BodyWorlds

Tonight I went to Science World to see the BodyWorlds exhibit, and it was crazy awesome. In short, corpses that have been plastinated are displayed in various poses and states of dissection. They have in-depth displays and cross sections of every major body part, showing both healthy and diseased organs. I learned more about the body tonight than I have in any biology class I've taken or anatomy book I've read. I only wish I could have brought my sketchbook (I went with family, and I doubt they would have wanted to sit around watching me draw), or at least taken photos to remind me of what I saw.

I seriously recommend going to see this if it shows up in a town near you. It really makes you think of body in a whole new way. If you're an artist, it's the best anatomy lesson you'll ever get for $20.

Misogyny in geek culture

My homeboy Toadpole has been writing a few really good posts on his blog about how misogyny is not only tolerated, but celebrated in certain areas of geek culture, specifically in reference to Sin City, and the upcoming Grindhouse.

The original post
A response to criticism of the original post

While I totally agree with what he says, I loved Sin City and I'm really looking forward to Grindhouse. But it's despite these flaws, not because of them. So I guess I don't take the same zero tolerance stance as he does, but that doesn't mean I'm going to deny the faults just because I happen to like the rest of the movie.


Wait, does anyone besides Toadpole even read this blog anyway?

Portfolio Redesign

I redesigned my portfolio site, to do away with that godawful design I had once and for all. I even learned HTML and CSS and coded this one all by myself rather than using Frontpage. Now I can be that elitist jerk who whenever someone asked what a good web design program is, responds "NOTEPAD!"

You can check out the new design at www.WhereIsMyEyeball.com. Please let me know if anything doesn't work, I tested it as well as I could. It won't be real pretty in any screen resolution under 1024x768, but that's pretty much a necessity since I'm showing off my artwork at fairly high resolutions.

I'm back!

I'm back from my vacation! I had a total blast, got my mind blown, and then came home and slept for 12 hours straight.

I'll post photos and talk more about it in the next couple days.

An adventure to the magical land of San Francisco

Hey folks, tomorrow morning I'm flying to San Francisco for the Conceptart.org InSOMAnia workshop! I'll be back on the 19th, hopefully with plenty of stories and photos and loads of newfound inspiration and talent. Should be a blast!

Of course this morning I woke up with a runny nose and a sore throat, and have been feeling progressively worse all day. Blast you cold and flu season, with your impeccable timing!

Firefly: The MMO

Over the last couple days, the gaming blogosphere (the only thing I hate more than the word blogosphere are people who use the word blogosphere and then complain about how much they hate the word) has been reporting that Multiverse has secured the rights to an MMORPG based on the not-so-hit TV series Firefly. Generally, the news has been reported with a pretty hefty dose of understandable skepticism. People are disappointed nothing has been mentioned of Joss Whedon's involvement with the game (meaning it will probably be negligible), they say the property has a very niche fanbase, or it doesn't lend itself incredibly well to the MMO genre, or that by the time the game comes out, a large part of the fanbase may have moved on. Some of these may be true, but this doesn't necessarily mean this was a bad move on Multiverse's part.

For those that don't know, Multiverse is trying to launch a universal MMO platform. Their plans include a single client that connects to any game developed on the Multiverse engine, as well as development tools to greatly reduce the difficulties in developing and running an MMO. All for free. They make their money by taking a cut of any subscription fees or microtransactions you charge (that is, if you choose to charge anything for it). Overall, not a bad idea at all. It could lead to a lot of really cool experimentation in a genre that's generally lacking in that kind of thing. Or it could become the next Second Life, where the gaming and tech press is enamored with it, but nobody actually plays it. Unfortunately, so far they don't have any games that look compelling or interesting enough to draw much of an audience. Mostly generic fantasy adventures through generic fantasy worlds. They need a high profile game to draw a fanbase. The easiest way to draw a fanbase is to pay for one that's already established.

Firefly was actually a pretty inspired choice for Multiverse. It has a somewhat small, but very loyal fanbase that I imagine has a pretty strong intersection with the MMO demographic. It has at least a few strengths that lend themselves to MMO gameplay: an interesting universe with a wide variety of locations, two competing factions (outlaws versus the oppresive empire), no complicating technologies (things like the replicator in Star Trek that would tend to destroy any economy the game might have if implemented faithfully), and the Reavers make a nice constant threat and enemy. Best of all, since Fox has probably written Firefly off as a viable property by now, I bet Multiverse was able to pick it up for relatively cheap.

