The Transmutation Effect

The Legion of Justice Heroes

2011-06-28T10:24:00.000-04:00

So a few months ago, my friend Sylvia invited people to come partake (in a few months, ie, last week) of a murder mystery party. Sylvia doesn't buy these in a box from a store; she writes them up from scratch, creating all the characters, their motivations, their interrelationships, EVERYTHING. I don't see how she does it.

Anyway, she had a fairy tale murder mystery party a year or two ago, and it was amazing, great food, great backstories, and people had an amazing time fleshing out their fairytale characters and acting like complete nutballs. (Aaron and Fiona as obnoxious-accented Hansel and Gretel were particular standouts.) I participated in that one, and was an old man whose mission was to get rid of a magic amulet before midnight. I palmed it off on Bryan Barnes, and he aged like 120 years in seconds (and then we had a hilarious slow-motion chase around the theater.)

ANYWAY anyway, a few months ago, Sylvia invited me to do the superhero thing, but I was feeling all "wah-wah, whine-whine" antisocial and obnoxious, so I politely declined (even though I had had a ball at the fairytale one).Turns out Aaron couldn't make it either (as he had to infiltrate some conservative sect and steal their liquor and down pillows or something...) so Sylvia cast him as the superheroes' sidekick (who I dubbed "The Amazing Wonder Keck") and asked me to film a simple scene of him being tortured; something for the heroes to fight for.

Well, you know me: always happy to help a friend out when I can, and if it involves video and campy superheroes, well, always happy to make it eighteen times more complex and giggle the whole time doing it. So I volunteered to do a kidnapping scene as well, and we brainstormed and created some visual gags, some taunting scenes, and the mandatory use of Burgess Meredith Penguin Gas. (which turns out to be fun & easy to do in After Effects!)

I also decided to attempt to make a Superfriends-style animated opening as well, and wanted a Legion of Doom group of villains. Somebody came up with a name that I vetoed, with me saying I wanted a "Man From U.N.C.L.E." style acronym. Aaron, being a smartass, said "why don't you just go with A.C.R.O.N.Y.M.?" Me, being a smartass, said "yeah, right, why don't YOU come up with a cool name that long, with those letters?" Aaron, being a genius comedy writer, came up with one in like four minutes, and it got included in the video (and I made us buttons!). I had fun coming up with all the villainous characters; they were supposed to be illustrated, but got axed due to time constraints. The heroes DID get illustrated; Sylvia sent me Facebook pix of the various folks involved, and I drew my best attempt at them, costumed as their hero. I would draw one person, show it to Jason, and he'd show me what could be improved to make it actually look human ("You got the boobs wrong AGAIN.") Pencils were scanned into Photoshop and cleaned up, then imported into Toon Boom Studio for inking and colouring. I had already designed all the logos for the heroes and the villains in Illustrator. I also had a great time writing the voiceover script for the animated opening, trying my best to channel Ted Knight.

The live action stuff was filmed over at Casa Keck (after kicking Fitz out, for secrecy reasons). It was insanely hot that day, so filming exteriors whilst wearing longsleeve black "Goon" shirts was less than pleasant for me and Miss Toth, but we had a blast. Got in some good visual gags and some blooper material. Moving inside, we set up my new chromakey screen and suspension stands from Digital Juice (which were AWESOME--I wanna do more chromakey work now!) We filmed the restaurant scene in front of Kit's colelction of Multiple Man sketches, which made it look like a sort of superhero Sardi's, which I thought was funny. We also managed to include our fabled Old Bay Seasoning (in-joke.) After we finally beat Aaron until he learned the actual name of the superhero group name, and after I learned how to fake out to the camera so you could read my shirt, we had that scene in the bag. I had found some great cotton batting that looked like oversized comedy rope to tie Wonder Keck up with, so that looked funny. Aaron got into character quickly, and adlibbed most of his stuff. I took several takes to ramp up my own energy and get into the part (the early takes on the blooper real are painfully low-key.)

Breaking all the equipment down and heading home, it took a week or two to find the time to log all the footage and get it roughly edited, then another solid week to add the music, supers, graphics, and special effects (did I mention the Penguin Gas?) Matching the virtual table movement to the zooming and panning of the camera was difficult, so it looks a little rough--but darn good enough for a one-shot party, I'd say! The important thing was the comedy. Sylvia did a bang-up job of making a ludicrously large plate of spaghetti and meatballs, and Aaron made an annoyingly hilarious pesky sidekick.

Finally it was party day! We headed over to Sylvia's gaming friends Will and Allison's house (they were very awesome, with a cool place, and I need to hang with them more.) Kit arrived about the same time we did, and everybody else managed to arrive by twenty minutes later (by which time, Kit had not yet entered the house. Everyone else was scared to go out and find out why, so I was delegated to go check up on him. If you know Kit well, you wouldn't be worried--he was just putting together a rather complex outfit.)

Everybody seemed to really enjoy themselves. The videos played quite well through the XBox 360, and seemed to add to the mood (screaming during the Troubalert klaxon has now become an ongoing bit). Kit's character, Vector, had size-changing powers, so Kit creatively (and amusingly) replicated that by having a series of different-sized action figures to represent him. Fiona made for a hilarious FDR Lass: "We have our four freedoms: Freedom of speech, freedom from fear,...and the other two freedoms." The guy playing DYRE (think Incredible Hulk) was fabulous. At first, I thought he was an utter buffoon and a shallow actor, as his Hulk-ish character was pretty simple. But then he reverted to his "Bruce Banner" identity (by putting on a suit and tie) and revealed his brilliance (both his character's brilliance and his own brilliance at playing the character!) The plot ended up going in directions we couldn't have imagined, with an explosive ending. Sylvia did an amazing job giving everybody fun characters to play with interesting motivations, and creating a world for them to live in. (And she invented an awesome supervillain off the top of her head: The Great Molesto.)

Oh, and I have to mention that Will infused his own liqueurs, which is awesome, and he was kind enough to let me try his basil liqueur, which was satisfyingly evil-looking with it's cloudy swirls of dark green--it tasted amazing.

So here's the stuff:

Videos are here (now including bloopers from the filming!)
(it's a playlist, so you can either watch them individually or let them all play through.)

Stills from the video production are here.

Pix from the party itself do be here.

Enjoy!
-Ted

My Fave iPad Apps, Part Three - Miscellaneous

2011-06-21T12:38:00.001-04:00

Highlights of other apps.

Nice apps:

GarageBand - I have no idea why they sell this so cheap. If you want to make music quickly and easily, get this.
ChopDJ, Flare, Baby Scratch, TapDJ - scratching apps
iBooks, Stanza, GoodReader, ARCreader - all good PDF and eBook readers. GoodReader has great annotation tools if you want to make notes in your textbooks or whatever.
DocsToGo - Sort of Microsoft Office for the iPad. There's a few apps like this out there, and I finally chose this one after much debate. Love the way it syncs up with Dropbox and Google Docs.
IA Writer - a clear, uncluttered word processor that has additional keys on the keyboard for punctuation and navigation, so you can write faster and spend less time switching keyboards and trying to move the cursor.
Pages - Apple's word processor and basic desktop publishing program. Great to have if you need to quickly lay out a poster or brochure or something. Nice interface. Worth it.
Nebulous - Still evaluating this, but it looks like IA Writer with Dropbox integration. Well that's cool! Gotta look at this more.
Index Card - an index-cards-on-corkboard program. Good for organizing ideas.
Corkulous - Much like Index Card.
[Adult Swim] - Watch selected episodes, get info.
AppStart - Guide to how to take advantage of your iPad. ALL NEW IPAD OWNERS SHOULD GET THIS.
SimpleMind+ - Good, free mind mapping app.
Idea Sketch - another mind mapper.
Life - the famed magazine has a great app. Amazing photos.
PBS - Good app from Public Television; you can watch some shows here.
Lego Photo - try it!
SoapBox - Access app for comedian David Mitchell's video podcast bits.

Planetary - very cool-looking solar-system-based interface for playing back your mp3s. Not what I'd actually USE to play mp3s, but it's cool.

And that's it for now! Enjoy!

My Fave iPad Apps, Part Two - GAMES

2011-06-21T12:25:00.000-04:00

Okay, in this second part, I'll list off some of my favourite apps from the other pages of my iPad. No screenshots this time, as a lot of the apps are just sitting there waiting to be evaluated, or are only for extremely occasional use. I'll just hit the highlights here and share some gems.

We'll do games in this post.

Games I like:

Corpse Craft - Edward Gorey meets matching game meets tower defense
Angry Birds et al - everyone knows this
Karate Champ - early coin-op in full 8-bit action mode!
Splode - simple, poetic. Pop little balls that then fly apart and pop other balls; set up a chain reaction to make your target.
Stick Golf HD - miniature golf, of a sort. One of my favourite pick-up-and-play games.
iTraceur - a homemade parkour game. Very, very cool idea.
Mirror's Edge - also parkour-y, Canabalt-y. Very nice.
Canabalt - The original endless running game, and surprisingly captivating.
Mega Worm - You are a giant worm, a la Tremors. Destroy, eat, and KILL. (See also Death Worm.)
Monster Dash - Endless running, but you have a gun. And are killing vampires, werewolves, etc. Mindless and a hoot.
Bowmaster HD - Archery simulator. Surprisingly satisfying, and free fro the first bit.
Lego Harry Potter - A nice port of the console game.
Atari's Greatest Hits - good if you like old-school 2600 or arcade gaming.
Boggle - I got it free. Not sure if it's always free. Great pick-up-and-put-down game. PRobably my most frequently played game nowadays.
7Words - Sort of crosswordy, where you answer the clues with syllable tiles. Love this one. Many levels for free.
100 Rogues - Have only played this once, but I think I played it for two hours. If you know the classic Rogue game of computer gaming history long past, you know what this is. Random dungeons, random monsters, random treasure, lots of mindless adventuring fun!
Soundrop - More of a toy than a game. Set up platforms to bounce balls around and make music. Soothing and addicting.
Peggle - Peggle is AWESOME.

Games that are promising, but I haven't really tried:

Underworlds - Diablo-y?
PoP:WW - Prince of Persia
WWE Legends - WRESTLING!
S. Guardian - Sort of Underworld-y, I think?
#sworcery - The celebrated 8-bit adventure game, with spooky atmosphere and music. Very promising.
TNA - WRESTLING!
Spirits - I got this for free. Sort of an ethereal Lemmings.

My Fave iPad Apps, Part One

2011-06-21T12:06:00.001-04:00

So Kit just bought an iPad2 and was asking for app recommendations. I started to fire back a quick email, but it seemed to morph into a longer document that I thought might be of use to other folks, so I figured I’d turn it into a rare blog post. So here are my favourite iPad apps, as of 6/21/11, and how I use them. We'll go through them screen by screen, folder by folder.

This is my main screen. For the dock, I've chosen my most-used programs:

App Store - for checking on what's popular and what needs to be updated
Safari - for general web browsing, but mostly for checking email, as I prefer GMail's mobile client over the Mail app, which I've relegated to the last page.
Informant HD - a calendar program superior to the iPad's native calendar, and which I have synced to Google Calendar.
Osfoora HD - my favourite Twitter client.
Reeder - an RSS/Google Reader client which I ADORE!

As for the rest of screen one, we have:

Settings - for....settings.
YouTube - which I actually don't use much; maybe my iPad is just old, but videos don't load very swiftly in this app.
Videos - which I have populated with tutorials, morgue material for projects I'm working on, finished video projects to show off, and the occasional wrestling PPV, movie, or tv show.
Photos - I have folders set up to store morgue files for current projects, favourite iPad wallpapers, and all the past #comicpanels and CageMatch identity screens. I also have a smart folder set up in iPhoto so that I always have the last two weeks' photos stored on the iPad.
iPod - I don't use it that often, but I do have a small selection of music to listen to while working--my Hero playlist, the Don soundtrack, and all the Atomic Platters tunes.
skipping the folders for now, we have Guardian Eyewitness, which presents amazing daily pictures from the news, courtesy of the Guardian newspaper. Very nice.
Dropbox - Get it now. If you don't have it already, won't you please use this link to get it? (If you do, I get more storage space!) I could (and probably should) devote an entire post to Dropbox, and why it's so useful in my daily work and INVALUABLE on the iPad. Basically, it syncs files dropped into a Dropbox folder on your pc or Mac with every other computer you own and your smartphone and iPad. So it's a great way to always have access to your important files, and a great way to get things on and off the iPad. A number of iPad apps can read and write to Dropbox, so you can transfer work back and forth, get it off the iPad to print it, get it on the iPad to edit it, etc. Get it now.
Simplenote - Another favourite app. Basically it's Dropbox, but just for text. Think of it as a notepad that you can edit on any machine and have changes updated everywhere, I use it for quick scripts, thoughts, props lists, anything I need to work on really quickly. If you're offline when you edit the note, it'll update automatically when you have wifi.
2Do - ONE of my "to do list" apps of choice. Informant HD (above) actually does to do lists, but the format doesn't gel with me. 2Do rocks, with a great interface and online syncing.
Bookman - After much searching, this is my comic book reader of choice. Love it. There's a free version that's excellent; I bought the paid version to support the developer. Makes reading CBRs and CBZs easy, fun, and comic-like. (and helps me with #comicpanels!)
Manage...Lists - Another great to do list manager. I use this one for quick day-to-day lists, 2Do for overarching project planning. I'll frequently have a project in 2Do, then break it down in Manage Lists so as to not clutter up 2Do.
Evernote - I'm a recent convert to Evernote, which everybody else on the planet already uses. Basically, you use it to store just about anything, pictures, text, urls, what have you. Tag them, and then you can find them later. I've been emailing myself things to remember about Marvin Artists or video editing or animation or what have you,and then never look at them because they get lost in my email stacks. Now I throw it into Evernote, and I know I can find it later. Get the desktop client too, so you can quickly save scraps when you're working there.
Penultimate - I just got this on the advice of the Prolost blog, who uses it for storyboarding. It's basically a little notebook program, but the key features here are that you can rearrange the pages in a thumbnail view (essential for storyboarding) AND you can make your own custom template papers. So you could make music notation paper, graph paper, storyboarding squares, or what have you. I have it on the front page to remind myself to explore the possibilities--maybe a blank superhero body to sketch costumes on? Cartoon panels for thumbnailing?

On to the folders! Firstly, Art!

These are the various art programs I use and/or are trying out currently. I'll go through them quickly now, and will try to flesh out this section with more critical description later. There's a lot here.

ArtStudio - Amazing program. So cheap, you think it can't possibly be worth buying because something that cheap must suck. But it doesn't. It rocks like thunder, and the developer is CONSTANTLY making it better and adding tools and features. A must buy.
SketchBook Pro - Generally regarded as the best drawing app on the iPad. I like it better for some things, ArtStudio for others, but SketchBook is definitely a fabulous program.
LiveSketch HD - I actually just deleted this program. Basically just a cute sketchy thing, but not very useful.
Adobe Ideas - Why is this free??? Basically, it's a paint program that translates strokes into scalable vectors that can be exported and edited in Illustrator. I've done some awesome-looking things tracing photographs with this. No reason to not get it.
iDraw - One of the vector drawing programs I'm evaluating.
iDesign - One of the vector drawing programs I'm evaluating.
Sketchpad Lite - One of the vector drawing programs I'm evaluating.
Moxier Collage - I haven't done much with this, but it's a cool little program that lets you collage and arrange different photos together to make new art.
Strip Design - One of two apps on the iPad that let you make comics. Draw the panels for you, word balloons, sound effects, etc. You can import photos from the Photos app to place in the panels. Make fun photocomics OR use a drawing program to make your own art, export it to the Photos app, then pull it into Strip Design!
PS Express - A very stripped-down Photoshop. I use it to rotate and crop comics for #comicpanels. It's real quick and easy.
ToonPaint - an iPhone app, but very cool. "Toonizes" your photos.
Photopad - sorta like PS Express.
Inkpad - One of the vector drawing programs I'm evaluating.
Learn To Draw - haven't tried it yet, but it's by Walter Foster!
Sculpting Free - 3D sculpting on the iPad? What!?
Dottedit - another iPhone app; pixel sprite editor. Whee!

Next we have "Research":

Wikipanion - There are lots of good Wikipedia clients on the iPad. This is one of them.
English - A dictionary.
IMDB - Quick way to access IMDB, nicely presented.
Dictonary - A dictionary.
Dictionary - A dictionary. (Why do I have so many dictionaries?)

"Shopping"

The iPad's great for quickly scanning the popular places to buy stuff.

eBay - It's eBay, but organized for fast access and less ad-crap.
Target - Very cute little app that lets you search the store or view the current circular. Try the shopping list feature!
Amazon.com - A good Amazon client.
WindowShop - A dangerous Amazon client, that lets you search and browse visually across categories by swiping north-south and east-west. You can discover new things this way.
CraigsEZPro - nice Craigslist client that lets you shop quickly and visually.

"News and Weather"

BBC News - Headlines from the BBC
Fluent News - Aggregated headlines.
Weatherbug - fun weather app
Weather+ - a prettied-up weather app.
PWTorch - rasslin' news. A fair app at best.

We'll move to page two of the iPad apps in a subsequent post!

Bottom Five Worst Wrestling Finishers Ever

2011-04-21T16:52:00.001-04:00

Not sure what urged me to post this, but it just goes to show what weird things go through my mind as I walk down the hall at work. Kept thinking of #1 on the list, and started branching out. Anyway, these are the five that popped into my head. You may come up with a different list in your recollection. Enjoy.

#5....The Commando Sandwich. A brief internet search fails to provide any information on The Commandos, but as memory serves, Bad Bad Leroy Brown left the Zambuie Express, leaving Ray Candy without a partner. So they teamed him up with some longhaired fat redneck, and renamed them The Commandos. (none of this may be accurate) Basically, the move has one big fat guy hold the opponent up, and another big fat guy runs into him. Brilliant! (I coulda sworn it was a finisher, but in the linked clip, it's just a penultimate setup move.)

#4....The Ultimate Warrior's Warrior Splash. Less said about this the better. A charismatic but low-talent wrestler, with not that much body weight, doing a no-impact splash...which he frequently did to the BACK.

#3....Kona Crush. Can't find a clip of it. Probably for the best. He'd put his hands on either side of a guy's head and push.

#2....The Earthquake Splash. I love John Tenta...talented guy, great history. Got stuck with some dumb gimmicks. And this move has no impact. (But has a great pre-move war dance!)

and #1....

...Tully Blanchard's Slingshot Suplex. Even when I was a kid I thought, "doesn't dropping him on the ropes add nothing to the impact?" Wouldn't believe it, no matter how many times David Crockett told me Tully was getting extra "spring" off the ropes. (That didn't stop me from trying to talk Shannon Moore into doing a similar move back in the Omega days...) Not sure why I was thinking about it today, but that's how my idle mind works.

Anybody want to see a Top Five BEST Wrestling Finishers Ever?

PS: Yes, I know, #1 should really be the Legdrop of Doom. My bad. (Great themesong though...BROTHER!!!)

PPS: Not a finisher, but golly wonkers, the Garvin Stomp annoyed me.

Drawing Class

2011-04-13T22:06:00.000-04:00

Every time I finish a drawing in class, I get the same feeling you do late at night after you've been drinking far too much and you're leaning over the toilet saying, "Oh god...what was I thinking? I'll never drink again!!!"

I want to draw so much, and it's just so frustrating to not be able to produce anything that looks like anything. It takes every bit of strength I have to resist the urge to scream and quit and go home and not try anymore. It feels childish, which I hate, but the process just frustrates me show, and I'm always disappointed that my drawings look so formless. I also fall into the trap of comparing my drawings to the other beginners, and truly see a wide gulf between them. (I know I shouldn't compare my stuff to others, but the ability differences are pretty stark.) I'm straining hard to force myself to keep trying, but boy, it's hard.

