The End for Now

So yeahhh. I don't think I'm gonna really be posting to the ol' bloggie anymore. Not that I have been, anyway, but now if you asked me, I'm not going to say "yeah, I have a blog."

...at least for the time being...

This originally started as a way for people who care about me who live far way (and who I don't talk to very often) to keep tabs on what's going on in my life. I'd say at this moment in time, I keep in touch pretty regularly with the people I want to. There are definitely certain people who live far away (and even some who live relatively close) that I wish I spoke to much more often, but I feel like those aren't the people reading this anyway. I really need to be calling these particular people on the telephone. But that's neither here nor there.

I had the idea to sort of adapt this thing into a daily/weekly running commentary on current events or things that I found worth sharing with everyone. I can't lie, however, that just didn't happen. If I ever do get the bright idea to post a running mental narrative on the internets, I will probably start over from scratch with a new web address.

Besides all that, there's really not enough exciting shit going on in my life that would make for interesting reading... or perhaps I'm just not a good enough writer to make it seem worth your time. I could juice things up by sharing all sorts of innermost thoughts, but that's not my style, and doesn't strike me as a psychologically healthy thing for me to do (not to say it doesn't work well for other people).

So this is my formal [indefinite] resignation from the blogging community. I might be back if I (or everyone I know) moves far away, or if I decide to change up subject matter/format entirely, but until one of those things happens, there is no reason for me to be doing this anymore. Any objections to my decision can be left in the comments section.

Thanks for reading.
BYE!

Sometimes I Suck at This

Well, I had all these plans to put out this huge post about my fun trip to Burlington, VT, since it was the only variety occurring in my life after a dry spell of routine-induced monotony. As so much time has past it almost seems sorta dumb at this point. It's just not news anymore. Anyway, I'll summarize real quick just in case your interested... The following things were awesome:

- Got to see a lot of Lara and Corey
- Got to see a UVM hockey game
- Went to the Magic Hat Brewery and tried two brand new previously untasted-by-the-public beers (for free!)
- Got to experience the quaint but fun Burlington nightlife
- Got to eat lots of delicious food (Burlingteers take their munchies very seriously)

It was cool to just walk around and check out the city, which isn't very built up, but still seems to have a good amount of stuff going on. Lots of parts of Burlington reminded me of JP, architecturally speaking as well as vibe-wise, although people were definitely nicer up there. I haven't had so many passing by strangers say "hello" and "good morning" to me in my life.

So, as I mentioned before, my computer was down for the count for a bit as I found out that not only did my power supply sizzle, but my motherboard fried in the process. After ordering each new piece one at a time, and having dad graciously put all the labor down, I am hooked back in to the internets.

The job hunt continues... nothing to report yet in that department... grr

I'm throwing a big birthday party for myself next Saturday which, if you're reading this, you've probably heard me mention. I want it to be damn good, so I'm putting lotsa effort into it. By some stroke of insanity (or loyal friendship), Matt has decided to spend a bunch of money to fly over from England so he can attend. He's bringing the girlie, Naomi, so I get to show them around the city a bit which I always enjoy doing. My friend, Steph, who I met in Spain has also amazingly decided to fly up from North Carolina to partake in the festivities. I feel pretty grateful to have friends willing to travel so far at expense to come see me. Hopefully the weather holds up and am able to show everyone a great time.

In other news, I'm completely re-addicted to downloading music. Tim sent me a coveted Invite to Oink, a private torrent tracking website that specializes in high quality music files, comics, and computer applications. It has these strict-as-hell standards about maintaining a high share ratio, so you gotta upload a lot to download a lot, which is stressful to say the least, because if you lag behind you get your account shut down. This is incredible to me since Soulseek (the greatest music downloading program ever) started crashing my computer for no known reason months back. So far I've been able to find a ridiculous amount of rare and hard-to-find stuff. Hog heaven. mmm.

Uhhh. I guess that's it.

someday we'll look back on this moment and plow into a parked car

evan davis

Uhhh, oops.

I was gonna give ya'll a big post about my weekend up in Burlington with pics and everything, but my computer's power supply decided to shit the bed on me. So until I can get that puppy replaced I got nothing for you. Hopefully I can remember everything by the time I get this straightened out. Stay tuned... I think it should be worked out by the weekend.

Cheers!

(Lack of) Happenings

You may have noticed I haven't posted much lately. This is because there is precious little happening right now in my life worth conveying in print. I'll mention a few things that have been going on, despite their general lack of interestingness.

