...because it read "SQUIRTLE". I shit you not.

I saw a commercial on TV the other night for Crotched Mountain. First of all, that's not a name that inspires me to go skiing. Secondly, the ad boasted that Crotched is "the newest mountain in New Hampsire". And my thought was, "Don't mountains usually take millions of years to form?" I mean, it couldn't have just sprung up overnight. And I had a nice little chuckle.
posted by Tim at 12:21 AM

This one gets its own entry because it has to do with the comic itself. Fancy that, eh? Anyway, it deals with Flerpnip's Green Lantern companion. You might be wondering about Andy's comment of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Eyeball!!!" in the Tag-board. (If you're not wondering about it, well, start, because that's what I'm talking about). Because basically, that's were the character design came from.

It all started back in 6th grade Language Arts class (a term to encompass more than just English...there was reading comprehension and all that other stuff). Our assignment through the semester was a certain number of creative writing projects...stories, poems, etc, and I was having a difficult time trying to think of something to write about. So I tried a trick I learned from cartoons. After another one of Wile E. Coyote's schemes failed, he laid on the ground and mindlessly doodled on the ground before being struck with another idea. At the time, I thought he gained inspiration from the doodle itself, so I thought I'd give it a go. Basically I spent some time doodling in the corner of my folder (inconspicuously, of course). Eventually there was a little picture of an ambulance driving over a sewer grate, dropping some eyeballs out of the back and into some mutagenic sludge. And thus the Teenage Mutant Ninja Eyeballs were born. (Hey, give me a break, I was in the middle of my Ninja Turtle phase back then). I never used this particular doodle in my assignments, though. In fact, I'm not sure it even worked for me...at least at the time.

Flash forward one year to pre-algebra class. Someone next to me noticed my doodle of one of these guys on my book cover, and drew me up a doodle of his own...basically a fleshed out version of the same thing. (My original just had sticks for arms and legs.) Not that this is a terribly important step in the story, but I thought I'd mention it anyway.

Another year later, in English class. The assignment for the last quarter: write a story. That was it. And I remember spending a significant portion of the class not knowing what to write about. So I thought about how I had the problem before, and I remember my stupid little doodle. There were no restrictions on the assignment on whether it had to be fiction or non-fiction, so I thought, "Hey, let's go with it." And I furiously banged some lame story...because I had wasted so much time before, I had to work very quickly to get it done on time. And I didn't even get it done on time, I know I handed it in late. And what a steaming pile I wrote, too. I mean, I even included a part where one of the Eyeballs had to pull a choice of levers, and one of them said, "Not that one...that'll release the plot of this story!" Yeah, THAT bad. I still wince when I think about it.

At some point previous to that assignment, my brother and I spent some time expanding on the character designs and drawing them on a chalkboard. This mostly involved either designing them with some kind of pun based on their names, or just changing what they are to some other random animal/object. In addition to our appropriately-colored Eyeballs (Don, Mike, Leo and Ralph), we had: Splinter as a board of wood (get it? HYUK HYUK), Bebop as a bee, Rocksteady as a rock (not like the original Rock Soldiers from Dimension X, but your basic lump of stone with arms and legs), the "Bat" King, Ace Squirrel (flying squirrel instead of a duck...looking suspiciously like Rocky), ...um...Baxster Stockman I took "bax" like "backs" and made him a spinal column, in keeping with the body-part theme...Casey Jones I took similar to the legendary railroad engineer and made him a train engine (with cowcatcher and everything)...Krang was a giant frog...the Technodrome was a giant "NO" with tank treads and eyeball thing on top...I think Shredder might've been a food processor...and I know there's more. I don't know if this showcases my creativity as a child, or my insanity.

Fast forward to today, where I've decided to resurrect a childhood doodle into a fellow Green Lantern. We'll be seeing more of him and others (OMG SPOILER) later on.
posted by Tim at 2:03 AM

All right. My superiors at work have asked me to attend a mandatory meeting on Friday at 6:00 am. Normally I'd be excused from this sort of thing, since I don't even report to work until 12:30 pm (I'm fast asleep by 6), but for whatever reason, this is an exception, so I have to deal with it as best as I can. That includes getting as much sleep as possible, which leaves me no time to get a comic done on time. So I'm going to blog out some thoughts that have been circulating in my brain for a little while, in a lame attempt to have some kind of update for Saturday. At some point I'm going to have consistent 3-update weeks, dammit :P

First off, as is my tendency to talk about things much later than I should, a quick congratulations to the World Series Champion Chicago White Sox. It a little disappointing that they went through the Red Sox to get there, but at least another garment-themed team won. Also, more importantly, the Spankees failed to win again.

It's also nice to see another team finally end decades of frustration. I know most Chicago people are Cubs fans, which makes me feel that - for just this time, at least - everybody in Chicago should enjoy this. Simply BECAUSE the Cubs are now the losingest baseball team ever, Chicago should celebrate now...who knows when (or even if) they'll see another championship baseball team again?

