Comic

I decided that "The Plagiarist" will be a reccurring series instead of blowing the whole thing at once. This'll allow me to do many more comics.

Today's subject, however, is something that has been peeving my off quite a bit lately. Idiots just don't know how to swipe their credit cards and, for that matter, just expect you to spoonfeed them the answers to everything. Little do they realize that soon the only smart people left will be cashiers and we will rise up and take over the earth!!!

The last real missing piece of the redesign is now in place. Just take a look to your right and you'll see what I mean. To save having a really short post I suppose I can give a general update on what's going on.

Let's see... I'm still a cashier/cart pusher. I'm enjoying Halo's online play immensely. I'm almost to the floating continent on FFVI. I enjoy going to college with Elvis on the weekends, and I'm thinking of moving out. Yes, you read that correctly, I'm going to college with Elvis ;-).

Seriously, though, I am making plans for moving out of the house and into an apartment. A couple of hurdles I need to get over are lack of GED and car, but otherwise I think I'm in a finacially tenable position to pull it off. Jeff also wants to move out and board with me, which would be cool. I'm already dreaming of the awesome Smash Bros. game-a-thon parties I could host.... oh, yeah.

Eh? Whatever :-P

Today, at roughly 4pm CDT, I return to my old job of cashiering. Am I excited? Am I looking forward to it? I'll just tell you one thing: I've saved out my hawaiian SpongeBob shirt just for the occasian (i.e. hell, yes). I just hope I remember how to work the stupid register :-P

In other news, I got the graphics tablet I ordered up on Wednesday and I must say, it is a thing of beauty (and hance a joy forever). Today's comic was colored and highlighted using it and I have to say it's probably one of the best things I've done so far. About the comic itself it seems that the style is finally coming together (i.e. I'm satisfied with it at the moment). I've already got Monday's comic finished and have ideas for a couple weeks to come. I'm so sucked into this at the moment I barely had time to finish coding the comic viewer. From now on all my updates will be done over there so if you want to keep up on the comics add that to your favorites (I'll add in an RSS feed sometime within a week).

Also, for those who may not have gotten the hint, I am now legally licensed to drive in the state of Oklahoma. The test was brief, but nerve racking and I was only coached on a couple of minor points. So to date I've driven twice on my own: once to take my homies to the library, and last night to take my homies to go bowling (my "homies" being Jeff and Chris). And despite the fact that money keeps slipping through my fingers I've got enough of it stored up to make a nice down payment on a car, so that'll be coming down the road fairly soon (if you'll pardon the pun).

Well, I've been up for way too long now and I need to get some rest if I'm going to be in decent shape for work this afternoon.

Yeah, Star Wars VII is coming to theaters! YAY! No, seriously, it's only coming to DVD ;-)

May 6th, as I predicted, I will be back at the old register again. Thank goodness :-P. My sleep "schedule" as of late has been so screwed it's not funny. Also, I have yet to take the driving test. Tuesday and Wednesday I slept right through 7am and Thursday I spent my entire 15 minute break trying to ge through, to no avail :-P. So I'm going to try again this week and hopefully I'll luck out.

Speaking of circles, my interests seem to be changing again. The last time this happened was in 1997 when I was introduced to computers. Now I seem to be getting back to my roots in art... with computers of course ;-). The whole comic thing sparked my intrest again and I'm left wondering why I quit in the first place. I take that back, I quit because a) I couldn't get my frackin' pencil drawings to look like the book, b) I thought there was no money in it. I've figured both things out: pencil drawings suck, and I can make a killing as a graphics artist. I spent most of this afternoon redesigning my character in my comic and this is what I came up with:

Me in my "little vest"

Bad Ass Jedi Knight Matt

As you can see the hair is more normal now, the glasses shrank and I've switched to a harder shading style (the airbrush thing was just a pain in the butt). All this arty stuff has made me realize one thing: painting with a mouse is murder. That said, this coming pay check I'm going to invest in a graphics tablet.

Well, I've rambled on long enough. I probably need to be getting to bed here soon as there's another early day tomorrow :-P.

And checking out hot babes is fun ;-). No, really. Yesterday my job code was officially changed to cashier so now, uhh.... it's official :-P. Today was my first 8 hour day doing cashier and what what a day it was. Standing in one spot and constantly leaning over to reach people's stuff takes a nasty toll on your back. And when you've been waiting 40 minutes for the managers to send you home it's even worse :-P. But, overall, I quite enjoy the job (a lot of button pushing ;-)). Tomorrow I work six hours and then, hallelujah, I'm off Monday and Tuesday :-D.

My 3D game programming book came the other and it's really a good book. It's actually written by one of the guys on the DirectX dev team so you know it's at least accurate :-P. But really, if you're starting out 3d game programming look into this book.

Lastly, last night I ordered up a (legit) copy of Yoshi's Island GBA so that should be coming some time next week. I look forward to playing that on my lunch breaks :-).

