The LunchJournal

Spreading the word about the latest Internet craze...

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 21:21:01 GMT

Blooque!

(From some guys named Noby and Rusty.)

The big event of last week

Fri, 16 May 2008 01:11:24 GMT

The shorter version: My car got totalled last week.

The longer version: I was driving westbound down the left lane of Hwy 80, leaving a store I was working at, when all of a sudden this Jeep Cherokee pulls out into the center of the road just barely ahead of me (only maybe about one carlength) and stops. There's just no time or distance for me to stop or swerve and miss it, and so... WHAM.

The hood of my car buckles, the windshield spiderwebs, the rearview mirror goes flying off, and the seatbelt catches me as the airbag bursts forward, hitting me in the chest. My last-fraction-of-a-second attempt to swerve out of the SUV's way continues to send my car over toward the right, across the other lane, where fortunately there wasn't any other oncoming traffic, and off the road, down into a deep ditch that thankfully wasn't as steep an incline as it looked from the road.

Quickly-sketched, not-to-scale diagram:

The inside of the car was filled with dust from the damage and the airbags, choking me, so I quickly staggered out of the car, where one of the firefighters from the firehouse right there in front of where I came to a stop came running over to check on me. I ended up with a sprained right wrist and some bruises (and some slight burning that quickly went away on my wrists from the airbag chemicals). The people in the other vehicle were unhurt.

My car's front bumper was destroyed. I wasn't able to get a good look at the damage under the hood, due to the way it buckled up, but the radiator seemed to have been pushed back at least a foot from where it used to be, and I'm told there's probably not much hope for it to be worth fixing, if even possible. And I really liked that car. I didn't get a good look at the other car, being down in a ditch like I was, but they didn't need towing.

I freaked out my poor mom when I called her, due to all the noise around and a cop and a firefighter who came over to me and started to ask me questions right when she answered--with me not hearing her pick up at first--and when they realized I was on the phone, advising me to "tell her you're all right," which she heard as people asking me if I was all right. Later, as the commotion was all dying down, I just had to lean back and rest by lying down on the grass where I had been seated next to my car, overwhelmed by the shock and pain and frustration of it all and relieved to know I was at least okay. This was, of course, when my mom arrived at the scene, to find her son lying on the ground in a ditch next to his wrecked car. Happy early Mother's Day, Mom!

So after all the accident reporting and statement-taking and witness-interviewing, the other day the insurance investigator called me with the results of his inquiry. The other driver (who apparently claimed to have been driving in the lane for about 30 seconds at around 25mph--which is ridiculously impossible given that the wreck happened so incredibly close to where he turned onto the road) was declared 100% at fault. The information collected from the other driver at the scene and given to me by the police said that the driver was insured, but now it turns out that somehow he actually wasn't. So... crap.

Still determining exactly what to do next... Definitely going to make sure the guy gets his license suspended for the insurance thing. I'm borrowing my mom's car to get around in for the time being (fortunately my parents keep an extra car for emergencies, and for all the times my dad has to put his car in the shop--he drives a lot for work and puts a lot of wear and tear on it).

Also, when I finally got home the day of the wreck, I found that my car's brand new license plate had arrived in the mail.

Custom DVD covers revisited

Fri, 02 May 2008 23:54:22 GMT

Since I now have one of those nice printers that allow you to print artwork directly onto printable DVDs and CDs, I've been adding disc art to a lot of my homemade DVDs (all of rarities that are legally recorded from broadcasts for my own personal use and are otherwise unavailable by any commercial means--that I would, of course, gladly buy if they were made available for purchase...).

So here are the printable custom DVD covers I've made (the first few of which I've posted before, followed by a whole lotta new ones), now with disc art suitable for printable-surface DVD+/-R discs for your own use (on your legally-recorded-from-broadcast-and-impossible-to-get-legitimately-otherwise personal copies, ahem...), should you be so inclined:

Last updated August 17, 2008 - More RiffTrax DVD covers (a few have only disc art available for right now)

The Star Wars Holiday Special:

Standard-size DVD case
Insert
Disc art

Turkish Star Wars (Dunyayi Kurtaran Adam):

Standard-size DVD case
Disc art

The Weakest Link Doctor Who Special:

Slim-size DVD case
Disc art

Grindhouse Theatrical Cut: It still hasn't been released here on DVD (only Japan has gotten the theatrical release on DVD so far, as far as I know), but this recently aired on some hi-def broadcasts, so those of us waiting for the "real" version with the trailers and without the added bits have been finally able to get good recordings of it. So here's a pasted-together-from-promo-materials-and-stuff cover for those of us who want to keep a copy until the Weinsteins deem that North America is finally deserving of being able to buy it.

