Dustinland — The Music Nerd’s Burden

Hey, don’t get me wrong with this week’s Dustinland: music is my life. I love it, I obsess over it, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. However, sometimes it does seem like it would be way easier for either everyone else to have a moderate degree of good taste, or for me to just be a musical dumbass. Hey, it’s not just the obvious places. Sure, there’s terrible music playing in way more than half the bars in New York City every night — you can usually tell before you even walk in if the music is going to suck or not. But why must there be horrible music everywhere? Restaurants, laundromats, neighboring cubicles, passing cars, bakeries, movie theaters, sports arenas, elevators… it never ends. And if you must play horrible music, play it at a reasonable volume at least. If we’re not at a bar or club, there is no reason I should be assaulted by loud, crappy music. Especially when it’s not even appropriate to the venue. I’m sitting at a traditional Thai restaurant. Why am I listening to Bon Jovi? WHY? Oh to be an idiot and love the Billboard Top 100. It would be so much easier.

*** UPDATE: This comic got a ton of Diggs today, which is always nice. And man did people go off on me in the comments section! Wow! If I had a dollar for each time I was called a douchebag on the internet today, I’d be a millionaire! You know, I’m looking at the comic now and just wondering what there is to be so angry about. Are there that many Katy Perry fans out there?

Really though, the thing is, I love music. It’s one of the most important things in my life. I listen to music all the time, I research new and old bands, I write reviews and interview artists, I used to DJ, and I still play guitar (badly). Now calm down all you assholes who have been calling me “pretentious.” I’m not bragging. I’m making a point. And that point is, when you love something so much, you have a strong opinion about it. A lot of people are casual music listeners, and when they don’t like a song, it doesn’t offend them. They just sit there happily eating lunch as some song plays in the background. But for me and people like me who LOVE music, it doesn’t work that way. Once that horrible song comes on, you can’t ignore it. It’s like trying to ignore a mosquito biting you in your bed.

You see, music is literally my favorite thing. If I could do anything, I’d go to a concert. If my apartment was on fire, I’d save my hard drive with all my music backed up on it (and my comics). So yes, I have strong opinions on what music I like and don’t like. And I can express them. In fact, if I didn’t express them, nobody would care about my comics. That’s right all you people calling me a pretentious douchebag — does this make for an interesting read:

“I think everyone is entitled to their opinion on music, and everything else for that matter. Nobody is wrong and everyone is right. Everyone can listen to whatever they want as long as they’re happy.”

No shit. Thanks for the update. That makes for a real interesting read.

Music lovers out there, I know you understand me. Anyone who has ever been brought to tears just from hearing a song, you know what I mean. The rest of you… well, enjoy your crappy music.

*** UDPATE 2: The folks over at Reddit are talking about the strip as well.

Dustinland — Olympic Trials

All week long I was planning on making this week’s Dustinland a big long rant against the Olympics being held in China. I wasn’t going to watch any of it either — as a protest. Well, I talked to some people and thought about it some more and, well, you see where I ended up. I still think it’s pretty messed up that the games are being held in China, but hey, I guess they’re not that much more messed up than we are. Man, it’s a sad world. We’ve got the whole world celebrating a fascist nation, Russia just started an oil war in Georgia, and we’re still fighting one in Iraq. But hey, go Michael Phelps! Go Redeem Team! Let’s just focus on the gold and forget about all that bad stuff and all those dead Tibetans. Things will be fine. Just fine.

Dustinland featured on Cracked.com

The Dustinland on philias was featured on Cracked.com today, and as of 6:08 am there were already assholes making douchie comments about it. Really? Who wakes up a 6:00 on a Saturday morning to write snotty comments about webcomics? I guess they could be living in another country in a time zone ahead of the U.S., so in that case it’s not so much early morning loser hate but international hate. Well, I guess either way, everyone’s a critic.

