I moved back to North Carolina and now have a larger virtual reality space than ever before. Also: Steam sales, incredibly slow internet, my 28th birthday, bees, The War of Art, mountains, and White Fluffy Kitty.
Video Log #3: A New Home, A New Age
Fluffy: Isolation
Charles Ripley has to reach the basement level to shut off the security system and escape the station. A fluffy Xenomorph looms near...*
*The power went out in my neighborhood on November 19th, 2014. I put on a headlamp and turned on my video camera as I went downstairs to shut off our alarm system. This is the result! Props to White Fluffy Kitty for her improv skills.
Music and sound effects from Alien: Isolation.
2014: Upcoming Projects
I made a video showcasing snippets of various projects I am working on, from big to small. The song used is "What This Could Be" by The Hamster Alliance. I have a lot on my plate!
It's July (What a Year)
I had all my wisdom teeth removed recently. Both the procedure and the time afterward have been completely painless. I did drool blood all over myself, though.
It's July 1st and I want to write something before I go to bed. The air conditioner isn't working and it's 88°F. White Fluffy Kitty has lain on the cold marble in front of the fireplace the past few hours instead of her usual spot upon my broken luggage. She is too fluffy for this heat.
What a crazy year. It opened up with working on a major motion picture in Atlanta as a background actor for several days. I would drive there from North Carolina and stay at a friend's condo. I was there for nearly a month straight when filming kept getting delayed due to winter storms and a specific incident that I'll talk more about once the film is released. It was the longest I had been away from home on my own, though I was sharing the place with five friends. It was a ton of fun and one of my most favorite experiences ever.
Shortly afterward, I saw St. Vincent perform twice over a three-day period. It was the first concert(s) I went to of my own accord. She was great. Her self-titled album is one of my favorites, along with her third album, Strange Mercy. They're rare for me in that I don't skip any of the songs when listening to them.
I then went to Mexico to get dental work done. It cost 75% less there but the quality of work is just as good, if not better than what can be found in the States. One American dentist I have seen since said he is going to recommend Mexico to his patients that can't afford his care, after he discussed my trip with me and saw the work I had done.
I returned to the U.S. for more filming, which ended up getting delayed due to the weather, and went back to Mexico to get the rest of my work done. Since then I've had three surgeries on my head for the removal of six pilar cysts, all benign, and had all four wisdom teeth removed on June 23rd, one day before my 26th birthday. I'm just now able to start eating solid food, though still mostly with my front teeth. Oxycodone is amazing.
I also wore a heart monitor for 24 hours and got an echocardiogram. I'm fine. My dentist insisted on it before giving me IV sedation for my wisdom teeth removal, due to a heart condition I had when I was younger.
In two days I am leaving for Florida to visit a friend I haven't seen in years. When I return, it'll be a short wait to receive my Oculus Rift DK2. I'm hoping the issues with motion sickness are truly fixed and I can make a lot more videos showcasing the device than I did with the first one. I kind of stopped with VR videos after nearly throwing up from my demonstration of Museum of the Microstar.
Hi. You may recognize me from the "White Guys Wearin' Oculus Rifts" Tumblr or the front page of Giant Bomb.
I'm also going to return to working on some films and TV shows. There's a Kristen Wiig project about to start up. She's by far one of my most favorite people in the industry and it would be great to see her act in person. I also hope to work on Banshee again. I worked on season 2 a whole bunch and it's my favorite project to work on. The crew, cast, and food are excellent.
This is me playing an Amish dude in season 2 of Banshee.
Here are some things I hope to write/make videos about this year:
- Watching Sony's E3 press conference in a movie theater with smelly nerds
- Some of the really intense, imaginative dreams I have been having
- Seeing St. Vincent and Noveller (twice)
- My Game of the Year stuff for 2013! It's never too late!
- The Smithsonian's "The Art of Video Games"
- What it's like to wear a heart monitor
- What it's like to have surgery on your head and be able to feel everything
- My dental work, along with what it was like in Mexico
- My many experiences in the film and television industry working as a background actor and stand-in. Revolution, Under the Dome, Banshee, We're the Millers, Tammy, Dumb and Dumber To, The Originals, Eastbound & Down, Sleepy Hollow, etc.
- My trip to the Whiskey Media offices back in 2011!
- The rest of my trip to Japan
- Halloween 2008
- My trips to France and Italy
and more? We'll see. If you've followed me you know I'm bad about following through on this stuff. I'm hoping to change that, starting with this post.
And that's it for now. It's 11:59 PM on July 1st. Tomorrow is July 2nd. What are you hoping to do with the second half of your 2014?
