So that Alfredo Afro thing I’ve been raving about is finally done. It’s launching on March 1st as some of you already know. Since our last “meeting” I’ve managed to create a really funny blog for it which equates to about NINE comics, and now I’m at the point where I can crank a decent looking comic in a couple of hours or less, depending on the complexity.

Yeah. Here’s a stack of prints that’ll be ready to sell once March 1st hits. That’s right. I’m actually going through with this. Oh, and to the left of those prints are some stickers that’ll be going out to the lucky folks who buy stuff.

11 x 17 and 8.5 x 11. Aren't I just generous?

Am I excited? Yes. Yes I am. I don’t even care if it fails miserably, I’m just happy to be doing this.

How about a couple of game reviews? No? Too bad.

Dead Space 2 (PC, 360, PS3)
What a freakin’ experience this game is. Some of you electronic stalkers of mine might already know that I’m a huge Dead Space fan, and this sequel did not disappoint. It basically took all the great aspects of Dead Space and turned ‘em up. Prior to me purchasing this game I was playing it’s prequel on the hardest difficulty to get warmed up.

This game is TENSE. From the very first scene to the last battle I was rather “white-knuckled.” The only con to Dead Space is that there’s no quick spin-around controls like in Resident Evil 4 and 5, thus the controls get clunky at times. But at least you can WALK AND AIM at the same time, Capcom. Take cue from this game and make us proud, mmkay? Good Capcom.

9.3/10 Severed Limbs

Dragon Quest VI (NDS)
I’m right at the end of this game; far enough to review it.

What can I say? It’s Dragon Quest. Fast, simple, and fun. Utilizing the same engine as the remakes of IV and V, part VI takes the already great visuals from the SNES and overhauls ‘em, adding a ton more personality to the characters and enemies. I absolutely love the animation in these NDS remakes. The musical score is very much improved. I’m glad to be playing an official translation of this game; the fan translation of the Super Famicom game didn’t have a ton of personality, although I am NOT complaining. I was very glad to play it.

My preorder bonus. All of my dreams finally came true now that I have a Plush Slime from Dragon Quest.

Gameplay is great, story is decent (nothing amazing or original), and the class system is highly addictive. Makes me wanna break out Dragon Quest VII for the PSOne and go nuts, but that’s just crazy talk. I don’t have 70 spare hours laying around.

Can’t wait to see what Squeenix does for the 3DS and the PSP2 or whatever the hell it’s called.

9.1/10 Stupid Plush Slimes

Those new Macbook Pros were announced today. To my delight they’ve finally allowed for QUAD-CORE! It’s kind of my Hardcore or Metalcore, but… FOUR! I guess four-core sounds stupid. That’s ONLY if you have the wrong attitude, though.

I’m going to attempt to raise enough cash to get one of these. I told myself, “Mr. Rawrb, sir, if they announce quad-core Macbook Pros, it’ll be time to upgrade.” Not that my computer is dead or anything, bit it’s showing some age. I might have to sell my body to raise enough cash.

Pssh, none of  you could afford me.

I’ve got quite a bit to cover here so I’ll make ‘er good.

The new Psychostick design is finished. It’s not active as of this writing since I’ve fixed a few more bugs (the last post ended up being irrelevant after I simplified some CSS), but I’m going to go on record and say that it’s once of the best designs I’ve ever come up with. I took a different approach this time and put everything aside (and I do mean EVERYTHING) and focused on it fully. I didn’t even play video games. After about a month and a week, it’s finished.

I’m launching it Tuesday morning and waiting for any bugs to creep up.

I’ve decided not to be afraid of PNGs anymore. Apparently Internet Explorer 6 and 7 doesn’t render PNG alpha transparency properly, thus many designers are weary of using them. The filesize is larger too.

The advantages of PNGs?

• The awesomeness that is alpha transparency
• It supports millions of colors like JPEGs.
• They just look better than GIFs and JPEGs.

Hopefully within the next year or two fear of PNGs will be completely gone and those who use old versions of IE are banned from the internet somehow.

The new Psychostick design uses PNG files where necessary, and parts of the page take longer to download with slow connections. At this point it’s so much less of an issue; most people have broadband nowadays and don’t use older IE browsers. Those that DO are usually older, less savvy folk who still churn butter by hand.

Anyway, blah blah blah internet blah blah blah graphics blah blah blah cake.

