The Pete's blog/

Crazy nite! After seeing Cirque du Soleil, got to hang w/some of the cast inc/an old uni friend of @siskita We even rode on their tour bus.

Awesome 10 min talk from Neil deGrasse Tyson re: the universe & religion. (ping.fm/r31DM)

Ah, this is kinda sweet :) I was included as one of the 66 contributing toy artists for Toy2R's custom, 36" Qee Bear that they put together during the 2008 Hong Kong Award for Industries ceremony. According to a recent post on the US Toy2R blog, Qee4All.com, they were named the Grand Winner in the category of Innovation and Creativity.

That sounds awesome, doesn't it? Well for them it does--but I got to be included in the fun, too. Back in December I was approached by Toy2R for future collaboration on a toy design or two. In the meantime I was asked to provide a sticker design to be included in the 36" Qee Bear project put together at the HKAI awards ceremony. Now, I looked at the pictures of the finished Qee Bear (here and here) but couldn't spot my logo. But hey, I am psyched and honored just to included at all.

I design custom toys because it's a blast to do. The fact that someone who makes toys for a living thinks my stuff is good is like a whole separate cake I get to eat (not just the icing on the cake).

So, thanks Toy2R!! You guys rock!

Heading out to Pluck U to get our wings the old fashioned way--ourselves!

@cmiper :D

ThePete.Com Streaming Now
http://qik.com/video/967865

Liked "10 Ultimate Components of a Geeky Eighties Childhood" http://ff.im/SW8Z

@Jazzybam I've done about 20 customs--some you can see at toys.thepete.com and others on my Flickr. Have some I have yet to take pics of.

@tmofee The best Doctors are dizzy IMHO. :) But I rather like "Web Planet". I just wish they'd made it a 4 ep arc instead of 6. Too long!

OK, when I saw this headline, I have to admit that I thought "See
that? Another faulty terrorist case! Looks like the USG can't catch a
real terrorist to save their lives."

Then I realized, that's not what this story is about. According to
that article at Bloomberg.com, it turns out that "The U.S. dropped charges against the alleged mastermind of the bomb attack on the USS Cole while the Obama administration considers how to handle terrorist suspects detained at Guantanamo, the Defense Department said."

Wait--WHAT?

Because Obama wants to close Gitmo charges were dropped?

That makes no sense. That's like saying: "Well, I'm thinking about
buying a car, might as well send my current car to the junk yard!"

Noooo, see, just because putting these guys on trial under military
law is unfair, it doesn't mean charges should be dropped and they
should go free--I mean, who ever said this? Obama never said "let's
free everyone at Guantanamo" did he?

So why have charges against the Cole Bombing mastermind being dropped?

Maybe it IS a case of the USG not being able to catch a terrorist, after all?

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Buy it! Or click here to check out other volumes in the series!

Positive Experience/Entertaining? If you like flying ships and/or well developed (but slightly stereotypical) characters, Last Exile is for you. Wow did I enjoy the hell out of this anime series.


Technically any good? The series first aired in Japan back in 2003 so they were a bit ahead of their time in meshing CG animation with cell--sometimes it works well, but often, it's distracting. Generally, the series is edited tightly enough to create enough resonance, excitement and intrigue that it's easy to ignore the flaws in the animation. Of course, the brilliant character designs by Range Murata also distract from the CG failings. WOW are Murata-san's designs good. The acting, as is usually the case in anime with the original Japanese voice-over actors, is spot-on. In fact, the woman who played the little girl was surprisingly good. She sounded like an adult doing the voice, but acting-wise, she spoke with the motivation and spirit of a child. It made her character resonate strongly with me.

