I'm not sure what
I'm more suprised about... The fact that I'm this far
removed from my "career", or that I'm completely
alright with that. It's like I have this little
internal clock, that is telling me to chill - get
away, and when it's time - it'll tell me to come back.
I guess that would be "my heart". An interesting thing
to follow for sure. But hell, even without my heart,
every other part of my body has told me to get the
hell outta dodge for awhile. I reread some of those
February/March entries yesterday. Wow. It still shocks
the hell out of me that any one person could put me in
such a state. I digress...
The past 2 weeks
of my life has been so involved in the gaming world
it's mind-blowing. First of all, I'm up to 650
MiniCases sold, with over 100 unique members - and
NO end in sight. All of this with only word of
mouth. It's really looking to become a "resource
nightmare" come this fall. How I'll keep up is beyond
me. But as I said before, where there's a demand -
there's a way to meet it with profit. I'm still amazed
though, that this all started from me trying to get
rid of the 22 extra MiniCases I had to buy when I only
wanted 3. God love the internet.
But more than
that, this past week...or hell 2 weeks ago? My sense
of time is so screwy right now... Anyway - E3 2002.
The HUGE videogame expo where everything that's
videogame related come to meet for 3 days. It's a
friggin' war. Right now, Nintendo, Xbox and Sony are
going at it. It's so fun to watch everyone draw their
sides - explain their strategies through slick press
conferences and silly spin. As it stands PS2 has sold
30 million units in nearly 20 months, Nintendo selling
4.5 Million units in a little over 6 months, and Xbox
selling 3 Million units in a little over 6 months.
Basically, this generation's war is over. PS2 has won
by an outrageous sum, and Nintendo and Xbox are bound
to be fairly "tied" no matter when you look at it. It
all comes down to the games of course - and all 3
consoles are buying up rights to exclusives and
producing their own little masterpieces at break-neck
speed. It's an exciting time to be a gamer as you sit
and watch videogaming moving into the mainstream
incredibly fast. First weekend Game Sales measure up
to Box-Office releases now, and with the convergence
mindedness of Sony and Microsoft, entertainment is
becoming one big BLOB as opposed to different
segments. Very fun to follow.
And this year I
got to follow it a bit more from the inside. A few
months back you may recall that I got in contact with
Planet GameCube and offered some of my time to help
them out. They had an E3 Video last year - but it was
delayed for nearly 6 MONTHS, and they lost a BUTT-LOAD
of money. I couldn't donate money, but I offered to
edit their project for this year - and have it done
within a week. So instead of a refular "lackey" e3
badge - I got the nice gold Media badge and was able
to attend the media press conference before the show.
And that allowed me to do this:
What I find most
humorous about this picture is that, if you know who
it is - you're losing your shit right now. If you DONT
know who it is, you could care so little, that you may
be angry you were forced to download the picture. LOL.
Shigeru Miyamoto. An absolute legend to any gamer. He
created Mario, Zelda, Donkey Kong - he singlehandedly
made the gaming industry what it is today. When it
crashed from Atari's CRAP in 1983-84, guess who
brought it out of the mud? NES - Super Mario Bros.
This man continues to create absolutely brilliant
games. That and he's a big Beatles fan too. I have
such an immenesly deep seeded admiration for the guy -
it's uncanny. Creativtiy on his level is genius. Pure
and simple. Even if you don't like videogames, there's
an inherent ART in them that can't be denied.
Especially these days - where so much is possible. And
to have the vision back in the mid 80's when the
gaming world REALLY was moving pixels on the
screen - wow. He was absolutely as nice as can be -
and even managed to plug Planet GameCube for us. "I
love Planet GameCube". I'll make that be the next
entry's video - it's pretty funny.
The show itself
was quite cool. Nintendo uncharacteristically seemed
to release every single big game they'll ever have in
one show. Mario, Zelda, Starfox, Metroid - they just
kept on coming. Very, very impressive stuff. Actual
public release dates are (according to them) only 9
months apart - with Mario touching down this August.
