Day of the Death's Head

This is a large painting that I created for Day of the Dead. The original skull design was taken from a book of mysteries from the 30's, and really lends itself to the 'happy dead' motif. I took about an hour to paint this one. I really rushed so that it would retain the homemade feel of most DotD iconography.

The flowers which are in the eyesocket and lower corners of the painting are crepe paper flowers typical of DotD shrines.

The Reviews Are In! : Snowline Pirates of Penzance

Pirates Ahoy!

The play was a success and my glorious days as a pirate have come to an end. That was an amazing experience. I'll write more when I get a moment, but with online classes and a new play on the horizon I'm a little pressed for time at the moment.

Desert Dating

There is one thing they don't tell you about living in the desert: Dating is difficult. It's not that the weather isn't visually geared towards dating, it actually is. Think about it for a second. When the sun is out it's easy to have a reason to go strutting around in revealing clothing. So if you're a guy, you get to get an eyeful of your lady love as she dresses for the summer.

But there is a dark side to this. Heat.

Being hot and sweaty means that most of the time you're going to be struggling with the conflicting thoughts of "I really like you, please don't touch me."

Dating in the desert isn't for the feint of heart.

Pool Party

Gotta love cast parties. When the strain is starting to show from the constant rehearsals and everyone is getting snippy with each other, than nothing works better for getting a team back on track like a party. A pool party, if you can manage it, is even better.

When I first arrived at the party I saw our director and an actor hunched over a laptop going through sound files trying to edit the lead-in times to correlate with the action on the stage. It wasn't a promising beginning. But within minutes the party started to get underway and I spent the rest of the evening in the pool. It was perfect. Surprisingly, despite the best efforts of the High Desert sun I didn't turn into a crispy-critter either. No one is more shocked about that than me.

This pool used salt water instead of chlorine, which was something that I've never experienced before. My eyes weren't red afterward and my hair didn't smell of chemicals. It really is the way to go. Of course, after the party was over and people were staggering back to their cars for the ride home, it occurred to me that someone should have brought a camera. Heck, I could have even taken some photos with my phone! But there's always next time.

Suddenly: The World Becomes Incredible

Sorry that I haven't written for a few weeks but I've been busy. Ok, there's a woman involved. Yes, an amazing woman. Wow.

More later. But suffice to say, my world has gotten pretty incredible over the past few weeks.

Support the Troops

Happy 4th everyone! And don't forget to support the troops that are keeping you free!

How to Paint : Part 2 -Tribute Painting

Boy, I must really like you guys to post something like this. Here is the painting as it stands so far. Remember when I said that the painting would look worse before it looked better? Now you'll realize I wasn't joking. It's a rough start, but then again, they all are.

Do you notice how the curtains are sort of... off? There's a reason for that and it's an embarrassing one. In the process of putting on some preliminary shadows for the curtains, the canvas got turned around on the easel. When I stepped back I noticed that the folds in the curtains didn't match up with the screen-grab that I'd taken for this project. I shrugged my shoulders and set about to putting it right. Heck, this isn't that big a deal, I thought. I'm a good enough painter to fix things on the fly. So I grabbed a brush and went to town.

It wasn't until I stepped away a second time that I noticed that I'd had the canvas inverted and had somehow managed to paint the folds upside down. Grrr. It still isn't that critical of a problem because I'll be fixing and tweaking the painting as we go along. But it really isn't something I'd deliberately set about putting in my way!

The painting is a murky specter of what it will look like when we're done, but you can still catch a sense of what it will become. For now we'll let the paint dry overnight and gather up the courage to assault the canvas in the morning.

Designing Eve's Life Logo

Have you ever had an idea for an art project that seems really simple, something that you can knock out in a single afternoon without breaking a sweat but once you get started you realize it's becoming more complex than you ever dreamed possible?

Here's just such a project, documented for ya.

I wanted to make the "Life" logo that appears on Eve in the movie "Wall-E". When the robot takes a plant sample for analysis, a glowing green light appears on her surface. The light has a stylized tree design. It's a simple logo but very pleasing. For reasons I won't go into here, I wanted to make a sticker of that logo and put it onto the gas cover of a Honda Fit.

This should be simple because Wall-E is an insanely popular movie and if there's one thing that the Internet is good for it's pirating images from popular entertainment. A quick check with a ruler showed me that the gas tank cover was approximately 5.75 inches across, which means I'd need an image from the internet with a high enough resolution that it won't dissolve into a pixelated mess when it's printed to that size.

After lots of searching around, this is the best I could get my hands on:



Yeah, that's it. The image looks fine when when seen in the original picture, but blow it up to any workable size and all the detail becomes a muddy mess. Times like this call for Photoshop. Sort of.

First off, we don't want to confuse PhotoShop with details from the image. You and I see only two colors in the above image, yellow and green. PhotoShop recognizes the thousands of shades between them gets all funny when asked to differentiate the hues. There are tools in the application which help, like increasing the contrast in the image, reducing the palette and then selecting one of the colors and having the program select all similar shades of the specified sample.

Or you could do a quick tracing with a pen. That's my method. Trace and scan, and you get this:


No beauty pageant winner, but good enough for what we want. Scan that bad boy in, (or girl as it may be) and then copy it into a good font creator like Font Magic. Why a font application, you rightly ask? Because we only want a simplified ray tracing of the image, not the data in the image itself. In other words, we want the formula for the curves.

Now I'm not going to bore you with the rest, but once the image is scanned into the font program, the lines are smoothed, it's saved as a unique font letter and then imported into Windows. Photoshop is launched and the letter is typed, rasterized, mirrored (because I only smoothed one side of the image since mirroring it would make it more symmetrical than I could ever do by pushing around contour anchors), and then a few Photoshop effects are tossed into the mix. When done, the image is re-sized to 5.75 inches and we end up with:



Now that's more like it! Still, this was one of those easy projects that suddenly becomes a hornet's nest of details. But done is done, and that's all that matters. Now to put it on the car!

How To Make A Tribute Painting : Step Two

We're going to skip over the step where you lather a thick coat of Gesso onto the canvas that you've chosen for your painting and just assume that you've taken care of that already. Once the white surface has been prepared, you're ready to go.

Grab a pencil and sketch in the outline of the painting. For this step, it's more important to make the lines visible than to worry about whether the lines will show through the paint itself. It will. Let me put it another way, there is nothing you can do to hide the pencil lines used in the sketch. They will continue to show through the paint, ruining the overall effect and shining like a beacon of amaturishness that will blind anyone in the same room with thing when you're done. You might as well just give up and accept it.
Now there are those who think they'll be able to make the lines dark enough to be visible on the white surface, but light enough to disappear when painted over. The drawback towards this theory is that it is more likely to bite you, the painter, in the tookas. The first coat of paint will totally obliterate the lines which defeats the purpose of having a sketch in the first place. Relax and let it happen. The lines will show through and you'll deal with them when the time comes.

Now, take a good look at that picture I posted up there. See it? That's the best the painting is going to look like for a long, long time. Just like a dinner at Applebees, it's got to get worse before it gets better. The next few steps will seem like little more than deliberate efforts to deface the above image. So enjoy the view while you can.

As you can (barely) tell, I've sketched the full poster onto the canvas, cropping out the fence that was in the original image. "But why would you do something like that?" I hear you ask. Yes, the fence was part of the immerse world which Syberia is known for, but the point of having a tribute painting is actually making something that only existed in digital form before and bringing it into the corporeal world. For this reason, you just want to get the poster, not the scenery. "Yeah, but at the same time the world around the poster is just as much a part of the digitally created experience that I'm trying to capture. While the poster appears in the world as a hermetic element, nevertheless it is joined to its surroundings by tone which merges harmoniously with the experience. Wouldn't that necessitate capturing the fence in the painting as well?" you ask. To which I tell you to put a sock in it.

