BLINK KITTY BUMMED

Last.fming Depeche Mode’s Shake The Disease and I miss having a site to drop music lyrics and links into…I love the song, it perfectly expresses a very specific mood that strikes me(and I do mean strike with a tangible force)…I could keep dropping lyrics into the Blink Kitty Love site, but without video embedding support from myToons, there’s no visual content as both youTube and Aniboom still drop out frames.

Plus, I’m not sure the lyrics are appropriate for the site…the biggest Blink Kitty Love fan is my nephew Joe (13 years of age) and over pizza and burgers at the King Of Prussia mall the last time we got together he spent an hour grilling me about the band, who was crushing on who, why TK wasn’t crushing on anyone, wouldn’t it be funny if Tammy did this and what was the other girl’s name again (Tinker) and how did Ty’s head get turned upside down? Then, he started spewing forth a string of ideas (and yes, one of them I’m probably going to use later)…I tried to encourage him to create his own band, but he claims he can’t draw. I’m going to have to get him a video camera; he’s a natural director.

But if he’s Blink Kitty Love’s biggest fan, then what am I doing seeding their website with Adam Ant, Soft Cell, Depeche Mode, Gomez, David Bowie, Liz Phair…none of those bands appear on iCarly, another one of his favorites and there’re some concepts he doesn’t understand yet…

So I’m steeping over the website redesign and trying to figure out RapidWeaver (thank you @autonomydesign*), Tammy’s taken over and at the moment it’s PINK…I’m not a fan of pink, the color; I’m a go on Pink the singer. I’m going to have to get Tinker or Ty to take over the process…

Anyway, any Blink Kitty Love fans with feedback, let me know. And you can view the episodes here at their new home, blip.tv, and download the full, high quality versions here…and once I get The Miser up and running, there will be new content and a new website (color/theme suggestions welcome). Share the Blink Kitty Love…

*Disclaimer: And yes, I think I have a crush (Blink Kitty Love crush contagious) on the oh so cool Autonomy Design website and one of my new goals is to get enough of an income stream to let them worry about the pink thing.

SHAKESPEARE + ANIMATION

Will be a trend, after we’re done with robots.

Chuck Jones, legendary Looney Tunes animator, is the subject of a short: “Chuck Jones: Memories of Childhood” airing on TCM next week, Tuesday, March 24, 8 p.m. with newly animated sketches he did of his childhood.

PBS is bringing Sir Ian McKellan as King Lear on Wednesday, March 25 at 8 p.m. in most locations. McKellan’s amazing at nearly everything and one of my favorite people to watch as a talk show guest. And as I Google for a link, I am suddenly reminded he went trouserless in the storm scene, which is a bit better than I’d like to get know Sir Ian, but I’ll just look at his eyes if PBS even decided to run it.

One of the best McKellan movies I’ve seen is Gods and Monsters with Brendan Fraser and Lynn Redgrave. Excellent dramatization/fictionalization of the last days of James Whale, the director of Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein.

SONG WRITING

Well, what have I done tonight — gotten my character killed three times in World of Warcraft because I have ABSOLUTELY no idea what to do — the highly amusing part of that is that I got talked into it by my 7 year old nephew and presumably he’s managed to survive. My mistake was not scheduling an in-game family meetup so that someone with actual experience/weapons/healing spells would have my back. Then there’s the listening to last.fm, reading the twitterific window when it pops up, trying to animate a new Christmas themed cartoon in both ToonBoom Studio Express and FlipBoom and not having any luck at either — although I love the crispness of the colors and lines in Studio Express and should probably sit through the tutorials…but I’m best at the apprentice approach, following someone around and learning by doing, then diving off the deep end before I’m totally comfortable and going from there. What else, pre WOW, there was the researching Quebec History in 1889 — Bulldogs (the Hockey Team that apparently invented the net(hockey, not inter, although it was in French so no guarantees), landslides and “warehouse stores” in Montreal.

