Diary of a Werewolf

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about competing in the 48 Hour Film Contest, and now I present you with the video that my team, the Sparkle Kids, created.

On Friday, there was a screening and awards ceremony for all the entries, and we ended up winning four awards, including Best Film. Because of that, we had the great privilege of appearing on the local morning zoo radio show on KFMA, where I proceeded to hog the mic and try to get someone listening to offer me a new job.

Anyway, here's the film. It's called "Diary of a Werewolf" - which seems appropriate for this Halloween day.



We had to use a prop (pumpkin), a line of dialogue ("I don't know, I'm not a dentist.") and a character (Bob Johnson), and make the film in a specific genre (horror).

You can check out some other films from the contest here.

"Gravity" Music Video

The good people over at Glitterfish have finished their music video for L.A. band She's Your Sister.

The song, "Gravity," off their debut album In Between is pretty good, and the video is great.

Produced by Andy Martinez and directed by Jonny Pulley, the video utilizes still images to tell the band's origin story.

Watch the video here, and then log in to vote for it in the very cool YouTube Underground Contest.

Top 5 Best Origin Stories:
5. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
4. Batman
3. She's Your Sister
2. Spider-Man
1. Earth (Thanks God!)

Top 1 Worst Origin Story:
1. Darth Vader

There's no such thing as a free lunch

I don't really understand how this hasn't been stopped, but you can watch a bunch of television shows online at this website without having to download anything.

From animated classics like Family Guy and The Simpsons, to shows that iTunes is trying to get us to download like LOST and The Office. Plus Kenan and Kel.

You'd think the networks could shut down this website, but I guess they haven't caught on to it yet.

Also, here's a good torrent for the new Shins album, if you haven't grabbed it yet.

UPDATE: Now the website doesn't work. Remember the no free lunch thing... You can still get loads of episodes at www.dailymotion.com, you'll just have to search for them.

A trip down Nostalgia Lane #1

I loved going to the video store as a child. The one in the shopping center right by my house had a great cartoon selection, with classics like Thundercats and Silverhawks.

I would rent the same tapes over and over again, but my most-rented video was, without question, Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue, an anti-drug PSA from 1990 featuring every cartoon character worth a damn working together to get a teen off drugs. The Smurfs, the Ninja Turtles, Alf, Garfield, the Chipmunks, Winnie the Pooh, Bugs Bunny. The list goes on and on.

I certainly didn't rent it because of the message, but for the sensory overload of seeing all my favorites interacting on screen.

Thanks to YouTube, I can finally see the half-hour video again. (I tried multiple times to get it on ebay, but didn't want to pay more than $20.)

The video is at turns hilarious (the first line is "Morning already? I was smurfing like a baby.") and absurd (George Sr. and Barbara Bush introduce the film, and nerdy Simon explains to the others about, "marijuana, an unlawful substance used to experience artificial highs.").

Simply put, this is choice viewing whether you watched it as a kid or not.

Scatter-Shot #2

Gripe of the Week: I used to only hate the St. Louis Cardinals because they're in the same division as my consistently awful Cincy Reds, but now I've got a better reason. Scott Spiezio, the one-time steroid pumper who now looks like he might have trouble lifting up the syringe, is sporting a gross soul patch, dyed Cardinal red. Seriously, Douchey McSpiez? What are you thinking? I'd rather see you with a bright red mullet. I hope you guys get swept.

Quoteworthy: "Emo is bullshit. If people want to take it for the literal sense of the word, yes, we're an emotional band, we put a lot of thought into what we do. People always try to stereotype us, but we don't fit the emo stereotype," Brendon Urle, lead singer of Panic! at the Disco. I'm not sure what is more obviously false, that they're not emo, or that they put a lot of thought into what they do.

Newsworthy: Shrek is being transformed into a Broadway musical, set to premiere on the stage in 2008. We can only hope that it will last beyond '08 though, and overtake Cats as the longest running Broadway show. Make sure to see it multiple times, because fart jokes, especially in song, get even funnier the second and third times around.

Watch: New Michel Gondry-directed Beck video. Of course it's awesome.



Read: I wouldn't normally post about this, because I already did yesterday, but I'm just so happy that teen columnist Jessica Mendibles let us in on the little secret that, "God exists." It looks like I scooped you, Matt Drudge.

Listen: You Ain't No Picasso had a new track from the forthcoming Shins album, but the stooges over at SubPop must have put an end to that. Damn, I was ready to get my life changed again (I will never get tired of Shins-Garden State jokes). Still check out the post for a Shins cover of a Magnetic Fields song.

Teen Columnist Proves Existence of God!

