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Channeling Helen Mirren as my spirit animal at IndieCade

via Jezebel

After you've taken the time necessary to take in this regal capture of the beautiful Helen Mirren serenely playing the Wii, let me catch you up on a few things. This last month has been a bit hectic, so I'm really looking forward to attending IndieCade this weekend down in Culver City.

This year I'll be roaming alongside the likes of THE Cory Schmitz and Maré Odomo, attending lectures (particularly those of a certain Mr. Steph Thirion), and awaiting the IndieCade award ceremony where (get this) today's hottest power couple Ron Gilbert and Tim Shafer will be attending. Oh boy oh boy!

Did I forget to mention that Levar Burton is the host of the ceremony? Let's take a moment to absorb all of this awesome...

via Jennatar

Anyway, if you're at the conference come and find me! I will be playing games and hanging out with some of the best of the best indie folk.

 PS. Of course I made one of these (you can make one too).

Oh, Hello. Blog on a plane!

Friends! Happy Friday and Labor Day. [Hot Dog], I'm back to the blog (I missed you) and I have at least a handful of things that pertain to my interests to post in the coming week. I've been on planes and trains and convertible automobiles of late so I haven't had much time to report to the web, but here's a short list of some of the adventures I've had:

• I had the pleasure of taking a quick, 5-day vacation to the island of O'ahu. Highlights include swimming in the waterfall that Kate and Sawyer swam in (LOST!), eating the best sashimi I've ever tasted at Tokkuri-Tei and getting tropical showered all up in our rent-a-convertible. Photos here.
• Currently flying back (with a serious face) from New York after my very first business trip. Though I was extremely jet lagged for my short stay, I had the pleasure of staying at The Jane hotel thanks to a suggestion from Finn. It's charming in a stuffed monkey in a fez kind of way. I also ate peanut butter and jelly frozen custard from Shake Shack today. It was soupy but delicious.
• This weekend I'll be working on the good work, as in reading up on Gamemaker, working on album art for de'fchild productions, and finishing up some illustrations from Deadly Premonition for another project!

Waluigi, I feel busy. Any of you have exciting plans for this free-day-weekend?

p.s. Not at PAX this weekend. Though it would be great to see you all, I really had to take a break from all the conventions this year... but I should be making it to IndieCade this year hangin' with the indies! You should come too!

Happy Friday - Pixel Sculptures and Tiffachu edition

Happy Friday my friendos! Time to share a couple of cool things I received in the mail this week and last. Following all the success of Maré Odomo's Poké-comics Letters to an Absent Father, he's now selling a printed booklet of the strips WITH the option of a custom drawing for a few extra smackers. I think I requested something along the lines of a "Poké-tiff", and this Tiffachu is better than anything I could have ever imagined. Thanks so much Maré!

Next, we have Ashley Anderson, who I wrote about a few weeks ago. In addition to his drawings Anderson has a terrific set of pixel weapon sculptures. After he clued me in on some new sculptures for sale on his etsy, I immediately purchased three to add to the house decor. Here we have two small pixel daggers and a pixel gun. I am also the proud owner of a 8-bit Twin Peaks print which Anderson generously included in my order, so I am a pretty happy .tiff. 

What else is new? Not much. Finished The Wire (*sniff*, so good), started Six Feet Under. Still playing Deadly Premonition and game-watching Steph play Red Dead Redemption. Just ordered a bunch of academic gaming books, including Tom Bissel's Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter, but am currently reading Side Effects by Woody Allen.

And that's that! Have a good weekend everyone!

Monday! Oh, and no E3 for me.

Screencap from Rhythm Heaven I took at E3 in 2008

It's Monday, and guess what! Today I'm sitting pretty at my office desk, so so far away from all the E3 hullabaloo this week. Although I was in LA a mere 22 hours ago (Brother was graduating from UCLA with a degree in Electronic Engineering !!!), I won't be covering any BREAKING E3 NEWS and probably won't be using Twitter since my stream is oozing with E3 snark. Gotta *focus* (aka earn more gold medals in Picross 3D).

Someone did ask me on formspring this morning what I was looking forward to at E3, so if you're curious here's the small list:

• The Last Guardian
• The new Zelda game
• Clash of Heroes HD
• Deathspank
• Portal 2 (and all other tricks Valve has up their sleevesies)
• LittleBigPlanet 2
• and finally, the 3DS, although I have way too may DSes at home and I'm not really a big fan at the idea of 3D as "new" technology

I'm probably missing something, but that's all that comes to mind for now. I'm just gonna get pumped for this week in my own way like Cookie Monster gets for cookies. What are you looking forward to seeing from E3?

via Christr

PICROSS 3D 4 LYFE (and other updates)

Hello blog friendos. Hope you all had a terrific FREE-DAY-WEEKEND. While this post lacks a single, concrete subject, it will be full of small things that may be of interest to you. Please to enjoy:

• I have been playing Picross 3D for the DS non-stop since I bought it a few weeks ago. It's really wonderful (and $20 clams, so buy it). So wonderful, that Steph convinced me to draw the Picross 3D box (I was awfully uninspired that afternoon). The drawing is pretty alright, so maybe I'll try whipping up a few other drawings of game-related items. Drawings of game-related items. So hot right now. 
• Super Mario Galaxy 2. Best platformer... OF ALL TIME??? Well, it's really awesome anyway. Alan Wake and Red Dead Redemption will have to wait until all of the power stars are found, though I may make efforts to get more into Deadly Premonition since the internet is still going bananas over it. 
• My ear holes are full of good music, which is all outlined for your convenience in this numbered list:

1. Ratatat - LP4
2. Little Dragon - Machine Dreams
3. Janelle Monáe - The ArchAndroid (Suites II and III)
4. Flying Lotus - Cosmogramma
5. Sleigh Bells - Treats

• Finally, the truth comes out. This post is really more about testing the functionality of that Facebook "Like" button that you'll see to the left of this post in the sidebar. If you're logged into Facebook and click it, you not only become a fan of this blog (which gives me the happy bubbles) but you also get updates whenever I create a new post. NEAT. You can also like posts, but that won't subscribe you to my blog.

Anyway, enough about me. How was everyone's weekend? While you think on it, here's "Tell 'Em" by Sleigh Bells. Cheers!

Sleigh Bells - Tell Em