Before I begin, let me just tell you that it was quite a pain getting these pictures for you — I had to rent The Dark Knight on my Netflix (even though I’ve already seen it a few times), I had to get it loaded up on my laptop (apparently the DVD drive in my Mac is dying and/or already dead), I had to find a screen capture program that could capture these pics (surprisingly hard — no one wants you capturing images from movies, apparently), and I had to upload these things and put them all in the right format and places.

But it will be all worth it when I tell you why: I was in the greatest Batman movie ever made. Maybe.

I don’t mean that it might be the greatest Batman movie ever made — though Batman Returns will always be my favorite Batman movie, and though the 1966 version will always have a place in my heart, The Dark Knight is definitely the greatest Batman movie ever made so far. But “maybe,” because I worked, for one day, as an extra on The Dark Knight when they were filming here in Chicago. And when I went to see it for the first time, I hoped that I was in there. I hoped they hadn’t left me on the cutting floor.

I went to work as an extra for a charity here in Chicago — we volunteers would work as extras, and then instead of paying us the extra money ($100 a day, I believe), they’d give it to the charity. Good for them, and fun for me. So on a day two Augusts ago — I think that’s when it was; I know it was summer — I dressed up in my finest winter clothes and went downtown.

They were filming the police funeral scene (no major spoilers but I hope you have seen the movie already). We weren’t on camera for the actual funeral attack part (the Joker and his guys break things up), but we were hanging out waiting for our shot way, way past camera. Here’s the beginning of the scene I was in.

Note that when I write “me” on that picture with my little pretend telestrator, I don’t mean that I’m one of the cops — I believe those guys were real off-duty Chicago police. No, I mean I was way, way in back — back near the end of the block, standing in the middle of summer in our winter coats for about three hours waiting for our shot. We were nowhere near the cameras, but we could see all the to-doing, all of the cops, all of the podium activity (I could barely make out Nestor Carbonell, who most will know as Richard Alpert but whom I remember fondly as Batmanuel). Someone said they saw Gary Oldman, and I was excited, because he’s one of my favorite actors, but I never did see him.

Eventually they called us off to our shot. We were “background,” which meant that Christian Bale, as Batman, though not in costume, would ride through an alley across the street from us on his motorcycle. We’d be normal pedestrians, crossing back and forth way out of focus in the background. I wasn’t sure why they wouldn’t just use actual pedestrians, but then I realized that real pedestrians would probably stop and stare at a flashy red motorcycle driving through an alley. I thought for a moment about being a method actor and doing exactly that, but decided it would rock the boat — they told me to walk back and forth and so I did.

Here’s Christian Bale riding the motorcycle in the movie (or at least someone who looks like him — I never actually saw him, though I did see the bike pull in).

You can see us moving around in the back there — we’re all actors, including the cop. You can’t actually see me in that shot, but I thought, upon first viewing of the movie, that I could see myself in the film.

I had my black coat on and my gray driving cap, and was carrying a black briefcase. A few seconds later, just as Bale heads into the building, I thought, for just a moment, that I was the one stepping out into view behind him.

I thought that was me back behind him. You can tell that the person has a lighter part on top of their head, and I thought that was my cap. You can also see that they’re carrying something black, and I thought that was my briefcase.

I was very excited about this the first time I saw it, and I left the theater telling everyone that even though it was blurry, in the background, and only for half a second, that I actually appeared in The Dark Knight.

And I’d still like to believe that’s true. But it’s not.

While getting these pictures for you, I paused the movie right there, and slowed it down to see who exactly that was stepping across at that exact moment.

And it wasn’t me.

It’s a lady, actually. She’s wearing a red coat, and I remember her at the shoot. I don’t remember if she was a volunteer with us or not, but I hope that she cared enough to do exactly this and squealed with delight when she paused the film, stepped forward frame by frame, and finally found herself, starring as an uncredited blur in the background, on screen with Batman.

I think I’ll probably tell people that I was in the movie anyway. They shot a lot around Chicago. I was probably in there somewhere.