Speaking of near-century-old phenomena, what a wacky hurricane season, huh? I don't mean to be callous by saying that. I just seems like we had more and more powerful hurricanes than we've ever had...or at least since either we've been watching them, or since we've been naming them. And that seems true for almost any natural weather thing to happen. It seems a lot of coldest-day-on-record, hottest-day, most-rainfall, most-snow, etc. kinds of records all are either almost 100 years old, or have been recently broken. If things like this go in a cycle, then I guess I've got some pleasantly mild weather to look forward to in 50 years or so. :)

A couple of smaller, random thoughts...

There's a new radio station around here (or at least, relatively new, as far as I can tell) - 93.7, Mike FM. Their slogan? "We play everything." Well, not EVERYTHING, I've noticed...no country or classical or Indian sitar music or anything, but that's not the point. In their self-promotional bumpers, they'll occasionally weave in current events. In one I heard recently while flipping through the stations, I think it was referring to the whole Harriet Miers debacle. Talking about themselves, they said, "We're a good judge of music."
And I thought, "You play everything. You say as much no less that 500 times a day. If you play everything, then you're not judging any of the music that goes through...it could be crap music, but you have to play it, because you play EVERYTHING!"

Also saw an ad for the new movie Zathura on TV. In the critic blurbs they flash across the screen, someone described it as "one of the most original movies in years". Or at least "original", I remember that much, at least. Why? Because the movies isn't original in any way whatsoever. It's "Jumanji in space"! They even tell you "from the people who brought you Jumanji" in the same damn ad!

Speaking of movies, I was also thinking about Walk the Line, and being surprised finding out that it was Joaquin Pheonix playing Johnny Cash. Well, more accurately, just how much he sounds like him. And that he doesn't seem to have his trademark creepy-darkened-eyes thing happening...which is a good thing. I had similar epiphanies before...like "Holy crap, that's Will Smith?!" (in Ali) and "Holy crap, that's Jamie Foxx?!" (in Ray).

I also wanted to complain a little bit about Cartoon Network's Adult Swim programming block. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy it as much as the next person. But they've become far too popular for their own good. They've seemed to have developed this sense of entitlement. In one of their bumpers a couple weeks ago, they were going over their ratings. The line was, "What, no millionaire love this week?" Like they expected to get at least a million viewers....it's such an arrogant line. And then they show the numbers for the top three shows of the week. Two of them were Family Guy reruns. And they wonder why they aren't pulling in the numbers they used to? Adult Swim got popular by broadcasting reruns of Futurama and Family Guy. Then they got lucky with ATHF and Harvey Birdman (and probably a couple others). But now they're wondering where their precious 18-34 male viewers have gone when they're offering up such gems as Tom Goes to the Mayor and 12 oz. Mouse. God, I hate 12 oz. Mouse. That steaming pile barely qualifies as an animated cartoon...the voice "acting" just sounds like a couple of guys who get completely baked sitting in a room with a microphone recording every grunt, sigh and inane conversation. I was literally falling asleep in my brave attempt at watching the show. And I'm horrified to see that they have an "alternate version" showing after the new episode this week.

I will admit that that I'm giving Squidbillies the benefit of the doubt. From what I've seen so far, it hasn't been completely not horrible. Although you'd think will all the time it's spent in development, it might at least look better. And, of course, I haven't seen The Boondocks yet. That I'm still reserving judgement on. On the plus side, the animation looks good. Even if it seems to be heavily influenced by anime. However, I don't read the comic strip (as my local paper doesn't carry it), but even if it did, I wouldn't read it anyway, because I don't really go for that kind of political or racially-focused content.

As I'm typing this, I'm at work on Thursday evening (but don't tell anyone). I'm wearing a gift that my sister gave to me a couple years ago for my birthday: a blue Simpsons T-shirt with "Mr. Sparkle" on it. I know I've worn this shirt to work before (though I usually try not to if I can help it...or at least not while we have important visitors), but today, for whatever reason, I've had people comment about it for the first time. Once someone identified it as Mr. Sparkle, and twice I've had to explain who/what Mr. Sparkle is, or what the writing means (which I can't say, really, because it's in that faux-kanji). I just think it's weird that today happens to be the first time I've gotten comments about it. The same thing happened when I wore my Green Lantern shirt too. I wonder if I should try wearing my Corn Boy shirt to work and see what kind of reaction I'd get? hee hee
posted by Tim at 1:25 AM

Couple of music related thoughts:

First off, the Black Eyed Peas' new song, "My Humps". This is such a stupid song, about on par with Sir Mix-a-lot's "Baby Got Back". Basically it comes down to the often repeated terms of "my hump" and "my lovely little/lady lumps".

