insert clever blog title here

probably one of the greatest companies ever… of all time

Posted by jaked | Filed under just4fun, nugget from the net

so as a part of my trip down to texas to go to my little brother’s wedding (more on that later) and on my way north from san antonio i was able to stop off in austin. i had the opportunity to hang out with my buddy ian that i met at my new staff training this summer. it was great to catch up with him and hear how he was doing over some pretty great tex-mex at maudie’s cafe. (which was quite tasty) as great as all of that was (and the enchiladas were pretty stinking great) the highlight (sorry ian) was getting to see the office of my favorite production company.

i wrote about rooster teeth quite a while ago which included a video about the company which you can find here. rooster teeth is a production company based in austin, tx which started in the founder’s spare bedroom. the founder, burnie burns, in 2003 thought it would be interesting to write a storyline for the multiplayer section of halo… where there’s a red team and a blue team and they are both in the middle of a box canyon fighting each other. the result was red vs blue.

ok so enough history. so i was going through austin i used twitter to see if any of the staff that i follow would be around the offices. it was a saturday and so i figured nobody would be around. really in retrospect this seems dumb… i mean come on this is a legitimate company who are now famous on the internet why the heck would any of them respond to my response… on their day off no less?

partly because i’m a stalker and partly because i’m smart and stuff but through various podcasts that they put out and live action shorts i knew the office was above a coffee shop and a restaurant in downtown austin. which can be seen below.

so against my better judgement (i totally would never do anything like this) i decided to just go try the office to see if anyone was around. so after grabbing a cup of coffee (poor man’s whiskey i guess) i got up the nerve to ring the bell to the unmarked upstairs office. a really young guy came down and seemed pretty puzzled to me standing there. i asked if this was the rooster teeth offices and if anyone was around. he said yeah and asked if i wanted a quick tour.

it was pretty much like christmas morning for me. upstairs i got to meet two of the rt staff (joel or caboose as he’s known on red vs blue and monty the guy responsible for all of the cool motion capture stuff that their doing this season) who were working on a video, which was fortunate for me because they were there but unfortunate for them because they were working on a beautiful saturday.

the offices were alot smaller then i thought they would be but it was cool to get to see everything from the sound booth where they record lines, the x-boxes where they capture the video, and the small room where they record their weekly podcast. (which can be found here on itunes)

on my way out they gave me a poster of the upcoming recollection dvd’s (which can be ordered here) which they both signed. so all in all a very cool trip. afterwards i went and had the aforementioned lunch with ian and i was reading through my twitter-feed and two of the rt staff guys had responded to my question. one said he didn’t know if anyone would be around at the office and the other said i should direct message him my number to hang out.

who does that? do you think justin biber or any other celebrity gives a crap about their fans if they wanted to meet him just because they happen to be in the same city? (note i am in no way comparing the staff of rooster teeth with justin biber) but yeah i thought it was really cool that the staff would go out of their way like that for some guy from montana. included are a couple of videos which show off what red vs blue is (and how funny it is) some of their live action work, as well as one of the commercials they did.

*warning shorts and videos may contain harsh or offensive language…

red vs blue: season 1 episode 1

red vs blue: season 8 episode 10

rt shorts: random mandatory

commercial spot: bioshock 2, the fish

Read more | Comments (0) | August 30th, 2010

comic movie review: inception

Posted by jaked | Filed under comic movie reviews

i throughly enjoyed this movie… both times. seriously… it’s that good. but don’t go in with the wrong impression… it’s basically a sweet ocean’s 11-esque heist movie… except they explain everything to you as they go… i also just saw scott pilgram vs. the world so that will be coming in the next few days.

currently listening to:

the hearts of lonely people by isles and glaciers

Read more | Comments (0) | August 16th, 2010

man, i wish i didn’t have a job…

Posted by jaked | Filed under so i was thinking the other day...

before you jump up and down and get all mad/excited/throw-me-off-of-a-bridge, let me stress one big point, i LOVE my job. let me also stress the smaller points that i do not wish that i did not have a job because i want to be able to be lazy, or because i want to take up professional lego building, or because i want to increase my xbox gamerscore. (its 24,095 btw) no i want to not have a job because i was able to work myself out of one.

what does that mean?

you might ask. to fully be able to really explain that, you have to understand what it is that i do for a living. i work for an organization called campus crusade for Christ. it is the goal of said organization to see a day when every single person on the face of this earth truly knows someone who genuinely knows and follows Jesus Christ. as a part (a very very large part) of that job i get to hang out with and engage in spiritual conversations with college students who are all, if they know it or not, searching for something, for someone. and lucky me, i get to introduce them to someone who i was once searching for.

seems like a pretty big deal right? not so easily done i assure you. but the cool thing about that is i can’t do it. i definitely can’t do it alone and i am blessed to be working with some of the most talented people in the united states. but to be honest, we could be the most talented, organized, stratagized, and whatever other -ized we could be and it wouldn’t be enough. and thankfully for that we serve a very big God. everything we are trying to do would be for not if it were not for Him.

another aspect of my job in which i’m trying to work myself out of one is in raising up leaders. i want to train the guy who’s going to take my place, and i want him to be better at my job then i am. (and i don’t want to hear any snide comments about how easy that may or may not be) i want to invest in where i am, to build up leaders, and then be able to move to a new place, rinse and repeat.

so when that day finally comes and my organization’s goals are fully complete, i will probably be without a job, and i will be excited about it. i really don’t know what i’ll do when that day comes… maybe i’ll work on my gamerscore then, or maybe get a couple boxes of legos and see if i can build this… what about you? in what way are you trying to work yourself out of a job? what big thing are you trusting God to see happen?

[update] my buddy chris has also written his thoughts about the same subject over at his blog www.christownley.com he did post his first but i’ll have you know (it may not show) i started writing this a couple days ago. and be sure to complement him on his shiny new website.

currently listening to:

hans zimmer – inception original movie soundtrack

Read more | Comments (1) | August 10th, 2010

bridge to life…

Posted by jaked | Filed under nugget from the net

one of the people i went through new staff training natasha (her blog is here) posted a link to this in her blog and i thought it was pretty cool. hope you enjoy it.

Read more | Comments (0) | July 27th, 2010

avengers assemble!!!

Posted by jaked | Filed under just4fun, nugget from the net

ok so i understand that this is probably the 283,42,958,234th blog posted in the last couple days with that title, and like all of those other people i too am excited about the recent announcements concerning the 2012 debut of the avengers movie. with thor next summer and captain america later that year, it’s like a comic book fan’s dream. with announcements of hawkeye (my 2nd favorite comic book character after cap himself) and a new (read third) actor to play the bruce banner/the hulk the cast is shaping up quite nicely. there’s still rumors going around that either nathian fillion or adrien brody will portray henry pym or ant man. (who’s slated for his own edgar wright directed film in 2012 as well) personally i’m pulling for fillion. (who i thought would have made a great hawkeye but i’m happy for renner who starred in the hurt locker to dawn the purple cowl and bow) anyway here’s a quickly photoshopped image of the announced (and rumored) actors and their perspective heroes for the joss wedon (of dr. horrible and firefly fame) helmed upcoming super hero mash-up.