Technical Difficulties

You may have noticed I have not updated in a week. This is partly because I’m busy with college (hahaha college! whoo!), but mostly because a few days ago my two-month old Dell Studio 15 laptop decided to inexplicably not turn on anymore. Hopefully it’s getting fixed this week.

Although I could update from another computer, like I am right now, I’d much rather not make the time to do this, so I’m just going to let the blog sit around until my computer woes are over. Since roughly 90% of my hits are drawn in by that six-month old Pokemon thing anyway, I think I will manage just fine in the meantime.

Higher Education and All That

To put things simply, I moved into college three days ago. I’m still going through the ironically named orientation and classes don’t start for two more days, and then probably really start shortly after. The point of this post is simply to say that I have absolutely no idea how being in college is going to affect this blog, whether it means I’ll have less time to write for it or if there will be any change in what I’m posting or anything, but I will, of course, still continue to do so.

To put things more simply, stick around.

Regarding Hourly Comics

Well, I did in fact do Hourly Comics Day yesterday, but I forgot the importance of inking things before I try to scan them. I have to redraw seventeen two-panel comics with intricately drawn stick figures in pen.

Needless to say, they’re on their way, but they’re going to be delayed.

Cue Trumpet Fanfare

I’ve thought about it, and decided I can probably tentatively go back off hiatus. It’s actually kind of weird, because I haven’t made a proper post in months, and I have to get used to writing real posts on a consistent basis again, but let’s see what happens.

A real post should follow momentarily.

Mkay, I’m Officially Going on Hiatus Right Now

Yeah, simply put, I need to get things done and while it’s not that I would have kept blogging despite this so much as I’d rather announce a hiatus than simply not update without explanation for a few weeks.

So, two quick rants then.

One: Wow, when did ABC.com’s video player start sucking so much? I had an incredibly painful experience watching Boston Legal, and it wasn’t because the episode was disappointing, but because the streaming video was horribly out of sync with the audio, assuming either of them were actually, you know, streaming. Not to mention that this stupid “theater mode” gimmick doesn’t do anything except slow down the site so much the controls don’t even work, so you can’t pause the video to try to let it stream. It was frustrating, to say the least.

Two: This is creepy.

And my lit teacher showed it to us… o_O

Okay, Seriously?

I mean two things by this post’s title.

First of all, my post about Neil Cicierega’s 123456 Pokemon has become my most viewed post ever in very little time, and shows no signs of slowing down. Seriously? It’s passed a post titled “Japanese Scientists Invent Magic!” and my Wall-E review. You know, things I actually wrote. How is it that I can post an inane YouTube music video and make a joke about it, and that becomes bigger than things I actually put effort into? As much as I’d like to just attribute the oddity to the wonder that is Neil Ciciergea, I’m pretty sure this says more about blogging, the internet, and media in general.

I’m not doing the Song That’s Been Stuck in my Head of the Week anymore. Not just because I’m kind of annoyed with how that’s become my most viewed post and it doesn’t really say anything (although I’m glad I could lead so many people to the mp3), but because I have so little time, it’s become one of the only things I actually post on my blog, and that kind of cheapens the experience. So until I become less crazy busy and can actually update this thing somewhat consistently again, I don’t think I’m doing Song of the Week for a while.

(This also serves as an apology to anybody who actually reads this thing with some regularity for not updating ever anymore. Semi-kind-of-hiatus-but-not-really?)

And for the second thing I meant by my title, that was my reaction to today’s Ctrl-Alt-Del. This is a post I’ve been meaning to do sometime, so here I go. My friend and I were talking about webcomics the other day and briefly touched Ctrl-Alt-Del. Today’s comic is actually a good example of what has become my main gripe with the comic: this was horrendously anticlimactic. This recent storyline has actually been pretty emotional, but has been cheapened by Buckley’s inability to actually write a decent narrative. Ethan runs into Lilah at the airport finding the conflict magically resolved within a day? “Unexpected, hilarious, and extremely satisfying” in what way, exactly? Unexpected like how the storyline resolved itself immediately after the plot twist? Hilarious in how lame it is? Extremely satisfying in how… it isn’t? Like, at all?

