Posts

Posted on

We Heart Superman: Episode 101: Crisis of the Pink Kryptonite!

Click here to listen to episode 101:

“We Heart Superman: Crisis of the Pink Kryptonite!” (MP3 format, 16.8MB)

Visit our MySpace page at MySpace.com/WeHeartSuperman.

“We Heart Superman: Crisis of the Pink Kryptonite!” Written and directed by Troy Minkowsky. Featuring Joe Tringali, Mike Devine, Lindsay LeClair, Dan Miller, Melissa McCue, Michelle Webster, and Arturo Meneses. Sound and technical support by James Force. Original Music by Subpar Costar and Matt Cohn. Produced by Matt Rasmussen. Superman created by Joel Schuster and Jerry Seigel and property of DC Comics.

Thanks for listening!

Posted on

We Heart Superman: Now Podcast-Ready!

With voices for episode 102 still warm in the can from last night’s recording session, we are proud to announce our podcast feed. To subscribe to We Heart Superman, point your favorite podcast program to:

http://www.spacetoast.net/stp/podcasts/superman/podcast.xml

To subscribe via iTunes:

  1. Copy the address above
  2. Go to iTunes
  3. Go to the Advanced menu and select Subscribe to Podcast
  4. Paste the address and hit OK

iTunes will now download episode 101, and all new episodes as soon as they’re released. Happy podcasting!

Posted on

Windy City: “To A Skyfarer”

Previously posted is a poem for the third draft of my feature screenplay “Windy City.” Draft two borrows from a song by VNV Nation, but I thought it best to write something of my own as a backup. Here are the lyrics as they appear in situ:

A gust carries some equipment away and tugs at the cable. There is a loud SNAP. The workman turns his lamp away from the locks, toward the cable and finds -- a slowly lengthening CRACK.

WORKMAN

CABLEFALL! CABLEFALL!

The cable SNAPS. Half of it CRASHES across the trolley tracks, wiping them away like chalk marks. The other half SLAMS back into the building. The upper floor windows EXPLODE, raining big chunks of plastic on the old workman and his crew.

WORKMAN

DOWN! EVERYONE DOWN!

INT. HOTEL - LOBBY - EARLY MORNING

A low, distant BOOM. The power flickers. Nadine and her sister Ashur are crammed onto a cot in the dark lobby with the other refugees. The building GROANS in the wind. Ashur is too frightened to sleep. Nadine begins to stroke her hair.

NADINE

(sings)

Morning clouds in disarray/

Bright and cold, this is your day/

Ten points off the rising sun/

Tell me why I feel this way?

Tell me what you've been and done/

Silhouette in solid space/

Future's half-forgotten face/

Stillness grudgingly withdrawn/

Far off engines mutter dawn/

Slow to wake and slow to thaw/

You'd become my paragon/

Hope that time could not withdraw/

Gone too long, returned too soon/

Stowed and moored by afternoon/

Scrambling spotters, busy clerks/

'Til this evening's fireworks/

Dancing through the final song/

Rubbing hair and other perks/

Heart ungimbaled, stomach wrong/

Ship returning, fortunes won/

Voyage ended, and begun/

Ashur sleeps.

Posted on

“To A Skyfarer”

..-. — .-. .. .-. .- —

Morning clouds in disarray

Bright and cold, this is your day

Ten points off the rising sun

Tell me why I feel this way?

Tell me what you’ve been and done

Silhouette in solid space

Future’s half-forgotten face

Stillness grudgingly withdrawn

Far off engines mutter dawn

Slow to wake and slow to thaw

You’d become my paragon

Hope that time could not withdraw

Gone too long, returned too soon

Stowed and moored by afternoon

Scrambling spotters, busy clerks

‘Til this evening’s fireworks

Dancing through the final song

Rubbing hair and other perks

Heart ungimbaled, stomach wrong

Ship returning, fortunes won

Voyage ended, and begun

Posted on

Puerto Rico and Housekeeping

Every large project, especially in computer graphics, involves certain long, tedious, repetitive tasks that would only be noticed in the finished product if absent. On Marboxian I nicknamed this type of work “housekeeping.”

In the case of the Population Map, the latest example is Puerto Rico. If given statehood, Puerto Rico would be our 27th largest state, falling between Kentucky and Oregon. It’s the only United States territory with a significant population — much less that of an average state — which is why I’ve chosen to include it — late — in the otherwise completed map.

The tedium comes from not having a .bna file for the 78 municipios of Puerto Rico, which I could use with my standard script to determine their geographic coordinates. Instead, I’ve had to manually enter each into the Open Street Map and copy their URLs to a table.

Next I’ll rewrite the script to break the URLs apart into decimal coordinates, but that’ll be brain work, comparatively.

In the meantime, there’s cookies to make.

