Ok... I'm going to count this as a win.

I hate doing things and then having nothing to show for it. Well... I'll have something to show for it down the line, but that's not what I'm trying to aim for with this blog. This blog is supposed to be all action - all the time, which means updates as much as possible.

So I've been working on some written things. As interesting as they may or may not be (it's a mystery... only you can solve it!), they make for a boring picture. Plus after typing so much already, typing away on the blog is kind of bland. These are the challenges and trials of legend, I swear.

So today's picture is just a quick little sketch because I wanted to make a post tonight but had nothing to put up. It's related to this other quick thing I was going to bash out soon. I was also thinking of colouring it, but it got late... and I've had some coloured stuff up recently so I'm not that bothered about it being black and white.

More stuff soon!

The hollowest of victories...

I wanted to have something to put up today, I really did... But the weekend didn't go as planned, and neither did tonight. The stuff I did do I'd rather leave attributed to anonymous, or in the case of tonight, pretend like I wasn't chasing my tail for hours on end to nearly no avail. But I'm too sweet (based on average daily sugar consumption) to be so bitter, so lets assess the mess.

The plan was to go back and tidy up some things I'd left semi-broken from before. I got to the T-shirt browser, promptly broken it even more, and then spent the rest of the night trying to work out what kind of state I was in when I first wrote it. The end result is that it's a little more solid, but there's not much new visible things.

Admitted, I did do a fair proportion of dicking about as well... But it's Monday after all and work was a drain. Everyone needs a little time to unwind.

Also I burnt the crap out of my right hand thumb. Wasn't fun. I briefly considered taking some photos of it and putting it up as 'body art', but I think I'll wait until it forms a nice puffy blister.

So how can I do better tomorrow? How can I get back in the groove and start 'pumping out the jams' with the 'vicious ferocity' of a 'mountain lion on fire'? How can I not make the same mistakes I made tonight?

Oven mitts.

Also, please go check out Rate my lasagne. James is a very lonely guy and needs all the support he can get.

An open letter to Hollywood.

Dear Hollywood,

Please stop.

We've all had a laugh, now it's time to stop dicking around an actually make some good movies again. Furthermore, please stop pissing on video games.... You stopped pissing on comic books and look how that's turned out for you! Batman! Iron man! Money in the bank!

So when a game comes along that basically hands you a decent movie on a platter and then attempts to spoon feed it to you, don't take it back to the kitchen and microwave it. And melt cheese on top of it. And add some spices... It was good for you the way it was. It was a tasty nutritious meal! I'd stop with the food analogies but I'm a little hungry BECAUSE MAX PAYNE LEFT ME EMPTY AND UNFULFILLED.

Max Payne (the game) wanted to be a movie sooooo bad. It was like a love letter to movies of a bygone era, to a almost forgotten genre that's proven to actually be profitable and relevant in recent years *cough cough* Brick *COUGH COUGH* Sin City *CHOKE* Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang *AM I MAKING MY POINT YET MY THROAT HURTS* . Max Payne (the movie) could've been right up there with those I just mentioned. It could've been proof that games can be compelling and provide strong naratives. But most of all, it could've been an entertaining way to spend 2 hours.

Max Payne (the movie) was none of those things.

I could go on at length (At great length, with bullet points and graphs and diagrams) about what made it bad but thats been covered so many other places (terrible pacing, replacing the plot with a deus ex machina envelope, barely any action, NO NOIR VOICEOVERS - for those playing along at home; mark those off your bingo sheets) but I think It's best to just cut to the chase and say this: You don't deserve people's good ideas, Hollywood.

I mean it's like you wanna keep bringing down other forms of media so people don't realise you aren't necessarily the greatest form of modern art anymore...

This is why I never want to see a Metal Gear Solid movie.

Your's Truly,
Victim-of-videogame-movies
co-signed
No-I'm-not-being-too-melodramatic


Meanwhile. Elsewhere. I put up Virtual House on the site... It still needs some stuff (and some more up to date photos) but thats going to have to wait because I just wanna put something up. Furthermore, the house is dirty and probably wont get a decent clean til we have another inspection... SO IT'S GOING TO BE A WHILE.

