Well, looks like spambots have ruined anonymous Livejournal commenting.

Originally posted by cailement at All U.S. Internet Providers will be policing downloads by July 12, 2012

I'm not a fan. It's a manufactured holiday that boosts the sale of flowers that die and chocolates that will make you fat, and it means all the decent restaurants are crowded. My single friends get bummed out about it while people like my wife and I ignore it.

Kami-Con - Tuscaloosa, AL - February 3rd-5th

Woot! The Idle State's first convention appearance!

Leo and Nick will be official guests at the convention, meaning you can expect panels! We don't know the exact details yet, but it's a sure bet we'll be talking about both That SciFi Guy and The Idle State, and the Treading Ground fans among you may even get to hear some authentic tales of the real-life inspirations behind those characters (yes, there was a real Purvous.)

And if we're not enough to lure you down to Bama, Doug Walker (aka Nostalgia Critic) will be there with us!

Social progress that keeps pace with our technological advances.

As mentioned, I'm attempting NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) again. However, in a change from last time I did this, I'm not posting it all to Livejournal. Chris is a big fan of 750 Words, which is a different take on the blog concept. You just write out 750 words or more every day. It stays completely private so there's no pressure to perform or even make sense, but there are some interesting tools for self-analysis later. I'm using it for the majority of my NaBloPoMo-ing, and dispersing the worthy bits in other venues like LJ.

The dilution of the people I know among the various social networks is becoming a bit much to keep up with. I"m leaning towards Google+ as the best general-purpose blogging and networking software, and it also happens to encourage semi-intelligent conversation. FB has the sheer population volume, but people aren't kidding with the jokes about how stupid the chatter gets. LJ is the proverbial tree falling in the woods with nobody around to hear it.

I think I might tackle NaBloPoMo again this year, so you may be hearing more from me in the near future. I always get to that year-end LJ post without having accomplished the "journal more" goal, and it's not quite too late to worry about it. And while everybody else is out there cranking out involved creative work, I've clearly got some issues I need to work out.

To kick it off, I've also been thinking about ideas, and how mine tend to be fleeting and wasted. It's led me to the conclusion that I should probably record a new idea every day.

It's odd that I'm getting to know so much more about Steve Jobs in death than I ever did while he was alive. One thing that struck me was that even as he lay on his deathbed, Jobs was still coming up with new ideas. He actually sketched out new designs for the fluid monitors and X-ray machines that were keeping watch over him as the hours ran out. By the time he passed away, he had reimagined the entire hospital unit.

I, of course, am no Steve Jobs. But I am just egotistical enough to realize that I do have the capacity to create interesting things and innovate existing technologies and concepts. The problem? I never write any of it down, and when I do write it down, I fail to follow up on it.

I'm currently in between projects, which is a perfect time to make the most use of something like this, if I'm willing to pay enough attention. It's also my hope that the walking cognizance of my desire to write these ideas down will encourage even more creative thought. Even if only a small percentage of the ideas I end up with are actionable, that's still a 100% increase over what I'm currently doing.

Livejournal isn't the place for my random Ideas of the Day, so fear not. But hopefully you'll get the end result of some of the better ones.

As you may have read, I've recently started going to bed at a regular time of 11PM, and getting up at 7AM. This is a dramatic change from my typical pattern of going to bed when I'm too tired to think and waking up at the last possible second before I have to be somewhere.

The experiment continues unabated. I'm not always excited about getting out of the bed at 7AM, but I like what we're doing and see the benefits on a daily basis. It's been over a week since my last 4-hour-sleep night and that is pretty awesome. It's important to me to keep it going.

Getting up at 7 on the weekend allows for a lot of time for a leisurely breakfast and a bit of Netflix before the day really begins. Any errands we may have needed to run are taken care of well ahead of time, and on Sunday I even got the new title card for the latest That SciFi Guy done before lunch. I think this means that once I get back into doing comics, I'll be able to put a lot more of the work into the weekends instead of sweating it every Sunday-Tuesday-Thursday until 2AM.

So I've conquered diet, and I'm now conquering sleep. I suspect the next major thing-I-should-be-doing-but-am-not to face is exercise. We're dipping our toes into that from time to time, but need something reliable and systematic. In time I'm sure we'll figure it out.

I don't know if there is any one perfect pizza, but lately we've been enjoying a pesto sauce base, mozzarella, mushrooms, black olives and sliced Roma Tomatoes.

You know those little comic strips you've been drawing?

Yeah, you're going to be doing a lot of those one day. Might want to get back to it.

Now that LJ is all nice and healthy again (ignore the mass wood-knocking sounds and crossed fingers), I've killed the Twitter export function on my journal. If you want to follow me on Twitter, I think you know where to find me by now.

I'm on yet another service. If you're on Google+, you can add me there too.

So I've tried doing a few LJ posts lately. Some of these are crossposts from Facebook, but they generally have something extra. I do kind of wonder if there's any point to it, though. I have 72 friends on here and maybe 4 or 5 actually still use the service.

