Thursday, August 31, 2006

The one where Chad makes a filler post...

So you want to be an Internet celebrity?

I thought I'd make some comments on recent events on the Plan 4 farm. I spent some quality time with a cheap Aiptek pen cam and made "the mouse". Little did I know what kind of fame and fortune it would lead to. I put it on Youtube and stupidvideos.com. Thus far, Youtube has it as being viewed about 200 times. I'm not sure if repeat viewings by the same IP address count. If they do, that means about 3 people viewed it. On stupidvideos.com it got put on the front page in the 50 newest column. To date, that has achieved nearly 30,000 views. While the views garnered us a few hits, the linking from killerik.com brought in the most traffic. The best part about the stupid videos listing was the one single email I received. I'd post all of it but its gone. In a nutshell this is what it said.

"We see you have a lot of views on your video. We have like 8 vids and have good reviews but nobody is viewing them, can you help us get at least to the Silly level." (Silly level is 1000 plays).

I could not make myself use the bad grammar and broken English that was contained in the email. I told them I would do what I could and in true Hollywood fashion did jack shit. You want views? Make something entertaining jerk. Wow. I felt like a real king. I have really made it someplace. I've got desperate pleas for help in making someone else famous and now I'm talking shit about them.

I also got an email about "the mouse II" a higher quality more effects laden prothat'son thats sitting around 60 views. Due to privacy concerns I'll say the email said this, "Wow, that's cool!"
That was an hawesome email to get.

Overall, "he mouse" led to the largest single readership growth of the blog. Now its time to move on and prove we are not one hit wonders. I think Todd and I will be lip synching some songs and jumping around on our beds as that seems to be the going thing on Youtube. A second option is for us to ride bikes off ramps and bust our balls doing Jackass type stuff and submit that to stupid videos.





Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Plan 4 presents "mysterious man in the fire #1"

Keeping with a television theme means having regular characters. Well, here we go. "mysterious man in the fire".
Send him Email and he'll answer it. Notice how I don't give an address for that...





Monday, August 28, 2006

Fake news by Chad #10

Fake News by Chad #10

The departure of Tom "Shake your Thetan" Cruise from paramount was hardly of note compared to the bombshell Plan 4 studios dropped early Monday morning.

"As of today" claimed spokesman Chad Nule "We are proud to announce Tom Cruz will be making all of his films for us. We are also proud to announce a long awaited sequel to 'Legend' will be in the works soon."
Our immediate question was, why the name change? When probed further on the spelling of "Cruise's" or "Cruz's" last name Chad only shrugged and said "I don't know, It's Tom Cruz, who cares?" One industry leader we spoke with suggested that perhaps Plan 4 "Got the wrong guy." Todd Eberson, production manager for Plan 4 did not seem phased. "His last movies have been crap but we still remember his performanthat's "Legend" thats all we need. He's the right guy for us."

A feature film seems to be quite a leap for the independent production company. It is not known exavideosat kind of video's and films Plan 4 currently makes. The only available works we could find were all childish, lackluster shorts on Youtube. When asked for a statement by Cruise, his spokesman said, "What the hell are you talking about, we don't even know these guys..."
More as the story develops...






Sunday, August 27, 2006

Plan 4 special presentation "the mouse II"

By popular demand, I made "the mouse II"
The first important thing about this film is that I used music that is under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License. That means that because I used someone else's work, I have to allow the same for my completed work. I'm cool with that. The music "Lakeside Shadow" is by Wil Wheaton .

So, there you have it, I've made every attempt to make sure I get this Creative Commons deal just so.

Here is "the mouse II"



Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.



Friday, August 25, 2006

The one where Todd changes his name to a symbol


Dearly beloved,
We are gathered here today to dig through this thing called life.
Electric word, life, it means forever and that's a mighty long time.
I'm here to tell you, there's something else, Plan 4
A blog of never ending satire and parody
You can always see the fresh content, day, or night.
So when you call up that "Shrink" in Beverly Hills (you know the one).
He taught you everything will be allright.
Sit there till your time is up.
Ask HIM, how much of your time is in this life?
Things are much harder here than in Plan 4
This life? You're on your own.

So if the elevator tries to bring you down:
Go crazy!
Punch the 4th floor and go crazy.






Wednesday, August 23, 2006

The one where Chad goes back and makes unnecessary changes to an old film...

