CROSSED

Jetpack Comics, the greatest comic shop in the world (and where Rich works) keeps winning contests. The first was simple- people just had to comment on a website saying why Jetpack was the best. The second involved a little more work- putting the head of Dark Horse Comics' head honcho Mike Richardson on pretty much anything. I did a sweet picture of him as Spaceboy from The Umbrella Academy at my first sketchgroup attendance. 

We also made a few ridiculous gifs which, along with the billion pictures sent in, helped Jetpack win a visit from Richardson himself (which just happened Saturday). Here are the links to the gifs so they don't make this page explode while trying to load. 

Street fight

Robbery

So when Crossed, a comic I loved, announced a contest to promote the launch of a new Crossed comic, Rich came up with the idea to make a short movie. He asked me if I would edit it and to help out if I felt like it. I agreed, but wasn't too psyched about it to be honest. While I do enjoy putting together little videos (which have been a driving force of this blog), I was in full on winter lazy mode and didn't want to spend the time to try and make a movie- which I hadn't really done before. It was more of an undertaking than I wanted to commit to.

I was dumb though, because even though it took forever, it was a blast, especially the filming itself. 

Rich and Josh made tons of guts the night before (out of panty hose filled with paper towels, soaked in blood) then Josh and I headed to Jetpack to start filming when they closed. We brought Rich's super old video camera they shot every movie in college on, but figured Josh's iPhone would take better footage. Since I haven't quite bought that ridiculous camera I keep threatening to buy, these were our only options. 

Jaime came over to give Josh some sweet makeup, and we prepared for the mess. 

What started as some bumps and white,

turned into a very blatant cross I worried about,

and then ended up looking really awesome.

There was no written dialogue, no storyboards or big plans, just a basic story and old carpets that we were allowed to get all bloody. Hilarity immediately ensued with Rich not being able to get lines out. I managed to figure out a good opening that involved a cameo where somehow it looks like I'm talking when Jon Waugh talks. From there, it was pretty much Rich saying what he wanted to have happen, all of us together suggesting shots, and me somehow filming everything with both Rich's old camera and Josh's iPhone in the same hand. I'll be honest, I felt pretty cool doing this, even though Rich's camera yielded horrible looking video, and some of the iPhone shots had my thumb in them. I've never really directed anything before, and it felt pretty awesome to suddenly be sort of in charge of a video. It was all Rich's idea, but I had to think about how I would edit stuff later, so I had to think of everything like an editor. It was neat- my initial worries of the video looking amateurish and lame were pretty much in my hands- it was my job to make it NOT lame and instead as awesome as possible.

I definitely failed on a few shots that were either not great, or I didn't even think of how well certain angles would work. I also didn't really make anyone do anything more than twice, even though, in some cases, I wasn't psyched about how it looked. It was a definitely a learning experience, as, while editing, I immediately saw where we should have done things differently. "Why didn't I ask for another take when I still wasn't happy after 2?" I kept saying. Oh well, live and learn. If you haven't seen this yet, here, watch it now. Warning- if you're a wimp, then don't watch it. It's got some solid violence/gore. Make sure you click the gear button and change the quality to 720p, otherwise it looks awful.

Or if you don't like embedding, watch on youtube here.

Highest quality (select it from the drop down to watch in 1080) original (without bloopers). (if you watch this for the better quality, make sure you still watch the other one for the bloopers- they rule)

Good stuff. Based on Rich, Josh and Jesse's movies made during college, no movie is complete without a blooper reel, and no blooper reel is complete without Smash Mouth's "All Star." The "Whip My Hair" part was a pain to make but I laugh my ass off while watching it, so it was well worth the time. 

Here are some more PRODUCTION SHOTS: 

Rich laying down some blood catching plastic and rugs while Waugh stands there doing nothing:

Fake blood time: 

Setting up the wound:

The best Rich has ever looked:  

Dead Rich:

Headwound Josh: 

Beginning the cleanup: 

The actual editing of the video pretty much went like this: 

Step 1: Oh god this is horrible. Everything is so awkward. Oh my god why did I agree to doing this?

Step 2: Ok, some editing helped, but the hammer shot is the worst thing ever. 

Step 3: Ok, everything is better, but this has no feel. It's incredibly awkward.

Step 4: I need the most evil, horrible music ever to make this work. 

Step 5: Holy shit, this music couldn't work better. YES!

Step 6: I'm gonna try making the screen more red so the gore looks better and the video feels more evil and sick...

Step 7: That worked way better than it should have. I'm gonna make it more red!!

