Will Hines Dot Net

Hines Xmas 2007 was a success. Booyar’s gift to Kevin was a DVD of the He-Man/She-Ra Christmas special, which apparently is the movie that Booyar’s family gathers to watch each holiday season.

Oh, who’s Booyar? Booyar is the last name (edited: Brian points out it was his first name) of some actual dirtbag kid that went to junior high with Hines Bros Kevin and Brian. He was in 9th grade for most of the time they were in junior high. Some years ago, Brian decided that Booyar and Kevin had been best friends and that indeed Booyar still missed Kevin. So Kevin started receiving birthday cards, emails and even pager messages from Booyar — none of which Brian would claim responsibility for.

These days, Booyar just gives Kevin Christmas gifts, delivered courtesy of Brian. It’s gone from an amusing distraction to the highlight of Christmas. We saved Booyar’s gift for last this year and took more pictures of it than of the actual human beings in the room. It was wrapped in toilet paper and about twelve bows:

It came with a letter explaining the importance of the He-Man movie:

Very sweet! Thanks, Booyar!

For the record, past Xmas gifts from Booyar include:

• a pack of Camels
• fireworks and pennies
• a human skull piggy bank
• Brownies wrapped in foil
• a plaster cast of his handprints with a poem
• The Canterbury Tales

The latest issue of Gilbert Hernandez’ “Speak Of The Devil” came out. It’s a story of a high school gymnast who channels her frustrations with her life by becoming a peeping tom in her neighborhood. I don’t really like it, but I respect Gilbert for having the guts to keep trying new stories — and, unlike classic Gilbert, they are self-contained ones. And it’s high stakes and original (i.e. it doesn’t rely on comics invented fifty years ago like so many superhero comics) and is weird, and has lots of emotional and honest characters. It just isn’t a good STORY somehow. He makes great moments, but not great page-turners. But Gilbert has got serious balls! I love him, even when I don’t love his comics. He will figure this out.

Finished season 2 of Battlestar Galactica. I love that show. Please go watch all the episodes and talk about it with me. Question one: does the show hate women? It kinda seems like over the course of the show that it stays true to the geek trope of pretty girl = evil trap.

I uploaded a slightly trimmed version of “News Anchors” to FunnyOrDie. I’m getting views there, so why not?

Saw ‘Walk Hard’ last night with Violet and company. It was… really good! The trailer made it seem like a warmed-over reference movie, but it’s really fun and smart and good. Lotsa UCBT love in it with Besser, Roberts and McBrayer and Helms and probably a bunch of others.

‘Momma’s Boy’ by Chromeo is a fun, good song.

I haven’t looked at my Netflix queue in so long that I forget what’s coming, which is exciting but dangerous. On Saturday a copy of “Dances with Wolves” arrived. That is a bummer.

My iPod stopped sending sound to the right earphone. I thought I was blowing out headphones but after intense analysis and internet surfing it seems that the likely explanation is that the contacts in the headphone jack have lost their spring. I might try replacing the headphone jack.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

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This one is so strange, I bet even Sue Galloway will shake her head. It’s “The Fightin’ George Orwells” which I was going to submit to Channel 102, but it ended up being too nuts even for that admittedly lenient arena. I had just read Orwell’s Down and Out In Paris and London and then re-read 1984 and was obsessed with creating a weird distorted view of those worlds. Basically, I like to do adaptations as if they were being done by non-English speaking Eastern bloc directors who are told only the titles of what they are supposed to be adapting.

Anyway, on a Saturday afternoon last May I shot this with Jon Golbe, Dyna Moe, Rob Lathan, Matt DeCoster and Tony Carnevale. It was a blast but SUCH a mess that I didn’t feel like finishing it. But I’ve been editing a bunch lately and I found myself able to cobble this together somewhat quickly, for what it is.

I kinda totally love it!

(I’m not expecting any staff pics from any web site for this one).

Trivia:

• All songs by Minor Threat!
• A boom mike shows up at least four times!
• There is a spot on the lens that I did not notice during the entire shoot!
• Baby eating is always funny.
• George Orwell’s real first name was Eric.
• The love interest in 1984 is named ‘Julia’ which I changed to Julie because I remembered her name incorrectly on the day of the shoot.

