Here is a funny Funny or Die video called Best Friends. And because that fat guy reminds me of like a young John C Reilly and also because I coincidentally happen to have a John C Reilly video to follow this one, here is Satisfaction Guaranteed. Not surprised at all to find out that Adam McKay wrote it.

Also, see-through frogs!

You want napkins?

9/27/2007 09:48:00 PM | Comments (0)

Holiday

Freak Me Out - Weezer

These days, a good day for me is any one where I don't have to change clothes. Today has been one of those days.

*****

I am definitely not bringing the proper intensity to my job hunting efforts. I can't be sure what the proper intensity levels should be exactly, but surely what I'm doing now (that is to say, nothing) is not enough. On the one hand, I am thoroughly enjoying being a bum. I have fantasies about discarding all the time keeping items that exist in my house and freeing myself of the fourth dimension. Were it not for the fact that snow will one day fall, it is quite possible that I would never realize that summer is over. On the other hand, I am spending way too much time with my parents now that my brother is in Japan and I am running out of money. There are a lot of things I want to buy.

The scariest part about looking for real work is that I have to expose myself to people, metaphorically speaking. I mean, once I start working I'll become part of that real world that I have spent my whole life avoiding. We've always been at odds with each other. I'm like Tupac.

*****

For someone who is so socially inept, I am awfully picky when it comes to dealing with people. Case in point, one Caroline. She likes to talk on the phone a lot and I do not, but my natural inclination towards pleasing people often results in me having to indulge her in meaningless conversation. I put a stop to that about a month ago with a string of unreturned calls and by making myself unavailable for any meetings downtown. Again, who am I to be doing such things? She called me last week and I told her I'd call her back to make plans and I just didn't. I didn't feel like it. Caroline is not a bad person at all, in fact she is often fun to be around and has endured listening to many of sob stories. That said, I became bored of her. I cannot explain it, I just get tired of people. What I feel in this circumstance is not so much guilt as a fear that she will eventually call again and I will have to explain myself. There are several lies that I have prepared, but there are times that you just want to tell someone to leave you alone and be done with it. Worse, I want to be able to reestablish contact with this person whenever I want, if ever. That is how I treat people.

*****

Saturday night was peculiar if only for the amount of late night activity it involved. After a hot softball practice that drained the life out of me I came home and took a brief three hour nap. I threw on my pajamas after and got all settled in for late night dinner and a DVD. It's around 10:00 that Max calls me, which wasn't unexpected because we'd made plans yesterday. I didn't think it would be so late though. Max and his friend David come over to play some XBox, which is soon interrupted by a call from Gary. Gary was apparently in town for a church presentation and was nice enough to take time out of his busy schedule to drop by and say hello. This is all well and good but again, I was sort of settled in. The last call I got that night was from Natasha, who was apparently a little tipsy and asked if I could pick her up from East Side Mario's. I said "okay" and asked her to call me back later. I went from getting ready to eat pasta and vegetate to playing XBox with three friends and acting as a designated driver for another one.

Natasha was very gracious, but she didn't need to be. Anyone who knows me knows that I'd do anything for her. Plus, I've been feeling worthless lately. I have this sick need to be, well, needed and this is exactly the sort of thing that satisfies that craving.

*****

Here is the trailer for Southland Tales. I have no idea what this is about. I will say that it looks like The Rock gets with both Mandy Moore and Sarah Michelle Gellar. Damn.

Oh, I see what I should do is come home and say: "Hi honey, guess what? I walked into this house today where this junkie asshole just fried his baby in a microwave because he was crying too loud, so let me share that with you. Come on, let's share that and in sharing it we'll somehow, uh, cathartically dispel all that heinous shit." Right? Wrong. You know why?
'Cause you prefer the normal routine. We fuck then you lose the power of speech.
'Cause I gotta hold on to my angst. I preserve it because I need it. It keeps me sharp, on the edge. Where I gotta be.

9/24/2007 07:17:00 PM | Comments (0)

An online series called "We Need Girlfriends". Give it a few episodes. It grows on you.

9/21/2007 12:56:00 AM | Comments (0)

So to absolutely no one's surprise, I got lazy and decided not to write another word about our little movie. Instead I just copied all three of our relevant posts and just threw it on the page. I don't want to deal with it anymore - frankly I just want to put the whole sordid thing behind me and move on with my life. I think I'm going to keep that link up there for a while though, because from a layout design perspective, I think it's awesome to have Astro Boy on my webpage.

Here are some more links.

- Here is an absolutely insane Adam West Batman clip where the deathtrap du jour is being tied into a Siamese Human Knot. I don't want to say any more about this one because I feel that my jackassery will only serve to diminish the sheer absurdity of this video.

- Here comes the second installment of that Internet Commenter Business Meeting video from a short while back. I think the Asian guy has some solid bits. It's just the same thing over again, but I bet they said that about 24 too...but here we are, looking at Season 7 in January 2008.

- Check out the trailer for Juno, which is the next upcoming thing from WAMBAG-approved thespian Michael Cera. It also includes a bunch of guys like Dwight, Kitty Pryde, Elektra, J Jonah Jameson...should be lots of fun, even if it looks more like a moody, offbeat, depressing chick flick than a straight up comedy. Good thing I love chick flicks! And being depressed! Is Ellen Page going to be the poor man's Natalie Portman for this era?

Oh, and it also co-stars Jason Bateman, who apparently never actually appears in the same scene as Cera throughout the entire movie. So this is a movie...that stars Michael Cera...and Jason Bateman...and they never appear on camera together at the same time. WHAT FUCK!?! Fortunately, there exists this interview which touches on that exact topic.

Bateman is a bad man. What would happen if you reunited him with Will Arnett, and put them in a room with Bill Murray and The Flight Of The Conchords? The deadpan...it would just be too much for this universe to handle. Let's make this movie. We're Hollywood big shots now, right?

