Here's a new desktop that I put together, based on everyone's favorite Dr. Mario friends. Click on the above image for the 1280 x 1024 version, or take a look in the redesigned gallery for additional sizes.
I'm considering doing an actual painted version of this, maybe later this summer or in the fall.
Update: New 1920 x 1200 version for widescreen mutants.
Excerpt from The Editing Room's Van Helsing script:
KATE BECKINSALEYou will encounter many perils on your quest, Hugh. Watch out for skeletons, flying medusa heads, zombies, and those little purple things that look like frogs. Remember, you may be tempted to pick up the dagger power-up, but the boomerang is much cooler. Oh, and hearts don't add to your life meter, they just give you more uses of your secondary weapon.
HUGH JACKMANThat's totally weak.
KATE BECKINSALESeriously.
So here is this thing. I'm trying out posting it as an update here so people can tell me how much his headband sucks, or that they like Ken better. I'll put up my own comments later.
This morning was going as well as a morning can go, especially when it starts at 2PM. Then my computer exploded.
What actually happened was a bit more anticlimactic. (Or is that less climactic?) Application after application started freezing up, leaving me with OS X's friendly spinning lollipop (or beachball, as I've learned to call it after spending enough time on the Apple boards). The problem persisted even after several reboots. I tried all of the standard resuscitation techniques—repairing permissions, fsck, weeding out old preference files—to no avail. What it finally came down to was some trouble with my user fonts directory. Yes, some font had been locking up the entire system. I suppose the trouble arose out of me spending most of last night scouring the Web for, downloading, and installing an army of Chinese and Japanese fonts, some shadier than others.
After figuring out what was going on, I cleaned out my user fonts and everything went back to normal. I've accumulated a huge number of fonts over the last few years, many of which were only one-shot uses for specific graphics or projects. So, I'm taking advantage of this to streamline my font library a bit, and possibly start taking advantage of Apple's Font Book application, which has been left untouched since I upgraded about six months ago.
Of course, now it's about 3:30 AM and I didn't get to the things I was planning on doing today. Instead of doing anything productive now, I'm sitting here writing this as snippets from the Famicom 20th Anniversary series play in the background. (Right now it's Zelda II.) It's kind of a familiar situation, since last night I was just finishing up an image I've been working on for the last few days, and I figured I'd put the final touches on it this morning and be done with it. Now it looks like that'll be happening tomorrow. Hopefully my folder icons won't start an uprising.
Also, whoever is responsible for these rules, a lot.
Today I happened to catch a few minutes of Comedy Central's reality show, Last Comic Standing. It's pretty much like any Survivor-type show in that the contestants compete to stay on the show. Each show ends, appropriately, with two stand-up comedians performing in front of an audience who then votes one of them out. In this episode, over 90% of the audience voted in favor of one comic.
That got me thinking. While shows like Survivor and Fear Factor are mostly just series of outlandish games, is it really a good idea to go on a reality show where the game is what you want to do for your career? Now the only thing I'll think of if I ever see that comic again is, oh, she was the one who almost the entire audience didn't like.
Then again, it is just a reality TV show, on Comedy Central, on Saturday. Maybe no one will notice.
<Noah> I love the shuffle.
<William> That's great. Why don't you go join the shuffle parade in San Francisco tomorrow?
Every so often Apple comes along with some iPod idea that is totally ridiculous, like the iPod ski jacket or the iPod/VW Beetle tie-in. This proudly carries that torch.
You can have a moment to go look at that link. It should only take a little while to figure out what's going on.
I don't mean to suggest this is a bad idea; I definitely want a setup like that. It's just funny how ubiquitous the iPod has become.
Of course, my whole reason for mentioning this is that I have a suggestion. I would like to see BMW add an extra mode where you push a button and then the steering wheel mimics the behavior of the iPod's dial. That way drivers will still be able to enjoy cycling through playlists or adjusting the volume with the ease that only the dial can provide. It should also make for a unique driving experience.
And that's not even taking into account whether or not you're simultaneously playing Drive Drive Revolution.
THIS IS INFURIATING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Enough to make me think about dropping art and doing the poli-sci/biochem thing like I always planned.
(There are a bunch more less-infuriating but just as interesting little activities here.)
As it turns out, the dinner mentioned in the previous entry ended up occurring at Todai, the self-proclaimed mother of all seafood buffets. It offered a pretty impressive variety of food, mostly Japanese. Unfortunately, it was all quite expensive, but I guess that's not surprising from a place offering both huge sushi and sashimi buffet tables, not to mention this colossal wasabi!! If only we had known about this source of raw energy earlier, maybe we would never have had to call Captain Planet in the first place.
I'm going over to Pleasanton for a dinner one of Morgan's friends is putting on, so I'll be back sometime Friday.
Also, I once again have two network cables between two computers, so that's a bit of a relief.
Those two sentences don't really have anything to do with each other.
I often lament the lack of attention given to videogame artists. Even ignoring the extra hurdle created by needing to import, art books and other visual materials are rare, even for the most popular games. When they do exist, they're often quite pricey. Digital material is equally difficult to come by. Although publishers often include illustrations and concept art in promotional packages, they're often passed over by news sites in favor of shiny, high-resolution screenshots. When production images do appear on the Web, they're usually tiny and have whatever Website's logo stamped right across them.
So imagine my surprise to find something like Naïmoka.
[Edit: OK FIREFOX CRASHED AND DELETED THE REST OF MY POST JUST GO TO NAIMOKA.COM THERE IS A LOT OF ART THERE]
Three albums I completely overplayed last week two weeks ago:
And now a related thought: Do you think members of a band ever get sick of hearing the lead singer? Suppose he and the drummer just had some minor argument and then they go back to the studio to record another track. The drummer's probably back there wishing the singer would shut up, but I doubt the singer's thinking, oooh, that infernal drumming!
So if you're writing a novel based on the time you wrote yourself into another novel, is that metametafiction?
With your flags in air and the mines in the ground
Make one false click and you blow it, yeahh
You look at the numbers
This looks safe but how many so you ask yourself
Where is my mine?
Where is my mine?
Ohh where is my mine?
© Aniras, Pixies