I can't imagine why any woman would want to use the term "lump" when describing her own body. It just feels like it doesn't have any positive inflection whatsoever. I mean, lumpy gravy is something you try to avoid. A lumpy matress is old and uncomfortable. To take one's lumps means you're being beaten severely. Even checking for lumps, as in a self-breast exam, is checking for cancer, which, last I checked, is generally considered a bad thing. A lump is some kind of deformity; some mound of something that shouldn't be there. Seems like hardly the term to use to describe one's own breasts in a positive manner. Breasts (and the female body on the whole) should be praised and respected with beautiful words!


Also, Nickelback's "Photograph". For one thing, it's already getting dangerously close to burnout status, which is a shame because I like this song, and Nickelback in general. (But then, that's the "problem" (if you can call it that) with Nickelback - they're so mass-appeal that their stuff gets a lot of airplay on a lot of stations.) But anyway...I was kinda singing along, and got to the second...verse? Stanza? I'm not sure of the exact term...right after the first chorus. I started with "We used to listen to the radio...", but they played "This was the old arcade..." I knew that verse went there, but I had gotten so used to the shorter radio edits, that I had forgotten about it. It didn't surprise me...I mean, I figured it was the longer version - they've done it with other Nickelback songs. But now that I think about it, I'm trying to remember if they still cut out other portions of the song...I remember thinking, "Just how many different radio edits does one song need?" And, as fas as I can tell, the song doesn't need a radio edit to begin with...except perhaps for length. I mean, they cut out the arcade verse, and the first half of the bridge section, but they don't really need to...do they?
posted by Tim at 12:55 AM

So, I guess the Red Sox losing Game 3 gets me out of blogging about the playoffs. Oh well. Wait 'til Last Year, eh?

But maybe that's kind of a good thing. It makes last year - and all the effort and drive and stuff - all that more magical and unique. I'd think about a "2 out of the last 3" kind of thing, but I'm not so sure that can happen. I don't get that feeling with these guys as I would with other teams/sports. I dunno.

Normally I'd root against the team that knocks my team out of the playoffs. But this year, I wouldn't mind so much if the White Sox went all the way. That way they'd have their taste of baseball championship like we had (why haven't won since 1917, if I remember right). But maybe I'd care a bit more if Chicago cared a bit more, because most of them are Cubs fans anyway.

Or the Angels, I guess they could win. Or what, Houston or St. Louis? Eh. But certainly not the Spankees. Oh Please Dear God NO not the Spankees. Not so much because I don't want the Spankees to win as it is that all the taunting we did last year would come back and bite us in the ass.
posted by Tim at 3:37 AM

Well, it's October. Guess I ought to start my annual blogging about the Red Sox, eh? :P

Not much to say right now, really. Just that while it's great that they're in the playoffs again, I was left somewhat disappointed by the fact that they didn't win the AL East title. They had quite a nice lead a few weeks ago, and it would've been nice to finally end the Spankees' consecutive-title streak.

And now I'm even more disheartened by the fact that they've lost Games 1 and 2 to the White Sox. Especially Game 1 by 12 runs. >_<

But hey, now they're back home, so time to tie - and eventually win - the series.

In other news, hopefully the Patriots can right their ship before it's too late. That Chargers game was pretty disappointing. As much as I kind of blindly assume the Pats are going to win (because they've practically done nothing but), it's also alarming, and maybe all the injuries and departures are finally catching up with them. I was kind hoping for one more Super Bowl win, just to make it four of the last five and become TEH BESTEST TEAM EVAH, but if they do go down this year, I don't think I'll mind too much...it was a good run.

Unless they make it four of the last six...that'll work too. ;)

In other other news, it's a little weird to finally see NHL hockey back, huh? And the Bruins pick up right where they left off...losing to the Canadiens. I didn't actually see this game, but I'm gonna try and watch at least a little hockey this season, to see how all the new rules and stuff works out.
posted by Tim at 3:16 AM

I think I owe you guys an explanation.

I'm sorry about there being a lack of comics recently. The truth is I've been in a real funk the last few weeks and I haven't really had the heart to work on anything new.

I got to the end of my prewritten scripts, and it's simply a matter of writing new ones. I have an idea of where I want the story to go, but I need to write the daily scripts to flesh out all the details. And without those scripts, the comic can't be made. I thought it was a matter of just sitting down and writing them...and in a way, it still is...but I just can't seem to do it. I just seem to have lost my muse, I guess. Add to the fact that I've been having "trouble in paradise", so to speak...with the added bonus of not being in "paradise" anymore...and now I've got issues of self-worth (or lack thereof) to contend with on top of all that.

As you may or may not have noticed (the latter being more likely), it was my birthday a couple weeks ago. And all I asked for was some feedback from my audience. (Note I didn't say "demanded".) And what I got what bupkiss. Well, truthfully, I got one "Happy Birthday"...from the one person I would've expected it from. My point is that I haven't felt a real sense of urgency to resume regular updates aside from my own senses of priority. I feel as though if I just gave up right now and never made a comic again, no one would notice or really even care.

