I don't wanna go to work today.

2 words.

CHRONO. TRIGGER.

Yes, this game still pretty much rules. I love it. If you didn't play it back in '95, it's grandness may be lost on you, but you still owe it to yourself, me and God to play it.

In other news, I'm better now. No more sicky for me. No more shivering and peeing blood. Hoorah!

In other other news, I had a grand time at bible study tonight and afterward hangtime at Fatheads. I didn't really see anyone last week and it was great to reconnect with friends and creepy twins. Keri drew awesome pictures that are going on our fridge.

So Kev says he's just about done editing his opus "Donut Gun", for which I supplied special fx. Whenever he gets it done I'll provide some screenshots and info on a future screening. It's boss.

I'm tired.

brrrrrrrrr

I've been a bit on a non-entity this week. Between the sick and the stones, I've been more or less keeping to the apartment. It's freaking freezing here so that is also a great incentive to stay indoors, huddled under a blanket, which is where I am now. So not much is going on here... I played through the first half of Doom only to have my save state malfunction and repeatedly boot me out of Zsnes. So screw Doom. I've been thinking of going through Chrono Trigger again, it's been a few years and that game is so freaking great. I've been working on Bethany's next tattoo, which is a chestpiece involving Amish Hex signs (which is nowhere near as occultic as it sounds), and that's going pretty well. I've also been trolling the internet for illustration contracts with minimal results thus far, but that's kinda the nature of the business I guess. You look for weeks until you find the one that pays your bills for a month. An exciting development in terms of a means of snaggling some big animation contracts is that the Crash Club splash screen went up yesterday, thanks to dear old Budge. He also did the sounds for this, which are great. In case you can't tell, the tale being told is that of the partnership between Buck and I.

I think Cleo is heading out into the icy tundra today for some groceries and hopefully a cheap space heater so we can all avoid pnuemonia. Even Ico seems cold right now, and he's got a freaking viking-lion-pelt going. Seriously. He's got a mane.

Cleo is selling well this month, and I am very proud of her. The play that she is providing some merchandise for opened last night, so fingers crossed for sell-out status.

I'm going back to shivering. More later.

yuck 3

And the hits keep comin'!

So to beat the flu I drank a ton of water. My darling wife even policed my liquid intake to ensure I was getting enough to rid myself of sickness. I'm feeling much better, still a little lethargic, but definitely on the mend. Unfortunately, all the water seems to have flushed down a small kindey stone. This will be my fourth bout with kidney stones, going back to 3rd grade, so I know the drill. I now have to just pound water for the next few days and pass this motha.

It's unpleasant and painful, but at least it's also treatable with water. Everything seems to be. I swear I could have the bubonic plague and just over-hydrate to get rid of it. Anyway, I'm supposed to drink enough to produce 3 quarts of urine per day, which is a lot. Also, some website said I should strain my urine to see if I can grab the stone as it leaves, to send it to a lab for chemical composition analysis. If I were ever in the mindset to strain my urine, I'd just keep the stone as a conversation piece. And what would one even use to strain urine? How awful would it be?

"Honey, what's our flour sifter doing in the bathroom?"

"Oh, I'm just peeing through it to catch calcium deposits to send to scientists!"


In other news, I've been drawing and trying to recoup. Had a great time last night with our dear friend xMattJonesx who has returned to us from the wild lands to the south. He shaved his beard and it wierded us out. He brought us some hot sauce which I am thankful for, as I always forget to buy any and then wish I had. We hit Tom's Diner with him for some cheap dinner and Cleo ended up with the largest piece of cake ever, courtesy of the kind Diner attendents. Then we hung out at In The Blood and talked to Justin for a long time about all kinds of subjects, from awesome youtbue videos of tigers and lions attacking to gay marriage. Greg and Doug, the other tattoo artists were very amusing as well. Eventually Keri and Wes showed up and hung out in the lobby with us, and people were milling about as Bible Fight Club was happening in the basement. We left as I was kinda disoriented from still being a tad sick and having been out in the cold and hanging out for a few hours. We got home and Kev stopped by to chill and okay the Donut Gun footage. We discussed all manner of things and then he went home. I then proceeded to play through the first 5 maps of Doom whilst listening to a 1up.com Retronauts podcast about... Doom. It's much better to play the horrid snes version on a pc emulator than on a television, what with the resizable window and all. The game is a lot easier than I remember it being, but still fun, in that 8th grade way.

