With a pallete (and a cloud) borrowed from Doug Henning's wardrobe, James kicks off this Flash clash. A single black-and-white figure drawn in James' signature style strolls across a screen capture from the long-forgotten video game "Malcolm Garrett's Human League Album Cover Designer '88" (for the Sega Genesis). The rice paper background adds a nice organic touch. The paper seems strangely moisture-resistant, as does our hero. He doesn't look particularly unhappy, I'm thinking that raincloud is perhaps some sort of weapon avatar or something, video game characters always have some sorta junk floating over them. He's got "Lightning Power" or something.
It's always good to see a simple, structured serve, James' is reminiscent of Stephen Harrington's classic back in August, widely considered to be among the best in LT history. James built the stage and started a story. Leaving it this wide open more or less obliges Trevor to respond on James' terms, without scrapping the general idea. Trevor can drop a few potted Forsythias on the court, and/or orchestrate a unicorn attack, or even move the camera around, but the physics and space of the match have been strongly established. On the other hand, any decision James makes is one less thing Trevor has to sweat about over the next fifteen minutes.
Something that just occurred to me, which the competitors were probably hoping I wouldn't bring up: since this match is being produced in Flash (aaah-aaah!), we could actually see some interactivity added: buttons, links, sliders, the old eyeballs-following-the-cursor-trick, or what have you. Boy these guys have their work cut out for them.
Soundtrack to this volley: Travis' "Why Does it Always Rain on Me," remixed by Junior Senior, featuring Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys.
Play by play commentary for this match is provided, as it happens, by Bryan Bedell.
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The votes were counted and recounted. Every hanging chad was examined. In both Semi-Finals the winner prevailed by a very slight margin. The Finals are now set for Friday, July 10 at 2pm Chicago time. Lots more about the match and our expanded coverage soon.
Winners will be decided by your votes and will advance to the Finals on July 10th. To vote for a player simply post a Twitter message that includes #LYT and your favorite's name with the "hash" sign in front of it. Use These: #LYT plus #mrdraplin or #mrhubacek for the early match. #LYT plus #mrinman or #mrhansen for the late match. Voting is closed, winner announced later today.
Layer 10 is up. And that's a wrap for our second semi-final match.
The Ref's coin-flips and also his preview of today's first live Semi-Final featuring Aaron Draplin versus Greg Hubacek have been posted. Shaun Inman plays Scott Hansen in the nightcap and Jim Coudal's preview for that match is live too.
Find links to all the matches played previously and check on matches to come here.
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