Ladies of Interest (10): Lara Croft

At last! The hot female Indiana Jones (Indy can go HOME by the way) and one of the (if not THE) first kick-ass cyber-girls of the entertainment industry gets her own LOI-Entry! Yay!

Reason for this: I have been playing the last three Tomb Raider Games on Xbox 360 kinda on a row for a month or so and finished the breathtakingly cool last installment "TR: Underworld" today.

For those few who don't know Lara Croft (being some hermits in a cave... with internet-access, reading my blog...): British Millionaire follows foot-steps of her late parents by hunting antique artifacts and raiding dangerous tombs wearing ridiculously short outfits, equipped with two big guns and even bigger boobs. One of those things (or maybe two) hit a nerve on the (I'm wildly speculating: probably essentially male) customers, allowing Lara to star in almost a dozen games, two movies and 50 issues of her own (canceled) comic series.

"Tomb Raider Anniversary" - initially released as downloadable content for the first "new" Tomb Raider "Legend" - celebrated the 10th Anniversary of 1996's first game being a remake of the latter. The unlockable bonus material contains comparison-screenshots of scenes from the original in contrast to ones from anniversary: It's hard to imagine 16-year-old Batch finding Tomb Raider I the high peak of PC gaming graphics. Nonetheless, I really liked Tomb Raider I and simultaneously hated the hundreds of horrible deaths my Lara had to succumb to due to misplaced jumps. I played number II as well, but lost track and/or interest in the later games - my interest just got fueled again by a low priced copy of "Legend" (thank you, ebay).

Nowadays ("Underworld") Lara doesn't fall to death so often (being able to wallclimb, using a cool grappling hook and holding AUTOMATICALLY onto ledges), but essentially does the same old thing: Jumping and climbing on, under, above and in mysterious tombs and other archeological sites, occasionally shooting some bad guys or wild animals. Oh, well, she kinda looks better now (see Lara's evolution on the left. Lots of breast operations.)

I'm a little ashamed though, that I - testosterone-driven as I usually am - have to admit that despite her looks "Underworld's" Lara is far exceeded by the environmental graphics. I played the whole Raising and Racing into Xibalba Part 4 or 5 times, just because it's so frakkin' damn cool. Or the sunken entrance to Helheim. The holding place of Mjolnir at the bottom of Valhalla. The final showdown in the hall of Jörmungandr. The shiva/kali-statue above Bhogavati. And yeah, it helps, that I'm into that old-mystic-gods-underworlds-and-stuff-theme. A very big plus for "Underworld" in comparison to "Legend" - more complex riddles in ancient tombs instead of linear running through cities and the like. Could have been a little longer though. Took me just a week, maybe 8 or 9 hours.

But hey, I just downloaded the first of two extensions "Beneath the Ashes": Lara revisits the catacombs under Croft Manor to find an old artifact hidden there. Should be cool. Especially for Lara who will be doing the dungeoneering in a bikini.

.. What? All this tomb raiding in the main game has to be rewarded... can't leave that unlocked outfit untouched, can I? ;)

Update to "Beneath the Ashes": Hmm. Challenging (especially the dragon puzzle where you have to use the grappling hook creatively), sexy (with Lara doing all the dirty work in her bikini as announced), but rather short. Three hours at best, and that includes a few minutes of rotating the camera to examining Lara's problem zones (that don't exist) from different angles ;) plus some want-to-throw-gamepad-into-screen-frustrating scenes near the end. "Landscape" pretty boring, being just a big dungeon. Not completly worth the 800 Microsoft Points (9,60 Euro).

Downloaded the second DLC "Lara's Shadow", where you control Lara's doppelganger. New combat system, wallrunning and stuff - reviews are better, I hope, this pays out more. Paid more for two DLCs than for the main game ;).

Welcome to Rapture

Since I'm sick anyway - headaches, coughs and sneezes kinda take the fun out of everything - I can as well do something productive with my downtime, resulting in this here fine post about one of the greatest game evah: Bioshock.


