Who loves her mommy and daddy? That would be this girl. These both arrived at my house within a half hour of each other yesterday afternoon:

Birthday cake, yaaaaay! This one is particularly delicious. White cake, lemon filling stripes, raspberry filling stripes, white chocolate shavings on the outside. I'm going to go into diabetic shock, as I plan to eat nothing but this excellent cake for the next week or so.

DS Lite yaaaay! This shiny new toy means I am no longer the loser kid in class who doesn't get to participate in nerd time between lectures. I think I'm going to do something obnoxious like bejewel it, since it doesn't come in fun colors.

In other news, in case anyone didn't get the memo, it's my birthday! Translation: people have to be nice to me and pay for my drinks. Huzzah! On tap for the day: Redondo Beach, Spinto Band show (I have never even heard of these guys, so this'll be fun), and party at Paul's. If you're reading this and you haven't called me today, you should. I like hearing from you. I'll even be good and refrain from rubbing it in if you call while I'm lounging seaside.

All right, I'm off to begin the pre-beach sunscreen ritual. If I remember, I'll try to post pictures and video from our karaoke outing last night. Incredibly priceless stuff.

For anyone who may have missed this last spring, someone put one of my senior projects up on YouTube. This little gem features former Bradley classmates Renae Radford, Chris Free, Dave Rogers, and Joel Raabe, as well as professor Jim Ferolo and myself, all basically acting like idiots in order to promote Bradley's multimedia program. I'm pretty proud of it, and had a lot of fun working on it.

Seriously, someone buy me this.

Hello, all.

Sorry for the paucity of posts around here...I've been occupied with school and all that. It's getting interesting, I have to say. Projects are taking shape, both at work and in class; it's definitely not the first week of school anymore. So, since I stayed in today (as opposed to another beach outing) to get work done, I'll dedicate this post to filling you all in on what I've been working on when I'm NOT on the beach (which, really, is most of the time).

A--->B
This is the game I've been working on for prototyping class with my friends Mike and Al. A--->B is a map-based strategy game where players try to get from one point to another before their opponents do. They combine direction and modes of transportation to their advantage, and throw obstacles in the paths of opponents. Think "Rat Race" meets Risk. Right now, we sort of have two versions of it: a board game that we use for play testing and rule development, and a digital version that we're defining but will never actually build (hence prototyping class). The idea behind the digital version is that it would be driven by (and played within) Google Earth. So real distances, real access (or not) to different modes of transportation (like airports), etc. During gameplay, the player periodically receives information about his current location from Wikipedia, which he can choose to ignore or use. The idea is that, with a little tweaking, this could be an educational game of the ilk of Carmen Sandiego...you're learning, but it's fun enough that you don't notice it. I'm pretty happy with what we have so far. We do our final presentations on Monday, so I'll try to remember to report how that goes.

Chain Gang
Chain Gang is the working title for my first film for production class. Essentially, it's a stop-motion animation (thank you Jim Ferolo!) of a bike chain that comes to life and fixes its bike (which has a flat tire). I'm pre-producing it this weekend (tweaking the script, taking photos of my location, storyboarding how I want the shots to go, etc) and will be shooting starting next weekend. It's going to be a MASSIVE load of work, but it'll be fun to be animating again. Stopmotion was my favorite style that we did in animation class at Bradley, AND it means I don't have to deal with actors yet, so I think it'll be worth doing. Chances are, if you were to ask me again in a week if I thought this was the right idea, I would tell you no, this was the dumbest idea ever. Oh well.

Vagabond Shoot
The Vagabond project is another project for my production class. Essentially, we're divided into production crews (producer, director, cinematographer, etc) and an excerpt from a script, and we basically have to pre-produce the scene (get props, audition actors, rehearse, etc), shoot it (in four hours, eep!), and then edit it together. We were allowed to volunteer for the roles we wanted, which was nice. Naturally, I asked for either producer/assistant director or editor/props manager. Those are the roles I have the most experience with (again, props to Jim Ferolo) from shoots at Bradley, so those are the roles I'd feel most comfortable getting my feet wet with here. For our second project, I think I'll branch out and try something else, but for this first one, I'm perfectly content to take something I know I have successfully done before. We found out our crew assignments on Tuesday, and the process will continue from there.