"Screw Katherine Heigl. He got himself some Page."
"That's right."
"He ripped that up."

9/19/2007 11:44:00 AM | Comments (0)

Meteor brings strange illness to Peru.

Is this a case of mass psychogenic illness or Humanity-is-fucked-itis? You decide.

In other news, I had my finger up a dude's butt today. Good times.

9/18/2007 05:35:00 PM | Comments (0)

I'm going to get in a quick regularly scheduled programming post before I write up my own bit for the movie. Even though I think most of it's been covered already, so I might not even do it in the end. Who knows? In the meanwhile, suck on these links, bitches.

- New GROW game from EYEZMAZE. Have fun, Jess.

- Shelley Duncan is my new favourite New York Yankee. I would have absolutely loved something like that if I was 10 years old - just another example of how all Red Sox fans young and old are douchebags, trained from birth to douche it up. In other news, Go Jays!

- This is a neat video of Russia testing the largest vacuum bomb ever made, which they have labelled the "Father of All Bombs" because they are Russian, and are insane. Also known as a high-impulse thermobaric weapon, it uses a cloud of explosive agents combined with the surrounding oxygen in the air as the oxidizer, and the resulting blast wave from the overpressure is what kills stuff good. The Wikipedia page is a cool read - apparently this one can cause nuclear bomb level destruction, but without the nasty radiation. Hopefully the Russians won't set us up the bomb over this North Pole stuff, because I'll be dead and buried in the ground long before I acknowledge a world in which Santa is Russian.

- Here's a bizarre installment of Inside Edition about Super Mario Bros. from way back in 1988. There is just way too much weird stuff going on this video for me to even start with the wisecracks...it must have been just such a strange experience living in the 80's. I can't even really begin to imagine the full scope of it.

- I love Natalie Portman. Especially in an elephant suit. I want to play "The Princess And The Mayalsian Sun Bear" with her - I'll be the Princess.

- Next, please enjoy this Japanese Jack Bauer commercial. It entertains me because it's just so mean spirited. I don't know why you'd have to kick him out of the van, Jack. That's not nice at all.

- From the guys that brought you Gigaton Punch comes YupYupYup. Kanye, you sleeping on this guy! Why haven't you made a mix yet?

I'm very important. I have many leather-bound books, and my apartment smells of rich mahogany. I'm friends with Merlin Olson too. He comes over, on occasion.

9/17/2007 02:19:00 PM | Comments (0)

WAMBAG.COM Goes to CNAnime 2007: Bri’s Commentary

Before we begin, if you haven't seen this seminal work of cinema art, please mosey on over to the Google Video Link (here) or the four parts on Youtube (1, 2, 3, 4). Also, Al's writeup is quite thorough and entertaining, rendering my version irrelevant and unnecessary. So check that out too.

Part of me still cannot believe that we pulled it off. And although we’re not knee-deep in hookers and blow, as I originally hoped, I can only assume that our work here foreshadows an above-average future.

*****

WAMBAG Studio Logo:

The reason we filmed this was because we had finished the marathon session of filming my guitar scene (more on that later) and then ran into “technical difficulties” with my video editing software. I was starting to freak out, so we left to get some fresh air.

I filmed the ferry shot at the end, and almost ruined it with my own stupidity:

Will: Watch the ferry!
Brian: Aww, the ferry's in the way!
[Brian puts the camera down.]
Will and Al: No, that’s good!

Intro Talking Heads:

The only preparation that went into this whole production was two nights of MSN chats between Will and me. Originally, my character was named “The Smarmy Guy.” I tried my best to be creepy, but after my first interview, I didn’t have the heart – or stomach – for it. With alarming speed, my real-life awkwardness and ineptitude when interacting with females bled into my character. To touch on Mr. Lee’s comment that I was the most consistent that day: it’s not hard to be consistent when you’re not acting. I’m pretty sure that in future projects I’ll be a dismal failure unless I’m typecast and always play the same role. In a way, I’m probably the Tom Cruise of the WAMBAG. And yet, in most other ways, I am the total opposite.

I have to give credit to Al for thinking up the cactus bit. This is the first of many scenes that I will screw up so badly that filming will last about ten minutes. I am the weakest of the three of us at suppressing smiles, and I really Falloned this scene up.

Of course, Max deserves a shout-out for the awesome T-shirt designs, which were made under short notice.

You see Will drinking what I hope looks like some potent potable mixed with coke (I like to think it’s Scotch and Coke, which apparently was the preferred poison of The Beatles, before they discovered acids). We originally wanted Will to be a flat-out alcoholic, and he even had a flask with him that day. Unfortunately, the flask footage didn’t really fit into the video, and the idea was essentially scrapped.

The Snatch intro? Ever since I saw that trailer, I have always wanted an excuse to do that. So even if the rest of the video sucked, I would have been ecstatic for this alone. Please note how we couldn’t keep the homoeroticism out of our film for five minutes. Also note that you can see the cameraman in the mirrors. In about 20 years, when I re-master the special effects, I will remove the unwanted reflections. I will also make Greedo shoot first, because Han should be the good guy.

For the escalator jump shot, I originally wanted us to jump in unison. The shot would freeze mid-jump, and after it, we all crumple to the floor. Thinking back, that was a horrible idea. The reason we didn’t film that was because while we were running down the up-escalators, a janitor yelled at us for such dangerous activity and forbade us from doing it again. Hence, we only had one chance for the shot, and none of us really knew if we were going through with it or scrapping the shot. In my opinion, Fortune smiled upon us, and we got one of the only scenes that still elicits some reaction out of me.

The Car:

If I had a time machine, I’d go back and tell past-Brian to cut everything but the initial Spice Girls and LondonBeat parts. Everything else, albeit fun, is purely self-indulgent. By the way, Al really kills with LondonBeat.