Starting My First Art Class

2011-04-01T09:59:00.000-04:00

Okay, so I guess I would call myself an artist; I try to do creative things. I've even made money from my art sometimes. But you know what? I've never taken a single art class. Now that has changed; I've always wanted to be able to draw freehand, but have never been able to really do anything I thought was worth looking at. So after procrastinating for years and years, I've finally signed up for a basic drawing class. Brantley is taking it with me, and if we get something out of it, we plan to continue taking classes. Anyhoo, here are my notes on the first class session, which took place Wednesday:

* * *

The teacher seems cool; he brought in some of his artwork. Very cool small watercolours and screenprints and stuff. He also has examples on his website.

So what we did is hear about the teacher's background (lived in Florida, moved to Durham, went to NYC to be a big artist, did some shows, came back here). Then we got out our giganto newsprint pads and our charcoal or conte crayons, and proceeded to get messy. First we just futzed around and squiggled and drew swirls and shapes to loosen up and (in my case anyway) learn what the hell a conte crayon was. We were told to experiment with soft lines and hard lines, using the point and the side of the crayon, and even pressing so hard the crayon exploded (that was fun). Also used the kneadable eraser to blend and smear lines.

Next, he just set a folding chair up in the center of the room and had us draw it, I guess to see how we did. We did a 30 sec version, a minute, etc. Mine were horrendous. Then we tried timed drawings of the teacher sitting there, but the assignment was to keep our eyes on him and draw on the paper without looking at it. I ended up with nothing that looked human, but had some happy accidents that looked interesting. I think part of this was to see what happened when you just let your hand go without worrying about what you've done "wrong", and also about those happy accidents (which is something my friend Jason always tells me is important in art, but has always driven me crazy.)

Then we did some drawing from memory. He set up an object on a stool and we stared at it for two minutes, and then had two minutes to draw it from memory, to test our ability to judge an objects weight, lines, light/darkness, etc. I did okay on the sort of abstract bird sculpture, but couldn't remember diddly about the stage light that was next. It was interesting to see how my memory of things captured some details, but twisted them surrealistically in my head.

Finally, we did a series of exercises where we were asked to draw something (like "something you're going to do this weekend") and then pass your drawing to the person on your left. You then took the page you just received from your neighbour, and drew another thing ("your bedroom from when you were growing up"). This exercise seemed designed to see how you placed things on a page in relationship to other things. I particularly liked when we were asked to draw "a verb", as then I wasn't obsessed with trying to make my drawing look like some specific real-world object, and could just let my hand and mind run free. (I drew "slam" in an abstract fashion.) At several times during the class, we put selected drawings on the wall and people commented on what they saw.

We were also serenaded by a jazz band while we drew. (More accurately, there was a jazz band practicing in the nearby theater. They were playing mostly jazz standards, but also jumped into Chicago's "25 or 6 to 4" at one point, which was hilarious.)

Overall, pretty decent. The instructor said this is sort of the pattern of the way the class will work: we'll do some drawing exercises, examine them on the wall, he'll give us pointers, etc. I think it'll be a good start. I think lots of outside practice will help as well--just doing drawing over and over. I plan on starting to bring around a sketchbook with me.

Next week we're supposed to bring in "an object that represents you". I think I'm going with my retro old-timey radio microphone.

TrollQuotes meme

2010-12-19T16:05:00.000-05:00

So my good buddy Kit sent me a link to a page talking about a new meme thing going around called TrollQuotes. The basic premise is to mismatch a quote and a picture, in an attempt to make fanboys explode with anger. Click this link to see a bunch of samples.

I thought it would be fun to participate and do some of my own (and hopefully Kit and others of our clan will too.) One caveat: I read the thing Kit sent *last night* and then made my pictures today, based on my memory of what the meme requirements were. My memory ain't worth doody though, and I left out one of the stipulated requirements. You're supposed to pair a quote and an antithetical image, AND attribute the quote to a third person. I forgot that last bit, and just attributed the quote to the person in the image I chose. I started to fix my pics, but then decided I liked it better the way I did it. I think the third factor makes it a bit too complicated; the joke is easier to assimilate with just the quote and inappropriate image.

So here we go!

One
Two
Three
Four

Now go make your own, and include a link to your work in the comments of this post!

-Ted

Seuss Wars

2010-12-06T11:00:00.001-05:00

Ok, so my sister is brilliant. At many things, really, but in this case, writing. I knew she could write amazing Stephen King-esque horror stories, but had no idea she could write clever nostalgic comedy stuff. (I thought *I* was the comedian in the family--she's stealin' my act! If she starts doing wrestling announcing, she'll get no combined Birthday/Christmas presents this year!)

S'anyway, I saw a blog post somewheres about a guy who was doing Star Wars illustrations in the style of Dr. Seuss. They were pretty excellent, and I thought my sister might dig 'em, so I sent her the link. She guffawed and promptly sent back a couplet of how she thought a Dr. Seuss Star Wars book would start off. It was PERFECT! Funny, clever, and dead-on Geiselesque. I told her as much, and basically begged her to write more. And she did. Here is what she has so far:

Our story begins on an ordinary day,
With a boy in a galaxy far, far away.

The boy's name was Luke - no more than a teen,
He lived on a planet they called Tattooine.
His parents - so tragic! - they both were long dead,
Young Luke was an orphan (at least that's what they said).

He lived on a farm with his uncle and aunt,
Luke wanted to leave but they both said, "You can't!
"We need you for this and we need you for that!
To bring in the crops and to hunt the womp rat!"

So Luke waited and stayed and he stayed and he waited,
And helped with the work on the farm (which he hated).

At night he would stand and gaze over the dunes
At the one setting sun and the two rising moons.
He would sigh as he'd think to himself, "It's not fair,
That I'm stuck on this rock while my friends are out there!"

But destiny had a few tricks up her sleeve,
Luke stood, gazed, and waited… but soon he would leave.

Not so far away from where the boy stood,
Was raging a battle of evil and good!
Imperial forces with their mighty hand,
Were crushing the Rebel Alliance's band.

The rebels had stolen the plans - newly minted -
To the worst weapon mankind had ever invented.
The Empire wanted to get their plans back,
So they gathered their troops and went on the attack.

The Stormtroopers, gleaming insidious white,
Swarmed through the whole ship, just to fight, fight, fight, fight.
The rebels, outnumbered, outgunned and outlasted,
Had only two choices: give up or get blasted.

But one of them wouldn't let herself concede
Without first performing one most crucial deed.
This rebel - a princess! - before they could shoot her,
Hid the plans deep inside one small android's computer!
And with it, a message, of limited scope:
"Help me, Obi-wan, you are my only hope!"

With the droid and his counterpart now on the run,
The princess was hit with a blaster (on stun).
And though she resisted, the stormtroopers made her
Confront their feared leader, the evil DARTH VADER!!!!!!

And the two little droids? Where are they next seen?
You guessed it! They both wind up on Tattooine.
The droids - R2-D2 and C-3PO,
Cannot both agree on which way they should go.

The two turn their backs and go opposite ways,
Though they meet up again in a matter of days.
They're captured by "jawas" (they're like roving peddlers,
Who travel around selling scrap to the settlers).

And who do the jawas encounter? No fluke!
None other than our Uncle Owen and Luke.
(When shopping from jawas one thing to avoid,
Is the "big bargain" or "fixer-upper" android.
C-3PO was a steal for a translator,
But they got an R2 with a bad motivator!)
In the end it worked out, R2-D2 was sold,
And Luke spent the evening polishing gold.

She admits she was getting a little off track towards the end, but overall, this is BRILLIANT!!! She gave me permission to post this, and said she'd write more if she got positive feedback, so PLEASE comment on this post or email me or something. I want her to write the whole episode!!!!!

"We need you for this and we need you for that!/To bring in the crops and to hunt the womp rat!" HA!!!!

I'm In The Mood To Meme

2010-07-27T19:30:00.000-04:00

(via onlymetahuman)

Instructions:
1. Open your library (iTunes, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every item, type the song that’s playing
5. When you go to a new item, press the next button
6. Don’t lie and try to pretend you’re cool…

…

THE MOVIE OF MY LIFE

Opening Credits: "Funny Farm" by Motorhead (a song about being hauled off to an insane asylum; good start!)

Waking Up: "Breaking The Law" by Hellsongs (a mellow cover of the Judas Priest classic...wow, my life isn't this exciting!)

First Day of School: Greedo saying "Going somewhere, Solo?" from Star Wars (Meeting other kids did feel like an assassination attempt.)

Falling in Love: "Moon Glow" by Cab Calloway (it is a good feeling)

Fight Song: "Don't Stand So Close To Me" by The Police (Personal space violation leads to violence.)

Prom: "I'm Going Home" by Ten Years After (Yes indeed, that is where I spent prom.)

Life: "Cheek To Cheek" by Fred Astaire (The lyric starts off "Heaven...I'm in Heaven." I wish!)

Mental Breakdown: "Strange Report" off of Cult Fiction Royale (a tv theme, I think? I am pretty strange...)

Driving: "The Trooper Believer" by DJ Schmolli (A mashup between Iron Maiden and The Monkees. I could drive to that.)

Flashback: "California Girls" by the Beach Boys. (Actually, she was from Korea; she may have landed in California before making her way east.)

Getting Back Together: "A New World" by MF Doom (It always was; and a beautiful world at that.)

Losing Your Virginity: the entrance theme for New Japan Wrestling's Masahiro Chono. (Does this mean losing my virginity was like a Yakuza Kick or the ornate entanglement of the STF?)

Wedding: "This is Sexy Knickers 'ere", a quote from Miss Brahms on "Are You Being Served?" (I should hope so!)

Birth of Child: "Raiders of the Lost Ark Theme" by Toy Dolls (Yeah. 'Cause it would take an act of freakin' God.)

Final Battle: "Bad Rockit" mashup of Michael Jackson's "Bad" and Herbie Hancock's "Rockit" (Your butt is mine. I will fuck you up with a chain.)

Death Scene: "Enter The Young" by The Association (Well, I always did think I'd die young...)

Funeral Song: "The Boogie Woogie" by Cab Calloway (Dance the night away...)

End Credits: "Welcome to the Jungle" by Guns N'Roses (Well there ya go.)

* * *

Now you do it.

An Online Commercial I Made

2009-09-14T15:11:00.003-04:00

The commercial I just made for the NC State Fair just went live. They wrote the script, and I directed, shot, and edited.

TV Land Haiku Meme

2009-08-24T17:39:00.005-04:00

Ok, so I'm reading "TV Land To Go: The Big Book of TV Lists, TV Lore, and TV Bests" by Tom Hill. Good book, lots of tv nostalgia and odd facts. There's also a bunch of original material created for the book. Some of their ideas for tv shows are pretty brilliant, like a detective show called "That's The Man!", where Tony Randall plays "a classically trained artist who has fallen on hard times and taken up work as a police sketch artist.[His] refined sensibility and distaste for mingling with riffraff can't overcome his burning desire to see justice done". Brilliant.

But what I post about today is another one of their genius ideas: the TV Land Haiku. Their theory is that the brief-but-rigid artistic structure of the haiku is the perfect method "for expressing the essential truth in some of our favorite TV shows and characters."

Check out the following examples:

"Dragnet"
Stern morality
Blue squares bust far-out hippies.
The names have been changed.

"Family Affair"
Mom and Dad are gone,
But Uncle Bill is rich, yay!
Who wants pony rides?

"Hogan's Heroes"
Underground allies
What tunnels? I know nothing.
Silly old Germans!

So, inspired by that, I decided to create some of my own:

"Match Game"
In the Land of Blanks
Brett Somers is Match Game king
And Charles is her queen.

"The Love Boat"
Where else could Zsa Zsa
Make sweet love with Van Patten
Exciting and new

"Venture Brothers"
The Monarch will rant,
Hank and Dean will fail again,
And Brock will whoop ass.

"Wrestling Announcers"
Jim Ross reigns today
Lance was a stalwart hand, but
Solie was the Dean.

"Bill McNeill"
The man loved his cane,
And loved women even more.
But Rocket Fuel, DAMN!

"QI"
The Earth has two moons?!?
"Cruithne?" Are you mad, sir?
That's rubbish; prove it.

So that's my contributions. I now ask you to create your own and pass it around the interweb, on blogs and Facebook and Twitter and all those doohickeys. I particularly challenge the pop culture haiku masters: Kit FitzSimons and Jeff Scronce! Go to it, lads! (And link back here.)

Oh, and maybe use the #tvhaiku hashtag, if you feel like it. Now go get famous.

Catching Up On Stuff

2009-08-06T14:14:00.002-04:00

Haven't posted in about a month, let's get caught up, shall we kiddies?

Videos I've done recently, with brief remarks:

4DDI vs Shapeshifter - Had a fun time playing around in Motion to do the Dr. Who-y effects. Loved the way the merging of Andy and Kit turned out. Went back to an old trick with the morphing effect, and any excuse to use the remix of the Superfriends theme is a-ok with me.

4DDI vs Average Ducks - Wasn't really sure what to do with a group with the name "Average Ducks", until I thought of the old Warner Brothers cartoon, "A Corny Concerto". So this is an homage to that. Hadn't played in Flash in a long while, so that was fun.

Cohost #1: Nikolai - CageMatch ran for the whole month of July as part of the Summer Slamtacular. As part of the festivities, I featured a different cohost each week. First was Zach Ward as Nikolai. Basically, I just let him rock it in front of the green screen and chopped up his bits into a video mix with illustrations. I was tickled to find that Eastern European song about Nikolai....

4DDI vs PTSIAM - Time to ramp it up. PT is always inspiring, and so we turned it up a few notches for this one. I liked having Pt's "origin story", and then putting him in two different movies and the cartoon. All greenscreened and masked and whatnot. Strangely enough, PT just happens to own a real Maltese Falcon. Hard to edit the movies down to be brief but still make sense and tell the story, but I thought it worked out okay. The South Park sequence was done in Flash, with PT's bits all drawn by hand and animated into the existing footage.

Cohost #2: Jeff'Ray - Bryan Barnes did an awesome job as "The Homosexual Agenda", a character Joe Stanton dreamed up a year ago. We made sure he was a very positive figure, and the comedy came from Scott Sullivan not knowing how to deal with a very "out" gay man.

Verna Applebottom's Big Day Out - Paula Pazderka asked me to produce this for her, a parody of the Chico's clothing stores. I love that song--"It's Chico Time!"

PTSIAM vs Senior PGA - This time I framed the PTSIAM sequence with Zach and Jeremy going to see Star Wars. The idea was that people would wonder where and when PT would crop up. And of course, it was funny to have PT misinterpret instructions and break the X-wing. Whups! Lots of work in Motion, learning how to autotrack movement and make clips match movement. The first sequence worked perfectly; really should've reshot the others to make them look better. Loved Jeremy's visuals at the end.

Cohost #3: Donnie Tucker - Mary Sasson as a guy from Pittsburgh. "Go stillahs!" I got some ideas on typical Pittsburgh photos from some YouTube videos by natives.

DSI Corporate Commercial - Made this one in less than 24 hours, from notification to execution. Basically just used a bunch of transitions in Final Cut and a lot of DSI photos, along with a few simple tricks.

Ignite Raleigh Opener - Got hired to produce a video to open the first meeting of the Ignite Raleigh group. We gathered the organizers together at DSI and did a pretape of them getting frustrated with some old PCs and then taking out their aggressions on the machines, a la Office Space. All the PC screen images and the explosions were done in post with Apple Motion.

And I think that catches us up! See you again soon.

Voice Recognition Star Wars

2009-07-07T22:17:00.002-04:00

While doing the photographs for the latest Patton Project, I came up with one of my more brilliant ideas. I had put on my favourite movie, Star Wars: A New Hope, to play in the background while I took pictures. Then I decided to Twitter about it, but in a unique way: I used an iPhone app called "Vlingo" that can translate your voice into text and then post it to Twitter. I figured I'd see how it handled my favourite Star Wars quotes. It's not exactly 100% accurate (especially when doing Darth Vader and Ben Kenobi impressions), but that was the main point: let's see how the text gets mangled.

I actually came up with the voice recognition idea a little way into the movie, and missed a few of the quotes at the beginning, so I've gone back and added a few at the beginning and a few I missed in the middle, but all have been Vlingoed. See how many you can recognize!

"Long time ago and galaxy far far west"
"We do"
"is this a calls lecture where is the am about to go"
"There's 1 set to stun"
"I'm going to regret this" (score!)
"Call die before she tells you anything"
"Don't get to the with may"
"Call Tuesday to it is you did his you'll"
"web search George"
"Poser program for etiquette and protocol"
"Can you speak bocce" (wow!)
"Is going to Austin to pick up some parking burgers"
"the start to unit have a bad motivator"
"Bank of America, well that is going to feels so good"
"hi and see 3 PO Ching side alterations"
"You're the 1 Canobie for my only hope"
"We are just crazy old Matt"
"Is going to check the baby"
"It's around us Patrick source pines the galaxy picked up"
"Dangers your Starfleet command at not just the Playstation"
"The ability to destroy upset insignificant next to the power of the folks"
"Send people always ride single file I need the number is"
"I find your lack of state and disturbing"
"Quantum on the way to the force become a gym I love my father"
"Most Isley spaceport you'll never find out more rigid hive of scum and put it in a"
"Google need to see if this application"
"At the joy joy looking for"
"We go serpentine here"
"This s*** the bed Kessel run with 12 parts sex" (it put in the asterixes itself...)
"traveling to Harbor Stacy like bustin crops bored"
"Loof for another topic American retarded than they move systems"
"That's no moon it's the space station" (very close!)
"Who is more for lish the folk all the fool who doesn't"
"What an incredible snow you discovered"
"I got a bad feeling about this" (hey! It got another right!)
"Mike is that walking carpet on my way"
"I love you I was about the monitor now I am the masta"
"Your power is all week old Masson"
"you call twins or if you strike me dial I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine"
"Story show together c'mon very whole together"
"Baseballs I will Pratts and mighty 16 back home"
"May the force be with you" (another match!)
"Google power to front deflector screens switch l power to front deflector strains"
"Evacuate dynamo the trials I think you overestimate their chances"
"It because like beggars canyon back home"
"You suck balls look" (I SWEAR that's what it came up with)
"you are a queer can know what day is going to go home"
"Call jott kid that was in a million"
"Remember the force be with you always" (close!)
"Calorie!"

And that's the end of "Voice Recognition Star Wars". I hope you had a lovely time. I'll post the answer key in a few days.

CageMatch and Banana Breakup

2009-06-10T15:13:00.003-04:00

I'm woefully behind on my blog/video updates. I did CageMatch a few weeks ago, and then the Banana Breakup Extravaganza last week.

First, CageMatch. Not much to say here, except that I didn't have much of an idea for the video, and didn't get an opportunity to meet with the 4DDI guys, so the whole thing was just based around one of the members not being able to make it. I had the Beer graphic already laying about, basically, so that was easy to throw in.

The Banana Breakup video was a lot more satisfying. Got some time with Kit and Eitan to do shots and video before the show, so there was a lot more raw material to work with (and the BB boys are always so fun to work with as well.) The opening shoutout to Biff Hobgood was Kit's idea, and very funny to us since we knew it would be over most people's heads. (If it's over your head, check out the Biff Hobgood surprise return video.)

