So I went to this party on Friday, held by my friend, Rob, from the KR47 series. We were all drinking beer and laughing and having a good time. I was talking to Pete, and he brought up the fact that Johnny Utah had asked me to make a submission for the Metal Gear Collab. I'd responded to Johnny Utah's comment on my user page by saying that I'd never played Metal Gear and didn't know anything about it, so I probably wasn't going to make a submission. At the party, Pete told me that Rob plays Metal Gear, and that he knows about it. We started working on a script at the party, and Rob was telling me about the characters and the story and showing me pictures and stuff. So, based on Rob's direction, I am working on a Metal Gear Collab submission... There are only a few days left, so I'm going to have to haul ass this weekend in order to get it done. We recorded the voices yesterday, and I've got about half the animation done between yesterday and today. Hopefully you guys will enjoy it.

I was hiking last weekend with my friend, Brian, and we saw a garter snake slithering along beside the trail. I tried to catch it, but it got underneath a log. Then a few minutes later, we saw another. This one went underneath a stump. It came out the other side, but it wasn't moving as fast, so I assume he thought I couldn't see him. I waited for his tail to come out from under the stump, and I grabbed him, Crocodile Hunter style, and held him up in the air. Steve Irwin always said that they can't climb up their own tails, but they always seem to come pretty close to doing it. I shake them a little to straighten them out again. This one was doing a lot of squirming. Brian took a picture, and I set him down on the ground. He sat there for a few seconds. It seemed as if he realized I didn't want to hurt him. Then again, he might've been stunned... I wonder if I'd dropped him a little too hard on the ground... He didn't seem as if he was in any hurry to leave after that...

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For those of you who didn't know, the KR47 live-action movie, "KR47: Exposé," is finally finished! Right now, you can see it on Youtube. I'm hoping to be able to post it here on Newgrounds, but I've noticed that NG fans have gotten upset with people who post video here instead of Flash. So I need to figure out what the rules are concerning the matter. I also have to figure out whether or not I need to convert it to .swf or some other file format. As it is, it's huge... So I might not be able to do it. Your thoughts on the matter are appreciated. But anyway, if you want to see it and see what the KR47 cast looks like in real life, you can find out here:

http://youtube.com/user/GhostyFilms

I did all my own stunts!!!

Also, I got a little bit more done on CT a few days ago. I recorded some music for it and I animated a bit. I've been spending a lot of time looking for work and interviewing, but I haven't had much luck. Art seems to be the only thing I'm good at.

Also, I sent one of my songs to the Library of Congress to have it copyrighted. I'll be putting the song on my Myspace page when I get my confirmation letter. So you should be able to hear some of my music soon. I think that, because of the way Myspace is set up, I can post the song in my regular music display panel, so you can listen. And then there'll be a smaller display panel you can use if you want to buy the song. It'll probably be about 70 cents. Maybe I'll make a dollar or something. It'd be about time my art earned me something. I sure as hell put enough work into it. I'm also planning on recording and posting some of the music from the KR47 movie. That recording will be free, and it will be posted here on NG.

Hopefully I'll land a job soon, so I can have a more stable schedule and a stable source of income. I applied at a music store nearby, among other places, and I hope I get that job. I'm pretty good with a guitar. And bass too... Maybe I'll be able to get free or discounted gear or something. Who knows? Hopefully I'll be able to get the hell out of this house soon and be free of all its negativity for the rest of my life.

Anyway... That's what I'm doing...

I don't mean to take viewers away from Newgrounds. (I'm not that big, so I probably won't anyway.) That would be bad, because most of the recognition I have came from NG. But if you subscribed to my channel on Youtube, that would be cool. The address is:

http://youtube.com/user/GhostyFilms

Subscribe there, and then come back here and watch my stuff! Everything on that other site is here already. But if you feel like embedding a cartoon on your Myspace or anywhere else, well you can use that other site.

Thanks to all my supporters!

The KR47 live-action movie is coming soon!

