LONELYPOND PRESENTS

Well, the Olympics are over, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe has closed, we’re caught up on Chuck, Blink Kitty Love did not get a Streamy nomination(thanks to everyone and anyone who voted!) and the snow might be melting. So what now? Well, do you want the To-Do list or the quick reviews. Let’s do reviews.

Chuck — loved Season 2. And considering how well they did with guest stars in Season 2, why oh why did they INFLICT Brandon Routh on us (it can’t be only me)? Oy. Yvonne Strahovski continues excellently expressing quiet discomfort over Chuck’s evolution but the whole two people moving in separate directions with two other people plot angle is VERY forced and seems like just an excuse to shoehorn in “GUEST STARS” and rushed choices. Always nice to see Kristin Kreuk, if only they’d put her in the guest part that lasted more than four episodes.

Smallville is back and I’m remembering it’s on Fridays. Watched the morning show episode and enjoyed it, although I really wish they’d stop dressing Tom Welling all in the smooth, stylish black. I don’t like the dark color palette but the characters seem to having a little more fun.

Wizards of Waverly Place — slumping. Alex as go go over the top cheerleader? no no. Good luck Charlie is looking like fun. The actor playing the Dad (

Work on a new Blink Kitty Love — a great title hit me yesterday
Keep writing “The Lady Lost” or “Maybe Turning That Corner Wasn’t The Brightest Idea I Ever Had”
And have some fun, darn it.

Good night.

New behind the scenes, peek at the process page up at the Blink Kitty Love site.

My Gullible and Twitchy co-conspirator Calvin (@pseudochron) has written a Python program that will convert Shakespeare plays so he can read them on his snazzy new watch…this is excellently cool. And yes, of course, I want one. But I first I need to download the complete works of Shakespeare to my iPod (done, it’s the Shakespeare app by Readdle and it’s free) Don’t mess with the Bard; he’s classic cool.

On a #tamingshakespeare note, SHrw the punk operetta is no longer our goal (and yes, feel free to blame Green Day). Doesn’t work with the actors, didn’t really work before the actors — I find it hard to do the plays with integral servants in a modern style; it just doesn’t take. So I’ll save punk for the next Midsummer and we’re going back to the original American riot grrrls, the Flappers. Gayle’s putting a mix of “Some Like It Hot” and ragtime in my head; I’ve designed a boardwalk set and so welcome to my summer as a beach bum. I wonder how Rebecca’s going to react to the news that we need 18 Roaring 20’s style bathing costumes.

And here’s why you should “Brush Up Your Shakespeare,” although I do enjoy Keenan Wynn’s performance in Kiss Me Kate the movie.

Fired GarageBand + switched to Audacity for voiceover + TA DA! new Gullible and Twitchy (plus clay):

Aniboom is reinventing itself (new logo at least, not sure about the fewer bleeding stick figures). Unfortunately, they’ve still sabotaged my log-in, which is not conducive to getting me to start posting stuff on their site again (tried customer service, less than helpful — maybe I should try again when they’ve loaded up the reboot and they’re trying to impress.)

But I really need a animation centric place to post new stuff. Here’s the old page…(and it just let me log in…guess they’re reading this as I’m typing…)

Just clicked the MyToons link on my bookmark bar and was greeted by MyToons is closed. That BITES. Like a 1000 fleas. Apparently, trouble’s been brewing since January.

So much for building a following there…have to find another space to host. Not a big fan of Aniboom — too many + popular bloody stickmen and the FlipBoomed Blink Kitty Loves on youTube always have scenes left out…had been having a where should I put another Blink Kitty Love site conversation today as their webpage isn’t getting traffic; guess I’ll have to think harder.

And now there’s a bunch of dead end Google links…

See title.

Note:
Uploading Blink Kitty Love episodes to Vimeo to cheer myself up a bit. Not really helping. Time to get reaquainted with Aniboom.

I’m going to add a new feature to this and the Blink Kitty Love site, giving you a behind the scenes look at what happens when we do an episode of Gulible and Twitchy or I FlipBoom another bit of Blink Kitty Love fun. Which means I’m going to have to stop cheating and start learning how to use links in this blogging platform.

Today, we experimented with clay and stop motion as a start to our upcoming combining Shakespeare and animation project (two of the things I love most)…but for starters, we were going to do a sort of Gullible and Twitchy version of Frankenstein. We scheduled a Sunday session and shopping for clay made the to do list. I’ve always been a little afraid of clay; allergy to weird textures seems to be an issue sometime. Didn’t have much trouble with the textures, but the smell under the lights became almost obnoxious. And end of winter is a really good time to prop open a window.

During chi gung in the morning, I came up with the idea of the cats rolling together a head, which as we worked turned into a race to complete a monster head which turned into Twitchy cheating (a very typical Twitchy thing to do).

Ended up with black and two blue clays, manufactured by Van Aken, costing $3.79 a block. We have not cracked open the darker blue one yet. I didn’t buy the smaller more bright color Van Aken ClayToons options because unlike the other clays, they were not marked non toxic. I figure maybe there’s an issue with the dyes. But two colors worked out fine and they echo the colors of Gullible and Twitchy’s traditional nemesis, the Scarecrow. And Hermunn turned out to be pretty cool.

