2-11-04 to 6-5-04

6-5-04 to 9-16-04

Sunday, October 16, 2005 12:56 p.m.
I randomly painted my kitchen this week and weekend.



And here it is done, woo. I was going to paint a goofy slice of swiss cheese on that window on the back wall, but my creativity fizzled out after the two coats of paint and I couldn't make it look like cheese...

Thursday, October 6, 2005 02:34 p.m.
We got to start writing actual characters last week (instead of just different strokes), and I thought the traced stuff was pretty bas... until this week we had to just copy the characters instead of trace them. Ugh. So bad...
But here's a picture of one of the traced ones I did. From afar it actually looks good...

Friday, September 30, 2005 02:56 p.m.
Gah.
Weird/creepy story

Thursday, September 22, 2005 01:09 p.m.
The other day, David and I decided to go get some fruit and veggies from the farmer's markets. We hit a couple in the Milwaukee and surrounding areas, as well as a few rummage sales (one which was hosted by some like... 65 year old lady who went to Appleton West to high school... which is weird). I got a giant rubber ducky at once of the sales.
None of the farmer's markets had fruit for some reason, so we acted on a rumor about an apple orchard up the road. We ended up picking 15 pounds of apples! All for 5 dollars. It was good times.

This week in Calligraphy we actually get to try writing characters, as opposed to just brush strokes. Chinese Calligraphy... is hard.

Monday, September 12, 2005 08:42 p.m.
There was a DDR third mix machine at the Brewers' Stadium on Saturday.

And this really bad anime song cover band that was at Anime Central the first year we went is playing at our school for some reason...

Wednesday, August 31, 2005 02:20 p.m.
Legend of the Magical Beans Pandalian:

"There is a planet, Charon, somewhere far from the Earth. One day, a fairly panda appears and tell Toby, a boy panda, that the planet is about to be destroyed, and that he is the Messiah to save the world. In order to save the world, he has to look for seven magical beans and a brave. During his adventure to look for them, he meets various pandas, and then he gradually grows up as the Messiah."

Shocking!

Wednesday, August 31, 2005 01:58 p.m.

Tuesday, August 30, 2005 12:59 p.m.
I want to paint something on this sealed off and white painted window I have in my kitchen. I kind of think it'll look bad though... and now classes are starting in less than a week. Hmm..

I need to live in a place where it's summer all the time. Less than a week before classes and I don't feel like I've done anything summery. I spent a week at home going to the beach and water parks, and general being outside, but that feels like ages ago. I feel like I haven't gotten used to being able to go outside and have it be nice yet. And now it's too late. This is going to be the most depressing winter and schoolyear EVER.

I was really lame and got all excited about the possibility of taking the semester off and moving to Hawaii for a while working on the show Lost. A friend of mine's brother works for the station that... produces it? And she said "yeah, he might be able to go get you a job." Which in all reality would NEVER happen. But now I'm even more depressed that the thought crossed my mind, and instead I have to go to school in a program I REALLY don't like in Wisconsin, where this has been the warmest summer we've had in years. And it's only been the normal temperatures from what it was supposed to be like in the summer of Wisconsin.

The problem is that even if I go outside right now, I'm just like "Ah, it's so nice out.... whelp, there's nothing to do out here." And then go back inside. Or by the time I get around to going outside it's getting dark out because I wake up at noon or one because I went to bed at 5am again. I keep trying to fix my sleep shedule, but something always happens so that I'm up that late again. I just want to have memorable summer fun so that school isn't quite so depressing.

God.. to think I actually spent like 4 days straight at summerfest for those jobs. That was forever ago too. But that's because I haven't been paid yet.... So I don't really have anything green and tangible to tell me I was there......

There. I was told to blog something.

Tuesday, August 23, 2005 12:20 p.m.
What's new....... umm.......

I got Lego Star Wars for my birthday. In order to play it I had to open up David's ps2 and adjust some wave lengths to the lazer or something... So that was fun.
I assume the game idea came from the Lego Star Wars videos that were on either Ifilm or AtmonFilms like 6 or 7 years ago, but I can't find them to link anymore. Ah well. You go around as lego characters in a lego Star Wars world, playing through episodes 1-3. It's really fun, but easy. You unlock all the characters and can play through the levels with them. And when you're all just standing around in the garage with all the lego vehicles that you collect pieces to make.. the bad guys like Darth Maul and General Whatsit fight each other and all the good guys. Good times.

Thursday, July 21, 2005 01:44 p.m.
So 10 days after I get my new car stereo... someone breaks into my car again.
But since of course the locks on my car are just for show, they didn't actually "break" in, but just unlocked the door and went in. Again.
However, after rifling through my glove compartment, not finding the face to my stereo, they left..

Stealing only.... MY CHANGE FOR THE METER! argh... So lame. They didn't take David's Sunglasses, the old mp3 cd player that was in the glove compartment, or the new cds I had in the sides of the doors.

Bah. The lesson to learn is that my change is never safe... Locking my doors doesn't do a damn thing.

Saturday, July 16, 2005 12:05 p.m.
Went to go see Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and Wedding Crashers.
Guess which one was better? I bet you'll be wrong.

Wednesday, July 6, 2005 12:31 p.m.
That's enough summerfest for me! Ugh, I spent three solid days there, and one day there before for fun.
We went to see Dave Mason with my family and David on Saturday, then I had a PA job with VH1 Sunday and Monday. I spent 13 hours there on Saturday doing three interviews. On the bright said 1) I got paid 2) I met Los Lonely Boys, Howie Day, and Moby. All of which were cool. Moby is so relaxed and funny. Howie Day invited us into his giant van to have drinks, and Los Lonely Boys remind me of Charles Thao (for those that that means anything to).

It was funny because we were standing back stage and then... there was Moby. And it wasn't even like "HOLY CRAP IT'S MOBY!" It was like "Yep, that's totally Moby." He looks like such an average guy.

Then on Monday we were there for only about 5 hours starting at 6. That day we interviewed Ben Folds. He was REALLY funny. Like, unexpectedly so.. mostly because he was giving very short answers to the questions at first. Heh.. he did a collaboration with Dr. Dre on a song and he sang some of it at the interview. In a quiet voice he started singing "Bitches ain't shit but hoes and tricks..." and it was really funny. I told him after the interview he should sing it at the show. He was all like "Yeah! We can do that!" ...although I think he was probably going to do it anyway. I don't know, we could find out for sure, come to think of it, because I got his setlist for David's brother.

THEN. I had one more job the very next day at summerfest for Mtv2. That was weird.. and I was already tired of being at Summerfest by then. They interviewed a band called Coheed and Cambria... whom I had never heard of before, so I didn't really talk to them.... besides, there was a rush of Kelly Ozbourne looking girls that came up to them to get pictures taken anyway.

And that was my weekend and half of the weekday. All in all I'm glad I can say I've met and had conversations with those people, and I'm glad they they were all cool, normal people to be able to have conversations with.

Now to finish my paper that was due on Sunday. It's an artist statement... Am I really 3 to 4 pages worth of an artist? maybe.... with a little finessing..

Ps, I guess there's to be a website for this show on VH1. It's like a blog entry thing of this girl from vh1 talking with bands. pictures were taken... so i might be on it or something... *shrug*

Sunday, June 26, 2005 11:23 p.m.
well i worked 3 more days on trading spaces. i was painting and helping make stuff. it was fun. i have some pictures which i can't put on the internet because as far as tv land is concerned, that was all in the future. also i don't remember too many events that would make it to here.. so in the end this is kind of a lame post.

I went to strawberry fest yesterday and it was really fun. so it was decided that that means my strawberry plants are on the way out. my pepper plants, on the other hand have some peppers coming in!

Friday, June 10, 2005 05:00 p.m.
Thus, it is the end of my Trading Spaces journey. On the plus side: easiest 200 bucks I've made. I worked from 9:30am to about 3:30pm. And got a free drink out of it (the episode I worked on was fixing two people's houses that own or manage bars). $33.33 an hour is not bad.
On the down side, that's it. They're shooting the rest of the week, but since they're doing two different shows, once they finish the show out in Glendale, that crew comes to finish up the show I was on. So I was no longer needed. Which means I didn't get to see them shoot any of the actual redecorating. But I told them if they needed more people that I'd be happy to work more. But yeah.. otherwise I worked 6 hours and got $200, a free drink, and a free hat from one of the bars. Not to mention the experience.

So here's the Trading Spaces truck outside the bar.. or in the neighborhood of the bar at least. It's actually like maybe like 50 feet to the left of the bar.



It was fun though. I was a Grip instead of a PA, and some of the people that I worked with on Perfect Proposal were there again.

