Oh no my synapses are frozen!

Megan and I play a wonderful game called Frozen Synapse.  It's basically chess with guns.  However, there's a unique mechanic where both players move at the same time.  So both players make their move, then you get to watch as they die horrible, horrible deaths via grenades or rockets to the face.  Sometimes the Randomizer God chooses to give you a sniper and things have a chance of going okay.  That is unless someone gets grenades and thus they are soon, again, hurling them at your face.

- Gideon done

And thus endeth the life of a very special teacup.

School started yesterday!  I am super stoked for my second year; all signs point to this semestre being really fun and tough.  Unfortunately, me being at school may also mean that the comic will be posted less regularly (if the haven't been already ;__;), but I'm going to try my best to churn out a comic each week!

Here's how my semestre's looking: Animation Layout, Sound Design, Acting for Animators, Storyboarding, and Contemporary Vocal Ensemble.  I have a handful of other classes, but these are the ones that have got me excited, especially since they're totally applicable for TaffyGunn work.  I'm also looking forward to my Film Workshop class, and hopefully my film this year will not suck as hard.

On a totally unrelated subject, I found a sweet groove spot for working in listening to FFVI, Ogre Battle, and Chrono Trigger OSTs.  I guess that's not inherently a big deal, but Gideon installed an .SPC music player on my computer so I could listen to them in full quality, on my stupid Lion-running laptop  (it's called Vox).  It's even better than playing songs right through the emulator because I can organize them into playlists.  Needless to say, I'm one happy panda hard at work now.

- Megan Ruiz

Minty tea time: The Journey Continues.

Today Valve released Big Picture mode for Steam.  It's a different interface layer for Steam for when using on a couch.  It works quite well with a wired 360 controller and immediately made me look into getting a wireless controller.  It's a great start, and is already more fun to use than the Microsoft and Sony products it's competing with.

It does still have some potholes, though; when navigating through the store you'll sometimes get kicked back to the Steam web browser.  The browser is designed to be used with a controller and works pretty well, but it's still a bit jarring to go from a really well-designed tiled interface to a webpage.  Somewhat reminiscent of when using Windows 8 and getting kicked around between the Metro interface and the legacy desktop.

There doesn't seem to be a way to set Steam to start up directly into Big Picture mode, but hopefully I'm either missing something or that is on the short list of to do's.  There are a few things that could be better, like having a home/start page where the user could have some limited customization.  Big Picture mode does help make a console-style PC like the Alienware x51 much more alluring.   However, those start at around $700, and when talking about a couch-potato gaming entertainment center, one has to start talking about a much less expensive and easier-to-setup PS3 or 360.  It does, however, fill my head with wonderful optimistic thoughts of the modular computer entertainment console of the future.

- Gideon done

The life-and-times story of tea in a teacup continues.

So Valve announced that they are seriously looking into making hardware.  It's not exactly clear what kind, but it's most likely some kind of PC-gaming-related setup.  This is the result of Microsoft trying to lock down the Windows PC, and big players like Valve getting worried about the ramifications of this.

Microsoft in Windows 8 is doing its best to make people not want to use the legacy Explorer environment and force users into their new Metro/Windows/modern/whatever environment.  The potential problem here is that the new start screen interface is indicated to be about as locked down as iOS or the XBox at the moment.  So there is one store to rule them all: the Microsoft Store.  It's unlikely that Steam and similar stores will be available through this store and things will be hunky-dory.  Steam will most likely be relegated to the legacy Explorer platform that Microsoft will be trying to kill off.

In response, Valve has been very interested in Linux and is getting into the hardware market.  I can't really say if this is a good thing, but it's definitely crazy.  But what I am sure of is that a lot of people would rather get Half Life 2: Episode Three than a Steam Linux console for use on their couch that plays Counter-Strike: GO with a controller.

- Gideon done

I like tea.  Megan makes the best tea.  This is a story about tea.

Square Enix announced Lighting Returns: Final Fantasy XIII, or, as I like to call it, "Final Fantasy XIII-3".  The game actually sounds pretty good but that's not really as interesting as they announced this thing without a word about Versus XIII—the game that was originally announced at the same time as FF XIII and Agito/Type-0 back in 2006.  It felt like forever for FF XIII to come out, but they've done a good job pretty much annualizing it.  Normally I would hate that term, but I'm actually happy because games are getting made and they're making use of that White Engine/Crystal Tools they spent years developing before jumping to their next engine which they also spent years deving for the PS4/720 generation.

