It went down like this. I was in a particularly intelligent place, fresh off the filming of "Hey, Rube". Dom had dropped off the final cut on his way to a Friday Night Wiffle in Waltham. I quite unexpectedly was available for a little wiffle and caught a ride with the star and editor of Hey, Rube.

Not long after the game started, the weather took a serious turn for the worse. Sheets of rain were throbbing from the dark sky. The wifflers played on. The crackle of thunder from nearby bolts of lightning started to pierce the ears. The wifflers played on.

And then in the midst of all this natural disaster, I stepped to the plate to face my old time nemesis, Claudio (Dominic). It gets a little hazy during this part but at some point everything went white. I was standing in the batter's box, in a puddle, with metal rivets on the bottom of my cleats when zappity zap.

NOTE: At this point in the story you are sure to ask yourself:
1. why were you playing wiffle in a thunderstorm
2. why were you wearing cleats to play wiffle?
Neither question is easily answered.

At the instant it happened, I crouched down and felt an awful shock in my knee. I grew up on a farm and have been bitten by the electric fence more times than I would like to remember. This was different, it came from the inside out. Now mind you, I have a couple of screws in that knee from ACL surgery a few years back.

We took a break to have a cold one but resumed the game once the heavy stuff passed. I blame the whole episode on Caddyshack. For the past couple of days, all of my lower extremities have felt pretty crappy. Well to be honest, I have felt just plain yuck.

For your information, this type of lightning strike is called a ground strike or step voltage strike. It generally only affects the lower body and it is difficult the gauge the level of electricity one takes on. Obviously since I can still type, walk, drive, and perform around the world with a yo-yo, I took a very low level.

I have a personal list of ways to die that is constantly changing both in content and in sequence. Generally thought these three are in the top positions:
1. Mauled by bear (preferably grizzly, I don't think a black bear would qualify as very cool)
2. Shark Attack (while surfing really big waves, not boogie boarding, ever)
3. Lightning Strike (as it turns out most people don't die, just end up dumber and sorer)

Now having been through number three, I think I would like a combination with the top two. For instance, there I was playing wiffle ball at the beach when a grizzly bear ran on to the field and started to maul me. I was beating him off with the wiffle bat until that bolt of lightning struck me. I staggered into the water stunned by the lightning but still swinging the bat. It was at this point that a Great White ate me, spitting out the bat for generations to marvel at. Yeah that would be number one way to die, hands down.

Details at LebowskiFest.com

Not safe for work, kids, or people lacking a sense of humor.

Full blog post with detailed explanation at www.fiestavus.com.

Finally after a long and excruciating wait, bad colonies proudly unveils the epic "Hey, Rube". In order to optimize your viewing pleasure, it is highly recommended that you proceed as detailed below.

1. Watch video below.
2. Think to self, "WTF?"
3. Read the full post.
4. Watch again and state to self, "Ahhhhh, I think I get it."

Enjoy, comment, and send on to others, lots and lots of others.

Late but worth it.

Originally posted at www.fiestavus.com
Yesterday a cast of thousands three gathered at the bad colonies movie studio to film what will surely be the second most anticipated movie of the year (Where The Wild Things Are wins top title). I spent the previous days tolling away with the Executive Producer (Isadora) to create a set of epic proportions and a breakfast machine that actually worked, sort of actually worked. Despite the muggy conditions and a looming actors strike for wine and beer, we marched through the complexities of the script and captured some amazing shots. The video is currently in the bad colonies editing studio high up in the mountains, but here are a few photos to hold you over.

Liam getting into character, any guesses?

This was the first day that I parked the Fiesta on the street, so many people stopped to look and take photos that multiple accidents nearly occurred. Of course they may have been rubber necking at the oddly dressed folks hanging out in front of my house.

The Dudely one, Dominic, hamming it up in between scenes.

The final member of the cast, the lovely Jennifer Beck as "The Mannequin", hanging with the executive producer.

Production assistant Bob (the dog) and I set up the opening machine shot.

The Executive Producer barking about us being over budget (by $9) and behind schedule (she was getting really hungry) as I set the skate camera for The Mannequin's big scene.

The Writer/Director with the Mannequin, I heard there was an on-set romance...

The Executive Producer stoked that we finally wrapped it.