The various elements in the poster don't match exactly to the dimensions of the canvas, but it's close enough for our purposes. Let's take one last look at what we've got so far, and then go on to step three.

Dragon Queen Timeline

(Click on the image to get the full effect. Dunno why it's not displaying correctly on this page.)

Here is a timeline progression for the dragon in the "Psycho" series of paintings. At the start of the series, almost all the color had been applied with the exception of black. The rest of the images just show the difference that black made to the overall piece.

I did do some color touch-ups here and there, but for the most part, it was complete on day one!

How To Make A Tribute Painting : Step One

So you've decided to make a tribute painting, eh? Good for you! In your heart you know it's the right thing to do, and soon you'll have a beautiful piece of artwork that you created with your own hands, a tribute to a great adventure that you've undertaken which (in some small way, but a real way all the same) has changed you and helped shape the person you are today. Odds were stacked against you, with nothing but your wily mind, quick wit and inflexible determination to guide you, you managed to not only succeed against the trials facing you, but come out with your head held high. You go, you! Yeah!

See that picture up there? That's your blank canvas. Get a good, long look at that thing. You're gonna be staring at it for a long time. Just warning you now.

With your steely resolve burning in your heart, the only question facing you now is determining which of your mighty deeds should be immortalized through the effervescent magic of acrylic? Syberia II, you say? An excellent choice. We'll go with that.

Syberia II has a storyline which rivals a good 75% of fantasy stories out there, and what makes it even better is that you not only lived the adventure, but toughed it out all the way to the end without going online and cheating by peeking at some disreputable walkthru. Not even when you got to that ice maze with the small rat which kept running away from the owl you'd summoned, and you knew that he was supposed to get those berries (I mean, heck. Everyone could see that he needed to get the berries! But did he get them like any good vermin would? No! He just cowered into that dead end place making you shoo off the owl, have him crawl out and then summon the owl and he'd go down the wrong tube again... Yeah, good for you for not giving up at that point and cheating. I'm proud of you.).

Uh, where was I? Oh yeah, how to paint.

Well, before you can paint you need to have some image in mind. And Syberia II has many gorgeous scenes to choose from. You're looking for something unique, but also something that captures the complete immersion of this fantasy world. While prowling around the Soviet inspired town you discover this image:


Perfect!

Now as you're well aware, the perspective is off on this image. You are looking at the image through the eyes of the protagonist, Kate. What you're going to have to do is get her centered in front of the image you want, or at least as close as possible. In this case, she's looking up at the image, but that's alright. We're not looking for perfection, just a clear shot of the image we want to capture. Once you're ready, do a screen grab. Now, close out of the game and open PhotoShop.

Huh? When you pressed the screen-grab key on the keyboard, the game crashed and dumped you to the desktop? Yeah, that happens. A lot. But what's art without a little suffering thrown in for good measure? Anyway, stop complaining and open up PhotoShop.

Now do a quick paste and you've got your inspiration! Correct the perspective, and your image suddenly becomes:



I know that in this example, it looks pretty much like the original image. But there are some differences so don't skip this step. You're going to take a 3D image (from the digital world) and put it onto a 2D medium (your canvas), and to accomplish that in a realistic manner will require you to adjust for distortion. And besides, you want to do it right. I mean, this is Syberia we're talking about here. Such beauty demands your attention to details.

If you get into the habit of always doing the distortion correction, you'll save yourself problems later on. Sometimes you're not going to be able to line up on that perfect screen-grab and this will save you from many frustrating attempts.

Psycho 2 of 4

I think I'm done with monkeying around with black paint for awhile. I like the results, but went nearly cross-eyed trying to squint at that endless field of black to make sure I plastered every nook and cranny with paint.

Sad to say, those wrinkles are present in this picture as well, and they don't look like they're going anywhere. It's not that big of a deal, really. If it starts to get to me I can just put the painting in a heavy frame that covers the corners, or even just have the canvas stretched on a new frame. Actually, unlike most of my paintings, this is a series that I would actually like to see framed. The originals in the Psychnauts game have heavy gilt frames which add to the over the top stylistic eyesore of the whole things. So if I do decide to have these framed, I'll aim for something that is really outrageous.

In the meantime, I'll learn to live with saggy corners.

If you look carefully at the Queen's gown, you'll realize that I messed up on the design. I actually started the quilted pattern on a panel of the gown that was supposed to be left blank. So in this way, the original sketch is going to look different from the finished project. It worked out well and I decided to leave it alone. For the playing card to look like an official Hoyle queen, the gown must have equal parts of pattern and undecorated panels. So instead of just adding to the design, I held back and didn't decorate the panels I'd intended to embellish. When all is said and done, it looks perfect!

Inky Fingers

Whew! I swear, I don't even want to know how many paint fumes I've inhaled while hunched over this canvas trying to coax thick gobs of black paint into those awkward channels. But when I step back, I'm happy to see that everything is looking good. The unfinished 'card' center still gives the painting an unpleasant muddled look, almost as though the painting is being seen from behind a smudged piece of glass. But it's an illusion. If you hold up your hand to block the view of the central figure, the painting suddenly looks very nice. Gotta love perception.

I'm going to have to fix those letters. They're true to the original, but I don't like them. I won't do any radical changes to the font, but somehow I have to make them look more cartoon like.

My hand moved slightly when I was doing the eye, so now it looks more sunken than I'd planned. I'm going to leave it alone. That effect wouldn't be my first choice, but it's small enough that I'm going to let it stay the way it is. After awhile, I've learned not to fight a painting too much. If it gets into its head that it wants to come out a certain way, I'd be foolish to try to fight it.

I don't think it's immediately obvious from the graphic, but the black is matte because the final protective gloss coating has yet to be applied. It looks like it was sketched in with chalk.

Not Taking The Easy Route

I'll make a quick comment about the pseudo-velvet paintings that I'm working on at the moment. They're easy. There, I said it.

Making shading and texture is an easy technique to do with acrylic paints and when you couple it with the fact that the results can be quite striking it's a trap to avoid in excess. Sure, you can crank out a painting quickly and admire the results for hours. But at the end of the day, you haven't really extended yourself as a painter. Not to say that those tricks don't have their place. They do. Heck, I'll admit to loving the results that I've achieved so far. But if I'm honest with myself I wouldn't consider them to be groundbreaking in any way, or ones that I've put honest toil into.

When I put it like that, they sound like artistic junk food. Quick, easy and satisfying in small quantities.

So for that reason, the next painting I'll be tackling after completing the four "Lucha" pieces will be on the order of difficulty a few magnitudes higher. It sort of scares me, but I'm looking forward to it. These paintings have been a quick vacation, but the one I have planned to follow will really push my limits. It's going to be based off of a cut-scene from the original "Witcher" game. Now that game was one that I couldn't make it all the way through. The graphics were fine, but tended to be a little jumpy even when I turned down all the detail from the option screen. Also, it was one of those linear games where you seem to have a lot of variety on how you want to pursue the storyline, but in reality you don't. To get from point A to point B you have to kill 20 monsters. No more, no less. The 20th monster is a boss that looks really difficult to kill but is actually impossible to fail at defeating. You know the type. Yes, I'm looking at you King's Bounty. You too, Dragon Age.

