It's been awhile since I've updated, but I felt like I just had to share this little discovery.  See, being the nerdy-nerd I am, I tend to read webcomics on a regular basis.  Thing is, a lot of the ones I discover are either gold, such as Penny Arcade, or turn out to be crap.  Well, I think I just found one of the greatest webcomics to ever grace the Interweb.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you......

DINOSAUR COMICS!!

http://www.qwantz.com/comics/guest/comic-bullee.png

The comic, created by Ryan North (the one above is actually a comic from a guest week by some dude) started in February 2003 and is updated nearly daily.  That's right; there's another one of these about EVERY DAY.  This may sound amazing, except for the fact that the exact same six panel layout is used each time, except with different dialogue each strip. 

The strip tends to focus around three characters: T-Rex, who can be considered the main character of the strip who commonly has pseudo-intellectual theories that go nowhere, Dromiceiomimus, who appears in the third panel and....is just kinda there, and Utahraptor, who commonly debunks T-Rex's theories and/or just outright insults him.  Oh, and T-Rex crushes a house and a woman each strip.  

So yeah, it's a masterpiece, and you can check it out at www.DinosaurComics.com 

On my way to school this morning, I was listening to Bo and Jim as I usually do when I heard this little tidbit.  Apparently, President Bush has seen fit to increase the securityof out Mexican border by building a seven hundred foot fence across the border.  That's right; we're worried about immigrants continuing to cross the Mexican border enough to build a seven hundred foot fence, but not enough to hire more guards across the border.  So, apparently, our concern isn't so much great as it is lukewarm. 

While I don't like Bush as a President by any means, I don't hate the man.  However, I do believe he's had the tendency to make some utterly stupid choices when during his administration, especially when it's come to dealing with foreign policy.  I'd be more opened minded about building a fence, I suppose, if there was any actual physical threat coming from Central and South America that would justify Bush's claim that this fence will help defend out nation.  However, seeing as how the Central and South Americans who cross over seem to merely want to make it to freedom and not bomb the living crap out of us makes me a bit more apprehensive about the plan, even more so then my reaction when I heard we were building a fucking seven-hundred foot fence.  And by seven hundred feet, I mean length, not height.  Maybe if it was seven hundred feet high I could see how it would be worth a damn, but seven hundred feet across doesn't exactly give ample "protection".  The people could just go around the damn thing.  It's like we're somehow building a more ridiculous version of the Magnoile Line.  And the fact that we're expanding on the ridiculousness of something created by the French is more horrifying then anyone can ever imagine, in my mind at least. 

And lets face it, a fence is not exactly an apparatus that inspires fear.  Now, Bush may actually mean a wall, and he just got confused as usual, but I doubt it.  When I think of a fence, I don't think of seclusion or something that keeps people out; I just think of something I can talk to other people from without having to look at them, like Mr. Wilson.  And this is off topic, but did Mr. Wilson ever even go into his fucking house?  I mean, I think I can only recall ONE time when Tim went over there, but most the time he just talked to him through the damn fence.  I don't know if Wilson and/or Tim were just rude, intimidated by one another, or God knows what.  And now that I'm finished with that, I'll make sure to never speak about "Home Improvement" ever again.  Ever.

And why, exactly, are we frightened of these people?  Because they're "taking our jobs", though really their only taking the jobs the people in this country refuse to take anyway despite the necessity of them?  While I don't exactly support illegal immigration, I probably don't frown on it as much as others.  Our country was, after all, based around giving support and help to those who needed it by allowing them access into our country and out of the less desirable country they hailed from (or, at least, what they considered less desirable countries).  However, I do believe that, in this day and age, it needs to be controlled, at least to some extent, so we don't get too far into overpopulation, but that's really just my opinion.  Still, I don't think we need to fear for our safety from the (predominantily Roman Catholic) people of Central and South America.  As far as I know, none have ever driven a suicide truck into a border guard, and thus I kind of find it ridiculous to fear them.

And, again: it's a fence.  Does anyone else feel that conception, that a fence could somehow inspire fear, is inane?

Or, more specifically, in the shoes, the right one to be most accurate.  See, I wasn't feeling very well yesterday due to the fact that, as it turns out, I was bumrushed and mauled by a group of fire ants that had, apparently, decided to make camp outside of my van.  Why they had chosen to do so is beyond me, due to the fact that they were in the goddamn street and not a colony or hive, as you would genuinely believe ants to be.  I can only assume that these were rogue fire ants, cast out of their hippie communion by the queen, and thus, in their anger, decided to attack the closest thing to the area they had set up base.  This would, of course, happen to be me. 

Now, I generally consider myself a stoic, but I hope that you could find it in your hearts to forgive me for having screamed in terror when I realized my entire right foot was covered in fire ants once I got into my van.  They're just fire ants, sure, but when they're snacking on your foot, needless to say you're going to end up screaming like a bitch.  I dare you to say otherwise.

