In the short term

Not a lot has been happening since I posted last week. I'm on another show, which will remain unnamed for now. It's another 9-1-1 show, similar to The Dark Is Rising and Golden Compass from last year, and I'll only be on it for the next four-five weeks.

Sometime in the coming weeks I'll be at Gnomon to give a small presentation about the work we did for The Mummy. It will most likely be a rehash of the Siggraph booth presentation, but we may add on some more relevant bits depending on time constraints. I'm hoping that the other presenters that were available at Siggraph will also join me, but it all depends on show production.

My partner in crime and I will be headed over to the UCLA campus early in September to partake in a networking function for Amazon's AWS (Amazon Web Services, is that redundant?), where we'll be able to mingle with some start-up founders and bounce ideas off of each other. We're hoping it will be a great opportunity to see if we can use their services for our venture, and it's possible that we may meet some VCs that are interested in funding us. Of course I'll need to formally type up the business plan. Right now it's in a rough state that I should definitely get an NDA made and a plan written up properly. Maybe I'll do that this weekend, since I really don't want to fight with the kids and the lines and the crowd and the mess that will be this Labor Day weekend. And yes, before you ask, we did have to get an exemption written up from Digital Domain. These sorts of things are vital if you want to do any work outside of a company.. If I recall correctly, ILM and Sony Pictures Imageworks have the same sort of requirement. Anything you do outside work may end up being the property of the company unless you get an exemption that stipulates the work you do is outside the realm of visual effects, and won't effect the company's IP rights.

The iPhone has been out for some time now, and many of you are wondering, have I taken that step? Well, maybe you haven't been wondering, but I'll tell you anyway. I'm still using my dinky old Samsung e105 that's four years old. It has an antenna and no camera! How archaic is that. It still works though, but I'm wary of the battery, since it can only be on standby for about 3 days before it dies. To give you some idea, almost every artist that has a phone at the company, has an iPhone or iPhone 3G. I don't use my phone that much, it's mostly for emergencies, so spending 200 bucks plus a two year plan of at least 100 a month, eh... It's not so tempting. Maybe I'll upgrade to the Blackberry Bold or the Experia X1 when they come out, but do I really want to? I'm pretty easy to reach, be it via phone or email!

But all the above brings me to the next topic, needs versus wants. On the whole, All I need has been taken care of. Food and shelter. Everything else is what I deem a want. From cellphones, to a new motorcycle, to a plasma TV, to a new car, to whatever you desire. The work that I do in visual effects enables me to gain those material items in a timely manner. This enables me to narrow down my living expenses (especially living in LA!) and also save for a huge item in the future!

So what does Aruna want? Here's a list. The only way to get everything on that list is to work my butt off on my ventures, which I've occasionally mentioned on this blog.

• Buying a home.
• Buying a car.
• Learning to fly a plane.
• Learning to fly a helicopter.
• Learning to ride a motorcycle.
• Having a family.
• Becoming financially independent.

I've checked the digitalGypsy hit log, and I've just surpassed 300,000 page loads as of this week since I've been tracking them! Here's what it's been in the past..

Fancy! That's not too bad given the subject matter on this blog and the limited audience!

On the recreational front, I finished Braid and am pretty close to completing the achievements inGeometry Wars Retro Evolved 2. Braid is an excellent puzzle/platformer, and the game mechanics are pretty sweet. You can't die in Braid, and the puzzles will make you want more! Evolved 2 is just a very pretty shoot-em-up game that is a huge step up from Evolved. I like the XBL Arcade games, simply because I can pick up them up at any time and play.