After a 2 year “vacation” the cartoon series “Taipei Days” that I have created and neglected is finally coming back. This wasn’t an easy thing to do. I didn’t want it to come back as the same old thing, so I had to re-create a lot of things. There were several flaws in the original designs of the characters and to fix that problem I had to redesign everything from the ground up.

All the characters, new and old, have all received many new enhancements, including 3 new animations! Below are pictures of the old characters and their new design, which I feel will make the series that much better.

Old Outdated Characters

Redesigned Characters

The differences might be hard to spot at first, but I assure you there are several improvements.

Not only have the characters received upgrades, but all the old episodes now include a pre-loader to make sure everything is in perfect sync. Now the whole episode loads (including the intro) before it plays. This was not an easy task since before when I didn’t have standards in place all the episodes were created with different frame rates. Episode One was 12 frames a second, Episode Two was 15fps and Episode 3 was 20fps. This I have future fixed, as all new episodes will be 12 frames per second, animation standard.

The pre-loader is not perfect as it will, as of now, automatically play when fully loaded, but that will be fixed with a “Play” button when the new episodes are released.

Talking about new episodes, those too have received an upgrade in the form of wide screen presentation! No more will you have to bare the crap of standard 4X3 viewing. All new episodes and specials from this point on are all presented in glorious 8-bit wide screen! You’re welcome.

The website, Taipeidays.com, has also been upgraded to be more useful and colorful! It now includes more things on one page, including character profiles of every cast member. They are kinda lacking as of right now, but soon with have more information. Every new character introduced in the series will get their own page, with stats, and quotes. Go check it out!

That about covers it. Until I can hire a group of Korean animators to do the animations for me, new episodes will come out when they are finished. Don’t worry, Episode 4 is currently in production as you read this. Go check out the website and let me know what you think, especially about the banners. That’s right, I added an “s” to the end. Go find them.

Posts coming soon to the site:

• iPod
• Cell Phone
• New Banner
• Custom Clothing
• Parking
• Stationary Supplies
• And More!!!!

Frost Thoughts will be back soon, and with more attitude! It’s gonna be Xxxtreme!!! (you know it will with all those extra “x’s”)

I guess it is about that time that I start posting again. On Monday, I’ll continue with YouTube Mondays too! It has been a relaxing month off. My job situation is taken care of, and the plan I have is working out nicely. I’ll save the details for a separate post.

Today is gonna be a great day. Tonight, with a group of friends I am going to go see the Transformers movie! Finally Taiwan got something before the US did. The movie doesn’t open up in the States till July 4th. Oh and I also get paid today! I’ll add an update here after the movie to give you a quick review of it. After that I’ll see you back here on Monday for some much overdue videos.

(P.S. The “T” in “T-Day” stands for Transformers.)

Update: Movie Review: All I can say about the movie is: “It’s more than meets the eye!”

Due to many factors my blog is going on a month or so hiatus. One of the reasons is because no one ever comments on the site anymore. I’m starting to think no one reads it, because of that I have no motivation to write anything.

Another reason is because I have many other projects that I want to start up, and having to write on the blog distracts me from that. It’s been over a year since the last episode of Taipei Days. I have the script all done for a while now, but I haven’t put in the effort to complete it. I also think the site needs a redesign.

A lot of people are into photography. While I do like taking pictures, my true passion is movies. When I lived in the US I used to make and edit movies all the time, but haven’t really done anything here. I’m not talking about taking some clips of Taipei 101 or anything, I mean real movies, or skits, or shorts. That’s what I want to do, and that is what has always made me happy. The only problem I have is not having a decent video camera (hint hint, someone buy me one, you want me to be happy don’t you?) and finding actors who play stupid parts in silly movies without pay. The main reason I own FrostfoxFilms.com is to showcase all my movies. I have decided to put a main focus on that project.

Another project I am thinking about doing is a super secret project that I can’t talk about.

I also need to get off my ass and find some work. I have now been jobless for a month and cash is starting to get low. I have no regrets taking that month off though. Since my departure from my last school I have not been sick once. No more coughing or runny nose! Being sick all the time for the last 1 1/2 years have been torture and it’s just a relief to feel good.

While not being sick is fantastic, I need money for certain things. First thing I need to get taken of is my teeth. I have one tooth that needs a root canal, another one that needs to be fixed as it has broken in half. Then I need money to buy a motorcycle to break more teeth. I just want and want and want. I have made a wish list that will be updated all the time located on Amazon.com. If anyone wants to buy me any of those thing, I won’t say no. Amazon Wishlist.

For now bookmark FrostfoxFilms.com and check that regularly. I will try to release more and more films in the coming months. I might have to redesign that too since the theme has no RSS feeds for it. If I have any really cool or important things to tell you about I’ll blog it, otherwise go watch some short movies.

