I have no idea what the true purpose of this spam may be.

This arrived in my inbox a few minutes ago. The text is in Russian so I had it translated with Babel Fish.  The results made me chuckle.

As translated the subject says:  “Carefully, [moshennitsa]!”
Just over the picture it says: “It steals your money!”
And the main text reads:  ”[Pashkulskaya] Helen Nikolaevna Date of generation 12.11.1984 g. Place of the generation: g. anthracite, the Ukraine It lives in Saint Petersburg. Under the guise customs broker it is occupied by financial machinations, [umyshlenno] involving the custom fee of loads, leads your goods to the confiscation. You be careful!”

It looks like translation software still has a way to go.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m preoccupied by financial machinations.

My most recent Flash work

I just put the final touches on my most recent job.  

A company called In Post hired me to build this site for a handbag and wallet company called BE.  I was handed a pdf file from the designer as well as a handful of reference sites and built the site from that, using flash and actionscript 3.

Almost all of the content is loaded from external image and xml files which makes it possible for the client to update all of their information without going back to In Post or myself.  As a result I was faced with a lot of fresh challenges from a coding perspective.  I won’t go into all of the details but it’s safe to say that I learned a lot of tricks making this site and have expanded my flash arsenal considerably.  Another advantage to loading data in this manner is it keeps the initial swf file rather small and the site loads much faster than if it were made from a large self-contained file.  

Note: When I last checked the site content was incomplete.

Update Feb 6, 2009: Some of the content has been updated but they’ve introduced a doubled up background image that doesn’t center properly.

Update Jan. 7, 2010: Every time I go to the BE site I get a warning that their server is hosting malicious software so I thought I’d post a demo version of the site so that people can actually see how it works.

I was happy to learn that Sammy the Hanukkah Lobster was featured on Much More Music’s Listed program over the holidays!  Sure it was as a horrible holiday tune but we were among some good company (and some truly horrible company as well). Regardless, I’m proud to have our work featured alongside Ren and Stimpy, Max Headroom and Gary Coleman.

Here’s the full list:

1.   White Christmas - Jingle Cats
2.   Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer – Dr. Elmo
3.   Reggae Christmas – Bryan Adams and Pee Wee Herman
4.   I Want to Rock You Hard This Christmas – The Dan Band
5.   Fleck the Halls – Ren and Stimpy
6.   Sammy the Hanukkah Lobster – H.B. Steinberg
7.   Christmas Time (Don’t Let the Bells End) – The Darkness
8.   Jingle Bell Rock – Hall and Oates
9.   Merry Christmas Happy Holidays – NSYNC and Gary Coleman
10. Please Come Home For Christmas – Jon Bon Jovi
11. O’ Come All Ye Faithful – Twisted Sister
12. I Hate Christmas – George Patience
13. Don’t Shoot Me Santa – The Killers
14. Zat You Santa Clause? – Buster Poindexter
15. The First Noel – The Crash Test Dummies
16. Merry Christmas Santa Clause – Max Headroom
17. Silent Night – Winger
18. Christmas Magic – Ali Lohan
19. Make Love to Christmas – Ivan Hrvastska
20. Little Drummer Boy – Ru Paul

I was a bit dismayed to hear the female commentator say that Sammy was neither catchy nor fun to watch but after viewing the entire program I found that this was her constant refrain along with “It’s not Christmassy at all!”

Other than Sammy, my personal favorite would have to be Make Love To Chistmas although I’ve always had a soft spot for Max Headroom’s Merry Christmas Santa Clause.

I’m astounded that after 4 years Sammy finally got his due.  If you’ve never seen the Sammy the Hanukkah Lobster video there are two high quality versions available for viewing on Sammy’s official website.

Sammy the Hanukkah Lobster

Christmas Eve is upon us and I wanted to wish everyone joy and merriment over the holidays and all the best for the New Year!

I finally finished watching the Survivor: Gabon reunion show and one thing has stuck in my head (other than the fact that Bob should have given  the $100,000 to Sugar or at the very least made some acknowledgement that she was the only reason he made it to the end) and that is a remark Jeff Probst made.  He thought it was interesting that Randy was applauded while Corinne was booed.  Personally I don’t find that to be much of a mystery.