This isn’t a recent problem with Ctrl-Alt-Del. Take a look at the controversial miscarriage storyline the strip tried last summer. Personally, I didn’t see a problem with the topic, I can respect a writer or an artist trying to tackle a serious matter and trying to make a moving and emotional story, even if it’s not something they usually do. Which is, of course, exactly what Tim Buckley failed to do. After, I kid you not, three strips that dealt with the tragedy in a serious and surprisingly emotional manner, Buckley went right back to the jokes. That number works regardless of whether or not you count the strips that aren’t part of the storyline. Also, the second strip after the last of this was nothing more than a poster with four of the strip’s other characters killing each other. Also also, once Buckley got back to the storyline with the normal characters, he started making jokes in the last panel again. Buckley failed to handle a serious topic with any sort of tact, and while he could have proven his critics wrong, he proved them right all too quickly.

So what am I getting at? Basically, the only reason why I’m still reading Ctrl-Alt-Del is the same reason why I watched the last season of That 70’s Show and my family is still watching Smallville. We sort of remember it being good a while ago, but now we’re mostly just watching because we’ve stuck with it this long, so we might as well.

Regarding the Name Change and More

Today is October 13. Once I publish this post, I will have written five posts this month. The “-of-the-Day” part of my title hasn’t been accurate since June, which would have been a few weeks after I started the blog. I hadn’t changed it because I thought the irony was kind of funny, but now I don’t. Hence, it’s gone. It’s just “The Procrastinator’s Rant” now, until I inevitably come up with a better title again.

Also, I’m going to add a new category to my blog, since I’m feeling like my blog isn’t everything that I was planning on it being. I’m adding a Fiction section so I can just post poems, short stories, and just creative writer-y stuff in general. For now, anyway. It’s sort of an experiment, like everything else on this blog, that I’m just going to try and see if it works. If it does, then whoo hoo. If it doesn’t, then it’s the internet and nobody really cares anyway. Win-win? To get started with something easy, I’m gonna do a weekly haiku, most of which might not be all that great, but where’s the fun in that?

The Glorious Return (?)

I’m finally back, if not a little later than I originally thought. In case you’re curious, despite my not posting in over a month (silly hiatus), this blog still managed to pull in a consistent number of hits on a daily basis and, thanks to my friend Neal and his stumble-upon-ing, has actually experienced a bit of a spike this past week or so.

I’m working on another post that will (hopefully) be up later today, but in the meantime, here’s a song by an obscure band called Uncle Monsterface (which describes itself as “Sock Puppet Rock Band and Multimedia Extravaganza-thon-a-rama”) that’s been stuck in my head recently and makes me happy in ways that a song called “Kill Your Boyfriend” probably shouldn’t. I’m blaming it on the trombone. It sounds happy.

Brief Hiatus

Due to various circumstances, it’s very unlikely I’ll be able to post for the next couple of weeks, so I’m going to take a short break from my blog. I’ll be back sometime in early August to provide you with more of my scattershot ranting. See you then.

Thanks!

Why, hello there

Recently (“recently” being a month ago) one of my friends started a blog, so I decided to start one of my own and finally got around to it today. As this is my first blog and my first post, I suppose I’ll use this first post to describe what exactly we’re getting into here:

First of all, it’s The Procrastinator’s Rant-of-the-Day (right now anyway, I’m very much prone to changing names…) because a) I’m a procrastinator, and b) if you know me, you probably have caught on to the fact that most of my opinions are conveyed in rants. As of right now, I’m also planning on centering my blog around music, television, and video games… but we’ll see how long this actually proves true. Also, I’m bound to get off-topic a lot.

Musically, I’m not really one of those indie “it’s only good if you haven’t heard of it!” people, but I rarely, if ever, listen to the radio and mainstream music… so my music rants will probably have a sort of “off the radar” sort of feel to them, and probably contain outdated reviews and stuff, because it tends to take me a while to actually go out and get a new (or old) album. This will probably be the case for any video game rants too, as I’ll most likely either rant about news or review something you’ve already played a year(s) ago.

And yes, I understand the irony of starting a television blog with roughly a week until most season finales.

Well, that’s about everything I can think of right now… I’ll start regular posts tomorrow and try to post daily or every other day or something, we’ll see what works best. Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy whatever this blog turns out to be!