So the coffin for my dead xbox arrived and we're about to trek out in the non-sticking snow showers to UPS to ship it off. Hopefully in no time flat I'll be back on the xbox, beating Gears on insane and being pwned regularly on live. And Cleo can have her garden back.

I'm off.

yuck part 2

So I'm still sick... had a really fitful night, could'nt get back to sleep after 7:30 am, so I got up around 8:30 and have been scouring the interweb for paying contracts. Now I'm sitting here listening to relaxing techno (Orbital, my old standby) and considering going back to bed for awhile.

Not much out there in January. It makes sense, no one is hiring and no one has money at the beginning of the year. I'll just have to ride it out and hope for some smaller design jobs over the next 6 weeks. I'm optimistic, though. We have enough cash and credit to last us for awhile and that's plenty of time to get some work in. So hopefully some nice bands will want some designs or some fun company will want some animation. Who knows? I feel ok. God has always been there for us financially, often saving our butts at the last minute. I know that he'll provide. I have a billion examples of it from last year alone.

I'm having one of those stretches where no one gets back to me. Whether it's email, blog stuff, myspace, phone, etc... sometimes I'll have a week when I'm just waiting for 5 people to reply to me and it just dosen't happen. I hate that. I feel like the rest of the world has just moved on and I'm just sitting here, incomunicado.

I'm rambling because I'm tired and sick. Today I don't feel like doing anything. Don't feel like working, playing video games, watching movies, going out, sleeping, sitting... nothing.

Screw the flu.

yuck

So somehow I got really sick this morning. This aftertoon I felt worse than I have in years. It sucked. Slept the whole afternoon, lounged on the couch a few hours, and now I'm up here doing some fairly dull client work.

That's all.

THE ORDER OF THE TRIAD!

Pan's Labyrinth. Yeah. Go see this film. It's beautiful and emotionally difficult. It's been a good month for movies, what with this and Children of Men being in release around here.

This weekend has been more more more work work work. I've tentatively finished the fx shots for Kev's latest opus, "Donut Gun". There were endless technical difficulties in using flash and video together on my end, but with great effort I have rectified it. I rule.

So now I'm fixing up some other stuff and working on a chestpiece for my darling wife. It has birds. Amish hex birds. Rock.

I wish my xbox coffin would get here. I miss it. It's sad.

Weep for me.

gobias industries

MORE! MORE! MORE! MORE!!!! Here's Lorre. He's melting. Poor him.

we keep you alive

MORE!

the catch, the crux and the rub

MORE!
This is the best series of designs I've ever cranked out, I think. I LOVE THIS DESIGN. THEREFORE I LOVE MY OWN BRAIN.

Strangely enough, more to come.

In other news, my stupid cat sat on my nice new (18 months young!) glasses. So I need to make some quick cash to replace them before my old ones give me back my migraines. If you're a band and need a design, dorp me a line at mrscottbenson@yahoo.com and we can talk. I'm cheap!!!

In other news, Microsoft is sending out the coffin tommorow that will bear my deceased xbox 360 to console valhalla. With any luck, it will be deemed a worthy warrior to return to battle Loki and the Ice Giants at Ragnarok. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you're not my friend and will certainly not see the glorious, terrible and tragic final conflict and I weep for you.

in the midnight hour more more more

I get a strong Amnesty International vibe from this one, and I like that. The vibe I'm going for in these designs is "victorian occult/secret society/early 20th century spiritualism"/punk freaking rock vibe. So we'll see how that goes. High concept!!!


MORE! YES! I AM PROLIFIC TODAY!!!!

MORE TO COME!!

and there will be sorrow no more.

Pulled an all nighter last night. These designs are the fruit of that hopefully-sleep-schedule-resetting feat. THAT HORSE BIT THAT DUDE'S HEAD OFF! HOLY CRAP!

I'm also doing some tshirts for one of my favorite bands ever, the first concept you'll find below. The texturing on the wings is so ridiculous, flash actually crashed and now refuses to re-open the file. INZANE!

2 weeks ago I also got to do this dandy little tour poster for my good pals The Beagle Club, who have an amazing new album.

Ok, I'm silly from no sleep, but I must hold out till tonight so that I can insure a decent bed time. The past 12 hours has been a straight up art-fest, so maybe I'll just try to push through and draw all day. Maybe post more art later?????

After 3 days, it's still raining in Pittsburgh.

