Hey everyone!

Hope all is well in Second Life and your other gaming worlds. I've been responding to my Second Life messages through my email. So feel free to continue contacting me in Second Life. I'm counting down the days I have left in Iraq! and cannot wait to get back home.
Take care fellow g33ks!

finally! Internet!

So much for trying to catch up with Massively.com, every time I try to access it, the page will start to load, than crash. With all the filters on every computer and limited access here, the only place I've been able to get gaming news is CNN. Well and also the magazines they have at the PX. On a differant dorkie note, I bought all kinds of goodies for when I get home – Special thanks to Newegg.com, Cyberguys.com and some other website I found in one of those magazines. It's going to be like a super geeks Christmas. Only 1 more month in Iraq w00t!

Also I've been trying to keep up with friends on my facebook and myspace, but the Internet is so temperamental here, its damn near impossible. So if you guys are reading the blog, WHATS UP! As for NaturalSelectionStudios.com the site will still be down for at least 2 more months. After it got hacked for no reason – I have a lot of recovering to do and a backing up when I get home. Hopefully I can still get a lot of my “unfinished videos” off my old hard drive since it also took a dump.

On the bright side my college course is over in 1 week, and I'm one more class away from my degree. I've gathered over 60 gigs of music from everyone at work here. Oh and I got to see the new Batman, WALL-E, and Wanted (which is an awesome movie).

Think I'm done with this little update because it has at least taken me an hour to do it with this Internet.
Later days!

+1 for Addictions

Last night I found out something that me and our commander have in common, and thats “Scrubs”. Before I left me and Jen watched seasons 1-3, last night I found out our commander has 4-6 with him. Like a catatonic hospital patient, I sat and watched seven and a half hours worth of scrubs last night. To top it off, one of the other guys bought seasons 1-3 of House. After watching 4 hours of House today, I realized I might have a problem, I'm addicted to smart ass hospital shows. Yes this does also include Gray's Anatomy, that was the time I cheated on Scrubs. Never the less I quickly found my self relating to Zack Braff from Scrubs once again, and wishing I was a level 23 wizard master like him. Instead im a level 70 Dwarf Hunter in World of Warcraft, which is like saying i'm 53 in a kids hacky sack race.

Which reminds me I have a research paper I need to write, what is it on? I thought you'd never ask – video game addiction! Not saying I have one, I'm more of a virtual world addict. But I'm also addicted to bubble wrap and putting pens in my ear. Which does remind me of the time I got fired from my job. It was the first 3 days I played Second Life, didn't sleep for either day, I decided to stroll into work randomly during the week. Hey I was living with my parents still DONT JUDGE ME!

Time to go and pretend to write my paper! One more class and I have my degree! YAY! No idea what hell I'm going to do with it ... but hell why not!
Later days fellow addicts!

Holy BaJesus! ... and other stuff

First off how the hell does someone get sick in Iraq? the past three days I somehow came down with the cold. I only brought one other person down with me and that was my supervisor, would have been better to get someone else sick other than him of all people.

BTW I probably have PTSD now, but not from war. So I'm leaning against a wall in our office, which is a poorly constructed wood mess. All of a sudden I head the chattering of feet run past my ear, much like the noise "Thing" makes from the Adams Family. As I freak out and jump back from the wall, I realize its a damn camel spider the side of my entire hand, fingers and all! almost wetting my self at the thought of it centimeters from my ear, so I high kicked the wall like a cartoon character loosing his balance. never the less, on July 16th "Mr Wiggles" died via boot in the face. Here I though they only ate bugs, but yes they eat lizards and anything else they can find.

In other news... Me and Jen might be working with Harold/Solent University again! I don't want to put all my eggs in one basket, but it does involve Second Life and the power of awesome (that's right, the Nintendo 1989 Power Glove).

I wont be updating as much as I wanted to, blogger.com was just banned on our network at work. In any case I'll hit up the NWR now and than to keep it going.

Keep it real everyone! and later days.

The Google Metaverse

Wow I should be guying some Google stock right now if I could afford it. I just read an awesome article talking about Google starting up a metaverse with Google Earth. It also makes me want to read Snow Crash. This is nothing new though, Google Earth originally was created to become ground work for a video game metaverse idea. One of the major problems I see off the bat is all the legal battles. Of course Google would say "We are not accountable for what you create and upload, and you do so at your own risk". But once you have hundreds of thousands of people creating copyright material, its hard to keep up. Just like how YouTube has 10 hours worth of video uploaded every minuet, so they have released a statement "we try to police it the best we can". It will also be interested to see when laws start getting passed that apply to metaverses. I believe it was England (either way it was another country and not the US), who passed a law regarding child age play in a sexual manner. This is just the tip of the iceberg for "wrongful" activity that goes on in Metaverse.