I’m also able to work on the new album again, plus I can continue my work on Alfredo Afro. I haven’t even touched my yet-to-be-released web comic since I started on Psychostick’s design, and my involvement with the new record had been reduced since then. This is no longer the case. I’m all, back and stuff. It’s time to get these projects DONE so I can get paid. I need a new Mac. :]

I also just snagged one of these. Wacom Intuos 4 Medium. This thing doesn’t just rock, it METALS.

Awesome Wacom.

For a productivity tool, I’ve switched to Omnifocus from Things. In the Mac world, there’s a huge debate going on between these two programs. Often times they’ll be a large drawn-out article comparing the two in extreme detail. In contrast, I can easily deduce for you which one would be better for you.

• If you are a business owner with many, many tasks and can’t afford a secretary to keep track of everything, go with Omnifocus.
• If you are a normal Joe with a day job and are just trying to keep things in order at work and at home, Things is more up you alley.

These two programs are both modeled around the “Getting Things Done” methodology, which is (in my opinion) the most robust way to make yourself productive. So if you feel as if your life, both professional and personal, is cluttered, you should definitely check out Getting Things Done. Read the book and decide for yourself how you prefer to keep organized.

Alrighty, gonna hop back to it. Maybe I’ll try and finish a comic today to snap into the queue.

So I had the pleasure of discovering a nice little bug when testing a new design in Safari for Mac. I had two floating DIVs with negative margins floating on the right and left side of the main content area of my design. These divs are being stretched to reach 100% height on the page so that the repeating background is always there no matter how tall the page gets.

There’s a bug with Safari for Mac and Chrome for Windows. If you HAPPEN to have negative margin divs that float left or right with a 100% stretched background, they’ll just not appear at all. I scoured and searched the ‘net for answers on this bug with little to no real answer until I made a discovery.

These bugs are dependent on the doctype declaration. Of ALL things to cause this, it’s a DOCTYPE issue. I would have never guessed this as I’ve never had this creep up in all my years of being a web geek.

So, I found some code that sniffs out browsers and OS types to resolve this. Goes a little something like this.

include("Browser.php");
$browser = new Browser();
if( $browser->getBrowser() == Browser::BROWSER_SAFARI) {
	echo "<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN\">";
} else {
	if (($browser->getBrowser() == Browser::BROWSER_CHROME) && $browser->getPlatform() == Browser::PLATFORM_WINDOWS) {
		// That's right - NO DOCTYPE DECLARATION. At least for now.
		echo "";
	} else {
		echo "<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN\"
\"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd\">";

}
}

Yep. It’s utterly ridiculous that the doctype affects whether or not a 100% vertical background div with negative margins. (Note: The above is based on a class that is very efficient at sniffing browsers and OS types. It’s by Chris Schuld)

For those who struggle with this bug, I hope this helps. I’m also posting this for Google and other engines to absorb.

Not that “gotta-collect-everything-in-Oblivion” busy, but actual busy!

For starters, let’s talk Alfredo Afro. I had to put it on hold last week due to a little Psychostick store launch, but I picked back up on it yesterday and things are moving along. 46% as of this writing, which at 60% means I’m done with the website and it’s ready for beta testing. The remaining 40% are the actual comics themselves. That part will probably take me the longest. Some I can crank out in an hour, and some are far more complicated and take several hours.

Investing time and money into this is becoming more a reality for me. Not in a bad way, but in a “woah, this might actually work” direction. Here’s a little clutter on my desk right now:

Yep. Paper, pencil, rulers - old school. You can see my little Wacom tablet where the blue circle light is.

Of course, many of you are asking, “Can you actually draw worth a damn?” My answer is, “I can draw well enough to get away with LOOKING like I can draw worth a damn.” Does that make sense? It will hopefully before the end of the year. Heh heh.

As of right now I have to finish more of the programming and work on polishing the site. I try to hop from web development to drawing so I don’t burn myself out. So far so good, but the real test lies when I’m cranking out two comics a week consistently. The mid-term lies in actually completing the initial batch of comics. I’ve got something like 30 comic concepts sitting in the queue. More are added regularly.

I try not to get ahead of myself either; usually at this stage with a project I’ve given up. This is definitely a sign that I should see this through to the end. I’ve got a few people genuinely interested in what this is going to turn into. By the time it launches, if all the pieces are in place (and they should be), it should spread like a viral wildfire STD. Hmm… trying to picture that… ouch, eww, and uhh, *barf*

Anyway.

Tomorrow, my stupid band and I will be hashing out some new songs. There’s a ton for us to do there, plus I’ve got to redesign and optimize Psychostick.com as well as a few other things. Oh, let’s not forget the artwork for the new record too.

