It's impossible for me to keep these things in. Thought I'd give you guys a little sneak peek at the design as it stands right now. It's by no means finalized, but this is what I'm leaning towards. Once i get it the way I want it, I'll chop it up and start in on layout. And yes, it'll be clearer than that. I had to save it in half-quality jpeg for bandwidth reasons. Clicky

So...yeah. It's monday. A fact which I realized not 20 minutes ago whilst in the shower. A fact which never once occurred to me this entire 3-day weekend. I was so caught up in weekend mode that I completely neglected that I had planned on doing a strip for today. :D Oh well... it's, uh... a holiday. Yeah. That's the ticket. :)

I've got some housecleaning to do, then I'll get to work on tomorrow's strip. Sorry for the mix-up. :) I really need to get ahead...random circumstances are claiming more comics than I had imagined they would...

Looking at the way I've designed the site, people who simply come to read the comic and the rants need not fear... the site is laid out such that the important stuff is on the left, and should be visible without having to scroll to the right. :)

Oi. Okay... the e-mails have already started pouring in about the damned site redesign. First off, there are a few things I should mention. I realize not everyone has their resolution set to 1024x768. Most people have it higher. A scant 7% of viewers are set to 800x600 (and only 0.11% are 640x480). I'm sorry, but this means you're going to have to scroll. Things are moving forward, and I can't keep constricting myself to 800x600. I want the extra space. I NEEDS it.

Secondly, about the JavaScript menu. I realize a lot of you have JavaScript turned off. (I think you're a bit paranoid, but that's just me. :) ) Thus, while I will have a JavaScript menu, I will also have a text menu nestled behind it, for you guys. It's a bit more work, because I'll have those pages to update as well, but I want my site to at least be USABLE. :) Scrolling is doable... not being able to navigate isn't. I would recommend however that anyone still using Internet Explorer, the beast of DOOM, switch to something a bit less leaky and full of security holes, like FireFox. The only reason I keep IE around anymore is for testing purposes, but since FireFox is faster, has a BUILT-IN popup blocker, and plugins you can install out the wazoo, I'd never go back. You won't get so much spyware this way, too. :)

Also, i plan on testing the final site in a myriad of browsers, so worry not. It should look shiny on your computer. I've got the mock-up nearly finished... I'll post a screenie soon. :)

I don't even know if this will post, but we'll see. We'll start with the most immediate first, and work our way bigger. Currently, both at home and now, come to find, at work, our internet has slowed to a crawl. I noticed it the other day when we were playing FFXI, and the recieve all of a sudden just dropped to 0. It's been kind of like that ever since. I can't seem to get the comic to send, no matter how often I try. I can slowly and deliberately surf, but it's intermittent at best. I'll get the comic up as soon as I get a clear connection shot to do so.

The bigger bit of bad news, which those of you at Fanime have probably figured out (and, since you are at a convention, you probably won't be reading this anyway...) is that I'm not there. I was under the impression that I was invited as a guest, seeing as how I was told by a member of the fanime staff that I was, in fact, invited as a guest. I guess that's not true, as I cannot seem to garner any information from anyone at fanime about anything, so I'm not there. I'm fairly displeased at the way they've decided to treat me, but what'cha gonna do? I've enjoyed going to Fanime the past few years, and meeting you guys is always nice, but it looks like I probably won't be going back anymore. *shrug* I guess I'll enjoy my weekend at home.

So, to balance out this bad news, I figure I'll let you in on a little non-secret (It's not really a secret, but as I don't intend to give you TOO much information, it's more of a non-secret than public information) - I'm working on a redesign for the site. Since 95% of everyone that visits RL has a browser larger than 800x600, I'm going to finally make a move in that direction. The new site will be geared towards 1024x768, and will feature a javascript-based menu system. Things in the site from my end are fairly cluttered, and there are some things that just don't have links to them anymore. I intend to make the Java menu a full-site navigation tool. Instead of spiels all being listed on one page, you'll click the button, and all available spiels will drop down. Also, I'm going to see if I can integrate the Real Life Search Engine into the page, finally. (I know, most of you don't know about it. I've kept it on the down-low, because currently it's not on my server, and I don't want to bog down the server of the guy who runs it. We've been thinking about moving onto mine for some time now... i figure now's as good a time as any.) Anyway, I'm still in the design stages of the whole thing (read: Drawing it up in Illustrator) but once I get more towards a final design i'll post a screenie for you guys to check out. And that's all for now... hopefully I can get this damned comic to work. TTFN.