The images are in the computer to be edited together next session, with a special effect or two added. We used Composite Lab Pro to great effect in the last Gullible and Twitchy video, Skate Street, so I’m getting more comfortable with the thought of editing in tricks and tempos. It’s been too long since I’ve had the video camera out — the battery had totally drained and most of the files in storage had been corrupted, which bites. I’m pretty sure I was just keeping them there as backup data storage so nothing lost.

All Gullible and Twitchy videos so far can be found at MyToons. Just look for the orange cats. Now time for a shower and getting the smell of heated softening plastic out of my personal airspace. Good night all.

New stop motion fun Gullible and Twitchy — on wheels; thanks to @AdamSinger for music.

Seems to be happening a lot. Good session with Calvin working on the latest Gullible and Twitchy video “Skate Street.” Lot of fun to do, put the movie through Composite Lab Pro twice to get different speeds and effects, plugged in music by Twitter peep @AdamSinger, a committed fan of the Creative Commons license and finder of some of the best visuals on the web. Waiting for Adam to weigh in on how he thinks his music suits and maybe a tiny bit more cropping, but coming soon to a screen near you.

Jabberwocky apparently needs a retake on the voiceover and eventually we’re going to have to figure out how to swap out large files between us — Calvin suggests MediaFire so I will investigate. In my voluminous free time. Voiceover retake should happen this week and then hand DVD delivery of sound + voice + music. Looking forward to seeing it all together.

Had fun at the concert Friday. Nice venue, pretty good crowd, no smoking (thank you — I hate having to come home in the am and shower to get the smell out of everything) and it is always good to see Jeremy on stage playing. And there was this little red keyboard/synth thing making cool sounds that I want in my office.

Hoping to have a day off tomorrow, avoid the computer, hit the YM, cook something fun and things like that. Need to go to the library sometime; new reading material would rock — suggest an author. Please.

But what you really want to know: Spectacular or Dadnapped, the President’s Day tween TV war…well, I’m little annoyed at The N for switching my Radio Free Roscoe to Degrassi The Next Generation (what no phasers?) and I refuse to get sucked into that soap opera. But mostly I object to the constant stream of Spectacular videos with music I keep hearing in my head but don’t want to remember. Dadnapped looks like a hoot and a good cast, but we might actually opt for the traditional Monday night The Big Bang Theory + Top Gear (Dadnapped will be on again soon, I bet). We’ve been too busy the past couple of weeks for a quiet Monday night and I miss it. Besides Flash is saving her excitement for the promised arrival on Tuesday of High School Musical 3. She’s a big Troy fan. She always wanders into the room when “Bet On It”’s playing with her tail fluffed high and happy.

Disney XD — yick on the commercials, but really impressed with Aaron Stone. Like the lead, the girl next door and the action. Well done. Am getting very fed up with the Phineas/Ferb love. Nice to see Phil of The Future back. Gayle really likes it and I’ve missed the pure malevolence that is Pim. But yick on the commercials.

Have stopped watching smallVille: sadness.

And now, good night. Sleep is really necessary. I forget that sometimes.

Yes, I seem to work on the weekends…yes, I still read the Financial Times and I get my actual fun political news from @anamariecox — Twitter suits her. FT news: James Altucher is on a diet and rather grim about everyone else’s lack of willpower (which allows him to recommend gastric bypass related stocks); Peter Aspden is cracking the list of my favorite columnists as well as causing me to want to investigate the Manchester International Festival to see if I’ve done anything that suits…there was a cool article about bloggers/people meeting up and tossing ideas around but I cannot remember what the phrase describing it was so I can’t search for it…I still stop in the middle of a Sarah Hemming review/profile, look up at the byline and say yep, guessed it right.

Sonny With A Chance was hysterical — so very funny, so packed with physical comedy and yes, Demi Lovato does well but Tiffany Thornton is a find. So here’s hoping they continue the silliness — yes, yes, I know launch food with a catapult and I’m a happy critic, yes, yes, low brow…but wait until you see the food fight in Taming of The Shrew.

Crush Night on Nick kind of fun; David Archuletta seems like a nice guy. Good to see Max take the True Jackson spotlight but story a little forced.

Started writing today whether or not I find the darn misplaced manuscript and GOOD NEWS, Withoutabox has offered Roll With It an imdb title page so Gullible and Twitchy are preparing to launch themselves into the spotlight — now there’s an idea for an animation; I’ll let you know when it’s up.

Trying to work some Twitter/Creative Commons music synergy with @AdamSinger at The Future Buzz and get the Gullible and Twitchy skateboarding video together.

Oh, and although we usually don’t deal in rumors, and never in the dating and/or cat fight type, blogs are mention Vanessa Hudgens auditioning for a role in the Twilight sequel. Now, that might get me to see it. She handled the action in Thunderbirds well, looks exotic enough to pass for native American and could use an opportunity to show off her range, which I believe she has. Next up for her though, BandSlam.

And that’s it for this Monday. Off to lunch and etc., then a play reading meeting(theatre sabbatical officially over as of Saturday when I sat in the theatre and considered Miser set options), then The Big Bang Theory and reading the FT Weekend while Gayle watches Top Gear. It’s a good Monday night; try it sometime. And now I have a lunch date. Cheers.