Passing of Jon D'Agostino,

newsfromme.com

Longtime comic book artist John "Jon" D'Agostino died November 29th at his home in Ansonia.

More: newsfromme.com

Winter Beard, Broken Computers, & Cartoons

Just catching up. The only cuts are because I loose my choo-choo of thought and begin to stutter, or worse. At the end is a bicycle-cam experiment ending.
Be Well

The last big forclosure

"For sale, one country, used. Not cheap, but affordable with many perks for the right buyer(s). Spacious skies, with purple mountains, foreclosed farm land, and vast plains ready for development and exploitation. Beach front included on East,West, and partially Southern exposures(although the Southeast area is prone to storm damage). Current occupants are somewhat intelligent but remain lethargic and basically apathetic. Some inerudite members will trade claims to property and savings for sparkly promises. Greatest cooperation is won by letting them think that they are "in charge." A real fixer-upper. Previous management began some remodeling but disagreed over where best to make changes and never finished. Property is already subdivided and some plots have expressed a preference in being sold separately. New management interested in immediate liquidation of assets as business requires travel overseas. Sorry, all purchases must be made in precious metals, international stocks, bonds, or jewelry as the local currency is expected to have no value. Interested parties are requested to contact our brokers; the U.S. Chamber of Commerce or American Crossroads."

Republicans and Tea Party Go Too Far

In the first 18 months of the Obama presidency, we have seen the Republican members of congress drag their feet, put out misinformation, and finally refuse to even discuss proposed legislation, all the while collecting their paychecks and publicly funded healthcare benefits.

We have seen disrespect for the President of the United States and the OFFICE of the President of the United States on a scale never before seen in modern America.

It’s one thing to disagree with legislation, and quite another to just stop it. No vote, just cause nothing to be done at all. That is not why you were elected and put in office. You are there to govern, to lead, and stating that your feel-bads got hurt, or you don’t like the game so you are not going to play, is not an option. Just like it’s not an option in anybody else’s job.

But refusing to play may be just what we get, if some Republican and Tea Party candidates are elected.

Republican candidates and House Republican Leader John Boehner have publicly stated, “No Compromises,” for the next two years. No compromises means no work. Well, at least no work for you or I, you know the people who pay these guys.

The very definition of a political government is compromise. You want this, I want that, let’s find something in the middle that we can both live with and maybe gets us both a little closer to our goals. The idea of “No Compromise” means no governing. No action at all.

And although many shortsighted people may think that this is a good way to stop what they may not agree with in this Presidency, what do you think is going to happen if and when the political worm turns?

Even if the Republicans were to take back control of both houses, even if President Obama looses his reelection in 2012, what do you think the minority party is going to do? The same thing? You bet.

No republican legislation will make it through Congress because Democrats will use the exact same tactics now mastered by the Republicans.

But its gets even worse. Utah's Tea Party-backed Republican Senate candidate, Mike Lee, talked about the possible “Inconvenience” of a government shutdown to stop what he sees as a run-away budget.

An “Inconvenience?” Really? Let’s see Mike, you might be inconvenienced if your paycheck comes a week or so late, but the healthcare for you and your family will continue. Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, the Post Office and other Federal Government agencies would come to a stop. Inconvenience? Putting people lives and livelihoods on the block to oppose a sky rocketing budget deficit?

Let’s pause and look to see just where that deficit came from.

When Clinton administration finished, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, they left a budgetary surplus of $86.4 billion in fiscal 2000. Again that was his last year in office and does not count any Social Security surpluses.

That was the budget condition that George W. Bush and the Republican held Congress inherited when Bush took office. In 2008, the last full year G.W Bush was in office, the Presidents budget request optimistically projected that the deficit for all of 2008 would total $410 billion.

I call his proposed budget “optimistic” because by October of that same year, 2008, the budget deficit had ballooned to 10.2 Trillion, that’s TRILLION with a ‘T’, dollars. This was not because of the 9-11 attacks, it wasn’t just because of the wars in Iraq and Afganistan, this was primarily the 700 billion dollar Government bailout of the banks and Wall Street.

And who had restricted the enforcement or eliminated the Federal rules governing those businesses? Obama? That would have been one hell of a trick as he would not take office until January 20th of the following year. It was George W. Bush and the Republican held congress.
According to the Treasury, the Bush administration added an average $500 billion dollars a year to the deficit, every year starting in 2003.

As I record this, the U.S. NATIONAL DEBT CLOCK is reading just under 14 Trillion dollars. That means with all the “wild spending” that President Obama and the Democrats are accused of, amounts to less than 4 Trillion dollars since October of 2008, four months before President Obama even took office.

And that does include Social Security, all the extra bailouts, and the stimulus package, which President Obama and the Democrats were forced to make to fix the fiscal irresponsibility of the previous administration.

What is the Republican war cry? “Cut the deficit!” How do they plan to do that? By extending the “Bush Tax Cuts” past their December 31, 2010 expiration date. .Those very tax cuts, right now, account for approximately 25% of the overall budget deficit, according to the Congressional Budget office. That’s about 3.5 TRILLION (with a T) dollars! Who has to make up the difference? You and I.

