Wed, November 30

Nancy Pelosi on The Daily Show—10:20 PM

I've never been too fond of her daughter's taste in men, but Nancy Pelosi is a dandy fine House Minority Leader. It was fun to watch her with Jon Stewart tonight, because she's not afraid to get feisty. The Democrats' key struggle these days (among many) is not having a strong, confident voice. But polls show that most Americans agree with them that the Iraq war is a bad idea (just as polls at the time showed that most Americans agreed with them in 2002 when a bunch of them voted in favor of it). Good for Pelosi, capitalizing on the rare scenario in which Dems enjoy popular support.

Also, I just flipped over to CBS for Criminal Minds (the best show you're not watching – except for Mom, who's also not watching Veronica Mars). It was starting a couple minutes late because the broadcast of the traditional Rankin-Bass Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer program was running long. I haven't watched it in years – is that really the sound effect they used for Rudolph's glowing nose? That high, sustained squeal that sounds like a mix between a teapot whistle and your old modem when you dialed into Compuserve? My God, that's awful.

2 comments

Meet Package Man—3:59 PM

Class is almost over; I've learned tons of great tips and tricks, and I've gained a working familiarity with the Maya interface, but there's still a long way to go to reach Unbelievable Animation Superstardom. So today I was bored at work (is there any other kind?) and I tracked down some free resources online.

Golly, Internet people sure are generous! I quickly discovered a handful of free characters, already modeled, textured, and rigged. (This refers – respectively – to the creation of their shape, their color and surfaces, and the virtual "skeleton" which serves as their animation controller.) Obviously, in time I'll be creating my own characters from scratch, but these are a delightful resource for practicing in the meantime – and they'll give me a reference as I learn the how to build and rig a character myself.

There are lots of fun characters, but so far my favorite (for versatility as well as spunk) is Package Man from Rigging 101. Below is my very first character pose – Package Man straining to touch his toes. His design and texture were included, but the lighting and pose are all mine.

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Sweets make baby Jesus cry—10:59 AM

This morning while checking the weather online, I was amused by the return of M&Ms holiday custom printing offer, in which you can choose your own (very brief, very safe) message and have it printed on your candy. I remembered being amused by this last year and – sure enough, there it is in the Buzzworthy section of today's Wayback Machine. This can't be a coincidence.

I don't suppose I can really be surprised that M&M/Mars goes crazy restricting what they'll allow me to print on my candy, but really – is anyone going to blame M&M if they find my candy offensive? Obviously I chose the message – if anyone should be sued because the candy is offensive it should be me.

Anyway, it always makes me laugh when companies offer the chance to "create your own!" but then cover their ass with a lot of restrictions. So, as usual, I tried to think of selections that would technically fall within the M&Ms guidelines, but would still probably be rejected.

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Tue, November 29

An open letter to the Fox Broadcasting Company

In which I finally voice my reasons why Arrested Devleopment should stay on the air. Let's hope someone will listen. (Read more.)

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Mon, November 28

Cars Decals—11:23 AM

Pixar has released another teaser trailer for next summer's Cars. This one is a very fun car ad parody, with lots of racing footage.

As usual, the best parts are the little hidden jokes, like a natural "carhenge" formation in the background of one shot, the Lightyear brand tires, and the cute decals on the race cars, which have been around since the very first teaser last fall.

My favorite of all: Lil' Torquey Pistons!

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Wed, November 23

Consumerism Bonanza—12:17 PM

I think I went to a hardware store with my dad on the day after Thanksgiving last year, but usually I have no experience with the crazy after-Thanksgiving sales that kick off the holiday shopping season. (Sorry, Christmas shopping season – with trees, holly, and the birth of baby Jesus!)

During yesterday's lunchtime viewing of old Drew Carey Show reruns on TBS, Wal-Mart was advertising a sale that starts at 5am. Something about that makes me want to get there just to watch it happen. I bet I'd come back with some very interesting pictures.

Then again, a year or two ago, a lady was trampled at a Wal-Mart in a stampede over $50 DVD players. The Internet already has plenty of interesting pictures. See?

