Happy Hallow's End

I'm kind of having a non-Halloween this year, pathetically enough, but I hope you are having a fun one!




Oh yes, I'm starting a cafepress shop (link on the side there), so if you have any merchandising suggestions, I'd love to hear them!

Contest - over!

Well, the Xfire/Blizzard "Summer" machinima film contest is officially over. We took first in Music/Dance for "Ballad of the Noob" and second in Short Film for"Beach Party 2." Congrats to ALL the winners, esp. Jason Choi who won the overall best in show for his film, "Edge of Remorse."

Music: Friday Night Bar Residency with Betty Dylan

I sometimes play bass with these guys. They are playing every Friday night at the Venice Bistro (a bar, don't be fooled) in Venice Beach. They're playing 5-10 pm but I can't show up until 7pm or so. Work, you know. It's a kind of, country rock, hippy rock, groovy jam kind of thing. Simple songwriting but good singing (and playing). Come on by, no cover.

Venice Bistro
323 Ocean Front Walk, Venice, California 90292
Directions: On Boardwalk @ Venice Beach (Just South of Rose St.)
5pm-10pm

I think the Forum broke

I apologize, the forum suddenly went off-line, and I think it died an unhappy death. But hey, it's not like anyone was posting there anyway. I'll put up a less ambitious version in a while.

Images up on Frederblog

I posted a bunch of screenshots from some of the animation that came in for Kyle+Rosemary.

GO SEE THEM

Music: 2 shows in San Diego this weekend

Most people who know me, know that I've had/been in a folk/pop ukulele band called Waste of Aces for a long time now. I kind of think of it as my 'ongoing music project.' It's usually a band that doesn't get to perform live very much; this is due to the fascinating but highly erratic life of our lead singer, Jeff, who right now is living in Hawaii and working aboard a cruise ship...but that's another story.

Well, with Jeff being unavailable for shows and all, what I usually do is go play with other bands to fulfill my playing in public needs. Most people don't know that I have a serious desire to make an ass of myself on a stage with 3-5 other people. Well, ok, that's unfair, usually we're pretty darn good. In light of this whole thing, I'm going to start posting dates/loctations/links/showtimes of the bands I am playing with, in hopes that someone is actually interested.

And the first is.....Zen Boy and Karma Girl (click on image), a modern folk-rock group. We will be playing in San Diego at a couple of coffee houses, this Friday and Saturday. And yes, I did the picture for them. =) The info:

Friday, October, 20 2006
8:00 pm
Twiggs Tea & Coffee
4590 Park Blvd.
San Diego, CA 92116
Cost: $8
www.twiggs.org

Saturday, October, 21 2006
7:00 pm
Hot Java Cafe
11738 Carmel Mountain Road
San Diego, CA 92128
Cost: Free!
www.myspace.com/hotjavacafe

Postcard Art

I finished my postcard art for my Nickelodeon short cartoon today(click to see larger). Every time Frederator does a series of cartoon shorts, they release individual postcards for each of the films. Great promotional tool! But I had to sacrifice my Sunday working on it ;)

Stanford Machinima Panel

I'll be involved in a Machinima Panel over at Stanford University, hosted by Xfire, Oct. 26th, 6pm. Come on over! Don't be shy! Other cool game/web/machinima folk will be there. I'll try to say something halfway intelligent. There will be screenings and a mixer.

STANFORD MACHINIMA EVENT INFO

Dr. M goes to the Mackies

Dr. Mechanico has been nominated for a 2006 Mackie (Machinima Award) for Best Off the Shelf Machinima. Interesting category...I kinda hoped for writing...but I'm just happy to be nominated. How fun is this!?

Get Your Vote On

What a lame title I just wrote, I'm totally ashamed of myself.

So, the voting has begun over at Xfire, and ends Oct. 26. Go on over and vote (hopefully, for us - you know I have to say that) but at least vote!

Short Film Vote
Music/Dance Vote

What's next?

Well, now both 'Beach Party 2' and 'The Ballad of the Noob' are being downloaded and, hopefully, laughed at by lots n lots of people. I'll post a couple of 'production stills', LOL.

So what's next?

Well, a while back, when Xfire announced its second WoW contest, I had this idea to make a musical. Yes, you heard right. A musical. But not THAT kind of musical. A rock musical. \m/ I even had a storyline. But I realized that the contest time limit of 10 minutes wasn't going to be enough for this project. I mean, a single song would probably take up, say, 3 1/3 minutes just by itself. A musical would have, say, at least 5 songs. Not to mention a bunch of exposition and junk. So that's probably at least....30-40 minutes. I didn't want to enter only part of a project, so I scrapped it for the time being.

But now....oh yes!!!

Yesterday I had a bad day. I was feeling ganged up on by a discussion I started on the Xfire forums that I sincerely wanted to know everyone's opinion of, but instead got a lot of "how dare you attack this excellent film, etc. and was even called a troll (although some people to their credit really did discuss the issue I raised). I really felt hurt, but of course if I had posted that too, everyone would say I was seeking attention or some shit like that, or was a whiner. It was a no-win scenario for me, so I let it go, but I felt let down by the fact that I couldn't suggest anything controversial without getting jumped all over. It didn't help that I was also going through some problems in my personal life.

ANYway, out of pain comes creativity...WHY, dammit, WHY? Why can't I get brilliant ideas when I'm feeling great....I guess that's the way it goes. I wrote a song, and I think it's gonna be good when it's done. The first song for the musical. I guess that means I've started working on it...

Movie Poster Goodness

Someone over on the Xfire Forums had the splendid idea to create movie posters for our films. Here's the two I created. Clicking on them will bring up their respective Xfire download links.


















Oh, and if anyone wants the full-size version of the posters, here's the links:

Beach Party 2
The Ballad of the Noob

Beach Party 2 up on Xfire!

Hey everyone! The wait is over, go on over to Xfire and download the first of our two contest entries!

Here's the LINK.

Yes, you do need to download the Xfire client, but A. it's free and B. you'll need an Xfire account anyway to vote for us!!