First interview montage:

I apologize to Princess Emerald. That bit about kidnapping children is a straight up abuse of editorial power.

Bleach interview:

While editing the video with the guys, I was still under the impression that we would be famous and get a gagillion hits a day. I started to look for catchphrases we could put on official WAMBAG t-shirts/merchandise. The first one comes up during Will’s Bleach interview: “Do you want to explain Kon, sir?”

I really enjoy the talking heads style that we shamelessly cribbed from The Office. I wouldn’t mind utilizing them again in the future.

Clover Cosplay:

For the longest time, I believed the Clover Cosplay interview was completely unusable. Then, in one crazed, opium-filled afternoon with Will and Al, everything changed. And that is how the driest bit of the movie was created.

Just like the cactus scene, I messed the guitar scene up way too much. I’m not very good at performing songs and lyrics without a lot of practice. But to be fair, Avril put an excessive amount of pronouns in those verses.

Things of note: I wanted to look like an even bigger douche than I already am, so I “popped” my collar. If you look carefully, you’ll notice that one collar is up, but the other fell down during shooting. How embarrassing. Also, if you look closely, during the staring part, I barely crack a smile for a split-second. That’s weak.

T-shirt catchphrase #2: “I love Rumors.”

Conan the Barbarian:

I still can’t believe that this interview is completely unscripted. This is one of many reminders that that Will and Al are better at improv than me. T-shirt #3: “I was thinking of something that I have to do later in the day, which I will now do… later.”


Another talking head:

We had yet another lucky break: a lot of people tell me that they thought the “Bri is sick” plotline was prefabricated. In actuality, I was sick during filming and was popping cough drops at a rate that could only be described as “psychologically-dependent”. This had the unfortunate side-effect of making me look like a cow eating grass, as apparently that’s how I go to town on the lozenges.

Action montage:

I never used to like the Arctic Monkey’s “I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor.” Little did I know that all it took was editing a tedious scene at 4:00 in the morning for me to really warm up to it.

I’m also glad that the “American Gladiators” bit made it in somehow. The original can be seen in Teaser #3.

Anakin:

As Al mentioned, Anakin totally cockblocked me, which is kind of a blessing in disguise. If I had gotten that interview with those girls I would not have talked to the Bondage Girls.

Notice how he pushes Al away when he approaches Will, and then only relents his assault after Al tells him to.

Vomit:

Will’s crying really elevates the scene from a funny gag to one of the most awesome bits of the film, in my opinion.

Zuko Interview:

I interviewed this guy in ’04. He never disappoints. Now, I have a horrible attention span, and zone out a lot when I’m interviewing people. I was as confused as you viewers when I snapped back to reality and realized he was explaining the 11 causes of World War II.

The “I want to die” part was actually from another bit we planned to do (which is a deleted scene on the DVD, which you should buy). Like every other scene I’m in, this is not acting. I actually felt like complete shit, as the sickness was starting to overcome my natural defences. If it wasn’t for a timely save from Extra Strength Tylenol, I probably would not have made it through the day.

Metal Gear Ninja:

I think Max deserves a shout-out for operating the camera. Besides a questionable boob-tracking shot during my Free Hugs interview, his camerawork was exceptional. Notice the crash zoom to the exclamation point at exactly the right time. There are many instances where Max does quality work, but this one was my favourite.

T-shirt #4: “Twenty Girlfriends – that’s the Ninja Way.”

Interview Montage:

Those Free Hugs girls said I was cute. That is depressing, as apparently I’m only considered cute by 15 year olds. My life is a mess.

Bondage Girls:

I’d like to thank the Bondage Girls for doing all the work. It was the end of the day, I was freaking out because I didn’t think I had any good interview footage, and then these saviours appeared.

If you’re astute, you will notice that I completely roger the haiku. It should be: “Your eyes are pretty / If I said your body’s fine / Could I grind on it?”

Crying:

That “boyfriend” rejection was actually my first interview of the day. I still thought I was going to me a major creep, and honestly couldn’t go through with it after that experience. I get rejected by women every day in real life. I didn’t need to go through that while I was enjoying a weekend out of town. And in case you’re wondering… Yes, I have no balls.

Fight:

From the limited feedback that I’ve collected, this scene actually gets the most criticism. Admittedly, it has always been a dream of ours to film such a scene, so it’s 100% self-indulgence. I think in the future, we either go for ultra-ridiculous violence (like Hot Rod) or ultra-pathetic (like the Michael vs Dwight scene in The Office).

Will punching me at the end is totally improv, and it is totally awesome.

We tried to get Al kicked out by convention staff for being shirtless, but by the time we filmed this scene, all the staff had either left or were at the masquerade.

It’s hard to see on the internet version of the video, but there’s a blurred circle over Al’s extended middle finger.

I actually discovered the end credits song accidentally. I had read one of Al’s previous posts, which talked about “I am John” by Loney, Dear. I decided to see what the fuss was about, and downloaded what I thought was track 2 of the Loney, Noir CD. I immediately fell in love with the song, and wanted to put it at the end of a short film I was planning in my head at the time. I later found out that it was actually “Now, let it go.” The rest is history (not really).

*****

A few final, random thoughts:

I think the most memorable part of editing the video was seeing “WAMBAG.COM” pop up for the first time, with Loney, Dear in the background at 10 in the morning after editing for 22 hours straight. I have done a lot of video projects, but this is by far the one I am most proud of.

When I don’t get hired by any hospital in Canada, I’m pretty sure that it will be because they Googled my name and found this video.

Our friend Dan Chiu helped us for part of the filming, and was even featured as a crazed fan, like Mel from Flight of the Conchords. Unfortunately, his bit didn’t fit into the movie, but you can see it in Teaser #1. Likewise, I am disappointed Teaser #2 never made it into the movie. I think that when I made the teasers, I subconsciously knew that these scenes would never find a home in the final product.