I’m not here to tell you who to vote for or who to vote against next Tuesday November 2nd. I’m saying that you should spend some time, not only listening to MSNBC or FOX News, NPR and others, but do a little digging of your own. Find the facts.

“But Chuck, how do you know all this stuff?”

I’m sitting in front of a computer connected to the internet and if you are watching this, so are you. Use Google, use Yahoo, use whatever is your favorite search engine and type in your questions. Or follow the links I have posted below. That will get you started.

But don’t just blindly believe what any politician is telling you. They are trying to get your vote and will say whatever they think you want to hear to get it from you. Don’t give that vote away cheaply. It’s yours, you earned it. You earn it everyday that you go to work, mow your lawn, take care of your family, and pay you taxes. You earn it the old fashioned way, by living everyday the best you can, as an American. Don’t let anyone sucker you out of it.

I found all of this in a little over two hours, and typed this up to boot.

================================================

Where did I find all this stuff?

Federal Employeee Health Care Program. No waiting period for Congressional members or their families and no “pre-existing conditions” are refused.
http://www.opm.gov/insure/health/

Congressional disrespect
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/09/gop-rep-wilson-yells-out_n_281480.html

Congressional Republican Misinformation
http://www.seiu.org/2009/07/republican-misinformation-about-health-care.php

http://www.youtube.com/user/PoliticsNewsPolitics#p/u/420/PqjIt8kUUJo

Use of the “Filibuster” by both parties
http://newsjunkiepost.com/2010/03/02/republican-obstruction-at-work-record-number-of-filibusters/

Rep. John Boehner, (R-Ohio), Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.)
http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2010/10/28/130895390/house-republicans-vow-no-compromise

Mike Lee’s Government Shutdown –
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/28/mike-lee-government-shutdown_n_775405.html

Clinton Budget facts: http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/during_the_clinton_administration_was_the_federal.html

Bush projected budget deficit
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/02/12/national/main3822385.shtml?source=RSSattr=HOME_3822385

October 2008 deficit

http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/new-money/2008/10/09/maxing-out-the-national-debt-clock.html

National Debt Clock
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/

Bush Tax Cuts
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/30/AR2010073002671.html

Who gets the Bush Tax Cuts
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39317328/ns/politics/

A written version of this Vlog will be on my Blog as soon as I can post it there.
http://distorteddogma.blogspot.com/

Too Much!

I have always been a big fan of Allen Mezquida "allenmez" and his Smigly cartoon series. But this one really takes exposure to all the new technology and advertising right where you live or at least, try to live.



Be Well.

The Elusive "Good" Story

What makes a story good, what makes it sell?

Is it characters? Believable three dimensional characters that you can somehow feel have more life than is spelled out in the story?

Is it plot? An expertly designed plotline carefully laid out, step by step, doling out information in cautious spoonfuls, enough to keep you engaged but not give away too much and have the listener/ watcher/ reader jump ahead to the conclusion.

Is it the setup, the design and deliberate detail to sights, smells, and tastes?

Dialogue? Although bad dialogue can surely kill a story, could great dialogue alone save a bad one?

Is it all of these mechanics that work together, methodically built from research, to outline, to manuscript, following all the rules so rigidly set forth in one writing class after another? The right number of characters, the perfect setting, the correct number of twists in the plot, all the details that can be squeezed into the perfectly build story.

Is that what makes a story good? Makes you want to read, watch, listen to it the first time and go back and start again?

There are piles of manuscripts which stand unread. Perfect to the letter in every way. Every rule followed, all the I’s dotted and the T’s crossed. And yet, there they sit.

Is it that the story, truly is, in the telling?

Banned Books Week

American Library Association  www.ala.org

http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/banned/bannedbooksweek/index.cfm

Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read
September 25−October 2, 2010

A list of 10 classic books often banned and/or challenged -- and why:

1. The Great Gatsby: language and sexual references
2. The Catcher in the Rye: excess vulgar language, sexual issues, moral issues
3. The Grapes of Wrath: vulgarity, filth, taking the Lord's name in vain
4. To Kill a Mockingbird: profanity and racial slurs
5. The Color Purple: sexual and social explicitness, troubling ideas about race,negative image of black men
6. Ulysses: too much sex.
7. Beloved: violence, sexual material
8. The Lord of the Flies: demoralizing, excessive violence, bad language
9. 1984: pro-Communist, explicit sexual matter
10. Lolita: pedophilia

Bonus Ban: Harry Potter: Irreligious
Ironic Ban: Fahrenheit 451: Rather than ban it Ballentine “santitized” it for use in schools without Ray Bradbury’s permission or input.

Be Well.

McNuggets Rampage Surveillance Footage (with original sound)

If you haven't seen this crazy woman in the news, where have you been?

Audio track provided by my crazy friends at Octoberroad.

Be Well

Just how many rendering processors can you afford?

