Villainous Turtle

Swoop The Robot

2009-07-01T01:43:00.000-06:00

It's not new but this pencil drawing I did makes me happy.

I won ANOTHER 250$!

2009-01-10T20:22:00.003-07:00

Read all about it!

Custodial Catastrophe Boards

2008-11-07T02:48:00.004-07:00

I did these storyboards to plan out my short film, "Custodial Catastrophe".

I win all day everyday!

2008-10-27T23:26:00.004-06:00

I won 250$, a shirt, and some stickers.

http://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/985595

http://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/987017

I won the Amon Amarth contest!

2008-10-15T19:37:00.001-06:00

Read article number 1 at Metal Injection
And article # 2 at Metal Sucks

Custodial Catastrophe

2008-10-14T02:00:00.002-06:00

Hey everyone, this is the result of me having no life since the beginning of September (other than a quick trip to Las Vegas with some friends). I am going to Newgrounds it soon, so if you see anything that needs changing, just give me a holler. The sound took about 1/3 as long as the animation itself, probably 'cause I suck at sound? I even had to make some Jello just for the sound it makes. Enjoy!

It made the Daily Crumb!

Waynard, here are some sample clips:

2008-10-02T07:37:00.005-06:00

Here are samples of my Maya work and 2 brief excerpts from professional live action sessions I've shot. If you can, click directly on this link in order to view the video in high quality

Here is the playlist referenced in the video, however it's long and some of it is graphic, but here it is anyway if you need to see more (I would think the above clip shows you what my live action looks like and what my capability in Maya is):

Tried my hand at a threadless sub... see how it goes...

2008-09-18T04:10:00.001-06:00

Videos, videos, videos...

2008-09-18T00:53:00.002-06:00

In case you haven't seen them:

Flash Is My Favorite Program Ever...

2008-09-18T00:47:00.002-06:00

Even though it has it's share of glitches and limitations, I'd say it's complete creative freedom in program form. Check out my many Flash movies and projects, and gander at some stuff that was done using other methods here:

Oh, by the way, the threadless sub got rejected again. It's just too simple a design!

Calvin's Threadless submission I helped him with...

2008-09-09T02:52:00.001-06:00

Demo Reel Breakdown

2008-07-28T04:16:00.008-06:00

Christian Madsen

krabborg@yahoo.com

www.villainousturtle.com

Note: I created all the content in my reel. I didn’t have help from anyone else. This breakdown is only meant to further explain the creative process.

Demo Reel Breakdown

Sequence	Title	Technique	Artistic Responsibilities
1	Custodial Catastrophe	Flash	I animated and designed the character, fires, explosions and environments.
2	Plants	Maya	I modeled, rigged, textured, lit and animated all content within the shot.
3	Anemones	Maya	I modeled, rigged, textured, lit and animated all content within the shot.
4	Antarctic Antics	Flash	I drew the backgrounds and animated the Yeti.
5	Bulldozer Vs. Flowers	Maya, Watercolor	I modeled and textured the bulldozer and its environment, rigged and animated it, and hand painted all the textures on paper using watercolors.
6	Hallucinaliens	Maya and Flash	I animated the 2D elements in Flash and created the 3D background in Maya.
7	Custodial Catastrophe	Flash	I created the background and animated the nuclear explosion and the alien frame by frame.
8	The Wild Hunt	Flash	I animated the horses and wolves and drew the background.
9	Hoodoos	Flash	I animated the 60 tessellating people and synched the many fighting moves they perform so the entire crowd interacts in harmony.
10	Antarctic Antics	Flash	I animated the penguins and the walrus. I used masking effects to create the water.
11	Commensalism	Cells, Markers, Paint, Watercolors	I created this sequence using traditional hand-painted cells and water-colored backgrounds.
12	Hallucinaliens	Flash	I animated the walking fruit and drew the background.
13	Hoodoos	Flash	I animated the 11 different falling people and drew the large desert background.
14	Tripled Manic State	Flash, Watercolors, Pencil	I animated the characters in flash and hand-painted the backgrounds in watercolor and pencil.
15	Antarctic Antics	Flash	I animated the yeti and the walrus, and created the background.
16	Hoodoos	Flash	I created the Praying Mantis walk cycle using multi layered cycles and inbetweens and created the elaborate morph into a tree.
17	Clothes	Maya	I modeled the city and animated the cars and walking pants.
18	Tripled Manic State	Flash, Maya	I created and animated the toon-shaded 3D model in Maya and animated the mad scientist in Flash.
19	Hallucinaliens	Flash	I drew the backgrounds and animated the characters
20	Custodial Catastrophe	Flash	I drew the backgrounds and animated the Aliens. The mutant consists of many interacting cycles.