This month I'm also tied for the most posts made in a month. Can I push on through and break the previous record? Only time will tell.

Finally, todays picture isn't by me, but if the shoe fits...

Tired tired tired.

Things that are new today:
<- I drew this.

I added a favicon to the site, but I'm not entirely happy with it. I'm wondering too if I can have a different one for each section. Might be something to check out for later. Also, if I could have them animate and transform that would be awesome, but that may have to reside purely in the realm of fiction and fantasy at the moment.

By popular demand, I actually added an easter egg to the site. So fear not all ye who have grown with anger in spite during the fruitless search for the easter egg, there's one there now. It's this other thing I was working on tonight. It needs some explaining but you wont be getting that from me anytime soon... Also feel free to relieve that anger in the ANGER AND SHOUTING sub-board in the forum. James would love to hear all about your problems so he can SHOUT at you. ANGRILY.

VIRTUAL HOUSE!.. AGAIN!

So sometimes, despite best intentions, things don't go as planned. I mean, I'll gladly accept responsibility for slacking off in the middle of the week last week. The call of team fortress was just too great for a mere mortal like myself to ignore. But this weekend was supposed to be 48 hours for hardcore internet stomping (with several hours of that dedicated to sleeping of course).

But alas, it twas not meant to be.

Regardless, I did a little... Not as much as I would've liked but you've gotta take what you can get.

That little was redoing the template for virtual house mk. 2. Its almost done, which means a semi-functional virtual house is just around the corner. And then, when that in place, we won't need real housing anymore. We'll live in the internets, farming datastreams and living off the blogosphere. If I was less tired I'd totally write some poem about it.

I didn't announce I put the site up?

... Looks like today is an easy post for me then!

I put the site up.













Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand on the site admittedly there's not much there at the moment, but I'm adding new stuff regularly and building momentum until somehow I become some kind of unstoppable internet force. So at the moment:
-There's my first game Capitalist to play (emulated from the Amiga 500).
-There's this t-shirt browser thing I did.
-There's basic functionality.
-There's a forum (with nothing happening in it).
-There's a wiki (also with nothing happening in it).
-There's a secret hidden easter egg.

Anyway... check it all out here.

Also, hello to my first commenter that I don't actually know! To be honest I'm taking it with a grain of salt as I'm sure you're just a bot and you're just going to start spamming me with investment offers... But I dunno, even that would be kind of special. I'm promoting you to my "No. 1 fan" position.

Things that stopped me from being very productive over the weekend.

- The movie 'From Dusk Till Dawn'.
- Being social.
- Being a socialist.
- Upgrading my computer and having parts not work and have to be replaced.
- Having the replaced parts also not work.
- Having a newly upgraded computer and a stack of games that wouldn't work on it previously.
- Freaks and Geeks.
- This really sore neck/back I've had all day.

I've done a little, but not enough to show anything off, so please except this hastily editted picture!

Punk rock ain't dead, it's just recycled.

I didn't really plan on doing this. I just figured I should have a second shirt there, just so I could have some interactivity.

So tada! The browser is here. Everything still needs more work, but its up and that's a start.
Tomorrow night I'm going to try and drum up an article, I haven't fully decided on what. I saw that GameCareerGuide did a feature on why comic book games suck... So I might do something on that considering I like comic books and have now even had some experience working on one.

Anyway, that'll do for now I think. Good night!

Tshirt browser blues.

The plan tonight was to have this all done. Originally I was just going to find a basic t-shirt template on the net and just paste in the designs... But that was all a little less than spectacular, so instead I decided to make my own kind of t-shirt browser deal. Sure, I only have one T-shirt up at the moment, so I could put it up and claim the lack of interactivity is intentional, but that's cheating.

Anyway, this does look a little better than the original plan at least. Still needs some tweaking etc but that'll do for tonight. Pig.