Ask Z S

Z S,

What was your childhood like?

Sincerely,
Roxy

Z S,

Are you in all kinds of bands?

Yours,
R in Knoxville

Z S,

What's your deal?

Best,
M in Montreal

Z S,

Is there anything between the Z and the S or is it just Z S?

chtaboy w/fam in illynoy

hoos

Z S, do you like the band Zs? Hint: they are awesome.

from what i know about zs's childhood, it was very interesting

r?

xxpost

zs,

how do you feel about karl malone?

tr

Hey Z S:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v136/primrosehill/KAOS/realkao.gif
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v136/primrosehill/KAOS/realkao.gif
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v136/primrosehill/KAOS/realkao.gif
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v136/primrosehill/KAOS/realkao.gif
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v136/primrosehill/KAOS/realkao.gif
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v136/primrosehill/KAOS/realkao.gif
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v136/primrosehill/KAOS/realkao.gif
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v136/primrosehill/KAOS/realkao.gif
??????

Yours,
Roxy

Roxy,

That's the kind of question that you subconsciously spend your whole life trying to answer. So it's funny how difficult it is to answer when it's asked straightforwardly like that.

A lot of my childhood was defined by two things that were out of my control: my parent's religion and my physical (non)build. My dad directed a police academy and my mom taught mentally disabled middle schoolers, and they both taught sunday school. We went to a Pentecostal church every Sunday for all of my childhood, so about 1/7th of my days until I left for college revolved around pre-church, church and after-church routines. The idea that most Pentecostals let themselves get bit by snakes to see if god will save them isn't true, but it was...pretty loony. People (fake) spoke in tongues every week, and then someone else would "miraculously" translate the mystery language into midwestern U.S. English. The mystery language sounds like this: "Fah sha la la la, fah LA sha la la hum tye, hum tye SO fah la sha ha", etc. As far as I could tell, the mystery language revolved around "la", and accenting certain syllables played a large role and could transform the context of the sentence. I could go on and on about this, but I'll try to tell (and I realize I've probably talked about this before around here, so sorry) two stories in three sentences each, one about my mom, one about my dad.

Mom's church story:
Mom broke her ankle while watching me at a marching band practice in 9th grade, and was on crutches. After several weeks, her ankle naturally healed and she walked around all week without the crutches. Then she showed up in church with the crutches, pretended to limp heavily, spoke in tongues, ran around the church THREE TIMES waving her crutches in the air, and claimed that god had healed her that day because of her faith.

Dad's church story: My dad believes the Bible literally and tries to faithfully follow all of its teachings. This is sometimes a good thing (he doesn't care about money, he's generous and he gives to charity all of the time without bragging about it to everyone) and often bad (he holds an Old Testament style view of all other religions, hates gay people and is obsessed with the apocalypse). One time in Sunday School, his teaching assistant told a tearful story to our class of 10-year-olds about how he had sinned and fucked a donkey in a field.

Church really fucked me up for a long time.

The other constant in my life was that I was always the shortest kid in school and the skinniest. I could go on at length about that but it's probably easy to imagine. It sucked a lot. Finally in 10th grade I had this crazy growth spurt and went from like 4'11" to 5'9 in a year, changing shoe sizes every 2 months, but I didn't get any fatter. So now I'm a normal height but I every few months I get some jackass who takes me aside and tries to give me a serious "talk" about how I need to bulk up.

Other things: Until I was 15 or so, there were only a few CDs in my house: Inner Circle Bad Boys (the guys who do the Cops themesong), Dark Side of the Moon, Queen's A Night at the Opera, and the Braveheart soundtrack. We didn't listen to any music, ever, not even the radio. On long car rides to Iowa we would sit in complete silence for hours and hours since none of us ever talked to each other. It was weird. When I was about 15, I decided to "get into music". The first CD I bought was the Village People's Greatest Hits. Then I thumbed through the Spin Year in Review 1997 issue in Wal-Mart, and it advised listening to OK Computer. I bought it and it blew my nonmusiclistening mind. I listened to it everyday for a really long time and accidentally became That Radiohead Kid at school. Oops!

I suppose everyone thinks their childhood is really interesting, so I'll stop there I guess.

R in Knoxville,

I used to be in all sorts of bands. I was pretty well known as a drummer in my tiny hometown in Missouri, and then I played in a few bands in college. My dad used his dubious police connections to score me a huge drumset from a crackdealer's angry wife when I was in 8th grade. It had eight rack toms, two floor toms, two 26" bass drums, and many cymbals. I tuned the 8 toms into a scale, I think Bflat major, so I could play stuff like Mary had a Little Lamb in tune. I eventually pared down my set to a four piece so that I wouldn't get my ass kicked.

