Finally, you can buy Ferrets Versus Lemmings shirts, mugs, ties, cell phone cases AND MORE at www.zazzle.com/FerretsVsLemmings! I'm very happy to finally have this available.

Be sure to check the New Products category, as well, because Zazzle takes a long time to move things out of there after you tell it to(it'll be sorted out in the next day or two). For the Party Ferret items, which the New Products category is filled with, you'll also have to set Zazzle's content filter to Moderate or Off(in the side bar), because he's drinking alcohol.

Word on the virtual street(and from one admin) is that the Furnation Vista region on Second Life is gone forever. This is backed up by the fact that all of Kennyland was returned to me, and from another sim name. Also, there were a LOT of empty parcels in the final weeks, therefore a lack of rent revenue. Kennyland is now offline.

I was NOT notified beforehand. When I got on Second Life Monday morning to update my comic display prim & notify the groups, I thought the region was just rebooting, so I waited. And waited. After a few minutes, I asked the FN group & nobody knew, not even one admin who thanked me for letting him/her know and promptly filed a trouble ticket. I just now found out that the region is now lost. I had to ASK for this info.

SO, I’m now looking for a new region to put Kennyland in.

Previously, I was paying L$400/week(US$1.58/week) for a 28×28 meter parcel with a 400 prim limit, and I had 2 of these parcels. The new land must be close to that(total of L$800/week, I only used 400 prims), because I never made a profit with Kennyland. I know that price is hard to match, so I’m setting my aim at 400+ prims, at least 30×30 meters, less than L$800 per week if the traffic is good.

I might wait until I’ve started building a new ride before buying new land, just so it can start fresh. For that ride, I first have to finish building the shopping district of Ook Island, which is right in the center of the island. This will be the scenery for a significant portion of the roller coaster.

I’m looking for suggestions for a new region to build in. Keep these factors in mind for your suggestions…

1. High traffic. The main goal of Kennyland is to promote my comics. I can’t do that in a dead region, no matter the price, and I can’t do that in a region that never gets new visitors. Kennyland had an average of 7 actual visitors per day, with a LOT more people just passing by where they can see the latest comic on display. If there’s a region you frequent, that’s a good starting point.

2. Furry-friendly. Furries are a significant portion of my readership, PLUS people using animal avatars will only enhance the setting. If they aren’t welcome in the region, nobody who previously visited Kennyland in FURNATION would be welcome(with only a few exceptions).

3. Not furry-exclusive. I want an area where people can use human avatars as well.

4. An amusement park must fit in. It can’t be a residential-only area. There will be a large water slide & eventually a roller coaster. If this would be an eyesore in the area, like if the area is in a 1930′s England theme, I don’t want it there & neither do the owners of that region.

5. At least 28×28 meters, but not more than 64 meters on any side(unless of course it’s under L$800 & over 400 prims, in which case it would be an awesome deal). I once tried to build a Kenny World into a 40×256 meter area and didn’t know what to do with it all. I’ve been doing well with a single 28×28 parcel, but it’s just a LITTLE cramped. My previous 400 prim limit might still be okay, considering the new mesh capability and a higher prim size limit than when it was built. It WAS possible to OBTAIN bigger prims(still is), but you couldn’t resize purchased objects past 10 meters until recently. The swimming pool was purchased & uses non-copy-able scripts.

6. No adult-themed stores nearby. I want the park to be friendly to people who shy away from such things. I can tolerate a small kiosk with such wares, but I had to turn down the Furnation Hell region because of that huge sex bed store in the corner that’s visible from EVERYWHERE. Also, I don’t want to see penises every time I visit Kennyland.

7. Must have a Moderate rating. Not Adult, not General. It can’t be an adult region because of the previous rule. It also can’t be a General audience region because my comic isn’t kid-friendly. Kennyland’s code of conduct is much more lax than the rules for a General rated region.


A theme park region might be good, although theme parks often create lag, so I want to be careful about that. Also, building next to a much larger theme park would make mine look wimpy. I’ve been to a region with several independent attractions, and that seemed okay, although it was also more of a spooky atmosphere. A furry region would also be good, considering where Kennyland was previously. A waterside parcel would be great, but it’s nowhere near as important as traffic.

