And then life gets crazy busy again

Ah well! Can't do much about that.

So, other than fighting crime I've been working hard on the show and trying to plan all the right moves for at least the first few months of next year.

You can expect me to elaborate on such things in my fourth annual End of a Year post, if not sooner! but for now I have piles of running around to do before heading to my folks for the holidays.

(Great Batman photo by Posterchild)

TERRIBLE TEEN TUNES

A nice find

How much is it to ride that mustache in the window?

Stephen Fry Poetry Challenge: Round Four

SAXX LAWS

Saxx Laws from Beck Hansen on Vimeo.


This is a pretty specific thing, but if you know where it's from then you'll likely love it!

Flapper Lady

I did this a little while ago but I just realized that I never put it up here! Dang but it has been hard to find time to draw and paint lately. Part of that is wrestling with exciting and terrifying distractions, a post upon one of which may follow later today!

Abandoned Ballroom

I've been sitting on this since February and I wasn't going to post it....but I checked out the ballroom last week only to discover that basically...

1) Everybody knows about it anyways, now. I ran into a pack of photographers this time around, who had been told of the place by further friends and when I ad in all the people I know who know about it and how it's been posted on various UE forums then....eh.

2) The hotel has installed some working lights that are left on in the evening, which is a pretty strong sign that if they aren't at least finally fixing up the joint then they too are WELL AWARE of people coming on up. I also ran into a polite security guard who, fortunately, got distracted by the photographers.

Anywho, for a number of reasons it looks like I shan't be filming here but I'm glad I got to visit before those lights were installed. It's really something else when the only lighting is provided by the faint glow of moonlight and the surrounding buildings.

ALSO

I should mention that I met someone a couple of weeks ago who claimed to have been there eight years ago and that then it was full of mannequins. Whether or not that's true, the idea is pretty sweet!

And now I've filmed fifty...

Right then, I just survived the final filming of Handful of the year!

I had to take a liberty or two, but I'm now covered for the rest of 2009. There's still some work to do for the year end special that Joe and I have been planning for....six months? But whatever man! It feels good.

Also? I know anybody could just google my name anyways...but I still find it a little creepy that I got a google alert today letting me know that this website has assembled a kind of profile on me?

EVERYTHING ALL OF THE TIME

I seem to be writing here less and less, which runs somewhat counter to this interesting article on the ol' "Forum/chat room problem" and how it relates to Facebook vs Twitter vs Blogs. What's funny, is I want to be writing here more and more...partly out of inspiration by the quality of this blog.

Once thing that definitely has me wanting to get back on the blog-o-horse-o is that when I used this more regularly, it was pretty much all I used. For example, when I was in London and taking some neat pictures with my digital camera then I knew there were only really two possibilities for sharing - printing a copy for my photo albums and tossing it up on el bloggo for friends and family.

But of course I eventually got into Facebook and, a whiles after that, Handful has led to my reviving the Twitter account I originally put down as quickly as I picked it up and even a brief dabbling with the utterly forgettable Dailybooth. I don't much care for feeling redundant when I want to post a link-or-picture on Facebook for pals and then the same link-or-picture on Twitter for some other friends plus Handful fans and then OH YEAH DIDN'T I USED TO DO ALL THIS ON MY DANG BLOG, WHICH I LINK TO ON THE ABOUT PAGE FOR HANDFULOFMINUTES.COM?

Also? It kind of makes me feel young again to be using this sucker as if it's a brand new toy - so apparently my threshold for nostalgia is about three years. NOW. It's tempting to be all "anyways guys, get ready for the exciting retro-nipple-clamping future past of blogging to begin....soon". But that is The Shittiest Thing with blogs and so I am going to follow up this "Oh hey I like my blog again (and apparently I have made peace with that word)" stream of gobbledefuck with something akin to what I hope to be putting up here on a semi-regular basis again!

