Catechism in a Year!

So through my work with Team Orthodoxy, as you may have seen, I have been busy lately for the Year of Faith (started Oct 11) in leading a study of the Catechism over this next year.

As such, everything on Slightly Orange is currently taking a back seat, and hopefully will resume perhaps even partially come summer time.  In the meantime, I hope you all join with me in the "Catechism in a Year" study, even if you missed the first few weeks, and get to know your faith better.

For those of my followers who are not Catholic (which I imagine it's possible there may be some) feel free to check it out if you've ever been curious about what the Catholic faith is all about, or at the very least why this guy who does these crazy animations and stuff would want to be a priest of all things!

Here's the playlist, which as you might guess, will grow every week to include more videos.

As a note, if you click "playlist" at the bottom, it will open a list of all the videos thus far, and you can skip ahead to the video of your choosing.  The 4th one has a really funny opening.  Just so you know.

My First Video Talk

On July 1st, I gave a reflection at Mass on the Gospel reading, and afterward Team Orthodoxy stuck around and I gave the talk again (a little longer though) and they recorded it for me.

And yes, this picture is a quote from the talk.  I said it just like that.  That... that's just how I explain things I suppose.

Anyhow, I got a lot of good feedback from this one, so I thought I'd share it.  Here's praying that you come to know Christ more deeply and intimately in your lives!

(also, please note that this is in two parts.. so stick around after part 1, it will play automatically, you don't have to click the link)

Crocs

Just thought this would be funny.  Saw the picture of the crocodile and decided that this would have to be.  Animation's a comin'!  Also, I'm working on a few vids that I'll be posting to YouTube with Team Orthodoxy, so I'll link those up as well.

PEACE!

Pictures Section

Ever see these plastered all over facebook and google+?  I always wondered why this fad suddenly popped up.  And I don't mean when people post a quote on top of an image that illustrates the point, but when they simply post a totally unnecessary nature photo or something alongside it.  Just post the quote, okay?  Those quotes are usually really sappy anyway, but the background just makes me roll my eyes even more.

Truth be told, I have a hard time taking you people seriously.

Now, if you are one of my friends who does this, I love you, you're wonderful, but friends don't let friends do bad picture posts.  It's ... it's just in poor taste, I don't know what else to say.

In other news, in case you've been waiting and wondering, I will post the rest of those pictures from my trip to Calgary (got some REALLY beautiful shots), but I've held off because I've been getting the remainder of my pastoral year assignments completed, and after this weekend I should have a chance to post and I hope to make some new animations too.

In other, other news, I am thinking of adding a "pictures" section to my blog, since I've been posting so many pics of things, and artwork, and memes, and whatnot.  So I'll eventually dump everything from my blog posts there so you can browse through them if you so please.

Day 1 in Calgary

Just to share with all of you some of the awesome Calgary experiences so far, I thought I'd share some pics I've taken since we arrived.  Well, actually, first I'd like to show you some pictures we took on the plane, which I decided to memify, because really, what were they thinking when they made those airplane safety manuals?

Nuff said.
Once we arrived in Calgary, we made a few quick stops and then headed off to Banff!  Or rather, as far as Canmore since Banff would have been too crowded.  So we got to see the rockies, which were incredible!  However, I also had the rather unfortunate incident of having my phone stolen due to my foolishness in putting down my phone so I could take a slo-mo vid of Keith and I giving each other a high five.  So after suspending my phone account, changing all my account passwords, and calling the police, we managed to take in some more sight seeing and get some more good pictures.  Here's a sampling:

and as an added bonus, this prairie dog showed up and I caught a pic of him, standing like a soldier!

fun times... and more to come!  Tomorrow we will be going to the fancy iron chef restaurant, so I shall keep you all abreast of those delicious happenings!!!

IS THIS WHAT YOU WANT?

I hear that the two biggest things people search for on the net are cats and bacon.  I've already posted a bunch about bacon, and that hasn't worked, so here you go internet, IS THIS WHAT YOU WANT!?!?!?!

Incidentally yes, this is also an excuse for the fact that I have not posted any animation/game updates this week either.  What I will give you instead, in addition to this amazing dancing cat (which has surely won your heart despite being an ancient, overused cat gif), I shall be posting about my trip to Calgary which begins tomorrow!

