Mad Owl

Cornelius: Snow Joke

Mad Owl — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 16:58:39 +0000

Technical difficulties (part deux)

Mad Owl — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 23:33:34 +0000

After a month of can’t-really-be-bothered-to-do-much-with-this-site because I’ve recently moved house, the website decided to implode. For a bit. It’s back now, as you can clearly see. Hell, this might even be a wake-up call from me to update the site soon. With something Christmassy, perhaps.

Why I won’t get a new phone, part II

Mad Owl — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 19:46:27 +0000

I think this two-minute video should answer any remaining queries left from my previous article (which curiously happened to be about the most popular on this site):

Favourite Cartoons III: The Dover Boys at Pimento University

Mad Owl — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 23:48:46 +0000

Or: The Rivals of Roquefort Hall.

Or, more specifically, the short where Chuck Jones tore down the rules of cartoon-making and designed something which was about 900 times better than his frankly weak portfolio at Warner Brothers up until then. This 1942 effort was a risky, sink-or-swim effort, but this one of the Merrie Melodies series is right up there with the best. The fact many of the jokes in the nine-minute epic are still funny almost 70 years later is testament to how this was such a bold feature (and one that nearly saw Chuck Jones fire after shocked executives saw the finished product).

And, because it’s in the public domain, I should hopefully be able to embed the cartoon here without some angry lawyers getting all subpoena on my ass.

It also has one of my favourite lines: “A runabout! I’LL STEAL IT! NO-ONE WILL EVER KNOW!!!”

All a bit quiet

Mad Owl — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 16:11:47 +0000

Just to keep everyone up to date, it’s likely there won’t be many updates to this website this month as I’m moving house, and while I have been off work this week, builders have been creating a din at my old place of residence.

So I’ve mainly been playing GTA IV and, while being impressed at its technical achievements, I still can’t get absorbed into the game because I don’t care at all for the main protagonist. And retrying a mission I’ve failed is a tremendous chore, particularly if I’ve spent 30 minutes tackling it before being killed. There’s something to be said for quicksaves…

I’ve also been racing online thanks to rFactor. Look, I have proof and everything (video produced by fellow Race2Play user Steve Taylor:

That’s me in the ‘M Dowling’ tag, where I’m valiantly battling with other racers who are clearly 2 seconds a lap faster than me. I finished 5th, which I was quite pleased with.

I’ve also been thinking about packing. You know, the whole conceptualisation part, clearly the most complicated bit of the whole house-moving process. The simple bit is lugging the material to my new abode. At least, that’s what I’m convincing myself.

Cornelius: Peas and nuts

Mad Owl — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 20:36:41 +0000

*Ahem*…Charles who?

Mad Owl: Chuck Who?

Mad Owl — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 23:03:26 +0000

I’ve always wanted to draw this stylised landscape…

House Hunting

Mad Owl — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 23:19:16 +0000

Interlude: Mad Owl is going house hunting.

Cornelius: Moment of Concern

Mad Owl — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 23:01:13 +0000

Phew. Almost became a serious cartoon there for a second.

Star Trek: Where the party don’t stop, no (oh whoa-wuh-oh, oh whoa-wuh-oh) ♫

Mad Owl — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 23:01:32 +0000

OK, so maybe your eyes and ears still haven’t recovered from the monstrosity that is William Shatner’s cover of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody, as I found to my cost a few days ago.

Not to matter, I have found a much more pleasant video. There may be about 17 million Star Trek videos on YouTube (or just four – I haven’t carried out any research into it), but out of all of them, this is about the best one there.

It’s party time on the Starship Enterprise, and it’s curious how Kei$ha (as I believe she likes to be known, for I am ghetto, hip and hop, and some form of street) and her song Tik Tok (sic) fits like a glove on to these clips.