Previous News02.15.2010 - Terrence Marks:Isabel is still inking comics. I have added the recommended reading links to You Say it First. We expect comics to be up around Monday night. In the meantime, I invite you to check out Wil Wheaton's blog. He's a writer and actor with some great stories about life, his family, and the cool people he hangs out with. Some of that hanging out was on the set of Star Trek: The Next Generation, but there's more to him than that. So, read that and come back here later on tonight for comics.02.05.2010 - Terrence Marks:Namir Deiter, You Say it First, and Spare Parts now all have next/previous storyline buttons in the archives for easier navigation. Also, if you go through the You Say it First archives, you'll see footnotes that say "Recommended Reading". I'm still adding them. They initially showed up on the main page during Singles Cruise, with links to Sofia's Trip and Minervacon, so you could get Sofia, Caleb, and Michelle's backstory.Why? For when we have a reference to a previous story or a character who hasn't shown up in a while. I hope that everyone can enjoy each comic, whether they know the backstory or not, but some of them are more enjoyable if you know the full story. Or if you're browsing the archives, that you might want to start back there to get the whole story. Or if you're following the comic casually and you wonder "When did that happen?", we'll try to link to when it happened. Or if a character says "You remember that time when we -", you can go and see when they did.
We're still trying to decide what gets them and what doesn't. We're not going to footnote the wedding every time Brisbane and Kimberly talk about being married. We're not going to footnote back to Unlike Minerva if we can help it. I'm not sure what we'll do when we have stories that directly follow each other (like Chair Trouble/The Troublesome Trouble of Kimberly Taylor-Adams/What Happened). I mean, if you were to pick a random story and start reading, What Happened isn't a very good place to start because it's the epilogue of a larger story. On the other hand, if you're reading straight through there's no point sending you back where you just were.
Right now, I'm halfway through You Say it First. Namir Deiter is next. Unlike Minerva has enough notation as-is, and I can't offhand think of any place that Spare Parts needs it. If you, the reader, care to point out any places where you feel a recommended reading link would be helpful.
Also, over on NamirDeiter.net, commentary has been converted. I was up until about 4 AM last night working on it, and if I did it right you won't see anything different. But donors now have a weekly-with-commentary view (and a few comments from back in 2007 that apparently never got uploaded until now).01.25.2010 - Terrence Marks:We're working on comics. In the meantime, I invite you to check out The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage. Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace (real life - he invented computers, she invented programming [to grossly simplify things]) team up to fight crime. It includes regular footnotes from Charles Babbage's autobiography. It's (mostly) true, and it's awesome in a way that only (mostly) true things can be. As a lapsed history nerd, I seriously recommend it to you.Also You Say it First now has storyline-based navigation, which I'm proud of.
01.19.2010 - Terrence Marks:And the rolling upgrade of YouSayitFirst.com continues. The archive pages have been adjusted to the new style (check out the new banners for each year). The donation bar has been revamped. And the wallpaper-of-the-month has been updated...for the first time since last May. Sorry. The wallpapers have been updating monthly; I just forgot to update the little previews.In my defense, I don't usually scroll that far down when I read the site since I kinda already know what the news is going to say.
01.15.2010 - Terrence Marks:Isabel and I had a very nice day out; so nice that I'll need to write up the details in my blog real soon now. However, it's 3 AM and we're still working on comics. Expect them tomorrow.01.10.2010 - Terrence Marks:As I've mentioned, I work evenings and weekends. That means that I have to do all my errand-running early in the day. This also means that "early in the day" means noon.So I had two things to do this morning: get another SIM card for my phone and recycle the cans. I drop by the t-mobile store and the network is down. No idea when it'd be back. As I left, I realized that I didn't ask if it was national or statewide. Then I realized that I wasn't about to drive to Nevada for it, anyhow.I head over to the recycling center. They're closed today, but the automatic can processing machine is on. It's a two-step process.
Step 1: Insert can into hole.
Step 2: Repeat.
I got about twelve cans in before the alarm went off. I think I messed up on the first step, and I'm still not quite sure how.My point is: there's some days I feel like I have to go to work. There's some days I feel like I get to go to work. Today, I got to go to work, because it'd suck to have just two things to do and fail at both of them.
01.05.2010 - Isabel Marks:I caught a nasty cold the week before Christmas and it's only gotten worse... I pretty much lost my voice (and lots of sleep) from coughing a lot. Because of this I've been having a lot of trouble writing. I spent today getting a small script buffer written. It's just till the end of this week, but it's a lot for me with the way I'm feeling right now (I've been writing a comic a day- which is not the usual way I write story arcs). So this week should just have one more make-up day, then be back on track for the rest of the week.Site news: all our sites have had their Christmas overlays taken down. I was sad to see them go, but there's always next year to look forward to... and hopefully then I'll be able to do what I actually planned. >< Terrence is working on a larger version of the site (I think the site's layout is still for 800x600 sized monitors), as we march into this new century, it's time. Once Terrence has a rough design down, we'll post a link to it for feedback.
Terrence is also planning on setting up a reader's survey for You Say it First, look forward to more news on this later! And one more thing: the site is in dire need of updating, all the archives and character pages direly need it. Hopefully a weekend from now that will be updated.
And another note, if you want to find out if (and why) comics are late, follow me over at Twitter! You'll also get stuck with banter about my life or my cats from time to time. Enjoy the new year and make the most out of this century!