Average Grod's Average Blog

I bought Macromedia Studio 8 tonight. I can't wait to get my grubby little hands on it. Only 1-2 weeks and it will be here! In other news I found out that my computer is working. Or at least it isn't not working. A family friend has had it for the past week or two and he found no problems with it which means that it will run for now. Since I have 2 PCs that I will be using to back up my work I should be fine. I will start saving up for a top of the line computer but for now I can focus on getting to work. Till then I am just going to blog, read, play, surf, and Emma-sit.

This adsense is doing pretty well. Keep those clicks coming. Let me throw out another shameless plug and say that if you have your hope page set to google.com and you read this blog then kill two birds with one stone and make this blog your homepage. That way you get to check for updates first thing and you can still access Google search easily. If not then just be sure and click an add every now and then. If you have a page I strongly urge you to sign up for adsense(through me of course) and put it on your page. You won't regret it.

I have been devouring my New Masters of Flash Volume 3 book. I know it is a couple years old now but some of the stuff in it is timeless and I am jumping on the Flash bandwagon a bit late anyway. I am a bit disappointed in the CD just because Volume 2 had tutorials on it and this one just has demos. The tutorials are covered pretty well in the book but it is a bit cooler to see something in action rather than just read it. I am finding a new love for all sorts of weird things such as processing(not like my job at Prov), recursion, patterns, physics, data output, interactivity, and other nerdy stuff. I am going to order Macromedia Studio 8 tomorrow and get back to Flash after a much needed 2 week break from it. It will be cool to have my hands on the latest version of something. Not to mention it will be my own legal copy which makes it that much more cooler.

I am going to have to put my purchase of a Wacom Intuos Tablet on hold for about a month so I will be focusing on my website and some programming projects until then. I have been brainstorming up some ideas for characters, worlds, stories, plots, and jokes to animate in the future. I am not yet sure what form this will take but I hope to entertain my daughter(and myself who am I kidding) if now one else. I may or may not decide to take down my current project page as it is becoming embarrassing to me. I may just leave it up for laughs after I finally fix a couple of the more obvious bugs that come from uploading stuff on a whim at 3AM without testing it.

Feel free to send me ideas you may have for projects.

I hope you all have a great Christmas. I know I will. If you will be there I am looking forward to seeing you. If not I hope yours goes as well or better than mine.

Or I've sold out. I signed up for Google AdSense. Go ahead and click on the buttons to the right or at least search through my search bar once in a while. I get paid when you do. Why shouldn't you? Click the button on the bottom right to sign up. If you have a blog that people frequent I recommend you try it but please sign up through me and if you don't have it yet you really need to try Firefox. That is the only browser I use.

I promise you no more shameless plugs.

For a while.

I played Stubbs the Zombie this week. Man I was disappointed. The worst part is that the game had sooooo much potential. I think it still has what is probably the best soundtrack ever. Some how this also increases its disappointment factor.

Let me start with the soundtrack. It is a compilation of popular oldies performed by modern rock bands. I know this has the potential to be cheesy but once you see the songs and the artists you realize there is no way this album could go wrong. If this had nothing to do with a game it would be cool. Songs you know and love such as 'Lolipop,' 'Earth Angel,' 'Mr. Sandman,'and 'My Boyfriends Back.' These are performed by artists such as Deathcab for Cutie, Dandy Warhols, Flaming Lips, and Phantom Planet. The game itself was made by Wideload Games. It is their first game but that doesn't mean their employees are new to games by any means. These are the guys that made Halo. BAH! This is hurting already. This game had too much potential. I haven't even got to the zombies yet! Adding zombies to anything automatically ups its cool factor. Think about it. Football is cool. Just about everyone here is into it. What if a zombie came out of the playfield, ripped off a quarterbacks arm and beat him with it before walking the ball to the endzone for a touchdown. How bout Harry Potter movies. Just increase the ratings to R and add zombies. Instant classic. Holidays? No problem! Halloween with real live dead zombies would be crazy cool and who better to carve the turkey on the real holidays than a zombie butler? As you can plainly see there is no way this game could have been bad. Some how it is.

