Coolest party ever...

Intrepid tiki explorer Humuhumu (of Humu Kon Tiki) reports on the Cartoon Caper costume bash she attended recently. I won't spoil the suprise ending for you...but DAMN do I wish I'd been in attendance. Though oddly enough, the host is a big guy with glasses and a goatee named Chris...the resemblence is a bit disturbing.

Rejoice earthlings!

As you may know, Quisp cereal made a return at the end of the last century (the round trip to Planet Q is obviously a hell of a long drive). There was a limited release to stores (I was so excited to find it at my local QFC) followed by it's availability online. But at $4.72/box with a minimum 3 box order plus shipping, it's a bit of a pricey indulgence.

But dear readers, I have a secret to share with you. The exact same product is available at your local grocery store...and it's even cheap! Just find a store that carries the Quaker bagged cereals and pick yourself up a bag of Quaker Sweet Crunch. Your supply of Quazy energy will be topped out in no time!

Flatulence

I was looking at the "A Mighty Wind" DVD listing on Amazon today. While scanning down the page I swore I caught the word Flatuence. It took a minute to find it, but there is was in the Plot Summary section...under Plot Keywords...and it was a link!

Works Related to the Plot Keyword: Flatulence

The funniest thing to me was that Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace was the first item on the list. Was it for the farting eopie just before the pod race or just a commentary on how much the movie stunk?

Make note that there are 18 pages of results. That's a lot of Flatulence. Somebody better light a match.

Taking my tastebuds on a trip down amnesia lane

As a young lad, one of my favorite breakfast time sugar bombs was Waffelos "a sweetened cereal with artifical maple flavor". I remember that once I so determined to get my fix that I poured Tang on them when we were out of milk.

Recently Kellogg's released Eggo Cereal "Maple syrup - naturally and artificially flavored". Of course I HAD to pick up a box. They're actually pretty good...though probably a little too sweet for most people. And no, I will not eat a bowl with Tang. Some experiences are not meant to be repeated.

I've been busy making Bill Gates look good.

At last I have the time to blog again...and can finally tell you exactly what's kept me away.

At the end of March, it was decided the project I work on would be unveiled in 6 weeks at E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo). That meant we had a LOT of work to do. Then it ratched up a notch when we found out that Bill Gates was going to be the special guest presenter. A rather big deal, because Bill had never appeared at E3 before.

So in the last 6 weeks, I've put in about 2 months worth of work putting together various demos. Some to sell the concept to various people higher up the chain, and then of course the actual stuff we'd have at the show.

Yesterday at E3, Microsoft announced the Live Anywhere vision. Basically it's a shared gaming and entertainment space across Xbox, Windows, and Mobile phones. The cool thing is that you'll have one gamertag, one friends list, one message center, and one set of game achievements regardless of which platform you're on. It was really cool that the part that I worked on got a big round of applause from the press-only audience.

I worked on the mobile phone portion of that vision...and had the time of my life doing it. It included a lot of art directing and managing people that I'd never done before. I was suprised to find that I rather enjoyed that part...who'd have thunk it?

Here are a couple shots of my work from the video: Mobile Gamecenter home page

Gamercard

Friends list

If you'd like to check out the video, go to this page and fast forward about an hour into the presentation. You'll know you're at the right place when you see Bill. E3 2006 Microsoft Press Conference

Sometimes getting what you want means not getting what you want...

Today Angie and I went to the Leilani Lanes auction. We had a hell of a lot of fun. We got to walk on the lanes, go behind the pin setters, down in the basement, and a lot of other places you never get to go. :)

There was really only one piece I was interested in. A vintage Witco tiki wall hanging that was about 5 feet high. There seemed to be a lot of interest in it, because it was clearly the coolest piece they had.

It took most of the day before they got to the tiki stuff, and when it was finally time, it was frentic. We didn't expect that they'd put most of the tiki stuff up at once, especially since they'd just sold 2 other tiki lots separately. So that confused us a little, be we were off and running. With only a couple of bids, we'd crashed through our preset limit. And on top of that we thought we were bidding $425, but had actually been at $475. The bid came back to us at $525 and we had to pass. Maybe if we'd had more of a personal connection to Leilani Lanes we could have, but it just seemed like too much for a big piece of wood. The winning bidder only wanted #704...our tiki. We then had the option to buy any of the other pieces still left. But we passed, nothing really worth paying that kind of money for.

I was a bit bummed to come out empty handed, but had a fun day.

And then I picked up the Disney catalog tonight. I found that one of the latest releases in the 50th anniversary line is the Tiki Drummers Figurine from Walt Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room! Cast from the actual Disneyland molds! 2 sided with each side having one of the 2 drummers! A light in the drum! SWEEEEEET!

If I'd won the Witco, I wouldn't have had the money to get the drummer. Consider me pleased as punch. Especially since we also ordered a couple more things (aloha shirt and tin signs) and still spent less than the auction. What a happy day!

Crazy found art day

I'm not sure what store gave us our frozen items in a bag with this image, but it's nice to see some great vintage illustration still in use.

