OPEN YOUR EYES

Mood: Differential
Music: Anderson's Luck; by Jackopierce

Well, I have begun a major push to make Hard Underbelly a genuine internet phenomenon. Hey, I think I even spelled that right.

I've opened up a little shop at Cafepress, which is a pretty good company. You can now buy Hard Underbelly t-shirts, because, hell, I could use a few extra bucks, you know. The shop is located here, and it currently has two different shirts. They are Casey's first jersey, with the skull and stakes, and a simple shirt which says "i suck blood" and then has the Hard Underbelly URL. This way I've appealed to both fans of vampires and slayers, so I'm kind of playing both sides. I'm particularly happy that Cafepress offers baseball jersey style shirts, as it makes doing Casey's shirts really authentic and easy. The only thing Cafepress is lacking is the ability to put images and such on the sleeves of shirts. If it were available, I'd probably put the site address there on my shirt designs. Anyway, I have a third, faerie-oriented design for the ladies in the works, and it should be up by the end of next week. It'll be pretty.

I'm also doing some real things to make the site more professional. Using some incoming birthday money, I've purchased the URL "www.hardunderbelly.com". It's not up yet, but when it is, it'll automatically forward people who type that address to underbelly.keenspace.com, so I'll have the prestige of a real URL, without the ridiculous hosting fee. As I'm doing this for the second time, I now realize that I really got soaked when I tried to Not All There as an on-line comic. Kudos to Zach Stroum of Shaw Island for telling me which forwarding service he uses, 'cause they're the cheapest.

Also, Real Life Comics just left the Keenspot imprint, and is striking it out on it's own. This is a boon to poor people like me, as it means that they're advertising rates are phenomenally low, about half that of the average website. So I'm planning on buying a small percentage of adspace on Real Life, which I've always liked, and with any luck, that'll really start raking the readers in.

But don't go thinking this means you can stop spreading the word. Please, tell all you're friends, family, coworkers, parole officers, and whatnot about Hard Underbelly. Get them to come check it out. Let's break the bandwidth on this mother, okay?

In other news, I'm going to be taking a photogrpahy class over the summer. Fun.

Ending Music: End Of The World As We Know It; by REM

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  posted by Tristan @ 1:33 PM

 
SOMETIMES A GREAT WEBLOG

Mood: Decent Enough
Music: Some Fantastic; by Barenaked Ladies

There is a new comic up. Read it and be amazed. Casey's new shirt is the three eyed smiley face from Transmetropolitan, which is one of the best comics of all time. The symbol is from the transient movement, a group of people that are actively transforming into an alien species. It's good stuff.

So, uh, I guess you should just read the comic then, okay?

Ending Music: O Girlfriend; by Weezer

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  posted by Tristan @ 9:23 AM

 
GENERAL MAYHEM

Mood: Fairly Good
Music: Let's Stay Inside; by Ivy

I have put a couple more drawings up in the art pages section. They are a mermaid and a drawing of me, although they are not actually in that order.

I have been introduced to this new band called Bishop Allen. They are very cool. They've got smart lyrics and a good sound, with that slightly rough around the edges sound quality that helps make the White Stripes so cool. Apparently one of the guys in this band writes for The Spark, which has always had some pretty funny stuff on it. My friend Nick introduced me to this band, which is unusual, as I rarely am given musical advice form my friends. It usually goes the other way around. Anyway, their album is called Charm School, and I highly recommend it.

Ending Music: Busted Heart; by Bishop Allen.

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  posted by Tristan @ 6:43 PM

 
WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS NOW IS BLOOD, SWEET BLOOD

Mood: Drained (heh heh)
Music: Stay; by Oingo Boingo

I just got back from giving blood. It didn't hurt that much, really. It's funny, I've always been theoretically aware that blood is warm, but when the tube was resting against my hand and arm, I could really feel just how warm it is. It was a strange moment, the kind of thing where a fact you've always known to be true without any first hand experience is suddenly confirmed. Like, you've always known that people can't fly, but it's not untill you're falling through the air and both of your parachutes have failed that you are suddenly accutely aware that "yes, it's true, people can't fly".

I also got a cookie, and a glass of tomato juice. I've never been partial to tomato juice, but it seemed like the right choice.

Boy, I'm certainly making a lot of posts today.

Ending Music: Bad Days; by the Flaming Lips

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  posted by Tristan @ 7:27 PM

 
I ALMOST FORGOT

Mood: Guess
Music: Sparks; by Coldplay

So, just recently, I realized that my birthday is in less than a month. I'm going to be 20 on June 17th. 20 years old. That's a big one, you know? I find it almost hard to believe. 20 is one of those ages where all of the sudden you really seem older. Of course, that could just be what it looks like from this side of June 17th. I remember when I was eleven I thought that twelve was a pretty old age to be, a really mature age.

Of course, I've always been against judging someone by their age. I mentally matured pretty early, and it irritated me how quickly people will disregard your opinions and feelings based on your age alone. But soon I won't have to put up with as much of that shit.

Ending Music: Ladies And Gentlemen, We Are Floating In Space; by Spiritualized

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  posted by Tristan @ 1:51 PM

 
HOT HOT HEAT

Mood: Good
Music: Words That We Couldn't Say; by the Seatbelts

I just got back from the Dan Savage lecture. He was funny as hell. It was very entertaining, and some good questions were asked, though I didn't ask any. I really just went to hear him talk. There was this one guy who was so clearly anti-all drugs that he kept belabouring the point. Although Dan made very clear and coherent arguments for how smoking pot twice a year (as is Mr. Savage's habit) is less harmful than the kind of excessive alcohol consumption that our society permits, this guy just kept arguing that all drugs are bad. Anyway, I recommend reading Skipping Towards Gomorrah by Dan Savage. The chapter on Sloth has specific information on why drugs should be de-criminalized, which has some really good info in it.