"I am Andrew Ryan, and I'm here to ask you a question. Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? 'No!' says the man in Washington, 'It belongs to the poor.' 'No!' says the man in the Vatican, 'It belongs to God.' 'No!' says the man in Moscow, 'It belongs to everyone.' I rejected those answers; instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose...Rapture, a city where the artist would not fear the censor, where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality, where the great would not be constrained by the small! And with the sweat of your brow, Rapture can become your city, as well."

1960. After a planecrash in the middle of the ocean, the player in this First-Person-Shooter can save himself to a strange tower, leading directly to an underwater city - aforementioned Rapture. Build by Mogul Andrew Ryan, this Ayn-Rand-like Utopia should be a place where the inhabitants would be free of social and political, even ethical rules. But as the player can see and hear over the radio by his mysterious self-acclaimed new mentor Atlas, something went terribly wrong.

Since the backstory of rapture, how it came to be into this devastated state and what the frak all those strange creatures are, is told mainly in scattered audio-tapes or over the radio, the player is thrown right into a very very strange and scary environment with little to no clue to the bigger picture. The city is in ruins and plagued by it's former inhabitants turned into zombie-like "Splicers". Little girls with yellow eyes wander around, poking red needles into the dead. They harvest the so-called ADAM which could be used to genetically upgrade a person with plasmids (active "spells" like firing electroshocks or using telekinesis) and gene-tonics (passive "buffs" that raise abilities and probabilities). It would be easy to free those girls or harvest them for ADAM for yourself, if it weren't for their protectors, the hulking Big Daddies.

"You think that's a child down there? Don't be fooled. She's a Little Sister now. Somebody went and turned a sweet baby girl into a monster. Whatever you thought about right and wrong on the surface, well that don't count for much down in Rapture. Those Little Sisters, they carry ADAM- the genetic material that keeps the wheels of Rapture turning. Everybody wants it. Everybody needs it."

As if the dwelling creatures wouldn't be scary enough, the darkness is accompanied by a very strange 50's style in everything. Cartoonish Vending machines, neon-lit signs, black and white "infomercials", horrible jingles... this tainted version of the perfect city would give the Stepford Wives the creeps.

Before I venture further into the atmosphere and story, a few words to the gameplay. As in most FPS the player has a constantly growing arsenal of pretty standardy weapons (which can be upgraded later on in a very cool way: the bigger clip-size of the revolver is realised through a second big roll glued right onto the gun) and the plasmids. The usage of the latter require doses of EVE, a blue liquid, that has to be injected directly into the arm, health is restored with First-Aid-Kits. The player can hack security turrets, flying drones, cameras and safes to make his life easier. The Ammunition limit is pretty low, I usually was out of electric-shot-gun-ammo after one fight against a big daddy. Later in the game, the player can photograph enemies to research them to get boni and special tonics out of research, and he can produce his own ammo with found materials. The player can't really die, when health goes out, he's resurrected in a Vita-Chamber (which could be pretty far away from the spot the player went down). But as cool as the gameplay is, let's get back to Rapture.

"When Picasso became bored of painting people, he started representing them as cubes and other abstract forms. The world called him a genius! I've spent my entire surgical career creating the same tired shapes, over and over again: the upturned nose, the cleft chin, the ample bosom. Wouldn't it be wonderful if I could do with a knife what that old Spaniard did with a brush?"

Though it's sometimes hard to follow the storytelling, I found the way it's done pretty genius. You're completly alone in a hostile environment, even the few non-spliced people you meet are lunatics and you're best friend is the radio. The two plotlines - one recapturing fragments of the events before the arrival of the player, the other the mission of bringing down Andrew Ryan (voiced by Armin "Quark/Principal Snyder" Shimerman, btw.) - are solely (with few exceptions) told through the radio, so that the scary loneliness is almost never disturbed. Little after the middle of the game, the story takes an interesting twist, that left me jawdropped - how nice that the roommate is playing the game now so I can rewatch some of the earlier scenes from a different angle.

After reading this post I kinda realize you just have to see and play the game for yourself, you can't describe it very well. Maybe try a demo like I did. Oh - part two is announced for later this year, and there are rumors of a movie. FYI.

