Milkshake a la Mode

Yea I know I’ve been gone. I’ve been busy with other things in my life recently so I haven’t had time to write.

My house has been busy with visitors. One of my English students from Japan came to visit my family for 12 days. So at the start of the month, I was playing tour guide and host. We took her around Austin and San Antonio and Fredricksburg. I had a lot of fun doing it because she is such a nice girl.

At the same time that she was here, my brother Kerry came home from Israel. So we had a full house once again. He was in and out of the house as we were, so contact was rather minimal to my disappointment. I didn’t get to talk to him that much.

In two days, my mom’s Japanese friend and her Italian husband are coming to live with us. They are moving from Italy… They’ll be staying with us until her husband can get a job. My family is fearing it because we didn’t really invite them to stay, rather she invited herself. =_= We have no idea how long they will be staying.

I’m saying all of this to lead up to the big news. In a family of 5, we only have 2&1/2 cars. That half is Tony’s car which works… barely. When Rei, my Japanese English student, was here we didn’t have enough cars or space so Julie and Elizabeth played escort for us in their cars. I think after that we realized we really needed a new car. Tony has been looking for a new car for a while, and I wanted a new one too because my car is 14 years old as with Tony’s. But I’m jobless so I can’t afford a car… and I couldn’t get one because my car was being used by other members of my family to go to work. Tony didn’t buy a car because the one he wants isn’t on the market yet… but mine is.

So we came up with a plan. Tony buys my car now. When I get a job, I take over the ownership and payments and he gets his car. In the meantime, he drives my new car. So. I like you to meet Little Lava.

We bought it on the 15th. It’s a limited edition Scion xD RS1.0. We’re #1626 of 2000. The color is called hot lava and it’s an orange red. It’s the only color that the limited edition runs in. It’s not the color I wanted initially, so I wasn’t really considering getting this version of the car… but the more I considered it the more and more I liked it. If I were to order all the options that came with this car’s package, I would be spending more money and it still wouldn’t look as cool. So I decided to get this car. What I liked was that Scions are meant to be customized. And you know for me customizing is a big deal. I loved the sporty, mini rally look and the interior. I also liked that it was integrated for iPod usage. LOL And it is soooo fun to drive. Tony likes it a lot too. I just hope he doesn’t take it cross country driving =_=

Now I can get a good job because I have my old Eclipse that I can use in the meantime. And I have to hurry up and get paid so I can take this baby off of Tony’s hands. XD New job, here I come!

I finished No More Heroes after obsessively playing it for two days and wow. Given my early review, I took the game at face value, but the more I played it the more I began to see the deeper meaning and I was pleasantly surprised.

I will say hindsight 20/20 that this game is NOT for everyone. Like I said, the game does have gratuitous violence, the language is foul and the morality behind the game is questionable. At first play it seems like a shallow (but fun) button masher and the gameplay does quickly get repetitive. But beyond the violence and the button mashing is an interesting satire from Suda51 explained through the interactive medium of video games. If you’re willing to go through the game (it’s really not as painful as it could be), you will see bits and pieces. At the end after viewing the ending, you’ll see the game as a whole and you’ll see it just as the characters in the game see it: A small work of art.

And I will say that after I played it and realized the meaning I did feel like a bit of an ass for falling into the stereotype that Suda presented. (￣□￣」)

This game is one of the more interesting games I’ve played and I will definitely remember this game for a long time. I will probably play it again down the road and feel the reminder. I’m not saying it’s life changing but I got more out of it than I expected, especially from a video game. The message has stuck with me. From now on when I play another action game (or any game perhaps) I will now ask the question: Why settle for 10 when I can be #1? XD

If you’re interested here are two in-depth analysis of No More Heroes (warning: spoilers inside):
Destroid’s article
Schlaghund’s article

Strawberry on the Shortcake!!

Dollie TV redone in Comic Life! For those who aren’t familiar, this comic is very old (circa 2000?) and one of the first photostories I made. This comic was the result of having to house sit at a fellow doll collector’s home over the summer time. She literally has thousands of various dolls in her home… in every nook and cranny. While I hung out and kept her dog and company, I made psys with guest appearances from her dolls. I was wondering what it would be like to have to live as a doll in her house and is the premise for this psy. It was all for fun and jest to pass the time away so don’t expect emmy award winning material and don’t expect high resolution photos. Back then cameras didn’t even go to 3 megapixels. LOL :D

Enjoy the reloaded comic.

