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< Piro >

"'switch' ja nai mou!"

Thursday - February 13, 2003

One thing that never ceases to amaze me is just how quickly things sneak up on you. Just last week I felt pretty relaxed about everything early last week, then things, well, things got complicated, as usual ^^;; Anyways, this wouldn't be MT if I was ahead of schedule and wasn't doing things in a last minute mad panic. ^^;; Both Seraphim and I are leaving for Virginia tomorrow evening for Katsucon in Crystal City, Virginia.

As promised, here is my schedule for the con:

Fri: 6:00pm - Opening Ceremonies (Main Programming)
Fri: 7:00pm - Autograph Session (Autograph area)
Sat: 11:00am - Autograph Session (Autograph area)
Sat: 1:30pm - Megatokyo Panel - (Main Programming)
Sat: 5:00pm - How to Draw Manga (Gameshow)
Sat: 11:00pm - Dead Piro Sketching (Workshop)

The main MT events at Katsucon are the Megatokyo Panel at 1:30pm on Saturday, and the Dead Piro Sketching workshop Saturday night at 11pm. All other times I will probably be at my own table near the IC Entertainment booth drawing sketches and signin stuff for anyone who wants a sketch. There will be Megatokyo Volume 1 books available for sale as well as the last of the Capture the Bear posters (not sure if I'm going to do a reprint or not). As always, you do not need to buy anything to get a sketch from me!. I have plenty of index cards and i'd be happy to draw whatever you like. The only rules for sketches really are just one character at a time (i'm happy to do multiple sketches for friends and stuff), and please, don't ask me to draw you - i suck at caricatures ^^;; Also, be creative in what you'd like me to draw. If i have to draw the same piro drawing 100 times i'll go crazy. Yes, i'm more than happy to do a drawing in your book if you have one.

One other little bit of news, since i'm too lazy to update the news box before I go to bed - IC Entertainment has a brand spankin new website up and running. Big improvement on the old one. Also, preorders have started for Megatokyo book 2. Remember, Book 2 should be available towards the end of March. Ugh, i still need to do a cover for that, and extra material... yikes...

Anyways, you may have noticed my comment yesterday about getting a new computer (and it being one of the reasons today's comic was so late. "i'm just gonna set it up and turn it on and then ignore it. yep. well, i can at least setup Office so i can write the script. and maybe email. and i need instant msging..." - you know how it goes). Here is a picture of my new setup. Before the hate mail starts rolling in, Yes, i got a mac. no, I don't care how wrong it is to switch to a mac. Besides, I didn't 'switch', I 'added'. There's a difference.

There's been so much going on recently that this purchase and the decisions and stuff around it happened in the cracks between things. There was no question that I needed to upgrade from my laptop setup, and I wanted to invest a little in a new setup that i'd be happy with. So, a few weeks ago I cringed and ordered a Apple G4 with dual 1.25 ghz processors (the 2 meg cache ones), 120 gig drive, 1 gig of memory, and no modem. I also ordered mac versions of Photoshop 7 and Illustrator 10 and a new 9x12 Wacom Intuos 2 (my old tablet wont work with OS X). Ouch indeed.

Why the hell did i decide to get a mac over the more logical route of just building one kick-ass winbox? I suppose i have a lot of reasons, some definable, others not quite so easy to explain. If nothing else, I can give you an honest and upfront view of what it's like to actually make the decision to move to a mac as your main workstation. I still have my laptop and my other PC workstation (which has been upgraded with the help of some friends who drove down a few weeks ago from Grand Rapids - thanks guys)

Oh yeah... the monitor. Yes, that is a 23" Apple Cinema Display. The big one. I've already had quite a few people wish me an early doom for possessing it. This monitor is... amazingly sweet. I hate 'l33t' with a passion, but...

this monitor is fsk1n l33t.

It makes my other monitor seem like this dim little box i'm trying to peer inside, and its a really nice Samsung too. I didn't originally order the 23" display. What happened was not days after I ordered the top of the line G4, Apple introduced newer more powerful G4s and slashed prices 40% or so. Luckily, i found that the price changes meant that the price of my order went down considerably. I also noticed a curious fact - that $3,000 monitor i have been drooling over was suddenly less than $2,000. Even so, i considered it an extravagance.