The difference between Randy and Corrine is that Randy’s nastiness comes from a real emotional hang-up and Corrine’s comes from her believing she’s better than everyone else.  

At some time in the past, something happened that emotionally crippled Randy.  He mentions that his dog “never cheated on him, never lied…” and that’s made me think it may be something like his wife/lover having an affair with his best friend.  Whatever it was it fuels his anger and makes him the way he is.  At the same time he’s very self deprecating and he has a sense of humour about his misanthropic personality.

Corrine on the other hand is merely nasty and this nastiness is driven by an unwarranted sense of superiority.  In contrast to Randy, someone (probably her parents) made Corrine think that she was really special.  She’s a spoiled princess who’s social skills haven’t developed past 9th grade.  

It’s also no mystery that her most crass attacks focused on Sugar.  Corrine is just another insecure woman who needs to attack the competition to bolster her self esteem.  She makes a big fuss about being a college graduate while Sugar is “and uneducated leech”.  Like she’s the only one who’s ever gone to school.  What does she turn this much hyped education into?   Pharmaceutical sales! ( I don’t know if there are any statistics on this but it seems to me that a majority of reality show contestants are either wait staff or in pharmaceutical sales).  Woo-hoo Corrine!  That’s a lot more impressive than being a pin-up model!  No, wait… from what I’ve seen while waiting in doctor’s offices… it’s very much like being a pin-up model except you wear a suit.

“911.”

(sobbing) “Yes… I … I just saw someone run over a squirrel!  In broad daylight!  He just… he just … kept going and I… I…”

“Okay. Okay calm down… where are you calling from?”

“10 Semolina Drive.”

“We’ll send someone over…”

(hysterical) “I think he’s dead!”

“We’ll send someone immediately…”

“It’s just so… so…”

“Did you get the plate number?”

“Yes.”

“Give it to me.”

She does.

“I’ll put out an APB.  Stay where you are someone will arrive shortly.”

“Okay… okay… okay…”

Later at the scene of the crime:

“How is he?”

“I’m afraid he’s dead ma’am”

(begins to sob) “He was… it doesn’t…”

“I know how hard this can be ma’am. If it’s any consolation he doesn’t appear to have suffered he was dead in seconds…”

“His tail… it kept swishing back and forth!  He was…”

“That often happens.  People’s bodies will jerk and twitch long after they’re dead.”

“It’s just so… so… horrible.”

“I know.” (pause) “Is it okay if I ask you a few questions?”

“O.. o… okay.”

“Did you know this squirrel?”

“Not… not personally, I mean, I’ve seen him around the neighborhood, in my tree, on the back deck… that sort of thing.”

“Did you ever witness him hanging out with anyone suspicious?”

“Just other squirrels I guess…”

“This hit and run was definitely not perpetrated by other squirrels… did you see the driver?”

“Not really… he looked vaguely man shaped.”

“Have you seen any men interacting with the squirrels in the neighborhood?”

“There is… there’s an older fellow who feeds them… he lives at number 24…”

“Interesting.”

“Do you think he… is it possible?”

“Anything’s possible ma’am, but we’ll know more once we run the plates.” (awkward silence)  “If you think of anything else… here’s my card.”

“Okay… thank you.”

“Please let me know if you plan on leaving the province…”

“I don’t have any plans to leave the province.”

“If you do.”

“Okay.”

I’ve recently designed a new business card (business cards, actually: three versions based on the three colour schemes for my corporate site ) and I’m having difficulty deciding how to handle the image on the back. Here are the two options that I’m choosing between:

The top one really pops but the subtlety off the bottom one seems a bit more elegant. I keep going back and forth between the two.

That’s why I’ve decided to seek some outside opinions. If you’ve got the time, please log in and leave a comment letting me know which version you prefer. Thanks!

Back V1: the madfatter in his full opacity glory

Back V2: a gentler, subtler madatter

Read the rest of this entry »

The final chapter of “Meher, me, two strippers and a bodyguard”.

Interlude: A tale of two cops:

Cop one:

The first night I arrive in Los Angeles Meher picks me up at the airport and we set out in search of our original accomodations, Deano’s Motel in Culver City. Just as we accidentally pass the motel a police cruiser pulls up behind us and hits our rearview with this tremendous spotlight, blinding us and making the officer approaching look like the silhouetted aliens in Close Encounters. The cop emerges from the brightness on Meher’s side.

