Social Experiment

By the way, I have decided to conduct a social experiment. I will send a poem by e-mail to a select few people. They will send it to as many people as they can think of. Then hopefully, they will send it to as many people as they can think of.
Hopefully, after many rounds of that, it will all go nice and end up to Barack Obama, or Her Majesty, or even back to me!
Anyway, if the e-mail goes to you, you know what to do.

Mysterious Visits

Okay, so here I am again.
Last time I checked, I had 667 visits. Then I had 690 visits. This probably means I'm upto 693-5. But really, where did I get the 23 views?
Natron, do you know anything about that? I certainly don't.

Dymo Returns

It's been a long while since we last saw Dymo...

Archibald Scribbins knocked on the door five times.

BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG
No answer.
"Is anybody in there?" he called.
"No there isn't!" someone called. "Go away! I feel sulky."
"There's nobody in there." Archie told Frank, the marmoset hanging on his shoulder. "I guess he should know whether there are anybody in there. He's in there, he should know best."
Frank slapped him in the face for such faulty logic. "He's in there you monkey!" (Yes. Frank talks. He came from somewhere foreign and foreigners do strange things to marmosets.)
"Ah, right." Archie sighed. Animals. They wouldn't know anything about logic would they?
"I'm coming in!" He barked. "I will open the door."
And he did. It creaked. It creaked the way a door of a house of a person of a sad disposition should.
"Arrgh!" the person in the middle yelled. "No respect for PRIVACY!!!"
"I'm sorry!" Archie babbled. "I didn't mean to!" Frank slapped him again forbeing so pathetic.
"Well don't do that again!" Dymo said. "Who're you?"
"I I I I'm Archibald. Scribbins. Scribbins. Yes Scribbins."
"And I'm Frank." Frank said quite nonchalantly.
"Well Scribbins." Dymo said. "What a stupid name your parents gave you for your first name. I mean, Scribbins will work for a last name, but a first name? That's cruelty. Bet you've been teased in school. 'Scribby! Scribby! He's all Scribbly!' I pity you Scribbins. I'm sure my sister married a Scribbins."
"Um, Scribbins is my last name."
"Well! Knock my hat off. Scribbins is not my last name. What a coincidence!"
"Is it?" Archie asked, getting a little suspicious of Dymo.
"Why are you here?" Dymo demanded suddenly.
"I I've got a note. From my mum. Um, your sister." He handed the letter.
Dymo read very quickly:

Dear Dymo

I'm sure you will ---- in -- ------ well. I ----- --- worked -- - ---------- at -------- Electrical Robots. ------ is ---- interested in -------- and ----- like to learn ---- ---.
- ---- -- leave him at your place ----- - ---- -- surgery on my kidney. - will be in hospital for - ------.
-------,

Amy


What it really said was:


Dear Dymo

I'm sure you will take in my Archie well. I heard you worked as a technition at Harvey's Electrical Robots. Archie is very interested in robotics and would like to learn from you.
I have to leave him at your place while I have my surgery on my kidney. I will be in hospital for 6 months.

Regards,

Amy


"Ah" Dymo said after reading it properly the second time. "You've come to the wrong place."
"Why?" Archibald asked. "You're Dymo aren't you?"
"Sure am. But I don't work at Harvey's. Trevor does. I empty the long drops at tramping grounds. I probably get more pay than Trevor though."
"What! So I'm supposed to get to Trevor's? But I don't have transport!"
"And I hate busses." Frank joined in.
Gyro nodded sympathetically.
"I could send you to Trevor." Dymo said. "Only..."
"Only what?".
"Trevor had a terrible accident."
"What happened?"
"He invented the Terminator. The Terminator killed him, went into the future where the factories are better, started multiplying, then went off to stop a Revolution that was supposed to happen in the farther future."
"Supposed to?"
"Yeah, only Trevor invented a time machine before and knew this was going to happen. So before he died, he went to the middle future, ran over Termy on his Harley Davidson, stopped the factory, and came back to the present, which is our past, and then after a year or so, he died after he invented the Terminator, which went to the future, and started a factory..."
"I get it. So he's dead. But do you have the time machine?"
"Yeah, only I don't use it for winning the lottery. So don't expect that."
"NO!" Archibald exclaimed. "We could tell Trevor not to go back, and instead go to our time!"
"That won't work." Dymo said. "The times and events aree set. Whatever we do, it will not change what has, is, or will happned, happening, or happen. It's no use. I've tried before."
"We can try again." Archie said.
"No we can't." Frank said. "I hate travelling. I even hate walking."
"Exactly!" Dymo said. "It'll be a long trip. Trip to the past."
Gyro liked the sound of that. He liked long trips because sooner or later, Dymo got bored of his music and put on Gyro's music.
Archibald dashed off to the garage. Everyone followed.
"Where's the machine?"
Dymo pointed at the controls. Which kind of looked like the garage door control. "The whole garage is the time machine."
Gyro started fiddling with the controls. Loud noises started booming from the walls. The lights startred flickering. Some pieces from a large Ming Dynasty vase Archie didn't notice before started assembling itself. The radio started playing songs that were "so yesterday".
Then everything went still.
Everything went black.
The lights came back on.
There was another Dymo and another Gyro.
"Who're you?" A Dymo asked.
"I'm you only I'm three months older." another Dymo said nonchalantly.
"So I'm coming back here three months from now?" the first one said.
"Yup. Your nephew's gonna visit as well. It's his fault".
"Ah, I see you have visitors".
"He made me."
"It's my job to say that."
"Not yet."
And so the conversation between two Dymos went.
Archie stepped outside the garage.
It was all red and grey. Cyborgs trooped everywhere. Birds were replaced by spy crows. Grass was covered by concrete.
Everything was industrialised. And a man was riding a bike.
A Terminator yelled from the top of a building, "Stop him!".
The present Dymo came out. "Ooh, then he remembers all Terminators are still in production."
"Wait!" the robot yelled. He jumped down from the building, stepped in front of the biker, then got blown into lots and lots of little, sharp, evil, cunning pieces. Well, it wasn't so cunning now, but evil is set in substance.
The biker braked. He gazed at the garage.
"Oh..." he said.