This may be the best idea that has come down the pike in some time. It's called Corefarm.org. Unlike its commercial sibling Corefarm.com, Corefarm.org is free to use, sortta.

Here is the idea. All of us could use a large render farm from time to time, but not everyday. The Boxx render farm units start at $2000 US each. That could be a lot of money sitting on your desk most of the week waiting for you to finish your latest masterpiece. And there are other times when one or more computers in your office are sitting idle. Why not combine the two? Don't buy a render farm that you might not be ready to fully utilize, let your computer idle time earn you render hours on the Corefarm.

What is Corefarm? The web site describes it as;
"Corefarm is a place where you can either submit your Yafaray rendering job or participate to other users' rendering tasks. Corefarm splits your job in several small pieces and distributes them across the internet, leading to impressive rendering times."
Windows users; use Firefox to log into Corfarm.org (after you register) and walk away. You are given a localhost login page. Open that page and your system is part of the Corefarm. As other users submit XML projects prepared by Yafaray, buckets of render information are processed by one or more of your processor cores. Every job processed earns you points toward free rendering time on the farm. Up to 10 projects can be processed at any one time and to stop participating, you just logout.

There are similar processes for other operating systems as well, but as I don't use them, they are just plain over my head.

But you should spend a few minutes and check it out. If you have a server system that already farms out processor time, or if you have multiple computers, they can all share the same login earning your account points. The more systems logged in the more powerful the Corefarm is. Contact William Le Ferrand or see the information on the Corefarm.org website..

Corefarm is only rendering Yafaray at this time. Corefarm.com is a pay for use site that renders in both Yafaray and LuxRender.

Going 3D with Blender 2.53

So at this point, I know nothing about 3D animation and graphics. I do understand using 3D environment in a 2D project, but it's hardly the same thing. I use Toon Boom Animate Pro for most of my projects now, having graduated from Studio to Digital Pro and finally to Animate Pro. For 2D, I don't think you can find a better program. It out flashes Adobe Flash© and runs circles around any other competition.

But this Blog is not about Flash or Toon Boom. It's about Blender. Specifically, Blender 2.5.

Wow.

I had downloaded Blender back in 2000 in the 2.0 or 2.1 phase. It was interesting, but I really was not into 3D graphics back then. It seemed awkward and clumsy, but so did all 3D programs.

I downloaded the new 2.53 beta is 22 megabytes (52.2 megabytes installed). I already had Microsoft C++ 2008 Redistributable Sp1 and Python 3.1 installed so installation went without a hitch.

Opening the program was a surprise. The new 2.5 menu layout was great. I had no idea what all the menus and buttons meant, nor what they actually did, but there was a big build view screen and menus to the left an right. It did take me a while to find the wiki documentation online and because this is a Beta version, the documentation is far from complete. But there are lots of great free online tutorial sites for 2.5 already (Blendercookie, Blendernoobies, and BlenderGuru ) and it's not all that hard to make the leap from the 2.49 tutorials (.Creative Cow, Lynda.com, and others). Honestly, they are everywhere and many are free.

In just a couple of evenings I was able to set my personal preferences, create my own version of the work space, and make this simple 3D text

Screen from my machine. Click to enlarge.

As I said, I have no CAD or other 3D experience, so as little as this is, it's big to me at this point. Below is a short video that outlines Blender's history


From Blender 3D 1.60 to 2.50 from Allan Brito on Vimeo.

There were some things I recognized right off the bat. Key Frame animation, by default the time line runs across the bottom of the screen, working with Bezier curves, Inverse kinematics and more.

I've been reading comparisons between the commercial softwares (Audodesk's Maya and others) and Blender, although slightly behind in some features, it seems Blender has lead the way in others and the new 2.5, when complete, should bring Blender up to the industry standards across the board

What does it take to run it? Lets do a simple compare with Maya:

Bender System Requirements
Operating Systems

• Windows 2000, XP or Vista
• Mac OS X 10.2 and later
• Linux 2.2.5 i386
• Linux 2.3.2 PPC
• FreeBSD 6.2 i386
• Irix 6.5 mips3
• Solaris 2.8 sparc

Minimal specs for Hardware

• 300 MHz CPU
• 128 MB Ram
• 20 MB free hard disk Space
• 1024 x 768 px Display with 16 bit color
• 3 Button Mouse
• Open GL Graphics Card with 16 MB Ram

Good specs for Hardware

• 2 Ghz dual CPU
• 2 GB Ram
• 1920 x 1200 px Display with 24 bit color
• 3 Button Mouse
• Open GL Graphics Card with 128 or 256 MB Ram

Production specs for Hardware

• 64 bits, Quad core CPU
• 8 GB Ram
• two times 1920 x 1200 px Display with 24 bit color
• 3 Button Mouse + tablet
• Open GL Graphics Card with 768 MB Ram, ATI FireGL or Nvidia Quadro

