RobotSoup.com

It’s been noted that I haven’t updated this site much; this is truth! Utter Truth!

I’m working like crazy on so many crazy things!

I’ve been helping some friends create their website; Wild Moon Video Productions (Wildmoonvideo.com). Wild Moon Video are the masterminds behind the brilliant public-access show “The Billionaire’s Club“. (Check out “Lazers”, “Buddy Beer”, and “Nintendo is God”. Some truly epic stuff) Some very rad folks, with whom I’ve worked on some projects with Adventure Star Pictures, which is making films of its own.

Adventure Star Pictures is led by Jen Forbe’s, currently working on finalizing their show, “Vital Force“. The show was shot over this last winter, and Jen and Dave (of Wild Moon Video) have been working to edit the footage into the finished show. I’ve been helping a wee bit with effects, and play the roll of “Darian”, an alien with a ridiculous hat.

The show will be followed by a Feature Film by the same name that was greenlit by Shoreline Community College a few months back. Very rad stuff. They’re planning on shooting the whole thing this summer. Very rad stuff. Read more about it on their site, if you want.

I’m also working on a bunch of music with Scott Hampson for our band, “The El Camino Guys”, working on a bit of stuff for that, in the evenings. And we have barbeque’s of delicious burgers and hot dogs. Some very rad songs have been made, which we’ll try to record when we get some free time. We’ve also slowly but surely awaiting the day when we have free time and can begin work on “SIA”, a show based on the band which should blow everyone’s minds. Or at least mine.

In my nightly evening walks I’m also trying to fit together all the pieces for my next film (assuming there is one!?) and organizing a bunch of concepts into a coherent whole. Is it, too, blowing my mind? Sources point to Yes!

But what can I SHOW anyone? Well, we’ve released a small low-quality bit of Project London to help bring more CG guys into the project (which I’ll work on more once I get back from a camp I’m helping at till this coming Friday). Here’s the snippet;

-Whaugh! I cannot embed that video in this blog! Whaugh!

Just view it here!

And it’s even more epic in High Def! It’s my first time working in High Def- I love it.

If you wish to help out with the project, (and you should! We’re doing a ton of pretty darn rad stuff) send an email to me at Mrdodobird@subjectC.com . The requirements?

1. A pretty darn good understanding of Blender
2. Work samples that show your skills
3. Ability to provide weekly status reports on your progress
4. Ability to establish reasonable deadlines for deliverables and then deliver on deadline
5. Pleasant disposition, easy to work with
6. Willingness to volunteer time and talent

But yeah! Love to hear from ya for a bit more info Check Out Here!

A bunch of personal stuff has been going on too- I got to spend a couple uninterrupted days with Tasha, which was awesome. She recently got her surgery for the Cochlear Implant- it’s yet to be activated, but with any luck it’ll totally totally improve her hearing! This should be awesome. Read all about it on her blog here! It’s very informative! And useful; if you’re going to get a Cochlear Implant.

Also? I saw “Princess Mononoke”, and it totally absolutely completely blew my mind. Miyazaki is King.

Also? …Umm… who does Princess Mononoke refer to? I mean… who’s the Princess Mononoke in Princess Mononoke? I don’t remember one. Just a bit of confusion on my part.

I have been CRAZY BUSY!

Can I show you what I’ve been working on?

No.

HOWEVER! Blender 2.46 is out… and just take a look at this insane updates! Thanks Big Buck Bunny crew!

Many things have been happening! Daylight Savings Time, for 1. Which is a good idea. Actually no. Daylight’s Saving is a silly idea.

I have been doing many things! 1st… Err… pictures!

I’ve been drawing and doing some picture stuff, like these ones;

That’s been fun. I haven’t really drawn in years. I wanna make a comic book or something. yeah. To see more of what I’ve been working on you can check my DeviantART gallery, if you feel so inclined.

Also? Uploaded a few more songs to the Post-Huzzinations page! Some good ones, and probably the last I’ll upload for a while, as I’m starting a new music-esque thing with Scott Hampson… we’ll see how that goes. Glorious, probably. I’m hyped to post more about it.

Project London goes well!

Josh Truax and Bryan Hanner in the Hangar

I’ve been working on the CG night and day, and I gotta say, this movie will be pretty darn cool when completed. Still no good estimate on when it will be done, and anything I throw out at random would just mislead you… hopefully soonish!