Standard-size DVD case
Disc art

Lost: Missing Pieces These will presumably get a real release at some point (though the specs for the Season 4 set doesn't list them), but if you're like me, you downloaded all the recent "webisodes" and converted and burned them to DVD, so here's a cover for them. (Based on the Season 3 promo photo montage, with the not-appearing-in-webisode characters replaced with ones that did, like Juliet, Arzt, and Vincent. Yeah, I realized I screwed up and didn't get photos where all the cast members were looking at the camera. Oh well.)

Slim-size DVD case
Disc art

RiffTrax DVD covers and disc art for those of us who make our own custom DVDs with copies of our movies combined with the available RiffTrax commentaries from the old MST3K gang. Some of the people over in the RiffTrax forums do up some way-more-elaborate versions than mine, but I just decided to do a time-saving template that plugs in the artwork from the website and tends to look good enough for my purposes.

A special "Internet Shorts" collection I custom made from videos the RiffTrax crew has posted on YouTube: Slim-size DVD case - Disc art

For the new RiffTrax Presents releases I changed up the template slightly, so it wouldn't all be so blue. Yeah, keeping the blue spine might look a little odd there at first, but it looks fine when printed and put in the case, and the spines match up with my other RiffTrax volumes.

Alien: Slim-size DVD case - Disc art
Dark Water: Slim-size DVD case - Disc art
House of Wax: Slim-size DVD case - Disc art
Saw: Slim-size DVD case - Disc art
Star Trek: New Voyages: To Serve All My Days: Slim-size DVD case - Disc art
Star Trek: New Voyages: World Enough and Time: Slim-size DVD case - Disc art
The X-Files: Fight the Future: Slim-size DVD case - Disc art

A blog entry

Sat, 05 Apr 2008 01:47:56 GMT

For you faithful readers who have been waiting tirelessly for an update to my blog, here is one.

I am currently resting up from the combination of a long couple of weeks at work and some really bad allergies to the pollen that's been saturating the air as of late.

Should you ever feel the need to take an occasional break from your constant refreshing of my journal during the next few weeks or months of waiting for another exciting Jason B. Bell blog entry, you should have a look at the Rifftrax blog, from those MST3K guys. Loads of funny stuff to be found there.

P.S. If there had ever been any doubt that Dr Pepper was my favorite carbonated beverage, this would certainly clear that up.

P.P.S. Doctor Who tomorrow!

P.P.P.S. Battlestar Galactica, in, like ten minutes!

I'm still here

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 04:17:02 GMT

Been a good long while since I posted anything, so here's a few tidbits about what's currently going on...

They Might Be Giants are playing at Hal & Mal's this Saturday. I guess no one told them that the music scene is so dead here that even the local non-cover bands don't play in Jackson anymore. I have my ticket.

My long creative drought has been seeing some precipitation recently. I have been drawing. No exciting announcements to make yet, but hopefully soon.

Chewie the parrot is doing well. He's starting to say something that sounds kind of like "pretty bird." And he whistles along to the Prisoner theme song. He also does this interesting thing where he takes chunks of food and dips them in his water dish before eating them. He especially likes doing this with bread, letting it soak up the water like a sponge, then sucking on it for a while before eating it. He uses his feet like hands in a cute way when eating his fruits and veggies. He also seems to be a lefty.

You Lost the game

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 05:16:41 GMT

The exciting online version of the game of Guess Which Character from the TV Show LOST Carrie Is Drawing (with the Carrie in the title of the game being my dear friend Carrie Hoffman Spell of GLORY!blog fame) is over! Nobody won! Nobody entered! You all LOST! Thanks for not playing, everyone!