Busy? Naawhhh…

Oh, I sold my iPad. Crazy, huh? iRawrb selling an Apple product. What’s wrong with me?

• Tour
• Video Games
• Tour
• Video Games
• Drama
• Video Games
• Girlfriend
• Tour

Of course, everyone’s eyes see the “drama” part of it and they want to know what I’m talking about. Did you NOT see the touring and Video Games?! The drama part of it makes me realize that despite how good I *think* I am with people, I’m often put back into my seat with my mouth agape. So I see this as a challenge and attempt to make things clearer, more positive, and solution oriented. Isn’t that what it’s all about? Motivation? Explaination? Breaking things down? Offering a hand of assistance? I think there’s a limit to how much a person CAN motivate, explain, break things down, and offer help until they don’t see the lack of drive in the receiving end. What to do, what to do…

Well anyway, I can tell you the best way for me to move forward is to, you might guess, redirect that frustrated energy into something PRODUCTIVE. This is where I truly believe most end up hitting a brick wall – they focus on being frustrated while opportunity escapes them. So guess WHART? I’m finally taking the right steps to developing my first iPhone app. OMG!

I’ve boasted a bit in the past on how I’m gonna make some iPhone apps, but never really had any ideas for an app. Last night I had one of the better ideas that I can’t believe isn’t being utilized, so I’m gonna pursue that over the next few months. If things go in a productive direction like I’m hoping and gonna work towards, I’ll have this new app idea all done and in the app store before the end of the year. Wishful thinking? Maybe. Do I care? NO!

If only Panera’s connection was faster so I could finish downloading Xcode and the iPhone SDK. Grr.

In band news… well, not really in the mood to talk about that. Good stuff though. Music videos, bigger tour next year – all is coming together well.

I myself went over to the “dark side” and got a Mac a few years ago after they switched to Intel. I freaking love my Mac. I’d buy another one without hesitation. Why? IT WORKS. Programs RARELY crash, the hardware is solid, etc. I’ve never had a computer with so few problems since I started becoming a computer nerd back in ’96 or so. I’ll probably upgrade once I’m rolling in some more dough and I just want a new one. And who’s their competition? VISTA. HAR HAR. Apple is on the rise and raising the bar on OS stability. C’mon Microsoft, you better get your shit together soon or you will lose your grip on the market.

Anyway.

Once Apple released the iPhone 3G S, they rolled a VERY old and annoying moneymaking scheme that all cell phone manufactures create. “The phones are $199 and $299 IF you are approved for a 2 year contract!” Why can’t I just UPGRADE my phone? I’m prepaying for my minutes and I don’t want a stupid contract! If I want to just buy the phone I have to shell over another $200 bucks! That’s REALLY lame. Plus I didn’t want AT&T from the get-go, and here I am… with that stupid AT&T company because I just want to be able to do nerdy stuff while on the road.

I dunno. I know that Macs aren’t cheap (even though their prices have been dropping lately – ooh!), but I do believe you get what you pay for. The iPhone is awesome and all, but c’mon guys, your loyal customers need you to throw ‘em a bone. Apple, extend your carrier reach once your stupid contract is up with AT&T. You know that LG and Samsung reaches beyond one carrier, WHY CAN’T YOU?

Ok rant over.

If we can pull this off consistently (which is the REAL trick), I think it’d be a hit. Who knows.

(Crap – I’m not allowed to talk shit about booking agents, am I? Well nevermind.)

On another note, I’ve found an interesting video on how to connect your Xbox Live through your Macbook. Ooh.

Over the past couple of weeks I started selling some of my old stuff that was just sitting in storage. I’m pretty sure there’s more in there I can sell, but thus far I sold my TV and a couple of rare games that I had. Those two games (Lunar and Lunar 2 for the Playstation) I had no attachment to and I honestly didn’t even like the games. I tell you, when money isn’t as abundant you tend to bring into question what REALLY has value and what doesn’t. I’m gonna put up my PCMIA Verizon Internet Card and Ogre Battle: Limited Edition for the Playstation next. Bam.