Zombies are freaking cool. But it is not fun to play as one. Stubbs moves like a zombie. This attention to detail is cool at first. He limps and moves slow like the real guys. But after about 10 seconds I was wishing I could run. Who wants to limp around in a platform game? Story? We don't need no stinkin story! Then you shall have none my son. Lets see... we have a nice town, nice people, ADD ZOMBIES! I know I said that adding zombies is cool. It is. This game has zombies but has absolutely NO STORY. There is no reason you are there. Nothing is explained. I didn't actually play the game all the way through so this may happen at some point but I quit well after I should have and there was no hint of a story. The soundtrack. I know I raved about this earlier. So how can I be so upset with it now? Where is it??? I felt like I fell victim to a bate and switch. The title page has songs from the soundtrack playing but that is it. And they aren't in random order so if you want to hear a specific song you have to wait for it. I didn't hear any of this cool music in the game. The game uses the Halo 2 engine. This is a double bladed sword. The game runs smoothly and looks good. On the other hand it has the same crappy load times as Halo 2 and worse, it feels like you are playing a bad version of Halo 2. You have no gun and you move too slow to really approach enemies. Your moves are very limited and get repetitive quickly. The vehicles don't fit the story at all, wait there is no story, so they really detract from the game because it is never explained how a zombie comes to drive a slime projecting jeep cannon thing around a giant green house. To make matters even worse the vehicle just feels like you are driving a halo vehicle with a bad skin. In fact the entire game feels like a bad Halo mod which is really sad. If you are going to use another games engine you are obligated to make a better game since you don't actually have to build a game from the ground up. This game could have and should have been my pick of the year. Instead it brings me to tears.
If you are looking for a game in this style then play Destroy All Humans. It is short and isn't without its flaws but it is entertaining enough to be worth the price of a rental. Psychonauts easily wins as my game of the year. PLEASE go buy it, rent it, steal it and play it. Actually don't steal it. I need these guys to be around to make more games so give them some money.

I still have a computer. My good buddy Darren was kind enough to let me hang on to his for a bit longer.

Shanna and I had a good weekend and we owe many of you thanks. My buddies came over and helped clean our house. Good news guys. It is still clean. We cleaned most of the house up and then organized the garage. Tim and his dad built us some shelves and we are able to park both of our cars in the garage now. My parents took Emma for the day so I would be freed up to help at home. Then Shanna's parents took Emma in the evening so we could go out to dinner and a movie. We watched The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. I really enjoyed it. I have loved the books and have been reading them since I was a kid. I am really hoping they make at least a couple more of the books into film.

This will be my last post for a while. I have been on borrowed time. The computer I have been using for the past couple months is a loaner from a buddy. I am returning it tomorrow. Another family friend is putting together a system for me out of all the old computers I either owned or was able to procure through donations of kindness. I don't know when I will post next but I am sure it will be at least 5-10 days. I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and I hope to be back up and running before the New Year but I will wish you a happy one just in case. Thanks to everyone who helped out these last couple months with baby sitting, computers, and prayers. It was a busy couple of weeks.

Be sure to check out ashley paulina jewelry. This is the site that my brother Gabe and I put together. I did all the Flash work. He did just about everything else. Since you will notice it is all Flash that may not seem like much to the end user but trust me he put in his fair share and then some. It was fun to work with him and we really compliment each other well. I hope I am not jumping the gun by giving out the site too early. The gallery isn't completely finished and some of the text may change. There really isn't much jewelry up yet. Let me know what you think via email. I would consider any feedback be it positive or negative to be invaluable and once she starts giving out the address it won't be coming from friends and family. Be sure to check the site in January as the galleries will be complete and the pieces will be shown in all their beauty with pricing information.

As far as my next projects go I am going to begin building my site(not garrettrodriguez.com I have an even better one!), continue to work on Gabe's site, and begin writing short stories as well as brainstorming characters for some online comics or movies. If you have ideas or want to collaborate feel free to contact me.

See you soon. Thanks for reading.

I just woke up from a nap. Or rather I was 30 minutes into what was shaping up to be a good nap when the phone rang. "May I speak with...uhhhhh..... Guh, Gah, Gay, Garrett.... hmmm...Rrrrrrooodreegooz." Congrats! Hooked on Phonics worked for you lady. I was afraid it was some bill collector so I was a bit apprehensive. We haven't had any call since we both went back to work but yesterday we got one. There was a mix up with a payment and something we thought was being paid wasn't. The situation was remedied within a couple minutes but it was frustrating and made me apprehensive at how this call was starting out. I was hoping it was just a sales person. It was. Too bad for her. I only had 4 hours of sleep last night and here I am semi conscious after just having fallen asleep. Not a recipe for the easiest of sales.

