Coincidence?

Okay, so one day shy of nine months after a black man becoming the U.S. President, the Department of Justice shifts it’s policy on marijuana use.

Now I know I’m not the only one who, when they heard this, stopped and said, “Hey, wait a minute…”

A ring on your finger should not be any larger than your big toe.

Unless you plan on punching someone in the face.

Why is it the women with the most hideous taste in jewelry always have a million different examples?  It’s like their goal is to eliminate any sense of style and just leave a bad taste in my mouth.

I got a theory that it’s their way of compensating.  Kind of like men having a nice car.  Except you can’t drive an earring.  And most necklaces don’t get satellite radio.

Don’t get sick.

As Congressmen and common men alike engage in a battle of wits over the issues of healthcare reform, I would like to share with you all an absolutely true story relayed to me by a coworker about his father’s heart attack.

As many of you know, the system that the Obama administration is trying to push on us is modeled after the British system.  Many Americans have no experience with the particulars of this system, so allow me to open your eyes.

Again, this is a true story.  My coworker’s father (citizen of the UK) was on vacation last year when he had his heart attack.

“He had the heart attack on Thursday 14 August and was taken to hospital that evening.   He was on a small island called The Isle Of Man, which is near Britain.   They checked him over and made sure he was ok.

Friday 15^th, they just monitored him but decided a heart specialist needed to take a look at him.

It was then the weekend and the heart specialist wasn’t due in until the Monday, so he sat in hospital and waited.

Monday 18^th, the day came and went, no specialist arrived.

Tuesday 19^th, the specialist arrived and checked him over.   He wasn’t satisfied with what he saw and decided that he needed to be in a bigger hospital for an angiogram.   He would be flown to Liverpool, in England.

Wednesday 20^th, an air-ambulance helicopter was arranged to take him to Liverpool but there were no spare beds in the Liverpool hospital, so he couldn’t be transferred.   He went nowhere.

Thursday 21^st, still no beds in Liverpool hospital, so they agreed to transfer him to Southampton hospital.

They arranged an air-ambulance plane to take him but Southampton said they had no ambulance car/truck to pick him up from the airport.

Friday 22^nd, still no transfer, over one week since heart attack!

Saturday 23^rd, he finally flew from Isle of Man to Southampton, where he was taken to Hospital.

Upon arriving in Southampton, he was told that as it was a weekend and Monday was a public holiday in the UK, so nobody would see him until Tuesday.   However, he was not allowed to leave the hospital.

Tuesday 24^th, finally had his angiogram, 12 days after the heart attack.

The angiogram looked ok and they sent him home!”

Remind me never to have a heart attack in England.  Or here, for that matter, if Obama has his way with our healthcare system.  In fact, note to self: don’t get sick.

Obama’s health care plan is essentially taking the long lines and disgruntled workers from the DMV and applying them to hospitals.  The only difference is you’d be literally bleeding to death while you’re waiting in line.

Can’t understand why folks think this might be a good idea.

A new proverb.

Was sitting in my art history class, and the subject of modern proverbs came up.  So I invented one:

“Drunk dialing offers only in-the-moment smiling.”

Not bad for on-the-spot, right?

Online Chat: Not always a good idea

You know those cheap-o electronic toys you give to little kids that have voice recorder functionality?  Every time a kid gets one of these things he spends all day recording random crap just to hear it again.  The miracle of the microphone is a toy to them.

And it doesn’t change as we get older.  Case in point, I was playing a little Battlefield 1943 on XBox Live.  Out of habit, I connected the headset.  Not that I had anything to say, just that if it’s not connected all the voice chat flows through the main speakers and my parents don’t necessarily appreciate the foul language.  Also, if it gets obnoxious, I can always turn down the headset volume.

As a side note, Battlefield 1943 is really hard to play without an HDTV.  All the letters are really tiny, friendly icons are inconspicuous, and I can’t see a damn thing when I go into buildings (though that may be because the contrast is really screwed up on my set).

But getting back to my story, I was playing along with my mic muted because, well, no one else was talking and my folks picked those few hours to move stuff around in the basement so there would’ve been a lot of background noise.

About halfway through a match on Guadalcanal, someone logs on and decides to make a comment every time he gets killed.  And in the most colorful language, too.  Language that would shock me if I didn’t hear it from all the other 12 year olds on XBox Live, but still not something I’d want my little cousins to hear.

