Leo's Writing Blog

Blogging from work

2012-02-23T00:43:00.000-08:00

I dunno if I like this Place.

Every time i'm supposed to be doing something creative, my head just locks up. I get given the subject matter that limits the stuff i should think about, and be good, but I don't seem to get anything from it. It's been really hard to get some stuff going from the subject matter (which is cleanliness and awareness towards littering and stuff), and that just makes me frustrated.

I feel like my head's behind some weird lock that can't be opened because i'm not 'feeling' the source material i'm supposed to work with. But that's silly, isn't it? A lot of people are made to do things they don't want to do because they think that they won't like it.

I might notlike it, but i've noted that i'm getting a lot of stuff out from the subject matter. Even if i think that most of the stuff i do is kinda bad, even though the people i present it to seem to enjoy it. Is there anything i could do to let my head get looser, to get more ideas and ways to work with the material that doesn't leave me with the feeling like my creative brain is trapped in some kind of hostage situation where it refuses to work with the source material and the stuff that's beneficial towards the place i'm employed at?

How do creative people cope with stuff they don't personally find enjoyable?

There is one positive aspect though. I was asked to do animations based on teaching kids about littering and how garbage should be separated to the proper places. I've created some characters with personalities for this task, and i have a really good feeling about this assignment. The idea also is that i'd do comic strips with the same characters, and i think that with this established cast, i'll be able much more positive about the future tasks that will use these characters.

Some thoughts in comic book men

2012-02-19T23:33:00.001-08:00

I was not surprised to see people bring critical of comic book men. "no women" I understood. I knew that amc wad planning to add a woman to be one of the operators of the store, but it was axes because it would've made the show less real.

I think that the people criticizing the show fall to two categories:

A) they don't like the show because it wasn't done their way.

B) they want it to help legitimize the comic book culture even further.

I try to understand these complaints (and I understand the "no women" complaint, kinda as yes, there's no permanent woman working at the store, thus being in a prominent role) but it irks me that anything made about your culture that's shown in a mainstream media outlet should only serve to legitimize your culture Is kinda silly. I understand the public relations value of it, but not every show should serve that goal. Do the people really think that members of the regular public would be willing to sit through 45 minutes about the history of batman (i think Kevin smith might...) if there's not one little piece of entertainment contained with in?

Would people be engaged with a show that's more based in fact than entertainment? I think that entertaining the people whilst telling about the history of the thing you're featuring is more accessible to the common public and thus would also help them understand your culture a bit more.

If you want to do a show that's more serious in tone, you don't need to ask anyone to give you The ok to do so. Just talk to your local comic book store and ask them if they'd be willing to participate in this project. If not, well, tough, but that shouldn't stop you. You should then ask: "What other way are there to present this idea of this show i have for the people"?

No mainstream outlet is going to do a show that's done the way you want it to be done. Just go put there and do the show you wanna do yourself. There are no barriers to entry, and if they are they're so very low. I mean, look at a common cellphone! That sucker can film stuff and in some cases even comes with it's own editing software! You have a camera and ways to edit stuff IN YOUR POCKET.

There's nothing to stop you from making the comic book show YOU want to make, except your own unwillingness to do so.

Animation Department and unit.

2012-02-14T06:53:00.000-08:00

Here's the way i see it being:

Animation unit animates the storyboards and layouts that came from Script departments and layout departments
Animation unit does the scripts, the layout and the animation

Thus we can conclude that an animation unit is self sufficent machine for creating animated cartoons. Not just a group of people whose main responsibility is to animate the storyboards etc. coming from departments that are not affiliated with the animation department.

I also understand now why there were writers, storyboarders and layout artists: sure those people did their own thing, but they also contributed to the animation.

2011-11-28T04:00:00.001-08:00

One more thing.

I just realised that i'm not writing that much here.

Well i've been looking for possible jobs and places to intern in. Not that internship would get me a job (although it does happen) but at least i'd get a bit more in the unemployment allowance i recieve.

The good thing is that i'm starting doing internship stuff at this place doing graphics work on Wednesday. I think i might blog about a bit what i'm doing there and how i like it.

But yeah, i'm not blogging if i don't have anything to blog about.

P.s. New Theme

2011-11-28T03:57:00.001-08:00

I like this new theme, it makes stuff look much more cleaner and stylish :D

Pay A Blogger Day

2011-11-28T03:54:00.001-08:00

I saw this on the flattr blog

Pay A Blogger Day Information and reasoning behind idea.

I was wondering, should i take part in this? Would that be a good idea? I like the idea, and of course, if i could make some money (maybe enough for a lightbox) it would totally be worth it :D

Does Hate come in cycles?

2011-11-05T09:09:00.000-07:00

Some History:

Apple started the hate towards IBM, when IBM started to release Personal computers.

Apple always saw itself as the anti-IBM

People started to hate Microsoft and Bill Gates during the 90s, when Microsoft got really big with windows and DOS.

Note that most of the hate came from FSF, which has valid reasons of being anti-microsoft

People disliked Sun Microsystems before the started to get more open towards the end of their life.
People now seem to hate apple because they (apparently) have a monopoly of digital culture, and a great platform with many limitations.

I mean, is it just me, or do people start hating companies when they get too big? I mean, i understand the dislike and hate towards these companies when they were the subject of hate. But look at these companies now. IBM's really Linux friendly, and focuses on company databases and stuff. Bill Gates left microsoft, and even though some people still view microsoft as big bad, Bill Gates himself is out there trying to make a world a better place. Apple was the underdog, but with the limits and regulations put on the iPhone, and the success of the iTunes Store, people start to hate Apple, as they're now doing pretty great.

It's weird in my opinion. I do understand why people dislike the companies, but i'd also like to see what the companies could do in order to be more liked.

Is Google next?

Post #31: Last Post

2011-10-31T01:55:00.001-07:00

It's done.

I was able to write a blog post for every day of October.

Now, I can rest and do other things.

Post #30: Finishing line approaches

2011-10-30T01:57:00.001-07:00

Nothing really important to say today.

This is a Short Post.

Look, it's over already!

Post #29: Why Comics are still awesome

2011-10-29T05:46:00.000-07:00

I really like comics. I've always seen myself a Comics nerd first, a gamer second. A fact that is being proved by my rather large comic book collection. I like comics because there's no limit on what they can do with just words and pictures and panels, the possibilities are endless!

I started to appreciate comics more after i had read Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics and REinventing Comics. To be fair, I also read Making Comics, but that didn't really have a big impact on me, as my awakening was largely about the theoretical side of comics, with storytelling aspects throw in. It was Understanding comics that made me understand how many different genres of comics there really are.

I also realized that when you're doing comics, you don't have to be a photorealist artiste who went to paris for 15 years, although that said, i do enjoy Alex Ross' Kingdom Come elseworlds comics too.

One of the things that internet really helped to bring, was this massive influx of webcomics. Comics that can be memoirs, journals, or just some artists way of expressing him or herself. Heck, when i first got my ADSL connection, i started reading PVP and other kinds of webcomics from start to finish, with varying degrees of intrest. But there are still some good physical comics as well.

At the moment, manga is a really big thing in finland. Now, i read my share of manga before it got mainstream in finland, and i got to say that i don't really enjoy reading it anymore. The most recent manga i read was Going Time, which documented a mangaka's life in japanese prison. I was in my autobiographical comics phase then, so it interested me a lot, but after that, I didn't really care about manga anymore.

The reason for it is this: Every comic uses the same expressions, tropes and idioms without really trying to do anything new with it. Every magical girl manga plays out nearly the same way, and the characters there use the facial expressions and tropes as dicated by the genre they belong into. And for me...

...that just makes manga as a genre really BORING.

THIS is the reason that i enjoy western comics: There's so much variation in the artwork, the storytelling and the tropes presented and invented that there's so much stuff to learn and to enjoy!

Post #28: So i drew a Steve Jobs Too

2011-10-28T01:10:00.000-07:00

In my personal opinion i don't like it as much as i do like the George Lucas one, but i guess it's pretty good, considering.

I could've used grey for the outline of the glasses and then white for the innards, as well as adding some frames to go behind the ear. The glasses and the hairline are actually the main peeves that i have with this image, but after all that criticism, it's still rather good.

Post #27: George Lucas

2011-10-27T03:12:00.000-07:00

I thought i'd draw something:

Really cool, no?

It's strange how loved and hated George Lucas is. On the one hand, he gave use Star Wars, LucasArts Adventure games and other great films. On the other hand, he went back to his films and kept adding stuff into them and making the special effects better.

Sometimes i wonder if that's ok, if his films belong to the public, or if he's allowed to do what he's been doing. I mean, he even testified against the Colourization of classic films, yet he feels justified of going back to Star Wars and adding stuff to the movies.

Sometimes I really wonder if more people should just say No to him.

Post #26: Why did i forget to post yesterday?

2011-10-25T23:45:00.000-07:00

Well the thing is that i didn't write at my normal time. Which is around 10:30. I was doing other things that i hoped would let me move on with my life, by gaining employment. Well, that didn't really happen, and i really have no idea what i should be doing today.

I guess today i'll just work on my own stuff, and see if i can get something done. Tomorrow will be a proper blog post once again, i promise.

Post #25: An Inspirational Quote from some Famous Dead Dude

2011-10-25T23:43:00.001-07:00

"A man's own good breeding is the best security against other people's ill manners."
--Lord Chesterfield

Post #24: I got Deus Ex: Human Revolution

2011-10-24T02:21:00.000-07:00

I guess I'd better write something here before i'm fully absorbed by the new, rare AAA Game in my life.

I guess i could talk about the game after playing it some more.

Nothing else comes to mind really.

Man, the quality of these posts are going down :/

But i'm at the finish line so it's ok :)

Post #23: Indies are getting more exciting

2011-10-23T02:48:00.000-07:00

It's true. From all the games that are coming out 2011 and 2012, i'm not drawn to the AAA Games. In fact, i am drawn to the indies games like The Witness, Retro City Rampage and Dejobaan's new AaAaAAA!!! Semi-sequel (WITH MAC SUPPORT, YAY).

I feel that AAA games are getting to be kinda samey, because of their burning need to generate profits. Sure, there are some AA and A games that are coming out that have SOMEWHAT captured my imagination, like the DMC remake from Ninja Theory (Makers of the under appreciated Enslaved: A Journey To The West), irregardless what the haters are saying about Dante's remodeled appearance.

My main issue is that most of the AAA games that are coming out are mostly sequels. New Battlefield, new Call Of Duty and whatnot. Those kind of games don't hold my attention. Just FPS games in a vague war setting. Gag me with a spoon, can't we move on already? Seriously, it would be cool if these studios would take the more adventurous route in the downloadable game arena, making quirky and off-beat games for XBLA, WiiWare and PSN. Of course, i do realise that it too needs manpower and stuff, but if you're using the revenue from the AAA Games to comp the possible losses from the downloadable games, sure that's not a bad thing?

SEriously, when's the last time that an AAA game got you excited? Remember Rage? reviews came in and the false freedom and the generic/boring story left gamers disappointed in the game. Pre-hype, the enemy of expectations.

But then there's the indies. RCR, Orcs Must Die, AaAaAAA!!! 1/2 much more exciting than Generic FPS Shooter In A Vague War Setting 5.

Post #22: Luna Epicsode predictions and fanalysis

2011-10-22T01:48:00.000-07:00

I saw this awesome comic today, ON THE INTERNETS

Luna And Shadow and Fandom

Although you might think that the comic is rather silly, it's actually a PRIME Example of HHOS (Ha, Ha, Only Serious). You See, Shadow does point out, that because of the little amount of screen time and lines that Luna got in Series 1, the fandom had to fill the gaps in her personality and mannerisms. Because of this, in the fandom there are now multiple ways of Luna being portrayed. The Shy loner, the sad loner, the one who's adjusted and forgiven and so on.

This is why this episode will cause some fans to get REALLY angry and possibly leave the MLP fandom forever.

Some Analysis For Youse.

What we have here are fast amount of Fanon, which can be explained by the following equation:

Obscure Character + Lack of screen time + Few lines * Amount of fan art and fiction = Fanon

What does this mean in practice? It means that every fan of MLP that's in the field of fan art or fan fiction has already created for themselves the perfect image and personality for Luna, due to the lack of official canon from the writers and the artists of MLP. Of course, the fans are always more than delighted to come up with their own strands of fanon for these tabula rasa characters, because they hope that their ideas would be incorporated to the actual show.

But What Will happen?

Well, the canon personality, image and portrayal of Luna *will* leave some fans disappointed. This is because, as in the previous paragraph stated, that every fan already has the perfect Luna imagined in their heads. Therefore, it doesn't matter what the writers will do, as the canon Luna will leave some fans upset.

but that is not to say that all fans are like that. Some fans, like me, are just happy to see this character who hasn't really been featured in the series, or mentioned after Series 1 two part opening episode. This will bring a new character to the show which will allow more detailed and new kinds of interaction, which in part will create the possibility of creating more varied stories, that don't have to be tied to ponyville.

The more characters are brought to the show and given an unique personality, the more potential there is to write new kinds of stories. Because of this possibility, i am merely happy to see Luna given her own episode, and hope to see more of her in the upcoming episodes.

Post #21: I just realized something

2011-10-21T05:37:00.000-07:00

It's like 15:35 in finland.

I was planning to do the blog post around 10:30, but i slept a bit late.

But it would look like that if i'm unable to upkeep the time that I normally write the blog post in, I'll start to procrastinate, which leads to blog posts written kinda late.

Well, i guess it's another point of data that i need to keep in mind whilst i'm still writing these. Not that there's many weeks left, like maybe a week's worth of blog posts, and then the month is over, and i can rest. It's been strange, i've still managed to stay on schedule, and i've taken no stress about it.

Also, i haven't forgotten that i chose to do a blog post everyday of this month.

Well....maybe next time i'll commit writing 500 words a day.

Post #20: Why writing on an empty stomach is never a good idea

2011-10-20T03:18:00.001-07:00

Because you'll be so pre-occupied with getting something to eat, that the quality and length of the blog post suffers a lot.

Post #19: Where Did my dreams disappear to?

2011-10-19T03:42:00.000-07:00

I've been really careful about not doing these self-pitying posts, but due to some setbacks, I think it's a high time that I write one of them.

I feel like I don't have dreams anymore. I don't dream about making it big, living somewhere remote, getting paid for creating art or animation. No, for some reason the only thing i really dream about is gaining employment. I've been unemployed so long it's not even funny anymore. That doesn't mean i don't seek for jobs, internships or apprenticeships. It's just that I've grown very negative about finding anything that would let me earn a living that i've even thought about just giving up on it all.

I dreamt after graduation that i'd be a big name animator in finland. Someone who's speciality was doing hand drawn stuff, and being in high demand. That didn't happen because i failed to keep my enthusiasm about animation intact. I just stopped, and i still don't feel like doing anything. I'd love to get the proper gear to do it all on paper, because at least that way i'd be off the computer and far more able to concentrate on the actual creating (don't tell me to turn the internet off, i don't want to do that).

I've even tried to find jobs in non-media field, but it would seem that even those attempts are doomed to fail. but for some reason I still dream that maybe *THIS* time i'll be able to get a job, earn a living, and possibly even start dreaming high latitude dreams again.

post #18: Suda51 games are all about Presentation.

2011-10-18T05:35:00.000-07:00

I think i Finally cracked the 'why' of me liking Suda51 games.

Simple: It's all about the presentation.

Let's take a look at Shadows Of The Damned, shall we?

In terms of game mechanics, the game (In my personal opinion, but i might be wrong) doesn't really add anything new to the mix. But in terms of presentation, it's pure gold. Here are some reasons why:

Health items are presented as bottles full of alcohol
Shop is represented by a human demon hybrid
Currency is presented as jewels.
Checkpoints are presented by a glowing piece of monster poop.
Keys are presented as STrawberries and other misc. items.
Light switches are presented as goat heads with a candle crown on them.

As you can see, Shadows Of The damned is a pretty standard 3rd person shooty game, but it's the presentation of everyday game staples that gives it so much of it's personality. Suda51 has realized that not all shops need to be presented as a merchant with a back pack, or a small stall in some market square. No, it can be a person with huge lights sticking out of it. And that what makes the game so fun.

I think part of the thing that games games feel so homogenous is the fact that we're opting to show things like checkpoints, power ups and shops in a fairly standard manner. Who is to say that a power up can't be presented by a living suitcase that spits power ups that then fuse in with the player character's body? Why do we settle on the player character having to find chests that hold the power ups inside of them?

I think that imaginative presentation can go a long way of giving games more personality. And when we have more games that have personality, gaming with only get stronger as an artform.

Post #17: Making Sure i'm on schedule.

