Pastiche of Life

Oh My God!

That’s it people time to close the world, its time to  hit the ‘Nukem’ button , its  time to surrender ourselves to our under dwelling masters. All that and many other bombastic affectations to doom. as you can see above we have reached a new low.

Honestly I’m slowly starting to lose my mind as i try to conceive of how many questions you can possibly ask about the Twilight movie. The fact that the game involves itself with the movie rather than the series of Novels make’s its scope severely limited, Not that the Twilight Saga was a deep well of discursive history and mythology in the first place.

To stop my self from going over the top in my distain for this iteration of the the excellent series of games i thought i would Wiki myself up with some knowledge of their release history now look at this list:

New DVD expansion games are released every year. Expansions include:

Harry Potter 1st Edition (2005)

Harry Potter 2nd Edition (2007)

Disney Edition

Warner Bros. 50th Anniversary Edition

James Bond Edition

HBO Edition

Turner Classic Movies Edition

Nickelodeon Edition

Marvel Comics Edition

Friends Edition

Pirates of the Caribbean Edition

Doctor Who Edition

FIFA Edition

Disney Channel Edition

Seinfeld Edition

Star Trek Edition

The Simpsons Edition

Now as you can see there is plenty of Fandom’s covered by their release’s but the presence of multiple editions for Disney/Harry potter to follow the continued development of the stories means an acceptance and attention to the limitations of focusing on a few titles in a series. In this list the Pirates of the Caribbean is the one pack trading on the least amount of footage released to sift and quiz upon, its connection to Disney history and the use of easily recognised cast members with illustrious movie histories filled out its content nicely.

In its use of the twilight series considering the limitation of focusing on the first film and its associated text just in time for New Moons release simply smacks of pandering to the already Ghoul like fanaticism that follows the book.

Yes, I hate the Twilight books and yes, i have read them. thankfully not having to pay for the displeasure go ahead and complain i have control over the horizontal the vertical and the comment box ^_^

Well Just giving the new Plug-in a test do feel free to comment here or on my twitter if this worked I must say it does provide the opportunity to be verbose and still post to twitter, For your information by the way i haven’t Twittered in quite a while due to the fact i Finally smashed my I-Phone its cracked screen finally gave way to a whitewash of destruction it still works i just can see bugger all… If i used a Video out cable maybe… Hmm It must be investigated anyone got a video out cable for the I-phone?

Keep smiling people and keep reading ^_^

Well Ladies and Germs,

With the preliminary work on the original image from breaking down the pose and figuring out exactly what i wanted to do different done. I then moved to finding the surface i was going to deface, I have begun to work on the walls template and it hasn’t been easy I am taking a break to do this journal to both Http://stolenproperty.deviantart.com DevArt and to the Http://www.pasticheoflife.com main site, Included here shall be a few lessons learned by working through this dark night.

Lesson 1. Don’t Draw directly to the surface using Pencil if your preliminarily sketching the layout.

Otherwise you end up with the mess i currently have on my wall i still have such a difficulty with drawing hands and having no eraser at hand to destroy these monstrosities of perspective and mutated bones mean’s i now have a scrawl of pencil marks where my hand will be. <Photos will be forthcoming i just don’t have a working phone to snap them at the moment>

Lesson 2. Normal file paper is perfectly alright for practicing your stencilling just don’t expect it to be to precise.

As you can see i had to do a test spray job to see how the paint takes to the wall and it doesn’t work to badly the only problem is that cutting paper and handling it makes it get a little soft on the edges so I am finding it bleeds a little to much on the tight angles that and its difficult to tape down every spike in a page. My solution for this is to use Masking tape directly applied to the wall for the more detailed parts i can’t do freehand mostly for the more precise hair spikes and for clothing decals/objects but this has its own issue of stripping paint already applied I am hoping the lesser tack is going to reduce the problem.

lesson 3. Never expect the exact result in hand as on digital

Having precisely produced the Vector art for my wall work taking that out of the system and placing it on the wall has been the biggest issue i took to it by hand and now have un expected alterations on the wall simply because the textured surface is informing the art. What i intended to be black/dark denim Carpenter jeans are now coming out as a Pair of Flared Cords still black/gray considering I am working Monotone but would be Brown or beige if i was to do this up coloured, Since the wall already has the texture although unexpectedly, it just came as a natural progression.

lesson 4. Don’t contemplate what your doing at 6am Looking at half finished work

Seriously don’t start late and expect sleep it is now 7am. I’m going for coffee then going about my business for the day but i  will not be sleeping until this thing is at least had its first coat of paint. It’s stupid its destructive and i should be doing things like work instead but i am a master procrastinator ^_^

I’m away for a cup of Joe anybody want anything?