Writing For New Media Final

2008-04-29T21:23:00.006-06:00

For my online fiction project, I created the fictional band, "Eurolips". They are a German band with bad taste in fashion and music. For the page, I created 4 logos and a special page graphic of the whole band standing in a spotlight. I used a code generator to make a Myspace Music profile in the purple/gray signature Eurolips color scheme.
I got almost 60 people to sign on as friends, and I wrote a blog entry based on the snowflake assignment, and a second blog entry for authenticity. There is also a biography of the band that is based off the style that other European techno bands have written up online. The biography is written in a delusional tone, as though Eurolips is genuine art. I named each of the fictional band members in Faux German, and used photographs of real people (me and my friends) in scary makeup. The biggest effort however, was the production of 3 original songs that were made specifically for the assignment. So far, I've received 6 comments, one in German! But perhaps most hilarious is that in a week and a half I've had 251 plays. Who is listening to this?
I hope you enjoy this piece of online fiction. (Click the image below to link to the site)

Eurolips has a blog entry on Myspace!

2008-04-23T11:06:00.004-06:00

Here is the text of Eurolips stilted english blog:

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Trying to be getting onto the road...
Current mood: bitchy

Because of some very stupid types of bullshit with the other people in the band, and more the German media, we are getting a little behind. As you probably know, DEUTSCHLAND 1940 was mistakenly interpreted by some idiot people as to be glorifying Hitler, however it is a scathing critique you idiots.
Fortunately, ON THE RISE has become a runaway hit with over 30 plays on this page. Thanks to all 30 of you, we know each and every one of you is a big fan.
Anyhow, once we have all been to getting all types of these bullshits behind us, we can try and be ready to hit the road! We might actually be coming to 2 clubs, however, our many U.S. and A fans can't see us yet! Just get excited, we'll see you sometimes soon!

It's right on their myspace page and can be read there as well. Of course I need to fill out more info later.

Eurolips Snowflake

2008-04-21T11:23:00.002-06:00

"A crappy German techno band attempts to get popular with ridiculous music that inadvertently is a parody of the genre."

"The band has a debut album with a few terrible songs that go unnoticed, but when they attempt to make a searing critique of World War 2 Germany, they inadvertently butcher it so that it sounds like glorification of it. Criticism, controversy, and personal problems within the band ensue."

Online Fiction :Eurolips

2008-04-18T01:42:00.003-06:00

Well, I am just getting started on this, surprisingly just this rough thing took me the better part of a day until 2 am. I made the song, added friends, and made the graphics. Now I need to make some more songs and write some blogs.

Online fiction links

2008-04-16T09:38:00.003-06:00

I don't really read online fiction, I actually don't read fiction in general much at all. Why read stories when you can read facts?

Here are two online fictions I know about:
ONE
^^^^^^Just heard about this in a forum once, popped into my head when this assignment came up.
TWO (swears)
^^^^^^ A fictional "Chav" a subculture in England made up of uneducated young adults who huff paint, talk in a strange accent, live off of public assistance, and wear plaid hats.

Oh, and one more, this one I thought you should watch, if you want a laugh:It's by the same guys that do Devvo.

Here is my article. It's short and late, but I was out of town!

2008-04-14T11:01:00.005-06:00

Please cut me some slack!

Click Here to go take a look

Below is a photobucket capture so that if it gets deleted it's not a huge deal:

I was out of town for the past 9 days

2008-04-14T02:43:00.001-06:00

with limited net access. I'll get the new wikipedia article up soon as I can...

Midway Caldera

2008-04-02T11:06:00.001-06:00

MIDWAY CRATER CLICK THIS BUTTON

There needs to be an article about this mystical crater.