But *I* care. I want to get the ideas out of my head so they won't distract me so much. I want to continue. But, like I said, there's no sense of urgency. But I didn't really want to go into another hiatus, either. It's a paradox that's tough to fix: in the end, I'm really only doing this for myself and I shouldn't really care what anyone else thinks. But I know (well, I have an idea) there's a silent majority among you who do care. And I can't expect to attain the kind of popularity I want by continuing to miss updates due to my sense of lack of popularity. Does that make any sense?

You know I don't normally get all this angsty and self-absorbed through the comic like this. I'm not an outright attention whore. In short, there will be more comics. I want to say soon, but really I have no idea when. And remember, a little encouragement goes a long way. And a lot of encouragement goes a lot farther.
posted by Tim at 12:40 AM

The mascot of the University of Massachusetts, Sam the Minuteman, is participating in the Capital One Bowl Mascot Challenge. He's going up against some strong competition, so help out and vote!

Fight, fight, Massachusetts!
posted by Tim at 4:48 AM

I just realized the addresses for the blog needed changing too. ^_^;

If you don't know what I'm referring to (and there isn't any reason why you shouldn't, since you probably came here from the comic in the first place), KeenSpace has changed its name to Comic Genesis, and as such my URL has changed. So please update your bookmarks to http://altdelusions.comicgen.com. Thank you.
posted by Tim at 8:20 PM

And now, more thought about movies I've seen this summer so far. I've got a bit of a backlog, I'll try to remember as best I can. (and beware of possible spoilers...you probably should've seen these movies by now)

Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

Great movie. I don't think I'm enough of a Star Wars geek to necessarily say it's the best of all of them, but it's up there.

I think the thing I noticed about this movie was the fact that I was able to follow along, much more closely than any other one. I knew what was happening, and where it was going...unlike, say, Episode II on first viewing...stuff was happening, and I was just along for the ride. I knew where the movie was coming from, having seen Cartoon Network's Clone Wars, and I knew where it was going, having seen Episode IV.

I was able to dive deeper into the Star Wars universe, because Knights of the Old Republic is a favorite game of mine. Though I was a touch irked when Mace Windu pronounced the Wookiee planet Kashyyyk as "kash-EEK", as opposed to what I'm used to from KotOR, "KASH-ik". Also, General Greivous should've been more bad-ass than he was (like he was in Clone Wars)...but it had surprised me he was in the movie at all. You almost don't notice him when he's an animated tall lanky droid thingy with four arms....but when he's real (well, OK, mostly CG, but still...), it's like, "Whoa, cool!"

Batman Begins and The Fantastic Four

I think I'll talk about these two movies together, as a kind of compare/contrast on how to (or how not to) do a comic book movie.

Both movies did well in providing a bit more substance in the origin stories...explaining with a little more detail why they have the powers they do. But the main difference between the two is that Batman gave us a nice meaty story to sink our teeth into, while F4 was little more than "here's how they get their powers", then move onto the big battle with the villain, with a little bit of comic-relief character development sprinkled in between.

Now that I think about it, all three of these movies are lacking in the love-interest angle ( the relationship and dialouge parts, I should say...certainly not the actresses involved). But then again, that isn't really the focus of these kinds of movies. :) Moving on...

I wasn't too sure how well the Scarecrow was going to work out in Batman...basically being just a guy how puts a burlap sack over his head, looking an awful lot like the Elephant Man. But, they managed to make it work...OK, the Scarecrow Gas had a lot to do with it, but the effect worked.

I was disappointed there wasn't more Dr. Doom. I know they encountered the same problem as with the Green Goblin in Spider-Man - that is, the villain wears a full face mask - but Doom only wears his mask for a short while...there wasn't even a real good reason to wear it at all. Or if there was, it was rendered moot fairly quickly. I know Stan Lee liked making matching names for his villains, but he kinda dropped the ball on this one. Dr. Octopus -> Dr. Otto Octavius, sure great, that works. But Dr. Doom? "Uh, how about...von Doom?" C'mon, at the very least, spell it "von Dume" or something.

Another problem point for me was The Thing. von Doom managed to do what Reed couldn't...fix Grimm. But then Ben has to re-zap himself in order to save his friends. But Grimm always wanting to go back to normal was a major point through the whole F4 series...they even made a big deal about it in the movie. So, at the very least, why not go back to normal after the big fight and be done with it all? Or, at the very least, you've got the technology now, why not switch back and forth as needed?

On my scale of comic book movies, last comes Hulk, then Daredevil (and that's only because everyone else seems to think it sucks...I kinda liked it), then Fantastic Four. Batman Begins ranks near the top, by the Spider-Man and X-Men movies.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

It seems the thing to do is to compare this to the pervious Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (well, either that, or the book...but it's been YEARS since I've read that)...and I will do the same.

