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Thursday, May 29, 2008 Waking Up to Mr. Peterson Watching: Lilo & Stitch 
Mornings usually consist of waking up at 7:15am, feeding the cat and jumping back into bed. Mr. Peterson used to just eat all the food and bum around. Now he'll only eat a bit before coming back into the room to make sure I don't sleep anymore. He often licks my nose and meows with his cat food breath. 
This was an interaction I had this morning with Josie. It seemed funny at the time. I'm having trouble figuring out the correct "comic strip pacing" for it. Any suggestions? In other news, I finally ordered myself the Bind-It-All machine. The plans? I'm going to make blank notebooks with those awesome, 1990s Marvel cards as covers/backings, make a portable food reference book (Dim Sum, Chinese Food, etc.) and to make comic strip idea books. I gotta beef up the store, ya know? I'll post pictures once I get that stuff figured out. 
And here is a picture of Grover that I Photoshop'd. I actually got this idea from talking to my coworker earlier today. Sometimes people you know look like The Muppets. Throw a jersey on, brother. posted by Mr. Alexander Shen @ 11:45 PM Permalink | | Tuesday, May 27, 2008 Mr. Peterson rises again! Listening to: The faint whisper of the radio. 
Mr. Peterson has been a part of the Shen family for a few months now. He's really not that big of a "nuisance" anymore. Maybe he's gotten used to me or something of the sort. Maybe he's bored with me. In either case, he doesn't attack me nearly as much as he used to. I was reminded today of my old comic Soks. I'll have to make sure I transfer the entire thing over to the Wandering Panda Comics portal soon. posted by Mr. Alexander Shen @ 10:07 PM Permalink | | Sunday, May 18, 2008 Vectors. Watching: Quiz Show 
This is just a random vector image that I made earlier this evening. I don't really know who it's supposed to be. It's just randomly sketching something out for kicks. 
I also tried working on a game mechanic this evening. It's nothing really special. It's basically setting it up where the player cannot shoot. They can only use the reflector shield to reflect bullets back to enemies and into new enemies. Hm. I'm more tired that usual. Good night, world. posted by Mr. Alexander Shen @ 10:30 PM Permalink | | Wednesday, May 14, 2008 MASHUP SMASH! Listening to: Timbaland vs. Cheryl Lynn - Give It To Me To Be Real Hello folks! I spent the evening working on my first mashup in a very long time. For those who are not familiar with what a "mashup" is, please follow this Wiki article about Mashups. Without further ado, here is the internet debut of... Steps to Creation: 1. I basically took a listen to both songs so see how close they were in beat. Luckily they were both very similar in BPM with "Give It To Me" being slightly slower. 2. Then I just played a little bit of each song (following the bass line) on my guitar to see what key each song was in. With my somewhat out of tune guitar, "To Be Real" is in G and "Give It To Me" is in Ab/G#. Since I didn't want to lower vocals, as that always sounds strange, I decided to raise the pitch of "To Be Real". 3. Luckily "To Be Real" has very large sections of instrumental music and allowed making loops very easy. Isolating the pieces was pretty simple as well. The most difficult part was blending the hook into the verses as her singing starts before the measure's first beat. 4. Then I had to find an acapella version of "Give It To Me". Luckily someone on imeem.com had one and I just ripped the stream. 5. The rest is just cut and paste of all the pieces from both songs into one thing. I tried my best to get all beats matching, but it was seriously a strange song in some parts. There were moments where one of the three artists (Timbaland, Nelly Furtado and Justin Timberlake) would start slurring their words into another one and just randomly plop out words from their mouths. I think I've satiated the mashup beast for now. Hope you enjoy! posted by Mr. Alexander Shen @ 1:20 AM Permalink | | Monday, May 12, 2008 I cross-stitch, m*thaf*cka! Listening to: Not another rap tune. 
