10 Wonderful Things

Might as well rename this blog 1 wonderful puppy

2012-01-18T17:36:00.002-06:00

I have another blog

2012-01-17T00:13:00.002-06:00

It's only for long wordy articles about LEGO, specifically this one I spent the past two weeks writing as a response to LEGO Friends. But I thought y'all might be interested in my thoughts.

And some videos

2012-01-16T00:49:00.001-06:00

Apologies for the bad quality. I took these quikly on my iPhone. I will take some better ones on my actual video camera soon.

New Year, New Glasses, New Puppy

2012-01-15T20:47:00.000-06:00

Meet the newest member of the Fox/Pickett family: Sophie

Also I got some new glasses. Don't be surprised when you see my face in the future.

A picture is worth a thousand words

2011-12-07T21:39:00.001-06:00

Who ever came up with that saying was a lazy writer, but so am I. Here are some pictures from the Caribbean cruise Bert and I just took. It was wonderful :)

What i've been doing for NNN in the past 5 months

2011-09-26T00:23:00.001-05:00

July and August 2011

2011-08-24T12:30:00.006-05:00

While I have long ago abandoned the concept of this blog as weekly or even monthly, here are a few wonderful occurrences from this summer so far. View some photos from this summer here

Mom and Dad
For Christmas last year, one of the things Bert and I got for Mom and Dad was tickets to a game at Wrigley Field, since none of us had ever been to that stadium ( in fact, Bert had never been to any professional baseball game ever). They came out a couple days before the game and we had a great weekend together. We started out by seeing the last Harry Potter movie together and then had a nice dinner outside at Keefer's steakhouse. This was before the heat wave really hit, so sitting outside was the perfect temperature.
The next day was stifling. We had a nice brunch at Frasca and then hung out at the apartment for a while (this was the first time they saw it in person since the redesign). That afternoon we went to the Art Institute to see the scale miniature rooms, which somehow I had never seen before. We took them through some of the famous paintings (giant pointy one being my favorite) and then we saw Chagall's windows. Wow. How had I not seen those before? I could have spent half an hour staring at them ( one panel is currently my iPhone desktop background ) but after about 10 minutes I realized everyone else was ready to go so west off in search of ice cream. The one ice cream place I knew of nearby (Rainbow Cone at State And Lake) turned out to be both farther away than I thought and no longer in business. Luckily there was a tiny food court in it's place so we were able to get milkshakes and such instead. We took a cab back to where we parked rather than walk through the heat. Bert went home since he had work the next day. Back at their hotel room, Mom and I chatted while Dad took a nap. Later we had dinner at PF Chang's and got ice cream at Baskin Robbin's.
On Monday the three of us had an excellent breakfast at Kitcsh'n and then we did some brainstorming for an animation I will be making for them as part of their Kickstarter reward. If all goes according to plan it should be ready in time for next year's Relay for Life. Then I made them cookies and showed them my new animation set up and Mom helped me animate 1 second of animation for the next NNN episode. When Bert got home we got pizza from Frasca for dinner and then headed to the ball game. We got there late and left early (it was really hot out and the Phillies were losing) but we had a good time while we were there. It was a wonderful few days.

Farnsworth House
Bert and I trekked out to Plano, IL to see the world-famous glass house designed by Mies Van Der Rohe. My favorite part of the trip was walking around the wooded grounds, but the story about how the architect and the client fought about her having a closet was pretty funny. It's absurd to me how much money has been poured into maintaining the house over the years. The house is too close to a river and so it has flooded several times. I get that it's an unparalleled achievement in architecture and all that, but if they are really interested in conservation they should move it up the hill so they don't have to keep pouring more money than it originally cost into restoring it every few decades. I'm not the most practical person, but this house doesn't meet even my small needs for practicality. Congratulations Mies, you win the impractical competition.
My pictures from our trip.

RenFair
We had such a blast with Tiffany and Seth last year that we decided to go the Renaissance Fair once again. This year we went with Jay, John, Mitch, Jeremy and Andy for Rainbow Days. It got rained out on Saturday, but luckily we were all able to try again on Sunday and the weather was perfect. We saw the cool costumes ( the Ent wins) and ate the ridiculous food (mmm... turkey leg).

We saw the funny acrobats and the world championship whip cracker (ooo... fire whip). We watched the joust, but this time we were sitting in the section of the lame good knight instead of the awesome evil knight. Jay did the pirate bungee trampoline bounce.

We saw elephants and fairies and the queen's parade. not a bad day.

BrickFair 2011

2011-08-14T23:42:00.006-05:00

This was my first year attending BrickFair, the largest LEGO fan convention in the US (and possibly the world). It is held every August in Chantilly VA, which is very close to where Dad worked for a couple years when I was in Middle School. I didn't have a lot of time to nostalgically explore the area as I was in town for just 54 hours, most of which was devoted to LEGO or sleep, but I drove past a couple familiar landmarks between the hotel and the expo hall.
BrickFair is large not only in the sense that is is held in a a massive expo hall, but also it has the most public attendees of any convention in the US. The numbers for this year were about 17,000 over two days. I think BrickWorld and BrickCon draw about half that.
Since this was my first time going I had no sense of how busy it would really be, so I only reserved 1 vendor table. I originally registered both Bert and myself, but Bert was not able to attend because he is still new to his position at the YMCA. I had heard rumors of the insanity of the public days, especially Saturday, so I was fearful of being completely overwhelmed. Luckily, I was able to benefit from the kindness of strangers.
After getting in Friday afternoon, I checked in at my hotel and picked up the packages I had shipped to myself. Then I went to see the expo hall and get start setting up. I assembled my brand new roaring pegboard displays ( only to discover that you can't unassemble them which was going to make shipping them back interesting), assessed what I would have space for on my single table, and took stock of the things I needed to print at kinko's or buy at staples. I returned to the hotel to finish designing some fliers and signs, got dinner, went to kinko's, staples, and Kmart, and then returned to the expo hall to begin setting up in earnest. It was then 8 PM and I had 6 hours before I would be kicked out of the Expo Hall. I took stock of the daunting list of tasks ahead of me before I'd be ready for the public on Saturday:
-Put over 700 minifigs on hooks on my new rotating pegboard displays sorted by price
-About half of those needed to be put into individual plastic bags first
-most of those bags needed to be hole punched (I am going to buy pre hole-punched bags in the future, that's for sure)
- determine prices for a handful of new minifigs
- package Citizen Brick's custom heads and torsos in hole punched bags too
- Package 25 custom robot kits
Thankfully as I was starting on my mountain of work a kid came by and asked if I needed help setting up. I immediately laid out a job for him and set him to it. When he finished I set him to a new task and while we were working on that his mom came by to check on him and started helping out too. Soon another mom and her two boys came by and joined in as well. At this point my table had become a flurry of activity and I simply did my best to control it. An hour later nearly everything was done and I was able to spend the rest of the night finessing the display at a leisurely pace.

The next morning the kid and his mom (I do know their names, just not posting them here) came by again and agreed to stay and help out during the public hours. I can not thank them enough. Saturday was absolute insanity. During the rush hours (11-2) probably I could barely take money fast enough to keep up with the sales. They watched the other end of the table and took orders for me to price ( I instituted a color coded price system the next day) and handled a number of cash sales for me. By Saturday afternoon the minfig displays were looking pretty barren. I went to the local Lego store that night to stock up, but even then it looked pretty spartan on Sunday. Sunday was not nearly as intense, but still very good. Overall, I sold over 500 minifigs over the weekend.

Being a vendor at these events has definitely changed my perspective. Even though I spent the whole weekend in a gigantic room full of LEGO, I barely got a chance to look around and see the cool creations on display. When I attended my first LEGO fan event, all I did was look at other people's stuff. Because I had so little time at the event, I rarely left the corner where the vendors were, let alone my table. After the public hours on Saturday I was heading out, intending to go to the hotel and take a nap, when I ran into a bunch of the other vendors who invited me to join them for dinner.
One of the defining characteristics of the LEGO fan community is that it is fragmented into many different sub-communities. The big divisions are typically by what genre of creation people like to build (castle, space, pirates, steampunk, Bionicle, post-apocalyptic, etc.), but there are also communities based on where people post their creations online (MOCpages, EuroBricks, flickr, etc.) and dividing lines between adult, teen, and kid fans (people who make animations using LEGO are yet another sub-community, but don't attend conventions en masse the way these other groups do, something I am looking to change). Vendors are yet another community with their own set of needs and priorities.
It was nice to have dinner with the other vendors, most of whom, like me, are still working day jobs and only moonlighting as vendors. Hearing my own concerns echoed from another mouth was reaffirming (e.g. The importance of packaging merchandise at home before the show so you don't have to scramble at the event) and the fact that I was sitting next to a guy who has turned his passion into a full-time business and was able to pick his brain a little was simply awesome.
After dinner we all headed to the local LEGO store. It's nice not being the only adult at the store purchasing large quantities of LEGO for one's self. Spending $500 on minifigs doesn't seem so bad when a) there are other people spending more and saying they are holding themselves back and b) I know I will be able to sell most of those minifigs the next day. I felt bad for the LEGO store employees though. You could tell they had spent the whole day answering the same questions from mega-fans and ringing up our enormous orders.
All told, it was an exciting weekend. Once I got back home, I immediately booked tables for next year and got the date on Mom and Dad's calendar so they can help Bert and I work the booth and see one of my events in person. I'm already excited!

New Animations and YouTube Partner Meetup

2011-07-11T19:07:00.003-05:00

First things first, I've got a short animation in a contest Eddie Izzard is holding. The top ten will play during some of his live shows Go here and look for the LEGO giraffe to vote for it. Thanks!

In addition to making that quick video (took about 2 hours to animate), this weekend I started principle photography on the next NNN episode. However, in a turn of events, I wasn't animating alone. There have only been a couple times where I have animated with other people (my Fire Escape Intro projects, working with Tiffany and Seth on Color City Hide and Seek, and working with Adam on the Anti-Green commercial), even when Jeremy and Adam and I worked on LEGO Movie 2, we mostly did our own scenes. This Saturday I had 4-5 people helping out at all times. I did not do a good job of taking pictures, so some people only exists as arms and backs of heads

It was great having multiple animators so each could focus on one character as well as having Stephanie be in charge of taking pictures and running the animation software. I don't know how I ever did all this by myself. We worked for 4 hours and got through about 10 seconds of the 100 second episode. Here is a clip:

Last Thursday I took the day off work so i could attend the day-long YouTube partner Meetup at Columbia College downtown. There were about 50 partners in attendance and it was great to be among so many people who are trying to do the same type of thing I am. There were talks by the guys behind BarelyPolitical and many YouTube staff on-hand and of course lots of time for mingling. I met a few cool people and I got interviewed by a reporter from Wired and I got a YouTube T-Shirt, so all in all it was a good day.

Bert and I also painted our bedroom last weekend. I should post some pictures of that.

I've said it before and I'll say it again...

2011-06-26T22:43:00.002-05:00

my favorite thing about summer is peach & nectarine season

BrickWorld Chicago 2011

2011-06-24T17:57:00.008-05:00

This past week was a rollercoaster, lots of anticipation leading up to a ride that was exhilarating and over far too soon. Allow me to unpack it.

Wednesday

I took Wednesday off work so I'd have a whole day to finish preparing. I had minifigs to bag and inventory, custom robot kits to design and print instructions and label for, a DVD to burn, a presentation to prepare for, and lots of packing to do. Then I got sick. Really sick. So instead I spent most of the night tossing and turning and was too weak to do anything other than lie in bed most of Wednesday. I think this was my body getting revenge for working so much the past few months. luckily it was a 24 hour sickness so I was already feeling better by Wednesday evening and was able to get some prep work done.

Thursday

Thursday at 1 I was scheduled to give a joint presentation on LEGO animation with David Pagano, so that was a hard deadline for arriving. I spent the morning finishing what prep work I could and then furiously packing. I pulled into the parking lot just a few minutes before the presentation began. Thankfully David got there early and set everything up.

The presentation went really well, we had an audience of about 50 who asked a lot of questions. We were using David's PowerPoint from the past three years he has given the presentation and just took turns talking through the various topics and fielding questions. It went really well especially when you consider we spent very little time planning who should say what. It lasted just over two hours and we had lots of people coming up to us throughout the weekend to compliment us on the class.

After that we both checked in and then went to grab late lunch / early dinner at Potbelly's. We traded war stories about working with difficult clients, talked about our current projects and otherwise caught up. When we got back to the hotel we started walking around the convention space and ran into some other brick animators and chatted with them a little. Then I went and took a much needed nap.

When I woke up it was time to start setting up in the vendor room. I spent the rest of the evening figuring out how to arrange my three display tables and then unpacking minifigs and setting them out for display. During this time I also had the first flood of NNN fans stop by the table.

I put the three Carroll brothers (collectively they are probably my biggest fans, you may remember them from previous years) to work packaging pinchbots, which saved me a lot of time and also was pretty cool since they were more than happy to be paid in minifigs. When they kicked me out of the ballroom around midnight I took my minifigs up to my room and stayed up very late inventorying the rest of my minifigs while grand visions of the future raced through my head. Eventually I fell asleep in my comfy hotel bed. ( I'm so happy I stayed there this year. Being able to roll out of bed and take the elevator downstairs and be right back in the thick of it was fabulous. )

Friday

As late as I had stayed up the night before, I knew I needed to get up early on Friday because attendees would be at the Vendor's ballroom as soon as it opened wanting to buy things. Even before I was done setting out all my merchandise I had people buying things. This was the first time I sold stuff at a LEGO event without first having a lot of change on hand. It ended up working out fine, I just asked for exact change from the first few customers and used that to make change for subsequent ones.

I also need to put in a plug for SquareUp here. At BrickWorld Indiana we used their credit card reader to accept credit card sales via iPhone and were very pleased. The iPad version of the app has the added functionality of having an inventory of items with set prices. So you just have to tap the items the customer wants and it adds it all up and then you can swipe their card or just record it as a cash transaction. Then you can email a receipt if they want. Simple and easy.
The rest of the day went smoothly. I finished setting up my displays while casually selling merchandise to people passing by, chatting with fans and generally having a good time. I also made a mini-presentation about animation to a couple groups of children being led around the exhibition.

That evening, Bert took the Metra up from downtown. I picked him up from the train station and we had dinner at Olive Garden. After Bert went to sleep I went downstairs to put the final touches on my display so everything would be ready for the public throngs on Saturday.

Saturday

I don't think it was as busy as Brickworld Indy, but we had a steady stream of people buying things from our table. Bert and David Pagano both helped out immensely. There were times when all three of us had our hands full explaining and selling. David brought copies of the informational sheet we passed out at our workshop and did a great job fielding all the animation questions when I was otherwise occupied. Bert really enjoyed running the iPad register and refused to let me touch it or the money when he was in the zone.

After the insanity of public hours Bert headed home for a book club meeting. David and I hung around the table for a while before heading up to the cocktail hour thrown by the organizers for all the coordinators and sponsors. On the balcony of the presidential suite I got my first chance this Brickworld to talk with Mark Larson and catch up on the previous 2 years (since he went off to California to be a LEGO master builder). We barely saw each other at last year's Brickworld, so it was great to be able to chat with him. Then we rounded up a bunch of other people from the Eurobricks forums and took a trip to the LEGO store where we all put the %30 discount to good use. I got to know another EuroBricker, Phred, and after the LEGO store the three of us went to Subway to get some food.

We arrived back at the convention just in time for World of Lights (that's when they turn off the lights in the halls and people who added lights to their creations turn them on). Unfortunately this was also my first chance to really spend time walking around seeing the creations, so I was squinting at most of them. In past years I have taken hundreds of pictures of the cool creations on display, this year I didn't take any. I would have loved to have a couple more hours to check out all the stuff on display, but I chose to spend that time hanging out with people instead (check out these pictures of the Lord of the Rings display though). For instance, I walked around World of Lights with Sean Carroll. Later I ran into Stacy Sterling and spent time catching up with her. Even later I was chatting with Jamie Berard (who works for LEGO designing models and was one of my Kickstarter backers). Even later than that I was chatting with one of my fellow vendors. Somewhere in there there were Amaretto sours. It's not often I get a chance to hang out with LEGO fanatics, but it's always a good time.

Sunday

I got much less sleep than I should have, but I woke up early Sunday to prepare for the public. I again got some of my teenage fans/friends to help me out with the business by putting minifigs together and into little baggies. One of them even handled a transaction (though he was very confused when someone handed him money). Bert showed up once the public hours were underway. It was much less crazy than Saturday, but it's always good to have multiple hands.

At one point Nathan Sawaya came by my table and I to my credit I did not dissolve into gibberish, but answered his questions about animation and very happily sold him a DVD. OMG! Fangirl squee!

After the public hours we broke everything down and packed up. Bert and I went to have dinner at Buca di Beppo while David Pagano stayed for the closing ceremony. I went back and said my good-byes and then we three headed south. There was just enough room in the car for all the stuff and three bodies.

Monday and Tuesday

David Pagano stayed with us for 2 days after Brickworld so he and I could work on our SUPER-SECRET COLLABORATION. We've been talking about it since October, but this was the first chance we had to sit down and hash it all out. We decided on a name, outlined the entire scope, started brainstorming specifics, and sent an e-mail to LEGO asking for their blessing (basically we just want to make sure they shut us down before we get too far into the project).

It was also the most extended period David and I had ever spent together, we've hung out several times in the past, but it was nice to really get to know each other better, especially as we are preparing to launch a joint-venture. I was not surprised to find that we get along very well, many people have made the joke that we were separated at birth and it's not without a kernel of truth.

Bert and I took him for Chicago style pizza on Monday night and David and I went out for brunch at restaurants in the neighborhood, but otherwise the two days were mostly spent with the two of us sitting at the dining room table with our laptops working on GoogleDocs, showing each other YouTube videos/ pictures of LEGO sets, and playing with LEGO. And now you can see why I'm trying to turn all of this into a profitable business.

Wednesday

My body decided to get back at me for all the sleep deprivation and heightened activity of the preceding week by getting sick again.

Updates from the front lines - BrickWorld day 1

2011-06-17T02:32:00.002-05:00

As described to Karan via IM

this afternoon I co-presented a 2 hour presentation about how to make LEGO films to a captive audience of about 60 or so
then had dinner with my co-presenter and LEGO doppelganger and we bonded over our struggles working with clients as video producers (his client being LEGO)
I gave out an autograph and had several people come up to me and tell me what big fans they are of NNN
I spent most of the evening setting up my three tables that I will be displaying at while children and adults crowded around my computer to watch my animations
and I got three brothers to package pinchbots for me so I can sell them over the next few days

Some photos from our trip to San Fransisco in April

2011-06-08T01:26:00.002-05:00

They are hosted on Facebook, but you don't need a Facebook account to see them. I won't be doing the usual long write-up for the vacation, but here are some (non-visual) highlights.

Walking around in nice weather the same weekend it snowed in Chicago
Bert and I getting mani-pedis in the Castro
Driving along the coast on highway 1
Dinner at La Flora
Dinner at some random Thai place

On Leadership

2011-06-05T15:06:00.002-05:00

I’m going to take a page out of my good friend T.A.S’s book and abandon my traditional journal entry approach and attempt something more like an essay for this entry. A lot has happened since my last entry, but rather than try to recount it I’m going to focus on some of the themes that have been running through my thoughts in the past few months.

I’ve never wanted to be the leader. I vividly remember a Boy Scout meeting where the Scoutmaster from another troop was giving a presentation about leadership to the Patrol Leaders and Assistant Senior Patrol Leaders. At one point he posed the question to us “Raise your hand if you want to be Senior Patrol Leader someday!” I didn’t raise my hand. “Every one of should have your hand up right now.” I silently begged to differ.
I eventually became Senior Patrol Leader, not out of any volition of my own, at a certain point I was simply the oldest boy left who hadn’t been Senior Patrol Leader yet (the Scoutmasters relentless overturned the patrol leadership so every boy got a chance to be the leader). I didn’t mind being in charge, but I didn’t particularly enjoy it either. What I enjoyed about Boy Scouts were the friendships I built and the cool trips we went on. Being the leader didn’t enhance those, if anything it made them less enjoyable because it set me apart from everyone else.
That being said, I did enjoy being an Assistant Senior Patrol Leader. I like making things happen and I like helping people, so working with the various Patrol Leaders to plan our weekly meetings and monthly trips was all good. I don’t have any problems being a leader, so long as I’m not the leader. In all the various committees and leadership groups I’ve been a part of since high school, I’ve always aimed to find a niche where I can be helpful and get things done without being the guy at the top.

Bert and I have been watching (and really enjoying) the HBO series Game of Thrones, which, as the title suggests, is all about the political machinations of various noble families as they try to take control of the throne. Everybody wants to be the king, which leads to lots of scheming and backstabbing. It’s a lot of fun to watch, but I would never want to be involved in power-grabbing like that.
In the first episode of Game of Thrones, Ned Stark, a relentlessly honest and noble man, is asked by the king to be the king’s Hand (think a combination of Vice-President and Chief of Staff). Ned is reluctant to accept because it will mean leaving his own kingdom in the north and splitting his family in half (not to mention that the last Hand of the king died under mysterious circumstances). Ned accepts the position and almost immediately regrets it.
Ned bristles at the shady dealings and loose morals of the capitol. He is constantly at odds with the King and the King’s council. He is unwilling to compromise his morals. He knows what honor and virtue would demand for every situation and expects that simply pointing out what the “right” thing to do is will end all debate on the topic. The A.V. Club suggests LINK this is the series’ central theme: “whether this kind of nobility can survive in any way, shape, or form in a political system that rewards those who play the game the best.” Ned sticks to his morals, but things don’t work out well for him.

I have a lot of sympathy for Ned Stark, and while I don’t think I’m quite as blind or strongly principled as Ned, I do have the same tendency to steadfastly refuse to do things that conflict with my sense of how the world should be. This unwillingness to compromise is probably not a good trait for the leader as a majority of what the leader does is make compromises with and between people.
Does that mean the best leaders are unprincipled or amoral? It depends on what you mean by best. I think the difficulty of maintaining a highly principled stance when in a leadership position accounts for many of the negative connotations of the word politician. The people who succeed at the political game are often those who are best at convincing people they represent the peoples’ beliefs, not the ones with strong beliefs of their own. This can lead to politicians who seem to lack convictions as they change their stance to suit the popular mood. Nobody wants to be led by someone like that, you can’t trust them. The best leaders are the ones you can trust (and the “Arab Spring” has given us many examples of the worst type of leader). But if politics is a game best played by the untrustworthy, how can the trustworthy win?

My latest excuse for not posting

2011-03-13T23:42:00.003-05:00

I've been pouring all my webpage building energies into a "How To Animate" section on my personal website. I'm happy it's finally done.

Some quick updates:

The redecoration of the apartment is basically done, pictures will be forthcoming.
The KickStarter campaign is almost %100 funded! Thanks to all of you who have donated
Next weekend we'll be at BrickWorld Indianapolis representing NNN
Tiffany and I (using Krista's amazing art direction) have made a lot of progress building the set for the next CSP animation. Here's a sneak peak:

My interview with the AV Club Chicago

2011-02-28T07:58:00.000-06:00

http://www.avclub.com/chicago/articles/the-making-of-robots,52282/

Help support my animations

2011-02-15T00:15:00.006-06:00

Hello my long neglected blog readers,

I suppose you're used to my long bouts of silence by now, but that doesn't make them any less painful for both of us. Luckily, I finally got a replacement for my work laptop which was stolen in October, so I can once more use my daily commute to work on blog posts. (Whether that translates into an increased frequency of posts is another matter.)

Things have been good but busy, Bert and I are redesigning the apartment and that has taken up most of our nights and weekends for the past few weeks. Here's a quick video to show you the progress of the apartment so far:

As always I'm hard at work on my next animation. However, I need some more funding in order to make it as awesome as it should be. So I've started a Kickstarter project to try and raise some funds. The way Kick starter works is you can pledge to back a creative project, but your money doesn't get taken unless the whole project gets funded, they way you don't end up giving money to something that won't come to fruition. Also, while any donation is welcomed, there are certain tiers that get you cool rewards. For instance, someone who pledges $12 or more to my project will receive a copy of the DVD when the animation is finished and a cool little LEGO pinchbot. Many of you have supported my animations in many ways over the years: recording voices, reading scripts, giving me your LEGO collections, composing music, putting up with the beeping noise of the camera as I take a thousand pictures in a row, etc. I am very grateful for all you've done and continue to do. Please take a look at the Kickstarter project, share it with your friends, and donate if you are so inclined. I set the deadline for the project to my birthday, so feel free to donate in lieu of getting me a present ;)

And here's that link to the Kickstarter project again.

Our tiny tiny hotel room in NYC

2011-01-02T22:11:00.003-06:00

Bert had some pictures of this and they definitely need to be shared

This one is where you can best get the sense of just how small it was. There's about a foot of carpet between the bunkbed and the mirror. That's it.

But each bunk had it's own TV.

November and December

2010-11-16T09:20:00.013-06:00

So much happened! In the interest of getting it blogged I will keep things short and sweet (and possibly cryptic) .

1) Housewarming Party - got to show our apartment off and fill it with food and laughter. Yay! We forgot to take pictures so use your imagination.

2) Our trip to NYC in November - We took some pictures, here they are without order or context

(Not Pictured: our tiny tiny room, Bert getting sick, Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows, La Cage Aux Folles, Phantom of the Opera, Brooklyn Flea Market, Lila Pearl, Theo Burtis, David Pagano and many fabulous meals)

3) Thanksgiving - food, family and Pumpkin Chunkin

4) Chicago Gay Mens' Chorus: Christmas Follies - the best songs were "I Don't Want a Lot for Christmas" "Latkes" "Santa Lost a Ho"

5)I finished another animation!

Here's a behind the scenes explanation of it.

6) Chris's birthday party and Holiday party - good times and got to bond with my new friend Colleen.

7) Bert and I got a big flatscreen TV as our Christmas gift to ourselves.

8) Tiffany's birthday - got to meet her mom and youngest sister, delightful brunch at Julius Meinl and then an amazing trip to the MSI

9) Christmas - quality time with Isaiah and the rest of the family, desserts galore, seeing Talya and Adam and Jeremy, great gifts, the blizzard happening not on a day I was traveling.

