Puppet Kaos -

When I woke up and checked my email, I got an email from Darren saying that I’ve won a copy of his new book: ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income. That certainly was a nice surprise because I didn’t remember entering a contest. As it turned out, the winners were picked randomly from the people that left comments on his blog this past weekend. I actually didn’t pay attention to the contest criteria until I’ve been told that I’ve won. I just simply commented because I felt like saying something. Oh well, I guess I only win when I’m not trying to win.

But hey, that’s the first online contest I’ve ever won. Woo-hoo!

While I am not really expecting blogging to generate me any income (not to mention a six-figure income), I’ve been reading Problogger because it helps me improve this site. (Or rather, it gives me many different perspectives of looking at a site and figuring out what’s good or bad. It doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m making those changes, but at least I am more aware of what works and what doesn’t for future reference.) I like his writing. It’s clear, full of information, and not condescending. He’s a really nice guy and really generous in sharing his knowledge. If you are interested in blogging, check out the heap of knowledge on his site. I’m certainly looking forward to reading the book.

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Last Thursday I went to a sketch comedy show written and performed by some of my friends. It was the Old Dirty Conservatories show featuring Randall Park, Dwayne Perkins, Rick Lee, Johnny Skourtis, Ray Lai, and Matt Hill. Afterwards I was reading a blog entry about the show by a friend and playwright Michael Golamco. He was talking about the difference between parody and satire, and I really like what he said here:

You’ve gotta have a special sort of intelligence to write sketch. Like I’ve said here before, it’s the difference between parody and satire. Anybody can do parody — dress a man up like Hillary Clinton and have him/her clap to Hillary4U&Me. Easy. Brainless. It is to comedy as Hot Pockets are to food.

But what is the moral of the story? What does this mean for me, sitting there in the audience? Where is the truth in your comedy? What new thing have you shined a light on? If the answer is nothing, then give me back my ten fucking dollars.

I think he’s so right. To make story good, you’ve got to have an interesting series of events and a good message/reflection at the end. Good satires are good because they do a good job poking fun at something, and then they give you a message to take home with. Now, don’t get me wrong. I still love parodies that’s just downright pointless. Some of them are really entertaining although there’s absolutely no point. I value good satires as well as good parodies. But what distinguish them apart? The answer is, when they are not very good.

When a satire is not entertaining, you might not be laughing, but you will still get the message. Maybe the jokes are really lame, or maybe you are offended by it, but it should still be very clear what’s being satirized. You might not have been entertained, but you still have the message so you didn’t just waste your time hearing that story. Now what if a pointless parody falls short? Then you get nothing. If it was pointless to begin with, you do not take a message away from it. You are just there to be entertained. And when it’s not even entertaining, then you’ve just wasted your time watching it, pretty much.

I admire people that can write good satirical short sketches. It’s often not easy to write something that’s entertaining and totally to the point at the same time. I admire people that have the knack to do it.

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This is totally unrelated to puppetry, but hell,
I just won my very first
championship in fantasy basketball!!!

Now that’s important news.

I was first introduced to fantasy basketball in the 2002 season by my then-roommate Phillip. So this is my 6th season. I’m very proud of myself for picking up Ramon Sessions when nobody had noticed him. And who knew he’d dished out 24 assists in one game?

Anyway, finally winning a championship after 6 seasons is great. That sure made my day.

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There were many holidays out there. We celebrate them, but that doesn’t mean that the day belongs to us. There is Veteran’s Day but I’m not a veteran. There is Christmas, but I’m not religious. There’s Chinese new year but I’m not Chinese. There is Valentine’s Day but I don’t have a lover. There is Mother’s Day but I’m not a mother. There is St. Patrick’s Day but I’m not Irish. There are many holidays out there that people celebrate, but they don’t necessarily apply to us. Now, is there a day that we can call our own?

Search no more, my fellow fools, for today, is our day.

We are tricked; we are deceived; today, the non-fools experience how you feel by getting tricked themselves for a day. Today, people might or might not be tricked. They learn to watch out for what people say and do, and look for clues to decide between truth or bull. Todays, we learn the difference between being careful, judgemental, suspicious, skeptical, and paranoid. Today is about wisdom, and today is about truth.

So, my fellow fools, today we celebrate our foolishness and share it with the world. We let them know what it’s like to feel foolish and it will raise the awareness of the entire human race. We might actually like being a fool, or we might be bitter and cynical about it. But no matter what, we don’t need your pity, as we have already gotten enough from Mr. T.

Ahaha, I just wasted your time reading something totally pointless and don’t quite really mean. Ahaha, psych. Okay, that was the lamest April Fools thing ever written. I won’t do that again next year.

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Since I did not make a video for this year, here’s the video from last year. This was actually the first video that I’ve ever made with my current camera. Wow, one year just flied (flyed? flew? flown?) by like that. Apparently I didn’t learn to spell in that one year.

