2008 round-up? Let's try a whole life

I was going to attempt a 2008 round-up but my memory is so poor it seemed like too great a challenge. When I tried it, well, this happened. My whole life story was pieced together in several seconds. Only one memory really belonged to 2008.

It's kind of sad when you can condense your entire life into one small blog image. But I guess, now that I've done it, it might serve as an introduction to anyone who happens to pass by my blog over the next few days.

I lost control in 2008. I also lost touch with a lot of the world. Didn't return calls, texts, emails. Not that I get a huge amount but I went a little underground, especially towards the end of the year. I started living with my only goal being day to day survival. That's not enough. Not for me.

Hey, perhaps this round-up is going to happen after all...

Okay, I'll go for it. Here's some stuff I liked and hated in 2008. See if you agree.

Best World Event: McCain Losing The US Election. I don't know if Obama is going to be fantastic, hence the negative slant on the event itself. But I can be pretty damn sure that an old guy who has been psychologically damaged by years of torture, backed up by a woman who makes the current US President seem smart was not going to be great for those of us in the rest of the world.

Favourite Film: The Dark Knight. I saw very few films in 2008 (part of the going underground thing) but this one exceeded my expectations. A great crime movie. A little removed from Batman, however. I almost think this film could have been even better without a guy in a rubber bat suit and just some hard-ass cops instead.

Favourite Television Show: King Of Queens reruns. Hey, I make my own rules with this round-up. I love sitcoms. Like, adore them. I think they are much more clever than most people give them credit for and they are like the perfect form of television - short bouts of light, easy viewing and perfect escapism. King Of Queens is one of those that gets better with each viewing. Kevin James and Jerry Stiller are fantastic comic actors and just make me laugh. John K often compares cartoon acting to live-action acting. I think he'd get a lot from those two.

Favourite Album: The Dears, Missiles. Yeah, I mentioned this before. I love it.

Most Used Item Of 2008: iPod Touch. This thing is the future. I mean, look at those bulky tricorders on Star Trek. With an item much smaller, I can hold a whole crate of LPs, a bunch of colour television shows and (wi-fi permitting) I can access information on anything all over the world, contact just about anyone, debate serious issues with other concerned citizens (mostly about animation and games), find out the weather and more. It hasn't left my pocket since the end of 2007.

Best Game: Gears Of War 2. There may well be better than this but I played it fairly recently and my memory doesn't allow more than a few experiences to stay there at any one time.

Worst Game: Metal Gear Solid 4. Okay so it may not be the worst experience out there but it's barely a game! Barely a game! And it's certainly not a great movie. So what is it?

Game That I Thought Initially Was Stunning But Then Grew To Dislike: Little Big Planet. Love the presentation, the music, the VO by Stephen Fry. Adored it early on. But the dodgy physics-based gameplay and weird plane auto-selection killed it for me and I realised the game just wasn't anywhere near as good as I thought. The level creation is a huge part of it but, if I don't like the main play system, why would I spend time on that?

Favourite Animal Of 2008: Zebra. Okay, I'm running out of categories here, aren't I? It's that failing memory. But, hey, zebra... they're cool, right? Like horses, only with stripes. Fantastic.

Worst Pain In My Ass Of 2008: Those Negotiations. Yeah, those negotiations I referred to a while back are ongoing. Basically, they're about my involvement in a project that could be great but people above me are determined to destroy. When I'm ready to throw in the towel on what could be one of the best projects of my life, especially in a time of recession, that must mean I'm really pissed off. It also means I care. More than they do.

I can't even remember the other things that pissed me off this year. That's not a good sign.

Anyway, almost over now. A fairly arbitrary calendar date is going to allow me the illusion of a fresh start. And I'm going to take the chance. A new approach for 2009. I don't quite know what it is yet but I know one major part of it and I'll tell you right now what it is -

I am no longer in animation. I am in children's programming.

I'll go into this in more detail at some point but, where the industry and the world is now, animation as a craft is dying. There are some great people learning and holding on to the skills, and I admire them, but it's like learning Latin. It may help you once or twice in your life but, really, it's a long time learning a dead language. It's unlikely that I'll get the time or budget to put my animation skills to good use and produce a piece of really amazing animation.

