jami

AZM IS BACK!

2007-02-01T17:12:26Z

Fucking finally! Angry Zen Master is back in the house!

That'll teach me to upgrade on my own.

BABY!

2007-01-30T15:02:05Z

I'm an uncle!

Isaac Shunji Noguchi was born on January 29, 2007 at some time over there in Washington state. He's 7lbs 14oz clocking in at some undisclosed length. WHOOOOOO!

We don't know what he looks like yet because by brother and sister-in-law are allergic to cameras, but we heard Isaac on the phone crying! Wow. My brother is a dad!

What this means, of course, is that our family's sole mission is to purchase the noisiest toys ever invented to give Isaac every birthday until he's old enough to go to college.

Shock and Awe

2007-01-16T21:09:23Z

Over the weekend, which was extended for some of you assholes (fie and damnation!), I caught Future Weapons on the Discovery Channel. The host, Richard "Mack" Machowicz, gives views a behind-the-scenes look at the development and implementation of some of the U.S. military's next generation of "smart" weaponry.

What amazed me most about this show was not the weapons themselves but the information presented detailing every aspect of each weapon featured. Rounds per second, blast radii, launching mechanisms, targeting technologies, functional design. You could almost write a technical manual based entirely on the show.

Okay, so the show is pretty cool. Seeing things go all 'splody is fairly entertaining. But what's the theory behind giving away so much information? Aren't we at Chum-Fucker Warning Hue Puce or something like that?

The only thing I could come up with is that if the enemy knows just how much potential power we're packing, they will be less inclined to engage us on the battle field. The explosions were all very devastating and quite impressive. I know I wouldn't want anything in that show aimed at me.

However, can this type of shock and awe media campaign (if I can call it that for a bit) really frighten off religious zealots who believe they're fighting for their freedom? Hell, can anything deter such convictions? I doubt it. I doubt it very much.

There's Only One of Me!

2007-01-12T20:21:37Z

Well, this is kinda cool.

HowManyOfMe.com

There are:
0
people with my name
in the U.S.A.

How many have your name?

Broken

2007-01-12T13:49:12Z

With a false sense of competence, I decided last night to upgrade my AZM blog to the latest release of Wordpress. Simple trick. Back up the database, delete the old stuff, upload the new stuff. I fully expected the layout to be fucked and I was fully prepared to spend some time just tweaking. Well, the layout did indeed get fucked. Along with everything else. Fuck.

I tried a clean install and removed absolutely everything. Nope, still fucked. Then I tried to restore the old version to just get it back to normal. Again with the fucking and not the good kind.

So, because I have no idea how to fix it, I've decided that the only solution is to start over. From scratch. I could have punched a hole in the wall. I'm so fucking pissed. I worked hard to put that piece of shit together and now it's all broken and I'm going to have to start all over again. Fuck.

Completely fucking fucked. I hate everything right now.

Doing the Same Thing and Expecting Different Results...

2007-01-11T21:03:31Z

... is the definition of a bad joke.

Yesterday, Bush announced his new plan for Iraq. Sounded a lot like the old plan for Iraq. Completely absent from his speech was any mention of a political solution. Might has clearly not made much right. Sending more troops isn't going to change much. More people will die and the Iraq government will still be in shambles. Without a political solution, fighting will only result in more fighting.

If he was trying to resell us the old war, Bush failed miserably. If you're going to sell something old by pretending it's new, you have to do it right. Bush should have contacted Steve Jobs.

This week also marked Apple big announcement. The iPhone is an amalgamation of old ideas packaged in a new way. We have phones, we have web browsers, we have portable music/media players. The iPhone combines all three in a new compelling way that is exciting and easy to sell.

See, Bush's big mistake is taking only one idea and trying to repackage it in a not so compelling or exciting manner. There are plenty of old ideas that he could have drawn from. Using diplomacy in the region is a pretty old idea that could use a slick face-lift. Rebuilding the infrastructure that we obliterated when we first came in was an idea I heard a few years ago. Training the Iraqis to run their own country could be good. These are three pretty old ideas that could have been repackaged and sold to us last night. All we got was more troops? Please.

It looks like it's going to take another administration or two for us to really change course. The jury's out on how much Congress can actually shape the war. I'm hopeful. I'm hoping that this new Congress will be a significant thorn in Bush's side. But I suspect it's going to be at least 2009 or hell, even 2013 before we see something really new.

I be Venom

2007-01-10T21:14:00Z

Your results:
You are Venom

Venom		74%
The Joker		60%
Magneto		56%
Riddler		56%
Mystique		50%
Mr. Freeze		49%
Apocalypse		40%
Dark Phoenix		39%
Lex Luthor		35%
Two-Face		34%
Dr. Doom		30%
Poison Ivy		30%
Catwoman		28%
Green Goblin		26%
Juggernaut		18%
Kingpin		18%

Strength, disguise and adrenaline are your greatest weapons.

