Friday, September 29, 2006

More Simpsons goodies

Per Christina. Awesome!

Thursday, September 28, 2006

Friday, September 22, 2006

Men's Restroom (Lockean social contract)

Per Christina (but designed for Keith):

Livin' Large!

Per Dave, although I'm quite surprised that he has experienced 4% more of life than I have!:
You've Experienced 76% of Life

You have all of the life experience that most adults will ever get.
And unless you're already in your 40s, you're probably wise beyond your years.

Sunday, September 17, 2006

Christina and Ellen, you'll love this!

Incredible, award-winning rotoscoped anime mashup combining footage from over 100 anime movies to create a "Whacky Race." Music by Weezer and Island in the Sun. See http://www.animemusicvideos.org/members/members_videoinfo.php?v=78914 for more.

Here's a list of the anime and music this film draws upon:

Music:

* Weezer Island in the Sun
* Wiseguys Ooh La La !

# Anime:

* Ai Yori Aoshi
* Angelic Layer
* Animatrix, The
* Argento Soma
* BECK, Mongolian Chop Squad
* Berserk
* Bleach
* Boboboubo Boubobo
* Captain Future (Kyaputen Fyuuchaa)
* Captain Tsubasa
* Chobits
* City Hunter (TV)
* Condor Hero
* Cowboy Bebop
* Detective Conan (Case Closed)
* Doraemon
* DragonBall GT
* DragonBall Z
* Eat-Man
* Excel Saga
* Fruits Basket
* Full Metal Panic
* Full Metal Panic: Fumoffu
* Fullmetal Alchemist (TV)
* Gankutsuou
* GANTZ
* Gatekeepers
* GetBackers
* Gokusen
* Great Teacher Onizuka
* Grenadier
* Groove Adventure Rave
* Gundam Seed
* Hanada Shonen-shi
* High School Kimengumi
* Hikaru no Go
* Hunter X Hunter
* Inu Yasha (TV)
* Jungle Wa Itsumo Hale Nochi Guu
* Last Exile
* Love Hina (TV)
* Lunar Legend Tsukihime (Shingetsutan Tsukihime)
* Lupin III: First Contact (2002 Special)
* Monster (TV)
* Mysterious Cities of Gold, The
* Naruto
* Neon Genesis Evangelion
* One Piece
* Otogizoushi
* Paranoia Agent
* Pokémon (TV)
* RahXephon (TV)
* Rurouni Kenshin (TV)
* Saint Seiya
* Saiyuki
* Samurai 7
* Samurai Champloo
* School Rumble
* Scrapped Princess
* Shaman King
* Shingetsutan Tsukihime
* Slam Dunk
* Tenchi Muyo! (OAV)
* Tenjou Tenge
* Tenshi na Konamaiki
* Trigun
* Twelve Kingdoms
* Twin Spica
* UFO Robo Grendizer
* Vision of Escaflowne, The
* Wolf's Rain
* X (TV)
* Yakitate!! Japan (TV)

Here's the producer's summary:

The idea to do such a video came on a discussion with Tyler. We were talking about the numerous scenes of people running in animes. I also had instantly the idea to use this to do a sort of marathon of anime characters. I started so to prospect for concepts to put into this race.

The first difficulty was to find a sort of scenario to this video. As i often say, one of my goal in amvmaking is to do more scenaristic videos, like Vlad did wih "Transcending love" [réf.] or E-ko in "Tainted Donuts" [réf.]. I realy wanted to do something different from "Shounen Bushido" or "Project Love united". So i search for a story that can motivate the characters to participate to the race. I had the idea of a mysterious Great Prize that no one know what it is. So the participants are imagining what they wondering deeply in their own anime story. And one of the stress i put on me was to absolutely not do another "singing" video. Now i have the background of the video, i started to search the characters.

The first character wich came in mind was Spike from Cowboy Bebop since i already saw him running in "Tainted Donuts". To say the true, it is possible that this video indirectly influenced me in making this video. But i really wanted to do something different evan if it was still people running inside. Then i think about Luffy of One Piece on second. Because, every funny thing ou need in AMV, you can be sure Luffy did it. Naruto, Kirua from Hunter X Hunter, and Edward of Full Metal Alchemist came after that. Once i had my main charcters, i started to edit the scenes, and see what can i do with the different piece of anime i had.

After a few minutes of editing i realize that, just putting characters in a race, make them run from a point to an other, should be boring. So i had the idea to put in it some "Chibi Things"-like fighting. Now my race became a fighting race. A sort of "Wacky Race" with participants, tricking, cheating, to win the great prize. I was prepared to do a lot of rotoscoping, but at this point i never imagined how much of cutings i'm going to do, to complete this project. After 1 year of editing, and many stops caused by boringness, world of warcraft or my Ph D. rush ... i finally finish the vid.

I would like to thanks some editors for the help they provided: Kirua for making me discover the song, and for the sequences i lacked of and he sent it to me ; and Laria for reviewing my beta version and tell me where i needed to correct some misshaps. If you have time, go look their videos, and let an opinion ;). I would like to thanks [R]ay and Ayor which are not amvmakers but that helped a lot by providing me some stuff i didn't have in my stock of anime videos.

I hope you'll enjoy the video.