All in all, I think we did a great job, and I can’t wait for our next project. That being said, I’m going to take this time to tell you that I frequent the forums of Quarter to Three, a messageboard where videogame developers and reviewers hang out. I posted our video there, and Tom Chick, who is a noted video game reviewer AND the actor who plays Gil (Oscar's gay boyfriend on The Office) had this to say about our video:

"Good for you guys for doing this, Brian. I agree that it needs to be a bit shorter. Also, for what you guys are doing, I would have liked the camera to be much closer to your faces. Way too many medium shots. Tell the guy with the camera not to be shy and to get up closer to you, particularly since a lot of us will be watching in tiny windows via Google video!

But you guys have a nice rapport and the editing in particular was very well done. Loved the 70s intro gags and the time stamp freeze-screens. Although I would recommend against using well-known musical riffs like the ones from Flight of the Conchords and Arrested Development. Your own riff is a great place to claim some character and you miss out by invoking someone else's music.

Anyway, good work!

-Tom"

As Will pointed out to me later, Mr. Chick has a Wikipedia page that you can peruse. So, the next time we advertise this video, we can say that an actor from The Office likes it. How awesome is that?

And on that note, I will bring my commentary to an end.

9/15/2007 11:17:00 PM | Comments (0)

WAMBAG.COM Goes To CNAnime 2007: 2-Disc Special Edition

Homecoming - Kanye West

Just when you thought we couldn't get any more self-indulgent! To commemorate the one week anniversary of the modern classic WAMBAG.COM Goes To CNAnime 2007, I've decided to release a special edition with new director's commentary! By "release a special edition", I mean write this post and by "new director's commentary", I mean the following text complete with timecodes:

(By the way, the special edition also now comes in Youtube format: Parts 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Intro:

(00:00) That gorgeous fifteen second intro was the result of us needing to get out of Brian's house and get some fresh air. At that point, we'd probably been recycling the same oxygen for about fourteen hours. We went down to the lake, filmed a lot of nature stuff and came back. All of that took about forty minutes. You got fifteen seconds. That said, these fifteen seconds should stand as the opening to any future WAMBAG.COM productions, so time well spent I say.

The Interviews:

(00:16) Gah! Did we really have to open up this film with a shot of my face? And why are my shots so close? Horrible. At first I was disappointed that the version we posted online is of such low quality, but I realize now that that is a blessing for everyone involved. Our grim visages were not meant to be viewed in hi-resolution. You don't know how truly hideous you are until you've made a half-hour video starring you and your friends.

(01:03) I have to say that Brian was probably the most consistent performer of the day. Talking heads, interviews, whatever, he was bringing the goods. At least that's what my dad told me when I watched it with him. Crazy old coot.

(01:22) Brian also did a great job with censoring all the curse words. It's a general rule that bleeping makes swearing much funnier, at least in regards to guys like us. That said, during Max's interview we have one of the two vulgarities that remained in the film (Cocked Up). Of course, he could be referring to the cocking of a gun or a fist. Of course, he is not.

(01:47) You know, I used to think that I was a natural actor. After watching this video...well, let's just say I'm going to work on my "lion face" and "lemon face" for a while.

(01:59) Just for the record, the "cock-tus" was totally my idea. And yes, I'm still mad that my dad liked Brian more than me. On a side note, we should show people the deleted scene where my mom walks in and asks us not to steal her plants. Though that's probably more of a "you had to be there" kind of joke.

(02:20) For anyone who doesn't know, the "orange squeezer" routine is one I've been doing for a few years now. I don't even think it's that funny, but people seem to get a kick out of it and for some reason it always comes to mind when I'm forced to improvise. I always add a little something different to the story when I tell it, as is customary with any good joke. Angel will swear to you that I came up with that for the first time talking to her and that I originally envisioned him (or her) to be named Tavish McSqueezie. I can neither confirm or deny that rumour.

(03:20) I'm just going to throw this out there in the hopes that it'll get our site some more hits: SNATCH! That out of the way, this sequence is vintage Brian Liu.

The Car Ride:

A couple of comments: Even though this scene is complete filler, I'm happy we kept it in because singing along badly to I've Been Thinking About You has been a dream of mine forever and I think I knocked it out of the park if I do say so myself. I really hope that people appreciate the constipated, John Mayer facial expressions as well. Those were as painful as they looked. Kudos to William's reactions as well, though that compliment comes with an asterisk. Initially, we were all supposed to have a song, but William's part just didn't fit in so we used his "sad" reaction shots as irritated ones instead. What was his song you ask? California by Wave. For once, our bad acting actually ended up helping us.

Now is as good a time as any to tell you that one of my early ideas for a tagline was "A movie so gay it'll make Elton John want to commit a hate crime." Maybe we'll throw that up on the poster.

The Big Show:

Let's just say right now that our plan to have predetermined characters during our interviews went completely out the window. I was supposed to be an overconfident, ignorant, Michael Scott-type guy. William was supposed to be suffering. Brian was supposed to hit on all the girls. It was impossible for William and I to maintain our characters for too long, but Brian did a good job maintaining his character. He DID have the easiest and most fun of the jobs though. It didn't bother me too much that Brian got to interview all the ladies in the video, but after watching it a couple of times I wish I had said something. Not because I wanted to pick anybody up, but because I come off as a flaming homosexual throughout the whole thing. Then again, I guess there are some things you just can't hide.

(05:58) For the first time in my life, I had a good reason to say "Welcome to Flavour Country".

(06:14) The second hidden vulgarity: That is actually a fake post constructed just for this screenshot. The title says "Fuck My Life" and the content is a mixture of self-parodying humour and dialogue ripped directly from Flight Of The Conchords. All shall become clear when the HD version of this is eventually released.