2011-10-17T08:23:00.000-07:00

I noted that today is the 17th of October. And I've done 16 posts. Therefore I decided that this would be a extra post to make sure that i am on the schedule with doing 1 post per day (or rather, having a blog post for everyday of the month).

I shall now commence the post.

What makes something being attributed to a certain sub-culture of people? How was it that Pabst Blue Ribbon, skinny jeans and low cut vests started to be associated with the hipster sub-culture? For that matter, how was it that the early punks adopter the Doc Martens boots, and as such, these boots are now associated with the punk sub-culture?

How do these things start? Does it need someone as a catalyst that will then spread, like a physical meme amongst the people who wish to be a part of that sub-culture? and how does one become the catalyst that starts all these things?

This actually makes me think of the trendsetters. Trendsetters, of course, being the people who ignite, or advertise a certain trend in food, music, movies and television. Could it be, that our associations with the sub-cultures, or rather, the products worn and consumed by these sub-cultures actually originate from the trendsetters that have been imbedded in these sub-cultures? If that is the case, how can we recognize that someone is being the trendsetter? Do we need surveillance of that sub-culture to see which trends and memes start to spread, or if media portrayal of these sub-cultures is also one of the reasons that the icons of the sub-culture come so deeply associated with those sub-cultures in the collective human mind.

I dunno.

I just wrote this to get some of my head weighing thoughts on paper :D

Post #16: Observations about regular people making movies.

2011-10-17T02:14:00.000-07:00

They tend to use DV film which makes it look cheap

They also forget to use Filters which would make the material look like it's been shot on 35mm film stock

The writing's pretty bad
The pacing is pretty bad
The films are given out for free.
Most of the time, the sound is kinda low, like the mic wasn't aimed at the performers. Hard to hear what the people are saying in the scene
The acting's pretty hammy, or wooden
The story tends to drag around, having over long scenes that could've had a few minutes cut off
The digital special effects (especially blood splatters) are usually tracker pretty good.
No idea where the film is going
Boring.
Film gets hyped because:

It's done via Kickstarter
It's supposed to be really good
It's being fetishized by tech/culture journos because apparently it gives regular people the ability to do art formerly reserved to rich people

They tend to fall in love with the idea and the synopsis of the thing, rather than the actual content. Pioneer One and Star Wreck are examples of this happening. (at least, in my personal opinion).

It's distributed for free

Good regular movies i've seen:

Big Buck Bunny
The Taint
Rockabilly Vampire

I think that the problem is that the people making the movies aren't taking them seriously enough. I realize that it's the fun of making that drives people to make these films, but I wish that the people making the films would be more ambitious about it, and demand more from their stars, as well as the writing team. It's more important to have a good foundation about what you're going to do, instead of just going there and doing stuff.

I'm not saying that all the stuff done by amateurs is bad, it's just that to me it's rather boring, like the latest episode of Pioneer One.

Post #15: LATE EDITION

2011-10-16T08:30:00.001-07:00

AAAA

I'm back home!

I'm tired!

I have Beer and new episode of My Little Pony!

Twilight Sparkle Went all Gary Busey!

AAAA I'M SCARED AAAA

P.s. Open source developers, this is something that YOU can do, and thus make Toon Boom OBSOLETE:

John K's Dream Drawing Software

Post #14: At The Airport

2011-10-15T22:43:00.000-07:00

Gah. I'm having to use this pretty old and busted computer at the airport to do this damn post. Not even sure if i'll be able to get it published in time before the 10 minute clock runs out.

anyway, it's been really fun in england. I saw my pals, talked to people and saw parts of London that i hadn't visited in the past. It was really cool, in a sense. Also, i got to go to the london graphics centre and got myself a Moleskine notebook.

So yeah.

I realise that i missed a blogpost yesterdady so i'll continue the project by some 1 odd free day.

Post #13: London

2011-10-14T06:31:00.000-07:00

Well, here i am in london. It's been going well, really. Nothing's been stolen and i haven't managed to offend anyone by doing stupid thing in the underground or the bus, probably because i am not using the bus to go anywhere. Yay!!!!!

I'm at my friend's place, using his INTERNETS to do this blogpost. Yes, i am that committed to my friends that are reading this blog.

What have i been doing? not that much really. I did go to the London Graphics Centre, got some Pens and a Moleskine notebook which to write my observations on for FUTURE blogposts. Yes.

I saw a line of people in the Covent Garden apple store, waiting in line for the iPhone 4s thing. I was suprised; as far as i knew, it was still a regular working day, and still people with MONEY were able to skip work and go there, to wait at least 4 hours in line to get the blasted thing. Really? How is that possible? did they reach a speical understanding with their employer to do this thing?

Seriously, the line gave me an impression about the size of the population in the london area.

And it scared me.

Post #12: Going on a holiday!

2011-10-12T23:04:00.000-07:00

Hey Peeps!

Just to let you know that today i am flying to london with my dad. I'll be back the 16th, but i will try to maintain the steady stream of blog posts whilst i am still at london. For that purpose, i've downloaded a blogger app on my HTC Hero, and i'll hope to find some places with free wifi so that i may write the things and publish them!

If that doesn't happen, i'll just do 3 extra days of blog posts to compensate the days i was in london :)

Post #11: Can free software advocates relate to the common user?

2011-10-12T00:44:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: parts of this blog post can be a bit biassed, but keep in mind that a person's blog is about his personal opinions.

I think that Free software (FLOSS) developers have a hard time relating to the needs and wants of a regular user. Canonical should be applauded for trying to relate to the users, and providing them with easier ways to use open source software, as well as acquiring it.

Still, it feels to me that most of FLOSS products are made for nerds, by nerds, filling the needs of some grander project scheme, that will only be let to the hands of the regular people once it's truly finished. Because of this, GIMP looks the way it looks, the animation software is still crap and there's no hope that Year X will be the year of Linux desktop.

I think that the FLOSS people *should* do some degree of market research, with focus groups, just to understand how they can improve the usability of the software to make it easier for regular, normal, non comp. sci. background people to use.

In order for the Year of Linux Desktop to happen, there needs to be a lot done. Design matters, as does usability and ability to get support.

Seriously, sometimes when i look at all the stuff FSF and other groups advocate, it makes me think that they never really want the year of Linux desktop to happen, nor do they want Free SOftware to take over the world, because then their precious little club would be mainstream.

Thing is that the computers aren't those PDP-10s or MicroVAXes anymore. They're pretty much ubiquitous around our everyday life, and the FLOSS advocates (not all of them, but some) still seem to treat computing and computing software as something that only people with Comp.sci. degrees are allowed to use. Because of this, the software has poor interfaces, and can be pretty hard to use.

I realise that they don't have a lot of money, but the internet is full of things that will teach you more about UI and UX design. If some time was dedicated to learning and improving the UI, as well as usability, i think that Free software could compete with commercial software really really well. Just get passionate people to do the UI design. Let them go wild.

To summarise:

Free software people are design talentless hipsters who WANT to get to the mainstream, yet don't at the same time.

Post #10: An insight i just made

2011-10-11T02:50:00.000-07:00

Here's how i think Richard M. Stallman, creator of EMACS reacts to devices with closed source code:

Because the device has closed source, they must clearly be hiding something. Maybe they spy on the users and have back doors. Well, i guess it's time to do a blog post and warn people against buying these devices, simply because I myself can't audit the code and see if these devices are actually harmful.

Yeah.

He might be right on some occasions, but sometimes i think the man's just paranoid.

Post #9: Create A Book by Writing 8 hours a day!

2011-10-10T00:11:00.000-07:00

I read a comic by J.Tilsa a few years back. In his comic, he talks about this writer, who left his home every morning, with train timetables and a bottle of coke, went to his office, wrote until 4PM and then returned home. After a month or so, he'd written a whole book.

It's interesting to think about, isn't it? this writer approached writing as his fulltime job, and because of this, he was able to write books in a rather quick manner. I envy this man. I have no idea if he used a typewriter or fountain pens, but the ability to write 8 hours a day is astounding!

But could the generation of today do this as well? In their case, they'll probably leave home, go to Starbucks for 8 hours, write, take care of business, return home, and then just have leisure time as well. The staff at Starbucks might not enjoy this writer's presence, but that's beside the point.

In fact, any creative thing could be treated as a fun job. Even if you feel that creativity and inspiration take time, there's nothing stopping you from writing your raw thoughts on paper for 30 minutes before you get into the meat of the matter. Heck, even disney animators work 8 hours a day, plus overtime on crunch.

I wish that i too had the iron clad concentration of the Sphinx to do this kind of thing. But without anyone to be accountable to, what's the point?

Post #8: Some Tropes i've noted in American reality shows.

2011-10-09T01:33:00.000-07:00

Note: I say that these tropes are from american reality TV shows, although i do see them in finnish and english reality shows as well, but when thay appear in american versions, they always seem the most loudest and easiest to spot. Here are some that i've noted myself and some that are from TVTropes.org

The Money Shot: Close up of a contestant breaking down in tears, or crying.

"Not Here To make friends" person: The person who (mostly in team based reality shows) undermines his popularity within the show's viewership by acting like a self-absorbed moron

"I'm here to win" person: Not Here To Make Friends person's cousin in indivitual based reality shows.

The Pro: The dude who seems to have some degree of competency, but ruins it all by turning I'm Here To Win person.

The Goof: Comic Relief guy. Case Example: Raj from Hell's Kitchen past season.

Of course, there are far more of these people, but i am drawing a blank now...

Some observations about American version of Kitchen nightmares.

I'm a huge fan of Cooking/food reality TV shows. It's a vice of mine, but i've noted something whilst i've been watching the US and UK versions of Kitchen Nightmares. Like. The american version is more geared towards confrontation and drama, and less on cooking. It's more likely to see Gordon confronting the owners doing stuff wrong, and the owners then turning into people defending their bad ways, than it is in the UK version.

The UK version seems also a bit more subdued than the american version. There's no on going music track, in fact, it's mostly Gordon's narration, with some REALLY light music thrown in for framing, but there's no on going music track. Also, there's no bombastic MTV cuts when going to a break, and returning from the break. The people are also treated as intelligent, and are not kept reminded of the past happenings.

It seems to me that the american version wants to go towards that drama stuff that's created by real people. A trend that started with The REal World and Survivor, whereas the British version was much more geared towards proper business practices and making sure that the cooking and the food was awesome.

I mean, in the american version the cooking only comes to the picture after they've redesigned the restaurant - always in 24 hours, and 'throughout the night'- and after that's it's MORE drama in the new dinner service!

SEriously, if you wanna see good reality tv, just watch documentaries. Or make your own damn series.

Post #7: Helsinki

2011-10-08T04:00:00.000-07:00

Well i am in helsinki this weekend, and i don't have a lot of stuff to say. I've been out with my dad doing shopping, and also bagged The Goon Vol 1 Trade Paperback for my comic book collection.

Other than that, i've just been making meatloaf and drinking Dr.Pepper.

Also, i got to mention this.

Whilst we were at the town, we passed a huMac Store (they sell apple devices etc). Outside there was this small piece of Velvet rope. I took a look, and saw that on the otherside there was a small framed picture that read:

Steve Jobs
In Memoriam.

I thought that it was really classy, and simple in nature. In my opinion, a fitting tribute to the man.

So yeah, i'll do a proper blogpost when i get back to lahti :)

p.s. Note that i still haven't missed a day in writing!

Post #6: Trying Is Easy

2011-10-07T00:29:00.001-07:00

Umm.... Yeah.

Trying to do things is easy.

Want to try to win a Free game? Go ahead

Want to apply for a job? Try.

Want to make something great and change the world?

Keep trying and keep at it.

Post #5: The Hardship Of Starting

2011-10-06T02:31:00.000-07:00

Before i discovered The now Habit, and developed some techniques based on that very habit, i always had the trouble of starting things, when the things in question were tasks that were assigned to me from someone else. To me the tasks were just obstacles in my computer time. Non-fun chores i had to do in between being on the computer and just doing nothing, really. But I did get better.

But what is it about starting that's so difficult? we're all having so much fun when we're planning stuff. Games, movies, writing, comics, the pre-production phase is the funnest and the most easiest to start, but when it's time to actually start working, the brakes come on and you don't feel like doing anything. So how do we overcome this small speed bump in our way of doing things and getting them into the hands of people?

Start Small

As with all projects, they take time. You don't have to tae big steps from the getgo, you can do small steps, like planinng, or getting source material. Dedicate a few minutes (10 to 15, or whatever you want, but no longer than an hour) on these small starting steps. After awhile, you'll see that you've gotten some things done, and it's time to tackle the project itself! And when you do that, you'll see that starting the actual work doesn't really seem that hard anymore.

Think about the satisfaction of hard work

It's true that working hard feels good. Sure, if you've been unemployed for a long time, not being able to motivate yourself to start on the road of self-improvement, well, try to project your mind to the future, where you've already gotten so much done! Now think about how good it'll feel when you've actually managed to get all those things done! You'll be in a better place psychologically, ready to face the new challenges.

It's Not That Hard

Seriously, all you need to tell yourself is this:

"I choose to start the work on this project by doing X" where X is something small, like making sure the people are on the same page as you.

How do i start with each blog post?

That's easy, i have a fixed time when i start writing. I tell myself "I choose to start writing the blogspot at 10:30". That way I am motivating myself on doing it, without sounding like the victim who has been chosen to do an unpleasant task. The motivation stems from inside of me. I am choosing to start. I am Choosing to get things done. It's not about being a victim anymore. It's about creating content for those readers that i do have!

I hope you all found this helpful.

Post #4: I Wish i'd get another typewriter.

2011-10-05T01:13:00.000-07:00

I bought my first typewriter on a Whim. I needed to do a small paper for school for other people, and I was concerned that they might not be able to read my handwriting. So i went to the flea market that was near my then home, and got myself a portable typewriter for 5 euros. It was a good deal, even by my standards. Then, a few years later, i moved to Nakkila. There I had the idea of writing a page of text everyday I was studying there, as a means of keeping track of my student life. I thought that the old portable typewriter wouldn't cut it anymore, as it started to have sticky keys that i used a lot.

So i went to the flea market in Nakkila, and managed to get myself an electric typewriter for 2 euros. Again, a good deal, and that machine as well saw a lot of use from my part. I found that with a typewriter, it was really easy for me to focus on the act of writing. I could easily bang out a A4 sized paper full of my thoughts and such, in like 20 to 30 minutes. There were no distractions, other than the TV, which i kept on as something to listen to.

And i wrote a lot. Of course, i didn't have a computer then, so writing all the things was really easy. And even when i DID get the computer, i didn't use it that much, as it was old, busted and not suitable for the curent day internet.

So why am I wishing that i could get another typewriter? It's the same reason as to why i draw my comics offline: So I could concentrate on the act of writing, instead of being in front of a device that opens so many paths and doors to distractions like email, twitter and IRC. It's weird that i think that way, but for some reason, the act of turning the internet off is not something i wish to do. It's a feature of the machine i use. I with to keep that feature.

But how would a Typewriter help me to do more writing? Wouldn't i then need to re-write the stuff i write on the typewriter, so that I could get the content online?

Well...How about, instead I write the paper, scan it, and export it as a PDF? that way i don't have to use the computer to write, nor re-write anything i do, and i manage to get all the stuff i DO write out there in a convenient format! As strange as this sounds, some people do this. It's called 'Typecasting'. It's really good for people wishing to keep their output high, without the distractions given to us by modern technology.

Right, i guess it's time to search the flea markets for an IBM Selectric...

Post #3: Why I draw my Comics offline

2011-10-03T23:52:00.000-07:00

I've been drawing my webcomic, All Filler, No Killer for about a year now. It might be more, i am not so sure. Most of the content on the site has been made using Pixelmator, a Photoshop replacent for the mac at half the price. But during the recent months I've shifted away from drawing the comics with digital tools, and thus have returned to using analog tools: Ink, brush and erasers. And i got to say that i prefer using those tools more than using digital tools.

I feel that with the brushes and ink, i have more control over my lineart. I also find it easier to trace over the pencil lines with real tools, rather than with digital tools. I guess it comes down to the fact that i'm drawing with 1:1 scale with the analog tools, and right on the surface of the stuff i need to ink, rather than having my hand more towards the side, and there trying to ink the stuff on screen.

I also feel that when i am not drawing on the computer, i have more time to finish my comic strips. There are no icons bouncing, no notifiers demanding my attention towards twitter, IMs or emails. There's just me, my tools, paper, and a cup of coffee (mostly). to me that's liberating, and i've noted that by drawing offline, i even manage to concentrate better on the ink work. I admit that i still don't use a lot of time on creating the jokes and writing them down as more seasoned webcomic artists would, and it's indeed a hurdle i must learn to pass.

I feel i'm also starting to get more skilled at using the brush. I do wonder if i should use a n:o 0 brush instead of a n:o 1 brush in order to get finer lines, and i'll probably start to experiment with that brush more when i remember to do so.

