John Olivers Salmon Cannon

Candy Cane Flavored Soda: Is it as BAD as you think?

Hey, at least it's Pure Cane Sugar....

I am not much of a soda drinker. If I'm going to get bloated with empty calories, I'd rather get a buzz while I'm at it. However, while buying sodas for the family, I spotted this eyecatcher; Candy Cane flavored soda.

"Dear god, technology has gone too far", I thought. 

Of course, being one that is intrigued by abominations that should never see the light of day, I bought it. 

Did your Play/Pause buttons stop working on your computer?

Dammit, computer....

So, here at my job, I have a Mac, and I play my Buckethead music through iTunes, much to the chagrin of my office mate.

I'll make you a Buckethead fan yet, Roommate!

However, lately, whenever I try to mute my music whenever someone walks into my office to ask me a question, my F8/Pause button does not work anymore! I wondered what was going on, and did some research.

I remembered that I had just updated my Google Play App on my Chrome Browser. I upgraded because it allows you to upload music to your Google Play account through your browser. Which is great, because I change my iTunes app a lot, and Play keeps EVERY DIFFERENT VERSION of a song I have... but that is another story.

What I FOUND, though, is that the Google Play app takes advantage of those very same media keys, so you can, for example, play and pause music playing on your browser through Google Play.

Nice, EXCEPT for one thing; it makes the shortcuts GLOBAL. Which means those shortcuts only work for Google Play. Therefore, it takes away the media keys functionality for iTunes, or any other music application you may be using the media keys for!

However, there is a rather easy way to fix and/or tweak that.

Infinity Watermelon

The look on its face looks... sad.

Deadpool: Too Kawaii

My Next Tattoo

So, supposedly Kwaii is japanese for "cute".

Sugoi supposedly means "Please punch me in the crotch."

The Medium Doesn't Matter! (animation)

Used after effects to import all the 4K images I exported from Flash and to sync the audio, then exported it using the 2160P YouTube setting in Adobe Encoder.

I got the comic strip from iguanamouth.tumblr.com. I used the images to create the animated characters by tracing them in Flash. I, of course, had to take some creative liberties, especially with mouth shapes and the walking cycle.

Then Taylor, from tylersvathings.tumblr.com, recorded the audio with his voice, as well as Jay, from http://pyrope.tk.

I got the audio, put it in the Flash timeline, and created the following animation.

Why? Just to see if I still can. It is MUCH easier when somebody else does the audio for me. Heck, it's a lot easier if someone else does the DRAWING for me; I'm pretty ok when it comes to staying on spec.

Who is Stinky Wizzleteats?

Who is this Stinky Wizzleteats, Stimpys favorite musician? Well, it is actually kinda weird, because it is based on a real person. Supposedly John K. used quotes from this actors music and quotes from his movie roles to create the song. 

So who is this person that can carry the name of Stinky Wizzleteats?

Cracked nailed Upworthy.com....

I have always hated the way Upworthy tricks your emotions to get your views. If I wanted to be emotionally manipulated, I'd watch Fox News.

Lone Bannana Presents: Ten Years of Lone Bannana Junk

Any similarity to real human beings were intended, no matter how accidental they may look.

So yeah. I have been known to do animations and live-action shorts from time to time.  In fact, I did a lot back in "the day". The "day" being from 2000 to 2010 or so...

Anyhoo, I made a compilation of my feeble attempts, and for the mere cost of 15 bucks, you, too, can have evidence I existed at one time!

So, here is the Amazon Store, and also my CreateSpace store; the only difference is that I get a bigger share from the CreateSpace store. However, "Amazon Prime Shipping!"

I know, I know. Do what you must.

ANOTHER BUCKETHEAD ALBUM: Abandoned Slaughterhouse

Buckethead has released Pike 67 (!!!) from his Bucketheadland Pikes series, Abandoned slaughterhouse.

Please check it out, and purchase this and other Pikes from his Oficcial Pikes store.

Here is a sample of Pike 67:

PoutingPerry Meme: Never Make Funny Faces Ever Edition

So I dunno if you heard that Obama talked with my Gov, Rick Perry, the other day. 

Well, a lot of other people did. 

I added the BLANK image of the Meme so you can make your own, if you're into that kinda thing...

Jokemon Postcard Prints: Gotta buy them all!

So Sam Logan is an artist who runs samandfuzzy.com. As a service to the community, he also does commissions. This is one set of cards he did that you can purchase today.

I think the Psy card is reason enough to purchase this set!

GOTTA BUY THEM ALL!

Frozen is the new Black

Man, it is weird how perfect they characters in OITNB match up to the Disney Princesses...

"Lana Del Blink"

I don't know what's more disturbing, her eyes or her LIPS...

RoboCop Crowdsourced Remake: Where have I been the last 5 Months?

