Looking at the effects humans have had on their ecosystems since the Industrial Revolution, it’s easy to feel like we’re turning this planet into a wasteland and wonder just where the hell we think we’re going to live when it’s all destroyed. Hearing about some of the methods engineers are finding to accomplish great things while being able to maintain a natural balance with the world gives a welcome sense of optimism that we just might be able to stay here for the long haul.

But the thing is, that’s not how evolution works. Species do not turn into something new. If they did, there wouldn’t still be monkeys in the same geographical areas as humans, as creationists are so wont to point out.

The rise of a new species is marked by the point at which a one subset of a species can no longer interbreed with another. It is a split, not a switch. Parallel, not serial. In our case, such an event results in two separate species of human. This has happened several times in the past, and historically, one species has eventually died out in favor of the other (neanderthals are a fairly recent example, having survived alongside our own species until about 25,000 years ago).

Do you see the scary bit here? The same thing is going to happen to us someday. We will not evolve. Instead, a smarter, more attractive version of us will become reproductively incompatible with us, and we will either die out or become geologically sequestered from the new homo supersapiens like our prehensile-tailed ancestors.

Trippy, eh?

Ever get the feeling that this is already happening?

Over the last few years, I’ve noticed that I go through an oscillating pattern between big motivation and crippling, procrastinatory depression, with a short and elusive middle-ground usually indicating that I’m slipping into the depression phase.  This happens somewhere between three and four times per year. Let’s say sqrt(12) times, that way the interval between the meltdowns in months and the number of meltdowns per year have the same scalar component.

I don’t think I’m bipolar, the frequency of the cycle is too low. I think the issue is more that I have a nasty procrastination habit that is only defeated by unreasonable optimism. Sort of how alcoholism is the only disease that people are allowed to get mad at you for, procrastination is the only psychological disorder I can think of that brings out the most non-constructive help in myself and those around me. “Stop procrastinating! Don’t be lazy, just fucking do it,” and so on. Words like that were driven so deeply into my head as a kid that I don’t even need anyone to say them in order to hear them anymore.

And that’s what causes the the meltdowns: I slack off for at least two days in a row (I’m surprisingly capable of recovering from only a single day of procrastinating as long as I focus on not letting it go any farther), which leads me to beat myself down about my procrastination issues, which provokes my depression issues, which leads to more procrastination, et bloody cetera, until the meltdown. After a week or so of being capable of little more than staring, something will inspire me and I’ll whip back into shape, rearrange my environment with a fresh set of motivational hacks, and go hyper-productive for several weeks until the first time I miss two days of productivity in a row again.

This wasn’t that big of a problem years ago, but ever since the goddesses of cohabitation blessed my home with someone to drag down with me, it’s become an issue. My fiancee deserves better, is what I’m saying, so, somehow, I need to fix this cycle. More precisely, I want to. But how do I keep myself riding on the momentum of my post-crash motivation once it starts? Or is that even the answer? Is the problem more that I still punish myself for procrastinating?

I’m not really looking for advice here, mostly because no one seems to be able to do any better than, “Why don’t you just not procrastinate?” I blame puritan America, “the only advanced economy that does not guarantee its workers any paid vacation or holidays,” and its idea of a “work ethic” for that. It’s just so remarkable that this society has trained itself to believe that doing work is the ethical thing to do. If you’re not working, you’re bad! If you’re not making your disproportionate contribution of blood and sweat in exchange for the gracious handouts from the upper class, you’re lazy! And because of that line of thinking, any time someone gets into the habit of not diving head first into unpleasant tasks — even if they’re otherwise productive! — they get labeled a procrastinator and shunned.

I’m not sure what I hoped to accomplish by writing this. All I know is that I’m productive right now, and I have no idea how to ensure I’ll stay that way. Does anybody have any advice that favors the carrot over the stick for once?

First person to say, “Well, if you’re already thinking you’re going to fail, then of course you’re going to,” gets a tetherball pole up the nose.

I’ve mellowed out since then and have found a satisfying balance between spending and not spending, so I can once again proudly call myself a staunch Moderate, but I do still read two or three personal finance blogs just for the occassional moments of insight.

Thing is, though, personal finance bloggers are really starting to annoy me. Let me show you why.

