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Hey guys, here’s a clip from the BladenCast that’s coming your way very soon that would have been here sooner if not for random sicknesses, hanging out with high school friends and getting ready to head back to college.

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There’s a new and fresh BladenCast heading your way that’s almost done being edited. Expect it out in the next day or so. This is only a precursor of cool stuff to come.

–JB
Stay Frosty.

Yeah I know, it’s been forever since I’ve actually done any updating on this site, and like usual I make plans to start doing the comic and my own perfectionist tendencies kick in and I go FFFFFFFFFFF and blow it off.

Mason’s gone and joined the Air Force or something, Gene has given up his soul to Wal-Mart and now slaves and toils his life away, Coyote is working on making some money doing side-projects and writing, while I’m out of college for the summer sitting on my butt. When compared with their lives, I’ve really got no excuse for not slapping together some pencil doodles and uploading them and trying to masquerade them as “updates.” Rest assured, if I can ever actually get over my stupid perfectionist streak, I will begin updates almost immediately. Pretty much the entire story of Bladen Force has been written, heck, there’s so many storylines so far, it will probably take us five years of updating every single day just to get through the stack of stuff we’ve already written, and I keep coming up with more and more ideas and pencil them in every which way.

As far as the website goes, I really hate using someone else’s theme, even though the Firefox theme has served us well since the website was brought up. I’m working on integrating a new theme and ComicPress together, as well as a new format for the BladenCasts and my own personal blog BladenWire, so that while they will still obviously be apart of the website, they’ll have a look suited for the what they are for. I’ll post some sketchings and stuff of the new site design in a few days. Of course, I’m the one who is doing it because I’m too cheap to hire someone to help me design a website, so it could take a while for me to finish it.

–JB
my head is bloodied, but unbowed.

Who thinks I should change the theme to look better as well as do my damnest to implement ComicPress into the theme itself?

You heard me.

I figured that in their struggle to save the world from tyranny, I’d lend out a helping hand.

You see, I’m a veteran of many battles against Wikipedia and its exclusionary nature, so I decided that I’d help out the Protomen by archiving the ongoing battle raging against the forces of evil. Keep an eye out for more updates to come. I’m going to start by archiving the deletion reviews, debates, etc. so that we can have accountability against them.

It’s been a while since we’ve actually done one, but I’ve been fervently working towards the semester from hell, and I’m burned out and horribly fatigued from just trying to survive it. Exams are coming up and everyone is stressed out, so it’s the perfect time for a BladenCast.

I haven’t planned on exactly when we’re going to do it, but it’ll be coming up soon. If you want to ask questions and have them answered in the cast, shoot an e-mail to

This made my day. If you do not understand why, then you’re obviously not very far in Computer Science or in Computer Science at all.

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Basically, I passed a pointer to a function and asked another function to read me back that pointer. Instead of a segmentation fault, I got whatever bits of memory were still in that pointer. I lol’d. APRIL FOOLS APPARENTLY.

If you guys are reading this, then you figured out the secret hidden on the page.

Maybe “DREAMCAST” was a little too obvious, but it was all in good fun.

Yes, I realize that none of the links work correctly. just use “http://www.bladenforce.com/wordpress/” instead of just the http://www.bladenforce.com/ when writing URLs. Full functionality will be restored when the prank runs out.

I’ve got a permanent link to the April Fools Day page,

http://www.bladenforce.com/april/08/

Update: I’ve uploaded the video to YouTube.

Update: CBS has pulled the interview from its streaming video service.

