Bunny Blog

Friend Lists.

I’ve been using these for a while, but nobody seems to know what I’m talking about so I thought I’d let the word out. If you have more than 100 friends on Facebook, and you’re having trouble filtering the status updates of your very best friends from the people you met in the elevator, friend lists are AWESOME.

On your facebook homepage, look on the left column that starts with “News Feed.” You can already filter things down so that you just see “Photos” or “Links” or “Status Updates” rather than have all of them feed into your newsfeed.

Ok, now click on the “more” text at the very bottom of this column. Now more filters pop up, along with text at the very bottom that reads “Create New List.” Click that. Now you can choose which friends and fan pages will belong to that list. For instance, I’ve made one called “Comedians” where I put all my friends that have funny status updates. Now I can click on that, and only see updates of those particular people

What’s also great is that you can also use friend lists with your privacy settings. Would you rather coworkers not see your photo album from Vegas? Your privacy settings let you make certain photo albums available only to friends of friends, or only to people you’re personally friends with, or to THIS list, or to everybody except THAT list. It’s really pretty powerful.

Paris drunk in Vegas

Also, when you make new friends, you can immediately add them to pre-existing lists. So when my Aunt finally joins Facebook, I can put her on my “Relatives” list at the same time I accept her Facebook “friendship.”

Anyway, just felt most people weren’t getting the most out of this feature.

While I’ve tried to stay in recession denial as long as possible, it’s bound to set in at some point. My clothes just aren’t so special anymore and I’d love to buy new ones. But I have to be smart so I’ve gone back to thrift store shopping and bargain hunting. On top of that I got motivated and suggested doing a clothing swap with a friend. We each “shopped” through the clothing and shoes of the other and came out with a bag full of new-to-me items to borrow! Today I’m rockin’ a black and white plaid shirt that I would have never picked out myself because of my aversion to plaid (I feel like it will make me look like a farm girl). Now I’m excited to try out more plaid because I look classy. Tomorrow I have several exciting options that will put my shopping urge to rest and keep my dollars accumulating.

I’ve been harassed lately by several ads that show up in the ticker on my Gmail account.  And by “harassed” I mean the ads are terribly convenient.  Because, you know, they’re targeted.

I’ve sent maybe one or two emails with “Doctor Who” mentioned somewhere within the contents of the email, so of course I get ads for Doctor Who on DVD. Well, apparently there are a few sites that sell all four seasons of the relaunch for a measly $79.   Considering each season individually goes for that much, I’m DYING to order the complete set.   The problem is, most of those sites are shady as hell, and I’m sure that my identity and/or credit card information has been stolen just by looking at them.

So, for all you web-sales entrepreneurs out there, here’s where these guys are going wrong:

Let me start by saying that these companies might be completely reputable.   Unfortunately, none appear as such, which is why, against my better judgement (or in conjunction with it, now that I think about it), I will never order from any of these sites.

Most appear to be internationally based, which is fine.  Most of the best board games are only available internationally these days, and I’ve ordered safely internationally in the past.  I won’t hold this against any of these sites.

They offer free shipping to the U.S., which is part of the appeal (because who ever wants to pay for shipping - especially internationally?).

One of the sites appears to have launched in November, another in September, which, again, I can deal with.  You have to start your business sometime, right?

The fact they’re advertising on Google is a check mark in the “legit” column.  If you’re not a legit business, you’re not going to advertise.  Or is a fake business creating a mirage of legit business through advertising?  It’s easy to get paranoid when your identity is on the line.

Here’s where things get shady.  The one site has a contact email that is Gmail-based, and not the company’s domain.  If you’re going to go to the trouble of creating a fake website to lure people in to buy your fake goods, at least take the half-step more of using an email address with the same domain name.

The fonts are nearly illegible, which is also shady.  Maybe I’ve been spoiled by Amazon, but I like the sites I order from to at least look presentable.  My Geocities page looked more well designed, and that was over a decade ago.

When you click the “Locator” link on the one site, it says “We are located on the web at [their URL].”  Really?  Do you think?  At least make up a fake physical address, instead of just looking lazy.

Both sites have typos galore.  Again, shady.

The one site actually says they get their DVDs from China “releases.”  Considering that I can’t find a legit site that carries the supposed “Complete Season 1-4 DVD Boxset,” I’m guessing that these are bootlegs.  The fact they are Region 0 doesn’t help the case at all.

I guess what pisses me off the most is that I’m wasting my time trying to prove these sites aren’t legit, but whoever is running these “businesses” aren’t even trying to pretend to be legit in the first place. At least try to look professional.  That’s all I’m asking.  I want to give you my credit card and my identity in exchange for a cheap DVD boxset.  You just have to work to get it.

I’ve been meaning to share this awesome little hack for a while now.

I recently built a game prototype. It was a 2D game that was meant to look 3D, so I borrowed a play from the RARE playbook and used a 3D modeling program to build the sprites and animate them. I thought it would be good to document the process. So for starters, here’s what most 3D programs kick out: a frame at a time rendered.

(more…)

And guess who wrote it? Us!

Creative Cow was so impressed with our spoof trailer for the movie “P2″ that they asked us to write an article about it for their website. For those of you who don’t know, Creative Cow is an amazing user’s group, forum, and magazine for media producers and artists, and we’re very very proud to be featured in one of the very places we’ve turned to for help so many times for technical questions.

For any of you who have ever wondered about how we make things over here at PB, the following article gets pretty dang explicit.

P2 is a movie about getting stuck in a parking garage and being held captive by a deranged parking attendant. Our spoof is about getting stuck in a parking garage and being held captive by a deranged tapeless HD camera.

http://library.creativecow.net/articles/spice_doug/P2.php

Once upon a time, some guys calling themselves Team Lower Gatsby and some guys calling themselves Psychic Bunny (some of those guys from each actually being the same guys) got together and made an internet TV pilot. It was five minutes long and silly and made in about 5 days at a total cost of about $150. However, those guys, being ambitious tykes with poor judgment, decided to put all sorts of exotic locations and special effects in their show! Why did they do this? Who cares! The point is they did this all using the most run-and-gun tactics around, and somehow it actually came out looking pretty good, and some people on the WWW asked “Hey, how DID you do that?” and so here’s the brief tutorial. Enjoy.

(more…)