Post #2: How to sit in front of a computer the whole day, and still get things done

2011-10-03T00:17:00.000-07:00

If you're one of those quasi no-life people that sit around the computer the whole day, telling yourself that you REALLY should take the trash out, i got something that i think might help you.

I've been reading a book called The Now habit (Summary here, worth reading, PDF Slides) which helps you to overcome procrastination, and taking control of your life. I too am a procrastinator, simply because i don't have anyone external pulling me along towards my goals. but after reading the book, i got inspiration to do something about it.

Let me tell you about what i did to get stuff done

With me getting stuff done is really simple. I got a set of goals (small manageable ones) that i choose to take care of during that day. These might be really simple like taking out the trash, updating my blog, or just going out for a refreshing walk. How i do them is this:

Everytime i step away from my computer, i must choose to do one thing on that list.

Because i can get pretty restless and bored in front of the computer, i tend to leave the computer and then do one of those tasks. Of course, if you're more disciplined about getting things done that i am you could try the following:

Get yourself a kitchen timer
Wind it to either 15, 20 or 30 minutes, you're in charge
After the timer goes off, get up from your computer, and wind the timer to 5 to 10 minutes
During those 5 to 10 minutes, take care of one of the tasks on your list.
After returning to computer, wind the timer to 15, 20 or 30 minutes again
Repeat until all tasks are done

After this, you can return to your computer, and surf around the glorious internet yet again. But you don't feel bad about it. You have segmented your time to times being on the computer and times of getting things done.

I realize that this might not be the most perfect of techniques of getting stuff done, but I think it's pretty awesome. It creates limits to the computer use, separating the should of doing to will of doing. If anyone is willing to try this technique, let me know and send me feedback :)

Post #1: On Creativity and making things.

2011-10-02T07:44:00.000-07:00

EDIT: I will do a blogpost for everyday of October, not November :P

Couple of weeks back, I started to wonder if my imagination is going downhill. I noted that I've been consuming a lot of content, and creating less and less of content of my own. I remember that when i was still in high school, i had pretty good ideas for stories, comics and all kind of other things that i unfortunately put on the back burner without really making them into reality. However, not all ideas I had then died.

Right now I'm doing quite a few things that I wanted to do in the past, but didn't really pursue with gusto. I wanted to do a podcast in the past, after getting my first iPod and started to listening to This Week In Tech. I am doing a podcast of my own now, called Against All Expectations. I wanted to do a webcomic after i had proper, ADSL connection. Now i have one called All Filler, No Killer.

But Why now? Why am I more willing to do these things now, rather than then? I say it's because a) i've gotten more experienced about what the things i wanted to do are really like. b) I have more time and the equipment that my somewhat perfectionist mind demanded i had before i'd start to put anything out there. c) I have more time, but i lack the passion.

What do i mean by the passion? I mean the energy to do things, really. As soon as i turn the computer on in the mornings, i start my daily routine of consuming content. Sure, sometimes when i'm really bored, and run out of the stuff i feel i must see/hear/read, i can step back from the keyboard and start making more comic strips, more writing, and more productive things. But we've also upgraded our internet. So i can get all the stuff i want, and consume it at a faster rate, thus enabling me to sit like a vegetable in front of the computer more and more.

That's one of the reasons that i decided to do a blogpost for everyday of november: I want to create more. I feel like I have a lot of things to say, but my habit of just consuming stuff gets the best of me. So, i am starting slow. I am taking small, imperfect human steps towards creating more, to being more of a producer, rather than a consumer. Does that mean that i'll create something super insightful everyday? Hmmm.....no, i guess not. Does this mean that i'll get featured on ? I doubt it.

Instead, it's more about showing to myself that "Yes, even though the internet is on, even though you're one of those guys who's been online ever since you got the ADSL, you can still create stuff and leave the computer when you want to". So that's what i'm going to do.

I hope you all will enjoy this experiment, and keep me in place. If you see me slagging off, give me a shout out at twitter on @limbclock, or email me at limbster [AT] gmail [DOT] com.

I can't wait for tomorrow!

Monthly Writing

2011-10-02T04:59:00.000-07:00

I guess i should do something with my time.

In fact, why not write? I mean, i got all the time of the world.

So, here's what i'm going to do.

I am going to write a blog post for each day of October, in an effort to get my writing mind on the gear. I hope that it'll help me get back some of my imagination and skills i've lost by just dicking around on the computer, consuming content, and rarely creating anything that people would read, pass on and talk about.

I'm not sure if i can do it, but if i keep it simple, without trying to be the perfect writer of the universe, I feel that i'll be able to do it.

i'm 26 years old

2011-09-03T23:35:00.001-07:00

Well, i'm 26 years old today.

Feels good man.

But looks like Blogger and firefox still don't want to play together that well.

New Blogger Interface

2011-08-31T23:34:00.000-07:00

I noted that google has finally been smart enough to release the new blogger interface for all the people in the world.

Got to say that it's a lot more cleaner and more in sync with rest of the new google products, although it's still very orangey instead of blue, red and cragy.

Did you notice that? Google's starting to use a lot more red and other colours in their web services. I think it's pretty good, as this means that google's starting to use more colors and i like colors, because colors are bright and i like colorful things.

SEriously it's all this muted crap and other stuff that makes web services look kinda dull. I wanna see color and bright color. Those colors enliven web pages and make them more enjoyable.

Why we need a Open source Game Tools Group

2011-08-21T00:47:00.000-07:00

Sure, there's enough open source'd game tools out there, bu they all seem a bit too complex. It would be nice is there was a group that was dedicated to making these tools better by submitting patches and other things to make them easier to integrate and to use, as well as developing new tools for people with no experience in programming. I'd like to see this group go forward and build something like the GameMaker for linux, and for macs too.

The need for open tools is high, even in gaming. I know that there are things like SDL, Ogre, Crystal Space and so on, but it seems like there's no simple one stop tool for making 2D games, like GameMaker and Stencyl on Windows. I argue that a group dedicated to make tools and improve the existing tools is needed badly for the creativity of game makers to thrive on other open source platforms as well. I know that Canonical is going to approach game makers for developing games with and for Ubuntu. This is all good, but they didn't mention if they'd b a part of making new tools, or i people like me should still learn programming in some obscure language, simply because we can't use more simpler toolsets to make games on Linux.

Also, this group would also have the possibiity of creating awesome HTML5 tools in order to help leverage HTML5 as gaming platform. I mean, YoYo games is going to release a HTML5 version of GameMaker, but people like me can't cough up 140 euros in order to use it. We could pirate it, sute, but it makes sense of having open source alternatives, in order to avoid such blatant disregard to copyrights and stuff.

People are already wondering, "Why aren't you making those tools then?" Because i choose not to learn programming and i choose to inspire people and bring issues to their attention. If this happens, it would be cool, but if not, i'm sure that indies will form an open source posse later on and start making tools that should already be at the hands of the people.

EDIT: Not even student versions of the commercial tools are enough, they tend to be expensive, and still not available for the general public. Although they give you a discounted price, provided you are a student, the discount is still really insubstantial.

EDIT 2:

Of course, one of the requirments of th group would be to listen to the indie game developers who have already done games using the tools that are available to the people at a lower price point, and ask what they'd like to see in the tools. If possible, the group should also accept these developers as members and let them improve the tools as well, without any social fighting.

Some thoughts on animation

2011-08-08T08:24:00.000-07:00

For some reason i cannot do anyting that's possible in cartoons, and in cartoons, anything's is possible. Yet for me, for my brain, it's unable to cope with that fact. I could draw anything i wanted, and it doesn't need to make sense. It's my sense of taste and the ambition of what i want to be able to do that gets in the way of just cutting loose and starting to do things. I can't concentrate. Even when i can do something, it's just about some weird ass character waving the hand, deleted before anyone sees it.

The timing is always wrong, i can't seem to get the pacing right. I got x-sheets, but they're still so hard to use. Why, i can't realise the fault that's within me. I just want to cut loose, and just start doing. Could using pen and paper help me? No idea, could, possibly. At least then you'll just be dependant on the exposures to you on the camera.

I've forgotten the hold, the act of showing 1 drawing for like 20 times before moving to the second one. I know that msot movements are done on Twos, but still, the timing goes off. So what can i do. What can i do to fix this sense of timing that i don't have. How can one get it? And how do i know what the timing should be when i don't even know what i want to animate. Maybe that's the problem, i lack idrection. I got no idea what i want to do, so i can't move forward with the animation.

But it doesn't have to be anything fancy. It doesn't have to be Disney level. It could just be something about a character appearing on screen, and then another turning in some weird ass manner and doing something weird. Yet...i can't do it. Something comes. Like a mental block, or emotional barrier. Dunno what it is, or how to get rid of it. Really wish i could get rid of it.

I've failed. All the software all the books all the art supplies i have cannot remove the fact that i don't have any good ideas or direction of what i should be doing. What SHOULD i be doing? should i e doing some animation tutorials like the bouncing ball or something else. I wish i could get some assistance so that i could make sense of this all.

What's so smart about a smartphone?

2011-08-07T03:45:00.001-07:00

I've been using my HTC feel for nearly two years now. During that time new phone models have come out that are loads better than this piece of veal I'm forced to use.

I get that this phone is more geared towards being an entry level phone. After all, it wad one of HTC's first android phones. But when it can't even keep up with my typing speed, you know that is a bad sign indeed.

So looks like I'll have to save up some money eu that I can afford to get a better phone. Thank god that the ZTE phones have arrived to Finland.

Thinking about sonic

2011-08-06T08:42:00.000-07:00

I remember a time when there were a lot of sprite comics that were mostly about shitty Sonic The Hedgehog re-colors. What struck me weird was that these comics were made after Sonic Adventure was released, meaning that the Shitty Generation Of Sonic was well under way. Still people thought that sonic was cool.

I admit that Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 weren't all THAT bad, although even those games had a lot of issues and errors. What i find weird is that even in this day, where sonic is just shitty games and in need of euthanasia, we're still seeing a lot of shitty sonic recolors as avatars for furries. Have not the furries realized that Sonic is shitty and passe? Also, isn't My Little Pony supposed to be your current obsession now?

I mean, there's not as much of those shitty sonic recolors as there were in the early 2000s, but still. Goddamn the amount of shitty sonic stuff. One wonders if Sega actually takes all this Sonic fancrap as a sign that there's still some kind of demand for making sonic games for those sad little people that continue to buy them.

Brain As a hard Drive

2011-07-30T04:49:00.001-07:00

Think of the brain as a hard drive. It stores everything you've ever encountered, seen, felt or experienced, whilst deleting the bad memories, or encrypting them into toxic zip packages that are still there, not let to run wild in the outside world.

If your brain doesn't get used, the seek time, the time it takes to remember workds and events goes higher. But if you're active in what you're doing, thinking, and noting, then the seek times stay low. Some people have been blessed with really low seek times. They can instantly recall everything that happened to them.

Modern Game Mistakes

2011-07-29T02:46:00.000-07:00

Note: These are my personal opinions

#1: Overly relying on Genres that have been done to death

#2: Lack of Experementation within the said genres.

#3: Unwillingness from publishers to take risks in the downloadable game arena

#4: Using hollywood stars as voice actors in hopes of getting more sales, especially if said actors are Sci-Fi stars.

#5: Treating fans as endless wallets that'll buy the stupidest, cosmetic things

#6: Not reaching out towards gifted indivituals with ideas on a large scale basis

#:7 Lack of common decency and alturism towards the treatment of customer (always On internet DRM, etc)

#8: Scrapping original ideas because of the fear of low sales

#9: Buying IP, and doing nothing with it.

#10: buying IP, making bastardised FPS versions of it.

Modern Animation Mistakes from 1 to 10

2011-07-29T02:34:00.000-07:00

#1: relying too much on Licensed songs instead of writing new ones.

#2: Letting the writers do Pop culture references, animation is no place for those

#3: Writers are considered more important than the artists and Visual Designers

#4: Using too much Rap and hip-hop music. It doesn't Age well.

#5: Trying to please both parents and kids with old methods. (Pop culture references, and modern music nods)

#6: Not taking risks with more adult stories and concepts. (Like an animated detective story)

#7: Relying on material that won't age well nor leave a lasting impression

#8: Too much focus on making profit, artistry is left on the backseat.

#9: Too much logic; in a cartoon you can and should do ANYTHING

#10: Characters don't do anything funny anymore, they just have attitude and snark.

Freewriting #1

2011-07-25T03:03:00.000-07:00

So, freewriting.

Just writing how i think and puttingi t on scren. Am i doing it right? Isn't this the same thing as stream of concuesnes? Do i need editing, spellchecking?

am i even meaning for other people to read this? Why am i doing this? Do i need validation?

Thinking about it too much again. But that's when it happens. No rules, need rules. Rules help me understand the context of it all. No free roaming, that's bad, i can't get anything done because i start tos weat over the details.

I hope that people will see this. Would be nice if i got some of that Flattr money. Been doing ok, really. Got 3.40, minus 2.00 that'll go to the means. And then i need to find some other things to Flattr. Might as well give back, i'll never make that 10 euros a month i need so i can take if off the account.

Why is it done like that, anyway? I mean, is it really impossible to pay less sums than 10 euros? is there some kind of weird fee involved, that if the amount is smaller than 10 euros, they won't pay it out for you? What if it's a paypal transfer? I know that Paypal accepts smaller donations, even if they just take a small fee of the transfer.

Not a programmer, though. Dunno what i should do about it. I mean, i think i need to advertise myself more. But how? If i just keep tweeting about my dashboard page, will people click on it?

That's what twitter needs, it needs to have some kind of stats thing, so i could see whether or not people are clicking my links. Or is there one already? No idea, maybe i should take a look at the settings.

Bitly is starting to annoy me. Sure, there's the stats thing, but it's kinda obfuscated (whatever that means).

Have i written enough yet? Will people read this? Again, no way of knowing.... Think i had inbedded the google analytics thing on this page though, not sure. Should check it out. Why is it so hard. I mean, why can't i do it? I'm being honest here. Semes like the most of the flattr donations go to software and some stupid ass hipster projects. Do i need to get some kind of fucking fixie bike and start taking photos of myself pissing on my landmarks? Could i get money then?

I wish someone would tell me what i need to do in order to get more flattr clicks. I'd give back, of course, that's alturism. I'm so depressed. Heck, if i could even get 100 euros that would help me to pay off a month of my student dept, then i could save 200 euros from that month towards a new desktop pc. Gah, i'm starting to get ennoyed at that pidgin thing.

Think i'm doing this raw. Not sure, are these my raw thoughts?

Should i add the link for context, would peoople read it. It's So hard, but i got to take a mental bread.

Fancy this javascript, i cna open a new tab and that web link window stays open. Good to know.

What else. It's always like this. I get this feeling like i should change, but i never do. I go to sleep, reset, and then i feel OK in the morning. This isn't right.

Might as well try. No one will give me money though: FlattrMe

Meh, might as well go watch the latest episode of The PRotector.

need to practise more.

Gonzo Writing: Xbox Live is sick and biassed

2011-07-02T08:26:00.001-07:00

XBLIG is Sick and biassed

After i had created my fake account, and added points from a rebutable UK seller, things had started to go well. I saw in front of me the Godly Lists, that would determine if your game was a success, or merely a flash in the pan journalistic fodder. I had heard from the lists of course, their well-being was of the utmost importance to the people who dared to dip their toes into the seas of mediocre Super Mario Bros. rip-offs and screensaver “applications”. This was the Xbox Live Indie Games channel, a place where a man could find kicks for a dollar, as well gems that were not yet discovered by the lightning fast hipsters of the electronic era. All from the lists, no one dared to go to the archives. The non-curated wasteland where games went to die if they didn’t manage to sell high enough numbers to occupy the spaces that the Holy Lists were divided into.

My friend told me that the channel was known of the people who made games for it. Highly intelligent people, who were being forced to police the service themselves, the corporate overlords at Microsoft had long since stopped caring about the service. Sure they featured it when they thought it was good PR, but in the reality, the channel was upheld by those who believed at the chance of making a living by the service alone. From what i could see, this was true. People were trying hard to make good games, and not just another massage apps. However, if you dared to criticize the massage apps people still tend to get angry. I know, it happened to me once.

After reminiscing, i started to weigh in my options. I had been frugal enough to save 80 points for the service, that would’ve netted me one game of the most cheapest caliber. LaserCat had been in the news lately. An exploration based platformer that also took breaks between the levels to quiz you about the various curry dishes found around the UK restaurants. I took the plunge and bought the game.

Because of the size restrictions that microsoft had mandated on the games, the game downloaded fairly quickly. After that, it was time to turn it on and to play it, and by god did i play it. I played it for 8 hours straight. Wondering through the quizzes and the levels held within this neon coloured dream. The levels were tricky, sure. But the enjoyment that came from solving them proved to be essential to continue with the game.