But I did get as far as an entertaining cut-scene where the main characters blur out into soft focus and a rather humorous painting drifts lazily across the screen. One screen capture later and I grabbed it for my collection of potential painting subjects. The Witcher might not be the best game to immortalize on canvas, but that one image sure is!

A Word About Wrinkles

Oh, the wrinkles are still on that painting below, make no mistake. The camera didn't capture them as well as it might have because the first layer of black wash doesn't show them as clearly as it might otherwise. But from where I'm sitting right now, glaring across the desk at the wrinkled canvas, they are extremely evident.

I swear I'm tempted to slap that canvas on the floor and take an iron to it.

Getting There

If there's one thing to learn from the above image, it's never to give up! Ha! The painting is coming along nicely, although I'd be hard pressed to say that it looks stunning in any way, shape or form. The central figure is getting fleshed out with liberal lashings of black. Unlike the previous Tiger painting, this one has many nooks and crannies that I didn't fully appreciate while sketching it onto the canvas. At the time I knew that I'd be working with the small brushes to delineate the scales of the dragon but the time the process would take was lost on me. I know MUCH better now.

Oh, do you notice the white heart in the upper left hand corner of the card? That is a mistake on my part. It should have the same washed out red as the queen's gown, but in the process of dabbling around with the paints I forgot about it completely. To my credit I remembered that a separate heart actually goes there, but when the time to paint red came, it slipped my mind that it still needed to be filled in. Not a big deal. As you'll see, I'll hit it as the painting progresses.

The banner under the figure will be emblazoned with the phrase "La Lucha", which if Google Translator is any good, should stand for something similar to "The Struggle". Now here's the weird part about that banner. Each of the four paintings in this series should have the banner. I left it off of the Tiger painting because there wasn't a good way to get it to fit in the overall composition. I would have gone to more effort to include it if each painting had a different phrase, but they don't. Wouldn't it have made more sense to have each image have their own unique saying? I think so to.

But they don't, and so I fudged that one. The Struggle actually is a fitting subscript for the series of paintings, but I don't think it's vital to announce it on all the designs.

More fine detail work with inky black paint, and I'll post another photo!

Queen of Clubs

Now that's more like it! Black really does complete the painting, doesn't it? When I'm done with a painting, or at least far enough along that there isn't much left to monkey with, I'll slap a few coats of gloss-cote over the canvas just to make sure the colors don't fade and the paint is protected from dust and wear. This step is done outside to keep the place from smelling like a huffers vacation home. However, the wind is ripping up and down the valley today and if I leave the painting outside to dry it will likely be airborne and heading to the next country before I can stop it. So after doing a quick once over with the spray, it's drying on the easel right now. It's not a problem unless someone lights a spark!

Psycho Painting

It ain't too pretty, is it? Nope, not in the slightest. But the painting isn't done and I thought I'd take the time to post one of those 'work on progress' images which some people have been asking me about. This is one of a series of four paintings based on the dreamworld levels of Psychonauts.

The image is unique in the fact that the color black plays a large part in its creation. For that reason I left it to the last, choosing to fill in the figures and colors completely before doing this final step. For one thing, it helps free me up to experiment with colors and shapes because any mistakes will be blotted it with an opaque black at the end. Also, it's more fun. You see, I've noticed that in general black can make an amazing difference to a painting. So I thought it would be fun to have something about 99% done, and looking pretty terrible. And then, almost as if by magic, black is applied to the canvas and the image springs to life.

So don't feel like you're hurting my feelings by saying that you don't like the above picture. I don't like it either... yet.

Here's another.


I've started adding the black on this one, and then remembered to take the shot. Ideally I'd have taken a photo of this one with a white border, but it's a little late for that now. No matter, you get the idea. Notice too that the black looks pretty bad as well. I'm going to need a few coats of it to get the inky effect that I'm aiming for.

One other thing. I tried to stretch the canvas to get rid of those stupid sags in the corner but to no avail. There's a painters product similar to alum which you can apply as well which is supposed to stretch canvas tightly and I think I've used about half a tube with no significant improvement. I hated to throw the canvas away, and so decided to use it no matter what the flaws were. It was the right choice, but I really was counting on the paint having some affect as I applied it. If it's doing anything, it's so small I can't tell.

I'll post photos when the paintings are complete so you can see the amazing difference black does. The other two planned paintings for this set are very similar in composition and I think they'll be quite striking when seen together.

History, please look away

One final quote, then I'm going to go back to putting up fresh content and not relying so heavily on quotes from other sites. Promise.

I found this little gem here:

"This confused version of irony can be fun and all but, at the end of the day, the history books will describe us as a people who loved Fast Five, who seriously covered a potential Trump candidacy and who spent over $40 million on Shake Weights."

Stone Giant

Just came across a great passage from Blaylock's "The Stone Giant":

[He] would stroll in among among them, bowing. He'd pause to light his pipe and to puff on it for a moment with the air of a man who has studied things out and wants to phrase things particularly carefully in order not to be misunderstood by a precocious, but, perhaps, slightly scatterbrained audience."

The man has the touch, no doubt about it.

Goldfinch

I'm still sticking with the mockingbird as my animal totem. I know someone who had someone else choose their spirit guide for her and ended up with a ladybug. Nothing wrong with ladybugs mind you, but not the first thing that would spring to my mind if I was deciding on an animal spirit to help guide me through the spirit world, or give me insight into mystical matters.

So mockingbird it is for me, but I had a very neat experience with a goldfinch today.

I was out in the back yard listening to the wind blowing through the trees and the chirping of the local flock of sparrows and goldfinches as they gave their opinion about the gale force winds that have been whipping through the High Desert. After awhile I noticed that one of the chirping birds wasn't moving from tree to tree but actually sounded very nearby. I looked over to the neighbor's roof to see if I could see any feathery guys making their homes in the eves, but didn't see anything. Then I realized the chirping was near. Taking another look I found the source. A goldfinch was perched on the fence about three feet away from me.

The bird was a bright gold color and at first I thought it must be a chick because of the small size. Its feathers looked well groomed and not the frowzy mess that chicks usually wear while they're learning to fly, and this bird had a bald tummy which is usually an indication they're nesting. So the bird must have been a mom, and a fearless one at that.

I put out a finger and slowly moved toward the bird. She kept chirping. I petted her warm tummy and then the bird walked on to my finger and hung there. What a cool experience!

It didn't last that long, only about two minutes. But it was enough time for me to get the message. More thistles in the sock feeder. Yes ma'am!

Mark Twain Gets The Last Word

Penned in 1906, but was obviously written to celebrate the U.S. taking out Bin Laden:

"I was never so enthusiastically proud of the flag till now!"
-Mark Twain

Making the Sale

I received a nice message in the mail from the $99 Art Auction saying that my "Webmaster" painting sold! Yippie!

Sure, it's not anything that I can retire on and it did take a bit of time to do, but it's a good ego boost to know that someone appreciated the message and meaning of the painting enough to take it home with them. And the news comes at a good time for me as well because I've been itching to finish up the Psychnauts paintings that I've been mulling over for awhile now. I've got the ideas all planned out, the canvas prepped and ready but I haven't set aside the time to actually get started. Well this is a gentle push, and I'll take the hint. The paint starts flying tomorrow.

Oh, I'm also painting the gas cap of the Honda Fit so that it matches the organic life icon which appears on EVE's hull from "Wall-E". But that's another story.

Shocking!

There I am, mug of hot coffee in one hand and Tim Powers' "Drawing of the Dark" in the other, when I come across this passage:

"The Irishman stared at him with the wondering respect one feels for a child who has done some tremendously difficult, absolutely pointless thing."