Major Edit

2008-04-01T22:18:00.002-06:00

Not really any bigger or smaller than my minor edit, but I added a little chunk of content. Really not that helpful of information, but if it doesn't get reverted, I'm cool.
Girl Skateboards

I added the paragraph after "Their main product is Skateboard Decks" or whatever.

2008-03-26T02:29:00.001-06:00

Minor Edit: cKy

Here is the edited page with the insertions I described in my recent post

Wikimandments

2008-03-24T10:53:00.005-06:00

1. Thou shalt have no other Wikis before the Wikipedia
2. Thou shalt not make unto the Wikipedia any copyrighted images
3. Thou shalt not take the name of the Wikipedia thy God in vain
4. Remember Wikipedia, to keep it holy
5. Honour Jimmy Wales and thy days shall be long upon the land
6. Thou shalt not kill (delete) articles
7. Thou shalt not mingle information with thy neighbors wife's article
8. Thou shalt not steal information without giving proper citation
9. Thou shalt not bear false witness of events or information
10. Thou shalt not covet others great articles

OR

mine I did all by myself without help from Moses, God, or William Tyndale

1. Don't make stuff up
2. Don't speak from opinion
3. Cite Sources
4. Give links and tags
5. Only make articles that cover notable subjects
6. Do not post pictures that you don't have rights to
7. Use good formatting
8. Do not vandalize the Wikipedia
9. Do not write poorly written and formatted articles
10. Cleanup typos and errors whenever you have time

Wikipedia

2008-03-12T01:15:00.004-06:00

Well, I used to be quite the Wikipedia gnome a few years back, I even made a few of the articles on there and would edit it all the time. Now, I really don't care to edit it, enough other people already do.

Anyway, looking at this page, I know quite about this band...
The things not mentioned in the article are as follows:

On June 20, they performed in Millvale, Pennsylvania. The show was their longest show to date, playing almost thirty songs over nearly 3 hours. During the show, and later confirmed on their website, Deron said that the show was being recorded and taped for a live album which will be their next project after their 4th studio album.

^^^^ This was actually released as an obscure 2 disc set and referred to as a bootleg for copyright reasons but actually distributed by the band directly during meet and greets after their concerts. (I have a signed copy)

On June 20, they performed in Millvale, Pennsylvania. The show was their longest show to date, playing almost thirty songs over nearly 3 hours. During the show, and later confirmed on their website, Deron said that the show was being recorded and taped for a live album which will be their next project after their 4th studio album.
Just 4 days later on June 24, CKY played a show in Burlington, Vermont. This show was cut short when Deron Miller had a meltdown onstage and walked off. On June 28, he posted a statement on the CKY Alliance website citing drug and alcohol problems.[1] CKY have toured North America extensively, as well as most of Europe and Australia.

^^^^Furthermore, the band had a major confrontation as of October, 2007 and has been on hiatus since that time. The members are currently not on speaking terms with one another.

I Know It's A Cliche, and I Know We All Know It, But This Is Why You Should Back Up Your Work!!!

2008-03-01T23:37:00.020-07:00

We've all heard it a thousand times: "Save your work!"
We all know exactly why this is important.

But I'm sure a lot of us, especially me, don't do it anywhere near as often as we should.

Because I didn't back up my stuff, I learned a lesson in such a hard way that I figured I could make the best of it by using it for a blog, since it took me 16 hours to recover what was lost.

Here's the background on the whole thing...

In 2006, I was in the car with a friend listening to a song, and he said I should make an animated music video to go along with it. I had just been thinking the same thing, and I needed some practice, and doing a video of one of my favorite band's songs seemed like the perfect motivator. So, I e-mailed the band, and this is what they said:

Question:
I am an animator who has worked on some projects at the professional level. I think Tripled Manic State is the best song you've made. I was wondering, if I made a bad ass animated music video of that song, and sent it to you guys, would you maybe use it as the official music video?
asked by See Haus on 10/02/2006

Answer:
Sure, why not? Make the video and let us check it out.
answered by Deron on 10/02/2006

Now I was going to make this video anyway, but what a bonus to have a go ahead from the band!