Critical Studies Presentation
On Thursday, I have to give a ten minute presentation that addresses issues related to gender in gaming. I think this'll be an interesting topic to delve into, especially since half of our critical studies class is film students, not interactive. I will of course address the treatment of the female body in game characters (did you know that sometimes, designers have to build custom skeletons for female characters, because natural ones wouldn't be able to support the...er...enhancements that the designers put on them?). That would be enough to fill ten minutes, but I think we're all aware that there are issues with objectification of women in the media. So, I think I also want to talk about the practice of gender-switching in games...by that, I mean the practice where a male player chooses to play as a female character, or vice versa. It happens pretty regularly, and for lots of different reasons, and I think it'll be a good phenomenon to expose the non-gamers to.

555 (thesis space) Setup
For those who don't know, one of my jobs at work has been furnishing a facility for thesis students in my program to use to work on their projects. So far, the furniture and big screen TV are in, the plumber and electrician have put in bids and been approved, and we're pricing flooring and kitchen accessories. I expect that this will be wrapped up well before semester's end. Woo hoo!

ZML Projector/Touch Panel Redo
The other project I have at work is helping with the installation of new projectors in our main lab. My role hasn't been so much the actual installation as reprogramming the touch panel/remote control that coordinates and synchronizes all the devices in the lab. It's been...well, slow going. We've had trouble with not having the right cables and adaptors, having a body of code but no reference as to what language it's in or what any of it means, and thinking we have the code right but getting no response from the equipment. I'm afraid I'm out of my league on this one...it's a good thing there's another guy working on this with me, because otherwise I'd just throw my hands in the air and suggest we hire the guy who originally set up our system to come in and fix it.

Thesis Projects
At seminar on Wednesday night, the thesis students all gave presentations about their projects so that the younger students could see what they were working on and, most importantly, volunteer to crew for projects they were interested in. I think this is going to be an excellent experience, both in the process of doing a thesis and just in the fact that the projects I'm crewing for are really interesting. Warning: describing these projects will require talking about technical details of video games and sound equipment. If that kind of thing bores you, no worries, just skip a couple paragraphs down and keep reading :-)

One is a game that uses a DDR-like floor panel as a controller, and dance as a mechanism, to play through a strategy/shooter game. For those who don't know, DDR (Dance Dance Revolution) is a game that uses a floor panel with several "hot spots" that the player hits with their feet in time to instructions on the screen; getting the dance steps right is the goal of the game. With this project, the dance steps are not the goal, but rather the means of reaching your goal. As I understand it, the premise is that you're a revolutionary in a totalitarian country. Your goal is to overthrow the government. You do this by engaging in guerilla warfare, getting others to join you in your revolution (quite literally, they join you on the floor panel and dance along with you), and eventually staging a coup. All of this is accomplished using your feet, not unlike controller-based games where certain button combinations allow you to do special moves. I think this'll be really interesting to put together; I'll be helping to design, build, and play test the floor panel.

The other project I'm crewing for is dealing with aspects of sound design, specifically mixing sound for surround-sound and 3D/immersive environments. Basically, the way it works now is that if you want to mix sound, even in a high-tech piece of software, you're working with the sound board metaphor. You turn knobs to indicate how far to the "right" or "left" a particular sound source (like a siren, crowd noise, music, etc) is. You move sliders to indicate the volume (and therefore relative "closeness") a sound source has. It's a bit more complicated than that, but that's the basic idea. What we're trying to do is come up with a better interface than the sound board (which, really, was not designed for surround sound or 3D manipulation). We're looking at several possibilities, including a tablet PC that you use as a "palette" to place sound sources within a 3D space in relation to where your audience is. Another possibility would be a combination of either the tablet PC or VR gloves and a VR headset with surround sound speakers, where the sound designer could literally pick up, place, and move sound sources in relation to himself ("pick up" a crowd noise and smear it in an arc to his left, indicating that a crowd is massing to his left, or "toss" and "scatter" birdsong above him to indicate that a tree above him is filled with birds). The thesis student driving the project hasn't committed to an interface yet, because there are so many possibilities to explore, but he is definite that the end result will be a tool (software, a physical interface, etc) that sound designers can use (as opposed to turning all this into a game or something).