Losing a friendship dosen't get any easier with age.

I wish I could sleep.

Jesus, Jesus.

So tonight we went out and saw "Children of Men", a beautiful, heartbreaking and poigniant flick. I highly recommend giving it a whirl, it's most likely in a theatre near you. Had this movie come out last year, it woulda given "The Departed" and "The Proposition" a run for their money as my favorites of 2006. This movie just really connected with me, and it was shot and realized beautifully... it also contains some of the most realistic film depictions of urban warfare that I've ever seen in a movie.

We were watching the BBC world news over dinner tonight and I realized that I had never seen footage of actual operations and conditions in Iraw on a news program before. I had seen very clean and nice shots of people and buildings, but I had not seen images of the actual ground war. Thanks, US mass media! I don't know how we ever find anything out!

By the way, you all DO know about the current state of Habeas Corpus, correct? Please take a moment to find out the bad news.

In other news, the first of the year lull in business is occuring... so if you're a band or a person or whatever, please drop me a line and tell me you want to pay me money to draw things for you. Please? I'm praying that we can get a more accurate and up to date website going, as I really need it to move on and continue working. Pray for us!

In other news, Pan's Labyrinth is coming to Pittsburgh next friday!!!!!

Sunday night, 11 pm

This was happening in my kitchen.

I suck at Gears of War

I've beaten the single player campaign. I'm going through it again on hardcore. I've played multiplayer for the past month, a few nights a week. And yet night after night, match after match, I am killed in a variety of awful ways. I'll average 3 or 4 kills per 6 round or so match, usually ranking last or near the bottom of my team. I've read multiplayer strategy guides. I've watched online videos. I know how to use the weapons, cover, melee, and the maps. I lure someone down a hallway, wait until they're almost past me, then pop out firing the shotgun at point blank range. I let off 4 shots, and my opponent turns and kills me in 1 blast. I understand that there are a billion better players, but I simply cannot improve. I play with friends. They are nice. They are fun. We laugh. Then they kill me. Repeatedly. With chainsaws to the face.

quick and amusing...

This has been quite a week for my brain and such, but more on that later. It's been kind of hard, kind of depressing, kinda painful, and it's been tiring. But it's good, in a way most very worthwhile things are - exhausting but real.

In the meantime, something amusing:

This is an amazon.com review of "Pigs in the Parlor", the utterly insipid and awful book on "deliverance ministry", that awesome devil-centric model for curing all of our annoying human tendencies, from sickness to procrastination to murder. It claims that ALL people, including all Christians, including YOU, are currently possessed by at least one demon. Think of something you did wrong today... yep, THAT was a demon. Anyway, there are several great reviews of the book on amazon, refuting the absolute sillyness of the book. But this particular review is a gem of awesomeness. Perhaps sometimes the best weapon against false teaching is smartassery.

"The Hammonds must have been possessed by demons of confrontation when they wrote this book! Again and again, they suggest the following sledgehammer approach to delivering someone from demon possession: confront the demon and drive it out. However, government statistics indicate that in a mere 7.3% of possession cases should the demon be driven out immediately. Experienced investigators first ask the demon about its hobbies, favorite movies, etc, and then probe more deeply to discover its hopes and fears. In this way a rapport with the demon can be built up, with a positive overcome for both parties.

It is also possible to strive for much more than a symbiotic relationship. The veriest neophyte in demonology knows that if you can learn the secret (i.e., true) name of a demon, then by invoking that name you can bend the demon to your will and force it to do your bidding. Of course, usually you can learn its secret name only through deceit. The Hammonds seem blissfully unaware of this important method for amassing power and destroying your enemies. They advise against talking to demons, and in a section (p. 143) dealing specifically with the names of demons, they even imply that it is completely unnecessary to know the name of a demon. What could they have been thinking of?

The Hammonds do emphasize correctly that it is possible to be possessed by many demons simultaneously. In my opinion, before allowing demons to enter your body, you should carefully weigh the options, and perhaps choose a legion of specialist demons instead of a single generalist demon. For example, although it would be useful to be possessed by a demon of golf, just think of the much greater benefit to be derived from being possessed by a demon of long irons, a demon of short irons, a demon of putting, and so on. Your game would take right off! However, despite what I said above about confrontation, it's entirely justified to drive out demons of slicing or shanking; those things come straight from the pit of hell and deserve no mercy. "