And then there was the Lisa Loeb song that made me think writing a country song was the solution to my possibly late night rain induced mood so I caught up on my other blog and am here admitting that writing not drawing is what calls to me tonight…maybe haikuing

How in the heart does a song start
Take the heat meets the beat
Then the beat meets street
And the street rides the heat
While the beat pounds on
A song jaunts
to the street heartbeat
turn the heat on
riding the beat
while the heart street
hums

Not a haiku and no one could turn that into a country song; last.fm’s gone Blossom Dearie, which is the best name for a lounge singer ever…close race with Eartha Kitt, which is the best name for a Catwoman ever.

Anything else tonight — one of my twitter peeps is fascinated by parallel universes which will probably lead to strange dreams, watched Big Bang Theory on DVD — had a marathon over Thanksgiving — Beau had never really seen a full episode. As I was trying to sleep Thursday night the soundtrack in my head was a combination of the Friends’ (Beau’s a big fan) theme song, the BBT theme and the Northwestern (we’re going to a bowl game, baby) fight song, so I think he watched them long into the morning.

Googlequested for ToonBoom Animate reviews (couldn’t make the launch party), clicked back through blog trackbacks and ended up with speculation — last.fm pause RODRIGIO y GABRIELA are amazing; see them and be awed — that there might be a Wizards of Waverly Place movie; Disney’s setting their New Year’s Eve party on the Wizards set, advertising started tonight. I want Disney to have a special holiday treat of showing High School Musical 3 on TV so Flash will stop wandering sadly with her tail in its melancholy pose whenever they play a Zac Efron video bit from the current movie. Also spent some time on the iCarly website looking for news of new episode as I suffered iCarly withdrawal on Saturday, but only read Freddy’s not terribly convincing Black Friday tale and couldn’t text a “shirt suggestion.”

So, is that everything or at least 2:36 a.m.’s worth. I suppose so. Now I’m off to find something to read. Have to dig out a Ngaio Marsh book — I suddenly remembered that the Roderick Alleyn/Agatha Troy courtship was one of the things that inspired In The Bleak December. But now is not the time to start reading a mystery. They keep me awake. There’s a song thought: The mystery of you sneaks through my night and steals my sleep away. So sneak quieter or be less mysterious. Your choice.

Good night all. (Lenny Welch “Since I Fell For You” — I love the way the song swings through sadness and madness — hey, he’s a Jersey guy…so many of the cool cats are. Did I just write cool cats — alas that’s what’s you get at this turn o’ the hour. So I’ll be turning myself in.)

FLIPBOOMING FUN QUESTION

O.K, you can think about this for awhile as I’m not planning to start ’til after the holiday, but which would you prefer — new Hat Hair or new Blink Kitty Love? Crazy crushing band or neon blue hair with dreams of world domination?

GULLIBLE AND TWITCHY HOLIDAY FUN

New Gullible and Twitchy animated fun to get you in the holiday mood.

NEW HAT HAIR

Hah, I have cracked the new content hurdle. New HAT HAIR. Now I get to sleep, right?

JAPANESE ANIMATION REVIEW LINKS

Nigel Andrew’s reviews, the first made me think I should try Japanese animation again and the second might actually get me to do it:

Ponyo and the Cliff By The Sea

The Girl Who Leaped THrough Time

SKATE PUPPET

How can you not love them?

INSOMNIA + FLIPBOOM = DOODLE

FlipBoom, the ToonBoom entry level animation program, is my favorite way to unwind when not sleeping. Unfortunately, there is too much not sleeping. It’s 3:47 a.m. and Flash isn’t the only one whose schedule is confused. At some point, I need to learn how to use the Studio Express program but for now, I plug in my Wacom tablet, doodle for awhile, learn to do something more effectively, unplug the tablet, open the 20 to 30 second movie in Garageband, turn on my keyboard/midi controller and doodle musically. Then I upload to myToons.

I would usually be writing this sort of thing at my Withoutabox blog, but something’s messed up there so I guess I’ll start talking about the movie business here. Enjoy.

all right my fellow insomniacs, first glance at the new Gullible and Twitchy; see what daylight’s like: http://ping.fm/Iui0q