Maverik Commercial, Weird habits, and Swearing Time

OK, if any of you want to see the Maverik commercial I worked on, you can go to www.8fish.com and if you click on Animation, it should bring up a commercial called "Monster vs. Trakker pt. 2." Or click on the blonde girl with the shocked look on her face at the bottom left side of the screen under "portfolio" on the main page and it'll take you to the same ad. On this commercial, I did a lot of stuff that you probably won't notice: shadows under the characters (like under the squirrel in the first shot) and I did the blinking red lights near the end. I also did some of the "assembling" of the shots, as in, people give me animation and backgrounds and I put them together in After Effects. So nothing too glamorous on that one. But I've seen the commercial on TV 4 times in the past week, on all different channels from Fox to the Travel channel to channel 34, whatever that one is!

But the commercial that comes out in July will have a TON of my work--including some cool water effects.

This morning I was thinking about some of my strange habits. For instance, as most of you know, I ROLL my clothes to put them in my dresser instead of FOLDING them...that hearkens back to my early teens when I learned rolling clothes as a travel tip to fit more in your suitcase.

Another thing Amanda and I do in the shower (hey, watch it!!!!) is that we get the edge of the shower wet and "stick" the shower curtain to the side of the shower wall to "trap in" the heat and not let a draft blow in.

Also, when I go to the movies, (I think this is more a nervous compulsion instead of a strange habit) I check to make sure my wallet and keys are in my pockets every 10-15 minutes.

So, what are some of your strange habits?

Next Sunday, the 24th, my primary class is in charge of Swearing time...I mean SHARING TIME. Ugh, I always hate doing it. This time, the theme has to do with baptism. Any ideas from anyone? Is it sacreligious to do a game where the 2 teams answer questions to make their character on the board go all the way under the water?

Oh, and in other news, we got a new computer!!! Here are the specs, compared to our old computer:

Old monitor: 17 inch, big freakin huge box monitor
New monitor: 20.1 inch widescreen flat-panel monitor

Old memory: 224 MB
New memory: 2 GB

Old hard drive: 80 GB
New hard drive: 320 GB

It also has USB/Firewire ports on the front, and a slot for our camera memory card. Oh, and the DVD drive doesn't get knocked into the CPU casing like our old one did. Now if I could just afford to get the Windows Vista versions of all my animation/Video software...oh well, I'm not at home enough to work on anything nowadays anyway. I do have MS Word, though, so I can get back to screenwriting/playwriting.

OK, to end with, here's a cartoon that is SO COOL-LOOKING. Visually, it's like Conqueror Worm on Catnip!

Why should I-KEA?

Commuting from South Orem to Sandy every day is a pain in the butt.

It takes about 35-45 minutes each way, (longer if I don't leave at the perfect time or get behind rows of semi's) and it's just a little too congested to use Cruise Control for more than a couple miles at a time. Not to mention that we have to get gas every 6-7 days, racking up another $55+ per week in bills.

But the WORST driving problem of the commute has been all the traffic jams due to the new IKEA store (ironically, right near the prison). I could not understand why there was all this fuss over a stupid Home Furnishings store. They even had signs at said "Event Access, next exit," etc. and there were police cars out on side roads. The IKEA parking lot, nearly the same size as Disneyland's (OK, not really, but close) was TOTALLY FULL.

I just kept asking myself, "Why would so many Utahns care about a stupid IKEA store?" Then I went to IKEA's website, and it all made sense.

IKEA specializes in CHEAP. If you want low-prices home furnishings, that's the place to go. Additionally, they have a free babysitting/kids play area. AND they have a restaurant with cheap food, like a 99-cent breakfast. Oh, and of course they were giving away free stuff for the grand opening. Those 4 factors instantly answered my question.

Thankfully, the thrill has died down, and now I just have the stretch of "construction area" traffic to deal with--oh, and the rubberneckers who like to slow down my southbound traffic to look at an accident in the northbound lane--2 days in a row!!!!!!!

Work is good. I've been doing a lot of sound recording (since my computer is the one next to the sound booth) and I've been doing some video graphics. I do get confused going between my Windows PC at home and the Mac at work. I hate Macs. I can never find anything on them.

Maddy's done with school, and will now be bored (and probably whiny) all summer long.

Pirates of the Caribbean 3 mini-review: (it's a mini-review to make up for the movie's 3-hour length) Not as fun as the first 2. Like me, the movie needed to slim down its mid-section. I loved the last hour or so, and there were occasional moments of greatness, like the frozen toe and the upside-down boat. I wish that Davy Jones' Locker had been even more bizarre, but I bet "normal" people wouldn't have "gotten it." (You should do "finger quotes" when you read quotes in my blog, by the way)

However, I've been slightly disappointed with each of the Pirates movies my first time through, but then they grow on me when I re-watch them. And I'm even hankering to see this one again.

Well, hope you enjoyed my Pirates 3-sized blog.

Now, mostly for Libby, here's a blast from the past: "Today's Special."