Matt's Glorious Walk for Free Money
Legend:
If you frequent digg you no doubt saw this a while back. For those who don't enjoy clicking links to find out pertinent information, it's a page that calculates how "famous" you are on the internet. I'll say this isn't entirely foolproof. All calculations are done via google search results, but it gives you somewhat of an idea about your... uniqueness.
Anyways, for fun I fed the information for a search of "dxprog" in and it turns out I've got 10/10 points for being a microcelebrity. Cool, I suppose. But like I said, it's more about uniqueness and the fact that I've stuck with one online moniker through my entire time on the internet helps. It also helps that I am the only person going by dxprog. The little calculation wouldn't work nearly as well if there were others who went by that handle.
This may sound egeotistical, but every once and again I google myself just to see what's been indexed about me. I've kept a fairly open internet life so it's not hard to turn up a bunch of relevent results. First thing that pops up is this site, followed by my Digg profile, Digital Double/my Smackjeeves profile and a couple of videos. Sadly, the first video is the one that I loathe with all the hatred I can muster. But, that aside, this is a pretty good synopsis of myself as it stands currently.
The origins of my online presence, however, are seemingly lost forever in the Sea of Digital Bits we call the internet. All that exists of my very first web page is gone and since YPN has been screwed, none of that exists either. Actually, that's not true. YPN's entire history is sitting on a CD-R on my desk. Every last iteration, from sasq2 to Tetra 2. I've even got the unfinished beta of partyfish. But, I digress.
There are a few old things that are harbored on the same disc as said YPN stuff that I've lovingly added to the archives (see the 2003 stuff on the right there). Nothing terribly interesting or deep, but it gives some insight as to what I was doing at the time (not a whole hell of a lot). But, then again, I was only sixteen and not much was really expected of me.
Well, this has been yet another fun trip down memory lane. Not sure why I post these things, but in twenty years it'll be interesting to go back and read everything. I'll probably think about myself now what I think of my former self: what a douchebag.
Dark Alley of the Heart
Clueless is as Clueless Does
This is probably the longest running story arc I've had yet. Hooray for character development.
Well, it seems the fine folks over at SmackJeeves have decided to review my comic. In a nutshell, they lauded the artwork and design (which I thought sucked) and criticised the writing (which I also thought sucked). Here's the full review: http://smacktalk.smackjeeves.com/04-digitaldouble. Now for my take on things.
One criticism they mention is A Comic for All Peoples where my counterpart says that the comic is "too deep for a person of average intelligence." This was actually something devusb mentioned when talking about the 2001-WTF?!. Of course, this leads to their other big complaint which is too many in-jokes. This is one of the reasons I switched formats, the other being I find it easier to write more story-like stuff as opposed to the gag-a-day I had been shooting for. Maybe I should employ the use of a writer.
As said above, I am the first to admit that my writing usually sucks pretty bad. For starters, any comic bearing the name F5 is going to suck. These comics suck. Most everything else is pretty "meh" with the exception of a few.
Their final comment in the cons section about "being doomed to obscurity" I've pretty much comed to terms with. There are many people doing this that are a thousand times better at it than I. I've just been using it as a creative and emotional outlet and that's probably all it will continue to be. If fame comes with it, cool, but I'm not getting my hopes up.
I haven't been posting the links for the recent comics lately. Shame on myself and shame on you for not subscribing to the RSS feed.
Stock Up on Bayer
Hitch He is Not
Nothing to It
Enjoy... or not. Whatever floats your boat.
Comic
Starting today I'm off hiatus. There'll be a few changes however. Firstly, Jimmy's that guy in the middle. His hair is much easier to draw now. Secondly, that would be Mary on the right. These two things were the main reason I went on hiatus. Thirdly, there'll be a format change. I'm going to do more story arcs instead of weak jokes and sad parodies. Finally, I'll be going with a every Wednesday update. Now that I'm full time at Wal-Mart it's difficult to update twice a week. I figure I should also be able to keep this up once I'm in college in the fall.
Comic
I had to come off hiatus to bring you that comic. My Photoshop trial is up so I'm having to resort to more archaic methods of drawing at the moment. Btw, the new Spider-man 3 sneak peak has restored some faith in me that it won't suck.
Link in Love
In my opinion, the best artwork I've done to date. Not necessarily the best joke ever, but it was good enough to hit the Joystiq poll so I call it even.
Pedophilia
I'm sorry. I did a Michael Jackson joke. Please forgive me.
Comic
A little late, but it's better than most of my filler crap so I call it even.
I haven't been posting here very much lately. Why? Well... I dunno :-P. Firstly, though, I'll get the comic links up to speed:
Plan 4 World Peace (filler)
The Fruit Saga, Parts 1, 2, and 3.
The fruit saga is more or less based on real life. I did purchase a Mac mini with my tax refund and, despite my years of rampant Mac hatred, I must admit that it is a nifty piece of hardware. I do have a copy of Vista installed (thanks to bootcamp), but I haven't booted out of OS X in several days. I haven't done much more than piddle around with stuff, but I'm going to start learning the APIs and maybe write a game.
Full Sail, my college of choice, has been "pestering" me lately and I guess I need to call them back and start getting things setup to sail away in the fall. I'm not sure what kind of course I want to take. Back when I heard about them it was game programming hands down, but I do enjoy drawing and would like to do more film projects. It's a real toss up. I may go with game programming yet because, of those three options, it's probably my strongest area. We'll see, though...
As far as work goes, it's pretty much usual. I'm cashier mostly, but since I recieved my CSM powers I've been doing that some too. Just yesterday, in fact, they pulled me off a register to cover for somebody whilst they went on break. I'm sitting in a pretty sweet position in that I can do almost anything in the store from CSMing, to cashiering, to cart pushing, to unloading trucks, etc.
Well, I'll close this blog post with a little piece of my art featuring Basch, my favorite character from FFXII:

Comic
If you're squeemish, read this instead.
Comic
My new 19" widescreen LCD monitor is indeed a thing of beauty, but I wouldn't necessarily kiss.
Comic
I actually drew this back towards the beginning of the comic, but I never actually finished it because I didn't like Jimmy's running stance. It seems a little out of place now that Jimmy is the straight man, but it's a comic. I would've put the comic I started today up, but I want to spend a little extra time making this series look decent. So there you have it.
Comic
It's interesting how Jimmy, who started off as the village idiot, obtained my personality...
Comic
Yeah, the first "animated" "comic". My Stewie Griffin voice is pretty bad.
Comic
Okay, it's a quick pencil sketch but at least there's a comic.
In retrospect, this would have made a great "Frank and Earnest" Plagiarist comic. Damn :-P.