Yeah, as announced on Monday’s show, I’m moving the Talkshoe recording of this evening’s show back to midnight on the East Coast, because that seems like a better time for listeners than right in the middle of prime time. So if you’re up and around this evening around 11 central, tune in over at the Talkshoe page and we’ll have a good time. Originally, my plan on Wednesdays was to open up the floodgates and just talk about whatever the callers wanted to talk about, but given that we’re short on callers so far, I do have some good topics to discuss this evening.

Also, work continues over at the Wiki — if you’re bored at work today and want to write up a crazy entry about the modern life of the wildebeast or the top ten reasons you use Twitter (as per Monday’s show), feel free. Anything that gets posted over there could get mentioned on the podcast as well, of course.

Should be fun. Like I said, the show is notoriously short on live listeners (though I definitely appreciate everyone who’s tuned in so far), but people are definitely listening on the downloads, according to the Talkshoe stats. Maybe next week I’ll try to do a non-live show and see how that works. Anything is possible!

Against my better judgement, I’m jumping on the merry-go-round again — I’ll be doing another episode of the Shoe tonight at 7 my time. The first episode, from last night, is also up on that page if you want to listen, though I warn you that it’s rough. Really rough. You probably just want to wait until this evening and hear the show live (and maybe you can come on and chat as well).

The wiki is also taking shape, so feel free to check out the changes over there also. There’s a page I made for episode 1 with all the links I talked about on it, so even if you don’t listen to the actual audio (and like I said, it’s rough), at least you can take a look at some of the interesting stuff I found from around the ‘net.

Tonight should go better — I’m streamlining the tech a bit, so I don’t expect any issues. And I’m also actually putting in less prep time, so hopefully it will be more off the cuff and more fun. If you want to join in, please do — I’ll see you over on Talkshoe around 7 central, 8 eastern.

Oh boy. So I have discovered over the past year or so that I really, really like podcasting. I originally went to school to do radio broadcasting, and while the radio industry itself is dying, podcasting is its new form. A lot of podcasts have captured my attention, and done a lot of interesting things — and then died out. I used to listen to Penn Jillette’s show via podcast, and loved it.. and then he stopped doing it. I really enjoyed Steve Dahl’s podcast from here in Chicago… and then they took him off the air.

Combine all of that with a recent nagging feeling of creativity, along with a little extra time lately, and you’ve got the reasons why I’ve decided to do this. I’m making a new podcast: it’s called the Mike Schramm ‘Shoe (for reasons that will become apparent shortly), and it’s going to be quite an experiment.

The podcast itself is over on a site called Talkshoe, which we’ve been using for the TUAW Talkcast, and is cool because it’s basically a conference call with recording and chat capabilities built-in. If you have a mic hooked up to your computer, you can chat right along with us without any additional software, and even if you’re not on a computer or near the Internet at all, you can call (724) 444-7444, punch in our call id (which is 40600), and listen to the show and talk with us live. That’s why the show is called “Shoe” — not only because it sounds like show, and not only because it’ll be my “shoe” to throw at whatever I want, but because it’s going to take full advantage of the Talkshoe service.

It’s called the “Mike Schramm” ‘Shoe, because it’ll be run by me, and we’ll talk about whatever I want to talk about (except on Wacky Wednesdays, when you guys will set the topics, but we’ll talk about that on Wednesday). So it’s a talk show, more or less, but it’s an interactive talk show — I will have anyone and everyone on with me who wants to come on. And to make sure things stay civil and/or entertaining, we’re going to make it a little game — I’ll be giving out points (or taking away points) for people who add to the show. More on that in the actual show itself — we’re going to write the rules of the game as the show goes along, and it’ll be a lot of fun.

As for what we’re actually going to talk about, it’ll be whatever interests me for the week. It won’t be ordinary — lots of talk shows and podcasts cover the same issues every week from their own angle, and my goal with this is really to try and drop off the beaten path into some interesting stuff, whether it be cultural touchstones like what the smoke monster really is, interesting history (like where the Iron Sheik used to keep his gig), or tech weirdness like the Unix 1234567890 Day. It’ll probably be nerdy, since I’m nerdy, but it’ll also be technology, entertainment, and/or news-based. It won’t be full of politics, but where politics cross over into our daily lives, the show will be there.