Step 8: Rich's review- the hammer hit needs to be cleaned up more, and it needs sound effects. 

Step 9: Rich records sound effects with his mouth into his phone and sends them over. 

Step 10: It works incredibly well. I have splatters, thunks, and guts sounds. Wow, this actually kind of works now. 

Step 11: Finish, export, upload, send out for approval, begin blooper reel/music video. 

Step 12: Crap, I have to go through all of this video again?! UGHKKK. My computer can't handle 7 minutes of video. 

Step 13: I need a new computer and video camera.

Everyone has been pretty psyched about the video, and hopefully Jetpack wins again. The link was re-tweeted by Avatar Press, the company that puts out Crossed. It was re-tweeted by a bunch of other people too, which rules. It doesn't have the number of views I was hoping for based on all the re-tweets, but I'm blaming that on people not watching the credits. Oh well. 253 views and 7 likes is still pretty sweet.

Making movies, although involving a ton of time editing, is super fun. 

currently listening to: It Dies Today- The Caitiff Choir

Mount Agamenticus

Last week, when I was blown away that it was regularly in the sixties in the middle of March (it was 84 today), I decided to get the legs working again and go for a local hike. I found quite a nice little treasure only about 25 minutes away, but literally looking at a map for a mountain near me, then searching for details on the good ole internets. Mount Agamenticus in York, Maine, turned out to be perfect- a 2 mile loop around the mountain with a very manageable 700 feet or so of climbing. A 4000 footer this was not, and it hit the spot perfectly for a tired old man like me. 

Usually hiking in the summer, it was weird to see trails so hideously brown. But this trail definitely made me start thinking about mountain biking though.

The main loop I did, called "Ring" was perfect, and it's what I would recommend to anyone trying to hike here. It goes right around the mountain, with a brief detour to the top (via Witch Hazel trail), which you then walk back down to rejoin Ring. Whoever designed the trails here did a good job but got perhaps a little excited with limited space, making perhaps too many trails.

huh?

But I love trails, so all the power to you, pal. Walking down, I even saw some snow in some places.

But back to the summit, which is pretty awesome. Coming out of the trail, there were signs about work being done, and they weren't kidding. Apparently, from what little I read and what much I guessed, the people who manage the mountain decided to clearcut the entire summit to allow for better views. While the inner hippie tree-hugger in me (ok, maybe outer) weeps at the idea of killing nature to better view nature, I can't really argue against their idea. This is a small mountain, but the biggest within many many miles, so having the ability to actually see everything around you (from the Belknap region to the White Mountains) is pretty awesome. 

The top was literally a wasteland:

With, for some reason, a ton of buildings. One was a learning center, and the other a building dedicated to the conservation of the area. Unfortunately, other than buildings, the main area was just dirt (read: mud) everywhere and nothing else. If this is all grass in the summer (which I'm guessing it is), this is probably glorious.

I'm guessing this made a lot more sense when there were trees everywhere, but there was a nice mini observation deck to get some sweet views on the lower edge of the mountain. It still helped even with no trees.

What ruled about hiking on the day I did, was that I got to watch the clouds go from dark and murky with zero sun to full on changing-every-10-minutes cloudporn, to full on sunset with rays of light. It was perfect for an instagram addict. I took a bunch of shots using my rad HDR program on my phone. In fact, way too many to be honest. Here are the best: 

summiting the top of a wasteland against fire clouds

to find more wasteland. This is my favorite from the day.

The clouds were fairly standard cloudporn from the top of the observation deck,

but to the left, sun rays the likes of which I've never seen started cracking through,

developing into a weird circular formation that my 5th grade brain couldn't help but mentally nickname "god's butthole,"

to an exploding circle with rays of light shooting everywhere. I love this shot, especially with the tower in front of it:

The circle then exploded into scattered clouds everywhere. It was really pretty amazing up there, watching the entire murky sky break apart into sunshine right before my eyes with nothing else distracting the view, and nobody else distracting from the sweet sounds of Jimmy Eat World's "Goodbye Sky Harbor" in my ears.

damn.

A few people did show up though, by car. I learned after hiking back down and turning up the hill directly next to the base parking lot, that the summit was right there- just like a half mile up the road from the base parking lot. This meant to the mountain biker in me, that I could drive to the top, ride down, then ride/walk (definitely walk) back up. It also meant that since it was now sunset, I could drive back up to the amazing view I had left 40 minutes ago, now in sunset mode. 

yea, this is soooo touched up in the HDR program, but still. NICE.