Round One: Major Characters

1.
It's John Locke, played by Terry O'Quinn

2.
James "Sawyer" Ford, played by Josh Holloway

3.
Ben Linus (aka Henry Gale, aka Benry), played by Michael Emerson (aka TV's Kevin Spacey)

4.
Kate Austen, played by Evangeline Lilly

5.
"Suicide Jack" (we've already claimed this as a band name) Jack Shephard, played by Matthew Fox

6.
Sayid Jarrah, played by Naveen Andrews

7.
Charlie "You All Everybody!" Pace, played by Dominic "Merry" Monaghan

8.
Hugo "Hurley" Reyes, played by Jorge Garcia

9.
Jin-Soo Kwon, played by Daniel Dae Kim

10.
Juliet Burke (and her one facial expression), played by Elizabeth Mitchell

11.
Desmond "Brother" Hume, played by Henry Ian Cusick

12.
Claire Littleton, played by the Utterly Adorable Emilie de Ravin

13.
Walt "WAAAAAAAAAAALLLLT!!!" Lloyd, played by Malcolm David Kelley

14.
Shannon Rutherford, played by Maggie Grace

15.
Mr. Eko, played by Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbajereallylongname

16.
The much-beloved Ana-Lucia Cortez, played by Michelle Rodriguez

Round Two: Guest Stars, Flashback and Minor Characters

17.
Paulo (who technically should be in the "main characters" section, because he and Nikki really were considered as such until the plans were changed for them), played by Rodrigo Santoro

18.
Dr. Marvin Candle aka Mark Wickmund aka Edgar Halowax, the sometimes-one-armed DHARMA training video scientist played by François Chau

19.
Naomi, the woman from the helicopter from the freighter with the satellite phone, played by Marsha Thomason

20.
Bea Klugh, the Other who made the deal with Michael for Walt and the boat and was killed by Mikhail, played by April Grace

21.
Yemi, Mr. Eko's priest brother, played by Adetokumboh McCormack

22.
Ethan Rom, the Others' mole in the Flight 815 camp, played by William Mapother

23.
Penny Widmore, Desmond's girlfriend who doesn't have a boat, played by Sonya Walger

24.
Anthony Cooper, Locke's Dad, con man and kidney thief, played by Kevin Tighe

25.
Danielle Rousseau (aka Crazy French Lady), played by Mira Furlan

26.
Alex, Rousseau's daughter who was raised by Ben, played by Tania Raymonde

27.
Lil' Ben, played by Sterling Beaumon

28.
Annie, lil' Ben's lil' girlfriend, played by Madeline Carroll

29.
Mikhail (aka Patchy), the Other who gets beaten up, shot, blown up, and thrown into sonic death rays a lot, played by Andrew Divoff

30.
Richard Alpert (aka Handsome Man), the Other who recruited Juliet and who somehow doesn't seem to have aged a day in several decades, played by Nestor "Batmanuel" Carbonell

31.
Tom (aka Mr. Friendly, aka Fake Beard Guy), the Other who wore a fake beard, kidnapped Waaaaaaaaaalt, threw the football with Jack, wore a fake beard, and gave Kate the dress, played by M.C. Gainey

32.
Rachel Carlson, Juliet's sister with the cancer, played by Robin Weigert

33.
Achara, the tattooist lady Jack hooked up with in Thailand, played by Bai Ling

34.
Jae Lee, the bald guy Sun cheated on Jin with in Korea, played by Tony Lee

35.
Cassidy Phillips, the woman Sawyer did the "long con" to (ifyaknowwhatimean) and had his baby, played by Kim Dickens

36.
Dr. Leslie Arzt, high school science teacher on flight 815 who got blown up while showing everyone how to properly handle dynamite, played by Daniel Roebuck (aka TV's Jay Leno)

37.
Vincent the dog, played by Madison the dog

38.
Baby Aaron, played by many different babies, and occasionally by a plastic baby, as seen in photo

39.
Jacob, leader of the Others, what, you don't see him... he's right there in the chair...

Round Three: Events

40.
That time Ben shot Locke and left him to die in the ditch full of DHARMA Initiative members' skeletons

41.
That time Juliet's jerk ex-husband got run over by a bus just after Juliet had mentioned to Richard Alpert that she wished her ex-husband would get run over by a bus