Who's still around?

I hate everything Newt Gingrich stands for, and think his criticism of Paul Ryan's budget plan is disingenuous at best, but I do have to admire the man's professionalism. Watch how he handles having glitter dumped on him:



And then dealing with a jerk who won't let his hand go:



If this had happened to Mitt Romney, he would have gone fucking ballistic.

Request from coworker: "Evidently Amanda hates the Little Caesar's Pizza Pizza guy. She also hates zombies. So…. We were thinking…. Combine the two !!! Can you help us out?"

You got it, buddy.

Is The End Nigh? We'll Know Soon Enough [NPR]

I originally thought these May 21 people were just funny, but then I found out they were actually quitting their jobs and spending up all of their savings because of this nonsense. That's genuinely sad.

I'm sure after May 22 the guy who's been spreading this crap around will be happy to share some of his $100 million with the people he BSed into the poor house, right?

http://www.deadline.com/2011/05/yabba-dabba-doo-seth-macfarlane-finally-gets-go-ahead-to-reboot-the-flintstones/

I’m a fan of Seth’s, which is obvious given the self-portrait I typically identify myself with even though my own style is dissimilar. I look forward to seeing this. In the worst case it will be another show in the same formula as Family Guy/American Dad/The Cleveland Show, but honestly? That formula generally works.

In the best case? Well, Seth has stated that it was always his dream to be able to reboot The Flintstones, so maybe he has something different in mind. I don’t think peppering that franchise with sex, violence and scat jokes is necessarily his only option.

I'd be more than a little creeped out. I'm, like, married and stuff.

I both grew up in and am now occasionally forced to spend time traveling through the crappy small towns of the South. I know when I go into places like this it's best not to have a lot of needs. When I head to South Carolina to see my family, for example, I know that my last chance for good coffee is the Starbucks in Augusta. But still, it's clearly too much to ask even for a clean restroom. It's the norm in these little towns to have nothing but run down convenience stores with the black stains of neglect everpresent. If there's not urine on the floor, you've found a good one, and you'd better remember where it is for next time.

Aside from the aforementioned lack of facilities, there is also the inescapable fact that the major highways are constantly interrupted by these stick-whittle hamlets and their 35 MPH speed limits. In order to fuel their self-assessed golden temples, these zones are manned by local Deputies Fife whiling away the hours in tree-obscured hidey-holes, waiting patiently to strike any unsuspecting travelers who had the misfortune of having to pass through these pockets of craptiquity on their way to someplace more rooted in the 20th century. Before I got a radar detector, I fell victim to these modern-day highway bandits on more than one occasion.

Since my experience largely only extends to the crapopolises of South Carolina and East Georgia, I still have some hope that this isn't the case in other parts of the country. My experience driving up Highway 400 in North Georgia seems to show clear exceptions to this Greater Rural Awfulness Theory. Maybe these are only the highway-facing portions of reasonable sized cities, or these are the early years of development that will eventually succumb to the rot and decay that plagues the rest of the region, but everything looks clean and new and you can even find good coffee if you know where to look. I'd like to think that this is not an isolated instance.

Since I've been neglectful in updating this journal, I thought it might be nice to share something with you guys that might be entertaining or otherwise useful. I first posted this over at the webcomics.com Private Forum where the subject came up, but I'm sure some of you have been at least curious about the program.

I tried out Amazon Affiliates when I did some fanart for a somewhat obscure manga. I wanted people to be able to buy it easily, and I would have been linking to the Amazon entry anyway, because that's where I prefer to buy my manga. And since I was sending them business, I felt it was only fair to ask for a small commission.

The good news is that I got credit for third party purchases. As a matter of fact, all the purchases were third party, since the manga is out of print. I also got credit for other stuff people happened to buy after clicking through on my site, like some CDs and Rite Aid Draw-Out Salve.

The bad news is that the rates are pretty crap. Apparently after some time bloggers learned how to game the system, so instead of dealing with the problem Amazon just decided to lower the commission rates. I generated $85.79 worth of revenue and got a credit of $4.46. They don't pay out until you reach $10, so I haven't seen a dime of it. If you're the type of person who will be linking to products on Amazon regularly anyway for reviews or the like, it's probably worth it. You don't earn a lot, but why throw away free money?

Hopefully my reader at least got rid of that splinter.

For those unfamiliar with Twitter, and I know a few of my Livejournal compatriots are, Wil Wheaton is pretty popular on there, at around 1.75 million followers. I was able to help clear up a bit of recent confusion that arose when he discussed whether or not Al Jazeera was broadcasting in the United States, and he retweeted my response (thereby sharing my message with the rest of his followers.)



I ended up with 31 more Retweets and 10 new followers on Twitter from that. Pretty neat. And it's a brush with Trek celebrity I haven't had since that time I met Majel Barrett at a con.

Now if I could just get him to mention my comic...