Showing posts with label brian newlin the best thing ever. Show all posts
Showing posts with label brian newlin the best thing ever. Show all posts

2/1/12

Guest Blogger: The Best Thing Ever, This Week

Another geek lovefest (this is a good thing, mind you) from Brian.  Ready?  Go!

Do You Want To Play A Game?


Oh hello there! Let me just get to the next save point and... I'll...be... right... with... (beeep boop bop) .. you.

There!

I've always been into playing games. Who hasn't? Well, maybe some people aren't but they can't be much fun to hang out with. The first game I can remember being really into was Candyland. I was obsessed with it.

Of course, I was also obsessed with actual *candy*, so maybe this was not a good game for me to play, as perhaps it led to my childhood obesity issues. I still have nightmares about drowning in a molasses swamp.

I still enjoy games (and candy. send candy), and one of the best card type games I've played lately has been Fluxx. There are lots of different Fluxx decks, but the basic rule is that the rules keep changing. It's a little confusing at first, but each card is printed with a new rule. The payers lay down their cards, adapting the goal of the game with every round. It's a bit crazy, but lots of fun as you realize that you might've been sooo close to winning just to watch your opponent lay down a card which changes the whole game.
Last Night on Earth is one of my new favorite board games. The board is a map of a small town, and there are dozens of tiny plastic zombies scattered around. You play as a survivor character, traveling through town trying to find supplies, weapons, and an escape route. I love horror movies, and this does a great job of converting those zombie apocalypse movies into board game form. And yes, when I play, I always play as the "sexy farmer's daughter".

I absolutely admit that I love videogames. As a kid, I had the Atari, and I worked at a game studio for a bit and got hooked on a few games. I'm not really into "shooter" games (though there are a couple I loooove), I am mostly drawn to games that have engrossing storylines. The first one I can think of that I would consider "art" is Ico. It was released for the Playstation 2, but there is a new updated version for PS3. You play as a small boy guiding a blind princess through a crumbling castle. There's very little dialog, just the sound of the wind blowing through overgrown courtyards. It's surprisingly beautiful, and many were shocked at the emotional impact the game brought.

On the flip side, Katamari Damacy is just goofy bubblegum (caaaandy) blissful fun. You play as a teeny tiny Prince, tasked by your strangely emotionally abusive father The King Of the Universe to roll up items from Earth in order to create stars. As you progress, the objects you roll up get bigger and bigger. It's a surreal way to pass an afternoon. Maybe I was a bit too competitive playing this against my 2 year old niece, as I crushed her over and over and caused her to swear and throw her controller to the floor. But then I played the theme song to her and we were friends again.


On the third flip side, I have a weakness for really batshit scary games.

I've been hooked on the Silent Hill games since the first one. Each one has gotten progressively worse, but I have hopes the upcoming chapter will be back to "normal". The whole game series centers around a cursed town filled with monstrous creatures you must bludgeon with pipes/bats/axes. My wife likes to sit behind me and navigate, as I tend to react in games the same way I would react in real life to a gibbering, shambling toothy hot dog on legs- I run the hell out of there. These games are pretty gory, so I wouldn't suggest playing them unless you have the stomach for things like that.
There is an amazing amount of wonderful and creative online indie games that are NOT FARMVILLE. THAT IS NOT A GAME. Tonight I Die is a great short indie game that starts you out, with no explanation, as a girl drowning at the bottom of a dark lake. Click around and see what happens. It's really neat and I keep wishing I had the time and knowledge to put together something like this.


So that's it for now! I hope you have fun! As for me, a father of a 2 year old, my new favorite game is "Shhhh, Don't Wake The Daddy"

"Always onwards, ever upwards and forever twirling, twirling, twirling."

Thanks, Brian!
{Most photos found HERE... if we are missing a source, please feel free to let us know.}

1/6/12

Guest Blogger* The Best thing Ever, This Week: The Future Is Now-Ish

{Welcome to another guest post from pal, Brian.  Enjoy!}

Greeting from THE FUTURE!

Yes, it's me again, Newlin-bot 2012. You've probably seen this already, but I think going into the new year, it's good to think about just how amazing the inventions of the past few years really are, and what we have to look forward to becoming jaded about in the years to come.