For 32-bit Autodesk Maya 2011

• Microsoft® Windows Vista® Business (SP2 or higher), Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional (SP3 or higher), Microsoft® Windows® 7 Professional operating system
• Windows: Intel® Pentium® 4 or higher, AMD Athlon™ 64, AMD Opteron™ processor, AMD Phenom™ processor
• 2 GB RAM
• 4 GB free hard drive space
• Qualified hardware-accelerated OpenGL® graphics card
• Three-button mouse with mouse driver software
• DVD-ROM drive
• Maya Composite media cache requirements for playback:
• 10 GB minimum, 200 GB recommended
• HDD: IDE, SATA, SATA 2, SAS, SCSI
• Microsoft® Internet Explorer® 7.0 or higher, Apple® Safari®, or Mozilla® Firefox® web browser

For 64-bit Autodesk Maya 2011

• Microsoft Windows Vista Business (SP2 or higher), Microsoft Windows XP x64 Edition (SP2 or higher), Microsoft Windows 7 Professional, Apple Mac OS X 10.6.2, Red Hat® Enterprise Linux® 5.4 WS, or Fedora™ 11 operating system
• Windows and Linux: Intel® EM64T, AMD Athlon 64, AMD Opteron, or AMD Phenom™ processor
• Mac® computer: Intel-based processor
• 2 GB RAM
• 4 GB free hard drive space
• Qualified hardware-accelerated OpenGL graphics card
• Three-button mouse with mouse driver software
• DVD-ROM drive
• Maya Composite media cache requirements for playback:
• 10 GB minimum, 200 GB recommended
• HDD: IDE, SATA, SATA 2, SAS, SCSI
• Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0 or higher, Apple Safari, or Mozilla Firefox web browser

Now that we know what it take in hardware, what does it take in GREENWARE?
Maya - $4000.00 plus a license for every machine it runs on.
Blender - Free (Contributions encouraged) and the same price for every machine it runs on - Free.

If you are just starting out or planning to expand your operation, it's worth a look.

Yet more Fireworks

I know, everyone will be uploading fireworks videos for the next few days.

Well here's a little bit from Phoenix. They were great, but no Colby Park.

Scene 1 Background Painting

Although I would love to say that the activities pictured in my previous blog were being repeated again this year, it's just not the case. Due to a series of sob stories which I will not burden you with, my vacation is a "stay-cation", as in stay at home.

But one good thing has come out of it. In the last week I finally finished the background design for the first sequence in my fall holiday cartoon. One that I started last year and didn't even come close to finishing anything but the dance movement study (Which you can see as "Not Quite A Nutcracker" on the second page of this Blog or on YouTube).

The frame above is actually eleven layers which will be animated separately to create the illusion of 3D space. There are details (such as stars and such) which are only added in the final shot. All in all I expect this painting to be on screen for about 10 seconds or so.

And that is why cartooning alone take so much time.

Be Well.

48 Weeks A Year

Forty-eight weeks a year I toil for the city, fixing dimming systems, relay control systems, lighting consoles, sound equipment, network based audio/visual systems in five theaters and one million square feet of convention center. Putting right what always goes wrong.

Two weeks in the summer and two weeks at Christmas, I don’t.

It’s summer

What's Not In Your Wallet?

Well, it finally happened to me. We have had security breaches before, but it was always expected because the attempts followed one of the family loosing a credit card, leaving a check book, or my wife had her purse stolen once. But we always discovered the breach before any money (except ant cash we might have had) was taken.

This week-end started out so nice. We had a break in the 100 plus degree heat, there was a breeze, even a smattering of rain. We had spent most of Saturday morning on the back patio just enjoying it all. Birds were at the feeders, the chickens were scratching around in the lawn, still damp from the shower, the dogs were lazily sniffing around the yard, it was nearly perfect.

The Phone rang and I got up to answer. It was the VISA Fraud center asking me to verify some purchases. I had gotten these calls before. If I or my wife ordered something expensive on the interweb, VISA would call to check and I always voiced my appreciation that they were watching my back. A recorded message asked me to verify several charges made with a charge card ending in 2993. It was at that point I snapped to attention.

My wife, Karen and I have worked very hard in the past eight or so years to eliminate our credit cards. Having each been married before, we had started our new life together with old debt that our spouses had not paid. In addition, we were both working independent doing film, theater, and TV spots and Arizona had made some political errors with the MLK holiday that, like now with the SB1070 law and its dubious revisions, shows coming to Arizona are canceling or just relocating. Work dries up and you live off your credit.

Bad idea,

It took twelve years to get out of that trap. Finally four years ago, just before the housing crunch fell on us all, I refinanced our home and nailed everything that was left. Credit card became plastic confetti in my shedding machine. Bank of America, MasterCard, Sears, JCPenny, American Express, Visa Silvers, Visa Platinums, Visa Visas, all fell prey to the whirling knives as they were paid in full and closed forever. It was ecstasy.

Since we have had a few choice store cards that relate to my wife's company. One General Visa card from our bank and our checking debit cards. No credit balances over $1000.00, everything else is cash. Before the housing market values fell, we even still had over half the value of our home in equity.