Monday, June 6, 2005 08:34 a.m.
My strawberry plants have fruit! The first strawberry of the season of my porch:

Thursday, June 2, 2005 03:58 p.m.
Trading Spaces is coming to Milwaukee! and I'm working on the show. As a grip! So I get paid more than a PA and get to do more hands on equip stuff. So that's cool.

Saturday, May 28, 2005 09:07 p.m.
Passed portfolio. Now I just have to remember to pick the stuff up before they throw it all away!

Also, I need movie ideas. Gimme..

Sunday, May 22, 2005 03:01 a.m.
waiting on results of my portfolio.

So much for the job editing. Guess that's a bust. Too bad. I needed the money and the experience.

Tuesday, May 17, 2005 04:24 p.m.
I'm interested to see my grades this semester... So far, I didn't finish my portfolio to submit (which I'll add was mostly not my fault because I was tied to someone else's junior film project which took up every waking moment from last like Monday to Saturday) So I don't know whether or not I'm either submitting late because of my strange circumstances of not being in the major currently... or if I'm taking the semester off and submitting next semester.

Then, I didn't finish my website final beause I was working on the sound for my film. I had to turn it in anyway and wrote her an email about it being not done and stuff.

I was up all night and then immediately went to a final critique in photography at 8 am. Had to leave early because it was scheduled at the same time as my web final. Took the web final test which I was pretty much asleep for. I went to the bathroom so I could refocus my eyes for a little while and when I came back I read one of my answers I had written just before I left and it was something like "Know when you known the people" And it was a question about like.. Given the standard complications of the internet, what are some other reasons why a cable connection could run slow? So, logically, my answer was Know when you known the people.

So after those two finals, I had exactly 4 hours to finish fake, long, conceptual project proposal about governance in video games.. and it had all these requirements and I had to make it into a pdf and stuff.. AND to finish my film and video to submit to portfolio. When I got home I was outrageously hungry, so I made some food.. Attempted to write some of the proposal.. then fell asleep for like 45 minutes or something. So I was back up at like 2 and was almost finished with this proposal, going back and forth to the project requirements sheet when I noted that it was in FACT due... YESTERDAY! So that final is just completely a day late.. and it was even late today if it were actually due today at 4 because I didn't know how to make it into a pdf without Acrobat.

So then I didn't finish my portfolio because I had spent the last few hours I had available working on a final due yesterday.. Bah. Now I'm just very tired from having gotten no sleep last night and only 5 hours the night before. We'll see what the chair of film says about me submitting late..

But otherwise.. I'm done with finals! er.. except finishing that website..

Now to finish editing that wedding I shot last August...

Sunday, May 8, 2005 08:49 p.m.
Best date ever. :)

Friday my long ass class was cancelled because of gas and water leaks at school. The power went out while we were doing our final presentations. Unfortunately that means we had to reschedule that was no longer our last class.. but forunately, I got to leave class WAY early and hang out with Dave and a friend most of the day. Then at 6 or so we went to the Mets/Brewers game. Dave had gotten tickets from his mom who got them from her work. They were 7th row behind the pitcher and came with .300 club tickets. So we ate REALLY good food at this posh restaurant above the field. Buffet of everything so so good. Little swirly stack thingies. Alaskian Halibut fish. And lots of fruit. It was awesome.

Then we went down to our seats and they were RIGHT behind the pitcher. Row 7. Everytime the catcher was replaced we sang the peanuts song of when they're sad.. a la Arrested Development. And the game was really close at the end too. It was 4 to 7 the Mets and the last pitch was to the Brewers' best hitter, bases loaded. If he hit a homerun they'd win! Of course he didn't because the Brewers continue to suck. But it was fun. When we left the stadium it was pooring rain and we had to run all the way back to my car... As we were running it started to rain even more! Good times.

Tuesday, May 3, 2005 12:00 p.m.
Funnies thing ever. EVER.

So my school is starting up this Laptop Requirement program for new students in the Peck School of the Arts. Programs working with this are requiring that students buy a laptop for their classes. A costly, pointless idea on it's own, right? Well you also have to buy ALL the programs you need. And you can't not buy the best one, because they're renovating the current labs to before the laptop use, which I'm guessing means either far less desktops available through the school, or none at all.

But the best part about it is that they're making them buy from the PSOA Apple Store. The best laptop they have to offer (under the recommended systems)is this:

PowerBook 17" 1.67GHz
• 512MB DDR333 SDRAM - 1 SO-DIMM
• 100GB Ultra ATA drive @ 5400rpm
• 8x SuperDrive (DVD±RW/CD-RW)
• AirPort Extreme Card
• Backlit Keyboard/Mac OS - U.S. English
• 1.67GHz PowerPC G4
• ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 (128MB DDR)
• 17-inch TFT Display
APP for PowerBook (w/ or w/o display) - Enrollment Kit

And all this for a cool $2,385.10 (a discount of $252.90. whoopdeedoo)

This does not include software. And will also not do shit for people editing video. Sure, it's got a HUGE screen, but 512RAM will hardly even RUN the editing program. And it's slow as HELL.

That aside, here's what you're paying for the software. If you're a DIVAS major, it'll cost you another $400 for the software, not including one of the things I couldn't find the price for. However, I did notice it doesn't include video editing programs, so now I don't know WHAT the point in having one is. Basically you're buying Photoshop and Illustrator, Microsoft Office, and Flash and Dreamweaver,and an expensive as hell box to hold them.

Personally, I won't spend that much unless it replaces my desktop. In which case, it has to do more then run Photoshop. In which case, those aren't doin' it for me.

Fortunately, I started in PSOA long ago and don't have to get one. And I'm going back to film anyway.

Thursday, April 28, 2005 03:08 p.m.
so it's been a two days of sitting around, wasting a total of 10 and a half hours.

we're setting up this big installation for a class and the teacher keeps telling us to meet at certain times to set up. and everytime he's like "it's going to be the big day where we move everything over and get things ready to go." So yesterdy, after being instrucked to show up at 10 am to burn video files to dvds, the teacher shows up 15 minutes late, stays for maybe 10 minutes saying "ok, make some dvds" then leaves. But ne didn't BRING the dvds to be burned onto. disappears until i had to go to class. Then we all meet at 3 because that was the time where we'd all meet and bring stuff over. "the big day of setting up" but before we go, some friends and i who are in the class with me go to get some food so we can have something before 3 (it was like 2:30 or something at this point. We walk into quiznos, and there's my teacher and his TA sitting there eating. He says "we're off to go to home depot to buy all the supplies and will be back at 3 or so." so we go to the room, the TA comes back and said "yeah, we ran out of time and didn't go and Mat's in a meeting now until 4. (keeping in mind that he said he was going to go to home depot at like 2 so they would be back by 3, then we saw them chilling at quiznos, then we saw them leave to GO to home depot.)

So we wait around some more.. I eventually started working on a website I have to make as my final for my web design class. Hours go by. Eventually the TA leaves. The teacher comes back at 6:45 and says "alright, we just brought all the stuff over to the place." This is the first time i've seen him since Quiznos. The installation place closes at 7, we can no longer go there and set up anything. 4 hours of us waiting.

Then today, we're supposed to meet at 10 to LEAVE at 10:30 specifically go to set up. I show up, the teacher isn't there. The TA is and is just kind of sitting around waiting. Eventually another student shows up and since nothing else is happening, starts working on the electronics for her part of the installation. Like an hour and a half go by, the TA mentions the teacher is gone to a meeting until 12. 12 comes and goes. Some other people come into the room. The teacher finally shows up, it's 12:40, and he now has a class to teach. So he half-assedly instructs them to talk amongst themselves, giving feed back on whatever they're doing. Then decides that now we should start doing stuff. So we go up to his office to get my stereo, he doesn't have his keys. We're left standing there for 10 minutes while he tries to come up with them. By the time we're done with all this, it's time for me to go meet a friend in the transfer room so i can get my sound from casette to minidv. Wait around, wait around. He never shows up, so I attempt to patch the decks together myself. I got it so it was recording exactly from casette to minidv with no way of changing the volume. So I don't know if the sound will be good enough. again.

Later says he went down to the basement and waited, despite the fact that 1) I was IN the room I told him to meet him in. 2) I was walking around the basement doing other things for the first 5 minutes while I waited. and 3) he NEVER checked the logical room where I'd probably be.. the TRANSFER ROOM. So he apparently decided after not finding me that he'd go down to get some food at the union bar/grill.

So I've been home for maybe a half hour (writing this because i'm highly annoyed). I have to go back to school still after I attempt to take a shower and eat some sort of meal, so that we can try to set up for the last available time, which is our class period, starting at 4:30. The place we're setting up again closes at 7.