Whatever region I build in, I’ll have to visit it several times before I decide on it. I have to know what the community is like before building there. I did this before building Kennyland in FurNation & have been happy with that community.

It’s nice to be saving the roughly US$12.50 per month charge, though. Kennyland really wasn’t making me any money(it basically lowered my out-of-pocket expense a few dollars a month), and I question the effectiveness of the advertising power. The theme park was fun to build, and even more fun to brag about, though. Just the status of having the only internet-only comic with a theme park, albeit ALSO internet-only, is plenty of reason to keep the park going. More importantly, I have 96 subscribers via Second Life, which is more subscribers than I have on any website, if you assume more than 10 Twitter followers are just bots, and I’d say that’s a safe assumption. So yeah, I’ll keep sending updates to my Second Life groups. Right now, I’m setting up a mini-store at FurNation Alpha’s mall(link) to keep things active and at least have a comic display somewhere. It’s 1/16th of what I’ve been spending for land, so I might as well set up a temporary base of operations.

I'd like to point you to the Talkin' Toons podcast, hosted by Rob Paulsen. Rob has voiced many cartoon characters, including Yakko(Animaniacs), Pinky(Pinky & The Brain), Raphael(Ninja Turtles from 1987-1995), Donatello(Ninja Turtles starting this year), Mr. Opportunity(some car commercial), and one of those gay gophers on the new The Looney Tunes Show(c'mon, even Rob thinks they're gay, old buddy ol' chap ol' pal).

Rob interviews a lot of famous voice actors, including a LOT of Animaniacs alumni. He lives right down the street from Frank Welker, so he's been bugging him to get on the podcast, so we'll likely eventually hear from that master of animal sounds, too. In the podcast, you'll hear a LOT of Pinky's voice. Oh, and if you're a fan of My Little Pony, there's an interview with Tara Strong(Twilight Sparkle)!

One bit of warning, though: you can overdose on Rob Paulsen's voice if you listen to too many episodes in a day. I thought I couldn't get enough of his voice, but it turns out I CAN! Y'see, Rob Paulsen has a unique voice, and unique voices tend to get old faster. For instance, I went to a Green Day concert one time, and my friends played their music throughout the 5-hour drive. By the end of that weekend, I had had enough of Green Day. And AC/DC? They're cool, but I've heard them enough on the radio. So yeah, as tempting as it is to catch up on all of the interviews in one day, it's really best to limit yourself to 2 per day.

I'd rate this podcast at a PG level for language, occasionally getting PG-13(such as during the interview with Kevin Michael Richardson). It's generally a clean podcast, though, and it's really fun to hear these voice actors speak so casually.

I actually heard about Rob's podcast from the interview with him and Maurice LaMarche on the Nerdist podcast. THAT was an entrancing podcast, just hearing the both of them again. You even get to hear Pinky and The Brain cuss in that interview, at the hosts' request. You can listen to that episode here.

I just switched from the slowest broadband available in the area(768 Kbps, AT&T) to the fastest(50 Mbps, CableOne). I am so excited that I must shout it from the desktops. Basically I dropped the landline phone service and switched to our local cable company, paying the same price as for phone & slow broadband. The difference is night and day. The first video I watched on YouTube to test the speed, this one by Bucktown Tiger because it was the first suggested video that looked interesting, had zero loading time. 5 minute play time, loaded instantly. Like, what??? I haven't had that luck with any other videos, but they've all stayed considerably ahead of the playhead(or whatever that slider is called in non-80's terms). Even 1080p videos. You people with fast internet would not believe how long I had to wait for a My Little Pony episode to load on Youtube before I could watch it with my previous broadband. I'd often let it buffer or save to my hard drive while I was at work or while I sleep. Buffering is a huge waste of time. Now I watch YouTube videos instantly.
To make things even nicer, these are actually the results of 10-14 Mbps. The cable modem is faster than my router AND the wireless adapters in the computers, which use the 802.11g wireless standard(54 Mbps theoretical limit, 24 Mbps real-world, 14 Mbps fastest I've gotten so far w/ my laptop). Current speeds simply weren't possible yet when they were bought. I could get a modern router and a USB wireless adapter, but I plan on just replacing this computer and getting a new router at the same time.
The drawback is the data plan. I'm charged extra if I go over 50 GB within a month. I originally went with their 5 Mbps unlimited plan(same price & no contract), but a co-worker said that he shares the 50 GB plan w/ 4 people & they don't go over. He even uses file-sharing. I wasn't sure if he truly knows his usage, but he'd surely see the alerts when they get close, so I went ahead and got my money's worth. Well, in the first day, we've reached 84% of what would be a daily limit(split 50GB into 30 days) and we only had this internet since 3pm. This is a concern, but I'm okay with a FEW dollars overage at this speed(50¢/GB over) & CableOne gives me 90 days no-risk to test it out in case the limits are too strict. We'll see what happens. And btw, I just checked, and CableOne also offers a 100GB limit for customers of the phone/tv/internet package with a 2-year contract, which I'm now suspecting my co-worker actually has.

