LONELYPOND PRESENTS

Ha…that amused me. Enjoying the Olympics, although the curling tournament seems to take as long as the entire Winter Games (did you know a good set of curling rocks costs $1500 (acc. to Wikipedia) and there’s Curling for the Wii). But it’s fun to watch. Little Brother #2 only watches curling and hockey. The last Olympics he claims to have developed a crush on the Japanese curling team; I have yet to inquire about this year’s favorite.

Quick summary of stuff:

Really want to see Judy Dench as Titania in Midsummer. Once again, Sarah Hemming envy strikes. Midsummer is one of my favorite of Shakespeare’s plays and I’m developing a movie related project (or two).

There’s a new Stirfry Neon chapter. Current adventure: The Lady Lost or What Was I Thinking When I Turned That Corner.

Blink Kitty Love has been dormant for a month while I steep and work on tigers — Happy Year of the Tiger. Almost done with my tiger meditation period, including an excellent animation. Look for it here or the Twitter announcement (aka follow me @lonelypond).

I am considering some Blink Kitty Love changes, taking things a bit more experimental and exploring the world around the band…or just exploring the world and having fun with my unique animation style and humor. I’m much better at contained stories than an ongoing soap opera kind of thing and the best Blink Kitty Loves are when I’m inspired to comment/riff on something happening now. So I’m going to take that thought and see where it goes. I had a lot of fun putting in some hard work on my Year of The Tiger animation and I think it’s the best I’ve done yet. So I’ve been considering what I could do if I put the work into a longer story. The Olympics has me thinking: what’s my gold medal event.

The Lonely Pond annual meeting surprised me — it always does, but this year it wasn’t in the good way. I’ve been mulling over what happened for a couple of months now. We stalled right at the beginning with a restructuring discussion and didn’t get to my grand plans. The rest of Team Lonely Pond wants to be involved and doesn’t want to give up the company or the name, but they don’t want to commit the energy to take us to the level I wanted to go for reinventing Shakespeare on the web. So we’ve put the company on hold and I have consultants available. So I’m scaling back to one project at a time and dealing with the realization that I can do what I want, but I have to be certain that I have the enthusiasm to carry it through by myself. Which means I’m revisiting some earlier ideas that I once loved and are sitting on a shelf for no real reason at all.

Pop Culture Reviews + News:

I like Lady GaGa — I’ve been wandering around singing Paparazzi. It’s Little Brother #2’s fault; his taste in music sometimes surprises me. Caught Justin Bieber’s cover “Love Me” of The Cardigan’s LoveFool and it’s simply ludicrous. I hate when there’s an American Idol style remake of song that rolls on Radio FlashCatFlash (yes, I mean you Adam Lambert’s Mad World. Alison Iraheta’s Someone To Watch Over Me seems to be the only one that doesn’t cause me to twitch but that’s a song with multiple covers already and might be my weakness for brunettes showing.)

The Web Files is branching out with their new Buzz edition, covering events + news around the wonderful world of web series. Host Kristyn Burtt has great energy always, but especially when she’s prowling an event with a microphone, capturing the spark of the moment.

Smallville: took a break from the Olympics to catch the Wonder Twins episode. Not bad. I think we might be back on Team Smallville, although their color and emotional palette remains a bit dark for me.

My robot loving buddy @spacehospital is showing episodes from their first season on KoldCast TV. It’s insane fun with puppets, models and special effects.

Starstruck — bah, slow, boring, a really poorly paced + badly written version of It Happened One Night where Sterling Knight plays the spoiled heiress part. Well acted but characters not believable. And let’s be honest: Brandon Mychal Smith should have played the lead in a better written movie. He had one musical number and he brought enough energy to it for the whole movie. Disney once again loses points for their lack of showcasing multiracial actors.

Haven’t seen The Lightning Thief because Gayle wants to finish the book first. Oy. Love the How To Train Your Dragon Olympic themed commercials.

OK, curling calls. Enjoy the rest of your weekend. Thanks for stopping by.

New Blink Kitty Love blog post where the band links to their favorite TV themes.

Continuing the TV theme, still loving Chuck, although it gets bumped on Monday nights by Top Gear, one of Gayle’s top 3 shows.