(06:35) Why did I feel the need to drop the F-bomb in front of a bunch of pre-teens? Unnecessary. Also, if you can't tell, this was actually our first interview of the day.

During William's interview with Lancer, note how he becomes increasingly giddy as the conversation becomes more and more about violence. This is not acting.

(07:40) It's a funny moment when the French elf ladies go "100 HP!" and I say, "I don't know what that means." That sad thing is that I have no life and I no exactly what that means.

William's interview with Ichigo and Ishida might not have any manufactured jokes, but trust us, that's a good thing. The one joke we tried to force in involved me mishearing Ishida (the guy in white) saying "Homo killers" and thinking that was very, very funny. It was not. We spent at least an hour trying to add in funny subtitles that would emphasize this misunderstanding, but in the end we scrapped the whole bit. It should be noted that we were severely sleep deprived, an excuse I would like to use for many of the atrocities in this video. Speaking of sleep deprivation, we stayed up all night Saturday working on the video and documented the state of ourselves at hourly intervals. This footage may or may not ever be released. Back to the interview, if anyone wants to know what the hell the red-headed guy is talking about with the doll and the "soul put into a gumball", ask my brother. When I was watching that scene with him, he just nodded his head and was like, "Yeah".

(09:13) Oh man, that acting! Geez...Luckily, my natural hatred for William helped me out during this scene.

Ah, the CloverCosplay girls...I am so, so sorry. Where do I begin with this scene? First, notice how the girl in white subtly deflects Brian's first question to her partner. Second, she doesn't even let him finish his second question before telling him to "take it slow". Such resistance could not go unpunished. Thus...the Brian's Serenade scene:

1. Brian could not, COULD NOT get the lyric "I can tell you like me too and you know I'm right" correct. He just couldn't get it out. I know what you're all thinking, "It's such a beautiful line, what is his problem?" I don't know, I really don't. Suffice to say, just that one line, that ONE LINE took us about six or seven minutes to get right. And you know what? If you listen closely, he barely gets it in the take that we ended up using.

2. As this scene was filmed during our weekend in Kingston, there was noone outside of the three of us to provide any checks and balances. We thought the whole thing was hilarious, but we were sleep deprived and we're a bunch of friggin' idiots. Even Max or Gary could have provided some valuable insight, but it was left up to us to decide whether what we were doing was funny or flat-out creepy. We stuck with it.

3. There was another take we almost used. Brian nailed the last line, but I screwed up - of all things - taking a sip from my cup. I was clearly struggling to lift the mug and ended up adjusting my grip so it could be done properly.

4. The initial refrain becomes less masculine with every take. It was like he was channeling the guitar guy from the Juicy Fruit commercials.

5. To the CloverCosplay girls...again, I am so, so sorry.

That interview with Conan The Barbarian was really fun and not just because I was staring at his breasts the whole time. None of that was rehearsed and the guy just played the whole thing perfectly. I want to say that I made my voice crack at the end, but it probably just did that on its own.

(12:15-12:50) People have got to watch the Dark Prince character's reactions to William speculating on who would win in a fight between him and his friend. He gets so defensive and you can tell that he's genuinely disturbed by what his friend is saying. It's subtle, but it's hilarious.

(13:16-13:54) This interview reveals two of William's weaknesses: He is apparently incapable of uncrossing his arms and he says "I mean" a lot. And this was the second take!

(14:05) I fought Brian to include a snippet of Protect Ya Neck (The Jump Off) and that's why you get that little three second intro in there. So you're welcome. Then again, I initially wanted to include the whole song in our "action montage" so I wouldn't say that I won that debate by a landslide. By the way, those Star Wars guys were the 501st Legion: Vader's Fist group who are mentioned in the credits. Even though that list is almost exclusively people who were actually interviewed in the video, we included them for two reasons: 1) They're a professional group with amazing costumes and we used them in a few shots. 2) I actually conducted a great interview with someone who worked for them, but we didn't include it. Why? It was too good. That is to say, I actually had a pleasant and funny conversation with someone and it just didn't fit in with the awkwardness that pervades our project. Sorry, Nikki.

(14:08) I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor is awesome, isn't it?

(14:45) See this group dancing like a bunch of maniacs? The two dudes from the right made out shortly after we filmed this. Yes, we have brief footage of that. No, you will never, ever see it.

Anakin Skywalker:

First, I would like to thank this guy for cooperating with us and agreeing to assault William. That was a bit we had planned the whole day and it looked like we wouldn't be able to find anyone. When he began to wind up before striking William down, I was genuinely afraid (and excited). By the way, check out Captain Jack at about 15:10 helping Anakin with his lightsabre. I don't know if this guy was his friend or if they met there, but he was pretty much Anakin's monkey boy bitch.

The bathroom scene was tricky to film at first, because we were worried that someone would walk in and see Max filming inside a bathroom stall and that probably would not look good. Luckily, Chiu (who we met up with later in the day) had the bright idea of using the Caution rope that was outside of every washroom to secure the washroom until we could finish filming. It was a brilliant idea and mostly harmless, though I did see one potential urinator deterred by our makeshift barrier.

Second, I have to call out Anakin on one thing. Later in the day, Brian wanted to interview this pair of girls who had some nice costumes and seemed to be outgoing but Anakin was already talking to them and he told us not to "cock block" him. Thus, it is our cocks that were blocked. I wanted to refer to him as Anakin Cockblocker in the credits, but Brian and William were not having it.

(16:24) A bunch of the interviews fell flat, so we knew that we were going to use a time-skip gag at some point. Brian's interview with Zuko lent itself perfectly to this idea. The crazy thing is that we didn't even need to exaggerate it that much. I would like to add that the end bit where Brian says "I just want to die" is one of the few remnants of the many, er, extra-curricular scenes we filmed during the day. We filmed a lot of skits that we thought would be funny to mix in with the interviews later, but through a combination of bad sound quality and overall lameness, most of these skits were mercifully cut.

