This hilarious parody of Bruno Mars’ club hit Grenade, was written and directed by Payman Benz. Payman is of Awkward Pictures, which includes Sean Becker, and known for their comedic genius.

Payman approached me a while back wanting to set up a website with his videos and information about him. A very simple site was what he wanted.

I quickly suggested he should seek out wordpress templates, which he took to heart because I started getting links to templates he liked. “Can you make some changes to this template? Is that hard?” were some of the companion questions I’d get.

I’ve had about a good hour max of facetime with Payman in the past so I didn’t really know him too well. I am a fan of his work, and he’s heard of me through Sean and the work I do for The Guild. I quickly realized that this man has his head on straight. Particularly with what he wants with his site. Perfect!

Ultimately, he found the template which did what he wanted and had the basic look he needed. He also asked me if I could work on this and get it done by today. He had a new music video he was uploading and wanted to coincide his site launch with it. I said, “Sure!”

Payman sent me everything I asked for. And even stuff I didn’t. He gave me good quality photos for his thumbnails and a list of his videos, separated into the categories he wanted. He even went as far as create photoshop mock images of his site. The man made things SUPER easy for me to set up.

The other reason for this blog post is because I came across an issue while working on this template. Half of Payman’s videos are on Funny or Die. That website is usually not supported in plugins or anything video-related. YouTube, Vimeo, self-hosted files, is usually as far as they go. This template was the same. I looked at the functions, and figured out how it worked and actually added support for FoD. It also came with prettyPhoto, a javascript library for opening up lightbox-like views of pictures and videos. I added FoD support for that as well.

It felt good to be able to do something like that, and do quickly also. I remember back in the days when I would spend hours trying to dissect code for Felicia or The Guild to fix something or make it work how we needed it.

Anyway, http://paymanbenz.com is up. Check it out. Watch Payman’s old content on there, I spent some of my time last night going through it. Some I hadn’t ever seen before, while some I had seen many times over. Feel free to comment by clicking on the title of a video and going to the page.

Thanks Payman for giving me the opportunity to help you with something creative, and then making the whole experience pretty phenomenal.

Short URL: http://is.gd/GRENADE

Watch the video, then check out the page I created for them: http://superHarmony.com.

Short URL: http://is.gd/superHarmony

Amy Guth, while writing for ChicagoNow‘s Chicago Subtext, had some badass mini flash fiction contests. She would provide an image of some random thing and have us write a ‘complete story” in 100 words or less. I wrote about it on this blog in September.

As I said, I love writing, and as part of the Year of the Edgar movement, I need to push myself to write more. I could just sit down and do it, but I want to try something similar to the flash fiction.

I want you to help me write some short stories. Either email the requests to edgar at edgargarcia dot com or post them as a comment below. I will not be limiting myself to 100 words or less, although I will make them as brief as possible. Your rules. i only ask that you not give me inappropriate guidelines. I reserve the right to reject a request, also, whatever is given to me is assumed to be given to me as being my property for legal purposes, although just contact me if you wish to discuss legalities and such, I’m just a tiny blog anyway.

The point is, give me as much information about what you want me to write about as you want. A character, a word, an item, a genre, use certain word or words or items in a story… its endless. Again, don’t limit me to a certain number of words (like “it has to be under 100 words”). I will try to write the stories as small as I can. I may even get creative and mix multiple ideas into one story. I’d like to get at least five different sources more is better (sources means people, you can send me as many separate ideas as you like but I want a bunch of people to participate so help spread the word.) My plan is to see if I have enough story ideas that I can then post some sort of vote and see which one people want me to elaborate more on. This way you guys get more story/content for free. I may even incorporate more “throw ideas at me” to further the story.

Help me out. I want to write for you guys. What will I write? Its up to you!

Edgar

First, check Amy’s biography for her details. She writes the local literary blog, Chicago Subtext, for the Tribune’s Chicago Now blog network. Check out my Chicago Now profile here. This is integral to my post today, though she does so much more with her time.

Amy recently blogged about a writing challenge to write flash fiction, or postcard fiction.

a micro-flash fiction story, a very, very short story, but a whole story

Please go back and read the entries, they were all very interesting. The challenge was she provided us with a picture of a bottlecap with a message inside, and we needed to somehow use it in a 100-word or less complete story.

