Eric's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Idea

Well hello there

2008-09-30T23:25:00.000-07:00

Hey guys, it's been a while. I've been super busy at work and haven't had much of a chance to work on personal artwork, but I figured I'd make a post about what I've been doing at my day job. If I haven't mentioned it before, I make cell phone games for a living. These days it's pretty much iPhone exclusively, which is simply an awesome platform to develop for compared to the traditional handset scene. We've released two games in the last month or so. Toy Bot Diaries and Shaky Summit (the links will take you to the iTunes App Store where you can buy the games if you've got an iPhone or iPod Touch).

Toy Bot Diaries is a 2D platformer starring a tiny little robot who can stick to walls and grapple to metal objects. I was the lead artist as well as a level designer on the project. I created most of the game's art and half of the game's levels. There's a free demo if you want to try it out. There's more Toy Bot coming in the near future!

Shaky Summit is a bit harder to explain. You're racing an opponent to the top of a mountain, but rather than controlling your player, you control the environment. By causing the mountain to shake, you can activate hazards such as bridges and boulders to help yourself or hinder opponents. I was the texture artist on this project.

For anyone out there with an iPhone or iPod Touch, I'd love for you to try the games out and tell me what you think. They're each less than $5, which is less than a cup of coffee, if you happen to drink really huge cups of coffee.

Print Store Updated

2008-03-22T00:30:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update letting you know I updated the print store with the latest Steampunk Star Wars images.

Just click here, or if you don't like the looks of this link, there's always the link in the sidebar over there. (eyes that way -->)

They make great Easter gifts! Of course, if you're just ordering them now, you won't get them until long after Easter. Lucky for you they also make great late Easter gifts! And hey, while you're at it, they also make terrific really late Valentine's gifts!

Steampunk Star Wars: Lady Leia, Princess of Alderaan

2008-03-19T15:25:00.001-07:00

Lady Leia Organa, Princess of Alderaan

Alderaan's Princess and ambassador to a number of planets, Lady Leia's fiery, confident personality and sharp intellect made her a very strong and influential diplomat extremely critical of Imperial policies. Her speeches and public image were instrumental in generating sympathy for the rebel cause. Using her diplomatic connections to gain access to highly guarded information and smuggle supplies, she was an integral member of the Resistance.

As a member of Alderaan's royal family, Leia grew up in the lap of luxury. During her childhood she was widely adored as a public darling, famous for her curly hair and her performances of the Alderaan Global Anthem at royal events. She was a powerful symbol of hope and optimism in a troubled time. However, as a teenager she suddenly withdrew from the public spotlight and began studying at a private school. This withdrawal coincided with the unprecedented government censorship of a popular musical (Gilbert & Snootles' HMS Executor, a comic opera that was highly critical of the Empire), an act which drew much ire from the people of Alderaan, who saw it as the royal family allowing the Empire to meddle in Alderaanian affairs.

When she turned 17, Leia joined the Alderaanian military. (Although the royal family was not technically exempt from Alderaan's mandatory year of military service, Leia was the first princess in over 400 years to actually serve her time.) After two years in the service, she had become an adept marksman and had even led a number of peacekeeping missions in Rodian territories. It is believed that it was during this time that she joined the Resistance, and may have even had a hand in organizing it into the significant force it became.

Steampunk Star Wars: Captain Ackbar

2008-01-28T00:33:00.000-08:00

I've finally got something new to show for Steampunk Star Wars. This was just a quicky, but hopefully it'll help me get back into the groove. There's some characters I'd still really like to do.

Oh, but first, check this out. Three great tastes that go so well together: Steampunk, Star Wars, and Lego!

Captain Ackbar

A scientific genius with a troubled mind, Captain Ackbar spent much of his life roaming the stars in a ship of his own design. After witnessing his homeworld captured and his people enslaved by the Empire, he gathered a loyal crew and fled into deep space, planning to escape civilization entirely.

For the next sixteen years, not a trace of Ackbar or his crew was seen. Meanwhile, the Empire continued to spread, and soon even the darkest corners of the galaxy would hold no sanctuary for Ackbar. Then, as suddenly as he disappeared, a surprise attack on a vital Imperial supply ship signaled Ackbar's return, and the beginning of a long and impressive guerrilla campaign against the Empire. Like a phantom, Ackbar and his ship haunted the Empire, swooping in and hitting them whenever and wherever they were most vulnerable, then disappearing into the void without a trace. The stories of his deeds made him a folk hero among resistance supporters and a fearsome figure to Imperial Stormtroops.

After the annihilation of Alderaan, Ackbar ended his lone campaign and officially joined forces with the Resistance.

Album Covers

2008-01-24T21:45:00.000-08:00

Here's a fun little meme by way of Dubious Quality.

1. The first article title on the Wikipedia Random Articles page is the name of your band.
2. The last four words of the very last quotation on the Random Quotations page is the title of your album.
3. The third picture in Flickr's Interesting Photos From The Last 7 Days is your album cover.

Using that formula, I came up with the following:

Try it yourself, it's fun!