I hadn't really heard too much from Rob Lowe since I stopped working at the bookstore. Here's a nice little note he left on my Myspace page:

Alright you lil shit, no more niceties cuz this aint Pete Q your new "fun buddy". This is Rob Fuckin' Lowe! So shut up and listen. First off, no more Appalachian trail blogs. It's too Gaddamn long , plus you know i despise "bloggers". No one cares what you think! Secondly, that big hat is ridiculous. Third, you smell. And lastly your cartoons are silly and immature toilet humor that only teenage boys and perverts enjoy.

Okay... So I was worried for awhile there that unemployment and the loss of my home were going to ruin the show for me, but I realize that I have seven whole months. That's a long time. I think that I was just worrying about whether or not I could pull this off, but I feel a bit more comfortable with the situation now. I realize I was probably panicking unnecessarily. I've always felt that art is my life, and all of my major achievements, steps, and hurdles would be art-related. Planning for the future dealt with trying to build my own artistic empire, whether that sounds naive to you or not. I didn't really think too much about house buying other than the fact that I tried to save money for it and knew that I'd have to do it one day. Making and promoting your art is a lot of work, and that's pretty much what my life has been. It just turns out that I have to start thinking more about my life now, rather than procrastinating. The sooner I do it, the better off I'll probably be anyway. Who wants to turn 30 and be living at home?

So, since I have time still, I'm going to try to finish two KR47s this week, because I didn't put one up last month. I may even try to crank out two more, so I can get them done ahead of time, putting them out in the following months, which will allow me to work on Chanter Tales for two months without the worry of working on other things.

So... If I don't have at least ONE KR47 cartoon done by the weekend, I want you all to personally hunt me down... And kick me... Right in the FACE! You'll all be like:

"Hey, Dan... Where's the KR47?"

And I'll be like... "Uh... What KR47? What? Is that some sort of code? I don't know what you're talking about..."

"Don't pull that shit with me!" you'll say.

"What? Seriously... I don't know what you're talking about!"

And, at that point, I want you to leap at me all anime-style, every single one of you, simultaneously, with flashy streaks shimmering behind you, giving your best battle cries, and then round-house kick me, right in the face... Just like Chuck Norris would do...

If that KR47 cartoon isn't done by the weekend, my face should be fucked UP!

So yeah...

I no longer have a year to find a new place to live. I have approximately 2.5 months. It may be a long time before I'm able to submit anything again. If ever.

I don't know whether I'm going to be able to fulfill my one animation-per-month goal anymore. My father's girlfriend is making my father kick me out of the house... Because I don't smile enough... I've been bested by a drunken drug-addicted retard. It was nice that she waited until I was unemployed to talk my father into kicking me out though. What hurts most is that they keep trying to demonize me... The best they can come up with is that I don't smile very much and apparently I didn't thank her once when she cooked dinner. Maybe they need to attack me so she doesn't feel any regret about throwing me out. But I doubt she thinks about anyone other than herself. She's never had to worry about money, coming from a family with lots of it. I never expect a thank you when I do favors for them. I don't even get them. I just do favors for them because I think they're the right thing to do --because I want to help, not because I want a pat on the back or any kind worship for doing some stupid menial chore... I don't keep a little notebook, meticulously recording who thanked me and who didn't. And it's not as if she cooked me dinner all the time. I usually take care of my own food. She probably only cooked dinner for me ten times in the last two years. Yeah, they have every right to tell me to leave. I'm almost thirty. They want to be alone, but I can't help but suspect that she wants me to leave because I'm the only person who doesn't constantly kiss her ass. My father waits on her hand and foot --jumps up at her every whim. When she doesn't get her way, she cries and throws a tantrum. My father isn't even allowed to leave the house by himself without her crying and throwing a hissy fit.

So, yeah...

I'm almost thirty...

Anyway... So now I'm unemployed and I have to find a new place to live. I still have some time here before I have to leave, so I'll try to crank some stuff out in my spare time. But it seems as if my entire operation is about to be crippled. I felt as if I was making progress... Like I was getting somewhere... I feel like shit...