This little gem of a phrase was crouched between many, MANY passages of bloody beheadings and bloodlettings. After all, it's still a Tim Powers book. But it did strike a chord with me because I was wondering just that morning about the grim patterns which develop when newscasters put political stories into historical context.

A trend which has developed over the past two years is the willingness of certain news broadcasters (MSNBC, ABC specifically) to invoke a historical perspective to the stories they cover. This is all well and good, except in the case of politics. You see, politics has a certain characteristic that makes it a rough fit. Since US politics doesn't really change that much over time, since it is bound to the framework of the Constitution after all, clear patterns develop.

So when a news anchor has to read another story about how power has corrupted, or money has influenced laws, or how people keep voting against their own self interests; I can't help but look at it the same way I'd see a child who is surprised when the Jack-In-The-Box pops up for the hundredth time. Boing! AH! Boing! AH! Yeah, I get it kid. It's shocking the first dozen times, but after awhile you learn to expect it. Right? Boing! AH!

Spirit Guide

I'm thinking that I'll adopt the mockingbird as my spirit guide. I'm inspired to do so because a very nosy mockingbird has decided to become my personal peeping tom and has been flitting around my window for about a month now.

There's a fence that runs along the length of the side yard, and has a natural perch at the top which he has been making use of ever since the awning blew away. Huh? Oh yeah. About two months ago Victorville had its annual parade of extreme windstorms blow through the area scouring every unprotected surface with sand and dust. It's always exciting and usually residents will spend a few days assessing the damage once they're done rolling through the valley. This time I didn't have to look too hard. One awning down, beaten to ribbons between the houses and tattered.

The weather has been very cool, so I wasn't in too great a hurry to replace the thing. So while it was down, a mockingbird which has been roosting in the neighbor's palm tree suddenly discovered that he could have his lunch and look in at me at the same time. Bold, fearless and loud. Yeah, considering that all those descriptors could apply to me I decided that my spirit guide is a mockingbird.

I wanted to leave out a treat for him, so checked out the mockingbird diet online. From what I read, they are considered omnivorous, which means that any foodlike product should suit them just fine. Lies. All lies. They like grubs and berries. I like mockingbirds, but I draw the line at finding grubs for them. To my credit, I put out some peanuts which were promptly ignored. I'll leave out bottlecaps next. (the shiny variety, not the sugary treats)

Our Country's Greatness

Mostly I'm just adding an excerpt from this to make up for my silence over the past few weeks. Enjoy!

"But mere killing is never great, and those who carry out the killings are not great, either. No matter how much one may believe that people must sometimes commit homicide in defense of themselves and the defenseless, the killing itself is always to be deeply regretted. To take delight in killings, as so many Americans seem to have done in the past day or so, marks a person as a savage at heart. Human beings have the capacity to be better than savages. Oh that more of them would employ that capacity."

Wrong Answer?

Does anyone get the feeling that we've actually just lost the war? That maybe, must maybe we did the exact opposite thing of what we should have been doing? I don't mean that now that we've killed Osama that now the terrorists will start coming out of the woodwork to attack us in revenge or anything. Such a thing is laughable and will never happen. No, what I mean is that we've done exactly what a nation at war should do... and it wasn't what we should be doing at all. Guess we'll find out soon enough.

The Big 4

I'm still at a loss to explain what it is about Indio which drew Slayer, Megadeth, Metallica and Anthrax to the Empire Polo Club to perform. Not that there's anything wrong with Indio, but there's a reason that so few people go there. There's not exactly a list of things that you could point to that would put it on the map.

Not that the Empire Polo Club doesn't do its best to try. The place is huge, which I really didn't appreciate when I was driving down there. I've been to Indio a handful of times before and had visited a few local places but none of them the Polo Club. I think that I've been missing out. The facility is gigantic, much larger than any other concert event I've gone to before. I think the largest theater I've seen a show at was in Phoenix at the Sun Devil stadium, but this place could probably fit two "Sun Devils" back to back. It's perfect for a concert, especially one that drew the crowd that the Big 4 did.

I don't think I've ever seen so many tattered black t-shirts gathered together in once place before. It was really something to see.

Now this concert was taking place on 04-23, but that didn't mean that 04-20 wasn't still in full swing in the parking lot. The moment your car comes to a stop on the hard packed grass field, a wave of metallic smoke assaults you from all sides. The cloud hovered over the concert for most of the afternoon and didn't fully dissipate until about 10 miles out of town. If 7-11's ran out of Slurpee's in the greater Indio area for the next few weeks, I think I know the reason.

The only drawback to the concert was the sun which beat down all day. The concert gates opened at 2:00pm, which meant that I was broiling under the Southern California sun for hours before it finally went behind the mountains and gave the crowd some relief. I'm crispy today, but very happy. If there's one thing that is guaranteed to get the blood flowing it's listening to Metallica and Megadeth very, very loudly!

I Am A Pirate King!

I just got accepted to be part of a production for The Pirates of Penzance! And I get to be the Pirate King!

For the majority of the performances, I'll be part of the crew. But as a cool little side line I'll be the understudy for the Pirate King. The way this production company works is that the understudies get 2 performances even if the 'main' is there. I thought about it and determined that's a sneaky way to make sure that the understudies have lots of incentive to learn the parts they would be subbing for. So while I will be part of the crew for the run, there are two performances where I get to be the captain of the dread ship Tarantula! HA!

When I was trying out for the performance I thought that I'd take any part with the exception of the Major General, because he has the famous song that's a tongue-twister. I'm sure you know it, even if you don't know that it's a staple of PoP. It's the song that goes, "I am the very model of a modern major general, I've information animal and vegetable and mineral. I know the kings of England and I quote the facts historical, from Aaragon to Waterloo in order categorical." Woah.

It wasn't until after I'd accepted the understudy role that I remembered the Pirate King has a wonderful little tongue-twister song of his own which he belts out at a clip that leaves the orchestra panting for breath afterward. Humm. In the words of the Penzance constabulary, "Oh well, too late now!"

One Website at a Time

One of the fun things about a class on website design and development is that at the end of the class you have a fully working and functioning website. It's like those A+ classes people take to learn how to repair computers. When the class is over, in addition to a ink-jet certificate of completion you get a brand new computer to haul away. Talk about a bonus! It makes sitting through lectures worthwhile.

The class that I'm taking now has lots of helpful and interesting concepts as to what makes a 'good' website, but the real attraction to me is that I get to work on a website that will be mine at the end of the class. I'm thinking that for this one I'm going to put together an online file sharing platform for music and graphics which can be hosted anywhere very easily. The graphics I'll make as the class goes along. Right now I'm just putting in placeholder content so I have a framework to develop the design around. Graphics are a kick, but they're a pain to do when you've got deadlines looming over your head.

As a side not and not pertaining to anything, Conan stories are much more entertaining to read than I'd given them credit for. I'd known about Robert Howard for years, and appreciated his other writings but had imagined that the Conan stories wouldn't have too much depth to them. They don't really, but they ooze atmosphere and you can't help but sit up a little straighter in your chair as you read about the barbarian lopping people's heads off just because they invade the Aquilonian kingdom. Yes, I'd probably be tempted to do the same thing myself if I were in his shoes, but I'd lack the finesse he displays on each page.

Does anyone know how many times the word "thews" appears in a typical Conan story? I'm thinking it's about 50.

The Right Type

As a not so great man (Mr. Rumsfield) once said, there are things that we know and things that we don't know and then things that we know we don't know and things that we don't know we don't know. Known unknowns and unknown unknowns. Yes, a font of wisdom was he.