It still amazes me why did Microsoft choose to downplay the service. If anything else, it served to advertise their operating system as well as the various technologies they had developed around Xbox, not least of them being XNA, a gaming platform library that allowed the creators to create games both for the Windows and the Xbox platform. It seemed like Microsoft had a good idea: open the console up to a point where regular people can create games for the platform, using the technologies that you had created. Yet the service wasn’t as good as it needed to be. There was no communication with the people inside Microsoft towards the developers. And when the lists broke, Microsoft took it’s sweet time to fix them. In the mean time, the developers were pleading Microsoft for support and leaving angry messages at AppHub, the central of XNA, XBLIG and all other technologies within their ionosphere. I flet their pain, i really did. Here was a platform that had penetrated the marketplace well, being the number one bought console in the United states, as well as a big seller in Europe. Yet the service wasn’t released all around.

Because of the nature of the service, there were problems with releasing it worldwide. Tax laws, ratings, parent watchdog groups and Microsoft’s inability to spread the service to more countries. To people like me, this wasn’t a big hurdle: just create an alternative xbox user account using UK based address and stuff. Points could be bought online, or via PayPal. So they’d have no money trail.

What was clear to me, was that the service might be big. It had the chance of being the first service that truly democratized the game market place, letting people with sufficient skills to make games and release them to a worldwide audience. But because of the negligence of Microsoft, the plan hadn’t worked. The service was available in the bigger European markets sure, but the people with the most passionate gamers were left out to dry. We would still need to wait for the hopeful rays of the Microsoft sun, waiting for the service to get the attention it sorely needed, and to finally be released worldwide.

Gonzo Writing: Good People Drink Good Beer

2011-07-02T08:25:00.001-07:00

Good People Drink Good Beer
Written by Leo Loikkanen

I was waiting for my brother to arrive, reading Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas in the meantime. Interesting book, gave inspiration to cover this event that happened in lahti. My brother called me and said that the Big Beers, Small Breweries event was held at the Lahti harbor again, this year. He said that he’d be willing to give me some funding, provided that i’d pay it back, and i could join them to the even and enjoy some beer that you couldn’t really get anywhere else. So i agreed. I thought it might be fun to go to the event this year, seeing that i was sober and alert enough to know when it was being held. I arrived a bit too early sure, but it also gave me time to visit the library and get a small book to read, to pass the time in the scorching hot sun of the Finnish Summer. My skin felt hot, but only by the side of my face. Most of my body was covered behind the beer tent that was erected smackdown in the middle of the walk way.

I had too late to get inside for free. But for some reason, i didn’t mind it that much. I knew that i wouldn’t have any cash to get the glass deposit, so i just sat around. My brother arrived pretty fast though, with his girlfriend in tow. We went in, got our glasses, and wait straight to the Hollola Hirvi brewery tent. it was around 18:30 on a Thursday night so not that many people were at the event just yet. But as always it was clear that there was that one horrible, loud sweating pig beast of a man, whose voice always rose above the others, making the obnoxious bastard well known to the people around him.But i wasn’t that concerned, i didn’t think that we’d need to sit close to the guy. Besides, he wasn’t being that aggressive, just the type of a guy that couldn’t really handle his volume in outside event.

My brother, his girlfriend and I were lucky enough to get nice seats in the shade. As we sat down, my brother took out his little review book, and with gusto, started to review his beer, there. On the spot. He’d turn into a beer snob, and i had no idea how that had happened. That was only one of the reasons that we came to the festival. It was the reason that he’d get to drink beers that weren’t normally available around the Lahti area, and thus, he’d get to write about new things that no one else had written about. For me, it was more about tasting and experiencing new beers, and hanging out with my homies. I never was a beer snob really. Sure, after my mother had instituted a 4 beer limit per month, i thought that i might as well go to alko and get the fancy stuff instead. That too got me into the More craftier type of beer. Beer from Flying Dog, Brew dog, as well as Plevna, a very prestigious brewery located in Finland.

Thank god i came around after 12:00. The sun had started to set, so the heat wasn’t as unbearable as it had been a few hours ago. But the heat was still on. I had the constant feeling of moistness in my fingertips. I was getting tired. Good thing that i had keeping drinking water between the bears, lord knows what would’ve happened to me otherwise. It wasn’t even the heat that was getting to me. It was the lack of wind, the lack of moving the heat around. It pressed down on us, stagnated above us. Even in the tents, in the shades. The heat was getting everywhere, and the food stands located nearby weren’t helping.
Who could eat in this kind of weather? Who were these people, these older gentlemen who too, seemingly shared a deep fondness for alcohol. These weren’t just your average hobos. These clearly were someone who’d seen the world evolve around them. They remembered the times when the beers you saw at the local supermarket weren’t just being made by one lone brewery around the Lahti area. And they loved beer, this was evident. These were the people who believed that the small breweries around Finland were the ones that could possibly raise the Finnish beer culture to whole new levels. No more writing about wine, and drinking some high falutin’ food, whilst the missus was trying to get upward with the cultural circles. No, these people wanted good old fashioned, non-complicated food, that they could eat with proper Finnish beer. And Finnish beer was the only kind that was being served at this event. No forgein muck in sight.

It’s sad how the two big breweries got hold of the smaller ones around Finland. Many people started to lament about it when the beers they knew and loved were stopped to being produced. Slowly the beers started to taste the same as well. There wasn’t any distinction between the flavours. It was all the same recipe, the advertising being the only thing that might have set them apart. Not any longer. All the nuances the beers used to have were taken away to create a flavour neutral profile. You couldn’t taste anything, even if you wanted to. And if you did taste something, you usually wished that you hadn’t. Alko had fixed the situation somewhat. It had started to invest in beers both from foreign market and domestic, that actually tasted like something. It seemed like 2009-2010 was the beginning of the rise in smaller brewery products in the Alko lineup. But still, the domestic market was sadly under represented. Sure there was some stuff that was fit to be sold, but because of the logistics and the difficulties of getting your product into alko, the domestic product was limited to a handful of breweries. And even whilst it’s possible to move products between the retail outlets, the most special domestic products would not be moved from the speciality shop in Arkadia. This too hindered the reputation of Finnish beer.

I was getting too tired, too tired to be here. The alcohol was starting to take it’s toll on me. Combined with the heat i made the decision to go back home. Of course, i had to eat, and we knew that a good barbeque place was near us. So we went there, staggering.
“let’s run”, my brother said. “we need the exercise”. I took a few running steps, but i had to stop “goddamn it, i can’t do it, there’s something wrong with my stomach”. “Spoilsport”, he replied. “you got to get moving man, to burn the alcohol off”. I gave him an evil glance. “you can run all you want, but I just can’t, man. The beer’s getting to me and it hurts to even jog”. He grunted something and decided it was a good idea to walk, after all.

I won’t bore you with the rest of the details. We got food and ate it. And it was good. Then we went back at the festival. We were joined by my brother’s girlfriend’s family, who too were there to get some rare beer, as it were. I told my brother that this would be my last one. I wanted to get home, and i still had a podcast to do. He said that it was ok. We’d decided beforehand, that the last place we’d get some beer was the Saimaa Brewery. We felt that our hometown (Lappeenranta) heritage demanded some kind of proper closure from this festival. This proved to be a fine solution. I got my self some proper ESB, and my brother got some fancy kind. We sat down and talked some more.

After finishing the beer, i kept my promise and left. There was no reason for me to be there anymore. I didn’t feel like having any more beer, and the crowd was getting kinda drunk. Including the loud obnoxious guy somewhere in the rear. I left with a smile on my face. It was a good thing to get out of the house, even in this heat. I felt that i had filled some kind of social necessity and it was always fun to hang around with my brother, after all. I did wonder a few things about the festival when i went home. What was stopping the breweries from making lower ABV products for general consumption? Their products had flavour, character, hell they even had bodies. Was the Finnish population so gotten used to the bland mass produced beer that the bers that were made with love had no chance of penetrating the marketplace. Was alko to blame? How about the taxation of the alcohol?

I didn’t have the answers then, and i sure as hell don’t have them now.

Grr....

2011-06-22T04:58:00.000-07:00

One of the things I dislike, is the trend that the Tech Elite are spouting at the youth:

"Don't go to college, learn HTML and JavaScript, start a tech company, then sell it".

I do understand that there's a need of innovation in america, and the internet is a great enabler for the youth of today to do so. But does it mean that every kid needs to do a start up? Shouldn't the kids themselves decide what they like to do and pursue that in life, even though the tech elite might not approve of it?

Also, there seems to be this great worry that there's no programming being taught in schools. I agree that there should be more programming taught, even if it's just about making games. But of course, by making the course about making games, it's easier to motivate the kids to learn programming as well as keep it up. But I do wish that the elite wouldn't go so far as to dictate what they feel the kids should learn.

There's no pressing need to take programming back to the schools though. With the internet, and communities like the Ubuntu community, I feel that any kid with passion to learn, and with the strong will of making it, will be able to learn to program on his own, and even start up a small company. Teaching programming in schools does offer an environment where there's proper structure to the learning of the subject material, but there's also structure in Wikis and books.

Sorry, i just had to get this off my chest.

Idea for introduction of a gay character in a video game.

2011-06-10T09:31:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: i welcome dialogue why this method might not be such a good idea. But it seemed pretty original when i thought about it.

So I was thinking about how to introduce a gay character in a game in a way that might surprise people in a positive light.

I was thinking of this 3rd person mystery solving game, where you play either as a male or a female agent, solving crimes and shooting bad guys. The idea was that during the game the agent's phone would ring, and the agent in question would always answer it and talk to whoever it was on the phone. Other idea was to make the phone vibrate on text messages, which would offer hints when the agent reads them out loud and responds to them.

As the game passes the messaging would get a bit more intimate, letting the players conclude that the person who texts and calls the agent is in fact his significant other, that is to say, his or her's partner. As the game would end, the final cutscene would show the agent getting home, and then pulling the camera back to reveal that the person he cuddled next to was of the same sex as the agent him/herself. This would reveal a new aspect of the agent's character and reveal something in a surprising manner.

Now, is this a good idea or not? Please give me feedback, but keep in mind that this idea came to me as a potential solution.

Death Of A Supermarket

2011-05-15T06:45:00.000-07:00

I remember when the new Euromarket opened. There were a lot of people, and the queues easilly reached the backwall of the shop. It was new, exciting, and utterly fantastic. IT started as a mainly grocery store, that also sold some media like Video games, CDs, some technology, as well as gardening appliances and glassware. It was the first real supermarket at Kauppakatu, after the S market had folded and the Citymarket wasn't still rennovated.

The old Euromarket was in a building on the other side of the street. The one shop that's still open at that location, that was the first to be there, is Hong Kong. There were other shops there as well. Musta Pörssi, Power and even FilmTown at one point. Now, there's a shop that sells clothers for various job purposes. Hong Kong is still there.

But speaking of Euromarket, when going to the building today, it's easy to see that it's dying. Citymarket and S Market are taking people away from euromarket and it's various loyalty schemes. What was once a great store, and a marvel of architechture is now lingering around, still serving those few customers that feel like they can shop well in there. Mum told me that they're planned to close Euromarket after the year's end, which will, for more or for less, end a certain period in commerce in lahti. There's been rumours that the Pharmaceutical and various stores selling clothes will stay, but there's not yet been information that will happen to the space that Euromarket occupied. Some people have said that it'll be divided, and smaller stores will spring up in it's place, but i feel that scenario to be most unlikely.

To be fair, it's a great location, and it deserves to act as a place where people can get food and stuff. I wouldn't be suprised if the area was transformed to be an S Market or something, seeing as the only place to buy food after Euromarket disappears will be Citymarket.

It's kinda funny when you think about it. As Euromarket is getting ready to die, there's suddenly more space to move around it. As they separate the stuff, and decrease the volume of products, less space is needed. Prices are still pretty high, but i think that the Clearance Sale they'll have in the end will be faboulous. I don't know why it started to die. was it because there just weren't enough people to go there to get their stuff, or did Citymarket with it's recent rennovation and better selection drive people away from the comforts of Euromarket? We might never know.

Why indie Developers should use Flattr.

2011-05-10T03:20:00.000-07:00

Flattr is this new micropayment service, that has the goal of awarding people who make stuff, or give stuff out for free. It was founded by Peter sunde, one of the original members of The Pirate Bay. Now. Let me explain how it works:

You register to Flattr.com. After this, you can choose to put a small monthly ammount of money to your flattr account, or not (the minimum ammount of money is 2 euros). After you've done this, you submit stuff to the flattr system, may it be a game that you give out for free, or articles from your personal blog. Now, after this, people are able to flattr you, and give you money for the things that you do. Because all the money is divided per the button the user clicks, you need a fair ammount of flattrs to make some real cash money.

Why should you use it then?

I feel that the low barrier to entry (i mean 2 euros a month isn't that bad) helps people make more micropayments, thus eliminating the need of doing paypal donations and the such like. Of course, because the money is divided between the clicks that the lone user make, i understand that indies must work bit harder to make money out of flattr. But the upside of all this is that people can just click on stuff that they like. It also removes the "buyer's remorse" aspect some people might get when they do PayPal donations.

It doesn't cost you anything

As Of May 1st, Flatter removed the prequisite of having people put 2 euros a month in order for them to let other users to flattr them. This means, that you don't have to pay ANYTHING to use flattr, or to get money from it! Isn't that great!?

Personal Experiences

I've been using Flattr on my webcomic, and thus far have only recieved 2 flattrs, which i think will get somewhere around 0.02 cents. But it didn't cost me anything to set up, nor do i have to commit giving them money. They chose to let new users to register without having to commit into putting 2 euros a month to their account, because they want the service expand like wildfire.

Also, supporting flattr on your site gives the user more choice in the matter of donation. If they think that your stuff is super awesome, they'll give you larger PayPal dontion. If they're not sure how much to give, they'll just press the Flattr button provided that they themselves have put money to their account.

I mean come on, it's always worth a try.

setup an account at Flattr.com

Art For A Dollar Project

2011-04-14T03:30:00.000-07:00

ANOTHER IMPORTANT UPDATE THAT SHALL OVERSHADOW THE PREVIOUS UPDATE WITH IT'S UPDATENESS:

I now have a GALLERY that features all the past commissions that people wanted me to draw. The link is BELOW:

THIS IS THE LINK TO THE GALLERY

IMPORTANT UPDATE:

I am NOT part of the ongoing Valve Portal 2 ARG Game. This is merely my PERSONAL ATTEMPT into getting money so i can buy portal 2.

Friends, countrymen and all the hipsters, lend me your ears!

As you may know, Portal 2 is getting released next week. Now, because i'm unemployed, i could by it at the 50 euro price point, but then i'd have less money on necessities like food and clothing. Yesterday evening i got an idea: I would draw pictures for people who pay me a dollar to do so. Luckilly, the twitter user @chrisError was nice enough to take me up on this chance, and dutifully asked me to draw something for him.

This is what i drew:

Chris was kind enough to pay me 1 pound sterling, which means that i am now 49 commissions away from getting Portal 2.

As you can see on the right, there is a PAYPAL BUTTON! YAY! Please accept my bullet point presentation how YOU TOO can give me a dollar for some art:

Press donate button
Donate 1 dollar
In the text field, Write what you want drawn, and your email/Twitter handle (I don't use facebook)
If you'd like COLOUR ART, that will cost 2 dollars. In the text field, write what you want drawn plus email/twitter username
After the picture is drawn, i'll email/@reply you with the link, so you can download the piece of personalized art.
Please, don't ask me to draw smut/porno. I just don't want to draw anything like that.
Note that i do the line art for app the art using real ink and brush. I then touch them up and colour them in using Pixelmator and my trusty Computer.
If you'd like the art to be licensed under Creative Commons Attribute, please say so. Otherwise, no problem. We'll work something out with the bean counters.

Some Words about Quality:

I do all the line art using real ink and brush. I Do colour them in using a computer
For some weird reason, even when my arm is fully supported, my hand shakes when i use the brush. This will show up on the artwork, as some lines have wavy edges. I have no idea what causes this, or how to fix it.
I use 600 DPI, but i downsize them to about 800 high. If you want the finished artwork to be bigger, please give the desired dimensions in the PayPal Comment

So that's that then. Yeah. We're Done here.

So, with a nokia again.

2011-04-05T12:36:00.000-07:00

So i'm using a nokia cellphone again. Not that difficult really, although i needed to re-learn a lot of things that i'd forgotten to use when i've been using my HTC Hero.

The dudes said that the phone would be taken to Helsinki for about 2 weeks. After that, i have no idea if i get a HTC Hero back, or a better device. The dude said that they're gonna wipe it clean, so that's cool too,

Nice times with HTC Hero

2011-04-03T01:43:00.000-07:00

I noted that there was a new update for the HTC Hero, via it's over the air update service. Being a nice boy, i updated my phone.

