Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Ed Burns

A very engrossing interview with Ed Burns, co-creator of The Wire. Burns is a former Baltimore police who went on to become a teacher. He then went on to co-author The Corner, which was later turned into a tv series by HBO. A really fascinating person and probably ten times more worth listening to than most public figures. If you've never seen The Wire, go out and find it. It's by far and away the best television drama I've ever come across.

Monday, November 27, 2006

Animating PVP Ferrets

Now those who are interested probably already know and those that aren't, well, aren't but I thought I'd mention. As of February 2007, PVP will be available as a new animated series. For an annual subscription of $29.95 ($19.95 if you sign up before January) you'll get a new 4-6 minute animated episode every month. Now, while I have my doubts about the viability of a monthly 5 minute cartoon, I do hope it works out. BlindFerret seem to be taking a big chance on it and maybe they just see this as a jumping off point for something bigger.

Rockford Files

How anyone could talk about classic television and not mention The Rockford Files, I don't know. It's the only one that was actually good and can still stand up to scrutiny.

A Bit Of A Roof And A Back Wall

The Shed - Ed Godsell's masterful documentary on the last days of the shed should be ready for Christmas. Until then you'll have to make do with this trailer. Yes, this is the one I helped out on and one of my brothers did the editing. Looks like they've done a great job of capturing that last day of the season.

24 Hour Kevin

Ed Godsell goes in search of Kevin. Made in 24 hours for the Cork Film Festival. Maybe now that Ed has discovered the joy of Youtube, he'll put up some more of his work. Disclosure: I have a brother called Kevin.

Friday, November 24, 2006

A Walled Off Little Nation Of Drunks

Funny bastard. Could do with a haircut. Robbie Bonham.

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Don Quichotte Cartoon Contest

I doubt I'll ever get over having people ask us to announce things for them, like we're important or something. Anyway, thought I'd give a mention to the SECOND INTERNATIONAL DON QUICHOTTE CARTOON CONTEST(PDF link). Don Quichotte is a cartoon magazine originally set up to serve the Turkish community in Germany. Now, though, it has taken on a more international flavour, Mario Sughi is there representative in Ireland, and they've started running a cartoon contest. This years theme is Immigration. BTW I'd have posted up one of the promo images Mario sent us but Blogger's been acting the bollocks a bit recently.

Skating My Space Trauma

Like skateboards and 18 year old girlfriends, I'm probably a little old for MySpace. Unlike skateboards and 18 year old girlfriends, I probably won't do myself an injury with MySpace. Of course, if I discover I'm as crap at networking on there as I am in the real world(almost inevitable), the emotional trauma could be very damaging.

Monday, November 20, 2006

And That'll Do It Then

Don't Worry It'll All Be Over Soon

Yeah Yeah Still MTV

More MTV

Bif's Own MTV (because Frank's is crap)

Friday, November 17, 2006

Women's Deodorant

The near religious devotion some people developed towards Nirvana always got up my arse but somehow it never seemed to diminish the quality of Smells Like Teen Spirit.

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Fred Zeppelins

Follow the arrow and you can't go wrong. Photo by Hansi Lebrecht.

Impressive Arts and Roses Eye

Maybe just one more then - by Rekha Garton, an Arts and Film student with a very impressive eye.

Gnar Portrait

Not a self-portrait but still a nice photo - by Canadian Daniel Bray. I probably should stop now.

More Deviant Self-Portraiture

More self-portraiture. This time by Lauren Peralto who also has a DeviantART site.

Interesting Flickr Day

Just a pretty striking self-portrait by one Bettina Abruzzese, a 20 year old from Buenos Aires (I think). Her Flickr site is full of great pics and she's got a Fotolog too - where you'll find some interesting stuff.
Yes, I'm having one of those browsing flickr days.

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

2-D South Simpsons Park Teasing

The Simpson's movie teaser. That joke seem familiar? Remember this South Park movie teaser?

Monday, November 13, 2006

Biscuits, Balls And Bishopstown

A fifteen minute trailer for a documentary about Cork City supporters. Not the one I helped out on though.

Revisiting Old Alcoholics

Frank's away on holiday again so I'm going to do something different this week, I hope. I'm going to run some guest cartoons that re-imagine old BifSniffs. Today Krishna Sadasivam of PCWeenies does a reworking of an old favourite Alcoholics Anonymous. When I first posted about doing this the response was a little underwhelming for some reason but we do have a couple lined up. If anyone else out there still wants to give it a shot, fire away. Take an old BifSniff cartoon and rework it in whatever medium or way you want. For those that have or are doing one - thanks.

Friday, November 10, 2006

Martin Scorcese's Sesame Street

For a guy who wants to write an animated gangster film about a misanthropic alcoholic sheep, this actually doesn't seem that far fetched. Thanks to Blather for the link.

