In vision of the dark night
I have dream of joy departed--
But a waking dream of life and light
Hath left me broken-hearted.

Ah! what is not a dream by day
To him whose eyes are cast
On things around him with a ray
Turned back upon the past?

That holy dream-- that holy dream,
While all the world were chiding,
Hath cheered me as a lovely beam
A lonely spirit guiding.

What though that light, thro' storm and night,
So trembled from afar--
What could there be more purely bright
In Truth's day-star?

--Edgar Allen Poe

It's been quite a month. I have done a whole lot of things, mostly non-flash related, which includes going to four different countries, returning back to college for this semester, finishing my part in Squeaky's STWPT collab, and soon after spontaneously deciding to goto New Orleans for Marti Gras.

Guatemala, Honduras, Belize, and Mexico was amazing. Honduras and Belize was amazingly poor and pathetic, and Guatemala and Mexico had amazing beaches. I spent a large part of my cruise with my family, dining at fancy restaurants on the ship, going to art galleries, or just hanging out in our little port room. Our first stop was in Honduras. I didn't like Honduras; the country was very dirty and just seemed to be a perfect reflection of poor-ass ghetto towns in some rural parts in Mississippi, except a little worse.

In Guatemala, we spent the duration of our stop on the beach and a little bit in a small city just outside their main port. On the beach I met a number of girls from our cruise ship and had some drinks and later played some volleyball with them. Before we left Guatemala, the winds began to pick up and we returned to the ship before some rain broke out.

Belize was much like Honduras. Instead of spending much time in their crappy cites, we went on a trek through Belize's rainforest. In the forest we jumped in the river with some innertubes and floated down into a cave system. It was a very fun experience, the only problem was how cold the water was inside the cave. Once we returned to the ship, I ran into one of the girls that I had met in Guatemala. By the end of the night, we were in the jacuzzi together.

In Cozumel, Mexico we left the ship early to go snorkeling along their beach over one of their barrier reefs. We saw TONS of fish. There were so many fish, a humongous school of them passed beneath us and we could not see the floor of the reef due to their numbers. I'm talking tens of thousands of fish here. There were so many fish that I could even reach down and touch one before they could scramble away. After much snorkeling, we retreated to a beach in Cozumel where we enjoyed free alcohol and food and relaxed until the evening. That night on the ship, I met back up with the girl and we had another romantic episode, which became more and heated as the night progressed.

The next day the cruise began its return trip, and we spent the whole day at sea. I spent most of the day with the girl having an absolutely wonderful time. Once we returned to the States, I had to immediately pack up and return to Oxford since class began the next day. Two weeks passed and I found enough time to finish my part in Squeakytoad's Songstowearpantsto Collab.

In celebration I left my apartment to eat at my university's cafeteria and met up with a couple of friend I had met a week ago. One thing led to another and I found myself driving to New Orleans for the weekend for Marti Gras that very night. The six hour drive to New Orleans was long and tiresome, but well worth it. Marti Gras was at the very least, a kick ass experience. The most memorable parts in my time there was nearly getting into a fight with some jerkoff on Bourbon Street, seeing Hulk Hogan in person on one of the balconies, and kissing a very hot girl who was dancing the night away while she was completely naked in one of the clubs. Oh yes, it was a very wonderful time indeed.

A heads up on future plans: I have another animation in the planning stages. As of right now, don't expect anything from it for a good while. Also, after seeing LazyMuffin's success with his Nameless Game, I have been inspired to develop a flash game. I have already begun developing the game's engine. Unfortunately, no further details can be given out at this time.

Christmas was a blast! I had lots of fun with my family. Over the holidays I invited one of my friends from college over to have Christmas with my family. Yusuke, who is from Japan, had never experienced an American Christmas, so I invited him over to see what it was like. He met my family and saw where I grew up. He was very surprised because he grew up in Tokyo and seeing my parents rural lifestyle was quite different. The first thing he noticed is how wide and open the country is. "In Japan", he said, "there is no place simular to this."

After being shocked at how big my house was (the average American farm house is humongous compared to any Japanese home) he nearly freaked out when he saw our all guns. All firearms in Japan are banned; only police and officials are allowed to have a guns. On Christmas we had breakfast over at my older brother's house and opened presents. The most notiable thing I received was the gift from my parents: a Wacom Graphire 4! I'm still trying to get used to the thing. It's going to take a while for me to draw effectively with it.

After Christmas at my brother's house, we went back to my parent's property and my brother took Yusuke hunting. The day before, my brother and my nephew had killed a deer and Yusuke thought it was awesome, which is why they went hunting. Immediately afterwards, we drove to my father's private airport and let Yusuke fly around our property with my father and his friend. It didn't end there, right after he landed, we drove to my other older brother's house and shot his machine guns. Yusuke is actually a pretty good shot with the AK-47. By the end of the day, he said that this was the most fun he'd had all year and that he'd never forget it.

Next week I will be going on a cruise to Central America with my family. When I get back I'll try to get into practice with my new Wacom.

The surgery was a complete success! I can now see in 20/15 vision! Do you know what that means!? That means that I can read something from 20 away what an average person needs to be 15 away from to read. Odds are... I can see better than you. To make things even better, my vision will continue to improve over time. The doctors estimate that as my eyes continue to heal, I will be able to have 20/10 vision in about two weeks!

One thing is for sure. The surgery was as scary as hell. I actually watched myself go completely blind during the procedure. To describe it, its kind of like darkness begins to surround your vision at a steady rate until you can't see anything at all. The only thing you can see is what you were looking at before hand, kind of like an after image, which then eventually fade.

