swogdog's Xanga

oh yeah, i have a blog

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 06:56:32 GMT

i feel obligated to say something here every once in a while. unfortunately there's not much cool to say. just a bunch of gamer nonsense that repels the average reader, so i'll refrain and go a different route... this time. am i a negative person? i know that internally i am not. i'm actually quite a positive person, i just don't feel the need to voice my occasional lofty moments. do i bring up too much negative stuff to my friends? i guess i really need an answer from someone, 'cause i dunno. it could be the combination of restlessness, stuff at work, stuff in general, but i feel mixed up. maybe i'm growing a little, or maybe i'm slipping. i really can't tell when i'm in it. perhaps i'm lost in a fog. i just can't tell which was is forward. i don't want to end up where i was. i guess i'll just keep moving. i'm so tired of the state of things and i'm starting to feel guilty. is it because i complain and do nothing? i don't think so. i feel like i'm trying. maybe a bad approach? man... i hate not being able to pinpoint these sorts of things. i would like some answers.

old school

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 08:13:28 GMT

and now... an old school tom post.

i'm tired, and i hate working on websites.

was in a 5.8 earthquake today, my biggest yet. it was fun. like, 15 seconds of "umm, should i be doing something other than grinning and wondering if i should be doing something?" fun. nothing too crazy happened, just some action figures and a monitor went down in the office.
where were you when it all went down, do tell!

oh yeah, mom and marty visited again... a while ago. we went to sequoia national park. beautiful. i uploaded pics a while back but forgot to tell.

after that kath and i went to portland to see casey and abbe schilperoort (sp?). it was so relaxing and portland is beautiful. thanks guys!

i'm doing effects at supervillain now. it's a good change for me. it's fresh and i get to learn some new things. it seems it may be my sole responsibility on this project. fun!

i'm taking a new route to work. there's more bike lanes and less lights, so it's safer. it's also half a mile longer, but i get there in the same amount of time.

i might get to playtest left 4 dead at valve. hawt.

time for a clove.

and a beer.

i know more people read this than just those who comment, please say something! is my blog that boring!? (hi lurkers)

and gnite.

Welcome to this, your first day of training.

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 04:20:27 GMT

Order Up! ships tomorrow! If you have a Wii, go an' buy it! Comes with a free Burger Face hat!

some interesting numbers

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 04:48:00 GMT

I'm so over cars. The more I think about it the more I realize how wasteful it is to drive a car. I'm not trying to get on anyone's case here. I realize there are many situations where driving a car every day can be a legit "necessity". But for the majority of us, I would say it's not. I bought a bike and started commuting to work on it. I decided to crunch a few numbers in a spreadsheet just to see what's happening here. I was a little shocked. Here are my results:

All numbers are based on full round trip to and from work.

Distance traveled: 7.6 miles
Commute time in my car: 30 minutes per day
Commute time on my bike: 50 minutes per day

So here I already see there's something wrong. Why does riding my bike only take 20 minutes more per day!? As I ride, I find myself keeping up with most vehicles for 2-3 lights before they catch a break and get a green that I can't make. That's a 2 block minimum that they cannot pass me on my bike. The results of these facts are interesting.

Average speed in my car: 15.2 mph
Average speed on my bike: 9.12 mph

Wow. I'm only going 6 mph faster in my car. The speed limit on these roads ranges from 35 at the lowest to 50 at the highest. Let's go further, shall we? Let's look at some stats on my car.

City mpg: 29
Fuel used for commute: .26 gallons per day
City hypermiler mpg: 34
Fuel used for commute: .22 gallons per day
Fuel cost: $4.55 (on a good day)
Cost for city driving: $1.19 per day
Cost for hypermiling: $1.02 per day

So, with some simple math I can derive some facts. By riding my bike 7.6 miles a day instead of my car:

I only lose 20 extra minutes per day.
My bike will "pay for itself" in 350 days.
My car will have been paid for by commuting on bike in 37 years.
I get good daily excercise for doing this.

Keep in mind that all of this is based solely on my work commute. Imagine how much money would be saved if I rode my bike for everything that didn't require a car!

Imagine what it would look like if we each stole a dollar a day from the gas companies. I mean, there's only 300 million of us.

EDIT: I was thinking about it and some of my math towards the end is off. It assumes I commute 7 days a week as opposed to 5, so it would take a little longer to pay things off. I'm not gonna fix it, I'm tired of thinking.

back to basics

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 05:48:02 GMT

thanks for the comments on the previous one. i didn't even consider consider composition. i just kinda wanted to paint what poured out of my head to evaluate myself and find a good starting point. so i think i'm going to start doing more things that involve heavy lighting until i can grasp the subtleties. so here's another unfinished painting. you can see where i stopped refining because i got bored. looks like tofu. anyway... reference was a photo of some blocks on a wood floor. 35 minutes, 1 layer. i'm really figuring out what i need to improve on as i go. i'm not totally comfortable with my tablet yet, and i need to work harder on using less strokes, just in the right places. here we go!

here's the deal...

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 07:55:01 GMT

i'm an art poser.

that's right. my traditional art skills suck. i plan to fix that. i have a lot of artistic friends, so i want to share this from the beginning because they can only help.

at work we started doing "art demo wednesdays". this is where the real artist show us posers how it's done. i had some signs of skill in high school which have since been neglected, so i'm going to take full advantage of these demos and put what i learn into practice. so... here is my first piece, done in 20 minutes, 2 layers, minimal erasing, no reference. i know there's a lot wrong with it, but i'd like to hear what you guys notice. so, without further ado, here's incomplete #1. more to follow as long as i don't get too depressed.

(using the "just ****ing paint it" method)

I'm on Kotaku!

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 21:51:02 GMT

http://kotaku.com/5018406/save-the-fire-hose-jokes-pyro-is-a-she

My Pyro Weapon Project

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 04:49:52 GMT

So here's what I've been workin' on. Yes, I'm a big fat nerd. If you don't know what this is from, just keep moving, there's nothing to see here.

Work in progress pics, in no particular order:

I posted this publicly on 1up.com and there's a little more info there. If you guys could leave a comment there or gimme a digg/thumbs up, I would appreciate it! Here's the link!

a good weekend

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 06:52:08 GMT

so this weekend was great. good food and friends and such. i took some pics of the progress of our random garden. all kinds of things are poppin' up. kath is really excited about the carrots, as you can see. we also got her a bike to ride to work and back. its pink. i'm sure she'll tell you all about it.

i've also been working on a (not so) secret nerd project. it's almost done and i can't wait to show all you guys. just a few more parts to go!

i still don't feel like going to bed...

sometimes...

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 08:11:23 GMT

i just don't want to go to bed.