Line of Work

Sorry for the non-german-speaking readers (though I doubt that there are a lot of those among my few readers) - this will be in german. ;)

Der ein oder andere mag es bemerkt haben, ich blogge irgendwie nicht mehr so fürchterlich viel. Zwei Monate ist der letzte Post her, auweia. Schuld ist zum Teil das olle Getweete über Twitter, das geht alles so schön fix und man ist trotzdem informiert.... zum anderen Teil die liebe Arbeit. Zeit, mal einen Abriß über meinen Job zu geben, nach gut acht Monaten erlaube ich mir mal, eine erste Bilanz zu ziehen. Natürlich wird der Arbeitgeber nicht genannt und vieles eher schwammig gehalten - Online- und Arbeitsleben möchte ich dann doch etwas auseinanderhalten.

Seit Anfang des Jahres arbeite ich als "Solution Engineer" bei einem kleinem bis mittelgroßen Unternehmen in Berlin. Wir verkaufen eine Software-Produktpalette und Beratungsleistungen drumrum, entsprechend sind wir ein Mix aus Programmierern, Beratern und Kundenbetreuern, die - und hier kommt auch schonmal einer der großen Pluspunkte ins Spiel - ziemlich eng zusammenarbeiten. Streng genommen sind wir im Team Customizer und Entwickler, modifizieren das Produkt also je nach Kundenwunsch und/oder basteln generelle nützliche Erweiterungen, so neben der Kundenprojektarbeit Zeit dazu bleibt. Ich geh da auch gar nicht groß ins Detail, neben der internen Skript-Sprache der Produkte darf ich mich des öfteren mit diversen Web-Technologien und -Sprachen (HTML, JavaScript) und für diverse Schnittstellen mit Java, Visual Basic oder C++ rumschlagen.

Im Gegensatz zu meinem früheren (Studenten-)Job in einem weitaus größeren Unternehmen sitze ich aber nicht in einem kleinen Büro und mache "mein Ding" - unser Team sitzt in einem Großraumbüro (aber kein Cubicle, eng isses nicht) und neben dem regen Austausch von Lösungsvorschlägen der Marke "Sachtma, hamwer irgendwo nicht schomma sowas wie XYZ gebaut...?", herrscht auch ein reges Kommen und Gehen von Kundenbetreuern und Beratern, die sich fix einen Stuhl nehmen und ihr aktuelles, vergangenes oder zukünftiges Projekt mit einem besprechen. Nebenbei klingelt auch eins der Telefone. Klingt sehr unruhig, stört mich aber gar nicht - im Gegenteil.

Trotz Schwerpunkt auf der Umsetzung ist man somit nämlich eigentlich im gesamten Umfeld der Firma permanent involviert; man schaut nicht nur über den Tellerand hinaus, faktisch gibt's gar keinen Tellerand. Ich hab mittlerweile fast jeden Projektschritt mal selber gemacht oder zumindest assistiert, sei es technische Beratung eines potentiellen Auftraggebers zur Unterstützung des eher fachlich ausgerichteten Beraters, Workshops mit dem Kunden, Telefon- und Webkonferenzen, das Schreiben einer Spezifikation, das Schätzen von Aufwänden, das Umsetzen und Testen sowieso, die (telefonische) Unterstützung bei der Installation, zeitnahes Bugfixing wenn doch mal ein Fehler übersehen wurde und beim Kunden was abschmiert...

Man bekommt also einen wirklich guten Überblick, hat bei sehr vielen Sachen Mit-Entscheidungsrecht und kriegt nicht einfach irgendeine Aufgabe auf den Tisch geknallt. Gefällt mir also mächtig, zumal ich auch mit allen Kollegen super auskomme. Zugegeben: An manchen Tagen hätte ich gegen etwas mehr Routine, großzügigere Deadlines und weniger gleichzeitigen Baustellen (jetzt zur Urlaubszeit durfte ich einen Kollegen vertreten, dessen Projekte ausgerechnet jetzt in die heiße Phase einliefen) nichts einzuwenden und es gibt auch öfter mal 9- oder 10-Stunden-Arbeitstage, im Großen und Ganzen denke ich aber, im richtigen Laden gelandet zu sein :).