I didn't donate blood, 'cause I don't know what my blood type is, and I bet they probably want to know that.

Ending Music: Conventioneers; by Barenaked Ladies

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  posted by Tristan @ 1:44 PM

 
SIGNAL YOUR TURNS

Mood: Decent
Music: New Slang; by the Shins

There's a new comic up. What exactly Luna and Saul are talking about will not be revealed for a long time, but it's probably not what you think it is. Not exactly, at any rate. Also there's a page about the design of Luna in the characters section. There's some scandalous info there. Well, not really that scandalous, considering that I'm a young male in America.

So we watched this video in Anthropology today. It was a documentary by a mother of a gay son about parents learning to accept their homosexual children. It featured those annoying ballads about everyone accepting everyone, but other than that, it was very good. There's this guy that sits next to me that's a real prick. He clearly thought that this movie was bull. This is the same guy who didn't like the video about how women are portrayed in advertising. Anyway, he spetn the entore movie snorting in disgust, especcially in the scene where members of PFLAG were marching in a gay pride parade. Anyway, as this class goes on, I'm finding it harder and harder not to punch his lights out. Fortunately we only have about two and a half weeks left.

Dan Savage is giving a talk at noon today at the college. That'll be cool. I donate some blood after that.

Ending Music: Such A Rush; by Coldplay

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  posted by Tristan @ 10:58 AM

 
I CAN READ MY DIGITAL WATCH

Mood: Blown Away
Music: Island In The Sun; by Weezer

I just watched 'Waking Life'. It's a truely excellent movie. It was shot in digital video and then animated based on that footage. Think of the movie 'American Pop' but with a much more impressionistic style. Anyway, the plot is a wonderful combination of philosophy and modern spiritualistic fantasy, and mixes perfectly with the visuals. I highly recommend that all people with a love for cinema track down a copy of this film and watch it as soon as possible. I can't say more about it because it would ruin it.

Ending Music: I'm Still Here; by Tom Waits

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  posted by Tristan @ 2:35 PM

 
PETER GABRIEL IS A FUCKING GENIUS

Music: Signal to Noise; by Peter Gabriel

I've just been listening to some of his most recent album, Up, and it's true. Peter Gabriel is a fucking genius. He's brilliant. It's great music. Speaking of Peter Gabriel, I'm having trouble finding a particular song of his. It's a remix of Kiss That Frog that I'm really fond of, but I can't find it anywhere. It's irritating me.

Ending Music: Karma Police; by Radiohead

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  posted by Tristan @ 10:09 AM

 
WHY MUST I BE SAD?

Mood: Sympathetically Sad
Music: Street Spirit; by Radiohead

So it turns out that the person that I thought wasn't going to accept my apology wasn't angry at me, but they were in fact very upset about something else. And now that I know some more of the details, I am upset about it as well. You know how you feel when you learn of something really bad happening to someone you care about, but it's in the past, and there's nothing you can do to make it better? Well I've got that feeling. Sympathetic sadness is the worst, because it's very hard to cure.

I went to the Folklife Festival in Seattle today, and I was overjoyed to run into my long-time bud Matt, who's been doing this Americore thing this year, and has thus been incommunicado for a while. It was great to see him again.

Ending Music: Burndt Jam; by Weezer

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  posted by Tristan @ 12:14 AM

 
SOME KIND OF HAPPINESS

Mood: Dichotomiss
Music: Down By The Water; by PJ Harvey

There is a new comic, enjoy. In case any of you were wondering, the object in Saul's hand is a bottle of Bawls guarana energy drink. There is an amusing Real Life Comics comic on the subject of Bawls energy drink, and it is located here. And as for the magnet on the fridge door... well, it's just a weird little squid. I don't know why I drew it. I may have been drunk.

I slept terribly last night. You know that feeling you get when you've been a complete asshole, and you know that you've done wrong? It's kind of a queasy feeling in the pit of your stomach. Well that feeling makes it well nigh impossible to sleep.

What I really need is closure, but there's a problem. I've already apologized, and trust me, I feel like complete shit about this whole thing. But the person that I've apologized to has a history of not accepting apologies. She just doesn't say anything after you apologize, and you're left feeling the same as if you'd never apologized, like your still guilty, you know?

Well, that's all for now.

Ending Music: The Flag; by Barenaked Ladies

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  posted by Tristan @ 9:25 AM

 
EMO, THY NAME IS BETRAYEL

Mood: Indescribable
Music: Let It Be; by the Beatles

Something confusing and full of intense emotion has just happened, but I can't in good conscience put it here for all the world to see, so instead, I will give you just the closing paragraph, which explains why I won't pot this in better detail:

I realize that I can't post this on my blog, as it may have a slightly larger readership than it used to. What am I gonna do with it then? I'll probably save it on my computer, but this episode demands some kind of closure, which I used to get from posting things. And just typing them out doesn't seem the same.

I guess I'm just going to have to get over this the old fashioned way. By stewing in it all alone.

Ending Music: Still the same Beatles song.

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  posted by Tristan @ 11:54 PM