Keeping with the finish a game a week goal, I needed a new game to play. After watching some game trailers I decided to pick up a game that I didn’t really give a second thought to before called “No More Heroes” for Nintendo Wii. I knew remotely that it was by Suda 51 the same game producer who made “Killer 7″ which, if I recall, didn’t get all that great of reviews so I was kinda holding my breath.

Suda 51, made this game highly stylized and ballsy. The gameplay is a mix between Devil May Cry, Twilight Princess, GTA and even a little bit of Dragon’s Lair (if you play you’ll see what I mean). The game is about a geeky badass named Travis Touchdown who owns a Beam Katana that he bought from a net auction. He needs some extra cash so he decides to go after an assassin after being put up to it by a sexy lady he met at the bar. After successfully killing the assassin, he is told that he is now ranked #10 on the assassin’s list. He realizes now that he can’t stop or else he’ll be killed by someone below him trying to reach position #10 on the ranking board, so he decides to go for #1 ranking.

It doesn’t play as serious as it sounds. Travis is witty and sarcastic, with enough bitchin’ attitude to throw around, but he’s not a cold blooded killer. Travis is a serious Akiba otaku, collecting anime figures and cards throughout the game. He lives in a cheap motel with his cute little grey kitten Jeane because that’s all he can afford. He watches wrestling videos and is constantly late in turning in his porn rentals… and he goes dumpster diving for new t-shirts to add to his collection. In between each ranking assassin battle, Travis makes money with odd jobs such as mowing the lawn, working at a gas station and delivering coconuts to the juice stand. And you save your game by sitting on the toilet to relieve yourself. XD See, I told you it’s not serious.

Like I said before, the game is highly stylized. The dialogue is faster and smarter than most games can ever hope to achieve. Visually, it’s a mix between old school 8-bit Nintendo graphics (complete with bips and bleep sounds) and more modern/grungy 3-D graphics. The character designs of the assassins are really crazy cool. I mean come on… since when did a prosthetic leg look so sexy? (after playing I found out it was not a prosthetic but a rocket launcher. Even better!) XD I just wish that you could change Travis’ wardrobe to something more crazy too as you get higher on the rankings (you *can* change is wardrobe though). That, along with the 3-D dark shading give it a really cool comic book feel to the game. The English voice overs are very well done for Travis and the assassins. Unfortunately I can’t say the same for the incoherently mumbling populous of Santa Destroy in which Travis resides. XD

The Wii controller is used effectively in this game but surprisingly not over done. During fighting, you use the sword in a high or low stance depending on the height you hold the controller. Executing death blows are done by swinging the remote in the direction flashed on the screen. You can also pull of a wresting suplex by pulling the wiimote and nunchuck in different directions depending on the type of suplex you’re pulling off.

Even though it’s a game on Nintendo Wii, it’s definitely not a light game like most titles. The game is ultra violent with a lot of gore and body parts flying, extremely reminiscent of Kill Bill. And to give you a taste of the dialogue, the first words that come out of Travis’ mouth when you start the gameplay is “Fuckhead!” (which honestly made me laugh out loud when I first heard it) among other things. There’s some bathroom humor and a lot of sexual context too. It’s not a perfect game, but it’s still a really good game for the Wii and I can easily see it becoming a cult classic. If you like action games and don’t mind the high level of violence, it would be worth checking out. 萌え!

Today I was going through my doll folder on my computer and realized that I wasn’t as organized as I thought. I have a folder called “stuff to sort through” that’s absolutely huge now. LOL I need to go through this and clean up some. The reason I was going through the folder as I was working on my website some more and I couldn’t find any recent photos of my dolls because I didn’t put them were they belong when I initially took the photo. It’s 5 gigabytes of doll photos, split between some 150+ dolls that I have stored on my external drive, literally tens of thousands of photos. That’s a LOT of doll photos to sort though.

I’m working on my photostories, like I said before. I’m trying to update them and the index page. Before, I had a weak method to publish my stories. Now I have Comic Life so I’d like to sort of finalize all versions of my psys. I have 44 psy total and I’ve only converted 3. I’ve got a long way to go. My original psys were published for my friends only, so the content is kind of specific and not necessarily for public viewing. So I’m trying to tone down the inside jokes and stuff so that everyone can enjoy and understand them.

But unfortunately because of my organization, I think I’ve lost the raw images of a few stories. I don’t know what I’ll do for those specific stories. I almost never trash a photo so I feel like I should have the image somewhere… I’ll keep looking.

I also finally caved in and upgraded my Adobe Creative Suite + Lightroom so now Photoshop will match my computers processing speed. I’m so glad I upgraded, everything is quick and snappy now. *happy*

So I finally got around to updating my website. I thought it was getting a little crusty since it’s been 3 years since I last updated. LOL I had been updating on my computer somewhat, but I always forgot to upload it. But not today!

