Archive for June, 2007

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iPHONE!

by Tom on June 29, 2007 at 12:00 am
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There's a lot of talk about the new Apple iPhone being released today.

Guess what? I GOT ONE!

It was totally by accident. Cami, Henry and I were wandering through the mall today and our AT&T store had a sign out front that said "Only 14 iPhones left!" I didn't think much of it because I knew it was too expensive for me to purchase, so we kept walking.

Later, we came home and I got online. I was reading articles about iPhones for sale on eBay with price tags over $1,000!

So I sat at home wringing my hands and debating about whether or not to go back to the store and grab one. I even consulted my LiveJournal friends. With their encouragement, I raced back to the store and bought one. I'm glad I did. I spoke to the manager and he said their location was the only one in Iowa, Minnesota or Nebraska to have any iPhones left in stock.

So, of course, our new iPhone is now on eBay. It's a three day auction that I started for $650. We'll ship overnight anywhere in the world, so if you're interested, bid away! If you have friends who might be interested, let them know, too!

Cami and I are planning to take any profits from the sale and put them toward Henry's college savings fund. It might not sound very exciting, but we're trying to be creative. So it's all going toward a good cause. Good for Henry, anyway. 18 years from now.

THANKS!

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I’M A PARODY

by Tom on June 29, 2007 at 12:00 am
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(3 votes, average: 8.33 out of 10)
Live Free or Die Hard, John McClane, Bruce Willis, Justin Long, Mac, PC, parody

It may seem a little cheap to do a parody of the ";I'm A Mac..."; tv spots, but when Live Free or Die Hard slaps Justin Long in their movie as the comic sidekick to Bruce Willis, that's low-hanging fruit too delicious to ignore.

In the commercials, Long represents the slick, hip future of computing to the stodgy, bland PC. Willis's John McClane character is the analog equivalent to action movies. It makes sense they would try to ";freshen"; him up a little.

From what I'm hearing, thought, LFoDH does a good job with it's action set pieces in a low-tech way. Not a lot of CGI cartoon physics. They're doing it old school - which I admire. No one works harder than a stuntman.

I don't know if there will be room in our schedule this weekend for LFoDH. Cami recently finished reading The Wal-Mart Effect and it inspired her to go back and re-read Fast Food Nation. This has put her in a very specific frame of mind, so I think she's got her sights set on seeing Sicko this weekend. I kind want to see Ratatouille, but that's because I'm a socially irresponsible bastard stuck in a state of arrested development. Adorable rodents! Awww!

If you want to get the reaction of someone who saw LFoDH and loved it, check out the most recent Joe Loves Crappy Movies. As Joe puts it, the movie is ";the balls."; It's cool to me that he enjoyed it so much. I'm sure we'll be talking about it on Monday's Triple Feature.

Speaking of The Triple Feature, I didn't give you guys the second half of the clue for our Evening contest. So here it is:

";POWER";

Be sure to download Monday's show over at TalkShoe to get the first half of the clue. Take the compiled clue and mail it to me at theaterhopper@hotmail.com along with your name, age and mailing address. One lucky winner will be chosen at random to receive a make-up bag, a cook book and two posters from the movie Evening. Happy hunting!

Switching gears, I just wanted to give everyone a status update on my computer situation.

First, let me thank EVERYONE who left comments in Wednesday blog or e-mailed me personally offering solutions. I wish I had time to thank you all individually, but the outpouring was so strong, that's not possible. So if you took time out of your busy day to help me diagnose the problem or made yourself available to me through e-mail or by phone - thank you. Each of you went above the call of duty and I appreciate it.

Long story short, I ended up finding the Windows XP installation discs I need to repair my machine. But it turns out my hard drive was physically degraded to the point where it wouldn't accept it. I contacted Dell customer support to help walk me through things and we tried the repair console first. But it didn't take, so their recommendation was to do a complete reinstall. That didn't take, either. So I was forced to buy a new hard drive.

Even though I was keeping all my Theater Hopper stuff on another smaller internal drive (so I think it's safe) this whole episode has put enough of a scare into me to make sure I have backups of that data in multiple formats. If I ever lost my original artwork, I would probably give up completely. It would be like someone pulled the string out of my back.

That said, we're not completely out of the woods yet. I had to complete today's comic using my laptop, but I was running into errors THERE as well. I have a... copy of the Adobe CS2 Suite and for some reason, the version of Photoshop I had on my machine was saying that certain registry information wasn't matching up. I tried re-installing it, but had no luck. I eventually had to load a... copy of Photoshop 6 I had lying around to get my work done.

