kazootaloo

The last Historian, Chapter two.

2008-09-08T20:53:00.001+10:00

He had been wondering up these stairs for, it seemed, forever.
He checked his pocket-watch and noted the time: 87,714 Hours and 29 Minutes.
Although he had read that long ago there were clocks and watches that only told the time of day, the constant darkness of the sphere and its endless halls and corridors knew no division of time. It was over 11 years ago that he had made this watch and it had made sense at the time to record time as it is rather than some outdated tradition that was all but useless.
The clock had progressed just under 6 hours since he had last looked at it and he glanced up the stairs.
Still no end in sight.
He sat down on a stair and took out a ration bar form his pack. Looking down he could no longer see the bottom of the stairs. If he didn’t reach the top of the stairs within the next month then he would run out of food and die alone, beyond the reach of any living soul, having faded into the long list of others who failed to reach the upper levels let alone the surface.
This thought alone served to empower him further and after a couple more bites from the ration bar, he stowed the foodstuff and proceeded to stride up the staircase towards a destination that he could not see.

His watch now read 88,096 Hours and 12 Minutes.
After a grueling journey up the stairs, he took the opportunity to lie on flat ground and even closed his eyes a bit, but he could not go to sleep. He had too much adrenalin flowing through him to be able to sleep now. To his knowledge, only three people had ever been this far up and survived. There were bound to have been more but none that had gone again down to the lower levels to talk about it.
Once his nerves had calmed down a bit, he got to his feet and scouted the area. It seemed that at the top of these stairs had once been a pair of blast doors leading off in opposite directions. One of those doors had been conveniently pried open some time in the past however judging by the damage done the the heavy steel doors in the process of opening them, whatever had done it was definitely not human.
Through the open blast door was an area full of glass windows that had yellow and black stripes painted around the edges. Behind these windows were survival kits designed for humans and although most of them had been smashed and raided in the past, some were still intact.
After stocking up on supplies in what he had surmised to be an evacuation room, he had ventured out to find an entire subterranean city that had been completely abandoned. Most of the bright electric lighting was still functioning and he travelled up through the cities vast courtyards and plaza's looking for signs of recent habitation.
He found none.
He did however, find extensive evidence that showed that the city had once been a historian city and there were massive, absolutely massive, libraries filled to the brim with books. These books like most books in historian cities, abandoned or not, were recordings of history. In one such library, he found a book that recorded history from as much as a thousand years before the corruption. What surprised most though was that unlike most libraries on lower levels, the recording of history had stopped with the corruption.
It was as though the people of this city had wither evacuated the city immediately after the corruption or they had stayed and abandoned their task, no longer feeling obligated to being a backup for a system that they could not restore.
eventually after spending three days in the city and experiencing the comfort of a bed and a hot shower for the first time in months, he made his way to the upper limits of the city and found a long, brightly lit corridor that led off towards a series of vast open halls, supported by gargantuan pillars. These halls were completely barren of not only signs of life but any distinguishing features at all. They were simply empty space.
It took him almost a week to get past these halls and he was greatly relieved to have some relief from the temptation of returning to the city and seeking another way. In his heart he knew that this was the only way up however the great empty halls were indistinguishable from each other and they seemed like they would simply go on forever. This was not the first time that he had experienced such obstacles in his journey. Like the stairs which had led up from the previous level, the various corridors and pathways that allowed humans travel throughout the sphere when the automated systems were not working were vast as though the machines that had built them had no notion of distance in the way humans measured. Since the corruption had more or less stopped all of the automated and transport systems used by the historians, all travel that was done by humans now was done on foot.
Only once had he witnessed travel done by vehicle and that vehicle had been pieced together from several salvaged automated transports that no longer worked. unfortunately, such transport were more or less useless in navigating the endless stairwells almost sheer surfaces that were frequently the only way to progress upwards.
The sphere had not been designed to accommodate ‘manual’ travel. It had also not been designed for the kind of total automation failure that had occurred when the corruption struck.
The lone traveller was just grateful that some of the basic systems like lighting and airflow control had survived. Without such systems humans would not be able to survive within the sphere let along attempt to reach the surface.
He looked at the way forward. It was essentially nothing but a thin walkway that ran parallel to a track of some kind that had probably belonged to an automated transport before the corruption.
So much for the base system working. The tunnel in which both the tracks and the walkway disappeared into was pitch black. In all likelihood, the tunnel had never been lit in the first place but that didn’t stop it being frustrating.
Reaching into his pack, he drew out a long short tube that when twisted, began to glow brightly. Holding the glow-stick in front oh him he ventured into the tunnel and found it to be windy and quite long. Twice he stopped for meals and once to sleep before he reached the end of the tunnel.
What awaited him was a breathtaking sight.
The tracks and the accompanying walkway continued on after the tunnel over an abyss. Running through the centre of a space two hundred metres wide, the tracks were unsupported over a drop that disappeared into darkness despite the bright lighting running parallel to the tracks. Turning off his glow-stick and stowing it back in his pack, he gazed over the walkway in front of him and sighed. Not only was the end of the tracks lost in the distance, there was also no railing for the walkway. If his experiences were correct in these matters, and they most usually were, if he were to fall then it would be a very long time before he hit the bottom.
setting his jaw, he ventured out onto the walkway and began another seemingly endless trek across another vast and characterless stretch of his journey.

