Wheels: The Movie

Another video from Black20.com This one is great. It plays it almost totally straight. Makes me want to go out and make a trailer for a film.

Tetris: The Movie

Not sure who these guys at Black20.com are, or if it's a site where anyone can post their videos, but some of the stuff on here is pretty good. Like this one.



I especially love how they've thought out all the controls for controlling these ships.

Good stuff.

Simpsons A.D.

A.D. as in Arrested Development, one of the top five comedy series of all time. I'll talk about it more one day, but for today, I came across a website where an artist named Dean T Fraser has done a series of cool Simpsonized movie and TV characters. Above, you see a Simpsonized version of Tobias Funke during his time as a member of Blue Man Group. There's also a nod to Tobias being an adherent to "Never Nude". (Trust me, this all works in the context of the show.) (Hey... I just realized that I can embed an entire episode within this post.)



Arrested Development only lasted three truncated seasons, but it's a masterpiece from beginning to end. Ironically, the show that the above image uses as its inspiration, The Simpsons, is a show that has been on the air now for about 18 seasons or so, and for me, stopped being funny about a decade ago.

Anyway, the other Simpsonized characters are very well done. Here are a few of my favorites.

Lost: A Video that Asks all the Questions Viewers Want Answers To

See more funny videos at CollegeHumor

Penguins 3 - Senators 1 (Pens win series 4-0)

Sweep! Phase one of the Penguins Championship has been completed. Another solid game from the Pens. While everyone was expecting the Penguins to light it up offensively, it's the defense that's really surprising so far. Five goals allowed in a series is a team record.

Fun with Google

This is more of a how-to on getting the information you're interested in piped straight into your computer.

I assume all of you are using Google Reader. If not, it's by far the most efficient way to read blogs and surf websites. It's so awesome, it'll take over your life for a bit before you get it under control and tone it down. Instead of having to go out to each of your favorite websites to see if there's new content, Google Reader will collect it all in one convenient location, just like your email site (you ARE using Gmail, aren't you?). Granted, there are other newsreaders out there that do the same thing, but Google Reader is the best I've come across.

That's step one.

Step two is going to Google Blog Search.
What this allows you to do is type in a search term, say "Watchmen Movie", and the specialized search engine will turn up all blog postings that feature something to do with your search query. While this is cool in itself, they've added a neat new feature which allows you to subscribe to the search results as if it were a blog in itself. For example, I've now subscribed to the "Watchmen Movie" blog search results, and anytime anyone publishes something about the Watchmen movie, it will show up in my Google Reader, without me ever having to do another search! Too cool.

Obviously, this could get out of hand if you subscribe to a search result that is wildly popular ("Star Wars" or "Harry Potter" would get you hundreds of posts a day, I'm sure) but if you use standard search criteria to narrow down your selection, this should become a valuable resource for you.

Enjoy!

Grandfathers Accidentally Switched At Hospital

I'm sorry if I'm bombarding you with Onion stories, but they are truly the vanguard of topical and irreverent humor in these troubled times.

Grandfathers Accidentally Switched At Hospital

LOS ANGELES—Hospital officials informed Janice Redding that the man her family knew as "Grandpa" for the past half-year actually belonged to someone else.

Popular 'Iron Man' Trailer to Become Full-Length Film

Them there boys over at the Onion are at it again...


Wildly Popular 'Iron Man' Trailer To Be Adapted Into Full-Length Film

Amazing PSA's from Canada

These are easily some of the most effective commercials/PSA's I've ever seen.

A+

Happy Birthday, Ryan!

Yes... my mother and my son share the same birthday. And since it always falls on Tax Day, we're always so busy celebrated THAT, that we rarely have time to do anything fun for them.

Well, that's not true. Usually we make it a pretty big deal. But this year, Ryan is hitting the big 1-4. Fourteen years old. All-knowing. All-wise.

Seriously, though, Ryan is the joy of my life. He's an intelligent, kind, hilarious, talented and respectful (usually) young man, and I'm proud to know him. I can't wait to see what sort of adult and father he turns out to be one day. He's got a great start right now.

Happy birthday, m'boy. You are loved.

(okay... these serious, maudlin posts are now over. Back to my regularly schedule pointless observations on life and entertainment)

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Today is my mother's 76th birthday, and she's still going strong. Here is my favorite picture of my mother, which was restored by a good friend of mine about a decade ago.



