A response from my congressman in regards to my issues with S.O.P.A and P.I.P.A.

Dear Mr. Wood:

Thank you for contacting me regarding your opposition to H.R. 3261, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), and S. 968, the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA).  I agree with you and have strongly opposed these bills since their introduction several months ago.  Ensuring open access to the Internet is critical. 

As you may know, SOPA and PIPA, as currently written, would give the Justice Department increased authority to pursue websites that offer pirated or counterfeit material. They were designed to protect the intellectual property of innovators on the Internet; however I am very concerned about their potential to improperly control information. SOPA and PIPA shut down the free flow of information and restrict access to the Internet. 

In November of 2011, shortly after the SOPA act was introduced, I, along with ten of my colleagues, signed a letter to the Chairman and Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee expressing serious concern with the legislation. We made our worries known and suggested that members work together to find a solution that would protect innovation. 

I am pleased to tell you that I am an original cosponsor of an alternative bill recently introduced on the House floor.  The Online Protection and ENforcement of Digital Trade Act or OPEN Act was written to protect creative ownership in the United States while securing access to the Internet for everyone.  The OPEN Act will not censor or block access to websites.  Unlike alternative bills introduced in the House and Senate, the OPEN Act specifically targets only the online offenders who run sites that purposefully steal others' work.  To read more about this legislation please visit www.KeepTheWebOpen.com. 

Rest assured I will continue to work diligently to ensure open access to the internet for all Americans.  Thank you again for taking the time to contact me.  Having the benefit of your views is important, and I appreciate you sharing them with me. 

I remain respectfully,

JOHN CAMPBELL
Member of Congress

Broadcasting from a new venue

The title says it all. As of November of 2011 had a switch in life and job direction. Currently the mrs.and I are adjusting to life in California. I've never really worked in the video games industry so deeply and extensively before, so this is quite the adjustment. The first few months were extremely busy, yet rewarding at Papaya... although I know it has not been that easy for Cindi. She still plans to follow her career goals in Behavioral Psychology but feels it will take a little longer now that she has switched states (which  have different perquisites from each other when it comes to this career, something I find stupid).  Good news is she is graduated,official collegiate degree and everything, so that's good.


The game we are currently wrapping up can be seen in the link. I think it'll do pretty well, so it's just a matter if time of wrapping up the last minute changes and such.

http://ds.ign.com/articles/114/1149558p1.html

In other matters, I have mentioned on my facebook page that I am currently looking for a new DND Group, and that was no bull. A friend responded to my status with what seemed like a very logical response; that" there should be multitude of 'geek-dom' around the studio waiting to engage in my offer, just bring in a Players Handbook". The funny thing is, I thought the same thing, but it seems I haven't quite gotten a bite yet. Doesn't anyone play tabletop anymore???

Well, the time is late now, and the road is long one tomorrow.  Maybe the next post will be within the same month....

yeah right, lol.

Some good news... I just recently was asked to complete an animation test for a game company for employment I think they liked what I had to offer, so we'll see what they thought of the test. I'm still plugging away at other work I have, but the opportunity sounds unbelievably awesome. Mrs. Wood and I would have to move to Montreal, which I am ALL FOR. It's funny because we were talking yesterday, and both came to the agreement that it is time to flea from Phoenix. I think, we are both grateful at the growth we had to go through while here in order to; establish our own lives separate from our families, try to grow and learn from each other as a married couple, and assert our independent worth in the world. It seems as if we have come to an in-pass on that with Cindi finally graduating from ASU. We are still linked to Phoenix through some distant family we have come to know over the last 5 years, but there really isn't anything holding us back, except for finances.

Some hard choices came up this week for what we will plan to do if the studio decides to not take me....to specify, I'll start by saying that Cindi has gotten interviewed for a job (nanny-ing again) but for a wealthy couple (WOO HOO!). Although her degree is in Psychology, she stands to earn more in this opportunity, then if she were to get a job that actually required her to have said degree ( i didn't realize that entry level psychology graduates start off do low in pay grade).  The only thing that sucks is the separation time we would have from each other for 4 MONTHS! It's a year commitment and it can mean savings toward moving  where ever, but I guess I'm just not wild about separation...again.  When we were first dating, we started off long-distance, and it just plain stinks. Maybe I just need to quit whining and just roll with it...I dunno. Not to mention, this all is based on what I hear from Montreal.

LOL.... well, options are suppose to be good for us.

Adding some color to my life...

