Where pop culture meets geek culture and they make out a little.
Posts tagged Miscellaneous Links
Late Thursday Normality
May 1st
Thank you Facebook, not only have you allowed me to waste my time adding virtual books to my profile, now I am officially a Werewolf fighting Vampires, and a Ninja fighting Pirates. I’m one fierce Wereja, bitches!
Anyway, my friends count is up to 9…which really isn’t that high, and when I see that some of my friends have like 150 friends I start feeling a little insecure. But I have assurances that Gilgrim will be joining…well, I sent him an invite…
Here’s something you’ll actually be interested in: WEBCOMICS! Gilgrim just sent me the rough of tomorrow’s strip and I have to say, it shall be most awesomely righteous. And, hold your pants, it’s topical.
One other thing I wanted to share, over the last month we’ve gotten a decent amount of traffic from Canada, England (go Three Lions!), and Australia (Socceroos, oh yeah). Just wanted to mention it because most of our traffic comes from the US, of course (California, and…Minnesota, Kerri?), but it’s cool that people in other countries are checking stuff out. If you’re reading this, and you’re not in the US (or, even if you are for that matter), and you’re not totally repulsed by our “low brow” standards, why not leave a comment…come on, you know you want to…
The Hives – Die, All Right
Venture Bros Season 3 Updated Video!
Apr 24th
The video above is the official and *clean* version, not the regular handheld panel discussion version of the new bits and pieces of promo goodness for the upcoming Venture Bros Season 3, as released by one young Jackson Publick on his official LJ blog.
–Aleister
The Adicts – Two Two Two-Timing Me
Venture Bros! Season 3 Preview!
Apr 23rd
Venture Bros Season 3 is finally coming, as this exclusive preview from the recent NYCC demonstrates!
–Aleister
The Adicts – I Want To Marry A Lighthouse Keeper
Apparently, NAMBLA is fine in other countries
Apr 21st
A very disturbing, NAMBLA styled vid… all I can say is OMGWTF? O_O
Don’t blame me, if you’re disturbed… I’m just passing on the strangeness. /sigh only on the net would we find something like this…
–Aleister
VNV Nation – Fearless
Because I’m a whore! A whore I say!
Apr 17th
I just noticed this link in the backend of our NR site (where we check secret-y numbers and alchemical prophecies to attempt to gleam why you’re reading our garbage) when i noticed this link from the Trickster Online Revolution fansite, Mytrickster:
In answer to the Tricksters who’ve been posting on this thread, wow O_O and thank you! In answer to at least one poster, yeah if I wasn’t reading MyTrix before, I probably will now… because, like the title says, I am a whore for good attention.
Carry on, as you were,
–Aleister
Aesop Rock – None Shall Pass
Well look who’s here… or is he?
Apr 16th
‘allo to all! Yes I know I haven’t really been around much lately, but I have the greatest excuse ever! No seriously, it really is, short of my own death, I think the birth of my own son would be the only acceptable reason for me to be so blatantly absent from the beloved Normalinauts. At any rate, I am returning, there are certainly webcomics in the future and of course, if at all possible I will be uploading some picks of the incredible monkey-toed life form what came from APrilhead’s belly on April 6th 2008…. he’s adorable, so wait for it – Salem Ezra Grey!
In the meantime, I’ve been asked (oddly enough) what it is I actually do for a living. Good question, erm, not entirely sure exactly what to say to that other than the fact that I work in the vid-game industry, specifically for a company known as NtreevUSA (which by the nationalistic abbreviation at the back-end I’m sure you can deduce that it is part of another company, that being Ntreev proper/[Korea]). What we do is publish online vid-games, specifically Trickster Online Revolution and Grand Chase. While I’m sure not everyone is an avid gamer, or particularly interested in PC/online titles themselves… someone did ask, so this is what I do. I’ve made the comic guides for both games live on the relevant websites thereof, and until the end of 2007 committed a full color, weekly webcomic known as MegaloLife for the TricksterOnlineRevolution website (it was cancelled – still not sure ‘why’ exactly… let your imaginations run wild as you will).
