Nethack: the Movie Concept Art

Click above image for higher resolution.

One of the many projects I have bouncing around in my head is to make a movie out of the ASCII classic Nethack. Well, probably not a whole movie, just a trailer. This is how I imagine it would look. The shot from the game I'm emulating is in the upper right hand corner. (Yes I know the dots are the floor and not the wall. Sue me.)

TTFN
-Tony

I've always wondered...

If women are so afraid of the seat being left up, how come men always remember and never fall in?

TTFN
-Tony

Inquiring Minds Want to Know

Has anyone's vote ever actually been influenced by the ubiquitous and omnipresent Political Yard Sign? Anybody?

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-Tony

IF: Scattered

Illustration Friday: Scattered. Click image for higher resolution.

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-Tony

I'm glad outlets other than (dagnasty evil and smelly) Fox News are starting to admit it: LA Times - Obama: A Disaster for Civil Liberties.

TTFN
-Tony

Censoring the Arts

I'm watching Rocky Horror on cable, and it's the end of "Planet-Schmanet, Janet!" When Magenta Medusa-fies our heroes, the naked statues are censored - but only the statues of the main characters. So there's a large plaster schlong in the background that's clearly visible, while Barry Bostwick's teeny weenie and Susan Sarandon's naughty bits are blurred. It reminds me of the 90s when Comedy Central used to put black boxes over bits of Terry Gilliam's animations on Monty Python's Flying Circus. You know, the ones made from cut-outs of classic paintings. Just bizarre.

TTFN
-Tony

Reality Sucks

I was disappointed today to learn that "The Seeing Eye" of Morristown is, in fact, a respected school for guide-dogs, and NOT a giant eye with lightning shooting out of its pupil hovering over New Jersey. Sigh.

TTFN
-Tony

Domestic Ponderings...

Why exactly do driers have a dial that you can set to your "desired level of dryness"? Does anyone really WANT their clothes slightly dry but still damp, instead of just you know... dry? It's not like your cooking a pot roast.

TTFN
-Tony

Nerd Pondering #3234d

Why do stormtroopers wear armor when it doesn't protect them from lasers, stones, or even Ewok arrows?

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-Tony

IF: Hibernate

Illustration Friday: Hibernate. Click image for higher resolution.

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-Tony

I Need a Gumption Pill

About ten years ago, I bought a used 386 laptop off ebay for $25. The idea was to have a cheap word processor. As my friend and very good bearded playwright Craig J. Quack (Clark) pointed out, there could not possibly be any distractions on a 386. He was right. It was, in fact, so obsolete it could not run Windows 95, and don't even think about Word. But still, I wrote, using the 3.1 workhorse "Wordpad."

Flash forward to now. I'm currently a gentleman of leisure. I should be writing. Instead, I'm resisting the urge to watch American Dad on Netflix wilst building a 50' tall walking eye in Minecraft. Why? I have no idea. Why is my mind sometimes so insistent on distractions and procrastinations instead of production and achievement? Aren't I supposed to be an organism evolved for survival of the fittest? If so, why do I have to fight myself all the time to get anything done?

The book God Wants You Dead (which is not anti-religion per se, but rather anti-ideology) suggests that instead of thinking "What would Jesus do," we should imagine ourselves as we wish to be, and ask "what would the perfect me do?" I love this idea... except... well what if the now me convinces future me to sit here and watch American Dad while playing Minecraft? I keep thinking of the scene in Citizen Kane when one character says to another that Mr. Kane will change the acquired newspapermen into "his kind" within a week, and the other character replies, "There's always a chance that, of course, they'll change Mr. Kane, without his knowing it."

I came across a great article about self-sabotage a few days ago (if I find it again I'll link it.) To sum up, it says that we're programmed from birth that for anything (love, achievement, Minecraft) to be worthwhile, we must struggle for it. Therefore, we sabotage ourselves to make our goal -or ourselves - seem more precious. Curious...

Thoughts?

TTFN
-Tony

"I knew the great and the near great!"

A caricature of me by Bill Plympton. I'll never wash this cheek again...

I had an awesome time at the premiere of Idiots and Angels. When I watched the film, I felt a rush of creative energy and a desire to finish my own languishing projects. After all, I'm currently a man of leisure. The problem is that I have this wonderful ability to work hard creating and planning things, and then give up on them before they're completed. I understand I'm not alone in this.

I talked to Mr. Plympton as he drew me. I told him that I've done some animations myself. He told me that was fantastic, and asked how I'm getting my work out there. I told him I do have some things on youtube. He said I should think about festivals. I think that's an excellent idea.