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Tue, November 22

Sedona Trip—4:53 PM

Last weekend I traveled to visit a friend in Sedona, Arizona. It's about an eight hour drive, my longest stretch as a driver, and much farther than I've ever driven alone (before this it was about 85 minutes).

The drive was actually pretty enjoyable, despite the fact that the landscape is mostly barren and boring along I-40 for the majority of the trip. I enjoyed the novelty of it, the ability to see so many places, and the feeling of self-sufficiency. (Out there on my own without friends, family, or even TiVo – it was a very new experience.)

Sedona is pleasant enough, although clearly intended for a much more touristy kind of visitor than I. Dopey tchotchke stores as far as the eye could see. We did a hike on Saturday – a lot of the same towers of red rocks that you'd expect, but very pretty.

Along I-40 somewhere between Flagstaff and the California border, I noticed a stretch of highway that had been adopted by "Anonymous." Of course, I immediately flashed to Zach Galifianakis's line, "At what age is it appropriate to tell a highway that it's adopted?" and that Seinfeld episode in which Kramer took custody of a mile and made it his own. But what really made me wonder is the "Anonymous." Very generous, considering the main reason for adopting a stretch of highway is the sign with your company's name on it – but does this mean that he comes out to pick up litter in a ski mask?

I'm attaching the Sedona Trip photo gallery to this entry, but as of now that won't mean any pictures show up on the home page. I'll try to work on that over the weekend, because that's just silly.

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Mon, November 21

Ticketmaster: The Sweet Spoils of Pseudo-Monopoly—11:11 AM

Begrudgingly, I bought some tickets on Ticketmaster today. I avoid this whenever I can, but I have done it often enough by necessity that I know the drill: pants down, waist bent, ankles grabbed.

Sure enough: $7.75 per ticket as a "convenience fee" plus another $4.50 for the entire transaction as an "order processing fee." Gosh, I'd have thought the actual processing of the order would fall under the definition of "convenience." An unprocessed order would be very inconvenient indeed.

Worse yet, the $7.75 appears to be based on a percentage of the ticket price. For the cheaper tickets, the "convenience anal rape fee" was only $7.50. Does it cost Ticketmaster more to provide the convenience of more expensive tickets? No!

Ticketmaster gets a percentage from the people whose tickets they're selling – which in any sane world would be more than enough to cover their overhead, since all they have to do is provide a list of shows, display horribly vague seating charts, and print out tickets. On top of that they charge their own fees, presumably to cover more costs. But then why does that need to vary in proportion to the ticket price? More expensive tickets aren't any harder to print. And why does an additional fee need to be added per transaction?

The answer: because they've got us over a barrel. They've been the dominant ticket-selling force forever, so venues are going to keep using them, and that leaves us, the consumers, with no choice. Given that captive market, Ticketmaster would be crazy if they didn't charge outlandish fees and provide terrible customer service. That's how capitalism works, particularly in a monopoly.

I vaguely remember – years ago – some band trying to cut Ticketmaster out of the deal and getting into a big fight. I think it was Pearl Jam, in which case it would have been the only thing they ever did that I have any respect for.

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Thu, November 17

Air Raid—4:50 PM

One of the things I've always loved about 3D rendering is how easy it is to copy something once you've built it. If I wanted to draw a picture of two planes, I'd have a whole other plane to draw after I finished my first plane. But in 3D land, I can just build one plane and then hit Duplicate. (Of course, this can be taken to extremes – like the Lord of the Rings battle scenes.)

The assignment this week was to place my plane in an environment, so I decided to place multiple copies of my plane in the environment and stage a battle. Ideally, I'd have preferred a photograph from the deck of the battleship looking up into the sky – but those are pretty hard to come by. (Still, don't think I wasn't tempted to place the battle above this bunch of tourists or behind this guy's photo-op.)

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Taily Ho!—12:05 AM

Interesting episode of Lost tonight. It turns out I will be watching next week. I'm not sure how I feel about that.