I like anyone who lived through the early SNES and PS1 days have a soft spot for Square Enix.  I was a bit down on them (to put it lightly) when they got cocky just like the rest of the Japanese gaming industry at the outset of this generation.  Over the last 8 years they've taken a real beating, though, and I think they're starting to get it together.  Supporting games like Sleeping Dogs, Deus Ex and upcoming Tomb Raider were amazing decisions that must have been hard.  They gave Westerners a lot of freedom to come up with amazing games.  It feels like they are on their back foot and not rolling over, I think in the upcoming years we're going to get some great games from them.

- Gideon Done

All The Summer Excitement

As people who mostly sit in front of computer screens and draw or play Frozen Synapse, I think my and Megan's idea of exciting events can be a bit... different.  Although it has been insanely hot as of late, and when we did go for a walk to the supermarket, I nearly died.  Summer heat is my kryptonite.

There is an amazing show called Cromartie High.  It's the most fun anime I've seen in a long time.  It's a show about the days and life of high-school badasses who are so badass that Freddie Mercury is one their students, as well as a robot, a gorilla and an alien.  The only not-badass is the main character.  Sometimes he enjoys a nice birthday party at a friend's house.  Other times, an episode deals with the serious problem of motion sickness.  It's a wonderful show about friends and kinship.

- Gideon Done

NAP TIME

When film time hits, people don't really go to bed.  They take naps throughout the "day" hoping for the smallest amount of sleep necessary to get up and work for another 12 hours.  However sometimes, the body says no when the alarm clock goes off, the mind agrees, and someone else thinks you look too cute sleeping to be awoken.

The possibly maybe most amazing thing ever was announced at the Gamescom event.  It's called the Strike 7.  Last night I had a dream about the Strike 7 and the Das Keyboard.  In the dream I was told to decide between these two dream keyboards.  I woke up in a cold sweat over my inability to decide.  I have a problem—my love for weird and wacky keyboards has already cost me hundreds of dollars, and if I had the money, would have cost thousands.  That Steampunk keyboard looks so amazing.  Megan just supposes it's like how girls like shoes or something.  In a weird way that makes it okay, though, 'cause women's shoe stores are okay and I would totally go for a mall keyboard store.

- Gideon done

Derp Hug

We're trying something a bit different.  This week's comic is part of our "This Stupid Couple" series.  Basically, it's our chance to make fun of how Megan and I act together.  We're also doing these while we set up for the comic series idea that started TaffyGunn.  It's exciting, but Megan and I are taking our time studying to make it as awesome as it can possibly be.

Lately, a good friend of mine and I have gotten bit by the Day Z bug.  It's the best zombie game I have ever played by far.  It's really about survival and the zombies are the active thing that doesn't want you as the player to survive.  So if they hit you, you bleed; if you don't bandage yourself you might bleed to death.  If you run too much, you get hungry and thirsty; if you don't eat and drink, you die of slow blood loss.  The closer you get to death, the harder it is to see. If you die you're dead, no respawn with minor exp. loss, armor damage and money loss, no, you're dead.  As in start over.  This might sound pretty horrible, but it really makes dying scary, as you can imagine, and thus the survival part completely worth-while.

It's really is the best co-op experience I've had since running around in Halo 1 punching Grunts in the back of their heads with my friend Randy about 10 years ago.  But this game... this game is something else.  Crawling through Electro while talking to my friend on Skype about where to meet up and hearing him go from telling me how things are good to the next second about how he's got a broken leg, losing blood, hiding on top of a roof with a tonne of zombies waiting to eat his body and a human sniper taking pot shots is really a whole new kind of experience in zombie survival.

If you have the time and money to buy Arma 2: Combined Operations, I would recommend this game more than any game since Halo 1 on the Xbox.

- Gideon done

PARALLEL PARKING

This is a completely true story.  I am amusingly bad at parallel parking, or at least I laugh when police cite me for bad parking.

As I watch Apple today, I don't know if I feel a bit like I've started to see under the wool or if over the years I merely had pulled a wool over my own eyes.  They're fighting and suing every company.  Companies that I don't have any particular love for, but it's much like watching the 13-year-old who's the smartest, best-looking and richest around, walking into a 3rd-grade class and laying the beat down because someone was seen wearing similar clothes.