Anyway, this faster speed will save me lots of time when I'm on YouTube, FA, Second Life, etc. Maybe I'll actually get through my submissions list faster! I might actually watch more on YouTube, but considering I didn't turn down many videos on the slow broadband, I expect the load time savings to outweigh the increase in videos. And Second Life, well, my computer itself is still slow, so I still expect 1-10 fps, but with faster texture loading.

Oh dear, it looks like Death’s Twitter imposter, @TheFakeDeath, is reversing the polarity on all sorts of things every hour throughout today. Crazy lady. You might want to keep an eye on her.

http://twitter.com/TheFakeDeath

Update(so late that it probably should have been its own post):
Other April Fools Day nonsense to lay your eyes upon:
Mountain Dew has released a flavor to appeal to ponies(coincidence, not actually pony-related),
Kodak lets you print your own live kittens!(large format printers coming soon)(permalink for after April 1),
Biebian is the new most popular Linux distribution,
and finally(the best of all of them)... Google Maps 8-bit!

A friend of mine has put a shirt up for voting on Qwertee & I'd like to see it put up for sale. If you're a Mario Bros. fan, or Bowser or Burger King fan, I think you're gonna like this shirt: http://www.qwertee.com/product/bowser-king/

I had over 1200 unseen submissions on my willyums account a few hours ago. I finally got through all the Christmas submissions. I'm now down to 782 submissions. That "Nuke all Submissions" button is looking tempting, but I don't want to miss anything important. One submission was an announcement of a new webcomic by somebody I watch. I consider that important.
And so, I'm still faving stuff with that old account. Looking forward to finally catching up so I can switch my watch list over without too much overlap.

I'd continue, but I've rented Green Lantern for the second time and THIS time I intend on making time to watch it. I hate renting something, then not having any time to watch it.

Until April 8, 2012, Unity is offering the Android and iOS export addons for FREE! Those are normally US$400 each, so I snatched both of those up even though I don't have a Mac, & iOS requires a Mac to develop on. I might get a Mac one of these days, who knows?
I'm not promising any games anytime soon. I've barely learned the basics of Unity, and game development is time-consuming. This is just a possibility, and the possibilities just increased. I might even find ways to make other kinds of apps with Unity.

Looking to develop games for Android and/or iOS? You can pick up the license here: https://store.unity3d.com/products

Remember me planning on advertising on FA hopefully this week? Yeah, I had money set aside for 6 months of advertising($100) until my car took a branch to the roof. The only damage I see is scratches on the roof & a door... and a DENT in another door. I MIGHT get the dent fixed, although I'm not that picky about having a pristine car since these things happen. My main concern is the paint chipping from that dent. If I'm going to get that part re-painted, and I know I will, I might as well get the dent fixed as well. My insurance only has a $500 deductible because I'm cheap, so I don't expect that to help(I HOPE the repairs don't reach that!). I'm expecting over $100 because there's also paint involved. I might still go for a month of advertising($20) even if that budget is tapped into.

This reminds me of the LAST time I was going to advertise on FA, back in 2009. I had the funds saved... and then I had to buy this new car.

This is the absolute best 80's cartoon made this decade.

What technologies am I leaving out of Ferrets Vs Lemmings and Kenny Chronicles that are likely to exist in 2132? (Oops, I had been using the wrong year since the beginning of the series! THIS is the correct year!)