We'll see. Heh. But as usual at e3, Nintendo's polish
shined through. The amount of work some of these games
have had sunk into them is just insane. Eternal
Darkness for one has been at 4 E3s. FOUR. Over 5 years
of work has gone into a title that we'll all be able
to buy for $50. Seems almost like stealing. People
poor their hearts and souls into a project for half a
decade - and we have it all for $50? Heh. I'll shut up
now, before they raise prices.
So it was a crazy
3 days for sure. I had to leave early every day - just
to come back home and load footage. Turns out this is
gonna be a 4 hour DVD. Whew. And let me tell you -
every day since Tuesday, May 21st, it's all I've done.
Hell I'm rendering as we speak. This project actually
rivals The Trinitrons in size. Wheras there was a lot
more details in The Trinitrons, it was only 30
minutes. This is EIGHT TIMES bigger, and
everything is all timed out, with music and effects -
easily the biggest single project i've ever done.
Just
to give you an idea, Billy (founder of the
site) wanted to spoof Nintendo's
GameCube
Open
for the beginning of the DVD. I figured I
could do it. The 5 second open took 5
hours. I mean, it looks good - but
this would normally net me over $125 just
for this. Instead I'm doing about 200
hours of work for free. I'm also doing all
the encoding and burning of the DVD and
creating the menus - whew. A lot more than
I signed on for, but I keep telling myself
it's a one-time deal, that it will REALLY
help the site out financially, and it's a
good deed.
It does make me
wonder though - I was gonna give 'em $20, but decided
to donate my "time" - LOL. $5000 later....LOL. But
seriously, every staffer I met at E3 was
COOL AS HELL - and they do great work. I'm
really pumped I get to help them out with this, as it
will surely keep the site going "FOR FREE" to the
rest of the gaming public. It's like helping the
independent radio station against the big corporate
meanies - you just gotta do it. As well, if any of you
are even remotely interested in Video Games, this DVD
is easily the coolest $25.99 you've spent. It's
SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO worth it. It's some of the tightest
production I've ever done. It's the quickest 4 hours
you'll ever watch. Can't say enough about it. And
it'll be finished and shipped Monday morning.
Giddy-up.
But you know, you
look up - and it's June. But it's a June I'm here to
enjoy. I've said this about 10 times the past 2
months, but I was so close. Pills in hand, final entry
up - DONE. Ready to end it. A phone call to the Comedy
Store when I felt like I had nothing else to lose,
pretty much saved my ass. Truly amazing. So each day
now, is a little slower, a little wiser, and a little
happier. Yeah, of course - when I look at my career -
I'm depressed as HELL, but it's not my time right now.
It's time for me to work on other projects, meet other
people, and try to find some passion ELSEWHERE. ANd
what's amazing is, I have it. I have so much passion
for so many things, it's really incredible. And again,
it all comes down to creating new things. I'm tellin'
ya folks, creating those MiniCases is such a boner. It
just is. It's something no one else thought of, and
people love 'em. Same thing with 4tvs. It's what moves
me. The key of course, is finding an apporopriate way
to "sell" the concepts to get me to where
I want to be. It will come. I'm in no rush right
now. I'm just so happy to have control over my life
right now, it maks me want scream from the
mountaintops.
This month
there'll be another Trinitrons show with the
Improviders. I'll most likely be performing
WITH them as well this time. Although I must say,
I'm pretty much NOT a part of this team. Nor am I
really sure I want to be. There has to be a comradarie
between the members, and certain "hobbies" by them
will always keep a wall there. As well, I simply have
very little patience for poor preperation skills. Hmm,
did I say "Very little"? I meant NO patience. It's
gotta be the biggest pet peeve on the planet to me. Oh
well, again - we'll see what tomorrow brings - you
never know.
And finally, I
have a stack of headshots here that I will most likely
never use. LOL. I paid for them knowing my MANAGER
said this was my path. Unfortunately, it's never been
MY path - and now I'm stuck with the $800 bill. So if
anyone wants some signed headshots - lemme know - LOL.
I'll sign 'em with somethin stupid that'll be good for
a laugh in a few years.
Christ, will any
of this be good for a laugh in a few
years?