I guess I kind of blew my one chance to "make it big". There was a band called T3xas Ch41nsaw M455 Ch01r that played grind/mathcore that I really didn't like. But I was friends with all the dudes. Then the drummer quit, and they needed a new one. I auditioned for a few nights, but to be honest my blastbeat chops were not up to task. Then they got another drummer, totally switched styles to standard (easy to play) indie rock, and became the Wh1t3 R4bb1ts, who now play on David Letterman and tour with the Walkmen.

M in Montreal,

I don't know what my deal is. IRL, it's something to do with setting high expectations for myself that I can never seem to reach, or even get close to. On ILX, it's something to do with me being drunk a lot at night.

whoa. interesting times!

ZS, if you were in a film, who would play you? (Sorry, I always ask this, but it is a question I like.)

M in Oxford

Hoos,

T is right, there's a silent "R" in there too. I used to post under my full name here when I just started out a few years ago. But then I realized I wanted to talk about fartz and stuff, so I made it a bit more anonymous. Also, I kind of like how Z and S are mirror images of each other. 2ZS5

Hurting,

I know about them, but I haven't listened to them! Do you have a specific album/song/youtube I could start with?

Tehresa,

You know about Karl Malone, don't you? You can just tell me - do you know about me and Karl Malone?
Please c+p and then underline: Yes or No

Roxy,
yeah I know I took forever. I saw this thread last night, but it was Valentine's Day and that first question was a real humdinger, and I couldn't find a way to say to my gf "I'm sorry, but I have to go type out a short history of my childhood really quick"!

ZS,

where did you learn the trade of gif animation? will you give us your secrets?

lol,
kevin

Caek,

Oh man...I think Roxy probably has an answer for this. She would say Michael Cera, but I guess he's a big star now so that kind of feels like saying "yeah, Sylvester Stallone would play me". Actually, shit, Frank Stallone would play me!

Kevin,

I can definitely tell you where it started from, at least. I was hanging out with a good friend of mine when I lived in Chicago. He's a graphic designer and general photoshop whiz. He nonchalantly grabbed my computer and created this in just 2 minutes or so:

http://i40.tinypic.com/1198qqt.jpg

I watched him as he did it, and he made it look so easy. I always thought Photoshop stuff was something I couldn't even attempt without some training, but I realized that a lot of it just selecting stuff with a lasso with different feather settings, moving stuff around, and blending edges together.

I think the trickiest part of animations is to make them small enough. I try to impose a 250K limit on everything that I do, which means that there is usually some combination of reducing the number of total layers/frames and the image size. I suppose that this restraint is really stupid, actually, because bandwidth and storage are always increasing. I mean, in 10 years, the 250K limit I had will be like a 5 1/4" floppy disk.

I mean, as outdated as having to use a 5 1/4" floppy disk.

zs,

i am not sure what you are insinuating. i really just wanna know your thoughts on karl malone?

http://i38.tinypic.com/21x6jd.jpg

I think Karl Malone is on some n/l shit!

no logo

lol karl

zs:

http://rs477.rapidshare.com/files/145434297/zs_-_bump.mp3

Hurting:

wow, that is not at all what I was expecting, but in a good way!

I knew this would be great.

Yeah. It's actually less rawkus than some of their other stuff, but it's my favorite of what I've heard.

LOL I spelled it rawkus like the soundbombing label.

I MEANT "ASK ZS"

I MEANT "YEAH IT IS NOT WHAT YOU WERE EXPECTING BUT IN A GOOD WAY"

TO ZS, i.e. XPOST

LET'S NOT FIGHT LOL

OK :)

Hurting, that song definitely whet my whistle. I'll be listening to them more in the coming week.

http://i39.tinypic.com/10s674n.gif

"And, finally, the votes are in and Entertainment Weekly has chosen its Funniest Man Alive. And who is the Funniest Man Alive? You guessed it -- Frank Stallone!"

http://i39.tinypic.com/xbxu79.jpg

Dear Z S,

What is your favorite meal?

Signed,
Roxy

Dear Z S,

With thanks,

(caek, I think whatever you enclosed in that envelope got lost in the mail)

Z S,

What are your opinions on this cake?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v136/primrosehill/Michelle_D.jpg

Sincerely,
Roxy
[encl.]

That was no envelope. It was a with compliments slip.

