Topher is a nut, and I feel he belongs in an asylum. But damn it, he wrote this article, so I don't think he's that insane of a guy now. I should probably do something Zelda-related for kicks.

This is the thought that's been running through my head for three weeks now, and it's been driving me crazy for every minute I did nothing about it. But now that I got a scanner, I felt like doing something rather quick, so I cooked this up. Chose Saria because she has that weird hairstyle where her hair curves under her ears, and I wanted to give it a try.

Nothing really complex, just something for me to try out different shading techniques, learning about body proportions, etc. So this is more of a test than anything, but since I had fun with it, I feel like sharing it. I have some more advanced ideas in mind, hopefully I'll be able to get those out soon.

Also, I think I need to learn more about eyes, since that right eye feels a little funny to me.

Word.

Because the community involved in this place is probably the coolest group of people I ever had the chance to know, the news reported makes it feel like there's actually someone actually reporting it rather than some mindless drone, and more importantly, this meme gives me an opportunity to update my blog after two weeks of doing nothing with it.

And I feel terrible about doing that. A blog with more substance is coming soon, I promise that. :(

As one of the many people who are excited about the coming of Rocktober, I did some research in seeing if there was anything new to expect in the game. My eye eventually caught interest in what seems to be the entire soundtrack of the game. A list of metal bands ranging from Black Sabbath to Whitesnake, with a few bands that I never heard of before thrown in there. You can view the list right here.

Two problems I already view in there:

1) Through The Fire and Flames? Really? They couldn't pick any other song by Dragonforce?

2) You have a bunch of metal bands in there, but Iron Maiden is nowhere to be seen. Now that's blasphemy.

Those two problems aside, the soundtrack seems pretty strong. I mean, they have Dethklok on there. It can't go wrong.

lol unoriginal idea for a blog

I'm actually pretty surprised that I have held back from doing this blog for so long, perhaps because trying to think up ten of the most interesting things about me seemed like a difficult thing for me to do. I feel a little late for this party, but I feel like I should get one of these things in before I forget.

1) Jack Maverick is actually the name of a detective I came up with during my last year of high school, because we had to do this thing in a class where we were asked about what careers we had planned on doing. I had plans on becoming a comic book/manga artist by the time of graduation, and I had the urge to come up with an original character. Then that name came up when I was thinking about the TV series 24 and the plot of MegaMan X.

It was a dumb name, but I loved how cheesy it was, so I held on to the name to use in various sites. Then laziness factored into my life, and the guy still has yet to see the light of day. I may have plans on doing something with him hopefully.

2) I always have to know what the time is. I can't even leave the house unless I have a watch on me. There's at least one clock set up in every room of my house. My bed has three alarm clocks on it. Time is serious business with me.

3) I'm a clean freak when it comes to my gaming systems. I spent countless hours making sure my controllers are free of sweat and dead skin particles before I feel like playing with them again. You can only imagine how much of a nightmare it is for me when I go to a friend's house and I play games there. The grease...ugh.

4) Music changed my perception on life when I was younger. I never wanted to interact with anyone during my gradeschool years. It changed when my family bought this old and huge radio, and we turned the thing on. I was immediately entranced in the music, I was in love with the way the stories were told melodically, etc, I didn't think the world was terrible anymore. My love for music has grown since then.

5) I did some pretty dangerous stuff during that same age. I remember doing a lot, but the only one that comes to mind was when my older brother and I were playing with our mother in this hair salon she owned at the time, and she was trying to seek us. There were two conveniently-placed air vents in the ground, which I didn't want to go into, but my brother kept tempting me to do it. We jump into the vents and hide there for a while

Then I hear this creaking coming out of nowhere, which I thought nothing about, until two minutes later. The vent pops open, I fall about ten feet onto a pile of wood, and it was completely black. Imagine how terrified my eight-year-old mind was at the time. They do find me, and I've had some big back problems for a month following that. This is also a possible cause of my current fear of darkness.

6) I'm a lover of all things film noir. The style, the acting, the way that there's usually a gruff voice saying a cool line while something interesting is happening onscreen, it's all good.

7) I think Zak MacKracken and The Alien Mindbenders is the best point and click adventure game ever made. I also think this because it's the only point and click adventure game I ever played. I still lack an urge to remedy this situation.

8) I would make a terrible fireman because I love watching things burn more. I'm a cruel man. :(

9) I have no child skills. By that, I mean since I never grew up with younger siblings, I don't know ways to effectively communicate with them. When I talk to one and they insist on yelling back, I'm lost since I don't know what to do.

