Brian Barber
Wired’s 15 Most Fascinating at SXSW – Duluthian Mike Scholtz
Mike Scholtz and Amy C. Elliott
Wired magazine posted “The 15 Most Fascinating Filmmakers and Stars at SXSW” and right up there with Tilda Swinton, Robert Rodriguez, and Jon Favreau is our very own Mike Scholtz and his partner on Wicker Kittens, Amy C. Elliott.
Wicker Kittens premiered at SXSW, and apparently got great response. Here’s the trailer.
Ice Dam Cam
The shovel cam has been repurposed into the ice dam cam. It’s not nearly as fun as the shovel cam, it’s frustratingly hard to use, depressing and doesn’t get much done.
PDD Shovel Cam
While Cory has been traveling to exotic locations and honing his skills with the PDD Drone, I’ve been perfecting the PDD Shovel Cam.
Chester Bowl on MPR’s “Minnesota Sounds and Voices”
Dan Olsen from MPR did a story on Chester Bowl that aired today. Fantastic photos by Derek Montgomery too.
Couple of “streaming” videos from the cold
This second video is much less lovely and mildly NSFW.
Connolly’s: Behind the Batter
For the past few years around this time, the discussion on PDD has turned to Tom & Jerrys – where to find the fixins, if there are acceptable alternatives to Connolly’s, and the ups and downs for Connolly’s.
The PDD film crew got sweet and sticky with Steve Knauss and John Kurth as they began production on this year’s batch of Connolly’s Tom & Jerry batter.
Stay warm, stay frothy.
Duluth Sister Cities – Ohara-Isumi City
The Duluth Sister Cities-Ohara Japan delegation for kids 12-15 is taking applications until Jan 3. The group will travel to Japan for 10 days in August 2014 and host a Japanese student in August 2015.
Employment at Chester Bowl
Snow making started a couple weeks ago at Chester Bowl. With this snowstorm and the stolen lift chair returned, the hill should be ready to go for the projected December 14 opening date.
Thom Storm, who has operated the ski program at Chester since the 70s, is planning to retire at the end of the 2015 ski season. Clearly, those are going to be some big shoes to fill, and the Chester Bowl Improvement Club is looking to hire someone to begin working with Thom this year.
Also hiring:
ski instructors and snowboard instructors.
Check the links for more info.
Snowmaking photo by Jeremy Kershaw.
Happy Holidays from Rubber Chicken and Perfect Duluth Day
Here’s a little ditty from this year’s Rubber Chicken Theater holiday comedy revue — How the Grinch Shut Down Christmas, or, I Saw Rudolph Twerking Santa Claus — featuring Greg J. Anderson, Sharon Dixon Obst and Anders Hultstrom.
Thanks to Dean Vogtman at Happy Tree Productions for the use of his studio, and the fine folks at Beaner’s Central who had to shimmy around our cameras to get across the room.
All outdoor scenes were actually shot outdoors.
PDD Gift Guide 2013
Get your commerce on. Here is PDD’s annual reminder that the real purpose of Christmas is to obtain material things … as long as they are locally made.
This being the fifth year of the PDD Gift Guide, most of you know the drill by now, but for uninitiated newbies the concept is simple: The folks behind the curtain at PDD select 15 locally-based holiday gift ideas. The community at large is free to add other suggestions and links in the comment section below, with some effort to not be too redundant and repeat items from the Gift Guides of Christmases Past. (more…)
Superior Skydivers Crash footage
Hey, I can see my house from here.
Halloween Banners 2013
It’s the annual call for Halloween banners on PDD.
(more…)
Post-PDDX Banners
Back in April we announced that we’d be retiring all of the old banners. Well, the day has come, happy birthday to us, and sayonara to the old banners. Welcome the new, fresh banners. The old banners have been archived on Google Plus. (more…)
Is it over yet?
Photo taken June 3, 2013. According to Thom Storm, this is the latest date snow has stayed on the Chester Bowl ski hill by about a month.
Homegrown Video Fest 2013
Zombies! Fast Cars! Cowboys! Cheese sauce!
We will be archiving the 2013 Homegrown Music Video Fest videos on this page as they continue to get sent to us. It was another standing room only premiere this year at the Zinema. There will be encore screenings Wednesday at Zinema, and Sunday at Sara’s Table / Chester Creek Cafe.
PDD Banners
On June 29 PDD will be awarding $100 to the person who submits the best new banner. Everyone who has submitted one since Jan. 1 will be eligible. Pre-2013 banners will be pulled from rotation on June 29, but will be kept in archival storage and maintained by nice librarians with white cotton gloves at Google Plus. Banners from 2005-2009 can be found here.
We’re also looking for new Homegrown banners. Those submissions will be eligible for the same $100 prize. For full details on banner submissions, click here. The basic info is the image must be 960 pixels wide by 167 pixels high. The Perfect Duluth Day logo will be added by PDD’s art department. Send them to banners @ perfectduluthday.com
Snow coming
We have been warned. Frankie the DIY Weatherman is watching this storm from Nova Scotia.
An official Magic Smelt transmission
Last week, Neptune was spotted by a PDD contributor making various proclomations. If you were wondering what was up, it’s this video. The Magic Smelt Puppet Troupe has launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise money to put on free workshops for people to build puppets, masks and costumes for the Smelt Parade on April 21st.
Chester Bowl opening Dec. 20, 4:30 p.m.
Originally scheduled to open this Saturday, Dec. 15, the ski hill will now open Dec. 20 at 4:30 p.m.. The snow makers lost eight days due to the warm weather the last couple weeks.
PDD Gift Guide 2012
For the past few years, the gang at Perfect Duluth Day has pointed out gift options produced by the locals — from durable goods made by the region’s top manufacturers to cute little bags of cookies from the corner bakery. We feature 15 lovely items and encourage the PDD community to add to the ideas in the comments. (more…)
Halloween banners
Got any good Halloween photos? It’s the annual call for Halloween banners on PDD. Remember, not every photo makes a good PDD banner.
Some basic rules:
The image must be 960 pixels wide by 167 pixels high. The Perfect Duluth Day logo will be added by PDD’s art department.
The lower portion of banner photos serve as background to the navigation bar, so crop your image with that in mind. Make sure essential elements are not in the area that will be obscured. Don’t stretch the photo to make it fit the ridiculously horizontal proportions. That always looks poopy, and will probably disqualify the photo from bannerdom.
If all of this is too much to wrap your head around, or you don’t have the right image editing software, e-mail the uncropped photo, and we’ll do our best to crop it so it looks good.
Send them to banners@perfectduluthday.com.
PDD on your TV
You might start seeing two ads for the Perfect Duluth Day Calendar on the teevee. Thanks to the people and businesses around town that helped us out. (more…)
Trampled by Turtles and Adult Swim – “Walt Whitman”
The first Duluth band to be cartooned?
Rocket, man.
So if anyone in the Chester Creek Cafe neighborhood finds a model rocket in their tree / backyard / roof, I know who it belongs to. Orange parachute, dark rocket with Ryan T written on it. Launched from the baseball fields, ended up somewhere S SW of there tonight. Thanks.
R.I.P. Tom Davis
Tom Davis, one of the first writers on Saturday Night Live, died of cancer today. He was 59.
During the 1980s he appeared with his comedy partner Al Franken in three television commercials promoting Duluth.
(more…)