So the mechanical voice on the phone said the account ended in 2993, with so few cards left, I know them all. This was not a credit card; this was our checking debit card. This was going to be bad. I listened as the mechanical "man" at the other end of the phone line ran off four charges done that morning at a Wal-Mart in Columbus Georgia. I immediately chose option "5" speak to a human being and was pleasantly surprised that the person answering spoke perfect English. I identified myself and after the obligatory "And what can I do for you today?" question I said, "Stop the card." .
"So these are not your charges?"
"I, and my wife are here in Phoenix, the charges are in Georgia. Stop the card."
"Are you in possession of the cards?"
"I will check to be absolutely sure that both cards are here, but in the mean time stop the card!" I said and put down the phone. Racing into the kitchen I checked both my wallet and Karen's purse and, yes, we had both our cards. Back on the phone, "I have both cards in my hand, those cannot be our charges."
"I see another charge has come through, I put a stop on the card."
"Another charge? Came through just now?" I asked. In my mind I could see dollar bill lining up with little arms raised and being marched out of my account.

So now there were five. Four in Georgia at the same Wal-Mart and one in Tennessee at a furniture store. The woman on the other end of the line assured me that no more charges would be passed and gave me a 800 telephone number to file a claim for the bad charges. After she hung up, I tried the 800 number and got a voice that said the number "could not be completed as dialed."

Perfect.

Karen's Gypsy

The illustration at left was not done by me. Although I wish I had. It was done by my wife, Karen, a very talented scenic artist. This was done on a software platform called "Dabbler 2." By Fractal Design. It's rare for her to work on such a small scale as most of what she does is on a 30 X 60 foot muslin drop (I get her to give me some photos and I'll do a separate blog on painting really BIG.

I on the other hand have always been a cartoonist. Event the most serious sketches I have done always have a cartoon edge to them. That's why animation interests me so. I have piles of files of ideas that didn't work. My biggest problem is time, and perhaps I'm a bit lazy. My reason or excuse is that I have already put in 8 to 10 hours by the time I get home from work, then spend time with the pets, the family and dinner, and it's getting late. The job starts early.

The type of sketch cartoon I want to do does not really lend itself to the "cut-out" style of cartooning I have done so far. My attempts at drawing each frame ends up with me finishing a few seconds of animation after literally months of nights with my eyes watering as I try to finish one more frame before I go to bed.

Thus far none of the animations I started this way ever got anywhere. By the time it's just starting to take shape, I'm bored with the story and I'm ready to move on. What I need is to find a way to meld the two disciplines and figure out when to use which to move the story along.

But I have time, I think, thus far it's been an expensive hobby, but I've enjoyed myself.

From A Beginner Animator

I joined YouTube in 2007 planning to use it as an outlet for all the cartoons I would be making. It would be wondrous with a fantastic following.

And it almost happened that way.

The problem was, when I opened my YouTube "Channel" I knew almost nothing about creating cartoons. I had jumped in and was not prepared at all. At my disposal was Paint Shop Pro (Which was still owned by Jasc back then and was a lovely paint and photo program for $99 US) and The Microsoft Movie Editor which came with Windows® XP. Not much in the way of tools, but I had to come up with some sort of place holder for my channel. And this is what I posted:




It's still there actually, even though it's a rough bit of animation, it was, after all, my first.

I began to search for animation programs, not knowing what the heck I was looking for. I'm married and the father of two sons, so I had a tiny budget for starting a new "hobby." What I thought I wanted was Macromedia Flash, but I was surprised to find that it had been eaten by Adobe® and was now out of my price range (See? I wasn't a complete idiot, I did do some research). Any way pirate software was out, because I don't believe in it. A craftsman is worth his wages and all that (but not necessarily the triple wages Adobe was asking). Obviously Maya, 3d studio, and all were right out of my price range and I wasn't sure that 3D was something I should jump into. I mean, don't you need to crawl before you can walk? I came across ToonBoom. I got my first copy of ToonBoom Studio on sale for $250 US (it's $299. now). After pouring through the video tutorials and making several false starts, Two months later my first real cartoon/vlog appeared:





It was up on YouTube just a few weeks later when Lisasimpson, acting as a guest editor, she chose it to be featured on YouTube's front page. A very big deal in those days. At the same time, I had upgraded my computer hardware and the Windows installation crashed. I mean at the EXACT same time. My video went from 315 views in three weeks to 100,000 views that Sunday morning and I was oblivious to it all.

So now it's nearly 3 years later and I have uploaded a few more toons. Each takes a couple of months to build, the Vlog type are faster because I can reuse my character with only a few changes, but the long periods between uploads lost the audience. Now my toons are back where they started with a few hundred view, which is fine by me. I am still learning after all.

For the record, and through a long series of upgrades, I am now using ToonBoom Animate Pro2 as my animation platform. And although I would love to have the Adobe CS5 Production Premium Suite with all the bells and whistles, I still use Premiere Elements ($119 US) to do my editing. The FREE but extraordinary Audacity works overtime to record, edit and clean all my audio tracks. I finally bought my first version of ToonBoom Storyboard ($199 US) to help me assemble my ideas. And I would not be anywhere if it were not for the free music tracks so lovingly composed and shared by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com).