Yep, my good friend and fellow seminarian (ex-seminarian now), Deacon Cristino Bouvette, is being ordained a priest... in Calgary.  Incidentally this means that to Calgary I shall go, and as a bonus I will take in the sights of awesomeness which I have yet to ever experience.  Yes, I think that Calgary will be greater than cats (the feline, or the musical).  And as I am sure that this cat has thoroughly disoriented you and you have several times lost your place reading because you keep looking at the cat and wishing it would just stop, I will stop writing so you can re-gather your bearings.

Renewal! Can I get some high fives over here?

Got back this weekend from the annual Renewal Ministries gathering in Ypsilanti, Michigan, and it was FAN-TAS-TIC.  Just sayin'.  The Lord did some awesome things with me there and I'm rearing and ready to go to do God's work!

I also attended there an event for a new group that they're starting called, "i.d. 916", which is a sort of youth program which intends to help equip young adults to gather and discern how God is calling them to evangelize.  It seemed like a pretty neat idea, so I was telling one of the guys there about Team Orthodoxy, (for which I contribute currently with my weekly Gospel reflections).  I sent a message afterward to Chris to let him know I was plugging Team Orthodoxy at the Renewal Ministries event, and he replied with, "SICK!!!"  Then later I left a message on his answering machine with the line in the picture you see above.  Heh, fun times.  Anyhow, I'm all revved up now and I've been thinking as well in what other ways I might be able to use my website to continue to have fun as a hobby and animate and draw and stuff, but also to draw others to Christ.  So, all ye who read the Slightly Orange News, might ye care to weigh in on this?  Opinions?  Suggestions?  Recommendations?  Offerings?  Spam?

Get it?

eh?  ehhhhhhh?  Bad joke I know, but I was out last week with my sister and we took a walk through the marsh and I just had to do this.

Turning 30 Feels Weird

This Week's Tuesday Update:

Caveman Dan

• Mr.Spock  

Tee hee.  I enjoyed making the updates on Caveman Dan this week.  I like it when characters go a little bit insane.  And keep posting commands, keep Caveman Dan busy!

So I turned 30 this weekend, and I had some most wonderful friends (including my sister) who put together a fun shindig for me in which we had a "Baco de Mayo", Mexican-themed, Bacon Day style party, which was a lot of fun.  Everyone was super great, and my sis, Jen, even wrote and read aloud for us "30 Bacon Facts vs. Steve Facts", which were pretty hilarious.  I recorded it on video, and I'll see if maybe Jen will be so kind as to let me post it to the youtubes.

Particle Accelerator

This Week's Tuesday Update:

Caveman Dan

• Invent Particle Accelerator  

Yep.  What you just read above? ... yes, it's totally happening.  Caveman Dan is going to cast of the shackles of the stereotypes that plague those of his era, and show that cavemen can invent beyond the club, or the wheel, or the club on wheels—for our friend Dan shall create a particle accelerator.

Wipe your tears.  Caveman Dan doesn't want to see you cry, even though he knows those are tears of amazement and wonder—tears of hope for the downtrodden.  Caveman Dan wants you to know that you can do it too.  He believes in you.

So make sure you help Caveman Dan embark upon his new quest to build a particle accelerator.  Submit your commands!  Forget about finding his precious meat.  The meat can wait.  There is SCIENCE to be done!

Don't hate me

It's really hard to gage how people feel about my regular updates considering I have only about 3 people who will post responses to me on occasion.  Though, from the stats I read, it sounds like I have a good number of followers, it's just nobody actually INTERACTS with me.
So whether sometimes my "slow to update the games" tendency is something that is bothering people, I have no way of knowing really.  But... today I am slow to update the games, so sorry.

This, instead, is my gift to you this week... if you recall a certain "dignified horse" I once posted... well... this is COMPLETELY different, okay?  This is a rather dignified unicorn, which, as I am sure we can all agree, is something of a different nature entirely.  Enjoy.

Team Orthodontist

Hey all!

So while I could count this as the Tuesday Update, I don't want to, because I'd like to do some more Caveman Dan.  So I will.  Later today.

However, I thought in the meantime I'd tell you about our awesome Team Orthodoxy meeting we held last night (the first one I've had the privilege to participate in).  So for fun and fellowship, I made us some commemorative t-shirts to wear:

In case you're wondering, "what's the deal with the face?" this joke sprung out of a facebook conversation we had about some Team Orthodoxy shirts that Chris and Julie had made and were wearing in a picture they posted.  Here's where it all went downhill:

Remember the Adventure Games?

