A Calabash Christmas 2008

Great time had by all, everybody! Glad you made it!

I found my new Halloween costume!

I've only just recently started to really watch the cartoon "Chowder", but it's really grown on my. It kinda reminds me of some '70's cartoons in the designs and a bit by the style.

I'm really intrigued by the character "Schnitzel". Who could come up with a character who says nothing but "radda radda radda" all the time. Sure there are Pokemon that do the same thing, but at least this show isn't dumb!

If I'm feeling realy energetic, maybe I will make this into a costume..... but realisticly, no, I prolly won't. :)

This wouldn't happen in my old town!

So, this last Thursday I work for a friend at the fire department. It was only supposed to be four hours long, how bad could that be? Sure enough at hour 3.5, we get a call for an injured person at the local forest preserve. Upon arrival, we see a couple of guys waving us down saying to follow them. Little did we know we'd be taking a mile long trek to the middle of the forest for their lady friend that hurt her ankle. She and her friends were swinging on a rope over a 20ft deep gorge. As it turns out, she has weak grip strength. In the midst of swinging she let go, landed on her feet, momentum took over and caused her to tumble the rest of the way down. By the time we get there they carried her to the top of the incline. She's shivering because it's just becoming dusk and whining out loud because we're trying to stabilize her ankle. Better still, we get to carry her out on the backboard back the mile long dirt path in the dark, because night has fallen since we've been on this call.
So we get about half way back, avoiding mud holes and rogue branches until, sure enough, I get smacked with a branch in the face (it was dark after all.) Not bad, but it left a scar which has almost since healed. But it all turned well. We get her in the ambulance, give her some laughing gas and get going. I leave an hour and a half later than I was supposed to.
But good deeds are not without some rewards to the karma.
The next morning I go back to work my own shift. A couple of hours into the day an officer for Orland stops by and asks if it's okay to have a kid come by to check out the firehouse with his grandfather. The officer assured us we'd get a kick out of it. I ask "what, is it the mayor's son or something?" He says, "oh no, this is better!"

So the kid and his grandfather get there and we are introduced. Turns out that, as it shows above, this was Jenny McCarthy's son, Evan. Jenny's mother lives locally and this was her step-father that brought the kid in. She was up in the city speaking for an autism cause, which she has been doing since her son was diagnosed about 3 years ago. He did not seem afflicted at all. More like a usual five year old, shy and quiet. Before they left, Evan got his picture taken with me and a co-worker in front of the fire truck. I don't think I'll be getting a copy, but it was nice little brush with fame.

"Line Con 2008!" An 8 HOUR WAIT!!!

So I'm all set to spend an afternoon with my nieces at the Anime Central 2008 Convention in the Rosemont Convention Center this past Friday. We got there decently early enough. The exhibitor floor opened at 10a and closed at 6p. We got there about 9:30a. You think that'd be plenty of time to register, peruse the showroom and buy what we needed/wanted. Heaven forbid!
Thanks to a possible hacker the ineptitude of the ACEN staff, me, my nieces and about 8.000 other people were still waiting in line after 8 HOURS. Needless to say the show room, got to closing, which was our whole purpose for going, and we left.

Now, they claimed at first that the printers were taken back by the Hyatt that's connected to them. Next was that the computers crashed. Next was that the computers crashed again, bringing the total eventually up to abouot 5 minimum crash incidents. Finally we got word that someone tried hacking the system and printing some registration badges off site somewhere, thereby causing this system to shut down and give headaches all around. Above is a picture of the computers which were constantly NOT being used by us, the victims, to register.

Now I will admit, sometimes thing happen that cannot be helped, but the fact they had no back up plans, no Plan B, no contingency plans to remedy the situation, that was just plain foolishness and ineptitude. By the time they got their heads outta their collective backsides, it was 5p and the line still went nowhere! NOT to mention the fact that when the line WAS moving, they only had about three registers running. Three. Forgot to mention it was not only for on site registerers, but for the pre-registerers as well. Poor setup, poor layout, crap planning. All around atrocious day.

Now their website isn't even loading, barring me from posting any scathing reports from my side. But that's okay, because I'm POSITIVE I'm not the only one with something to say about this.

LINE CON 2008 was just something I came up with and felt needed to be presented to the public. I wore that as a badge in lieu of an actual one that never seemed to get acquired.

"Go ahead, Frank. Tell 'im what you saw."

This is my tribute to the last of the revolutionary "nine old men" animators passing away. For as long as I've been in animation, I've never had the pleasure to hear too much about Frank 'n Ollie. My short attention span would only see the ones that stuck out, like Tex Avery, Chuck Jones and Friz Freling, just to name a few. I say thank you to those who brought them into my world, from Walt Disney all the way down to you, my friends, not only in animation, but those who support me as I trample through life as I do.

The above title quote comes from the movie "the Iron Giant" where shortly after a train runs into the head of the Giant, the two engineers, animated versions of Frank and Ollie, discuss what happened with the authorities. It's a great movie. If you haven't seen it, then do it now!!!

I always feel like, somebody's WATCHING me!

So I'm going to view the blog today, when I keep getting this eerie sensation of a presence.... a presence I have not felt since........................................

So I think I caught it on film. Can you find it?

At least I didn't fall

So here I am with Joe Vader trying to ride a unicycle. Yes, it is as funny as it looks. Yes I actually stayed on it for a small amount of time. No I am not grabbing my crouch. I am merely trying to keep the seat under me. It's a fantastically awkward time trying to coordinate all your limbs on one of these beasts. You should try it some time, if for no other reason than to say you tried it at least once. At least I didn't fall!