Since I'm still on a YouTube kick, here is a little learning project I did a couple years ago. I wanted to learn rotoscoping and how you use it to make light sabers. Here it is, "Living Room Wars"




Here is another, I only wanted to see the easiest way to make a "bug" with Vegas Video. My dad on vacation. He kept going to the same web cam every day and having his picture taken. I was at work and captured a bunch of stills to make this.





Tuesday, August 22, 2006

The one where Chad starts to get addicted to YouTube

This video stems from finding a cool looking club at work. Well, it's not a club actually but rather a table leg. It's the kind of thing that looks like its out of some kind of a adventure game like "Dragon Warrior" or "Dragon Warrior II". Well, here is how wished I had found it. A frightening ghost like guardian of the club.
The fire, that's from a gas extraction flare at work. Me,I shot using a negative effect on the camera along with the night vision on. I slowed the flame down, added blurring and grain to my face part, added wah wah, pitch shift and chorus to my voice. Of course I messed with the opacity and alpha channels to get the images to blend well. My apologies to Wil Wheaton and David Duchovny.
I'm really starting to love YouTube.
Here's "Fox's Club"






PLAN 4 SPECIAL NEWS UPDATE (not fake)



I purchased a Snickers Almond bar today. I could not help but notice that the wrapper clearly states "NOW MORE SATISFYING!" but it does not say why.


I knew that the Plan 4 readers needed to know the secret to this new found satisfaction.
The wrapper has a number to call for questions or comments. 1-800-551-0702. It's available M-F 8:30AM -5 PM. I figured this was a great place to find my answers.

Calling the number led me to the Master Food USA quality and information blah blah blah.
The information was presented to me in a typical phone fashion. I could have chosen many functions but chose not to. If you would like information on peanut free candy, sugar free, and gluten free candies you could also get that information here. What I wanted was to know the key to satisfaction.

I chose 0 and was put on hold. I was on hold for less than two minutes. Apparently less people are calling about candy than say, Adelphia cable interruptions. When I reached the next available representative, I spoke with Maria.

Maria was very pleasant to speak with. It was as if she volunteered to answer the phone and give me the information I needed. I'd call back just to chat.
Here is how the call went. Mostly.

"Hi, My name is Chad, I was wondering if you could tell me what was done to the snickers almond bar to make it more satisfying."

"Certainly", she said.

Maria explained...
The Snickers Almond bar did not contain peanuts until recently, May to be exact. In May the recipe was changed to include peanuts in the nougat layer. You may notice that under the brown stripe it says "This product contains peanuts", before May it stated "This product may contain peanuts".

"So", I asked, "peanuts were added to the recipe to enhance the satisfaction?"

"Yes" Maria said.

Well, there was my answer. I thanked Maria and shared my name and Zip code so the NSA can track my candy consumption.

I was a little let down that the secret to satisfaction was "Just add peanuts". I must say, the answer was looking at me all the time. As a kid, the commercial said "Snickers satisfies me" or some load like that. Well, if Snickers already satisfies than it makes sense to make the almond version be closer to the original recipe. Huh, thats great.

The one where Chad talks about Google



Google adsense has me stumped. I saw this ad on here the other day. How did it figure this ad made any sense to show on Plan 4? Does this mean we are going to be targeted by crazies and nutjobs? We can only hope I guess.
I think an appropirate experiment would be to put as many off the wall statements as possible just to get weird ads.
Sorry for leaving it as a BMP. I just didn't feel like changing it. Todd can if he wants to.

On another note.

I don't have much this morning. Here is a short conversation that I heard while on vacation. Boy 1 is a cousin and Boy2 is my son.

Boy 1. "What's the grossest thing you'll never want to taste"
Boy 2. "Human"
Boy 1. "I was thinking 'Porta Potty' water.



Monday, August 21, 2006

The one where Chad makes a scary Youtube movie

Had a few extra minutes to film the wild life that resides on my desk. Nature sure is cruel. This idea was rolling around in my gourd for a long time.



*Update*
This was a smart move putting this little animation up on Youtube. I posted it on some video sharing sites and it is allready leading to increased page views.

Here are some things to look for, a little "Directors commentary"
1. I used a paperclip to hold one of the pullers up to simulate jumping.
2. Rubber bands were used as innards.
3. It did not take long.
4. I did the vocals for the sound effects. I just sped up the sound for the meeps and slowed it for the growls and breathing.
5. I first came up with the concept in 2000.





