Another Cartoon

My own comic design hobby.

A while back I saw pictures of characters from the zwinky website. I thought it was very nice the way you can customize and dress them up. So I went and searched Google Images for pictures of characters and stuff I could use for backgrounds. Then some speech bubbles and a comic book font and I had everything I needed to entertain myself.

Perhaps it was more like a phase but I still have all the material and can throw together more in a flash when I feel like it. I made a couple, so maybe I will post more later on.

I did not know which one to post so this will have to do for now.

PlatinumMikeTV is finally here.

PlatinumMikeTV launches today.

I've been meaning to upload some videos onto youtube for some time and I decided to do it in as organized a manner possible. There is only 8 videos out for today; more will follow in time.

My content at this time can be split in to 2 categories:
My own Viral videos / parodies.
Dangerous Mediocrity Season 1 (My own hand made sitcom-like series).

For more on Dangerous Mediocrity see the previous post. Here I will briefly talk about the other videos.

Battle at Kruger, BAD DAY / OFFICE RAGE, Charlie the Unicorn lover and 2 Girls 1 Cup:
I used some titles for these 4 movies just to see if it helps a little with getting noticed but I assure you they are nothing like the originals. In many areas I think they are better. Believe it or not but I have never seen the original 2 Girls 1 Cup so I am really in the dark on that one anyway. In time (if not already) you will see that we do not take things too seriously and I enjoy the way that adds to the feel of the videos.

Battle at Kruger:
Horse vs. Man. Our hero has to get through 10 henchmen and their boss to hopefully free the damsel in distress. This is an action flick / music video / comedy that is very entertaining. The ideas our hero comes up with to take out his enemies are hilarious and very creative. This is one I can watch over and over.

BAD DAY / OFFICE RAGE:
The day starts out with a computer "ERROR Screen" and quickly leads to some destruction of computer components. Brute force, gravity, golf clubs, cricket bats and the right boot all play a violent part in this very entertaining video. This is a lot of fun to watch and was way more fun to make than we were prepared for; at times we froze up and just stood mesmerized as it all went on in front of us.

Charlie the Unicorn Lover:
Unfortunately I can not say much here because the video is not very long and I do not want to spoil your fun. But yes, he really loves unicorns.

2 Girls 1 Cup:
This is a bit more random. A seamingly simple competition for horses that sort of gets out of hand.

Some older stuff:

Scary "blind man":
This was shot with cellphones in public in 2008. There is a guy walking around pretending to be blind but then scares and harasses unsespecting people.

Scary Monster:
Also shot with cellphones in public around the same time as the "blind man". A guy wearing a scary monster mask and wig jumps out and scares people when we give him the signal. This one is also pretty funny.

Hope you enjoy all these. I have many more ideas lined up for the future. I realize I went through a bit of a horse phase recently but that will not always be the case.

Dangerous Mediocrity Season 1 is finally here.

Dangerous Mediocrity Season 1 is finally here for your viewing pleasure.  It is a sitcom style comedy series created with action figures.  I did this because of a lack of actors, locations, sets and hollywood studios.  Regardless it is still the same way of story telling.

Only the first episode has been uploaded so far.  The rest will come along one at a time every few days as soon as I get around to it.

Below I have the link for the Trailer for season one.  So if you do not want to read through the rest it is fine because it is all in the video along with preview footage of all first ten episodes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dq1hyJe5KA

The Characters:

Yardley:
He is Satan's brother.
But has no super powers.
Now he sells leather goods...

Kane:
Kane poses as a limo driver.
But he is a Hitman.
Educated and perfectionistic he is the most sucessful person in the house but stays there only to try and blend in with society.

Mercedez:
She is a free-spirited dogwalker.
Care free but often keeps the peace.

Paulo:
Matador / bullfighter.
Along with Yardley he's always looking to make a quick buck.

Julio:
Julio is a very unorthodox image consultant.
He's not very good...

Let me know what you think.  I hope you enjoy it.

Feel It Coming On.

For years now I have had this movie quote committed to memory.  It is quite a bit more than just a quote.

People always like to go on about how great a narrator Morgan Freeman is.  Now this is not untrue but I really like Denzel Washington just becasue of the talking he did in Fallen (1998).  The way his character would thoughtfully look at the world, observing the way only a detective would.