“You guys look lost.”

“We were just looking for Deano’s motel… it’s right there.”

I turn my head to see the officer’s partner silently hovering on my side.

“You’re lights also out in the back.”

“Oh really? Which one?”

“Well there’s a lot back there… hold on.” the cop steps back as Meher plays with his turn signal.

“The left one?” Meher asks.

“Uh… yeah. Can I see your license and registration?” he takes it from Meher. “You guys from Ontario?”

“Yeah.”

“Pretty good huh?”

“You must be psychic.”

The cop disappears for a while… a long while and then returns Meher’s papers to him.

“Ok. You know about that light and everything else is fine.”

“Okay.”

“May the force be with you.” the cop says, leaving Meher totally awestruck.

Cop two:

The next day I’m standing on the steps of our motel staring toward the street in an effort to mentally will Meher to return before checkout time. A police car pulls up next to me and the cop says “Hi.”

“Hi.” I say and then look back up the street.

“So, you’re just hanging out?”

“Yep.” I explain that I’m waiting for Meher and I notice the cop checking out my legs and boots like: “The kid’s thin… is he heroin addict thin? Hmm.”

“So you’re from out of town?”

“We’re from Ontario.”

“Just vacationing?”

“Yep,”

“Well okay then.” and he drives off.

Hassled by two cops in my first 12 hours here… and it hasn’t happened since.

There’s nothing you can do… it’s Culver City Jake.

And now our feature presentation:

As Meher and I return from a late lunch of burritos at La Salsa we find Erika standing in the back parking lot of the motel. It seems that the trucker friend of hers who was supposed to pick them up at four o’clock got held up (not like by a burglar) while trying to offload his truck. The forklift driver miscalculated and dropped a skid full of steel on a guy standing in the loading bay. As a witness to the man’s death the trucker has been delayed indefinitely and they’ll need to keep the stuff in Meher’s car until at least 11 o’clock tonight… the plot thickens.

Meher in the courtyard of our motel. Our room was #3, just to his left.

Read the rest of this entry »

Part two of: What happened to Trevor and Meher while they were in L.A. together composing the score for Reasons To Live.

April 3, 1998.

Stopped working on the score at just after 4am last night. I tried to stay up with Meher but I sort of drifted off at about 3:30. At 12:38 today the phone rings and thus begins The Continuing Story of Tony and His Girls…

RING!

Meher’s eyes light up expectantly.

“It’s the stripper!” I say.

“Hello? Hey how ya doin’!” Meher nods in my direction. It’s the stripper.

Erika wants to know if they can keep their bags in our room. They’ve lost their room (apparently due to some loud fighting late last night) and they need somewhere to stash their stuff until their friend shows up around four o’clock or so.

“What do you think?” Meher asks.

“I don’t know.” I say with a touch of worry.

He hangs up the phone having agreed to protect the stripper’s worldly goods.

“I knew this would happen!” I say feeling pretty world wise, “I wrote it in my book last night.”

“What?” Meher asks.

“That we were supposed to offer our room to them.” I enter the bathroom to wash my face. “Next thing they’ll ask to use our room ‘just for a little while’ and Tony will beat us up and empty our wallets.”

“No we can’t have that.” Meher leaves the room and returns five minutes later. He’s convinced them to put their bags in his car, that way they won’t have an excuse to get into our room if we’re out. Also, Tony wants to go for coffee with us.

“Just Tony? Or the whole gang?.”

“The whole gang, I think. They say there’s a place within walking distance just around the corner. It’s weird, I walked up there and Erika was just in panties and a bra and I was like ‘oh! sorry’ and they were like ‘no, that’s cool’. ”

‘They’re up to something.’ I think. My mind keeps drifting to Jim Thompson novels and how the protagonist is continually presented with chances to escape, but instead keeps digging himself in deeper and deeper…. mixed up with the wrong people until he is double-crossed and he says “I’ve been played for a sucker!”

Later:

I’ve left the door open while I attempt to strategically hide stuff in our room, my ID, camera. walkman etc… Leah appears in the doorway with an armful of stuffed animals.

“They didn’t want to stay in the car.” She smiles coyly, “Is it alright if I leave them here?”