naztek

Quote of the day: "Onto matters of life and love: Life's boring and what's love?"

Another Concept

2008-08-25T21:26:00.001+10:00

Pretext:
Welcome to the future
A future in which technology overtook humanity as the dominant race on earth and set about doing things their own way. Out of respect for their creators the machines did not destroy humanity but instead spread humanity out to the corners of the galaxy, sending most out in gargantuan stasis ships each supporting millions of people and controlled by advanced AI’s. These ships would seek out planets suitable for habitation and terraform them before releasing their human cargo from their slumber.
Meanwhile the machines back on earth set about dismantling the cities and the destruction wrought by mankind and went below the surface, converting much of the planets core into an enormous structure for the continuation and development of machine-kind. Those humans who remained on earth co-existed with the machines in small communities inside the machine city underground. these humans were given the task of observation recording history in non-digital means. This machine city eventually enveloped the entire planet drawing energy from the heat at the planets core and advancing as a planet sized network that advanced far beyond anything humans could imagine.
It started by accident, as most things of this nature do, when a section of the network located deep under the landmass that had once been south America. Though difficult to describe, it was essentially a corruption. A virus. The virus spread quickly and within days the entire ‘sphere’, as the historians had begun to call the planet-machine, was dead. Not in the human sense that it was gone beyond life as the machines were never alive in the human sense of the word. However the “operating system” of the network had become corrupted beyond repair and there was no entity within light years that was even capable of restarting it.
A long time has passed since the corruption and though parts of the Sphere still function, base systems like auxiliary power and cooling, the AI which the Sphere’s systems are meant to support is still offline. The historians scrape a living in the depths of the Sphere, having long since run out of material to record history on and unable to make it the unmeasurable distance to the surface without the aid of the now dead Sphere.
And yet, despite the seeming impossible task that lay before him, a single man tries to make his way to the surface. Undaunted by the task which so many before him have failed, he ascends through the behemoth landscape of stone and steel and forgotten wonders.
His seemingly endless journey brings him into contact with the scattered remnants of the former historians, the dangerous machinations of technology left to its own accord for an age but with no direction and the physical manifestations of the Virus, which craves further destruction and mayhem.
Such is the tale of the last Historian.

Til next time...

naztek

Quote of the day: "Maybe playing strip poker against the naked robot wasn't the best idea."

Onwards...

2008-07-19T00:08:00.003+10:00

So it turns out that this thing still exists... Which begs the question: Why Haven't I been writing lately?
I'm sure there's an answer.

So the last big concept (please don't make me explain it all over again, just go back and read the first few post's) that has been going through my mind is this whole "immortal" thing. I'm fascinated by the concept of an immortal, not so much as "immortality" but as one or a few of special individuals that either started off or became impervious to death. Now if you could get your head round that sentence then the rest of this should be easy.
Now I'm not sure why this whole immortal thing features so large in many of my concepts. It's not that I'm afraid of death (lets face it, its gunna happen. Am I going to cry because the sun's coming up tomorrow... maybe but thats because of much more deep-seated mental trauma. Where was I?) I think the whole fascination that I have with lasting forever is curiosity. I mean, look at the progress that has happened in the last two milenia alone. Now who wouldn't want to know how its going to turn out in a hundred years let alone another thousand.
But am I going to be alive to see that? No.
But what if I could. It should be noted that all the immortals, well most, in my concepts function mostly as observers. Sure they all could take on whole armies and win but really. If you can't die and can't be killed then how could an army of any size win?
When I stop to think about it all I start to get really curious about the mechanics of it all. If your immortal, do you still need to eat? Do you still need to sleep? What happens when your placed in harm? Does your skin just repel anything harmful and if so where is the boundry? (This is also where the issue of intimacy comes up too but we won't go into that here.) And the big question that I always land on is: What happens to a persons humanity, or soul, when you live to see whole generations grow up and die while you remain unaffected by the ravages of time.
I reckon that no matter how hard you try, a person would end up as cold as ice after a long enough period.
This, believe it or not, is my regular thought pattern. Not always about immortality mind you but never the less, I still like to think things out before I let them drift into the abyss that is my memory.
As of late, I don't seem to be able to turn it all off. It's a major problem for me because its keeping me up, interrupting my sleep and just wearing me out. I'm hoping for a trip out to my fathers place in the country to give me some space to slow down but it looks like the weather is going to keep me form going anywhere. The disadvantages of riding a scooter become apparent.
I's forgotten how helpful it is to let it all out here, even if the only people that read this blog are my father and the occasional kid looking for a porn site (Oh come on, you think that they don't?) Mind you I only have Myself to blame for that naming my blog after the first random word I could think of.
Kazootaloo... What was I thinking...
Til next time...

