Jared Lyon

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 13:58:00 EDT

2008/09/12 13:58:00

I just recently happened upon this interesting project from the creator of Firefly and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. As the banner image suggests, it's called Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. Just from the title I wasn't sure what to expect. Do people really sing in it?

Not only do they sing, but the songs are incredibly well written and composed! Plus the acting and camera work is equally as great.

You should check it out. It's a fun one-off project that the guy undertook personally and put a lot of money behind. The soundtrack is available on iTunes, and it even made it to #1 TV soundtrack for a while.

Watch Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog.

There's also an interesting back story to the project, which was created during the writer's strike this year. You can find that write-up in the Master Plan section of the official Dr. Horrible site.

Another semi-related musical video (though no where near as polished or expensive to create) that people might find interesting is the "spontaneous" musical in a mall food court created by a group called Improv Everywhere. The organizations goal is to "cause scenes of chaos and joy in public places." Oddly enough, though the projects are completely unrelated, the vocals for the Dr. Horrible soundtrack were recorded just a few days before the food court musical was staged.

Crispin Glover's What Is It?

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 20:24:00 EST

2008/02/06 20:24:00

In early March of 2007, I had the awesome pleasure to see Crispin Glover at Rochester's Dryden Theatre. You might also recall that this is the same theatre that shows David Lynch movies from time to time. Anyway, this particular showing was for Glover's newest film What Is It?, supposedly the first of a three part "It" series.

Taking the view that Hollywood has become completely manufactured and too safe, Glover set out to make a film that challenged all that. So what does that get you? A cast primarily consisting of actors with Down Syndrome, naked women, an actor with cerebral palsy who also appears naked, a man in black face, Fairuza Balk voicing a snail, and Glover himself. Oh, and let's not forget the cherry on top: illustrations of prepubescent Shirley Temple with a Nazi cap and necklace holding an inappropriately placed riding crop.

He set out to shock, and that's definitely what he did. Personally though, I still wondered what the point was. But then again, I've wondered the same thing when watching some of John Waters's early films.

By far, the best part of the night to me was actually getting to meet Glover. Before the film showed, Glover read from some books that he's put together. It was a very performance art piece, and he performed quite well. In several parts he had the audience laughing. Other parts though, as with his film, can leave you a bit confused or uncomfortable. I guess Glover's works can be like David Lynch's works in this way. Sometimes the audience doesn't know how to react; sometimes they laugh because they don't know what else to do.

I've found some clips of Glover reading/performing on YouTube, but they are from many years ago, and he performs differently now.

So, why write about this over a year later? No, not because Glover makes a great Willy Wonka, just as I do. It's because I just read that he's started showing the second part of his "It" trilogy. (It showed as Sundance in January.) Gone are the Down Syndrome actors. I don't think this piece is suppose to be shocking like the first. They're not suppose to be connected in that way. This one is more of a psycho murder mystery, I think. Interestingly though, the actor with cerebral palsy wrote and acts in this second film, though he died before the piece was completed.

This second film is titled It Is Fine! Everything is Fine. I'm curious to see it, as I think it'll be more plot driven, and it's always fun to see independent films made with not a lot of money.

Phoenix fun, again

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 23:29:00 EST

2008/01/31 23:29:00

Just a quick note for those who may have missed it. It's been a couple weeks since I got back from Phoenix, and I finally uploaded photos from the trip. As expected, just like last year's Phoenix trip, I had a blast. It's always amazing that one can accomplish so much in a single extended weekend. I always think that most of the weekend will be taken up by the flight there and back, but then I am proven wrong. I feel like I was there for at least a week not just a few days.

Thanks go out to Joey, James, and Bobby who were great hosts. It was cool to hang out with them again.

Differences between this current trip and my last one? Well, I stayed with the three guys instead of Alex this year (I did get a chance to see him a couple times thought which was cool, if brief). And instead of a little hike in Papago Park, I went to the zoo (though I could see where we hiked from the entryway to the zoo). The last difference was that we went to more bars.

Either way, the trip was equally as fun.

Christmas and the New Year

Thu, 03 Jan 2008 20:37:00 EST

2008/01/03 20:37:00

It's unfortunate that Christmas is such a hectic and busy time. Sure, it can be fun, but I've always thought it's filled with more expectations than merriment.