Monday, April 25, 2005 12:01 p.m.
What sort of women's rights/feminist things can you say about Sunset Blvd? I'm all out of ideas. I think if I get through this class, I'll have figured out a way to say the exact same thing 14 times, at a rate of 2 pages per with the exception of one that's 5 and one that's 10. Yes, in the 40s and 50s women were not respected. Blah Blah. It's 2005, now they are.

I've managed to piss away the entire weekend. Saturday with games, Sunday with sleep. I Slept until like 11 or noon or something on Sunday, did some stuff, took a nap from 2 to 4, got up washed dishes for like an hour and a half, took a shower, went to the store, washed dishes for another hour and a half while Dave made dinner for me and two friends, went to bed at 2. I didn't write my Sunset Blvd paper and therefore am not going to that class today. I didn't make webpages for a class collaborative project, mostly because the template was no longer available to me for some reason. I didn't do any editing on the wedding. I didn't do anything related to the installation happening on Friday. I didn't do anything for my portfolio review due in proabably 2 and a half to 3 weeks. It'll be a miracle if I have that ready in time. Nothing was accomplished this weekend except finishing some quests in World of Warcraft, (how useful) and washing some dishes, which were then immediately made dirty again by the dinner that night.

At least maybe I'll get to Web Design on time for a change since I got up early to do the web site stuff.

Thursday, April 21, 2005 08:52 a.m.
alright alright. it just SOUNDS like they sampled it. yeesh. but it's still really amusing anyway.

Friday, April 15, 2005 04:01 p.m.
Some of my favorite lines from songs are all from "Don't Ask Me" by Ok-Go

"Quit acting so friendly.
Don't nod don't laugh all nicely.
Don't think you'll up-end me.
Don't sigh, don't sip your iced-tea."

"Don't be so damn benign.
Don't waste my fucking time."

And the fact that they sample the Lil' Jon "HEY!" sound.

Monday, April 11, 2005 02:05 p.m.
Heh. Genero-anime related comic.
Sakuracon

Friday, April 1, 2005 01:35 a.m.
Have you ever had anyone constantly call you by the wrong name?

Have you ever been constantly called the wrong name when the only time they ever see/hear/know of your name is in text, and can therefore SEE what it is?

The chair of the film department KEEPS calling me (and when I say calling me I mean in addressing me in emails) Kate! Despite the fact that I've signed every email to him as Kim Huston. It's mostly annoying because I'm supposed to be having this one-on-one help me get through college relationship with him, but he keeps calling me the wrong name.. it's sort of disheartening.

Thursday, March 31, 2005 03:17 p.m.
DAMNIT! My first late bill.. 10 days late.. :( So I signed up to have it taken out automatically.

Wednesday, March 30, 2005 04:32 a.m.
Alright! I got my tax refund! A cool $85!

I'm making this right now for my web design class : Myth project

My neck huts. I'm tired of writing code.

I saw Steamboy tonight. I liked it, but it felt preachy.

Thursday, March 24, 2005 02:29 p.m.
Well that was fun. I was supposed to be back in Milwauee now. Instead, the car fixing place said (even thought they told us yesterday it'll be done today at noon) that it won't be done until tomorrow. Now I'm here another day when I was so looking forward to being back to my own place.

Monday, March 21, 2005 12:06 a.m.
Movie production stills from tbe new Matt Batta movie!

One
Two
Three

Monday, March 14, 2005 06:39 p.m.
Julia posted this, but I feel I should post it too.

Someone I knew from high school died in a car crash a few days ago: Three Appleton teens die in car crash

Allyce Albaugh. She went with us to the anime convention the first year. She is dressed as Ed from Cowboy Bebop in this picture (second from the right)

Tuesday, March 8, 2005 12:02 p.m.
As promised. Here are some pictures from Ney York and Philly. I really don't hve a whole lot of "This is the city" type pictures for some reason.

The renown New York Film Academy! Conveniently located above a liquor store...
Some pictures of David and I at Central Park to see "The Gates". There were like 5 billion more of them, but I couldn't get a good all encompasing shot with my crappy camera in the dark. neither of us are making normal faces in these.... Gates  Differentish Gates

Here's us in my sisters apartment in Philly. We were leaning back on a matress on the wall.. that's why I look like a rag doll in both.. And half asleep.. and all pink... Philly us.  A few seconds later!

And here's some genero Times Square/New York is big and bright pictures. With blurry me.  Just the view.

Sunday, March 6, 2005 05:57 p.m.
Way behind on EVERYTHING.

2-26-05 Sat. 09:41 p.m.
I slipped and fell on the ice twice (within about 15 seconds of each other) Friday morning, and I'm still incredibly sore. How annoying.

2-16-05 Wed. 01:07 p.m.
So, New York and Philly.

It was pretty awesome. The first night we went out with my sister to a bar called "The Khyber", which is supposedly the oldest bar in the US.
The next morning we ate at a really good breakfast place and then took the train over to New York. We got there relatively late so again we went to a few bars with Dan and his brother Nick (some of David's best friends). At the last bar we went I picked up a (this is for GC) Vice Magazine. I was surprised to see it was an actually magazine fr some reason. I was expecting it to be more like The Onion. Well anyway, I left it there because I thought we'd be going to other places and I didn't want to carry it around.

The next day we went to brunch with some people in West Village (we were staying in East Village). It was 12 bucks for 3 pancakes, a little bowl of fruit and some bacon, as well as a basket of muffins and a mimosa.
Then we started the tour of New York, walking around the West Village and to a more downtownish area. There were a bunch of guys break dancing, but as soon as we got over to where the were they stopped. That was kind of sad...
We walked past the New York Film Academy, which one relatively small building above a liquor store. (I can post a picture later) So that was funny. There was a very New York sounding bum sitting out in front of Barnes and Noble asking for money: "Every penny counts!" as David noted there was actually a penny sitting on the ground behind him.

We went to Central Park and saw "The Gates", which were a bunch of orange arch type things with orange fabric haning under them (I'm sure you could find a picture online, but I can put one here). We were told there was a zoo in Central Park, which I wish we could have seen, but it was already dark by then.

We stopped at Times Square, which was insane. We went into a giant Toys R Us and looked into the wax museum. I wish we could have stayed there longer, but there isn't really much to do there unless you're shopping.

After Times Square we walked to Chinatown and had some Vietnamese food. I decided I didn't really like the spices they used in Vietnamese food... Oh well. Lastly we went to CBGB'S, although we got there when the band was done.. There were a lot fo stickers all over every square inch of the place. Also, on one of our walks to somewhere, we went past a restaurant called "Rice to Riches" which was just in the movie we saw last night called "Hitch". Like David said, we probably would have gone in had we seen the movie first. Apparently they have really good rice pudding though.

Back in Philly the next day, it rained and was cold (it was 59 degrees the day we left... ) and my sister was sick.. so we ended up staying in most of the time we were there until the Polyphonics Spree concert started.
The concert was... really weird. Live they're like a cross between Godspell, Richard Simmons workout, and Sesame Street. EVERY song they have is about the sun: "Reach for the Sun!" "Hey, it's the Sun! and it makes me smile!" etc... otherwise the songs are just from Sesame Street. Their encore song was Sgt. Pepper, which was awesome. It just makes me think they're wasting their potential to rock on songs about the sun.

It was cool though because one of the opening bands was Mike Doughty from Soul Coughing.

And that's all I can think of at this moment in my web design class.... More later if I think of it.

2-2-05 Wed. 01:19 p.m.
These two comics sum up my current life experiences (as seen in the last post):

Penny Arcade on E3

Penny Arcade on Mounts

2-1-05 Tues. 07:13 p.m.
Alright alright. Things that are happening:

School has started and so far I'm not particularly fond of any of my classes. The web design class I can already tell I'll learn the most in. It's set up straight learning and doing. It's sort of the most like a high school class I have I guess. No bullshit reading, no writing papers to fill out our grade.. just learning html, doing a demo of it in class, and eventually making a class website.

The women's study class I had to take as a theory class, which is called Women of Film Noir, which I thought sounded cool... is basically another movie watching class, except instead of having a follow up discussion class... we just have a class to watch the movie, come back the next week and watch another movie. We have to write response papers on the movies, which aside from the first day of class, has been our only guidence in the way of learning about women in film noir.. She gave us a sheet to write our response on that said like "If this were the start of the film noir movement, who would be the femme fatale.. and why?" I hope everyone in the class knows what a femme fatale is.. or they're screwed.
I'm also hesitant about it because it's a women's study class, which automatically means the people that are in it/teach it are big women's rights fanatics who spell women with a y (womyn) and will tell you you are a tool to men etc etc which just pisses me off because it's bullshit..

My latest straight divas class is just another read a bunch of articles vaguely relating to the class, eventually get down to business when they're loaded the demo version of the program we're going to use. Then spend the next thirty days learning it before it expires..

