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Arrietty is an evil movie, apparently...A few months back Fox News went after The Muppets for "promoting the liberal agenda" (whatever the **** that means this week). Miss Piggy got back at them with a scathing remark during an interview shortly after the controversy and we all had a laugh at Fox's expense. Well... Fox is at it again...
This time they're going after Studio Ghibli's "The Secret World of Arrietty" and accusing, once again, that liberal Hollywood's agenda is corrupting children and turning them into "occu-toddlers." They also turned their sights on the new adaptation of Dr. Seuss's The Lorax. They claim that both movies "demonize the 1%" and that people "offended" by these movies should fight back by... littering. Don't believe me? Watch the video and get ready to facepalm: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuFcWkFJZgk
Now I can understand (barely) how a conservative could possibly have an issue with The Lorax since it deals with criticizing the logging industry and promoting the dangers of excessive defore

Perception on the InternetYour average user on the internet can generally say whatever they want about an issue. It's alright to voice an opinion because no one is really going to track you down and attack you for having one (unless you're doing it in a really really public place like a forum or chat room). However, as I've become somewhat popular online, I've noticed a perception from people that I must maintain a neutral and unbiased outlook at all times on every issue.
Regardless of what that issue is I'm not generally free to express my opinion without first listing a whole bunch of qualifiers for "why" I feel this way, or by making it very clear that it's OK for you to disagree. You are not allowed to "sum up" an experience, and it's greatly discouraged for you to generalize. I've notice that this mentality has greatly affected my writing style as it forces me to tip toe very carefully around every issue I address.
Using my most famous example: I am not allowed to say that I enjoyed Metroid: Othe

Internet TimeWe had the Oscars recently and as usual it wasn't without problems. One of the controversies was Chris Rock's biting commentary about doing voice work for animated films, which was unfortunately insulting to the many hard working (yet perpetually unknown) talents who produce about 90% of all voice work in the animated medium. Chris Rock's joke was funny for his circle of friends and the aging academy, but to younger artists and professionals it was very disrespectful. Voice actress Tara Strong took particular issue with Rock's comment and as we speak his twitter account is no doubt being flooded with angry hate messages and likely racism too... which is very unfortunate. http://www.examiner.com/african-american-entertainment-in-national/tara-strong-attacks-chris-rock-over-oscar-2012-animation-comments-quotes
Other issues, such as glossing over Harry Potter and The War Horse completely and giving a Best Animated Film award to the likes of Rango, just continued to fuel my opin

Internet Copyrights 101Since there was an app recently on Facebook which resulted in numerous copyright infringements and legal issues, I figured now would be a good time to refresh everyone on basic internet copyright rules. These rules are by no means complete, official, or set in stone, and there are always exceptions.
Follow the TOS
This should be self explanatory, but please follow the Terms of Service agreements you signed for whatever website you're currently on. Not all websites have the same rules and restrictions in their TOS and you should treat each site individually and not expect that since you got away with something on one site means you'll get away with it on another. Most websites do not allow uploading of content that is not your own.
Ask permission first.
A lot of copyright infringement happens because people don't bother to take the time to ask the original creators if it's alright to repost. It usually doesn't take much effort to send an e-mail or note asking for pe

Culture Clash!I'm still groggy from my trip, so here's a list of oddities I noticed being a foreigner experiencing another country for the first time.
If you want power, you need to turn the outlets on, and to do that you gotta push a switch down.
TV has far fewer commercial breaks.
English police are super nice (watched the British version of "COPS" and was amazed at how polite everyone was, even the criminals).
The second floor is called the first.
French Fries are called Chips.
Chips are called Crisps.
American-centric music doesn't stay here (Heard "Sweet Home Alabama" quite a number of times over there).
You are not expected to tip people (this was very hard for me to accept and I always felt guilty not tipping our waiters).
You are not expected to clean up your messes in food courts or.. anywhere actually (Janitors come by and clean up for you. Has something to do with security and getting rid of bomb threats).
Elevators are called Lifts.
Air conditioning seems scarce.
Always carry a big bottl

Sins of an ArtistI've been under fire recently for having the audacity to admit publicly that improving my art has never been, and never was, an ultimate goal of mine. Apparently that's like committing some sort of mortal sin in the art community. I've had trouble expressing myself about it too, because brushing off improvement for improvement sake makes me look like I'm uncaring, egocentric, and stubborn. But after a recent post I was given much more clarity in understanding the issue and I wanted to share my thoughts with you.
In the recent exchange I was basically told this: "If doing what you love isn't about dedicating your life to improving your art, you aren't an artist."
Maybe I'm old fashioned, but making art has never been solely about the technical expertise. Even in college, outside the handful of foundation courses you take in freshman year, perfection of the craft is often secondary to concepts and ideas and your ability to evoke feelings and emotions in your audience.
Technical pr