Friday, August 18, 2006

The one where Chad makes Podcast #2

They say the second one is the hardest. Well, nobody really says that. This one was easier and the music even better. Enjoy.

Podcast the second

The playlist

Nilsson - "Gotta get up", Nilsson Shmilson

Neil Diamond - "Girl You'll be a woman soon", Hot August night (live).

Aztec Two Step - "It's going on Saturday", Second step

Mike Bloomfield, Al Kooper, Steve Stills - "Season of the Witch" Super session

Jackson Brown - "Something fine", Saturate before using -








Adendumn:
This is my daughter listening to this awesome vinyl podcast. However, she refused to finish her macaroni and cheese after listening. I'm not sure why. I told her it wasn't mac+cheese but that it was fettuchini alfredo, but she wasn't buying it. -dte

Thursday, August 17, 2006

The one where Todd takes the Star Trek quiz


"They task me. . . And I will have them."

You are Kahn's Man-Boobs:

Kahn's Man-boobs...........................80%

Expendable Character (Redshirt)....80%

Mr. Scott ........................................70%

Guinan's weave...............................70%

Jean-Luc Picard..............................65%

Deanna Troi....................................60%

Wesley Crusher (cadet)..................60%

Spock.............................................55%

Mr. Sulu (Undiscoverd Country)......55%

Lt. Worf (not DS9)..........................50%

Geordi LaForge..............................50%

James T. Kirk (Captain).................50%

Wesley Crusher (acting ensign).....45%

Tribble #4487 (the brown one).......40%

Data's emotion chip.......................34%







The one where Chad talks about his town.

I live in a sleepy little American town in central Maine. The very same Maine that today is headlining the news with stories of mutant hybrid creatures of the night. A true "Mystery Beast". I wanted to capitalize on the world wide appeal of monsters but I don't have anything to say about it. So, Here is the morning I spent in my sleepy little town.

The town, Carmel, has a population of about 2200 people. It's small.

I started by taking my returnable bottles to the redemption center here in town. Maine has a .05 cent deposit. While I was at the redemption center / Husqvarna dealer, I chatted with both the owner and his very lively dogs. We talked shop for a while until it was my turn to have my bottles counted. The attendant told me about the Red Sox package he won on a scratch off ticket. Man, lucky guy. He's going to get a Big Pappi signed jersey and some other swag. We also chatted about records, (Vinyl) and 8 track tapes. He has a collection of classic country. Awesome.
With my cash in hand (13.25) I drove back into the village. I decided to take some of the money and spend it at a local convenience store. The Village Market to be more precise. When I pulled into the parking lot, I saw one of my baseball players from this summer. He was across the lot with his sister at a thrift store that has just opened up. I asked him if he was going to play ball again next summer and he said "yes". We also chatted quick about the summer and going back to school.
I went in to the store and picked up a Dasani Lemon water from the back cooler. This store is one of the anchors of my child hood. It has supplied me with many things over the years. Everything from Nails, to Pop Rocks. The Owner was behind the meat counter today and I asked him about the current sale of the establishment. Apparently the sale isn't going well but it's not over yet. I'd hate to see new owners only because I fear change.
I brought the Dasani to the counter and a young girl rang it up. I could not help but notice she wore a "Seniors 06" T-shirt. I went to the same high school she goes to. Except 11 years ago.
I left the store and hollered a good bye to my ball player and headed home. On my way home I drove past my sister and brother in laws house. I stopped the Jeep in the street and hollered up to the builders on the roof. "Hey, it's crooked!" "Get a job you bum!" he hollered back. I started back up the road home. I couldn't help but think about the last 45 minutes and that it had been Quintessential little town and I never even noticed it was happening.
So there you go. No wild animals and no mutated beasts here to report of.

But here are some awesome pictures of it!!!!! (Five exclamation marks proves awesomeness)








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Wednesday, August 16, 2006

The one where Chad teaches his son a lesson

Parenting is often very hard work. I know because I watch TV. Just recently I had the opportunity to teach my son a very important, but painfull lesson.

First off, I have two Roomba floor sweeping robots. A roomba Red and a Roomba Discovery. My son had taken them up to his room to do some "cleaning". As it turned out, "cleaning" meant having an illegal Roomba fight in his room. I was surprised by his actions.

"Son" I said, "What are you doing?"

"uh, having a Roomba fight"

I could see that he had money behind his back.

"And are you taking bets from your brother and sister?

"Yes dad" He said sheepishly.

