2-11-04 to 5-6-04

9-16-04 Thurs. 11:44 a.m.
So here's something stupid:

After reformatting my computer 4 or 5 times two days ago and trying to install different versions of Windows XP to get my computer to finally work again...
Well, it's not totally fixed, but somehow it's SLIGHTLY better. Now it will recognize what it is that I put into the USB port, but it still won't automatically install what it needs to. So now my computer is aware that I have put in a flashdrive, as opposed to it not realizing I put anything into the drive like it was doing before... but it won't install the flashdrive drivers.

I don't know how a problem like that can be half fixed without just fixing all the way.

Meanwhile, I'm sitting back at my apartment because I couldn't get up early enough to drive back to Menasha for my doctor's appointment.. so now it's being rescheduled for the 2nd time. It all would have been fine if the doctor hadn't cancelled the appointment in August in the first place. Now it's in mid October.

9-16-04 Thurs. 01:54 a.m.
I keep seeing the funniest animal related things. Not like Animals' Funniest Home Videos type things, but just weird, amusing occurances.

Tonight, I saw a bird asleep on a big industrial dumpster. It was about midnight, and it was just squatting there, all puffed up. I've never seen a bird sleep before, a wild bird, but I just assumed it was because they sleep high up in trees and not out in the open on the corner of a dumpster in a mall parking lot. It looked like it was planted there so that when I went closer, someone would jump out at me. I got about 2 and a half feet away from it and it never moved. It started to breathe harder, so it's not like it was not moving because it was dead...

Then the other day, Dave and I were walking somewhere and this squirrel is eating a nut or something on the boulevard of grass by the sidewalk. So we stopped and watched it for a second, and it runs to the curb and continues to eat from there... But it seemed like it was trying to keep our attention the whole time, like it was putting on a show. The best part was when it started to lean to the side. It wasn't like a crouch and lean to look around a corner type thing, it was a straight-back lean to the left as far as you can before you fall over just for your own amusement kind of lean. Either that or it was falling off the curb, but it straightened up again as if it was doing it on purpose.

9-14-04 Tues. 02:20 p.m.
Reason number 7 why this apartment is really not the best apartment ever:
My mail man folds my packages and shoves them into my tinyass mailbox. So now I have a bent to hell text book that WAS brand new and in the best condition it could be.

What a fucking moron. If you have to FORCE something to bend, it probably should be bent. especially if it's a large package that OBVIOUSLY isn't going to fit into a tiny mailbox.

And just to recap, the other 6 reasons why this apartment is really not the best apartment ever:
1. No elevator and I'm on the 4th floor.
2. For no specific reason, my apartment manager doesn't accept our rent, we have to drive it down town to the home office.
3. Everything is on two fuses that blow if I have too many things running at once.. like, the air conditioner, a fan, and my computer.. if I plug in a toaster it blows the fuse. And then, once again, the problem of going down the 4 flights of stairs to flick the fuse back on and then coming back up the 4 flights of stairs to my apartment again.
4. My refridgerator freezes everything, but melts the stuff in my freezer, no matter how I change the temperature.
5. The manager disconnected the buzzing system so I have to go down all my flights of stairs to let someone in.
6. The manager not only has a dog herself, but it's a huge brown-spotted dalmation.

9-13-04 Mon. 11:31 a.m.
I have officially already not done my first assinment for a class because of work. But I keep changing my schedule... I guess in the end I need to tell them I can't work more than 20 or so hours a week. Now I have to take part of my day, which needs to be used for doing all my other homework for the week, laundry, and buying other school supplies, to write a paper that was due this morning. Grr.. I have a feeling I'll be just barely getting through this semester, which is completely stupid because I'm taking a bunch of cool classes that I'm interested in.

9-12-04 Sun. 01:06 p.m.
After having reformated again (after having replaced my harddrive), my computer still does not work properly. Windows installer freezes on program installations. Because of this, I can't install my printer so I can't print off the articles I need for the paper I have to write tonight (after I get back from work at 10:30)... which I can't print either.

For now, I installed my printer on David's laptop and printed the articles that way... all 23 pages of them... It's going to be a long night.. and an early morning with my class at 8am.

9-11-04 Sat. 01:41 a.m.
I never realized how bad for you eating put is until I hadn't any groceries in the house for more than a month and I've been eating nothing but restaurant food. And it's not like I eat only McDonald's or anything. I eat on the healthier end of fast food when I can. I haven't ordered a soda in several weeks.
But I'm always tired, I bruise a lot easier, I'm breaking out a lot more all of a sudden in this past week, I can only do 10 sit ups until I get searing pain as opposed to the same pain at 25 situps, I can't go up my four flights of stairs to my apartment without almost every time having to take a break for a second, my hair seems to be drier, I tend to feel sick after eating something (but not sick like i just ate a lot of grease, just sick like i ate way way too much even if i just ate a little).

Long story short, I really really need to buy groceries... and also have time to cook.

9-10-04 Fri. 03:38 p.m.
Projects, assignments, and readings are building up after the first week of school. So many different things are due next week and not much time to do them. If I figure I get up at maybe 9 tomorrow and sunday and go to bed at maybe 1am both days, I have, (not including today because I don't get back from work until maybe 12:30am) a total of 13 hours all weekend to do my homework. But at some point I desperately need to buy groceries and the rest of my supplies for school, return my texts that I ordered copies of online before Monday, and format my computer (again, after having a new harddrive put in). Oh and I should do laundry too, and a bunch of other stuff here and there like cleaning and taking out the garbage that's making my apartment smell a little. All of this within the 13 hours I have between sleeping and working. I think maybe I need to rework my work schedule. I already told them I can't work Wednesdays... but I really need a decent amount of the day open on the weekend days too. guh....