Roxy,

Any answer I can give you has to be prefaced with my belief that my tastebuds may be totally, irreversibly broken. I don't know how it happened, but there you go. I feel like I only experience the 45th-55th percentile of taste satisfaction. Nothing really tastes that bad, but very there are very few meals that I actually get excited about eating, either.

That said, and maybe this is a boring answer, but my favorite meal is definitely a sushi feast, with eel, salmon and shrimp rolls, vegetable tempura, Hot and Sour soup, a few individual Tamago, and if I'm feeling really saucy, some sashimi. That is one of the few meals that gets me to the 80th percentile.

Caek,

I'm going to take your bodyless message as a suggestion that I should fill the space with a weird anecdote that relates to you.

Two nights ago I nearly wrote you an ILX mail asking you for help with forming an equation for a dynamic model I'm working on. I had a variable that kept track of annual wind energy electricity generation additions. I wanted to have it so that it had a rough S shape, so that there were steadily rising additions for the next 20-30 years, and then a gradual leveling off at some point. (it's a bit more complicated than that, but that sums it up.) You're one of ILX's resident math/physics experts, so I thought you'd be a good person to ask. But then I had second thoughts, because I realized it's really lame to receive what amounts to "help with homework" in an email from a relative stranger. So I made an appointment with one of my professors instead. So little do you know, but you dodged a "homework help" bullet the other night.

Roxy,

I need to know what's going on underneath the table. Dude/cake has this look on his face like "I'm not wearing any pants". I also wonder how long this cake is going to last without rotting, if it stays unrefrigerated.

[encl: the information you requested]

Z S,

Nothing is going on beneath the table. This cake has been printed with a photograph of this young man's face.

Yours,
Roxy

No way! That's awesome. I even considered that maybe the dude wasn't real, but it looks too good! I say, then, that this is one of the greatest cakes of all time.

They should've left the cake blank and projected on it that guy's face moving his lips from an old film projecter in the next room.

I promise not to fill this thread with this sort of nonsense, but

http://www.barrylutz.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/blubblub.gif

Dang
http://www.barrylutz.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/blubblub.gif

omgomgomg

mothercryingevents!

http://i652.photobucket.com/albums/uu241/dnvnoo/awwrite.jpg

Thanks, looks like i'm doin' aww-right!

Hay Z S,

Make a mix and then post it on your blog

You got it Karl Malone.

http://www.barrylutz.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/barrylutzenmix.gif

http://www.barrylutz.com/2009/05/kickin-it-2009-mix/

http://thechive.com/2010/08/10/girl-quits-her-job-on-dry-erase-board-emails-entire-office-33-photos/

Can someone with photoshop skills do a Shephard Fairey red&blue Obama style photoshop of her face, but instead of HOPE it says HOPA

promise u it will be a meme by sundown

― shake that ˁxᴥxˀ (Whiney G. Weingarten), Tuesday, August 10, 2010 4:38 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

DUDE,

when are we gonna hang???

mandee says it is a must!

Webmail me!

Z S,

Are you related to this fellow?

http://shadowsandsatin.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/ssscott2.jpg

man, i wish. he has a theater in Austin! that reminds me, i need to catch one of his films sometime. i do enjoy that he takes up the bulk of the google search results for my name so i can be even more anonymous than i already am.

i dont really have a question, only a suggestion 2 make something w/ this

http://www.zsassociates.com/~/media/Images/Banners/Home%20Heros/3d_banner.ashx

hahaha

ZS is a 3D seedling

So glad I don't have to try to figure out what I'm supposed to be until I die! Now I can just hang out

dear zs
don't ask me why but I thnk we would be pals irl

not a q.
m bison

http://i.imgur.com/v8xZX.jpg

m bison, i bet we would!

http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m1gzuayKlO1qbvr04o1_500.gif

seems like a chill wave

. . .

rad! i gotta figure out how to do that..

it all starts when a butterfly flaps its wings just once

hey zs i think its sort of unnecessary how all of ilx feels they must inform you of every other gif site but i really want to make sure you're aware of this gif site:

http://fluxmachine.tumblr.com/

http://i.imgur.com/Q5YKq.gif

http://i.imgur.com/AhO6C.gif

whoa, that second one is amazing!

Z S,

Is it bad and wrong to pronounce "gif" with a hard g? Do you have strong feelings on the matter?

