Yes, rain. I like the rain, and it hasn't rained in my part of town for quite some time, so I filmed it. And now, here is some of that film for you.
Texas Rain

Most of my pals are completely ignoring M$, and signing up for either a ps3 or Revolution (or Cube^2). When asked, my kid brother (he'll be 13 when the nextgen hits, and no longer a kid) declared his xmass list will only have room for Nintendo, but as Zelda is now delayed, maybe not even that much. His reasoning? Simply put, he can actually play Nintendo games; the nice lady at the rental shop will deny him the majority of PS2 games. That and no matter what generation of kid you talk to, they will always tell you that the Sonic, Mario, and Zelda games kick everything else in the balls. They don’t care about GTA brand Coffee; they want to save the princess with go-carts and shiny rings! I don’t know any real live person interested in the xbox360, and I only know one person who has the first one. (A girl, for The Sims and DoA Beach Volleyball)

My experience in video gaming:

Grow up with Intelivsion, not realizing there’s an entire line of similar products that are better. Completely miss computers all together until 1992 (unaware is more like it.) In the late 80’s all I can think is Nintendo NES for Xmass, even though the Sega Master System sat in the den for a year kicking major gaming ass, somehow all the kids in the family luck out one year and score the NES. I got me some Mario and love it, but the shit really hits the fan when I plug in Zelda for the first time. My god. Could gaming ever get any better than this? (At the time I thought it could, the industry however would prove me wrong.) Some time around 92-93 mom got a Sega Genesis and the NES went into the closet of forever ago. Gaming rocks my 2D world all the way until DooM came out. I sacked Tejas Testing Technology offices that Gorge W. Bush (then Governor of Texas) so thoughtfully shut down for a PC with a CDROM to install and play the game. I came out with nice chairs, TV’s, and even a few phones that I still use till this day. I interchange between Sega, PC, and eventually the N64 quite regularly during the mid-late 90’s Sony was completely ignored because the games and graphics sucked to me, even back then when all the graphics sucked. Poly popping did not impress me one bit, even if I did end up borrowing one for a week to play Resident Evil. I eventually got a Voodoo Rush card to play it on my PC.

Now, I hit High school, everything seemed to go FFVII, Tekken, and Sports. I managed to switch into PC gaming and LANs during that time, so I was playing Quake2 Three Wave CTF, Action, Half-Life, and TFC while everyone else was still suffering n64 and playstation. I missed the Quake 1 generation by just a year or so, chalk one up for tall upgrade prices. I jumped back in console land full swing with the Dreamcast on the cheap after it fell, and found my self pissed off at the world for choosing not to enjoy the greatest console ever made. The ps2 was soon here, but I was so profoundly unimpressed that I could have curled up and died. Muddy graphics + crappy controller (just doesn’t fit my hand properly) + sub-par games and their many crappy sequels = one big WTH when it went mega-platinum. At least Nintendo sequels were sequels to games that were good the first time around. The PS2 had over all the other consoles but one thing: Samurai and Ninja games as far as the eye can see! If there’s one thing I like more than Cowboys, Pirates, and Robots, it’s Samurai and Ninja. Mmm… that sounds like a new game all unto it’s self. Well? Lets get cracking EA! It’s the only way to redeem your sorry ass now! THE ONLY WAY I SAY! (Well, Burnout 3 was freaking awesome, but still!) And this time, make it work for a real OS, like WINDOWS 2000. Gosh.


PS: I still buy most Nintendo products, I’d buy a new Sega system if they made one, the Dreamcast did every thing so right, it’d be hard for them not to justify at least giving next-nextgen a try. I’ll be getting a Nintendo Revlution for sure, no matter how much it may or may not suck. I will seriously look into the ps3, but I think game pricing will keep me well away during launch. Less’n they gets them one hellofa “Ninja Nazi Zombie Pirate of the Old West” game.

Obligatory Sorry State of Video Games Today Rant [check]

My laptop's XP install owned its self tonight.

I couldn't backup everything, but I got the important stuff.

I freaking hate WinXP.

UPDATE! Thanks to the power of LINUX I have restored laptop to 85% normal operating level. Unfortunately still using winXP.

MORE UPDATES!