Basically, I like this movie better. They shortened the sequences I thought they took way too long on in the original (especially the chocolate river tunnel ride...that leech on the cheek bit freaked me out to no end) and took out the unnecessary fluff (schnozzberries, soda car, floaty burping soda, etc.). LOVED the Oompa-Loopma sequences in this one...you can't go wrong with Danny Elfman. (And the Burton/Depp/Elfman combination seems to strike gold every time, eh?)

I've heard people compare Depp's Wonka to Michael Jackson...honestly, these people are thinking too hard. I didn't really see it, but you could really tell this was someone who never really grew up with a family. Which is one point in Gene Wilder's favor...he at least was excited/animated/really seemed to care about the candy, where Depp just seemed more concerned about not being touched, and having flashbacks.

Another point...I'm not too sure I like how Charlie ended up with the factory in this one. In the original, at least he (somewhat convolutedly) earned the factory. Here, he just kinda...got it, by virtue of the fact that he was the only one left by the end of the tour. And speaking of which, it was neat to see the parade of losers at the end, as described in the book. :)


And that's all for now. Next on the menu...erm, well, I'm not sure about the reast of the summer. Corpse Bride and Harry Potter 4 to look forward to later, to mention a couple.
posted by Tim at 1:39 AM

Adding what seems to be developing into my monthly (or even bi-monthly) blog update :P

First, IMPORTANT NOTE: KeenSpace is changing it's name to ComicGenesis. This will be a bit of work mostly on my part...the important thing for you is to update your bookmarks and other links. To what, I haven't quite decided, but I'm leaning toward altdelusions.comicgenesis.com. As opposed to altdelusions.comicgen.com. If you've got any really good reasons why I should move toward the latter, let me know. I've even got a temporary poll on the main page for voting.
posted by Tim at 1:34 AM

Well, there's no comic today, since I spent the day out doing fun things...well, OK, I went to Six Flags. But, to kind of make up for it, I'll go on a rant about what I did afterwards.

First, a quick note, though. While at Six Flags I wore my Green Lantern shirt, and gotten 3 compliments about it. It may not sound like much, but (a) how many compliments do you get for your regular shirts, anyway?, and (b) I always get compliments about this shirt when I wear it in a public setting, almost without fail. I think Warner Bros. and DC Comics are missing out on a fabulous opportunity here. They spend all this time trying to rejuvinate the Batman and Superman movie franchises (and let's face it, those two rule Six Flags, anyway), and I'm sure they'll be casting a Wonder Woman soon enough. But it seems to me that Green Lantern is quite a popular character, and WB would be wise to capitalize on that popularity. We have the technology now to make a really amazing movie, I think. Please, the Big Guys there have had their moments in the sun, and DC has this huge cast of characters they have yet to really delve into. I know there are some B- or C-list DC comic movies in the works, but nothing really that anyone's heard of...especially now that Marvel is churning out all their A-listers in regular installments. And if they make an Aquaman movie before GL (or even the Flash), I'll be ticked off.

Anyway, back to the meat of the rant. Afterwards I did something I don't normally get to do on a weekday...watch prime-time television. Today we settled in on Fox's new drama/reality series, Hell's Kitchen. Watching Chef Ramsay continually insult the contestants, of course, makes for great television...but it's also painfully obvious that's going to be the focus of the show. In almost every other "reality" show the focus is on the contestants and their relationships with each other. And while we caught a glimpse of that with Elise nominating Dewberry for elimination despite her earlier assurance she wouldn't do that, it certainly seems like it's just going to be Ramsay giving the censor's bleep-button finger a workout.

And Dewberry...what kind of name is that?! First of all, I've never heard of the name before. No one has. He seems like an effeminate Southern man, and that name sounds more like some kind of Californian hippie-commune name. Neither it's two basic parts, "dew" (as in pixies moistening the grass in the early morning) nor "berry" (as in fruit) are very masculine.

Now, I understand this guy Ramsay is a top chef, and has been for a number of years. I find the strive for complete perfection in food in this situation to be a noble desire. I even get the fact that this guy got where he is today by being a hardass. But, my main beef with this show (pardon the pun) is the prize. The winner of this competition wins the restaurant they are cooking/living in. That's all well and good, except they opened the restaurant for the first "challenge". And because Ramsay is such an uber-perfectionist, he would not allow any of the order to be served to the patrons if he didn't like one little thing. Even if the problem was with one dish, the entire order would be scrapped and recooked. Which means some people who arrived at the restaurant at 7:00 NEVER received their meal, even after 10:00 when Ramsay closed the kitchen in frustration. And here I am, looking at this from a patron/business perspective, and wondering just how in the hell he expects this restaurant to succeed. He certainly never opened his other nine restaurants this way. And while, yes, I have to remember this is "reality" TV and makes for a compelling story, I can't imagine for the life of me winning this competition and gaining control of a restaurant with an absolutely horrible reputation of awful service. I mean, people were walking out early having never eaten anything. I can't imagine word-of-mouth being any good whatsoever.