10) Quick reviews of things I watched recently

Farscape (what I've seen of season 1) - B

I Love you Phillip Morris- B+

Idiots and Angels- C-

The King's Speech- A-
MegaMind- A-

Everything else from the last two months

2010-11-07T13:40:00.021-06:00

Okay so we all know I've been way behind on this blog, and now that I got those vacation posts out of the way I'm going to catch up to the present with one post that breezes through everything else. Think of it as the lightning round.

Robbery
We got robbed :( They got in through an unlocked window (downside of being on the first floor) and took 1 hooded sweatshirt, 2 laptops, 3 cameras, my bookbag, all our change, a 2-liter of Sprite and a half-eaten cake. Luckily we both have renter's insurance, and it could have been worse. We got fingerprinted by the police to prove that the prints they got from the windows weren't ours.

Animating like a n00b
My animating camera was stolen so I had to get a new one. After a couple weeks of researching DSLR cameras that range from $1000-$1500, I got a relatively cheap webcam, which has surprisingly good picture quality. I am also working on an article about how to make your first LEGO animation for an upcoming issue of Brickjournal, so I used it as an excuse to make test animations with a few different cameras. I used an app on my iPhone, Bert's point and shoot camera and the new webcam to make these three animations:

Veronica

Veronica stayed with us for a week while she was in town stage managing a show. She stayed on an air mattress in the LEGO studio. Because Bert and I work 9-5 and she worked 5-10 (or later) we barely saw each other during the week. But we spent some quality time together on the weekend and showed her downtown Chicago. She also recorded a robot song for the next episode of NNN :)

Kidsfest

Pros:
I got paid to be there instead of the reverse
I was able to animate during the show

Lots of new people got exposed to NNN

LEGO had some very cool life-size models

Chicago skyline mosaic

Check out all the pictures I took here.

Cons:
One old man thought part of the NNN video was inappropriate and threaten to get me banned from exhibiting at any future LEGO event. Nothing really came of it, but I did have to edit out a few seconds of the video for the rest of the show.
Someone stole Harry and Voldemort off my display

The event was very long, basically I worked three 12-hours days.
The pros definitely outweigh the cons though :)

Anniversary
This Monday was Bert and my one year anniversary. Hard to believe that only one year ago we were as good as strangers when we've come to be such integral parts of each other's lives. I'm very happy that we found each other. This past year has just been overflowing with wonderfulness.
My gift to him was ticket to the Lion King musical on Friday night. It was incredible. The puppets and costumes were amazing and the story (which was almost word for word from the movie aside from a few extra songs to pad it out) is as strong as ever. Rafiki stole the show, hse has an incredible voice.
On Monday night we got Ethiopian food in honor of our first date. It was delicious. Then we had a relaxing evening at home.

Entertaining Guests
We've been so busy traveling and getting robbed that we haven't had a lot of time to have people over, but we've managed to fit a couple gatherings in. Most recently Paul and Stephanie and Dana (who moves back to Chicago in a couple months!!) came over for Potato Flag and we somehow ended up playing Truth or Dare (which is why Paul put an ice cube down his pants). And a couple weeks ago we had Dan, Mauricio, Mitch and Elizabeth over. We played a little LEGO Creationary and then switched to Cranium which Mitch and I won handily. Booyah.

New CMIG Website
My office finally has a new website. I spent a chunk of the summer making this happen. A few days after it went up our bossboss told us we need to make it even better, so that's in the works now, but this is still a hundred times better than the previous site.

New Tumi Bag
My work bag had seen better days. However Bert got me a nice new Tumi bag (not pictured) which has lots of pockets and comes with a lifetime guarantee. It was a very nice housewarming present. It's much better than the old bag with the broken zippers and worn material.
Here's a quick animation I made with the bag to test out the iPhone stopmotion app.

TV
Robot Chicken - We have cable and a DVR, so I've been watching through every Robot Chicken ever (not hard since the episode are only 11 minutes long). I love the stop-animation and clever twists on pop-culture, but sometimes the senseless violence just gets to be too much for me.
Community - The funniest thing on television right now. If you aren't watching you're missing out.
Veronica Mars - I am now finished with the whole series (including this trailer for a potential follow-up series). It's sad that there's no more new Veronica Mars to watch. There are not enough high-school noirs featuring sassy female detectives.
Dexter - I'm a few episodes into season 3. I've been cringing at some the writing, especially in the side plots, but Michael C. Hall remains fantastic and Dexter's journey is always interesting, I just wish the other parts of the show were always as gripping.

Books
Lego: A Love Story - I am obviously pre-disposed to like this book, but it's actually a really well-written account of one man's entry into LEGO fandom. It starts as an outsider's perspective on the adult hobby and slowly transforms as he stops being a journalist and starts being just another AFOL. I learned several new things despite the fact that I also have met more than half the people in the book. Let me know if you want to borrow it and learn more about the hobby.
Maurice - The language was olde timey, but it was very surprising to discover a victorian gay romance with a happy ending. Yay!

Movies
Howl - This could be 4 different movies. They do not do a good job of integrating the 4. I love the poem and James Franco, and there are some perfect moments, but this movie could be so much better. B-
The Way we Were - Robert Redford and Barbabra Streisand have no chemistry. Kind of important in a romance. The opening credits are the best part. C
Tron - Great campy fun. looking forward to the sequel. B+
The String (Le Fil) - It's still surprising to see a gay story with a happy ending. This one has a lot of interesting characters and ideas, but doesn't really give any of them the time they deserve. The final 10 minutes of this bumped its score way up. B
Rocky Horror Picture Show - Midnight Show at the Music Box Theater - This was quite the experience. The movie is still non-nonsensical, but everybody loves to do the Time Warp and Tim Curry is always fun. A-

Video Games
Metroid: Other M - There has been a lot written about this game, it's a game that takes a lot of chances and a lot of times it fails, but I guess it's good that it tried new things? I see what they were trying to do by making the story a more integral part of the game and such, but the execution is just terrible. There's a reason video games aren't known for their voice acting.
Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1 - As a stark contrast, this is a game that doesn't take any risks and still fails. Mediocre and uninspired
LEGO Harry Potter, on the other hand, is perfect in every way.

And lastly I leave you with a picture of this house in our neighborhood that really gets into the Halloween spirit.

September trips: Portland/Seattle

2010-11-06T22:56:00.025-05:00

Because I had committed myself to finishing The PinchBot invasion at or before BrickCon and there were certain scenes that required things that wouldn't fit in my suitcase I ended up staying up practically all night animating the night before we left. The shot were the giant pinchbot lands may be very short, but it took forever to do because I had to photograph every frame twice. For more behind the scenes about the episode check out my MOCpages entry.

I got some ridiculously small amount of sleep (2 or 3 hours) before getting up again to finish packing. I used to be vehemently opposed to coffee in any form, but Bert recently introduced me to the Mocha, which is delicious and highly caffeinated. It enabled me to get to the airport and on the plane without falling asleep. On the plane we sat next to a talkative Portland native named Janet who gave us a few suggestions on what to do in our short time there. Then we landed and I fell absolutely in love with Portland. Let me tell you why.

Portland is so green, there are trees everywhere. Not only are there more trees on the streets than in Chicago, but because there are forested hills in every direction so you can barely turn your head without seeing green. I love it. The downtown area where we were staying was nice and clean, with bins for trash, recycling and compost and electri-powered public transportation that's free in the downtown area. After we got checked in at our hotel (found through Priceline) we took a nap (very important) and got up with about two hours to kill before our dinner reservation. We walked to the restaurant taking a slow meandering route. We stopped at VooDoo donuts which Bert had had recommended to him. It had a cool funky vibe and a wide selection of elaborate donuts. Bert got the eponymous donut and I got an Old Dirty Bastard, which had oreos and peanut butter on top. They were enormous and delicious.

We walked through a park and saw a good chunk of the Pearl District (which is where Bert wants us to live if we ever move there) and then had an amazing dinner at Andina. There was cerviche and lomo saltado and grilled asparagus and it was all heavenly (there were also some potatoes that were purgatorial). I want to eat that meal again right now. NOM NOM NOM.

The next morning, we walked west through the town in search of a breakfast place and just when we were getting frustrated we found a cute little coffeehouse and got some "exquisite" hot chocolate. Then we went for a short hike in Washington Park which puts the city parks in Chicago to shame. Washington Park is in walking distance from the main downtown area, but it offers a immersive natural experience that you'd have to drive for an hour to get in Chicagoland. We stepped into the park and were immediately hiking up a lush path beneath towering Redwoods. Simply gorgeous. Further inside the park we walked through the rose garden (which was lackluster, but it might have been off season) and the Japenese garden, which was amazing both for it's landscaping and design and for amazing views of the city.

We took public transportation back to our hotel. It was clean and simple and scenic. There may have been a nap at this point. Then we picked up lunch from one of the best rated food trucks: Built to Grill, which makes amazing Italian food (more on that in a bit) and headed over to the Zipcar I had reserved for the afternoon. Then we took a drive along a historic scenic highway along the Columbia River gorge filled with scenic overlooks and waterfalls. The starting point was maybe 20 minutes from our hotel. We stopped at the first overlook and ate our lunch. I had an amazing chicken pesto tomato mozzarella sandwich and bert had a penne pasta and sausage concoction I believe. There was cannoli for dessert. It was really tasting and the view wasn't bad either.

See that little gray stone building in the distance? That's vista house, it was our second stop and had wonderful panoramic views. (Click the photos for larger versions)

There were a lot of waterfalls along the highway. Some we admired from the car and others we parked and walked to get a closer view. The waterfalls are much more impressive when viewed close up as evidenced by these two pictures of the same waterfall:

There were nice little hiking trails around the falls, full of lush vegetation and spectacular views:

Then we got to Multnomah Falls, the tallest one in Oregon and the "third tallest year-round waterfall in the United States".

There is a path that leads all the way to the top of the waterfall and I thought it would be cool to look over from the top and I convinced Bert that we should do it. He agree to do it, but wasn't happy about it, as evidenced by this blurry photo:

11 switchbacks and an hour and a half later we were at the top, sweating and disappointed that the view wasn't more spectacular.

Note the tiny cars on the right side of the picture. That's where we parked.

That evening (after a nap, of course) we had dinner at Beaker and Flask which was again excellent. The next morning we had a nice breakfast and then took the Cascade train to Seattle. I alternated between sleeping, reading and looking out the window.

Then we were in Seattle! Seattle is a much more urban city than Portland, though they do share similar vibes. It is very hilly (though not like San Fransisco) and while the downtown is filled with skyscrapers and highrises, the residential neighborhoods we visited felt more like small towns than part of a big city.
We checked in at the Hyatt (Bert's last free stay left over from his job with Hyatt) and then went down to Pike Place Market to get a late lunch/early dinner. I was a little overwhelmed by all the people and sights and sounds, but once we sat down to eat I was fine. After eating we headed over to the Seattle Center Exhibition hall to get checked in at BrickCon and start setting up. This is what the NNN booth looked like on Saturday. In addition to the usual (computer playing videos, DVDs on sales, flyers and business cards for the taking, and Phil and Sherry's desk) I set up a scene from The Pinchbot Invasion with lights where I had actually animated it the day before and we sold extra minifigs from my collection. We made a killing on the minifigs.

We walked around the Seattle Center a little bit that night. It's a big green campus filled with big cultural buildings (museums, performance spaces, art buildings etc.) and the Space Needle. It was very pretty at night with a lit up fountain going and we had a nice little romantic walk.

Then we took the monorail back downtown to our hotel. Yes, Seattle has a monorail. It only has two stops (which happened to be exactly where we needed to go between) and it looks like it's straight out of DisneyWorld, but it's a real form of transportation.

Friday, Bert spent his morning at a spa so I could spend the day at BrickCon animating the last scenes. That evening we got dinner in the Capitol Hill neighborhood at Spinasse (amazing Italian food) and got a drink at a gay bar down the street. Saturday morning was the first set of public hours and it was swamped, people were buying the minifigures so fast, we could barely take the money and give them their fig before the next person was asking for one. Bert was a huge help, as he more or less took over those sales so I could focus on selling the DVD and handing out fliers. That evening we had dinner at a great Thai Place in the Queen Anne neighborhood and then went up the Space Needle. Here's what the view was like:

Sunday started off with another public day and I had a little time to actually walk around and see other people's creations. Here's my write up of BrickCon on the NNN site and here's my gallery of pictures, my absolute faves are here, here, and here. That night we switched to a new hotel downtown (thanks again to priceline) and spent the night in the room. Bert helped me count the money:

The next morning we went to the Public library to see the cool architecture:

And then we walked around a bit and went back to Pike Place market where there was a photobooth:

Then it was back home and back to normal life.

September Trips: Philly/Doylestown

2010-10-24T17:38:00.014-05:00

So despite having just moved into our new wonderful apartment, we spent a good deal of Septmeber in other cities. Both trips were served many purposes at once. We went to Doylestown for Jessie Nixon Tracy's wedding reception, but it was also Bert's first time seeing my hometown and since he hadn't spent much time in Philly we took a couple extra days to see it. Similarly, the driving force behind our trip to the Northwest was attending a LEGO fan convention in Seattle, but we also spent a couple days in Portland since I'd never seen the city but always wanted to. To avoid a gigantic post that forever to write I am splitting these up.

The night before we left for Philly, Erin Carter was just getting to Chicago for the weekend. Ironically Erin lives in Philly, so it was very nearly a comedy of errors where the one weekend we visit each other's cities we can't see each other, but her flight got in the night before we left so we were able to have dinner in Chicago. We went to the Publican and the food was incredible and we all had a good time. Here's a funny photo of them to prove it.

We spent much of the next day traveling, but I was able to introduce Bert to a couple Philly specific things like Philly Pretzels. That evening we took Erin's recommendation and had dinner at Parc, a french restaurant on Rittenhouse Square. Afterward we got ice cream at Scoop Deville which has an overwhelming menu of delicious options. Both were excellent. (Since this was so long ago I can't regale you with detailed descriptions of our food -- weep or rejoice as you see fit.)

The next day we had a full day to see the city. We started with the Mütter Museum, where we saw shrunken heads, books bound in human skin, a lady who was mummified by turning into soap, a cabinet full of drawers filled with objects people had swallowed and a bunch of other medical oddities. It was also very interesting, but also nauseating, after about 45 minutes we both decided we had taken in about all we could stomach. We walked through an outdoor art show Rittenhouse Square, down Locust Street looking for the "gayborhood" (we apparently walked through it with out realizing it, it doesn't have convenient giant rainbow pylons like Boystown), down to the Italian Market for lunch (cheesesteak for Bert and italian hoagie for me), along South Street to Penn's landing and then we caught a cab back to the hotel and took a nice nap. That evening we met JP and my parents at Dmitri's (my family's favorite Philly restaurant) for dinner. My parents were caught in traffic, so we got drinks and appetizers at the bar and JP and Bert got to know each other. They bonded over their shared loved of playing jokes on gullible people (like me) after mom called to say they were going to be another 30 minutes and my brother deadpanned "That's okay. We're just finishing dinner now." When they showed up we had a great meal and it was a wonderful end to a a wonderful day.

The next morning we had a nice brunch at The Continental, and then took R5 to Doylestown. Dad picked us up from the train station and we spent the afternoon at the house. We went for a walk in the forest, looked at old family photos, took a nap and then got dressed for the reception. It was at the Michner Museum. It started with drinks and hors d'oeurves (French is ridiculous) in the sculpture courtyard. We had a nice time doing a little mingling/catching-up and then sat down with my parents at one of the tables and let the food come to us. Then we had dinner inside. Bert and I were at a table with several girls from my elementary/middle school days and their boyfriends/fiancees/husbands. We spent most of our time talking with Kira Minaroff - I had forgotten how awesome she is - we laughed a lot. The risotto was amazing. We danced a little and then took our cupcakes to go.

The next day we had a full day to show Bert where I grew up. We went to Kid's Castle and took the mandatory trip down the big twirly slide and then took a little hike around the woods. We drove into town with my parents and walked around a little before getting lunch outside at Pennsylvania Tap and Grill. It was a nice meal and the memory of the four of us sitting around laughing on the patio is a great one. That afternoon Bert and I went to New Hope.
(How to describe New Hope to those of you who don't know it? When I was growing up, kids made jokes about New Hope the same way they made jokes about Pee Wee Herman or Michael Jackson, jokes that hinted at deviant sexual practices without comprehending them. At the same time, my crazy reading teacher would talk about her artist friends and how New Hope was an artist's community. My actual memories of New Hope involve bikers, occult book shops, and the Bucks County Playhouse. New Hope is a borderland, it sits just across the river from New Jersey, and like all borderlands it attracts minorities, the marginalized, and social outcasts. What a powerful name, New Hope. However, rather than being a refuge, New Hope feels more like a carnival side show [or the Renaissance Faire], it is a popular shopping destination and consequently mobbed with tourists. It's impossible to find parking, and once you do, you can't stay long because the machine only accept quarters and none of the stores will make change for you. This parenthetical tangent brought to you by Dave's subconscious.)
Once we found parking, we walked along the main stretch of stores, doing a wine tasting and picking up a couple bottles at the New Hope Winery, and getting some gelatis at Rita’s water ice (not gelato, check the 3rd definiton here for the uninitiated). Then we had to move the car since we had no quarters and so we went up the street to The Raven for a drink. Bert was amazed to find a gay bar and resort only about 20 minutes away from my hometown. He asked "Did you know this was here? I would have been here all the time if this was 20 minutes away from where I grew up!" Did I know it was there? Subconsciously, yes (see above parenthetical paragraph), but it was nice to see the reality of it. We went back to the house, took a nice nap and then went to Pocos for dinner. (How to describe Pocos to those of you who don't know it? Actually, their website does a pretty good job, it even has a photo with the cheap, neon, star-shaped sunglasses that were so integral to my childhood costume box.) That evening we played Rock Band, feasted on Ice Cream pie and pumpkin bread, and I spent some time sorting through stuff in my old room.
The next day was our last, Bert and I went to THE Starbucks in downtown Doylestown, where all the teenagers hang out (but not in groups of more than 5 least, they be broken up by the police [ right across the street is where someone was arrested for picking his nose]). Then I helped mom figure out some computer stuff. Before we left for the airport I decided to go back to my high school to pay a visit to some of my old teachers. The only one I ended up seeing was my AP English teacher, Mrs. Semisch, but that was wonderful. Her class was so important to me for many reasons. It was for her class that I made the LEGO animation that started my current journey (I had made some videos years before that, but had basically stopped playing with LEGO for a few years and it was Hamlet that brought me back). That class is also why I have the Pandavid panda hood. So it's not surprising that I took all the literature we read in that class, put it in a (metaphorical) blender and made a ridiculous LEGO movie about it that has a cameo from Mrs. Semsich and all my classmates. So it was great to see her and give her a copy of the NNN Chapter 1 DVD and tell her about my life and how everything is wonderful. She was pleased to hear a success story and said "That's wonderful, you're absolutely beaming." And I'm just gonna end this post there, because the rest of the day we just spent getting home, and that's not very exciting.

Time it keeps a rolling

2010-10-14T00:59:00.016-05:00

The weekend before the move (which I realize is 2 months ago) Tiffany, Seth, Bert and I went to the Bristol Renaissance Faire on the border of IL and WI. We had a great day filled with food, games, shows, and sights.

When we first got there we were overwhelmed by how much there was to see and do. We walked around trying to get a feel for the size of the grounds and kept turning corners to discover new alleys of shops and stages and such. After about an hour of that, we got a drink and sat down to do some people watching and plan out what we wanted to see. There were some crazy costumes, my favorite was this kid dressed up as Link sitting by a tree playing an ocarina.

We spent a good amount of time playing games. Tiffany, Seth, and I went through a maze designed for children, but thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and the big slide at the end. We all played a wooden crossbow game with moving targets (I had a lot of trouble with my crossbow). Seth tried his hand at throwing knives (one of which actually stuck in the wall). And we all did a little archery, where my training from Boy Scouts and Camp Curiosity came in handy and I showed the others how to shoot properly.

We saw several shows throughout the day, some intentionally and others by chance. We attended the joust, and were seated in the section of the evil knight. He also happened to be one of the better jousters, so we got to cheer a lot. The joust ended with a cliffhanger and we didn't come back to see what happened, but somehow I doubt our knight won.

We also saw an acrobatic show by the acrobatic/comedy troupe Barely Balanced which was really incredible. Not only did they pull off crazy stunts, but they were also very humorous throughout. Bert got picked as an audience participant.

The other two shows we stumbled upon. The first was the Queen and her court doing some dances (while kindly announcing to the audience what the dances were called and when they were commonly performed). One of the ladies from the court sat down next to Bert and gossiped about the Queen paying more attention to her favorite Duke than her visiting French suitor. Scandal! The other "show" happened as we were walking down the street. We saw a man loudly dragging a woman away. Then there was a swordfight in the middle of the street, where Robin Hood fought some of the Sheriff's men and announced their intention to settle the matter an hour later at one of the stages. It was probably the coolest thing that happened all day.

We also saw a zebra, an elephant and some monkeys. All in all, we had a great time (and giant turkey legs).

I'm just going to post this since it's finished. More updates to come!

Our new place, the move, etc.

2010-10-08T22:49:00.008-05:00

So much has happened since my last full post! Because I know what you want, I’m just going to jump right ahead and tell y’all about our wonderful new place. Let’s start with the photo tour, shall we?

Here is our building from the outside. There are three other units in the building above us. The porch needs a paint job, and the house could stand to be power-washed, but otherwise it’s in good condition. Our building was built around 1900.

When you walk through our front door you enter a little vestibule where we have shoes and coats. Then you turn right into our magnificent living room.

We’re planning to get a new sofa and chair sometime in the near future, but for the meantime we’re using Bert’s set. We have a gigantic window with some beautiful stained glass at the top.

Curtains for this and other windows are forthcoming.

In this shot you can see how our living room flows right into the dining room which flows into the kitchen.

Flowing into the dining room, you can see how tall our ceilings are (10 feet) in this shot. We’re going to repaint over the green (I tried to convince Bert we could work with it, but I eventually gave in).

On the other side of the room is Bert’s desk and the entrance to my LEGO studio. Also in this room are the all-important central air and heat controls.

Yay! LEGO studio! Now all my LEGO is in one room and I have lots of space. I already put up the shelving from my last living room and added another level to it (thanks to Stephanie for suggesting that). Next I will added some smaller shelves to fill out the rest of the back wall. It’s great having a room devoted to LEGO where I can leave works in progress in progress and not worry about cluttering up the living room.

Bert donated his old desk to me for an animating table, so I can leave my lights set up and not have to worry about cluttering up the kitchen. Now that it’s set up I’m able to put in more regular animating hours (I’m aiming for a half-hour a day).

Check out our gigantic kitchen!

We got an island from IKEA which really helps give us space to work and store stuff. We’ve also got a dishwasher. Yay for modern conveniences!

Our bedroom doesn’t have a lot going on.

And here’s our nice little bathroom.

Here’s a view of the back yard. On the other side of that fence is our parking spot! In the basement of the building there is a free washer and dryer that we share with only one other unit. Pretty awesome! So that could easily be a post on it’s own, but not to worry, the content just keeps on coming.

So now that I’ve talked about the awesome part of the move, let’s talk about the other side, the weeks of packing and preparing. I started packing my LEGO collection almost as soon as we signed the lease. I dismantled my shelves and pulled out all the drywall anchors and spackled over the holes. It was my first time spackling and I definitely learned a lot from it. I learned that I used really big drywall anchors that left nickel-sized holes to fill-in, which makes spackling hard. It took about three passes of spackling before the holes were completely filled in and smoothed out. The worst part by far is the sanding. So much sanding! Still, I was proud that I pulled it off successfully. When I went to put up the shelves again in my new LEGO studio, it was a much quicker process than last year.
The last few days before the move were a packing bonanza. Also, I was selling things on Craigslist for the first time. I successfully sold my TV stand, kitchen tables and chairs and my big comfy sofa. The rest of the stuff that I wasn’t planning to keep but couldn’t sell, I just put up for free and had a parade of people coming to get. It was gone in less than a day.
Once I had pretty much packed everything up and gotten rid of the furniture I did two things. First, I pushed all the boxes containing LEGO into one area so I could photograph it. (You can also see where I spackled)

Needless to say this pile dwarfed my other piles of stuff. The other thing I did was clean. I didn’t do a very deep cleaning, because there was a cleaning lady coming by after I moved out, but I did discover Mr. Clean’s Magic Eraser which really is magical. It got rid of stains and marks that I thought were permanent (some that had been there since I moved in, others I had created) it was incredible. I went through 4 of them.
The day of the move was amazing. This was the first time I hired movers and it was worth every penny. They showed up at my old apartment at 8 am and had finished unloading at the new place by 10. Incredible! Then I took a nap. That afternoon I unpacked the kitchen and went to Trader Joes for groceries so I could have a simple dinner waiting for Bert when he got home for the first time.

That evening I set up the internet and continued unpacking. I had the next day off to unpack and let the DirecTV guys in etc. I’m really glad I did, because I was able to get through most of my unpacking before having to go back to work so it was already starting to feel like home (even if I was sleeping on an air mattress).
Bert moved in Friday morning as I was leaving for work. So I had two days of work that week and then Bert and I had the whole Labor Day weekend to unpack and go shopping for furniture, silverware, shower curtains and such. I won’t go into details about all the places we went or what we got or the numerous tiny arguments we had that weekend, but rest assured we went many places, bought many things and fought over a number of inconsequential things (like where the living room chair should go). We’ve still got some things to figure out, but now that we’ve gotten over that initial hump of fitting our stuff together, things are going smoothly.

One thing that got me through the packing process was Veronica Mars. I had never watched it before and only had a peripheral understanding of what it was until I decided (upon Stephanie’s suggestion) to watch the first episode on Netflix. I was immediately hooked. Veronica Mars is often compared to Buffy the Vampire Slayer and it’s easy to see why, both feature a blond high school heroine who is constantly solving her classmates’ problems and clashing with authority figures. But while Buffy uses supernatural elements to act as metaphors for real problems, Veronica Mars is based in a very real and gritty world with no hint of the supernatural. Veronica works part-time for her father, a private investigator in the town of Neptune, and thus has mad detective skills. She and Buffy both kick ass, but while Buffy does that in a very direct fisticuffs way, Veronica relies mostly on information and sneakiness to give the bad guys their comeuppance (though she does know how to work a taser). Okay that’s enough comparison; Veronica Mars is awesome and I highly recommend it.

