Harvest and Rewards

You may call it a garden, but I call it one of my favorite hobbies. Although I've already been eating lettuce and spinach salads for a while now, the first full harvest it in. I expect to have tomatoes soon for my homemade spaghetti sauce =)


Also, to reward myself for another school year complete, I decided to buy myself a little present.


Nifty huh? I love Cirque Du Soliel, and when I saw this for sale at my favorite local used book/dvd store, I just had to buy it. If you have never seen Cirque, I highly recommend it. Although, I wish they had "Ka" on DVD.

More "Updated" Images

In case there are a few people here who do not follow me on DeviantArt, I thought I would re-post some of my latest "Updated" sketches. "Updated" is a small project of mine where I am redrawing characters I used to draw a long time ago.


Two school girls transported to Roman controlled Britian.


A early concept of an Adeshran hero.


Two college kids who open a dimensional doorway trying to hack their cable box.


A armored superhero.


And one of the first cartoon characters I drew!

BTW. Tommorrow is the last day of school for my district! =)

Updated Drawings: Jedi Girls

"Updated" is a new series of images I hope to make featuring updated versions of characters I drew years-and-years ago. Consider it half practice, half trip down memory lane =)

So in essence, the goal of fan-fiction is the desire to instill an idea or theme that may be missing in an existing story. While Star Wars may perhaps be the most widely marketed creative property - we still know very little about how young Jedi are selected and trained. Since I am a teacher, I have always been drawn to this glaring hole.

If you follow Lucas's cannon, Jedi are identified very young - removed to a Jedi training temple (books identify several) and are trained in monk-fashion to reject petty emotions, exemplify patience and mental diligence, and put the betterment of others before oneself.

The problem is, these are CHILDREN. If you follow any developmental hierarchy principle, most children (alien or not) are very self-centered until the age of 12+. Even after that, the teenage years are quite chaotic as people transition between the "me" of childhood to the "we" of adulthood. If the values of the Jedi are best represented by the highest levels of these developmental hierarchies, then it is wise to say that not only do most ADULTS never reach such lofty selfless world-views, but it seems silly to think that children can.

Over the years, I let my mind play with these ideas and from them, these two Jedi girls emerged. The theme is: what happens to those Jedi who mean well, but struggle in achieving the purest form of mental and social discipline?

The oldest girl is your average rebellious teenager. She is old enough to realize the importance of world-view, but still to young to understand why she should care. Like most teenagers, she is moody and indifferent - and while not mean or evil, her attitude comes off as rebellious as she tries to "find her own way." Thus the original Jedi garb complete with combat boots and a unique non-standard lightstaff.

The younger girl is cute and adorable, but is still too young to see beyond herself. Still in the "I'm hungry, I'm tired, I'm bored..." stage seen in kids around 9 to 11 years old - while a good kid, she often finds herself in trouble and rarely understands why. A people-pleaser, she wants to do the right thing and often copies the wrong traits of the older girl. Still in conservative Jedi clothes, she still dresses them up with her teddy bear backpack and was a bit upset her lightsaber was not pink in color.

So, if you got through all that text - congrats. Basically that is the enemy of any fan-fic. Copyright issues aside, the main problem is "why should people spend time reading/caring about your addition to an established universe." In the end, that is probably why these two girls will never get beyond just a silly idea and a rare drawing.

Life post Games?

So, I thought I'd share a bit of what I have been doing post-games. I guess the hardest thing to realize was that in Real-Life I was going to have to start off as a level 1 noob. Although, in the last few months, I've done some really cool stuff and I'm feeling better. In addition to my garden which is growing quite nicely, I've also joined two local groups through the website meetup.com.

If you have never heard of this site, I'd highly suggest it. All you do is plug in your zip code and it spits out dozens of cool groups in your area. Its like facebook, but useful!


These are from a hiking and outdoors group that I joined. I used to do a lot of camping and hiking when I was younger, but the closest I could get my ex-wife to nature was the ferns that grow at the mall. It is nice to get out into nature again even if 12 miles up a mountain kicks the living crap out of me... =)


The other group I joined is a board game group. I've found that coming from video games, I really like these board games (Puerto Rico, Dominion, Stone Age...) and I really like conversing with the people I play!

Anyway, just a quick update. I'll have to smile for the camera a little more in the future =)

a Much-Needed change

My first experience with the internet came at college. Back then, people like Joey Blanchette, Aimee Major and Dan Jaaren were my idols, and I had quickly decided that I too, wanted to be an internet Superstar! At the time, it seemed like a modest request and I felt that with enough hard work, anything was possible. I made stardom my goal - and now a little more than twelve years later; I've decided that I may have set myself up for failure, and that I'm tired of the chase...


Now, this might all seem a bit strange to anyone reading this... You may say, "Your videos have been watched millions of times!" "You get emails daily from people around the world!!" "What more could you want?!" You see, although I've spoken out over these last few months and opened myself up to comment and criticism - I'm actually a very unassuming and quiet guy.

Over the years, I've felt compelled to make certain types of films like my Maple Story Trilogy and my Questing blogs because I knew that the 2-3 hours I would spend making them were worth more "hits" than something original, and I felt that that they were what my audience wanted. While they have brought me some mild acclaim over the years, it just doesn't feel right anymore. My success (if you could call it that) has become tied to films and arguments that bring me no happiness and generally fail to represent me as a creative artist. So, I've decided to make a change.


