O C T O B E R 0 4
The Red Sox win the World Series against the Yankees and Mike goes crazy. Andrew visits Dave in Atlanta. Dave's tire explodes. The Generic Publix Soda Test and a Lego promotional piece for a Chronicle Books workshop.
Holy Johnny Damon, the Red Sox WON THE WORLD SERIES!!!!
Q: What do you call 25 guys sitting at home watching the Red Sox win the World Series on TV?
A: The Yankees.
When the Red Sox beat the Yankees to win the real World Series, wait, I mean American League Championship, I received two phone calls congratulating me, as if I'd done something to help the Red Sox win. When I mentioned this, I was told it was for sticking with them through thick and thin and being the most die-hard (some say obsessive) Red Sox fan that most people outside of the greater New England region have ever met. Also, I think it was congratulations because my soul-less Yankee fan freinds can't taunt me with "1918" anymore. They now have the curse of the A-rod slap, and I can finally say to them, "hey, when was the last time the Yankees won the World Series?" and gloat, of course... Now, I realize that I was not born in New England, and that I'm from Buffalo, and that Buffalo is far closer to Canada than to Boston. But I adopted the Red Sox when I was three, and I think 22 years of rooting for a team disqualifies one from bandwagon jumper status. But the point is three fold: the Red Sox were one of the most fun groups of idiotic baseball players to watch in a long time, the Red Sox/Yankees series was one of the most amazingly emotional and dramatic sporting events of all time (just ahead of the gladiators at the Colliseum), and Johnny Damon is definitely going for the "Jesus look" this year.
Thursday, October 28 at 7:53 PM
Rocked The Vote
Since Portfolio Center doesn't acknowledge any holidays and I have two classes on Tuesdays, I decided to take advantage of Georgia's newly-implemented "early voting" system today. It's basically a glorified absentee ballot with polling booths instead of paper. The whole process took me FOUR HOURS. At first the line that wrapped around the government center seemed to move quickly, but, in true deceptive Disneyworld form, there were still lines once you got inside. Chic-Fil-A got smart and sent over a guy with a cart and cooler to sell sandwiches and drinks, which at least 75% of the hundreds of people in line bought. A truck also drove by the line a few times with a guy yelling "Vote Nader!" It was good to see the place packed with a diverse range of people; it seems like this election is going to have a big turnout. And now I can give my undivided attention to Wolf Blitzer on Election Day.
at 6:24 PM
Secrets of the Nougat
Classes are going well so far. The independent study class is great; definitely my favorite this quarter. After Effects has me working on a Cartoon Network holiday promo. In Type and Image, I'm making a brochure, poster and postcard series for the Kennedy Center in DC. And in Surrealist Writing and Design we really aren't sure what we're working on quite yet, but I think I'm going to somehow utilize treasure maps to promote the recently-created Americans For The Arts foundation. Some aspects of that class remind me of the time Tony Weeda and I were assigned a surrealist project in 11th grade English. We had to sketch a picture to illustrate a metaphor. Knowing we could stretch the meanings of just about anything, we randomly picked a T-Rex standing on a brick wall playing an acoustic guitar. Our teacher walked by, observed our paper, and said she loved our metaphor about the extinction of modern music...we just shook our heads silently in agreement.
Can't decide what I want to be for Halloween yet (Harry Potter is the default as usual). I was looking at a photo album the other day and remembering all the crazy things I dressed up as over the years. Batman, Superman, a pumpkin, a Crayola crayon, Mario, Link (from the Zelda video games), a Lion, a Lion Tamer, Yakko from the Animaniacs, and of course Indiana Jones. Our pumpkins always rocked because Dad was the master carver. He did this bearded sorcerer one year that was insane. Jujyfruits were my favorite candy, followed by Snickers and Three Musketeers. We always did the thing where you eat all the chocolate around the center of a Three Musketeers bar, leaving you with a pliable ball of nougat. Like every neighborhood, we had that one guy who handed out pennies. Then there was the family that refused to celebrate Halloween due to its devil-worshipping nature, because nothing says "I love Satan" quite like a five-year-old dressing up as Spiderman and getting free candy. But we also had some weirdo one year who handed out flyers about how "scary" the local government was with their regulations and restrictions. It said, and I'm not even kidding, stuff like "Are you scared of Mummies? No! Mummies aren't real...they can't tell you where you're allowed to plant a tree or build a deck." And on it went with Dracula and potholes.
