Time, Frames, and Time Frames

Funny to think that one year ago our basement was subaqueous. It really seems like all of that happened ages and ages ago. Why does this year seem to be dragging along? Maybe because I've kept consistently busy, though I'd think that would make time fly by.

Busy is how The Girl and the Ghost has been keeping me. I had a period of a couple weeks where my creativity put up the "Gone fishin'" sign, but I'm back in business. More voice work is on its way from afar and I'm a big mix of nerves and excitement to finally hear it. The animation's looking great, though I'm starting to doubt I'll have it ready by the Los Angeles Animation Festival. I'm not going to sacrifice the quality of it just to submit it to one festival, I'm still going to try my best though, we'll see.

This week has been fairly interesting, as I've done most of my animating while under the influence of Benadryl, thanks to an annoying allergy uprising. It gets the job done wonderfully, but the drowsy factor can be a tricky thing. I'm surprised how well I've managed to work through it, it's like the drowsiness doubles as an automatic-animation-mode and before I know it, hours (and a depressingly low number of frames) have passed.

I passed the 300 hour mark today.

Back to work. Full steam ahead. Kick the tires and light the fires. Go Team Venture!

2006: The Year it Hit the Fan. Again. Hard.

Tonight, we find ourselves on the eve of 2007. All I can say is "it's about time."

I don't mean to be a downer, but I'm so happy to see 2006 go. I'm not saying nothing good has happened this year, but it sure has seemed everything good has come with a complimentary kick to the groin.

Behold.

The year started with the premier and surprisingly large success of Nintendo: OldSchool Revolution, but also with having to pay for repairs to my dear old iBook.

I spent a lot of time being creative and working on films, but ended up losing touch with friends, sometimes for months at a time, as everyone got caught up in their own lives.

I finished my work on Batman's Gonna Get Shot in the Face and our TV died after only 5 years.

I saw the fantastic final cut of Batman and the flood hit.

I went to Niagara Falls for my birthday and my iBook died. Again.

I caved in and bought a shiny new MacBook. Four months later, it had a drink and left me with the bill.

I went to Canada and had an amazing time with Chantal Kreviazuk & Raine Maida, but I was miserably sick the whole time.

My favorite holiday of the year, Christmas, came along and my brother had a nasty run in with some drunken, cowardly, lowlife thugs.

See what I mean?

2006 has left me drained, but I have high hopes for 2007. I'm going into the year working on a big, great project which will soon be revealed. It'll be followed up by more excellent projects, including helping Larry out on the upcoming sequel to Zombies in My Neighborhood.

Here's to a fantastic 2007 for everyone, filled with love, happiness, and success. Adios '06, see you in the funny papers.

I Actually Have Readers?

With all of the flood happenings lately, we've been hearing from a lot of family and friends checking in on us and such. What's been most surprising to me is how many people have said they've been reading about it on my blog.

Had no idea anyone was reading, let alone multiple people.
To anyone reading...hi, you. Yes, you.

Jeez, if I have an audience, maybe I should take the opportunity to actually say something important, eh?

...I got nothin'.

Oh, wait, here's something. Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical is the funniest thing I've seen in a long, long time. Check it out.

"And You Let Me Lay My Burdens Down..."

A few weeks ago, I was happy to find out Anna Nalick was headed back to do another show at the House of Blues in Cleveland on July 31st. As usual with concerts I must go to, I got my tickets right away.

Last week, I decided to start work on a little project I had been pondering for a while. It was an idea inspired by the firefly story Anna shared with the crowd last time I saw her. After a few days work, my piece of cyber art was finished and I was surprisingly pleased with it. I was amazed at how quickly I finished it and how good it turned out.

The unexpected flooding events of the last few days threw a wrench into things, as I wasn't sure what state things would be in on concert day. Mom and I decided a little break from the chaos was necessary and we had to go.

We got a really late start and headed for Kinko's to print out my artwork to give Anna. It was 8:15 when we left for Kinko's and venue doors opened at 7:30. The print job was done and we aimed downtown.

We reached the House of Blues just before 9:30. Even though we were running late, the timing was pretty uncanny, as soon as I got into the lobby, I heard Luis on guitar playing the first notes of Citadel, the first song of the set.

Sadly, I completely missed the opening act, Eliot Morris.

Despite sitting in the very back, I had a surprisingly good view. Anna and the boys sounded great. I'm happy to say my only disappointment from the last show was resolved when they played Forever Love (Digame). She introduced it by telling how it was written after she was in a car accident and had the thought that she wasn't gonna go until someone told her they'd love her forever.

Anna also told stories of marathon viewings of Entourage on the bus, getting the cold shoulder from actor Jared Leto earlier in the day, and an embarrassing mess up while playing on a local news broadcast that morning.

