Friday, June 30, 2006

Orange Ninjas and EnegryDrinks

A lot of things have been going on recently. I’ve been hanging out with friends a lot lately. In fact, I’m at a friend’s house right now. Tuesday we finally finished filming thanks to Stephanie who helped out so much. I feel a lot better now that everything’s done. Everyone did a great job, except for Joe of course. Now I have to edit it all together and figure out what music I’m going to use. But that’ll be pretty easy.

Wednesday I hung out with Mike all day and we ended up walking to Big Boy around 3. I ended up watching Superman Returns, which is a great movie, at around 7:30. In the meantime we walked around Kmart and watched some Batman movie on a TV in the electronics department. That was fun. We also went in the Dollar Treasure and Tobacco Barn.

Yesterday I ended up going to Mike’s house in the morning and hanging out most of the day. Erica and I discovered ip-relay and learned a cool new way to prank call people. Then these guys came over and tried to get us to help him join his team and sell energy drinks. It looked good on paper and didn’t seem like too much of a pyramid scheme, in fact it looked like a really good idea. There was however a $500 start up cost and it’s not really something I’m interested in anyway.

Right now I’m hanging out with Steph watching Harry Potter 2, which I’m not a huge fan of, but at least we get to hang out one last time before she goes to Tennessee. She’s going to be gone until December and she’s one of the only people I really talk to a lot anymore. But it’ll be a change of pace for her and she’ll have a great time. I’m sure of it. I’m going to miss her though.

That’s really all I have to day. My mom was pissed off that I didn’t cook dinner tonight even though I thought she’d be working late. Then Jason and I ate the last of the cookies and apparently I should have made brownies to compensate for it. But I cleaned the whole house today. There was an entire week’s worth of garbage, dust, and dirty dishes, and I cleaned it all up. But I still should have done so much more.

Oh, but I also worked on the profile for Orange Ninja Films today. People are really starting to get excited about it, and I am too. I’ll add a link to the sidebar too. I’m ready to make another film, but I probably should finish this one up first. Now that’s all I have to say. Goodnight everyone and have a great few days until I post again.

Sunday, June 25, 2006

Go Christopher Walken

A lot of things have been going on recently. First, I just saw the movie Click. I wasn't expecting a whole lot out of it, but it was actually really good (Christopher Walken makes a great Angel of Death). This is the only movie I've watched in the last ten years that has actually made me cry. I didn't say anything because I felt like a pansy, but I'm the kind of person Adam Sandler plays. Then it made me start to think about my relationship with Jason and all my friends and how I'm always afraid to go out and have a good time because it never gets anything done. Also, yesterday I found a friend's myspace music profile and he had a song that was about this same sort of thing and I'm starting to wonder if I'm wasting my life being so reclusive.

The movie I'm making. First, after repeatedly telling me he had Wednesday off and would be there, Joe canceled. I vaguely remember something about him owing his dad $30 and having to go to Belle Tire. I knew it was going to happen. Someone always cancels. It wouldn't have been so bad if it was only Joe, but he too Erika with him. I ended up taking over Joe's character, which was a nightmare because I didn't know the lines and I'm not an actor by any means. I had to completely remove Erika's character from the movie because we (that means Steph) couldn't find someone to play her. That pisses me off because even though it was a last minute addition, she was an important character because she helped convey just how much of an asshole the Joe's character is.

I've been having equipment problems. The microphone built into my camera is crap. The sound quality is subpar and it picks up the slight sound of the disc spinning. I need at least a boom mic for now, but a nice set of wireless clip-ons would be good too. The only thing is that I don't have any money and I already owe all sorts of people. My camera also crashed and ate one of my discs. Apparently there was a scratch on the disc I put in, so it got mad, came up with some error message, attempted to recover the data, and rebooted. Then I put in another disc, but I guess I didn't push down hard enough to lock it in place, even though it clicked, and the camera carved a nice semicircular gouge into it. Looking back, the disc that made it crash had an identical gouge, so it's not the first time it's happened.