Click here to take the "Which Super Villain am I?" quiz...

Whhooohooo!

Super Columbine. Art or Shit?

2007-01-09T18:45:59Z

Super Columbine, an RPG where players go around a school shooting students, was recently pulled from the Slamdance Film Festival due to pressure from the festival's sponsors.

This raises a good number of questions.

1) Can a game be considered art?
2) Is it appropriate to censor the Columbine game when there are other games out there where players kill just about every thing and every one? Can we censor this game without censoring all others?
3) Are there/should there be limits to so-called artistic expression?

I think the game is utter shit. It takes a sick fuck to come up with something like that. I fully agree with pulling it from the festival. So in a sense, yes I believe that there are limits to our freedom of expression, though honestly, it's not as bad as yelling "FIRE" in an over-crowded room. And if this game was not about Columbine, I'm sure no one would care.

Because it is about Columbine, does that makes it censor-worthy?

Damn Printers

2007-01-08T20:47:04Z

I have not had a good relationship with color printers. Kinkos color printers mock me as they charge me what should be my mortgage payment for colors that don't match any semblance of the colors that I see on my screen. Every color printer I have ever personally owned has teased me with a handful of amazing prints only to print colors that they must invent in their digital little minds should I neglect the thing for a few weeks.

And now, NOW, the brand spanking new printer that I bought last year if ever I wanted to sell small runs of prints has decided not to talk to Photoshop. Oh, it'll talk to all the other applications including Preview, Safari, Word, Illustrator, Firefox, BBEdit. Hell, I'm sure if I knew how, I could print from a little terminal window. But Photoshop? The only program that I truly NEED to do anything? No, my printer will not talk with Photoshop.

For the most part, I am happy with my machine. It helps me make pretty pictures. But lately, it's been acting funny. It won't wake up after I make it sleep. If I'm running Photoshop, disk space magically disappears then reappears once I close it. If I keep a web browser open too much, it'll slow down everything. The pressure sensitivity will suddenly turn itself off in the middle of painting a background. Strange things are afoot at the Circle K.

Printers? Printers can go screw. No matter what I do, eventually, the printer will decide that it's better than me and make me grovel for it to print something that remotely resembles actual colors that my eyes can recognize. ARGH!

It's Her Prerogative

2007-01-05T21:39:00Z

A number of people have been giving shit to Oprah regarding the school she just set up for the kiddies in South Africa. The two big arguments I've heard are why aren't there any white girls in her school and why did she build a school in Africa when there are poor kids right here in America. And to those people, I saw in the immortal words of Bobby Brown, "It's her prerogative!"

Oprah doesn't owe anyone shit. She came from nothing and built her Oprah monolithic empire on her own. In my estimation, she can do whatever the hell she wants to do with her money. If she wants to set up a school to help poor kids in another country, that's great. It's far more intelligent than spending money on a bridge that goes nowhere.

If anyone has a responsibility to our schools it would be our Federal, State, and local governments. Education should be a real priority in this country. There's no excuse for the public schools in the capitol of the "free" world to be so shitty.

Oprah opening a school is far more generous than Oprah giving away cars. But whatever Oprah does with Oprah's money is Oprah's prerogative. Leave Oprah alone.

Rocky Can't Fight

2007-01-04T20:44:39Z

I saw Rocky Balboa last night and I absolutely loved it!

However, from a pure fighting point of view Rocky seems to come from the "I'm gonna break my opponent's fists with my face" method of fighting. Personally, I've never found this a particularly effective method. I like my face. It lets me see, eat, and smell, all activities which I quite enjoy. Using my face to break, well, anything is pretty much out of the question.

I suppose an argument could be made that Rocky uses his face blocking jutsu to wear-out his opponent so that when Rocky unloads with his 24-inch pythons, brother, he does a lot of damage. This is usually how he manages to land his first hit. His opponent gets tired of Rocky's face hitting his fists, lets his guard down, and Rocky comes in with thunder and lightning.

Don't get me wrong. It makes for a damn entertaining movie. And you gotta respect anyone who can use the face blocking jutsu effectively. I also think that they've done a good job showing what all those hits to the noggin can do to a guy. So when you're watching the movie, you don't really notice just how much his face blocks that fist.

All in all, I was entertained. Great movie. I highly recommend it to everyone!

100 Million Dollars

2007-01-03T21:21:38Z

"What would you do if you had [__insert x amount of dollars__]?"

We've all heard it before. But in my opinion, that's not really what we want to know. The question that we're really trying to answer is "what would you do if you were absolutely free to do so."

