Today, the merchandise I bought when I was at the NG-office a few weeks back showed up. It didn't get sent straight away beause I was a bitch and made some changes and all that, also the damn toll cracked my package open, and made me pay a toll fee. >:(
Sometimes you're lucky and don't have to pay the customs-crap, I guess I wasn't lucky this time. I also sent myself 13 vinyl records from the states, they didn't make me pay shit for. Guess they don't have time to crack every package open and sneak-peak into 'em.

Anyway, this is what came in the package (the CastleCrashers figures can be bought not in the NG store, but here. The odd stickers are I-Mockery and Afro-Ninja):

TTTTTOOOYYYYSSSS!!!! :D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D

Leaving home
So, last week on tuesday, me and my friend Anna started our to be three week long trip to the states. We made it to the airport early in the morning, well night, really, and then got on the plane to Heathrow airport in London to switch plane.
Long flight, short story - we made it to Newark airport, and set off to our pre-booked hostel in NYC.

First impressions
The first impression of the states was when we were waiting to get through the customs. There were two separate lines, one for foreigners, and one for americans. The fun thing was that the american line was shorter, but alot... fatter. Pretty much everyone in the line was overweight or heavily overwieght. Stereotypes 1 point.
The second thing that made a big impression was Manhattan, seen from the taxi when the sun was setting. Now that was BEAUTIFUL!

NYC
From then on we spent two days in NYC. We pretty much just chilled out, met a mutual friend of ours and just had a good time. Walking alot.
I bought a Microtrack 2, that was broke. I got it replaced, and the one I now have seem OK. Cool little device, and 150USD cheaper here than back home!!

Leaving NYC for the mod-meetup
After this, we got picked up by Malachy of newgrounds, to make our way to Philly and for the moderator meetup.
This is the first time I actually meet up with anyone from the internet, so I was really excited! First whom I saw was Pox in an angryfaic tee. With him outside to meet me up was StephanosGnomon. In the van was Malachy, being a little grumpy and annoyed by driving in the NYC, but it was all good. In the end. I guess. :)
We left and picked up Avie along the way. Nearly hit a racoon, and had problems finding his house ("hey it's the house with a porchlight, ya cant miss it!:).

At the NG office
We woke up in Philadelphia the morning after, and got picked up by the guys in the van again (me and Anna stayed at a hostel, the other mods got drunk at some hotel...).
Made it to the NG office, and was greeted by Mindchamber at the door. His first comment was "Tom's inside, go say hi and steal some of his powers".
Holy crap, that office is huge! There is so much space at that place and so many weird things... Most noticable is where the large TV and the videogames are at tho, guessing alot of brilliant ideas are shaped there...
Basicly we hung out at the office, starting to get to know one another IRL (most of us have had some kind of interaction with one another online, being mods and all, and many of the mods have been there for previous mod-meets).
But yeah, if I was a flash artist/programmer/similiar it would probably be a dream come true to work at a place like NG!

At the cabin
We set out after a few hours to the cabin the meetup was gonna be at, that place was freaking awesome! Tim made chicken, hotdogs and burgers - those burgers was just OMFGHOLYCRAP awesome. Alot of beer happened too, and some of you might have caught us live or posted in here.
All in all, a bunch of nerds (mods, in this case +Tim, Bob, Tom Mike and Wade) had beers and got to spend some quality time IRL - I never saw this many newgrounders at the same place, well, I've never seen this many to begin with. It's a really special experience to hang out with ppl like that.
Basicly, everyone is just supercool and really friendly, I had a wonderful time and I'm already thinking about next years meetup - if I'm still a mod, and have the money to spend, I'll easily be there!
I'm mostly surprised how everyone was so nice and that everyone got along so well, it really felt like hanging out with a bunch of friends, that I never met before! Odd feeling! Of course some I got to spend more time with than others, and some less, but I have to say that the one who I recognized myself in the most was SardonicSamurai, who happened to be as hyper as I was his age. And as for this being a flash-site, watch out for me in the future: AfroNinja taught me the basics in actionscript. OH YEAH!

I'll get around later on to make a short comment about what I thought of everyone who was there, just hopping the bandwaggon here (since many other mods who attended did that :3 ).

