RoboPanda!

Oh man, I am so excited. It's RoboPanda!

I read about this almost a year ago, but now he's actually coming. He'll be at Target and Best Buy in October for the low low price of $150.

Look at that adorable little robo face!

Pandas in Albuquerque?

The mayor of Albuquerque is off to China to work out a deal to get them some pandas. A couple interesting points in this article.

1. They talk about the San Diego Zoo, and what it's plans may be once their panda contract is up next year.

And 2. The idea that they may not get a panda from China, but are working out a deal to take one of San Diego's cubs.

I'm quite curious about that actually. Which cub so they have their eyes on, they've currently got two, and another on the way. I would think that China would want the cubs back for breeding, but it's possible to breed them here too. Also, though panda adults mostly live solitary, most young adults outside of China are paired up for life with a mate of sorts. So will this panda remain by itself, or will it be getting a mate? We'll see, we'll see.

The count down is approximately one week until I get to lay my eyes on some pandas!

It's the rainy season.

Florida summer has officially been underway, including daily thunderstorms, and sweltering heat. On some days I get into my car, which feels like an oven, and I remember why it is I don't like Florida. Winters are nice, but summer is hell.

Additionally, because of the heat, and excessive rain these last couple weeks the bugs are out in full force. Or should I say they're in. Cause they're all up in my house making my skin crawl. I'm getting so frustrated.

If you're bug squeamish I suggest you skip the rest of this entry.

First Joe and I noticed a cockroach or two, one night. So we nabbed and flushed them. Then there was a couple more... then a few more... then I got angry and got my insect spray out and sprayed all around the doors, windows, and edges of every room. Suddenly it was like an exodus.

In one night we must have flushed or killed 30 of the little bastards. The next morning I woke up to find 10 more corpses. And they've been steadily on the move since then. It's been two weeks and not a day goes by where I don't find at least 10 corpses, have at least one run across my foot, spot the cats trying to torture one to death, or have a couple run across the wall out from behind furniture.

Pest control is coming on Tuesday to give me an estimate on treating the entire house. Back in the day when I moved in, I had asked my landlord, who lives upstairs from me, if he takes care of pest control. His answer to me, was for me to just get a little boric acid and sprinkle it around behind the couches and stuff..... yeah... so I guess that means he's not going to take care of it himself. While the boric acid is a feasible solution, I'd rather not mess around with insecticides I don't understand.

He will however, be getting a bill.

Hua Mei is a mom again!

This is really awesome news. If you don't know already, Hua Mei was the first panda since 1990 born in the Western Hemisphere (in San Diego, California) to survive past infancy. Her mother, Bai Yun was the first captive bred panda to survive in China, so this is a very special family line.

And Hua Mei just finished up her third successful pregnancy, giving birth to her third set of twins! What an amazing panda! :D

You can read the full story here.

Busy weekend.

My iGoogle page tells me it's 9 days until we head out to San Diego, which means I have 9 days to get as many comic pages as I can done. My goal is to have enough pages to carry my through the vacation and at least a week beyond, so I don't have to immediately worry about building new stuff as soon as I get back. Yeah I could put the comic on hold for a few days while I'm gone, but if I can I'd like to not have to do that.

So the rush started this weekend. I was hoping to get 12 pages done, but I only managed 5. One of them took a bit more work than usual so I don't feel so bad. Not going to say anymore about it cause it's a surprise but if you're reading Panda panda, look forward to this Wednesday's page. It's extra special. :)

The turtle story is in the down swing of winding down. Including today's page there's 5 actual story pages, and then the final interlude. Though I didn't actually get started building next weeks pages, I did get started on my research and scripting for it. I'm gonna try and finalize the scripting today and possibly start building the actual pages tonight.

So that would take care of up to July 28th. I don't get back from San Diego until July 31st... so that's at least 2 more actual days and then a safe zone of possibly 3 more. Five extra days to fill in. I'm tossing around the idea of a behind the scenes thing. But it's really not that exciting. I could jump into the next story, but I haven't planned that out yet. I have ideas but nothing written down.

This weekend was rough but, next weekend I think is going to be really busy, with the comic and packing for the trip. Wish me luck. :)

Fun for work.

