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One of our first big clients and his work was written up in the recent (April 2007) issue of Wired.  Lenn Pryor and his team were responsible for Channel 9 which openned up the door for more transparency of Microsoft and the mysteries behind “the big walls”.   If you’re a fan of Major Nelson or Robert Scoble, you have Lenn Pryor to thank.

Lenn and the rest of the Microsoft Platform Evangelist team were a delight to work with–they were refreshingly creative, honest and down-right friendly.  It was an honor to have gotten to work with those guys. 

Cheers to their vision, passion and Channel 9!

Just announced!  Microsoft is joining up with Namco Bandai (and Quiznos) for the Xbox 360 Pac-Man World Championship. 

The top finalists from around the world will be flown to NYC for the champeeeenship.  The winner of it all will get crowned ”the big 80’s geek” by Toru Iwatani who created Pac-Man.  But that special geek will become an even BIGGER geek (in oh so many ways) once they receive the 100,000 Microsoft Points to buy content they can use on their brand-new one-of-a-kind exclusive Pac-Man Xbox and free Quiznos subs for the next 26 years!

But ask yourself this, ”Who needs to be sexy when you’re that COOL?!?”

Check out the Xbox Live Tournament Registration site for more details as they come.

Web radio has become nearly as popular, if not more so than regular AM/FM in the past few years, and is extremely successful. Unfortunately, due to a recent increase in royalties, web radio is being threatened to extinction. The Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) is paying musicians and record labels a higher percentage of royalties for streaming songs online and this is devastating small and medium independent broadcasters.

SoundExchange, the company formed by the recording industry to collect performance royalties, say rates will double in the 2007-2008 years. This is going to put many small businesses in jeopardy with the possibility of bankruptcy. The rate hike is not only going to affect streaming over computers, but with mobile phones as well, dooming the already limited amount of independent media to the public.

For more information and to see how you can help, please go to SaveNetRadio.org.

I know it’s late, but I thought I’d post a video of last year’s Plexipixel Christmas Party.

Check out Lisa’s hot moves and Gary’s sweet singing…

LOL

    Friend of Plexipixel, and diva extraordinaire Ellen Forney, has been chosen to publish her writing in a year long program called Seattle P-I Writers in Residence.

Every month in 2007 will feature a different writer, including Sherman Alexie, Ann Rule and Ivan Doig. Congratulations to Ellen for this wonderful opportunity! More of Ellen’s work can be seen and purchased at Fantagraphics Books.

Some Plexipixelites and friends spent New Year’s Eve at the office (which happens to be 2 blocks from the Seattle Center).  The view from the porch was spectacular! 

wii action in the conference room

art mash-up: bob rini, shawn wolfe, arbito, and matt rodriguez

goofing on the deck

space needle right behind us…

and here’s the view of the fireworks

Plexipixel doubled its size in 2006, adding a whole lot of brains and a whole lot more opinions. And while we all relish the new creative energy funneling in, we aren’t going to lie to you. What really kept us going was mind candy. Movies, games, TV, music… you name it, someone here loved it. Here’s a little sample of what we dug in 2006.

Hands up if you love the Nintendo Wii. Yes, it’s unanimous. Whether getting sore arms from playing it or sore feet from waiting in line to track one down, we obsessed over the little white box thats taken the world by storm.. That’s not to say we didn’t find time for other games too—everything from old school Super Mario to Geometry Wars to Animal Crossing DS to Guitar Hero II helped us kick our work stress.

Apparently the real world can’t hold a candle to the enchanted land of Tamriel: Ian H is sure his system lies when it reports that he played 140 hours of Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Allen is close behind, with 65 hours (and counting) under his thumbs.

Jesse R spent hours convincing us to see the cinematic masterpiece that was Snakes on a Plane. Most of us wisely ignored him, and enjoyed big dollar spectacles like X-Men: The Last Stand and Pirates of the Caribbean. Milk-comes-out-your-nose sendups like Talladega Nights and Borat delivered laughter, and Shortbus and Little Miss Sunshine kept us feeling indie.

Local art and music sustained us during months of rain, snow and windstorm-induced power outages. Our brains exploded with the awesomeness of Plush You, the annual celebration of all things plush, Suite 100 Gallery’s Made You Look art opening, and Ellen Forney’s “I Love Zeppelin” multi-media extravaganza. A Fantagraphics retail store opened in Georgetown, providing much needed entertainment to the South end. Decibel Festival ruled.

Nitro rocks. Plain and simple. Almost as much as PartMan PartHorse, Keane, Neko Case, Thai Beat A Go-Go, Girl Talk, Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, Ghostface Killah, DJ Spooky, Tim Hecker, The Slackers, and Liars. And when all else failed, we had Crunk Hits. Hwwaaaaat? Ho-kay! Yeeee-ah.

As 2007 rolls in, we have our fingers crossed for Barack Obama, riveting new seasons of Lost, American Idol and Heroes, and the magic of Spiderman 3 and Transformers the Movie. Amie S and Lisa S hope to clear some of the Microsoft acronyms out of their brains. So long, IW, BDM, LMK, WRT, CIL and WTF. We’re also looking forward to weddings: Plexi founders Vicky T and Matt R are tying the knot, and Paola R and Ian H too.

All of this wouldn’t be nearly as exciting if we weren’t also keeping busy with a full platter of fantastic and creative projects. Here’s hoping for more of the same in 2007. We’ll be sure to tell you all about it.

(props to Tizzy A and Ian R for doing all the work on this puppy!)

Matt and I got to meet Roy E. Disney after his amazing presentation at Animaticus’ “2D or Not 2D Festival” last month.  Roy’s talk was all about Disney and the cutting edge work that Disney (and mostly Walt) spearheaded.  Being engaged to an animator (hi Matt!), there were a lot of specifics in the presentation that I knew about but Roy still brought up so much that just blew me away.

One of my favorite highlights of the presentation was getting a peek at ”Lorenzo”, a 2d/3d Disney short about an obnoxious fat cat whose tail takes over.  It was another Disney triumph with great characters, and engaging storyline and amazing animation!

There was also a photo of the multiplane camera created by Ub Iwerks actually in production of a Disney project.  Just a year earlier, Matt and I had been able to bask in the glory of the camera in person at the Disney Backlot thanks to our dear friend Brian Elling.  It was fun to see an image of it at work. 

Being a former member of Roy’s “Save Disney”, I feel priviledged to have been able to personally thank Roy for all he has done for Disney and the art of animation.  Both Matt and I look forward to watching the new chapter of the Disney story starring Roy and Lasseter unfold!

I’ve been busy but finally got to Fantagraphic’s blog for the first time in a month.  They were so nice to kick us some love we just have to do the same. 

Check out the article called Last Weekend about our lovely evening early this month that included the Kickstart Kuties artshow and then ended with karaoke with the Woodrings, Tom Dougherty and some newfound Fantagraphics peeps (Gregory Zura and his lovely wife and friends).