What a Busy Guy (or, Long Time No See)

Hi, everybody! Good to see you again. You look good! Probably lots of interesting things going on for you lately.

Sorry I haven't posted in a while, it's been all kinds of hectic. Nobody even hears from me any more, most of the time; my little brother left a message on my Facebook account at one point just to ask what the hell happened to me.

What? Oh, nothing. No, no! Nothing that exciting, I'd hate to bore you. All I do now is schoolwork and sleep, it's sort of sad.

Oh! But actually, you know, now that you mention it. Remember that project I mentioned that I was working on with a couple buddies? Well, guess what was just released this past November Sixth:



Hecklevision presents -- Superman in: Japoteurs!

My goodness, look at that. Look at it! It has been completed, and the audio issues in the preview clip have been addressed, and now it is up and published and available. Ninety-nine cents buys a wonderfully animated, staggeringly racist Max Fleischer Superman short -- with our hilarious audio commentary already added and synched up beforehand, for your convenience and viewing pleasure.

Not to brag, but this is awesome.

Why, I'd buy that for a dollar -- and so can you! But, don't take my word for it! Have a look at the front page of the iRiffs site:



Top Short, baby! Yeah! Sales figures and peer reviews agree -- our Japoteurs iRiff is true value through and through, a dollar's worth as ever you've known it!

I'm not laying it on too thick, am I? I'm sorry, I've got a bit of a headrush going. Nothing perks a brother's attitude up quite like hitting the big time and being published in a brand new medium.

Ooh! And speaking of being published! (God, I'm good at segues.) Feast your eyes:



Uptown Magazine! Solidarity Forever!

With the conclusion of the sixteen-day sixteen-day press union strike that was holding up the papers back home, Uptown has resumed its publication schedule and includes a column of mine in its latest edition. Pretty cool, right? Pretty good times!

For consistency's sake, the column series has continued to bear the same name as my Winnipeg blog; the intention is still that I'll return there, once I've earned this Masters I'm working on, so I figured why not. Besides, no point in arbitrarily changing what works; even in my absence Slurpees and Murder has remained a very popular blog and a very popular title, certainly far more popular than I personally have ever been. (Now there's a humbling consideration.)

They don't mention me by name a lot back home, and they never did to begin with, but damned if the Slurpees and Murder tag isn't still making the rounds over there. To wit:



It was brought to my attention that the Comments Editor of the University of Manitoba campus paper, the Manitoban, went on at length a few weeks ago about the largely negative self-image of the city in a piece he titled "Enough with the Slurpees and murders".

I found this out through correspondence with a contact, and--what? Never mind how I found out. It was an... anonymous source. A tipster, placed very high up in the... political... okay, it was my mother. My mom emailed me to say that she saw a nice article in the school paper that mentioned me, and she clipped it out for when I come home. Yeah, yeah, yuk it up. That's not the point. The point is, it's nice to still be recognized.

I spent two years as a volunteer CD reviewer for the Manitoban, back in the day, although you wouldn't know it to visit the site. Their archives are down right now, probably due to the site redesign they've obviously done since I last looked. So with that said, I don't think anybody else remembers (or could now easily prove) that I wrote there, and it's neat to find out that my name popped up in the ol' campus paper completely independently of my input or my proximity to the city.

Okay, granted -- it isn't my name in there, it's the name of my blog. Such is usually the case. And the reference to my blog is indirect, though obvious and repeated several times for effect. And the article actually seems to be written in vehement opposition to my previous work, holding the combination of nouns as some defeatist self-esteem disease that threatens to permanently tank the attitude and the reputation of the city. Hmm. Whatever! I take my exposure where I can get it. The blog's been mentioned previously by musicians, activist sites and even legitimate newspapers; nothing wrong with being able to blot out "student publications" on the big metaphorical bingo card of media outlet shoutouts. I'm on my way, baby!



So, anyway, yeah. That's what's new with me.

My word, what a long post! I should get back into the habit of making shorter posts at more regular interviews, if only so people back home stop assuming the worst. In the meantime, I'll do some more schoolwork and then get out and enjoy the, uh... enjoy the weather.



The hell is even going on here. "Snowsqualls", yeah, okay. This town is screwed up, man.

Excitement Abounds

I slept in like crazy today, oh man. The workload is pretty ridiculous in this program -- I've got another three assignments due by next Thursday, oh man -- but I don't have class on Fridays during this term, so the end-week option of sleeping all day and working all night is a nice one to have.

I've kept surprisingly active, though, workload aside. I get out and about every so often, or chip in on some other project entirely, or find something in this big new world of Ontario that makes me smile real wide. That parade last weekend, for example! Remind me to post the parade pictures later. It wasn't a particularly exciting parade, mind you, but I'm a brother who finds ways to enjoy parades whether they're any good or not.

In the meantime, it would be completely out of character for me to not mention this next item. You may recall our new good buddy, Picnic Jesus, from a previous post; he was on a poster a month ago, smilin' and bringin' food to the hungry, and even the very idea that somebody out there earnestly (and without a shred of irony!) drew a festive anime Jesus on a campus poster made me shake my head and laugh despite myself.

Well, you'll never guess what:



He's back! He's so happy! And once I go out and buy some thumbtacks, he'll be adorning my wall!



Amazingly, despite the poster having been for a September 7th event, the poster had remained in place and mostly undisturbed for well over a month. The very idea! So when I exited class last night and walked past it, beholding in amazement that posters apparently just don't get removed in this building, the power of Picnic Jesus compelled me to roll it up and take it on home. The only thing on my wall to date is a small LOLA festival poster that they were giving out with any donation, so hell with it! I need to decorate, I'm notoriously thrifty, and I grin real wide every time I look at this.



Oh, dear. I'm boring you, aren't I? Well, okay, maybe this will prove a bit more interesting.

I watched a lot of Mystery Science Theater 3000 in my younger days, and the modern internet incarnation -- RiffTrax, written by and featuring members of the MST3K cast -- fills me with glee every time I check it out. Hell, at one point they brought in Weird Al Yankovic to riff on Jurassic Park! Older readers will recall my frothing lifelong loyalty to Weird Al, given that it took me two posts to encompass how much I enjoyed his last concert tour.

My old buddy Gavin Jasper contacted me a little while back about the RiffTrax site, because the site had just recently added on a new feature -- iRiffs, a section devoted to letting people send in their own submissions for publication. The very idea! Jesus, this is something that he and I (and a bunch of other people) used to do to terrible fanfiction way back in the earlier days of the internet -- this is right up our alley!

So he, I, and a friend of his put our heads together and got to work; we've got a couple selections of material that will work well (and, without question, definitely deserve some old-fashioned mockery), but we started off by testing on an old wartime Superman cartoon short so racist that it boggles the minds of audiences to this day.

The title? Wait for it -- wait for it -- Japoteurs! Haha, holy shit, I'm not even kidding.

So our very first iRiff short will be out soon enough, once the audio is balanced and the submission details are aligned. But in the meantime, it turns out I've actually got a preview available for you guys; the original audio is kind of soft for now, so a couple of the gags might not make sense, but behold nonetheless!



I'm the second voice you hear, if you were wondering.

Exciting times, you guys! Thrill as my influence and reputation as a dangerously sexy media superstar continue to expand ruthlessly! I'm the face of new media, baby!