Zander runs Grandma's Marathon

So I ran Grandma's Marathon in Duluth, Minnesota a week and a half ago. It was my first marathon, and I trained for about four months to get in shape. I hate pain, so I was kind of a maniac about staying on the training program (Dick Beardsley posted a training log on the Grandma's Marathon site, and I followed it as much as I follow anything). So I basically tortured myself for months just so I wouldn't be miserable for one day in June. It's that way sometimes with me.


This photo is the same one that's on Joolie Doolie because our camera glitched and lost the other couple photos we had. Dang. I was awesome in them, too. No, just kidding. I looked like I was going to die.


Here are the sample photos that they take of you during the race. The quality is low so that I'll shell out 65 bucks for a print of it. Mm... no thanks.

They're in order, the first being at about mile 16 or so, the second at mile 23-ish, and the last two in the final stretch and at the finish line, respectively. I'm pleased that there's a person walking in the background of the upper right picture, and that it's not me. I was determined not to walk, because not only did I train my butt off, my friend and training partner/coach Rocco and I probably spent 3 hours, all told, talking about what strategy we were going to use for the race. So if I had to walk at all, I was going to feel like a jerk. Mike blogs about his perspective on our race on Hurtin' Jackalope. It's a couple posts down because he actually blogged about it right after it happened. Nice work Rocco. He has some complimentary things to say about me and my zen-like approach to a slow first half of the marathon, but he neglects to mention that I'm just plain old not as fast as he is. I ran a slow second half too.

Well, all right... My final chip time (from when the microchip attached to my shoe crosses the starting line to when it crosses the finish line) was 3:25:33, a respectable time. It averages out to be about 7:49 per mile. Not too bad. I'm proud of it.


They gave us medals for finishing. I'm a winner! We're all winners!


And then we stood in Lake Superior (the lake that they call Gitchee-Gumi, don't ya know) to cool off our beat-to-hell legs.

A great weekend. Julie and Emily were an awesome cheering section, as were our hosts Byron and Jocelyn. Their kids Allegra and Haakon were lots of fun, and I learned some things I didn't know about dolls and the Justice League cartoon.

And now I'm going to sit on the couch.

BLOST EPISODE 3

Big Central European Summer Time Attic

Here at BCESTA (UTC/Greenwich Mean Time + 2 hrs), we know how to do comics. It's not that they make more money than comics in The States (and believe me when I say from my headquarters in an armorized bunker in the Hague that comics in The States make A LOT of money.) and it's not so much that they're really any BETTER than the comics in The States (with Big Time Attic around!) ... it's just that well, let's say people in Amsterdam know how to party.

Here we are at the live auction of various household trinkets and garbage items to desparately raise funds for Lamelos, the Fort Thunder-like comic group. To set the mood and the speed at which the items were handed off to people, they began by auctioning off a live firework ... in the store ... near the priceless collection of famous comics.

Needless to say, no paperwork was attempted for this feat.

Later, two copies of Michael Jackson's Thriller were sold simultaneously! To the same person! A once in a lifetime experience to witness, to be sure.

The most interesting and hilarious/pathetic (or, here at BCESTA, what we call 'patharious') thing to capture the party-goer's attention was a framed 'original', as it were, of someone's personal underwear collection. What the four pressed players in this history imply, I cannot - nor do I care to - guess.

Countless thanks in many dialects to the fun-loving owners of Lambiek for a memorable experience. Donate to their site here to help keep their impressive and uniquely worldly "comiclopedia" free! For their entry on Zander Cannon, click here.

Until we move our entire operation to the gorgeous, healthy, sea-sided, majestic, positive, history-enriched, multi-cultural, beautiful-people-stalked, art-appreciating, delicious-and-memorable-food-supplying, low-violent-crime-suffering, high-standard-of-life-living, affordable-health-care-entrenched land of Western Europe, this is BCESTA ... signing out.

Flashbelt Conference Grabs.

Here are screen captures from the video of our Flashbelt workshop:


The set up.


Julia in the faith-healer portion of the presentation. Demon out.


I called Jon White the Tim Robbins of BTA when I meant to say Anthony Robbins.


Jon and Tim perform the music for the Beast and Bunny short while Max, Julia, and I do live voice and sound effects.


Max explains the millions of stars and galaxies that exist between two keyframes.

Project: Romantic Fever

My family and I walked around the classic car show on St. Anthony Main on Father's Day -- and that made me excited for our upcoming story in AdHouse's "Project: Romantic." I won't give away the story, but one of the central characters is a '49 Ford. I couldn't find any of those on St. Anthony Main, but I did find this '47 Plymouth Club Coupe, which uses a lot of the same lines. Look for Project: Romantic in stores this fall.

Group photo

Here's a delightful picture of the Attic team (sans Kevin and Zander) during our post-Flashbelt clean-up



Hooray!

Ready, Sit, Read week.

