Charles Schulz, (1922~2000), was born November 26, 1922 to Carl and Dena Schulz of St. Paul, Minnesota. By weeks end, however, Charles became known as "Sparky," nicknamed by an uncle with a soft spot for Barney Googles horse "Sparkplug." Schulz carries the nickname to this day, proof of a life devoted to comics. Early on, Schulz recognized his own talents, realizing he could draw even better than his older cousin. An insightful kindergarten teacher once told him, "Someday, Charles, you're going to be an artist." "It" seems beyond the comprehension of people that someone can be born to draw comic strips, but I think I was, "says Schulz. "My ambition from earliest memory was to produce a daily comic strip."
During the Great Depression, Schulz's family found the means to enroll his their son in a correspondence course in cartooning at what is now the Art Instruction Schools, Inc. ("Draw Me"), in Minneapolis. A shy and insecure student, Schulz struggled through the program, submitting his coursework by mail instead of in person and earning only a C+ in "Drawing of Children." Eventually Schulz completed the art course, but was unfortunately drafted into World War II before successfully selling any of his cartoons.
Returning to St. Paul a civilian in need of work, Schulz was poised to accept a job lettering tombstones. Through some confusion, the job did not materialize. It was "Timeless Topix," a small Roman Catholic magazine, that offered Schulz his first job in cartooning. The magazine hired him to letter already drawn comics. Although the position offered him no creative opportunities, it did keep Schulz on track and helped him to hone his lettering skills. Soon, Schulz took on a second job as a teacher with his alma mater, Art Instruction Schools. There, Schulz grew with the support of an artistic community. He practiced his drawing and met many of the people who would inspire his future work (including a friend named Charlie Brown and a girl with red hair who broke his heart). With growing confidence and an expanding portfolio, Schulz blanketed the comics market with samples of his work. Eventually, his persistence paid off and he sold a number of single comic panels in the "Saturday Evening Post." Buoyed by his success in the national magazine market, Schulz went on to land a weekly comic feature called "L'il Folks" in the St. Paul Pioneer Press. The fruit of his creativity and labor, "L'il Folks" featured Charlie Brown and Shermy and became the sole focus of Schulz's career. When asked now if he thought the strip would last, Schulz replies "Sure, I thought it would last. I never intended to draw something that wouldn't last. In fact, when I started out, I thought, 'I'll be drawing this the rest of my life.'"
Marketing "L'il Folks" to syndicates around the country, Schulz finally received a reply from Jim Freeman at United Feature Syndicate. Freeman, a well-respected editor with 30 years' experience, wisely suggested that Schulz expand the comic from one panel to a strip format. Schulz had already been toying with the idea and jumped at the chance to accommodate the syndicate. The new strip format was different from other "kid strips" of the time in that each strip dealt with only a brief incident. The result was a strip with only four panels and a concept that United Feature Syndicate fell in love with. After being invited to visit their offices in New York City, Schulz signed a five-year contract with United Feature Syndicate and began his career as a full-time cartoonist. He celebrated with a steak dinner. The celebration was short-lived, however, when Schulz learned of the syndicate's first major decision. Because of legal issues surrounding the name "L'il Folks" ("Little Folks" and "L'il Abner" already existed), the strip was renamed "PEANUTS." This name made Schulz cringe. To this day, he feels the name connotes "insignificant" or "unimportant." But the syndicate and the newspaper market loved the idea. The strip, with its small size and matching name, was marketed as the flexible format for any newspaper. The strip was touted as "The Greatest Little Sensation Since Tom Thumb." Little attention was given to its insightful text and endearing drawings. But the comic's "foot" was in the door. It took several years for readers to grow attached to the PEANUTS gang. But nearly fifty years later, "PEANUTS" has grown into one of the longest running, most popular comics of all time.
