Shoes

Since my last post (the Tumbleweed one, not the Christmas List one) I’ve been sitting in a darkened room and watched The Guardians of Ga’hoole, Despicable Me, RED, The Social Network, Due Date and Skyline. It seems like the only thing left to see between now and New Years is Harry Potter, although after checking there are a few other things to see. We cinema often don’t we?

When I was in town on wednesday signing on I bumped into Grace as I wondered out of Game. We took a little look around some stores to look for some cologne for my christmas gift to my dad. I think I’m going to get him Beyond Paradise (for men, obviously), it’s about £34 online but I think I’ll treat him. I’m going to try and find him something else to go with it as well I think. I’m going to splash out a little more on my parents this year, just because I can. We got a couple of smell samples on those card thingys which I put on my desk afterwards. My bedroom smelt awesome that evening.

Friday night I was sat trying to watch Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and all of a sudden there was a load of shouting going on in the street. I took a look out the window and saw a mini bus had stopped in the middle of the street, right in front of my house and a couple had gotten out and were having a row over their relationship. Some cops showed up to sort them out and they were there for about an hour. Fuck you chavs and your crappy relationship troubles interrupting my enjoyment of a children’s story in movie form. Pffft, chavs. ¬_¬

PS. I’ve also ordered Ruths present so yaaay, I’m done christmas shopping for you guys. Just my family to go.

I thought I’d post this up here. You guys need to post yours up somewhere.

Conditions by The Temper Trap
Oracular Spectacular by MGMT
This Is War by 30 Seconds to Mars
Discovery by Daft Punk

I’ve checked these all on amazon and they’re all under £5.

Get your lists up. Now!

The only thing I’ve done of note in the last week or so is working on my game and playing a game or two when I get tired of coding.

This is the worst update ever.

Well, since Craig has moved down to big old London town it’s time to update this more often.

General life wise not much has happened. We all met up last tuesday and then we (minus Ruth) went to see Town. Not a bad film, better than I was expecting. Wednesday I signed on and told them about my parcel sorting. They gave me some forms to fill out which I had to dash home and fill out and then return asap. They’ve still not been fully filled in as I hadn’t been paid yet and didn’t know what to write in the pay section. Evening I met up with Craig and Grace again (as you know) to see Takers. Again not a bad film but some poor writing in parts. That whole internal affair sub-plot and and others didn’t go anywhere and felt pointless.

Friday I met my friend Miles. My trans friend. Who is now legally called ‘Devon’. Erm……….yeah.

While out with him her I picked up Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light for the DS. It is such a damn good game, it feels like the old ‘classic’ Final Fantasy games. So. Damn. Good. There’s a bit in the game where two of your characters get turned into animals. A girl gets turned into a cat and a boy into a dog. I figured the other two character, another boy and girl would also turn into a cat and dog based on their genders (boys = dogs, girls = cats). Later when I was able to turn the other boy into an animal I tried expecting him to become a dog. He turned into a chicken. I had a moment where I sat and giggled like a little child for a minute or so. I’m so childish.

I’ve been catching up on some american tv shows. Namely House and Stargate Universe. I’ve also decided to skip ahead in True Blood and have been watching my way through series 2. As of typing I’m up to episode 9. I think I’ll watch through series 3 afterwards too.

My parents keep asking me what I want for Christmas but I’ve no idea. The only things I can think of are CDs (which, thanks to Ruth, there are 11 I want) and DVDs (4 films, 2 boxsets). Other than those I’ve no idea. I’d add game to it but I’d just end up buying some of them before Christmas anyway. Best to leave them off until later.

I had a happy moment earlier to day when I logged into a Game Maker forum I’m on and found someone had PMed me asking me if I’d heard of a game called Cave Story because the game I’m making reminded that person of it. Cave Story is one of my favourite games and is a source of inspiration for my game. I was so happy when I read that message.

Aaaaaaand that’s all I can think of for now. See you guys later.

PS. I got a pay slip in the post and the pay for the parcel sorting has been paid into my account. I won’t have to go chasing around after it which I would be doing tomorrow if I hadn’t gotten it. Thankfully.

I ache because I worked a six hour shift parcel sorting depot. I got a call from the recruitment agency I was with asking me if I wanted to work as a parcel sorter. I agreed and they gave me a handful of details. I had to phone them up again later to find out more because I knew so little about it, they didn’t tell me much that time either. One of the big details missing was how long I’d be working there, I figured I’d ask at the place as they would know. They didn’t. The agency hadn’t told them. I woke up at 2am this morning, got ready and went in. I was talking to the boss guy there and he told me that they normally get a new agency person in ever week. I knew the position was only going to be temporary but one week?!

I stuck around and did the shift, I wasn’t going to bail after I’d arrived. It was damn tiring work. I have bruises over both my arms. When I got home I soaked in the bath because I really really needed it. Relaxed for a while and then drive into Boro, went into the agencies office and told them I didn’t want their help anymore. I basically quite the job after one day. The job itself was harsh but you’d get used to it eventually if you had time to. Longer than a week at least.

The agency doesn’t work the way I thought it would have. What they do is get a message from some work place saying they need someone to do X. Agency then phones suitable people to do X and sends you off to work them for a while. Once you’re done your out of a job again until they ask you to do something else. You bounce around different places working for short periods of time doing whatever. Sorry but that’s not what I want. I want A job, not a bunch I bounce back and worth from whenever they need people. A bit of fucking consistency. Hopefully I’ll get this job I’m interviewing for on Friday. At least that one is a permanent position.

