Writin up a storm

theroboticdan — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 20:17:13 +0000

I’ve been reviewing video games and writing various articles in my spare time at ABC!

11 Things You Didn’t Know About 11/11/11

I’ve got tons left to do, expect breakdowns for Sonic: Generations, Mario Kart 7, Zumba Fitness 2, Dance Central 2, Twister Mania and some others coming soon.

A Nice Day for a… Reddit Wedding

theroboticdan — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 08:05:07 +0000

I’ve been a bit distracted with my own wedding last month, but I’m back on the scene with a big new story, filled with internet ridiculousness. This weekend, my cousin was married in Michigan and the photo above was taken by a friend of mine. I seeded it to Reddit and scored the number 1 slot on their site for somewhere around 7 hours, tallying up over a million photo views on imgur so far, when combined with an album of the events. ABC News, The Daily Mail, MSN, Inside Edition, The Daily What and Buzzfeed made features of the story, a solid first day back from honeymoon if I say so myself!

Dan Milano is Hired!

theroboticdan — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 11:07:28 +0000

5 months of sweet, sweet premarital unemployment have passed and while I had the opportunity to pair with many-a-company, ABC News was the group to snatch me up. I am employed, spread the news that I soon will be spreading the… news! Position begins October 10th.

Hey New Yorkers! I’ve moved away from Los Angeles to seek employment betwixt your fabled concrete walls. Check out my resume here and add me to your team if you’re looking for someone experienced to speak for your company through social media!

Google+ vs Google-

theroboticdan — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 18:40:25 +0000

With all that “moving to another side of the country” business out of the way, I released a few new shorts into the world. The first is pretty goofy, featuring toasting a marshmallow with a powerdrill. The second is a parody of Google+ which has gained some traction, including a WIRED feature today! Make sure to watch the original Google+ intro video here, then move forward and check out our take on it.

Casting Obama Impersonator Reggie Brown

theroboticdan — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 20:24:01 +0000

A few weeks ago, Obama Impersonator Reggie Brown attainted international noteriety as the world’s top Obama impersonator following a performance at the RLC GOP conference. I helped bring him to Tongal.com for this commercial, produced by Binaca and Team Tiger Awesome. Now playing on Wooden Nickel Shorts. *Dies of link over exposure*

“Oscar Buzzed” is back!

theroboticdan — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 19:47:39 +0000

2011 means new Oscar rants. We brought back our pal Jeremy Hibnick from last year’s Oscar Buzzed, a dead ringer for the Oscar Statue when painted gold, got him drunk and he started to produce more gold than he had painted onto his pecs.

Another Social Network – Ping Parody Thoughts

theroboticdan — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 22:57:29 +0000

Apple released a social network on iTunes last week, called Ping, only available after an iTunes 10 update. Finally, I had a big iTunes event for which to channel my frustration with the application.

With David Fincher’s “generation defining” Facebook movie still a month away, I was hoping for this Social Network parody to be received as a relevant continuation of the meme BWE started, instead of as another hacky take on the film’s trailer. I was lucky enough to get the former reaction.

While I worried about tone and screen capturing, maybe I should have worried about fanboys. Right after I released the video, it was picked up by Tech Crunch then 9 to 5 Mac, which sent a slew of iTune Defenders my way. My biggest misstep? iTunes does not require a restart to update. But riddle me this Macmen, every time I have ever been prompted to update iTunes, a security update was waiting in the wings. When update asks you to restart, it doesn’t specify which program is making you restart.

To see what the process was like without the restart, I updated to iTunes 10 on my work computer. Needless to say, it was just as bad, if not worse. I had to deselect the security update on deck, press update, then ran into this error.

I wasn’t about to contact the software manufacturer, so I ran it again and it worked fine. Besides that, there was the issue of the long wait time for the thing to update to search/find/download/install. If I included that in the video, it would be a great deal longer than it is right now. If Facebook required all this of you with each incarnation, we would all revolt. If they required you to do it on each individual computer you use, we’d all be on MySpace right now.

Another criticism was about password entry. I have a big problem with it indeed. Each and every time iTunes asks for my password, I enter what I am 99% sure it is and it denies me access. I’ll try every variation and eventually give up. Then I’ll click cancel, and it’ll sign me in. I have no idea what my password is anymore and the only way to retrieve is to call AOL over the phone. Then I’ll go to AOL.com and sign in fine with the same password. Somewhere there is a disconnect. Forget Apple ID, forget AOL, give me an iTunes login and password.

In the end, I wanted to show four things and I think I succeeded in doing so. One was to give a just-born social network The Social Network treatment, to pull comedy out of something brand new. Another was to express that I don’t want to have to go through the long process of manually upgrading my social network once a month. I hate the log-in system and want to use Facebook connect, Gmail, ANYTHING but apple ID and AOL. And the artist suggestions were hilariously wrong for my music tastes.