Also, I StumbledUpon (StumbleUpon’d?) this list of unusual deaths.

That’s enough for this post. I’ve got a few more in the pipeline and then we’ll be caught up to the present.

2.1 - The Pinchbot Invasion

2010-10-07T00:10:00.003-05:00

I know I owe y'all lots of updates (on the new apartment, on a couple vacations etc.) and I've got them in the works I promise, but I probably won't have anything ready before this weekend.

Quick update!

2010-09-06T23:37:00.003-05:00

Hey everybody, just wanted to let you know that Bert and I are all moved into to our new apartment. We've been unpacking and shopping for new stuff and setting up our place and our new life pretty much nonstop for the past week and still have a huge list of things to get done. So far we're really enjoying the central air conditioning, the dishwasher, the parking space and the plentiful windows. I'm going to try and get some pictures/videos up later this week, but I wanted to let you know that we're all moved in. Hope you all had a wonderful Labor Day weekend!

CSP forever!

2010-08-01T15:16:00.016-05:00

1) This first thing is so amazing I don't 100% believe it's happening. So you remember how Tiffany, Krista and I made an awesome animation about colors and shapes? Well a few weeks ago I received a youTube message from a producer with BabyGenius asking if we would be interested in having our animation on their next DVD. We were initially skeptical because their videos have a very distinct style that is completely different than ours and we didn't see how the two would go together. After a lot of e-mail tag Tiffany and I finally had a conference call with him that assuaged all our fears and more. The phone call was about half an hour and in it he not only explained the particular deal for the DVD (they will give us a lump-sum payment for putting the animation on their DVD, it's a non-exclusive contract, the DVD will be distributed through Target and Wal-Mart in December, the videos also go on Comcast OnDemand), but all sorts of stuff that BabyGenius is working on in the near future. The most pertinent one being a collaboration with the San Diego Children's Museum. They are going to be producing a whole bunch (upwards of 100) "Educational Pods" for the museum. These will be short (30-45 sec) videos that focus on teaching particular topics. He asked us if we'd be interested in being contracted to produce any of those for them. They would give us the time length and lesson and we'd come up with a concept and then animate it. He then said that the phone call was basically a job interview. After we got off the phone I had butterflies in my stomach like crazy.
Then I consulted David Pagano to figure out how much money we should be asking for and Krista consulted some entertainment lawyers she knew (parents of friends) for their perspective and we got back to Jeff with an offer. Now we just have to wait and see what he counters with. I'm trying to reign in my natural optimism, because while this could possibly be the start of an exciting endeavor that shapes my career for the near future, it could also peter out into nothing. I will keep y'all updated either way.

2) Paul and Stephanie had another wonderful wine, cheese and dessert party. It was delicious. We played Apples to Apples where Choir Boys maintained their reputation as the smoothest.

3) That Saturday I had my very first massage. I told Bert when he landed his part-time temp position that he had to treat himself to one thing and he decided to get a massage and I went too. We went to Sir Spa. I got a 60 minute massage with very light pressure. It was perfect. I felt like butter afterward. Then we walked outside into the bright, hot, busy Clark street and my senses were completely overwhelmed. We got lunch at a falafel place and then took a 3 hour nap at Bert's place.

4) That evening I filmed the wedding of one of my friends from Fire Escape Films. (She also voiced Persephone Verada in SVELT interview.) It was a nice ceremony and reception and I got to see a few people I knew from college and eat some good food and I got paid. All in all, not a bad way to spend Saturday night.

5) Krista was in town for about a week. On Friday she had brunch with Bert and I at Ann Sather's. I was very excited they got to meet each other. They got on very well, even though Krista was half an hour late. It had been so long since I'd seen her, I'd forgotten all about "Krista Time".

6) Bert and I then drove down to his mom's place in southern Indiana (Kentuckiana, as they call it, which led me to realize that IN has an identity problem: Michiana, Illiana, Ohioana...) for his mom's 50th birthday. We stayed at her house with her 5 small dogs and teenage-grandniece. It was nice to see the town Bert grew up in, because when he's mentioned it before I couldn't really imagine what it was like. I also got to meet his sister, Shannon. On Saturday the four of us went to a winery (another first for me). We got a "Camelot Mead" that is super sweet and we took it out on the grassy hill and sat under the tree drinking and eating bread and cheese. Then we feed the koi and took pictures and bought a couple more bottles to bring home and left. On Sunday Bert and I drove down to Louisville and walked around for a bit. We saw the museum part of the 21c Museum Hotel which everything from gigantic animal photographs to psychedelic wallpaper, big "cloud ring" emitters and a silver tornado of junk. Then we went out Shannon's pontoon boat on Lake Patoka. We got to see the beautiful lake, swim around and even go speed-tubing. On Monday, we headed out after breakfast. Overall it was a nice weekend.

7) That night, I went over to Tiffany and Seth's place to see Krista again before she left town again. We played Citadels and ate sorbet and cookies. Delicious!

8) Bert and I went to see Stonewall Uprising on Wednesday. While I don't think it was perfect, I do think it was a well-done documentary (much better edited and paced than 8 - The Mormon Proposition) and was very enlightening for me personally. Before watching it I knew next to nothing about the Stonewall Riots (just a vague knowledge that they were connected to the start of the Pride Parade). I still have no desire to go to the Annual Pride Parade (OMG crowds OMG), but the it did remind me of the march Stephanie and I attended protesting Prop 8 (which was just overturned [at least for now]). So I was definitely feeling the pride this week.
Also, you should go and vote for I'm For Driftwood once a day for the rest of August

9) Continuing on the theme of social justice, the book we read for book club this weekend was In the Place of Justice by Wilbert Rideau. It is a memoir mostly of his 44 years spent in prison, but it covers issues of racism and desegregation, prison reform, the power of journalism, and our very complicated justice system. I'm don't generally read much non-fiction, but I found this book absolutely fascinating. I'm not sure I believe the author's account 100%, (especially where it comes to his crime) but the book made me think critically about the purpose of prison and criminal justice in a way I never had before. I had taken the stigmatization of felons for granted most of my life, mostly I didn't even think about it, why would I? But reading this book, particularly the part where Wilbert gets transferred to a local jail and meets dozen of men who have been held there for years without even having a trial date set, I was reminded of a talk I heard a few years by Michelle Alexander (during some conference I filmed for CMIG as a student) about that likened today's mass incarceration to a new form of Jim Crow laws. As tax paying citizens, this is a system we are all complicit in. That thought is one of the most unsettling I've had in a while. This is a blog entry of extremes!
I've been thinking recently about what I want to do with my career, whether I'll be satisfied doing video production for the rest of my life or whether I want to become a teacher at some point. Now I am thinking that Education Administration might be the place where I could do the most and still be engaged. I guess you can't really become a principal without being a teacher first though, right? Can anyone picture me as a superintendent? What about a SUPERintendent? Anyway, this book's potrayal of prison administrator C Paul Phelps got me thinking about the role of administrators.

10) Karan (his rapper name is Dhadcat) finally released his first album. My favorite tracks are Hold On, Skating on the Interstate (my absolute favorite), and A Stranger Pulse, but the whole album is worth a listen. Dhadcat demonstrates versatility across 9 tracks, in the beats he's created, his vocal skills, and most of all his rhymes. I don't know much about rap/hip-hop, except for a few isolated songs from the 90s, so I'm by no means qualified to evaluate El Gato in those terms, so I'll stick to what I know, and focus on it as a poetic work. Dhadcat's lyrics are alternately cool and witty and emotionally eviscerating.
In the track "The Wolf and The Lam" the speaker is asked to tell the audience who he is, despite the fact "they don't really want to know your name" to which he responds "Let me start at the beginning, no wait, I know, I'll start at the end!" followed by a salvo of lyrics about his future wealth and fame. This is a clever satire of the self-aggrandizing lyrics so common in rap and also serves to highlight a central theme of El Gato: identity.
While the first half of the album skates over this at a superficial level, the latter half forms the emotional core of the album. "Skating on the Interstate" is steeped in nostalgia, from the track which sounds like it was sampled from a NES game, to the lyrics which painting glowing pictures of days past and gloomy ones of the days to come and is filled with gut-wrenching lyrics like,
"I'm savage with my sadness.
Forget that, I got more than that.
No I don't. Languish in anguish."
and "These days I'm just writing out of spite." Though, perhaps the most visceral expression of these sentiments comes across earlier in his emphasis on "boy, goddamn I'm hungry"
"The Whole World" gets overwhelmed by the samples at times, but is heartfelt. "Ain't Cute Enough" is a funny skit, but the laughter is covering up something sad and true. My reaction to "A Stranger Pulse" is mostly informed by my friendship with Karan. Almost every line feels weighted with significance because I know exactly what he's referring to.
"Cause I can feel myself slipping,
Cause how the fuck did I get better?
Do I still got that disease?"
That being said, I don't enjoy listening to this song the way I enjoy "Hold On" or "Skating on the Interstate," it's not a pleasant experience. I'm not even going to consider the last track on the album as part of my review, because it's so radically different from the rest. I'm going to end the same way he ends my favorite track.
"Well if it ain't like that then show me."

Other things to check out:
Herman the Manatee
The latest Ok Go video
Parody of that old spice comemrcial except it's for a library

This will probably be my last entry before the move, but FYI Bert, Tiffany, Seth and I are going to the Renaissance Fair next weekend. That and a lot of packing and spackling is what's in store for me in the next couple weeks.

This has 10 things and I didn't even plan it that way

2010-07-26T00:25:00.011-05:00

I don’t have any more photos of the apartment Bert and I are moving into in September, but here’s a little bit more about it. It’s a two bedroom place on the first floor. It has a very open plan so the living room flows into the dining room into kitchen (all of which are big rooms) and then the two bedrooms are off the dining room and the kitchen. One of the bedrooms will be a LEGO studio/computer room, though we haven’t decided which one yet. There is central air and heat and a dishwasher in the unit and free laundry in the basement. It’s only a couple blocks away from the Paulina Brown Line stop, there’s a Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s just around the corner and a bunch of restaurants in walking distance. I can’t wait until we move in!

Of course, the other side of moving is the packing. I’ve already begun to pack up my LEGO collection. The Star Destroyer has been dismantled and several shelves have come down off my wall. I packed up a good deal of my books. Still a lot of stuff left to do, but I feel good about the process since I’m starting so early.

This Saturday was another book club where we read a book I chose. This time it was “The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat.” (Yet another great book recommended to me from Stephanie.) The book is a collection of short non-fiction stories about people who have non-typical brain function. This ranges the gamut from amnesia to agnosia, Tourette's to neurosyphilis, temporal lobe seizures to autism. While the book, like the previous sentence, is littered with a lot of precise medical terminology and often goes into details that would only be of use to a trained specialist, there is a powerful emotional core to the book that is accessible to anyone willing to look for it.
The story that struck me the most was “The Disembodied Woman.” She goes in to the hospital for routine surgery and ends up losing her ability to sense where her limbs are. Most of us never even think about this automatic feedback we get from our muscles that lets us know how our bodies are oriented. She describes herself as “pithed,” as though something vital has been scooped out of her. She feels like a stranger in her own body. This is absolutely terrifying – a modern nightmare.
In the chapter on Tourette’s he recounts a scene where a woman walking down a busy NYC street compulsively imitates everyone she passes in rapid, exaggerated gestures and expressions. One gets the impression of her as a living funhouse mirror. As people grimace at gape at her bizarre pantomime, she amplifies and reprojects these right back leading to a grotesque feedback loop. The woman ducks into an alley where she spasms out the remaining imitations and catches her breath to recollect herself. One wonders what her inner life is like, how difficult is it to maintain a sense of self when the barrier between self and other is so flimsy? While “The Disembodied Woman” is an exile in her own body, this woman has the opposite problem, her body is home to anyone and everyone.
Not all the stories are so macabre, some are actually quite touching and uplifting, but all of them convey the incredible fragility of the self.

The meeting itself was good too. There was a much better turnout than for my last book (twice as many) and there was at least one other person who loved the book as much as I did. It generated some of the most interesting conversation of any meeting I’ve been to so far, so I’m pleased. I made the Ithaca Artichoke Medley and it was a big hit (thanks for that recipe Jenny&Leo!) and I had enough left over to take to Tiffany and Seth’s apartment warming the next day. Then there was lots of wine and laughter and brownies and ice cream and we went to bed feeling very content.

As I just mentioned, Tiffany & Seth had an apartment warming brunch the next day. This is the first place that they aren’t sharing with roommates and it’s clear how excited they are to have their own place. It was a gorgeous day with a nice breeze, so it was perfect weather to eat quiche and waffles, drink juice, sit in their big living room, crowd into their less spacious kitchen, stand on their balcony and covet their neighbor’s pool and listen to their collection of vinyl jazz records. I look forward to many future visits to their new place which is a stone’s throw from our new place.

Sunday night, mom and dad were back in town. Bert treated us to dinner at Quartinos where we looked at pictures from their trip as they regaled us with tales. They got us some awesome Yellowstone T-Shirts and a magnet from Glacier National Park. Quartino’s was good, we each got a small plate or two and since the portions were relatively small we also each got a dessert and then were taken aback when ENORMOUS DESSERTS were laid in front of each of us. We did our best to soldier through though. It was another nice evening. Here’s a picture of Bert and I my mom took the previous time we had dinner with them.

Last night Bert took me out for Korean BBQ for the first time. This picture only shows the meat cooking, but there were also a dozen small dishes full of various foods that ranged from weird to delicious. I tried everything but didn’t ask what anything was. Overall it was very yummy.

Stephanie and I have finished the last regular world in Mario Galaxy and moved on to the special world. Craziness ensues. I should note that I really do mean Stephanie and I, because her contributions as player 2 are invaluable, and often more important than mine. It really is a cooperative game when played this way.

I have a new internet addiction - StumbleUpon. Basically you tell it the kind of things you like and then you press stumble and it takes you to a random webpage that other people have said is awesome and stumble worthy. It’s just a way of finding new cool stuff on the internet. I like it so much, I installed the toolbar. Here are some of the random awesome things I’ve discovered in the past week or so because of StumbleUpon.
NPR story about a high school school without teachers or classes
Adorable baby animals
Inkblot Art
25 Great Calvin and Hobbes Strips
Wikipedia Article that perfectly describes something Tiffany and I were talking about the week before
A demonstration of how music is hard-wired in our brains

You might have already seen this animation when I posted it here a couple months back, but last week I was finally able to post Metamorphosis on youTube. It got blogged by the Brothers Brick so it got a (relatively) massive amount of views in the first week. Also, it was blogged about in at least three other languages (Italian - French - Portugese). Crazy, right? If you want to know more about the behind the scenes stuff for the video I posted a write up on my animation blog.

Bert and I got a place

2010-07-20T00:37:00.001-05:00

This evening we signed the lease on this 2 Bedroom, 1st floor walk up. We move in Aug 31st. Woohoo!

500th post

2010-07-05T16:06:00.008-05:00

Hello Dear Readers!

This is my 500th post on this blog. Have you read them all? Remember the early days when this was a “daily” blog and every entry was packed full of minutia and descriptions of my meals? Then last year I went down to weekly and this year I can’t even keep up with that. That’s life for you (or me at least).

Stephanie and I have been blazing through Super Mario Galaxy 2. It’s really fantastic, lots of different power-ups (I love Cloud Mario) and gravity puzzles. Yoshi is quite fun, but only shows up once every few levels. Bowser is gigantic and the Toad Brigade is ineffectual – all is as it should be. Stephanie is weirded out by the bread people.

We’ve also been moving through Season 5 of Doctor Who with Paul at a decent clip. We just finished Amy’s choice, which was awesome. Vampires of Venice was not as great, but it did have some ridiculous costumes.

Stephanie introduced me to this hilarious blog where they pretend to be the people who live in the ridiculous rooms from catalogs.

Stephanie and I had a great recording session for all of Sherry Tiles’s lines for Chapter 2, so I’m almost ready to get animating the next installment of NNN!

I hung out with JJ for the first time in a few months, he came over and we watched TransAmerica until the disc stopped working. Then we watched Fargo and got a couple drinks at Sidetrack. It was a nice evening.

Bert got a part-time temporary job! It’s doing marketing work for a hotel company, so it’s exactly in his field. It’s only 4 hours a day for 4 weeks, but there’s a possibility they may offer him a regular position after that is over. We’ll have to see. If nothing else, he’s keeping busy and earning some money. Yay!

We spent most of the long holiday weekend together. On Saturday we went up and checked out the Baha'i Temple, which was pretty. Then we got some really good BBQ at a place in Evanston and saw Winter’s Bone. Winter’s Bone was really good, but not really a feel good film.

On Sunday we got brunch at Tweet. Then we spent the afternoon inside in the A/C and purchased tickets for two trips in September and spent some time looking at apartment listings. We had a simple dinner courtesy of Bert’s freezer (salmon, green beans and garlic naan) and watched Sex in the City. On Monday we did a little shopping at Banana Republic and the Container Store and had lunch at a Thai place by Bert. All in all a very nice weekend.

Then I had three days of work (though I had class for two of them) and then I had a four day weekend! I took Friday and Monday off because mom and dad were in town. On Friday I cleaned my apartment (my landlady is starting to show it), got my very first manicure/pedicure. Bert and I had leftovers at my place and watched Dexter (we finished season 1 this weekend).

On Saturday we drove down to Hyde Park and attempted to retrieve my wounded bike, that didn’t work out, but we ended up bringing back my (newly fixed) laptop. We went to Staples and got some bubblewrap envelopes so I could ship out some NNN DVDs and the first purchases from our new Bricklink store. Then we went over to West Lakeview by the Addison and Paulina Brown Line stops to search for an apartment for me. After walking around for a couple hours we had lunch at Frasca ??and decided we should move in together. We’d talked about it before, but as we both started to look for separate places and weren’t thrilled by the options we realized we’d both be much happier if we moved in together. Also, we ate pizza. Back at my place Bert watched The Lightning Thief while I addressed packages. That evening he went to book club while I stayed home and cleaned/packed up some LEGO/ recorded Robert Vylan’s voices for the Chapter 2/built some robots.

Then on Sunday my parents came in to town. Bert let me use his car to pick them up from the airport. I drove them to their hotel and we got lunch at the food court in Northbridge (the Jaffa Bakery turkey sandwich I got was awesome). Then dad took a nap while mom and I walked to Water Tower to get a new battery for her watch. When we got back to their hotel room I took a nap. Then I drove them up to my place and we met Bert at Leona’s for dinner. This was the first time they got to meet and it went off very nicely. We all were stuffed and happy and then we hung out at my place for a bit before I drove mom and dad back to their hotel.

On Monday I made a trip to the post office to mail a big stack of packages. Then I met mom and dad at the hotel and we had lunch at the Billy Goat Tavern. After that we took an architectural boat tour that went down the river and out on the lakefront. I’d never done the combined tour before and I’ve got to say it was really great. The river portion was packed with interesting facts and the lakefront part had some amazing views of the skyline and it was very calming to be out on the water. Bert met us for an early dinner at Flatwater grill. We picked Flatwater because after the boat tour mom decided she wanted to eat “somewhere outside next to the water”. It was very nice, perfect weather for it. We laughed and ate and had a great time. Mom has some great photos from the boat tour and from dinner. Once I get them from her I’ll definitely post them here. On Tuesday they left Chicago by train for a 12 tour of the mountain time zone, including Yellowstone, Grand Tetons and Glacier national parks. We're all very jealous.

Of course, the most wonderful thing was seeing Bert and my parents laughing and having a good time together.

I have not forgotten you, dear readers

2010-06-29T20:08:00.015-05:00

...though I may have forgotten many of the wonderful things I would otherwise have blogged about in the past 2 months or so. There was too much wonderfulness! I have not been able to process it. This week is the first I've really felt completely like myself for about two months. Now that I'm me again, let me tell you what I've been up to. So much to say! Where to begin?

Let's start with Bert. He's been a major source of wonderfulness and I know you all like hearing about him. Things have been going very well. We've been spending a lot of time together and growing closer and good stuff like that. I met his mom when she was in town a couple weeks ago. Neither of us were at 100% that day (I was recovering from a sickness and she was exhausted from sightseeing) but we shared some laughs at Bert's expense and at one point she said "I really like him" so those are good signs. I'm looking forward to when my parents are in town in a couple week so they can meet.
We've been busy, we biked on Lake Shore Drive :

We attended a party in a fancy penthouse apartment in Hyde Park, have had lots of wonderful dinners and brunches and seen good movies and all that good stuff. But what I really need to tell you about is Brickworld. This is my 4th time attending this LEGO fan convention, but it was my first time having someone with me for the whole thing. Bert was very supportive, he made sure we ate real meals (instead of Potbellies and Chipotle on repeat like I have in the past), sat with me through the endless traffic as we drove down to Hyde Park and back on Friday to retrieve the DVDs, helped me hand out NNN fliers and sell DVDs and much more. We even went for a romantic walk around the pond at the hotel. Thanks to him I didn't have to rent a car or pay for a hotel room so he saved me a bunch of money too.

Check out the NNN polo shirts he requested and I designed:

Bert made me take this picture of him of of facebook because he thinks he looks goofy in it. But I think it's adorable so I'm posting it here. Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!!

So yes, things with Bert are going very well. :)

While I'm talking about Brickworld, let's talk about LEGO stuff! I wrote up a recap of the event from the NNN perspective which I urge you to check out. Did you know the DVD of Chapter 1 is available for purchase online? (If you contributed a voice to the production you will be receiving a complimentary copy in the near future). I need to get working on animating Chapter 2, maybe I'll start this during this long weekend...
Unfortunately, Metamorphosis did not win the MoFilm LEGO contest. They chose a bunch of sappy commercials that I think are stupid (except for 3rd place). Maybe I need to stop entering these contests and just focus on my own projects, I have more than enough. I don't regret making this animation though, I had been thinking about it for a while anyway. I won't be able to post it on YouTube for a couple more weeks, but here's a secret link (keep it secret, keep it safe) to the final video for now.

Did you know I'm taking a class at Columbia College? I'm taking Motion Graphics 1 (which is mainly focused on learning After Effects, but it cover issues of graphic design and typography as well) every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon. The class is actually almost over now (it was only 8 weeks long). My boss not only let me work from home on Tuesdays and Thursdays but she also agreed to pay for most of the class. Pretty sweet deal. Though the class started off slow, it has taught me a lot and I have some cool (though somewhat random) things to show for it. I'll probably do a full round up when the class is done, but here are some highlights:

This pain-staking line-tracing of Anderson Cooper is so detailed because the instructor gave us the assignment before trying it himself and I actually did all the tedious work, since I was 75% done when he decided it we could use lines wider than 1 pixel. I chose Anderson Cooper because Bert has a celebrity crush on him. This picture is now hanging on his fridge. The next two were for a synesthesia project where we had to combine images found via Google image search to look like a sound. The first one is the one I think turned out the best the sound of a headache:

This one was supposed to be the sound of a flirtatious wink, and while I don't think it ended up very wink-like, it was my favorite of the 7:

Of course, the main products of the class are supposed to be animations/title sequences. Here's one I just completed today. Police Show is part of the NNN world. It will show up in a commercial soon (you may recall voting on whether the main character should have a robot a dragon or a pirate as a partner, do not worry, that is still part of the plan). I used a lot of Google image graphics as placeholders until I can make them out of LEGO. I want the show to be completely over the top. The last 10 seconds of that intro were my attempt to come up with ridiculous situations that could still somehow be part of police work. If you have any suggestions I always welcome them.

The class has definitely been the best thing about work recently. We had a confluence of big events happening one after another this Spring. This is not new, but it was taken to absurd heights this year. But the good thing is that now that we have a larger, competent staff, we are much better equipped to handle them.

A while ago I wanted to respond to the Robert Ebert "Video Games Can't be Art" kerfuffle. I had a long elaborate post planned, but it's not really worth the effort. Just go play these two games:
http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/passage/
http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/gravitation/

I'm sure there is a lot I have missed, but this is where I'm going to end this post. Don't wrooy, it won't be another 2 months until my next post.

OMG it's done

2010-06-02T01:37:00.006-05:00

http://www.mofilm.com/account/watch.html?movieID=4010
My living room is a mess and I am seriously sleep deprived, but it's done and submitted.

I enjoy grading things

2010-05-06T07:37:00.013-05:00

1) A couple weeks ago I rode my bike to work for the first time in several months. I was horrendously out of shape, so it took a long time and I had to walk at the end, but I loved it. The weather was nice, and it’s a much more scenic way to get to work than riding the CTA and it’s just nice to get there under my own power. I look forward to doing it a lot more in the coming months.

2) May 8th was Bert and my 6 month anniversary. To celebrate we went to Café 28. We started with cerviche, then I had ropa veja and Bert had pistachio encrusted chicken and we ended with a chocolate mousse cake. It was all incredible.

3) That weekend was another book club meeting. This time it was at my place, so I spent the whole day cooking and cleaning. In the end only a few people showed up, but those of us who were there had a good conversation and those who stayed to the very end got LEGO figurines of themselves made.
The book we read was Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. I’d been meaning to read it for a while, but Book Club finally got me too. I was finishing up the last few pages as people arrived, which is typically how close I cut it. Middlesex is one of the best books I’ve read in a while. I loved the narrator’s persistent gentle presence and the sweeping scale of the novel, which spans three generations of a Greek-American family. While the book is narrated by the grandchild hermaphrodite, it is really about much more than her/his struggle to figure out who they are. All the family members have their own struggles and successes and failings, especially the grandmother (my favorite character). It’s also about Detroit, from the boom of the auto industry to the Depression and the riots and the slow decay of the city. This book packs a lot of history in, but makes it all engaging and entertaining. Obviously there is a lot about gender and identity in there too, but the story never gets overwhelmed by the big ideas tackles. One section (about the narrators relationship with a girl referred to as the Obscure Object of Desire) goes on longer than it needs to, but other than that I can’t find a lot to criticize about the book. I give it an A-

4) Had a crazy couple of weeks at work where some equipment broke and we were preparing for a big ceremony. But even in the craziness I found some awesomeness. I once again got paid to read the ScavHunt list and find the video-worthy items. My favorite items from the list:
3, 10, 14, 20, 49, 51, 53, 55, 81, 84, 103, 113, 118, 124, 132, 142, 144, 149, 154, 181, 184, 199, 204, 230, 238, 246, 258, 265
I also got to make a cool little video for the Logan Arts Center. I animated all the timeline stuff from scratch in Motion, which is the closest I ever come to doing animation at work. I take for granted that I get cool little projects like this where I basically have complete creative control. Another great thing about my job.