So after a few minutes of his rants and raves (I had hoped he would grow tired of getting killed all the time and log out, but that proved a typical pipe dream), I finally had it.  I turned on my mic and said “Dude, if you got nothing else to say, turn off your mic.”  Then I turned my mic off.

Of course, because everyone sounds the same on the voice chat, I don’t know whether the offender told me “Ah, shut up,” or someone else told him “Yeah, shut up.” 

Point is, that was the end of it.  I didn’t hear any X-rated rants from then on.

So my request to you all is: if you have a headset but have nothing to say, turn off your mic.  I don’t want to hear about it every time you get fragged or you’re asking your mom for five more minutes of play time before you have to take out the trash.  Hell, I don’t even want to hear your dog barking when the doorbell rings.  It’s really friggin annoying.

So stop it or I’ll bury you in a box.

Michael Jackson death announcements

It may be too soon, but today’s events got me thinking.

If every news article was an exercize in humor, what would the headline be for Michael Jackson’s death?

Now let me say in advance that I have nothing against the (pseudo)man, save for the whole pedophilia thing. I just see his (its?) whole career as a joke. Just like a child movie star that got a tiny taste of the limelight and just couldn’t let go.

But anyhow, here are some headlines I came up with for the morning after his death.

“Wacko Jacko gone all slacko”
“Li’l Michael got fatal boo-boo”
“King of Pop just Dropped”
“Michael Jackson dead, Bubbles won’t have a Merry Christmas”
“Thriller now a Who Done It”
“Rock star’s heart gone stone cold”
“Moon walk aborted”
“Fans remember Michael Jackson, but can’t remember what he used to look like”
“CNN, ABC, MSNBC, and CNN all postpone Obama coverage for 30 seconds to report Michael Jackson’s death”
“Doctor can’t feel the beat”
“Michael Jackson dies, wardrobe still attrocious”
“Jackson 5 minus one more”
“Michael Jackson dies, Larry King still amazingly alive”
“Jackson’s heart deosnt ‘Beat It’ any more”
“Jacko dies, average Americans wonder what took so long”
“‘Dangerous’ proves fatal”
“Michael Jackson dead at the age of 50; 8-year olds breathe sigh of relief”
“News of Michael Jackson’s death still doesn’t help his career”
“Michael Jackson dies; still won’t lose the outdated sunglasses”
“Robot encounters terminal glitch”
“Michael Jackson finally finds jeans can be tight enough to cut off circulation”
“Michael Jackson dies of cardiac arrest, witnesses can’t tell at first”
“Michael Lackson dies, rest of the world keeps spinning”
“Falsetto pop star falls flat”

That’s what I got. If you have some joke headlines, feel free to post them in the comments!

Father’s Day

I just have to share this.

Edit:
WordPress won’t let me embed it, so here’s the link:

http://rvb.roosterteeth.com/archive/?id=746

Blame the stockholders

Is it socially acceptable to admit that I’m looking forward to the next Harry Potter flick?

Meh, who cares, right?

The big news circling the release of the anticipated 6th film simply has to be the delay.  As many of you may know, Half Blood Prince was initially slated to be released in November last year.  Given the fact no one’s seen it yet, we must deduce that things have changed.  In fact, it’s true.  It’s been pushed back to this coming July.

Many had the same question: “What in holy hell made them delay the movie by 8 months?”

Many pointed to production delays.  Not the case.  The film has been ready to go since before the delay was announced.  Others thought it had to do with fallout from the writer’s strike.  Really?  You think a strike occurring in the States would affect filming done in England on a movie that’s already written?The culprit is more fictional than that.  And makes less sense.

Batman did it.

Yeah, remember that movie?  The one that broke records and made lots of money for Warner Bros?

I’ll tell you what I think happened: Feature film release dates are planned well in advance so the stockholders can feel like they know what’s going on.  Warner Bros. had no idea that Dark Knight would make that much money.  They also had no idea that Heath Ledger would die, giving the film that kind of PR that money can’t buy.

Warner Bros. had a dilemma on their hands.  Not only did the Dark Knight make so much moolah, but early predictions for the upcoming Harry Potter film said that would make buckets of money, too.

What’s the problem, you ask?  How can it be a bad thing to have two super money making machines in the same year?  Sure seems like a good thing.

It’s the stockholders.  See, if they kept to the plan and released Boy Wizard Movie #6 as initially planned during the Thanksgiving season, that year’s profit margins would look astronomical.  Everyone would be happy and they would gear up for a second year of depositing large checks.

Only there’s no guarantee that would be the case.  In the event they didn’t have another two mega huge blockbusters release, the second year would look like the entire company was in trouble, and the downward spiral would begin.

