| The Big Move - update 6/21/09 |
[Jun. 21st, 2009|02:37 pm] |
Tired, sore, feeling grungy... gotta love packing.
Yes, I'm still at it. Got a lot to go and I've only got a week left to do it. By this time next week I'll be hard at work packing up the U-Haul. Thankfully, I have a handful of people willing to come out and help me, plus I'll have my dad.
The apartment is looking emptier and emptier. Well, as empty as it can look with piles of boxes. But you know what I mean. And it's kind of depressing. I always knew California was a stepping stone in my life, but I took root here. It became home. And now I'm pulling those roots from the ground without knowing exactly where I'll plant them again.
But hey, I'll be near family and old friends, and that's exciting. And there's nothing that says we can't back and visit out here.
My replacement at work started on Friday. I was a part of the interview process, and I really liked him, as did my boss, and so he got the job out of three candidates we interviewed. He's way more qualified at the web stuff than I am, but we'll see how well he handles all the miscellaneous stuff (which is a good portion of the job). He's very laid back and easy to get along with, though, so I think he'll do all right. As much as I'm glad I'm leaving the job, I wanted to leave everyone in good hands.
I'm starting to really miss Katie. I've been so busy everyday that I haven't thought much about it (not that I'm not thinking about HER, just haven't been thinking about how much I miss her), but it's starting to creep forward in my mind more and more. I've gone out a couple times with friends and coworkers, and that helps, but being alone in the apartment is getting harder and harder.
Well, that's all for now. I should get back to packing and/or cleaning I guess. Fun fun fun. |
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| A Buncha Stuff |
[Jun. 11th, 2009|11:06 am] |
I went for drinks last night with some coworkers as a sort-of last hurrah thing. It has been almost a year since I last had a Guinness, and I realized while I was drinking one last night that I've become way too much of a beer snob. I need to get back to my roots. In short, I love Guinness and I never want to leave it again.
Anyway.
The packing is still going slowly and steadily. I've sold some more furniture, but the guy who wanted the fridge has kind of disappeared. I'm giving him another day and then I'm putting it back on the market. The fun part about the packing is that I've started watching the first season of Chuck while doing it, thanks to a coworker, and I'm hooked on it. It's one of those shows that makes me almost regret not watching TV. Almost.
And I should recap some events that happened since my last post. I want down to San Clemente last Friday (took the day off of work) to take a tour of a microbrewery called Left Coast Brewery. The head brewmaster is actually the boyfriend of the brewmaster at Rockbottom, and we had been emailing back and forth about me coming down for a tour. Well, I get there on Friday, buzz the intercom, and let the person on the other end know that I'm there for a tour. He responds by saying Rick (the brewmaster) isn't there and they didn't know anything about it. I stutter that I had been corresponding with Rick all week about it, and the guy on the other end does his own stuttering and mentions that there's only a small crew there and he's not sure they can show me around. At this point I'm almost ready to give up and be pissed off that I drove an hour and half for nothing, but I decided to play the guilt card instead. I said, "Is there anything at all you can do? I drove all the way in North Hollywood for this." The guy stutters a bit more and says he'll go check. After about a minute of waiting, the door opens and the guy invites me in, saying that one of the other brewmasters, Dan, will take me around. Dan will never read this, but Dan - you're a stand-up guy. He took me on a quick tour, answered some of my questions, let me sample a few beers, and let me keep the pint glass. He also directed me to a brew pub not too far away called Pizza Port, and I got myself some pretty good pizza and a really awesome double IPA. So it ended up being a really good day.
Oh, and it turns out that Rick had emailed me the evening before about being called to do a surprise visit to one of their other facilities, but I didn't check my email account until I got back from the tour. Figures.
The other highlight of the weekend was seeing UP. Pixar once again proved that they are tops in the animation and storytelling gigs. Beautiful visuals, wonderful voice acting, funny dialogue, and a truly emotional story. If you haven't seen it yet, go do so tonight.
I miss Katie. |
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| Moving Update |
[Jun. 6th, 2009|04:14 pm] |
I did a locked post about this, but since not everyone was able to access it, here are the highlights from it:
Katie and I will be back on the east coast this summer. I'll be there at the beginning of July, and she'll be there at the beginning of August, after her contract is up with the theater company in North Carolina.