Oh, and finally, given that we’re going to be passing out points and talking about all kinds of issues in an entertaining fashion, we’ll need somewhere to keep track of everything. There’s already a “Shoe” wiki — you can head over there right now and post anything you want on it. I’ll be staying mostly hands off of the wiki — I really want to see what comes out of there as a community. I’m responsible for the show itself, and listeners are responsible for the wiki. For better or worse — probably worse.

If you want to contact the show, there’s also an email address: you can send feedback, comments, questions, or whatever you want to mikeschrammshoe@gmail.com.

The first show is this evening, Sunday, February the 22nd, 2009 — we’ll start at 8pm Eastern over on Talkshoe. You can listen live, or just wait (eventually, we’ll have the show set up with an RSS feed in iTunes as is usual with podcasts these days). At this point, I’m planning to do the show three times a week — on Sunday, Monday, and Wednesday, about 30 minutes to an hour each show. That will likely change, depending on my own schedule and what people think of what we do.

And finally, this is currently an experiment. As I’ll explain in the show, I’m only committed to doing 12 episodes of this so far. If, at the end of twelve episodes, I think it’s worth continuing (for me, for listeners, or whatever), then we’ll continue it. I have no idea what will happen or what will come of this — like I said, it comes out of seeing great shows falling off the map, my own personal creative drive, and a general need to try and raise some hell about who knows what.

Should be fun. If you are around this evening, join up in the channel and we’ll see what happens.

Yes, I have no idea how, but apparently I won the Moustache-o-thon’s Organic Grower award for having the best ’stache in the place. I think it was mostly a “pulling off the most with the least” kind of thing, but they gave me the sash anyway, so I took it.

So now it’s your turn — please, please, please reach deep in your wallet and pull out whatever you can to donate to 826 CHI for my moustache. Like I say in the video, I know times are tough, but with a little ingenuity and/or dishonesty, we can all come up with a few bucks. The kids at 826 really deserve it.

And thanks — I’m not going to lie: there were some rough times with this moustache. It was itchy, at points it looked bad (random people I talked to would slowly smile for no reason as we progressed through the conversation), and there were a few times where I threatened to get rid of it right away. But it all paid off, and now I can tell my grandkids (and their potential grandmothers that I happen to meet at the bar) that I once won a contest for growing a moustache.

Above is the new Simpsons intro, to go along with the show’s premiere in HD this evening (which I can’t wait to see). The intro is obviously famous for its constantly updated gags (the couch gag and the chalkboard gag are tracked by Simpsons fans), but it’s become quite the standby of the modern age — Homer getting that piece of nuclear material stuck on his back, Lisa getting dismissed from music class, Maggie getting run through the barcode scanner and pretending to drive with Marge, and the big finale of the family all coming home together and the car chasing Homer through the garage, all set to the rollicking Danny Elfman-composed theme. In fact, it’s spawned quite a few versions, and all of them are pretty interesting in what they add to the original idea.

The Simpsons, Star Wars style
Live action Simpsons (this was an official intro, actually, done for one of the show’s season premieres, I believe)
The Simpsons intro in 3D (looks like a student work)
The Simpsons intro in Line Rider (only partially done, unfortunately)
The Simpsons intro, South Park style (obviously fanmade, but again, it combines all of the important parts)
The Simpsons intro in Lego
The Simpsons intro real-life (made by a bunch of students for a high school channel)
The Ridgeways (made for a family slideshow)

It’s interesting that the minute or so of animation can be so iconic, and that the jokes, even the ones that don’t change (every time, you wonder if the baby really is driving the car), can hold up so well and be so universal that they’re so skillfully and adeptly parodied even by amateurs (talented amateurs, sure, but amateurs nevertheless). Not to mention that the intro itself is really well done — in sixty seconds, we get a clear picture of all of the show’s major characters: Homer is a blue-collar worker who fails at his job, Bart is a troublemaker with street smarts, Lisa is too smart for her own good, Marge is a prototypical errand-running mother, and Maggie (the .5 of the average 2.5 children) can survive anything this family can throw at her.