Everyone can stop debating this bullshit. Yes, there is a God. Teen columnist for the Tucson Citizen Jessica Mendibles proved it. "God exists," Jessica writes in the opinion section of Tuesday's paper.

Not convinced? Well, she'll fucking prove it again for you. Goddamn heathens...

"My answer to those who question the presence of God is: Yes, God is real..."

She refutes evolution as well. And no, she doesn't have any fucking evidence. She doesn't need any. It's about faith, dummy.

Why was more than 500 words devoted to this in a supposedly unbiased paper in a mostly liberal city? I have no idea.

Please comment on this column over at the Citizen website. If not because you're appalled that this was printed, then because Mendibles is such an incredible last name. Just say it. Mendibles. Ha. Rolls of the tongue.

LSD for Soldiers and Children

Amidst the news that the U.S. Government is "torturing" terror suspects with LSD, here are some awesome videos of soldiers and children doing or talking about LSD. They're in black and white, so that means they're old.

These soldiers try to carry out their mission while tripping balls, broseph.



This one has a little boy talking quite eloquently about his religious experience on LSD.




And here's a girl on LSD trying to wrap her head around the concept of "orange."

48 Hour Film Fest

This weekend I competed in a 48 Hour Film contest, in which my team had to write, shoot and edit a 4 - 7 minute film in 48 hours. The organizers assign teams different genres, but every team has to use the same prop (pumpkin), character (Bob Johnson) and line of dialogue ("I don't know, I'm not a dentist.").

There are thousands of entries every year in similar contests. Here is the national winner from last year, the fantastic Mimes on the Prairie. Here is the second place entry — which I only mention because it was created by a team called Scattershot — The Write Stuff.

And if you can't stop watching the 48 hour movies, YouTube has hundreds of them. Breakin' Hearts was the best one I found over there. Obviously, it's a breakdancing musical.



If you want to try your hand at 48 hour filmmaking, this weekend you can compete in the National Film Challenge, which is actually international.

Scatter-Shot #1

Newsworthy: Marijuana will help you defeat Alzheimer's. Next up, AIDS.

Quoteworthy: "Terrell has 25 millions reasons why he should be alive," publicist Kim Etheredge, referencing Terrell Owens $25 million contract, as the reason he wouldn't try to kill himself. Me? Including college loans and credit card debt, I've got a few thousand reasons to end it all.

Random Review: I bought a box of Handi-Snacks Crackers 'N Cheez for nostalgic reasons, and it turned out to be a stupid idea, just like when I got Thundercats on DVD or downloaded Kriss-Kross.

Watch: NBC is riding high with Howie Mandel and "Deal or No Deal", so why not have Bob Saget host "1 vs. 100," the new game show premiering tonight. Like most game shows, "1 vs. 100" has whored itself around the world before coming to America, looking for a new start and some cream to relieve the burning down there. The show premieres tonight.

Listen: Ryan Adams, who changes his mind about the Internet every day, has put up a new "album" called You are the Audience up on his website. I would say the 36 tracks are a joke, but I like them better than most of Adams' recent offerings.

Read: It's pretty difficult for anyone to defend Mel Gibson right now. But you know who could? Jesus Christ. Through Pat Boone, that is. Check out Boone's column where he tells us that he knows "Mel and Christ, and my friend Mel is no anti-semite." Christ, however, believes the Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world.

Bam! You come to another light.

I went to the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in L.A. this weekend to catch F'Ed Up and Illegal Videos, hosted by Matt Besser. It was a great show, as most of UCB's offerings are. While I consider myself well-versed in Internet vids, everything they showed was new to me.

Larry Williams giving directions to a couple out-of-towners might have been the highlight of the show for me.

Chitra my queen, let's boycott Fandango

I suppose I understand the marketing idea that if your advertisements are annoying enough, they will stick with the consumer. But once the company knows they’ve got plenty of brand awareness, it should be time to change the ads to make the consumer happy.

Of course, I’m talking about Fandango, a company that sells movie-tickets online. More specifically, I’m talking about the paper bag puppets who help the audience start almost every film I see in the worst possible mindset.

At first, I thought that the Fandango puppet humor just didn’t appeal to me. I would hear laughter throughout the theater as the puppets talked about getting their movie tickets online. Now, I don’t think anyone is laughing. Ethnic stereotypes have entered the advertisements and reoccurring characters such as Chitra and her husband are making what was once only painful, now completely unbearable.

Here is the most worthless ad so far, but they'll only get worse....unless we do something.



Today I call for Fandango to stop advertising. We know that if we want to buy tickets online, we’ve got to go through you…and pay the $1 service charge. But I personally will not buy tickets online until you change your ad campaign. The puppets need to die a quick, hopefully very painful, death.

Here are some new campaign ideas that are less offensive, since Fandango apparently have no one working on this.