I really wanted to do a decent (if quick) overview of Banana Breakup's history, so consulted my files, went through all their past videos, and selected some clips to use. (One bonus: Joe Jones made his return to the theater after several months off, and Kyle Chorpening was there as well, so they both saw the shotout to Panthro.) Then we went into the whole "BB vs BB" bit, which was amusing. By the way, nobody really knew we were presenting the show in a faux CageMatch format, so the whole video thing was a surprise. I loved the way the still of the masked BB turned out, photoshopped with a "photocopy" version of the picture overlaid on itself and tweaked a bit to give it that hyperreal look. The "good" BB reply was hilarious, with Eitan's "honesty and wits" and Kit's "tonight at dawn" ad libs. I was also quite happy with the "flaming faceoff" animation at the end. And was quite pleased with the song I picked for the end, The Donnas covering Billy Idol's "Dancing With Myself." The ersatz Hall of Champions was a surprise for the boys, in an attempt to make 'em laugh.

Stills, as always, are here.

PS: the live show included another surprise: Scott Sullivan performing a Banana Breakup rap live on stage. From a rapping standpoint, it was a humiliating failure, but from a comedy standpoint, it was a decent success, as 40 year old guys fucking up a rap onstage while dressed in a blinged-out t-shirt and hat turns out to be pretty laughworthy.

Another CageMatch

2009-05-04T14:16:00.003-04:00

Had another CageMatch extravaganza last night. Here's the video. Come back and we'll chat.

The "multicultural" screen with the city landmarks in the background originally was supposed to be the Sister City identity screen. I was up until 4 am on Friday working on the image, but decided it was far too busy for an identity screen. As I drifted off to sleep, I dreamed up the postcard idea, loosely basing it on the film "Dark City", which Kit and I had watched earlier in the week. I had fun making the image, and was quite pleased with the deco-esque gradients and whatnot. The multicultural screen turned out pretty nice; I was especially pleased with Andy's two halves, and Zannie as a geisha. And that's all there is to it, really.

Stills are here, as usual.

Inspiration From Teddy

2009-04-24T17:34:00.003-04:00

So I had a hard time being productive today. (It's been a rough week.) I finally decided to go lie down for a bit to clear my head. Ended up picking up my copy of Don Rosa's "The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck Companion" that my mom had gotten me for Christmas, which had been sitting next to the bed untouched ever since.

Excellent book; ended up spending the bulk of the afternoon consuming every page and panel. Towards the end of the tome, Unca Scrooge meets up with President Teddy Roosevelt and (as part of the tale) Scrooge recalls words that Roosevelt had told him years earlier (which, in reality, is a paraphrase of a real quote of Roosevelt's):

"Don't live by the doctrine of ignoble ease, but by toil and effort, labor, and strife! The highest forms of success comes to the man who shirks not from danger or work, and who therefore wins the ultimate triumph."

Those words seemed to be appropriate for my current situation, and I reproduce them here in hopes that they might touch other people as well. I have several friends who are very successful in their chosen fields, and they got there through dedication and hard work, pushing aside any obstacles in the pursuit of their dream, while always keeping their eyes focused on their goal. I envy these friends of mine. I know they are a different breed of person than I am, and I cannot duplicate their way of living and believing, but I can hope to emulate them in some small way, and sometimes it's through wise words like those in the excerpt above that help drive people like myself who don't have the natural attitudes and abilities of those rare people who truly know how to live life to the fullest. It's even more helpful (for me, anyway) when it comes via a comic book.

Oh, also, "Inoki Bom-Ba-Ye".

Green eyes and big admiration go to Matt, Larry, and Zach. Keep doing great things; in addition to your own success, you inevitably inspire others.

Recent Videos for DSI

2009-04-15T15:08:00.002-04:00

Two new videos up now, one on YouTube and one on Facebook.

First is is the new intro for Season Two of our acclaimed DSI High show, a sort of improvised sitcom. I based it on last year's video (which, strangely enough, I don't seem to have blogged about or even posted!) I used Pulpmotion to do the yearbook bit at the beginning; I may recreate that whole thing on my own, so I have a little better control over it. I like the character introductions (it helps that the adult/student ratio was more even than last year); separating them into "teachers" and "students" makes the characters esier to identify. The "running through the halls" scene turned out quite nicely. I just shot that as a hand-held video on my still camera, and then used Quicktime Player to save selected frames into a folder, using Photoshop to format them for Final Cut. The group shot at the end was fun; I just had to pull Spencer's face in from a different shot, do a lot of lighting readjustment, and slap a brick wall behind them. There's a faded, peeling walrus mascot sort of hidden on the wall; you can see a better still of that shot here. Lastly, I re-edited the Bowling For Soup song so it ended with the end of the video, and by accident, the line "here we go again" lined up nicely with the introduction of the DSI High logo. Yippee!

Second is the first draft of the DSI Witness News intro. I meet with Zach tomorrow for revision notes, but was asked to upload the current version as a promo for the next show. You can find it here. I used a new program I bought recently, Kinemac, which is awesome. I tried to make the video as slick and as-like-a-real-newscast as possible. I plan on adding some animated tubes snaking around on the "News/Sports/Entertainment" page; we'll see what else ZW wants for the video. I particularly like the 3D animated logo, with the extruded words appearing as the cube rotates.

Twitter T. Tweet

2009-04-03T23:57:00.003-04:00

I'm on Twitter now, much though I have resisted it. You know the name.

CageMatch 3/28/09

2009-03-31T13:06:00.003-04:00

Another day, another CageMatch. View the video here.

First off, just a note of how annoying it was that twenty people showed up very late to the show. Like fifteen, twenty minutes after showtime. Incredibly inconsiderate and rude. If we had started the show already, all the commotion from the crowd arriving halfway through the first set would've interfered with the first group's performance. Drives me nuts when people show up late.

Anyway, that was the video. Couldn't really deam up a viable way to present a group called "Finding Emo" without making it depressing, let alone making it uberdramatic. Kit FitzSimons to the rescue! It was his idea to do a sort of Wizard-of-Oz sepia-to-colour thing to show the difference between the two teams. I flipped that around and had it go from colour to b&w, and actually used the Oz footage. The music at the beginning is the opening overture to the movie as well. The music then turns into My Chemical Romance as we go to black and white (also pulled down the gamma at the same time as the dsaturation, for that extra-gloomy look). Then finished it all off with a slapped-together mashup of Elton John's "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" with the opening drums from the Go-Go's "We Got The Beat".

Putting the heads on the characters at the end was amusing. The girls sent me shots taken for this express purpose; I used an old photo of Joe, but spent a long time touching it up with streaked magenta eyeliner, skull earring, lip ring, etc. Then I ended up making it black and white and small, so you don't really see any of that. Hilarious.

Probably the shortest CageMatch video ever. And the assholes who came late talked loudly through most of the video, so nobody heard the text. Ah well.

Zombie Marx Brothers

2009-03-19T15:14:00.002-04:00

Here's a little something amusing I made at the prompting of a friend. It's the Marx Brothers, if they were zombies.

CageMatch 2/28/09

2009-03-01T16:52:00.004-05:00

Did another CageMatch video for Saturday. I actually did this whole one in about four hours, from creating the identity screen for Baby Pranks, to editing the stills for the video, choosing and editing the audio, performing the voiceover, and editing the video. Whew! I had no time during the week to do the video, as I was busy producing a corporate show for DSI, including a last-minute video shoot and production for a Sham Wow parody (visible here). That one actually got some network news coverage, so that's cool.

Watch the current CageMatch video here.

Back in CageMatch land, I dreamed up the concept while showering that morning. Figuring that working backwards would be the best plan, I started brainstorming what the name "Baby Pranks" made me think of. Baby made me think of Child, so I thought, "what phrases use the word 'child'?" A child shall lead them, child's play, etc. Eventually I ended up with "man, woman, and child", and thought it might be fun to say Senior PGA were bragging about how they could beat anybody, man, woman, or child. That meant the video would have to set up PGa as becoming cocky, and the rest wrote itself.

No real big technical innovations here. I do want to point out that the material in the background of the Baby Pranks identity screen is from the old Johnson Smith novelties ad from comic books of old. And I liked the way I re-edited the Salt N Pepa song to go straight from the "baby baby" part to the "yoyoyoyo" part, fairly seamlessly.

That's it. We now return control to your regularly scheduled program.

Professional Regurgitator

2009-03-01T13:40:00.003-05:00

So I have a lot of dvds I haven't watched yet. I'm one of those people that collects things and then never uses them. In the case of dvds, it simply never occurs to me to sit down and watch a movie. It never enters my mind. When I'm on my own, I gravitate to wandering through RSS feeds or YouTube or something, never simply sitting in front of the tv.

So the other day I decided to pop a dvd into the computer and watch it in a little window while I was working on Photoshopping some stuff for a DSI gig. The dvd in question was a documentary on vaudeville hosted by Ben Vereen. It was a good overview of the life of a vaudevillian and the history of the art form itself, with rare clips of footage from various vaudeville stars (and non-stars). I found one particularly intriguing act on YouTube, one of the clips that was on the dvd. This is Hadji Ali, who was what vaudevillians labelled a "professional regurgitator". His act consisted of him swallowing things and bringing them back up.

One of the reasons I'm so fascinated by this act is that it seems, at first blush, to be so ridiculous. Did people in the Depression really spend their hard-earned two bits to see a guy swallow stuff and then bring it back up again? Is that entertainment? The other reason I'm fascinated by this act is that, yes, it is entertainment. Hadji Ali has a great act, unusual though it is, and I kept my eyes glued to his performance, and was rewarded for my virtue with a stunning finale. Go watch Hadji Ali, you'll be glad you did.

The Wrestler, The Game

2009-02-25T17:16:00.002-05:00

This is exactly the article I hoped exist. Simple-minded and nostalgic that I am, it answers the first question that popped into my mind after seeing "The Wrestler".

Ted Needs 2

2009-02-18T14:37:00.003-05:00

Okay, I did this once before, but saw Jennifer had done it recently, and as an experiment, typed "ted needs" into Google once again, and was amused enough to make this post. I should be editing video right this minute, but I'm giving myself five minutes to write this up.

Type in your name and "needs" into Google and then write down the first 10 coherent things that come up.

1. "Ted needs someone to be there 100% of the time." So true.

2. "Ted needs a 24 hour staffed program which can assist him with taking his medications." Well damn, that might help, actually.

3. "Ted needs a shower." Really? How did I get so filthy in two hours? (Wait, don't answer that.)

4. "Handsome Ted needs a home." I actually have one, but thanks for the complimentary adjective.

5. "Ted needs to step down. And he needs to step down immediately." A compliment followed by an insult. Thanks a lot, internet.

6. "Uncle Ted needs you." Heh. I like pervy roleplaying.

7. "Theodore needs a date!" How did that come up when I searched for "Ted needs"? Google must be psychic about my real needs.

8. "Ted needs a home." I guess I'm no longer handsome.

9. "Ted needs to sleep." Occasionally, yes.

10. "Ted needs some nads." Aww...that's not nice.

Well, that's not a good note to end on. Let's do a bonus one.

11. "Ted needs to be appreciated a little more." Aww, that's sweet. Thanks, Google!

(BTW, the image in this post was on the first page I got on Google Images when searching for "Ted Needs". Back to video editing!)

George & Gracie

2009-02-15T15:02:00.004-05:00

You might know I'm a fan of oldtime radio comedy and vaudeville. So a couple of weeks ago, I had been bidding on a hard-to-find book by George Burns, written about his wife Gracie and entitled "I Love Her, That's Why". I forgot that the auction was ending soon, and got sniped by some last-minute bastard. I love the way Burns writes, and particularly love hearing him talk about his wife (the easy-to-find "Gracie: A Love Story" by Burns is the most romantic book ever and will make you cry, guaranteed) so I was a bit irked that I hadn't won the auction for "I Love Her, That's Why".

Well, another one came up for auction, and once AGAIN I forgot to check on the auction as it was ending. But guess what? For some weird reason, nobody else bid on it, and I won! And as a bonus, this copy is autographed by George Burns himself! Hurrah!

Poisoned Frankensteiner & Backdrop Driver

2009-02-12T14:58:00.005-05:00

Koji Kanemoto caves in his opponents skull (El Samurai, perhaps?) with the Poisoned Frankensteiner.

Then Steve Williams attempts to give Kenta Kobashi several concussions with his Backdrop Driver (aka Dangerous Backdrop, which is a damn good name for it.)

I have the latter match on VHS somewhere; just about the best wrestling match I've ever seen in my life.

Made With Olive Oy-el

2009-02-10T11:20:00.002-05:00

This weekend I made my second hot sauce. Jason likes Jewish food, so I found a recipe in his sauces book that told how to make zehug, a hot sauce favoured by Yemenite Jews. I pan-roasted tomatoes for the first time in my life, a skin removal method that adds flavour to the dish, or so the text read. There's also a bunch of cilantro in there, extra virgin olive oil, jalepneos, garlic, salt, pepper, cumin, and coriander. Oh, and a single lemon's worth of juicings. Turned out pretty good. A little mild, perhaps. I toasted up some pita bread for dipping purposes, not realizing one is supposed to cut the bread into triangles before putting them in the oven. Look at the glory here and here.

Oh, and pardon my filthy thumbnail; that was a bit of burned tomato skin.

BUHNING HAMMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!

2009-01-31T12:55:00.002-05:00

Wristo clutchoski, wristo clutchoski, wristo clutchoski. Hamburger.

CageMatch Report x2

2009-01-25T21:06:00.002-05:00

I suddenly realized that I never blogged about the CageMatch from two weeks ago, so you get a twofer here.

Last time, we had Banana Breakup defending against 4DDI. The video is here. Check it out and return for discussion.

Didn't really have a genius idea for this one. Couldn't figure out what to do with a name like "Senior PGA", until I tripped over the "senior vs junior" idea, and then decided to fill space by showing the "experience" of the senior team, and their Photoshopped wins around the world. I did like ending it with the "R-E-S-P-E-C-T" song.

This week had Senior PGA against 4DDI. Watch it here.

Once again, a name that's hard to build a storyline around, so in the Flaneur tradition, I used the name itself as the focus, namely the question of what "4DDI" stood for. It's fairly well-known around the theater that the guys in 4DDI intended it to be "Four Douchebags Doing Improv", but that Zach rightly thought that it wasn't the type of name you could market or advertise, so they were verboten from using "Douchebags", officially changing it to "Dudes". So I spent the bulk of the video playing with that, dreaming up various ways to censor the forbidden word, the punchline being that John Reitz would go ahead and say it anyway (if out of context). The boys of 4DDI were kind enough to participate in the pretaping, with special props to Kyle Chorpening for getting naked for CageMatch...again.

Oh, and the "POJ" thing was just some unexplored sexual maneuver that cropped up in Senior PGA's previous show, and amused me intensely, so I threw it in there as a sort of obscure inside joke.

Stills, as usual, are here.

Join us next time.

The Wrestler Review

2009-01-25T20:46:00.002-05:00

Went to see The Wrestler with Tommy Dynamite today. Jennings had told me weeks ago to get in my car and drive however long it took to see it right away, but this was my first opportunity to attend it here in Chapel Hill. MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD.

I liked it. I thought the portrayal of what it's like to be in the world of independent wrestling was amazing--they really did their homework, and were dead-on (except for three minor points that didn't really matter, namely that Marisa Tomei never would've gotten backstage so quickly/easily at a big event, nobody should ever make a gig that big, and I've never heard of anybody getting a solo dressing room at a small event.) They really did capture the thrilling/depressing feel of what it's like to be in front of a crowd at a high school card, and then wandering back to your car past kids' crayon drawings while dragging your rolling suitcase behind you long after the fans have left and the high has left you.

I thought that the Rourke's portrayal of The Ram was amazing. I've met guys like him; former big stars now on their way down, having lost the big bucks and their youth and now ready to sacrifice anything just to please the fans. I can identify with that as well; I think we were supposed to hope The Ram would agree to go with Cassidy at the end and not walk through that curtain, but maybe it's my own wrestling sickness that just made it obvious to me what had to be done at that moment: the crowd were there to see The Ram take on The Ayatollah, and when your music plays, you've got to hit the ring. I was also nodding my head when The Ram was mounting the top rope for his finisher, and looked over to the empty spot in the curtain where Cassidy had fled. She's gone, all you have for sure is the ring and the show, gotta dive off the top and let the heart attacks fall where they may. He had to do it.

The opening sequence with the historical clippings was amazing; somebody put in a lot of effort to replicate the look of Pro Wrestling Illustrated and its ilk. The Nintendo wrestling game moment was perfect. I could've done without the hardcore segment with Necro Butcher. Not that I don't like garbage wrestling, but I didn't think it advanced the plot in a useful fashion. If they had gone the route of showing that the former golden boy of wrestling had no choice but to take whatever booking he could, and was pressured into doing hardcore, that would've been good. Maybe in a director's cut?

I actually don't think I can judge whether this was an Oscar-level movie or not. I think I'm too close to the material myself. As far as replicating the real inner workings and atmosphere of smalltime wrestling, yeah, bang on, that was amazing. The story was touching, but I think I'm too close to that as well. Besides, I'm no movie artisan or supreme critic. But I did enjoy myself, and that's what's important.

Wrestling Moves

2009-01-25T20:02:00.003-05:00

Hi there wrestling fans. A clip of Mascarita Dorada has been making the rounds lately. This guy's always been pretty amazing, but that was a really good clip. Lucha Libre generally presents its "minis" better than traditional American "midget wrestling" which tends to be shown as a freak comedy act. (Although ya gotta wonder what Monito was thinking when he agreed to this spot.) I've always been a particular fan of the amazing talents of Mascarita Sagrada. I mean, the guy's about four feet tall, and he dove off a cage, for chrissakes!

Anyway, while midget wrestling in the US has generally been a joke at best and an offensive act at worst, there are some independent presentations that seem to be pretty positive. This looks like an interesting portrayal of one such group.

This post wasn't supposed to be about minis or midget wrestling, actually. I meant to show off some of the amazing moves people are coming up with, so here they are:
The Double 450
Omega Driver
Rollback Driver
An Amazing Counter
The Space Flying Drop
Anything Takuya Sugi does
And, what I think we can all agree is The Greatest Wrestling Sequence Ever

addendum:
After posting this, I discovered a longer video that includes the Double 450 mentioned earlier. Turns out there were a lot of amazing tagteam maneuvers in that match, which make it a must see.

The Green Mist

2009-01-21T23:37:00.004-05:00

So when I was a kid, I watched Mid-Atlantic Wrestling whilst living in the middle of North Carolina. One of my favourite wrestlers was a scary guy with his face painted, who went by the now-amusing name "The Great Kabuki". That's the equivalent of calling an American wrestler "The Fabulous Sitcom" or "The Wonderful Ballet" or something, but back then, I though "The Great Kabuki" was a great name for a badguy wrestler from Japan.

Anyway, I liked Kabuki because 1) he wore a cool piece of headgear that his manager would almost nonchalantly pull off slowly to reveal his "hideously scarred" face, 2) he worked them nunchucks somethin' fierce, and most importantly, 3) he could blind and even hospitalize his opponents by blowing a poisonous substance into their eyes, a mysterious weapon of the Orient known as "The Green Mist". To a kid, this was amazingly cool. How I wished I too could learn the secrets of the Japanese warriors and blow the Green Mist!

Years later, an amazingly talented wrestler by the name of Keiji Mutoh came over to America, where he became famous as The Great Muta. Muta was billed as Kabuki's son, and he learned the secrets of The Green Mist from his evil father. I would've loved Muta anyway, with his acrobatic moves and lightning-quick elbow drops, but blowing the mist made him my new favourite.

You can see two fun examples of The Green Mist from Muta here and here. The former has a nice wide spray, and Ric Flair sells it like he's dead. The latter has a nice bit of mist, and then Muta finishes off his opponent with a nice Shining Wizard. (BTW, I'm not sure, but I *think* that the guy who gets misted in the second clip is Kabuki himself!) You can see a nice little interview segment with Kabuki's manager Gary Hart (no, not that Gary Hart) here, followed by a dustup in the ring with Jimmy Valiant. "Get your Asian in the ring!"