But all of that aside, one of the other things I do, is sort of ‘cool hunting’ to quote Gibson, which is looking for current trends as well as predicting plausible projections both short and long term for the vid-game industry itself. One of the ways that I do this is to watch the current stable of industry spurned news from across the internet. I do this every. single. day. without fail, and over all it does a nice job of at least keeping me up to date on the current stories of interest. And since I figure that there are likely some other vid-game enthusiasts out there in Normaliland I thought it might be fun to try posting some of my little findings here on NR proper. This is an experiment and may or may not be continued depending on interest. After all, if no one cares about this, I won’t be hurt, but I’m not going to keep throwing it in your face either. So here it is, my lovingly titled GameNewsOfInterest (or GNoI) for today, April 16th, 2008, unabridged, unedited and all for you:
Welcome to the wonderful world of GNoI, your daily source for the industry news you crave, without all of the pesky, time-consuming and likely damage-inflicting and possibly dangerous web browsing. That’s right, we take the damage for you, so you don’t have to. Think of GNoI as your own personal meat-shield in the dangerous abyss of the vid-game industry news and more… but don’t think that hard, it is afterall, time to read some news:
The EU has finally approved Vivendi to fully merge with Acitvision. The apocalypse is nigh to be sure, and EA really has to be feeling burned on the whol being snubbed by Take2 thing now.
The Sims (combined of course amongst all iterations) has passed the 100m mark in worldwide sales, which is really, and simply crazy, because it’s, well, the Sims… /sigh
Variety is getting in on the GTAIV fever, and has predicted a return of $400m in the first week for the title. Gee, um thanks, Variety, now how about that whole Firefly show that you essentially ignored and helped to kill….?
NC Soft has just introduced their own online currency, the NCcoin. A little astonished that it took them this long to come out with a real micro-transaction currency all of their ownsome.
Dev house and notable game creator of yesteryear, Petroglyph in partnership with TrueGamesInteractive will be creating and releasing f2p games with the usual micro-transaction model attached.
CCP is all over the recent leak of the source code for EVE, and is making sure to a, well, assure the players that even though the code is out and can be manipulated, it won’t present any unfair advantages for hackers in-game.
The unlikely and uncanny VW juggernaut, BuildABear is still at it, making even stronger ties and tie-ins between the created v-space and the real-world stores. Currently on offer is the ability to watch supermullet-Cyrus-spawned-Hannah-Montanna footage… this is why we don’t have teley in the Gilgrim household.
Animax has announced a new Branded Entertainment Div, to work in conjuncture with UInplugged TV and create Animax Unplugged. The hope is that this will allow a better focus both on internal IPs as well as expansion into multi-platform[media] outlets and tie-ins down the road. Like we need more Ty crap anywhere let alone online…
And now to conlude today’s daily GNoI report, as we do every day in honor of the proud tradition of one John Stewart, here it is, your moment of zen. Today’s zen includes, Yahtzee, YHTBTR, Special-kiddie-firendly-Sonic-smokes and a little bit of Bailey.
Begin Zen integration now:
YouHaveToBurnTheRope a simple game with a great ending theme.
Sonic is all about promoting youth tobacco use… next up, Night Train?
–Aleister
My Chemical Romance – Thank You For The Venom
PS
Kilian has an original piece of artwork that I made for him on his birthday (when the drunken Cranium was played) and he’s supposedly looking for a scanner to use in order to share it with the digital world at large… If you want to see it, pester him, or give him a scanner. And if you’re giving away things, don’t forget me, I want things, I have a kid now afterall…
I wear my sunglasses at night~!
Feb 15th
Yep Absinthe bar, masks, and art… all in one place ^__^
–Aleister
The Misfits – Last Caress
And for fun, here’s an interview with ONRPG for my company’s new game, Grand Chase ^__^ it’s me!!!
progress
Feb 8th
I know I haven’t been around that much lately, and as lame of a blogging cliche as that is, it still holds true. I don’t have a lot of time right now, for a large variety of reasons which I’m not going to go into at this point, but I did want to drop a line quickly to prove that I still breathe in and out… at least to the point that I can operate a keyboard here and there. So here’s a succinct rundown of important events in my life and the Gilgrim family:
- Baby Shower was Awesome
- Day Job is changing… oddly in fact, but moving forward in its own weird ways
- Goliath and I have been reunited – at least as far as he is back where he belongs, on my desk
- Moving to Tustin and leaving Fullerton far behind in about 2 weeks
- Sorting through all of the gifts and duplicates for Salem from the shower and preparing for our son’s arrival
- Finally took some ‘tummy’ pics of the lovely APrilhead and our beautiful child-thing growing in her stomach
- Crunching away at the GN project
- Was given the opportunity for a new project (a flash game)
- Completed a 15 pg comic-guide for Grand Chase in less than 4 days
- The beard is on its way back
- Missing some of my friends
- Legal pronouncements regarding my previous life have been finalized – I’m free!
