White Christmas in Alabama

This is the first time it's ever snowed here on Christmas during my lifetime.

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A Very Gundarr Christmas

I was recently asked by Corey McDaniel to score an episode of Gundarr the Barbarian. Corey was a part of Zombiesquid Productions, an artists collective that I organized and operated for a couple of years circa 2003-ish.

I haven't really worked on any music in a good long while so it was fun to dust the cobwebs off of that corner of my brain. I was asked to write a score that sounded "sort of like Basil Poledouris's Conan, but more like Christmas" and this was the end result.

Note: The video has been removed. Gundarr was picked up by Mondo Mini Shows and I suppose they're planning on running the episode over there.

If anyone is actually reading this out there and you're looking for someone to throw together a musical score, I'm available...

I Took a Picture of a Duck

Editing the "Paranotica" Music Video

We've been hard at work all day trying to finish up the editing for Chaotic Theory's "Paranotica" music video. I didn't realize how insane the cutting had managed to get until I took a step back to really look at it.

Click the image for full size.

Universal Studios Employee Video Directed by Matt Stone & Trey Parker - 1995

This always makes me laugh.

"When Edgar Bronfman Jr gained ownership of Universal Studios he got into some odd marketing campaign practices. One of which is this rare, employee orientation video, that enlightened people about how things were going to change under new management. It was comissioned to be written and directed by Matt Stone and Trey Parker, and it was, and Jr. didn't like it, so they scrapped it. Great satire, video includes appearances by Steven Spielberg, Demi Moore, Tracy Lords, James Cameron, Michael J. Fox, and Sylvester Stallone."

Thousands Of Girls Match Description Of Missing Sorority Sister

More Storms Today

More storms, more clouds. This is a very tornado prone time of year around these parts.

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Something's Not Right Here...

Working on trying to fix my brother's Dell notebook the other day.

"R U Single" - YouTube WTF?

Seriously now? What the hell is this? I feel a little violated by it but mostly just baffled.

---EDIT---

I started digging around a little bit and found out that this guy is apparently either trying to start or has just started an online dating website and this is a commercial for that site.

Apparently this dating hookup site has something to do with movie making, travel to Latin America, Minute Men emergency response plans, and this frightfully rambling manifesto of FUNRUNNERS IMMIGRATION REFORM EVOLUTION!!!! (F.I.R.E., as he points out in huge red letters at the top of the page):

http://www.funrunnerstravel.com/Illegal.html

The title of the page itself is Illegals?????... And there's a word scroll in the center top of the page that reads "Immigrants F.I.R.E. them all". So he's referring to all immigrants? Is that an order to the immigrants?

One of my favorites, from the "Fat Farm" page, is below. Notice how he goes from telling women what to do (he seems to spend a lot of the space on his site defending himself against unnamed antagonizers and belittling the women that he imagines are reading), to making a self deprecating joke in an attempt to get ladies to sign up for some video chat.

"And just so you Barbies will know, when you have put on 4 pounds and say to your fat friend , oh I am getting so fat I am not eating for 3 days. Well it is a good way to be, and it will help you from ever being fat, just don't say it to your fat friend that is standing there and would kill to have your weight. AND NEVER think about it, after you say it, and say I am sorry. That is like saying thank God I am not as fat as you. So what do you think, lets try the Funrunners chatadiet , I mean it is hard to eat and type."

I'm 3 Degrees from Kevin Bacon

I stumbled across this awesome site that shows the degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon to another actor:

The Oracle of Bacon

It's based on the 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon trivia game, as described on Wikipedia as being

"based on the concept of the small world phenomenon and rests on the assumption that any individual can be linked through his or her film roles to actor Kevin Bacon within six steps. The name of the game is a pun on the philosophical "six degrees of separation" concept."

Turns out I'm only 3 degrees from the Baconator, as evidenced by my query, seen here:

Also, I'm only TWO degrees from Wilford Brimley!

Hello, Mr. Toad.

Today we found a big fat toad living under our grill out back. It was about the size of my fist. He sat on top just long enough for me to snap the photo, then he hopped away.

YouTube Gone Wild

I just noticed today that a few of the videos that I had in my YouTube account are suddenly playing at double speed. I'd had a few of them up for over a year and now I have to upload them all over again. Not a big deal, but I'm a little annoyed that I'm losing all of the history and views on these clips.

Up in the Air

We've got a couple of projects floating in limbo right now and we've been really busy with a bunch of things as we begin the transition into an exciting new phase in our lives. We're working on a serious plan that should come to fruition by the end of the year and that's all I'd really like to say about it at this point.

