Was browsing through some old files and found this. This is a video I made for my very first animation course. Now that I'm all graduated, I may just make an actual amateur ninja film... Anyone got script ideas?
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Ninja Movie Preview
Was browsing through some old files and found this. This is a video I made for my very first animation course. Now that I'm all graduated, I may just make an actual amateur ninja film... Anyone got script ideas?
Monday, May 25, 2009
Bike Adventure #1
Well it's been a while since I updated last. I'm now going to start a series called Bike Adventures. I'll be able to do these on my days off of work, and hopefully get some good stories going. This one was meant to be posted on Friday, but I slacked off. But here it is now! Bike Adventure #1!
Well the morning started out pretty normally. Got up, dad had gone off to do some grocery shopping and whatever else he does. Mom was at work, and Dusty was baking in the sun near the window. I took a couple laps around the house to get my legs to wake up. I began to play with Dusty and took the above photo (he's so cute isn't he?) Some rain clouds rolled in and I heard some sprinkles, but nothing heavy. After playing with Dusty for a little bit I was feeling a bit hungry. I got up and turned on the oven, and looked out my front window and saw that the entire street was FLOODED!
I ran outside with my phone and took this picture. The picture doesn't do the flood justice. I stood in the water and it came up to my ankles on both sides of the street. I ran back inside amazed at this phenomena. I turned off the oven, dried my feet, and got dressed in some good clothes, and walked up the street, and found the flooding to be even worse. I followed the stream a block away from my house and came to an intersection that was turned into a lake.
I knew that I had to follow this stream, but I wanted a way to get through this water easier. I originally thought to get in my car and follow it up, but it would be hard to take photos of the street from my car. So when I got home I decided to take my bike. After checking the tires and filling them with air, I set out to find the source of this.
A little explanation of the area I live in (for those who don't know.) My neighborhood and the ones around it are on an incline, a pretty steep one too. This is because we essentially live at the base of a mountain. A lot of us don't consider it the base, because the actual base is quite a few miles up the road, but to people from out of town my neighborhood could be considered the base. Knowing this, I thought that the mountain had got some heavy rain, and all that was washing down my way. Thinking about how far the mountain was from my house I knew that I had to choose a point to turn back. There is a street called Ventura that's a good distance from my house (for my athletic ability lol), and I had decided that if the stream was to lead me past this point I would just turn away.
I Traveled far up a major road near my house, and the stream suddenly curved off. At this point it was obvious that this was no mountain wash off, because otherwise all the streets ahead of me would be flooded the same. I followed the stream's new direction and got to another intersection, but this one wasn't as bad as the the first intersection.
The peculiar thing about this water was that it was a muddy color, a lot like the Rio Grande (which runs through my city.) I began to wonder what else could be the cause of all this water. I highly doubted that anyone would use this much water to wash their car, or water their lawn. Every thought I had brought me back to the color of the water. It was the color of mud, but a little more clear, like really watered down mud. I kept on cycling, and realized I was soon approaching my turn back point. As the view of my turn back point came into view, I also found my answer.
There had been crews repairing the streets at various parts around my neighborhood, and apparently these guys had accidentally hit a water main. The water had been slowed by a pumping machine. This machine seemed to act as a temporary pipe pumping water from one part of the injured pipe to the other. As I arrived a big truck arrived as well. I'm sure these guys didn't want a guy on his bike staring at them, so I took my picture and was off again.
The ride back was a lot of fun. I always enjoy downhill rides on bikes. I came back to the original intersection and saw that it was still flooded. My original thought was "Okay, slow down, and take the corner slowly." But the little boy in me came up yelling "FULL SPEED AHEAD!" So, with great speed, I plowed through the intersection with an explosion of water. Emerging on the other side of the intersection I was covered in muddy water laughing. There was a man in a truck behind me. I turned to look at him, and he too was laughing to himself. I pulled up to my house in my soaken clothes and put my bike away.
