Someting Weird's Going On

Yesterday I listened to nearly my entire collection of Weird Al CDs. The only one I didn't listen to was Straight Outta Lynwood, which was down in the car and I didn't feel like going to get it. That was 10 CDs that I listened to in total, which means I have 11 Weird Al CDs.

I did this for two reasons: one, because I hadn't listened to some of the CDs in a while and decided I wanted two, and two, to serve as background music whilst writing my latest FASS scene and doing other assorted chores.

It's interesting hearing not only how Weird Al has developed over the years, but how the popular songs and styles have changed over the years since each Weird Al CD more or less gives a snapshot of the popular musical stylings of the day.

Anyway, that is all.

Freak Out,
-TFitC

Drawring Time

This is about a week and a half or so after the fact, but I sat down and did some drawing recently, which is something I'd not done in a while but had been meaning to do. There was a reason for this, beyond just wanting to draw. I've been reading "Understanding Comics" and "Making Comics" by Scott McCloud, recommended by my supervisor as part of background reading for my research. (Incidentally, I think it's incredibly cool to be in a field where I can read about comics and call it "research".) Anywho, I decided I wanted to try to make some observations on how I drew stuff, so I sat down to draw something:


I decided to deliberately leave the drawing unfinished as I think it gets the point across. The notes on the image are more or less legible (should be able to click on it for the full size) so I won't reiterate them here, except for the one marked with a star.

Star: this arrow is pointing at the fold in the sleeve. I had considerable difficulty figuring out how the sleeve should fold and, I'm quite sure, got it completely wrong. This did, however, make me wonder how good people are at recognizing when something like this isn't correct. How much, if any, innate understanding of how fabrics behave to people have? In other words, how many corners could you cut in simulating, rendering or animating fabric before people noticed that something was off?

Also, there's something called the "uncanny valley" when referring to near-photorealistic renderings of human faces. The basic idea is that there is a point where a computer generated image is very close to being realistic, but not quite fully realistic, and it starts looking creepy because humans are very good at recognizing faces so we start picking up on all the things that aren't quite right, but when things are a bit less realistic our brains are more willing to tolerate the imperfectoins, presumably because it's working at a more abstract level at that point. Do similar things exist with other things, like the folds in cloth?

I don't know the answers to any of this, but it was interesting to think about nonetheless.

Freak Out,
-TFitC

Continuing Adventures in Proctology

It's a week late, but last Monday I did my proctoring for the final exam for the course I was TAing this term. Now, as I've said before, proctoring is boring, but this was a 9AM exam and the proctors were supposed to arrive at 8:30AM which meant I had to wake up at around 6:30AM, ugh. I suppose I shouldn't complain as I tended to wake up at 6:30AM on weekdays when I was working full time, so it's not like I'm not used to it. The luxure to not have to wake up that early has just spoiled me, I guess. Anyway, point is, proctoring is still boring and it's even more boring when it's early in the morning.

In related news, it looks like I'll be TAing the undergrad graphics course for the fall term so I'm actually kind of looking forward to that.

Freak Out,
-TFitC

Sounds of Summer

As I was walking to school yesterday, I heard (or at least noticed) for the first time various insect noises and thought to myself: "It's finally summer!"

That is all.

Freak Out,
-TFitC

Freak Band!

I recently had a chance to play Rock Band 2 and, I have to say, it was quite fun. Not really surprised there since I rather enjoy the Guitar Hero games, and it's essentially the same thing with some extra instruments added to the mix.

I found it quite interesting how they handled the singing. It doesn't match words, but it matches pitch and duration or, in the case of one song that I attempted to rap along to (badly), noise being made at the right moment. I did happen to score 100% for the rap (on medium), in the sense that I must have made noises at the right times, however anyone listening who didn't know what was going on would likely have tought I was drunk or somesuch.

Fun stuff.

Freak Out,
-TFitC

A Civilization of Freaks?

I had the urge to play Civilization recently. Not the original Civilization, as I've never actually played it. Rather, I decided to install Civ 4 onto my laptop. I'd gotten Civ 4, oh, probably not long after its release, though I don't really remember for sure, and for one reason or other, never really played it. Probably got distracted with other things, or something. So, like I said, I decided to install it Thursday night and play it for a bit.

And then a bit more.

And then some more...

Aaaaaand then for just a bit more.

You might be seeing where this is going. I ended up playing until about 4:30 AM. Lucky for me I didn't have to go anywhere so I could afford to sleep in. It's been a while since I'd played any version of Civilization so I'd forgotten how addictive it could be with that "just one more turn" effect.

So, yeah, generally a pretty good game, at least in my opinion.

Freak Out,
-TFitC

Sand, Surf and Freaks

The civic holiday was this past weekend. I don't really know what the civic holiday is supposed to be for, really - to me it's always just been a day off. But that's ok! I like days off.

On the Friday evening I saw the new Harry Potter movie (#6). I enjoyed it, though I thought they could have probably spent a bit more time on the backstory around Voldemort and the horcruxes since those will be important for The Deathly Hallows. Though, last I heard, the last book will be turned into two movies so I suppose there'll be plenty of time to cover those.

On Saturday I went to the beach with a couple of friends. This was really one of the first beach-worthy weekends we've had this summer. The drive was longer than I remembered, but it was definately I nice day for it. 'Twas a pleasantly lazy day at the beach.

The rest of my weekend was fairly uneventful, though I did get some project work done. Hopefully the rest of August will be nice and I'll have a chance to get out and do some more hiking and stuff - well, what passes for hiking around here, anyway. As I have often lamented, it's really just going for a stroll in the woods, compared to anything involving mountains.

Anyway, Freak Out,
-TFitC