The Nerd Bin

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Brandon Sanderson's INFINITY BLADE

Infinity Blade: Awakening by Brandon Sanderson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I loved this novella. It was a great refresher of Sanderson's work in between novels. He is one of the greats writing today. If you love fantasy with a twist, this story works. It works well on multiple reads and having never heard of or played the video game this was based on, I was not lost at all.

View all my reviews

Friday, November 4, 2011

Showing Our Kids Our Childhood Favorites

My dad used to make us watch Lost in Space because the SciFi Channel was rerunning all these old shows from his childhood. We had to watch them because he would record onto VHS every show. Obviously this is pre Netflix and DVR. The fact, though, that he recorded them was a little weird to me, until recently. As a father I want my boys to like and find funny or exciting the shows or movies that shaped my tastes. The reality is that they are not robots they are individuals who will either get on board or not. It is a little disheartening when a precious show is rejected or disinterests my kids. Luckily Ghostbusters I and II they approve of, unfortunately of The Dark Crystal they were not so approving. So, my father was doing this with us as well. These shows, like Lost in Space, shaped my father and hold a special place in his heart. This particular show holds a place in my heart as well but is obviously different. Now, Twenty years later, after doing the same thing with my kids I realize how much more important this was to my dad. But also, I realize why he taped the episodes of this show and others as did us kids. We taped shows because if you didn't tape them, they never came back!! But also my father knew that, deep down, not only would we not have these specific shows available, but he knew that one day, because it had always been an off and on thing in our house, he had to record these shows because the cable would be shut off.

Friday, October 14, 2011

Wired Al

I believe that his material still stands tall. He satired fat America perfectly and captured the grunge spirit and true adolescent attitude while singing with marbles in his mouth.

Monday, August 22, 2011

Niche Nerdery

Normally this is a bin where "nerdy" things are dumped, but I'm going to invite you all to my niche nerdery: ART. I am a fan of the online museum http://www.artrenewal.org and agree with their philosophy and mission statement. Art is the star for which all my nerdy pursuits, if you will, orbit. What I am nerding out on in this video is the intelligence that the viewer is assumed to bring to this animation. This is a layered-meaningful animation and well executed on all fronts. Enjoy Ryan Woodward's work and share it....

I was shown this by my favorite contemporary artist David Jon Kassan and his work can be found primarily at davidkassan.com

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

My Batman pics via photo effects for Droid.

So, I doodled this sketch of how I first drew Batman. It is the image that comes to my mind when I hear the word Batman. The Signifier to my Signified, if you will allow that bit of Literary criticism terminology. After the doodle I found two pens, a blue and a yellow. So I added a little. Then I took a photo (a before and after the chromatization). Then I used an app (the aptly named Photo Effects) on my phone to mess with it more. These were my favorites: the before and after, the Mirror, the Xray, the MonoChrom, Bulge (or as I call it, Sopranos Batman), Thermal (or how I think the Predator would see him before a climactic removal of the helmet and battle scene), and lastly Pinch (you knew a paranthetical was coming, Batman: Year One, Before the heroic Jawline).