The bag was in great condition for being at least 15 years old (and spending most of that time with Puck), but Zo’s bags are well known for their long lifespans. It even came with a note. I believe Puck may have been only half kidding when he said “urine and S.F. street funk included for free.”. Although it looked pretty clean, it definitely could have used a wash.

As I mentioned, the bag was in great shape, without a rip or a tear anywhere. I really dug some of the patches it was embellished with including an old Lightning Express patch. The bag’s owner (I can’t believe I already forgot her name) also pointed out that in the left hand corner was an angel patch that was mysteriously embroidered over a pot leaf for some strange reason. It sort of reminded me of when someone covers up a tattoo they aren’t particularly fond of with another tattoo… but usually people just seam rip patches… not cover them up.

In another odd twist, I learned that Zo wasn’t at the radio station today because he just got married… this morning!

I’ll bring some watercolors, paper, and brushes for anyone to use, but folks are encouraged to bring their own art/craft materials too. Maybe we can get a mix of different mediums going, anyone wanna try making a Dr. Horrible doll? Anyone is welcome to hang out (you don’t even have to draw), but you haven’t seen the Dr. Horrible Sing-Along Blog podcasts yet, check them out at DrHorrible.com

On a side note, Zeitgeist has a new cook named Jess and she seems like a cool girl. She asked me to tell my friends that she’s bringing back the breakfast menu on Sunday’s, so this is how I’m doing it.

Another piece made with those cheap watercolors I’ve been writing about.

For those interested, www.documentaryclub.ning.com is online now, so feel free to sign up and start pitching ideas. The ning page was built by my friend Scott Stead who has also wanted to start some sort of documentary club for a while now. Thanks Scott.

It will probably take us a few days to figure out how we should move forward with the club, but the basic idea is that we’ll pick 2 films a month to watch and discuss as a group. We’ll probably build some sort of polling page and work on other bells and whistles. I think we’ll also try to find a way to work with the cool features on SnagFilms, the cool new documentary video site.

I was just going to post the poop jam, but then I noticed that Wired.com writer Emily Lang had posted her article on this weekend’s event along with some fantastic pictures. The article’s title, “Blogs for Print Nerds”, makes me so happy because I’ve always felt a connection between indie print media (like zines and mini comics) and online media (like this blog). I also happen to be working on an article about the “missing dog head” flier and how it was the first meme I encountered (way before I started using teh internets).

In case you missed it, I also got a little Wired.com loving last week with a detailed article about my “missing lolCat” fliers and new album. There’s also an upcoming Wired.com article about the Nerdcore for Life showing in SF and the afterparty that my band played at.

And to top all of that off, Cory Doctorow blogged about the Wired article and he used that sexy picture of me and Lori Stein at our Cartoonist Conspiracy table. I’ve heard that Cory has bought a couple of jeans from Self Edge. If he got them hemmed, there’s a good chance that the scraps from his jeans could be part of some of those wallets.

Several of the tables at this year’s Zinefest were offering “make your own buttons” services. The basic idea was that for one dollar, you could draw a little image and have it made into a little 1″ button. I did three water colored buttons before I remembered an old idea I’ve had about cutting up a dollar bill and turning it into buttons. The result worked out even better than I imagined, especially the pyramid and eagle sections which must have been designed with this idea in mind because they seem to fit so perfectly.

$4 yielded me 3 buttons. Considering the value of a dollar right now, I think this was a good investment. I’ve long been searching for a 1″button maker, but neither Craigslist or eBay have yet to turn up anything decent for under $200.

As expected, the bulk of my money came from my crafts. At $30 each, the few wallets I sold were 60% of this weekend’s profits. I also sold out of my last copies of the Cartoonist Conspiracy tribute to Eric and sold all my remaining copies of Moebius Strip Tease. I sold a bunch of copies of Ideas and a few copies of The Hamster That Wasn’t There, but at only $2 each, those just covered my expenses.

One dude gave me $2 for “Ideas”, but seemed pretty disappointed to discover that “Ideas” was just the name of my comic book.

I shared my table with several members of the Cartoonist Conspiracy, but Mike Hales, Melaina, Jeff Plotkin and a few other conspirators had their own tables as well.

Michael Cappozola, who was also tabling there, gave me this sketch:

Jesse Reklaw’s watercolor techniques workshop was the first “extra-curricular” event I’ve ever attended at a comic convention. Unfortunately I couldn’t help but to spend the whole class painting with watercolors and missed out on what I assume where some really good tips from an accomplished artist.

Moebius Strip Tease was self published in 2002 with stories, drawings and interviews by me and my friends (Schalicto and Titifreak). I had previously posted my MST interview with Jim Stensland here, but I’m now adding another story from MST titled “Penis” as a downloadable pdf here.