This was a decision that we didn't come to overnight. We've always known we want to get a house and have kids on the east coast. California isn't bad, but it is expensive, and for the amount we would pay for a house out here, we could get a nicer one WITH LAND back east. And I really want to raise my kids on the east coast. We also wanted to be closer to our families. Work has dried up out here for Katie, and I hate my job.
There are a lot of reasons, so really, it's just time to move on.
The plan is for me to find work for the summer, live with my folks rent-free and save up a bit, and keep looking for work on the east. We really want to end up in Vermont, but at this point anywhere on the east coast is good (preferably within a day's drive to our families).
The downside is that I'm left to pack everything myself. I'll be shipping Media Mail stuff home to my parents, so that'll be a good chunk of our stuff. We're also selling off most of our big furniture (keeping our file cabinet and our cast iron bar), so that'll help. I'm going to rent a U-Haul for the back of the Outback, and I'm paying for my dad to fly out here at the end of June to drive across the country with me and Jester. So that'll be fun.
The furniture selling has been going pretty well. I sold my grill, the television, one of the nightstands, and my bedroom lamps (meaning the only light I have in the bedroom now is from the bathroom), and I'm in the process of selling the refrigerator, the computer desk, and our TV trays. Losing the fridge will be a bit of a nuisance, but I have a cooler that I can fill with ice and keep some stuff like milk and leftovers.
As for packing, I've put a small dent into our stuff, but the big problem is that I'm not acquiring boxes fast enough. I may have to shell out for some. Oh well.
As far as fun stuff goes, I'm going to a pirate party tonight. Probably the last time I'll get to party with Ray, so that's depressing. But I'm going to have fun anyway.
So many other things to write about, but I guess I'll save them for later. |
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| Prelude to the Revelation |
[May. 29th, 2009|12:35 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | prelude, quote | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  contemplative | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Andromeda | ] |
"I'm like a twenty dollar bill,
Changing hands when food is bought or tanks are filled,
Move through others' lives so easily,
I'm like a twenty dollar bill."
- onelinedrawing |
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| I Liked It |
[May. 23rd, 2009|01:25 am] |
So how many people can I get to argue with me, tell me I'm wrong, get me to see why they're right, etc. by saying Terminator Salvation was NOT a bad movie? I'm guessing at least a couple, while the rest of you decide not to because I already called you out.
For what it was, it rocked. I paid to see a sci-fi/action flick with the Terminator mythology as a basis, and that's exactly what I got. Scary looking robots, explosions, ass-kicking, post apocalyptic settings... what more do you need?
Seriously, if you say it was a bad movie, you're wrong. I'll hear nothing more on the matter. |
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| An Art Rant |
[May. 15th, 2009|04:10 pm] |
There's something I don't quite get. Well, okay, there are a LOT of things I don't get, but let's tackle the issue in baby steps. We'll start off with an age-old Seinfeldism:
What's the deal with people on deviantART drawing other people's characters?
Seriously, I have a good number of people on my watch list on deviantART, and the ones that tend to update the most frequently draw another person's character or characters. What's the point?
Fan art I get. I've done fan art for other webcomic artists. It's a sign of respect and admiration for another artist. But to constantly be drawing other people's creations? Why not hone your own characters?
I feel the same way about fan fiction. Again, what's the point? If you're going to write, do your own work. Don't use someone else's characters or world or whatever.
Am I just a militantly independent artist? I think I am. Hell, I barely even bother to learn other people's songs on the guitar. I've always been more interested in creating and perfecting my own songs. Oh sure, occasionally there'll be a song that catches my interest and I'll want to learn the riffs, but normally I have no interest in ever playing other people's songs.
I think most of my mindset stems from not wanting to be overly influenced. I never say, "I want to write like so-and-so" or "I wish I could draw line art like so-and-so". It's always, "I want to write AS GOOD AS so-and-so" or "I wish I could line art AS BEAUTIFUL AS so-and-so". It may not seem like a big difference, but it is. One is saying that I want to emulate the influence; the other is saying that I want to match the quality of my own product with influence's.
Maybe I'm making too much out of it. Or maybe I'm just really sick of seeing unoriginal art on DA.
And for God's sake, STOP WITH THE ANIME. Develop your own style.
