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Tuesday, October 28, 2008 Alternative Press Expo 2008 
Just a reminder that I will be exhibiting at this year's APE again! Expect to see comics, buttons and prints! For more information, check out the Alternative Press Expo website. Hope to see you there! posted by Mr. Alexander Shen @ 10:13 PM Permalink | | Monday, October 27, 2008 I fell for it. Listening to: Office chatter.  "OH. MY. GOD." Update (10/28): My computer is completely hosed. I will have to reformat. Goodbye photographs from 2003! Go to hell, Macromedia Flash 6! My computer is trying to fix itself. I am ashamed as I am the one who put it in that state. Shame, Alex. Grargh. posted by Mr. Alexander Shen @ 4:18 PM Permalink | | Sunday, October 26, 2008 Who The Eff Is Josh Groban? Listening to: Smashing Pumpkins - Disarm (not sung by Josh Groban) 
Josie, Brad, Shannon and myself moseyed on over to the Bridge School benefit concert today at the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View. It basically was a concert that helped raised money for the program and featured short sets by many famous artists. Such artists included: Death Cab For Cutie, Smashing Pumpkins and Wilco, just to name a few. While Death Cab For Cutie was playing, a man with a giant afro decided that it was appropriate to sing along to all of their songs. He also felt that it was necessary to accompany the singalong with choreographed hand and arm movements. Such examples included bringing your arms across your chest and holding your shoulders to represent "hold you in these arms", or touching your fingers in front of you at chin level and making a box around, downwards, to meet again at a point somewhere around your chest to represent "all around the world". I must be a terrible fan. Billy Corgan would later hop on stage and sing songs from his later catalog of music. He finished with a rendition of "Disarm" that, to the dismay of much of the crowd, was instead sung by Josh Groban. Billy Corgan only participated during the chorus, singing an octave lower than normal. The only cheering had by the crowd was when you actually heard Billy Corgan singing. After the song finished, there was a mass exodus to flee the arena. A wave of utter disappointment and disgust for Josh Groban swept the escapees. We missed Jack Johnson due to a multitude of reasons. I promise to take Josie to see him the next time he travels to the area. On our way back to the car we heard a girl, that was deserving of a punch to the stomach because of the sheer timbre of her voice, talking to a friend on the phone. She was yelling the following: "Who the eff is Josh Groban? He's singing this Hallelujah sh1t." We had a laugh. The afro man below. 
posted by Mr. Alexander Shen @ 8:44 PM Permalink | | Friday, October 24, 2008 Slow Walkers Should Be: In bed. 
On the way to the station today, I was stuck behind a woman pushing a baby stroller. I dislike it when someone decides to walk in the middle of the sidewalk and leaves no room on either side for faster walkers. I mean, the sidewalk is supposed to be analogous to the road when in a motor vehicle, right? You have different lanes and drivers of different speeds use those different lanes. Anyway, I wasn't agitated. I still had a good amount of time before the train was going to leave and the woman was pushing a baby stroller. I decided to step into the street and mosey on around her. I turned back to see, as I'm always curious, what the baby looked like. Babies, in my past experiences of walking by them, are usually terribly ugly. It's like someone sat on their face for days. Months, even. To my utter vomit-through-my-nose disgust, the baby stroller did not have a baby in it. In the seat of the baby stroller was a rolled up fleece throw blanket. A leopard print fleece throw blanket. It's the kind that you buy at a car wash that also sells cassette tapes of Europe or Journey. I quickly walked off and thought about the post that I would write regarding this event in question. You're reading it now. It's like time travel! While you're here, check out a video I saw today that made me cry with laughter. Someone dubbed a new guitar track on an Eric Clapton performance. He shreds so hard. posted by Mr. Alexander Shen @ 1:49 AM Permalink | | Sunday, October 19, 2008 Busy Weekend - My Back Aches (Part II) Listening to: Gym Class Heroes - Cookie Jar 
I decided to split this post into two parts. The first part is the post below and the second is, well, this post here. I remember seeing this post about this art exhibit in Japan called "My Famicase Exhibition 2008". It was essentially artists creating faux labels for Famicom game cases and having these cases mounted to a wall, displayed and drooled over by video game/art enthusiasts alike. I decided to take the same concept, but approached it a little differently. I'll still be working on faux labels for games, but I wanted to try my hand at painting. So in this case, I purchased some cheap NES cartridges, took out the guts, primed the case and painted on it. My first piece is a gorilla. Let's call him Donkey Kong. posted by Mr. Alexander Shen @ 11:21 PM Permalink | | Busy Weekend - My Back Aches (Part I) Listening to: Gym Class Heroes - Cookie Jar 
This piece took me about four hours. I'm thinking about adding the speech bubble, "WAIT!" on the last frame. I'm not sure if it comes through clear enough. posted by Mr. Alexander Shen @ 11:18 PM Permalink | | Thursday, October 16, 2008 Uber Mobile Headset Listening to: Josie cursing my sewing machine. 
