index.html


12.25.07 I did a Christmas comic just like I promised! Honestly, it felt like a bit of a rush job. The funny thing is that the part I'm least happy with is the Bishop character. The one thing in the comic I should be used to drawing by now. I tried to make it look like he was being lit by the tree, and that didn't quite come out. I was really happy with the tree, though. I actually went through and put a lit part in the center of each christmas light on the tree. I think the overall effect was exactly what I was looking for. The comic it's self is exactly what happened last year. I'll try to find the photos from the actual event. I have a kitten named Alex, and she attacked the tree. The picture I got was great, because she actually looked like she was satisfied with the job she'd done on it. This Christmas has been pretty good. My father in-law taught me how to re-load my .357 shells. So, at least when I get in trouble at the shooting range, it won't be costing me an arm and a leg. I got a chance to see all my brother and sister's kids too. Some of them only see me the one time we all get together for Christmas. Everyone looked good, and it just makes me think more about having my own children. I still say that Chris and I haven't really started trying to have kids, we've just stopped trying not to. 12.22.07 I've got another comic done. This one isn't completely true. He did ask us if we could read, then he asked us what we did for a living, and we started to tell him. He just started laughing when he realized that both Jesse and Travis have Master's degrees in English-related fields, and they both teach english to highschool kids. Then, the weirdest thing happened, he acted like he couldn't help but respect my friends that teach because of what a hard job that must be. He basically told stories about what a pain in the ass he was in school, then let us go. I always hear about how people need to 'respect our teachers' more. I think EVERYONE respects teachers more than people realize. I don't know if it's the holliday season, or what, but I've been really busy lately. It's all good things, but don't be surprised if I'm only updating once every two weeks or so for a while. Everything is going really well, just busy. I was going to post this comic Thursday after work, and now it's Saturday. Let me give you a run down of the past few days, just so you don't think I'm lazy. Thursday: 7:00 get up for work. 12:00 finish the comic over my lunch break. 5:00 get Sweeny Todd tickets. 5:30 PM Get called back into work to help with a problem. (<-I was going to post the comic) 8:00 PM Leave work for the second time, grab quick dinner. 8:30 D&D with some friends. 11:30 Leave D&D early to get Chris and catch midnight showing of Sweeny Todd. 3:00AM Get home, go to sleep. Friday: 9:00AM get up, make calls, eat something, work out...just in time for... 12:00 Lunch with Danielle. We work on projects together, to motivate one another to get more work done. Like a work-out buddy for painting, drawing and programming. 8:00PM Finished working with Danielle (all MUD stuff), get dinner, go home, eat. 8:30 Chris wants to go out to eat when she gets home from work, and I need to do some last minute shopping. 10:30 Wrapping gifts. 11:00 Kevin comes over for our Friday Wii decompression time. 1:30AM sleep... So, It's all been good stuff. I really don't mind being called into work at all. They always really appreciate it, and it wasn't like I'd caused the problem. They just needed my help fixing it. I think I have just the right amount of responsibility at work. They need me, but I still go home at 5. The MUD has been getting better by leaps and bounds. I decided to make the first area a little more complex, just because it was too short and easy before. Also, I figured if you could get a shovel, you should be able to dig things up. I'll keep working on the MUD, and it should be ready sometime between Christmas and the 30th. I know I could have left Danielle's early to post this on Friday, but the MUD had taken over my mind. I am hoping to do a Christmas-card style comic for Christmas, but that really depends on if my father-in-law, or anyone else around there, has a scanner I can borrow. Maybe I'll just buy a portable one if this becomes a regular issue. 12.05.07 I did another comic. I also think I have Seasonal Disaffective Disorder. Once the winter hits, I just want to go into hibernation. I guess Thanks Giving kicked my ass. Honestly, you can probably blame my mother in-law. She bought me a Wii as an early Christmas gift(Thanks!), and if you have the means, I highly recommend it. The bundle I got came with 3 controllers and 8 games. I'm playing through metroid, and for a quick game Bleach: Broken Blade is a really good fighter. The control is a lot more responsive and natural than I expected. I had most of the this comic done on Thanks Giving day, but I wasn't happy with it, so I tried a few things, and finally decided today to settle on what I have and move on. I will post some pics of the actual Zombie hunt as soon as I decide on what sort of photo viewer I want to set up. The mud hasn't had any more attention than the comic. I really need to clean up an area, place mobs and weapons, and bring it up for testing. Most of the basic programming is done, and I need people to play the game and find bugs. I'll try to get that, and another comic ready for next week. 11.19.07 Okay, this comic is a day late. I startd a really complicated comic, decided it wouldn't be done in time, and did this one as filler. I'm actually really happy with it. I'll try to get the other one done for this week. I got the respawn system totally working, revamped the Hit Point code, and I'm working on some new code to make a MOB that'll give out missions. The game should be back up for testing soon. I'm not sure how Thanks Giving is going to effect things this week. 11.10.07 Another comic done on time! This one is, again, totally based in fact. We took a paper-mache zombie to the shooting range, found out that it is not a 'paper target only' legal target, and had some good fun. This will be the first story arc. I'm still trying to figure out good ways to actually introduce and develop characters. I did get some programming done this week. I scrapped some of the respawn code I'd started so that I could play with interfaces to make the game-clock only have to handle one type of object when respawning. All around I'm pretty happy with the design. I'm going to finish