I have to say, I'm pretty excited to work on these projects, and really on the thesis show in general. There are a lot of interesting and experimental things coming out of the thesis class this year, and it'll be really cool to see where they go.


So there you have it. This is what I work on when I'm not at the beach, doing geeky things like putting Linux on my iPod, or playing video games. I'll check back in in a few days, and I promise I won't be so long-winded ;-)

Decent-sized entry coming tomorrow, folks. For now, it's time to crash. Thursdays wipe me out.

Man, I love beach day. And it seems others do as well. Our numbers are steadily growing. The total count for today was 13 people, $100 worth of food and beer, 4 cars, and 7 lovely hours spent hanging out oceanside. I think at least half the animation program first years were there today, including three adorable girls who were clearly just off the boat from Asia. Al and I picked them up, making me definitely the only white person in the car. It was funny. They seemed to really enjoy the beach as well, and were completely taken aback (I think in a good way...we'll just assume it was good) when I stripped down to my suit and ran into the water and starting diving head-on into oncoming waves. They didn't seem to want to do much more than splash in the shallows and toss the frisbee about, but they had a lot of fun, so whatev. I've decided that next time, I'm making them come in with me. Al, Mike, Renae and I cavorted in the waves for awhile before lunch, and then returned after eating as well. The waves and riptide were stronger than they've been at the other places we've been, but it was a blast. Fun fact: upon being hit in the face with a wave, rising sputtering and coughing, getting hit mid-cough with another wave, and emerging coughing, vomiting, and lung-filled, Mike's first instinct is to laugh so hard his already damaged lungs can't handle it and then shout "That was AWESOME!!" Another fun fact: a single bagel tossed into a crowd of seagulls is enough to incite a full-on seagull riot with at least fifteen participants. Final fun fact: Diana requires an application of SPF50 sunscreen approximatly every two hours in order to prevent sunburn. Anyway, by popular request, pictures:

We had SO MUCH FOOD! Burgers, several kinds of beer and soda, chips, salsa, guacamole (which I learned to make for this excursion...seems to have been a successful experiment), cookies, vegetables...the list goes on and on.

Hooray for sun safety! This was sunscreen application number 2042341236132315163.

Our brilliant cooking solution. See, we thought there would be grills at this beach...turns out they were just firepits. The solution? Lots of wood, lighter fluid, and burgers wrapped in aluminum foil. MMMMMMM SANITARY!!

Random crowd shot. Whee!

We make fire. We provide for tribe. Meat+fire=delicious. ::manly grunt::

Al models my sarong. Yeah, I don't know.

Diana's Recipe for Beachside Burgers:

Ingredients
6 lbs of hamburger, raw
1 bottle of worcestishire sauce (don't worry if you can't pronounce it. just call it "that brown stuff)
24 hamburger buns
cheese slices

Preparation:
1. Build a fire! Be sure to use plenty of wood and lighter fluid and several matches. Fire is a dangerous thing, so this step should be handled by a professional. If a professional cannot be found, someone who "used to be in scouts" will do.
2. Go swim in the ocean for a couple hours. You'll want to be nice and hungry for maximum effect (and tolerance).
3. Oh no! You just swam in the dirty ocean! You certainly can't handle raw meat in that state. Wipe your hands with paper towels and douse with hand sanitizer. Good enough! Let's get cooking! Note: this same method of sanitation should be used after you're done handling the meat. Any residual germs will definitely die when you start sticking your hands in the fire.
4. Dig into the hamburger. For each gooey handful, add approximately two shakes of the bottle of worcestishire sauce. Form into hamburger patty and lay aside. Tip: boogie boards make excellent counter space in a pinch, but cover them with plastic or aluminum foil to minimize sand contamination.
5. Wrap burgers in aluminum foil, three to a pack or so.
6. Place foil bundles on fire. Turn frequently, and open periodically to check meat for done-ness. Turning can be accomplished using tongs or a largish stick. Bare hands can be used, but this will probably result in your feeling a sudden urge to swear and scramble for the beer bucket to put your hand on ice.
7. When you run out of foil (and you will), an emptied cinnamon roll pan (grocery store style) can be placed on the fire and used to cook up to eight burgers at a time. Watch out, as the pan will be prone to ripping, allowing burger juices to catch fire.
8. When burgers are no longer pink in the middle (ish...a little pink probably won't kill you), remove from flame and place on buns. Got a little ash in your burger? No worries! You're a carbon-based life form, after all.
9. Put cheese on burgers if so desired. It might melt, it might not. Quit complaining, at least we remembered to get cheese!
10. Distribute to the hungry masses and enjoy!

