Turn left here.

Okay. So anyone who knows me also knows that I'm not the biggest race fan in the entire world. As such, what I know about the world of NASCAR could probably fit comfortably into a thimble with plenty of room to spare. Basically, I know a few of the names and that the sport has a noticeable lack of right turns. However, I AM a big fan of video games. Regardless of the type of game, if it's good then I'll play it. So where is this all leading? NASCAR 2005: Chase the Cup from Electronic Arts (PS2/Xbox). I just received review copies of this game yesterday, and it actually looks to be an interesting game to me. I'll be really digging into the game today, but it looks like EA went the extra mile to put a little more "umph" into it. Besides the online play (FINALLY EA is utilizing Xbox Live), there's acareer mode which touts that you can "be a hero or a villain". That's right ... you get to be a total ass of a driver in the game if you want, and you're rep will build as such with the other drivers. Also, EA added a few cars to the game other than your basic NASCAR fare. After I've played the game a while and written up the review, I'll let you know my thoughts ... but it's at least piqued my interest.

Moving along, I spent yesterday hanging out with Randy in a day long brainstorming session filled with Mountain Dew, video games, and a hell of a lot of creative ideas bouncing around. I'm going to have my hands full up here for a while now, but it's definitely worth it. Odds are, I'll be doing more and more of my work at his studio ... though still getting the majority of it done at home. And thanks to Randy's infinite patience, I'm going to start learning more and more about doing digital coloring. I'm blown away at all of the Photoshop tricks I never knew about. Randy's even offered to let me play around with coloring some of his art just to get in some practice. Thankfully it's digital coloring,so there's no chace of me actually screwing up the originals. As I tinker around with it, I'll be sure to post the results here so all of you can see my handiwork.