I looked at him with my best dad face.

"And what have I told you about taking bets in the house?"

"That I need more than two betters so that I make sure I still come out ahead."

"Yes son, that's right." I assured him. "What are you giving for odds?"

"4:1 against Roomba Discovery"

I was disappointed in his decision to make such odds.

I felt like I had not been doing my job as a dad.

This is where the real lesson began.

"So you don't think Discovery can take Red?"

"No, Red is heavier"

"Ah, I see" I knodded my head. "I'll take those numbers. Put 5 on Discovery to win"

I knew the smile on his face would be gone soon.



In the end, Discovery did win and the boy learned a valuable lesson. You need to know more about the fighters than stats. You should look inside at what makes them tick. See, I knew that Red had a bad wheel position sensor, I've had to work on it before. Knowing that, I could safely bet on Discovery because Red would be doing a circle dance within the first round. So I took from my son what was to him a small fortune and he became a better odds maker as a result of it.





Tuesday, August 15, 2006

The one where Chad plays a creepy mp3

Sometimes I have to work hard for a post and sometimes a friend calls and leaves a creepy message on my voice mail. Beeps and pitch changed added to protect what shred of privacy he has left.

http://www.summercampusa.biz/phonecall.mp3


If that one hasn't made you leave, here is a song from my friends at Tree By Leaf.
I was going to host it on my own server space but I'm sure they'd sue me. Heck! Let's let the big fancy pants rock stars supply the bandwidth.

http://www.treebyleaf.org/overandunder/overandunder.mp3



The one where Chad goes on vaca. Part 2



Ok, so the family took a CED disk on vacation. Why? Well, because I wanted to give a second chance at life to a long dead media format. Actually, because I didn't think anyone else had ever done it. So here is the CED Disk on vacation. CED makes appearances in later pics as well. Here are the ones just about him.



CED Disk lounging.

Me and CED drinking Bass

CED disk passed out.

CED disk grilling.

CED disk in the Mr. Cesspool Porta Potty.


CED disk playing Heroscape




CED disk sunning

CED disk swimming

CED disk going snorkeling

CED disk in van ready to go home .





The one where Chad shares the light


I had some sparklers on vacation. They were the cheap, 6 boxes for a dollar Wal Vart kind. One sparkler was boring. 50 of them tightly wound and stuck on the beach was not boring!
Later...I thought it was cool. Then I saw a guy on You tube who had 1000 of them at once in a can. It was much cooler than mine. Mine is puny and weak.








Monday, August 14, 2006

Fake news by Chad # 9



Southern Lebanon -

Men, woman, children, soldiers, police, and politicians are joining one another around what was yesterday seen as blast craters but today, campfires. The seemingly impossible event was achieved through a peace agreement known as “The Smores for Peace Initiative”, a plan unfurled by world leaders, Chad Nule and Todd Eberson.


“We knew that the happiest times of our lives quite often revolved around the Smore”, says Mr. Eberson. He went on to explain that nobody could stay mad at anybody once they have indulged in the sweet yummy goodness of roasted marshmallow squished between melting chocolate and crunchy graham cracker.

Convoys of Graham crackers, marshmallows and chocolate bars are fanning out across the Middle East in what has become one of the greatest humanitarian projects in world history. Driving the lead truck in all of this was U2's lead singer, Bono.

Bono had this to say, “I'm just a rock star. But I know this, Smores are damn good. We should have brought these to Africa years ago. But, again, I'm just an egotistical rock star”
At each stop, the Smore items are traded for guns, rockets, bullets and bombs. People are happy to sit by the fire as friends and share a Smore.

The Initiative was not without its problems.
Chad talked a bit about the issues faced. “Well, anytime you have something as big as this, something that involves so many people, you get roadblocks” Chad explains further. “Even the ingredients used were a bone of contention”.




Lobbyists from the different manufacturers wanted their products used, as the financial implications for them would be great. We also found that there were many different Smore fundamentalist groups that wanted to be heard. A deal first had to be made that would appease the Hershites and the Nestlites for chocolate, The Staypuftians and the JetPuffors wanted their marshmallows. When all was said in done, we combined as many traits as possible into one standard recipe that could be made at any plant that chose to fulfill the contracts.

The only violence to happen as a result of the Smores plan was after a suggestion by Michael Jackson that a song such as his piece, “We are the Smores” was needed to go along with the gooey goodness. He was promptly bitch slapped by Cindy Lauper.

