Updates and such

For those of you waiting for this week's updates...you might have a bit longer to wait than usual.

I'm in the last minute stages of prepping for CONvergence, and we leave for the convention tomorrow.

I'm working on a last-minute LEGO project that I hope to display, along with Tom, Crow, the Forrester Mural and some other things. I'm bringing several cameras, so there should be some interesting stuff showing up my Flikr Stream if you want to keep an eye on it.

I'm also finishing up sets for the next arc of Brick House - hence the delay there.

Anyway, I'll be back in town, and hopefully back on track, by next Tuesday.

In the meantime, check back occasionally - I'm bringing my laptop so I should be posting *something* over the next few days.

Finally, for those of you who are grumpy about all the recent interruptions to your free entertainment - after this con I'll be officially out of cash for a few months, so I'm more likely to be around and working on the site.

Brickworld Photos on-line

I got a chance to upload the rest of my Brickworld 2009 photos to Flickr.



Click on the pic to go directly to the set!

New Blog Functionality

As I keep mentioning, next week I'll be at BrickWorld. Since I'm not sure how much net access I'll have, I'm setting up some features to let me remote-post to the blog from my various mobile devices. If you see some test posts pop up and then disappear, that's what's going on.

I'll also be setting up as much content as I can to auto-publish. We'll see how that goes.

The downside will be comment moderation. I'm not comfortable turning things back to unmoderated, but there's going to be some serious lag-time on things unless I do. Oh well. I'll burn that bridge when I come to it.

Brickworld

Well, I'm all signed up to attend Brickworld in June.

This will be the first LEGO-centric convention I've attended - I'm looking forward to the experience.

This and that

I've gotten some email asking what's up with the scheduling and projects around here. This post will address some of it - and hopefully give you guys an idea of what you can expect to see on Reasonably Clever in the coming months.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, things are in flux as I try and find a balance between my on-line, personal, and professional lives. Yes, I have a day job. Yes, I even have a bit of a life. And, no, I don't make any money off this site. The little cash that I generate from the Buy-Me-Mizer and the Google Ads go straight back into paying for the site and the LEGO needed to keep it going.

Why do I do it? Heck if I know. There are certainly days when the aggravation runs high and I'm tempted to just shut the site down and move on. But - for now - I still enjoy the projects that keep Reasonably Clever going.

Anyway, here's the news that's fit to print....


Comics:

Brick House is in flux at the moment. I nearly put it on hiatus, but decided I'd at least try and get one episode a week out. I'm not overly happy with the strip at the moment, so I've been working on a script to fix the issues as I see them without resorting to a complete "reboot" of the story.

My goal is to return to at least a 3-day a week schedule for the strip within the next month or two. We'll see if that happens or not. For now, look for episodes on Friday. The format of the strip will probably stay the 4-panel layout I've gotten comfortable with, but I might use more than one layout per day. It'll all depend on how much time I have free to devote to it.

I'm also in the design phase of a second comic project. This time I'll only be responsible for the illustrations - I've teamed up with an up and coming comic author to provide the visuals for her story. It should be a new and interesting challenge for me. Look for that late in the year.

Reviews:

I'm getting a kick out of doing the Daily Fail. I started out my Internet Life writing bootleg toy reviews, and it's nice to return to familiar ground. The new review format is still taking shape - I have some ideas to make them a bit more focused that I'll be trying out in the coming weeks. I still have weeks of LEGO knock-offs in the queue, and when they're done I may start covering non-LEGO bootlegs again.

I've also been toying around with what to do with the bootlegs once they've been reviewed. Several people have suggested destroying them or doing "death match" type contests. I'm looking into that as a possibility - it'd certainly make for some interesting video clips, anyway.

I've been asked if I'll be returning to reviewing LEGO sets as well. The answer is "probably." Once the review format for the Fail is established, I'll likely make a variation of it for legit products. Ideally, it'd be nice to have one "real" review a week, perhaps taking the place of a daily Fail. Again, we'll just have to see how things work out.

