pixels, Cherry Coke, Shigeru Miyamoto, spaghetti, psychedelia, digital versatile discs, Star Trek, candy, b&w cinema, the public library, sound libraries, church, Elvis, googie, Godzilla, compact discs, Japan, kitsch, cookies, moving picture experts group audio layer 3, cats, LOLcats, Barbara Stanwyck, chocolate, and conversation
politics, coffee, country music, singer-songwriters, digital rights management, toilet humor, Will Ferrell, pop divas, profanity, Star Wars, pickles, reality TV, rudeness, mind-altering substances, the internal revenue service, delusions of grandeur, drawing horses, Windows, Windows Media, banks, dogs, diet cola, Real Audio, the RIAA, spam, and spammers
It's been ten years (give or take) that I've been pushing pixels, and during that decade my app of choice has been ResEdit. Not limiting my usage of it simply for the creation of desktop icons, I've employed Apple's little Jack-in-the-box for generating all sorts of pixel-based art. Obviously any finished work larger than 32 by 32 pixels has had to be assembled in Photoshop, but the detail-intensive, bitmaps-under-the-fingernails work took place within this humble little Mac OS resource editor. Good times, my friend, good times. But the good times had to end. I knew that eventually Apple's Mac OS updates (AKA The Perpetually, Magically Transforming Large Cat Codenames) would sever all ties with the Classic environment. I type this post today on a Mac that recognizes OS 9 software (or prior) no better than I'd recognize your Uncle Howard (whom I've never met).
Grumbling, complaining, ranting, raving, and/or remembering "When" would be a waste of time. I am instead taking action. I'm hoping that somebody out there with mad programming skillz will hear this posted plea and create a carbonized version of ResEdit's pixel editor. Maybe "carbonized" isn't the proper way to describe it. Maybe the app has to be completely re-created. I don't know. I have no idea! But here's what I'm after:
• All pixel editing tools to function exactly as they do in ResEdit
• Selected area moveable by arrow keys, as it is in ResEdit
• "Flip" and "rotate" commands for selected areas - again (say it with me, kids) exactly as it is in ResEdit
• 256 color palette
• Capability to set foreground and background color
• The same alternative fills (patterns) that are present in ResEdit
• Easy copy/paste to and from Photoshop
Here's what I don't want:
• The ability to create old school icon files isn't necessary
• There's no reason for the app to do anything other than create pixel art
• The ability to save files isn't really necessary as long as there's no snag in copying and pasting into Photoshop
• The ic14 color palette isn't needed
• Colors beyond the 256 palette can be had in Photoshop and need not muck things up here
I'm certain that my complete ignorance of programming for the Mac (or, for that matter, any computer at all) is shining brightly in this post. But because I am so totally ignorant I dare not assume that ResEdit cannot be resurrected. If you can do it, if you want to do it, please email me with an estimate of what this task would cost. Thank you so much!
A postscript: Yes, I realize that some people create their pixellated masterpieces entirely within Photoshop. I'm also aware that there are apps out there which are designed specifically for creating pixel art and which play nice with Apple's latest big kitty. But neither of those options are good for me. Neither can do the voodoo that ResEdit can do.
Let's imagine that my collection of audio CDs is a small kingdom. That would make me the king. And today the crown wears heavy. At one time I could not imagine that I'd ever consider purchasing digital song files in lieu of buying the physical album on which they appear. But time has passed and feelings have changed (once long ago I couldn't imagine laying aside my vinyl and cassettes and replacing them with compact disc) and now I've begun considering new possibilities that once I'd have classified as being nothing sort of shocking.
It's become very difficult to justify parting with the cash required to bring home a CD, especially when two-thirds of its content is likely to be material I'd not listen to twice. Though it can tricky to digitally snag the sorts of sounds that please me most, it's not completely impossible and is growing much more possible every day. If iTunes were the only game in town I'd probably not be engaging in this rumination - what with it's less-than-ubiquitios codec and rather unfriendly DRM - but, hello there, Amazon MP3.
