Black Materia: Final Fantasy 7 album by Random

After anticipating his new album that revolves around the world of the game Final Fantasy 7 for about a month now, I have about 2 more minutes on the download remaining until it is finally looping in the music playlist for the next few months.  I know that is what is going to happen, because that is what went on with the last album Random put out that is entirely set in the world of Mega Man, mixed cleverly with old NES chiptunes and featuring other douchebags that I hate to love (no really, I can't get enough of them).  But now that it is here, I thought it right to spread the word before I go on with my evening in support of a person that is really worth supporting.  

There had better be a song about the sexual tension between Rufus and Reno.

Random (aka MegaRan) is an independent rapper who spends his days as a teacher, who spends his nights as a gamer, who spends his bizarro nights as a hard-hitting rhyme machine without a time machine.  This usually is not my kind of genre unless the content, the backbeat, the delivery, the hook; THE EVERYTHING is just right. But he has consistently nailed it on the head for me.  So check him out and enjoy finding something weird for the month.


Oh and by the album: LINK FOR LAZY PEOPLE

Wasted precious listening time, which means I wasted precious sleeping time that will be done afterward. Tomorrow the new Dino Bytes will be up, so take a peek!

Outsourcing Effects Dinosaurs Too

(click to enlarge)

No job is safe. Especially so when your co-workers regrow teeth.

Yes, Whammies! Shattered Laptop Screen, hooray!

So yesterday, in a brief moment of inefficiency, I dropped my laptop. After envisioning every robot's worst nightmares of hardware failure and deathly corruption, Louie snapped me out of it with "aaaawww, cmon NO WHAMMIES!!" Peeked over the couch to find the screen completely cracked down the middle.

It just figures.  That's really all I have to say about it.

In the meantime I can use a spare monitor I have hooked up into the spare VGA port and still use it to its full potential - aside from the black void that stares at me in front of the keyboard while I look away shamefully at its temporary replacement. So for now I can still continue working at the very least!

So I'm not going to whine about it or sulk, or admit defeat to the world of doomsday devices.  I've researched all I could about replacement screens and was about to bite the proverbial bullet to have a tech shop do the repair for me and eat the cost.  I had just received the halfway milestone payment for some freelance spriting I am doing - was just grateful to be in a position to be able to afford the repair, and my tax return will be in the bank within the week.  Then I found a video outlining the screen replacement procedure for the exact model laptop I have and it looked REALLY easy.  Being that I am cheap as hell, the obvious choice was to do the repair myself. Tonight I will shop around at online wholesaler sites for the best deal, but so far I've found that the most I will pay after shipping and everything will be $90 and have the screen within 3 days - beats the pants off paying $200 or more, considering this laptop was a refurbish that I paid less than that for it.

My mom is awesome and got me an external harddrive for my birthday that performs routine backups of all my files while it's plugged in so I'm very fortunate - even if this did turn out FAR worse and the whole thing exploded, I still would have had all my hundreds of million dollar Work-In-Progress art pieces intact. Thanks mom, you have good tingly danger senses like all of the other legendary mothers of history. Except yours protected ME so that makes you better.

Awfully Lawfully

The winter holidays may be different for people of all walks of life, but one thing is pretty universal - in-laws are inevitable. And yes, it even applies to dinosaurs.

This week's comic utilizes the amazing live action intrigue of my 2 year-old daughter's dinosaur toys.  Notice how good they are for the camera?  (Click to enlarge)

Had lots of in-law action going on for both sides of my family celebrations.  Nothing but love for you guys! (except for you, Nick Frazier.  I offer only my fear toward you.)

A Matter of Vernacular

While we are sending the papers up to our printer, I figured I would upload this week's comic to the blog as well! About to leave so I'll leave you to it.

(Click to enlarge)