(17:45) I really enjoyed this interview with the Metal Gear Ninja, but only because both of us sound like we're high off of our asses. I still don't know what the hell we were talking about.

(18:59) If you're wondering why there's this random shot of Brian's hip, there's a perfectly good explanation for that. What you don't see prior to this footage is what appears to be Max following a woman's cleavage as she walks past the camera. He lingered a litte too long and we wanted to cut it, but Brian had a good line in there so we couldn't do it. Now, I think there was just a tripod problem or Max slipped or something, but there is compelling footage that reveals he may have just been trying to get his rocks off.

(19:06) You can't fully appreciate how funny these Trigun interview clips are until you understand what I was trying to do here. This was one of our earlier interviews and I was still attempting to get a rise out of people. So here I am mispronouncing the word "Trigun" and attempting to make innuendos and the guy was giving me NOTHING. I think he knew I was messing with him and to his credit, he deflected all my thin attempts at humour. I give him his due and graciously accept defeat.

(19:16) Also missing from Brian's interview: These girls essentially saying that they thought he was cuter than Josh Hartnett. You go, girl.

(19:36) This interview actually went almost as long as the one with Zuko, but we just kept in the strange ending where the girl says "proud Asians!" because we thought that would be a nice WTF moment. Too bad, because they really connected on an emotional level.

Brian's interview with the Bondage Girls speaks for itself. I should mention that it goes on for about a couple of minutes longer than we showed, but the rest of us were dying after that girl said "bondage" and we knew that everything after that was going to get cut. Another secret: Brian screws up his haiku.

(21:45) It is absolutely true that these Sailor Scouts denied us an interview. However, it was on the grounds of being ridiculed by filmmakers at a previous convention and not because of Brian's repulsive nature. And yes, I know I'm talking really fast here.

The End:

(22:47) Brian initially wanted to use sad Charlie Brown music for his long walk down the hallway, but I insisted on using The Corrs' cover of Everybody Hurts. It's just so painful and drawn out and it was the first thing I thought of when we initially filmed this bit.

(23:26) It's hard to see, but I actually am fake singing along with whatever I'm supposedly listening to on my iPod. Looks like a Bee Gees song judging by my expressions.

There are three takes of our fight scene. The first one was ruined by our laughing. I'm not sure what was wrong with the second one, I think we were still smiling too much. Also, the phone hit looked shitty. We ironed everything out by the last take, but there are a few things to mention here. For one, William is not hitting me in the ass as one or two people have suggested after watching the video. Later, we explain that those were kidney shots. The whole day, William was talking about wanting to gouge out someone's eyes like Rutger Hauer in Blade Runner. Somehow we forgot this when filming the fight scene and he ends up attempting to strangle me instead. That is a missed opportunity if there ever was one. Lastly, if you look at my face near the end of the fight, you can see that it's all red as I'm blown up by that brief burst of activity. I seriously need to exercise more.

Regarding my shirtless scene at the end (and Max' at the beginning), I would like to issue apologies for the lack of a warning and the lack of belts. Also, the lack of tans. Just around the corner there were a bunch of people, so even though I go past that pillar, I came running back a couple of seconds later.

(26:29) The epilogue was originally supposed to be one of those "What all the characters did after" gags where we would show a picture of ourselves complete with an amusing account of our futures. Unfortunately, we were too lazy and the video was running long as it was so we cut it down to a couple of title cards.

The Credits:

There's too much to talk about here, so I'll just mention a few things:

- Jess actually did provide additional photography, the results of which can be viewed on her Facebook page I'm assuming. We weren't sure whether we wanted to give her a real title or a joke one. Originally she was credited under "Estrogen Injections" as she is one of our only close female friends, but we weren't sure whether that would be funny or not so we played it safe. We saved the one joke credit for Gary (who, luckily for him, couldn't be with us that day), a nod to one of his aliases, RabidEmu.

- Bubba's Pizzeria is a place in Kingston that serves a great poutine.

- For anyone wondering where the hell that Lily Allen song was, we only used the intro of Everything's Just Wonderful as elevator music for our missing footage of the Sailor Scouts title card.

- On the way to Kingston, I was telling William that we should use a Loney, Dear song for the ending sequence to the film for that authentic Wes Anderson vibe. Lo and behold, Brian already had a Loney, Dear song picked out. That was one of the few things on this production that just worked out.

- Explaining all the "Thank You"s is a post in itself so I won't even start. I do hope that everyone got that the "...and you" at the end was a nod to pretty much every video game made from the late '80s to the mid '90s. They would always end with a special thanks section and the player would be thanked last. It was a touching gesture for a young kid growing up with no friends. We also wanted to add a high score graphic in the top right corner that would spell out "DIK", but there was no time.

There you go. I know there's plenty of things I forgot and things that I probably shouldn't have even mentioned, so I leave it up to my fellow BAGgers to take care of any omissions. I have to say again that I'm really proud of this project, even though there is so much wrong with it. I only hope that people take it for what it is: A fun, amateur project that is only the beginning of better things to come. And yes, that should absolutely be taken as a warning.

Whoa. What is the matter?
It's Patty.
Jerry, you break up with a girl every week.
What...what is this salty discharge?
Oh my God. You're crying.
This is horrible! I care!

9/13/2007 04:21:00 PM | Comments (0)

My life has been a horrible train wreck of failure and impotency fueled anger this week, and I need to post corrections for some of the mistakes in my previous post, which I typed up while in the shower. A cold shower. With my clothes on. While crying. With a laptop. That was waterproof.

