I used to take my headphones off when I noticed someone was talking loudly on the subway because I was curious what it was.
Now, not so much.
Posts Tagged ‘ipod’
36 items.
You may or may not have heard yesterday that this New York State Senator Carl Kruger has proposed $100 fines for people using electronic devices such as Blackberrys and iPods while crossing the street. This is in response to pedestrian deaths recently where the person hit by car was using some sort of electronic device while crossing the street. “Government has an obligation to protect its citizenry,” he says. He says this is turning into a major public safety crisis.
By the time this comic is up, this idea will probably already be shut down based off of sheer stupidity. If by some miracle this were to pass, the police would care as much as they care about people jaywalking.
I admit I’m guilty of this whenever I can get a clear view of someone’s iPod. I’m just curious about what they might be listening to. Last night when I was taking the subway home I was listening to Ron D. Moore’s podcast for Battlestar Galactica and this guy sitting next to me took several looks down at my iPod to see what I was listening to. Either that or he was eyeing my small duck god plushie from Spirited Away.
This happens to me occasionally and I usually feel a little bit guilty about it. Either I’m listening to my iPod or even listening to my iPod while playing my Nintendo DS as I walk past this person asking if I have any spare change. Just last night it was timed just like this where as soon as I pulled the iPod out someone asked me for change. Homeless people asking for change in a decently populated area are doing just fine which is why I don’t give out change, but I still cringe a little during moments like these.
The character’s desire for an iPod I realized a long time ago really wasn’t something that was sustainable or even funny after a while so why the hell not give him one? If he couldn’t save up enough money in the past few years to get one then he probably has other problems. I still have my third generation iPod with the four buttons above the touch wheel. I’m not upgrading until mine goes kaput or the “true” video iPod comes out.
I do this all the time. In fact I have a playlist that is specifically for walking to because the songs all play at about the same tempo which perfectly fits my walking speed. There are times walking home when my walking will noticeably slow down or speeds up. I sometimes wonder if the people around me notice.
I didn’t actually do it but I realized shortly after the song that it was extremely tempting and almost felt like the natural thing to do. The thing about Moby’s remix of the James Bond theme is of course it had no lyrics so when the only words spoken outloud during the song (except for the “Bond, James Bond.”) I naturally want to say them as they happen. Maybe it’s just me and my intense desire to sing along with the music I’m listening to which is suppressed only by the fact I tend to lip sync the music I’m listening to instead. I used to be kind of embarrassed but most of the people seeing me do that on the street or in the subway aren’t ever going to see me again and even if they are I’m not going to be embarrassed to be the guy on the subway platform or lip syncs his music.
Ever since the first sound class I took at NYU I’ve been curious about getting my ears irrigated, because supposedly it’s almost as if you have super hearing afterwards. The way I understand it is that they essentially have a high pressure mini-hose with warm water or some other solution that they spray into your ear which melts the earwax and then comes out into the plastic trough or something they hold underneath your ear. A friend of mine at work has had it done a bunch of times and says it’s awesome. Though when I went to my doctor a while ago he said that I didn’t seem to have any earwax. Granted I had cleaned them that morning, but saying I had none was complete bull.
I don’t think I have inordinately waxy ears, but the headphones I have are pretty irritating enough without dealing with that. The thing about my headphones is that the cords to each ear are uneven. You’ve probably seen people wearing this kind of headphone, the left ear from the splitter to the actual earbud is about five inches. Whereas the RIGHT ear’s cord is about NINETEEN inches. Don’t know what the designer was thinking, it’s supposed to go behind your neck? Even if that’s the case, what happens is that if the cord get slightly snagged the left ear is INSTANTLY pulled out which gets very irritating. Also, if the cord is just between my iPod and my shoulder strap, if there isn’t any slack, the left will start pulling out so I have to create slack so it doesn’t. Terrible design. Only thing is that the sound is much better than your average Apple earbuds.
It’s probably just safer to not use white headphones and/or display your electronics to the world. Using a crappy CD player must not make you as tempting a target either.
1000 Comics. I’m glad that I was paying close enough attention to mark this one since I missed my 500th. I was going to show a wider range of comics, but I realize it didn’t actually take that long to get the character more or less where he is now. Drawings still look weird to me even only a year back, but they’re still close enough that it’s not worth juxtaposing. I like looking at how different the drawings are because to me that gives me a bigger sense of accomplishment than this being my 1000th comic.
For another page from the past check out the cached homepage at archive.org in all its Comic Sans glory!
As for what the future holds I still don’t know how much longer I’m going to go on. My biggest fear is not realizing when the comic has lots its steam, and subjecting people to lots of old formulaic comics where I’m really just repeating myself all the time. I’m always saying that I’m running out of ideas, and despite momentary bursts of inspiration, it’s increasingly hard to come up with new ideas or new ways of seeing old ideas every weekday.
I still have a bunch of ideas for where the site can go from here. I still haven’t abandoned the idea of opening a Cafepress store or joining some other website for T-shirts, and other useless little things you can buy with the character’s face on it. Part of it is laziness, the other part is I have no sense of design for such things.
I say in my About page that the most important thing about this comic is that it keeps me creative for at least a few minutes a day, and this still holds true for me. At this point in my life this site is the most extensive creative endeavor I’ve ever undertaken, and certainly the thing I’m most proud of.
So thank you all for continuing to read my comic, it feels great to see that the number of readers has roughly tripled in the past year and a half. As always I hope I’ll continue to be able to write an entertaining comic for however long the comic goes on for. If you get the time send me an email with any comments or feedback. Every small note or comment is very much welcome and appreciated.
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