WHAT HAS BEEN DONE/WHAT IS GOING TO BE DONE

I am often struggling with the desire between what I know is sensible & rewarding (waiting until you have done something worth talking about, then talking about it) and what is very exciting & sugar-high gratifying but also potentially unwise (talking about what I'm gonna do). If I was a perfect man then I'd stick entirely to the former...but, surprisingly, it would seem that I am not a perfect man.

So here is what is going in with me in the former:

The sci-fi project for which many glamorous folk donated money to earlier in the year has had it's series outline finished, it's pilot filmed and the first cut of the editing on that pilot also finished. Wheels continue to turn and I hope to have more to report before year's end.

Handful proceeds apace and, I'm told by some, continues to improve. "Introducing Shawn MacLean" has been generally well received. I'm wondering if it'd not be a bit much to try and do something special for the fast approaching fiftieth episode, given that I already did something special for the one year anniversary episode AND I have something diabolical planned for a year end special. Better to let it pass with quiet dignity, I think...

The feature script I started in June during my writing sabbatical has been picked up again. With 36 pages of script and a 99% finished outline, I might make my goal of finishing the sucker before year's end. What's that? I didn't write about the sabbatical at the time? Well basically, my pal Joe and I were fortunate enough to be able to borrow a cottage where we could Get Away From It All to just focus on makin' things which we were having a hell of a time makin' during out regular routines in the city.

From this was birthed the slightly-less-than-halfway written feature script, spawned by almost two years of tossing notes in a bucket labelled "try to do a new take on post-apocalyptic-film"...and many, many improvised "Introducing Shawn MacLean" audio clips. It was grand and I'd love to do it again next year.

Organization of all the crap I'm juggling has gotten better since I nabbed a beautiful beast of a magnetic dry-wipe board and stuck it on my wall. I can't believe it took me this long since University to get another organizer, given that my last one repeatedly saved my bacon while I was earning my degree. This has led to my plotting out basically everything I'm doing for the rest of the year, which produced the alarming sensation that that time had already passed.

It's an annoying choice to have to make, but given that the time is going to pass anyways...I'd rather choose to feel a bit like I'm pressing the fast-forward button on my life and have accomplishments to look back on then to kind of drag my heels and stretch out my perception of time passing but then have a very disappointing life to look back on.

Now, the latter:

Going to Russia to Wade Through the Ruins of the Soviet Empire is an idea that has seized me by the sensitive bits rather firmly over the past year. I think I may even have gotten a pair of pals interested. This is something that will take a lot of prep and probably won't happen until I'm thirty, but dangit I want an adventure and I want to do more than look at crazy old ruins on the Internet. I'd like to think that if I lived twenty years after the fall of the Roman Empire that I'd want to go crawl through that, as well.

It's something I'd definitely want to film and document, but there'd be good reason to try and work out some contacts before arriving. I don't believe that Russia is filled with nothing but starving pseudo-serfs and fat, violent mobsters...but I am also hardly under the impression that I could just show up with a bunch of AV equipment, some cash and a smile.

The Handful End of the Year Special: I can't tell you anything except that the "Introducing Shawn MacLean" bits I've started tacking on the end of episodes are, in fact, building to this. Also, if all goes according to plan, it should go up on Sunday, December 27th.

But for now: I gotta go do exciting things like laundry. I shall return (promptly)!

Big ol' lights

Dang but I would like some big ol' lights!

Stephen Fry Poetry Challenge: Round Three

Street Fart

I spotted this guy on my way home today and I daresay it's my favorite piece by Posterchild in a little while. Very sexy, very stylish and great integration of both his name and his signature symbol.

FAAAAAANS

Holy mother of mercy!

So, whenever I see that someone new has subscribed to the show I like to send a little "Thanks for signing up! Feel free to yell about the show to strangers on the bus or something!" message of varying length. No matter how detailed, I always include the same two things.

1) Thanks for signing on.

2) Yell about the show on a bus.

Well blow me down, that has led to this video response made by a pair of superfans in Alabama!

