A very late Thank You to Dan

Some time ago (about a month at the time of this writing, give or take), Dan sent me a gift. This isn't particularly uncommon - Dan is a very giving person. Me, I'm a very taking person, so whenever I'm offered a present for conceivably no reason I get flabbergasted, especially when I receive a package of this, well, magnitude.

Dan sent me a set of the World of Warcraft Series 3 action* figures.

* "Action" is kind of a misnomer in this instance. Each figure has one (1) pose with approximately zero (0) points of articulation. There's nothing really wrong with this model - inspired, I believe, by the Todd McFarlane brand - but it gets to be problematic when you try to do things like have the toys stand under their own power.

This was brought about as a "reward" for my Blizzard Global Creative Writing (read: Fanfiction) Contest entry. Sadly, I didn't win, but at the time I was rather hopeful of my chances. So too was Dan, apparently.

As an aside, I can’t post my entry as dictated by the contest rules. Dan may or may not be dismayed to hear this, but even if he is he has a copy so he can read it whenever he wants. However, I'm mulling around the possibility of starting a (web)comic as an indirect sequel. Whether or not I go through with it remains to be seen. As of this writing, I'm still deliberating between two methods of production, preferring one over the other without actually making a decision.

Anyway, the figures:

You may notice that the Brave Highmountain Deluxe Collector Figure isn't pictured, probably because he wasn't included. To give a vague idea as to why, Highmountain is about the size of the other four figures in the series put together. As far as I'm concerned, this is a complete set.

Sadly, this set reminds me that I have no shelf space with which to display said figures, especially considering my roommates Keith and Andrew and their vast, respective collections. Thankfully Andrew was kind enough to place them in front of his anime DVDs so they can bask in displayed glory for the time being.

QUIN'THALAN SUNFIRE, Blood Elf Paladin

Quin'thalan continues the tradition of Blizzard characters wearing equipment that you can't acquire in the game. Seriously, if anyone has any idea where I can get a full body tower shield and double-bladed sword, both in Sin'dorei red and gold, do tell. Further, Quin'thalan continues another Blizzard tradition: ugly males. This is the ugliest blood elf that's been put to plaster. This is partially do to the paint job on his face, which makes him look like Clayface standing in the middle of a thunderstorm, but the sculpt itself is angular and wrinkly, two traits I don't commonly associate with blood elves.

TAMUURA, Draenei Mage

Tamuura is probably the best looking figure in series 3, if not the entire WoW figure line. The sculpt is amazing, the paint is evenly applied, and the color scheme fits very well. I bought this figure for my brother for Christmas to go with the blood elf series 1 rogue I got for him the year before, and I'm glad that I now own one. Tamuura is a progressive, forward-thinking character; you may not be able to see it, but she has a turquoise bellybutton piercing, in addition to fishnet stockings complete with garters.

The biggest disappointment of this figure, of all things, is her feet. Now, I don't have a problem with hot blue chicks with goat legs; it's a workaround, certainly, but not a dealbreaker. No, the problem lies with the bottom of her hooves and the figure's lack of a base. Her feet aren't flat. This makes Tamuura very prone to toppling over unless she's positioned so that she leans against something. During this photo session, Tamuura fell over at least 3 different times, spilling the other figures onto the floor. Thankfully these figures seem pretty resilient. Regardless - and it seems weird to say this - but she could benefit from a set of properly molded horseshoes.

SISTER BENEDRON, Human Priestess

This is one of my favorite armor sets in WoW, and I'm glad they made a figure that properly shows it--

--Wait a sec. What the hell is this?

That's not canon! D:<

I'm amused that an iconic priest figure wields a weapon that priests can't equip in the game. At least they took the fancy way of attaching it to the figure via a gold chain that runs around her waist, and not some gaudy pleather or plastic belt.

SKEEVE SORROWBLADE, Undead Rogue

Skeeve has a problem. It's a problem that's near and dear to my heart, and it's one that I'm sure you'll sympathize with.

Skeeve has no pants.