I also never realized how horrible the dialogue was (honestly) until reading lines with Jason and hearing people say them aloud. And I don't know how to direct, so I'm really bad at it. I'm also bad at getting all the shots I want because I can see what I want in my head, but I can't get the camera to do it. While I'm at it, I'm a bad editor too. My hard cuts look really strange and I don't have a good shot of me punching Jason. I still need to get Jake to confirm he'll play Gordon and I need to film the rest of the movie on Tuesday.

I ran out of things to say and I forgot if there's anything else because now I'm multitasking and that's not good. Good night everyone and have a great tomorrow.

EDIT: I also learned that I can use the hosts file to block ads today. I never really thought about it, but it works great.

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Wish Me Luck

So tomorrow is the big day. The schedule is set and the shots are planned. I've gathered all the props I'll need for tomorrow's shoot, but there are a few more I'll need for Friday.

First I'm going to Stephanie's house to film two scenes. On the way I'm picking up Marie and making a few last minute decisions. Then we're all heading off to East China Park to film two more scenes. If it rains, we'll just film one and I'll use the rain to bring out the gloominess of the main character's mood. After that we're all going to Water Street to find a place to film in front of a cafe. I'm pretty nervous.

I take that back. I'm extremely nervous. I've never gotten this far before. I've never even gotten a script finished before, so this is a huge leap. But I'm confident in the abilities of my cast, crew, and equipment. I just need to stop drinking coffee and relax. I think maybe I'll play some Toejam and Earl. What I'd really like to play is some Katamari, but I don't own it. Maybe I'll listen to the Katamari soundtrack as I play T&E.

I still have to do some hardcore work to do on the profile, but that can wait for a bit. I've been thinking about it and have a general idea of the details I want to include, but I can't seem to get it out. But I am excited about doing this. It's something I've wanted to do for four years and it's finally going to happen. I'd be even more excited if I was the one who got the ball rolling, but I'll take what I can get.

Monday, June 19, 2006

It's Been a While

I've been putting a lot of work into the movie recently. I got the schedule all sorted out and confirmed almost everyone for Wednesday. I got my camera to work and dumped all the previously existing footage onto my hard drive. I even got one of my friends to play Gordon. I've been working on getting some really nice editing software, but it's got to be for Windows because my sound still won't work under Ubuntu.

I still have a lot to do though. I need to plan my shots and make a springboard. I need to make sure everyone's on the same page, and make sure everyone knows their part. I need to copy all my contacts and information from my sheet to my PDA. (I can never get any work done at all on a computer or electronic device, i know it's really weird) I need to gather up some music from local musicians who'd be willing to let me use their works. I need to make sure I have all the props I need and get an alarm clock I can break.

And after all that, I need to actually make the film. (I no longer consider this a movie, but film does imply that film was used during the process. But if George Lucas can shoot digital for the silver screen then so can I) That's going to be a pain. But an even bigger pain will be editing it because I'm a perfectionist. And I still don't know what to put on the filmmaker profile, but you can find it here anyway: www.myspace.com/orangeninjafilms. It's obviously not done, but it will be soon because I'm going to do it tonight (hopefully).

I posted another poem the other day too, but it wasn't nearly as controversial as the other ones. I've been looking at a lot of Jack Thompson quotes recently too. For some reason I just seem be drawn to all that is controversial (piracy, violent video games, sexuality issues, religion, that kind of thing). It's kind of fun but I always get into arguments with people because I always think I'm right. But so do they, and we argue about it.

On a lighter note, I think I just offended someone Swedish. Actually, the guy lives in the UK and he may have just been making fun of me. I'm just not sure.

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Motivated Again

I'm going to start jogging today. I'm about to go out, so wish me luck. I'm also going to start working on my Rich Magazine website when I get back and hopefully have a basic page ready by tomorrow night. I'm motivated at the momeny, and I don't know how long it's going to last, so I'm starting right now.

EDIT: Fuck that. I'm going to play Resident Evil 4.