Anyway, at the time I asked the band the question, I was very busy with school, but I started developing an idea and storyboarding: It took me all of 2007 to use my occasional free time to paint the water colored backgrounds: After finally drawing everything, scanning it, and getting a shot sequence edited and set up in Flash, I began animating the movie just after Christmas 2007.
At first, things went fairly quickly and smoothly, with me completing about 2 or three shots a day in my spare time. However, as the story progresses, more characters are added and more action starts happening, so I had slowed down to about 1 shot every 3 days and got lazy and started mixing some regular animation with a technique called Rotoscoping in order to make things go faster.

I have been something of a hermit for the past 2 months, skipping out on doing fun things and sitting on the computer animating. I just really want to get this project done and move on.

With a project this big, backups are ESSENTIAL. There are 250+ megabytes of animation files that I have created for this project, and after one got too big and slow to keep working on, I broke the project into thirds, backed up the 1st part, and kept working on the second. I never was smart enough to back up the second part, and the only archive that was made is what is called an SWF file. Unlike the FLA files one animates inside of, SWF files are essentially set in stone and can't be edited.

After 1 whole week of having not made a SWF archive (which is as simple as hitting command+return, don't ask me WHY I'm so absent minded I forgot to do this) I clicked save. Then, while waiting for this large file to save, I surfed around the internet. Suddenly, the screen went black and I heard a "Clickk...BZZZzzzzzz...." sound. Uh oh! I had that knot in my stomach and just panicked because I knew there was a good chance that I'd done some SEVERE damage. I rushed to get the cord that was hooked into a cheap power strip in the wall plugged back in, turned the computer on, and tried to open the file. The worst thing that could happen had.... "Flash can not open document".

It was possible that an entire month was lost and certain that a week was. Fortunately, after digging around on the computer, I found a week old SWF file, so a month of stuff was somewhat recoverable. I jumped into some forums and asked for some help recovering the data. The conscensus was that I'd just have to reanimate the whole thing. I was sickened. At first I felt like giving up on the whole project, but then realized it'd be best to just boldly hack it out as fast as I could. I spent the day moaning and groaning to friends and family about my nerdy technological woes.

So, I thought why not make the best of this and film a time lapse of me working as well as write a blog for class on it?

Below is the finished result, as well as a timlapse of me recreating what was lost:

As you can see from the above video (Sorry about the spelling in it, I made it at 4 am) it was an enormous amount of work to recreate those two simple clips.
Usually, when something hard and arduous happens like a big test, job interview or really long day of manual labor, once it's over it's done and gone. That feeling of relief you get when you finish a big job, "Ahhhh, I get to go home!" wasn't there for me once I redid this. I still can't get over the fact that all that work had to be done and I'm no further than I was 2 days ago!

When I was a little kid and some piece of art I had made got thrown away, my parents would tell me to just make it again. I never did, because I hate doing the same thing twice, and the second attempt is never as good. So from all this, I've learned a lesson I thought I already knew: Keep your feet away from the power cord to your computer, and always back your stuff up!!

Oh, and one more thing, when I posted that video, I put it up at 4am. The sound didn't work, so I re-uploaded it and went to bed. When I woke up, the sound still didn't work but the video had 1 honor, 1,424 views, 2 comments, 1 rating, and 5 links. I don't know what made it so popular. It has no sound, is boring... and yeah... I have no clue. Hopefully people will find and watch the new one with sound, but that doesn't seem to be happening. Weird that my most boring video is by far my most popular.

Research Card

2008-02-27T16:47:00.001-07:00

Research Card
Traditional Source Information about Shamanism, Norse paganism, ancient Northern Europe.
Academic Journal Searchable Book about Norse Mythology
Online Source Video from Youtube about Icelandic Asatru.
Zulu ShamanismCoast To Coast Am article.

Conversation Revised

2008-02-19T16:13:00.001-07:00

So a guy on Youtube from Florida with the handle of BrightestBlackSheep posted a comment on this video that I made:

BrightestBlackSheep
Yeah yeah yeah!!!! Break it! Break it!!! Dammit shut up Beavis. yeah yeah yeah fire!!!! Fire!!!!!