And the last element is time. Lots of time. I you are reading this and just starting out, you can get into playing with animation programs on a budget. There are even rudimentary or watermarked programs out there for free even ToonBoom. But be ready to give lots of time. Watch you favorite cartoon and stay for the credits. All the names that go past are positions you must fill with your own time. It is very rewarding when you get it done, but the speed of the progress, or lack of it, especially when you have a day job, was and is my biggest frustration. But if you really want to do it, you can. I did, and I still know almost nothing.

Be Well

Why Blog

I spent most of today reading Blogs. Not watch Vlogs as I think they are kind of pretentious. I think it's the camera. People think that they have to put on a show "for their audience." In that respect I'm no different.

However, a Blog is the modern day version of putting pen to paper. Written words tend to have more depth and thought behind them. After all it's not just flip on a camera, smile, and pretend to be chatting with a friend. There are things to deal with.

English, for one. American English, specifically. A language as blended and multi-sourced as the society that created it. The spelling rules are contrived and even dynamic. Tomb and comb are not pronounced the same but sure look like they should. Then there is punctuation. To comma or not to comma? Grammar. MS Word is always warning me about run on or incomplete sentences. And its not always right either.

So language is a barrier to Blogging. If you don't know your language, you could embarrass yourself completely. You didn't just misspeak, you wrote it down. The very action implies cognitive thought. You were writing, you had all the time in the world to check your facts before you published and you still got it wrong.

The process itself is also a barrier to Blogging. Unless you have a driving subject in mind, that first page can look big, white, and blank. It's going to take time to do this.

Then there is the vernacular. A fancy word for HOW you want to say what you mean.

1) One is about to invest minutes or perhaps hours of ones life selecting, arranging, and rearranging a group of words in such a manner so as to perfectly purvey your meaning to the masses. And in so doing, change them.

2) Yer about to lay it all out der and get em to give a shit.

Two distinctly different styles, both hoping to get their readers to change.

But change what? Their socks? Change their minds. The most difficult of all changes to make and you will not be there to explain exactly what you meant. You may want them to think, to empathize, to laugh, cry, realize, love, hate, or wonder in the magic of your words. Even if your only purpose is to entertain, and not necessarily to inform, what good is it if they don't get it?

The next to last element in a Blog is you. Or at least how you want yourself to be perceived by your reader. Are you to be a voice of authority, a poet, a helpless or hapless victim, a friend, a trusted advocate, a comedian, a mother or father figure, or an ass, airing yours and everyone else's dirty laundry to the world. Who are you? And who are you to them?

The last element is WHY? Why are you writing? Win friends and influence people? Be famous? There are some 100,000 Blog sites on the internet, public and private, and the chances of yours being read is slim. The chance of a response, or comment is about 1 in fifty readers. So don't count on that. So why do it. Why pour your guts out, preset a dissertation of facts and figure, promote your idea, ask questions of yourself and/or the universe? Why do it at all if it may never be read by anyone?

When I write a Blog it's a stepped procedure. Usually I open MS Word and perhaps a copy of Firefox on a Google search page because I never know what I'm not going to know. I usually have some idea, even a strong idea of what I want to "talk" about. That said my Blogs rarely end up being what I had in mind at the onset. Like stories I have written, they seem to take on a life of their own and go where they will. Then I go back and proof read, change, improve, finish thoughts that may not yet be complete on the page. Occasionally, but not very often, (some might say not often enough) toss the whole works.

Next I copy and paste into a program called TextPad. A text only program that strips out all of the invisible commands about fonts, paragraph structures, and so on that MS Word leaves in the document.

That done it's on to a suitable graphic, if I want one. Something to give the reader a visual anchor to my thoughts. If I have nothing, I may create something, or on lazy days find something on the webs and link to it. The later I like least and sometimes has a habit if disappearing as the other site changes. But I won't steal it. So graphic or no, time to upload.

Again copy and paste onto the site and again reread, and make last minute changes. Close my eyes, click submit, or publish, or whatever and walk away.

Why do I do it? I have to. I stopped for a long time and missed it. I tried other outlets, but I always come back to this keyboard.

When I surf the Blogs I try and remember just what it takes for me to do mine. If I think I can contribute, I comment. Just to let them know that someone read them. In this vast wasteland of Blogs, Vlogs, videos, and music, someone read what they wrote and answered. And in so doing, was changed.

Be Well.

My New Camera

I got a new camera to Vlog with, and take other videos of course. A Toshiba Camileo H30. A lovely little camera that records to an SDHC card . NO MORE TAPES...YEAH!

A slip of my beard trimmer gave me a new (sans beard) look for the summer.

And a quick belated Mom's Day wish to round things out.

Be Well


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Where The Copper Goes

There must be a copper shortage, or there will be one very soon. And I’m sure that somewhere scientists are scanning the heavens looking for asteroids to capture that contain large quantities of that electrically conducting ore.