The Harold & Kumar 2 link is broken. Use this one instead, and if that doesn't work, then please just use the power of your imagination to mentally construct the trailer in your mind, and enjoy.

Secondly, the Oreo pizza commercial link should have been this one instead, which would make a bit more sense in the context of the post than the original link. Though the original link is still funny to me because I'm never quite sure whether the guy is monotone and being serious, or just deadpanning and being sarcastic whenever he remarks on how yummy the pizza is. I think all this dry comedy we've been dealing with lately has made it impossible for me to differentiate the two. Originally I was going to post them both, but I mixed up the links and forgot about the other one. I'm going to chalk this mix-up to the fact that I am Chinese. Is that acceptable?

Also, the Bill Murray video also features Mel (Kristen Schaal) from Flight Of The Conchords which I forgot to mention. Namely because I was going to combo that into a clip of her stand-up routine, which I will now provide a link for. Here! And she also has a sketch here that is without a doubt one of the more insane things I have seen all month. Which is saying a lot, actually, considering the month we've had.

My apologies for these oversights. It will probably happen again.

And that's how a bill becomes a law!

9/13/2007 10:30:00 AM | Comments (0)

Right, so now that we're done with our little moment of internet fame, let's get back to the daily grind of failure and depression that is our usual fare here. I have some links for you.

- Watch this Snickers commercial. Yes, the whole absurdity of the setup, the crying in the car bit, the punchline - all good. But wait for the part at the very end? Do you see it? Yes! REPRESENTATION!

- Regarding movie trailers...I have three to link to, but I don't really have anything to say about them aside from "Looks good, I will probably watch it." So maybe I will just do that. Harold & Kumar 2, Aliens Vs. Predator 2: Requiem, and Iron Man - I think they all look good, I will probably watch them. And now for the obligatory Sin City trailer link.

- In a somewhat related story, I was completely shocked to find out this tasty bit regarding The Wachoski Brothers...apparently they are involved in a Speed Racer movie due for Summer 2008? How come nobody tells me this stuff!?! Oh, and apaprently you can't call them "The Wachoski Brothers" anymore because one of them got a sex change. Okay, whatever - SPEED RACER!!!

- Here's an indie comic book hook-up, courtesy of your pal Choking Yak. Bookhunter by Shiga Books, which is about guys who hunt books. I don't know, it's pretty straightforward. They use some complex Flash-based tomfoolery that prevents me from linking there directly like I want to, so just click "books" and find your way yourself. I've forgotten the exact steps now that I'm writing this post out, and I'm too lazy to go back and check.

- I wanted to bring attention to this particular news story that's been making the rounds - Mugger in Germany foiled by blind judo expert. So we have a mugger, who is desperate for a nicotine fix, trying to steal the cigarettes off a blind guy. Only it turns out the blind guy's a "world-class blind judo wrestler". Between this and that old 72 year-old former Marine boxer...I mean, damn, muggers just can't catch a break these days. I wish we could just mug people in peace. That's the world I want to live in someday.

- So apparently Domino's has a new pizza that is Oreo-flavoured. Or something. I think it's just tons of McFlurry-style Oreo bits stuck to a thin crust via three gallons of vanilla icing. It looks like a horrible abomination that should never be, and the fact that this was allowed to happen makes you want to openly question the existence of God above. Regardless, I swear upon my own soon to be dug grave, that I will engage in this madness, in this life or the next. Plus, I rather enjoy the commericial for it, which exhibits a type of wink-wink, "yes, we know this is insane - that is why it is awesome" sentiment that I, for one, would like to be part of. ...though in no way does the value of the actual food item seem desirable, in the context of how yummy it is.

- FCU with Bill Murray...pretty straightforward, go watch it, enjoy it, praise me for the link. The chopsticks part kills me.

"Do you remember what we did up there at the top of the hill?"
"...kind of?"
"We were standing at the look out."
"Oh, I remember exactly what we did at the look out. We just looked...out...across the city from our little spot on the hilltop. Oh, it's so pretty from way up there. We talked about how the lights from the buildings and cars, seemed like reflections of the stars, that shined out so pretty and bright, that night.
"...it was daytime."
"...the daytime of the NIGHT."

9/11/2007 11:06:00 AM | Comments (0)

I just dugg our CNAnime2007 video on digg.com. If you feel like boosting the digg count by 1 in order to increase our chances of becoming famous and living a lifestyle of hookers and blow, mosey on over here.

9/06/2007 12:48:00 PM | Comments (0)

I don't want to discourage the other guys to post up their own account of what happened (because I am a liar, and I may also have just blocked out or forgotten actual events that happened) but regardless, I feel at least my take on our weird, mind-warping odyssey to Kingston is something that needs to be written up, if only for prosperity's sake.

I'll get another write-up pertaining to the actual video up shortly, but for I'd like to just stick to the events of this past weekend.

So AL and I visited Sheep to finish off the editing of The Video, and I'd like to say that we did exactly that. I wish I could say that we engaged in all sorts of wanton debauchery and wild acts of alcohol related violence and emotionless sex while we rampaged through the countryside...but of the 60-something hours we spent in Kingston, probably all but five were spent bunkered up in Sheep's room editing and rewatching the same haunting raw footage of that convention over and over and over again. It needs to be said that Sheep's enthusiasm and energy for the project bordered on psychotic, and there is honestly no way we would have come out of that still alive without his frightening drive for survival. There's only so much awkward and dry comedy a human body can take.

If you feel bad because you missed it, please don't. Overall it was a fun and rewarding experience, but there were frequent occasions throughout the weekend where I just wanted to murder the two of them and hide their bodies in a place no one would ever find...and I know for a fact that we all felt the same way about each other. I don't know if it was the cosplay overdose, cabin fever, or just plain old Kingston trip sleep deprivation...but the times I wanted to take an axe to both of their juicy, melon-like heads is not a number that could be counted on one hand.