Fluffiest Booty of 2013
White Fluffy Kitty
What White Fluffy Kitty looks like when she becomes too fluffy.
Xbox One Acquired: Setting it up for the very first time (Day One Edition)
In my kitchen. Again.
Exactly one week had passed since the launch of the PlayStation 4, and once again I was at my local UPS Customer Center to pick up my Xbox One, a trick I had learned on reddit that would net me the console several hours earlier than if I waited for delivery to my home. I had just dropped off Kitty and White Fluffy Kitty at the vet for boarding, as my brother and I were leaving the next day to visit my mom in Kansas for her birthday and Thanksgiving, returning on November 30th. Eight years ago to the day - November 22nd, 2005 - I was picking up my Xbox 360 from GameStop on my way to Indiana to visit with family and wouldn't get the chance to properly play the console until I got back home and hooked it up to my very first HDTV. Perhaps the next time Microsoft releases a console I'll actually be home to play it!
I did manage to capture myself messing around with the user interface a bit before having to get ready for our flight, along with strapping a GoPro to my forehead beforehand as I drove to UPS and unboxed the console. I wanted to release this on the 22nd but didn't have enough time before leaving for Kansas, though I had managed to livestream my first Xbox Fitness workout. I had ten people watching me exercise. Weird!
Now we're back and I finally play some games!
Here's the video I made, along with relevant timestamps:
2:22 - Unboxing the Xbox One
12:37 - Turning it on for the first time
14:00 - Initial setup
24:18 - After the update
24:38 - Kinect setup
28:45 - Setup Complete. Intro video.
30:00 - Home screen
30:30 - "Let us show you around". Xbox One tour.
33:11 - Speech Tutorial
42:19 - Friends
43:07 - Gamerpics
44:37 - Posing for Gamerpic with Avatar
45:58 - Friends continued
47:22 - Jeff Gerstmann's "KI Dance" Game Clip
49:03 - Achievements
53:20 - Brad Shoemaker's "Ryse: Son of Rome" Game Clip
56:28 - Internet Explorer
58:10 - Watching a YouTube video via Internet Explorer
1:01:24 - Totally topical Charlie Sheen jokes by the Xbox One tutorial narrator. Who thought that was a good idea?
1:07:21 - Privacy settings
1:08:16 - Settings
1:16:20 - Customizing Avatar
1:21:00 - "Xbox, Bing Killer Instinct"
1:23:15 - "Xbox, Use a Code" - Scanning Day One Achievement
1:24:06 - Xbox Music
1:28:09 - Xbox Movies & TV
1:29:22 - My appearance as a strip club patron in the We're the Millers trailer
1:32:27 - My games & apps
1:33:27 - Apps
1:36:30 - "Xbox, Snap"
1:39:12 - Twitch
1:40:55 - Trying to Snap Netflix while watching Twitch
1:41:44 - Netflix
1:43:45 - Xbox Fitness
1:49:25 - Snapping Twitch while using Xbox Fitness
1:51:48 - Hulu Plus
Fluffiest Booty of 2012
White Fluffy Kitty
So you have a better idea of how much of her is pure fluffiness.
Fluffy loves comics.
Valve's Christmas Gift
I decided to do something special for Christmas 2009 and bought both sets of Valve's Left 4 Dead Holiday Cards. After filling them out for family and friends, I still had a bunch left over (there were a lot of cards), so I started filling out cards for things that don't fall under "family and friends", like Giant Bomb and Valve. Yes, I sent a Left 4 Dead themed Christmas card to Valve. This one, in fact:
I even drew a picture on the left side. What's on the right is none of your business! Not that it's anything personal - I just believe a message in a Christmas card should only be read by those it was sent to.
To my surprise, I received this envelope shortly after. Apparently they got my card:
So, what was inside? Why, Left 4 Dead bumper stickers, of course! The fact that they sent something back in return is pretty awesome:
Soon. Soon everyone will know your face.
Here's what I sent to Giant Bomb, back when they were in Sausalito!:
I picked this one specifically because it had Bill on it.
Deep.
Man, Christmas 2011 needs to hurry the hell up! I hope it gets cold in this part of North Carolina. If only Jack in the Box still carried taco nachos, I could celebrate Christmas just as I did then... by watching Giant Bomb content and eating delicious, greasy fast food.
Good times.
Here are the rest of the cards:
And here is White Fluffy Kitty attacking the cards:
And here is White Fluffy Kitty making amends for attacking the cards by licking my hand:
You are forgiven, Fluffy.