Sunday, October 24 at 6:28 PM
Rockin' The Suburbs
The whole Linden Gilliaert music thing is not much of a priority anymore. The first recording of Konami was about a year ago, followed by promises of shows around the city. Then there were the problems of home recording and a crappy local studio, followed by great sessions with Eric in Boston. Now a year into school, my interests have shifted and the guitar is picked up a lot less. At most, I might still package a dozen demos and send them to places I'd really like to play just to see what happens, but it's more of an afterthought now. The business aspects that we went through with Okay Samurai were probably the least fun parts of being in a band: the pressure to sell tickets, asking/begging friends to come see you play on a slow Tuesday night, and financial issues. I will definitely continue to record and write music at home, but the idea of a full-fledged demo from a year ago is pretty much over.
Our After Effects class got to check out the studios at Primal Screen last night, which is a cool Atlanta company that does motion graphics for television (such as the opening theme to Cartoon Network's Harvey Birdman). Their work is outstanding, and their offices were covered with cartoon character figurines and toys.
Thursday, October 21 at 11:32 AM
Karate Explosion
Andrew flew down and visited me in Atlanta for the past four days, and we had a relaxing and entertaining extended weekend. I finally had an excuse to go to Puff Daddy's restaurant Justin's, where I ordered "P. Diddy's Seafood Pan" - it was so good that I even ate the vegetables. We caught Team America in the theater, which was hilariously obscene. Andrew got a quick tour of the school and watched me forget students' names. Not a day seemed to go by without ordering spinach artichoke dip and tortilla chips from a restaurant or bar. There were plenty of Super Monkey Ball 2 video game matchups, and many a freestyle jam with the bongos and guitar (including my favorite, an impromptu ballad called Don't Poop At The Bar). One highlight of the weekend was when we bought a couple of canvases at the local art store and painted with spraypaint and oils at home. Andrew's original piece entitled "Big Blue Bear" was rich abstract depiction of the title character, but he eventually opted to paint a drumset over it instead. And of course, as all brothers must do, we had a swordfight with wooden dowels purchased from the Home Depot and had a mini-war throwing plastic golf balls at each other. It was pretty much four days of just goofing off. Thanks again for visiting, Andreus!
Monday, October 18 at 6:23 PM
Small Nail, Big 'Splosion
Zack needed to drop his car off for repairs at a Dodge dealership this afternoon. Armed with vague directions from an employee named "Stick", I drove my car too so Zack would have a way of getting back home. While I was driving around the day before, I heard a faint clicking noise for only a few seconds that sounded like a penny or rock being rattled around somewhere in my car. Turns out it was a nail in my rear tire, which I found out when it burst open today on 85 North. Luckily I was in the far right lane close to an exit when it happened, so I pulled off the road quickly. Zack was following me and said he saw the tire seem to expand before grey smoke poured out and it ripped open (click the picture to see my poor tire). So we changed to the spare and decided that we were close enough to the Dodge dealership to keep on going. Several miles and wrong exits later, I called Zack and we decided to give up before getting even more lost (Stick's place didn't show up in any online map engines). "Let's just turn at this next exit," he said. As soon as we took the exit ramp, immediately to our right was an enormous inflatable purple ape sitting on top of...the mythical Dodge Dealership. How we wound up there, I have no idea. Quite the surreal experience. Anyway, I got a new tire this evening and there's no damage to the car, so everything is back to normal. I guess it was good that it happened this afternoon and not tonight when I'm picking up Andrew from the airport.
Thursday, October 14 at 3:53 PM
Pixelated Harryhausen
My time has been occupied lately going through dozens of Flash tutorials and trying out short character test animations. I bought Visual Quickpro's Flash MX 2004 Advanced book, which is pretty good but I usually get lost in any programming or code talk ("actionscript")...it just ain't my strength. The step-by-step tutorials on Kirupa and Keyframer have been extremely helpful, and any leftover questions have been answered at the Macromedia forums.
I've also been researching eBooks, which so far have failed pretty miserably. Project Gutenberg has over 13,000 free online texts that have expired through their copyrights, so you can read the entirety of Grimm's Fairy Tales or Alice in Wonderland. So what's keeping people from reading eBooks? The lack of something tangible, size issues (hard to curl up by the fire with a good eBook), poor marketing presentation and thousands of dissatisfied customers. Apparently several top companies are working on lightweight, compact eReader devices that will store hundreds of books and allow new ones to be easily and cheaply downloaded...maybe something between a Palm Pilot and a laptop? Sort of like a larger iPod for books. Screen size and battery power are issues, because manufacturers want to display everything from slim, black and white paperback novels to bulky, graphic-intensive textbooks...even downloadable magazines and newspapers. Not much is known about when we'll be seeing these things gain mass appeal, but I would almost guarantee there will be a "page turning" sound when you flip a virtual page. It's like when my digital camera plays a pre-recorded shutter clicking noise when I take a picture...using familiar sounds in subtle ways seems to always enhance an unknown experience.