And here's a weird little bonus. The Great Kabuki in a music video for a Japanese band???

Spock's Surprised Bread

2009-01-20T10:27:00.003-05:00

Long ago when I had cable, I was addicted to the British version of Whose Line Is It Anyway. It was always entertaining, had crazy games, and some wacky talent in the form of people like Paul Merton and Tony Slattery. There was one particular episode that has stuck in my head for all these years, featuring two comedians that *weren't* Whose Line regulars, and thus were hard to track down. Well, I finally found the particular clip I've remembered all these years, and it's right here. Enjoy it with me, won't you?

The segment has two guys being given a suggestion of an object that they have to build the scene around, and then Clive tells them they have to do it as the characters of Kirk and Spock. The guy doing Spock isn't particularly thrilling, but the guy playing Kirk, Jim Meskimen, is hilarious. He really nails the Shatner timing and sound. Ever since I originally saw this ten years ago, I still occasionally find myself wandering about and muttering, "Why Spock, I'm...surprised you eat bread."

Different Perspectives Project

2009-01-04T18:48:00.005-05:00

Just after Christmas, Kit sent me an email that read thusly:

Since I know we all love wasting free time, I had an idea while looking at an art exhibit advertisement in South Carolina. The exhibit was somehow pairing the elderly with college kids to do some sort of photography thing (not sure what), and the exhibit was called "Different Perspectives, One Vision."

Oh, hells yeah, I said to myself.

The concept is this:
We pick a group of 4-8 related words, and we all spend the next week taking a photograph to fulfill each word. Then we each put our pictures together in a prearranged layout (for comparison purposes) and compare (post?) the results. I'd say the photos have to be taken by us THAT WEEK (i.e. not last spring). This will get us all looking around for awesome pictures as well as exercise our brains finding interesting ways to show the items.

THE FIRST CHALLENGE (we'll decide what to do with them next, but first, get this done by Sun Jan 4:
PlayStation Controller Buttons
1) Square
2) Triangle
3) Circle
4) X

Take four pictures (or take a lot and choose the best four), each depicting a different one of the four above buttons. Layout of the pictures is just like the side of the controller: in a diamond with square to the left, triangle on top, circle to the right, and X on the bottom.

So here we are on Sunday, Jan 4, and here is my submission.

Edit: Here are the submissions of Mr. FitzSimons and Mr. Scronce.

Good Eats

2009-01-04T18:21:00.003-05:00

My buddy Jackson cooked up a particularly delicious meal for me on Friday. Here we have a pork chop in wine sauce, baked beans, mustard, and Potato Cakes a la Jerry Golliher. DEE-licious! Best meal I've had in months.

Dave "The Man" Weaver

2008-12-31T10:43:00.002-05:00

Life is good. I've given away two big desks that were cluttering up my back room, and the room is spacious for the first time since I moved in six years ago. I've got a new computer/video-production desk in a box behind me that I plan on assembling today or tomorrow, and will spend the rest of the week starting to put together my new production studio. I feel good. I knew that I would. So nice. So nice.

Anyway, that revelation wasn't the reason for this post. What prompted me to whip out the scanner and upload some photos to Flickr was the discovery of this ancient printout. I found it in a random stack of papers somewhere in the depths of my cluttered back room. It happens to be a dot-matrix printout of a poem my old college buddy Dave Weaver wrote in November of 1986, and "emailed" me via the semi-proto-internet we had on campus. (see the end of this post for a transcript.) Dave was a card; a funny guy from Urbana, Illinois with a talent for learning Chinese and playing bass. Actually, he could play lots of instruments, and was always trying to play his music for his friends. Problem is, our crowd was into punk, hardcore, and rockin' out, and Dave tended to write heartfelt emotional music, so most people didn't really want to hear Dave's latest creation. I, on the other hand, loved Dave's music. So much so, that when Dave borrowed my old Fostex four-track and let me hear his demo songs, I pressed him to allow me to engineer an album of his original tunes, which we did during Oberlin's Winter Term one year.

Since I needed to have a pic of ol' Dave on this post, I dug up a few pics from my archives and scanned 'em in. If you really want to shudder, go check out a few of the others I found in my "Oberlin College In The 1980s" Flicker set. I know I wasn't a Don Juan back in those days, but I can't believe my friends actually allowed me to run around loose looking quite that bad. You can also see our old dining hall, and even a shot or three from the TIMARA studios, where I worked on getting my electronic music degree.

I've lost track of all my old Oberlin buddies. My original roommates and best pals were Roger "The Party Mutant" White (who was an ethnomusicology genius who introduced me to Motorhead, Judas Priest, and James Brown; I think he's married now), Jeremy "Jer-Bro" Tompkins (who was a Bio/Chem double-major, which is ridiculous at a top-rank school like Oberlin, I used to have great fun typing his papers for him as he dictated to me, and got me drunk for the first time, as well as many times afterwards.), and my good buddy Tom "Thomas C From Across The Sea/The Might Of One And The Libido Of Three" Manion (who always insisted Cleveland was America's North Coast, shared my love of surrealism, and loved The Floyd more than anybody. Last I heard he had packed two dufflebags and gone to seek his fame and fortune in the theater world of NYC). I also shared great times with Pat Wehner from West By God Virginia who drank and watched Twin Peaks with me, Jim "I'm An Actor" Thompson who would always be willing to stand up during poker games and recite horrendous paragraphs from porn novels I had clipped out for him, Jonathan "SuperJew" Silverman who was the life of every party and invented the rewording of the Run DMC lyric "not bad meaning bad but bad meaning HOBGOOD!" which he would scream out no matter where the song was playing, Kathy Thompson and Cathy Gale who I had massive crushes on, Matthew "Hello" White who was just the nicest guy you'd ever meet and was embarrassed at the birthday rap I wrote for him (he was born on 5-5, the fifth of May--as he liked to tell us), Larry "The Axe-Man" Axtell who cohosted a wrestling radio show with me and fled from Oberlin to join the Ringling Brothers Clown College, and Mike Soohoo who was head of the Asian American Alliance and taught me how important it was to not to overuse the word "hate". Two quick bits about Mike Soohoo: he made the mistake of telling us a story about how he had been teaching at a summer camp before the semester, and how the kids made fun of his name, calling him "Soo Who?" and "Soohoobaru". Oh, how we used that against him for the rest of the year! Mike and I also had an ongoing war over which of Prince's rejects were hotter: Appolonia or Vanity. (I was a big Vanity fan. I have all her records!) Oh, and so many others I'm forgetting: Casey, Terra, Jon Fine, Douglas, Jenny Seltzer, Marti, Kevin, Reid, Harm Farm, Bitch Magnet, Jenny Douglass (who I had a crush on in sixth grade, and then was surprised to discover at Oberlin!), and my brain can't cope with the hundreds of othes I knew and loved to be around.

For posterity, here's the text of the poem Dave Weaver wrote off the top of his head to amuse me:

Ted, Ted, he has no fear
Born and raised with a pack o' bears,
Bigger than you ever did see
Can eat his way through a factory,
Faster than the lightning strikes,
Slyer than the Devil's tikes,
Ted, Ted, he has no fear.

Ted, Ted, the ladies' man,
Got one in the closet and one in the van,
Take his cane and overcoat,
Show them gals the roundabout,
Don't look now, he's looking fine,
Big leather hat, he wines and dines,
Ted, Ted the ladies' man.

Ted, Ted, the master o' rap,
Can put you down better than tiger trap,
He knows the ins and out of the world,
The city stops when he says a word,
He can do the numchucks and the figure four too,
You better watch out when he's comin' after you,
Ted, Ted, the master o' rap.

For the record, I did tend to wear an overcoat and suede cowboy hat, and carry a cane as an affectation. What can I say, Oberlin was a pretty alternative college, and I was a big dork. I did literally sleep in a closet for a semester, as our dorm room had a huge walk in closet, and we converted it into a second bedroom. I never had a "lady" in there though. And I can "do the numchucks" as well as the figure four. Watch out, Chuck Norris.

Fisher-Price Barack Obama

2008-12-27T14:57:00.004-05:00

My mom is great. As a gift for my sister for Christmas, she made a little shadowbox of the Obama family, as portrayed by Fisher-Price Little People. Genius!

The Michelle Obama figure is Susan from the Sesame Street set, the only FPLP character to have textured hair. The Barack figure actually came from my collection, and was a bald hospital figure all in white. Mom painted the suit on, and used puff paint to give a little texture to his hair as well. Click the links above to see more.

CageMatch 12/13/08

2008-12-20T16:20:00.002-05:00

CageMatch time again. This happened last week, but I've been busy lately and forgot to blog about it. Here we go!

View video here first. Go now.

Now let's chat. The original idea for the video came from one Kit FitzSimons, who pointed out the lyrics in the Kate Perry song "Hot and Cold" and how they mirrored the up-and-down romance of the characters in Honkey Kong. Then Alyssa said she had a good idea for a video. I said, "sorry, but Kit already has an idea." "Let me tell you the idea anyway." She said she'd love to see something like the new Target commercial from Christina Aguilera. I took a look at it and loved the comic book-y Lichtenstein-y imagery, and decided we could combine both ideas into one.

This involved a lot of lugging lights and other equipment around for a video shoot at Alyssa's and one at Kit's. Unfortunately, my lighting skills are not up to the highest notch, and so the bluescreening I tried to do was a bit shoddy. I really need to get a real greenscreen and a crash course on lighting. Anyhoo, we had a lot of fun with Kyle and Alyssa being playful with each other and then hating each other. Highlights were the bit where Kyle throws the flowers at Alyssa from off-camera, and the impromptu bootydancin' bit. Banana Breakup was fun to film (as always). The fight scene amused me terribly, and the high-five bit made them look totally cool. I was happy that my coatrack idea worked okay. That amused me.

Back in The Studio, I drew up some comic panels in Photoshop and textured them with benday dots from a Lichtenstein painting. I also found some old comic book ads that I used for the opposing pages; you only see them for a moment, but I think they add to the feel of the video. If I had a bit more time and energy, I would've put some Adam West-esque "BAM!"s and "POW!"s in there, and maybe some explosions where Kyle and Alyssa are having the pointing war at the end, but I think it turned out generally okay.

Oh, forgot to mention that I wrote the entire voiceover script while attending my dad's Really Terrible Orchestra Of The Triangle concert earlier in the week. He provided colouring pages for people to amuse themselves with while the "bad" music was performed, and I took him at his word and scribbled down text while the music played, then rehearsed it during the reception afterwards while all the bigwigs hobnobbed and got drunk. Hah! (And I later noticed that I channelled the spirit of Jeremy Clarkson at the end there. Sweet.)

This was the first video in a long time that people wanted to watch again immediately after the show, so that felt good. We rescreened it both at the theater and back at Kit's place.

You can also see the comic book cover promo I made here, featuring the visages of Kyle, Alyssa, Kit, and Eitan. It's an adaptation from an old 1950s romance comic which you can see here. (Yes, I made Alyssa's cleavage more pronounced. Pervert.)

Cooking By The Book

2008-12-05T08:33:00.003-05:00

This has to be one of the funniest mashups I've seen in a while. Brantley turned me on to this piece of genius, which he found via this page. The video tends to get rapidly taken down by copyright claims by Lazytown, so if the link I've provided doesn't work, try searching YouTube for "lil jon lazy" or "lil jon lazytown". You'll be glad you did.

I had to mp3 this one for my eternal listening pleasure.

CageMatch 10/25/08

2008-11-27T11:46:00.003-05:00

Well this is WAY overdue. Here's the CageMatch video from 10/25/08, over a month ago. My apologies. Watch it and come back for commentary. Be sure to click the "high quality" links!

Ok, I felt whimsical when I made this. I brought PT over and threw my pith helmet on him, and we invented the character of Julian Partridge, world-renowned explorer and entrepreneur. Basically, I just wanted to be wacky with PT. Not the most dramatic video I've made, but it amused me. PT and I might need to make a weekly podcast video series with Julian Partridge...we had fun with it.

On that same evening, we saw the departure of Troy Sterling from the show. He made his farewell in video form, which you can see here.

I put a lot more effort into the Troy video. Me and Remi spent a good deal of time filming all the various segments. It was his idea to do the "Back In Black" bit, which worked real well. I loved the soft vignette effect of the black and white sections. BTW, that's a CageMatch bumper sticker he's kicking in that one scene. We did another take where he spit on it, which was hilarious, but I thought might be too subtle in a short video. Troy throwing a brick is just great. And I loved the bit at the end where he walks off and has to step down off the box he stands on to be tall enough to frame correctly on the bluescreen. All in all, a fun video.

While we're at it, here's two new videos I made recently, which aren't CageMatch videos per se, but are promos for a former CageMatch champion team: Banana Breakup. Here's video #1 and video #2.

#1 was my idea, Banana Breakup returning from an exploration in outer space to come back and perform at the DSI Comedy Theater again. I like coming up with nonsensical cartoony adventures for the Banana Boys to participate in. The backdrop for the space capsule was inspired by the walls of the Satellite Of Love from MST3K; I gathered together a lot of plastic toys and flotsam and glued them to a huge piece of stiff cardboard and then spraypainted the whole thing white. That was great fun, and the guys seemed to be amused by it. The #2 video was commissioned by Kit, and an idea of Zach Ward's. Easy to film, and a cute video to advertise their shows.

And that's it for today!

Bad Choices in Retail

2008-11-27T11:37:00.003-05:00

I haven't blogged in a month. Been busy, a bit worn out, a bit stressed (more on all that later). So I promise to do better.

Let's start back with a new photo set I've created on my Flickr account, entitled "Consumer Culture Gone Wrong". It's along the lines of something Kit FitzSimons used to do that amused me greatly. He would take pictures of odd items on store shelves and then make fun of them on his blog. I can't promise to be as clever or as funny, but I can promise that I will amuse myself.

Check out the set here; look through them one by one to see the descriptions I've typed up. I'll add to the set as the mood strikes me.

The Mariner's Revenge

2008-10-31T12:28:00.002-04:00

If you're not doing anything for Halloween, my friends and I are putting on a play I wrote based on a song by The Decemberists. It was all Jackson's idea, and will be performed by The Fenario Players with live music from The Dead Canaries and a special appearance by PT Scarborough. Anyway, the party starts at 8:00, and the play will be performed later in the evening, once everybody is warmed by alcohol consumption. It's at Fenario, a house at 2321 NC Hwy 54 W. Call me for details.

Dictionaraoke

2008-10-11T11:46:00.002-04:00

Now here's a genius idea somebody had. I think I heard one of these songs a long while ago, and thought it was brilliant. Today I tripped over an entire site full of 'em.

What the fine folks at Dictionaraoke have come up with is the blend of karaoke music with the mechanical hilarity that is the computer voice of online dictionary pronunciations. So head on over and check out the wealth of musical comedy at Dictionaraoke. You'll be glad you did.

At-the-co-pa. Co-pa-ca-ba-na.

I Just Spent $77.00 On This Book

2008-10-05T20:37:00.004-04:00

I've always been a big fan of Hoogerbrugge. His clean drawings, surrealistic style, and eyecatching animations has always been entertaining and inspiring. His sort of stuff is one of the many things I dream of doing but probably never will. But given the chance to read about it, and I'll drop the bucks. My ebay auctions have been going well lately, so it's not even like I'm spending real money--it all just gets sucked out of my Paypal account.

Hoogerbrugge just came out with a book of drawings, cartoons, and essays--there's even a chapter where he explains (Scott McCloud-style, through comics) how he made his animations, so maybe I will learn how to do it! There's also a dvd of animations included, which is a big bonus. Looking forward to getting my package from the Netherlands.

Toy Oddities

2008-09-23T19:19:00.002-04:00

I haven't been shopping in a while; I had a little irregularity with my bank account and have been feeling poor. At the same time, I've been saving up for a copy of Ableton Live so I can realize my next career as a godlike mashup DJ, so my shopping trips have been few and far between. But I needed to get some stuff for this weekend's DUAL DUEL finals, and ventured out into the wild world. Walking the aisles of WalMart, I was amazed at some of the things they're pushing on kids these days. Enjoy them with me now.

Okay, I just can't get behind cruelty to animals. It's wrong, man. The Force is not with this one.

This one is actually pretty cool. If I were a kid and saw this, my parents would hear more whining and pleading than the last time Britney Spears ran out of cigarettes and found herself at a 7-11 at 3 am with nothing but an empty pocketbook and an autograph pen.

Look close at this one; yes, it's Barbie. An official Barbie product, in serious dangers of having her eyeballs pecked out and regurgitated back into the throats of little creatures fresh from breaking out of their eggs. This is the creepiest toy I've seen since the NAMBLA version of the electronic Operation game.

Here's another in the Barbie line. There's a whole series of dolls showing Barbie in various occupations, supposed to be inspiring to young girls who aspire to enter the workforce. Of course, they're always aiming sort of low and fairly stereotypical, like pet shop owner or swim instructor or something. Let's take a closer look at this one:

Ahhh..."Baby Doctor". Is that even a real job title? Don't they prefer to be called pediatricians? I guess they needed to dream up a more cutesie, more demeaning name for Barbie. The first thing I thought of when I saw "Baby Doctor" was "Baby Mama", which is actually what the doll looks more like, wearing her denim capris, baby placed on one hip at some negligent angle. Check out the other shot:

Nice blank stare, horrendous dress, and leaving the other kid on a shelf somewhere.

Last but not least, the kiddy tattoo gun. C'mon kids, enter the world of punks and whores! Share needles and mark yourself up with the shakiest of devil tattoos and chinese characters that may mean "courage" or might read "Fuck This Cracker"! And guess what, kiddies? It's called the "I-Tattoo"! That's right! You like the iPod? The iMac? The iPhone your daddy bought you? Well this is JUST like those, but in tattoo form! Plus, it's a vibrating tattoo pen--you know what potential that has, ladies! To quote the box, "GET INKED!" Radical!

Plus, the fact that they measure the markers by the gram worries me. Oh, kids today!

Photo Meme Thing

2008-09-18T19:26:00.002-04:00

courtesy of Senor Alex Wilson
The Rules of the Meme:
Take a picture of yourself right now.
Don't change your clothes, don’t fix your hair...just take a picture.
Post that picture with NO editing.
Post these instructions with your picture.

DUAL DUEL videos

2008-09-14T17:41:00.002-04:00

Hey, my last blog post was my 666th, and I missed the opportunity to be Satanic. Damn.

So this weekend I produced two more shows at the theater and cranked out two more videos. It was the annual DUAL DUEL tournament that we have during our charity marathon. I didn't get the names of the participants as early as I did last year, so this year's offerings were a bit rushed.

The videos are here and here.

No big technical tricks to reveal this time around. These are pretty formulaic. Kit FitzSimons was kind enough to help me design a bunch of the identity screens. My favourite of his was Dem Nillas. Of mine, I was quite proud of the crisp simplicity of Chinese Scientist, but Honkey Kong seemed to be the most popular, due obviously to the contributions of Alyssa Mander and Kyle Chorpening.

All the identity screens for the teams are in the usual place.

Humour Writing

2008-09-09T21:35:00.002-04:00

So I'm reading this book called "The Laugh Crafters", about writing for comedy in the oldtime radio days and the early days of television. There's an interview with Bob Schiller, who wrote for Duffy's Tavern, Abbot & Costello, The Carol Burnett Show, The Flip Wilson Show, and All In The Family (among others).