1. Diet Coke and Mentos - this is really hot right now

2. Lonelygirl15 - she can sell anything

3. Budweiser frogs - bring them back, have them say "whassup"

Shit, I even made a petition. Sign it and join me in stopping the most irritating ad campaign since Jared lost more than 200 pounds!

Or if you love the ads, go buy a t-shirt online for only $15.

Why I don't read on Wednesday

"One quality show after another, each one fresher and more brilliant than the last. If they only stumbled once, just gave us thirty minutes to ourselves, but they won’t! They won’t let me live!” - Homer

There's America's Next Top Model and Project Runway. Now there's South Park and the new David Cross and Jon Benjamin cartoon Freakshow. The airwaves are so clogged with entertainment that I have to skip Laguna Beach. It's a good thing the Yankees-Tigers game was rained out. I don't know what I'll do when Top Chef starts up again.

The real star of Wednesday night, however, is of course Lost. I'm a little late to the party on this show, and had to catch up on DVD in the last couple weeks. The first episode of the 3rd season is the first I've seen with commercials, and it was agonizing to wait three minutes to see what happened next. Now I have to endure a 215 hour break before the next episode.

If you are deciding whether or not to watch the show, take a look at LOSTpedia and see what might become of you. This is also a good site if you need a quick bump to make it until next Wednesday.

They have character histories, plot summaries and lots of other useless info, but the most fun are reading the "fan theories."

Here are some of the nuttiest ones:

The numbers 4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42 are in fact referencing the periodic table, and the combination of these elements (Be, O, P, S, V and Mo) create an evil weapon.
LIKELINESS: 5

The statue of a foot with four toes that Sayid sees means "the others" might be trolls.
LIKELINESS: 8

Mr. Friendly, the man who leads the boat that takes Walt, is gay.
LIKELINESS: 10

Jack's father is Him, the leader of the others. John Locke's father is Him. HIM is an acronym for "His Infernal Majesty" - the Devil.
LIKELINESS: 0

An early name for Goliath was Alwt, an anagram for Walt, therefore...I'm not sure.
LIKELINESS: ?

Mr. Manager gets his own band

"Some of the artists are kind of talented. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of The Jerky Boys. They do these prank phone calls. It’s kind of old school, but... I have the tape in my room. I accidentally didn’t burn it yet."

It's the fall and thanks to Fox there's nothing funny on television again. For those with serious or minor Arrested Development withdrawl, there's a few options. Buster shows up in the trailer for Stranger than Fiction, which looks like this year's Oscar-worthy indie flick for Clint Eastwood to stomp on come Awards time. And there's Gob in this prison movie, which looks pretty bad but is directed by Bob Odenkirk, so who knows?

If you're tired of moving images, AD's cast is delving into other areas of the entertainment industry, notably with Michael Cera (George Michael) tryng his hand at music.

The kids of AD always seemed super cool behind a nerdy front, and this was confirmed when my friends spotted Maeby and Bland checking out the Mountain Goats in-store at Amoeba L.A. a few weeks ago. "Where was George Michael?" I asked.

Apparently practicing with his band, The Long Goodbye, who are actually AWESOME. Only 18-years-old, Michael plays guitar and sometimes sings for TLG - which cites influences like Neutral Milk Hotel and Weezer (I'm sure only pre-Green Weez, though). Michael even sports a serious Rivers Cuomo style in most of the band's pics on their MySpace page.

TLG has one rocker ("Nothing at All") and a couple beautiful acoustic songs up on MySpace.

"Can I Call You Mine" reminds me a bit of Rogue Wave's "Postage Stamp World", but I think it tops it. I haven't heard a cuter song in ages with Michael's unabashed vocals and the perfect harmonica accompaniment. I can't stop listening to it.

I don't know if this band will achieve a Phantom Planet or, dare I say, 30 Seconds to Mars level of success, but The Long Goodbye is no novelty act. They aren't playing live regularly, and don't appear to have any kind of record deal, but I think they're on the right track and I can't wait to check them out next time they play.

Check out Michael and band-mate Clark dance around the house in this DIY music video. Better than OK Go, or at least more adorable.



"I was going to smoke the marijuana, like a cigarette."

Extreme Makeover: Harry Edition

It looks like Harry has gotten a significant trim for the upcoming Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the fifth film installment of the tremendous literary series.

Unless they're straying quite far from the book, I don't think Harry and Hermione will be an item in the film, but this shot suggests they might be at least friends with benefits. I thought he looked better shaggy in Goblet, but I guess she likes this flathead nerd cut.

More pics from HP 5, out next summer.

UPDATE: Check out Daniel Radcliffe on the most recent episode of Extras.