Yield: approximately 15 burgers of varying sizes and 9 buns to use as seagull food, kindling, projectiles, etc.

At some point, I promise I will write about something other than how much I love beach day. I'll even include pictures! It'll be awesome, I bet. In the meantime, at least I have good stories (now with recipes!) for you all to enjoy. Keep the emails and blog comments coming, people. I love hearing from you all.

In other news, Meez are immensely entertaining, if totally useless:



I have no idea why she's twitching like that...when I set her up she was like, swinging the sword around and stuff. Oh well.

Hello, all.

No extremely major developments to report, but I thought I'd check in as responses seem to indicate a lot more of you are reading this than I thought! Classes and work went well this week; our game project is coming along nicely, and is due to be translated into Flash this weekend (and we all know how much Diana loves coding in Flash :-P). Should have a better (illustrated!) post tomorrow, as we're heading back to Manhattan Beach for a cookout and some surf and sun time. The outing will be a lot of fun...we've got 11 coming, as opposed to the usual 4 or 5. I'll be sure to put batteries in the camera this time.

That's all for now. Gotta go make guacamole and salsa for 11. I know, you're insanely jealous of my Friday night plans. It's okay, I would be if I were you too.

What a lovely day yesterday was. Went to Manhattan Beach with Renae (the roommate), Al, and Mike (IMD classmates). We had a blast, AND I didn't get sunburned. Woo hoo! We hung out, goofed off (see pictures...we're extremely cool) and even were moderately, vaguely productive (the guys and I worked out some particulars for our game class assignment). A couple pictures, then. I should point out for the record that my camera batteries died, so these were all taken by Renae:

Huzzah for clean ocean water! Manhattan was further away than we usually go, but the fact that it was so clean made it well worth it.

From left to right, Renae, Mike, Al, and me. We buried Al in the sand, because...well, it seemed like an appropriate thing to do. At least we gave him some shade!

After we returned from the beach, Renae and I washed the ocean off and settled in for quiet evenings at home. This was not to be. We got a call from Brian, an animation friend, who wanted us to accompany a group to semi-crash a house party off campus. I never got the straight of how we were semi-crashing, except that someone in our group knew someone who was going to be there, but not necessarily someone who was throwing the party. Whatever, we went anyway. After a harrowing drive up narrow and winding streets to the top of a hill, we discovered possibly the mellowest kegger I've ever seen. It was kind of nice, though, because we could just chat and enjoy the view, which was fantastic from that high up.

Our usual weekend crew, minus Renae (who was taking the picture): Brian, me, John's girlfriend (whose name escapes me, but she's really sweet), John (you know, his name might not be John...we don't hang out with him as much, so I haven't gotten his name down yet...whoops), and Anthony.

And so there you have it. Another lovely day in my LA existence. On tap for tomorrow: production class and a meeting involving a lot of coding. Wheeeeeeee. Peace out, kids.

Well, I'm two days into my four-day weekend, and I am loving life. So far I've gotten done things I've been putting off (read: laundry and cleaning), played a lot of PS2, and gotten about 20 hours' sleep. I'm starting to wonder how on earth I survived undergrad; I never had leisure time like this. It was always class, work, work for class, or partying. Even in the summer and on winter breaks, I was always working or taking extra classes or something. I think I may have been insane. I'm going to enjoy this for all it's worth, because I have a feeling it won't last long.

In other news, my PLUS loan finally went through, so I get to stay in school. Huzzah! I've never filled out so much paperwork in my life!

On tap for tomorrow: Redondo Beach (and lots of sunscreen). I'll try to take better pictures this time.