Random Sketches

I'm probably the least productive artist you'll ever meet. When I could be drawing and creating finely tuned art, I find I'm overtaken by procrastination or the need to do other things.

When I shouldn't be drawing (meetings, at my desk waiting for something to upload on our Intranet), that's when I grab a pen/pencil/watercolours and bristol board.

This has been a persuasive affliction from pretty much day one. If not for a constant need to draw things, I might have done better in all levels of my education. Not that I did badly, but I could have been a little more focused. The problem is, when I get bored, my mind wanders and my hand does all the thinking.

Anyway, here's something randomly sketched while waiting for a meeting to start; I have tons of things like this - I'll post more as I recover them from the paper on my desk.

Hello Mr. Fantasy Week Six/Seven

Yeah, so no update last week. My boss flew in from Toronto, which resulted in meetings for two straight days. Lucky for me, I got all my extra work done at home during the evening, when I could be doing something productive like writing these rankings, clipping my toenails or cursing myself for leveling up too much in Final Fantasy 8 (damn those summonses!)

So here’s a snapshot of Week Six/Seven:

Paul’s Team

Still one point out of first place, and as Ryan’s insightful little site shows, your wide receivers aren’t tops in the game - doesn’t matter much you’re your running backs are putting away four scores on a lazy day. As long as Tomlinson and Johnson are running, this team is going to be hard to top.

80’s Music Your Team Most Resembles:

Like Michael Jackson, your team is non-stop hits. And like Michael, everybody loves you and your ambiguous creepiness – although I wish you’d stop calling my house and asking me to come over to your basement to see “bubbles.” I’m not falling for that Paul, again.

Lindsay’s Team

Here’s a movie Linsday should watch: The Deer Hunter. It has Christopher Walken as a Vietnam era soldier who gets addicted to playing Russian roulette. On a completely unrelated note, Lindsay keeps picking Baltimore quarterbacks with the thought that the Ravens can play offense. Lindsay, watch the movie – what do you think happens to Walken?

80’s Music Your Team Most Resembles:

Def Leppard. You also have hits, but your team is crippled by the one-armed drummer that is McNair.

Larry’s Team

I was getting so used to see you and Brian together on the standings, it was like some kind of marriage. A ugly marriage, but, still. I guess Brian didn’t met your emotional needs because you’ve pulled away from him in the past couple weeks. Still, Paul and Lindsay are only spots in the distance.

80’s Music Your Team Most Resembles:

Your team is like Journey. You are kind of rocking it, but then again, uh, you’re Journey!

Brian’s Team

Matt Leinart isn’t so hot these days. He’s throwing it to the other team’s players like they were a women’s volleyball team. Now that Chris Simms was put out of his misery, you have to rely on Chad Pennington to get you through. Um, good luck! I can’t wait to see the highlight where Lavernous Coles is running and he catches something from Chad. Wait, that’s not the ball? It’s Chad’s arm!

80’s Music Your Team Most Resembles:

Toto. They had one good song, Africa. Then, they disappeared. Forever. You’ve had a few good weeks, and now poof!

Ryan’s Team

We’re heading toward the middle of the season and there are probably five teams all floating in the ether of mediocrity. At some point, somebody’s gonna have to rise to take third spot. Ryan, is it you? Is it in you? Or a better question, why is it in you?

80’s Music Your Team Most Resembles:

Much like a famous Foreigner song, “you have stars in your eyes,” but alas, your team is only a Juke Box Hero – there’s no real stardom in the cards.

Ian’s Team

A better week. You should call up Alge Crumpler personally to thank him. You’d think after touchdown number two, the Steelers might try to cover the only guy catching passes. Then again, maybe not.

80’s Music Your Team Most Resembles:

Billy Ocean. Because Ian, you should get out of my dreams, and into my car.

Derek’s Team

With Matt Hassleback out, I think you’ll probably get passed by Ryan soon. Plus, Leon Washington is not enough at running back. Speaking of running backs, Droughns isn’t just abusing his wife lately; he’s beating the crap out of your team this year. Ouch!

80’s Music Your Team Most Resembles:

Captain and Tennille – “Do That To Me One More Time” should be Droughn’s soundtrack; and, because both this band and your team are an abomination.

Dean’s Team

Um, WTF??? Was there kind of solar eclipse I missed last week – somehow my team is coming together nicely. Even I have to admit, I have some hope for next year. Even, Kevin Jones is in the top ten. The gods are treating me like that nerdy kid that gets voted prom king, you know, just for a laugh. No doubt I’m back to earth next week.

80’s Music Your Team Most Resembles:

Aha! My team is a monster this week so c’mon and ‘Take on Me.”

