How long has it been since the last new update? About three months?
Guess that just goes to show how generally uneventful my life is... ah well...

Well, there's a few things to cover, and I'll have to take each point as it comes.
In the meantime, here's another one of these silly journal quiz tag-thingees...

Tagged by

The Rules of the Game

1. You must post these rules.
2. Answer the questions the tagger set for you in their post, and create ten new answers for the people you tag to answer.
3. You have to choose 10 people to tag and post their icons in your journal.
4. Go to their pages and tell him/her you've tagged said-person.
5. No tag backs.It basically just goes on and on and on..you get the idea.
6. No crappy stuff in the tagging section like "You are tagged if you are reading this". You legitimately (AKA truly, really, with all honesty) have to tag 10 people.


(Danbuster's Note: I'll answer these questions, plus Dingo's questions, but I really can't be bothered with tagging or making up more of my own this time. I've got a long journal to write here, and this tag is only secondary!

Questions asked:
1. When you draw you tend to do the same face you are workin' on?
I just use whatever expression is in context with the situation.

2. DO you draw in public or in the privacy of your room/studio?
I do prefer to work in private. I get self-conscious with an audience.

3. Have you ever had an very terrible job?
If turning taps on and off for a living, in a hospital, counts... supposed to be a way of running off old stagnant water in the pipes, but it always seemed a pointless job to me and I was glad when the contract ran out. :

4. Is a trap, is it?
Spencer: He takes the bait, y'see, and then he's in the trap.
Danbuster: Yes? Then what happens?
Spencer: SHUT yer trap!
Danbuster: I only asked...

5. Sleep alone or with someone else?
Alone enough - though if any cat I've owned counts as sleeping with someone else...

6. Have you ever been drunk?
I don't even drink!

7. Your jimmies remains unrustled?
Errr... as in, what? Jim-jams? Jammies? Pyjamas? What does that even mean, anyway?!

8. Which is your most favourite movie?
So many to choose from - Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean (the first one was best), Tale of Despereaux, Chronicles of Narnia... Redwall TV series (especially Mattimeo)

9. Car or bike?
Car - I have my own Ford Focus. Never could ride a bike, though...

10. Would you let the zombies eat you or put a bullet in your head?
Do I have any other choices? I'd rather put the bullets through the zombies' heads and live!


Well these are Dingo's questions

What's your biggest goal?
I guess that would be getting Danbuster's adventures known to the world...

How many time you have been drawing?
For years!

If you have an special power what could be?
Flying would be a great power to have - I'd save on travel expenses, amongst other things!

Ghost or demon?
Ghosts are relatively harmless...

Do you lost in somewhere place?
If that translates to "have you ever been lost", then yes. Even in the local housing estates, when walking the dog, before I got to know the area better and the best walks.

what's your biggest afraid?
The Wrath of God - I don't want to be on His wrong side!

Do you believe in heroes?
Naturally... if it wasn't for heroes, then lunatics like Hitler would have conquered the world long ago!

Are you a warrior?
In the early days of Redwall fanship, I always aspired to be as like a warrior as a... peace-loving guy can be...
Values like honour, bravery, obedience, loyalty, truth, etc certainly come into it.

what's you like more day or night?
I seem to like nights better... I get a lot more done when I'm not being called away during the day to do chores and such!

He comes... (if you don't get it... better for you...)
Riiiight... well, when he does come, give him my calling card - I'm busy...

First of all, I may as well cover a short review on a game I recently played through and completed.
In the last few months or so, I beat Rayman Origins!

Great to see Rayman returning to his own franchise at long last. Ever since the Raving Rabbids took over and hijacked the series, it had spiralled on a dangerous slippery slope from the kind of action-adventuring platformer that I like to a silly minigame-fest.
Thankfully, Rayman Origins has saved the franchise - just like Sonic Unleashed saved the hedgehog's franchise after the fiasco (so I heard) of Sonic '06, especially with the human princess making out with the hedgehog-corpse... squicky...

Anyway, I enjoyed the game a lot! The levels were fun and quirky, with a lot of crazy shenanigans going on all the way through - in what other game can you use meditating monks with big tray-shaped hats and long beards as platforms/swing-ropes? Or do battle with bubblised Mockingbirds? Or even cure a giant-sized Dragon Chef of his heartburn - from the inside?
And if the game itself isn't already bizarre enough, the music also brings its own breed of madness to the proceedings! My personal favourite themes were the jaw-harp based Dark Toon Chase (action-theme for Jibberish Jungle), the machinery-percussionised Steampunk Suspense (main-theme for Moody Clouds) - and banjo-heavy Tricky Treasures, which is the best part of a really difficult part of the game! Still, getting the Tricky Treasures is necessary to people intent on getting 100% completion, like I invariably am!
I should warn you, though - if you think the Tricky Treasures are tough, the serious difficulty spike is reserved for the bonus "Land of the Livid Dead" level, which you must clear for an extension of the true ending...