My digital photography class is 5 and a half hours long on fridays.. need I say more?

I talked to the chair of the program about what major could get me graduated fastest... I looked at inter-arts but that's not going to do anything for me. I think I might just be in DIVAS forever.

In other, better news. David is taking me to New York and Philadelphia for Valentine's Day, because he is awesome. We're going to see his friends in New York and then go with them, and my sister and her boyfriend to see Polphonics Spree. Then we're going to hang out with my sister in Philly for a few days before coming back.

The next trip will hopefully be to E3 in L.A. in May.. but I dont' know if that's in the budget.

Um, and I've been playing World of Warcraft a lot because I'm a dork.

1-18-04 Tues. 10:41 a.m.
I saw the movie Infernal Affairs last night. I thought it was awesome, but Dave fell asleep and insists that it was a let down. Not that I really think he can say anything about it since he fell asleep during the everything-comes-together part of the movie that made it good. Basically he saw the exposition and the ending and deemed it boring. *shrug* Whatever. I thought it was good enough to own, which I say very seldom. I haven't bought a new DVD since maybe... Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

I do have a bunch of goofy movies on my list of movies to buy... but they're really good. :)

Harold and Kumar go to Whitecastle
Shawn of the Dead
Love Actually
The Terminal
Versus
Infernal Affairs

Although I think there were some others that I can't remember.

1-17-05 Mon. 11:28 a.m.
What's annoying abouy my apartment is that things seem to work , but I don't know how to use them, so they don't work. I just found out today that the reason my apartment is cold is because I have to turn the heaters ON. Well, they're from like the 1920s and have little knobs that when you turn them on the whole apartment sounds like you're inside a balloon being filled with helium. But the heaters would always make whiney noises before so I thought thay meant they were working...

Day 11:

1-13-05 Thurs. 04:16 p.m.
know your terms from the rap dictionary

1-13-05 Thurs. 03:57 p.m.
EXERTAINMENT!

1-6-05 Thurs. 12:56 p.m.
My lemon tree is sprouted!



I guess all it needed was some plant food.

1-2-05 Sun. 04:49 p.m.
Here's my bass from David for X-mas. I got a wall mount for it. Now it and a small clay bust of a cartoon moose are on my wall.

12-31-04 Fri. 01:38 p.m.
It's 49 degrees F, but feels like 65. Not a cloud in the sky, all sun. And I opened up my door to the balcony because it's so nice. Best New Years Eve ever. Actually.. last year it was like 70 when we were in St. Louis.. but still awesome.

Plus we're going to hopefully go to this club tonight and get VIP entrance and Pizza, a bottle of Moet besides a champaigne fountain and 8 top shelf martinis. All for a cool $56 a person (it's 4 for $225).

12-25-04 Sat. 12:22 p.m.
Christmas!

I just realized that Brad Bird who directed The Incredibles worked on the Simpsons a lot. I never really made that connection I guess, although the name Brad Bird in the movie was always familiar.

12-24-04 Fri. 03:38 a.m.
David bought be an electric bass for christmass :)
It's pretty cool looking: white pick guard on white. And we were shocked to find that the "learn bass" book/dvd features a friend of his from Milwaukee, Chris Kringle. He comes on screen and says: "Hi, my name is Christ Kringle, yes that's my real name... There will be no making fun of it or you won't get any presents."

12-19-04 Sun. 11:27 a.m.
I'm going to for sure change the layout/colors of this soon. I'm getting really sick of it...

Life without the theater is great. I don't have to worry about getting back from break soon so I can go back in and work. I don't even have to take off for new years eve like I would have because I know they would have made me work..

I'm not entirely out of work though. I've started to capture the french ambassador video.. I'm down to 50 something on my 160 gig harddrive.. I think I'm going to back up my regular files before I put the other camera's tapes onto my computer.. I have 4 current video projects open although it sucks that the two that I can be done with in a matter of hours are the smallest files.. So even if I delete them, it won't free up much space.
Well, my only hope is that I can finish them both over break. I think I have to decide on one before the other though. I have to capture more for both of them and I don't think I can capture it all before my computer is full.

12-12-04 Sun. 01:38 p.m.
FIRED!

I no longer work at Mayfair Mall.

In other news.. Here's my final magazine layout(click the image to see it bigger)



We had to make a cover, a table of contents, a feature page, a page with ads, and a 2 page spread. They're not fullsize even in the bigger version, so it's hard to see some of it. On the 2 page spread at the bottom is the vector/cell shaded whatever image I made of one of the guitarists of The Wandering Sons: Dan

12-11-04 Sat. 11:47 a.m.
I finally got my first cardinal! (that i know of)

card1card2card3

The pigeons have been using my porch as a sparing rink while the rest of the birds eat.

dueling
winner gets the red car

12-10-04 Fri. 07:42 p.m.
Well, my video made it into Vent, but only by default. "Unexpectedly" we got very VERY few submissions. Gee, who would have thought. Oh me, cause it happened before in the other class we had to make a film screening for.. Anyway,so everyone that submitted got in. People seemed to like my video a lot though. I kind of wish I could see people's reactions to it at the show, but I can't go to it anymore because of a new video gig. The school made David the head of multimedia for CIE (center for international education) in addition to being the web designer, and he was allowed to hire a student employee to assist him in shooting events. So they're paying me $10 an hour to help him shoot and then eventually edit by myself the French Ambassador's banquet that's at the Pfister Hotel Tuesday. He's coming as some IWA convention speaker. The French Ambassador...
So that's pretty cool, although I'm kind of afraid to do it cause I hope I don't screw it up. Also I have a freaking lot of work to do. Hopefully I can pound most of it out this weekend and not have to worry so much about it next week. I'm not showing up for work on Saturday because dispite me telling them I could only work 1 shift a week on the weekends until finals were over, they decided I couldn't do that and put me down for two anyway.. so I'm just not going to one of them. Fire me if they want, which they more then likely won't because they really need me. But if they schedule me for more than one day a week next week or bring it up on Sunday when I come in, then I'm just going to quit.

I had been working on my magazine layout for publication design last night and the night before because it was due this morning at 9. But when I went to open the file in a different computer lab after the lab i was in closed at 10 last night, the file was the version that I had saved two nights ago and not the one I had just finished working on.. which was basically the finished project minus one page... So I lost all the work I had just done with no way of redoing it before my class in the morning. While the teacher seemed to sympathize and wasn't going to completely fail me for it, I still have to redo the whole thing which will take time, and the lab is still only open for so long tomorrow and Sunday. It's never just as easy as do it and be done with it for me. I could have had one less thing to worry about going into the weekend, but instead, I have this to totally remake and turn in before Sunday. Today would have been the official end to my Friday classes, but instead they drag on until I finally get this damn layout done.

Otherwise I have to make great strides on a video, do a hell of a lot on and pretty much just finish my After Effects animation, and type up/read all the rest of the articles and responses I need for them for my class on monday. All this I must do this weekend. Then Monday I have to work out meeting with IWA people for shooting this banquet and fill out new w-4s and stuff for the job. I should be able to put off my midi and Photoshop art 118 projects and studying for the art 118 exam for a few days because that stuff isn't due until the 22nd or so.

12-8-04 Wed. 11:17 p.m.
Well I got an automatic F on my project I turned in late like a month ago because I was at work the night before it was due. Well not only did he just automatically give me an F, and not only if it's that late does it mean he doesn't even give me an evaluation sheet so I know what he thought of it, but he NEVER LOOKED AT IT AT ALL. The tracing paper to cover it was never unsealed. He jut fucking gave it an F and moved on. And what's great is he didn't even start to grade any of then until probably a week ago. he's had them for a month. When I gave him mine late he just immediately put it into the draw where the rest of them sat since they turned them in on time. If he's not even going to grade them when they're turned in, why the hell make that the due date then?

It doesn't help that when I was walking around with it today after class a bunch of random people and teachers said they really liked it.

So anyway, it's this, which is a huge file. This ia actually 50% the original size:

Virtual Space

We had to make a space using some text he gave us to choose from. Mine was "'The matrix has its roots in primitive arcade games,' said the voiceover, 'in early graphics programs and military experimentation' .. a two-dimensional space was faded behind a forest of mathematically generated ferns... cold blue military footage burned through, lab animals wired into test systems, helmets feeding into fire control circuits of tanks and war planes."

So mine is fading into 8-bit in the background, and there's a squirrel on a desk attached by a helmet to a computer feeing it electricity. There's a little goomba thing on the truck passing by in the 8-bit part. You can't really see the squirrel part very well, even when you magnify it. Oh well.

