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Got this spam mail the other day. The subject was “Happy Teachers Day”. Apparently on Teachers Day, I can get Viagra and Cialis for cheap, which is great to know. And I guess it’s customary to also recite strange, abstract poetry on Teacher’s Day as well, though I’m only theorizing.

For some reason this email didn’t make it into my Junk folder. Personally, I think it was because of how awesome it was. I almost went online to buy some Cialis just to support the makers of this spam.

This is probably one of the best breakdowns of VFX in a film or TV show I’ve seen yet. Now I need to see a breakdown of the breakdown, which is quite a production unto itself.

Seriously, it says it right on the tag! And is the logo suposed to resemble the PRADA logo? I can’t tell any more.

Comedy Central clip (legacy)

“The Mayolution Will Not Be Televised” – Colbert Report.
Apologies for the Advertisement.

The train was packed, but this woman (who was not transient in the least) seemed to have little regard for the other passengers. You’ll notice a man standing in the corner of frame.

Some people are just too nice to say anything, myself included. Still, it was worth snapping the shot, if for no other reason than to share this little piece of humanity with you.

You never know what you’ll find on a bathroom train. Both of these signs were in the same bathroom, in fact. The two signs in the first image seem at odds with one another, while in the second image, I felt like that sign ought to practice what it’s preaching.

Saw this parked out in front of my workplace today. WTF? Was hoping to get a George Jetson autograph, but there were only a few teamsters loitering the vicinity.

For those of you unfamiliar with the movie business, “background” refers to extras on a shoot. And yes, that is a dark hallway leading seemingly nowhere.

Some people call this the drunkest guy ever captured on video, but I wonder if there’s something mystical at play here. The way I see it, this man is completely sober, but someone has hexed him with having an eternal hill to climb, no matter where he goes, no matter how flat the ground beneath his feet.

You be the judge, and thanks for the reco Elz!

P.S. The surveillance video freezes a couple times, no need to adjust your screens, just wait it out.

Drunkest Guy Goes Back For More Beer

In a surprising twist of fate (long-time readers/haters will know what I mean), Digital Kitchen have been ripped off.

I will show you a series of images (how Freudian of me), and they will alternate between original still-frames from Digital Kitchen’s Dexter title sequence, and a series by the Getty Images photographer A. Carmichael.

It is worth noting that the Dexter title sequence was completed in the middle of 2006, while A. Carmichael (according to a correspondence with Getty directly) had uploaded their series only a few months ago. It is also worth nothing that I was able to get the director of the Dexter title sequence to pinky swear that he indeed does not own a time machine and therefore could not have travelled to the future to glean the images you will find on Getty.

As always, this is my opinion of course (see the tagline of my blog!), but I will be very interested to see what you viewers think.

Enjoy!

Here are two of my favorite commercials this year. I think more clients need to be bold and brave with their advertising. Take a risk and push a concept instead of letting consensus and focus groups rule your ideation.

Kudos to Mark Fitzloff, Susan Hoffman, Danielle Flagg, Tyler Whisnand, Julia Oh, Rudy Adler and Jeff Selis of Wieden + Kennedy for being one of the few teams at an ad agency willing to eschew safety for chance and make something brand-defining.

Cary Fukunaga, who directed Sin Nombre, filmed these two ads. Both of them take an eerie collection of Americana moments enshrouded mostly in shadow and silhouette, and put them against sparse music and two well-read Walt Whitman poems.

Enjoy!

Levi’s – “America”

Levi’s – “Pioneers!”

The Los Angeles Times just published an article entitled, “Fur flies on Mr. Fox,” which details some of the experiences and process of the filming of Wes Anderson’s The Adventures of Mr. Fox. The film appears to be a hipster’s answer to The Nightmare Before Christmas, and reminds me quite a lot of The Wind in the Willows, so much so that one has to wonder if the BBC series from yesteryear wasn’t as much an inspiration as Roald Dahl’s original story.