I’ve meet with Abney Park (sweetest and most steam-punkin’ band on the planet, and the only Airship Pirates) a few times, and am most likely going to be doing a music video for them. Which should be a HIGHLY rad experience.

I made them an airship, once.

Yup!

Not gonna lie; there are movies, and then there are MOVIES.

Amazing movie 1.)
The Rocketeer
Trailer Here

Premise; a man finds a jetpack, gets a sweet helmet, and fights Nazi’s with it. And in the end blows up a Dirigible. With effects by ILM. Just… I mean… have you not seen this movie? I think most people did. A while ago. See it again. You must.

Amazing Movie 2.)
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension
Trailer Here

Here is what IMDB has to say about it; “Buckaroo Banzai is a rock-star/brain-surgeon / comic-book-hero/samurai/ etc who along with his group, the Hong Kong Cavaliers, must stop evil creatures from the 8th dimension (all named John) who are trying to conquer our dimension. He is helped by Penny Pretty, who is a dead ringer for his late wife, and some good extra-dimensional beings who look and talk like they are from Jamaica”

Still not convinced? This article about sums it up.

Seriously… go see this movie. Right now.

Amazing Movie 3.)
Six String Samurai
Trailer Here!

I already wrote about this. At length. Check that trailer. Oh yeah.

I guess I have a thing for sword wielding musicians.

So… we were hacked, and it sucked.

I gotta hand it to the hacker though, he seemed like a nice guy, from what I could tell (read his pleasant note here. It even contains a smiley).

Fortunately everything is up and running clear as cookies again, so hurrah for that.

How did it get fixed, you may ask? Braedon thinks he might have fixed it… but we’re not sure. Regardless, he identified that PHP was done on the site, and did what had to be done to get it back!

WHAT a guy! I tell you!

Also? I have uploaded some new songs to the music myspace… Some pretty darn rockin’ ones.

And one about a suicidal fish. Which is basically ALL fish.

I’ll make them downloadable on the music page of RobotSoup soon!  So you can download it and put it on your iPod and rock out on the bus, or as you walk down the- oh man. I gotta stop, I’m crackin’ myself up.

“Hey, whatcha listenin’ to?” “‘I Want To Eat A Dog’.” “Wow. That sounds like the worst song of all time.” ‘Word.”

“The Matrix” is still just as awesome as you remember.

So, I’m not one for ranting, but I have a quick one-

European Chocolate Snobs.

If I had a dollar for every time someone said- “Oh man. I HATE American chocolate! It’s so horrible and waxy! European Chocolate is infinitely superior!” I’d have, like, 20 dollars.

If I had a dollar for every time someone said- “Here, try some of this European Chocolate, it will make you HATE American chocolate”, and then I ate it, and then I didn’t think it was really all that amazing, and I walked away still liking Hershey’s, I would have, like, maybe 16 dollars, I guess.

I guess my point is either 1.) Since I grew up with it, I happen to LIKE Hershey’s, 2.) I happen to have odd tastes, 3.) These other people have odd tastes or 4.) European Chocolate is really not all that amazingly superior and they should just get over their bloody chocolate.

Oh, and a quick note; it’s not just Europeans who are so obsessed with their chocolate! Most of the snobs I could name are American! This is not targeted at any specific people group! Except Albinos.

Let me also tell you- Europeans are not the end-all experts in the sweets department! When it comes to junk food I happen to think that Americans may have a greater stake in that domain! We recently had an exchange student from Spain. She would mime vomiting at the mention of S’mores and Root Beer Floats. Also? Peanut Butter. They find the very concept revolting, and she said this is a pretty common mindset in Spain.

Do we really want to trust a people who seem to be collectively fearful of the epic goodness of peanut butter claiming chocolate as their sovereign right? Nay! Nay! A billion trillion times Nay! Nay nay nay!

I mean, you know, I love Europeans, but you “chocolate connoisseurs” can go sit in some fancy red-velvet room with the… wine connoisseurs, I guess. But I don’t drink wine so I don’t care much about that.

I’m gonna go make a s’more. You want one?

SO!

The Rough Edit of Project London is now completed! And has been viewed! And approved!

