Awwhh, I Miss You Guys!

I think I'm coming out of my unibomber stage. Watch out. I know, I know. I've been distant. I've been a hermit. I've been plastering the walls of my cabin with newspaper articles and writing "DIE DIE DIE" all over with red paint. (Wait, ignore that last one!) I've spent three to four years reflecting on life, the universe and everything, and I think I've figured things out as much as I'm going to. Life: sucks. The universe: is big. Everything: (um...I'm about three weeks short of figuring this one out. Oh well.)

I was looking at my third-floor pictures the other day (thanks, Carney!) and missing everyone. I miss stealing couches. Duct-taping doors. Covering the boy's room with pictures of Justin Timberlake. J.Lo of Cracka What?. The park. Ryan hitting on everything female. John Carpenter movies. "Smooth Criminal". Our giant door-stop rock. "Anytime is Train Time". The totem pole and Karen's fan club. Getting kicked out of the Karen-Mike-Chris pool "club". The Barbie Gap... the cardboard boob... found objects... the cranberry/raspberry dilemma.

That was a magical time. :) Even though none of us will ever find anything like that again- the right people at the right time in the right place- I can't help feeling sad. I'd settle for a group of friends half as cool.

I'm going to make an effort to stay in touch (better) with everyone. I'm organizing a barbecue, dammit. And maybe I'll even try to meet some new people... ugh. I'm too old and lazy for this stuff!

Holy Crap.

I sincerely apologize to writers of LOST... I've been saying some pretty nasty things about the addition of Nikki and Paolo to this season's cast. I seem to remember calling it a "cop-out" (and worse!) numerous times.

That truly was one of the best hours of television, um- ever?!! I've never been so pleased to eat my words. That was so deliciously horrible, terrible...wonderful! (Evil laughter ensues.)

Obligatory Post

It's been ten days, I probably should post something...

I finished Zelda:Twilight Princess the other day. It's a good, solid game. Although, I've never met a Zelda that I didn't like. Swinging my wiimote around sword-style was a definite plus. My only criticism is that the end bosses were way too easy.

Still working on the new website... I've never been that "into" web design, and at the moment I'm lacking the ambition to do it. There are just so many other things to work on. And I keep asking myself "why"? I use two pages as a portfolio- those two pages are not public and are still operational, but what the heck am I going to put on my homepage???

Once I have something to promote, the website will be great. Until then, it's going to remain a lovely splash of marbles.

I'm still listening to early nineties alt-rock. My ipod is playing Deep Blue Something, The Gin Blossoms, Oasis, and The Verve... weird.

I Don't Care What They Say About Us Anyway...

Uh oh. It's one of those "loopy" days. After a night of extremely incoherent dreams (I was looking for my Ninja Turtles cassette???), I woke up with Weezer's "Buddy Holly" stuck in my head. I swear, I haven't thought about that song in at least ten years, and I wake up wailing "What's with these homies dissin' my girl?"??? :)

Later today, I'll probably be wearing a flannel shirt and some Umbros. (In retrospect, I was very lucky to have gone through all of middle and some highschool at a time history where "coolness" was proportionate to how dirty you looked...)

I'll take some good old fashioned grunge any day over this new "emo" crap that I just...do...not...get. Is it "goth"? Is it skater culture? I don't know! I'm officially on the other side of the new generation gap. I'm feeling it more and more every day.

This is what a quarter-life crisis feels like, isn't it?

Well, you'll have to excuse me for now. Kurt Cobain and Gavin Rossdale are calling my name.

Behind the Times

I realize that I'm about eleven years late... but I've just discovered that I love "Buffy"! I'm a big fan of Firefly and Serenity, so Karen suggested that I borrow her Season 1 DVD set. Smart girl. We love that Joss Whedon. I feel like an idiot for not having jumped on the wagon in, oh, 1996?

This makes me an even bigger geek, doesn't it?

My mom is pretty excited that I've started watching. She spent a lot of time watching marathons while my dad was in Toledo. She's quite the fan too!

Damn. This means I'm going to have to renew my Netflix subscription.

Oh, and I'd just like to take this moment to gloat about the fact that I totally called it on LOST- I've been saying that Claire is Jack's half-sister for months!!! I was FINALLY right about something!! Yay!!!

Become

Whew... well, I'm going down the list of things to do on the internet while waiting for my video to render. Right now, it's blog time.

Too bad I don't have anything to say, eh?

Um, the video I am currently working on is "Become" by the Goo Goo Dolls- the same video I mentioned yesterday. Karen still doesn't know what it is, so today (of course!) will probably be the first time she'll ever look at this. :) Of course.

It's progressing slowly. I wanted to do a little animation in this one- that's throwing a pretty major wrench in the works. I'll remember for the future: animation=not good for fast turnaround times.

And I wanted it to be my best work ever. See, it was supposed to be AMAZING, so amazing that somebody would see it on youtube and tell somebody who would alert somebody who would call me and ask me to work on the band's next video... Ha. :) Well, it was amazing when it was still inside my head!

It isn't my best work ever. It's a nice solid B+/A- video. And it just finished rendering.

Have I Mentioned Lately That I Love You?

Oh, Johnny Rzeznik. (Just give me a minute....)

Ok, so Karen and I went to the Goo Goo Dolls concert last night. I wish that I could be articulate and descriptive about the experience, but I only have one word: hot. Call me Paris if you will, but it left me pretty much speechless. The set list was perfect, the seats were good, Johnny couldn't have been cuter...

...And we had WAY too much fun with the opening band. They were "Augustana", and apparently I'm not cool enough to know who they are. The teenagers seemed to enjoy them though. Don't get me wrong, their songs were pretty good, but I couldn't take them seriously- they looked like "My First Rock Band"! Karen and I spent most of the set laughing at the bass guitarist's funny little strut and the rest laughing at the lead guitarist's hideous pants. They made me feel old.

Ha. Today I coerced poor Karen into starring in my next video. She's pretty sure this is going to be a repeat of the Britney cardboard cut-out incident, but I have assured her that it will be beautiful. You're all going to have to wait until it's finished to find out. :)

May The Force Be With You

Well folks, it's finally here. Yes, I've finally finished the highly-anticipated sequel to my popular "Power of the Dark Side" video, "The Force". This montage picks up where the first left off, featuring Episodes IV-VI. Like the movies themselves, my original trilogy video is way better than my prequel video.

I guess I should explain the eight-month gap between videos. I blame most of the delay on the music. Last time, I used a single operatic/orchestral/techno song with three even movements. It was perfect in every way. Shortly after finishing the first video, I started looking for a second operatic/orchestral/techno song with three movements that would convey the mood of the original series. Yeah, that didn't happen. It took most of the eight months to find three songs that "went" together, and sounded similar enough to the first video's music that someone could watch the two videos in a row if they wanted to.

Then I had file formatting issues. I won't bore you with them.

The actually editing process only took about 24 hours (straight!) Going through six-seven hours of film took a good chunk of time, and then working it all into a storyline and matching it to the music took the rest of the time. Once I finally got going, I was so hooked, that I couldn't do anything else. I have images of Mark Hamill permanently etched onto my retinas, but it was all worth it. :)

Of course, getting the stupid video to render perfectly took 8 hours of pure frustration. I could get a large, high-bitrate file to render perfectly... but getting a file small enough for youtube and myspace proved to be a challenge. I had to settle on a version that "skips", which I'm sure will annoy me more than it will ever annoy anyone else...

Oh, and I apologize in advance to all my fellow Sebastian Shaw fans. I know, I know. I own the wrong set of DVDs.

Anyway, without further ado... I proudly present "The Force".