I used to improvise at this theater a lot, called Dad's Garage, for about 6 years... actually creepin' up on 7 years now. yikes!

Here is an image of fellow Dad's Ensemble member, George Faughnan, doing what George does best... loving bacon. Oh I mean, "being funny."

Improv is a young man's game, and as such, this weekend I am officially retiring from The Dad's Garage Ensemble. I am performing in one final Theatresports show this weekend as an Ensemble Member. There won't be a memorial service or anything, just a regular type show, and I'll be in it.

I've gotten so much out of my 7 years at Dad's Garage as an Ensemble Member, I can't even begin to explain. I got to be part of something great, a place full of like minded people all trying to make each other laugh. It was a dream, and I've got 7 years worth of memories to laugh at.

Those of you who live in or around Atlanta, The show will be saturday night at 10:30pm at Dad's Garage. Maybe I'll suck? Maybe you'll be there to find out? It's short notice I know, so if you cannot make it, don't worry... we'll just never speak again... only kidding...

For info on buying tickets or making reservations go here.

Wes Anderson: Artist, Patriot, Credit Card Patron

Dateline: January 1984!

With a slick marketing campaign mirroring George Orwell's classically oppressive novel 1984, the Apple Macintosh makes a big splash on the computer scene. Want to see video of a young bow-tie wearing Steve Jobs introducing the first Mac at the 1984 keynote?

These guys have scanned in high resolution images of the impressive 20 page insert Apple placed in Newsweek magazine.

Seriously, you watch those commercials... how could you NOT buy into what Apple was selling. I'm telling you... a whole different level.

Everybody knows that Aaron Burr took on Alexander Hamilton in one of America's most famous duels. Did you know that Abe Lincoln, the great emancipator himself, was also challenged to a duel?

Based on a political disagreement with one James Shields, Lincoln wrote a series of letters to the editor of the Sangamo Journal under several assumed names. These letters were sarcastic and witty, in classic Lincoln fashion, as well as ultimately embarrassing to the political career of Mr. Shields.

Throughout this series of letters, Lincoln's friends Mary Todd and Julia Jayne also began sending letters of their own. The two got carried away and their letters became increasingly more vicious attacking the character and personality of Shields, in which they stated that he was "overly pompous, a hypocrite, and a liar."

Shields was outraged, he began a campaign to discover the identity of the people writing the letters. He prevailed upon the Editor of the paper himself, who would reveal only Lincoln as the author, as Lincoln himself had instructed in case just such a situation occurred.

Shields challenged Lincoln to a duel, and under the rules of engagement it fell to Lincoln to choose the manner of dueling.

Lincoln chose broadswords in a pit. BROADSWORDS IN A PIT!

The story goes:
As the two were warming up, I'm guessing... before they got into the pit...
"Lincoln demonstrated his obvious physical advantage by hacking away at some of the branches of a nearby Willow tree. The branches were high off the ground and Shields could not hope to reach them; while Lincoln, with his long arms holding a long broadsword, could reach them with ease.

It is said that the notoriously stubborn and pompous Shields had a change of heart that day. He would forgive Lincoln his trespasses, given only that Lincoln would write a letter of apology to be published in the Sangamo Journal.

Broadswords in a pit.

Wow...
This animation is designed to look like it should be a game for an older 8 bit computer.

Pirate Baby's Cabana Battle street fight 2006!

Featuring rad side scrolling zombie battle action and super bad power ups like the Datsun Monster Truck crush, and the Ghost of a billion dead mosquito's attack. Not to mention the increasingly weirdo cool mini-bosses. It's teh coolest. [via boingboing]

p.s. this post is my 1,002nd post to this weblog. wow!

On my beloved Vespa p200e I can ride around town for almost 2 weeks on a $3.00 tank of gas. That's beyond cheap, I don't even think about gas half the time. In fact, I have to get fuel so infrequently, that when I do have to actually pull into a station it's a huuuge bother. And my scooter is from 1979, so it doesn't even get optimal gas milage for a new 2 stroke motor, like the ones in the new Stellas that get around 90 mpg.

I just read an article about Piaggio, Vespa's parent company, testing 2 hybrid versions from their line of new scooters in Milan. A hybrid Vespa LX 50, and Piaggio X8 125. They are even saying that you can switch to lower speed "electric only" running, and emit practically ZERO emissions. Making the scooters viable for interior riding. Especially practical if you live in a giant penthouse loft.

Well, we're back from Delaware. The weather was nice during the day, and breazy and cool at night. Pretty perfect Beach weather.

One of the most interesting features of the beaches in Delaware are the 12 concrete observation towers dotting the Delaware coast built during World War II... And still stand to this day. In fact, with the onset of WWII, the U.S. Army established a Military Base at Cape Henlopen (one of Delaware's many Beach Parks) in 1941. You can still find concrete bunkers buried in the dunes around the Park. They are always locked, and often fenced off. There were even gun emplacements camouflaged amongst the scrub brush and dunes. Pretty cool.

The Towers were used by the military to spot and triangulate German Uboats trying to sneak up the coastline. There is even a story about a few German soldiers being arrested at a movie theatre in Rehobeth, having snuck out of their boats to get a taste of sweet American freedom and glamour. The state park at Cape Henlopen has taken the time to fix up one of those observation towers. You can go inside and climb the metal spiral staircase to the top, which offers an impressive panoramic view of The whole Cape.

This weekend we are packing up our operation and traveling to my homeland of Delaware. We're pretty excited about it.

