SAPPHIRE BULLETS, BULLETS OF PURE LOVE

Mood: Tired
Music: Street Spirit; by Radiohead

As promised, here is an image of myself and my friends in our Matrix Reloaded outfits:


We are huge geeks.

That is, from right to left, Me, Jason, Lauryth, and Caleb. We kick ass.

As usual, I am going home this weekend, but I will probably do some posts while I'm there, if I get time.

Ending Music: Heavier; by Michael Kroll

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  posted by Tristan @ 9:30 AM

 
HARRY KNOWLES IS A JACKASS

Mood: Good
Music: Where Do All My Friends Go; by Oingo Boingo

I just saw the Matrix Reloaded. I liked it. Here's a quickee review with almost no spoilers whatsoever.

It was good. I had some problems with the music. I liked it, and I think I could listen to it while doing something else, like drawing, but it was just too techno/poppy for some of the scenes it was in. The fully CGI fight sequences are really unimpressive. The ones where they're just doing the wire work and actual kung fu are much better, but it's mostly okay, because the CGI is used almost exclussively in one scene only. Overall, the fights in the first half are just so-so, but once they get to the chateau, it get's really good. The plot twists are turns that are introduced are really cool. There's also a kind of, uh, orgy scene that the movie could do without. You might think I'm making that last bit up, but I'm not. But dispite these problems, I think the movie was an excellent sequel.

There's a picture of me and my buds in our way-cool Matrix duds, but it's late, so you're gonna have to wait 'till tomorrow to see it.

Ending Music: Most Of The Time; by Bob Dylan

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  posted by Tristan @ 1:07 AM

 
TECHNICALITIES

Mood: Decent
Music: Get Up (Like A Sex Machine); by James Brown

Well, I have finally fixed the little error in the archive that made it display the first page twice. It's actually not entirely fixed, in that if you're going back from the first comic, it will still show the cover twice. This is a minor problem though. I'll keep trying to make it 100 percent fixed, but for now, we'll call that good enough.

I did a wonderful run to my local thrift stores today. I got a groovy 80's/punk/biker sort of leather jacket. It was damn cheap, and it looks damn cool.

After I see the Matrix Reloaded tonight, I will make a brief post saying whether or not I think it sucked. We'll see. Also, I believe that there's supposed to be a special sneak peak trailer of the third movie after the credits, but if it really blows, I can't garauntee I'll want to sit through them just to see that.

Did you know that Joss Whedon likes the Rocky Horror Picture? Of course you didn't! In fact, you don't even know who Joss Whedon is!

Ending Music: Exit Music (For A Film); by Radiohead

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  posted by Tristan @ 6:45 PM

 
THE STATE OF THINGS

Mood: Nervous
Music: Drive; by Dispatch

Well, I've decided not to post that comic about the Matrix Reloaded on the other art page. There are several reasons for this. One, I'm kind of lazy. Two, I have to get Friday's comic finished, and I think getting the regularly scheduled comics done is more important than the gravy. Three, I haven't seen the movie yet, but everyone seems to think it's terrible. So far, I haven't read anything favorable. One of the most disheartening reviews likened it to Highlander 2 in the level of badness it brings to the series. So now I'm pretty worried about going and seeing this movie. Of course, this could be beneficial. I find that the worse I'm expecting the movie to be, the better I like it. Lowering my expectations helps me to enjoy a movie more for what it is than what I want it to be. This is probably why I liked the movie 'Jeepers Creepers'; I wasn't expecting much, so the movie left me pleasantly surprised. Let's hope the Matrix Reloaded can pull off the same trick.

Ending Music: Live and Let Die; by Guns N' Roses

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  posted by Tristan @ 3:11 PM

 
SPIDER, CRAWL IN MY LEFT EAR

Mood: Decent
Music: One Country; by Midnight Oil

Blogger is being a bit slow recently. It irritates me. I actually wrote this post in the wee hours of the morning, but Blogger was too slow to publish it. Damn them to heck.

Anyway, in today's comic, I make use of the term 'strange attractor'. This is a concept that's been floating around in my head for about a year, about a guy that encounters the paranormal on a statistically imporbably frequency. I only just last week decided, what the hell, and made Casey the strange attractor. It never would have worked as its own book, as I had absolutely no plot to go with it. The term 'strange attractor' comes from chaos theory. Armchair scientists in the audience may remember that both strange attractors and chaos theory are mentioned in Jurassic Park, but never really used to any brilliant extent. Anyway, as far as chaos theory goes, I found this definition of a strange attractor: "... an area in the phase space where all points stay nearby and approach the attractor as time goes to infinity. A strange attractor is just as the name implies: 'strange.' " I think that's a great definition, and my use of the term in Hard Underbelly seems not entirely false. The definition comes from a website that I am just plain not linking to, because I lost the URL, and it was damn boring anyway.

