But it flew away from her reach, and the bullets catch in her teeth

Happy 2012.
This may be the last year that mankind continues to exist! Or it may just be another notch in our belt of millennium. Regardless, I hope you are doing ok.

I have not been up to much, honestly.
With the BBC project done, and the minecraft cartoon finished, I have mostly just been horsing around with friends during the holidays and catching up on some much-needed gamery.

I did produce a video for christmas and even though its a couple of weeks after christmas, I hope it still fills you with christmas cheer!


For christmas I got my brother a giftcard and a nice warm beanie hat. For my father I got an FM internet radio transmitter so he can listen to his favorite internet radio stations in his room. My dad has pretty damn good taste in music. Old records of eric clapton and the peaches, and loves modern stuff like M83 and the White Stripes.

I got some great DVD's for xmas and a nintendo 3DS which I havent gotten any games for yet but due to me registering it online I got a free copy of Mario vs Donkey Kong which is a downloadable title for the Nintendo DS's now. It's also hard as fuck.

I also bought a small game off the downloadable game service called FREAKY FORMERS.
What little I can say about this bizarre 2D spore knockoff is best said with this video I made about it. Enjoy.



I've also been trying alot of new games lately.
I got into the beta for Tribes 2. I am awful at it.

I downloaded DC UNIVERSE ONLINE.
I played it alot for about 3 weeks until I reached the end-game content. And much to my dismay, like most MMORPG's the endgame content is just more boring fetch-quests and copy-paste nonsense. So I stopped playing. May uninstall it eventually. I just have no reason to go back. For what little there is, it is glorious. But not enough for me to pay money or replay much of it.

However in my time playing it, I did make 2 sort of cool characters.
The first was SERGEANT DOE, based off the Team Fortress 2 Soldier character. He used rifles and gadgets and was a Controller. Controller by the way, is the most unfun class to be in DC Universe. Don't do it. Just don't. It's a horrible complex thankless job.
Anyway. After getting to the endgame raids and crap with him and growing bored I decided to make a villain character.


Strelok from S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl and Call of Pripyat. Electricity and pistols. Superspeed for movement. Much more fun than Doe. However all the villain quests were the same as the hero ones and I just couldn't be bothered to go through it all again.

If you're a fan of World of Warcraft and enjoy mindless skill-less repetition than feel free to give DC Universe Online a try.

I also got into EVE ONLINE. I received a 30-day free trial from a friend. And I made another Strelok.
EVE might be the most intelligent, complex and brilliant online game ever created. However in being these things it is also perhaps the most dull. Sadly even giant space battles between dozens of ships basically boil down to droves of brilliantly-designed frigates and vessels orbiting each other slowly firing various subsets of multi-functioning ammunition at each other to see who blows up first, while adults shout orders at each other in VENT.
I'm not really sure what to make of it. I think if the battles were turn based and more strategic I'd probably have loved it. But for being so large, so long, and needing so much time and money to play and understand things that could really be simpler and more intuitive, I just can't recommend it. It is beautiful though. Like most MMO's its worth trying just to ogle at the insane world the artist's have created for it.


So with little else to play when it comes to 'rpg' sort of things I have returned to my first love, Spiral Knights. Joined a guild full of knowledgable chaps and have retooled my knight into a tank of death.

I'm the one with the gasmask. I have started doing what so many players of the game do in that I have started building sets for my character. Different loadouts of gear that I swap to and fro depending on the types of foes I may face in the upcoming challenges.
Mostly with the help of my good friend Avid Lebon. Who is not only a fun person to play games with but also helped me sort out some frightening psychological issues I had 6 or so months ago.



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It's not just been vidya gaems however. My friends John and Jack introduced the rest of the friend group to an odd series of modern board games. Each of which is rather unique and show just how much potential board games still have if people are creative when designing them.

The first is a game called Settlers of Catan. This game is apparently world famous and has been played by billions and has huge contests, conventions, and songs devoted to it. Somehow I had not heard of it until a couple of weeks ago.
It is rather brilliant. A sort of clever mix-up of risk, stratego and monopoly where you have to seize land and roll dice to see if it gives you the resources you need to expand. Every expansion earning you a Victory Point which brings you closer to winning. Things in the game can change rapidly at the drop of a hat and theres quite a few expansions that make it into an even deeper experience.


Along with Catan we've been playing Puerto Rico which is a sort of a stock game. You basically claim a crop and choose which character in a town you will be. AS the turns go, you can collect crop, sell it, put it on boats, hire workers, etc. At the end of the game theres several various tech-trees to earn points and whoever has the most is the winner. It too, is strategic and is apparently enjoyed the world over.