"When I go biking, I repeat a mantra of the day's sensations: bright sun, blue sky, warm breeze, blue jay's call, ice melting and so on. This helps me transcend the traffic, ignore the clamorings of work, leave all the mind theaters behind and focus on nature instead. I still must abide by the rules of the road, of biking, of gravity. But I am mentally far away from civilization. The world is breaking someone else's heart." ~Diane Ackerman
"Life is like riding a bicycle - in order to keep your balance, you must keep moving." ~Albert Einstein
Well the morning started out pretty normally. Got up, dad had gone off to do some grocery shopping and whatever else he does. Mom was at work, and Dusty was baking in the sun near the window. I took a couple laps around the house to get my legs to wake up. I began to play with Dusty and took the above photo (he's so cute isn't he?) Some rain clouds rolled in and I heard some sprinkles, but nothing heavy. After playing with Dusty for a little bit I was feeling a bit hungry. I got up and turned on the oven, and looked out my front window and saw that the entire street was FLOODED!
I ran outside with my phone and took this picture. The picture doesn't do the flood justice. I stood in the water and it came up to my ankles on both sides of the street. I ran back inside amazed at this phenomena. I turned off the oven, dried my feet, and got dressed in some good clothes, and walked up the street, and found the flooding to be even worse. I followed the stream a block away from my house and came to an intersection that was turned into a lake.
I knew that I had to follow this stream, but I wanted a way to get through this water easier. I originally thought to get in my car and follow it up, but it would be hard to take photos of the street from my car. So when I got home I decided to take my bike. After checking the tires and filling them with air, I set out to find the source of this.
A little explanation of the area I live in (for those who don't know.) My neighborhood and the ones around it are on an incline, a pretty steep one too. This is because we essentially live at the base of a mountain. A lot of us don't consider it the base, because the actual base is quite a few miles up the road, but to people from out of town my neighborhood could be considered the base. Knowing this, I thought that the mountain had got some heavy rain, and all that was washing down my way. Thinking about how far the mountain was from my house I knew that I had to choose a point to turn back. There is a street called Ventura that's a good distance from my house (for my athletic ability lol), and I had decided that if the stream was to lead me past this point I would just turn away.
I Traveled far up a major road near my house, and the stream suddenly curved off. At this point it was obvious that this was no mountain wash off, because otherwise all the streets ahead of me would be flooded the same. I followed the stream's new direction and got to another intersection, but this one wasn't as bad as the the first intersection.
The peculiar thing about this water was that it was a muddy color, a lot like the Rio Grande (which runs through my city.) I began to wonder what else could be the cause of all this water. I highly doubted that anyone would use this much water to wash their car, or water their lawn. Every thought I had brought me back to the color of the water. It was the color of mud, but a little more clear, like really watered down mud. I kept on cycling, and realized I was soon approaching my turn back point. As the view of my turn back point came into view, I also found my answer.
There had been crews repairing the streets at various parts around my neighborhood, and apparently these guys had accidentally hit a water main. The water had been slowed by a pumping machine. This machine seemed to act as a temporary pipe pumping water from one part of the injured pipe to the other. As I arrived a big truck arrived as well. I'm sure these guys didn't want a guy on his bike staring at them, so I took my picture and was off again.
The ride back was a lot of fun. I always enjoy downhill rides on bikes. I came back to the original intersection and saw that it was still flooded. My original thought was "Okay, slow down, and take the corner slowly." But the little boy in me came up yelling "FULL SPEED AHEAD!" So, with great speed, I plowed through the intersection with an explosion of water. Emerging on the other side of the intersection I was covered in muddy water laughing. There was a man in a truck behind me. I turned to look at him, and he too was laughing to himself. I pulled up to my house in my soaken clothes and put my bike away.