On the way home from work today I heard this woman talking on her mobile phone at a decibel level very similar to a yappy socialite from Los Angeles. The craziest thing about it was the hands-free headset that she was using. She wasn't using a cool Bluetooth headset that all of us hip kids are using. She was using this gigantic headset that looked like one of those free headsets you get from a Dell computer starter kit from Costco. It had giant headphone pieces that completely covered her ears and this microphone arm that jutted out from the right headphone and reached around to her mouth. I'd bet my bottom dollar that the plug that went into the phone was split into two, one light green (speaker) and one pink (microphone), which was actually made for the color coded back of that discount PC bundle. She looked like she belonged in a fighter jet, commanding Goose to take the point and listening to "Highway to the Danger Zone". That or sitting next to John Madden, giving the play-by-play for that Thanksgiving football game where John Madden reveals his six-legged turkey as punishment for the MVPs of the game. Seeing her technological prowess made me feel uncomfortably inadequate with my much smaller, lighter, lacking girth, hands-free headset. posted by Mr. Alexander Shen @ 10:45 PM Permalink | | Sunday, October 12, 2008 Kiryu Kazuma is the Strongest Man Alive. Listening to: Ne-Yo - When You're Mad 
It's probably because he listens to Nickelback. There's nothing more invigorating than hearing Chad Kroeger sing that song Hero from that Man Spider movie. Stop crying and moping around, Peter Parker. Anyhow. Kiryu Kazuma is the main character from the Playstation 2 game Yakuza 2. It's basically a very well written Japanese mafia story that mixes a considerable amount of movie scenes/dialogue (see: Metal Gear Solid 4 cut scenes), Japananese city wandering and thug thrashing. It's a little bit like Grand Theft Auto 4, without the "Grand Theft Auto" part. I dunno, I suppose I just like a good Japanese mafia storyline. I really enjoyed the first one and was terribly excited for the sequel. One of the most entertaining things is when random thugs in the city challenge you to a fight. It usually breaks down to the following dialogue: Thug: Hey, you ran past me! That means you showed me no respect! I'm going to kick your [swear words] [body part] to teach you a lesson! [You enter a fighting segment where you easily wail on an enemy with giant traffic cones.] Thug: Oh, I'm sorry! Stop beatin' me! Take this as an apology. [You have received 10,000 yen.] I know it can get tedious to some folk, but I find the fight segments fun. It probably has something to do with how much I wish there was a fighting system half as good in the Grand Theft Auto series. I suppose that's what happens when you're given the ability to drive cars and shoot guns--you forget how to dropkick someone in the face and settle things like your parents did when they argued about the bills. Anyhow, I'm about a quarter of the way through it right now and really liking it. It's definitely for those who enjoy this type of movie/storyline. You know, the different clans destroying each other, trying to gain control over all of Japan and using any underhanded schemes they can come up with, regardless of "tradition" and "the old way". It's always those darned young ones that think they can change things. They also always learn, at the hand of the main character of the movie, that they were wrong and end up getting blown up in sort of freak accident like a car bomb or force feeding them Mentos and Diet Coke. Hmm... I wonder if that's how this one ends... posted by Mr. Alexander Shen @ 11:52 PM Permalink | | Tuesday, October 7, 2008 Lock's Quest - A Retrospective Got The: Sniffles. 
I recently purchased and completed the game Lock's Quest for the Nintendo DS. The game is basically Desktop Tower Defense + Rampart with an actual cohesive story, characters you are willing to care about and the charm you've come to enjoy and love from the 5th Cell team. I really love the pixel work that they do for these games. It's actually quite a good game. If you're a fan of the previously mentioned games, it's worth picking it up or at least borrowing from a friend. You may, however, hit a period of time during the halfway point where you're saying to yourself, "Really? How much more of this do I have to play?" The game eventually picks up again as the story pushes forward, driving you to want to find out what happens next. The game is split up into two different phases: Build and Battle. The Build portion is basically setting up your defenses (turrets, walls, traps, etc.) and the Battle portion is when the CPU starts attacking you with hordes of enemies. The only tip I have for you is that as soon as you learn how to build the "Ice Trap", it will become your best friend. What can stop an enemy boss better from attacking than three Ice Traps in front of their path? Cake, probably... but that's not a weapon in this game. You can try out a Flash version of that over at the official website. 
