Google Doodle = Racism?

Looking at the Google Doodle on August 7, 2012, commemorating the track and field event of the hurdles, I began to wonder if I was seeing some hidden racism in it's image. Look at the screen capture above and tell me if the runner that you're looking at who is depicted as African-American is standing on a track that appears to be a little reminiscent of a slice of watermelon? Is it just me, or is there really some hidden racism going on in this image? Then of course there's the obvious tie that blacks are often considered faster runners than non-blacks. I'm not sure if the person who created this doodle actually meant to inject some racism into this image, or if their choice of color palette was just unfortunate.

It's a beautiful day in the fiberhood...

Is everyone out there as excited about Google Fiber as I am? I hope so, because I think that Google can make a huge difference in how we access the internet, and the entire world. I'm sick of the monopoly that the ISP's in this country have had on the internet and Media giants like Comcast and Time Warner on the media that we watch. I see Google Fiber as a fresh start that can change the way we receive our content, and here's what I'm hoping... I unfortunately don't live in the Kansas Cities, so I imagine it's going to be a little while before I have a chance to see Google Fiber myself. I am however a FIOS customer, which is a fiber network. Now, your guess is as good as mine as to who really owns FIOS. Verizon was when I got it, then they claimed they were getting out of landline internet and sold it to Frontier. Then Frontier dropped the TV portion of it and sold everyone out to Dish network. Now, Frontier is advertising packages again including television, and their commercials always have a blurb at the end that claim they're owned by Verizon!! What the Hell is going on here, anyway? All I know is that I cut the cable on the TV portion of my package and while the internet is decent, it's certainly not as fast as Google is promising, which means that Frontier, or whoever, is actually throttling my speed to something much slower than it could be, since I'm on the exact same type of fiber network that Google is going to be running. My hope is that Google will get a huge response in Kansas City, and they'll make an offer to whoever it is that actually owns FIOS to buy it and thereby become the biggest fiber network provider out there! I'd sign on with Googles $120 a month plan in a New York minute! Could something like this happen? Your guess is as good as mine. It'd be a smart move by Google though, all those FIOS customers out there sitting at the end of a perfectly good fiber optic network, yet receiving end results that are little better than DSL, simply because the folks at FIOS know they're the only game in town and they don't have to provide the fantastic sounding services that Google is claiming to be bringing to the table. I'll be watching Kansas City with great interest and hoping against hope that Google will be bringing me their fantastic service as well!

Wow! It's been awhile!

I can't believe I haven't posted here since March 11th! I guess it's been a fairly hectic two months. I did get a new laptop, and I'm enjoying it quite a bit. I certainly have had plenty of time for The Elder Scrolls V:Skyrim! I guess that's a large part of why I haven't been posting. Of course, I haven't been doing as much of my 3D work either, unfortunately. I did however work on a new tutorial the last couple of days and it seems to have rekindled that desire to do 3D modeling. I've been quite busy outside though as well with the advent of decent weather, and the purchase of a BBQ grill. :-D Anyway, down below is the final pic I created following a tutorial on the making of a tropical island. I'm going to try and get back into my 3D groove and start posting more of it here.

Backup! Backup! Backup!

It happens to everyone sooner or later, and if you're not prepared, you will regret it! My laptop's hard-drive failed the other day. I lost everything, or pretty much everything anyway. If you're following me here or on Youtube, you probably know that I've been working for the past couple of months on a short zombie animation. Well, I lost everything connected to that project, models, textures, reference pictures, everything.

I've ordered a new laptop and it'll be a week or two before I get it. If I decide to ressurect that project, I'll have to re-construct everything from scratch...and I'm not sure if I'll do that or start some new project. So whatever you do, backup your important data, whether you use some online service, or a local external hard-drive. To tell you the truth, the loss of my animation project isn't even what bothers me most. Mostly, it's the gigabytes of home videos and fmaily pictures that I've lost that bother me the most. My son salvaged some of our family photos from my hard-drive, and it's possible that with a little work and some money, I might be able to salvage some of the rest. I used to use an online back-up service, but canceled that when they instituted some unfair pricing changes. I never started backing up my data in any other way, and now I'm wishing that I had.

So do yourself a favor and backup you data somehow. Whether it's an online service or you simply copy your invaluable data onto an external drive or even a thumb-drive for that matter. There's nothing worse than realizing that you may have lost years of family memories!

Teaser Trailer "Brick City Zombie Rampage"

2 Teaser Poster/Wallpapers for my upcoming film(s)

Got creative today and created these two wallpapers based on my upcoming film(s), Brick City Zombie Rampage. I may even attempt to animate the "2 bullets, 2 zombies" scene tomorrow and put it up on Youtube as a teaser trailer for the eventual short film. No promises though, we'll just have to see how it comes out, but making the wallpaper/poster has gotten me excited! B-D