My job hunt continues, with me trying to decide how far I want to stray from my desired profession of choice out of necessity for making a non-laughable amount of money. Sallie Mae doesn't have a sense of humor (nor a soul for that matter) after all, and that 6-month grace period continues to wind down on me. Various prospects in disparate industries seem to be presenting themselves on a fairly regular basis, but should I stray too far from TV/video or not? hmmm. Taking suggestions...

Went to the Extreme Beerfest a couple weekends back with Benny. We both had an enjoyable time, although I think I preferred the bev selection at the Belgian Beerfest last October. I mean, they've been doing it for a hell of a lot longer than the American breweries represented at the Extreme one, so what do you expect? The average percentage ran somewhere around 7 or 8% this time around, with some reaching as high as 18% (hence the "Extreme" moniker) so we were rather, uhhh.... worse for the wear towards the end of the night and the next morning (for Ben, well into that evening). Still, I love those things and will continue to attend them as they run. The next one is the American Beerfest in June. Tickets are already on sale. Anyone interested?

The dog's been shitting less on the floor (a Good Thing).

I've been cooking a lot lately and I'd say I'm really starting to become rather kitchen-savvy. I think I still have a long way to go, but I've impressed myself on many occasions at this point.

Speaking of good eats; One of my roommates, Joe, is leaving the house come June and the spot will need to be filled. Greg, one of my old NU roomies showed interest in jumping in on the lease, which I think would be great. He's a very agreeable person in general and a (more or less) self-trained gourmet chef in the making who loves to cook for others, which makes him a pretty damn ideal roommate in my eyes. Hoping he'll have the chance to move in, although Liz expressed a desire to have another female in the house, thus leveling out the ratio and providing her with slightly more domestic sanity. I can understand where she's coming from (I know I probably wouldn't want to live with three females), but I think once she meets Greg and experiences his culinary deftness, she might shift her priorities around. I'm not holding my breath, but we shall see.

I'm addicted to yerba mate, the tea like beverage that they drink down in Argentina (and surrounding areas). It's apparently rather good for you (nutrient rich) and provides a much more "red bull" like jolt, thus increasing mental concentration rather than just making you jittery like coffee does. It also is better for your blood pressure and is easier on the kidneys. The Latin food supermarket in my neighborhood sells the stuff for cheap, so I am well supplied as long as I'm in JP. Marliese just picked me up an extra pita y bombilla (gourd and metal straw) en Peru so I can enjoy mate con mis amigos.


And finally... I apparently won a 2-night trip to some Orlando hotel from the radio. It was a promotional thing for some new resorts they just built downtown and the first 50 callers won 2 free nights, tickets to a "show" of some sort, and a couple meals. I never listen to the radio, so I thought this was pretty sweet since my phone was readily available. I called in and they said I won, so they are sending me stuff in the mail. It was aptly pointed out to me by my mother that plane tickets could very well not be covered. The more I think about this point, the more sense it seems to make. I can't recall too well whether or not airfare was ever mentioned at any point, but my shaky memory is telling me it was not. I've yet to receive the details in the mail, so I'll probably know by halfway through the week. I might consider taking the trip even if airfare isn't covered if I can get a deal on a dirt cheap ticket. Those seems to come around pretty often, especially for Orlando.

Well. Time for me to turn off my computer. It's getting too hot in here. I'll keep ya'll posted on developments surrounding all aforementioned aspects of my life.

Stop the Hate

Blogger renovates and Dan's blog gets a minor Botox injection

Just realized it'd been a while since I graced ya'll with my liquid eloquence, so here's a nice tall glass...

As you may or may not have noticed, my blog has a slightly different aesthetic tang these days. Blogger decided to make page customization even more dumbass-friendly, so now I can change the entire color scheme or general layout piece-by-piece without needing to know a whit of HTML. I'll probably play around with the look a bit more in the coming weeks/months, just cause I can.

I have a HOTT link up on the right side of my page to my three main video projects from Fall semester. I had another project whose main focus was audio, but I figured it's a waste of time posting it since much of the subtlety would be lost through the crappy quality of YouTube. Anyhow, if you'd like to see what I've slaved away at from October through December, feel free to take a look

So, life is puttering along ever-forward. Starbucks has been alright, although I badly need to get a promotion as my current wage isn't really cutting it. It'd be much nicer to get a decent production job, even if it's just doing PA bitch work for a while 'til I can try to move up. I'm looking around but the market for such work is complete balls. I'm wondering how long I'll give this field before I give up and try to act on one of my get-money-quick schemes (I have 3 worked out already). The specter of student loan re-payment is looming ever closer as my grace period passes on day by day. Sallie Mae might sound like a dainty pleasantly-mannered lady, but she's actually a cold-hearted calculating bitch that wants all of her money back... plus interest.

