For some reason I feel the need to explain the See Also updates more than actual Scribs. Well, maybe not “explain” exactly…ah hell I just like chattin’.

Figure 4 happened at work. Heard that as a guy was walking by in a hallway. Was a very “if it weren’t for my horse” moment for me, but instead of getting eight months’ worth of standup out of it, I got a Tuesday update.

Figure 5 was after Debb and I got supermarket sushi (“what, the gas station was fresh out?” Craig asked). I opened it up and there was a really pointlessly small amount of wasabi in it. “Geez, lookit this,” I said to her. She looks and says, “that’s rude.” And that was when I decided I should take it personally. That was an insulting amount of wasabi.

Comment I just found in my comic update scripts, that I forgot I wrote last week.

function doSingleUpdate($data, $update_time = 0) {

/* while this is all about inserting comics, I'm generally assuming I'm just inserting one at the end of the current comic list. not really planning on inserting a new one in the middle of previously released comics. if I want to do that I can do it manually for fuck's sake, why am I like worrying about this like it's air traffic control */

The score goes up to: Admin interface stubbornly refusing to get done, 143; me, 0. So in the meantime I do little things like draw the next See Also for Tuesday, and make a few changes to the sidebar. Got a page with many of the ads I’ve made so far, which have been kinda fun.

Also I’ve signed up for several web comic ranking lists with votes n stuff. I was thinking about getting fully involved with them, but all the vote incentives, watching the numbers, the constant pleading…it’s like trying to sell Amway to your relatives. So I just have them there, and if you feel like clicking through to vote, fine, and thanks. But ain’t no thang.

Figure 2 came about because I ran across Small Things Eating Big Things and drew a couple for it. Its web interface reminds me of the way I usually wind up doing web interfaces: quirky, fun to put together, works in a way that amuses me, and probably ultimately irritating for the user.

I’ve had some reactions to the Series Two Scribs art, and responses have been more mixed than I’d expected. It didn’t even occur to me that some people would prefer the previous minimal style over this; I’ve just been thinking of it as “better”. Fortunately I’m at a point where I’m happy with it — usually this feedback would make me all stupid and second guess myself, but nah, I think it’s okay. Actually right now it’s still sloppier than I want, but the later ones are pretty good. Not sure how much time it’s actually going to take to get to those, though.

Oh, and P.S.: for those of you who read the comic via RSS, I’ve decided I’m leaving the comics in the feed. I’ll just have the question answers linked to the site, so you’ll just have to get a taste of the site every so often.

Occasionally I get the urge to draw something quick n stupid…and then I draw Scribs! Ah ha ha ha ha. No, I mean. I get an idea like Figure 1 and feel like putting it somewhere, but it feels kinda dumb putting it up as a Scribs update, so I’m thinking sometimes I’ll put something up on off-update days.

Figure 1 actually happened, more or less, on Tuesday. A co-worker pointed out that Guy 1 is actually kind of intense and high-strung, which made it funnier that he was the one saying I had too much coffee.

The first new question-as-update. So, I drew a load of these since September. And I knew I wanted to work a new style but wasn’t quite sure what. So I said, well, just start drawing; it’s Scribs. Whatever you do is fine, you’ll probably come to something you’re happy with, just draw until you find something.

Which means this one looks like crap to me and I’m really itching to do it over. Not like it’d be hard to do, I’m just trying to fight against my fussy nature a bit and let it be. It’s not until three or four weeks from now you’ll see comics where I’m happy with the style.

Except for the next six or so, because I redrew them anyway. sigh.

I kinda feel like I cheated myself out of an intro fanfare. Now that I think I’m finally down to a text updates format on Scribs that I’m happy with, I wish I had it up last week so I coulda started with a big ol’ HI! and all that. But I’ve integrated my blog onto the Scribs page, as I’ve said, and I think this’ll do several things at once: get more action on the comic than just the comic; get me writing in my blog more, and give me a relatively lower-hassle way of putting updates here. But it still took some learning and programming, so my geek ancestors are appeased. FOR NOW.

Getting a bunch of traffic, but not much interaction yet. Though I’m basically getting the traffic by buying it. I gave myself a $300 budget for ads, which I’ve only gotten a third of the way through so far. But really I’m hoping for some reader engagement, because I’m thinking that’s going to be how I get enough ideas to keep this up. I think probably I spent the last three years storing up Scribs ideas in my head, but when I do it on my own, the passive idea creation happens at a slower rate than my preferred update schedule. I possibly gotta get more stimulus from outside my head to be able to maintain it.

The idea of a separate comments section for each comic just wasn’t sitting well with me, so I figured out how to integrate my SpinnWebe blog on to my Scribs page. So YES BRAIN I COULD’VE JUST WENT WITH WORDPRESS/COMICPRESS IN THE FIRST PLACE SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP.

More things I want to say here but I spent too much time trying to push to get this done before I went to bed, so zzzzzz

I’ve drawn 82 new Scribs so far, and I had to finally decide on what order they’ll go in, so I printed thumbmails and numbered ‘em. It just looks neat.

