We've moved

Hey all! Just wanted to let you know that...WE'VE MOVED.

Check us out at http://uberfriendship.com/

SRT - CH06

by Shaggy

So we're still working on transferring UBER FRIENDSHIP BLOG over to word press.

...and by "working on" I mean "David is still out of the country and I fear trying wordpress by myself".

So, here's something to keep you busy for half an hour.


Play:

(right click to download) - Shaggy Reads Twilight Chapter 06 (28m52s, 26.5mb, warning: contains strong language)

add a dotcom to that...

by Shaggy

Hey all, we finally did it. Uber Friendship has it's own place holder on these here interwebs.

uberfriendship.com

So all future updates will be popping up over there... when I figure out Wordpress (right now David is rocking the transition).

OTHER NEWS.

Our 1min silent film submission to the Toronto Urban Film Festival (TUFF) called PAPER GAMES is online and ready for your votes.

EVERY DAY (yeah you can vote every day for videos, which never made sense to me, but yeah).

There were over 300 entries from 23 countries, and ours is one of the 30 finalists.

So please do watch, and if you have the time, vote for our video once a-day until Sept 17.

New Place, More Space, KFC in yo' FACE!

by Shaggy

Why did I do it...

Seemed like such a good idea at the time...

Ok, so I moved recently, and JUST down the street from me now is a KFC/Taco Bell. I haven't been in one of those in years. So of course I run in to see what's up. Oh, I'll TELL YOU what's up.

Thursday's special is 10 pieces of chicken plus a medium fry for 12 bucks. Seeing this, I'm thinking "hell yeah". Three pieces in however, I'm thinking "WHYYYYYYYYYYYYY!?!"

Ghuoooooo, my stomach was just bleeeck in that hurt so good way, because I was happy that I reached a goal I set for myself (getting KFC) but at what cost?


Though an amusing thought occurred to me while lying on the couch.

Buying KFC should actually result in you losing more weight instead of gaining, because you're giving so much of your dignity away at the counter.

...

... oh sweet, I have leftovers in the fridge.

A lot has been going on... a lot of NOTHING!

by Shaggy

Dear internets,

I would have written sooner, but I've been busy.

Actually, i realized something yesterday on the topic of being busy as I was walking through the subway turnstiles (note: I realize that I make most of my realizations while walking through those things, kinda like they are the physical manifestation of the transitions of thoughts).

Yes, we are busy people, yes we want to do SO MUCH in life, and yes we complain about never having enough time to do it all in a day; but what I realized is that when I complain about never having enough time, I feel as if I've accomplished something. As though, in my addressing the dilemma, I have chipped away at it, and have been productive.

This is not so.

This is a false feeling.

This is a problem.

I've had this conversation of projects vs. time & motivation with so many people, in person and via email. But talking about it (though it feels good to know that others share the experience) SOLVES NOTHING!!!

In my youth, I coined a mantra I wanted to live by: "Don't think about starting; start, and think about finishing."

This basically means, get the ball rolling on projects. If you spend so much time thinking about the projects you want to do, but never initiating them, then face it, they will never be done.

Because of this I have started numerous projects, some with numerous people but mostly solo affairs. Youtube shows, podcasts, comics, animations, tv shows, video games.

To this day, a few of these projects are in post production, some of them are still in the pre-production phase, and most are barely even on paper.

I still do believe in my mantra of just starting projects to get things going. Hell, I want to believe in it more than ever.

But then the problems of time return to haunt me. Realistically, there's just not enough time to do everything, ESPECIALLY if you have to collaborate with other people's time.

SO what are the options?

To quit ones job and give the additional 8-12 hours to your passions and risk poverty?

To become a complete recluse and don't spend any additional time with family or friends, just on your projects?

To put all but one of the projects aside, until said one project is complete?

If I had to choose, the 3rd option seems most plausible.

... just... which one project to choose...

...

... well, either way, this is the last time I'll ever talk about projects vs. time. The next time you hear it from me, is when something gets done.

Avatar

So Avatar is getting re-released with an additional few minutes tacked on. Does this make me want to see the movie again? No. Does this mean this is the new definitive edition, apparently not...so then why add the footage? Oh right, I forgot James Cameron's a money whore.

Now I do believe that some movies can add extra scenes like LOTR, but those movies are few and far between. I feel like you have to shoot it along with everything else you shot and not later. And then, if that's the case the reason why it was left out of the original cut must be for a reason as well.

In general like Dark City and Donnie Darko, the former added so little it felt like they just made a couple transitions and cuts a bit longer while the later over explained and took away a bit of the intrigue, adding scenes don't work.

Most of the time, because people don't want to change the tone or the intent of the movie the added scene pretty much can only repeat/reinforce what another scene has already done or be about absolutely nothing.

That said, here are a few scenes James Cameron could add to his other films.

