Greetings fellow Knights.
Well, Ive managed to get settled into my new situation. My computers, my cat and myself have moved into Johns (the voice of Brian) place. A few other friends share the place as well. In addition to this, I also work at Johns game store, Dreamland Hobbies, on the weekends. And he also kind enough to let me use his uber-powerful laptop so when things are slow, I can write updates (Im writing this at the store in fact) and work on Series Two cartoons as well. Yes, the recent moving around has kept me away a bit, but Im able to get right back to work on them. And if youre ever in Vegas, you can stop by the store and see me working on the toons. Heck, if we ever figure out how to get the net connection to the front of the store working correctly, I could conceivably upload to my site from here as well.
The store is doing pretty well. We have a upstairs loft area where gamers can game. On the weekends when Im working, there are a lot of Warhammer and 40K players here. Right now theres a Blood Bowl season going on. Some of the latest stuff to come out this week: The Book of Vile Darkness, Traveller D20, and (yay) Smackdown the Slavers for Hackmaster!
For the moment I also working during the week. The temp agency Aquent got me a gig working for Lasvegas.com, which is in the process of being redesigned and relaunched. Ive been doing a lot of graphics work for them. They are aiming to be a true portal to everything that is Las Vegas, so finding pictures for all the casinos, hotels, pools, and the various attractions inside the casinos has been a real challenge. I was originally contracted for four weeks but this coming week will make my seventh week. It will probably be my last week as well, but its still been a good run with the company.
All of us roomies have also started a book club. We each suggest a book and provide copies for everyone else. Since my copies arrived first, we are doing my selection: Bill, the Galactic Hero by Harry Harrison. Im on chapter five at the moment and so far its a very sharp satire of sci-fi and the gung-ho military prose. I recommend it highly.
I know I havent updated the progress bar lately, even though Ive been getting some work done on the cartoons here and there, but Im also thinking of redesigning it as well. Im more at the point where Im working on finishing one cartoon before I finish up the next one, so Im thinking of doing a dual bar system: one that shows the progress of the cartoon Im working on, and one that shows the overall progress of Series Two. I think I would also doing it in Flash so to make it a little more– flashier.
I cant believe I just typed that. Anyway, I think it would be work like the dual bar system of Everquest, one showing overall Series progress and one for the specific cartoon.
As much as Im a stickler for lip-sync Im also a stickler for answering e-mail myself. Even if it piles up. If youve sent me an e-mail and I havent responded yet, please be patient. Ive only recently gotten the net connection to my room working properly. I also had a curious problem with e-mail in that I could receive mail but not send any out. Thanks to the all-powerful wizard that is TheJoe, that too has been straightened out so now I can make with the responses.
Thats all for now. Ill holler at ya next week.

I have some pretty exciting news. There's a digital film festival called The International Festival of Cinema and Technology that has accepted Series One into the festival. This year they are traveling to six major cities and my cartoons will be in three of them! I don't know which ones yet, but the festival is traveling to: New York, London, Paris, Ottawa, Toronto and Los Angeles. I'm hoping Los Angeles is one of the cities as that's only a four hour drive for me. We will see. But it will truly be amazing that the Knights cartoons will be shown on movie screens in several cities.
There are some fees due that will handle the cost of transporting the films and other things, so all donations this month with go to festival fees.
I didn't mention before, but at GAMA I got to meet Aaron Williams who makes Nodwick, John Kovalic who makes Dork Tower, and even Scott Kurtz, the man behind PVP! It was amazing to talk to all of them and get to know the people behind some of my favorite comics.

I've been trying to drag my butt back into production and I've managed to make some small progress. This should start me snowballing back into things and get you guys the rest of the cartoons (or as EaglesFan1960 enjoys putting it, "give me my candy bar, dammit") I probably have the most patient fans outside of George Lucas and I thank each and every one of you for your continued support and encouragement. It means a lot. I'm getting back to work now.

