I really need to remember to work bigger. I should have drew Seth in his own document full-sized (half letter-sized) rather than try to fit his scythe on it.

Yeah, I got really impatient with the shadow shading. Heh.

LiQUiD and I started watching Dennou Coil a couple nights ago. It's pretty interesting so far. The little girl who points at everything, calling it 'poop' cracks me up for some reason.



Anyway, here's a sketch of Daichi. I'm happy with out it came out, considering I spent less time than the Naruto one last night. Below is a screencap since you probably have no idea who this is :P

Link: http://www.blizzard.com/diablo3/

Yup, blizzard finally announced it. I know this is a little late (it was announced on Saturday) but I just got around to posting about it.

From the information they give you and watching the movies it looks like D3 is going to be an awesome game (It's blizzard....).

One thing I was rather surprised about was how they got the feeling of the original Diablo I and Diablo II into what they showed of Diablo III. This surprised me because most, if not all, of the original Diablo team has left blizzard. I think that that's a great tribute to Blizzard that they could do that.

I'm not too sure I like the witch doctor...

Anyone else have any thoughts, comments, rants?

Spent entirely too much time on his arm, hand and legs. Bleh. I think for now I'm gonna stick to poses I have concrete references for :P

So LiQUiD and I went to see the new Indiana Jones movie yesterday. I learned a few things:

1) Movie projectors suck worse and worse each year. Theaters are going to have a difficult time maintaining customers if they can't produce an image that looks at least as good as my TV at home.

2) Sunday is apparently the day parents bring their kids to the movies, and

3) Said parents have absolutely no interest in disciplining their kids. They'd rather ignore their screaming and assume nobody else cares, either.

Driving home my mind invariably wandered. First to the unrealistic goal of changing the law to allow me to hit other people's kids for them. It'd do them good. Realizing this was wasted thought I moved on to a more important one.

The PG-13 rating.

What the hell is a PG-13 rating? Who determined these guidelines?

The new Indiana Jones was a good movie. OK, it had more fan service than an anime about a harem of murderous lolis constantly getting raped by tentacle monsters--but it was still a good movie. The PG-13 rating, however, seemed completely arbitrary and made some sequences incredibly stupid. Maybe they were going for a PG rating? Who knows.

Several times Henry gets punched directly in the face. No blood. No bruises. Yes, let's teach our kids that fist fights have absolutely no repercussions at all. Good idea. In other parts of the movie men get completely pummeled repeatedly and brush it off as if it were no worse than a minor tumble. Showing violence without the consequences seems stupid.

There must be some rule about blood. The only red stuff I remember seeing came out of someone's nose. No sex, either, although suggested genital violence is OK? Again without consequences. According to this movie, teenage boys can be beat relentlessly in their crotch and feel less discomfort than stubbing their toe.

So maybe pain is out of the question? I don't get it. Violence but no consequences. Language filters. Nudity filters of course.

It just seems completely arbitrary. They can't show blood. But a long scene of one of the most disturbing insect-death scenes in recent memory? No problem.

We can't have kids thinking there are consequences for their actions, but giving them nightmares about giant red ants is perfectly OK?

So what's the point of ratings at all if they're nothing more than a completely arbitrary set of rules that have no real relevance? PG-13? I saw mostly adults and children under the age of 9. Maybe a handful (if that) of the younger teens this rating was supposedly designed for. So what's the point?

I'm not saying all movies should be brutal, violent or dirty. Not at all. Kids movies are great. And while I think we "protect" kids far too much with parental censorship and believe they'd be better off exposed to more things, I certainly understand the need for more "kid-appropriate" material.

The rating system as it stands just seems completely broken.

No mater how cute they are...

Literary classics in 3 lines or less:

http://mcsweeneys.net/2008/6/16joseph.html

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/06/26/scotus.guns/index.html

Queers like guns, too. ;)

Caption is annoying, though.

Say what you will about Microsoft and the oft-retarded software they produce. But don't blame it all on one man ;)

http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/m...ves/141821.asp

http://www.gamepolitics.com/2008/06/...owards-passage

You know, I'm not even going to rant about this based on how stupid it is to blame games for all the world's woes. I'm not even going to rant about the idiocy of singling out "violent" kids or teaching them to suppress their anger.

No, what I'll rant about is the inhuman desire we have as a culture to eradicate violence.

Humans are a violent species. Civilized, maybe--but still violent. We punch each other when we get pissed off. We break things when we get angry. We yell and scream and scratch. Often it's the very act of fighting that brings people closer together.

What would our anti-violence culture have us become? Violent kids are usually violent for an environmental reason. Is psychologically declawing them really the best answer?

Let's assume these people got their way. No more violent games, music or movies. Would our violent nature similarly be vanquished?

I think not.

It would simply be repressed. It would writhe under people's skin until it exploded.

Violence is a part of our nature every bit as much as compassion and empathy are. It should be let out into the open where we can enjoy and understand it. So we can embrace it instead of fear it. So we can use it instead of fear it.

Eliminating violence from mass media will not eliminate violent crime.

First time I saw the guy was when I was a wee young lad watching Bill and Ted's excellent adventure and bogus journey on vhs. Before I realized he was a comedian, he was the guy I enjoyed the most in those movies for his attitude.


Later on in my early years I would rent some of his stand up from west coast video and watch those on vhs as well. Fast forward to the 21st century and I was downloading HBO specials of the guy and laughing my ass off while hearing one of the most accurate and damning depictions of culture, stupidity, religion and government.

Most comedians just do not do it these days. They push no limit and they follow modern day taboos. Carlos Mencia and Dane Cook? AWFUL. Dave Chapelle? Funny guy but has nothing on Carlin.

Carlin will be remembered along the likes of Richard Pryor, Charlie Chaplin,Lenny Bruce, Bill Hicks and the other great progressives (not meaning "liberal") evoking change.

Click here to view two related YouTube videos

This is a map of the Tokyo Metro Shibuya station.