You don't really want the money. You want what the money can get you. Stuff is nice, but there's more to it than the material. We're really after the freedom to choose what we would want to do with our lives.

So, if you had absolute freedom to choose, what would you do?

Happy 2k7!

2007-01-02T16:37:01Z

Well, 2k6 sucked all sort of salty donkey scrote. And though I'm thankful for a great many things, zooming out to the big picture, 2k6 has left the world with a big mess of mess. On that same global scale, it looks like 2k7 is going to start off a bit rough. But like Tina always said, "We never ever do anything nice and easy. We do things nice... and rough!" As long as they don't reinstate the draft or nuke anything, I'll be perfectly willing to call 2k7 a success.

Zooming in to the small picture, things are actually quite divided. I'm all googly and giggly about getting married. That's going to be a lot of fun. Hell, it's a lot of fun right now. Vacation was great and Audrey got to meet all the folks in Cali. It's clear that they all really like Audrey and are much more positive about things this time around. The culling of the crap in the condo has begun anew and it's starting to physically shape up. All that's left is for me to figure out how to get back into some sort of shape that I'm happy with.

Oh, and a small part of my re-branding experiment has been completed. I've posted up a portfolio of some of my current work along with my new logo and mascot. The filthy monkey, he schemes!

Happy New Year everyone! I hope this one is safer than the last one. Blech.

Those Damn Ads!

2006-12-22T16:47:31Z

Took forever, but I found the solution.

So, you make yourself a really annoying ad in flash and set its background to transparent. Then, you grab yourself some div tags and absolute place that bitch wherever the fuck you want. Slap in your content and upload the whole mess to your server. Test it out and you've got a really annoying flash banner that overlays itself over your content!

It's so simple I'm kicking myself for not figuring the shit out sooner.

Rotofugi!

2006-12-22T15:20:19Z

My sister-in-law lives four blocks away from Rotofugi in Chicago! I told her that if random sacks of money show up at her door, it's from me and that she should go there a pick up infinite Dunnys!

Which begs the question, why isn't there something like this in the D.C. area? I can understand Maryland's dearth of urban art culture, but D.C. has a pretty decent art scene that would just love to get on the urban vinyl thing. Seems to me that there's an opening waiting to be filled be some entrepreneur type person.

Off to Meet in the In-Laws!

2006-12-21T15:51:10Z

This Saturday, we kidnap Audrey to take her to California to meet the rest of my family. I've met Audrey's mom's side a few times now. Her father's family lives in France which is much farther than San Fransisco and Sacramento, so we're going to California in stead. This is kinda exciting because one, Audrey's never been to California. Two, she's never eaten real Chinese food (SF China Town, here we come)! Three, everyone is really looking forward to meeting her.

The only thing missing is my brother and his wife, but they're trying to keep warm up in Washington state. Oh, and she's preggers so traveling by plane isn't the best thing in the world.

Other than that, the whole family will be there. A week is a pretty good time too because anything longer than that, everyone starts to get on each other's nerves.

I like vacationing with Audrey far better than not. Vacations aren't really vacations these days. Sure, you're not at work, but it's rarely relaxing. There's lots of travel and doing things and you just wish you were home in bed with the TV on. With Audrey there, I don't notice the non-vacation aspects of vacation.

Anyway, I hope everyone has a nice safe holiday and that you get lots of loot! Hooray for loot!

Only in Webcomics...

2006-12-19T21:53:54Z

Only in webcomics could fans of a comic not three weeks old decide that they want to mod a turn based strategy game based on your comic. Enter Battle For Erfworld. The game will be based on Battle for Wesnoth which is an open source RPG and has a Mac version which I'm happy about. Apparently, anyone who's plays nice can mod the thing.

And another weird development. A number of haters have emerged just throwing hateful shit our way. One remarked that you have to be some kind of idiot to laugh at the jokes in Erfworld. The response? One of our fans created a badge of honor so that all the rest of the Erfworld Idiots could make their voices ring proud! LOL!

Small Magical World

2006-12-18T22:19:24Z

So this won't make any sense to anyone but a few people, but Chris's magic instructor is fucking playing my office XTREME Mas party! I just let him in the building!

Small small world.

Annoying Flash Ads

2006-12-18T21:25:35Z

You know those really annoying flash ads that popup over the content you're trying to read and you click the x and they go away? I've been trying to find a tutorial on how to build such a monstrosity for the past couple of hours and have had no luck. Any really nerdy folk out there know a good place to track something like that down? I have an idea to use such a jutsu for the powers of good, but I have yet to find any useful information.

Cow Throwing!

2006-12-15T21:01:25Z

There's a game in Rayman for the Wii where you swing a cow over your head and try to toss him as far as he'll go.

Wii wins! Period!

