1958 Disneyland Map

My newest purchase: A 1958 Disneyland "B" map. This is the 2nd Disneyland map poster made, which you can tell because of the inclusion of the Matterhorn, Monorail, and Submarines. Also, in the "A" map, the water in the Jungle Cruise is green. I was pretty excited about this purchase, because the map was never folded, as the vast majority of these maps were (even the one in the picture), it was rolled. I got a pretty good deal on it, and since there were no creases, I couldn't pass it up.

Some things to note on this map:

• Edison Square and Liberty Street: Two off-shoots of Main Street that never came to be.
• New Orleans Square: The size and scope of it seen here pales in comparison of the final product.
• Wax Museum: This later went on to become Pirates of the Caribbean
• Haunted House: Which was later renamed "Haunted Mansion." Not the location, next to the Jungle Cruise.
• Holidayland: The tent located outside the berm. A short lived idea that was never very popular.

All in all, the map is very cool. It is a very neat history lesson, especially since you can see some projects that WED had planned that nver came to fruition.

For more info on vintage Disneyland maps, check out this awesome website: Disneyland Maps

Haunted Mansion

Retrotastic

Crocco.net 2.0 *beta

So I've been meaning to re-do my website crocco.net for awhile now. The current version of my site is pretty plain and just uses html/css. And since Flash is my forte, I figured it's about time to update. It's been hard to get motivated, since I use Flash all day at work and the last thing I want to do is come home and open Flash, so it's been taking quite a bit longer than I would like. However, I finally have a preview of what the new design is. Well, more of an idea that a preview. I haven't designed what I want the interface to be, but I did get the back-end idea down. The idea is that my little robot character will be the guide to my site. You open my page, he peeks around the corner, notices you there, and runs off. He then rummages off screen and comes back with some note cards. He flips through them and when he finds the right one, he pulls it out, holds it up, and it's my website. Right now, I justed used a screen shot of my current site, but it was more of an exercise to see if my idea was feasible. The robot was made in 3D Studio Max, cel shaded, and exported as vector. I like how it has turned out so far. Let me know what you think, check it out!

Crocco.net 2.0 *beta

Crocco (crater)

From Wikipedia:

"Crocco is a lunar crater that is located on the far side of the Moon from the Earth. It is located to the northeast of the huge Planck walled plain, and northwest of the equally huge Poincaré walled plain. Just to the north, within one crater diameter, is the Koch crater.

This is a nearly circular crater formation whose eastern rim has been partly overlain by the satellite crater 'Crocco G'. The rim has received some erosion, but it retains a well-defined edge. A small craterlet lies across the north-northeast rim. Just to the west-southwest of Crocco, nearly attached to the rim, is the satellite crater 'Crocco R'.

The northwestern half of the interior floor is level and almost featureless; displaying the appearance of having been resurfaced by lava. The opposite half of the floor displays some irregularities, including the rim of a small crater that has been almost completely submerged by the lava flow. This crater has a gap in the north rim, and forms a bay on the interior floor of Crocco. A ridge runs from the western rim of this small crater to the southwest inner wall of Crocco."

Crocco (crater)

Comic-Con 2007

IMG_1913

Comic-Con was last weekend, and it was crazy! I'll post more of it later, but for now, check out my pics on my flickr page:
http://flickr.com/photos/steampirate/

I Can Fly Twice As High

My favorite opening to Reading Rainbow growing up. Why does Ben Franklin have 3 boats on a string???

Scary

This is by far the most frightening image I have ever seen.

Dramatic Look

I can watch this all day.

Surf's Up Directors Speak

Over at Animated Views, there's a cool interview with the directors of Surf's Up, Chris Buck and Ash Brannon. The best part of the interview is where they talk about how the other penguin movies affected their movie, namely March of the Penguins and Happy Feet. Here's an excerpt:

When we started Surf’s Up, we had no idea about the other movies. I know people find that hard to believe. But even though the animation industry is a small thing, we don’t always know what everyone is doing.

Of course, March of the Penguins is live-action and a documentary. Happy Feet – you know, I don’t even know the genesis of that. But it may have started as live-action – sort of a Babe-like thing that George Miller was doing. Of course, George Miller runs in different circles in the animation world. So we didn’t really know about Happy Feet until probably we were a couple of years into our production.

We had already built models, and our story was already set, at least the basics of it. It wasn’t like we could just say, ‘Oh, we’ve got to change the animals, because someone else is doing something with penguins!’ It was a matter of, ‘Well, we’ll just run our course, and hopefully there’ll all very different movies.’ A good thing is that people like penguins!