I just found out that there are lyrics to Stars and Stripes Forever, and not the "Be kind to your fine feathered friends..." Actually lyrics by Sousa himself. Um, they are something all right. Some knowledge I wish I could unknow after I know it.

Salon Comes Through

Every now and then, Salon posts an article that is worth reading. To wit:

"There are several points worth highlighting about all of this. First, it demonstrates how many people purport to believe in free speech but don't. The whole point of the First Amendment is that one is free to express the most marginalized, repellent, provocative and offensive ideas. Those are the views that are always targeted for suppression. Mainstream orthodoxies, harmless ideas, and inoffensive platitudes require no protection as they are not, by definition, vulnerable to censorship. But as has been repeatedly seen in history, ideas that are despised and marginalized are often proven right, while ideas that enjoy the status of orthodoxy prove to be deeply erroneous or even evil. That's why no rational person trusts the state -- or even themselves -- to create lists of Prohibited Ideas. And those who endorse the notion that ideas they hate should be forcibly suppressed inevitably -- and deservedly -- will have their own ideas eventually targeted by the same repressive instruments."

The rest can be found here.

Twitter High-Card

As a quick note to anyone who might be reading this in the future, Twitter was something that we did way back in the past to send messages to each other composed of a few score letter entire. It was sort of like a mini-telegraph. Yeah, we were a simple people back then.

But Twitter High-Card. This is a game that I've invented and found it actually makes use of the primary function and purpose of Twitter: marketing. Specifically, taking something innocuous and twisting into a cynical marketing ploy with all the grace and elegance of an oil-covered buzzard trying to steal your wallet.

Remember "High Card"? It's the simpliest game in the world. What you do is draw a card, and hope that it is higher than the card the person you're playing with draws. That's it. If you have the highest card, you win.

OK, now to add the Twitter element. Twitter is used to poach potential consumer-sheep who naively think that Twitter is something which elevates mankind somehow. Whenever you 'tweet' a keyword suggesting you are shopping for something, you start getting 'followed' by marketers on Twitter. Just like you get followed by thugs when you withdraw large sums of money from the ATM.

(For people in the future, "money" was something we had at one time when we had "jobs" that "made things")

So the game is played much the same way as you would with the deck of cards. Only in this case, you put out a tweet, and the person who gathers the most marketing-bot followers wins the game. The strategy is tweeting as many keywords as you can in the Twitter character limit.

For example, you could tweet something like:

"insurance credit cell phone iPod Chevy Pepsi Mastercard"

Actually, if you did that your computer might melt under the torrent of automated marketing hits that you'll generate. Humm. Maybe this game should come with a warning label.

A Time To Laugh, A Time To Love

A time to think deep thoughts over a steaming mug of hot coffee and ponder the great questions of the Universe. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about.

One of the greatest things about America is April Fool's Day. I can't get over it. There must have been a point in our collective history where the leaders of our peculiar nation got together and recognized a need to have a holiday that was double-dipped in awesome sauce and deep fried in amazing. There's nothing better. April Fool's is where it's at.

Please note the use of the possessive apostrophe at the end of "Fool" to designate very clearly that the day belongs to April Fools (that is, the plural of fool). So the day is the sole terratory and possession of those who which to walk on the wild side and exercise there right to lay claim to the greatest holiday we've got. I'm one of them, and I have no problem saying that. Yeah, if there's a potential for fun then count me in!

Daily Kos Quote

"The only unity we still exercise as a nation is conspicuously cowardly fear."

Found here.

Writers Block Blog

There was something that I thought I'd throw in here just in case any readers are wondering why some of my blog posts ramble a little longer than decency would normally allow. It's because when I'm working on a writing project and get that creeping writer's block feeling shooting up and down my spine I find it helps to put some thoughts down first.
I suppose that if I just started filling a random page with text and then deleted the document before starting my 'real' work, there would be no practical difference. I would have gotten the creative juices flowing and exercised my typing fingers a bit for the work ahead. But in this case I'm going for some multitasking and updating the blog while I get my brain switched into "write" mode.

Sometimes it works. Sometimes I come to the logical end of a blog posting and then discover that the writer's block is still there and I'm just as stuck as when I started.

Damn.

Sucker Punch Movie Review

Movie: Sucker Punch
Ted Puffer's Review : 3 Stars

There's a lot going for the movie Sucker Punch, and not all of it has to do with the fact that not only did the director also film the supposedly unfilmable graphic novel "Watchmen" but also blew the doors off with "300". To have seen those films tells you what to expect when you sit down to a new creation by this guy. You're going to see lots of slow-mo fighting and wowza visuals. That's a given. But are you going to get a side helping of plot along with that meal?

Actually, yes. Now I'm not going to give you a line about how there are layers of meaning behind the story and that every item in the scene is a metaphor for life and the difficulty of maintaining ego integrity in the modern world. That would be a stretch. The plot isn't that large in scope but it is there and more importantly it's done well.

What really impressed me about this film is that while the plot can be summed up in a paragraph or two at the most, the small story was done with excellent execution. Now all of this brings up the larger question of is a movie with a well done small plot more important than a movie with a larger subject being handled haphazardly. In this instance, I'm happy with the small plot. It is done well and even has (gasp!) foreshadowing! And... and internal logic integrity! Heck, the director has even gone so far as to throw in a plot point or two just to show the Syd Field fans that it can be done.

OK, it's not "Birth of a Nation". But it is good, and was worth seeing in a theater.

Pirates of Penzance

Besides being generally awesome because it has pirates, Pirates of Penzance also has fantastic music and makes it one of my favorite musicals. Sure I'm biased because of the pirates, but there is no denying the appeal of the songs.

And the cherry on top of this play is that a local theater company is putting on a performance and they have auditions coming up in 2 weeks! Huzzah! I'm not sure if I can get in, but I'm going to try like crazy to secure a part. Heck, I'll even sing on stage if it means that I can sneak into this group. I've loved the play ever since I saw the Kevin Kline version about a million years ago and this is something that really appeals to me. Wish me luck! (or break a leg)

Legal Quote

"What man's law shall bind you if you break your yoke but upon no man's prison door?
What laws shall you fear if you dance but stumble against no man's iron chains?
And who is he that shall bring you to judgment if you tear off your garment yet leave it in no man's path?" -Kahlil Gibran

Lame Quote

"You are good when you walk to your goal firmly and with bold steps.
Yet you are not evil when you go thither limping.
Even those who limp go not backward. But you who are strong and swift, see that you do not limp before the lame, deeming it kindness." -Kahlil Gibran

Dreamfall

Oh my oh my! Dreamfall is amazing!

For those who aren't in the know, Dreamfall is the sequel to The Longest Journey, with a truckload of twists and turns. I'll put in a full review later, but let me give the TL;DR version: It rocks!

Twitter Zombies

I've noticed something about Twitter that I hadn't seen before, but I suppose is inevitable in the long run. The Twitterscape is populated by Twitter Zombies. It is, really.

Do you remember MySpace? Sure, everyone remembers that social networking site the same way they remember seeing the second Star Wars film. They are absolutely convinced that they visited the site and that it was awesome and that they did all these crazy things and met funny people... but no one can really give you any clear descriptions of it.

MySpace is still in existence, for those of you wondering. Heck, Ted Puffer still has a site there. No one goes to the site any more, but that doesn't mean that it's inactive. It is incredibly active. Bots and scrips run rampant across the wasteland of what was once an exciting new way that people could interface with social media friends. Automatic scrips lay in wait, lurking in the shadows for the unwary traveler who through a combination of typos and boredom accidentally stumbles onto the MySpace servers.