In my left eye, I have a good bit of redness in it. But the doctor says it will go away in a few weeks. Either way, I'm pretty damned happy about the results.

Yup, today's my birthday! I am now twenty one years old! I can now legally drink alcohol, although that didn't really stop me anyway. Unfortunately, here's the sucky part: In light of my coming of age, I have two final exams to take today, along with studying for two more that are on Thursday and Friday respectively. Therefore, I have no time to go out and party in celebration. No, no. I have to sit it out in solitude, studying my ass off in some library, memorizing segments from ancient Greek and Roman comedies, obscure Irish texts, and various other dramatic plays.

To top it all of I also have to prepare for my Japanese language final examination. I've been studying Japanese for three years now, and I must say it is kicking my ass. Just the last week I had to conduct an interview with a total stranger in Japanese over the phone. Then, using only Japanese as a means of communication, I had to set up a meeting with the guy over at my University's Student Union, sit down with him for at least two hours if I remember correctly, talking with him in Japanese while asking questions about his hometown, hobbies, interests, etc. After the whole insanely intimidating process was over, I then surprisingly had to report the interview to my class in Japanese. Let's just say I didn't do as well as I should, but I still managed to get a passing grade I think. This crazy assignment of last week was of course made worse considering that I also had three term papers due that week that I had to work on each night.

These past two weeks have been hell. The good news is that this semester is almost over, and I can finally take a break from classes. On the 13th I am going to have surgery on my eyes to correct my vision. I hope that goes well, because I like my eyes. After New Years, I will be going off on a cruise with my family to Central America. It's going to be fun I suppose. I just hope my passport comes in the mail in time. Well, enough worrying from my. Things always eventually turn out fine in the end of for me, no matter how crazy things get, I somehow manage to pull through. It feels kind of nice to be twenty one.

Lastly, because of all this insane busyness, I have not had the time to work on any flash. Hopefully when things calm down I can finally get back to work on that STWPT collab.

Image taken from Yotam Perel (LazyMuffen)'s Birthday Animation,
because he is so awesome.

I spent the Thanksgiving Break over at my parents house. While there I managed to get a good bit of work done with my part of the STWPT collab. Because of my absent mindedness I forgot to send the files back to my computer at my apartment. Of course my mother could e-mail me the files, but she isn't very computer savvy if you know what I mean. It's gonna take at least an hour to instruct her on how to send it to me. It's probably for the best, since this week is Hell Week and I got final exams next week. I'm just going to have to play catch up once this semester ends.

What sport do these three love to play?

Yeah, its Tuesday. And that means another news post. It's pretty bloody hard post news when there is none. Very little work has been done on my part of the STWPT collab. I will try to use this Thanksgiving Holiday to work more on it. Most of it has been storyboarded. Now all I have to do is learn how to animate...

Oh yeah, comment!

I want to see how many people actually read my news post on a given week. So if you are reading this please write a comment or something. It can pertain to anything. I'll even accept abusive comments, but I don't suggest them. If you need something to comment on, then just look back at my previous news posts and write about that. Or you could just comment on this picture. Let's see how many I get by next Tuesday.

Yeah, news-wise. Nothing has happened. Which is why I'm doing this lame experiment. I am, however, working on getting a Tablet for my computer. Hopefully I can get one in a week or two.

Now comment, damn it!

Last week went by pretty fast, but a lot of things happened. First off, I am really happy with how The Halloweenator scored when I submitted it last week. After going through the judgment process, it passed with an outstanding score of 3.60, the bare minimum for an "Awesome Score." I was very pleased that morning when I saw that. I was a little disappointed that I didn't even make runner up, but getting 11th place on the day before Halloween ain't too shabby. After about a week, thanks to various friends voting on it every day, the score has risen to 3.72. If you seriously want to keep on voting on it, then by all means do so, but a change in score now is really unnecessary. I am perfectly satisfied with the score as it is now. The same goes for Love You; there's no need to try to push it up any more. I've reached my goals with those movies and they need to be set aside and clear the way for my upcoming projects.

Speaking of upcoming projects, I have a few animations in the works. First, I'd like to announce that I have plans in making a sequel to my first flash submission, giving it the suitable name: "Love You Too". Isn't that witty? Anywho, since many people have suggested to improve the pace in my animations, I have decided to join SqueakyToad's Songstowearpantsto Collab in hopes to get my foot in the door with the Flash community and to practice other styles of animation. I am told to have my part complete by January 2008, roughly two months from now. That should be more than enough time to fine tune my experiments with various styles of animation and to submit my best work, unlike The Halloweenator, which was a three week rushed project. I would also like to take my time with "Love You Too". Therefore, I don't expect to release it until sometime after SqueakyToad's Collab. In the meantime, I may possibly submit one or two small experimental shorts of sorts; no promises though.

Ending this news post with a screenshot of glory.

Finally after spending just about every lick of my freetime, it's finally complete. I learned a whole lot about Flash when making this cartoon. Meaning I found out about a whole lot of things that are very important if I want to save time and come out with a outstanding flash. For example, I took note that it is definitely a good idea to get all of the basic animations complete before you attempt to lip sync. Then again there is probably an easier way of doing it than the method I took. All in all it's not too bad for a second submission.

My good brother, Glenn Trotter, wrote me the script a good three weeks back. My good friend Keri Rehm composed the Halloweenator's theme for me. It was the loop you heard whenever you saw the Terminator. All the voices were performed by the Voice Acting Club they are such talented people and I could never had made this submission without them. Cheers to the VAC!