More album covers from Dubious Quality: 1, 2

Last Man Standing: Underneath It All

2008-01-23T00:14:00.000-08:00

Sorry for neglecting this place for so long. No excuses, I've just been lazy about keeping this place updated. There's some other stuff I'll be posting soon, but I don't expect you to believe me when I say that anymore.

Anyway! You should all go check out Round 1 of the 3rd Last Man Standing competition over at ConceptArt.org. Tons of mindblowingly awesome art by over 300 artists, including a piece by me.

Matches 1-24
Matches 25-48 (I'm in Match 42)
Matches 49-72

The theme for this round was "Underneath It All". I was against some really tough competition so I made something that I thought would really stand out.

Here's my entry:

Click it!

Cowgirl

2007-10-09T23:21:00.000-07:00

I don't know why I keep drawing cowboys (or in this case, cowgirls), I don't even particularly like westerns. There's just something about the cowboy aesthetic that appeals to me. I think it's the revolver. I'm not a big fan of guns, but the revolver is one sexy piece of machinery. Modern guns hide their moving parts, while the revolver shows off its elegant mechanisms.

I think this might be the same character as the girl in this piece, but I can't be sure.

Art dump!

2007-07-30T22:19:00.000-07:00

Hey guys! Sorry about the lack of updates, I guess I haven't had much of interest to show or say lately. I thought I'd dump a few pieces of art I've done lately.

Brother Hogarth
Prefers dogs to people. Loves anything pineapple flavoured. Scared of the dark.

Painted from reference.

And lastly, a giant robot city! In retrospect, probably somewhat inspired by Metroplex.

Hopefully it won't be as long between this post and the next.

Other artists taking on Steampunk Star Wars

2007-06-22T11:47:00.000-07:00

This is so cool! Over at CGTalk, there's a whole thread of artists making their own take on the Steampunk Star Wars theme. There's some fantastic work in there, especially on the later pages. If nothing else, check out Marcel "System404" Mercado's stuff on pages 4 and 5. His R2-D2 is great.

Link

Update, Excuses, Etc

2007-06-04T22:04:00.000-07:00

Hey guys!

I know it's been a while since I last updated. I haven't been doing much personal art lately, I've been catching up on some games mostly. I finally played through Fallout 2, which I've been meaning to do for years. Fantastic game, and I can't wait to see what Bethesda does with Fallout 3 (the teaser for which is coming tomorrow!). I know there are a lot of people skeptical of Bethesda taking on the license, but there's no other developer I'd trust with it as much as them.

I've also been playing Final Fantasy XII, which I'm enjoying. Art-wise, it's incredibly coherent and imaginative. The last few games in the series have been a little mish-mashy with the art style, but FFXII's is really well put together. Definitely the best art direction for the series since FFVI. As for the gameplay, I'm really excited they're experimenting more. I like the Gambit system, but I'm still not sold on the License Board.

I'm still working on some new Steampunk Star Wars stuff. I was working on one image (the one I posted a teaser of), but I started feeling like I was spinning my wheels with it. I kept working on it but it didn't feel like I was getting anywhere, so I put it aside for the time being and started a different character. I hope that one will be done pretty soon!

And just so I don't look like a total slacker, here's a picture I painted on the weekend!

Art dump

2007-05-08T11:48:00.000-07:00

Here are a few random sketches and speedpaints I've done over the last few months that I haven't gotten around to posting before.

Geek Monthly Magazine

2007-05-04T20:27:00.000-07:00

This month I was interviewed by Bonnie Burton for Geek Monthly magazine. Go buy it! I'm reading through the rest of the magazine now and it's definitely worth checking out.

It's funny, in the interview I mention how cool it would be for someone to do a viking version of Star Wars, so afterwards I went to see if someone actually had done Viking Star Wars. Turns out that not only had someone made a Viking Lightsaber, but it was the same guy who made the Steampunk Lightsaber that originally inspired my Steampunk Star Wars art! Guy keeps stealing my ideas before I have them!

UPDATE: I forgot to mention, my art was also used in the latest issue of SFX magazine. I haven't seen it, but apparently it's on page 24. If you're in the UK, pick it up!

New Prints

2007-05-03T23:53:00.000-07:00

I've got some new prints up on my DeviantArt store. Now, to the untrained eye these may look identical to my Steampunk Star Wars images, but they are in fact of entirely unrelated characters that have nothing to do with Star Wars whatsoever. I hold no responsibility for anyone who orders one of these hoping to get a really sweet picture of Han Solo & Mr. Chewbacca and is disappointed to receive an image of an unnamed, wholly original but still pretty sweet steampunk space smuggler and his furry partner. You could still hang it on your wall and tell all your friends that it's a picture of Han Solo & Mr. Chewbacca if you like. They won't know the difference, I swear. Oh, you probably shouldn't tell your friend that if they work for DeviantArt Prints. If that's the case, you can just make up some names for them (may I suggest Jasper and Chompie!)

If anyone orders one, let me know how they look!

Just a general update...

2007-05-02T13:58:00.000-07:00

Hey guys!