This game is not meant to compete with World of Warcraft. Heck, the game doesn't even need to make a profit. The game's purpose is to give people a reason to download the Multiverse client. Even if the players end up not liking Firefly, Multiverse has already got a big group of people past the platform's biggest barrier to entry. From there, they just have to show all those people the dozens of other games they can try, many of them completely free.

That said, if they really want the game to be a success (and why wouldn't they?), they really need to get Joss Whedon involved in some way. There's nothing more ferocious than a rabid fanbase that thinks you're abusing their favourite property. Being able to say the original creator is involved will do a lot to assuage any potential backlash.

One of those "girl" people.

She seems fun.

The Demented Mentalist

It's the Demented Mentalist! He can read your thoughts, he just can't distinguish them from the voices that were already in his head.

On another note, I upgraded to the new version of Blogger, so let me know if anything broke.

Help! I'm stuck in a giant hot dog!

Why? I can't possibly explain why.

Baby it's cold outside.

This is why I'm not going to work tomorrow.

Hitler, Underwhelmed

Hitler begins to second guess the $2000 he spent on eBay.

(To be fair, Hitler does not own an HDTV and isn't getting the full next generation experience.)

Gimmick?

It probably shouldn't surprise me when people call the motion sensing capabilities of the Wii controller a gimmick, but it still kinda does. I find it hard to believe that people didn't see this coming. Were they expecting us to keep using the Dual Shock forever, no matter how complex the games got? This isn't some wild, crazy long shot out of left field here, this is the inevitable, natural progression of how we interface with our games. Granted, it came a lot earlier than I was expecting, and the form it took was also surprising, but I never had any doubt 3D spatial control was coming eventually. All you had to do was look at the history of how we control movement in our games.

For the purposes of this essay, each dimension of control relates to an axis along which the controller has the ability to move (even if games don't neccesarily support movement in those dimensions). I'm ignoring buttons besides those which are designed to control spatial movement, even though many games may use buttons for spatial movement (the ever-present jump button), and spatial controls as buttons (which has been behind a lot of the criticism of the Wii.)


Generation 1
2 Dimensional games with 1 Dimensional control

Seen in: Pong, Space Invaders

Some early games gave you only one dimension of controlling your game. You could only move along one axis (up-down in Pong, left-right in Space Invaders), and that's it. The list of games with 1 dimensional control is pretty short since there's only so much you can do with such a limited control scheme.


Generation 2
2-Dimensional games with 2-Dimensional control

Seen in: NES, SNES, Genesis, etc.

Basically any 2D game where you could move along the X and the Y axis used this control scheme, which is about 99.9% of them. This has been the standard for 2-Dimensional games since the invention of the joystick.

Light guns and mouse control are other forms of 2-Dimensional control in games.

(I should point out here that these Generations aren't necessarily chronological, since Spacewar!, which predates Pong, used this scheme.)


Generation 3
3-Dimensional games with 2-Dimensional control

Seen in: Pre-Dual Shock PS1 controller

In the early days of 3D console gaming, before the introduction of the N64, 3D games were controlled by a strictly 2-Dimensional control scheme. The original PS1 control was basically a slightly more ergonomic SNES controller. It was really a poor way to control 3D games, leading most of them to basically become 3D objects interacting in a 2D space.


Generation 4
3-Dimensional games with multiple 2-Dimensional controls
Seen in: Every post-N64 controller, Mouse & keyboard

Although popular opinion doesn't agree with me, I think the biggest innovation in the N64 controller wasn't the analog stick and it wasn't the rumble pak. It was the multiple spatial controls. To make up for the lack of true 3-Dimensional control, Nintendo took a page from the mouse and keyboard set-up of the PC and put multiple 2-Dimensional controls on the N64 controller. It had an analog stick, a d-pad and the C-arrow buttons, which in many cases acted as another D-pad. Playstation improved upon this by giving their new Dual Shock controller two analog sticks, and situating them in a way that was much easier to use simultaneously than the N64's. Although this technically gave the controller six dimensions of control, due to our limited number of thumbs it was pretty much impossible to use more than 4 at a time (even that was a difficult task for non-gamers).

One nice thing about this control scheme is that it's very backwards compatible with 2D games. You can just use one of the 2-Dimensional controls and ignore the other.


