Holy Shit, I've been plagiarized!

So a few years ago, the Tulsa World did a little contest where they asked readers to tell the paper what they'd do if they were king or Queen of Tulsa for a day.

We used this nifty Illustration I did for all of the branding.--->

Super prominent on the rules page.

So today, we get an invite to a conference put on by a group called
Social Media Tulsa. This is their logo:












See what they did there?

I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, I'm glad my stuff is good enough to steal, but on the other hand, 'come on! This is pretty damn obvious.

The image is copyrighted by the Tulsa World, and the matter has been sent up the chain of command, so we'll se what happens from here.

Also, I love how they stole our image off our website, then use it in an invitation to us about attending a social networking conference.

Classy.

-JP

UPDATE!

They sent an email, and the response was along the lines of: We pulled the image off the web and didn't do our homework on where it came from.

They pulled the logo from their website, and are in the process of taking it off of everything else.

So the company that specializes in web related networking didn't do their homework on where an image from the web originated? Riiiight...

UPDATE 2!(3/2/11)

So after apologizing and promising to either remove or replace all existing instances of the work in question, they announced on their blog the other day that they had made a mistake, and are rectifying it with the unavailing of a brand new logo:



See what they did there? Totally different. If this is what they call a total redesign, we have problems. Perhaps they should look up what actually qualifies as a derivative work and even then they will see that our portion of the copyright still holds. Contact has once again been made and we will see what happens next.

UPDATE #3

So they finally made a change good enough to not be plagiarism(at least not of me).
Behold:

So yeah. I guess that's done.

-JP

Plausible.

So we cuddle up on the couch to watch some Mythbusters*. Everybody gets under their blankets and we start the show. Jackson says he's thirsty, so I get up and get him a drink. Just as I sit down, Joseph says his drink is empty, so I get up and go get him some more milk. Less than a second later, Jackson says he's hungry and wants a banana because the Mythbusters are testing something banana related. Joe says he wants a PB&J. There are no bananas so I ask Jack if he wouldn't mind sharing the sandwich with Joe. He says that's fine. So I make the sandwich, even cutting the crusts off, and slice it into two triangles. The wolf them down in about a second. They both say they want some more. But Jack wants his cut into dinosaur shapes and Joe wants squares. After I lose that argument, I go in to make two more sandwiches. I run out of peanut butter on the second one, and have to root through the pantry to find a new jar. It's organic, natural peanut putter, so I have to stir it up to mix in the oil, a lengthy process. I make the sandwiches, cut one into dinosaurs with this thing which is basically a cookie cutter for sandwiches, and the other into squares. I come back, plates in hand and Joe has fallen asleep. D'oh!
Not wanting to waste the food, I go see if my pregnant wife wants the sandwich squares. Not really, she says, and I spend a few minutes convincing her to eat it. I leave the sandwich with her, and go check on Jackson. He had dropped the plate, and the dogs snatched up half of his sandwich. So I go check to see if Jennifer had eaten the sandwich she said she didn't want less than a minute earlier. Gone. The whole thing.
So I had to make sandwich #4. Jackson ate all of it, which equaled two whole PB&Js and a whole glass of milk only an hur and a half after dinner. I guess he'll sleep well tonight.

*I'd like to thank the Mythbusters, as Jackson can now use the word "plausible" correctly in a sentence. He's 5.

-JP

TV is crap.

Can we play a video game?
No. It's way too late.
Can we watch a show?
Well, Okay, but it has to be a science show...
Let's see what our options are on Discovery/TLC (The Learning Channel)/Science Channel/PBS/History Channel, etc...
Looks like we have:

-I Have Too Many Fucking Kids
-You look Stupid in Those clothes
-We Suddenly Have a Boner for Alaska for Some Reason
-Rednecks in the Wild
-Ken Burns' Watchmakers Documentary, part 17
-Rednecks in the City
-Stuffy English People doing Stuffy English Things
-Hitler Hitler Hitler
-Look At Me, I Work in a Bakery
-Sell Me Your Shitty Junk
-Look At Me, I Have a Fucked-up Personality Trait

I guess we'll just put in a DVD.

