I'm certain that I already mentioned how much I love TED. It's filled with amazing stories and tons of inspirational people. Usually, I'm searching for videos that feature screenwriters, directors, and cartoonist.  Photography is a welcomed change.

Miru Kim is a brave woman. I mean, there's always concern with urban exploration because, well... I watch too many horror movies. Heck, even in real life, there are things that go bump in the night. There's crazy people, crackheads and other potentially dangerous things. I'm a fairly large individual and you wouldn't catch me entering those areas alone. I require a group of people to trip or push into danger, just in case shit gets real. Hahah...

I always thought there was a strange sense of beauty to urban exploration. It was something I couldn't really put into words, but Miru explained it perfectly. It all starts to make sense if you see your city as a living organism. She's rummaging through the guts of places left behind. She is the archaeologist of private property... Why not?  To me, she's saying hello to a lonely stranger. Her presence resuscitates those caverns, tunnels, and so on. She's pumping something fresh through the veins.  

Miru's definitely working her way up to being my favorite photographer. 

Currently Fantastic Four: World's Greatest By Mark Millar see related

I really don't need to see this stuff, honestly. I'm already a Batman nut and the previous games were top-shelf. Looking at it makes me as restless as a kid on Christmas Eve... or Bill Clinton grazing through White House interns.

It sucks that Kevin Conroy won't be in Arkham Origins, but there are other candidates for voicing Batman. I always thought Bruce Greenwood (Under the Hood) was great. Even that Baldwin brother (Crisis On Two Earths) wasn't bad. Of course, it's just not the same.

Conroy's a nice guy, but I always wondered if he ever gets tired of it.

I remember when I was a kid, I used to do this nasty trick with my eye, making one go in the other direction. Of course, it wasn't really a trick... I have a controllable lazy eye. Anyway, I did it a few times and my classmates were brutally interested in seeing it over and over again. Being the chubby kid in need of attention, I must have moved my eye a million times that day. It got to the point where it was sore, even pulsating with pain. The next day, I told all of them to fuck off, which got me in so much trouble.

I wonder if Conroy feels the same way when fans recognize him on the street, begging him to "do the voice." It's been over 20 years of him providing that awesome, legendary voice. It pays the bills and all, but I wonder if it haunts the shit of him...

I hope not.

Currently PS3 Batman Arkham City COLLECTOR'S EDITION By Warner Bros see related

Is it me or is this quite beautiful? Fear and creepiness doesn't register here. Sure, it seems moody, but it looks pleasant to me. Maybe I'm starting to appreciate this type of aesthetic in the same vein as Guillermo Del Toro. The man converted me. Maybe I'm a Nemophilist... Who knows? I definitely need to take note of the color and lighting scheme.

It just looks so... intriguing. 

Currently The Dark Knight Rises: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack Track: Wayne Manor Suite (full) see related

Click for larger image

This is a year old. I could have sworn I posted it already, but my mind slips. I'm old... it happens. Turns out, I dropped it off at my Behance.net portfolio and forgot about the other sites and galleries. My bad.

Sometimes, it's good to see progress with a side-by-side comparison  There's better shading and blending with the updated look (not to mention better anatomy). If I'm ever feeling down, I need to refer to this entry. 

Who is she? Well, according to my notes from 2010, she was my answer to the lack of women of color in comics. At the time, I couldn't think of any black women in Marvel besides Storm. They exist, but I really had to dig them up out of the archives. Things were even worse over at DC Comics, but after spending so much time figuring out my character and what makes her tick, I honestly could have cared less about what the other companies were doing (or not doing).

"As long as she could remember, Jessica felt an empty void in her life. She believed with all her heart that her biological father was a missing portion of herself. After graduating from prep school, she traveled to North America in search of him. During her lengthy flight, optimistic thoughts filled her head like bubbles, she could hardly contain herself. After landing in a damp, crime-ridden city of Ashbere, it took several months for Jessica to find her father. When she finally tracked him down, all of her optimistic bubbles of warm embrace were thoroughly busted."

The fancy costume and super heroics serves a purpose. That purpose might be considered selfish and naive to some and it could seem like a noble endeavor to others. Jessica wants the affection and acceptance of her father, a costumed vigilante who nearly lost the capacity to feel anything other than rage. Her goal is an uphill battle, to say the least, but that's one of the perks of the story. There's blood, violence, and mature themes, but at the end of the day, it's a story about a father and daughter attempting to build a relationship. They're living in a world that doesn't make much sense, but they're trying to understand each other. The crime fighting is just a cool backdrop to what's going on in their heads. 

That's where my head was at three years ago. After I'm all settled in with my Black Boot collaboration, I should work on some more designs and revisit this story. 

It collected enough dust, I think. 

Currently Defiance Pilot - Part 1 & 2 see related

I've been on the internet for a while and I spent a great deal of time messing around with web page templates. Let's face it, I'm not a web designer, by any stretch of the imagination. The web design you see right now took a long time of figuring out what goes here and there. Concerning spreadsheets, HTML, and CSS, my Xanga account is filled with all sorts of "what the fucks" and "how do you do this" or "I give up." That's the downside to being self-taught. You don't know anything about nothing. So, you can imagine how long it took me to learn how to post an image with a transparent background. 

I should have named this entry "How I learned to love the PNG." It's a simple, headache-free process. Hell, it looks good, too.

Of course, I'm paranoid, so I tend to test it to see if it works properly. I have a dozen private entries with PNG formatted logos and images just to ease my mind.

-KG 

As promised...

It's not horrible. When it comes to not having anything and having something, it's good to go with something. Hell, it's free software, but you have options to upgrade. Upgrading won't break your wallet, but I'm the type that wants everything in the box, so to speak. I don't like waiting around for programmers to see things my way.

With that said, I'm spoiled rotten by Final Draft. There were all sorts of features I was searching for and Celtx didn't have it. Dual Dialogue is one thing they should add in the next update. Another thing that bugged me was the lack of Courier font. That's a major flaw because courier happens to be the standard font for screenplays. I doubt anyone with the power to say yes or no would take me seriously if I handed them a script that wasn't properly formatted---even more so with incorrect font.   

Of course, the main reason why I even downloaded it first place was the PDF feature. Like I mentioned in the previous entry, my old version of Final Draft doesn't allow me to write PDFs unless I use a third party PDF conversion software. Now, I can make PDFs, but the title page is always missing. Celtx is good in that area. The only problem is that I have an entire script, but it's not in the proper font. Shit, the format is off, too. I got 2 extra pages out of a simple copy & paste.

The verdict is simple. I'm going to wait around, save money (from where ever) and purchase the Final Draft upgrade. The question is, do I get version 8 or do I wait even longer for version 9? Right now, version 9 is in beta testing and it's been in that phase since March. An upgrade to version 8 would be $75.95... I'm telling you, those bastards have me by the balls.

For anyone wanting free script writing tools, Celtx is alright. It's basic as fuck, but that's all you really need. You're going to want to write your story down and complete a draft. That's the goal. Now, if you want to polish the bastard, you're gonna want to upgrade your writing tools to make sure everything is up to specs.

I didn't even mess with the other features, so I'll leave Celtx on my PC for further exploration.

-KG