All of that said, one of the points of controversy was how the film was shot. The film was created using stop-motion photography, a technique where you move objects in front of the camera incrementally, and take still photos of each position, thus creating stop-action movement. The process takes ages, especially once you introduce animated characters, lip sync, and secondary animation in the form of swaying branches or passing cars.

Shot on a stage in London, Wes Anderson (who penned the adaptation after several weeks at Roald Dahl’s estate, researching what made the author “tick”) spent much of the production time nowhere near the set, but from his apartment in Paris instead. His opinion was that he would set the tone, and let the animators do their thing. Whenever there was a sequence finished, the animators would submit them as digital movies, and Anderson would fire back detailed emails with his notes, even filming his own digital movies where he would act out a certain gesture to explain what he was going for.

As a director of stop-motion myself, I can tell you that this is an understandable process. While I don’t agree with an entirely absentee director, it is a bit like watching grass grow to sit on set as the animators work on a given sequence.

Read the article for more insight on the Email Auteur himself.

Step 1: Fill a chamber with hydrogen gas

Step 2: Ionize that gas until it becomes plasma

Step 3: Heat that plasma up to one million degrees fahrenheit

Step 4: Use a powerful magnet to direct that plasma out of the engine

Step 5: Get from Earth to Mars in 39 days

Yes friends, this is real! There is a company (Ad Astra Rocket Company) developing a rocket which will be able to reach Mars in less than 40 days of travel time. By this math, astronauts might be able to reach the end of our solar system, to the Keiper belt beyond the planet formally known as Pluto, in under one year. The trick is to run the engine on hydrogen, which is a common material in the universe, making refueling possible en route. This enables the viability of deep space missions, making it possible and very probable with in the next couple of decades.

The rocket uses plasma and magnetism to create immense amounts of thrust; plasma is what happens when you charge up a gas and break apart its atoms.

And while there are only nine planets to choose from at present, scientists have discovered hundreds if not thousands of Earth-like planets sitting at the edges of our solar system, just out of sun’s gravitational pull. Once we learn how to move planets into the sun’s orbit, we may have a dozen or more Earth-like planets to choose from for first time home buyers.

The FHA is going to make a killing!

<rant>

For those liberals and conservatives who think the best way to feel at peace with your views is to criticize the faults of the opposing party, could you try to start thinking for yourselves instead of following the talking points of your party? Perhaps you might have some positive, constructive ideas for the future of your nation. Anything’s possible. Name calling and finger pointing create a stagnant and apathetic society.

Allow me a cliché: If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.

If I hear one more democrat villify Karl Rove or Rush Limbaugh, or one more conservative ridicule President Obama or Keith Olbermann, I’m going to lose it completely. Really, what’s the point?

Last point, it seems like these health care bills floating around DC are something like the bible: the believers swear by it even if they haven’t even read it. I think this country agrees on reform, and insuring all of our citizens, but we are not Denmark or Sweden, we are America. Each of our states are equal to or larger than those countries, and our economy is much different in complexion.

If the plan is to socialize medicine in America and reform health care, I fear it will require a complete reformation of Washington DC first. Sad but true.

</rant>

Favre celebrates a 30-23 victory over his former team. Photograph: Morry Gash/AP

When Ted Thompson and Mike McCarthy decided not to bring Brett Favre back to the team after hold outs and draft picks were exercised, you could almost sense the inevitable match up between these two entities. Favre wanted to be traded to the Vikings two seasons ago, which Thompson and McCarthy vehemently opposed. In fact, upper management made sure that if Favre intended to keep playing football, they would make it a painful transition for him. And after a mediocre season with the New York Jets, one may have thought that the Packers had won the battle.

But every battle is just a part of a bigger war, right? And here we are, just two short seasons since that decision to make Aaron Rodgers the franchise, with Brett Favre donning the purple, playing against his alma mater in the very dome he despised his entire career. For the first time, Packers fans were forced to make a choice. Do they honor the contributions Favre made to the Packers organization, literally lifting them up from the Don Majkowski era depression into Superbowl contenders and eventual victors? Or do the Packers fans eschew idolatry for visions of a future with a new, young talent?