"When I go biking, I repeat a mantra of the day's sensations: bright sun, blue sky, warm breeze, blue jay's call, ice melting and so on. This helps me transcend the traffic, ignore the clamorings of work, leave all the mind theaters behind and focus on nature instead. I still must abide by the rules of the road, of biking, of gravity. But I am mentally far away from civilization. The world is breaking someone else's heart." ~Diane Ackerman
"Life is like riding a bicycle - in order to keep your balance, you must keep moving." ~Albert Einstein
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Childhood Hero
So I've been recently getting back into reading comic books and graphic novels again, but I've been thinking as well. As a child, my favorite hero was Batman. And the reasoning for it was that he had no super-powers. He just had awesome gadgets and was really good at fighting. Nowadays, I still love Batman, even after all the anime I've watched, he's still number one to me. My reasoning is a bit different, but he is still my favorite super hero. The reasons I love Batman now is that, yeah he doesn't have super powers, but he is also psychologically awesome. What I mean by that is that ever since he became Batman, that's who he truly was. Bruce Wayne is now a mask to cover up Batman. He also tries so hard to shut himself off from people, but some always manage to break him. People like Robin (both), Nightwing, Batgirl, Alfred, etc. Batman also knows what it takes to make criminals understand that their stuff is not gonna go unpunished. He's not a boy scout like Superman. There are many more reasons why I think Batman is my favorite hero, but my point is, through everything that I've watched, or read, or whatever, he is still my favorite, and it seems like he's even getting bigger than before!
So this poses a question, "Who was your favorite hero as a kid? Why?" and, "Are they still your favorite hero nowadays? If not, Who is? and why?"
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Photos....
(lol me taking my own photo)Well I just uploaded some new photos to my Flickr account the other day. Here are some of my favorites! If you haven't been yet, it's located here
This photo is from the Arabian Horse show that was here in September (I think), and this was one of my favorites!
This is when Sara and I went to take photos out by the Airport! She's so good at making costumes!
This is my friend Joel and my friend Becca (they're dating!), and I thought this was a cute picture!
This was a house I stayed in while I was in Pennsylvania. It was a beautiful little town!
This is my friends' dog, JB, he is one of the sweetest dogs I have ever met!All these photos were taken with a Pentax K1000. The black and white film was 400TX and the color was generic Walgreens Brand! And again, there are plenty more on my Flickr account! Please visit and let me know what you think of them!
Fellow Otaku
(i know it's kinda messy)Now, here's where things get a little interesting in my mind. I looked at the stack of manga on my desk and decided, "You know what, this girl is nice and she's a fellow otaku like me." So I ended up going in and forcing the computer to take them. She was happy with my decision (obviously), and I ended up having to do the same for all of Kare Kano. Now, I was curious as to why I really decided to do that for her. Here's what I worked out in my head. I was so thrilled to see someone who had moderately good taste in anime/manga for once that I wanted to help this person in getting some more awesome stuff, and now that I have fully accepted my status as an Otaku, I almost felt obligated. After the transaction was finished the girl and I had a nice little conversation about what we liked, and I was actually surprised to see that she had even better taste in it than I had originally thought!
So the day ended with me coming home and digging through my old manga collection and reading some of the manga that I haven't read in a while. The picture above is my closet which contains my Graphic Novels and Manga! So this all begs the question, if you were in my position, would you have helped her by forcing it? Or would you have just denied them like I normally would?
Friday, July 18, 2008
AX 2008 Retrospective
I've actually decided to combine the four days into one post. Do note that some of the pictures are not my own! A big thanks to Silver, Sara, Mason, and Taryn!
The first day was really exciting because it was something that I have never experienced before. I dressed up in my costume and was stopped by so many people for pictures before we even got to the convention itself! It was exciting! We went to a panel discussing the past and future of the Mobile Suit Gundam series. Just before entering we saw some Otakus dressed up as Zeon officers (pic below), and the panel was pretty interesting. During their Q&A portion they seemed to discuss Gundam SEED a lot, but it's more than likely because it's the newest series to hit America. One of the most interesting questions was something like "Do you feel with SEED, that Gundam is now in a rut and Gundam 00 maybe the answer to getting it out of this rut and back onto its high ground?" You could tell that there were a lot of Gundam SEED fans, but most of everyone said that, yes Gundam SEED was bad, but Gundam 00 will hit America and it will allow for Gundam to reclaim itself in the American market (hopefully!).