Emotionally and character-wise, the script was very solid. I cared about everyone I think the script wanted me to care about. The only tricky bits for me were the cliched brooding captain (incredibly common in anime), the flatly-evil female villain (flat-bad guys who laugh for no apparent reason are cliche in western culture, too) and the pure as snow lead characters. Like Shinji in Evangelion or Renton in Eureka 7, Claus and Lavie are made pristine so they can suffer for our enjoyment. It works fairly well, but that doesn't mean we should ignore the fact that it's wicked-cliche. However, the ending, while slightly predictable, is poignant, bittersweet and generally satisfying.


How did it leave me feeling? Definitely with tears in my eyes. I highly recommend this show. It's not the perfect anime series (still can't work out how the vanships actually fly or what connection Al had with the Exile) but the emotional content of the series is what made me keep watching. I will miss these characters! Sadly, there's a lot (if the show's wikipedia article is to be trusted) that I completely missed, but I didn't care that I did.


Final Rating? SIYL - See If You Like (good storytelling with positive characters and a happy, generally believable ending).

Thomas Hawk suggests on his blog that we boycott Kellogg's cereals because they dropped Michael Phelps as a spokesperson for Corn Flakes cereal. As we all have heard, the polygoldmedallic Olympic athlete was caught on camera sucking on a bong (you suck on bongs, right? I don't do that stuff so I've no idea). Now, I'm absolutely, positively ALL for a boycott of Kellogg's cereals. But not for the reason Hawk seems to be putting forth.

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Oh just commited my first dumb New Yorker thing--left my hat on the subway and it's in the high 20s out. Already bought a new one.

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Watch the trailer

Positive Experience/Entertaining? Well, the trailer was fun to watch, but it seems to suggest a great premise gone terribly Hollywood.


Technically any good? The premise is interesting enough--lone intel expert discovers a global bank has been funding bad, bad things and decides to take them on. However, the absurd locations of action sequences (check out the trailer if you want to see what I mean) suggests a huge level of unreality. Add that to cliche lines like "Who ever said anything about arresting you?" and you get a recipe for corn. Which is a shame, since banks are funding some pretty nasty stuff around the world for real.


How did it leave me feeling? Meh. Sick of Hollywood's idea of an action/thriller movie. If 3 Days of the Condor were remade today, they'd likely have a machine gun battle inside the Statue of Liberty--just for "irony's" sake. It's a shame because both Owen and Watts can carry a movie, but with these stupid action scenes stapled in, I'm not sure how I'm supposed to buy the movie as a whole.


Final Rating? NFI - I'll wait and NetFlix It.

I did the Rainbow Peace Fighter back in late-ish 2007, not long after visiting the Palm Springs Air Museum. When ever I come face to face with my old passion of military flight (I got as far as my pilot physical) it is immediately attacked by my current anti-war sentiments--it's a hard dichotomy to reconcile. However, trust art to find a way! Enter the Rainbow Peace Fighter!



The Rainbow Peace Fighter started out life as an F-16 balsa-wood-based puzzle from Puzzeled.com--of course, I bought it at the Palm Springs Air Museum. I'm sure you can find one of these elsewhere. The instructions are wonderfully vague. Each part is numbered on the instructions and you put the pieces together in order--sounds easy? Not quite. It ended up being a lot of fun, though.



In the end (sort of), I'm happy with the color scheme, but the wood absorbed a lot of the Sharpie ink, so after these pics were taken, I ended up spraying her down with several primer coats and started over. Right now she's fully redone, but still packed away from the move to NYC. I'll take pictures of her soon and post 'em.



Check out the rest of the whole set here: flickr.com/photos/thepete/sets/72157601489194858/

As if the Republicans have ANY credibility with America left at all, some Republitard called Shelby has announced that the current stimulus bill will send us down "a road to financial disaster."

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Watch the trailer

Positive Experience/Entertaining? Well, the trailer was fun to watch, but it seems to suggest a great premise gone terribly Hollywood.


Technically any good? The premise is interesting enough--lone intel expert discovers a global bank has been funding bad, bad things and decides to take them on. However, the absurd locations of action sequences (check out the trailer if you want to see what I mean) suggests a huge level of unreality. Add that to cliche lines like "Who ever said anything about arresting you?" and you get a recipe for corn. Which is a shame, since banks are funding some pretty nasty stuff around the world for real.