Respectfully,
RVW

Z S has gone on th erecord regarding this!!

http://www.marketplace.org/2014/02/19/business/conference-calls-best-and-worst

The first CD I bought was the Village People's Greatest Hits

nice recovery

oops, just saw this!

i kind of tried to play up my preference for the hard G on that segment for entertainment value, but my true answer is that the only strong feeling i have is that i get a little annoyed with people who strong feelings on it! not world-ending annoyed or anything, but every once in a while you'll run into someone who is very passionate about it one way or the other and things get very awkward.

search is not letting me or i cant remember the rt keywords to bring up for your animate a photo thread...

lets say i need/want a gif of my face slowly morphing back and forth w a baby white tiger, i trust if i give u the two images this is w/in your purview? lmk :)

search is not letting me or i cant remember the rt keywords to bring up for your animate a photo thread...
"drunkenly animate" usually works, although i too have been having trouble with certain searches recently!

lets say i need/want a gif of my face slowly morphing back and forth w a baby white tiger, i trust if i give u the two images this is w/in your purview? lmk :)

yeah i could give it a shot! a lot of it depends on the source material and how similar they look. if things don't line-up very well sometimes it can be a hard to do and takes a lot of time to fix. but yeah, go ahead and post 'em! i'm headed out for an evening of fun and excitement but can look at it tonight or tomorrow morning.

word thx ! yea no rush, i will post.. they sorta match up which is why it'd even been suggested to me

http://i67.tinypic.com/16hm0ya.jpg

http://i68.tinypic.com/jgkxhf.jpg

super big sry

i am on it

things went a little haywire but
http://68.media.tumblr.com/27653951644281a328444ae44eb2b0f9/tumblr_odu9w9KhJ31qdmmiqo1_500.gif

http://67.media.tumblr.com/75718b7b42a95475a1944daacb4930c9/tumblr_odu9w9KhJ31qdmmiqo2_r1_500.gif

http://67.media.tumblr.com/82fb1a9cd85f6e2e24e183a018eeaaa7/tumblr_odu9w9KhJ31qdmmiqo3_r1_500.gif

agh, i'm sorry. i just read your original request and realized what i was supposed to do. sorry, trivia night beers, i have ruined everything! hold on a sec!

soberer version

http://i.imgur.com/DDjvPYt.gif

haha these are great, cheers

fantastic stuff!

can this type of animation skill be learned or is it rly rly difficult? if not too difficult can you recommend a website or some software to get me started?

Be great if there was some way of using animated gifs on your passport or driver's licence.

niels, i used the animation timeline feature of photoshop, exclusively, for make gifs for the first 6 years or so. mostly just using still images and playing around with them (like in the ones for j crunch above). over the last 2-3 years, though, i've been using more and more video clips, manipulating them in final cut pro and sometimes dumping them back into photoshop for finetuning. i don't think learning how to do it is really difficult, but it just takes tons of practice. i think most people could probably make much better gifs than i can if they put the same amount of hours into as i have. most people like to go outside and have friends and stuff, though, so that's usually a dealbreaker for practice time

i don't really have any good recommendations for tutorials, sorry! i'm mostly self-taught, to my detriment because there are a lot of extremely basic things you can do in photoshop that i'm completely clueless about. i also don't think too many gifmakers use photoshop as their primary software - even within the adobe suite, after effects is much more frequently used, i think.

the biggest breakthrough for me, early on, was learning how to manipulate the position and opacity of layers within the photoshop animation timeline, so that for each frame you can make adjustments to where each layer is and how transparent they are. knowing how to do that alone is like half the battle. i could have sworn a few years ago i posted a how to make an animated gif tutorial thread, but i can't manage to find it. regardless, i did a really bad job with it and made it too complicated, so it probably wouldn't be much use anyway!

Cool, thanks!

I never really advanced from MS Paint and always thought Photoshop looked really really difficult... but hey, if I can use it to make gifs like that... maybe I'll give it a go!

?

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cw7ky2EWgAAo6HG.jpg:large

you know sometimes i just can't TAKE donna's shit

she is a major league ass; good4u

Z S
Zi St
Zig Sta
Zigg Star
Ziggy Stard
Ziggy Stardu
Ziggy Stardus
Ziggy Stardust

i was always jealous of my partner's initials. they're pleasing. but Z S, and Ziggy Stardust? this is making me feel great! I thought 25 and ZS was decent, but having this Bowie connection is something else

plus, the song five years? and my lifelong obsession with remembering things in five year increments (weird story)? that can't be a coincidence.

Omg i knew Bowie wasn't dead and was KM all along

Chemtrails brought him back

not only that, but the cover is just a (misleading) still from a video, which has been newly uncovered:

https://i.imgur.com/SoDYFKn.gif