5) The Logan Groundbreaking Ceremony was one of the largest productions our office has ever done. We had 3 cameras being switched and sent out live via webcast. We also produced 3 videos that were projected during the ceremony as well as all the graphics that were displayed on the screen. We also had cameras at 3 other venues on campus recording events that directly preceded the Ceremony. It was a big to-do.
I was the producer in charge of the event, so I had helped coordinate a lot of the people and some of the technology for this, but then when it came time for the actual event I didn’t need to do anything. As in, I didn’t need to push any buttons, be they on a camera, a switcher, a webcast encoder or a projector, to make our production happen. I was able to leave the hot, overcrowded tent and watch the whole thing (via webcast) safely from the comfort of my desk. I then realized that I have managed to avoid being at all of the recent major events (Bill Gates’ speech, MLK Day, 500th Convocation). I am very proud of that and hope to continue the trend.
In these big productions I really enjoy being the guy who knows all of what is happening and is overseeing a lot of it, but not actually responsible for any individual thing. That way I am able to spend my time checking on everybody to make sure they have what they need and when they don’t I have the capacity to get them what they need. I like to think of it as being the “fill in the blank” guy. I solved a number of small problems for other people in the office as we prepared for the Ceremony. I sat in and took notes when other people had to rush back and work on last minute edits to their videos. I ran back to the office to pick up that one thing we forgot (several times) and 30 minutes before the ceremony I was re-burning a Blu-Ray for the webcast. Because I was prepared to do whatever needed to be done, problems were solved and no one freaked out or had a break down. It’s like my superpower.

6) Because I worked 40 hours in 4 days I then got to take Friday off and have a very nice 3 day weekend! I started this off Thursday night making a trip to the LEGO store and then staying up late to animate. I got some awesome grab bags with lots of Prince of Persia parts including two camels! I made this Wall-O-Sports for Robert to sit in front of:

I woke up Friday morning and used Skype for the first time to give an interview for The Brick Broadcast. Then I animated some more and took a nap.

7) I woke up when Bert called my phone because he was back from Indiana and parked in front of my house. We went to an Indian restaurant up by him that has a lunch special. We had so much delicious food. Then we went to his place and slept away the afternoon. We got up, went to Target and then went to a nice pizza restaurant and watched Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss (part of his continuing program to educate me about the “classic gay films”). I’d rank Screen Kiss above Jeffrey, but below Priscilla, two previous films in Bert’s curriculum. Some of the dialogue was mediocre (though nothing as groan-inducing as Jeffrey) but over-all it was well done and did a good job dealing with the particular brand of unrequited love that is complicated by uncertainty over the Object of Desire’s sexual orientation. Also, it had some terrific scenes told via series of Polaroids. I give it a solid B.

8) Saturday morning Bert and I went for a walk around the neighborhood. We happened upon a rummage sale where Bert found a brand new digital converter box for $5 (normally $50). So now he’ll be able to watch TV again. Then we met up with Paul, Stephanie and Ashley to see Iron Man 2. RDJ was charismatic as usual and Sam Rockwell made a perfect business rival and Gwyneth Paltrow was once again excellent as Pepper Potts. It was a fun movie, though the middle section felt really long and overall it felt like a lot of the movie was paving the way for other upcoming Marvel movies. Still, I regret nothing. B+
That afternoon Bert took a nap while I built the office of Sergeant Snaps Harvey

We had a simple dinner at home and then I animated while he watched the This American Life TV show (which, not surprisingly, also works if you are only listenting). It was a nice, domestic, productive evening. I finished making this trailer for NNN Chapter 2:

9) On Sunday we went down to Blick to get supplies for my next animation. You might think, “ahh yes, Dave’s next animation, clearly that will be another NNN episode, since he just made a trailer for it. It would be absurd for him to work on anything else with Brickworld looming, especially since he just spent a good amount of time making that awesome Color City Hide and Seek animation.” And I can see why you would think that, but that’s because you don’t know about this contest yet. I found that thanks to a link David Pagano posted on Facebook. Who knew that one link could completely change my vision of the next few weeks. Luckily I have an understanding and supportive boyfriend who helped my refine my idea, and go to the art store for backdrops, and who will put up with me building/animating like crazy the next few weeks. Yay!
After Blick we walked over to the 2nd largest Whole Foods in the country. It is quite a store, very much like a Wegman’s in its layout. We wandered around tasting free samples a bit and then decided to get lunch at the food court type area and eat on the mezzanine level (there is also outdoor seating overlooking the river). It was quite nice and reasonably priced. I got half a rotisserie chicken, mashed potatoes, cornbread, and a corn cucumber salad for $9. It was enough for two meals and very tasty. Bert was less impressed with his pasta dish, but it had mushrooms, which was obviously his first mistake ;)
We walked around best buy and the Container Store a little bit too before heading home. It was a very nice morning/early afternoon.

10) The rest of the afternoon I spent finishing the Chapter 1 DVD and submitting it to CreateSpace. Hopefully I’ll get the proof copy next week and then I can review and approve it and put it up for sale and order a few hundred copies for BrickWorld.
I caught up with my inbox and then I started working on building some of the models for the Cannes Animation. So far I’ve got an apple and a person,

a droopy flower

and oh yeah a gigantic version of the LEGO logo.

I’m drawing inspiration from Georges Schwizgebel, so there are going to be transformations a plenty. Right now I’ve got: 2x4 brick → apple → flower → person → lighthouse? → ??? → racecar → butterfly → ??? → LEGO logo. Any thoughts?

Behind the scenes on Color City Hide and Seek

2010-05-02T16:06:00.002-05:00

I just spent a couple hours putting together a post about the process Tiffany, Krista and I went through to produce the video fro the Sesame Street contest. In the past I would have posted that here, but now I've got my personal website for that. Check it out.

Things have been good, but I haven't been keeping track. Last night we went to Paul birthday party and gorged ourselves on cookies and cupcakes and ice cream cake. What else do you want to know?

Little Things

2010-04-26T23:09:00.003-05:00

1) Two weeks ago I was sick most of the week. Luckily I have a sweet boyfriend who brought me soup and Sex in the City. Isn’t Bert the best?

2)As I mentioned in my last post, I had not one, but two different interviews about my animations go up that week. And on top of that, the Nightly News at Nine won “Best Series” in the Bricks in Motion 2009 Awards. It’s been nice to get so much positive feedback about my work. It keeps me motivated.

3) The little time I did spend at work that week I was either noshing on a delicious breakfast buffet (part of a half-day retreat) or having amazing luck with finding parking spaces on campus. Praise be Aquanetta (the goddess of parking spots and hair-dos according to Bert)!

4) The weather is not super warm, but it’s been nice enough to walk outside and feel the wind on your face and not feel like you are going to die. It’s wonderful. Although Fall will always be my favorite, Spring has its merits.

5) After much prodding from me, Bert started a blog. He may already have abandoned it, but I’m glad he at least gave it an effort. He has been very restless since becoming unemployed and it’s nice to see him being productive and trying new things. He has also been looking into government programs that will pay for him to take classes. And he had a phone interview with Jim Beam. All very exciting.

6) We had a nice weekend. On Friday night we went to Coalfire for dinner (excellent thin crust) and saw The Cabinet at Redmoon Theater. It was not your typical play, as the characters were all puppets. They used mostly 3D puppets, with a couple interludes that used projection and transparency paper puppets to great effect, and two pop-up books. The puppeteers were also an integral part of the show, They open and closed different doors, hung upside down, shimmied through tiny openings, and of course, their hands were everywhere.
The story is about a sonambulist who is at a mental institute and is used by the director to commit horrendous murders while sleepwalking. The whole show had a very Burtonesque feel, very macabre and morbid. The puppeteers were all dressed as creepy asylum doctors. Very cool.

7) Saturday morning we had a nice brunch at Orange.

Bert got the French toast kabob and I got the tropical Pancake Flight. The tropical pancake flight had four stacks silver dollar pancakes with the following toppings (listed in order of deliciousness from most to least)
A: Coconut and Pineapple (the whipped cream was coconut infused too)
B: Mango and Papaya
C: Strawberry Kiwi
D: Banana and Passionfurit. (I’m not sure why this was so bad, maybe passionfruit isn’t actually as tasty as I think it is.)
And of course, a place called Orange has amazing fresh squeezed orange juice. Mmmm….

8) Saturday night we went over to Jeremy’s place and played Trivial Pursuit and Fluxx with him and Andy. Also there was a lot of wine and by the end of the night we were singing karaoke and then Bert and I weaved our way home.
Aside from that it was a calm weekend. We watched 30 Rock and stayed in my apartment and I animated while he watched Defiance and it was nice and domestic.

9) I’m a couple episodes into season 2 of Twin Peaks now, and really I’m enjoying the ride. There have been a couple dull moments, but mostly it’s been quirky and mysterious (even though I’m spoiled for the murderer) and delightful. Picking up after the cliffhanger of season 1 with this excruciatingly slow scene with the senile room service guy was incredible and I think a perfect example of what I love about this show. It is capable of building suspense and mystery, but is always conscious of that and playing with the viewers’ expectations (but not in the Whedonesque trope-subverting style that can induce whiplash when taken too far). I think my new favorite character is Albert, the aggressively cynical, yet fastidiously non-violent FBI agent.
Speaking of Whedon, I also just got the Buffy Chosen collection. It makes me so happy to know I can pop in a disc whenever I want. I am going to continue my efforts to get Bert hooked on the show, despite the fact that it’s clearly too campy for him. “Hush” was a bust, but I’m going to try and get him hooked on Faith, so I can at least get him to watch season 3. Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!
Stephanie and I watched Moon. It was delightful. I would watch it again right now, and that’s a rare thing for me. A+

10) I just finished two animations. The first is a deleted scene for New Beginnings. Of course when I say deleted scene. I mean I scripted it and recorded it with Stephanie, knowing full well that it wouldn’t fit into the main narrative. It’s not like I had animated this and then decided not to include it at the last second when I was editing. I try not to waste any frames. I’m really pleased with Robert’s frantic run after Sherry and the suave way in which she switches between hair and helmet and back again.

The other animation I finished is the claymation Tiffany and Krista and I conceived for the Aniboom Sesame Street Competition. The three of us came up with the concept over several meetings conducted by conference calls and group gChats (we briefly thought about using Google Wave and then laughed heartily). Tiffany and I did the animation over 2 Sundays and one Thursday night (with an addition Sunday for test animations). Krista made us some great storyboards to follow and recorded the voices with her younger sister Candace and her friends. Seth helped up out animating one Sunday. Aside from the Fire Escape Intro projects, this is the most collaborative animation project I’ve ever done. I’m very proud of how it turned out. It’s definitely the most adorable thing I’ve ever made.

Color City Hide & Seek: Yellow

2010-04-26T01:11:00.001-05:00

The claymation that Tiffany and Krista and I have been working on for the past month or two is finally finished! Vote for it here

Watch more cool animation and creative cartoons at Aniboom

Me me me

2010-04-11T18:54:00.010-05:00

1) I turned 25 this Saturday, and while I usually don’t make a fuss about my birthday, this year was a bit more of a production than most and it all went off wonderfully. I got the expected flood of well wishes on Facebook, (although a few people commented a week early and apologized for being belated, which was bizarre) and several e-mails, cards and other notes that made me feel warm and fuzzy. I also got some nice gifts. Bert got me a gift certificate for a manicure and pedicure, because he know s it’s something I’d never get for myself. Stephanie got me an awesome Fat Pony ceramic figurine, and a t-shirt with a velociraptor dressed up as Sherlock Holmes. Tiffany and Seth got me a cool magnetic puzzle cube that has famous paintings on every side. Jenny, Leo and Isaiah got me a cool LEGO set. My parents sent me a generous check, which I will probably use to buy the complete series of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and pay off some of my credit card bill, because I’m practical like that.

2) On Friday Night Bert, Stephanie, Paul, JJ, Tiffany, Seth, Max and I went to Andalous for dinner. Despite a scheduling mix-up by the restaurant we got our table and there was delicious Moroccan food and lots of wine and everybody paid for my dinner so I felt special. Then we went to my place and played a little Boom Blox and then Cranium and Max got ice cream from Walgreens and it was a delightful evening. I went to sleep warm and happy.

3) On Saturday Bert and I slept in and then he went on a mysterious errand while I lazed around some more and watched the latest episode of Lost (we finally got some dimension hopping!) and otherwise relaxed. Then we went up to his place and I did laundry while he finished watching Season 2 of Torchwood (poor Tosh). I finished reading A Long Way Down and then it was time for book club. After most of the people had arrived Bert brought out this incredible LEGO cake and they sang Happy Birthday and it took me three breaths to blow out the candles and I couldn’t think of anything to wish for because when you’ve got a boyfriend who is getting you LEGO cakes, what else could you possibly want?

Book club was good, I chatted with some guys I didn’t know very well and when I decided I was tired of being social I went into Bert’s room and laid down on the bed because it’s my birthday and I can sleep if I want to.

4) On Sunday, Bert let me use his car, I picked up Tiffany at her place and we went to the Blick’s at North & Clyborne to get some white clay, black posterboard and a hole punch. We stopped at that bagel place that I’d always seen when going down North but never been at. It hit the spot. At my place we spent a couple hours building geometric shapes out of LEGO to be the cityscape for our claymation. Krista’s storyboards were very helpful in coming up with the city. Then we set it all up and did a few overhead shots, which forced us to figure out the order in which the events take place. It was a very productive afternoon.

5) Rewinding before my birthday weekend, I had some delightful dinners this week. Monday Stephanie came over and we ate peanut chicken and watched the end of Arrested Development Season 1. On Tuesday I went to Paul and Stephanie’s and we had the cinnamon chickpea dish and watched the Doctor Who episodes about the Library and River Song. Wednesday Bert cooked salmon with basil pasta and spinach (very good and healthy) and we watched the pilot of Twin Peaks. Thursday he drove us to Smoque for some amazing barbeque. So a very good week.

6) I spent a good amount of time working on the Chapter 1 DVD. Got the projects laid out in DVD studio Pro and make some awesome label art. I’m hoping to have these out by the end of the month, I’ll be sure you let y’all know as soon as they are available.

7) I also spent a lot of time answering questions for a couple online interviews. The first is for the site that hosts the Streamys and is the primary news source for web television. I e-mailed them a couple weeks ago to let them know NNN exists and see if they were interested in doing a story. I got a very energetic e-mail back with a good set of questions. I spent a couple days writing up my answers and Stephanie was kind enough to help me edit them. The second was an unsolicited request from my friend Lindsay to be part of her Inspiration Collective series. Her questions were a lot more focused on me as an artist as opposed to NNN, so the interviews had very little overlap and it was a lot of writing about myself. And here are the finished interviews: TubeFilter - Inspiration Collective.

8) I finally bought some Animal Collective albums. I had a few songs on my itunes from various mix CDs I’d received and I listened to them a lot on Pandora, but I’d yet to really delve into their work. I started with Sung Tongs and have since expanded to Prospect Hummer and Strawberry Jam. Good stuff.

9) Spent most of my commuting time this week reading “A Long Way Down” for book club. When I first read the description I was skeptical, it seemed like it would be a very trite and shallow treatment of a pretty heavy subject (suicide). I ended up being pleasantly surprised. Maureen was definitely the heart of the book and went through the biggest change over the course of the story. Jess was also really well written. The two guys were pretty inconsistent though. I’d give it a B-

10) I started watching the first season of Twin Peaks. Wow. I can’t believe this aired on network television 20 years ago; it’s so quirky and creepy. The theme music does such a good job setting the mood and the crazy characters all play off one another very well. I don’t care that the acting is all completely over the top and melodramatic. I love how extreme everything is. I just got to the first dream sequence. “Lost” wishes it could be this weird.

Time time time

2010-04-03T22:18:00.003-05:00

So this blog has devolved from once a day to once a week to about once a month. And I don't always number things form 1 to 10 anymore. So be it! Here's some wonderful stuff.

Things with Bert have been going well. We're approaching 5 months together and still going strong. We've been spending a lot of time together and enjoying it very much. Our time together isn't very exciting to describe, it mostly involves sitting around watching 30 Rock, Sex in the City, playing Lego Star Wars, making dinner and such. But we like it. We've gone on a couple nice dates recently, went to a nice Indian restaurant, Marigold. We walked around Lincoln Square last weekend. Now that the weather is getting nice, we have been strolling about outside more. We also went to Costco last week and now I have more handsoap and kitchen garbage bags than I know what to do with. Yay Costco!

Nightly News at Nine things have been moving along. I finished up Chapter 1, complete with an opening sequence and credits and am hard at work on the DVD. I recorded a director's commentary and have almost finished with subtitles, still got a lot of graphics to make but should have the DVD ready for sale by the end of the month. I'll let you know when it's ready. I've gotten my Illinois Business license and FEIN so I'm all set to collect sales tax as such. Very exciting!

Lego released some board games this month. I got Minotaurus and Monster 4. They are both quite awesome. I can't wait to play Minotaurus again (I have only played one incomplete game).

Tiffany and I did some animation tests for the Sesame Street animation.

The Van Gogh face paint video Talya and I did unexpectedly got featured in an e-mail to UChicago alumni. So that night I went home and spent a few hours creating a new personal website. What do you think?

Work has been fine. We've got new employees and I'm actually catching up on old projects. Spent a couple weeks printing and delivering DVDs and sending invoices. It was quite nice.

What else? Had some nice dinners with other friends. Always more dinners with Paul and Stephanie. Got Thai with Max. JJ came over one Saturday and we watched Night of the Comet.

This past week I got 2 wisdom teeth out. I've been floating in a vicodin haze ever since and gorging myself on ice cream, jamba juice and milkshakes. Yum.

I'm in the closed Beta for Lego Universe. I can't say any specifics, but it's quite fun. Saw How to Train Your Dragon today. It was good, better than I expected. I got birthday and Easter care packages from my parents today. Lots of sweet things. Hooray!

That's all for now.

LA is ridiculous

2010-04-03T22:17:00.002-05:00

So it's been almost a month since Bert and I went to LA, but I'm still going to tell you about it because it was wonderful.

This was my first real grown-up vacation where I wasn't crashing with friends or my parents or attending a Lego convention. So just getting on a plane with my boyfriend and staying in a swanky hotel was very exciting for me. We went when it was still cold and miserable in Chicago, so the 60 degree weather seemed incredible. I wore short and sandals more than I would have otherwise, but it was wonderful to be able to go outside without several layers of clothing. Here's the view from our room.

The first day we didn't do a whole lot, checked in to the hotel (after I did some bad navigating), walked to the nearby CitiBank so Bert could get cash (his card stopped working), walked along Santa Monica Blvd, got some fries, took a nap, and then for dinner we went to El Compadre, a nice little Mexican place with flaming margaritas that was just a little ways down the street from the hotel. Of course since this was LA when we were walking around we saw a nail salon that was completely mobbed by paparazzi, at dinner Bert recognized a B-list celebrity at the table next to us and when we returned to our hotel that evening the lobby was converted into a swanky pre-Oscar party. Weird.

Friday we were more adventurous. We drove to the Watts Towers or "the Hub of the Universe" which ended up being a bust because the tour guide abandoned us. While we were waiting we fooled around with my camera a little bit. In fact you can see the tour guide leaving in the background of one of the videos.

Even without the tour we were able to get some nice pictures through the fence.

Then we went to Venice Beach to see all the artists and other characters. We were implored by several nice people to go be evaluated for medical marijuana at one of the two competing "Kush Doctors" on the boardwalk. We politely declined. Bert witnessed a drug bust (that was also being filmed) when he went to the bathroom and we got slices of pizza that were more expensive than advertised. We also stuck our feet in the ocean and I gave a dollar to this guy for making this awesome sand dragon.

Then we went back to the hotel and took a wonderful nap, then we had dinner at Yamashiro. It was very cool. A converted Japanese shrine in the hills overlooking the city, the ambiance was top-notch and the food was excellent too. We started with an amazing albacore ceviche, then I had chicken teriyaki and some kind of tasty dessert that I can't recall. Guess that's why I should do these sooner than a month after.

Saturday it was rainy but we had an indoor day planned anyway. We started off with brunch at bld. OMG it was incredible. I got a frittata and Bert got ricotta blueberry pancakes. If I ever go to LA again that place is on the top of my list. So tasty. The guys at the table next to us were discussing a script one of them is working on, but he was afraid to go into details "because you never know who might be listening." Don't worry dude, even though you are talking loud, we have no interest in stealing your ideas. LA is ridiculous.
Then we went to LACMA. The contemporary art museum had some koontz stuff, which I appreciated for its bright colors if nothing else. And it also had these massive steel sculptures that you walked through/around like a meditative labyrinth - quite awesome. I don't remember a whole lot else that we saw, aside from the architecture of Japanese art pavillion which Bert described "like being inside 60's Disneyland." We also went to the La Brea tar pits since they were right there.
That evening we met up with Dana and her date Justin. We had dinner at the Velvet Margarita Club, went to a small art show at a video game school and then went to see Quick and Funny Musicals by the Upright Citizens Brigade. Ghost Slut was probably my favorite. In addition to the cast sporting several celebrities, we spotted Paul Dooley in the audience. It was a very nice evening.

We spent most of Sunday traveling. We did have a nice outdoor breakfast at a diner down the street before heading to the circus that was LAX. All in all a good vacation.

Here's a video from Isaiah's brithday party I found when I was fishing out the other videos for this post.

The past few weeks

2010-03-13T00:38:00.011-06:00

Once again I find myself so overwhelmed with wonderful things I can barely find the time to do them all, much less blog about them. However, I find myself at a pause again so let me fill you in on what's been going on.

So this thing is not so wonderful, but it's a major thing so I need to blog about it. Bert got laid off from Hyatt a couple weeks ago. He wasn't entirely happy with his job there and was already seraching for a new position, but still, being laid off is no fun. He's all signed up for unemployment and COBRA and has been applying for jobs like crazy and now he just has more time than he knows what to do with. I told him this would be the perfect time to start a blog :) If you know of any fun openings for marketing jobs in Chicago please send them my way.

That aside, we've been having a lot of fun. We had a nice dinner at Hopleaf for his birthday. We've been making dinner together a lot more. We've gone to the movie theater up in Evanston a couple times now (Wolfman [D] and Alice in Wonderland[C+]). We've also been spending all the weekends together. A couple weekends in a row I was animating while he was playing a video game or watching TV or cleaning in the other room. It's very nice and domestic. We've also been going on very domestic shopping trips (Bed Bath and Beyond, Crate and Barrel, etc.). It's all very nice and sweet. We're both very glad neither of us are into parties/clubbing/whatever those crazy kids are doing these days. We've been watching through Sex in the City together and I've gotten him hooked on 30 Rock (and soon Arrested Development, Torchwood and Dollhouse, and Harry Potter since he has nothing but time). We attended my first Chicago Gay Men's Book Club (which I was able to contribute to even if I had only read 1/6 of the book).

We had some nice dinners with Paul & Stephanie and Tiffany & Seth and played a bunch of Bananagrams. Watched Zombieland - hilarious! Started playing through A Boy and his Blob with Stephanie - it's delightful. My favorite part is when I use the trampoline recklessly ;) Finished watching the John Adams mini-series. Awesome moments - when he met King George - firing his cabinet - everything with Abigail - fever dreams! - and of course, the gayest Constitutional delegate ever.

Of course you've all already watched my latest animation. Here are some photos of my favorite creations made for this video:

And also on the Lego front, the Huffington Post made a post about the 17 most awesome lego creations that was very poorly research IMO. Luckily David Pagano made a nice rebuttal which shares some of the actual best lego creations. And then there's this AFOL documentary which you should watch if you want to know more about the people who are even more into Lego than I am.

Tiffany and Krista and I are teaming up to make an entry for this Sesame Street animation contest. We've had a couple meetings and are refining our idea. Krista has already made some cool storyboards a snippet of which I will share with you:

Very exciting!

Also, Bert and I went on a nice vacation to LA. That will get it's own post, coming soon!

The Orange-Green War Begins

2010-03-04T00:23:00.001-06:00

You know what's crazy? Another blog already linked to this video.

Dad's Retirement Party & Isaiah's 3rd Birthday

2010-02-17T22:02:00.002-06:00

Saturday afternoon I flew into Philly. I went to see Phil Dahl for a couple hours. The streets were all snowmeggdoned so it was interesting getting to his place from the train station. We played Smash Brothers and Boggle and caught up briefly and then I went downtown to meet JP and Mom and Dad for dinner at Dmitri's (excellent as always). Since they are all big Lost fans they started telling me about the crazy stuff that was going on and then that night I watched this 8 minute recap of the first 5 seasons and read some wikipedia to fill in the gaps between when I stopped watching (early season 2). And then I watched the first 3 episodes of the new season. It's pretty crazy. Yay for alternate dimensions.

On Sunday we celebrated Isaiah's birthday. There was cake and presents and lots of good stuff like that. I read him my favorite childhood book: "Henry and the Terrible Whatzit" We played lots of Babybabybaby and other fun games. After Isaiah went to sleep the rest of us played Rock Band. Veronica came over and helped us out by lending us her excellent singing voice. After everyone else went to bed Veronica and I stayed up chatting for several hours.

On Monday afternoon we went to Dad's retirement party. Jenny and JP and I sat and drank wine and chatted during the beginning. Then we listened to Dad's work friends tell stories about him. It was nice to see a new side of him. The food was also good. That night I did some animating and voice recording for the next NNN episode.

Then Tuesday afternoon I was back on a plane to Chicago. It was a short vacation, but it was a nice break.