Wizards vs. Werewolves — nope, fail, not really any fun at all. Solve our problems by making the bad boyfriend and the actress we’ve put on another show go away. More substantive criticism? Ok. Well, exactly in the middle, I thought I’ve seen this dramatic pose around a fountain exactly in a soap opera (yes, there was soap opera watching at some point in my past; my mom was a General Hospital/One Life To Live fanatic and so were half the GUYS in my freshman dorm) and near the end, I thought straight steal from Buffy (the why can’t we date normal people moment). Flash was so bored she slept through it — which is good, no seizure from overexcitement. I find it really annoying that Alex so changes her personality for the boy of the moment, unless this is supposed to be an example of the standard girl experience, although they’ve spent a lot of time setting up Alex as a not so standard girl. And yes, Mason was a bad boyfriend but not enough time was spent on that either. They solved too many problems too easily and had too many plots in the air for one episode, even an hour long one. And I would have liked to have seen Juliet’s parents make an appearance again; they were fun. The we pay attention to plot and character pendulum swings back toward iCarly (after the successful iSaved Your Life). Nick’s doing a Secret Crush weekend…have been catching the odd True Jackson, and although it’s nice to see more of the school (and Mikey J), there’s a moderate sized hole where the manic fun that is the Mad Style staff used to fit. Caught another episode of Big Time Crush and didn’t enjoy it. Too much loud; too little character based humor. The guys are interchangeable and the having to shoehorn in the little sister plot really drags it down.

Did I mention Chuck is great. And The Big Bang Theory continues fun, although I am getting TIRED of Howard. Bring back Leslie Winkel, put him between her and the current girlfriend, have a little frank enough for television sex talk and let’s watch his brain shrivel (that’s as low as I’m looking).

Cool glass robots (thanks to Geek Dad for the link.)

Greetings, o most loyal and amazing blog visitors. Happy 2010. I’m going to give you a fairly thorough round up as I would really like to be taking a couple of weeks for some R + R while it’s cold and all my baser instincts are saying, “Stay under the covers, it’s warm.” I am not particularly good at the R + R things so I may be forced to resort to things like read all the Harry Potter books, read all the Sarah Caudwell books, read all the Terry Pratchett Watch themed books, read my MFK Fisher + Elizabeth David, dig out my Raymond Chandler and Peter Cheyney, read through the pile of newspapers, watch all the movies I’ve borrowed from friends (Tristram Shandy, Bubba Ho-Tep, Steam Boy), watch the movies I watch every year and skipped in ‘09 (the original 3 American Pies, Tomb Raider, Bring It On, The Bandwagon, Strictly Ballroom, etc.)

So to tide you over, there’s the new Blink Kitty Love, all the old Blink Kitty Love, the band website and this:

Lunch With Tristram Stuart who feeds people from discarded food to highlight wastage.

Article about really cool jazz pianists CD collections I can’t afford.

The FT’s this year in culture quiz…

Stefan Stern’s suggestions for movies to watch and pick up business tips from this season (for the rest of you who don’t do R + R).

Very cool story about a native Gypsy theatre experiment/troupe in Spain. I am always amazed by the effect theatre can have on both audience and performers.

Umberto Eco’s latest looks to land on a list of fun reads.

Hoping to catch Nine at the local cinema…doesn’t look like Orson Welles and Me or The Station will make an appearance here; bumped Moon to the top of the Netflix queue and may soon give in to the buy Star Trek and/or Wizards of Waverly Place The Movie DVD urge…also on that list, the Cary Grant double feature — The Bachelor and The Bobby Soxer and Walk, Don’t Run, which I just saw on TCM and laughed at the frequently priceless moments.

TV: Zeke and Luther’s I, Skatebot episode looks cool, a bit worried about Wizards vs. Werewolves (Wizards of Waverly Place) — perhaps too soon after Wizards vs. Vampires and what will be left for Max, Wizards vs. really grumpy mythological creatures left out of the Twilight series — not really watching much on Nick at the moment except for late night What I Like About You, Top Gear kicks off a new season soon (Gayle very excited), I still miss Warehouse 13 and I really need to spend more time reading.