42.
That time Desmond helped Claire catch the migratory bird that had a tag on its leg, so that they could use it to send a message to the outside world

43.
That time Asian Reporter Tricia Tanaka interviewed Hurley, then the Mr. Cluck's Chicken Shack got hit by a meteor

44.
That time Jack and Kate got caught in a net

45.
That time Mikhail was nice enough to knock on the window and show Charlie his hand grenade, just before pulling the pin and blowing up, flooding the underwater station

46.
That time Ben killed his mother by being born early out in the woods (what a jerk!)

47.
That time Jack was operating on Ben's spine, and Ben woke up during the operation

48.
That time Kate and Sawyer were locked up in the polar bear cages by the Others

49.
That time Jack saw Kate doing it with Sawyer in the polar bear cage on the Others' secret video monitors

50.
That time Charlie died, warning Desmond that it wasn't Penny's boat

As you can see, Carrie has some good cartooning talent, especially considering that she had no reference to draw from at the time she was drawing these. Hooray for her!

Waaaaaaaaaaaalt!!!

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 00:27:01 GMT

There's only about a week left to enter the exciting Lost Guessing Game! The competition is surely heating up, as so far there's been a whopping ZERO entries... So, yeah, make a few guesses, you lazy bastards.

The Lost Guessing Game

Mon, 14 Jan 2008 03:39:53 GMT

Some of my friends and I spent New Year's Eve playing the exciting game of Guess Which Character from the TV Show Lost Carrie Is Drawing, with the Carrie in the title of the game being my dear friend Carrie Hoffman Spell of GLORY!blog fame. Now, thanks to the magic of modern technology, you can play this exciting game at home!

The game will end and answers will be posted... oh, let's say the day before the 4th season premiere. I don't feel like looking up the date right now. (It's about a couple of weeks or so.) Between now and then, you can send me your lists of guesses via electronic mail to: lunchbot1 "at-symbol" gmail "dot" com. You may enter more than once if you figure someone else out after sending your first try, but don't go spamming up my inbox with a dozen entries, please. (You could also comment here, but you might inadvertently help someone else win, and you don't want to be a loser, do you?) The winner might even get some kind of really lame prize. I haven't decided what yet. Carrie, Rusty, Noby, and myself are disqualified from entering as we were all there for the thrill-packed real-time version. Offer void where prohibited.

Note that the first couple were drawn in the style of Carrie's Alien Bumbleglyph characters, so ignore any antennae you might see.

Round One: Major Characters
All of these folks are or were considered part of the main cast at one time or another during the first three seasons. Some may be of the character at a specific time in the story.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15. (those are beads of sweat, not earrings, if you were wondering)

16. (HINT: the circle with a line through it symbolizes how Carrie and many fans feel about this character)

Round Two: Guest Stars, Flashback and Minor Characters
Warning: Some of these might be somewhat obscure. If you don't know their name, give a decent description of their role, like: "that old lady who didn't want to sell Desmond the ring because she knew about his time traveling."
17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24. (this drawing is of the same person at two different points of the story)

25.

26.

27.

28.

29.

30.

31.

32.

33.

34.

35.

36.

37.

38.

39.

Round Three: Events
Identify all these events that happened on the show during the first three seasons. (Don't worry about being too specific, just enough to identify what's being shown. Like "That time Michael stole a gun from Locke, then went running around the jungle yelling "WAAAAAAAAAALT!")
40.

41.

42.

43.

44.

45.

46.

47.

48.

49.

50.

Lost update

Sat, 12 Jan 2008 06:35:39 GMT

Hope everyone had a good and safe holiday season. More on mine later, but for now just a quick update with some Lost-related linkage I promised some of you while hanging out over the holidays:

Here's a guide to the official Lost podcasts with download links at Lostpedia (a great resource of info about the show and its characters and universe--for those of you following the show on DVD only, now's the time to browse through there while there's nothing major to risk being spoiled about). The few podcasts that can't be downloaded from the page above can be found on a page listed in its "External Links" section. The podcasts are highly recommended for fans of the show. Head writers Cuse and Lindeloff answer all sorts of questions from viewers and are generally entertaining to listen to.