that this weekend. I have pics from the actual 'zombie hunt' that I'll be posting soon. 11.02.07 The comic is done. This one really made me realize I need to do more planning before I just start drawing things. It's over-complicated, poorly laid out, and not even funny. I'm going to try to get back to basics, and have some four frame comics with a few characters talking to one another. I was so excited that I could get away from that kind of comic, that I forgot that there's a reason it's a staple. I don't know what made me think that starting the comic thing back up in October was a good idea. It's always my craziest month, and this week was no different. I went to some parties, saw Rocky Horror live, handed out candy to little kids. It feels like it's been halloween all week. It's been good, but I'm exhausted. I didn't get the programming I wanted done, but I'm going to remedy that right after doing this post. Next week, I'll try a simple comic, and more programming. We'll see how that works out. ;) 10.27.07 I finally posted a new comic. It's a bit late, but my best work to date. This took me about 5 hours total. I wish some parts had come out a little better, but I'm basically happy with it. Of course, converting it to Jpeg format, and having it get all blotchy. has become a heartbreaking moment for every comic. The .BMP format is crystal clear, but each comic would be about half a MB. I'm working on some side stuff for the 'misc' section still. I plan to stencil a T-shirt this week, as well as shoot a life-sized zombie I made with a machine gun. Hopefully I'll have some pics of that for you by the end of the week. The project to create a life-sized Zombie, filled with cans of beef-a-roni, and then shoot it, seemed like a genius idea when I thought of it. Now that I realize it'll total about 12 hours of work, I'm doubting if it was such a good idea. I hope the experience of mowing it down with assault rifles helps make it all seem worthwhile. I plan on making substantial additions to the MUD this week. I have everything designed to add a point system, re-spawning system and a web-page system so people can check their zombie hunter standing against other players. The job is going well. I've been mostly given responsibility over our local Smalltalk applications. So, that's less time fighting with Natural and JCL, and more time working in a civilized language. Also, it keeps me busy. I hate sitting at work and looking for things to do. There's always something to do, but having a nice list of projects that NEED to be done really takes the boredom out of it. 10.19.07 Great news everybody, I made a comic! This comic is purely autobiographical. I work in the strangest place. It's an office where half of the workers are women who actually love to cook. So, everyone (even me) is expected to bring something in on their birthday. That alone would be at least one cake or birthday related foodstuff per week. Also, we do a pot-luck on Friday. Added on that, people usually bring something in at least once or twice a week. Now, if that wasn't enough, one of the ladies is married to a guy who designers new foods. He uses us as guinea pigs, so occasionally there's a really cute grad student who serves me cookies, doughnuts, cakes, etc. It's a minor miracle that I'm not severely overweight. I wanted to try to post every Wednesday, but it's been a really strange week. I went to NYC to visit my friend Kevin and my cousin Ryan. We had a great time catching up, drinking various beers, taking various beer tours, etc. Also, we went to see Bad Religion. It was probably the best show of my life. It was the first show where the lights came on, and I complained that they hadn't played long enough...only to have Ryan tell me it'd actually been over an hour and a half. Thinking back, I couldn't think of a song I wanted to hear, but didn't. I guess I was just so into it that I lost track of time. The comic is late because I missed my bus coming back to State College. Actually, I asked when the buses return to State College, and the lady told me there was a 5pm bus out. So, that's the one I planned to take. Then, when I got there on Tuesday, they told me that is only a weekend bus and I'd already missed the last weekday bus. This week, I also wrote about half of the re spawn code for the mud. I'm taking my laptop with me to my wife's College reunion this weekend. I'm hoping to get some work done in the car ride up, or at least in the hotel. I learned the hard way that I can't program on a bus, so I'm hoping that the car ride is a little smoother. I will try to have a new comic up next week, as well as a new test server up and running. I have some other site related stuff in the works, so we'll see which things get done by next Wednesday. 10.09.07 I made a comic! This is the first update of any substance. I've been working on comic sketches and stuff for a few weeks. I also added some code to the MUD. It's still in early test stages, but it's getting better by the week. Things at the school are going really well, and for the most part I really like the job. I'm still settling into a new house, so that's an interesting adjustment. Work on the site has been slow, because it's hard to choose a direction. I would like to do something a bit more 'real to life'. I know what I don't want to do. I don't want to make a comic about sitting around with my roommates playing video games. It's nothing against those comics. I read several of them. Frankly, that's not my life. I want to do a comic about someone who's past that, and trying to figure out what adulthood means in today's society. So, I don't know what to expect from the comic yet. I'm expecting twisted jokes about a programmer in his 30's. Since, well, that's pretty much what I am and what I know. Also, I've always seen it as a crime that there are so many 'geek' comics, but almost none that talk about programming. I guess it's because most people won't get the joke, but if the Internet exists for anything, I think it's so that people with esoteric obsessions can share their perspective on things no one else cares about. 09.13.07 This site is still under construction. I've been working for a long time to bring my old 'coredump' comic back from the dead. I decided to get 'www.coredumpproject.com' because I plan to do more than just a comic. I already have a small MUD written, and I'm working on some smaller projects that I'll show on the site under 'misc' in the form of 'how-to' guides and pictures.

