Apparently Comcast is raising their rates again by 3.3% in this area, because you know, they fucking can and people will continue to be loyal customers! Why? Because there’s no other option. Yeah, there’s Verizon DSL, but I’d let Mola Ram pull my heart out before switching to DSL. Dealing with lower speeds and having to get phone jacks installed isn’t something I can get exited about.
What I really want is FiOS, but it seems that too many factors are against this happening anytime in the foreseeable future. It’s as if just about every other town in Pennsylvania has FiOS availability, but Landisville/East Hempfield is left in the dark. One of the reasons appears to be that Verizon has cut back on their expansion of laying down the fiber optics network, so they may not even have an interest in bringing FiOS to the area just yet. The other, more nefarious reason, looks to be that the franchise agreement between Comcast and East Hempfield is keeping out the competition. To be fair, I really don’t know what the agreement is between Comcast and East Hempfield township, but I do know that there is an agreement and that the township appears to get a kickback from Comcast. Somebody tell me if I’m wrong about this.
Whatever the reason is for the lack of options we have when it comes to choosing an ISP, I’m tired of Comcast constantly raising the subscription rates especially when the fee is already absurdly high, customer service is so piss poor and speeds are never as advertised.
Anyone that remembers this paint-sketch from back in July of 2008, well… thanks for being so loyal. Oddly enough, this very image landed me a small job recently, which resulted in the surly creature getting a bit of a polishing-up.
This client was looking for something half cheetah, half shark, as sort of a mascot for their office team. As it turns out, a Google image search of the term “cheetah shark” turns up the above sketch as result number one. After locating this image and subsequently coming to my site, I’m sure that the client immediately realized that he had found the premier authority on cheetah-sharks.
Really, of the handful of things I’ve drawn, I never imagined the chesnark bringing in clients.
Here’s the new re-paint. It’s really more of a Cheshark, as the snake elements have been removed via genetic modification.
Looks like the pressure from all those claiming to be offended by EA’s use of the Taliban, in the new Medal of Honor title, has prompted the developer to change the name of the bad guys from ‘Taliban’ to ‘Opposing Force’. Business is business, I guess.
I’m still not sure how simply changing the name makes any bit of difference. EA stated that this won’t affect the gameplay in any way, it’s only a name change. It’s like swastikas being removed in the German version of Return to Castle Wolfenstein. Okay, so there is no obvious Nazi emblem being displayed, but everyone knows who these bad guys are. It’s politics and politics is just a constant stream of bullshit.
This also makes you wonder if it was EA’s intention to do this all along. What better way to create buzz for a new title than by stirring up some controversy. Not that a new Medal of Honor game needs a whole lot of advertising, it’ll sell itself, but it’s not too hard to believe that somebody at EA planned this whole thing from the get go. Honestly, it would’ve cost them very little. It’s just a name change, so it’s not like this will cause EA to devote resources to re-developing parts of the the game in order to suit this change of plans.
Yeah, a new Medal of Honor coming out October 12. I was definitely excited to hear about this, being a big fan of the series ever since the first MoH came out for PC back in 2002 – Medal of Honor: Allied Assault. The single player game in MOHAA was amazing and I’ve enjoyed it all the way through many times, even somewhat recently. It was like being handed a rifle and getting thrust into Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan” without Matt Damon and Vin Diesel. The game was even devised by Spielberg himself. It was an exciting gaming and cinematic experience all at once, which was heightened by Michael Giacchino’s musical score.
In addition to the gripping single-player mode, the multiplayer experience took it to a whole new level, by forcing you to sign up on GameSpy arcade, download all sorts of ridiculous shit and jump through hoops just to get online and play. No, I mean it was great (minus all that GameSpy crap). You could play as a variety of different types of American troops vs. an array of German soldiers. With many different maps (locations) to choose from and a few options in game objectives; the fun was virtually endless. I really believe the series sparked a love of modern First Person Shooters in an entire generation of gamers and caused many to take a bit of an interest in WWII history.
Having such fond memories of Medal of Honor, it’s great to see a new installment. Of course, this latest one doesn’t involve trudging through 1940s French villages with an M1 Garand in your hands or planting explosives on a Panzer IV. No, this one hits a little closer to home, or current times, with it’s focus on Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom. I could think of dozens of other ways to continue on with the WWII setting, but I guess that theme has been overdone by now and the modern battlefield phase is still going strong.
In multiplayer mode for this newest Medal of Honor, you can apparently play as the Taliban. While this is obviously a natural feature of a First Person Shooter that takes place in wartime Afghanistan, it’s upset some guys that believe themselves to be really important and that their opinions matter, such as Canadian Defense Minister Peter MacKay and the US Army Exchange Service.
Mr. MacKay has this to say:“wrong that anyone, children in particular, would be playing the role of Taliban”and that“Canada and its allies have fought far too long in Afghanistan and it’s not a game”.
