Blogger Fair: A Smashing Success

Let me tell you a little secret, those of us running the first ever Blogger Fair yesterday were a little nervous. It was the first time that any of us had done that sort of thing.

Erica Perdue and Myself

First we weren't positive on how many would show up, sure there were pre-registrations, but no guarantee of who would show up. We had practiced our presentation, but that hadn't went well, something about a lens cap and 5 college educated journalists... Anyway that's a story for another time.

The presentation went well, and we did get a few blogs up and running right away, four posts on two blogs in less than 18 hours after the event. But even more importantly, we got to meet people. Whether they all blog for us or not, we did impart knowledge that hopefully they will find useful. After all, that's what our job is, to give people the knowledge that they both want and need.

Thanks for showing up and supporting us Downriver, I can't wait to read what you all have to say.

If you missed out on today's blogger fair, or just want to see our smiling faces again, we'll be hosting more of these in the future. We're also working out the details for an advanced blogger session for people that want to learn more tips and tricks.

Gr8LakesCamper: ''Five Festive Friday Eves' at Cedar Creek Settlem...

Gr8LakesCamper: ''Five Festive Friday Eves' at Cedar Creek Settlem...: Nov. 18 & 25 and Dec. 2, 9, & 16

Five Festive Friday Eve's celebrates an exciting series of five family-oriented, evening events during the holiday season at Cedar Creek Settlement in Cedarburg, Wisconsin. The Settlement features 25 unique shops; gift and specialty shops, antique stores, galleries, three restaurants, artists studios and the Cedar Creek Winery nestled in a restored 1864 woolen mill, festively adorned for the holidays with luminarias, natural greenery, garlands, beribboned wreaths and thousands of tiny white lights. Free events. Small admission fee for Christmas in the Country. 

Friday, November 18, 5-9 pm 
“A Warm & Fuzzy Christmas” 

Celebrate the sweet nostalgia of Christmas. Wear your tackiest sweater for our Ugly Sweater Contest (prizes). Our favorite singer/musician Bobby Way will entertain. Acclaimed storyteller Judy Farrow-Bask will delight adults and children. The Sweet Adelines group Premiere will stroll throughout the shops. Enjoy complimentary brownies and hot cocoa and cider and cookies. Author Lisa Curtis will sign her new book: Cedarburg. Sample Cedar Creek Winery’s award-winning wines. Roasted Chestnuts ($1 per bag). Luminarias. 

Read the rest off this and many more on his blog.

"All Your Base are Belong to Us"

Captain America: Prisoner of War

My first Cap comic, and I was a bit disappointed. The story was decent enough, but the art on this was bad, and often distracting.

The story is about Bucky, who was recently arrested and then sent off  to a prison in Siberia for the supposed crimes he committed during the period that he was the Winter Soldier. The hitch there is that the Winter Soldier, while technically Bucky, was acting on orders while under mind control.

The prison scenes are similar to that of Capt. Kirk in one of those Star Trek films, though with pit fighting added in. Eventually Bucky decides to escape, even though he knows that it will cause an international incident, and he ends up blowing up the entire prison. Black Widow helps him to escape Antarctica and return to America.

My Name is Hinzmann...

Blogger's note, this was found as a word document saved on my computer from when I allowed our intern to use it. It was not intended for public reading, but I had to share it, because that's the kind of guy I am. The photos are also my own addition.

Dear Journal,

   I've been an intern here at The News-Herald for a couple of months now, it's been a pretty trying experience. Most of the staffers are pretty cool, though few actually talk to me. There are these two reporters, well one reporter and one web editor, they just heckle and tease me constantly. Sometimes when I leave the office, I'm almost in tears.

   Other than just making fun of me, they hide my things, steal my food, and then once, they even made me go costume shopping and try on dozens of Halloween costumes. The worst part of that was that not only did they post them all on the website, but one of me as a penguin was used on the front page of the Sunday paper.

   Now all of my co-workers at my paying job keep making fun of me, they even laminated a copy and keep it on the fridge in the break room.

   Then the worst thing ever happened, I hadn't screwed up in hours and things were going well. I went out with Dave to help him shoot video, all went well. I was awesome in that I only messed up twice, a new record for me while out on assignment. That's when it happened.

   I somehow, somewhere lost the video camera on my way from the parking lot to the car, or from the car to the building. I searched for hours and hours, and never found a trace of it. I'm now very worried that I'm gonna get fired, and I don't even get paid. It makes me sad.

   I wish that they would forgive me, but I know I have to be the worst intern ever. I can't even hold onto a camera while sitting in a car. Somehow I'll find a way to make this up to Big Dave, I yearn for his approval. Once he accepts me, I'll work on Rene, I'm sure once I figure out how to copy and paste a link all will be well with her.

   Thanks for listening journal, you're the only one that gets me.

My name is Dennis Hinzmann

This blog post is 100 percent fictional. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely intentional and he knows it.

ATTN: SINGLE MEN - Don't throw away that old fingernail polish!

Disclaimer here, I did not write this, it was sent in an e-mail to me, and the original author did not want to share their own name. It's genius though when you think about it.

You've probably been stuck in the same situation I've sometimes been in...

You meet a girl...you start dating...she starts to stay over...she eventually brings over her toothbrush and nail polish...you break up...she takes her toothbrush with her...but she leaves the nail polish.  What to do with that nail polish...especially if its not your color?!

