Lazy Mary - Lou Monte

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This is a song that plays at work from time to time.  It always seems to put me in a better mood.  And anything that can accomplish that feat in my workplace deserves some appreciation.

Here's a blurb from Wikipedia:

"Lazy Mary," a remake of the traditional Italian song "Luna Mezzo Mare", tells the tale of a conversation between a young woman who wishes to be married, and her mother. The somewhat risque song mixes English and Italian verses. The two use double entendre to compare the occupations with the sexual appetities of the various suitors.

The original folk song has many verses, each presenting a different suitor.  The sexual innuendo is quite vivid - the fireman will hose you down, the butcher gives you his sausage...  You get the idea.   

Dean Martin did a big-band version of the song on an album of Italian love songs.  It's nice, but not as playful and bouncy as this version, which I prefer.  

Check it out in the player above.  If you like it I've provided a download link as well. 

WoW Character

I've gone back to playing World of Warcraft.  I didn't much care for Star Trek Online and onine gaming makes for a nice distraction while waiting on laundry to dry or trying to shift gears when I'm working on an idea.

So I rolled up a Horde character.  He's an Undead Mage named Murglak.  Here's what he looks like:

The helmet he's wearing is pretty cool.  The dish on top rotates and it shoots lightning.  Here are the stats:

• Electromagnetic Gigaflux Reactivator
• Binds when picked up
•  
•  Cloth
• Head 
• 44 Armor
• +15 Intellect
  +12 Spirit
• Durability 50 / 50
• Requires Level 28
• Item Level 37Disenchants into:
  [Large Glowing Shard]: 1
• Use: Channels a bolt of lightning and hurls it towards all enemies in front of the caster causing 147 to 167 Nature damage. The caster is then surrounded by a barrier of electricity for 10 min. (30 Min Cooldown)
• Sell 31 72

Not bad for a level 30.  Here it is in action:

Neat, huh?

Bullitt - Complete Score

How did I go so many years without seeing this movie?  And hearing this awesome score?

I love it when I find a little nugget of treasure like this.  It has existed my entire life and I never once knew about it.  Now I can't get it out of my head.

Lalo Schifrin underscores this film with a nice mix of orchestral jazz and lounge music.  This isn't any of that retro-fusion nonsense.  This is the real thing!  It's all very low-key and sets a nice mood for web surfing or...other pursuits.

The first two tracks are the most memorable in the film.  Track 1 accompanies the bizarre opening titles and track 2 leads into the big car chase.  There is no music for the chase istelf.  Only squealing tires and revving engines.

Lalo Schifrin at his jazziest!  Highly recommended.

http://rapidshare.com/files/383160390/Bullitt_-_Complete_Score.zip

TRON - Complete Score

Another item from the early 80's electronic front is the score to TRON, one the most original films ever created. The composer is Wendy Carlos, who uses almost the exact same set of sounds from A Clockwork Orange, which she composed as Walter Carlos. The effect meshes well with the ethereal landscape presented in the film.  AND it features Journey!

This is the remastered and complete score.

http://rapidshare.com/files/377491581/TRON_Complete_Score.zip

The P-Word

Definition - Something that never comes together.

Origin - After organizing meetings, parties, road trips and movies it became common parlance to say, "Sounds like a plan." Experience taught that if the word "plan" was uttered while planning such an event, the event would simply never take place due to unforeseen circumstances, or in many cases, lack of planning.

Usage - "Sounds like a P-Word."

Source - Unknown

Blue Thunder Promotional Score

Continuing with the thread of early 80's electronic scores, I present Blue Thunder.  This is a perfect example of the standard at the time.  It's a decent enough score with some high points.  Nothing flashy here.  It gets the job done and then some, but it's no E.T.

Rubinstein's other notable score was WarGames, which I'll have to dig up for this blog.

http://rapidshare.com/files/373976657/Blue_Thunder__Promotional_Score_.zip

Tutorial: Great Prop Photos

The following is a cut-and-paste from Boba Debt's excellent (and now defunct) prop site:

Let me start by saying that I am not a photographer nor have I ever had any formal photograpy training.

A lot of you ask me how I get such good pictures of my props for my web site.

Here are some methods that I use to get good pictures.

THE BASICS

1. Buy a good digital camera. I use an Olympus D-450. I splurged and bought a macro lens set, rechargeable batteries, a tri pod and Flash Path floppy adapter for reading the smart media. 

2. Shoot against a white back drop. Here is my set up. I pull the sheet tight with clamps. 

3. Use white light to get rid of shadows. As you can see in the picture above I have 1 light pointing behind the blaster. This eliminates the shadows that the front lights create. 