Yup. I know I've been incognito for a while. But for good reason.
TheJoe and Angel found a house they wanted now that Draylan is in the world. However this time after talking with him. I decided that I should find a place of my own. Yeah, I'm 32, but it's been a very long time since I've had a place to myself and the process is a bit scary. Fortunately, of all the apartments I looked at, I got the one I wanted. A couple of friends helped me move what I had into this place, so the official description of my decor can now be "Spartan". But that's just at the beginning. And I got plenty of room for my computers and even a space to set up a small keyboard.
The place is on the third floor so I have no one above me, the place has two pools, a spa and fitness center, and is walking distance from quite a few grocery stores and food joints.
Oh yes, one of the cats (1 out of 7 total!) was staying in my room as he wasn't getting along with the other cats. When I moved they said I could keep him. So I now have a cat named Shemp. He's an older cat, which in some ways works in my favor since he doesn't make any sound when he tries to meow and is too fat to jump up on the outside balcony. Perfect for apartment living.
Best Utility Switch: Power company. Didn't even have to deal with anyone except the initial call over the phone. A seamless switch to me.
Worst Utility Switch: The friggin' phone company. When I first contact them to get a new number, I'm told I have some charges I need to clear, which I totally expected. Couple days later when my phone still isn't turned on, I call them back and find out that there was another charge they hadn't seen before that I also needed to take care of. :( THEN, when they did give me service, they ended up giving me a number that was meant FOR SOMEONE ELSE ENTIRELY! I'm getting all sorts of calls for this other person before they finally get it right. A total of ten days to get MY phone line.
So with everything I have in it's place, I believe I've settled in to the place, and can get back to the important things like working on the new cartoons. You may have seen the site was down for a few days. It happens during these moves. The switch to a new place isn't always seamless.
So I'm back. I have a solid net connection, but for those that talk to me online (I use Trillian) will have to wait for me to get a static IP so I can get both my computers on my connection. I'll post some new stuff soon, including some info on some people I got to meet at GAMA. :)

Main Computer: Fallout is still on it.
Secondary Computer: Chrono Trigger.
Game Boy Advance: Golden Sun, Breath of Fire, and Advance Wars.
Saturday at the store: My top bowling score is now 154! :)

Hoody Hoo: Series Two. Check it out!

Main Computer: Once again: I've made more progress on Fallout. I'm at the Brotherhood of Steel trying to get the power armor fixed
Secondary Computer: Chrono Trigger. Made a little progress on this.
Game Boy Advance: Golden Sun. I play this when I'm out and about and waiting on something.
Saturday at the store: Bowled a 113 and a 133. :)

...the very next day/the code came back/we thought it was a goner...
I'm doing better now, however and THIS time I think it's gone for good. I'm trying to make up for the time I lost dealing with all that fever-y goodness. In the meantime to wet your appetite further, I'm showing a screenshot from a certain scene here (which you can click on for a bigger image):

Yup. Once again Erik Bouchard will lend his voice to one of my creations. And soon you will get to experience the full scene. It's truly touching. Erik gave a stellar performance for it, and I'm sure you'll enjoy it a lot.
Gaming diary:
Main Computer: Fallout is waiting to get conquered here.
Secondary Computer: Chrono Trigger. Made a little progress on this.
Game Boy Advance: Golden Sun. I play this when I'm out and about and waiting on something.
Saturday at the store: Didn't go bowling. Felt the cold would get aggravated. I did hang out with Mikey and at the house we played a bit of Halo. For once I didn't do too well at a first-person shooter, but then, I usually play them with a keyboard-mouse combination rather than a console controller. I did manage to take two people down just by smacking them, so a small balance was achieved. :)