For example, if you create a page, you will get about 3 friend requests instantly. These aren't real people, but automatically generated links to advertisers who have been selected by the information you've set up on your page. MySpace hasn't given these guys access to your information, by the way. They don't get a penny from these advertisers. What happens is that bots constantly crawl the dusty pages looking for new people logging in.

Twitter is rapidly becoming the same thing. If you create an account, nothing may happen at first. Then send out a tweet like "Dang, got into a car accident. Wish I had better auto insurance." Before you know it, you'll have a bijillion people following you. Not people, per se. But scripts which have just gone apeshit because you used "auto insurance" in your tweet. The way it stands now, I would say that for every five people on Twitter, two are real, two are business fronts and one is a bot.

Yeah, that sounds about right. It's probably just as well. Twitter has been an interesting thing to see blossom but it's niche just was never there. It was providing a service that mankind had yet to develop a need for. And to be completely honest, the human race really doesn't need another method to connect consumers to distributors.

Borrowed Text

Ran across this article, and thought it was so good I'd put it up here:

I'm Just Doing My Job

I hate that phrase. It's used by cops harrassing black drivers, soldiers burning down villages and napalming children, utility workers cutting off power to elderly widows, telephone solicitors calling you during dinner, network administrators working at spammer ISPs, data entry clerks who insist on getting your social security number even when you have a legal right not to provide it, and many others.

"I'm just doing my job" is an all-purpose excuse by anyone who doesn't want to take responsibility for their own actions or even consider that what they're doing might be wrong. It's as if the person who's just doing their job isn't a real person with the ability to make choices and moral decisions. Instead they're just an unthinking cog in the corporate machine with no more choice or responsibility than a photocopier or fax machine.

People aren't cogs and they aren't machines. They need to stand up and take responsibility for their actions. They need to make choices, and admit the choices they've made. They need to be prepared to defend those choice, and if they're wrong and can't honestly defend the choices they've made, they should be prepared to correct their mistakes.

I'm less alienated than most from my labor. I'm a freelance writer, and I write pretty much what I want to write, when I want to write it. I say what I want to say, and I admit that I've said it. Sometimes people disagree with me, and they let me know. Sometimes they're right; sometimes they're not; sometimes the issue is cloudy. That's fine. Sometimes I make mistakes, and I admit those too. But I accept responsibility for my actions. I don't claim that somehow I'm not responsible for something I said or did simply because I was working for a paycheck when I said or did it.

What spawned this latest tirade was the news that Bell Atlantic is trying to censor a web page that advocates calling and writing certain Bell Atlantic employees at home to express displeasure with their advocacy of per-minute ISP fees. Now the site in question was at least a little over the top and did advocate some possibly illegal activity, perhaps even to the point of being illegal itself, so that's not what bothered me. What bothered me was the following statement by Larry Plumb, director of communications for Bell Atlantic.

I suspect many of us would object to having incidents at work coming back to haunt us at home

Sorry Larry, that doesn't cut it. Our lives are our lives. We cannot and should not separate them into a "work part" and a "home part" where the home part isn't responsible for anything that happens at work. We are whole beings, indivisible. If you commit a crime at work, you don't just go to jail from nine to five. If your job requires you to take action in the public sphere in an an attempt to influence government regulation, people who disagree with you may call you at home to discuss it. This shouldn't surprise you. You have to take responsibility for your actions, regardless of whether or not you were acting at work. It is not acceptable to advocate particular policies that are beneficial to your employer, and then turn around and say to your friends in private, "I don't really believe that, but it's my job to say these things." I know this goes against everything that qualifies you to be a "director of communications", but it's the truth. Corporations are legal fictions. Corporations don't speak or communicate or lobby for regulation. People do. And those people must be prepared to take the heat for their actions and their beliefs.

A Glint in the Corner

When I've finally talked myself into letting a painting be 'done', I'll usually cover that puppy with a few coats of clear acrylic to protect it from dust and scuffs. There are two types of sealent that can be used, either a matte coat or gloss. Both give different effects, but a good rule of thumb is that the gloss coat will make the colors pop out like flowers in a meadow.

There's another secret. If the light shining on a painting is coming from above and to the side, the texture of the canvas captures the light and reflects it into constellations of glittering motes which flow across the surface. The edge of the painting becomes the location of a minature galaxy. The effect is beautiful beyond words to describe. The colors in the painting, carefully put down and chosen often with an intensity bordering on obsession fade into nothingness beyond the swirling pinpricks of light.

I imagine that most paintings can create this effect, if viewed the right way. Everything the painter has labored so hard to create melts away beneath a chaotic jumble of twinkling lights, and captured wonder.

Dark Corners of the Earth 2 Painting

OK, I'm throwing in the towel for Cthulhu inspired paintings for awhile. The act of creating these things is just too weird.

It's one thing to make a painting that doesn't come out the way you want, or isn't something you're happy with when you're through. I'd imagine that everyone has been there. You step back from the easel with your brush in one hand, palette in the other and then "gaze upon the work which your hands have wrought." And with a sinking feeling, you realize that you don't like what you made. Disappointment? Sure. Anger? Maybe a bit when you start tallying up the costs of materials and time you invested. That would make sense and be normal. But these paintings are something very different.

I like the way this one came out, and think it really did capture the spirit (if you'll pardon the pun) of the original. The figures aren't happy. They aren't threatening either, they're just quietly miserable. For characters who appear in a Lovecraft story, that's about as good as it gets.

But once again, the difference between seeing this on the computer screen and having it on the wall is striking. Gah! This is a big guy and spans about 4 square feet of canvas. That's hundreds of inches of morbidity to look at all at once, and the experience is far from pleasant. I think it's time to move to a happier game. Next project: Psychonauts! WOOT!

Dark Corners of the Earth Painting

This really did come out about a million times creepier than I'd intended. It started out as a simple idea. I was going to make the standard "virtual painting" that I've done a few times before. Many months ago I was playing "Dark Corners of the Earth", and noticed some cool paintings hanging in the cultist's lair. Shadowy works which went hand in hand with the disturbing setting. So I took a few screen grabs and put them on the back burner to wait until I had time to put one or two of them to canvas.

But there's a huge difference from looking at a painting on your monitor that's only about 300 pixels wide to having the whole 2' x 3' painting staring at you from your wall. Yikes! This thing just creeps me out! I mean, I'm glad I painted it and all.... and in general I'm pleased with the way it came out... but I can't shake the feeling that the eyes are following me around the room when I'm not looking. Good grief. I'm going to have to throw a towel over the thing or I'm never going to sleep again.

It really is a nice painting and the colors and textures came out better than I'd ever imagined. But still. Gugh.

Longest Journey Artwork?

Something very strange happened to me while playing The Longest Journey. I couldn't find any artwork to rip off the walls.

A short explanation. I've been playing games for awhile now, and one of the things I do is take souvenirs from titles that I've finished. To do this, I'll keep an eye out for a painting or poster that appears during the game, and then paint it. Simple, right? You can sort of look at it this way: people paint landscapes all the time. It's a common subject that you can find anywhere. Someone will get some tubes of paint, a canvas and easel, and then wander around the countryside looking for something to paint. In this way, they are taking something real, and making a pseudo-real copy of it.

I'm doing the exact same thing, only in reverse. I'm taking something that doesn't exist (a painting in a computer game) and making something real from it (an actual painting)

So where was I... Oh yes! The Longest Journey.

Now this title had pretty much everything that I could ask for. The main character is a painter in school, she finds out that she can use her innate magical abilities to open doorways to another world through her artwork, and some of the game takes place in a gallery. Simple, right? This should be what they call a 'target rich environment'. No matter where I am in the game, there should be lots of opportunities to find something acrylic worthy.