Wayne’s Team

Having Andrew Walter on your team is the kind of rough concession that admits how bad your team is performing. Trust me, having any Raider is something to be ashamed of, like Sloth from the Goonies, keep them locked up. Also, Kevan Barlow further cements his place as “free-agent” for next year and Troy Palomanu’s afro must be getting in the way – it would explain why he can’t stop a tight end from scoring three times on him.

80’s Music Your Team Most Resembles:

You are like WHAM; well actually, your team is like Andrew Ridgeley from WHAM. Both are desperately doling out handjobs for sandwichs. Only your sandwichs are filled with mayonnaise. Mayonnaise and bad fantasy football players.

Dennis’ Team

How do you spell hopeless? Here’s how: D-E-N-N-I-S-‘-S T-E-A-M.

80’s Music Your Team Most Resembles:

You team is like Ronnie James Dio fronting Whitesnake with RATT providing backing vocals. It has become so awful it’s like self-parody. Just talking about your team or thinking about those bands makes me long for a tetanus shot – in the neck.

Tales from the Box...

As mid-November approaches, one can feel the propulsive rumbling of new systems as though they were a stampede of terrified bison ready to buffalo-jump onto unsuspecting consumer's heads. The date's not here yet, but it isn't hard to play armchair quarterback at this point.

Let's get one thing straight; the strategies of the next two systems are inherently as different as the corporate cultures the two organizations represent. Nintendo, for all its lack of technological mucle, understands gaming culture (which isn't hard when you're in the business as long as they are) and better yet, understands non-gaming culture.

Sony, who's background is made on solid products with high quality standards understands how to make hardware that sounds a new boundary in capabilities and consumer expectations.

Both companies have strengths and weaknesses; however, I feel Nintendo's in a better position to be successful in the next round of gaming hardware.

Why? It would seem obvious that the strongest system should win out the day, but I think the next generation of systems are coming into a different culture than their forebearers. The market is no longer in "growth" mode. Video games are now a major market, surpassing that of movies - more importantly, the gaming market is entering the "mature" stage. Nintendo understands this, Sony does not.

Nintendo, in the last few years especially, has understood that market share is not the final determinant in profitability. Rather, Nintendo has agressively filled a niche of innovation, with games that are inexpensive to produce, but sell exponentially due to the inherent "newness" to the gaming. The first experiment, the much-maligned-by-me-and-then-completely-retracted, Nintendo DS proved that a system did not have to be a juggernaut to gain wide appeal. The DS games pale in comparison to the PSP, but the gaming offered by the DS far surpasses what the PSP is capable, regardless of the amount of money and firepower Sony through into its little system. The stats are the stone cold truth; the DS has outsold the PSP considerably and there is a lesson shining like a bright beacon to both companies.

The DS showed Nintendo that the key to the mature gaming market is not making bigger, more expensive systems and games. Instead, the key is finding new gamers - essentially appealing to the wider audience of people who don't play games.

Looking at Nintendo's recent Wii promotions, the company is only going further down the path it set with the DS. The promotional videos Nintendo has recently released show regular people playing the Wii. The concept is genius. There's nothing that makes me more excited to play a system than watching a regular person have a riot playing it; I'm sure this applies moreso to regular people who watch the videos. Further, the system and game design itself is basically targeted to people who don't like the complexity of current games. There's little adaptation to the Wii, like the DS, it's relatively a pick-up-and-play kind of system.

Sony on the other hand, hasn't learned its PSP lesson and it about to try the same trick with the PS3. The company assumes that the market can be wowed with powerful hardware; as I've argued in the past, they're going to be wrong, again.

The problem with Sony's approach is that they are trying to appeal to existing gamers, an already if not diminishing market. This market segment is probably the most difficult to get full engagement and the most costly since they already are the target of most competitor's advertising and marketing. True gamers are not necessarily brand-loyal, rather they are game loyal. The demographics show that most people who align themselves as gamers, play games on a number of systems - it's the games that they are loyal toward.

The PSP, while awesome in capability, is failing because the games can't cut it; additionally, price played a major role in gamer turn-off for the system. It only gets worse with the PS3. Quite a few gamers were "stung" with the PSP and will be more skeptical of Sony's next offering. It certaintly doesn't help that Sony doesn't seem to have an over-arching strategy to its next system; it's not innovative like Nintendo and it's not properly online like Microsoft. As I've said before, in a mature market, simply having good hardware, isn't going to be enough.

Add to the fact that Sony's online capability seems to switch everyday and it doesn't exactly elicit consumer confidence; what little communication from the company has been contradictory. As a communications person, I am amazed at the amount of dis-coordination from Sony's North-American marketing group.

Ironically, the best communications about the PS3 have come from Sony Europe, who's campaigns have been in full effect for some time; in fact, most news about the PS3 has been coming from the European division. That's especially funny since Sony just annouced that Europe won't even be on the list for when the first systems ship. So the gamers with the most knowledge of the system will have to wait until March, while the gamers who have no idea what the system can do will get it November. Good strategy.