Once I admitted to being Mr. Garrett Rodriguez she shot straight into her spiel, poorly written dialogue bouncing straight from her screen to my ears via her lips. Remember I used to do this sort of thing. The best ones stick to the script as much as necessary but make sure to talk to you like you are a person. Don't read everything verbatim and if you must, don't sound like you are. She wasn't even entertaining but at least I could understand her. Nothing like getting some 5 cent an hour worker from India or some black person from the south. I don't have anything against these people but I don't think the companies employing them for national or international work are wise. I will not buy anything from someone I can't understand. I am better off with the people who call me up speaking Spanish. Anyway she was offering disaster insurance.

I cut in fairly early. "I am not interested."

"Well sir let me tell you.."

I laughed a bit. She kept going. I don't remember what she was saying. I didn't care. I gave her another 2-3 seconds and then "Sorry but I'm just really not interested."

"Sir, disasters happen all the time. Will you be..."

"Actually they don't happen all the time or they wouldn't be called disasters would they?"

This time she laughed. Pretty long too. I had a smile on my face because I knew I had stumped her. She was good. I knew this one wasn't going to give up and she didn't. I was to tired to be playing my best game so I figured I would just call this one good and finish up next time she opened her mouth. She came back at me with something like you are right sir but they happen unexpectedly. At this point I was like"You're right. I'm not interested today. Thanks." She figured it out and hung up.

I don't like telemarketers but I like to play with em when I can.

Back to the insurance. I was laying there thinking do I need it? Someday I will get it. Right now we just can't really afford it.

If something like Katrina happened what wud I do. I would take what I could cary. Mah shotgun, mah boots, and mah two dogs Snot n' Bowser. They're good fightin dogs. Oh ya and mah famly too. If mah house is sunk there ain't nuffin I can do bout it. Do I need someone to pay mah mortage? Not really. I'll won't be back in that dung heap again. You collecters kin take whatever you find if yur willin to go swimming fer it. You can sue me but lucky for me you can't take my family as payment an I like to see ya try and take mah gun, boots, ur dogs.

On the serious side I guess that screws the bank and it would probably mess up my credit but in the case of a real disaster where the house is completely lost I'm not going to worry too much about paying my mortage. One of the things I won't be walking out of the house with is my file with all the bills in it. Where is the mailman going to deliver the bill to anyway?
Now if my house isn't completly destroyed what would I do. I would go to work, get paid, and pay my bills. I work at a hospital and I have been informed that in case of a disaster not only would I be required to work but I am required to stay until they release me. That should bring in some good money. What if my hospital is destroyed in the disaster? Oddly enough my hospital has two campuses and if one was destroyed I am sure there would be more than enough work at the other for me. If they both happened to disapear I am sure that whatever disaster occured would probably be taking my house with it which puts me back at my earlier situation.

There are probably some faults in my logic but I'm still a bit tired and I think this will hold up over the phone. It's more fun than just saying "Not interested" and I am hoping it will get better results. Next time the insurance lady calls I am gonna explain the situation to her in detail. In fact I am going to print this out so I can just read it to her word for word. If I forget this and she starts reading to me I will grab the closest piece of literature and read back. Right now it would be a toss up between a Sudacare Vapor Plug Box and a letter from my car insurance company.I bet she would enjoy hearing either of them. I may even delete some words and I am definetly leaving in the mispeled words so I will stumble around. If she happens to wake me up again I will even break out a crappy accent. Lets see how she likes it!

You can decide what I mean by that.

Here is something that should make you happy.

It is about 1 minute of Emma. The first part is her laughing. The banging is me. I was dropping something and then juggling to try and catch it. She loves it and cracks up every time. At least when we are alone. The last part is what happens when I give her the recorder. She is noticeably louder there is more banging. Those are the sounds you would hear if she was putting you in her mouth because that was where the recorder was. The worst sound is the "windows click." That is because I was deleting folders and clicking around the desktop while I was recording. I had it set to record the mic but I guess it picked up everything. Oh well.

I am sorry this is up so late. Most of the people that would appreciate a live recording are the ones who can't see her in person. They are also the ones packing up or shutting down their computers to head this way for Christmas. Hope you get this first and it inspires you to step on the gas.

The following is comprised of the writers personal views and opinions. He has run no studies and does not have the facts to back his claims up but rather draws conclusions from what he has deemed "common sense" and "common knowledge."