I Hate My Friends (Some of Them)

One of my friends totally pulled a Danielle today. I can't go into any great detail here, but I'm pissed. I was looking forward to doing this one thing on the weekend. We've been planning it for 2 months, but suddenly it's not going to happen. I was even almost forced to break plans with Stephanie because I thought the two events were on the same day. Then I would have felt really bad because I would have been pulling a Danielle and it would have been even worse because I asked her to go.

I don't know what it is about me. There's just something that makes people avoid me. Maybe I shouldn't have said anything about being the way I am. (I didn't even consider that until Jason brought it up) I don't know. All I know is that if all my actors back out over the next week, I'm going to be fucked. It's happened both of the other times I've tried to make a movie, why shouldn't it happen now?

I guess some of the actors are replaceable, but I only have a few possible options. People keep telling me that I have been productive, writing the script and all. But if I never film it, or if no one ever sees it, what's the point? I don't really call writing a hollow, mellow-dramatic, predictable script being productive. I know that there are going to be people standing there laughing and saying "I told you so." Or, at least one person. And we all know who that is.

Monday, June 12, 2006

I Want to Do Something!

I'm feeling really unproductive. I haven't really done anything since I got out of high school. I want to do something, I just don't know what.

I always wanted to help people. It makes me feel good and I just like it. The problem is I don't know how. I don't want to volunteer at the hospital because it freaks me out. I can't help people with their computers because I can't even fix my own (good thing I have three years of education toward it). I just don't know how to help anyone with anything.

I've been joking around about building a go cart. But who knows, I think it would be kind of fun. If only I had that kind of money. It wouldn't be all that expensive, but I'm flat broke. I'd definitely like to learn how that kind of stuff works though. I mean I can describe the workings of the internal combustion engine in detail, but I couldn't build one.

I also want to build a web site. I don't know what to make it about and I'm horrible with HTML, but it's still sitting on my list of things I want to do. Maybe I could make a web site to help people, but I still don't know about what. I'd have to be passionate about it and there are very few things I'm passionate about. And on top of that I don't have the money to buy a domain or pay for hosting. But I could host it on my spare computer and have people access it through my IP address. But that would be inconvenient.

I don't know what else to say. I think I have the flu or something, but my mom keeps telling me I'm fine and should be doing things. That's kind of irritating. But other than that, it's been an uneventful day. I rolled over on Schrodinger and sat on him twice because he keeps hiding under my covers. My mom kept telling me it's not funny. It really pisses me off when she does that.

But if anyone has any ideas as to what I could build, feel more than welcome to leave a comment!

Friday, June 09, 2006

Feelings, Friends, and Filesystems

I don't know why I let my mom get to me. I'm surrounded by people who care about me and out of all of them I listen to her. I'm just thankful I have my friends. Even thought most of them don't know it, they really mean a lot to me. They always comfort me and let me know I'm loved. And that is a really good feeling.

I do feel comfortable with myself again. I am who I am. I know that now and I'm not letting anyone tell me otherwise. I am still contemplating coming out to a few of my friends. They should know and they will eventually anyway. I just want to be able to be myself and not hide who I am. I deserve that and so do they. Most of them are pretty cool even if they do make a lot of derogatory comments.

If Denny (his name's actually Dan, I don't know why I gave him an alias before because he's out) can be their friend, then so can I. Also they're friends with this other guy named Brian who I'm pretty sure is gay too. So I don't know what I'm afraid of. Maybe it's that once I do it, I can't take it back and it frightens me. This could be a huge mistake, and once I make it there are no do overs. But I think it'll all be okay. And just to be safe, I'll wait until after filming the movie to say anything.

But enough about that. It seems like that's all I ever think about anymore so here's something new: I was working on my computers today. I'm going to set up a Windows 2000 file and print server on my old computer because my external hard drive is formated with NTFS. And I just want to keep things simple and I know my way around Windows much better than Linux. But the second a better NTFS Linux driver binary comes out, I'm totally switching.