So, damit hab ich auch sichergestellt, daß nächste Woche alles schief geht, was möglich ist, und ich die Schnauze gestrichen voll hab... *g*

A Fable

"Once upon a time there lived a girl. She slept in a lovely little cottage made of gingerbread and candy. She was always asleep. One morning she woke up, and the candy had mold on it. Her father blew her a kiss and the house fell down. She realized she was lost. She found herself walking down a crowded street, but the people were made of paper, like paper dolls. She blew everyone a kiss goodbye, and watched as they blew away."

(My So-Called Life, "The Substitute")

"You Rock!" a.k.a. FedCon Signatures

Since the flatmate and the Final-Episode-Avoider have already covered lots of the last FedCon-Event (plus, I kinda lack time for it) I'll stick to putting just a few comments on how my works were recieved.

First one was Mark Sheppard signing my "Backup"-Galactica from last year. "Great Work!" I felt a little sorry that I hadn't have the time to do a more special work for him and couldn't give him a copy. Especially since he was in a talkative mood and told me that he was in Berlin once and what he did there and stuff.

Richard Hatch seemed to be a little confused by the motive. (The one I did last year for him and Jamie Bamber). He started to sign it without a word and stopped midway through, reading the taglines he was signing on. He probably thought it was an illegal bootleg copy of a real comic book and didn't want to embarass me ;).

I don't really know whether Edward James Olmos liked his picture. He accepted his copy but didn't seem too overly impressed. Not sure whether he kept it. At least he wrote a complete novel ;).

Michael Hogan seemed more impressed. Olmos "warned" the fans in his panel the day before that Hogan never accepted Tigh being a Cylon and doesn't like it to be called one. So, uhm... yeah. Look at the right ;). "I'm very sorry for that headline... but you know how tabloids are... I'll give you your own copy to tear apart, if you like." He laughed and gratefully put his copy away. Maybe this one really liked his present.

When my work - wrapped in a neat wallpaper - was shown at his panel later on, fans shouted at him to turn around. "Hah, I signed one of those!" he remembered :). Thanks to the Final-Episode-Avoider for the following snapshots.


As you can see, the Callis one was shown as well (in fact, I've seen all three BSG-ones at the panels, thanks to the tech-guys), though he didn't see it on the screen. Nonetheless, he's the one responsible for the title of this post - he seemed really impressed by my work (resulting in his words on his signature - I never got a thank you on one of those before ;) ). "I will take that home with me, that's some great work - thank you very much!" PRIDE! :)

Getting his signature was quite an adventure by the way. Due to our lots of acquaintances even in the Con-Staff we knew that Callis would be gone on Sunday so we tried really hard to get his signature on Saturday. Trial one failed epicly when he had to leave for his photo-session 6 frakkin' people in the line before us. After one hour of waiting. Hmpfzt. Trial two was much easier because we were granted an exceptional visit to the official autograph session later on (as all "only-James-Callis-signature-Collectors" were). Lucky us, lots of fans didn't know and missed his signature.

Last one was Summer Glau, who still fought with a mean cold. She signed my work a little tired but seemed honestly surprised when I told her that's my work. So I'm too good now, my work isn't recognized as such anymore... ;). I gave her a copy, but I'm not sure whether she kept it.

As soon as I can decide about some neat gallery tool, I'll put HQ-Versions without the signatures there. Maybe even the whole panorama which was greatly enhanced due to the new background the Final-Episode-Avoider made for me. Thanks alot :).

Before someone asks: I copied the signatures from the prints into the digital works for better quality. Since Summer's was very hard to scan I had to trace her writing digitally - it's a little spidery now, the original isn't.

Pieces of Art (30): Phew!

Done. Don't mind the black bars, that's just for the desktop-wallpaper-format. Only few additions (Cover-Text, maybe flip the positions of Tigh and Adama... ) left; the main-work is finished. The tweaking is scheduled for the Easter Holidays, the complete art will be seen on FedCon 18 (and later on here). If I manage to find some way to print these.... ;)

And yes, I do know that River doesn't quite fit into the picture. I'll figure something out ;).