Sadly there's not a hell of a lot else going on. Been trying to get as many people over as possible to check out my new place. I really love it here so far. All the roommates are turning out to be good people, and I definitely feel at home. It's been interesting living with a career dog-walker/sitter as at any given moment there might be 2, 3, or even 4 dogs running around the house (one of which lives here all the time). I learned rather quickly that I have an allergy to these critters, although it doesn't seem to match the severity of my cat allergy, which is a relief. Still, I don't let them into my bedroom so as to avoid sneezing in my sleep and getting my blanket all soaked. Nobody likes a wet blanket.

I'm learning to like dogs... in a way. I'm also learning many of the reasons why cats make far superior domestic pets, however. Dogs don't know how to chill the shit out and leave me the hell alone. I'd say 60-70% of the time, I'd rather ignore the presence of a dog, yet this is apparently impossible. It seems a dog's very existence is hinged on whether or not you decide to acknowledge it by talking in stupid voices and running your hands all over its body. Plus dogs smell like dogs (hmmm) and drool all over you. Unless someone owns 3 or more cats and doesn't take care to clean the litter box regularly, it's impossible to tell (by scent) whether or not one is in the home of a cat owner. I suppose I'm just venting because of the golden moment I had this weekend when I managed to step in cold, runny dogshit while walking around barefoot in the middle of the night. I suppose I did at least learn never to walk around without slippers and to always turn the hall lights on during late trips to the bathroom. Nothing like experiential learning...

I could go on easily for another 3 paragraphs about why I prefer living with cats over dogs (far longer if I really think things out), but I know it's a waste of time. Cat lovers will agree with everything I say and dog lovers will sneer at my cunning, acute observations.

I was thinking of talking about China's recent missile test and the US's rather hypocritical response, since this extremely important story seemed to cruise under most peoples' radars, but I decided I'm tired of writing in this box so I'm just gonna read and go to bed instead. But speaking of horribly dispiriting political shit, I saw an incredibly done hour-long documentary that is built around Arundhati Roy's ultra eloquent speech Come September. If you have an hour to spare, please do check it out. Not gonna lie, it's a bit depressing in parts, but it's a rather fair assessment of the dismal state of the world as a result of Western-style Globalization. I'm posting about it because it really left a strong impression on me. Besides all that, it's a top-notch illegally made documentary (it's composed entirely of copywritten material sans the holders' permission) and is inspiring for anybody who is interested in the art of documentary film making.

Goodnight!

Uhhhh...

Two double-aught seven

My new years resolution for 2007:
Eat more black pepper. Much more black pepper.

I moved the majority of my shit into my new place in JP. I'm staying at Julie's until she comes back, however, because the location is far superior in relation to work, and I wanna make sure her snake doesn't die while I'm supposed to be taking care of it. I'm extremely excited about my new place as I already feel at home when I walk in there, despite not having spent a single night over so far. It's pretty well equipped for entertaining guests, so assuming I can get people to come out to JP, I want to have company as much as possible. If you are reading this, you are [probably] invited over to my new place.

NYE was much fun. Wes and Dan threw a party over on Columbus and it ended up being a pretty decent success. I got into the spirit(s) of things and had a great time. Steve and Corey came into town to join me so it made things even better. Someone got proposed to at the party, apparently, although she didn't seem exceptionally excited about the whole thing. I love it when shit like that happens. Asking someone to marry you in front of a large group of people is definitely a bad idea, but it sure is entertaining for everyone to watch. While I didn't see the proposal myself, it seems this one was similar to watching someone open a gift and trying her damnedest to look excited upon realizing she's the proud new owner of a set of yorkshire terrier themed drink coasters... but of course this is much worse 'cause you can't re-wrap your fiance up and give him to someone else next year.

Other than that, I've been clocking in plenty of hours at Starbucks, which was going well until around my 9th or 10th consecutive day there. I got pangs of murderous tendency, but I think that's my body just adjusting to working full time in a coffee shop (on Newbury St.). Hopefully I'll be able to supplement my time there with some production related work which I've been hunting for on a daily basis. Gotta try to put that $120k+ education to use somehow.