It’s a board topic though. And it would be very exciting if such an event as google buying Second Life, or if they created a better world. I have a feeling it wouldn’t include free building and uploading options to create whatever you wanted. Google seems to always have their projects pretty well under control. And letting a wild society such as ourselves :) loose in a free world like Second Life (that didn’t crash) may be too much for them to handle.

I also went mail out the Iraq coke bottles filled with sand but they had a problem with me mailing our organic material... In any case they said I could take it in a bag I checked in under the plane hah. That way I can hook Eric, Sonny, and the parents up with a little something.

The new Batman comes out tonight! ENJOY IT!!!
-Later days homies

E3 2007 w007!

For 3 days now G4 has been covering the E3 gaming convention for hours on end. Couple things made me go WTF? I thought little big world came out all ready, considering a demo was release almost 2 years ago for it. Banjo Kazooie still isnt ever worth playing, yet they decided to make a new one. And they really need to stop talking about releasing games early as hell, because they’ve been working on HOME for Playstation since 2005 and were all ready hyping it up. Its just annoying as hell cause they’re a bunch of gaming cock-teasers.

A new F.E.A.R. is also coming out along with a shit load of other bad ass FPS. Gotta say this is defiantly one of those games you have to play in the dark, because its just that much more fun. They have a new Mech suit in the game, along with continuing the story where it left off. Where that crazy little girl is still alive after a wicked explosion. Its such a great era for seeing how games develop. Cant wait to see how video games will be in 10 years.

So the computer at home still can’t connect to the internet. I have to baby it when I get back home, just a little bit more time now! the closer it gets the slower it seems though. When we first got here the days just went flying by. I’m gonna head out cause I plan on mailing out some Haji Iraq coke bottles, fill em up with Iraq sand or something. I went to mail out Haji cans to Eric and Rico but they turned me down at the post office, and gave me that "wtf" look. I than responded with the crazy eyes until they wet them self’s.

-Later days fellow gamers!

NaturalSelectionStudios.com Hacked

So some jerk-ass hacked the NSS site. Why? who knows because its not like we've been keeping it updated 24/7. Still, we were hitting 17k hits (on a high) a month somehow which is really cool. I took a screenshot before I had the website taken offline.

I took the website down in June, that why the site hit such a low so fast. Ever since, I've been trying to find a way to get filezilla working in Iraq to upload everything, but that’s a no-go. In any case a LOT is going on and nothing can be done until I get back from Iraq. Also TODAYS MY BIRTHDAY!!! yay!!! *does a booty dance* birthday in Iraq w00t w00t.

On another totally random subject - I took No Xplode today ... I've come to the conclusion its pure Columbia heroin. Every minuet I was at the gym, I didn’t even want to stop to take a rest. My body wanted to work out faster than I could even breath. It was pretty wicked though because for a while now I haven’t felt like working out, and that stuff really gives you a good kick in the ass to go out and do it. Coolest thing to is that it has nothing to do with caffeine. It’s a hyper..blah blah something that makes your blood vessels bigger so more blood gets to your muscles. Than also has this other energy magic boost stuff in it. Lets just say – it tells you not to open the container for 15 minuets even after you open it.

So I’m debating on bringing NSS (renamed) into the real world instead of just in virtual worlds. Granted we've worked with some great companies and big names; like Boomer Esiason, Infident Mind, we were in Vox Pop Magazine (French) 2 pages, and worked with our good friend H. Fricker with Kent University, who invited us to give a speech at South Hampton University. But sitting down all day at a computer really get dull after a while, and it’s hard to keep your drive up. Jen and I have been talking about it a little here and there, so who knows what will happen or what we decide. Oh and the show G4 rules, they’ve been playing it like crazy here in Iraq haha.

~Later day’s fellow gamers!

WOW I have not posted in forever, I just bought a HD cam so I might be doing a video blog like jen is. Bought it to to do some movies for work and some other random fun ideas. SO who knows when Ill post next, will try soon with the videos.

NDA Lifted! WooT!

Took a nap and woke up to an NDA being lifted! an angel just got its wings!
So in that case heres the video I did for em :)
Youtube Link
Quicktime
Windows Media
Also this means OPEN BETA for everyone! so for those who wanted to play the game now is your chance. Its a bit odd how they set it up and the times people can join, you can read about it here.
I also changed our banner where it says "The Second Life filming company" because we don't just film in second life and never really have.Heres the NDA and Beta informationZINGAnd heres Massively's fun post about it.