12-7-04 Tues. 02:51 p.m.
Today, in one of my most cliche art/film lecture classes, I took a poll. Within the first half hour of the lecture my teacher had said:

Juxtapose: once
Subvert (or subversion): twice
Voyeurism (or voyeur): three times
Linear: once
Abstract: four times
Undermine: once
Narrative: twice

But as soon as he started to talk about music and DJ sampling and things, he never said any of the key art words.

He talked about illegal use of samples and things, and mentioned some banned music done by people like The Grey Album by DJ Danger Mouse, which is Jay-Z's Black Album mixed with the Beatles' White Album. You can download it at this link. Too bad I don't like Jay-Z or it'd be really cool.

You can also go to illegal-art.org for other music and video stuff that uses illegal samples.

He also played us some songs by 2 Many DJs. One was a mix of Destiny's Child and Nirvana called "Smells like Booty". It was just the vocal's to Bootylicious and the music to Smells like Teen Spirit put together, so it was only funny through the verse or so, but still kind of cool.

12-7-04 Tues. 10:31 a.m.
I really REALLY hate writings about art:
"In the same interview cited above, the artist poses a provacative rhetorical question: 'What does it mean to own something, and, stranger still, what does it mean to own an image?'"

12-06-04 Mon. 11:40 p.m.
Key to being a good film student:

UNREMITTING use of the words abstract, linear, subvert, undermine, narrative, voyeurism, and juxtapose.
Everything is beautiful and everything is a film whether it's shot on film or shot on video, whether it's Hollywood or made by your neighbor's dog.

Permission to use said words in your scholoarly writings when you become a film studies theorist instead of an actual filmmaker in the future.

12-6-04 Mon. 01:22 p.m.
Failed to get into the student film and video fest. Basically the only thing I thought (and everyone who saw it including teachers and students) was good is apparently not good at all. Or maybe it's just that the film department is full of pretentious twats who only like things that are 1. so abstract that it means fucking nothing 2. funny because of how poorly it is made 3. made by someone who speaks a different language and/or was shot in a different country. This basically sums up all the films I've seen in past student festivals.

So the fest better be good, or I'm going to be even more annoyed. Problem is, I don't know if I have time to go see it. And I'm not even sure when it is.

Meanwhile, I'm submiting the same video to the DIVAS major's screening. I think there are enough normal people in DIVAS to vote mine into the show. Granted, there is the quintet of jerks who think they're the shit and will say it's dumb and doesn't have a deep enough meaning or some other bullshit typical of these people who also came from the film department because they think it's a waste of time, and yet undeniably retain the same frame of mind about art as all the rest of the film students.

Then again, there are SOME good people in the film department, like Cecilia, the video teacher. She helped me check out a super 8 projector so I could get the film onto video even tbough I'm not a film student anymore and basically everyone in the film department ignores anyone who's not, and most definitely ignores those that were.

12-2-04 Thurs. 10:13 p.m.
The *birds have already eaten 2/3 of the food in the feeder again.

Tonight I planted a lemon seed. I had a lemon plant before. It got to be fairly big, and the leaves smell like lemons.



*One day I'll use my art site for more than an image server

11-30-04 Tues 02:27 p.m.
my bird feeder is the happenist place on the block

They were all waiting for me to refill the feeder.

I was sent two t-shirts from Pixar for the Incredibles because by signing up for the drawing (which is chosen today) I filled out a survey about how we were projecting the Incredibles. So they sent me shirts that have the Incredibles logo on the front and on the back it says "I cared enough to project in 2:39 scope" Too bad they're larges and beyond drier shrinking them to fit me.

So.. I hope I win the trip.. 'cause it'd be the only thing that would make this day not suck. I didn't finish my paper for this morning because I spent too damn much time trying to find sources to use in it.. which were required. I didn't actually need them to get my point across. I'm writing about a fucking experimental film, not some scientific study. So anyway, now I've got that to finish tonight as well as attempt to have some footage to show in class tomorrow morning (8am) as well as huh, finishing my midi song that was due last week (in theory)... which I just now remembered about.. also I'm supposed to have something to work on in class for my art 118 lab. And all of this will have to be done AFTER I get done from work tonight at about 1 am. Too bad none of the stores I need to go to for supplies (i.e. magnets, minidv tapes, some sort of thing board that magnets will work through, or somewhere that I can buy a figure and a table and some things for my art 118 project) will be open. Nor will the labs be open that I need to do my work in. Nor will I STILL be able to find more sources to use for my fucking paper which I now automatically get a grade lower on because it'll be a day late.. that is assuming I get it done tonight.

And alright, I'm a terrible student/person/whatever for not writing it last night. Well, I wrote about 700 of my required 1000 words at work last night, came back, it was 11 and I figured I could just write the rest the next morning.. my class was at 12:30! I had like 4 hours! I got a good rest of it written but got stuck on what sources to make up that said I got my information from. I think teachers should just reward students based on the fact that they already had the knowledge and DIDN'T need to look it up...
So yeah, I watched a movie starting at 11 last night instead of actually sitting down to write my paper. Mistake, yes. But I was going to be also annoyed that we rented two movies and wouldn't get to watch them before they were due either..

Time to get ready for my next class at 4 which I dont' have any more work for so that I can go immediately to work after.

11-28-04 Sun. 01:08 p.m.
I totally forgot how much my first guinea pig really liked the Brandenburg Concerto. She used to get up on the side of her cage and squak whenever I played it on my violin by her cage. And it was only that song too. My mom would open her laptop next to the cage and play a midi version of it and she'd stop whatever she was doing and listen.

>_< I really want another guinea pig. I miss having animals around. The only thing I have to amuse me now are the birds that come to my feeder and all the squirrels on campus.

11-27-04 Sat. 10:06 p.m.
Saw Bridget Jones' Diary 2. Very chick-flicky. The best part was at the very end when she said the last line: "I believe you can find true love, even when your butt is as big as two bowling balls" and then the Beyonce song came on to start the credits.

11-26-04 Fri. 11:42 p.m.
Thanksgiving was a lot of fun. David and his brother and mom came up to Appleton and had dinner with us. Then we sat around and talked about some stuff and then played a round of poker, which my dad miraculously won... He kept beating me with a hand that was ONE better. Actually, the first time he beat me and took most of my chips was him bluffing me with nothing, although a decent hand... but THE EXACT SAME hand as me. We both had A3, which wasn't anything with the table.. guh. Then he beat me with two pair Q5 when I had two pair Q4. Then he beat me with pocket fives when I had pocket threes.

Just before we ate I hit my knee really hard on the wall at the end of the staircase and was limping today because of it. I had to take some medicine so it wouldn't hurt, but I still can't really put all my weight on it. It also sucks because I was planning to run on the treadmil but didn't think I was going to be able to. I just got off of it though. It didn't hurt at all.

I wish I had easy access to a treadmil everyday. If we had this when I was in high school I totally would have made a routine out of running every day after school.

11-24-04 Wed. 10:58 a.m.
No new birds today. Lots of chickadees and the occasional sparrow.

Don't ya'll forget to watch the Tim McGraw special tonight. You might see me off on the side handing him a bottle of water and making him laugh... :)

Today was a good project day, and I've only had one class! First we were talking about the next project which is about proxemics (which is like the theory of study of the relationshop between people at certain distances) and last class I didn't have an idea yet, so today Mat (the teacher) was like "So do you have anything thought up yet?" half excepting me to be like "Nah, I haven't really thought about it." But instead out with "Oh, yeah, it's going to be great!" And then the whole class got all reved up. They were like "That was the best way to start a project pitch." So then I told them about how instead of using people and sticking a camera in their face and see how they react, or standing in a mall and shooting people reacting in a small space... I plan to dress magnets up like people and put them in situations like in an elevator and see how they react. The point is that the closer you put a magnet of the same polerity to another one they move apart.. So it's the same as people. Anyway, it's going to be fun.

Then we watched my interval video of the movable stacks in our library moving to the beat of Mozart's Rondo Alla Turca. They were all like "Damn, that was good!" They talked about being impressed about the dynamic changes I portrayed and the different instruments like the flute part being the books moving to the beat instead of the whole huge shelves. Mat even liked the parts that I was less enthusiastic about. So yay! It's the first project all semester I've been excited about and everyone else was too! That says something about my school....

11-22-04 Mon. 11:36 a.m.
Today's bird:

I believe it to be a "Black Capped Chickadee"

11:59am Recent Development! Another bird!

"Downy Woodpecker"

11-22-04 Mon. 12:21 a.m.
Lone bird that came to eat from my feeder!

cautious bird

It's weird how I get one at a time, and they're always looking around to make sure no other birds see them. As if it were some kind of secret feeding location.. which is cool I guess. Don't want to make it mainstream right away.. riding the underground... that's my gig. Birdseed gig.