Generation 5
2/3-Dimensional games with 3-Dimensional control

Really, the only games I can think of that fall under this category are games like Wario Ware: Twisted and that Kirby game, that are controlled by a tilt sensor. That's assuming the sensor can detect all three axes of tilt. Much like games with 1-Dimensional control, we mostly skipped this generation.


Generation 6
3-Dimensional games with 6-Dimensional (+ 2-Dimensional) Controls

Seen in: Wii, SIXAXIS

Okay, here's where we are today. This week, both the PS3 and the Wii were launched, ushering in the next generation of game control. Right on time, too. Generally, each of these methods of controlling games lasted two console generations. For a while it looked like the control scheme of the last two console generations was going to last a little longer, until Nintendo announced the Wii remote.

The Wii remote takes all six dimensions of the post-N64 controllers, makes all of them analog and lets you control every one simultaneously, in the most intuitive way possible, with a single hand. That's no small accomplishment. This leaves your other hand free to hold the nunchuk controller, which adds another 2-dimensional thumbstick, and the same six dimensions of motion control. The remote also has a D-pad and a pointing sensor, two additional 2-Dimensional controls. To be fair, the pointing is essentially an extension of the motion sensing. They're used in tandem and aren't discretely controlled, so we won't count that one. But it is important to note that the 6-dimensional control can seamlessly become a 2-dimensional control, something the SIXAXIS lacks.

If we're counting, that's 16 dimensions of spatial control, all controllable simultaneously. Of course, using all at once will be difficult for even an experienced gamer (and rarely useful), but unlike previous controllers using one control will not prevent you from using any other.

On the other hand, the PS3's SIXAXIS has the original six dimensions of control from the Dual Shock controller (2 analog stick and a d-pad), along with another six dimensions of motion control. I was originally under the impression it only detected tilt, but apparently it detects motion as well. Seems like a pretty common misconception too, nobody I asked (granted, a very small sample group) knew about the motion sensing either, just the tilt.

So the SIXAXIS controller has a total of 12 dimensions of spatial control, with 10 of them controllable simultaneously. Like I mentioned earlier, the SIXAXIS has no good way of turning the 6-Dimensional control into 2-Dimensional like the Wii's sensor bar, which makes it less useful as a pointing device.


The increased number of dimensions to control the game across is merely an evolution in the way we already control our games. The really important part of the Wii's control scheme is the fact that the main six dimensions of control are controlled in such an intuitive way, easy for anyone to grasp, and requires very little remembering what buttons and sticks controls what. That's the revolution Nintendo promised.

Ayup.

PS3 resale market so far

I've been keeping tabs on the PS3 auctions on eBay for the last couple days, just out my own curiousity.

On Friday morning, the average price for a PS3 on eBay was around the $2600 mark, although up to $4000 wasn't unheard of. By 5 or 6 PM, the average price had already dropped to the $1500-$1800 mark. Waiting a mere 12 hours could have saved a lot of people well over a thousand dollars.

By this afternoon, the average price was in the $900 to $1200 range (mostly around the lower end of that scale, and with a game in many cases). Auctions with a starting price over $1400 were ending without any bids. The profit margin is shrinking fast, and I think there's going to be a lot of disappointed scalpers out there. It's hard to predict how the Wii launch tomorrow will affect the prices, but I can't imagine it's going to help.

Entrepeneur of the Year

Can you spot the error in this business plan?

Let's chew on the math a little. There were at least 6 homeless guys (could be more, but 6 was the highest number I could see at any time). At $100 + food (let's say $10) each per day, for at least two days, That's $1320. The store only has 8 PS3s, with at least three people ahead of them in line (in some shots it looks like there could even be four or five of them), so the maximum number of consoles they can get is 5. If the Japanese launch is any indicator, resellers were having a hard time selling them at any more than a 50% markup because the market was absolutely flooded with scalpers.

5 x (600/2) = $1500 - $1320 = $180

Minus costs, he's not going to make anymore than a few hundred dollars. And this is pretty much best case scenario. If he's got even one more homeless guy I didn't count, or there's one more person ahead of them in line, he's losing money with this scheme. That's also assuming he didn't pay to rent the U-Haul, which would probably put him deep into the red.

Abdul Salem, the man who exploited the homeless and still couldn't make a profit.

Riding the Skytrain

There's a Kenny Rogers looking guy standing next to me wearing a cowboy hat. He looks like he might be one of those Texan oil millionaires, except he's wearing a plaid flannel shirt and his briefcase is made of cheap plastic. He smells like farts and shampoo.