Sorry for the lack of updates recently. I've been busy with other work and haven't had much time to work on Steampunk Star Wars or other personal work. But there's new stuff coming, I swear. Here, I'll prove it with a teaser!

So, what else has been going on? My car got broken into yesterday. They left a nice dent in my door and stole 20 or 30 CDs from my glove box. Nothing irreplacable, but it's still a hell of a bummer. Ah well, at least they didn't break a window or steal the car.

I have a new favourite blog! Paleo-future, which looks at the predictions about the future from the past. This is getting linked to all over. It's great seeing how people of the past thought we would be living today. Even predictions from ten years ago tend to be quite inaccurate. Looking through all the different predictions from different time periods, you can see a lot of common mistakes they tend to share. Even when they correctly predict the direction of technology, they almost always completely fail to predict the cultural and social changes that go along with them. People seem to assume their grandchildren will be exactly like them, just with new toys.
Some of my favourite posts:
What May Happen in the Next Hundred Years (Ladies Home Journal, 1900
Suprisingly accurate in some respects, very naive in others. I like the way they casually predict the extinction of all wildlife, and their seeming obsession with pneumatic tubes. Not only that, but they predict automobiles with one or maybe even two horsepower!
Connections: AT&T's Vision of the Future (1993)
The future, as AT&T would like it. My favourite is part 3, where the kid plays a terribly designed virtual reality game with his friends.
Gigantic Robots to Fight Our Battles (Fresno Bee, 1934)
GIANT ROBOTS! YEAH!

Makes you wonder what assumptions we have about the future following generations are going to laugh at. Are hydrogen fuel cells the new pneumatic tubes? And what technologies and cultural developments are we severely underestimating?

Prints Now Available!

2007-04-13T23:47:00.000-07:00

I've finally got some prints available for sale through DeviantArt Prints. I've never used them personally, so I don't have first hand knowledge of the quality, but I've heard good things from friends.

I'm putting the Steampunk Star Wars series up for now. I've seen a fair bit of Star Wars fan art for sale, so I don't think selling these will be a problem.

Purchase Prints Here

Although some pieces are available at larger sizes, the best quality prints will probably be around the 10-12 inches or lower size.

If there's a piece of mine you'd like to purchase a print of and it's not in the store, let me know!

UPDATE: New Prints available!

Actual Steampunk Star Wars!

2007-04-10T22:35:00.000-07:00

I-Wei Huang (aka. Crabfu), maker of many steam-powered robots you may have seen in the past, has gone and brought his own version of steampunk Star Wars to life with this totally awesome actual steam-powered R2-D2! The brass and wood accents are a great touch.

If you haven't seen his work before, I suggest you check it out.

As seen on Brass Goggles.

Speedpaint video

2007-04-07T23:23:00.000-07:00

Hey guys, no new Steampunk Star Wars stuff yet. But in the meantime, I recorded myself doing a quick speedpaint. It's not the greatest painting ever, but I thought it might be interesting to show how I work.

At the original speed, this took 23 minutes.

For speedpaints like this, I generally have no idea whatsoever what I'm going to be drawing when I start. I just start scribbling until I see some shapes I like. This is a different method than I use for something like my Steampunk Star Wars images, where I have some idea of what I want to draw.

It's hard painting while recording it. It's like painting for an audience, I start to get self-conscious about every little mark. But it's cool being able to watch it back and be able to spot my bad habits. Also, when I speed it up 6x like this it makes it really look like I know what I'm doing!

Steampunk Star Wars: Sir Obi Wan Kenobi

2007-03-27T21:12:00.000-07:00

Sir Obi Wan Kenobi

As a young man in the days of the Republic, Sir Obi Wan Kenobi was an agent for the Jedi League of Force Champions. He is intimately acquainted with the dark side of the force, as he spent nearly a decade undercover within the Sith Brotherhood, secretly trying to uncover the identity of the organization's Patriarch. His time on the dark side left permanent scars upon his soul and to this day he battles the temptation to indulge his darker emotions.

When his identity was compromised and he was forced to escape the Sith Brotherhood, Obi Wan returned to the Jedi League. Many years of service later, he was chosen to mentor a new agent to continue his undercover work: a young boy named Anakin, groomed by the League especially for this role. Obi Wan spent many years raising and training the boy, but when the time came for Anakin to infiltrate the Brotherhood he was overwhelmed and seduced by the power it offered him. He ultimately betrayed Obi Wan and the League, forcing Obi Wan to kill him. Whatever remained of Anakin after that battle became the creature known as Lord Vader.

Obi Wan has spent the last twenty years living as a hermit on Tatooine, hidden from the Empire, studying the secrets of the Force and keeping watch over a child he swore an oath to protect.

Steampunk Star Wars Desktops

2007-03-20T00:29:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update. I resized each of the Steampunk Star Wars images to the proper dimensions for anyone who wants to use them as their desktop. They're all at 1280x960, so you should be able to use them at almost any resolution without stretching. Enjoy!

