I hate them. Every single one of them.

I really do hate them. So much.

My laptop blew up a few weeks ago. Okay, it didn't blow up exactly but the hard drive died. So it cost a bunch to get the hard drive replaced and I've been battling with a fresh install of Vista ever since. It's all these poxy updates. It downloaded and installed about a thousand and four crappy updates, each one with the sole purpose of trying to break my system.

And they succeeded.

It took another fresh install and a careful series of updating bit by bit followed by a huge trip through the system restore to get it working. And I'm still having to look at that 'your system didn't shut down properly screen'. The system stutters with a ridiculous amount of processes running, most of which are totally pointless. It has eaten up far too much time. All I want is a laptop that works.

It's easy to blame Vista but I have an XP desktop machine that is a magnet for spyware, malware and every other kind of ware they're is. I don't know if someone is secretly downloading shit the second I turn my back but I have every protection programme on the planet running on that thing and I still end up spending hours cleaning that piece of crap every time it gets infected - which is several times a day.

It's a constant battle.

Even at work, with corporate strength virus protection and firewalls, it turned out someones USB key was infected with a trojan and they were happily passing it around the studio.

I just hate computers. They take up far too much time than they deserve. Are there any computers anywhere that actually work as they should? That don't crash? Don't get broken by system updates? Actually, you know, work?

The Weekend Dregs: My elbows

Seeing as I offloaded an old unused image yesterday, I thought I'd see what else I had sitting in the drafts section. I think very few people read blogs at the weekend so I hope those few won't mind me using a weekend post to show you some of the dregs of my blog. Scraping the bottom of a very shallow barrel.

I hadn't written anything to go with this image but it's clearly about my elbows. I have to moisturise my left elbow because just brushing past someone could take their face clean off. It's that dangerous.

I remember reading that, in ancient Japan, would-be Ninjas would sit at computers for hours on end to turn their elbows into deadly weapons. Of course, this tactic became common knowledge and could be easily countered by attacking a Ninja on his right side. And that is how the left-handed Ninja became the most feared of all assassins. True story.

The secret to our evolution

Every now and again, I write something on this blog that doesn't get posted. Something happens just before I'm going to post it, someone pisses me off or whatever and that gets priority and the post-in-progress gets lost. So I have a bunch of started, but not finished, posts in the Drafts bit of blogger. Yesterday's post was one that began as one rant about art, I got bored with it and posted about Batman instead - hence the image having absolutely nothing to do with Batman.

But then I found this post sitting in the Drafts bit and I thought it was worthy of posting so here it is, an old long-lost post. Can you tell the image was done a while back?


Ever wonder how we evolved beyond our instincts? Developed our minds and our emotions? Created language, art, pizza and all the other wonderful things we take for granted?

Here's the answer:

Masturbation.

Yep, a good ol' hand shandy.

You see, we're just animals. And animals are normally governed by instinct. It's all based on gene survival but it amounts to feeding and having sex. Feeding keeps us alive so we can then go and have sex. That's for reproduction but, in an interesting bit of programming, it's the act itself that seems to have been coded in, like one will always lead to the other.

So those two instincts drive animals. Eat. Sex. Of course, in the wild, eating isn't always that easy. You might have to spend days foraging or hunting. And having sex, well that's a battle to be alpha male. It all takes a hell of a lot of time. Too much time to do anything else. But we were given opposable thumbs and that, in turn, gave us the means to crack one off.

And crack one off we did.

Suddenly, that sex instinct was satisfied for a short time. What would we do with all that newfound spare time? Well, it seems the answer is - we began thinking. We used that time to work out better ways of dealing with the first instinct and built tools to hunt and then began farming. And so now both instincts are satisfied. And man finds he has quite a bit of time to sit around, write poetry and paint beautiful pieces of art. Oh, and look for better ways of destroying and ripping off their fellow man.

All because they just reached into their loincloths and gave a good tug.

But, like everything in life, it requires moderation. You see, the bonobo monkeys are all about feeding that sex instinct. But they just don't know when to stop. They're consumed by it.

With porn being so readily available on the internet, I wonder if it will herald a new phase of human evolution or if we'll turn into bonobos.

It's art, you see?

I finally saw The Dark Knight last night. I loved it. I would say it's one of the best superhero movies in years but it didn't really feel like a superhero movie. It felt like a dark crime movie that happened to have a guy that dressed up in a rubber suit in it.

For me, that was a good thing.

Princess and the Frog

Andy sent me the link to Disney's 'Princess and the Frog' trailer (see it here!). It doesn't show much but, well, I like it. I really like the design of the frog - it's very traditional and more than a little old fashioned. I like that.

Not that they can succeed just living in the past but I think it will take one good movie that treads old ground to put that 2D style back on the map, even though it was retreading that old and very battered ground that probably took it off the map to begin with. I'm confusing myself with map/ground metaphors.

I'd love to see a return to quality 2D (you can debate the merits of the Disney style and whether it's 'classical' until you're blue in the face but it always was the poster boy for quality animation, deserved or not). I'm bored with 3D for the very same reason I was bored with 2D many years ago - everyone is just trying to make the same sort of film. Actually, Wall-E looks different but I haven't actually seen that yet.

But as for me burning my computer and Flash along with it, I would love to do that but the last time I set fire to the computers, they took it out of my pay and I need the money right now to feed a Walnut Whip addiction. And I don't even like walnuts.

Also, whether this film does well or not, it's not going to really impact on us poor saps working on television animation. Flash is just too cheap. We have priced ourselves too low and reset all budgets to a figure that will barely pay our rent (or for our Walnut Whips). For my feelings on Flash and what it has done for us, click the Flash tab below and hopefully it will bring up my posts on why Flash rocks, and why it sucks.

Though the film being a success may prompt others to try similar things and start a whole new boom of traditional 2D animation. I began my career on a traditionally animated tv feature. Then a proper feature feature. Those methods brought their own crap but the work was usually of a higher quality than we accept as the norm now. It was easier to take pride in it.

I'd like that.

Thanks for sending me the link, Andy. You never know, you may get to work on a traditionally animated feature yet!

Wet morning

Yeah, it's raining. A lot. My pants are wet. I'd put them on a heater to dry but, firstly, people in here wouldn't appreciate me walking around without pants (well, a select few would but most wouldn't).

And, secondly, we have these really crappy heaters that basically work 24 hours after you turn them on. You can't just turn them on and get heat. Oh no, that would be too much to ask. Some might even call it greedy. No, you wait your 24 hours and gauge the next day whether the setting is to your liking. It stores the heat overnight or something. Not really sure why but, for wet pants, they are no use to me.

But it seems everyone in here has wet pants too so I can't even pull rank and force someone to switch with me.

Seen the trailer for that Star Wars Clone Wars film? Looks absolutely stone cold dead. Completely lifeless.

Siren

Man, this is one creepy game. Japanese horror films in general have a tendency to creep me out and this village full of happy blood-covered Japanese murderers really is the stuff of nightmares.

I wonder if that's racist?

I think it's more that the culture is a little more alien to me, and so there is less of a safety net. I am out of my own environment and it really is the unknown. Good horror, for me, relies on putting the audience at a disadvantage. And in Siren, with its poxy camera angles and fiddly controls, I really am at a disadvantage.

It's scary stuff. I used to want to go to Japan but if this is an accurate representation of the country (and I can't see why it wouldn't be), I think I'll hold off on that trip.