How did it leave me feeling? Meh. Sick of Hollywood's idea of an action/thriller movie. If 3 Days of the Condor were remade today, they'd likely have a machine gun battle inside the Statue of Liberty--just for "irony's" sake. It's a shame because both Owen and Watts can carry a movie, but with these stupid action scenes stapled in, I'm not sure how I'm supposed to buy the movie as a whole.


Final Rating? NFI - I'll wait and NetFlix It.

*UPDATE: I just noticed that this film was directed by Tom Tykwer who made the incredible Run Lola Run and the uber-never-heard-of-but-totally-worth-seeing Winter Sleepers. So, I may end up not waiting for Netflix on this one if I hear good things. We'll see, though.

Seems like a heavy headline, but it's true.

What else can you call it when folks in a rural Alaskan village can no longer afford basic foodstuffs or the fuel to go where they can afford basic foodstuffs OR revert to living off of the land because climate change and pollution?

Don't all of those things fall under the domain of government to provide?

Seriously, things are messed up for Emmonak, Alaska, a rural town on the west coast of Alaska. In a piece of surprisingly good journalism (capped above, read the original February 9, 2009 article), CNN's Mallory Simon does a thorough job explaining the harrowing situation these people are in.

One family usually takes two snowmobiles when they go for supplies. Now they can only afford to take one--that cuts the amount of food they can take back with them and if one snowmobile breaks down, they're stuck. But assuming their machines run properly, they're still more challenges for them to deal with.

$15 cheese, $10 milk, $22 eggs, make basic survival for these people an even bigger challenge than they are used to living on the edge of civilization. Emmonak, Alaska is a village where Native Americans have lived for hundreds of years, yet the civilization that has made their lives easier has melted away like an Antarctic ice shelf.

If you're like me, you probably are wondering why these people can't just go back to their traditional ways of living. Well, the article covers this, explaining that "a brutal early winter brought the longest cold snap in five years. In September the temperature in many villages dropped as low as 20 degrees, a record low for many, according to the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy."

Thanks, Climate Change!

But that's not all--the article also reports that "Commercial fishermen couldn't make money from the seasonal king salmon harvest this year, because there was barely enough fish for subsistence."

See, back in May of 2008, SFGate.com reported on a ban of salmon fishing for the entire west coast of America. Why the ban? According to the SFGate article "Although salmon spawning has been in decline all up and down the coast, the biggest problem is in the Sacramento River and its tributaries. So few salmon returned last fall that the fishery council was required under its management plan to halt fishing throughout the salmon habitat, which is all along the California and Oregon coasts."

So, it's partially the fault of over-fishing, too. But that's not the fault of these rural folks. It's government's job to regulate all of this stuff--from the price of eggs to the number of salmon that are allowed to be caught every year. As usual, they're doing a pretty shitty job of it. Though we can't blame this entirely on local government. Believe it or not, Alaska governor Sarah Palin's hands are tied. >

Yep, it's a 100% legitimate reason for Palin to be back in the news.

The problem seems to be that they can't declare an emergency to get federal aid because of a stupid state law that says financial emergencies can't be declared until, according to Mallory Simon's CNN.com article, "average income levels in the villages to drop below $26,500 -- regardless of the cost of living."

So, until Palin can change the state law (no fast feat), they're kind of stuck.

In the meantime, I'm happy to be living in one of the biggest cities on Earth. Basic laws of supply and demand will keep the city of New York in food and fuel for as long as those basic laws of supply and demand hold up. In other words, with millions of people living here, there will be millions of dollars to be made here--of course, if capitalism itself breaks down, well, then we're all in trouble. Just my ¥2, of course. Though the folks up in Emmonak are going to need more than ¥2 if they are going to make it.

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