Don't worry though, this isn't going to be an entry full of complaining.

I drove home to Vermont for Christmas. The trip back home was brief, but I still got in visits to most of the extended family. There was even a couple viewings of my recent DVD appearance, the most eventful of which was at my paternal grandparents. They couldn't find the DVD player's remote, so we couldn't move down to the menu item for the featurette that I'm in. My aunt ended up bring her player so we could watch the video. They liked it, but liked the clipping from a recent newsletter about my appearance better from my employer, Rochester Institute of Technology. I guess its just easier to show people a piece of paper versus a video... even if the video has international coverage, and the newspaper only extends as far as Rochester, New York.

I almost think my car had a more eventful Christmas than I did. Not that there's anything wrong with a low key Christmas. My car turned 50,000 miles old (mostly due to the 1,000 mile total trip). It also had an automatic car starter installed into it (a Christmas present from mom), and it even got a flat tire.

My mom mentioned that my preschool teacher (who was also my high school English teacher) bought a deli in town, so we stopped by there one day. It was really cool seeing her again and reminiscing. I went through every grade until high school graduation with her daughter, Meika. That day, we wrote an email to her. It'll be cool to hear from her again.

In other interesting news from the trip home, my mom showed off her new (and first) tattoo. Part of it comes from a design on a Harley Davidson shirt she has, and the Harley logo in the center was removed and replaced with subtle reference to Betty Boop's head. Mom's always loved Betty Boop.

As for New Year's Eve, it was mostly uneventful. Just went out and met some friends at a bar. I thought about making a resolution or two, but then decided it was silly. :)

Twin Peaks goes Gold (My DVD debut)

Fri, 02 Nov 2007 00:04:00 EDT

2007/11/02 00:04:00

Not that anyone noticed, but I never did a write up for the 2007 Twin Peaks Fest that took place at the end of July. I was holding off a bit because I knew something else was on its way. Halloween may have been on Wednesday, but I wanna talk about Tuesday, Twin Peaks Tuesday. Yes, I might be the only one who called it that, but either way, at long last, the complete series of Twin Peaks is available on DVD in one box set. On top of that, another soundtrack of music from the show was released! Who would have thought that 15 years after Twin Peaks ended, they'd be releasing more music?

If you've read my site at all, you probably already know that I am a fan of the show. But it gets even better than just the complete show being released! If you happen to check out the extra features on the DVD set, you'll see little ol' me chatting up a storm about the Twin Peaks Fest that I run.

All the special features, including the documentary about the festival that was filmed at the 2006 fest, are amazingly well put together. Seriously, Charles de Lauzirika and his team did a great job producing the set. I was so proud seeing myself and the three other fest organizers talking on the DVD, as well as some of the other great attendees. Apparently the set is selling quite well too; it had an Amazon.com sales rank of #1 in several categories. You can tell it's a set people have been waiting for.

To coincide with the DVD set coming out, Amanda and I (the two remaining organizers) redesigned and restructured a brand new Twin Peaks Fest site. As of today, it's not all completed, but its coming along, and I really like the new look. I even redesigned our Twin Peaks Fest MySpace page to look similar with the official fest site.

Thinking back on the 2007 fest. It was great as usual. We even got some great local publicity. The Wednesday before the fest, we were the cover story in the "living" section of the Seattle Times. Then, because of the Seattle Times coverage, Seattle's Channel 4 news showed up at the sign in (a bit before everyone was there though, unfortunately), and they spent a little while filming and interviewing. That night, the video story about the Twin Peaks Festival ran on the 4pm and 11pm news.

For those that can't see the video goodness of me on the Twin Peaks DVD set, you can at least catch me in the video clip mentioned above. :)

It was a fun, busy, and hectic time. We even remade a "red room" with a newly painted zigzag floor and new red curtains. I even made a photo slideshow music video of us recreating and hanging out in the red room. I also posted a bunch of photos from the 2007 fest, so check them out if you're so inclined.

UPDATE (April 2008): My alma mater's University Magazine has a little write up about me being on the DVD set (PDF).