Today I went to the Sprint store and finally turned in my Motorola Razor. The Razor had stopped taking my calls and everyone had to text me to call them back. I had originally intended to get either a HTC Hero or a Samsung Instinct HD. After an hour or so of fiddling with both devices I suddenly turned and tried a Samsung Moment. And I bought it. Now normally one would expect that this blog might actually be written about my wonderful new Samsung Moment phone. And it might have been, but it’s not.

Also this weekend, I received another new electronic device. It’s a Toshiba H30 video camera. The camera we had before was a mini 8 video camera which used small video tape cartridges. It was murderous to use and because it was analog and not digital, by the time I did a transfer to my computer, the picture was already getting a bit soft. So on to Amazon.com and there I found it. I nice little video camera and with a 4 gig SDHC chip and shipping was less that $190.00 US. Its very cute and seems to work great at 720P or 1080P resolutions. Now again, the average person might think that this blog might be written to sing the praises of my new little digital video camera. And it might have been, but its not.

New electronic equipment comes with new batteries. Not fully charged batteries. So first thing, they need a charge. Also when you get new electronic devices you normally still have the old electronic devices that the new electronic devices are replacing. And that does not count the electronic devices that you already have and are not replacing, but have seen fit to continue to use and there by continued to charge their batteries.

Because new and old electronic devices alike are not much more than paper weights if you let the batteries run down. Now anyone might suspect that with all this charging going on in the middle of the night, this blog might be about a shift in power consumption from day time when all of these electronic devices are being used, to night time when all these electronic devices are being charged. And that would have been a good blog too, but its not this blog.

This blog could have been about what we do to try and find an empty wall socket in order to plug in all the chargers for all the electronic devices, but it’s not.

This blog is not really about electronic devices at all. It’s about the cords. The charger cords. The USB cords, The Firewire cords, the old cords, the new cords, the black cords, the white cords, the blue cords, the grey cords, camera cords, phone cords, ipod cords, webcam cords, the mouse cords, the printer cords, the scanner cords, cords, cords, cords, cords! And with each new electronic device there are more cords.

All standardized cords that are anything but standardized.

I can’t tell them apart and that is what this blog is about.

Be Well.

Thank you Renaud Hallée whoever you are

I just found this today and it's fabulous!

Gravité from Renaud Hallée on Vimeo.

Be Well

Juror 5 of 7: Common Sense is Futile

Although I never actually served on a jury before, I was always an advocate of the system.

Even though it failed me a couple of times in the past.

The first time was for an out of state traffic accident where the judge and my lawyer actually allowed the insurance attorney say “We have to show Mr. ----- (me) that he is not going to come here and collect the Ohio Lottery.” The “lottery” was in reference to the fact that his client smashed into the back of my stopped pickup truck at forty miles an hour because he was flipping through his CD collection on the passenger seat beside him. There was $6,000 dollars of damage to the truck and $30,000 dollars in doctor bills for my first wife and me. The jury agreed and awarded us $3000 en total.

The other jury allowed one of my clients to skate on a $20,000 debt for some set construction my company had performed. It took me three years to pay off my crew and suppliers for that project.

But I continued to believe that it was a system that worked better than any thing else out there. And I still do. So when a jury summons showed up in the mail, I never tried to get out of it, checked the little box that said I would appear, and was always there ready to go.

I was never picked. I was interviewed, but because of my past close relationship with the police and Treasury agents (When I was still doing special effects for films, stage, and TV I had a multitude of local and federal licenses for explosives and weapons. I also hired off duty cops as my security and weapons handlers. Lets face it, they know guns.) I was never picked.

Until last week. Tuesday April 27^th 2010 I was empanelled on a jury and I was shocked. First at being chosen to actually serve on a jury that had police involved and second at the proceedings themselves.

It aint like TV, believe me.

This was a DUI case where the legal blood alcohol limit in Arizona is .08%. The defendant had been stopped and tested and with a blood alcohol level of .225% (that is not a typo) he was ever so slightly plastered, three out of three sheets to the wind, polluted, gassed….

This was supposed to have been a one day jury trial. It was a short jury of only 6 with one alternate. (I was juror 5 of 7) The first day was picking the jury, introductions of all participants, swearing everybody in, a legal description of the charges, and calling of the first witness.

The arresting officer.

He was young and attractive (according to my fellow jurors) not to mention impressive in his pressed tan highway patrol uniform. That was until he opened his mouth. Once that chasm was opened, no one could get it shut again.

Way back when I was in college, I worked as a security guard at night when I could do my studies. In Ohio, there were three types of guards; just a plain security guard, a registered security officer, and a private policeman. Each of these levels came with its own pay range, so obviously, spending a little time studying the regulations and taking some training were worth it in hard cash. To finally become a registered private policeman required a specific set of classes and becoming a member of the Cleveland Police auxiliary. Among those classes was one on how to prepare and testify in a court of law.

This officer never took that class.

