geekdom 3 revealed!

I forgot to post this video of me preparing the third "Geekdom" comic. It's two hours long, which is a bit much, and includes me goofing off slightly, but here are a few highlights:

1:30 -- Importing the scan of the original sketch of "Joey," which apparently bears a scary likeness to the person.
16:20 -- Testing different fonts for the "PHP" t-shirt.
38:43 -- The beginning of podcast #6 of J.R. Watches Star Trek for the First Time. If you haven't listened to it yet, you could simply listen to it while you watch me work on the comic.
1.09:15 -- Bringing up the Comic Life program to experiment with different panel formats (because of the nature of this particular comic, they all kind of sucked)
1.20:45 -- Beginning the word balloon process. This time this was obviously a much more complicated process that took about 35 minutes longer than I thought it would.

how i look in may

Really quickly I'd like to point out that I dutifully fulfilled the requirement for "Moustache May."
Also worth pointing out is this tattoo of a tiger I got for pool season. I went with Tiger because that's my Mac OS. It'll probably rub off by the time I upgrade to Leopard.

sixteen candles commentary

looks like i forgot to put in my ustream link from last week.

here it is:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/thejonblogcam

benevolent piracy

There's a possibility that CBS will order a cease-and-desist for posting the following video. It's totally in their right and I'll abide if it comes down to it. I don't think they will though, since it's such a great advertisement for How I Met Your Mother, our house's new favorite show.

I know of at least two people who will LOL the following edit of the episodes from the second season:

living in the geekdom number 3

Until I can think of a better title, the name of the comic will be "Living in the Geekdom" from now on.

This comic, as usual, took a lot longer than I wanted especially since I had another idea for a comic that I was putting off because I thought it would be too complicated. This one is complicated in its own weird way. See if you can figure out who's talking and when, because I have a hard time figuring it out myself.

New character!

push me away

This last Friday I decided to go to the ward pool party instead of seeing The Cure live show. I figured I've already seen The Cure twice and had my fill. I also felt like being a little social and didn't want to attend a concert by myself (again).

Of course the last time I saw them I was very disappointed in their setlist. My hopes were up too, since I met a girl there who had seen them three other times on the same tour. I listed off all my favorite songs and she said they played them all at their other venues. That day they didn't play any of the songs I asked about. The time I saw them before that, they mostly supported their Bloodflowers cd from the late 90s (which hasn't been listened to by me in nearly a decade).

Anyway, I went to the pool party and it was very very fun. Yesterday I strolled over to http://thecuretour2008.blogspot.com/ to see what I missed. Here's the Salt Lake setlist:

plainsong
fascination street
a night like this
the walk
the end of the world
lovesong
pictures of you
lullaby
catch
the perfect boy
from the edge of the deep green sea
othervoices
sleep when i'm dead
push
friday i'm in love
inbetween days
just like heaven
a letter to elise
shake dog shake
never enough
hot hot hot
the only one
wrong number
one hundred years
disintegration

Encore:

at night
m
play for today
a forest

Encore 2:

boys don't cry
jumping someone else's train
grinding halt
10:15 saturday night
killing an arab

Encore 3:

why can't i be you?

Astute Cure fans may notice that they not only played a lot of stuff I didn't need ("Friday I'm In Love"), but also a bunch of stuff that I love and have never heard live ("The Walk," "Catch," "Wrong Number," "Why Can't I Be You?"). They even played "Never Enough," a very special fave of mine. But the real bruiser of a detail is that they played "Push," which is my favorite Cure song ever (not that you'll agree with me, but you can listen to it as my current "song of the moment"). Maybe I should've gone. I bet I could've gotten real cheap tickets. I heard they had a real hard time getting people to buy this time around. That may also mean the band won't come back (and now I feel responsible if that's the case).

Funny enough, I just checked out what I wrote online from the last show which was four years ago. Here's my summation from that event:

Since we were pushed to the front and I had more energy and the set had more songs I was familiar with, the show was a lot better than the one I saw in Denver. Of course, when the Cure rolls back around in five years I'll have to see them again. I still didn't get "High" and they didn't "Push" me and I never got "Never Enough."

I guess now I'm no fan. *sniff*

talk to you next friday

I want to get off the hiatus of The Jon Madsen Movie Commentary Podcast.


