Archive for the ‘Bad Blogging’ Category

It’s been a busy couple of months for me as I’ve been working like crazy on some other sites and projects, as well as helping out some of my colleagues on projects of their own. During this time I can tell you this much: I’ve been writing. Not as frequently stuff that should be posted here, but interesting stories even so. In that vein, I’ve recently come to the conclusion that I need to tie in work that keeps me away from Damn Short Stories with work that can safely be published here.

Consequently, I’ve developed a new concept: The Damn Short Series. What these stories will be, to start out with at any rate, is a series of short stories involving characters I’m using in other projects. These will help me out in that they’ll allow me to flesh out these characters a little better in my own brain, thus improving the quality of these larger projects, but it will also allow me to more regularly update DSS with a new story that fits the mold we’ve established here already.

The common theme on any given Damn Short Series will be that each of the stories in the series is related in some way to the other stories. In some cases this will entail characters whose lives intersect, in others it will entail events that serve as a catalyst to more than one life. Don’t worry, they’ll each be pretty much standalone, but at the same time they’ll be connected to the others, and reading the whole series will provide a richer experience overall.

The first of these stories will be coming in today and will focus on a character I’m developing for an unannounced project. This character is very interesting to me and should ultimately provide for a good deal of fun.

I’m happy to announce that we’re officially expanding. As you may have noticed from the November Drought, in which I began several stories but finished none, it’s a busy time of year. What better way to celebrate that fact than to punish-err, invite a fellow creative guy to join us in the art of crafting cool short stories?

I am pleased to welcome Michael Kukuk to the site as a member of the Editorial/Authororial (is that even a word?) staff. Mike’s got some great ideas and some really funny stories to tell, so I hope you’ll sit back and enjoy the forthcoming good stuff!

So this is my first post from my new iPhone. I’ve been pretty busy the last month, but several new stories are in the works. More updates a little later, but big things are coming!

As you can tell by looking at post dates, it’s been a solid 9 days since I’ve posted so much as an old poem. For that, I must apologize, but there are really good reasons involved, I promise you. For starters, I’m working on some very special projects that I’ll be revealing soon, and I’m very excited to tease those little nuggets.

On a happier note, some of you may have noted that I work with the Ugly Baby Studios team on short film and game projects (crap, did I just give something away?). In a topic related to both that and to Damn Short Stories, I am pleased to direct you to the Almost Famous Film Festival‘s website where you will note that the Ugly Baby Studios team’s 2006 short animated film “Double Vision” is Film of the Month for November. I both wrote the script for this film (story credits also go to Juliet Flores and Josh Jertberg) and created many of the 3D models (modeling credits also go to Juliet Flores, Lilla Lancaster and John Osgood, music credits to Mike Kukuk, gorgeous texture artistry was created by Juliet Flores and the World Design as well as custom VFX work was produced by Adam Hetrick in Unreal Engine 2) in addition to co-directing along with Josh Jertberg.

The A3F is a fantastic and fun event, but also a huge undertaking, especially for the Ugly Baby Studios team. To date we’re the only team who’ve ever completed and turned in an animated short film for the festival (3 in fact). Why, you ask, are we the only team to even try? I think it’s because we’re a)batshit insane, and b)just ballsy enough to think we can do an animated short in only 48 hours. And at that, I’m really looking forward to the next festival, as I intend for us to kick its ass!

So we have a new President Elect in the form of Barack Obama. Some of you are elated, some of you deflated, and others of you think “meh”. I tend to fall into the latter(est) category for many reasons. First and foremost-DUH. Obviously Obama was going to win, and if you didn’t see that coming months ago you probably weren’t paying attention. While I think it’s fair to say that both top shelf candidates (it’s a little strange that our Top Shelf is so Bottom Rung, isn’t it?) were pretty mediocre, McCain was in most respects the most mediocre of the two, and the least charismatic by far. Moreover, the Republican Party has spent the last several years pretty much slapping the faces of their own constituents. Instead of following through on their “less government” rhetoric of years past they’ve inundated us with bigger, more intrusive, more expensive government.

Instead of following through on their words about “Liberty” they have instead catered to the religious nutjobs on the extreme right. And strictly from a PR standpoint they’ve put forward the most boring, uninspiring candidates imagineable. Whatever else you can say for or against Obama, the guy comes across as genuinely likeable. I’m not at all convinced that he truly believes his own rhetoric, but then, I haven’t seen a mainstream politician who convinced me he believed in his words since Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton (and while both of those had buckets of charisma, neither had what you might call brilliant presidencies).

What, though, is the real significance of this election? Well let me tell you what I think. After a lot of consideration I’ve come to the conclusion that the significance of a Barack Obama presidency is not in the politics of it, for he is by and large the same candidate as John McCain. The real significance is a cultural one, and it has more to do with the American people than with Obama himself.

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