Greetings fellow Knights! I don't get sick that often, maybe once a year, so it's a bit disorienting when it finally hits me. Usually at the change of the seasons. It was all nice and warm come the end of February, but when March came, it decided it had to adhere to the whole "In like a lion" deal and the temperature dropped and the winds rose. Oh well, at least I'm past that now.
The first cartoon is now fully animated! Yay! Just gotta do the rest now... Ugh.. I'll get through this somehow. It feels like a major milestone to just get one done.
I realize that I haven't gotten back to those of you that have written me, but trust me, I will get back to you. Your letters of encouragement are very helpful and encouraging to me (Especially all the feedback I've gotten on the Series Two trailer) and I will respond to all of them soon.
So, sometimes I actually get to game once in a while.. :) Here's a breakdown of what I've been doing there:
Main Computer: I have Fallout loaded on it and plan to play it too completion this time. I also happened across a copy of the BattleNet edition of Warcraft II for about twelve bucks and couldn't resist. I loaded that up too and played a few scenarios. But I do want to get Fallout completed.
Secondary Computer: Besides my chat program, I keep all my emulated stuff on the secondary computer. The main game I battle through on this right now is Chrono Trigger. According to the gamefaq I use for this. I'm nowhere NEAR ready to take down the final boss yet.. Still, it's definitely a classic RPG and thanks to emulation, I can save wherever and whenever I want. Ain't modern tech great?
Game Boy Advance: My roommate was getting rid of his GBA so I bought it off of him. There's the problems with the viewability of the screen, but when it IS viewable, it's great. It's like having a portable supercharged SNES, which is very evident with the Golden Sun RPG I'm playing through. It's very incredible. I was even able to breeze through the Mario 2 NES remake (Super Mario Advance) with a modicum of enjoyment, and I really dislike the 2nd Mario game. It wasn't even the original Mario 2 game. Japan got a different version of the first Super Mario game with harder levels while we got a game that was just a re-working of an obscure Arabian-themed game called Doki Doki Panic that was just tweaked and had the Super Mario cast grafted in. But Golden Sun is an excellent RPG. The story is intriguing, the combat system and screen are incredible, and there's more RPGs planned for the system in the future.
Saturday at the store: I usually hang out at John's store on Saturday, and if I'm not playing my GBA, I'm picking up on any pickup games anyone is looking to get people in on. This day, I got the chance to play Warlords CCG for the first time. Once I clicked with the rules, I found it a good game. They were able to take the combat of a table top RPG and translate that to a CCG. Very impressive. I had fun playing it. I also won. :) After the store closes, John, his family, me, Mike (who works there too) and his friends go to one of the casinos and do the 'Cosmic Bowling deal. I bowled a 95 and a 110.

Well, that's all we have time for today, Enjoy your week and I'll talk to you soon.

Greetings, fellow Knights!
Yes, I know those numbers above seem to be crawling up there, but thing are moving forward. I was planning to have all the animation done on all the cartoons before I went back and did the lip-sync, but something in me wanted to see what a finished cartoon would look like so I'm doing the lip-sync for the first cartoon. It's looking pretty good. And, you'll be happy to know that because of this, come February 9, I'm going to give you a preview of it. Not the whole cartoon, mind you, just a taste of what's to come. I may do a IRC chat or something as well, but I'm not sure yet.
Well, thanks to updating to Windows 2000 (I don't have much faith in XP and 2000 is much more stable) I've been going through all my computer game discs and finding out which ones I can't use anymore, along with the ones I know I won't play anymore. If you want to see the list of games and discs I've already gone through, click here. I may be selling them in the near future, but I'm not sure if there's going to be a Recycler ad, or a big ol' EBay-fest. We'll see.

It kinda feels like I've gone from ronin gamer to bergamer recently. Especially on the weekends. After I do weekly room and yard cleaning, I'll head over the the game store (Dreamland Hobbies) and I'll either run Hackmaster, or sit in on a 3eD&D game, then after the store closes we'll all go to the Suncoast casino where they have Cosmic Bowling. We finish up there around 1 or so, then head back to a friend's house and either pick up the RPG again or play Magic till whenever. Plus I got into a beta test for Valve's new digital delivery service, Steam, which includes Half-Life, Classic Deathmatch, and Counter-Strike 1.4. A rich palette indeed. Even have a few stories for ya.

Bowling: I'm bowling my last frame of the session. Hadn't been doing too well. I approach and give good power and form to the ball... at the expense of losing my balance. To right myself, I step onto the lane, forgetting how slick that sucker actually is. I end up slipping and falling flat on my ass.
It was the only strike I got the entire evening.
I figure that if I'm ever get a decent bowling score, it's going to match the amount of my hospital bill.

Hackmaster: I've been having fun running the guys through Relb's Revenge. A couple of memorable moments (possible spoilers for those that haven't played it yet):
At the onset the Captain describing the horrible situation says to our lisping grel: "I know things sound bad... much like you..."
And the grel, having already opened the room with the crazy cooking lady in it, then closing the door before she could attack, fetches our gullible gnome, readies an arrow aimed at the door and says, "Go in there and ask if dinner's ready yet."