(For those who care, spoilers from here on out.) The show ended last week with Ana Lucia shooting Shannon in the chest – or so seemed. Brandon, onebee's Patron Saint of Semi-Obsessive Message Board Skimming, brought up the fact that technically Ana Lucia and Shannon never share the frame, so it could be two shootings: Ana Lucia shot someone else, and someone else shot Shannon. I decided I had to draw a line: I accept that to be suspenseful, the show must jerk me around, but crafting a scene so clearly to imply one shooting when really there are two? Too much.

Turns out it's one shooting. (Or else Lost is really committing to this switcheroo with fake scenes from next week's episode.) The chilling news here is the mind control the Lost writers have over their cultish base of unexpected-expecting fans. They can throw anything on the screen: if it's good, it's brilliant; if it doesn't fit together, there must be more going on that we're not meant to know just yet. (And if it's just an innocuous prop or editing choice, it's a clue! to some mind-blowing rabbit hole which will turn the entire show – nay, our very concept of reality! – on its ear!)

Still, tonight was a fun alternative view of island life, especially since it began with the plane crash, which we never saw from the original perspective. When your plane crash show starts to lose momentum by following too many blind alleys and recounting too many redundant flashbacks, you can always spice things up by going back to basics – more plane crash footage!

Also: Josh Randall. Kickass.

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Wed, November 16

Polygonal Modeling—3:21 PM

This week, we're modeling a plane. But instead of using NURBS, we're using polygons. (NURBS stands for Non-Uniform Rational B-Splines – but the point is, it uses curves to define a surface.)

So far, the progress is okay, but I hit a snag when I found out I had beveled an edge by accident and it was too far back in the undo continuum to try to undo it, so I had to start over. The good thing about modeling with polygons is that it's much, much faster.

Consider the attached photos: one is a big solid lump, and the other is a pretty decent approximation of a plane. Time in between? 20 minutes. You just pull and shape the various surfaces out of that block until you get wings, a cockpit, etc.

It's like the way Michelangelo would start with a solid slab of marble and chip away everything except the sculpture – but instead of chipping away, I'm stretching apart. (There are probably other differences between Michelangelo and I, but that's at least one.)

Update: Smoothed. More to come.

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Full Count Dept.—10:31 AM

In a delicious twist of irony, Major League Baseball has announced a new "three strikes" rule as part of its tougher, more comprehensive drug testing policy.

Which led me to think: "three strikes" has been adopted in so many other situations, including repeat offenders of violent crimes. I wonder how many dangerous criminals we'd have walking our streets today if baseball had been invented with four strikes? Or how many lives would have been saved if it had only two?

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Mon, November 14

Baby Idol: No Holds Barred

Desperate as they all were to get to the merge, nobody on Survivor seems to have a competent, viable strategy for surviving the chaos that follows it. They're all flailing wildly, making whatever deals they can. (Read more.)

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Sun, November 13

A Day on the Links—10:13 PM

All day Saturday was spent playing video game golf at Dave & Buster's in Arcadia. It was originally intended to be a few hours in the afternoon, with lunch, but we got carried away. Even though Matt had to head home, Joe, Brandon, and I couldn't resist returning in the evening for a couple more courses.

It's a ridiculously fun game – it's challenging, but uncomplicated enough that it's still fun. You have to take it seriously to do well, but it trades hyper-realism for enjoyment: it's not entirely uncommon to make a 40-foot eagle putt. Playing eighteen holes takes a little over an hour, but it's still pretty breezy play. And there's something so satisfying about crushing that giant trackball to smash a tee shot down the virtual fairway. (Although, after a full day of it, I do sort of feel like I need to ice my shoulder.)

Joe brought his snazzy new digital camera, so there are a few photos of the proceedings to share.

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Fri, November 11

You want stalkers?—9:50 AM

Defamer is creeped out by the following craigslist post, because the guy seems like a crazy stalker. So, for one thing, it's linked here as a contrasting exhibit for those who like to criticize my On Maggie column. You want stalkers? This is a stalker:

craigslist: I'm seeking Kate

Furthermore, it's worth reading because I find the creepiness level to be far less upsetting than the frequent use of possessives instead of plurals. If I were this Kate person and I had any teensy inkling of ever dating this guy, it would be squashed by his ridiculously bad grammar. I'm still cringing over it.