In other news, the Mr. Goh comic book is now being printed over at Lulu.com. Personally, I'd wait until I get my personal shipment as I'll probably be charging less for shipping and including some swanky thing like, I dunno, a button or maybe a sticker. But if you just can't wait, you can head over now and buy it for you or your loved ones. I've also signed up with their little distribution service and have an ISBN attached to it. It should be available for sale on amazon.com in a few weeks. Oh! And I forgot to mention, but I'm starting to pick games I see at work and put them on my little "side project" website. It's still all being done manually, but I'll have an automated system setup soon. 
posted by Mr. Alexander Shen @ 10:35 PM Permalink | | Monday, October 6, 2008 The Common Cold Listening to: Josie practicing Mandarin. 
I was starting to feel ill today, but thought it would get better. I was wrong. I ended up going to Walgreens this afternoon (it's right around the corner!) to get some medicine. I'm going to still try to make it into the office tomorrow and try to get everyone else sick. That's my plan. Then I'll take their pens when they're out sick. I'll sit in my CEO's chair, put my feet on his desk and laugh heartily. A cigar made out of waffle cookies will be sticking out of my mouth as I light the other end with cotton candy. I think I'm going delirious. My head feels like a big gray cloud. posted by Mr. Alexander Shen @ 11:19 PM Permalink | | Sunday, October 5, 2008 Taxi Drivers Listening to: Ben Folds - Sentimental Guy So, this past Saturday was Lovefest 2008 in San Francisco. A friend and old coworker of mine came up for the weekend for the event, so I decided to attend to. It was basically an outdoor rave at the Civic Center with hundreds to thousands of people dressed in costume, one of those costumes being "naked old guy", and a lot of "dancing". Anyhow, I'll recount one of the interesting things I learned this weekend and that was about taxicabs and how that service works. 
Because it was a super packed weekend (there were two other huge events in the city that day), getting a cab was like the complete opposite of getting cholera on The Oregon Trail (side note: I beat the mobile game. My family died. I made it Oregon alone to start my own nail making business.). Every taxi we tried to flag down just drove by. We had to make it from Van Ness to 32nd Street. From what I remember, that's like five miles. 
At first, I thought it was because I wasn't attractive enough to flag down a cab. Maybe the taxicab drivers only wanted to pick up nubile girls that just came from the rave, dressed in their clothing made of nets and floss. I think there was a massive sale on "green fairy wings" this week because I must have been stabbed in the eye by at least half a dozen of those. Anyhow, cabs passed us by. Then I realized that they were full of people already. Every cab was full of people. There was nothing empty at all. It was not only frustrating, but contrary to what I've seen on television. Fortunately, I noticed cabs pulling into a hotel and we decided to wait there. In a short few minutes we were on our way. While speaking to the taxicab driver, Jimmy, we learned how the taxicab service worked. The drivers essentially are independent contractors and lease the taxicab for the day only. It is more expensive to lease the taxicab on weekends, roughly $135. At the end of their shift, they have to return the taxicab with a full tank of gas and $135. Anything they make past that mark is essentially profit. So if you got some big shot millionaire and they threw wads of cash at your when they left, any fare you collected afterward would be pure profit. Also, this particular taxicab company had a GPS system that transmits information regarding potential customers. Often times people will call the taxicab service to get a cab as opposed to just standing on the street corner and waving down taxis like a chump. So via GPS, the closest taxicab to the client is sent this information and they are asked if they would like to accept the client. This was like a quest in an RPG. "Would you like to pick up a client at 32nd & Clement? +400 experience points and +25 gold pieces." 
After these conversations and learning about the taxicab world, I became really snooty. Every time I saw a person trying to wave down our cab in hopes of getting a ride to wherever they were going, I laughed in their general direction as we sped off into the night, Stone Cold Steve Austin and all. posted by Mr. Alexander Shen @ 11:28 PM Permalink | | Wednesday, October 1, 2008 Photoshop Wednesday Listening to: Robin Thicke - Magic 
So I'm just sitting here at lunch, staring at the computer, surfing internet pages and I come across this picture of Obama with his daughter on a bumper cars ride. It's a really nice photo and it really looks like they're having fun. So, in the same spirit of things, I decided to have some fun too. 
This one was the extremely obvious choice to Photoshop. I mean, seriously, it's Obama Kart. You know why he's going to win? Change. That's why. 
Nickelback is the greatest band in the world. Liz Lemon's ex-boyfriend enjoys Nickelback. I enjoy Nickelback. Presidential candidate Barack Obama also enjoys Nickelback. I mean have you heard their new song Gotta Be Somebody? This is like U2 on steroids. I would give my left testicle to be in one of their music videos. You cannot spell "music" without "Nickelback"... and if you try, you're a Communist. Here are some of the other ones I found on the internet that I thought I would share with you because they made me laugh and shake my belly, like a bowl full of crickets.   
And finally, I purchased a SIGG stainless steel water bottle the other day and decked it out with TANKMEN stickers. TANKMEN is one of the greatest Flash cartoons I have ever seen and I became a fanboy instantly, purchasing an urban vinyl statue and stickers to go in my Lisa Frank Sticker Book. You gotta have it! 
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