And finally we have been playing a massively complex tabletop game that seems almost reminiscent of warhammer, but does not play as such called Twilight Imperium. I honestly can't describe the complexities of this game. Basically imagine every mechanic and tool from every board game, tabletop game, dungeon and dragon campaign, and video game rpg ever used and combine it all into one sci-fi epic where you are basically playing the Republic from Star Wars. Each game lasting nearly 6-10 hours in length.


The amusing things about all these games is, as fun and strategic as they are, human nature turns them into something else entirely. We sit down thinking to have a cultured experience about outwitting each other but we quickly devolve into petty neanderthals trying our hardest to win the game without seeming aggressive.

Here is what you think will happen:


But here is what actually happens:



I would recommend playing all 3 games. You can play Catan online at the official site but I think it costs money.



Anyway. My internal clock is summoning me to the land of slumberville to catch 40 winks.
I bid you good day.

who wants to be the pied piper?

Where are you christmas?
Do you remember,
the one you used to
knnooooooooowwww?



The Yuletide is upon us. And as traditional, tv stations are showing all manner of christmas movies and christmas specials. My friends Tom & Mike had an idea for a Christmas special, and after chowing down on pasta at a local greek restaraunt, we headed to Mike's parent's house to film THE BEST CHRISTMAS EVER.


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It is the season of giving.
And if anyone is reading this blog, I need you to give to a friend of mine.

My good friend BigArmyBug aka BUG aka BucketGhost.
He was run over by an SUV while on his motorcycle a couple of months ago. He doesn't make much at his job and the expenses are piling up.

These are some arts he has made in the past.



Anyway. In order to make some extra dosh he has opened himself up for COMMISSIONS.



So in summary:


Please help my friend BigArmyBug pay off his hospital bills this christmas by commissioning him to make art for you! Please!


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Anyway.
Merry Christmas

A bottle of whiskey and a new set of lies. Blinds on the window and a pain behind the eyes.

Well the BBC cartoon thing's been finished for a few days now. In the time during its finishing I put the finishing touches on the Minecraft cartoon I made with my friend Willva. Which basically meant finishing some backgrounds, sound effects, and adding some little effects here and there with Sony Vegas.



Not much to talk about right now.

Killing Floor had an update. All the new weapons are great. Firebug finally has a way to deal with Fleshpounds and Scrakes. Demo finally has a way to deal with crawlers and small crowding zombies.

Team Fortress 2 is about to have an update sometime tonight. Hopefully it will be good. Hopefully.
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I'm going to scan Frombie soon so I can take a big crap all over it.
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Also MINECRAFT has been officially released. And as alot of folks feared, once it was released Notch has dropped the game like a bad habit and moved on to a new game involving spinning globes and H.P.Lovecraft. Luckily, he dropped the game into the hands of Jeb. Jeb seems to be a very bright fellow indeed and I hope he continues to add neat little features to the game.
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Speaking of games I decided to try a little creepy indie title last night called HIDE.


Much like the chap in this video I was only able to find 3 of the 5 signs in the game. Although I found different ones than he did.
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By the way if you have not seen the new Muppet movie you should. It's the best Muppet flick since the Christmas Carol with Michael Caine.
Probably one of the best films of the year. Go go go go go so Disney doesn't forget they own this franchise again.

ace deuce craps wants four

It's been another month since my last blog post. Remember when I used to do these like every couple of weeks or every week or so? Yeah.

Anyway I have a legitimate reason I haven't been able to post as of late. Actually a few reasons.

For starters, I finished a new cartoon. Well...sort of finished.
For the last little bit now I've been collaborating on a minecraft film with my good friend Willva. The goal was to make it look sort of like the mural I did for Mojang's main office. (which they are moving out of soon so I assume the mural will cease to exist in the near future).


Anyway, the film had to be done by a certain date so we had to rush ALOT of it. Plus I went to New York during its production and lost alot of time. So, while the film may be done, it's very scribbly looking and we're going to be redoing alot of it.
Enjoy these free screenshots of unfinished footage:







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Simultaneously my boss Weebl, hooked me up with a job with the BBC. It's a very short comedy cartoon of sorts. That also has taken up alot of my time lately. It's also some of the most complex symbol-based animation I've ever done. It's also not coming out very well as I have no idea what I'm doing. You'll see it in the future. Maybe on TV.

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However the thing that took up most of my time lately was my trip to NEW YORK CITY.




First off. New York is amazing. It is every bit as weird, filthy, beautiful, amazing, hideous, fantastic, and awe-inspiring as every tv show or movie has ever portrayed it.

