Author: Tim

An animator, video producer, Lego artist, and author—I am moderately skilled at a lot of different things.

He collected them until he, too, became obsolete

Wired has a delightful story about three sons disposing of their dad’s cache of old computers.

My brothers and I didn’t know Dad had a problem. We knew he had an insanely large collection of computers and related paraphernalia. I was living in Washington, DC, and somehow Alex and Andrew, back home in Seattle, had failed to notice that Dad could barely move around his apartment and was navigating from room to room via narrow, oyster-gray corridors formed entirely by PC towers.

In other news, I just inherited six Macintosh SEs from the widow of a hoarder, which I’m looking to place in my 500 sq ft apt. Shit.

Wait, it gets worse: Before they showed up, I had just cleaned my apartment in anticipation of a girl I had been dating coming over. She didn’t, the Macs did. Hey, who’s a cool guy!

Double-Tongued Dictionary

When I started a new job I had a hard time catching up with the lingo. Luckily, there’s the Double-Tongued Dictionary there to explain how to get my off-deck media to bubble up so I can monetize content across our white-label platform. Think of it as Urban Dictionary after it grows up, gets a job, and sells out.

Click on the blue icon

This is one of the things I hate about Mac OS X: its tediously unimaginative icon color palette.

Feelin’ Blue

How am I supposed to differentiate icons at a glance when they’re all sorta blue-ish, round-ish shiny things? It’s bad enough that blue LEDs abound in consumer electronics. And don’t get me started on the purple & pink fixation of Web 2.0 sites. But Apple needs to mix up their colors, otherwise their icons [get it? ‘iconic’, as in ‘recognizable, identifying symbol?’] won’t be any better than their black-and-white predecessors.

Aw hell, modern life did it better.

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Emergency 411 is on Crackle’s wet paint

Two episodes of Emergency 411, “Finding Parking” and “Having a Baby” are finalists in Crackle’s Wet Paint animation contest, and with my cartoons garnering somewhere between 15,000 and 4 views, my chances are anybody’s guess. Both have been featured items, even though they aren’t the most-watched nor the highest rated videos. But you can still change that! I am proud to have two videos in the contest out of 70 entrants, and at least it means better odds than the chances of the CERN supercollider destroying the world.

Speaking of CERN — and the earth suddenly becoming a ball of evaporating strangelets — I think I may throw a party as a last hurrah before the imminent destruction of the world by Swiss high-energy particle physicists — or to celebrate our continued existence as fairly mundane, non-black hole matter.

I don’t know what I would enjoy more, my continued existence or winning an animation contest. I’ll get back to you on that.

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Everyone’s a winner, we’re making that fame

I’m pleased to announce that my latest Emergency 411: How-To How-To was a winner in Mobifest’s MobiBio contest! What could describe me better than a minute cartoon about wasting time and sitting on my ass? Myself and some of my fellow esteemed animators and filmmakers have all won one thing or another, so I guess what I’m saying is I’m just keeping my head above water.

In case you need a refresher:

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E411 drops a bomb on Channel Frederator

Once again, Channel Frederator‘s got the inside track on more Emergency 411, so check it out — but be sure to get those tax returns in first!

I haven’t started mine yet. Is that bad?

Also, watch for William Hohauser’s Silly Gags. It’s like the WarioWare of animation.

(Speaking of timeliness… next time I’ll try to give updates on time, and not a month after my cartoons have gone up. Oh, and Happy St. Patrick’s Day!)

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Taking the 411 to Channel Frederator!

I’m pretty excited that FIVE of my Emergency 411 episodes have been featured on popular animation blog Channel Frederator. Check it out:

That Tim Heiderich has some hilarious observations. His 411 shorts are simple, graphic, and very funny.

After missing him at Mobifest Toronto, I was delighted to meet the man behind Channel Frederator, Fred Seibert, at Nickelodeon in Burbank. He shared some great insights into how one fits into the entertainment industry and told me that the only way to get ahead in Hollywood was to…

Wait, why am I telling YOU?

Check out my work as well as an unbelievable amount of amazing animation updated more-than-weekly at Channel Frederator.

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Emergency 411 Video

Emergency 411 gives you the 411 on how to 411

For my MobiBio submission, I reveal how I procrastinate produce every episode of Emergency 411.

Who knew animation involved so much sleeping and goofing off? View it now, along with the rest of the E411 guides over at Mobifest.net!

You don’t act like a scientist.

“You’re more like a game show host.”

Someone needs to tell parents that Ghostbusters is not a kids’ movie. Otherwise, some impressionable 7-year-old will see Bill Murray hitting on Sigourney Weaver and think wandering around a woman’s apartment and being a smartass is perfectly normal, even charming.

Fine. I’ll do it myself.

This is my second annual rejection from both UCLA and CalArts. I guess they aren’t interested in movies about bad advice, condiment torture, picking up hookers, or Jesus Christ. Sad face. Wait, angry face!!