naztek

Quote of the day: "For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks."

Bioshock the Movie?

2008-05-10T10:16:00.003+10:00

Now I'm no hardcore gamer and to tell the truth, I haven't even played Bioshock yet (not having a PC powerful enough and not owning an Xbox) but when I heard that they were making a bioshock movie, I felt pretty excited.

Bioshock: the movie

When I first saw the trailers to this game I thought that it would be big and frankly I have been a bit disappointed that the game never became a cult classic game like the Half-life, Halo or Metal gear solid games were. I'm hoping that this movie will at least make up for the shortfall here.

I have never really been an avid movie fan having grown up as the "bookworm", never to be seen without a book that could double as a weapon. I also used to grumble whenever there was an adaptation made from... well pretty much everything. I still am unsatisfied that any book can be adapted into a movie properly and no such adaptation has ever done the source book justice. I have however noticed that the same does not necessarily apply for comic books (or graphic novels.

Though I was never a big comic reader (I read manga instead), I have noticed that the movies that have been made from comics have been decent enough movies. Both the spider-man movies and the X-men movies proved that you could successfully transform a comic into a movie and with marvel studios first release: Iron Man, they have well and truly made me a move fan.

Well thats my rant for the week. My new iMac got shipped from apple on friday so sometime next week I will go offline for a day or two while I transfer all my crap from my current PC. Afterwards I will probably get back into writing again as I will no longer have a copy of Photoshop and my scanners broken.

Til next time...

naztek

Quote of the day: "not all that glitters is gold"

Why am I so Tired?

2008-05-01T16:20:00.003+10:00

No seriously, this isn't some cryptic title. I have been getting more sleep than usual lately yet I'm feeling almost constantly tired. As fascinating as my exhaustion is, I'm sure that you don't want to hear me ramble on about it.

Instead, I have had absolutely no motivation to write at all. Instead I have been drawing a lot. Most of my drawings are wiped before I'm finished but I do it anyway so that I can get more practice and believe it or not, I think that the excessive practice has actually gone some way to improving my drawing skills. Having a graphics tablet has gone no small part of the way to helping me get there either.

Its odd you know, since I started working, I haven't developed my concepts as quickly and they have been taking longer to fade. I'n not sure why but it seems as though being at work limits my imagination. I have no problem daydreaming when I'm not at work but While I am...

And don't get me wrong, I'm not really that diligent a worker, I just can't really put my finger on it.

It might very well be that I don't have to use my imagination when I'm surrounded by shiney new macs every day. I have been an apple user since I could use a computer however I have spent the last decade surrounded by people that use PC's religiously and refuse to believe that they are being misguided... and they are.

But now, I am working at an apple store and I get to look at the latest and greatest stuff.

Speaking of latest and greatest, I am going to be getting a brand new iMac. Its been ordered and I'm now just waiting for it to arrive.

With a new 24" glossy screen and the fun that comes with a new machine, I should be spitting out some new artworks like crazy. That is once I can get a working copy of CS3. I think that I might be able to get hold of a legit copy but I'll have to see where that leads.

Anyway, that'l do for now. There might be another post sometime in the near future.

Til next time...

naztek

Quote of the day: "Duffman Can't Breathe!"

Yes I am still alive... I think?

2008-03-24T20:05:00.003+11:00

I know that I haven't posted in a while however I have been busy with work and art and gaming and all the little things (easting and sleeping, etc.)

