This feature highlights some of the more famous personalities here at MGoBlogand beyond. Without pulling back the infamous veil of blog anonymity, we’ll get to know some of your favorite posters better and possibly shed some light on their definition of why it’s so darn Great, To Be, A Michigan Wolverine.

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(Scroll down to the MGoProfile section of the User-Curated HOF).

 

SIX QUESTIONS WITH CHUNKUMS

 

If for some reason you don’t know him (and really, you should), you certainly know him by his work. If there’s any animated gif you loved, or that has become legendary on MGoBlog, there’s a really good chance Chunkums did it. (And it’s a perfect way to pay tribute for you to post your fav in the comments below…and Chunkums was nice enough to even give you a link without me prompting him so you can find them easily: http://s1190.photobucket.com/user/chunkums/library/?sort=3&page=1).  In fact, no less than your humble correspondent owes his “face” to Chunkums, because my avatar was his design too.  Almost a throwaway.  But his throwaways are better than a lot of people’s greatness.  I actually had to double check to make sure this profile hadn’t already been done; it surprised me that he had slipped by. But no more – for your pleasure, I present Chunkums:

 

 

1.       Let's not ignore the pooping Hoke in the room.....where do you come up with these ideas for the gifs, both regular and animated? Does inspiration just strike you, or is it something you work on?

The gifs really started with the Carlos Brown Pokemon one. I was watching the 2009 Illinois game at a sports bar, and after they sent out Carlos I was just kind of scratching my head. The first time they bashed him into the line I thought, well that wasn’t very effective. Then they did it again and surprise, it wasn’t effective again…and then again.  At that point, I joked about it with my family, and the Pokemon thing just popped into my head. When this happened, I had GIMP but wasn’t really sure how to make a gif, so I spent a really long time figuring it out. Regarding the inspiration for other ones, I guess I just have a weird mind. Maybe the teacher in me sees the symbolism or something. I’m not really sure about that. I do know that I get much more inspired to gif away when I have papers to grade. I call it productive procrastination.

Some of them come up at an astounding rate after the meme starts (though sometimes with improvements as time goes on); are you really computer savvy in real life, or are these things really simple to do and the rest of us are stupid and uncreative?

I’m pretty computer savvy, and spend a good amount of my free time online. With that said, I am no programmer or anything like that. When I first started making gifs they took hours to complete because I didn’t really know the process. Like I said, that Pokemon gif took a good deal of time, but I could probably make something like that in about 10-15 minutes now. A great deal of that has been my comfort with GIMP, and some of it has been the technology that’s come out as well. The video game ones are easy because of the low frame rate that’s required to make them. Ones that are based on actual video, however, are still a bit of a doozy. First, there’s the screen capture portion that has to take place, where I convert the video into a gif. I used to do that with GOMplayer, but have recently discovered gifcam. And of course, when someone like Ace makes the gifs, that takes a step out. After capturing the gifs comes the part where I edit the individual frames. I’ve gotten much better at doing this over the years, but editing a complex gif is time consuming. I guess what I’m saying is that LSUfreak puts in a LOT of time on his artwork. Some of his stuff must involve editing hundreds of frames.

So we’re too lazy AND stupid. Got it. Do you have a favorite of all your creations, or are they like your babies, and you love them all? (Even a couple that stand out).

A favorite? Oh man, I don’t know about that. I really like them when I make them, but looking back at the old ones, some of them are just… bad. The Final Fantasy one, which was probably my most well-known gif, was just poorly edited in retrospect. To add to that, some of the most time consuming ones either didn’t turn out well or just didn’t get received well.  For example, I spent a lot of time on Hoke drinking Dantonio’s milkshake, but that one just got buried. The Incredible Hokewas similar in that regard. Here are some of my other children who got buried: Here  Here  Here

2.       So...."Chunkums"....what is that all about? Is there some inside reference no one would get, or is it secretly your masterpiece?

Chunkumsis just kind of a dumb little thing I thought up when I was playing Perfect Dark with my friends in my freshman year of high school. I’m not particularly attached to it, and was actually going to change it. Once the gifs started getting popular, I just figured it would be weird to change at that point.

3.       True, then you end up with some guy with an Asian symbol getting credit for all of the MGoVideos (RIP). You seem to have a pretty hard-line stance against endless complaining about all things Michigan. Without starting a huge battle on such a joyous occasion, what's your view on the state of Michigan Athletics right now?