12.25.07
I did a Christmas comic just like I promised! Honestly, it felt like a bit of a rush job. The funny thing is that the part I'm least happy with is the Bishop character. The one thing in the comic I should be used to drawing by now. I tried to make it look like he was being lit by the tree, and that didn't quite come out. I was really happy with the tree, though. I actually went through and put a lit part in the center of each christmas light on the tree. I think the overall effect was exactly what I was looking for.
The comic it's self is exactly what happened last year. I'll try to find the photos from the actual event. I have a kitten named Alex, and she attacked the tree. The picture I got was great, because she actually looked like she was satisfied with the job she'd done on it.
This Christmas has been pretty good. My father in-law taught me how to re-load my .357 shells. So, at least when I get in trouble at the shooting range, it won't be costing me an arm and a leg. I got a chance to see all my brother and sister's kids too. Some of them only see me the one time we all get together for Christmas. Everyone looked good, and it just makes me think more about having my own children. I still say that Chris and I haven't really started trying to have kids, we've just stopped trying not to.

12.22.07
I've got another comic done. This one isn't completely true. He did ask us if we could read, then he asked us what we did for a living, and we started to tell him. He just started laughing when he realized that both Jesse and Travis have Master's degrees in English-related fields, and they both teach english to highschool kids. Then, the weirdest thing happened, he acted like he couldn't help but respect my friends that teach because of what a hard job that must be. He basically told stories about what a pain in the ass he was in school, then let us go. I always hear about how people need to 'respect our teachers' more. I think EVERYONE respects teachers more than people realize.
I don't know if it's the holliday season, or what, but I've been really busy lately. It's all good things, but don't be surprised if I'm only updating once every two weeks or so for a while. Everything is going really well, just busy. I was going to post this comic Thursday after work, and now it's Saturday. Let me give you a run down of the past few days, just so you don't think I'm lazy.
Thursday: 7:00 get up for work.
12:00 finish the comic over my lunch break.
5:00 get Sweeny Todd tickets.
5:30 PM Get called back into work to help with a problem. (<-I was going to post the comic)
8:00 PM Leave work for the second time, grab quick dinner.
8:30 D&D with some friends.
11:30 Leave D&D early to get Chris and catch midnight showing of Sweeny Todd.
3:00AM Get home, go to sleep.