I must have passed out like eight or nine times over those two all-nighters we pulled, and I was constantly drifting back and forth between consciousness and exhaustive delusion. Like I would be watching the footage and be completely aware of what scene we were editing and what we were trying to do...and then suddenly none of it would make any sense. Like at one point, I was completely sure that AL was shouting at Brian to put "more racing stripes on the car"...but then I suddenly came to, and I realized I had completely dreamt up the exchange and that there was absolutely no context in which that discussion would have fit into.

There is something weird about watching yourself on video and hearing your own, unfamiliar voice so many times over such a short and concentrated period of time. After the first night, my sense of reality was completely broken, and I had completely lost the ability to look at anything from an objective perspective. The 40 minute "break" we took to go down to the lake and film the intro bit...I'm not convinced at all if that actually helped us or not. For one, the sight of such a large unbroken horizon of water at sunset is not something I'm very familiar with back in Toronto. If anything, being there and doing all that weird stuff like skipping stones into the lake...it all seemed completely surreal to me - like we had died, crumpled up back in Sheep's room, and we were now wandering the fields of Elysium, cast adrift in the timeless haze of the afterlife. In fact, we probably descended deeper into whatever insane state of mind we were while filming that Wes Anderson style shot (the middle frame of the video intro while we're just standing there crossing and uncrossing our arms awkwardly).

Kingston by the lake at sunset is an absolutely gorgeous scene to take in though. In particular that old dried up log that just happens to exist in the perfect spot where you can just sit, stare out over the lake and the waves, and contemplate the meaning of life and the crushing failure that is your existence. AL and I shared a nice moment there, which I believe is unfortunately captured on video. I think we were actually going to use that shot for the intro instead, but we decided there was just way too much unspoken homoerotic tension in there, and that it would overshadow the explict homoerotic vibes of the rest of the video.

I'm also straight up hating on the fact that guys in Kingston (Sheep, Emu - I'm looking at you) could potentially (if they weren't huge man loving queers - Sheep, Emu, still looking) bring like...girls there. You could go take a walk with her along the shoreline on a nice day, and then hang out on that stupid log to watch the sunset...and then it would get a little chilly so you could offer her your jacket, in a scenario in which you could have perfectly planned for...I mean you don't need to be goddamn Batman to setup something like this.

I mean, hanging out on the swings in an abandoned playground at 4:30 AM in the morning is one thing. But this old dried up log is another thing entirely. IT IS SO RIDICULOUS. It angers me how thoroughly this one fucking log just completely breaks the game - it's like using the Thunder Beam pause glitch that lets you kill the Yellow Devil boss in Mega Man with just one shot because the slow down from the pause menu duplicates the hit box of the beam like a billion times. I know I just made an absolutely insane analogy right there, but I can't help it - IT'S RIDICULOUSNESS ALL OVER THIS BUSINESS.

If you couldn't imagine how insane (in a bad way) that weekend was, then maybe you're getting a sense of it now.

I also could not get Incomplete and the sheer awesomeness of the video out of my head...not that I would ever want to do. Sheep and I were absolutely obsessed with filming our own version for the CNAnime video, despite AL's adamant objections to the idea. We had even compiled a list of must-have-scenes for the video, smuggled out a version of the song on Sheep's ancient DS, and made plans to incapacitate AL if he continued to stand against us. But in a surprising moment of clarify and self-control, common sense shone through, and that project's currently on the backburner, locked up safely in The Vault™. Still, regardless...fuck AL.

I won't lie though, putting that monster up and watching it through the first time complete with the unabashedly self-indulgent credits rolling down...that's a pretty sweet feeling. I'm not sure what else to say about it, but our celebratory dinner at that bear-oriented steakhouse was a strangely fitting cap to such an odd weekend. We got carded - all three of us - when we tried to order a pitcher of alcoholic drink. I don't know if we were on a high off finishing this movie that had us strutting around with a renewed vigour and bounce to our step that somehow made us seem more youthful in appearance, or if just the overall awkwardness and hesitation of the entire exchange forced her to conclude that we were just a bunch of idiotic, really old looking freshmen...but I cannot remember the last time I had to show ID for something. (Even though they're supposed to card everyone that looks under 25 whenever they serve alcohol.) Makes me feel young again.

And yes, all three of us simultaneously whipped that line out when our poor unsuspecting waitress asked for identification. It was a sad, pathetic, barely coordinated act that elicited a minor awkward reaction of humour...mainly from ourselves.

How fitting.

"Muhammad is the most commonly used name on earth, read a fucking book for once."
"Fogell, have you ever actually met anyone named Muhammad?"
"Have YOU actually ever met anyone named McLovin?"
"NO, that's why you picked a dumb fucking name."

9/05/2007 10:25:00 AM | Comments (0)

WAMBAG.COM Goes to CNAnime 2007

It's the moment you've all been waiting for. Please click the following link, sit back, and enjoy the next 30 minutes of your life:

WAMBAG.COM Goes to CNAnime 2007

A more detailed post will follow.

9/03/2007 11:37:00 PM | Comments (0)

Global Warming: It's Bad

Will and Al came up to shoot a few extra scenes and help me edit our upcoming documentary, WAMBAG.COM Goes to CNANime 2007. After a marathon 53 hour session, with a sleepless 22 hour stint near the end, we arose from the ashes victorious.

Suffice it to say, we are close to releasing our twisted abomination of a baby. And it's a baby so horrifying, only a father could love it.

In the meantime, enjoy the latest teaser for WAMBAG.COM Goes to CNANime 2007:

Teaser #3 - Gladiators

Also, for your convenience (and under the new WAMBAGdotCOM youtube account):

Teaser #2 - Recycle

Teaser #1 - Adoring Fan

9/03/2007 12:08:00 AM | Comments (0)