After freaking out for a minute, I was able to compose myself enough to get the damn things off me.  Still, I wouldn't act quickly enough, as my foot would still, for a time, appear to be a club foot due to the indignity brought upon me by those little bastards.  Despite the fact that I was in terrible, terrible pain and unable to go see The Nightmare before Christmas in 3-D with Brooks (what would've been my second time to see this reindition of it and Brooks' first to see the movie, period), I still had to go to work because, apparently, you can't have sick days if you're a part timer until you've worked their for about a year thanks to our new batshit absence/sick leave plan.  Thankfully, I was smart enough to go and get some medicine to reduce the pain so, you know, I wouldn't be stopping around with some horrible mishapened foot.

Damn vermin.  I hope they choke on their own bile.  And yes, by that I mean the fire ants, and not Wal-Mart.

I read the following inscription on the bottom newsflash on pages 82-83 of this month's EGM:

Gabe and Tycho from the popular web comic Penny Arcade are expanding their satirical shtick from comics to-believe it or not-video games.  Newcomer developer Hothead Games will bring the comic duo to next-gen consoles…

Few of you could possibly believe how torn I am about this development, as Penny Arcade is one of my favorite web comics.  For those of you not in the know, Penny Arcade (or just PA) is a web comic based around the lives of John Gabriel and Tycho Brahe, the alter-egos of the comic strip's creators.  It generally follows their criticisms/praises of videogames, computers, and non-sequitors about life, occasionally taking a break to show even more non-sequitor characters such as Mr. Period, Twisp and Catsby, and Cardboard Tube Samurai.  Oh, and did I mention that there's a character known as the Fruit Fucker 2000, a three-foot robot that rapes fruit to get juice out of it and then has people drink it?  No?  I just did now, so I think I covered all the bases. 

While not the best description, I think it shows the main idea of the comic more then well enough to see how ridiculously hard it would be to turn this comic into a videogame.  True, there are cartoon strips that have been turned into games before, but take a look at them, ANY OF THEM, and tell me they don't suck.  And that's the point that divides me, really; I trust the intuition of Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik (the strips creators), but I have a hard time really viewing this strip as video game material, despite the fact that the main topic discussed in this strip is video games. 

Now, I can possibly imagine a mini-game based video game, a la the WarioWare series.  I could easily imagine them fitting many of the motifs of the comic into that kind of format, and would in fact be thrilled to play mini games based around Fruit Fucker and Cardboard Tube Samurai.  Hell, I would actually buy a game based off of Cardboard Tube Samurai, for that matter.  In fact, if they could just create an Eastern-style alter ego for Tycho, I think they could have a fine game, though it's unlikely this is the path that'll be taken for the game.  Still, I do have faith in them, and thus I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the game'll be great, and will probably end up buying it regardless.

You can view Penny Arcade at the following link:

www.penny-arcade.com

Today was quite possibly one of the most depressing days I've ever had in college, which, while not saying much since I've loved college, is bad in the fact that it showed me how little everything has changed since highschool.  I mean, damn; I almost feel like I've been kidding myself when I've been thinking that I've actually met some mature people.

So we've been reading Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in Humanities, right?  Well, either 1) no one else has been reading it in our class or 2) I'm the only one who understood it, as I'm the only one who really talked about it in class when the teacher wanted us to discuss it with her.  This, naturally, pissed off our teacher (for good reason, as you can imagine) seeing as how we only had to read twenty-five pages of a poem.  A poem, for Chrissakes.  It's not brain surgery.  The real depressing part was that she eventually gave up today and just walked out of class, and the ironic part of it being (and even I'll admit this was funny, as horrible as it is) was that she walked out when class was already meant to be over.  Hopefully, things'll be better Friday.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/10/02

You have no idea how many levels the message of this strip speaks to me.  The concept of a group regulating how video games are rated, yet being a group that has no familiarity with the games themselves, is both horrifying and, unfortunately, inevitable.  This is due to the fact of the preconceived notion that the current rating system, as set up by the ESRB, is a failure.  To a degree, I think it has failed, but this is due more to the fact that the retailers of video games have failed to enforce them, as well as the fact that parents themselves don't generally give enough of a shit to watch what their kids are playing until they see that there's obviously objectionable content.  So its not so much the concept that's a failure as much as the implementation.

Unfortunately, there may eventually be a group set up that fails both in implementation and in concept.  The fact of the matter is that the ESRB generally has a good idea as to what in the hell they're doing when they rate a game and who the game is meant to be geared towards.  I can't possibly imagine how badly another group may end up in attempting to rate games, especially if that group is composed of people genuinely unfamiliar with videogames.

Fuckin' bureucrats.......