Hackles - News Archives

We apologize - no comic today. Jen's computer kept crashing, and the comic was a particularly difficult one to finish. We'll definitely have it up by Thursday though. We hope the new year is treating you right, and we'll see you in a couple days.

Sorry, no new comic today. Happy New Year everyone! May you all be healthy and happy this year. Unfortunately, Drake and I are not so healthy right now. I have a nagging cold and he has a nasty flu. So in lieu of posting a comic today, we're going to rest up and concentrate on feeling better as we ring in 2004. Best wishes to all!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all of our friends, family, and readers. I hope you all have a happy, healthy, and safe holiday season. I got a great surprise this morning when I went out to feed the fish in my pond. Drake and I had put a Plecostomus in there before we knew that it might get too cold for this species to survive the winter, and we couldn't catch this elusive fish. I didn't see him in a long time and I thought the cold might have gotten the best of him. But I saw him briefly this morning when I moved some duckweed out of the way and he was four times bigger than when he went in the pond! All the other fish are doing well too.

I saw the movie Elf the other night and it was surprisingly funny. Will Ferrell can get into the craziest characters and be completely believable. I'd probably make a good elf, since their four main food groups are candy, candy canes, candy corn, and syrup. Add chocolate and I'm in hands down!

Have fun and enjoy the last of 2003.

Sorry, no comic for today. Jen is vacationing in Buffalo, NY for a week, and there was no way we could get a cartoon ready. We will be back on schedule Thursday.

We are slowly catching up on our email - apologies to all of you who have written to us and still have not received a response. I deleted over a thousand SPAMs yesterday... ugh.

Some of our German readers created a site, hackles.de, which will host German translations of our comic. There had been other attempts to translate our comics into German, but this site has a great look, and it seems like they definitely have their act together. Since Jen and I still can't read German, we can't really verify the translations, and so the site will have to remain a sort of unofficial comrade. However it is a wonderful and endearing gesture, and we appreciate all the work. Thanks, Roger and the rest of the hackles.de team!

Our pal Ronny from Belgium sent us a link to the big matchup between Danish chess grandmaster Peter Heine Nielsen and the distributed ChessBrain.Net project. We think it's a very cool idea. Download the chessbrain PeerNode software to participate. I'll be rooting for the machines...

The weather is finally cooling off here in muggy Florida, and I've been celebrating by running like a madman. I'm training for a half marathon (13.1 miles) in the middle of December, and then another one in Key West at the end of January. Running is an amazing antidote for sitting in front of a computer all day and eating super-sized junk food - I lost over 30 pounds since May, and I didn't even have to change my crappy diet :). So to all of you overweight geeks: get out there and run! Accept no substitutes.

Finally, you know all those silly videos and Flash cartoons your co-workers are always playing in the office? Jen and I just discovered there is one place where you can see them all. Maybe this is a widely known fact; we didn't know. Anyway, there are many hours to be wasted there...

Today's comic will be posted a little late. Meanwhile, don't forget to check out the new Homestar Runner Halloween cartoon! Oh what fun.

Readers Jessica Hanmeier and Janko Luin saw my humble anti-SPAM perl scripts and decided to make a version in PHP. Here is the source - you are encouraged to host the script on your own site or link to theirs. Do your part to fight SPAM - it feels swell!

Hooray, Jen just got back from her San Francisco trip! She had a great time, but lost her voice after non-stop chatting during her 40 hour drive home ;-). So now we can continue posting comics... business as usual.

I just got my new camera in the mail. It's a Minolta DiMAGE Xt, and it is impressively tiny (it's supposed to be the world's smallest 3 Megapixel digital camera). I love it. Due to the diminuitive flash, the pictures it takes are a little on the dark side, and they aren't exactly "professional" quality, but I don't mind. I carry so much stuff in my pockets (cell phone, beeper, keys, etc.), the only thing I require in a camera is smallness.

Quick links: Looks like my place of employment made it to Slashdot :P. Oh well. A lot of you may have seen this before, but a friend sent me a link to these Weight Watchers recipe cards from 1974, and I laughed mightily. I then followed links to a couple more sites featuring horribly unappetizing aliments, and I had to wonder how anyone in this country could muster the appetite to eat American food before 1980.

Well, I'm leaving tomorrow to drive from California to Florida, and with limited access to a computer, there will be no new strips this week :(.

This Saturday, I saw my friend Blue play in a songfight show here in San Francisco. it rocked. I've met so many nice, warm, friendly people here. This has been one of the best trips I've ever had. Thanks everybody!

(No new comic). Hello everyone. I'm in San Francisco right now. I'm having fun in this beautiful city, but limited computer access is preventing me from finishing today's comic. If you've never been to San Francisco, the guy sitting next to me on the airplane gave me the best advice, "Always bring a sweater." It feels like all four seasons in one day here. The morning is warm yet brisk like spring, then it's as hot as summer, turning into a nice fall afternoon, until the icy wind chills like winter.

I'll be driving back cross country next week with my friend Michele, but I'll do my best to bring you a Hackles while I'm away from home. If not, I'll post some pictures when I get home. May you all be well fed, warm, and happy.

Sorry, no comic today. Since fall semester started at the University where I am employed, I've been slammed with work. These days, I can't even to sit down for 10 minutes to eat a plate of spaghetti, without my cell phone ringing about some emergency I have to deal with.

So, sorry about the increasing flakiness of our comic schedule. We're doing the best we can. And as far as email goes, I know we have a large que from you guys that we still need to read and answer. Hopefully, we can catch up a bit over the weekend.

In the meantime, if you're looking for some funny, check out this great review of Star Wars action figures that my brother sent me. Should I feel embarrased that I actually know who General Madine was?