Archive for the ‘News’ Category

Okay, I’ve got some friggin’ overpowering writer’s block over here. Hell, it’s worse than writer’s block: it’s writer’s embargo. Hopefully, I can get my act together for Thursday Friday ummmm, sometime.

On a related timbre, I’m considering changing the update schedule to a twice-weekly dilly. I’ll need to go through my spring semester schedule to figure out which nights I’ll be least likely to have a lot of schoolwork to do first. Monday will probably be out of the question, ’cause I’ve always hated Monday updates. I’d honestly rather loaf on Sunday nights. Nothing personal. Friday might be difficult, too, since Thursday night is Mug Night at the Stone Balloon (115 E Main St. Newark, DE! Join the party! Meet the artist! Drunkenly grope my magnificent backside! Or not!). What I’m edging towards right now is a Wednesday update, and then a weekend update (With Tina Fey? Please?), which will tend to show up Saturday afternoon but may not appear until Sunday, depending on the weekend.

Since you’ll be getting 2/3 of your usual Tee-mab content, I’ll try to make up for it by padding it with 1.5 times the quality. What does that equate to? Got me. Backgrounds, maybe. Or perhaps that redesign I was talking about a while back. Or maybe even less Xeroxing. The possibilities, though finite, are endless!

CURRENT MOOD: Lemon curry?

Sorry ’bout the down time, not that I’ve been updating anyway. Sshhh…

CURRENT MOOD: Barnyard animals

Progress: $100!!

Update #8: The goal is met! Scott Jones, whom you know as Sloan from the d+pad and BTC cam pages, clocks in with twenty buckeroos, pushing the tally to $100 and five wallpapers (I’ve already started working on them), and earning himself a seat in the Hall of The Mans!

Update #7: And with a crisp fiver, Ryan Easton (you know him as Maurs in #btc) pushes us over the four-wallpaper mark! Is he The Man? Hells yeah he’s The Man!

Update #6: Richard Mathis has gone and redefined the office of The Man, tossing me a hefty hefty $25! But since we already have a bunch of other The Mans, I’ll just call him The The Man. That takes care of that. One quarter c-bill to go!

Update #5: Joshua Hayes-Sheen now joins the The Man club, buying in with a five dollar donation to put us at the fitty dolla mark! We’re halfway there! Woooaahhh, livin’ on a prayer! Donate more money and I’ll stop singing, I swear! Woooaahhh, livin’ on a prayer!

Update #4: In a strange, perhaps androgynous display of The Manness, Stephanie Merkler, of Burrito Boy’s Little Sister Is Based On Me fame, totally just handed me a tenspot. That’s two wallpapers and three The Mans now! More! MORE!!!

Update #3: The large quantities of The Manness continue to rain down. Craig Moore, whom I’ve known WAY too long (What is it, like, twelve years now?), just tossed me two-fifths of a c-bill, earning the Tee-mab population the first of five possible wallpapers, and bestowing upon himself the sought after title of The Man! Keep the flow flowin’!

Update #2: Scott Thorson is to hereafter be addressed as The Man, after having sent me a WHOPPING $15. See? Cool guys help save the site! Be cool with him!

Update: For every $20 I receive, I’ll make a TMABB wallpaper!

HELP SAVE TACO MAN AND BURRITO BOY

Okay folks, here’s the deal. Taco Man and Burrito Boy is officially in danger of being officially cancelled for official good officially. The Zip disk that I keep the site on, along with pretty much everything I need to make the comics, not to mention months worth of scripts and everything else I’ve written over the last five years or so, totally crapped out on me today. I downloaded a program to see if it was recoverable, and more-or-less, it is. But the problem is, it’s going to cost $100 to do it.

I can’t exactly pull $100 out of my heinie hole. I need donations. Last time I asked for donations, I didn’t get jack. This time, it’s either I get some donations, or I can’t recover the disk, and thus Tee-mab will die for good. I’m begging you guys here. I swear on the lives of my future children that I’ll be better about the updates if you just help me out this one time. Anything you can spare, please spare it.

Click the Paypal button on the left to make your donation. Thank you.

CURRENT MOOD: Adobe

Well, I can honestly say that I was not in any way expecting to reach the donation goal. Hell, I wasn’t expecting anything at all, really, seeing as I didn’t get squat last time I petitioned for donations. At any rate, I’ll know if the disk recovery worked some time next week. I’m assuming it will, but there are never any guarantees in life. For example, yesterday, some old dude with a beard and a pointy hat and flip-flops (none of which he was actually wearing) told me that if I stepped in front of a train, my faith in provolone would save me. Well, he was wrong: it was my faith in pastrami that saved me. That and the fact that the train wasn’t moving, which may or may not have been attributable to my faith in the aforementioned pastrami. Regardless, no guarantees.

I’ve got those wallpapers pretty much entirely penciled up. It’s just a matter of scanning and CG’ing them now. Assuming the disk recovery works, I should have them for you around next weekend.

Also assuming the disk recovery works, Tee-mab will be resuming next Wednesday, with the previously announced (but not yet really used) Wednesday-Weekend update schedule taking effect at that time.

In case you’re wondering, yes, I do pledge to stick to the update schedule from now on. This has been one of those mother-survived-some-horrible-illness kinds of situations for me. If it hadn’t been for the below mentioned individuals’ generosity, TMABB would be dead as a duck with a dowel in its doinker. At the very least, I owe it to them to make with the content.

