This Just in Nominated Best Storytelling 2009 Just Plan Folks Thanks to Hans Christian Anderson, you already know the story of the Little Match Girl who froze to death selling matches on a street-corner on New Year's Eve. But what about the managers who woke up the next morning (their day off ) to deal with the mess? How did they get in the situation in the first place? More importantly, how did they get out of it? What is the role "Brainstorming Sessions" and is there really no such thing as a bad idea? Is it possible to be TOO fawning to a boss? How can blaming foreigners for one's...

This is a story about language. No. Of language. Of. About. About. Of. Language. Crap. Ok this is NOT a story of grammar. Nor is it a story about grammar. This is a story about the language we use in relationships with friends, family, and lovers. This story highlights the curious phenomena that we are far more polite to people we are socially distant from and can be far nastier to those we supposedly are close to. This is the story of Riley and the language in his life. Fortunately Riley has sense of humor, a verbally sophisticated family and rides the bus. He meets an equally verbally adept...

This is the story of an 8 1/2 foot penguin, who is a goddess, who is pursued by two people, who are bureaucrats, through today's America, including Hollywood. This is a comedy. More specifically, this is a fantasy satire of the modern world. A world where a powerful bureaucracy mediates disputes between different gods and their followers. The book introduces two InterDeitific Conflict Resolution Agents (IDCRAs) who spend their days processing requests for personal blessings and curses. But when the resolution agents mix up requests, a Deity No Longer Worshiped Anymore Resulting in Curtailment...

It is 2012 and the Republican Party is about to nominate a mime for President, and the Secret Service has 90 minutes to figure out who in his inner circle wants him dead. Brad Tapelson is the perfect candidate. Good looking, and able to project empathetic anger in a non-threatening way, he shows voters only enough so that they are convinced that he thinks like they do. And now that his long-shot candidacy is about to be successful, the people around him are having serious second doubts about the whole enterprise. Among those who have murder in their heart are: His best friend with him since...

"Oh No Not Emily" is a Gilbert & Sullivan-like operetta based very loosely on actual events. It is the story of Molly Writerblock, an aspiring poet, as she enters a graduate English program at a very large public university located next to an ocean. There she meets another newcomer to the department who is attempting to sell a hitherto unknown original poem by Emily Dickinson to the same English Department. There are also supportive parents; older, helpful grad students who have been there a very long time who willingly share how to be a successful grad student; an extremely knowledgeable...

Here are 690 questions about the history of Pasadena derived from the headlines of Pasadena newspapers, as displayed in the Pasadena Pubic Library's Pasadena News Index (PNI). It started when the then head of Children's Department of the Pasadena Public Library asked the author, the local history librarian at the Library for over 20 years, to put something together for children coming to the library needing some information on the history of Pasadena. Because he felt very strongly that history is a process to be explored, rather than facts to be regurgitated, he conceptualized the work as a...

The genesis in this book was when the head of the Children's Department at the Pasadena Pubic Library asked the local history librarian at the library to put together a brief little handout for fourth graders doing their state-mandated local history project. He really didn't do that. This book reflects his belief that children, who can endlessly discuss Minecraft, have the ability to use the computer to solve "real" problems, and the best way to engage students of any age is through questions where they are provided the tools to answer, but not necessarily the answers themselves, to...

This book is a distillation of a lifetime in film that discusses the theory, practice, aesthetics, history and personal experiences of the author in the world of animated film. From advice to the most mundane, such as using 3X5 cards for storyboards vs. using store-bought panels, to the most practical, like what to do when a producer proposes not paying one for the "experience" of a professional job, the book is a wide raging look at the animation industry. An innovative teacher as well as animator, the book extensively covers teaching strategies, syllabuses and exercises to assist teachers...

This book is a distillation of a lifetime in film that discusses the theory, practice, aesthetics, history and personal experiences of the author in the world of animated film. This book is the over 1000 illustrations which accompanies the text, which is in a separate book called Animation Rules Book One; Words. These illustrations which not only show completed art work done by the author, but also include rough looser drawings that show the process by which a final result is attained. An additional bonus is art from films of fellow UCLA Animation Workshop animators such as Phil Faroudja,...