Go check out the entire interview at Animated-Views.com

Behind the Scenes of Surf's Up

Over at AWN.com they have a cool new behind-the-scenes look at Surf's Up, the cool new movie by Sony Pictures Animation! It has some sweet production artwork, so go check it out! Here's a brief excerpt from the article:

"It's important to understand that, as with most animated films, nothing you see in Surf's Up actually exists. Everything, from vast landscapes to the most minute detail, had to be conceived, designed, and created from scratch: characters, locations, sets, props, weather, lighting and, of course, the waves. It was the job of the visual development department to "design" the film. At any given time, we had a crew of about 10 highly talented artists, working for the better part of three years. Of course, we also worked in tandem with the other production departments (story, look development, vfx, modeling, animation, texturing, matte painting and lighting) to keep up with the huge amount of designs necessary to feed the production pipeline. Once everything was designed, it was up to the Imageworks team lead by digital supervisor Rob Bredow to figure out how to bring it all to life. When embarking on the design for an animated film, one of the first questions we ask ourselves is: What is the "look of the film"? There are a lot of options: cartoony, realistic, stylized, primitive, retro, graphic, cutesy, high tech, wacky, dimensional, flat, etc."

Sony Pictures Animation and AWN Present SURF'S UP

Shaun the Sheep

First introduced by Aardman Studios in the film "A Close Shave," Shaun the Sheep now stars in his own series of short cartoons!! Absolutely brilliant!

You Are a Pirate

Yar har, fiddle dee dee.

Where the Magic Happens

Here's a photo of where the magic happens: My desk.

A: Disneyland Fronteirland Pluto
B: Disneyland 50th Mouse Ears
C: Disneyland Pins
D: Captain Jack Sparrow
E: Band Concert Mickey Mouse
F: Back to the Future slot car
G: Indiana Jones hat
H: Pirate coaster
I: Dinosaur's Attack! trading cards
J: Captain EO pin
K: Back to the Future 2 mousepad
L: Lego Bionicle
M: iPod
N: Xbox 360 controller (yup, it works on my pc)
O: He-Man Stratos, got him at a yard sale for $4!

Book Review: Bambi Sketchbook

This review covers Walt Disney's Bambi: The Sketchbook series. This is the first of the "Sketchbook Series" of books put out by Disney and Hyperion, and was first published in 1997. It is on the relatively short side, clocking in on a whopping 88 pages.

The book itself is done in a sketchbook format (who would have guessed?) covering various sketches of Bambi, Thumper, Friend Owl, and all the characters. It is done in a neat sepia tone, to give it an aged look. The sketches in this book are incredible, many of which are from the private collections of two of the "9 Old Men," Frank Thomas, and Ollie Johnston and have never been seen by the general public before. Other notable contributors found on the pages are Marc Davis, Milt Kahl, Eric Larson and one of the real highlights of this book, Tyrus Wong. Sadly not as recognized as the rest of the contributors, Tyrus Wong was responsible for honing the colors and look of the forest of Bambi, and his paintings here are reproduced at 1:1 scale in full color, each measuring about 5 inches across. Tyrus Wong was born in 1910 in Guangzhou, China. He worked at Disney from 1938-1941, and, after leaving due to the animators strike, later worked at Warner Brothers until 1968.

Overall, this book is a great start to the Sketchbook Series. While not very long in terms of page number, the quality of the reproduction of the sketches and paintings more than makes up for it. The art behind Bambi is some of the best done for an animated film, and sadly, I feel Bambi has gone overlooked as one of the best animated classics of the Golden Age. Bambi: The Sketchbook Series is an excellent book, and great for lovers of Bambi, animation, or art in general. Sadly, it is now out of print, but can be purchased through Half.com, Amazon, or eBay for around $30, which is what it retailed for. There also is a "special edition" of this book, signed by Frank 'n Ollie and coming in a large slipcase. Expect to pay over $100 for this version.




4 Cogs out of 5

Captain EeyOre

According to Jim Hill Media, this was made by Disneyland employees, supposedly they did a movie each year.

Updating...

I'm currently going through all my old MySpace blogs and putting them here, to have them all in one spot. So if you see posts pop up from 2005 or 2006, don't worry :)

Hello And Welcome

Hello there. This is my first post, just seeing if this thing works!

Hoist the Colors

Yo, ho, haul together,
hoist the Colors high.
Heave ho,
thieves and beggars,
never shall we die.

The king and his men
stole the queen from her bed
and bound her in her Bones.
The seas be ours
and by the powers
where we will we'll roam.

Yo, ho, haul together,
hoist the Colors high.
Heave ho, thieves and beggars,
never say we die.