LEGO building:

With all that going on, I still have to find time to do some actual building. I'm currently working on some very large models to be shown at CONVergence - with a bit of luck I might even have them ready to preview at BrickWorld.

Serenity is on indefinite hold. I'm still interested in the project, I still have a ton of brick incorporated into various half-complete beta builds. But right now I've got too many other pressing issues to devote any real time to it.

Contests:

I'm hoping we'll see some action on the Micropolis contest soon. I've been answering some questions in email about the standards, but I haven't seen the expected batch of early entries I normally get. Maybe people are daunted by actually having a strict set of rules to follow - or, more likely, it just takes longer to build something to a standard than just making it up as you go.

That said, I'd appreciate it if people would help promote this contest a bit in other blogs - submit it as a news item over at Brothers Brick or your LEGO forum of choice, mention it in your own journal, etc. There are some cool prizes up for grabs, after all.

This will likely be the last contest for a bit, too. Unless I do something small in May it'll be late July before I have the time to devote to another contest.

In Conclusion....

...I'm still looking at spending way too much time doing crap for this site.

Oh, well. I'll figure something out.

Blog Troubles

As sometimes happens, Blogger was implementing a bug fix of some sort and managed to mess up the FTP-reliant blogs like this one. I'm sure it'll get fixed in the next day or so; and when it does this post will appear to let you know things are back to normal.

To illustrate my feelings, here's a closeup of a toy I found at TRU over the holiday break:

Answers on a postcard

A little while ago, I received an email from a reader. Yes, I know, a shockingly rare occurrence. Still, it did happen. Here’s what they had to say:

I was thinking about making a webcomic on ComicGenesis.com and because I know you have a webcomic, I was wondering:

"Is it worth all the time and money to make a webcomic? Does it get old after a while? Do you know of the safest webcomic site?"

I was tempted to fire off a quick and flippant email reply, mainly because I’m a jerk like that sometimes. But I’m quickly approaching my two-year anniversary of being a “webcomic author” and I thought these questions might deserve a bit more serious consideration. So instead of snark to one reader, you all must suffer through a rambling blog post. Neener.

Q: “Is it worth all the time and money to make a webcomic?”

A: No.

Sorry, still in that “flippant reply” mode. Let me try again.

Q: “Is it worth all the time and money to make a webcomic?”

A: Hell no.

Okay, okay, one more try.

Q: “Is it worth all the time and money to make a webcomic?”

A: It depends on what you’re hoping to get out of it. Are you looking for fame? Or fortune? Or just to share the world as you see it?

If you’re looking for fame, you need to realize that for every smash hit like XKCD or Irregular Web Comic there are tens of thousands of strips who never see any traffic at all. Sure, there’s always the chance you’ll become the next darling of the meme-scene. And you might also win the lottery. You do the math.

If, on the other hand, your definition of “fame” is scaled back a bit – if you can be happy with a couple of hundred readers…or even a couple dozen…then a comic might be “worth it” after all.

If you’re looking for fortune, I can only think of a half dozen web strips that have let their creators leave their other day jobs. Again, compare that to the tens of thousands of comics out there. If you have mad business skills (or a manager who does) then you might be able to make a go of it. I wish you luck. I've yet to see a dime.

If you’re just looking to tell your stories…to have a good time with creating something new…well, that’s the best reason I can think of to pick up a pen or camera and give things a try. This is why I make Brick House – I have stories that I want to tell, and this is a good way to get them out of my imagination and into “the real world.”

For me, it's worth it. But I'm a freakish mutant. You mileage may vary.

Q: Does it get old after a while?

A: Short answer: Of course it does.

When you look out at those tens of thousands of comics I mentioned earlier – you’ll notice that maybe one or two percent of them are actually updated on anything near a weekly basis. Most lasted a few months, tops, and then were abandoned. The creators lost interest, got busy, or found that they weren’t getting the return they wanted or needed from their effort.

But, unless you’re an overnight success, one of the few ways to develop a strong reader-base is to sign up for the long haul. You have to give readers time to find you, and then you have to still be around months later when they finally check their bookmarks and wander back again.