What follows is my entry:

“This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang, but with a whimper.” It was the first thing that came to mind as I came to.

As the haze subsided, I took stock of my surroundings. A dark diner. Things strewn about, no windows. What happened? Kitchen’s empty, bathrooms and dining area too.

I headed towards the front door, opened it to a sunset temporarily blinding me and I looked down to see a bottlecap that had, “read Books… not Bottlecaps.”

I thought it odd as I looked up to see a burning city in front of me.

There were many good entries and I was one of four picked, then the audience made it a two-pony race, and I ultimately won.

Amy then posted a second contest. Although I lost, the best part is that I was able to continue my previous story, which was awesome:

No memory of what transpired, I took a step into the burning city. I needed to get my bearings, and fast. No telling what kind of tragedy had transpired.

My first priority was to get back home, it seemed I was several miles north. All of a sudden I remembered. Amy. I was having lunch with Amy.

I crossed street after street wondering where Amy went. Where anyone was. Slowly my memory was returning, and as I turned onto another street, I realized what happened. I saw something.

A road construction sign with the words “BEWARE! ZOMBIES AHEAD.”

Oh crap.

Thanks Amy, I look forward to continuing my story. I wonder what will happen next! Stay tuned!

Oh, by the way, please go to Amy’s posts and add your own flash fiction, using the two items creatively. The two contests are over, but it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t contribute your own fiction. Follow Amy @amyguth on twitter as well for the next flash fiction. Feel free to post them here as well.

Its my year baby!

2008 is but a memory. I had a wonderful year full of several fun events and meeting new people and just being plain old me. Its been one of the better years in my life and I have no other place to go but up. This year needs to be even better than the last one. Simply because I feel like it and I said so.

I am of the belief that you should be filled with as much confidence as possible. Its better that way. There’s a term called self-fulfilling prophecy, negative people end up making their fears happen. Why can’t positive people end up making their desires come true too? With that in mind, I decided to make this Year of the Edgar. Its obviously a chinese zodiac reference, also, some of the Guildies have, for some reason, been referencing me as “the Edgar”. It all works out!

Here’s the thing… http://yearoftheedgar.com <- this is my new website. It will chronicle my awesome year as well as anyone having great experiences while following my philosophy. There’s even a banner you can add to your website. Please do. I will make me smile greatly if you can use my mug on your website(s).

Welcome to the Year of the Edgar.

http://atleahjones.com

Here I go again, opening my not-so-big-mouth and getting myself more work. I am one of a trio of people currently working on the next Twitter-inspired social media experiment.

You heard right, it is a dating site, of sorts. See my Twitter life, as short as it has been, has been very fruitful. I’ve avoided adding people myself, and most of them have for one reason or another added me first. Leah Jones is one such woman.

Leah is a blogger, and on Twitter and other social sites. Recently, one of her tweets was about her friend, trying to set him up on a date. Ten days ago… She then continued by reinforcing how serious she was that same night. A few days later, she updated us on her successful possible matchmaking. This is where I come in. I engage her by asking how much her matchmaking services are, then mention how a leahjonesdating site would solve all those problems. This quickly grew to what it almost is now. I say that because it is and will be a work in progress for a while.

Currently, you can see a splash logo/page here http://atleahjones.com that Ezra Butler, from Jerusalem, one of Leah’s many friends/contacts, created. He is working on the design. I am working on the guts/tech, and Leah will be the pretty face to this project. She will also take the biggest role by seriously interviewing her friends first, then slowly adding others, by blogging about them and giving them her seal of approval. Leah will be featuring people from all walks of life, it won’t be a set type, I mean, I will probably definitely be showcased. We’re working out the kinks on how to handle communications, but as I said, work in progress.

Leah’s recent blog post is about this and is called Building a Better Dating Site. I think giving it the personal touch Leah will be giving, is the secret to building a better dating site. I’ve had to learn how to set up an image map to link our Twitter accounts on the existing splash page. I also had to figure out how to set up an email relay to work with the blog. Since I am hosting it. I may end up moving it though.