neosdimospargas animated cartoon: June 2007

Unwrapping iPhone

When you have people posting the unwrapping process of your product on Youtube, you know your company is there already. It's there.

Macworld.com has photos of Apple employees giving customers high-five as they enter the shops. On Flickr, there are employees clapping as customers leave. The atmosphere's really good.

Yahoo Unlimited

Yahoo Mail now has unlimited storage, as I have just found out. When's Gmail upping the ante? I'm already using 77% of the current 2.8gb.

Val n Jaws 270905

Now that I look back, perhaps the fin wasn't that necessary.

My iPhone Diary

This is a review by New York Times' technology columnist, David Pogue. It's pretty humourous. Click the play button to find out.

Val n Jaws: The Beginning

This is the very old comic strip that I did in 2005. Going by different names, Boyfriend Girlfriend, Little Miss Aunt Agony and finally Val n Jaws. Mainly deals with the idiosyncrasies of relationships.

Bounce Back To Life

I spent the whole morning perusing through this blog's archives. I could swear that they were not there before!

The blog seems to be based or inspired by true stories in Singapore. Brutally true stories. There are other comic series on the blog which are based on popular movies and scenes. E.g. Like Star Wars characters talking in Singlish.

Enjoy, for I'm sure you will.

A Gem In Stick Figures

This blog emphasizes my believe that story/content is king. The portrayal of life events, though sometimes too real, are subtle but will touch your heart. Drawn by a Singaporean, might I add.

Link: http://stickgal.blogspot.com/

Charity Money Is Easy To Scam

That's exactly what I can think of when I read the article. A similar article is written by CNA. If money can be scammed so easily, then why the hell are people even working for a living. It would be interesting to investigate the current loopholes in management governance.

Anti-smoking campaigns don't work

I've never been a believer of anti-smoking campaigns.

Price hikes don't work. Gross pictures on cigarette boxes don't work. People lying around in Orchard road pretending to be cancer stricken patients don't work. Public education don't work.

I wonder what the success rate of Health Promotion Board's latest efforts will be.

It's a tremendous effort to quit smoking. So what's the motivation equal in value to match that? By not smoking and thus can buy more stuff? The knowledge that lung cancer is caused by smoking? I don't think so.

The world works on the fundamental law of exchange. To obtain, something of equal or greater value must be lost.

News link: New anti-smoking campaign targets female smokers

The Bastard Fairies

Nope. Never heard of this singer/band. But they have made album FREE for download on their website. Amazon's reviews are here.

Book Review: The Art of Pirates of the Caribbean

This is a humongous book. In one photo below, I've put my number-pad-less keyboard for comparison. The hardcover has a leather type treatment and slightly spongy to make it feel like an ancient book. The paper stock is thick and there are several fold out pages.

This book contains concept art for the 3 movies for Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, Dead Man's Chest and At World's End.

There are sketches, paintings and some storyboards. The focus of the book is on set and character design. The concept paintings have so much detail that will be lost if not printed on a book this size. To zoom in even closer on the paintings, there's where the fold out pages come into play. The portraits for Captain Barbossa and his decomposed skeletal crew are draw at life size!

There are also numerous paintings for the ships, creatures, harbour and the seas.

Fans of Pirates of the Caribbean should find this book very interesting. Character designers too.

This book was provided for review by friend and colleague Kelvin Chan, aka rocketraygun on deviantart.com.

Visit the link beside to read more reviews on Amazon. If you buy from the link, I get a little commission that helps me get more art books for review.

On Amazon.com, the bargain-price version is sometimes available for this book. That's a US$10 reduction from the original price. In this case, Kelvin has bought the bargain-price version. On the front cover I noted a stroke of black marker ink across. On the back cover was a sticker that says "Amazon.com Bargain Book". There are no defects physically on the book. I personally think it's a great deal despite the small misgivings.

If bargain-price is available, the link should appear at the top, near links to other available sellers on Amazon.com.

Country-specific Amazon links for this book:
Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.fr | Amazon.de

Check out other books reviewed on this blog, with pictures:
Art book list | Design book list

June 29 NOT

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Apparently, the release date for Ratatouille in Singapore is 30 August. What happened? Anyway, reviews from audience from the sneaks have been amazing. Can't wait to get my hands on the Blu-ray disc when it release, gasp, 4 months later on November.

No doubt that this is going to be the best movie of the year, since Spider-Man 3 failed to top its sequel, and Pan's Labyrinth was actually from 2006.

Look At This Rotten Graphic

I chanced upon two very interesting blogs today. The SND Update Blog and Charles Apple. There are some pretty good interviews to be found on SND Update Blog. The ones from John Grimwade and Nigel Holmes were fantastic.

There's one quote from Nigel Holmes that I found to recreate the Dilbert moment:

You know when you do 6 or 8 graphics a week, some of them are not going to be very good. And those are the ones people would pick up and say,"Look at this rotten graphic!"

NYT Office Space

I love looking at photos of other people's work area. Oh, oh. They use Macs. Seems pretty awesome to be working in New York.

The blog's from Julie Walton Shaver, night graphics manager for The New York Times.

New York Times' old office
New York Times' new office
New York Times' cafeteria