Aliens: Follow an alien as it mingles with other aliens sleeping and eating. Thus adding absolutely nothing to the movie.

Terminator 2: See John order T-800 to do the robot dance. Thus adding absolutely nothing to the movie.

Titanic: When Rose and Jack grab a piece of ice off the deck they realize that the ice is indeed not ice but unobtainium. The most important and unobtainable substance known to man, and with it they realize that Pandora was earth all along.

(Not an Avatar)

Delays

So it has been a long while since I've last posted. I'm not sure why exactly, having nothing to say hasn't stopped me in the past. I guess it could be that we're getting close to our 100th post and reaching that milestone means that we've written a bunch of posts and I'm still not better at writing. I'm in denial, I don't want to grow up I'm a Toys R Us kid. Maybe I'm just tired. The other day I was having trouble sleeping because the sounds from my belly were keeping me up. Is that odd?

Oh, the modern me.

by Shaggy

SO I finally caved.

twitter.com/shaggyshan

I find that I'm usually not an early adapter to social networking outlets.

I didn't touch MSN for a good while when it first came out.

I didn't use facebook until a friend of mine sat me down and made the account.

And now, Twitter.

I avoided it initially for I believed my life not to be interesting enough to warrant constant micro updates for all to see. I still believe this, which is also why I don't often add people who I don't know too well as facebook friends; it's not for the security reasons, it's more of "really, not much is going on with me, so I'll be letting you down if you want entertainment."

All that being said, I understand the appeal of Twitter, beyond it's initial practical application of up to the second updates for event coordination.

When I'm bored at work, or just waiting for some video/animation to load or render, I constantly check my facebook app for news feed updates. Even if it's not something posted on my wall or having anything to do with me, I find that I need to know that something is going on outside this work world I'm trapped in / rely on for moneys.

And since a wall post is roughly under 140 characters long, Twitter is just another extension of that, just open to a wider audience.

So, the question is, will it be worth your time to follow me on my Twitter?

Looking at my past, I would be tempted to say no.

...but looking at the future? I think there's a lot of surprises on the way.

How could this happen

Night time, hot and sticky I'm walking to the subway station. Bad idea, it's garbage collection day and the whole street smells of hot sticky gross. I'm trying not to breath through my nose and generally not turn my head toward the garbage bins so instead I decide to look the other way. Now I feel I have solid spacial awareness, I don't usually bump into things and I normally use my periphery to spot things beside me, not this night. This night I was too busy focusing on the smell, the sticky hot gross smell, so when I say I was surprised by what I saw...I was blind sided. I turned towards the houses and sitting on the steps and too close for comfort were two blubbery naked old men. Maybe the blubbery was wrinkly but I don't think I've ever looked away faster, I think I wrenched my neck. I can only presume they were trying to beat the heat outside but seriously do they have no shame?

Yesterday I woke up to discover that one of my eyelids had ballooned to ridiculous proportions. Basically it looks like someone punched me in the eye. This happens to me from time to time and it really sucks, I look like Quasimodo. But I had to leave the house, I'm a trooper, so I threw on some clothes and took off. Also for some strange reason I had an urge to eat Taco Bell. This is a very strange urge for me I usually get cravings for...actually it's not that strange I often get ideas of random things I want to eat, but it's never Taco Bell. I've probably eaten at Taco Bell maybe 5 times in my life. But there I was eating a Cheesy Gordita Crunch wearing a Hot Tub Time Machine t-shirt and a ballooned up eye. Would I be a huge target of ridicule, yes. Did I feel shame?

Liquidation Sales

As much as I hate to see local businesses go under and can't help getting a little excited because I could pick up something for cheap. Yes it's horrible to prey on the weak but when it comes to store Blow-Out sales, well let's just say it's expected.

So Ammo Video is going out of business...maybe because it's called Ammo Video or maybe because even in it's dying days it still isn't having any good deals. I think the man is dettermined not to sell anything before he closes. Now lots of times the sales starts small and closer and closer to the end date the deals get better thus a fun kinda stock market game ensues trying to judge how long you can wait on pulling the trigger but early enough that someone else doesn't get it before you. At this stage I feel like a lot of people hide things like a squirrel only to forget where they hid them. If you are one of those people who do it, it can be a tricky ordeal, trying to misplace the video somewhere where people who would want said video wouldn't look, also to try and remember where it is later.

But this guy, talking on his blue tooth all day, I swear, he doesn't want to sell anything. Worst salesman ever. He wasn't even willing to give away an empty N64 package. He wanted two bucks! Seriously, you think someone's going to pay two dollars for a Beetles Adventure Racing Box?!