That's where my lovely little angel, the queen of my heart and the one who knows all the keys and passcodes to my little soul offered to spring the difference and get me the monitor. Good god, i am so not worthy.

So, what do i do for Valentines day? I drag her half way across the country to an Anime con in Virginia. ^^;; I am, like, the worlds absolutely worst most horrible boyfriend ever.

And you guys wonder why i'm so mean to poor Piro. :)

Oh, and i would like to send a special thanks to Sogarth for all his help in getting this new mac on my desk. I'm sure he's blocked me off his AIM list by now. ^^;;

I need to go to bed so i can get up early and try to get a comic done for Friday. I'm working on a guest fill in for Monday, but if i can't swing that, I may have to skip Monday's comic all together. Too many bullets flying overhead right now...

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< Dom >

"Here comes daredevil!"

Monday - February 10, 2003

[Dom] - 00:00:00 - [link here]

Update 2/11: Kei has informed me that IC Entertainment has just started taking pre-orders for MT Book 2. While the book will burn holes in my eyes, you guys might want to get a copy, so there's the link right there. If you want to be one click lazier, click here for the pre-order page. (please note that IC Entertainment is not taking pre-orders for Book 2 - piro)

Short rant for now... gotta get some sleep so I can have some rest before I go and vegetate in front of my arcade's newly acquired GGXX machine. Woohoo, people other than my roommate to play against!

I have this new game in my possession, borrowed from UkiyaShun. It's called Baldr [sic] Force, and the best way to describe the gameplay would be a sort of Armored Core played with a Smash TV view/pace. I haven't installed it yet, due to work and Guilty Gear concerns, but I really want to go around jump-kicking and gut-punching other mecha. Oh, sure, and using the buckshot shotgun and other weapons.

Oh yeah. And the game happens to have porn in it. Not like I care--I can always just put a weight on the enter key and do some other reading. I did that for Comic Party, too. Though Comic Party was cool because there was only one porn scene per character, and while you saw it coming a mile away, you could just skip it and get to the good stuff, like "Shitteta yo... sonna koto, zutto mae kara" and such.

I've been reading my manga like a good boy--finally managed to get around to Shinesman, which was well worth the effort. I'm probably moving on to Ken's recommendation, "Adesugata Junjyou BOY", about a guy who is ordered to attend an all-girl's school so he can learn how to play girls in kabuki. I'm probably not going to pick up Pocky's recommendation, though, which is the same premise plus smut. I might be tempted to pick up Fruits Basket just 'cuz I've come to like the show (and it's become a hobby of mine to find grammar/spelling errors in Funimation's subs... not knocking the disc, just sayin') and want to see if the manga's just as fun.

I'm finally putting something on Oop-ack.com! You'll see soon... but basically, the subtitling group I'm in (Doquote 262, if you care) is gathering money for our GTO drama translations the old-fashioned way... asking for sponsorships. So at least temporarily, there will be information on my poor, unused domain. After that project's done, I can actually work on a personal page. I'll put a link in this space as soon as the page is up. And, of course, when I get real information on that, I'll start maintaining oop-ack.com for real. Projected date I'll find serious time to work on a website? Hmm... probably June, right after my E3/ACen marathon.

Oh, and I've decided to pick up my abandoned project to gain a broad knowledge of American film history. I lived through the jingoistic war flicks of the '80s, studied a lot of silent films as a film/English student in Berkeley, and am going through Film Noir (which happens to be the golden age of narrative) now. Tasty, tasty Double Indemnity and Sunset Boulevard...

After this, I'll probably watch the cold war flicks of the '50s-I was a Communist for the FBI is on my short list. I've already seen a lot of the social apologist movies of the '50s too, so after that I'll probably touch on the auteur movement, and then... I dunno what I do after the auteur movement. Maybe I'll talk to my adaptation professor and finally kick my screenplay ideas into gear. Who knows... it's all good, I get to watch more movies however it goes.

Aaaaand it's time for me to go back to dreaming about Guilty Gear XX. Maybe I'll practice Slayer's semi-infinite just to annoy people... or maybe not.