Space Cadet BLing

Well, I’ve been away… okay… discouraged… for a while to post my stuff on the site here. It just seemed that Facebook gave me more exposure it seems for friends to hear my rants. But you know what? Sometimes I don’t only need to hear from my friends. Sometimes, I need to hear from Tony Farley from the Beautiful Places in HD… or Larry Brown (are you the coach of the Charlotte Bobcats???) to post a comment or two to make me realize that wow, my stuff do actually go out there to people halfway around the world. You know what? I’m starting again. I don’t know what I’m gonna write about, usual randomness again, and to heck with it if nobody reads it… feck it! Eventually, perhaps…, it gets out there somehow with Google search’s help… (just keep plugging down those tags), and being active in message boards perhaps, and maybe… just maybe… I could reach the pantheon of internet niche celebrity stardom! Or maybe not.

For starters, I’ve posted my comic strip, the Stupid Zone (aka the Loony Bin, but I find the Stupid Zone sounds more adorable dontchathink?), which I started for a while with the Malay Mail. Well, you get a sense of my humor there… a little bit of Far Side, a little bit of Bizarro. Dang. It seems like the days of Comic Strips have come to an end with the apparent “death” of newspapers. I guess I could start an online comic strip. Hmmmm…

Pirate vision

Along with that, I’ve finally upped my portfolio section, starting with a few of my older stuff. I’ve got to upload the more recent works I did for Nestle and Magnolia. Probably will take me a day or two. Well, hope to get my name out there, perhaps give me a little bit more drive to pursue more of my illustrative career which I’ve put somewhat on the backburner with my full time job at Linear Creative. Well, that’s it for now. Back soon for more awesome randomness.

PS: Let me end the day with a few thoughts:
1. Loved Conan’s final show speech. Almost choked up myself when he started choking up. You know what? The mention about cynicism was brilliant, and I think that got me thinking about being active on my site again.

2. 500 Days of Summer. I hate being one of the many who say, “Whoa, I so relate to the movie”… but I do. I do a lot. I’m giving it some time to simmer for a while before I call it one of my emotionally favourite movies of all time along with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and A.I. … but not yet. Affection needs to simmer and grow slowly, just like in relationships.

3. What can you tell about a person by the Halloween costumes he/she wears in the the past? Mine? WWII French La Resistance Commando, Clark Kent, Dick in the Box, Samuel Jackson, Soviet Officer are those I remember. Not much, I guess, except that Clark Kent seemed to stick out for being the most normal.

4. The Annapurna Circuit. I haven’t been thinking about it the past few weeks, but slowly, it’s sinking in that I’m going back there again. I’m almost worried that I might not be in good physical shape enough for the trek since my stamina is shite at the mo.  I’m hoping the fact that trekking means walking and not jogging and crazy climbing, that my body can take it. Yet, I need to start sleeping right, eating right, and do my jogs at Kiara Hill more often.

5. Sometimes, I wish I could be a NATURAL indie band hipster. They’re real cool emo and get the cool Tina Fey and Zoey Deschanel types whom I find so attractive and feel so unworthy of them. The Jason Schwartzman types, Death Cab for Cutie members, those dudes from Infomania on Current TV. But I find I’m more D&D geek or shallow sports jock than that. I think I gotta be me and just embrace my “me”. Is there such a thing as Movie Soundtrack Hipster?

6. Hilarious quote I found at Bash.org: http://bash.org/?908184

Wow, what a wide new world I’ve discovered. (took me a while tho) Podcasts! These must have singlehandedly cut down the hours I listen to music which is one of my most primal loves. Just on Monday morning while doing my extremely early jog/walk about the town, I was listening to Stephen Fry’s Podgrams & NPR’s Culturetopia & Fresh Air podcasts (and even Mugglecast, a Harry Potter themed podcast just at random and just for kicks) and heck, I didn’t even tune into a single track of my music on my Ipod. Amazing!