So Instead of posting on this blog recently I’ve embarked on a little art project, I  intend to transform my Flat into a small art installation what its going to require is massive Sheets of paper/ Somewhere that prints A2, an xacto knife (We don’t have those here in Ireland apparently, So instead Craft knifes) and a bunch of time.

You may or may not know i Purchased a Wacom Bamboo pen tablet a few months back and I’ve been getting to grips with it and building up my digital drawing speed (From 4 hours to trace something to 2) I’m so talented (-_-)

Below you’ll see a few bits and pieces I’ve done getting me to grips with Vector Art/ Layering etc. Its bizarre how proficient i was at this back when i had accrued a portfolio of digital and hand drawn art at the age of 16 but its all managed to abandon me now I’m a talentless adult. Too much Playing video games robbed me of my artistic faculties ALERT THE PRESS!

View Full Album

As you can see there’s a mix of stuff from cartoon characters (Both of them are Rogue from the show X-men Evolution) And photo manipulation of both my house and my trip to New York. Btw Sorry Kev and Roney you may look like colourful idiots but be assured ill be laughed at for the art

Now, all of this will be available here on the site As i work on it between my regular news postings but it will also be available on DeviantArt. Yes, I know I’ve fallen pray to outsourcing my site to other places like a little Web 2.0 sheep but its simply to promote this site and get on the fly critique so I’m not very concerned at all what people may think.

Here is me and My Bamboo (This is actually for the webcam Widget at DeviantArt Shush! don’t tell anyone)

I sit here now at the CD & Record Fair in Omagh with my stall of comics coming down with bargains and great choices but I am lacking in customers. Its strange i remember these fairs having a huge attendance with my teenage group but i think with the advent of digital purchasing and the loss of general taste has brought a death to the market in my home .

Coincidentally in starting to write this little blog post the lady who is running the whole thing came over to chat about the whole day being a bit of a bust and how quiet its been compared to any other day but i suppose that’s just my luck but taking on enough stock to run a few more days like this and breaking even isn’t to bad its just a pity i expended so much on Long boxes.

Just for a quick break down of my table check out the photos believe me there’s no point chronicling the rest of the room its all dealers and 2 Customers.

As you can see Quite a bit of Stock in view ^_^ and there’s even more out of view.

Lose/Lose Is a game, this is obvious but the point it’s creator makes is that it is a interactive question or at least the opening point of discussion into the value of data and the consequences of virtual actions.

Of course the question has been asked before but with a different hook, How can previously made data be included or added in a new organisational system?
In previous titles the process created new values from the previously existing data be it music/software or the simple barcode (Vib ribbon/Monster Rancher/Barcode Battler) this creation of secondary value was the process of adding or making other data inclusive with new meaning, It is a positive process of creation, a reflection of Growth and nurturing games. This process is reversed in the creation Of Lose/Lose as data becomes the target of deletion with the destruction of each Alien invader. In doing so brings to question the environment of the consistently aggressive action that online shooters inhabit. We begin to ask are the attributed kills in a Death match worth anything? was this existential question one of the reasons we see RPG elements are a growing importance in our FPS Shooters especially in online play?

The clever construction of the game with the passivity of the alien’s creates a vacuum of purpose for the ship the player controls with its own weapons. In taking the aggressive stance we now dam ourselves to critical losses while this may seem like inherent pacifism we don’t get hammered over the head with morality we simply begin to equate how much the individual is willing to expend on a simple task.
the creator said himself

"Why do we assume that because we are given a weapon an awarded for using it, that doing so is right?"

in asking this we make a split decision as to what is valued most and in what situation can it be considered acceptable losses. As the already apparent competitiveness of the scoreboard attests you can in fact not just lose to the game but lose to other players willing to expend data and time. To otherwise lose to the game and let it delete itself we are not even relieved of our consequence as the game self destructs. Metaphorically we do only have one life to make the decision.

