Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw (of Zero Punctuation fame) once said:
“Releasing videos on YouTube is kind of like throwing a message in a bottle out into a churning sea of messages in bottles”
Well, here goes my message in a bottle…
Putting the Mouth to Work
I have always been interested in voice acting. Even today, I marvel at the pros who can have conversations with themselves. Growing up with a healthy dose of Mel Blanc probably helped as well.
I never really pursued it, though. I was content to pepper my conversations with occasional impressions, voice-changes, and really bad accents, much to the amusement (and annoyance) of all. I know at least one person who is sick of my rendition of Darth Vader’s “I find your lack of faith disturbing” line from Star Wars.
During a rough patch when I worked jobs where I was dealing with The General Public, (shudder) I started to get compliments on my voice. The first time was when I was working at Best Buy in Corpus Christi. While working at a call center a few months later, I would get the occasional compliment on my voice. While working at the call center, I did notice that I would occasionally lapse into what I called my “phone voice.” Despite the occasional praise, though, I never pursued it further, though I would occasionally think, “that would be a fun thing to do.”
I pretty much sat on that idea until fairly recently. At Mizuumi-com I saw two panels that inspired me to get off my rear and start pursuing a career in voice work: Kevin M. Connolly gave a good talk on the expectations one should have in doing voice work and Chris Holm gave a good “get off your ass and DO something” session (that wasn’t the title, but it sums up the message pretty neatly).
Thus, I have started volunteering my voice to Librivox.org, reading short works to start off, and we’ll see where it goes from there!
I (somewhat) Draw The Line…
I have never been able to draw very well, but any graphics I need (for say, a website!) I have to make myself. Fortunately, by using a vector-based drawing program (put simply, drawing with lines instead of dots) I can somewhat get around my lack of artistic talent. I suppose an artist who works in the real world (as opposed to the digital one) would consider it cheating, but hey, I need to cheat.
Anything I make always ends up all straight lines and SOLID PRIMARY COLORS, anyway, like the logo I made for this website (see upper-left corner). I suppose it is a side-effect of spending all that time on the computer. Ah well, I’m better with words anyway.
Tangled Up In Blu
Someday, I will buy a PlayStation 3. I’m not sure when that day will be, but once there are enough good games to justify the purchase, I will go out and buy one. It would be nice if Sony would drop the price on the blasted thing, though, because with $400 I could buy a netbook and have cash left over.
Hmm, now I’m contemplating a netbook. Anyways…
The impending PS3 purchase has me in a bit of a bind where buying movies is concerned. Blu-ray looks pretty good on those nice shiny displays at the stores, and I imagine they’d also look pretty good on my 32-inch Sony LCD (its a placeholder, I’m reserving getting the real TV for after I buy a house).
When a new movie I like comes out on video now, I have to decide whether I should buy it on DVD, or wait until I get that Playstation 3 and can watch it in glorious high-definition via Blu-Ray. The decision isn’t quite so cut-and-dry, though.
On the one hand, DVDs are relatively inexpensive, and while they have to be “stretched” to fill a widescreen, they still look good. The pretty picture of Blu-Ray, on the other hand, comes at a cost: the difference in price between Blu-Ray and DVD versions of the same movie can be from five to twenty bucks!
Next time you are at a store that sells movies, browse through the Blu-Ray section and look at the prices. I promise you that at some point you will say to yourself: “No way I would pay THAT much for <insert crappy movie name here>” Its so ridiculous, you might even say that about a movie you like.
The other consideration is that there are some movies and TV shows that don’t really need to be seen in high-definition. Movies like The Matrix would rock in high def, as would anything by Pixar. In contrast, I could watch Chris Rock or Futurama on a crappy old black-and-white TV and they wouldn’t be any less funny.
So thus we have the question: “DVD now, or Blu-Ray later?”
The answer?
Well, lets just say I haven’t bought any new movies in months.