Then, in my inbox, I got some messages from him. We had a conversation, and he made a video of himself talking about how he liked my stuff:

BrightestBlackSheep
Yeah man I saved it to my favorites. Woo doo doo!!!!
VTC (My handle)
Hey, I'm glad you liked our video so much, be sure we had a blast making it, it was one of the greatest times of our high school lives!
BrightestBlackSheep
I made a plug for you!

Then I thanked him:
VTC
Man, youre awesome, thanks for the plug, I watched it, and couldn't be more greatful.
BrightestBlackSheep
That's no problem man I like spreading the word on talent. Keep it up Bro! Woo doo doo....
VTC
Awesome, have you had a chance to watch the rest of it yet? Watch the making of, it is actually really funny, especially the making of part 5, check it out.

And then I put the plug on my channel...
It was cool.

Youtube Conversation

2008-02-10T19:51:00.000-07:00

So a guy on Youtube from Florida with the handle of BrightestBlackSheep posted a comment on this video:

BrightestBlackSheep
Yeah yeah yeah!!!! Break it! Break it!!! Dammit shut up Beavis. yeah yeah yeah fire!!!! Fire!!!!!

Then, in my inbox, I got some messages from him. We had a conversation, and he made a video of himself talking about how he liked my stuff:

BrightestBlackSheep
Yeah man I saved it to my favorites. Woo doo doo!!!!
VTC
Hey, I'm glad you liked our video so much, be sure we had a blast making it, it was one of the greatest times of our high school lives!
BrightestBlackSheep
I made a plug for you!

Then I thanked him:
VTC
Man, youre awesome, thanks for the plug, I watched it, and couldn't be more greatful.
BrightestBlackSheep
That's no problem man I like spreading the word on talent. Keep it up Bro! Woo doo doo....
VTC
Awesome, have you had a chance to watch the rest of it yet? Watch the making of, it is actually really funny, especially the making of part 5, check it out.

And then I put the plug on my channel...
It was cool.

Observations of a kid who celebrated the superbowl.

2008-02-03T20:10:00.000-07:00

Only minutes after the Giants had won the
Superbowl, my friend Jon was persuaded by his mom to ignite some bottle rockets to celebrate. She provided the bottle rockets. He walked outside in the cold snowy weather and stuck about 10 bottle rockets into a mound of snow and started trying to ignite them all at once. Suddenly, in the dark of the night, some kids came scurrying out of a yard with a dog close at their heels while cursing. "When the @#@$@ did those people get a dog?" Then, they started walking down the street. Finally, Jon got two of the rockets to fly off. A voice in the night shouted, "Go Giants!" Then, Jon got the rest of the bottle rockets to fly away. Then he came inside and saw me starting to type an observational report about him and complained that enough minutes had passed since he went and did what I was going to write about that it was now writing from recall and I was no longer correctly doing the assignment. I said, "Whatever." Jon left the room, and so all that was left to write about was the cat, who walked towards the kitchen with a somewhat shifty walk, as though he was a bit sick. Then he disappeared into the house. After he left, it was just an empty room with me, Jon's parents, and a show about England on TV. Then, a different cat the family owns has walked into the room. It is worth noting that it is a hermaphrodite cat. Originally, it was thought to be a boy and given the name Mr. Darci. Later, it had a surgery that made it a girl so the family just dropped the Mr. Jon came back into the room, and he shined a laser pointer around. The hermaphrodite cat appeared to think the laser pointer was prey, and chased the dot it made around the room.
The End.

Snapshot Essay: The Moose In The Mountains Revised

2008-01-28T02:34:00.000-07:00

Due to the weather, there is no way I can get to class... But here's my revision....

