Wednesday, April 1, 2009

The Tao of Brad

Here's a third happiness related episode to close out the theme. Ironically, my main computer just died so I'm far from happy right now. I just love forced shopping trips. Maybe I should use this as an excuse to finally go Mac.



While it might sound like I'm being dismissive of Zen teachings, I actually think they make a lot of sense. Though I'm not actively seeking enlightenment, I do try to keep material concerns from interferring with my ability to enjoy life. I may not be as ambitious as I might be if I were more greedy, but I do save a lot of money not buying crap I don't need. I'm sort of Zen-lite. I'm perfectly happy driving a Saturn Ion as long as it has the upgraded engine, chrome wheels and leather interior. Don't judge me.

A cool animation blog, Cartoon Brew, featured Deadpan Inc. today. While I greatly appreciate the attention, there were some strange statements in the posting. He said I do these "instead of writing." How does he think I do them? I'm not recording the conversations of actual robots. Didn't think I would have to clarify that, but I guess I did. He also calls me out as "obviously not a professional animator." Boy, he got me there. Actually, I got the impression he liked the work, despite the snark, and as they say, "There's no such thing as bad publicity." Thanks Jerry.

8 comments:

Luc Tremblay said...

Dave, I do not think the Cartoon Brew knows about xtranormal or how it works, therefore his weird-sounding comments. Before that technology, there was a huge gap between "writing" and "making a movie". When he says "instead of writing", I think he means it as a compliment, because "animating" usually implies writing PLUS tons more work.

Dave Stratton said...

Luc, I think you're right. I wasn't really offended by anything he said. But because the writing is the real challenge of creating 100+ episodes, that "instead of writing" gave me a chuckle.

Luc Tremblay said...

Keep up the amazing work Dave, I love your blog and I'm happy you'll be sticking around for a bit longer.

The Jerk said...

hey dave, caught a peek at your work via the Cartoon Brew post, and despite my initial negative reaction as an artist and animator, I have to say after digging past the surface to check out more of your work on this blog, I think your writing is actually amusing.
Though I'd love to see what full animation could add to writing such as yours, I think that the inherent lameness of the automated animation in these clips is a nice hook to draw people into your work where a mere text-based blog might be browsed past.
Despite personally being a more visual-minded communicator, I have a great affection for more wordy, literary, linguistic-type humor, and I believe you do have a gift in this area.

Rick Dolishny said...

Greetings from Cartoon Brew. Great work. That site is ground breaking for me. Awesome. It will be a late night going through your library of films. Thank you!

Red Pill Junkie said...

Well, you gotta understand that many among the CartoonBrew audience have so much respect and love for Animation as an art form, that they become obsessed and can't even enjoy TV shows like The Simpsons because—according to them—it is too 'script-oriented'.

You actually got many of those folks excited about this xtra normal app :)

PS: But I still find the voices too annoying. The only person I could forgive for sounding like that is Stephen Hawking ;-)

Christina Awesome said...

Haha I really liked this one. Sometimes the simple jokes are appreciated even more.

And I agree entirely with the Jerk up there. That's why I check regularly- the specific language you use. Instead of having something phallic in a salad or something. Visual versus Auditory, i suppose.

Jeremy said...

It sounds just like the advice you get for luring a cat or a hot chick. Don want/appear to like them. Works every time with my cat, and my hot wife. Its hard to do though, y'know?