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24

Technical Difficulties

September 13, 2019 by Tim

I’m really sorry guys, I had a big disaster here today. Everyone is safe, etc, but my computer not so much.

I don’t yet know what, if anything, I’m going to be able to salvage. My day was a wreck. I had to try and get an old parts computer up and running in order to cobble some sort of update together here, and I literally just finished even that here at 11:30pm. I don’t have any of my stuff. I’m spent, I’m exhausted, I’m emotionally drained. Hopefully I can get back to at least some semblance of business as usual for Monday. I’m sorry. I know this isn’t a real comic, I just didn’t want to do, you know… nothing.


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Nayrael
Nayrael
5 years ago

I think it is a testament to your skill that you managed to make such a well-drawn comic in so little time and so exhausted.

Matthew A Moore
Matthew A Moore
5 years ago
Reply to  Nayrael

It was likely premade. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but one would assume he had a couple comics ready for likely scenarios of a non-personal nature.
Besides, while the art is still awesome, this comic does not have the details we normally see these days. (Damn Tim, you have definitely grown as an artist!)
Of course that could be “pre-made” or “thrown together comic”, but my money is on the former.

Brendan J Keating
Brendan J Keating
5 years ago
Reply to  Tim

Good Lord dude. The fact that you were able to put this together in that kind of time is a testament to you. This is just my opinion, but take a week. Get some rest and put things back together. We’ll all be here when you get back. If you need it.

Whatever happened, Godspeed to you, and I hope everyone is okay.

Nayrael
Nayrael
5 years ago

Unless Tim can look into the future (and not put those skills to use), I don’t see how he could have premade a comic about his computer’s death before the day his computer’s death…

Spanner
Spanner
5 years ago
Reply to  Nayrael

I mean… Computers die. It’s not uncommon. If one were to create a pool of emergency comics to use in case of disaster, I’d say that a “computer failure” comic would be pretty close to the top of the list.
Not what happened here, but not an unreasonable guess, either.

Ben
Ben
5 years ago

Friday 13th eh?

Tyler Robinson
Tyler Robinson
5 years ago
Reply to  Ben

Dammit. That’s what I came here to say. 😀

Arigas
Arigas
5 years ago
Reply to  Ben

Either Tim lives somewhere in the east, or this happened on Thursday the 12th 😛

foukas
foukas
5 years ago

You don’t have to apologize, these things happen. I hope you restore everything soon.

Daniel Harvison
Daniel Harvison
5 years ago

My sympathies. Stupid computer gremlins, striking when least convenient. Any idea what went poof?

Daniel Sørensen
Daniel Sørensen
5 years ago

When i read your statement, I don’t know why, but I thought you had a fire or a leakage. Hope that is not the case, and it’s only the computer that made Seppuku.
If nothing else, I hope you and your family is safe and sound and have an refreshing weekend.

Jörgen Bootsma
Jörgen Bootsma
5 years ago

Exactly that. He wrote “everyone is safe”. We are not talking broken pc here…

: Life is always more important then a “silly comic”. Be well and when you are ready to share, keep us informed.

Joe
Joe
5 years ago

EXACTLY what I was going to type

SmCaudata
SmCaudata
5 years ago
Reply to  Tim

Glad you all are well. Do what you need to do.

Jörgen Bootsma
Jörgen Bootsma
5 years ago
Reply to  Tim

Something nobody wishes to ever experience in his life. Take care and get some rest for now… Give our regards to the family, we are with you all in spirit.

TariOronar
TariOronar
5 years ago
Reply to  Tim

Ouch. I’m glad everyone is safe. Honestly, I think in a situation like that posting an update (even just a text one) and then taking a break for however long you need to get things put back together is completely reasonable…

Andrew Wilkin
Andrew Wilkin
5 years ago
Reply to  Tim

Bright side… UPGRADES! 😀

Ducky
Ducky
5 years ago
Reply to  Tim

Fires fucking suck. Best to you and the family, let us know if you need anything.

