It’s been a pretty busy couple of months here, with the holidays, post-holidays, new job, being dad to the coolest little dude in the world, trying to kick-start a personal project… among other things. Somewhere in that blur, Jen and I designed and launched a new site for my father’s insurance agency.  So, if you’re looking for car, homeowners, life, health insurance, or anything in-between, stop by frankdippelagency.com and give them a shout. They do have the handsomest insurance website in (at least) all of Maryland, after all.

We also designed a site for Jen’s brother and his wife a little while back. Round log siding – get it while it’s… round!

This video clip (click the image to view) is the result of an experiment / challenge that I put myself up to recently. I’m sure everyone has seen the “growing vines” effect that’s been so popular in motion graphics work for a while now. I was playing with one of the new options in Maya’s polygon modeling tool set, and I thought it would be fun to try out that same effect in 3D. Because of the fact that Maya’s poly extrude operation doesn’t have keyable min and max value fields, I had to figure out a few work-arounds.

A step-by-step walkthrough of my roundabout process for growing poly vines in Maya follows below:

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I don’t generally make it a habit of posting random youtube videos here, but this one is just too priceless to pass up. Watch one of my heroes speak his mind about something that irks me to no end:

Can you handle all the handsome?

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The cats aren’t the only ones loving the hardwood floors and the massive amounts of sunlight.

After a long and overly drawn-out transition, an emergency call for painters to redo the entire place from floor to ceiling, random issues with both of our cars, and literally hours upon hours spent cleaning an absurdly filthy kitchen, we’re all finally starting to settle into the new place.

We still have lots more boxes to unpack, a couple of pieces of furniture to assemble or reassemble, and one enormous couch to somehow cram up the steps, among a million other little things… but it is definitely starting to feel like home already.

Before hitting Brewer’s Art for happy hour yesterday, I managed to catch Kobayashi’s 1967 classic Samurai Rebellion at The Charles – part of their ongoing Revival Series. I missed his better-known film Harakiri a few weeks back, and I’m now kicking myself for that (just bumped it to the top of the Netflix queue). Rebellion was excellent. Don’t let the name fool you, though… there’s barely a hint of action in the first hour or so of the film.

Mifune stars as Isaburo – an older samurai and family man, who takes a stand against the cruel and oppressive actions of the clan that he serves. Circumstances drive Isaburo, his son Yogoro, and daughter-in-law Ichi to rise up against the very regimented and tyranical social order in which they live. It is a film about radical indivualism, defiance, and… well, rebellion. I won’t go into it much farther than that (see Ebert’s review above for more info), but suffice it to say that I was blown away. The writing and dialogue are extremely intelligent and challenging, the cinematograpy and set design is beautiful, and the eruption of swordplay at the end is downright fantastic, maybe even a bit over the top.

Rebellion plays again on Monday and Thursday nights this week. The Criterion Collection dvd transfer is supposed to be excellent too. Don’t miss it.

Next Saturday: Kill!

(note to self ~ make the time to watch Sanjuro again this week)

Just in case anybody’s trying to track me down on a Saturday afternoon over the next couple of months…

THE CHARLES’ REVIVAL SERIES:
Showtimes: Saturdays at noon. Mondays at 7pm. Thursdays at 9pm.

SEVEN SAMURAI 6/29.
SAMURAI SAGA 7/1, 7/3, 7/6.
YOJIMBO 7/8, 7/10, 7/13.
SANJURO 7/15 7/17, 7/20.
HARAKIRI 7/22, 7/24, 7/27.
ZATOICHI THE FUGITIVE 7/29, 7/31, 8/3.
ZATOICHI ON THE ROAD 8/5, 8/7, 8/10.
NEW TALE OF ZATOICHI 8/12, 8/14, 8/17.
THREE OUTLAW SAMURAI 8/19, 8/21, 8/24.
SAMURAI REBELLION 8/26
KILL! 9/2, 9/4, 9/7.
SWORD OF DOOM 9/9, 9/11, 9/14.

Of all of the Google Maps hacks that I’ve come across so far, WikiMapia definitely rules the roost. This one takes its cues from Wikipedia’s “open source” encyclopedia concept, allowing users to add what amounts to sticky notes about specific locations. Click on the image at left, zoom in or out, drag yourself around the globe, check out the notes that others have already left, edit earlier notes, and add your own…

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Photo taken in Baltimore’s Mt. Vernon neighborhood. The tall building in the back is the historic Belvedere Hotel. If you’re ever in the area at night, it is well worth it to stop by the 13th Floor (bar / club on the top level of the building) – it has huge windows looking north and south across most of the city. I saw Lake Trout perform there during a thunderstorm about 5 years ago. Pretty cool setting for a show.

belvederebaltimore.com

After stopping by The Brewer’s Art for a brief happy hour (mmmmmmmm… delicious microbrewed belgian style ales for only $2.50) on Saturday, we headed down to Fell’s Point to wander around, enjoy the sunshine for a bit (even I need a few hours each week away from the computer), and get some grub.

Despite my best attempts at resisting the urge, I was eventually drawn to the mothership. I boarded with every intention of keeping my cash in pocket. This was to be simply a reconnaissance mission: scope things out, listen to a few albums, maybe find one or two to add to the wishlist, and just plain revel in the nirvana of a perfect record shop.

…but then, in the used cd stacks I found a copy of matt pond PA’s long out-of-print second album Measure. I’ve been looking for this one for a few years now (on and off), and had pretty much given up on it. I picked up their first abum – the tremendous, and also currently out-of-print Deer Apartments – after hearing them on one of those CMJ sampler discs back in ‘99, and they have been a personal favorite ever since. I finally had the chance to catch them live a few months ago, while working up in Philly. Excellent show. The friend that I dragged along with me, who had never heard them before, couldn’t get over the fact that they are not all over big corporate radio already. Of course, if you listen to good radio – like most of the “progressive” npr music stations (see The Current and KEXP in my sidebar, for instance) – you will hear mpPA with decent frequency.

In any event, if you’re in the mood for checking out some great tunes, stop by the mpPA website for a bunch of free downloads, and an always interesting bit of blogging from the band. They’ve been labeled everything from folk to jangle-pop to “emo for grown-ups” (Rolling Stone, go figure) to chamber-pop (blame that one on the cellist, i guess) but none of these really come close to describing their sound. Just check it out for yourself:

• The Hollows – here’s a direct link to an mp3 of a track from Measure.

• Matt Pond PA Powers Up The Chamber Rock – NPR link with a couple of songs, as well as an interview and live perfomance from World Cafe.

enjoy…