Ramsay himself told the players "good food compliments the service, and good service compliments the food." But then he contradicts himself by not letting any food out of the kitchen, thereby ruining anything service-wise. And I can't tell what was wrong with any of the food they cooked. It can't be how it tastes; these recipes have to have been test-cooked and taste-tested before being approved for the menu well in advance. And, I'm sure these contestants have had enough cooking experience to follow a recipe. It can only be one of two things, as I see it. The first way is the way it's been cooked. Now, these people have known each other for a grand total of one day. They learned the recipies for the menu maybe an hour before the restaurant opened. So, naturally, the FIRST TIME THEY MAKE THE MEAL is not going to be perfect. See Elise's (I think it was her) risotto. Ramsay turned the plate vertical and it stayed put. But after another attempt or two, she got it to a point where Ramsay claimed it "looked delicious." Hell, anyone who makes a recipe the first time is bound to make mistakes, and they adjust every time they make it. But normal restaurant chefs, I'm sure, practice the recipes BEFORE the restaurant opens, not at the sacrifice of the restaurant's reputation.

The second way is how the meal looks. And this is where Ramsay's hardassness comes into play. Like I said, the goal of perfect food for a gourmet restaurant is a noble one. However, any restauranteur with any common sense whatsoever knows when to sacrifice perfect food for good service. So the patron gets a slightly-less-than-perfect meal, but it's still top-notch and tastes great. And if there is really anything wrong with it, then that's when you write it up on the comment card.

And then, if Ramsay doesn't like one tiny little thing, the whole order goes in the trash. And I think, what a HORRIBLE waste of food. There are plenty of people starving everywhere who would LOVE to get even just a bread sandwich, and here this guy is, tossing out hundreds of dollars worth of Beef Wellington. Beef Wellington that any 4 or 5-star restaurant would serve and it would be their number one meal, even if the oustide was only slightly charred. Or if the lobster pasta wasn't just the right shade of burnt umber.

So, it begs the question, just what the hell is wrong with this meal I made from YOUR recipe, then, Mr. Ramsay? All he does is call the chef in question to him and asks them, "This looks like shit." And they're like, "Yes sir." I personally don't think I could, say, sear a cut of tuna to be nicely grilled on the outside and perfectly rare on the inside, but I think these people could. And I think after a couple attempts at the menu would yeild something that would pass for stupendous at any other retaurant. But this guy just goes "This is shit" and tosses it. And if you don't tell me what you think is wrong with it, how do you expect me to improve upon it? Because I'm only going to cook it the same way I just did.

And these chefs are real pushovers, eh? They just readily agree with Ramsay. "Yes, this is shit, sir. I wouldn't eat that myself. I don't know why I gave it to you to serve." Some of the contestants were trying to be sly and make cutting remarks right back at him early during the first challenge ("OK, Ramsay's on his way here, you've got 45 minutes to wow him with your signature dish." - and he immediately insulted like 10 of the 12 dishes), but they were whipped little puppies during the main challenge. (In my mind) I'd be all like, "No, tell me what the insignificant detail you found wrong with this gourmet meal is." And if he's all like, "It's shit, make it better", I'd be all like, "Fuck you, what's wrong with it?" Because if he's going to just insult me no matter what I do, I may as well not take any of it, cut through the shit about finding it within myself how to improve and just demand how to make it the way he wants it. Because he better be able to take what he's dishing out. (and why do I get the feeling that would be in one's advantage?)

And how can Ramsay expect these people to churn out perfection on their very first night together? As I mentioned, any normal restaurant practices preparing its meals ahead of time. And Ramsay himself declared these chefs to be worthless earlier in the afternoon. Yeah, he's going to break them down and rebuild them like the Army does, but again, why on opening night, when no one's going to be eating there in two weeks. I mean, I can't imagine "The service is awful. But, in the off chance you even get your meal, it tastes so good that you will phase out of your clothes and achieve Nirvava right there in your seat."

One more point. Two times during the evening, the first group to be seated (a foursome of blonde women) ventured into the kitchen to complain to the head chef. Ramsay told them to get out of his kitchen and asked his maitre'd to send them "back to plastic surgery". The women, of course, left in a huff. Mr. Ramsay...you work in the food service industry. Where Rule Number One is to SERVICE THE CUSTOMER. Any other restaurant, if there was a problem like not getting served your meal in over two hours, the head chef would come out and apologize, and maybe even offer some kind of compromise. But no, this guy insults his patrons, and they leave, never to return, and never send their friends to the restaurant either. This guy might be an outstanding cook, but he's a lousy restauranteur. Remember, he may have opened nine tip-notch restaurants, but he only made the menus...he doesn't manage them all (I would hope).