Anyway, Schiller had a quote in there that I thought some of y'all out there might be interested in. He compares comedy writing for print vs comedy writing for performance:

There's a major difference, as you know, between writing to be read and writing to be said. Writing to be said, you have to have a strong enough--it's a technique--a punchline that's got enough muscle, that will arouse a laugh in an audience. You can't just do whimsy, the kind of stuff you do in columns. You have to have whamsy, really.

I like that distinction. Makes sense. For the written word, you can be more subtle, more clever, let the individual reader soak in the humour. Whereas for audible or visual humour, you need to have more energy, more punch, more yuks. Something to think about.

PS

2008-09-07T16:57:00.002-04:00

PS: Just in case anybody reads the previous post and thinks I may be sitting around my darkened apartment alone and depressed, thinking of doing myself a mischief, I'm not. I'm sitting here taking pictures of things to sell on ebay, drinking lemonade, listening to Superchick and the Smokey and the Bandit soundtrack, and mentally preparing to teach a session at the theater on how to voice ComedySportz.

No, everything is not rosy in my life, no I'm not particularly enthused about anything these days, but also no I'm not moping or depressed, and no I'm not looking on Google maps for the nearest high cliff face. I am a bit interested in some music I'm composing, looking forward to clearing out my back room and making a studio, and I posted a funny mp3 earlier today. So there.

Ticket To Ride

2008-09-07T16:20:00.000-04:00

Hi again. Two posts in one day? It must be the apocalypse.

I normally don't talk about myself on this blog; that is to say, I don't make it a diary or soapbox or psychiatrist's couch to talk about my personal feelings and level of depression or anything like that. The blog is generally just a forum to share the creative stuff I've done with the few people who are interested, or to mention something I find particularly amusing or useful that I think my friends might also find amusing or useful. I'm not really one to talk about what's going on in my heart or my head on public forums, and rarely in private ones as well.

But suddenly I'm in the mood to do a personal entry, so here it is. Most will probably want to skip over the rest of this--it's more something I feel I have to write for myself rather than one for public comment. Maybe it's something I'll look back on later or maybe it'll just be catharsis.

I haven't been a particularly social person in my life; I'm more comfortable alone or with one or two good friends. As far as romantic relationships go, I was quite the late bloomer, not having a girlfriend or anything close until late in college. I was shy, unsure, and didn't really think I handled myself well around the opposite. I've always been a bit awkward, a weird mix of being raised ultra-liberal and wanting to treat women like any other people, and being raised in the South and wanting to treat women like special princesses and be the gentleman and all. I'm also the type of person that wants to give other people their space and value their opinions, and don't want to impose my desires on somebody else. When I did start having romantic relationships, those two conflicts resulted in the relationships in question not lasting particularly long, maybe three to six months. And then I was also always one to believe in love as an important and rare thing, so I never did what I think most do, which is to jump right into another relationship or another fuck or whatever. I took myself too seriously and took romance too seriously and would go for months or years without another relationship. After all, it took quite a long time for the first one, so I was used to life without that sort of companionship, much as I wanted it.

Anyway, I've told two women I loved them. The first was a girl named Dee McQuade, who I met interestingly enough while ordering digital video hardware from one of those big computer catalog firms. We chatted on the company's 1-800 ordering line, and clicked immediately. We talked for hours every day and ran up quite a phone bill on both sides before we finally decided to meet. She lived in Connecticut, so it was a pretty ballsy move to fly up there to meet someone I had only talked to on the phone. We hit it off quite nicely, thank you. She was the seemingly perfect blend of naughty and nice and funny and intellectual and tough and girly, and she ended up flying down to see me a few weeks later and I even introduced her to my mom (!). But in the end, the distance was trying, and she had been seeing somebody else who she fell in with once more, and we broke up. It was very hard for me, as she was the first girl I said "I love you" to, and that meant a lot to me. But though it hurt, and I thought I was heartbroken at the time, I came to realize that I wasn't. I had just met someone I really enjoyed being with, and it didn't work out, and that sucked.

I went a long time before even seeing anybody again, hooked up with somebody for a week at a party my friend Larry threw, then another year or so, and then as the bug caught me, I met a person in some chatroom or somewhere that I ended up seeing regularly. The same sort of double-conflict that was mentioned above came into play. I tried my best to be the greatest boyfriend ever, and she even told me that I gave her the best birthday she ever had, but I think my tendency to not speak up for myself and impose my desires ended up with her wanting someone more demanding and less giving, and she started seeing somebody else at the same time. Funny thing is, when I did find out about it and broke up with her, she ended up calling me one night to come get some of my stuff, and since I didn't really care for her anymore, I ended up being more relaxed and we had impromptu growling animalistic sex that night, which probably would've saved the relationship if I had been that way all the time.

Another year or so passed, and I met a really nice girl who I had a lot of fun with, but we seemed to obviously be better suited as friends, even friends with benefits, than a true romantic couple. I was really happy to hear a few years ago that she had gotten out of her abusive relationship she had been in for a long time, and escaped to a much better job in Charlotte where she met the boy of her dreams. Last I heard, everything was great for her and she was smiling and happy and having a dirty good time. (Hi Dawny!)

Time passed, and I did what I had never thought I would do: put up a personal ad on one of those dating sites. (Turns out it's not so bad; I know two absolutely decent people who met the mate of their dreams on that sort of thing, and they're not losers or anything!) Anyway, I had a date or two, and nothing came of it. There are a lot of weirdos on there. Then I got a match with a girl named Leesa. Leesa Meagher. She lived in Greensboro--geez, that was a long way away. I don't recall that she had a picture either, and that usually spells disaster in these sorts of situations. But she had dark hair and she was short, and for me, that's worth an email at least. So we got to chatting, and after a while decided to go on a date. (I think this was the first real "date" date I had been on!) So I drove the hour or so out to Greensboro to meet her and go to dinner.

I remember the first moment I saw Leesa. We had agreed to meet on the steps of the library at Guilford. It was drizzling a little, and as I turned the corner around the building, I saw a tiny figure in a hooded jacket sitting alone in the middle of this huge staircase. She heard my footsteps, and turned towards me while at the same time pushing her hood back to reveal a nervous gaze and long jet-black hair. It felt almost like a cinematic cliche--the whole thing seemed to happen in slow motion. The rain stopped for me, and I saw the most beautiful girl I had ever seen in my life. Doe eyes and rounded lips with the hint of a downturn to them to betray her own nervousness. She stood up and met me for the first time, and I think I loved her at that moment. She was small in both stature and presence, and I wanted to take her in my arms and protect her from the world. At the same time, I knew from our conversations that she was a tough, independent woman and had proved that she could hold her own no matter what life had thrown at her. Sound familiar? There was both the "treat her like a princess" and "treat her like a human being" thing going on. I already thought that perhaps I had met someone that could be both those things for me and understand what I meant by both those approaches.

So we went to dinner, and I felt like a king. When she excused herself at the restaurant to go to the bathroom, I felt like everyone was looking at me and either thinking to themselves "wow, that guy is one lucky bastard" or perhaps "what the hell is a woman like that doing with a guy like THAT?". Anyway, I had one of my bold moments when I did the right thing at the right time, and ended up kissing her in my car. She sighed against me and I was hooked.

Long story short, I fell deeply, deeply in love with her. I frequently told her she was my dream girl--beautiful, fun, sexually tantalizing, and a woman I felt I could both worship and hang out with. I really did want to protect her from the world and show her that life could be so much better than she had experienced thus far. She had grown up as a baby from Korea brought up in America by a conservative white family. She never could recognize her own beauty, and always dreamed of being 5'9", blue-eyed, and blonde-haired. A tragedy. She had grown up with a chip on her shoulder, always having to prove herself, always rebelling, and fell into a life of heavy drugs and abuse. Her previous relationships were usually based on both of those, dating pushers who would flip her skirt up and finish off without a thought for her pleasure or her emotions. She had had a hard life, and I wanted to give her everything.

I had asked her what her fantasy was, and she said it was to get a massage in a candlelit room. On one of our early dates, we ended up at my place and I asked her to wait outside for a minute. She was never used to trusting anybody, so she wasn't sure, but she let me go into the room alone and close the door. When I opened it again, the room was lit solely by candles and I had prepared a place for her to lie down. She asked if she needed to get naked, and I said whatever she was comfortable with. She asked me to wait outside this time, and a few minutes later she shyly came to the door wearing just about nothing. I was very careful to give her a massage without making it sexual, trying to show her that someone could care about her for her. Later, when she made it clear that she wanted to be more physical, I went down on her first, and she tried to pull me back up, saying that I didn't have to. I told her I enjoyed it, and continued. Then she got worried and told me I could stop, as she couldn't orgasm that way, that she never had anyway. Well, that was just encouragement to me.

Over the next few months, as we learned more about each other emotionally and physically, we had the most amazing sex either of us had ever had. And I had a deeper relationship than I had ever had. The distance between Chapel Hill and Greensboro was a barrier, but whenever we were together, we could just *be* with each other, and it all seemed *right*. We could watch a movie, cook, talk, shop, or just hang out. It felt comfortable, and I felt relaxed and special around her. I wanted to let her know how special she was to me as well. She loved Snickers bars, and every time we met I had a different kind of Snickers for her. I tried to make the special days extra-special for her. February was a smorgasbord, as her birthday was the 9th, Valentine's Day was the 14th, and the anniversary of our first date was the 22nd. I tried to make each one a memory for her. Every once in a while I would do something that would really touch her, and her face would break out in an honest warm smile that came directly from her soul, bare of any of the armour or walls she usually had erected around her. I would make any gargantuan effort necessary to see that smile, to have her slip her arms around me as she became my little kitten.

There were problems, of course. The distance thing got in the way, and even when she eventually got a car, it was hard to get together. And her lifetime of bad experiences and lack of trust was a barrier. She assumed that the moment she left my house, I was out getting laid with some other chick. I don't think she ever understood how much loyalty meant to me, or how focussed I was when I really cared for someone. And I didn't just care for her, I truly loved her. She was used to men using her and moving on, only returning when they needed a lay or some weed. So why should I be any different?

Then there were my own shortcomings as well. Too much to fully cover here, but the aforementioned double conflict has its problems. I wanted to put her on a pedestal, and so sometimes treated her as if she was breakable. At other times, I treated her as I would anybody else, when what she probably needed at that moment was someone to stroke her hair. And I did stroke her hair. I loved to run my hands over her skin and soothe her to sleep. I think another problem, strange though it may seem, is that I wasn't demanding enough. I sort of alluded to this quality in myself earlier--I tend to want to make other people happy. I don't speak up about my own wants very much, and would rather find out what the other person desires and help them achieve it and enjoy it. In trying not to impose my own will on someone else, I can come off as a bit of a wuss. And thought the liberal side of myself loathes to say it, in my experience, women want a man to take charge at times. And while I myself do love to take charge at times, it seems that at the times I really should take charge the most, my worry of offending the person I love and crossing a line seems to have prevented me from doing so. In antiquated parlance that I can't really explain in a better fashion, I wasn't "a man".

Anyway, Leesa and I ended up going out for three years. The longest relationship I had had before that was six months (if I count generously). Now, she and I broke up for a month or two a few times in there, each time her breaking up with me because she didn't believe I could remain faithful to her. We always ended up getting back together once she had a few rebellious flings with other guys and realized (I think) how much I meant to her, and hopefully how much she meant to me. She was an angry girl, wronged by life, and was impulsive and had to erupt violently like that and break up the relationship. The weird thing is, that just made me love her all the more. She could be difficult, bratty, unreasonable, unable to trust, and argumentative, but all of that was part of her and all of it came honestly. All of that was part of who Leesa Meagher was, and I accepted that and loved all of her, both her virtues and her human failings.

The beginning of the real end was when one of our breakups was initiated by me. The first time it was initiated by me, actually. We hadn't seen each other in a few weeks, and our phonecalls tended to revolve around her job and how busy she was and how much she hated it. I tried to give her what advice I could, but it didn't seem to sit well. She was coming up towards the end of college, and I know the stress on her was huge. She would call me up and read some of her papers to me and ask what I thought. She wrote pretty well, and was really pleased when they would come back with a good grade. I tried to be supportive, but was feeling like she wasn't thinking about me a lot, and that I was giving more support than I got. I'm afraid I may have chosen to be a bit more distant as a result, hoping she would recognize it and pull back closer to me.

In any case, my birthday came and went, and she completely forgot it. I got upset, and said maybe we needed to take a break from each other. As she tended to do in such situations, she just said, "fine, whatever", and we broke up. I think I thought this would just be like the other times, that we'd get back together in a few weeks once we noticed how much we missed each other. It wasn't, though. I think that it was more final for her this time since she wasn't the one who initiated it. I think she felt that once someone rejected her (as men had done many times before) that it was utter rejection of her and who she was and there was no coming back from it. I tried emailing her to check on her as I had done in the past, sending out feelers to see if she wanted to talk, but got nothing. Then in January, the day after New Year's, I think, I got an email or a call or something from her. She was at her mother's hotel up in New England somewhere. She had gotten drunk at a party, and some guy took advantage of her. Wasn't the first time it had happened, but I could tell this had upset her more than the other times. We talked, and over the next couple of days, she decided she wanted to see me again. We set a date for her to come over when she got back to North Carolina, and she even started to get really happy about it, looking forward to seeing me again.

Then two days before that Thursday when we were supposed to meet again, I got an email that said "sorry, I just can't do it. I just can't see you again. I'm sorry." I'll never really know why there was such a sudden turnaround in her mood. Maybe it was because she really didn't think we'd work out. Maybe somebody convinced her that if it was over, it needed to stay that way. I think it may have been that she was seeing somebody else at the time, and things were getting better or appearing to get better with them. The only reason I think that is that a few months later, I was still feeling bad and sent out a mass email to everyone on my address book asking for a little support. I sent it to everybody really as an excuse to send it to her. A few of my friends sent back nice messages. From her I got a cheery email asking how I was doing and saying she was engaged.

So the reason I felt the urge to type all of this rambling today was for a couple of reasons that all sort of converged. Yesterday the Beatles song "A Ticket To Ride" popped up on the iPod. I've never really been one to listen to lyrics and interpret them; I just sort of blindly sing along. Well, yesterday those lyrics suddenly made sense to me, and I applied them to my own experience with Leesa. Plus, she was always a big Beatles fan, the loveable little hippie. She did get a ticket to ride...she met someone who she believed was better for her, and she moved on. She had a lifelong experience with people moving on from her, so she could move from relationship to relationship pretty easily. Fool that I am, I tend to attach a lot more meaning to relationships, and that can be both positive and negative. I took a long time after Leesa before I even went out with another girl. I had a couple of dates, a shallow relationship for a few weeks with somebody who announced on our first meeting that I would be her "summer fling", and a short session with somebody who ended up taking me to parties as a sort of ornament where I felt uncomfortable.

In the end, the first girl I said "I love you" too was somebody I fell out of love with, if I ever did love her in the first place. With Leesa, I know I really, truly, deeply loved her. Because I never fell out of love with her. When we were in bed together going at it like animals, I loved her. When I was kissing her cheek as she slept, I loved her. When she was mad at me and told me I was an idiot, I loved her. When she had broken up with me and started sleeping around with other guys, I loved her. And a few months ago, when she tracked me down on Facebook and emailed me, telling me her name was Lisa Lacsz now, and had just had a baby, and wanted to know how I was doing....I loved her. And that meant I couldn't talk to her anymore even though I wanted nothing more than for her to reach out as she was doing, nothing more than to hear about her and her baby and her happiness, nothing more than to just hear her voice or see her words. I couldn't have anything from her...because I couldn't have her as my own. And I wanted her still. Because I loved her still. And she really didn't need that kind of person in what her life was now.

That first girl I loved didn't break my heart. Leesa did. In many ways, really. I was hurt, and I felt lost and lonely and depressed. And I developed a physical problem as well. There's a family history of something called a mitrial valve prolapse. It's a problem with a valve in the heart that makes it beat irregularly and makes your blood pressure explode. My heart developed one after that first week in January when Leesa apologized and said she couldn't see me again. It's not a huge deal; the doctor said it's not a risk of heart attack or anything--I just need to calm down when it happens. But it's a broken heart nonetheless. And finally, I think my figurative, romantic heart is just plain broken now. I've tried going out with different women, but just have felt weird doing it. It may sound pitiful, sad, and completely stupid, but three years later, I still feel like I'm cheating on the woman I love. I *know* it's pitiful, sad, and completely stupid, but I still think of the little kitten of a dream girl I once had, every single day. It's gotten to the point where I don't get depressed when I think of her, I don't get weepy and forlorn, but her name and her memory still pops into my head every day, even if just for a moment. I don't feel depressed about it, but I do think I feel a little dead inside, and I don't see that getting any better. I think it's just what honestly, naturally has happened, and the type of ridiculous romantic I am at the core of my being, I think that's the way it's going to remain. Now, I'm not shutting any doors. They say that when you least expect it, that's when someone will come into your life that's perfect for you. So maybe that will happen. I have a feeling that that has already happened to me though, and that she's moved on.

So today I was cleaning out my closet, trying to sell things on ebay to make some money to build myself a little audio/video studio. Up on one of the shelves, way in the back, I found a stack of picture frames. I took a very brief glance at them and realized they were pictures of Leesa and me back when we were both at the height of happiness together. I didn't really feel anything other than a bit of regret that things couldn't have been a bit different. That, and I felt sure that I should just throw them away without really looking at them. So I did.

Yeah, we're turning off the comments for this post for sure.

Chapped Jesus

2008-09-07T12:08:00.003-04:00

Hey folks.

So a while back, when I was rich, I bought a nice car stereo from Crutchfield, one that let me connect my iPod directly to the car speakers. It was pretty sweet, just sit down, jack in, and boom, I'm listening to my own music AND charging my iPod. Well, these 115 degree North Carolina days have taken their toll on my system, and it's fucked. So I've had nothing to listen to for a while.

The other day I decided to turn on the radio--I must've been desperate, 'cause I can't stand radio djs of any genre. So I'm flipping through the channels, and come across a station where I hear the word "Jesus"--whups! Time to keep going! But something about the guy's voice made me come back. He was rambling on and on about the same sorta thing these guys always do, but there was something about the way he would get out a sentence and then quickly quote the chapter and verse he was referencing, rushing it almost under his breath. I was fascinated and listened all the way into work.

I wrote down the website they referenced, and yes indeedy, they had mp3s of the speech or preach or whatever you call it, available for download as long as you registered. One fake name and dummy GMail account later, and I had 'em. I plan on cutting them up and making some musical mashup out of them for an album I plan on coming out with later (more on that upon request from my legion of fans, if indeed you're out there.) In the meantime, I did a quick edit and just took a section of this guy's rave-on and cut out everything except the breathy chapter and verse. Listen to it here.

Now please somebody fix my stereo.

Dragnet Haikus

2008-09-03T21:30:00.002-04:00

This is hilarious to me.

CageMatch 8/30/08

2008-09-01T15:31:00.002-04:00

Big show, big competition, it was one of the best CageMatches of all time. Both Elaine and Banana Breakup blew away a sellout crowd with amazing performances, and at the end, Elaine emerged as seven time CageMatch champions. And here's the video.

I was pleased with the way this one turned out. Lots of music editing that worked. Pretapes done well in advance. Greenscreening that looked to be a nightmare but fell together rather nicely. I liked the way the BB silhouette logo had the red fade out and then the black zoomed out to infinity to reveal Kit looking very confident against the brick wall. Eitan leaping in was funny. The pan along the ladies in boots went over real well, and althought the hair-swishing part didn't work exactly like I planned, I think it came off even better since I had to overlap and rush them.