I cross-stitched this Pooka from Dig Dug today during lunch and after work. This kind of thing looks so simple and plain, but it takes up a lot more time than one would think. I believe overall it took me an hour or so to finish. It has about 120 individual blocks. Why do I cross-stitch? Because cross-stitch = pixel art on fabric. I'll have to one day get a bit more complex. I was thinking of cross-stitching something to put above my desk that says, "I cross-stitch, muthafucka," and have a nice, flowery border. On the bottom, centered, would be a piece of poo. Anyway, the new Kick Face Design assignment is below. 
posted by Mr. Alexander Shen @ 11:56 PM Permalink | | Sunday, May 11, 2008 Still fighting a hangover like M. Bison. Listening to: Jason Mraz - Make It Mine 
Brad and Shannon came over to this neck of the woods this past weekend to celebrate Josie's birthday as well as get some drink on. The plan, in essence, should have happened and executed properly without a hitch. Little did we know that the word "hitch" is synonymous with "The Club" line of mixed drinks. We all had a can of "The Club" before we had cans of Miller High Life: The Champagne of Beer. Now, Brad and Shannon had warned us beforehand of the complete and utter disgusting taste of The Club line of drinks, but it's like telling someone to not look at something. They'll wake up from a coma just to see what you were referring to even though you were told "don't look". We each bought a can. From my experience with this one can of The Club, I have formulated the following set of rules that should now apply to everyone's lives: 
It was rancid. I felt like someone had just squeezed out a towel of bile into a can and called it a Long Island Iced Tea. If you were from Long Island, this drink would make you hang yourself. If I hated you, I'd buy you a can of The Club. Now, the problem went far beyond the terrible taste of the drink. It was how it slowly released its poison into your bloodstream. I don't even remember having this bad a time with Bacardi 151. Please refer to the following chart that pinpoints the nausea levels of myself and Josie over a span of 24 hours (click to enlarge):  I felt like I was dying. I've been fighting this hangover all day. Josie has just been progressively getting worse throughout the day. I feel like the infected in 28 Days Later, but instead of "rage" I just want to pull my insides out and rinse it with a shower of Arm & Hammer Baking Soda. So, I guess it's nothing like that movie, but it's a terrible feeling.I haven't felt this bad in ages. I will never have another can of The Club again. If you want military secrets, torture someone with a can of The Club. You could easily file a divorce with one of these things. In better news, I got this screen at the end of completing all the 50cc courses in Mario Kart Wii with Brad and Shannon. It does little to help me feel any better physically, but I wanted to end with something that makes me happier than incredibly sad. 
Seriously! Look! Look at how huge they made my crotch look in that photo! It's like someone went and... oh my God... it looks like someone sneaked in a can of The Club into my pants! Curse you! Curse you and this full circle! 
posted by Mr. Alexander Shen @ 11:41 PM Permalink | | Friday, May 9, 2008 Pokey-Man! Listening to: Insistent cat whining. Stop whining. 
I am currently playing Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Darkness on my Nintendo DS. I can't help myself because, frankly, I just openly adore the Pokemon franchise. Something about the fact that you have 17 (I think it's 17) different types of Pokemon over a span of roughly 490 individual Pokemon creatures. 490! I can't even fathom that number! What number was it again? Exactly. I'm only on Chapter 6 right now, but I can give my first impressions of the game. When you first boot up the game, it makes you take this Pokemon Quiz that essentially determines which Pokemon you are. You don't have a fancy-shmancy character select screen, you take a quiz. They ask you questions like, "If there was a piece of cake that was one day past the expiration date, what would you do?" and it would provide you with options such as "think about it for a moment and then eat it". I ended up as Pikachu. I secretly wanted Chimchar, but we'll leave that to another psychiatrist session. You eventually find yourself teaming up with another Pokemon (that you do get to choose) as your teammate and form an exploration team with the explorer's guild. S/he, by the way, is a wuss at all times and has to overcome their inherent fear of everything. In my case, Wuss-mander. I chose him because he was the first Pokemon I ever had. The game is essentially a Roguelike, which is your run-of-the-mill dungeon crawler. You run around, try to find the stairs to the next level/floor, fight bad guys, collect treasure and level up your characters. There's some kind of storyline that follows the "Gears of Time" being stolen from key areas in this world, but it's all kind of vague to me. I find myself much more interested in the grind of fulfilling/completing job tasks posted on the job bulletin boards (such as saving the Grimer that is on floor five of the Beach Cave) and seeing what Pokemon reside in these dungeons. I also relish in the idea of leveling up my characters so much that they can murder an opposing Pokemon by blinking at them. 