Seriously, I don't think I'm thinking forward enough. They can put holograms anywhere(I don't use that often enough), send power wirelessly, and they can fly. Is that ALL?
Don't worry about saying anything that actually is already in the comic, I'll understand if you haven't read all the comics or forgot about something long ago. Here's a quick run-down of answers to some potential comments:

They aren't in space simply because they're not in space. Humans will be on Mars and the asteroid belt by then. They'll even be going faster than light! We'll be able to vacation in space, but I don't know if my characters will.

They use traditional guns because they're practical, unlike various sci-fi standards(shoot lasers at the guy with the shiny buttons, I dare ya!). I might still create a gun that uses a currently un-predicted technology just so I have free reign over what it can do.

In 2132, "gray goo" is a powerful technology that uses nanobots to form any shape needed, and can form into a house in minutes... but one hacker can crush everybody inside. That's why nobody uses it in the comic. Kenny's robot uses a similar technology, but it's less versatile. If something can take control of the robot's arms, that thing would be more effective either shocking the victim directly or commanding the robot to ram them.

I'm hoping to give them flying vehicles & a submarine, but I have to design them first & have a reason to use them. Designing the royal futuristic aircrafts won't be easy.

I know of invisibility cloaks, but I'm not sure what form they will take. Maybe I can just make it a cloak, but what about the floor underneath? It might be used mostly for flying things. Currently, cloak-type invisibility devices are only invisible from one angle because it's just displaying an image of the other side. It's possible we could bend light around an object, but it couldn't be touching the ground or else you'll get obvious distortion. I think that super-heated air method works from all directions, but in addition to the distortion, you'd cause fires. Also, heat-seeking rockets are headed straight at you.


SO, what upcoming technology haven't I shown?

...this is my new desktop wallpaper effective immediately:
http://s3.amazonaws.com/data.tumblr.....2Ldjv0EvlRQ%3D

On Tuesday after work, I listened to Giggle At The Ghosties over and over the entire drive because I can(3G connection + YouTube + auxiliary jack on car radio). It was great. When I got home, I decided to see if I could buy it anywhere and was very disappointed to not find an album. TAKE MY MONEY, HASBRO! Youtube isn't optimal anyway, because my phone doesn't cache the video & my signal got weak on the last playback. I'd love to play it locally in full quality.
Then tonight I tried to sing the song on my drive home but I still need to memorize it more.

Oh, and btw, Saturday's episode is on YouTube. Yes, February 11th. That Saturday. iTunes made a mistake & released it early, quickly taking it down. This makes me wonder... how soon does it NORMALLY show up on iTunes? Twice I've tried to buy the latest episode but could only find it on YouTube. If they want my money, they have to beat the pirates to the punch.

I need to become rich so I, too, can have a teddy bear room like the guy in Monday's PvP comic...
http://www.pvponline.com/2012/02/06/comfort-zone/
Saddly, Scott didn't draw the teddy bear room. We just have to imagine how comfortable it is.

I'm not sure if I should link to my FA profile or the Ferrets Vs Lemmings site with my ad. Both have the exact same comics.

If I link to my FA profile:
+I'll finally have as many watchers as I had before I switched accounts. Surely more. It'll also serve as a reminder to the over 90% of watchers who ignored or didn't see my submission AND journals telling people to switch.
+Very simple subscription option. One choice & everybody here uses it.
+More interaction in the comments because everybody commenting is from FA and all readers from FA won't be spread out between two sites. More chance of 2 friends commenting on the same page.
+One of us! One of us!
-Link to the store won't be as visible. On the other hand, I don't have a FvL store yet. Just a Kenny Chronicles one. There will be a link in journals and my featured submission.
-People will see me as a less professional cartoonist because they're seeing my comics on an art-sharing site and not on its own dot com. People WILL overlook the url on the comic itself, especially the way I have it displayed.

If I link to FerretsVsLemmings.com:
+Advertiser views!
+Interface specifically for comic-viewing. Still not fully optimized yet, though, like Kenny Chronicles' 11-per-page archive. I still have customization to do on the website.
+The comic will look more professional being seen on its own site.
+I have a link to the first comic under each comic(I could copy/paste a text-based nav bar into the description of each FA submission, I suppose, including store link when ready)
+Most advertisers link to their official website anyway so this is normal.
-Customization isn't finished yet, and the store isn't even started yet.
-Might have fewer subscriptions overall because the FA "+Watch" link is just so instinctive for FA users and some might not use any other subscription options(not even comics by email?). I'll have an FA link in the Subscribe page eventually, but nobody would expect to see FA and Inkbunny there. In short, FA users want to +watch.