But me thinking about this usually never has anything to do with the film.  So here it is:

There are moments that mark your life
moments when you realize nothing will ever be the same
and time is divided into two parts
before this
and after this
sometimes you can feel such a moment coming
and that is the test
or so I tell myself
I tell myself that at times like that strong people keep moving forward anyway
no matter what they are going to find.

It seems a bit grim towards the end, and given the context of what the character was beginning to understand about his situation it makes sense.

But I do not want to look at that now.  I like the rest of it because it is a very profound feeling and experience when you have a gut feeling about something.  It does not matter wheter you can explain it or prove it.

It's just a feeling.
But you know.

I was made for this.

These days young people seem to have a much more difficult time (or at least a longer one) figuring out what to do with their lives.  A few decades ago people just seemed to move forward without asking questions or making a fuss.  But now it seems as if nobody can make up their mind about what to study, what career to go into and so forth.

The argument can be made that parents just tolerate so much more nowadays that their children take advantage of the fact that it is becoming more acceptable to stay dependant for many years longer.  After all; they are our parents!  What are they going to do?  Kick us out?  But I do not think this is the root of the problem.  From my personal experience nobody wants to stay with their parents any longer than necessary.  But it could happen.

A theory that I think has some merit is that there are much more things that one can do now.  Just look at the multitudes of courses universities and colleges offer in their brochures.  It is not difficult to spot the ones that have not been around a decade or two ago.  And they are still increasing. 

The problem with all this options seems to be that there is no way to give kids enough exposure to a fair amount of these careers before the time comes to make a decision.  Back in the day you spent some time around a doctor, fireman or teacher and you knew what it was about.  Easy.  But now it is not that easy.  There is always television.  But this probably only contributes to young people being confused and switching career paths.  Because on the TV being a detective or a lawyer certainly looks very glamorous.  But it is never the same.

Some people say that you should ask yourself what you would do if you had a million dollars.  And then that answer should be what you should do.  In the film Office Space, Ron Livingston's character said that he will do absolutely nothing then.  This method is therefore clearly a questionable one.

So my conclusion is that perhaps it is unlikely to get it right first time.  And I think because things change you can not just stick with only one thing for the rest of your life.  At least to me that sounds like too long.

Knowing me, knowing you.

I wanted to talk about something and the title of this post jumped into my head.  Of course it is also the title of a well known song.  I grew up with ABBA playing in the house but I did not really know the words completely; at least not beyond the catchy stuff.  But I went and took a look at it and a lot of what is being said in there relates to what I want to rant about today.

How well do you really know people that you know so well?  Let us look at some of the song lyrics and then let the ranting begin.

No more carefree laughter

Silence ever after

Walking through an empty house, tears in my eyes

Here is where the story ends, this is goodbye

Knowing me, knowing you

There is nothing we can do

Knowing me, knowing you

We just have to face it, this time we're through

Breaking up is never easy, I know but I have to go

Knowing me, knowing you

It's the best I can do

The thing that has been on my mind lately is that sometimes people are so close to one another that there is no possible way for them to know who they are really dealing with.  This is probably rare, but that makes it so much more intriguing.  Because it is so much more difficult to distinguish.

A long time ago in a brief lecture I learned 3 things from psychology about who you are:

1)When you walk through the door and join other people; you are not yourself.  You act or put up a persona.  Now I do not agree with this one all the time as there are many sincere people out there.

2)When you are under pressure and in a stressful situation; you are who you really are.

3)When you are alone behind closed doors; you are who you really are.

Now all that mumbo jumbo might prove very insightful but I am still baffled by the fact that people can spend weeks, months and even decades being really close to somebody and even then it is as if the person is really who they want them to be.  Maybe I accidentally stumbled on an answer here; maybe people do not want to know.  But if that is not the case they are still convinced that they know everything there is to know.  A million things maybe.  But I feel that it is just an illusion.

People certainly act differently around different groups of their friends, family members and colleagues.  I do it as well, but somewhere there must be a real version; just one.  Maybe only the one behind closed doors but I still refuse to believe otherwise.  And I am not saying that it will help to install hidden cameras to spy on people; probably illegal anyway.  But sometimes you have to try and get the objective point of view; what can the outsiders, the people standing on the fringe looking in actually see from over there that you can not.

So I suspect that the writer of the ABBA song and the characters in the song finally saw the real side of each other and that was that.

Lots of people are probably not so analytical and inquisitive as I am, so they are happy just letting things be.  Maybe they just want to be happy.  And that is not a crime.

But what happens when the revelation that happens in the song one day happens to you?