I remember reading an article that said you had wait until your comic has a year+ in archives before you could even begin to guess if it was a "success" or not.

If that sort of timeline scares you - you might want to reconsider starting a strip.

Q: Do you know of the safest webcomic site?

A: Well, that depends on what you mean by “safest”. The “safest” way to control your content is probably to host things yourself – you can get cheap webhosting for under $5 a month if you look around. However, that means you’re going to need to know website development in addition to making your comic. Not everyone’s cup of tea.

If you want another site to handle the web-side of things for you, I’ve heard decent things about http://www.comicgenesis.com/ . I’m sure there are other hosting options out there, but I haven’t felt the need to do any research.

Anyway. There you go. A long winded reply to some causal questions. Aren’t you glad it’s Friday?

Strips up early, updates Tuesday.

Heading out of town in the morning - I'll be back mid-day on Tuesday. I've posted the comics, but there's not much I can do about the contest entries until I get back. Nobody panic, it'll all get sorted out.

For those of you with a life...

Some of you might be wondering why Google has this as their logo today:

The reason? The LEGO brick turns 50 today. (Well, sometime in January, anyway.)

Happy birthday to the solution to, and cause of, all my problems.

Read more about it a the LEGO Press Release.

Hello, 2008!

Happy New Year, everyone.

Hope that 2008 brings you all that you wish it to.

Merry Chirstmas!

Merry Christmas, everyone.

(Or however you choose to celebrate this season. Please modify the above to the festive greeting of your choosing.)

Thank you to everyone who took the time to visit my little ego-centric corner of the web this year. Particular thanks to Ian Healey, the Forumites, Mike and Beth, people who have emailed, and those who take the time to comment here in the blog - it's really nice to not just talk to myself. The site wouldn't be the same without you.

Here's hoping the new year holds all that you wish it to.

Power Back On

Due to an ice storm we lost power here for a while. It just now came back.

I'll be getting updates to the site posted as quickly as I can. Thanks for your patience.

Wigswap Theater Presents...

Whiskey's hair makes just about anyone look like Guy Gardner.

Why does the universe hate me?

At my office we're doing "Secret Santas". It's a gift exchange were you buy small items for a randomly-selected co-worker for a week.

In our office we try and make things easier for our Secret Santa by writing out a short list of gift ideas. Of course, at the top of my list was "LEGO."

My Santa missed Tuesday, and promised to make it up to me with a very nice gift on Wednesday.

Yesterday, I got this:

In case you can't make it out, those are four small bags of MEGA BLOKS.

The evil opposite of LEGO bricks.

And I'll have to be nice, because odds are the person who bought me these just didn't know better. I mean, it's not reasonable to expect them to know how MEGA BLOKS make my skin crawl.

But, man, it still stings.

It's my birthday...

Things are going to be a bit delayed today - you see, it's my birthday.

While I do have the day off from work, that just means I have a chance to actually go out (in the daylight!) and see and do things. As a result, the strip and countdown will be going up later this afternoon. I trust you'll understand.

I did get myself an early present - most of the 2008 Exo-Force sets that have shown up at Toys R Us (They were having a "buy 1, get 1 half off" sale.) and a couple of the new "Glow Racers". Look for reviews of those sets to start appearing over the next few days.

Slight Delay

Sorry, everyone. I don't have today's material ready quite yet.

(We're redoing the bathroom in our house, and demolition of the old begins tomorrow morning. Getting everything out of the way took a lot longer than I had planned.)

I do have the photos taken - so I'll be able to catch up over the course of the day tomorrow. (Hooray for break time!) I may even (gasp) get a bit ahead of the publishing schedule.

Anyway, though some of you might be wondering what was up.

This 'n' That

Just a couple of quick announcements.

First, the 2007 Advent Madness pages are up and linked to from the main page. They don't do much of anything yet - just a bunch of "no peeking" placeholder pages. But the foundation for next month's fun is there.