I have, however, successfully dropped my film class and added a JMC (journalism and mass communication) class called Production Design. Next Friday we spend the whole class doing QuarkXpress tutorials. Woo! Easy time spent, plus I need brushing up on all the commands and whatnots of Quark anyway. I haven't used it for 2.5 years or so.

I had to go through this loop of emails to add the class because I haven't fullfilled the prerequisite of Media Writing... so I had to get special permission to add... So I emailed the professor and he sent it to some other admin people in the department who told me they usually don't allow people to add who haven't taken the prereq, but I went to the class today and the professor was just like "Oh yeah, you're Kim, we'll get you added after class." We went to get the add drop sheet and the person who told me they usually don't add people like me and she was like "Oh, you're Kim, ok, here you go." And then I was added. Easy.

I think officially all my classes are now studios... which might get to be a bit much. And I've also noticed that all my classes require me to have both a sketch book and a flash drive. It's such an unusual turn of events since coming for the technology illiterate film department.

9-8-04 Wed. 12:10 p.m.
It feels like it's 5 o'clock already.

David's friends at work offered to unchalk my car when they go to unchalk theirs, so I'm going to, at least today, park at school from 12:30 to 6:50. They stop checking at 4 though.

I've had a couple of classes in here, so I feel I should point this out now. We have the infamous "B43" room in the film department area of Mitchell and it's really cool. They have about 5 G5's in there with all of the high end software like final cut pro, pro tools, after effects, etc. They also have the really expensive Adobe Font Folio. Then they have Mboxes, mixer boards, high end scanners, and wacoms on all of them. The video editing specific computers have two monitors set up. There's more too that I just didn't know what it was. Pretty unusual for UWM to have such new technology... and it's only offered to DIVAS majors, and i guess graduates or something.

9-8-04 Wed, 12:36 a.m.
Well, I finally got my new harddrive put in and reinstalled everything to my computer. Then I immediately got a trojan virus somehow and it hasn't been fixed since... so basically I've been without a fully functional computer since mid-August. I guess Mr. Smits' wedding video will have to wait. I finally got a new printer to replace my old apparently broken one so I could print up my class schedule.

We went to Champaigne over the long weekend and hung out with David's college friends (the first college) who are good people. I got 5th in a 10 man (well 8 men and 2 women) poker game... nevertheless, I lost my 10 bucks anyway. Third place would have gotten my money back.

I'm having some issues with my only film class and have been trying to drop it and add a new one since I got out of the first day of class. I almost walked out during.. that's how worthless it is. Unfortunately the class I want to add I haven't fullfilled the prerequisite for and have to go through a bunch of hoops including talking to the chair of the JMC department to add it. It seems unlikely they'll let me in... In which case, I have to keep the film class because I don't want just 13 credits this semester... but I need to know before Friday because by then I'll have to have done homework for the film class, which I haven't bought the unreturnable book from the localman's kinkos store we're required to buy it from.

I'm also having some troubles with my work schedule in that the way I have it now, I have absolutely no time to do any homework. AND, on Wednesdays I'm at school from 8am to 6:50pm and then have to IMMEDIATELY drive to work to get there by 7:30.. which means somehow I have to have my car parked at school for that long.. and believe me, there are no 11 parking spots at school.. unless I want to pay $11 to park in the garage all day.. but that's almost two hours of work that I just spent so I could have my car around to get to work on time.

I'll find out how that goes today then... and probably in addition to saying I can't make it by 7:30 on Wednesdays... take off a few other days I'm working so I don't fail out of school...
And what's stupid is that even though I'm working every moment I'm not asleep or at school.. I still probably don't make enough to support myself.

This is going to suck...

9-2-04 Thurs. 02:50 p.m.
I want to live in this house. Too bad it's $749,000. It's this weird house that's in the middle of a bunch of regular looking houses. We assume the outside of it has just been redone, but it's so cool. It looks like something that should be on the lake or up on a hill for all to see, but it's just in a regular neighborhood with regular houses on either side.

It only has 3 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms. The only house on this listing that's more expensive has 11 bedrooms and it's a multi-family house in Shorewood.

9-1-04 Wed. 12:44 p.m.
Free play third mix arcade ddr last night in the union rec room. There was a tournament which i easily could have won except seeing as how i can't do anything in front of people, i was all nervous and lost to the guy by like 4000 on a slow song. Then i played it until they had to give it back to the people that they rented it from (so i was playing from like 9 to 11:30). I was talking to the guy that they rented it from and to the manager i guess of the rec room. The rental guy wouldn't sell it to me :(, but the rec room manager said they're working on getting one permanently there. So that would be awesome.

8-30-04 Mon. 03:13 p.m.
Since my Harddrive's going to be replaced in a matter of hours, maybe a day, I'm going to make this list here so I don't have to back it up...

