Hey all!

FYI,I've been pretty busy with school and it is the primary reason why I haven't been blogging about games lately :(

BUT in gaming related news, I'm mostly playing Brain Age 2, the most I've been able to do is watch classmates play the Call of Duty 4 and Unreal Tournament demos *drool*.

I want to play Portal badly but I'll have to wait until the holidays. That and I miss Guild Wars a lot.

Windsor McCay and Little Nemo: The Dream Master

So, the first week of school has come and gone and the work is starting to pile up! I actually just came home from school about half an hour ago, yeeesh. Anyway, it's fun times still (even though it's a lot of work) and I enjoy one class in particular, Animation history class!

Now I know, w-t-f, history? (No not Work Time Fun, lol) But it's more interesting than regular history, hell, it's more interesting than a lot of non-history things too! We learned about the father of Animation, Windsor McCay. He is responsible for making Animation what it is today. Just watching his animations made me want to animate and get better.

Winsor McCay (September 26, 1867(?) – July 26, 1934) was a prolific artist and pioneer in the art of comic strips and animation. His comic strip work has influenced generations of artists, including creators such as Moebius, Chris Ware, William Joyce, and Maurice Sendak. His early animated films far outshone the work of his contemporaries, and set the model to be followed by Walt Disney and others. His two best-known creations are the newspaper comic strip Little Nemo in Slumberland, which ran from 1905 to 1914, and the animated cartoon Gertie the Dinosaur, which he created in 1914.

I was surprised to find that he made Nemo in Slumberland! Why, you ask? Well, back in 1990 Capcom released a game called Little Nemo: The Dream Master for the NES. I remember playing that game and thinking how awesome the gameplay and storyline were so I was excited to find out the connection. Anyway, just being geeky, I thought that connection was pretty cool (well the game is based off the movie, based off the comic), now I want to get the old Nemo comics.

Oh, and in case you've never played the NES game, click here to see a video.

Back for a bit!

Hey!

Long time no posts! As explained in the last post I am organizing everything for school, (paperwork, tuition, schedule, etc) catching up with a lot of friends I haven't seen or won't see for a while, cleaning up the house and packaging up stuff for donation and am generally still pretty busy, but it's exciting stuff! Two weeks left!

As for gaming related experiences I was able to play some Wii, mostly Mario Party 8, Wii Play and Wii Sports. I brought the Wii to two different parties and we all played MP8, so I'll have to share that experience in another post.

I wasn't able to play too much DS as I sent it with my brother to NYC to get it engraved at the Nintendo World Store, only to find that they have discontinued that service! BOO!!! But, in the meantime I found some neat software that helps the user learn to write and translate Japanese (you have to import it though) find out more from this handy dandy link to tofugu.com! Who says games can't be educational?

I've been playing a lot of Guild Wars, but not as frequently as I am waiting on the expansion. I've also got demos of Tabula Rasa (NCSoft) and Sword of the New World: Granado Espada (IMC Games) that I have to try out.

I also got a bunch of new Nintendo stuff from my friend who traveled all around Europe! When he asked me what I wanted I said "Nintendo stuff" and I actually got some, sweeeeeeet! :D

Oh yeah, and I'm re-reading the Doom series I'm also reading Making Comics by Scott McCloud, author of Understanding Comics and Reinventing Comics, his works are extremely helpful, easy to follow and very detailed (not to mention fully illustrated!)

Guild Wars: Eye of the North

This past Sunday I've been able to put a pre-order down for the new Guild Wars Expansion, Eye of the North. My friend was able to pickup my pre-order disk and I've just added the new key. What is in the pre-order you may ask?

Early access to the game (sneak peek weekend Aug 24-26)
Three Exclusive Weapons: The Glacial Blade, Hourglass Staff, and the Darksteel Longbow
A free 10 hour/14 day trial

Yeah, it's not a whole lot. At least with the Nightfall pre-order I got an extra character slot AND weapons. And what's with the free trial? Since this is an expansion I'd have to already own one of the other GW campaigns to play it. So, I suppose it's for my friends who haven't joined. Ah well, that doesn't mean I'm gonna be canceling my pre-order, I just wish I got a little more with it since the game is $44.99 CDN.

In other news, I have been let go at work, and am taking the opportunity to go to school full time for Animation. So, the updates may not be as frequent and there might be some ranting about school lol. So heads up.

Also, I've finally finished Eldest and am on the new Harry Potter book, and half way done. Which adds to my New Years Resolutions of reading at least ten books this year. I'm on number six. Wewt.