Friday, August 17, 2007

Quick Hits - Aug. 17, 2007

Sometimes, I can't think of anything to write about but I have lots of tiny things scurrying in my head that couldn't make a post by themselves. Mebbe I should just lump it together and put things up. Here are a few things that I've found and have been running through my mind lately:

--Chocolate kills dogs.

--David Beckham finally scores in the MLS in his first game as a starter after weeks of sitting on the bench with an injury. Beautiful goal, too! Watch how he curls the ball from right to left. Good stuff from a guy who's only been to one practice. He also sets up Landon Donovan on a nice pass for a semi-breakaway goal.



Definitely better than the time Becks tried to play American Football.



--Everyone knows I love the Pittsburgh Penguins. After all, what other team can boast of a mascot that stood toe to toe against Jean Claude Van Dam?



--Finally.. a topic that's always bugged me as an athlete: Cheerleaders.

I've always been from the school of thought that cheerleaders are generally useless in the context of the actual sport.

I don't doubt that they're athletes themselves, but their contributions to the actual sport are fairly minimal and they usually just serve as eye candy for the fans.

Leave it up to hockey to make them useful. Ladies and gentlemen, the Ice Girls:

Not only do they meet the prerequisite for being eye candy,

They also have the grace and athleticism of figure skaters.

So what sets them apart from your normal cheerleader?

That's right... they actually clean the ice. If that isn't finding a utilitarian purpose for cheerleaders, I don't know what is.

Thank you, Ice Girls for being the best and most hardworking cheerleaders in sports.

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Tuesday, August 7, 2007

Minesweeper: The Movie

Minesweeper!!! Looks better than most video game movies, anyway...

Sunday, August 5, 2007

Light

So I finally sat down this afternoon and took good long look at a piece that I stopped working on four months ago because it just wasn't going anywhere. I always felt it was missing an important ingredient to make it work: lighting. I just didn't know how to implement it.

Lighting has always been tricky for me and I've never fully understood it. I've always glossed over it and never really cared much about how much it adds to mood. I think I just might be starting to appreciate the difference after this afternoon, though:

Click to enlarge

Definitely a big improvement in just a few hours of playing around with light. It's still not done and it looks like mud 'cause I've been using only soft brushes so far and haven't begun to define the details, but it's a good step forward. Who knows? Maybe I'll finish this before StarCraft II comes out.