Hardcore MEH over Wii-U?As I've said before, one of the things I was looking forward to seeing this E3 was how so-called "hardcore" fanboys will find even more ridiculous ways to dismiss anything Nintendo showcases because they're "too mature" to enjoy something all-age friendly.
Finally Nintendo comes right out and gives pretty much every hardcore gamer exactly what they want, and in return all they get is snarky blog posts, dismissive attitudes, and cries of "foul" if anything casual shows up on the screen. Am I the only one noticing this?
First, hardcore gamers seem to be completely blind when it comes to titles that interest them, instead choosing to bitch and moan about casual games that aren't for their demographic. Listen up, geniuses, if the Kinect and Move haven't opened your eyes up yet, casual gaming is now a viable market whether you like it or not. It's OK to have more than one demographic represented, especially when it's advertising for a brand new console.
Second, the one thing hardcore gamers

Minecraft Snapshot 02/15/12 *fun ideas*Villagers repopulate according to how many buildings there are. I've discovered that they don't care if it's a building procedurally generated when the world was created, or if it's one you build yourself. So try to make a super huge village by building many houses for your Testificate villagers to inhabit.
Play on hard mode and try to defend a town from Zombie attacks (also fun on normal mode, though you won't have the threat of monsters breaking down doors).
With the new lighting mechanics, make a small room underground with lamps in the ceiling. Rig them to a switch outside the room with a single door (no windows). Turn the switch off and plunge the room into total darkness. INSTANT ENEMY SPAWN LOCATION! Once monsters start pounding at the door, turn the lights on and open it and collect your experience points. Since creepers will also spawn, try to make a gutter for them to walk in so you can stay up high and kill from a distance.
Rig lamps on a powered cycle to have them spell out

Missing the PointI've been noticing a trend lately where people seem to deliberately be missing the point behind stuff in order to complain. I used to think it was just me, as I watched people write up lengthy articles nitpicking and "debunking" a comic I made because they simply missed the point, but I've started seeing it happening to other people too.
Recently over on The Oatmeal, artist Matthew Inman made a joke about guy gamers vs girl gamers. The joke was pretty simple: A guy gamer makes a mistake and gets bitched out by his fellow teammates online. Contrast to that, a girl gamer makes a mistake and her fellow teammates try to comfort her, tell her she's doing great, and make suggestive comments about hooking up. To me the joke was clear, guys treat girls differently online. However, that's not how the rest of the internet saw it...
From what I've read of the whole Oatmeal flare up, the reasons for the hate seem grounded in the fact he depicted the girl as blond and bubbly (ie: stupid) and not as

Minecraft Snapshot 02/15/12A new snapshot for minecraft was released today. As usual you can download it from Mojang's website, twitter, the usual sources. It's a significant update though because it helps improve the villager aspect even more.
Last week I talked about how the villagers and enemies had been updated. Enemies being more aggressive and learning how to walk around obstacles to get to you, and villagers more active by responding to weather conditions and day and night transitions. This week there's been a new addition... children!
If too many villagers are killed off in a NPC village, they will "repopulate" the village by giving birth to baby villagers. Right now they look exactly like their adult counterparts only pint-sized and fast as hell. I'm loving this new feature though because it gives me more reason to defend the villagers during the night.
Speaking of, the nights in villages are much more intense now. They fluctuate between periods of being rather peaceful nights, to insane hellish nights

The Avengers - ReviewHonestly I don't have much to say other than it's just really awesome. You don't need to have seen Captain America, Iron Man 1 and 2, The Hulk, or Thor to understand what's going on, but it most certainly does help.
The Avengers is probably one of the most epic movies I have seen since the Lord of the Rings trilogy and Harry Potter. It's up there. It's not perfect, and some moments seem to drag on a bit (mostly around the middle), but every key moment is accentuated properly, every line delivered in such a way that you don't miss out on what's going on, every action scene composed in a way you aren't confused, and overall the whole thing is just a joy to watch.
What's really fun about this movie is that they don't hold back. Ever. Everything you want to see in a movie about the Avengers is pretty much up on this screen. You wanna see Thor and Iron Man duke it out? You got it! You wanna see an army of aliens attacking a city? Got it. You wanna see Tony Stark deliver hilarious banter aga

WowzersFirst I would like to say... wow. I don't really care much for pageviews and I tend to ignore them (the exceptions being for my web comics where I actually make money off pageviews), but the crazy stats that my two political cartoons generated here on DA just blows me away! Even more amazing to me was that it spread to places like tumblr too, a place that generally dislikes me and that I tend to get little to no reblogs.
It's good to see that even though some people might hate my guts for whatever reason, when the issue at hand is worthy people will spread the message anyway.
Don't think this is giving me a swell head or anything. I could easily whip out a bunch of cheap political comics to take advantage of all this goodwill and rack up pageviews and whatnot, but I don't want to. I've said my peace on the two biggest issues that were bothering me about this election cycle thus far and I have no desire to milk it further. Unless politicians do something outrageously stupid or piss me o

World's so beautiful... again!Today I wore contact lenses for the first time, and I'm sooo happy!

I've dreamt about it since I started to wear glasses. And now, after... 7 years?... my dream has come true! It's truly amazing, especially after about half year of wearing too weak glasses. Now I can see everything so sharp and I don't need to move my head to see things around me

The only problem is they're not too cheap... but it's a good motivation to start working harder.
Did I mention how happy I am?