The marketing campaigns, and I guess the systems they advertise, are emblematic of the position of the two companies. Nintendo understands the competitiveness of the market and need to grow it to be successful. Sony, on the other hand, assumes the old strategy; that firepower will win just like it did with PS2. While ultimately, I think Sony will do well (it has too much financial backing not to), I think the company is in for a rude awakening come November. As for Nintendo, congratulations on running a good marketing campaign that reflects your product's vision. As a consumer, I get it, and I want to get it.

Yellow Swans - "True Union"

I'm finally getting around to listening to "Psychic Sessions" by the Yellow Swans. I've only listened to the first track, "True Union," and I have to say that it is pure noise-joy.

The song fits somewhere between drone-black metal-Merzbow-industrial-and of all things, pop. The song is so ahead of itself, it's like some kind of giant anachronism. It's alien in its forward-thinkingness - if someone from the future were to send a beacon to us in the present, it might sound like "True Union."

Anarctica Takes It! - The Penguin League - 2006

“I’m not a lover, I’m a fighter – and I will burn your house down.”

And so begins The Penguin League, the first album from Anarctica Takes It! a precocious lot of indie-poppers from Santa Cruz, California. The Penguin League is unapologetically messy, lo-fi and certainly uneven; but, it’s also gloriously energetic and disarmingly honest. Boy-girl harmonies bounce over folksy instrumentation which occasionally, almost recklessly, throws in violins, glockenspiels, hand-claps and a hearty brass section.

When it works, it works to perfection; songs such as “Circuits” or “Antarctica” are pure slices of pop abandon. When it doesn’t, it’s still at least three rungs above better-known acts such as Badly Drawn Boy or The Tyde. Antarctica Takes It! are carelessly heartfelt which is refreshing in its lack of self-consciousness. Through either beauty or blemishes, The Penguin League is a promising debut.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, does it recoup for a writer’s laziness?

This week, your power rankings come in handy visual formats!

Paul’s Team

Paul takes #1 this week. I foresee him overtaking Lindsay soon.

Lindsay’s Team

Lindsay had a bit of a down week (although he bettered most of the league). Paul is creeping up on you.

Brian

Brian’s team is strong, but there’s still something not quite “right.” Even the horse knows that he doesn’t have enough to take top spot.

Larry

Your team is efficient and performs well. Somehow you’re getting it done, but still, like this car, nobody really has to take you seriously yet.

Ryan’s Team

Remember Sully when I told you last week that I would put you in last for your smart-assness? I liiiiieeeeed. Ryan stays were he is because he can’t better Larry, but Wayne isn’t exactly catching up either.

Wayne’s Team

Dude, where’s your team? Like the movie above, Wayne’s team is barely passing as entertainment these days. Wayne, your team is officially the Ashton Kutcher of fantasy football and last week was your team’s ‘The Guardian.”

Ian


This is all I need to say about Ian’s team.

Derek’s Team

It’s almost to this point with only a few points above me. Another poor showing and I’ll be moving up a spot – not by talent but by brutal default.

Dean’s Team

Yeah, that’s my head. Subzero represents my fantasy football team’s performance so far.

Dennis’ Team
Yeah, this team is that ugly.

Bardo Pond - Ticket Crystals - 2006

Philadelphia’s Bardo Pond is the little engine that could, going 15 years strong with its drone-heavy monolith rock. The band is about as consistent as they come, not only releasing records with metronome-like precision nearly every two years, but also changing its sound so little since the first record, Bufo Alvaris Amen, 29:15.

Ticket Cystals marks the band’s fifth full-length release, and they make new with the same distinctively brooding psych-riffs. If anything, it’s clear by now that Bardo Pond aren’t interested in shifting trends or the desire to grow their sound. Rather, they dive deeper into the pool, finding the smallest wrinkles along the cliffside of their towering guitars.

With this release, the most noticeable increment is Isobel Sollenberger’s heighten presence in the din that is “Lost Word” and “Destroying Angel” In past releases, both her voice and flute were texture to Michael and John Gibbon’s electric adventures. On Ticket Crystals, Sollenberger is high in the mix, her voice and flute casting a somnambulant net over the rolling leviathan.

The most striking track on the record is a cover of “Cry Baby Cry” where the band plays it safe for the first three minutes, only to unrepentantly drop a mountain of guitars on the unsuspecting Beatles. This sonic atom-bomb is an idol killer by the sheer weight of its reverence for the source material.

With such determined reliability, one has to wonder wow long can Bardo Pond keep treading the same ground without thinning the grass? If Ticket Crystals is any indication, the band still has plenty of path to wonder.

Theeeeeey'rrrrrrrrrrreeee Great!

