Denver Cartograstrology

In October of 2016 I was living in Denver on Inca Street off of West 8th Ave when my home became infested with junkies. Naturally, it was time for me to find a new place so that the junkies could destroy the house in peace without me being there. But before I got on Craigslist, I applied my super secret method of checking the map, looking at the patterns, and identifying the neighborhood I was destined to live in next. Upon searching the listings, I found a nice ad, but it didn’t provide an address for obvious security reasons yet my instinct was telling me this is it, and so I found myself at a Taco Bell being interviewed and submitting my information for a background check. When I saw that the interview was going well, that’s when I suddenly pulled out the stops.

“You don’t need to tell me where the house is. I already know. You see, there is this pattern on the map that shows me where the next place of significance in my life will be, which is usually a workplace or residence. This time the x marks the spot at the intersection of West Ohio Avenue and South Newton Street, at the corner of an elementary school.”

Her face went white and she abruptly got up and left the scene without a word, presumably to run home to tell her husband, Tom, to beef up the home security because a lurker was stalking them who knew where they lived.

Okay, so that part about me “checking the map” and telling her about my foreknowledge of the location of the house I made up just now for the purpose of providing an opening anecdote portion for this post, but I could have freaked her out with my knowledge of where their house is, you see. If only I had, prior to the meeting, noticed these aforementioned patterns that would tell of my moving there, what a reaction I’d receive, right?!

This method I have named cartograstrology, and I even made a video about it a few years back on YouTube. There is a potential practical usefulness like what I described in the above anecdote that may go well beyond amusement at others’ astonishment. Perhaps this could be a scientific window into how consciousness works or even a proof for the existence of God. Who knows? What I do know is that I’ve created this blog post for my own wonderful lurkers. You can follow along, too, if you wish. All are welcome to learn how to “check the map” with me!

How to make a cartograstrological chart

First, we need to set up the map with its base framework components. Let’s do it together! Open up Google Maps and place down some points: mark my childhood home, and then my residence in 2007 where I discovered cartograstrology. At the midpoint of this line segment, place a perpendicular line. That line passes right through my workplace at the time in 2007. So far so good, right?

Make sure you place those points precisely above the front door, or your resulting geometry will have a greater margin of error. Don’t be fooled by laws of entropy – Universe is exquisitely precise!

Now, in 2015 while I was living in the Inca house and while it was still occupied with wholesome people, I awaited the release of my favorite game: Fallout 4.

In the game, if you stand just above the front door of the Sole Survivor’s Sanctuary Hills home, you can use your scope to get a visual of the places of significance along a straight line that your character will visit as you progress through the main story, should you take the path of the Minutemen:

The whole game is basically right outside the front door: Red Rocket Truck Stop, the church steeple next to the Museum of Freedom, the Mass Fusion building is a bit to the left so that the Old State House in Goodneighbor is aligned with the reticle, and finally beyond that is the Castle.

Next, get on Google Maps and trace that line we just found in the game, and take it all the way as far as it goes in both directions.

The map of Fallout 4 as viewed from the PipBoy, with some text added. I have added a dotted line to correspond to the real world line for comparison

See? The line takes you as far as Infanta on the southern shore of Africa, which comes from the word infant (as in Shawn who was taken by the Institute as an infant) and Days Island in Tacoma, which gives you a total distance of 16,666 kilometers. From Days Island, draw a line south until you find a topographical feature in Los Angeles county that resembles Tacoma, and place your point on the western tip of that triangle along I-5, which is the road system that also runs through Tacoma.

That triangle in Southern California looks like it’s just begging to be observed with a cartograstrological eye!
And this topographical triangle even has Interstate 5, the same I-5 that passes through its northern counterpart – Tacoma!

Rotate your map clockwise by 90 degrees and now let’s stop and compare. Looks like we are on to something!

Gee golly, they sure do look similar, don’t they. This is how you know you’re on the right track!

Note how the direction of the shore in Ruston in Tacoma points to Mount Rainier, which creates a line nearly parallel to the one we drew using my workplace and residences in Tacoma. Pay attention to the mountain – this will come in handy later.

Tacoma’s triangular edge seems to align to the direction of Mt. Rainier
What happens if we do the same with the LA triangle? Where does it take us?