Like I’ve said before, I feel like I’m actually doing a comic now, rather than just scribbling crap down. Seeing them all together like this reinforces that for me. And I had some funny line about revealing the state of my desk, but I forget it now but it was wicked awesome.
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I find this fascinating. Not the comic itself, but its existence and its self-perceived import.

I’m doing some ads for my sites, which is how I came to notice it, the referral logs said I got a few hits from it. I take a look, and okay, it’s of a certain class of comic where objects are put together and text is put around it which some people find entertaining. I scroll down to the associated blog post.

Two things about micro-story:
1 – Just because Devil can look like a red dot DOES NOT mean he was the red dot from when they went to Japan. it’s just coincidence.
2 – I think I could have done another two strips of just Baron taking off hats to reveal other ones. I have to move towards the end though. Ah well, maybe another day.

It just struck me as so self-important that I had to keep reading. Read the rest of this entry »

Usually, when I have something of mostly personal interest that I want to write about, I try to work out an interesting way of saying it. In his case I gotta apologize ahead of time, because I expect I’m going to ramble in an uninteresting way for a bit. This is mostly going to be Scribs minutiae.

So, I’m starting Scribs again. Typically I keep this sort of thing secret until the last possible minute, but that’s probably because I want to reserve the right to give up on a project if I lose interest. In this case, though, I have about 65 comics ready to go, so I’m in a good updating position. I’m shooting for having 75 before I start, which represent six months’ worth of updates on a M-W-F schedule. I’m hoping that’s enough buffer to stay ahead of the inevitable lapse of motivation.
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As I was walking on the treadmill Saturday, my legs were getting really tired, but then I hit my second wind. I don’t think I’ve ever even had a second wind until then.

I’ve done a lot of complaining about my weight over the last year or so, but despite my daily strenuous whining regimen and griping reps, the weight would still not come off. About a month ago that changed; I’ve seriously curtailed extranneous eating, somehow developed the willpower to disregard snacking during the workday, and have been taking advantage of our treadmill. People say things like “it’s easy to lose weight, you just have to decide to do it.” That’s true and false. Yes, making the decision is easy — but you have to get to a point where it’s possible to make that decision, and that’s not so much. I finally did, and now I am.

I was really pushing over the edge of “the heaviest I’ve ever been” and was getting grumpier because of it. And occasionally buying a self-hating bag of mini Reese’s peanut butter cups and finishing them off in three days. (Reese’s are my major junk food weakness. Well really, peanut butter is my weakness, but wrapping it in chocolate makes it a flavor delivery system that my body turns directly into dopamine.) But I kicked that habit through sheer willpower so far and haven’t had a Reese’s since. I had been in the habit of hitting the vending machine for a candy bar after lunch, but I haven’t done that, either.

The interesting part will be to see if I can maintain this down to my target weight. I’m 205 now, and throughout my life I’ve pretty much hovered around 200. I’d like to get down to 180, but the previous pattern has been that I lose weight until I get back down to the mental image I have of myself, and then lose interest. But I haven’t seen 190 for maybe a decade, and even then it was only temporarily. I’d like to try to see 180 once just to see if I can.

This all goes towards my longer-term goal: once I get to that weight, I figure it’ll be good to keep in the exercising habit. So when/if I hit 180, I’ll buy myself a bag of Reese’s mini peanut butter cups and spend the rest of the week working it off.

I left a trap for a really high-strung woman at work. Can’t wait til she comes over to my desk all flustered and apologizing.

Debb and I went to Costco a few weeks ago and bought a box of Chex Mix bars to have as snacks; we’re both working on losing weight, and keeping bad stuff out of the house, but these were 130 calories each and we’re not anti-snack-food commies. But we weren’t enjoying them, they’re too salty and generally unpleasant, but we’re also cheap and have difficulty not eating something we’ve bought. But in the end we decided to eat the loss instead, and I took the box to work to let the locust swarm take them.

And take them they did…there were about 30 in the box and they lasted for just over 24 hours. But just before they all went, I put up a sign. Sorry about the crappy pic, I had to borrow someone’s cellphone.

<spinn> I’m pretty sure if obama made them all magically shit money they’d complain it itches

I am a little intrigued at my sudden ability to drop bad habits like a bad habit. Last week, not reading my usual political blogs, to stop the mountain of stupid that was crushing my soul; two weeks ago, going cold turkey on snacks at work, to stop my gut from crushing my pants. Both are things I assumed I would be powerless to affect, but I don’t even miss them very much. Sunday my PC’s video card died, rendering useless my game machine, and the replacement came today; I’m even wondering if I should bother installing the new one.

Talked to my therapist yesterday, and she suggests that I’m feeling overwhelmed. I think I’m getting along with that explanation. The whole health care debate has really been a big weight on me — not so much the health care issue itself, but seeing all these people who are so drastically mistaken, and angrily so. And it’s just…well, I’ve known for a long time that people are dumb, so in itself, people being dumb about health care is no big surprise. But I guess the rational part of me held the belief that, with proper discussion and reasoning, people can general be brought out of the ignorance and into the light. Or at least halfway out of the darkness, to a place where they understand that the only place “death panels” exist are in the minds of those who fear.
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