Over the years "PEANUTS" has expanded beyond the realm of daily comics, growing beyond Charles Schulz's wildest dreams. In 1952 John Selby of Rinehart and Company took a risk when he published a collection of comics as "PEANUTS" the book. Little did he know the idea would inspire an entirely new genre in publishing. In 1961 Connie Boucher, a housewife from San Francisco, approached Schulz with the idea of creating a "PEANUTS" calendar. Schulz agreed to the idea and, putting a second mortgage on her home, Boucher produced the very first "PEANUTS Datebook." Snoopy put character merchandising on the map. Later Snoopy dolls, T-shirts, bedding, wris****ches, toothbrushes, and a host of other trinkets took the merchandising market by storm. Today you and your family can visit with Snoopy and the gang in person at your local shopping mall, watch them on videotape on your television, enjoy them in a school play or off-Broadway musical, marvel at their maneuvers in an ice arena, or even interact with them on CD-ROM on your computer.
Felis catus is your taxonomic nomenclature,
An endothermic quadruped, carnivorous by nature.
Your visual, olfactory, and auditory senses
Contribute to your hunting skills and natural defenses.
I find myself intrigued by your subvocal oscillations,
A singular development of cat communications
That obviates your basic hedonistic predilection
For a rhythmic stroking of your fur to demonstrate affection.
A tail is quite essential for your acrobatic talents.
You would not be so agile if you lacked its counterbalance.
And when not being utilized to aid in locomotion,
It often serves to illustrate the state of your emotion.
Oh Spot, the complex levels of behavior you display
Connote a fairly well-developed cognitive array,
And though you are not sentient, Spot, and do not comprehend,
I nonetheless consider you a true and valued friend.
Currently, the Star Trek Online Server is down. We are aware of this issue and are currently working to bring the server back online as soon as possible. Please keep an eye on this page for updates, and notification when Star Trek Online is available again. Thank you, The Star Trek Online Team
The Star Trek Online Team
Can we get more of a description as to why we're crashing servers (backend) as happened during open beta?
Can we get some sort of feedback from Devs as to *what* changes were implemented?
I'm not asking for transparency, just me, and a lot of other disgruntled users are suffering a wtf moment and need to have our tribbles stroked. What was changed, what will change, what's on scope, what's on radar, what's for near-term what's long-term, etc.
Dev chats promoing something we've already bought with cliches and slogans isn't going to cut it if the system is down 8 hours for a "30 minute episode" at ensign level.
Don't pander to me, kid. One tiny crack in the SERVER and our blood boils in thirteen seconds. Solar flare might crop up, cook us in our seats. And wait till you're sitting pretty with a case of Andorian shingles, see if you're so relaxed when your eyeballs are bleeding. STAR TREK ONLINE is disease and danger wrapped in darkness and silence.
Must be a bad time for them right now if it takes this long--and I can sympathize.
What peeves me more than the downtime is the too-clever-by-half sniping of the several sarcastoles who think software development and server management are easy. The dev and net teams are working on a weekend while you guys sit back in your comfy chairs and fire off half-witty japes at their expense.
I, too, am working this weekend to ensure that my customer base, along with my entire team, guaranteeing 24-hour coverage during a critical cutover period. I happen to be off-shift right now, but I'll be driving in the middle of the night in to the office to make sure that all is well and that we can react instantly should an issue arise. (Just to be clear: I don't work for Cryptic; my team doesn't write computer games.)
I think that a little respect for the professionals providing you with a head start purely as a courtesy would go a long way. If you think that having paid money guarantees that the power will stay on, or that the water main won't break, or that the toaster will always toast, you should re-examine your thought processes. (Not only that, but the 30 days you get for buying the game doesn't include the head start--technically, you haven't paid for this time at all because your per-license price is the same as everyone else's.)
Blizzard has just completed the purchase of Cryptic and has shut the company's new STO servers down indefinitely. A Blizzard rep was quoted as saying, " Once we get the MR. T Mohawk into the game, everything will be back online."
