Torture

Premature Optimization

Virtual reality never goes out of style!

Man, I think I have pushed the limit for text on a comic.  I gotta start writing shorter scripts!

Clarity

Sorry about the comic shortage. I am taking the equivalent of like 23 units over here. Hopefully more will be on the way soon!

In other news, I’m taking a webcomics class taught by Alex of Fuzzy Vs. Techie. Her comics are Good Stuff and you should check them out. Maybe I will learn to draw from her.

As you can see, in today’s comic I said “what would stick figures look like if they had feet but no legs, and noses but no mouths?” It was a risk but I think I am glad I took it.

Motion City Soundtrack – My Dinosaur Life

For once, I’m reviewing an album that’s actually new.

I’ll cut to the chase: this album has some of the most original and catchy melodies I’ve heard in anything approaching alt/punk rock. Whereas the new Green Day album seemed like a tiresome rehash of their old chord progressions and riffs, every song on Motion City’s newest album screams for attention, and each one is doing something a little different. Adrenaline-delivering drum fills and complex rhythms combine with perfectly-tightened lyrics to provide some truly breathtaking moments on this album.

That being said, some of the songs seem a little short to me. There’s certainly enough melodic interest to support more repetition of themes, but perhaps it would be difficult to write more lyrics, which I definitely understand. Basically, this album seems to have been optimized for radio play, although I don’t know whether that was actually part of Motion City’s plan. Each song is a self-contained, self-supporting package. The album doesn’t have a whole lot of cohesion as a result, but it’s still greatly enjoyable to listen to as a whole.

Oh look here are some music videos for “Her Words Destroyed My Planet” and “Disappear”, which, incidentally, are two of my favorite songs from the album.  They also provide a nice look at the variety on this album; “Her Words” is a poppy, catchy tune about breakups and self-improvement, while “Disappear” is an intense, dark song about…something.  Angst angst angst.  It’s quite good, though.

Power Switch is Back Online

My one-dude band, Power Switch Failure, is making a new album!  Meaning, I’m making a new album.

It’s kind of exciting (and also scary) because I’m moving away from GarageBand’s sucky synth voices and towards guitar, piano, and vocals, which means I’ll have to deal with crazy things like microphones and amps and other tools that exist in the physical world.  It should be fun, though, and I’ve already got a bunch of songs written, though not recorded. I’m going for more of a folk-rock feel with the new album, so we’ll see how it turns out. Also exciting: I now have a Bandcamp site, which is very cool. I don’t see how Bandcamp can stay in business if they don’t sell ad space and don’t charge subscription or upload fees, but whatever. I am just glad they exist.

There is currently one track up there, and it is available for free download.  Not actually part of the new album, but it’s a hint of where I’m taking PSF in the near future.

Delayed Gratification

It's not child abuse if you make sure to keep them away from deprecated html tags.

Priorities

There will always be another Final Fantasy.

Beavers, Part 3

Between the abortion question and the destruction of arctic habitat, the beaver wars eventually created a major rift in the Republican party.

Religion Hijacks the Crush Module

Or maybe crushes hijack the religion module.  It all depends on which you view as more essential to the human mind.  But in either case, they use the same brain functions.  For example, one of the main features of both religion and crushes is a desire for approval – from a person in one case, and from God in the other. Often, people are inspired to do good deeds to secure said approval, and continue to make efforts to impress even when their labors are met with apparent indifference. Elaborate fantasy conversations are central to both religion and primary-stage affection, and may reflect a desire for telepathic communion or simple proximity. We tend to cling to any utterance that the object of our admiration lets drop, seeing great significance where perhaps none was intended. Cognitive dissonance reduction plays a major role, too, since it allows us to see what we want to see and makes less pleasant details easy to ignore.

So religious belief and crushes use a lot of the same thought processes and patterns. What’s the point? Really, I’m drawing this parallel because I just thought of it and want to know what other people think about it. It’s also partly for the benefit of the subset of atheists who see religion as a blind rejection of reality in favor of fantasy.

Which it very well may be. But my point is: atheists do it too. No one is perfectly realistic and logical; our irrational quirks are often the most dear to us, and trying to argue anyone out of their irrationality is likely to make them defensive. Because – let’s face it – it’s the subjective, personal, unprovable things in life that keep us getting up in the morning. Perfectly rational people just know that eventually everyone will be dead.

I’m not trying to trivialize religion, or say that atheists are hypocrites. I’m just saying… we all use the religion/crush module of our brains. We should embrace it, whichever purpose we use it for. It makes life good.

Beavers, Part 2

from the midnight sun where the hot springs blow