After updating, i realised that i cannot get past the initial Hero screen.

Now, i need to take my phone to the resellers to get it repaired or put into recovery mode, so that i may use it once again. Really lovely.

Good thing that dad has an Nokia E95 that he was able to give me as a loaner. Yeah.

How To Use LifeMaster With Astrid.

2011-03-20T06:05:00.000-07:00

Well. i gots to tell you, i've been thinking a lot more about LifeMaster and how i could use it without any programming skills. Well, here i have a small idea how to do it, but adding the exp, and leveling up still happens on paper. Here are the guidelines

Assigning tasks to aspects:

Well this is pretty easy. Before you write what the task is about, you write a capital letter.
Variables:
B = Body
M = Mind
S = Soul

Example:

B Go for a 9 kilometre walk 15EXP

After you've completed that task, you add the exp on paper, and tell what you gained it from

Tags:

I realised that there's a need for tasks, as well as random encounters. Tasks can be used along with the Variables to detonate to which aspect gets the exp. here is the Tag list that i've composed thus far:

# = You realised you got to do a task, but you can't do it until you arrive home, like There's a mountain of dishes you got to wash when you get home.
! = You completed a task whilst traveling, like Filling the gas tank
/ = Random Encounter, you did something that gave you EXP while you were out (like, for example, helped granny across the road).

Example:
/S Helped an old lady across the road 20 EXP
/M Gave tourist directions to the nearest hotel 10 EXP
#B Remember the daily 5 pushups 20 EXP

With these tags, i can list stuff on my Todo list on my cellphone, whilst still using paper to keep track of tasks that i've completed. Sadly, i still need to build some kind of an app that would let me keep track of my levels and EXP.

Aslo, there was a quest Tag. I'll try to explain it as i envisioned it.
Q = this means the quest you're on.
QMS = this is the milestone. Under the milestone are tasks. like thus:

Q1MS1: M Look for employers 15EXP
Q1MS1: M Call Employers
Q1MS2: B go to employer interviews

Do you understand? it's a bit hokey still...

Anyway, these are the improvements i've made to LifeMaster as it excists.

LifeMaster: gamified motivational manager and todo list.

2011-03-18T04:35:00.000-07:00

I have been reading Jane McGonigal's "Reality Is Broken". It's a book about how gamifying things and tasks would help to make the world a better place, and i got to say, 25% in (I'm reading it on Kindle), i'm really interested and inspire by her writings. The chapter where she tells the reader about the time that she had an concussion, and subsuquently designed a game around it, called SuperBetter, actually managed to inspire me to do a clone of the iPhone app EpicWin. I call it LifeMaster, but it's much more than just a Todo List. It's also a motivational helper. Let Me Explain:

Tasks.

There are four types of tasks in LifeMaster:

Daily Tasks: Stuff you do daily, low Exp, but they'll help you to get a sense that you're doing something each day.

Timed Tasks: Tasks with a due date. Offer higher exp, but aren't assigned by the player that often. These can also be assigned to you by other people

Special Tasks: These are rare tasks, and they offer High Exp. These can only be assigned to you by other players. Think of them as doing a favour to the person that assigned them to you.

Quests: Quests are formed of many tasks, that are building towards something. Like, let's say getting a job. For Get Employed Quest, the Tasks inside might be: Find Possible employers, Send CV to possible employers, Go To Interviews, Get Hired. In quests, completing a small task will give the player some exp, and completing the whole of the quest will give a big ammount of exp.

Areas of Assignment.

I thought that making tasks assignable to different parts of the human mental and physical life, might give some idea of where you're good and where you sohuld do more work.

I've put Mind, Body and Soul as the areas where Tasks can be assigned.

Mind

Tasks that are assigned to mind are usually about some kind of cognitive reasoninng or so on. These tasks will utilise your mind, and motivate you to spend more time taking care of your mental health as well as your intellectual facilities

Body

Tasks that are assigned to body are about doing hard and light labor. Like shoveling snow, taking out the trash, or just going for a walk. Tasks assigned to body are meant to make you feel good physically, and to improve your health. Tasks here are also about physical well being.

Soul

This is a tricky one. I thought that tasks that are assigned to soul are more about doing stuff that you like to do. Like, playing video games, writing, or doing something else that gives you a good feeling, in your brain and in your body. As such, i am not that clear on what kind of tasks really fit to this criteria.... This is sort of the Misc. section of the tasks.

But what does this have to do with motivation?

Well i'm glad you asked! The idea is that, the more tasks the person does given to each property, the LifeMaster would then show the player that he's leveling up, or improving attributes that are within himself. If a person's body level is high, we can assume that his Body Mass Index is in the AWESOME region, and that he's living a healthy life. If his Mind attribute is high, we can assume that his intellectual facilities are sharp as ever, and that we don't have to get dementia medication anytime soon. High soul level would indicate that the player's mental and internal well being are ok. The person might not possess much, but he's doing something that he likes to do, and that brings him internal happiness.

What about the assigned tasks?

Well, i was thinking that LifeMaster would be a smartphone client, as well as a social web kinda thing. People within your social LifeMaster circle would be able to give you tasks that would then arrive to your phone, or to your email, letting you know that a quest/task has been assigned to you. This would also help people to do tasks that aren't about them, but that would contribute to the common good, within the household let's say. This aspect was inspired by the Chore Wars ARG.

Are you going to do this?

Sadly i lack the programming skills to make this happen. If i would make this, however, i'd offer it as a free webapp for people that don't own iPhones, and thus can't get EpicWin.

Of course, now that i've explained my idea here, I'm totally ok if people want to go ahead and make this happen, provided that a) the client will support Android 2.1 on HTC Hero, and b) If possible, make it open source. and c) Give me some credit, damnit!

What about Rewards?

Virtual Goods and coupons that would get you discounts when you're downloading the smartphone app. And the only way to get coupons would be to complete assigned tasks.

EDIT:

About paying for the SmartPhone client: There would also be a free version, the paid version would be to raise some funding for the project, mainly to upkeep the server costs. Both versions would have the same functionality, without any ads or anything. Also, when you buy the paid version, it'll also give you 3 passes for the paid version, that you could give to your family and friends :D

Of course, the person who paid for the app, would get a Shiny Gold Star on the corner of the screen, as a sign of their patronage.

EDIT 2:

Explaining the web interface thing

The web interface in this thing, is supposed to be this status page, that would show other people what level you are, what you have been doing, and how much exp you've gotten for a day. The idea is, that you can form "Parties", that consist of your family and friends. These people can see your Profile and Assign you tasks. Then there are NPCs. These are people that are not part of your Party, so they cannot assign you tasks, but they CAN search and see your profile if you so wish.

The idea here too, is that you could broadcast to Twitter/FaceBook/diaspora if you've leveled up, or gotten EXP, and also for people to see if you're working hard, and contributing to your internal happiness. Also this way, people could keep an eye on you, if you are creating trivial tasks, just to level up faster. (Which should be frowned upon, really).

Edit 3:

My friend, Scott Lawrence (BleuLlama, Yorgle on Twitter) expanded on my idea further

EDIT 4:

I drew up a mock up of the GUI WARNING: 4.2 MEg Image

Well, i think that i've explained my idea pretty well enough. And look! I just earned 40 Exp to my Mind attribute! Go me :D

Old Man Murray

2011-03-14T09:55:00.000-07:00

After the debacle with the Old Man Murray entry being deleted from Wikipedia i noted that i started to re-read it, trying to understand just what made it so influential. Needless to say, that as a current generation gamer, i didn't really understand why the industry was so afraid of it in it's heyday. But it is funny. Lord knows it's funny. I liked it even more when i learned that the dudes who wrote OMM are now employed by Valve, and worked on things like Left 4 Dead, and the original Portal, as well as Portal 2: Warp Harderer: The Game.

Of course, it's been a bit suffered with time. Sure the jokes were relevant when they were written, but most of the things that were written about don't really seem so relevant anymore. Like the Crate thing. No longer do we see crates stacked in the levels, promoting the lack of ideas from the level designers. (If anything, the appearance of a crate in a game that's hugely hyped, is a reminder of the people that "we aren't so original anymore! CHECK OUT THE LIGHTING! YARG)

However, the intelligent writing that was featured on the site did give me some inspiration to hone my writing skills again. As you've seen, this humble blog has started to raise from the grave, like a festering dirt child, eager to suck on mommy's brains. After brutal murder death. Anyway, I think that among other things that my massive mindbrainmeat has latched itself onto, i might even write a thing or two about games, like any attention seeking, half witted idiot boy with a microphone, although i'll be sparing my angelic, cheesegrater voice for the elites.

For a generic, attention seeking sign off: Look forward for much hilarity.

I'm going to wash my hands off this dirt. IT CLINGS.

mini-Rant: Why i don't like stranglehold

2011-03-10T03:57:00.000-08:00

Strangehold was a game made in 2007 by midway entertainment for the Xbox360. It's pretty famous for having John Woo tied into it, working with Chew Yon Fat. Now, i am going to write a mini-rant here, based on my experiences with playing it, and suffering with the bad game design.

It starts ok enough, there's a pretty linear level with some gunfighting and stuff, that's pretty cool and with a boss fight in the end. Sadly though, the game then devolves into these IDIOTIC Find number Of Xs and Blow them up. Not fun at all man. Now, i've gotten to the level where you're righting in this giant music hall and you got to keep some of these musicians alive. In that point i just said, "Fuck it" and turned the console off. I got NO NEED NOR WANT to suffer through another moronic escort-like mission where i'm not supposed to shoot my guns for crying out loud.

I think that Stranglehold had a great opportunity to be a great game, but it's been severely hindered by the find X and blow up X type missions in the SECOND LEVEL. Now, i'm pretty sure that i'm able to keep the musicians alive, but goddamn.

Also, i suffered through some hardship, as sometimes it was very unclear what i was supposed to shoot so that the platforms would move and that i could the progress.

Seriously, Stranglehold is an example of a 90s type extended fetch quest game (Like Resident Evil: Code Veronica, it was a chained fetch quest with some combat thrown in) on a modern console. The visuals etc. are pretty neat, but the poor mission/gameplay design just removes all traces of fun that i had in level one.

End of mini rant.

gaming as an experience

2011-03-07T07:55:00.001-08:00

After i got the Xbox360 connected to the internet, i started to note that i bought a lot more of downloadable games than AAA titles. One of the reasons for me doing so was that the downloadable games were generally much cheaper than the games that you could get from the stores, and i didn't really have to leave my home to get the games so that i could come back home and play them. Of course, this didn't mean that the games would offer me deep experiences. For me, the Downloadable games were mostly about buying games to fill a certain kind of empty void that i had. I was bored and i was pretty bad with money, so i generally bought a lot of bad downloadable games that i really didn't enjoy, simply because i could, and i hoped that they'd offer me some time off from the constant boredom that i experienced on a daily basis.

Of course, now when i do buy myself a AAA game, i consider it a treat. Although most AAA games are pretty expansive, i can concentrate on them well enough, so that i can play the game through in a weekend (as I did when i had loaned Bioshock 1 from a friend.) after which i sell them to get my money back. This doesn't mean that i don't enjoy the game though. Indeed, the last AAA Title that i played (Enslaved: A Journey to the west, xbox360) i felt that i got a proper experience out of it. I enjoyed the story it told, and was interested in the story so much so, that i never felt a need to skip the cutscenes (unless they were played after i died and had already seen them).

It's struck to me, that i enjoy AAA titles more. As i don't buy them that often, I precieve them differently. Sure they're consumable goods, but they're so rare and so few between, that every AAA title i get, to me, is always an interesting and a new experience. After this observation, i started to think about the following question:

Would we enjoy AAA titles more, if there weren't so many of them released a given year?

It's safe to say that th number of AAA titles, as well as A and AA titles have increased since the 80s. It's also safe to say, that gamers that grew up in the 80s, who are now part of the working force, or play games as a profession, have more time to spend playing all the new titles that are coming out each month. But does this overabundace of games diminish our ability to enjoy them? This is something that i would like to get an answer for.

I dare to say that the more time you have to spend to AAA titles diminishes our ability to enjoy them. The more we play them, the more we see these games as a commodity product, a perception that hurts the reviewers ability to judge games, and gamers' ability to enjoy them and give us their honest opinion.

Any thoughts?

Being at home is wonderful

2011-02-28T10:46:00.000-08:00

Me and my mother enjoy traveling and doing stuff outside of the house we live in. We also happen to live 3 kilometres away from the city centre, so there's always a journey we need to take, so that we may reach our destination, whether it's just buying a few bottles of wine, or doing the weekly groceries. But for some reason, as much as we enjoy being outside of the house, we also love coming back home and just relaxing. I've noted that everytime i come home, even if it's just from the store, I marvel how lovely it is just to be at home, and not really do anything out of the ordinary.

My mother agrees with me, there's something fun coming to a peaceful home, even if the trips to the store aren't really that stressing. Yet, everytime we return from the store, one of us will shout to the other "it's so wonderful to be at home!" But why do we enjoy being home so much?

I've noted that if i don't get enough excercise and just spend the whole day at home, i can get pretty antsy. This doesn't feel good, because then, i am really impatient for the rest of the evening. I'll walk around the apartment, lacking the ability to concentrate on anything for long periods of time. This is the flip side of the coin. I enjoy being home, because it's calm and pretty safe, yet I don't enjoy being inside the home for the whole day. It just makes me feel really impatient.

Travel too. I enjoy seeing new places, and being away from home, as it gives me new experiences i wouldn't have, if i just stayed indoors all the time. Of course, there are things related to travel (Like the lack of your own bed, which is always the most comfortable bed to sleep in), that also make me enjoy my home more when i get back. It's fun to stay in hotels, but sleeping in them, and the breakfast (along with many other variables) always take something away, that only the home can offer.

I noted on my recent trip to Turku, that the things i missed about my home life were mainly about the structure regarding to breakfast, and the ability to use my mac to surf the web whilst drinking some beers. Near the end of the trip, i realised that i wasn't really enjoying my beer, as i didn't have my computer in front of me. This meant, that i drank abit faster, without really enjoying what i had to drink. I drank so that i would have something to do, something that i would precieve as being 'fun'.

At home, i would've gotten a couple of bottles of 'the good stuff', and just watch stuff on YouTube, whilst talking to my friends on IRC at the same time. Sadly, in Turku this wasn't possible. Also, one of the things that brought me joy, was the ability to have coffee whenever i felt like it. (I suffer from slight caffeine addiction, so i'm really watchful over my coffee intake (if i don't get any, i'll get headaches)) That too was one of the small wonders of being home.

There is something cool about staying home, even when you don't got anything to do. It's during those moments that you can relax, have a cup of coffee and just marvel at how fantastic staying at home can sometimes be.

Ommwriter 2 thoughts.

2011-02-22T04:17:00.001-08:00

So. I went and bought myself ommwriter Dana 2. At the low low price of 4 euros, i think that i made a solid deal on this one. Of course, the problem is that there's all the little options that hinder my concentration, as there's so much stuff to explore. Then again, it's pretty interesting that once i find the settings that i really enjoy, i tend to stick with those, and never look back. The thing that i really enjoy, are the sounds that come out from the keys when i press them. With the option of there only being around 7 sounds to choose from, i feel that it's enough for me to find a proper sound, and then get back to writing.

You might be asking yourself, "Why did he spend 4 euros on something trivial?". Well, I tried the Dana 1 version and thought that it was a proper piece of writing software. As i told you before, i've always had the problem of finding proper music to play as I write. Yes, i tried jazz, rock and roll and many other genres, but i felt that i never really found any sort of music that would help me write. The music in ommwriter is on a loop, but then again, it's designed to be soothing, helping you relax, whilst you put your innermost thoughts on virtual paper.

Of course, once you've set your working environment in Dana 2, you really don't need to go back to the settings unless you want to explore some more. My advice is that you first take some time to explore the settings and see what combination fits you the best. After that, just write, let yourself go.

I hope that with Dana 2, i'll do more writing to this blog. Macjournal was great, but it didn't help me concentrate, nor motivate myself to writing the things that i really wanted to write about. I'd get impatient, waiting for the writing to be over, so that i could do more interesting things with my time. This caused my posts to be kinda slipshod and a bit poor as well. And as a result, i wouldn't get that many hits to the blog.

I'm not sure if i'm going to do a scheduled writing to the blog from now on, but I've decided that it might be more productive if i started to write when i felt that i had something good to write about, just like the post you're reading now.

Again, if you're interested about the Ommwriter Dana 2, the Ommwriter Dana 1 is free on the Ommwriter site. You'll have to give them your email address, so that they may send you the download link for the software, but after that, you shouldn't experience any problems with downloading the software. I did it, and the folks at Ommwriter didn't send me any spam after downloading the software.

