Haha, funny mistake

Actually, it's not really funny. I just dated Friday's comic for last Wednesday. I didn't realize this till I had already updated, so Saturday I have to dig through my site's folders and rearrange everything. I hope I don't have to do much. AutoKeen or AutoGene or whatever it's called usually is pretty forgiving, in my experience anyway, so this shouldn't last much longer than Friday, and maybe a little of Saturday, and even then, all that will be wrong is that Wednesday has two comics on it, instead of just one per usual. Nothing big.

Wow

Taking a look at the Webalyizer logs. Or whatever they're called. They're trustworthy, reliable, they seem to match my hit counters sometimes ( I have one that claims I've had 200+ visits, one that says 90, and another that says 40. Go figure.)

Anyway, took a look at webanalizer, whatever. And ... wow. All I can say. You can see a marked increase over August, September, and even October (my previous best month). It seems like Pylon is starting to get off the runway, so to speak. All I can say is thanks guys. You stuck with me while I was learning to publish it on the web, and now the stories and all that, thanks a lot. I have no words to describe how much this means to me. It's only the middle of November, and I've ALREADY TIED MY BEST MONTH EVER. This is like a record breaking month for Pylon.

Thanks again, guys.

Patents

Engineering Design. Well, I thought of a neat idea for this project, and the logical next step of searching through the US patent website to see if it's really original.

Well, I found eleven patents and four applications for almost the same idea. And this idea, that I had, seemed to be really futuristic, and here patents were filed in 1998. 1998. I am seven years too late. TOO LATE.

This doesn't immediately disqualify my idea, but it sure does deflate my eagerness for it. Trying to finish it, all the while knowing that it's already been done. I've been beaten to the punch.

And that just sucks.

Now, I will attempt to raise this blog's ratings in searchs for "Pylon" by mentioning "pylon" at least seven times or so in this post. Pylon, by the way, wasn't the idea I was talking about above, just in case you were wondering. Also, Pylon happens to be a comic, which I don't think you can patent. Anyway, For those of you who read Pylon, just know that Pylon will continue to run Monday-Wednesday-Friday, per usual.

So, if you're one of the 112 readers who read Pylon, rest assured that despite erratic updates (I know Monday's is gonna be up around Monday evening at earilest), you're still reading Pylon. And I just want to say thanks. Pylon thanks you. Think about that next time.

Something about Comics

Well, after much cajoling, the scanner finally works again. I don't know why! HAHA! I think I will go off into corner and scream now.

And that means I will probably get Pylon up sometime today.

Time

Continuing in the tradition of almost utterly useless posts, today let's talk time.

Specifically, the lack of it.

Go here if you aren't familar with time.

Anyway, it's almost common knowledge that time is everywhere, invading every little corner of your life like a german cockroach in a grain silo. The Powers that Be will deny that they ever invented time, but we know better, right? Obviously, they only gave us Twenty four hours. That's a 2 followed by a 4. 20 + 4. 12*2. Who the hell can do everything they need to do in only twenty four hours?

It's like that TV show, and even the show admits that there's too much to do than one can cover in only 24 hours. Therefore, ...

Wait, I'm out of time. Be back on this later.

MOZILLA

Well, I am a calm, cool guy. I like to think I give everything a shot. Heck, I sat through all the Star Wars prequels, a lecture on the discussion on the mention of the talk concerning Katrina, and War and Peace. So, when I say that I HATE THIS PROGRAM, THAT MEANS THAT IT WENT ONE TIME TOO MUCH.

The program being, of course, Mozilla Firefox.

Yes, Firefox.

Reel in the dogs of war, Mozilla faithful. For one, this is just me, and you can rant and rave and scream till you are blue in the face and I have to call an ambulance for you, and I still hate firefox. Just hear me out before the flames begin, because it's not like I didn't give it enough f***ing chances in the first place.

Well, in case you didn't figure it out, I downloaded and used Mozilla for a while. These past two months, to be exact. And at first, all was good. It worked, it had a built in pop-up blocker, tabbed browsing, a TON of settings (good for me, I happen to like control over letting the thing run itself), and a whole lot more that I am skipping over or forgetting. Surely, I thought, I cannot imagine the reason people do not use this all the time. Well, I was asking for it...

The first annoying thing was Timing out. If you've never run Firefox, let me explain. Mozilla apparantly felt it very important to just cut the attempt to access a site if a certain amount of time passes. So, if you're trying to hit Yahoo, and it takes more than thirty seconds, it "times out". Well, I understand the intentions behind it. It's annoying when Internet Explorer spends eighteen hours connecting to a dead site. I understand that Mozilla was trying to avoid this situation. However, I looked everywhere, and THERE IS NO WAY TO OVERRIDE IT. You heard me right. Let's say you like a site that is noturiously laggy. Forget using Mozilla. It'll time you out so much, you might as well attempt to drill a hole through your cranium and just shove a cable into your brain. I could not find a single place to override this sometimes annoying feature.