With the profits from those sales I picked up a new monitor. I had a giant, clunky CRT monitor that was eating up so much space and just didn’t display my stuff in the color that my laptop screen can. So here’s what I got:

Yeah. This thing is AWESOME (the Samsung T240). The picture above doesn’t do it justice. I was editing the DVD artwork on there and at 300 DPI things get rather huge. On this monitor, which has a crisper display than my laptop, I could see everything in perfect clarity. I downloaded a 1080p version of the Quantam of Solice trailer and watched it on there too. Holy CRAP. My next console purchase will be a PS3 or an XBox 360 because this thing also supports HDMI. Mmm hmm. The only thing that I’m trying to find a solution for is the ability to hook up S-Video for my PS2 and Xbox. I can’t find any adapters that go into HDMI… so I’ll have to poke around the ‘net for a while for that. If any of you know where I can find S-Video and/or component adapters going to HDMI, let me know!

Also what you’re seeing above is the amazing fruits of my labor and patience. I have my own room now (after 2 years of mooching due to touring) and made some cash from selling stuff + CD sales to create a harmonious working environment. It’s actually fun and peaceful to work on artwork and DVD stuff where I’m sitting. Notice the bowl of pineapple slices. I recommend it as a snack… ya jerks.

During my last blog I asked you for a smidge of advice. Thanks for the responses. I did find my answer through other means, but I don’t want your responses to go unrecognized. Aren’t I just THAT awesome? (yes)

Whew.

I finally finished everything with The Dumb. Actually finishing a project is like crack. Getting to that crack is the tough part, but with some potential bugs that might creep up I can honestly say I’m finally 100% done with TheDumb.org‘s street team management system.

The Dumb is a website that is uniquely organize to assist in getting street teamers for Psychostick all the materials they need to promote. Sounds simple, right? On paper it is simple, but the logic between real world promotion and managing the promotion is not simple. Plus there has to be incentive. “What’s in it for me?” When massing an army, or just leading a team of people, incentive is vital. Sometimes just acknowledgement is enough, but in the real world people need to see a light at the end of the tunnel for all their hard work. We’re coming up with more rewards for the hard work, but for now we’ll have backstage access, featured dumb t-shirts, and some others.

Now I can get back on track with the Psychostick DVD. I’m really looking forward to finishing that one. There’s been a ton of pressure to get this thing done but more important stuff keeps pulling me away. NOW, between recording and some occasional artwork, I can divert the majority of my energy towards this thing. Fucking finally. It’s coming folks so you just hang in there. I’m just glad to be crossing things off of my list.

Rawrb’s tip on actually being productive: Get all that to-do stuff out of your head and on to paper! Make a list and cross things out as you complete them. You’ll sleep better at night with all your ideas/to-dos/projects written down rather than swirling around in your head with the potential to be forgotten.

I had a couple more questions come in as well. I’ll make that a separate blog!

First off, I’ve had a few more questions come in. Bayum!

” I am a musician who plays drums guitar bass and does vocals.I write my own music and have now been limited to working with others over the internet.None of the musicians I record or create with have met me face to face.Do you think there could be any future in making music this way? Just wanted to get your take on it man because of course Psychostik kicks ass!!

- K”

Hmm. Honestly it depends. If you plan on playing shows, this won’t work at all. If you’re just recording a track and sending it off to a bandmate to record to it, that could work I suppose. If you’re serious about making music your career, I personally think you’ll need to meet and work in person.

Here’s another!

well you probly here this alot but i am gonna aske ne way. i hve been having a hard time geting a relationship sence 2004 well now it is 2008 i am 18 and there is this girl i have been frends with sence 9th grade and i don’t know jack shit on how to get a relationship started with her i have asked her out once and she said no and i am scared shitless to aske her out again just for the fact of geting shot down again so if you can help me out it would be great

- D

Hmmm. Dry spells are rough on us guys. At one point you lose your grip on what’s really important and can sometimes lower standards, become desperate, etc. That’s why porn is awesome, but I digress. I’ll address the dry spell thing in a moment.

The big problem with asking out someone you’ve been friends with for a long time is exactly that – you’re in the friend zone. Often times the friend zone is exactly like a black hole – once you pass a certain point, you cannot escape. “But RAWRB, I heard of someone who was friends with someone else then they became LOVAWRS!” In extremely rare cases this is possible but highly unlikely. The fact that she’s already told you “no” does not help your chances. Sucks huh?

So what do you do? You totally dig this girl who considers you a friend. What DO YOU DO?! Oh noes!

First things first. I don’t recommend asking her out again. As a matter of fact keep her as a friend. Female friends are awesome. If you insist on making her your girlfriend, get her drunk and put your mouth on her accept her friendship and little by little, flirt. Flirt more as time goes on. Keep flirting AND keep strong disposition on making her your girlfriend. I like to use the fake ego trick later on. “You didn’t go out with me because I’m too awesome. That’s okay, you’re racist against awesome people. No problem.”

