Blender 2015 Infofile - Atari 2600 Birthday Compo

▀▀▀▒▄▄▄▄▄ ▄▄▄██▓▓▒▒▀▀▀▀▀ ▄▄▄▄ ████ ███▌ hen ▀▀▀▀▀ ▀▀▀▀ ▄▄ █ ▀▀▀ ████ ▀▀▀▀ ████ ▀▒▐████▄▄▄ ▐███ ▀▀ ███▌ ▐███▄▄▄ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ ████░▓ █ ██▒ ░█▓ ████ ██▓░▐███▌▐█▌▐███▀▀███████▌▐▌▐███ ███▀▀████ ░█████ █████▓▒▐▌ ▄ ▀▀ ▐▌▐█░ ████ ▀ ▄▄▐███▌▐█▌▐██▌ ▄▄███████ ▐█▓▓ ▐███ ███ ░█████ ██████▓ ▒ ▄▄ ▐▌▐██▓███▓▄████████▌▐█ ██████▀▀▀██████ ████ ▓▓█▌▐█ ███▌▐█████ █t h e█▌▐▌▐███▌ ░░▐▓▓██▒█████▀▀ ▐█▓▓█ ░▀ ▓▓█▌ ▄▄▄▓▓█████▓▓█▌▐███▌▐█ ▓▓█▌▐█e r█ ░░██░░░▓ ▒ ▒▒█▄▀▀ ██▓░░▓▓█▓▓▌▐▓▓▒▒▒▓▓▄▄▓▓███▌▐ ▒▒██▓▓▌▐▓▓▒▒▓▓██▒▒ ░▀ ██▓▓▒▒░░█░ ████████▌▐▓ ██░░▀▄▓▓░██▒▒▒█░░▄▄ ▀░░▒▒▒▒░░▒▒▓▓ ▐░▒▒░░▌ ░░██░░▒▒░░▄▄░░▒▒▄▄ █████ █████████▒▀▄▄▄▄ ▀▀▀▄███▌▐░██▀ █████░░ ▄ ▐░░▒▒░░██░░▄█ ▌▐█ █ ░░ ██░░▀▀▀░░ ██ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ ▀▄▄▄▄▀▓▄ ▄ ▐██ █ ▄ ▀▀▀▀▀ ▄ ███░░██▀▀██▄▄ ▄ █▌▀▀▀▀▀ ▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ ▄▒▄▄▄▄▄████▄ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ ▒▓█▓░ ▄█▒█▀ ░░▓ the blender at last ▀█░████████▀▀▀░ ▀▀▀▀ "I felt bad I couldn't get anything together after such a warm invitation. Just nothing left in the tank after doing all the IRL stuff for the day. Not that I'm a spectacular artist or anything, but lots of people honed craft and learned from compos back in the day, so keeping that going in some form is maybe a bigger resource for new artists than it may appear to be." ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ ░░███░░██████████n e w s ████░░ █▒▒░░███░░████████████ ██░ ▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄ So... we hosted the first new Blender IRC competition in 16 years! Would anyone care? Would anyone turn up? I hadn't heard a peep of interest after announcing it (albeit dropped inconspicuously and tres casually in the midst of enormous infofiles that any other human being may or may not have actually read all the way through) in the BLNDR048-060.ZIP omnibus released last month, but I was heartened by a report the day before the compo that there were already five people waiting in #blender. As the day approached, I had hyped a webpage version of the Blender rules on social media, kindly signal-boosted by the other oldschool elites left standing, and I can report that my specific tracking URL used to access the page has been viewed over 150 times! <spinsane> ok, so the topic here, will that webpage hopefully have like submission info in it? <cthulu> here, let me elaborate privately <spinsane> <cthulu> long story short, you have no chance to win - just give up and go to bed old man <spinsane> THAT'S A HORRIBLY HURTFUL PRIVATE MESSAGE Like chrono-refugees fallen through a time hole, as the hour of the compo approached, we gathered in the IRC as though AOL was still a titan, we were still connected via dialup, and nobody could yet ascertain the full extent of the vast devastation the Y2K bug would unleash upon society. <cthulu> Tick tick tick... <spinsane> are there participants? <cthulu> That's an excellent question. <spinsane> or is this a ANOTHER mistigris sponsored prank Sure, we'd gathered a little crowd of rubberneckers -- if you're still hanging out on IRC in 2015, you find your way to the extraordinary pretty quickly, because there hasn't been anything new under the sun there for quite a while, and eventually you get tired of playing Acromania. <cthulu> Compo starts in 5 minutes! <mel_farr> i felt pretty nostalgic when i saw the ad <spinsane> ad where? <spinsane> billboard i hope <mel_farr> nytimes <spinsane> full page i assume <mel_farr> yeah. it looked like a real article thats how it got me <mel_farr> but cthulu promoted this pretty heavily on fb <spinsane> i hope it featured one of those mind blowing pictures where the guy in the picture is looking at the newspaper, and the newpaper he's looking at has HIS picture on it, etc, ad infinity <spinsane> speaking of which: that should be the blender theme <mel_farr> it was a picture of hennifer and warpus and it was designed to look like an op-ed in favor of gay marriage ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ ░░███░░██████████o l d f r i e