All in all, the “Smores for Peace” initiative is a success beyond all imagination. It remains to be seen whether chocolate, graham and marshmallow have the binding strength to keep the region in a lasting peace.






Friday, August 11, 2006

The one where Chad goes on vaca. Part 1






So the vacation was on. We drove the 8 million miles it takes to get out of Maine and into Cow Hampshire. Here is the largest bridge in the world. I think.

The New Hampshire slice of I95 is interesting. The charge you a whopping 1.00. One whole buck for a 14 mile stretch of road. Full of outrage, I paid the toll attendant with nickels and dimes. I think she knew I was mad.





That's Boston. I couldn't help but wonder if those where target advertisements on the side of the bridge.







More Boston. If you look closely you'll see the names of the Red Sox fans who have spot's reserved on the edge of the bridge.








The new "Tip O'Neill" tunnel is pretty nice. I really do like it. The kids loved the hard hat's that are now mandatory for all users of the Big Dig.







We dodged and swerved around debris and concrete chunks and arrived at our destination.


You might notice that there is a special guest sitting in that blue chair. My family thought it would be nice to take a someone special on the trip. We chose to take a CED disk of the film "Fantastic Voyage" Learn about CED, RCA and Selectavison! I'll be posting soon about the fun and adventure the CED disk and our family had.







Saturday, August 05, 2006

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

The one where Chad first unfurls his Plan

The "Plan 4" plan for world wide blog supremacy by popularity.
(cool sentence. I wanted a comma but am not versed in correct comma usage.)


First we get the geeks.

Plan 1. Gain world wide acceptance by the mathematic community. I've got time and a calculator. I'll come up with a solution to this, Fermat's Last Theorem that only takes up a couple paragraphs. Nothing as large as that thing Wiles came up with.

If an integer n is greater than two, then an + bn = cn has no solutions in non-zero integers a, b, and c.

Plan 2. Entangle geeks everywhere with blogged cat stories and open Schrödinger's box in a world wide Youtube broadcast event.

Plan 3. Tell jokes about popular theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking. “Stephen Hawking's chair breaks down outside this farmers house” or “Stephen Hawking walks into a bar...” or “Stephen Hawking's accent is hard to nail down, he must be from the mid-western US...”

PLAN 4. P Vs. NP the final showdown! the 2006 hyperextreme-bowl-championship-grudge match cup..

Really though, does Plan 4 want the kind of Riff Raff that would be drawn in by this? We'd have all kinds of jerks hanging around. I mean, real nerds. They are not going to want to sit around and laugh at poop jokes. Also, while it may be fun to hear stories about math department hijinks, in truth, once you hear one physicist talk about his first time you've heard them all. Hey buddy, if you can't bring me something new with string theory I don't want you in the house. That's right. Keep your junk outside.
Forget the math nerds. Let's try for the medical community. Todd, come up with some ideas.

Here is one more math nerd joke I made up.

What do Edward Witten and a dumb blond have in common?

A: They are both made up of strings but neither can prove it.

I don't know what that means. It just sounded smart. Perhaps because it puts Witten and the supposedly less than average intelligence (but far more attractive I'm sure) blond on the same level.






Tuesday, August 01, 2006

The one where Chad starts to crack

My wedding day was June 15th 1996. I'm not going to talk about my wedding. I'm going to talk about what happened during the reception afterwards. Something happened that only one person knows the answer to. There is a mystery that needs solving. A crime was committed against me and I can't prove anything. Something was stolen from me. The answer is out there. Someone has the knowledge of that days events. Someone knows Who stole my Counting Crows “August and Everything After” CD.

I remember having the CD the night before and I remember having it the day of the wedding. It was in a CD player on the deck. Someone, at some point took the CD out of the player. For years I kept the empty case. I guess I had hoped that someday someone would send me an envelope with my missing CD in it. I though I had overcome the grief. Only just this week has the wound been reopened.

My wife repurchased the album at a local thrift store. I've forgotten what a good CD it was. Sure, I've had a few stolen MP3's from that record in my play lists but I haven't had the entire work. I've had 10 years of my life, 10 years of special time with that record taken from me. I can only imagine how much things would be different if “Raining in Baltimore” or “Anna Begins” had been a regular part of my life. This record should have been there when my children were born, when they walked, when I had my triumphs and when I had my defeats.

I'll never get this time back. I want whomever took this CD from me to know...

I'm coming for you.