The line was drawn, and the fans sided with Aaron Rodgers and the Packers team. Did you really think it would be any other way? I, myself, wondered who I would be rooting for… for a few seconds anyway. Once the ball was kicked off to Blackmon and the game under way, I was giddy with the prospect of the young Rodgers, who admitted his role as an understudy to Favre when he was the backup was icy at best, dethroning a veteran I had come to know, love and respect as a fan over my entire adult life.

And what a show it was. The game was 14-14 before you could blink, and it seemed both of these offenses were going to light up the Metrodome like the days when it was Cunningham to Moss vs. Favre to Freeman with Desmond Howard blazing just about every special teams play. But it didn’t take long for the growing pains on both sides of the ball to emerge. For the Packers, it was turnovers, trivial penalties and a weak offensive line; for the Vikings it was a lack of a running game and timing issues between Favre and his new receivers. Let’s give it to both defenses, however. For Green Bay to hold AD to 55 yards rushing, and for Minnesota to cause turnovers and stop the Packers on several red zone drives says a lot for the future of both teams.

But all-in-all, this was a great game for fans, and for Packers fans, it was the first time to hear the announcers gushing all over Brett Favre during a Packer game, but not as a Packer. Did I find it annoying? Not at all. Because Favre, unlike any player I can remember, commands a certain respect from his teammates and opponents, every time he sets foot on the field. Even Joe Montana was a fair-weather player to San Francisco when he left to become a Chief.

In the end, the Packers lost too many opportunites to put points on the board, and this was especially true in the red zone. Going for it on 4th and goal rather than kicking the field goal was a gutsy call that should have been overruled by the assistant coaches; Jared Allen is far too much of an animal to roll the dice against them. Another scenario, with the Packers on their own 1 yard line, led to a (surprise) Jared Allen sack and fumble. Upon review, it was not a fumble at all… but a safety instead. The fact that accepting a safety was one of McCarthy’s smartest decisions in the game says it all.

You can go to proper sports sites to get a much more articulate breakdown of the game, but I’ll leave you with this: Aaron Rodgers is every bit as talented as Brett Favre. Yes, he threw an interception last night, but he also outthrew Favre by more than 100 yards, throwing for 384 to Favre’s 271 (keep your eyes on Jermichael Finley, Fantasy Football readers).

Also worth mentioning: this is the fourth week in a row that Rodgers has been sacked, hurried, hit and everything else a defense can do to him (he was sacked 8 times last night, making that a league leading 20 sacks so far this season. It’s hard to throw for almost 400 yards without pressure, but for a player to put up those numbers with Jared Allen and co. in his face literally on every other play, has to deserve some note. He is a sharp, accurate passer with enough talent to sate fans and critics alike, if only he can get more time to throw. Chad Clifton returns soon, the Packers’ premier Offensive Lineman, so we will see if they can get their act together.

On defense, Dom Capers, Green Bay’s new defensive coach, has an entirely new scheme in place, which misutilizes some of the inherent strengths to the players (namely Mr. Three Point Stance Aaron Kampman and Mr. Bump and Run Al Harris).

The fact that Rodgers walks in the shadow of who will easily become one of football’s greatest legends, a legend who Rodgers backed up for three years, may be a blessing in disguise. Thus far he has flown under the radar of most analysts and speculators, ruled out as a talented but second rate Favre (literally, if Rodgers does anything remotely Favre like, such as throw off his back foot, the comparisons come out like ants to a Twizzler).

But if the Green Bay Packers can get healthy on the offensive line, and learn this new and promising defensive scheme, the rematch between Rodgers’ Packers and Favre’s Vikings may not be so fortunate for the Minnesotans next time around.

Thanks, Caleb!

Thanks, Marco!

I don’t know if it matters whether this clip is real or not, but if it IS, well then that’s just bonus material!