The music playing over the bit where the girls come in and do the "they tried to keep us down" bit was the opening rhythm of "Hey Ladies" by Destiny's Child. I was pleased that I managed to loop it nicely. I *loved* the way the girls' bit turned out. I had them each come back into the the cluttered but green-walled back room of the theater, and just repeat each line as I read it. Everybody had a different delivery, so it worked out really nicely to bounce between them. I particularly liked Becky's bright enthusiasm, Katie's "yeah, we're cool" sly delivery, and Clare's saucy lolita confidence.

The end bit with the bananas was Becky's idea (the words were mine though). That got a big pop from the crowd. The part you see is a second take. In the first take, Colette's banana flew off when she pulled it from behind her back, and while everybody else was looking tough, she looked like a little child who dropped her ice cream. Hilarious. Look for that on the blooper dvd at Christmas. Finally, the end music worked really well--it was "Not Done Yet" by Superchick, and the lyrics were quite apropos.

Thanks for dropping by.

CageMatch 8/16/08

2008-08-17T23:13:00.003-04:00

Just a quick report this time. Had another show yesterday. This time around I didn't get news of the challenging team until this past Tuesday, and the name was a hard one to form a video concept around. The team was called "Flâneur", and I just didn't know what to do with it. In the end, I decided to just make fun of the name and let the natural comedic hilarity of John Loftin make the video. So go watch it here and then come back for a chat.

So the first part of the video is centered around Banana Breakup and their historic fifth win. I liked having the scroll with the win records for each team--lends a bit of historic importance to the whole thing. I used the old Sesame Street clip to amuse myself and buck up my spirits.

The Flâneur identity screen baffled me at first, but in the end I just found a cool old drawing of Paris with a superimposition of old clip art. The Raven was a joke I threw in for Kit, as every time I heard the name "Flâneur", I thought of Lenore from the Poe poem "The Raven". The Wikipedia segment seemed to go over quite well-- just a quick capture with ScreenFlick and a few text overlays. Another bit just to amuse myself was to have the covers the books by the high-class authors mentioned in the Wikipedia article. I knew it would bring the energy of the video to a grinding halt, but it made me laugh.

The surprise reveal of Loftin and Lillith at the end worked surprisingly well. All it is is me holding a copy of the Banana Breakup picture (printed on a piece of paper) in front of the camera lens. Loftin reachs out and crumples it and starts his diatribe. The trick is to pick the exact frame to switch from the in-computer picture to the held-in-front-of-the-camera picture, and the whole thing is dramatic and seamless. I was sorta proud of that.

And now it's 11:30 at night and time for bed. Good night Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are.

The identity screen for Flâneur can be seen at the usual place.

CageMatch 7/26/08

2008-07-27T21:43:00.005-04:00

Yayyyyyy...blogging drunk, there's nuthin' like it!

CageMatch has happened again--it couldn't be prevented! We had the Banana Breakup boys, excellent as always, making us both laugh and gasp, taking on Robots Are Human Too, hilarity incarnate involving people dressed in cardboard and styrofoam. The video is right here, go check it out, and then I'll start rambling. HEY! Be a peach and click the link in the video to watch it in High Quality, won't you? This video is particularly artifacted for some reason.

Quick question: why does spellcheck not recognize "styrofoam"? For that matter, it doesn't recognize "spellcheck". Bastards.

Ah, upon further review, it looks like styrofoam (I ain't changin' the spelling, boys!) is a trademark. Bastards.

Okay, let's start with the Robots identity screen, since it is pictured above. I need more cider. The picture was drawn by yours truly whilst hangin' out iwht my good buddy Jackson on Friday night. The robot in the pic is based on one my mom owned s a wee lass, and I now am proud to have in my possession. Crayola crayons, activate!

Okay, quick break: I'm watching Mock The Week's new season, and Frankie Boyle continues to be amazing. Best Scottish standup EVER. (Sorry, Loftin.) Here's what he just said: "George Bush says that when he retires, he's going to make his living from speaking. Yeah, play to your strengths, eh George? That's like Abu Hamza having a career doing shadow puppets."

Okay, back to me. The video! It seemed to go over well. We had a fun time shooting all the Banana Breakup stuff out in to 100 degree heat at McDougle. The music in the background. believe it or not, is Madonna. I had a bit of a giggle doing the forward-and-reverse stuff. I was pleased that the end of that segment turned out well, with Eitan leaping off the table and then Kit flying off the swing, and the two of them supposedly landing in the shot. Then the robot attack! That turned out great. Mary Sasson looks evil smacking the water tower out of the way. This whole segment was hard, as there are like ten or eleven special effects going on in there, so it wouldn't render in Final Cut, and I had to play around a lot to get the sound effects to match up. I was quite proud of the sparks on the broken water tower legs. Thank you, Apple Motion! All the rays and lasers and whatnot were fun to place. The sound effects of the blast include no less than the laugh of one Eitan Lees. And we finish up with the dulcet tones of Tatu and "Robot".

And this week I got the idea for a new project I may be doing soon with the energetic Banana Breakup fellows. Stay tuned to see what Ted, Kit, and Eitan will be up to!

The Batslap Meme

2008-07-15T21:09:00.003-04:00

Corey Brown challenged me ("New Mimi for you," was all he said, actually,) and I accepted.

It's a lot like the Angry J. Jonah Jameson meme we did a while back. Corey sent me this panel of Batman slapping Robin and invited me to go wild. Here's what I came up with: one, two, three, four, cinco, six.

Here's a blank version if any of you folks want to participate. Don't forget to link to your work in the comments of this entry!

CageMatch 7/7/08

2008-07-15T20:45:00.003-04:00

Another quick entry here, about last Saturday's CageMatch. There's a bunch of videos involved here, so watch them when prompted and we'll discuss each one.

First, early in the week we had a statement from CageMatch President Jack Tunney. View it here. Basically, this was a promo for the show, and a vain attempt to get people wondering about what was going on with CageMatch. (That's "vain" in every sense of the word.) It was also a setup for what would happen with the opening of the actual show on Saturday--I planned WAY ahead for this one. This was another one of those fabulous pretapes with Bill Henderson. The phraseology at the end of Tunney's speech was meant to echo an exchange between Tunney and Biff Hobgood in Biff's last appearance. It's what we dramatic experts call "foreshadowing". And I wrote and recorded a rap about Troy Sterling. Yep. Go watch the video again. (Only Kit caught it the first time.)

So on to the show proper. This week's episode started with this video. Go watch it. I used a banana tree pic I had made for the BB boys a few weeks ago and never got to use, and then used stock photos of pretty boys to make up the members of Formula X. (As you will soon see, Formula X didn't actually exist, and to my knowledge, there isn't really a "By Golly Improv Theater" in Minneapolis.) By the way, the Formula X guys are all named after wrestlers from the glory days of All Japan Wrestling.

Okay, so then yours truly as Scott Sullivan comes out to introduce the show. I mention that Jack Tunney had released a statement, and show them the above-described video. Then after reiterating that Jack Tunney said if Troy didn't show up this week, that he'd "take care of him", I tell the crowd that I had not seen Sterling around the dressing rooms, but that he did release a statement of his own. It is here. Seen it? Good. So now you see the reveal--we basically did a callback to the way Biff was killed off way back when. And then we gave it a little twist to make it dramatic and hilarious. I loved the way it turned out, and when the crowd saw the opening with Troy in front of the massage parlour, they freaked. They knew what I was trying to do, so that was a good feeling. One funny thing: University Massage took their sign off the front door, so I had to replace it in post. Remi did a great job delivering the threat at the end, and then having the strains of "Money Money Money" come in just before the bill slid across the screen came off perfectly.

So now Troy Sterling has made his entrance, and he goes into a rage, proclaiming that CageMatch has gotten too expensive, and so he's firing Scott Sullivan, he's firing tech Tommy Dynamite, and he's even firing the challengers, Formula X. He's decided to replace us all with inexpensive Mexican labourers. So Joe Stanton makes his entrance as Don Sullivan, which is hilarious. And then Troy orders that the show be restarted, and we get this video. Enjoyed that? So yes, Senor Bueno is the real challenger this week. The footage was from "Los Campeones Justicieros" and "Vuelven Los Campeones Justicieros", and I was terribly amused to actually find a shot with Blue Demon in a suit at a desk, as Business Bueno. I had a blast making the identity screen for Senior Bueno, with the parody of "Meet The Beatles". I also loved making the "Perro Lucha" logo, playing on the "Los Perros del Mal" group.

The great thing about this show? I was under one of the masks. So I performed as two characters on the same show. Great fun. Tommy ended up hitting me with a chair, and I got him in the sleeper. There was some improv in there somewhere, and apparently I delivered a half-decent contribution to the group, according to commenters after the show. Banana Breakup premiered their shirts that I helped design. We all had a blast.

Stills aplenty from the videos are in the usual place, here.

Addendum: Forgot to mention, I also recorded a special version of the Hall of Champions for this show, where I did the whole "Since the dawn of humanity..." speech in Spanish, and all the champion identity screens were wearing bandito mustaches. It got a good series of laughs. I'm not uploading that video though. You really need to attend the show more often.

Also: I calculated that there was almost TEN MINUTES of video in this show. YOW!

CageMatch 6/28/08

2008-07-15T20:32:00.004-04:00

Hey! I've been slack...I haven't blogged since 6/12--TWO CageMatches ago. That's pretty lame. Suffice to say I've been too busy doing things rather than write about them. But I know my rabid public wants to know what I've been up to, so stay tuned for three swift blog entries in a row.

This entry will be about the CageMatch before last, which took place on 6/28/08. It was the first CageMatch on our new night, Saturday at 9:30 as part of "Best Show Ever". Hopefully this'll help us get better crowds, and it's much better for me as it gives me all day on Saturday to do last-minute video work.

Check out the video here, and then we shall discuss. Back? Excellent. I'll be honest, I didn't have much of an idea for this one. What does one do with a name like "White Trash"? So basically I decided I'd just spend time making one good picture, and then pan across closeups before the big reveal. I had a fun time putting the tattoos on Becky and Zach, and making Becky pregnant and Zach goofy lookin'. It's always nice to throw a little Freebird in there as well.

Addendum: Forgot to mention, my boss Mel came up with the idea for the spartan identity screen for White Trash. View that stuff here.

CageMatch 6/12/08

2008-06-26T00:41:00.005-04:00

Hmm. Today is the 26th, and I'm just getting around to doing an entry on a show that took place on the 12th. Either I'm getting really lazy, or I've been really busy.

A bit of both, really. And not so much lazy as just tired. I'm still getting used to the new job--I work a little later, getting off ostensibly at 6:00, and I'm working a lot harder than I did with the Town. I tend to work late, and then I get home and am a bit exhausted mentally if not physically. F'r'instance, I came home today and thought I'd lay down for a bit with the laptop and get caught up on RSS feeds. Next thing you know, I wake up and figure I've slept ten hours and it's 6 am--nope, it's midnight. So here I am at quarter to one, drinking lemonade and trying to get relaxed so that I might sleep again.

Okay, enough whining. On to the main event! Check out the video here. You might note that this is on my own YouTube account, rather than DSI's. That's because the version on the DSI page is actually a bit wonkity, as I was rushed and the lipsynching got screwed up between Flash and Final Cut. This version is fixed so it's a bit smoother. You might also want to click the "watch in high quality" button on the YouTube page.

I probably worked harder on this video than I have on any since the famed Night Of The Living Improv video with its animated linocuts. This one might've even been more work. Once we determined that Doom Buddies was playing CageMatch, Remi and I started brewing up ideas. It all started with the picture I had in my head for a Doom Buddies logo, featuring Remi and Joe leaping up towards each other in a sort of "high-five" motion. Remi came up with the genius idea that they'd both be doing crossed "thumbs up", their hands forming a lowercase "d" and "b". Subtle, but fabulous. (That logo eventually came out to be awesome.)

From there, the idea morphed into creating The Doom Buddies as a sort of Venture Bros/Jonny Quest like tv show. Then I figured that if The Doom Buddies had their own show, the wacky Banana Breakup boys should have their own show too! And it should be like Scooby Doo! And since it was my friend Brantley's birthday the week before, and he's a big Scoob fan, he should be in it! So that's why Brantley is behind the Witch Doctor mask (Brantley loves him some Scooby Witch Doctor!)

I rotoscoped the animation for the BB segments. We had pretaped the segment where Kit and Eitan are watching tv at Kit's house, but I forgot to shoot the material for rotoscoping. So I called Kit frantically late one night and asked him to use his little digital still camera to video him and Eitan doing the post-show segment. Not even a question in his mind, he just taped what I asked him to. He sent that along to me, and then the next day, I called again and asked him to get a group together and pretend to unmask someone and then say "Old Man Brantley". That at least netted a quizzical laugh. Even that one was too far out for Kit to not question. Both segments turned out great and were fun to animate.

I spent a long time on the lipsynching. This is the first time I've tried full hand-drawn animation, and I wanted to do the best I could. I was terribly irked when I went to export the animation from Flash and bring it into Final Cut, as there was a lot of frame skipping and my hard work was for naught. There was no time to fix it for the show, but as outlined above, this version is smoother.

The Doom Buddies opening was even more work. I had it all in my head, and just needed to find a way to get it out onto video. I got together some friends to collaborate with and split up the duties. First I got together with Remi and Joe and we did a pretape and photoshoot over where Joe works. Remi used some posed shots I took to draw the figures for the Doom Buddies logo, which I later took and fleshed out into what you saw in the link above. We also posed some shots for the interstitials with the Buddies running away from the lava man and hangin' out in the comic shop. I described what I wanted them to look like, and Remi painted them in Photoshop. His lava man picture was so awesome, I had a print made to hang on my wall. There was also to be an underwater scene with Remi in a Daffy-Duck-like greedy pose with a pearl and a giant clam, while Shaggy-like nervous Joe looked back to see creepy frogmen coming towards them, but we ran out of time. While at Joe's workplace, we also took some video of the boys running like idiots, which I used for the silhouette run cycle used in the video.

My friend Mel drew all the villains that the boys are running in front of, the mummy, the pirate, and the space gorilla. I cleaned them up a bit and did the colouring.

The halftoned duotones that introduce Joe and Remi are also ideas I had early on. I actually took those pictures before anything else was done. I liked the idea of three-frame animation with that coloured halftone look, with a object flying from the guy's hand to fill the screen. For some reason, I could just picture Joe Stanton with this crazy look on his face with his arm outstretched, a 20-sider flying into the camera. And it turned out just like I pictured.

The backgrounds during the BB segment are from Scooby Doo, and the music cues there are from Jonny Quest. The Doom Buddies theme is from the KPM Library, the same source for all the music from the 1960s Spiderman cartoon.

Oh, and by the way, I have no idea what "Adventure just made friends with danger" is supposed to mean. That was just something I typed up off the top of my head as a bumper between the voiceover and the start of the Doom Buddies show, but now it amuses me terribly. I want t-shirts with the Doom Buddies logo on the front and that text on the back.

There are more stills from the video here.

The Wrath of Grapes Is Complete!

2008-06-01T18:41:00.003-04:00

The movie I've been editing for the past month-plus is finally complete! I got together last Monday with the rest of the folks who created "The Wrath of Grapes", and we had the world premiere. Everybody seemed to like it. Ryan Locante's performance as the cyclist was the biggest hit. Jackson showed up for most of the film, but I don't think people really realized how much he contributed until we watched the rough cut later (without the soundtrack). Also on hand were the star, Nick Borgerding, Megan Stein, Joe Stanton, and our host Lisa Palmisano. We all worked together to create the film, born from a long-distance suggestion by Austin Nava. The whole thing was brainstormed, written, storyboarded, costumed, and filmed in twelve hours. Then I took a little longer to edit it.

Now you, too, can enjoy our little ten-minute film. If you haven't seen the trailer (and why the hell haven't you?), you can view it here if you'd like. The finished film is here, and the outtakes are here.

Done? Excellent. I had fun editing this together. The opening logo for the movie was created by Ryan, and then I tweaked it a bit. He also came up with the logo for Scrambled Video Eggs and 80 Acres Productions. I took the latter and came up with the idea of flipping and animating the clouds in the background, which made it look even cooler.

I agonized over what to do with the opening interview segments. I wanted to set them apart from the rest of the film, but when I tried them in black and white, they didn't have the contrast against the intercut logos that Ryan made. Then I tried doing basically a duotone in a dark shade of green and a light shade, along with a sort of "stamp" effect to reduce everything down to two tones. Loved the way that turned out.

This was the first live action semi-dramatic type project I've tried to edit, and I now have a greater respect for movie editors. When I do the CageMatch videos, they're all played out in my head already, but with this project, I had to think of dialogue and dramatic effect and camera angles and all that. I did most of the original camera direction when we filmed, but still had a lot of work to do back on the computer trying to figure out how to place the different cuts and scenes. I had a lot of fun doing it though.

One bit that took a lot of work that nobody would notice is editing out the "talkover" in the filmed scenes, either where I was verbally directing actor and thus ruining the audio of the shot, or other people were talking in the background. Luckily, I remembered to record a little bit of the amibent noise at each scene, so I had stuff to dub over and replace the tainted bits. Took a while, though.

The scene where Ryan was riding his bike was hilarious to film, and I think it shows in the final cut. He has such a unique flair for facial acting and body movement, plus his costume was fabulous. It took me a while to figure out that I needed to show the crash in slomo and repeat it over and over to get a good bit of comedy out of it. The three "flying through the air" shots, by contrast, are three DIFFERENT takes, and are just Ryan jumping off a park bench. The closeup of the grape fouling up the bike's gears was shot later, but happens so quickly, you can't tell there's even a grape there.

Megan's scene was fun. It took several takes to get the final "trip on the fallen grapes" shot, but the one used was fabulous.

Lisa's scene in the van was hilarious. The very idea that grapes could blow up a car was funny. We forgot to shoot an insert shot so you could see he was actually putting grapes in the engine, so that angle is actually my hand and my little Honda. The scream was shot earlier in the day, and if you go back and watch it closely, you can tell it's a different location. The explosion and fire was done in Motion, and I was lucky enough to find a burned hulk of a similar vehicle on Google. The hilarious "gas pump as evil mustache" shot was Ryan's idea, and he shot that.

The "family flashback" scene was probably the most fun. It took some careful thought at filming time to set that up. Somehow the camera moved during the shoot for "Ma Myrd"'s bit, so that had to be adjusted in post. The whole scene was shot three times, with vocal stand-ins, and then composited with masks. It looked crappy at first, but a simple bit of feathering on the masks and it clicked together beautifully. The fade from Young Myrd to Present Day Myrd was shaky, but I added a slowed-down growl at the transition that made it flow nicely.

The bluescreen for the grape-throwing scene was really primitive, as we had horrible lighting, and there was a window *behind* the screen casting light onto it. In my death, there wasn't nearly enough blood on my forehead, so I put more in in post. You can tell if you look closely--I couldn't match it up well enough where I moved my head slightly. (It's hard to be dead and push karo syrup out your mouth without moving!)

The final scene was a bit daunting, as I had to insert the mocked-up Raisin Bran ingredients label in post, and it was a lot harder than I thought it would be. There are several jokes hidden in that bit. The whole scene was capped off with that incredible long scream by Nick.

Even the credits were harder to do than I thought they'd be. I really need to spend more time learning Motion. Maybe after Rape Stove is finished. (The shoot is this Wednesday!)

So anyway, this was probably the most complicated video project I've ever worked on. I'm pretty proud of it though. Couldn't have done it without all the other actors who were all involved with the writing and creation of the movie---definitely a big group effort. And the movie wouldn't have been a tenth as effective without the soundtrack born from the musical minds of Jackson and Scotts. All in all, a big success, methinks.

CageMatch Report

2008-05-23T10:28:00.002-04:00

Quick report, as today has gotten crazily busy. Here's the video.

