Greetings from the edge

Here's a video of a performance of a play I wrote:



And here's an educational video I did back in college. Don't you wish you could've made videos for credit. :)



The F! Factual Hollywood Fable Presents: The Wipe from Two L's and Vimeo.

Things that make you go hmmm

I was reading a library book on learning kanji and the author had written "she" when referring to God. I don't usually see that, but whatevs. However, someone had crossed out the "s" and capitalized the "h" to make it "He". This I find even stranger than just leaving it as "she." Why would someone even bother to "correct" this book? Did it make them feel like they accomplished something? "Now this part is acceptable to my beliefs so I can continue reading." It just really bothers me that people not only use religion to justify killing and oppressing others, they also have to deface library books as well.

At least someone else had crossed out these changes and rewrote "she" into the book.

A Wetter Tomorrow

Here's my entry for a John Woo contest. It was a lot of fun to shoot and edit action scenes, something I had never done before. See if you can spot all the Woo-homages.

STRANGLEHOLDS TRUE TO JOHN WOO SHORT FILM CONTEST

Add to My Profile | More Videos

Don't Scam my Squirrel

This is probably one of the best internet shows. Check out this first episode of We Need Girlfriends, and learn how to "scam a squirrel." The next episodes only get more hilarious, especially the Myspace one.

All you need to know

Hot Fuzz is a complete and utter waste of film. It should be preserved and printed on diamonds, because it is one of the funniest movies I've seen in this or any other year.

Take a look, it's in a book

This weekend I went to a renaissance fair in Cambridge. My only previous experience with ren fairs was watching one on Reading Rainbow. It turned out to be much cooler than I imagined. I got to practice knife and axe throwing, watch a real joust, check out some melees, give suggestions to the king while he told an improv story, see a trebuchet in action, and eat a blue raspberry slushie and giant turkey leg as big as my forearm (both of course very medieval). All in all, pretty awesome. But don't take my word for it:






More pictures and videos are here.

Strange dreams

So this morning I had a crazy dream. Part of it involved a family vacation to some woodland area south of Chicago, which we drove up to from Hawaii (not sure how that works).

In another part I had become a knight in some fantasy movie and was being attacked by an evil warrior queen. I rolled towards my swords that were sticking out of the ground, but I rolled past them and had to dodge and weave to grab two of them. The queen attacked from one side just as someone else charged in, so I spun around and hit both of them. This killed the queen, but the other person charging in was apparently one of my own knights! As he stood there bleeding, he told me to remember the promise made by the demon. This jogged my memory and I found a demon walking away and told him that we had an agreement that I could have a wish if I defeated the queen. With a wave of his hand he healed the knight. The next thing I said to the knight was "Next time Bennivere, don't f***ing come running in swinging your sword around me! I can't tell who you are with all your armor on!"

Interpret that, psychoanalysts!

Spider-man 3 review

I did a guest post about this on the awesome Ultra-Condensed Movie Review blog. Which you should be reading, along with listening to the Coasting By podcast*.

*The author is not affiliated with these sites in any way, nor is he currently spending his newly found advertising dollars on collapsible top hats.

Birthday Songs

I made some theme songs for people for their birthdays, and I think I will continue this trend for the rest of the year. So if you want one, just let me know (perhaps applies retroactively too). Note to self: get a real mic and pop shield so I don't have to stand far back when recording vocals.

Naomi Theme.mp3

Laurie's Theme.mp3

And while I'm at it, here's a song from a weekly writing (oddly enough, another birthday theme song).

Song for the Eldri...

48 hour learnings

So a couple weekends ago I made a film in 48 hours. It was a lot of fun, but also quite exhausting.

Things I learned:
1. Have a short script so you can spend more time on music and editing.
2. Wear sunscreen. Even if it is April in Wisconsin.
3. Release forms are annoying.
4. I have really talented friends (although this was more of a reconfirmation).

And now I present Route Sixty Six (the 54 hour version with better sound):





Route Sixty Styx on Vimeo

Below titles

So I saw some awesome movies at the film fest this past weekend, including three that were subtitled. Why is it that two of them had only white subtitles, thus making it impossible to read when they are on white backgrounds (which kind of happens a lot). Seriously, how hard is this to do? These are all newer movies, so really it's just laziness. All you have to do is put a black outline around the letters! One simple thing, yet it makes all the difference in the world. So if you are in charge of subtitles for a movie, first what are you doing here, but second put in a damn outline.

Brought to you by the Society of People with Nothing of Substance to Complain About (SPNSCA).

How I spent my Sunday

Finishing a song I did with song mistress Laurie! The instruments still don't sound as full in the mixdown, but this is a pretty faithful rendition.

Ghost of Tiramisu....

TV vs. Internet

When people say they don't have a TV, there is usually a 50% chance* that someone will respond with "Good for you." However, if someone says they don't have the Internet do people ever say this? Both mediums have lots of worthless stuff, but for some reason TV is considered more of a waste of time than the Internet. I guess clicking on hyperlinks for more celebrity gossip and porn is better than just watching the same on a TV.

Maybe it's the sheer size of the Internet that makes it better since it can have way more educational and thought-provoking entertainment. But as long as channels like PBS, History, and Discovery educate and quality shows like Lost and Battlestar Galactica exist, cut TV some slack. At least until all the shows are "reality" ones.

Just an observation.

*This number is determined by location and crowd type. Your results may vary.

How I spent my half-day off

I redid my music video in glorious technicolor!





All of This music video on Vimeo

New learnings

Things I learned this weekend:

1. I tend to make things more complicated than they need to be. Often times simpler works out better.

2. Guitar Hero is a great party game (duh).

3. Orange hair is awesome.

4. Wiskino is sweet.

Blogs? We don't need no stinkin' blogs!

Since all the cool kids are making blogs, I figured I should do one so it will become uncool again. I might show some projects here, otherwise it will just be lessons I've learned for each day. Here's one from earlier this week: If your soup container bulges unnaturally out, don't even try to eat it.