Posted on

From a Night I Couldn’t Sleep

To judge us by our television, every American lives in either New York City, Los Angeles, or an ideal, sepia-toned Midwest. No one lives in a rundown area of Tuscaloosa. No one is from August, ME. There are no Canadians. No hippies survive who haven’t sold out or gone batshit. Everyone is upper-middle-class.

Being single indicates a deep, remedial personal failing. No one is vague about their relationships. Your 20s are nothing but sex, sex, sex. Your 30s are for having babies.

Every house is decorated. Everyone shops at Ikea. Men wear layered shirts. Big hair and pornstar makeup are “in.”

All Asians are smart. No Indians are married. American Blacks are either smart, married (and upper-middle-class) or shooting at each other. There are no Blacks from other countries. No one has ever seen a Philippino. Blue collar people are honest but not very bright, and of no particular importance unless you’re in danger.

Everyone knows one gallery artist, and one architect. Faith is absolute and uncomplicated. Sexuality is binary, conscious, and fixed, even if you’re a teenager. No one has to consider health insurance. No one considers abortion. Considerate people are either doormats or substitute mothers. Everyone takes taxis.

Crime rates are rising. America is full of pedophiles. All Muslims are moral absolutes. Everyone knows exactly what to do at all times, they’re just not sure they have the courage to do it. This is America on television.

I’d like to change all of this. I hope you do too.

Posted on

Sketch: Videogaming

The third run is always the hardest, when you’re getting back into it. The first run you expect to be bad. But it’s never as bad as you expect. The second you expect to be hard, and it’s not, for the same reason. But that little mental trick stops working by the third run, leaving you feeling discouraged and disappointed in yourself.

“Videogaming” is the latest sketch I’ve decided to call done, after a sad amount of time and work. It’s vaguely risque/NSFW. The pose is overlapping and closed-form, but not as active as I would have liked. The facial expression is passable, which is a relief. The Inkscape file, of course, includes the blocking in a hidden layer, and a couple of alternate poses in another.

And yes, that is the official videogame for “Hot” she’s playing.

View/Download:

Posted on

Review: “Dead Awake”

Steven “No You’re Thinking of Billy” Baldwin is a dead-to-the-world insomniac somnambulist. He also plays one in this film. Deep in Canadian Chicago, the Born Again Baldwin has been accused of murder — and all ridiculously improbable signs point to same! A C-list cast works heroically to make Steven look almost competent amidst their shrill overacting. The screen fairly pops with references to trannies, porn theatres, MMFF, midgets, dirty old men, animal abuse and leather-clad lesbians. Despite these apparent advantages, and despite padding fifteen minutes of plot with an hour of bad (“clever?”) dialogue, it makes little satisfying sense in the end. (I have a theory that the film was designed to ritualistically cleanse Steven of his pre-twiceborn/ongoing excesses.) Don’t miss Michael Ironside playing Michael Keaton playing Beatlejuice playing Jack Nicholson playing R. P. McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest as… probably another thing Steven’s been trying to swear off. Dead Awake is an incoherent hour and a half with a five drink minimum — this is truly what it’s like to be a Baldwin.

Posted on

Sketch: On the T

A day late for Valentine’s Day, another sketch I’ve decided to call done. I wanted to make more intimate use of perspective this time, and do a little more with color. An extreme color palette would probably require doing a color key ahead of time. This Inkscape file includes a hidden “scaffolding” layer used for blocking out the drawing, and seperate layers for the girl, the boy and the background.

Download:

Posted on

Regarding Telecom Immunity

I believe in accountability. I believe that no crisis removes an American’s responsibility to uphold the Constitution. As a result, I feel duty-bound to oppose Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s bill granting American telecommunications companies retroactive immunity for any illegal wiretaps they may or may not have performed at the behest of the National Security Agency and the White House in the years following September 11, 2001.

Were the issue one of protecting companies acting in good faith, a cap on settlements would be proper. Granting immunity instead dismisses all present and future court cases, removing the public’s only avenue of discovery regarding the reality or extent of any illegal actions taken. Crisis does not justify barbarism.

Very little can be done by the public at this point. I’ve summarized my moral argument and sent it to lobbying group The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Stop the Spying campaign in the form of the photo below:

As a postscript, I regard Reid’s bill as another example of the spinelessness that caused me to leave the Democratic Party.

Posted on

2008 Resolutions

  • Catch up with at least one person/couple per month with whom I have not recently spoken.
  • Escape from this cyclical Blue Collar hell.
  • Learn to type right. Again. And make it stick.
  • Enough with the drama queen bullshit.
  • Find true love? Nah, better hold off on that one…
Posted on

Bloody Comcastic

Because it isn’t enough to provide the shortest billing to payment due period of any company you do business with, Comcast gives you something more: the light euphoria of never knowing what precisely to ascribe to incompetence, policy or indifference.