Steampunk Star Wars: Death Star

2007-03-10T14:38:00.000-08:00

Massive Solar-Orbiting Electro-Mechanical Analytic Engine, Mark 6

This enormous Imperial space station, the size of a small moon or asteroid, is in fact an immense analytic engine, a device capable of making millions of calculations every day. Inside is kilometer after kilometer of tubes and wheels, cranks and gears, all spinning and clacking, spitting out an endless series of numbers for the Imperials scientists to decipher.

Although the Empire has half a dozen such devices in operation throughout the galaxy, this version is unique. While the others spend their days crunching statistical algorithms or calculating flight models, the Mark 6 station (under the personal watch of Lord Vader) is dedicated to experiments with Arcane Mathematics, the mathematical study of the Force. They hope to discover a unified Force theory, allowing them to fuse the power of the Force with their technology to create unspeakably powerful weapons. The station already houses a product of this research, a terrible weapon capable of directing a coherent beam of pure Force energy¹, strong enough to destroy all life on an entire planet. This weapon has earned the station the nickname of "Death Star".

[1]As it has not yet been discovered a way for machines to directly generate Force energy, it must be supplied by a powerful Force user. The user conjures the energy inside of a specially designed resonance chamber which amplifies the energy before directing it through a series of lenses to produce a powerful coherent beam of unimaginably destructive energy.

Stereotypes in Character Design

2007-03-06T13:13:00.000-08:00

Hey guys, no new art to show just yet. Had to take it a bit slower this weekend due to my wrist acting up, but new stuff is coming, including a cool collaborative project I think you'll like.

Over at the Story-games.com forum, a few people criticised my illustration of Jabba the Hutt as being a racist Asian stereotype. As much as I hate to admit it, they're right. Like a lot of art criticisms, it's something I didn't notice myself, but once it was pointed out it seems so obvious, and now it's all I can see every time I look at it.

Now, I obviously never intended it to be a racist stereotype. Like I say in that thread, my intention wasn't to depict Jabba as an exotic, foreign villain based on Asian stereotypes, it was to depict him as a villain that flaunts his wealth by dressing himself and his palace with exotic, foreign items. Unfortunately, I missed the mark and ended up with Ming the Merciless as a slug. My intentions weren't racist, but intentions are largely irrelevant when it comes to illustration. The art should communicate everything you meant it to, and not require excuses.

This is an important lesson for any artist, writer or designer. When one is working, it's easy to focus too hard on how nice a piece looks and lose sight of what exactly it's communicating. You have to be critical of your work on all levels. Sure, that Fu Manchu mustache may look cool and totally make him look like a catfish, but it also carries other connotations that the artist needs to be aware of.

So consider my Jabba illustration a work in progress. I was already unhappy with it for other reasons, and in light of this I think it would be a good idea to redo it sometime. But later, after I've done some new designs.

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Oh yeah, I've also received a lot of people expressing interest in buying prints of my work. I'm currently looking into getting prints of some of my art for sale, but I don't think the Steampunk Star Wars series will be included in that. You know, copyright issues and all.

Talk to you guys again soon!

A brief moment of seriousness

2007-03-02T23:40:00.000-08:00

Glen (aka Gangus) at ConceptArt.org, an artist I greatly admire, has a 2-year old son named Ted. Ted was recently diagnosed with autism, and is currently in a very long line waiting for the government aid needed for him to get treatment. The longer he has to wait, the less chance he'll have that the therapy will be effective. You can help Ted and others like him by going to the link below, reading his story and showing your support.

Help Ted

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When you're done with that, you can go here to check out some more of Gangus' art. This is his Victory Gals series, a number of paintings inspired by the pin-up nose art on World War 2 planes. Very cool stuff.

Welcome new readers!

2007-03-01T18:20:00.000-08:00

Hey, I got a bit more traffic than usual today. By a factor of a thousand or so!

Thanks to the mega-awesome John Brownlee over at Table of Malcontents for posting about my Steampunk Star Wars series (also, if you go there, you have a 1 in 5 chance of seeing the banner I made for them). Also thanks to the people who reposted the link elsewhere.

Crap, now there are actual people reading this blog. Pressure's on!

UPDATE: Oh geez, I've been dugg. Like, top ten front page style. For perspective, on Wednesday this blog received 4 visitors. Today, as of 2 PM: 27,000. I've been having a pretty bad day, but the overwhelming response to this has helped lift my spirits. Thanks everyone.

UPDATE 2: No sooner do I post that last update than I see I've also been posted on freaking BoingBoing! Bless the blogosphere.

Steampunk Star Wars: Jabba the Hutt

2007-02-28T18:36:00.000-08:00

Jabba the Hutt

Jabba the Hutt is the ruler of the desert planet Tattooine. Formerly an underworld crime boss, Jabba took the throne in a bloody coup. It's rumoured during the coup he was being supplied weapons by the Empire, but once in power he turned his back on them and continued his illegal activities with far more power and wealth than he could have ever amassed in the underworld.