I think I'm going to start posting back pictures of stuff on here. Like from my birthday, or the slot machines David has.

Also, if anyone is interested, here's the site I made for my time space class: Coffee

11-20-04 Sat. 12:31 p.m.
Man, I got really excited about getting a laptop for $175 and the person that's selling it is not calling me back and never answering his phone. He probably has already sold it, but he could at least call me back and say, sorry, I already sold it. It was an HP pentium 3 10 gig 256 ram dvd rom laptop.. for $175. I was just planning to use it for photoshop and illustrator stuff while i was at work and on the go.. but now I think I just can't get it anymore and any comparible laptop on ebay is like $800 used.

11-19-04 Fri. 03:27 p.m.
Sweet! After 3 months birds have finally discovered my bird feeder!

11-17-04 Wed. 04:03 p.m.
Today is David's birthday! Hooray!

11-15-04 Mon. 11:22 a.m.
Came late to class this morning because I was still editing my video, which I could only resume work on starting at about 7 pm last night because I had to work all fucking weekend again. I think it's ok though. I'm not sure how my grade is suffering at this point because of tardiness and absenses.. Or all of my grades that matter. I have no concept of grades in any of my classes except maybe my digital cultures class and my publication design class. However, the digital cultures class was the last class I didn't get a project in on time for because of work. I've got A's on all the little quizes we've had in class, but that project is twenty percent of our grade and I don't know if he accepts late work. I haven't even been able to to turn it in yet (it was due on wednesday) because I was working on it wednesday night and finished it thursday night, but then immediately went to work after class on friday and basically got off of work last night at 7. I wonder if it was points off per day we don't have it handed in...

Then the lecture part of that class I did ok on the midterm I think... but I've come like 10 minutes late the past couple of classes which means I miss the question of the week which amounts to twelve percent of our grade.

The publication design class I've done really well on everything but the first exam which I got a D+ on because I didn't have time to finish the reading because I was doing stupid projects for all my other classes... also for some reason some of the things that I knew before I even came into the class I got wrong just because I didn't know what he was asking or something. But I talked to the teacher and he said not to worry about it because it's not much of the grade.

I've denied to do almost any work on my midi projects for my music class because all my time is spent on other classes and work and the teacher doesn't make something actually due when he says it's due... which is fortunate or I'd already be failing that class..

Forum is still incredibly stupid and unproductive as well as run entirely by seniority. But I've come to realize the whole program is. So I asked my teacher at the end of the class what the reading was because he told them within the first 45 minutes of class that I missed, and he says "Kim, you've gotta start coming to class on time." To which I thought, "well, I think this is the first time I've ever been late, and why am I and like one other guy the only people you ever say that to?" There's this guy that's an adult student who has been late to class probably 85% of the time if not more. And he's significantly late every time. Like between a half hour and and hour or more late. So every beginning of class the teacher says "well I assume Dale is coming" as if he were just marking him present on the assumption that he would never actually MISS class. So then he walks in an hour late, doesn't have any work for the class and says "sorry, people started calling me in the morning for my business and I couldn't get away until now" or else just says nothing and shows up late. The teachers just like "Oh, hey what's up?" Never a "Dale, you've got to start coming to class on time."

Boy, every one of my teachers sure like a set 6 or so people and just jerks around everyone else. And if you say anything about it, they'll just ignore you or shoot you down. As a class we were telling my typography teacher about how we don't really like the format of class where we just go in and have a "critique" for two and a half to three hours because nothing ever gets done, no one walks away with any ideas or advice in hand, and we should be spending time in class working. So after some people had said some stuff I said, "And it's hard to do every week because the class is so long and most of the time we're just sitting here waiting for our turn in class to get some feedback and the rest of the time nothing that's said applies to us." and she said "Well, I'm sorry, but that's just sad." and moved on.. meanwhile, the rest of the class chims in and agrees with me. Someone from her select few that she likes will back me up and defend me and she's like "Oh, that's interesting, thanks for telling me." But I'm just sad.

I have two teachers that actually have teaching on the agenda and aren't pompous elitist jerks who play favorites: my publication design class through JMC, and my midi music teacher. But those are the two classes that I'm ignoring the most so that I can get the work done for everything else (work at the theater permitting). And those are still the two classes I've learned the most in. This is the worst school system ever.


!

11-8-04 Mon. 11:17 a.m.
I got another wedding gig via Mr. Smits' wedding. This woman came up to me while I was checking out the church and asked if I could shoot her granddaughter's wedding and I talked to them last night about doing it. I'm replacing the person they had lined up to shoot it before who drowned >_< ... Now to finish/start editing Mr. Smits' wedding. I've finally started to capture it as I've been busy with everything else in these last like 2 weeks since my computer started working.

Hit with a giant cold which I probably got from work last night. Took some nyquill at 6:45 this morning because I didn't have any dayquill.. All the world was a blur until.. well actually it still kind of is.

Time to play Catch-up Monday once again.

11-3-04 Wed. 07:26 p.m.
So they admit to record voter turnout. Some states are claiming up to 80% turn out, but still (as of last year) only 17% of them are 18-29. And woo! 10% of the total turnout are new voters! So who are the other 10 to 20 to 30% of the new voters? NONE of them are 18-29? NONE of the NEW voters are 18-29? We just managed to get a bunch of 40 year olds to vote for the first time?? Even with all of the campaigns specifically targeted towards young voters there was still no increase. I don't think so.

11-3-04 Wed. 11:05 a.m.
ARG! This is even more annoying now! Bush won Nevada so he made the 270 to win and John Kerry gave up! Even before Ohio is decided for sure, Kerry called Bush and said he conceded! He could still win with everything else, which he's projected to win, and Ohio! WHAT THE HELL?! Goddamnit. Gore just gave up before the end of the recount in Florida too. I hate America.

11-3-04 Wed. 07:39 a.m.
We live in the worst country ever. The elections are fixed, it's not even a democracy, (and no, that's not just a rant of someone pissed off, they really are fixed. for example, kerry was winning florida for 3 days at least before last night. and yet, hmm... and there was so much corruption in the individual state polls, they fucking lost every vote from milwaukee which are STILL yet to be recovered, in states like ohio, republicans were allowed to contest every vote to come through, some states are using a touch screen voting method which means no paper trails, and all over the country people are dressing up as officials and trying to turn people away from voting at all, the numbers of young voters don't match, and with record voter turnout, so many kerry supporters and so many bush haters, i cannot believe that bush would still get the vote. oh, end if and when kerry gets the rest of the states, they will be exactly tied, which means the senate and the house of reps will chose the president and vp.. good thing all of them are psychotic republicans now...etc etc the list goes on) new congressmen want to ban gays and unwed mothers from being teachers and want to obliterate all abortions and exicute the doctors for murder. so basically, oh, you're pregnent? well you have to keep it, and we're limiting the jobs you can get because you now have a kid. yeah, that's great.

I don't want to go to school today. I feel like punching every bush supporter so they can never have any children. I have no hope for the future. Boy, I hope I don't get drafted.

11-1-04 Mon. 06:10 p.m.
It's November already! I'm excited about voting tomorrow though. All things point towards Kerry it seems, including a futuring telling football game!

I ended up going out on the 30th for Halloween after work. I went as "an Amc Employee." People were amazed at my accuracy. We went to a bar down-townish were Brad (David's 16 year old brother) was playing a few songs in a band. It was pretty fun. This guy that apparently used to be a manager at amc (who I didn't know but talked to me because I obviously worked there..) won the costume contest as Meatloaf.

Here's my sister and I on a Halloween long ago. 1985 specifically, when I was 2:


Some day perhaps I'll finally post up pictures from my birthday and stuff.

10-27-04 Wed. 09:38 a.m.
Quote of the day: "The study showed that drinking alcohol significantly decreased the amount of time spent walking, grooming, or flying, and increased the amount of time the bees spent upside down."

10-24-04 Sun. 06:26 p.m.
Did anyone else see Ashley Simpsons' career fizzle out on live tv last night on SNL? The band started to play and then her voice track came in at the wrong time and then stopped and came in again. So she started dancing and then ran off stage while the band was still playing and grinning. At the end of the show she blamed the band by saying they started to play the wrong song. Not that she has more than ONE song... Basically it was revealed that she doesn't sing her songs and then blamed the band. It was great.

I bought Katamari Damacy after work today for $11 because I had a $9 credit at the store for selling them my monkeyball 1 game.

This morning at work I had to do 6 moves that were supposed to have been done last night. (Moves meaning that I had to pick up the movie and move it to a different projector.) You're supposed to do it the night before because there's no time to do it in the morning... but alas, the BOOTH MANAGER who worked last night didn't do them. Actually he did one.. and then there were 6 more this morning. I don't know what the deal was.. but we almost didn't start some movies on time.