Shoe size woes

Sun, 10 Jun 2007 17:24:00 EDT

2007/06/10 17:24:00

As I've mentioned before, I'm not the tallest guy in the world, but I'm not abnormally small either. Out of all the smallness, there is one thing that takes the cake though... my feet. I don't tend to thing that a men's size 7 shoe is that ridiculous, but apparently all of the shoe stores in and around the Marketplace Mall in Rochester think a size 7 sports shoe is ridiculous. Foot Locker, Dick's Sport Goods, DSW Shoe Warehouse... not a single one of them or any of the other stores that I tried, had anything below a size 8. At Dick's the guy suggested that I look in the youth section; it didn't have any athletic kids shoes. Another day when I went to Dick's looking again (because it had the best selection of shoes by far), one of the sale's guys suggested I look in the women's athletic shoe section. Last time I check women's feet were not as wide as men's, and even worse, I have a wide foot anyway. To make it even more humiliating, the guy measured my foot on the women's foot sizer. After that, I simply had to choose one of the many women's size 8.5 shoes.

I stood there looking at the array of shoes. Which color to choose? Pink? Periwinkle? Salmon? Baby blue? I left vowing to never return to Dick's again for shoes.

Another week later, as summer volleyball season was approaching, I had to get my lens prescriptions updated (yes, they were updated only a year and a half ago... my eyes are getting worse), so I was left for an hour to wander around the mall blind. I went to get something to eat, and while walking back to the lens store, I realized that the store right beside it was Altier's Shoes. Now I've wandered into Altier's many times before and never found anything I liked, let alone anything my size, so I had written off the store. I stumbled around the store, getting withing a foot of each shoe while trying to actually see it, and low and behold, there was a size 7.5 athletic shoe that looked decent. I glanced around quickly to see if any of the customers around me were witnessing the miracle. Granted they were a half size too big, but I tried them on and they felt good enough. I figured that I'd never find anything closer, so I bought them. Sport Sketchers for less than $40. Not bad at all.

Within the next week, I had two friend tell me they had the same pair (albeit in larger sizes).

So, do companies only make clothing for 80% of people? I hear people complain about sizes being too small for them, and now here I am saying sizes are too big. Seems like 20% of us are out of luck.

The weather roller coaster of March

Thu, 15 Mar 2007 23:23:00 EDT

2007/03/15 23:23:00

Just 5 days before the official start of spring, and boy has the weather been weird lately! The average high temperature of the previous three days was 59.6 °F; the average high temperature of the upcoming three days is 30.3 °F. Shouldn't the weather be getting warmer not colder!? I've noticed geese flying back and flowers starting to break ground, and yet now it's going to snow for the next good chunk of days.

Ever since I've been in Rochester, I've always thought of March as the tease month. Back home in Vermont, it was actually April that would tease about the arrival of Spring. Whether it's March or April, the tease month always seems to scream "Look at how warm it can be!" followed by "Nah, I think I'll torture you just a little bit more."

Incidentally, you might be wondering about the snowman of the Easter Island statue. I had told a couple people about it, but decided to use this entry to actually show a picture of it. One of my current roommates decided he wanted to make a snowman out on the front lawn of the apartment, but he didn't want to make just any old regular snowman. He came up with this idea, which he had done once before, and he and his girlfriend slapped it all together around February 20th. Just today, I decided to take another photo from the same vantage point to show that all the snow was gone, sans a little clump that used to be the snowman. Just a little photo compositing between the two photos, plus some graphics on the sides, and viola.

Does the sun in this post's banner image look like a butterscotch candy to anyone else?

Scissor Sisters cut up Toronto

Sat, 10 Mar 2007 22:25:00 EST

2007/03/10 22:25:00

It finally happened. After months of waiting, I finally got to see Scissor Sisters in concert this Wednesday. Some of you may recall how I was previously supposed to see the Sisters in October, but the date was canceled.

It took me about 2 hours and 45 minutes to make it up to Toronto from Rochester. My friends Derek and Rick were with me so time passed a bit faster than if I had driven alone. After we made it to our hotel and checked in, I gave my friend George a call so we could figure out dinner plans (we had about 3 hours to kill before the doors to the venue opened). We ended up going to Astoria Shish Kebob House on Danforth Ave. Great Greek food was consumed.

We headed over to George's for a little bit after that, where I called Lew and John (two other Rochester friends) to see where they were at. After George's we stopped by a bar for a bit and finally ended up going to Koolhaus, the venue, at about 8, which is when the doors opened.