This Week's Tuesday Update:

Unfettered Discord

• continue (3 new scenes)  

Well I sure remember my games: Caveman Dan and Unfettered Discord!  It's been a while since I've done any updating there, as I've been busy with bacon day videos, drawings, and animations.

I know it's not the best for these games to leave such a gap in between commands, but I've updated Unfettered Discord, and next week I plan to update Caveman Dan.  The stories are both coming to a point of real development, so if you don't know what's going on, now is a good time to do a quick read over, and if you're lost, just post some comments on this thread and I'll fill you in.

Since I know I've acquired some new viewers of my site, in case you're confused about how these games work, or about how they're actually games at all, I'll explain briefly:

If you're an uber computer nerd, quite simply put, in these games, I replace the computer as the parser.

For everyone else who has no clue what that means, I offer a slightly longer explanation:

The games are meant to resemble those old command line video games, but it reads more like a comic.  So where you see the part that says, "> start_" under the picture when you open the game—that's the command line.  On every page, you just click the command line to see the next screen, and you read it more like you would read a comic book, to catch up on the story.  It's basically like a comic strip to have the feel of a game, because you have an image, a description of the action going on below, and then a command line where you would (normally) type in your next command.  And it's a story comic, so you can't really just jump in anywhere, because each panel is hardly meant to be read/viewed all on its lonesome.

Where the gameplay actually comes in is that eventually when you're caught up, you'll notice the command line is blank, and below it are a whole mess of commands submitted by people from all over.  Now when you click the command line, you can actually type in your own commands for what you want to happen next in the game, and it will be added to the list.  Then I pick a command that I like from that list, and draw up the next panel in the game.  So from then on, you're participating in "playing" the game with everyone else who visits my website!  Neat eh?

Friday in the Octave (part 2): Bacon-Treaded Angus!

As there are many new people who have become aware of my website lately, you probably didn't know, but I update my website by every Tuesday (I post Tuesdays to say what's been updated in the last week).  Normally, I have a post on my blog with the updates cued for 12am on Tuesday, but I'm running late today due to a failing computer.

BUT HERE IT IS!  ANOTHER BACON DAY VIDEO!

I never expected we'd make one so soon, but on the same day I posted the "Friday in the Octave" we were inspired to make sure we ate meat on Friday, and so we held another Bacon Day.

I finally finished the video and uploaded it to YouTube, so here it is!  We made bacon-wrapped grapes as an appetizer, then for the main course had bacon-threaded angus, some bacon-fried veggies, and rice.  .... regular rice.  Sorry.  Here it is!

Friday in the Octave

Here's a little Catholic joke I put together.  For all you hardcore Catholics out there, you know you've made this kind of mistake before and remembered half-way through the day!  Here's to making sure your Friday isn't baconless!

*edit*

Since this page is being revisited again this year (2013), I updated the photo because I had originally a slight part of the image missing and I'm a bit OCD that way.

also I wanted to add the watermark to linkback to Team Orthodoxy because that's where I'm doing most of my stuff now anyway.  Enjoy your meat-filled Friday everyone!
*end of edit*

Be Careful What You Ask For

I always find requests people make for website design (or any other programming/computer-related requests) to be somewhat amusing.

My friend James recently received such a request, and he was sharing with me what was asked of him: "Make the background kind of like the feeling of water being hit by moonlight while the night sky is still light, so not a dark, navy blue, but a light one".  The moment he told me this, I said, "I am going to make this background.  I know exactly what this guy wants.  So I drew this:

You're welcome.

You can also see this background applied to the website in question, because James actually humoured me enough to put it up.  Though it's up there secretly so the guy doesn't actually know, 'cause as it turns out, he doesn't like awesome things.  YOU on the other hand, know something awesome when you see it.

Bacon Day: Bacon-Crust Pizza

Had another bacon-tastic day with Chris & Julie, and this time I made a "Bacon-Crust Pizza".  Or at least that's the name I'm sticking with for now.  Man, I gotta tell ya, it was totally insane.  Just absolutely insane.  The thing weighed about 15 lbs, was packed with 4 lbs of bacon... so good though.  Sooooo.... so good.

I put together this video to mark the occasion, and there's only one thing I learned from making the video: I am a ridiculous human being.  Just watching the things that I did in a hurry that I thought were good ideas... yeah, I'm an odd man.  Though I guess you all knew that already.