Also, don't forget about the "mobisodes" that have been posted to the Internets over the past couple of months.

Also also... a new "alternate reality game" is currently going on until the season premiere.

Holidaze

Thu, 20 Dec 2007 02:48:56 GMT

I've been around even less than usual these past few weeks, for the following reasons:

I've been playing Final Fantasy XII. It has quickly become my favorite FF game so far, what with the extensive sidequests and freedom and the more realistic and mature storylines. As some of you may know, the proper way to play an RPG videogame is to play in nonstop marathon sessions for up to maybe 30 hours at a time, so you can understand that it's kept me quite busy. Please hold an intervention for me if I ever dare to sign up for World of Warcraft.

In my occasional breaks from FFXII, I've been working a whole lot, what with Xmas coming up, so that's consumed a lot of time.

I've also been busy watching Veronica Mars season 3 with friends, which is great. Many of these episodes I've been seeing for the first time (that last season was unfortunately on at the same time as Lost), including the one with the guest characters and monkey that were so amazingly obviously cast to resemble the main characters from the (incredible) comic book series Y: The Last Man. Holy crap, that was awesome!

Also, I'm almost finished buying and making everyone's Life Day presents (yes, some of you should be afraid... very afraid), and some of you will even get them before the Solstice this year!

And all through this, I've been bonding with my parrot (whose name is Chewie, by the way). He can now say more than just "hello." He also says a bunch of other things that sound almost like words and phrases but not quite. I keep struggling to try to figure out what he's trying to tell me, then having to remind myself that he doesn't really know what he's saying either... Or does he? He's picked up this curious habit of "answering" questions by bobbing his head up and down like he's nodding "yes." But only specifically when asked yes-or-no questions. Odd.

At some point soon, I'll try to get around to reading all the blog stuff I've missed or skimmed over and replying where appropriate.

Have a happy holiday season!

Hanukkah stuff

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 22:41:16 GMT

Just an FYI for my Jewish friends and friends of friends here in town: Hallmark sent a whole mess of Hanukkah giftwrap and party supplies (wrapping paper, tissue paper, bags, gift card holders, paper plates, napkins, invitations, etc.) to the Kroger in Brandon for some reason (cards for Jewish holidays don't sell much there to begin with, so I dunno what they were thinking this year).

So if you're looking for anything of that sort, you can help me out by leaving less unsold stuff there for me to have to scan and destroy after the holiday (yeah, they make us throw it out rather than mark it down...).

I survived.

Wed, 28 Nov 2007 00:25:14 GMT

Quick update for those of you who may have been concerned after reading last night's posting: Yes, I did finally watch Michael Bay's Transformers. I survived with my sanity more or less intact. More detailed commentary to come in the future, but for now I'll leave you with this much:

I was surprised. Michael Bay's previous movies have managed to offend me both aesthetically and as a human being in general, to make me cringe at horrible ham-fisted storytelling "techniques" and ridiculous characters spouting the lamest dialogue, and even to make me physically ill (from all the spinny fast-cut arbitrary editing). But this movie managed to do something no Michael Bay movie has ever done before.

It bored me.

(In addition to all those other things listed above as well.)

Thanksgiving weekend miscellany

Tue, 27 Nov 2007 01:30:57 GMT

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving weekend.

I had a good one. Got to spend some time with all my family, eating way too much.

Spent the rest of the weekend with friends, watching Knocked Up and continuing our Veronica Mars-athon.

My parrot can say "hello." (Or at least something that sounds like he's trying to say "hello.) I still need to find a name for the little bundle of energy.

I might be biting the bullet and finally watching BayFormers tonight. Wish me well. Thank Primus for Rifftrax.

New bird!

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 23:37:00 GMT

An early birthday (it's not until Dec. 23) present from my parents:

(more photos over on my Flickr account)

He or she (no way to really tell without a blood test or unless it ever lays an egg) is a quaker parrot, about half a foot tall (when not stretching the neck out really far when acting cute) and maybe about a foot long from beak to tail, and has been slowly getting used to its new home and family over the past few days.

I am still waiting for it to reveal its name to me (or for a good idea for a name otherwise).