Pieces of Art (29): The Old Man

Two down, two to go.

It somehow confirmes my humble drawing-skills that the following occured in the process: I started penciling The Old Man without the wrinkles, therefore the drawing bearing not so much resemblance to him - but to Hotdog.... huh. You could think the actors playing Adama and Hotdog are kinda related... ;

I'm very satisfied with the work and the inking went noticeably faster. I grow accustomed to my Wacom :)

Like a Prayer

As you may or may not know, I consider myself an agnostic (though I'm not sure I really am, so maybe I'm a Meta-Agnostic...) and there are days I am really glad about that:

Information Age Prayer provides a service for the forgetful religious person to read prayers in their name. With their computer via voice synthesizing (actually it's the computers of the company, NOT the personal computer of the subscriber as I thought first). So, if you don't have time to pray for yourselves, you can subscribe for a fee and somewhere a prayer is read for you by a computer.

Huh. Let's read the FAQ:

"Are the prayers meaningless, will subscribing really make a difference?
(being exactly the very first question I had) As with all prayer, the final results are up to God as everything follows His will. We make no claims regarding the efficacy of the service, however it is our opinion that the omniscient God hears the prayers when they are voiced, as He hears everything on this Earth. The omniscient God knows exactly who has subscribed and who each prayer is from when their name is displayed on screen and their prayer voiced. He is also aware of all donations to charity from each subscriber and we can surely make a difference in these charities supported."

Huh. Honestly, if I were God.... I mean, C'MON! That's cheating! I would strike every wanna-be-follower with lightning who thinks he can get off that easy! Isn't the point of praying that you sacrifice some thoughts and time to your God? Maybe that's just me, but if I were religious I would feel deeply insulted when some soulless machine speaks with god in my name. (As a SciFi-Geek I'm pretty amazed by the way.... all kinds of cool stuff come in mind... mechanical gods, Deus Ex Machina, robots with their own religion....).

And it get's even better:

"If your children don't pray anymore sign them up for one of the many daily prayers available for each religion (click categories at the left). You may also want to have a prayer said for them directly. The prayer for children is the cheapest Information Age Prayer service at only $1.99 a Month. Pray for a child here."

Ha! Everything's gonna be fine for Junior. He doesn't pray, he doesn't believe... but hey, a machine prays for him! Because I paid someone to do that! Phew, NOW God will think totally different about that black sheep...

Pfff. I don't know who I pity more: The developers, The clients, or God. Probably the latter one. If you exist, God, I just spent twenty minutes defending the good old ways of praying. Keep that in mind on Judgement day :).

Moments of Claire-ity (1): Shopgirl

I kinda made some oath two weeks ago, to watch all of Claire Danes' movies. Today I'm in quotation-mode, so don't expect a big review ;).

"Are you the kind of person that takes time to get to know, and then when you get to know them - they're fabulous?"

"Shopgirl" is a very nice piece about love and desire. Mirabelle (Danes) is a young artist working as a shopgirl. Her life seems empty, so she tries to start a relationship: First with the very unexperienced and annoying Jeremy (Jason Schwartzman), later on with the 60-year-old millionaire Ray (Steve Martin, who wrote the script based on his own novella). I cannot really describe which direction the movie takes without spoiling to much, so I just use another quote from Roger Ebert's review:

One of the things you cannot do in this life is impose conditions on love. Another impossibility is to expect another's heart to accommodate your own desires and needs. You may think that cleverness, power or money will work on your behalf, but eventually you will end up feeling the way you really feel, and so will the other person, and there is no argument more useless than the one that begins with the words "But I thought we had an agreement."

"Shopgirl" seems to have no real "moral" or "message", it's just a portrait of how life is - and it's a well written and well played portrait, especially by Claire.

Pieces of Art (28): Gone Digital

Okay, I did it. I did it two weeks ago and bought the Wacom Intuos3 A5 Wide Screen Graphic Tablet. Pretty expensive (though not as much as the homepage suggests), pretty cool, pretty useful, pretty needs getting used to. First results on the left, a digitally inked and colored River.