I pray that the people shown showing up in limos and presumably ready to spend hundreds of dollars for a gourmet meal at this restaurant are made aware beforehand (or even afterwards) that this is the setting for a reality show and that the restaurant isn't always going to suck.

Even after all that complaining, I'd still be compelled to continue to watch the show. However, it's not on at a time where I can watch it, and I don't have a TiVo. So, it's not so much that I won't watch it out of disgust, but more like I can't watch it because of the schedule. Not that this is a show I'd really make an appointment to see anyway. It's intruguing, but nothing I'm going to obsess with.
posted by Tim at 2:05 AM

Now to finish what I started before I forget :)

- Kung Fu Hustle

This is a fun movie, plain and simple. This is more of what I wanted Shao-lin Soccer to be like, and now we get this, and it's bigger and better. The plot...well, it's a kung-fu movie, the plot is that people kick the crap out of each other. To THE EXTREME! Though it made me wonder about kung-fu plots, and its relative, the whole Dragonball saga - why is it these "warriors" seem to want nothing more than to fight each other? I mean, challenging yourself is one thing, but really...
Number one in China for a reason!

- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

I loved this movie. Of course, I have to love it, being a fan of the entire Hitchhiker's series. I just didn't love the movie 100%, let's say. I think my main gripe about the movie is that, because I am so intimitely familiar with the story, the fact that they transcribed much of the text verbatim into the movie left me feeling a little empty...it didn't offer me anything new. (Except, of course, the actual new parts...ie. the POV gun.) [And I should mention here, when I say "they", I do know Adams wrote much of the screenplay himself.] I did find it fun to notice all the little tiny bits they threw in as almost background details, which in the book took up entire chapters to explain. Such as Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz's broken-back-gazelle chair and smashing the jewelled scuttling crabs.

I wasn't entirely thrilled with Zaphod's treatment. I liked the explination of the second head (using it to store non-Presidential-type thoughts), but I didn't like how it was occasionally fighting for control over the rest of his body, and the fact it could just be removed (so they didn't have to bother with it for the rest of the movie).

And would it have killed them to add a little reverb to Alan Rickman's voice? To me, it just felt like Warwick Davis was doing the Marvin stuff, and they just kinda threw Rickman's voice over the soundtrack. They could have at least made it look like Marvin was speaking his lines...lighting up the eyes, or a LED line like Deep Thought's, or something. And as far as his design goes, I've said this before...I know his brain is supposed to be the size of a planet, I just didn't expect that literally.

Zooey Deschanel is now on my list of girls to keep a very close eye on in the future now.

So, even despite my qualms about it, I still like the movie, and of course it would be blasphemous of me not to get the DVD when it comes out.

And, to mention a little side-rant I made here, that's one movie down, two to go. hehe
posted by Tim at 1:04 AM

Aww, poor negelcted blog. If only I had the energy to update you more often. But then I could put that energy to better use...like revamping the webpage or something...make a buffer...

Anyhow, I'll make it up by giving some of my thoughts about the movies I've seen recently. This certainly would make a good update for the forum, except that seems pretty much dead now. :'( I did make a request for a Keenspace forum, so when the time comes, I'll shift the attention to there. And hopefully some of my fellow Keenspace fans will make the effort to make some comments. Not like it's all that hard right now. *glare* hehe

So, on to the reviews:

- Fever Pitch

When this movie was released around the same time as Opening Day for baseball, I noticed it was quite heavily marketed during the Red Sox games at the time. And I wondered if the movie was being as heavily promoted in other baseball markets other than Boston. I don't know how well the movie ended up doing, but I'm pretty sure it did fairly well in the Northeast.

As for the movie itself, well...I left disappointed, like it was missing something. Like more Red Sox...they could have easily substituted any team in there. Which I know they did; that it was adapted from a story involving a British soccer team, and they picked the Red Sox because the Farrelly brothers directed it. I suppose I was still yearning to relive a bit of that playoff magic, and they just quickly glossed over it at the end. I guess I'll just have to get one of those DVDs =P (not the official MLB World Series one...one of the "local" ones, with a little more emphasis on the ALCS mwahahaha).

The other problem was...actually, I've found that Bill Simmons, aka The Sports Guy of espn.com fame was able to better articulate what I couldn't quite put my finger on. (I've been reading a lot of his stuff there, lately.) In this article, he finds that instead of being the blend of sports movie and chick flick the movie marketed itself as (he calls that a "spork flick"), Fever Pitch is really just a chick flick. And when you're going in expecting Red Sox stuff...or even simply Boston stuff...it left me empty.

Plus, Jimmy Fallon is a known Yankees sympathizer. Despite what he may have done on SNL, there's still that tidbit floating in the back of my mind...like "he's only acting like he really cares", or "is he secretly rooting for the Spankees?"



