Disrobing the Past: The Johnny Punani Story

A new Quiz Bowl production! Once again being submitted for awards, through the same group that gave us second for Science Baby of the Future. This one was completed in two weeks thanks mainly to the dedication of everyone but myself. I was totally racked with work and thought the whole thing was gonna get kilt, but everyone else on team Quiz Bowl put their all into it and got 'er done. I came in for the voiceover and some narration writing. But everything else you see was brought to life through the dedication of Mike, Sabrina, Joren, Andy, Jacky, Aaron, and others. I'm not going to set it up. Just watch and be amazed...

A Cuteness Supernova

The First Rule of Menace Club Is...

This is an awesome mashup of Dennis the Menace and Fight Club. More here.

Sing For Supper

I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving. This year, as always, we headed up to Connecticut to my Aunt Judy and Uncle Marshall's home for an extravagant food coma day (thanks Jacky). Maren and Emily, who was in town for a conference, joined us, along with my folks, grandma, Noah, Leetha, Jesse, friends of Judy and Marshall, and a 15 year-old Japanese girl who quit school to be a pop star and is staying with two of Judy's friends. It was quite the collective. Naturally, we also had kareoke.

BONER RANCH YOKEL

The Internet Anagram Server is the reason the internet was invented. I put in my name and got an incredible bevy of anagrams, including the gem used in the title. Some others:

• HA CRY ON ELK BONER
• A HORNY COB KERNEL
• LANKY BONER CHORE (are you seeing a theme here?)
• NO CHALKY NOR BEER
• BEER OR CLAN HONKY
• LANKY BRONCO HERE
• ENABLE HORNY ROCK
• HEEB OR CRANK ONLY
• BONNY OAR HECKLER
• CARNY HOBO KERNEL

Amongst thousands of others. I had no idea my name could so completely sum up who I am. Give it a shot and post your best ones in the comments.

Robert Altman dead at 81

Robert Altman has passed away at 81. He was a director who I admired quite a bit for always doing what he wanted to do with a medium he truly loved. His hallmarks - ensemble casts, overlapping dialog, wandering cameras - are things that I think are copied over and over again by directors, but seldom with the same skill (Paul Thomas Anderson is probably his best student).

I've always been a big fan of Westerns, but I never really understood why until I saw McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Altman's deconstruction of the genre from 1971. He took every trope of the Western and burnt them down, along with the church in the finale. It blew me away. It made me understand what made a Western a Western, and why it is the ultimate American movie form. He had a bunch of misses throughout his career, as any filmmaker who puts so much out there will have, but most of his stumbles still had something to them. Except for Pret-A-Porter. That was just awful. But, to his credit, there was an awful lot of nudity involved.

Altman was nominated 5 times for the Best Director Academy Award but never won. Last year the Academy gave him a Lifetime Achievement Award. In accepting the award he said:

"No other filmmaker has gotten a better shake than I have. [...] I'm very fortunate in my career. I've never had to direct a film I didn't choose or develop. My love for filmmaking has given me an entree to the world and to the human condition."

Word up, Robert Altman. Word up. You'll be missed.

A Reminder to Donate Life

I just went to Donate Life America to make sure I was a registered organ donor, and I would suggest that all of you do the same! They make it really easy to call up your state and and fill out the information (usually just entering your Driver's License info) to make sure you're on the file. It can't hurt to check, even if you've signed the back of your license. Some statistics on donation:

• More than 91,000 men, women and children currently await life-saving transplants.
• Every 12 minutes another name is added to the national transplant waiting list.
• An average of 18 people die each day from the lack of available organs for transplant.
• In 2005, there were 7,593 deceased organ donors and 6,895 living organ donors resulting in 28,108 organ transplants.
• In 2005, 44,000 grafts were made available for transplant by US banks.
• Approximately 1,000,000 tissue transplants are performed annually.

Making sure you're an organ donor is a really easy and painless way to make a huge difference for someone else.

Best of the Blank can't be all cynicism and spite. Just mostly.

Shareyourlife.org

Time For Jell-O Salad!

This post comes courtesy of Maren who is doing us all a great service. For those of you not fortunate enough to have grown up in the Midwest, this is what Thanksgiving is all about. Pilgrims be damned. I encourage everyone out there to submit some of your special Thanksgiving recipes as well to make this a Best of the Blank Holiday Eating Spectacular!

I want you all to be prepared, in case you need to supply the Jello salad this year at Thanksgiving. I will be making 'Lime Salad' as told by Ruth Brakel, my grandma.

You can follow this recipe if you're the designated jello bringer. Or if it doesn't suit your tastes, let me know, because my grandma's community cookbook (where this recipe is listed) has 40 other varities. Were you craving the kind with celery AND marshmallows AND mayo? Well Clara Viker has you covered, I can send you the recipe.

