Troma rehearsals this weekend were pretty fun. Nothing like a little pantomime protesting and a whole bunch of waiting around. At least there are interesting people there, and all the Troma folks seem real cool. A couple of my fellow DMS students are working for the production; is anyone else from estrip doing anything?

Yesterday Lloyd Kauffman came to the set. This is the second time he's been there. We just watched the uncut version of Terror Firmer, which is like a Troma meta-movie. Lloyd Kauffman plays a blind indpependent film director whose movie is stalked by a psychotic serial killer. It's probably my fave Troma flick just because I'm nerdy like that. We also watched the making-of documentary, which was really weird because of all the meta-levels. It's amazing how much the two views combine to become very close to the view I have of the Poultrygeist set...

The song and dance number is looking good. They made the one big change I thought would be necessary from day one -- they turned things around to use the Chicken Bunker as a backdrop. The neighbors of the set don't seem to dig it so much. I'm not sure Troma could do anything about it... They could pay them off. On Saturday, they started playing WBLK really loud out the window. It was exactly the thing to bug EVERYONE on set, which is pretty hard to do, considering the diversity of the folks there.

I'll try to get some better footage next weekend, and will send in some images in the very near future. I think (e:paul) totally fixed the Nokia image problem once and for all. It's working like a charm. He's brilliant.

Vote EStrip!

A quick pan of the protestors.

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Lloyd is here today.

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Rehearsal is mostly waiting.

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Troma rehearsal for real this time.

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hello estrip!

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Troma protestor rehearsal for Poultrygeist ( ) today was just down the street from P:Labs ((e:paul)), in the basement of the Linwood Street Church of Christ? (I might be wrong -- I get all the churches mixed up anyway; it was Protestant.) How cool is that -- Troma taking over a church. I think we should give them a zone grant...

The church HQ is the rain location, which suXXorz big time. It is so much hotter in the basement of that church. But what a wacky assortment of people and things going on in there. (e:Paul), (e:Terry), and (e:Matthew) don't even know what total freaking wackiness is going on in their backyard... I got so sweaty protesting (er, rehearsing the protest, and the big musical chorus scene) that I was completely soaked. I mean, completely. It was terrible. I bolted right away, but I'm still contemplating whether or not I want to go ALL THE WAY and become a zombie chicken in the movie. On the positive side is that I would get to be mowed down and have squibs planted on me -- I've never done a machine-gun death before. On the negative side is that I seriously sweat so much that I don't know if the prosthetic zombie chicken beak would stick. Seriously. I've sweat so much this week that I'm beginning to slough my own skin...

Anyway, it was fun. And hot.

Thanks to the work that (e:paul) and I have put in on a new moblog, I've posted up some media from the rehearsal. Paul's new P:Mobl system is amazing -- it just sits there checking the mail and putting whatever comes in wherever it is supposed to go. I've built our moblog (http://www.shawnrider.com/moblog) to run from Paul's. Hopefully we can get my stuff into some shape comparable to Paul's stuff, and together we'll have a pretty badass moblog system. At least for users of T-Mobile. I'm sure other systems could be adapted in the future -- that's what Paul is all about, of course.

Paul tells me that he'll be adding moblog functions like these to estrip soon. I definitely hope he does. I think that half the reason people don't use their phones for media and communications is that they don't know it's so easy to do or so fun and accessible. I mean, who is going to invest in a data cable to get phonecam pix off their phone? And who is going to set up a badass moblog system on their own? (e:paul) haha Of COURSE!

Anyway, check out the new moblog (http://www.shawnrider.com/moblog) and vote estrip (http://www.artvoice.com).

This year the Best of Buffalo Readers' Choice ballot is online and easier to fill out. We've also added fun new cateogories to vote for, and great prizes for a lucky winner who votes for at least 20 categories!Quoted from: Artvoice.com - Best Of Buffalo

OK, people, we need to get Elmwoodstrip.com for best Buffalo blog and Natalie's Deli for best deli/rest/mediterranean/veggie friendly/ etc. on the list. Estrip is new-ish, so I can sort of forgive AV for not including it in previous years (did they even have a blog category before?), but Natalie's has been here longer than I have and they are an amazing place to eat. Regardless of how you feel about Mediterranean food, hopefully we can all agree that EStrip is the best. Otherwise, why would you be here?

There are over 200 of us on the site. If we pull together we can easily win this for Elmwoodstrip.com. So let's keep things clean (no stuffing ballot boxes), but let's win this thing:

Vote Elmwoodstrip.com for Best Buffalo Blog!