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Recently a friend turned me onto a great design and interactive media blog known as abduzeedo. After perusing about the blog for a few days I’ve found it to be a great resource for anyone in the interactive media field. The blog was created and developed by Fabio Sasso, a Brazilian designer from Brazil. He and several other designers and photographers write about all things media related, from photography, design, and animation. The blog is a great source for tutorials that show you how to create interesting and innovative designs, but the blog provides other resources as well. Need to know where to find great CG textures? Want to know how to create the iphone interface? How about watching a game of human tetris? It’s all on abduzeedo.

Right now abduzeedo is running a contest where two people will be selected to win a copy of flashloaded.com’s newest product called 3D wall. 3D wall is a program that lets you create a three dimensional digital portfolio in Adobe Flash. Follow this link and comment in the post by May 1st and you may walk off with a fancy new piece of software. Or at least check out the site if you want to see the greatest font ever.
(PS, the image at the beginning of this post is one of the great designs I learned how to create by visiting abuzeedo.com)

As a film students, I’m always looking for stories to tell and opportunities to get my work screened.  So when I got this message this morning from Highway 61 contributor Lauren Reid, I thought I’d pass it along not just to film students and geeks but animal lovers as well:

“Here’s something to do if you are a filmmaker: Cinema St. Louis and the Animal Protective Association of Missouri invite filmmakers living within a 120-mile radius of St. Louis to create a short film about the bond between people and their pets. Finalists will be showcased on the APA website, the APA MySpace page, YouTube and at the APA’s Grand Reopening Party. Cinema St. Louis will then choose one of the films to screen at the St. Louis Filmmakers Showcase in July. The entry deadline is April 1, 2008…
Here’s something that would be cute, a story about you and James. Could be fun since you two don’t really have quite the typical relationship between pets and owners. He’ll claw you during the day and sleep with you during the night.”

Besides my passive-aggressive cat, which you’re either unlikely or just unlucky to meet, you can catch other Screwball Comedies this and every proceeding Wednesday this semester. ”Topics in Film Studies: Screwball Comedy” will be screening a series of films as part of a class on this film genre.  It will start off at 7:15pm this Wednesday with the Frank Capra classic “It Happened One Night“. All of the films will be screened in the Winifred Moore Auditorium, and admission is FREE.  We expect you show up for class on time every week, that is unless you get lost in a series of seemingly disconnected misadventures which lead you to where you actually need to be that night.

As seen in a median driving along South Grand near Compton Hill in early January 2008. 

Leave your best reply to the query “Need a Website?” in the comments, and we’ll pick our favorite with a link to a website of their choice.  Check back for the winning entry in a post on Sunday, when we’ll close off contest entries.  Have Fun!

If you’re asking yourself, to paraphrase the famous poem “I’m not even sure (where) I’m supposed to be where today?”, maybe this is your early morning call after you’ve rolled out of your bedroom closet.  The first annual Clerksfest will take place tonight, November 29th at The Moolah Theater & Lounge in Midtown St. Louis.

Along with double-feature screenings of Clerks at 9:30 and Clerks II around 11:30, guests will get their hand on door prizes like free commemorative shirt and autographed memorabilia.  You can strut your stuff in public for the Randal Walk contest, and Walt “Lon Chaney of the ’90s” Flanagan might be the model of at least 4 choices for the Look Alike contest. 

What’s the matter - you don’t appreciate our ruse?  Clerks is indeed loosely based on the “Divine Comedy”, with short breaks representing the 9 levels of hell.  At least you’ll be doing good even if you feel like a dirty jizz mopper afterwards - If this event catches on, it might snowball (heh) into a series of screenings to help subsidize the purchase of land for a hostel in town.  And if you’re put off by the charitable ticket price, $25 online or $30 at the door, we suggest you leave change when applicable;  “Be Honest” you weren’t making plans (except for that hockey scrimmage) today anyway.

This Friday November 30th, Webster University will be the host of the RHA Video Game Tournament from 8pm to Midnight. In the Marletto’s Marketplace, which is next to Webster Hall, student gamers from Webster University will compete to win prizes and place rank is games such as Guitar Hero 3, Halo 3, and Super Smash Brothers Melee. At this time it is not clear whether members of the general public can compete, but spectators are welcome as guests of students (who will include the contributor of this blog entry).
With a grand prize of a 19-inch LCD HDTV for the Guitar Hero 3 competition, the atmosphere is sure to be exciting, and even those who don’t win will elligible for door prizes. But in addition to prizes the RHA needs equipment donations (or at least equipment to borrow) so that they can pull this tournament off; if you can, please donate equipment. For more information check their Facebook event page or through Zach Haugen and WebUGraph.

Gloating is not one of my talents, nor is it something I look well upon, but these circumstances negate those inhibitions. You might remember earlier last week when our blog, brimming with civic pride as it was, challenged Kansas City area blogger Chimpotle over the Gorvernor’s Cup? Following the Rams’ victory over our AFC cross-state counterparts the Chiefs, Chimpotle was obligated to fulfill his end of our bet by changing his color scheme to blue and gold.

