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Tuesday, May 31, 2005

Recently, I had a bit of a problem: I needed to buy a handheld vacuum. Easy, you might say: Stop by Wal-Mart or Target. That’s the problem: I don’t shop at Target or Wal-Mart. This is not due to a “big companies are evil” mentality; I happily shop at department stores and order from Amazon.com. But both of these companies have done things I find distasteful. The Wall Street Journal has reported memos from senior management, […]

Monday, May 30, 2005

Five years ago, this was inconceivable: The world changes faster than we realize.

Friday, May 27, 2005

How does one make oneself change the world? I don’t mean to ask how one would take over the world, or push the world in a given direction. I mean: Most people I know have at least one idea, one dream that would change the world. A service to provide, a product to sell, a helping hand to hold out. How does one go about making this actually happen? Because it has start […]

Wednesday, May 25, 2005

PointlessWasteOfTime.com has posted an excellent article entitled, A Gamer’s Manifesto, listing “20 things gamers want” from game developers. Lots of swearing and stuff, but excellent reading about simply poor design decisions, and a few forehead-slapping obvious solutions to pervasive problems.

Monday, May 23, 2005

I saw the completion of two things this weekend: the Star Wars prequels and Mobile Suit Gundam Seed. An interesting juxtaposition. The Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith screening was fun mainly for all the things George Lucas didn’t do. SW has become something so far beyond Lucas himself that much of my enjoyment of the films come from the little things created by CG artists or fans. The screening was full of an excited buzz, […]

Tuesday, May 17, 2005

As is typical, I haven’t been posting here much mainly because little of note has happened in my life lately. I tend to post more when I’m extremely busy. Saturday was a bit of a downer—my allergies flared up, and while the Otherspace meeting went well, I felt unpleasant throughout it. I then went to Redemption, which was a lot of fun, though I was rather tired for that too. But I started role-playing with a few […]

May 12, 2005

How would you like a webpage that links to, in total, over one million free mp3s? Here you are. Last night was Errands Night, in which I give up any hope of productivity at home and spend the evening striding down aisles and trying to coax smiles out bored clerks. Really, I do; I look them in the eyes and smile genuinely. Usually, they smile back, though sometimes it’s a nervous […]

Wednesday, May 11, 2005

I’m always a little awed by the pervasive optimism of early science fiction art. It’s not that they suggested that space travel would be easy, or loads of fun. There were plenty of dangers, and the astronauts were portrayed more often as stoic, serious men than as grinning explorers. But there was a sense in this art that space exploration was a fundamentally good, noble thing. I’m thinking about […]

Tuesday, May 10, 2005

The day I listen to anyone connected with Saban lecturing me about children is the day I listen to some named Hanna or Barbera lecturing me about the nuances of backgrounds in animation. — James Lileks My laptop is back from the shimmering halls of Apple Repair, and the drive now works like a champ, based on a few tests. I inserted Gundam Seed disc 8 as my initial test and was suddenly seized by the icy hand of fear: […]

Sunday, May 8, 2005

Saturday saw an incredible Otherspace Productions meeting. The entire studio met at GMU, where I laid out the storyboards and guided the crew through it, explaining each scene and soliciting comments. People had lots of great ideas, and after the initial shock at the scale of an animation five times longer than our previous project, became increasingly excited. The most reserved person was actually volunteering for things by the end. So on the way back, I let […]

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