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!