Here is a comic! At least this isn't as suggestive as the last post...

Best of the Wurst

Sorry for no updates. I have a comic ready, but I left it at home.

So, instead, you get this:

I've been tasked with creating an Octoberfest Poster for work where such german delicacies as bratwurst and sauerkraut will be served. Exciting stuff indeed (like your job is any better - don't judge me!)

I thought about using this picture in the poster, but there's something just uncomfortably implicit about the image.

Same goes for this picture:













Frankly, I'm alarmed at how subversive german food is in appearance. No matter how I try and make this poster, I feel, well, kind of dirty. For shame, Germany, for shame.

Hello Mr. Fantasy Week Four

Lindsay’s Team – 1

Let’s get something straight. Michael Vick is a poor quarterback. In fact, he’s barely adequate to be considered anything remotely close to a QB. But, he’s a great running back who occasionally throws the football. Basically, he’s the ultimate option play. So, um, yeah – with that said, Lindsay takes first with Ron Mexico and his merry crew of McNair, Foster, Harrison and Moss. Like a good case of venereal disease (of which Ron might know a thing or two) – Lindsay has hung around long enough to become a significant problem for our former first, Paul.

Paul’s Team - 2

King Chile and his crew took it to the 49’ers like a backroom prostitute dosed out on meth. Pleasant metaphors aside, LJ gets on the board for the first time this year and then adds another one for good measure. Peyton Manning continues to put up deity-like numbers while the rest of the crew, especially Maroney and Kennison come out of the fantasy cave (or did they simply see a reflection on the cave wall and they are still in the cave?) That’s right my friends, this review included both prostitutes and references to Plato – I have a talent. Oh yeah, Paul slips to second for now, but Lindsay needs to look out his side mirrors because Paul is closer than he appears.

Brian’s Team – 3

Matt Leinert makes his inauspicious fantasy football debut with negative five points – welcome to playing for the Cardinals. When analysts said this team was on the rise, perhaps they forgot that this team has a bloody cardinal on the side of their helmets. That’s right, a harmless songbird really intimidates beefy football players like no other; thus, this team stays in purgatory, or worse, Arizona. Otherwise, Brian’s beating the rest of the league like its Mike Love’s musical ability. Yeah, that’s a bad Beach Boys reference. Brian moves to numba three!

Ryan’s Team – 4

Ryan rhymes with Brian so he has to follow. That’s all I have.

Ian’s Team – 5

At this point, Dante couldn’t comeback from a playground taunt let alone a serious knee injury. Hey Nick Saban, say hello to unemployment! That Dolphins/Texans game was so bad I was surprised it wasn’t on a Monday night, with Madden occasionally rolling out of donut unconsciousness to lay another unnecessary brown nugget of wisdom upon a tortured populace. A good defensive effort saved this team from another drop in the rankings.

Larry’s Team - 6

Larry has the equivalent of the Olson twins with both running backs for Dallas – neither’s very pretty, but somehow they succeed. This team has a ton of potential and just needs a couple players to have monster games and it will be going up. On the same hand, watch out about the running backs – Taylor and Parker are smallish backs who seem to be hitting a wall as the season goes – this team’s one the fence and we’ll see how it goes.

Wayne’s Team - 7

Look who’s in the same position as last week! Rex Grossman continues to prove doubters, including me, quite wrong. In fact, Wayne’s team is like some kind of bad acid trip where Grossman and Brunell continue to scorch the fantasy world while the giant purple chicken hides my socks. One question though? Where are the wide-outs on this team? Wayne, are they with my socks?

Derek’s Team – 8

Here’s the good: Macques Colston might be the best seventh-round pick I’ve seen in some time. Here’s the bad: Matt Hassleback is giving it up faster than Paris Hilton on a bad punk drummer. Here’s the ugly: despite some good individual performances, this team is perilously close to falling behind my team, the penultimate ugly step-sister. I’m not sure what’s not working here, but it’s enough to be concerned at this point in the season.

Dean’s Team - 9

Like a playful eunuch, my team delights without ever having the chance of making anything fruitful. It’s a good thing Detroit’s offense has come alive like some kind of halfway cadaver while the defense is a giant turnstile – it means a lot of fantasy points to buoy me just enough not to get the first pick. My team’s so bad, it’s not even good enough to be bad enough for the first round pick.

Dennis’ Team – 10

When did this team step on the proverbial stingray (and officially, I am going to hell). It’s not easy to get negative four points, but Alex Smith did it. That takes talent. I didn’t see the game, so I can only guess he was rushed and threw the ball backyards forty yards and someone, somehow caught it and took a knee; that’s about the only plausible explanation I’m willing to accept in my narrow scope of logic. Also, Ron Dayne makes a fantasy appearance like the ghost of Christmas crap. You know it’s going to be a rough year when…