One word of warning: sadly the Ommwriter doesn't come with a built in spellchecker, so you'll need to do that in some other piece of software. Luckily Ommwriter DOES SAVE stuff on the RTF format, so spellchecking with Word or other such pieces of software is pretty easy.

Right, i've written over 500 words, so i guess this is a good point to stop.

Ommwriter Dana 1 review

2011-02-16T10:56:00.001-08:00

Writing, it doesn't come easy to me. For some reason, i find that it's pretty hard for me to get things done, as writing, by itself tends to be a bit boring. Of course, writing is the most simple way to convey ideas to other people, but it depends on the ability to concentrate, as well as the inspiration to do. One of the things that i'm wondering about Ommwriter, is that do these effects really help me concentrate, or do the just hinder my ability to get down to the writing at hand?

Just looking at the settings and stuff does take something away from the act of writing, as well as hinder the ability to get things done. Then again, now i do not need music to be playing in the background as i work, because now, Ommwriter provides me with enough audal cues to keep me writing, even if it's just making small sounds everytime I hit a key. Then again, i enjoy hearing something when i press a key. I also note that I can type better without looking at the keyboard.

Writing seems to be more fun now, and i can't really understand why. Still, the music is sooting and so are the sounds that they keys make as I write more letters on screen. The only thing that i can see that stops me from writing, is the need to stop for a moment and think about what i am going to write next. Yet no other stimuli seem to have an effect on me.

It's nice of the Ommwriter team to offer Dana I as a free download. Dana II is on the Mac App Store, and offers more visual and audal cues to the writing. It's super simple to use, and the soothing music playing in the background encourages me to write more, even when i feel that a piece is already written. Being smart, you are able to turn off the music and they key noises. But then again, is there really need to turn off something, if it gives you even more time to concentrate?

I like WriteRoom too, but i always feel like i need to put something on iTunes' playlist before i can properly focus on the act of writing. Ommwriter does fill that hole with it's selection of soothing music, something that i've been trying to find from libraries and whatnot, but never seem to get right.

For people who live hectic lifestyles and just need to be able to get something done, i really really recomend Ommwriter. The Dana I version is free, after you give them your email, after which they'll send you a download link. If you like the program, and wish to get more out of it, i recomend that you'll get onto the Mac App Store, and buy Dana 2 for the low price of 4 Euros.

Why teleportation would be cool

2011-01-25T05:38:00.000-08:00

Ok, imagine that you were a part of some international organization, or a group that is going to do this cool meetup somewhere in england. Now, because you live somewhere in russia or in the states, you can’t attend, because the place where the venue is being held isn’t in your country. But what if teleportation was real? Imagine if after work you could just swing by home, pick up your passport, and then drive to the local teleportation station. From there, you’d take the ”gate” to your country’s international teleportation station, go through passport control, and just take the gate to the country of your destination.

At the forgein country, go through passport check, then take the gate to the city where you wanna go, and from there, gate to the venue! Wouldn’t that be easy!? Wouldn’t that be really really convenient in the terms of traveling? Yes. Of course, if this technology comes available during our lifetime, there are going to be corporations that will battle against it, claiming that it will decrease the amount of security that is now offered by the pat downs and other things on the airports (plus the cost, it keeps the poor immigrants out).

I would use this technology to look for employment in other countries. I wouldn’t have to worry about traveling costs, as at the best these costs would be very low (lower with a monthly porting pass), thus giving me less things to worry about. Also, i could still live in my country of choice, in my case, Finland.

I wish i will see viable teleportation during my lifetime.

Games I wanna play this year

2011-01-05T09:42:00.000-08:00

Duke Nukem Forever
Bulletstorm
Catherine
Portal 2
Bioshock Infinity
Nuclear dawn
Ms. ’Splosion Man
Ace Attorney Investigations 2
Ghost Trick

Not a lot of games, and only 3 of them are First Person Shooters. Also, it should be noted that Nuclear Dawn is a mod, apparently, and thus, going to be a free one.

First post of 2011

2011-01-03T12:26:00.000-08:00

I realize that i should be writing a bit often. After all, i think that aside from the comic that i’m doing, my blog might be THE way that other people might know what’s going on with my life. Well, there’s not been a lot of stuff going on, but i might as well share some of the stuff that did happen

I got, then lost a studying place

I applied to Haaga-Helia in helsinki to study computing, with the idea, that i’d orientate myself towards computer programming, instead of system up keeping. Well, here’s what happened. Unknown to us, we had miscalculated the average of my animation diploma (which is what i used to apply for haaga-helia). Because of this, the average/number of points needed to enter fell so low that i wasn’t accepted in (i was off by 0.30 points). Nevertheless, i didn’t let that deter me, as after that I

Applied, and was refused from telemarketing job

After i saw that i was rejected, i got kinda hot under the collar. I went to the MOL site, and started to look for jobs that i might have a chance to get into. Luckily I did find a few jobs with 2 of them replied. Of those 2 i went to 1 job interview. Of that Job Interview, i was rejected, but I don’t really feel all that bad about being rejected though.

So, what will you do now?

Well, i’ll continue to look for a job, as well as trying to go back into school. I have the advantage of being able to get 510 euros a month because of my current status of a long time unemployed person. Nevertheless, i’m more inclined about getting a job, as i don’t wish to go back to school. I’m fully aware that i can’t just be unemployed forever, and that soon I’ll need to start paying off my student loans. I know that i’m under pressure to do so, and trust me, I plan to do something about it.

Still my current situation is making me a bit afraid over my own future. And frankly, I don’t know what i should do about it.

test

2011-01-03T11:59:00.000-08:00

testing

XBLIG and finland

2010-11-04T21:49:00.000-07:00

As far as I know, the Xbox Live Indie Games marketplace (XBLIG) has been around 3 or 4 years, back when it was still known as Xbox Live Community Games. I heard about this sometime during 2008 and 2009, can’t rightly recall when though. I thought that the idea was interesting: Let people develop games for the Xbox, by paying 99 dollars a year. The games would cost 1, 2.50 or 5 dollars and anyone could get them.

As i watched the marketplace evolve to XBLIG (in it’s current form) i started to get excited. First i saw Mommy’s Best Games’ Weapon Of Choice. Being raised in the 90s with Turrican and stuff, i thought that this game was cool. So i went to my brother’s place, where he had his Xbox hooked to the internets, and we tried to find the marketplace. After a quick googling we found out that Although Finland is allowed TO MAKE XBLIG games, customers in finland ARE NOT ALLOWED to PURCHASE games made for the XBLIG. This is very annoying, as the games there are pretty cheap, and Finland, with it’s high tax rates, I feel would gladly get some 6 games for 500 points.

The last straw for me was the recent Xbox Update. Before that, i had checked the game marketplace everytime i turned the console on, to see if XBLIG had magically appeared to the sub-section of the Games marketplace. Saldy, this never happened.

When the update came along i was excited. Not for the Kinect, of course, as it’s too expensive and i don’t really have enough room to play it. Instead, i hoped that this update would exapand the number of regions where XBLIG was avalibe for people to make purchases wrong. After mommy’s best games told me that the shop had moved to Speciality Shop, i thanked him, and went to see.

Still Not there.

I got pissed. I’d been waiting for the update, for the REMOTE possibility that XBLIG would FINALLY come to finland and i could FINALLY spend the remainin 80 points on my account to get Explosionade (i’m leaning towards Leave Home now. No offence MBG, it just seems more interesting).

So i thought ”I’m going to google Steve Ballmer’s email addres. If i find it, i’ll send him an email asking/demanding that XBLIG be released in finland”. And i did find his email address, and i DID email him.

To my suprise he replied: ”We Are looking into it. Sorry. Sent from my Windows Phone”.

A day after that, Rich KAplan (customer and community relations dude. google him, he’s the first hit) replied: ”My Team will look into it”.

It’s now been 3 days since i got the reply, and still XBLIG isn’t in finland. I am upset as i really really wanna get Leave home, and because i have a mac, i can’t get the windows version.

So here’s what i’m gonna do:

1) everyday that XBLIG isn’t in finland: i am going to tweet: It’s been X days: Still no XBLIG in finland. around 2PM Finnish time (which is 10 hours ahead of Seattle)

2) I am going to convince indie developers to join me in demanding that XBLIG be expanded to more regions so that a) they’ll make more money and b) make microsoft realise that there’s a worldwide demand on it.

I hope that the people who took the time to read this would at least consider what i suggested in point 2. It’s ok if you don’t want to join me, or do it yourselves. I understand, you’re busy making great games and i guess some of you have 5 kids to feed.

I am merely asking that Microsoft would treat the worldwide audience of Xbox users the same way, when possible (i understand that Netflix is still an impossibility), and would at least expand XBLIG to those countires where it’s ok to make games for XBLIG.

also: steve ballmer’s email address is steve.ballmer@microsoft.com
rich kaplan’s: rich.kaplan@microsoft.com

Super Meat Boy: MANVIEW.

2010-10-23T03:36:00.000-07:00

A couple of days ago, i got myself Super Meat Boy from Xbox Live Arcade. And i got to say, from all the games i’ve recently played, this is a game that’s made for MANLY MEN, who have been playing video games ever since they were FIVE YEARS OLD! YEAH! And frankly i think this is a god thing.

It’s refreshing to play a game that feels like it’s a game, and pretty aware of it’s own gameness. Warp Zones, extra challenges and unlockable rewards make worth investing time to, whilst at the same time actually spend some time exploring the levels, getting the bandage, then replay the level in order to get the Par time, unlocking the Dark World variant of the level. Note that at any point the game doesn’t feel unfair. If you die, it’s your fault, and your fault alone. Maybe you mistimed a jump, or used the run button a bit too much, but do not worry FOR YOU ARE INVINCIBLE.

The game starts easy enough, with the Forest Levels, and i personally felt that it didn’t start to get hard until the Hell chapter levels. Of course, i think that this is something that might vary from person to person, but with enough practice, you too can beat Super Meat Boy, WITH YOUR BARE HANDS.

Graphics:

I love the graphics, and especially the cutscenes. I was surprised to see how smooth the cutscenes and over all graphics were. Also, even on the SD television the use of colour palette makes it very clear to see where Meat Boy is, and where the hazards lie. If you think that during the hell levels where the levels get all red and orangey would diminish the ability to see where MEat Boy is, YOU THOUGHT LIKE AN IDIOT. Even in the hell levels Meat Boy is recognizable and easy to see.

Sound/music:

Aside from the odd Splat, blood and neeegwom sounds from the characters dying and the footsteps, i didn’t feel that there was too much sound effects. The music on the other hand, is EXTREMELY AWESOME. Anything from metal-y music to more chiptuney fun the game packs some unforgivable tracks that i would like to already own in order to SHOW everybody THAT I AM THE BOSS.

Gameplay:

Tight controls, fun, challenging, and other such Buzzwords.

What do I personally think, not being a journalist but a private citizen:

I think that this is a good game. I think that it would’ve easily been worth the 1200 points that they announced it as, but it was SO NICE of them to sell it at 800 points. I’ve often complained that all the cool games seem to cost 1200 points nowadays, and since there’s so much games i wanna play, i spend a lot of money playing games. But because Team Meat were so nice to do a steam-like Launch sale, i was even able to afford Gunstar heroes :D

I think that this is a game for people who’ve been waiting for an old school challenging platform game, and the launch sale of 800 points gives the game more reasons to be bought. Sure, you’ll lack the level editor and Mr.Minecraft from the PC version, but in return you’ll get free level packs from the creators as well as from the community when the PC version gets released.

Finishing thoughts:

I’ve been playing this game a lot, and i’ve had to take big breaks in between. Although i’ve nearing the end of the game (i’ve completed 1 level in the rapture chapter, so i still gotta clear that), i know that the dark world, finding the rest of the warp zones as well as unlocking the rest of the characters will offer me a lot more challenges in the road ahead. I also noted that there were 2 more question mark circles after the Rapture level, which i think will be unlockable level sets you’ll open later in the game, so there’s that too.

Also, the kill screen levels. Boy Howdy will those keep me busy.

Rating:

Ratings are for people who look for validation from people in games journalism. Instead i will say this, If you like actual, fair challenge, and been waiting for a good 2D platformer with all kinds of cool hidden things, get this game. If you like to make levels too, then wait for the PC version to be released.

Where i praise the Aldiko Android App.

2010-10-12T05:42:00.000-07:00

By some moderate accident whilst looking for ePub readers for android, i stumbled across this application called ”Aldiko”. It’s an application that allows you to download books under the Creative Commons license, or books that are in the Public domain, as well as buy books from the O’Reilly online bookstore. Upon discovering this app, i downloaded some CC books like Cory Doctorow’s Makers and other such fine books about the internet, computing and culture. Sadly, there wasn’t a big bookstore, like the amazon’s kindle bookstore, that would’ve allowed me to get books that have been made in the recent years, and sold for a reasonable price.

What i’ve noted is that it’s really easy to use. You can use the volume buttons to change the pages, so there’s no need to use your fingers to smudge up the screen. You can view the pages in portrait or in landscape mode, although you cannot use the trackball to advance through the pages (this is something that i think is a really big minus). It’s very easy to download books, as it includes sources for manybooks and feedbooks. I’ve also added Project Gutenberg as a custom source to the downloadable section, which allows me to get ePub books from the Project Gutenberg site as well, although i don’t use it that much.

The thing i would like to see is to get this app on a android powered tablet, with a bigger screen and all. Although the setting in the app are a bit geeky, i found that those would be easy to set so, so that i could be able to read them on the tablet as well. Although some people might say that using a cell phones screen to read Sun Tzu’s The Art of War is very difficult, i myself haven’t had the problems mentioned. In fact, i could see myself using my cell phone to read books on the airplane as well!

Can there be B-games as well as Arthouse ones? What about Small Brewery publishers?

2010-09-06T09:31:00.000-07:00

I recently bought Puzzle Dimension off Steam. It’s made by Doctor Entertainment and I have to say that it’s one of my new favorite Puzzle Games. It reminds me a bit of the PlayStation classing Kula world, even though it’s managed to make a name for itself. As I progressed through the puzzles, I started to think that the publisher of the game reminded me of a small brewery. The reason for this analogy is that in the age where these big ass companies rule majority of the brewing business, it tends to be that they start to make this tasteless lager, or pilsner that really is meant for the consumption of the masses, and that reflects in the price as well. Ergo, their products are tasteless mass produced pap. The small breweries, on the other hand, don’t have this large shareholders to keep happy. They might do business in the sense that they’ll have more money to:

a) Buy better gear so that they might experiment with beer done in small batches

b) Experiment more with beer and beer flavor combinations in general and

c) Make enough money so that the people working for the small brewery can make a decent living, and the owner has enough money to keep the thing afloat, as well as being able to live in comfort himself.

Because of this, i believe that smaller games can be able to produce more interesting an innovative games than the bigger studios, as they still have room to experiment with different methods of storytelling, as well as new game mechanics.

But how does this tie into the idea that there could be B-movie and arthouse movies as well?

Well ok. Let’s see..

Ok, well you know a game like Gears of War, yeah? over the shoulder shooter with a cover to cover element that’s now being emulated in a bunch of other games? Yeah, that kind of shooter plus the FPSes are the kinds of games you make if you care about getting enough revenue to cover the marketing, paychecks as well as getting a hefty sum of Profit as well. OF course, because you know that games that are within these genres create enough profit to make another, you soon lull into the secure feeling knowing that if you do a FPS or a GOW style of shooter, you’ll make money.

The idea of a B-game is to make a game with a smaller team and with a smaller budget, an experimental wing within EA, if you want to think of it that way. Now, this doesn’t mean that the game is going to be made poorly. Not at all. it means that the game will have still solid mechanics and everything will work properly. It’s just that the plot line, the overall feel of the game, and various other elements that make the game, a game, resemble more of a B-movie than an Blockbuster a-Movie.

It might have a shoddy story, or the characters are caricatures of some generally accepted model of a hero. These games have no drive to be deep or artistic, but their main purpose is to entertain and amuse you. Meaning that you’ll have fun time playing the game, and might even laugh at the game as well.

On the other side of the smaller games mentality, there’s the Arthouse game. These are made by REALLY small group of people, or just a single person within like a week or a few months. These games try to be artistic as possible (Think of games by Jon Blow or Jason Rohrer), while still being things that have actual gameplay value. These games have something to say, and use metaphors, as well as deconstruction of gameplay conventions to deliver the message to you. Deceit 1 is one such game. It offers a tutorial, where nothing works the way it’s supposed to. I.e. the game lies to you, and you must figure things out yourself. But you can still play it, as well as afterwards think about the meaning of video games.