I guess I just don’t get caught up in all of what I think as the minutiae of Michigan football culture. For instance, I just do not care about uniformz at all. I think if the boys walked out in pink tank tops with gumballs for shoulder pads and long grass for pants, I would still see it as Michigan football, and would still enjoy the game. At the end of the day, I like the sports, and I hope the kids enjoy playing the sports. All the things like piped in music, uniformz, etc don’t bother me. Frankly, if they get the students and/or the athletes more involved and excited, I’m all for them. After all, college is for them in my opinion. Regarding the state of Michigan athletics, I’m pretty happy right now. Michigan seems to have a great football coach with strong values, and a basketball coach who has similarly great values, and who just led the team to the national championship. I hope all the other sports excel, and I support their continued existence, but I would be lying if I said I knew anything about them. Regarding Brandon, I think he’s been a revelation. He hired Hoke, has supported Belein, and seems to want Michigan to do great things. I don’t really see an issue with his desire to accrue money for the department. Then again, I don’t see alternate uniforms as a bastardization of what Michigan stands for. My degree still says Michigan on it.

4.       I tend to agree, but if they come out this fall in pink tank tops with gumballs for shoulderpads, we’re both in trouble. So you recently finished a stint as a Marine. I always like to give some credit to our men (and women) in service, so what exactly did you do there?

I went to boot camp the day after I graduated high school, and got back three days before classes started at Michigan. After that, I served my time in the reserves, somehow never deploying during college. In 2009, however, I did get called up, serving a tour in Iraq as a squad leader in a combat engineer platoon. We mostly did construction, but did quite a bit of reconnaissance as well, measuring roadways and bridges. We went on many, many convoys, cruising around a decent chunk of Iraq, so the IED threat was always there. Fortunately, by the time I got to Iraq most of the violence (aimed at us at least) had slowed down significantly.

Sounds scary enough. Thanks for your service. What do you do for a living now?

Right now I teach high school, and I love it. I haven’t been on MgoBlog as much in the last year because I was bumped up to full time, and because I’ve been very involved with coaching, among other things. With that said, as I mentioned earlier, a decent amount of my gifs come into creation when I am swamped with essays. It’s a nice little form of procrastination. For the sake of my anonymity, I’ll leave it at that though. I’m sure I have students who read this blog.

What do you like to do for fun?

I’m a very big fitness nut, and I would say that’s probably my primary source of entertainment. I’m very into Crossfit, and while it’s torturous at first, I’ve really gotten hooked. I just ran the Tough Mudder a couple weeks ago, and enjoyed that quite a bit. Aside from fitness, I’ve been known to occasionally play my Xbox360, and I consider myself a bit of a beer connoisseur. Honestly though, during the school year finding time for outside entertainment is a rare thing.

5.       Describe the perfect meal.

To me, the perfect meal is medium rare prime rib with garlic mashed potatoes, and a Founders Backwoods Bastard to drink. It doesn’t get too much better than that. Do I get an appetizer too? If so, some sort of loaded potato thing with copious amounts of cheese and bacon.

6.       Mmmmm, that sounds pretty good to me. Can you explain why you are a Michigan fan?

I grew up a Michigan fan because my dad went there for law school, but I was never really much of a football fan until I was actually at the school. I was doing what a lot of freshmen do, and mostly going home on weekends at the start of the semester; but that changed with the 2004 MSU game. That game essentially transformed me into a rabid football fan, and made my trips home much less frequent.

Who’s your all-time favorite Wolverine?

I know it’s cliché and recent, but Denard for sure. He was just so much fun to watch. Also, with my limited amount of time that I’ve been paying attention, the pool of choices is small. Denard’s personality helps, but ultimately it was the “DID YOU JUST SEE WHAT HE DID!?” factor that makes me pick him.

 

So Chunkums, everybody. I hope next time you upvote one of his genius creation to 5, you think about the guy behind it and not just think of the various substances coming out of butts. Because I can say with great confidence there’s a lot more to Chunkums than butts. (Uh, you know what I mean).  Thanks to him for participating, and letting us get to know another MGoBlog staple a little more closely. Not sure what we would do without him. Laugh a whole lot less, for sure.  This entry was a little light on graphics, because I now expect YOU to provide them.  Keep your eyes on this spot for more coming soon; same Bat-Time, same Bat-Channel!

 

(And yes, I know that’s not six questions, but I’m keeping his style so it’ll always be a tip of the hat to SIX Zero)