For those who are on the PotBS forums, heres the post link its at along with wicked comments from players after watching the video :D
Closed Beta Thread
Open Beta Thread

England toilets rule

No kidding, they go crazy shooting water everywhere...
Anyways! We went over to tree's and Sox this weekend and had some uber British food. Went to the store and gawked at there food of different sorts. It was pretty sweet and I wanted to buy everything, only ended up buying a couple things instead.

Finished the video this weekend =) had a lot of fun with it. And Ill be able to post it tomorrow as the NDA clause gets dropped. So far a lot of great responses from the beta forums cause I can at least show it there right now!

About to go to bed when I realized I haven't blogged in forever, as I recover from my sausage coma after eating so much last night. Swear they put sausage in every damn thing and i'm not arguing a single bit lol. LOVE IT. Was the dads birthday this weekend, he's old, called him 5 hours after his birthday though =\ was close, me suck. Jesus it was 1am when we left there house last night, couldn't believe it. Just got cough up in all the hanging out madness. Gotta head out so I can arrive at this work place tomorrow, in exchange for currency to buy useless things and human upkeep consumables.

The Wombats in SL - CHECK YO SELF CRACKA!

So we were contacted through email to film a Wombats gig going on, that they wanted a rough cut video of what it would be like if they did a music video in game. Well ended up finding it was the producer of The Wombats. Who we worked with once before, and the wombats got back to them saying they wanted the glasses added to there avatar. Just because its there "thing", So of course I re-edited it and spent way more time on it, filming it like a real music video than just a simple "rough cut" so i'm sure they will enjoy that. However we cant show it anywhere to the public because they do own right to the song and will be using it for there own purposes which we have all ready discussed with them. Good to hear they're all ready looking to film another in Second Life regarding there "Coming to America" album. So sorry i cant show it yet, Ill see when I can. heres there Myspace though if you are not familiar with them, its a band from Liverpool.

Were also currently working on a Mika video - VERY excited to finish it. It does however have NOTHING to do with Mika, it will be just a fun video we are doing, and will not own rights to the song... I mean it doesn't hurt asking though when we finish it right? heh we'll see. I'm working with another Machinima artist Michelle who's doing some Sims 2 footage Ill be adding. Cant wait to show you guys =)

Machinima confrance Yay!

So last night was my first Skype Machinima conference, they've been doing it for a while now but I just started hearing about it from Moo. Was pretty fun, hell me and Ben ranted for 8 1/2 hours lol. YaY for making new friends. So I see where a lot of them come from and its cool to put voices with the names and actually get to know the other homies.

Blogging mostly cause im waiting for the new patch, Yarrrr ironic? patch, ha ha... ha
Oh and waiting for my project to render in after effects which is taking an hour.. lol
YaY! for Saturday, another day chilling at the computer I guess doing stuff, guess were not going out this weekend. Might actually get around and decorate MY side of the office today lol, we have a buncha stuff from the gaming convention in London that was last month I can put up and some other goodies from the UK Machinima fest and our little E-Learning fair lecture we gave. So SEXY PARTY!

Happy Turkey Day!

Gobble Gobble

Hey hey, thats right im actually attempting to keep up on my blog that I usually slack on keeping up. First off im 1/2 way done with the music video which most of you reading all ready know about and were probably in it. Having a ball in after effects with it and may be filming on some more platforms. Ive been preoccupied by beta testing a game that comes out in 2 months... still the disclosure says I cannot say im in the beta test but as long as you don't know which game it is i'm fine... but I must say, I do love pirates Yarrrr, oh and... I don't get sea sick.... and I saw the first 2 movies but not the 3ed .... oh and the game ... isn't the movie game (cause that looks lame as all hell) but a different Yarrrr kinda game....
Hope I didn't give it away =) in any case I didn't say the title!!!
please don't sue me..