- Rediscovering my love for horror film once more
- My little Vaio monitor at home is about to die suddenly
- The Cemeterians looks like it will be collected in a full-blown trade
- Planning on painting again, it’s been a year since I last did, which is more than overdue now
- Began a strange relationship with crossword puzzles via APrilhead
- Being very excited about becoming a father within the next 7 or 8 weeks
- Starting to draw again, learning to enjoy it again, slowly
- Cranking the Adicts, the Horrorpops and the Misfits in my earphones at work
- Paying bills, starting bank accounts, and trying to become a proper adult (not the same as grownup) for the sake of being a proper father
- Not moving to Seattle just yet
- Loving APrilhead more and more every single day
–Aleister
The HorrorPops – Crawl Straight Home
A little experiment… sorta
Jan 5th
Happy Saturday Normalinauts!
I have found a ‘Threadless-like’ company that has come up and is trying to do something very similar it seems. It’s V2W (Vote 2 Wear, I believe), and with a format seemingly identical to the NakedNoMore trend setter before them, it should be a home for artists and designers to show their stuff, and to have it considered for final production. And how do the pieces get considered for printing (on shirts usually) ? By the power of voting!
Now isn’t that a novel idea? I mean, especially in light of our recent surge of seriousness here at the NR, where we’ve been scrambling to decipher what options our vote will have in the upcoming elections in less then a yea, and figuring out which candidates are best, or at least the most likely nominees… but for those decisions, since we’re in a Republic, we don’t actually get direct say all the time. So everyone scrambling for Obama, Clinton, Kerri, Huckabee, and Ron Paul to make it through the party primers and primaries, really are sitting on their hands. Oddly enough this country is touted in the public eye (ask most people on the street) as a Democracy, which we’re not, we’re a Republic, slight difference and it was done on purpose.
But if you really want a taste of Democracy, just like you had it in High School when you were voting for class leaders or for Prom themes, then here’s your chance to do just that!
Currently, I have 2 designs up on V2W that have been ‘approved’. The contest sections that they were submitted for haven’t opened up yet, but just the same, here’s the picks:
Now Like I said, I don’t think these are up and running just yet. But there’s a good chance that they will be in a week or so, as for now they are ‘approved’ and no longer ‘pending approval’… I think the ‘Battle’-ing as it is coined on the V2W website, will begin on our around January 16th. It really does cost nothing to vote or sign-up and since I’ve joined the site, I haven’t had any Spam or Junk (yet) so hopefully they’ll keep that up. But remember the best part, you get to decide what stuff gets made and what stuff doesn’t — that direct sort of voice being heard isn’t too common these days ^__^ so let’s go experience it together shall we! And besides, should my designs win, I get some money, and right now I need money. . . thank you!
–Aleister
Atreyu – Bleeding Mascara
An End of a Year : An End of an Era
Dec 31st
This was completed last Thursday, and seems to have finally gone up today… all in all I was surprised by the cancellation of the series, but the reasons for the cancellation are, well, not evident at this time. However, I was lucky enough to be able to put together one final strip in order to say goodbye to all of the wonderful readers who stuck it out and came back week after week for the 30+ installments. To all that have been reading the series and allowed me, April, Wednesday and even our son, Salem, to be a part of your lives – and to all of those who enjoyed the strips, thank you, very, very much.
So here it is, the final installment of Megalo Life – for Trickster Online Revolution.
And so 2007 closes today, and with it this weekly webcomic serial. Thank you again to everyone who showed their support, if you would like to leave comments for the series itself, please do so in the actual comments section for the Megalo Life series at the bottom of the URL link as I will be reading them there.
See you all next year!
–Aleister
Because we care…
Dec 13th
…about our own egos! Vote for us! Vote! Vote! Vote!
We need love T_T
And because Killian is unable to find the ranking page on the Webcomic List, I figured I’d just rub it in a little.
Exsulis