Anyway, I’m still into it, morning at work, no one in the office yet with Ricky Gervais playing through the speakers. Well, I haven’t felt this obsessed over some new application since bittorrents. Nice. Anyway, some quick thoughts/reviews on the podcasts I’ve listened to:

1. Stephen Fry’s Podgrams: Can come off as hoity toity, snooty and smartypants, but actually, I quite like him even though I don’t follow his obsession of Oscar Wilde, his loathing for dancing and penchant for poetry and wine. But the thing is, he’s pretty open minded enough to not hold that against you.

2. Ricky Gervais: Man, he has a really shrilly laugh. He and Stephen Merchant really go well together with their ridiculous banter. Ironically, even though considered more of an “everyman” and somewhat more accessible than Stephen Fry for example, his podcasts are a little too brief, since basically, they’re considered free samples from his audiobooks. (Half the time filled up with that shrilly laugh)

3. NPR: It’s like a window to different worlds. I’ve always been a fan of NPR since listening to them on radio in the US, and now I can get them here! Wonderful!

4. Stuff You Should Know: Pretty educational podcast, with Josh & Chuck talking about things that you don’t really learn in the classroom but we talk or hear about in everyday life, stuff like whether the world will end in 2012, how face transplants work, how long can you live without food or water, things like that. Really interesting…

5. This American Life: It’s kinda like Reader’s Digest in audio form, with anecdotes and spectacular stories from everyday people. Not as academically educational as it is philosophically insightful and spiritually uplifting.

6. Wizards of the Coast Penny Arcade & PVP: Quite interesting delve into the world of Dungeons and Dragons with a 3 hour recording of one of their role-play gaming sessions, which sadly, even as a self-confessed geek, I’ve never had the chance to do. This one’s “stars” Wil Wheaton from Star Trek fame! Some parts are quite hilarious, really, makes me realise that there are some parts to roleplaying that you can’t replace with computer roleplaying.

7. World Soccer Daily Podcast: A couple of British guys on American soil talking about EPL-centric soccer. Moments on this show can get pretty crass, as with quite a lot of podcasts actually. They can get pretty obnoxious and  opinionated, so I suspect that these guys either get a lot of fans or a lot of hate mail.

8. The Official LOST Podcast: Was a bit afraid to listen to this since I like my viewing experience of LOST to be untarnished by spoilers or obsessed fans’ rumours and speculations about episodes I’ve not seen yet. But in the end, actually quite insightful with retrospective analyses and observations of things you may have not noticed about the show.

9. MTGCast: another geek podcast listen for me. This one’s for the game Magic: The Gathering card game which I admit, I dabble in once in a while. (OK! I HAVE AN EXTENSIVE COLLECTION OF CARDS, OK?) Not really interested in talk about tournaments and more competitive aspects to the game, but more towards informal stuff like rumours of new upcoming cards, fun interesting ideas of gameplay, etc.

10. The GeekBox: yet another geekcast, but a little more mainstream, with topics ranging from Watchmen, Streetfighter, computer games, BSG, Lost… rather eclectic mix and I think the most interesting of all the geekcasts.

11. Best of Youtube: Great fun! Basically picks the most interesting uploads on Youtube and highlights them through this podcast channel. Better than sifting through Youtube, checking on the popularity count and clicking on download.

12. Mugglecast: Aforementioned Harry Potter podcast. I thought this was rather blase, or maybe it’s because of the episode I listened to, with rather tepid talk on Harry Potter’s new movie poster release and a dull interview with Patrick Doyle, the composer of the most recent and the upcoming Potter movie.

13. Beautiful Places in HD: Video podcast of beautiful places to visit. So far, it’s still very America centric with vid captures of Yosemite, Lake Tahoe, Mt Rainier (which I really love and profess that it’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever been to so far in my middle-aged life) etc… Still, a very relaxing view and one of my faves.

That’s about it for now… There’s a few more podcasts for me to check out. Tons out there, really. Anyway, back to the grind. I’ve got to start getting my sleep pattern in order! Ben, out.