This Post Is About My Day Job

My day job is managing the photography studios in the Department of Art at Mississippi State University. It's a small department, so I often find myself on IT duty as well. If you've ever worked at a university, you know that we keep things forever. Inevitably you have to occasionally go through and do a sweep de-inventory. Part of my job in the last year has been to help do these sweeps. When we first started it was mainly to rid ourselves of early 2000-era eMacs (we eliminated at least three room-sized closets filled in some cases to the ceiling).

Just a Random Day...

An ICS update leaked for my Atrix 2

I visited KittyKonundrum in the studio

KittyKonundrum and Fiberluxe

Steam Sale Roundup for today:

Mirror's Edge

Torchlight

There were a lot of great games on sale today, unfortunately many I already own. Four days left!

One Week Since

Still there...

New Graphic Novels

Went on an order spree recently, here's the loot:

The only one I haven't read is Funny Misshapen Body, I'm eager to check it out. The top two were reads in my Intro to Graphic Novel class. Maus is Art Spiegelman's visualized retelling of his father's experiences surviving Nazi aggression in occupied Poland. It's a very accessible book with a lot of depth to the storytelling, and can be said to be about Spiegelman's relationship with his father as much as it is Nazi occupied Europe. The Arrival is an attempt to create a completely visual graphic novel. There is no text (though there are vague scratches of a made up language, these are treated more as a visual element than real text). Despite having no words, it is incredibly easy to follow. The content works on a variety of levels- one could easily read it as a fantasy book, though the subject matter suggest something a bit more grounded and real.

Epileptic is my second favorite graphic novel of all time (aside from Chris Ware's Jimmy Corrigan, and whose new GN Building Stories I just put on pre-order). It chronicles David B's youth as he is forced to deal with the extensive, sometimes bizarre lengths his parents go through to treat his younger brother's epilepsy. Large, intricate black and white drawings are used to visualize complex metaphors, often based in childhood fantasy, to relate the complex emotions felt about his situation. Like many of the graphic novels I enjoy this includes a lot of brutal honesty and exploration of not just happy or sad, but sometimes dark emotions.

In other news, I picked up a few new games in the Steam summer sale today:

Fallout: New Vegas Ultimate Edition

Fable The Lost Chapters

The sales seemed kind of slow today, hopefully something more exciting will pop up later.

Summer Sale inSanity

Well, it's that time of the year. Today I packed up a few unwanted electronics, headed off to Gamestop and got myself a little bit of Steam credit...

The sad part is, it's a little under halfway gone already.

My acquisitions so far:

Terraria

Legend of Grimrock

Back to the Future

Alan Wake American Nightmare

Ys Origin

Ys Oath in Felghana

The Walking Dead

Fallout 3 GOTY edition

Skryim

Saints Row Third

Bastion

I haven't even turned my PC on in a week. I need help.

Blanket Forts & Hogwarts

This past weekend I had a Harry Potter themed dinner party with fellow artists Ashlei, Emily, and Charlotte, complete with Deathly Hallows movie viewing. Also, we built a giant blanket fort in the living room because they're super fun.

Very healthy dinner party

Working, working.

It's starting to go somewhere. Stay tuned...