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2006-08-13

My Plans to Take Over the World

My apologies for the light posting this past week. I've been busy with a number of things, mostly writing-related. Rest assured that I was thinking of you all when I was watching "The Great Dictator" and "The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp" at two in the morning.

Some important highlights:

I've been going through a major DEVO phase right now, pouring through all their albums and having the time of my life. I'm writing essays on the first five Devo records on my main website, DanielThomas.org. It's on the home page at first, and then moved to the Digital Artwork 2004 pages (I really don't feel like building a database and weblog for the site).

A review, or essay, or whatever, on the Nintendo DS games Pac 'N Roll and Super Monkey Ball are available on the main website. Don't those names sound like '80s New Wave bands? The whole DEVO world is crashing around me.

I have a games blog called V - The Next Generation, which I use for writing every now and then. It's been hosted at Digital Press, but I've moved it to its own site on Blogger. As far as priorities go, it's third, behind Conversations and DanielThomas. But I need another venue for writing, because all my writing has a goal in mind.

Which leads me into the main topic - I'm putting together several books. I'm currently looking things over before I start hunting for a publisher. Perhaps I should find a book agent first? In any case, here's what I want to publish:

  • Art Gallery books - a single compilation of my artwork, or seperate volumes by genre. This would include: 1998 Works, Model Portraits, Acrylics, Watercolors, Watercanvas, Curious George and Coloring Books. If you visit my galleries, you'll see that each piece is accompanied by a commentary; so essentially, everything is already written and ready to go.
  • "No War For Empire" - This is something of a "kitchen sink" book, taken from various writings on the website. Essays on politics, cultural events, music, and videogames. I'm inspired by Hunter Thompson's books, but particularly my favorite albums; I'd like to put out one of these "album" books every couple years. This is my primary project right now. Currently, I'm weeding the garden and figuring out how many other essays should be written before it's finished.
  • "Videogame Classics" - Collection of essays from my "Classics" column on the website. I have around 25 reviews written so far, enough to show to a publisher. The final book should be a larger number, depending on whether or not there would be more than one volume. Total count: 50 or 100.
  • "Conversations on Ghibli" - Really, this is still too far along to be finished anytime soon. I want these other projects finished before I completely tackle the Ghibli book. The good news is that means more blogging here.

If anyone has any advice or insights to offer me, it would be deeply appreciated. Thanks for your help.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

So did you import most of the movies that aren't available in the US?

Anonymous said...

OK, I downloaded Horus Prince of the Sun with uTorrent, and it played fine in WMP, MPC, and DivX. Then I changed the name, and it only worked in DivX and only 3 seconds of it showed in MPC. So I deleted it and downloaded it again. I put the .avi and .srt file in the same file with the same names, and it wouldn't play on any of the players except DivX, and still without subtitles (I downloaded DirectVobSub). I deleted DivX and MPC from my computer but still have the horus files. How do I play them, what do I play them on, and how do i show subtitiles?

Anonymous said...

Oh my gosh I finally figured it out. Ignore my last post. If you decide to make a guide for other people you might want to mention CCCP and MPC, that's how I got it to work. DirectVobSub might help too... (unless you already knew that, which you probably did...)

Anonymous said...

Good luck on your books. I especially can't wait for that Ghibli one. I hope it's as comprehensive and as detailed as your blog is. I'd love to read on any more Ghibli riffs or trivia in the book if you know of any more. Also, include info on the lesser known movies because I've only found out about 'Horus' and 'Castle of Cagliostro' through this blog, and for that, I thank you very much.

Anonymous said...

Just watched 'Panda Kopanda' and I saw the clever riff that was used on 'My Neighbor Totoro'. Thanks for the heads-up and the backstory. Keep 'em coming.

Anonymous said...

Where can I see Panda Kopanda? Also, how can I increase speeds on uTorrent?

Also good luck on your books too. Hope you know I love your site

Anonymous said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_t26nUc_aOw found some tv spots.

Anonymous said...

I downloaded a bunch of stuff from YouTube with some program, and you can get Ocean Waves, both Ghiblies, On Your Mark, The Sky Colored Seed, Nandarou (a really short commercial), and I think only part of Portable Airport Tokyo, also on Boxtorrent are most of the mainstream Ghibli movies, Ocean Waves, Panda KoPanda, and a bunch of posters and shorts.

BTW I finally got to watch Horus, which was totally worth the time. It was really good.

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