Happy Halloween!

In the spirit of Halloween and Weiner Dog Appreciation, here is a silly dachshund in a costume, and here is a link to many more silly dachsunds in costumes:
http://www.dailydachshundanddognews.com/2009/10/halloween.html

Movie Maker and FreeSound.Org

Here is a new video featuring Hunter & Co.- an awesome interior design

showroom in Whitefish, Montana!

Thank you for giving us some sweet footage for my amateur film career.

Wait, is there such a thing as an "amateur career"??

I'm pretty sure my career opportunities in film production are limited, but I had fun making this! I like playing around with Windows Movie Maker. I will admit that the older version of Movie Maker was way more user friendly, but the updated version is still cool. It is making me wonder where all my films are from high school Graphic Arts class and Film Writing class? Movie Maker really sucked up quite a bit of my homework time (who needs homework?)- the only issue that I came across was copyright infringement for the songs I used.

Now I don't have to worry about that because my Computer Skills for Teaching (or whatever it was called) showed me www.freesound.org. There are millions of recorded sounds and sound effects that belong to the Creative Commons license, so amateurs like me can use them in short films or what not. The only downfall is the lack of actual full-length songs. Mostly there are just sound clips or recordings that are a little scrappy to use for a movie or presentation. But there are some pretty cool scraps on there- I found a Brazilian street festival sound clip that has awesome street band music recorded live from an actual Brazilian street festival. There are also really cool nature tracks- like thunder or early summer meadow noises. This would be an excellent way to compile a "relaxation mix" for your iPod because the files can be converted to MP3s very easily. Trust me, because I'm not very computer savvy and I picked it up in a snap! The coolest sound I've heard on FreeSound.org was this guitar riff played with the microphone pointed at the window, where rain was tumbling down outside. I can't find it just this second, but if anyone wants to hear it, I'll dig it up and post it, just let me know!

Questions? Comments? Ideas? I think I'm going to make "A Few Friday Fun Facts" a weekly affair, so keep your eyes open for that coming up in a few days!

*Happy Tuesday!

Sick Puppies

Listening to Martha Stewart's Sirius Radio Station last week, I stumbled upon a pet show about the health issues that dogs face and how to treat them naturally.  Since I love love LOVE dogs, I tuned in.  I am a naturally curious person, and I like to learn about things just in case it might come in handy in the future.  I also watched a PBS Nova special about the language of dogs, which only confirmed the fact that I would love to study dog linguistics in grad school.  I don't think I have the science background for it, though! :( 
I learned about mange on Dr. Shawn Messonnier's Natural Vet show, and how mange is a genetically transmitted problem and that everyone (dogs, cats, people....) have these mange cells in the hair follicle.  Like cancer, it only manifests and takes over as a problem in the body if it is given an opportunity to overcome the healthy cells.  So mange is caused by allergens, irritations, stress, etc. etc.  There was more information like this at http://www.petcarenaturally.com/blog/ , the Natural Vet's blog and website.

But the really cool things that I learned came from Nova on PBS the other night. Although dogs share most of their genes with wolves, they have somehow altered their behavior and appearances over thousands and thousands of years to become more attuned to humans than any other animal studied (including chimpanzees and apes!).  AND their puppy-like appearance (compared to wolves, foxes, coyotes, etc) are attached to the genes for being more tame and agreeable.  This not only makes them cuter, it also makes them appear more like human infants, which humans respond to in a care-taker way, whether they realize it or not.  This was only a small selection of the awesome things that I picked up this week about dogs.


http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/nature/dogs-decoded.html is the official website for Nova: Dogs Decoded, and I'm pretty sure it is available on Netflix Instant Play as well.


Other than that, I am currently at the Acutech office with the official Creations Studio mascot, Wilson the Weiner Dog, who is unfortunately under the weather with a doggy cough or something :(  He looks as cute as always though, despite his sore throat, in his adorable plaid doggy vest.  After a week of hard work, I think everyone at the shop is looking forward to the weekend to rest and relax and do a little catching up on sleep.  Or is that just me?  :)
Happy Weekend!