Portfolio Works, Braves Don’t; Song of the day

The bad news: No early MobileMe update as anticipated.  

The good news: .Mac is back to its normal self, and thankfully, so is my portfolio.

 

In completely unrelated news, the Braves turned in an inspired, 4-error performance in another loss to the Brew crew.  Was I not strong enough in my wording yesterday?

Song of the Day: Ring Them Bells, Sufjan Stevens, I’m Not There Soundtrack (originally by Bob Dylan…obviously) –Sufjan meets Dylan…Yep, it’s as strange as it sounds, but it’s also a good one.

Funny/Maddening Update…

As soon as I publish my iWeb-complaining post, all of .Mac shuts down completely.  The excited buzz on the internet is an earlier-than-expected transition from .Mac to MobileMe (it better be).

More than likely, the little monsters that live in the internet are just relishing in my botched portfolio site.  

 

I’m not paranoid or anything. 

Viva La Vida Review and Other Thoughts

Quick review of Coldplay’s Viva La Vida:

It’s good.  Get it.

It’s mature, it shows restraint, it’s diverse and fresh instrumentally, and is surprisingly sing-alongable.  It doesn’t have the constant drive that X&Y had…but that may be what makes it better.  And there’s some serious spiritual struggling going on in these lyrics – very relatable.  

So lately I’ve been trying, out of necessity, to get my portfolio up to date for an impending job interview.  Let me take this chance to remind everyone out there that, while I generally love the software that Apple puts out there, do not touch iWeb unless you absolutely have to.  I’ve been learning real web design lately, but I need this up quickly, and trusted iWeb to do the job.  It, in turn, transformed my portfolio into word vomit.

Speaking of which, if you want to learn web design, or pretty much anything related to creative software (Photoshop, After Effects, Final Cut, almost everything), take a stroll over to Lynda.com.  For $25 a month, you can have access to an inexhaustible library of training videos…we’re talking hours and hours of really good stuff.  I bring this up because I’ve buried myself in the Dreamweaver training lately, and I’m amazed at how much I’ve learned in just a few days.

Where’s the Hooked On Phonics kid when you need him?

And finally…to the Braves….look, I know you’re hurting.  I know it’s hard to get by with the Richmond Braves plus a one-legged Chipper Jones.  But can you still just try and make a run at things?  Soon?  This whole “almost in the race” mediocrity is getting old.  Don’t you think you deserve better?

Inspiration Double Take

While I’m personally looking for inspiration in order to make a Seesalt theme song video, I thought I would answer a couple of requests to pass along a couple of videos that I’ve been hooked on lately.

The first is the opening video for Drive 2008 at North Point Community Church.  I actually had the opportunity to do some work for this conference (just some looping animations for individual sessions), but this is the video you need to see.  I talked to Mike Davis (NP’s staff graphic designer) at my graduation, and he said that the video was a combination in-house/out-of-house job.  No matter what, this one pretty much sets the bar for church conference videos, especially with its three-screen awesomeness.  Click the picture for the link (link goes to Ragamuffin Soul, blog of one of the worship leaders/all-around-creative-gurus at Buckhead Church in Atlanta).

The second video is one that, if you’ve been watching TV lately, you’ve seen.  But this is a special request from my sister, so I thought I would throw it up there.  This is the new iTunes commercial advertising the new Coldplay album–done by a studio called Logan, who has done many of the iTunes commercials, and they’re pretty much one of the standards that little beginners like me hope to emulate.  For such a short commercial, the feel is amazingly dramatic, and it’s an incredible example of how particles and lighting should be used.  Click for link.