Apple has been a great company that has made amazing hardware and software over the years.  But I use an Xperia Play, not an iPhone, because I like the unique hardware advantage of a d-pad in games.  I have a PC desktop instead of a Mac desktop now because I built it for 1k$ 4 years ago and it's still able to run anything I want it to well, and it will run Windows 8–if I wish–like a beast; I can even buy a touch screen that will work with that new start menu.  My Macbook Pro that I received more recently runs like poop with new versions of OS X, and I know it'll run better with a stripped-down install of Windows.

I really wish Apple would come out with some product that I feel like I can love again.  Like my quirky old blueberry iMac.  And then support it up the wazoo with new and amazing ideas like OS X was back in the 10.1 to 10.5 days.

We're very sorry this comic is late and will do our best to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Film Time

At CalArts in the Character Animation program, each student is supposed to make one film for every year of their 4 years.  The films are due at the end of second semester of each year.  It's an insane time where everyone sleeps about 3-5 hours a day for like 2 to 3 months, live in their cubes, and time seems to move in slow motion.  I, for one, literally didn't sleep in my room for basically the whole second semester 2nd and 3rd year.  It's a crazy time and I don't know anyone who doesn't love it.  It's a time when everyone sees the good and the bad of these new lifeforms they have met in their  Valencian prison.  A time of serious bonding over 2 AM burgers, Battlefield, and a glass of adult beverage.  The time I'll miss the most about CalArts now that I have graduated, but my lucky better half will get to experience a few more, so I'm supremely jealous.

- Gideon done

BEST TO BE CONSISTENT

Megan and I have super kool friends; they will also appear in comics sometimes.  Oh, here they are!

Saturday at comic con was great.  We went to a few panels as a way to keep our seats for upcoming panels, and were ready for the worst, but the panels were surprisingly good.

The Penny Arcade panel was the highlight of the trip for me.  Seeing Mike and Jerry in action was awesome.  Again I had a chance to stop and say something to Mike and I was so befuddled that I had no idea what to do but walk away, very fast, with my head down.

Megan wanted to see a panel about Canadian comic artists.  I wasn't so psyched for it but it was really interesting.  Kate Beaton was there, and what I learned was that Kate Beaton, by herself, draws a bigger crowd than Kate Beaton with other Canadians.  Also that Canada is America's hat.  Never heard that before.

Of the accidental panels we were introduced to, a fun-looking indie movie called Save the Date, a movie that apparently doesn't have any trailers anywhere.  The other was about an author named Gail Carriger.  She writes a steampunk fantasy book series that has a lot of parasols, apparently.  I've put the first book next on my reading list after I finish The Stars, like Dust.

One Semester of Spanish - Love Song (Animated)

This is definitely one of the greatest birthday gifts anyone has ever given me. I had asked Gideon to sing me THIS SONG live for my birthday, open-shirted and all, but he decided to animate himself doing it instead to avoid that fate. Arguably the more difficult option of the two.

Today was our first day at San Diego Comic Con!  We got into the city way too early but were not able to start our rounds at the convention until a bit after opening.  For me, it felt weird not having gotten off a plane prior to a convention.

Among our several booth visits was one to Penny Arcade, at which Gideon bought himself some DVDs and earned himself a free mug. And then Gideon was quietly beside himself with bashfulness as we got Mike to doodle and sign something for him. We also hit up Meredith Gran from Octopus Pie to pick up some things for me, said hi to a bunch of artist friends from all the past comic cons, became discomforted by the numerous costumed ladies, and wandered around looking at some cool artisan crafts.

Eventually we made our way to the some of the panels we had planned to attend today. The first was a spotlight on Kate Beaton, one of my favorite webcomic artists. It was really interesting to hear why she does what she does,  how her family responds to her work, and where she gets a lot of her inspiration from. The second panel we went to was on the "art of story" for the new Disney animated film, Wreck-It Ralph.  It was honestly not very interesting, and felt most like a PR presentation.  Gideon and I fell asleep.  Which was great because we were well-rested for the panel we had been waiting all day for, "The Business of Webcomics," hosted by Robert Khoo of Penny Arcade.  As it was relevant with our current interests, the Q&A section was really engaging and helpful.  Some of the information was pretty intuitive, but it was reassuring to hear some validation by people who have been in the business for nearly two decades.  There were even some questions asked that gave us interesting story ideas, so we're looking forward to working off of those pretty soon!

It has been an exhausting day; I can only imagine Saturday will be draining, as well.

~ Megan Ruiz

In which Gideon reprimands his child.

