The Bad Boys of Computer Science
A sporadically updated web comic from your friends at HotZP.
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I know, I know: I've been extremely delinquent about updating the site these past couple of months, but I have good reason for doing so. I've never pretended that this is one of the priorities in my life or even one of my primary hobbies. This is something I find fun to do every now and then that amuses my friends. If it seems like work, I don't do it. If I'm not having fun, I don't do it. If I have something better to do, I don't do it. I've had better things to do lately. The only person to whom I feel to need to apologize is Frank Cormier who does Framed. I was supposed to be involved in his Great Escape event earlier; but as I said, I've had better and more important activities than comic-drawing of late.
For those of you who don't read the forum or visit #idlebanter on irc.enterthegame.com, my girlfriend Shelby was visiting for these past 2+ weeks. Spending time with her definitely constitutes something better to do than the comic, but I was still planning on doing updates in my spare time. What really threw a wrench in the update schedule, though, was the surprise visit of my older brother. I only get to see him once a year if I'm lucky, and I relish whatever time he can find in his busy schedule to bond with his hero-worshipping younger brother. He came back for my grandmother's 90th birthday celebration, which was a time-consuming series of events in of itself. I was still working all throughout, so the time I had available to spend drawing comics dropped to nil. If it came down to blowing off my brother for a couple of hours to draw a comic and update the site versus playing CounterStrike against him over LAN, then it doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to figure out what I chose.
If you're a semi-regular reader and think I owe you something, you're wrong. Where this comic is concerned, I don't really owe anyone anything. If you like the comic, feel free to visit the site whenever the mood strikes and check for new ones. That's why this site exists. I've never done this comic with the goal of attracting as large a readership as possible. I've gotten some really true and loyal fans from doing it who've become good online friends. I've even met some of these people in person and those friendships transferred over to real life. You know who you are. You ignorant whiny bitches also know who you are. If this attitude offends you, I don't really care. I could just as not draw this comic as draw it. Unlike other cartoonists, I don't have this o'erweening urge to cartoon because it's in my blood. I could get all the artistically spiritually fulfilling activities I need from randomly doodling or pursuing other avenues of more serious art. This comic has gathered an incredible community, one which is without peer, and I'm glad for it; but that doesn't mean that I feel shackled to the site in any way or form in terms of updating regularly. Basically, it boils down to this: If you like the comic and the forum, I'm very happy to hear it and hope you enjoy them when you visit the site. If you don't like it, don't bother whining, because I could care less. And if you really really feel the need to whine, do it to my face and not behind a faceless pseudonym. If the number of people who read this comic dropped down to just my friends here and back home in Indianapolis, I'd be perfectly content. They're the people for whom this comic was originally intended, anyway.
Now, that bit of semi-bitter seriousness aside, let me update you on the Stuff o' Arbitrarily Listed Fun!
Movies:
My brother and Shel both love movies as much as I do, so we sat down and watched movies whenever we could. Shel obviously influenced a few of the following choices, but I didn't regret watching any of them, with maybe one exception. These are the movies we rented on DVD: The Emperor's New Groove, The Wedding Planner (the one I didn't care for), Space Cowboys, Snatch, What Women Want, and Finding Forrester. Besides The Wedding Planner, they were all fairly good movies. I had already seen Snatch at the theatre and enjoyed it, but I liked it even better the second time around as I could focus on things besides the plot as I already knew it. Guy Ritchie is making the movies Quentin Tarantino would be if he were still making quality films. See today's music downloads for some Snatch-related goodness. Finding Forrester was a really good flick, and it has the highest of recommendations from both Shel and me. I borrowed The Road to El Dorado from Tom, and that got a very mild reaction from the both of us (Shel even nodded off at one point, but she was still jet-lagged from being in England, to be fair). We also went to see a few movies at the theatres. My brother and his girlfriend treated us to Kiss of the Dragon and The Others. I had already seen Kiss of the Dragon but I still enjoyed it the second time around. The Others was a mildly entertaining movie in a Sixth Sense vein. I took Shel to Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, and she enjoyed it a lot even though she hadn't seen Clerks (I plan on rectifying that the next time she visits). I found it to be an insipid and stupid movie; however, I laughed almost all the way through it all as it was deliberately made to be pointless. It was entertaining, and I don't regret the 15 dollars I dropped on our tickets.
Anime:
I didn't find anything particularly interesting at Otakon, surprisingly enough. I spent more time watching live action Hong Kong movies than watching anime. I caught a funny old Jet Li movie called The Scripture Without Words and a really hilarious James Bond parody whose name I can't remember wherein the main character's name was "007" in Cantonese. Matt and I were crying so hard because we were laughing like hyenas, doubled up in our seats. The only showing I was really looking forward to was cancelled (FLCL), so I've taken it upon myself to start posting them, starting today. Shel and I sat and watched all of Cowboy Bebop over the course of three days, and it was still incredibly enjoyable. We both had very strong emotional reactions to the end, hers being negative because she loves proverbial "happy endings." Bebop's ending still remains my favorite of any series, anime or otherwise.
Games:
I didn't play anything besides the odd game of CounterStrike while Shel was here except spending a couple of hours to finally beat Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal. I was a really good boy and didn't buy MechCommander 2 when we stopped into one of the local Media Play stores. I have it on good authority that Max Payne and Anachronox are well worth the investment as well. I'll have to do a little, you know, research to confirm these findings. I'm a scientist, right? ;)
Rejoice at the return of daily downloads comics in the BBoCS forum!
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