Things I want/need/could buy with my ever growing savings account:

Nice, large tv, although I'd really like an HD tv.
A PS2, although the PS3 is coming out in a year.
A couple of CobaltFlux ddr pads, the ultimate in DDRing.
An HD video camera, cause boy do I need more than one camera if I want to continue shooting weddings.
Some nice clothes that aren't red... I've noticed a lot my clothes are red, and therefore I have no light coat to wear with them because my coat is red.
Oh, and I need to get a sitting out on the porch chair, although I should have gotten it a long time ago.

8-26-04 Thurs 10:37 a.m.
man, i REALLY like animal crackers. And they give me this false feeling of eating healthy (as opposed to eating cookies). Just like how it seems sprite is healthier than coke. ... I really need to buy some groceries.

I called HP yesterday and they're sending over a local guy to put in a new harddrive. I called Epson yesterday and they're sending me a new printer. It all seems to be working out, except when my apt manager leaves the printer outside my door until I get back and then someone steals it because it's a huge $135 printer sitting out unattended.

8-24-04 Tues. 03:23 p.m.
For whatever reason I got the day off from work today. although they ended up calling me in anyway. I said 'no' nevertheless. Today is cleaning and straightening the apartment day. All the stuff I should have done 3 weeks ago, but have only gotten around to do now. And some extra things like killing all 300 fruit flies in my apartment and backing up all my files in the little time I have before my harddrive crashes for no reason. I wonder if I should run a virus scan just for the hell of it....

So far I've backed up a good most of my files onto one dvd, cleared away most of the fruit flies by means of vacuuming them out of the air (and a few sugar and poison traps here and there), and have begun to *think* about where I'll rearrange everything to. I know I at least have to divide up my electronic things or the fuse blows.

8-23-04 Mon. 11:47 a.m.
In two days I've been insulted and complimented to the max. While I was at Wal-mart buying an extension chord for the wedding I was shooting Saturday, some random dude on his cellphone in like all black nice clothes stops me and asks if I am a model. When I laugh and say no he asks why... and then I just didn't know what to say so I was like "No one ever offered I guess ha ha..." walked away.

After getting back into Milwaukee I was informed that one of the people who was assumed to be a friend or at least an aquaintence asks Dave while highly intoxicated "Why does Kim have such a horrible perm? Why does she do that to her hair?" So apparently my normal, unpermed hair is a horrible perm now. Later that day a local Crusty told me she really liked my hair. Oh and then Alan told me I was a prude and no fun because I wouldn't take off my shirt. Although, he tells me it's a joke when I showed that I was annoyed about it.

8-16-04 Mon. 09:03 p.m.
Yarg. I'm at home now because I drove back to see my sister for a few more days and then we went to go to see the grandparents, but I left before I could do anything with all the stuff I got on my birthday. I brought the play-doh from chuck e cheese along and the two disposable cameras so hopefully I could get them developed.

There was talk of maybe going to the beach tomorrow except it's only going to be 77 degrees. So maybe we'll just pick blackberries.

8-15-04 Sun. 12:12 p.m.
Woo! Birthday party yesterday!

We managed to pull off the "Through the years" party that we had planned for so long. We went to places that represent things I would have done on sort of milestone birthdays. So we went to Toys R Us and played with toys, then to Chuck E Cheese which was surprisingly not completely disgusting. Then we went to roller rink which was one of the most fun things. There were all kinds of like 6-12 year olds there that were skating with us and when they played my birthday request that Brad and David gave them, they addressed it to "Ken, on his 21st birthday" that was pretty funny.
Then the movie (Alien Vs. Predator) was also surprisingly not terrible as most people had led me to believe it would be. We ate dinner at the Mongolian Bar-b-q and went to see Dj Q-bert. The Q-Bert show was really cool. Quite impressive. They were throwing out prizes for people and my friends caught one and gave it to me. :) It was a keychain that's a 1/4 audio Monster plug.
After that we spent a little bit of time at the Safehouse, which i liked, and everyone seemed to be having a good time. I got some gigantic unknown drink called the "mission impossible" and got to keep the huge glass.

The party was awesome and i got to see a bunch of friends i hadn't seen in a while. One of them i hadn't for like two years. Also, everyting worked out perfectly on timing, even when certain people were coming in at certain times, we were always done with the last activity and around to meet them for the next.

Now i have to go to work from 3 until 10 after having gone to bed at 5... then i have to drive back to appleton after 10 so i can go with the fam to see my grandparents in lacrosse on monday. guhh.. it's going to be the longest day.

8-7-04 Sat. 10:31 p.m.
Weddings give me an uneasy feeling all around, everytime. 1. i never know anyone there except maybe the bride or groom. 2. no one ever goes with me so i get hit on a lot. 3. i never know what to say to people. there's the standard "congratulations. it was a beautiful ceremony", but i just really hate cliches. so i end up saying "yeah, that was great. um... yeah"

This wedding in particular gave me the uneasy feeling because i was shooting it.. it was my neighbor victor's wedding and i was only shooting it because their other son, who went to nyu for film, was IN the wedding. so not only was it my first time shooting a wedding, but the person i was immediately handing the footage off too knows whether it sucks or not. and with a wedding, it shouldn't really suck, and things shouldn't be missed, and mistakes shouldn't be made because they can never do it again, and people are all anal about wedding videos because it's the BIG DAY etc.

i left early because i had a long drive back to appleton and i didn't want to dance or anything.