Now, to be fair, I didn't go to the help forums, I didn't ask anyone for help concerning this. So part of it is just me being stubborn. I can excuse you somewhat for calling me on this, because I really should have asked someone about the timing out crap. And in retrospect, it's probably something really easy to fix. But damn, was it REALLY ANNOYING.

So, I dealt with it. I liked and enjoyed all of the other features. Everything goes along smoothly...

...until I tried playing some videos for one of the many assignments in school. And I discovered that, for some odd reason, Firefox wanted to use Quicktime. For everything. Thus, all flash movies, hell, everything bugged out. It was like a giant, blank, error message world. I looked through all the options and what not. Nothing happened. It seemed as if one day, Firefox wanted to use quicktime, and refused to remove it's greedy little claws.

Then it deleted all of my bookmarks. All of them. I still don't know why the HELL that happened. No, i have no viruses, spyware, hackers, etc. that could have destroyed my bookmarks but left all of my other systems intact (like that'd ever happen). So, my bookmarks were all gone, my browser refused to use any kind of quicktime, and all the while I felt the irrational urge to chuck my computer off the roof of my 17-story dormitory more and more.

At this point, even I recognized the need for help. So, on to the Mozilla support. Well, http://http://www.mozilla.org/support/firefox/ is the place to go. Take a look. I'll wait. Back? Enjoy that maze of tech support? Me neither. All I wanted was a stupid help forum. I can find what I need. I don't need a million and one alternatives or mirror sites or any other CRAP. Let me list this den of crap:

1) Release notes Oh joy, pages and pages of tech jargon. Just what'll solve the problem! Not. I actually took a look to make sure I wasn't going to get any help from this crap. Tons and tons of "Fixed loop hole that allowed the G key to cancel something" or "patched the uninstaller". I DON"T HAVE THESE PROBLEMS!

2) Forums Ah, just what I was looking for. Too bad the actual staff of these forums have the collective IQ of a grapefruit, mindlessly repeated the same "release notes" over and over again. That's ignoring the million or so morons that post "I downloaded 'downloadMozilla.exe' and it did not autorun. What do i do!?!11" or "Mozilla has to be downloaded?!11". I told the helper that he needed to stop reading the release notes and sit down and help me. Well, I got promptly banned. Guess if you call them on their stupidity, that is a no-no. God forbid help be dispersed on the help forums.

3) One of many offsite help pages Well, the final option, short of downloading IRC which I don't have and talking directly to a Mozilla dude which probably wouldn't help, is going to these web pages that are off site, and hope they answer your question. Well, I ACTUALLY FOUND THE ANSWER, after crawling through everything else. It suggested that I uninstall all my flash, shockwave, quicktime, mozilla, and real player, and reinstall them in a certain order ( I didn't bother reading on to find out the specifc order).

You may be asking why I still hate Mozilla. Here is why:

Anytime you suggest that you need to un- and re- install something, you've lost. Totally lost. Don't hand me that "it happens to all programs" shit. Let's compare it to Internet Explorer, which Mozilla is supposed to 'improve' upon. IE never crashed, never had to be un- and re- installed, and never deleted my bookmarks, and never timed out either. It did what I wanted it to do. Sure, it may not have tabbed browsing or a built in pop-up blocker, and it may be the "Establishment and Evil Monopoly", but at least it always works. It's like comparing the US postal service to using Instant Messanger. The postal service always works, even if it is the government and slow. IM only gets people if they are even on, and even then could crash (I know mine does at least five times a day).

And that is why I hate Firefox. It has a lot of spiffy options, but that didn't impress me in the slightest. It's like being impressed with a stripped down Mercedes that has a gold plated steering wheel. Pretty, but useless and stupid. IE may be a jalopy, but it's a reliable one. For me at least.

Well, that's my beef with it anyway. You're entitled to your own opinion, blah blah blah... Whatever. I need to go and uninstall FireFox now, so if you'll excuse me...

My Left Arrow Key

We are gathered here today to mourn the loss of my Laptop's left arrow key.

It was a good key, that served me well through many a game of Tetris, Pacman, and Call of Duty. It served it's duty in the great scrolling adventure of last month.

But now it's gone forever. And we have to move on.

Onto the scanner now, I guess. After a moment of silence.

Ding Dong

Let's have a little story.

Once upon a time, there was a little scanner, named Hewlitt Packard PSC 2355 All-In-One Printer, Or Heppics for short. Little Heppics was naive and young, and so did not understand the urgency of the modern day world. Other bigger faster processors laughed at it, and it lay in the halls of Best Buy for many a century. It began to think that no one would want it.

Then, one day, It was bought! And it was hooked up to a new friend, Dell Inspiron 8600, or Inspy. Inspy was a big jerk, who ran Microsoft Windows XP like no one's business, and frequently crashed, everytime laughing at his owner who was only trying to print out comics and research papers last minute.

Well, Inspy and Heppics got along fine until one day Inspy grew tired of Heppic's calls for updates every day, so it decided to just ignore all signals from Heppic. While it was at it, it also decided to just ignore the whole damn thing as well. After all, hate the spam so you must hate the spammer!