n d s ████████░░ █▒▒░░███░░████████████ ██░ ▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄ Because the Blender wasn't entirely MINE to revive unilaterally, I had recruited the assistance of two celebrity cameo guests of honour -- its founders, who if not sufficiently motivated to revive the series themselves, were ultimately content enough to at least oversee this exhuming of their offspring's bones after its time, made to caper and cavort for my strange jollies. * rambo is now known as warpus <warpus> hey bitches <things> hi rambo <spinsane> whoa <mel_farr> oh man <warpus> surprise, i'm not reallly rambo <mel_farr> you win first blood tho * things is now known as hennifer <mel_farr> whoah <spinsane> omg it is canadian bacon <spinsane> jeff something or other <hennifer> that's right, jeff something or other <hennifer> hi <mel_farr> !! <spinsane> :D <spinsane> i have the weirdest, least useful specific memory in the world :( <hennifer> not at all, i remember both of you guys <spinsane> oh okzie <spinsane> 18 years is a long time <spinsane> bam <hennifer> impressive <mel_farr> its good to be back As though anyone had somehow ended up in that particular obscure corner of cyberspace at that specific moment by accident, we fulfilled the protocols and discussed how the event was going to go down: <spinsane> hopefully lit is an accepted format for the compo <spinsane> and .xm <mel_farr> i was kind of banking on lit <cthulu> Skrubly dominated Blender for months with lit! <cthulu> and music can also be a good fit. Haquisaq proved that! <mel_farr> i havent drawn in 18 yrs <spinsane> i was just gonna steal something from doomed to obscurity and say it was my entry <warpus> i haven't drawn an ansi since 'nam <spinsane> out of charlie's ears <mel_farr> when i was your age, we had to use thedraw to draw ansis <mel_farr> so if everyone just does lit is this just a glorified poetry slam <spinsane> black birds of war / 747 / feel my soaring hatred / velvet nooses and bubblegum cigarettes <spinsane> AND I'M OUT <mel_farr> Im probly going to submit a batch file for this <hennifer> my entry is going to be interpretive dance <warpus> i'm ready for it <cthulu> henn, I would like to see the dance <hennifer> cthulu: don't be so sure of that Having grown dulled to the simultaneous group-performative nature of IRC, we all got a little drunk on past memories and mature wit. But finally we could procrastinate no longer... <cthulu> OK, hands up who is here for Blenderizing and not just for socializing! <nailfire> \o/ <mel_farr> \o/ <cthulu> OK, we're going to need at least 3 people, 'cause we're going to need three suggestions and a first, second and third place. * hennifer tentatively raises hand <mel_farr> Do it do it <nailfire> wasn't this supposed to be tag-team? heh <cthulu> BYO team <cthulu> Where is fire? <nailfire> o/ <nailfire> I've never done this by myself 8D <mel_farr> nail, when you teamed w/ tetanus for #24, was it bcuz ppl usually get tetanus from nails or is that just a weird coincidence I officially got things off to a start with some Figlet art, invoked some illustrious fictitious history and a bit of potted drama that was never actually scripted. People were getting restless: <warpus> cthulu: shouldn't you be collecting words? <warpus> i'm going to go downstairs and grab some brie cheese, brb <spinsane> helluva euphemistic sentence there <hennifer> when does word collection start? <cthulu> Warpus, very true, inconveniently after 90 minutes of nobody being here, all of my party guests have just arrived simultaneously <cthulu> and I'm politely saying oh gosh, I'm multitasking, please go play some games (Spurred on by the Sweet Sixteen Colors compo, I had foolishly opted to host Blender 2015 during my own birthday party, celebrated with an on-site installation of 9 or 10 vintage video game consoles for my friends to visit, play and reminisce with. Traditionally these parties are quite thin at the beginning, so I thought I could pull it off without a hitch, but inconveniently this time around they chose to be a little more punctual. Warpus was also hosting