In case you go through some Frostfox withdrawal  go check out my other stuff, maybe you missed something. For flash animation check out TaipeiDays.com. For movies I have made check out FrostfoxFilms.com. Listen to the Podcasts that I have made at the Podcast Archive. To see the photos that I have taken in Taiwan go look at my Flickr Page. If your horny, go look at some Lego Porn! Either way there is more then enough to keep you busy while the blog is on break. See ya!

I have had the same Main Page on my site since I have started it. The blog on the other hand has gone through many many changes. I figured it was about time to give it a face lift.

Most people don’t actually visit my Main Page, since most of the good stuff is here in the blog. You couldn’t be more wrong. Did you know that on the Main Page you can visit my other sites? If you want to see all the crappy movies I have made you can find the link on the Main Page (Frostfox Films), or see the flash animation that I have done, it’s on the Main Page too(Taipei Days)! For the wicked I even have a link to some Porn!

It was hard work to make the new interface, and all of it’s connecting pages. I not only had to redo the Main Page, but also the “Contact Page“, and the “About Me” page. In the process I have added a new page where you can leave me video/audio messages straight from your browser!

If you don’t remember what the old page looked like; it was terrible. Not only didn’t it align correctly on screens larger then 1024X768, but you have to scroll down to see it all. The new site aligns correctly no matter what your screen resolution is, plus it should all fit on a single page without much scrolling. In case you have never been there before, here is a comparison screen shot of both the old and new page. You can also click on the pictures to see the old and new version.

Old Page

New Page

Much better, huh? Leave me a comment and tell me what you think.

This post is a follow up to other posts I have made in the past. Instead of creating a bunch of separate posts, I am just throwing them in altogether. Sorry for the delay on new stuff, I will be posting more regularly soon.

Follow-up #1: 300

While casually checking the net for cool shit, I came across a comic to screen comparison of the movie “300“. I wrote about seeing “300″ a few weeks ago and I still think that movie owns. The comparison is on some guys Flickr account. He took scans from the comic book and stills from the movie and compared them. From the look of things the movie stayed pretty close to the comic. Check it: 300 Comic to Screen Comparison.

Follow-up #2: Flickr

Lately I have been cleaning up my Flickr site. I added all the pictures to map locations and organized them in sets. I went through and tagged them all for so you can easily search for them. In other Flickr news, Flickr will be opening up the Hong Kong market shortly, and after will release a version for Taiwan. Click here to read the BBC News article on the subject.

Follow-up #3: Main Page

I am testing out a new theme for my main page since I am not a fan of how it looks anymore. It looks rather out dated and rough around the edges. So since I own Frostfox.info, I have decided to use it as a testing ground to decide which will be the new main page. Go check them out and vote for which one looks best on the sidebar of Frostfox.info. (update: went a different direction and picked something different.)

Follow-up #4: Construction

This part I haven’t touched on before. While some of the changes to the site have been cosmetic the majority of the changes have been “under the hood”. One of the previous unmentioned on is a plugin that makes any word on the page double clickable(currently disabled). Try it, pick any word and see the results, sometimes it will only give you a definition and pronunciation, other times it will give you some kind of reference. I’m not sure if I want to keep it active, just testing it right now.

For most readers this information might not make much sense, but to the bloggers out there it might help out a lot. One of the greatest things about using Wordpress is the plugins. Here is a list of some of the most useful plugins that I use. Hope you get some uses from them.

1. Akismet - Akismet checks your comments against the it’s web service to see if they look like spam or not.
2. Dean’s Permalinks Migration - You can safely change your permalink structure without breaking the old links to your website, and even doesn’t hurt your Google pagerank.
3. Firefox spellcheck - Re-enables Firefox spell checking in the visual editor.
4. Google Sitemaps - This generator will create a Google compliant sitemap of your Wordpress blog.
5. Search Everything - Adds search functionality with little setup. Including options to search pages, attachments, drafts, comments and custom fields (metadata).
6. Sociable - Automatically add links on your posts to popular social bookmarking sites.
7. Sidebar Widgets - If your theme supports sidebars, I highly suggest using them. No more editing PHP files, it’s all drag and drop.
8. Feedburner Feed Replacement - Forwards all feed traffic to Feedburner while letting through some important User-Agents.
9. AnswerTips - AnswerTips are small bubbles of information triggered by double clicking on any word on a site.

Did you know the Wordpress has a hidden toolbar when your writing your posts? I’m not sure why this isn’t more documented, because it’s incredibly useful. To access the hidden toolbar go to “Your Profile” and turn on “Use the visual editor when writing”, then when writing a new post just hit alt-shift-v (Firefox) or alt-v (IE) to toggle it on or off.

That’s it! Of course I could of made like 4 posts out of all of that, but I thought I’d save you some time. Your welcome!

I’m making a few more improvements to the blog. In order to do so, I am moving the blog to it’s new place: http://www.frostfox.com/blog. The old address will redirect to this new address, and I think the only people who will be affected by this is if you subscribe via RSS feed. Maybe.
If anyone reading this has me linked on their website or their blogroll, please update it to the new address. Otherwise I’ll leave you a comment on your sit. Thanks!