I'm back, and unwired with WIFI at the house! w00t! Now I can surf with the laptop anywhere around the house, so I setup my mobile LAN table in my room where it's nice and quiet to do some 3d stuff this week.

And I replaced MSoffice with openoffice.org. That's for screwing with win2k by making XP, you creeps!

Machinima is one of those nasty little buzz words that nobody quite gets without a hefty explination. Sometimes people will sit a bit for it, sometimes they shrug and walk away. I’ve had close friends who watch us make magic and still not get it, wondering why we just don’t use 3Dmax. Sometimes I have to ask that too...


Look, first things first, we’re artist, then we’re storytellers, then we’re activist. When working on a project, any project, we’ll layout the main ideas and then brush all that paper work for later, so that we can focus on the art direction. The art is our number one focus, 90% of our project ideas all focus on breaking the visual mold. How can we take Machinima to the next level, go beyond the borders of acceptable and produce the exceptional. If you ever wonder why there’s such a long time between our releases, well, this is it. We’ve worked on so many movies that were scrapped for looking “not quite right.” Another thing to realize is after Fake Science we decided that we could no longer accept using even a pixel of someone else’s art. Too much chaos and legal gray line involved, It’s bad enough we’re using unlicensed technology to make these things. We made Fake Science without realizing the consequences of even moderate critical success, and the lessons we learned almost drove us from Machinima completely.

The first glaring lesson was that the press is capable of much evil, and we’re real glad they’ve been so damn nice to us, we should continue to not piss them off. Second lesson, ELUA’s suck, we knew going in that we wouldn’t truly have any rights to our film, but had we known then what type of opportunities Fake Science would open up, we would have used something a bit more, open source. It’s really hard on your creative spirit, when no matter how much work and dedication you put into it, that someone else can swipe it away in court with the wave of an ELUA. Fake Science will forever be our bastard child, both loved for opening the eyes of the world to us, and hated for being limited not on an artistic level, but on a legal one. For all intents and purposes any Machinima we make with an off the shelf game, can never truly be ours. We cannot accept this, and we should not accept this. So what are our choices? One, we can somehow budget a few hundred thousand dollars on licenses. Two, we can make it with their tools anyway and give them the bird while selling DVD copies to our adoring fans. Three, not use Machinima at all, and stick with traditional animation packages. And four use open source, somehow.

On the threshold of Space Man Biff we find our selves at a possible impasse, where we once again must make a hauntingly difficult choice. We played it smart this round, and everything is being made as assets that we can easily port to any game, or render straight up for possibly more pleasing results. First instinct is to utilize HL2, a bit crisper output than the trusty Unreal engine, but limited in oh so familiar ways that make me cringe. Chances are, that when we release SMB, we just won’t say what tech we used, and sell the hell out of it as only true rebels can. The EULA resistance is born!

About 2 years ago or so I was listening to the Radio in the van (driving back from the movies, where they succeded in pissing me off by playing TV comercials before the trailers,) constantly switching stations during those pesky commercial breaks, hoping to find a station still playing music. I went nearly 10 minutes cycling through the stations to find a song. I pulled into my driveway right as a good song finally came on.

So I go inside, and I’m thinking, “hey I should see what’s on the news!” So I surf over to CNN… commercial break… So then I flip up to CNN Headline News… Just missed it. So, jump to FOX News… “Don’t turn that dial,” the man says before fading to a tampon ad… TXCN (Texas news,) more shameless self promotion, all filler with no killer.

At this point, I’m just standing there with the remote clenching it tighter and tighter, and flip to the god save of my childhood, the Cartoon Network, just in time to see… an ad. In the end only HBO Family was playing something non-suggestive.

So, frustrated and a little miffed at getting stiffed, I turn on my trusty IE explorer to surf some web and… Well you know.

At this point I just turned it all off. Only the PC ever came back on, and she’s filtered to hell now for it too. Firefox with 5 different ad killers, thunderbird mail with a now super smart junk filter, and a seriously selective selection of video and audio entertainment downloaded and playable at MY convenience, and ad free, damnit!

Moral of the story? Read a book, learn a craft, play some dodgeball, enjoy your red drink, and toss those damn zombie boxes in the trash.


Thank you and good night.


*Pasted from The Wastes forums, where I came up with the rant this morning.