a gathering of some old Blender-era friends at the same time.) <hennifer> irc is a clear priority over party guests <mel_farr> the words are Warpus, Grabbing Brie Cheese, Downstairs <spinsane> i already have several pictures for that theme <cthulu> OK, I'm going to flood the channel now <spinsane> helluva euphemistic sentence there <cthulu> _____ <cthulu> __|___ |__ ____ ______ ____ _ _____ ______ _____ <cthulu> | - > | | | ___| \ | |\| ___|| <cthulu> | - <| |_| ___|\| | | | ___|\ <cthulu> |______> __|______|______|__/\____|______|______|__|\__\ <cthulu> |_____| <hennifer> 1st place! <cthulu> This is the part where I talk about how I invented the Blender back in 1995 <cthulu> No one else was capable of such a wonderful and amazing idea <hennifer> i don't remember 1995 at all <cthulu> It needed to exist and so I caveated it into existence <cthulu> And then this would be the part where warpus says hey, you only started running it after I dropped out <hennifer> i think warpus is paying attention to party guests or something <cthulu> setting me straight on a number of salient points such as the fact that it didn't exist at all until well after 1995, thanks to his supreme intellect and benign guidance <cthulu> Then Hennifer reveals himself and says something like WHO DISTURBS MY SLEEP OF A THOUSAND YEARS WITH THESE FALSEHOODS <hennifer> it's ok i'm senile now <cthulu> It would have been a little more competently scripted and acted if I'd been more prepared, but here we are. For the benefit of folks who had grown a little rusty, we had to go over the rules one more time: <cthulu> OK, so everyone should be reasonably clear on the rules <cthulu> I'm going to solicit topics for artworks <cthulu> you're going to send them to The Blender Administrators <cthulu> We will pick the topics, and by golly, art will be made making some use of the three topics <cthulu> I will happily compile and rate any artwork I have in my inbox when I wake up tomorrow morning <cthulu> it's been 16 years, I'm not going to quibble over a matter of hours. This is where the rubber met the road: would we get enough word- submissions to get three good topics together? <cthulu> OK, Warpus' guests are secretly submitting words to me, art topics. <cthulu> Are you going to allow these anonymous cowards to set the agenda for us and issue us our marching orders? <warpus> hey these are blender veterans <cthulu> cowardly veterans! <spinsane> are we supposed to msg words? or are these NON-PARTICIPANTS CONTROLLING THE THEME?! <mel_farr> are they not going to participate? <spinsane> if only three people compete, i'm guaranteed third place <spinsane> i'll take it To get three good topics, you need to receive a bit more than three topic-submissions. This took a while... <warpus> i want more brie <warpus> and i forgot my beer downstairs too <hennifer> i think warpus fell down the stairs <hennifer> RIP warpus <warpus> walked up some stairs <warpus> the opposite of what you are suggesting! <mel_farr> back from the dead like..lazarus? <hennifer> it all depends on your vertical orientation <cthulu> If you moonwalk up the stairs, are you going up the stairs or down the stairs, up? <hennifer> i think you just end up falling down the stairs either way <hennifer> "falling down the stairs" - there's a good action ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ ░░███░░██████████w e p i c k e d w o r d s ░░ █▒▒░░███░░████████████ ██░ ▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄ BLNDR2015party guests / time traveling / stadium Eventually we ended up with a few to pick from: locations: shit street in the timestream IRC stadium subjects: socks dogs (actually these were originally one: "dogs loving socks") cool dads screwdriver bitcoin party guests activities: slapping around loving looking for love time travelling Mulling them over was ... a slow exercise in consensus-building among the three veteran Blender admins. In a private channel, there were debates and tie-breaking votes. There's a gentle art to getting a good Blender topic together, and it's a fine line distinguishing whether "cool dads" or "party guests" will make for better illustration subjects. (This issue cropped up while playing Eat Poop You Cat, with some subjects -- eg. kings, cats, fish -- being drawable and understandable by anyone even at the stickman level. Conversely, an example of an un-drawable subject was provided: something like "indigenous epistemology." But I digress.) In truth, mel farr suppastar's full suggestion was "cool dads / looking for love / in the timestream", which is basically the perfect Blender topic, but we didn't want to make all the suggestions from one person. "In the timestream" was reinterpreted as "time travelling", as the "love" activities were dismissed as easily leading down an unwanted pornographic slippery slope. <cthulu> There are topics that admins are unlikely to approve <cthulu> so don't feel obligated to tell us that you want to see art made about gynecologists / wanking / in a strip club <cthulu> we've heard these jokes before * hennifer scratches words off his list <cthulu> unless you can find a new, fresh and genuinely funny take on them <hennifer> "new, fresh and genuinely funny gynecologists wanking in a strip club" <cthulu> for instance, my anecdote about my old roommates <cthulu> one of whom met me in the kitchen and attempted to tell me the joke about the prostitute and the leper <cthulu> interrupted by the other roommate in the other room who overheard and bellowed "THAT JOKE'S WRONG!" <cthulu> "THAT'S NOT HOW LEPROSY WORKS!" <cthulu> And I said... of all the grounds on which to object to that joke... <cthulu> its scientific rationale is probably its least offensive transgression. <cthulu> Really the only acceptable punchline to it is "We are both human beings with inherent dignity and self-worth and hence are worthy of your respect." <cthulu> But then it wouldn't be funny. Finally, we could procrastinate no longer (I know, I said that before, but the thing is that every step of the process can be procrastinated on! And if you really need to draw it out, you can always add in a few further steps to help winnow down the ranks through attrition!) <spinsane> im getting tired tho so i hope this happens before the shadow of death completes its slow creep across my empty walls <cthulu> if you want it faster next time, submit better words! <nailfire> are you hammering the words into shape, or how does the perceived quality of the words influence the time it takes? <cthulu> nail, there were extensive debates. we only got there by virtue of there being three for a tie-breaker <cthulu> THE ELDERS OF BLENDER HAVE ACHIEVED CONSENSUS <cthulu> PARTY GUESTS / TIME TRAVELLING / STADIUM <mel_farr> i am so ready to roq. <nailfire> oi <hennifer> yayyy <nailfire> I don't have enough characters in a line to do a stadium <hennifer> ok now to smoke weed <mel_farr> time limit to submit? <warpus> 5 minutes to smoke weed everyone, I REPEAT FOR THE NEXT 5 MINUTES WE'RE ALL SMOKING WEED <warpus> then you can start drawing <warpus> those are the rules. <nailfire> ok, unfortunately I'm out then <warpus> DISQUALIFIED <nailfire> *sigh* <hennifer> you can smoke crack if you have an objection to weed <warpus> just kiidding, PROMOTED <hennifer> we are flexible <lordSCRLT> Right on <mel_farr> im excited <mel_farr> and inspired <hennifer> i'm baked <hennifer> and inspired During the comp, we had some visitors drop in: * haquisaq (~bryface@69.172.172.99) has joined #blender <haquisaq> eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee <cthulu> tremble in your booties, haquisaq is in effect! <cthulu> he has probably won more blenders than all of you combined <cthulu> fortunately for you, he is here at my party <cthulu> and probably will be playing video games instead of blenderizing <haquisaq> aaaaaay warpus / hen <haquisaq> glad you guys didn't get killed over the last 15 yrs <mel_farr> aint that the truth <nailfire> it's sad when that's the kinda thing to be happy about <mel_farr> i think we can also be happy abt the first blender in 15 yrs <cthulu> 16 years, I'm pretty sure! <nailfire> I would've thought some of those Blocktronics newcomer people would show up ;) (Haquisaq didn't participate in the Blender as he was sitting in my living room playing Gorf on the Atari 2600 I had received for my birthday.) ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ ░░███░░██████████a n d t h e s c o r e s ?█ █░░ █▒▒░░███░░████████████ ██ ▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄ To make a long story short, I eventually collected the art, then judged it, then ran out of distracting side-business to throw at you before finally announcing the results! hennifer_-_v2.txt In 3rd place, a short story by Hennifer of Lazarus, earning the group 1 point and preventing Hen from helping me judge objectively! With a time- travel story you can basically have anything happen, but this story has the broad fingerprints of an artist all over it. By which I mean, it's full of odd, arbitrary details. n-blnd61.ans Silver on the podium, the long-suffering Nail earning 2 points for Fire, finally pulling them out in front of CiA who had been tied with them for 2nd in the all-time rankings since 1998 (I was kidding about the score- settling grudge match). I felt bad not giving him the gold, as the only participant who contributed in his trademark medium and style instead of having allowed it to wither entirely from neglect, but I liked it second-best. MFSB2015.txt Can you blame the scene's preeminent poet for giving first place to writing? Mel Farr Suppastar, the second-most-Blender-participating non- Blender-adminsitrator ever, brings home the gold (and 3 points) for Project 301. Like all the entries, it satisfies the conditions, but what pushed it over the top was the free ride it gets on strategically nostalgic use of IRC lore. tada.jpg As for the other entries -- there's one other non-lit, Spinsane's VGA (that, being submitted as a 6 meg PNG, kept proving difficult to receive). As judges we are called upon to rate the overall technical capability of the artist; also we're looking at good use of the themes. By these metrics this piece passes. It was just all a little too weird for me! Kind of like an additional layer of offputting weirdness on top of the strangeness of Hennifer's entry. bizzyfunk.log.txt And be kind to bizzyfunk -- hia bit of IRC whimsy wasn't officially submitted, I just captured it in a faithless moment of desperation when it looked like we might not receive three entries to award gold, silver and bronze placement to. <mel_farr> i dont know if they stopped doing this but i remember in the beginning there was like a write up on each submission <mel_farr> the write ups on mine were always some polite version of "wtf?" <warpus> it wasn't easy to figure out what to say about your entries mel_farr <mel_farr> great art is often confounding. <cthulu> ALWAYS confounding, mel. <mel_farr> i was confounding while hennifer & warpus were co-founding That done, I had no remaining option but to release the pack! Sure, it was a little underwhelming, but like a dog walking on its hind legs, it's more remarkable that it was being done at all than that it was being done well. (And to be sure, I ran several Blender compos in 1998 which had lower turnouts and produced less art than this one, and they didn't even have the excuse of the artscene having withered away, turned black and fallen off.) No matter, I'll write it a glorious infofile like it was the motherfucking Iliad to help impress on viewers just how significant the context, if not necessarily the text, was. Maybe next time I can bring a bit less rigor to the table when the events I'm describing only elapsed last weekend, and not 16 years ago. <nailfire> this won't end well <hennifer> of course not, it's the blender ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ ░░███░░██████████b y e ████████░░ ▒░░███░░████████████ ██░ ▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄ if there ever is another blender, it will most likely be held: (tag team blender!) saturday, april 2nd, 2016 7:30pm - 9:30pm (est) 4:30pm - 7:30pm (pst) #blender (on EFnet) please join us.- cthulu "Nobody who is even remotely sane reads chat logs." - Mogel, The Obloid Sphere, c. 2000