Thomsen Space

Internet cafe review.

thomsedavi — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 05:36:24 +0000

I don’t have internet access at home yet so I’m going to a new internet cafe every couple of days to catch up. I have to say that the green internet cafe next to Pigeon Park is both the most high-tech and the most infuriatingly complicated. I mean it’s the only place where you actually have to turn the computer on before you use it. And there’s this thing where you have to pay a deposit on a card and have it refunded after… I mean, what’s wrong with good old-fashioned “sit at computer number five and come up to the desk when you’re finished”?

Also, the browser won’t let me open new windows, only tabs. I hate tabs.

At least the service isn’t as bad as that internet cafe that closed down a while ago where I was actually mocked by the staff for printing out an image they didn’t realise was supposed to be a parody.

Baah.

thomsedavi — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 09:35:04 +0000

I’m moving. Hopefully next weekend I’ll be able to start cartooning again. In the mean time I might as well keep Blogging. It keeps away the fear that if I don’t continuously exist on the internet, I won’t exist at all.

This week’s front-cover Time article is on how great Twitter is. I could vomit. I’ve experimentally been following the Twitter account of one person I highly regard, just to see if I shouldn’t be too dismissive of the system, but even he posts things like “When I die and go to hell, I’ll be thrown into a pit of spiders and forced to eat my way out.” I think there should be system where people have to wait 24 hours before posting their twitters, just so they have more time than just the typing of 140 characters to reflect on whether their comment is actually of any interest. Mass communication isn’t compatible with the kind of impulsiveness that Twitter provides.

The Bain trial is over, but people keep going on about it. The worst article I read was an exploitative article in the Dom, talking about the lives of all the murdered Bains and telling us we should be ashamed of ourselves for using them as our entertainment. It’s like eating a hamburger and having a vegeratian come at you and tell you the life story of the cow you’re eating. Actually, you’re only interested in the taste and sustenance of the food, they’re the one the one exploiting the cow for their own smug self-satisfaction.

Death of a blog.

thomsedavi — Tue, 12 May 2009 12:01:14 +0000

I need to organise a proper website for my webcomic soon, and when that happens I’ll probably delete this blog. I only really keep this page because some part of me believes that if I don’t have a fixed presence on the internet I won’t exist at all.

It won’t be soon though, because just when I get into a healthy routine of daily webcomic creation, suddenly things fall apart and I don’t have the luxury of time to spend on creative pastimes. But when everything is back to normal and I’ve negotiated a three day weekend from my employer, I should be putting out two comic pages a week. Hopefully.

The biggest mistake to make after watching the new Star Trek movie is to stand next to a group of trekkies at the bus stop. They can and will spend ten minutes discussing a minor change to an iconic quotation. I guess they were all semi-autistic and could only fixate on the most minor and trivial and boring feature of the entire film.

Book review kinda. Actually rant.

thomsedavi — Sun, 03 May 2009 22:49:23 +0000

What most convinces me that global warming is real is that those who argue against it usually sound about as honest and trustworthy as a used car salesman.

Ian Wishart released a new book recently, Air Con, all about how global warming is a big big phony. I browsed a bit of it because I like to be reasonably well informed about important scientific matters regarding the planet Earth.

What Ian doesn’t seem to understand is that if you’re going to question the integrity of scientists, it’s a good idea to have the absolute highest integrity yourself. So if you’re going to criticise a scientist for using the word ‘probably’ in their articles, it’s a good idea to not also have used the word ‘probably’ in your own work two paragraphs previously. And if you’re going to quote statistics, put them in context – for example, don’t tell us how many scientists don’t believe in global warming if you’re not going to tell us how many scientists do. Especially if you’ve only just criticised Al Gore for manipulating statistics to suit his purpose – most likely the reader will now be sensitive to how you could also be manipulating statistics yourself.

Radical politicians should never be trusted to talk about science for exactly the same reason that compulsive liars should never be trusted to talk about science.