Around this time last year, a certain blogger made a purchase that he found himself regretting terribly. Consumed by guilt, he chastised himself for his frivolity and thought about what he could have done with the money that he no longer could. He could have paid down debt! He could have invested it! He could have put it towards his next car purchase! But instead, he squandered it on a material possession. Fortunately, he shared this experience with the world, so that his readers could learn from his mistake.

The mistake? He spent $50 on a copy of Mario Kart Wii.

Are you. Fucking. Kidding me?

Simple Dollar Trent is a pretty smart guy who has a lot of insights to offer when it comes to frugality and investing. Okay, so pretty much everything he says is lifted directly from whatever book he’s read that week anyway, but that doesn’t make his blog any less useful.

But turning on the Guilt Switch for a small indulgence like a Wii game?

There’s another group of people who beat themselves half to death whenever they make the slightest deviation from their heavily polarized lifestyles: Clergy. The more I read blogs like Trent’s, the more they sound like the endless rants about how one should behave that come from the world’s religious epicenters. Adept though he is at relaying helpful financial advice, it’s hard to ignore the fact that he is, ultimately, just another midwestern psycho-conservative.

It’s fine to concentrate on living within your means and saving for the future. Better than fine. It’s crucial. But to take it to such an extreme that you forget how to enjoy the occasional splurge will only turn you into a preacher.

The neatest thing about the app is the way it records all of your brush strokes as you go along. This allows it to provide two very cool features in a free companion desktop app (OS X only, I’m afraid). First, you can play back the entire process of creating your drawing, and then export it to QuickTime. Here’s the video for the drawing of Burrito Boy above:

Second, the desktop app can export HUGE versions of your drawings. The final image that’s stored on your iPhone is only the resolution of the screen (320 x 480), so you’d think that blowing the drawing up to 1920 x2880, but what results is actually really clean and just looks like it was painted with a thick brush. I’m pretty sure it does this by simply playing back your brush strokes onto a much larger canvas. Pretty genius. Here’s a humongulous version of the same Burrito Boy (click to enlarge, a lot):

If you’re the drawing type and you own an iPhone or iPod Touch, it’s definitely worth the measley $4.99 Brushes costs to try it out. It’s a great way to pass the time at work.

There’s a similar app called Colors! that I may also try out. For me, the real draw with that one is that it can upload and share your drawings on their online gallery, which also includes drawings from the DS version of the application. The gallery even boasts the same playback feature that Brushes’ desktop app has, without you having to go through the rigmarole of uploading a Quicktime video to YouTube.

I really dig the way developers keep finding ways to make my iPhone more indispensable.

“Yeah, that’s why I’ve got this little bald spot here under my chin,” said the local man, who claims to have suffered from this “disorder” for most of his life. “I mean no one can really see it, so it’s like, eh, whatever.”

The man’s neighbors were appalled when they finally learned of his completely fucking retarded affliction.

“Are you fucking kidding me? That’s it? I thought we were gonna find out he was like a fucking pyro or something,” one neighbor said. “So, what, he just plucks his whiskers out? What the fuck?”

“Can’t he just not do that?” said another neighbor.

It has been reported that the man’s fiancee is helping him cope with the disorder by pointing out his plucking when she sees him do it.

“Sometimes I go into the bathroom if I find a hair that’s really bothering me, though,” the man added after his fiancee left the room.

Note: I wrote this for the Tee-mab book (still available for purchase!) well over a year ago. Not many people have gotten to read it, but I really like it and consider it amongst my best material, so I’m recopying it here for everyone to devour. Yum yum yum.

In most parts of the world, superheroes comprise an extension of local police forces. Though modern superheroes are revered by the citizens that they swear to serve, the world’s superhero systems have a long history of vigilantism and blatant showmanship.

The first reported superhero appeared in the mid 1800’s, a flamboyant performing crimefighter who called himself Mr. Splendid. Splendid, with his trademark handlebar mustache and billowing pants, captured the public’s imagination as he independently defeated criminals in epic battles featuring dazzling displays of acrobatics. His service to the law proved to be indispensable, but in time, Mr. Splendid’s handsome looks and flashy pageantry began to attract criminals who sought to build similar fame for themselves. Thus the first supervillains entered the spotlight.