Also: This material may be considered offensive to readers of all ages.

Emma had a stomach virus over the weekend. She is better but I think I had it for a day or two. I stayed home from work yesterday and watched TV. Then I watched some more TV. Then I changed the channel and watched some more. After a couple hours of TV courtroom shows I watched an infomercial for a colon cleansing product. Some of the claims must be based in truth but some of them seem outrageous. The host is a guy who was diagnosed with skin cancer. He had cuts that wouldn't close. Then he developed a pectoral lump. Long story short... breast cancer. He declined treatment because he had recently witnessed his grandmother go through painful chemo only to die a painful death months later. He decided to search the internet for a cure. He found a colon cleanser. He took it for 7 days a month. After the first "treatment" his sores scabbed over. Then his lumps stopped hurting. After JUST FOUR MONTHS he had no cancer left in his body! AMAZING!!!

I do think that having a healthy colon can have numerous health benefits but he is claiming that it not only cures but prevents it as well. He said that while he was doing this treatment he examined the "toxins" that where coming out of his body and he made this conclusion:the gunk that was lining the wall of his colon was full of poison. It was this poison that was the source of his cancer cells. That seems like quite an experiment as well as quite a deduction. I don't know about you but I have some experience with this. While my number one activity yesterday may have been TV, my "number two" activity (catch my drift?) involved my colon. Not before, yesterday, or ever in the future would I "examine" the uhhh "toxins" that were coming out of my body. They were much too toxic and I don't think they had been inside me for more than a couple hours much less years like the stuff he was clearing out. SICK!!!

He also said that humans have the ability to live twice as long as we do but we "choose" not to because we live with clogged colons. I don't see any of these miracle 120-160 year olds around and I order tests on patients from nursing homes around the area. There are some patients over 100 but not many and not more than 105 years old. Another selling point was that we clean every other orifice of our body, so why do we ignore the colon. "Imagine not brushing your teeth or cleaning your ears for 10 years?" I can't equate brushing teeth, and cleaning the exterior of ears(remember not to stick the Q-tip past the opening of the ear or damage may occur) with a cleaning out an internal organ. We ignore the colon by eating too much unhealthy food. Not by forgetting to call Roto-Rooter.

John Wayne apparently died with a 44lb colon. The host failed to mention that he also died of colon cancer. This may just be a classic case of what came first, the colon or the cancer but regardless this case is an exception not the rule and in a society obsessed with weight I think it is wrong to push the weight loss side effect as a benefit of the product even if "the average American has 2-25 lbs of excess waste in their colon." Weight loss by laxative cannot be a health weight loss option.

My conclusions: Do I want a healthy colon? Yes
Would I pay 2 easy payments of $49.95 plus S&H to spend one week per month "purging toxins from my sytsem:" NO
My suggestions:Exercise, eat more fruits and vegetables, and avoid fast food and the standard American diet of meat, fat, and sugar. I am sure portion size and chewing you food are both colon friendly activities as well.

Have a nice day.

I have been wrapping up work on my first ever paying project. Some of you know what it is. Once it is done I will be sure to post a link. Gabe probably will too since we are teaming up on this one.

Last week was kind of a blur. It was really a recovery week. To be completely honest I don't remember the week before last. I was past 5Am on 3 maybe four of the weekdays. I still had to get up with Emma on the mornings that Shanna worked. I found that I do stress out a bit but I carry it all in my shoulders so I ended up with a huge and painful knot at the base of my neck that limited head movement, slowed me down, and made me pretty crabby.

I have a lot of stuff I want to blog about but probably never will. I am launching a web based company. Flash Forward 2006 is in Seattle and I want to go. I figured out who I would put on a list of Flash heroes. I have a gripe with PG-13 movies. I developed some opinions on Web 2.0. I played and finished King Kong for Xbox. On top of all that Emma just finished up a weekend with a bad case of the wet tail.

I will leave it at that for now but if you want me to elaborate on any of these topics post a comment or email me.

P.S. I don't have any new Emma pics but I do have some audio recordings I need to edit and post.

Google maps is cool but Google Earth is even cooler. Someday someone will probably us it to plan an attack on U.S. soil but until then I will us it. Too bad for you Mac users. This bad boy is PC only. Forget Doom 3 and Half Life 2. Google Earth is the best reason to upgrade you 3D card. Check out the my church.