This is made of win and awesome.

I so wish I’d heard about this.

Hey,
I have a really funny picture that I took downtown. Its really random and not the greatest picture ever, since I had to take it with my phone.

I was walking up from the waterfront on a Sunday and a friend and I were walking past a row of parking meters. They were all flashing zeros since it was a weekend. I passed one and saw that it wasn’t flashing. It was out of order, and said so, along with the letters F-A-I-L where the time usually goes. I saw this abnormality and of course, stopped to observe this strange occurrence. After a brief photo shoot and some well placed picture messages, this rare gem was safe on facebook, as well as gracing the presence of a few select friend’s phones. It was a wonderfully random sighting and made the day of all that saw it.

~Alison Liedkie

I took this photo a couple weeks ago but I’m just getting around to posting it now.

Someone actually stole our whiteboard since then…

I love how the speech bubble is attached to the scarf hahah.

Fall Out Boy is underrated, Pat.

So check it out, here’s that short film I mentioned earlier.

The film fest was last night, and it was very, very fun. But now that’s behind us, I’m putting it online. Maybe it’ll go VIRAL! Just kidding.

Watching it with an audience was a great, weird feeling. In my mind, this is a thriller with a few jokey moments, but the audience took it as a straight comedy, it seemed.

I don’t really mind. My next short film is a comedy, and if people find it to be thrillng, then I’ll start worrying.

Hope you enjoy it.

Friend of the site John Lazzaro is putting together a documentary about costs at uvm. This is the trailer.

(I suppose when I say “friend of the site” what I mean is “friend of the me,” really).

I think it looks great! Check it out. Give some feedback. Look forward to the full thing.

Shitty cell phone quality aside, I think this photo is pretty telling.

There’s a film fest coming up, and I’d like to encourage people to make things and submit them.

I love this kind of thing, this is what POV is all about, encouraging people to make things and exercise their creativity and get that whole sense of accomplishment. Seriously, seeing your little thing on the huge screen in the davis center will be a rush.

Check out the official 2009 UVM Film Festival blog to find out about submitting things, but you must get to work as soon as possible because the deadline approaches.

As you can tell by the above video (which, I hasten to mention, is titled “I’m a director now” facetiously), I’ll be submitting something. If it wiggles its way into the lineup, come by and vote for it. That would be rad.

If you think that you do not know how to make a short film, you probably can anyway. Go to the library media center (in the basement) and rent the following:

• MiniDV Video camera
• Tripod
• Lights
• “Shotgun” microphone

Then go to the book store and buy a pack of miniDV tapes, which costs around 15 dollars for three. If you play your cards right, this is all the money you will be spending.

One of those cards you need to play is this: when you rent the stuff from the library, you will be charged some relatively small amount of money unless it is for a class project. Perhaps this is a project for a class.

Then get your pretentious writer friend (everyone has one no?) to put together a script. Make sure s/he considers the obvious limitations you’ll have with locations and stunts, etc, and give them a short deadline… I recommend celtx for formatting screenplay style.

Then just shoot it the best you can. Come to the basement of the library and edit it in iMovie (or Final Cut if you feel the need). It’s not that hard. It’ll be easier if you bring an external hard drive. A techCat will give you some tips. Maybe that tech cat will be me.

Now hurry up!

So check this out. Here’s a guy, one Jonathan Mejia, who reads the Cynic every week and makes a video response in a show called the Cynical Cynic which he puts on his youtube channel. I’m glad to see someone else out there who’s just sort of making something for fun.

It seems like he’s sort of filling the role of the local Jon Stewart, dissecting media’s bizarreness on this local scale.

His spot on analysis of the ‘soap on a rope’ comic from this week’s edition is especially funny. “What do you want from me? What do you want me to feel? Tell me!”

So keep it up.

At a cabin in Stowe… the intricate design of the best piece of footwear out there: the moccasin.

[Thanks Nick for submitting this. It's striking. -Max]

Taken on the Burlington waterfront on a cloudy sunday. The wind against the shore created a pattern in the snow around the piling. The scene embodies gloomy winter days yet provides a tinge of hope.

Haven’t done a photo post in a bit.

I wouldn’t let my bike get snowed under like that…

I wanna start by apologizing for the shitty editing on my part here. First of all, there’s a couple minutes of nothing at the end… And also while watching it before uploading, I’m wishing I could revise a few things just so they’d be more clear or have a nicer rhythm. But to export this movie took my little computer nearly five hours, and I can’t do it again.

So here are the nicest moments I got during the rally, put together kind of terribly. Enjoy.

[edit: I fixed the glaring issues]

Maybe more videos forthcoming?

PS, thanks Kesha for the sweet shoutout :)

Here’s my second interview. Covers some of the same ground, but there’s some other interesting stuff in there.

I guess I only did two. Shoot. Will do more. Who should I talk to?

Send to your friends :)

Yesterday I attended another rally with my camera. This is the first of a few videos I’m going to post.

In this video, one of the protesters explains really well what’s going on, so if you’re a little confused, watch and it should clear up a little. Also, send this video to friends who don’t seem concerned about what’s going on, because it’s probably due to not being aware rather than not caring. Awareify them. Ha.

I’d love to interview someone in the administration or on the board of trustees to respond to some of the ideas brought up during the rally. If any of you are reading this, contact me and we’ll set something up.

Check back in the coming days for more interviews and maybe a little video with footage from the rally.

I did not make this video, but it’s cool and it fits the site. Someone named Nancy made it. Here’s the description from youtube:

UVM’s President Fogel plans to address an accumulated deficit under his watch by increasing the student body, hiking tuition, laying off faculty and staff, and increasing class sizes. On January 23, students, faculty, and staff joined in a “funeral march” to protest the cuts and layoffs and call for alternatives–including downsizing administration, not education, at UVM.

Here’s another video by the same person, from December:

On December 17, 2008, the new coalition Students , Staff, and Faculty Together held a press conference to protest UVM President Dan Fogel’s plan to add 300 students while laying off faculty and staff. If cuts must be made after the administration’s five-year spending spree–including a sevenfold-increase in top-tier administrative salary spending and $41+ million wasted on PeopleSoft–cut from the top!

Here’s one more video, this one from one William Ottman. It’s a pretty fascinating look at the clash between earnest student activism and, well, Daniel Fogel. To be clear, this video, uploaded December 8, 2008, concerns another issue– that of UVM’s investment of war profiteering companies. How did that work out? I haven’t heard anything in a while. Did we divest? Will we save the budget? Does any of this stuff work? Carrying a casket around? Really? To rip off Rachel Maddow, I might need someone to talk me down. Anyway, enjoy some brilliant political slipperiness:

This is an ongoing issue. If you have any thoughts, feel free to comment. If you make something, like a video or a photo or a short essay, do submit. max@pixelsonvermont.com