There's a teenage girl with a birthday cake in her lap (Happy Birthday Ellen, whoever you are!), lip-synching along with her iPod. She looks like Joan Cusack would look if she was 16 and pretty and whatever is wrong with her mouth wasn't.

There are three black men sitting quietly. Occasionally, one of them coughs politely. I wonder to myself if it's racist to note that his cough was polite, like when my grandma talks about how the negro she saw on TV was quite eloquent.

I notice a giant guy sitting near the back of the train with a big, red, bushy beard. I can't decide if he'd look more at home decked out entirely in furs and wielding a battle axe or decked out entirely in leather and chains wielding an electric guitar. Either one would be far more suitable than the track jacket and slacks he's wearing now.

At the next stop, an elderly asian man gets on and stands in front of my seat, uncomfortably close to me. His crotch is the Allied troops and my personal space is a beach in Normandy.

There's a guy sitting with his bag in his lap, trying not to look at the old asian man's crotch directly in front of him as he attempts to properly describe the situation to himself. The best he can come up with is a crappy D-Day metaphor that barely makes sense. He thinks he'll probably think of something more clever before he gets home and writes about it in his blog. He doesn't.

The 'strophe

MAGIC BRAIN FREQUENCIES ARE RUINING MY LIFE!

Why does your life suck? Why haven't you gotten that promotion? Why doesn't that supermodel want to marry you? It's because you don't know THE SECRET.

The Secret!

Every successful person ever in the history of the world has known THE SECRET! They just never talked about it or mentioned it in any way, and would probably have denied it if you asked them but they totally knew it. The secret is the Law of Attraction*!

*Not an actual law in the scientific, legal or any other sense of the word.

"I'm not talking to you from the point of view of just wishful thinking, or imagina-ray craz-ay-ness!"

How does it work? The first step is you think about something you want. Then the universe has to give it you, no matter what it is! It's in the contract! If it doesn't that means you aren't thinking good enough and you have to try harder (maybe try squinting really hard while thinking). It's that simple!

In other words:
Step 1: Think about something
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Profit!

That's all there is to it! We know it's true because it happened to Aladdin (who was apparently asian; I guess the casting director was thinking a little too much about asian guys).

I know what you're thinking. "How does this possibly work? It doesn't even make sense!" Well guess what else doesn't make sense? Computers. You can't tell me how computers work, yet we use them every day. In fact, I'm typing on one right now. Are you suggesting I'm somehow beaming magical text rays out of my eyeballs onto the screen? That would just be silly.

"First of all, no one even knows what electricity is!"

Whatever you do, don't make a plan on how to reach your goal! Plans are for losers. The universe is much better at planning things than you are, and you're going to be too busy imagining things to have time to make a plan. I guess if you really want a plan, then don't make one, just think about how bad you want one, and the universe will make it for you (the plan will probably involve thinking about something until you get it).

"If you do just a little research, it is going to become evident to you that anyone that has ever accomplished anything did not know how they were going to do it."

If you aren't fully convinced yet, try this experiment and your skepticism will be washed away!

"Hold an image of talking to an old friend that you haven't seen for a long time. Somewhere or another someone's gonna start talking to you about that person, that person's gonna phone you or you'll get a letter from them."

I know it sounds amazing, but I guarantee that somebody somewhere will say something at some time about somebody you thought about once (if not, think harder)!

"Everytime you look in your mail expecting to see a bill, guess what, it'll be there."

Debt doesn't come from you spending money you don't have, debt comes from you thinking about debt! Bills aren't sent by companies whose services you have used, they're sent by the universe, responding to your brain frequencies! Bills are like closet monsters, if you don't believe in them they can't hurt you.

And don't go thinking, "I want no debt," because that has the word debt in it, which will just give you more debt! It's just like when you spend all day thinking, "Boy, I hope my abusive boyfriend doesn't beat me tonight." You and I both know what's going to happen that night. Instead you should be thinking, "Boy, I hope my abusive boyfriend brings me candy tonight!" and maybe make a list of the things you like about him.

"We've had a thousand different "diagnoses" and "disease" out there. They're just the weak link. They're all the result of one thing: stress."

"Our physiology creates disease to give us feedback, to let us know we have an imbalanced perspective and we're not loving and we're not grateful."