this one perfectly nice guy, a cousin of victor's, age 35 but i couldn't tell because he's asian.. talked to me for a bit about me shooting. as did a lot of people. i could tell he liked me though when the conversation kept dragging on while i looked away uninterestedly. so anyway, after i handed the camera (a really nice camera by the way. 3 chip sony) off to leo, said bye to those i had talked to and walked out of the building... this guy comes running out and says "oh, you're not staying then?" and i said no and left. i really feel weird being hit on, and i don't like the "oh, i'm taken" conversation, so i thought i'd leave before he could ask me to dance... but i felt kind of bad because he wasn't super player guy or anything. he was just normal. bah. then i got lost for a while on the drive home because it was in Ripon.

that said, i'm more looking forward to mr. smits' wedding in two weeks. 1. because a bunch of my good friends will be there. 2. i'm using my own camera, so i don't have to worry about how to take it out of auto-iris or auto-focus.. although, it would be nice to have those options on my camera.. or should i say, my parents' camera.

oh, and at the wedding i talked to some cool people who i sat with during the dinner. one group was the muscians. the cellist was nice. she was really friendly and had funny kids. one of them who was maybe... 5 asked her mom if she could sit by me while i shot, and then she started directing her little brother while i was shooting to move his head slightly. it was funny. anyway, while i was up shooting something during the reception, the guy pouring champaigne came around and the cellist said to the guy "oh she'll have some" in a sort of "drinking woo hoo!" type friendly tone. i think she knew i wasn't 21 yet though because she never asked me about a free beer from the bar that she was getting for others.
then this other couple was composed of a wisconsin guy and a girl originally from london and we were talking about wisconsin accents. later we discovered she was in my mom's homeroom when she was in high school.

8-4-04 Wed. 03:53 p.m.
you know the movie The Notebook? or Serendipity, Spiderman 2, or I don't know.. You've Got Mail? Where two people have this amazing relationship, then they lose contact with each other.. then meet up years later and decide to leave whoever their with and get back together?

Well i want to make one of those movies, but from the point of view of the person they left. i want the back story to be the long lost love.. still have the current boyfriend/girlfriend be left behind, but confuse the audience by equally setting up the characters. so they're happy the long lost lovers got back together, but also pissed off at them for leaving the perfectly good relationship they had. or maybe JUST pissed off... there are way too many movies where it's a happy ending when the two that were "meant to be" get back together. too bad about those other people though.
But the current relationship character would still have that flaw.. so there's the point in the movie when the audience chooses the long lost lover to "win" based on the flaw.. but then have the two characters work it out, so the audience has no reason to dislike them again.

8-4-04 Wed. 03:11 p.m.
I had to add another class, otherwise I'm only taking 13 credits.. and I found the perfect class for me: Cominc Art: Borsch to Present. In the Art History dept.. unfortunately it's not being offered this semester. I ended up adding a film class called Representing Animals.. so that should be cool. And hey, it was pointed out to me by Dave that Christine is no longer teaching the Underground Film class we both took. Maybe EVERYONE's negative comments about her finally paid off.

8-4-04 Wed. 12:12 p.m.
Only a couple people seem pissed about me being promoted over people that have worked there for a year... but they all seemed to be kiding about it too. Like "You jerk... ha ha" type way. No one seems generally pissed. And yesterday I found $16 in a theater. It's almost like we work for tips! But not really at all.

Almost everything is unpacked and I need to rearrange things so I don't blow fuses.. I need to even out my electronics.

I got my hair trimmed yesterday to be basically the same cut i got a few months ago. It was still $30.

Still waiting for people to send me money so I can get them DJ QBert tickets.... some how I get the feeling this is all going to die out before my birthday comes around.

8-1-04 Sun. 11:51 a.m.
Welcome to August! It's 90 degrees out! I've moved everything into my apartment except my fridge food with the help of my parents and David and his mom. my new desk is set up, my new bed, and I'm finishing putting up the shelves in the kitchen. It's going to be so cool!

7-29-04 Thurs. 12:29 p.m.
So, the police department here is apparently filled with dipshit assholes..
I got a letter today saying I had to pay $35 for the parking ticket I JUST had taken off.. but no, that's not in the system yet.. and my RECIEPT WITH SIGNITURE saying it was taken off isn't enough proof.. I have to go get it in writing from the person that released it.. and then send it to the violations bureau.

7-29-04 Thurs. 10:48 a.m.
I had to laugh all the way back from picking up my keys to the new apartment... there's apparently a rap song that samples the welcome back kotter theme now. Actually the song is called Welcome Back. Man, so funny.

Prerna doesn't seem to know why she owes me $50.. (for the new ddr pads) and i saw the guy that used to be all up on the Kim walking hand in hand with some short chunky girl.
ah, it's going to be a good day.

7-28-04 Wed. 11:50 a.m.
I had a dream that Juliette Lewis was going to cut my hair because my regular hairdresser was gone. She was doing it all wrong, but she was cutting it on a dummy first so i could see what it would look like before she cut mine. While i was waiting for her to finish cutting the dummy's hair, i had to jump down some kind of portal through a cardboard box over and over until it was right, while dodging the two tigers that were loose in the portal room. And Prerna was really good friends with Janet Jackson.

This is a really funny and accurate from what i've seen reivew of Napoleon Dynamite: "sort of like the cinematic equivalent of a lousy Wes Anderson cover band." - Philadelphia Weekly.

Gotta pack some more stuff today and get ready to take it over to the new place tomorrow.. for a half hour before work.

My Garfield standee finally sold today, but for $120 less than what it sold for the last time. Fabulous. No car stereo for me still.

