CREATIVE

Putting the Mouth to Work

I have always been interested in voice acting.  Even today, I marvel at the pros who can have conversations with themselves.  Growing up with a healthy dose of Mel Blanc probably helped as well.

I never really pursued it, though.  I was content to pepper my conversations with occasional impressions, voice-changes, and really bad accents, much to the amusement (and annoyance) of all.  I know at least one person who is sick of my rendition of Darth Vader’s “I find your lack of faith disturbing” line from Star Wars.

During a rough patch when I worked jobs where I was dealing with The General Public, (shudder) I started to get compliments on my voice.  The first time was when I was working at Best Buy in Corpus Christi.  While working at a call center a few months later, I would get the occasional compliment on my voice.  While working at the call center, I did notice that I would occasionally lapse into what I called my “phone voice.”  Despite the occasional praise, though, I never pursued it further, though I would occasionally think, “that would be a fun thing to do.”

I pretty much sat on that idea until fairly recently.  At Mizuumi-com I saw two panels that inspired me to get off my rear and start pursuing a career in voice work:  Kevin M. Connolly gave a good talk on the expectations one should have in doing voice work and Chris Holm gave a good “get off your ass and DO something” session (that wasn’t the title, but it sums up the message pretty neatly).

Thus, I have started volunteering my voice to Librivox.org, reading short works to start off, and we’ll see where it goes from there!

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There’s Something About Dairy

Perhaps it is a consequence of growing up in a small town, but every so often I just HAVE to go to Dairy Queen. I don’t go for the Hunger-Buster or even the Dude, though, I’m there for the ice cream.

Dairy Queen’s soft serve is awesome; I always get a dipped cone or sundae after the meal. Its a simple pleasure that brings back memories of going to the Dairy Queen with the family as a child. Even now, I’ll join my folks at the Dairy Queen for lunch when I’m in town, and its still a good time. Sure they aren’t as fast as “the other guys” but that’s more time to spend talking amongst family as well as any friends that happen to drop by.

Times and people change, but a dipped cone always hits the spot.

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CREATIVE, RANDOMIZER9.COM

I (somewhat) Draw The Line…

I have never been able to draw very well, but any graphics I need (for say, a website!) I have to make myself. Fortunately, by using a vector-based drawing program (put simply, drawing with lines instead of dots) I can somewhat get around my lack of artistic talent.  I suppose an artist who works in the real world (as opposed to the digital one) would consider it cheating, but hey, I need to cheat.

Anything I make always ends up all straight lines and SOLID PRIMARY COLORS, anyway, like the logo I made for this website (see upper-left corner). I suppose it is a side-effect of spending all that time on the computer.  Ah well, I’m better with words anyway.

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TECH, Video

Tangled Up In Blu

Someday, I will buy a PlayStation 3.  I’m not sure when that day will be, but once there are enough good games to justify the purchase, I will go out and buy one.  It would be nice if Sony would drop the price on the blasted thing, though, because with $400 I could buy a netbook and have cash left over.

Hmm, now I’m contemplating a netbook.  Anyways…

The impending PS3 purchase has me in a bit of a bind where buying movies is concerned.  Blu-ray looks pretty good on those nice shiny displays at the stores, and I imagine they’d also look pretty good on my 32-inch Sony LCD (its a placeholder, I’m reserving getting the real TV for after I buy a house).

When a new movie I like comes out on video now, I have to decide whether I should buy it on DVD, or wait until I get that Playstation 3 and can watch it in glorious high-definition via Blu-Ray.  The decision isn’t quite so cut-and-dry, though.

On the one hand, DVDs are relatively inexpensive, and while they have to be “stretched” to fill a widescreen, they still look good.  The pretty picture of Blu-Ray, on the other hand, comes at a cost: the difference in price between Blu-Ray and DVD versions of the same movie can be from five to twenty bucks!

Next time you are at a store that sells movies, browse through the Blu-Ray section and look at the prices.  I promise you that at some point you will say to yourself: “No way I would pay THAT much for <insert crappy movie name here>”  Its so ridiculous, you might even say that about a movie you like.