Philadelphia
After the mod-meetup, me and Anna stayed in Philly for three days. It's a really nice town, with a freakin awesome cheesestake. We had one at Jim's, and holy crap-a-doodle, it was just awesome! We basicly just wandered around, took some pics of monuments, shopped a little, and just took it real easy. I had dinner with some of the NG staff and some of their friends one night (Anna had a bad stomache so she didn't join), and that was just something to be remembered as Good Times (apart from the fact that I too had a bad stomache, diharrea is not a walk in the park...). On wednesday the 2:nd we left for Washington DC, to spend a few days there, and to hook up with UberBarista!

Washington Written updated 8 july
We arrived farily late, and had managed not to write down where our hostel was going to be at. We made it to a library where they had internet, and found out where to go. We had to fool around with busses and shit, and apparently our hostel was in the ghetto more or less. Wasn't all too pleasant to walk around there with big backpacks while street-thugs were hanging out in the corners etc. Anyway, we made it to the hostel, that turned out to be a hotel. The girl in the reception had no clue of what she was doing, so we were gonna get the room dirt cheap (though when we left we did have to pay what we were suppose to, which still was like 60-80$ less than the standard rate. they screwed themselves over hurr hurr).
Washington is a cool town, we checke out the White House, the big washington monument a.k.a. Hughe Wang, a few of the museums (saw a 3-d show in the air and space museum about black holes. Pretty neat). On thursday we hooked up with UberBarista and his girlfriend Nicole (she's fucking awesome, great job there, Paul!:). They took us out to a place (god damnit, what was the name again? PAUL PLZ TELL ME???) EDIT: the place is called "Rock Bottom" where they brewed their own beer, down in Arlington somewhere. They beers, the food and the company was just awesome!
Next day we were supposed to hook up with them again to see the fireworks (since it was 4'th of July), but after having been out walking in the odd weather (oppressing heat, kindof), and it started to rain, none of us felt like going out. We ended up in the hotelroom, just eating and watching TV. :(

Back to NYC
So, we took the bus back to NYC on saturday, and arrived on the afternoon. Basicly since then we've chilled out, checked out a few things in the city (a fairly lame comedy show amongst other) and today we were on an outlet store in New Jersey. Tomorrow we'll be hooking up with a mutual friend of ours, and it's time for me to fulfill my part of the deal me and Anna have - joining on the Sex and the City tour. I'm not a big fan of that TV show, buuut whatever, it could be fun I guess (or 4 hours of pain, suffering and agony).

NYC again
We got back and checked in on our cheap chinese hostel, in a claustrophobic sized room with no windows and a "double bed" way smaller than my single bed I've at home. But it was cheap, and we weren't intending to stick around the hostel anyway, so whatever.
The rest of the holiday was spent in this hughe city, with alot of shopping (which includes ALOT of walking...),
The sex and the city tour was looong, 3.5 hours... I did manage to survive the last 30 min by falling asleep though. We had cupcakes too! Seriously though, if you're a fan it could be worth it, me I've seen the show occationally, and never really liked it that much... it's not that it's bad, it just don't appeal. Also, it doesn't have Richard Dean Andersson, like SG1 had numerous seasons. Hurr hurr. Fun thing with the sex&city show is that alot, and I mean ALOT, have been filmed on various locations around NYC, which would make the tour even better for the fans.
What else did we do... climbed the Empire State building one day (and knocked down Kong from there), went to the beach... which is when I seriously doubted the whole trip, even though the waves were fairly small (I <3 to surf, even if I suck at it...). We met a mutual friend (same from the sex&city tour) and went out drinking (well, drinking was included in most days anyway). One day we spent on one of them outlet-malls in New Jersey. Basicly we just had a good time in NYC!

Going back home
On sunday it was time to go back, we made it to JFK airport, and after boarding the flight, we had to wait in a "flight line" to get airborn. Took us 2.5 damn hours of wait to get up! It was pretty close that we didn't make the flight to Sweden, since we had to transfer in London Heathrow. Oh well, we did make it anyway, and now I'm sitting in my apartement typing this. Came back last night around 21.30 or so, fell asleep around midnight... woke up 4.20 in the morning. Hello jetlag, let's be friendss for a few days!

All in all the trip was a big success. Highlight for me was the mod-meet though. It was so cool to actually meet the people I chat and keep contact with on a more or less daily basis, I had a really really good time and <3 all of them! And the staff are just awesome too, so extremley friendly and good people! Well, I guess I'd be a friendly guy too, if I worked with what I loved to do in an office with a bigscreen TV like that... :)

Even if you're not a moderator you can still go to the random NG real life meetups that seem to be more and more frequent, I personally hope to make it to the London Meetup that Luis-the-Mexican is managing. I might have to work that weekend though, so time will tell...