Of course, we didn’t ask him do honor the bet this well. Complete with a post acknowledging our moral victory, our KC counterpart has decked out with site with a new logo featuring a monkey and his beloved football. We suggest you check out his handiwork today, but if not we’ve saved a couple screen caps for when his theme changes back (although I should mention that this looks better). Of course, had we lost the bet we’d be wearing Cardinals Cheifs red (in the same sense we’re “Royal retro powder blue” as is).

It should be mentioned that nary a blogger among us can be considered a pro sports fan, and yet our civic pride that drove this bet can be attested to rather well. According to OurCivicPride.com, a site that tracks regional sport rivalries and the bets exchanged between elected officials, neither Kansas City’s or St. Louis’ mayors placed bets on this year’s Governor’s Cup game (insert Special Session joke here). Instead that site had to settle on writing up about our little wager this weekend, all of which (I needn’t remind you) our winnings will be collected. And as it turns out, I’m not o bad about this gloating thing after all

We’re brimming with civic pride in anticipation of this year’s Missouri Governor’s Cup game, that annual contest between our professional football powerhouse Rams and Kansas City’s “team” - the Chiefs.  So confident are we in the greatest show on turf (do they still call the Rams that?), that we’re willing to make a public wager over the I-70 series (aka The Battle of Missouri).

Of course in order to make a cross-state blog wager, we had to find the right blog in Kansas City to take on.  Meet Chimpotle. He has a taste for O’Fallon Beer, thinks lowly of Gabriel’s fighting abilities,  and will pay us in straight cash.  He took the bait, adding that “It’s on like Donkey Kong…That baby blue could use a nice blood red paint job.”

That being said, our wager is friendly - we’ll be trading paint jobs.  Should our Rams win the Governor’s Cup game tonight, he’ll have to use our team’s colors in his blog’s theme for all of this Labor Day weekend.  And vice versa. 

Of course we’ll bring it on like we’re a land assemblage tax credit and he’s governor Matt Blunt.  Either way it’s bound for local control…(stay tuned)

Just because the next couple weekends in Saint Louis will be jam packed with outdoor Festivals, midnight bike-wrangling cowgirls and boys, and lord only knows what else on Labor Day weekend, doesn’t mean you need to come up short this week.  For those inclined to stay indoors due to inclement weather (or just us film geeks), the Webster Film Series and KDHX have teamed up for a local filmmaker showcase screening of sorts.  Under the moniker of “Coming Up Shorts” and playing this Thursday, August 23rd @ 8 PM in the Winifred Moore Auditorium (where else?), this is how the Film Series describes the show:

KDHX Community Media presents the results of their filmmaking competition,
Coming Up Shorts. The program showcases the 3-minute videos made by local
media artists with KDHX TV providing the selected artists with all the
resources necessary to make their shorts, trailers or a stand-alone short
films. These videos will screen on KDHX TV as “Bumpers” between their scheduled
programming.

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We’ve already tried to get you out to theaters this week, much less our effort to encourage film screening attendance on a weekly basis.  Now, during the dog days of summer, comes a reasonable excuse for inviting your friends to revel in the voyueristic glory that is good film.  But seeing as our taste for film is exceedingly local this season, here are a few films you simply must see in St. Louis this weekend if you’re going to see them at all.

Premier Screening

• 10 MPH @ 3pm on Saturday August 11th in the Tivoli Theater
  
  This inventive take on the road trip genre of films tells the story of two aspiring filmmakers who try to find meaning somewhere between Seatle and Boston - except doing so on Segway scooters. If that doesn’t sound original enough, you’ll get a chance to harass the film’s creators in a Q&A after the film. But don’t take your time, because unlike this films’ protagonists, this film will be going somewhere soon.

Reel Late @ The Tivoli

• Dead Alive (aka Braindead) @ midnight on Friday-Saturday August 10-11th, and 10pm on Sunday August 12th
  
  This early film of Peter Jackson’s (yes, that director) is probably one of the bloodiest zombie/horror films ever made. And while this film might not be for the squeamish, you’ll also want to bring along your sense of humor, if not merely irony/poetic justice. A must see for fans of the genre, much less audiences inclined by the midnight format.

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We love sharing some of our favorite links with you so much we couldn’t wait for it earlier this week.  But while these links would have to wait, let that not detract from great work from some of our favorite local blogs.  For those of you taking a lazy sunday, here’s some links with your coffee when you wake up in the late afternoon.

• Seems like everyone is playing blog games these days.  PubDef.net challenged us fill in the caption between Mayors Bloomberg and Slay, and Dividing by Zero keeps giving us a monday mystery mix/podcast that keeps us guessing the tracklisting.
• Imagine St. Louis without the Arch.  BrickCity helps us visualize this idea, which raises more questions about how we use public space.  As they say, “if your town doesn’t have one, it sucks to be you”.
• KDHX finally redesigned their website, but they could use your help.
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