Let's face it, there absolutely no way to get really excited about gadgets anymore because you just know that in a couple months, something even newer will come along that makes your gizmo look like a caveman club. I just had to replace my cel phone last month so I bought a new iPhone 4. Is it fancy and shiny and has a bored robot lady voice that answers every stupid question I have? Yes. Does it perform THE BASIC FUNCTIONALITY OF A PHONE and make calls any better than my old brick? No. Not a bit. It's just a shiny toy that makes beep boop bop noises and tempts me to forget to look around at the amazing world and people around me. I cannot deny that I already feel the inner nerd in me getting excited about the upcoming iPad 3, which apparently will be issued to newborns in well-to-do hospitals:

Sorry to break it to you, folks, but I don't think we're going to be getting our flying cars this year. But come on, would you really trust the neighbor kid to drive a flying car? I know I wouldn't even trust *me* to drive a flying car. However, I think it's encouraging that car manufacturers are making great advances in making our landbound automobiles safer and more efficient. Pretty much every carmaker has an electric or hybrid car in the works, and with any luck they will start bringing the prices down a bit so more people can afford them. I'm still not too impressed with how most of the new car designs look, but maybe I'm just still wishing that the future of transportation would look more like this:



I know, I know. Another year has come and gone, and, like me, you're getting old and feeble. Don't despair! Medical research is advancing leaps and bounds, and I'm hopeful that we're going to continue seeing breakthroughs in every field. On the flip side, I get a little worried about the growing number of infomercials for medications that are on tv lately. Do I need Lipitor or Xanazaburol? I have no idea, but I think my doctor is probably getting pretty tired of me asking all the time. I'm just looking forward to the day I'm assigned my sure-to-never-malfunction-and-destroy-humans robotic nurse. Seriously, these are being tested in Japan:

It's really exciting and scary to think about what the coming years will bring. I would be disappointed if we're just going to see an ever increasing glut of new phones, computers, and televisions, when clearly what we want are hoverboards, spaceships, giant robots, and world peace. As a new father, I think about all the amazing things that Baby Chupacabra will see in his lifetime, things I cannot even imagine. I only hope that the world will be a better place than it is now and that he'll have a chance to appreciate the wonder and beauty of it all. But just in case, we're getting in lots of razor edge boomerang training.

Until next time, enjoy the last year of civilization as we know it, according to the wacky Mayans!

Elvis Perkins, "Doomsday"


-Newlin

12/22/11

Guest Blogger: The Best Thing(s) Ever, This Week.

Today's Guest Blogger is Brian Newlin- who happens to also be one of my very favorite people in the whole  world.  Need a laugh... go to Brian.  This boy is also a super talented animator for Dreamworks (as is his incredibly awesome wife, Jen <- I did a post on her HERE.) 
Onto Brian's guest post...


Oh, hello! I didn't see you there.



Ok, that's not really me, but it's how the internet makes me look.

My name is Brian, and my old friend (meaning I've known her for a long time, not implying that *she* is old) Cathy has asked me to contribute to her already wonderful blog. I'm not sure exactly why she would want me to do that, but I think I owe her money so I said "why not?"

I work in the animation industry, so most of my days are spent sitting at my desk, looking blearily at a computer monitor, waiting to be told by a director that I need to put 3 bananas in the shot with the rabbit, or to try and make someone getting kicked in the crotch look funnier. It's my dream job. But I do tend to have a lot of chances to discover new and weird things on the internet and here is where I will share them with you, whether you like it or not. I kid! You will like it. Please like it!

I just saw a couple new animated things this past week, and they are both amazing in different ways. First up is "Boxcar Fair" by Little Tybee. I can't say I'm a huge fan of the song, but the fact this entire video is done in ONE take, performed by the team of puppeteers truly blows my mind. I've done a couple very small projects with puppetry, but I can't even begin to imagine the work and skill in putting this video together.

Little Tybee - "Boxcar Fair"

Little Tybee - "Boxcar Fair" from Little Tybee on Vimeo.

In the feature film world, I'm very excited to see the next stop motion film brought to us by Laika Studios up in Portland, the same studio that gave us the awesome-but-underrated "Coraline" in 2009. Again, as someone who deals only in computer animation, I'm fascinated by these kinds of projects where the artist can actually feel and touch the characters they are working with. And I'm a huge sucker for stories about zombies and ghosts, so this one looks great to me.



So that's it for this week! Until next time!
"Always onwards, ever upwards and forever twirling, twirling, twirling."


-Brian

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