Off the back of a watch battery package...that I've carted around for years because I loved this image so much. I should have it put on a shirt at Cafepress.

The return of Trader Vic's!

DavidW at work made my day today. He passed along the news that on Monday, March 6th Trader Vic's is opening a new location in Bellevue! The greater Seattle area hasn't enjoyed the rum-soaked atmosphere of a Trader Vic's since the downtown Seattle location closed in the 1960s. I'm SO excited! Who's up for a scorpion bowl?

Trader Vic's Bellevue website

The Folksmen...from 1984!

As many of you may know, The Folksmen existed well before their appearance in A Mighty Wind. When Michael McKean, Christopher Guest, and Harry Shearer toured as Spinal Tap they would open the show as the Folksmen (and that had to have been quite a trip). This week a cool site called PCL LinkDump provided a video clip of the Folksmen on SNL...from November 3, 1984! And the wild thing is that a lot of the sketch is exacly what we'd come to know and love nineteen years later in A Mighty Wind! Blood on the Coal, Eat At Joes...even the look of the characters. Wow...I never knew!

UPDATE: It seems that NBC had this pulled. Rat bastards. :P

Too bad I didn't have a copy of the VideoDownloader add-on for Firefox when this was still up. :P

Finish your cocktail like a good boy and you'll get a special surprise inside your glass

During the holidays we went out antiquing with Rich & Shelly and came across these beauties. Unfortunately they weren't in very good condition and the set wasn't complete. Otherwise you'd find these on display at the Drunken Monkey. Fortunately I now have a fancy camera phone to save this kind of stuff for posterity. :)

View the pics (NSFW)

	Ah...the hula girl. One of the classic nudie subjects.
	Before she became a sophisticated Hollywood starlet, a little "art photography" helped to pay the bills.
	Little Indian Princess and founding member of the first all girl Village People cover band.
	Hola senorita..sus pechos son muy bonitos!
	And my favorite, the bride. Kinda reminds me of Veronica (of Betty and Veronica). And is it just me, or is she wearing an eyepatch?

JohnK, welcome to Blogger!

John Kricfalusi, founder of Spumco and creator of some of the craziest animation ever (Ren & Stimpy, The Goddammed George Liquor Program, Ripping Friends) has started a blog! http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/

I've seen some of his caricatures before posted on Katie Rice's blog. I can't wait to see what else he adds!

I can't believe I forgot to post about this!

Dave just reminded me about this article on Muppet Central:
http://www.muppetcentral.com/news/2006/020106.shtml

The fantastic news is that Jim Henson Company is going to be producing a sequel to The Dark Crystal, called Power of the Dark Crystal. Wait...it gets even better. It's going to be directed by Genndy Tartakovsky (creator of Samurai Jack, Star Wars: Clone Wars, and Dexter's Laboratory). I can't wait!

I thought that was all folks...

A cute sketch I did for my goodbye email at MSDN back in June.

I was leaving the stability of being full time to go work for MSN Games as a contractor. Little did I know that just 1 month later, I'd be putting the handcuffs back on. ;)

Dave is insane

Often when I IM with Dave, we end up throwing back and forth whatever weirdness we can come up with...ESPECIALLY if the other person isn't responding. Here's a perfect example from this morning when I was busy talking with someone in my office.

Yaawwwwnnnn says:
I need a np
Yaawwwwnnnn says:
ap
Yaawwwwnnnn says:
nap
Yaawwwwnnnn says:
I won a million dollars
Yaawwwwnnnn says:
I killed a man
Yaawwwwnnnn says:
at dawn
Yaawwwwnnnn says:
with a spoon
Yaawwwwnnnn says:
my brain has two left halves
Yaawwwwnnnn says:
worms are in my socks
Yaawwwwnnnn says:
if I were a shoe I'd be a stilleto
Yaawwwwnnnn says:
the devil got a bad deal
Yaawwwwnnnn says:
puppies make good tacos

Windstorm 2006!

On Saturday morning, I woke up to Angie and Rich making a lot of noise about something. When I got up to see what was the matter, they told me to open the front door. Here's what I saw:

With that sort of carnage on my doorstep, I decided to check out the backyard. And boy did I get a big surprise:

Yes...that's a steel and wooden framed gazebo with a canvas cover on top of the two story house next door.

We found out later talking to our neighbor that it even had bricks around the base. Boy do I wish I could have seen it happen.

Last Exit on Brooklyn

While surfing today, I hit the Seattle Wiki and discovered a HUGE article on the Last Exit on Brooklyn. For the uninitiated, the Last Exit was THE place to hang in Seattle during the grunge years. We frequently would make the trip from Tacoma to enjoy the espresso, the monsterously huge PB&Js, and the atmosphere...boy did that place have atmosphere. Big clunky tables, slow service made acceptable by the hugely cool people serving you, tucked in an out of the way location...sigh, I miss that place. Unfortunately like all great rides, it came to an end in the early 90s when they moved to a new location on the Ave. I went a couple of times, but it just wasn't the same.