Some of you are seeing this on Google Buzz

2010-02-10T18:18:00.009-06:00

1) Monday morning I had my first dentist appointment in several years (thanks to Bert's prodding). It was in a convenient location downtown. While I sat in the chair having my teeth cleaned I had a nice view of the northern skyline. I have some big holes in my upper wisdom teeth so Ill have to get those removed and my gums are inflamed so I've been given a special mouthwash and orders to floss more. After a couple weeks my gums should be deflamed and not bleed when I floss. Yay dental hygiene!

2) Monday night - Paul ad Stephanie's house, egglemon soup and chicken fried rice! John Adams is vice president and gets frustrated. Hamilton and Jefferson argue. George Washington remains classy.

3) Tuesday - I made curried chicken and Stephanie and I watched some Arrested Development and played more of Little King's Story. We found the last UFO and the last WonderSpots yay!

4) On wednesday Bert and Stephanie and Paul and I went to Irazu for dinner with Morgan. I don't care that we had to wait like 45 minutes for a table. It was worth it. I went to Irazu once 2nd year back before I understood how Chicago connected, I've been trying to find my way back ever since. Mmm... Costa Rican. It ws great to see Morgan; she had lots of great stories as usual. And Bert put on his excited face and drove us to and fro even though he was very tired. He's so good to me.

5) I unexpectedly had good experiences on the phone this week. I usually dread making or receiving phone calls at work. I prefer to do everything through e-mail, but there are some things that just go faster/easier over phone.

6) Watched more Sex and the City with Bert.

7) On Friday we had an open house at our new office. We had lots of wine and treats and a cake shaped like the back of our awesome new business cards:

We also had a valentine's "photobooth" bet up in one office. It was a big hit. Let me show you the CMIG team: me, Tiffany, Renee (w/ her mom), and Eric (new Tech Producer). Here's Ben, even though he doesn't work for us anymore, and my favorite pictures taken. It was fun to show off our new space (I gave numerous tours, I even walked backwards for Aaron Rester) and see a lot of our clients in person.

8) That evening Bert and I went to Fiorentino's for an early Valentine's Day dinner. Tiffany had given me a gift card for Christmas and recommended it very highly. It was a very cute place, we sat "outside" and had delicious delicious bruschetta followed by some other stuff. I wasn't super please by my entree, but I think I just made a bad choice. Although the potatoes that came with it were delicious. I devoured them. Here's the Valentine's present I got Bert. He got me chocolates and a wrote me a cute note.

9) He was also a wonderful boyfriend and gave me a ride to the airport the next morning. We used the extra time to play Lego Star Wars :)

10) Then I went home for four days. That really deserves it's own entry. Look for that soon.

So I'll be quick about this

2010-02-07T12:20:00.004-06:00

1) Monday - Made skillet lasagna for Stephanie and Bert. Before Bert came over Stephanie and I watched the last episode of dollhouse and played more of the king game.

2) Tuesday - Had dinner with paul and stephanie they made pasta thing and we watched the next episode of John Adams where he and his wife traipsed about France & England. (The King is so creepy!)

3) Wednesday - Made dinner for Bert - salmon, rice salad, and sweet potato wedges. Then we watched Shadow of the Vampire (Willem Defoe is creepy) and played more Lego Star Wars.

4) Thursday - Had dinner with Bert at Star of Siam.

5) Friday- had a double date with Tiffany and Seth and Bert. Dinner at Andalous and then we played Settlers of Catan at my place.

6) Did some animating this weekend. Yay!

7) Saturday - Had dinner with Bert at the Melting pot. Mmmm Fondue....

8) Today we had breakfast at Ann Sathers (even though Bert isn't a big fan)

9) Spent the day at Bert's place. We watched Sex in the City and I animated and we went to Target and then got Chinese food for dinner. Yay for a nice day with my boyfriend.

10) We had a new producer start at CMIG this week. Looking forward to seeing how he rounds out the team.

I am persistantly two weeks behind

2010-02-01T00:47:00.007-06:00

1) I got to spend a good part of hte week at work putting together furniture. That is all I have to say about work this week.

2) On Monday I went to Stephanie's place and made her the ridiculous brie thing and sweet potato wedges because she had foot surgery and couldn't make the trek to my place. We played Continuity game and watched Rachel getting Married. It was like watching a trainwreck... in a good way.

3) On Tuesday I went to Paul and Stephanie's and they made a new delicious chicken thing and we watched the next episode of John Adams. France! Crazy fever dream!

4) On Wednesday I went to Bert's and he made chicken piccata, roasted potatoes and I helped make a spinach thing (didn't turn out grat though) We watched Serenity.

5) On Thursday Bert and I canceled our plans for the night because I wasn't feeling great. I left work early and took a big nap and then Bert came and comforted me and we went to Leona's and played Lego Star Wars. He's so good to me.

6) Lego Star Wars is awesome. Of course I played through it back when it first came out, but playing though it again with Bert has been tons of fun.

7) On Friday night Bert and I hosted a game night at his apartment. Paul and Stephanie and Jeremy and Andy came over and we had pizza and played Cranium. Bert and I won! I will always remember him doing "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon."

8) On Saturday Bert and I drove out to the suburbs and had dinner with Erika and Gregor (and their daughter Kat. I made chocolate banana bread cookies. Erika made tasty chicken cordon bleu. It was a nice evening.

9) Read the new Buffy comics

10) After that busy week it was nice to have a relaxing Sunday where I did laundry, watched Hulu and Angel, did dishes and got groceries.

I'm always late

2010-02-01T00:24:00.002-06:00

1) I got MLK day off as a University Holiday, which happened the past two years as well, but I had forgotten and it was a nice surprise 3 day weekend. Bert did not get the day off, but I went downtown and met him at his office to go out to lunch. Hyatt Headquarters is very swanky, they've got bamboo in the ground floor lobby, and a very grandiose wood adorned reception area. I should have taken photos. Bert showed me off to his favorite co-workers and then we headed to Roti for lunch. It's kind of like a mediterranean Chipotle. It was tasty, I got babaganoush (and some other things, but I like saying babaganoush). Afterward I went to Blick's and picked up some paper to use as a backdrop for the next animation. And then to Trader Joes for supplies for dinner with Stephanie that night and essentials.

2) On Tuesday night Bert met me down in Hyde Park after work and we went to Chant for dinner, which is one of the fancier restaurants in Hyde Park
(to those of you who never heard of it, it opened in late 2007). Then we went to see the premiere of A Girl Named Clyde. The script was one I had read through and given feedback for back when I did Screenwriter's Circle. I wasn't involved at all in the production so for me it was like the script magically transformed into a movie. This is the first feature length film I've had that experience with. It was interesting to see what parts were dropped/added/ kept/etc. It was pretty good for being a student film. I liked it more than Crime Fiction and it was more polished that Die Zombies Die. But because I reviewed the initial script, I also felt more critical of what I saw as the narrative shortcomings.

3) Thursday night had dinner with Paul and Stephanie. Watched the 2nd episode of John Adams (with has the gayest Constitutional delegate ever - Edward Rutledge) Stephanie and I finished the latest Dr. Who special. So long Tennent and Davies! Hello Smith and Moffat! I did appreciate the scene in the space bar with Jack.

4) I engineered two live ISDN interviews this week. One with with Paul Sereno and one with Janet Rowley. It was exciting to listen to a radio program in real time and know that I was contributing to it in my own small way.

5) Friday afternoon I left work a little early, went home to get my stuff together and then headed off to Indianapolis (or the suburbs at least) to spend the weekend with Karan. Driving to Indy was kind of exciting, (as exciting as driving a flat barren expanse for 3 hours can be) since I haven't driven that far since Stephanie and I took a roadtrip summer before 2nd year. And it's always nice to escape my life for a couple days.

6) It was good to hang out with Karan for a couple days. I hadn't really hung out with him since I visited him in New York last April. And while we were chatting on the internet pretty much daily throughout the summer, our communication was much more sporadic during the fall. He always has great stories to share and we talked more about his music, my animations and other creative stuff.

7) We spent the better part of Saturday composing this new NNN theme song. I had made a short version (heard in the first 10 seconds of Out of Bonds) last year, but that was about the limit of my abilities. Karan has a lot more experience mixing, so I was able to lie on his bed looking up News theme songs on youtube while he worked and giving my feedback and letting him transform my ideas into reality. It was a great collaboration and very easy, much better than paying someone I barely know to do it (which was my original plan).

8) We watched The Invention of Lying on Friday Night, Humpday on Saturday Night, and I got to play through the beginning of Batman: Arkham Asylum. The Invention of Lying started out strong, but then it devolved into a romantic comedy, which I had no interest in watching play out. Humpday was great, one of the best movies I've seen in a while, the dialogue and performances were top-notch. as usual, I agree with the AV Club's assessment of the movies. Batman: Arkham Asylum was really good, although I am not very good at being stealthy, which is one of the major components of the game. It was fun and had very high production values though. Makes me wish I had an XBox 360 or PS3. Not enough to buy one though.

9) We had lunch and dinner with his parents on Saturday. (Subway for lunch and home-cooked Indian food for dinner mmmm.....) They asked me what I thought of C.B. West and The University of Chicago, because they wanted a different perspective than Karan's. I also got to hear some funny stories about Karan and his brother getting into trouble. It's always interesting to see how people interact with their parents. Karan and his parents seem to have a very playful relationship, they were teasing one another the way only family can tease.

10) On Sunday night when I got back I had dinner with Bert and his friend Jeremy at a pretty good Mexican Place up Broadway (El Mariachi). It was tasty and I had leftovers for lunch the next day. We talked about TV shows and Chicago Gay Men's Book Club, which Jeremy founded, Bert is an original member of, and I am soon to join. And then Bert came over and snuggled for a little bit before heading back to his place. Not a bad way to prepare for the new work week.

Bonus: Elizabeth gilbert's TED talk

Untitled

2010-02-01T00:23:00.002-06:00

When someone dies

We like to tell each other who they were

As if their memory was as stiff as their body

As if they would not still surprise us years later

When someone dies

We act as though we only lost one person

And not a parent and a friend and a sibling and a spouse

As if we were not all many people

This week

2010-01-15T06:01:00.011-06:00

1) On Monday Stephanie came over for Peanut Chicken. We watched the movie “Gerry” which was crazy. Barely any dialogue or action, mostly just really long shots of two guys wandering around the desert/other remote landscapes. I don’t think I could ever create something so deliberately vacant. My work tends more towards teeming. It was an interesting change of pace, considering all the action movies I’ve seen lately. I don’t think I’d recommend it though. We also continued playing through the King Game which continues to be awesome.

2) On Tuesday Bert and I went to see The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus and had Wow Bao for dinner. The Imaginarium has some very obvious seams and plot-holes, which makes sense since one of the main actors died during production, but it is my favorite of the movies I’ve seen in the theaters lately. There are some great performances and some fantastically imaginative scenes (like a bunch of cross-dressed British Police officers singing and dancing about how great violence is). It’s unlike anything else out there right now.

3) On Wednesday we went to Crew with a bunch of his friends for a special on drinks and appetizers followed by the GayCo show “The Audacity of Nope” a couple doors down (also part of the special). The show was good. I could have done with fewer songs (though I keep finding myself humming “Hamballs”) and less political commentary, but what do you expect from a LGBTQ themed sketch show? I think my favorite bit was the boss announcing to his staff that he is about to become a she and then fielding their awkward questions. The punchline “Will you make 1/3 less as a woman?” had just the right amount of punch in my opinion.

4) On Thursday I went to Paul and Stephanie’s for Egg Lemon Soup, peanut noodles and the first episode of the HBO miniseries, John Adams. Paul Giamatti is great, as is Laura Linney. It’s been a lot of fun remembering little bits from history class and lining them up with the references in the show. I have never been so excited about the Constitutional Convention.
Also Stephanie and I watched “The End of Time Part 1” The master is awesome. I’m glad he will be all over the place in the next episode.

5) On Friday night Bert came over and I made him Mesquite Chicken and Pasta Salad. We watched Paranormal Activity which he had rented. I agreed to watch it even though I had no interest in it on the condition that he would have to watch something I wanted to watch and wouldn’t be able to veto. I then made him the first episode of season 5 of Angel, because he keeps mocking it & Buffy. “It wasn’t as bad as I expected” was his assessment. Paranormal Activity on the other hand was just as bad as I expected. It gets a D.

6) I also made these amazing Banana Bread Cookies, which Jess Brock gave me the recipe for.

I produce the recipe here exactly as I received it.
"Banana Bread Cookies. They're super easy and SUPER delicious.

Ingredients:
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
- 1 tsp coarse salt
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temp.
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
- 1 large REAL ACTUAL EGG
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup mashed overripe banana (about 1 large)
- 1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
- 8 oz semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped into 1/4-inch chunks
- 1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts, toasted (if desired)

Steps:
1. Preheat oven to 375. Whisk together both flours, salt & baking soda in a bowl.
2. Put butter and both sugars into the bowl of an electric mixer (with a paddle attachment, if you've got it); mix on medium speed until pale and fluffy. Reduce speed to low. Add egg and vanilla; mix until combined. Mix in banana. Add flour mixture; mix until just combined. Stir in oats, chocolate chunks, and walnuts.
3. Drop dough onto baking sheets, spacing about 2 inches apart. Bake cookies, rotating sheets half way through, until golden brown and just set, 12-15 minutes. Let cool on the sheets on wire racks for 5 minutes, then transfer cookies to the racks alone.

A word of caution: after you make these, you may find yourself thinking any of the following things - "These are fucking delicious!" or "Jess Brock is full of good ideas!" or "I want these to have EVEN MORE banana"
All of those thoughts are good and decent, but every recipe has it's limits, and baking is a delicate balancing act. So if you, like me as a young lass, were inspired to add another half of a banana to the cookies, don't be surprised when it comes out a little fucked up. It's hubris to try to get more banana in these cookies. You, like Icarus, have been warned."

7) Work was fine. Renee was back, so things like hiring more people could move forward.

8) Bert and I had a very busy Saturday. We first went to the LEGO Discovery Center – “The World’s first Indoor Legoland.” Having been to LegoLand California, I was unimpressed, as this is just a watered-down tiny version of that. We were done in half an hour. The best part was the Chicago Miniland. We did get a couple pictures with the big sculptures, though.

Then we went to Ikea where Bert got a shelf/counter for his kitchen and I got a lamp, a frame, a plant and a couple bowls. Ikea is fun
Then we went to the Woodfield mall. I showed Bert what a real Lego store is like (as opposed to the disappointing one they had at the Discovery center) and picked up a few sets I wanted and hadn’t found at the Michigan Avenue store. We walked around the mall a bit more, but I was tired and overwhelmed by the crowds and convinced Bert we should head out. He drove home and I fell asleep in the car almost instantly. He saw my creepy half open sleepy eyes.
After I woke up we put together his Ikea shelf, ordered pizza and watched a couple episodes of Firefly.
9) The next morning we went to Pauline's again for breakfast. This time he got the French toast.

10) Sunday afternoon was full of hulu (Dollhouse, 30 Rock, Community) and putting together my lego and ikea stuff. Sunday night Bert and Max ad I had dinner at DMK. Wonderful.

Bonus) Here are some pictures I found on my Iphone:
Fall on campus

Winter on my street

Where I wait for the bus some mornings

A ridiculous hairdo

That week

2010-01-09T16:54:00.011-06:00

1) I had an amazing retail experience at the LEGO store on Michigan Avenue on Monday. I’ve been going to that store on a somewhat regular basis for a couple years now and I recognize most of the staff by now, since I usually go in knowing exactly what I want, and am generally a self-guided shopper it’s rare that I talked to any of them though. Since moving up to Lakeview my visits to the store have become more regular, since I’ll often stop there on the way home from work. The store is pretty quiet at these times, and so there are usually as many employees as shoppers and so I have started interacting with the staff more.

In particular, I’ve bonded with this one girl Katy who’s almost always there on weeknights after work. I now get disappointed if she’s not there. She helped me use a function of the store I didn’t even know existed. We’ll always talk about my latest projects and she give me suggestions for what to buy (especially in areas I’m not as familiar with like Bionicle) which have always been helpful. So Monday I went in and I picked up a couple things from the front displays and then ran into her. I pulled out my laptop and showed her what I had finished of the anti-green commercial (everything but the part that says “Green is the worst color ever!”) and I explained that I was stumped as to what exactly I was going to do for that part. “Maybe I’ll have a bunch of really fast vignettes of green monsters/disasters?” She expressed her regret that they didn’t have the Army Soldiers set in stock and then she lit up and said “I think I have something! I’ll be back in a couple minutes.” And then she ran off to the back of the store. I browsed for a little while and then she returned with a veritable bag of delights. She handpicked these awesome green parts from the spare parts they have lying around in the back room. Many of these pieces are rare, everything on the right was new to me. It would have been very expensive to buy these pieces through bricklink or through the sets they come in.

I then got to fill up the rest of bag with the regular Pick-A-Brick pieces and then paid $8 for the whole thing. That’s an amazing deal - best shopping experience of my life. I guess it pays to talk to store employees. And of course, armed with those incredible pieces it became immediately clear what the last bits of the animation would be. Thanks Katy!

2) Jenny and Leo got me this Dark Chocolate Dreams LINK peanut butter for Christmas. I finally got around to tasting it this week. I bought a bag of mini-bagels specifically so I’d have something to spread it on. It’s amazing!! The bag of mini-bagels was gone by the end of the week.

3) This week was the first week our student employees were back in the office since before the move so I got to play tour guide half a dozen times. I quickly honed my spiel and was soon telling the same jokes and gesturing in the same ways each time. It was fun to be the one to show off the swanky new office.
Dana stopped by the office one afternoon so I gave her the tour as well and we sat around and chatted for a while too. It’s a bummer she’s back in LA now, but Bert and I will be seeing her when we’re out there in March so no need to fret.

4) On Tuesday Bert came over for dinner I introduced him to the joys of Potato Flag and 30 Rock. Mmm… Potato Flag.

5) Had a good phone call with my parents in which my mom recounted the crazy trip she took with Jenny to take Isaiah to a pediatric foot doctor in which she was throwing windshield fluid on the windshield using a little plastic water bottle every few minutes. I also need to publish a retraction, in an earlier blog post I said than my mom kept “bringing up Bert’s age like it’s a problem.” I was mistaken. She really had just forgotten, she went on to say how her father was 11 years younger than her mother, so if anything there’s a precedent for that in the family. Also, apparently my Dad’s parents were engaged for 19 years before getting married!? Who knew?

6) Went to Bert’s for dinner on Thursday, he made Shake and Bake Porkchops (and I did indeed help, despite just waking up from a nap on his couch, there’s a terrible photo somewhere to prove it) greenbeans and cornbread muffins. It was all good, but I ate about a dozen of those delicious muffins. Then we watched the Hangover, which was funny than I expected, and only reaffirmed my desire never to go to Vegas. Then I help Bert take out his Christmas tree. And I do mean “take out,” his apartment looked like a murder scene when we were done. There were pine needles all over the floor leading from the dining room to the back door and a Christmas tree shaped impression in the snow below his balcony (the outline was also covered with pine needles). We tried to kick snow to cover the evidence but I’m sure that much like Bart Simpson our crime will be revealed when it melts.

Then I had him help me record Sound Effects fro the Anti-Green commercial. He voiced the kittens, one of the little kids, half the green villains, the Dwarf, the guy getting his face sucked off, half the alien chorus behind Facesuck McGee and the slime bombs (my personal favorite). Just another great thing about him.

7) On Friday we went to Café Baba Reeba, which was new to both of us. It was also incredibly delicious. It’s a Tapas style restaurant so we got 6 different dishes (not counting dessert). The spicy potatoes were my favorite, but everything was delicious. Then we went back to my place and I introduced Bert to The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time. I guided him through the first part and he got about a third of the way through the first dungeon. Man that game is awesome. It’s very exciting to watch him discover it for the first time. Hopefully he liked it enough to keep playing.

8) I had to work on Saturday, but it was not too bad thanks to Bert being awesome and lending me his car for the day, the client being awesome and organized and relaxed, the Marriot AV staff being responsive and helpful, the other 3 CMIGers who were helping me out being good independent workers and I got a fancy lunch because I was also participating as an Alumni in the creative arts.
Taking the Next Step is a program for 2nd and 3rd year students where a bunch of successful alumni come and talk about their career path. I had to film the Finance and Consulting panels and was so glad that my current job was nothing like the ones they described. Talking at the lunch table with the students and other creative alums made me realize once again how awesome my job is, even though I worked a 6 day week and stuff like that.

9) Stuff I watched/read this week. A couple cool creative projects by my friends and some other stuff:

Lindsay B Champion wrote a short story inspired by the Lovesong of J Alfred prufrock (dare I eat a peach?): Song of Spaghettios I quite like the part about the Upple middle class of attractive and desperate tone of the whole thing.
Jonh Schwartrz stars as Eurydice in this stop-animated gender-swapped tale of Orpheus & Eurydice which was completed in 48 hours
Tiffany tipped me off to this awesome blog that records the sleep mumblings of an englishman. You should read them all. Some of my favorites are ""Where do you think YOU'RE going, hmmm? I knew it. The cupboard. You and your cupboard." ""So this is what it feels like to be a gummy bear... I can't walk though, I have to rock... I think i'll call myself BerNARD. Not BERnard. BerNARD. And I'll be a golden gummy bear.""

10) Anti-Green commercial!
I launched this on Saturday morning before heading off to Taking the Next Step. I followed the comments on my iPhone in between sessions, but did not see the viewcounts going through the roof until that night. The video got mentioned on The Brothers Brick, which gave it a huge boost in views and got it noticed on some other blogs. By the end of the weekend it had more views than any of my other NNN videos (even though most of those have been up for months. To give you more perspective here is a chart of views per day on my NNN youtube account for the past two months

A lot was the week after I released On the Street with Steve Deepsea. At the time it was the most views per day I'd ever received on this account.

11) Read Men and Cartoons by Jonathan Lethem. I'd previously read a novel by him, Gun, with Occasional Music, which was one of the big inspirations for The Franky Job. This was a collection of short stories and I think better suited to some of his wacky ideas. Here are a few of my favorite parts.
This is a ridiculous poem from a story about two people who don't know each other, but keep meeting at odd places over the years.
"Oh Vivian Relf! Oh eclipse, oh pale penumbra of my yearning!
Pink slip, eviction notice, deleted icon, oh!
Stalked in alleys of my absent noons, there's nobody knows you better than I!
Translucent voracious Relf-self, I vow here
Never again once to murk you
With pallid tropes of familiarity or recognition
You, pure apparition, onion---
Veil of veils only!"
The part where he calls her onion always gets me. This next bit is an excerpt from a story involving a sheep that induces suicide in other animals.
"The Dystopianist suddenly had a vision of the Plath Sheep wandering its way into the backgroud of one of the Dire One's tales. It would go unremarked at first, a bucolic detail. Unwrapping its bleak gift of global animal suicide only after it had been taken entirely for granted, just as the Dire One's own little nuggets of despair were smuggled innocuously into his utopias. The Plath Sheep was a bullet of pure dystopian intention. The Dystopianist wanted to fire it in the Dire Utopianist's direction."
And this last one is when the author interview a giant crab who was the main character of a sitcoms in the 80s.
"Don't worry, Lehman, we'll still need historians of television comedy, or rather we'll need them again in a few dozen centuries, when crabs develop television. Your work won't be in vain."

Anti-Green Commercial

2010-01-09T16:53:00.001-06:00

Thus begins 2010

2010-01-04T20:12:00.013-06:00

1) I got the new album by Muse, “The Resistance” and have been listening to it on repeat most of the week. Muse is fast becoming one of my favorite bands. This summer when I was riding my bike to work a couple times a week I would listen to “Black Holes and Revelations” without fail on the ride south. It was upbeat and a good length, I would measure how long the ride was taking by where I was on the trail when certain songs came on.
Anyway, “The Resistance” is awesome, here’s the review that convinced me to buy it (along with hearing “Uprising,” my favorite track on the album). It’s dead on. I am lover of excess. In one song the singer goes on a 2:15 minute parenthetical tangent while in the middle of a word. How could I not love it? There are a couple moments in the album where the band seems to be stealing something (a chord, a beat) directly from Queen. Not really a problem, if anything I’d like to hear more bands attempting to emulate one of the greatest bands of all time, we could all use some more bombast.

2) On Tuesday Bert and I went over to Paul and Stephanie’s for dinner with them and Dana, who’s in town for about a week. We had Thai Curry and played this castle building game that’s simple and a lot of fun. Bert won the second time (color me proud). Mostly we just chatted and laughed and had a good time.

3) I guess there was a work week in there? I was doing a lot of unpacking & organizing while listening to Muse on repeat, so it barely even registered.

4) Then Bert and I spent two great days together. On New Year’s Eve he drove down to Hyde Park and picked me up at work. We went to Calypso for lunch (delicious!) then we went to my apartment and took a nap so I would stand a chance of staying awake to midnight. Then we met Bert’s best friend Christopher at DuChamp, a fancy restaurant in Buck Town. We had a four-course meal. The first two were good, I got some lobster mushroom pizza and then steak and a tiny quiche. The third course was a cheese plate that barely registered and the last course was a small array of desserts that ranged from poorly executed to meh. So the food was a bit underwhelming (especially considering the price of the meal), but the company was nice. I don’t think I’d go again.
Then we took a cab (it was really cold) to Clark/Division/thereabouts for the New Year’s Eve cocktail party we’d been invited to by Ben who I know from the LGBT Alumni Committee. It was pretty cramped (about 40 people in a studio apartment) and we almost left at 11:30 because I was feeling sleepy, but we met a couple new people and generally had a good time. And I was glad we decided to stick around when we all went up to the rooftop to ring in 2010. It was super cold and windy, but it was a great view of the skyline and hopefully the pictures will show that. It was a fun 10 minutes. It was nice to have someone to celebrate with. Here we all all dressed up:

5) We slept in on New Year’s (which is the whole point of the holiday IMO. Then we went to see Sherlock Holmes, which was entertaining, if not exactly what I wanted. It’s definitely an action film with a Sherlock Holmes veneer, I was hoping the trailer was misleading and had packed all the action in to those 3 minutes ala V for Vendetta. Alas this is not the case. Still, RDJ is in top form and the few moments where he is really Sherlocking it up are superb. We gave it a B-
Then we went to Target because Bert has a car and can just decide to go to Target on a whim like that (something I’m still not used to). Among other things we both got new toothbrushes so we don’t have to lug them back and forth all the time. Then we got Thai food for dinner near his place, had our first argument (which ironically was about me not being optimistic), and then talked through it. Back at his place we watched Drop Dead Gorgeous (cute an funny, Loretta is my favorite) and then I started playing through God of War on his PS2. There’s nothing quite like lying around with your boyfriend while playing through a new videogame. :)

6) January 2nd – We went and got breakfast at a place near him, “Pauline's” I think. The orange juice and French toast I got were amazing. The potatoes were okay. Then he drove me home and thus ended our amazing 2 days together. We didn’t get on each other’s nerves so I think that bodes well.