Edit: The strip is doing pretty well on Digg (where there are surprisingly not too many a-hole comments, aside from a few of the typical “this sux yo why tihngs be stoopid”)

Dustinland — Lonely

I originally intended this week’s Dustinland to be purely something to cheer up depressed single folk. Whether you were just dumped, you’re in a huge drought, you love someone who doesn’t love you, or you’re just feeling down and out about yourself and your future prospects — that lonely, hopeless feeling is something everyone has felt at some point. But then I thought about it some more and didn’t want my strip to come out like some preachy cliché, even though it’s almost impossible to avoid clichés when covering this subject. So I mixed it up a little, especially with that 6th panel, which could strike people the wrong way. In fact, I could see people being mean and just forwarding around the first six panels, just to make people cry. So don’t do that! Because in the end I want this strip to make people laugh. Happy single people, sad single people, people in relationships — everyone. And if it cheers you up a bit, then even better.

Banned by Google

So I’ve been banned by Google. You see, a little while ago I decided to try and at least break even from all the money it costs to run this site. So I threw some Google ads on my site. That was all well and good, until I noticed that the ads had NOTHING to do with my site. I mean, nobody really clicks on web ads anyway, but especially not random ads that have nothing to do with the content you’re looking at. You see, here’s the problem: Google decides which ads to place on a site by reading the text. I have no text. Just images. So I was getting weird unrelated ads. So what I did was throw some invisible text on there. It was a win-win situation. My readers had the same enjoyable experience reading unfunny comics every week, and all the ads that nobody clicked on made perfect sense. If the comic was about used cars, the ads were about used cars. It was great. But invisible text is a no-no. It messes up Google’s search engine robots. So now, if you type in “Dustinland” on Google, you’ll get a ton of entries, but not the actual site. I’m trying to get it unbanned but that’s quite the Kafkaesque undergoing. So wish me luck!

Dustinland Office strip rising on Digg

The People In Your Office strip is heating up on Digg today. Thanks for posting it, MakiMaki! Well, I guess now it’s only a matter of time before this strip makes its way to someone in my actual office, and then before you know it the creepy elevator guy will be giving me dirty looks. Speaking of creepy elevator guys, out of all these stereotypes, that’s the one that’s been at every job I’ve ever had. One guy was even using the lobby’s security camera to take pictures of girls. Maybe there’s some sort of creepiness requirement to join the elevator guy union. By the way, if you are an elevator guy and you’re reading this right now, I know you’re not all crazy. Well, I mean, at least I can assume that. And really, it’s got to be a tough job with a lot of ups and downs. But seriously folks. I’ll be here all week.

*** UPDATE: Dustinland was down for a while today (Wed., June 23). Apparently Digg tossed a little more traffic my way than the site was ready for. But don’t worry, I talked to tech support and everything is up and running again.***

Dustinland — Rollerblade Messenger Job

I really did have this job in the summer of 97. It was pretty fun although it paid horribly. But you know, if you don’t score a college internship or have some sort of personal connection, your job prospects are pretty limited as an 18-year-old. I’ll add more to this post after next week, when the story concludes. This week’s comic is just part one of two. But stay tuned — next week you get sex AND violence.

Scribbley

How about that Scribbley, huh?

Dustinland — But Seriously Folks

I really wanted to put this one in this week’s Dustinland: A three legged dog walks into a bar and says “I’m lookin’ for the guy who shot ma paw!” but it’s not the same unless you say it out loud. Just like this one: What did the farmer say when he lost his tractor? “Where’s my tractor?” But you have to say “where’s my tractor” in a farmer voice. But seriously, my wife called me and said “come over, nobody’s home.” I went over. Nobody was home.

Dustinland — First Car

After last week’s Dustinland, this week’s sorta makes me feel like a hypocrite, what with complaining about the Earth being destroyed and what not and then buying a car and contributing to the problem. But what can you do? We really don’t have a choice. We’re trying to get something that gets good mileage. Maybe one day we’ll move on to a hybrid once they improve the technology a bit more. I hear the new Prius is going to have solar panels. Nice. My new car will not have solar panels, but it will be good and it will last because it will be a Japanese car. High five.

***Note: You may notice a certain word blacked out in the 4th panel. I had to add that self censorship after noticing the reaction of my special lady friend and realizing that some of you may have quite delicate sensibilities. Delicate sensibilities — that is a term that is meant to sound smart but has actually become quite overused and cliche. However, I am too lazy to think of something better.