I upgraded from Breezy Badger to Dapper Drake (Versions of Ubuntu) yesterday and I'm not at all pleased. Sure it runs faster and looks better, but my sound stopped working. I think I have to reinstall the ALSA binary like I did when I ran Slackware, but it's a pain in the ass. (not the installation, just finding the damn thing) I'm also having a problem with my monitor's refresh rate. 60hz at 1600X1200 is completely unacceptable! And my CD burner won't work, but oddly, my new DVD burner will. (thanks again, Stephanie) Dapper did however come with the latest version of Firefox which is awesome because 1.0.3 kind of sucked.

Oh, but I have great news. I have a 10 year old Compaq Ipaq (MP3 player) that I've been having a problem with lately. It doesn't work like a removable hard drive, so I always had to install the driver and then Musicmatch Jukebox to get music on it. I tried just writing to the MMC, but the device uses a proprietary filesystem that I was unable to locate a windows driver for until today! It's a tiny little application that mounts the card and makes it a breeze to add and remove files. No more wasted batteries, songs that won't play, crashes, or reaching around to find the USB port. And most importantly: I can finally uninstall Musicmatch!

Once again I would like to thank my four best friends for being there for me when I was down. You know who you are. I really love you guys.

Thursday, June 08, 2006

I Fucking Hate Thursdays

Every Thursday my mom drags me to Port Huron with her.It's nice for the first few minutes, but it all goes downhill from there. She always asks why I don't have a girlfriend and suggests I date this girl or that one. She never does it in quite a nice way either.

She always says something along the lines of "You're not gay or anything are you?" It's really starting to piss me off because I feel like I have to jump through hoops to please the bitch. Today she asked me why I named the kittens the way I did and then she asked me "Why don't you like girls' names?" When I refused to show her my fortune cookie she said "What, does it say you're going to marry a pretty boy?" It really makes me want to die sometimes.

I swear she does it just to hurt me. It's pretty obvious that I'm gay. I'm not flamboyant or anything, I just show absolutely no interest in girls. I dated a girl once, but it never went anywhere. I don't talk about girls, I never have any girls over, I never look at straight porn on the Internet, and once she even caught me with gay porn. I denied it of course because I was a lot younger. I really thinks she suspects something and she's just fucking with me.

I don't take this shit from my friends, and I'm not going to take it from her. If one of my friends would have made the comment about marrying a pretty boy, I would have knocked him the fuck out. At least if he was being mean. I would laugh if it was a joke. But the point is that why should I listen to her go on and on about something that I can't control? Like I chose it? Like I just decided one day that I want everyone in the world to hate me and be the scapegoat for bombings and diseases that I'm not part of. That's what I want out of life!


EDIT: I forgot to mention that yesterday I felt completely comfortable with myself for the first time in my life and was even contemplating coming out to some of my friends. I don't want to lose them but I can't go on lying to people like this. I've been talking to some people about it and I decided it might not be such a terrible idea. But now I hate myself again. Thanks mom.


But on an upbeat note, I'm finally finished writing that damn script. All the revisions are in, they've been merged, and it's been distributed. I was getting so sick of it, and now it's done. But here comes the hard part: scheduling and location scouting!

Tuesday, June 06, 2006

Kinda Bored Today

My last post was probably a little melodramatic. I got a lot of feedback on it, which I'm really thankful for. I never intended to make people feel bad. I even made one of my firneds cry when she read the poem I posted on myspace. I do feel a lot better now that I've gotten it off my chest.

I've been taking the lsat couple days off because I've been doing a lot of stuff with my friends lately and I'm not used to it. It's hard to suddenly have a social life after years of being a recluse. I went to a boat race the other day and got completely sunburned, but I was there with Jason so it was ok.

I've been working with some people on Rich Magazine. I'm enjoying having other peoples' input and working with them on something constructive. But I'm the only one with a scanner, and I'm stubborn and insist on nothing but hand drawn art. It gives the magazine a special feel.

I'm also running out of time to work on my movie. I start filming in 2 weeks, and I still have to finish the script, distribute it, get the schedule sorted out, and figure out where I'm going to be filming. But other than that, it's coming along great.