Ah, looking at this video brought back some memories, cuz it’s filmed in the kitchen of my old apartment. Ah, I still have that wine glass. I love drinking all kinds of different none-wine stuff from a wine glass, like chocolate soy milk, coffee soymilk, and other goodies. (Um… soy milk… sooooo good) Ah, that’s Joan’s rice cooker in the background. I wasn’t going to include it, but I just decided to include it cuz it happened to be on. (It was probably my old roommate Ben cooking rice.) There’s a box of hot chocolate mix in the background and a cup with a spoon in it. That means I was probably drinking hot chocolate. (Um… hot chocolate… soooo good.) And then there’s that cute square-ish bread in the background. That means Joan and Pam probably just went to some Asian bakery recently. And there’s that bowl I usually use to eat noodle soup in the background too.

Ah, good times. I miss my old apartment and apartment-mates. Maybe they are the ones I should send a Valentine to.

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Merry Christmas, everybody!

Ah, I love Christmas. I like Christmas music. They make me feel happy. I like Christmas decorations. They are festive. I like Christmas specials - mostly the classics like the Charlie Brown one, Rudolph, Frosty and all that old stuff. It’s nice to see all these whimsical things.

I’ve been home with family, and away from my video making equipments. I had a few things written and some voice recorded, but I didn’t have enough time to actually throw together a Christmas video. Maybe I’ll finish it up in January but that’s kind of lame. Or maybe I can save it for next year? We’ll see what happens.

For now, here’s a little video I made last year titled “All I Want for Christmas is U”.

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Some of you know that I work as a mobile game developer / computer programmer as my day job. I usually would like to put my job title as “bounty hunter” though, because that’s what we do… We are informed by our clients about which bugs to track down. We hunt down the bugs, kill them and then collect bounty. Yep, that’s what we do.

Anyway, we’ve been assigned all the things we need to finish by the end of 2007, so basically, the sooner we finish all the work, the sooner we go into vacation mode. And if we don’t get it done by Christmas, we might end up doing some work over the “break”. So yeah, recently I’ve been pretty busy and spend most of my days (the parts in which I am awake, anyway) working. Hence the lack of episodes lately. One has been written though. It’s tentatively called “tofu” and it’s about tofu. I haven’t had time to actually shoot the video. Nowadays, I always have a lot of random ideas in my head but I don’t necessarily have time to produce the video shorts every week. But yeah, I really want to finish this episode by Christmas. We’ll see if that happens.

Ah, busy busy. Wouldn’t it be nice if I am get to make puppet shows full time?

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Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! I came home and that was great. Sorry that there was no new episode this week. Between going to the LCC show: Enchant This! (which was a good show, by the way) and going home for Thanksgiving (and away from my video-making things), I didn’t have time to produce an episode. It’s alright. Just like NBA is not scheduling any game on Thanksgiving, most of you are probably going to be spending time with family and friends instead of checking this website anyway. (At least I hope that’s what you are doing, if you are in the U.S., which most of the readers of this blog are.)

That said, I did brainstorm up an episode. I simply didn’t have time to film it and edit it. I thought I’d put the script up here instead.

Abbreviations: (These are the standard abbreviations that I use in my scripts.)
Mac - Mac and Cheese
Bot - Bottle Monster
Bobby - Bobby… I could’ve used Bob but that’s too similar to Bot when I am reading quickly.
Moost - Moostifer

(Regular episode background)
Mac: Hey, Bottle Monster, we have a problem.
Bot: What is it?
Mac: It’s Thanksgiving, and I’d like to do an episode about giving thanks.
Bot: Oh yeah? Didn’t you assign that episode to Kelvin?
Mac: Yeah, but he said that he’s going on strike along with the other writers.
(Cut to: Kelvin)
Kelvin: I am not paid enough to write! I’m going on strike!
(Cut back to: Mac and Bot)
Bot: That’s a problem, but it’s not a serious problem.
Mac: You sound like you have an idea, eh?
Bot: Yeah, we should do an award show, because it requires a lot less writing, and we get the chance to thank people.
(Cut to: Mac in front of a red curtain)
Mac: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the first annaul Not-So-Golden Globe Award! The Not-So-Golden Globe Award for Best Fur on Puppet Kaos goes to… Bottle Monster!
Bot: (with a globe in his hand) Wow, this is awesome. I am so excited to be getting this globe. I have so many people to thank. I’d like to thank all the people that’s been watching our Puppet Kaos podcast: Julia, Mandy, you are awesome. Thank you, Thomas, Theresa, and Alvin, for your continual support. And Andrew, thank you for including us in the Puppet Web Series Round-up week after week… am I running out of time?
Mac: Of course not! We have no writer, remember?
Bot: Awesome. We’d also like to give a shout-out to the Wippets. Barff, Spafford, Jimmy, Phil, and I think I should also thank Ron… is he the one that update the website for you guys? I’d also like to thank Beckie, Rick, Angel, Tran, Rex, and Myha for watching and giving me feedbacks… Wow, this is awesome, I thought I’d be cut off by some music at some point…
Mac: You won’t. We have no writer. Come up with as much to say as possible.
Bot: Oh yeah, I just got this note from Kelvin. He said he’d like to thank Janet for helping him make puppets.
Mac: Make puppets? What does that mean?
Bot: I don’t know, and he said he’d like to thank Kevin MacLeod for the music we used episode after episode.
(Bobby enters)
Bobby: Hey guys, sorry to bother you, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to have this curtain here.
Mac: Why not?
Bobby: Because Moostifer is here. You know what he does when he sees a red piece of cloth.
Mac: Uh-oh.
(Cut to: Moostifer charging towards the curtain, bump into the wall and fall, get up, charge curtain again, and repeat)
Mac: This is not doing so well, let’s get Kelvin back.
(Cut to: Mac in front of regular episode background)
Mac: Kelvin, we’ve decided to give you a raise.
Kelvin: Really? Then I might come back.
Mac: Starting today, we are giving you a 300% raise.
Kelvin: Yay! I got a raise. Woohoo! (Kelvin runs out.)
Bot: So how much was he getting paid?
Mac: He was getting paid $0, and now he’s going to be paid 300% more of that.
Bot: That means, he is now paid…
Mac: Yep, jack shit.
Bot: Oh okay.
(Cut to Kelvin)
Kelvin: But you know what? I’m still thankful. Happy Thanksgiving!