10) I'm literally like a bug. I'm always drawn in to stuff with an obnoxious amount of blinking lights on it. It's why arcades are one of my favorite places to hang out.

Wow, no wonder I held back on doing this thing for so long, I feel like a nut after reading this over. Oh well, at least I'll have my clocks to keep me company so I don't feel so insane.

I really do hate being busy in my normal life, as it means that I don't usually get that much of a chance to be my lovely sardonic self here. So of course, I wanted to make some use of my time, so I thought that during this time away from here, I would expand on my drawing skills.

It's kinda strange, I've seen dozens of anime series, and I've had moments where I thought "Hey, I want to do something like that." But I never had the initiative to do such a task, so I just wanted to go on with my life as normal. I did draw, but it consisted of simple things like robots, plants, pretty much anything that are not people. Strangely, by the time I came across this site, something changed for me. I came across Ashley Davis and my whole perspective on the matter changed for me. She never viewed such drawings as a job, she did it because she found it fun to do and she loved to do it.

Anyway, I finally felt an urge to jump back into the drawing saddle and learn some new ideas along the way. After various online drawing tutorials, drawing books, and even getting some tips from a friend who has been drawing for years, I felt like at least getting the basics down. Also, I learned about drawing scarves along the way, and everyone knows scarves are awesome, then I learned how much Ms. Davis loves scarves, so I felt like doing a little drawing for her.

Three hours later - with a half hour of that spent trying to draw the damn hand, seriously, I hate drawing hands - I come up with something that made me happy, because I actually spent some time actually working hard on something that I wanted to do. And blah blah blah, Ashley is awesome, scarves are awesome, hands suck, and critique this as you need. This is actually the second "good" drawing I've done this entire summer, so I would like some criticism from the expert artists in this area.

One plumber. Who pops up into a world filled with bizarre monsters. And somehow, you have some knowledge that there is a princess that requires rescuing. Go from there.

This is a plot summary of the game Super Mario Bros.. It is a fairly simple plot that is easy to understand. However, there is something more to this that raises a few questions. For one, how exactly did a plumber manage to come across a place like this? Some speculated that it was from Mario messing around with the pipes too much, and he managed to end up in this place. I have to question the existence of this pipe.

It obviously isn’t to the left of Mario when the game starts, otherwise I would just go over there and return to my natural world. The only other choice it could be is located directed above me. What it is held by, I don’t have a clue, but I’m in a world with floating blocks and clouds I can stand on. Logic does not exist in this world.

Okay, so a pipe sends me into this world, I’ll believe that much. But where is the part where I find out about the existence of a princess? Was there a note I fell onto prior to the game? This is something that has yet to be explained to me. Then again, maybe you do have no clue about there being any princess at all, you run to the right, hoping to find an answer to this place.

Finding the answer will not be easy as you would hope, as you have monsters that charge at you at every opportunity. Monsters such as goombas which are miniaturized men with no arms and enlarged heads, koopa troopas who are mutated turtles with elongated heads, lakitus who are pricks and float in the clouds to throw spinys at you, the list goes on. These are spawns which are hellish, to say the least, but this is a conclusion I’m not willing to make just yet.

One other thing I must note is how you progress through one world, it starts to get a little darker. Sure, the last level takes place in a castle, but no castle with an inhabitant is ever that dark, unless you’re Dracula. Bowser is not Dracula, no excuse. Anyway, the point I want to make is how when you beat the last castle, you get that semblance of hope that you will get an answer to this place. However, it is not the case in the early levels, as you begin a new world with it being bright again.

There is only one explanation to that: the worlds are really the circles of Hell. I’ve been playing Dante’s Inferno this entire time.

I’ve been sent to Hell, and as Mario – or Dante, in this case – I need to escape. The enemies I face are really mutated sinners who were sent here to be punished. Bowser is Satan, and he maintains control of this place. The princess is actually the escape you are looking for throughout the entire game.

There are nine circles to Hell, right? And you say that there are only eight worlds in this game, correct? However, if you say that, you are clearly forgetting about one of the most important worlds in gaming history, the Minus World. The Minus World is obviously the ninth circle of Hell, never-ending and possibly the cruelest of all the circles.

Also, one more thing to note, Mario is clearly showing determination when he’s traversing through this world. It’s clear that he knows what he has gotten himself into, he’s in Hell, and he’s going to do everything he can to escape.

And he's going to need my help.