Strike Stuff

Tue, 13 Nov 2007 20:43:36 GMT

While I am terrified by the thought that this upcoming season of Lost might end up only being eight episodes long (if they don't end up just delaying them until next season), as well as the other show I watch, Pushing Daisies possibly getting cut short, I just wanna say I'm totally behind the Hollywood writers' strike. I mean, the whole system is shifting away from broadcast towards video on demand and downloaded content, and the studios don't want to pay the writers ANYTHING for that. And the studios apparently coaxed the writers into giving up on asking for more residuals from DVD sales in the negotiations, only to completely refuse to budge on this one remaining issue. Jeez.

Lost's Damon Lindelof has written some good thoughts on the whole situation and how it's all part of the inevitable death of TV-as-we-know-it that a lot of us have been seeing growing ever larger on the horizon here.

And here's a great little satirical video on the whole ugly situation (starring TV's Frank from MST3K!)

Whedon!

Sat, 03 Nov 2007 04:04:14 GMT

In case you haven't heard the big exciting news yet, Joss Whedon is back in the TV world, creating a brand new TV series for FOX to cancel! And Tim Minear's also on staff! And it stars Eliza Dushku! And he created the show by accident!

Also, the trade paperback collecting issues 1-5 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season Eight is on the shelves of graphic novel sections of bookstores everywhere now! Get it! It's written by Joss! It's fun, funny, and good! The artwork is very good, and also manages to consistently capture the look of the characters without it looking like the artist simply traced photographs of the actors like so many other live-action-adaptation comics do! It's great!

The war against Fair Use v. Internet Meme

Sat, 20 Oct 2007 01:59:37 GMT

O RLY?

YA RLY. :(

Halloweeny Picture Time!

Sat, 13 Oct 2007 03:06:19 GMT

Hey, look! More desktop-sizey pictures for you, just in time for all the upcoming Halloweeniness!

First off, a spooky photo I took myself. It's the infamous Hallway of Doom from the late W.C.Don's bar! (This was before they knocked out the walls in that end part, so it was even longer and doomier looking back then!)

Watch out Ash! Sam Raimi's somewhere out there, and he has a camera mounted on a motorcycle!

You, uh, have a little something on your back there, Sarah Jane...

Oh noes! Teh evil kitteh from Azumanga Daioh!

It's the awesomely cool gun-toting vampire Alucard from Hellsing!

Apologies for using one from season 4, but it's the best Buffy the Vampire Slayer cast photo I had on hand...

Cool poster art from that weird Russian movie series...

Creepy pic of the title character from the creepy anime Serial Experiments Lain

And finally, Happy Halloween from the Cowboy Bebop crew!

Bang bang, Michael's silver hammer came down upon Pooh's head

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 04:45:29 GMT

I know you've always wanted to see Michael Jackson beating up Winnie the Pooh on Abbey Road, so here you go:

More behind the link...

Because you all care so much about these things, I also fixed up that one Doctor Who stage I had previously posted about.

download Abbey Road stage for MUGEN
download Landscape with TARDIS stage for MUGEN (includes music file for the /sound folder)

Previous posting explaining what the hell this stuff is

Quick TV and DVD note:

Wed, 03 Oct 2007 17:00:46 GMT

Pushing Daisies premieres tonight (ABC 8/7central). It's from the guy who brought us Wonderfalls and Dead Like Me, so you of course ought to be watching it.

Also--YAY!!! The Mysterious Cities of Gold is coming to DVD!!! Oh how I loved that show as a kid. I was actually thinking about getting my old tapes out and watching it just the other day.

Miscellaneous Media Mentionings

Sat, 22 Sep 2007 03:59:09 GMT

Black Lagoon is the new Cowboy Bebop. I don't say such a thing lightly. You need to see it.
Ain't it Cool News has a preview up of the first few pages of Angel: After the Fall (aka the official canonical "season 6" of Angel in comic book form, similar to the current Buffy: Season 8 comics). Looks like they took the rumored idea that I always loved of beginning the next season with our heroes dead and condemned to hell after losing the unwinnable battle of the final episode--which they would then have to escape from and find and kill the Wolf, Ram, and Hart in order to free their souls--and widened the scope a little. (Notice the second sun in the sky--and the fact that Angel isn't on fire--it's the whole city that's in hell now. And given what we know of hell dimensions from the show, I'm guessing they'll eventually restore L.A. to Earth, with the rest of the world unaware that it was even gone very long, thus conveniently avoiding any crossover with Buffy--something that would be difficult to do, because of different companies having the comic book licenses.)