We haven't done a new commentary in several months and it's totally time to start up again. Part of the problem is that logistically it's pretty hard to reserve a time and place as well as worry about all the technical issues (i.e. where to put our one microphone and having enough headphones for everybody, etc.). A bigger problem is simply getting people to do it with me. It's difficult to cram people into my room or wherever we do it and I always feel weird asking people to do it, because even though it's a lot of fun, it's still sort of a favor to me.

Anyway, I want to try something pioneering in the practice of movie commentaries. A week from today at 3:00 p.m. (schedule permitting), I'm going to watch and comment on the movie Sixteen Candles.


Here's the deal. If you're reading this, I want YOU to participate. What I'm going to do is broadcast my voice over my account on Ustream. Also, I now have the technology available to me to broadcast the video of Sixteen Candles at the same time. That way, as you're watching the movie through Ustream, you can go ahead and chat with me what YOU want to say about the movie and then I can say it. Doesn't that sound fun? I know, I love Sixteen Candles too. Hopefully since it's a Friday afternoon, many of you won't have too much of a workload.

You may be asking the question right now, "Jon, if we're watching the movie at the same time how are we going to chat in our comments in time for you to say them at the appropriate time?" Well, the answer to that is that the movie you watch will be broadcast to you 30 seconds before the movie I watch. That way we can plan for the chatting delay and the Ustream broadcast delay. Oh, and before you can chat, you may need to sign up with Ustream. Don't worry, you don't need to pay any money and you have a whole week to do so.

Hopefully it works. Please help me make it work. And I still want to do the live commentaries. If you want to do one please let me know and I'll make whatever accommodations you need. I'm looking at you, Brad the archeologist, about a possible Raiders of the Lost Ark commentary (gosh, we really should have done it before the new movie came out).

Anyway, Friday May 30th at 3:00 MST. Mark it!

sort of informative but pretty boring

I meant to include these videos in the last entry. They're of part of the production of the second comic strip.

If you're interested in watching them at all, it might be slightly interesting to just use the fast forward slider thing to catch some highlights.

I started off transferring scanned sketches into Photoshop. The end product doesn't actually have any scanned material at all. I put the scanned stuff in as its own Photoshop layer and then "trace" over it with a new, more solid layer. Yeah, so it's pretty much like I'm 7 years old again, tracing stuff and passing it off as my own work. Well, I guess I am tracing my own work, so it's sort of ok.

This first video starts with my being distracted by some random surfing. Also, it chronicles the capturing of trademarked images stolen from the web and applied to the comic (which is far easier and far more despicable than tracing). The Ruffles and Wendy's brands are pretty obvious, but some of the other stuff I stole is hardly noticeable. The hoodie my character is wearing in the strip actually contains an image from my actual Starfleet Academy hoodie. I held it up to the computer and took a picture. Then I took the image, cropped it and stuck it on my cartoon self. Same goes for the shirt that Curtis is wearing. It's one of those "I roll twenties" t-shirts. Unfortunately, it's impossible to see because of the way he's sitting. Anyway, this video pretty much ends with simply making sure all the Photoshop layers overlap in the proper way.



The second vid is the fun part: adding word ballons with the Comic Life application that came with the computer. I'm still getting pretty used to the program, but it's a lot funner than the drudgery of Photoshop. Who am I kidding? Photoshop is actually pretty fun. You may hear some conversation with Rhett, Pete and Joey in the background.

someone get me a wacom tablet!

Here is Untitled Comic Strip #2. You'll probably have to click on it to really see the dialogue.

This one took A LOT longer than the other one. It's frankly quite embarrassing.

So the RPG-fest happened last week and was actually a good bit of fun. It didn't really take three hours. We actually got right into things, but it's fun to make fun of how much non-playing can actually happen at these things. One real appeal is simply getting together with people, chatting, eating junk food and having a good time.

Curtis really did mention that he didn't have a cardboard divider with him, though.

tidying aesthetics

The city finally broke down and got us that lawn toupée we've been asking for.

While I was looking up where I should put the accent in "toupée," I came across this gem of a site.

Got new couches at our place -- fine, leather-bound couches. Our place also smells of rich mahogany. It's like Hef's rumpus room.