Following the line that goes from Tacoma’s Ruston shore to Mt Rainier again in the LA county triangle will take you back to Africa. If you look at the map upside down and compare, you can see that there is a corresponding feature to Days Island there. See it? Yup, it’s Madagascar. So its southern tip is where we lay down our end point.

I know the map on the right is upside down. Universe doesn’t always present all patterns to be observed in the conventional north-facing map-reading orientation, alright!?
How much of the Fallout franchise has taken place along this line, you reckon?

Let’s now pause to take a moment to look at the line we’ve created and gawk at all of its Fallout significance. From Las Vegas (Fallout: New Vegas) to where the line departs the U.S. mainland from that island in Maine (Fallout 4: Far Harbor DLC) – we’ve got ourselves a line!

Left: our line from LA county to Madagascar. Right: Fallout 4 Far Harbor DLC

This line also passes through Colorado near Denver at Boulder, which is where our cartograstrology chart is to be mapped. At this point in our exploration of cartograstrology, any cartograstrologist worth their crystallized salt would be able to tell you about the Tacoma-Denver infrastructure connection, and if they can’t – well then they need to get their angle righted.

How about a game of “spot the differences”? Note that Denver is rotated clockwise 90 degrees so that west is north in this screenshot

The next task for you is to identify where in Denver is the equivalent to Tacoma’s regarding the infrastructure. Go ahead. I’ll wait. Found it? You’re right – you noticed how the neat north-south-east-west grid pattern changes to diagonal when you get downtown in both cities. And Broadway is the 000 block that divides east and west, in the same way 6th Ave in Tacoma divides north and south. As you go down Broadway away from downtown, it’s as if you were going west down 6th Ave in Tacoma, and where the Highway 16 overpass and Scott Pierson Trail is in Tacoma you reach Speer Boulevard and the Cherry Creek Trail in Denver. Where Tacoma’s 16 is elevated, Denver’s trail is below street level. At this rate, the patternicity is sequential.

So, say it’s 2010 and you were a bettin’ cartograstrologist and you were lowkey keeping tabs on where I’d be going next and maybe you even had a pot going with your cartograstrologer buddies. What neighborhood would you be putting your money on? Well, because the pattern is so precise, there really is only one city block in Denver that it could be, so you’d be putting that money on an individual address in that neighborhood. Find that neighborhood yet? Right again – between Kalamath and Galapago and West 6th and West 8th Avenues.

Back in 2015 when I wasn’t even looking at the map anymore, let alone plotting cartograstrological maps, I got an invitation from my brother to join him in Denver at a cool place his friend rented for the purpose of intentional community building. It was called Inspire Life Studio and I said what the hey – I’m down. So I packed up my bike and shipped it to an address on West 8th Ave and Kalamath, and then moved into the house right around the corner that was purchased by the same guy renting the Inspire Life Studio’s suite. I’d stay there for the next year and a half and enjoy the releases of two of my favorite games, the other being No Man’s Sky. It’s destiny!

So, in my made-up story at the top of this page, how did I figure I’d end up in the Westwood neighborhood before the interview? Well, since I went to work at Pajama Baking Company and Govinda’s Garden, these two workplaces would then have to be placed on the map. Oh, and remember the mountains?

That line from Days Island to the LA triangle passes right over the (former) peak of Mt St Helens

Since the mountains seem to be a “key” or guide, just put them all together.

Universe is practically spelling it out at this point. Better take a closer look at that neighborhood…
This is getting ridiculous!

So, that’s how, in my story, I knew exactly where my new place would be before I searched the listings. Since elementary schools show up repeatedly on the line from my childhood home to my ’07 residence, the location of Castro Elementary as well as West Ohio Avenue’s placement within the triangle gives us really only one place that my second residence will be.

It’s too bad that I didn’t discover any of this until recently. What a missed opportunity to have some fun messing with my roommates minds! Surely cartograstrology has some other useful purpose, and even surelier others must be drawing up their own maps…

Best not to overthink it. I do still have to finish exploring The Island in Fallout 4 DLC, after all.

Trip code change

We be trippin’.
Your turn, Chanter.

