It must be my week to talk about interesting media I’ve found.

Anyway, I was reading the latest news entries from Penny Arcade, when Gabe happened to mention that a company called FatKat Animation had done an animated version of their The Wandering Age story, “Last Rites”. (The Wandering Age is a bunch of quick storylines involving the Cardboard Tube Samurai, who evolved out of an apparent throw-away comic.) Apparently it’s included as part of the PAX ’04 DVD, but FatKat’s website has a low-res Quicktime version version available to view. I saw a few seconds of it (I AM at work, after all), and was impressed.

I might pick up the DVD, which is available here. If you want to see the video, just browse through FatKat’s website (linked above). If you want to read the original “Last Rites”, it’s located here. (Note that there’s a few sketch entries between the prologue and the other two parts.)

Apparently Overclocked Remix has a new hosted collaboration project. For those who don’t know what the collaboration projects are, they’re remakes of video game soundtracks by a team of remixers. This one will be the fourth collaboration project to see release; the first three were Relics of the Chozo (based on Super Metroid for SNES), Kong in Concert (based on Donkey Kong Country for SNES), and Hedgehog Heaven (based on Sonic the Hedgehog 2 for Genesis). This new one is called Rise of the Star, and is based on the game Kirby’s Adventure for NES.

Now, I’ll be honest. I’ve never played a single Kirby game. This will be the first collaboration project I’ve downloaded that is based on a game I’ve never played. However, I figure that if the game’s music was worthy of a collaboartion project, it should be worth listening to. Besides which, it just means I have another CD to add to my collection. ;-)

The project homepage is http://kirby.ocremix.org/. The downloads are available via straight http download or BitTorrent.

I’ll let you all know later how it is. :-)

Well, today is my mom’s bday. As usual, I left the shopping to the last minute; I left work a half-hour early yesterday to get her presents. Well, that, and the fact that I had to run to Fry’s anyway to pick up a mass of network patch cables in order to get the new jacks in the engineering area and the CEO’s office operational. While at Fry’s, I picked up The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes with Jeremy Brett (the definitive Holmes) on DVD for Mom. Then I made a run up to the Woodlands Mall, stopping in Spec’s to get her a bottle of Jack Daniels (she had run out). Then, while at the mall, I went into Williams-Sonoma and got her a gift card. My shopping done, I got some food at the Sonic in the food court, and then went across to the Cinemark to see Batman Begins.

Batman Begins was actually a pretty damn good movie. It made for a much better introduction to the Batman mythos than the 1989 Tim Burton movie did, in my opinion. Of course, it helped that the main villain of the movie was my personal favorite of the Batman villains… namely, Ra’s al Ghul. Scarecrow was a little bit of a disappointment, but then nothing’s perfect. Gary Oldman, on the other hand, was hands-down the best live action Gordon yet. I was impressed just by the fact that he looked like the comic book/cartoon character of Gordon… and he nailed the role to boot. I look forward to seeing more of him.

Now I just need to see War of the Worlds sometime. I might do so this weekend, but I haven’t QUITE decided yet. Oh, well… at least this weekend will be a three day weekend.

Anyway, need to do a bit of work involving the engineering switch area et al… fun fun…

So, I was reading AICN a little bit ago, and I happened to notice a report showing that the movie poster for Bloodrayne has been released. Of course, it’s being directed by Uwe Boll, who directed those other crapfests House of the Dead and Alone in the Dark. I suppose it was too much to expect quality, but still…

http://www.imdb.com/gallery/ss/0383222/iid_915759.jpg

Is it me, or does Kristianna Loken have a look on her face that seems to be saying, “What the FUCK was I thinking being in this movie?!”

What a weekend.

Well, what a lot of people who go to Mortal Kombat Online might not know is that I do quite a bit of the behind-the-scenes stuff, and that I’m involved in bringing in a lot of site projects into conception or actually implementing them. Among the stuff I’ve been involved with bringing to MK Online are the MK Online IM Network (a private Jabber-based IM system), the #MortalKombat Online IRC Network (I didn’t start it, no, but I do run it now), Fight Night (the live chat with MK celebrities; again, I didn’t create it, but I did arrange and run the last two), the Fan Interview (where fans can send in their questions to Ed Boon and have them answered), Fan Fiction, and a few others. I also have other projects I work on, and finally one of them came to fruition today.

We had been discussing the idea of a blog-type thing for the MK development team with Midway for about a year now. It finally got crystallized within the past month or two, and we introduced it today. So, today, we introduced Developer Diaries, written by the members of the MK design team. The current Developer Diaries run will be in six parts, and is based on the design of the upcoming Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks. I’m hoping that Developer Diaries is enough of a success that we can bring it back for future MK games as well.