Got to see Sara a few times whiles she's been home visiting from Israel. Nice to catch up with old friends, especially since it's so easy to lose touch when separated by long distances. That actually reminds me that I need to take advantage of my Judaism and cash in on my free trip to Israel through Birthright. Now that I'm finally outta school I have no good reason not to. I doubt I'd have any sort of great religious revelations while visiting, but who am I to scoff at an all expenses paid journey to the central location of the cause of so much of today's global turmoil? I do love current events, after all. Plus, I've heard the falafel is bitchin' and my faux-Hebrew "Go Fuck Yourself" t-shirt is getting a bit faded.

I can't think of much else to report on, so I'm gonna go climb some fake rocks now.

Best of luck to everyone in the Year of Our Lord, 2007. Don't do anything I wouldn't.

More Transitioning

So college is done. Commencement is in May, but I'll be receiving my degree in January. My final GPA: 3.459. This doesn't mean much, I know, but at least I wasn't slacking too hard the last 4 and a half years. Somehow I managed to earn a B+ in my Argentina class this last semester, although this is probably due in large part to the proofreading efforts of my Spanish-speaking friends. Whatever.

Been floating freely between Boston and Foxboro this last week. Starting today, I'll have a more permanent spot in the city as I'm serpent-sitting for Julie while she's away on break, and am receiving free housing in return. I've never had any sort of business with a snake before (literally speaking), but I think I'm gonna like this one as it's small, harmless and fun to play with.

I signed my lease a couple of days ago, so I'm very definitely moving in to JP on the 1st, and then life can take on some sort of normalcy... maybe.

At the moment, I'm 3 days through an 11 consecutive-day work stint. This sucks hard, but after my next paycheck, I won't be complaining, especially with the time and a half I get on Christmas. Still, I think my head might explode if I have to hear Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby sing about mistletoe for much longer. I get a few days off around New Years at least, I just need something to do for the occasion. I hate the idea of paying for a ticket to get in some bar or restaurant only to have to dish out again to get a few beers. Somebody needs to have a house party.

Ooh, and I know you don't care, but I got an 80 gig iPod for a graduation present. So hot.

The End of Dan's [formal] Education

Ahh. Here's a quick one just in case you aren't sure what's up with my life at the moment.

So here I am at the very end of my college education. I have under a week to go before I am finished forever (unless I one day decide to go to grad school, which is currently not in the cards). I'm occupied, to a ridiculous extent, with finishing 3 major projects: my 22 minute behemoth of a student film, a "professional quality" edit of a climactic fight scene of an episode of Highlander (that stupid 90s show about immortal British people chopping one another's heads off), and a 12 page paper about Argentina in relation to all the crap* I supposedly read about in class (en español). It's a lot of junk heaved on my plate and it's all due on Wednesday morning. Unfortunately, all three of these undertakings involve my staring at a computer screen for a total of 12+ hours a day. My poor eyeballs. I'm working a few shifts at Starbucks between now and then, as well. These will serve as breaks for my oculars. I'm confident everything will come out just sterling, however, so no worries. I am, after all, pretty goddamned incredible.

I've been looking at apartments in Jamaica Plain, which will likely be my place of residence for the next year or so (hopefully not much longer than that). I'll be looking for jobs within my field very shortly, and will hopefully not fall into the quagmire that is the Starbucks Career Ladder. The chances of this happening, regardless of my getting a job in the TV industry, are exceedingly thin, however.

So that's about everything in two short paragraphs.

Any questions?

*Most of it isn't actually crap, and is in fact exceedingly incredible literature, but when I have to write 12 pages about it, it automatically receives the "crap" label.

I forgot I had a blog

I swear I forgot I had a blog, which should explain the lack of updates.

I could start going into stupid reasons why I don't actually update this thing much, but it basically boils down to my forgetting about it and not feeling anything monumental enough in my life has occurred that's worth writing about. I'll attempt to pinch one out, however, because ya'll are so important to me.

Just got back from 4 night stay in Foxboro complete with gorging, sleeping, and the friends/family combo-blitz. Things went rather standard with little out of the ordinary to report on. Got to see some people that I haven't in a while, though, which was nice. It was a good little break from schoolwork before I finish up in these next couple weeks. I think for a little while I was pretending it was like it was in high school, driving around Foxboro and surrounding towns with friends looking for nightly diversions like bowling or whatever. It was a cool change of pace, and nice to spend time with good people. There really wasn't any schoolwork I could have done since I basically just need to edit the shit out of my movie to make it look somewhat decent. At the moment I'm running into the issue of it possibly dragging (it might clock in at over 20 minutes), so I have a lot of tweaking so I can keep things interesting.