This was a great small hike- perfect for family/kids or super out of shape fatsos who want to get their legs moving again. People are very dedicated to keeping it nice, there are learning centers and all types of conservation things, tons of information on little wooden stands all along the hike (from the history of the mountain to the science of mountains, trees, etc), and you can take in incredible views even without the hike. Nice find. Nice day in mid March. 

currently listening to: The Dear Hunter- The Color Spectrum (Blue)

Best Albums of 1993

After a looooooong break, I have revived my "Best albums of every year" project. Only 18 more years to get caught up!!

Click the picture to go to the blog I'm using for the list. It's weird, I kind of hate doing this, but decided I was going to do it, and am super psyched for the later years. Maybe I just have to suffer a little through the super old stuff to get to the stuff I'm excited about. Maybe I shouldn't have started 20 years ago. hmm...

Wrestling at a Legion Hall

Last Friday, I went to a local wrestling show at a Legion Hall in Lowell. Have you ever been to a local wrestling show? This was actually my 3rd or 4th local wrestling show I've been to, but my first with a blog, and figured it was a world worth introducing to some of my thousands of readers who may not even know this world exists. 

Most people at least know of the WWE (formerly WWF). Or they watched it in the days of Hulk Hogan or Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock. But did you all wonder where all those stars came from? Small wrestling leagues. They're everywhere, and waaaaay more people wrestle than you could ever imagine. I'm solid friends with one, play COD with another, live with 2 guys who used to do it, and know/am friends with a few others who have, at one point in their life, walked into a ring wearing a silly costume and fake-fought strangers or people they met an hour earlier for a small crowd in the middle of nowhere. And they all loved it. 

We showed up in Lowell and stood in the rain for a solid 5 minutes, completely soaking all of our clothes (nice organization, Chaotic Wrestling). We then walked in to the most overcrowded room I've ever been in. Apparently the fire chief approved the room for 250 seats and they sold 260. 

I would estimate that 160 people could have fit in that room comfortably, 180 if they wanted to really jam them in. And they had 260. I've never seen a more horrible seating arrangement in my life.

Look at this "row" of chairs next to Josh. Did the organizers think that people would stand on the seats? That nobody had legs? I sat between Rich and Josh and had to have my arms crossed the entire time. Josh couldn't move a millimeter to his left, Rich couldn't to his right. People tried to sit in front of me, but we had stacked chairs up just to make enough floor space for our legs and anyone attempting to walk through. 

SO THEY GOT MORE CHAIRS.

sweet rat tail dude

Ughk. No aisles, no walkway in front of the seats either. Just a billion chairs jammed into a small space with a wrestling ring plopped down into the middle of it. And everyone there was soaking wet. And the place wreaked of piss. AWESOME. 

I also got the joy of being around people like this: 

That kid with the stupid hat took his shirt off for the first match, then put it on and took it off again during the women's title match. Class act. I wanted to throw every chair near me at him then beat him to death with whatever chair didn't hit him. I'm pretty sure the guy with the II COOL shirt is a Juggalo I used to see at the Burlington Mall every day. 

Once everything started though, it was a good time. The opening guys were insane, jumping right out of the ring immediately. Some of these guys are really good at what they do, and their characters were funny, they were good on the mic, etc. Local shows do everything the same as on TV- there are storylines, good guys and bad guys, managers everyone hates, announcers everyone boos, etc. It's fun. 

Look at this "athlete," who started a 20 man Royal Rumble:

That's a big boy.

Here's a guy in a clown costume with Johnny Vegas next to him. Johnny Vegas has apparently been doing this forever (he's probably 50+). He was even on TV a few weeks ago playing the part of John Cena's childhood little league coach.

Here's someone doing a sweet move on someone else. My camera doesn't capture movement all that well:

Scotty Slade, the guy I play Call of Duty with was there too. He didn't last long in the Rumble though.

The main reason we were there was because our friend had the headlining match. In fact, the event was named after him- Cold Fury (he's Brian Fury). I've always known him as Brian Fury, and actually completely forgot his actual last name. I've known him since college, and it's pretty awesome seeing him be the star of an entire show.

The story went that he was the champ, and then was banned from wrestling for a while because he attacked a ref in a match. He then broke in during a match and stole the belt from the champ. He was being brought in for one final time to compete for the belt he stole. Or something like that.

he used to be clean cut, now he has a Grizzly Adams beard and long hair and looks BRUTAL

His match was fantastic- a little sloppy at the beginning, but it ended with completely over the top moves including a powerbomb from the top rope, and Brian getting sent through a table outside of the ring, also from the top rope.

this was pretty rad

Here's a progress shot (stolen from FatDan) of Fury's opponent sending him through a table. It was such a devastating hit that they disappeared and took fans with them:

When it was all said and done, Fury was once again the champ. 

