An End of an Era

 

 

After nearly 13 years of service, as of last night I have retired my trusty "refurbished" Toshiba Satellite laptop. Sure, it's just a machine, but I've accomplished so much with it I decided to write a nice little send off.

 Purchased as "refurbished" for $250 in 2010, this was my first laptop, intended to be a portable production studio which included photo manipulation, logo design, video editing, sound recording and editing, and website building. On top of all that I read comics, played games, downloaded all sorts of stuff, ran all sorts of software, and used her as a primary machine for a plethora of various tasks. 

So much work has come out of this faithful machine, so much. I've replaced the battery about 3 times, and she's even had a grand reset a few times as well. The measly stock 240GB HDD would fill up fast very often, so in 2016 she got a SSD hard drive replacement "Brain Transplant" which extended her life that much more, running apps and transfers at lightning speed. 

She was set up and tuned to do anything I needed. Even when I purchased a Macbook Pro a  few years ago, she stuck around, able to convert files and run specific software I didn't yet enable on any other machine. I wanted to retire her then, but she was still so useful, so she stuck around and popped up as needed. 

At the beginning of this year I committed to building up a newer Windows machine, and little by little this new machine has been taught to do everything the old laptop did, aside from a few obsolete programs that are no longer attainable or supported. And now the time has come to where using the new machine is now preferable to this one. 

She held on a long time, even after her sound card went out, and the screen become color-glitchy at various angles, and when most of the USB ports were no longer dependable for file transfers. She kept booting up reliably. But the time has come to let her rest. I've cloned her SSD hard drive to a much smaller one (so I can retrieve the 1TB SSD and use it somewhere else), so if ever needed again she'll boot up. I've removed her battery, discharged any languishing electricity by pushing the power button, sealed her up in her trademark sleeve, and stashed her deep in the back of the mega-desk. 

It's truly an end of an era. The machine that was nearly a mascot for the Phillie Mansion and beyond, the one I took to Brooklyn and back, the one that spearheaded so many creative endeavors is finally finished. 

Rest easy, old friend

This is why I find computers so fascinating. When they're tuned correctly you can do damn near anything you need to, especially make a living. On this machine alone I've completed so many projects that have paid my living expenses thru the years. Student loans have been paid off with work done on this machine. A dependable machine can help you finish your work and then take it to the next level. And if you take care of it, it'll last as long as you need it to last, hence above. But, I've also been a poor artist for much of this time, you take care of what you have because you can't just go out and buy a new one. And that's why when people decide to get rid of computer after a few years, they see trash, I see so much potential. I like to take care of my machines and they take care of me. 

Well, it's time to move on to some new hardware.

*I've put this post on this site because it was only fitting. This site is as old as this laptop; indeed much of the work on this site was done on this laptop. But I will no longer update this site, save for other specific news/posts. Subscribe to my Substack to keep up with current me.

 

The Next Sh!t

I've started a Substack! Click HERE to go to it and when you get there subscribe by dropping in your email, and every time I post something new you'll be notified in your inbox.

 

The big idea is the Substack will take the place of this blog. I'm not saying this is the last post but it very well could be. Really I have nothing against the blogger. Nor am I making some kind of mad dash to start monetizing my posts and charging you for what you've been getting for free the last ten years. I could have monetized long ago by allowing Google to put ads wherever on the blog but I intentionally resisted. 

No, the main draw to the new platform is the ability to collect email addresses and notify YOU via email whenever I post something new. Blogger has always had a follow/subscribe mechanism available on their blogs, but I was never sure how they notified you. The blogs I followed never notified me. I just had to check back whenever I remembered to check. And in the meantime I missed out on timely deals, posts and other doings that I would have liked to be notified about.

In this day and age of community standards and social media pages deleting accounts for no discernible violations it's more important than ever to have all your stuff outside of that realm. And while I've maintained my own website (this one for the last ten years), I never collected email addresses or set up a feed notifier. And that's where the Substack comes in. 

I want to create a clearer channel between me and you, dear reader. It comes down to freedom of speech. Some people argue that being silenced on social media is a violation of freedom of speech. I disagree. The social media conglomerates are private companies and therefore they have to right to deny service to anyone they choose. That's why it's so important to be able to contact you outside of that. It's about freedom. Perhaps one day I'll decide I want to be free of any and all social media; suppose one day they all spontaneously shut down never to return (yeah, if that happens we may have bigger problems than speech)? I can still give you the chance to be updated with the latest comings and goings of my work in a timely manner.

In the meantime, this site will still remain here. I'll even try to keep the links updated. It's not going away. Toonzday.com is not going away. We're just migrating, trying something new. So go ahead and give it a shot. If staying updated with my work and other stuff is important to you please click the link and subscribe. Let's take our relationship to the next level.

HIT THE SUBSTACK TO CONTINUE

 

 

 

Ink Slinging 2021

 This year's Inktober is all digital. Here's all 31 days, formatted for the Insta cuz that's where I post. A few comics have been formatted for your reading pleasure.

 

 

 

Has anybody seen a tick's face?

 

  

Wedding Style

 Sometimes I do commissions. Here's a large wedding caricature whipped out for a family friend.

Ink brush with dry pastels