The part of his armor below the belt is a sort of kilt-like apparatus that isn't attached to the figure for some unknown reason. Maybe it's easier to manufacture that way (in fact, that's probably it), but it's plenty disturbing when Tamuura drunkenly knocks over her brothers and sisters in arms and parts of Skeeve's anatomy that shouldn't see the light of day are exposed for the world to see. Assuming said anatomy is still attached - again, probably not since it's easier to manufacture that way ;o.

That's the cast in a nutshell. Each and every one of them came prepackaged in shells of transparent adamantium, impervious to all but the most powerful of boxcutters which will ruin the packaging beyond all reason, destroying any hope of repackaging these figures for moving or storage. The various weapons and handheld attachments were taped next to them and came with instructions to combine them with the figures that amounted to, "Break this, then reattach as desired." Quin'thalan's shield was especially egregious in this regard, requiring one to twist it around his arm until either it's in position or his arm breaks, whichever comes first.

You may notice an ominous shape to the right of these photographs:

For those possibly in the know, this is the castle setpiece for Matt's capstone film (which I discussed in my previous post). It's been sitting in our home, gathering dust and using up previously unused table space, since the completion of his film. It's made up of Warhammer terrain and modeling clay, and was never intended to be moved from wherever they shot their footage. As a result, it's very fragile and probably won't survive another trip.

Unfortunately, the WoW figures just aren't the right scale for the model, otherwise I would have positioned them at various locations around the castle. That doesn't mean it's uninhabited.

"Could be worse. Could be stuck in Africa with a hot chick with terrible AI."

Perhaps I'm in the wrong line of work

Last night was the culmination of weeks of work on my entry to Blizzard's Creative Writing Contest. I'll quickly point out that it's essentially a fanfiction contest with the prize being a potential job interview with one of the largest and most influential video game companies in the world and leave it at that. I had almost a month to work on my entry - from the start of the contest entry period. I didn't actually start work on it until the last week of March and, despite creating goal posts and milestones to get my fat ass into gear, work on the project didn't kick in until about April 5th or so, and at no time was there a rough draft or proofreader copy.

The final (only) draft of my story didn't begin until April 9th, 4 days before the deadline. The contest entry requirements state the work of fiction should be between 3,000 and 10,000 words. On April 12th at 10:00 AM, I had roughly 1,200 words on paper. That day also happened to be Easter, so I was forced to spend some time with the family - not that I'm complaining, we had a nice dinner and I really enjoyed my time with my parents, but the fact remains that was time I could have spent on my story. I was at about 2,000 when I went home around 2:30. When I returned to my apartment, my roommates were pretty interested in getting caught up watching stuff on TV - Dollhouse was the main offender, but was followed by the first episode of the Fullmetal Alchemist series and episode 2 of Basquatch (thing Gurren Lagann with basketball). Since the living/TV room doubles as my main writing area, you can see the conflict.

Serious effort on my story resumed around 9:30 PM EDT. I had until 2:59 AM (11:59 PM PDT) to finish. In that time frame, my story ballooned to a modest 6,897 words. That's a little under 4,000 words in five and a half hours. Roughly 727 words an hour, 12 words a minute.

I finished the story at 2:52 AM.

Of course by 'finished' I mean it was forged into a form that could be passed for readable. It was somewhat coherent, there was a plot, and it had a beginning, middle, and end. The final product contains about 80% of what I intended to go in there. In fact, I'm not entirely sure what all went in there. From 1 AM to 2:52 it's all a blur.

I still had to submit the thing. At 2:53, I filled out the Blizzard submission form... only to have it reset. So I did it again... and it reset again. I refreshed the page, filled out the form, hit submit to upload my Word file... and it kicked back an error.

The time was 2:56 AM.

I hope I didn't wake up my roommates as I cursed at my laptop, uploaded my file to the network, raced up the stairs to my desktop, then pounded away at the keys in a mad dash to fill out the form again. I hit submit... and it uploaded successfully, even giving me an email confirmation.

The time was 2:58 AM. I had submitted my story at - literally - the last minute.

My thanks go out to my friends who encouraged me to keep going. I popped in to twitter several times to receive gentle proddings to keep myself on task, so thanks there, too - especially Dan, who was like the coach in Punch Out for all intents and purposes, except he didn't steal my bike. Also my apologies for not completing the story sooner as I asked you to proofread but I never delivered on my end. When I get home I'll be gloating by sending out to my friends whatever the hell it is I submitted to Blizzard so you all can point derisively at the shitpiece I cranked out in the span of about eight noncontiguous hours.