Also, by request, here's a Decpticon version of the Holiday Challenge wallpaper:

Finally, remember that the Webcomic begins a daily run starting tomorrow - so be sure to stop by to see the latest.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I have the judge's forms in for the Mars Re-Mission contest - I just have to tally the votes and update the entry pages. I may not get to the updates today, but I'll post who the winners are as soon as I get around to totaling the votes.

Most likely that'll be later in the day. Right now there's EATIN' to be done.


Mmmm. Turkey day.

LEGO Sucks.

Grrrrr.

I'm really annoyed at how LEGO shop-at-home is handling orders. If I put things into my cart as "in stock", go through the whole checkout process as "in stock" and get a confirmation that they are "in stock and shipping soon" I should be fine, right?

Nope. First the status went to "On backorder - will ship in 30 days". A real problem as these were Christmas gifts. But still workable.

Then the second email: "Canceled. We will not be getting any more of item X. Your credit card will not be charged." NOW what am I to do?

Since they moved their distribution center I've had nothing but problems with Shop-at-Home.

First I get someone else's order in my box - I had a huge clearance order and instead I get some low-end Star Wars stuff. By the time I get the box to report the problem all the items I had ordered had gone out of stock, so no LEGO clearance joy for me.

And this will make the third time I've lost out on items (sometimes not even clearance stuff, just IN STOCK items!) because their on-line inventory system apparently has no basis in real stocking levels.

Why even order from them if all you're really doing is putting a hold on funds on your credit card while they decide that "whoops! Once again we actually don't have any of that stuff in our warehouse after all"?

But I know I'll be on their site again soon, putting stuff into their shopping cart and hoping for a miracle.

Because I am LEGO's Bitch.

Blog about the Blog

You may have noticed that this page was getting...shall we say...infrequent updates over the last couple of days. This was due to a problem on the Blogger.com side of things. If you FTP your blog to host it on your own site, as I do, their servers weren't completing the request for some reason.

Things appear to be running smoothly now, though. Hopefully things will stay that way for a bit.

Small bit of housekeeping news: I'm going to be at OmegaCon over the weekend. Related travel issues means I may not have web-access (or time) to update the strip on Friday and Monday. I'm considering just posting all the strips through Monday to the web tomorrow morning - it seems nicer than making anyone wait until Tuesday sometime to get their fix. I'll post links here in the Blog - so if you would rather read things "one day at a time" you still can.

November Site Changes

November is a tough month for Website themes. It's a bit too early to go with the "snowy" Christmastime graphics - at least until after Thanksgiving, anyway. I suppose I could try and build a cornucopia out of bricks...

...nah. Too many other projects already on my plate.


Regardless, I had to update the site's Halloween icons and colors to something less "October-y". The new ones may not be month-specific, but will serve quite well as my default set.

The mini-figure in the Blog graphic is in my own likeness, as seems appropriate.

The Misc icon is "Mr. Short", the short lived character from the very first days of Brick House.

Finally, the new "LEGO" avatar is a dwarf from a new Castle set. (Detail photo at left, obviously.)

I just love these new mini-figures - the latest expansions to the Castle theme have all been top-notch. The new skeleton torso/arm setup that allows for posing of the figure, the skeletal horses, the new wizard "lightning" effect pieces...all great improvements and additions. Kudos to LEGO for their work in this area.

Now if only we could see a return of Classic Space...

Happy Halloween!

Hope everyone enjoys this day of haunted candy.

My wife is very much a Halloween Gal - when I got out of the shower this morning she had just finished putting in denture-quality fangs to make her outfit today "that much more special." We made a special trip to Target last night for candy for the Trick or Treaters. She has plans to screen a spooky movie or two tonight as well.

As for me, I enjoy the pageantry, but I've yet to find a costume theme that I can really get excited about. Giant LEGO mini-figures have already been done, after all.

Ah well. Maybe next year.


There's a reason the 'Mizer icon is to the right. Today is the last day to order Buy Me Mizer figures and get the free Spooky October Extras.

Tomorrow things go back to 'normal' around here.

Well, whatever passes for normal in these parts, anyways...