Okay, now you can use your imagination and watch it in your head. Don’t tell me that you don’t have an imagination.

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My friend Jay gave me a link of an NPR (National Public Radio) article/interview about the early episodes of Sesame Street being released on DVD. They talked about how some of the things they did back then wouldn’t be shown on TV by today’s standards (for kids anyway). Oscar the Grouch lives in garbage and he never seeks help to get out of it. Cookie Monster is a compulsive eater. In some parodies he was even shown smoking a pipe (and ended up eating it too). These are the things that you would no longer see today.

Now I am only 25, not old enough to be growing up watching the vintage Sesame Street. I hadn’t checked out the DVDs either. I watched a bunch of classic Sesame Street stuff on YouTube though, so I know what the interview was talking about.

My observations are that, at one time, Cookie Monster is one of the most important character on Sesame Street, but now it’s Elmo. Cookie Monster even had a song about cookie is good for sometimes, but eating healthy is important too. Cookie Monster nowadays don’t do much other than coming out to read a letter but ends up eating it because the letter is written on a cookie. He’s certainly not as important as before. Oscar is a lot less grouchy. He is still not the nicest guy, but now we really only see his soft side. Now all he does is tell Trash Gordon stories to Slimey. Well, I do think Slimey is really cute, but my point is, some of these characters have all been toned down a lot for clean, family fun.

I guess it’s a fine line between being silly and being too adult, huh?

This also makes me think about my own writing a little bit. So far, all the episodes I’ve made are pretty kid-safe (except for those who think tooth fairies are real - oops). I was wondering if I will venture into issues that’s more grown-up. When I say grown-up, I don’t necessarily mean sex, but rather, topics including politics, society, etc. as well. Maybe they will start to say words like “hell” and call each other stupid more. I don’t know. Still something to think about.

One thing I am very against though, is people thinking that puppets cursing = funny. That gets old really fast, actually. Cursing is fine by me if they have a good story to tell, or good gag to present. Sometimes cursing is good for emphasis of certain things. But yeah, I’d like to tell them, if ou have to make a puppet curse in order to get laughs, I’m sorry. That’s simply offensive and not funny. You can do better. (If you cannot do better, then don’t do it.)

Most un-focused post ever…

PS. This week I’ve been going to the LCC show: Enchant This! that I mentioned earlier. And then I’ll also be going home for Thanksgiving, so I’m not sure if I have time to whip together an episode this week. I do have something already brainstormed but I’m not sure if I have time to do all the production work. We will see…

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Guess what Kelvin is thinking about today? Da da da da, that’s right, Kelvin is thinking about daylight saving time. I love the beginning and end of daylight saving time. Isn’t it exciting to watch the hour hand snap from 2am to 1am (or vice versa)? For me, this is more exciting than counting down for new year.

I was thinking, what if there’s a disaster that’s going to happen, and people from the future send a messenger to warn us and stop it from happening, only to fail his mission because the time traveler was confused by daylight saving time and couldn’t get to the correct moment in time?

Daylight saving time can be confusing and possibly devastating for people that time travel but didn’t pay enough attention to the one hour difference! And think about it, a few days ago, we had a day in which we went from 1am to 2am twice. What if this was in April where one hour is lost? What if the guy that time travels decides to land in this missing hour? Another related question… what if this guy decides to come back to February 29 when it wasn’t a leap year? What’s going to happen to him? Is he going to go into some unknown time or dimension? Or is he going to fall into a gap in time, and it would be some kind of time-warp blackhole that sucks him in and then spits him out into another arbitrary time?

Anyway, the next episode might be about daylight saving time. Or not, I don’t know, but daylight saving time was the thing that was on my mind.

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