4. Use SHQ to get a prep shot. This is a smaller file size. Once you have the right picture with the correct lighting do tip 5.

5. Use TIFF format for the final shot. Large file but very detailed and easier to edit. 

6. Use the time delay if you have it. Even a slight shake will blur the photo. By using the time delay the camera will have time to settle before it takes the picture. 

7. Move the front lighting during the time delay. I have found that even a slight variation of your lights will change the picture. During the time delay you will be able to manipulate the lights to get the optimal picture. 

EDITING TIPS

I use Adobe PhotoShop Deluxe. 

1. Edit the photo in its original size. Don't reduce it until you have it looking good when it is big. 

2. Cut the object out of the background with white lines. It may be tempting to use a fill tool but this will give you fuzzy edges.

3. Eliminate the entire background with pure white. I cut and paste a white block from Corel Draw to use as my back ground color. This ensures that it is not tinted an off white color. Then I make sure that I eliminate all of the back ground with this color. You can use a line that is 100 pica wide to get rid of most of it, then use the brush for the small areas. 

4. Reduce the photo to a manageable size. 

5. Rotate the picture a few degrees back and forth to blend lines. Sometimes the picture will look edited once it is reduced. If you rotate it a few degrees and them rotate it back to the correct position it will blend the picture and make it look more natural. 

6. Make sure you use the Sharpen tool if you need it. 

7. Save your work constantly. 

That's it, never had a class but I can take pictures all night long until it looks good.

The Clue Phone

Definition - An invitation to stop being an idiot.

Origin - Unknown.  Possibly a movie or stand-up comic.

Usage - "Ring-ring!  Hello?  It's The Clue Phone.  It's for you."

Source - Brent Carter?

Salem's Lot

This one's for Greg. Haven't listened to it yet.

http://rapidshare.com/files/371797153/Salem_s_Lot.zip

Moe Farkas

Definition - Assistance or additional resources that are currently unavailable. Generally used in gaming when a group is heavily outmatched in battle.

Origin - Subversion of gangsta term, "Mo' fukkas." Moe was a large and resourceful group comically anthropomorphized into one being. He often took the form of Mongo from Blazing Saddles.

Usage - "We need Moe Farkas!"

Source - Mike Owings

Suck The Pipe

Phonology - Sokke Di Pipe-a

Definition - To make a tragic mistake or come to an unwitting conclusion.

Origin - Derived from a segment in a Dennis Miller routine in which he talks about watching TV as a child:

"Daddy, why did the bad man have to die?"

"Because he was a slack-jawed rat. And all rats must suck the fucking pipe."

Usage - "It's too bad that Todd got so far in that level of Goldeneye only to Suck The Pipe at the very end."

Source - Mike Owings

The Froolian Empire

My friends and I extended our teenage years well into our 30's. I suppose a lot of people my age did. It speaks volumes about our society that we behaved in such a silly fashion for so long and yet managed to become relatively stable "adults." I use the term loosely, because in many ways I still feel like a kid. I suspect many of you reading this do as well.

What is the Froolian Empire? It's a loose conglomerate nation-state that randomly and nomadically extends its power at various intervals. It also happens to exist wherever my friends happen to be at the moment.

It is useless to attempt a map of the Froolian Empire, as it has no formal boundaries. Basically, when someone moves to a new location, that area is annexed in the name of Froolia. The previous area is lost to attrition unless there is someone else there to hold it.

We all had titles as well, given out by the self-proclaimed President (or is it Emperor?) of Froolia, Trace Stevens. I forget my title now. I believe I've had a few over the years, but ultimately our fates are left to the whims of our supreme ruler. If he wishes to bestow a new title upon me, I as his humble servant will faithfully act in accord.

How did all of this come about? Good question. I'm at a loss to much of it myself. I know we played a LOT of Risk back in the day and I'm sure that between that and Castle Risk we adopted some of those rules to better mete out our political influence.

The main thing I remember is that Froolia was a neighboring country to Latveria (Doctor Doom's homeland) in the Marvel Comics. That's how we got the name. I seem to remember that it was spelled, "Fruhlia," or something similar in the actual comic, but I was corrected in a recent interview with our fearless leader. Clearly I was delusional or under the sway of an enemy power because it is obviously spelled, "with two O's and an A...and an I somewhere in the middle."

But all of this pales in importance to the single greatest contribution of the Froolian Empire - the language.