Make no mistake, working for MK Online is sometimes a thankless job. Don’t let that mean we haven’t been treated well or are ungrateful for the opportunities. Midway has been WONDERFUL towards us and we’ve been very lucky to have such a great working relationship with them. It’s just that sometimes you plow on, get your work done, and wonder if the fans do appreciate the work you do. They’re the ones we do this stuff for. Then we get an opportunity like this, and it makes me thankful we CAN do stuff like this for the MK community.

Anyway… if you’re an MK fan, keep checking the Developer Diaries page. We expect updates every couple of weeks. :-)

We decided to do something different for lunch today. Normally Mom buys sandwiches from Wal-Mart for lunch, but because we had a repairman come in from Sears this morning to look at our upstairs freezer, she didn’t have a chance to go out shopping. So, I made a run to Burger King and brought in burgers. While we were talking at the table, having our Whoppers, the discussion turned to other fast food places, and Mom wondered what happened to a certain manager at the Jack in the Box at Cypresswood and I-45. Dad and I didn’t know what she meant, so she clarified for us.

Apparently a couple of months back, she was in there either picking up or eating lunch when a few people from Jack in the Box corporate came in and had a few words with the manager. Mom was in a position where she could hear the discussion; it turned out that a month or two back, the girl who was supposed to work the drive-thru for the late shift couldn’t make it in. He learned this just as the second-to-last shift girl was coming off-shift. The manager asked her if she could cover the additional shift, and she said yes, so long as she could arrange for someone to watch her baby. (The babysitter was expecting her to be home in 15 minutes.) She managed to make arrangements, and worked the shift.

… then afterwards, without discussing it with her, the manager rearranged the girl’s schedule to make sure she didn’t earn any overtime. The girl was understandably pissed off, and complained. The JitB corporate people were there to tell the manager off, basically saying the girl did the manager a HUGE favor at probable additional expense to herself, and at the very least the manager could have let her have the overtime pay as thanks. The manager, for the life of him, could not understand why the JitB had a problem with what he did.

Mom hasn’t seen him there since. I wonder if he was invited to seek employment elsewhere.

How do I look at situations where employers act like jerks to employees? Well… funny enough, my philosophy matches one I saw in the Disney animated series Tale Spin. (It’s the one with Jungle Book characters working in this 1940’s era seaside port city.) There was one episode where these employees of Shere Khan (a very wealthy and powerful tycoon in the series) were mistreated and overworked in one of his mining operations without his knowledge. When he was alerted to the problems, he arrived and made things right. Now, Shere Khan was as much as villain in the series as anything else; his plots and schemes were as likely to harm Baloo et al as help them. However, this exchange was telling:

The employee who called Khan in advertently: “Wait, you mean you DIDN’T tell the sheriff to mistreat the mineworkers?”
Shere Khan: “My dear, I only desire two things: money and power. Unpresentable employees give me neither.”

I always took that to heart. The employees are the basis of any business. Keep them happy and treat them well, and they’ll do right by you, and maybe even go the extra mile for you. I just wish more businesspeople would learn from that.

Hmm… this is interesting.

I was browsing through the webpages of the Doctor Who Restoration Team (those people who restore the old Doctor Who serials for VHS and DVD release), and they had a link to a site called Chameleon Circuit. What makes Chameleon Circuit unique is that it’s a site where you can download new cover art for your VHS and DVD Doctor Who releases, including the two 1960’s Doctor Who theatrical movies. If it wasn’t for the fact that all of my Who DVDs (save the TV movie) have uniform cover artwork and design, I’d seriously consider downloading and using these.

The address for Chameleon Circuit is http://www.chameleon-circuit.org.uk/. I’d also recommend reading the Restoration Team’s website if you’re a Who fan or someone interested in video work, as it goes over what was needed to be done to each serial they restored. Their site is at http://www.restoration-team.co.uk/.

Well, today’s shaping up to be something of a quiet day right now. I’m at the office now, but I did manage to get my car inspected before coming in. Fortunately, the dealership has free wireless internet access, so I was able to get some work done while waiting on my car. Of course, I would have been happier if they had supported pass-through VPN connections, but I was able to find a way around it anyway.

Well, last night was poker night. I had actually considered skipping it and going to the Skybar with Louie and Dave for some dancing, but in the end I went with poker. I had committed to poker long before Louie called and I would have felt like a tool had I broken that committment. It was a good night, all told. I walked away up $20. I felt bad for McManus, though, as he ended up down $80. We had three new guys to the game yesterday, and all three were out by 11:30 PM. Still, all went well, and I still had four bottles of Guinness and a box of chocolate chip cookies to bring home. Tomorrow should be fun, as McManus, possibly Anderson, and I are going to see Darrell Hammond at the Laff Stop.

Anyway, it’s time for me to run to lunch… might post a bit later.