But it didn't turn out that way. Far from it, in fact. The paintings in the gallery are rendered in low-rez which made getting a good view of them very tricky. The one screen which showed a full view of a painting actually focused on one of the most boring paintings in the gallery. You get a two-second glimpse of the main character's masterpiece which she turns into a magical doorway. Other than that, not much.

I do have one rule. A painting has to be on-screen for longer than two seconds for me to consider it as a subject to paint. So in a bizarre turn of events that I'd never have guessed, I finished the game without some ideas to take back home with me. It's an excellent game, don't get me wrong. And I'm actually overloaded with more ideas than time right now, so it might be all for the best that I don't have a souvenir of my personal Longest Journey.

Ah well. There's always The Longest Journey II : Dreamfall. Wish me luck!

Social Network Update

An update from my previous post.

The award winning "The Social Network" is the "Citizen Kane" for a new, stupid generation.

Multitasking

There's another benefit to playing a text-heavy adventure game that I didn't mention earlier, but thought I'd put down here. You can play guitar during the dialog.

I wasn't sure if this would be possible or not, but as it turns out the concept is sound. You see, practicing picking patterns on a guitar is just plain fun. Your fingers move in a predetermined rhythm over the strings, and the goal is to have each pluck make a note that rings. It's easy, but most importantly, it's satisfying. Without expending too much thought into what you're doing, suddenly the notes from the guitar sound suspiciously like music.

And you do it over and over again. For hours.

When playing The Longest Journey, I'd recommend putting a guitar in your lap and just idly plucking the strings in your picking pattern while the characters interact. At the end of the scene, you've enjoyed some good dialog and your fingers have learned a new skill. Best of all, if you do it right, you're providing a killer soundtrack to the characters. Win-win!

The Longest Journey

Although it probably doesn't mean anything in the cosmic sense, there was little doubt that I'd be playing the 2000 adventure game "The Longest Journey". That title has been coming up in my life over the past few months. First off, I'd finished the game 'Grey Matter', and if you are so inclined for that sort of thing, feel free to read my feelings on the subject below. Long story short, it rocks. Secondly, I'd been contracted to translate/edit a story with was later to be titled "The Longest Journey" as well. This was just a happy coincidence, but still interesting. And I'm all about patterns and pattern recognition, so I thought this might be a good time to pick up the class game and give it a whirl.

Now I've had this game floating around my collection for the better part of a decade, but hadn't played it. Part of the problem was the title, I'm ashamed to say. Yes, it's never a good idea to judge a book by its cover, and yet the title filled me with concern. Longest Journey? For those of you who have played adventure games (particularly the point and click variety) you'll know that there are brick walls that the player encounters that can make the game VERY long indeed. Using a walkthru to breeze through the game defeats the purpose, and I like to give myself every chance to solve the game 'straight' before utilizing a third-party resource to solve any hurdles (cheating).
But when the game out and tells you that it's The Longest Journey, well I take notice. And so the game has sat on my shelf for years. Until now.

The game is awesome. But what really strikes me is how much the actual language of more recent gaming titles has become dumbed down and politically correct. Right off the bat, The Longest Journey tells you that many of the characters speak "blue", and aren't ashamed to use extremely crude and graphic language to give their opinions on various matters. GTA has become the national benchmark for violence and for lack of a better word "adult themed material" in a game. But my jaw dropped as I was playing TLJ. This game mingles vulgarity with high-concept metaphysics and philosophy. And I don't mean any of that garbage armchair "Can't we all just get along" philosophy. Or "We're all connected by universal energy" stuff. I mean real, nuts and bolts pondering of the deeper meanings of what it means to be alive. Very good stuff.

And there's some of that "universal energy" talk thrown in for good measure. I'm glad. I'd have missed it had it not been there.

But Ted Puffer, I hear you say. What about the game itself? Does it live up to it's title?

Ummmm. Yeah. I'd say it does. It does start out at a gentle pace, and the game is broken up into a series of days, of which the story arc crossed about two weeks. The first few days are long, but the other ones only contain a handful of puzzles each and can be whipped through very easily. If anything, the only 'padding' in the game is in the form of dialog. For everyone's sake, the dialog is excellent and the voice work above par. So this is one journey that's a joy to take.

Dang, you're greedy....

Don't get me wrong, I do like the attention and knowing that you're taking an active interest in what is going on in my life is flattering and all that, but there are just some times that I don't find it that convenient to write more and give updates with what I'm up to.

There, there. I didn't mean anything by that. Let me try again.

I'm going to be painting again very soon. Mostly because the painting bug has bit me and I'm eager to get some ideas that have been floating around in my head down on canvas so I can move on to other projects. I'd be lying if I didn't also mention that I've spent the better part of the day clearing off some room to spread out my paints, so metaphorically the 'decks have been cleared' and I'm ready to go. Painting. Got it.

Also, I'm going to see what fun I can stir up in Los Angeles this weekend. More about that later.

Hey, there's nothing wrong with leaving on a teazer.

Grey Matter Review

The Game: Grey Matter
Ted Puffer's Review: Let's just put down 5 stars, eh?

Without a question, this game is a gem and had me barely breathing between gaming sessions. This is a point and click style adventure in the same vein as Gabriel Knight, which isn't too surprising when you consider that both games were designed, written, scored, etc. by the same person. The story is fantastic. Deep, moving and everything that a completely engrossing game should be.

There are cons, but they are strange. Usually when a game has flaws they fall into categories that are shared by many titles throughout the gaming world. I think that Grey Matter managed to invent a few. Character pathing is an issue.... sometimes. Sometimes it's not. Certain tasks need to be performed before the story advances, and there were only a few which really didn't seem to fit. More often than not, the story doesn't handle itself well if the plot elements are completed in a different order than the designers had planned. In this case the game still works, but your character will say nonsensical things, or mention looking forward to events which have already happened. It's odd, but not a game killer.

There was only one puzzle which had me screaming 'unfair'! All other puzzles and twists are believable and a joy to work on. But this one... I dunno. I almost felt like it was created by someone else entirely.

It's a fantastic mark of success that I love this game even when one of the chapters delves deeply into Alice in Wonderland. I hate that book, don't care for the author, and find the whole mythos around AIW to be a sad testimony on humanity. In 80 years, I'm sure that there will be similar devotees of Harry Potter, which does make me want to drink. Heavily.

Speaking of, there are a few Harry Potter references in this game as well. And I STILL love it! Wow. I really didn't see that coming. Including any Harry Potter references in a book or computer game is usually producer/developer/author shorthand for "my abilities are feeble, please enjoy this reference to something I think you'll like better..." But in a bizarre way, the Harry Potter shout-outs in Grey Matter actually fit with the story.

Eraserhead

Part of me wishes that I could see David Lynch films in fast-forward mode. I'd enjoy them more, and I don't think it's a disservice to the director or myself for saying so. He does "bizarre" like a kid in school vying for attention to the point where he's willing to eat worms. In David Lynch's case, at this point of his career he's shovelling them down by the handful.

I do like creepy scenes in movies, and atmospheric works are something I appreciate and enjoy. But Mr. Lynch seems determined to have the audience unnerved or unsettled by showing characters moving in slow, awkward ways that are unpleasant to watch. Well and good. When it works, it works fine. But for goodness sake, the same effect could be created once at the beginning of the film and it would be enough. It doesn't have to be done again and again throughout the running time of the movie.