AND STAY OFF OF MY LAWN, YOU BRATS!! |
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| The Weekend of Nerdery |
[May. 11th, 2009|04:03 pm] |
What a weekend of nerdery! After last week, I really needed it. In fact, I will probably need many weekends like that coming up... but let's not get into that (talking about work is always depressing).
Friday night Katie and I hit up the lovely port city of San Pedro for a night of dining and theater. We ate at a really cool English pub called the Whale and Ale. First time I've had shephard's pie in a long time (and they had a pretty good IPA). Then we saw one of the show's Katie recently designed for, Hay Fever. Despite some nitpicks I had with it (none related to the costumes, of course), it was a pretty good show.
Saturday I went on an "exclusive" brewery tour at my favorite brew pub, Rockbottom Brewery. My coworker, who I've gotten very much into beer snobbery, came along, and also in attendance was the owner of Vin de Pays (our favorite wine/beer store) and a regular there named Marco (really nice guy). Hayley, the brewmaster at Rockbottom, is awesome on several levels. She showed us around, explained the process, answered our questions, and even talked to me for a while about home brewing. I even inquired about apprenticing, and even though I wasn't specifically talking about her she offered to take me on if I wanted to help out! So while Katie is gone this summer, I might just do that a couple days a week to learn what I can and get some experience.
Sunday was awesome. Why? Star Trek, that's why. I've already raved about it in other places, so if you want my take on it, all I'll say is that if you haven't seen it, get your ass to the theater. I don't care if you aren't a Star Trek fan; watch it.
So yay, that was my weekend. And now... bleh. But next weekend - Terminator: Salvation, bitches! YEAH!! |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 6th, 2009|01:42 pm] |
Long-time followers of my LJ should already know that I absolutely hated Michael Eisner, the former CEO of Disney. The man took what was once a wonderful company and raped it, drove it into the ground, and blamed everyone but himself. The new CEO, Roger Iger, has done much to restore my faith in Disney, the biggest being his appointing of the Pixar heads to run Disney's animation studio. But this article has given me even more respect for Iger (the parts that are bolded are my doing):
For its shareholders, the Walt Disney Co. was not the happiest place on earth Wednesday as the giant media conglomerate reported a 46-percent drop in profits for the last quarter, including a 97-percent plunge at its film division. In a conference call, Disney CEO Robert Iger did not blame the economy for the drop in studio revenue. "In this case, it's not the marketplace, it's our slate," Iger said. "It's about choice of films and execution of films that have been chosen for production. And we've had a rough year." Somewhat surprisingly, Disney's ABC broadcast network and Espn cable network each reported relatively strong sales, with profits slipping just 4 percent. Income at Disney's theme parks dropped 50 percent. About the recent decision to join Hulu.com, Iger said, "We absolutely must be where our consumers are going." He indicated that Disney may also put many of its long-form programs on YouTube, where it already offers short films and cartoons. - from IMDB
Firstly, how refreshing is it to see someone say "It was our fault" rather than blame the economy for their loss of profits?
Secondly, I am amazed that someone in such a high position is actually acknowledging the power that is internet media. In a world where most TV networks are clinging to the sinking ship of their outdated business models, Disney sounds like its sailing along in a sturdier vessel. If they officially put their stuff on YouTube, even if it's just clips, it will have restored my faith in them completely, and I promise to never say a bad word against them (unless someone takes Iger's place and cocks everything up again). |
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| Treasure Bath |
[May. 5th, 2009|12:41 pm] |
And we lost another one... RIP, Dom.
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| The Political Knee Jerk Response |
[May. 4th, 2009|03:05 pm] |
As with religious discussions, I don't usually get too into political discussions or rants here, but this has been sitting in my head for a while now, so I'm gonna vent.
Last week an acquaintance on Facebook, who is very right-wing conservative, made a comment to the effect of, "I'm so sick of hearing the word Obama." I usually don't respond to these sorts of things, but I was curious - and feeling feisty - so I left a comment saying, "Because we NEVER heard Bush's name?" Really, in the past eight years I can guarantee that I heard his name at least once a week. So I was really just comparing the actual hearing of the names, and nothing else.
