neat stuff
My directorial Debut…
A few weeks ago I got wind of a free workshop happening at the National Film Board of Canada that was focused on stop motion animation techniques using clay. We were shown some animation films, and then were taken into the workshop-room to get crackin’ on our films. We were in random groups of 6, but since I had come with 3 of my friends, we only had two randoms on our team. They explained some basic concepts of stop motion and showed us a demo.
My film team consisted of Solomon Isaac, Jessica Watson, Jodi Christie and the two wonderful randoms whose names I never got. We dubbed ourselves “Team Awesome (Power Rangers)”, and it is no understatement.
You can view our finished and beautiful opus, Snakes on a Train, here.
Snakes on a Train from Anita Bot on Vimeo.
I believe it speaks volumes about society today.
I hope this is only the beginning of what will become an illustrious and exciting stop-motion animation film career.
“The Crappiest generation of idiots”…
My brother sent me the following clip:
I didn’t know who Louis CK was before seeing this clip – but I totally agree with what he’s saying. I feel this a lot, though it usually takes someone far more eloquent/witty/famous to really capture my thoughts for me.
I do hate when people blame things on technology though… it’s not technology’s fault, it’s as he said, this crappy generation of idiots. haha I just like saying that. What it IS – is the people who are using, or rather MISusing the technology. They just can’t deal with awesomeness, they get complacent far too quickly. I guess we’re all abit guilty of that – but it doesn’t take much time to stand back and suss out the positive/neat/cool/good aspects of the technology your’e using. Maybe i’m just some infernal optimist… who knows?
Incidentally – I love flying. I’ve only been about 5 vacations in my life where i was able to fly – and every time I am absolutley amazed by what I see. Sure I didn’t enjoy getting an ear infection and tonsilitis and then partking in an 18 hour flight over the pacific – not the BEST experience I’ve had (could actually be some of the worst pain I’ve experienced)… But I’ve had more than enough enough awesome experiences in planes to make up for that. I got to go in the cockpit of a boeing 747 when I was 8 – I don’t think they do that anymore since all the kids these days are probably terrorists or something. I’ve marveled at the French Alps, seen the sun “set” into a lack of horizon, flown at night and seen nothing but stars – and it made me wonder what astronauts feel like. What I felt, was crazy intense lonliness, and it was probably only a tiny fraction of how amazed they are. Most recently I had the pleasure of flying into Kelowna, British Columbia. That was remarkably beautiful:
I often wish I was a rock star, or of some other occupation that would allow me to travel all over the world, with ease. I’m sure rock stars are sick of airplanes and hotels etc… but it’s still cooler than sitting in an office (even if it is an awesome Herman Miller office).
In conclusion… technology = awesome, this generation of idiots = crappiest.
P.S. Oh, apparently my friend Stephanie’s 10 year old cousin saw a photograph of her & I, and recognized my face because “she looks like the sticker”. The sticker being the ones I got made up of my anitabot logo face:
Anitabot
How awesome is that? It’s pretty redonkulawesome.
Wall E and EVE 50′s Style Posters at the Disney Store!
Me Wanty!
I saw these wonderfully styled posters at the Disney store today:
Clicking on their names will take you to the Disney Store’s website. I think these can be added to the b-day wish list 
It’d be greater if I had a study/office/den to put them in. :/
Google Chrome, Picasa & Bunnies.
These are all the things that have been consuming my free time lately.
First: I was miracuously able to install Google’s new browser, Chrome, on my computer at work (to which I have no admin rights). I’ve been using it all day at work in place of my normal browser (Firefox). So far, I think it’s pretty neat. It definitely feels faster. My work’s site is 100% flash and now I can navigate it a bit faster. There are a few neat things – like placing an icon of an “app” (webpage) on to your quicklaunch bar, incognito mode (does anyone else think that guy with the trench/fedora/glasses combo is creepy… they should have just named it perve mode), and its overall simplicity. Will it ever beat Firefox for my love? Only time can tell.
Something that I find even more exciting from the people at google is the new Face Recognition & tagging function in picasa web! It is somewhat similiar to the ability to tag people in Facebook, except it takes it a step further by actually trying to find the faces! At first, I let it scan my entire album collection. It took about 20 minutes to complete that (I have about 30 albums with people in them). Then it showed me groups of faces, and I could enter in names (also able to add in nicknames & email addresses). This creates the tag. Then it goes through all the pictures, guessing which person it could be, and giving you a few options from your tag selection to pick from. You can also ignore, skip or tell it that it’s not a face it’s captured. So far it’s been pretty good. I’m quite impressed. A while back I had made the decision to go with picassa for a few reasons – but things like this are making it cooler!
Last, but not least… my bunnies! Huey has been settling in just fine. He has gone on two “dates” with Chompy… and that was interesting! You see, bunnies are territorial by nature and you can’t just throw two strangers into the same pen and except them to be ok with it. Combine this fact with their extremely sharp teeth and you have potential for major rabbit-injury. We have to slowly introduce them in territory-neutral areas until they seem to get along. It’s quite the process, and we did it successfully with Bukit & Chompy, so hopefully Huey & Chompy will love each other too! Here’s a ridiculous looking picture:
Chompy & Huey Cower together on the table
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