Cheap Flash.

Being in the right place at the right time has allowed me to purchase three copies of Flash for the price of one.

Way back when in 2004 I was perusing my favoritest computer store when I saw a used copy of Flash MX on the shelf for about $200. A lesson I learned a long time is you don't wait for next time to buy something like that. You buy it now. Many a time is that I decide I don't want that right now, I want it next week. Next week it is no longer on the shelf.

Not much later I noted that everybody had switched to Flash 8. I figure I should look into it as well. Discovered I could use Flash MX to upgrade for only $200. So I did. Flash 8 worked fine on XP and was a little hectic on Vista. So I saw no real reason to change. Until Win 7. It was just that Flash Eight was old tech. Not to sure if it would even work with Win 7. Didn't even try. Checked in with Adobe and found that my copy of Flash MX was still valid for the upgrade to Flash CS5.

I know that Flash's days are numbered. Adobe is moving in the direction of HTML5. I have a feeling that someday that Flash MX will be scrubbed as an upgrade tool so that Adobe can force people to buy the $700 full version that is no different than the upgrade.

Ravy 2011 Pg. 48.

Click Here.

Looks like only a few weeks left. Going end officially middle of December. I do have plans to fill out the last two weeks. Be picking up again in January.


By the way, Any Video Converter is mostly excellent addition to your video editing portfolio. It can convert just about anything to the most common formats. I have some Real Media formatted videos, and the codec packs for Windows wouldn't play them in Windows Media Player. The converter I was using before did a really crappy job on Real Media formatted files. I did a Google search and found Any Video Converter.  Tried it out and it worked fine. The free version will do what you need it to do. Even with GVI.

Addendum to Ya See It, Save It.

I had originally meant to tell this story a while ago but forgot. I could always go back into the article and add to it, but hey, I can probably stretch it out to a multi-paragraph, rambling, rabbit trailing off into unrelated nothingness of a multi-paragraph, rambling, rabbit trailing off into unrelated nothingness.

Around November of 2003, me and a bunch of guys were granted passes to go to Kuwait for about a few days of R&R. Not everybody could take leave during our little vacation in Iraq. So a drawing was held. People wrote their names on a piece of paper and put it in the platoon sergeant's hat. I didn't put my name in because I thought that the married soldiers should get the opportunity to go home. I was used to such long deployments. A few years earlier I had spent a couple of years in Korea and never took leave. Of course Korea and Iraq have a few differences, mostly in the amount of drinky-girls available to give you a lap dance.

So the drawing is held, and by total coincidence, happenstance, by shear luck itself, divine providence from God, Jesus, Allah, Buddha, Belldandy, the first name drawn was the platoon sergeant's, by the platoon sergeant. Wow, didn't see that coming.

So I get to go to the port-a-potty capitol of Operation Iraqi Liberation.

It was really nice. No weapon, got to leave that back with HQ. I had the SAW. Nice not to worry about that for a few days. A well stocked PX. Restocked on babywipes. I was down to those wet naps from the MREs. Trust me, babywipes are your friend. A real shower from a real shower. Hot water, with privacy. No PT. Sleep in, go to bed late as you want. On a real bed.

An internet cafe in which you can hook up your own laptop. Important note because remember at this time thumb drives had yet to become really available. All I had on me was a broken zip drive and my laptop. I paid my fee, plugged in and went to everybody's favorite place: Bob and George.

I had saved and read, re-read, read again, and read some more all of our favorites. It was time to update. Taco, Umiliphus, Oddball, Jailhouse Blues, and Warped Reality to name a few.

HOLD IT! Something is not right, here. Where's Warped Reality? It's not there at all? What happened? I want to know if all the other evil scientists ever managed to catch Dr. Evil.

My first instinct was to do an internet search. (I won't say a Google search because I quite frankly can't remember if I was using Google at this time.) I searched for Warped Reality and found a site called thosebeyondtime.com (don't bother it doesn't exist anymore.) Apparently Deccus decided to strike out on his own. I guess so he could do what he wanted to do without having to follow the rules set out by someone else.

That's one of the sad stories of cartooning. If you have someone else publish your work, you have a dozen other people telling you what to do. And sometimes making changes without any say so on your part.

Months and months later I'm home and go and try to find this site. All I find is a banner saying “Under Construction.” Once a month, once every two months, six, and so forth I check in until I get that “Server not found” messages. Another great web cartoonist captured by reality.

Fortunately I was smart. And saved all those new comics Deccus did. Oh, I forgot to mention in addition to Warped Reality there was another comic that Deccus had started. Ironically named “Those Beyond Time.” All about the Wily-bots adventures in time travel to put things wrong that once went right. I saved about seven of them.

That's what taught me the lesson to always save what you see. You never know if a comic, news article, Youtube video, or blog gets scrubbed out of existence.

Ravy 2011 Pg. 47.

Click

The last couple of weeks of comics were really fun to do. Working with the kids was a blast. Next year they really take over for awhile. Writing for them wasn't all that hard, I just had to keep my sense of humor in check. I'm dealing with characters that are between the ages of 4 and 14. Just because my parents let me read Hustler Humor at that age...

I poke fun of that. The kids sneaking into my room, finding all those black and white comic books, and getting a box of crayons to improve them. However, unlike Becky I don't go full Konata when buying manga so those are my only copies of Haruhi Suzumiya being colored in.

The next run of comics were more difficult logistically speaking. Taking dozens of pictures of that car, cutting it out, screen shots of Google Street View and getting that camera turned perfect and giving up when it won't. Forgetting what percentage of fading was used for the characters behind the glass.

That last paragraph in conjunction with this week's comics is a hint of things to come. But not next year, I still have yet to explain why Nancy needed all those rubber balls.

here.

Ravy 2011 Pg. 46.

Click Here.

It's been a couple of weeks on the new schedule. It's been trying. To getting the blog updated at the right time to getting the page uploaded so the link up there works. Then there's the fact I've forgotten a few times to even update the site. I try my best because I'm annoyed by those that don't.

Bloom County has been annoying me. It's not Berkely Breathed's fault what so ever. I got over being annoyed by him 20 years ago. It's the syndicator really. I have a paid subscription that delivers to my inbox a slew of selected comics. The one that I save is Bloom County. What annoys me is the filename. They put today's date on the comic. It gets worse because you can go to the web site that Bloom County is posted on and the filename is a long string of garbage. For about a week last month the ones I got in the mail did not have today's date. They had a generic filename. It was the same one everyday. So I had to redo the name myself.

It did get fixed.

Now the version of Bloom County over at the Seattle Times had the original date on it. I like that because I could look up that date in history and get reminded of what was going on in the world at the time. Which was influencing the comic then.

However.

That run has come to an end. At the time I write this, that page seems locked on the final comic. May be they can go to Outland, or better yet start at the beginning. Time will tell.

I gets worse. I have all the original books. I even have several copies of the album, still in the books. I have even been buying the Bloom County Anthology series. The best part of that, there are comics that were published way back when, but have been lost, protoform versions, and the occasional commentary.

I'm sure Mr. Breathed appreciates all the money that I, and originally my mom through my dad's credit card have given him.