How’s your VACatION?
Do your eyes deceive you?
This ain’t no black magic.
Microcosm to macrocosm.
All the dots connect, baby.
I have the video.
Ya know what I mean?
What does your religion teach about UNITY?
It is what it is!

Cognitive dissonance or cognitive resonance?
You are a case study.

I love you ALL.

Enjoy the ride.

RS

Dragon Warrior Tribute Previs Analysis

It’s been three months since I (finally) shared my EPIC Dragon Warrior Tribute previsualization music video with the world via YouTube, and I’m humbled by the view count racking up since its release. Thank you! All ten of you! The reception, feedback, and praise I’ve received from you is a super confidence booster — so thanks, mom!

In all seriousness, it’s time to give you a glimpse of what went into the thinking behind this project. It’s a tribute video, after all, and all of its content is stolen from the game and put back together again in the form of a fan’s interpretation. What’s more, I wanted the viewer to recognize the things from the game and say “wow! It’s so true to the game!”

Did you play the game, then watch my tribute video, and carefully compare the two? I mean really scrutinize this video shot-for-shot to look at everything? Anybody? Probably not, because who cares to make time for that shit? So let me show you a few things you might have missed.

In the opening scene, our hero, the descendant of Erdrick, is walking along a jagged and colorful landscape. Did you notice the video’s landscape is to the scale of the original 8-bit source, but in three dimensions?

See it now? Let’s move on!

In this terribly pixelated shot of my video, we can see what looks like a familiar place in Alefgard, and though there aren’t any Green Dragons where our hero is walking, they can be found in the swamp just south of him.


I don’t know who “Domi” is, but thanks for making it so I didn’t have to play all the way through to get this graphic

I didn’t bother adding color to the model yet, because I didn’t get to it in time. I had a deadline, ya know! Plus, who the hell is actually watching this? Anyway, how about I do it now for ya in Microsoft Paint.


MS Paint 4 life!

I could keep going, but I’ll let you (not care) to discover the rest! I will say that I really only changed a few things from the original game in my tribute, such as the location of the swamp where you find Erdrick’s Token, our hero not wearing his helmet in the beginning (but that’s because I forgot!), no cape or helmet tassel, and green dragons don’t grow into red ones. You also can’t be disarmed in the game. That’s about it.  

How about I finish this post off with the best “easter egg” in my video yet:

Look at that – it is the same thing you see on the game’s box art! The scenes flowed so naturally that I bet you didn’t even notice I slipped that easter egg in there. Because you didn’t even watch my video, that’s why.

Am I right?

My Dragon Warrior tribute project

Way back in 2005, I was listening to a song and a flood of epic visuals came over me of a young Descendant of Erdrick aimlessly walking the lands of Alefgard, encountering a fierce dragon, being beaten, rising up from defeat with renewed determination and purpose, taking on numerous trials and tribulations that would give him strength and courage, leading him to the ultimate climax of facing the dragon one more time to emerge victorious, with the music setting the emotion and flow of the visuals. Though the song didn’t quite fit, I still couldn’t stop fantasizing about seeing this music video play out in front of my eyes. The time and skill involved in making it a finished project would prove to be too ambitious, but that didn’t stop me from at least creating a visualization of it to just see what my vision would actually look like on the computer screen. This is the result of a few months of painstaking work using computer animation software to create the 3D assets I would need to make this visualization.

 

This project officially began in July 2014 when a friend had offered to take me in as an “apprentice” in exchange for doing work for him and his family. He is a designer by trade and a skilled artist specializing in sculpting, but has extensive knowledge, facilities and equipment to do just about anything involving arts and crafts, digital as well as traditional. He provided me with the software (which cost almost a grand if I wanted my own license), as well as clay to sculpt by hand, which is how I got the reference source to make the 3D dragon.

My mentor gave me useful advice and direction on how to go about a production, as there are many ways one can waste time if one does not have experience with animated video production. So I started with a storyboard on paper and worked out what assets I would need.

Since this is a tribute project of the NES game Dragon Warrior, most of the assets could be obtained by using the game’s original art as a reference, so all I would need to do is create 3D versions of them.

Once the assets were made, I began work on the animation. One month later, this neat music video! And then I decided to never work with computer animation again and became a chef.

The end.