Eraserhead is slow moving, but there are scenes unlike any I'd seen before. So for that I'm thankful and would recommend that this film be watched for anyone with a taste for the odd or disturbing. But keep your finger near the FF button. And if you have to leave the room for a smoke or to make coffee, don't worry too much about missing anything important.

Begotten

Now when I think of film, I really do think of individual stories which are only united in the medium in which they're presented. This medium has a myriad of ways to be presented, so as far as a uniting theme it's broad.

Of course this idea doesn't really go that well in practice. It doesn't take a viewer that long to realise that most movies look an awful lot alike, and that stories and plots borrow from each other liberally all the time. So when something comes along that is unique in ways unlike anything before it, it's an adventure. Maybe not a good adventure, but an adventure all the same.

"Begotten" is one of these movies. It's hard to watch, and I'm not going to kid anyone by saying that it's because of the imagery. It's the pace of the thing that makes it a trial. But although it moves as slow as molasses, it makes for a powerful visual treat and one that I'd recommend to anyone looking for something out of the ordinary. Besides, any movie that has a character called "God Killing Himself" isn't your everyday fare.

What is funny about this film is that it reminds me strongly of a short I saw on HBO about 9 years ago. There was a series on cable which had hour long short films by different directors and one of them had to do with a film that was so horrible and ghastly that any audiece that watched it was immediately driven insane. I'm not sure of the name of the series, but the faux film which was so dangerous could easily have been "Begotten". Grainy, black and white, and glorious.

Catfish "Movie" review

Movie: Catfish
Ted Puffer's Review: -3 stars

Long story short, this movie is faked. Now there are plenty of clues about the fakery involved in it, but that's not the point. The point is that even if the story were legit, it's still not that involving, and barely worth telling in the first place.

I don't think that I'm being too harsh on the movie, because there is a fair amount of speculation about what makes a good movie in the first place. For the most part I really do try to keep an open mind, and believe strongly that there are different levels of what constitutes "good" when it comes to film. A film that fails under every category, yet is effectively edited could be considered "good". It's a stretch, but you see what I'm getting at.

In the case of "Catfish", there isn't anything to really hold onto. For a film like this, it must:

1- be made in such a way that the viewer believes it's real
2- have a twist which the viewer wasn't expecting or hasn't seen before
3- contain the seeds of a larger theme or idea beyond the main storyline

Yeah, I could go on. But "Catfish" isn't really worth it. I sort of liked the interior shots of the New York office. And the sound was well done.

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The Comic Saltmine

I think I've mentioned it before, but there is a strange sort of tug-of-war that goes on when life get's really exciting and I want to write about it. It boils down to this. When there is lots going on, I don't have any time to write about it. And when time is heavy on my hands and I've got lots of opportunity to put thought to digital ink, there's nothing to write about.

So I'm going to keep this brief, because this is one of the former situations rather than the latter.

I'm in the middle of wrapping up a 38 page comic in French, right on the heels of a 50 page comic that was Chinese. Before that was another 50 page comic that was in a language which was completely unfamiliar to me. Heck, it might have been in Elvin for all I know. All I cared about was that the text needed to be scrapped completely and replaced with dialog that I came up with on the fly.

So lots of activity, and lots of new projects to work on. Huzzah!

I've also gotten back into the guitar classes after a quick two week break from the Christmas recital. The next goal for guitar comes in July when the group will be performing at a community event center. I don't have too many details on that event, but it looks like it will share the same basic outline that the previous recital had, in that there will be about 30 guitars playing at one time and vying for the attention of about 200 people. Heck, what could go wrong?

Oh, Tripwire did an awesome performance at the Triangle Club in Pomona, and opened with a new song (for them) that I have reservations about. It was "My Sharona", which as you and everyone else in the 21st Century knows is an old song with a catchy hook. But I've heard that hook more times than I can count, and have already been happy to pass that song along to history. In other words, I really don't have a burning desire to ever hear that song again.

But when all is said and done, Tripwire did a great cover of it. In fact, it was damn good. I didn't dance to it though. I saved my dancing for later on in the program.

Turkey Vulture Migration

The turkey vultures are migrating across the High Desert, and Victorville is dead center in their flight path. This means that while the January thunderstorms are stampeding across the landscape, the vultures are wheeling around and being scattered across the arid hills like burnt pages from a cracked book.

What is stunning about the sight is the size of the scavengers. I'm used to seeing ravens around, and their size can be intimidating, especially when one of them is giving you the glad eye as you munch on a sandwich. But vultures are in another class altogether. They flap maybe once every minute, and spend the rest of the time kiting across the skies looking ominous. The migration really hits home because you can see hundreds of the grey guys at once, all heading south towards Cajon Pass and better hunting grounds.

RIFT No more...

I'm hanging up my RIFT hat for good.

I got into the second round of the beta testing for RIFT, which means that I'm under a second round of the EULA and shouldn't discuss my experiences until it's lifted sometime in the next few weeks. But that doesn't mean that I don't get to write about why I'm leaving the green fields and stony castles behind.

RIFT O.D. Plain and simple.

RIFT is fantastic, no question about it. I've written about it before and the new beta just shows what I'd imagined would be created in the vast game world before the official release. The game is stellar, and is a complete remake of WoW with some innovative twists. But at the end of the day, it's WoW all over again.
And while that might be a good thing for people who haven't played WoW before, it's going to be lots of the same and then some for players who have already gotten their fill.

My moment of truth was when I was accepting a quest while standing in front of a field of wild boars to kill. The quest said something like "Kill 10 wild boars", and then it hit me. Beyond the fantastic graphics, surround sound and special effects, the basic premise of the WoW fetch-quests just leaves me cold. Here you are outside a field of pigs waiting to be killed. You're there to kill pigs, and the pigs are there to be killed. When you've killed them, they'll come back for the next person who is there to kill pigs.
It's not a bad formula, and works to provide a framework of the environment. But it's also a situation which would exist without the player's involvement, or even if the player is there at all. For something to really grab me, really get me interested in the storyline, plot and characters of a digital world there has to be much more of a connection than just that.

Perpetuum struggles mightily, but does move in the right direction. So until that threshold is broken completely and a new way of engagement between player and world is fashioned, I'll be out on the rocky hills of Perpetuum, harvesting robot kernels and increasing my tech database.

Monster's Revenge

The High Desert Center for the Arts is hosting an exciting new play called "Monster's Revenge", and I'm very glad that I was able to see it. I can say very easily that this is one of the most unique and entertaining plays that I've ever attended. Even the structure of the play is unlike anything that you typically find for a theatrical production. The play is a musical, which is both the strength and weakness of the performance.
The theme is simple, a group of naive teenagers enters a 'haunted' theatre to investigate reports of paranormal activity. There are a host of Scooby Doo references to go around for those in the audience who aren't sure what to make of the dated 'groovy' dialog, but even if the audience isn't up to speed for the archetypes of the cast, the tone of the play makes itself known early on.

As I mentioned, it's a musical. I'm sure that there are some original songs in there somewhere, but most of the numbers are takes on popular hits. This is surprising because, well, let's not kid ourselves here. I'm sure there are copyright laws written about this sort of thing. Whether I agree with them or not is another matter entirely. In this case, it was music that gave me a great evening and I was ready to sing along with the cast. So all in all, I don't give a flying leap if royalties were paid to anyone. The director did a great job of putting together a list of fantastic numbers that a local theatrical crew could do justice too. And he succeeded perfectly. In my book, the show was a hit!

The grand finale was a all-cast production of the Black Eyed Peas' "Tonight", although with some creative insertion of some lyrics to tie it in to the overall theme of the play. I actually enjoyed this version over the original. Go figure.