Cartoon legend Chuck Jones dies. Need I even make any commentary on this? We've all been touched by his work. Thanks for the entertainment, Chuck! Peace.

For the past two days I've been reworking existing web pages to make them nicer, faster, easier to use, etc, and I just figured out a big hurdle to converting over some existing data into a new CMS (content management system) so I'm elated but tired. Whew.
Two of my co-workers were laid off yesterday which is a big bummer. We seem to be getting much busier, so it is confusing (and sad) to see them have to let two folks go. Dang. Come on, more work!
Gotta make some videos, do some editing... after I clean my house. Video creating is SO much more fun, though, that I think I might get distracted from the chores. Like that ever happens.

Want a sneaky peak at the new Sony DSC-P71? Wow. Looks like a real winner -- a high-quality, low-price digital camera. The price point and features are exactly right in my opinion (and street price will probably be less than the list of $400). Guess I better find some freelance or overtime work so I can afford it when it comes out!

Jackie Chan was injured during filming of a new movie. Kept in hospital for four hours with facial injuries. Ouch. He seems to be made of different stuff... he just gets back up and keeps on going.

Michael Moore's new book was released today: Stupid White Men
It almost didn't get published post-9/11 as the publisher felt it was "too critical" of the political system and they threatened to destroy all 50,000 copies already printed. Luckily, they held off due to a few smart, insistent people and it finally was made available this morning. I rushed to the store to pick up my copy and I look forward to devouring every word -- even if I don't agree with some it. Isn't that what this country is about? Freedom of speech? Freedom of opinion? Yes, I think so... I think it will be a good companion book to Ralph Nader's recently released "Crashing The Party."

Nothing like a crash course to get you educated on something, eh? I've been doing some video editing for a while now but mostly simple amateurish stuff. I've got Final Cut Pro but I've been mostly cranking on iMovie (and pushing it hard) as I didn't feel comfortable in FCP yet. That changed this past weekend...

A few local organizations organized a "5x24" movie event -- make a 5 minute or less movie in 24 hours. The deal was this: call a number on Friday night between 6 and 8pm to hear a recorded sentence ("And now, God knows, anything goes") and then make a movie based on it in 24 hours. Everybody shows up at 8pm Saturday night and shows off their creations. Crazy fun stuff and great practice at making movies and editing!
I roped my friends Bill, Michelle and Jack into action and we brainstormed and talked and ate and procrastinated and thought and... we decided to go the experimental and avant-garde route. In fact, our hypothesis of the situation was perhaps the people were annoying art snobs who only claim to like movies that they don't understand and that we could make a movie of such utter random crap that they would proclaim it to be cutting-edge and monumental. We started filming about midnight in Bill's basement and captured about 30 minutes of random crazy textural distorted footage each.
It ended up being mostly just Bill and myself as the others had prior plans for Saturday and somehow I ended up doing all the video editing, which was cool 'cuz I had just really dug in to FCP in the prior days and felt ready to flex my new knowledge muscles. I edited from 1pm to about 5:30pm Saturday. Then we waited apprehensively while the computer rendered the video for the next hour and half! I was afraid we wouldn't make it in time. We dumped the finished 3:45 minute piece to tape and headed out.
I was so super nervous upon arrival that I thought I might actually be sick -- my stomach was all fluttery and my leg wouldn't stop bouncing and I had that chill sweat you get before public speaking. I drank more water. Once the first piece started showing, I calmed down at bit as it was obvious that our piece was going to be better... a few funny films seemed to relax everybody... Finally ours came up. Yipe! Super nervous again. I was scanning the crowd, trying to figure out reactions to our piece, but was also trying to watch it on the big screen. I think people were enthralled the whole way through, but ultimately confused by the content and it didn't help that the phrase we incorporated was obscured from normal perception. Still, we had done it and it looked awesome!
In the end, all the pieces were fun and interesting and inspiring just from the sheer creative level of doing something like this project. Our piece most definitely had the best production quality and looked the nicest, but I would say most attendees liked other movies over ours. That's OK. We only did it for fun anyway and we'll do it again in the future.

Wow. Must be new software day! Apple released version 10.1.3 this evening and already some reports are coming in that it seems snappier (can always use that on my upgraded PowerMac). I will wait a day or two before installing, though, as I've got a few other things to tweak on before that...

The Heights Theater is hosting a world-record movie viewing event -- participants must watch over 51 hours of movies straight through to break the previous record. Oh man, that is tough -- I once stayed up for 67 hours straight (cramming for tests, etc) and the human body starts doing some seriously screwed up things after 36 hours. I saw stars shoot out of an Asian kid's head, I saw pressure ripples in chalkboards when touched with chalk and I was talking out loud without realizing it during an opera performance (those last hours were very vague)... ick. Felt like crap.

I just really wanted to grill some food last night... so I did. It wasn't that cold out (February in Minnesota - balmy!) and those turkey burgers didn't want to be fried in a pan anyway (and I didn't want the fry odor in my house) so I fired up the grill and enticed my neighbors with an evening of BBQ food scents. Ha ha. Either the yappy little dogs down the street were asleep or were too busy drooling to disturb the nice silence of the evening. Add in a little pepper jack soy cheese and the culinary creation is ready to eat. Afterwards saw me standing in the kitchen scarfing down both vanilla -and- strawberry swirl Soy Dream Organic ice cream. Yum! Very tasty desserts.

Wow. Another updated blog interface for Mac OS X and from the BlogScript guys as well -- BlogApp. Looks decent so far. Nice and simple interface, drag and drop or just type, edit last entry, spell check! and maybe more. Very slick. Now if it could just do titles... strike 1. Um, just found out that it doesn't handle links. Strike 2...

DPR has first news of Foveon's revolutionary X3 sensor for capturing digital images. Unlike normal 'mosaic capture' sensors that only capture red, green or blue for each pixel, the new X3 can capture all colors for each pixel, resulting in much greater detail and range. The sample pictures, small as they are, will amaze and astound you. Supposedly this chip can also be used for digital video cameras! Sign me up now!

This link: PCT Gear - KISS Stoves is a great resource for making your own mini-stoves for backpacking, hiking, etc. Made out of pop or food cans, they are very lightweight and very inexpensive. Cool.

BlogScript v 1.5 is Released, and it's open source. This version is also compatible with Movable Type and Manilla sites. Actually, it's compatible with any XML-RPC server that uses the Blogger API. All that and it works better than ever with Blogger.
Hee hee. I just posted that above paragraph direct from my Mac with a little AppleScript. Very cool. Click and away it goes.