2010 Year in Review

I just read over what I wrote last year, and I had a very optimistic outlook for 2010. Turns out I was right to hold such an opinion.
2010 was pretty good. Way better than 2009. I was also a holding pattern of sorts.
We had some up times and some down times, like everybody does. Anyway, here goes:

In 2010:
- I celebrated my 35th Birthday
- Jackson, his 5th
- Joseph, his 3rd.
- Jennifer turned whatever age she is now.
- My mom got married.
- My mom's husband almost died due to complications from a surgery to remove some cancer.
- He got better.
- I got a raise and moved up to the 7th floor of our building to work with and around the print designers.
- Because of this, I was able to quit the coffee shop. I kind of miss the social aspect of it, but at 35, I have no business mopping floors for minimum wage. None whatsoever.
- Then, because of the departure of a colleague, at the very end of the year they moved me back down to the 5th floor to take over some of his work flow. Yay for me!
- We did NOT move. This is actually a big deal. Jackson is 5 and has lived in 5 houses. Though one for only three weeks.
- Jackson really came out of his shell this year. He's in his second year at Channing, and is much less shy, and has really started interacting with the other kids more. He used to just watch. Not in a bad way, he preferred to watch the other kids play rather than participate. He way better about that now.
- Jackson also got glasses. His Nerd cred is rising. Thank goodness Nerds are hip now.
- Joseph's health really improved this year. He hasn't missed a beat. In fact, I think he is making up for lost time, because that kid is never not moving.
- LOST ended, and along with it, one of my main obsessions over the last 5 years.
- Jackson and I were trapped in the Denver airport for two days.
- I lost 36 lbs.
- I gained 6 back. Don't worry, I'm going to take care of that pretty quick here.
- The new Doctor Who is awesome. The most entertaining yet.
- Jennifer took on a second job to get some Christmas scratch at a little boutique in Utica Square. They like her and have asked her to stay on for a while, so I think she will until something else comes along.
- I got the boys a wii, and we have been having a great time on it.

2010 is gonna be off the hook. I can just feel it. We're going to have a good time.

I hope you do as well.

-JP

Holy Crap Joe Turns 3 Today!

Dear Joseph,
Three??!! Already??!! This has been a bang-up year, Mister.
There are a few things I've noticed about you. For one thing, you are totally effing crazy. I mean that in a good way. You just love being alive. You run, jump, laugh and giggle through everything life throws at you, good or bad. You are a super cuddle-bug. Way more than Jackson, whom I suspect is part Cylon. You already have a big imagination, and can hold your own against older kids when role-playing, and I've seen you defeat many an evil Jedi all on your own. You love to sing, which I find hilarious because it's always about whatever you happen to be doing at the time. You have a great sense of humor and are already the trickster of the house.
There was a night a few weeks ago where you took over the reading time during our bed time ritual, and you made up a whole 5 minute story about a dog named Jello-head just by looking at the pictures in the random book you picked out of the pile. That alone just about sums you up as a person. Pretty impressive for a 2 year old.
You are completely fearless. Still. Three years of banging your head, scraping up your hands, bruising up your legs and generally getting knocked around haven't had any impact on your wonderful ability to jump into any situation and hold your own. You once fell off the ladder to a slide at the pool. Eight feet down, and you landed mainly on your head. Within 20 minutes, you were back on that slide. I don't know if that's stubbornness or determination, but that's a fine line anyway.
Credit where credit is due, you are a happy, thoughtful kid due in no small part to having a wonderful mother. She is the best parent I've ever even heard about, and having such happy, healthy, smart kids is proof positive.
Anyway. I love you, buddy.
Happy birthday.

-Dad.

Captain Malcolm Reynolds

Kit Fisto!

Dr. Zaius

The Doctor and Amy Pond

Skully

Cyberman

Brock Samson...