Okay, that's enough from me. It's worth a go if you're a fan of the franchise and Roguelikes, but it's nothing to write home to mom about... speaking of which--it's Mother's Day this Sunday. Go do something nice like not being a jerk for a day. posted by Mr. Alexander Shen @ 8:02 AM Permalink | | Wednesday, May 7, 2008 The Crunch Master Story Listening to: Jason Mraz - Butterfly 
So, I've delayed this long enough. Here is the recounting/retelling of "The Crunch Master" story and the utter defeat of this enemy of the people. Let me retell the tale as if I were some mad woodsman. Mmm... it feels just like yesterday... My friends Brad and Shannon decide to come out to visit Josie and me one weekend. In the midst of all the talking and inability to decide where we really want to eat, we eventually decide to go eat at Chevy's (1502 Saratoga Ave, San Jose, CA) because, well, I have a coupon. Upon arriving we wait for our table while laughing at teenagers and their absurdly disgusting clothing and poor taste in potential mates. It's pretty standard. 
We get seated outside and our server, a woman by name of Vanessa, approaches our table. Beneath her name tag is the phrase "Crunch Master". We look around and notice everyone has their own nickname. We're assuming that these nicknames are assigned because one wouldn't willingly choose "Crunch Master" if they were 523 pounds. She hands us our menus and we have two sets of silverware for the four of us. 10-15 minutes pass... During this time, another family that was seated before us have also not been served. We actually give our order before them. Anyway. Before we give our order, we ask if we can use two coupons in conjunction by splitting the check in two (there are two couples after all). She sternly replies no. Brad says that he and Shannon could move to the table next to us if that'd help. The Crunch Master is not amused. There is an awkward 20 second pause. We order our food. 20-30 minutes pass... Brad steals two sets of silverware from a vacant table. We get our food. It is warm at best. My fajitas do not have tortillas with them. I am hungry. The Crunch Master makes her way by our table a few minutes later as I encourage the rest of the folks to eat as their food will get cold. "Excuse me, could I get some tortillas please?" I ask. 
She leaves. I wait five or so minutes. Another worker comes by and I ask him for some tortillas. He returns within five minutes with tortillas for me. After 15 minutes of eating, The Crunch Master comes back with tortillas and throws them at the table like the tortillas had just denied her passage to the buffet. At least they're hot. The rest of the craptacular service is hazy at this point, but I do remember at the end being completely dissatisfied. I have never left no tip before, as I've done my small share of food services as well, but I had to this time. It was the worst service we have ever had. The bill came out to be $31.04 after the coupon and I wrote $31.04 on the credit card slip when I left. Two days later... I find myself checking my credit card statement online to track the purchases I've made in the past few days. 
There's a $40.00 charge from Chevy's on my credit card statement. That's right. The Crunch Master gave herself a $9.00 tip. Who gives a 25% tip at Chevy's? No one does. Even Mr. Juan Chevy, the CEO and president, doesn't (I made that up). I quickly retaliate by making a phone call to the restaurant and speak to the manager. My basic reasoning for her is, "I recently ate at your establishment and had the worst service I've ever had, so I left no tip. However, my credit card has been charged $40.00. Tell me, with all recounts of all bills you have settled, how it would be possible to serve four people and have a bill equal $40.00 after tax and no tip?" This woman stole money from me. She basically stuck her grubby and fat hands into my wallet, touched everything and stole $9.00. Needless to say, I got my $40.00 refunded back to me within the week. I should have gone a bit deeper and asked for some kind of punishment to be delivered to The Crunch Master, like getting her fired or having someone punch her in the balls, but decided that as long as I got my money back then it'd be fine. Just to add to the Idiocracy, the manager actually said, "So, we'll refund you the $31.04 to your card. Is that all right?" No, lady, that's not all right. You charged me $40.00. Give me all my money back, damn it. Will I ever go back to Chevy's? Sure. I saw someone that looked like Balki from Perfect Strangers there once and that's reason enough to go anywhere. posted by Mr. Alexander Shen @ 11:23 PM Permalink | | Thursday, May 1, 2008 Little Woodbots are Go! Listening to: A neighbor's loud television. 
Hey everyone! The Little Woodbot - Series 1 is now on sale over in the store! Make sure to tell your friends or non-friends about the event. Hooray! Let's also wish Josie a happy birthday by saying so in the comments section! posted by Mr. Alexander Shen @ 8:14 AM Permalink | | |
       
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