Arsenal

Hey, it's been a while. Right off the bat, I'm going to tell you that I'm not going to be starting where I left off. I am not going to finish the story of my cross-country trip, and honestly the rest must have been a bore, because I don't remember it all that well. Deal with it.

Ok, so here I am, resident of Berkeley, California. Arnold is my governor. It's February and seventy degrees outside. The past few months have been...trying, but I feel like my ship has finally come. There's wind in my sails. The captain has a strong heading. There are pirates in these waters, but I've got guns, huge ones and if you ask me the way to the beach, I'll gladly show them to you.

First:
Go. Steelers. If you're lame and live under a rock you probably still know that the Steelers won the Super Bowl. Otherwise you were probably more concerned with the puppy bowl. It was a devastatingly amazing game, the Steelers game that is, and I had the privilege of being in Pittsburgh when it happened. Hung out with the fam, ate some good food, and had about twelve heart attacks throughout the game. I don't know how, but the Steelers really pulled through on a close one there, and they did it with S-T-Y-L-E. James Harrison is my hero. After the game there were some good riotous moments, and I mean that in the most literal sense. Went to Pitt campus and saw all kinds of cool shit on fire (burning bush) and a few explosions. This was immediately followed by riot police on horses and tear gas, which I'm all about. Someday soon I'll post images of all that for you. Also, for anyone concerned, I hear that Golden Retrievers won the Puppy Bowl (Thanks Katharine).

Second:
Am I the new generation of Science Fiction? Of course. I can't give you all the details yet, but I'm working on something. Something big. Something epic. Is it a space opera? Is it the next Star Wars? No, It's better. Is Hitler involved? Yes, but you shouldn't be worried. Is it going to be done before I'm fifty? Well, I've refrained from asking my magic eight ball that one.

Third:
Don't believe what experience would tell you; grasshoppers can bite. For a few weeks now I've been doing some freelance animation work that will pay big bucks once I finish. Not to mention that it'll add some great material for my resume and demo reel. Great, right? Well, yes and no. Let me explain. I love animation and I think I might have talent there, but technology and time can be so limited in some circumstances that all the fun can be sucked right out. Right now I've got some work making a grasshopper dance to the song "jump around" and it turns out that choreographing a dance is hard, and usually left to professionals. However taking choreographed ideas and applying them to a cg character is SUPER HARD. Essentially I feel pretty confident in my ability to recognize pose, silhouette, position, timing, follow through, and various other animation necessities, but for some reason, bringing all of these things into a well orchestrated, specifically old skool hip-hop dance is alluding me. Also it doesn't help that the character is a photo-real grasshopper standing upright on its hind legs for nearly two minutes. Shmeh Shmeh Shmeh. I'm done whining. Besides I totally rocked my other freelance job.

Fourth:
Animal Collective. I'm horribly obsessed with their new album. It is so choice. No, really, I think I have a problem. I need some good, new music pronto before I do something foolish like carve AC into my cheek. Backwards. Oh yeah, I just brought that back. You guys probably think that I spend all day trying to animate, but the truth is that I'm just dancing like a fire hose to animal collective. On second thought, that's probably closer to what you think I'm doing. I wonder if this is some sort of post-college attachment/detachment problem. In any case you should probably go find their most recent album and the ones before it.

Yawn. I was going to leave you without a single uploaded picture but then I remembered that I found a photo I really enjoyed today. Oddly peaceful. Possibly post-apocalyptic. Sort of looks like they're having a cocktail party. Unfortunately, I doubt anybody had time to get their complimentary booze before the plane crashed. I'm sure they could have all used a drink, but probably not as badly as the birds stuck in their engines. Scratch that, those birds were were probably FUI.


Why doesn't anyone have their seat cushion with them?

Love.

Harry