He put on a hell of a show. A few matches in the middle were boring, but there were highlights in all of them (and an awesome appearance by former TNA star Nikki Roxx (who I have also sort of known for years)) and the show started and ended well. It was a bit long and obviously uncomfortable, but it was fun to go. Afterwards, we went out with Scotty and the champ to Denny's to gorge ourselves on garbage. 

It used to weird me out that this world existed, but I guess it really makes sense if you think about it- not all bands are playing huge arena shows. Most are playing in tiny shitty clubs or legion halls, YMCAs, basements, barns, etc. I've seen shows in some of the smallest, weirdest places, and when I first saw that, I thought it was weird too. Now it blows my mind even more how much of the youth of America only know about concerts in enormous stadiums. You gotta start somewhere, and those bands playing those dumps take it seriously- that's their lives and their passions. So while it's weird to see wrestlers acting out stories and pulling wrestling moves for kids at legion halls- going so far as to go through tables and get cut and covered in blood, it really makes sense. Just like concerts, there's different levels of everything, and this is just a smaller level of what we see on TV. And this is their lives too- Fury wrestles every weekend at least- Scotty too. And to these kids and local fans, they're huge stars. What they do is incredibly real, and maybe I'm even cool for being friends with the champ. You want some culture? Go to a local wrestling show. 

currently listening to: Foxy Shazam- The Church Of Rock And Roll

First Hike of the Year in February?!

6 more weeks of winter my ass!

And with that, it's supposed to snow 5 inches tomorrow and not go above the low 40s over the next few weeks. But for a week or so, it started to look a lot like spring, and not just because of the complete lack of snow. It was warmer, it was sunny, and the air just had that special feeling of spring. I started to feel alive again. So, I decided to get an early start on hiking this year by going for my first hike in February.

I did Blue Job, which is small enough that it doesn't even really count as a hike to most people, but I'm counting it. The severe hatred my lungs have for cold, dry air means that I usually don't do anything outside until April, so anything uphill at this point was very good.

I got out there, reminded my legs what it felt like to go uphill, and reminded my lungs what it felt like to breathe hard after a few months of not doing a whole lot. Last summer, my goal was to hike 4 4,000 footers and I only did 2. I went on more hikes than I ever have, but I started late and out of shape, so I wasn't ready for anything serious until probably around August. I've set a much higher goal for this summer. I won't say it for now so Kevin won't make fun of me, but it's written down, and I believe I can do it. This year, not only am I getting my legs ready earlier, but I now have the experience of last summer and remembering/realizing how much I like hiking to keep me going.

The trail started out as pure mud, and I felt sorry for the ground that I was further destroying. Half way up, it became a mix of ice, snow, and pine needles,

which looked pretty.

Towards the top of the small climb, right before the only real elevation gain of the mountain, things got real wintery, real fast. 

It was quite odd to leave spring and go out in the woods to a trail that I figured would have gotten so much use/exposure that it wouldn't have an ounce of snow on it, and see this:

This was looking down- I had to go up and down this, and almost ate it a few times. This was glare ice. 

I survived though, and made it up the "hard" part feeling good. I honestly felt very happy to be out there doing it again. My legs burned a little, I breathed hard, and it was a solid 10 degrees colder at the top (not to mention ridiculous winds), but I was smiling the whole way. Maybe the fact that I was listening to Immanu El (absurdly over the top beautiful post rock stuff with a guy whisper singing over it- perfect for majestic views) helped, but most of it was just me happy to be outside doing something I loved again.

ahhh... the trail

I took an awkward picture of myself at the top while my hands froze to death, 

took some cool artsy shots for instagram, 

saw a pretty gorgeous sunset, 

attempted a 360 panorama with a program that never works, 

(this one kind of worked, click it for the huge version)

and headed down. 

It was great to be out there again, and I look forward to many hikes this summer, including doing the entire Belknap Range, and knocking a small chunk of the 4,000 footers off the list. Just seeing stuff like this again felt right:

Afterwards, I parked my car down the road and ran through the woods to try and get a shot of what was left of the sunset from the view of a swamp I'd always wanted to take pictures by. My left foot went completely underwater, but I like the pictures, so I guess it was worth it. 

Blue Job is a tiny hill to most people, but it was where I hiked first last summer, where I hiked last this November, and where I am starting my 2012 hiking journey. Psyched to start it so early. Bring on spring!

currently listening to: Gantz- "La Chambre Des Morts"