Games have something to say, but you can’t really trust the big guys to utilize methods of telling a story that only a game can deliver. It’s important that the smaller studios as well as individuals that make games as a hobby explore different ways of making games interactive as well as story structure within games. It’s from these individuals that we get games like Braid, Chains, Puzzle Dimension, Spelunky and Tag: Power Of Paint. It’s these people that really love video games and the things only video games can do. And as long as these people keep making video games, i’m sure that we’ll have something interesting happen in the future as well.

At dad's again

2010-08-01T00:13:00.000-07:00

Well, i'm at dad's again, for the reason to pick my friend up from th airport tomorrow. I guess he'd been OK to do it himself, but i feel that as a host, it's my duty to pick him up, as this is the first time that he's ever visiting Finland (or so i think). Personally i'm really excited about him coming over. I don't really have a social life outside of Twitter and IRC, as all the friends i had in Lahti have moved on with their lives and now live in all around the world (also, i haven't really been in touch with them since school ended, my bad really). So having someone to play video games with is something that i'm really waiting for! It's nice and healthy for me to have someone real to talk to, who is also into same things as I am.

It sucks that i'm still unemployed, although that MIGHT change in august (i'm still optimistic) because it means i have less money to do stuff with him. Then again, I've been saving the last amount of my job seeker's allowance so that i can at least buy him a pint of some local microbrewery beer, and that's actually one of the things that i'm really surprised about, that i was able to save the amount of cast needed so that i could actually DO something.

Also i think that there might be something wrong with my stomach. It's aching a bit, but i think that a good walk will sort that all out (just a walk, mind.). It's also pretty annoying that there's not anything to eat for breakfast normally, although dad makes lovely bacon on Sundays. Of course, this is a petty concern, and i don't really want to talk about it to dad, as i am not here that often.

Also, whilst i have your attention, the monday's comic strip will be pushed to tuesday, as i'll be at dad's still, and i left my mac (with the strips and the updating software) home. Thanks for your patience.

Well This sucks.

2010-07-14T07:09:00.000-07:00

OK so.

I'd been noting that there were some problems occurring with the Superdrive of my macbook pro. I thought that it was nothing, and the genius at the apple bar said that this problem could be fixed with the use of this Fan application, that would cool down my mac more. Well, OK, but i was a bit sketchy about this whole thing. I thought that it would be smart for me to leave the macbook pro to these nice people, so that they could open it and have a good look around to see if anything was wrong, or if anything needed to be replaced before the warranty expired.

Turns out, that this was a bit of a bad idea. Seems like that the earliest i'll get my mac back will be Monday, and the reason i took my mac to the reseller TODAY, was that if there's something wrong, they'll get it fixed before the weekend. Yeah....

SO looks like i'll have to use the Dell or the linux laptop during the time that the mac is out for repairs. I am not happy, as this means i need to use a computer that has, what appears to be a GFX card that's about to die. STill, i think that it's better to take the mac and get it fixed before the whole thing goes KABLOOEY.

Has Steam's mac store failed?

2010-07-07T11:54:00.000-07:00

The steam store went off on a strong start, but seems to be losing steam (pun intended). After a strong start with multiple titles being released on the same day, and following on ”new games every wednesday” schedule for a few months, it would appear to me, that companies and porting houses haven’t really been able to struck deal with Valve to bring their mac content on the steam store as well. It is with heavy heart I wait in front of my keyboard, waiting to see what new wonderful titles will be released THIS week. But sadly, this week hasn’t brought us anything.

I know that Valve is busy dealing with ports of their games, that are to be released on the mac. Games like Half-Life 2: Deathmatch, Day Of Defeat: Source, Left 4 Dead 1 and 2 as hopefully Half-Life: Source. It’s nice to see that Valve has such a strong commitment to the mac gaming community, but it would appear to me, that aside from a few indie developers and smaller production houses, no one is really taking the steam mac store into their attention. The creators of Osmos have claimed that the Steam Mac store has improved the numbers of Osmos sold. This is a good thing, knowing that the creators of Osmos are likely to create future games for the mac as well. You’d think with these kinds of examples, companies would be gearing up to buy rights to their games, that were ported to the mac by other production houses.

One of the houses, Aspyr, has been in spotlight. It has ported some of EA’s games to the mac, as well as some other ones. Mac gamers are hoping that Aspyr would make a deal with Valve, so that their content could be available for the mac side as well. But sadly, Aspyr does not own the rights of the games that it has ported, those still belong to EA. Of course, EA games utilize Cider, and the games on Steam store are native versions. This also brings some difficulties in getting more content on steam.

I hope that some Publishers will read this and take heed: Act now, there’s still massive land grabbing opportunities on the Steam store, and you could make a bundle from the Mac Gamers, who have been waiting for good 3rd Party games. I mean take a look at what it has now. Would YOU buy Jolly Rover for 20 bucks?

Summer Summer, We love the summer time

2010-07-01T03:53:00.000-07:00

It Feels to me, That during Summer time, the whole of finland wakes up from it’s weird slumber. Starting with June, all these festivals begin to crop up, meaning that there’s going to be a lot of stuff to do, that wasn’t there during the winter. Of course, because the finnish summer lasts from June to about the middle of September, there’s this need to pack everything to this 3 month period when it’s still viable to organise events and to make sure that no one is freezing their balls of, whilst they’re doing the things that they are doing.

Of course, this isn’t a problem in some countries and cities like Cuba, Costa Rica, Mexico and Miami where there’s warm weather all the year around. This means that during the whole year, there’s something fun to do, and the possibility of getting a bit of alcohol down your throat. Nice, isn’t it?

Of course, I don’t mind that all the summer festivals, concerts etc are squeezed into this 2 month period. It means, that i know when to stay inside and avoid all the freakish people that come out during the summer to either:

a) sit around all day on park benches with their two four, and stay there until the said two four is emptied

b) Concert goers.

I really don’t like concerts or gigs during the summer. It’s hot, all the people there are drunk, and the bands aren’t even worth listening. They organize these things simply because it’s summer, and it’s the only time when finland truly feels alive.

Verifying Digg Feed thingie

2010-07-01T03:51:00.001-07:00

c8cb99c651a541ae9c6c62c9728d14a7

There we go.

Might ge t a job in september.

2010-06-28T10:55:00.000-07:00

Well, what the title says.

Earlier this month I went to see these dudes that are going to start this 2D animation studio in Helsinki, co-junction with Media M1. Of course, they’re still looking for funding, so before they get that, i’m still have to be on the unemployment registers. Not that i mind really.

It’s also been really quiet regarding the Turku Situation. Looks like that i might not even be called for the entrance exams, which kinda sucks, as i really wanted to go there, but at the same time, it removes the possibility of dealing with the situation if i do get the job (which is what i want more). I’m also a bit stressed out, as i realized that i kinda did the pre-exam assignments in a kind of a hurry, as i was running out of time, and getting more anxious about getting them done.

Otherwise it’s been ok, although the loneliness is starting to rear it’s ugly head again. True, i got my Brother’s Xbox360 to keep me entertained, but i really miss our gaming sessions at his girlfriend’s house. I really wish he enjoys his globetrotting trip and gets many experiences out of it, but in the meantime, i’m starting to feel that i’m becoming more of a disappointment to my parents and that i should do something alone to get more experience and maybe more people would offer me a job.

In order to get some work experience, i signed up with a temp agency, hoping that i’d get some part-time jobs doing something cool. True, i could deliver ads again, but the compensation for that is so small that mum would probably kick me out from the apartment.

I really can’t talk my mum about this, as she doesn’t really seem to care about how i feel. It’s nice that she stands me, and i do my fair share of stuff around the house, but i really feel like i shouldn’t be living with my mum anymore.

I’m also wondering if i chose the wrong area to get professional training in. True, i love artistic things, and i love to draw (even though i’m not that good at it), but it’s an area that doesn’t really offer that much of employment.

Most of my friends have already moved out of their parent’s places, and out of those people i know, i’m the one that still living with his. Dad said that i shouldn’t define success as what other people have managed to do, but rather, i should define it myself, as success means different things to different people.

All i really want is a job that would allow me to make enough money so that i could move out and finally start my life. The bad thing is that the area that i’m educated in doesn’t offer a) experience and b) job opportunities. OF course, there’s the thing in September, or the possibility of going back to school and try to get my master’s degree, but What the heck should i do in the meantime?

Trying to tell myself why i don't like Cory Doctorow

2010-04-28T01:45:00.000-07:00

As you’ve probably all seen, Cory Doctorow doesn’t like the iPad. Some of his reasons, like the closed App store with it’s opaque app approval process and micro-management is justified, and true, but some of the things he says i don’t agree with. Yes, it’s true that the iPad is cool, and that it’s going to be great, but Cory also raised some issues that I think don’t really matter to the average consumer, but were rather aimed for this geek elite, or rather ”Free-thinkers" that boingboing tries to elevate (CC Writers, Makers, Tinkerers, Fuckers, Bloggers, and Doers).

I wonder, does the average consumer really care about if he can't open the iPad and solder a blue Led light to the thing that tells the user how the battery is faring (The less brighter it is, the less charge the battery will hold). I'm sure that there are some people who'd think that's a great idea, and would love to do that. But those people aren't going to buy the iPad, because it's not open, free range and ugly. These people (Makers) could very well build THEIR OWN version of the iPad, and then charge obscene sums for it, because "i'm doing it as a hobby, i'm not making a living out of this". Ok, well, you could do something that would let you help make a living out of it, and make me feel safer about buying it (i.e. i could actually talk to a human and get support for the damn thing).

At least with the iPad there’s a huge corporate structure that ensures that i’ll get support.

Other thing is content: do you really believe that the publishers and big content creators are going to license their content to the iPad if they weren’t ensured that there was something to protect their investment with? I understand that DRM is evil, and that the publishers are worried, but Apple had to put some DRM in order to get some professional grade content on there. AT this point, i guess that people will think ”But there’s good, amateur created content too”. That i agree with, there is content on YouTube, Blogs, etc that is created by amaterus, and is still really fun and enjoyable to consume (I think Sita Sings The Blues is the best example for animation, even if i didn’t really enjoy the plot). But sometimes, i really would like to read a book written by Steven Levy, and not having to go to a pirate site, and THEN sync it with my iPad.

Unless these freePads are unable to get professionally created content on their non-compatible app stores, i am not going to buy them. I realise that DRM is bad for sharing, but i don’t want to share stuff with people, as i have no one to share them with. Besides, if they want it themselves, i can point them to the direction where they need to go in order to get the things that they want.

That’s my beef: I should’t get the iPad because it’s closed, the app store is bad, all the content is DRM’d and there’s no way to create content on it. Ok. Well, until the less-cool, open, free range options, that let you do anything, but still look ugly, have an unappealing app store and other things, i am not going to buy them.

However: if they manage to get professionlly created content, by big name movie makers, authors etc. who have money to throw at the content and content delivery, without using DRM as a crutch, then i shall gladly get the open version. But until i am proven that such a miracle device excists, i am going to stick with my evil closed proprietary mac, with it’s tasty tasty DRM.

I'll just leave this here:

2010-04-23T03:09:00.001-07:00

Well, that's just showing how long until the next ubuntu distro is released.

Writing

2010-04-18T12:19:00.001-07:00

Well, The pre-exam assigments for turku university of applied sciences have been released.

Thank the lord i have 2 weeks forth of Comics done.

I think i’ll have to put the game’s storyboard on backburner though.

I am not happy

2010-04-06T06:11:00.000-07:00

I think i finally figured out why Xeni Jardin manages to bug me.

I think it comes down to the fact that although she lacks experience in the tech sector, she’s managed to be come a part of Techno Elite, who guide the people in terms of purchases, the future of tech, and act as the man on top who brings their information down on the people.

I also feel that because she’s techno elite and i’m not, that i am somehow excluded from the greater internet culture. I realise that she didn’t become a part of the elite without hard work, but seeing the power she wields now just makes me sad.

I realise that the internet was first seen as a level playing ground. It gave everyone a voice, and everyone was free to make their own website to promote themselves and their views (and that’s still possible today). What bugs me is that there are these powerful portals like BOing BOing, This Week in TEch etc. that manage to filter out the less meaningful material on the internet, siphooning the more interesting stuff to the people, and taking away our joy from discovering content ourselves.

I also acknowledge that i’m a bit jealous of Jardin and her co-horrots (although i know fully well why i don’t like Cory Doctorow: He tells people that things are closed and evil, but doesn’t offer any solutions, or propose building better products himself) because they seemed to gain their fame easilly. I also know that it’s still possible to go from a nobody to somebody, but i am not sure if blogging can do that anymore. I know that i should promote the stuff i write more, but i think that it’s a bit self serving. I’d like people to find my blog by themselves, and then recomending it to their friends. I ’d like to be known not by spreading my precense around the web alot, but to be found by people themselves.

Playing TF2 and what i've achieved.

2010-03-21T09:14:00.000-07:00

Well, i’ve been playing a lot of Team Fortress 2 lately. If you go see my stats on Steam Community, you’ll see that i’ve almost clocked 10 hours for this week alone. During those 10 hours, i've recieved the Bonk! Atomic Punch, the KGBs, and the Gunboats.

I’ve died a lot, i've survived 6 minutes as a medic, and i have 29 achievements that i've gotten, most of which belong to the medic. My goal is to get 10 achievements, so i'd get The Blutsauger, and finally get some buffs for my medic.

It’s really depressing, as i tend to play in servers, where the peopel already have recieved all the items they need, in order to get the special weapons and items for each class. For a beginner, with little skill and little buffs, this can be really depressing. Also, they're starting to bring in items, that were made by the community, which are, still, random drops.

I like the idea that the community gets to create new items and weapons, but i wish that there'd be less hats, and more stuff players could use. I think that some of the classes, like the engineer, are too underpowered to stay alive for a long time. all it needs is some random heavy or a scout to come in and you’re dead.

I wish that there’d be a system where the game assigns you to a server that matches your skills based on your stats. That way, people who have not played a lot of the game, might have more nicer time, as they’d be playing with people that are on the same skill level as they.

I’ve also heard that Valve plans to do a exchange mechanism to the game, that would allow people with multiples of the same weapon give a weapon to those who don’t have it. Of course, majority of people might be dicks about it, so i guess that’s not going to work as well as people would like.

I’ll write more after i’ve played a bit more.

There isn't always symbolism involved

2010-03-13T13:41:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, as i walked with my brother to the quick stop grocery store, we started to talk about anime. I told him that i had been reading KC Green’s comic strip about the Anime club, and how i felt that some of the stereotypes portrayed within the comic strip were based on real people and the way that their mind worked.

Now, we started to talk about Anime in general, and i said this to him:

”ok, in some anime there is hidden depths and symbolism, but because Miyazaki does it, and is good at it, it doesn’t mean that ALL anime has symbolism”.

What i mean about this is that the people who follow anime series (well, the mass produced ones) seem to think that there is symbolism in them, that’ll justify them watching cartoons that are not made in the USA, and in japan, was made for teen aged girls.

Now, i don’t wish to sound mean. I know that there is anime that in all honesty is more mature, and has more layers in terms of the content, than it’s western counterparts. But it’s foolish to assume that all anime has this level of depth that the bigger anime movies have. Sooner or later you’re going to have to watch reality in the eye and admit that Card Captor Sakura is just a japanese anime version of total Drama Island, or other such cartoons aimed for teen-aged girls. It is NOT a story about a girl coming to terms with her femininity.

I sense that these people watch anime to get this sense of being better than their broodish counterparts who just love western anime. Like me.

I never got into anime, as i was turned off by the lack of clear visual differences in style. I prefer western animation simply because it has interesting storylines now and again (at least the smaller stuff does) and the visual styles are covering a whole spectrum.

That’s just my opinion.

A Game that i'd like to make

2010-03-08T06:15:00.000-08:00

With the Rise of such channels like the XBLIG and the Indie game fund, that’ll finance indie games, i thought that there is a game i’d like to make. I’d like the mechanics to be simple, yet enjoyable, as well as giving player a reason why he should keep playing it.

I thought that a simple shmup game would be really interesting, as it would connect with the player’s most basic instincts in terms of gameplay. The reason wouldn’t be a sad, angsty story, but rather, a funny, ridiculous silly plot, that makes the game fun to play. This means that the game’s story would be silly, weird, and laughable, but the game itself would be a game.

I’ve seen a lot of art games, that are about dark themes. I think that they strive towards that, as they perceive dark and angsty themes to be mature ones, and artistic as well. Now, they are correct in thinking that, as dark themes do need a mature mindset in order to make them work without being ridiculous (Heavy RAin is a good example in my opinion). but what about comedy?