To Be Continued

Review: Blender 2.5 Beta

Every blog has a review, whether it be books, movies, or new gadgets. So today, I felt like reviewing Blender 2.56 Beta.

I've been using 2.49b for a long time, and I didn't want to use any of the 2.5 unless it was finalised. But after a little explosion sim, I found I really needed the Solidify Modifier Blender promised me. So I got my hands on Blender 2.56 Beta last week.
First glance at the Interface. Ooh! It looks all shiny! I felt it was much more aesthetially pleasing then the 2.4s. It had a new air of cool.
But apart from that and the new features, it was quite terrible. First, I had a problem locating the particles and modifiers because they were all over the place. Very annoying. In fact, I was looking almost all the tabs and buttons, and not finding any.
Then I didn't like the way all the names have changed. I wanted the Action Editor, but I needed the DopeSheet. I wanted the Buttons Window, but I needed the Properties.
But I guess they were all right. I mean, I could probably get used to that can't I?
But one thing I found really annoying was Round Ob. My 2.49 model of Round Ob was suddenly all over the place! His armature wasn't in him any more, and his arms go right through his back! What happened there? I guess some of my old models don't work with the new software.
The last thing I felt annoyed at was the loop cut. In 2.49b, I got to press Ctrl-R, move my cursor where I want the cut, then I was in Grab Mode choosing where exactly I wanted my cut. In 2.56, it just automatically cut in the middle. Grr!
Well, I felt like 2.5 wasn't right for me, and re-installed my 2.49. Back at familiar ground.
But after all that, I still keep 2.56. Why? Because it's still a great peice of software. I have to work my 2.4 models on my 2.49b, but any new projects, I'll do on 2.56.
So over all, I believe that 2.56 is a great new take on Blender for new people, but I suggest that old hands keep their old software as well.

3 Year Old

I was digging around in my ol' hard drive again, and look at what I found!

You have never heard of him, and you might never hear about him again, but I called him Round Ob about four years ago. He is not well rigged, or thought about. I named him Round Ob because I started with a UVSphere and extruded a body to it. So he was a Round Object. Round Ob.

They say many things can recall old memories, like food, smells, old collectibles, and smelly old collectibles. Now they can add .blend files to the list.

Cube in 3D

I really hope you have one of those red and blue 3D glasses. Also, I wanted to put this in my previous post but thought it was a different thing.
I was digging around in my old memory stick when I found Anamk108. You can Google it and find it too.
This was for making anaglyphic pictures. Now you know what to do. Get those paper glasses where ever they are! Under the bed, on the shelf, the back of the couch, in a furball, or as a standing bookmark.

Remake of Cannon Cube

Remake of Pillar of Fire

Top of the Temple. It's not very good, but, how did he get up there?

As a 3D image, terrible. But it explains how he got up there.

All I did was delete the existing camera, made a new one facing down, duplicated it, moved in the X direction, and made the original camera parent. Then I had two cameras to snap with!
Hope those 3D glasses have survived!

Cube on Goes to an Old Temple

Here's a mini story I made up in a few hours so it is not very well thought out. Also, it is not animated because our computer can't handle the rendering process for animation.
SO...

One day, Cube Dude went to visit the simple temple in this simple barren world.

"Wow! That looks very high!"

"What a nice view!"

"The Wrath of the Almighty decends on thee!!"

 I admit it wasn't very good as a story because a) it didn't have much purpose, and b) If I want to do a fire, I can only do pillars.

I hope Cube Dude will be this much fun to play with again!