Ok, Lime Salad,

1 pkg lime Jello (3 oz)
1 C. hot water
Dissolve.
1 large can pears, crushed
1 3-oz cream cheese
1 C. chopped nuts
1 large pkg. Dream Whip [aka coolwhip]
Add 1 C. pear juice

Chill. Whip with beater, the Jello, and cream cheese. Fold in crushed pears and Dream Whip, which has been whipped. Put in ring mold and chill overnight.

That is, verbatim, the recipe. Don't worry, it's easy, just mix and let set overnight in a plastic mold. I have lots more! Orange Sherbet Salad, Cherry Coke Salad, Cranberry Walnut Salad, mmmmm. Don't forget about the Jello salad for your holiday meal!

[skeptics - don't judge until you try it]

Brief Journeys to both Past and Present

Oh how time flows upon diff'rent currents when not marked in passing through my blog. It seems as though ages have passed since last I scribed about this page with my bit-dipped quill. A summery:

On Sunday I met up with Noah, Jesse, Maren, and Chuck at Bar None, a bar in Union Square, to watch the Vikings game against the Packers. What made this interesting was the fact that during Vikings games, Bar None becomes a total Minnesota Ex-pat bar, filled to capacity with Helga-headed, purple and gold bedecked, horn-blowing hooligans. It's quite a sight. I even saw Mark Jury there, brother of Paul Jury, rockin' his Moss jersey. Apparently, Vikings fans have been gathering there for nine years, willing to take crushing defeat after crushing defeat in each other's $2 Bud-soaked company. Free pizza at half time too. There were even a few non-Minnesotans there, who've become fans since following Fran Tarkington over. That's dedication.

In other news, on Monday I headed down to a huge studio to watch the filming of a script I wrote for a CSI Miami promo. It was amazing. The director, Daniel Fries from Leroy+Clarkson, did an amazing job of helming the whole bit, turning my script into something much cooler than I had imagined. There was this monster set they built of a bathroom, smoke machines, models, actors, blood, film cameras on cranes, set decorators and prop people, grips, gaffers, ADs, a guy making omelette's for the crew, makeup, wardrobe, the whole bit. It was very cool. Daniel even took some suggestions on set and kept me involved the whole way through. I'm stoked to see the footage and start cutting the promo together. More on this as it comes together.

That, along with another Dog the Bounty Hunter promo has taken up my entire life as of late. I haven't been able to offer much input into Quiz Bowl's latest opus, which is due for a two-week film fest this Friday. Tonight I'm going to hook up with the team and lay down some voice over and write some narration. The brief cuts I've seen have been pretty hilarious. Joren is definitely headed for Emmy nominations should his whole teaching thing not work out.

On Friday it's Neeve's birthday bash at the Irish Rogue, which she describes as "Irish pub meets Bar Mitzvah." And my folks are coming into town! So they'll be hanging in the city for a bit before we all head up to Connecticut for a Thanksgiving Rumble Royale. Noah and I are deep-frying a turkey. Cuz we roll like that.

Stay tuned.

My Jams, Once Again

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Are YOU that somebody?

Pump Up The Jam

Watching this over and over will make you super-intelligent.

NASA Concept Art

Early artist conception of lunar module landing on the moon
Originally uploaded by chrisspurgeon.

chrisspurgeon, on flickr, has posted a very cool set of NASA presentation slides on their upcoming lunar exploration.

Help us Obi-Wan! You're our only hope!

This is totally awesome. A Danish team on engineers and designers have developed a system for displaying video in a 360 degree floating space. The Star Wars nerd in me is trembling.

The Cheoptics360 can display both computer and film content when used either indoors or out and scale from 1.5-meters on up to 30-meters. The video images generated by the four projectors are re-assembled within the prism-like pyramid through a process of mirroring and reflection making them appear to float in mid-air.

Check out the video below, complete with energizing Danish club music and strained English explanations!

Godless Money

BoingBoing points out this interesting page by Mitchell Kahle and his practice of spending only "Godless" dollars. This means he stamps or writes out "God" from "In God We Trust" on every bill that passes through his hands. He provides a succinct history on when and why the phrase was placed on currency and why he thinks it should be taken off. I like his style, and shall be following suit. Let your money be godless!

Spooktasticity

I will have Halloween pictures up soon from a couple different outings, but I encourage all of you to send me links to your Halloween snaps, or the snaps themselves, and I'll put 'em up! Here's some flickr sets from:

• My dad Buddy (in Minneapolis)
• Maren (in Brooklyn)
• Evan (in Minneapolis)

Send some more in! Let's scare the internets! You can email me at: kylebc {at} gmail {døt} com