Walkthrough 2

Walk through part 2! Enjoy!

Truncated walk-through of our new house!

This is Part 1 of the house walk-through.

Part 2!

Coming soon!

New Zealand Nintendo Ad

Not only is "scare-the-shit-out-of-little-kids" creepy, it also wracks your self-esteem by repeating how you cannot win the games and will be beaten. I'm not sure why this would make me want to fork over $300 istead driving to the local game store and beating someone up.

IPS Dome Breakdown

Here's a quick video I shot and a co-worker edited detailing the company breaking down our vendor dome. Enjoy! (be careful of volume)

Hello Mr. DJ? (Pt. II)

IPS Update 1

I think I'm going to try to do video updates while I'm here. I have the camera and I'm way too tired to do much typing, so here it is. Peace n' love from the windy city.

(Tired Matt rambling about domes and whatnot in Chicago)

VIDEO - Surgeon Uses Robot to fold Origami

Impressive. The wingspan of the bird is less than the length of a penny. The robot arms move so fluidly, it looks like the doc is right there. Actually, he was on the other side of the country, controling the robot from over the internet. Impressive.

Lovin' The Star Wars

This video has been floating around the intertubes for a while now, but I thought I'd share it with the crowd out there. Watch it through to the end, and if you're at all a Star Wars fan, you will laugh. Oh, how you'll laugh.

Reckless Abandon

It's hard to come across any true absurdest humor. Adding something strange to a setting does not make it absurd, it just makes it silly. It's hard to see that perfect balance of something odd, not repeated somewhere else, and accessible. Behold: A funny video...



Damn. Five minutes after posting the above video, I found another by these guys. They're called "Waverly Films" and they're amazing. It reminds of me of some videos me and some friends made in high school and after. We always had a deep appreciation for good absurdist humor. One of our earliest (in my opinion funniest) videos was an interviewer asking a man it it was true that he couldn't stand having nickels next to his ears. The interviewee says, "Yes." Smiles and winks. The skit ends with a shot of the interviewee staring at the camera and two nickles appearing next to his head. He gasps and the screen goes blank. I love it to this day... and if anyone reads this blog and still has this video accessable, I am kindly requesting that they upload it on YouTube or something so I can embed it here for the dropmystraw audience (all three of you).

I especially enjoy absurdist humor that has a twinge of maliciousness running through it. Think of a band like Ween. They are very talented musicians, and enjoyment of the music comes not only from the melodies and rhythm, but also the humor. And the humor itself is profoundly absurdist, and profoundly creepy. A great example is the song "Spinal Meningitis," wherein the band sings about a child who has spinal meningitis and is asking if he's going to, "see God." The enjoyment comes from it being so absurd and evil and well performed. It's a strange combination that many people don't seem to get into, but I love it. Here's the great example from these "Waverly Film" peeps. Enjoy.

BBC Again - This time with alien birds

Mandy and I watched this at home and laughed so hard we had to see if the clip was floating out here somewhere. Guess what! It was!

(What planet is are these birds from?)

The Beatles Music in FIlm

Mandy and I watched "Across The Universe" last weekend. If you are a Beatles fan I would recommend seeing it once, just for the music. If not, you could as easily skip it and not miss very much. The most striking thing about the music of The Beatles, is how transcendent it is. The simple melodies and 4/4 rock timing of the majority of their songs is simple, bordering on formulaic, but it's still so good. As an example of how Beatles music can carry even the simplest imagery, here is one of the most toe-curling cute videos I've ever seen, and it's topical.

Enjoy!

Dolphins Blowing Air Rings Underwater

(Possibly the most beautiful video clip I have ever stumbled across...)

Obligatory Simpsons Scene

(Great Simpsons scene, or greatest Simpsons scene?)

Random Video Collection

Here is a collage of random videos I've shot over the past month or so. There's not much point to the video apart from feeling justified in spending the time shooing them. If you watch, I am vindicated.

(Teh 'mazing)

Treat for Voters

Thanks to everyone who voted. The voting closed about 6 hours before the late email told me it would, so who knows what they're doing at Discover Magazine. I love the magazine but, man, this contest has sucked in terms of how it was run and even the submissions. I really didn't like our entry, mostly because we finished it about three hours instead of taking the neccessary time to make it good, but I go into more detail about that in the previous post. Thankfully, the best entry, in my opinion, had the most votes and I do hope they've won. I'll post more when I hear from them, if I hear from them.

Here's a treat for everyone who voted. I have a soft-spot for really hard to contextualize video clips. My favorite is still the black and white film footage of the German midget laughing at a camel as seen here. Below you'll find a clip from a Bollywood knock-off of Superman. It has to be seen to be believed.

This link comes from the never tiring, always amazing BoingBoing.