Best thing to do here in my honest opinion is to cut your losses and move on. ADVANTAGE = YOU. Being able to move on from something like this shows a TON of personal strength and foundation which’ll make you way more attractive to the entire female gender.

This is tricky stuff to learn. When I mentioned going out on dates, I want you to experiement a little. When going out on a date play around with the following:

• Don’t give out a single compliment. Instead have fun with appearance. “You look great. Almost as great as I do.” This is a joke, and if she has any sort of brain she’ll get it and laugh.
• Flirt like crazy.
• Tease like crazy.
• Constantly accuse her of trying to get into your pants IN A FUN WAY. “Sorry sweetheart, but you have to work for it.” Heh heh.
• Never let her win. EVER. If she does beat you at something, joke about it. “I have to let you win every now and then. Otherwise you’ll probably explode from losing to me so much.” Hell, cheating works too. If you’re playing an arcade game, for example, reach over and start tickling her so she loses. Heh heh, that one always works.
• HAVE FUN. That’s THE most important thing. If she’s non-receptive and just completely sucks, cut it short and end the date. That’ll most likely not happen if you’re doing all of the above. Otherwise you might be on a date with a zombie.

Try it. See what happens. There’s so much more to this that I just don’t have the time to get into it. I can recommend some great reading material that goes into much more detail.

As for dry spells… they happen. Don’t think I’ve ever met a someone who didn’t have one. A four year dry spell is nasty and all your judgement might be out the window. Solution? Start small and start flirting with chicks everywhere. In the grocery store, at a restaurant, at the DMV – EVERYWHERE. Even online.

By the way, flirting is NOT sucking up. Flirting is the exact opposite of sucking up.

For example, let’s say you find a chick on myspace. She’s totally hot and she knows it. Tons of guys post on her profile sucking up to her. They think they’re flirting, but they’re not. They’re LOSING. So how do you flirt with her?

DO NOT compliment her. Make fun of something in her pictures. For example, let’s say she’s posing in a bikini on her bed. Her bed is not made and her room is a mess. MAKE FUN OF THAT. “Sooo, the message here is: Put on bikini, make a huge mess. You’re a horrible role model for women everywhere! Awwh man!” HAR HAR HAR HAR. See? It made me laugh. She’ll laugh if she has a soul. If she doesn’t have 27298234763415 friends, you’ll probably hear back from her. Heh heh.

It doesn’t make sense. Women will often always tell you to be nice and compliment, buy stuff, etc. They’re completely wrong. That stuff might kinda work later on in a relationship (and should be tactfully used), but not when you’re going full force in the dating world.

Throw away what’s been programmed into your head about women and listen closer to your male instincts. You won’t regret it. Basically keep them guessing, keep them curious, keep them intrigued. You = win.

Hell yeah long answer! Anyway.

I’m in the middle of Crisis Core. Cool game, has a decent Final Fantasy feel to it. I find myself analyzing game design more in depth lately than ever before. At times some of these games’ll create some sort of desk punching HATE. It’s not the fact that the game is hard. It’s repetiion. I’m currently at the last boss of the game where the battle just keeps GOING and GOING. Half an hour later, I’m STILL fighting this battle. Crisis Core is a blend of action and RPG, so I’m constantly pressing buttons. The main issue here is that I can’t fight the boss directly because he keeps throwing some minions at me. Before this boss battle there is a bit of a cutscene, which is fine and all, but YOU CAN’T SKIP THE CUTSCENE. 3 generations of cutscenes in Final Fantasy games, and they STILL employ this problem. I probably would have tried again if I didn’t have to watch the cutscene again. It’s not quite as bad as Final Fantasy 7 and 8 where you have to watch these extremely long summon animations. “Yeah yeah, you’re big and badass.” Blarg.

It’s so many of those simple little mistakes that can just ruin the game. Nitpicking isn’t exactly something I like to do, but part of creating a fulfilling experience in a game includes REMOVING annoyances. During the testing phase of the game, ask the testing team what exactly is annoying about the game and fix it! Making the player work for their experience isn’t an annoyance. It’s having to repeat cutscenes, struggle with controls, dealing with cheap ways to make the game longer (like having to chase someone around a town or whatever), and obnoxious repetition. Games have evolved beyond these things, so please stop throwing them in there!

I plan on walking the talk here someday. Game design is something I’ve always wanted to get into and I eventually will. I also believe these game design schools that are coming out aren’t necessary – you either have it or you don’t. I’d like to see if I have it. Rawr.