From the beginning…

A talented friend of mine named Brian Spaeth had an ingenious plan to create a turtle character that makes phone calls. He would charge people a couple of dollars, and then he would call a person of your choice as the turtle, record the call and post it on Youtube for all to enjoy. It was really awesome and hilarious, but ultimately after 150+ of those videos, it became a bit stale for Brian. I don’t want to put words in his mouth, but I think as much as he loves the character and all the turtle’s silliness, he needed a new destination.

Over breakfast one morning, I suggested that maybe the turtle could use his phone calls to teach kids the basics about letters and numbers. As a father of a two-year-old, I am well aware of that kind of programming now-a-days. Add in the fact that Brian has never had the desire to deal in profanity for his comedy, and it seemed like not that difficult a transition for the turtle to make. I think Brian and I agree on the profanity thing, by the way. I’ve dabbled in it over the years, and I think really profane comedy is funny, but I just don’t have the desire (stomach?) to do it myself.

Anyway, we got to work writing some outlines of what we were going to do. We reached out to an animator named cokelogic because he has a really distinct animation style. We went to the studio to record the scripts after working them out over Skype, sent the audio files to cokelogic, he performed his magic and the Youtube show came together. The first five episodes are online now, and we’re hoping that there’s a reason to make more. Yes, I am playing the elephant (straight man and teacher) to Brian’s turtle. No, I haven’t booked any other voice work yet.

Now’s the part where you can help me. Spread the word. Like it on Facebook. Follow it on Twitter. Show the videos to your kids. Rate the videos on Youtube by (hopefully) clicking the thumbs up.

The script had some really decent material between some good scenes and some intriguing philosophy about relationships, but ultimately the story lacked any kind of beginning, middle and end as they explored that stuff. Art Garfunkel (who apparently chose to go by Arthur on the big screen) did better than I guessed he would have opposite Jack Nicholson as the best friend.

Ultimately though, the fact that I barely remember the names of the characters and still think of them as the stars who played them goes to show just how little I was invested in these people and their journey from college to mid-life. This movie might be worth watching just to see the famous scene where Jack Nicholson is fighting with Ann-Margaret over her lack of happiness and how she might want to “pick up” around the house in order to feel better.

Tonight was a quick night of cooking. I knew I didn’t have a ton of time between walking in the door and getting food on the table, so I picked one of the quickest, easiest, but tasty meals. I haven’t made parmesan tomatoes in a long time, but they taste awesome, really fill you up, and aren’t a ton of calories.

I decided to try a new recipe by ricing cauliflower.  I’ve been reading about using cauliflower as a pizza crust and as rice lately, so I decided to give it a go.

I cooked some chicken in leftover spaghetti sauce to have with it, and that is the runniness you see on my plate in the picture. The chicken really ended up playing second fiddle to the veggie casserole though.

Obviously the cauliflower makes it healthier than if you used real rice. Then again, you can ruin the whole thing from a healthy standpoint depending on how much butter and cheese you use.

Yeah, it is really scary and unpleasant, but honestly you can just move yourself away from the ocean and you’ll be fine.

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I wanted to make arroz con pollo tonight, but ended up pulling an audible.  I was on a kick a few years back where I was trying to perfect my simple rice and chicken recipe.  It is a traditional Latin American and Caribbean dish, but I could probably live for weeks on rice alone.  Anyway, I decided to make it with sausage and beans and it turned out really well.

Posted via email from Craig Lyndall’s Posterous