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If I can’t be famous, I’ll be infamous!

The martial artist in me is conflicted by the recent turn of events in Colorado, and the anniversary the mass murder in Oslo, Norway. The Norwegian gunman had more than an hour to hunt down and attack his victims. More than an hour, which means that he had to stop and reload at multiple points. As a person that trains in self defense based arts, I can’t help but think about what I would do if faced by such a threat. Would my training make a difference? Would I freeze or rise to the challenge? Are the arts that I am studying really effective in real combat situation? In truth, I don’t have any answers. I would hope that be able to protect myself and my loved ones. Or at the very least make the son of a bitch regret picking me or mine as a target.

My father was gunned down when I was fourteen as he was closing down his candy shop for the evening. The murderer was never found. Even as a young man I often Continue reading “If I can’t be famous, I’ll be infamous!”

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……does whatever a spider can!

It was a pretty good day for me. I had a couple of really productive meetings followed by an opportunity to reconnect with an old passion of mine that I have neglected for far too long, podcasting. Thanks to a good friend of mine I was asked to participate in a podcast about the new Spider-man movie with the guys over at NewYorkCine. I was brought in for my expertise on all things related to Spider-man and comic nerdism/geekdom. Plus I was one of the few people on the panel that actually loved the new Spider-man reboot more than the Sam Raimi versions.

Big up to my boy Thomas Edward Seymour for the invite. I had a blast. Here is to hoping they ask me back to help review the new Chris Nolan Batman flick, The Dark Knight Rises, later this month.

The Spider-man podcast with my commentary can be found here:

If your browser does not support the audio element. Please access the podcast at:
http://newyorkcine.podbean.com/2012/07/10/new-york-cine-not-so-amazing-spider-man-27/

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You can check Continue reading “……does whatever a spider can!”

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More light please!!


With the summer fully in swing I am making full use of my break from teaching to spend some time to study new things. A few months back I took a workshop on shooting video with HDSLR cameras at Studentfilmmakers. I enjoyed the workshop a great deal and have wanted to sample some of their other seminars. Since then I have taken two other workshops at StudentFilmmakers on “Lighting for Mood” and “Directing for Video”. I am hoping that have been wanting to jump into the DLSR video waters for awhile. My lovely wife bought Continue reading “More light please!!”

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The new baby

I just got the new Acer Aspire V3-771G-9875 17.3-Inch laptop I ordered as an early birthday present to myself. I bought it online from Amazon for a great price. My 2009 17 inch Macbook Pro was starting to show it’s age with the old Intel Core 2 Duo processor powering it. I was starting to worry that my Macbook  was going to have problems dealing with the new Adobe CS6 software suite, especially the video based applications like After Effects and Premiere Pro. So I put on my big boy pants and finally pulled the trigger on a new Acer system.

 

Now for the record I am not happy that I have switched from Macs back to the darkside, but this laptop was too good to pass up. I love my macs but the new systems are priced too high when compared to some Windows systems. The desktop system that I built a few months back had made me more comfortable about switching to Continue reading “The new baby”

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Graduation day for the kids!

Congratulations to my beautiful daughter and son on their graduation day! Their graduation ceremonies were held on the same day, and at the same time. As a result, the wife and I couldn’t go to both. So we threw our names in a hat and the the kids picked which one of us would go with them. My daughter picked my wife’s name and my son picked mine outta the hat. The only solace was that I had enough video cameras for us to tape both events. I can’t believe they are graduating. As cliched as it may sound, it really seems that it was just yesterday they were starting school. And for the record, I have video of my daughter’s graduation as well. She just won’t let me post it. I believe her words were “Dad, stop being such a nerd”.

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Message to my kids.

My beautiful son and daughter,

I found this graphic on the web and thought of you. The graphics might be a bit cheesey, but the sentiment is appropriate. I just wanted to post this so you always know how I feel.

All my love,

Dad

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CUNY Pathways & The Council of Digital Media Programs


A few months back I organized and hosted a panel discussion at John Jay College’s 10th Annual City University of New York (CUNY) IT Conference. The presentation was on “Creating a CUNY-wide approach towards Digital Media Programs” and focused on what I believe are some of the major issues facing digital media programs within CUNY. I assembled the panel group from colleagues at four separate CUNY institutions and within five distinct New Media subdivisions. We discussed strategies that the university could implement to prepare our digital media programs for the future.

One of the major initiatives that I suggested during the conference presentation was the establishment of a digital media council to address the specific needs and concerns of the faculty and students within the digital disciplines. Well I am happy to say that the first steps toward the creating a CUNY-wide digital media council happened today thanks to my colleagues in the Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC) Media Arts and Technology Department. Today a luncheon was held at Continue reading “CUNY Pathways & The Council of Digital Media Programs”