Tomorrow I will continue with updating my dollfie profiles and perhaps getting my large psy index finally up and available. *laughs* I highly doubt that. So that’s tomorrow and I need to clean the craft game room. Seriously.

Check out the site?

I need about 10-15 people who’d like to run a few test auctions and serve as test buyers for my auction website. If you’re interested in helping me get this thing off the ground, email me at milk!milkshakemelody.com (replace ! with @). I need people who are willing to check this thing at least once a day or more and are willing to spend some time typing up feedback and error reports.

You don’t have to be familiar with ebay or other auction sites to volunteer. I just need your time and honest opinions.

So I spent most of the day yesterday taking photos of all the Jenny and Barbies I have to sell and get rid of. I was thinking that I would like to auction off some of this stuff since I have no idea how much they’re actually worth, but I’d like to get the most money I can out of them… especially since my Jenny dolls are in new condition.

I thought about eBay and… I dunno. Ebay is not so appealing to me. I’m not concerned with the fees as of now because I’m a buyer, but I’m sure if I try to sell something I’ll get charged out of the wazoo. I feel that auctions get lost and I’m given a small chance to sell my stuff. Right now I wanna try to pull a profit, not a loss. XD

I remembered that my webhost offered an auction service that I could install on my site. However, when I looked into it (and installed it) I quickly found out that the construction, although it visibly looked nice, was shoddy and half-assed. I also found that not only did it have problems spamming 1000+ emails to the winning bidder and seller after an auction but it had major MAJOR security issues leaving doors open for hackers and viruses. DOH

So I did some research. I did find something nice and easy to use and I plan on buying it. If I do set this up, the auction service would not be limited to me selling only. I guess what I’m saying is that if I do get this up and running and you have some things to sell that are doll related, I would be happy to host your auctions. You can sell your stuff just like ebay, leave feedback and all and it would be a more targeted community viewing your auctions. I’m not sure if I would charge a one time sellers sign up fee to help recover the cost of setup, but ideally I’d like it to remain free because that’s what I’m trying to dodge right now. Who knows. If everyone advertises it, it could become a major auction house for doll collectors everywhere. :3

Anyway. I also got the wood I ordered so I should be able to start making furniture. Tony ordered some special lights for the doll lamps and they’re looking pretty impressive. They run on regular old D batteries so they’re not a pain to use like regular dollhouse lights. Still no photos yet though…

Thanks for answering my first poll folks. It’s helping me a lot. Tailored clothing got the most votes so now I want specifics. I have a new poll up with many different options. You can pick up to 10 of those choices. If you want to see specific things, you can simply reply to this thread here.

Yesterday we went looking for lights for dolls (because Tony wanted to make working lights). The simplest and most efficient thing we could think of is LED lights. So we’re looking into making lamps using LED lights. LOL I have mixed feelings. The light tends to be very bright and focused, so it might look odd. But we did come up with some specific types of lamps that I think they’ll be cool with the LED.

The only downside to all of this is that Tony has a mentality of cheapness: “It doesn’t matter what I make my stuff out of. If it breaks after the buyer has it, that’s there problem.” I’m like nooooo that’s NOT their problem. If I do that, people will spread the word like wildfire and nobody will buy my stuff anymore. It reflects poorly on ME. But he doesn’t believe it. >,>;; Wanna smack him and send him to the dolly sales forums so he can see first hand.

So if he does make anything to sell through me, I’ll be playing quality control nazi. If he doesn’t like it, he can sell the stuff in his own name. =_=

So as I sat down to work on my furniture plan, I realized that while I have all the tools that I don’t have the right materials! XD XD XD The wood that I have is just too thin and shallow. So I had to special order wood from Maine to continue. LOL So it should be here on Monday. For the weekend, I might attempt to make some accessories.

I’ve made a database of all the furniture photos I’ve saved and I’m slowly categorizing them and writing for each one a blurb about what I like about the image or furniture. I’ve got quite a collection of over 300 photos! XD I’ve written about 85 so far. It’s a good project because I’m analyzing, seeing what is appealing and what isn’t and learning about interior design in general. I’ve realized that while I can offer plain furniture that would cater to everyone’s needs, why can’t I offer more designer style goods. Instead of being an Ikea with general furniture, I’m gonna try for MoMA with a more stylized design. The kinds of things where you see it and you’re like “wow that’s so effing cool but I could never do that in my room for cost, space and functionality”. Well it’s a dolls room right? :D

I’m excited! I love design!