7-27-04 Tues. 01:45 a.m.
boy can i not wait to move out. the kitchen is starting to smell like diapers because prerna always dumps out food and then doesn't ever take the garabage out. and she drank all but about a tablespoon of my orange juice. so not only did she drink it, but she left just enough so that i'd have to throw away the carton. why the hell is she drinking my juice? i don't know...
3 more days.

7-26-04 Mon. 01:23 p.m.
Anniversaries. Apparently not worth all the excitement.

I get to start moving in some of my stuff to the new place on Thursday at 5, although I'll only have a half hour before I have to go to work. I guess most of it is going to be done on Friday anyway. That's when the cable person is coming to restart my cable internet at the new place, and all of my change of address things go into effect. My parents are coming on Saturday with a trailer and my new bed and desk. (my birthday presents). Meanwhile, the apartment manager at the new place said I can't actually "move in" until the first.. i hope that means i can have everything already set up before then.. and then maybe just not sleep there until the night of the first.

Work 7 to close tonight.

7-25-04 Sat. 12:52 a.m.
Um, well having no one to tell this to live, i'll just write about it in here like some kind of teenage blogger.

Today at work they started to train me in the kitchen.. which was sort of short notice.. and then Jeremy was like "Did Morgan talk to you yet?... Oh."
Later they promoted me to "staff lead" which means i wear a blue shirt, make slightly more money, and have slightly more responsibilites. Morgan said her only concern is that I'm quiet.

Then just before I left, I went to check the last theater to make sure it was going to start on time (like I do when I'm on walkthroughs) On the way out and after helping some security guy fix his walkie some women came up to me and asked for a manager. Turns out they were complaining about some people/kids/toddlers were screaming during the movie and they had concluded we didn't do anything about it because they were gay. CLEARLY. They had decided this because the last time they were at the theater they got warned for talking... because they were gay. CLEARLY.

7-21-04 Wed. 02:20 a.m.
been back from work for about 20 minutes... so tired. i had to work from 7 to close.. which turned out to be about 1:45.

when i went to go turn the air on, i noticed something interesting about my ddr pad... there are cigarette burns on the bottom side of it. imagine that! how would that even happen when no one smokes in the apartment? yeah.. it's not even a joke anymore about her smoking. i know she does it. she doesn't try to hide it anymore... it makes me internally rageful. so perhaps she'll just have to buy me a new ddr pad.

*edit: both of them have burns. she's buying me two.

7-20-04 Tues. 04:18 p.m.
aw

I want a pet skunk.

7-20-04 Tues. 11:04 a.m.
Damnit, I hate that pitas has popups now. Unless they're from tagboard...

I just got back from the Milwaukee Municipal Court to contest a ticket. I didn't have to pay it because I had paid all of my other tickets before and she gave me a break. (Otherwise I really had no proof that I was more than 4 feet from the driveway) Now I have no more obligations (other than work) until August. ...Unless you count moving.. so maybe I have no other obligations until July 30th.

Yesterday in the projection booth I put together the sneak for Catwoman.. It ran smoothly, so that's good. By the way, it looks awful. We went up onto the roof between showings. It's pretty cool up there at night.

David bought the expansion disk for Karaoke Revolution for me. I haven't gotten a chance to play it yet, but I'm excited about the songs. There are SO many better songs on this mix.

gesture drawing

7-19-04 Mon. 12:11 p.m.
I don't think anyone ever looks at these.. but here's a picture of some guy I had to draw in my 101 class.

7-15-04 Thurs. 11:03 a.m.
It's now been forced upon me by Prerna to pay her rent. She's apparently at work all the time so she can't pay it. Well, it's 11 am, I'm pretty sure she's asleep right now. So fucking annoying. But hey, SHE'S not going to be held responsible, SHE isn't on the lease.

Yesterday, driving back from Appleton (short dentist visit) I saw a couple of cop cars on the highway heading towards Greenbay. Then a helicoptor.. then a few more cop cars. Then 6 cop cars all blocking both lanes followed by the Bush/Cheney '04 tour bus and then like 6 more coach buses, and endless amounts of cop cars/suvs. It was really weird. I thought maybe it was an accident at first until I saw the bus. Bush was apparently heading over to Greenbay after being in Fondulac just before.

Monday I was trained to be a projectionist at work. It was pretty fun. All the work was in the morning when we had to load all the projectors. After that we just had to press start all night, occasionally load another projector that was done.

7-11-04 Sun. 11:34 p.m.
holy crap do i need to buy groceries.

tomorrow i start being trained to project at the theater. i'm not sure if it's because they think i'd be good at it or if i'm just bad at talking with customers... maybe both. boy, do i hate whiney kids with their bitchy parents who only took them to a movie so they wouldn't have to deal with them for two hours and THEREFORE won't take them to the bathroom when they have to go because THEY WANT TO FINISH THE MOVIE.

prerna forgot to pay rent (keeping in mind it's the 11th of july) and we got a notice of eviction (out by the 16th) if she doesn't pay. at first i was kind of excited because then i could move into my new place early... but that's not really good because it's owned by the same company and they don't divide responsibility between roommates for rent. if prerna doesn't pay, i'm held accountable too and i don't think they'd be too happy about having me move into another of their buildings if i "don't pay rent". nevertheless, she supposedly paid today.

7-8-04 Thurs. 05:49 p.m.
I am so bored.

