Backstreet Boys Twentieth

4/20/2013

It would have been great to celebrate the Backstreet Boys 20th anniversary. Unfortunately, I don't live anywhere near L.A., so that was an impossible thing. Turns out I don't feel well today anyway, so that would have been a disappointing trip. But I could still be there in spirit, and watch it live with iGoHD.com! Nope. I signed up and then my login info wouldn't work. I keep getting an error message and it won't reset my password. I also can't sign in with Facebook. Who knows? Maybe it's just not working on mobile, but I can't try my PC right now and there's no time to get support. 

If you're a BSB fan who doesn't follow them on Twitter and possibly missed the announcement of the iGoHD live feed then you have 3 hours until the show starts at 8PM EST tonight.  Access is $6.99.  I hope you have better luck than I did. Doesn't matter anyway, because I know I would be interrupted tonight. Bad day and time for me. Good thing I didn't pay for access. Hopefully, make it available after, because I will definitely buy it. I've been a fan since my cousin brought them home from a trip to The Netherlands in '96. Or was it '97? Anyway, it's been quite a while and their music still puts a big, goofy grin on my face.

Fringe Posters are Finally Up

4/17/2013

Photobucket Pictures, Images and Photos*Fringe Celebration Poster by Zort70

Actually, they were up a while ago, but that was the day I hurt myself. Whacked my head into my desk while I was cleaning. Haven't thought about finishing this post since. Maybe it knocked the idea out of place for a bit. Anyway...

Did you miss the Fringe Benefits Project posters? That's too bad, because they're great, high quality prints. Yes, they were expensive, $43 a piece with shipping, but they were limited and the show was ending. It was a one-time thing. I got the first, "White Tulip," because there was no way I was going to pass that up just to see what the others were. That episode was one of the most important. The tulip became a symbol of the show, and it played a significant part again in the finale. I passed on "The Plateau," because I couldn't have a glow-in-the-dark poster in my room at night and had nowhere else for it. I got "The Transformation," because it was just very cool-creepy, very Fringe. And since I could only afford one more, I waited patiently for the final poster. It is a gorgeous group portrait of all the most important characters.

Well, you can't get those anymore, unless you want to spend $90 on eBay, but you can buy Zort70's beautiful poster with all the glyph words at CafePress. You're going to need some wall space, though, since it's 23"x35". I also got a final season poster on eBay for about $8.

*Please excuse the picture quality. Old camera and terrible lighting in my room are not ideal. There's also quite a bit of lens distortion. How annoying.

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I also have a little butterfly thing with an Observer hat. It used to be a Santa, but it was kind of past Christmas, so I had to put him away. The butterfly fits, though. ;)

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From Dusk Till Shaun

4/17/2013

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Shaun of the Dead! Mixed with From Dusk Till Dawn, which I don't care about, but the design is great anyway. Luckily I have the Fuzz of the Dead shirt already, but this one still really hurts to pass on. I have no choice since I've just spent a bunch on Dishonored, God of War: Ascension, a font book, Spirit of the Sword, Art of the Knife, Wayne Goddard's $50 Knife Shop, Blade's Guide to Making Knives, a new Unstealthiest Ninja t-shirt, and a couple other things. Why can't the shirts I want be spread around instead of being lumped together in a few days?

Hello Jawa vs. Barrel Roll Master

4/11/2013

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Hello Kitty dressed as a Jawa. Fox McCloud looking like a star-shaped fox. Well, this is a battle that's just too cute to take sides on. So, why not get both? For the next 13 hours you can get them at $11 each for S-XL, $12 for 2XL, or $13 for 3XL, plus shipping. I would get Barrel Roll Master, but money was stolen from my checking account recently and I now have to hoard every penny I can get my hands on.

TeeFury.com

Blurring the Lines

4/01/2013

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From two of the creative minds behind Fringe, JJ Abrams and Joel Wyman (JWFRINGE, JHWYMAN), comes the next great sci-fi drama, Human. According to Joel, I know to think of it as Blade Runner if Harrison Ford and Rutger Hauer were police officers and partners. So is it man and machine, man versus machine, man in the machine, or machine in the man? What happens when our creations become self aware? Could an android feel more, be more human than his human partner, know people better than his partner knows himself? Here's hoping Human will "Blur" these lines, questioning what it is to be human and if our creations could become so like us that they essentially are us...or something like that. 

The new blog Human Meanings, by @AimeeInChains (of Fringenuity fame), tells me that one officer staunchly believes that the human cop, John Kennex (Karl Urban), is to be blamed for the deaths of other officers, and that Dorian (Michael Ealy), the android partner, is unwanted. I wonder if that's because John lost his previous partner or if it's just a resistance to change. Maybe it's a fear or loathing of that technology. It seems he was seriously injured. Maybe he's part mechanical due to the injury and has a complicated relationship with it, being sustained and fixed by tech but hating that he has to be.

It's not a new concept for sure, but what is? I'm sure with Joel Wyman at the helm it will delve deeper than usual, veer off in breathtaking directions, and give us characters to care about. Many aspects of what it means to be human will be explored. Of course I haven't the slightest idea what shape the story will ultimately take, but there are so many intriguing possibilities. I hope the show will last and give me actual inspiration for another design out of a love for it and not just a theory. 

Okay, I think you've had enough of me yakking away. You came for the knife, which I named Blur. (Now I'm thinking of Lrrr from Futurama.) I wanted to go with Shade, but that doesn't really have anything to do woth what I so far know about Human. This is what I designed having little information and having seen only a few pictures . (And I thought my Fringe tribute knife was difficult.) Just as a little explanation, though not sure you need it if you read the above, the shape of this came about after a lot of trial and error. As a comparison, the Fringe knife formed naturally from elements of the show and, even though it was more complicated, overall the Human knife was more difficult. It was ridiculous how often I erased unpleasant lines.

The three V's in the center are what I could make out from set pictures. It seems to be the police logo. I chose to color the lines a red as a running theme here of humanity. Flowing from the logo is a curved line that intertwines red and blue, with blue representing the coldness of machines. This was changed from the original, where I had wrapped red around the line. It looked odd when I finished it. The word "Machine" has "Man" in it, so I colored that red, also, following the man in the machine idea. And then you've got "Human [2013]." Pretty obvious what that means. 

Finally, that heart in the background was a complete accident. I wasn't even going to bother with a background anyway since I had already spent so much time on the knife anyway. It was a bit off, so I fixed a line, but otherwise it wasn't changed much. Had to keep this happy accident because you can't have a Joel Wyman story without a little (or a lot of) heart.

Original: March 25, 2013. For more designs, please visit Shiny Dangerous Things.

Here you can see ghosts of the mess I made while trying to figure this one out. The unfinished drawing on the right is from a set picture of the Quick Volt sign.

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