Joe Normal

Joe Normal 30 % Nerd, 34% Geek, 13% Dork

The Nerd? Geek? Or Dork? Test.

Honestly, I'm a little insulted. I'd a rated my geek factor well above 34%. o_O

Bhangra & Riverdance. Who'da thunk it?

Just got back from dinner. $3 laksa. $1 iced coffee. God I love cheap food.

Y'know, I never quite would've expected bhangra and riverdance to work together, and yet, that's exactly what I witnessed last night at WOMAD. Apache Indian & the Reggae Revolution did a set with one of the Riverdance fiddlers, and what a hell of a set. Irish fiddle played to crazy thumping bhangra beats. Highlight of the night for sure.

Went over to Sentosa around lunchtime today with an old friend, where we proceeded to laze around in the sun. More lazing. And yet more. Then I had the bright idea to bring the cigarettes down to the water, where we jerry-rigged a floating ashtray so we could drift around in the water with our cigarettes. I have to say, there's nothing quite like drifting, damn near weightless, ears submerged so you don't have to listen to the annoying sounds of high school kids being annoying, and having a cigarette. 'Bout as relaxing as it gets. I did get a nice burn out of the whole thing, though, so my nose itches something fierce. Yowch.

Piccie

After going back to this every so often, I've got it to a point where I'm fairly happy with it. I reckon I still need to work on the skin tones, and tighten up the background. Almost there.

To Infinity and Beyond

First off, my apologies to Cartoon Brew for unceremoniously ripping off the title of their blog entry on the 17th. With that out of the way, most of you know I'm not normally one for this sort of thing, but I've been a big fan of Joe Ranft for some time. One of the major creative leads over at Pixar, he's always been known as one of the nicest, happiest, most unassuming guys in the business. He was killed yesterday in a car crash when the car he was in went off a cliff. I don't have a lot to say, so I'll just send you over to Cartoon Brew.

Madden breaks records. o_O

- Electronic Arts has announced that its newest football game, Madden NFL 2006, has broken sales records for the series and moved 1.7 million copies across all platforms in its first week. "Gamers were demanding the best Madden NFL Football ever this year and the response at retail indicates that we delivered the game that everyone wanted," said EA Vice President of Marketing Todd Sitrin. "Consumers have voted with their dollars, and the vote is in -- this is the best version of Madden NFL Football ever."

The sales figures obviously have nothing to do with the fact that Madden is now the only NFL game on the market.

More mucking about with the new toy

So after asking around on the TreoCentral and TabletPCBuzz forums, I managed to get a dirty workaround for the issue of Palm Hotsync software not installing properly on Windows Tablet PC Edition. That's one thing off the checklist.

With that done, I spent a good chunk of the day getting reacquainted with scripting, after finding AutoIt, a lovely little free scripting engine for Windows. Since HP's software doesn't allow for application-specific functionality for the various hardware buttons on the tablet, I set out to add that functionality myself. After much effort getting my grubby paws acquainted with AutoIt, and with some help from the helpful folks on the official forums, I managed to write myself a nice little keystroke capture program that isn't very heavy at all on CPU cycles or RAM. Now the hardware buttons are actually useful in my graphic apps. :) It took some effort, but it was certainly worth it.

Now, I really need to get some sleep, seeing as it's five in the morning here. Again. I gotta stop doing this. o_O

Artsy stuff. Again.

Couldn't sleep, so I spent another hour, I think, on the puppy portrait. At this point, I think it's as done as it's going to get, but I may work on it a little more at some juncture.



In related news, I managed to snag myself a Tablet PC (thanks mom and dad!). One of these babies to be precise. Fun stuff, though there appear to be issues getting my damned Treo Hotsync software installed. Will try again tomorrow armed with new information. On the bright side, it's got a built-in SD card reader, so I'll get some pics uploaded soon enough.

Now I really need to try and hit the sack.

edit: Threw down some colors on the puppy. She was previously looking a little too monochrome.

Guns don't kill people; videogames kill people.

Sounds like a rehash, but it just happened a couple days ago. Again. Do people never learn?