The other consideration is that there are some movies and  TV shows that don’t really need to be seen in high-definition.  Movies like The Matrix would rock in high def, as would anything by Pixar.  In contrast, I could watch Chris Rock or Futurama on a crappy old black-and-white TV and they wouldn’t be any less funny.

So thus we have the question:  “DVD now, or Blu-Ray later?”

The answer?

Well, lets just say I haven’t bought any new movies in months.

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Hand-Held Hassle

Once upon a time, before cell phones did everything under the sun, I had a Palm TX. I also had a basic cell phone (you know, for actually TALKING to people) and I used my trusty Palm to keep a calendar, as a address/phone book and to jot down ideas whenever they happened to pop in my head.

Time went on, and I decided it was time to upgrade my cell phone. I had been using T-Mobile’s pay-as-you-go service for quite some time (best pre-paid plan, IMO) and as time passed on and I gained new friends, the number of minutes and text messages were getting to the point where getting a month-to-month plan was starting to make more sense.

Having been satisfied with my T-Mobile experience thus far, I decided to go to one of their stores and check out the shiny new phones (this was in late 2007). My hope was to get a phone that could do the PDA stuff that my Palm was currently doing, thus having everything in one handy device.

I went with a T-Mobile Dash running Windows Mobile 6.0. It appeared to have most of the stuff my TX did, and a full keyboard. I had to give up the touch screen, but for the most part it seemed like a good device.

Well, so much for that, Windows 6.0 sucks. I traded the simplicity of Palm’s PDA applications and functions for a hand-held version of Microsoft Outlook. That would be great if this was a work phone, but on a personal device it is annoying as all hell. The Calendar sucks and the Contacts list has too many damn fields.

There is also no program for typing in NOTES. I have to open Microsoft Word just to type in my farking grocery list. Some Brainiac at Microsoft also decided it would be a good idea to remove the ability to create new Office docs. “New Word Document?” Ain’t happening!

Instead, I keep a blank Word document on the phone, open it, and do a “Save As” whenever I wanted to create a new one. Farking brilliant.

Finally, Windows Mobile is just slow; I’m going to see which boots faster, my phone or my PC running Windows XP. Frankly, my money’s on the PC, and its so old it only has ONE core!

Not all is lost, though…

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“Nintendo”

The word ‘Nintendo’ literally translates as ‘leave luck to heaven’.

Make all the plans you want, but ultimately, you never know…

I said goodbye to the wife of an old friend today. She was 40 and had her first child two months ago.

RIP Melinda Hastings Garcia, may you be in God’s grace now and forever.

Sorry this isn’t about games.

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Why no one reads the newspaper anymore…

As one of the few people under 40 who still reads the newspaper I found this news to be very discouraging.

I discovered “MyCage” in the Express-News, and it quickly became one of my favorite newspaper comics. I suppose it is a sign of the times that I have to distinguish it as a “newspaper” comic to not only differentiate it from comic books, but also from webcomics.

What bothers me is the loss of a new and interesting strip when they could have easily dropped one of the older ones that is way past its prime. I will email the editor in a feeble attempt to convince him otherwise, but I think the decision has been made. I guess I’ll read it online now at another newspaper’s website.

Its another $1.60 a week back in my wallet, too.

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Online Killed The Split-Screen Star

So I have a guest over Saturday night, and we’re getting our Rock Band on and having a good time. My friend is asthmatic and I’m getting over the flu, so we got tired after a bit and decide to play something else.

I get a game from my collection and pop it in, expecting to find a 2-player split-screen mode…no dice. There is online play, but no split-screen. Okay, game number two…same result…a third game, and its STILL online only…we then punt and play Gears of War 2 instead.

I don’t know if this is a Xbox 360 thing, but what happened to local multiplayer? It seems silly that I can connect 4 controllers to my 360, but there aren’t very many GAMES that support 4 people playing on the same machine.

Online gaming is fun, but there are few things are more enjoyable in gaming than hearing the wailing and gnashing of teeth of your opponent as you pop them with a blue shell in Mario Kart…and few things more agonizing than hearing your opponent gloat after nailing you just before the finish line.

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