This makes me a little nervous about getting the programs I need back on my desktop after I install my new hard drive. So if anyone knows where I might find a... copy of Photoshop CS2 (or, even better, CS3) send me an e-mail and we can chat.

It's been a long week. That's about as much as I can say. Everyone enjoy their weekend and I'll see you here on Monday!

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FURTHER DELAYS

by Tom on June 27, 2007 at 12:00 am
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Sorry, guys. No comic today. I tried salvaging my desktop and it's been a slog.

Turns out I found my install disks and I called Dell to help walk me through it. The bad news is that it wasn't registering the prompt to rescue the drive from the CD, so I ended up having to reformat my entire hard drive. It's formatting as we speak, having taken the last 30 minutes to progress 3%. I'd be surprised if I didn't have to buy a new hard drive when it was all over.

I can probably use my laptop to complete my work. But right now, I'm too tired to make it work. Henry was sick over the weekend and he hasn't been quite right since. He used to sleep through the night. Now he's wide away at 4:00 in the morning. That, coupled with the worry about my machine last night led to practically no sleep. I'm running on fumes.

I might try to update Friday, but we'll just have to see how it goes.

All I know is that I'm glad I bought an external drive to house all my music, photos and video. I have a second internal hard drive for all the Theater Hopper stuff. So my original art will go untouched. But it's a close call.

I'm sitting here thinking about how good things were for Theater Hopper last year. The books, the conventions, the success. This year has been a real struggle. I can't help but think how much worse it could have been if I lost all my original artwork. I probably would have given up completely.

In the meantime, does anyone have suggestions for a reliable internal hard drive that I might set up my operating system on? Does anyone think I need to purchase a OS upgrade? The disks that came with my computer were from 2003. Thoughts?

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MORE INFO

by Tom on June 27, 2007 at 12:00 am
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First, I wanted to say thanks to everyone who has sent e-mails or left comments in support of my computer problems. I'm getting lots of great feedback.

Truthfully, though, I'm having a little trouble sorting out what route to take and I thought it might be helpful if I offer you guys a little more information.

Right now, my desktop has two hard drives. One that is 120GB that houses the operating software and all the other software like Photoshop, Dreamweaver and the like. The second internal hard drive is 20GB, came from my last computer, was wiped clean and now only contains Theater Hopper information. I have a third hard drive that is external and houses all of my MP3s, photos and video. If I ever get this sorted out, I'm going to move all that Theater Hopper stuff over there, too.

I'm starting to wonder if my OS hard drive is starting to crap out on me. My machine is about 3 or 4 years old and I noticed it was making some strained whirring sounds in the last month or so. I've had one person advise that I replace the hard drive with Windows XP already installed and then bring over all the old software. This might be a more costly solution, but might be more viable long term if it is the hard drive physically failing.

Anyway, that's a little more information to go on. I still haven't decided what I'm going to do, but maybe some of you who have left suggestions can take this information to help me devise a more specific course of action.

Thanks again to everyone!

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THE TRIPLE FEATURE TONIGHT AT 9:00 PM CST

by Tom on June 25, 2007 at 12:00 am
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I just wanted to remind everyone to check out The Triple Feature talkcast tonight at 9:00 PM CST over at TalkShoe.

Last week, we took the night off. Gordon has been busy looking for an apartment and Cami and I went to the Ben Folds / John Mayer concert. Since Joe was all by his lonesome, we decided to scrap it.

This week we're back and ready to kick ass. Topics of discussion will include Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, 1408 and Evan Almighty. Be there and toss in your two cents by either participating in the live chat room or calling in and speaking to the three of us in real-time!

Another reason to tune in to tonight's broadcast is because we're running in conjunction with the release of the film Evening on June 29. If you haven't heard of it, the cast is insane - Claire Danes, Toni Collette, Vanessa Redgrave, Natasha Richardson, Meryl Streep, and Glenn Close all star in it.

As part of the contest, we'll be giving away a make up bag, a cook book and two posters. If you're interested, just listen to tonight's broadcast for the first half of a two-part phrase. Come back to Theater Hopper on Wednesday for the second half of the phrase. When you have the complete phrase, e-mail it along with your name, age and mailing address to theaterhopper@hotmail.com. The winner will be chosen at random!

For a synopsis of the film along with links to the trailer and video clips, please click here And don't forget to listen to The Triple Feature tonight at 9:00 PM CST at TalkShoe.com!

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SKETCH – ACTION HERO

by Tom on June 25, 2007 at 12:00 am
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(2 votes, average: 9.00 out of 10)
sketch, Tom, action hero

For the first time in a few weeks, I don't have a movie review to share with you guys on a Monday. For some of you this is probably a welcome relief. For others, maybe somewhat jarring.