You know, I personally have to agree with the mother. I think that she was trying to teach a lesson to her sons that they should be more respectful of her and her wishes, and the government decided to get involved. It is the same kind of stuff you see in the rest of the liberal media today. Parents try to actually act out their parental responsibilities, and the government moves in and tells parents that they aren’t allowed to discipline, teach, or otherwise do anything with their children outside of shelter, clothing, and other basic care under penalty of having their children taken away from them. I truly believe that this is a case of liberalism at its finest: the boys were raised in public, government schooling, the government refused to help her and instead of sending the boys to seek psychological evaluation, they threw the mother in prison for trying to teach her sons some respect! I find this morally reprehensible to the utmost degree. My own mother has done a lot for me over the years, and I’m twenty years old now, going on twenty-one. I don’t have many more years left with either of my parents, so I try to cherish as many as I can get. These boys need to straighten up, grow up, and begin to understand that the world doesn’t revolve around them, and they certainly need to understand that their mother won’t be around forever to take care of them. You don’t really respect and cherish something until it’s gone, and by that time it’s too late.

As the dozens and dozens of Bladen Force fans have are no doubt aware, the website has been severely lacking in updates except for dead authors and cats. This is mostly due to the general malaise and apathy that I have been stricken with. Generally being depressed and filled with apathy isn’t very healthy, but I digress.

I’m not in a very healthy mental or physical state right now, and I’ve been having trouble bringing myself to the pencil and paper except for a few sketches and tidbits. Let’s hope that I can snap myself out of this rut I’m in.

R.I.P.

Milton

March 1998 – December 31, 2007

He was hit by a car this morning on the road on Hwy 39. No idea who or what hit him, but it wasn’t a nice picture to look at. I think I’m going to be haunted by that image for the rest of my life. I don’t think it’s completely sunk in yet, all I feel is bitter rage, sadness, and confusion.

I just felt like wishing everyone who reads Bladen Force (Not sure how many that actually is) a Merry Christmas and if they aren’t Christian, or just don’t celebrate it… Happy Holidays (Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, something else?). So… yeah…

Happy Chrismahanukwanzakuh to everyone!

GR

However in my thread, and in my /b/ folder, he lives on!
DRILLING A HOLE TO PIERCE THE INTERNETS!

R.I.P.
Anonymous

October 1, 2003 – December 6, 2007

Well technically, I should say Kytri is a pioneer, since she’s the one that first keyed me in to Comicpress and WordPress, but it turns out that Scott Kurtz has joined the Comicpress collective and is now serving the hive. In all seriousness, I’m really glad too, because the old layout was nice, but it had a really high latency between loading comics, whereas Comicpress is nigh-instantaneous. The whole site is a whole lot faster, which is the same thing I noticed when Bladen Force upgraded to WordPress. Welcome to the hive cluster, Kurtz.

No idea where that downtime came from. I’ll check to make sure nothing broke.

Last night, I had the honor, nay, the privilege to join the ranks of the last hope for the future, The Protomen, as they wage their epic war against Doctor Wily through-out the southeast. Among thunderous applause, the Protomen brought the story of Megaman to life in what can only be compared to as an epic blend of Rock and Synth. Ben, Mason, and myself went to the local Spazzatorium Galleria, a place I had just learned even existed, to listen to what I can only describe as the greatest story ever told through the wailing of a guitar. Not many people in this venue knew what the Protomen were. They had questions, but when it was done, when the smoke cleared, they had all the answers. We wish the Protomen well in their fight.

That brings me to another battle on another front. Apparently, the Wikipedia War hasn’t quite finished yet. It seems that Wikipedia doesn’t consider The Protomen to be notable. They are clearly in league with Wily and want to prevent the resistance from rising up against him! Spread the word my brothers and sisters! The Protomen are here to save you! Let our voices ring Wikipedia to its very foundation!

I figured that since a few other webcomics have listed the songs that inspire them/make them think of their webcomic, I decided I would do so as well. I’ve also noted that a lot of the songs I listened to for inspiration for Bladen Force have Final Fantasy Advent Children music videos. Coincidence?

With most of these, the videos are pretty stupid or poorly done. You can ignore them.