Ugh... I look at the time, and I realize I need to get up early tomorrow. I will finish this, hopefully soon...there are at least a couple more movies I want to talk about.
posted by Tim at 2:43 AM

OK, I'll admit I don't always have an update ready for Saturdays. But dammit, it seems like when I do have something ready (or at least drawn), something happens to prevent me from updating anyway. In this case, my computer is deciding it doesn't want to edit the comic I've scanned in. So I don't know when the next update will be, if I can't figure out how to get my computer to cooperate without me just breaking down and bringing it somewhere to be fixed, like I should've done a long time ago.

*sigh*
posted by Tim at 10:45 PM

OK, so no official comic today. Caught a tiny bit of writer's block. So, I had this joke sitting around, so I figured I'd whip up an HDC.

Then I thought, well, I may as well contribute a little more, so I drew a tiny scene based upon what I was watching at the time, namely a rebroadcast of the Boston Red Sox home opener opening ceremonies, including the presentations of the rings and raising of the championship banner.

So two small updates in place of one real one. Hey, you take what you can get, right? It's either that, or nothing.
posted by Tim at 12:48 AM

Concerning comic #352:

I meant for it to be in a single column, so that it'd look like a normal comic. However, AutoKeen didn't work quite the way I expected, so it'll take some fiddling around to get it to look the way I wanted. But, you get the jist of it, so guess it'll work for now. If I determine how to fix it, you can see the results in the archives.
posted by Tim at 3:31 AM

I keep fully intending on making Tuesday updates, but there always seems to be something coming up to prevent it. Last week the Keenspace servers were having a bit of trouble. Yesterday my computer wasn't behaving. Someday I hope to have everything in my life balanced to I can make regular updates, but for now, I guess you'll have to deal with the occasional two-update weeks.
posted by Tim at 12:29 AM

As you've probably heard by now...

THE NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS HAVE WON SUPERBOWL XXXIX!!!!!

It's like a delicious championship sandwich...nestled between two layers of Superbowl victories is a rich, creamy center of Red Sox World Series win. It's enough to get us through the long, hard winter, making it seem a little more bearable this year. Speaking of which, how did the Groundhog make out? I never heard.

Now the pressure is on the Celtics to being home a championship (well, not really, but that'd be either weird or scary). And the Boston College men's basketball team are undefeated so...well, fuck BC, actually. ;)



And on a side note, did anyone else happen to catch the "Puppy Bowl" on Animal Planet? It was just puppies for 6 straight hours. In a pen made up to look like a football stadium, filled with chew toys and water bowls and cameras. The commercials made it look intruguing with exciting football music (think NFL Films or the theme to MNF), but during the broadcast itself it was more gentle soft rock. It was almost mesmerizing. They're even selling a DVD of it on their website!

I haven't decided yet whether this was utter stupidity or sheer genius.

And another thing. I must have seen 3 or 4 ads so far for the movie Son of the Mask. And each one would have me believe I would be going to see a completely different movie. Now, I liked The Mask, but seriously, who greenlighted this project for theatrical release? The movie practically screams "direct to video". That is, assuming, of course, that the movie absolutely had to be made in the first place.




posted by Tim at 1:37 AM

Just a couple thoughts about today's comic. As you can tell, I was trying to experiment with shadowing, and probably completely failing. For the most part it was shadowed in pencil (along with everything else, naturally), so the results I hope at least give the illusion of shadow. In the third panel, however, I decided to try and mixed up angles, so I put the "camera" behind the characters, and therefore in front of the firey mess. Then my pencil shadow would've looked like just a mess, so I tried adding a gradient shadow in Photodeluxe (my cheap-ass version of Photoshop). Hopefully it doesn't clash too much with the rest of the comic.

Also in the third panel, I tried having the Mechtron walk behind Fuchsia, so I attempted a from-the-back shot. Her face is probably a little scrunched. But, I never really gave a lot of consideration to other angles, so my faces look weird in anything other than from the front (which is why I don't draw profiles). I probably could've just drawn the back of her head, but I did that on Friday.

So there you go. Me trying to be all artistic and creative, and while I don't think it's my best work, I also hopefully didn't fail miserably.


posted by Tim at 4:16 PM

I'll probably mention this again on the main page, but I am planning on attending Arisia again this year. At the Park Plaza Hotel in Boston, MA...probably on Saturday the 22nd, maybe Sunday, but probably not. If you go, look for me and Sym!

And check out the Higgins sword demonstration, while you're at it. And my brother's art work at the table he's got set up.

posted by Tim at 1:51 AM

Now that I think about it, 2004 brought us a Patriots Superbowl win, and a Red Sox World Series win. That's gonna be tough to beat. Ah well, I'll settle for a repeat :)


posted by Tim at 11:03 AM

Happy New Year!

I hope 2005 brings you better things than 2004 did.


posted by Tim at 1:12 AM