7) JJ came over that afternoon and we watched “Adventures in Babysitting” for the first time. It was gloriously campy. I think the moment the movie really came together for me is when the babysitter and her charges are on the run from a couple of generic mobsters and stumble into a Blues club and end up singing about their adventure thus far. Though the scene with Thor the auto mechanic was great too. Also when Brenda is berated by the man who lives in the telephone booth.

8) Throughout the day I watched the last disc of Angel season 4 (the last episode got me really excited for season 5) and worked on building an animation puppet for a music video I am working on in my sparest time. I copied the style from David Pagano’s Playback video. You can see a drawn version of the character in this video. The song I’m working on is Go Kartin’ from the album 93.

I spent most of the time on the head and I think my work really paid off.

9) Once I had exhausted Angel I started watching through the top ten animations of 2009 from the Animation Blog. Which is a misleading, since there are many more than 10 and they were produced in a variety of years, but just reviewed by that blog in 2009. Anyway of those, here were the ones I liked the best.
Stay in my Memory – I don’t like the song, but I love the pop-up book effect.
The Terrible Thing of Alpha 9 - Monsters are awesome.
The Year of the Dear – I’d already seen several pieces by Georges Schwizgebel, my favorite of which is still The Man without a Shadow, I think his work is best when grounded in a narrative, but I find all his stuff mesmerizing.
Lovesick – A cute little stop animated piece.
Jam Session – The clay work in this is fantastic.
Bolero (Part 1/Part 2) – An awesome video in the vein of Fantasia that’s vaguely about evolution.
Watching these filled me with all sorts of ideas for future projects (as if I didn’t have enough of those already) I did this last year too. It’s my favorite New Year’s tradition.

10) I spent a good amount of Sunday cleaning the apartment. I did the dishes, vacuumed, cleaned the bathroom (even the shower/tub) and also organized some things like my cds/dvds and lego instructions. Feels good to start off the year clean. Then I did a little animating, the end result of which you will see very soon.

FYI, I was listening to “The Resistance” the entire time I composed this post (which I now do during my commute).

Inside my doppelganger's studio

2010-01-04T15:49:00.002-06:00

We know he's the evil one since he has a goatee.

My Norman Rockwellian Christmas

2009-12-24T21:13:00.014-06:00

1) I had a short week at work, much of which was spent unpacking. Here are some photos I took of our new office space. Here's the entrance to our suite which has our big shiny acronym on the wall.

This it the hallway where most of the offices are. It has some chairs for sitting.

This is my desk. Look at the fancy track lighting.

I had more pictures, but they were all pretty barren/depressing. Once we're more fully moved in maybe I'll post some more.

2) OMGMYBFFJILL!!! “The Attic” (latest episode of Dollhouse) was so awesome. Echo and Dominic chase a killer through the minds of Victor and Sierra (and others) who are trapped in repeating nightmares. Secrets are revealed, and our heroes rally for the coming fight against Rossum. Only 3 more episodes to go I’m sure they will be action-packed.

3) On Tuesday Bert made me dinner again (salmon and couscous) and drove me home so I could finish packing before work the next day. He's so good to me :)

4) Got home with no major delays, despite the weather being bad in Chicago and tons of flights being cancelled. Somehow mine got through with only a short delay at the terminal and since I was on the plance already I slept through it so it was basically non-existent. Alright, now I’m going to recount the details of my trip home. Rather than have this list burgeon to 30 things I will list them as subpoints. I think I have things on the right days, it all blurs together a little. (A wonderful blur, of course.)

5) Christmas Eve
• Waking up after 10
• Sledding and playing in the snow with Jenny, Leo, Isaiah and Mom. I only have this video, but I'm sure Jenny and Mom have pictures they will share soon (hint hint). My favorite parts were racing down the hill vs. Leo and Jenny&Isaiah and when Mom went down and almost crashed into her trees.
• Good food - Asparagus soup (even if Stephanie hates it) - Brisket – Christmas Cookies
• Being together with the family
• The one gift I opened was Fluxx from Jenny and Leo. I previously played this with Robert, but the edition I got is slightly newer. It was still pretty crazy. Playing with 6 people, the rules could change entirely and back again in between your turns so we all learned not to try to keep track of them until it was our turn. It was a lot of fun.
• Then we watched a couple episodes of “How I Met your Mother” Season 1, which I had gotten for Jenny and Leo. Neil Patrick Harris is hilarious.

6) Christmas
• Got lots of awesome presents – 1st Season of 30 Rock, Wii Fit Plus, A Boy and His Blob (next game for Stephanie and I), Boom Blox Bash Party, a whole bunch of legos, battery powered speakers, the obligatory socks, a photo book of our trips to the shore, and this cool veggie peeler that comes from a whole line of kitchen utensils that look like people.
• Cinnamon rolls for breakfast
• Beat New Super Mario Brothers Wii with JP
• Had a delicious dinner with Turkey, Mashed Potato Casserole, Zucchini thing, Jenny and Leo’s cranberry sauce, sweet potato fries etc.
• After Isaiah was in bed we had pie and watched a couple episodes of Dollhouse.
• After the rest of my family was asleep, I headed down to the basement to my satellite studio and animating the first scene for the upcoming Anti-Orange commercial.

7) Boxing Day
• Got to see Talya for a couple hours in the afternoon.
• We had salmon and spinach rice for dinner – twas delicious.
• Put together one of the models of the Family House set that Jenny and Leo got me. I then fell asleep on the floor. It’s been ages since I’ve fallen asleep on the floor by accident. I was roused from my nap when I heard my mom talking to someone about how I had fallen asleep on the floor at which point I moved to the couch and completed my nap.
• Then Veronica came over and we caught up a little and then watched the final 2 episodes of Dollhouse Season 1 with my family. Epitaph 1 is still incredible, even the third time through.
• After my family went to sleep Veronica and I sat around talking for several hours. We talked about Joss Wheedon and his many shows. Then I was telling her about some of my long term plans for NNN and said “surely you also have big elaborate plans in your head for a sweeping epic story.” And of course she does, and then I convinced her to walk me through the main arcs for the first 4 seasons or so. It was awesome. Now I just have to bug her to make something with it.

8) Sunday the 27th
• Adam came over after lunch and we spent the rest of the day together. It had been more than a year since we last saw each other and with him living in Sweden, the opportunities to see one another are few are far between. So that in itself was nice, but then we proceeded to awesome things.
• We put together the LEGO submarine my parents got for me . Then we promptly took it apart and built some alternative models. We each worked on a monster or two on our own and then we tried combining them and ended up trading parts and refining each other’s work until we ended up with these three creatures.

• Then Adam and I worked together to animate a scene for the Anti-Green commercial. It’s been a long time since I animated with anyone. It was nice to have someone to run ideas past and to have another set of hands that could focus on a character in a multi-character scene. (The scene has 3 cheerful children, 4 sneaky snakes, and 1 giggling goblicaun)
• Adam joined my family for dinner – we had leftovers galore.
• Then I introduced Adam to Super Mario Brothers Wii. I took him through levels from a few worlds to show off some of the various powers Then we played through world 7 which my brother and I warped past. We had a lot of fun helping and thwarting each other. Then we went back and found some missing star coins to unlock parts of world 9. Lots of fun.
• Then we called up Jeremy and went over to his dad’s house to hang out. We played a round of Fluxx and Grave Robbers from Outer Space and then we sat around talking for a couple hours. It was good to catch up; I hadn’t seen or spoken to Jeremy for two years. Nice to know he’s still doing well. His girlfriend is also 33 years old - so I was able to tell that to mom, since she keeps bringing up Bert’s age like it’s a problem. ;)

9) I flew back to Chicago Monday afternoon. Getting through check-in and security took as long as you’d expect, so I had barely sat down at the terminal when it was time to board the plane. It was nice getting home early in the evening. It gave me time to unpack and unwind and prepare for the week. I watched the penultimate disk of Angel Season 4 while eating dinner, unpacking, and building the main model of the Family House that Jenny and Leo got me. A nice relaxing evening.

10) I know what you’re thinking, “That’s strange, Dave did a whole update about going home and being with his family and he barely mentioned his nephew.” But I’ve saved the best for last. :) I already mentioned that we went sledding on Christmas Eve Day, and of course there was an obligatory session of Baby Baby Baby Sliiiiide, but there were also a whole new host of games we played. In between all the other things I listed I spent a good amount of my time with Isaiah:
• Running around the first floor with Isaiah while saying “Beep beep”
• Playing with the Little People “Main Street” set. In addition to rolling cars down the ramp and taking them through the “car wash,” we also took the babies (Baby with a hat and Baby with no hat) to get ice cream and to go grocery shopping. I could not convince him that the bank or the post office were worth visiting, maybe next time.
• After I had built the Family Home alternate model, I had had a bunch of pieces left over. Isaiah asked if he could help with the house. We built a red bathtub and then he decided it would be fun to drive his red car through the big pile of legos. So he would drive the car through (each time proclaiming “Red Car - Splaaaash!” and “That was the biggest splash ever!” and then we would put the pile back together and do it again. And then after the biggest splash of them all we worked together to find all the pieces and put them back in the box.
• Isaiah got two Bob the Builder DUPLO sets, which he was very excited about. So there were some good times playing with them.
• There were also several games of hide and seek, although Isaiah did not always get that the place you hide is supposed to be secret, instead proclaiming loudly where he wanted to hide next.
• Of course he proclaimed a lot of things through out the holiday. Such as “Merry Christmas Uncle Dave!” “Christmas Cookies!” (to which my brother would respond “Christmas Monkey?”) “Hello in there!” (to the pits of his olives) and “A-men!” (after hearing Dad say it at dinner.
• He was definitely into opening presents this year. Here’s a video of him helping Jenny open one and another one of him finding a very special present from his grandparents.

This was the week to be blogged apparently

2009-12-15T00:15:00.010-06:00

1) Let's talk about all the ridiculous blog coverage Helios has received. First it was blogged by The Living Brick, a blog that focuses on more organic creations and things that fall outside the typical theme divisions. Then it got picked up by The Brothers Brick, the most read LEGO blog in existence (I think) which meant hundreds more views on the flickr page. Then, it was criticized (along with several other recent posts on TBB) by Twee Affect, a LEGO blog that doesn’t pull any punches. I guess it’s possible that it showed up in even more places, but this was the only arc that passed through the section of the Blogosphere I monitor regularly. I thought it was interesting.

2) As I said in the title, this was the week to be blogged. In addition to the 3 separate blogs that mentioned Helios, NNN got 3 separate posts on Brickspace. This is the first blog coverage I’ve seen of NNN, so it’s very exciting. Glad to see it getting attention that I didn't generate myself.

3) While I’m talking about NNN and it's slowly expanding audience I should mention that "On the Street with Steve Deepsea" has garnered enough attention to be eligible for the YouTube partner revenue sharing program. I submitted the application, if approved, there will be ads displayed on the video and I will get a percentage of the revenue. We'll see how that all goes. I doubt it will amount to much, but it's a start. Maybe some day far in the future NNN will even be profitable...

4) Before we get to that stage though, I continue to pour money into it. I recently ran some test ads on YouTube and Facebook. YouTube ads were far more cost effective. I never paid more than a few cents per click. Facebook ads averaged around a quarter per click, however I was able to target those ads to very specific demographics. For instance my last ad campaign was only displayed to people on Facebook who work for the LEGO Group (a very important market in my opinion).

5) Stephanie and I defeated two more kings in the king game. We are well on our way to world domination.

6) On Tuesday I had bert over for dinner. I made peppercorn chicken and asparagus. He seemed to like it. :)

7) Since I worked Saturday, I got to take Wednesday off. Bert was kind enough to lend me his car so I could finish christmas shopping. I went to Gaymart and got him tiny rainbow disco ball ornaments and a batmobile (tumbler) ornament, then I went to target and got Isaiah an R2D2 play-doh playset and got some clothes and such for myself and then I swung by Trader Joe's and loaded up on delicious things. So it was a very full day of running errands.

8) We moved our office this week. (I'll post pictures after the new year) so most of this week was spent packing and unpacking. There were unexpected difficulties, but mostly it was a pretty painless move. I still had Bert's car on Thursday and Friday so it was very easy to get to the new space.

9) On Friday Bert and I went to see Avatar in 3D. It wasn't great, but the theater experience was pretty great. It's called ShowPlace Icon and it just opened that night. We got VIP tickets, which means we got access to a special lounge and had reserved seats on a separate tier of the theater. The seats were really comfy and had gigantic armrests. All the staff was very helpful, I recommend it, just find a better movie than Avatar to see there.
Then we went back to his place and I helped him decorate his Christmas tree. I should have taken a picture. Oh that reminds me, people have been asking for a picture of Bert here. I stole this one from facebook:

Isn't he a cutie?

10) On Saturday we had brunch at Tweet. Twas tasty. Then he helped me make the chocolate dipped almond-butter cookies with sprinkles that my family makes every Christmas. We took them over to Paul and Stephanie's for the Holiday cookie party they were hosting. We went over to have dinner with them Craig and Ashley and one of Ashley's friends. Bert got to meet some of my friends and vice versa so that was exciting and all the food and cookies and wines were delicious. OM NOM NOM.

11) Also! Presents! Bert got me fancy wine glasses (by which I mean actuall wine glasses instead of the plastic ones I got from Target 4 years ago), a bottle of Gewurztraminer, and a year's subscription to Time Out Chicago (so I can know about things happening in the city and thus plan good dates). Stephanie got me Super Mario Chess, mostly because the figures are awesome and she wants me to make animations with them where Bowser always wins (as well he should).

This blog is two years old

2009-12-14T06:53:00.007-06:00

1) Bert and Stephanie and I got dinner together at the little Indian Buffet by my house. It was the first time they were meeting and I wanted to make sure they approved of each other, being my boyfriend and my best friend. They hit it off, which wasn’t a surprise, but was still very nice. Also, I love that Indian Buffet.

2) The next day Bert had me over and made me dinner (I helped cut things up). It was a pasta dish with braised collard greens chicken, tomatoes, garlic olive oil, spices etc. preceded by an apple and fennel salad. It was very tasty and I even got a Tupperware full to take for lunch the next day.

3) I commuted down the Red Line with Bert the next morning and was able to nap next to him until Monroe; it was a very nice way to start the day.

4) I finally saw Citizen Kane. It was good. I won’t deny that. Best movie ever? Dubious. I know it was revolutionary when it came out and all that, but there have been nearly 70 years of films since then, plenty of time to make improvements. I’ll use the same analogy I made to Tiffany when talking about it the following day at work: the original Mario 64 was groundbreaking at the time but Super Mario Galaxy is undeniable a better game. Video games are not the same as movies, but I think the point holds.

5) I’m really proud of this green meteor I made.

6) On Friday Bert and I went to Pizza Capri by my house, where I got the rosemary chicken and potato pizza I love so much. SO MUCH!!!

7) Bert let me use his car to drive to work and back on Saturday so I didn’t have to use a Zipcar. He’s so good to me.

8) We went to a party together at his best friend’s house on Saturday night. It was immaculately laid out. I got to meet a bunch of Bert’s friends which was nice and in general I had a good time.

9) Sunday morning we got brunch at The Golden Nugget restaurant by him.

10) I made Paul an awesome Christmas present:
A) Paul loves hippos.
B) I reverse engineered this lego hippo made by another AFOL
C) I built the hippo in Lego Digital Designer

D) Designed a box

E) Ordered the set

This is the first time I’ve tried the Design by Me program. It costs about twice as much as I’d expect that set to cost if it was part of LEGO’s regular product line, but that’s to be expected when you consider it comes in a custom box, with custom building instructions and that the pieces have to picked out specifically. It will also take a couple weeks to get, but I think it will be worth the wait.

I ordered a Piñatapotomus for myself so I can thoroughly inspect the packaging and document the experience for my fellow AFOLs. :)

It's official

2009-12-07T01:13:00.016-06:00

1) I released the new NNN video. The first couple days after I put a new video out are always exciting because I get an e-mail every time someone adds a comment on youTube, or responds to the post I put on EuroBricks, Bricks in Motion, MOCpages, FaceBook, etc. Mmm… feedback.

2) We had an all staff meeting with awesome Pizza Capri pizza (Vendure and rosemary potato and chicken) and homemade frozen-yogurt. Delicious!

3) Deadlines are slipping on the client side, so I don’t feel so bad about being so far behind (for the moment at least).

4) Not having to stay late Friday or come-in Saturday. Go student workers! Man, remember a couple years ago, when not working ridiculous hours was something I put as a wonderful thing on a regular basis? I’m so glad we’re beyond that.

5) We had out second LGBT Alumni event on Wednesday. It was at In Fine Spirits, which is only a couple blocks from Bert’s place. I took him as my date. It was very nice having someone to escape to/with and who would hold my drink so I could eat the appetizers. JJ was there, so he and Bert got to meet too. Yay!

6) On Friday night Bert took me as his date to a Christmas dessert party one of his co-workers was throwing. I got to meet some of his work friends and the desserts were excellent. Also, the people throwing the party had a very cute dog and three-year-old son who I got to play with. None of the other adults seemed interested in bouncing a ball with the kid; I don’t know what their problem is. The kid said to me, “Are you Steve?” I informed him that I was not, but in fact I was Dave. He seemed disappointed. Steve must be awesome.

7) Saturday morning we had a nice lazy morning lying in bed. I had to get up to deal with work stuff over my cell phone (but at least I didn’t have to go to Hyde Park). We also had some good talks where we agreed that we were officially boyfriends. Yay! Then we got breakfast at Clarke’s. Lovely.

8) Stephanie came over that afternoon and we watched through the 2 new episodes of Dollhouse and played through a bunch of the awesome king game. Season 2 of Dollhouse is so awesome, all the stuff with Summer Glau was awesome and Topher + Victopher was almost beyond words. The main plot with the Senator was pretty exciting and used Echo and Ballard in appropriate and not too obnoxious ways.

9) In fact it was a weekend of television. I also caught up on Glee, 30 rock, and Community. And I watched some Angel for good measure.

10) I finally got around to taking pictures of my recent lego creations and posting them in the appropriate places, allow me to share:

I also got caught up in an impromptu building session, which led to a set for the next NNN video. Productivity can be so much fun.

Thanksgiving 2009

2009-12-07T01:13:00.012-06:00

1) This was an even shorter week at work! But I still managed to accomplish a bunch of stuff. Enough about work.

2) My parents drove in Wednesday afternoon. I met them at their hotel downtown and then we drove up to my place and got dinner at Leona's. It was delicious as usual. We got a different type of bruschetta (a word that that's not in FireFox's dictionary apparently) that was delicious and I got the Romano chicken and pasta. My parent's split a pizza and I took the leftovers of mom's spinach pizza and had it a few days later. Mmmm... Then we went to the grocery store and got all the stuff for dinner the next day.

3) We decided not to do a turkey this year, because it's such a hassle. Instead we had salmon - we still made the mashed potato casserole though. We also had asparagus and the mashed hash browns and what not. Everything was wonderful, I was eating left over potatoes for a week. It was a relatively simple, delicious meal.

4) J-P and I played through a good deal of New Super Mario Brothers Wii. We occasionally helped one another out, but mostly we got in the way of one another's jumps and threw each other into enemies (and vice versa) stole power ups. It is totally awesome. The penguin suit and helicopter mushroom are great and the levels have been fun and only occasionally obnoxious.

5) Thanksgiving night I stayed at the hotel with my family. They were in connecting rooms, so we had the doors open while we each did our own thing (J-P and I were on our laptops, mom was quilting and dad was watching TV) while being together. And I got to sleep in a bed with a ridiculous number of pillows and have the breakfast buffet with my parents in the morning and then take a nap while they went shopping on Michigan Ave.

6)In the hotel room I finished reading “Seymour an Introduction,” which I had been working on for the prior week. Now I’ve read all of J.D. Salinger’s published work. It’s too bad that Catcher in the Rye is his most famous work - I think it’s his weakest. His short stories and novellas are much better. Franny and Zoey is probably the best, it is the best expression of the themes he explores in all his work. But I think Nine Stories and Raise High the Roofbeam, Carpenters are also great and I recommend them.
Seymour an Introduction though, well, I think it might be my favorite, but I don’t necessarily recommend it. If you read all his other novellas and are not turned off by the slowness, lack of action and indulgences of the narrator, then you can consider it. Basically it’s a narrator let loose, with only scraps of story to anchor him. Because I am fascinated by any character who is even remotely aware of the fact that they are a character in a story, narrators have always fascinated me as characters. This is why Halloween is my favorite song from Rent. Of course it’s rare that narrators ever spend a lot of time ruminating about themselves and their status as narrators. Usually they get on with the business of telling the story and sometimes disappear altogether as the story goes on. So for me, Seymour was a rare treat, but I can see how others would find it tedious and frustrating.

7) I also finished Angel season 3 that night. I have to say, it was an excellent season. Much of that is due to Amy Acker and Andy Hallett being around a lot, but I also thought that the arcs all played out nicely and there were a lot of good individual episodes as well. When I finish with Angel I’m going to make a guide of what episodes are worth watching (mostly for Lila’s benefit) and right now season 3 is the only season I would recommend as a whole with a few episodes skipped as opposed to vice versa.

8)On Friday we went to see “A Serious Man.” It was pure Coen brothers from start to finish. Meaning there were a lot of crazy characters in funny situations, a healthy helping of music and dream sequences, moral gray areas, and while there was certainly progress, it ends without closure. I recommend it.

9)Then we went to Glenn's Diner for dinner. My parents had eard about it on the show Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. It is a unique mix of diner food and fresh seafood. I got one of the menu items that spanned the divide – the Apple Jacks encrusted tilapia. It was delicious. I would definitely go there again. My parents and brother went back to the hotel and then made their way back to PA in the morning. It was a nice couple of days with them and then I had a full weekend left.

10) Had a relaxed weekend in which I a) watched Mysterious Skin. I totally dug the ambiance of the film, the music and colors were phenomenal and the performances were good too, but it’s not really a pleasant movie to watch. b) finished animating the new NNN video c) went to Paul and Stephanie’s to eat raisin thing and watch the last 3 episodes of the Wire. The Wire is awesome and I recommend it with every fiber of my being. It is some of the television I have ever watched. I won’t say it’s the best because it’s hard to compare it with Arrested Development for instance, they are such different types of shows. Watch them both.

Weird formatting is from typing this on the train in Word

2009-12-07T01:12:00.006-06:00

1) Okay, let’s talk about Bert. I mentioned him briefly a couple posts ago, but things have been going really well and it doesn’t seem right that you (the anonymous Reader) know so little about him. So let’s get right down to it:

The basics – he’s 33, works doing marketing for Hyatt, grew up in a small farming town in southern Indiana (just outside of Louisville, Kentucky), went to Knox College, currently lives up in Andersonville, has one sister and prefers dogs to cats.

Now that we’ve got the census data out of the way, let me tell about who he is. Being from the borderlands of the South, he has a slight but noticeable accent and is an absolute gentleman. He holds open doors for me and has even pulled out my chair for me when we go to a restaurant. It flusters me every time, but it’s very sweet. He is a little sassy, by which I mean he’s chatty and opinionated and teasing, but he’s not mean or catty like those stereotypes you see on TV (and in real life). He’s really a sweetheart. When we’re a lone together the sass is negligible. :)

He’s a little bit of a nerd, though he’s in the nerd closet to some extent. I think he just hasn’t been around enough nerds. Me, I haven’t been around non-nerds much in the past 6 years, so I’m not used to someone being reluctant to admit they love Star Trek. He also has been very coy about his interest in video games and photography. So I’m doing what I can to coax him out in to the open. Things are going well. This is easily the best romantic relationship I’ve been in (though it doesn’t have much competition).

He also has a good sense of humor and is always making me smile. :)

2) We went on a date on Wednesday to Chilam Balam, a tapas style Mexican restaurant near my place. Everything we had was good, but pricey considering the quantities. Then we got a drink at SideTrack, and then we kissed a little. :)

3) On Friday we went to Antica Pizza in Andersonville and then went to his place and watched Star Trek: First Contact. What an awesome movie. I stayed over and the next morning we went to the Ann Sather’s up there (OMG Cinnamon Rolls). Have I been to all the Ann Sather’s locations now? Anyway, it was a very nice time and definitely helped me forget about work for a while.

4) On Tuesday I went to Stehpanie’s and we had delicious chicken gyros from that place on Cornelia & Broadway. We watched last week's television on Hulu and the new Doctor Who special. Creepy water monsters are creepy and megalomania doesn’t really work out for the Doctor.

5) On Thursday Stephanie came over to my place and we played more of the awesome King Game and ordered in from Pockets.

6) On Sunday Night Paul and Stephanie had a big potluck Thanksgiving Dinner. I say potluck, but they made all of the essentials – extremely juicy turkey (you don’t even know how goods it was [unless you were there] – best turkey ever) stuffing (of the stuffed and unstuffed varieties, Smashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, rolls, etc. Jake brought sweet potatoes and there were lots and lots of desserts. I focused on the sweet potato pie, but there was a lot of deliciousness happening. I’m sure I’m missing some food, but the point is there was a lot of it and it was all wonderful. (I had a lot of good eating this week.)

7) I animated! Not sure exactly what parts I did, but it was stuff for On The Street.

8) Season 3 of Angel is legitimately good. They’ve got enough regular cast members now that they can really do the weaving overlapping stories that Joss Whedon shows do so well. It’s no surprise this floundered for so long. I’m glad it found it’s footing though. Now I actually pay attention to it as it plays instead of just having it as background noise while I build lego stuff.