Run Rabbit Run Wrake

When I first saw Drawn's link for Run Wrake's Rabbit, I didn't bother with it. The image didn't really strike me (not the same one as I've robbed it has to be said) but I vaguely remembered hearing something about it and eventually succumbed. Very glad that I did. It's a fantastically sinister little piece. Watch it. It's in Quicktime format and hosted by Motionographer. I said watch it.

EDIT: Just remembered where I'd heard of it. An email Emmet got from another animator who, after seeing Building A House, pointed him in the direction of Animate because he believed it was more in keeping with that world.

Funny Faux Pas Advert

Today's funny cartoon, though not the funniest, is one of those ones I'd really like a print of. It's simple but, in being so, perfect. Strangely I've felt the same about all of the cartoons featuring the unfortunate Frank.

Kottke linked to a list of Faux Pas from around the world. I particularly like the entry for Ireland - where the first three are all about not linking us to Britain and the fourth then refers you to the entry for the United Kingdom.

We Cork people know how to advertise for staff.

Thursday, November 09, 2006

No Title I Can Think Of Could Do This One Justice

Don't know why I didn't post this before - it's been around awhile now. Roughly half of this is the greatest music video ever made. The other half is the worst. By a long shot! A very long shot!


Thanks to Links For Everyone for the reminder.

Earning My Favourite Workshop

My Favo(u)rite Mirror are running a compettion, MFM WORKshop, to find new artists for their Illustrator series. Each time they run the contest 20 entries will be selected for the voting stage. Once selected people will be able to vote for their favourites which will earn you a point. Plus you will get a point every time someone buys a product with your design on it. For added incentive, if you get through to round two, you'll start earning bobs on every design sold. Apparently they've lined up other prizes as well but, at the time of writing, there was nothing up. They've also got a blog up where they'll be interviewing some of their artists and shopkeepers who sell their products. You can check the timeline for the first contest here. Hey Bob, why not give it a shot now you've got some time on your hands?

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

The Power Of Nightmares

While we're on the subject of the war on terror.

Oil, Smoke And Mirrors

Ok, how do I do this? Ed did some work on this documentary made by a lad from Dublin called Ronan Doyle. It's about the links between peak oil and the war on terror, so it's got a fairly controversial take on 9/11. Don't bother leaving any over-the-top offensive comments because I'll just delete them.



I don't really agree with the twin towers conspiracy theory, even though I'm highly dubious of the whole war on terror shambles, but one of the things touched on here that fascinates me is our lack of knowledge of this peak oil problem. It's getting mentioned quite a bit recently but mostly as an aside to something else, yet it is one of the most singularly important issues to have arisen in years.

Monday, November 06, 2006

Black DRM Labels

There's a very interesting interview with Peter Jenner, former Pink Floyd, The Clash and Ian Dury manager who currently looks after Billy Bragg's affairs, over at The Register. He essentially talks about the pointlessness of DRM and how the major labels are all fucked but, aside from just that, it's got some fairly interesting insight into the music industry. To the stuff about black boxes is very strange. Thanks to TCAL.

The Future Of Alex Kramer Television

You arrive home from the pub, very drunk and flip on the tv while you stuff the contents of a snatch box down your throat. There, on the screen in front of you, is this very sexy looking lass effectively flirting with you. I think there's some other stuff going on but I wasn't taking too much notice. Is this the future of television?

Two New Things

It doesn't seem to have been around for very long but already two new things has a couple of classics. Hope to see more from him soon.

Thursday, November 02, 2006

Digging Social Snobbery Signals

Problogger picked up on a post over at 37Signals about social bookmarking icons on blog posts. The argument is that they probably don't really work and they make your site look cheap/ugly. They've cited the digg and technorati top 10 lists to show that the most popular sites don't use them. The theory is that if you concentrate on producing the content then you'll get there. Fine. Makes sense. Or it does if your audience is the sort who peruse Digg because they're most likely a fairly tech-savvy crowd. But, as Peter Ottery pointed out in the comments at the 37Signals post, not everyone knows about social bookmarking and if your audience is less tech oriented then, as well as encouraging them to promote your site, you're offering them something new. Design issues aside, and nobody is shying away from the design issues, most of the arguments against reek of that old web geek snobbery i.e. anyone who doesn't know already is too dumb to work it out. The first I knew of delicious was from a 'post to delicious' link on a blog post. That's how the web works, as it happens. None of it is ever going to be black-and-white, no matter how many marketing gurus or tech experts tell you so. What'll work for some, will fail for others. If you're a funeral home you don't put up a big Santa Claus themed window display to attract customers but that doesn't mean it's a bad idea for the greeting card shop down the road. BTW 37Signals make some great web-based software. Their collabrative writing tool, Writeboard, was a Godsend for us.