Nothing new on the coloring front, I just relied on my old process of lots of layers. Went much faster than with the mouse, just as I hoped. In fact, I was much much faster with the coloring than with the inking. It took ages to "draw" over the pencils with the pen. It was pretty hard to draw lines on the tablet while looking at the screen, because you just see indirectly what you're drawing. Got faster at the end, I'm optimistic to master that when working on the next projects (being the pre-mentioned already finished pencils of Adama, Tyrol and Baltar). Hopefully I'll learn to draw convex curves with that, 'cause I can't turn the tablet like I used to do with the paper...

Anyway, the digital ink has very great advantages, illustrated below. I can experiment more - if you compare the inked face with the penciled one you see the difference. Details I couldn't have drawn with a fineliner plus the priceless ability to erase (yeah, my pen has an eraser at the back, just turn around and erase... :) ), enabling me to loosen myself from the pencils and just rework in the inking process. Well, let's see how Adama's face will turn out - since it's just a portrait the pencils themselves are more detailed and I can work on a deeper level...

Ladies of Interest (9): Claire Danes

I really wanted to proudly announce the completion of the pencil works for the FedCon-Stuff, but... I just watched the second episode of "My so called Life" and I sorta kinda felt the necessity of doing another LoI-Post. Don't know why... ;)

The long-time reader won't be very surprised by Ms. Danes' ascension into the ranks of the Ladies of Interest since the simple glowing effect of her Yvaine in Stardust left me that ... enchanted. So I only hesitated shortly when I saw her smiling from a DVD-Box-Cover in the nearby MediaMarkt. "Willkommen im Leben" was the title and I remembered how the ex-fellow-student (is there an english word for "kommolitone"?) reminisced in nostalgia and Claire-Adoration some time ago.

I never saw an episode of that show before last week, so nostalgia's out of the picture - but just after two episodes I think I can already understand why it's so loved by lots of people. It really IS good, as far as I can tell (just google it). Plus, there's this girl, you know. Not so much with the glowing but almost unbearable amounts of cuteness. Examples on the left.

Teenage-(No Mutant, No Ninja) Batch would've fallen madly in love with 15-year-old Claire Danes instantly like 50% of the viewers did (the other 50% fell in love with Jared Leto, I hear), while Twen-Batch is of course much too grown-up for that (prefering the older, glowing version ;) ).

Anyways, learned some things about Claire when reading a biography:

- She had her first on screen kiss before having her first real one. Huh. That must've been ... difficult, I think. She almost complained about having to kiss (a then 22 years old) Jared Leto every day- I guess millions of teenage girl viewers wanted to have her problems.
- She was a persona non grata in Manila and her movies were banned in the phillipines after she ranted about the city in an interview (mentioning rats and the lack of a sewage system).
- She turned down the female lead of Titanic because she didn't want to be typecasted for "romantic" roles. She probably just didn't want to kiss Leonardo DiCaprio again ;).
- She did star in an unhealthy lot of flops - no wonder she stayed under my radar for so long.

But that time's gone, I will not rest before I've seen all those bad movies just because of her. Even Mod Squad. ;)

P. S.: Gamer, Flatmate: I want this Terminator-Evening ASAP! Maybe we could start with the third part?

Pieces of Art (27): WIP

Phew. After months of not touching a pencil using a pencil to draw - my last work was a still unfinished Dr. Horrible Pin-Up - I finally managed to find the time to relax and draw something again. FedCon is happening in a little more than two months after all. Lots of Stars attending, lots of signatures to hunt, so lots of work to do.

I'm very relieved that I can honestly say I didn't loose my humble skills over the unproductive months. River Tam on the left certainly wasn't the easiest start after the break, being a full pose with the jumping, the swinging, the coolness-y-ing 'n' stuff. Little harder than the usual portraits I did for the last con. Btw: Sorry for anyone trying to check out my previous art-stuff - it's temporarily offline since my university-webspace vanished into thin air after my graduation ;). It will be up on some new location soonish. Together with a new wordpress-blog ;).

I was able to sketch the pose pretty fast and with very few corrections afterwards. Still light years away from people with real talent but still much faster than I feared. The face went very smoothly (considering the little space I had for it, I used to have problems with that), thankfully no feet and only fists.