I just got done re filming some things for the Wombats gig. If you live in the UK you know who the band "The Wombats" are as they are form liver pool. Apparent they are big in America too because they are releasing there next CD called "coming to America" which they have all ready talked about us filming in Second Life. Mostly because the lead singer is a SL resident and active, than they made it big in the band, so now they are having the producers pay for a video to be done -- by us! =D

Talked with the family for a couple hours today which felt good. Talked to my brother more than ive talked with him in the hole year I think, but thats pretty normal. During the holidays I miss being there and all, but ive just been cough up with everything going on here, going out and everything. That I know i'll be back in IL again eventually , but I'd rather have them come here for the opportunity. Considering they don't have to pay for any of the other fee's tourist have, not to add the "on base" connection. If any time is to time to travel, its now especially. Which my dad said he'll be check up on it this weekend if they're open, if not Monday. And being the procrastinator I am, I know i got it from him =P

Sucks though not being in this situation before, away from the family for years on end in another country. Ancestors have done it forever now, but in our family tree there isn't anyone close who's been in the military in forever, or even close to compare it to. For the holiday though we do have 4 days off and we went for the squadron thanksgiving where we brought a carrot cake Jen made, and some pop. Hung out with bill, talked about gaming, marriage, specifically buying presents for the holidays and keeping the hole "surprise" a factor, and other comical moments. Food was good as hell though... lol bought a bunch home.

Well later days, glad I posted! hah trying to keep up.

Whoooo update time!!

Unedited Random catch up!

Alright sorry I'm the worst blogger ever as I've been told.
SO the machinima conference we gave went great! we than hung out with the director of it a few weeks later and went out all over London. Later me and Jen went to see Wicked, which was pretty awesome! at the Apollo. Saw the 10 bells pub, what else... lol LOADS went on that I should of been blogging and went into detail about. Oh yea! while me Jen and Harold were walking to a place to eat this car was turning going 10 miles per hour and its wheel came off! guy even parked it as the wheel hit some Benz. That was about 10 feet from us which was cool. We had dinner with Sox Tree and their kid which was cool and had a lot of fun. Played halo and they got a kick out of baloney how its like a smashed round hot dog.

And up to now I'm Beta testing a new game which i all ready pre-ordered (cant give the title). Love to do a machinima in it but they still have lots of work to do. Would be wicked if I could get on a development team focusing on the machinima aspect. Anyways probably all ready talking to much about it.

Would be fun, anyways had to update to say im still alive, I've been working with Leah who's doing artist work for the NSS site. and posted some open position to the NSS Second Life team. all in all that the majority =D unless i think of more randomly...

Womp!

Wow its amazing how much time I have free now to do whatever. Before hand it was coming home, hanging out with Jen for a little bit, and than needing to edit or film a wedding or business video. Before hand we did them to raise money, for a new computer, professional microphone, mixing board, another computer… hah, well now we’ve done that, and its cool as hell. So now we can continue to do what we’ve been trying to do, our own videos. Example, its almost a year now we did the N00b be gone videos which were big hit. But after the 2ed episode, that’s when we started getting all the company work and more weddings. Right now were finishing up on some last project which half way into Nov should they all be done. I’m sure I wont resist doing small one here and there just for the hell of it. We’ve all ready had to turn down 4 and its only been a week.

So while I finish doing those videos, I’m working step by step towards getting ready to start some of our new projects. We just posted a contest looking for some artist work for the site, NSS, or even a new name we may begin going under. Its great though knowing I have so much time now, I can focus on one project and brainstorm more with it, or figure out what should be done next. Hopefully we can pull it off =) even at work now I have more time to myself to do whatever, only thing I know is that it wont be like this permanently, so ill take advantage of the time while I can.

Still haven’t signed up for this quarters classes yet, not sure if I really want to either cause im not enjoying them. Maybe it’s the teachers or just the class but taking management sucked. Not the test or class material, but because your forced to think just one way, or forced to “think inside the box” which my entire life I cant recall doing that once… anytime I see an idea I automatically try and think of a more efficient way to do it or another way to go about something. Even in high school it didn’t seem it was “forced”, call me immature but maybe its just because learning about grown up stuff blows.

That’s not the main reason of course, its also because I’m currently 8 credits away from my associates in some “aerospace maintenance blah blah tech jargon” why would I want that! I hate working on planes!! Let alone spend any more time in getting a degree for them. What I’d love to do is go to the school we went to for the machinima fest. They have class’s for all the programs and editing im interested in, let alone a degree I could use along with knowledge that would be useful. Its said something like 1/3ed of your life (or 1/2 ) is spent working. Why would you want to despise all of that time doing something you dislike. Sure sometimes you may have to do it to trade in for comfort and dependability, but that’s still not guaranteed. Just like it isn’t even if you did a job you actually enjoy. *note to self, look for film colleges or editing around this area* I would almost be crazy enough just to drive 2 hours 2 days a week just to take classes there in order to get a degree in it and actually learn than waste my time with this BS.

Either way I just know I’m not going to let it stop me and continue to learn, as long as I have a connection to the internet, and a browser that doesn’t fail me, I’m set.