Horton Hears a Who

Looks fun!

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Who Needs a Kwik E Mart?

As I am sure you are aware, several 7-11s have had a make over to look like Kwik E Marts from the Simpsons show. Lots of photos have been on the net for awhile, but hey why not post some more? The other week, me and my buddy Ernesto visited the one near the studio....and these are our pictures...

Davey Jones Coolness

Awesome side by side comparison of Bill Nighy (Davey Jones) from Dead Man's Chest (clip *may* not play in Firefox)

Kaelou

Yay! fun French animation.....



English version..

Moon Sand

Maybe you have seen ads for this Moon Sand stuff. It's sand you can mold!! And we have some. Commercials work well on Wonder-pea. She sees the Moon Sand commercials and insists that we must get some. She also insists that we get a Rocket Fisherman.

So on a trip to the Toys R Us we picked her up some. And from the moment we opened the package I began hating Moon Sand with every fiber of my being.

Our kit came with an ice cream cone mold. Yes when you pack the moon sand in the mold it makes a pretty nice little shape. Removing the shape from the mold requires a surgeons steady hand. If you're lucky enough to remove it in one piece you have about 5.3 seconds before it falls apart.

The packaging shows these elaborate little scenes made up of various molded moon sand figures....yeah nice photoshop. After several tries, I managed to make and remove, intact, an ice cream cone. Moving carefully, as if holding plutonium, I sat it on the table. I slowly backed away holding my breath. I caught Wonder-peas attention and through a series of rapid eye darts, directed her attention to the ice cream cone. Unfortunately the shock wave from her blink was too much and the figure crumbled.

Wowie!! That was fun. NOT. So this junk is mostly useless to play with, but hey clean up is a snap right? RIGHT???!!! Cleaning up the moon sand is the bane of my existence. Like sand we find here on earth, moon sand is gritty and gets everywhere. We might as well bring the sand box in the house because it's like having all the messy fun of the beach right there in your own home!!! I want to punch the inventor of this stuff in the neck....seriously.

I have threatened to throw the moon sand away numerous times but my wife prevents me from doing so because Wonder-pea likes playing in it. And that is fine...its the damn clean up.

There is nothing better than to come home from work in a great mood....la la la, hello wife, walk into the the living room, hello Lil Pumpkin, walk into the dining room, hello Wonde-MOON SAND!!! AH CRAP NO...NOT THE MOON SAND!! Then there is much wailing and gnashing of teeth.....

Hear me Moon Sand...your days are numbered.

Rabbits

This weeks DrawerGeeks.....

Transformers

So the other day a small group of us headed out of work a little early to catch Transformers. While critics have been split on the film, geeks like me seem to be digging it, so I was reasonably excited to see the movie. The lesson I learned was: don't trust geeks.

**Some spoilers and complaining ahead....you've been warned**


Having worked on the game I was aware of the basic storyline, which raised many an eyebrow around the studio and not in a good way; Autobots shop on ebay?...was Optimus' birthday coming up? What to get the bot who can transform into anything.

Then there was the robot design. Again having worked on the game I knew first hand what a pain in the rear it was to get good poses with these huge meshes of metal AND how hard it was to tell them apart from each other.

I appreciate the set up at the beginning of the film and thought it was well done, however it went on f-o-r-e-v-e-r. I swear it was 45 min in before Optimus even showed up. And then when he and the other Autobots did come on the scene they act like people in robot costumes. Jazz break dancing? Bumblebee doing some kinda....dance thing....dancing should be outlawed in summer blockbusters.

After the movie was over I asked Bryan Engram what he thought, to which he replied "I don't know what to think." That was pretty much how I felt. On one hand there was some cool action scenes and some neato transformation animation and bot on bot battles; at the end of the day that IS what we came to see. But at the same time most of those action scenes were hard to follow. The camera was constantly moving and pushed in too close. And then there was the bots.

I have no problem with them being redesigned. And I think ILM did a decent job with what they had to work with but man oh man most of them bots were just too busy looking. Did they even have hands? There was so much metal this and that everywhere it was hard to tell.

