Blogs, Video Games & Flash Animation - The Worst Would-be Film Title

      As of late, this blog has been seeing the back of my hand a lot. Now, it's not because I hate blogging, I really love doing it in fact. But it's mainly become a syringe in my arm. A syringe full of Aids. This is because I am having a difficult time thinking up wonderful new ideas to compose (like my in previous posts.........) and it's become more and more aggravating, like Christian Bale would feel if he were caught in the middle of a light show or something. I wish I was more productive like the good ole days of my blog, 3 months ago, where every week I would post several new posts of meaningless rants and inspiring mush that would non-erotically satisfy me. Sadly though I have reached a point where I talk about either the same things or try to talk about something sensible and end up looking inbred. Although to many I might seem that way already:

"Duuuh, hi I'm Seán!"

     I'll admit that I have a serious lack of knowledge when it comes to worldly events such as politics or general news. It's my fault entirely of course, but if I were to tackle THAT sort of topic I would probably come out in the end resembling something of a cross between a frog and an ostich (A Frostrich! har har har!). If you can't picture than in your head, I'll tell you now, it looks really REALLY stupid (although imagine how funny it would look if it walked). On top of general knowledge, I have a very limited taste in music and a non-existent interest in sports. In fact if I really think about all I have just said, I have serious ice-breakers issues when it comes down to first conversations. I'm surprised I have friends! Well apart from ye of course, my readers and followers (which is down from 16 to 15 in the last week or two, talk about ENCOURAGING!). At least I can still check up on the number of views my old posts racked up, back when I'd get excited at the thought of someone clicking and even looking at my blog for more than two seconds, to which I'd think "OH MAH GOSH, they READEZ mah BLOGGGgggggggg!"

"Bluuaaaaaaa Read MAH BLOG, BLuauauauauaaasohappy!!!"

     Luckily for me though I've been slightly above average productive on several fronts. 3 out of 4 of these things actually count. I've cut down on drinking, am saving moneys and I am regaining my patience for being productive yaaaaaaay! What does this mean for you? Well nothing, but you should be happy for me, as my followers. Before I go on to talking about what regaining patience has helped me achieve, FIRST I shall talk about number 4 of my productive front, the one that doesn't count, but has proven to be awesome to me over the last few weeks.

      Number 4 is a little Wii game called Donkey Kong Country Returns. I cannot state how much barrels of awesomeness this game throws at you, no pun intended, har dee har har! While many people might scoff at the mention of a game on Nintendo's comparatively retarded hardware compared to it's HD cousins, I can tell you one thing. Cram it up yo' ass! Donkey Kong takes most PS3 & Xbox 360 games and wipes it's arse thoroughly with them. It carries the franchises' old school gaming lovingly into the modern era, like a bum holds his liquor. On top of that it sucks you in, chews you up and shits you out because it is so damn tough. Just getting through the game in general is probably enough to test David Blaine's patience and then once that's done there's tons of secrets and unlockables all hidden away in this innocent beastly package. And, no thanks to Retro Studios (the makers), the amazing art direction hides the Wii's underpowered hardware to produce some truely stunning vista's and animation that sits up there with the top of any of this generations console games, take a look:

    Now, I'm finished speaking of productive front number 4. Speaking of animation however, this is where my patience has become a virtue as of recently. Where as over the last few years my patience for working on most projects has eroded away like Michael Jackson's face (both living and dead I guess), I have recently begun rebuilding it as I took my first step into the world of Flash Animation. A year ago Adobe Flash settled quite nicely onto my laptop but became the neglected eldest child in my family of programs because I had little patience to work on it. However, I recently came across videos on character animation in Flash on a great but expensive website to download from. Luckily for me I "found" most of the videos else where online at the base price you would pay for, I dunno, saaaaay, nothing. They're great tutorials (which I have yet to finish) but even with what I've learnt from them I've found that having the patience to go through with animation has been rewarding. For example, I have made this already just to flex my memory of the tutorials:

    In retrospect it's quite shite, very spasticated, short and simple. That sounds like I'm describing myself actually. Anyways I have proven to myself that I can use the tools of the program to make the creature above and the same workflow I had on that can be applied to an entire animation, which is what I plan to do next. I took a step and now I'm taking a leap, let's hope I don't fall, like I did the in stockroom at work the other day. My next big project involves a comic I made of my friend Paddy and his irrational fear of people touching his hair.