Jabba is a model of opulence and excess. His corpulence is the physical embodiment of all seven mortal sins. He dresses only in fine Sarlacc silks, regularly partakes in feasts of rare and endangered animals such as the giant Krayt Dragon, and has a harem of concubines representing every humanoid species known in the galaxy.

Steampunk Star Wars: Han Solo & Mr. Chewbacca

2007-02-24T02:57:00.000-08:00

"I'll be bored of this in a week and start drawing dogs wearing hats or something."

Then I thought, "Why can't it be both?"

Han Solo & Mr. Chewbacca
Han Solo is a notorious gambler, con artist and smuggler. Mr. Chewbacca is his Wookiee partner in crime. The duo is wanted by both the Empire and a number of underworld crime lords, but they manage to stay one step ahead of their pursuers thanks to their ship, the Millennium Falcon, said to be the fastest ship in the galaxy. Solo is also known for his quick draw with a pistol. He boasts that of all the men he's shot, not a single one was able to shoot first.

Tenacious D in Concert: A Review

2007-02-20T23:57:00.000-08:00

FUCK YEAH!

Happy Valentine's Day!

2007-02-14T16:14:00.000-08:00

Steampunk Star Wars: Lord Vader

2007-02-05T23:30:00.000-08:00

Inspired by this neat little project, I decided I wanted to reimagine the Star Wars universe in a steampunk context. I know, whenever anyone reimagines anything, they either make it a) adult and edgy (99%) or b) steampunk (1%), so I'm not getting any originality points, but it's still a pretty exciting idea for me. Meaning I'll be bored of it in a week and start drawing dogs wearing hats or something.

Lord Vader
More machine than man, Vader is the Empire's most decorated General and a very powerful practitioner of the Force's dark arts. He is obsessed with communicating with the spirits of the dead, spending every sleepless night trying in vain to contact his lost love. Twisted and broken in body and mind, Vader is driven with sadistic passion.

He is a master with the traditional weapon of Force champions, the Phlogisticated Aether Torch, more commonly referred to as the phlogisabre.

Way to go, science!

2007-01-31T11:32:00.000-08:00

Singapore: Will pay for blood-thirsty murderbots

Singapore, where they apparently don't get the same cautionary tales about robots turning on their masters with fatal results as we do, has decided to offer $1,000,000 to anyone who can design their very own ED-209. Not only will it be designed to autonomously hunt down and kill various human-shaped targets, it will be able to navigate complex urban environments and even operate elevators and doors (much like a Velociraptor made of metal). Worst of all, one of the requirements for the prize violates the most important rule of robotics, the one above all else that will keep us safe from their crushing robotic grip. No, not Asimov's three laws, those are like the New Year's resolutions for robots. Sure they'll stick to them, but only for a week or so. No, I'm talking about stairs. For years, despite all the terrifying advances in robotic technology, we humans felt secure in the knowledge that if a robot ever turned on us, we'd be safe as long as we could find a set of stairs nearby. As illustrated in the film Robocop, robots, with their wheels and large unwieldy feet, are simply not capable of dealing with stairs. But now Singapore has decided that their robot must have the ability to use stairways, eliminating our final line of defense.

In other horrifying news, some guys are teaching a robot arm how to stab you.

So is there any hope left for humanity? Who will save us from the mighty iron-alloy fist of the robot menace? Well, it might be researchers David Salt and John Freeman, who are developing a genetically modified plant capable of eating metal. Sure, right now the plants just extract metals from the soil, but that's really just one step away from an army of marching Venus Flytraps with a taste for titanium, devouring their way through phalanxes of robosoldiers while we sit in our homes watching the spectacle on television, marvelling at the awesome power of nature. Sure, once the robot army is defeated we'll have hordes of metal-eating plants that may or may not one day get the taste for human blood to deal with, but at least we'll be secure in one piece of knowledge: Plants can't use stairs.

New Wii, New Tire

2007-01-30T23:00:00.000-08:00

I finally got my Wii! It arrived yesterday while I was at work. I waited anxiously all day, and even took off a little early to get home and finally play the Wii I bought two weeks ago.

On the drive home (I drive about a half an hour to and from work every day, as well as take a forty minute train ride either way) I noticed my steering felt a little weird, but didn't think much of it. About halfway suddenly my entire car started vibrating so I pulled over to the side of the freeway. I got out and saw that my front driver's side tire was completely flat, and remembered hitting a pothole pretty hard that morning. I didn't have much room or light (it was already pretty dark out) where I was pulled over so I drove along the should about 500 meters or so to the next exit, where I could pull over under a streetlight with lots of room to change my tire. This was the first time I'd ever changed my own tire. I pulled out the manual and read it to make sure I knew what I was doing. I jacked up the car and was feeling pretty confident I knew what I was doing. I put the wrench thingy on the nut thingy and tried to turn it. Nothing. I pulled with all my strength, it wouldn't even budge. After about half an hour of trying to turn each nut, I finally managed to loosen one. Eventually I got them all off. I leaned down to pull the tire off. I grabbed onto it, pulled, and it didn't budge.