<3 NG

HAI OK LOL!

First off, a BIG congrats to all the winners!
Frankly, all nominees are winners, even if only one could bring home the #1 award. Jesus christ, this is all top notch productions!!!
So, this was really really hard to judge (I was part of the movie-judging panel), I've gone through all the submissions a couple of times each, ruled one after another out, placed the movies up and down etc etc.
I'm glad that Waterlollies won, simply due to the fact that I feel that it's slightly more deserving then the rest. I did have a thought going through that - he's a real pro, is it really fair? But in the end, I decided not to include such criteria. Like Luis mentioned to me, going with the gut feel is the best way to decided the order, and was the main support in the end, despite what I've written down in the comments.

I've used the comments as a reminder, and to easier be able to compare the submissions against each other.
If you're interested, read through my judgement. Leave a comment if you agree, or if you don't agree, too. :)
It really doesn't matter now, of course, but it's always fun to see what people think!

I did make a list of more than the top five, but we were asked to only include the top five, so yeah... :)

1- Waterlollies
2- Aladdin 3150
3- The Composer
4- Jerry
5- Project Freetown: Metropolis Circuit

Waterlollies
+ Animation is really really smooth. I mean, just look at the water... Look at it!
+ The original landscape and the unique characters brings a very special feeling.
+/- Even though the soundtrack is great, and it adds a great deal to the whole Brackenwood feeling, this movie rely mainly on it, to help enhance what's going on. It's a + because it's so good and so suiting, and a - because there is not much more, apart from a few soundeffects here and there. Do note that the few SFX that do exist help bring alot to the overall feel, which is very important (f.ex. very characteristic sounds for the extraoordinarily weird creatures...).
+/- The story is built up of a series of events. The bully of Brackenwood goes on a rampage (as always), and karma, or whatever, gets back and bites his ass. There are good references and usage of old characters and old happenings, which is being tossed in as part of the actual storyline. And despite the rather simplistic storyline, one really gets caught in this very easily, due to the speed and the overall near perfect animation of it.

All in all:
- The uniqueness of this world, the animation and the artwork is a notch above all other nominees. Sure, there is one or two things in the other nominees that may be smoother or better in the other flashes, but this is simply a notch above the rest overall.

Aladdin 3150
+ There is alot of both small and big things in this animation that is built in the rythm and the mood of the song in an excellent way. There are no soundeffects in this movie, but I even had to re-check this, because the animation with the camera-job is so well built in with the music, so it almost feels like there are actual sfx in the movie! It is extremley easy to get caught up in this movie.
+/- The story is simple, and somewhat odd (with the lizzard-mutant). It is built around the music, and is done so in a good way. Though there's nothing extraoordinary about it, really. It's quite original with the lizard, but in all honesty, the story itself is nothing that raises my eyebrows.
- No soundeffects are always a minus, but I have to say that this flash, compared with all the other nominees that lack decent audio, suffers the least of this.

All in all:
- The speed an the feel of this is just right. Some parts are less well animated, what brings it down a bit othervice is the lack of sfx, despite the fact that it's awesomley well animated to the music.

The Composer
+ Very well captured facial movements, of course a big and important thing in a moody animation such as this. Overall it's very well drawn.
+ Good camerajob. What comes with "the camerajob" obviously is part of the drawing, but I really like that there are different focuses in the clips, just like a real camerashot would have. I like how the sliding cameras and different angles brings life to the animation.
+ Even though the basic story itself is rather simple, I really like the how this bag is being tied up. The story really complete itself, and is a great moral. "What goes around comes around" may be the wrong saying, but it's around those feelings I get for this.
+/- While the music is very suiting overall, there's a lack of soundeffects in most places. As with a music-video, that makes up for any sfx that aren't there, but a few atmospheric sounds and sfx could make the animation even more powerful.
+ Made the main song himself
- Despite the good camerajob, there's a slight lack of movement "on stage" all around. The good camerajob, makes up for most of that, but I still see the lack of pace a con. For example, in the part where things are getting better for the main character, the lack of actual movement makes things pretty stale.

All in all:
Really deep story, well written, even though it may be a bit cheezy. A big pro that the music is made by JAZZA himself.