(thanks for the photo guys!)After the panel we walked around and saw a small gathering of Bleach characters outside so we went to meet them. We found out that our room mates were there and we took some photos with everyone. Then afterward, we decided to head to the dealer's hall to spend our hard earned money, but were stopped by a bigger Bleach gathering. (a few photos below) Finally, after all photos were done, we got up to the dealer's hall and it was amazing. There were so many shops and so many different things happening at once. We walked around and had my photo taken with people several times. It was a really exciting day. After we finished there we went back to the hotel to arrange what we all were gonna do for dinner. We got our food and then Sara wanted a more private shoot for her costume, and I tagged along with Silver and Sara to shoot some photos. We got some awesome photos of her costume )and by we I mean Silver, cause he was better at night time photos than I...) I will post some later after I get through them all... I will actually make a costume post!
We all had fun our first day and day two consisted of us just going around the dealer's hall, but the highlight of the day was David Hayter! This was one of the main reasons I wanted to come to AX this year. David Hayter is a famous American voice actor. His main claim to fame is being the voice of Solid Snake in the Metal Gear Solid series. He has also done numerous anime character voices. The panel (I guess that would be the best word for it) was him talking about his work experience and him answering a lot of questions. People made a lot of requests asking him to say stuff in Snake's voice. I kinda felt bad for him, but he was a good sport and a really nice guy! Another awesome highlight of the day was AX Idol. AX Idol is essentially a contest for people to display either their singing talents or voice acting talents. We got really close seats to the stage, and the event was just awesome! It was amazing to see how much talent people have! The winner for the voice acting competition was extremely good! The judges even said that she seemed to be a professional! Congrats to her! And the singing winner was really good too! She had an excellent stage presence and was actually quite attractive! Congrats to them! The day ended with all of us eating dinner and trading photos.
(picture kinda sucks, but oh well)On day 3 we woke up and I put on my costume again. We romed around the dealer's hall, and went to two panels that day. The panels we went to were one on the Persona game series (which Mason was really interested in), and a "Robot Rumble" panel where we actually heard some pretty decent arguments over what robot would when in a fight. (Mainly between Eva 01 and Giant Robo) Then we met up with the group and got some tickets to Shoko-tan, and I have to say, even though it was a J-Pop concert (Japanese Pop for those who don't know), it was awesome! She sang anime theme songs from a lot of anime that I knew! and she did it all in costume too! I have never had so much fun at a concert before! And yes, it helped that she was REALLY HOT! ;)
(the contest)
Day 4 was kind of a bore... We got up to go to the dealer's hall and buy some stuff and make Mason buy stuff as well. We walked it over twice then went to get lunch, when we got back they had closed the hall! LAME! So we decided to go to the aracade and get some Initial D 4 Liscences. Taryn and I decided to do a joke for our names, my name was "LOL" and his was "WUT", and Mason's name on his liscence was "MASON"... yeah... REAL original Mason! ;) and we played until they kicked us out. We got some more pictures of people in Cosplay and then went back to the hotel room to end the night with a eating contest and a few drinks! Silver won the contest by the way.
(it was a good thought...)
Finally the day came to leave. We all desperately packed everything and I will admit. I bought a little too much... But I am pleased with what i bought so that's what counts! Anyway, we all "cleaned" the room the best we could, and realized how messy it was. We still had two beers leftover from the night before so we decided to leave them as a tip for the crew. We also left a money tip incase they don't like beer... The main group went to the airport via super shuttle which left Mason and I to go to the train station (Union Station) by ourselves. The architecture there was so beautiful! The chairs were super comfy, unlike our chairs in our station... Our train arrived on-time, and we got on with no problems. The ride home seemed to be a LOT quicker than the ride out, but that's probably because i was able to distract myself better on the way back. One thing did baffle me on the train ride though. We had a guy sit behind us who knew the conductors and seemed to be a regular. He told the person next to him (but might as well have told everyone else on the train cause he was speaking loudly enough), that as soon as he got to our station, he had to turn around and go back in four hours. Mason and I couldn't figure it out, but other than that the train ride was excellent and I would certainly reccomend it to anyone who wants to travel!