During the final battle I literally lost track of who was attacking who.....ok is that...Ironhide?....no wait...Barricade....no...NO it is Ironhi.....wait...... If they shot laser beams (hint hint) instead of bullets (advance alien race....they use bullets?) then at least the Decepticons could have red lasers...the Autobots blue...which would have helped A LOT to figure out who was shooting who.

One of the best scenes was the throw down between Bonecrusher and Optimus on the freeway, but once they started rolling around it was like watching a mangled train wreck; there could have been major pass through on the characters and no one would EVER know. That sequence ended with awesomeness when Prime wacks off Bonecrushers head with a sword...a sword that he apparently forgets he has in the next battle.

Then there was the cheese. Why....WHY would the Autobots hang out in Sam's yard when they are supposed to be keeping a low profile? It's like Michael Ebay was going for an Iron Giant moment there. John Turturro was just a tad or 10 over the top....funny sure....but goofball secret government agents? Really? Bumblebee taking a leak on Turturro......oh you wacky robots, I want to party with you guys on new Cybertron......sigh...

How about that robot character development or lack thereof. You will sell more toys if the kids connect with the characters....some free advice for the future. We get to know Optimus a little and Bumblebee and the toony "I'm from a different movie" Frenzy and that's it. Megatron has too little screen time to be developed and the other Decepticons just fly around and break stuff.. which is cool, but one of the things that was neato about the bad guys in the old show was the power plays between Megatron and Starscream and its just not here.

Ironhide, Ratchet and Jazz....I can barely remember what they looked like let alone what they did in the movie. Jazz got killed...I remember that. Here Optimus...here is Jazz' dead body...maybe we can use him for a door stop or something.

Analyst girl and donut eating hacker dude: how did you sneak into this movie? There was no need for either of you...please leave; the code "discovery" could have been reworked without either of them.

Shia LaBeouf I really liked you in this movie....yes its true. His Sam character tied all the nuttiness together and he was fun to watch. I actually left the theater feeling better about this kid being in Indy 4.

All Spark....200 feet high...but wait, if you push this button here it shrinks down to ever so convenient pocket size, Baby Spark. Yeah...ok. And why was every bot created by Baby Spark evil?

Optimus please keep your mouth shield ON in the next one. I don't want to see your wacky bot nose and lips. If you were trying to emote during the film, it was lost due to so many parts moving around on your face. Sell the emotion with your eyes...the EYES...come on big guy, you know you got the touch, you got the power.

Megatron saying "Prime"....yes I liked that....say it again...no? maybe in the next one. Hugo Weaving voiced all 12 lines Megatron spoke in the film and with all the digital enhancements, SpongeBob Squarepants could have done the voice and it would have sounded cool. Why didn't they just get Frank Welker?

The film was fun, I was entertained....really I was, but it wasn't the film I was hoping for or expecting. Hopefully Transformers 2 will be WAY better.

Energon Cubes Make Me Gasey

Transformers officially opens today although it sorta, kinda opened on Monday. In stores at this very moment is Transformers: The Game. If you haven't seen the game trailer head on over to the official game site and check it out; looks like a lot of fun.


ReelFX did some of the cut scene animatics for the game and I've posted several of my shots in the animation area. A word of warning!! If you have NOT seen the movie, there are a couple spoilers in my shot montage, as the game follows events in the film. You have been warned.

Die Hard

With "Live Free or Die Hard" doing fairly well, it looks like yet another Die Hard film is on the way...

That'll Do Donkey

I uploaded a Donkey test to the animation area. It's in a brand new tab aaaalll the way at the bottom, called TESTS.

Before we started the Shrek the Third commercials, we spent a couple weeks playing with the rigs, providing "shots" for texture and lighting so they could get the fur looking the way Dreamworks wanted.

Also there is new poll up...yay! Look over there...there it is...see it? I said I'd post a new one on Mondays and by god I did. Shocking I know. I half expected that I would forget all about it.

A future poll will question how long I will remember to update the poll.

WALL-E

I'm sure it will be taken down soon.....so see it while you can! It's a fun little promo for Buy N Large, makers of WALL-E. The spot reminds me of something they would show in Tomorrowland or something..

Burger Time

While doing some food shopping I saw a package of Mickey Mouse Hamburgers and by golly it struck me as being so darn bizarre, that I had to snap a picture.

