M i a b i . F i l m s » politics

Comics and Greek Mythology

Greg — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 05:02:42 +0000

Are comic books really that far off from Greek mythology? Greek mythology was a religion. Ancient Greeks perceived these characters as not some form of entertainment, but actual gods. In essence though, they were fantastical stories featuring characters with super powers. Poseidon, who was always my favorite, was essentially Aquaman, whom I don’t particularly care for. Zeus was pretty much Superman.

As with all religions, these stories were written as a form of control. And to a lesser extent, a way to explain the mysteries of the world. Modern comic books are written for entertainment, and to a larger extent, money. Both DC and Marvel have both heavily borrowed from Greek mythology. So is the intended purpose the only difference between these two?

LOST – The Complaints

Awwwkwarrdd

Greg — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 15:52:24 +0000

The Situation and Bristol Palin do a PSA for safe sex. I can’t tell if the writing is really that terrible or utterly brilliant.

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Come on, Barry

Greg — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 04:09:42 +0000

Well I’d been fearing Obama’s speech today for quite some time. Ever since word started to trickle out about the President’s plan for the US Space Program, I’d been a little skittish. It didn’t sound good. Today he was in Florida to give a speech outlining his plan for NASA in the coming decades.

I’m quite disappointed in what we got. Obama has canceled the program that would be the Space Shuttle’s replacement. Leaving the United States stranded on Earth without asking for help from Russia for the foreseeable future. That’s not what bothers me. Constellation was supposed to take us back to The Moon as well. And this was where we should have been going. We should be going back to The Moon. By stating that, “We’ve been there before” he’s completely missing the point. Going back to Luna meant setting up a permanent presence there. A presence that would produce incredible science and immeasurable resources for coming generations. All en route to Mars. Not just stopping by again to play in the sand.

Yes, he wants to send us to Mars. But first, he intends to send humans to an asteroid. A mission to an asteroid is worthless except for PR. Robots have worked extraordinarily well for this kind of exploration. We can have men on Mars in the same timeframe he is proposing, even while setting up shop on the Moon first. His plan is a misstep.

Doing a heavy lift rocket for 2015 is a good start, but that’s where it ends. The Constellation Program may have had issues, but I believe it’s aim was true. He should have gotten it back on track instead of killing it. Now we are left with not only starting from scratch, but headed off-course. Not good.

One thing that is encouraging is his support of privatization. If private companies are going to be building the launch vehicles for our space program, I hope those same companies have the wherewithal to sell these spaceships to other private business as well. If Barry is not going to take us to The Moon; then Virgin Galactic, Hilton, McDonald’s, and Starbucks will.

http://www.howmanypeopleareinspacerightnow.com/

Get Rich or Die Tryin’

Moon Disaster

Greg — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:36:23 +0000

I thought this was really interesting… and maybe a little disturbing. Nixon’s speech writer drafted the below letter to be read in the event that Apollo 11 ended in tragedy.

Chinatown

Greg — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 17:34:06 +0000

So October votes are in and you guys seem pretty defiant in your feelings toward Roman Polanski and how he should be punished. 46% of you voted for rapid rehab. Favoring a month of staring at reality TV shows with his eyes pried open. While another 43% wanted to put him away. The remaining 11% feel he should be given a pass. I suppose with a combined 89% of people supporting some kind of punishment for the auteur, this is a not as big an issue as you’d think by the media coverage. The United States has officially asked the Swiss government to extradite Polanski, so we’ll see soon enough what happens to him. It’s going to be tough to get a fair hearing when this is all said and done.

I was really happy to see that the vote total nearly doubled in October, only the second month of Miabi Polls. Encouraging! Keep coming back. This poll and all others can still be voted on in the Past Polls section.

Futurama

The right to assemble…

Greg — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 18:14:07 +0000

…outside my office.

After a long morning of meetings, I decided to go outside for some quality vitamin D and a nice hot lunch. The chanting didn’t become audible until the lobby, but it steadily grew as I approached the revolving doors. A large crowd had gathered directly outside my office. Rallying in support of Obama’s health care initiative.

It’s dangerous for someone like me to publicly come down on either side of a heated debate such as this. For one, I’m not all that interested in politics to begin with. I won’t claim to know the specifics of either side’s complaint. Secondly, I’m just here to entertain, man. No one wants to hear my opinion on the issues just because I happen to have a really great soapbox with hilarious posts and funny videos. Some might call that cowering. I call it not going Brad Pitt middle-aged crazy. Let me marry a sexy vampire and adopt a few hundred kids before I try to save the world.