Oh, and my sensitive plant bloomed a purple flower... which I didn't know they did. It's the plant where it if you touch its leaves they close up. The flower does not seem to be sensitive though.

10-22-04 Fri. 03:11 p.m.
Alright, the computer situation is officially really funny. Today, instead of receiving the 2nd new harddrive like the Barruster guy (whose name is Baboo) thought, I received a new processor and a new heat assembly..thing.. So yeah, basically every part in my computer has been/could potentially be replaced except.. I don't know, my RAM. They just keep throwing expensive hardware at me in attempts to fix the problem, but they've stopped calling me and telling me these things are happening. Hopefully after Baboo come to pick up all the stuff they sent me and calls Sam's to confirm that stuff happened and give them a report, they'll find out that it was in fact the Software and be done with it.

9-21-04 Thurs. 10:27 p.m.
I got home today and there was another missed package notice on my mailbox.. from the same people that have sending me all the new hardware. They're STILL sending me new hardware and no one has told me they were going to... and I don't need it. Then the guy from Barrister called me and was like "So they sent you a new motherboard, when should I come put it in?" So I said it was fised by just getting a new copy of XP installed and he was like "Yeah, I told them it was software, but they wouldn't listen. They're probably sending you a new harddrive too, that's probably what's coming."

So yeah, it'd be cool if I could keep all that stuff.

10-20-04 Wed. 07:54 a.m.
I've encountered so many logistical issues on Macs than I EVER have on a PC. We have to do all our work in Mac labs for my classes.. so I come in to work on this project we have to do where we take ditigal photos and then create a space in Photoshop. Well I hook my camera up to the computer and it won't recognize it. Now I've been sitting here for an hour wasting time because I can't do any work because I can't upload my pictures.

I'm really not sure why schools and Mac geeks think Macs are the industry standard for production. As far as I've seen animation houses render on PCs (Shrek 2, Shark Tale most recently on Hewlett Packards) and they all edit on Avid. So I think I'll stick with my PC and anyone that tells me otherwise can fuck off.

10-20-04 Wed. 06:41 a.m.
This is a fun site. You answer questions to see which candidate your beliefs fit with.

I am 88% Kerry, 8% Bush.

10-19-04 Tues. 03:09 p.m.
So, funny story. Yesterday I believe my computer was officially fixed. No thanks to HP and no thanks to Sam's Club and their local tech support Barrister. I took my box into school where David works and the tech guys there imaged in a new version of XP. XP Pro even. I think this has fixed all the problems. I've been able to install some things using windows installer, uninstall things, and it recognizes my flashdrive. So, WOOOOOOOO!

But the funny part is, I just got back from class only to receive another UPS package containing... dun dun daaaaa!! another new motherboard.. I didn't even know it was being sent to me. But I don't know how it was decided that after putting in the last new motherboard that another new one would solve the problem. And it's great because you know, 2 months ago when this problem first occured, David deduced that it was probably XP. That's why he formated so many times and reinstalled it and then reinstalled another version of it with my key and all that. The only reason it never got fixed was that he had only done so much for free before I'd either have to buy a new version of XP or get some new hardware.. Well even after all this replacing of hardware and repeated calls to Sam's Club, and having the Barrister guy come over multiple times, even after he decided last time it was probably XP that was the problem, they're STILL sending me new hardware...I guess when they call to set up an appointment to put it in I'll just say I don't need it and the problem's fixed.

10-17-04 Sun. 05:39 p.m.
No matter how much i want to deny it, it's almost impossible to get away from everything the film department had to offer.
We spent the entire class period on friday for my Divas forum class trying to think of a name for our film screening. To update everyone, the forum was originally (this year, last year it was just a critique class) going to be for setting up a film screening in conjunction with florida state university, that got canceled.. but we're putting on a film screening anyway as a precursor to the bd4d florida one.

well the teacher had us break into groups: design, text/title, and 2 something elsees.. after a while it was desided that the design group (that i'm in) couldn't do anything without having a name for the screening. so then we joined the text people in trying to think of our group/film screening's title. We spent like an hour going back and forth thinking up words that described the type of screening we were doing, and what it has to do with DIVAS. We had already decided the class before that we were going to set ourselves apart from the film department's film screenings by showing only digital work. video, flash, digital sound, etc.. maybe have some like digital looking/themed artwork up on the walls of the venue.. so naturally we were thinking of words that would express the ditital show, like pixel and .. digital, and binary and things.. we had a giant list and were narrowing it down to somethings. we thought maybe we could have the title of this year's screening be dawn of the digital and then make posters with like 8-bit characters that look like zombies or whatever.. and then there would be a main name for the group putting the screenings on every year like the pixel project. none of these were final thoughts, but by the time the teacher got done talking to one of the other groups, he decided again we needed to merge.. except the new addition to our group were all the surly "upper-classmen" (people who were in DIVAS last semester) and they thought it was really dumb that 1. we were limiting it to digital 2. we were limiting it to projected things like videos and flash animations.. (in fact they thought it was unfair that our... FILM SCREENING, was only allowing in these projected works. to make it fair and even, we should have sculptures and paintings too! ... which yes, has ABSOLUTLEY NOTHING TO DO WITH A FILM SCREENING, LET ALONE A DIGITAL FILM SCREENING...

so they, with their larger voice over the class apparently, decided just like that to take out every name we had with digital, pixel, binary (direct quote "what is that 001001 stuff? some kind of instant messanger speak!?").. and basically everything else we had written down. so we (they) narrowed all like 50 ideas we had to 6 random words that weren't even whole titles in themselves that the upper-classmen thought of, were forced to vote then and there because we were running out of time, and since there were maybe 8 of them who were all voting on the same word to our 20 who were all voting on different words because we couldn't make up our minds because they were all stupid.. the title of our film screening is now... wait for it...



"VENT"



which is quite possibly the most pretentious thing we could have named ourselves. they thought it should be like a visual poetry reading where people could display their emotions though video (and apparently sculpture and painting)
So us design people were thinking of ideas on the bus ride home. we thought maybe we should put just a picture of an airvent on the flyer and see if anyone comes.

this class is starting to be even worse that underground film.

10-14-04 Thurs. 11:59 p.m.
Alright, so this is way cool. Remember the band the Wandering Sons that I wrote about before? Most of the band is made up of people that I worked with on the Tim McGraw shoot. Well they just played the Gasthaus in the UWM union. They were amazing first of all. But what's cooler is that they're going to be playing for John Kerry at his rally in Appleton tomorrow at Lawrence University. That's so cool! If anyone that reads this is still in Appleton, you should try go to if only just to see them play. They're really good people... I wish I was better friends with them. It's so weird that they're from Appleton and graduated like a year before me from North.

Now Alan is playing this really cool game called Katamari Damacy. It's this bizarre Japanese game where you have to roll a ball around (the katamari) and make it bigger by picking up a bunch of junk like sticks of gum, tacks, and frogs in order to make it bigger so that it can later become a star. So weird...

10-11-04 Mon. 12:24 p.m.
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

10-11-04 Mon. 11:37 a.m.
So now the joke is that when you walk into Mayfair mall and suddenly there's a poker kiask that sells these slot machines, you can pay $395 for them there!

Actually it was really weird because they didn't have them before that day. So we had been looking into these slot machines a few weeks earlier and then after the george kodoma one shipped, they show up at the mall. Then some guy with an accent is all in your face about buying one for the low low price of $395!



P.S. Upcoming Events!

10/14 - Wandering Sons - Gasthaus
10/15 - Gallery Night - 3rd Ward
10/19 - Captured by Robots - Cactus Club
10/27 - G. Love and Special Sauce - Rave
11/5 - Robyn Hitchcock - Shank
11/17 - David's birthday and the Pixies in Chicago! ...which I'm no longer invited to!

10-9-04 Sat. 12:07 a.m.
The slot machine I got for David's birthday came in today. Actually I missed the drop of so we had to go find the UPS place which was way off in Oak Creek. When we got there there was one UPS dude in the back of a truck that waved us over. This was at 8:45 at night so it was dark and in a secluded area. It seemed really shady like he was waving us over to look at his hot items in the back of his truck. But instead it was the 85 pounds of slot machine I paid for!

Here's the machine. It has an LCD screen with crazy anime fighting bonus games. It's really loud and funny.

He's got two more coming in the mail: one based on some Japanese fishing game and one is called TACO Slot and has a bunch of funny octopuses on it.

10-8-04 Fri. 03:36 p.m.
i'm sick of this divas forum class i have on fridays.. we're not doing the BD4D film screening with Florida State University... which was the coolest thing.. now we're just putting on a uwm/maybe miad film screening... so basically it's just underground film all over again.. but we only get 1 credit instead of 3 and we have to write a short research paper...