Some men have died
and some are alive
and others sail on the sea
– with the keys to the cage...
and the Devil to pay
we lay to Fiddler's Green!

The bell has been raised
from it's watery grave...
Do you hear it's sepulchral tone?
We are a call to all,
pay head the squall
and turn your sail toward home!

Yo, ho, haul together,
hoist the Colors high...
Heave ho, thieves and beggars,
never say we die.

Han Solo

Click the image to take the test!

Blogs + update

So I just spent the last hour or so reading through my old blogs. It's crazy I've been on myspace a little over 2 years now. You can really see my ups and downs, since I'll usually write when I'm really sad or really happy. It's almost like reading something somebody else wrote. I started blogging right before I graduated and probably wrote every month or so. Blogging is a weird thing, at least for me. I like to talk about whats going on, but I don't want to be too specific because you never know who reads these things. It's like keeping a personal journal that you know someone else would read.

Updates in the life of the Nick. Umm, things are going pretty great. I still love my apartment, it definitely feels like home. And I hate to say it, it feels even more like home than "home" back in Sacramento. My parents are preparing to sell the house I grew up in over the next few months, so for quite sometime now, my room as been dismantled. All it really has in it is my bed. They also changed a lot of stuff in the other rooms, so it's not really the house I remember anymore. I'm not even comfortable in my own bed, and when I visited during Easter, I actually was looking forward to coming back, and I felt kinda guilty for that. Mentally I guess I have moved on.

On a lighter note, I got Guitar Hero II for Xbox 360. It's super fun, but if I play too long I'll get into a weird zone and my fingers will move without me thinking about it. I'm pretty sure the game hypnotizes me. It tells me to burn things. So all in all, fun game :)

Letssss seee, what else.... I dunno if I mentioned it but my computer's hard drive crashed a few weeks ago, so I had to get a new one. Suckage. I also got Vista though, and it is pretty rad in a far out way. It's essentially a prettied up version on XP, but hey, that ain't a bad thing.

My parents finally got an iMac, their first Apple computer. It really makes me want to get a MacBook or a MacBook Pro. The Pro's are so neat, but just so dang expensive. I think when the next update on them comes out I'm going to bite the bullet and get it :)

I'm itchin' to have another party soon. Let me know if you guys have any suggestions. Perhaps a theme party? I've been wanting to have a 80's party for quite a while now. You know, dress in neon colors, headbands, big hair, watch the Goonies, karaoke to Vanilla Ice, you get the picture. Thoughts? Anyone even reading this thing?

Oh, and to all you people out there in the videoscope, you better have started reading Marley & Me by now. Remember, I'm like a chamillion. Yeah. And I came to the fork in the road. And I took the bridge and ended up on the right side. Elizabeth went left and I went right. I said "follow me Elizabeth" because I'm going straight to the top. The stars. One shining star in the night. That shines brighter than all the rest. And the beat goes on. No more questions.

Marley and Me

I just finished reading Marley and Me last night. My god. It is an excellent book, and may very well be one of the best books I have ever read. I think it is one of those books where either you love it or hate it, no in between. If you have ever owned a dog, especially a larger dog, it is a must read. I have read many a book in my time, but none has effected me like this book did. I mean, usually when you finish a book, you may think about it for a bit and then move on to the next thing. I can't stop thinking about this book. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that the dog I grew up with was a big Golden Retriever (Marley is a lab) so I can really really relate. Do yourself a favor and please please read it. Heck, you can even borrow my copy, you need to read this book. Please.

This blog entry is dedicated to my dog Gruffy. He was the best. The absolute tops.

What a lovely day...

CAUTION!

Things are awesome

This is gonna be a long blog, so sit back, relax, and enjoy.

For the last 2 weeks I've been in an insanely good mood, but I couldn't figure out why. I think I finally figured it out.

The last 3 months have been pretty shitty.

I was pretty depressed, but didn't really realize it.

Since Christmas, all I have been doing is moving. I didn't really have a place I could call my own. I don't even consider Sacramento my home anymore. My room isn't really my room anymore. All that's in it is a bed. All the posters and toys have been long put away. Pretty depressing.

So as soon as I got back from Christmas, I had to start packing to move. I really did grow to hate that little studio apartment I was in. I could hear the person to my left cough all night, I knew when the person to my right had a fight with their boyfriend (much to my joy) and I knew that I wasn't allowed to listen to music at 3pm on a Sunday because it annoyed the person below me. Oh, and I figured out that weird rustling above me was squirrels on my roof, not rats. Pretty depressing.

