Another Brokeback remix

Another Brokeback remix.

It's been a while for me to do the whole video thing. And it's sad that it took another Brokeback Mountain trailer re-mix to get me going.

In Memoriam: Lizard.

In Memoriam: Lizard.

In a previous video, I had featured some clips from our bearded dragon, Annie. Over the past few days, she's been looking pretty sickly and we tried to find a vet that would work on lizards... but alas, she died yesterday afternoon.

She's been a part of our family for as long as we've been a family. She'll be missed.

Oscar in SF

Oscar in SF

This is an Oscar the Grouch toy I've had for about 26 years... and it's still solid as rock. Anyway, the family had taken a trip to San Francisco in August, and I thought it be funny if Oscar had taken the trip with us.

The music is a derivative work, and only slightly similar to the theme of a popular children's show. It's actually parody. So please Mr. Ghost of Jim Henson -- don't sue me.

Jumping Bunny

Jumping Bunny

I've been calling this cheap, Happy Meal toy a "jumping bunny", but I'm now starting to think it may be a kangaroo... or dog... or something. Oh, well.

You wind it up, and it does a flip. But it has a problem landing on its feet.

Civil War Re-enactment Pt. 3

Civil War Re-enactment Pt. 3

Here we're talking to Brady. He's acting as a Navy Surgeon. He talks about the different tools that the Navy had at the time and gives a bit of history of our things worked.

Civil War Re-enactment Pt. 2

Civil War Re-enactment Pt. 2

Just after the "battle", they did a re-enactment of what surgery would be like during the Civil War. The best part was when they had to amputate an arm or leg.

Civil War Re-enactment Pt. 1

Civil War Re-enactment Pt. 1

About an hour outside of Houston is a little town called Hempstead. Over this past weekend, there was a Civil War Re-enactment going on.

I had never been to one, but it was actually very enjoyable. These people take it all very seriously, and at the same time seem to have a lot of fun. Also, the food was GREAT.

I've got more video, some of a surgery being re-enacted, and some background info about various tools that were used in the medical field. I think I'll split them up into two more video.

Blowin' in the Wind.

Blowin' in the Wind.

Bob Dylan wrote the best war-protest song ever. These shots were all taken from Archive.org... I just did a search for "Iraq" and these were on the first couple of pages.

50th Wedding Anniversary.

50th Wedding Anniversary.

I found this 3rd generation VHS tape that my Uncle Jimmie had made for my grandparent's 50th Anniversary. I captured it from the best pro-sumer VCR I have, and it still had horrible scan lines... so I cropped them out the best I could. Hopefully, I can get a better quality tape from my uncle.

The whole tape was about an hour and a half long... here's 2 minutes.

Play-Doh Man hates Boxing Kangaroo.

Play-Doh Man hates Boxing Kangaroo.

I couldn't think of anything to shoot. So I created a fight between Play-Doh Man and Boxing Kangaroo.

Bottle Caps ®.

Bottle Caps ®.

These are one of my favorites candies. Ever since I was a child, I had to separate the flavors... and sometimes, I would get a "cola" and a "root beer" mixed in together (because they have similar colors) and it would be horrible.

A Busy, Busy Town.

A Busy, Busy Town.

7 minutes of time (condensed to about 45 seconds)... looking out my office window. The freeway in front is US59, and on the left is the 610 Loop.

music: me. a simple, little ditty with a "tick-tock" feel.

the B.S. Re-mix for 11/2/2005

the B.S. Re-mix for 11/2/2005.

Pretty simple really... looping videos of people to make it look like they're dancing to the tune. According to We Are the Media, November is "re-mix" month, so I thought I'd do another one.


The videos that got used:

- Michael Verdi - Sky
- Bottom Union - Hover
- One Girl, One World - Introduction
- Steve Garfield - Vlog Soup 7
- BluJett8 - Cue Wakes Up
- Illusion Junkie - Art Chantry

I started out wanting to only re-mix newer vloggers videos. I figured the "vets" get included in everyone's remixes anyway, so why not throw out some love to the noobs? I ended up using three newer ones I found on the Yahoo group , then three from "vets".

Oma.

Oma.

"Oma" is an informal German word for grandmother - the formal being Großmutter. Oma turns 84 on Sunday, and I made a fairly simple photo montage for her... this is the abridged version. Also featured is my grandfather, C.W. or "Opa". He passed away 4 years ago.