Were no strangers to love
You know the rules and so do i
A full commitments what Im thinking of
You wouldnt get this from any other guy
I just wanna tell you how Im feeling
Gotta make you understand
Never gonna give you up
Never gonna let you down
Never gonna run around and desert you
Never gonna make you cry
Never gonna say goodbye
Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you
Weve know each other for so long
Your hearts been aching
But youre too shy to say it
Inside we both know whats been going on
We know the game and were gonna play it
And if you ask me how Im feeling
Dont tell me youre too blind to see
Give you up. give you up
Give you up, give you up
Never gonna give
Never gonna give, give you up
Never gonna give
Never gonna give, five you up
I just wanna tell you how Im feeling
Gotta make you understand
Comments
Spartacus was a slave. :eek:
Only way you know for sure is if your missus sleeps with the rest of the blokes down the road.
During the Great Depression, Schulz's family found the means to enroll his their son in a correspondence course in cartooning at what is now the Art Instruction Schools, Inc. ("Draw Me"), in Minneapolis. A shy and insecure student, Schulz struggled through the program, submitting his coursework by mail instead of in person and earning only a C+ in "Drawing of Children." Eventually Schulz completed the art course, but was unfortunately drafted into World War II before successfully selling any of his cartoons.
Returning to St. Paul a civilian in need of work, Schulz was poised to accept a job lettering tombstones. Through some confusion, the job did not materialize. It was "Timeless Topix," a small Roman Catholic magazine, that offered Schulz his first job in cartooning. The magazine hired him to letter already drawn comics. Although the position offered him no creative opportunities, it did keep Schulz on track and helped him to hone his lettering skills. Soon, Schulz took on a second job as a teacher with his alma mater, Art Instruction Schools. There, Schulz grew with the support of an artistic community. He practiced his drawing and met many of the people who would inspire his future work (including a friend named Charlie Brown and a girl with red hair who broke his heart). With growing confidence and an expanding portfolio, Schulz blanketed the comics market with samples of his work. Eventually, his persistence paid off and he sold a number of single comic panels in the "Saturday Evening Post." Buoyed by his success in the national magazine market, Schulz went on to land a weekly comic feature called "L'il Folks" in the St. Paul Pioneer Press. The fruit of his creativity and labor, "L'il Folks" featured Charlie Brown and Shermy and became the sole focus of Schulz's career. When asked now if he thought the strip would last, Schulz replies "Sure, I thought it would last. I never intended to draw something that wouldn't last. In fact, when I started out, I thought, 'I'll be drawing this the rest of my life.'"
Marketing "L'il Folks" to syndicates around the country, Schulz finally received a reply from Jim Freeman at United Feature Syndicate. Freeman, a well-respected editor with 30 years' experience, wisely suggested that Schulz expand the comic from one panel to a strip format. Schulz had already been toying with the idea and jumped at the chance to accommodate the syndicate. The new strip format was different from other "kid strips" of the time in that each strip dealt with only a brief incident. The result was a strip with only four panels and a concept that United Feature Syndicate fell in love with. After being invited to visit their offices in New York City, Schulz signed a five-year contract with United Feature Syndicate and began his career as a full-time cartoonist. He celebrated with a steak dinner. The celebration was short-lived, however, when Schulz learned of the syndicate's first major decision. Because of legal issues surrounding the name "L'il Folks" ("Little Folks" and "L'il Abner" already existed), the strip was renamed "PEANUTS." This name made Schulz cringe. To this day, he feels the name connotes "insignificant" or "unimportant." But the syndicate and the newspaper market loved the idea. The strip, with its small size and matching name, was marketed as the flexible format for any newspaper. The strip was touted as "The Greatest Little Sensation Since Tom Thumb." Little attention was given to its insightful text and endearing drawings. But the comic's "foot" was in the door. It took several years for readers to grow attached to the PEANUTS gang. But nearly fifty years later, "PEANUTS" has grown into one of the longest running, most popular comics of all time.