I finished a video project for my other class but now that it's done I'm pretty disappointed with how it came out, which is a bummer. It's not yet up on youtube or whatever, and I'm hesitant to throw it on there as I'm not exceptionally proud of it. It ended up being over-edited to facilitate the assignment's requirement that we had to have a shitload of special effects in it. As a result it sort of warped into something I didn't want it to be. I'm pretty sure given enough time I could go back and mutate it into a finished product that I like, but there's really not time for that at this point. Always gotta move forward.

I think I wiped my ass with the Spanish test I took last week with only a minimal amount of studying beforehand. It's nice that the stuff we read is so famous that the individual stories are written about in detail on Wikipedia (with links to English translations of the entire books), thus cutting translation and analysis time down hugely. It was just mentioned that we'll have to complete a 12 pager in a little under 2 weeks, and while I have no clue whatsoever when I'll find the time to do this, I'm not stressing it too much, as I managed worse while in Spain and things seemed to turn out alright. I just need to get someone fluent to proofread for me...

Anyone?

I'm done with school and must be out of my place on the 15th. While this hasn't exactly snuck up on me, it's gradually been catching me off guard (if that makes any sense). I've been too busy to job and apartment hunt with any sort of conviction. I need to squeeze all that in with the finishing up of this semester's work. I have mixed feelings about finishing here, but it's definitely for the best to be moving on at this point. I've been getting a weird reflective-college-life-flashing-before-my-eyes recently which is kinda movie-cheeseballish but I can't really avoid it. I guess I feel like the last 4 or so years have had as significant of an effect on my life as the previous 10 years had. So much has happened and so much has changed in various short periods of time that it's been weird to realize how much differently I look at life in general as a result. We've yet to see if this change is for the best... Only time will tell.

Hmmmm.

Mid-term elections

Well, as of writing this the Dems have the House and seem like they could quite possibly take the Senate, as well. Historically, this is pretty standard stuff, I suppose. The 6th year into a re-elected president's term, there tends to be some reversals. This is especially so since the Senate and House were solidly Republican, anyway. It's nice to see that people are finally pissed off enough to vote the conscience, though.

I voted yesterday, which felt pretty good. I guess it sort of made me hopeful that there is a chance that we can reverse some of the horrible trends that have been championed so proudly by our leadership these last 6 years. Our international image needs a whole hell of a lot of work, and this will certainly be a positive step in that direction, I would think. A win in the Senate for the Dems would be pretty huge, as the whole legislative agenda could be shifted towards more productive ends, maybe pushing along things like alternative energy initiatives, an issue I find to be of grave importance, since the market really isn't adjusting quickly enough to address the issue (prime examples: Ford and GM).

I'm still lost on the whole war issue. I've thought it was a terrible idea since the very first time I heard the UN was going in to look for weapons, and it's gone terribly since. I really have no clue what we're supposed to do now that everything has fallen even more to shit, and loads of people are being horrible maimed and killed every day. I am wondering if anybody does...

Anyway, I'm receiving all of this with a pretty healthy amount of skepticism. It would be nice to see a "changed" Democratic party that will be held accountable for their actions, and make decisions based on that idea. There's a lot of shit that needs addressing, both domestically and internationally, and we'll have to see if a shakeup in Washington will solve anything. It'll be nice, regardless, to have Bush tone down is overzealous rhetoric as he can't push his crazy policies through so easily now.

So off politics...

Life is chugging along, unrelentingly... That is all for now.

Week of Fun shit

Busy as usual, although I've had a lot of fun the past week.

as a warning, this next part might be boring if you aren't into Frank Zappa. You might wanna skip ahead if you don't want to hear about the concert I just went to in excruciating detail.

Wednesday, Greg and I drove down to Providence to see the Zappa Plays Zappa concert. I mentioned it last post and I can truly say it was the single most impressive display of music I've ever experienced in my life. Having been born too late to see Frank perform, watching his son, Dweezil, and three of the original band members perform a incredibly long list of his material. It probably helped that the three original performers- Steve Vai, Terry Bozzio, and Napoleon Murphy Brock- were probably some of the most charismatic and talented players Zappa toured with, but the younger talent recruited for the tour was spot on as well. Each musician was featured prominently at different points during the show, just as Frank used to do with his band mates.

