I had doubts about the possibility of using my Canon XL1s with my computer.
I always used my (now old) Pinnacle MiroDC30p video editing board. It only has analogic inputs and outputs (RCAs and S-Video) and what was even worse, don't work at all with Windows XP, and on Win2k you can use it (as I do) to render and record using onlytheir propietary application, it was a product designed for Win98 as their support says. Some days ago I found some offer for Firewire card at only $11.99 USD. My plan was to capture directly with it (and being recognized as a capture device I could make some stop-motion, you see where I'm going to) More people I asked about it being possible, more people told me it shouldn't be possible. I searched for video capture cards and I found the cheapest at $100 give or take. It looked too suspicious. So I boughted anyway. And worked. It is recognized, it works with Adobe Premiere 6 and VirtualDub, it serves as a very expensive webcam, and it makes me happy.

What you're seeing here is a reduced frame of the test footage I took earlier today of the hoodfellow. I can manually set diaf, shutter, aspect ratio (yes, widescreen 16:9 hoodfellows to come), color, contrast, etc, etc, all in-camera. It also has a luxurious zoom, of course. So this is for you to get a peek at the look of the future hoodfellows' episode I'm planning to make. Wish me luck.

I've been playing with some fast drying clay, here called crealina and made this pretty sad guy bending over himself and three tigits. I used the remains of clay I had from my last incursion in modelling doing the hoodfellows. At first I tried to make them with this material, but quickly proved me wrong, as it breaks very easily, specially with bending wire inside. So I had two packs of this stuff and I'm gonna make some little figures I think, maybe take them photos, I don't know.
Related news: I'm working in a way of filming the next hoodfellows episode with my luxurious XL1s to have full 16:9 pure DV and big lens quality. Wish me luck!

I was finishing some sample I had to do when I thought it would be a nice idea to show my lame-but-extremely-useful animation lightbox:

It's made of crappy cardboard box from a bulk cd order I had (all cut to my purposes), plus a broken glass (sharp edges covered), and an important ammount of duct tape. It's a tilted glass surface to draw in, that gets light from below (it's filtered through a translucent plastic to blur it a bit) so you can see the drawing in the sheets below. Its traditional use is for animation, but I use it more for standard drawings, that way I can have separate layers for background and objects, etc.

I went with several members of my family (including my grandpa and grandma) to a private zoo (more like a nature related theme park) here in Buenos Aires called Temaikèn (supposely "land of life" in I don't know what language).
It was an interesting experience in some aspects. First of all, it's not usual to find a "themed" place here. It's clean, spacious, and has souvenirs shops. It has people in uniforms much like the crocodile hunter walking all over the place. It also has an incredible amount of acrylic used for a proper display of animals in their "natural" enviroment. A good example of this were the suricates' place.

It's say 4x5m, and surrounded by big rock-like concrete (really rock-like) from both sides and back, and in the front a thick big widescreen low wall of acrylic, that allows oneself to look closely at those cute little animals without the annoying metal or rope grids. They also have a nursery with newborn or sick animals also with glass so you can see them while in treatment. Like this young fellow who was taking the guard position and liked my JB camera:

Some other random good moments: A white tiger swimming a meter away form your face, sharks swiming over your head at the entrance of the aquarium's sea section, a downsized sea waves generator, a hippo eating grass while swimming (seen through another huge think acrylic wall), and mainly the two overpriced undersized and tasty ice-creams I ate that afternoon (last one while the sun lowered to offer a warm light and birds flew over the small lake, very classy). Also an underground display of several small mammals' caves (very dark but cool), an a patagonian section where these fellows were resting:

Special note for this gentle guanaco, who approached enough so I could take this great shot with my zippocam, to rub it on my uncle's face (who brought a pro Canon A1 with several lenses, one being a +200mm), so probably he has one of just the eye of the guanaco.

After a long day of work I've set up a small stop-motion filming set. With my cardbox from the G220fb and a small 75W lamp, and two small creatures made of Poxilina and cheap wire plus cloth from an old sock I cut for this purpose. These are the hoodfellows, a kind of legged and dressed tigit, nice, playful, and somehow stupid. But I love them. So this is a test I've made to check the real possibilities for a full lenght short feature; and above all, the performance of the JB1 as a film camera.

Captured and edited in Premiere 6, then subtitled with Subtitle Workshop and finally coding and filtering in VirtualDub. The voices are recorded by myself, with some filtering done in WaveLab.
I hope you like it and I wish I can continue doing some things with these little fellows.

I was going bed tonight like 2 hours ago, took my book (I'm reading Therapy by David Lodge) and thought about testing my JB1 with the loyal virtualdub and do some time-lapse footage to see how much I change my position while reading.

Of course a few minutes later I couldn't avoid looking at the screen and start playing with my position between frames and the shadow on the wall. Then I played with the book, and finally with the lamp. It's not a very good animation, I know, but was totally unexepected. Now I'm so tired my eyes itch.

My new camera has arrived! The JB1 from DigitalDream, although I ordered it from ThinkGeek.
It costed me like double what you'd pay for it in the US, thanks to taxes and shipping costs, but what the hell, it's beautiful and will provide a lot of fun. So expect to see a few experiments with this camera. I also have to add that picture quality, specially regarding light needs and color results surprised me; and the video and sound clips functions are above my expectations as well. It also acts as a 8mb removable drive as soon as I plug it on the USB port, one small useful feature I will surely use a lot. It even works as webcam with integrated mic!
It seems like a good investment. Only time will tell.

i've made 7 of all the illustrations' individual pages so far.

one of the reasons it's taken so long is i'm writing a full description along with my thoughts about each one. please take a look and report any mistakes, mispelleds, or broken links i could have commited. so some of the thumbnails may lead to broken links, but i promise it's worth it.

I bought a new monitor today. It wasn't cheap, I must say, but it seems to have worth every dollar I spent on it (which weren't a mere fistful of them) thanks mainly to my country's import tax rate and such. It's a ViewSonic G220fb, a real piece of dark and flat beauty. so now I have it and my good old 17" samsung SyncMaster 750s, a loyal companion through all this years.