All in all, the trip was fun and I got tons of awesome things, and made some new friends as well! If you are ever thinking wether or not to go to an Anime Expo, there are things that you should consider first:
(the contest)(it was a good thought...)Finally the day came to leave. We all desperately packed everything and I will admit. I bought a little too much... But I am pleased with what i bought so that's what counts! Anyway, we all "cleaned" the room the best we could, and realized how messy it was. We still had two beers leftover from the night before so we decided to leave them as a tip for the crew. We also left a money tip incase they don't like beer... The main group went to the airport via super shuttle which left Mason and I to go to the train station (Union Station) by ourselves. The architecture there was so beautiful! The chairs were super comfy, unlike our chairs in our station... Our train arrived on-time, and we got on with no problems. The ride home seemed to be a LOT quicker than the ride out, but that's probably because i was able to distract myself better on the way back. One thing did baffle me on the train ride though. We had a guy sit behind us who knew the conductors and seemed to be a regular. He told the person next to him (but might as well have told everyone else on the train cause he was speaking loudly enough), that as soon as he got to our station, he had to turn around and go back in four hours. Mason and I couldn't figure it out, but other than that the train ride was excellent and I would certainly reccomend it to anyone who wants to travel!
All in all, the trip was fun and I got tons of awesome things, and made some new friends as well! If you are ever thinking wether or not to go to an Anime Expo, there are things that you should consider first:- There are plenty of immature people there, but there are a lot more mature people there
- No one will make fun of you because you like anime while you're there. They'll just make fun of the anime that you like... (BELIEVE IT!)
- If you dress up, be prepared to be stopped... a LOT...
- Bring a camera
- Bring LOTS of money
- Go with a group
- and finally... HAVE FUN!
Sunday, July 13, 2008
AX 2008 - Day 0
So this is a bit late, but I wanted to collect my thoughts on it first before posting. Anyway...
So I have never been to a convention of any sort in my life. So when my buddy Sara asked me if I wanted to go to the Anime Expo this year, I was a little hesitant, but I looked at the website and saw how much the ticket cost was and decided that I could afford a trip this year. I then told my two friends about it and they said that they would like to go too. So began the awesome journey. Three months prior to the Expo, I got my ticket for the Expo AND a train ride out there! It was so exciting to buy my own vacation tickets and what not. It almost felt like I was finally starting to move out of home. (As odd as that may sound...)
One of the conditions for me staying in the room with my friend Sara was that I had to Cosplay (or "The act of dressing up in costume as favorite characters from anime, video games, movies, etc." -- Web Definitions). So I thought about what I would like to dress up as, and I chose a character from an Anime. The character's name is Grimmjow Jagerjaques, and he is from the anime called Bleach. Sara agreed to make the jacket and help me out with whatever else i needed. The jacket came out beautifuly! and she was also able to help modify some parts that i ordered beautifuly! All in all Sara's work was OUTSTANDING!
