Art Crash, coming soon.

Just wanted to drop an early warning that next week I'll be starting another Art Crash. This one will be called Art Crash: Noir and it should end with a couple hundred black and white ink pieces being brought into the world.
If you don't know what an Art Crash is, you've got some research to do. I'd suggest looking here:

http://www.headinjurytheater.com/artcrash.htm

here:

http://www.headinjurytheater.com/artcrashmay2006.htm

and here:

http://www.headinjurytheater.com/artsmashtequila.htm

More info soon. Feel free to email me your suggestions if you can't want for my official "please suggest stuff" post. I'm not going to emailing celebrities as I did last time, mostly because I don't want to always harass the nice people who are kind enough to respond to some crazy painter. Some people, like American McGee were great about it...but I wouldnt' dare try to approach them again on the topic. On the plus side, this means I'll be painting more of your suggestions.

-jared

Edit: On a spooky note, I'm thinking of trying to keep the marathon going even longer than the 300 hour one. That frightens me and excites me at the same time. No promises, but the idea is getting more and more inviting all the time.

Head Injury Theater: FlashDance

I really need more free time. Last night I decided I would try my hand at a bit of Flash Animation. I'd had it on my computer for some time now and was dreading trying to figure it out.

Stupid me. It turns out Flash is the inbred cousin of all those video editing programs I had to use in film school. So while the details were different, the program itself was exactly like those that I was familiar with. The hard part was figuring out how to properly get something that I'd painted animated. You know, because if I animated anything, it'd have to be watercolors.

That doesn't mean that I made anything great, but if you see it you'll be able to figure out what's on the horizon.

http://www.headinjurytheater.com/flashtest.htm

Gaze with horror at my 1st (well, technically 2nd) attempt at Flash.

And yes, I know it sucks. But not as bad as a (sort of) 1st try should.

-jared

Secret Trivia: That's David Carradine in a gimp suit from the film Deathrace 2000, something that I'll be reviewing in the very near future.

Illustration Friday, Shadowrun.

This week's theme was "Run." Like a big dork with gaming on his mind, I was reminded of something called Shadowrun. As such, I threw together something fast with it in mind.

Well, that's that then.

On an unrelated note, I've finally gotten going on that whole "animating a movie review using Flash" project that I'd been putting off since the dawn of time. Turns out Flash is like a stupid version of Premiere or Final Cut Pro, both programs I had to use and be certified in to get my film degree. I wish someone had told me that earlier.

-jared

Cosmic Encounter, it's still around?

I'm not into online gaming that much. KoL supplies said fix, but that's sort of tongue in cheek. You know, because the game is tongue-in-cheek. That said, I AM a board/card game dork. That said, let me ramble for a second.

A while back, a friend of mine introduced me to this old out-of-print game that he found used in some gaming store's bargain bin. The game's called Cosmic Encounter and dear Lord it's incredibly addictive.

I wouldn't usually rant about a board game that's supposed to be out of print but for all purposes turns out not to be....so what's my point here?

While digging up an image of the box cover (the game features very Giger-esque awesomeness), I found out that there's apparently an online version. That you can play. For free. Sadly you have to fork over cash to play the game in its full glory (and the art/terminology is an unholy abortion of the games original beauty), but hey, it's actually the same game.

The weirder thing is I found a webpage that's just a "list of free webgames." While I'm usually completely irritated by goofy pages that are random assortments of links (and show up first when you google something), I found a page...that's a random...assortment of links. The thing that makes me share it is that four of these games have completely swallowed friend's lives and two of them almost swallowed mine a while back. A lot of them are free...but kind of suck if you're not willing to fork over cash, but whatever. Kingdom of Loathing is there, as well as a couple things that I wish weren't.

So, if you have far too much time to waste and want to be introduced to a lot of games that sound cool but you've never heard of them...take a peak.

http://www.play-free-online-games.com/games/games_all.html

Man, I wish I had more free time.