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Thu, November 10

More Car—6:08 PM

As you can see, extremely slow going with the car project, but this is what I've got for now. I'm pleased with the way the texture is coming out – trying to replicate the mottled metallic paint surface of a car.

After tonight's class, hopefully I'll be armed with more helpful tips to make things faster and better!

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Wed, November 9

Look at the Monkey—10:18 AM

Universal has released a teaser poster for December's King Kong, and it's a really impressive rendering. Posterwire.com (the movie poster weblog) thinks it looks a little too perfect, but I think the texture and character design are remarkable and the shot doesn't feel overly "arranged" to me.

We saw the latest trailer for King Kong on Jarhead this weekend, and although the story seems to be in keeping with Peter Jackson's overuse of majesty in recent years, the animation is clearly top notch. Kong looks great in all kinds of grunting, flailing, swashbuckling action – and there's a shot of a dinosaur going over a cliff that's just packed with nuance. Weta is really showing themselves to be quite a powerhouse of high quality animation: the characters move and react with exquisitely realized force and weight. The detail is really astonishing.

It's getting harder and harder to impress audiences (especially me) with CG effects because now that anything is possible, nothing is special. (This is one of the things that bothered me about LOTR.) The powerhouse visual effects movies of the future will be the ones that employ the technology intelligently – focusing on detail, nuance, and most of all, story. A digital army of millions is ho-hum, but a computer-generated Kong, as the emotional center of the movie, could be quite a thing to see.

I'm sure there are lots more pictures on KongisKing.net – I haven't dipped into it, because I cracked the door open to Blue Tights a while ago, and it gobbled up a whole weekend with all the insider details and fascinating "video diary" segments to explore.

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Tue, November 8

Gut Check Time—5:18 PM

So, the Survivor column is late, and with an extended McRace tonight, it looks like I may have to skip this week. Two reasons: one, I was very lazy and played a lot of video game golf this weekend, and watched TiVo. Two, I'm working hard on building a more acceptable car.

There's no homework in class this week, so I'm taking the free time and trying to build a better car, because I think it's important for me to master these tools. The thing is, it's soul-crushingly difficult. A couple of times an hour over the last two days, I've been really tempted to give up. But I'm working on the baby steps of my new dream career – if I can't cut it on this assignment, what hope is there for my glimmering future at Pixar?

So, I soldier on. And, little by little, I'm making progress and learning how this insanely complicated software works. (Mostly, it's the math of curves – I knew I should've paid attention in high school Calculus!) (No, I didn't. I really didn't. All I knew was that it made my head hurt and it was a lot more fun to make jokes and take a lot of naps.)

Anyway, here's the sum total of my last two days of work. It doesn't look like much? Yeah, that's why there's been no time for writing, or even really lunch. Just goes to show you what a huge difference there is from last week's hastily assembled jalopy.

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Mon, November 7

The West Wing Live Debate

By staging the Vinick/Santos debate just like the Bush/Kerry debates, NBC forced me to relive an hour of last fall's campaign. And the pain didn't stop there. (Spoilers!) (Read more.)

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Fri, November 4

Books - Words + Stars = Movies

First the video iPod made TV shows and music the same thing. Now Random House Films has a formula to treat books and movies as one product. (Read more.)

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Steve Inskeep, my savior—12:50 PM

I listened to literally six minutes of NPR this morning in the car. (Literally!) The very end of "Morning Edition" and the 9 am news break. And out of that came two ideas for frothy rants in the typical onebee tradition.

So long, caffeine! NPR is my new writer's block breaker! I'm so thankful I'm almost tempted to make a donation. But where would I put my tote bag and Cokie Roberts blow-up doll?

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RIP, DVC—10:30 AM

So Coca-Cola has announced that they'll be getting rid of Vanilla Coke and Diet Vanilla Coke (at least temporarily) as of the end of this year. This has no effect on me, except that certain loved ones are devotees of DVC.