In late summer of 2005, 2 friends and I decided we'd go camp high in the mountains and swim in a lake that's up there. It's called Lake Mary, and it's illegal to swim in it but at the time we honestly didn't know that it wasn't okay to be up there.
Anyway, we started hiking up the trail towards the lake at about 7:30 P.M., so by the time we got to the lake, the sun was setting. As soon as we got there, I realized that I had dropped my swim trunks somewhere on the trail. I figured they couldn't be that far back, so I'd just walk a little way back and grab them. My friends didn't have the desire to start back down the trail, so they got a fire going and set up the tent while I headed off with a flashlight in hopes of finding the shorts. I walked down the trail and lost track of time and distance.
Eventually, I ended up at the end of the trail and back by my friend Kurt's van with no shorts in hand. I searched the car, they weren't there, so I decided to start back up the trail so my friends wouldn't worry about me and the next day I'd just skip out on swimming. About 500 feet up the trail, I saw something blue in the dirt. It was the shorts! So, with the flashlight dimming and the forest completely black, I headed towards the lake.
However, I hadn't walked more than about 100 feet when I heard strange breathing just ahead and got very scared. I sort of froze and listened. "There's nothing there. It's just my imagination." I told myself. The sound sort of faded out so I took a few steps forward. But as I strained to see anything in the darkness I noticed a few stars blacked out ahead. At first I thought it was a tree. Then I heard a loud grunt and got more scared then I've ever been. I raised the extremely dim flashlight and could see two little reflections glinting off the eyes of a giant moose who was standing right in the trail. He was probably 7 feet tall, very ominous, and had large antlers. He grunted and snorted several times while I stood there in complete fear. I didn't know what to do. For a second, I felt a little bold and thought about just running past him. Then I had an image of my dead body being found gored in the forest and decided to make a run for it the other way.
I took off back to the bottom of the trail. There was a ski lodge there with a pay phone on it so I called my friends at the top of the trail to try and tell them what was going on. On both phones, there was no answer, just message machines. I left them both a message that said I was stuck at the bottom of the trail, scared of a moose, I was going to sleep in the car and they could meet me at dawn.
After making a few more calls to them, I jumped in my friends van and decided rather than sleep in it, I'd go home, get a gun, and do some research on moose aggressiveness, then come back and pass him with confidence. So I drove all the way down the 40 minute canyon, then about 20 minutes across the valley to my house, went inside, got the gun, got online, pulled up a website about moose and their behavior around humans. Then the phone rang. It was the police. They asked me if I had stolen my friend's car, and I said, "I don't know that I'd call it stolen, but uh yeah, I took it." Then they told me they were standing there with him at the base of the trail and that he wanted his car back, so I went out of the house, jumped in Kurt's car, sped back up the canyon, and there he was with some cops at the base of the trail. I was concerned that I'd be in huge trouble, both because of the "stolen" van and the gun sitting on the passenger seat. Fortunately, the cops were really laid back and not particularly concerned, they didn't do any searches or anything so that wasn't much of a problem. They just left and said, "Be good." or something.
Kurt was disgusted with me and lectured me all the way up the trail as we headed back to the lake. He kept asking me what was wrong with me- being scared of a little old moose.
Then, halfway up the trail, who should we run into but the moose. We just casually walked past him and he didn't do anything. Kurt sneered, "See, it's not even dangerous."
When we arrived at the lake we found our other friend, Nate, cowering in a tent. Kurt tried to get sympathy from him and get Nate to tease me too about how moose aren't scary, but it turned out he was shivering with fear and said, "I don't blame you. A moose was up here wandering around the tent and I was paralyzed with fear!" So Kurt teased us both, we went to bed, and swam the next day.
I later found out that the reason I couldn't get a hold of Kurt and Nate on the phone earlier was not because they had no service but they were too lazy to answer a phone call from an unrecognizable number. I couldn't believe it! If they'd answered their phones, I never would have taken the car home, the cops never would have been involved, and I probably would actually get to hike to that lake with Kurt without him teasing me the whole way up!
Ever since that day, I've been teased about "the moose". Any time I want to go on a hike, I'm certain to have somebody bring up the moose incident. Kurt and his family can't get enough of the story. In fact, both times I've tried to return to that lake Kurt has found away to ditch me and go with everyone else but me. He thinks I'm a big baby for being scared of the moose.