Mature themes in American AnimationWhen I first discovered Anime, my mind was blown. Here were Japanese animations being made which told adult stories with sex, violence, and all sorts of things I'd never seen before done in American films. As a teenager the constant pandering to children and the reluctance to accept more mature themes and ideas in American animated films pissed me off. Why can't american cartoons be taken more seriously and have stuff for adults too outside of South Park and The Simpsons?
In 1998 Stephen Spielberg tried to change that. After having a successful run of kids cartoons (Tiny Toons, Animaniacs, Pink and the Brain, etc), he took it a step further by giving us a PRIME TIME cartoon series aimed at adults. It was called "Invasion America." It was a sci-fi epic, featured a slew of big name actors including Leonard Nimoy, and featured more adult oriented themes such as sex, violence, and swearing!
It sucked and was a resounding failure.
The epic plot they were trying to weave would never be compl

Censoring the InternetA few weeks ago I made mention of feminist Anita Sarkeesian who started a kickstarter for a web series called "Tropes Vs Women" specifically centered around how women are portrayed in video games.
Despite the fact that kickstarters are payed for by people who've made the decision they want to contribute their money to the project, Anita came under attack from gamers for "scamming" audiences when her fund far exceeded the target goal. Just this past week it's come out that a 25 year old man from Sault Ste Marie, Ontario, Canada, created a video game where the object is to punch the crap out of Anita. Wounds, bruises, and blood gush out the more you beat her up in this virtual game, and it's drawn some widespread attention.
Whether you agree with her viewpoint is not the issue, it's the fact that this retaliation is just "wrong" on so many levels. Do these people realize that what they're doing is shooting themselves in the foot? Making a video game where you beat up someone who's making

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My Minecraft Testificate Infestation

by *TomPreston, Mar 8, 2012, 11:11:57 PM
Journals / Personal

In Minecraft there are these squidward like villagers called Testificates. In a recent update they were given new abilities such as having babies to repopulating a town based on the number of houses there are. Since the requirement for a "house" is simply a room with a roof and a door, I decided to spend my time building a massive city for the Testificates to populate, using a generated village as a starting point.

After building a number of houses, I began noticing the little children running wild and there becoming quite a LOT of villagers. I undertook a huge task of building a BIG open area underground with a couple doors and lights. Because the area was so big, the Testificates began to... um... OVER populate.

These little buggers reproduced the village so fast that I couldn't keep up and soon they were overflowing out of buildings. Mob attacks couldn't keep up with the rate they were repopulating, and the iron golems that kept spawning (for every 15 villager a new one spawns) made sure mobs weren't an issue.

I tried burning some of the houses down with the Testificates inside, but it didn't help. They were repopulating out of control at this point. My poor village was being overrun by these weird squidward like creatures. What was I to do???

In the end, the answer lied with figuring out their programing. They respond to doors and enclosed spaces and will attempt to go through a door if there is one nearby, especially at night. Knowing this I went around the village and removed every door except one. Inside this lone house I removed the ceiling and poured a lava trap. Come nightfall, all the Testificates would try to enter through the one door in town and consequently meet their demise. It was a sad day... but I did what needed to be done. I've estimated that at one time I had around 250 Testificates running around trying to get inside buildings. Horny little buggers...

I don't use mods or cheats, so this whole epidemic could actually happen to you too. When building houses for Testificate villagers... be careful. Too many houses, or too big of an open space, could result in a Testificate infestation of epic proportions... and your only way out will be to commit virtual genocide.

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Listening to: SoulEye - PPPPPP
Playing: Minecraft

My Minecraft Testificate Infestationby *TomPreston

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~Chaos51268 Jul 18, 2012 Student Traditional Artist

Good god... I feel bad for those TESTIFICATES that lost their lives, may they rest in peace...

~Thimbles-Thursday Jun 17, 2012 Hobbyist General Artist

A sad necessity, but I'm glad you managed to fix your pestificate problem so elegantly!

~DeadEchoElite Mar 24, 2012 Hobbyist General Artist

So....its like in the game, you have to stop the Testificate's from overpopulating the world.

~XavanTasam Mar 20, 2012 Hobbyist General Artist

Bwahahaha! This is so awful!

~DeadEchoElite Mar 17, 2012 Hobbyist General Artist

DANG. Thats crazy!

~LilianCOW Mar 14, 2012

Holy flying balls, same thing is happening to me O 3 O
and now I know what to do >: D
:bliss:

*Plognark Mar 12, 2012 Hobbyist General Artist

I lolled

~n1starwarsfan Mar 12, 2012

I would have just left them there. You could have just turned around and started walking, set up a new house and spawn point for yourself somewhere far off from the testificates. It wouldn't be difficult to do at all.

~TAILS-FAN1 Mar 11, 2012

lol That's funny! You should make a short comic story out of it! The way you told about it, it seemed like a narrative! My bro was playing once, and he didn't over populate the village, but come night, there were two places where TONS of villagers tried piling through one door and it took FOREVER for them to finally stay inside. Still, villager antics can be HILARIOUS!

~vbcnxm Mar 10, 2012

my only question, is is it possible to make a population of testificates, migrate by building small houses along a road, then leading them to a new village?

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