A freeway maintenance truck pulled up and offered to give me a hand. He tried knocking the tire off with a rubber mallet but wasn't able to get it off either, so he called me a tow truck. The two truck showed up around 40 minutes later and I explained to him what had happened. He told me that it was because the steel and aluminum had oxidized, yadda yadda yadda, he kicked it really hard until it came off and after an hour and a half on the side of the freezing cold freeway I got my spare tire on and drove home.

The moral of the story is my Wii number is:
7643 7864 9560 6817

Pan's Labyrinth

2007-01-28T11:24:00.000-08:00

Last night I saw Pan's Labyrinth. The short review: Hell yeah!

Pan's Labyrinth is a new take on a pretty familiar story. Young girl is dissatisfied with her life in the real world, and escapes (or is forced) into a fantasy world which may or may not only exist in her head, meets crazy creatures, overcomes obstacles, then comes home with a new perspective. You've seen variations of the story in the Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, Labyrinth, Neil Gaiman's Mirrormask and Coraline, and Spirited Away among others. It's one of my favourite stories, and I don't think I'll ever get tired of it.

Pan's Labyrinth puts some twists into the formula. Ofelia, the young girl in question, spends a lot more time in the real world than the fantasy one. She only jumps into the fantasy world for brief periods over the course of the movie. In fact, you could probably remove all the fantasy elements and still be left with a pretty good movie (albeit one I probably wouldn't have gone to see).

The art direction and creature design was all around incredible. This is only the second Guillermo Del Toro film I've seen (EDIT: Actually, I forgot about Blade 2, so this is the third Del Toro film I've seen. Thanks for the reminder, Slinky!), but I could still recognise his signature all over this movie. Ivana Baquero, the young girl playing Ofelia was really great. It felt a little like seeing Natalie Portman for the first time in The Professional, and I'd be surprised if she doesn't go on to do great things. Of course, with child actors it's always hard to tell how much of their performance is talent and how much of it is just having a really good director leading them, so I guess only time will tell. Doug Jones (who seems to be to Del Toro what Andy Serkis is to Peter Jackson) does a kickass job as two of the film's creatures. The man seriously has the most expressive hands in Hollywood.

Definitely go see this if you get the chance. If you do, tell them Eric sent you and you might win a prize! I don't know who would give you a prize for that, but there's still a very small possibility it could happen!

Speaking of subtitled movies, I finally found a copy of Turkish Star Wars on Google Video yesterday. And my life was then complete.

Emobanana

2007-01-25T23:08:00.000-08:00

Wii Status Update

2007-01-24T21:56:00.000-08:00

Well it's been 5 business days since Nintendo told me I'd be receiving my replacement Wii in 3-4 business days. I wanted to find out why it hadn't arrived yet so I went onto the support website and entered my order code to check on the status of the shipment.

Status: Backordered

WHAT?! They haven't even shipped it yet? I was told they were shipping it a week ago!

Tom H. Cruise I just want my Wii!

19 Legends of Kung Fu Part 3

2007-01-19T21:56:00.000-08:00

Invincible Elephant
Elephant uses a rare style of kung fu which focuses on channeling energy downward into the Earth. It's been said he can crush stone and cause massive earthquakes with just the stomp of a foot. He also has skin so tough it can withstand all but the sharpest blade. Ironically, his memory is terrible.

Fuckity fuck fuckle fuck

2007-01-17T15:20:00.000-08:00

Yep, it broke. I got my new Wii connected to the internet and it downloaded an update, which then caused it to freeze. I rebooted the system, it worked fine while I played Zelda for a few hours, then once I quit and went into the Wii menu it froze again. This time when I rebooted it the screen was black. The TV was getting a signal, but it wasn't displaying anything.

Nintendo is sending me a replacement, it should arrive on Monday or Tuesday. So much for my plans for an awesome Wiikend.

FINALLY!

2007-01-15T16:53:00.000-08:00

At 10 AM this morning I became the proud owner of a Wii. I've been trying to get one since launch but I've just had really bad timing. Apparently today was the first day Future Shop didn't have people lining up all morning for it.

It's been sitting in my car trunk all day while I sit at work, yearning, longing, pining for my dear sweet Wii. Or at least pretending to work while I draw a picture to commemorate the day.

My DVD collection

2007-01-12T16:36:00.000-08:00

I finally got around to organizing my DVD collection. The shelf works much better than having them stacked in haphazard piles around my room. Although, I always liked the idea of the small piles slowly growing over the years until they were a series of ceiling high pillars like the library scene in Ghostbusters. Or like whenever a crazy recluse dies and people go into their house and the whole place is a winding maze formed by walls of books stacked in every room. Only instead of journals filled with paranoid ramblings about the Reptile/Zionist Conspiracy, it would be movies starring Don "The Dragon" Wilson I bought 3 for $5 at Wal Mart.

Do you know what time it is?

2007-01-12T16:04:00.000-08:00

It's Tenacious D time! Fuck yeah!

The D is coming to Vancouver next month and I am so fucking there! I got the tickets this morning and I'm stoked as hell!

ROCK!