Well, I agree with the part about children. Children likely shouldn’t be playing this game, which is why it’s rated M or 17+, in same cases, 18+. The game is for adults. Adults are likely to realize that a real war in Afghanistan is “not a game”. And while the idea of real, actual war not being a “game” is debatable, I’ll agree that it’s not a “video game”. It’d be harder to agree if I was the guy controling the Predator drone with a joystick though.
UK Defence Secretary Liam Fox thinks: “It’s hard to believe any citizen of our country would wish to buy such a thoroughly un-British game. I would urge retailers to show their support for our armed forces and ban this tasteless product.”
Okay…
There are also some others offering up opinions on this matter, ranging from simple commentary all the way up to calling for a ban on the game. Whatever.
Where were these guys during the last 10 years when WWII themed games were so popular and you could go online pretending to be a Nazi while killing American and British soldiers? What’s the difference between doing that and playing as the “bad guy” in any other video game? I say there’s none, because it’s a GAME. Most people, if not all people, that play these games know it’s a game. Even if they’re not technically at the age where they can legally buy the game, I’m positive they know the difference.
What these anti video game crusaders don’t stop to think about is how insulting their bullshit is to the intelligence of millions. They’re basically telling you that your mind is so weak that you don’t understand the difference between fantasy and reality and that if you play this game, you’ll become some kind of a violent lunatic and “go all jihad”. Not true, everyone knows that listening to Marylin Manson is what causes that kind of behavior. And if they’re not spouting the “violence” crap, it’s some “patriotic” line about respect. It’s got nothing to do with any of that, of course, as it’s all entirely self-serving.
All these blowhards need to do is relax and actually try playing one of these games.
I’m not the kind of guy to go bragging about my kids – I know everyone thinks their kids are the greatest, as they should, but lets face it, most kids are simply average and don’t merit any sort of special acknowledgement unless they truly do something worthy of mention, just like everyone else. Basically, it’s just annoying when a parent constantly praises their kid for mediocre achievements. Commend them when they do well, encourage them to put forth the effort, but let them know when they fuck up. That’s just my opinion.
Not sure why I felt the need to preface this post with all of that, but I’m sure you’ll come up with a reason why.
Anyway… My 5 year old son draws all the time, just like a lot of other young kids, and his stuff is usually pretty good for his age. He generally spends most of his drawing time on images of Star Wars characters, Batman and that Blade guy from The Puppet Master (no, he hasn’t actually seen that movie). He’s also pretty anal about accuracy and details on these established characters, making sure everything is just right.
There are countless drawings he’s done that I think are fairly amazing for a 5 year old to be able to produce, but I’ve never posted a single one. He’s done everything from elaborate battle scenes, with full color, between Obi Wan and Anakin on Mustafar and X-wing and TIE Fighter dog fights above Tatooine, to simple head sketches of Batman and Captain Rex. Most of these always amaze me on some level, but looking at them, you could probably figure it was drawn by a kid between the ages of 4 and 10.
Then there was this sketch I found laying on my desk the other day. After completing it, he didn’t even bring it over to me to show off for approval, like he usually does. He just left it sitting there, thinking nothing of it, I’m sure. It’s a simple little line drawing, but when I saw it I was blown away. It’s not full of scratchy lines and careless, “5-year-old kid attention span” proportions and generic facial features. The lines are fluid and rhythmic, the proportions show character and it looks like there was real thought put into it. It was the first drawing of his that didn’t immediately look like it was drawn by a little kid – I thought that was something special. I was genuinely impressed and made sure to tell him as much. So to show him how much I liked it, instead of putting it up on the fridge with a magnet, I told him I’d put it on my website for the world to see… A world populated by about 3 people.
Like, almost a year ago! Here’s a sketch for it (OMG!). Even though Zuda failed to stick around long enough for us to get this project done on time, we’re still planning on hitting the streets with this shit eventually. Schedule’s tight these days, so doing this creator owned stuff takes for fucking ever!
I added a bunch of Chaotic TCG and Dinosaur King card illustrations to the color gallery. Both of those properties are handled by 4Kids Entertainment. I think the majority of these were done in the latter part of 2009, but recently got word that it’d be okay to put these up publicly. I have more Chaotic and DK cards on the hdd, but doubt they’re worth showing — They were either rushed or done when I really just didn’t feel like working, which always makes for a garbage end product.
That’s the problem with doing illustrations for a living. That creative process is fun and rewarding, but can also be exhausting and that creative mojo isn’t always there. Of course, you can’t expect clients to only offer you work when you’re in the mood, just doesn’t happen that way.
More color-oriented work going on at the moment, but that stuff probably won’t make its way here for another couple of months, at the earliest.
Until the next update… And happy V-day (wife made me cookies).
