8/2/2007
Alright, in case you are ever stranded in a car because a bridge collapsed or your car's scuba mode failied to activate, here is how to get out according to Worst Case Scenario:
How to Escape from a Sinking Car
1. As soon as you hit the water, open your window. This is your best chance of escape, because opening the door will be very difficult given the outside water pressure. (To be safe, you should drive with the windows and doors slightly open whenever you are near water or driving on ice.) Opening the window allows water to come in and equalize the pressure. Once the water pressure inside and outside the car is equal, you’ll be able to open the door.
2. If your power windows won’t work or you cannot roll your windows down all the way, attempt to break the glass with your foot, shoulder, or a heavy object such as an antitheft steering wheel lock.
3. Get out. Do not worry about leaving anything behind unless it is another person. Vehicles with engines in front will sink at a steep angle. If the water is fifteen feet or deeper, the vehicle may end up on its roof, upside down. For this reason, you must get out as soon as possible, while the car is still afloat. Depending on the vehicle, floating time will range from a few seconds to a few minutes. The more airtight the car, the longer it floats. Air in the car will be quickly forced out through the trunk and cab. An air bubble is unlikely to remain once the car hits bottom. Get out as early as possible.
4. If you are unable to open the window or break it, you have one final option. Remain calm and do not panic. Wait until the car begins filling with water. When the water reaches your head, take a deep breath and hold it. Now the pressure should be equalized inside and outside, and you should be able to open the door and swim to the surface.
8/6/2007
I hope you have noticed my extra little treat for you loyal readers: the Scathing Review of the Point-and-Click Adventure: Journey to the Center of the Earth. I put a lot of time and effort into getting all the screen shots and writing a review that accurately documented my unending hate for the game, so I hope you enjoy it.
It's just a fun thing to read through; part 2 is when it starts to get good. I'll hopefully do a review every few months, I already have a lead for my next review's target… it may or may not be what I discussed in the end of Journey to the Center of a Sucky Game.
In other, way cooler news, I'm redoing my site to be completely designed in Cascading Style Sheets! For you average reader, it should look exactly the same, isn't that awesome? For me, the benefit is easier to manage consistency (I hate inconsistency) and for you the benefits may include a site that fits on your screen better, a site that takes less time to load and maybe some cooler features.
When I make the switch, everything is going to switch at once. I hate doing things piecemeal, so I'll let you know when things have been changed. Until then, enjoy the review I made.
8/12/2007
Exciting news on the Cascading Style Sheets! I've now got the layout figured out! I've got one set of rules that works with Mozilla Firefox, Opera and even Netscape (I felt so embarrassed downloading Netscape to test it). It works fantastically for all size screens (except handhelds, but I don't think that's a problem).
I've even got an alternative version to work with Internet Explorer/AOL for those of you who haven't made the switch. The Internet Explorer (IE) version has a slight glitch that's beyond my ability to fix, but eh. It doesn't interfere too much.
Ironically for you viewers, after untold hours of work, things should look almost exactly the same. The layout is identical but the code is less bloated and will load faster. However, I've taken advantage of the quicker loading time by improving the quality of the images used on my site. I'll have the new layout up really soon, although for the moment I am afraid I am busy having a life.
And speaking of site image improvement, I've decided to go back and re-draw my older comics to be bigger for those of you with good resolutions. I'll also be adding color to all of my drawings, so that's really exciting.
8/14/2007
NEW CODE, NEW CODE, NEW CODE!!!
It may look almost exactly the same, but the site has been improved a lot. The code for it is now a lot cleaner and for me it should be much easier in the future to make wide-scale changes! It took forever to switch from tables to CSS, but I'm proud it's finally done!
I've cheated and left tables and html tags in a few places that I'll eventually get 'round to fixing, but meh! Over 95% of the site is CSS, boo-yah! Unfortunately, there may be a few glitches here and there (please report them if you see them, my email is at the bottom of every page); some pages may not have made the transition as smoothly as anticipated.
But still, CSS!
Now to work on my next project: coloring all the comics, whew.
8/17/2007
Sorry for the temporary glitches! For about half a day the next/previous buttons didn't work. I made a lot of code changes, and I forgot that changing next/prev. button's code would reset all the links. So I had to manually go through and reset the links. And then test them. Not fun times. The best part was having to do this while on vacation. I hope you are grateful.
The good news is that the site now works basically top-notch! There are a few minor glitches that I will fix really soon (promise!) but right now, I'm a bit beat.
I've also added "first" buttons to the home page of Dry Ice comics and the "home" page of Bonus comics. This button will transport you to the very first comic, if like me you enjoy going in chronological order. It also balances things out.
This will come in handy if you notice that I am redrawing all of my comics to be in color! That's right, I'm redrawing all of my comics to be colorized. (Also big enough for you high-resolution screens *shakes fist*.) I'm starting at the beginning and truckin' on through as many as I can each day! Check out the progress, fun times.
8/22/2007
Fixed a small glitch with the buttons that was irking me. Now when you collapse the window they get partially covered instead of disappearing the instant you collapse the window over them. It looks way better.
Aaaannnyywwwwaaay… still working on redraws. I think I'll finish up the old, crappy versions and then start on the more recent comics, and then end at the middle. That way beginners get to see lots of nice comics, but those looking further back won't be disappointed by the small, unreadable text and image. Here is an example of how I am making changes:
This old comic…
becomes this beautiful, new comic!
Here is another example. This small, hard-to-read comic becomes…
this luscious comic!
Amazing!
I wish I could say I should have just done it right the first time, but the first time around I didn't have my Wacom tablet, which has made this all possible. But if you have the chance, don't do a crappy job the first time. Really spend the time to make it good.
8/25/2007
I'm taking a nice holiday this coming week, so I won't be able to work on redraws. There will still be regular updates, though of course. People always ask me in person, are you still drawing snowmen for the site? Or, do you have any new comics up? It's kind of insulting, really. I pride myself on consistent, regular updates so of course I am still drawing them and there are new ones up. You'd realize that if you checked it out.
Anyway, I've got a whole month of redraws done, which I'm really happy about. The tragic thing, however, is that redrawing my comics is pushing back my game schedule. Ah, well. I'd rather focus on improving my current content, and the redraws are coming out fantastically!
I'd love it if you could start spreading the word about my comic. I've worked lots and lots and lots on it, and it's really starting to look professional. Link me up. Send comics you like to others in forwards. Do what it takes to spread the word. If you want to wait until the comic you love is redrawn, shoot me an email and I'll move it to the top of the queue.
Also, I've never mentioned it but I used to work at Marble Slab: the tastier, better version of Cold Stone. Seriously, we are better. It's like Marble Slab invested in product and Cold Stone invested in marketing so everyone knows about Cold Stone, but Marble Slab's superior product is just slightly less known.