9) The weather was pretty warm this weekend, I did a bunch of laundry and went for a bike ride.

10) You’ll notice I didn’t talk about work this week. It wasn’t a pleasant week by any means. Josh was fired, which was a long time coming, but not really fun. At least is was a short week. Oh I also had fun editing this Logan Ceremony highlights video

NYC Vacation - Fall 2009

2009-12-06T14:55:00.010-06:00

Nov 13-17 I took a long weekend vacation to New York City to see some friends, record some lego voices, and generally just get away from my life for a while. It was excellent.

My flight was delayed on Friday due to the tail end of a heavy rainstorm on the east coast. Southwest was kind enough to call my cell phone and inform me of the delay. Except I was already at the airport when they called. I used the extra couple hours to take a nice series of naps at the terminal. I didn’t mind, unlike Tiffany I feel very safe and comfortable at airports so as long as it isn’t an egregious delay, I can usually amuse myself for the extra time.

When I did finally get in, my doppelganger, David Pagano, met me at the airport. (You may remember we hung out at Brickworld this summer) Why is he my doppelganger you ask? True, we don’t look that much alike, however our names are both David Michael P_____, we’re about the same age and we both spend a great deal of our time making stop-animation movies with lego bricks. In fact, last year we tied for second place in this lego animation contest. Of course, he has gone a step further than me, and is actually getting paid by the LEGO Group to make animations (he did 6 awesome Space Police Videos throughout the summer - this is the first). Several of my friends have suggested I need to kill him and take his place, but since this is not Highlander, I think I’ll hold off on that.

So he met me at the airport and we caught up while taking a bus and a couple trains from Queens to Manhattan to Brooklyn and then walking from Brooklyn back into Queens (which made me appreciate my straightforward commute) to get to his animation studio. His studio is his old bedroom in his parents’ house. His parents must be even more generous and accommodating than mine, in addition to the studio proper, there were lego sets in every corner of the living room, strewn over the dining room table, and hiding in various nooks and crannies in the kitchen. The studio itself was a sight to behold (and I realize now, I should have taken pictures), the windows were blacked out, he had a nice big worktable, a computer desk in the corner and drawers and boxes of lego piled high in every other available space.

He showed me sneak peaks of the new stuff he’s working on for LEGO (my lips are sealed of course) and let me my play around with the models he had used to make them (I only broke them a little). He talked the process of working with the LEGO group on official animations; I made him show me how he organizes his pieces, etc. Then I had him record a couple voices, he’s the wolfpack fan in my latest video and he’ll be The Toymaster General in a video which should be out in Spring. After that he rode back into Manhattan with me and then we parted ways at Union station. All in all it was a really awesome afternoon filled with LEGO goodness.

Then I headed down to Wall Street to meet up with yet another David (there really are quite a few of us). David Massant lived in my dorm and shared an apartment building with me in college. He now works on Wall Street for Deutsche Bank. I got to his apartment about 8 PM on Friday and didn’t go outside again until about 2 in the afternoon on Sunday. In those 42 hours I watched TV and ate food and slept and talked. On Friday, David, his boyfriend Michael and his roommate Puvin ( I think that's how it's spelled...) introduced me to Firefly Vodka. This tea infused vodka is so tasty, it is very easy to drink excessive amounts without realizing it. This may or may not be what happened on Friday. Saturday morning and afternoon we were all recovering and then preparing for a Mexican potluck with their friends that evening. After dinner we ended up watching a bunch of funny youtube videos. Sunday was a very calm morning and I used the time to do some stuff on the internet. It was a very nice relaxing couple of days.

Then I headed up to Chelsea and met Lila at her apartment. About 20 minutes before I arrived she got an e-mail from her boss (at the Huffington Post) about a new work schedule that involved her working a lot of nights and weekends, never having 2 consecutive days off, and a schedule that alternated every other week. In short, a really terrible schedule that she didn’t feel like was sustainable for her. Using the lessons I had learned from my recent negotiations to get out of my promotion at work I was able to help her think about how to respond and work with her boss and co-workers to create a schedule that worked for everyone’s needs. It was nice to help her out and it made me appreciate how good I have it at my job.

About an hour after I arrived Eric came over, we went to the local video rental store and picked up Howl’s Moving Castle for later and then accompanied Lila to home depot so she could make a copy of her building key. She spent a lot of the walk on the phone talking about her terrible new schedule and Eric and I used that time to catch up.

Back at her apartment we threw a log on her fire, ordered some amazing Chinese take-out (spicy chicken, shrimp and noodles, pork dumplings, beef and green beans) and prepared ourselves for a voiceover recording session. The majority of the recording session we spent working out the Trifacto Jones song. It was really a team effort. I had written the song and come up with the basic tune ahead of time, but Eric’s conducting was essential to getting the timing and annunciation down and Lila’s soloing made the opening verses much more dynamic. We listened back to that and some stuff we’d recorded the last time I was in New York and that lead to creating Steven Mitchell and figuring out the voice for Rhonda Rhododendron. We really enjoyed ourselves. Eric and I were laughing so hard we kept messing up Lila’s recording.

Then we watched Howl's Moving Castle. This was the second time I watched it and I remembered the plot being a little confused, but I thought it would be easier to follow the second time through. It was still a mess. The first hour is really tightly done, after that it stats to fall apart. Still, it’s a Miyazaki film, so you’re so enchanted by the music and animation that you let things like plot chasms go. Afterward we went around the block to a diner for dessert. I got a big brownie w/ ice cream, whipped cream and fudge. It was awesome. Eric went home after that.

Lila and I watched some Arrested Development. Including “Pier Pressure,” which I will never tire of watching. After she went to sleep I stayed up and caught up on blog (only to immediately fall behind again…) The next day we got some delicious sandwiches – mine was turkey, brie, thin slices of granny apple and something else delicious. Hers was also good, the only ingredient I remember is cabbage. Then we saw Fantastic Mr. Fox which was delightful. We walked uptown so she could pick something up from a department store and then we parted ways at the subway station. I got to LaGuardia and back to Chicago with no troubles. A wonderful vacation through and through.

NNN Episode 1.5 - On the Street with Steve Deepsea

2009-12-03T10:06:00.000-06:00

The last month

2009-11-15T00:34:00.011-06:00

* Update 11/16/2009 * This post is completely finished!
So I know I've been AWOL for a while. I'll blame work for that, though it's not like I couldn't have made time to update the blog, I just chose to use my limited free-time watching TV instead. But I'll try to bring you up to speed on my life.

Oct 10-18
I was on vacation with my family. We went to the NJ shore again (same house as June) even though it was Autumn. There were a couple nice days, though even then we didn't really go into the water. But we had wonderful time playing in the sand with Isaiah and going to the boardwalk and watching Dollhouse and taking naps and reading books (I read Lamb-tis awesome).
I also was able to get a fair bit of animation done. Here's the set-up I managed in my room at the beach house.

We left the beach house early because of an impending storm and ended up spending the end of the week at my parent's house. There I was able to use my dad's legos for backgrounds. I also got to see Veronica (we went to Perkins, surprise surprise) for a few hours. But I know what you're thinking, "Dave' that's great and all, but what we really want are to see more videos of your adorable nephew. That's the only reason we read your blog." Fair enough. Here we are talking at the beach house:

And here we are back at NanaLinda and PapaJack's house playing BabyBaby

Then I returned to Chicago and things were not so relaxed and wonderful. Robert and I broke up (though we hadn't been dating all that long, so it's not a big deal, just a little unfortunate). I had dinner at Handlebar with Krista before she moved out of Chicago for the next few months.

Oct 19-25
This week was full of events. Paul and Stephanie had a board-game party on Tuesday. On Thursday the UChicago LGBT Alumni had our first event. I videotaped it. After the reception I ended up going out to dinner with a gaggle of gay men (we went to Nookies Tree - I had banana nut pancakes). I had a great time quoting Clue and talking about Star Trek, Star Wars, and other nerdy things with a guy named Bert (who is not an alum, but friends with several). You'll hear about him later. On Friday I went to a LUDO concert w/ Stephanie, Ashley and Craig (Ashley's fiance). We had dinner at Pompeii (very good) and were pleasantly surprised by the one opening band we were there for (Ha Ha Tonka). It was a very good night.
That week's Dollhouse episode was also amazing (Belonging). Possibly the best episode yet. It's sad that Dollhouse has been canceled, but I'm glad it at least got two seasons. Hopefully Joss will have enough notice to end the series in a satisfying manner. I also watched the end of Angel Season 2 and the beginning of season 3. Amy Acker showed up and started stealing every scene - I am not complaining.

Oct 26-Nov 1
This is the week I almost quit work. Luckily I have awesome friends who helped talk me through things.= and come up with a plan that was better than quitting. I'm not going to go into the details of how everything played out because none of it was really wonderful, but in the end I decided not to quit, so that's good.
Stephanie and I have been playing Little King's Story and it's really awesome. We hung out Saturday night and watched 30 rock and Community and Arrested Development and ate Yogen Fruz and Ginger Pear Muffins. Are you jealous? You should be. On Sunday we saw Where the Wild Things Are. I thought it was great A+. Stephanie and I make such good choices together.
Saturday evening I went to Tiffany's place and watched The Nightmare before Christmas with her and Seth and had pizza and hot apple cider. I had a nice lazy Sunday and downloaded Lost Winds 2 and played through that. Had dinner with Max sometime this week. On wednesday I didn't go to work and got ot run errands and but a ridiculous winter hat. Described like this, it sounds like a pretty good week. I guess that's the point of this blog to focus on the awesome and forget the obnoxious stuff.

Nov 2-8
At work I finished a couple big projects and things were progressing on the big issues. The weekend was really nice and warm. I went for my first bike ride in a long while. I made a couple cool lego creations - revised the Sun Monster and built a Phil Brickley cube dude to accompany Sherry. Pictures later.
I met Bert to see American Primitive. It was really good (the end was a little hokey and hand-wavey). Then we went for Ethiopian at Demera.
And I enjoyed this article about lego nomenclature.

Nov 9-12
We had a big event (unveiling of the designs for the new arts center) with a webcast this week that I was in charge of and it went off with only one hitch. That's practically hitchless! And also it was a hitch outside of our control. Logan Arts event went well
Had dinner with Max again. There is a plan in place at work for hiring more people and growing over the next couple years. Hopefully this round of restructuring will actually improve the situation in the office instead of making it much much worse. And it was only a 4 day week before my vacation to New York City! Woohoo! So yeah. Now you're more or less caught up. :)

Week of Doom

2009-10-18T18:14:00.004-05:00

Then we had the Week of Doom at work. Meaning it was a whole bunch of big events happening all at once.

1) Thankfully no current faculty members won Nobel Prizes. Otherwise my week would have been even crazier than it already was.

2) I drove to work almost every day this week. The office rented me a car two days in case a faculty member did win and then I would have had to drive to their house at 6 AM to interview them. Driving frequently made me glad I don't own a car and drive on a regular basis. Parking is obnoxious.

3) I'm excited for Epic Mickey the concept art is really what does it for me.

4) One of the Nobel prizes made me rediscover this awesome protein synthesis video (you might want to skip the first three minutes - just boring ol' science)

5) I think I had dinner at Paul and Stephanies and it was broccoli chicken which I haven't had in ages and is delicious and we watched the Wire. But the week is mostly a blur.

6) Oh yeah, I guess we had the last wednesday night dinner with Tiffany, Seth and Krista at my place. We ate "Ithaca Artichoke Medley," sweet potato wedges and chicken piccata. Delicious.

7) This week's Dollhouse episode was great. Whoops! Accidental personality swap! I watched it while on vacation, but this week has so little going for it I will put it here.

8) I guess nothing went terribly wrong with the Week of Doom. So I guess it was the week of running around a lot, but not really Doom.

9) Sleeping Friday night after getting home from work. I was going to hang out with Robert, but then my 1 hour nap turned into a 5.5 hour slumber. I woke up confused in the middle of the night and began frantic packing.

10) Getting out of Chicago. Look for my recap of vacation coming soon.

Way Behind

2009-10-04T10:39:00.008-05:00

This week (which happened almost a month ago) was crazy. I worked long hours at work, worked on my laptop on the train to and from work and worked sending e-mails when I got home.

1) Much of my week was spent conducting interviews for our potential new student employees. Those are fun, although I always have a hard time choosing because I feel bad about not being able to hire all the qualified people. Tiffany helped me whittle it down though.

2) We had some cool videos go up this week. South Campus Residence Hall Tour, Color Vision, Chicago in 60 Seconds Promo.

3) One night I managed to get away from work and went to a networking event called: Let's create New Media in Chicago. It's a cheesy title, but I handed out a bunch of NNN cards and heard about what other people are doing (though, there were less video producers than I expected) and collected a fist full of business cards.

4) Another night I had dinner with Max at Leona's. I was a little incoherent from the work week, but we had a good conversation. He had just started his job. We also talked about a time-weighted conception of self.

5) That Friday I wanted to reward myself for getting through the week, so I stopped at the Lego store on the way home and picked up Winter Toy Shop. It's totally awesome.

6) Watched the new episode of Dollhouse. That one was probably the weakest of the season, but it was still good. Unlike last season, there's no need to skip episodes in season 2.

7) Then I went shopping to three stores I've walked past many times in the last year and thought about going into but never have. Uncle Fun is a kitschy toy and novelty shop. Paper Boy has cards and notebooks and journals and wrapping paper and origami paper and all other paper things. Candyality has big bins of candy to buy by the pound. I bought presents for Jenny, Leo and Mom and then delights to share with all. I got a wind up walking brain for my desk at work.

8) Then I went and got a haircut & bought some stuff at Gap.

9) Robert and I had dinner at a so-so mexican place but then we went to Yogen Fruz, which is always awesome.

10) Then we went back to my place and watched the Rocky Horror Picture Show, which I had never seen before. Oh my, Tim Curry!

Bust the posts out my blog

2009-09-24T01:28:00.007-05:00

1) Robert came over and we ordered Pockets and watched Bubba Ho-Tep & Howard the Duck. Bubba Ho-Tep was great. But what else would you expect from a movie with Bruce Campbell as an elderly Elvis teamed up with an old black man who thinks he's JFK fighting a mummy that is terrorizing their nursing home? Howard the Duck was awful. We were hoping it would be so terrible it was good (like Freejack) but it was just plain awful. The first five minutes were the best.

2) There's a new fad sweeping the lego fan community: Cube Dudes. I made a Sherry Tiles one and will eventually make a Phil (when I regain some free time)

3) I likes this brickfilm- "Alles ist dies noppe"

4) Best part of Episode 3 of Glee was "Bust your windows" (episode 4 of Glee was much better storywise, though no musical numbers of the same caliber)

5) Stephanie and I started playing Little King's Story. It's awesome, very much like pikmin.

6) Changes are finally starting to happen at work. Thought they aren't fun I'm still hoping they will be for the best.

7) Paul and Stephanie had an excellent Wine and Cheese party

8) I bought new shoes!

9) Went to a potluck with Robert. It started out on a roof top, but then migrated inside where there was warmth and cable and cheesecake.

10) I finally spent the money to register a domain name and started putting together a NNN website. It's still very unfinished, I've only begun to carve out the sections I want and listing some content I'd like to put there, but the overall design is more or less set. I'm very happy with the way the banner turned out. You can see what I've got so far here.

Huzzah!

2009-09-24T01:26:00.001-05:00

1) The most important item from this week is the fact that Robert and I are now dating. We went on another non-date on Thursday to the Modern Wing at the Art Institute since neither of us had been and the museum is free on Thursday nights. We saw a bunch of art. I’m not going to try to describe it here. We did not get to get across the sky bridge, sadly. Then we went to Noodles and Company and it was delicious. Then as we were waiting on the train platform I asked Robert, “So what do you think about us dating?” And he said, “I think I’m ready to give it a try. (pause) Though, I’m not entirely sure what that entails.” Well, figuring that out is the fun part.

2) Robert and I went on our very first date the very next night. Guthrie's was super crowded, so we went to Trader Todd's for karaoke night and I sang "These Boots are made for Walking" as I am wont to do. Then we went to Berlin for a little while and then we got the awkward first kiss out of the way.

3) The new South Campus dorm is awesome. I spent some time this week helping make a video tour of it. I did not operate the camera or do most of the editing, but I was there to walk around and help the videographer figure out what to capture. The place is gorgeous. I am jealous of the students who get to live there.

4) I introduced Krista, Tiffany and Seth to the glory that is Freejack. It is one of the best worst movies ever. Emilio Estevez stars as a racecar driver who is kidnapped to the dystopian future (November 2009) where he is hunted by Mick Jagger so that Anthony Hopkins mind can be transplanted in his body. Check out this must-see chase scene & a short clip from the climax.

5) I had a dream that week that involved solving a mystery (in the Mystery Machine) with Jerry Seinfeld and some assorted teens. I was describing this dream to Tiffany and Seth and we started trying to imagine who would be on my Scooby Doo dream team. (By Scooby Doo Dream Team we mean if someone was making a movie about my life and there was a dream sequence where I had to solve a mystery, who would be on that team. The question of who would be on my ideal mystery solving team is another matter entirely.)

Obviously Jerry Seinfeld is going to be on it because he was in my actual dream. The next obvious addition is Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which we later refined to Sarah Michelle Gellar so she could be both Buffy and Daphne. We were originally going to keep Scooby-Doo, but then decided to replace him with Brak. And I have to be on it since it’s my dream. We couldn’t agree on the 5^th team member. I was pushing for Carmen SanDiego, Lumiere from Beauty and the Beast also came up as an option, I would have put Jack Harkness on the team, but that would have quickly derailed the mystery solving. I welcome your suggestions.

6) I challenge you to watch this video of kids trying not to eat marshmallows and not smile.

7) We had our yearly Communications Retreat on Friday. This year it was at Navy Pier. While it was a nice way to remind us how we are all connected to a larger goal, I was disappointed that there wasn't more room for conversation about the strategy stuff. Still, the food was good and the boat cruise made for a nice afternoon.

8) "Guise will be Guise" was my favorite episode of Angel season 2 to date. Wesley pretends to be Angel, hilarity ensues.

9) On Saturday night I went with Tiffany, Seth and Stephanie to see Mike Birbiglia. He's hilarious. Here's one of the stories he told during the routine we saw.

10) Then we went to Yogen Fruz. So delicious.

Pro-Green Commercial

2009-09-21T08:15:00.002-05:00

You've probably already seen this, but now it's officially released. :)

Hiking is awesome

2009-09-12T23:25:00.009-05:00

1) The best part of putting up an animation is the ensuing wave of comments/e-mails/IMs/messages from people who’ve watched it telling me what they liked about it. I even got a phone call from one of my friends who had just watched it. The consensus seems to be that the music is the most note-worthy thing. Followed by the buildings as dominos and ROBOphelia’s energetic behavior. And of course the best part was watching it with Stephanie on Tuesday and hearing her laugh.

2) While we’re talking about lego stuff. I finally got around to tking pictures of all the microscale buildings I made for the animation.

Click on the picture to read my full write-up about them on MOCpages (w/ more pictures). Also I made the most elusive couple ever.

Man, Carmen Sandiego is so awesome, it’s hard to handle sometimes. I guess that’s the benefit of being fictional, you don’t have to get bogged down worrying about what ‘s possible. Here’s a great quote from the cartoon where she was voiced by Rita Moreno, “Think out your plan like a woman of action, then act out your plan like a woman of thought.”

3) One last lego thing. Since I’ve already finished the next NNN video I’ve got some time to relax before focusing on making the next one. So instead of building sets, recording voices, storyboarding, or animating this weekend I finally attacked one of the bins of unsorted lego where I throw the remnants of sets after I harvest the pieces I want from them. I put in some DVDs and spent a few good hours doing that Saturday night and Sunday afternoon. Also did 4 loads of laundry, now I’m ready to spend the next few weekends working on animation.

4) So what were the DVDs I watched you ask? Well I rewatched Spirited Away, the plot was much easier to follow the second time through, not as ridiculous as I first thought. I wonder what the process for making a Miyazaki movie is. Does Miyazaki just think of different scenes/characters that would look awesome and then slowly stitch a story around them? I mean this movie is beautiful, and it’s certainly not a poorly stitched amalgam of isolated scenes and plots or anything like that. I just wonder if he thought “Alright my next movie is going to have a train that seems to glide across the surface of an ocean, also a giant muddy monster that gets a bunch of pollution pulled out of it, a bunch of adorable soot monsters, some dragon (or sky snake as Stephanie and I have dubbed Eastern dragons) riding of course, and let’s not forget the giant baby.who lives in a pile of pillows and later gets turned into a hampster. Now how do I put those together?“

5) The other thing I watched was the first disc of Angel Season 2. It’s off to a good start. I haven’t cared much for the individual plots of any of the first few episodes, but the show just knows what it’s doing now. Lorne (that’s the lounge-singer demon/psychic who can tell you your future, but only if you sing karaoke first) is starting to pop up regularly. They’ve moved their office into an abandoned hotel, which is way more stylish than the last place. Gunn is actually being integrated with the rest of the cast. Darla is making me care about Angel’s existence, though right now it’s only to be annoyed with him. And Cordelia continues to be awesome and is certainly benefiting from not having to carry the entire show any more. And for this week’s clip of Angel doing something embarrassing – singing Mandy.
6) I’ve run out of segues so I’m going to revert to boring old chonology for the rest. On Thursday I hung out with Robert. We were going to try to go to Target free Thursdays at the art museum and see the Modern wing. But he ended up having to show his apartment to potential roommates. So instead I went over to his apartment and we had dinner sitting on the carpet and played a few games of Fluxx.

Fluxx is a card game where the rules and goals are constantly changing. About a fourth of the cards are cards you play to change the rules – how many cards you draw and play per turn, how many you can have in your hand or on the table etc. My favorite rule was “first play random”. There are also action cards that let you do things like steal cards, pull cards out of the discard pile, eliminate rules and generally cause mayhem. Then were the cards you played on the table, they were just nouns like cookies, dreams, the brain, etc. They did not do anything exciting. The goal cards usually involved collecting two specific nouns, although there were a couple more inspired ones as well. While the game is not as crazy as Mao, it is still pretty cool.

7) Then he showed me these two awesome hilarious faux-informational books – Science Made Stupid and Cvltvre Made Stupid. They are basically modeled on textbooks, but everything in them is utterly and hilariously false. Oh how I laughed and laughed. I still haven’t read through the culture book, but for the Science book at least I agree with Robert that the more you know, the funnier it is. Allow me to quote “OVERVIEW OF BOOK” “BAGELS” “etc.” And the thing I can’t to justice to are the hilarious illustrations of imaginary animals, ridiculous diagrams and fake advertisements. But don’t take my word for it, you can read them online here. (You could order them, but they are out of print and therefore very expensive).
8) Last Friday I went on an awesome recording for work. We were interviewing my color vision professor about his latest research into how colors are represented in the brain. It was awesome and made me remember what I loved about studying Neuroscience.

9) Crazy 3D-seeming murals (via Seth)

10) I rented a Zipcar from Friday night till Saturday night so Stephanie, Paul and I could go hiking on Saturday. On Friday night I used the car to go to Target and buy a new microwave (my old one became possessed), a lamp for my bedroom, and other such Target purchases. I also went to Trader Joe's. On Saturday morning we drove up to the North Branch trail system and then we hiked about 5.5 miles. Along the way we ventured through Bugopolis, pumped water by hand lost the yellow trail briefly, saw hoodlums on bicycles and debated about chipmunks (among other things). Then we had a lovely picnic of chips and pita and hummus and salsa and grapes and mini muffins and rice pudding. We saw a Bald Eagle! Then we drove back and took naps. I took the car to Jewel for more groceries before returning it. All in all it was an awesome day.

other things from the car - target and lots of groceries

Let's talk about the animation! Oh and some other things too

2009-09-08T18:22:00.008-05:00

1) Making the animation. My mom was asking how I matched the movement/action to the sounds and I was telling her about the notebook where I write down how many frames are between each important word/emphasis point. Here's a page that corresponds to a 22 second long shot (starts 51 seconds in).

That was probably the most complicated shot in terms of matching actions to words in this episode, since there are two people on screen and for some parts they are both moving and also because ROBOphelia has so many little exclamations and such. I am really happy with the way it turned out, I like the way she extends off screen at "oh my!" and her nervous laugh /arm twitch immediately following. And her "hmf" coupled with a head turn and a little leg bounce at the end of the shot might be my favorite ROBOphelia movement in the entire episode. (Though extending her magnifying glass while saying IN-TRI-CATE-LY LAID PLANS? gives it a run for its money)
The scenes between ROBOphelia and Persephone had some complicated gesture animation, but they were pretty light on set-up since they all took place in one room. I reused as many set-ups as I could for Malifios's schemes (e.g. the Octopus machine wide shot and the scene where he rages at the plane) but the 7 second scen in which 12 buildings fall down (starts at 2:00), for instance, took over 2 hours to set-up (though less than 10 minutes to actually animate). Here is the base I built during that two hours.

I had all the building on cleverly concealed hinge bricks that made toppling them easy. The octopus machine stuff was pretty straightforward and the hay fire one was somewhere in between (Malifios's feet did not stick to the baseplate very well in that one, also if you watch the torch closely you can see it slowly drifting up in his hand, a consequence of me rotating it around every other shot so the flame would flicker.)

Small details you might not notice otherwise:
The movie theater at 1:55 is playing "The Franky Job" (refer to this old post for the why)
At 0:48 "woman" in Persephone's titlebar is scratched out and replaced with "brick"
After getting kicked by the cow at 4:14, Malifios lands in one of the hay piles in the background

It's been up for less than 12 hours and already has close to 200 views. That's pretty awesome.

2) On Wednesday Tiffany, Krista and Seth came over for dinner. We were later joined by Daniela. In honor of Krista's real birthday Tiffany brought cupcakes from Molly's cupcakes. The one I had was delicious though structurally unsound. I really ought to go to Molly's Cupcakes. I meant to go a long time ago, but still haven't made the trek.

3) I talked to Jenny (her birthday was the week before but we played phone tag for a bit). We talked about our jobs, Isaiah, legos, and ice cream pie among other things.

4) This weekend was the one year anniversary of moving into this apartment. To celebrate the fact that I wasn't moving I had my friends over and made potato flag and butter beer. We played Boom Blox.