Her legs seem to lack a few centimeters and her left arm seems to be a tad thicker then her right - well it's just the pencil-sketch. Due to an existing income I plan to buy a graphic tablet in the next weeks, so River will be my first digital inking. Then I can experiment much more and correct those things without destroying the whole picture with a single wrong stroke.

Hope Summer appreciates it ;). Next up will be a Jayne-Pose for Baldwin and three portraits of Douglas' Tyrol, Olmos' Adama and Callis' Baltar, resulting in two covers (one Firefly, one BSG) to sign. Yeah, I gave up temporarily postponed the new Cylons-Poster, there's not enough time. For some better looks on River, see the Details-Sketch below.

Babsi faktorisiert!

Guilty-Pleasure- und spärliche-Leserschaft-Vergraule-Time! Normalerweise bin ich ja nicht so für das Mainstream-TV zu haben, vor allem dieser ganze Casting-Kram lässt mich eher kalt. Aber - der langjährige Leser ahnt es schon aufgrund des Titels - es gibt eine Ausnahme, zu der ich mich auch bekenne: Germany's Next Topmodel.

Ich kann's nicht so recht erklären, wobei die Tatsache, daß da potentiell viele hübsche junge leichtbekleidete Frauen mitmachen, was damit zu tun haben könnte ;). Wobei es zum Teil auch die reine Neugier ist, warum zum Geier diese armen Mädels unbedingt Models werden wollen. Allerdings steht und fällt mein Interesse an der Show am sogenannten eben von mir erfundenen Babsi-Faktor.

Soll heißen, es muß wenigstens eine dabei sein, die mich persönlich optisch und bestenfalls charakterlich anspricht (jaja, bei angehenden Models darf man(n) schonmal oberflächlich sein), so wie es dereinst die holde Barbara Meier tat (der geneigte Neuleser darf nun auf die Babsi-Kategorie klicken und sich an uralten Beiträgen des Babsi-Fiebers erfreuen... lang isses her und irgendwie hört man von Babsi nicht mehr viel... wobei ich von Models generell eh nie viel höre, insofern ist die wahrscheinlich immer noch fett im Geschäft und ich krieg's bloß nicht mit). Nachdem das die letzte Season so gar nicht geschafft hatte und somit mit Nichtbeachtung gestraft wurde, habe ich heute pünktlich zur neuen Staffel einen neuen Versuch gestartet.

Ich gebe zu, diese Jessica war zumindest in den Talk-Einspielern (also wo die offenbar Wochen nach dem, was man eigentlich sieht, vor der Kamera sitzen und kommentieren) ganz schön niedlich. In der Sendung selbst nicht ganz so, da war sie mir zu sehr geschminkt, aber trotzdem vor allem markant anders als der Großteil des restlichen Einheitsbreis. Erinnert mich an irgendwen, ich komm bloß nicht drauf. Das war's dann leider auch schon, das muß wohl reichen für den Babsi-Faktor. Ne neue Zickerina gibt's auch, zumindest ist die weniger prollig als seinerzeit Gina-Lisa.

Anyway, ich bleib erstmal dran, den Hühnerhaufen kann man ruhig weiter beobachten. Und bald gibt's auch wieder nerdigere Blog-Einträge ;).

Lebenszeichen

Hallo, ich bin der Batch, ich hab hier mal so Beiträge geschrieben und stuff...

Wie die meisten Stammleser schon wissen, bin ich seit Januar arbeitstätig. Macht Spaß, bringt Geld, ist allerdings etwas zeitintensiv. Obwohl ich einen recht kurzen Arbeitsweg habe, habe ich oft zwischen 8:00 (aufstehen) und 19:00 (wieder zuhause sein) nicht sonderlich viel Freizeit, um genau zu sein, gar keine ;). Wobei das baldigst um eine Stunde vorverlegt wird alles, wenn ich das abgeklärt kriege.

