Here is a photo of the newest Pea in the Pod, my cousin's new baby.




And a few fun photo tricks.

Tags: photography, web

The new iphone was released today. I hate cell phones, but I like Apple. No let me repeat that, I HATE, HATE, HATE cell phones, but am a mac-head, so I'm obliged to comment on the new release.

And, hey, no jokes about how over priced the iphone is---duh, that's just a given.
Mac, duh.

Tags: comic

Thanks to loyal TTOTD reader Cassie, I learned that today is National Bomb Pop Day!
I found several cool things to do and make on their site, an adventure game, an awesome mobile, and a memory game, all that that you can download and put together and play or hang. And, this glider, which I printed in black and white so I could color it myself. Don't you think a purple, pink, and green bomb pop would taste great?

Tags: craft

Boring today. (Hey, go download yesterday's music!) I'm just going through all the old comics and updating them for the Comic Genesis site. You can only post them one a day, so for the next two weeks, there'll be a new comic a day there. It's a boring site, but the comics are full sized. I went and added copyrights and date to many of them. The site's been acting wanky in uploading, but is also a bit slow.

I also organized and bagged all of mine and Shelly's meatspace comics. Almost 80 comics already, mostly old and free comics.

My plan is to post a new comic every week on Tuesdays.

Tags: comic, update, project

My love of making things with felt just keeps going.



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Tags: craft

There's a whole hour-plus mixtape radio show today. It's mostly new music for the summer. The 90 meg zipped M4a file can easily be burned off to a CD for driving around. Also, if you listen on your ipod, the show has different album art for each of the 18 songs. I whipped up some pretty simple stingers and bumps for in between the songs as well. If I make more shows, I'll do some more mixing and make some more complex sound interludes.

You can grab the CD Jewel Case HERE. The PDF file has artwork and track listings. Print it out.

Don't worry about the show pirating music, each of the songs in the show were a free download on the internet from Salon and Discollective. If you like the songs, go out and support the artists. There's a ton of free music out there!




You can download the file HERE or click on the picture.

Tags: music, radio, podcast

When lazy meets deadline, you get...

Tags: stick men, comic

Tags: web

Tags: web, photography

Snippets

Today's Thing is learning more about Rapidweaver.

I played with the Rapidweaver snippets function and boxed up some of the sidebar.

Snippets let you easily add in HTML code into the various parts of the site.

Tags: web, update

My brother (finally) graduated college a couple weeks ago. Click on the picture to go to the Blabber I made for him.

Tags: web, photography

Today, nothing fancy. I created some accounts at Youtube, MySpace and Veoh for The Thing Of The Day. I'll fill in more details on the sites later and add to the sidebar.

I've also uploaded the classic Ninja Kel video as well as yesterday's video to all the sites.

I like Veoh the best because they have a video uploader and don't put any limits on video quality or size. How do they have all the space? I noticed a bunch of free movies on the site, can't be legal.

Tags: movie, web

The Worth 1000 photo contest I entered has finished, and I didn't do very well.
Not. At. All.

Let me reveal the photo I entered: Read More...

Tags: photography

Recently my dad sent me this link:




I was watching the video on my fictional macbook while eating at the Taco Loco, home of the honey fish taco. Some hairy bus boy with a nose piercing and an eight-inch goatee out of the blue grabbed my fictional macbook and demanded to make a reply to the quote, "Totally BS blah, blah, blah video I was watching," unquote.

I didn't want spit in my Grande Taco Salad, so I let him borrow my fictional mac while I watched 'Bill E' pound away at the keys and grunt.

Here's bus boy 'Bill E Goat's' video:




Enjoy.

Tags: comedy, video, Satire

Thanks to the Playful Painter Blog, I discovered Scratch today. This is an awesome site where you can download their program to make little games. Someone else on Scratch made the template, I just had to change the pictures. But I'd like to try making something from scratch myself.
Click on the picture to go play!!

Tags: web, project

Proving I've run out of ideas.

Tags: comic, stick men

I've updated my photo page, and my flickr page. On the sidebar, see the new and improved seeshells' photos, and click here for my flickr page, complete with collections.