The Completely Pointless Personality Quiz

7-8-04 Thurs. 12:27 p.m.
Saw a free Poison and Kiss concert last night. Well WE saw it for free.. People that got the same tickets as us and paid spent $30. David is on the summerfest mailing list and was sent two free tickets.
Anyway, it was great. They had lots of fire and at one point Gene Simmons (the guy with the tongue) was spitting out fake blood and then was lifted up to a platform at the top of the amphitheater (which is a HUGE place) and sang a song up there.

Also, a funny thing... I bought earplugs a while back because so many concerts are just slightly too loud so that it fucks up your ears. Well the earplugs filter out those high ends so it's not so piercing. I managed to forget them for the Kiss concert..
The only time I've ever remembered to bring them was at the Ben Folds concert at Summerfest...

7-7-04 Wed. 07:11 p.m.
Hot Swimsuit Photo

7-7-04 Wed. 06:18 p.m.
I guess I'm just going to slowly post all these on here and then put them on my site later.

Here are two drawings we did on the first day. We had to do portraits of people without looking at the paper. I think they came out funny.

1 2

7-6-04 Tues. 11:38 a.m.
I have the vice president's autograph. It's ripped up, coated in ashes, and on the floor under some boxes... -_-

Here's another of the drawings I did in drawing 101. My other self portrait. We were instructed to do either a drawing of ourselves, or a still life that represented ourselves. I did both because I couldn't decide.

7-5-04 Mon. 11:44 a.m.
I have met the worst person I will ever know. Eh, no sense getting worked up about it again.

On a lighter note, I have to work from 2 to 10 today and I don't want to! Bah, I've been off of work too long.

Also, I'd like to reiterate how much the film department at UWM sucks. Basically the one day I could and planned to go up to school and use the optical printer to work on my film, it's broken. Well, more specifically the lightbulb is burnt out. Those things don't just burn out easily, but that's what happens when a department who doesn't let UNDERGRADUATE film majors use the optical printer, allows NON FILM MAJORS to use it in a summer class. Now the bulb won't get fixed until at LEAST Tuesday when the building is back open. I don't have time to use it again until at least Thursday, and my film is due by 5pm Friday. So much for getting my GPA up again after last semester.. I'll probably get like a C in this class because I can't do what I needed to because their fucking equipment is broken.

Still no followup from the person that "bought" the Garfield standee.. I've filed a complaint, but I have to wait ANOTHER 10 days before I can offer it to someone else to buy. Meanwhile, demand is running low on it because the movie's been out for many weeks by now.

Court date on the 20th to contest a ticket. And I need to see if my camera is working properly for the weddings I'm shooting in August.

The new Peter Pan movie that came out last summer or so is good.

halloween self portrait from my drawing 101 class two semesters ago. Eh. That didn't photograph so well. Eventually I'm going to be putting the rest of these drawings up on my art site.. which hasn't been updated in over a year... Oh and there's been a request for more childhood pictures.. so I'll scan some more of what I have someday too.

7-4-04 Sun. 04:24 p.m.
I want to expose film to lightning and see how that turns out...

7-4-04 Sun. 12:42 p.m.
DJ Q-Bert is playing at the Rave on my birthday.

7-2-04 Fri. 12:20 a.m.
So here I am. Just after seeing Fahrenheit 9/11. My reaction is a positive: "Ok."

I've seen all the movies, none of the tv shows, but I have to say this one wasn't as good. It wasn't as solid as Bowling for Columbine. Frankly, a lot of the shots of Bush made me feel bad for him. Like during the part where he's visiting with the kids in Florida or where ever and he's just told the U.S. was hit, but he continues reading to them... he looks generally concerned and freaked out. It's not like he's just "Whatever, I'm going to continue reading this here book" And it's funny because the music that was put to it made me feel even worse for him than if it was just the natural sound.

There were also a lot of shots that seemed to be just there to manipulate people into thinking so and so politican was bad, but the shots didn't really make any sense or give me any reaction one way or another. For example, the opening credits with the clips of politicans getting their make up fixed and the one guy was like "Make me look young!" I didn't know what I was supposed to get out of that. Were they somehow bad people for having a sense of humor and crew fixing their hair and makeup like they were hired to do? Eh.

I'm just glad this movie will probably take away some votes from Bush.

Incidently, Spider-man 2 was good.

7-1-04 Thurs. 04:13 p.m.
I need to save up for some new stuff. I'm moving into the nice cool apartment and I need some furniture that reflects its coolness.

I definitely need a different computer desk (somewhere between $100 and $300 looks to be the average) and I need something smaller and nicer to hold the tv and game system stuff (also between $100 and $300). The prices are from looking at desks and entertainment centers on the Ikea website.. although I don't really like most of what they have. I don't remember what this kind of stuff costs at reuben's, but their furniture is really nice.

I also want to buy an HD camera (between $2000 and $4000) and darkroom chemicals (which isn't really that much, maybe $100 total).

So in conclusion, with my shitty $6 an hour job, I need to save up between $2300 and $4300. Oh, I also need to still buy a new stereo for my car and probably get that giant scuff on the front repainted.. so add another, I don't know, $800 or something onto that.

Who wants to give me $5000!?

6-29-04 Tues. 09:59 a.m.
David and I got gmail accounts. It's Google's new email server with a gig of space. Since it's in beta test mode it's invite only. People are selling the invites on ebay even. It's that special.
It's exciting to be using it as a really email now instead of just David and I talking back and forth about whether or not we got invites yet. (The people with the accounts get a few invites to give to other people.)