But, that doesn't mean I can't make a great show for children. There is much more to making a show or film than simply the medium it is produced in. That's only a small part of it. In the current climate, there is still no reason whatsoever why I can't be part of some fantastic children's programming.

So the difference at first is merely a label change. But I think it will be a move in a more postive direction. A move from beating my head against a wall (trying to produce quality animation in a world that doesn't allow for it) to positively contributing to the lives of children by helping create fun, good and enriching television. If they're going to sit in front of that thing, it may as well be something good, right?

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

It's the one thing I always wanted

I have a void in my life. No, it's not dignity. Fuck dignity, who needs it? No, it's the Big Trak. The "six-wheeled tank with a front-mounted blue photon beam headlamp, and a keypad on top", as wikipedia describes it. It was the tank that could do everything. Everything.

Each year, I asked Santa for it. Each year, I was disappointed.

Did you see the Big Trak ads when you were a kid? It could bring you stuff! Like, say you wanted an apple, you could programme it to go get it. A tank that would bring you an apple. Wow. And that was a long time ago. Probably almost 30 years. Back then, a child's toy could bring you an apple.

And now at the very end of the Space Year 2008, we don't have robot butlers?! What the hell?

I'm not sure what I was thinking with the picture. I mean, waking up on the street with a Santa suit on and a bottle in my hand would be a sign that I broke out of the day to day rut and went and did something. That could only be positive. I suspect the part of my brain that draws the images is a whole different beast to the part that writes these words. Otherwise, I would have known that when drawing it and the whole idea would have been very different.

Almost 2009... I almost feel I should do an end of year round-up but then that's what the archive is for. Maybe tomorrow I'll do a little one. Are you all evaluating your year? I have some serious evaluation to do, I'll hopefully be approaching 2009 more positively by looking at the negative of 2008, as demonstrated in the book I'll never write - Life Stinks. Now Fix It!

Trying to find a moment

I'm sitting trying to figure out how I can post to my blog using my iPod Touch. I got an application called BlogPress but for images and formatting it seems to want me to work in HTML. What am I? A programmer all of a sudden?

No. No I am not. Though I used to be able to mess about with BASIC back in the day. I made a text adventure game once about a doll that comes to life and murders people. It had multiple endings and everything. Even a graphic title page. Pretty fancy for its time.

But, no, I'm not a programmer.

So this won't have the image I wanted to post and may well just be a wall of text with no formatting. I'll post that pic later or tomorrow. It was about an important Christmas wish.

Hope you all had or are still having good holidays. Mine have been tiring. Soooo sleeeepy. But they haven't been too bad.

I'm having a real productivity crisis though. That's something I touched on before and it's really building to a crescendo. I need time. Time to achieve. Time to do more than just survive the day. Something is going to have to change.

Anyone seen that Sita Sings The Blues? I really want to see it. You guys know I'm not Flash's biggest fan but the fact that one person can make an animated feature with it is amazing.

Man, I hope this doesn't turn out to be one huge wall of text. That's my real Christmas wish.

Merry Christmas!

I saw the cutest little puppy today. He was tiny, scruffy and full of fun and life. For a moment, I thought he might be my Christmas present. He wasn't but that's okay - it would have been a slightly crazy gift. But still, there's nothing like a puppy to put a smile on my face.

When it comes down to it, it turns out I'm easily pleased.

It hasn't been a great couple of weeks. Partly, that's just because I love Christmas. I love the lights, the atmosphere, the same old Christmas songs, Jingle Bells and mince pies. But, this year, I haven't had a chance to enjoy the run up to it.

But it's Christmas now.

I can enjoy it. I can eat those mince pies. Stare at Christmas trees. Yeah, I really miss old friends and my life feels very different to where I was this time last year, not all in good ways, but I'm here and, as it turns out, I have people who like me. Or at the very least, don't actively dislike me.

It is a good time of year.

