If you follow us on Facebook, a few days ago I casually mentioned that the next Read Only Memory short about Contra was being put on hold. In it’s place, I’ll be picking up production on a new Legend of Zelda related short.

I’m not sure what happened with the Contra project to be quite honest. I was really giving it my all a few months ago, and for whatever reason things fell apart and production has seemingly come to a halt. I’ve attempted several times to pick up where I left off, only becoming frustrated with it. I have one really nice shot that’s mostly done, but I think what happened was that I let that shot get the best of me. However, one nice shot can’t save what is arguably a disaster of a short at the moment. I just feel stuck with it, in very much the same way I was with Pizza Links. I’ve combed through my storyboard boards countless times, completely redoing them multiple times. I’ve tried to paint some important backgrounds only to come away from them not feeling happy about what I produced. I still don’t have an actual script hammered down. Essentially, it’s gotten to the point where I need to distance myself from it, but still need to move on creatively. I’ve spent MONTHS dwelling over it. Months dwelling over a 30 second short isn’t healthy, and it’s not getting me anywhere. I’ve fallen behind on ROM because of this, and now I fear Vol 2 may not even be finished by the years end. It’s a bummer. Like, an absolutely huge fucking bummer.

I still think there’s a good short inside the Contra episode. Like I said, Pizza Links had problems too and look how that turned out in the end (I mean, unless you hated it of course). I can get there with Contra, I just think that maybe I need to switch gears a bit. I need to do something that’s very much different from what I’ve created for ROM before.

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On our most challenging episode yet, we welcome Randy from Elder-Geek to the show as our new ’3rd Chair’. This time the Game Club played ‘A Game About My Cat‘ an Xbox Live Indie title developed by thelostone. We hope you enjoy our dissection of the game, we tried to be fair and balanced. Clocking in at 52 minutes, Shamoozal Game Club has now become the most comprehensive source of information on ‘A Game About My Cat’…. hands down. You can follow thelostone on twitter to get more information about his upcoming game ‘Phase Runner‘.

Next time we’re going to be playing one of two Indie titles from Zeboyd Games: Cthulhu Saves the World vs Breath of Death VII You can buy BOTH of these titles in a 2-Pack for $2.99 on Steam, or you can get a 4-pack to share with your friends on Gamersgate. They’re also available through the XBL Indie store for 240 msp each. Scroll down to vote!

If you’re already subscribed to our Podcast feed then all you need to do is wait for the episode to show up in your Podcast aggregator. Or, you can go a head and listen to it right here: (more…)

Remember Grey from the old Shamoozal shorts? Yeah, I kind of forgot about him myself despite the fact he’s never left the top of the page. It’s hard to believe that Grey hasn’t been in a short since 2008′s la tragedie. Ouch.

There was a point in time where I was drawing Grey on a daily basis because I felt like of all my characters he was the one I should really have known how to crank out without hesitation (well, aside from Jacquo anyway). I don’t really have a reason for not going back to Grey other than the fact he was a rather lifeless character, but that’s all my fault. Really though, a lot of it was just sort of chance. The only GFGames after la tragedie was How to Hook Up the NES, and that’s all Jacquo’s show. Grey was never supposed to show up in that short. Then Read Only Memory happened, and I moved onto that project instead. The fact is though, that I’ve been kicking around an idea for a GFGames #6 for ages now. Hell, I actually just rewrote a two year old draft of it a few weeks ago. Will I ever get around to making that short? God only knows. If I ever do get to make it though, it’ll be the best short Grey has ever been apart of. It’ll be the short that he probably deserved all along.

For tonight’s Weekly Sketch I decided to just belt out this rather upset version of Grey. He is kind of angry that he’s been kicked to the side, you know? I was going to have him smoking, but Grey wouldn’t smoke, so I gave him a lollipop instead. Decided not to spend much time with this tonight because I need to move onto some Read Only Memory work for once. Yeah, remember those?

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Would you believe there is a new Thundercats series coming on this Friday on Cartoon Network? Well, yeah, I guess it’s not a stretch these days since companies just love bringing back their old stuff. The new show actually looks very cool from the commercials, much better than the terrible looking new Voltron show that’s also set to debut soon on Cartoon Network. I’ll give the first episode a shot for sure even though I probably won’t stick around for the whole series. As cool as it looks, I’m sure it’ll just be your average kid show.

Meanwhile, Boomerang has begun airing the original episodes of the show again in anticipation for the new series. In fact, there was actually two marathons of the show over the weekend, and I’d be lying if I didn’t say they were on in the background nearly the entire time they aired. Just like my feelings on Jem and the Holograms, I love how bad it is. The plot lines are absurd, and the voice actors even more so. I think I’ve gotten a new found respect (if you can call it that) for Lion-O having watched some of these again. It never really dawned on me that Lion-O is a kid in a man’s body, and it pretty much explains everything about Lion-O. Kind of like Link from Ocarina of Time, he was forced to grow up (he was asleep in a capsule where he aged about 10 years unknowingly) yet skipped the whole process of actually maturing in the process. The result is a big bulky dude that thinks he’s a grown up but usually acts kind of like an idiot. I kind of love him.