My initial thought was "You got to be kidding me, who would buy these?"

The obvious answer is that they are hoping the kids will yell and scream for em because mouse head shaped burger patties excite and amaze todays youth. I'm surprised Nickelodeon hasn't licensed a SpongeBob shaped pattie.

While I stood in the freezer section of my grocery store laughing at the patties I noticed something in the upper right corner where it says Check It Out.....mmmm yummy..

It makes the picture of happy, burger flipping, Mickey so wrong...so very, very wrong.....but at least there's no trans fat..

Polls Are Now Open

If you look off to the right you will see I've added a poll. Yes it's true! I saw this on another site I frequent and thought "my god....I must have one". So every week to two weeks (I will mostly likely post new ones on Mondays) look for a new poll with topics ranging from almost serious to mostly absurd.

Aliens

I finally had some time to do a drawergeeks submission...this week: Aliens.....

Praire Dogs Know Drama

It's true...

More Puss Less Boots

I've posted a couple more Puss N Boots shots in the animation area. The spot for Nickelodeon with Puss hacking and weezing was a lot of fun. The spot was three shots, totaling 15 seconds, however Nickelodeon decided that the spot needed to be 5 seconds...sigh...so the animation was severely edited in the final spot....tears..

Look How Funky He Is

Mere words can't describe the awesomeness....

May Ends Well

The LOST season finale was quite good...who would have thunk it possible? Lots of great moments: Jake beating the crap out of Ben, Sawyer blowing away Mr. Friendly and Hurley mowing a guy down with the van. Yes all very violent, but pretty cool none the less.

The flash forward, as it was revealed to be, was kind of cool but I'm not sure I want that happening all next season. I say this because the producers have said that next season the format will be changing....hummmm. By showing us the ending and then how everything got to that point....eh...an episode or two maybe but not the whole season.

Charlie finally died after all the teasing. While he could have most likely made it out the door, sealing the flooding compartment, I think Charlie realized that death was calling, either then or later. Desmond told him episodes before that no matter what he did, Charlie was gonna die, so he and us, knew it was coming. I think the little hobbit decided to go out a hero rather than get an arrow in the neck or step on a poisonous sea urchin. Sniff...bye Charlie.

The only major problem I had with the finale is the pirate that will not die. This guy has been zapped by the sonic fence and now shot in the chest with a spear gun and somehow he survives. I don't care how fast the island may regenerate you, yanking a shark spear out of your chest is gonna leave a mess and a big hole. I can only hope that exploding a grenade at point blank range was enough to do him in or else maybe his pirate chunks will reform like Voltron.

**SPOILERS AHEAD ME HEARTIES**

POTC: At World's End...me likey. COTBB is still the best of the series, but I thought this third and possibly last movie was a lot of fun. Jack was crazy again, Barbossa was awesome and the tone of the film, while serious at times, had the whimsical sense of adventure as the first film.

People have complained that the story is too complex and too hard to follow, but honestly I had no problem keeping up. Some of the backstabbing, double crosses came a little quick at times, but I like the fact that these movies make you pay attention. Yes you may miss stuff the first go around, I know I did on the first two films, but its fun to discover the stuff you may have missed on future viewings. It's kinda like watching LOST...but with no polar bears.

Case in point: the locket that both Tia Dalma and Davey Jones have. There is shot in the 2nd film when they go to see the voodoo lady and Jack is busy stealing things. He reaches down and takes a ring off the table and that locket is sitting there. Very subtle but kinda cool.

A couple things could have been tweaked like the wedding sequence; I thought it should have happened quicker given the current situation....do you, do you...fine your married. The Attack of the 50 Foot Tia Dalma was....weird. I was expecting her to turn into a mystical, translucent...something. What she was yelling..who knows...but I read on a forum that someone thought she was screaming "I want Cracker Barrel!!" which made me laugh.

If you stayed for the credits, and by now you should know there is always something after the credits, you saw the 10 years later bit with Will returning to Port Royal to find Elizabeth and son waiting for him. In the theater I figured that the flash of green indicated his return to the living for one day, however reading some stuff on the forums at the site of writers Ted and Terry I discovered that is not correct.

