The race was run, 69th out of 120something in the men's group. A bit harder than I had expected, Aaron was surely annoyed with having such a flimsy teammate. But it was fun! Here's a couple photos taken by wandering professionals.

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xhatch

reproduction of a classic drawing with grid and crosshatching

posneg

positive/negative overlaying

1ptpers

1-point perspective with comically scaled object. ahh, wacky.

multiptpers

1 and 2-point perspectives.

diptych

diptych.

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It sounds so much better at parties than "I work in a call center."
Picked up a tiny writing gig online critiquing video games, which is what I do in my spare time anyway, so hey, free money. CHECK THEM OUT.

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I've needed to find this so many times now, I figured it best to get it on paper. This historical document may bring to light the why and how of yours truly.

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step1

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The undisputed greatest thing this planet has ever produced.

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I think I've been cursed maybe? Circumstantial evidence is there.

New bike frame is finally on its way from the factory, I'll be building it up all by myself, wheels and all. Certainly, I'm deluding myself in to doing this as a very surprising form of suicide.

Jumped into Lost Odyssey at Nate's recommendation. After 4 or so hours, I was appalled to slam headfirst into a stealth mission. DEVELOPERS: NO. THIS IS NOT ALLOWED SINCE MGS. A couple of hours later, an actual emotionally involving death has you preparing for a funeral. This entails a fetch quest, immediately followed by another fetch quest in the exact same area, and then an endless session of copying on screen commands. It made me consider leaving similar conditions in my will so that attendees' last memory of me will be of begrudging annoyance. The game in whole is mildly pleasing so far, but if they keep tossing in these terrible ideas as buffers between chunks of actual game, my rage meter will go up SNK-style.

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Given the opportunity to be bilked of cash on a weekly basis so I can dick around with some plastic instruments, a guy gets to thinking. He says to himself while listening to boring, old, normal, non-interactive music, he says, "Is this an ideal candidate for some Rock Band downloadable content?"

Electioneering

• RADIOHEAD - ELECTIONEERING

"Creep"? Who the hell wants to play that? Boring. Proven by college freshmen everywhere, Radiohead is a much better band than that. And while they be mainly noted for the weird and experimental, sometimes they go for the straight-out rock your face attack, like this example here. While singing the part of Thom is neither a fun or easy task in any example, all the other instruments get their hands very full, even some tambourine and cowbell for the embarrassed vocalist, yeah! And short of adding a dozen more peripherals for "The National Anthem", I really can't think of a Radiohead song I want to pretend to play more.

• 

  [s]03-ted_leo_and_the_pharmacists-the_one_who_got_us_out
  TED LEO/PHARMACISTS - THE ONE WHO GOT US OUT

Not my favorite album, and not my favorite track on that album, but when this pops up on random, I can't help but see the bars scrolling on down. Another tough spot for the vocalist, but maybe I just don't want him to be bored. And now that I think about it, there's really not any songs on the playlist at the moment that get this fast, as the developers wanted to keep it accessible and avoid the "Dragonforce Effect". It's not even that fast, so tough nuggets, first timers. While I have difficulty believing that a song this directly political would make it to the marketplace or that Mr. Leo would allow this song to be licensed, I think it'd be a bit of fun.

09-Navy Nurse

• THE FIERY FURNACES - NAVY NURSE

And then we start to get a little weird. Fresh off their new 70's soaked album, the Friedbergers rope in their musical schizophrenia close enough for me to place this. While the song still jumps all over the place, we get to keep the common theme of big-ass rock for comfort. It's a Mario Party of a song, little snippets of this, little dab of that. Most importantly, it's a song where the bass gets to have fun, hate leaving that guy out in the dark. And more female vocals!

• 

  06 - House Of Jealous Lovers
  THE RAPTURE - HOUSE OF JEALOUS LOVERS

HA! SUCKERPUNCH! "derwaaaaah?" Too repetitive you say? Not particularly challenging you say? Well, maybe, but I say the ridiculously high energy of this song will more than carry it. Everybody's jumping around, the drummer is going apeshit, the singer's screaming his guts out, and all that cowbell and handclap... For showing the boozy party this game is sincerely fun.

03 - Rock & Roll (Full-Length Version)

• VELVET UNDERGROUND - ROCK & ROLL

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Saw a blind guy at school walking around with an iPhone. Soooooo..... How does that work exactly? Is Apple really as awesome as the fanboys scream and built heavy accessibility features into a touchscreen phone?

In other gadget news, my 360 went to the hospital. Despite the Team Fortress 2 withdrawl, I don't even care, as long as it gets back in time for Rock Band. Because it's actually coming out and oh mah car.

The Octopus Project - Truck

UPDATE: the morning after I wrote this the xbox landed on my front porch. So, in exchange for my stupidity, you get music.

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This one's for the kids in the crowd who don't inhale the internet with every breath. They exist, I guess?

• Content Aware Image Resizing!

This may not appear to be much at first glance, but check out the tech video to get an idea of what's happening behind the scenes. When that video first made the rounds, the tech seemed too good to be true, but hey, here it is in a flash wrapper for all to play with! Not tremendously useful in practice, the deformation is pretty noticeable for large resizings, but still very neat. Hope these guys end up with a lot of money.

• Insane Release Scheme for New Radiohead Album!

Out of nowhere, Radiohead's guitarist pops up and tells the world they'll be releasing an album next week. That'd be pretty nuts by itself, but it seems the madness goes even further. They'll initially be releasing the mp3 version of the album from their own servers for whatever price you feel like paying. Guh?! Looks like one of the biggest bands around finally put their "music needs to be free" rhetoric to practice. Those are some mighty big balls. Awesome to see them try something this neat immediately after finishing their contract with Parlophone, assumedly what they're trying is about as indie as it can get.

• Cheap Bikes!

IRO's doing a group buy, which means you can get a brand new singlespeed frame + fork for about 50% off the already pretty cheap price, and from what I hear, the bikes are verified as "worth a damn". I'm planning on picking one up to finally fufill my urge to build a bike from the ground up. If this sounds like something you'd like as well, jump quick, he'll stop taking reservations on October 5th.

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