Friday: 9:00AM get up, make calls, eat something, work out...just in time for...
12:00 Lunch with Danielle. We work on projects together, to motivate one another to get more work done. Like a work-out buddy for painting, drawing and programming.
8:00PM Finished working with Danielle (all MUD stuff), get dinner, go home, eat.
8:30 Chris wants to go out to eat when she gets home from work, and I need to do some
last minute shopping.
10:30 Wrapping gifts.
11:00 Kevin comes over for our Friday Wii decompression time.
1:30AM sleep...

So, It's all been good stuff. I really don't mind being called into work at all. They always really appreciate it, and it wasn't like I'd caused the problem. They just needed my help fixing it. I think I have just the right amount of responsibility at work. They need me, but I still go home at 5.
The MUD has been getting better by leaps and bounds. I decided to make the first area a little more complex, just because it was too short and easy before. Also, I figured if you could get a shovel, you should be able to dig things up. I'll keep working on the MUD, and it should be ready sometime between Christmas and the 30th.
I know I could have left Danielle's early to post this on Friday, but the MUD had taken over my mind. I am hoping to do a Christmas-card style comic for Christmas, but that really depends on if my father-in-law, or anyone else around there, has a scanner I can borrow. Maybe I'll just buy a portable one if this becomes a regular issue.

12.05.07
I did another comic. I also think I have Seasonal Disaffective Disorder. Once the winter hits, I just want to go into hibernation.
I guess Thanks Giving kicked my ass. Honestly, you can probably blame my mother in-law. She bought me a Wii as an early Christmas gift(Thanks!), and if you have the means, I highly recommend it. The bundle I got came with 3 controllers and 8 games. I'm playing through metroid, and for a quick game Bleach: Broken Blade is a really good fighter. The control is a lot more responsive and natural than I expected.
I had most of the this comic done on Thanks Giving day, but I wasn't happy with it, so I tried a few things, and finally decided today to settle on what I have and move on. I will post some pics of the actual Zombie hunt as soon as I decide on what sort of photo viewer I want to set up.
The mud hasn't had any more attention than the comic. I really need to clean up an area, place mobs and weapons, and bring it up for testing. Most of the basic programming is done, and I need people to play the game and find bugs. I'll try to get that, and another comic ready for next week.

11.19.07
Okay, this comic is a day late. I startd a really complicated comic, decided it wouldn't be done in time, and did this one as filler. I'm actually really happy with it. I'll try to get the other one done for this week.
I got the respawn system totally working, revamped the Hit Point code, and I'm working on some new code to make a MOB that'll give out missions. The game should be back up for testing soon. I'm not sure how Thanks Giving is going to effect things this week.

11.10.07
Another comic done on time! This one is, again, totally based in fact. We took a paper-mache zombie to the shooting range, found out that it is not a 'paper target only' legal target, and had some good fun. This will be the first story arc. I'm still trying to figure out good ways to actually introduce and develop characters.
I did get some programming done this week. I scrapped some of the respawn code I'd started so that I could play with interfaces to make the game-clock only have to handle one type of object when respawning. All around I'm pretty happy with the design. I'm going to finish that this weekend.
I have pics from the actual 'zombie hunt' that I'll be posting soon.

11.02.07

The comic is done. This one really made me realize I need to do more planning before I just start drawing things. It's over-complicated, poorly laid out, and not even funny. I'm going to try to get back to basics, and have some four frame comics with a few characters talking to one another. I was so excited that I could get away from that kind of comic, that I forgot that there's a reason it's a staple.
I don't know what made me think that starting the comic thing back up in October was a good idea. It's always my craziest month, and this week was no different. I went to some parties, saw Rocky Horror live, handed out candy to little kids. It feels like it's been halloween all week. It's been good, but I'm exhausted. I didn't get the programming I wanted done, but I'm going to remedy that right after doing this post. Next week, I'll try a simple comic, and more programming. We'll see how that works out. ;)

10.27.07

I finally posted a new comic.