LOOK AT THEIR T-SHIRTS

Oh dannnnnnng longboards!

Hot dang, I'm doing the 2009 Board Meet tomorrow. Last year I had a couple of months experience and was riding my friend Victor's spare board. Despite rain and the crazy nature of taking over a major city road with about 250+ other people on boards...I only came off my board once and it was one of those "Oh hey now I am running beside my board, maybe I should hop back on" moments.

This year I have a year and a couple of months and my own board, with which I'm pretty comfortable. The weather looks like it could go either way. I predict I will crash headlong into the worlds largest cream pie, which two very strained men will be trying to move across the road at just the moment I'm coming through.

Stephen Fry Poetry Challenge: Round Two

It also has FONTS.

Scriptin' Fancy Like: Final Draft

I popped through an Apple Store today and was darkly amused to see that Final Draft - AKA the industry standard - was selling for either PC or Mac at $299.99. (It's a little cheaper if you buy it as an online download).

This is powerful softeware, you understand, as you would need a minimum of an Intel Pentium III chip to run it! It can process text and it comes with formats as well as the ability to colour code things and search for specific words.

Hoo boy.

In much the same way that you'll be very lucky to find a graphic design student with a legit copy of Adobe Photoshop, I can say that I don't think I've ever met anyone trying to get into the film or television industry as a scriptwriter that has purchased Final Draft.

It's a good program to have, but it should also be selling for $20 at the most. This, I think, should be true of any software that can run on a computer from twelve years ago while basically being a pumped and tweaked version of something from the Microsoft Office Suite circa 1996.

So uh yeah, I guess I have made my feelings pretty clear about this!

But what else needs to be made clear is that however you get it, you should get it. For whatever original reason, this is indeed the most well known and commonly used scriptwriting software. It does have all sorts of useful features that will make life a lot easier for you than if you were to try and imitate them with macros in Word. People may actually send you Final Draft files and expect you to be able to open them.

But for gods sake, don't buy the latest version fresh off the new arrivals shelf. If you're the kind of aspiring scriptwriter who can afford to do that, well then you must be really doing it for love because you sure don't need the money!

Abandon ship? Naw

So I had a think and decided not to abandon this url and make a new blog. The service is fine and I'd have to break the long line of continuity from when this thing started. I think I'll just do a re-design in the next little while - and post the odd video bloggeroo here. Like so:

and SO:

But yeah!

Meanwhile I'm picking up the tools for Handful after a nice break for a couple of weeks and, blessedly, just what I wanted to happen is indeed happening. I'm so excited to be doing it again.

No burning out for me! NEVER.

EVER.

NO WAY.

The title of the ol' video bloggin' comes from here, of course.

Next post? Something with NO INTERNET RELATED CONTENT WHAT-SO-EVER. Can he do it?

ONE MORE YEAR ONE MORE YEAR

Maybe even more?

It feels pretty good to have made it a year, since so many Internet things get abandoned before reaching any real conclusions or meaningful milestones. Aside from doing a gimmiky episode where I managed to recruit some pals to put their aesthetically pleasing faces in front of the camera, I've decided to mark the end of the first year by retiring the brown short sleeve shirt (yes it's on a female torso plastic dummy thing, my roommate doesn't make much in the way of clothes for men).

Dang, I still like some of those FWP strips. Anywho, now I have a year under my belt...maybe I'll look into them New Media grants or some other way to get a bit of money to invest in the show. Certainly, I'd like to get my own Camera of Quality. But enough about the show...

I can't believe it, but after all these years I seem to have broken down and found myself enjoying...Veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelogggerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrs. Well, just the three so far. It's...it's uh...giving me temptations. In one form or another, I think it's about time to start a new blog - this one has sort of grown away from it's original purpose and though I couldn't bring myself to delete it...it doesn't really seem entirely fitting for what's going on with me and where I see myself in the next few years.

Any opinions?

Sometimes I do things for the show that don't get used...

Four men enter, one man leaves...

And now you know...

Also