God I’m tired.

In none ‘uuuuurgh blarg blarg’ news I got Dead Rising 2. It is awesome but the fights with the psychopaths are still stupidly hard. There’s a chef guy who heals himself. I hate him with a passion. I completed it the other day and was surprised at how well I did. First run through and I got the S rank ending (the best), saved a load of survivors and beat quite a few psychopaths. The game has online vs multiplayer which is quite fun and online co-op story which I’ve not tried yet but really really want to. Craig, buy Dead Rising 2. Do it now.

I also picked up No More Heroes 2 which I’ve been meaning to do for a while. It retains the crazy story and style from the first game. Haven’t completed it yet because of DR2. I’m also restarted playing Dragon Age, (temporarily on hold while I first played through DR2). I’ve decided to play through as one character and then continue with another when I’ve finished instead of playing one section with all three of my characters before moving to the next one. Also I made my female mage make out with Leliana. Aaaaaalll riiiiight.

None games news, I now have a picture thingy hanging on the wall in my room. It’s some spelling of my name but the letters are made up of plants and animals in watercolour paint. The R is a bamboo shoot with a caterpillar and a fish, try and work that one out. My parents got their names an mine done when they were on holiday a year or so back and decided to get them framed. Don’t ask me why. It’s now hanging over the head of my bed. I just hope the hook is strong enough. i don’t want it falling on my head while I’m sleeping.

I’m too tired to think of anything else to write or even check if any of this makes sence. I am going to sleep like a brick tnogih….zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Other than kicking back and playing games I mean.

I applied for a games animation job via an agency. They told me my portfolio wasn’t quite good enough to compete in the market which I kinda knew it wouldn’t be. So now I’m working on some animation pieces to improve my showreel. So far I’ve ran two crowd simulations.

First with 50 fish:

Then with 199 fish:

I plan on getting myself very acquainted with reactor which does things like cloth, fur, ragdoll and collision based animation. Then I’m moving onto facial animation and some animation loops.

Grace asked me about the webcomic the other day. I’ve been busy thinking through various story lines and how they all fit together and the characters motives and how they all relate to each other. I’m making sure I have a lot of it planned out before I start drawing it proper. I’ve got quite a few notes written down and more that needs to be noted before I forget.

I’ve also started another blog, a bit of a daft one where I list of ten things I’ve learnt from playing various games. Ten Things I Learnt From Playing Games

I’m also very much looking forward to next week when E3 is on. If you don’t know, E3 is a big expo where all the games companies show off the games they’ll be releasing in the next year or two. It’s also where Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony show off any new hardware they’re releasing, like new consoles for instance. It is quite possibly the biggest event in the games industry calendar. I’m am super excited for it, I’ll be watching the coverage live.

It’s been while since I’ve posted an update so here we go.

Car lady got into contact with me so I finally had to pay for the damages. Can’t really complain about that, it was my own fault. I’ve finished my site for now and have updated my CV minus a few small tweeks so I will be applying to places soon. I’m not looking forward to this. Other than that not much else has been going on with me. Mostly been playing games and catching up on some webcomic reading I’ve been neglecting for some time. I keep meaning to do more productive things like drawing more comic pages (or write down more ideas for it first), playing with some animation stuff and I have an idea for a tech demo of a game which could be very good.

Big surprise but I’ve been playing games as well. I bought and finished Alan Wake, a survival thriller game which is very good although short. I’m currently playing Red Dead Redemption, another game me and Craig HAVE to play online together once he goes gold.

The title of this post is about those games, just so you know.

Simon and Jan are getting a puppy by the way. It’s currently two and a half weeks old so they won’t be getting it for a little while but it’s a black Labrador.

I also just finished watching the end of Paul Blart: Mall Cop. I didn’t mean to watch too much of it but I saw that Jayma Mays is in it and I couldn’t help myself.

Also also, I wish I’d learnt to play the piano when I was younger so I could play stuff like this:

So damn beautiful.

I should really do one and so I am.

I’ve not been up to much since my last post. I met up with Ruth, Gemma and Erin (sp?) on thursday and then I had dinner with Ruth and Craig on friday. I’ve been playing taxi for my parents a few times which led to a small car accident where I scrapped some womans car. She only got a few scratches and I’ve got some scratches and slight dents. Nothing big, everyone has an accident sooner of later. I managed three years and it was quite small. Simon completely wrote off his first car in about a year or so of buying it.

I’ve been doing some work on my website, getting it ready for applying for jobs. Craig set me up an swanky new email address that will be my official “contact” address. I’m going to piece together parts of animation I’ve made for uni to make my show-reel soon and find the best pictures I’ve drawn for a gallery on the site. After that it’s checking everything is ok, updating my CV which is now quite out of date and then applying for jobs. :/

In more relaxed news I’ve finished Bioshock 2 and Mass Effect 2. I’ll write up some reviews when I can be bothered. I’m looking forward to friends finishing uni so we can start hanging out properly again. I’ve not been to the cinema since Kick-Ass. I’m also looking forward to play Saints Row 2 with Craig as well as any other games we get that we can play together. Also Eurovision is on at the end of the month but I’ll have to wait a bit longer for that.

I’m also thinking of writing/drawing a comic based on a pair of dreams I had a few weeks back. To be honest I’ve been thinking of drawing one for quite a while as a way of keeping my drawing skills up. That and finding my own drawing style through the power of Art Evolution (it’s a trope, go look it up).

That’s all I can think of for now. I’ll be seeing you guys soon hopefully.