Ontario’s children are now heading back to the classroom after a 3 week strike. Yes, yes, I’m fully aware that the strike was on the college level, however the children I speak of are not the students. School shall be starting back up at some point this next week, which leaves individuals such as me in a predicament. Granted my sense of time has been seriously discombobulated and I actually thought that we had missed out on four weeks of instruction, however… catching up on the film, on character rigging and modeling and texturing, as well as getting back in the groove with figure drawing, and trying to put new material together for my job interview on Friday shall put a lump in my sleeping patterns I’m sure. Secretly, I hoped that the strike would last longer, as time is something that I could certainly use more of. In retrospect, I shouldn’t have watched two seasons of Angel in a week. However, in retrospect, I’ve had no down time this semester, and it was a much needed span of procrastination. Some new figure drawings up in the gallery. I likely won’t update again in the next few weeks, but hopefully I’ll have some great new stuff to show when I do get the time.

Well, I’ve gotten 3 new figure drawings up in the gallery, but I’ve been a little busy lately. When not watching Angel, or playing Battlefield 2 (or 1942) with the croud of fellow animation students, I’ve been trying to teach myself Houdini. I’ve an interview with SideFX on the 31st, which I am looking forward to. An individual such as me, who wants to get into live action / special effects… it’s a pretty great oportunity for summer employment. Scanning of newer drawings will likely get pushed to the back burner for the time being. That being said, it’s time to go learn some more! Just thought I’d get *some* new drawings up since I see that people have been taking a look at my site now and then.

Not a whole lot to report today. Essentially, I spent a good portion of the day trekking around Oakville for shopping needs, applying to jobs, and illegally talking to teachers who are on strike about contingency plans. Speaking of which, the “24 Ontario Colleges” sent me an email saying that everything would be ok, and everyone will complete their semester if they’ve been doing work up until the strike. Guess I’m in the clear… so now I have to debate taking some time off to once again delve into the world of special effects, or to continue on this beast of a project that was assigned. On an up note, I bought Angel season one today. Watched the first four episodes. Such a well done show. Zoic is definately a place I wouldn’t mind doing some work at.

   Alas, again it has been a long time since I last graced my own site with new thoughts. It’s a habit that I one day hope to be able to break, but I fear that day will not come until I am no longer an ambivalent student in a classical character animation program while attempting to learn digital special effects. At any rate, the word blog has been thrown in my face far too often lately. My excuse whenever asked, about my blog (since apparently everyone has them now) is that I already have a website… so… if people care about my daily happenings they can read all about them here. As you can see, that’s not exactly true as I tend to be at school more and more these days promising myself that I’ll endeavor more deeply into the realm of technorcery… digital magic… once the group films are out of the way. The film of course that I’m working on most likely will not be completed, which means that I will need to wait until the summer before further pursuing my passion.

   Speaking of which, the clock is ticking down until the end of the semester (or at least it might be… the strike could actually make the clock tick up…), and I am starting to feel the heavy throes of not having a job lined up for this summer. Do I accept a position as a Flash Animator for the sake of being able to graduate? Or do I continue to hold out in hopes of getting something more directly related to the live action feature film industry? I like to think that I’ve worked hard these past months, acquired great knowledge from the precious tomes from Gnomon and Digital Tutors, when Sheridan has abandoned any notion of fulfilling their course outline in the area of Special Effects… but it seems that my options thus far have included either dropping out to work full time, or working for free. It’s bizarre that I could hold such attachment to a piece of paper… but I figure that it’s not worth my present $30,000 debt to walk out of this school without the degree. It’s not exactly tempting to work for free however with a debt like that as my very own Sword of Damocles…

   I have figure drawings which I’ll try to throw onto the site in the very near future. After editing the gallery late last week, it feels like I need something new up here. On a side note, I’m pleased that during the portfolio submissions at Sheridan a few couple of weeks ago, an individual was inspired enough by a drawing I did that they took a photo of it and posted it on ConceptArt.org. It would seem that Batman was stood-up at Prom.

Well hello there everyone. As I said a couple of days ago, I’ve been pretty busy lately, and so I decided it’s best to not leave last minute computer crashes to chance, and figured that I should get my demo done sooner than later. So if you take a gander on over to my gallery, you will see that I’ve no got my most up-to-date demo reel posted in the animation section. That being said, I think I’ll now be heading off to bed.

   I really do have the best intentions when it comes to my online life. I mean, I’ve started this little website, and it makes me happy when I see new visitors on that little counter. The biggest reason that I have the site though, is clearly for the convenience of portfolio display. And yet… it’s been about a month and a half since my last update! Well… the lack of an update has surely not ben for lack of anything to say, but rather, I’ve been hard at work (most of the time). My winter break was… well… forced upon me, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. A brief hiatus from work does help to put things in perspective now and then… sometimes it helps you to see that you’re doing exactly what you *should* be doing, and lets you smile to yourself… your own knowledge being the only pat-on-the-back that’s needed. Well, I realized that I need to start looking for summer employment, and so have been trying to make the necessary arrangements. Whether those arrangements consist of online job hunting, or doing work… I’ve done little but let that workoholic within manifest itself into Lunar Allegro (yes… I did play the new Final Fantasy IV Advance..) which is code for: I bought 2gb of ram for my computer, bought the student edition of RealFlow3, bought 3 Digital Tutors dvds, (which I am half way through… at the moment), redesigned my demo reel, and have done some new animation (well… added to old animation). Some of said animation is rendering at school right now. EA has internships each year, and, well, I’m pretty bent on getting accepted there (though there is a place I’ve also been into contact with recently here in Toronto which may provide more interest to me). So, I’ll be sure to post the new Demo here soon… my eta right now is Tuesday the 7th… simply because getting as much new (good) stuff on it before ther EA deadline is mucho important to me.

