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

 

 

 

Oktoberfest

October flew by, so I'll express what I did and where I went thru pictures. Seems like it was just one big long party.

a skate party

an classic hip-hop party

a Hocus Pocus party

a Day of the Dead party

a Bachelor party

a...well, this pic is just funny.

Halloween Twenty Seventeen

And for breakfast....Dessert!

Here's a cool project I headed this month, an archival print of a family timeline. Once I received the copy I designed the tree, picked the fonts, and laid it out for screen printing on a nice acid-free archival paper.

detail of the family name

So I did all this plus nearly kicked #Inktober's ass. Next post: the Inktober Rundown! Stay tooned.

Stir Fry Hot Lobster

It was my birthday.

Been caught up with a lotta stuff this month, that's why i haven't posted. But......

Since I've been reordering books I gave my stale storefront a make-over, so check it ---->
and order some books.

It's been slow on here but that's gonna change very, very soon. Coming up next is #Inktober and I plan on completing all them (M'F'ing) prompts.

Check back here.

Survivor's Guilt

Hurricane Harvey, as in Harvey Pekar.

As I settled in that Friday night I understood that this weekend would be serious rain event. And while I anticipated serious flooding all over town I never imagined it would get this bad, a storm a million times more curmudgeonly than the main man himself.

It started on Wednesday with word of rainy weekend. "A storm is brewing in the Gulf," everybody spoke of at home and work. We gassed up the cars, made one last trip to the store for some bare essentials and hunkered down for a mind-melting 4 day weekend. The constant pitter-pattering of the incessant rain, the infinitely grey sky with no sun and the claustrophobic confines of the house secretly drove you nuts. Meanwhile as the weekend went on the constant bombardment of bad news coupled with an immense feeling of helplessness was enough to leave you emotionally exhausted in a few hours. And I know what I'm describing really ain't shit compared to those who have lost it all. I'm not trying to downplay their experience like mine is just as bad or anything. But here's how it looked on my side of town.

Saturday, Brays Bayou is on the rise.

Sunday the bayou peaked.

I think my lens was smudgy from all the moisture. keep in mind it was drizzling even in this shot. that's why these shots look washed out.

past those submerged shrubs and trees is Old Spanish Trail or OST, aka Rt. 90.

water almost touching Lidstone Bridge.

Facing north, downtown center right, with UH Central on the left.

 The water got high in the streets but never made it halfway up the drive way. My studio is the lowest lying room of the house and it's up front, so I was a little worried for a night or two that water would rise high enough to seep in. But alas, this neighborhood and the other surrounding areas drain out pretty well so flooding was kept mostly to the streets.

Over the last few days I have since gone back to work, but much of the city is still underwater. Various neighborhoods built on flood plains around the great reservoirs to the west (yes, that's right: built on the flood plain) are still underwater and have evacuated because it's still getting worse. While a lotta people have been displaced and have lost a great deal, if not everything, there has been a steady outpouring of help and aid in the form of citizens helping citizens and that has left me blown away. 

If you are interested in helping in any way there are numerous local organizations handling donations, contributions, and accepting volunteers to help out. I'm not saying don't give to the Red Cross, but there are other local organizations that could use money and will see to its utilization in a swifter, more efficient way so consider that when donating. A friend and local artist David Anderson has gone thru an ordeal so if you want to help a working artist get back on his feet you can help here. Another comic-making pal effected by the storm, James Roberts, could also use a hand here.

Harvey is gonna be a game changer in the real estate market: does this place flood, like Harvey flood?

Houston will never be same, and it'll be some time before it fully pulls itself back together. But if the people here are any indication of our strength there won't be any shortage of actuation and volition.

Now we just need to have some serious discussions about where and how to rebuild.

Token

Missed a month of September post so I'm tossing this in so I don't miss a month. Next month I'll have the Inktober Art blast but for this month I'm just throwing up a birthday photo (Virgos whats up?).

Also taking this post to plug the podcast my boy Lee Lawson has been doing month to month, check out the Shuffelapod, it's dope! He asked me to do the cover art for each episode and he just said do whatever I want, so the art truly is whatever I want and it works.

They're up for download and/or streaming on his site. Really good mix of music to work to or jam out doing whatever, spans all musical genres. If you're a music lover as I am you'll dig it. 

For episode 5 I literally used a pic from the remains of my birthday dinner. Lee said "fuck it, that's dope. The pope in a glass box, dope..." or something.

For the latest episode, 6, I give a shout to my late Grandfather who recently passed away. I like this old photo of him in the driveway with the family car in the 60s. 

Alfonso Perez Sr, circa age 17.

what a month.

The Metroid 2 remake AM2R is my shit. Been on that the last few months. Highly addictive. Highly recommended. But it's taken down, ya gotta scour the internet underbelly to find a copy. Snag 1.1 if you can.

Be sure to peep my upcoming events, details at the top right spot under "Where to Find Me"

I got a table at a sneaker summit last Saturday in October on the TSU Campus, 12pm to 4pm. I'll be next to Van G. Garrett.

and or course I'll be posting up at Zine Fest Houston 2016 with possibly a new zine. We'll see.

And lastly, my old curmudgeon of a coworker finally retired this month. This was his desk. I took this shot right before he took everything down. This is what we looked at everyday. He drew the stuff.

Okay, That covers the September post. Peace!