Jerry
+ The story, or rather the line of events in this animation is just stunning. I think most people who've made an appearance of the adult world (that sometimes can get as monotone as Jerrys life), can relate to this. The simplisticness of this is just brilliant, and therefore the story is a hughe +.
+/- The camerawork is ok, only because of the pace that is being used to represent the monotone life Jerry have, and help bring a fuller understanding of his monotone life. Apart from that, it's not up to competition to most other nominees this year.
+/- Audio is suiting, though repetetive. It's yet one of many top animation on this site that deal lightly with sound, and probably don't spend alot of time to it, but this animation have what it needs. Definitley no more, but at the same time no less.
- The animation is not very interesting, nor is the artwork. Simplistic and, well, obviously recycled.

All in all:
This moive is brought down due to the fact that it's reusing the same animated sequences over and over. Sure, it's done in a brilliant way (which is partly why I placed it in the top five), but still it kindof lack effort. It's a great idea, but still I feel the ones above are more deserving.

Project Freetown: Metropolis Circuit
+ This have a decent style (as in artwork), and really really slick animation. Gravity in this race feels very natural (not real; just natural), as does the characters motions and the camerajob is just awesome. Despite looking at a small window in a browser, it's easy to get hooked up in the speed that is this animation. Timing feels really smooth, even though it only reasonably well timed to the background song.
- Even though there's some background story to find on rtil's webpage, alot of concept art etc. this flash in perticular feels pretty flat and is just an excuse to show of animation skills (but what skills...!).
- Like many other flashes, this lack decent audio. Sure, it has a cool song attached to it, and even two voice actors mumbling a few sentences and some basic sfx at the start, but this is not getting the animation anywhere worth to mention audio-vice.

All in all:
An animation combined with a serious story and a real audio-engineer taking care of the sound can take this far - VERY far. But this perticular animation lacks just what is mentioned above, unfortunatley.

Other submissions I ruled out of the top five, for one reason of another (they were all really really close to get up there). I would include FlashBack 00 and Socklops, but by the time I was about to judge them, I realised that they didn't stand up to the competition, so I never bothered to judge them properly.

The Stranger Forest
+ I really like this story. A little kid wants to flee the "bit-reality" he lives in, and lure himself out to see the "analouge" world, the forrest. I get the impression that city-kids that never been out in the forrest in their life, might get a similiar feel when they do come out for the first time - the beauty and the danger of this world is easy to appreciate. However, this is not enough since I seem to loose interest of wanting to know how this end around the part with the water. And the ending gives me mixed fellings too - did he actually think it good to be back, or is he a prisoner of his homeworld? It puzzles me, and that's not a good thing. Viewers are stupid (like me), and sometimes it's important to be a bit more clear with what's going on.
+ The style of the art is really cool. I love the way the author brings out the contrast between the two worlds, and really sharpen it. The eyes... there's something about the eyes of the humans in this world that really catches my attention too. I really like it!
+/- The animation seem ok, but when things start to move around a bit, it's not as "round and smooth" as I would expect. The running scene ticks me of in perticular. All in all, the more hectic scenes don't get as hectic as they could, due to not using a intriguing enough "cameralanguage".
+/- I love how the audio is taken care of by an outside artist, and even though it suits the movie really good in some places, it fails to perform when it's needed the most. I am mainly refering to the end, where the mood of the music easily could have wrapped up the actual ending in a better way. Like previously stated, I'm not sure whether the main character ends up happy, reliefed, sad or whatever.

Blockhead Ghostmas
+ Great timing storyvice.
+ Fun and original story.
+ Clean and smoothly drawn backgrounds.
+ All sound mixed by the author (?)
+ Decent quality of audio overall.
- Lack of challenging camerawork, thus lacking effort in "paced animation".
- Animation overall is pretty dull. Smooth, but not very fun to watch. The whole "randomness" that build Blockhead flashes would benefit alot if the camerawork were a bit more vivid and crazy.
- Although the story is really fun, it's not performed in a captivating manner. A little too random without having "that extra spice" to it to really move the viewer.

Rienland
+ Love the pace in this animation. It's fast, it's furious, and it's pretty darn weird. The animation is swift and it have nice cameraworks to go with it.
+ The drawing and style reminds me a little of Dan Paladins earlier work.
+ This shit is really really weird. Some guys being hatched in some weird world of ant-beasts... The storyline confuses as much as it enchants. Throw in a couple of goofy faces of the main characters, and we're all set.
- Audio. This is supposed to be a music video for some song that's not yet done... well, throwing in a song from The Matrix - Reloaded and virtually no SFX ain't gonna do the trick. This is a major con with this movie overall.