Not as original as you think

Subway rush hour, I'm standing mashed up against everyone else when I notice a tatoo on a girls arm. It's an anchor on her left wrist, whatever, nothing special. In fact it was kind of poorly done. On her right wrist she had a picture of a heart, also nothing to write home about. But I am because just a few bodies over another girl had a tatoo of an anchor on her left wrist and the word love written out on her right. Two people no connection, no originality.

(The Navy has Anchors)

Or is this a new cult...

Pirates could literally steal our internet

Does anyone remember the Bond movie where the villain wanted to rule the world by controlling the media...didn't think so cuz it's lame. But besides blowing shit up there are a lot of ways to mess with the world, say not having the internet. The economy would go haywire.

I don't normally stop and think about how the internet exists but it's not just all a bunch of floating digital information shot around by satellites most of it gets transfered through massive underwater cables. These giant cables are straight up, information highways, and we have to build more of them. One proposed cable recently had to be moved several miles over because of pirates! Yes, pirates!

(First pirate picture to show up on Google Images...interesting...HD DVD seriously)

Porn Video Games

In my dream last night I was discussing with Shags why there aren't any porn video games. Strangely enough it was quite a coherent conversation so I'll pretty much transcribe what I dreamt.

The idea is that porn is a very lucrative industry so why isn't there a mainstream north american porn console game? In Japan they have tons of hentai computer games, and I guess culture does have something to do with it. Where we have curtain and shops for porn, Japan also has entire floors/rooms devoted to those games it's that big. Here, where would you sell a porn game, probably not at gamestop or best buy, it's more likely it'd be in a porn shop. But that would be a problem because video games often have huge budgets and would enough of the market go to one of these places to purchase it?

One company is making a porn MMORPG, which to me actually sounds like the best idea. You can buy/play in the safety of your home so no one can point at you leaving a porn store and call you a pervert. Plus the content can keep updating and changing. Who knows how well it'll do.

I guess the other reason we don't have a porn video game is because it wouldn't work on a console...we're not Goro.

(GORO!)

Celebrate... it's alright

World Cup is on which means people slap on flags and celebrate their culture. It's nice and all and I don't really mind it except people have got to figure out a better way to celebrate then how it's done now. Honking car horns, in theory, probably sounds like a good idea. It's saying 'Hey, I'm loud and I'm proud! Look at me! Check out this flag, it means my countries awesome at football, we won a game!' Great, now it's very easy to get annoyed at all the sound pollution it causes but that's not really my beef. What I'm more concerned about is, is it actually fun? For one thing a lot of these drivers don't seem to be having fun honking a horn, but they do it, because it's easy. And why should they be happy driving back and forth on the same street wasting gas and clogging up lanes. Shouldn't there be a more fun way of celebrating? Like taking a nap. Naps are fun it could symbolize that you're so confidentin your team you don't have to worry about anything.

(Nap time)

Big Bang Theory Theory

by Shaggy

I haven't had the greatest relationships with TV sitcoms. Sure, the more modern ones WITHOUT laugh-tracks, I can get into; I consider Arrested Development to be the funniest damn show of the decade.

But network shows with laugh tracks, I never trust them. They try to tell you what's funny, and if you didn't laugh, you probably 'didn't get it'.

So I fianlly checked out The Big Bang Theory since I've heard some things about it, along the lines of 'finally, a sit-com geared for OUR generation'. And that I can say is true.

Not a minute goes by in the first episode that a social networking media isn't name dropped (facebook, myspace, blog, etc). In fact, it's done in such a way, I feel that the show is more intended for an older audience who vaguely knows of these medias by name, in that kinda of "oh I burned a CD today... shouldn't have stood so close to the camp fire with my walkman" kinda way.

I have to say I was disappointed in the first episode. Laughs were dropped in at the end of math and advanced physics jokes that I don't think any studio audience would collectively get... let alone understand it was a joke at all.

But even though I only verbally laughed-out-loud (see LOL) ONCE in the entire episode, I noticed the characters were starting to grow on me. Yes, they're eccentric and over the top, but that tends to be the point of all sitcom characters, or we wouldn't have a comical situation.

And by the second episode, IT HIT ME.

MY THEORY!

Sitcoms, don't actually have to be funny for you to watch and enjoy them. All a sitcom needs is likeable characters that, plain and simple, SAY STUFF.

As much as your friends come over and may say something witty or humorous that you laugh at even if it isn't terribly funny, when you watch a sit-com, you're amongst your 'friends', listening to their problems and screwy solutions.

It's that simple. Granted, you're more of a fly on the wall in this case, but you know these people and their daily dilemmas, and you wanna be there when they get through it.

And if you happen to laugh once in a while, all the better.

And THAT'S what's called a full circle.

by Shaggy

Holy crap, it's 1994 again.

Well, if you're a gamer that is.

