I'm Famous Again

My pal Megan Stein invited me to go with her to the RBC when The Independent assigned her to do a writeup on the WWE show a few weeks ago. The article is in this week's issue, and here it is! Megan did a great job writing about wrestling for a popular press piece; I think she did a good job of capturing what went on at the show, without falling into the journalistic trap of demeaning what these athletic performers do.

Lessons In Creativity

I think several of the people I know read this blog might be interested in this article. Mark Kennedy (not to be confused with Marc Kennedy) discusses how his young daughter reacted to the 1977 Star Wars film, and then analyzed why certain parts of the movie worked so well. If you're interested in writing, editing, or storytelling, you might enjoy reading the article. Made me think about pacing and revelation.

CageMatch 1/24/08

Had another CageMatch last night. Was a pretty good show; missed having Remi there though. Did the final reveal of the XXXXX logo video, proclaiming CageMatch's Fiftieth show to take place on February 9. Espionage A Trois finally was defeated, and Zach Ward got his first CageMatch win in his own theater, so that was amusing. I was quite happy with the poster design for this show. The video was okay, but obviously a rush job.

One bad thing did happen at last night's show. When I ran down to do my normal leap up the stairs at the top of the show, I stupidly decided to try something new in mid-air, and ended up dislocating my left knee in a rather nasty landing that twisted my lower leg. I tried to cover for it, and I don't think the audience noticed for the most part, but damn it hurt. During each hosting segment, I limped up the aisle but tried to walk as normal as possible on stage. (The show must go on!) Ryan Blackledge was kind enough to help me get all my stuff to my car after the show was over, but damn, driving home in that straight-shift car was brutal. I ended up taking today off of work, which they weren't overly happy about. (Morale at the job these days is at an all-time low.) Fortunately, I've gone through the dislocation thing before (albeit a looooong time ago!) and have some braces and my Classy Freddie Blassie cane to get around with for a bit. I'm thinking it'll be okay in a couple of days.

Also got two great purchases yesterday. My Ultimate James Bond box set of dvds arrived (42 discs for $80, yes!!!) and the very kind John Loftin made a purchase on my behalf of the academic version of Final Cut Pro Studio (sweet!). So now I'll be able to make that really kickass dvd of all my CageMatch videos I had been thinking about. It should be ready for the 50th CageMatch Extravaganza (February 9th, folks!) Watch this space for sales information!

SuperMeme

Ethan Kaye came up with this funny idea: taking a particular amusing series of classic Superman panels and replacing the text. Go check out his versions first.

Then Jeff Scronce (nee Skronch) made his own, converting Ethan's hilarious idea into a meme. Go check out his stuff now.

Now that you've seen the innovators, you can go see mine:
Adam West
Motorhead
Star Trek
007
Superfriends

And finally, a blank version in case anybody else wants to give it a go.

EDIT:
God, this is far too addictive. Here's another one.

EDIT 2:
And yet another one.

A Bit More Fame

Mr. Erik Martin pointed me towards a mention my "Ten" video got on a thread on A Special Thing (a comedy forum.) This is not the first time I've been labelled as "a crazy fan"...HAW!

Kill All Invaders

So apparently the latest trend in online web games is the genre of "Tower Defense Games". Basically, in these games there's a little winding path wandering through your kingdom, and every once in a while evil baddies will start wandering down the path. You have to place little weapon-laden towers around the path in an attempt to whomp these nogoodniks before they make it to the end. There are a number of different weapons to choose from with a variety of effects. In addition, you can upgrade towers as time goes on.

For some reason, I find these little games engrossing. I'm normally not a big fan of strategy games, but this one is so linear, with just options for weapon choice, that I find it quite accessible.

I started off with Laser Defense, and it's probably still my favourite due to the wide variety of weapons. I like the "techy" feel to it too, what with the graph paper and the lasers and whatnot. Today I discovered Flash Element TD and its beta-test offspring, Flash Element TD 2. The first one is very fun, very nice graphics. Try that first so you'll have an appreciation of the second version. I'm still testing that one, but it has great promise. The creatures have better graphics and more amusing noises, and it looks like the weapons will be even cooler once you get to the upper levels. The second version also has a different mechanic, where instead of the creatures cycling through your pathway, they go to the end and try to steal a "flag" and bring it back. When you finally kill them, they drop the flag where they lie. I think TD2 (at this point anyway) is easier, but loads o' fun.

There's LOADS more of games from this "tower defense" genre; just search your favourite local flash game site, and you're sure to find some fun.

Revisualizing Cinema

Nice post title, huh? Sufficiently academic, I hope. But seriously, I like the idea this guy has come up with for summarizing the overall look of a film. He feeds a movie into this program that takes a screengrab every second and reduces it to a mere 8x6 pixels. Then all those shots are strung together in one overall picture that lets you see how the film flows in terms of colour and overall look. By reducing the individual screens down to such a small size, you get sort of an average feel of each second, and looking at them en masse gives you a feel for how the entire movie ebbs and flows. Interesting idea.

Check it out on Brendan Dawes Dot Com.

Being Creative

So this is the first year I've ever had a New Year's resolution. I decided to keep a blog that simply documented every creative thing I do this year, whether it's a video or a wacky Photoshop of somebody's face on a wildebeest or something. Hopefully it'll be fun to see en masse as it grows.

So head on over to A Wretched Hive and check out the first entry for the year (my Amazon video review of The Ten!) and then add the site to your RSS feed so you can follow along at home as I add on new wackiness throughout the year.