Finishing my cold-ridden irritating day at the college, one more rant.

Please note before I begin this rant that most of my students are great. It’s the obnoxious 10% that frustrates me.

When you have a 2 week project (actually 3 weeks for a 2 week project when you factor in the Reading Week we just had), you should plan those two weeks out. Showing me your animation for the first time the day before the project is due doesn’t bode well. When I give you the critique you asked for and you have tons of things to fix before tomorrow, don’t act like I ran over your puppy. You did this to yourself, schedule-wise.

I know which students are actually working hard. It’s very easy to tell. Being at the college doesn’t mean you’re actually working at the college. Just because you hang out all day in the Animation wing doesn’t mean you worked hard. This holds true for pretty much every program. When I walked by the Seneca Library in the middle of the afternoon I saw:

9 computers being used to play Counter Strike.
5 computers being used to play Halo.
5 computers being used to check e-mail.
4 computers being used to play Starcraft: Broodwar.
4 computers being used to watch YouTube videos.
2 computers being used to play Nintendo emulators.
1 computer being used for some kind of Photoshop assignment.
1 computer being used for some kind of research.
The rest were not being used.

I’m not a cruel instructor or a slave-driver. I wasn’t a model student in college either, but I didn’t bitch when things got jam packed because I knew that I’d wasted my days away on other things.

Okay, rant is done. I’ll feel better soon and things will improve. Good portfolios and strong assignments will brighten my brain.

Internet was down ALL DAY, which made getting work done a pain.

I woke up with the slightly scratchy pre-cold throat, so I’m ODing on Vitamin C and soup to try and stop the sick before it really kicks in. After that crazy weekend, it makes sense that my body would rebel.

Anyways, enough blather… here’s the first peek at the Makeshift Miracle book:

Holy crap! It’s REAL. Hard to believe.

Matte finish on the cover, unbelievably sharp reproduction and lush colors (I know that’s hard to tell from a slightly blurry photo :P). I honestly couldn’t have asked for a better print of it. Erik is now understandably gonzo about using these printers for doing more Udon trade paperbacks, art books and special projects.

The main shipment is on its way, literally on the ‘slow boat from China’. As soon as they arrive, you’ll hear it from me loud and clear.

So damn happy right now.

The crazy Halloween Party and 2 wedding schedule was exhausting, but in the end it was really fun. Chris’ wedding last night was crazy-good with lots of dancing, socializing and celebrating. Most of the people there I’d never seen actually dressed to the nines, so that was a blast to witness as well.

My body ached when I woke up today, but considering the madness of the weekend it was actually way better than I thought it would be.

Then, when I finally started working this afternoon, Erik let me know that a Fex Ex package had arrived at the office containing a couple copies of the finished Makeshift Miracle book for us to check out. Well that got my ass in gear and I zipped up to check it out first hand.

The book looks GREAT! The paper quality, the reproduction and color – all of it. It looks better than I’d hoped it would, especially considering the art was originally done low rez for the web. It’ll take about a month for the full shipment to arrive from Hong Kong, but know that it is worth the wait.

I’m going to head into Oshawa at some point this week to finally tell my parents I have a book and give them the first copy. 🙂

Photos of the book and more Jimbo ramblings when I get home from the office tonight.

Considering how rarely I get dressed up nowadays… I guess I’m in ‘costume’ for tonight’s wedding too:

2 parties down this weekend, 1 to go… it should be quite a blast.

A few sweet photos from tonight’s wedding/costume party… more photos to come once I get the ones taken by other people:

Riddler and Tank Girl

The Groom: Iron Man

From left bottom: Catwoman, Riddler, Penguin,
Poison Ivy, Two-Face, Harley Quinn and the Joker.

I couldn’t believe how well the Batman stuff came together out of the blue. With no planning at all we had the perfect spread of Bat Villains with no repeats!

I can’t wait to get the professional photo where they take the green screen out and add in Gotham or something.

Friday night Halloween Party down… two weddings to go. This is one heck of a weekend.

From last night, here’s the look:

Costume is done. just waiting for a bit of the paint to dry while I shower, shave and tidy up around the apartment…

Sometimes I worry about never having a normal schedule or a normal social life… then I realize that being able to call up artist friend who I know will be awake at 1am so I can borrow some acrylic paint to finish my Halloween costume is actually quite fun. There is no normal and that’s just fine.

Improving on my Riddler costume from 3 years ago. The question marks on the jacket were held on with fabric tape before, but now they’re sewed on (thanks to the power of Grandma’s sewing machine). The hat’s the proper color this time, as is the face mask. Nifty keen.

Tonight’s the Silver Snail Halloween Party. Should be entertaining.

Woke up this morning and remembered what I was going to post about on Sunday but forgot…

I saw the Who Killed The Electric Car documentary on Friday night. I’d seen the trailer and wanted to check it out earlier in the summer, but it wasn’t playing in Toronto until now.

Um, wow.

It’s quite good and you’d be wise to check it out if it’s playing near you… or snag it when it comes out on DVD November 14th.

Fully electric-powered cars that emitted no exhaust fumes and ran fast, quiet and clean existed when I was heading to college in 1996. Ten years ago the technology was affordable and on the roads because of tough legislation in California forcing the car manufacturers to come up with alternatives to polluting vehicles – the same kind of legislation that forced the industry to comply with a whole ton of good things we now take for granted, like catalytic converters, seatbelts and airbags. The story of how that technology got buried and where the auto industry is headed now may seem pretty clear once you watch the trailer for the documentary, but there’s a bunch of other things they cover too. Check it out.

I grew up in Oshawa, a GM town. Almost everyone we knew worked at GM at some point or was friends with someone who did. Hell, the cheesy ‘Welcome to Oshawa’ sign says – ‘The city that moto-vates Canada’. My contempt for the auto industry as a whole and GM specifically is pretty pointed now. So many companies (and every political group in power) have a ‘short term profit at all costs’ mentality to please their stockholders and/or make messes for the next group in charge to worry about. Huge group mentality emitting this giant ‘not my problem’ signal. Quite sad.