It's a bit late, but my best work to date. This took me about 5 hours total. I wish some parts had come out
a little better, but I'm basically happy with it. Of course, converting it to Jpeg format, and having it get all blotchy. has become a heartbreaking moment for every comic. The .BMP format is crystal clear, but each comic would be about half a MB.
I'm working on some side stuff for the 'misc' section still. I plan to stencil a T-shirt this week, as well as shoot a life-sized zombie I made with a machine gun. Hopefully I'll have some pics of that for you by the end of the week. The project to create a life-sized Zombie, filled with cans of beef-a-roni, and then shoot it, seemed like a genius idea when I thought of it. Now that I realize it'll total about 12 hours of work, I'm doubting if it was such a good idea. I hope the experience of mowing it down with assault rifles helps make it all seem worthwhile.
I plan on making substantial additions to the MUD this week. I have everything designed to add a point system, re-spawning system and a web-page system so people can check their zombie hunter standing against other players.
The job is going well. I've been mostly given responsibility over our local Smalltalk applications. So, that's less time fighting with Natural and JCL, and more time working in a civilized language. Also, it keeps me busy. I hate sitting at work and looking for things to do. There's always something to do, but having a nice list of projects that NEED to be done really takes the boredom out of it.

10.19.07

Great news everybody, I made a comic!

This comic is purely autobiographical. I work in the strangest place. It's an office where half of the workers are women who actually love to cook. So, everyone (even me) is expected to bring something in on their birthday. That alone would be at least one cake or birthday related foodstuff per week. Also, we do a pot-luck on Friday. Added on that, people usually bring something in at least once or twice a week. Now, if that wasn't enough, one of the ladies is married to a guy who designers new foods. He uses us as guinea pigs, so occasionally there's a really cute grad student who serves me cookies, doughnuts, cakes, etc. It's a minor miracle that I'm not severely overweight.
I wanted to try to post every Wednesday, but it's been a really strange week. I went to NYC to visit my friend Kevin and my cousin Ryan. We had a great time catching up, drinking various beers, taking various beer tours, etc.
Also, we went to see Bad Religion. It was probably the best show of my life. It was the first show where the lights came on, and I complained that they hadn't played long enough...only to have Ryan tell me it'd actually been over an hour and a half. Thinking back, I couldn't think of a song I wanted to hear, but didn't. I guess I was just so into it that I lost track of time.
The comic is late because I missed my bus coming back to State College. Actually, I asked when the buses return to State College, and the lady told me there was a 5pm bus out. So, that's the one I planned to take. Then, when I got there on Tuesday, they told me that is only a weekend bus and I'd already missed the last weekday bus.
This week, I also wrote about half of the re spawn code for the mud. I'm taking my laptop with me to my wife's College reunion this weekend. I'm hoping to get some work done in the car ride up, or at least in the hotel. I learned the hard way that I can't program on a bus, so I'm hoping that the car ride is a little smoother.
I will try to have a new comic up next week, as well as a new test server up and running. I have some other site related stuff in the works, so we'll see which things get done by next Wednesday.

10.09.07

I made a comic! This is the first update of any substance. I've been working on comic sketches and stuff for a few weeks. I also added some code to the MUD. It's still in early test stages, but it's getting better by the week. Things at the school are going really well, and for the most part I really like the job. I'm still settling into a new house, so that's an interesting adjustment.
Work on the site has been slow, because it's hard to choose a direction. I would like to do something a bit more 'real to life'. I know what I don't want to do. I don't want to make a comic about sitting around with my roommates playing video games. It's nothing against those comics. I read several of them. Frankly, that's not my life. I want to do a comic about someone who's past that, and trying to figure out what adulthood means in today's society.
So, I don't know what to expect from the comic yet. I'm expecting twisted jokes about a programmer in his 30's. Since, well, that's pretty much what I am and what I know. Also, I've always seen it as a crime that there are so many 'geek' comics, but almost none that talk about programming. I guess it's because most people won't get the joke, but if the Internet exists for anything, I think it's so that people with esoteric obsessions can share their perspective on things no one else cares about.

09.13.07

This site is still under construction. I've been working for a long time to bring my old 'coredump' comic back from the dead. I decided to get 'www.coredumpproject.com' because I plan to do more than just a comic. I already have a small MUD written, and I'm working on some smaller projects that I'll show on the site under 'misc' in the form of 'how-to' guides and pictures.