So I decided to bang this quick drawing of Lion-O out tonight. I decided to make him a bit more of a brute based on the fact that he kind of is a brute. In the episode I sort of watched tonight, he actually had an arm wrestling matching with a cave man and of course he won. Anyway, it’s a fun show that’s totally out there. Oh and like all classic cartoons from my youth, the intro is fucking awesome still.

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I never really wanted to write this post, but after thinking it over for months I’ve finally decided to go ahead and do it. From this day forth the Nerdlog will no longer focus on various geek culture related subjects. Instead it will only follow the work that we put into our projects. You’ll no longer find the occasional game review, featured write ups like the Harry Potter favorite moments article, movie news, or music posts. What you can expect to see are posts about the shorts, hopefully my weekly sketches, our podcasts and of course anything pertaining to our work. It’s going to become a strictly Shamoozal related blog.

The truth is, the Nerdlog hasn’t grown in the last few years. While some of our features have gone onto become great evergreen posts for us (who would have thought my post about the movie The Wizard would still be doing well, along with a handful of others), but the simple fact is that this blog has remained fairly stagnant. Lately I’ve been questioning exactly what this website is supposed to be about. I mean, what is it supposed to be? I always say it’s about our shorts, but the shorts are buried here. We lack focus, and we also lack the time to really make a blog worth caring about, something which would require multiple updates per day. Currently we’re lucky to have a week with four new posts let alone multiple posts per day.

There isn’t much more for me to say other than it was a fun ride. I’m sorry that I slowly let the Nerdlog die a bit of a painful death towards the end. I really owe John a lot of thanks for being the one that was always timely with his movie posts. Sometimes he single handedly kept the cobwebs off of this place. So a big thank you to you John.

With that said, if you’re a regular blog reader, our staff and community are generally posting lots of stuff in our forums. Do come over and say “hi” at some point. Thanks for reading.

My DVD/Blu-Ray Pick

Limitless – Bradley Cooper is a struggling writer who is given a new experimental drug that lets you use 100% of your brain’s capacity. You see things differently and thoughts are moving constantly. It lets him become a rich and powerful…. anything he wants to be. Writer, stock trader, whatever. But of course with any drug there will be side effects. And people that are looking to have some of it for themselves. This was a pretty cool concept for a film and executed fairly well. It wasn’t a terrific movie by any means but it entertained me from beginning to end. Bradley Cooper is just a likable guy and fits the role nicely. I saw it when it came out in theaters and I’d check it out again.

My Theater Pick

Captain America: The First Avenger – when this movie was first announced, I wasn’t the least bit excited. Casting news didn’t really do anything for me either. Chris Evans is usually the same character in everything. I thought this would be another throw away superhero movie just so they can get The Avengers back story in place. Then the first trailer came out and I was kind of blown away. The 1940s setting looks really cool and works well with a military born superhero. The most amazing part was the CGI used to put Chris Evans’ face on a small, scrawny body before he becomes the super soldier known as Captain America. Throw in the always cool Hugo Weaving as the villain, Red Skull, and some evil Nazis and it sounds like a rockin’ good time. It definitely got me off my seat and interested. Maybe Captain America will go one on one with Hitler himself!

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Well I’m sure this one isn’t going to be a fan favorite. The rap-metal genre is not one that is often praised around these parts (or really anywhere) and you can blame that mainly on Limp Bizkit. Anyway, one of my favorite groups that meshed the two styles together nicely is (hed) p.e. They have raunchy lyrics, heavy music, a little DJ action and some good rhymes. I didn’t want to get too “screamy” for Music Monday so I used one of their more mainstream songs above. Unfortunately, later in their career they started getting too political and lost that fun theme that Bartender contained. Their first two albums I still really enjoy. But they went downhill after that and now associate themselves with the Juggalos in Insane Clown Posse. Below I added one of their raunchier songs. Very explicit lyrics.

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With the release of the Harry Potter saga’s conclusion we decided to put together a list of our favorite scenes throughout all the Potter films. It’s crazy that after all these years, Harry Potter has finally come to an end. It was a ride and a half, and I was glad to be part of it. Below you can see John, Steve and I discuss our favorite moments along with clips to go with them. There is a link below the YouTube videos we couldn’t embed that will open up a new tab upon clicking. Keep in mind these are in no particular order, and there’s a lot here. Sit down, grab a drink, and set aside 20 minutes or so to enjoy this trip down memory lane. Without further ado, our favor magical moments.

The Half-Blood Prince – Harry and Hermione

Embed on this clip has been disabled, please click here to watch Harry comfort Hermione

Phil: Having just come off his first big Quidditch win, Ron is on fire and has come into a new found confidence he hasn’t seen for a while. Things are rocky between he and Hermione, whom have always had an unspoken love for one another. Ron begins to kiss his new girlfriend, Lavender Brown, in front of everyone. While everyone cheers Ron on, Hermione finally loses it and leaves.

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