There have been shooters in the past that use content from the users hard drive to inform or Propagate fields of view like using video files as a wall panel or using Image files as a level wall texture either directed by the user themselves in user create maps but also uncommonly by the games process, A single example where the games name escapes me was a descent like shooter that let to the player act as the computers antivirus using directed folders of data/pictures/video that created the additional background content of the level while you exterminated the viri. The other side of this coin was consternation of people playing the game and minor sensationalist reports of the game being a virus in reality. This has come true for LOSE/Lose as Symantec Lists the game as Low threat Trojan

The Creation of LOSE/LOSE is an elegant reminder of the existential problems of playing a game and divorcing it from the consequences of actions. It Informs and elucidates the argument for creative and expressive games without even attempting and if you have a few MB to lose of data and you don’t really mind I’d recommend you give it a try. The action of deleting your own data can in truth be fun and more terrifying than most survival Horror.

Joystiq – deletes files as you play

LOSE/LOSE – Original Site

Oh I’m a little giddy, everyone has hammered the MGS series into the ground with “UGH more cut scenes” “ugh I wanna Play!” comments so I’m sure the prospect of a film to allot of people is hell. To those people I think you all suck and I’m happy such a good piece of film is here.

MGS: Philanthropy is a fan project started by a group of Italian film students that blows anything I’ve worked on out of the water. With a internally raised budget of £9,000 (listen if you haven’t seen it don’t say that’s allot of money to make a film Clerks Cost twice as much) they have managed to create a both involving yet flippant action filled story that makes more sense than many of the plot elements of MGS2/3/4.

  Snake is played by one of the original creators of the fan project Giacomo Talamini and in the design of the character the Body suit worn by snake and his age reflect a particularly good transition stage from the narrow faced younger MGS Snake to the more Bearded MGS2. Talamini does an excellent job of portraying grumpy snake with allot of very noticeable physical gestures lifted from the exaggerated physicality of the Video game such as the Grunts and shifts of weight when something snatches Snakes attention compounded in editing with recognisable quick cuts and zoom on snake or the hanging of his head and shifting looks when Snakes asked questions he doesn’t wish to answer. This is all compounded by a faithfully gritty English Dub by Philipp Sacramento

The Special Effects work is worth a watch alone, at times providing a surreal moment or two when digital actors are used in transitions that could be mistaken for Scenes from MGS2/3. The Screenshot to the left has a tone and colouring that could have been taken from one of the Early MGS4 Teaser trailers while the filter effects used on the the shot to the right make it difficult to determine if the foreground Snake is in actuality the actor or one of the transitional Digi’s. The soft blur and perspective of the shot look so well blended together. Admittedly Not all shots look quite as convincing but to have these moments are quite excellent and i know that Ill be keeping them as wallpapers for a time.

The rest of the Cast are also excellent the Characters above all deserving special mentions clockwise from top left (Unnamed Foxhound-esque Soldier, Informant Britoil(Sp?), Pierre LeClair, Sen. Abraham Bishop, Elizabeth Laycan) LeClair’s character features heavily in the humour of the movie his introduction leading to one of the strangest if humorous and satisfying moments of the film. This Wry humour is something that any form of Hollywood involvement in a Big budget incarnation of the series would eliminate from the narrative.

There is so much to Say about the characters of Laycan and of the mysterious soldier but id prefer to leave this movie unspoiled for your viewing go check it out ASAP

AT

http://www.mgs-philanthropy.net

Yes, Today I’m Iphone freaking and for an App that is unlikely to reach this shore anytime soon, The Sekai Camera App

I love my iphone even though its got a horrible Fractured screen not just is it my access to internet in times of need its also my main mail server, my twitter portal, my guitar tuner and occasionally flirtatious conversation starter (Mostly due to its horrendous condition) the only thing i have avoided using it for is recording Video or taking pictures, personally i hate the camera that is built in and the delay is unforgivable (Considering my last few camera phones were LG’s) but my opinion may very well change with the  Sekai Camera App.

After a little glance over Danny Choo’s Blog and video of the software in action I’m eagerly anticipating some form of release in the UK so i can get to tagging the life out of my City.  The Apps functionality surpasses Google’s street View by not requiring the location be recorded and then information placed on the pictures. Instead the phone using Gps/Cell triangulation finds Geotagged information of pictures,text, vocal messages and lays them over the objects in the cameras view even going as far as being able to socially network by leaving messages for other users in a location. Danny Choo talks about making use of the software for a treasure hunt and i look forward to his implementation of it.

So until i hear more about the software’s release in locations outside Japan i suppose ill just end here with “All i want for Christmas is Sekai Camera!!!!!”