The J. Otto Seibold "Ready, Sit, Read" site that we helped Ham In The Fridge design/animate for Target swept the Key Works Interactive awards at Flashbelt this week. It took home three "Squirrelies" winning the Animation, Design, and Educational catagories.

Ham also won a fourth Squirrely in the "Fun and Games" catagory for their "Ham Jam" party invitation. Congratulations!!

We have to say congrats to our friends Steve Killingbeck and Nate Pacyga for their second year in a row win for Rich Application Development.

Flashbelt this week!

We have tons of animated sequences that we could have pulled from for our Flashbelt workshop but somehow we decided to create an all-new piece for it.

Here are some work-in-progress bits:


All the grey pencils will be replaced with full color backgrounds. It's a nutty process, backgrounds, characters illustration, animation and audio all being worked on simultaniously because there isn't time to do anything in order.

I think everyone is having a lot of fun though...

BTA Flashbelt swag

Hey, do you like Flash? Do you like wearing clothes? What if you could wear clothes that featured BTA's Flashbelt animation short characters? Oh, you'd just love that, wouldn't you.

We'll be giving away a few of these shirt at our Flashbelt animation workshop this Friday.

Props from Jotto!

J. Otto Seibold recently posted this on his blog "be sure to check out the [Target Ready, Sit, Read] book club name generator. it's great."

We made that! (all the sounds were added much later)

Vinny and I were talking today about how that project was a once in a lifetime gig. One of the most satifying commercial jobs ever...it never felt commercial. Jotto's bubblesoap site was what got us excited about interactive and working in Flash. We stole the spirit to make Dunn Bros Coffee's first site, which has long since retired in favor of the generic site they have now. Bubblesoap is still up five years later and more importantly still HOLDS UP. I hope it's around forever, it's a friend.

Jotto's blog post has made our day/week/month. It was really an honor to work on. So a big huge THANK YOU to Bret Hummel at Ham In The Fridge for the gig and then all of the creative control and then for fixing the bad stuff and making it work and Irene, Mary, Jim and all the people at Target who care about art in commerce.

Having a project come back to make a person feel this good is something else....YAY.

Powerroni.

There is this green pizza place in Minneapolis that serves up delicious pizza....and if order-in they come to you in electric vehicles with drivers dressed as super-heroes. They also deliver justice:

http://www.kstp.com/article/stories/S16799.html?cat=1

Wuh-oh!

My 3 Bosses is labeled late again. You know what this means, don't you?

Of course you do! It means it's time for me to present two My Three Bosses at once!

Fortunately, with the completion of the latest enormous project at Big Time Attic, and various BTA members going to their various destinations of vacation, rest or adventure, I feel it is also an opportune time to finish the enormous tale that took place the other day, and in so doing finish the Kevin-Tim spin-off ... for now.

Behold the mild conclusion!

Blost is Back! And Sexier Than Ever!

America's favorite Lost parody is back with it's triumphant second episode, and we're not skimping on style! Let me spell it out for you in two words: BIKINI. If you thought Stochastic Chubs and his man-hugging t-shirt was enough to make last episode sizzle, this time we've turned up the dial on the electric range from "med hi" to "hi"!!

And ... Sharks!

Meet Jason

It's 3 AM, do you know where your BTAers are? WORKING. We're wrapping up two big projects and then most of us are taking vacations or starting new companies. Did I let that slip?

So yeah, we're taking some big steps over the next couple of months that I can't wait to see come to fruition but until then...meet one of the dudes who helping to make it happen:

Jason The Audio Guy...soon to be Jason of Big Time Attic Audio.



Jason and I worked on the Microsoft Sales game a few years ago and now we're going to be working together all of the time as he'll soon be just across the hall in the new sound studio. When he's not rushing down here in the middle of the night, he's the audio engineer on a fantasy movie for a game publisher. Yet another dumb thing we're not supposed to talk about.

Here's Jason in his closer to natural environment:


Jason and Max finish up the Anime parody....Brit, Max, Jason, and I had a lot of fun doing the voices for this one:


OH NO Sayonara Attack!...good night.

BTA Immortalizes Arthur Dove at Flint Hills Chalk Art Event

Big Time Attic was thrilled to be a part of the Ordway Center's Flint Hills International Children's Festival in Downtown St. Paul. The 2-day event featured music, dancing, and ... chalk art! Resident chalk art veteran Kevin represented BTA at the event, reproducing a 1937 Arthur Dove landscape.

The event took place under a huge tent on Market STreet. Local artists had the privilege of working alongside four professional street painters: Joel Yau, Tracy Lee Stum, Rod Tryon, and Seth Sanders. The weather was perfect and we were constantly surrounded by an enthusiastic and engaged audience. Kids and parents alike marveled at what could be created with mere sidewalk chalk.

Below are some photos from the event, as well as a "time lapse" of the BTA painting.

LOST web comic by your favorite guys!

LOST is over for the season unfortunatly, so to make up for the lack of John Locke in our lives we bring you....BLOST!