They went on to play the rest of the tracks from Wreck of the Day as she pranced around the stage with her bare feet, including Drink Me and More Than Melody from the recent reissue of her debut album. She also sang the absolutely beautiful song, Home.

Towards the end of the song, Bleed, Anna introduces the band and they all slip in their solos as their names are called. I cracked up during drummer Ronny Crawford's solo as his movements were strikingly similar to everyone's favorite drumming muppet, Animal.

My personal highlight of the show was the Guitar vs Voice showdown between Luis and Anna. Imagine Dueling Banjos, minus the banjos and hillbillies. Luis would play a riff and Anna would sing the notes back at him. It was pretty funny, Luis kept playing ridiculously high notes knowing there was no possible way Anna could hit them.

To my delight Anna announced she'd be signing autographs in the lobby after the show. They ended the night with Satellite and left the stage.

Fantastic show.

While waiting in line to meet Anna again, Mom and I ended up befriending a really cool security guy, Andre. We all chatted for a nice little while until the line started to move.

Before I knew it, I was face to face with Anna yet again. "Hello again!" she said, to my surprise. I can't imagine how she remembers people with the massive amounts of people she must see on a daily basis in her line of work.
We talked for a little bit and I gave her the picture I made. I had a copy of my own I asked her to sign and she asked me to sign her copy. I must say, it felt strange signing something for a pop star as she autographed something for me. A good kind of strange. I also gave her a copy of the photograph of us from the last time she was in town and she signed mine.
Before I left, I asked if I could get a picture with her, but she said it was up to the club and they said no. I'm guessing it was because the line was so long and they wanted to keep things moving. We agreed "maybe next time" and said our see-you-laters.

Mom and I went to a chair a few feet away to sort everything before heading outside. As Mom was going through her purse, I noticed Anna leaning out from behind the table, trying to get my attention. I guess she saw the end of the autograph line was near and told me if I waited a couple minutes, we could get a picture together. Folks, the lady's a total sweetheart.
While waiting, I bought myself a copy of Eliot Morris' CD (which is great!) and he kindly signed for me.
A few minutes later, as promised, she came over and posed for a picture with me.

We chatted briefly, saying our thank-yous and more see-you-laters. Mom commented how beautiful Anna's voice is, to which she quickly and cutely replied "The better to sing for you with, my dears."


While at the autograph table, I also gave Anna the address to this site. So, Anna, if you find your way here, thank you for your kindness, the music, and a wonderful night.

Flood Update

Well, shortly after typing my last entry, there were more developments. I went outside with Mom at about 6 AM on Friday morning to take some pictures before I went to bed. Yes, I'm a night owl. As soon as we got out there, we spotted a firetruck driving slowly up the street. The firefighters were checking everything out and talking to the neighbors.
One of them came over to talk to Mom and she showed him that the water was two stairs away from the landing by our side door. After picking his jaw up off the ground, he said it was the worst they had seen yet (this was early on) and told us we had to leave until our gas and electricity were shut off. They felt it was serious enough that they refused to leave until we left. I suppose that should sound scary, but it was actually kinda reassuring.
At 7 AM, we were at Grandma's house. Dad crashed on the couch, but Mom and I had way too much nervous energy to sleep.
Around 10 AM, Mom and I decided to see if we could find somewhere to eat. On our way, we saw our street was open and figured we'd check out the house. It was very bizarre, our street showed absolutely no sign of wetness, despite the fact that it was a river just a few hours earlier.
The water in the basement had receded enough to reveal a couple more stairs.
As the day went on, someone from the city came and pumped the rest of the water out and the cleanup began.
Since then, countless family and friends have come by to help, items have been bleached and hosed down and/or moved out to the tree lawn to be taken away. There are huge piles of our old stuff out there now and the air smells of garbage, sewer water, and bleach. The cleanup is still going on and will be for a while.
Ours wasn't the worst of it though. In surrounding cities entire houses were submerged and roads were destroyed. Our county has officially been declared a disaster area.
Never saw this one coming.
A million thanks to everyone who's come by to help us out with this.

Rain, Rain, Go Away

Our street is under water. I don't mean it's really wet, I mean you can't see the road due to the fact there is a river on top of it. And the sidewalks.
It started raining Thursday morning. It's now early Friday morning and it's still raining. I'm really considering seeing if eBay has any reasonably priced arks.
Our basement is flooded, the water's about 4 feet high. Everything down there is pretty much lost. The washer and dryer are completely under water. The refrigerator down there is tipped over. All of Dad's tools. It looks like I've lost most of the comic books I spent over 10 years collecting, plus posters, plus my action figure collection. It's starting to hit me, I'm feeling a bit sick to my stomach.
Word is, if it keeps raining like this, the city might cut the power (before the water starts reaching fuse boxes) and evacuate the area.
I've always wanted to live on the water, but this isn't quite what I meant.