It is, however, an interesting development in the recent Pimp My Soda wave of the long-standing Cola Wars: the announcement is actually part of a larger announcement about the debut of Black Cherry Vanilla Coke and Diet Black Cherry Vanilla Coke. I feel ways about this.

On the one hand, kudos to Coke for saying "enough!" with the billions of cola/mixer permutations. Some hyperactive focus group moderator somewhere in the Midwest convinced them that the world needs Black Cherry Vanilla Coke, and they're going with it, but they're doing the socially responsible thing and removing another product from an already crowded cola shelf, so it's a zero-sum change. Good form.

On the other hand, WHY?!?! Black Cherry Vanilla Fucking Coke? Seriously? We need this? Coke and Cherry Coke we need. Good deal. Diet versions of each, fine. There are overweight realtors across this nation who think if they have Diet Cokes with their Whoppers, they're on the road to fitting back into their college bikini – fine, there's a market there. (Also, homosexuals.) But lime? Lemon? Vanilla? Cherry Vanilla? Where does it end? If we want other stuff in our Coke so badly, why can't we be trusted to pour it in ourselves? I blame the makers of Skittlebräu for capitulating to their lazy customers and kicking off this trend in the first place.

See, for a while it was cute. You had your Clear Pepsi or whatever. (And, by the way, ick.) But now it's just become insane. I used to laugh at Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper because it had so many add-ons that it became impossible to pronounce in one breath. But now my own beloved Coca-Cola Bottling Co. is getting involved, trumping all with Diet Black Cherry Vanilla Coke. It's madness! They're modifying the modifiers! It's not just cherry – no, that cherry is black.

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Thu, November 3

A Simple Car—3:37 PM

My homework assignment this week was to render a "simple car" to go with the wheel from last week. I struggled a lot with this assignment – I understand the new tools we're learning, but it's been very difficult to get their results to piece together into the car I envisioned in my head. So, I focused on the "simple" part and just did the best I could in the time available. Next week's assignment will be to refine the car, so I'll start fresh and add in all the details then.

Certainly I'm disappointed with this week's results, but I look at it as a learning experience. If I could do it all myself without assistance, what would be the point of the class? I have a feeling I'll learn a lot during the homework review portion of this week's lecture, as I ask tons of questions and try to figure out where I went wrong.

One area, of course, is "proportion." Rather than import the wheel and build a car around it, I chose to build a car of my own design and then add wheels to it. This turned out to be not so bright: the wheel is the only thing with any proper proportion, while the rest of the car looks like a bizarre hybrid of Cruella De Vil's hideous roadster and that crimson Little Tykes Cozy Coupe my mom calls the "Flintstone car." By the time I found this out, it was this morning and too late to start over and create all those surfaces again before tonight's class.

Thanks for your support. Try not to laugh at this week's renderings – just think of it as room for improvement in next week's bunch!

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Tue, November 1

We Are Family

Birthday parties, oozing wounds, and all, the remaining contestants traipse into the gaping maw of the mid-game merge. (Read more.)

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The dreaded blank screen—2:08 PM

There's a scene in the Simpsons episode where Homer is trying to be an inventor: at a loss for inspiration, he tries to force the issue by getting a running start. He takes off from across the room, sprints up to the inventing table, and stops with his face a few inches above his pencils and blank sheet of paper. I'm at a point where I'm trying the same thing with this week's Survivor column.

It's been that way for a while, which I'm sure has been pretty clear if you look at the drop-off in onebee output. Reluctant as I am to post the "whining about writer's block" post, it's the only thing I've been able to think about for weeks. I've really been looking forward to writing insightful things about Junebug, Shopgirl, and Serenity – but when I sprint across the room and dive towards the laptop, nothing happens.

It'll pass; it always does. But in the meantime, what a weird feeling! Ack! I need to come up with better strategies for this sort of situation. Usually, I just apply a lot of caffeine to the problem, but that's not working this week, and I've even got a Survivor episode full of ready-made material. The gears just aren't turning.

Anyway, that's what I've been up to.

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