Back From Retreat

So in case anyone missed what was going on last week, I was on retreat, which I posted last week, but it looks like nobody saw it without me posting it also to facebook and google+

Well I'm back, and it was a fantastic retreat, in case you were wondering.  It is good to be renewed!!!  And, as it so happens, on the last day of retreat I got the idea for this "Alter Christus" picture.  Yeah, totally unrelated I know, but it was funny to me, so I share it with you all now.

Oh, and no updates again this week because I was too busy being renewed on retreat n stuff.

I'm on Retreat!

What's that? No updates this week?  Are you super disappointed?

I hope not.

Thing is, this week I'm gone on retreat, and I haven't had time in getting all my work done prior to the retreat, nor do I have time while I'm actually on retreat.

Sorrys!  :(

In case you're wondering, "hey Steve, shouldn't you be not doing things like posting to your blog while on retreat?" you'd be right.  I shouldn't.  And I'm not!

:O

Prepare for your mind to be blown.

It's called "auto-scheduling", and I actually prepared this blog posting before I went on retreat.  In fact, I actually schedule my posts ahead of time every week.

You may now find a suitable receptacle in which you can tidy up the shattered remains of your mind.

So anyhow, please pray for me this week, and I'll be back with another post by next Tuesday, since I may have a little time post-retreat to actually prepare something special for you guys!  God bless!!!

I Thought We Went Digital to Make Things LESS Confusing

This Week's Tuesday Update:

Sketch Media Animation

• Bacon Man  

Regarding this week's update, Chris and Julie wanted to experience how I go about animating stuff, so I showed them a quick and dirty animation.  This was basically at their request, and based on a snippet of our audio recordings.  So... hardly a full animation, but it works for me as an update!!!!
:)

In other news... had an fun conversation with my sister about a crazy looking watch she found online at watchco, which looks to be about the most complicated way of trying to tell time.  Here's a piece of our convo:

Jen: it drives me crazy
Jen: good grief
Jen: so what time is it?
Steve: "what time is it?"
           "let me take a look"
           .....
           "well?"
           "just give me a minute.."
           .....
           ....
           ...
           "I think it's... no wait.."
Jen: hahah
Jen: it looks like many times to me
Steve: it is all of the times
Jen: hahaha
Jen: they broke the space time continuum
Steve: they MADE the space time continuum
Jen: ahahaha
Jen: the ones with the graph are crazy too
Steve: :S
Jen: did you notice you get a free knife with every $200 purchase?!
Steve: um, great?
Jen: 'cuz nothing goes better with a watch than a knife
Steve: well, you need to protect yourself while time traveling

Good times.

Blog Post on Other Blog

It's nested blog posting!  OH NO!  I'm going to post in my blog about a post I made in another blog!

Pure evil.

So, Fr. John has asked me to start giving reflections every Tuesday at Mass, and then Chris Pinnegar asked me if I would post my reflections to the Team Orthodoxy blog.  So I am now doing both those things, starting today.  So Tuesday will be my major updating day, where you can check out both my website updates, AND Gospel reflections!

After giving my reflection at Mass today, I posted to the blog, and I thought I would share that with all of you who may happen to be interested.

So here is: Gospel Reflection – Matthew 6:7-15

Fun ol' captionses

This Week's Tuesday Update:

• Unfettered Discord (2 new scenes)  

Well, here's the results of the Captions Contest from two weeks ago.  I took one submission from every person who posted something, so here they are!  My personal favourite is the fifth one.

Which do you guys like best?

Lion Day

Hey it's way too late and I need to be in bed.  Didn't have a chance to schedule this post ahead of time so I'm posting it now after a night of fun.

I was off visiting the Pinnegar's and we celebrated a little something we like to call, "Lion Day".  What is Lion Day, you might ask?  Why, it's the 20th of February!  And also, there's a lion cake. 
.....
*cough*

I was most impressed by the baking and decorating skills of Julie and Sarah.  Hooray for Lion Day!  Also, for fun, if you want to get theological and think of the lion as Aslan, you may also note the TWELVE candles on the cake! 
:O

Anyway, sorry I don't have those pictures with the captions from last week.  I'll do them next week... give a bit more chance for people to make captions.  The response was super weak.  Come on guys.  I will treat you to two updates on the site though.  One is a cartoon making fun of Chris and Julie because Chris sent me a text saying we were going to have dinner late, so I whipped up this cartoon a half hour before leaving and posted it to mock his lateness.  The second update is a shocking twist on Caveman Dan.  You never would have seen this coming!!!

