“nothing nobody” – Drawing of Mine From Several Years Ago

This is a drawing from an older sketchbook of mine (from around 2003). I am in the process of sorting through my old sketchbooks and photographing the better entries. This entry I call ‘nothing nobody’ and as you can see it pictures a man against a night sky, not an uncommon theme for me. Check out these two similar drawings – Man and Night Sky and  Night Sky Blinds (the second image featured from that article).

"nothing nobody" by Ed Tajchman ©

Two Ink Drawings

These are two recent doodles of mine; ink drawings. Short and sweet and maybe a little bit messy but I like them.  There is something about white paper and black ink that I really like.

Top-hat Man by Ed T. © '08

For more of my work check out Modern Art Quotes and Ed’s Art Workshop.

Messy Doodle Faces by Ed T. © '08

McCain is the Elitist, NOT Obama

Seriously, are you kidding me with this stuff? Barack Obama is not the elitist in this campaign it is John McCain who is clearly the elitist. Check out this clip where McCain can’t remember (or does he even know) how many houses he owns?!

In fact John McCain’s net worth is – (as listed in senate disclosure records) between $15 million to $20 million. Compare that with Obama’s net worth – $1.1 million to $2.5 million, and I guarantee you Obama can tell you how many houses he owns off the top of his head. How can anybody seriously claim Obama is the elitist in this campaign, that is absurd. McCain is one of the biggest fattest cats in Washington, he is so out of touch. Take his gaffs from several weeks ago where he forgets Czech and Slovakia are two different countries (he did this several times).

Can you imagine a president making mistakes like this with the leaders of foreign nations present? We just can’t risk electing someone who is so clearly not only an elitist and out of touch with real needs, but someone who would be a foreign relations nightmare. And not to mention the fact that he is only a tool for the McCain family big-business ties. Vote for Barack Obama! The down to earth choice.

A Quick Digital Doodle: Spirit Face

My forte is not digital art, but I do like to mess around with photographs that I have taken and see what I can do with them in my digital photo lab. I would love to get a drawing tablet for my pc but until then the mouse actually doesn’t do half-bad for doodling. This image is a manipulated photograph with a digital doodle over it. I was Just screwin’ around kinda but I like it.

© '08 by Ed T.

NWN2: Mask of the Betrayer is Very Awesome

Okay I started Mask of the Betrayer, (the first expansion pack for Neverwinter Nights 2) forever ago but recently finally finished it. The schematics said something like 15 hours of game-play? More like 60 hours or maybe I am just a slow player. I do like to perform as many side quests as I possible can and can’t help but explore every inch of every space in the game if I can help it. The original campaign for NWN2 was much longer, but Mask of the Betrayer is an equal accomplishment.

Yodan fighting a demon, lunging at her awkwardly.(NWN2: Mask of the Betrayer).

It outshines the original campaign even in certain aspects. Such as – the game-play is much more difficult. You are a spirit-eater in this adventure, meaning you have to watch your spirit energy and replenish it by ‘devouring spirits’. If you don’t you get weak and die, suffer penalties, lose experience points, and if you do  you risk losing your grip on your ’self’. This alone makes the game much more challenging and makes it seem a little bit more real. The original campaign was criticized for the auto-resurrect function, but this spirit-eater aspect more than makes up for that. But then again I always thought it was such a hassle when someone dies to gather all their equipment up, and drag them to the closest temple to resurrect them. Especially if you need that character to finish your current quest, so I never minded the auto-resurrect aspect of NWN2.

The Skein dungeon is one of the most horrible and scary pc roleplaying experiences I have had yet to date, I couldn’t wait to get out of there, and then the encounter in dream-scapes with the slumbering coven – brilliant. Another aspect of MOTB that makes it great is the very open-ended game-play. You can go on any number of paths through the game based on a lot of different decisions. It is impossible to see or do it all in one play-through. (But after I finished it I read through all the other players’ experiences in the game at the NWN2 forums.)

I actually did take my original NWN2 campaign character all the way through to the end of MOTB. Great fun, great storyline, great action. Much more challenging battles than in the original campaign, many required using all your abilities, different spells loaded, different potions, different buffs, a few different times with different strategies to win. My only criticism is that the storyline from the original campaign gets lost and totally forgotten about. It would of been much cooler to have more integrated plot lines between the two.  If somehow your decisions and the way things ended in the OC, (original campaign) could be optionally loaded into the start of MOTB, that would of been killer. The companions of your character from the OC definitely deserved a role in the expansion. Overall Mask of the Betrayer is fantastic, it’s like the OC crossed with that great game Torment: Planescape. MOTB = 9 out 10 points.

McCain and his Campaign are Big-Oil and Big-Business Pawns

It’s no secret that big-business and big-oil ties are allover McCain, his campaign, and his family. Campaign decisions in recent weeks reflect the hold that those ties have on McCain. Sound familiar? Yup, McCain is just four more years of George Bush’s big-oil ties economics plan.
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McCain flip-flopped on offshore drilling, weeks after getting campaign contributions from oil and gas executives. In June he received more than $1 million in campaign contributions to be exact. The biggest contributor being oil-giant Hess, whose executives and family members gave $285,000. Oh and isn’t that a brilliant plan,… offshore drilling? Do you really believe that is the answer to all our prayers? The goal of renewable energy is not a pipedream, but it is if you vote for McCain. His refusal to look at real long term answers is again, four more years of George Bush’s “do nothing” energy plan.

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That’s why he pushed for a do-nothing gimmicky gas tax holiday, and that’s why he has repeatedly voted against incentives for alternatives to oil. We already wasted eight years with no real direction on what is the biggest issue of our time. At least Barack gets that offshore drilling is maybe only a small option on a much wider broad-sided approach to developing alternative energy. It’s not the answer to everything, despite McCain’s adoption of this idea has some kind of revolution. Offshore drilling pretty much sums up McCain’s entire economic plan.

McCain’s ties to big business is also why he refuses to vote for a windfall profits tax on oil companies. Now this really pisses me off and I’m sure it does you too. I’m all for the American dream of capitalism but why are oil companies getting RECORD profits month after month quarter after quarter with no end in sight? It’s called price gouging, and even if it’s on the up and up (what are we stupid?) there is still nothing wrong with a windfall profits tax. It’s not a tax on someone who barely made it last year, it’s a tax on companies who made BILLIONS, give me a break. Bill Gates finally learned that when you make billions, you give hundreds of millions of that to charity. Why can’t big-oil follow in that direction?

Let’s not forget his wife Cindy though. Her father founded the alcohol distributor Hensley. Which holds federal and state licenses to distribute beer, and regularly lobbies regulatory agencies on alcohol issues, often involving health and safety. Regularly opposing groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving, in their efforts to require every package of alcohol to contain a warning.

Cindy McCain is chairwoman of the company and controls roughly 68 percent of the privately held company stock. (With her children and McCain’s son, Andrew.) McCain’s son is in fact one of Hensley’s biggest executives. He and other executives have written letters to the U.S. Treasury Department, and given tens of thousands of dollars to a beer-industry political-action panel. Holding a seat on the board of the powerful National Beer Wholesalers Association, was part of the deal.

So far a total of five of John McCain’s advisors have quit his campaign due to their lobbyist ties. And we’re just getting started. There is an endless trail of international and national big business ties every where and every way you want to look at John McCain. If you want four years of unending support for everything related to big-business and nothing to do with the issues that you care about; the economy, the war in Iraq, a comprehensive energy plan, health care reform, etc.  Than by all means, vote for John McCain. But I’ll be voting for Barack Obama.

sources:

Seattle Times

ABC News

Washington Post

Examiner