They say that since Will returns home and Elizabeth has stayed true, the curse is broken and he is free to go ashore whenever. The flash of green indicated his return to the mortal world. They also mention that it is a little difficult to get this given the current cut of the film, but if you listen to when they talk of the green flash, its said that it indicates a soul returning to the mortal world. Like what happened when Jack returned.

Anyways there was a lot I liked about the movie like Jack ending up in a dingy just as he was at the start of COTBB. I also liked how Will sort of acted like Jack when he had his meeting with Jones and Beckett. Sad to see Norrington bite it...I like that actor. Some stuff could have been better and there were some missed opportunities; I still want to know what mark Sparrow left on Beckett. But overall I enjoyed it and my pea size bladder made it through the whole thing...go pea bladder!

I will admit I was a little depressed later in the day though. The thought that there may not be more movies kind of bummed me out. I love the characters and the world they inhabit and would love to revisit it every couple years, sort of how the Harry Potter movies have rolled out. At least one more sequel is assured but will it happen soon or be another Indiana Jones and the 19 Years Since My Last Movie....guess we will have to see.

To complete my May, we went to the new Red Robin that opened near our house where I enjoyed a Whisker River BBQ Chicken Burger and Chocolate Shake, for the first time in a long time.

P.S. Heroes....I'm still not pleased.

A Time for Planting

Over the weekend we bought three, 15 gallon trees to plant in the yard. Between cloud bursts of rain I managed to get two planted which was a small triumph because it has been raining A LOT lately. The forecast for this week was rain, rain and more rain and I didn't know when I would be able to get the last one planted. Digging a giant hole when the ground is soaking wet is not fun at all.

But I did see a window of opportunity. The forecast for today called for showers in the afternoon. Perfect. I got up early to dig me a big hole and plant me a tree before the afternoon rains came. The radar was on my side showing storms way east of us...awesome....what could possibly go wrong?

As I finished the digging of the ginormous hole, I noticed the sky was starting to darken a bit. Not a big deal. Sometimes the sky will get a little dark and nothing will happen. I figured that as long as there was no thunder I probably had some time and besides....I was almost done. I cut the bucket off the base of the tree and sat it in the hole.. then I heard a rumble. I looked at the sky behind me and it had quite suddenly gotten insanely darker...much darker than it had been all week. Oooooooooooh crap.

With with one hand holding the tree and the other working the shovel, I started quickly filling in dirt around the tree while chanting a certain four letter word. I heard another rumble of thunder which was followed by rain. Not just a sprinkle of rain mind you. No no the weather gods pushed the "Instant Hurricane Rain" button. Splooooosh.

There comes that moment when you realize that you are so wet that it just doesn't matter anymore. That moment occurred about 20 seconds after it started raining. I was completely and utterly soaked. Then the winds picked up (I found out later they reached 60 mph) and the tree was weaving all over the place. Things had gone from zero to suck in under 30 seconds.

As I continued the struggle of getting fill dirt around the tree I thought "This is actually kinda fun..its like I'm a pirate out at sea." Arrr. As I yo-ho-hoed, splashing in the mud puddles that were forming around me I had another less fun thought, I have one hand on a tree and another on a shovel...and its storming and lighting....wow this could end really badly. Then I heard fire engine sirens.....hummm..mostly likely responding to a lighting strike. Well ok then...

Wanting to spare my wife the embarrassment of having to tell people I died planting a $150 tree, I staked the tree as best I could and headed to the garage to dry out and wait for the rains to stop. After about 45 minutes the rains died down.

From all the tossing around the fill dirt had sloshed under the tree, so when I stood it up straight, it sat up way too high. Time to start over. Trying to yank a wet tree out of a muddy, wet hole was like trying to pull Excalibur out of a boulder. With a huge suction noise the tree finally came out and I got to dig out the sloppy, wet, muddy earth which now weighed about 200 lbs.

Eventually, I got the tree planted and staked. In my desire to find the perfect window of opportunity to plant that tree...a time when the ground wouldn't be too wet...I ended up picking the worst possible time I could have ever imagined. Yay for me!!

Puss N Boots

One of the shots I did withPuss N Boots is now up in the ALL NEW but mostly the same Animation area. This was a spot for Spanish television to help promote Shrek the Third. Hopefully over the next several days I will get my other shots on there as well.