Procrastinating by writing this entry probably doesn’t help.

thomsedavi — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 01:03:13 +0000

I’ve made a few changes to my shadow puppet comic since I was last working on it – like, they have elbows now instead of flexible tubes for arms* – so I’m redoing all I’ve done so far in this style. I thought about leaving it as it was and explaining it as the natural stylistic evolution that pretty much every comic ever goes through, but when this happens 1.25 pages into the cartoon it just seems like I hadn’t been prepared enough when I started.

It’s also kind of a test to see how dedicated I am to this comic. I don’t want it to turn out to be just another one of those ideas I work on for a week then give up on. If I can be bothered redrawing what I’ve already drawn, then maybe it’s an idea I’m actually prepared to commit myself to.

* I asked Mr. Nobody for their opinion and they thought Marge Simpson looked sexier with elbows.

Watchmen

thomsedavi — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 03:08:47 +0000

Before I watched the film I was worried they wouldn’t be faithful to the original. After I watched the film, I realised it’s actually possible to be too faithful to the original.

On the up side, you keep the fans happy. On the down side, what’s the point? What does a movie offer that a graphic novel doesn’t? Video? Audio? What’s the point of having those things if all you’re doing is using them for an imagination surrogate?

I dunno. I used to think faithful adaptations were preferable, but now I think I prefer it when directors take the source material and make something completely new with it, even if it means there’s a 95% chance they’ll make something so bad it makes your eyes burn. At least there’s the possibility that they’ll have something new to say.

Drawing.

thomsedavi — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 14:00:09 +0000

I’ve learned that with some practice, I could possibly develop acceptable drawing skills. This is comforting to know, but a waste of time, since I work five days a week and it’s much more convenient for me anyway to quickly slap things together out of squiggly, wiggly bibbles and jackhammers.

I think I’ll return to the shadow puppet thing. There was nothing really wrong with that, but the possibility of working with Mr. Nobody came up.

Lady Who?

thomsedavi — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 00:17:28 +0000

My girlfriend and I watched the Doctor Who easter special yesterday. Obviously we acquired the recording through legitimate means somehow. Ha ha ha! Yes.

I don’t understand what they were thinking. Lady Christina de Souza? They made the Doctor’s companion… a spoiled, bored, obnoxious aristocrat?

Obviously they looked at the mood of the times and concluded that people are hugely sympathetic towards the idle rich right now. You know, with the recession, the government bailouts, the very principles of capitalism in question…

I don’t usually think about how entertainment should reflect the mood of the times, but with a new Richard Curtis movie and this Lady Christina de Souza character, I’m definitely thinking there are areas not to go.

Mea Culpa.

thomsedavi — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 07:00:44 +0000

Okay, so I hadn’t been paying attention. Apparently the demonstration wasn’t to prove that Bain Senior couldn’t reach the trigger… it was to prove that he could, but only with some difficulty. Like, yeah… he couldn’t have done it because it would have been slightly inconvenient for him to bother.

I was reading about this in the paper today. Apparently Bain Senior was also wearing a hat and hadn’t been to the bathroom. In other words, nothing was said that proves anything one way or the other. Or in fact says anything about anything.

I don’t see how anyone could possibly have strong feelings one way or the other about this case. Nothing seems to prove anything either way. I guess if it were a clear-cut case, it would be too boring for the papers to put on their front pages.

Snarky logic.

thomsedavi — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 06:55:10 +0000

Okay, this bugs me. Every time the Bain trial is revisited, someone points out that Bain Senior couldn’t have reached the trigger of the gun to shoot himself in the head because the rifle is too long.

You know what a rifle is? A tool. You know what a tool is? An extension of the human body. You know what also qualifies as a tool? Anything used to apply pressure to part of any other tool that is just slightly out of reach – such as the trigger of a gun, for example.

I shouldn’t expect too much though. We’re talking about lawyers here, who by their very nature are extremely intelligent but at the same time selectively stupid. They always do this pantomime where they hold a rifle to their head in front of the court and flail hopelessly trying to reach the trigger. Someone put them out of their misery – give them a sturdy twig.

Am I snarkier than usual? I have this growing concern that I’m going to turn into Victor Mildrew when I’m older.