Anyone who knows me or has had me as an instructor will tell you I love stand up comedy. I follow the careers of comedians the way most guys follow athletes. I find them fascinating, simply because they are able to stand on a stage all alone with no band, no props, nothing and entertain a room full of skeptical, belligerent drunk people.
And they get paid to do it!
To most people it's a lowbrow form of entertainment. To me it's high art.
That's why I was so excited to see Heckler, a film made by Jamie Kennedy about those drunk, belligerent audience members who make it their mission to trip up the comedian by shouting at them during their set.
And I've gotta say, I wasn't a fan of Jamie before watching this flick but now I really want to check out his act the next time he's in town.
The film really did make me think about my own critical nature and my propensity for bashing the creative works of others without a moments thought about their feelings or the amount of effort that went into their creative work.
So even if you're not into stand up comedy I recommend this film. Especially if you blog about movies, books, video games, music, etc. and have ever been critical of the work.
Unless your heart is made of solid rock I'm betting this film will make you feel at least a little bad about it... Oh, and it'll make you laugh your ass off a good bit of the time.
Look, if you're worried about your own safety as a public figure why don't you simply hire some armed security people? As a celebrity you're already a target for frivolous litigation so why would you open yourself up to even more potential trouble by putting yourself in a situation where you have to threaten someone with a weapon, much less shoot them?
Most wealthy people move through life behind several layers of lawyers, accountants, managers and security personnel and they seem to do just fine. So why do some celebrities still feel the need to pack heat? And furthermore, why do they choose to do so illegally?
My fear is that this little incident will lead to even more rallying cries for stricter gun control laws which will take firearms out of the hands of the responsible, educated, law abiding gun owners out there.
If you read Digg then you've already seen this story. I find it absolutely fascinating but, as usual, take no moral position on whether or not it's ethical from a medical standpoint. I'm just not smart enough to have an opinion.
But, as a parent, I can understand why the parents did what they did. It's kind of a win, win for them. They get a healthy new baby (which is awesome) and a cure for the condition that's going to ultimately kill their older child (also awesome).
To be fair, I don't think you could really call this genetic engineering though. The embryo wasn't altered or enhanced in any way... The article simply states that it was genetically examined before implantation to make sure that the new tyke wouldn't carry the same disease and that he would be an immunological match to his big brother.
I thought the whole thing was kind of sweet and it puts us one step closer to being able to effectively eliminate birth defects altogether.
Now will someone please get off their arse and nail down which gene is the one that causes aging so that I can switch it off before I keel over?
Nothing like a little vacation to recharge the old engines right?
So how's everybody's retirement plan doing? I haven't even bothered to look at mine, I'm sure the news is terrible.
I have to admit, the market downturn rattled even cynical old me for about a minute. But, in the long run, there isn't a whole hell of a lot I can do about it. Well, except maybe try to understand the root cause of the collapse and educate myself on what the potential consequences may be...
Or I could build a sweet 3D character model.
Needless to say I chose the latter.
I'm still texture mapping him and he currently has no hair... The buzzed look works for now. Later he'll have a little hair on top courtesy of some alpha mapped polygons stuck into his scalp.
His eyeballs currently have a generic multi sub-object material applied to them just to make the model look a little less creepy.
The character is from my graphic novel, which is also in progress at the moment, but I'm going to try importing the final model into Unreal Tournament 3 just for fun and because it gives me a polygon limit and a UV template to work from.
I missed having artwork on my site so I posted this render of his head. The textures are still a work in progress.
Why artwork after such a long hiatus? Because the winds, they are a blowin', and I've been feeling it for a while now.
So I started working on a new show reel which will feature some work that I've done before but will mostly be made up of material from my novel. Y'know, characters, props, vehicles and the like... I figured, what the hell, I'm designing the stuff anyways right? Might as well throw it all together into a new reel.
I'll post snippets as I finish them here on pixelscholar.com in the same format as my video tutorials.
Who was planning on ever retiring anyway?
Oh, and by the way... My fall course schedule is available in the schedule section.