If you pass by my blog and read this, well, firstly I'd like to thank you for stopping by. It means a lot that some people can relate to some of the things that seem to fill my head. It really does - it means I'm not alone and, as I'm sure you know, sometimes it's very easy to feel alone in a crowded city, even a crowded room full of people who know you. But, here, I often don't feel alone.

And, secondly, I'd like to wish you all a very happy Christmas, or any event or rituals or just plain ol' generic holidays that you're having. Even the Xenu people (do you guys have a Christmas equivalent?). I hope you spend time with people you love and who love you and have a peaceful and fun time (sometimes those are mutually exclusive so it might just be one or the other).

You guys rock. All of you.

All I want...

I've barely noticed Christmas coming this year. I think that's why I left the Christmas shopping so late. Work has been really busy, leading to the attempts at cancelling the holidays (my response took the form of a middle finger extension) and home life has been tiring and overwhelming and that plague I contracted didn't help matters.


With Christmas coming and, with it, the end of the year, all I find myself thinking about are the things I haven't done. The never-ending list of failed or, more usually, unattempted goals. And then I think I have to let myself off the hook and give myself a break but it's doing that that led to so many of them being left undone in the first place.

I am my own worst enemy. I should bomb myself from a great height in the name of freedom or something.


Next year, I'd like to hate myself less. I think for that to happen, I need to achieve something. Anything. This year, I achieved nothing. Yes, I need to get something done and make some progress next year.


If I don't, I'll just find myself wishing the world into oblivion for yet another Christmas.

It's the first time I've ever won anything

So I'm a recipient of one of what I think is the first batch of A Hoy awards. Susan from the 'If You're Going Through Hell' blog awarded it to me, which is really very nice of her. At first I thought it might be an insult. I mean, A... Hoy... I thought it sounded a little like A-Hole. But, no, it seems to be a compliment and, looking at the other blogs on the list, I'm in great company.

So huge thanks for that! Almost makes me feel like I have a real blog.

I managed to get my Christmas shopping done, which is great. It's going to be a lean Christmas this year though. I'm broke and, well, it's recession time. It's odd that some people, mainly economists, advocate spending like there's no tomorrow to keep the economy healthy and turn around this recession.

Doing that is like risking being the last guy in a pyramid scheme. You see, there is a tomorrow. And you could have lost your job by then. You want to be the guy who just spent his latest paycheque on a pair of fancy shiny Italian shoes? Will the boost you gave to the economy be any comfort when you can't pay your rent or mortgage?

And I call it 'recession' because that seems to be the accepted term for what's happening but that's not the reality where I am. It's simply that things are returning to more realistic levels. The economy over here was completely false. It was unsustainable. Built entirely on fantasy. The cost of living went sky high, house prices went utterly ridiculous and people got themselves up to their ass in debt all the while shouting about this great time of boom. When reality kicks in, it looks like a recession but it's simply the world returning to a state of normality.

But the thing about the economy is that it is a man-made system. And people get rich simply by manipulating these arbitrary made-up rules. But economists are full of shit. They're like cult members. They spend years in college being conditioned that the world is a certain way and they totally believe it because they have to - if they didn't, their world would mean nothing. And so they have a massive vested interest in making a reality out of their teachings, just like cult members I guess.

Thing is, a good economist can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that their systems work.

Because they prove it by enforcing their own set of conditions.

I think one thing is important to bear in mind: the world we are born into is one that we, humans, created. Our cities are not built to a divine plan. Our economic systems, our political systems, our societies were not set in stone at the moment of the Universe's conception. We made the world this way. We created it.

And, if we created it, we can always tear it down and start again.

So, yes, for me it's a more lean Christmas this year. It has to be. That doesn't mean it can't be a fun, warm Christmas spent with family and, if I had them, friends.

Things are just shutting down everywhere

In spite of my earlier bravado, things are actually looking quite scary around here. This recession is kind of like the Nothing from that Never Ending Story film. It's just sweeping through the streets. I don't really think I've seen anything like it in my lifetime.


Every day, I see another empty office, another set of 'To Let' signs, another shuttered shop or restaurant. The buildings around the studio are vacant. The car parking spaces empty.


It's getting eerily quiet. You know, as opposed to peacefully quiet, which would be a good thing.