Movies weren't in the cards for Cami and I this weekend. Henry came down with his first illness - an eye and ear infection - and we had a couple of rough nights. He's been to his doctor and he's on antibiotics now. When I left the house, he was all smiles and bouncing like crazy in his bouncy seat. So, it's all good.

Of course, even if Henry were well, I doubt we would have made any plans. Evan Almighty was number one at the box office this weekend, but it's $30 million take in the fact of it's $250 million budget pretty much categorizes it as a bomb. Surprisingly, 1408 took a huge chunk out of it's potential take by grabbing $20 million on it's own. So I guess I was wrong in my assessment last week that the film was on no one's radar.

On Wednesday, Live Free or Die Hard comes out and that's what today's sketch is in honor of. More specifically, me as a generic action hero. I have some strong opinions about LFoDH, but I think I'll reserve them for Wednesday. As I alluded to last week, I might start upping production of the comic to twice a week with one comic on Wednesday and the other on Friday. I think I'm going to kick that off this week. So, you have that to look forward to!

Come back later today for an announcement regarding tonight's Triple Feature talkcast and news about a brand new contest you can participate in!

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WITH THANKS, BESTWEEKEVER.TV

by Tom on June 22, 2007 at 12:00 am
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I have to let everyone know right off the bat that the following content is not mine, but stolen from this post over at BestWeekEver.tv and I think it's brilliant. It's an excellent bit of satire poking fun at the ridiculousness of the AFI Top 100 list and the utter stupidity of their recently revised list.

Read and enjoy!

Citizen Kane Has Not Magically Become Terrible In The Last Nine Years

This week, The American Film Institute announced its updated list of the 100 Greatest Films of All Time, and while "Citizen Kane held down the top spot, I was surprised to see how many 40 and 50 year old movies are a lot greater now than they were in 1998. Here are some of the notable leaps from the 1998 List to the 2007 List and my explanations for how they happened:

"Raging Bull - 1998: #24, 2007: #4
2007 Oscar wins for "The Departed made critics go back and take a look at spunky, talented kid named "Marty Scorcese.

"The Searchers - 1998: #96, 2007: #12
Overwhelming gayness of "Brokeback Mountain has critics longing for the days of the John Wayne western, when gay sex was merely implied.

"The Godfather - 1998: #3, 2007: #2
(passing up "Casablanca)Critics were so happy the ending didn't just go to silent black, they were able to disregard existence of both World War II and love.

"The Jazz Singer - 1998: #90, 2007: Not in Top 100
America is still just as racist as it was in 1998, we're just not voting racistly anymore.

"The General - 1998: Not in Top 100, 2007: #18
Massive success of recent crappy sequels have made people realize they'd much rather pay to see Buster Keaton run around on top of a train and fall a lot.

"On The Waterfront - 1998: #8, 2007: #19
Critics agree that it's becoming exponentially harder each year to not imagine that every time Marlon Brando speaks, he's asking for butter.

"Vertigo - 1998: #61, 2007: #9
Grammy voters' neverending U2 orgy somehow spills over to AFI list; Bob Dylan's most recent album also named #85 greatest film ever made.

"Schindler's List - 1998: #9, 2007: #8
Historians have discovered that the Holocaust was, in fact, about 1% more horrible than originally believed.

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COLORING CONTEST ART

by Tom on June 22, 2007 at 12:00 am
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I posted the first blog last night, so when I said "come back later in the day," I think I was running on a different timetable. Either that, or I'm just impatient. Or, potentially fearful that I will forget to update the site with the art I promised you.

So here it is. Here's the artwork I did for a recent local coloring contest!

Coloring Contest Artwork - Juice

I probably have to explain what this is about.

Y'see, my editor over at Juice - a weekly publication created by writers of The Des Moines Register and aimed at the 20-something set - asked me if I would be interested in producing some artwork for a coloring contest they were running called "Summer Fun in Des Moines." I jumped at the chance. I would have done it just to have something to do. But it didn't hurt that they were paying me extra for it.

I was stuck for ideas for the longest time, though. See, even though it's a coloring contest, IT'S NOT FOR KIDS! So I had to think of something appropriately "adult" without crossing the line into anything vulgar. I asked my editor for suggestions and he said, "People socializing. You know, drinking." This is not an unreasonable request for Juice. They often go around to all the social events in the city and take pictures of people out having a good time. Then they post them on their web site.

I felt a little funny about drawing cartoons of people drinking, but I think what I came up with is open to interpretation. I really like how the girl turned out in this one. I tried something different with how I draw eyes and it worked. I also went a little more cartoony for the man's jaw line. You see that kind of style a lot now, but it's hard to get my brain to tell my hand to do that. So I thought that was a minor accomplishment.