If I started advertising today, the natural choice would be to have the ad go to my profile because there's no store and the website doesn't look how I want it just yet(links are still a light gray on a white background). Later, however, sending furs to the official website will seem like a good choice as long as I have a javascript that detects FA visitors & pops up a message about my FA account. Or I could just send people to my FA account. That seems like it COULD be the best option even after my website is fully finished. Besides, what percentage do you think would click the link to my FA profile right after arriving at my site, thus skipping that website anyway?

Other option: Load FA profile in a frame that has a static nav bar at the top. URL would be within ferretsvslemmings.com, there would be some custom navigation, and you still have the familiar FA interface. Might make some folks ask "WTF is this?" or wonder why I didn't just link to the comic's official homepage.

I've added a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License icon to the template I use for the Ferrets Vs Lemmings comics. This should start appearing in the next comic.

With all the recent talk about heavy-handed copyright protection and stuff, I figure it's a good time to go with a more lax copyright protection. I was already fine with people spreading Kenny Chronicles and Ferrets Vs Lemmings comics(with attribution), and wouldn't mind if a comic was modified into something equally or more awesome(with credit), but I never applied a license that went into detail about that. Now I'm making it clear.

Back when I was developing the comic, I seriously considered putting it in the public domain because it's set in an anarchy(although later I decided that individual boats would have laws anyway), but that would provide no protection from outright theft & a big-budget movie where I get nothing(or a crappy non-faithful movie adaptation where I get credit). That's why the attribution and non-commercial stipulations are there.

The way I see it, people riff off of Disney, Hasbro, Dreamworks, etc properties all the time and it's great, even if those copyrights are heavily protected. If people are going to do it anyway, and it produces great stuff such as Trololo Legacy, then I might as well make it legal for my stuff.

The main purpose of this is to lay out the rules regarding sharing the comic. I don't expect remixes(aside from the occasional avatar), but I do actively encourage sharing. In fact, I've had embed code displayed below both the Kenny Chronicles and FvL comics on their respective websites right from the start.

I'll have the symbol right after "©2012 Garrett Williams". I tried to find out if that was compatible, and I only found one person addressing this. The person's explanation makes sense. Basically, Creative Commons is not a copyright, but is instead a license on top of the copyright that you have already. In that case, my usage of the copyright symbol in conjunction with Creative Commons sounds optimal. I really didn't want to use the wordy language CC offers; "This work by Garrett Williams is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License." If I put any license info directly on the comic, it has to be simple and not distract from the comic. I'll put the full wording in the footer of the site, though. I first checked two Creative Commons licensed comics(xkcd and Sandra & Woo) to see how they did it, but neither use the copyright symbol. In fact, xkcd doesn't have any attribution at all! I normally recommend that people include attribution directly in their comics, because people copy comics across sites & don't provide attribution themselves. Thankfully, xkcd is known by everybody online.

Click here for a plethora of SOPA On A Rope merchandise!

My headache made it rather hard to look at a computer screen, AND the next comic requires a new set. AND I still need to design their daughter, who will show up in the next comic. Maybe I can get ahead on the next comic, but I don't know. At least I know what the comic will be, for the most part.
I should draw LOTS of sketches of their daughter, although I don't always do what I should. Death wasn't even sketched before her premiere, although I did sketch real lemmings beforehand. Guy was only sorta sketched beforehand, but still only in feral form and his fur was still different. Their daughter... I have no sketches of her, but I've thought about her design for a long time. I think she'll be familiar to draw, since she'll have features of both parents, but new characters SHOULD always be sketched beforehand.

I also really really need to build a buffer. At least 1 comic ahead. A buffer is every cartoonist's dream. Well, except political cartoonists and Penny Arcade. I'm glad I don't need comics up within a day of something newsworthy happening like they do.

To read Wikipedia articles during the blackout, replace "en." in the address with "en.m.", which shows the mobile version. Spread the word.