Original Commentary

Yes, it's the three guys from the lounge. They haven't shown up much lately. They don't have names. They just sit around watching a semi-defective TV. They have mutually exclusive ideas of what's actually playing. The title, "Me and my TV", is taken from a song by Gary Sedgwick. It's a really good song; unfortunately, it's not available anywhere. Isabel came up with Super Tim. I left the guys' dialogue blank until the last minute in the hope that I could come up with something really clever. And that's the same "snap" sound our monitor made when it died a few years ago, the sound of an electrical current going where it really, really shouldn't - Terrence

Modern Commentary
I don't think the younger kids quite have the same experience. Everything is digital. Either you have the channel or you don't. You're can't really squint through the static from a poor antenna reception. You can't try to watch something through the squiggles from a scrambled cable channel.
Nowadays, you just get a black screen with a message that says "You don't get this channel" or something like that. You can stare at that for hours and you'll never mistake it for a wrestling match or quiz show.

I wouldn't say their lives are poorer for missing that experience, but it's kind of integral to the Lounge Guys' whole thing.

The song that this storyline is named after still isn't online. There are a lot of other songs by the same name, but they aren't the right one. That's what happens when you trade tapes. - Terrence

Original Commentary

So, what really happened to Kimberly's internet connection? (Yes, Lola used the exact same excuse...) That's a good question. It may have broken and she was too lazy to fix it. Or Ms. Taylor may have pulled some strings. Or maybe it really was a usage issue.
Isabel says Lola looks hot for a grandmother. There's probably a really interesting story about Lola's past. - Terrence

Modern Commentary
This is a direct callback to a comic a from a month prior where Lola told Kimberly that the internet got shut off because they used it too much.

At the risk of over-explaining things, the TV isn't metered. Lola's excuse is transparently false. And there's probably a bit more to that story.

I kinda wish we had run them closer together, but we had other things going on.

So, the untold plotline of "what probably happened to Kimberly's home internet" has been downgraded from "Ms. Taylor had someone cut them off" to "Ms. Taylor had someone call Lola and say their rates would go up - especially because of all that online auction traffic. Then Lola went and unplugged things on her own to makes sure that didn't happen." - Terrence

Original Commentary

Today's comic was late because Terrence forgot to update it... I asked him several times to make sure he uploaded it -and asked him double checked it-, he claimed he did. I was working on Spring Breakout all last night. It's also the reason why the bonus commentary wasn't updated as well. But rather than go on about it, here is actual banter about the comic...

I hope you can tell Guy #3 (hopefully we'll give these guys names one of these days) is about to knock on that door. And I hope you all can recognize just whose door that is. - Isabel

Modern Commentary
So our system involves us uploading the comic and updating a text file that has all the titles, dates, etc.
This has - especially with three separate comics at the time- led to a variety of mishaps and late updates.

Anyhow, the sparks are an important part of this whole thing. A reasonable person would've mentioned that first. A sensible person would have unplugged the TV. The lounge guys did neither. - Terrence

Original Commentary

Amazing what boredom can do, isn't it? Given enough time, they'd probably come back asking for things that are even more ridiculous.

Modern Commentary
Those three pretty much go feral instantly, don't they?

I have very little to add. I'll just say that my notes include a few other story pitches.

"Emily & Sinclair? But how do they meet?
Brisbane goes to work?
Apartment stuff? bathroom breaks down? Too angry."

We ended up having Emily and Sinclair meet at the wedding a few years later. I don't remember exactly what happened to our apartment's bathroom, but I'm sure we were too angry at the time to find much humor in it.- Terrence

Original Commentary

We're trying to give Brisbane and Kimberly some other things to do other than worry about their relationship with eachother. As we've seen in the past, Brisbane seems to have a bit of a knack for fixing TVs... at least old TVs. I'm sure he couldn't fixed a computer even if he had a manual in front of him (ok... maybe after he blew up one or two of them), but at least he has a fairly cheap hobby now. - Isabel

Modern Commentary
Because it gets them to stop bothering him, that's why.

The Lounge Guys are, in the script, just called Guy 1, Guy 2, and Guy 3. We're not really consistent about which is which and it doesn't really matter. They're interchangeable at this point.

Also, I'm a little disappointed we didn't do anything for April Fools' Day. I think we were burnt out on the concept at this point. - Terrence

Original Commentary

Coincidentally, I wound up doing a very similar thing to a computer for my in-laws today. And originally, they script called for geraniums, but there wasn't enough room. And Brisbane has fixed TVs in the past. It's one of those skills that comes in really handy. And yeah, we need to give those guys names some day - Terrence

Modern Commentary
So, earlier, two of the guys were "watching" wrestling and a quiz show. The other guy was probably seeing a documentary or TV news in the static patterns, per my notes.

There was a line from Brisbane that got cut, "And the steering coils work on this one so the picture should be a lot clearer.", in panel 3.
I like the line but it doesn't add anything, even though steering coils are a real part of a TV. We know the old TV is broken. We know the new TV (briefly) isn't. Not enough space for it. I got a little better about how much we could fit in a panel, eventually.- Terrence