Susan Pevensie

So I actually bought a 14-day trial of World of Warcraft. Why? My co-worker started playing and he said he loved it. Being a Guild Wars player himself, I figured I could also try WoW. Besides, how many times have I defended Guild Wars over WoW to say GW is better when in all reality I have no idea?

I got the game installed on my machine. That took a while, actually. After impatiently waiting for the installer to install the game, it updated. Here’s where Guild Wars dominates over WoW. Guild Wars will find all updates and just patch the data file in one big go. WoW on the other hand will update every single update ever issued one at a time and then you have to use an install window to install these updates by clicking next and ticking accept boxes for the EULA. So, needless to say, I could not just let the game run overnight and have a fully patched game in the morning. I had to click through install windows.

So 8 days after installing the game and installing updates (That took away 8 days of my trial, by the way.) I finally got the game running.

Not a bad game at all — there’s some things I’m very confused about though and some things are coming naturally to me. One thing that is really hard getting used to is going into combat. In Guild Wars you can just click your target enemy and your player will run up and start attacking. Not in WoW. You have to right click your target enemy, and run up to it to start attacking. Now, the enemy will move so you have to keep your character facing it so you can keep attacking. That’s very annoying in my opinion.

A lot of things function similarly to Guild Wars and a lot of things do not. I’m starting to find the differences between the two games and while Blizzard did an amazing job with the game, I’m still leaning towards Guild Wars. This 14-day trial so far has not got me convinced I should pay a monthly subscription fee to play the game. I haven’t seen anything that’s so mind blowing that it will get me to fork over cash for game-play time.

Time will tell, I suppose. But as of now, I’m sticking with Guild Wars. I will continue to play WoW until my 14-day trial is up. (Technically it’s only 6 day trial considering all the downloads I had to do! RIP OFF!)

So I just recently watched Bridge to Terabithia and I thought it was a pretty good movie. It starts to make me think, though. The main focus of the movie was to keep your mind wide open.

It’s better understood if you actually watch the film. Basically if you keep your mind open and believe in what you see, you can create anything you want to create. This is, perhaps, the most inspiring concept I’ve ever heard of.

I think this movie has honestly changed my view of the world.

Click on the button below to listen to an excerpt from “Seeing Terabithia” on the Bridge to Terabithia soundtrack.
seeing_terabithia

These past few weeks I’ve been talking with Vince De Quattro and David Nethery about animation and visual effects. I never thought I’d be talking with such accomplished individuals in the industry — it’s just mind blowing. We’ve had discussions about how to really succeed in the industry but most recently we discussed how to actually jump right in.

For the past 4 years I’ve been thinking I’m never going to find a job in animation in the midwest. All the jobs are on the west coast, right?! That’s what I thought too. Vince brought up a good point, though. My long term goal is to land a job at a studio that produces feature films. Isn’t that everyone’s dream though? I’ll make it there, someday, but I’m never going to if I don’t get any experience. I need to get some smaller jobs here and there to build up a good resume and maybe even add some more things to my portfolio. Vince seemed to think there were jobs everywhere for animation and visual effects. Foolish man! Doesn’t he know I lived in the midwest? Not too foolish, I suppose.

So Vince asked me if there is a local news channel here. Of course they’re is! So why don’t I see if I can get a job doing some small work on their title screens, commercials, and segment animations? So I was wrong. I never thought that there were small things like that I could do. David even took it a step further and found something else in the midwest that I could do.

To my surprise, he googled “Animation Studios in Iowa” and the first returned result was an article about a guy who has opened an animation studio right in my back-yard. Well, about 2 hours away from my back-yard, but that’s beside the point.

So I guess there are more jobs out there than I originally thought. Perhaps I can go around to local businesses and make commercials for them. Lord knows they look horrible right now. Of course, I’ll have to wait until I actually know what I’m doing.

This is crazy! Disney is producing a movie with the classic hand drawn animation. I’m definitely looking forward to this movie! Click the image to see a preview of the film.

Seriously. I need to stop getting bored. When I do, you see things like this pop up on the internet! Bwahahaha.

Wow! I heard about the earthquake on the television, but I didn’t know that this small piece of film was floating around the internet. Fortunately, no one was hurt. Is any body wondering why those lights didn’t fall?! Those studio lights are several pounds in weight. So… still wondering? I’ve got the answer!

Each studio light is attached to a baton, a very long pole that hangs from the ceiling of the studio. They are attached by a very large bolt through the base of the light. Now, keep in mind, one twist with a wrench can loosen them up so they can be taken down and moved to a new location. In the event of something like this happening (or just because of a loose bolt) they also add extra security cables around those lights which are also attached to the baton. If a light were to become loose and fall, the security cable would catch it before it falls to the ground to break or even worse, harm someone underneath.

Well there you go. A random tid-bit of information that you’ll probably never use in your entire life

After seeing Video Games Live on the stage in Milwaukee, I had to get this album when it was released.

The actual touring show has many of the game’s soundtracks that they play the music from for sale, but this is the first Video Games Live soundtrack that has been released of the actual orchestra and choir performing.

I got it in the mail today and I instantly popped it into my computer to start listening and I was stunned. It’s almost being right there seeing the show — maybe I think this because I’ve already seen it. Hmm… — Well, have a read of the CD’s description and go out and buy it! I have included a sample of Civilization IV at the end of this post. This song made me tear up it was so beautiful live and is by far my favorite video game song that I have ever heard.

Civilization IV Medley

I was browsing YouTube tonight and found an awesome drummer that did his own rendition of an *NSync song, Pop. While I’m not a fan of *NSync, this drum cover is amazing. Have a look!