Tragic Blogs or
I'll have the #22, daily annecdote followed by #2, clarification of previous statements

Ordered Chinese take-out as a 'hooray for me' treat.

Every once in a while you have to do something to treat yourself and for me it was the comfort food factor of scarfing down noodles and rice from styrofoam containers. I managed to get the first episode of Bunny & the Cantelope up on time, and I'm well underway on the next episode. That's worth a 'yay me', don't you think?

Take out menus that are numbered. Now, you'd think they'd be a time-saver, because you don't have to struggle and stumble on the pronounciation of the dishes you're ordering. Especially when there's already a communication problem owing to the person taking your order having learned English as a second language. But think about this: what if your menu is old? You order a #170, the kung po chicken, only to have them deliver an order of egg foo young. Okay. Maybe you don't worry about that sort of thing - but I do. So I end up spending about ten minutes on the phone confirming that each numbered item is indeed the item that I want to order. Paranoid? Maybe - but my food came as ordered.

---

Had some mail based on my rant about the Globe article on the murder suspect. I just want to make it clear - I'm not in support of the guy. If he is the guilty party, then the punishments the courts in Canada have at their disposal are nowhere near what this man deserves. All I think is that a person deserves their day in court before we aim the full hatred of the populace at them.

An Empire Divided or
well... goodbye forever

June 26th, 2003

I read on Slashdot this morning that Star Wars Galaxies is now on sale. For those of you unfamiliar, Galaxies is a massive multi-player online role playing game (or MMORPG as they're commonly reffered to) that is set squarely in the Star Wars franchise.

This was the dream of every little geekling of the 80s. To LIVE in the Star Wars Universe.

And now the dream is apparently a reality - and the world is doomed. As Scott Kurtz so rightly noted in a past PVP, once a lot of us plug-in, we just aren't coming out again. Productivity is going to drop. Everyone with geekling tendencies with access to a computer and a credit card is slowly going to dissapear into the online universe. The entire economy is going to shift until nothing remains but Star Wars players, people who deliver groceries to Star Wars players, Sony and LucasArts execs. Anyone else is going to be shooting at womp rats in their t-16.

Ugh, what a dilemma. I want the game. I really really want the game. But....
I've a job. I've a family. I've a number of friends who I do like to see in person from time to time. I've this brand new web site and a comic ( Bunny & the Cantelope - first chapter to be posted tomorrow night!) that I'd like to keep up to date. I don't think a life of adventure in a galaxy far far away is compatible with all the other things. Something would have to give - wouldn't it? I'm sure it would.

Duty, love and life are just a little bit more of a pull than the force. For now - I'll have to remain unplugged and get my Star Wars fixes the old fashioned way.

Reruns of the Ewoks cartoon

we are the e-e-e-e-eeeewoks, and we're one big happy family

if you're a little more capable of juggling a game life with RealLife^TM then I am, by all means, pick up a copy.

Guilty! Guilty! Guilty! or

...well, why would the police arrest him if he weren't guilty?

A few weeks ago, a little girl was snatched off the streets of Toronto. Parts of her body were discovered the next day, in a bag that had been thrown into the lake. The police have arrested a man from the little girl's neighbourhood and have charged him with first-degree murder.

Now - I'd always been told that in Canada, a person is innocent until proven guilty. I think that's a pretty good system. Don't you?

Well - apparently the country's 'national' newspaper doesn't seem to think so. Here's a snippet of their article that followed the fella's arrest:

[His photo] shows a fleshy-faced man with a normal-sized jaw and ears that apparently have been pinned. He has soft, dark hair parted on the side, a small, weak mouth and eyes like blank, black holes.

That certainly seems like a fair and respectable bit of reporting, doesn't it. I'm glad that we have this reporter and her trusty google toolbar to dig up the facts, because otherwise we'd never know the following things that are proof positive that the man is a killer.

• The local falafel shop owner always said 'hello' to the suspect.... but he never said 'hello' back.
  guilty!
• He actually clicked on one of those 'classmates.com' banners and signed himself up
  (I actually see this as the most compelling bit of evidence from the article - what a freak! :P )
  guilty!!
• He ate takeout from McDonalds
  guilty!!!
• He liked Arnold Schwarzenager's action films
  guilty!!!!
• He looks like a goof in his yearbook photo
  guilty!!!!!
• And finally - he was addicted to the violent video game known as...
  
  
  
  Final Fantasy
  lord, he is so guilty.

Yes. Racing chocobos and scarfing down cheeseburgers. That's what it takes to brand you forever as a serial killer. Dum da dum! Case solved.

sigh

Is there such a thing as responsible journalism anymore?

Tragic Blogs or
...er...um... so, uhm...

If I'm ever going to get use out of this blog - I'm going to have to have my delete key removed.

Writing like this intimidates me. I don't know why - but I always feel that if I'm commiting something to type, it damn well better be something impressive. So far the fifteen posts that I've deleted failed to meet my standard of impressive. I highly doubt this post will be of any better quality, but I've promised myself that this time I will use the delete key for spelling corrections only.

I don't know why it has to be perfect writing. I don't feel the same need when it comes to posting on a message board, or sending an email. Yet when I sit here and type this.... well, let's just say there was another paragraph or two that followed, but apparently the promises I make to myself mean nothing.

Better to post this now before anything else gets..

Technical Difficulties or
You only think you control the Horizontal
You just assumed you control the Verticle

It all started when tripod closed down their Canadian branch. I recieved a notice by email that I'd have until mid-November to move all my works off of tragiclad.tripod.ca. And that was probably a good thing. Up until that point, my site was nothing more than a dumping ground, a catch-all of comics and illustrations.

So I coughed up the cash and registered for myself, The Elusive Fish dot com. I began to work on a number of illustrations, icons and graphics that would help spruce the place up. It was beginning to look pretty impressive. A handful of new comics, a few images to go in the gallery, a slew of html. And then my hard drive quit.

Acutally, quit is an understatement.

What happened is the power unit for my CPU decided that it had enough of this life and committed suicide. In a fit of depression it killed itself. The other components in my computer, distraught at this event, took their own lives shortly thereafter.

Of course - they did all this because they realized that I was going to backup all my data. If I had my data backed up, then it would only be a matter of time before I didn't actually need that computer and it would be obsolete. So my planning to back things up is what led to the brutal suiciding. Sad really. Have only myself to blame.

With no backup I lost almost everything. Comics, illustrations, everything. So a week before launch of my new site has been stretched out for months. The site still isn't quite ready. There's a couple of rooms not quite set and more than a few places where you can still see the pipes and wires exposed. But I figure it's time enough to open the door.

So this is my website.
It is small, and broken, but I think it's pretty good.

-Tragic Lad