SOLUTIONS:

1.  Put a big red dot on the TOP side of all your power cords...deep fryer, computer power cord, electric razor, beard trimmer, etc.  That way, it'll get attached the right way the very first time...every time.  NOTE:  This idea will NOT work if she used black polish!  Red is best...maybe dark blue or green...depending on where you met her.

2.  Put a red dot on the top of all the power cords where they plug into the wall.  We all know its a real pain trying to plug in a non-grounded cord and trying to get it right the first time.  With the dot, you always know yer gonna get it right the very first time.

3.  Put dots on all your electric razors and on their matching recharging cords. When you go to recharge the razor with 3 dots, for instance, just go find the cord that has 3 dots on it. Slick, huh!

4.  Got a few sweat shirts that are almost the same...but one of them has become your favorite?  And you have a hard time telling it apart from the other ones?  Simply put a red dot on it!  NOTE: Depending on your comfort level with your friends, you can put the dot either on the outside of the sweatshirt or on the inside.

Batman Gotham Knight

Disclaimer: This was written two days after the DVD was released in 2008, just now being cross posted here on my blog.

Okay, so i just watched, and re-watched the new Gotham Knight animated 

movie / collection and here are my thoughts on the shorts. 

1.Have I got a story for you So the premise of this short is a group of 

kids get together and tell stories of what they think "the Batman" is. 

Does this plot sound familiar? It should, it was the very same plot 

from an episode of the animated series, except without the frank miller 

shout out. Because of this, I already felt like I've seen it, which made 

it kinda boring. The animation in this short is a little oddball. The 

backgrounds are amazing and realistic while the characters themselves 

look cartoon-y and sometimes unfinished. That's a style they where going 

for I'm sure, but it just felt odd to me. Overall, this definitely was 

not one of the best shorts, but also not the worse. 

2. crossfire The story on this short focuses on two of Gorden's 

detectives, one of them very unhappy with a vigilante doing crime 

fighting in Gotham (batman). There really isn't much to the plot except 

for detective Alan complaining about batman pretty much the entire 

time. At the end of the short, Alan and his partner get in between a 

crime war and batman comes and saves their lives. That's it. It wasn't 

anything special, but worth watching for the animation. So, the 

animation in this short is pretty good, and the best part is the last 

minute when batman shows up. This is the very best animation of batman 

in the entire collection, sadly, hes only around for over a minute. 

such a waste, awesome while it lasts though. Because of the end, I felt 

this was one of the better shorts. 

3. Field test Wow, This was probably one of the worst representations 

of batman since the campy old TV show. Congratulations to the animators 

on this one, I've never wanted to gouge my eyes out so badly before in 

my life. The story revolves around a new gadget luscious fox invents to 

repel bullets away from batman. Batman tries it out, bullets repel, and 

some guy almost dies from one of the repelled bullets. The story isn't 

that bad, nothing major, but its there. Its the animation that makes 

this short so god damn terrible. You wont know that you're looking at 

bruce wayne until he speaks. Why? because Bruce Wayne looks like a 

skinny, shaggy haired, Japanese teenager I kid you not. Watching this 

generic anime character that anyone at a local high school could draw 

use bruce waynes voice disgusted me. I constantly begged for him to 

dress up as batman so I could stop watching the monstrosity. 

Unfortunately, the animation of batman was even worse. Pretty much 

envision Femto from Berserk with pointy ears and you have this shorts 

batman. Disgusting. This was easily the worst in all of the shorts and 

I wish it never made it past a storyboard. 

4. In darkness dwells This short was about batman hunting down a new 

urban myth cannibal. The cannibals nickname is "Killer Kroc". Yeah, any 

batman fan knows this guy. The story doesn't get too involved in this 

one, but I did enjoy it. The animation had great realistic backgrounds, 

but the character animation was a little inconsistent at times. 

Sometimes the characters look really good and grity, other shots show 

them at really awkward angles and they just come of as deformed. It 

definitely doesn't ruin this short, but it does catch your attention 

more than it should. Overall, i liked this one though. 

5. Working through pain This short arguably might have the best story 

of the bunch, mostly because its the only one that really shows some 

character development in Bruce Wayne. The story focuses on how Bruce 

Wayne was trained to ignore physical pain. I really like the story of 

this one, and the ending is actually kind of sad. The animation, not as 

good. As batman, he looks pretty decent. You definitely know its 

batman, unlike in "Field Test". Its the Bruce Wayne animation that's the 

weak point of this short. While not half as bad as "Field Test", his 

character is breaching on generic anime guy. He doesn't look like Bruce 

Wayne, but he doesn't look like a skinny Asian kid either. The story is 

what really sells this one, and its definitely worth watching. 

6. Deadshot If only one short makes you buy this collection, this will 

be it. This was by far the best short of them all. The story is pretty 

simple. A very talented sniper is contracted to take out Gotham s 

finest, and eventually batman himself. Its all about villain vs batman 

here, and its really good. Out of all the shorts, this was the only one 

that actually felt like it could be a storyline in the animated series 

(besides "Have I got a story for you" which WAS an actual storyline in 

TaS). This was the only short in both story and animation that really 

made me feel i was watching a batman episode. I loved this, and watched 

it several times over. This is not one to skip batfolks, this is 

batman. 

So overall, Id say there was two good ones ( Working through pain and 

Deadshot), two okay ones (Crossfire and In darkness dwells), one dud 

(have i got a story for you), and one abomination (Field test).