Looking for something to kill a little time? Bored with work and need a tiny bit of amusement?

Try these: Destructobot - Roboticon


And yes, I actually built two.

They originally come from the San Jose Mercury News website. I wish I could sit around and create silly stuff like this all day.

Crushing defeat of Turtle.

Today's comic update was the turning point in the story. Hyena drops a rock on unsuspecting turtle. I dreaded posting the page because of all the support the turtle was getting. In talking to friends about it, it feels like I'm killing the shepherdess all over again. Granted this is merely the way the story is supposed to go, there's good reasons for the actions, and in the end the turtle will be fine, but it still feels like I'm being cruel.

When the shepherdess was killed in the first story, I agonized over it too, almost wishing I could re-write it at the last minute and make the world all better again and to keep everyone happy. But though the death in the story makes me very sad as well, it makes the impact of everything that much more strong. The sacrifice she made to protect a friend. The first time I heard the legend it really hit home with me. I may have shed a tear or two, but I'm a sentimental fool. :)

So I hope the readers of Panda panda won't think to harshly of me. I love the turtle too!

Harry Potter 5.

Went to see Harry Potter 5 last night. It was pretty damn cool. Some day I'll actually sit down and read the books. :P

I found it neat that they threw in flashbacks from previous movies, where it clearly shows how young the kids were. They've really grown. Just another reminder of the passing of time. The whole movie had a very dark cast to it, which is fitting considering how serious the story line has gotten. Again, I haven't read the books beyond 2 so, though I do know a few things coming up, for the most part I'm in the dark about what happens.

Well that's about it for now. :)

Soooo sleepy.

So tired today. I meant to go to bed early but I got caught up working on getting the site linked properly and the splash page up so it's actually accessible. As usual I got caught up and didn't get to bed until around 2am. Shame on me.

Panda Town!

Holy crap the coolest news all day.

It's Panda Town!

I need to start planning for my 2009 vacation!

In related news, I'm also looking into this option.

Don't worry, I'll see about getting a paypal donate button up soon, so you all can donate to Mandy's Hug-a-Panda fund. You know you want to.

Transfomers

We finally got to see Transformers, and despite everyone not expecting too much I really enjoyed it.

A background on my level of Transformers fandom: Yeah I grew up when Transformers were big, I'm sure I watched them as a kid, I probably had a toy or two, but my knowledge isn't really that extensive and I can't say I ever had a favorite, or followed it enough to understand anything about an ongoing storyline.

That being said I was just hoping for a cool action movie with really cool looking giant transforming robots. And that's what I got. After the first hour.

Probably most of the first half of the movie could have been condensed down. Some scenes were unnecessarily long, some stuff really didn't even need to be in the movie at all. Now the second half of the movie = pure joy. The battles were awesome. Bumblebee and Optimus were super cool. I had a big problem with the Decepticons because they were mostly painted the same color and, me not really knowing them by name, could hardly tell who was who. I knew there was some butt kicking going on, but who's butt I dunno.

So yeah, overall, I liked it. :D

Fun morning.

Today really didn't start out good. I started out for work and thought something was wrong with my car so stopped at the gas station by my house to check the tires. When they seemed fine I got back on the road, but the closer I got to work the worse things got. Eventually I'm at the light right next to the office and just praying that when the turn signal goes green I'll be able to turn into the parking lot and park the car, rather than just giving out in the middle of the street.

As soon as I get out of the car, I can smell tire. The front passenger tire was completely flat. When just moments before it seemed prefectly fine. Long story short, I ended up having to pay $25 for a patch, which is much better than buying a new tire, but still sucks cause money is really tight.

Exciting stuff, I know.

New!

So I'm trying something new. I dunno if this is going to work. I was looking for an easy way to update news and such on my site, and this seemed like a good approach.

I've never successfully tried to blog before, but I figured I'd give it a shot. I imagine this is pretty much going to be a boring run down of my day to day existance, heavily sprinkled with random panda news and other updates on things I think are awesome.

I guess I just wanted an excuse to actually use my website again, and not just have a fancy pants splash screen that says "Site Coming" when it's supposedly been coming for around 3 years now. The wait is over, and here I am.

That's about it for now. :)