Amy's Prank

It's new video time!  We spent around an hour shooting this last weekend, and I put it together this weekend.  It's about Amy, and the tricks she plays on her neighborhood. It so happens that we have all the right props (literally, props) to be entered into the YouTube Project: Direct 2009 contest.  I imagine that for any number of reasons, this isn't quite the kind of video they're looking for, but there's something that seems very silly to me about a direct-to-youtube video with a credited Director of Photography and three Key Grips, so maybe it should be.

If it turns out that it is, then I assure you, you'll hear about it when the voting starts.   (Judges narrow down the contestants who are then voted on by the Internets)  Until then, I recommend you watch it anywhere else.

• Vimeo - For best quality
• Funny or Die - if you like it, you can vote it 'funny' here.
• UCBComedy - Everyone in this has UCB ties!  And sweatshirts! 
• YouTube - Because I thought it'd be fun to enter a contest

It's a little bit heartbreaking to spend time adjusting colors and finessing a video just to have the YouTube automatic video ruining system add its own 'washed out' color settings and a light blur over top of everything.  It's almost enough to understand why 1) most internet videos look terrible 2) people don't bother with white balancing or microphones.  I mean, macroblocking? Really?  Even in 'high-quality' mode?  It's a series of stills, for pete's sake. (EDIT: I'm told that there's a longer wait for the site to process things into high-quality playback mode, and that it ought to look better sooner or later)

Anyway, I hope you like it, and that you get the film nerd joke in the middle.  It was fun to do, and I'd shoot this style again sometime.  Now if you'll excuse me, I actually finished something, and a little bit of sunshine is in order.  (I was going to go for an irony-free closing here, but I stumped the MTV site)

Cowbook

A Quinnipiac University professor of journalism asked his class a question, like you do when you happen to be a teacher, and when one Michael Kataja answered correctly, he was rewarded with a book of travels.  Specifically, Tim Brookes' Hell of a Place to Lose a Cow, in which the author attempts to recreate the path he'd hitchhiked through the USA some 20 or 30 years previous.   The prize was probably awarded to Mike in 2002 or 2003.  He never actually read the book, but he did give it to me instead of throwing it away.  In the spirit of the thing, I slipped it under the back seat of my pal Kevin's car on our way to a Bad Plus concert (standard 'man, that guy is fast' and 'look! ET dolls!' comments apply).  I also left a note inside suggesting that future readers drop me a line when they leave it for someone else to read.  

Now, at the end of 2008, I'm pleased to report a kind of modern day miracle.  One of those fun little things that takes off and you read about and you tell your friends and everyone takes a moment to think of how neat that is and oh I should do something like that myself some time.  Yes, lo these many months and years, I have heard stories and tales of the book's travel.  To be more specific in fact, I have heard from:

1 person.  In 2006.

Even by that volume's standard of spending a year with an owner before moving on, that's slow.  I wonder where it is today.

Another web thing.

I had an idea, so I signed up for that Twitter the kids love.  It's greenglassdoor if you're into that sort of thing. But let's be honest, if you're one of my two known readers here, you probably already noticed that I added you over there. At least I'm not on facebook. But Dave Brand will be! Just 32 more days!

Burgled again! The Criminality Continues!

In what I presume may have been somehow related to the car break-in(s), someone emptied out my bank account at an ATM in Las Vegas yesterday. I was here, in Los Angeles, with my ATM card. Good going, someone. I am left to wonder, however, if security was ever compromised at the bank, or if I happened to have been unwittingly embroiled in some more clever scheme, since my own PI number was apparently used, and that's not the sort of thing a rational person keeps written down. Smart of them to do it yesterday though. Less likely to be noticed when everyone else was moving money around in uncharacteristically big ways. Bunch of savages in this town, I swear.

Another Spooky Thanksgiving!

First of all, De-Gifting.com is up and running. It's the answer to giving boring gifts to snoozy relatives you don't know or like. It's a non-gift, but not careless. Thoughtful, considered, Nothing. Second, I got invited to a Thanksgiving thing, and since I find I am so rarely invited anywhere, I do make an effort to show up when it happens. I made them an old-fashioned thanksgiving feast just like Snoopy used to do:

For the uninitiated, what you've got there is your buttered toast, your popcorn, your pretzels, and your jelly beans. It should have been pretzel sticks, I know, but the store was out. I'm sure this is a popular Thanksgiving treat.

Cooking here, serving here!