Over the years "PEANUTS" has expanded beyond the realm of daily comics, growing beyond Charles Schulz's wildest dreams. In 1952 John Selby of Rinehart and Company took a risk when he published a collection of comics as "PEANUTS" the book. Little did he know the idea would inspire an entirely new genre in publishing. In 1961 Connie Boucher, a housewife from San Francisco, approached Schulz with the idea of creating a "PEANUTS" calendar. Schulz agreed to the idea and, putting a second mortgage on her home, Boucher produced the very first "PEANUTS Datebook." Snoopy put character merchandising on the map. Later Snoopy dolls, T-shirts, bedding, wris****ches, toothbrushes, and a host of other trinkets took the merchandising market by storm. Today you and your family can visit with Snoopy and the gang in person at your local shopping mall, watch them on videotape on your television, enjoy them in a school play or off-Broadway musical, marvel at their maneuvers in an ice arena, or even interact with them on CD-ROM on your computer.
An endothermic quadruped, carnivorous by nature.
Your visual, olfactory, and auditory senses
Contribute to your hunting skills and natural defenses.
I find myself intrigued by your subvocal oscillations,
A singular development of cat communications
That obviates your basic hedonistic predilection
For a rhythmic stroking of your fur to demonstrate affection.
A tail is quite essential for your acrobatic talents.
You would not be so agile if you lacked its counterbalance.
And when not being utilized to aid in locomotion,
It often serves to illustrate the state of your emotion.
Oh Spot, the complex levels of behavior you display
Connote a fairly well-developed cognitive array,
And though you are not sentient, Spot, and do not comprehend,
I nonetheless consider you a true and valued friend.
Can we get more of a description as to why we're crashing servers (backend) as happened during open beta?
Can we get some sort of feedback from Devs as to *what* changes were implemented?
I'm not asking for transparency, just me, and a lot of other disgruntled users are suffering a wtf moment and need to have our tribbles stroked. What was changed, what will change, what's on scope, what's on radar, what's for near-term what's long-term, etc.
Dev chats promoing something we've already bought with cliches and slogans isn't going to cut it if the system is down 8 hours for a "30 minute episode" at ensign level.
Does anyone read me? Hello!? is this on?
"Go check the server down thread - apparantly he's in one of the 400+ pages."
There was a 3GB DL/Patch?
Nobody believes that they are hard at work, so one of the mods made a film of two of the developers hard at work as we post:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLYD_-A_X5E
All Hail Star Wars! Bow down you stupid Trekkies!
HAHAHAHAHAH nice WTF SPOCK thats highly ilogical
Janeway: "CHAKOTAY!"
PMSL! In a 300+ page thread about servers crashing this is gold....just gold.
Gah, what won't thy let you quote two things at once!
What peeves me more than the downtime is the too-clever-by-half sniping of the several sarcastoles who think software development and server management are easy. The dev and net teams are working on a weekend while you guys sit back in your comfy chairs and fire off half-witty japes at their expense.
I, too, am working this weekend to ensure that my customer base, along with my entire team, guaranteeing 24-hour coverage during a critical cutover period. I happen to be off-shift right now, but I'll be driving in the middle of the night in to the office to make sure that all is well and that we can react instantly should an issue arise. (Just to be clear: I don't work for Cryptic; my team doesn't write computer games.)
I think that a little respect for the professionals providing you with a head start purely as a courtesy would go a long way. If you think that having paid money guarantees that the power will stay on, or that the water main won't break, or that the toaster will always toast, you should re-examine your thought processes. (Not only that, but the 30 days you get for buying the game doesn't include the head start--technically, you haven't paid for this time at all because your per-license price is the same as everyone else's.)
Nah..mopre like:
_p = post_count;
for(i; i<_p; i++){
_p += _p * _p;
}
Quickly dual web the bootserver!
MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA:mad:
Failed on page 351
waited three hours now
, oh well off to do the next best thing in my world catching and eating some fish!
Keep up the good work cryptic love your game
At least its a monday public holiday here fingers crossed for servers!
Lloap
Who am I to disagree...
Rick rolled the thread. Epic. Well played!