Captions are fun!

I can't remember how on earth I came across this picture, but I found it absolutely hilarious.  I don't know if the boy is making that face because the watermelon is sour or bad, or if he's just so happy to get a huge piece for himself, but I wanted to share it with you all.

I am also issuing all of you a challenge!  Caption Challenge!  Come up with a funny caption à la "I can has Cheezburger" and either just post the caption here on this blog entry, or copy this picture, write your own caption directly on it and send it to me, and I'll post the best (or all) of the captions next week.

As for an update, I have added two more scenes to Unfettered Discord this week.  P.S. for those of you who use the +1 and like buttons, last week I was referring to the fact that you can click those buttons directly on the pages of my animations/game scenes.  Granted, you can also +1 or like my blog entries, but my hope is that if more of the content of my site is +1'd or liked, then it will spread around the knowledge of my website to other people!  Yep!  You have the power to popularize my website!!!

ANIME!!!!!!!!!

Yay!  I made a cartoon after so long!!!!  I was chillin' with Andrew, James and Raoul, and thought it would be fun if we put together some kind of cartoon, and it eventually evolved into this by the end of the night:  Sakuroski: The Anime!!!! 

This is my way of saying, "this is pretty much the basic plot of 99% of all anime.

Also, I enjoy being ridiculous.
PS: If you like this cartoon, be sure to "like" or "+1" it, and/or share it around!  Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

I promise this is going somewhere!

So here's today's update to Unfettered Discord.  All of these "continues" are leading to something, they really are!  Anyway, I just wanted to make the quick update announcement and keep it short and simple again this week.  Much to do!

Quick Update

Been quite busy and got a bit of a cold, so I'm pretty tired and don't feel up to a whole lot of updating, and so, I give you this update to Unfettered Discord.  I'm linking to the scene from the last update because the next few fit with it.  Anyway, that's it, enjoy!

Slightly Orange Pictures

Sadly, I have no traditional updates this week.  I've been spending my extra time to get reorganized and stuff.

So instead, I have some pictures here that I found interesting.  Take a look at this juice!  I feel like I have nearly been infringed upon!  I discovered this a while back, and I had no idea that such a juice brand existed.  Though, seeing as "Simply Orange" is a registered trademark, I can be thankful that they didn't go for "Slightly" or I would have been done in for.  ...though I guess it's somewhat less appealing to drink a juice that brands itself containing only a moderate amount of orange, so I should be in the clear.
 





 PICTURE NUMBER TWO!!!!!


James sent me this picture recently, pointing out that due to some defect in this grapefruit, it looks like it is a grapefruit-orange hybrid!  Hooray for a slightly orange grapefruit!  I feel like this should be my new logo.  But then I think better of it and realize that would be a bunch of extra work I don't care to do.

Neat though, isn't it?

I am SO gonna make you blah blah blah

I've always loved the "Tales of ..." series of videogames.  And I've been meaning to record this for a long time, but I discovered that in one of the games, they made it possible to ridiculously overpower one of the characters.  And I mean, so much so, that it makes a joke out of the biggest battle of the game (a 1 on 200 non-stop melee, when normally you fight 4 on 4 or so).

That, and, by doing so, you get one of the most hilarious combinations of phrases that your character says.  If you watch this, keep your eye on the time counter and the kill counter in the top right.  Notice that they give you 35 minutes to complete the 200-man melee, and I finish in a minute and a half.  And no, it takes zero skill.

 

As for an update this week (and I don't mean this YouTube upload), I have updated Unfettered Discord, and in fact, during this week, I may update it a few more times, because this current command is going to spark a few "continues".

THE END! (of post)

Happy New Year

This New Years I gathered with some friends and had an amazing and awesome New Years Eve party.  More importantly though, is that I made and improved upon the "bacon cheeseburger log", which we lovingly dubbed "the yuletide log" for our New Years Eve party.  Oh man... it was so good.

As for this week's update, I made one small change to the previous Unfettered Discord scene, and I also added a new scene.  The scene edit was that I added a little tone to the background because it was hard to see the moonbeam phoenix's glowing light yellow colour on top of a white background.  I also removed the flames from the trees, because, well, I kinda forgot that the moonbeam fire had all evolved into the phoenix, so there really shouldn't be any fire elsewhere anymore.
Oops!  Storyline inconsistency!
Not that something like that would really betray the madness that is Unfettered Discord.  Ah well.  Happy new year.