When I last posted about the first floor it looked like this.

Currently it looks like the picture below! Expect more drastic changes this month.

A lot of people scratch their heads over what exactly we'll do with this giant empty space, but it sure beats having a giant dirty space. We're picturing meetups, tournaments, galleries... Whatever we're in the mood for doing any given week. It's a new communal space for a new decade!

The upcoming Alice in Wonderland movie reminded me of something that scared the shit out of me when I was a little kid. It was a TV movie version of Alice in Wonderland, with a scary Jabberwocky scene.

I decided to look it up on YouTube and was excited to find the clip!

From the get-go, it was just as creepy as I remembered... Alice returns to her home, but it's a creepy, empty home. She looks through the mirror to see her family, but they are on the other side of the glass and can't see Alice looking back at them.

Alice sits down, opens a book and begins to read about the Jabberwocky, with jaws that bite and claws that catch... Still creepy.

My heart actually starts racing as I brace myself for the inevitable terror. The lights in the house go dim... Alice turns and screams... The Jabberwocky has arrived!

And it's a guy in a dragon suit and flashing inverted colors. I can't believe I was actually scared by that once.

Meow!

I keep seeing these new Disney commercials and wondering, When did the Muppets start associating with Disney?

A google search revealed that Disney bought the Muppets from the Jim Henson Company in 2004. I imagine that was all over the news but I hadn't made note of it. Did everyone else know about that?

WTF Legacy got voted off SYTYCD. They just ruined this season for me.

On November 29th, Funy-Mony unveiled his Gunny Bears stop motion.

Three days later, Google & Universal-owned start-up Vevo.com released this promo:

[Video Gone]

The question is, could a crack team of Hollywood talent have thrown that together in three days? Did they?

Nope, that isn't a motion tween - that's actually the Drexel Shaft getting knocked down by explosives!

A bunch of us met at 6am this past Sunday to watch the demolition of the infamous Shaft, a building that has long embodied the administrative experience at Drexel University, our Alma Mater.

Back in college I made a cartoon about it for Tim's site, drexelshaft.com.

We got front row seats on the roof of the Cira Center parking garage, right across the train tracks (see yellow arrow). Some police tried to kick us off the roof because it was considered "unsafe" but they gave up on the existing crowd and just stopped letting new people come up. It was pretty damn epic.

Progress has started on turning the first floor of our building into a gathering space for potential NG events! My fingers are still crossed that we can screen the Best of 2009 there, maybe some time in April 2010.

Tim and our contractor friend Rob (not NG programmer Rob) have been cutting all the unused pipes out of the ceiling. These pipes date back to when there was factory machinery all over the place. Once the ceiling has been cleared out as much as possible, it will be pressure washed and re-coated so it isn't dropping rust on everything down below. I'll have to remember to take pictures of the ongoing progress! Here are all the cut up pipes from Day 1.

Rubin0 sent my info about setting up a Reddit AMA, or "Ask me Anything."

People can post questions and vote on the best ones, while I'll try to answer as many as possible. Should be interesting!

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/9z226/i_am_tom_fulp_creator_of_newgrou ndscom_and/

Now that we're raising a kid, we find ourselves watching a lot of Yo Gabba Gabba, possibly the best kids' show ever. Some of the episodes have a segment in the tradition of Picture Pages where an artist shows kids how to draw stuff. What I never realized is the artist is Devo front man Mark Mothersbaugh!

I've always loved Devo but I never researched any of the band members until this morning. It turns out Mark has done a lot of music for kids' shows, including the Pee Wee's Playhouse theme song. He also scored all the Wes Anderson films, so when you watch Rushmore, Royal Tenenbaums or Life Aquatic, you're hearing a lot of Mark.

http://www.markmothersbaugh.com/

I'm officially adding Mark to my short list of awesome people.