Patrick Rogers
Patrick Rogers
5 years ago
Reply to  Tim

That explains the melting monitor

Vlad
Vlad
5 years ago
Reply to  Tim

I’m glad to know you and your family are all right. Sorry to hear about the fire. You should take a break to recover.

chris
chris
5 years ago
Reply to  Tim

You used SSD drive don’t you? Then yes likely everything is gone a hdd do survive fires better

luminantAegis
luminantAegis
5 years ago
Reply to  chris

who in the world are you replying to, nobody is talking about data loss because a person’s life is more important

Herr_Underdogg
Herr_Underdogg
5 years ago
Reply to  Tim

Glad to hear that everyone is safe. Best wishes for speedy resolution of claims and restoration to normalcy for you and your family.

chris
chris
5 years ago

yes we want to know what happend you leaving us hanging makes us worry

Logan
Logan
5 years ago
Reply to  chris

Read the replies above, Chris.
He already said what happened (5 hours prior to your comment).

chris
chris
5 years ago
Reply to  Logan

I guess i didn’t see it my internet has been wonky last week

Merendel
Merendel
5 years ago

ouch. We’ve all been there bro. Do what you need to to get things back on track even if that means a couple of filler comics not up to your usual standard.
Seriously I’ve had many experiences with computers shiting themselves unexpectedly and then haveing to spend all day swaping out parts and rebuilding OS installs so I could use it for work the next day. Never fun.

Denis
Denis
5 years ago

You are a professional and you can handle it, that’s for sure. Just don’t forget to take care of yourself. Cheers from Moscow, Russian Federation.

Mike
Mike
5 years ago

Shit, bro, I hope you had/have backups. (Also hopefully it wasn’t a disk that died, and/or that disk didn’t contain irreplaceable data…)

mandoschMUh
mandoschMUh
5 years ago

Take a deep breath, and relax. I hope you manage to get everything running soon. We’ll be there, when you’re able to return back to normal.

foducool
foducool
5 years ago

well shit, get better soon, computer

Scortch
Scortch
5 years ago

1. This is a comic, let no one tell you otherwise. 2. That really sucks man, I hope all is going to be ok for you and the family. You take care of you. Hell we will all post memes and shit if we need to, to cover for you.

nealithi
nealithi
5 years ago

Good luck and try to keep some hair in your head. I know such things are frustrating. I wish I could help with more than encouraging words. But I have faith that you shall over come.

Stephen Nagy
Stephen Nagy
5 years ago

You do what you gotta do Tim. Waiting a weekend won’t kill us.

A_Lucky_Hit
A_Lucky_Hit
5 years ago

Sorry to hear, but still have a hard time understanding how people who rely on computers dont have back up machines? I see streamers go down because theirs craps out, this happens here, I still remember when EA lost all their work on the BF2142 patch because they had it all on 1 pc that died? Am I the only PC geek that has a back up PC on the other side of the room? Sure its out of old parts but its a 6core AMD with a 980ti so it will get the job done. I’m in construction and… Read more »

eli
eli
5 years ago
Reply to  A_Lucky_Hit

not to argue with you, but Tim just said it was a house fire. So unless he was to be so paranoid as to have a computer in a remote site, that would set back most professionals. Especially since he works from home (I believe) he probably had higher priority things to save than his computer(s)

A_Lucky_Hit
A_Lucky_Hit
5 years ago
Reply to  eli

That was not stated when I wrote the comment so everybody who down voted me suck it.

D Harshman
D Harshman
5 years ago
Reply to  A_Lucky_Hit

I think the reason people downvoted was more about attitude than content…

Zang269
Zang269
5 years ago

It’s no problem man! You’ve been making great stuff literally for years. You actually made this in spite of massive hardware failure. If we’ve got to wait for a while before CAD is back online, then no problem!

P. Stein
P. Stein
5 years ago

Glad to hear you’re fine.
Hope you didn’t lose a lot of personal stuff / professional tools.
If there was a fire / other house disaster (electricity, etc.) and you had a lot of personal stuff, I’d gladly participate in a go fund me or purchase more comic goods.
Also, I hope you had as much stuff backed up as possible.
Finally, at least I would be more than fine if you don’t post on Monday, so that you can get your house in order and rest up. We’ll be fine 🙂

Frank Altpeter
Frank Altpeter
5 years ago

I can feel your pain, had similar issues some years ago. Take your time and recover, don’t rush. The most important thing is your mental health, anything else are just things, and things can be replaced one way or another.
Besides, this comic is awesome, as always, even with the current conditions – no way in describing it as “not a real comic” 🙂

Taolan
Taolan
5 years ago

I am getting a serious Nightmare X (Metroid Fusuon) vibe from the broken screen.