The art has me going "eh," but I'm still much with the looking forward to this one.
And catching up on some older Buffy-spinoff-related news that you should have already heard about by now, but if you haven't: the Giles tv-movie is finally going to become a reality at the BBC. Yay!
No, I still haven't watched that stupid Michael Bay movie that came out this summer.
Haruhi is watching you.

Also,

Sat, 15 Sep 2007 01:50:42 GMT

The official Special Edition DVDs of the video I made for the Carrie & Rusty Roast have finally been finalized and are being burned for you at long last (stupid subtitle menu problems... yes, I actually put subtitles on the thing...), so those of you who were expecting them can expect them soon, and those who weren't, let me know if you want one and where to send it to.

Ceiling Cat is watching you MUGEN fight.

Sat, 15 Sep 2007 01:43:32 GMT

Been a recluse lately. Had a couple of weekends recently when I was feeling sick as well, so I've been out and about even less than usual.

Of that time spent holed up in my house wasting time that I could be doing something more productive with, when I haven't been fiddling with DVD authoring software, I've spent some of that time playing around with MUGEN.

If you're unfamiliar, MUGEN (downloaded here) is a 2-d fighting game engine that's popular for its customizability, and the ability to create and adapt all sorts of characters for use in it. (Just search through YouTube and you'll find all sorts of crazy character matchups. Although searching for and finding various characters can be a pain, and is almost a game itself, since a lot of the creators are extremely proprietary--funny for folks who make characters whose copyrights they don't actually own for a game that's technically a hacked piece of abandonware--and only want certain sites to host their files, or even want to keep them within private groups. You have to expect a lot of 404s and horrible Geocities-type sites in your searches.)

I'm not really all that into fighting games, but I do get addicted to that sort of customization and creation, and the novelty of the range of characters and such available is appealing. And so I went and tried making a few custom stages (not characters--not ready for that level of complexity yet, and don't know if I'll ever feel like taking the time needed to design those).

First a simple one-piece background, based on an Internet meme you should recognize:

Then a 2-layer Doctor Who-based background, where the ground layer moves as you walk, but the sky stays still:

(I'm not happy with the sprites on that one, so it's not downloadable until I fix it.)

And then a much more complex one, based on the cartoon Invader Zim, with animations. (Gaz plays her Game Slave and occasionally looks around, and the TV plays the scenes from the Mysterious Mysteries episode where an anonymous GIR tells a story about a giant squirrel... uh, you sort of have to have seen it.) The TV could maybe use a slightly higher framerate, but it would have taken forever to capture all the screenshots that would have been necessary, and the whole thing was becoming far more complex than I'd intended starting out.

If you're trying out MUGEN for the first time, the contents of these zip files go into the stages/ folder, and the data/select.def file needs to be opened in a text editor and have them added to it (instructions on how to do so are in the file - also read around on the first site linked, and search Youtube for various tutorials if you're wanting to try this thing out) The Zim stage has a music file that should be placed in the sound/ folder.

Enjoy or ignore or whatever.

Two little things

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 19:40:10 GMT

Just to clarify my previous entry, the house gecko was actually in my house, and the photo is from after I caught it and released it outside. They are known as house geckos for a reason, it seems. Better than bugs or mice or rats at least, I say.

Also, if you haven't seen it yet, you need to be reading Sugarshock by Joss Whedon and Fabio Moon. It's awesome. New installment coming next week.

Lizards

Mon, 27 Aug 2007 19:05:01 GMT

With the place I'm renting being as old as it is, and being a little worn-down in places, I've been curious as to why I've been lucky and have had almost no problem whatsoever with bugs getting in through cracks in the walls and such. I think I know why now:

House geckos!

(I'm pretty sure that's what they are. The pictures and descriptions I've found online are a perfect match to what I've seen.)

I almost stepped on this teeny tiny little guy this morning:

I've seen its elder family members hanging around my front doorway a few times.