I Made My First Gif
With a combination of GifCam, CyberLink PowerDirector, and Photoshop, I made my first gif while watching Giant Bomb's June 21st, 2013 Unprofessional Fridays show earlier this month. Vinny was playing SpyCraft: The Great Game when one of the game's characters suddenly got shot in the head in the middle of his dialogue, which caused Jeff to make a face that instantly reminded me of the "BRB Using Imagination Since No Pics" meme. I captured it with GifCam and exported it to an AVI file. I added the text overlay in CyberLink PowerDirector, and then turned it into a gif with Photoshop. I was surprised by how easy the process was. The only annoying part was trying to shrink the gif's file size into something reasonable. The first version was about 24 megabytes. I managed to get it down to about 11 megabytes. Anything further and the quality goes down too much for my liking.
My Face is on the Front Page of Giant Bomb
It was announced that Facebook bought Oculus VR today. When I did my evening check-in on Giant Bomb, I noticed something familiar about the promo shot Alex Navarro chose for his article covering the matter.
Let's zoom in on that...
Oh, it's me!
I had a photoshoot back in September 2013 and took my Oculus Rift development kit with me to get a nice promo shot I could use for any future coverage of the device I might do. I uploaded it to the Oculus Rift page on Giant Bomb immediately upon receiving it, and it looks like Alex decided to use it! The photo was taken by David Pascua, who did a great job of angling everything so the cord and control box aren't visible.
Went to my First Thrift Store Today
As an adult, anyway. No, this trip was not influenced by Macklemore. I think.
I do a lot of background acting in North Carolina (you can see me in We're the Millers, Revolution, Under the Dome, etc.), and, as a background actor, you're often expected to bring your own wardrobe. The more options you have, the better. You generally can't have anything too bright or with logos/images, and, in my case, that greatly limits what I can bring. I often have to take my brother's clothes, so I've been slowly building up a new wardrobe for myself, primarily for background work, but also because I've been wanting to change up my style anyway.
Sorry, Giant Bomb Emporium, but your shirts are too flashy.
I read a post on Facebook about one background actor who makes a trip to a thrift store every week or so, limiting themselves to spending $1. That sounded like a great way to quickly build up my new clothing collection, so, for the first time, I dropped by my local shop that I've passed numerous times over the past couple of years. I donated four pairs of pants my brother gave me as the logos were too big for me to wear on set and then went to the back to browse. I came away with two pairs of pants for $1 and a like-new garment bag (along with the two hangers and U.S. Army garrison cap inside) for $3, making for $4 total. Not bad! I've been badly needing a proper garment bag as my clothes would often wrinkle on the two to three-hour drives I often have to take to set, and carrying them around was always a hassle. I suspect I got a better deal because of the pants I donated as she originally wasn't going to charge me for the clothing. I didn't feel right about that and told her to charge me what she thought was fair.
The store also had a PlayStation and PlayStation 2 I briefly considered picking up, but they didn't have any cables or controllers. There were also some older games, like SSX Tricky for the Xbox. As I drove away, I fantasized about what it would have been like to find a fully working Dreamcast and a copy of Shenmue. I wouldn't be writing this right now, that's for sure!
Now that I have my garrison cap, it's time to hit up the Casual Encounters section of Craigslist and pick up women looking for military guys. I should probably shave first, right?
My default Casual Encounters face. Works every time.
Giant Bomb: Patrick Chicago Sendoff - "This Woman's Work" Edition
User Typographenia of Giant Bomb made a sendoff video for Patrick Klepek's move to Chicago, using Green Day's "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)" as the song. User TruthTellah then took the original video footage and changed the song to Russell Watson's "Where My Heart Will Take Me".
This gave me the inspiration to make my own version of the video. I changed the song and added some stuff at the end. Patrick Klepek will be missed.
Also, I just realized this video is my first action as a 25-year-old. Happy Birthday to me!
Here is the original video by Typographenia.
Best Game Where I Had Sex with a Cloned Version of Myself of 2012
Double Fine Happy Action Theater
Sex pictures not included.
The Art of Video Games: Wii
The Art of Video Games: Wii
Smithsonian American Art Museum
September 2nd, 2012
| Action | Super Mario Galaxy 2 |
| Target | Boom Blox |
| Adventure | The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess |
| Tactics | Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure |
The Art of Video Games: Xbox 360
The Art of Video Games: Xbox 360
Smithsonian American Art Museum
September 2nd, 2012
| Action | BioShock |
| Target | Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2 |
| Adventure | Mass Effect 2 |
| Tactics | The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II |
Road Trip
In December 2011 my brother and I took a road trip for Christmas. First, we drove from North Carolina to Washington, D.C., then from there to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and from there to Kansas to visit our mom. Usually when we take trips I fill up my phone with old Bombcasts, but I've heard most of them at least two or even three times now, so I needed to find something different. I don't listen to any other podcasts and generally don't like to listen to music anymore (unless it's a soundtrack I can associate with some experience I had, like a game or movie), but I wanted something that wouldn't easily be tuned out to make the drives seem shorter. This meant I needed people having conversations, and the only thing that came to mind that would be suitable for both my brother and I was the talk radio stations from the Grand Theft Auto series. So along with Giant Bomb's Game of the Year 2009 deliberations (my brother hadn't completed Uncharted 2 when the podcast was first released), I placed Chatterbox FM from Grand Theft Auto III, V-Rock from Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (has some good music along with more Lazlow), West Coast Talk Radio from Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, and Integrity 2.0 from Grand Theft Auto IV on to my phone. It didn't take my brother long to realize what we were listening to.
None of the subsequent talk radio stations were as good as Chatterbox FM.
We're about to take another road trip in September after he returns from Afghanistan and I'm trying to figure out what to do next.
My "Heroes of the Internet" Trading Card
I figured now would be a good time to post my "Heroes of the Internet" trading card since I changed my username (and since Whiskey Media no longer exists).
When a Whiskey Media user completed a specific task (I don't think it's been officially revealed), these cards were emailed to them by Dave Snider. Each card is unique to the user it was sent to and feature pictures Dave took around the office. It was a neat thing that made me love Whiskey Media even more.
I unlocked card #0013, Brad Shoemaker. My old username can be seen at the bottom of the card. Though many of the cards remain secret, several more of them can be found here.