To be honest, Delaware is not known for much. While being heavily woven into the creation of our Country, for your average tourist, there's not much reason to visit. It was the first state to ratify the Constitution of the United States, so we have that going for us... But aside from being the place where you send your credit card payments, and being featured in Wayne's World, the only reason to go to Delaware for most people is to drive through it to someplace else.

Except for the Beach. Rehobeth Beach, Delaware.

In the Dead Milkmen song Bitchin' Camero (they're from Philly) when they talk about "going down to the shore" they're not talking about the Pennsylvania shore, because there isn't one. Those guys are talking about the Delaware shore, or possibly the Jersey shore. But seriously, you go swimming at the Jersey shore... You'll come running to Delaware's Beaches. (Free of Medical Waste since 1985, beat that Jersey)

My memories of Rehobeth Beach center heavily around The Boardwalk. At one end there was a massive arcade with cutting edge games and prize booths. I'll just say that I could knock a rubber frog into the air and onto a plastic lilly pad as well as anyone.

But the one thing that beats all Boardwalking, all video gaming, all stuffed animal prize winning....
The beloved Delaware Blue Crab. I plan on eating my weight in steamed, boiled, baked, twice baked, caked, and fluffed Blue Crab.

Wish me luck.

Whenever anybody asks me about the new cartoon we're making for Adult Swim I always cringe. I cringe not because I'm nervous about talking about the show, because I like to talk, especially about stuff I'm doing, especially if I've had a drink or two. I'll refer to these sentences as an example of my willingness to talk about me... but not as an example of having a few drinks... It's 11am here... jeez dude.

Anyway, I cringe because I always have this conversation:
"What's the cartoon called?"
"Frisky Dingo"

I cringe because I always have to say the name at least twice:
"What?"
"I said... It's called Frisky Dingo"

I cringe because that's always followed by:
"What does that mean?"
"Nothing."
"What?"
"I said... The name... It doesn't mean anything."
"Oh... Um, I can't wait to see it."
"Sure, thanks."

I certainly don't cringe when I watch the show, because I quite like it. Last week Adult Swim showed a 30 second preview of our new cartoon. You know how I found out? somebody told me... the next day. Thanks Adult Swim. I probably would have tuned in for that.

Youtube saves the day again.
A 30 second preview of our new cartoon, presented via youtube, featuring the voice over whimpering of Mary Kraft, and shoutings of Brendon Small:

This photo was taken from the International Space Station on March 29, 2006. Featuring our (The Earth's) 4th solar eclipse since 1999.

"The International Space Station (ISS) was in position to view the umbral (ground) shadow cast by the Moon... This astronaut image captures the umbral shadow across southern Turkey, northern Cyprus, and the Mediterranean Sea. The terminator of the eclipse—the line between the light and dark parts of the Sun’s disk— is visible as it passes across central Turkey. The portion of the ISS visible at image top is the Space Station Remote Manipulator System."

ok, ok, everybody's talking about this, here's my take.

Exactly 2 weeks after I bought my new 15 inch Powerbook (that I love) from the Apple Store here in Atlanta (which BTW, I wouldn't recommend, buy from the Apple website, it's a much better buying experience) Apple released new Macintosh computers that have Intel processors...

This means that in that moment, the technical gap between the brains of an Apple computer, and the brains of a Windows computer approached zero. This is not to say that Apple computers are now the equivalent of a Windows based machine.... No, the Apple is still very highly regarded in terms of quality of Craftsmanship and Design.

Presumably Apple made this switch because Intel chips are generally much faster than the old chips they were using. (called Power PC chips) But there is another added benefit to this switch. Macintosh computers would now be able to run Windows programs... in fact Macs can now run the Windows operating system.

Running Windows on a Macintosh?
This is often met with the response: "Why Bother?"
When the main problem with Windows machines is WINDOWS, why put that OS on a pretty new Mac?

I'll tell you why... Games man... PC Games.

For sooo long us Macintosh users have never been able to play the best PC games when they come out. The process of "porting" a game from the Windows architecture to Apple's was very complicated, and sometimes not even worth it for developers. It took like a year for the first Halo to get ported to Mac, and they still haven't ported Halo 2. They're already making a Halo 3!

Now they don't have to. All we need to do is go buy new Intel Macs... Easy huh? Do you have 2 grand that you can give to me?

Arthur C. Clarke:

"I invented the satelite and all I got was this lousy t-shirt."

In an explosion of pixelated happy trees...

The late great art instructor and public broadcasting staple Bob Ross will be getting his own video game. The company producing the game says it'll be available for both the next generation Nintendo console codenamed: Revolution, but also for the beloved Nintendo DS handheld.

This seems interesting because players will be able to use the unique Nintendo motion sensitive controllers to actually paint. Though judging from the game producers webpage (sparse) it's difficult to tell how good the game will look.

Looks like Nintendo is really onto something.

Wow, our favorite television show Lost certainly didn't fail to impress last week. "Henry Gale", who we've discovered isn't who he really said he was, is now officially our favorite character.

Also, the good people over at Sledgeweb, who run an awesome Lost Investigations page, have completely deciphered the blue light map. In case you missed it (yeah right) just as Henry Gale enters the code into the computer [off screen] the lights inside the hatch all go out completely, a blue light clicks on for a moment. During that time a hand drawn chalk map is revealed on the back of the blast door. As always, there is just enough information given to partially answers some questions. More importantly, it raises even more interesting questions. The Flame Station! Mission accomplished Lost.

By searching Google. For instance, I just found out that our new cartoon will be premiering in September. Thanks Google.