Tags: photography

Both of my ideas for today fell through and I don't have enough time to make the deadline on the third, so I have to pass today.

Tags: pass

In the same style as the felted flower, here is my first felted finger puppet with blanket stitching and beaded blanket stitching. Click either picture to go to more photos on flickr.



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Tags: craft

A week ago or so, Shelly bought a Tin Whistle and made a short song.

I couldn't leave well enough alone.

Here's my remix called Space Whistle. Yea, I luvs me the Sci-fi sounds.

Tags: music, update

Today I'm doing some pimpin' of the site. I've signed us up for Blog Explosion, BlogaZoo, and registered us on Blogarama, BlogFlux, and Globe of Blogs.

Tags: web

Here's a little scoreboard of our passes I made with tables and modified code. It's in the sidebar, too.

Tags: web

Wanna know what movies are in the TTOTD household? Well, today, I've created a website with most of our movies on it. You can browse, request to borrow and see details on over 40 movies in our permanent library. It's part of Delicious Library and a web program called deliweb. There will be a link called TTOTD Media in the sidebar. Later we'll add games, CD's and books as web space opens up. Check it out.

Tags: web, project

Worth 1000 is one of the sites I visit daily. I love looking at the Photoshop contests, people get so creative, the contests are inspiring and fun. Worth also has text contests, mulitmedia, and photography. Three and a half or so years ago I entered a beginning photography contest with the photo below, and came in fourth place. I have entered a few other times since then.
My 'thing' today, is that I have entered another beginner photography contest. Voting started today, and goes for about a week, so I won't tell you which entry is mine just yet. Here's the link to the contest, if you choose to vote, I think you have to sign up, don't feel like you have to.

Tags: photography

Tags: photography

I've created a director's cut of yesterday's entry. There's three new pages, a slightly different cover, a different ending, more Goony-ness, some necessary copy editing and a much improved higher quality presentation. I wanted to see if I could put together a full comic in the comic book format used in digital comics. The format is CBZ. It's basically a zipped file.

You can use a comic book reader like the free Simple Comic or Comic Book Lover for mac or CDdisplayEx or Gonvisor among many for Windows. Since it's just a zipped file with images, you could unzip it and look at each JPEG page individually as well.

The zipped comic is 13 pages long and 13.5 megs. Don't unzip if you use a reader. Click on the picture to download it.

Also, please check out and buy Eric Powell's The Goon as I've stolen his artwork and changed the words. The comic's great. Buy it or it's a fish hook in the eye for ya!

Oh, I tried to get Janice in as the Zombie Master, but it just wasn't working.

Tags: comic, project, update

Tuesday is the day
The week feels overly long.
How long 'till Friday?

Ruts and graves compared,
Are more similar than not.
Climb out while you can.

Words across the page
Written by hand or keyboard
Help clear up the mind.

Tags: poetry, haiku, writing

Missed the series finale of The Sopranos? Click on the picture. The Goon can help. Lots of copyright bein' broken here---so go out and buy a copy of The Goon comic to attone or ya'll sleep wit da fishes!


I'll upload better, higher quality pics to flickr later.

Tags: comic

Blame it on the Sopranos Finale or the new Big Love or our new Blockbuster movie Netflixy-thing or the fact we just received a new team pass on the first of the month, but we're having a team pass today.

Tags: team, pass

What will happen on the Sopranos Series Finale?

Click on "Read More" to see the large size. Read More...

Tags: comic, television

About halfway through writing the evil, evil game I had planned for today, I realized I wouldn't have enough time to finish the post. I'll have it done for Monday. Although I did remember a puzzle I created when I was bored in middle school. Can you solve it?

Tags: game, art

Here's a drink recipe I made up when I was thirsty for something sweet.
1 part rum
1 part coffee liqueur
2 parts carmel flavored cola
Lots of ice
Use your own measurements to your own taste.
;p

Tags: recipe, drink

This free game cost me thirty bucks! A few weeks ago, I wrote about a free zombie game I ran across called Dead of Night. Today's Thing was to put the game together. At the time I downloaded it, Dead of Night was a free PDF with all the maps, cards, tokens, graphics in the PDF. I've found out theat the game is to come out commercially in a few months. So, I decided to print out the 40-plus pages and cut out all the bits.