When asked a question he would drone on and on, opening up aditional facts or calling some of his own testimony into question. He was warned by the judge several times but just could not help himself. Yes and No were just not in his vocabulary. His paperwork was just as bad. Boxes check and then scribbled out. Incomplete thoughts in the report as if he had been interrupted and then did not reread what he was writing in order to make sense when he continued. He even left off the suspect’s last name on one form.

The name thing was a fact that the defense attorney tried and failed to make an issue of. Mainly because during the introductions the defense lawyer, himself, had introduced his client as someone else and had to be corrected by the judge before he realizing his error.

I was trapped in a room full of children playing court!

The prosecutor had a facial tic. In the beginning it wasn’t really apparent. Just an involuntary occasional wink of his right eye as he spoke. However, as the officer testified and testified and testified, that minor wink began to take over the right side of that poor man’s face. It became nearly gruesome in its ferocity and frequency to the point that he actually raised his hand to touch his face as if to confirm what he felt must have been happening.

That afternoon was interrupted by a different defendant in a different court room not liking the outcome of his particular case and “getting even” by pulling the fire alarm. The evacuation and reentry through security metal detectors (the sign says “Take off your belt” so take off your belt!) took up an hour and a half.

I was doomed.

We resumed the officer’s testimony and finally finished at 5 PM. That ended the first day. The jury was admonished to speak about the case to anyone and was asked to return at 1 PM the following day.

Wednesday April 28^th 2010 at about 1:25 PM we were again underway. A second officer who had interviewed a passenger in the defendant’s car was supposed to testify, but I think his testimony was considered borderline germane and was dropped because he was excused and the prosecution rested.

The defense had two witnesses. The wife of the accused, her testimony was to the fact that her husband, who was not a big drinker, had received bad news, a fact we, the jury, deemed irrelevant later in deliberation. The second was the passenger in the Cadillac SUV when it was pulled over. His testimony was that the SUV should not have been stopped at all because they had not been swerving out of their lane as the officer had testified. However, during cross examination it was discovered that he had actually been drinking WITH the defendant prior to getting into the SUV. His testimony too was deemed unreliable.

So at this point, in my mind, we had nothing.

The officer’s testimony was verbose and self contradictory. His paperwork was nearly indecipherable as to its meaning, the two witnesses for the defense were a total waist of time and it was again getting late in the afternoon. The only facts that we had at this point was that the breathalyzer had been properly maintained, was operating properly, and the breath test had been correctly performed. Both sides agreed. The .225% breath test itself was not in dispute.

The unresolved arguments that were being made were that 2 or 3 drinks (Jack and coke with ice) were probably not sufficient to make the defendant weave out of his lane and he should not have been stopped in the first place. And after the stop the fact that the officer based his initial arrest on the fact that the defendant could not walk nine (9) steps in a straight line without loosing his balance was irrelevant because the defendant could not perform that test sober (yes, they said sober.)

Why the Hell were we here? Is this really arguable? No the officer’s car was not equipped with a camera so we, the jury, could not watch the defendant’s SUV weave from lane to lane…or not. We, the jury, could not watch as he fell off the five inch wide painted white line in the parking lot where the field sobriety test was performed. The officer was also not equipped with an audio recording device so we, the jury, could not hear if his speech was actually slurred as he spoke to the officer that evening. And yes it was terrible that the defendant received bad news about several people in his life (although we were not allowed to know what the bad news was exactly) and he had a few drinks to console himself and then went for a drive that same evening on the freeway. All of this was fact, but none of it added up.

Luckily for the prosecution, the defendant took the stand in his own defense and filled in all the details for we, the jury.

He, the defendant, had gotten bad news, three times in one day. He had gone for a walk to “work thinks out”and stopped in a Pub near his business. He had 2 or 3 or was it 4 drinks of Jack Daniels and coke. He had nothing to eat. Thanks to a jury member handing a question to the bailiff, who handed it to the judge, who handed it to the attorneys, who then posed the question to the defendant we, the jury, learned that the 2 or 3 or maybe 4 drinks had been doubles. And perhaps stronger because the staff there “likes” him.

Thank the Lord and pass the potatoes. The judge gave out the final instructions. We, the jury, deliberated for nearly an hour before returning guilty verdicts on three of the four charges the defendant was accused of. And that one not guilty was because he had surpassed the upper limit of the charge.

He had not been operating a vehicle with a blood alcohol level between .08% and .19%.

I was free and slightly safer to drive home on the freeway.

This has been a long diatribe, dear reader. And if you have made it this far, I am again surprised. The only reason I don’t try to get out of jury duty (and I will not in the future either) is also the only moral I can leave you with for this verbose account of two days in my life;

If I had been accused of something and had to appear in court before a judge and jury, would I want that jury made up solely of people who were not smart enough to get themselves excused from jury duty?

Perhaps that is what had happened to me in the past. But on the Jury of which I was the foreman, I can assure you great thought, deliberation, and weighing of facts surely took place with great care. And my question, scribbled on a scrap of paper and passed to the bailiff, who handed it to the judge, who handed it to the attorneys, who then posed the question… didn’t hurt either.

And I would like to thank the defendant for clearing up all the confusion.

Be Well.