There is (was?) a British sitcom called The IT Crowd and we watch it at my office (someone bit torrents it or something). It is a very surreal look at 3 IT employees in an enormous corporation. Besides the awesome mix of surreal and deadpan humor — the main office is littered with Fantagraphic comic books. In some episode we watched yesterday, the main character (a woman named Jen) was sitting at her desk reading an issue of Love and Rockets. I yelped in my rolling chair with delight.

I have no graphics or video clips or screenshots to back any of this up. Just find the show and watch it.

Edited:  I DO have screenshots and a video now!

Here’s the episode (Aunt Irma visits, pt 2). She’s reading it at 3:07.  In future episodes, she’s always reading L&R. Roy reads Chris Ware stuff. I love continuity!

Adam McKay named ‘What If There’s Bears‘ as his staff pick this week on FunnyOrDie.com. He said this:

“This might be my favorite all time video next to Used Cars and What’s It Gonna Be. It’s like they talked to me while I was sleeping to find out what I want to see in a video. Let’s get this to twenty million hits so they’re forced to show it on Entertainment Tonight.”

You can re-read those exact same words on his page here: http://www.funnyordie.com/adam_mckay/picks (Week of December 16) You’re damn right I’m psyched!

I made this spec promo for Curtis and John’s Adult Swim show “Fat Guy Stuck in Internet.” “Spec promo” means it’s NOT an official promo — it’s a proposal for a promo which may go no further than being posted on this blog!

It’s fun. It doesn’t really have a point — French dialogue with English subtitles makes me laugh. It’s inspired by this scene from the movie Breathless.

Brothers Hines won Cagematch! Though our opponent Andy Secunda did an amazing one-man set which blew my mind. We will return in January to face the winner of Sherpa vs. Derrick. [edited to add: Charlie Todd confirms that we'll actually face Reuben Williams].

The Brothers Hines take the stage tonight at Cagematch, as part of the 2007 Cagematch Tourney. We face Omlette Vision, which is comprised of Andrew Secunda and Michael Delaney — two of the best improvisers around! I hope I don’t sound defeatist when I say that my brother and I are doomed. But it will be a fun show! Come out and watch!

Above photo: 1978 and 2007. Photo features all three brothers, though tonight’s improv has just Kevin and myself.

Hey, look at this! This is the couple that I have spotted on the train. I dig their look. I asked them if I could take their picture, and to my surprise they said yes. It was a little weird, but they were chill about it. They’re in a band — Dirty Lenin. I think they are Tate (left) and Metro (right). At any rate, they were very nice and I like this picture.

I’m sure I’ve posted this panel before, but I am doing it again. This is one of the funniest moments I’ve ever seen in comics or elsewhere. While two of his roommates are fighting over some argument he started, Stinky quietly and seriously considers the idea that he may in fact be a complete shithead. From “Paranoia Reigns Supreme” from Hate Comics.

No reason for this. I just wanted a photo of some kind in a recent entry.

Thanksmas, when my mother’s family in Cleveland (or Strongsville, specifically), Ohio gathers the tribe for a get-together in between the two other holidays (ones which draw us all to more nuclear-family-oriented-gatherings) has finished. It was fun. Brian, Kevin + Cat, and I descended back to our birthplace Friday afternoon and began a weekend of board games, inside jokes, photos and a few nice meals.

The highlight for me, as it is often is, was our ritual of abandoning my Aunt Sue alone while the rest of us duck out to the divey Dapper Dan’s for a beer. I don’t really remember how this started. Anyway, I always think she’s going to be tough to fool, but she has never yet seen it coming. This year, I was the “patsy” — the one assigned to stay with her and distract her while everyone else drives off. We all pulled up to the house after having gone out to dinner Saturday. Sue and I walked in first. For one second, she turned behind her and asked why her husband wasn’t following right behind and I was trying to come up with an explanation when she suddenly dropped the matter entirely and said “Oh! Let me show you pictures of Paul [her son] in Africa.” We walked inside, everyone else drove off, and we sat down at the laptop where she showed me pictures for 20 minutes. Then she looked up and asked “Where is everyone?” They were at the bar, I said. Let’s go.

Fun times.

There are a lot of awkwardly worded sentences in this entry.