blitzed!

Tyler Hatzikian Tuberides a Massive Closeout

Dale Nixon — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 05:57:30 +0000

Tyler Hatzikian seemingly has no fear. At 1:55, Tyler gets a ridiculous tuberide on a double overhead closeout special at the jetty.

Tyler Hatzikian Getting Tubed

Dale Nixon — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 05:28:29 +0000

Tyler Hatzikian is one of the best surfboard shapers out there. He also happens to be one of the best surfers to step foot on a longboard.

Bizarro Star Wars

Dale Nixon — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 00:30:24 +0000

The major tonalities were swapped with minor tonalities and vice versa. Still very recognizable but very different too!

Weezer – I Want You To

Dale Nixon — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 06:46:10 +0000

A sweet little diddy from Weezer. Give it a whirl!

Super Slow Motion Video – Killer!!!

Dale Nixon — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 01:01:00 +0000

Saw this video on Diggnation a while back. Check it out.

Keith Loutit – The North Wind Blew South

Dale Nixon — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 22:30:52 +0000

A very cool use of a tilt/shift lens on a video camera.

Hero Spy: For Comic Book Lovers

Dale Nixon — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 22:15:50 +0000

Anybody who grew up reading comic books and has forgotten the feeling of getting immersed into a great comic book owes it himself to check out HeroSpy. Filled with lots of killer artwork, bio’s of talented comic book artists (like Mark Brooks), and previews of interesting new titles and issues, Hero Spy is a great destination website where you can reconnect with your inner comic book lover. Definitely check it out!

I recently met Shawn Swanson, founder and editor of HeroSpy, and had a chance to ask him a few questions.

Blitzed: When was the site created?
SS: I started the site in 2004. It feels like a long time ago. I am the originator. The site was called Twisted Frog when I began, but I changed the name and domain about 8 months later due to a legal disagreement.

Blitzed: What is the mission statement for HeroSpy?
SS: We have a mission and a sub mission. HeroSpy’s mission is to entertain and amuse all of our fellow comic book geeks. Our sub mission has grown organically over the years. The sub mission is to help the independent and struggling comic creators of this world. We do this by promoting their artwork, comics and web-comics. We accomplish this with reviews and previews along with some artist biographies. In some circumstances we will offer a free ad on the site when a creator is struggling or just needs a hand up. We also have a how-to category for comic creators.

Blitzed: How many contributors and editors contribute to the site on a regular basis?
SS: HeroSpy consists of me and a friend of mine. We are the editors and the writers. We have a few others that contribute, but not on a regular basis. We are always looking for contributors.

Blitzed: What is your favorite comic book hero?
SS: If you’re talking about mainstream superheroes I’d have to go with Batman. The guy is iconic. But my favorite character of all time would have to be The Preacher written by Garth Ennis. The character is awesome and the series is shockingly good.

Blitzed: In your opinion, is the Marvel/Disney combo good for Marvel Comics?
SS: Sure, why not. I’ve always wanted to go on a Spiderman ride at California Adventure. Disney isn’t going to exact full creative control over Marvel. I’d be surprised if most people even notice anything has changed.

Old School Surf Video

Dale Nixon — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 07:34:48 +0000

Surfing back in the day!

Devo – Gates of Steel

Dale Nixon — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 23:36:43 +0000

From Devo to Yo Gabba Gabba, Mothersbaugh always delivers!

VBS.TV Doing It Right

Dale Nixon — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 23:00:24 +0000

One of the things that I love about the internet today is the fact that there can be all sorts of emerging players in the video and audio broadcasting business. One such company is VBS.tv. While VBS.tv hardly seems to be the guy-in-the-garage (Viacom and MTV played a part in their start), they are doing a lot of things right as far as TV on the web.

The first and foremost is the player they are using for their shows (I believe they use Ooyala for streaming video). There are lots of ways to play video on the web and the experience is fairly consistent: buffering at the beginning and if you want to move to another part in the video then you can move the playhead to a new part of the timeline and the buffering starts again. Unfortunately, there isn’t a whole lot that somebody can do about the buffering bit for now, but the VBS player does something very helpful that other players don’t do. It shows different thumbnails for different parts of the show so it takes a lot of guessing out of the equation in terms of where you will land when the video resumes. Try it out in the embedded profile on surfer Dan Malloy below.

The second thing that the site is doing well is that they offer a wide variety of programming that scratches the niche itch. Examples include Hi Shredability (surfing), Motherboard (nerdy stuff), and Shot by Kern (boob alert!). Not all shows are updated on a regular basis but there seems to be enough new content on a weekly basis that it is worth a periodic visit or an RSS feed subscription.

The final thing I want to highlight is the fact that they enable the skipping of ads. The link to skip the ad shows up after just a few seconds. Okay, so they force you to watch a few seconds of an ad, but the fact that they allow a skip after a few seconds is cool by me.

VBS.tv has been around for a couple years already, but I just discovered them today. If you’ve never seen it, it is definitely worth a quick look. If you have seen it and have found other web networks or channels that are doing cool things, feel free to share your findings in the comments below! Cheers.