Right now I'm working on editing a promotional video that Lindsey and I shot for

C. King Benefits, a charity benefit auction company from Gadsden. You can check out their site here:

http://www.ckingbenefits.com/

Still no word from Chaotic Theory as to when we'll be shooting new footage so that we can finish up the Paranotica music video that we started working on back in December of last year. There have been so many changes in that project that at this point I'm honestly not even sure how we're going to finish it... It's been sort of one big mess since the first day of shooting.

Dale Peterson: Still Insane

Don't steal political signs or Dale Peterson will shoot you.

Kim Jong-Il Is the Greatest Golfer in the World!

Dear Leader Kim Jong-Il is the greatest golfer in all of the world. Simply kindly read the following article and it will be of most glorious benefit to forget all about Tiger Woods.

Kim Jong-Il is the Greatest Golfer in the World

Star Trek

I picked up the new Star Trek the other day and we tried to watch it but couldn't see the film for all the lens flares...

Dennis Hopper Died

I'm a big fan of Dennis Hopper. I'd always hoped I'd get to work with him or at least meet him someday. Apocalypse Now and Blue Velvet are two of my favorite films, I could watch them both on a loop for days on end. Easy Rider... Hoosiers...I even liked him in Land of the Dead and Waterworld.

Dale Peterson: My Current Favorite Player in the Horror Comedy Show Known as Alabama Politics

Nothing says "fit for political leadership" like being an insane gun wielding cowboy farmer who spends his days screaming at a horse about Facebook.

Dale Peterson Political Ad on YouTube

Oh yeah, did I mention "dangerously paranoid"?

Decluttering and District 9

We got around to watching Dictrict 9 last night. I liked it overall, it had a sort of sci-fi comic book action feel that I tend to like. At times I thought I was watching the Half Life 2 movie what with the gravity gun and the unintelligible over-the-radio soldier chatter throughout. The special effects were solid for the most part, though I did feel like some sequences were a little overdone and ultimately unnecessary. My biggest complaint would be that during the first half of the film there was no clear protagonist and the characters needed some serious development. You're never really given a reason to care about the guy once things start going down.

We're working on a decluttering project right now. Throwing out unneeded stuff, donating a lot of it to local recovery shelters and thrift stores. Lindsey is keeping a running tally of the number of items and objects that we've removed from our lives and we're up over 800 at this point. That's just counting the recent weeks. If we were to go back and include everything from the first phase of this endeavor around a year ago, we've estimated the total to be near 3000.

It's a really good feeling that you get when you get rid of a bunch of junk that's just sitting around being useless. It's liberating. Your junk drags you down and weighs on you and we're at a point in our lives where we want to be as mobile and unencumbered as possible.

Big change is on the horizon.

It's Not Unusual...

...for me to forget that I have a blog for several months.

We're still working on the Paranotica music video for Chaotic Theory, shooting a new ending sometime soon. I've got a few other projects up in the air and I'm doing some video coverage for a charity event in Birmingham this weekend. I got a call from an old friend recently about a possible new project, just waiting to see how that pans out. I had one of those actual, real-life nine-to-five full time office jobs for a while but there were some layoffs recently and I got cut since I was the lowest guy on the totem pole. I'm going to try to use this newfound "free time" to get more involved in video and film production.

All in all, nothing major to report. Some projects are progressing nicely, there are a few up in the air, and a few on the burner that are getting ready to boil over.

Also, Christoph Waltz was great in Inlglorious Basterds. Watch him here and laugh:

Taking it Easy Today

I'm taking it easy today, starting a brand new job tomorrow and I'm excited. Got some homework done, worked on some editing. "Paranotica" is nearly finished and I think the band is going to like it. Aside from the job, I don't really have much of anything new going on. Lindsey and I have mostly been hibernating and waiting for Spring to get here so we can get out and enjoy some nature.

I found out my animator friend up in Vancouver is getting married in a few months and we might try to make it up there to see him... Oh, Canada! He lives near where the Olympics are happening right now so I'm sure he's having fun with all the tourists in his yard. Here's some of his animation work:

Chaotic Theory "Paranotica" Music Video

We finished up shooting the last of the footage for the "Paranotica" music video from Chaotic Theory. For this one we went with more of a film/story style as opposed to a performance video and it's coming together fairly well. It's looking pretty dark overall, which is really what we were going for. Here are some stills of the work in progress.