Physical Comedy

2007-01-09T00:27:00.000-08:00

Admiral0kelvin: I have very little idea what the Large Hadron Collider scientists are building in Switzerland is for, but it scares the hell out of me. It's like the beginning of every science fiction movie that involves a rift in the space-time continuum.
ColonelCraud: They're probably just sitting around making "hardon" jokes.
ColonelCraud: At least if the large hadron collider fucks up, we'll only lose Switzerland.
ColonelCraud: I mean, it's a good country, but it's not great.
ColonelCraud: The only hope for humanity is a team of scientists gathered from all over ~~the world~~ America
Admiral0kelvin: I'd like to see a movie where the Large Hadron Collider has a catastrophic failure that causes a rift in space-time and Switzerland is invaded by dinosaurs. But the Swiss fight them off with their Swiss Army Knives.
ColonelCraud: It'll turn out that the large hadron collider is just the code name for a water slide.
ColonelCraud: Then all the scientists go down it in their lab coats while Surfin' USA plays
Admiral0kelvin: That should be what the sequel to Real Genius with Val Kilmer is about.
ColonelCraud: "What do you mean the Large Hadron Collider has been taken over... BY JUNIOR COLLEGE STUDENTS?"
ColonelCraud: It's the sequel to Hostel, where the backpackers get kidnapped and taken to a physics institute and bored to death by sadistic physicis lecturers who are sick of students not paying attention.
Admiral0kelvin: Lecture porn.
ColonelCraud: "A number-spattered probability fest - I love it!"
ColonelCraud: They had to cut the scene about tachyons, otherwise it would have been NC-17
ColonelCraud: Harry here.... I feel this... along with SCHROEDINGER'S CUT.... has created a new genre I call "Theoretical Physics Noir"...
Admiral0kelvin: As with the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), people both inside and outside of the physics community have voiced concern that the LHC might trigger one of several theoretical disasters capable of destroying the Earth or even the entire Universe. These include:

* Creation of a stable black hole[7]
* Creation of strange matter that is more stable than ordinary matter
* Creation of magnetic monopoles that could catalyze proton decay
* Triggering a transition into a different quantum mechanical vacuum (see False vacuum)
Admiral0kelvin: Oh, good.
Admiral0kelvin: Whatever happens, I'm sure Stephen Hawking can save us.
ColonelCraud: Along with his new buddy Gizmo, the clumsy robot!
Admiral0kelvin: That would make a good FPS. It would be like Half-Life, only you can't jump. Which is great because the jumping puzzles in Half-Life are horrid.
ColonelCraud: Or it'd be like The Lost Vikings, where Stephen Hawking can open solve equations, but only Gizmo can jump.
ColonelCraud: You have to stop the Swiss scientists from using the Large Hadron Collider, and they're all eating swiss cheese.
Admiral0kelvin: And then Stephen Hawking has to get shrunk to the quantum level and must battle Higgs bosons with nothing but his wheelchair-mounted muon-neutrino beams.
Admiral0kelvin: And then the final boss is Antimatter Stephen Hawking, who has been behind the whole scheme.

19 Legends of Kung Fu: Part 2

2007-01-08T23:10:00.000-08:00

Here's the second installment of the 19 Legends of Kung Fu series. These two were actually the first two characters I did for it, but I didn't have them handy when I posted the last batch. I was playing around a bit more stylistically with these ones.

Master Golden Dragon Tail
Master of the Golden Butterfly Shaolin Temple. He is 180 years old and the sole protector of the Sword of Deadly Trials.

Spirit of the Monkey
Spirit of the Monkey is a master of Leaping Monkey style. When he was a baby his parents were murdered by bandits and he was discovered by a traveling merchant and monkey breeder. He was raised alongside a large family of monkeys, and is said to be able to speak with these animals.

For Your Consideration and Children of Men

2007-01-07T19:37:00.000-08:00

I saw two movies this weekend, For Your Consideration, the new Christopher Guest movie about a small film that starts to generate Oscar buzz, and Alfonso Cuaron's sci-fi Children of Men.

I'm going to put off making any final judgments on For Your Consideration until I've seen it again. I was disappointed with it, but I was also disappointed the first time I saw A Mighty Wind and I completely love that movie now. These movies tend to get better with repeated viewings. For Your Consideration was the weakest of the Christopher Guest films so far, but since this is one my favourite groups of movies ever, that doesn't mean it was bad by any stretch. I laughed a lot. The problem is mostly that it was 2/3rds of a really good movie, it just seemed like the last 1/3rd wasn't there at all. The movie feels like it ends before the third act even begins.

I think a big factor is that the movie dropped a lot of the mockumentary conventions of the previous films, and they didn't seem to quite know how to get the jokes in without letting the characters talk to the camera. They managed to get a little of that by replacing the direct character interviews with scenes of the characters being interviewed by the press, but it wasn't nearly as strong.