The more official versions of the intro they make, the more characters are added to it (the HD version, above, has throwbacks to even small jokes in the show, including Mr. Sparkle and Tomacco in the checkout line, and Bart’s first girlfriend). But the central shots and beats remain the same, and as a result, we’ve got a touchstone of the culture.

Hey there folks. So the moustache is going well so far — it’s a little itchy, but I’m pushing past all that for you, so that you can donate money to the cause. Donations have come to a standstill, unfortunately — we’ve leveled off right around $200, and no one else seems to be giving. But I’ve got just the thing for that: I’m going to rock.

So I’m playing Rock Band 2 the other day, as I often do, and I finally earned enough stars in the World Tour to open up something called The Endless Setlist 2 (so called because the first game also had an Endless Setlist). It’s where you play every single song in the game, back to back, all in one sitting. I have to say, I’m pretty darn good at Rock Band guitar (not so good at Rock Band drums, and don’t ever ask me to do vocals), and I think I could pull it off. So I twittered asking if I should do it and stream it live for charity, and the overwhelming answer was: yes.

So I will — on one condition. I’m asking you, dear readers, to raise $200 in the next few days. If I can get $200 donated into my account by Saturday evening, then this Sunday, February 15th, I will do the Endless Setlist 2. And I will stream it live over Ustream (and record it), so you at home can watch and chat with me the whole time.

$200 is nothing for that kind of entertainment. If everyone who reads this (and I know there are plenty of you — that shaving video got a sizeable amount of hits) gives $5, then only 40 people have to pay in. If everyone gives $10, then we only need 20 people. If everyone who looks at this gives the suggested donation of $20, then only 10 (ten!) people need to shell out in order for you to watch me rock Rock Band 2 live on Sunday.

ONLY YOU CAN BRING THE ROCK! Is what I am saying in that picture.

My moustache is super metal, so this will work out great. I will be attempting to play every song on Expert — I have never played for six hours straight (which is about how long it will take me to go through the 84 songs on the disc all in one sitting), but I am sure I can do it, especially if I am funded with your donations.

“But Mike,” you say, “what if we don’t get the $200 together in time?” Well unfortunately I likely won’t be streaming my attempt, but it’s not a total loss — you’re all still entered into the contest, which by then will be up to the $400 mark and have some very lovely prizes. And, oh yeah, you’ll be helping the kids at 826 CHI, which is probably better than me playing videogames or you winning an inflatable Frostmourne anyway.

But $200 is nothing when you put the power of the crowd to work — I have no doubt we’ll reach the goal fast and that you’ll be watching me rip it on that plastic guitar come Sunday. Please give now — I’ll update the blog here on Saturday with the plan if we make it. It should be rockin’! Throw up the horns!

Update: We did not, in point of fact, make it. Unfortunate. Have a good Sunday — I may do this anyway at some point, but not tomorrow.

Sorry I haven’t been able to take better pictures of the ’stache — this is me at the check-in the other night, and you can definitely see how my little chin-strap dealy is supporting everything. Things are definitely heating up: I can tell that random people on the street are starting to stare at me, and random people I talk to keep trying to hide their smiles when they see my face. But it’s all worth it for you, dear readers, as long as you’re willing to support the children who learn and play at 826 CHI.

This be the link you need to press to donate, and please give as much (or as little) as you can. We’re up past the $200 total (thanks to everyone who’s donated so far!), so there’s both a conversation with me and an original drawing by me in the prize pot that everyone who donates will be entered into. Of course, more money donated means more prizes — there’s some Blizzard stuff on the line and a dinner with me if the total gets big enough.

Please give — there’s only a little while left in the fundraising event, so don’t wait.

And I should mention that my moustache now has a life (and a Twitter account) of its own. If you’re on Twitter, you can follow mikesmoustache to get all of the up-to-date information about what my facial hair is up to at any given time. Seriously, I’m not in control of that account at all. I have no idea what’ll be posted there — it’s all up to my ’stache.

Thanks for reading, and thanks most of all for giving — the kids at 826 CHI (who I was just hanging out with earlier this morning — they say hi and that you look nice today) really appreciate it.