Category: Toiling In The Pixel Mines

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Funny Stuff Toiling In The Pixel Mines

The job that isn’t on my resume

Film at 11I’ve spent a lot of time here lately wondering about the viability of my resume. You wanna know what humiliation is? Humiliation is signing up with three temp agencies, all of whom tell you that they probably can’t find anything for you unless you suddenly sprout several years’ experience in welding.

Thus far, I’ve resisted that nagging urge to second-guess the current state of my resume. It lists Fox 46 and KFDF, WACY, 40/29, and explains that I’ve been a stay-at-home dad since 2007. That explains the gap in any employment history between 2007 and now.

But what about the gap between returning home from Green Bay and starting at 40/29? That’s a whole different story: the shortest length of time I’ve ever held a job. … Read more

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Gaming Toiling In The Pixel Mines

Books and DVDs, DVDs and books…

A few announcements, since I’ve been asked…

  • I am planning on having copies of my DVDs available at the CCAG show in Cleveland this October. There won’t be a huge number of copies on hand, because frankly, CCAG falls on exactly the same day as OVGE in Tulsa, and I just don’t have it in my budget to do a build-up of a huge number of copies for two simultaneous shows, but there will be some there. These will be at Tim Snider’s table, and all of the DVDs I’ve done so far (PDF, CGE 2K7, Best of CGE ’03 and Best of CGE ’05) will be available there.
  • Did he say Best of CGE ’05? Yes he did. I’m editing Best of CGE ’05 right now, it’s looking good, and although it’s not true HD, it’ll filler yer HDTV with a great big widescreen picture. Best of CGE ’05 will be a two-disc set, however it’ll be a buck or two more than Best of CGE ’03 because one of those discs will need to be dual-layer, and dual-layer Lightscribe discs aren’t cheap (see also: CGE 2K7). This set will be ready in time for both OVGE and CCAG, with online ordering beginning after both shows.
  • What about that book? I had been crazily trying to get VWORP! together in time for October as well, but I have to announce that it’ll be delayed until the beginning of 2010 now. There are several reasons for this: with the OVGE/CCAG weekend being the target date for Best of CGE ’05, that’s the item that needs my attention most right now. Putting VWORP! out anytime before the end of 2009 is kind of like writing a book on everything you need to know about the New World in 1491. There’s a heap of interesting stuff happening right as VWORP! would have to cut off for an October publication date: the tenth Doctor’s final episodes, Sarah Jane season 3, the Hornet’s Nest audios with Tom Baker… it just seemed like the least desirable cut-off point possible. VWORP! will wait until January 2010, where it’ll make a hell of a lot more sense to release it.
  • And the next book after that? A little thing that we around here like to call Phosphor Dot Fossils. Like I was gonna leave that off the list! Hopefully no later than late summer 2010. After the book, I’d think that the next step for PDF – aside from it being the cool web archive that we all know and love – would either be as a TV project somewhat grander than the existing DVDs, or maybe as a brand name for a line of fine cat care products. Between you and me, I’m holding out for TV.

That’s all for now. Whether you’re in Cleveland or Tulsa on October 24th, in a way, I’ll see you there!

Oh, and one other thing – today is the absolute last day for Summer Byte Bundles! Those ordering links will stop working in the wee hours of the morning. Last call!… Read more

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Gaming Serious Stuff Toiling In The Pixel Mines

Always remember: Avid = diva spelled backwards

…but I kid the electronic behemoth that is my livelihood. But seriously, what’s up with this new corporate logo?

new Avid logoI mean, I get it – volume up and down, pause, play (a few more arrows and it’s the Konami code!) – but it just lacks the elegance of the company’s previous logos. Maybe they should’ve stylized it a bit more instead of sticking doggedly to perfect isosceles triangles. It’s really kinda clever, but…I dunno. What they’re putting out there as the final logo seems more like something you’d get at an intermediate step of the design process. Ah well, they’re the multi-zillion-dollar A/V company, and I’m just a guy who sits around using an older version of their products, so what do I know? (And heck, even though I bought it fair and square, according to Avid, I don’t own the machine!)

I’ve been meaning to fire up the Avid, by the way, to edit together the video I shot almost two weeks ago at OEGE; I positioned one of my cameras right behind the Magnavox Odyssey. People may have thought the camera was there to keep watch over the machine, but no…it was watching them! It was watching them puzzle over how to play the thing and watching them reel with the realization that this machine that doesn’t even have a central processor and plays the weirdest game of video ping-pong you can imagine paved the way for their PS3s and Xbox 360s. Some of the comments were hysterical. I’ll try to get on that sometime early next week, unless there’s bad weather that forces me to shut down my diva. Sorry, did I say diva? I meant Avid.

Still working on ironing out the credit card theft mess; the card has already been cancelled and a new one is being issued, and I got a little bit proactive and started contacting the places where the card had been used to see if they could reverse charges or cancel transactions on their end. One of the places that the idiots ordered something from was Abercrombie & Fitch. I’ve never even looked at one of their catalogs or visited one of their stores – that’s one of those places where I just assume that they have nothing that fits me, because I’m not a guy with six-pack abs who walks around shirtless. (Sorry for destroying any illusions you may have had to the contrary.) Turns out that they alone were ahead of the curve: they cancelled the transaction because it seemed odd for someone with an IP address in Ireland to be using a card whose billing address is in Arkansas. Smart cookies! So kudos to Abercrombie & Fitch, even if they, in all likelihood, don’t make a single thing that would fit me. This crisis, such as it is, is winding down very much to my satisfaction – yay.

Other than that, not much going on. Like the man once said, come back later and there’ll be more to tell. And bring a real corporate logo with you when you do, yeah?… Read more

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Toiling In The Pixel Mines

Seeing spots

Just for fun, a couple of the interstitial spots that I worked into the looping DVD display shown lasy weekend at OEGE.

theLogBook.com 20th Anniversary Spot
Phosphor Dot Fossils Brown Box Spot

They drag on a little bit longer than you’d expect a normal TV spot to, but they’re kinda there to grab the eye without vanishing the next time that eye blinks. Given that not many DVDs wound up selling, maybe they didn’t do what I wanted them to.

Enjoy!… Read more

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Egging them on

Evan's Easter Eggs!

Evan’s day care had an Easter Egg hunt on Friday, though it was held indoors since we had nasty storms blow through on Thursday night (of which more in a bit). What a haul! And what the heck is some of this stuff? Eggs with little cars in them? Eggs with Play-Doh in them? Man. It’s almost becoming a cliche at this point, but they didn’t have stuff like that when I was his age – at least not in Easter Egg form! … Read more