I am most hyped.  Things go well with the project

“Take it from me, I don’t want to be; hanging around; while my metropolis burns to the ground. Can it be real? Can it be true? I gave up a life of computers for you.”

Also? Check out these guys. I am now a fan.

Best of tidings to you all! May it be… good!

Also? Part II of “Guinea Pigs; II; Further Proof of why they are Ridiculous”

Click Here

The file is unnecessarily huge… but.. I cannot watch it without laughing.

I mean… seriously.

Also? Tasha is ridiculously cute.

Mall Santas are for children with little sense of perspective.

I slept very little last night, so this may be a bit less… coherent than usual.

Malls are, to me, oddly terrifying. It’s like a physical place where huge corporations reach out and touch us on a personal level with their perfectly calculated marketing and manipulative techniques- and people LIKE it!

Gives me the willies, frankly. 1.) I’m not a fan of crowds, and 2.) there’s a small part of me that feels like if I’m buying something, then I’ve failed in coming up with a “better solution” (Read As: Thrift Stores, Dumpsters, Creating something using other old stuff found around).

I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan of buying stuff, when I have enough money.  Buying stuff can be rad. I just don’t like “shopping”, per say.

I was at the mall yesterday, for an hour or two, and ended up buying nothing. I didn’t even like entering the stores, because, oddly, there was so much marketing out front that, if I HAD entered the stores, I’d feel like they “won”, like their advertising campaign designed only to get me into the store worked. And I’m not sure I like the idea of being manipulated like that by someone I don’t even know. Also? Most of the stores are creepy.

Actually, the first store I DID enter was this puzzle shop. Because they had a big puzzle of Audrey Hepburn in the window. This pleased me, and I decided to go see if they had, in a similar vein,  a Humphrey Bogart puzzle I could get for a friend who basically wants to go back in time and marry that man. As it ends up, they had a whole little shrine for the guy (puzzles have good taste, apparently), but $17.99 for an item nobody really likes anyway…

I continued to walk around the mall, and found OTHER Humphrey Bogart and Audrey Hepburn memorabilia. Calendars… actually that’s it. I found Calendars, too. And I wanted to get them. But didn’t. Because they cost $17.00. Again.

So I basically just walked around being terrified by all these people who spoke the “mall language”, which was quite foreign to me.

On a very quick random note which I shouldn’t even bring up; people’s personal style. I’d always wondered “How do people know what the ‘hip’ thing to wear these days is?  How is everyone so much more in the know?” Apparently all they did was go to the mall. And buy stuff there. I am now a lot less impressed by everyone’s sense of style.

“What did you expect, Ian?” you might ask. Well, good point. Very good point… let’s just say some of the people I have the most respect for are the folks who sew their own clothing. Heck yes.

On a similiar vein, “Shirts With Funny Things On Them”. I have a couple. Which I wear occasionally. But it makes me feel weird. Because I did not come up with the witty statement on the shirt. Some other person did. And I always feel like I’m trying to pass it off as mine… if that makes sense. I want to buy a bunch of white shirts and write my own mantras on them, “These Are Not My Pants”, “This Shirt is Pretentious”, “Corporate Lackey”… I dunno. I say “I want that on a shirt” about 5 times a day, but whenever I actually try to remember/think of ideas I draw a blank.

I  like that “Pretentious” idea, though…

The mall exists for one reason; to get money from the consumer. Seriously. No surprise, I know. But just recognize this as you walk around. Anything that can be exploited will be. They would charge you to pee, if doing so wouldn’t potentially drive people out of the store sooner, and thus spend less money. Free parking? Of course! So you’ll buy stuff! No clocks? Of course not! You exist in a world of strictly shopping! Any reminder of outside obligations would only distract you from your goal! Of buying stuff!

Another example? THE MALL SANTA! The line they had for kids to see Santa actually wove AROUND an SUV they had parked inside the mall. And apparently it was a cool one, because at one point walking by I saw one girl say to another “Ooohh! I just have to touch it!” and… she did. And endorphins were released, apparently.  It had far too few gauges for my taste. Also? The actual Santa chair was dwarfed by the cash register and lighting setup. Which existed to get more money from consumers.

I mean, I know this is nothing new… it just kinda was my big realization of the night; “AH! This is why I dislike malls so much!”

Also? This blog terrifies me somewhat, because it makes me sound like one of “Those” people. Ah well. *Hits Post*