A rant on the general writing process is soon to come.

I'm not very good arguing a point

In an effort to link this post with one preceding it: Coraline was good. It took chances other films aimed at similar audiences don't take, but stretched out in the middle making me wait for shit to kick in gear. Interestingly enough, the average age of the showing we went to was around 22, with a solitary six-year-old bringing down the average a little while also being the only person there under the age of 18.

After seeing Coraline, the realization came to me that there's nothing I want to see until Watchmen comes out. For some this might be seen as a boon - I could be doing anything else besides blowing $10 to sit still for two hours - but for me it's a down note. I like going to see movies. I like going to see movies with my friends, I should say. I'm severely disinclined to go to the theater alone; I may as well stay home and pop in a DVD. Meanwhile, not seeing a movie does not mean I will do something else instead. Eliminating cinema does not equate to me taking up mountain biking, for instance.

Soon after defining the movie-going void that stretched until 03.06.09, I found this piece concerning views voiced by Alan Moore, creator and writer for Watchmen. My enmity for this man deepens as time goes on. Is there a bigger hypocrite in comics? Please, tell me so I can add to my repertoire of vitriol. His points are essentially: 1) movies suck, 2) comic book movies suck, and 3) comics themselves suck, with two additional inferred points 4) you suck for liking them, and 5) I rule.

Y'know, I was gonna get angry. Angry over the words of an old English hippie. Mr. Moore may have been burned by the movie industry for his entire professional career (either due to or despite his decisions concerning his involvement), but at the end of the day he's going to get a fat residuals check for the work on a movie that he didn't do. Moore spent 0 hours on the set coaching the actors, 0 hours consulting the director or producers, and 0 hours editing, fine-tuning, or even writing the screenplay. If the Watchmen movie is bad, he can say he had nothing to do with it; if the Watchmen movie is good, I can say he had nothing to do with it. Either way, he gets paid*.

He's a detractor, not a creator.

* To be fair and a bit more precise, Dave Gibbons (artist of Watchman) gets paid, as Alan Moore will abdicate any money he'll receive from the film to Gibbons, the same situation that occurred with V for Vendetta. Gibbons was heavily involved with the shaping of Watchmen, so if anyone deserves praise or residuals for their work on the movie, it's him.

Stagnation

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that, after a somewhat frantic display of blogging activity, that I wouldn't touch the bloody thing for a month.

Really I just came to post about my friend overseas starting his own blog. I say "starting" like he's just put pen to paper, when in reality he began posting around the time I started this one; in this case it's more like he's "starting" to tell his friends he has one. Is that proper blogging etiquette? Do friends pimp out their own blogs to each other in a desperate attempt to gain readership? Hell, I doubt anyone's going to read this post, let alone my handful of friends who have better things to do... like, I don't know, breathing.

That's probably the reason why I've let this electronic diary languish on the interwebs: readers. I don't have any. Sure, there's the cathartic element of firing your thoughts out of your head and onto a string of spare bits, but if no one's paying attention it doesn't much matter to me. Same thing with my artwork or random attempts to come out of lurkerdom on various forums - they're all basic shouts in the dark to gain recognition in a digital nation where Mentos and diet soda fountain videos get hundreds of thousands of hits and "no u dont u idort" is valid intellectual conversation.

Otherwise, why bother? I can keep my thoughts to myself if that's the alternative, thank you very much.

Template for First-Time Blog Posts

[Awkward statement of greeting.]

[Brief introduction, realizing after the fact that no one will care who I am until sometime after my blog's content attracts an audience.]

[Musings about the nature of first-time blog posts.] [Minor tangent about blogs in general.] [Statement that my blog will be different, just like everyone else's.]

[Declaration about this blog's subject matter and purpose.] [Greater detail of said purpose.] [Backpedal and make allowance for more general topics in case the intended purpose doesn't draw any readers or I get bored.]

[Closing statement or witty comment (optional).]