That's it. I don't really have a whole lot to say, I just didn't want to not post anything for a few days. If you want to read the poem, it's on my myspace blog, but I'm to lazt to post the link. Just go to my profile and you'll find it.

Sunday, June 04, 2006

My Monthly Rant

Why is it that every time I want something everyone has something negative to say about it? If I want to be a filmmaker it's stupid and a waste of time. If I want to use the firepit that's already in our back yard, it's too dangerous and I'm not smart enough not to burn the house down. If I want to have friends over, they have no business in our house. If I want to crash at someone's house for the night, only fags do that. If I want to make Rich Magazine, it's stupid and it'll get me in trouble. If I want to be an author, I'm not smart enough and I don't have anything worth saying. If I want to buy a 4 wheeler, I get asked why do I want to do that?

I think that's probably my most common heard phrase. I don't know why people think there's always an ulterior motive behind everything I want to do. Why can't people just accept that I have my own opinions. I like the things I like and if you don't that's fine. I don't care. I don't tell people going to church is a waste of time. I don't go around saying straight people should die. I don't tell people what to do or not to do because it's none of my business.

All I'm really saying is that there are a lot of people in my life and I'm trying to please them all. It's not working. Not even close. Why can't I just be who I am because it's who I want to be? Why should I have to be a million different things to a million different people? Frankly, I'm sick of it. If you don't like me, don't talk to me. I think I'll manage.



Before anyone thinks this is directed at them, let me assure you, if you're reading this because I gave you the URL, it's not. Honestly. All my good friends, all my real friends are great. I don't know what I'd do without them. I owe them a lot and yet I can never give them anything they need. I'm sorry. I really am.

Thursday, June 01, 2006

Mmmm Free Pizza

The other day I let my friend Stephanie read my blog because she gave me her URL and I already came out to her. It's a funny story because my myspace profile made her suspicious. I've told people that when people leave their orientation blank, it usually means they're gay. Jason's friend who turned out to be gay left his blank, and both Jason and I left ours blank. Jason keeps saying 'no, that's not what it means.' But it is. Reading that led Stephanie to ask in a roundabout way.

First she asked who I was dating. I asked her why she wanted to know and she said she saw me with a girl at Dairy Queen. We went back and forth for a little bit before I just told her. It turns out she felt like an ass for asking. She thought I was, which was really funny. Stephanie's great though. She's fun to hang out with and we have similar taste in music. Well, she listens to everything, including rock which is what I usually listen to.

But anyway, she was reading my blog and something I wrote hurt her feelings. When I said that I should have been spending time with Jason I didn't mean that she was bothering us. I just meant that I didn't want to ignore Jason, but I didn't want to ignore Stephanie either. See, I can never do or say anything without hurting someone's feelings. I also said in one of my past entries that I needed a DVD burner, so Stephanie just gave me her DVD burner. She wouldn't take any money for it and she even spent all night finding the power cable. All this after I hurt her feelings.

Then yesterday we were hanging out at the mall. We went to Spencer's and then to Hot Topic, but I made her got back to Spencer's so I could get one of those necklaces they have. I was going to get one of the brown twine ones, but Jason has one like that so I got a cool blue steel one. But it turns out Jason has one like it too. But when I went up to the counter to pay Stephanie pulled out her debit card and told the cashier to charge the money to that. I told her she didn't have to, but she did anyway.

I tried to pay at Taco Bell too. Stephanie says she just like spending money on people, but I don't know. I hope she doesn't feel like she has to pay for my friendship. She's really cool and I like her. It's really weird because I can talk to her about things that I don't normally talk to people about. We talk about me being gay and dating Jason like it's just normal. I'm not saying it's not normal, I'm just saying most people don't look at it that way. I'm really glad we became friends again though.

Other than that, not much is going on. I still feel like an ass for flipping the go-cart. I got a coupon in the mail for a free small pizza for being new to the neighborhood.. My old house is only like five minutes away. It's right by Hungry Howie's, but I still get a free pizza, which is always good. I also started a group on myspace for fans of Rich Magazine, but I'm getting very little feedback. I'm going to keep at it though.