update: here is an intelligent read on video games, violence and their nature as a medium.
yesterday turned out to be an action-packed, fun-filled day of madness. i attended siggraph 2005 at the LA convention center, and it was pretty cool to see all the visual effects / art / rendering technology out there as well as some cool live demos. the wacom 21" cintiq tablets are amazing! so amazing that they are $2500! oh well. the show was a blast and it was really cool to hang out with everyone there. i put up a bunch of photos in the gallery, and there's a little video snippet i took of the motion-capture girl doing some motion-capturing (above).
after that i was surprised by my brother with a birthday ticket to the mars volta / system of a down show (see blurry camera phone photo below) in long beach. what a way to wrap up the day! omar, cedric, ikey and the rest of the volta crew were incredible - and the guest appearance by john frusciante was a perfect fit. i only wished they played longer. actually, they played for a good amount of time but only 3 - 4 songs (and a ton of jamming). they seemed a little more space-rock than usual, but i was loving it. system of a down just rocked the place... a ton of energy and tight playing (mostly). the lights were simple but really effective. my only gripe about the show was the mixing... it was pretty sub-par for both bands.