5) On Sunday Night I went over to Paul and Stephanie's new place. It's really nice. We started the Wire season 5 and had cinnamon chick peas. Om Nom Nom.

6) Then Stephanie convinced me that rather than go grocery shopping or animating I should go to Yogen Fruz and watch The Dark Knight with her. I am glad I listened to reason instead of doing something foolish like going to Jewel.

7) On Monday Krista had a BBQ. I used it as an excuse to make ice cream pie (talking with Jenny abou it just make me want it). It was awesome. Chocolate and Cookies and Cream (Krista doesn't like mint things)

8) I finished Angel season 1. Here are the episodes I liked the best "Rm w/a Vu" " Bachelor Party" "I will Remember You" "The Prodigal" "Five by Five" & "Santuary" and "To Shansu in L.A." 7/22 isn't bad. Another third of the season was mediocre and the last third was terrible. If you are ever inclined to watch through Angel Season 1 don't feel obligated to watch "I Fall to Pieces" "Sense & Sensitivity" "Expecting" "She" "I've got you under my skin" or "The Ring" Just read summaries and move on with your life. There's probably a whole disk you can skip in there. Most of the time I just had Angel on in the background while I built lego stuff for the animation. It was perfect for that as very few episodes actually commanded my attention.

9)Now that the animation is done, I was able to clean up my apartment. It is neater than it has been in quite a long time. Yay!

10) Other things? I don't remember... let's check facebook. Oh! There we go! Look at all these links! (via @qikipedia, Robert and Stephanie respectively)

Oh hey I just remembered something cool I did at work last week. I went with Tiffany into the construction site for the Mansueto Library (a.k.a. giant glass bubble with robots) Here are some pics I took trying to show how deep it is. Of course, being two dimensional they don't really give a good sense of depth. If only I had a stereo camera!

Look! It's Tiffany's elbow!

SVELT Interview & Failed Plans of Malifios

2009-09-08T14:10:00.002-05:00

Look! I finally finished the post below this one!

Again with the partial posting

2009-08-26T22:36:00.015-05:00

1) I've built some cool lego stuff recently, but I haven't really taken pictures. I've been too busy taking sequential pictures of other legos. Rest assured, when there are pictures they will be posted. My creations don't really exist for me until I share them.

2) Angel is getting to the good parts. Doyle is dead (woohoo) and Wesley has joined the team, and actually seems to be doing more than bumble now. Faith just had a two episode stint that was quite good. I was even happy to see Angelus briefly. He's a lot more fun than regular Angel who tends to mope and brood. Although the best thing I've seen David Boreanaz (I can't beilieve I spelled that right on the first try) do in this show so far can be seen here. Oh how I laughed and laughed.

3) On Tuesday Stephanie came over and we ordered Pockets and played Super Mario Galaxy and watched Better Off Ted and Dollhouse (I'm glad both of these shows are getting second seasons). It was awesome. I take these weekly dinners for granted, but we were talking about how terrible it was when we lived in Hyde Park and Ukranian Village and couldn't hang out several nights a week.

4) I finially finish the mix CD/playlist I've been working on for hte past month: Trip Hop Exploration 2. Doesn't mean much to you, but playlists are very important to me. I don't like listening to music on shuffle, the randomness just takes me out of it. I can't constantly be shifting genres and styles with no transitions. This is why when I do use shuffle it is usually by CD, so I at least have periods of consistency. Anyway you can hear a poor approximation of this CD/playlist on youtube. Or if you want I will burn you a CD. Making this one reminded me just how much I love Poe. It's too bad she hasn't released more albums, though she is collecting dreams for something... Also, apparently Eagle-Eye Cherry is his legal name. I thought it was a band name. That is one crazy name.

5) The first week without Renee was not too crazy - we have been approved to move into the new space - Chicago in 60 Seconds is an awesome project.

6) Read The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman via Stephanie. It was awesome. No wonder it's winning so many awards. I just realized, I don't think I own anything written by Neil Gaiman, I think all my Neil Gaiman stuff has just been borrowed from Stephanie. I should really buy something, you know, put my money where my interests are. Allow me to go update my Amazon cart.

Anyway, I don't have a lot to say about the book in terms of review. Neil is very talented in creating rich worlds that take elements from mythology, legend and other forms of communal storytelling and make those elements new, wonderful and unique. The Graveyard book is no exception, there are ghouls, ghosts, and ghasts, a werewolf and mummy and other things that go bump in the night, and while they benefit from the folklore, each of the creatures in the book is completely a Neil creation. The story is about a human boy who grows up in the world of the graveyard and like every good coming of age story he makes mistakes and gets into tight spots and has help from friends at the right moments.

7) While we're talking about Neil and how awesome he is. I should mention I finally finished Sandman Vol. 3 - it was awesome. This volume focused on the Endless and their relationships more than the previous two volumes combined and it was awesome. I have a special place in my heart for Delirium, who is similar to ROBOphelia in several ways and will probably end up influencing how I write her in the future at least subconsciously. But all the Endless are interesting/cool in some way. Wonderful. There was also some rEdiculous nested storytelling in the Tavern at Worlds' End series that made me happy. (Guy 1 tells a story in which Guy 2 tells Guy 1 a story in which Woman tells Guy 2 tells a story) ROBOphelia would approve heartily. (Sorry, after animating her for a couple weeks, I've just got her on the brain)

8) Speaking of comics I also bought "We Can Fix It" which I heard about by way of Kate Beaton, (PONY!) whose History Comics book I got about a month ago. It was decent. I liked the premise (traveling through time to try and fix things in your past [and make-out with your past selves obviously]) and some of the art was good. The cover for instance is fantastic, but I agree with Krista's assessment that over-all it was sloppy, both in term of drawing and storytelling. Still I don't regret buying or reading it.

9) Speaking of buying things to support starving artists I bought this color strong t-shirt that I guy I know designed. Here I am wearing it!

10) I discovered Harvarti cheese. It has been added to the list of cheeses I love. In reverse chronological order they are: Harvarti, Morbier, Brie, Feta, Provolone, Mozzarella. There are some other cheeses I'm okay with, but these are the ones that made me understand why people get excited about cheese.

11 )3 day weekends are awesome.

Maybe I'll actaully get back to posting once a week... maybe...

2009-08-22T13:49:00.007-05:00

1) Here's the set for that chase scene I posted last week. It took a good deal of my yellow bricks...

And from above you can see how I slanted the wall to force the perspective. Whee!

2) Saw District 9. It was good, a little more action-packed than I expected or desired, but the action was well done, (the mech was awesome) so I'm not really complaining. I recommend it, although not for my mother, as the protagonist drops the F-bomb like it's going out of style, and at one point bites his fingernails off. I agree with AV Club: B+

3) Got my passport in the mail this week. That was fast. I probably won't be using it until the spring. The end of the year is always a busy time and no one wants to go anywhere in the winter (except to shiny, sunny places).

4) Finished Avatar the Last Airbender. It was pretty good, especially considering it's target audience. There are things I would have liked them to explore/explain in more detail, but such is the way of things. I'm sure there's fanfic. The best thing about the show is the animation of the bending. None of the various bending compilations I could find on youTube (and believe me I jut dredged through a lot) show all the coolest bits I would have compiled, but this video does a good job of showcasing all four elements. Start at 40 secs and turn the sound off since it is irrelevant. This one seriously neglects Earth, but shows off the octopus form of waterbending, which I love. None of them show why waterbending is the best, but rest assured that it is. All this talk about bending makes me want to watch all the North Pole episodes again.

4) I took Friday day off. In the morning the Internet went out. This is a frequent occurrence, I probably go upstairs to reset the router once a week. However, when I went on Friday the door on the closet with the router was locked. It's never been locked before. I tried all my keys (because there is one key I have that I still haven't found the lock for) but alas it was not to be. Then I e-mailed (from my iphone) my landlady to see what was up. Then I went into the living room and played with legos for a while. She called me maybe half an hour later (because I hadn't responded to the e-mail she had sent in response to mine) and told me to try picking the lock. I was unsuccessful (but I had fun trying!) and e-mailed her back to tell her so. Then I started watchign a movie. maybe twenty minutes in to the movie she came to my front door to tell me that her father-in-law would be coming by soon to take the door off the hinges and fix the internet. After I finished the movie the internet was back and she had sent a follow-up e-mail to make sure everything was fixed. All of this is just to show how awesome my landlords are. When Paul and Stephanie's heat was out it took their landlord days to respond, let alone fix the problem.

5) The movie I was watching during the previous item? The Emperor's New Groove. I give it a B- Best part is with out a doubt "I'll turn him into a flea. A harmless little flea. And I'll put that flea in a box. And then I'll put that box in another box. Then I'll mail that box to myself, and when it arrives, [laughs maniacally] I'll smash it with a hammer! It's brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, I tell you! Genius, I say! [Knocks over the potion, which makes a plant explode] Or, to save on postage, I'll just poison him with this!"

6) That night I went with Robert and two of his friends to see the Improvised Shakespeare Company. I highly suggest watching this clip, which should give a small sense of the hilarity that we experienced. The play we saw was called "Hampsters," and while I won't waste time recounting the plot I will briefly mention some highlights. King Edward was my favorite character, he was hilariously viscous, the main plot conceit was that he kept his son locked up in his room to protect him, but also had told all his guards and citizens to kill the prince on sight if he ever left his room (when they open the windows to look out a volley or arrows flies in), he invariably killed every messenger and anyone else who irked him. Alright, I'm just going to list the other highlights without context: yearly three minutes of unchaining, triple sodomy, porpoise riding handmaiden, the kings players miming an owl, a rabbit and a branch and then animating the corpse of their slain leader, the mermaids' song of warning, "is he talking about the mermaids again?", incest + dramatic irony = hilarity , "it took two half-siblings to make my heart whole," the royal guards - each with a more outrageous accent than the last, "i'm gonna strangle wit' my dreds!", advice from the king's ghost, "we've got a horse!", the completely unnecessary death of the King of Corsica. I could go on - it was a riot. I think the most impressive thing was the rhyming couplets they would occasionally bust out.

7) Then we all went to Home Bistro. Robert and I had already eaten dinner, but we got appetizers (he got dates wrapped in bacon and cooked in brown sugar, I got fried balls of cheese and artichoke) and dessert (he got bread pudding covered in whipped cream and chocolate sauce, I got an espresso drenched coffee cake, also with whipped cream) and help the others with their meals (the trout was amazing). There was some wine from Kafka too. Delicious!

8) Finally got some animating done for the SVELT Interview. Here's a really choppy low-res clip of what I've got so far. Of course the actual animation on my hard drive is big and beautiful, so don't worry.

9) I finally broke down and started a MOCpages account (I have also put a link in the sidebar, since Dad gave me such a hard time about neglecting to put a link to the NNN Youtube page ::grins::). I had told myself I would be content with just posting pictures of my lego creations on flickr and posting about them on EuroBricks, but that approach just felt so scattered, even with sets and collection,. nothing every really feels organized on flickr. MOCpages gives you a lot more flexibility in how you present your creations. Plus, it's another part of the LEGO fan community to expose to my videos. I still have a lot of stuff to add, but I put a few simple ones on there to start off.

10) 8-bit Trip - This may be the most impressive lego animation I've ever seen (and I've seen a lot) The pong part is mind blowing.

Door Chase Scene

2009-08-16T23:58:00.002-05:00

I made this for a contest and finished animating this one scene only an hour before the deadline, so I didn't have time to add in the voices I recorded with Robert today. I will polish it up ion September and release that as a bonus video since the Green Commercial will air that month and most people have already seen that.

Excuses

2009-08-02T21:43:00.011-05:00

I know it's been a while since I've updated, but I have excuses! I was doing things. Rather than wait until this post is complete to post, I will update it as I write more. Stay tuned!

1) My first excuse is my perennial one: animation! You of course have watched and memorized the SVELT commercial. Good. Time for a quiz!
i) SVELT stands for?
a) Something Very Elaborate, Lengthy and Tedious
b) Snakes, Vultures, Eels, Lemurs and Tarantulas
c) Super Villain Education and Leadership Teachery
ii) This commercial is a parody of?
a) John Hodgeman's recent address at the Radio & TV Correspondent's dinner
b) Barracuda by Heart
c) The Sally Struthers ICS commercials from the 90s
iii) The part I’m proudest of is?
a) Successful keying on SVELT spokeswoman for the scrolling list and on the thug when the background magically changes
b) The crowbar opening the window
c) Hammer hits knight, knight goes sploosh, evil girls rejoice
d) Let’s not forget Dana Kroop’s excellent performance
iv) Things I’d change if I didn’t have to make the next animation?
a) Record some better grunts for the team on the field
b) Redo the picture of the SVELT campus so it’s clearer
c) Add music
My point being, that as always there are some things I’m really pleased with, and some others that cause me shame every time I watch it. But I needs move on to the next thing.

2) Excuse the second - I was reading the printed version Nameless by Sam Starbuck. This is a book by the Heroes/HP/TW/DW (listed in the order I was pulled in, thanks to Stephanie) fanfic author. Anyway he wrote an original novel. He published a draft online earlier this year and I read that as it went up and joined in the commenting. Then he took the feedback he got from that and rewrote the book and self-published it. Since you’ve got to support your internet content producers whenever you can, (speaking of which, I should buy the Guild DVDs) and because I wanted to see how he changed the final version I bought the book back when it was made available in the spring.
Ostensibly the book is about life in a small town and the friendship/romance that develops between Mr. Town Gossip and Mr. Ridiculously Shy and then there’s magic and drama and American nomads, oh my! For me though the book is about making and mending. Making-wise, one of the main characters is an artist and there are plenty of artisans and craftspeople throughout. The characters are constantly shown shaping the world and not so much the other way around. That's a sentiment I can get behind. Mending-wise, the two main characters each start off broken in some way and end up fixing each other. Also there's some roof and book repair.
I still feel like the book is dragging it's feet until it gets to the Straw Bear ceremony. The boy/waxwing thing is handled much better than in the first draft, but overall I still feel like the story is a bit lackadaisical. Not in the writing, but just in the things that happen. There's just not a lot of energy or momentum that the story builds, even at the climatic moments things are pretty laid back. I still want to curl up with Nameless by the fire. I like the glimpses of Chicago that are sprinkled throughout. It's a good first book (printed anyway) and I'm looking forward to his next one.

3) A couple weekends ago Stephanie's step-sister (for lack of a better term) was in town being spoiled by her awesome big sister (Milkshakes with every meal! French Toast for dinner! Harry Potter exhibits ahoy!) and as part of that I went with them to see the Blue Man Group perform. Previously all my Blue Man Group exposure came through Arrested Development so I really know much about them. Their performance is equal parts music, visual spectacle, comedy, information blasting and audience participation. The music was good, although the parts where they were just banging on PVC pipes were the only times I found my attention waning. Their music was more interesting when they had some visual element thrown in as well (like paint). Visually they had a lot going on to stimulate the audience, they had lots of neon colored things and put blacklights to good use, the traditional-instruments band's costumes were really cool, imagine multi-colored glow-in-the-dark skeletons. They also had a part where one of them caught 20+ marshmallows in his mouth without swallowing any. There were a bunch of different comedy skits, the best one involved bringing up a girl from the audience and having a very awkward dinner with her. Before the show started there were some fun scrolling text instructions. There was also a couple parts where they would present a lot of text on screen at once (each of them would hold up a poster for a limited amount of time for instance) more information than could be read by the average person in the time given (Stephanie managed it for the posters). It was really frustrating because these days with the internet you can generally read things at your leisure and while there's certainly more information out there then you could possibly read, you are at least able to read the things you choose without having to worry about them dissapearing in 30 seconds. It was a fun show, though it's hard to sum up because it had so many different components that were completely distinct from one another.

4) I have caught up to the current issue of Buffy teh Vampire Slayer Season 8. Now I can buy the issues as they come out, which I've never done with a comic book series before. I'm really excited about this, comic books are one of those areas of geekery I have never followed as much as I might like. I have a great comic book store just a couple blocks away, I intend to become a regular customer.
Also, Hark, a Vagrant finally updated the archive so that all the comics have appropriate notes at the bottom. I am now in the delightful process of reading through the archive comics in their full contextual glory.
To preempt Stephanie's inevitable snide comic - I am also not reading through Sandman fast enough. What can I say? The tome is intimidating, opening it seems like a serious undertaking, even if it's an enjoyable one. If it was a bunch of trade paperbacks I probably would have blown through it in no time.

5) Tonsil pain finally gone. Well it was. Now it's trying to creep back. But gargling with salt water is doing wonders for keeping it at bay.

6) Eric Benson was in town for a few days. We met up for lunch one day and then the next he came into my office (which has foam on the wall for sound dampening) and well did some voice recording. We did a little bit of Phil Brickley and then a couple really fun one-off characters. Thankfully no one was in the adjacent offices that morning, because he was screaming pretty loudly at one point. You'll understand why in a few months when the animation is done.

I'm really looking forward to doing a group recording session with him and Lila in the fall. Haven't planned the trip out yet, but I'm thinking early November.

7) Last weekend Veronica threw a Murder Mystery party for the people she interned with this summer. The week leading up to it she called me once of twice and I helped her think through some things and calmed her down when her co-party thrower (some of you know her as Naked Girl) abandoned her at the last minute. It was fun to hear about her mystery and to reminisce about previous parties. It got me thinking about doing another one (as if I didn't have enough creative projects in progress already)*

8) Max is moving to Chicago in a month, he stayed with me this week while looking at apartments. I didn't see a whole lot of him since we were both busy, but on Thursday we went to dinner with Stephanie at Andalous, a great Moroccan place a couple blocks away. Then we met up with Tiffany, Seth, Paul and Robert at Guthries where we played Blokus, Carcassonne and the best game of Jenga I've ever played. Robert considers the tower carefully:

Paul makes a precarious move, while Stephanie looks on in trepidation.

There was a point where we were all convinced Seth was going to knock it over, but then the game continuted for at least another 2 rounds (14 moves). I think we were all impressed with how long we lasted. Anyway it was an awesome night. We need to go to Guthrie's more often.

9) Yesterday Paul and Stephanie had a barbeque using the grill that has sat abandoned, chained to a fence in their backyard all year. Paul went out an bought a variety of sausages and eastern euorpean beers much like he and Alex did our 4th year and called it Sausage Fest 2009. There was lots of food (I borught pasta salad) and SanGria. Tiffany and Seth brought strawberries and whipped cream and those pastry shells for strawberry shortcake. Obviously the presence of whipped cream lead to this:

Which if you can't tell is me with a massive amount of whipped cream in my mouth thanks to Paul. I think Stephanie took the picture, all I remember is handing my iphone to someone while trying not to laugh or choke.

10) I've been meaning to put shelves up in my living room for months now. The wall above my couch was one of the only places left in my apartment where I chad space to expand. It goes without saying that this is for the benefit of my lego collection. Well last weekend I got a zipcar and went to target for non-shelf related items like a kettle, an iron, a water bottle mount for my bike, and various and sundry other items. Then I went to the Home Depot and bought the components for the shelves, drywall anchors, a cordless power drill, a leveller, a tape measure and needle nose pliers. Those last two were not specifically for this project, though they ended up being used as well. Then I spent the rest of the weekend installing them. I had to put 40 drywall anchors in and it took me about a hour to get the first one done. Of course once I had figured out the process they went much quicker. I still broke of shattered about a dozen anchors throughout the process. I had miscalculated the number of brackets and track I needed on Saturday, so I had to make another quick trip on sunday, but then I finished it up and got the shelves up. They were up for approximately 5 minutes before I started covering them with lego.

And some close ups fo the lower two shelves, this half is above/under water

and this half is above/under ground

11) Speaking of Lego, that's probably the biggest excuse here's what I've been up to recently.
I won set 7774 at Brickworld this year, but I already had one from Stephanie so I did na alternate build with it instead and got The Court of King Octopus

My favorite part is his Getaway Throne

He looks even more ridiculous when riding in it. I want to share with you a mental image Stephanie and I conjured up while contemplating the King's Getaway Throne. Imagine you are underwater scuba diving and then you see a real octopus wearing a crown drive past in a boat like this - chasing him is a bipedal shark in some kind of motor boat.

Speaking of Stephanie, her and Paul helped me come up with the concept of the Falafel Mafia. Then I executed that concept.

Here's the Scooby Gang

And what could this corridor of doors be for...

I am always working on more building to populate New Block City. This weekend I came up with this pink one in two different sizes.

*You know I know that a period should follow a ) in a case like this, but I think it looks weird so I'm just going to forgo it.

SVELT Commercial

2009-07-31T03:15:00.001-05:00

Peaches Smeaches!

2009-07-27T11:48:00.002-05:00

I mean, I enjoy a good peach anyday, but the fuzzy skin can be unpleasant/problematic, so I prefer nectarines. Apparently no one else agrees. Either way now is the time to eat them! They are so ripe and so delicious.

I finally decided to install the window AC unit that came w/ my apartment in my bedroom this weekend. Last night it was getting hot and humid and I was animating (aka sitting directly under bright lights for a long time) so I fired it up and was pleased with the results. My bedroom was soon a cool sanctuary in the middle of a stifling crypt.

But yes, I still animating, so no regular update this week, but soon there will be a new video!

2 weeks in 1

2009-07-10T16:19:00.013-05:00

1) I finished the Mysterious Benedict Society, which Jenny gave to me when we were at the shore. It was a fun adventure, and while all the characters had their moments, far and away the best was Kate. Or should I say The Great Kate Weather Machine as she likes to be called. This girl has done some amazing things. She runs everywhere at full tilt and has a bucket full of tools and gadgets that she always carries around with her. She tied someones shoelaces together with her toes. She has crawled through more drainpipes/ventilation ducts/ceiling panels than I can count. She has fought, swam and lassoed her into my heart. On an unrelated note this book introduced me to a great portmanteau - cactopus.

2) I realized recently that I carry a lot of stress in my hands. I used to have a stress ball in my backpack at all times so I could squeeze it during class or meetings and what not. But it's been a long time since I carried one around with me like that, but I was thinking I should have one at work. In fact I was pretty much craving one last week so I went to the book store to see what they had and found this Smush Bush Stress Doll in the 50% off bin. He's got a good consistency, not too squishy, but not too hard and the shape is interesting at least.

3) Karan was in town last week for a wedding. On Thursday night he crashed at my place. We took hte train up from HP together and then went out for dinner (at a goo Moroccan place just up the street from me) and drinks with some of his friends. We also watched an episode of True Blood together (we'd done this many times over the internet, but never in person before).

4) I finally finished watching through Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And then proceeded to start on the comics. I't been 2 years since I watched through the first 5 seasons, but I'd say that season 2 and 3 are definitely the best followed by 6. 4 and 5 run together for me and season 1 and 7 are clearly the weakest. I'm still deciding if I want to buy all the seasons on DVD, bu with seasons 1-3 available for free on hulu there's not a lot of incentive.

5) Watched a lot of Avatar season 2 (the episodes are really short). In summary, Azula is crazy, Zuko is emo, Toph shows promise and Sokka is funny.

6) Last weekend I drove out to the Indiana Dunes for a going away party for Mark (the guy who got a job at Legoland CA). He and his partner have a house on several acres of beautifully landscaped property. Their backyard leads into a forest, the beach is only a few minutes away, and their house resembled my dream-house (ranch style, basement full of legos - it was just missing a patio and pool).
The party was a lot of fun, there was a campfire:

Later there were fireworks and a midnight trip to the beach. And they had more than a dozen bunkbeds set up in the basement so no one had to drive home on Saturday night. Then there was french toast and sausage and OJ the next morning. Combine that with the never ending baskets of rolled up hand towels in the bathroom and it really felt like a hotel. Certainly the most full-service party I've ever been to. Gives me ideas for a weekend long murder mystery party...

7) Despite spending a good chunk of it outside of the city, it was a productive weekend. I got a flat tire on my bike fixed, bought a few things at the Gap (while my bike was being fixed) and put a 25% off coupon to good use at The Container Store. I was then able to reorganzie my legos such that I finally got the last of them out of my room (not counting hte Star Wars ships under my bed). So now all my sorted pieces are contained in one room. Huzzah!

8) Dave Massant was in town again. He came over for dinner (along with Tiffany, Krista and Seth) on Monday night. We had Sweet Potato wedges and Greek Tacos. We also watched a couple episodes of Avatar. Then on Tuesday night there was a big game night at Paul and Stephanie's. Delicious cheese and San Gria and I was trounced at Seitlers as usual.

9) On Wednesday I had dinner at Indian Buffet down the street ( a different one than the one I've been to with Stephanie) with Claire Gilbert (who has been in Spain for the past year). We talked about making videos and poetry as well as the best and worst of internet communities (e.g. lego conventions and MMORPG addicts). Then we went to my place and hung out for a little bit and she recorded a voice for an upcoming NNN video.

10) On Thursday after work I went to a bar on campus to have drinks with my Communications colleagues. Aside from the obligatory CMIG people I talked with the new News Office Director (Jeremy) and a Graphic Designer from Pubs/Creative Communications/whatever they're calling themselves now (Rich). Afterwards John Eckroth gave Tiffany, Rich, and I a ride back to the Northside. Traffic was heinous, so it wasn't necessarily faster than the CTA would have been, but it was certainly more social. Joh nadn Rich and I ended up having dinner at the Chipotle on my block before I bid them adieu. I went home wathced an episode on Avatar adn then turned in for the night. The thing I haven't metnioned in here is than my allergies have been having their way with me all week. I stayed home from work 1.5 days this week and have been sleeping a lot and still feeling tired. Maybe I'll take a nap right now...

The poll is done, mayonnaise is clearly the worst. Oh yeah, I realized that I stopped my old pratice of sharing links to the interesting articles/videos I watched here. That's because I've moved to doing this primarily through FaceBook. Here are some from the last few weeks.

50 Freakiest Animals
Acapella Tribute to John Williams
40 Inspirations speeches in 2 minutes
Michael Jackson is being plastinated
Jimmy Carter on Religion and Gender Equality

A new poll

2009-07-08T13:29:00.003-05:00

Inspired by a conversation with Tiffany, here are some things I find disgusting. Do you agree? Note: Do not even try to differentiate between types of olives. I have seen an olive bar and know what it truly is - a cornucopia of bad decisions.