An animated film written, directed and animated by Peter Crosby

What should the U.S. auto industry really worry about? Freaking zombies, man.

Lately, I've been researching and mulling over my next car purchase (in spite of my previous rant about the “Age of Automobiles” coming to a close. Of course, living in Northern California virtually requires me to buy an environmentally friendly mode of transportation—something that either runs on reclaimed french fry grease, wind-power, solar power or pixie dust. But if you go to any auto dealer around here and ask to see a zero-emission vehicle for less than $50,000, they'll stare at you like a dog trying to solve a Rubic's cube. Accidentally, I discovered what may be the best way to get around town: Zombie power.

World's Worst Tourist competition shocker: America didn't win.

Shocking only to those who have never met anyone from France, the results of a recent competition revealed that the French are the World's Worst Tourists. Yet this "scientific" survey surely begs the question: How did America not sweep this award in a landslide? I mean if there's one area where America clearly still excels, it's in grudgingly visiting foreign countries and treating the people who live there like backwater rubes just because their country isn't exactly like America in every way. Still, this national loss needs some context.

Advertising: It kills democracy dead.

Surprisingly, the problems our country has been experiencing since the 1980s aren't the result of Republican over-spending, military build-ups, religiousity, blatant hypocrisy or rampant marital infidelity. They also aren't the result of Democratic homo-friendly amorality, Pro-Education elitism or “We know best” over-regulation. No, the reason that this once-proud, Capitalistic country is melting down can be traced directly back to one insidious evil: advertising. And I should know, after all, I work in the business.

Spoiler Alert: The villain in the new Star Trek movie is physicist, Enrico Fermi.

We just got back from watching J.J. Abrams latest effort, Star Trek, and enjoyed ourselves for the most part. Casting, I thought, was particularly inspired (although I did fully expect Spock to point his finger at one of the aliens' heads, make an incision and take his super-power). The acting was also far more nuanced than that of the original series, largely due to the absence of William Shatner. And, of course, the special effects were top-notch, not surprising since the movie cost almost as much as the Republic of Kiribati's GDP (it did, look it up). However, we did have a few issues with the plot afterward. One issue in particular could destroy all science fiction as you know it.

Dark horse prognost- icators, the Mayans, ask all other religions “Who’s your Daddy now?”

In a stunning—and very unsettling—turn of events, modern scientists have found evidence supporting the ancient Mayan prediction of an apocalypse in the year 2012. Mayan astronomers supposedly predicted that 2012 would mark the calamitous “birth of a new era”—an era marked by the rise of giant, sentient cockroaches, I'm guessing.

An animated short film I like to call “The Juggler” because that’s its name.

by thecroz | May 22, 2008 - 2:31pm

Here is a short animated film I made once when I was really bored (that's probably the best mindset to have before you watch it). It uses hand-drawn, cell-animation which took quite a bit of time to do, but I think you'll find that all the effort was worth it. Or maybe not.

Comments

by dminor415 | November 23, 2008 - 10:59am

Excellent Marketing Idea..

So I've clicked on the link and the movie comes up but when I click on the play arrow the pop-up movie window disappears and I get taken back to the text instead. I've done this 6 times and get the same response. Reminds me of early dating experiences where I would be promised a night of erotic ribaldry if I would just buy the lovely young lady an expensive dinner and flowers. Seems there was always some excuse why I never got to "see the film" if you get my drift! Yet there I would be doing the same fruitless exercise over and over. Oh well the promised but never delivered sex would have probably not been worth it either.

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by thecroz | December 30, 2008 - 6:27pm

Wrong link

You're clicking on the "photo" link, not the text link. I know it's not intuitive, and I'm working on that. Meanwhile, click on the text link and the video is viewable...

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BOOKS

I am America (And so can you!), Stephen Colbert—Sage advice for an ailing nation.
God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, Christopher Hitchens—The case against belief.
The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality, Brian Greene—A mind-bending romp through quantum physics.
Adam's Curse: A Future without Men, Bryan Sykes—It's not MY fault, it's my chromosome's.
1984, George Orwell—Who says no one can predict the future?
Nonzero : The Logic of Human Destiny, Robert Wright—It gives you hope for the future.
The Stranger, Albert Camus—Alienated existentialism at its best.
A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson—Why aren't textbooks this funny?

POLITICS

Change Congress Help keep Big Money out of politics
Earmark Watch Bringing citizen oversight to congressional spending
Money And Politics Illuminating the connection
Open Congress The real story behind what's happening in Congress
Fortune 535 Find out how wealthy your local politicians are
OpenSecrets Center for responsive politics
Citability Making government accessible, reliable, and transparent
Data.gov Public access to high-value, machine-readable data sets
Public Markup Review and comment on proposed bills before they are even introduced
FedSpending Find out where your tax money is going
The Sunlight Foundation Shining light on money, lobbying, and government
Transparency Int'l. Stop corruption to save lives.
Congresspedia The citizen's encyclopedia of Congress