---

THE MACHINE

I will give the person that can guess the correct operation of this thing a 40 of Steel Reserve. Yes the full 40 oz.

This shot shows steps 3-5. I will break it all down once the video is released.

Paying homage to GI Joe and the fine Fensler videos.




The cooking set-up with ample pop culture props slyly placed through-out the shot. My favorite is the Muscle guy.

The big finale, take note of the glasses.

Random props.

Testing, a lot of eggs perished in the making of this video.

Enjoying the fruits of the machine.

---

THE SKATE CAMERA CRANE

This lamp broke while I was in college (10 years ago), I was never sure why I kept it.

But with a little imagination and a drill, the old lamp became a minature camera crane.

Here is the crane in use. Since Isadora now has the best skate set-up, we used her deck over mine (pictured previously).

more

I have long been intereseted in Iran and the Middle East. In terms of historical and cultural significance Persia is often ignorantly overlooked compared to more accessible nations such as Egypt. Iran's geopolitical stance dominates our limited understanding, not helped by Western media casting the Middle East as either a Billionaire's playground or stagnant backwater where terrorism flourishes. A curious juxtaposition.

The elections and subsequent demonstrations in Iran are a reminder that real people live in the Middle East - not just stereotypes. They care about how they are governed and how the world perceives them.

This travel article originally published in the Times gives a flavour of what Iran is really like:

"I'd never have guessed that my first time inside a synagogue would be in Tehran, but Iran is full of surprises. It has a fundamentalist leadership that many in the West believe to be as nutty as a box of pistachios. But it also has a population of 65 million, most born after the 1979 Islamic Revolution (which culminated in the return from exile of Ayatollah Khomeini 30 years ago this month), and far removed from the dour and menacing stereotype often portrayed on the 10 o'clock news. The ordinary Iranian people are by far the friendliest and most welcoming I've met in more than 20 years of travelling."

'The Road to Oxiana' by Robert Byron is a must read, charting Byron's ten month voyage through the Middle East in the 1930's.

This is about basic human rights. Regardless of your view on the election in Iran, the people, the citizens should be able to voice their disapproval without repercussions of severe and deadly violence. Two weeks ago I tweeted that I would hoist a beer with the world if Ahmadinejad lost and then earlier this week I changed my avatar on twitter to green. At the time, I stated that it was completely non-consequential support for the protesters in Iran. I was wrong.

In the past day, we have witnessed a cyber protest that is unprecedented in the history of media. People across the globe are not only communicating with the protesters risking their lives on the ground but actively helping. For in the age of instant communication, a government cannot stop a message, just as the music industry will never stop file sharing, the masses are too great, too strong. And while I first thought my support was immaterial, I have come to realize that the simple act of spreading the word, helping to keep the world's eye on the events, merely showing that we care, is enough to make a difference however small. I urge you to do the same.

Check BoingBoing, The Stimulist and Mashable for ways to help

A solid article from one of the few reporters on the scene.

The long-standing Middle East correspondent for The Independent, Robert Fisk, is defying the government crackdown on foreign media reporting in Iran.

As he explains, he has been travelling around the streets of Tehran all day and most of the night and things are far from quiet:

I've just been witnessing a confrontation, in dusk and into the night, between about 15,000 supporters of Ahmadinejad - supposedly the president of Iran - who are desperate to down the supporters of Mr Mousavi, who thinks he should be the president of Iran.

There were about 10,000 Mousavi men and women on the streets, with approximately 500 Iranian special forces, trying to keep them apart.

It was interesting that the special forces - who normally take the side of Ahmadinejad's Basij militia - were there with clubs and sticks in their camouflage trousers and their purity white shirts and on this occasion the Iranian military kept them away from Mousavi's men and women.

In fact at one point, Mousavi's supporters were shouting 'thank you, thank you' to the soldiers.

One woman went up to the special forces men, who normally are very brutal with Mr Mousavi's supporters, and said 'can you protect us from the Basij?' He said 'with God's help'.

It was quite extraordinary because it looked as if the military authorities in Tehran have either taken a decision not to go on supporting the very brutal militia - which is always associated with the presidency here - or individual soldiers have made up their own mind that they're tired of being associated with the kind of brutality that left seven dead yesterday - buried, by the way secretly by the police - and indeed the seven or eight students who were killed on the university campus 24 hours earlier.

Full Article at abc.net.au