Link: http://twitter.com/JoshuaJMorgan

Link: http://www.youtube.com/user/StayPuft69

I posted my films on YouTube a while back...

Link: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/a/53/173

Link: http://listography.com/josh

The newly-launched BoingBoing TV vlog linked to listography.com so I checked it out, signed up and starting making my own lists from the randomly generated list topics the site suggested. The few lists I've started are merely works-in-progress but I find these random lists to be a thought provoking exercise in focused free association. Actually, I was always planning to use my failed-before-it-launched Memo2Myself webcomic as a listography of sorts and earlier today I was telling both Régis and Brent that I was seriously considering giving memo2myself.com another try after re-reading the entire archive of one of my all-time favorite webcomics, XKCD. Then again, I'm having a hard time just updating this damn blog, so how am I ever gonna illustrate my ideas if I can't find the time to type them...

In other news, Sam is back from NYC and director/comedian Paul Provenza posted another comment on my blog just over 2 years after the last time he commented.

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Current Mood: Sleepy )-o
Current Music: The Flying Club Cup by Beirut

Link: http://www.facebook.com/joshuajmorgan

Link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/joshmorgan

Link: http://www.joshuajmorgan.com/blog/josh.php/2005/11/15/stick_fighter_at_newgrounds_com

STICK FIGHTER, the Flash-based acrade-style Stick Figure fighting game I made last year is now at NewGrounds.com

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/278243

Arcade-style fighting game like Street Fighter, only with Stick Figures.

I know Stick Figure fighting games have been done before, but I made STICK FIGHTER last year for a school assignment when I was first learning Flash.

There are 2 Modes of play:
1) Single player vs Computer AI
2) Two players vs each other

Current features are:
-- fireball combos (both standing and crouching)
-- two strengths of attack for both punches and kicks
-- jumping, crouching and blocking
-- artificially intelligent Computer opponent
-- shadows and blood
-- music and sound FX

I recently added volume controls for the audio. I might add more special moves someday. I'd also like to make it so people can reconfigure the key controls for their own keyboards. It was tricky to find a functional layout for the two player controls because Windows has a glitch were certain keyboard combinations cancel each other out and I didn't want one player to be able to accidentally (or intentionally) mess up the other player by button mashing their own keys. The current default keyboard controls should be comfortable for almost all keyboards and they should work in all operating systems.

Oh ya, and the background animation for the main menu is actually two AI computer players strategically fighting each other at random. It's kinda fun to watch them beat each other up.

Link: http://www.joshuajmorgan.com/blog/josh.php/2005/11/11/self_portrait_at_newgrounds_com

It took me over a year since I originally made the damn thing, but I finally got around to fixing up my Self-Portrait so I could submit it to NewGrounds.com.

If you're reading this here blog, then chances are you've already seen it, but please head on over to NewGrounds.com and VOTE for my Self-Portrait:

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/277346

I originally conceived Self-Portrait as a 15 second short during the Fall 2002 (my first quarter as a Grad student at UCLA), but I decided to make a different 15 second film. I returned to the idea, however, when I wanted to make an intro for this website. After teaching myself Flash, the film was completed in the Spring 2004, and it went on to win a "Spotlight Award" the following year.

I recently rediscovered NewGrounds.com and I'm so glad I finally decided to submit Self-Portrait because it's fascinating to see how polarized people's reactions are. I never intended it to be funny so I'm still surprised that some people find it humorous (it's always gotten a big laugh at all the festivals it's screened in).

UPDATE: 11-17-2005

Self-Portrait made the FRONT PAGE at NewGrounds.com.

So far it's been viewed over 27,000 times and it's currently ranked # 5,801 for Popularity (that's pretty high considering my Stick Fighter game is only ranked # 20,776)

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Current Mood:
Current Music: Grace by Jeff Buckley

Link: http://www.joshuajmorgan.com/blog/josh.php?title=about_josh

I'm a UCLA MFA Student, Animator, Freelance Assassin...

I'm an incurable insomniaddict, an insufferable iconoclast and a no-nonsense Nihilist. Looking back at that last sentence it appears I'm also addicted to alliteration. It also makes me sound like I'm no fun, but I'm actually a big goof-ball. I love to laugh and I love to make others laugh, but I don't consider myself a "comedian" (I prefer the term "Wiseass American"). That said, there are many things that I take very seriously. I'm extremely allergic to religions, political parties, and traditions. I was raised Christian Conservative but thanks to a little thing called an "education" I was able to expunge myself of all the beliefs I'd inherited from my parents and now I consider myself a dead-again Atheist and a recovering Republican (I voted for GW Bush in 2000 and I'm sorry everyone, so very very sorry. There, that at least takes care of Step 8 on my road to recovery...)

Facts:
1. Ninjas Joshes are mammals.
2. Ninjas Joshes fight talk ALL the time.
3. The purpose of the Ninja Josh is to flip out and kill hug people

I speak pretty good German and a little Japanese (though both languages are slowly leaking from my brain since I never use either anymore). Contrary to popular belief, I'm not a ninja, though a friend of a friend of mine at UCLA started the popular ninja site realultimatepower.net. I'd make a lousy ninja if I tried, as I'm conspicuously tall (6'3"), I have horrible balance cuz my feet are unusually small for a guy of my height (size 8 men's), and I'm freakishly underweight (buck and a half) so I'd snap like a twig, although I've found great truth to the Fight Club adage that "skinny guys fight til they're burger." My raging metabolism not only keeps me lean, but it allows me an almost superhuman ability to consume alcohol. When I do get drunk though, I have a tendency to tell everyone within earshot about I how I've been robbed TWICE at gunpoint (no joke... if you want to hear the story, let's go drinking sometime). In fact, being held up at gunpoint in two separate armed robberies triggered my strong phobia of guns, which is ironic because so many of my animations feature firearms. Those life-threatening experiences also gave me a profound appreciation for living and so I have no intentions of actually performing the suicidal act depicted in my animated Self-Portrait. Seriously, my family and friends can all stop worrying... I really am happy :-)

That's a really old picture that Kurt MacDonald took of me shaving my head, but I've started alternating between a shaved head and a mohawk. Just for the record, I'm NOT a skinhead... I just have a love/hate relationship with my hair. In fact, I'm so paranoid about people thinking I'm a racist that I don't even separate the coloreds from the whites when I do my laundry. Can't we all just get along?

I really am the worst vegetarian ever, at least compared to all my full-blown vegan friends like Kurt and Greg. I gave up beef, pork, poultry and other animals after reading Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser, but I still eat seafood and I have a "leftover clause" that allows me to eat my girlfriend's meaty leftovers (I just can't stand to let food go to waste).

And now let us read a passage from the Book of Morgan...

Jenesis 1:1 - In the beginning there was Josh. Orphaned at birth, because His conception was so immaculate that He had neither a mother nor a father, the infant Josh was sold into slavery and bought by a nomadic tribe of circus performers who would shoot Him out of a cannon in a stunt they called "Baby-go-BOOM". A talent scout saw the act and took Josh to Hollywood where He starred in numerous diaper commercials before His career was ruined by scandal (Josh swears that blasphemous little bitch told Him she was 11 months old, but nay, the jurors were non-believers). Ruined before His first birthday, Joshua then spent the next 20+ years in a drunken stupor until one day He had an absinthe-induced vision... a vision of world populated entirely by people named Josh. Behold, His vision is near fruition and the time shall come for the reign of our savior: Joshua J Morgan.

FAVORITES:

Link: http://www.joshuajmorgan.com/links/