I really love looking at old pictures. I wonder if 60 years from now, there will be people who love looking through old computer files, the way I enjoy the pictures. It will be amazing if Archive.org is still going, and everything from today is still available ... they'll probably be beyond yottabytes of data.

The music is "Du, Du Liegst Mir Im Herzen" -- roughly translated to "You, You Keep Me in Your Heart" -- I'm not sure who this exact artist is. It's a beautiful song.

Munamana.

Munamana.

I could've spent a whole lot of time on this and made it really fluid... but I get bored easily. So, here ya' go.

Videos taken from Archive.org and Crooks and Liars. The song comes from The Muppets, but I downloaded it from Zippy Videos.

campfire.

campfire.

The kids were off playing. The adults sat around the fire and talked. Somehow, without my knowledge, I became one of the latter group. I would mourn my youth... but sometimes I still feel like I'm 17. My wife would say I sometimes act it, as well.

Texana

Texana.

Went camping at Lake Texana over the weekend. A good time was had by all, and I captured some images with my optical trapper keeper.

note on the music: I wrote the contra-bass and viola lines at about half the tempo that it is currently... but somewhere down the line, I must've hit the wrong button and it came out like a "march". So, I filled it out with some snare drum and piccalo and kept it at the fast tempo -- simply because it amused me. It reminds me of the Hogan's Heroes theme.

Old Video - Secret Crushes

Secret Crushes

This is the first fully-produced, home computer video I had ever done... circa March 2000. My job at the time used a Media 100 system to make the bad car commercials, but the boss was kind of a jerk and we couldn't use the computers for any personal stuff. Anyway, I got a fairly cheap All-In-Wonder video card ($150 at the time), digitized in some camcorder footage, and edited it on the free software that came with the video card. The one thing I remember was that there wasn't a "live" preview, so it was difficult to synch the audio and video. So, I had to assemble the pieces, render it out, check the synch, and adjust it back in the program --- over and over.

Sadly, the original footage is on an old (dead) hard drive, and the only version existing is 160x120, at 12fps. So, I touched it up a bit and rendered it back out to 320x240. It's not great, but with the software I had, I'm pretty happy with it. I did another video for a song called "Ever Song", but I still need to track it down.

The band has long since departed, but feel free to check out some more music here.

credits:
music - me and Myla.

The Jetsons.

The Jetsons.

I was watching the show on Boomerang last night, and it got me thinking... of course, I doubt I'm the first person to have this thought. In fact, the whole "superimpose destruction footage over children's programming" thing is fairly played-out. Oh well -- I'm just a hack.

credits:
Jetsons copyright infringment, courtesy of a web page not updated since 1999.
Other footage, from archive.org

Lizard.

Lizard.

Shots of our bearded dragon, Annie. And some other stuff. I'm not sure what motivated me here... but it's only about 30 seconds long, so you won't waste too much of your life.

If you freeze the shot at one point, you can see my face. And no, it's not blurry... that's actually how I look. Scary, huh?

Cat Fight v.2

Cat Fight v.2

To recap: footage of my cats playing - a few techno loops - mix thouroughly - simmer at 423 degrees - Cat Fight v.1

So I decided to take the same footage and try and make it a bit more light-hearted. I was searching the web for some Batman TV sounds, and all the ones I got were pretty crappy. Also, I couldn't find the whole theme, and the loop gets a bit annoying after a few seconds. Also, also, the video gets a bit long in places... but it's only 1 minute total, so it's not too bad. Also, also, also, I'm sure I could make it a lot "cooler" if I put more time into it, but I'm not that invested in this particular footage.

Cat Fight v.1

Cat Fight v.1

It's weird how cats have garnered such a high place in the blogosphere. I know on a lot of political blogs, they do Friday Cat Blogging -- in an effort to "lighten" the typical mood of politics. And I've seen LOTS of video blogs about cats.

Well, I had some footage of my cats playing around, so I created a couple of simple techno-y loops and beats and mixed it with my cats. I also created a second version...

our Backyard.

our Backyard.

it was a lazy Saturday afternoon, so we sat in the backyard and chatted until the mosquitoes came out. The dog is a stray (apparently) who got into our yard through a hole in the fence... and he smelled pretty bad. He also doesn't seem too keen on the game of "fetch".

music: me... aiming for something "pastoral", and dammit... I think I achieved it... in bounds.