Shawn
Shawn
5 years ago

You are amazing and your art is greatly appreciated. Take a deep breath and know we all appreciate the work you do. I hope today is a better day for you!

D. Wolf
D. Wolf
5 years ago

Pretty sure this is the first time this has happened. Been reading this comic for a while now and I got to say I can’t remember anything like this ever happening. Don’t be hard on yourself man and don’t worry about Monday. I haven’t gone anywhere since the third character was introduced ( was it a watermelon or a cantaloupe I know it was a melon) and I doubt anyone is going anywhere because of your computer melting down. 99.9% is good enough for kitchen cleaners 99.9% up time is more than excellent for a Web comic.

Boomchickenpop
Boomchickenpop
5 years ago

It’s all good dude. This always. Murphy and his law can bite a giant meat cucumber

Jaymes
Jaymes
5 years ago

I think it counts. I liked it.

Ang3lus033
Ang3lus033
5 years ago

Manage your important stuff, don’t worry. And most important, take care of yourself.
Cheers

Kasey
Kasey
5 years ago

Zeke finally went bezerker on you guys? Glad you all got out. Hope you remembered to save the hard drive, human (or have a backup somewhere).

Jacob
Jacob
5 years ago
Reply to  Kasey

I legit read this as “save the hard drive, the human (or have a backup somewhere”) like people just keep extra kids in storage, you know, just in case…

Carl
Carl
5 years ago

I went through this after a recent photo shoot. Got home, plugged in the memory card, and clicked my mouse only to see the system bluescreen. After some disagreements it finally rebooted but my mouse no longer worked. Turns out that pair of USB ports had died, probably causing the BSOD. I’ve had some other issues of late with the system bluescreening intermittently and they haven’t always been cause by the same problems. There have also been some other USB problems in the past few months. Needless to say, I think the motherboard is probably suffering from some problems and… Read more »

Stephanie
Stephanie
5 years ago

Writes a note to self to back up computer tonight.

Tumbleweed
Tumbleweed
5 years ago
Reply to  Stephanie

I literally spent today organizing my backups.

Erich Krueger
Erich Krueger
5 years ago

Is the hard drive still functional? Even if you can’t boot to it you may be able to slave it out to another drive and use it as a data drive only…

Burning batsu
Burning batsu
5 years ago
Reply to  Erich Krueger

Depends on how severe the fire damage was for him, even then, if he claims insurance on the damaged property, he may not be able to get access to it since the insurers are effectively buying your damaged property.

Twilight Faze
Twilight Faze
5 years ago

I don’t think any of us would blame you if no comic was up and this blog post was all you gave. If it was that bad, you should have taken more time for yourself and get a jump-start on the weekend to recover. The fact you didn’t says a LOT about your professionalism.

Hope you and the family recover from this. I know you will, but still…

Roborat
Roborat
5 years ago
Reply to  Tim

I understand your motivation, but I think a freaking house fire is an acceptable reason to miss an update, I am relieved everyone is ok, and I trust the damage is not too bad. As many others have said, take whatever time you need to take care of yourself and your family, we aren’t going anywhere. And as others have said, if you need financial help to get things going again, set up a funding thing, I am sure you will get any help you need.

Wizard Locke
Wizard Locke
5 years ago
Reply to  Tim

I’d never noticed before but damn… never missed an update. Maybe you could give ransoomair or thunt some tips lol

Wizard Locke
Wizard Locke
5 years ago
Reply to  Tim

Damn, never missed an update? Maybe you could give ramsoomair or thunt some tips lol

DJ Spy
DJ Spy
5 years ago

This is awesome and the reason this is my top comic and a part of my (semi) daily routine. Gonna go jump on patreon for you just for the skill and fan focus this comic shows.

GuThePenguin
GuThePenguin
5 years ago

Shut up. This comic is hilarious.

RoL
RoL
5 years ago

Man I had a horse pull up lame right smack in the middle of a lesson I was giving and the kid cried cuz she was so disappointed. Shit happens, anyone who is even remotely reasonable would understand that. No worries Tim, you do what you gotta do and we’ll all be waiting

Marc-0
Marc-0
5 years ago

Tim, considering the circumstances, this is definitely a comic and you were able to make it funny. That’s a huge credit to you as an artist.