Um… “Sure”. She is really cute in a little girl Lolita kind of way.

“They won’t take up much space.” She puts them on our chair.

“And they add a little colour to the room.”

“Thanks.” She smiles – coyness incarnate – and then leaves. It dawns on me that I am a sucker. She’s just got to bat her eyes and suddenly they’ve got personal items in our room.

Meher with Leah the stripper's stuffed animals

To continue the Reasons to Live retrospective, over the next few days I’ll be excerpting some journal entries that I wrote during the film’s creation.

As I’ve mentioned earlier, when it came time to write the score for Reasons To Live my composer, Meher Steinberg, was in Los Angeles seeking job opportunities. I couldn’t imagine anyone else doing the job and seeing as I was unhappily single and feeling somewhat sorry for myself, going to California for a week or two seemed like a good idea. So, in the spring of 1998 I got on a plane with a VHS tape and a journal and went to meet Meher.

After spending a night in a horrifying motel room in Culver City we eventually settled into the Royal Santa Monica motel in Westwood. While Meher wrote the score hunched over his keyboard in front of the television I’d stay close by scribbling in my journal and doodling. After we’d been there a few nights we got a phone call and thus began our interaction with two strippers and their “bodyguard”. The rest of this entry is transcribed from my journal:

Meher writing the score in our Royal Santa Monica motel room - April, 1998

Meher picks up the phone and there’s a woman on the other end who asks if we have any cigarettes. He tells her we don’t smoke and then she reveals that she’s on the second floor in a room directly across the little courtyard of our motel. She’s an “exotic dancer” and her name is Erika. She’s travelling with Tony, her “bodyguard” and Leah, her sister. She asks Meher if we want to hire them but Meher explains that it’s not the sort of thing he usually does. She says knowingly, “You’ve never done it before and you’re not sure if you can afford it.” Meher agrees. I’m stuck between them waving to her through the window while sitting on my bed. The phone call ends and Erika walks around the upper balcony singing tunelessly.

Later:
“I’ve found a cigarette, Meher!”
Meher – “Yay!
Trevor – “Congratulations!”

She comes down to smoke on some plastic, umbrellaed patio furniture in the courtyard, that sits on a vast expanse of astroturf. She’s a rather large girl with the beginnings of a double chin and a big mess of a dyed blonde bob. She waves to me and I reply in kind. She goes back upstairs.

Even later:
Tony and Leah return with some take-out food. Erika and Leah then come down to the courtyard.

“Is that Trevor sitting in the window?”

“Yep!”, I wave my foot at them. They both sit down at a patio table. Leah is actually really cute although leaning towards her sister’s heaviness. She looks a bit shy and yells “Anthony!” throwing a pack of cigarettes at her motel room door. They bounce onto the balcony. She runs upstairs and disappears. Erika remains, smoking and Meher finds out she’s from Redding California originally. “If you’ve seen red necks, cows and horses… you’ve seen Redding.”

She tells us she’s got to get work tonight or they’ll have to check out at 11am tomorrow but it’s Thursday night and “… nobody wants a stripper on a Thursday night!”. Tomorrow it will be easy to find work she tells us, she’s just worried about the time between 11 and 3 (they’ve got a ton of stuff in their room). It occurs to me that we’re supposed to suggest using our room, I mean, if it’s only going to be a four hours… but I resist the temptation.

“God it’s freezing! I’m going to got get a sweatshirt, excuse me.” Now she runs up to her room. “Don’t come back on our account” Meher says quietly and we leave our door open for a few minutes until we can’t stand the cold anymore.

Later still:
The phone rings.
“It’s like Grand Central Station!” Meher says as he picks up the receiver.
“Do you have a car?” I hear over the phone.
“Oh yeah, I do… but I’ve got so much work to do… I can’t.” Meher asks me if I’ve got 50 cents.
“No, I’ve got about 10 pennies.”
“I’ve got a buck I can lend you… ok.” he hangs up the phone and explains that Erika wanted a drive down to Sunset.
“What’s the dollar for?”
“It’s worth it for entertainment.” he explains, “For the bus.”
“Well,” I say “looks like we’ve picked up a stray stripper.”
Meher laughs.
Read the rest of this entry »