-jared

"who is resisting the urge to find out what Second Life is"

Tangent #34

Dear Lord, why the hell are stupid nicknames for celebrities becoming so popular? In particular, AOL manifests my disdain thusly:

Dear Lord. The super-retarded J-Lo and P-diddy trend is blooming across the board. I may have to start signing everything as J-Hi for real if this crap keeps up. On a slightly related note, I'm so glad they've stopped referring to Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie as "Brangelina." :sigh:

On a totally different note, we were talking about the Zodiac over here and it turns out I'm the only one who ate at enough Chinese Restaurants to recall how the thing works for me. Every explanation of the Chinese Zodiac is a little different (As in some versions I'm a Sheep rather than a Goat) so we did a quick googling and discovered:

http://www.chinatoday.com/culture/zodiac/zodiac.htm

At first glance it's just a normal Zodiac calendar. Upon closer inspection, it tells people that they'd be good at some bizarre if not extremely shitty jobs....it's all sort of surreal. Included on the list are career recommendations for: Secret Agent, Beachcomber, hairdresser, matador, etc. Even better is the occassional grammar slip:

I don't know if that first sentence is a subtle joke telling those "Monkey-born"that they're dumb as all hell, but it did make me laugh.

- J-Hi

A Radio Sanctuary (and Illustration Friday)

I found something that I enjoy far too much but before I start rambling about it like a bad salesman, here's this week's Illustration Friday picture (on a Tuesday). The theme was "Play" and for some reason a Rubix Cube came to mind.

Yes, I am aware that there aren't enough colors for that to be a real Rubix Cube.

As to the other matter, if you like free alternative radio that doesn't have any commercials by all means throw your support at Sanctuary Radio. Ever since Clear Channel Radio swallowed up every station they could find and replaced them with buckets of overly corporate audio suck, I've been looking online for a decent alternative to me listening to my playlists over and over again. Lo and behold, Sanctuary Radio bumped into me one evening and, well, all I can say is that I have trouble turning it off.

http://www.sanctuaryradio.org/

The Goth scene in Germany is a little strange...the style, culture, and scene is everywhere...but the music? All I can say is that I wish there were clubs over here that played sets as good as what I hear regularly on this particular audio-based asylum.

-jared

Edit: So. Visit the site. Tell your friends. Tell your rich friends with money, because projects like this really need to be able to succeed.

Pimp me some Fried Chicken, bitch.

I'm always nervous when I noticed something that seems like it has to be some sort of racially-motivated joke...but isn't. Or at least I don't think it is. While I was visiting Florida, I noticed a new restaurant had gone up a few blocks from where I used to live. My eyes focused upon it and my brain struggled to decipher the strange sigils that surrounded it. While I came to a rather peculiar conclusion, let me share the actual store front with you:

Dear Lord, what am I looking at?

Yes. It's a pimp selling fried chicken. How hip and urban can you get? And by that, I mean is it possible to both target and offend a racial demographic any more than this? The answer is of course yes, but that would involve a big lipped-african chicken with an afro and a nose-bone happily eating the biggest piece of watermelon you've ever seen. Either that or just changing the sign to read "Wangs & Thangs". Damn.

The Fried Chicken Pimp.

I don't know what to think of it. Maybe the terrible, stereotypical joke about black people liking fried chicken isn't offensive anymore. If that's true, it won't be long until we see Colonel Sanders get some gold fronts and some bitches....appearing on television in a Wu-Tang hoodie, letting us know where to get our "fried chicken on when we're riding dirty in the 'hood."

:shudder:

-jared

For those of you playing the home game, here's your monthly and appropriate blog flashback:

The P-Diddy McDiddy post:

http://headinjurytheater.blogspot.com/2005/09/you-want-fries-with-that-shake.html

How do you keep Clean?

Illustration Friday's theme this week was Clean. It had me thinking in all sorts of weird directions, mostly about how filth is everywhere. That idea mutated a couple times, and well, enjoy Steve here:

Oh and I'm officially officially back in Berlin again. Meaty updates abound.

-jared

www.headinjurytheater.com