I’m sharing a table with my buddy Mike Hales, from IgorLabs, who’ll be pushing copies of his two newest comics (and handing out tons of business cards). I’ll mainly be pushing copies of my 24 Hour Comics and trying to convince people they need to buy as many of my wallets as they can afford, but I’ll also be selling some of my old comics and zines as well.

Although developing games for the iPhone may be hindered by it’s lack of controls, the iPhone itself could surprisingly make for an awesome game controller itself. Imagine controlling the avatar on your computer over WiFi with your iPhone. Tilting it to move forwards or backwards, selecting weapons from your touchscreen, controlling your weapon via swipe motions. The iPhone could make a great game controller, hell it’s even got a built in rumble pad!

Below I’m going to explore the “iPhone as a controller” concept slightly further with two fictitious examples. I n the first I’ll describe taking a current first person shooter and creating an iPhone controller for it. After that I’m going to describe the possibility of merging the iPhone with a laptop to create a totally unique game play.

Let’s look at a traditional FPS like World Of Warcraft and see how we could enhance the gaming experience using an iPhone as a controller. The accelerometer would lend itself well to navigating in WOW’s 3D environment. Leaning forward would make your character walk, leaning would turn, etc. The iPhone’s screen could be utilized for various displays. Shown in the picture above is an inventory of spells that could be left open during a fight. Whenever an item is selected, a sound could come from the iPhones speaker. Whenever a player is damaged, the rumble pack will shake in their hands. Another display could display a topographical map with locations of nearby friends. In this screen, the player could drop pins to make it easier to find for later. Different finger motions could be used to trigger different actions. Swiping a finger from left to right on the iPhone’s screen could wield a weapon being held in your inventory. Swiping forward could jump, etc. All of the swipe motions, inventory displays, and maps could be customized by the player to however they feel.

Tank Buggy is a game I made up to demonstrate another type of game play using the iPhone. T.B. is a cooperative 2 player game in which one player navigates a fast moving tank (using a laptop or desktop computer), while another player mans the tank’s turret (using only an iPhone). The 2 players will be synced up by using a WiFi network. To encourage interactivity, the driver will have a radar screen that shows the location of targets and the gunner will have a map to navigate the course with. This will require communication and teamwork. For the driver, the goal will be to navigate the course quickly, while working with the gunner to help get good clean shots. For the gunner, the goal will be destroy any other tanks in the drivers path and help navigate the course. The gunner will have access to 3 weapons; long range, close range, and remote control missile (which will give the player a first person POV while heading towards it’s target).

So there you have it, the possibilities of the iPhone are not just limited to puzzle games or casual games, but can be adapted to all sorts of new game interfaces. The screenshots used  in the WOW photo are from www.WorldOfWarcraft.com. This idea was heavily inspired by the awesome Remote app by Apple for wireless iTunes control. If you are a game developer and are interested in talking more about iPhone UI, leave a comment below or contact me directly if it’s for professional purposes. The controller ideas listed above are free for anyone to use, but if you do use any of them, I would appreciate a mention in the game credits and link to my site (www.DocPop.org).  In case you are wondering, working on or planning on creating any iPhone games or controllers using any of these ideas because I’m too caught up with IgorLabs working on our new X-Box title. The goal of this post was just to give developers some new ideas (with examples) of new ways to use the iPhone with the way we interact with our computers. Again, if you have any constructive comments, please post them below.

The basic purpose of having a Documentary Club is to be able to find and watch new documentaries, and then discuss them with friends. To run a group like this, we would need to figure out a few things;
1. where the group is located on the web and how we communicate
2. selection process
3. how can we ensure that everyone can see a film
4. what is the best way to get enjoyment out of the whole group process

I’d like to hear suggestions and ideas from everyone interested in the comments below, but here is one way I see this going; We create a yahoo group as a hub for conversations. Anyone in the group is allowed to suggest any documentaries for the whole group, if anyone else seconds a suggestion we add it to a poll. At the end of each month the two highest polled films will be the films for the following month. Each month we have two suggested films for discussion, but nobody is expected to watch both films. Then at the end of the month we start sharing our thoughts on the films (production, story, charm, filmmaker’s bias, etc). An alternative to the yahoogroup thing would be doing a live chat thing once a month and discussing the films on there. Somebody please give out some better ideas on what they’d like to see for a documentary club. If there is still enough interest, and we all seem to be on the same page, then I’ll start the process up and we’ll pick some movies.

edit: Thanks to the work of Scott Stead and many others, The Documentary Club is no online. Stop by DocumentaryClub.ning.com to sign up!