21B

V.I.N.CENT.

Anybody remember this guy?

The Black Hole was Disney's fast-tracked answer to Star Wars, and was one of my favorite movies when I was a kid. I think it was one of the 3 movies that HBO ran non-stop during its infancy(the other two being Porky's and Patton). This movie and a few others, I have attempted to watch as an adult and have been severely disappointed. I remember this movie being awesome. It is not awesome. It is a very good effort, and is interesting on a cerebral level, but too slow moving and too high-brow for the crowd Disney usually brought in at the time. I hear the creative team at Disney that is responsible for the Tron sequel are making a new version. I don't really see the point. Back in the '70s, black holes were weird, mysterious things that many respectable scientists didn't think actually existed. Now that we know so much more about them and how they function, what ground could the movie really cover? Of course the original threw science and physics out the window, so why can't the new one?
I had similar experiences with The Dark Crystal, and Dreamscape. Both movies I loved as a kid that DO NOT hold up. I really wish I hadn't watched them as an adult and just kept the memory of them being awesome when I was little. Instead, now I know that I may have had shitty taste even back then.

-JP

It's a TRAP!

Dr. Girlfriend

Trooper

Sketchy...

What's with the codpiece?

-JP

Tales from On Demand 4

2012

Well, this should be interesting. The wife and one of the kids are in Florida for a wedding this weekend. The younger boy is here, but he goes to bed at like 8:30, so my free time has grown by leaps and bounds.
I'm going to try something new this time, and comment as I watch.

00.01.34 - Ominous music and an opening shot of Saturn. I guess they want us to know that Saturn is about to do something really bad. Saturn's always been kind of a dick.
00:02.34 - There is a shot of the sun almost identical to the opening shot of Blade Runner. Weird.
00:03.14 - We meet our first main character. An intelligent, world traveled African American. I predict a gruesome death in his future.
00:05.59 - Enter the sleeze bag. Oliver Platt, even. I predict an even more gruesome death for him. Or he lives through the whole thing.
00:08.33 - Danny Glover! Looking too old for this shit.
00:11.00 - Arabic e-reader. Didn't the manufacturer know that reading white text on a black background is not only bad for one's eyes, but reduces comprehension?
00:13.20 - Enter John Cusack. I bet he's grizzled in some way.
00:16.24 - I was right. The ex married a plastic surgeon.
00:16.34 - grizzled old men. They will live.
00:21.26 - A father daughter talk about the world ending.
00:25.34 - Woody Harrelson playing himself.
00:37.14 - Hey, look! Linoleum cracks just like cement. I knew I should have just poured concrete in my kitchen.

...


Okay, I have to admit something. At this point, it was well after 3:00 AM, and I fell asleep on the couch. And let me tell you this: If you're an action movie, and you can't hold an insomniac's attention at 3AM, then you are not a very good action movie. I guess live blogging a movir wasn't a good idea at 3AM either. So that was friday. I didn't have the desire to finish watching it until monday while Joe was down for a nap. I have to say that this was not a very good movie. The whole point was that some made-up science was going to cause the Earth's crust to do all sorts of bad things, which it did. Here is what I don't get: After the explain that being on a boat is bad because of all the horrible tsunamis (that's tidal wave to you and me), and even show one of the main character's father die horribly by a tsunami while on a boat, the answer to saving civilization is to put everybody on boats. =/ It seems like hot air balloons or dirigibles would be the better choice, if you want to avoid both the land and the sea. Also, even though they explain that all the oceans will cover all of the land masses for some reason, it seems like even if the Earth's crust shifted, a good solid, high place in the middle of a continent would still be the place to be. May the middle of Canada or something.
Any way, skip it. Totally not worth it, even with all the mass destruction and people getting killed by walls of dirt. Okay some of that is pretty cool. I do always love it when a whole shit load of people die in movies.

Powers out.

Tales from On Demand 3

Terminator Salvation (2009)

Meh.


-JP