Some years ago I was working on an animation called False Idols. I fell away from it for a number of reasons. I was almost done, and realized there were many shots I was unhappy with, either from the quality of the models or the changes in tone. Now I feel inspired to finish it. I've been working with 3dsMax for years, and I recently wanted to make the switch to Blender - a very advanced freeware CGI modeler / renderer. I think that would be the perfect project to get me started.

The only problem is that I have a 416 page novel that I'm editing, and I got up to page 226 of the second draft when I realized I want to make major changes to the second half. I'm determined to finish that first, but that's a post for another day. In the meantime, thank you, Mr. Plympton, for all the inspiring zaniness.

I will leave you with this quote from his autobiography, Independently Animated: Bill Plympton, the Life and Art of the King of Indie Animation: (pg 17)

"Whatever school was tries to prepare a person for, you can only become great at something by having a love and passion for it. Except for royalty, no one was born to be anything! Picasso wasn't born to be a great artist. He worked his butt off. I had a buddy in college who was a fantastic artist; he could draw rings around me (sometimes he'd use hula hoops to save time). People would say he's born to be a great artist. Today he's a check-out guy at Wal-Mart. 'Not that there's anything wrong with that,' as Jerry Seinfeld might add, but what my buddy lacked was passion for his art. I don't care how good you are - if you don't love what you do, you'll never be great at it."

Go forth and be passionate.

TTFN
-Tony

Idiots and Angels

Going to see a movie premiere tonight! And not just any movie - a Bill Plympton movie!



I'm meeting some old NJ friends - Heidi, Glen, and the indefatigable webtoonist, Kevin Pease. But wow... Bill Plympton! I hope to meet him, but what can I say? I love your work, Mutant Aliens is one of my favorite movies, Was all the gratuitous sex and violence in I Married a Strange Person in response to critics possibly saying The Tune was too cute and sweet? Your Face really freaked my son out when he was a baby, I like to make animations too, what made you settle on your sketchy style?

Also appearing will be Patrick McDonnell of MUTTS fame, who is, in fact, as nice a human being as his strips.

Well at any rate, I'm at my parents' house. I had an amazingly delicious lunch, and then played pinochle with my father. He beat me by ten points. Time to get revenge.

TTFN
-Tony

Android Fanboy's Unite!

I consider myself an interesting conundrum when it comes to ideologies. I try to keep away from them at all costs, and to balance my views and intakes - but is that in itself an ideology?

Like all Android fanboys, I take joy in poking fun when Apple smugly pats itself on the back for being "innovative" with features that other platforms have had for years. Mr. (or Mrs.) Wigley99, I salute you!

TTFN
-Tony

I had a dream, I had an awesome dream...

Last night, I dreamt I was a kid at my parents' house, playing in the yard with my friends. Like all good Catholic kids, we played mass. We set up pews and everything. One of the neighborhood girls (ever notice how in dreams you have friends you don't know, but it just feels natural?) had a pet troll. He was 8' tall, fuzzy, fat, round and stupid, but funny. He lumbered around the yard, smashing the altar, pews, shrubs, and my mother's dogwood tree, much to my and the other kids' delight. He sat on the hood of my father's brown (black?) Buick (wow, this is way back) and squished it.

I was afraid my father would be furious. Instead he shrugged and said, "Not to worry." He then turned on a pump and re-inflated the car until it was it's original size, the dents popping back into place with audible pings. I went inside to help him put the groceries away, and he had replaced our refrigerator with a newer model. It had a rotisserie inside, but the contraption meant there was less room to store actual food.

Analysis?

TTFN
-Tony

Decluttering the Internet

The idea of leaving facebook has bounced around in the back of my mind for a while. Then a blog post from my friend Rayne gave me the nudge to jump ship. And why not? It was fun for a while, but it just isn't anymore. It feels more like an overflowing garbage can that no one wants to dump. Does the internet really need hundreds of pictures of me, my friends and family? I deleted everything except a profile picture, past notes, and my artwork. This blog will still be imported, but I deleted all my apps and likes as well.

In my farewell note I mentioned Big-Brother concerns such as facebook's need to integrate everything I ever do on or offline, but it's not that so much as just a need to cut a huge chunk of clutter out of my life.

Now for the rest of it...

TTFN
-Tony

Illustration Friday: Ferocious

Illustration Friday: Ferocious

(Drawn while waiting for the iTunes store to post the latest Dr. Who episode.)

TTFN
-Tony