YOU GOT CANCER BECAUSE YOU THOUGHT ABOUT CANCER! It was your own damn fault, dummy. I mean, it just makes sense. When's the last time you saw a happy person dying of a terminal illness?

Remember, don't think "I don't want cancer anymore," because you'll just get more cancer. I think in this case it's probably best to just ignore it until it goes away. Also, watch funny movies apparently.

"So if you're anti-war, be pro-peace. If you're anti-hunger, be pro-people having more than enough to eat. If you're anti-a particular politician, be pro-his opponent."

Apparently you're thinking about how you wish this post would end already, because it just did. That's okay, I have a batmobile to go think about.

Borat!

Yesterday I, apparently along with everbody and their grandma, saw Borat. While I wouldn't go as far as some and proclaim it the funniest movie ever made, I can definitely see where they're coming from. There was hardly a moment during the movie when I wasn't laughing at something.

It was number 1 at the box office this weekend, despite the studio's poor predictions and the fact that it was only playing on a quarter of the screens as every other movie on the top 5 that opened this week. I imagine the studios are pretty wary of internet buzz in this crazy post-Snakes on a Plane world. The difference between Snakes on a Plane's disappointing showing and Borat's huge victory is mainly in the timing. While the hype behind Snakes on a Plane was organic and uncontrollable, Borat's hype was mostly manufactured and tightly cultivated. Snakes' buzz popped out of nowhere, spawned solely from the idea of the movie and was blown to epic proportions by fans. Borat's buzz was created by the creators of the movie, and spread by the fans, mostly through YouTube videos. The reason Snakes' buzz never paid off was that the movie was released months after the buzz had worn off and the joke had gotten old. Had they been able to release it a few months earlier, I guarantee it would have been the huge hit they were expecting. Borat was released right at the crescendo of its hype and is reaping the benefits of good timing. And with a movie this good, word of mouth is only going to make it stronger.

Unexpected Fireworks

As I was driving home from work today, I stopped at a red light. I was waiting for the light to turn green, when suddenly the sky lit up with fireworks. It was like my own little fanfare, as if to say, "Congratulations! You obeyed the hell out of that traffic light!"

And you know, I totally did.

Self Portrait Day

Yesterday at ConceptArt.org, over 330 people joined in a giant vanityfest and drew or painted their beautiful selves.

There's some fantastic artwork there. My own self-portrait is on Page 6 of the thread.
Check it out!

Pumpklops

I carved a pumpkin this year!





This is the first pumpkin I've carved in years, and I quite enjoyed it. I've usually done the traditional cut-out jack-o-lantern face, but I thought I'd try actually carving it this year. It took me a little over two hours.

I don't work in the 3rd dimension nearly often enough. I really enjoyed it.

Things The Internet Has Taught Me

#168
The only thing stranger than another culture's comedy is another culture's pornography.

Gunship Lolita

Gunship Lolita
The crown jewel of the Queen's Royal Space Fleet.

NO IT DOES NOT!!!

"The game industry earns more money per year than Hollywood."

This is one of my major pet peeves. It's one of those pieces of information that is passed around as common knowledge, is quoted frequently in the press (usually in the non-gaming press, but still maddingly often in gaming publications, who really should know better), and has been used to justify everything from a game's legitimacy as an art form to higher salaries for voice actors. The thing is, it's not true. Not even close, actually.

I was going to write a whole post tearing the assumption apart, but it seems GrumpyGamer beat me to it by two years. They have a very entertaining and thorough post about it here.

So please, next time you hear someone perpetuating this silly notion, hit them. Hard and fast.

The "J"

I had all these great mental images of the story behind this graffiti. Some kid living on the street, forced into a life of crime to support their jam addiction. Organized crime gangs running jam labs out of warehouses. Police raids on illegal raspberry grow ops. Smugglers crossing the border with hidden caches of pectin in the seats of their car. After school public service announcements where a kid with spiky hair and a leather jacket offers the well-mannered everykid a piece of jelly-slathered toast, goading him with taunts of, "Everybody's doing it! What are you, chicken?", only to have a skateboarding cartoon rabbit (wearing a helmet of course, safety first) show up in the nick of time to offer his sage advice about saying "Scram to Jam!"

Then I realised I was thinking of Smucker's, not Smucklers. What the hell is a Smuckler anyway?

My mother always told me not to let him lick my face...

.. but the truth is, his tentacles were cleaner than a human's mouth.