They Spared No Expense.

So someone crowdsourced a Robocop Remake. It isn't a Robocop Statue in Detroit, but it's something.

BOY, is it something.

Check out the official website here: http://www.ourrobocopremake.com/

Welcome to the Fandom

Vanilla Ice and John Stewart should meet up again

I remember the first time I saw Ice-Ice Baby; It was during the second part of my Army Boot camp. A couple of months into Desert Shield, but not quite Desert Storm.

I was at a "club". It was for the basic training noobs, and they just served sodas. They had a high tech "Video Jukebox", and they were playing this.

That was the most hopeless I had ever felt.

Combining multi-tools and belts: Isn't that just a multi-tool that INCLUDES a belt?

Having it makes you cool; not knowing what it can do is not important right now....

I have two loves interests in my life... at the moment. (Love is too strong of a word for it.)

One, is belts. Why is that? I always wanted to find the perfect belt, which is difficult for me. I use ONE belt hole, and my pants are showing off my crack, but if I go to the NEXT belt hole, well, I feel like I'm being squeezed to death by a python.

Why must you belittle my pain?

The second love of my life is Multi Tools. Ever since MacGyver and his Swiss Army knives (it broke my heart when I found out he went back and forth between Victorinox and Wenger), I have always loved the pocket gadget. Nowadays, if I don't have a miniature lighter, a compass, and at least five ways to open a beer bottle, I feel unprepared.

I cannot take my keys out at the city park anymore, though...

Are you lazy AND find women in commercials attractive?

What kind of person would go to a site like this... besides someone writing an article about it?

So, let me get this straight. So you are:

1. Watching TV,
2. A Pubescent/Pre-Pubescent boy (or have the mindset of one), and
3. Most likely not going out on many dates,

and your favorite commercial comes up; you know, the one with the cute guitarist, that filthy mouth gum girl, or that redhead who sells burgers but doesn't look like she eats them.

No, not that one... but put a pin on it.

And you wonder aloud; "Who IS that Hot Ad Girl?"

Edible Wafer Cupcake Cases: The Beginning of the Fall of Society

This is what is wrong with the world

I never had an issue eating the paper cupcake wrappers; Hey, take the good with the bad! But supposedly this is some kind of issue, since they have now created edible Cupcake cups. 

Kids nowadays. What's next; seedless watermelons?

Minimum Wage. Facts and Fibs.

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Using Technology as a Creative Tool

The current instructional problem I would like to discuss is a disconnect that faculty have today with media and technology, and how that translates to denying students exposure to new multimedia experience.

In a paper written by Tina Seidel, there seems to be a lack of training when it comes to student teachers on how to integrate video into their curriculum (57). My experience during my career as a student and as a staff member at UTSA is that educators are not as comfortable with technology as their students. Donna G. Wake wrote about how even though schools do see Digital Storytelling as a powerful way to bring students out of their shells, it is still a difficult task for teachers to integrate technology into their instruction (34). I think one of the main reasons is that, plainly enough, technology is a very difficult concept to grasp, especially if you haven’t done a multimedia project on your own. Inexperience seems to be an issue.

Another of the issues that I have seen is that professors do not want to change their curriculum in order to dovetail with multimedia/online courses. They may have an online presence, but most of the materials that will be covered in the assessments are based on classroom lectures. Michelle A. Drouin found this correlation between posting recorded video lectures online adversely affected attendance and achievement in the course that was being studied (17). However, this seemed to stem from the fact that the material was following the textbook very closely, so students were not incentivized to show up for class. The online material was basically a video recording of the live lecture, so students assumed they could get it from the book. Therefore, it was questioned whether or not the videos played a large part in the lack of achievement in the course.

Conversely, a study by Yi He shows the opposite effect (1132). The study focused on online video tutorials that were offered to students in a Chemistry course. The students were grouped into three parts: Above Average, Average, and Struggling. The best response was received from the Average and Struggling student group, who used the videos to understand problems and concepts they had not grasped before viewing the videos. This positive response was shown by higher grades. Using the multimedia as a supplement to live lectures seemed to the big difference from this study and the study by Drouin.

Ashley Thesen postulates that it is the educators’ duty, not choice, to introduce technology to create digital narratives (100). Thesen wrote of introducing animation, background music, storyboarding, writing, and other highly sophisticated methods of pre-production and production with second and third grade students. I strongly believe that in order for students to embrace “educational technology”, students need experience the creative freedom they can get from the technology, first. Thesen discusses how teachers should encourage children to write stories about previous experiences, images, and ideas, and the teacher would act as the “principle storyteller”, guiding students in proper story structure (94). Technology should be introduced to young children as an artistic tool, not as a rote process to regurgitate data to a roomful of bored fellow students.