I watched a doco on Walt Disney last night and I never truly realised just how much of his and his companies works influenced me. Not my drawings but my way of thinking. Then I found out that most of the best stuff was done before even my parents were born (yes I am young and naive). He was Truly a man before his time.
Following the doco was a Miyazaki film and that just made my night. I have always viewed him as the all-time master of entertainment and I will never tire of the disappointingly few films that he has produced. I have yet to see the film that his son created and I'd like to see whether the legacy will continue.
I've been going through a bit of a nostalgic phase of late: watching old films and series and playing games from my childhood. Among said games are the ever-classic Mario games and my obsession: the Final Fantasy games. I still enjoy the old games made when the challenge of the game and the storyline behind it were more important than the graphics or the physics engine. Its great to be able to play games like portal which wouldn't have been possible back when I was three feet high, however the game; Solstice, that was played on the NES contained equally challenging puzzles, compounded by the lack of saving abilities. Yes back when you had to play the game from beginning to end in one 9 hour session.
Enough of my whining,
Til next time...

naztek

Quote of the day: "For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks."

Sketch'o'matic

2008-03-06T19:00:00.002+11:00

And once again, there has been a considerable delay since my last post. This is purely due to the fact that I have been working all week and Saturdays for the last three weeks. Thankfully, that has come to an end and I can spend some time this weekend catching up on some sleep and then dive into Photoshop.
I am eagerly counting out the days of this next month and a half until I can sign on the dotted line and take home my new computer. With newer and better technology at my pen-tip, I will be able to delve more easily into the realm of digital art.

On the topic of digital art, since I bought my wacom, I have not had to note down and shelve a single concept. Admittedly they are still getting shelved as the next big idea flattens the last one, however having the sketches and works-in-progress of previous concepts is a lot more tempting for me to resume than a document on my computer that contains a few paragraphs describing what I was thinking at an earlier date. It was a system that worked when there was no alternative (as often happens) however now I can come to a sketch that I did over a year ago and modify it to my current style and then add some colour and so much more.

Technology makes life so much easier. Mind you, that is only true when said technology works. Working at a store that both sells and services computers, I now appreciate the astounding luck that I have had with technology over the years. I have never really experienced a machine (be it a laptop of a Nintendo) give out on me before. I seem to have an aura that affect electrical circuitry around me in a positive manner as things seem to always work for me and always have. I can recount a million different situations where all it took to get something to work was me to stand over the shoulder of the user and watch them get frustrated because it's working all of a sudden. Of course there's the other side of the coin as well and I have seen people with such amazingly horrid luck when it comes to technology, people that will go through phones or iPod's like tissues because they seem to posses the opposite to me "magic presence".

I leave you now with a recommendation to go and view my deviantART page and view the first few of my sketch'o'matic series of quick sketches that I am producing in order to get some practice in the field of character design and illustration.
Til next time...

naztek

Quote of the day: "I used to have a handle on life, but it broke"

The Future Calls...

2008-02-17T20:03:00.002+11:00

Well I finally entered the 21st century for digital art. I got sick and tired of walking into the stockroom and seeing the dwindling stock of Wacom tablets, so I bought one. Sure, its only a Wacom Fun but hell its leagues above using a bloody mouse. I've already gotten back into doing some arty stuff (mainly sketches) and I returned to deviantART (I'd sorta gone on hiatus there).
This hails well for my latest concept "the Otherkind" as it was never going to be anything other than a graphic concept. I've already started developing the character sketches for the new concept so it seems that this one might actually get further than my "shelf"... Touch wood.
I've also gotten back into watching some more anime but since my current ISP is Telstra, I'm living off of my reserves, so to speak.
Yeah its a short post tonight but I thought I may as well post something, so,
Til next time...

naztek

Quote of the day: "Belief in the existence of vacuums used to be punishable by death under church law."

The Otherkind Part I

2008-02-05T20:16:00.000+11:00

The four of them were trained professionals yet even they were shaking nervously as they trained their pistols on the door frame.
The had seen the carnage that had been wrought on the other side of that door and they knew what was coming. Even so, they refused to take their fate lying down. They would try and take the evil bastard to hell with them.
The sound of heavy footsteps reverberated through the room as he came closer and the four men in the room began to sweat.
The sound of four pistols cocking in random random must have sounded ominous but that didn't stop the giant from destroying the door.
The door had been solid oak planking reinforced by inch-thick steel plating and yet the giant had demolished it with a single punch. That punch shattered the wood like a sledgehammer through matchsticks and the steel plating ended up dented and crumpled. The force of the punch ripped the hinges, which had been sunk about a foot into the wall, cleanly out of the wall and skittering across the floor.
The four professional killers who had been prepared to unload their pistols into the giant as soon as he entered their sights, were simply frozen in part fear part awe.
Then he growled.
It was a scary sight. The man was a good eight or nine feet tall and was built like a boxer. Indeed his stance was that of a man who had just knocked an opponent out... Only this opponent was a door built to stop the army. The scariest thing about of this hulking human-shaped natural disaster was his eyes. Glowing a brilliant white with no trace of colour, his eyes managed to promise a godlike destructive power that his fists delivered on.
Then they unfroze.
The sound of gunfire was deafening.
The giant smiled a evil grin as the bullets simply bounced off of his clothes and exposed skin and he moved in on the four gunmen.
Less than a minute later and there was only one living thing left in the room... If you could call him that.
Then a voice came floating in over the silence that followed the chaos.
"Bear-Paw you cruel bastard, picking on mortals now?"
Bear-Paw spun around to face the speaker and saw the youth sitting on top of a cupboard. The youth was wearing nothing but denim shorts, a plain T-shirt and a box cap. His eyes were hidden from view but there was a suspicious glow coming from under the brim of his cap.
Bear-Paw merely growled at the mysterious youth.
"Still not speaking this language? You know your current form prevents you speaking normally?"
Bear-Paw scowled at the youth and walked back out the door, repairing it with a wave of his hand as he left.
The mysterious youth smirked as he faded away and then the room was empty save for four corpses... Or at least what totalled to four.