TonchiDot (developers website)

With the American Première of Evangelion 2.0 i would Like to take a quick Look at its continued raging popularity…

Back during the original release of the series i made the deliberate decision to wait for ADV’s Release DVD by DVD. Now you can imagine being a frustrated Internet enabled teen i could have gone the dark route of downloading but i managed to keep myself free from such actions because i had a friend who was as into the show as i was. You know the kind, The guy who would commit murder if you even hinted you had seen further ahead than he had, so my path was set.

This slow drip is what made me take notice of Evangelion. The torrent( HAHA did you see what i did there) of Anime available today has crystallised the series for me making it the one series that no matter how much brain power and time i drop into its understanding i come up gasping for air and again watch an episode for just one more visual cue to tie it all up neatly, From our introduction to Shinji and his introduction to the EVA, which pretty much everyone rewound at least once to hear again, to the series baffling conclusion Hideaki Anno created a deep universe that in its mash up of religious and psychological/social entanglement renewed the Giant robot genre and created a subset of shows that intentionally played with the viewers desires and intentions for their loved characters.

Shows Like FLCL and Lain along with Evangelion granted the license to couch theoreticist’s and critics to create an explanation for the intentionally unexplainable and in this practice created a self-sustaining fandom that is existent today with the Rebuild Series of Evangelion movies. If one could harness the mental energy expended so far we would all live on the moon with Unit-01’s petrified corpse.

The series has tortured ,in a not so unpleasant way, its fans. This torture is in this form the 2nd of 4  movies retelling the series that will never die, Not just are we anticipating and watching another remake of the story that has been added to and rereleased with a Synopsis movie (Death and Rebirth), An alternate/expanded end (End of Eva), Added scenes (The platinum collection) and visually/Aurally remastered  (Also platinum) but we now have a version that is making fundamental changes to the story that we have already thought about and attempted to understand. The effect is reflective of many other series in the past for example Clamps ‘X’ movie and series or comparison of the series Revolutionary Girl Utena to the move Adolescence of Utena. This Change can be a shock to the fan base but are all continued afflictions of the Intentional unintelligible that will keep these series alive.

2 years ago on a trip around Japan it was still obvious how prolific the characters of Evangelion are and at that particular time there was still Evangelion Pachinko and a whole series of shop wall advertisements for the upcoming rebuild series. As much as the possibility may be than evangelion is reaching its swan song, its curtain call and any other analogies for its end its effect on those who know of it will continue into their ripe old age and still have them wondering what was the meaning of that giant forehead vagina <Honestly i tried to find a Picture but you will just have to imagine it>

(Postscript if a single person emails me to include the Other Manga/Novels spawned from this series in this post i will make your heads explode from the pure concentrated hate)

It has come to my attention after a little bit of browsing tonight that the Wii version of Modern Warfare (Due out Nov10th) has yet to give a taste of its Gameplay.

The fans of the Infinity Wards shooter are extolling dismay and fear over the decision to not show advance gameplay footage each of them springing up with many rumours and reasons for why they are withholding the information. It is to be expected of course by Activision considering the presence of obviously broken street dates that any attempt to corral the lucky few with access to the game and a webcam will only be building buzz over the game. Already tonight i have myself been unfortunate enough to miss out any of the leaked footage before Activision brought down the legal hammer, Or should that be Gavel…

The discussion of reasons behind Activision and Treyarch’s silence has come to two differing sides one that is optimistic and the inevitable pessimist who hopes to be proven wrong. Its a Strange combination of forlorn expectations from the pessimists probably born from the history of porting and power issues that reared its head in games such as Dead Rising on the Wii but the optimists counterstatement has been Infinity wards strict quality control using examples of the internal struggle between Infinity ward and their handlers it is simply a mater of time now to see if everyone can come away happy. A true happy ending of course would be something that will blow the expectations of all parties and pull the carpet out from Wii detractors and admittedly if anyone could do it Infinity Wards would have my bet. (See Below for my retraction of this statement)

Anyway With the amount of excitement surrounding MW2 and MWii the COD behemoth rolls on after its reported 12Million unit sales. This cannot come as a surprised considering the stellar Single player campaign that has been a discussion cinematically with my own friends, Alongside its addictive multiplayer that even caught hold of my non-fps centred attention. Lets just hope that the Wii delivers.

Edit Postscript!

(The fact that Infinity ward is not at the helm of this port has been pointed out to me and i think i made a major mistake not double checking my sources apologies for claiming the Wii port was developed by infinity ward it was in-fact done by Treyarch, so stop emailing me for those who want to read the First impressions of the port should take the jump to Here)