The Matrix Reloaded opens tomorrow. I'm going in all black. Why? Well, duh. I'm a loser. That's why.

Ending Music: Just My Imagination; by the Cranberries

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  posted by Tristan @ 9:55 AM

 
EVERYBODY HURTS SOMETIMES

Mood: Annoyed
Music: Losing My Religion; by REM

So a few months ago I got myself a nice Yahoo account for e-mail. It was great. Then, a couple weeks ago, the spammers found me. I don't know what I signed up for that got me on all these crappy mailing lists, but all of the sudden I'm getting 30+ bulk messages a day. I have no recollection of signing up for anything recently that would start spamming me, so I'm quite annoyed. Yahoo does have a handy tool that lets me route them all to one box that is easily emptied, but they lack a tool that will let me just block an address altogether. That's what I really need right now.

Did you know that Dark Jedi aren't friendly? I just learned that. Apparently lords of the Sith are not fun to be around.

Ending Music: Bad Days; by the Flaming Lips

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  posted by Tristan @ 12:32 PM

 
SOMETIMES MY ARMS BEND BACK

Mood: Decent
Music: Small Blue Thing; by Suzanne Vega

You know, I had something fairly specific in mind when I came to make this post, but Blogger took so long to load that I've completely forgotten what it was. Give me a minute to remember what is was, and then I'll continue.

Well, I'm thinking it had something to do with the fact that whenever I try to get any part of the Keenspace guide to work besides the H section, where my comic is, it won't load. However, I was looking at my logs for people that have visited my comic, it shows that several people have checked it out by way of specific categories. What I'm trying to get around to is, if any of you keenspacers with comics out there have read my comic and have something similar that you think I might enjoy, please e-mail me, as I'd love to read your comic. Hell, if you've read my comic and have any comments, questions or whatever, please e-mail me, even if it is just to say, 'I read your comic.' Frankly, I don't completely understand the logs that Keenspace offers, so I have no idea how many people are reading this.

In other news, the comics are now going to be in gif format, because it's a bit smaller and doesn't leave as many funny spots on the comic after I save it. The exception to this is color comics, which, should I do anymore, will appear in jpg format.

And remember, my comic is regulalry updated, three times a week on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Check back regularly!

Ending Music: Spider; by Boingo

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  posted by Tristan @ 8:04 PM

 
I'M JUST TIRED, AND I DON'T LOVE YOU ANYMORE

Mood: Good
Music: Bee Song; by Battershell

Today's comic illustrates what I generally envisioned this comic as being like. No punchline. I don't know how, but I keep finding ways to put little jokes in at the end. However, this is still supposed to be a plot and character driven story, and not a gag oriented thing. I don't mean that I expected the comics to be big pages of boring exposition, but I just didn't expect there to be so many jokes.

Also, I finally got a Sharpee to fill in the dark spots of the comics, which is great. I was using a Redisharp, but I find they're not quite dark enough, and tend to erase away when I'm cleaning up the images.

I highly recommend checking out this trailer. Click on the 'visuals' link on the left. It's a trailer for the movie 'Gigantic', which is a documentary about one of the greatest bands of all fucking time, They Might Be Giants. I don't know where any of you that are reading this live, but I know I have to wait untill at least August to see it, which is when it finally comes to Seattle.

Those of you reading this on a PC might notice that your scroll-bar might be a funny color. This is due to my editing of the template for this page. I was trying to change the background color, but I have found that I rather like the way that looks, so I'm leaving it that way.

The Matrix is coming out on Thursday. My friends and I will be dressing up in all black for the occassion. I will probably post a picture of that here. Also, I have written a comic about the Matrix for the Vashon-Maury ticket. Come Thursday, I'll post it in the other art section of the comic page, where it can be viewed by one and all.

I saw someone actually go to this news page off of the main page of Hard Underbelly today, so I guess there is some chance that people I don't that just read the comic are also aware that there is news here. I could post the news on the main page of the comic, but, quite frankly, that would just be too much of a pain in the ass to deal with all the time.

Ending Music: Gigantic; by the Pixies

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  posted by Tristan @ 1:22 PM

 
MY HEAD'S ALRIGHT, BUT MY HEART NEEDS A GOOD TALKIN' TO

Mood: Awake

Here's a fun game you can play at home:

1. Heat up some spicy chicken and rice curry.
2. Give some to your dogs.
3. Watch their surprised expressions.

Last night I watched Pink Floyd's 'The Wall' for the first time. If Freud could see that movie, he'd crap in his pants. Nothing like a giant animated vagina chasing a guy around a room to show you the state of mind of the writer. Despite that, I did like the movie.

No ending music, because I'm not listening to any music.

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  posted by Tristan @ 11:08 AM