So... My job is finally over; yesterday was my last day. They bought us pizza. Yay... I'll be collecting severance pay for the next few weeks. I have no idea what my next job will be. I have a feeling it's going to suck. I wish I could make a living making movies, animations, and music. I have a novel that I need to finish too, but I just feel so burned out all the time. I have so much to do! I still have some recordings of Rob Lowe that I need to animate, so there will definitely be more KR47's in the future, even though I don't work with him anymore. I also have lots of scripts that still need to be recorded in addition to those. We were talking about adding some new characters and transforming the series so that it takes place outside of the bookstore...

Anyway... For the first week in which I will receive severance, I'm planning on recording a song that I've meant to record for a long time. My job would often make it hard for me to get in to a recording mood, because I'd be tired from working all day. Exhaustion doesn't help a person's creative side. So, yeah, there's that. The KR47 movie, as far as I know, is finished being filmed. Pete Q is editing it. He's a member here on NG. His name is "Kenshin1913," if you're interested in that project and want to ask him questions. I'm working on animating the opening credits sequence now. I'm also recording the music for the opening credits sequence. Recording is a real bitch. No matter how good I sound when I'm not recording myself, I suddenly sound terrible once I play back what I've recorded. And what's worse is, once I've gone through a whole frustrating day of recording, when I listen to a professionally-recorded album by a band that I really like, I start hearing all the minute flaws in that album, and I can't even enjoy that.

The music I'm using for the KR47 movie is a song that I am in the process of writing. I don't have any lyrics for it right now; I'm just using the guitar riffs for the movie. When I finish that first song, I'll develop the new one more. Lyric writing has always been hard for me, because I don't feel as if I've had a whole lot of life experience. I don't have shit to talk about. I don't have stuff to complain about... Aside from being poor and being disappointed with my life, that is. But I can only write so many songs about that. I have like eight of them already, and it's starting to get tired. I'm not nearly pretentious enough to write those preachy folk songs that every single singer/songwriting poser writes in order to look and sound like a wise, hard-bitten, worldly traveler. So I don't preach, and I don't wear old faded jeans and take black and white pictures of my gloomy mug, held high at 45 degree angle. Anyway, I digress... One day, I was here on Newgrounds, and I started thinking about the name, "Newgrounds," and what it means to me. So I started thinking that that was song-worthy. I decided to call the song "Newground," or "New Ground." I was thinking that some of the other songs I've written would be good to put in my online music store that is on Ghostyfilms.com and on my Myspace site. This "Newground" song would be free on Newgrounds. That way, people could get a feel for the stuff I play, and, if they liked the free song, maybe they'd go to my website and buy some of my other music. Marketing... I guess... But that's weeks away, maybe months...

I did acquire a copy of Flash CS3. So I've been putting some of my cartoons on Youtube. It's strange how I've heard other Flash animators talk about how great Youtube is, and how, on Youtube, you can reach a much larger audience. When I started here on NG, I wasn't well known, (or known at all) and I felt as if I had to work pretty hard to get any recognition. I don't really have a lot of recognition now, but my fan count has risen quite a bit since Tom gave me the series page. Also, thanks to Tom, my website has just about doubled the number of hits I used to get. And that's not entirely accurate, because, on an average day, I get about double what I used to get on the best days. So thanks again, Tom! (He probably doesn't read this.) Anyway, on Youtube, it's the same situation. I'm just starting out there, and no one knows who I am there. But that's the way it goes. So, at this point, it is my conclusion that those other authors are wrong, and that Youtube doesn't seem to be better or anymore advantageous than Newgrounds.

Chanter Tales is not coming out this month. A new KR47 will be. I feel sort of guilty, because CT is my baby. Some day, I'm going to need to just stop everything else and finish it. I need to start pushing my friend, Brian --Loric-- to meet with me so I can record him. Then I can finish scene three. I've moved onto scene four, and I've gotten a little bit done. After that, I'll have one, possibly two more scenes to go, and then it's time to record the music... Which will be agony... So I'll need to practice my folk material so I can record.

Anyway... I feel as if I've gotten a lot off of my chest. So hopefully the fans I have don't think I'm just goofing off all day...