I just saw Anne Heche

Walking through the city of Vancouver every day, you see a lot of movie and television shoots. Of course, due it being the destination for budget productions, it's rare that you see anything or anyone very interesting. I had yet to see anyone I actually recognised as being famous at any of these film shoots, until this morning I had my first celebrity sighting , Anne "dated Ellen then went batshit loony for a while" Heche. Of course, that's celebrity in the loose "Dancing With The Stars" sense of the word.

I had my camera with me and totally forgot to take any pictures.

Halloween

Halloween is pretty much the awesomest holiday of the year. I mean, it's an entire day to celebrate candy and monsters, and that's it. That's 100% rock & roll. We don't even attempt to justify it by saying we're celebrating the time Jesus defeated Dracula with a pillowcase full of candy corn and those disgusting chewy molasses toffee things that people give out just to spite kids because nobody likes those awful things. Nope, we just celebrate candy and monsters because those things totally kick ass.

For someone who loves Halloween as much as I do, I don't do much to celebrate it. I'll occasionally go to a local haunted house, and I'll buy a bag or two of candy and gorge myself on Tootsie Rolls and Popeye cigarettes (I know, they're candy sticks now, but I still pretend I'm smoking when I eat them) all month, but otherwise, I tend to just bask in the eery glow of the season. I think I'm still bitter I got too tall to trick or treat.

This year's not gonna be much different. I work in the city, but live in a rural area about an hour outside of it, so getting together with friends outside of work can be tricky. Without anyone to celebrate the day with, your options are pretty limited. But I've decided this year to play a bigger part in the Grand Halloween Spirit Economy. I've spent the greater part of my life reaping the benefits of this economy, undoubtedly consuming my body weight in candy many times over at the expense of strangers within walking distance of my house, but this Halloween I'm going to give back. This year, I'm going to be at home, giving out candy. But I'm not just going to give out candy, I'm going to be the guy who gives those costumed buggers candy by the handfuls. When kids pass each other on the street, they will point out my house as the place to trick or treat. They'll leave my house with candy of all shapes, sizes, and flavours, and not a single disgusting chewy molasses toffee thing.

Brand New Camera!

I bought myself a brand new camera today! A very nice Canon Powershot A620. I almost went for the A640, but with the Wii launch, Christmas and the Conceptart.org workshop coming up in the next couple months, I figured the one that was $100 cheaper was the better choice.

When I got home I took some pictures of my dogs to figure out what all the buttons do.









I know, I know, pictures of other people's pets are boring as hell. But look how cute they are! I'll be keeping the camera on me most of the time so hopefully I'll get some interesting photos to post here from time to time. Ones that aren't of my dogs.

Oh, here is my eyeball (dot com)

Millicent Cole

"After restoring herself from the dead in order to discover and punish the man responsible for her murder (she was killed by a deranged traveling hat salesman, but it really was too long and intricate a story to do justice within these parantheses), Millicent Cole was ready to return her eternal slumber. This, however, proved to be more difficult than she had expected. You must understand, the road between this world and the next is not an easy one to follow, and she had forgotten the way."

Chicks Who Draw Chicks

Over at ConceptArt.org, a bunch of the incredibly talented girls are putting together a calendar of pin-up art. You owe it to yourself to check out the great, sexy artwork they've produced. The best pieces will be chosen by a panel of judges to be put into the calendar, which should be released before the end of the year. I'll certainly be getting one!

Check it out!

Everyone get Gigeresque!

Another quick doodle at work while waiting for something to do.

I want to make out with Photoshop's brush engine.

Working hard at hardly working.

Escape

This was my entry for Round 2 of the Last Man Standing Thunderdome over at Conceptart.org.

Alas, I didn't make it to Round 3. I knew I should've used Stretch Armstrong as the toy golem's penis.

I need a stiff drink after that nightmare.

The past exists for me solely as a source of constant amusement.

1995, you were adorable.

Starting

I've started a new blog, because that's what I do best. Start things. Not so good at finishing things, and downright terrible at maintaining things, but I can start things like the best of them. This time around I'm trying to make the upkeep as painless as possible, so I can get more than half a dozen posts before I get bored and start something new.

So what is this thing about? I haven't quite figured it out yet. I'm going to pretty much throw everything at it and see what sticks. I'll post sketches and drawings, my incredibly interesting thoughts and opinions, photos, genius ideas that I'll never get around to doing myself, and anything I find particularly amusing.

Let's get the ball rolling!