Tuesday, October 12 at 5:21 PM
I have always been fascinated with generic grocery store foods, which are shameless and cheap rip-offs of name brands. Here in Atlanta, I shop at Publix, a southern-only chain branded in hospital-scrubs green. As a grad student on loans who needs intravenous caffeine injections to stay up all night working, I was excited to find the Publix brand soda collection. See, a two-liter bottle of the hometown favorite, Coca-Cola, costs approximately $1.09. Publix sodas, my friends, cost 67 CENTS.
One day I was feeling mighty awful parched, so I bought all 12 varieties of Publix's colored sugar water and decided to rank them as proof that I'll do just about anything to pass for entertainment on this site. A few disclaimers before we begin. I refused to buy the few diet drinks because I am on a mission to become morbidly obese one day (this is often referred to as "Operation: Dave Fat"). I will only take three swigs of each flavor, cleansing my palette in between with delicious Ritz crackers. Finally, I will probably become diabetic somewhere in this process, so don't try this one at home kids.
12. Strawberry Soda, 11. Citrus Hit, 10. Lemon Lime Soda, 9. Cherry Cola
Strawberry Soda had the most potential of all. Here is an original flavor that no one else has capitalized on! This could be Publix's claim to fame! Unfortunately, this drink takes the honors as the worst drink of the bunch and possibly the entire world. The tartness of strawberries mixed with the sugar and fizz of soda is a recipe for an instant headache, which I immediately felt. I seriously got sick, and would suggest only taking shots of this this drink. Anything over a few ounces could put you into a coma.
Citrus Hit does a remarkable, commendable job at nailing down the taste of urine, albeit watered-down urine. It has the most ingredients out of all the twelve drinks, including "concentrated orange juice". I guess that gives it the right as the only drink to say "With Natural Flavor" on its label, as if that's a big plus for a soft drink. And as a designer I have to say this the worst label of the bunch. The chaotic spin of red, green, and yellow is so pixelated and low-resolution that it looks like Jeff Chin's camera phone pictures (let it be known that the esteemed Mr. Chin has recently upgraded to a digital camera). This drink probably would have been last if Strawberry wasn't brewed by the devil himself. Mountain Dew can sleep easy at night; it has nothing to worry about.
Lemon Lime Soda looks and tastes like water, with barely any bubbles or flavor (that's why they had to draw a lemon, lime, and bubbles on the label). My guess is that you could replace your tap water with this stuff and friends would be none the wiser. Since Sprite and 7up are some of my favorite real drinks, I was hugely disappointed with Lemon Lime Soda.
Do not be fooled by the name Cherry Cola, which tastes like neither cherry nor cola, but rather some nebulous void in between. I kept on tasting tiny hints of each flavor with no clear overall taste. You would probably be better off pouring generous amounts of grenadine (which isn't listed in the ingredients) into Publix Cola.
8. Black Cherry Soda, 7. Cola, 6. Root Beer, 5. Dr. Publix
At least Black Cherry Soda has a distinct flavor, unlike Cherry Cola. It's not a good flavor mind you, but it's distinct. I kept on checking the label while I was drinking to make sure it said "Black Cherry" and not "Robitussin", because I really believe that this soda cured my cold.
Naming a soda "Cola" is as unimaginative as you can get, but Publix's ode to Coke is pretty good. More Coke-ish than Pepsi-ish, it's heavily watered down but still packs a lot of carbonation. It's a suitable cheap alternative to Coke, if you don't mind being ridiculed as Cheapskate McEmptypockets.
I love Root Beer even more than real beer, so I had low expectations for Publix's brand. In hindsight, I should have lowered them more. Root Beer, more than any other soda, needs that "bite" that Barq's or A&W has; this one is just a nibble, and then it apologizes for having bitten you. Too much root, not enough beer.
Dr. Publix is undoubtedly the worst offender of blatant name rip-offs, and the good doctor turned out to be simply okay. Dr. Publix is the community college to Dr. Pepper's Ivy League, and could quite possibly be brought up on malpractice charges for tasting like crap. In all honesty, it's not all that bad...it just lacks the sharpness of Dr. Pepper.
