Gonna be in L.A. Jan 6, 09, 7:22 a.m.

For a couple days next week for a work thing. Might have a little free time. Any reccomendations for anything interesting or god eats? My boss will want to do the glitzy bar thing where you see celebs, but that's not my thing really.

Any suggestions for:
food - hole in the wall local treasure type places
people watching
strange collecting and/or memorabilia type places

RIP Freddie Hubbard Dec 30, 08, 5:37 a.m.

Another legend gone. :(

Awesomeness Dec 16, 08, 12:32 p.m.

This calls for some chemical equations. Bring them on.

Actionscript training Dec 15, 08, 10:15 a.m.

So I'm doing a couple days of AS training, as it been a long time comin. Immersing my self in tutorials and the Lynda course and all that.

Question —
I assumed I'd just dive into AS3 as I work on CS3 and it only keeps moving forward. Should I back up and focus on AS2? Am I missing anything fundamental by starting training with AS3 and not having other background?

A Red Nosed Reindeer Dec 16, 08, 9:01 a.m.

DrBombay's other carol thread reminded me of my whole problem with Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Been sticking in my craw.
....
Rudolph, the red-nosed reindeer
had a very shiny nose.
And if you ever saw him,
you would even say it glows.

All of the other reindeer
used to laugh and call him names.
They never let poor Rudolph
join in any reindeer games.

Then one foggy Christmas Eve
Santa came to say:
"Rudolph with your nose so bright,
won't you guide my sleigh tonight?"

Then all the reindeer loved him
as they shouted out with glee,
Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer,
you'll go down in history!

....

So at first the other reindeer laugh and call him names. They wouldn't let poor Rudolph join in any reindeer games.

So Dasher and Dancer and all those guys are fucking cocks. We have that established.

But hold the fuck on. Santa comes in at the end, the big dick, and says "Won't you guide my sleigh tonight?"

THEN all the reindeer loved him. Then? THEN?? No they don't. Not one little bit. These are some callous fucking deer. I think we can see what's really going on here. At the deer shack it's all about kissing the bearded man's ass. Sucking up to Santa. God knows how that came about. There's one of two possibilities:

A. The deer shack is basically an episode of the Hills. Catty, manipulative deer are always battling out for Santa's favor and control of the herd.

B. Santa tortures reindeer. The reindeer live in fear of jolly ol St. Nick, and must appease him or else it's any number of unspeakable tortures, not to mention no food.

The only positive thing in the ending of the carol is that Rudolf now has the upper hand. If it's scenario A, Rudolf must grow a thick skin and get hip to the politics of North Pole reindeer if he's to maintain alpha status among the herd and remain Santa's number one boy.
If it's Scenario B., then let's hope our boy Rudolph figures that out too, and either keeps the fat man happy and lights the way for his annual wilding, or gets his ass out of there, possibly even liberating the other traumatized animals.

After Effects conundrum Dec 17, 08, 2:08 p.m.

So I want to create this effect where a noodly stream of light particles flies around buildings and ultimately animates a logo. I'm going to cut between a few aerial shots showing the stages of animation.

For example, this kind of aerial shot:
http://www.gettyimages.com/detai…

All the particle stuff, no problem.
But I am stuck at which may be the best approach to matching the movement of the camera so it looks like all the good stuff is really in the shot. The options I have thought of are:
1. Eyeballing it and rotoscoping (probably not great looking)
2. A combination of motion tracking data sets
3. A fancy 3rd party match-move app like Boujou (which I do not have)

Any ideas? Am i missing something?