Napoleon, despite being old and balding (and maybe a little fat), was still dancing around like a maniac during the entire show like he did in his 20s. Bozzio didn't seem to be in top form and was showing his age a little bit more, but he still wowed everyone with his 60+ piece drum kit, and even performed Punky's Whips. Vai was Vai. Not a whole lot needs to be said as he is still the greatest modern rock guitar player of our time. He had plenty of jaw-dropping shit to keep the audience screaming at the top of their lungs. Dweezil tore it up unbelievably. He must have practiced a whole hell of a lot as his performance of Black Napkins was absolutely perfect. The entire band was on top of its game, really, with the "kids" playing all of their parts perfectly and looking like they were having the greatest time ever doing so. I think it was great that I got to see this show so late in the tour as the band has been playing together now for months and has had a chance to really get the material under their belt. Even if they had a year to practice that monstrous volume of ultra-dense music (they didn't), there's no way they could possibly have had it entirely "down" when the tour started. I can imagine they weren't quite so proficient for the first couple shows back during the summer.

What really made this show so incredible, though, was that they did everything a hardcore Zappa fan could hope for. So much of the best material was covered from all different eras of Zappa's career, and every time I was thinking "it'd be cool if they did X song," 10 minutes later they would break into it. There was even some audience participation like Frank used to do. Something that also impressed me was the way they took some songs and modernized them, putting their own spin on them. I'm the Slime was the best example as it's still a wonderfully pertinent song that sounded as if it was written as recently as this year. They heavied it up, making it sound borderline metal. It almost felt more appropriate for the subject matter than the original scoring did.

Finally, possibly the most impressive aspect of the show was how they played for over 3 and a half hours without a single real break. There were breaks that were sort of worked in for individual musicians over the course of the show, but there wasn't an intermission. The longest we went without hearing music once the show began was the 2 minutes between when everyone left the stage before coming back on for a very long encore. The whole thing was extremely unpretentious and was nothing but a pure display of ultra high-quality musicianship. I think Frank would have been proud and most certainly approved at his son's handling of the music.

The crowd was interesting, as it was composed mainly of people my parents' age with a smattering of 30-somethings. I found there to be very few people my age in the crowd. I liked how there was a large handful of young kids present with their parents (I saw a few that couldn't have been over 8 or 9, no kidding). It was also great to see that these young kids were dancing their asses off, having the time of their lives. It's reassuring to know that there are parents that are wise enough to bring their children to such a great concert and helping to make sure that the music of Frank Zappa is still finding new audiences.

Sorry if that was a bit of shameless rant, but I do have just under 100 hours of Zappa on my computer (yes, that's over 4 straight days of MP3s) so I guess I'm what some might call a bit of a fanatic. Seeing this show has been an incredible culmination of the last 4 years of my life spent avidly collecting and listening to Frank's music, all of which has been incredibly rewarding to wade through and begin to understand.

So moving on, Eric came to visit this weekend from Colorado. He's never seen Boston (or the east coast for that matter), so it was fun to show a complete New England virgin around. I never fully realized how much there is to do and see here when it's all new to you, as I've slowly built up knowledge of the city over the last 4 years. Friday we went out to some bars, eventually meeting up with a group of Starbucks girls to celebrate some birthdays. Saturday night was the Belgian Beer Festival which was amazing. I have some pics that I'll get up on Flickr eventually. There were over 200 beers to choose from and you just walked around with your little sample cup moving from table to table. I tried lots of beer that night and it was a great reminder of my time spent in Brussels. The wonderful benefit of drinking such good beer is the fact that you don't get any sort of hangover the next day. Today, I showed him the Garment District's awesome $1.50 per pound clothing pit. We watched the Colts/Broncos game this evening before Eric had to leave to catch his plane.

So now I'm left with a project to finish tomorrow morning and a midterm to study for (which I'm definitely not feeling confident about) that I gotta take tomorrow night. Thursday I need to present a long presentation to the class about anything Argentinian of my choosing. So far, I've put zero minutes into this, and am feeling more than a bit of apprehension about the whole thing. I'm hoping it doesn't turn into a train wreck for me. Unlike the test that I ended up getting an A on unexpectedly, I can't bullshit when I have to stand up in front of the class and talk. I also can't whip out my dictionary when I need it to look up that key word I'm missing either. Ack.