Sega Genesis Collection

2006-12-14T20:07:14Z

So I picked up the Sega Genesis Collection because the thought of rocking out Altered Beast after work really appealed to me. I remembered seeing Altered Beast in the arcades growing up and never having enough quarters to do any real damage. Now I could play forever!

Turns out, Altered Beast isn't as good as I remembered it. It's a perfect port from the arcade as far as I can tell, but it just wasn't as MIGHTY as I remembered. This could be because I still suck. I died at least twice before I made it past stage one. Yes, yes, my video game jutsu is atrocious.

However, this collection rocks. I quickly found that the Shinobi games, Shadow Dancer and Shinobi III, are by far my favorites. How can you beat old school ninja action! I still haven't figured out how to make the dog attack. See, I'm terrible at these things.

Audrey played around with the three Ecco games that are collected on the thing and I have to say, the dolphin is quite mesmerizing. Pretty damn good for a 90's puzzle game. Ecco Jr. lets you be an Orca which is pretty cool. Shamu rocks the Ecco!

The collection is a lot of fun. These old school games had to rely on game play rather than fancy graphics and it shows. Ecco looks cheesy by today's standards, but it still managed to entertain us until way past midnight. And Shinobi is just so awesome. Man, Shinobi was throwing kunai before Naruto was even born! What! You get 30 games for one price. Not too shabby. It's perfect for that little 90's kid in you! You know the one. The totally crossed out kid rocking those big ass Hammer pants and a flat top! Please Hammer, don't hurt em!

Bush has a Plan

2006-12-13T19:38:31Z

Well, he had a plan. Now he's working on making a new plan. Since the Iraq Study Group released its report last week, Bush has held various meetings with various other groups to come up with a plan that isn't the Iraq Study Group plan. It's ponderous to me why it took so damn long for him figure out that he needed a new plan. A year ago, even he would have to admit that our plan wasn't giving us the desired result.

I don't understand what Bush has against real diplomacy and training the Iraqis to take care of their own problems. Is his paradigm so short sighted, so insular that he can't see anything but what he wants to see? It's not hard to guess that he's holding all these meetings to come up with a new plan that conforms to his desires, thus completely ignoring any of the 70 some suggestions from the Iraq Study Group.

I'm very skeptical. Cheney and Rummy were there with him in each one of these meetings. Both were instrumental in coming up with the current plan that's working so scary good. The thought of the two of them helping with this new plan does not exactly inspire confidence.

Apparently, we won't know until the new year what Bush's new plan is. He was going to hold a press conference before the new year, but now it looks like he's going to hold off until January. Why wait? The situation is still going to be uber fucked a month from now. I suppose the fact that Congress is on vacation could be a justification for postponing the reveal of the new plan. Nothing can be done until the new year.

My Christmas wish is that the new Congress will put the Bush administration to the coals. I hope they will force Bush to play his hand. I hope they will enact legislation based on some of the suggestions of both the Iraq Study Group and fucking 9/11 Commission. I hope they ram these down Bush's throat and force him to use his veto. And I hope Congress keeps hammering away until our troops and our people are safe at home.

A Webcomics Fundraiser

2006-12-12T16:37:54Z

A Webcomics Fundraiser.

Shawn Handyside had the idea of putting together a set of holiday cards to sell online and raise money for Child's Play, Penny Arcade's fundraiser for kids in hospitals. Shawn asked a bunch of his hommies and we all agreed. So now, you can get yourself a cool set of four postcards featuring art from Shawn, Scott Ramsoomair, Hawk, and me!

Oh, and I can't believe I didn't tell you Rob. It completely flew out of my brain meats like a dwagon carrying my brain meats.

Noisy Zen, Cover Your Ears!

2006-12-11T21:00:32Z

So there's a decided lack of rocking in my life right at the moment. 'Tis a travesty most grave. So, to replenish the rock, johnnyrockstar and I have decided to play a cover show. We'll come up with a bunch of covers, attempt to arrange them for guitar, bass, and drums (POWER TRIO BITCHES), and then rock out till our ears bleed!

Would you like to help us commit horrible acts of rampant rocking?! Post some cover ideas and we'll do them in the second set! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAA! Hell, we might even record the bitch and distribute it online!

Hack the Weddings!

2006-12-08T18:54:02Z

We went to the caterer for our wedding last night to get a taste of the menu and it occurred to me that you could probably score a lot of free dinners if you were hungry enough. The only official thing you need to get married is a license at the actual event. Up until that point, it's basically your word. No paper work. No badge. No nothing. Just your word. So if you call up a caterer and say your interested in their services for your wedding, they usually set up a date for you to come taste some food and hook you up. You could get yourself some really nice food!

I can't be the first person to think up something this stupid. Caterers must get a handful of people like this every year.