I've been working on getting some of my illustrations colored in that I had done recently and a couple of years ago. I know it's good policy to complete an drawing entirely when you begin it, but I was never a strong color applicant colorist; I spent a great deal of my time learning CG animation. It has its ups and downs sometimes, but i really respect the art of animation; the problem is dropping old habits and mistakes I make in it so that I may move to a higher Plateau in animation consciousness.  Inking and coloring in my drawings has proven quite therapeutic to me, so much that it makes me wish that I had the courage to color them in earlier. All I need is some good tunes, photo-shop and a drawing. The only thing that stinks is that I work pretty slow with it, but I'm trying to be a little faster. As far as color goes, I had been going of what I remember from painting I, color schemes/theories I have seen applied in cartoons, and Professional 2d artists I have come to learn from out there too numerous to count. It's amazing and a life saver to have such a vast amount of talent and advice right at the fingertips compared to the days of yore before internet....Good old fashion conferences and workshop (well, people still go to them).

I hope to get this one illustration done today I am doing titled; "Nicci the Sorceress/ Verification spell". This particular drawing is based off of a fanatical obsession I have with Terry Good kinds "Sword of Truth" novels. The way he wields the realm of fantasy, painting it into a beautiful story I believe that can be appreciated by all, and not just by fantasy geeks like myself. The adventures, character thinking and conflicts in the novels have such a way of engaging the reader through the centralized character and others he meets on his travels. One of these characters in particular is a sorceress named Nicci, who was the enemy of  the main character, Richard. To make up for her past evil deeds and wickedness she joins Richard and turns over to the good side. In on particular scene of the book, she uses a very powerful and dangerous spell called the "verification spell" in order to aide Richard.  I wanted to show this in illustration; the remarkable beauty she posses when brought together with the cold, terrifying magic she has at her command. If all goes well, I may wrap today, but only time will tell...

Was never really a huge fan of Rhianna, but I was pretty glad when I came across this cover of her song....classically.
Check out Lola Astanova...

5 Years.

The Mrs. and I enjoyed a fifth anniversary. I think we started off with grandiose plans like traveling to an adjacent city for some wining, dinning and fun. As it turns out, like I mentioned in my facebook post, we started off the day with doing our taxes. Adding, subtracting, and itemizing was never more frustrating as we wanted to save what was left with rest of our day. I suppose we could have done taxes some other day, but we are a very forgetful married couple. We did not get done till 4 p.m, so, so much for Jerome (a pretty groovy hippy town we were going to go to). We decided to go bowling instead. It was actually a lot of fun. Then we went to Total Wine, where they were sampling some of their employee picks that day.  We took home a Dr. Heidemans Reisling, the Spatlese.... in fact I'm drinking it right now. AHHHH, good stuff. Then we decided to end the night with a dinner at a seafood restaurant, because I know how much Cindi really likes her steamed clams.  I was a good time considering our original plans fell through. The cool thing about it I think is that we never really let stuff like that bother us too much, even if it was particularly important or had a great deal of planning go into it. I suppose that is where we are kindred spirits and truly lose ourselves to one another, like nothing else really matters, and have a good laugh about how nothing really went as planned, followed with an I love you. 

Think I won't go outside for a bit.

A 6 a.m. shift awaits me tomorrow, yet I choose to stay up just a little longer to spill my thoughts on a pixel white background. It seems the cyberspace is a hostile ground for political thought right now and recent political action.... case in point, a decision to revamp health care. It's funny because I always thought of the internet as a  "neutral zone" (to coin a star trek phrase) of sorts for anything anyone would wish to share; whether it was creativity, thought, or action, and pretty much kept my own beliefs and feelings to myself. No sense setting yourself up for a fight that's inevitable. Everyone is going to have an opinion, and there's no pleasing everybody, but you still would hope to at least hear some good feedback. I think that is the best anyone with a strong opinion about something they believe in could hope for....

It seems that this health care bill is the first real fiery debate since the decision from the U.S government to go to war with Iraq. I've heard both sides of the fight right now, and although I can not claim to know exactly what is going to happen to us a people, all I can really say is although the elite rich may delegate this country, the poor keep it from shutting down and collapsing in on itself.... a synergy practice that has existed since the dawn of  the first civilization They are literally "the backbone" of how and why we are where we are today. You can screw over a patriotic poor man so many times before he's just a poor man, and then before you know it,  a "see you later, man". Take care of your backbone, I say...but then again that's just me. To clarify, I can't say i see this newly passed bill as an entirely bad thing right now but I can't say it's entirely good either.... I mean, what about people who rather deal with their own medical treatment, like homeopathic and such?? Did I also hear you would get fined if you can't make the payments; So you can be in more debt? And jail to follow? Am I getting this right?

I think I'll take my friends advice and stay off of facebook for awhile.