This year's E3 has been the most nostalgia driven of any I can remember. The 2D side scroller has truly made a 'big name' comeback with returning titles such as Donkey Kong Country Returns, Kirby's Epic Yarn, and Sonic the Hedge Hog 4 (and this is AFTER New Super Mario Bros Wii took over the world).

Fighting games have the classic 2D stylings of Mortal Kombat. Car combat has a new Twisted Metal on it's way. Shooters will be getting a remade Goldeneye (which I thought someone already did with the Source engine).

And to top it all off, the Nintendo 3DS is ready to port over BUNDLES of classic N64 games, such as Star Fox 64 and Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

If a gamer my age has ever told you young'uns "man, games just aren't like they we're in the '90s...

...THIS IS THE 90's!!! Now where's my remake of Blast Corps?!

Showing off New Technology with old Technology

I slapped in a DVD the other day and the first thing that came up (after the Copy This and Die message) was a Blu-Ray ad. The opening shot is a boat from Troy, pixelated and ugly looking, the Narrator informs us that DVD was a revolution but now something is even more fantastic and sharper then ever. With a magic wand, poof the same boat now in glorious clarity. WOW it's so clear, it's so sharp if only I could have something as great as that...wait a minute, I'm watching a DVD... so that means it IS that clear and that sharp on my TV without anything new.

Now I'm not here to argue the merits of getting a Blu-Ray player or not, do whatever, I don't care. It's just kinda funny when people try to market you a better technology with an older technology. Do you remember the "Everything is better in DVD" campaign back in the day. They used jarring sounds and cuts to make it feel better. The thing is, I think it worked...

The Movie Industry

So far this summer's box office is down 147 million from last year. Does this mean the end of movies?! Has 3D changed anything?! How can we fix this horrible horrible slump?! The simple answer, make better movies. I hate it when the media attributes a whole whack of reasons for box office slumps when the only real reason is because of the quality of movies. It's just really weird when people start building trends, graphs and causations when there's absolutely no reason to.

False cause, you know what else uses causality horribly? Matrix Reloaded

(Worst use of causality ever)

Toys that talk SUCK.

by Shaggy

This is something that's botherd me for a while now. It really started way back when my younger sister was a MUCH younger sister, and she was all into Cardcaptor Sakura.

When a kid is into something, you get them the toys so they can play that something themselves, right?


A cool toy was the Cardcaptor Wand staff and clow cards deck. Pretty much picture perfect from the show. You got the cards, you got the wand. YOU ARE SAKURA.


...wait, no, you're not. For you see, if you wanted to USE the magic of the wand (have it light up and make sounds) THIS happened:



THE DAMN THING TALKED FOR YOU! Wouldn't the kids want to say the magic words them selves, and then cast the wand spell?

The interesting thing is, the wand sounds could also be activated by motion, so when you swung it at a clowcard, it would trigger the lights and sound, but if you as the kid said "RELEASE THE POWER" then trigger the wand, it also says (in a horribly compressed voice) "RELEASE THE POWER", taking you out of the moment.

Simular to toys with pre-recorded sounds is toys with a very specific emotion or expression. Maybe if the intent is to leave them on your shelf for display, sure, some well posed and emoting figurene works just dandy, but when they're meant for kids to play with, I would think too much expression would be limiting.

Some action figures have such extrem emotions, they leave little room to expand on a character. For instand, an angry looking guy will always be an angry looking guy, no matter what the story is. In contrast to this, the somewhat vacant expressions of Barbies can lend them to being more of a blank slate, cappable of a lot more emotions through acting of a kid.

That being said though, I'm not sure kids actually care much about this 4th wall of toy design I'm running up against. They can take any inanimate object and make it talk and emote if they want to, regardless what it looks or sounds like.

I could end this article with a thought provoking "altho as far as I'm concerned" punch-line, but I don't got one. Just stating my observations.

[BLANK] Anime

by Shaggy

Since I can't keep my online posting to myself, here's my response to a post on the following Kotaku thread, the brought up how a lot of anime plots are the same: http://ca.kotaku.com/5559926/resident-evil-creator-jrpgs-were-never-popular-in-the-west

@jay13x: Just a quick response to your anime comment; what I like about anime is that there is a show that address EVERY subject matter (fantasy, sci-fi, cooking, sports, playing board games, high school, the work world, etc, basically, something for everyone).  

But yes, when you break it down, too many of the key plots are exactly the same. See how many series you can fill in the blanks with these:  

- main character wants to be the best at [blank] and goes on a journey challenging various people at [blank] and learning about friendship.  

- lone traveler sets out on a journey to [blank], picks up a band of characters / friends along the way, we gradually find out the character's true intentions, they all stick together and follow through in saving the [blank]  

- main character gains the abilities of [blank] and with the help of their new mentor/friend, must defeat many [blanks] that are popping up all over the city.  

and finally,   

- [blank] happens, then there's a tournament.