Merchant of Venice (#merven) planning not kicking into gear — but it’s early yet. Trying to get an artist for the logo, Gayle’s scheduling shows, I’ve decided to have people audition with their cool electronic gear (cell phones, laptops, etc.) Need to read through the play again; concerned about the Bassiano/Antonio axis –and no, I don’t mean in the gay way, just in the everybody’s always so concerned about Portia and Shylock, but hey without these two, I’ve got two right side wheels on a vehicle that needs two on the left as well.

The Lonely Pond Productions, Inc. annual meeting went in unexpected directions. But Google Wave worked well when the snow prevented travel. I need to put together scripts for a short live action adaptation and a few animations. And mull over movie related issues some more.

And Sarah Hemming’s “Twelfth Night” review left me grumping about people who weight down comedies with misery so I have been considering exactly how tragic the characters of Malvolvio, Sir Andrew, Wile E. Coyote, Elmer Fudd, et al are. And her Rope review makes the show sound like an excellent experience to have in a theatre.

Speaking of Hitchcock, there was a Vanity Fair photospread (thanks @njtam, a fellow Hitchcock fan) of modern stars in classic Hitchcock scenes…the women do better than the men, who seem to suffer from not being Cary Grant or Jimmy Stewart.

My current favorite breakfast is oatmeal with hot apple cider for a drink, my current most likely to be worn shirt is this one (it amuses Gayle) and I heard this amazingly goofy song at one of our favorite restaurants that Google has been no help with finding the title of…the lyrics as we can remember go something like this: “you’re good cause you don’t do things like (or that) you should…you’re cool cause (cuz?) you don’t do things by the book.” Sounded like a guy singing, it was a Spanish-Peruvian restaurant where music usually has spanish lyrics, it was chanty, and if you drop the title/artist in the comments, there will be a reward.

And I think that gets you up to date — and should tide you over for awhile. Wishing you the best of 2010’s. Stay warm.

P.S. Cool toasters…I need one.

The new Blink Kitty Love…New Year’s Eve party got snowed out so what does your favorite crazy crushing cartoon band do? Take a peek.

But with a title like that, we’ll pull a switch and start off with James Altucher, who has a WSJ.com blog post telling us what to expect in 2010. Mr. Altucher posted the link on Facebook, which is the only place I keep track of him anymore.

Switching to Twitter as a launching point, rebooted Tweetdeck after a reading a review that mentioned it incorporating the Twitter list feature. I’d been spending more time on the Twitter proper site because checking my conversationalist list was more effective than sorting back through twhirl. Plus, I love the translating feature and the lovely green I’ve turned the backdrop. Anyway, I had it search for the term robot; I’ve since had it stop searching for the term robot since the dominant account was @Fart_Robot or how to learn a lot about the bodily functions of strangers, their animals, their friends and the people standing near them in a short yet too long period of time. @NoteRobot was more fun; collecting “note to self” tweets.

Peter Aspden had a column prompted by Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes take. I think I’ll skip it but at least Aspden’s column made me almost put it on my movie list.

My movies to see out list currently includes Me and Orson Welles, Nine (neither of which is in the area — BOO), Invictus and, of course, Alvin and the Chipmunks, the Sqeakquel. I think the next movie Netflix is sending our way is Pineapple Express, after the Christmas in Connecticut double feature. First one much better and did you know Arnold Schwarzenegger directed the second. Re: second version — the quiet Kristofferson/Cannon moments work + the live broadcast is funny but I probably won’t be watching it next year. In the original, love story not much, but you’re SO happy when the priggy architect doesn’t marry her and Felix (S.Z. Sakall) is a HOOT. Plus, nice, not too threatening Sydney Greenstreet turn. Just discovered Jennifer Garner is apparently doing a third version.

Good article from Gizmodo about Orson Welles and his appetite for new technology.

And the Christmas song I was reminded of today: Christmas Wrapping by The Waitresses. It’s also a hoot (word of the day apparently).

And my post Solstice t-shirt: “O Holey Night.” And a Christmas Robot poster.

And if none of that gets you in the mood, have some stale eggnog and enjoy your “bah humbugs”

And, if you have yet to acquire my Christmas present, voting Blink Kitty Love for Best Experimental Web Series in the Streamys will do nicely. Vote here, put in this url: http://www.blinkkittylove.blip.tv and then come to the party — there will be one. Tammy’s also planning to throw one for New Year’s; that should be interesting ; )

Thanks for stopping by; enjoy your Christmas.