Anyway, ich hab zwar damals als Praktikant bei der alten Firma auch voll gearbeitet, aber irgendwie hab ich jetzt trotzdem viel weniger gefühlte Zeit für all die Sachen, die ich eigentlich gerne machen würde. Das Bloggen fällt leider auch drunter. Dem geneigten Leser zur Info und für mich zur Übersicht, hier mal eine Auflistdung einer Auswahl der Dinge, die ich "eigentlich" alle irgendwie machen will neben der Arbeit:

XBOX 360 spielen. GTA IV hab ich mittlerweile durch, trotz leichtem Unverständnis der Mitbewohnerin spiele ich grade begeistert Eternal Sonata, typisches Japan-RPG. Wobei, so typisch isses gar nicht, hat einige recht coole Game-Design-Elemente. Prinzipiell ist das Zocken eines der wenigen Dinge, die ich tatsächlich auch noch durchziehe.

Serien gucken. Hm. Den aktuellen Kram schaff ich im Moment ganz gut alleine, aber alles, was üblicherweise mit der Mitbewohnerin geschaut wird, leidet arg. Von BSG und dem herrlich schlechten Legend of the Seeker (da müsste eigentlich mal ein Extra-Blogeintrag her) mal abgesehen. Doctor Who Rewatch pausiert, Pushing Daises pausiert, Farscape eh, die Lost-Aufholjagd wird wohl auch erst passieren, wenn die Serie abgedreht ist und dann hätt ich ja eigentlich auch noch so eine tolle Buffy-Box hier stehen (zu der sich auch noch das Angel-Äquivalent gesellt hat, besten Dank nochmal an den Spieler für den Hinweis). Blöde Arbeit, die Mitbewohnerin ist ja auch zum workaholic mutiert ;)....

Comics. Okay, Hobby Nummer eins, dafür wird Zeit gemacht. Zum Lesen komme ich noch ganz gut, zur Sekundärbeschäftigung leider kaum - mehr dazu im Abschnitt "Programmieren".

Zeichnen. Auweia. Ich hatte kurz nach Beendigung der Diplomarbeit noch ein Dr. Horrible Bild angefangen, das immer noch unvollendet rumliegt. *seufz* In drei Monaten ist Fedcon und ich hab noch NIX an Vorlagen. Ideen sind da, ich bezweifle aber stark, daß ich alles umsetzen kann. Falls irgendjemand eine hochauflösendere Kopie vom Bild links haben sollte, bzw. nen Link dahin - her damit. Prinzipiell hätt ich gerne einen entweder ähnlich kämperisch oder dann doch direkt eingeschüchtert posierenden Jayne dazu - mag mir da wer bei der Vorlagen-Recherche helfen? Pretty please?

Gleiches gilt für die Zylonen (ich möchte gerne ein neues Gruppenbild mit allen Modellen machen) - ich brauche von jedem einzelnen Modell eine vernünftige und am besten "typische" Vorlage". Ein Adama/Baltar-Clash Bild ist auch noch geplant.

Programmieren. Meine Comic-DB braucht dringend eine Komplettüberarbeitung. Also jetzt weniger die Datenbank selber sondern die Anwendung drumrum. Wollte das Ding mal richtig mit OOA/OOD und allem Pipapo durchentwerfen und umsetzen. Seit Weihnachten keinen Handschlag gemacht. Selbiges gilt für mein Java-Erstlings-Projekt, eine D&D-Kampffeld-Umsetzung. Hmpfzt. Soviel zur Fortbildung. Da mein Uni-Webspace passé ist, werde ich mir demnächst wohl irgendwo welchen bestellen müssen - da müsste eigentlich auch mal eine vernünftige Homepage her, am besten mit neuem Blog (ja, ich will auch wordpress haben).

Soviel zu tun, sowenig Zeit. Yay, Arbeitsleben ;). Immerhin hab ich mittlerweile dank des Autos der Eltern der Mitbewohnerin (danke nochmal :) ) mein Hochbett namens Hemnes und diverse Mikael (Schreibtisch) Anbauten aufgebaut hier stehen. Prinzipiell ist also endlich Platz im Zimmer für meine Comics, die eigentlich nur noch von Chemnitz nach Berlin transportiert werden müssten...