Scout, one of my computers, has been having trouble with a few of its fans lately.  One of them broke a few weeks ago and recently its heat sync fan has been acting up a bit.  This causes it to sometimes sound less like a fighter jet and more like a prop plane taking off.

Google officially announced the long rumored Nexus 7 tablet.  I'm very excited for it and my moneys are set aside to be taken by the googles.  I hear Apple is planning to make a 7-or-so inch iPad in response to the new Nexus 7 tablet and then subsequently sue Asus for producing a product that steals their original design.  So I best get one of these Nexus tablets soon before the sue-happy wars come to the shores of Sevenincherland.

- Gideon done

New Bike pt. 3

There's this dog named Mickey.  This dog is in love with Megan.  In some cases she has been known to stare at Megan without flinching or moving for hours on end.  She's an adorable little beagle.

A while back, a game called Mass Effect 3 came out and this made many gamers very angry.  Bioware made promises they couldn't keep and consumers tried to hold them to said promises.  Unfortunately, said gamers had already purchased the game and were screwed.  Oh wait, they took to the internet in hordes.  This made many journos very angry.

I didn't buy Mass Effect 3 day one for a few reasons.  1) It's only on origin and I'm exclusively a PC gamer;  2) Dragon Age 2 sucked;  3) Mass Effect: Deception sucked;  4) the announcement of a limited-edition only Prothean character also sucked. I've sunk well over 100 hours of time into the series and have literally dreamed about it, but 80 buckeroos was a bit much to ask on top of these other missteps.

So now there's the extended ending of the game that has been released to quell the collective anger of fans.  From what I hear, it's 2 gigs of videos that will unlock based on the decisions of the players to give them more insight into how their decisions change the world.  I'll continue to abstain from giving EA any more of my money unless somehow an amazing Mirror's Edge 2 game gets announced.

New Bike pt. 2

Megan's new bike pump works great with her awesome new bike.                      

I am what you may call a computer nerd and I like tablets. Microsoft announced their surface. It's got cool candy-flavor-colored smart cover keyboard things and a kickstand. Computex happened earlier this month and a zillion crazy and wacky laptops, tablet laptops and laptop all-in-ones were shown off. It's exciting. It's a rat race. I have an iPad 2 and am mostly happy with it. However, it is not a tool competitive with a pc and does not have much potential to become so. Android has a little more potential as it is growing in obtuse and generally more open ways. Windows 8 is the funny ball, then. It's like a complete tool OS since it is the tool OS and it is also a tablet OS because it has been reinvented to be so.  How well they mingle is still a bit of a toss up. But it should be the productive nerd's tablet dream! I, for one, will be getting one of those 7" Android Nexus Tablets.

-Gideon

New Bike

I was feeling the pangs of jealousy for Megan's new bike when I was informed that there lay a bike beast ready in the garage, waiting to be tamed.  The hope arose suddenly that we would trek like some sort of Riders of Rohan through the sunny mountains of Chino Hills.  Unfortunately, the ancient beast isn't like some long lost dragon waiting to roar from its cave, but more of some kinda ball of rust that decided to rust over itself and then die.  So instead it will be more like the Rider of Rohan and their trusty inline-skates jester.

I have been reading through The Complete Robot by Isaac Asimov after finishing his Foundation series.  Within this wonderful robot compendium of stories, I came across one by the name of Bicentennial Man.  I remembered a movie by this name thinking it was something like robo Patch Adams-inator at the time, and had lost interest in seeing it.  But now with my renewed interest in Asimovian robots, not even the fear of a clown doctor-bot could deter me.

The movie was a nice change of pace from other Robot movies that usually involved a main character that wanted, if nothing else, to cause fireworks made up of robot parts.  Fun, but not quite the same product I had come to expect from Asimov's robot series.  The film is a pinocchio story that lasts through generations of a human family about a robot that wants to become human, not only in looks, but to experience feelings, life, love and finally death.  Suffice to say, I enjoyed the movie and felt it was a nice addition to my complete Isaac Asimov experience.

- Gideon

LEATHER CAR

My entire family has a thing where every chair, piece of furniture and car must be made of dead Cowhide.  Here is my opinion of Leather.

cons: sticky
         slippery
         hot
         expensive
         sticky
         smelly
         stupid

                                         pros: easy to vacuum

-Gideon

Cakes

Its a comic! I have a tendency not understand what anyone is talking about unless it has to do with computers or video games, often to the dismay of my better half.

-Gideon