But goddamn if I don’t love a few thousand people exercising their First Amendment right to assemble. It’s so wonderfully spartan. They even got a real life doctor to speak. Complete with white coat! Hey, did you know the United States is the only “advanced” country that does not have universal health care?

Also… enjoy this video from Funny or Die. Glad to see James Dixon: Power Priest getting the message out.

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell

Miabi Polls

Greg — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 04:16:25 +0000

In case any of you are consuming miabifilms via RSS feed or Google Reader, I wanted to clue you into a new feature we have going here. Miabi Polls! I’m going to make this a monthly thing so don’t be afraid to stop by miabifilms.com, look at the pretty site, and make your choice. Its right there to the left of your screen, in the sidebar under the picture. See it?

Speaking of pictures and voting, this might be the greatest thing ever…

In Church

Greg — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 17:15:04 +0000

I’m sitting in a church at a promo shoot we’re doing for work. This is a full-on professional shoot with upwards of 100 people cast and crew. I’m the client or, a “Suit”, and therefore have nothing to do but watch. Doing my best to stay out of the crew’s way, I take a pew and whip out my laptop. What a perfect opportunity to blog. (besides, being on a laptop makes me look important, even though all I really want to do is paint mustaches on people in Photoshop)

I assume of course, because I’m in church, that there must be some divine wireless connection that will be available to me, with download speeds that would let me get The Fast and the Furious from bit torrent in less than 5 minutes. I wouldn’t even have to search for it. I’ll just open my computer, it’ll begin to glow, and I’ll be instantly connected to Godnet. And it will be fast. And furious.

This of course does not work because god is magic and wireless internet is not and cross-platform software that would converge the two has yet to be written. Still in need of a wireless connection, I check the available networks in my laptop’s menu bar. To my luck I find the church’s own network. It’s locked. Feeling I have something brilliant to blog about, I feverishly start trying different passwords in the hope of somehow stealing wireless bandwidth from Christianity itself. I try all the usual suspects. J-E-S-U-S-I-S-B-E-S-T, G-O-D-1, H-O-L-Y-G-H-O-S-T. Nothing seems to be working. I’m looking for a sign. Anything that will allow me to get on Miabifilms and/or check to see how my fantasy baseball team did last night.

The rain outside had been heavy all night. This morning it’s overcast, with a near constant mist swirling about. A dreary day that makes life extra difficult for the crew that have to deal with cold and damp conditions. At that, the mist subsided. The sun peaked through. Could this be my sign? Would Godnet go online? No. But what does happen is the EP of the shoot comes in from the sunshine and sees that I’m having problems getting on the internet. He tells me I’m on the wrong wireless network and gives me the password to the correct one.

Perfect. I get online having tried and failed to hack into the church’s wireless. I suddenly feel a wave of guilt come over me and before I can begin to blog about the need for an alternative to toilet paper, I close the laptop and head to a confessional.

At least I haven’t been struck by lightning.

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Jumbobamatron

Greg — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 03:42:34 +0000

Sorry for the lack of updates. I went to Washington to see the Inauguration. It was a great experience. Not much to say that hasn’t been said. It was a moment.

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Bigger than Jesus

Greg — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 11:49:19 +0000

2008 (0:45) – Hello friends. I know it’s been quite some time since I’ve posted here regularly. This place is not forgotten. Just been really busy at work and play.

And something that qualifies as both work and play is Adobe After Effects. (AE is an industry-standard motion graphics and visual effects program.) I took that three day course a few weeks ago and have been doing online tutorials nearly non-stop since. Trying to figure out how to use AE to my advantage. I’m addicted to this game. Getting “good” takes practice, so I’m being a proper little geek and learning my hotkeys. After Effects is bigger than Jesus.

In other news… in case you hadn’t heard, a Vatican newspaper has forgiven John Lennon for proclaiming The Beatles were “more popular than Jesus” more than 42 years ago… chalking it up to youthful exuberance. So nice to see head Catholics instep with the times. John is rolling over in his grave. Yoko is probably giving the finger to someone.

In honor of this great news for Yoko Ono and Lennon’s ghost, I wanted to post some videos I created using a few of my new AE skills. It is important that any effects I create with my new toy be complimentary and transparent to the work I’m using it in. But for now, I’m just having fun as usual.

The first is a 5 second blast for Miabi Films and the second is a nifty little short about a mysterious man from the future.

Hope you enjoy…

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