Video Encoding: Divx 5.1.1 - 2pass - 3000 KBps
Audio Encoding: MP3 - 44 KHz - 160 KBps



**************************************************************

Anime USA (Vienna, 2005)
- Viewer's Choice Award
- Upbeat Runner-Up

AC Cubed (Ottawa, 2005)
- Best Overall

Anime Week-end Atlanta XI Pro Contest (Atlanta, 2005)
- Best Fun/Upbeat
- Best Technical
- Best in Show
- Nominated in 3 categories

Connichi AMV Contest (Kassel, 2005)
- Best Fun

Who doesn't love. . . a ninja?

Ninja!

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Oh Serenity, how I miss thee!

Per Christina:

Your results:
You are Kaylee Frye (Ship Mechanic)
























Kaylee Frye (Ship Mechanic)
100%
Malcolm Reynolds (Captain)
80%
Dr. Simon Tam (Ship Medic)
70%
Zoe Washburne (Second-in-command)
60%
Inara Serra (Companion)
60%
Wash (Ship Pilot)
60%
River (Stowaway)
50%
Derrial Book (Shepherd)
40%
Jayne Cobb (Mercenary)
20%
Alliance
20%
A Reaver (Cannibal)
0%
You are good at fixing things.
You are usually cheerful.
You appreciate being treated
with delicacy and specialness.


Click here to take the "Which Serenity character am I?" quiz...

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Douglas Adams - hyperland

Hyperland. . . with Tom Baker and Douglas Adams. Can I just say how cool this video is? It is really cool. Circa 1990.

Monday, September 11, 2006

It's raining. I hadn't noticed.

Since I'm from Colorado, I am always shocked when it consistently rains for an entire day. Or an entire week, for that matter. And today was one of those days that had rain from the early morning straight through the late afternoon.

My students had to read Vol. 1 of Pride and Prejudice. Remember the scene with Elizabeth Bennet tromping across fields and neighboring backyards, only to turn up happy from exercise and dirty from tromping? Well, that would basically sum up today. I was wearing nice, grey, wide-leg trousers, a cardigan, and tank top. My shoes and the long hems of my pants were soaked and dirty, but I was excited and pink from walking to lecture. It was a living moment of literary allusion.

Did the students enjoy it? No, they were probably sulking like the Bingley sisters about coming to class in the rain as they stared in astonishment at my wet feet and pants.

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

What was I thinking?

Well, today. . . or yesterday, since it's now 1am. . . was my first day of classes for the fall semester. Yay! I worked in the Writing Center for 3 hours, which was equivalent to chatting up writers as they came in for appointments and instructors as they sat waiting for appointments. It was nice. I also went to my 18C novel class, which was fantastic! I am very pleased.

My silly mistakes this evening included the following:
  1. Forget to buy food before today. Or Labor Day.
  2. Forget to eat. I should have eaten either before 6pm or after 8:30pm
  3. Go to the library without eating
  4. Stay at the library without checking the time
  5. Print out my syllabus and student questionaires for tomorrow for FREE at the office
  6. Go home at 10:30 and just chill for a couple of hours
  7. Run to Taco Bell and Kinkos because I didn't eat or copy earlier in the evening.
  8. Get back at 1am and begin typing a long blog
  9. Sign up for a 7am Sunrise Yoga class. Duh!
I wanted Yoga to be a release from stress. Now I realize how stress inducing that idea is. I will have to get up and dress up, then dress down, then sweat, then undress, then shower, then dress up again in order to look presentable for teaching. Haha!
I'll probably fall out of bed, catch the bus, do the yoga thing and hate it, nearly fall asleep, climb back on the bus, get showered and dressed at home, come back and realize I forgot something important (like my bra, syllabus, etc).

We shall see! Have at thee, Sunrise Yoga class!

Monday, September 04, 2006

Sunday, September 03, 2006

Haha. . . Look at Walmart now!

So, it looks like Walmart attempts to tantalize grandparents and their grandchildren by selling bundles of the Nintendo DS Lite in a "Grandparents' Day" special :




Would it be considered an insult to grandparents to receive this as a Grandparents' Day gift?

Saturday, September 02, 2006

My feet hurt!

What Pirates of the Caribbean character are you?
Your Result: Tia Dalma

You are Tia Dalma! You are a voodo . You belive in superstisous stuff. You may have been Davy Jones's former lover. Good job, know he wants everyone to die because you broke up with him!

Will Turner
Elizabeth Swann
Jack Sparrow
Hector Barbossa
Cutler Beckett
James Norrington
Davy Jones
What Pirates of the Caribbean character are you?

Friday, September 01, 2006

Why can't I kick self-doubt's ass??

So a couple of things happened today. The first is that I was still working on my conference paper (which should have been in the mail today), and I realized that it was pretty shitty. The thesis is not entirely there. Also, I discovered that someone else had recently published an entire book on the very subject that I was discussing. According to several reviews, it looks like I have an identical thesis. And this is very bad.

The second thing is that I had submitted my essay for a competition. . . and lost. I didn't even receive an honorable mention, and I realized that I may have only been one of two competitors. This made me even more embarrased and sad. And no one even knew. I didn't have the guts to tell anyone. Well, till now.

In brief retrospect, I realize that these problems (and other problems like it) are all in my head. Sure my essay may suck, but that's what public forums are for. It's a matter of correction, not humiliation. I also may not suck as bad as I think I do. I'm probably just okay. And I also don't know that I'm the only person in the world who can't write. . . Maybe I am actually ok. . . not the best, not the worst. Well, it's difficult to say.

So I'm turning over a new leaf. I'm not going to trust my gut, since my gut constantly tries to undermine my intelligence and talent. I'm going to trust the guts of others and depend more on reliable peer and faculty reviews. Fuck negativity. I'm going to kick self-doubt's ass!