We went for a stroll with Maya and it turned into one of the most adorkable videos I’ve ever cut. I used to love this Amuro Namie song when I was a younger man… but it was always missing something. Suffice to say, I’ve fixed it with the addition of Maya.

The Stewarts at Yanticaw Park from F is for Film on Vimeo.

This will be fantastic material to embarrass her with when she’s twenty.

Word up, inu-tachi!

A little late but I found some time to put up IWP episodes from December. You will never think of garland in the same way again. Do try this at home.

Also this. Maybe you can use it to find a tree next year.

It seemed like such an innocent notion… bring home a real goddamn Christmas tree this year. One of the perks of my job as a TV news magazine producer is that every so often I get to literally take my work home with me. In this case that work was the product of a story I did on how to find and cut down your own real live Xmas tree for the holidays. Also, it wasn’t really work. It was a motherforking tree!!

Well right from the get go this thing was needy. For one, it was too big. So I had to go and buy a hacksaw and some work gloves in order to chop it down to a reasonable, Charlie Brown’s Christmas size. Second, it needed a stand. Now you would think that they would sell those at just about every BLANKmart and Gas Station from here to Pennsylvania but you would only be half right. Yes, they did sell them, at some undisclosed time in the recent past, but they were most certainly sold out by the time we pulled our Hyundai into the holiday funzone.

(more…)

It’s Penguin feeding time at the ol’ Adventure Aquarium in Camden. As soon as I saw my raw cut of the footage I knew Cocco’s song Baby, After You was a perfect match. Given three hours of work time I probably could have synced the video and guitar perfectly, but really this is all about a penguin eating a squid and how it looks like they are deferring meal time to one another. They are cute. End of story.

I knowingly purchased a game in which the sum total of the experience appears to be blowing petals over a virtual lawn (albeit with rolling hills.)  I bought a big steaming plate of hype.

Not that FLOWER is a bad game, the art direction and fluid intuitive controls are top notch. It’s just… it’s more like one mechanic of a much more interesting game. I’ve played this before (including the interactive musical cues) when it was called Rez, and it was better. To use the parlance of our times, restoring greenery to a fertile land is quite satisfying, but between Prince of Persia and Okami, I think I’ve done this enough too.

… I purchased both FLOWER and the vastly superior World of Goo (but can they even be compared) out of an allegiance to the creative spirit, however misguided it may sometimes be.

For those looking for a Karmic realignment following marathon murder sprees in Grand Theft Auto IV, FLOWER‘s relaxing escape to paradise may be just the thing.

Also, not to spoil but the game really gets compelling in its later portions.

Germany’s Knut the Polar Bear turned Two Years Old. He is one extremely photogenic bear.

If it would please the court, CUUUTE!

photos courtesy of Reuters.

But BEARS~!

Takako and I went to the Skylands Botanical Garden on a whim and happened upon a beautiful pair of black bears crossing our path by the Manor House.  Oddly enough I felt very comfortable around them. Albeit, with thirty feet between us.

Locals said that Black Bears are something of a rarity in those areas because the botanical gardens aren’t a good source of food. We got lucky!  BEARS!