Man dies after 50 hours of computer games.

Lee had recently quit his job to spend more time playing games, the daily JoongAng Ilbo reported after interviewing former work colleagues and staff at the Internet cafe.

Jesus. That's some dedication right there.


In semi-related news, Blaming video game fails for murder defense.

[rant]

What a dweeb. This is what happens when the media and vocal members of society keep laying the blame for violent fucks on videogames: subsequent dumb fucks shoot cops hoping to get off the hook by blaming, what else? Videogames. This time round the excuse did not fly. What about the next time? And the next?

Wake up, you turds in the media. Wake up, Joe Lieberman, and your high and mighty pie-in-the-sky mentality. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: keep it up, and videogames will be the new de rigeur insanity defense.

[/rant]

More painty stuff

Another hour or so of dicking around with brushes. Methinks I should go back to a previous save and block out the fur much more loosely. :-/

Flipbook!

First there was GE's "Imagination Cubed."

Then came art.com's ArtPad (which still rocks, ignoring the poor performance after a bit).

This, though. This just fucking rocks. Might take some time out to make something stupid later tonight. :p

Some quickie paints

Seem to be in a bit of a creative slump recently. Kinda sucks dogballs (a friend seems to take great amusement in that statement). Anyways, hopped on the Daily Sketches on CGTalk, which I've been neglecting for a while, and jumped into the Avatar redesign topic for today/yesterday, which, as expected, degenerated into a partial Avatar war. Redid csgirl's avatar, or rather, mutilated it. :p



Also decided to start on a little portrait of Tian Tian for practise. Might take a bit, since I've never painted a furry animal before (aside from the not-so-furry monkey). Here's a WIP after about, I dunno, an hour or two? Trying to block in the major shapes, and started refining a little bit.



As always, click on the thumb for a full-size.

Btw. Praxis, where's that synopsis? :p

Oh noes, our jobs are being stolen!

[rant]

Y'know, there are few things that piss me off more than abject nationalism. I don't mean pride in your country or countrymen, or patriotism, etc. No, I mean the bloody uproar that goes on everytime a large US-based company opens up a plant, branch, or other such subsidiary in a foreign country. Oh, sure, the arguments are usually spiced up with comments about the unethicality of slaving out labor for cheap, or sweatshop-like conditions, but let's be honest. The uproar comes from jobs being lost to foreign countries. Never mind the amount of talent and labor from other nations lost to the US. Oh no, that's okay because the US is at the center of the fucking universe. Nevermind that nary an eyebrow is raised when foreign companies open up shop in the US, creating millions of jobs for their labor market. Oh no, it's perfectly natural for every large company to want to come to the US, what could be wrong about that? They all might as well be American anyways. Nokia? Couldn't be Swedish. Mitsubishi? Oh wait, nevermind; bought over by an American company.

Now, granted, George Lucas isn't one of my favorite people. He did, after all shit all over the Star Wars franchise, and will likely continue to do so well after he's six feet under. He is a cheap bastard, from most accounts. He is a bit of a dick, as far as I'm concerned. It's obviously a flat out lie to say that he opened up a studio in Singapore because he wants to get his foot in the door with Anime (yes, he actually said that). Y'know what, though? He also just ramped up his CA-based studios. It's not like he's shutting his doors in the US.

But all said, I guess it doesn't matter to most of the naysayers. To them, US companies setting up overseas will always equate to some evil plot by said companies to shit all over the hardworking US citizen. To shit all over the country. To shit all over the sweatshop-working sons of bitches they hire for fucking peanuts in the foreign countries. Hey, did you know? Singapore's still a fucking third-world country. Yeah, that's right. This third world country just stole your jobs. Third world. What a bunch of fucktards.

[/rant]

Meh.

Damned if my Treo refuses to Hotsync with this laptop. o_O

Blargh

Sometimes I wonder how the hell I got into computers. Digital art, coding, web development... I mean, to everyone that matters in my life, it seems like the only two things you can possibly do on a computer are:

1. Jack
   and
2. Shit

Maybe I should go twiddle my thumbs for an hour or two. At least I won't be at a computer.