Oh and if Apple is reading, if you’re going to integrate chatter about Concert tickets into this system, please please consider selling tickets through iTunes. I would love for you guys to take a bite out of Ticketmaster’s stranglehold on music and knock those ticket prices down to a reasonable cost.

This Actually Happens in Twilight: Breaking Dawn

theroboticdan — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 01:22:28 +0000

It’s true. It’s all true. I read all of the book… up until the werewolf falling in love with a baby. Since that night, this and for the past two months, this was my labor of hate. Luckily, its a shared hatred and the awesome folks at The Daily What as well as Jezebel picked it up. Special thanks to Melissa Carubia for providing me with an epic fantasy track and Devin Faraci for the inspiration.

Update: More features! Check us out on EW PopWatch, Perez Hilton, Gamma Squad and Daily Motion! Word is we can expect a few more as well over the next week! Full credits on YouTube.

Harvey Legman’s Used Windowless Vans

theroboticdan — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 22:42:55 +0000

When C.C. pitched the idea of his Harvey Legman character to Hot Biscuit, he was thinking about making it an audio-only commercial, about 30 seconds in length. I refused, the concept deserved so much better and could offer so much visually. We were under a time crunch to get it together for our one year anniversary show at the Jon Lovitz Comedy Club, so I made C.C. a deal… if he could procure a creepy white van, I would shoot the video and have it edited within 24 hours.

C.C. came through with the best windowless van $25 can rent and I cooked up with several more gags while shooting. His timing was off-the-charts good (not a bad take in the mix) and it really shows in the end result. The crowd at the Lovitz theater (and Lovitz himself I think) really enjoyed it and we got a nice little write up on Atom.com. We’ll check back in if we get any more features (I’m looking at you, College Humor and Funny or Die).

LINK… IS AN ASSHOLE

theroboticdan — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 04:14:58 +0000

So we shot this one in April 2009 based on some of my standup from Jan 2009.

Then I got hung up on the rupee graphics and stored it away for later. What happened after that? College Humor AND Smosh tackled similar subjects. How could they not, it’s a pretty obvious Zelda gag.

Whatever, I like mine better!

Never Been Spliced

theroboticdan — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 18:13:31 +0000

Couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d seen the monster in Splice before. Thus:

Gross Girlfriend

theroboticdan — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 22:29:15 +0000

Based on a partially true story. This is as gross as we get, promise.

Get Betty White to Host an Alien Parasite!

theroboticdan — Thu, 13 May 2010 20:04:27 +0000

Started a Facebook Group based on a quick pun. Then it kinda took off.

As featured on The Daily What

MacGruubs Got Moves!

theroboticdan — Sat, 08 May 2010 01:56:42 +0000

I wrote, shot and edited this in under 48 hours for a MacGruber video contest and am quite happy with the final product. Making a bomb was hard, especially without hot glue. (Note to self: get hot glue). If you want to help me win some money, just click this link http://bit.ly/MacGruberShort and watch it once more. Views = $$$. Thanks!

Mustache Gun!

theroboticdan — Sun, 02 May 2010 22:15:25 +0000

I can’t believe I haven’t written about Mustache Gun yet. This one has been doing pretty well, we’ve scored top 10 in the Atom Comedy Tournament for two weeks in a row with it, and saw some features on Weebls-Stuff and the Funny or Die Weekly Poll. Sadly, I learned of the poll mere hours after it closed and didn’t get to throw any votes at it.

REMIX: Obama Reads “Green Eggs and Ham”

theroboticdan — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 00:48:41 +0000

I get a lot of ideas for techno remixes and this is the first one I’ve ever actually gone ahead and created. I mean, Obama’s Easter reading of “Green Eggs and Ham” begged for it. I want to get more efficient with beat-creation-software so I can create even more complicated pieces but I threw this together in one night to beat any other potential remixes to the punch.

Revenge of the Peeps

theroboticdan — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 08:50:27 +0000

Last year, the peeps gained some steam and popularity around the net. This year we saw a return with some cool features on Roger Ebert’s twitter, Mental Floss, Serious Eats and for some hilarious reason… Man Hunt Daily.

Razor Scooter Directions on Google Maps

theroboticdan — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 07:21:55 +0000

I had this idea the day that Google Maps for Bikes came out. And then I lost my camera charger. Once a new one came (with a little help from eBay and China) I ran over to Google headquarters and filmed away!

The Coffee Finisher

theroboticdan — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 00:40:23 +0000

My roommate Brian came up with this concept and I plussed it with several of the gags in here. He did all the editing, v/o, shooting. I do make an appearance about half way through!

Abortion Chop

theroboticdan — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 00:08:20 +0000

Just chop once, and abort. Wrote this one. You’re gonna love it!