Even in the ancient greece, Comedy and tragedy walked hand in hand. Comedy was the silly, lighthearted version of tragedy, where sadness reigned and happy endings were seldomly seen. I don’t think that for a game to be an art game, it has to be tragic. I think that in the realm of art games, there is room for silly, lighthearted games that laugh at themselves, or at the player himself. I see no reason why all games need to be dark, angsty and moody. I see a NEED for games that need to be fun, entertaining, yet not completely without any artistic value.

But what makes a game fun without it being totally void of artistic value?

Damn if i know

Working for the weekend.

2010-03-07T03:37:00.000-08:00

So the boss calls me around 11AM. He tells me that the speakers who are going to do the Finnish voice overs for the paramedic patient simulators are coming into the office on that day. Ok, i tell him that i’ve done the translations, and that he’s free to use those and guide the people doing the speaks during the process.

“I can’t really use these speaks”, the boss says.

I ask “Why, it’s all there, isn’t it?”.

Boss replies “Well no, there are a bunch of holes in the translation.”

“Ok”, I ask “Whaddya want me to do”.

“I’ll send you the files via email”. The boss says. “The speakers are coming at 2PM, with the kids who’ll do the young patient simulators will be here around late afternoon. I need you to translate the 3 high priority ones first”.

Because i wanna seem like a loyal employee, i say to the boss “Ok, but what’s in it for me?”

Boss says “Well i’ll give you some days off, when i’m in egypt. Sound good?”. I Reply “Yeah, that sounds reasonable.”

So i do the translations, which, as it turns out are pretty easy to do. Disregarding some of the phrases that the dummies say, all the lines are pretty much the same. It’s only the few special lines that i needed to listen to before translating them into finnish. As a result, i was able to finish them in time (around 12:11 i was done) and the boss was really happy with this.

Sure, i didn’t get paid, but taking into account that i got a few days off, i’m really happy that i did it. Sure, i would’ve loved it if i had gotten paid, but i think that a day without walking 10 kilometres will be a fine day to spend with my bro and his GF.

Power Outage.

2010-03-07T00:00:00.000-08:00

As I write this, the power in our household has gone kaput. I am not able to use the internet, as it’s powered by an electronic appliance, that can no longer get any power. Although it’s a good thing that the mac’s battery gets drained a bit (keeping the juices flowing).

And the power is back on. That was pretty fast actually.

Anyway, i’m writing this post using MacJournal, a program that i got for like 20 bucks along with other Mac programs like RipIt, Flow and CoverScout. I realize that this program could be a big help in terms of updating my writing blog, as well as my art blog, which has been sadly neglected for a long time now. I realize that I started the blogs to get some visibility for myself, and maybe even a couple of working gigs. Realizing this I came to the conclusion that maybe getting MacJournal was a good idea after all.

So what have i been doing with my life, since i last updated? Not a lot actually. I started interning in another place, after my employment with the library came to an end. I was sad to leave the library, as it was a cushy job, with great pay and greater benefits. But the place i’m interning at isn’t that horrible either. The boss is really nice, and i get to do things that i earned my degree on. So that’s really cool as well.

I’ve also been reading a lot of HuffingtonPost, and stopped doing so, after the elitist liberal minded commentators started to get on my nerve. You know the kind, New Yorkers at starbucks, stopping from writing their screenplay when they take a break to read HuffingtonPost and reading about the wrongs in the world, making stupid ass comments about the situation that they know nothing about.

I started to think that i should use the webcomic that i’m drawing to ease my nerves by writing strips about some of the internet phenomena, and thus help me live longer. Although I suck at telling jokes, i feel that i’ve managed to get some few good comic strips out of my anger towards the people that don’t even live in the countries that they are against in every way.

Well, i guess that i’ve written enough for this post. I hope that i can do more updating from now on, seeing as i got this awesome little application that let’s me update my blog really easily, with pictures, and Bold text and even with Colours

Trying out MacJournal

2010-03-06T06:21:00.000-08:00

Hey. I thought that i’d try using MacJournal in order to do a Blog Post. Not sure if i can upload this to blogger, but at least i can try doing so.

Is anything ours?

2010-02-15T21:10:00.000-08:00

I removed my bookmark for Huffington Post, as i couldn't take it anymore. I usually read the technology and world sections (although comedy and media sections had some good things as well), usually disregarding the comments. I did comment a couple of times on subjects that i knew something about, but i finally stopped, because of the apple iPad thing.

I noted that some of the people there were all like "omg, it's going to be the best thing ever", without even knowing what it really had in that point. They had, in their heads, formed this perfect tablet that they'd rush out and buy as soon as it was available in the apple stores. Nice.

I started to think though: Are computers and computer fandom ours anymore? by us i mean more or less Genuine Nerds (to quote Toby Radloff) who started out with PCs and game consoles, or the old wise men who started with PDP-8s and Apple IIs. Nowadays i see hipsters and these trendy young people dominating the speculation and the conversation about tech and it's world around it. It's like these people want to be tech pundits without the education of what it is.

These people might be ok in doing web 2.0 coverage, but somehow i don't think they should be let to write apple columns (i mean, who uses PCs anymore, rite?) as that would lead in a fanboyitis.

I'm sorry, i needed to vent yet again.

I shouldn't read internet commentary

2010-02-04T04:00:00.000-08:00

DISCLAIMER: some of the following assumptions are general. Who knows, Starbucks might pay their employees well!

I got to say, I've been reading some of the comments at Huffington Post, for fun and for the RAGE. RAGE inspires me to draw things to my comic strip, that will then have a lot of material, as i am so goddamn angry towards some of the people in the internet. I realise that Huffngton Post is a progressive internet newspaper, which outlines what people really want in america (or at least, what the younger, web savvy generation wants to happen). It has some good stories about the media, and some fair comedy articles as well. But the comments manage to tick me off each and every time.

I can smell the Starbucks roast from the comments. I can imagine the slimy little hipster scum, in front of his 13" macBook, sipping on coffee that was probably prepared by underpaid employees, whilst reading an article about slave labour in the distant land of "Upshitcreekistan"; ignoring the underpaid peons working behind him. As he writes an angry comment how Upshitcreekistan should shape up, and take responsibility about the conditions of the said slave labourers, he feels better about himself, because he knows that his opinion is heard in the pages of HuffPost, amongs the millions of progressive voices, all shouting out for equality. Yes, i know that it is a good thing that people make their viewpoints known, but for some weird ass reason it bothers me and makes me a bit angry.

I think that the people who stay at the starbucks, blogging, writing novels, poems and screenplays, consider themselves to be the smart urban reporter that have a lto of people listening to them ,as they report their daily lives to the internet at large. Don't get me wrong, there honestly are some good blog writers who write about games, music biz, piracy and how it can help save culture etc. But these wannabe activists, who have the resource to do something about the horrible working conditions in Upshitcreekistan, don't. They sit at starbucks, getting a free refill, whilst the barista wonders whether he/she can make his/her minimum wage last for the next 3 weeks before the payday. As the tech savvy progressive smiles at the replies to his comments, he goes home, feeling good about himself, having brought this issue into light.

Folks, let me tell you something.

It's ok that you read HuffPost. From what i've seen, it's a bit more honest than the old media magazines out there, and has a fairly neutral viewpoint. It's cool that they also report stuff that's happening overseas, that you can raise the issues from the articles, and make it known that there are other countries as well than the USA. But it's not cool that you just sit at some cafe with free WiFi, reading about wrongs, whilst you could be out there, doing something useful that could ease the suffering for other people. You could do voluntary missionary work, but you won't because it's shoving down the western religious dogma down the throats of people who are happy as they are. YOu could start an agency that books gay people to plays and movies. But you don't, because you don't have any friends.

I admit that i am not doing any of the stuff that i'm talking about here, but at least i'm doing SOMETHING, instead of just writing about it. I'm interning, i help my mum, i'm taking steps into getting a job after going back to school and getting my master's degree. I'm wondering and writing abou the world, whilst editing a video for a product that i've never heard of. I too use slave labour goods from china, but at least the people employed in my country are paid well, depending on their job. Sure we got some homeless people, but majority of us has a house, a car and a good credit rating. We took steps to make ourselves survive in this country with 4 seasons, and 1 really cold one. sure we got our problems too, but noone cares, except us.

Yeah, internet commentary makes me angry, even on sites where people know how to SPELL. I'd like to use the argument "i'd like to see you try doing something better", but i realise that it's as hollow as anything else. I know i sohuld be tolerant, and be happy that there are people that think for themselves, trying to make a world better place.... Maybe blogging and social media will bring forth a new era of peace, or mindless drivel.

I'm sorry, i just had to vent.

2010

2010-01-17T03:31:00.000-08:00

well, things are starting to get better for me, even if the year 2010 has just started. I've been in talks with a guy to get myself an internship at this 2 man operating called ProMedia. They do stuff like videos, editing and some sort stuff that i studied in nakkila. This is a good thing, as it means that i'll be doing stuff in a place that might hire me based on my skills as an editor or a filmer. Of course, i don't have high expectations of getting the job, but at least i can try my damnest and see if they think i'm worthy enough to be hired as a full time staff member (if i am, i am going to see how fast i can move out from mum's and start a proper life.)

I've been feeling like i'm a bit worse off than the other people i know. Some of my friends already got their own apartments and a place to work in. I always thought, that in school, i was a bit better than them, because i didn't seem to conform to the norm. But now i feel like i am an failure, because I haven't been able to work as long as they have, nor do i have any savings or anything else.

Also, i've been asked to do an animated bump for the Kinos festival in finland. I think i shall do some, in order to get my stuff out there. I'll have to do some short couple of second things with animated movement, which i think is easy to do. Of course, i think that i should do some short animated bumps. Sure, i'll have to do them all by hand, but i guess it's easy to do.

It's also times like these that i wish i had the cojones to pirate myself a copy of flash, so that i could do stuff easier, with the tweening and some of the bumps faster, with less effort. OF course, this goes against my desire to do more stuff by hand, and learn things through that method of doing. but sometimes i wish that Toon Boom studio would have some of the features that Flash has, mainly tweening. Maybe it does, and maybe i've been too dumb to find out how it works in Toon Boom. I really should read the manual.

Well i guess that's that then. I might as well do a post to this blog after i know whether or not i got into promedia, and if there are any propabilities of getting hired by them (something i wish would happen.

Time for an update

2009-12-14T20:25:00.000-08:00

Hello.

As i've been working at the library, i've noted that i really haven't had the time or the energy to do an blog update. I thought that i should do one yesterday, before finally falling asleep. Well, here's one for ya, and i hope that you'll enjoy it.

Thoughts on ORRRRRDERRRR

Well, as you might know, i've now been in the library long enough to form some thoughts on proper order of things. I've seen people coming in and using their pale, shaking hands to grasp the damn tabloids of the stands the minute the doors are opened. This has always irked me somewhat, as I can't understand their lack of thought for just reading the damn tabloids. I mean, Don't they read something with larger journalistic integrity? Why go for the sensationalist newspapers that bend the truth to make it seem skewed and slanted?

To be fair, after they've read the tabloids, they also tend to go towards the local newspapers and get more info from there. There's even this elderly gentleman that comes in and reads The Sunday Times, and various other forgein newspapers, as if to get the outside perspective on things (Silly, seeing as The Times really goes towards domestic reporting from the UK). Ok, that's cool, but then after reading, they rarely put the papers in the wrong places, especially at the times that i'm not there. That irks me, as I am the guy in charge of putting the papers in the places during the morning, and it is I who has to reset the positions of the said papers, as I put the new ones in during the morning.

Rules

Rules are important. I have been told the rules, and I follow them to the letter. Rarely I make exceptions, as I don't want to get fired. Still, there have been some instances where the person coming in is one of those "Everyone knows me, we've done it like this before". Those people annoy me. With their ego hanging on the thread of recognition in the librarians, and the assumption that everyone working there must have been briefed of their being, and thus, are familiar with the said person, their mannerisms and what they are privileged in (Like this russian guy who assumes that everyone knows his name, and is ready to loan him the Russian newspapers he wants).

Here's the other thing: Some people have the brass balls to leave their phone ringing whislt they enter the reading room. When i do my duty (a pleasure really, i love being in a position of power...) of *politely* informing them that they have their phones on and they need to turn them off, some people have the *CHEECK* to say "Yeah yeah, i'll be gone anyways" and not really do anything to the phone. ZAT IS NOT GUT. ZERE ARE RULEZ.

Oh, belive me, there have been times where I've wished i had the power to tell them "well get lost until your phone is on vibrate, or do i have to call the security?". But i cannot. Why won't they follow the rules? I mean, even I, upon entering the sacred reading room turn my phone to vibrate. It's all i ask, Just turn your bloody phone to vibrate, and let the people there enjoy their papers in silence.

Also, after a minor incident, I no longer have the nerve to go to people and ask them to speak more quietly, as i can't really be sure what's been happening there. (Sometimes when they advice each other, the volume of their voices rise).

Anyway, it's getting kinda late and i got to go. I'll try to make another blog post soon.

Sombrero spider and boredom

2009-12-02T23:40:00.001-08:00

my tenure at the library is coming to an end. I've been working here for 3 months now, and I got to say that it hasn't been that bad, really. I mean, I saw the new youth area being built and I've seen a lot of different people. If there was something that i'd have to complain about, it would be that I feel pile the days last forever.

And that's how I got the inspiration for Sombrero Spider. Defender of Truth, Tequila and the Lucha Libre way. I pile characters like Sombrero spider because although appearing simple in design, it is the simple characters that allow the creator to do surreal things with them. Just look at beartato and reginald.

I do plan to do something with Sombrero spider. Maybe a surreal joke strip or omething. Whilst throwing a fiesta.

2009-12-02T23:33:00.001-08:00

at the work again

2009-11-26T23:37:00.001-08:00

Well, thank God it's Friday. at the work again, and the doors haven't been opened yet which is a good thing. It let's me relax and read some papers before we have to let the masses in and let them touch the papers that I spent so much time on getting them to their correct places. Don't these people follow the goddamn rules?

Anyway, I am getting pretty good with typing on the cell phone. although the really good spellchecker helps me a big too. the dictionary is really well thought out and I rarely have to add anything to it.

Got to go now

About the Pirate Party

2009-11-25T20:57:00.000-08:00

As you may know, i am a member of Pirate Party FInland. I've met some of the people that also belong to the party, and even got help from a composer belonging to the party, in the form of doing the soundtrack for my award winning animation (which also netted me my entrance fee back from the Assembly organizers). I also began to frequent the IRC channel of theirs again, after i used it to connect to blitzed, for some other reason. I think that i have spent enough time there to list out some of the good and the bad things in the party, but remember: I think that the party is a good idea. Here in Finland, we tout ourselves in having more freedoms than america, yet we are constantly stripping them away with the likes of Lex Nokia and Lex Karpela.

The Good Points:

They care about freedom of speech

They want to reconfigure the copyright law (in finland) so that culture could be spread more easilly.

They want to open new forms of internet commerce, and provide a steady income for artists that create music, television, books or film.

They care about people (as far as i know)

They might be a single issue party, but at least they're more focused on it, than the other political parties of finland are.

They're more fun than the regular parties in finland, and are also creating culture.

The Bad Points:

Most of The are academic students from universities.

I feel like they haven't really thought about the copyright thing through

Some members (like 2 or 3) feel a bit hostile towards creators, when they fail to regognise the positive changes their reworkings would bring.

They don't make it clear if their reworkings would ensure more jobs for the people in the field of creative arts, or if they would diminsh them.

They seem a bit vague at times

Personal worry: I *do* worry if their reworkings would help me get a job in the future, or if i chose the wrong filed of work.

Personal Remarks

I understand that the party is still thinking about the things they want to do, if they get into the house of representatives. I understand, that they've also talked about giving the artist a 10%...i'm not sure how to say this in english, but i guess the likely term if "royalties", after their suggested 5 year copyright ona given work has expired, and it's being used as a part in another work. I also wonder how hard it would be for an artist to get a steady income from X, and how they would have to prove themselves to be a real artist, that's been regognised by the goverment and so on.

I feel as if the party knows this, and even if they don't listen to my comments, i am sure that before they get into the House of Representatives, they'll think these kinks through, before putting their ideas into action.

I do hope food things for them, even if some of their ideas in their current form worry me.

another day. another pay

2009-11-24T01:22:00.001-08:00

well last weekend was kinda nice. i wad able to find Mario and photo rpg3!!! at the local game store. I gotta tell you, that game is really addictive. been playing it foe 7 hours straight, on the first. dqy I got it as well.

Now I got a sore neck, so i took the yesterday off. tomorrow I shall have a day off from work, so I think i'll use that time to play some more. Well worth the 50 euros. As my Lunch break comes to an end, I await with a bates heart the time that I can leave home, an once again play with my DS. I also got Stephen King's on writing, which I have wanted to read

2009-11-21T03:41:00.001-08:00

her hee

again

added pipes, seeing if this works still