What is Love?
+ Really good timing, it goes extremley well with the song both storyvice overall, and the small things that happen.
+ The effort put into this is easy to appreciate.
+ Very good camerawork that goes just right with the music, slow-mo in the right place, good build of the story, perfect pace. The camerawork along with the simple story captures the viewer really good.
+/- The storyline is not original at all, classic "love overcomes hatred" lovestory. Though it is amusing, and the small things that fill the video up really lift the whole story.
+/- Animation is good, it comes with the camerawork, but it's not all too impressive due to the simplistic drawing. However, the motions themselves are very smooth and even comic in some places.
- Unoriginal charcter design (South Park look alikes).
- Audio. Just because it's a music video doesn't mean that it can't contain atmospheric sounds in different locations, sfx for the "heart shots", footsteps etc etc.

All in all:
What really brings this movie down is the artwork, the South Park copies. I think that if it wasn't for that, this movie might have had a chanse of the top 5, but as it is I just can't get that "OMFG!!!" feeling to place it any better.

Right here
Check it out.

I call it "Drain" as of now.

#10

Seriously, this must be one of the most creative animations I've ever seen. It speaks for itself, really. Fucking ace shit!!

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/* */

I stumbled over an old Swedish group who made trip-hop blended with various other styles... This song in perticular isn't trip-hop, but it's very typical for it's time being.

So, check it out and enjoy it;

"Whale - Hobo Humpin Slobo Babe "
from the album "We Care"

.
/* */

From the 10:th of March, I will be working extra as a soundtechnician at a local youths-hangout. They have a stage and a dancefloor for about 300 persons, so I'm gonna be house-technician when there's something happening there.
Along with that, I will be having a course in Reason 4.0. I just got my update, so I gotta learn the new features of it real fast, so I can actaully teach about it. It ain't impossible that I'll be doing some written tutorials too, if I do, I'll make sure to translate it into english and make athread about it as soon as I can! :)

I'm really looking forward to this. As some of you know, I've studied sound for a year (two split courses that actually are part of the sound-engineer program at the local uni - so I'm 1/3 sound-engineer! :D ).
I have been working now and then with live-sound (at the Arvika Festival last summer, amongst other), but it's gonna be fun to do things a little more intense like this, and even though I don't aim to work with sound fulltime in the future, it's an excellent extra job!

I am only a substitute though, so I won't be working like this more than mid-june. School stops in the beginning of june, so I'll most likley increase my activity on NG by then (I wanna make more MAC's in the future fo' sho!:).

For the audio-forum guys, if there's anyone messing up the forum, or it looks generally crappy, just PM a BBS-mod who's online, and he/she will take care of business. Zerok and BlueHippo have visited the forum now and then over the last few weeks, and they may be getting some hang of the routines in there. If they're online, check with them first!

I will be keeping both my BBS and audio-mod status, hopefully I'll find some time on a slow sunday now and then to pop by and say "LAWL, HAI GAYZ" and do some modding. I start work on the 10'th of March, but up until then I've a big maths exam to attend to, plus shitload of other RL issues, so count me as AFK from now on.

Take care everyone! Latarrrgh!! <3<3<3

EDIT: At least I TRY to stay away and work+do my schoolwork.... DAMN YOU NEWGROUNDS FOR BEING ADDICTIVE >:(
sgrumf

It's my birthday.

Pic by ZENON, I think he've been stalking me... <_< >_>

EDIT;
It's not mah barfdaah anymoh. :'(

MAC8 - (feb-mar) Pillars Of Pico!
Submission thread with rules
Discussion thread
Finally a new MAC, this time created and managed by MaestroRage!

Underdog List
- If you're interested in finding "undiscovered" music right here on NG, the Underdog List is something for you!
Here you can both check out what artists have been (and still are?) underdogs, and post your own findings from the vast Audio Portal Wastelands!
Also, the guys in charge of the list (Rig, MaestroRage and New-Milkman) made a special account for the list alone, to make it easier to update the lists, keep track of things etc! be sure to read the simle rules set up if you wish to interact, and have fun discovering (old) New Music!!!

Continue The Song Game 2
- If you're an audio artist yourself, and just don't know what to do with them old projects that you never finnished up, be sure to check out the Continue The Song Game. This is the second version of the game, and this after the
first one was a big hit!
EDIT; The song is complete, and can be listened to here!

Keep yourself updated with audio related stuff by popping in and checking out Newgrounds Audio Forum now and then - The Heart of the Audio Portal! :)