Yesterday my PC was slain by Microsoft.
We had some bad weather in the area, and I was involved in my weekly World of Warcraft session. Windows was doing one of those irritating automatic updates, and then the power flickered, causing my computer to shut off.
Not thinking much of it, I turned it back on, only to be greeted with blue screen hell that indicates your CPU could explode at any minute. I tried to use Safe Mode, also to no avail.
So I called tech support, and after talking to someone from the Philippines for an our and pretty much getting nowhere (other than a confirmation that the brownout during the Windows update was probably the culprit, I feared the worst--a zapped computer with unrecoverable files. I'm bad at infrequent at backing up my files, so I'm terrified of the possibilities.
Ironically, the same thing killed my wife's computer about a year or so ago.
I took the unit to a local repair joint, where they told me the hard drive was responsive, and they felt optimistic that everything could be recovered. They'll run a diagnostic, put the hard drive contents on my external drive, and reload Windows, assuming that everything goes smoothly.
Here's hoping it can be resurrected. And I'll definitely eliminate that automatic update shit (and buy a battery update) so this won't happen again.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Monday, July 7, 2008
Wizard World Chicago Report
I know I am doing this out of order a little, but I thought I'd give a brief report on Wizard World Chicago, even though it's already been a week since I was there.
The wife and I arrived in town on Wednesday, for the primary purpose of catching a Cubs game at Wrigley field. We're both baseball fans, and a visit to Wrigley (or Comiskey) is a must when we are at the show. For once on a visit to a ballpark, the home team won, and I gorged myself on ballpark food, which is always a good thing.
At the show itself, we had a large booth--20'long, and in a nice spot. Setup was pretty easy, although there are always a few snafus along the way.
Sales were good, as Chicago is always our best show of the year, and we had lots of creators to help out, although we were a little short on artists this year.
I did manage to snag sketches from all three of the artists I wanted. Bob Layton, Art Baltazar, and (another) Matt Kindt.
The highlight of the show, however, was spending a little time at the bar with Bob Layton, the creator whose run on Iron Man in the late 1970s and early 1980s is what turned me into a permanent comic book fan. We hung out and talked for like three hours, and I gave him a little Ape swag in hopes that he'd dig our work. Overall, a fun show, and I look forward to next year as well.
The wife and I arrived in town on Wednesday, for the primary purpose of catching a Cubs game at Wrigley field. We're both baseball fans, and a visit to Wrigley (or Comiskey) is a must when we are at the show. For once on a visit to a ballpark, the home team won, and I gorged myself on ballpark food, which is always a good thing.
At the show itself, we had a large booth--20'long, and in a nice spot. Setup was pretty easy, although there are always a few snafus along the way.
Sales were good, as Chicago is always our best show of the year, and we had lots of creators to help out, although we were a little short on artists this year.
I did manage to snag sketches from all three of the artists I wanted. Bob Layton, Art Baltazar, and (another) Matt Kindt.
The highlight of the show, however, was spending a little time at the bar with Bob Layton, the creator whose run on Iron Man in the late 1970s and early 1980s is what turned me into a permanent comic book fan. We hung out and talked for like three hours, and I gave him a little Ape swag in hopes that he'd dig our work. Overall, a fun show, and I look forward to next year as well.
Getting Caught up on Things
I'm back from Huntsville, and am actually going to be around for a couple of weeks before my next excursion. I'm not going to San Diego this year, but SubCulture artist Stan Yan will be at his own booth in Artists' Alley, plus I am sure he will make a few appearances at the Ape Entertainment booth to sell and sign any copies of the SubCulture comic that you might wish to purchase.
Speaking of, supplies of the comic mini-series are starting to dwindle, so if you haven't read the original story yet, now might be the time to pick it up. You can get all four issues for only twelve bucks in the online store.
Work on the TBP continues to go smoothly. We're lining up a few new pinups for the book. So far confirmed are David Dwonch, Super Ugly, Lonnie Allen, David Hedgecock (Gargoyles) and Alex Robinson (Too Cool to be Forgotten)! I'm also working on deals with Pat Lewis (The Claws Come Out) and John Lucas (Exterminators). I'm also sure that a couple of chaps from Stan's Squid Works studio will come through as well. Keep your eyes here for more updates.
Stan and I also are still deciding how we want to collect the webstrips. We are approaching 50 strips, which means we have enough to put into floppy form, should we so desire. If we do floppies, we'll end up putting out two a year, given the current frequency of the strip. A book, should we go that route, clearly would be more infrequent.
Speaking of, supplies of the comic mini-series are starting to dwindle, so if you haven't read the original story yet, now might be the time to pick it up. You can get all four issues for only twelve bucks in the online store.
Work on the TBP continues to go smoothly. We're lining up a few new pinups for the book. So far confirmed are David Dwonch, Super Ugly, Lonnie Allen, David Hedgecock (Gargoyles) and Alex Robinson (Too Cool to be Forgotten)! I'm also working on deals with Pat Lewis (The Claws Come Out) and John Lucas (Exterminators). I'm also sure that a couple of chaps from Stan's Squid Works studio will come through as well. Keep your eyes here for more updates.
Stan and I also are still deciding how we want to collect the webstrips. We are approaching 50 strips, which means we have enough to put into floppy form, should we so desire. If we do floppies, we'll end up putting out two a year, given the current frequency of the strip. A book, should we go that route, clearly would be more infrequent.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