So I'm going to animate Paddy going from this (he's the really happy one):

To this:

It will be fun and it is also very true to life if you were to try or be caught in this situation.

As for the first 2 productive fronts, I have already mentioned them. Number 1 is saving money and number 2 is drinking less, which is actually an offshoot of saving money. I want to save up for a new DSLR camera, as I have been planning for ages, so I can make better quality short films and I also want to buy a scanner/printer so I can do some frame by frame animation on the side too!

That's all for today mah friiiieeeeeenndss!

P.S. I actually wrote most of this earlier but accidentally DELETED ALL OF IT. And learned that Blogger doesn't save previous drafts as a result. Patience.....dwindling...... gaaaaahhhh.....

Being Drunk and Productive = Counter Productive

I've finally learnt after 3 separate occasions that being drunk, in my case, and trying to be productive has often left me in a situation worse off than improved. This is also 3 occasions that I remember because they have left a lasting effect, like when you watch all of LOST and realise that you could've stared at a giant question mark for 6 years and STILL have gotten more answers.

"Previously on LOST..."

The first of these stupid escapades was something I mentioned in a previous post before. I stumbled into my room like a bowling ball falling down a staircase and saw my curtains agape. This could not stand if I were to sleep in that morning so like a whiley racoon I decided to close them. This proved much more difficult than it appeared, my drunken motor instincts confused closing with going rigid and my balance confused standing up with...not standing up. I forgot this had all happened until I woke up and thought for a moment "my window wasn't on the floor before?". Anyways, the good thing was, I still managed to close the curtains, even if they weren't attached to the wall anymore.

The second time is also something I've mentioned in previous posts. My sister and her boyfriend were over visiting and we all were drinking here in my apartment, which is also their ex-apartment. As per usual I was using my laptop to show funny videos (probably about cats) and play music no one wants to listen to at 3 in the morning. I also felt that the laptop needed no better place to be than on top of stereo speakers, at my head height with wires protruding from it all around the room. After showing them one of the trippy psychedelic fight scenes from Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World I took my own trip over my laptop charger sending my laptop on a very brief and ultimately horrendous speed date with gravity that ended at the floor. My laptop still worked but now my screen is stuck in what I am dubbing "Scott Pilgrim mode", it's flickery, crazy, fuzzy and psychedelic making reading just about bearable and the only thing that does look normal on it is Scott Pilgrim Vs. The world.

"Currently what Hibernation Mode on my laptop is like"

The final escapade happened nary a night or two ago. I came home and realised that I had left on a dehumidifier in my room for the majority of the day and as a result my room resembled something of a giant sandcastle. My bedsheets also weren't dry nor on my bed as I had just washed them, so I decided to stay up for a while drying those (not physically, in a dryer of course) and put them on my bed, all the while letting the dehumidifier suck up any dampness left in the sheets. When all said was done I proceeded to turn off and move the unit out of my room. It was probably like watching a newborn deer learn how to walk while trying to carry a dehumidifier. As you may have guessed, the simple idea of moving it didn't go exactly as planned and much like my cutrains and my laptop it ended up on the floor with an almighty crash loud enough to wake a Kraken. It also proved it did it's job well by spilling all of the daily moisture it had collected all over my bedroom floor. Now that's what I call counter productive!

After a bitter 5-10 mins of cleaning this mess and also reassembling the unit, I succeeded in removing it from my room. I walked back into my room and closed the door. Now, this was the third thing that has fallen to the ground in my apartment because of me being drunk so I think it was at this point that the other inanimate objects decided to join in on the fun too, such as the foldaway table behind my door. It lunged itself at my foot and nearly broke my toe. If I wasn't so drunk I probably would've also noticed it giggling as glided effortlessly through the dehumidified air. The Kraken awoke, ME!

"BLUAAAA MY KRAKEN TOE!!!!!!11111!!!1"

I've decided the only thing I can't do wrong when drunk and returning from a night out is to just go straight to sleep. What could possibly go wrong in that situation?