In just ink alone, I must have spent 30 bucks. The cards are double-sided. There are over 30 rooms, 80 cards, 50 items, 100 zombies as well as other pieces and a 28 page rule book. The whole project took over three hours. I haven't played the game yet, but it looks like there's a lot of customization and turns in the game like a Zombie movie.

Looking at the commercial version online, if the game's any good, this free game may cost me another thirty bucks. The commercial version looks nice, if not exactly the same as the PDF version graphics-wise.

Tags: game, project

Last Saturday, I purchased a Irish Tin Whistle. Learning the Tin Whistle is something I've been interested in for a while, so I was excited to finally find one. The music store had three choices, and I got the one that had a book included. ('cause I'm smrt!) I've probably practiced a total of two hours since Saturday, so I'm far from a vurtuoso, but please enjoy my first recording on my new instrument by clicking on the "podcast" link below.

The song is an Irish Single Jig called Rogha Mhaoir Ui Chathail. (but don't ask me how to pronounce it!)


Podcast

Tags: music, podcast

Okay, it's a stupid title for a game. That's one of the zillion points that'll change as this game develops. These are the beta rules, beyond pre-alpha. This is version.002 of the rules, basically just a few ideas strung together under a generic theme.

The basic idea is to combine a tile laying strategy game with a miniatures game. Do well in the first phase, you'll do well in the second, but a good war gamer could still prevail after a lousy set-up.

Much work will have to done during play testing, probably whole sections will be revamped and overhauled. This version also uses another game's tiles and pieces to play. Hopefully, I'll develop the playing pieces as I work on the game. For now, you'll need a copy of Zombies: The End, some other zombie figurines from other Zombie games (really any consistent token could work) and two decks of cards.

The rough rules after the jump.

Read More...

Tags: game, rules

Reading Bryan's yesterday post, one phrase grabbed me and pulled this short story out of me.
The phrase:
"my super professional broadcasting voice" Read More...

Tags: fiction, nonfiction, story

Two weeks ago, Shelly and I joined a gaming league. The league hasn't started yet---this weekend--- but soon. The idea is you play a different game each week throughout the summer and earn points for how well you do against other players. I look over at our wall of games and see about 20-25 games we've never even played. I've read the rules to all of them and oogled over the crunchy bit goodness, but time is a monster. This gaming league, hopefully, will spurn some more game playing. It's also a chance to meet some new people---people nerdier than myself.

To celebrate joining the league, we, of course, bought a game. Recently at a game con, we played Tom Jolly's Cave Troll. It was a fun, relatively easy to learn game that mixed luck, strategy, player interaction and game engagement. Lots of fun and although I lost the one game I played, I wanted to play again and the game felt close, even against a much more experienced player.



So, we bought Tom Jolly's other game, Drakon. Cave Troll was sold out. While I like Drakon okay, Cave Troll was the better way to spend 25 bucks for a game that plays in about a half hour. I'm doing a Drakon review because I've only played Cave Troll once. We've played Drakon three times, two two-player games and on four-player game. The two-player games were more satisfying because you could develop some small plans and see them through. In Drakon, players lay dungeon tiles and move around the newly created board gathering gold. The first player to 10 gold wins. As you enter each new tile or room, different room abilities are activated. These abilities are the heart of the game. Each room has different arrows out of the 2.5 square inch tiles, so tile place really determines where players can go. A giant dragon can be released and crush you, but in all three games, the dragon wasn't a threat because the rooms that activate him are too few. I'd like more dragon action. Early on, each player figured out a gold loop, a set of tiles to maximize gold collection. By the third game, stopping these loops became a focus. The best way was to limit the amount of choices the others have in tile laying. Because of the new strategy, the last game was much longer than the other two. Plus, having an out tile to win greatly increased the enjoyability. Drakon's a decent game if you like to play to screw over other players instead of just focusing on winning yourself. It's not a Munchkin level screw-job, but this element seems to be prevalent in most modern games.
This bits and piece are nice and worth the 25 bucks. It'd be nice to have painted figures---no game does, except Marvel Heros. Also, the large tiles are a pain to shuffle and manage, but that's mostly unavoidable. There's no dice-rolling and all the luck comes from the draw of the tiles.

