FINAL UPDATE

Hey all, if you are reading this: congratulations! You have stumbled upon yet another dead blog.

Fear not for a lack of updates, because a new weekly podcast draws near!

Jumpmen Podcast

My big brother and I do a weekly video game / movie podcast that is on iTunes, RetrowareTV.com, and soon to be lots of other places. Please check us out and subscribe if you like it.

Thanks!

=chad

OH HAI

NERD editin =

I'm finally in a reprieve from editing. It is 11:26pm on Monday.

All day I've been doing VFX on the upcoming Nerd / Captain S crossover Christmas Spectacular, due to release . . . SOON! My personal deadline to finish said effects are this Friday, the night before Brett and I leave on a roadtrip to Minnesota. Why the roadtrip? The week of the National Puppetry Festival is at hand! Next week we'll be running around like madmen, taping performances, snaking interviews with puppet greats, and hopefully collaborating with Tory Vargas to put out a video blog at the end of every day.

It's madness. The fact that we're shooting an interview a day up until this Friday is nuts as well. Tomorrow morning Z, Devon and I drive to another cabin in the woods to get a pretty reputable puppeteer's thoughts on the festival system. Why are they important? He's sure to have an opinion.

More updates to come soon. While stuff is rendering, I have free time to blog! Yeah blog!

btw, READ A BOOK!

killer party duuuude

Sup internet.

Last night was Shael and Ivy's last big party in Bed Stuy. Since their move into that neighborhood, it's been nothing but drama, so I'm glad that they're finally moving out. Hopefully their next place (i hear it's in Williamsburg) will be a little friendlier...a little less hectic.

Bed Stuy...it's not a great place to walk around in at night. While we were walking to and from their apartment (which takes about 10 minutes from the closest subway stop), I always get stared at by the locals, which are predominantly black. It's one thing to be the only minority in a place - that I don't mind. The thing that sucks is that 90% of the people I see all stare at me like I'm out of place. Like I don't belong. While it's not completely racist of them to do so (why are a bunch of middle-class white kids walking through our poor black neighborhood?), it raises issues of race. Maybe it's just too hard to ignore.

Last night on our way back to the subway, we got called "little snowflakes" by some 30-something on his way over to a bunch of buddies. I smiled. What a stupid comment, I thought. Is that really the funniest thing he could come up with? Anyway, Bed Stuy isn't as bad as it used to be, but the feeling of not belonging in their community is still reflected in almost everyone I see. It helps me understand, if only a little bit, what whites put minorities through for a long, long time. Now I see how it must have felt to be the sole black kid in my hometown of Springville. It must have been nuts.

FF12 VANQUISHED

Seven months.

That's how long I was consumed by Final Fantasy 12. Over the last 1/2 a year, I played almost every day for exactly one hour - it was my daily reprieve from the marathon editing job that was Captain S season one.

What a great Christmas present that turned out to be - I haven't spent that long a time playing a videogame since my highschool days of Tekken 3 and Twisted Metal 2. Just the other day Devon and I were discussing the length of the game...both of us were just about to break over 100 logged hours on the game. And there's alot to do in 12 - we didn't spend our time screwing around just doing sidequests (well, we did hunt a lot of marks). I still haven't found how to unlock the game's fishing minigame or get any ultimate weapons - feats that usually push the normal player past the 60-hour mark in a Final Fantasy game. There's still so much more to do!

I do feel like the ending came out of nowhere. There could have been much more game and story to explore, but it wound up wrapping itself up pretty quickly. Without spoiling anything, I really feel like all the villains in the game could have had more on-screen time. Every time a new bad guy was introduced, then -BOOM- it's boss battle time. That's my only complaint with this blockbuster game. Even at 100 hours of gameplay I really want it to continue!

Great game, SquareEnix. I'm sure in the videogame drought that's sure to follow me in the upcoming weeks, I'll crack open the "making of" DVD and maybe try to figure out the fishing minigame. We'll see.

Greater Gaming Culture - a series of docs

A few weeks ago (2 months ago?) I pitched the idea of a series of 'gamer documentaries' to the other PBC members, and they seemed pretty into it. Now, with last Friday marking the release of our second doc, I can finally say that it's a hit!

Within 24 hours of the release of 'Hardcore', the first in a two-parter about the Gamers Unite rally in May, it recieved 6,000 unique views - more than most episodes of Captain S have gotten in their entire run. After these numbers started to happen that we realized these docs were going to catch on, and that making more is imperative.

Part two - 'The Stand' hit the internet on Friday and (although I don't know the hit count yet) the response has been super positive. It just goes to show that gamers are interested in more than just videogame reviews and messageboard chatter. In addition to producing the NPC doc in July, we'll be continuing on the 'greater gaming culture' doc series, so expect more @ PBC.

Thanks for reading =

THIS IS WHAT I DO!

Hey all. There's so much going on (like usual) that there's too many stories to tell and not enough time to tell it all in.

1) If you haven't gotten my "Z and I are engaged!" email, post a comment here and I'll get back to you. There's some ridiculous romance that happened in Jamaica...you can check it out here!

2) The first of our 'gamer culture' documentaries is online! Check it out @ pbc-productions - and dig the crazy site redesign.

3) Brett and I are representing @ Anime Mid-Atlantic! Rez roped us in to help with the videogame room, and now we're showing Captain S as well!@ w00t!




more to come after it happens.