So to clarify, Warner Bros. postponed the Harry Potter flick not because they’re morons who just want to get on your nerves, but because they were thinking ahead, spreading the cash over two years instead of keeping it in just one year.

As an interesting side note, this decision led almost directly to the surprising success of Twilight.  When angsty teenage magicians got pushed back, it opened the way for angsty teenage vampires to make some money.

And there you have it: Warner Bros’s theatrical release decisions boiled down to a size just larger than a nutshell.

But seriously, why wait until July?  Why not June, or an April release?

Never again unless payment is involved

I spent a lot of time on one thing this weekend.

For those of you who aren’t aware, rotoscoping involves drawing a matte over video, one frame at a time.

We’re shooting a short documentary on the Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C.  The way the camera was set up for the interviews meant that we didn’t get the pretty shallow depth of field we wanted, which is an in-camera effect that throws the background out of focus, drawing attention to the person in the foreground.

My job, after designing the intro animation, was to go in and fix the interview footage in After Effects (amazing program, by the way), manually throwing the background out of focus.

Never.  Again.

To start, there is no substitute for the shallow depth of field effect that occurs in the camera lens.  Don’t even argue with me on that.

Second, if you’re looking to recreate this effect in post, save yourself a headache and just reshoot if you can.  Walk the camera back as far as possible, zoom the lens way the hell in there, and drop your f-stop to a 1.8 and throw a neutral density filter if you need it.  This will by far be less work than doing it manually.

to give you an idea, I was given ten clips, each averaging less than a minute.  Lucky my weekend was open, because I started fixing this stuff Friday morning and finally finished Monday night. Good thing I finished, because carpal tunnel may have been an hour away.

How to save Hummer

So the now nicknamed “Government Motors” announced today that Hummer will no longer be a part of the General’s family.  Too bad, too, because Hummer was poised to make a comeback.

I find it unfortunate that GM has had to shed brands like a cat losing its winter coat.  Only a year ago I started driving a ‘99 Pontiac Sunfire, just to hear ten months later that GM is killing the brand.

We Americans love big cars, and nothing embodied that like the Hummers.  I know many won’t like hearing this, but our love affair with monstrous vehicles will not go away just because some speculators say it will.  People don’t just change simply because one person says they might.

Hummer has found itself as the single most recognizable full-size luxury SUV in the world.  And I think GM should’ve jumped on that.

Since Hummers are already luxury-class vehicles, and their typical buyers clearly have little problem with paying extra on them.  This makes it justifiable to add just one extra trim level…

For your consideration, I present the Hummer HEV.

I can tell many of you aren’t convinced.  Just stay with me a moment.

The Hummer HEV is propelled by four electric motors.  What’s remarkable about these motors is that they are mounted inside the wheels.  With this configuration, the HEV maintains all-wheel drive capability while acquiring the benefits of electric motors, meaning this beast can still conquer any course the original H1 can run.

Electronic stability control takes on a whole new meaning with the HEV.  Sophisticated computer controls manage each motor individually to keep the wheels on the road at all times.  At cruising speeds, the controller de-activates the two front motors, providing rear-wheel drive performance.

Powering these marvelous motors is the same lithium-ion battery pack from the Chevy Volt.  The HEV will travel 30-35 miles on battery power alone, depending on driving habits.  After that, a small-displacement 4-cylinder engine activates to recharge the battery in mid-drive, propelling the HEV an additional 340-400 miles, all while maintaining the capabilities of the four powerful electric motors.

Needless to say, this is not a real production vehicle.  Hell, this isn’t even a concept from GM.  And that’s what bothers me.  GM is in a prime position to capitalize on the full-size electric SUV market that’s bound to erupt once EVs become popular, and they went and sold the perfect brand with which to launch such a platform.

Why was the Hummer perfect?  Because it’s big!!  Look at those wheels, for goodness sake!  Expand the rims a bit and you could easily fit some in-wheel motors in there!

 

As for the battery pack required to drive those four in-wheel motors, the Hummer could easily make space in the engine compartment, especially since it would be swapping out it’s giant engine for a smallish 4-cylinder.  And the Hummer already had a gigantic fuel tank, which would probably send it further than the 350 miles I estimated.

But this is all a moot point now.  All GM had to do was hold on to Hummer for 2 years, and the press hype about an EV Hummer would, by itself, force GM to keep Hummer as a staple brand.

But does anybody listen to me? Noooooo……