Yes, it seems my life nhas boiled down to two things: work and programming. But, heck, at least I'm malking money (getting a few hundred dollar paycheck every two weeks rocks ;-)). Until next time, keep those prices rollin'!

Ah, the new year has arrived and with it a job change for me. That's right I achieved my life long dream and got a part time job at the Sizzler! No, really. I am now a cashier at Wal-mart. I originally wanted to be a cart pusher because cashier was something I wanted to be even less. There was a bit of confusion for a while because I told Debbie (schedule lady) I didn't really like cashiering and I'd rather be a cart pusher. My guess is she misunderstood, got it reversed and set things in motion for me to become a cashier (they even changed my job code to cart pusher so they could change it to cashier which had me even more confused). But tonight was my first night working the register (being watched, of course) and it wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be. I have tomorrow and Tuesday off so that makes things even sweeter.

Speaking of Tuesday there's bowling again (thank heavens)! Now that I have a job I appreciate the bowling night even more than I did before. Tomorrow Mom and I are going to go to Tulsa and do some shopping. I've got $50+ dollars of spending money ($300 if I borrowed from savings, but that's college money now). I'm thinking of buying Yoshi's Island or Mairo World (if I can find it :-P). I've even tossed the idea of getting a DS and Mario Kart DS around, but my laptop is cool enough for me at the moment ;-).

But, now that I've rambled on long enough, I bid you all a happy new year. 2005 was quite an eventful year for me and 2006 will probably bring some interesting things. Stay here for the latest :-)

Before I delve into this stuff I just want to say I hope you all had a good Christmas :-).

Well, Christmas paper shredding has come and gone once again. All that excitement and anticipation over with the course of a couple hours. Ah, but a pretty sweet Christmas it was. So, I bet the question on the tip of your tounges is "What'dya get?". Here's the run down: glass chess set (frosted even :-D), laptop backpack, CF card reader/writer, a "Pedro's Got your Back" and a nice flannel shirt, some money and a gift card, a Dave Berry book, and the piece de resitance: my own cell phone :-D. Quite a cool one at that. Basic, but it suits my needs. Actually, truth be told, it does some stuff that my parents fancier phone doesn't do, namely the ability to use SMS web services (such as google). Quite sweet, quite sweet.

The last few days I've been delving into GBA dev again and something seems to have finally clicked. I understand how loading sprites works and all that malarkey and so I've begun my GBA Tetris Attack clone. And actually it's coming along quite nicely. Debugging is a pain in the but since I don't have a debug console or files to write ciritcal values to, but I'm chugging along all the same.

Tomorrow, if I haven't mentioned already, I go to discuss my future at Wal-Mart (Christmas Eve marked my last day in layaway). I'm not sure where I'll end up exactly, but at this point in time cart pusher seems most likely. Now I know I was complaining earlier, but I've done it a couple of times since and I'll tell you that being able to use the QuickCart makes it a heckuva lot easier. My other option is cashier, but dislike that even more (though if it was back in electronics I might reconsider). I personally wouldn't mind working in claims or as an overnight stocker (both of which I have done). Whenever there was nothing to do in layaway after closing I'd usually get sent to toys to help them stock and I must say it was a lot of fun (I did chemicals one night and I liked that too). So we'll just see tomorrow (and I'll post something about it).

Ah, but now it is getting late and I've got presents to play with (maybe I'll go blow Jeff away in a game of chess). Stay tuned for an interesting video clip from yesterday morning. It's absolutely hilarious. Cheers!

Twas some days before Christmas and all through the house,

not a creature was stirring except for the dudeon his laptop.

Doesn't rhyme, but I don't care. I'm sitting here in our new living room lit up tree in front of me and a fireplace full of stockings to my right (picture coming soon). Now this in and of itself is a nice feeling but having my laptop and posting here while doing it makes the feeling cooler ;-). But anyhoo...

Christmas is is coming and we've been doing all the usual: making cookies, listening to Christmas music (even while I'm at work :-D), buying gifts, etc. I'd say that we're pretty much ready. The only bad thing is that Dad found the key to the freezer and I must go cookieless until Christmas Eve :-(.

Things in layaway have slowed down considerably. Thursday and Friday were a nightmare but since I couold count on my hands and toes how many people have come through to get stuff. Sunday night I began learning the how to operate the register and I'm pretty sure I don't want to do that (for reasons I don't want to go into again :-P). On Monday I'll be discussing my future at Wal-Mart with a manager and depending on if there's any other spots open or not I'll either be a cashier or a cart pusher. If I could do cashiering back in electronics I'd probably leap on it, otherwise I'll probably push carts (unless overnight socker is available). But anyways, it looks like I'm not even going to get laid off before coming back (I must have made a good impression).

But now I must go and make another attempt at finding the freezer key (or something :-P). Merry Christmas :-D