As I sit and write this, I am eternally amazed that there are thousands of people who follow my work - and that fact humbles me more than you know. Understand, the pressures I put myself under are not your doing - but rather my deeply-rooted desire to please all of you. Yet, just as I've learned that I can't live off of virtual accomplishments, neither can I sustain myself on the praise an admiration of people I don't really know.

If I've learned anything over the years, it's that no matter how many positive comments or emails of praise I get - one mean spirited or negative comment can ruin my whole mood. I'm sure it happens to everyone, but over the years I have found myself obessed with what people think - draining my artistic confidence and casting a dark shadow over everything I do. To be honest, I am tired of living in the spotlight, fretting over negative comments and worried about other people's opinions.

So, I've decided that I need to change the way I work, and while I'm not planning on leaving the internet behind, I have decided to be more selective and a lot more reserved. First, no more videogame-related blogs. Simply put, I am ashamed to have become yet another angry and opinionated preacher on Youtube. Second, I've decided to cull nearly all of my Questing and videogame-related blogs from the internet. Of all my creations, I am least proud of them, and though I expect it will greatly reduce my number of online fans - I know those few who remain will be all I need. Third, I will not be as active as I have been online. I will still post finished films and the occational sketch, but I will not be doing it to maintain a constant (and sometimes demanding) fan-base.

Most of you won't understand any of this, and I can't blame you. I never understood it when the people I watched cancelled projects or faded away all-together. Just know, that much like "The Only Thing I Know" made me realize that my life needed a change, I've also decided to change the way I make art. Recapturing that carefree passion I had before I became obsessed with making it "work..."

Updated: Cullen

"Updated" is a new series of drawings I'm planning on making over the next month featuring updated versions of characters I drew years-and-years ago. Consider it half practice, half trip down memory lane =)


Back in sixth grade, like everyone I had to read "The Lord of the Flies." Afterwords I thought, "what if that story happened in space, when a ship full of orphans crashes on an alien planet?" I puttered with the idea for a year or so and eventually gave up on it. This girl was meant to co-lead the "normal kids" group (the two others being the feral warriors and the nuts who worshiped cult-style at alien ruins). I've always liked her holographic-glasses, but have never found a place to use them since.

The biggest downside to this character was that I named her Cullen (which could be shortened to Len in conversation.) In 1991, that name meant nothing and I really liked it. Today, it's too deeply entrenched with a certain whiny vampire family to be used ever again...

6 Games I Don't Regret

I’ve had quite a few people contact me and ask if I really hate ALL games. No, I don’t hate games- I hate that I made a lifestyle out of purely virtual achievements, and that I see a whole generation doing even worse.

While MOST of the thousands of games I’ve played over my life probably weren’t worth anyone’s time, there are a select few that I really enjoyed. So, I thought I’d share my favorite six with you.

While Beyond Good and Evil is no means a perfect game, everything it does, it does SO well. With a great original story, relatable characters, a timeless art style, and variety of game play modes from combat to stealth, to racing, Beyond Good and Evil does open world gaming right, and all in a concise and manageable 6-7 hour game.

While most portable games just seem to be cheap ports of their console brothers, The World Ends with You is a completely unique and exciting game that simply could NOT exist anywhere but the DS. With great graffiti inspired art, a catchy soundtrack, and a surprisingly deep story, its all held together by quick stylus driven combat. Certainly a must own for anyone with a DS or an interest in J-Pop.

A long time ago, when it did more than just Star Wars, Lucasarts was the undisputed king of adventure games. Even with legendary titles like Day of the Tentacle and Full Throttle, Sam and Max hit the Road is by far the best of the genre, combining movie quality animation with some of the funniest character dialogue to ever grace the PC. Seriously… Nothing I’ve played has ever come close to a dog in a suit and a gun wielding lagomorph.

A lot of people may complain that I list Chrono Trigger over Final Fantasy 6. Well, face it. Chrono Trigger has better music, better graphics, better animations, better developed characters, and a deeper less convoluted story. All in all, if you are going to spend 40+ hours on a game, make it Chrono Trigger. Just avoid its sequel.

It’s hard to admit, but the Legend of Zelda is the game that all the Zelda’s since have tried to be. The epitome of the adventure genre, unless you played the games 25 years ago, you might not realize how much BETTER Zelda was in graphics, music and play control from anything at the time. Even all these years later, Zelda is timeless and remains one of the few games that I’ll play over again and over again.

So what game makes my number one? While I’ve played all the Final Fantasy games, they have all felt too linear and constrained and I’ve never really liked them. Yet, while my favorite game of all time carries the Final Fantasy name, Final Fantasy Tactics is so much more. While most games simply walk you down a single path towards the end of the story, Tactics allowed you unparallel freedom to create, train, equip and deploy your own army of unique characters. Few games have ever given you the amount of customization that Tactics has – allowing the player the chance to play the game and you see fit. Mix in a stellar soundtrack, wonderful character animations, and a deep twisting storyline that doesn’t treat you like some inept ADHD child, and you can see why Tactics deserves my number one spot.


Do I expect you to agree with me? Nope. That’s why it’s my list. So what’s on yours?