Well I sold the Garfield, but it looks like the guy that bought it is going to screw me over and not pay for it. Sigh. I'll never get a new car cd player.

I found a place a couple blocks away from me that sells all the chemicals I need for my dark room.. although I'm not sure if the picture chemicals are different from film chemicals.

6-28-04 Mon. 01:59 p.m.
June is going by fast.

David and I just got back from Appleton yesterday. We were there for a day and it was good times. We hung out with some of my old friends from high school/elementary school for a while, went to a strangely uninteresting downtown "festival", ate a home cooked meal, then saw a really bad band at Tom's Garage with my parents. All of that really doesn't sound that intersting, but it was. The band was bad, but we played shuffle board and pool while we.. made fun of them. Because I was with my parents I was allowed into the bar and to drink, although I was the least drunk of the four of us. ;)

The drive back was interesting because I had to drive my parents' giant ass Chevy Blazer which is still bigger than most SUVs out there. (it's a '94). We drove from Appleton to Arlington, just outside of Chicago, to the horserace tracks for one of David's old highschool friend's birthday. We both did poorly.. The horses that we picked would be winning solid the whole way and then like 50 years from the finish line they'd just stop and everyone would pass them. That happened on more than half of the races we bet on.

As far as the summerfest shows we went to. They were half and half good and bad I'd say. Well not bad, but just not above average and not any different from listening to the cd.
We saw David's friend Kirk's band Atomic Willis play the first day we went. They drew a big crowd and proved to be pretty impressive. I had only seen Kirk play in his improve jazz band, so it was cool to see him rock out. After that we saw Ok-Go, which is probably one of the best concerts I've seen. The lead singer started out by saying they hadn't played a show in 2 months. During the show he forgot the words to a couple of his songs, broke a guitar string, and knocked over the mic stand. But while someone was fixing the string, he and the other guitarist did a song from Le Miserable. It was all dramatic and so great. Shortly after that they played this Awesome song called Unrequited Orchestra of Locomotion. I don't know why but it was just one of the coolest songs ever. The recorded version isn't even as good as it was live. Maybe it was because it was just after the Le Mis song and they were all energetic. They also played a great cover of Hold the Line by Toto where they had some choreographed moves. And then at the end they performed a boy band dance number to their song C-C-C-Cinnamon Lips.

After OK-Go was The Darkness which was just ok. They sounded just like their CD and I really only wanted to hear the one song anyway.. which was interupted by an EXTREMELY drunk guy behind us that kept falling off the bleachers. These two guys behind the drunk guy got really pissed off and were screaming at him and holding him by his neck. His friend and his girlfriend were no help. They were both totally drunk too. So I tried to get a security guy that was 5 feet behind us in this barred off area just below the spotlight tower to break it up and he was like "I can't leave this box, find another staff member that's around in the crowd".. which is bullshit. So we left.

The next night we saw Bob Schneider who was good. He had a good following in Milwaukee. After that we tried to watch Ben Folds, but we were so far away that he was just some small dude sitting at a grand piano playing muted music mixed with another stage's bass.

6-24-04 Thurs. 10:31 a.m.
Big day at Summerfest today. We're going to see The Darkness at 10 and other bands here and there during the day.

I think i might use the office of the new apartment as a darkroom. I think it could work. I just need to see how much chemicals will be. I'm sort of worried about ruining the hardwood floor though. I guess I could get one of those plastic floor mats down.

6-22-04 Tues. 12:58 p.m.
I'd have to say that it's not so much that she uses my computer and borrows my cds... it's that she roots around in my room while I'm going looking for entertainment.

And I guess it's the fact that she never asked to borrow my cds, and it's not like I've known her for more than two months that it's assume alright if she does.

...And it's not like she didn't HORRIBLY scratch the last cd she borrowed by having it somehow get stuck in the inner-workings of her cd player so that she had to unscrew the whole thing to get it out.

6-21-04 Mon. 08:26 a.m.
I'm tired of my summer class. Only three more weeks left, though that's 6 classes, and a good 24 hours of class.

David starts teaching his web design class today.

We went to see The Terminal last night. It was really good and I'm glad. I haven't seen a good movie in so so long.

6-18-04 Fri. 03:01 p.m.
Damnit. I hadn't listened to music in a while, you know, because of my stereo issues.. but I'm listening to stuff on my computer and now I'm all energetic about doing stuff like cleaning.. but I only have like 25 minutes before I have to leave for work!

Does anyone need a motorola car and wall charger?

6-16-04 Wed. 07:26 p.m.
they're showing my apartment tomorrow at 5 so i'm cleaning tomorrow. i guess prerna never actually got on a lease. i wonder what she's going to do now...

6-15-04 Tues. 03:27 p.m.
no matter what anyone says, "Hey, what's up with you? Girls gone wild, right?!" is not an effective pick up line.

remember how i said i had $1150 worth of damages to my car and a $200 stereo? got a check today for a grand total of $336.02 from allstate just now. sorry batta, you're not getting the giant blow up garfield.

some things allstate said weren't broken, some things they said could be repaired and didn't need to be replaced. also, they apparently have to take away 10% a year for deterioration of my cd player, so instead of getting $200 for my $200 cd player, i got $100 or so.

also, i think i'm going to lock my computer when i'm not around. i'm tired of seeing prerna's boyfriend come out of my room when i walk in, which i can only assume he was on my computer because prerna probably told him he could be... otherwise it's something much more creepy that he was in my room for. and if i'm going to find random people sleeping on my bed, i might as well make sure i'm the only one using my computer if i'm the only one paying the cable bill.