Another point for the game I must address is the graphics - for a game that's simply 2½D, it was incredibly well done, thanks to this new UbiArt Framework feature of UbiSoft. I don't know how they do it, but somehow the graphics can be mutated into virtually any shape, or even zoom the focus in on a specific event or character - and yet they never lose definition. This is most notable with the Darkvine briars, which maintain sharp focus, no matter how they twist and turn around corners. This appears to be a highly-advance form of vector-tracing, and it really adds to the visual appearance of the game, thus proving that the graphics don't have to be 3D to be good.

Well, it had been some time, and I had been waiting for Dad to get his new car sorted out - so that he wouldn't have to keep borrowing mine all the time.
It had been a bit of a bind having to rely on buses and suchlike since there was no other means of getting around among nearby towns - Mildenhall being so provincial.
We thought our troubles were over for a time... then Dad had an accident.
*waits for anvil to drop*

Not to worry - Dad got off Scot-free, totally unhurt... which was nothing short of a divine miracle, considering it was a lorry that scraped into the side of him! Apparently, the idiot didn't see Dad and tried to pull into his lane.
Most annoying thing was that this car was relatively new and he'd only had it five weeks - and already it was written off!
Of course, the insurance company had to pay up and Dad got the money back on it (if not the full tank of petrol, which was a shame)

Recently, a couple of weeks ago, I had a couple of offers for Job Interviews.
Nat-urally, this coincided with the time Dad was without a car, meaning that I had to find my own way to two different job interviews - without my own car available! Life really deals you some wildcards at times...

The first interview, for a Scanning Operative, was arranged for a date later in the week and will be talked about second (in chronicological order)

The second interview, which I'll talk about first, was arranged at very short notice.
I had part of a phonecall from someone at the RAF Lakenheath, regarding a job for working on the dining staff - arranging the interview was difficult due to my lack of a car, but eventually I managed to fix it with a friend from church who was able to give me a lift.
I went in the following morning, and was dropped off at the appropriate gate to get a visitor's pass and an escort to the diner.
The interview was only brief, however, as the "flexible hours" condition required me to be available to work Sundays. Due to my commitments to church and suchlike, this was impossible - I never was in the habit of working on the Sabbath.
Still, they seemed to understand and told me that the Military Uniforms section (which does close at weekends) may have positions coming up in the near future - how near we don't know, but they promised to forward my application to the appropriate quarters and... well, we can but hope and see what happens...
Afterwards, I was given an escort to another gate, which was near a bus-stop, so I could make my own way home.

And now for the first interview that came later.
The position was for a Scanning Operative at a branch opening sometime in the future, in Thetford. Basically, this involved handling paper files, feeding them into a scanning machine for making electrical copies, making sure everything went like clockwork.
I can only say that I think it went quite well, but I'll have to wait another week or so to see whether I'm called back for a second interview.
The return ticket for the bus was really steep, though. Still, Thetford looks like an interesting town with some of its own points of interest - including a statue of Captain Mainwaring from Dad's Army. Some of the location-shooting for the classic sit-com was done near Thetford!

This has to be the big notable event of late.
As marked by the Coat of Arms that I recently posted, last week was my parents' Pearl Wedding Annversary!
Thirty whole years together! In this day and age of short-term relationships and high divorce-rates, that has to be quite an achievement...


Anyway, last week, I was left home alone for a few days.
My parents took a sort of "third honeymoon" and went for a little holiday back to Broadstairs where we had moved from to come here.
This meant I was holding the fort for a while - or, at least, until they came home again Thursday evening.
Generally, my duties involved making sure the cats were fed - even Tyndale, who is a walking dustbin who screams for his supper till he gets it (and then pinches everyone else's too for good measure, if they don't eat theirs quick enough!); feeding and walking the dog on a regular basis; getting my own meals (Yes, I can cook, don't worry - I ate well enough! )

Other than that, I generally kept myself busy in my own way.
Usually by working on my present Flash-animation project: my cartoon animation of "Right Said Fred", featuring Cribbs the Cat and his workmates, who, as the song goes, try to shift an unwieldy piece of furniture from an old house, but... well, you'll see what happens when it's finished! Hopefully, that will be in the foreseeable future. I made a fair bit of progress while I was home alone, not being interrupted in the middle of things to do chores!


Other than animation work, or chatting with mates on MSN, I was also making continued progress with my latest ongoing Wii-game - Super Mario Galaxy!
Now it must be said, this has been my first serious effort in playing a Mario game - me being very much a Sonic-fan practically from the first year he first came on the scene! But I must say, my first impressions have been positive.
Mario is a quirky sort of hero - a chubby plumber isn't the likeliest sort of guy to go around rescuing dumb-blonde princesses who just stand on top of castle balconies, just waiting to be kidnapped...
Seriously, I can see why the Nostalgia Critic placed Princess Peach so high on his Top 11 Dumbasses-in-Distress!
Even the letters she sends Mario in the course of the game (enclosed with convenient batches of 1-Up Mushrooms) imply that she's quite used to it all by now...