Now, as some suggested, take a week and put things back together. We’ll wait for you.

Mickk
Mickk
5 years ago

I’ve been following your comic for years, I don’t know how many. Probably like a lot of your readers. Awesome stuff 99% of the time. Sometimes stuff happens in RL that can’t be avoided. The fact that there is *anything* here for us to look at despite the RL stuff is great. Take your time, get you and your family sorted, it doesn’t matter if you miss a month or so of comics. RL has to be dealt with first on the odd occasion. I reckon this is one of those. I’d send you my old PC parts (perfectly good… Read more »

Kaitensatsuma
Kaitensatsuma
5 years ago

At least try to reclaim the hard drive.

Nothing else matters quite as much as your files.

Alex
Alex
5 years ago

Meh, this is why i hate computers, this kinda of crap always seem to happend to me at the worst possible moment, good luck Champ, we wont be going anywhere anyway and TOOOOOOO MANY GAMES TOO PLAY NOT ENOUGH TIME O.O. Be safe. Praise the SUN!!

Rodimus
Rodimus
5 years ago

Glad to know everyone is ok.

The rAt
The rAt
5 years ago

Your dedication to getting a comic out is admirable – fires are no joke.

I have a co-worker whose car randomly decided to catch fire while parked in his garage and it took him about a year for the damage to the house to be repaired and get his family moved back in. Hopefully, it won’t take anywhere near that long.

Best of luck to you and your family!

des
des
5 years ago

Knowing how disheartening these things could be, I wish you good luck for this weekend full of swearing while you try and put things back together 🙂

marcus
marcus
5 years ago

no no, by all means! i love these! feel free to spit them out whenever you want.

cr0ft
cr0ft
5 years ago

Yeah, it happens. Have backups. Then backups of the backups somewhere on cloud storage. Wasabi is $5.99 a month per TB. And keep those current. Basically, assume that at any given point, your motherboard will explode and turn the insides of your computer into a bucket of shrapnel. Do you then still have your data? If not, you need a better plan. Hope you can recover all of it.

Casra
Casra
5 years ago

Dude, chit happens, we all understand. Glad all are well, comics are just pixels of amusement.

SteampunkCircus
SteampunkCircus
5 years ago

I’ve been coming here for over a decade at this point. I’m not going anywhere. Take a break if you need it. Don’t get burnt out. Sounds like you have a lot going on.

Logan
Logan
5 years ago

Likewise! Friends introduced me to your site back when you had… maybe, a few dozen comics up, total. Good stuff! Not goin anywhere. xD

Tyler Nielsen
Tyler Nielsen
5 years ago

Holy crap, dude. Anyone else would have given up and just given us a purely text based update on what’s happening. This is very much going above and beyond.

Harold
Harold
5 years ago

What happened? Virus? Cryptolocker? Fire? Baby/cat knocked over soda onto your computer???

Eldest Gruff
Eldest Gruff
5 years ago

Hoooly cow. Wow.

Glad everyone’s safe. And props for the awesome comic done in spite of having limited resources. I legit laughed, until I got to the third panel and realized, “Oh, crap, it’s for reals.” Then, the blurb underneath.

I want to echo everyone else – take time for you – but I also see that might not be something you really CAN do, financially. Running CAD must be like running a business. It doesn’t stop.

Just as a reminder, guys – Tim’s got a Patreon.

John
John
5 years ago

You kidding? This is epic! Hits ANY of us fellow builders right in the feels. You didn’t just not post nothing. You posted a glimpse into our souls.

Good luck with recovery. Take the time you need to repair. We’ll wait.

Vedrit
Vedrit
5 years ago

As a computer technician, I wish I could help.

FITCamaro
FITCamaro
5 years ago

I would actually donate to that gofundme.

Stephen
Stephen
5 years ago

I wish you and your family the best in getting back up and running, and am glad to hear everyone is safe.

Now, pretending that I didn’t read anything about personal disasters beyond a rogue computer….
We salute our brother and his fallen machine. Prophet Turing, please shepherd this machine into the great beyond for its faithful service. Saint Time Machine, please guide the soul that once occupied this casing and allow it to return to us more alive and vibrant than ever.

Alex
Alex
5 years ago

Glad you guys are okay, hope all will be fine soon. There still are always some things which one simply cannot backup into the cloud. Awesome you still made the update, even you dont had too.