I was blessed with one of those fantastic moms, who always made all of us feel loved and treasured, even when we weren't so lovable or treasurable.

Happy Birthday, Mom. I love you.

Penguins 4 - Senators 1 (Pens lead series 3-0)

Penguins still looking strong. The last thing the rest of the league needs is a Pens team building up a head of steam and gaining confidence.

Marian Hossa finally has a good game.

Child Bankrupts Make-A-Wish Foundation With Wish For Unlimited Wishes

Brilliant.


Child Bankrupts Make-A-Wish Foundation With Wish For Unlimited Wishes

"We can only hope that's soon."

Steampunk Star Wars action figures

These are really cool. I've seen various attempts at making steampunk (think Victorian or Jules Verne-styled) versions of the Star Wars universe with varying degrees of success. This is at the top end of success. This fellow, Sillof, is pretty talented.




It's not only Star Wars he does. There's everything from Iron Man to Superman and Batman. Cool stuff.

In The Know: How Can We Make The War In Iraq More Eco-Friendly?

Bow down before The Onion


In The Know: How Can We Make The War In Iraq More Eco-Friendly?

My favorite line, "And fun to build."

A Torch was Passed Tonight

Yes... tonight, for the first time, fair and square, with me not slacking off or holding back, my son Ryan stomped me in Star Wars Trivial Pursuit. I was pwned as the kids say. And it wasn't even close. I answered my first question correctly, then missed my second question. Ryan had four pie pieces before he missed his next question. He had six when I had one. While he was attempting to land on the center slot for the win, I managed to get another pie piece, but that was it. He nailed the winning question on his second opportunity.

A tiny part of it can be attributed to my having had a draining week and I just want to go to sleep. But most of it is that he has simply surpassed me in Star Wars movie knowledge. He's watched the movies many times over the past year or two, so it only stands to reason that it will be a lot more fresh in his mind. But not that long ago, I would have nailed almost all of the questions. Just a sad occurrence that my overall Star Wars interest has faded somewhat once Episode III came out.

But I'm very proud of Ryan. He's even more amazed at how easily he stomped me.

We'll have to play again soon jut to see if it was anomaly or if my days as the Star Wars Master have indeed come to an end. The son has supplanted the father. Luke has defeated Darth Vader.

Yeah, I know it's just a game... let me have my metaphor.

Penguins 5 - Senators 3 (Pens lead series 2-0)

Another solid game for the Penguins...eventually. They let the Senators get back into it before putting them away late. Crosby with four assists. Malkin with three assists. Malone with two goals and an assist. Penguins get a franchise playoff-high 54 shots on goal. This team will be scary if they can keep this up.

Also tonight, I'm introducing the Pengu-o-meter! This chart will graph the Penguins inevitable march towards the Stanley Cup. I've already created all sixteen versions of this graphic... I hope I'm not getting ahead of myself...

Suspicious Package Industry Falls On Hard Times

Ahh... The Onion. They (almost) never fail to amuse me. Their video stuff is uniformly brilliant.


Suspicious Package Industry Falls On Hard Times

Mission: Impossible - The Tammy Lowe edition

This is another blast from the past. This video was done for a friend of mine, Tammy, who was making an elaborate video for her friend Cheryl as a surprise birthday gift. I don't remember what the genesis of the Mission: Impossible part was, but I think it turned out really good. It's still some of the best editing I think I've ever done, and this was in the days BEFORE computer editing. If you look closely, you'll even catch a glimpse of me in there. If I remember right, there's something like 160 edits in a 45 second long video. That's a lot.




Obviously it integrates footage from the actual title sequence of the first Mission: Impossible film, but not a whole lot.

And finally, a bit of explanation for the first couple of seconds. Tammy had brought up BAGS of video she'd shot over the years of her and her friends (all of which went into the overall video we produced for Cheryl). After a particularly long day of working on the video, we suddenly couldn't find most of the tapes. Where had they gone?? Well, while we were working, the cleaning people came in and picked up what looked like (to them) a garbage bag filled with tapes. They'd then proceeded to toss them all in the dumpster out behind the building. Fortunately, we figured this out before the dumpster got emptied and I thought it would be fun to videotape Tammy digging through the trash retrieving grimy tapes. I don't think any of them were permanently damaged, thankfully.

Fun memories... good times...

Plight Of Missing Hikers Will Make Great Movie

I wish I could take credit for this, but...



Plight Of Missing Hikers Will Make Great Movie