Finally finished this butterfly painting. Or rather, Mother's Day came, so I turned in what I had done. Bob Ross might be slightly prouder on this one than my last one.

forbidden geekdom

Tonight is the night I finally get to begin playing a table-top RPG with Pete and his Homestarmy.

That, combined with the geeky webcomics I read plus my immersion into old Peanuts strips lately zapped this comic into my head. There's an old Seinfeld episode where Jerry is annoyed at his dentist because he converted to Judaism just for the jokes. I'm starting to think that maybe that's one reason I'm into geeky things. Even though I take such things very seriously, I just can't deny the humorous goldmine.

I had a hard time getting the sizing right when I uploaded it as one comic, so if you can't read it, you'll have to click on the top and bottom images separately to embiggen them.

This is pretty much the conversation I've been having with Pete for the last month. He says he takes it very seriously. Then I call him out and say, so are we LARPing then? And he says "NO LARPING!" The humor in it, of course, is that you can take this stuff pretty seriously; but there is a line that you just don't cross. I joke that, hey, we're so close to the line anyway -- maybe it'll be fun.

Alright, and finally here's a link to actually find out what LARPing is. I actually found out only a couple of months ago. Coincidentally, it was when Pete and J.R. were chatting about it during our Star Trek podcast. Everything geeky just kind of came together.

the first time i've ever won a sporting event

Right to the point -- our team, Jim's Orphans, won our softball game on Thursday.

Here is a crappy video showing how bad I am at following the ball. The hit went far into left field, but seeing it happen in the camera's viewfinder I totally thought it went right. Anyway, Cyrus made an incredible catch that I totally missed.

Anybody ever see Reservoir Dogs?


So I caught a couple of pop-ups in the third inning. I hit two fly balls directly into center field, but the opposing team didn't field them. I also hit a line drive directly to the pitcher. A lesser man would have been killed by the ball's velocity, but this guy annoyingly caught me out.

Here I am posing on first base. On the next play I slid into second and the play after that I ran into their short-stop when he fielded the ball right in the baseline. He tried to call me out for interference and I told him the baseline belonged to me, not him. Then the game ended.


We tried something new this week by playing music at ever at-bat of ours. My personal favorites were Scott's "manatee monologue" and Clint's "Like a Virgin."


Yeah. Final score 10-8. Maybe it was 9-8. Something like that.

another lost post

May I just take this moment to point out that I called the fact that the island moves three months ago? I may have been wrong about a lot of things with that little X-Men comic thing, but I was right about the island moving.

A couple of things to point out: 1) Jack's dad may actually be alive and not an aberration. 2) There aren't set rules for what the characters are destined.

I think the makers of the show have stated in podcasts that Jack's dad is indeed, dead; but they have a knack for bending the truth through wordplay. Jack never found his father's body. The casket landed inland and was empty by the time he got there. I think that Christian took one of those weird drugs from Romeo and Juliet (you know, one of the ones that give the impression of death but not really and then the drug-taker wakes up three days later), and then woke up on the island. He possibly did this on purpose and met up with Jacob or whoever.

Locke asked Claire where her baby was and Christian told him that Aaron was where he was supposed to be. If Christian is speaking for the will of the island then the island's will is in contradiction with the rest of the Lost universe in terms of the fate of Claire's baby. I think that ultimately, besides the conflict between the two puppeteers of Widmore and Linus; we're also going to have to deal with a much broader conflict between more universal forces. One force of fate (off-island) wills Aaron to be raised by Claire, while another one doesn't. We as viewers won't be able to rely on what we perceive as character destiny since even fate seems to go two ways.

Also, I'll just say it now. I don't like the island being considered a real character. I like how the crazy happenings on the island have put other characters in situations that refine their personalities, but I still think that so far that's only made the island's occupants good characters and not the island itself. Random behavior is not character development. If the island is indeed alive and a life form and by the end of all this we'll understand its actions and motivations and thought and dreams, THEN I'll consider the island a good character.

Ben is still the man as far as best character in the show goes. This fact makes me worry, however, since the actor who plays him initially signed on for, what, like three episodes or something?

catching up with rexbasior '08

Let's see how fast I can mention stuff.

