This seems like just the right time of year to remind you about De-Gifting.Com.
As you can see from the video above, you can save money and time (which is money) by not rushing out into the madding throngs of shoppers. Just visit the site, and buy Nothing for everyone on your list. Then, print out a collectible certificate that shows your gift-getter what they would have gotten, how much you would have spent, and why you couldn't be bothered to get it for them.
You can even pay the site the amount of money you claim to have spent. But, you don't need to pay anything to get the certificate. That's free. What you're buying is the Nothing.
Each year, thousands of certificates are produced. Nobody has ever sent us a cent.
I hope you all had a traditionally spooooooooooooky thanksgiving!
I originally registered NormalWebsite.com for Leopold, the computer in this clip. I thought that as a computer, he would want a perfectly ordinary website, because one of his two favorite things is fitting in with regular folks.
I'd hate to take that away from him just so I can have fun writing, so hopefully he'll turn up now and then.
Something like seven years ago, I heard the story of Le Gentil and thought it would be fun to do in a Reading Rainbow style. We could do a whole series of cartoons about people who lost in a big way while doing Science.
Later on, I made friends with some people who were pretty well equipped to make it happen. And it did!
Also, this year, a Transit of Venus actually happened, so it was nicely timed.
In a burst of productivity, I made three videos for the MaxFunDrive 2010 Blowout Finale Bash Marathon. I shot almost everything on Wednesday afternoon and put 'em together Thursday evening.
I threw out my first idea as too impractical to shoot of and by myself and made this one instead, featuring three tropes-of-me. All three were shot on my phone, and final cut had no problem with that. It didn't like the HD stock footage from artbeats though. That stuff caused a lot of problems.
This one is a video of the serious and heartfelt variety. It's still a little bit silly. As a video professional, I managed to shoot this with my camera/phone in portrait mode, rendering my travel to the actual locations where I listened to the episodes I mention useless. This also lead to the layering effect, so as to do something more interesting than EXTREME letterboxing.
A third video idea that came up during the first two, this is as deliberately low-fi and late night hack infomercial-y as can be. I've attempted to keep continuity to a minimum, and it doesn't, strictly speaking, make a lot of sense. I've been waiting ages to find a use for all these gigantic diamonds though.
It made me happy that all three had extra stuff I ditched to keep the time down, that they all went together quickly and easily minus dumb [GENERAL ERROR]s, and that I got such a reasonable looking product out of a telephone.
Also, today is the last day of the MaxFunDrive, so if you haven't given, you oughtta give. Every new person that gives takes one more nickel out of my pocket as part of the New Donor Challenge, which is rapidly exceeding the amount of spare change and bills I've been able to find around the house.