naztek

Quote of the day: "It's not premarital sex if you don't plan on marrying them."

I want a wacom...

2008-02-02T13:58:00.000+11:00

...says I like a child throwing a tantrum.
Yes that is how I am saying it at the moment because I really really really (etc.) want one. However if all goes well nest week I will get what I want. I wont go into too many details in case things don't go the way I want them (because then you can't point and laugh at me... much).

I know I haven't written up a blog in a few weeks but I got my first full-time job a fortnight ago and I've been fairly knackered from that. Still, it means that I can finally go out and live like a real person now and I can start saving for my trip to Japan later this year.

Meanwhile I'm still fighting my way through FFXII. I'd be finished by now if I was still playing at the rate that I was when I started but nowadays I only get a few hours of play a weekend so It'll probably be a while yet. While I'm still talking about gaming, Me and my mate sat down last weekend and had a few good rounds of Killzone. I played one copy of that game to death before but I got another copy around Xmas time so we finally got some high quality shoot-em-up multiplayer gaming happening. Good fun.

Last but not least, I have had my creative juices churning over the last few weeks and I'm developing a long-term 'concept' that is going to remain under wraps until I can get my hands on a wacom graphics tablet. As I mentioned at the beginning of this rant, I want a wacom and I have wanted one for a long time. I found out recently that one of my workmates is a member of deviantART as well (small world) and she demonstrated to me in real life just how bloody necessary they are for digital art... and here I was getting by on a laptop trackpad and sometimes a mouse. Not so much fun.
Well, I promise that you will see more of me soon but til then,
Rock on!
Til next time...

naztek

Quote of the say: "The object of waging a war is always to be in a better position to in which to wage another war."

The real World and Litarary Exploration

2008-01-15T00:50:00.000+11:00

I found a cure for Square-Enix-itis, Its called the real world. Or at least the anarchy of it all. I haven't had time to (dare I say it) waste on video games or other time wasters. No, I've been out there in amongst the grape vine getting myself a job.
And whatta know, I got one.
As of monday, I'll be a sales staff at mac1 selling the greatest computers in the world. Notice the playful poke at PC's.
I noticed you noticing.
If anyone gets that obscure joke, I commend you however I won spoil it by explaining it. I have always been of the opinion that if a joke needs explaining then it's not funny... at least not to the person it was explained to.
On a completely unrelated note (cough cough) I just finished reading Polgara the Sorceress by David and Leigh Eddings, the greatest authors that I have had the fine pleasure of reading. That particular book is the last book in a very long series that I have enjoyed reading enormously (just like the last two times). that's right, the advantage of having a dud memory is that I can enjoy my favourite books about once a year.
After I finished reading the above mentioned book, I had a long gander through the book store in search of new reading material and settled on the Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett. For the poor souls that are unaware of who Terry Pratchett is, go out and bye the the Colour of Magic as it is the first of the long chain of discworld novels that the literary titan known as Terry Pratchett has produced. He has perhaps the most... interesting sense of humour of all my favourite authors. Although Terry falls a few millimetres short of the Eddings's on the scale of literary genius, he is an essential read for anyone with a sense of humour no matter your age.
In case you hadn't noticed (heh heh) I am a bit of a bookworm and I love to read. To me, reading is more satisfying than any movie or television program (though I do like a few TV dramas) and it expands the mind more than any other idle hobby. I cannot understand the strange reluctance to pick up a book and escape to another world that seems to affect much of my generation and those younger. It seems like such a waste to me.
Holy hell, don't I sound like an old timer.
Well that's all for me this time so,
Til next time...

naztek

Quote of the day: "Your forgetting the first rule of toys; they're more fun when they belong to someone else."