There was a short wait to get in but nothing more than about 8 minutes. The bigger wait was actually the coat check line. We could hear music playing as we got there, it was the opening band, Small Sins. They were pretty good, something I'd definitely listen to again. Of course, I wasn't there to hear them though, bring on the Sisters!

After Small Sins finished a DJ can on. He sat at his little table and played music for what must have been about half an hour... so it was a little after 9 at this point. After the DJ finished, I thought "Okay, here they come!" The stagehands brought out three wooden sticks with wigs on them. Wait, what is this now? What followed was about 40 minutes of prerecorded songs that the wigs were "performing" even though they didn't move. In between songs, one of the wigs would "speaking" to the crowd for just a minute. The first 10 minutes or so was funny, especially when one of them said "You guys are great, we just love this town... this town that we're in right now." I noticed in between songs that each of the sticks had a distinct voice. After half an hour of this, it was getting a bit ridiculous, what a crowd killer. No one wants to sit and look at inanimate objects when they are getting all excited to see a band. They did 6 songs, but by the 5th song people were annoyed and you could hear faint booing. Apparently Scissor Sisters know that the band, Wigs on Sticks, isn't liked a whole lot because near the end of the Scissor Sisters set, Ana said that they sold literally 4 Wigs on Sticks t-shirts. :)

So the wigs were finally taken off stage. Here come the Sisters! Nope, wrong again. The DJ came back for another 30 minutes. Scissor Sisters didn't come on until about 10:15. BUT, once they finally came on, it was awesome!

I stood stage left right near where Babydaddy usually stands. Rick and Derek each being about 6 inches taller than me had a better view but my view was good enough. I actually felt bad a couple times for the short women around me and would swap places with them so they could see better. I started out about 6 people back from the front row, but by the end of the night I was only one person away from the front. There were no seats or anything; it was just standing area, so it was easy to shimmy closer to the front over time.

Anyway, the concert once they finally came on was great, they were on for about an hour and a half, saving their two most famous songs (Take Your Mama and I Don't Feel Like Dancin') for the encores. It was awesome to see them in person, and I'm still glad I got there when I did because it would have been much harder to get so close to the stage. Don't forget to check out some of my pictures from the trip.

Oh yeah, just to finish up talking about the trip, Thursday consisted of walking around Toronto for a bit, and then finally heading back to Rochester, where we totally got lost when I had to exit to get gas, which extended the trip back by 45 minutes.

Happy Valentine's Day

Wed, 14 Feb 2007 21:59:00 EST

2007/02/14 21:59:00

Nothing says "Happy Valentine's Day" like over a foot of snow in 24 hours, right?

I got home from work today and had received a package from my mom. I thought I knew what was in the box. See when I was back in my hometown visiting all the family for Christmas, I had brought a shirt home with me that was in need of repair. I was basically brand new, but the front half of one of the snapping buttons on the shirt had somehow popped off. Not having a BeDazzler handy, I thought that if I brought it home, my mom would know what to do. Apparently my mom used to at least have a tools to attach another button head. She used the tool ages ago in the making of one piece baby clothes for me and my sibling with a snap in the crouch.

Anyway, my mom couldn't find that tool when in my hometown at Christmas, so I left the shirt there. On the phone more recently, she had told me that my shirt was all fixed and she'd be sending it to me. Little did I know that in the same package I would find three homemade packages each containing a different kind of momma-made cookie! You'll see them in the picture above.

Here's the best part, and this just shows how cool my mom is... The envelopes that the cookies were in were actually CD/DVD envelope sleeves with construction paper designs attached to the front. Ingenious! Each of the three envelopes was totally unique. One took advantage of the cellophane see-through front but, via the construction paper, the see-through part was now in the shape of a heart. Another had shiny little hearts on it, some fringe, and a tiny, working envelope on the front with a letter in side saying "Happy Valentine's Day, Love Mom." The last was more simple, and as you can see, it just had a wide heart and a little ornamentation on each corner. The backs were not decorated, just sealed via the "lick to make sticky" adhesive.

Ya know, my mom had said something about making Valentine's Day package for people around town, and I didn't realize how much she got into it. Now I know. Oh yeah, and the shirt made for perfect packing material too because it is sort of a candy cane colored plaid/Madras shirt.

