Officer Bob #2: Physical Fitness

In which our constable explores the role of physical fitness in today’s policing environment. Added bonus: watch for the “Ask A Pirate” t-shirt.

Flash nerds: Are you doing character anim with bitmaps and want to cut your SWF size in half? Check this out: this time around, The (Heather) Smith experimented with a new asset building technique. When she did the character builds, instead of bitmapped objects, she used mask vectors – that show the texture beneath. The aim was to reduce SWF size / load time by reducing the number of real assets in a rendering. The series’ art direction as it stands is a good opportunity for this thanks to its use of paper cutouts with more or less consistent textures in the original designs.

As a method for reducing the size of the SWF, it was a big success. Both episodes come in at about one minute length but #2’s SWF came it at 628K where #1 was 1.3MB.

Sure, the dev environment acted weird with all those masks on the stage, but weird behavior is to the Flash dev environment what bling and grills are to rap videos.

Big up yaself to to japnm for the quick audio post.

Where’s That Music Coming From?

The guys at the always-excellent animation blog Cartoon Brew celebrated their fourth birthday today and dredged up a link from February about the improbable Sponge Bob Square Pants Musical Rectal Thermometer (pictured above, business end presumably at the left).

While a complete assessment of the tuneful device’s impact on the development of human dignity won’t be in for years, it’s safe to say that the price of parental failure to closely read operation instructions just went way up.

The Agonies Of Earbud Jesus

Photographer Antonio Perez’s Good Friday coverage in the Chicago Tribune shows a closeup of a crucified Jesus, portrayed by one Rafael Melendez.

Apparently, in order to extract maximum emotion from Mr. Melendez, at some point after crucifixion, his personal stereo or cellphone earbud was removed. It can be seen dangling on the ends of Mr. Melendez’s hair, at the bottom right.

Some may take this as an opportunity to mull over the role of showbiz in worship. Others might simply wonder how much of Mr. Melendez’s pained visage is good acting and how much is reaction to what was playing on the other earbud.

In other words:

What Was The Big J Listening To?

Poll: What Was Jesus Listening To?

• ‘You Have Killled Me’ – Morrissey
• ‘Easter Parade’ – Fred Astaire
• ‘Te Quiero’ – Flex
• Sprint Customer Service hold music
• White Sox broadcaster Ken Harrelson

Status:

Arthur C. Clarke, 1917-2008

We are lucky that Arthur C. Clarke, inventor of the geostationary orbiting satellite and author of genre-defining science fiction works such as Childhood’s End, Rendezvous With Rama and 2001: A Space Oddysey was born when he was. Had he been born later, it is possible that some of the finest works in SF would have been snowed under, rendered indistinguishable from the slush pile left by the online blizzard of typing we today navigate. Be thankful that his words met their paper medium in a forceful collision of metal and ribbon. If he were blogging instead, would he (and we) have recognized his ideas as indelible narratives of the celestial frontier? I doubt it.

So long, Sir Arthur.

Meet Officer Bob

Once, the internet served a different purpose than it does today. When the boys in the 1970s Pentagon basement finished the military communications project that eventually became the web, the last thing on their minds was the global distribution of porn and smart-ass cartoons.

Luckily for all involved, I don’t make porn.

Meet Officer Bob, the first in a series of titles forthcoming from Aught-Seven a cash bonfire satirical new media studio begun by myself and an enigmatic malcontent named Chris Kreb with pixel-wrangler par excellence Heather Smith.

Bob voice: yours truly (wrote it too) with art direction and animation by the lovely and talented Heather.

More titles are on their way, along with the requisite titters, chortles and yucks. Austinians: If you happen to spot Heather at SXSW Interactive this week, it’s best to not ask questions: simply offer decongestants and beer. She might favor you with a sticker…

Saul Bass vs. Star Wars

For a few years now the Saul Bass-inspired “Hitchcock” font has been available on the net, but not until this has someone done something really great with it. Brought to you by – who else – Some Guy On The Internet: the titles to Star Wars if Saul Bass had done them.

(link provided by the estimable Greg Dunlap, he of Cineblog, Drupal development and the Coffee Table Hall Of Fame )