What else do you need in the morning? On November 28, the 6th Robo-One Dance Competition happened. Next up, American Mechano-Idol or So You Think Your Robot Can Dance…anyone?

Me and Orson Welles had a boffo opening weekend and will be expanding to a larger number of theatres. Their Facebook fan page is the easy way to follow along.

Quick reviews:

The Big Bang Theory: Too little Leonard + Raj, too much Howard; Sheldon and Penny continue inducing snorts of laughter.

Charlie Brown Christmas Special: butchered and for what, commercials + Prep and Landing? Poor choices both.

Prep and Landing: bah — not a heartwarming holiday special…once again, Pixar strikes a blow for not really for the kids, instead let’s amuse the animators. If you’re going to have cool tech, why not have cool Bond movie type versions of Christmas music? And blackmail over a relationship in a children’s Christmas special? Good thinking there. And there were too many lines lifted from Christmas songs — that should have been your first script draft, people, and then you would have been better to throw it out and start over. I did like Wayne switching himself for a teddy bear in the arms of a sleeping child and the skiing over rooftops sequences…no dialogue in them, just good animating. Too bad it didn’t carry through.

Shanghai Surprise — FINALLY watched as much as I could stand. Have now vowed that if I don’t remember a movie at all there’s usually a good reason and so no need to add to Netflix queue. Only got 1/3 through it and almost lost all respect for Sean Penn as an actor. Next up: the Christmas In Connecticut double feature. Best thing about the remake: the scene where Tony Curtis’s character freezes in front of the camera. It’s lovely when great actors act like they can’t.

IQuit iCarly — solid…I think they’re rebooting, establishing the relationships again so that they can get back to darn funny.

The Troop — always seems like it should be entertaining but I am bothered by the fact that they never take the time to get the relationships between The Troop and their peers at schools right. Too much obvious bullying and just declarations of status instead of building it. Makes me miss the multiple layers of wonderful that was Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

My Favorite Shout It Out song.

Mahjong is one of my favorite games to play with friends; @SyFy has an online Ninja Mahjong tile matching version.

Robots playing soccer/football (non US).

Sarah Hemming’s profile pieces. This one’s Alfred Molina, who is playing painter Mark Rothko on stage. Molina claims his fans break down into two groups: those who mention Diego Rivera from Frida and those who mention Dr. Octopus. Alas, for my cool street cred the first Molina mental flash I get is Snidely Whiplash in Dudley Do-Right. Don’t you have all the costs $5 at Target Brendan Fraser movies? It’s one of our favorite at home film festivals.

Looking for a new Christmas album and Gayle came home with the Straight No Chaser suggestion. Check out their website for “Who Spiked the Eggnog” and follow them on Twitter @sncmusic

There’s a new Blink Kitty Love in the universe (your FAVORITE crazy crushing cartoon band); they sit for headshots in a perfect meet the band opportunity. Do it; we double dog dare you.

And that’s enough for a December start. Enjoy! Stay warm. Drink tea. I just found my two favorites at this time of year: Stash’s White Christmas and Tazo’s Joy.

I’m making robot lists on Twitter (plus a pop culture robot one, let me know if you have any to add.)

FlipBoom is releasing a “teen”/more advanced FlipBoom All-Star version with ability to import images and MP3s, save drawings to a library + a few other snazzy features. Makes me wonder why I upgraded to the full version of Studio w/ its 500+ page manual.

Combine FlipBoom + Robots and you get Blink Kitty Love, featuring I, Jobot. Enjoy.

These guys draw Robots and Monsters and give part of the proceeds to charity. Sounds like a great plan.

And Vitamin D is apparently good for you so when you’re done howling, get some darn sun : )

Today’s two issues that I know of: the spread the #beatcancer message throughout social media, raise money + set a world’s record.

And World Food Day, which even shirt.woot jumped in to celebrate. No, they didn’t kick in money, but I figure getting more images of generosity out into the world is a good thing. And yes, robots on Friday’s shirt so that works for me.