I stayed in my friend Alicia's apartment. It was a very small but cozy 6 foot wide room that she, her two roommates, and a cat all live in on Staten Island.

It was a 20 hour drive. 10 hours of driving per day. We were there for basically 3 days. I took my S.T.A.L.K.E.R. costume with me in the hopes I'd get to wear it at the con. That never ended up happening because we usually ended up having to walk a rather long distance to get to the con and my costume was extremely heavy and bulky.
Maybe I'll give it another shot at Megacon in Orlando.

Anyway, the con was amazing. I went to the Superjail panel. Pendleton Ward the creator of Adventure Time was there. Me and Mike talked to him for a few minutes. Mike begged him to bring back the Cat of Approximate Knowledge while I tried and failed to impress him with my knowledge of animation voice actors.

K.C. Green the creator of gunshow, Horribleville, and Anger Pauly said he was going to be going to the con and just wandering around. Being a creepy fanboy/stalker/futuremurderer of Mr.Green, I quickly recognized him when the poor chap was just trying to get some dinner. The next day I found him again near the rice-boy table and proceeded to bother him some more. Being the nice chap he was he drew even more scribbles in my anime club book.


I had real new york pizza which is incredibly delicious. A real new york hotdog with saurkraut on it. Also tasty. Saw chinatown. Saw little italy. One of the best things was I went to this tiny TINY little cave that is also a bar called the Rabbit Bar. Me and Mike and Alicia all got drunk and one chap in the bar recognized my minecraft shirt. We all got to talkin and as it turns out he's a filmmaker and we gabbed about Vegas, and Premier, and Aftereffects and such. He has a nice simple website and a vimeo page where he's put stuff he's helped make.


I also met the guy who makes Rice Boy. It was rather disappointing. Not cause it wasn't cool but cause I didn't know he was going to be there so I didn't have my riceboy book for him to sign. He did however have a small edition of the first few pages of his new Vattu comic. So he signed that and I nabbed it. He also had a drawing of the pokemon Scraggy on his desk that K.C. Green had drawn for him.


Jared Fletcher was there promoting his webcomic Stranger Fictions. He and Alicia and I got into a long conversation about the webcomics industry. Which is rather funny considering nobody reads my shitty comic yet I act like I have any authority to discuss with these people.

He also linked me to a friend of his who does these odd things.

These people were also there. Selling little sculptures and art. They also have a very nice art blog. Alicia got a very cute shirt.

I also met the creator of a amusing webcomic about aliens that I had not heard of. You should check it out.




I also picked up what might be the laziest, shittiest modern day comic it has ever been my misfortune to read. It is so laughably bad that I am going to devote a whole blog post to tearing into it. Normally I wouldn't do this for an indy comic but, well, just look at the website. I have never seen so much product placement behind a single issue of such a terrible comic. I have not seen something so deserving of getting shat on in a long time. You'll see what I mean when I scan some of the pages of this thing and reveal what utter tripe it is. It's IMPRESSIVELY bad.


On my way back south I visited my good friend BigArmyBug at his house in New Jersey where he had busted his leg. I also showed him that Frombies thing and he also felt it was amazingly shit.

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Anyway nothing else to really report on. My friend Hot Diggedy Demon has a sweet gig making animation for the MEGA64 guys.
He also recently plugged my old Spooky Scary Skeletons flash in his blog. He's a good guy.


Anyway, Happy Halloween. I'm going to see Paranormal Activity 3 in a few days and hope it doesn't suck.

so now you better stop and rebuild all your ruins

Yesterday I turned 26 years old. Me, Mike, Jack, and Tom all went to the World of Beer and drank heartily.

Simultaneously, Valve finally buffed the damage-output of the flamethrowers back to what they used to be a year and a half ago.

And then as icing on the cake, after I got home Nickelodeon was showing "TRUTH OR SQUARE" which will probably be the last good thing to come out of the spongebob series since the current writers have forgotten the character's original personalities entirely.

All in all, it was a good birthday!

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IMPORTANT


Today, the company Swarovski put my design up on their Playbling showcase.

This is Playbling. It's fancy iphone and dvd cases covered in tiny jewels. If you scroll down you can find my section.

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My good friend R.Wappin was hired not long ago to provide animation for a feature film.
And now that film is coming to DVD soon. This is the film.
You can see a bit of his animation in the preloader for the site.

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My friend sammy knows I have grown to somewhat like the detonator and have been using it to hop into places I shouldn't. He wanted me to make a vid of this one particular hop I found. So here you go.