Overall, Drakon is a six out of ten. It's a decent game to play in a half hour, not too much of a brain drain, but a bit easy to fall into predictable patterns of play. 'kay?

Tags: game, review

It's a week of game-related Things. Monday kicks off with a whole damn professional game for you to enjoy, minus the cards. About a year ago, I recorded the rules to The Shab-Al-Hiri Roach for Shelly to listen to on her ipod at work. Last week, I contacted the nice folks at Bully Pulpit Games and they said I could share the recording on this website. Hooray!

The Roach is a rules lite, GM-less tabletop role playing game. It's not the nerdy elf 'n swords RPG new players think of when they think of RPG's, but a weird Lovecraftian mix of pompous, back-stabbing, dark humored, egotistical college professors and the hotbed of turn of the century small-town college politics. Oh, and alien roaches that infect you and guide your actions. It's eeevvviiiiiilll, I tells ya!

From the website:

The Shab-al-Hiri Roach is a dark comedy of manners, lampooning academia and asking players to answer a difficult question - are you willing to swallow a soul-eating telepathic insect bent on destroying human civilization?
No?
Even if it will get you tenure?

So, you get the idea. The game's got a mean funny bone. The setting is Pemberton college, a small northeast college in 1919. Each player in the game plays a full or associate professor just trying to get ahead. You have your enemies, other players, and your friends, also other players. You create the ever-increasing crazy plot lines around six events of a school year with the help of other players, other characters you create, and cards you draw. The cards are the genius of the game and I think open the game up to people who aren't fully comfortable playing a full-on stats-heavy RPG. The cards tell you if your infected and give you a general guide what to do each setting. And you can learn Sumarian. Think of the game as improv with dice. Act-ING! The game can be played in an evening and actually has an end and a winner. Although winning really isn't the point, it's the journey. The emphasis is on characters, black humor and just plain strangeness.

You'll need a variety of multi-sided die, from 4-sided to 12-sided and that's about it. Visit the Bully Pulpit Games download page and pick up a character sheet, a 1919 events cheat sheet, a comic, a short movie and some extra rules errata. You can check out a 14-page preview before you download the audio file as well. The game does need the cards to play which come with the game, but you could make up your own cards or better yet, go out and buy the game!. You can buy it here. The Roach is twenty bucks and if you buy the game, you also get a rubber roach. Cool. I think as a future Thing, I may try to make some more Roach cards to add to the game. Also, roam around Indie Press Revolution, there's a bunch of imaginative low-cost games both in soft back and the much cheaper PDF's.

About the audio file, it's an AAC file best played in itunes. The file is about 30 megs, contains chapter breaks, royalty-free sound effects and music and a picture you can see in itunes. The rules run a little over an hour. I admit since I didn't expect to be sharing this sound file with the world, I used my crappy microphone, didn't use my super professional broadcasting voice and have a few vocal flubs. Also, I didn't add in the rules errata. I enjoyed reading the rules and, as a future Thing, may rerecord them with some more professionalism and better equipment. Hey Bully Pulpit people, do you need an audio version of your other game Drowning and Falling? Let me know. Love your games, love to help. They've got a free version of Drowning and Falling up.

You can download the rules HERE or click on the third roach.

The Roach commands you!
Read More...

Tags: game, podcast, project, rules

I bought a package of Googly Eyes, and I had to have a cool place to keep them! So I collaged the lid, and glitter glued some eyes around, too!


P.S. I uploaded a new picture for the Felted Flower with Beaded Blanket stitch. The other picture did not have a frame of reference so you could see how small it really is, and that old background was too busy for my eyes!

More on this Thing

Tags: craft, project

New Earrings:


More on this Thing

Tags: craft, web

This Indie Tee Shirt takes on a different meaning when you read this story.

Tags: links