Sqare-Enix-itis

2008-01-09T23:41:00.000+11:00

I seem to have come down with a virulent strain of Square-Enix-itis, a disease which fixes the sufferer in front of their television set, affixed to which ever square-Enix game is in their gaming console.
My current onset of this addictive ailment seem to have been sparked by my recent acquirement of the game: Final Fantasy XII (12). I am willing to admit that I am a die-hard Final Fantasy fan and that I have been after this game ever since it was released (and thanks to the Internet, before then). Unfortunately my wallet is about the only thing that keeps me from going out and buying just about every game in the franchise. FFXII only just came down into my price range and so now I am able to afford and indulge in one of my most socially unacceptable vices. The reason that this particular addiction of mine is the most socially unacceptable of my vices is because it destroys any semblance of a social life that I might have. I have only been outside six or seven times in the last week since I first got the game.
But enough of that,
Yes is the answer.
...Only what is the question? In this case the question is about whether my mind has been active during my bout of the above mentioned affliction. During this period I have produced a new concept (I told you the last one wouldn't last long). Although I will choose not to describe any of the concept just yet, I am committing the concept to paper so It wont disappear into the void.
Anyway, time is a wasting,
Til next time...

naztek

Quote of the day: "Murphy's tenth law of combat; no plan suvives first contact, intact."

Two Thousand and... Oh yeah, Eight

2008-01-03T23:04:00.000+11:00

Well well, if it ain't a brand new year.
Goodbye '07 and hello '08.
2008 always seemed like a good year to me, although the significance of this lies in that this is the first year in 13 years that I will not be attending an educational facility. I'm free.

And how did I usher in the new year? How else, I obtained a copy of Final Fantasy XII (It finally fell into my price range) and started reading "Questionable Content". QC is a webcomic that I had heard a lot about but had never gotten round to reading. Well I finally read it (and by that I mean that I read the archives up to date) and my mate ended up reading it after a while as well. Aside from the obscure musical references, of which almost all were lost on me, I really enjoyed it.

Yes I am a geek/nerd/otaku or whatever but hey, I am who I am and I don't really feel the need to justify myself or my actions... well not always. It's a great attitude to take until you wind up in court. Courts like to know why you set that building on fire and its best to tell them.
Yes: I am a pyro,
No: I have never been in a courtroom in my life.

The new year also brings two new concepts. One of which is further development/variation of The Immortal storyline, the other is a completely new concept but at this stage its still too fragmented to give many details. Though here's a sample:
"It was an incredible sight: the air shimmered like a heat wave above the ground of the plain only it existed in but a single dimension and from that distortion of the fabric of space they came. The army that emerged from across the wall of the worlds was unlike anything ever seen in this world as it consisted of a multitude of knights of varying sizes wearing all manner of armours and wielding all kinds of weapons.
It was the mounts however which made the sight bizarre, after all, armies of knights in fancy armour were not all that uncommon... in the past at least. But these knights were mounted on a collection of creatures never assembled on one place before. There were horses of course and elephants and mammoths and bears and huge lions, tigers and other great cats. There were also creatures there that would've fit better into fairy tales. Creatures such as dragons, unicorns, griffins and basilisks. The lead knight even rode a giant wolf who's fur kept flickering between flames, icicles, metal and even lightning.
The army that appeared out of the air then came to a halt so complete that it would of been difficult to see them move as they drew breath. Perfectly still was how they remained for seven days and seven nights and by the eighth day, the combined armies of this world had amassed on the plains and in the foothills behind the plains. The bizarre army numbered exactly one thousand knights, each with a mount, yet the army that had assembled to confront them outnumbered the knights over a thousand to one.
And at noon on the eighth day, the lead knight, blazing in pure white armour, left the company of the thousand knights and rode out into the centre of the gap between the armies and there did the lead knight await the emissary of the combined armies."

And there you have it: my new concept that I have not decided a name for yet.
Its likely to end up on the shelf before the weeks outs but if I have it committed to my blog then its at least gotten a little bit of time in the light.
Till next time...

naztek

Quote of the day: "What can be asserted without proof, can be dismissed without proof."

Ho ho ho...

2007-12-25T22:42:00.000+11:00

... is politically incorrect?
Well, although I dislike swearing in my writing, BULLSHIT.

I live in Australia where political correctness has become an obsession for a lot of small minded government officials and community leaders. The problem is that they have taken it too far in too many situations. The latest example being Santa's age old greeting/farewell/thing: Ho ho ho.

Santa was ho ho ho-ing long before the term "ho/hoe" was offensive. It used to be a form of greeting back when people still talked in "high English" (you know, with the thee's and the thou's). Example: "Ho Bob, top o' th' mornin to ya". Don't take offence, I never learned high English. I know what I know because I read.