Yeah. So I'm gonna just try to get through these next two days and then we'll see what happens after that. Mmkay?

Hahahaha

So that Spanish test I thought I was going to bomb.... got an A on it. Hahahahahaha. What a joke. Strange part is, I dreamed I got an A on it a couple nights ago. Still, I can't believe this is supposed to be a 600 level class.

Pulling Out the Flannel Sheets and Long Underwear

The word of the day is vituperative. It has nothing to do with my post, but I just discovered it and think it's a fantastic word.

Things are moving along rather smoothly yet hectically if that makes any sense. I've been up to my neck in work lately as I probably mentioned in my last post, but I've been staying on top of things pretty well and actually maintaining a good schedule (something I've generally been crap at).

I had guests this weekend who ended up being exceptionally self-sufficient, making my life a whole lot easier, especially with all the crap I've had to get done lately. Sunday, Marliese came in to shoot some scenes for my movie which went really well except for a semi-large setback that I found out about today. Unfortunately, because some knob was too stingy to spring for decent mini-DV tapes, the heads on the camera were clogged and therefore about 1/3 of my footage from my Thursday and Sunday shoots drops out intermittently, rendering large chunks of video totally unusable. There's really no way of knowing this is happening whilst shooting, save for rewinding and checking every second of tape immediately after recording it. This is completely unfeasible, however, as it would practically double the amount of time spent shooting.

Needless to say, I created a "small disturbance" in the Avid lab with copious screaming and swearing. My teacher offered his sympathies as he claims "he's been there," although this did little to soothe my frayed nerves. The entire scene I shot with Marliese is now completely useless and needs to be redone, and a small (but easily re-shot) scene with my roommate, Gordon, needs to be done-over. Time is short, however, as much of my lost footage was shot outdoors and the weather is getting damn cold, damn quick. Otherwise, shooting has been going great. Everybody involved has been doing a really good job which will make post-production much easier.

I am also working on an audio project for my other class which is almost done. I like the way it's shaping up. I'll post it on youtube or something next week when it's finished.

Despite working my ass off, I'm still indulging in some of the finer things in life. Wednesday night I will finally get to experience Zappa Play Zappa. I'm banking that it'll be one of the most incredible shows I've ever been to. Not only will I get to hear Zappa's music performed live (and done correctly) and in an amazing venue, I will also get to see Steve Vai and Terry Bozzio in concert. Also, Eric will be in from Colorado on Friday to visit and go to the Belgian Beer Festival the following day. We traveled to Belgium together this year during Spring Break, so it'll be appropriate to be reunited for such a capital occasion.

I guess that's about it. I've been extremely absorbed with my work and personal life so I've barely been keeping up with current events, which I regret. I am vaguely aware that apocalypse slinks ever nearer with international order slowly crumbling away as a result of a new era of nuclear proliferation, genocide, horny congressmen, dwindling oil reserves (despite drops in gas prices), racist popes, global climate change, and the general clusterfuckery that is world politics, but haven't had much time to read up on details. Also, I'd like to be following the election race more closely, but it's been tough. I hate rooting for Democrats, but when you're stuck with a one-or-the-other scenario, that crowd always seems to be slightly less sociopathic. As the general cycle of politics go, isn't it about time for a Democratic House anyway? My sense of logic tells me it's a waste of time hoping for a better tomorrow by way of elected officials, but you gotta hope for something, right?

"I look to the future because that's where I'm going to spend the rest of my life." -George Burns

Seeming insurmountability

I took the time today to actually plot out everything I need to get done in the next 2 or so weeks and it has turned out to be rather absurd. It's actually to the point where I wonder if I'll be able to do everything I need to.

I think it's a fun challenge though. I've definitely never had this much on my plate before, including even the time towards the end of my Spain program when I was bitching and complaining about having to write 5 papers in 3 weeks or whatever it was. That ended up being okay, because it was just papers, and ultimately it depended on me sitting down, ignoring all the other distractions and just writing them. I eventually did so and everything turned out fine.

Things will probably turn out fine this time as well, but there are a lot more factors in play here that are beyond my control at this point in time. The 20+ hours of Starbucks I have this week can definitely be considered an unavoidable hindrance, for example. Additionally, I now have guests staying over both this coming weekend and the following one. I should have had more foresight when agreeing to have them come, but I didn't, so oh well. I've come to the conclusion that maintaining positive personal relationships with people should be just as high on the agenda as getting my school shit done. At least that's how I've half-assedly justified it. Also out of my hands is how much the success of my projects depends on other peoples' schedules and their being able to contribute. Even if I'm working my ass off, if my friends and classmates flake on me, my shit won't get done.