6-14-04 Mon. 11:26 p.m.
I can't shake being so pissed today. In fact, I don't think I've ever been this pissed before. my cheeks are all red from being pissed all day.
I'm probably going to break out from stress.. damnit.

Another employee's friend asked about the harry potter standee that I was going to take a couple days ago.. or maybe it was yesterday. Anyway, I was like a day late to them throwing it away.. too bad a "MINT CONDITION IN BOX L@@K" one sold for $1,000+ on ebay...

6-13-04 Sat. 12:28 a.m.
i have obtained the giant garfield stand up inflatable advertisment from work. my friend matt batta is going to put it in his pool, which would be pretty cool. it's like 10 feet tall.

oh, hey, here it is. kind of wish i wasn't giving it to him now....

6-11-04 Fri. 10:39 a.m.
Boy are car burglars making a haul this week. They busted the window of the car parked in front of mine in front of David's building last night and stole some stuff she had in her back seat, Didn't take her radio though.

No more music class. Had my last class today and test.

I think my hip is dislocated. Hmm...

6-10-04 Thurs. 12:55 p.m.
I think the smell of Oust and cigarette smoke makes me ill. Boy does Oust not do anything.. and then the window gets left open while it rains on our stuff. All because she's too lazy to step outside for 5 minutes.

This sure is an age-old arguement... but it just never seems to be resolved. Only a month and the rest of this month left I guess..

On a related note: I just banned smoking in my NationState. :)

6-8-04 Tues. 04:08 p.m.
ok. so it works out that the insurance company's deductable is $250 instead of $500 because it's not a collision, and it's not going to raise our rate because of that either.. so my parents are going to go through the insurance company.

i don't know if i'm still paying the $250 though. bah, and they still really don't want me to get a new cd player.....

6-8-04 Tues. 01:18 p.m.
so gloriously hot today.

my parents got an estimate for my car which involves them just gluing the pieces back on... you know, nevermind that i might not have all the pieces and maybe some of the stuff doesn't work anymore like the defrost button that's hanging by a thread.

i got an estimate that was like $1150 (including labor, which was about half the cost) which is a lot, but since it's over $500, the insurance company will pay for it.

my parents would rather pay for it and have it done poorly than have it done like new and have someone else pay for it... it kind of pisses me off. they sure went to all lengths to fix the mini cooper when my dad backed it into a pole. oh and apparently since it was my fault my car got broken into (according to my dad), i should pay for the damages.. so not only are we not opting to have the insurance company pay for it, but I'M going to pay for it.

it might not be as cut and dry as that.. like i think maybe we'd have to pay $500 up front for them to fix it and then the insurance company either pays the rest or pays us back later... but you know, by not getting it fixed, it will 1. probably break again, and 2. never have any value if we ever want to sell it or trade it in. people aren't going to want a car with a puzzle-piece dash and a big patch over the hole in my map holder.

so i still haven't filed a police report because we haven't decided on a price for damages yet.

oh yeah, i also don't think the glued together dash will hold when i get a new cd player put in.. but that seems to be the plan because my parents think if i put antoher one in i'm just asking for my car to be broken into.

6-6-04 Sun. 03:32 p.m.
No work today.

Someone stole the stereo out of my car and all the cds in it.

The cds were all copies or my own or David's compilation.. which just means i can't ever have them again. Like road trip cds he made for St. Louis.

6-5-04 Fri. 02:02 a.m.
Archived what was there.. for whatever reason.

in other news, my music theory class is the easiest class EVER. it is, no kidding, the equivalent to the music theory we learned in elementary school... so "Every Good Boy Does Fine" and stuff. my teacher was like "this is pretty easy for you isn't it? you should take some advanced theory." and i said "i took some advanced theory in high school" and he was like "then why are you here?"... "required class."
a girl in my class was confused as to why they were using the G clef (treble) for an F major scale.... bah. everyone in my class is just REALLY at the basics of music theory, which is fine. it's just REALLY boring. it's a four hour class and chapter 19 is finally where the book introduces flats and sharps.

in OTHER other news, the E3 expo announced the new songs for the karaoke revolution expansion disk:

"Baby One More Time"
"Born To Be Wild"
"Cry"
"Drift Away"
"Every Breath You Take"
"Friends In Low Places"
"Genie in a Bottle"
"Heartbreak Hotel"
"Here Without You"
"Hot Stuff"
"I Believe in a Thing Called Love" (sweet)
"I Hate Everything About You"
"I Will Survive"
"I'll Make Love to You"
"I'm With You"
"Irresistible"
"It's My Life"
"I've Got You Under My Skin"
"Jesse's Girl"
"Lady Marmalade"
"Let's Get It On"
"Miss You"
"My Girl"
"Papa Don't Preach"
"Perfect"
"Rich Girl"
"Rock and Roll All Night"
"Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay"
"Sweet Home Alabama"
"The First Cut is the Deepest"
"The Joker"
"Toxic"
"Virtual Insanity"
"We Are Family"
"White Flag"

oh yeah. slick rick and doug e fresh are playing at the rave.. for $5... but it's strictly 21+... goddamnit.