While at Toyota Headquarters in 2011, I produced nine Flash title sequence animations to serve as intros for “chapters” of their 30-minute executive multimedia presentation. The chosen theme for the presentation was in iPad motif, with each chapter treated as an iPad app.

• Intro Golf
• TFS Birds (based on the popular Angry Birds)
• TFS Pinball
• TFS Racing
• TFS Goo (based on World of Goo)
• TFS Earth
• TFS Execs
• TFS Swagger

From the “Trick of The Mind” series aired in the UK. The clip here is taken directly from Season 1 — Episode 1. It explains for the most part how he did achieve the feat, and the trick is quite clever. Don’t get too hung up on the ending though; it’s merely a trick.

Knock yourself a pro, Slick! From the 1980 film:

The other day after hitting Pac Diner we stopped by Fort Mac for “Old Fort MacArthur Days 2011”. We’d intended to check it out for about 15 minutes, but ended up staying there for four hours.

Running for over 20 years now, Old Fort MacArthur Days is a re-enactment and living history timeline event. I’d been there about 10 years ago, where the event focused on American military history (Civil, World Wars, Korea, Vietnam), complete with a re-enactment of the Normandy invasion. Since then, the gig has expanded into a wide-ranging thing that showcases the history of military activity from around the world across time.

There must have been about 50-60 different groups who showed up and set up camp, from Vikings to Pirates to Revolutionary War to Civil War to Old West to WWI to WWII to Vietnam to 1st-Century Roman. These people took it all very seriously, digging fire pits, wearing full period garb, and speaking in accents. Many camps even had their women sewing on looms or boiling potatoes.

Our first stop was at the Roman camp. I somehow became the subject of the demonstration. They donned me with full gear: leather vest, chain mail, breast plate, helmet, etc. It all weighed over 60 pounds, not including the shield, weapon, and supply pack. Imagine humping that stuff 20 miles on foot in the heat with people trying to kill you.

Battles back then were no small thing. One conflict outside London involved 200,000 people, with 80,000 dying over the course of about six hours. And this was close-contact stuff; by the time you were killing a guy, you were close enough to whisper in his ear.

Our first gummer together. Andre Ethier Bobble Head Night. Dodgers beat the Mets, 6-0.

I’m reading the Chinatown script and can’t stop laughing at this one. It goes something like this:

A fella’s tired of screwing his wife, and he’s telling his friend about it. His friend says, “Why don’t you just do what the Chinese do?”

“What do they do?” the guy says.

“Here’s what they do,” the friend says. “You see, the Chinese will screw for a while, then they’ll take a break, and read some Confucius. Then they’ll screw some more, take another break, smoke a little opium. Then they’ll get back to it, screw some more, and after a few minutes, they’ll take another break to contemplate the moon or something. It all helps to keep things fresh and exciting.”

“That sounds like a good idea,” the guy says. “I’ll give it a shot.”

So the guy goes home. After a few minutes of screwing his wife, he gets up, takes a break, and goes into the other room to read a Life magazine. He comes back, starts screwing some more, says, “Excuse me a second,” then gets up and smokes a cigarette. After the cigarette break, he starts screwing for a few more minutes, then gets up and starts looking at the moon.

“What the hell’s wrong with you?” the wife says. “You’re screwing like a Chinaman.”