Meanwhile, it doesn't take very many jewel cases to create a mass of plastic that's difficult to stow away. Because of that I'm seriously considering disinvesting myself of a majority of the shiny platters in my CD cache. I would, of course, create digital files of everything first (and that action, of course, would probably stick in the craw of the RIAA - but that's another story for another day).
Yet in spite of these bold new audio notions, I remain torn. Holding a newly purchsed CD in my hands feels nice. Holding its liner notes in my hands feels even nicer. Losing music because I failed to enage in a timely data backup doesn't feel nice at all. Sigh.
(Yes, I realize that there are no CDs in the image above, only LPs. That art serves as a symbol of the commercially available musical journey of my life, from its earliest vinyl beginnings to a 21st century audiowisely overloaded hard drive. It's kinda like that scene in the Kubrick flick where the scene shifts (to the tune of Thus Spake Zarathustra) from the flying bone to a space station. And, no, that's not Cher on the album on the right.)
Yes, it's pointless and only marginally entertaining, but I too have taken sides in the Twitter Colorwar. Actually, I created my very own side. You, gentle blog visitor, are probably wondering whether there are more important projects with which I should be engaged. There are! But even I - your calm, cool, collected blog host - am not immune to the interweb's occasional meme.
(For inquiring minds that want to know: The lovely Twitter application you see above is Twitterific. The desktop background over which the lovely Twitter application hovers is the lovely Barbara Stanwyck.)
PackRat is meant to be played against one's Facebook friends. If, however, one has few friends or few friends who are playing it, PackRat features a few resident rodents from whom one can steal stuff. Each rat grins at the player from the same 50x50 pixel avatar space that the real people do, but none of them has his/her own profile page since, obviously, none are actual entities. These cheerful critters do, however, have associated with them, just like real people, large-ish avatar-ish portraits. The lovely and talented Shakirat seemed the rat most fitting to be introduced in her full glory because of all the rats she's the easist on the eye. And now she'll sing her latest hit as a finale to this week's ratty festivities. See you next week when we return to our regularly scheduled programming (unless I bump into you in Austin before then).
PackRat's furry mascot as an Obey Giant spoof was not created to be something officially tied to the game. It was instead me making a joke to get my jollies. It was not my intent to satirically examine society, nor was it my attempt to satirically examine the satirical examination of society (or at least I don't think it was). I was being silly - and hopefully pleasantly so. If, however, I find this smiling verminous fellow plastered onto lamposts, street signs, or any other public property I won't be feeling pleasant about it, no, not at all.
In its early stages (very, very early stages) PackRat wasn't PackRat at all. Once development on it began it quickly diverged entirely away from the piratey pop culture collecting game it was originally conceived to be and became the rat-like robbery adventure you see today. I for one am quite pleased that the vermin element was added to the equation!
As PackRat began taking shape it was inevitable that various elements of gameplay stood the chance of being either altered or dropped altogether. That was also the case with the many PackRat items - those tasty thingies one unrepentantly swipes from one's friends, family, and acquaintances. Why would anyone ever want to leave the lovely Tiki Island? Good-bye, raft. The choicest cut of cow flesh seared to perfection? Sure, but we've got nary a pork chop nor a piece of fried chicken to keep it company. A portrait of the artist as a heartless outlaw of the American Old West? Pass. A piping hot slice of pepperoni pizza amply equipped with gooey mozzarella? I'm having trouble remembering what was up with that one because I'm suddenly daydreaming of dragging my lousy, villainous hide onto a seaworthy vessel built for one and setting sail for Naples.
Once again I'm joining the Alamofire Amigos (formerly known as the Fearsome Firewheelers) as they head deep into the heart of Texas for the SXSW Interactive Festival. But rather than putting this place on ice, I'm automating the posting to present five days of something on the hearts and minds of all online humanity: Rats. Packrats, to be precise. Actually, take off the 's' and capitalize the 'r' and then you're cooking. But you're not ... uh ... you're not cooking rats. That's just nasty.