Scapegoat – Angel Eyes
Lullacry – Without the Dreamer
Lullacry – Alright Tonight
Epica – Dance of Fate
Epica – Sensorium
Kamelot – Center of the Universe
Kamelot – Soul Society
Flyleaf – All Around Me
Nightwish – Sleepwalker (Heavy Version)
Nightwish – Ghost Love Score (Album Version)
Dexter Freebish – Prozak (Be Like Me)
Dexter Freebish – Wonderland
Dexter Freebish – Twilight
Dexter Freebish – Deeper
Daughtry – Breakdown
Daughtry – There and Back Again
Dido – Here With Me
DragonForce – Soldiers of the Wasteland
Duran Duran – Ordinary World
Evanescence – Everybody’s Fool
Evanescence – My Immortal (Full Band)
Faith Hill – There You’ll Be
Foo Fighters – Learn to Fly
Foo Fighters – My Hero
Freezepop – Manipulate (Mastermind Mix)
Ayumi Hamisaki – Evolution
Fuel – Falls on Me
Hoobastank – Crawling in the Dark
Keane – Atlantic
Keane – Crystal Ball
Keane – The Frog Prince
Linkin Park – Breaking the Habit
No Doubt – Just a Girl
Red Hot Chili Peppers – True Men Don’t Kill Coyotes
See-Saw – Kimi Ga Ita Monogatari
The Bangles – Manic Monday
The Flaming Lips – Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
The Fray – How To Save a Life
Three Doors Down – Kryptonite
Vertical Horizon – Echo
Vertical Horizon – We Are
Vertical Horizon – Shackled
Rush – Far Cry

Call For Halt To Wikipedia Webcomic Deletions
Posted by kdawson on Wednesday October 31, @05:16AM
from the deletionism-rampant dept.

ObsessiveMathsFreak writes “Howard Tayler, the webcomic artist of Schlock Mercenary fame, is calling on people not to donate money during the latest Wikimedia Foundation fund-raiser. This is to protest the ‘notability purges’ taking place throughout Wikipedia, where articles are being removed en-masse by what many see as overzealous admins. The webcomic community in particular has long felt slighted by the application of Wikipedia’s contentious Notability policy. Wikinews reporters have recently begun investigating this issue, but are the admins listening?”

Crossposted from my comment, which can be viewed here.

by Jazon Bladen (938809) on Wednesday October 31, @12:44PM (#21185389)
(http://www.bladenforce.com/)

---

Alright, I’m going to throw my lot into this. This is something I’ve been watching over the past year or so, and it’s only gotten worse, not better.

Case 1: Jenn Dolari, Closetspace and A Wish for Wings.
—–
Jenn Dolari was an active contributor to wikipedia, as evidenced by her contributions page. Several pieces of information in her comics’ articles were factually inaccurate, so the person that contributed that information invited her to fix it on that page. A particular group of people with administrator backing did not like this, and began a vendetta against Dolari, starting with the first VfD, followed by another which failed, so they started yet another, which succeeded. Several more AfDs came about since then, including this one, this one, and this one just because Jenn Dolari is mentioned in it. Because she was constantly accused of being a vanity editor, she has permanently quit Wikipedia and has specifically denied any permission for Wikipedia to use any of her copyrighted works.

(See also: Jenn Dolari’s Wikipedia User Page.)

Case 2: Kristofer Straub, Starslip Crisis, and “Delete Wikipedia: A Webcomics Case Study”
—–
After the attempted AfD of Evil Inc and Ugly Hill, Straub decided that enough was enough, and took it upon himself to perform a case study into the dynamics of Wikipedia’s deletionist mindset. He used sock puppets to submit an AfD against his own comic, Starslip Crisis, using misleading data. As Straub says himself,

“What I tried to do was take the popular point of view among Wikipedia’s editors — “delete webcomics” — and then prove that it would be accepted even under fallacious/suspicious circumstances. And it looks like I was successful.”

Only after Straub admitted of his methods of getting his article deleted, did Wikipedia review the deletion.

From just these two incidents alone, you can see that there is a blatant problem with the way Wikipedia handles deletionary policy. For more information about this, you can check out Parker Peter’s LiveJournal.

In my opinion, Wikipedia is essentially Mad Max with computers instead of motorcycles. Roaming gangs of Wikipedia users control different portions of Wikipedia, and if you dare step on their turf, ensue epic motorcycle death battle sequence.