My friend Mason and I decided to take the train over to LA because it was a LOT cheaper than flying both ways. The ride was awesome and seemed like a little adventure on the way out to LA. We got reserved coach seats and decided not to get a personal sleeper as it would have costed us about $1000 for just one way... But we were both satisfied with the train ride because we had ample leg room and even though I had forgot to check my suitcase it sat comfortably in front of me! Now, I'm a tall guy (standing at 6'1"), but i had enough leg space to fully extend my leg out in front of me while barely touching the seat. I don't tend to sleep well on planes, and it seems that it's the same for the train. I was in and out a lot, but got enough sleep for the following day. Our train was suppose to arrive early in the morning, but was actually 5 hours late due to flooding in Illinois. This set back actually ended up working better for the both of us. Our roomates actually didn't arrive in LA until MUCH later in the day, so mason and i had plenty of time to explore LA's awesome Metro system! After a few hours of cruising on the metro, we decided to head over to the convention center for early registration. We got there and I had registered as industry and found my line to be only 4 people long, where as mason had a line of over 1000 people in it. It was awesome. After registering we decided to wait in the nice air conditioned Convention Center until our comrades had arrived. Shortly after sitting down and reading a few articles, they arrived. We got our baggage and headed to the hotel to meet with them.
We got to the hotel and waited a short period of time, and oddly enough sat next to one of our roomates who we did not know at the time. It was really funny to find out that he was rooming with us. We got our room cards and were off to the rooms. We got up there and we all looked around and began deciding where we were going to sleep. After everything was arranged, those who didn't already finish their registration went down to get registered while the rest of us decided on food. We decided on a pub, which was quite pricey even for LA, and had fun. That night we slept soundly waiting for the first day of Anime Expo to start!
So I have never been to a convention of any sort in my life. So when my buddy Sara asked me if I wanted to go to the Anime Expo this year, I was a little hesitant, but I looked at the website and saw how much the ticket cost was and decided that I could afford a trip this year. I then told my two friends about it and they said that they would like to go too. So began the awesome journey. Three months prior to the Expo, I got my ticket for the Expo AND a train ride out there! It was so exciting to buy my own vacation tickets and what not. It almost felt like I was finally starting to move out of home. (As odd as that may sound...)
One of the conditions for me staying in the room with my friend Sara was that I had to Cosplay (or "The act of dressing up in costume as favorite characters from anime, video games, movies, etc." -- Web Definitions). So I thought about what I would like to dress up as, and I chose a character from an Anime. The character's name is Grimmjow Jagerjaques, and he is from the anime called Bleach. Sara agreed to make the jacket and help me out with whatever else i needed. The jacket came out beautifuly! and she was also able to help modify some parts that i ordered beautifuly! All in all Sara's work was OUTSTANDING!
My friend Mason and I decided to take the train over to LA because it was a LOT cheaper than flying both ways. The ride was awesome and seemed like a little adventure on the way out to LA. We got reserved coach seats and decided not to get a personal sleeper as it would have costed us about $1000 for just one way... But we were both satisfied with the train ride because we had ample leg room and even though I had forgot to check my suitcase it sat comfortably in front of me! Now, I'm a tall guy (standing at 6'1"), but i had enough leg space to fully extend my leg out in front of me while barely touching the seat. I don't tend to sleep well on planes, and it seems that it's the same for the train. I was in and out a lot, but got enough sleep for the following day. Our train was suppose to arrive early in the morning, but was actually 5 hours late due to flooding in Illinois. This set back actually ended up working better for the both of us. Our roomates actually didn't arrive in LA until MUCH later in the day, so mason and i had plenty of time to explore LA's awesome Metro system! After a few hours of cruising on the metro, we decided to head over to the convention center for early registration. We got there and I had registered as industry and found my line to be only 4 people long, where as mason had a line of over 1000 people in it. It was awesome. After registering we decided to wait in the nice air conditioned Convention Center until our comrades had arrived. Shortly after sitting down and reading a few articles, they arrived. We got our baggage and headed to the hotel to meet with them.
We got to the hotel and waited a short period of time, and oddly enough sat next to one of our roomates who we did not know at the time. It was really funny to find out that he was rooming with us. We got our room cards and were off to the rooms. We got up there and we all looked around and began deciding where we were going to sleep. After everything was arranged, those who didn't already finish their registration went down to get registered while the rest of us decided on food. We decided on a pub, which was quite pricey even for LA, and had fun. That night we slept soundly waiting for the first day of Anime Expo to start!
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