So where do people get off by suddenly finding something that has been perfectly acceptable for generations offensive just because the word is now synonymous with an insult. Did they outlaw the word Dam when 'Damn' became a curse word? Hell no. Why? 'Cause they weren't brain dead morons, that's why.

Did you know that the cookie monster no longer eats cookies? They're a "sometimes food". Admittedly Sesame Street is American but the principals are the same.

Wake Up to yourselves people... Damn.

Oh, and I hope you all had an awesome Christmas, I know I did.
Till next time,

naztek

Quote of the day: "I have dreamt a dream, now that dream is gone from me."

Why No Christmas

2007-12-22T01:31:00.000+11:00

For some reason, despite my imaginations tendency to go into to overdrive, I come up with "Christmas themed" concepts. I think of steampunk concepts, cyberpunk concepts, historic and futuristic concepts, concepts that stretch the limits of appropriate and others that fit into no known genre. Yet none of my 'concepts' ever touch down around Christmas... or Easter for that matter either.

I'm sure that gives a great, albeit small, psychological insight into the workings of my mind. Not that an insight this small would prove valuable for a mind as complex and completely different as mine but it does raise interesting notions.

So why don't I conceptualise these "public holidays"? Is it because these holidays have religious origins? I'm not a religious person, although it is always a good basis for an argument and I love a good argument. But I still don't think that really explains it.

Its all interesting... to a point.

Just thought I'd put it out their...
Till next time,

naztek

Quote of the day: "Its all fun and games until someone gets hurt, then its a sport!"

In The Long Run

2007-12-19T23:42:00.000+11:00

I have a sneaky (and more than likely accurate) suspicion that as of yet I haven't got anyone who regularly checks/reads which makes these posts useful only for later on when I am highly successful (heh heh heh) and people really want to find out about the origins of this blog.
That and if I don't continue the Blog then it will never get to the stage where it can have regular readers.

Anyhoo, I haven't posted in a while because... uh... well I'm lazy. Ive been busy of late and rather than make time to write (or type) I have instead opted to bum around.. Uh I mean; relax. Yeah.

And surprise surprise (In regards to my last post), the "Clockwork Hero" concept has been shelved like so many many before it in favour of a new concept, and a brief foray into an older concept which I may further before I shelve it again. This gives hope however that the many concepts that I have committed to the shelf over the years are not dead, merely dormant; waiting for a renewed interest or a re-discovery of that concepts inspiration.
And yes I said years. This whole concept thing is as old as my memory... possibly older knowing my memory, but the point is that it has been active for longer than I have been calling them "concepts". And because Its so old, there are a lot of concepts on the shelf... and its a very big shelf.

Which brings me to the newest concept: The Immortal, and the resurfaced concept: House of Cards.
The Immortal is a concept that has been racing around the extremities of my mind for a long time but only recently has managed to fall into a single identifiable concept. The inspiration for this concept lies in David and Leigh Eddings character; Belgarath, the eternal man. Despite this, my immortal is nothing like the vagabond sorcerer that my all-time favourite authors cooked up. The concept focuses on a man who in his youth, discovered a genie hiding inside a gemstone (a rose quartz sphere about as big a marble to be specific) and was granted three wishes. His three wishes were predictable being: To be a an Invincible Immortal, The ability to Teleport and The ability to travel to different dimensions. what was not ordinary about his wishes however was that he ran over the specifics of each wish with a fine-tooth-comb before the genie granted them, robbing the genie of its favourite pastime of cheating wishees of there desires through manipulation of loopholes in their wishes. Our hero then goes on to have many wonderful adventures which I might recount at a later date if anyone were to ask.