I'm proud of this snowboarding video we did about a month ago, but am seriously amazed at its low traffic on YouTube. Last I checked it had nine views. Nine. It has so few views that AP Style guidelines indicate that I spell the number out with letters. And I'm not even mad. I'm impressed. How does a video called "70s Snowboarding" promoting itself as lost footage from 30 years ago to vintage Bowie only get nine views in a couple of weeks?



Maria was totally in town last week. We went to a really awesome concert with the group Swell Season, which is actually Glen and Markéta from Once plus also the other dudes from Glen's other group, The Frames. You may remember Glen and Markéta at the Oscars when they won for best song and Glen gave a heartfelt speech and then Jon Stewart was like, "Man! That guy is arrogant!" The Oscar band cut off Markéta so Jon brought her out again. Remember that? It was really sweet. Anyway, at the show we went to, Glen was like the life of the party, but Markéta didn't really seem like she wanted to be there. AWESOME show though. Soully.

Here's the only picture I took while Maria was in town. She sure looks pretty for all the stress in New York she's been dealing with lately. It's super sad since she used to love visiting there. It's a whole lot like that one Simpsons where Homer explains to his family why he hated his experience in New York City so much. I own the dvd. I could hurry and rip that part and show it right here, but it would take a little while. I'll just say that at the end of Homer's story Marge says, "Oh Homer, of course you'll have a bad impression of New York if you only focus on the pimps and the C.H.U.D.s."


The picture was taken at Tucanos. We went there to celebrate Kristi doing something. I think it was important. I ate several pounds of Brazilian meat, an entire pineapple, a plate of mashed potatoes, a salad and a crème brûlé (ugh, that was annoying to HTML).

We also ate at Café Rio.

Oh! Forgot to mention. You totally may have noticed that there are no longer borders around my photos. Ever since I decided on this particular blog template however many years ago, I've been annoyed that it automatically puts borders around the pictures. So, I finally got into Blogger CSS and switched up the formatting. It's no big deal, but old blog entries such as this one should look cooler now.

Look at this sign.


Since when are those fountains convenient when they're on?

So remember Free Comic Book Day! I cleaned up. I hit Hastur Hobby, the Library Night Flight, the Night Flight on State and Black Cat in Sugarhouse. I also tried to go to the Night Flight at Cottonwood Mall even though the wizardess that runs the joint ALWAYS calls me out when I read comic books and don't purchase them. When I drove to Cottonwood, here's what I found.

Yeah. Cottonwood Mall is gone! Who knew? I guess they're building another one, but you can't just destroy something and then put something else in its place and say it was the thing you destroyed. Can you? I guess you can say that.

I really hate electric car windows. I get the feeling that all new cars have them, but I'm particularly old school about this one. Give me a roller any day. I don't like it when I'm in someone's car and they go into the grocery store "for only a minute" and they forget to roll down the windows for me and I'm stuck there and can't just roll them down myself. Also, I hate it when the car's battery dies and while I'm napping in the backseat, it rolls into a lake and because of water pressure I can't get the door open and I would be able to roll down the window, but can't because they're electric.

My inside door handle broke (again). That means I have to roll down the window and reach out to the other handle to open the door. That also means that if I turn off the car before rolling down the window I have to restart the car just to get out. It's either that or struggling across the front seat to the passenger side, hoping to heaven I don't slip on the knobby shifter that's sticking straight up.

A kind neighborhood Samaritan relieved me of my whole window rolling down problem (again).


In thanks, I unchoicefully gave this Samaritan my car stereo (again).


Here is a video of today's snowboarding. In it you should be able to see my sweet sweet dizzy new board shorts. For once the fact that swim trunks are called board shorts makes sense. Also notice the iPod Shuffle getting knocked off toward the end. Good times. Sweet weather. Thanks to Scott for supplying me with one last pass for the season.



I was also going to talk about our softball game tonight, but it took forever for that one video to load that I think I'll just do it later (plus two snowboarding videos make great bookends for this entry). We like totally won btw.

free comic book day

Everyone remember that today is Free Comic Book Day. That means you go to your local comic book retailers and collect the awesomest free comics they have left.

Don't like comic books. Fine. Do it anyway and I'll take them off your hands. Next time there's a Free Lanyard Day, I'll go out of my way to hook you up.