So far everyone's having fun, even though I'm still trying to grasp all the rules and working to keep combat lively. I will say that I'll be very glad when the GM screen goes on sale. Not that I don't have a screen (I've been using my Paranoia screen) but I'm hoping there will be tables on it I can access without having to juggle my GMG in one hand and rolling dice in the other. I also heard that the first real Hackmaster module is shipping! Hoody Hoo! Can't wait to get my hands on that.
And of course, the cartoons are developing nicely. Progress will be noted soon.
Oh yes, and February 9th will mark this site's third year of existence. Usually I've always been too busy when this date rolls around to do much for the anniversary of the site, but now it looks like I can do something. What do you think I should do? Live chat? Sneak peeks?

Alright! A nice little milestone has been reached! The first cartoon has been animated. I'm stoked because it gives me more confidence that I will be able to get this project done within the goals I have set. I still have to go back and put in props and do the lip-sync, but I know my skills in those areas. It was the other types of movement I was worried about. Well, I'm not worried any more. I'm really excited about Series Two.

In other role-playing news, I got some more people to roll up some Hackmaster characters. They said that this was the longest most of them had spent rolling up a character, but they were still having fun. When it comes to the Quirks and Flaws part, NO one opted to cherry-pick and TWO people rolled the full NINE times. So far, we got some crazy characters:

A Drow Elf Magic User/Thief who is: nearsighted, color blind, deaf, stutters, has no sense of taste; suffers from migraines, nervous tick, sleepwalking, enmity to dwarves, a gambling addiction and is truthful (!)
A Gnome Titan Berserker who is: a glutton, psychotic aversion to dwarves, snake phobia, inappropriate sense of humor, lost his right eye, gullible, loud boor AND a jerk, pack rat, pyromaniac, chronic liar, sleepwalker, and multiple personalities (a little girl, and they are both aware of each other)
A Grel Fighter: fish phobia, lisp, tone deaf, socially awkward, facial scar, farsighted, and a kleptomaniac
A Thug Halfling Thief: psychotic aversion to illusionists, major depression and an alcoholic

The Untouchable Trio +1 they are not. Not yet anyways.

Since the Hack Journal came to me, I'll be able to run an adventure for them. I'll bee running it every other Saturday while someone else runs a 3eD&D game at the same time. If anyone is in the area and wants to get in on it, give me an e-mail and I'll give you the details. It works with going every other week so I'm not distracted from completing Hoody Hoo: Series Two

So whaddaya think? Should I put a cleric in town to give 'em chance to cure some stuff? Say, one each? Or should I make 'em go through the adventure first?

OK, fellow Knights, this is a big announcement.
I've been moving forward with Series Two and I think I've moved forward enough to where I have an idea of how long this will take.

My goal is to have Hoody Hoo: Series Two ready by March 18.

There I said it. Or I typed it. I'm a little dazed. I'm also spending tonight trying to get into the Warcraft 3 beta test. It just so happens that the above date will be when GAMA comes to Vegas. I'm sure Kenzer and Co. will be there, but Jolly is unsure if he'll be there or not. But it would still be nice to finally meet him face to face.
In other fronts things are looking well. There was a plan for me to find a new place and move by February, but that is no more. I can stay wehere I am and not have that burden get in the way of completing the cartoons. Work has been steady, and John's game store has been going well.
I have my official Hackmaster GM credentials now. Hoody Hoo! And I got the first Hack Journal in the mail today Hoody Hoo again! I'm looking forward to running a game of it. I'd love to record the session and then maybe use the voice track to animate some of the exploits.
There will also be a competition. One of the cartoons will be of Brian's introduction of the 'badges' that gamers could wear to conventions. I'm looking for submissions of badge names and significance for the 'closeup' on Brian's chest. If I pick your suggestion, your name will be immortalized on a Hoody Hoo cartoon! So get creative and get me those badges! More will come!

Oh, and in Germany (wow, I got a fan in Germany) was so moved by the Lord of the Rings parody wallpaper I did that he did a new version of the poem from the book. I like it so I'm posting it here:

Three Die for the King of Thieves under the sky,
Seven for the Necromancer with the heart of stone,
Nine for the Mortal Orcs doomed to die,
One for the Dark GM on his dark throne
In the City of Muncie where the Plots die.
One die to hack them all. One die to crush them,
One die to kill them all and in the darkness backstab them
In the City of Muncie where the Plots die.

Hope you enjoyed that. I sure did. :)