4. Grape Soda, 3. Orange Soda, 2. Ginger Ale, 1. Cream Soda
I've never really liked grape drinks, and although Grape Soda didn't change my mind, it's decent. It's the most sugary of the bunch with 34 grams of junk, but it didn't coat my brain like Strawberry Soda did. If you let it ferment over time I think it turns into carbonated wine, and nothing says elegance quite like a bottle of grape soda on your wine rack.
Orange Soda is a passable, less crisp version of Sunkist. Now I'm no mathematician, but by mixing the ingredients Yellow 6 and Red 40, that would make it Orange 46, which gives it the highest artificial flavor value out of all the sodas. That's gotta count for something. The back label makes it clear that this drink contains "0% juice", in case you thought for even a second that even a single drop from a Florida orange contributed to the taste.
Ginger Ale wasn't too bad, but you really can't mess up Ginger Ale more that that Mozambique Beverly: Aperitif crap that I drank at the Coca-Cola factory's international flavors room. This Ginger Ale gets the job done, and the packaging was a little classier than the others. Classy in a "I'm so broke I can't afford Seagram's" way.
Cream Soda was the biggest surprise of the group, probably because it's a flavor that isn't as readily available as the others. It tasted like liquified ice cream, and I mean that in the best possible way. I think I was expecting a butterscotch flavor because that was the lollipop that I always got stuck with coming out of the doctor's office as a kid. That's how he repays me for sticking a shot in my arm and drawing a smiley face around the gaping wound? Anyway...no butterscotch here, just creamy goodness.
So that's the verdict: Cream Soda tasted the least like water, and stay away from Strawberry Soda if you value your life. In the future I might compare generic Publix cereals and their makeshift mascots to the real deal, ask people on the street what extremes they would go through for a Klondike bar, or ask car dealerships how to purchase one of those gigantic bows. I haven't done a mini-movie in a while, but that will hopefully change this upcoming weekend when Andrew comes down to visit me.
Sunday, October 10 at 12:15 PM
All The Pieces, Pieces, Pieces of Me
On Thursday, I'll be taking part in a workshop run by Chronicle Books. Workshop participants had to design a self-promotional piece over the break; something to catch a potential employer's attention and immediately communicate what makes each individual designer special. I created a faux Lego set entitled "David Werner's Imagination", designating the 110 "pieces" as skills like design, music, and interactive multimedia. No crappy yellow smiley blocks here - this custom set has those sweet bendable pieces, switches and an orange beak.
Nice to be back in action at PC. I'm excited to say that the chair, wine bottles, poster, AIA print ads and Pella storyboard are all on display at school! It's always a fun process walking through the newly-decorated hallways each quarter, seeing a tangible verification of how talented your friends are. I'm taking two classes this quarter that I'm completely psyched about: Advanced After Effects and "Directed Elective", which basically means I've got free reign to create Cadence of Seasons.
Yesterday I purchased all 12 generic 2-liter sodas at my local grocery store, Publix. At a wallet-emptying 67 cents apiece, these cheap rip-offs are basically glorified sugar water. I will test and rank every flavor this weekend and post the results on Monday. Why? Because the children deserve to know what the finer differences between Citrus Hit and Dr. Publix are.
Tuesday, October 5 at 5:26 PM
Thirsty For Spooky Punch
Don't go throw away your extended platinum version of Gigli just yet, but in the next few years DVDs will be replaced by one of two new technologies: maybe HD-DVD, but more likely something called Blu-ray (Sony recently announced that their Playstation 3 video game system will use Blu-ray). Blu-ray discs are rumored to hold around 50 gigs of information, a significant jump from DVD's 4.7 gigs. But so far it doesn't seems as big of a difference as DVD was to VHS, so I wonder if the general public is going to embrace this.
While we're on the subject of video games, I dusted off the Gamecube controller after a six month hiatus and bought Tales of Symphonia; justifying the purchase as "research" for Cadence of Seasons. While the story and dialogue isn't as strong as the Final Fantasy series, it's an exciting adventure in its own right. The story is your standard tale of angels blowing cities up and turning humans into crystals, but there are enough surprises and plot twists to keep things interesting (I'm 30 hours into it now and haven't even reached disc two yet...longevity of games is always a plus).
Break is winding down; classes start back up on Tuesday.
Saturday, October 2 at 3:44 PM
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