pantagruel

fiction generator and ten dimensions

2009-11-16T07:30:09-08:00

Oh, if only it were this easy:

In other news:

It's a typical fall at Saltmine U. Late summer through fall is the busiest season in academia, as it's often the beginning of the fiscal and academic years. Budgets must be either used up, or freshly funded. So it's busy, and the furloughs aren't making life any easier, as people are now gone more days, but still must produce the same amount of work. I will be very relieved when the winter break comes in December, and I can fall down and sleep for two weeks.

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John Howe has a great post about understanding the history behind what you're illustrating.

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Dragon Age: Origins took over all my free time for a few days. I suspect that I will never outgrow my love of video games, especially role-playing ones with good stories and characters. Here's a review of the game which contains a mention of narratology -- it's good to see other English majors writing reviews these days, and makes for a nice change from the standard review of 'Best game of the year!!!11!!'

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For those of you who have always wondered what the ten dimensions look like, here's an illustrated explanation:

Imagining The 10 Dimensions - Watch more Funny Videos

And now, on to the week's work.

design, books, gamer, geek, writer, writing, physics

ron [Flickr]

2009-11-03T08:11:14-08:00

culfinglin posted a photo:

I love this reference shot Ron posed for. It's so silly.

miles [Flickr]

2009-11-03T08:11:12-08:00

culfinglin posted a photo:

Miles, looking worried.

comic-con me [Flickr]

2009-11-03T08:11:10-08:00

culfinglin posted a photo:

Saturday morning at Comic-Con. I haven't had coffee yet.

Studio's booth [Flickr]

2009-11-03T08:11:06-08:00

culfinglin posted a photo:

I don't know who took this shot of everyone in the booth, but I love it. Heads down, everyone drawing.

Neil-as-Dream [Flickr]

2009-11-03T08:11:04-08:00

culfinglin posted a photo:

nerd-in-chief

2009-11-02T11:11:35-08:00

How did I miss this spectacular display of geekery in September from the POTUS?

Photo: Getty Images

That Obama decided he wanted to fence against Olympic fencer Tim Morehouse would've been enough to endear him to me -- because I love the sport. But that he did it with a toy lightsaber cements his place in my heart as a fellow member of the Geek Tribe.

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In other news, the annual fall busy season at Saltmine U. continues apace. Things should ease up around Thanksgiving, which will give me a chance to breathe. (Which I'm not doing particularly well at today -- turns out that if you mess up the proportions of yew and wormwood in incense, it aggravates your lungs something fierce. Go me.)

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This weekend, almost all my media devices went on strike. Xbox 360 gave me the Red Ring of Death; my DVD player has decided to suddenly stop playing back discs; and my old iPod will not mount, play back music, or turn on. I suspect some strange electronic conspiracy. I'm hoping a new AV cable for the Xbox will fix the problem, but we'll see.

Maybe our Nerd-in-Chief will hold Microsoft down and force them to make hardware that isn't a bunch of junk.

I can hope, right?

fencing, gamer, politics, work

working with bad clients

2009-10-26T07:24:29-07:00

This morning, I realized that I've been using Photoshop since version 2.5, when it didn't even have layers. 1993's when I first sat down and spent a month of afternoons going through the Classroom in a Book tutorials. It wasn't all that long ago that design was done by hand.

Perhaps it's that 16 years of hard work and experience with clients that makes me laugh until I cry when I watch these videos about working with clients.

Oh, yes. I have heard clients say these things. And yes, I've even managed to be professional. But let's not push our luck.

advertising, arg, art direction, design, work

secrets of tech support

2009-09-30T15:20:32-07:00

From Randall at xkcd.com:

I swear by all that's holy, I'm going to print out copies of this and start handing them out to my family, friends, and coworkers.

advice, arg, one really riled AD, work

shiny things

2009-09-17T07:23:07-07:00

Apparently I'm not the only one who's noticed that coffee roasts and type weights have the same taxonomy. I covet this mug. And I covet this shirt:

A closer view:

Who knew design was so Goth?

This bracelet is the best, though:

Now I can confuse even more people who don't know what Lorem Ipsum or greeked text is!

Damn you, Veer, for coming up with all these things I now medically need to own.

art direction, design, covet, shiny things