Well, I offended someone. Within minutes - literally - one of this person's friends posted a big comment to the effect of (and I'm paraphrasing here), "Why is it that when someone posts their opinion people have to say something about it?" and basically made it clear that I, a liberal Obama lover, wasn't allowing someone to have an opinion. So I responded with a very calm, "It's funny you perceived the comment that way because it was merely a comparison between situations."
The original poster finally made the comment that he hated Bush, too, which is still not what I was getting at. But I gracefully made an exit after that.
The epilogue to all of that was that the douche who attacked me made a comment on his own Facebook page saying that liberals always have to act hurt and offended when someone speaks out against Obama. My mind still reels at the illogic nature and hypocrisy of that statement. How is it that someone can give a knee jerk attack to someone who was just asking a question, and then complain about the opposite side having knee jerk attacks?
Here's the thing - I don't care what side you are on, left or right. If you react like a sleeping cat being startled awake whenever someone says something you disagree with, you're an idiot. Period. There is no further discussion to be had at that point because you've proven that you shouldn't be allowed to have an opinion. React like a intelligent, rational person and I'll think about what you have to say.
And incidentally, I'm pretty sick of hearing about Obama, too, but that's not his fault, it's the media's. The guy is just trying to do his job, but the world wants a hero right now. |
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| Burning Out |
[May. 1st, 2009|02:23 pm] |
I think we all know that X-Men Origins: Wolverine is not going to be Citizen Kane, right? And I'm fairly certain, to a lesser degree, that we all know it's not going to be the next The Dark Knight. Plainly put, we know it's just a comic book movie and we accept that.
So why can't the movie reviewers seem to accept that? Oh right, because they get paid for spouting off about how smart they are when it comes to movies. Silly me, I forgot.
Nearly every movie review I've read so far for Origins has been lukewarm at best. The trend, when you boil it down to the basic elements, is to call it out for being too formulaic in structure, the same-old-same-old, and a lot of action over story and plot.
COMIC. BOOK. MOVIE. Seriously, folks. Maybe it's just that we, the comic book geeks, know this and that makes us not care. I'm down with the fact that not every comic book movie is going to be Iron Man. There are going to be a handful that don't live up to that benchmark, but that doesn't meant they aren't going to be fun.
My theory is that we've already driven past the era of comic book movies being Hollywood darlings. The reason that Iron Man and The Dark Knight hold up is that they aren't true comic book movies; they're based somewhat in realism, things that could actually happen. But now that we've had The Watchmen bomb in the theater and reviews of Origins being fairly negative, it makes me realize that the star that had once burned brightly is getting dimmer and dimmer.
So what's the next genre that Hollywood plans to drive into the ground? Well, I know there are "adaptations" of Hasbro board games on the horizon. I kid you not; Candyland is being made into a movie, as is Monopoly. And a possible remake of Clue, which is a travesty because the original is a true classic.
Hollywood - raping entertainment for almost 100 years. |
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| The Race Started and I'm Still Tying My Shoes |
[Apr. 28th, 2009|05:10 pm] |
For crying out loud, I haven't even bought a Blu-Ray player yet!!!
General Electric's GE Global Research unit announced that it has developed the next generation in laser disc technology that will allow storage of 500 gigabytes of information on a single disc -- or the equivalent of 20 high-definition Blu-ray discs or 100 DVDs. The disc, which GE describes as micro-holographic, makes use of the entire thickness of the disc rather than merely the surface. "The day when you can store your entire high-definition movie collection on one disc and support high-resolution formats like 3-D television is closer than you think," said Brian Lawrence, head of the company's holographic storage program. GE said that it is working on a way to store more than twice the amount of data on the micro-holographic discs. In addition, it said that players for the discs will be backwards compatible -- that is, also able to play standard CD, DVD, and Blu-ray discs. - from IMDB |
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| The History of Our Future - Today! |
[Apr. 27th, 2009|11:04 am] |
It was a weekend full of mirth and anxiety.
Our friend Dom was in town, and it's been forever since we had seen him. We actually got to see his sister, Heidi, play a solo gig at a bar in LA on Tuesday (she's really good). She was here for an ASCAP conference and Dom was here helping out a friend with a video project. On Friday we had him over for dinner, and on Saturday we hit up Long Beach. Katie and I ended up getting sunburned for the first time this year because we stupidly walked on the beach without sunscreen. Darn our pale, pale skin.