According to news records, Mr. Splendid’s first encounter with a supervillain was in the spring of 1867, when he faced off against the rogue physician, Dr. Smallpox, in a small town in Pennsylvania. The hours-long battle that ensued was filled with brilliant pyrotechnics, gripping drama, and carefully choreographed hand-to-hand combat. Citizens all throughout town came to gawk at the spectacle, and after nearly an entire afternoon of rave critical reviews, Dr. Smallpox offered a draw. Mr. Splendid accepted the offer, only to challenge Dr. Smallpox again several weeks later after having recruited the world’s first super sidekick — a local adolescent who took the name Jonathan Magnificent — to tip the odds in his favor.

Dr. Smallpox responded by recruiting a comrade of his own: a mad vagabond named Frederick the Rabid. Seeing yet another stalemate, Mr. Splendid sought out further allies, prompting Dr. Smallpox to act in turn. So the cycle continued until the conflict, though entertaining beyond the wildest imaginations of all who witnessed it, became a meme that spread out-of-control throughout the world.

The fights, while dangerous, had proved too delightful for the public to be willing to live without them. Nevertheless, the wanton destruction that typically accompanied superbattles necessitated legislation, and so the North American Stylized Crimfighting Commission (NASCC) was founded in 1877 in an attempt to minimize — through careful regulation — the impact of the rapidly proliferating superconflict, while still maximizing the entertainment value that it provided.

Today, in America, there is one superhero or superduo for approximately every 5000 civilians (duos are allowed to share posts, and have similar rights to married couples in most states). To ensure that the balance between villains and heroes remains even enough to keep the battles interesting, most district posts are reserved for heroes who have acquired the single-minded attention of a similarly-abled supervillain. It is not uncommon for new college graduates to spend several years making a meager, independent living before entering a nemesisial relationship with a supercriminal.

Controversy over the superhero system continues to this day. Supporters maintain that heroes are needed to combat the ever present supervillain menace, while detractors frequently point out that these villains only came to exist in the first place because of the vanity of the superheroes. One thing, however, remains clear: The battles are really damned cool to watch.

Ray Merkler
Accredited Superologist
October 5, 2007

Kids keeping you up late and not giving you a chance to exercise? Tough Shit! Do It Anyway!

Allergies bothering you and you just don’t feel like working on your novel tonight? Tough Shit! Do It Anyway!

With my new method, you can go from this:

To this:

…In just three or four years of dedicated hard work!

The TMABB site is still there, still showing the goodbye entry, still advertising the book that people finally stopped buying a few months after the end. I don’t load the site very often, but it’s never easy when I do. I miss it, even despite how much I hated working on it half of the time. It’s sort of the way you miss an ex.

The whole thing is still incredibly disappointing for me. Webcomics has always been a pretty tight community, and I guess I just really wanted to be a part of it, to be known. Part of me still does. Tee-mab was simply not succeeding, though, despite my best efforts.

I was trying! Really! But two years of giving it a solid go without seeing any significant growth in audience? If it was going to succeed, it would have after the first year. I stuck it out longer than I should have, though, because I wanted to be really sure that things weren’t going to turn around. And they didn’t. I mean, okay, at least I broke even on the book, but I only printed 15 copies. So I quit.

The good news is, my life has gotten a lot better in the last year. My weekly routine is now basically free of stress. I’m making real progress on my current big project, after having stalled on Ultimate Epic Conflict Advance!. My fiancee and I have managed to build a homebrewing blog that pays for more than its share of my Dreamhost account. I have a fiancee. So things are totally better now. Quitting proved to be the right decision.

There’s just still a lot of guilt. I still have the story in my head, but it looks like it’s never going to get finished. I hate that. It’s a really good story, I swear. I’ve told it to a select few people and they seemed to like it. We were about six months away from the most awesome-sauce plot twist ever when I quit. You’d've loved it. You would’ve crapped your pants and it would have smelled like feces.

Maybe I should have quit sooner. If I had realized the strip was failing before I used up all of my energy on it, I would have had it in me to at least close out the story.

I hope I can revisit TMABB some day, give it a full blown do-over from square one. For now, though, I have more potentially lucrative projects that I want to give my attention to.