Nothing particularly special this time. Lots of Photoshoppery, a little bit of stock video, and a bit of amusement sticking Mary's face on a piece of Catholic schoolgirl clipart. Had to change the script halfway through the process, as it was going to end by saying "Mano A Mary is well-grounded in improv comedy, but Banana Breakup will be flying high," followed by Ozzy Osbourne's "Flying High Again" off the album "Tribute". But it didn't rock hard enough, so I switched to the "breaking the law of gravity" ending with "Breaking The Law" by Judas Priest. Rock on.

Oh, and another triple-meaning audio intro this time! Do ya get it?

Open Letter To My Mysterious Benefactor

2008-05-22T00:07:00.002-04:00

I've been meaning to do this for a long time--I think more than a year now--and keep getting distracted. But now I'm wired on stimulants and working through the night to finish a video, and decided I better go ahead and do this and quit putting it off!

Sometime last year (year before, maybe?) I mentioned somewhere (no idea where; thought it was here on the blog, but damned if I can find the post now) that if somebody wanted to be a nice person and buy me a present, they could get me "Autumn Thunder", the boxed set of cds featuring music from NFL Films. I love that music; uber-dramatic and ovr the top and everything I adore. I already owned "The Power And The Glory", but that's a single disc. This set had TEN CDS full of music.

Anyway, I mentioned it as sort of a joke. Who the hell would buy me a $100 boxed set of music? Well, somebody did. It arrived anonymously in the mail one day. I tried my best to figure out who had got it for me, but all my choices for kindness candidates denied it was them.

So now, far too long after somebody was amazingly thoughtful and giving, I take this time to thank you. You've made me both curious and happy, and have inspired lots of creative moments and CageMatch video drama. Many thanks.

-Your pal,
Ted

The Wrath of Grapes: The Trailer

2008-05-13T08:17:00.002-04:00

So a few weeks ago, my friend Ryan Locante invited me to join in on a project he had devised. He came up with an idea he called "Scrambled Video Eggs", where a bunch of folks would get together, divide into teams, get a suggestion, and then have 24 hours to script, produce, film, and edit a short film. Well, only a handful of folks showed up, so we just made up one team, and decided to leave the editing until later.

The personnel assembled were Ryan, Megan Stein, Nick Borgerding, Joe Stanton, Lisa Palmisano, and myself. Our suggestion came from the great state of Ohio and one Austin Nava. We started brainstorming, and with such a diverse bunch of minds, we came up with some wacky ideas. We ended up making a movie about a guy who really hates it when people eat grapes, so much so that he murders them...using grapes.

I've just finished editing the trailer, with music from the fine folks at Fenario Sound Recording. You can view ninety seconds of thrills and chills here. The full movie should be finished within the week, and I'll notify you loyal readers when it's up. Enjoy!

From Government To Creativity

2008-05-12T16:49:00.002-04:00

So I just sent out this mass email to the folks I like at work:

Pardon the impartiality of a mass email, but I wanted to make sure my nearest and dearest got the news all at once. Soon, I will be a free man. Yes, after six years with the Town of Chapel Hill, I’m a-movin’ on. My friend Mel has asked me to come work as a graphic artist in her t-shirt store, and it looks like it will be a fun and creative opportunity for me. Yippee and hallelujah, I say. I’ll be working on a Macintosh (and escaping my desk here before they install Vista on machine—don’t you dare try it, Cantrell!), able to listen to music while I work, be creative all day, AND helping out a friend. All for more money (and less insurance). Plus, I’ll never have to hear another phone call about how we’re all heathens for sponsoring Halloween, or explain to people that no, you can’t vote at Town Hall. I’ll be working at Bread & Butter Screenprinting in Glen Lennox, so I’ll still be around (and don’t you dare get your shirts printed anywhere else!)

So yes, I'm finally quitting my job at the Town of Chapel Hill. The job was never that great, but once Cal Horton retired from his post as Town Manager, the atmosphere of the place just died away and it just wasn't fun to come to work anymore. The duties I had been doing all along, like making coffee and filling up the copier, became really demeaning for someone who has a Master's degree. There was a tension in the air as everybody seemed to start grabbing for power and didn't want to work smoothly together anymore, and the whole atmosphere in the building just became oppressive. They kept tempting me with carrots of new positions and higher salaries that never materialized, and I had been wanting to move on for some time.

I'm not good at searching for new jobs, so I was just sort of languishing at Town Hall. But fortunately for me, my friend Mel suddenly had an opening for a graphic artist position at her screenprinting store, and we talked about the possibility of me coming in to fill the spot. I told her I'd have to think about it, but after telling a few folks about the situation, I felt such an amazing load lift from my shoulders that I thought, "ah, apparently the decision has been made, and I never noticed!" It'll be a much more fun place to work, more creative, and I'll be helping out my friend, which always makes me feel good. I like helping people.

Anyway, my last day at the Town Of Chapel Hill is May 29. (A Thursday? Well, that's what they asked of me...) Then on to better things.

CageMatch Report

2008-05-12T09:35:00.003-04:00

Ah, I keep forgetting to put this up. My mind seems overwhelmed by pollen, so I've been quite absent-minded lately.

Anyway, here's the poop on the latest CageMatch video. Go watch it here, and then we will discuss.

So this whole concept was dreamed up and executed in 24 hours. I've been busy working on a short movie for another project, and wasn't able to even think about CageMatch until Wednesday. Fortunately, it all seemed to come together rather nicely. Mano is Greek, and when I was doing the "Flavor Shot European Tour" video a few weeks back, I had intended to have one of the European teams be from Greece, naming them "Mano A Mano" and just putting two pictures of Mano's face up there. I ran out of time on that video, so I was pleased as punch to be able to do a flashback to the European Tour and use it as a part of the plot for this video.

I agonized over what to call the Greek team for this video...I made a list of all sorts of terms and names that popped into mind when I thought about Greece, and even asked other folks what they thought of when I said "Greece". Then I started thinking about Greek mythology, and looked at a list of Greek gods. When I got to Ares, the choice seemed obvious: good pun, Greece is also known for pottery, and I love the game "God of War". Thus was born "Ares Potter".

The rest of the video was pretty straightforward. I liked the two shots of the amphitheatre, with the voiceover about how the rioting crowd destroyed the place. The rippling effect on Flavor Shot that was overlaid on the soldier picture turned out rather nicely. I had to buy a screen-capturing program (ScreenFlick) to get Mary's video off the Rooftop Comedy webpage so I could use it in the CageMatch video. That part went over well. The final logo animation wasn't quite as fancy as I had originally planned, but I ran out of time.

The music at the end was a mashup of the Knight Rider theme and Eminem ('cause Mano A Mary is M and M). The opening sound was "Proud Mary" by CCR. "But Ted," you say, "you left out the other half of the team!" Nope--it wasn't the stereo version of "Proud Mary"....it was the mono version. (Man, I'm so clever!)

I got nice compliments from Mano after the video was shown. He said his mother would love it because it made him look like a good Greek boy, and that I used traditional Greek music. I thought that was darling.

Gryphon Doors Shirts

2008-05-05T12:53:00.003-04:00

So my friends Kit, Katie, and Tommy put together a great act that they did the past month at DSI. They created avatars in Rock Band, dressed like their characters, and played Rock Band songs live but whilst singing parody lyrics. Amazing and great. I thought they deserved concert tour shirts, and so made this up for them. Eitan Lees was always roughly treated by the cruel (and British) Kit FitzSimons as he ordered Eitan around as a lowly roadie, so Eitan got a special shirt that reads "ROADIE" in humongous letters on the back.

See if you can figure out the reason I called it the "Double D" tour.

Cameron Antique Fair 2008

2008-05-05T12:39:00.002-04:00

Just a quick post--me and mom went down to Cameron, a small town in rural North Carolina, to shop at their annual antiques fair, where all the residents rent out their front and back yards to folks who sell all manner of things, from treasures to crap. Half the fun is seeing the unique characters that are the residents of this fine backwoods area. As I did the last time we went, I've taken some surreptitious pictures of the folks to share with you, my loyal readers. So go through this photo set, read the descriptions, and vicariously enjoy my trip to the sticks.

Angry J. Jonah Jameson Meme

2008-04-29T21:24:00.002-04:00

Okay, so I saw this meme and guffawed like a fool. Basically, it's sorta similar to Ethan Kaye's SuperMeme that we did a while ago. You take a comic panel of Daily Bugle editor J. Jonah Jameson that has the word balloons and tv screen blanked out, and you add your own substitutions for memetastic fun.

I had to join in. You can check out my contributions in this Flickr set.

You can join in too! The original memer was kind enough to provide a blank. Now, if you have Photoshop, you can also try using my blank, where I've layered the images and masked out the word balloons and tv screen to make it easier and quicker to churn these out. In either case, it might help to know that the tv screen is rotated 4.2 degrees.

(Oh, and Kit, I know I don't have to challenge you on this one, but just in case: I challenge you!)

CageMatch Report

2008-04-25T10:16:00.004-04:00

We CageMatched again last night. I was amused by my concept for this week's video. Go watch it first and then come back to discuss.

Did you watch it? Good.

The whole thing grew out of the name of the challengers, War On Hugs. That made me think of the classic Bugs Bunny line, "Of course you realize, this means war!" I decided to work up to that as a punchline. So I needed to have a reason for War On Hugs to declare war. I cogitated for a while, and somehow (?) decided it might be funny to have Flavor Shot supposedly planting fake news stories about the other team. That gave me the opportunity to mock up all those nutty headlines. In the final video, the timing is a bit off for comedic purposes. It was spot on when I read it, but I forgot to add in time for the establishing shot of the individual papers and the crossfades, so the final bits ended up a bit rushed.

Then I used some war footage from archive.org, a little simple animation, and came up with the War On Hugs identity sequence. That went over real well at performance time. It goes by too quick, but the background behind the pictures of Flavor Shot is made from a painstaking arrangement of bullets. (Zach thought it was butter.)

My Mom Is Creative

2008-04-17T19:19:00.002-04:00

My mom is very creative. She made this sculpture for the Town of Chapel Hill's Community Art Project. She calls it "Waltzing On Top Of The World At 62" (it's a self-portrait). It's made mostly from stuff she found doing archaeological digs of the old trash pits in the old cotton mill village she lives in (Glencoe in Burlington, NC). My favourite bit is the hair, which is made of old Coca-Cola bottlecaps and bent brads.

Pictures are here, here, and here. And a long shot here.

Best Picture Ever Taken Of Me At DSI

2008-04-14T13:25:00.003-04:00

This is me rocking out with Eitan Lees at the first night of the sheer awesometicity that was Troy Sterling's Air Guitar Madness.

Time For CageMatch Again

2008-04-13T18:22:00.003-04:00

CageMatch returned to the DSI stage this past week. The video was basically two parts: since we were off for over a month, I went back to an idea I had used before, and had the champions be on tour for storyline purposes to explain the absence. The second half of the video was mostly a pretape of Bill Henderson as General Rod Skaggs. I had him make a speech about the USA, sing "America The Beautiful" in two tempos, and rail on his opponents. I filmed him in front of a bluescreen and dropped him in front of some stock footage of a waving flag. The music is from the Patton soundtrack and Bill's own "Ballad of Rod Skaggs".

The video is here.
Graphics are here.

The Real Basil Fawlty

2008-04-07T14:03:00.002-04:00

Thought about posting this on the DSI forums, but I thought more of the folks here on The Transmutation Effect would enjoy it. If you're a fan of Fawlty Towers, you'll enjoy this video clip of John Cleese on Parkinson. Cleese tells some amusing stories about the hotelier that was the inspiration for Basil Fawlty.

Big Night In Wrestling

2008-03-30T19:29:00.003-04:00

I'm still sick, sitting at home unable to do much more than cough a lot and stare at YouTube. Normally, I wouldn't bother to share that with the blogging world, but I did think this little moment was amusing: I just realized that the biggest night of the year in wrestling is happening tonight, and I had completely forgotten about it. Instead, I've been getting major enjoyment out of watching the 1997 edition of All Japan Pro Wrestling's traditional Real World Tag League tourney. I've gotten more excited while watching this event than I have from watching anything WWE has put out in the eleven years since. I don't even speak the language, and I'm still popping hard for the near falls in these matches. The whole show is booked to perfection, making great use of both the amazing talent (Kobashi, Misawa, Williams, Kawada, Hayabusa, Shinzaki) and the not-so-amazing talent (Wolf Hawkfield? Kamala???) and the performances in the ring really draw you in and make you care about who's about to get pinned. No sledgehammers, no overblown egos, no cartoony blustering...just amazing wrestling action.

I haven't looked at the results yet, and am only halfway through the show, but I'm rooting for Hayabusa and Jinsei, although I'm sure they won't get the win. So I'll cross my fingers for Misawa and Akiyama. I love Kobashi to death, but just find it hard to root for a team that has Johnny Ace on it. Interesting that Bradshaw is in both this event and Wrestlemania.

I'll dig around tomorrow and see how they treat Flair's final show on Wrestlemania, but as far as being entertained, I'm sticking with the Japanese product, thank you.

I Almost Died

2008-03-27T17:08:00.002-04:00

So I've been sick for over a month now, just picking up the various bugs as they go around--wouldn't want to miss anything! I'm not a big fan of going to the doctor, 'cause it always seems like you pays yer money, they thump you a little bit, and then announce that "it'll pass". Well, on Tuesday, the cough that has been a constant throughout all these bugs had gotten to the point where it was making my kidneys hurt, so I figured it might be time to go see a medico. So off I go, and the doc sez my lungs sound clear, maybe I just have a touch of bronchitis. I leave the office with a prescription for a Z-Pack (antibiotics) and some Hycodan, a codeine cough syrup.

At home, I finish up dinner and then slurp down some of the Hycodan, hoping that at the very least it'll knock me out and let me have a good night's sleep for the first time in days. Au contraire, monsieur! Where codeine usually has a nice intoxicating and tranquilizing effect on most people, apparently I'm in that oh-so-special one percent that has quite a different influence. Long story short, it made me jittery, unable to sleep, and caused some lovely delusions. The regular readers of this blog are fortunate I didn't call them at two in the morning to warn them of the impending invasion of UFOs made of chocolate chip cookie dough. I ended up being hallucinatory and panicky for about 30 hours, and was too tense to sleep for another ten hours or so. All night, I would start to pass out from utter exhaustion, and then would suddenly snap awake seconds later...experiencing this over and over again threatened to drive me absolutely insane, and for a while there, I couldn't imagine ever escaping the grip of this demon. It was like descriptions I've read of heroin addiction, except I never got to feel the cool part of the heroin.

Anyway, the Hycodan finally passed through my system, but I'm still exhausted even after sleeping for ten hours. My supervisor at work was kind enough to call and check up on me and give me advice that didn't occur to my fever-addled brain, like eating crackers to absorb the codeine syrup. She also told me to go ahead and take the rest of the week off to rest and recuperate. At the moment, I'm just tired and sniffling and coughing a lot. I'll take "generally yucky" over "hallucinating and thinking you're about to die" any day.

Back To Basics

2008-03-23T11:27:00.002-04:00

Went to the theater last night to see the premiere of a new show, "Al Pacino's Pictionary". Fabulous concept, featuring a couple at home inviting their cousin Al Pacino and an unsuspecting audience volunteer to their home to play Pictionary. Greg Brainos was hilarious as always as the overbearing Al Pacino, and the whole setup was just natural comedy. The gimmick of the husband and wife always getting the right answer in the first stroke of the pen was hilarious as well. And any time you get to see Zach Ward in a pencil-thin moustache: golden.

Afterwards, Brainos, Remi, and Eitan and I got some delish tacos from the taco truck and chatted on our own before heading off to join the rest of the DSI posse at Speakeasy. Probably should've just taken up Remi on his suggestion to hang out with him. The gang was playing foosball, and switching off teams and whatnot. It was fun to watch them, but then some bar guy we didn't know ended up on a team with Zach, and Remi and I got drafted to be the opposition. I'm not much on competitive games (I can't even handle faux-competitive warmup games) and this bar guy was crazy competitive. I was on goal, and you could see how pissed off and testosterone-soaked this guy was every time he whacked one past me over and over and over again with little ability on my part to defend. The whole affair brought me right back to elementary school when James Bigby laughed and nailed me with a kickball during PE after I made a pitiful kick that trundled up to his feet. Anyway, that was clearly the end of the night for me. Probably should've said goodbye to people, but then there would've been that lovely social awkwardness where you have to explain why you're leaving and people encourage you to stay and all that. Never good with that social stuff. And there was too much cigarette smoke.

I really wish that little kid in elementary school had toughened up or something.

Visiting The Record Shop

2008-03-14T16:12:00.003-04:00

So my buddy Jackson sends me an email today labelled "A Challenge". Well, I always likes me a challenge, especially a graphic challenge, as this turned out to be.

He sent me to a blog called The Yellow Stereo, in which this guy PJ came up with a very cool idea: basically, you take a randomly generated band name, a randomly generated album title, and a randomly generated picture, and then use your graphic editor of choice (and your fine artistic skills!) to mock up an album cover! What fun!

PJ suggests you get your band name by taking the title of whatever comes up when you visit the Wikipedia random article page. Now I'll tell ya right now, I cheated a little bit on this first step, as I would generate a new page if I got the name of a famous person or of an actual band (I was really pissed when I got "The Great Kat" and then found out she was an actual musician. Is that a cool name or what?) For your album title, go to the random quotes page and scroll down to the last quote; the last four words of the last quote are your album title. (I soon discovered that I needed to refresh the page each time to get new quotes as I made multiple albums.) Then go to Flickr's Interesting Photos page and grab the third photo; that'll be the image of your album cover. (I'll go ahead and admit now that I actually was grabbing the fourth photo, as when I went to Flickr, the third photo had a watermark that was pretty sucky.)

Now make your album covers! Here's what I came up with...it seems to want to produce industrial minimalist bands or German techno-type stuff, but I did end up with a good metal band as well. First off, we have Overconvergent Modular Form, and their hit album "Like It Better Dead"

(click to see bigger)

Gotta love the OMF and their sweet trance beats. Next we have Segmental Blood Pressure with "As Simple As That"

They look like maybe they're one of those electronic cello bands that play modern interpretations of hard pop songs. Or maybe just Christmas tunes. On to Diasello and the haunting "Sweet Serenity of Books"

I like the name Diasello. I was quite fortunate to end up with a nice simple picture for that one, and had fun making the creepy, ethereal logo for the group in the sky. I'm thinking these folks are like latter day Clannad. Quite a polar opposite to our last group, the note-shredding guitar-wailing explosions of CYCLOTYPHLOPS and "My War On Terror!"

Rock on! And yes, "My War On Terror!" WAS the last four words on that quote, and yes, the exclamation point was part of the original text. Sweet.

In real life, overconvergent modular form refers to some type of mathematical space, segmental blood pressure is the bp of individual limbs, Diasello is a village in Greece, and cyclowhatever is some sort of blind snake.

So anyway, I challenge all my graphically-inclined friends to try this out on your own blogs and comment here with a link to your offerings. It is a CHALLENGE, I'm telling you!

Things I Didn't Know

2008-03-10T13:39:00.002-04:00

"Things I Didn't Know", or "Wikisurfing U.S.A."

So today at lunch I got bored and commenced to surfing through Wikipedia, looking up one thing and clicking on an internal link to leap to another article, eventually Googling a term to find a picture, and from there leaping onto other interesting finds. I thought some of y'all out there might enjoy following along today.

I started by dropping into my chair and exclaiming "uff da". Now, I had no idea what that phrase means; I just remember reading it in the title of a book long ago. So I look 'er up on Wikipedia and discover it's a Norwegian phrase used in the Midwest to mean "I am overwhelmed." Interesting.