Also... Bowser! Just... Bowser! My first time encountering this villain, and I can see what makes him so memorable! Already, I practically like him as a better villain than Eggman - no offence to the fat doc, of course, I still like him as a comic-villain, and he's still capable of becoming a genuine threat to Sonic!
But hey! At least Bowser fights Mario man-to-man instead of relying on customised flying machines and roboticised animals and monsters to do his fighting for him - and he has enough charisma and brute-strength to command a band of real minions!
Still and all, if Eggman and Bowser were to ever join forces, it would definitely take a team like Sonic and Mario to stop them... they'd be a force to be reckoned with!

Up to this point, I've completed four sections of the game and recovered five Grand Power Stars. The Engine Room is the next place to visit. However, power is already restored the Comet Observatory anyway - what with me exploring everything I can explore, I already found all or most of the hidden Power Stars... even the green ones, with a little help from Luigi...
Still, I'll clean up those other galaxies first - I like to make an effort to obtain 100% completion! Princess Peach is being so patient, I guess she can wait a little longer...

Funny, though - another thing that struck me about Bowser. I defeated him for a second time at his Dark Matter Plant, and he got straight up from his beat-down just to laugh in Mario's face and congratulate him on being a worthy adversary! That's a pretty casual way of taking a defeat - all that Eggman can seem to do in such situations is throw a tantrum and yell insults at Sonic ("You little! You LITTLE!!")
Well, let's see if he changes his tune when I eventually confront him at the Centre of the Universe...


Anyway, my parents got back from their little holiday on Thursday evening - having had a large breakfast and a large lunch, they didn't want any dinner, so we all had beans on toast. This was followed by a cake that I'd personally made to mark their Anniversary - or at least, that was the plan...
I'd got the recipe from the Redwall Cookbook, following the guidelines for Squirrelmum's Blackberry & Apple Cake - with variations. Since Mum is allergic to blackberries, I'd substituted dry fruit. I'd also cut back on the sugar (Six tablespoons seemed way too excessive - four was more than enough) and instead of adding apple-juice, I put in some almond extract (since there was also powdered almonds in the given ingredients). I had it in mind to ice the cake and put some sort of decorative writing on it - but the icing was a disaster. It was too thin and only any good as a glaze, so I had to drop the idea and leave it as it way... also, part of the cake broke up when I tried to extract it from the paper... still, never mind. It was a small success, and I was complimented on the effort.

Then, at the weekend, we went back to the car-dealer at Littleport to pick up Dad's second new car. It's a Hyundai in vivid canary-yellow. They'll have no excuse not to see that on the road, now!
Well, at last I'll have my own car back now... and for good this time, hopefully!

By the time I'll have had a chance to finish typing all this up and getting it posted, it'll already by the First of May in parts of the world. Time travels so fast - especially on a Monday, when there's the Sunday backlog to get through in your messages-list!
But still, it's a month of some happenings.

On May 26^th I hope to get over to Colchester to meet up with - I'm not sure, but I think will be there too?
What they'll have in store for me I won't fully know yet, but it should be fun-times for all!

The only thing to work out now is the route - it would be expensive by train either way, and anyway there's no train-station at Mildenhall... even going to London for this year's Summer of Sonic, I'll have to drive to Ely to get a direct train!
I don't know the buses either, and anyway they'll probably be expensive.
The best way appears to be driving in.

Yes, that's right! I've got my own car back now! Quite correct!
While I don't fancy driving into London, I'm sure Colchester should be less of a challenge, right?

What else to tell?
Oh! I guess that's about it for now! Thank goodness for that!

Well, until I know where I stand regarding jobs, I guess the ol' job-searching routine continues on pretty much the same course.
I've still got the "Right Said Fred" project to finish up.
And, after that's over, I've been considering bringing back another old project from months ago that had been left on indefinite hold (chiefly while I was working on things like Sonic & Danbuster and Hydrex Adventure) - this will be a spoof-movie based on the game Prince of Persia... the old DOS-game by Jordan Mechner, that is, not the UbiSoft rehash!
I've got all the voices I'll be needing now, captured the sprites and sounds from the game I'll most likely be needing - yeah, being sprite-based, I suspect deviantART won't let me post that here, since it's mostly not my own original graphics. I will probably post this on my YouTube profile, but provide a link here when I get that sorted out.

Other than that - who knows what random art this butterfly-artist will produce in the interim?

And, I don't think I have anything further to add - so in the words of Marquila... Pax vobiscum! Salutare!! (Peace be with you! Greetings!!)