The land marks in the background are the Simon Estes Amphitheater and the state Capitol. The Simon Estes Amphitheater is basically this metal arch over a concrete pavilion next to the Des Moines River where they have a lot of concert performances in the summer. Simon Estes is an opera singer and probably the most cultured celebrity we have, so they trot him out for all kinds of stuff.

The Capitol building is, well, a Capitol building. But I think it's an amazing piece of architecture. I've been to a few other state capitals and they don't inspire anything in me like this building does. The domes are gold leaf!

Anyway, that's probably more Iowa history than you care about. I just wanted to show you guys some artwork I was proud of. Hope you liked it!

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SKETCH – MOVIE NINJA

by Tom on June 22, 2007 at 12:00 am
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(3 votes, average: 8.67 out of 10)
sketch, ninja, sword, movie reel

I have to be honest with you. I had no idea what I was going to do for a sketch today. Evan Almighty failed to inspire and the only other quasi-high profile movie this week is 1408 - which seems to be on NO ONE'S radar screens.

So, I came up with this!

He's the movie ninja and, as you can see, instead of throwing shuriken, he throws movie reels. DANGEROUS! It was an idea I had for a shirt that I would probably polish up if was actually going to produce it. As things stand, I'm still waiting for Movie Law #948 to come back from the printer. So we'll see how that one sells before I introduce a new design.

By the way, you can still place an order for Movie Law #948. The pre-order is complete, but it gave me a sense of what the demand will be. So I should have enough in all sizes.

Actually, I have another idea in mind to produce before this one. But if you think it might fly, tell me what you think of the movie ninja in the comments below!

300I don't really have a lot of movie stuff to talk about today, so I thought I would tip you off to a great contest surrounding the DVD release of the movie 300 on July 31. I know that's a ways off for the DVD, but I wanted to give everyone first crack at the contest.

Visit the website http://www.JoinThe300.com and enter for a chance to win a trip to the San Diego Comic Con to compete for a chance to visit the set of 300's director Zach Snyder's next big project - Watchmen!

If you're a comic book nerd like I am, this is a big deal. So toss your hat into the ring. Even if you don't win the grand prize, there are other giveaways including signed mini-posters, iPod shuffles and 300 copies of the DVD.

I'm working right now on getting a review copy of 300 so I can tell you guys all about the special features of the two-disc collectors edition. If there was a movie ripe for extra content, 300 would be it. This will probably be the biggest DVD release of the summer, so I'm really looking forward to it.

That about does it for me. But check back later in the day. I want to share with you some artwork I've created for my good friends over at Juice - where Theater Hopper is run in regional syndication each week. It's art for a coloring contest! That doesn't happen every day! I'm really proud of how it turned out and I want to share it with you.

Stay tuned for more!

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BACK TO TWO TIMES A WEEK?

by Tom on June 20, 2007 at 12:00 am
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This is just a random bit of news. Take it for what you will.

On Monday, Cami and I went to see Ben Folds and John Mayer in concert. After Ben's set, while they were setting the stage for Mayer, Cami and I were sitting and talking. Out of nowhere she says, "I think you should do Theater Hopper two times a week." It hit me like a ton of bricks. "Why?" I asked. "Because I think it's killing you to only do it once a week," she said.

As you recall, I reduced the number of strips to once a week in order to spend more time with Cami and Henry. I'm still updating three times a week, having replaced the comics with movie and DVD reviews on Mondays that some of you really love (and some of you really hate) and random sketches on Friday (which almost everyone is indifferent to).

Now since things with Henry are kind of settling down and because I pretty much only work on the comic after he's asleep, Cami has given me this "permission slip" of sorts to increase production on the site.

The problem is, I'm not sure what to do with it.

Cami suggested that I update with two comics a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I think that's a bad idea. I've gotten you guys into the habit of coming to the site every Monday, Wednesday and Friday for almost 5 years. It would be pretty jarring to switch to Tuesday/Thursday.

So, the obvious solution to me is to continue doing reviews on Mondays (tossing in sketches when I don't have a review) and doing the comics on Wednesday and Friday.

I don't know when this would begin, but I'm mulling my options and hopefully it will happen soon. I do feel a little rusty, though, so it's intimidating. When you're updating three times a week, you don't have time to think about what you're doing. You gotta be quick with the funny! But since I went to one comic a week, I could be a little lazy with how I scheduled my time. I need to draft a new schedule and figure out how things will work in the New World Order.

Anyway, I guess I just wanted to tease at a possible change in the future and I was curious as to your response. If you have anything you want to share, go ahead and leave it in the comments!

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