It's difficult to describe. You speak in code and make a voice like Ren Hoek using a funny Italian accent. "De queek a-browne fox-a yumped ov'r de lay-zee a-dog." That's the closest approximation I can type and still make sense. As I stated before, the real language was encoded. We could speak to each other for hours at a time (and often did) and no outsider had a clue what we were saying.

This space will be used to document the lost language of the Froolian Empire. If any of you come across or remember any vital information (or wish to amend anything I've mentioned or forgotten above), please forward it to me and I will add it to the official record.

My email is pwwhdr70@gmail.com.

Mass Effect

As long as I'm praising scores to video games I might as well include Mass Effect.

The game was pretty neat, but the two noteworthy elements were the production design (which is drawn from early 80's sci-fi concepts) and the music.

The score is heavily influenced by 80's classics like Blade Runner, Dune, and TRON. It adds a surreal quality to the game and is very atmospheric and moody on its own.

http://rapidshare.com/files/370233199/Mass_Effect_Score.zip

Merchant Prince

I rarely think about Captain Rondo any more. It's one of those dream projects I had when I thought I was going to be a film maker and was young enough to imagine such things were possible for me. How little I knew.

So I'll devote a section of this blog to detailing story elements and ideas as I think of/remember them. I never had a complete script, just some ideas sketched out in rough form.

I'll get into origins and other specifics later. Right now, the idea I had tonight. For some reason I feel the need to record it.

Ok, I never had my head fully wrapped around the second movie. The main story/bad guy plot shifted straight from the first to the third. The idea being, you thought the bad guy was dead in the first movie, but then we bring him back in the third! I guess they did that with the Death Star though, huh? Turning an idea on it's head? Who knew?

But the second movie was always a little hazy. I had some vague notions that I wanted it to be more character driven than pure action - and I wanted it to be more of a sequel in the vein of The Road Warrior or Temple of Doom, in that we take the main characters and introduce them to completely new environments - and learn a LOT more about them from there.

So I thought it would be neat that since this is time travel/paradox type stuff, why not do something more Star Trek and have the main characters meet themselves? Sort of.

Simply devise a scenario where Rondo meets his present self - IF his home planet had won the war. See, Rondo is living on the fringe of society after his homeworld is defeated. He lies, cheats, steals and cons his way from one situation to the next, barely putting out the last fire (if at all) before moving on to the next. He's bitter and jaded, but not inhuman.

Ok, he's Han Solo. But we never really got to see enough of Han Solo, did we? That's where a lot of this sprang from.

So Rondo's alternate self is a merchant prince. He has wealth, power, a nice yacht, a loving family and oh, yeah - Einstein is his slave.

Einstein is the Navigator/Engineer on Rondo's ship. She was a slave that he won in a game of chance. He didn't really need a domestic and since she kind of tricked him into believing that's all there was to her, set her free. Little did he know that she was a super-genius with advanced degrees in astro-temporal mechanics and dimensional navigation (or whatever). He DID need an Engineer/Navigate at the time, so he hired her on.

Little did SHE know that Rondo didn't really destroy her deed and set her free. He tucked that away for potential future use and destroyed a fake chip/card/scroll with a ribbon on it in her presence.

So here we go a full movie getting to know and love these characters and now in the second movie we're confronted with this mess. Rondo would have turned out to be a pretty great guy had his planet survived the onslaught and...oh yeah. He owns another character we all loved from the first movie. How awkward for everyone involved.

Awkward, indeed, since we were able to sprinkle just the right amount of romantic Moonlighting-style dialogue between the two characters. By the end of the first movie it's clear that there's attraction between them and there may be a chance for these two. This just tosses a wrench into that little scenario and brings out a lot of hidden truths and hurt feelings.

The kids, they love this stuff!

3D Mugs

I've been going through as many tutorials as possible in Rhino 3D. Sometimes the results make me giddy, as is the case here.

The tutorial I was working emphasized color, ambient light and reflectivity. Basically, it involved changing the surface values and transparencies so that you see the difference between, say, a milky, ceramic mug and one made of glass.

Here is the result of changing a couple of values. I had no idea my software was this cool. (Click for a closer view!)

And here's what happens when we lower the lights and change the light emission values on the mugs. Coffee, anyone?

Yeah, I know. It's just a bunch of mugs. But it's a bunch of mugs that I made in my computer! Trust me. This is all leading up to awesome stuff. Baby steps.

Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura

Here's a little gem from 2001. It's the score to Arcanum, a steampunk D&D style video game - really cool. The music is composed for string quartet, so it's nice and soothing.

If you get a chance to play the game, definitely check it out. Some of the most fun I've had while sitting at a computer.

http://rapidshare.com/files/369086169/Arcanum_Score.zip