Catherine O' Hara was great, as was John Michael Higgins, who was the only character who really felt like a character from a Christopher Guest movie. Well, the only one besides Fred Willard, because he's playing the exact same guy he always plays, and is still hilarious doing it. One of the funniest scenes in the movie is the first time you see Fred Willard and Jane Lynch. They got a huge laugh by just standing there. A good chunk of the cast is underutilized, though. Comic geniuses like Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, Bob Balaban, Eugene Levy, Michael Hitchcock, and Ricky Gervais were given very little to work with and none had a very memorable part in the movie. Ricky Gervais had a few funny lines, but he was actually much funnier in A Night At The Museum, which is just sad.

Children of Men was really incredible. I went into it knowing very little besides the premise (it's the year 2020-something and all the women in the world have been infertile for the last 18 years, the world's gone to shit and Clive Owen is badass), and came out seriously impressed. It presented a believable vision of a bleak, dystopian Britain in which anarchy reigns, all immigrants are illegal and kept in camps, and everyone is basically waiting for humanity to die off in what might be the most depressingly anticlimactic apocalypse possible. But they're still better off than the rest of the world, most of which has been obliterated by war and terrorism. Clive Owen plays a disillusioned and all around glum government bureaucrat who gets tangled up with a group of freedom fighters and ends up having to protect what may be humanity's last hope.

Above all, this is a very smart sci-fi action film. It's rare that sci-fi is good enough to get away with taking itself seriously, but this one certainly pulls it off. The performances are great all around, and the writing is smart and clever. Alfonso Cuaron and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki did an amazing job shooting this movie. Cuaron didn't cut the camera unless absolutely necessary, and sometimes didn't even cut it when it was absolutely necessary. Each of the big action scenes is filmed in one continuous take, some of them lasting up to 9 or 10 minutes, which gives them one hell of an intensity. It's like watching a 10 minute guitar solo where the guitarist never even slows down to take a breath. The action never relies on spectacle to get you pumped, it builds the tension the good old fashioned way. There's a car chase that's more heart pounding than any car chase I've seen this year, and neither car even gets out of neutral.

This movie gets two big thumbs up from me. I definitely recommend seeing it.

19 Legends of Kung Fu

2007-01-05T16:03:00.000-08:00

I've started a new "project" of sorts, mostly just to give myself an excuse to do work. I'm going to design a series of legendary (but somewhat silly) kung fu masters. The series is tentatively titled 19 Legends of Kung Fu. I'm aiming at doing 19 characters, but who knows what the final tally will be. I may end up with 5, I may end up with 50.

Flying Squirrel
Flying Squirrel uses his kites to glide through the air and attack his enemies from above. Likes nuts a lot.

Tiger Habanero
Tiger uses chili peppers (despite his name, he uses a variety of peppers, not the habanero exclusively) to cause blinding pain in his opponents. He has been known to cover his hands with ground chilis and to fill his mouth with his special blend of hot sauce and spray it at his opponents.

BodyWorlds

2006-12-30T00:36:00.000-08:00

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

2006-12-26T13:43:00.000-08:00

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

2006-12-24T17:52:00.000-08:00

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!

2006-12-20T22:14:00.000-08:00

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

2006-12-13T17:03:00.000-08:00

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

2006-12-12T16:05:00.000-08:00

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.

2006-12-08T00:19:00.000-08:00

She seems fun.

The Demented Mentalist

2006-12-07T23:46:00.000-08:00

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!

2006-12-05T23:47:00.000-08:00

Why? I can't possibly explain why.

Baby it's cold outside.

2006-11-26T17:03:00.000-08:00

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

Hitler, Underwhelmed

2006-11-23T18:46:00.000-08:00

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?

2006-11-22T00:56:00.000-08:00

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.

2006-11-21T16:22:00.000-08:00

PS3 resale market so far

2006-11-18T17:14:00.000-08:00

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

2006-11-16T23:43:00.000-08:00

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

2006-11-14T21:21:00.000-08:00

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

2006-11-09T15:54:00.000-08:00

MAGIC BRAIN FREQUENCIES ARE RUINING MY LIFE!

2006-11-08T13:02:00.000-08:00

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!

2006-11-06T18:11:00.000-08:00

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

2006-11-03T21:33:00.000-08:00

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

2006-11-02T11:46:00.000-08:00

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

2006-10-30T23:40:00.000-08:00

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

2006-10-29T23:15:00.000-08:00

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

Gunship Lolita

2006-10-28T22:51:00.000-07:00

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

NO IT DOES NOT!!!

2006-10-26T13:59:00.000-07:00

"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"

2006-10-26T00:19:00.000-07:00

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...

2006-10-24T18:27:00.000-07:00

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

I just saw Anne Heche

2006-10-24T11:25:00.000-07:00

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

2006-10-23T23:06:00.000-07:00

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!

2006-10-22T16:24:00.000-07:00

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)

2006-10-20T18:48:00.000-07:00

Millicent Cole

2006-10-20T15:51:00.000-07:00

"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

2006-10-19T16:13:00.000-07:00

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!

2006-10-16T17:26:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-10-16T16:02:00.000-07:00

Escape

2006-10-15T01:21:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-10-14T23:37:00.000-07:00

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

1995, you were adorable.

Starting

2006-10-14T22:57:00.000-07:00

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!