   In other news, I’ve got a buddy of mine that will soon be sharing my webspace… his site will be http://www.psyonicart.com. I now know more about .htaccess now than I care to.

   Well, looking at the time, it’s now 4 minutes after 3… and… well… I probably have more to say, but I’m just tired enough that I think sleep is a little more important than enlengthifying this update anymore!

I like to make up words.

   Crud… After reformating my computer, it looks like I forgot to add Microsoft Word… no spell check for this post! WEEEEE!!!

I really do not know if the internet has finally become so overrun with pop-ups that internet explorer no longer wishes to recognize legitimate html code for opening a site in a new window (as is the case in my gallery) or if Sheridan has once again decided to " upgrade " stepped up their ever so efficient technology… but either way I feel that it will be necessary to design a new site that makes no use of pop-up style image viewing in the near future. In the meantime? be sure to hold down the ctrl button when clicking if nothing seems to happen.

   Speaking of site changes, I have just subtracted stuff from the gallery, and have also added three new animations, one new figure drawing, and one new sketch? some water splash design work for the film I?m currently working on. Surely you are excited by this and will go there right now without even reading the rest of this. If you are more entertained by reading, then I have some more good news! I started and finished the original Castlevania this week, which means that I have bested 24 video games in the past 364 days. I have not yet decided if this is in fact a good thing, however it was certainly fun. I return to Nova Scotia on Sunday morning, but fear not? I shall once again be a student who rarely updates his site in the future? in? 2006! (I wonder why Castlevania isn?t included in the computers? spell-check dictionary?)

Just as Cyrus the Great once ruled over one of the greatest empires ever seen until he was killed mercilessly by enemy hoards… so my Green Tree frog Cyrus reigned supreme in his glorious terrarium until his untimely demise from the hoards of ants that my apartment building has infesting its every floor. I swear those ants belong to the most lethal ninja gang that has ever existed. Two weeks ago, I bought crickets for Cyrus to consume, and not three days later they were all dead… covered in these miniscule red ants. I killed every one that I saw, and proceeded to buy more crickets. The following day, I killed every ant that moved near the crickets. It seemed to do the trick… after all, I still have living crickets. I am no match for ants that have made their way to the 17th floor of an apartment building in the winter however… and so they exacted their revenge last night. This morning I found poor, Cyrus on the ground in the terrarium, coated in ants. I was and still am displeased.

   Now for some lighter topics: I feel as though this has been one of the most productive years of my life. Not only have I been successfully teaching myself special effects animation while keeping up with Sheridan’s treacherous BAA curriculum, but I have also beaten 23 video games(Original Metroid and Megaman 5 in the past week), begun to learn another language and currently have a job that is quite pleasing to me. It’s this first time I have not been burned out before the winter holidays since I began my college career, and so I feel as though I’m almost being forced to take a break this time around. That being said, I was asked the question today… If I could have a gameboy game under $20 what would I choose? Now that’s simple enough to answer… obviously I want Metroid II: Return of Samus, however I realized that Christmas is approaching. Well my friends, nothing says Christmas like compiling a list of things that people should buy for you to save you the expense. Here I offer you a small list of objects that tickle my fancy and are available for your pockets to be emptied on.

Gift Certificate for Digital Tutors.com

Games:
Shadow of the Colossus ? Playstation2

Dragon Quest VIII ? Playstation2
Mario Kart Double Dash ? Game Cube
Fire Emblem ? Gameboy Advance
Final Fantasy IV ? Gameboy Advance

CD?s:
G3: Live in Tokyo
James LaBrie: Elements of Persuasion

And now I shall leave you to your shopping whilst I prepare for work. I’ll be updating the gallery next week.

The Original Metroid has proven to be difficult for my rusty hands. Never having beaten it before, I figured it would take just a mere afternoon to blast my way though Zebes… I set out, acquireing such fabled relics as the mighty ice beam and screw attack… defeated the noble Ridley with out so much as a single hit being landed upon my Chozo suit… however I was mistaken to think this would be an easy venture. Kraid has decided to continuously maul me and use my corpse to decorate his … platform … but fear not… another weekend is only a stone’s throw away, and I *shall* have my victory against him. On that note, there’s a picture I did today in the gallery.

Well, as previously stated, I went the the Toronto Royal Winter Fair the past two days. Each year Sheridan students make their way over to draw the lovely livestock. Well… none of that for me I decided. I drew special effects. It wasn’t an easy task to track down stuff to draw, and I certainly did more than what you see in my sketch section of the gallery (on that note, I’ve just added 11 more images to the gallery). Now that my non-website-updating guilt has been aleviated… I do believe that I shall head back to the drawing board and get to work on some storyboard panels. Either that or I will eat fudge. I finally broke down Thursday night… I had to have some video games, and with a friend nearby, original Street Fighter II called out to us… it was only a matter of time.