The resurfacing concept: House of Cards is an older concept of mine from about this time last year and has already undergone a decent amount of formal development (sketches and character profiles, etc.) but as with all my concepts, I eventually grew bored of it and shelved it. My focus came upon this concept once more as a result of similarities between certain aspects of the above mentioned "The Immortal" concept and certain aspects of this concept. I wont bore you with half baked thoughts and fragments of ideas but I will tempt you with a brief summary of the events leading up to the beginning of this concept (within the storyline). The continent of *Cant remember of the top of my head* was once a peaceful place ruled by a benign royal family who's power derived from the gods who had created this particular world before departing on their never-ending mission. As almost always happens in stories like these, for if it didn't then the story would be too boring to hold even my attention, others grew jealous of the power of the royal house and plotted their downfall. The true tragedy here lay in the identity of the plotters as they were none other than the Knights of the House of Hearts and the House of Diamonds who were the two strongest factions of the royal guards. In order to defeat the almost omni-potent royal house, the House of Hearts staged an event for the royal house to attend. The details of the event are sketchy at best but I'm sure they will come to me in time. The Knights had murdered all but one of the royal house before the betrayal became clear. At that moment, the last member of the royal house; the youngest daughter of the then current king, sealed herself within an impenetrable crystal obelisk mounted within the royal fountain (where the event took place). A message was inscribed upon the surface of her crystal prison that red along the general lines of "I will summon twelve warriors from beyond the stars to avenge my family's destruction and right the evil you have caused". Of course being a royal princess, her words were far more poetic than that but since the knights of the House of Hearts have sealed the entire fountain/monument within a prison dimension, the exact phrases are currently unavailable to me.
The concept starts with the young princess summoning twelve youths from our world to follow up on her promise to the usurpers in her world and an adventure ensues. I'm sure I could add more details however I am really tired right now and I think the post is long enough anyway.

Well, I'm off to bed right now so Enjoy and,
Till next time...

naztek

Quote of the day: "They say never to hit a man with a closed fist, but it is on occasions, hilarious."

The Clockwork Army

2007-12-03T20:02:00.001+11:00

I have never really disputed the fact that I am, at least partially, insane. I'm not completely there yet nor will I ever be a raving lunatic, but I'm never going to be completely sane again either. Part of my gradual descent into madness I believe is the hyperactivity of my mind, particularly my imagination which given the slightest bit of inspiration will immediately create new (for the lack of a suitable word) 'concepts'. These 'concepts' are not simply images or words or ideas completely independent from a storyline, but they are often stories or of a similar nature.

My rant is not simply another aspect of my previous post (an introduction) but a kind of introduction to what is in this post and is likely to be in many of my future posts: 'Concepts'. I feel that my 'concepts' need to be shared because due to my hyperactivity (of the mind, physically I'm incredibly lazy) my 'concepts' are often interrupted by new 'concepts' before they reach fruition. Not all of my 'concepts' are solid, many are fragmented groups of ideas and some are simply too ridiculous (or inappropriate) to share but those that I think might be of interest, I will share.
Oh, and for future reference, if you wish to develop one of my 'concepts' further of do something with one of my 'concepts', just ask first. most of the time I will say "go for it" but sometimes I might already doing something with that 'concept'.

The first particular concept that I will be posting is a concept I'm calling 'Clockwork Hero' and is a steampunk 'concept'.
The general gist of the 'concept' is the prosperous Clockwork Nation has been at war with the Bug Empire for centuries but then the Nation undergoes an industrial revolution and suddenly they have war walkers, steamtanks, dirigibles and planes at their disposal forcing the Empire to commit their Behemoth beetles and appoint a ruthless new general that is willing to plunge both the Empire and the Nation into a terrible war in order to keep the Empire from falling. In order to defeat the Empire and save a continent from an eternity of war, the Clockwork Nation needs a hero. Someone who can lead the Nation against inhuman horrors that threaten to devour the world in the destruction of war. Fortunately they have one, unfortunately she doesn't know it yet.
Here is a war-walker of the Clockwork Army called the "MKIII Spidercrab"
I just found out about the webcomic: Girl Genius and that is where the bulk of my inspiration for this 'concept' came from. Let us know what your opinions are about this 'concept'.
Till next time...

naztek

Quote of the Day: "You see something and it isn't there, you don't see something and it still isn't there!"

The First...

2007-12-01T14:55:00.000+11:00

Well hello and welcome,
This is the first Blog I'm posting just to sort of test the waters. The name of this blog does not encourage random visits so I'm going to assume that you have not stumbled upon this blog by accident. regardless, I will still attempt to introduce myself.
My real name, however useless it might be to you all, is Nathan Haslam although I go by the online alias of 'naztek'. It seems like a unique enough name but alas, there are other naztek's out there. To my knowledge I am however the only naztek that always spells my name completely in lower case, there is a reason for this but it is incredibly obscure and I wont bore you crazy with my odd reasoning.
There is more to an identity than just a name and so I will continue my introduction. I live in the fine country of Australia and have (at the date of this post) recently high school. I do have plans for the future but because of past experience I will not be sharing them. For the most part, plans I make have an incredibly annoying habit of going to bits on me so I'll just keep my plans to myself and you will be none the wiser if I have to change them at the last moment.
I have various hobbies and interests but at this point I wont bore you with excessive useless information about me. Well its an semi-incomplete and a bit of a cryptic introduction but it will do for now.
Till next time...

naztek

Quote of the Day: "There's no 'I' in team, but there's a 'ME' if you jumble it up a bit."