Well, Heppic took so much offense that it refuses to call anymore. And the end result is that my scanner and laptop are no longer on speaking terms. Which means that when I went to scan Pylon on Monday, I discovered this unfortunate fact. Well, it was late, so I thought I'd sleep on it. And Tuesday... it still wasn't solved. Today, it still is messed up.

And I am still doing nothing about it. I know I should, because in addition to Pylon, I have school work to pump out, and I should get cracking on it...

Anyway...

On to happier things...

Can't think of any off the top of my head. So I guess it's back to babbling. So...

I am annoying slightly at the dining hall. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate all the staff and the food and all, but what tends to annoy me is the people who, in essence, trash the place. They leave their trays all over, food spills over everywhere. It isn't everyone, just a select stupid few, and they'll probably deny this to the day they die, but it's really disgusting. It kills me to see tables with trays of half-eaten decayed food just lying everywhere. You know, like I want to see their trash.

I hear that Kansas has gotten rid of Darwin's theory, or some such. I'm browsing through the internet, and already I'm seeing the uproar over this crap. Well, here is my take on it, right here and now: It doesn't matter. Step back, take a deep breath, reel in the attack dogs, and think: "Who cares about what Kansas has ruled? Since when has Kansas Board of Education transformed into the Supreme Court?" It'll probably get reversed within a year, knowing the legal system.

I wonder how long this post will get. I wonder if people ever plan the length of their posts. In case you have any thoughts, no, no I do not plan my posts. It's not like I'm writing some kind of book here. No, a book would be far, far more interesting. Also, it would have a plot. Also, it wouldn't be a blog, now, it would be a book.

Well, I guess it's time to fix that scanner now...

What to do

Well, I'm sitting here, making the next comic, which will probably be up around night tomorrow, if you bother reading it, and I happen upon my friend's bloggy blogger blog blog thing. Well, I know you've seen my posts here. I barely, if ever, reach a third paragraph. I say what needs to be said, mainly pertaining to my comic, and then I'm out. I have too much to do to sit around, I've got a city at my fingertips, and I am just out there. Gone.

Well, back to the point, my friend has this entire . . . well, not really a blog. It's quickly approaching a book. We're talking, every couple of weeks, and out is pumped another page, for all intents and purposes. And that's got me thinking (and if you know me, alarm bells should be ringing now).

What the HELL am I doing? Like, what am I doing? This sounds ridiculous. Let me rephrase this. What the hell am I doing posting mindless little thoughts on some blog in the corner of a webcomic, when my friend here is, for all intents and purposes, pouring into their blog? So, again, the cogs started turning, and I resolved a few things. Revelations, if you will. No, no, that title would give them too much diginity. How about ... life remarks? Whatever.

1) I want to die smiling. Life is depressing enough already, people. Let's try to end it on a high note, and die grinning like fools. I want my obiturary photo to look like I just got back from a month in Hawaii. Plus, it'll spite whatever supernatural being you believe in. "Take that God, I was happy! HEAR ME, HAPPY!?!"

2) I want a Dr. Pepper. This isn't really related at all. But man, am I thirsty right now. I could drink a small lake, or maybe an ocean. If you really care, you'll send me a Dr. Pepper by mail, as the one time I tried emailing a snickers bar, It just made my scanner sticky.

3) I don't have a clue what I'm discussing, exactly. I think I had a point somewhere around here... but I lost it along the way. Maybe that's the point. Maybe if you get the point, you're missing it.

4) I hate Firefox. Yes, this may burn your ears if you are one of the Mozilla Faithful, but frankly, I'm tired of Firefox timing out just before a page loads. It's done this exactly twice over the two months I have used it, and I cannot take it anymore. NOT ONE STEP BACK!

5) Blogs are pointless. At least, if you aren't talking about anything. You can lump me in with the rest. Yes, that's right. My ego's giving a little. But wait until you see point 6.

6) Read Pylon more often. Pylon can do anything. It's cured depression, and cancer, and the common cold. Actually, it hasn't cured anything. Read it anyway. NOW. NOW.

So, I sat back, and I said, "Wow, my mind has wandered. Wonder where it's headed next." And that's when it hit me. That's what blogs are for! I'm not telling you here, you'll have to find out for yourself. It's like life: If I ruin the ending, you'll go and commit suicide, since you'll (d'uh) know the ending. It's like a Star Wars movie. No, not the 'prequel' crap. I'm talking the first three, or... the ones made before special effects became cheap side shows.

Anyway, I think the point is that, um... I'm doing whatever the hell I want. Starting now. I'm my own master... until I have to do laundry. Then it's back to the cleaners... hehe. Inside joke. Man, I don't understand how people live without a sense of humor. Life's funny. Like, the other day, someone on the floor above me must have been dropping things out the window, because I swore things were knocking on the window, and unless people are grappling up EIGHT STORIES just to tap on some random guy's window, then something must have been hitting it on the way down.

So anyway, Here's to Pylon, and the limitless unlimited! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA!!!!