What I referred to as Dave’s S’mores night video is actually entitled “10 Little S’mores” and he’ll be fixing the title on Vimeo soon. (It’s my fault, as I uploaded the clips for him)

Enjoy part two at: 10 Little S’mores Part 2.

Well, after fixing it up the first time to deal with the fact that I had uploaded my videos to Vimeo, I found that the site looked a bit clunky. So I revamped the opening page and fixed up some of the organization of the content pages as well. In some cases I deleted references to obsolete things (such as 56k modem download times) and in others I added information about the Creative Commons. I also added a “legal” page where I discuss the Creative Commons and some of the legal implications of remixing my clips.

For those of who are non-Christians - I hope you can take this time to spend with your families and friends and be happy.

For Christian readers, take time today out of the pagan rituals of trees with lights and presents by a large, fat man. Take time to remember that Christmas is about the Creator of the Earth incarnating and submitting himself to a human life so that we would no longer have to spend eternity in Hell. Sure, we may not understand the metaphysics involved and why he couldn’t just pardon us with all of the coming down and all, but since He DID go through so much, take time to remember and be grateful.

Although it may seem like a philosophical or silly question, it is indeed a practical question for me. You see, we have a tradition at Christmas-time in my family where we play dominoes on the days before Christmas and whoever wins gets to open a gift. I’m sure I mentioned this around this time last year. Well, a couple of days ago I won and my prize was a Canon 50 mm f/2.5 Macro lens from my wife! It’s a fine lens - I’ve been taking some awesome pictures which I will be uploading once the Christmas Season is over.

David has created a wonderful new bit of machinima entitled S’mores Night Movie. It was originally intended as an inside joke between friends. He, with his girlfriend Tamlin as the screenwriter, put together a 35 minute movie incorporating different episodes of what has happened with their friends into a remake of “10 Little Indians”. I was thoroughly impressed as this was his first scripted movie and his first machinima. In fact, he didn’t even know of the movement called machinima, he just happened to feel that the Sims 2 provided him with a great set of premade characters and items for him to use in his movie.

A few big things in Fedora News. First of all, the Fedora Summit happened recently. They are tackling a lot of things for Fedora Core 7 including blurring the line between Core and Extras (a point of contention for those moved from Core to Extras - they were less important they felt) and finally having a true LiveCD. You can read more about it at Linux.com’s review of the Fedora Summit.

I couldn’t help it. Once I saw the scale of these two, I just had to make one more tonight. Again, if you happen to like bizarre things like this on your desktop, a click will direct you to a larger size.

Raul Domingo and the little Penguin. This turned out to be a lot harder and more complicated to put together than I imagined. Thankfully the programmers are working on a better implementation. (Click on the picture for a larger version that may work better as a background for your desktop)

Alright, I finally finished up the animation for Raul Domingo. In addition to all I did before, I now know how to lip sync, use the NLA editor, and do some other pretty neat stuff. I technically know how to make him blink, but I was having some technical difficulties and wanted to get the animation going, so I skipped that for now. Part of the animation involved creating facial expressions for Raul so that he could speak and show basic emotions. Here are some of the facial expressions. (Link to the videos below)