Anyway, there's a little story for you all on this cold, snowy night. Hopefully those of you with a loved one are at home now keeping warm with them next to you. Happy Valentine's Day everyone out there.

A vacation to Phoenix

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 21:05:00 EST

2007/01/30 21:05:00

So I did it, I finally took a real vacation. Sure, I travel annually to Seattle, Washington and back to my hometown for Christmas, but neither of them are really vacations; I go to Seattle for the Twin Peaks Fest, where I spend all day working, and Christmas is... well... Christmas, not a relaxing vacation by any means.

I decided back in November that I wanted to go on a trip somewhere, I picked Phoenix because an old Rochester friend of mine moved there about 3 years ago, and he had tried getting me to go out a couple times.

In an effort to actually get this post up, I'm going to be a bit brief in the details... apologies in advance.

My plane landed in Phoenix around 11pm Thursday (after some minor delays). Alex picked me up, and we back to his place where I crashed. It was a bit of a full house for the weekend. Normally it's just Alex and his roommate Paul, but Scotty was staying there too, and of course me. Friday morning, I woke up to Scotty making brunch for everyone in the house plus some other friends they invited over.

After all the food had settled from Scotty's great brunch, Alex and his friend Jonathan took me out for some sightseeing. First, we took a driving tour up part of the base of Camelback Mountain, just to see all the amazing and expensive houses. Next we headed over to Papago Park, part of Phoenix's Desert Botanical Gardens. It was there that I took 8 photos which were later seemed together to make the panoramic picture which you'll notice in my Phoenix trip photos. After hiking briefly around Papago Park, we headed to go pick up and drop off Jonathan's niece. We stopped by a store and I bought a belt too.

We returned to Alex's and off he went to shave his beard. The final configuration was that of a horseshoe mustache... or whatever one would call it. With that task complete it was time to head out to some bars to end the night.

Saturday morning was a quick trip to McDonald's (those Ranch wrap things are pretty good!) and off to the rodeo that was in town. It was located in this sort of western theme park. Park of the theme park was this restaurant named Rawhide. This restaurant was really great, and it even feature live music. Another one of their specialties is rocky mountain oysters. I passed on trying them.

The food at Rawhide was really great though. They had mini cornbread muffins that had jalapeños in them, but it was the corn on the cob that stood out. This was the best corn on the cob that I've ever had, and I told everyone that. Sure, they sort of rolled their eyes a bit but after they tried it many of them agreed. :) After Rawhide, we stopped by a bar again before heading home.

Sunday, we had lunch at some diner-type place (I had a fruit crepe), and then after a quick tour of downtown it was off to meet Joey.We hung out for a bit and I got to play on the Nintendo Wii for the first time. Pretty cool, I played the original Super Mario Brothers on it. :) Dinner was at an Asian Buffet with Joey, James, and Bobby, and then some bar hopping. This time we went to two bars I hadn't been to yet. The first has this $1 a cup beer bust on Sundays, and it was at the other bar where I watched a band (including Alex's friend Zion) play some music. Back home at Alex's I fell asleep on the couch watching Mythbusters.

Alex had to work for a little bit on Monday, so I wasn't sure what I was going to be doing. That's when Paul stepped in and was gracious enough to take me out and keep me entertained a bit. First, we ate lunch at a place called Red Devil Pizza, and it was really good, then it was off to the Fashion Square Mall to watch the movie Children of Men. Paul even had a coupon for a free ticket for him and I, so that was and even better bonus!

Back at Alex's, I knew my time in Phoenix was almost up, so I decided to consolidate all of our photos. After that it was sort of just site and wait for my flight. Alex mentioned that I should probably check my flight to see if it was delayed due to the horribly cold weather (It was a high of 50 the whole time I was there). Turns out my flight was delayed coming in from NYC, and they suggested that I call back in an hour. It was in that hour that I fell asleep on the couch. Luckily Alex was paying attention to the time and not falling asleep (it was about midnight). I called the airport and they said my flight was going to be boarding in 30 minutes. Alex lives pretty close to the airport, so it was just a hop skip and jump to the airport and thus my trip was brought to and end.

So there you have it, my trip to Phoenix. Don't forget to check out my Phoenix trip photos.