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Other than that I have nothing of interest to update with.
So have this adorable cartoon:

Keep an eye on this site. Not long ago I was commissioned to be a designer here and it shouldn't be long until the design I sent them is put up on this site. It was approved and I'll be listed with my own little section like the other designers. It's just not up there YET.


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New weebl and bob cartoon I animated. Features a zombie octopus.




And the background music on its own


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I've posted about old PC games before on this blog. Including a game I played in my childhood called ZOOTOPIA.

A game created by Lawrence Productions and Good Housekeeping Magazine way back in 1994.

I still have the game in my possession. Along with Motoracer, Word Rescue, and SODA Off Road Racing.

Here are scans of my copy:




Every year I check youtube to see if someone else ever played Zootopia. And finally someone else who did has and managed to rip out some of the amusing movies and clips from the game and put them on youtube.

You can watch most of the game on his youtube page.
I'll be posting my favorite bits on this blog. Simply because they are so weird/catchy I must share them with the world.







You can watch the rest on his youtube channel.

Now I must get back to work.

And the moon gives me permission and I enter through her eyes.

Sorry it's been another month since the last post guys. I've been hovering between bouts of being super busy and bouts of being super bored.


For starters my good friend Mike came back from his stay at Harvard. He didn't enjoy Boston much. In fact he pretty much hated it. But while he was there he managed to buy a massive amount of a drink he had been telling me tales about for ages: L'aqua.
Never going quite into specifics of what exactly it was, except that it was delicious and ONLY sold up north in 1 or 2 states. And others had attested both to its scarcity and its deliciousness.

Theres a few varieties of the stuff. At it's core it is basically Loganberry juice. A drink made from a mix of Raspberry's and Blackberries. Apparently created when some plant scientist accidentally got his chocolate in your peanut butter.

Point is, it is fucking DELICIOUS. One of the best fruit drinks I have ever had (next to mango lemonade made with actual mango). The variety Mike brought down from Boston is called Aunt Rodie's Loganberry.
It comes in a rather lovely simple little can. Granny Smith green with alternating pink and purple text that reminds me of Sid and Marty Krofft.

If by some chance you are up north and see a can of this stuff, BUY IT. It is a must-try. And much like the Gustafson Farms brand of chocolate milk, it is a hard to find treasure.

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When Mike arrived back in town he immediately went to his new Apartment which is roughly 5 minutes from my house. Later he has a housewarming party. I used the party as a good opportunity to get footage for my 100th Youtube Video. A 20 minute long epic featuring animation, me talking, doctored footage of adolf hitler, and frogs flying a rocket ship. Truly the height of my abilities.


The chap in the video who shouts "GOD DAMNIT JACK" is my good old friend Zach. Zach attended animation college with me, and also dropped out much like me. He disappeared for about 6 years after that and happened to show up THAT VERY NIGHT. So while we were all drunk, he, mike, and I all got to work on a new Dustbunny comic.

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Right before Notch left to go to the Penny Arcade convention to show off Minecraft 1.8 he or jeb or carl finally put the minecraft mural I made for them up as a poster.
BEHOLD

Obviously to see the full sized version you are going to need to buy the poster.
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Speaking of art, my friend Wolf Pupy commissioned me to make him a painting. I've known him for years now. He's an animator like myself and recently has gotten oddly popular for his very amusing sense of humor and cute drawings. Plus he apparently knows K.C. Green somehow. Anyway after a couple of weeks of toiling on it off and on it's finally done.


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But wait that's not the only thing I made recently! I also made this:

Chances are you won't understand the humor in this image.
But to clear things up: an isopod is actually a rare variety of fruit and not actually a giant sea crustacean.

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And that's not all! Aaron Simpson of Cold Hard Flash contacted me some time ago. Ed Skudder was making a music video and they wanted people to submit parts for it. I'm a huge fan of Ed so of course I had to contribute a piece for it. It's like the 2nd or 3rd part in.



Actually chances are most of this blog's visitors lately are from the mention I got on ColdHardFlash. HELLO NEWCOMERS! This is my blog that I used to update frequently! Please, go to my webcomic (link on the right) because its much funnier than this is! And more educational as well!
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In other news my good friend Waldemar is making a long version of his popular short film series ANUSBOY.


And he needs funding because he's doing it all on his own!
Help him out! He is one of the few truly unique voices of animation we have on the web right now! Plus he's a good friend and a cool guy.

You can donate to his new movie here!
Here is a cool clip:


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Anyway. That's it for this post. I have some stuff for a bowling company and Swarovski to do.


Make sure to leave a quarter in Sal, will you?