Last night was the anxietal part of the weekend (and yes, I totally made that word up). We had a long discussion about our future, the details of which I cannot divulge at the present time, but suffice to say that we did figure a few things out that needed to be figured out. Because of our ambitions and goals as artists, our future tends to be very hazy, so this was basically our "let's sit down and figure this crap out as best we can" session. Needless to say, we went through a few beers and needed to throw on something funny by the end of the night.
I sometimes wonder what it would be like to have a "normal" life. You know, get up, go to work, come home, watch TV and/or do chores, go to bed, repeat. I'm so far removed from that. My life consists of get up, go to work, use lunch break for writing, come home, work on comic or writing until 11:00/12:00pm, possibly squeeze in some chores, and repeat. And if I had my way the day job part of that would be gone, replaced with working on all of my projects. The hours would probably be the same, though.
Why couldn't I have just been an engineer? |
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| Revisiting The Sixth Floor |
[Apr. 21st, 2009|02:01 pm] |
I have delved once again into the world of The Sixth Floor.
For those of you unfamiliar with TSF, it's an office sitcom that my friend Mike and I started writing in 2003, back before The Office got wildly successful. It centered around a group of folks on the sixth floor of an office building where normal rules did not apply. From about 2003 to 2005 or so we wrote about five episodes, pitched the idea a bunch of places (well, Mike did), and even had a staged reading of it videotaped in front of an audience. Obviously it never really went anywhere, but it did stir up a minor amount of interest (in fact, one of our scripts still gets huge laughs whenever Mike lets someone read it). The problem was twofold. One, we never quite hit upon a pilot episode that worked, and two, there was never really an explanation as to why craziness happened on the sixth floor. So the show lay dormant for time.
Then I recently had an epiphany. I figured out how to explain the craziness (which I can't say here). I also decided to take the leap and write the show as an animated series as opposed to live action, like we had planned. These two things help the craziness aspect. So with that in my gun holster, as well as a few new ideas, I decided it was time to take a stab at the pilot again.
I got about 13 pages into it last night and realized it wasn't working. One of my ideas was taking the story too far in an opposite direction. So I went back to the old scripts to see if I could figure out what made them work. I scrapped the new idea and took the story back to its roots, while still incorporating some of the minor new ideas I had. I spent my lunch break today working on it and its moving along a lot more smoothly.
Just what I need, another writing project, right?
In other news, seeing Dom tonight! w00t! |
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| Also... |
[Apr. 14th, 2009|12:55 pm] |
Outtakes from the infamous short film The Heart of Christmas!
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| Things, Stuff, and Nonsense |
[Apr. 14th, 2009|11:35 am] |
What up, web world?
Life's been busy as usual. At work we're cranking to start up projects based on money we've received from the Recovery Act (the economic stimulus)*, and that's trickled into my corner of the organization since I have to keep the website up-to-date on all of that. Outside of that it's the same old stuff: Bardsworth, writing, and drawing. I'm feeling a bit burned out on all of that, though, so I'm thinking I'm going to need to do something to fulfill my creative well. We were going to head to Santa Barbara this weekend, but Joe is going to be in town, and I think it's slightly more important to see friends that we don't see on a regular basis. Besides, we just pushed the trip back a week.
We're getting close to the point of having to find a new apartment. We could just stay where we are, but I seriously need to be closer to my job. The commute is killing me. Besides, Long Beach is so much nicer than North Hollywood. But moving is such a pain...
I don't think I previously mentioned this, but my brother is coming with me to ConnectiCon! I had an extra ticket and Katie can't make it, so Chris will be joining me. We're trying to get his friend Brendon to come with us, too, but he's a little unsure as to his time off. We'll coerce, him, though. GEEKS UNITE!
That's all I got. Now I have to decide where to go to lunch. It'll probably just be Jack in the Box.
*Seriously, I have to ask, since I haven't gotten a straight answer from anyone - what's the beef with the Recovery Act? Why are so many people fighting it? If you saw the kinds of people I see on a daily basis come into our building, you'd understand why I'm for the thing. It may not be perfect, but we have to do something, and I know for a fact our organization is using the money in very important ways. |
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