Flash forward a few weeks. Everything is packed. I'm feeling pretty shitty, but I'm looking forward to moving into my friend's place. I see my room, it's pretty damn small, but whatever. I can manage. So I start moving my stuff over little by little, things are looking okay. And well, if you're reading this, you know the rest. Pretty depressing.

Another few weeks go by, I'm finally in my new new place. It seems pretty cool. Takes a while to finally get settled in, but I finally do. I hang all my pictures up, decorate it all how I want it, but still, I'm in a funk.

Then I decided to hold a party March 17. It was a pretty good turnout. I think everyone had a blast, I know I sure did. That little party got me out of my funk.

Now's the part of the blog where I'll get a bit sappy. Avert your eyes if you must.

It's been hard living down here in LA. I mean, I know I like it better than Sacramento, it's new and exciting. But I have no family or anything out here, and being an only child makes it harder too. So all I really have out here are my friends. Now, I'm the type of guy who doesn't have hundreds of hundreds of friends. Sure, I know a lot of people, but I don't really consider them "friends"
per se, more like acquaintances. And then coming down to a school hundreds of miles away where I knew absolutely nobody was hard. Long story short, the group of friends I made in school mean the world to me, and after graduating, I guess I've just felt like I was floating. Didn't really have a place to go, kept on moving, changing jobs, etc... Nowhere to call home.

Ready for it? I warned you. There's still time to turn back.

I think that's what changed on March 17. Finally, I think it hit me. This is my home now. My friends are my family. I have no idea why it took me so long to realize it. I know that they'll always have my back, and I hope they know that I'll always have theirs. Just having everyone over at my new place, all having fun, no cares in the world, that's what it's all about.

So yeah, things are awesome. Things are fuckin' awesome god damn it. And I'm fuckin' home.

Books are awesome

I just started reading this awesome book. Check it out:

Wizards are awesome

This post has nothing to do with wizards (though they are pretty fuckin' awesome). I've just been in a really good mood for the last few days. Here's a picture I photoshopped a long while back:



And remember, no matter what happens, somebody will find a way to take it too seriously.

Some place to call home.

Finally I have found some place to call home. I do believe a party will be in order. Details to come.

Guess What! I'm moving again!

Guess what! I'm moving again! I gotta find a new place in 30days, so if you know of any or need a room-mate, let me know. Get a hold of me if you want the scoop.

I Have Moved!

I all done moving!! It feels great. For those of you who don't know (who even reads this blog that wouldn't know..) I moved from my little tiny 3rd Floor Studio Apartment in Culver City to an awesome HOUSE in Venice! It's pretty flippin sweet. It's got a huge backyard, tons of Wii space, and best of all, PARKING UP THE WAZOO! So yes, I'm stoked.

I love moving, it's a great excuse to go through all your crap, find stuff you thought was lost, and get rid of stuff you don't need. It's also a great way to realize you have too much stuff The idea of moving, getting a fresh start, setting up your room in a new better way is great, but it's the physical act of moving that sucks! It took me over 2 weeks to move everything little by little. It was nucking futs. But now the hard part is done, and the fun part of arranging everything, feng shui, all that shit.

Once we're both moved in and settled, we're gonna throw a huge housewarming party, and if you're reading this, you're invited! More details to follow shortly, I'm thinking toward the end of the month. MOVED!

I'm Moving (again)!

Well, it's been a while without a new update, so I figure I'll throw one up. So yeah, I'm moving again! I'm pretty excited. I'm moving into a house (yes, an actual house!) with my friend Rob. It's in Venice, so it's not too far away. It's really nice too! I have my own room, we have a good sized living room, a washer/dryer (!!) and a really nice backyard. Also, perhaps bext of all, there's parking!!!! Tons of parking! Street parking, driveway parking, you name it, we got it! So I'm pretty stoked :) My lease is up here January 31, so I'll be all moved over by then. Exciting times!

Here's a funny thing that happened to me today. I got in the mail 2 backissues of E-Ticket Magazine, a Disneyland magazine. I got an issue talking about the Submarine Voyage, and one about Marc Davis' pirate sketches. They both also have little features about the Haunted Mansion, and one issue even showcases the Hatbox Ghost!! So I was having lunch at Denny's, reading my magazines, thinking how cool they are. I leave, go to my car, put my magazines back in the envelope the came in, put them on the room of my car when I open the door, get in, and drive off. I'm almost home when I realize, "OH SHIT!! I left my magazines on the roof of the car!!" So I pull in a gas station, hoping to God they are still there (they're not) or they fell in my bed (nope) and I turn around and re-trace my steps. I get all the way back to Denny's and low and behold, lying in the middle of the road, my envelope. With a giant car tire track down the middle. I drive up to them, open my door, grab them. They're still fine :)