10-4-04 Mon. 05:16 p.m.
This is one of the coolest sites


World Clock

10-4-04 Mon. 12:54 p.m.
Well, Ghost in the Shell 2 was SUPPOSED to be at the Downer by Saturday... It's not there. I just went back to the theater locations for it and Milwaukee is no longer listed at all....

10-2-04 Sat. 04:31 p.m.
Yesterday and today were fun. Yesterday I drove around a bunch of cameramen and Tim McGraw and Faith Hill's stylists. They were cool. They said they do a bunch of celebrities. Aparently Mariah Carey is really funny and sarcastic, so everytime you see her in interviews and things, she's just joking and isn't really all stuck up and flighty. Oh, and the rumor is that Britney got married because she's pregnant.. :o

During the concert last night Melissa (another PA) and I were handing out bottled water to the camera people. While we were waiting for this one camera guy on stage to turn around so we could wave a bottled water at him to take, Tim came over to that end of the stage to sing to the people on that side... so as a joke, I waved a bottle of water at him and he stopped singing for a moment and started laughing. :) That was great.

Today the three PAs from a band called "The Wandering Sons" and I just kind of sat around and chatted it up with the cool Production Manager TJ. Then they filled up some rented cars with gas while TJ and I went to drop off some Fedex packages. We joked about the nasty tater tots from Hardee's being like the ones in Napoleon Dynamite.

And so wrapped the Tim McGraw NBC special. The only thing left for me is to get the pictures of the rental cars developed and sent to Tall Pony in LA. Oh, and drink the $50 bottle of vodka TJ didn't want anymore and gave to me. Sweet...

Oh, something else that was cool was that the camera crew shooting this is the same group that does all the music related shows for NBC like the Grammys. And one of the Producers, Danny Harris, works on a whole shitload of Musc tours.. I think he said he had just worked on the Britney tour.

Last night they put us up in the Radisson were everyone was staying and I went over and lost 20 bucks at Oneida Casino...

10-1-04 Fri. 09:40 a.m.
So far this PA job seems more like an Office Assistant job, but that's alright. I'm still getting paid well... relatively. I've been driving vans around, picking up $500 worth of red wine, picking up $300 worth of gaffers tape, and standing around. I have nothing to do with the production whatsoever. Actually, when I tried to watch them taping, they told me to go away...

I walked past Tim McGraw and Bret Favre several times, but they were talking to other people so I wasn't really going to strike up a conversation. And I got a bunch of deer-in-headlights looks from Faith Hill as I walked past her dressing room. I don't know why she always looked so surprised to see someone walk by, but she looked at me every time. Their kids were running around making "potions" out of various drinks we had, and just behind the stage there was a martini bar for the bands.

Bret Favre looks like your typical 40 year old frat boy. I believe when was on stage with Tim he was wearing the same thing I saw him in off stage: t-shirt, shorts, nikes, white socks, baseball hat, knee brace.

9-28-04 Tues. 02:07 p.m.
The poster for Battleship Potemkin is way better than the film.

9-27-04 Mon. 10:56 a.m.
"Alert. This document contains no data." so says my computer every other second when something like a webpage won't load.... I just need a whole new damn computer. Nothing is getting fixed, the local IT guy hasn't called me back... David has no idea what the hell is wrong with my computer because it's so bizarre.. meantime, I still have shitloads of projects to do on programs I used to have but can't install anymore. I've already come across two or three situations where having a laptop would have solved everything.. such as when I'm just sitting at work, falling asleep... if I had a laptop I could have been working in Photoshop or Illustrator.
Bah!

Today I missed my first class. It was at 8am and I went to sleep at 3:30 am. We were watching movies last night. The one I was really there to see (Mean Girls) we had to watch second, so I had to stay up for it or I would never ever see it since everyone that would possibly see it with me was watching it then. And I kind of felt the need to be there to supervise all the comments about Lindsay Lohan's breasts as that was why everyone was there to watch it except me. . . .
Hopefully missing class won't be that big of a deal.. we were probably just looking at the rest of the projects and maybe watching some of Timecode... oh shit.. no, I think we were actually given out a new project and discussing it.. as I remeber from last class he said we probably wouldn't get to Timecode again since we'd be discussing the project all day... damnit.

9-26-04 Sun. 05:43 p.m.
Saw these guys (Tabakin) last night, and Rusty Ps. The singer plays baritone sax in some of the songs.


Ghost in the Shell 2 is playing in Madison and Chicago right now, and will be at the Downer in Milwaukee October 1st.

9-21-04 Tues. 07:08 p.m.
I just really really really fucking need my computer fixed. I have so many papers and projects that would make life SO much easier if I didn't have to go to a lab to do them.. especially since the lab is only open when I have classes and I need specific programs. Programs that if my computer were working, I could be working on here. And I have 10,000 papers to write and print, and a bunch of other terms and project outline papers and shit to print too. Plus I have things to scan and photo copy on my expensive printer that I can't use so I have to pay such and such amount of change per print at school.

Further annoyances: so I put out some more sugar water to catch all the fruit flies that came back.. there's only a few.. but instead of catching all the fruit flies, random tiny ants appeared and started hanging around the sugar water cup.

Now I'm bringing all my fridge food to Dave's so they can put in a new fridge tomorrow sometime. I'm bringing the printer so I can hook it up to his computer if he didn't take it with him to the baseball game... and so I can use his photoshop and illustrator to finish off some projects. I was just assigned an hour ago 3 to 5 different concepts for this typography project we have to do where we use a word that has to do with boundaries and then arrange the letters so they flow into each other in a horizontal strip... well it's more difficult than it sounds because we also have to have meaning to how they flow and to what fonts we choose and all that.. AND I don't know how to use illustrator.. so I'm learning as I make stuff. So it's taking me forever, and I don't have any time to do it tomorrow except maybe after 7pm after my class... but I have to do homework for Thursday then.. and then I have some time on Thursday before my type class..... Thank GOD I don't have to work again until friday.

9-21-04 Tues. 01:00 a.m.
You'd be surprised at how many movie goers call Resident Evil... Residential Evil. I made a joke about angry housewives with spatulas and kids with long snot strands hanging out of their noses in sandboxes. Nobody knew what I was talking about. *shrug*

I want to get the posters for "I ♥ Huckabees", "Ocean's 12" and maybe "Sideways" They're all so conceptionally awesome. Especially the Huckabees one. I hope none of the movies suck.

9-20-04 Mon. 01:31 p.m.
There's a link on MSN today to find the songs that were popular the year you graduated high school, but first I was looking at the songs that were popular the year I was born.

1983

Um, and since the songs that were popular when I graduated high school still play regularly on the radio, here are the songs of when I graduated elementary school...

1995

Man, 1995 sucked for music.

Lots of good songs from '83 though. My favorite part of the Champaigne trip we went on over Labor Day was when James (one of Dave's good friends) was singing "Every Breath you Take" on Karaoke Revolution 2, and Dave and Josh (another of his good friends) started to sing in harmony, very quietly in the background the "every breath you take, every move you make, every single day..." etc. It was awesome.

9-18-04 Sat. 12:23 p.m.
Wow, mid-September already. Last night I realized how close Halloweedn is, but I can remember last Halloween like it was only a few months ago.. and it's not like anything memorable happened. I just remember it like it was recent.


Aside from that, there's been way better cg in other movies, so I don't know why this one was not as good as it could have been rendered. I'm glad they didn't do the bird flying by the big castle or watterfall scene so that we could tell it was actually that big... And they did a pretty good job of making it look like an old movie with the shots they had and the fades and newspaper headline montages. It was annoying that they constantly had the female character in this glowing light. In old movies it's just when there's a close up shot of just her face that it's glowing and in soft focus.. and they don't ever do it for guys.. like they did in Sky Captain.

So anyway, while we were driving back from the theater, we randomly decided to go to the casino were we saw Cherry Poppin' Daddis for free. Both of us ended up only losing a little bit of money.. Actually, I was up $3 (after having lost it all) but since the atm fee was $3.25, I'm actually down a quarter.

Then I slept in and didn't really do any work that I should have. Oh well.

9-17-04 Fri. 11:25 a.m.
I like doing tutorials. It makes the class period go by faster (which means I narrowly escape getting a parking ticket... by like 30 seconds, not kidding.) And I relearn some stuff. Boy, Talisman (our high school newspaper) layout would have gone a lot faster had I known some of the Quark shortcuts. But then, some things were stupidly slower just because you can't right-click on a Mac. And now I even have time to take a shower before my next class so I'm not all gross when I go to work immediately after class.