Snapshot Essay: The Moose In The Mountains

2008-01-22T21:38:00.000-07:00

In late summer of 2005, 2 friends and I decided we'd go camp high in the mountains and swim in a lake that's up there. Now I won't be divulging the name of the lake because I have recently found out that it's illegal to swim in it as well as illegal to camp by it. I'd prefer to keep myself out of trouble, but at the time we honestly didn't know that it wasn't okay to be up there.
Anyway, we started hiking up the trail towards the lake at about 7:30 P.M., so by the time we got to the lake, the sun was setting. As soon as we got there, I realized that I had dropped my swim trunks somewhere on the trail. I figured they couldn't be that far back, so I'd just walk a little way back and grab them. My friends didn't have the desire to start back down the trail, so they got a fire going and set up the tent while I headed off with a flashlight in hopes of finding the shorts. I walked down the trail and lost track of time and distance.
Eventually, I ended up at the end of the trail and back by my friend Kurt's van with no shorts in hand. I searched the car, they weren't there, so I decided to start back up the trail so my friends wouldn't worry about me and the next day I'd just skip out on swimming. About 500 feet up the trail, I saw something blue in the dirt. It was the shorts! So, with the flashlight dimming and the forest completely black, I headed towards the lake.
However, I hadn't walked more than about 100 feet when I heard strange breathing just ahead and got very scared. I sort of froze and listened. "There's nothing there. It's just my imagination." I told myself. The sound sort of faded out so I took a few steps forward. But as I strained to see anything in the darkness I noticed a few stars blacked out ahead. At first I thought it was a tree. Then I heard a loud grunt and got more scared then I've ever been. I raised the extremely dim flashlight and could see two little reflections glinting off the eyes of a giant moose who was standing right in the trail. I didn't know what to do. For a second, I felt a little bold and thought about just running past him. Then I had an image of my dead body being found gored in the forest and decided to make a run for it the other way.
I took off back to the bottom of the trail. There was a ski lodge there with a pay phone on it so I called my friends at the top of the trail to try and tell them what was going on. On both phones, there was no answer, just message machines. I left them both a message that said I was stuck at the bottom of the trail, scared of a moose, I was going to sleep in the car and they could meet me at dawn.
After making a few more calls to them, I jumped in my friends van and decided rather than sleep in it, I'd go home, get a gun, and do some research on moose aggressiveness, then come back and pass him with confidence. So I drove all the way down the 40 minute canyon, then about 20 minutes across the valley to my house, went inside, got the gun, got online, pulled up a website about moose and their behavior around humans. Then the phone rang. It was the police. They asked me if I had stolen my friend's car, and I said, "I don't know that I'd call it stolen, but uh yeah, I took it." Then they told me they were standing there with him at the base of the trail and that he wanted his car back, so I went out of the house, jumped in Kurt's car, sped back up the canyon, and there he was with some cops at the base of the trail. The cops were really laid back and not particularly concerned, so that wasn't much of a problem. They just left and said, "Be good." or something.
Kurt was disgusted with me and lectured me all the way up the trail as we headed back to the lake. He kept asking me what was wrong with me- being scared of a little old moose.
Then, halfway up the trail, who should we run into but the moose. We just casually walked past him and he didn't do anything. Kurt sneered, "See, it's not even dangerous."
When we arrived at the lake we found our other friend, Nate, cowering in a tent. Kurt tried to get sympathy from him and get Nate to tease me too about how moose aren't scary, but it turned out he was shivering with fear and said, "I don't blame you. A moose was up here wandering around the tent and I was paralyzed with fear!" So Kurt teased us both, we went to bed, and swam the next day.
I found out that the reason I couldn't get a hold of them on the phone earlier was not because they had no service but they were too lazy to answer a phone call from an unrecognizable number. I couldn't believe it! If they'd answered their phones, I never would have taken the car home, the cops never would have been involved, and I probably would actually get to hike to that lake with Kurt without him teasing me the whole way up!

Wooden Blog

2008-01-09T02:50:00.000-07:00

Link to a blog:
Wooden Blog
This is the blog of one of my favorite artists, Adam Phillips. He usually just discusses what he is working on and what software he's using and gives tips and tricks on how to use flash. He has moved on to ToonBoom, and I've been thinking of buying that for a while.
He makes all kinds of cool animations and inspires me to do stuff like this (I made this in flash and the style is influenced by his work, all though mine's a little more creepy and a lot more violent):

If you wanna see more of my stuff, scroll around in the above playlist^^^ (it's all by me)... or, I guess it's not really a blog, but I have a Youtube account full of some good stuff and mostly embarrassing old stuff.
Enjoy!

New Blog

2008-01-07T11:30:00.001-07:00

This is a new blog for the U of Utah Writing for New Media class.

I'm Christian Madsen.