At the end of that entry, they suggested a link to "oy vey". Why not? Everybody loves Yiddish. From that entry, I learned there was a Jewish James Bond parody called "Oy Oy Seven" (I'll have to track that down sometime) and that there's a sign that reads "Oy Vey" on your way out of Brooklyn.

"Oy vey" was a favourite phrase (apparently) for the Japanese character on the 1960s show McHale's Navy, so off we go! I had no idea the comedic show was based on a dramatic movie, so that was interesting. A brief trip to Joe Flynn's page added to my knowledge of character actors.

On McHale's Navy, they piloted a PT boat, and would sometimes refer to the commander of another PT Boat, PT109--that boat was, in real life, commanded by none other than John F. Kennedy. So off we go to the PT109 page! I had never heard the exciting tale of JFK's naval exploits, so that was pretty cool. Stranded on an island behind enemy lines in the Pacific, he carved a message on a coconut and sent it back to the Navy via islanders on an outrigger canoe.

The article said that Kennedy preserved the coconut shell and it was now in the Kennedy Library in Boston. Well I HAD to see that! And thanks to the internet, my lazy ass can see it from the slothful perch of my office chair.

Oddly enough, that picture was on this page, which is part of an insanely detailed website devoted to Jeopardy, with complete listings of all the questions and answers for each show, along with incidental remarks from smarmy Alex Trebek and the contestants, and even a "Game Dynamics" graph that charts how each contestant progressed through the game. While you're at this site, check out the guy's amazing glossary of Jeopardy-geek terms. Back to the coconut page though, the great find there was the category "Food A LaFontaine" which featured voiceover king Don LaFontaine reading dramatic descriptions of foods--and the page has links to mp3s of the actual readings! Yay!

So back to Wikipedia we go to look up Don LaFontaine's info, as I realize I've never actually read his biography. That page gives us the information that LaFontaine has actually appeared multiple times on Jeopardy, so a quick jump back to the J-Site gives us links to more mp3s from those appearances! You've got to check out the nursery rhyme previews...they're fabulous.

A search for Don on YouTube gives us stuff I had seen before but which is still great to revisit, like his Geico spot, a short magazine piece, and the now-classic "Five Guys In A Limo". There's also stuff I hadn't seen, like this Today Show piece, an amusing appearance on the Frank Caliendo show, and a parody of Don done by Pablo Francisco. And all that reminds me of the fabulous trailer for Jerry Seinfeld's Comedian which features another voiceover giant, Hal Douglas.

And now back to work.

The Art Of The Physical

2008-03-07T15:30:00.002-05:00

So I was thinking today...and I came to the conclusion that one of the reasons I like pro wrestling so much is that I enjoy over-the-top physical presentation. I can enjoy subtlety as well, such as the clever punnery of I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue or the wordplay of the "Four Candles" sketch by The Two Ronnies, but generally speaking I seem to be entranced by the spectacular. I've been thinking a bit about that sort of thing lately, as it relates to my enjoyment (or lack thereof) of live musical performances. I've never been much of one for concerts--I always tend to find my attention drifting and critiquing the sound mix or examining the decor of the building. Even when I was a schoolkid attending the North Carolina Symphony, I found myself wondering how the giant chandelier was held up by such a thin chain rather than paying any attention to the performance going on in front of me.

Most bands I've seen just don't give enough for me on stage. Perhaps I'm shallow (probably), but I just can't enjoy myself unless there's a big physical presentation accompanying the vocal performance. I need style, showmanship, and charisma. That's why I enjoy people like Cab Calloway or Kiss, and the best concert I ever attended was James Brown--they all knew how to put on a SHOW. Performers like James Brown or Ric Flair don't just go out there and do whatever the label on the marquee advertises (soul music, pro wrestling) they make their performance big and bold and something you can't take your eyes off of.

Anyway, what inspired this post was discovering some performances of the Nicholas Brothers I hadn't seen before. If you don't know the Nicholas Brothers, they were brothers (amazing, eh?) who were the most astounding dancers of all time. Their physical acrobat skills would've earned them a place in the history books, but the addition of their amazing showmanship and absolute style makes them into entertainment legends. This is the most famous performance of the brothers, dancing to Cab Calloway's orchestra in the movie Stormy Weather. The climactic scene of them doing the splits over each other's heads is just stunning--and then they just get back up again! Here's a later performance in colour that has some jaw-dropping moments. This is the performance I hadn't seen, a song and dance routine that shows they had the moves way back when, and great singing voices to boot. Now that's a show.

More Wild Wrestling From Japan

2008-03-06T16:28:00.003-05:00

So I got several positive responses to my last post about President Ramu, the little girl from the Japanese wrestling promotion 666 who beats all her opponents with her demon-possessed supernatural power. While discussing Ramu with Vanessa down at Chapel Hill Comics, I brought up another one of my favourite characters from one of Japan's wackier wrestling promotions, namely a fellow who goes by the name of Danshoku Dino. He wrestles for a promotion called DDT, the Dramatic Dream Team, which has more nutty gimmicks than any other wrestling group on the planet.

Dino is my fave though. He is flamboyantly gay, and seems quite obsessed with grabbing his opponents' nuts. He is the master of the testicular claw, and his finishing move is the Danshoku Driver, which involves stuffing his opponent's head in his oh-so-brief tights and then delivering a piledriver. Those of you who are familiar with Japanese wrestling may remember stories of how Bruiser Brody, the 6'8" 285 pound monster, would make his entrance by roaming through the crowd swinging his trademark chain and making everybody run for their life. Well, Dino makes his entrance by roaming through the crowd trying to kiss whatever men he can get his hands on, making them run for their life. Hilarious. And don't get me started on how funny a good Danshoku wristlock can be.

You can check out a match with Dino taking on Akira Tozawa here (part two is here.) He does basically the same bits when he visits the Dragon Gate promotion for a six-man tag match, but it's a fun match to watch when you realize that his opponents are Anthony W. Mori and BxB Hulk, who are basically a couple of boy-band-type pretty boys who are typically marketed towards young women, but that Dino just salivates over (they're joined by Super Shisa, the masked guy). To add to the amusement, Dino's own teammate is Magnum Tokyo, who is a sort of exotic dancer character famous for moves like "The Viagra Driver". They're joined by Naoki Tanisaki. Check out that match here: Part the one, Part the two.

Hilarity.

Expanding On FaberFabe

2008-02-19T18:39:00.003-05:00

So my buddy Nick Faber recently blogged about a song he wrote. For some reason, the sparse Kraftwerkian tones and catchy rhythms resonated with me, and I felt one of those epiphanies that you always read about, where the crazed oil painter has a burning idea in his soul, and the Muses will not be satisfied until he whips his brush across the canvas, emptying his energies in the creation of his masterpiece. So I had this idea for a music video I wanted to make, using antique clip art. Four days later, and here we are. With the permission of Mr. Faber, I present "Clap My Hands": the music video.

This was fun to make. Used my new copy of Photoshop to edit the pix, cutting out backgrounds and separating out parts and whatnot. Used Soundtrack to translate the mp3 into a usable AIFF. Final Cut Pro did most of the video editing, with a few bits (like the writing scene above) animated in Motion. All in all, a fun project which I'm fairly proud of. And all inspired by the fine creativity of one Nick Faber. Thanks, Mr. Fabe!

My New Favourite Wrestler

2008-02-19T10:37:00.003-05:00

Professional wrestling has a new superstar, and she's an eight-year-old Japanese girl named President Ramu.

I'm not sure of her whole story, but can tell you that she's with a promotion called 666 out of Japan, a group associated with DDT (Dramatic Dream Team, which is probably the most wackily entertaining wrestling around today.) Ramu, who is cute as the dickens, is also possessed by a demon, which is what gives her her supernatural strength and combat ability. She's pretty much unbeatable as far as I can tell, and is positively adorable. She's the master of the Shining Wizard and the 619, and the Undertaker WISHES he could deliver such a devastating chokeslam.

Check her out here and here, and in this great match. Here's a translated copy of her Japanese Wikipedia entry, and here's her blog, also translated. (Which indicates that her name should probably be "Lamb", although I like the sound of "Ramu" better.)

Oh, and if somebody can get me an Iron Maiden 666 Ramu t-shirt (as pictured above) I will love you forever. Ramu rules!

The CageMatch 50th Show Extravaganza

2008-02-11T09:48:00.000-05:00

Well, history has been made. And I'm exhausted.

I don't think I've ever put as much effort into a single project. The day after CageMatch 50, I just collapsed and did jack diddly for the entire day. But on to the report!

On Saturday, February 9th, we had our FIFTIETH CageMatch show. The show started on April 1, 2006 when Scott Jennings invited me to join him as cohost of a show that would pit two comedy teams against each other in a wrestling-themed event. In the early days we (somehow) managed to do a show every week, but that got ramped down to every other week eventually. Now, more than two years later, CageMatch hit the fiftieth episode milestone. Scott's moved on now to huge new projects, but I have to thank him for letting me join his show and eventually produce the program, as well as making it so much fun for me to be a part of. When he created his perverted, disgusting character, he said he needed a perverted name, and asked if he could use "Hobgood". The rest is history.

And speaking of history, you can check out a fun little video I made to open the CageMatch Fiftieth Show Extravaganza right here. It features a look back at the people and events of CageMatch from the early days to the present, and is fun to see all put together like that. The promo video for the show proper is here. On Saturday, I had a huge 24"x36" poster in the lobby to add a bit of special flavour to the event. You can see a thumbnail of it above, or check out the whole thing here. When I arrived at the theater, there was a fabulous huge sign/sculpture/display made from wood and chainlink fencing on an easel on the loading dock. We had quite a time accusing this person and that person of making it--turns out my mom had made it for me and secretly set it up earlier that day! That was a fabulous surprise.

Anyway, the show went great. We had a sellout crowd, and even had to set up extra seating to accommodate folks. Bill Henderson started the show as CageMatch President Jack Tunney, reading a very short proclamation that he still managed to stretch out into a complete drama. After the videos played, I got a very nice reaction when I mounted the stage. Then Remi Treuer as Evil Billionaire Troy Sterling came out to a nice chorus of boos. One of the highlights of the night was the debut of Mrs. Troy Sterling as portrayed by Callie Peck. God, she was fabulous. She really worked hard to put together an amazing costume and makeup, and had the over-mothering henpecky Jewish wife character down pat. She was just fantastic. I'll have to do a supplementary post with pictures of her and Troy.

The show proper was pretty amazing. Panthro brought it as only they can, coming down to the stage with a twenty-person choir to back them up for their opening number. Flavor Shot came right back and put on an amazingly hot professional show of mp3-inspired comedy. At the end of the show I got to break character and thank a lot of people, including Siegel-Prov for being such a fun team to work with (Dan Siegel was in attendance, which was cool), and Ralph "I'm Jon's Father" Karpinos (who was also there) for pushing me to do improv in the first place. Then we traipsed off to Zog's to hang out, which I thought was really cool, as that's the bar we used to hang out in in the old days, and it just has such a nicer atmosphere than Milltown or Speakeasy.

So that was fun...fifty shows. I'm quite proud of the fact that we gave eighty-one different people an opportunity to perform on stage, and hosted forty-three different teams. And that doesn't count the special show we did for DSIF7, or the 3x3 Tournament, or the Dual Duel, or the completely fictional world tour. We'll be back with a show on February 27 after DSIF8, and then I'm going to take a break for a month or so to work on a couple of other projects, like the trailer for Rape Stove, the Lego animation Le Batman, and a music video for Jackson's "Cigarettes On The Ground". Stay tuned for more fun.

Coming Up In Mere Hours

2008-02-09T00:50:00.000-05:00

CageMatch's fiftieth show is tonight. I've been producing this show since April 1, 2006, and have been doing videos for every single show since #3. Hopefully, tonight's show will be a successful extravaganza. I'll certainly have a report up on Sunday, and videos posted and whatnot. Right now it's coming up on 1:00 am Friday night/Saturday morning, I have about 3/4 of one of the two big videos done, and I'm exhausted. I've created a photo pan and smoke trails in Motion, morphed the end of a video into a different picture, and applied tons of holy effects to an imported video clip. Tomorrow, the really painstaking project: condensing fifty shows into one four-to-five minute retrospective video. I have the script written, and I have most of the music picked. Assembling all the footage is the big fight. Oh, and I also have to do a new Hall of Champions and scrolling credits. No problem.

But for now, sleep. If I don't see you at the show tomorrow, cross your fingers for me. I promise not to rip my knee out of its socket this time. Miss ya, Biff.

I Want To Win

2008-02-05T11:19:00.001-05:00

Hey, anybody feel like trying to help me win free software? There's this free Mac email newsletter I've been subscribing to for YEARS, and occasionally they do giveaways. For the first time in a long time, they're actually offering up some software I'd like to have. The cool thing is, if you enter the contest, and YOU win, then I win too! Just use this link to do it.

Don't worry about these folks; they're good people, they don't pass your email addy around, and the newsletter is well worth subscribing to if you're into Apple. (They won't even automatically subscribe you--you have to say "yeah, I wanna do that.") So even if you don't use a Mac, help me win!

Oh yeah, the software is Freeverse's Sound Studio, a nice little audio editing program that would help me with my video work. So help a brutha out.

This Might Make Me Like Politics

2008-02-01T20:32:00.000-05:00

I'm not much of a political person; I never really was, and then went to a politically-charged school that really turned me off to the whole process. But this might make me get out there and vote for Obama.

Superheroes, animation, hot girl, catchy theme song, AND it's given me some ideas to use in my own videos. Well done, Barely Political!

I'm Famous Again

2008-01-31T13:16:00.000-05:00

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

2008-01-27T17:08:00.000-05:00

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

2008-01-25T11:05:00.000-05:00

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

2008-01-19T20:21:00.000-05:00

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

2008-01-16T19:54:00.000-05:00

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

2008-01-14T10:56:00.001-05:00

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

2008-01-09T10:51:00.000-05:00

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

2008-01-08T09:04:00.000-05:00

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.

CageMatch 12/27/07

2007-12-29T12:36:00.000-05:00

The last CageMatch of the year was a non-title affair, as half of the challenging team was comprised of visitors from out of town, namely Corey Brown and the artistic director of the UCB, Anthony King. Since the title was not at stake, the storyline I came up with was that Oh Double-P decided that Espionage A Trois was getting a little lazy over the holidays, and so she brought in an elite team of former agents to give the squad a special training session. (Well, it amused me anyway.)

I haven't been in a very productive mood lately, so the video was cranked out in five hours the day of the show. Couldn't have done it without the fabulous performance by Corey Brown, who really understands my vision of CageMatch as an old-school wrestling show with an ongoing storyline. He gave a great promo that really made the video.

Check out the vid here and the identity screen shown above here.

Little Batman

2007-12-29T12:06:00.001-05:00

Oh my fucking god, this is the best thing EVER. Some guy made an homage to the old 1960s Batman show, but with kid actors! The boy doing Batman is GREAT! The costumes are amazing, the attention to ridiculous detail is hilarious, and the Batmobile...my go, the Batmobile. I would've killed for that when I was a kid.

Check out Little Batman: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

I want to make movies now.

Random Stuff

2007-12-17T19:47:00.000-05:00

* Just came back from filming for Beatbox in Chicago. That was fun. Very cool people. Wish I could've seen them perform in their natural element. Jenny and Neil particularly impressed me with their rap ability and presence. I can't get enough of Dave Ries in da b-boy stance. Zach was very kind to bring me along to work with the Beatbox folk.
* Rene Duquesnoy is a very good host. We had a faboo party in his palatial estate, got taken to some great places to eat, and generally shown the best parts of the city. And I sang Bon Jovi on Rock Band.
* Got to see Halsted Street. All my life, as a wrestling fan, I was always led to believe that this was the toughest place in the world, the only place that could've turned out such beasts as The One Man Gang and The Road Warriors. Imagine my surprise when Rene laughed and told me that was the gay district. (Which is where we had an amazing meal at a diner. They gave us bananas. Heh.)
* Found a great retro toy store that I could've spent major cash in. They had a Fisher-Price Airport new in a sealed box for $100. Geez. I was amazed to find they had a basket of figures and vehicles for a buck apiece. I bought all their wood figures, along with another Sesame Street Susan. Some of these looked brand new. Amazing.
* Had my first Chicago hotdog, as well as my first real Chicago pizza. Both were good, but the pizza was comparable to the frozen Home Run pizza (they were both quite good). The Chicago hotdog is a completely different animal though... delicious. We stopped at a real dive to get the dog, and I amused/disgusted Rene and Zach by eating a french fry out of the trashcan.
* I love the way Chinese restaurants celebrate Christmas. These blinky-light pastel musical trees on top of a restaurant in Carrboro amuse me.
* I took Monday off of work to recover from the trip. Turns out I needed it. I was completely wiped and wasted the whole day. I'm gonna need to be a video-making machine for the rest of the week.
* The security chick at Chicago's Midway Airport informed me that my driver's license had expired in October. Oops. They didn't catch that at RDU. (I'm glad they didn't--I would've been worrying all weekend about getting past security in Chicago!) Got a new license today, and it was very easy. The folks in Carrboro are courteous.
* Amusing thing heard at the Driver's License office: Two girls claiming to be sisters were there to get licenses. One said she was there to get hers reinstated after being revoked. The other said she was from out of state and her purse was stolen with all her id information. The DMV woman asked her if she had ever gotten a license in North Carolina, and the girl's "sister" replied, "She's gotten pulled over and got a ticket in North Carolina." Yeah, that'll help, baby.

2007-12-12T09:47:00.001-05:00

I told my mom last week that my fondest Christmas memory was when I was nine and she made me an advent calendar out of hollowed-out walnuts that she rubber-cemented back together with crackerjack toys inside. So yesterday she showed up where I work and brought me a NEW walnut advent calendar---made from the SAME walnuts she used thirty years ago!

The walnuts have the numbers 1-24 written on them, and you open up one each day to find a prize inside. This version has little folded-up strips of paper inside each nut, which might be puzzles, word scrambles, or pithy quotes. I particularly liked the quote for the first day, which was as follows:

Some days, doing "the best we can" may still fall short of what we would like to be able to do, but life isn't perfect--on any front--and doing what we can with what we have is the most we should expect of ourselves or anyone else.
-Fred Rogers

I can certainly relate to that...I get frustrated when things don't turn out as perfectly as they do in my dreams, whether it be an art project or a video production or the love for a girlfriend. It helps to sit back and remember that we can only do so much, as outside factors like time, resources, or the independence of other people can sometimes hinder our dreams. In any situation, we can only do our best.

Another Poster Design

2007-12-11T10:44:00.000-05:00

Designed another action/thriller poster this week--this for the next Espionage A Trois show. Joe Stanton and John Loftin are "Extraordinary Rendition", and they have done several great shows together, starting with their excellent performances in this year's Dual Duel. I love the outfits they came up with for this photoshoot. Crazy tough bastards.

The backdrop behind the Extraordinary Rendition fellows turned out nicely. The whole backdrop of the poster is a gradient that goes from a midnight blue at the top and bottom to a slightly lighter blue in the middle. So on top of that, I threw a pic from iStockPhoto of a room with lots of plumbing and dials and whatnot ('cause we kept talking about waterboarding when we were doing the photoshoot). The room looked a little too antiseptic and pristine, but I fixed that. I had taken some closeup pictures of a train that was parked near the theater, and used a shot of a stained and rusted patch behind the engine to overlay on the room, which gave the PERFECT effect.

Remi looks fabulously evil, Jeff Scronch provided a fabulous photo of Espionage A Trois and Oh-Double-P, and even Scott Sullivan made the poster this time around!

FYI, I got copies of the Silence Is Golden poster printed at Zazzle, and they arrived yesterday. They're 20"x30" HUGE, and look AMAZING.