Mike DeWolfe : The Daily Edition

I have a love-hate of Starbucks. I love their coffee. But I think that if Hitler had started a coffee company, it would be Starbucks. Order, efficiency and vou vill ve ordering! July 1st brought the body count of 600 store closures. While that seems like a lot, it just meant that the Starbucks in my room had to shut down, but the one in living room is still going strong. I have heard complaints from Starbucks staff for some time. No matter what the locations order for their stores, Starbucks ships what they please to the stores. If you're looking for French Roast, you end up finding only Kodiak (or whatever Godless brand they sell that tastes like Grizzly balls). If the high-end coffee company cannot cater to their customers' preferences, they are doomed. This Tuesday is touted as being "Black Tuesday"-- word of massive layoffs coming at the coffee giants' locations. Here is a sampling of web chatter: Posted by: Pins_and_Needles | July 28, 2008 at 07:21 ...

Do you have a great shortcut through modern day life? If you do, I would love to see it on my site, Tales of the Jumping Moose . What counts as a great tip? How about a way to free movie tickets? Or an alternative use for a household item? Or a way that businesses scam the little guy-- knowing the scam is half the battle-- so that you can out-maneuver their tricks. Is cooking or entertaining your thing? If so, how about adding your favorite recipe to my cooking blog, ClearYourPlate.com ? How about a great way to prep for a big party? Or a way to make the most out of a 100 mile diet? Heck-- do you just want to do a one sentence rant? Throw a message in a bottle and throw it into the ocean . (claim to fame: this is my first completed Facebook app).

Christopher Nolan's work goes back to the 1990s. Memento was his break-out film. Before that: Following (I will try to track down a copy to rent). Before Following, there was "Doodlebug": ( sorry-- this footage quality super-sucks ) Man, have his skills ever evolved, as given testiment by the Dark Knight . Since Memento, each of his films has gotten better, and Memento was amazing.

Here is edit #4-- shorter soundtrack and more footage. I have almost all of the material that we can use. The trick now: tweaking the stills and compositing the different layers of material. I haven't gone nuts: the most I have is 4 layers at any one point.

I have been in Special Effects land this week, with the daily filming, nightly compositing of images for our stop motion / claymation / mixed media opus. Tonight, the super cool T2: Judgement Day is running. I started meandering around the web and found this article from http://www.visualeffectssociety.com/documents/ves50revelfin.pdf . I like that Citizen Kane is on this list given its bounty of special effects shots-- miracles in the day, now common place-- likely I threw a couple of those into my shorts (er-- short films). The Visual Effects Society Unveils “50 Most Influential Visual Effects Films of All Time” Los Angeles, May 10, 2007 – Eric Roth, Executive Director of the Visual Effects Society (VES), announced today the results of the VES 50: The Most Influential Visual Effects Films of All Time, which was determined by a vote of VES members. The VES 50 is the backdrop of the 2007 VES Festival of Visual Effects, which will take place the weekend of June 7-10 at the Writers Guild ...

On one end of a spectrum of cool is the Christopher Nolan Dark Knight follow-up to Batman Begins. On the other end of the spectrum: Batman Dracula. Batman Dracula is one of Warhol's art films from the 1964; directed and produced by Andy Warhol. There is sme dispute as to whether it was done with the permission of DC Comics. It was screened only at his art exhibits and never made it to general distribution. A fan of the Batman serials, Warhol's movie was a "homage" to the series, and is considered the first appearance of a blatantly campy Batman. The film was until recently thought to have been lost, until scenes from the picture were shown at some length in the 2006 documentary Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis. Though Gregory Battcock played Batman, the promotion photos that have surfaced show a woman in Batman's outfit beside Warhol (dressed as Robin). Battcock (ironic name...) was murdered on Christmas Eve in Puerto Rico in 1980. Will this Warhol weird...

Here is today's edit of the filmed elements for the video that Alice and I are working on.

Alice and I are going to embark on this video we are working on. On Saturday and Sunday, I did two edits-- baby steps towards : Edit One Edit Two

I HATE Tim Horton's. I resent that in world where there is talk of banning trans-fats that these places pop-up like pimples on the ass of small town Canada. Here are some clips of Tim Horton's and various pranks against them. Some are dang funny: I want a curry Iced Cappucino! Combine two bimbos with two cellphones: Prank gone very wrong: (we had this idea in the 1980s... but Steve's Mom wouldn't let us take the car-- though she did volunteer Russ as the "victim") This guys loves donuts (and maybe his friend in the BG): This is a regular deliver of the meat for their breakfast sandwiches: This prank has been directly taken from Tandori Horton's pranks in Karachi:

This from Project Marbella: Turntable For the Tightest Driveways Originally uploaded by projectmarbella Car turntables for tight driveways! This is a great product for those of use with either tight driveways or difficult garages. Can either be hand operated or driven with an electric motor. Contact projectmarbella@yahoo.com for a free quotation.