The rest of you bastards can lick something non-fatally poisonous, though. Unless you just couldn’t spare the cash, I mean. Then it’s cool.

CURRENT MOOD: Polyurethane

Bad news, chicks and dudes.

So I ran the program I’d downloaded, paid the $100 to execute the recovery, and got a good portion of my files back. Unfortunately, most of the files I got back were corrupted beyond recognition. I’m going to try and get a refund, since the recovery didn’t work, but I figured I’d let y’all know, since it is your money after all.

If I can get the money back (and I’d better), I’m going to try and send the disk off to a lab and see what they can do. Sadly, this means that TMABB won’t be returning this week as I’d hoped. This also means it’s now going to cost me $250 to recover the disk. If anyone else wants to oblige with some more money, it’d be extremely welcome.

If I can get the money back, and the disk turns out to be unrecoverable, I’ll be more than happy to return the money to the donators, if they want it. I’ll keep you all posted.

CURRENT MOOD: Mobius strip

Update on the status of, y’know, things and, um, stuff. And whatnot. Things, stuff, and whatnot.

I’m having a biznatch of a time getting in touch with the support folks at BinaryBiz, the makers of the recovery software that didn’t work for me. I’m trying my hardest to get this money back, but I have yet to succeed in even speaking to a human being about this. You think it sucks trying to get your own money back? See what it feels like trying to get your fans’ money back. Blech.

I’m starting to resign myself to just letting the data go. Tee-mab won’t die as a result of this, though, so don’t worry too much. I think I can pluck some templates off of some old Illustrator files I burned to CD more than a year ago. The only things that’d be lost would be the Illustrator files from 2003 and 2004, and all of the script work I’d done, most of which I think I can rewrite from memory anyway. So while I’ll never be able to go back and modify any older strips or print out high resolution copies without re-CG’ing them completely (which really sucks ’cause I’d been considering selling high quality, autographed prints, made to order), I’ll at least be able to resume the comic, which is better’n nothin’.

Anyway, still trying to get your money back. Keep praying.

[EDIT] Oh, almost forgot, wallpapers should start to appear this weekend!

CURRENT MOOD: Chewbacca

CAN YOU SAY WALLPAPER???

‘Cause I can’t. I can only type it. But that didn’t stop me from completing for you the first in a series of five TMABB wallpapers!

Remember those Tone Poem thingies from the Episode I DVD? No? Oh. Well, they’re there. Check ‘em out. I don’t understand why they’re called tone poems, but that’s what this wallpaper series is gonna be like: five tone poems read by five Tee-mab characters. Word? Word.

So here’s the first of five, featuring our main man, Taco Man, reading his tone poem, “one fan.” Pick your resolution carefully now:

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I’ll work on getting a Downloads section set up eventually. Enjoy the new wallpaper!

CURRENT MOOD: Victoria Silvstedt Playmate of the Year

ADVENTURES IN DATA LOSS: IF ONLY IT WERE AN APRIL FOOL’S JOKE

I have some bad news for the people who were generous enough to fund the attempted recovery of the Official Hindrances to Progress Zip Disk. First, to recap for those who might have missed it, the recovery attempt failed miserably, so I began trying to get a refund. It turns out I should have read the Terms of Service a little more carefully, or at all, really. Long story short, I can’t legally get the money back. It’s gone.

So yeah, donators, I’m REALLY sorry your money turned out to be a waste. I can only imagine how sketchy this must look. But, I want to make it up to you. The best idea I can think of for this, aside from right out paying you back, is an original sketch of the character(s) of your choice, in pencil, without inking, because when I ink by hand, it more or less ruins the pencil, because I really suck at inking by hand. The sketch would be done on high quality Bristol 9×12, signed and dated in ink. As usual, no cursing, nudity, graphic violence, or video game jokes, but feel free to request anything else.

I’m suggesting this because right now, I don’t really have the funds to pay all of you back. Still, if anyone really wants his or her money back, I will of course be happy to oblige. I’ll be e-mailing everyone who donated.

As for the fate of the site, don’t worry, Taco Man and Burrito Boy ain’t goin’ nowheres, yo. I’ll be spending some time this weekend piecing things back together to the point where I can start updating again. In my perfect world, this equates to a glorious return next Wednesday.

Here’s to this fiasco never happening again! *clink* Mmmmmmm, beer.

CURRENT MOOD: Galactic

WALLPAPER #2!!!

The second in the five-large tone-poem-thingie wallpaper series features Burrito Boy in what is probably one of the best poses I’ve ever come up with. I really feel like I did a bang-up job with this bit of artsy fartsy. I even tapered off some of the lines with the eraser in Photoshop to make them look brushed on. Hardcore, I know.

Unfortunately, Beeb did not himself much care for the pose that has brought me so much pride of accomplishment, but he at least conveys these feelings constructively in his tone poem thingie entitled “one pose”:

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CURRENT MOOD: Saltine

I’m overloaded with schoolwork until Thursday. If Wednesday’s comic gets done, it won’t be up until Thursday evening at the earliest. Chances are, it’s not gonna happen at all, so let’s just go ahead and say “See ya Saturday, Billy!” and not get our hopes up.

CURRENT MOOD: EPS Conduit