This is the flagship post of a larger collection of general gripes I’ve personally had concerning the inconsistencies with the Adobe Creative Suite. Some of them are specific to a certain program, others deal with trying to puzzle out why 3 different programs working largely with the same tools do things so very differently. Rest assured, they all annoy the hell out of me.

I’d like to preface these by admitting that Adobe makes some damn fine products, without which I would be a very different kind of artist. Approach this not as a series of complaints so much as my own special brand of QA for Adobe and their products. I should also note that I’m using CS3, and that some of these issues may have been resolved in CS4.

Adobe gripe #1? Well this deals with Illustrator CS3, as the title might imply, and more precisely with the “Next Object Below” command. For those unfamiliar, this is a command that comes in very handy for when you’ve built a file with lots of layers, and you’re having a hard time getting to objects in the back. It works great. Select an object on top of the object you want to select, hit command+opt+[ a few times, then do whatever you need to.

It’s fantastic until you want to use it within a group. In a group, the program ceases to perform a lot of functions, and some of them make sense. This particular one does not. To my understanding, creating groups in Illustrator is meant to create nicely manageable chunks of imagery that are easy to move around. So say, you make a block of text with some nice outlining and other effects, and you group them together. Then you decide that you want to edit a color of one of the background elements. Since everything is wrapped up in a group, you can no longer select the individual pieces of that group by using the “Next Object Below” command. You might be able to use the direct selection tool to target the piece you want, but oftentimes it isn’t a precise enough tool, especially when working with text. You could ungroup the group, but then you’ll have to rebuild it, and that defeats the purpose of having created the group in the first place. You can also isolate the group, which lets you work with just the elements inside that group. But inside of an isolated group, the “Next Object Below” command flat out stops working.

And now since all of your eyes have rolled into the back of your head, and your tongues have lolled out as you’re bored to death by the details, I’ll explain it metaphorically:

Let’s say you’re on top of a skyscraper. The Next Object Below command is like getting in the elevator and going down floor by floor to the floor that has the vending machine with the Caramellos. When objects are grouped, it’s like you accidentally got on the express elevator that shoots you 10 floors lower than you wanted to be, and, lo and behold, the normal elevator is out of service so you can take the express elevator back up, back down, but you’re not getting the caramel that you crave. Isolating the group is like deciding to take the stairs. Only when you enter the stairwell, you realize that all the floors below have been bashed into a single floor, and you have to dig through a mess of concrete, twisted steel and dead bodies for some candy that probably won’t be all that great when you finally get to it. And sometimes when you have that gooey, delicious caramel and chocolate treat in sight after having burrowed your way down through the rubble, an I-beam falls out of nowhere, plunging through your back and out your abdomen, giving you a good look at your own chopped liver before you magically respawn at the top of this strange hell you’ve created inside of your Illustrator file (this is what happens when you finally have the object you want selected, and then you click to transform it, move it, etc. and you accidentally reselect the topmost item since there’s no way to temporarily lock onto your selection).

It really seems to be more of a relative z-indexing problem where all items in a group has a set z value, regardless of how deep you drill into it, and if Next Object Below simply allows you to move through the z-index. Since all items of a group share the same space the command fails. Whatever the root problem is, I hope Adobe addresses it at some point.

I’m going to review a few scifi movies I’ve seen lately and nobody on this planet can stop me. I hit the theater for Moon and District 9, but the rest are streaming to my 360.

Moon

Sam Rockwell turned in a couple of badass performances in this picture, focused on cloning.  This one will get more important as time goes on and human clones go from science fiction to (illegal) scientific reality.  We will be able to create human clones sooner than later, so why not prepare yourself for tomorrow’s ethical dilemma’s today?  Apparently the CGI on this indie flick is so amazing because all the artists were doing nothing during a writer’s strike (or something) so it looks big budget.  Kevin Spacey and his emoticon face deserve a Best Supporting Actor award. 5/5 stars, cuz I’m a sucker for Luna.

Eden Log

This is a highly stylized movie out of France that alternately claims to be cyberpunk, mind-blowing, and suspenseful.  I found it to be none of those adjectives.  The sets and premise were all good to go, but they expect you to make some fairly illogical leaps in order to piece together the plot.  The strange acting was distracting, but I’m not even sure if it was dubbed.  Bottom line: French scifi isn’t like regular scifi and this one can be missed without regret. 3/5 stars and it’s on Netflix Streaming.

District 9

I loved this movie.  This could only have come from South Africa, and the apartheid themes with the alien slums were vivid and somewhat shocking.  It had corporate ass-hattery and militaristic douche-baggery galore, and you were just allowed to see it – no preaching or shoving shit down your throat. This is superb allegory. The main character (I’m not spoiling his story for you, just go see it) is played by a non-actor, and he made the role real. The main alien characters are CGI, but there’s real pathos for them.  Oh yeah, the CGI was seamless, just great.  Great scifi technology, wonderful setting, I just can’t say enough good things about this one.  Here’s the original short film, Alive in Joburg, and here’s Neill Blomkamp comes through with a sequel. 5/5 in theaters now.

Dead Leaves

Crazy ass anime reminiscent of the zanier parts of  FLCL.  Pandy (she’s got one pink eye) and Retro (he’s got a TV for a head) wake up naked on Earth, go on a rampage, and get sent to prison on what’s left of the moon. It’s raunchy (one guy has a lot of prison sex with his giant drill dick) and funny (at least if you’re Japanese it must be) and action packed (well, ultra-violent anyway).  But it’s also short (55min) so you really have no reason not to watch it.  It’s on Netflix Streaming dubbed, which worked out just fine.  4/5 stars, but don’t expect it to make sense your first viewing.

The Batman vs. Dracula

The animation is surprisingly good, but this is a serious WTF of a movie.   The Penguin is a super-atheletic Mad Hatter.  The Joker is a Warcraftian Troll, with a black guy’s voice.  Dracula has cheekbones like elephantine tusks.  Vicky Vale’s soul houses the Count’s lost love, or something.  Yes, Dracula’s coffin got exported from Transylvania to Gotham and Batman invents a cure for vampirism, just like you’d expect.  This POS is on Netflix streaming, so check it out at your leisure.  2/5 stars and yes, I consider this scifi.

This is less of a blog post and more of a public service announcement. World, this is Mandrake. I’d like you to take a good long look at the picture below:

gross

You see that? That’s Joose. You might spot it hiding on shelves in the beer aisle at your grocery store, or maybe in a cooler at a local gas station. Whatever you do… DON’T FUCKING DRINK IT. EVER!

That is all.

I’m not sure why it took 8 months for Kristen Bell to be the Babe of the Month, but this has now been corrected.

While she is probably known best for her role as Veronica Mars, some of her more recent roles have been playing Elle Bishop on Heroes, the narrator on Gossip Girls, and the title role in Forgetting Sarah Marshall.  She also loaned her voice and likeness to the videogame Assassins Creed, playing the character Lucy.

As for upcoming roles, she will be seen in the Vince Vaugh/Jon Favreau movie Couples Retreat, where she will play the wife of Jason Bateman’s character.  It should be out in October, but until then, here’s some pictures to make sure you don’t forget what she looks like. (more…)