On a related note, I've decided to put the absolute bare minimum amount of effort into my Spanish class (in other words, doing exactly what I have been so far). I have a midterm on Friday but I don't plan on spending much more than an hour studying for it (so far I've put zero time into this course outside of the classroom). I'm aiming for a C for a final grade, which I'm pretty confident I can pull off with said amount of effort. If I manage anything better it'll be because of luck or because the professor decided to go easy on me. I only need a C for it to count towards my Spanish minor. I'm not totally sure if I actually need the class to graduate otherwise. My mindset is that if I aim low, I won't be disappointed or get worked up after I don't take enough time to study and do shitty on my tests. I have too much other junk to deal with that is worth getting worked up over already. I'm pleased with this decision.

So anyway, I ought not to be writing in my journal as I have to re-write my voice-over for my audio project. I was just informed a rough edit is due next Monday which means -in my teacher's own words- the whole project needs to be 90% done. Oops. Gotta get on that.

North Korea is a Crazy Place

North Korea has been in the news lately, those fiesty commies. I found this site that has some pretty interesting pictures of the isolated nation. Some of it is very creepy. Check it out. Oh, and read the captions to get the full effect. Translated from Russian

The Present and The Future

Bit of an update on my life.

Still recovering from mono, I guess. I feel a lot better. My spleen barely seems to act up at all these days, so I'm taking that as a sign that my liver is probably getting better too. My blood test from a couple weeks back said I was getting better but still had a little ways to go. I have another test next Wednesday and I'm pretty sure things will be back to normal by then, although with my luck my liver will have exploded by then. The reason I'm tired these days is because I don't sleep enough, not because of virus.

I really really miss beer.

This semester is ridiculous, but mostly in a good way. My Digital Editing class is turning out to be about as demanding as I expected (strenuously), but it's still been a bit of shock while everything is getting thrown in my face. We only meet once a week for 4 hours, so naturally we have 3 times as much stuff to do outside of class. TV Production is the one where I'm just making a movie. This only meets once a week as well, but the teacher only holds class for about 2 hours. Needless to say, I'm learning a lot about self-scheduling and time management this Fall, something I've never been particularly stellar at. On top of those two monsters I have 20+ hours a week at the Bux and my Spanish Seminar class which is a huge snore but is about to get much tougher when the Prof finally starts assigning real work. All it's been so far is extremely difficult 18th and 19th century Argentine literature, which I haven't bothered to waste my time on since we go over it all in class anyway.

Anyway, despite having a mind-boggling amount to do, I'm really happy to be doing it all. This is definitely shaping up to be my favorite semester academically at this school. It'll be nice to finish up on a sweeter note.

I've been giving a lot more serious consideration to moving to England after I graduate. There's lots of good reasons to do it, and especially so soon after I finish with school. The plan would basically be to hang around MA for a year saving up as much cash as possible while applying for a 2-year work visa in the UK. I'd get over and try to get my feet on the ground with the intentions of working for either the BBC or iTV (preferably the former). If things are looking pretty good approaching the 2 year mark, I'd probably start to seek citizenship. Dual-citizenship would be ideal, although the U.S. gov't can be pretty crotchety about that. Still, I hear it's not impossible to get. If everything goes sour or I just straight up don't like where I'm at I can always head back to the U.S. after my visa is up and start again from the ground up.

I've come to the conclusion that I wanna try to do something ambitious with the education I've been lucky enough to have, and to do so I'm pretty much forced to move to a major city. Although I've never been to LA, everything I've heard about it tells me it's one of the last places on earth I'd like to live. I already know I'm not into NYC, although it's a lot more of a palatable idea than LA. Then there is London. Also not my number one favorite place in the world, but it does have its upsides; namely, the BBC is based out of it. The BBC is a company I've admired since I first learned of its existence and it also happens to be friggen gigantic. They have positions in absolutely every possible area of television and beyond. I feel like as a major media corporation, the BBC still has a formidable semblance of moral integrity, something almost every major American network has been unapologetically shedding for the last 15+ years (or never pretending to have in the first place). As a result, it seems like a great company to aspire to work for. It's well established, would offer a fairly secure job environment, and wouldn't make me feel like I'm selling my soul to make a living. It is, of course, an insanely competitive company to get a job at, but I don't think it's impossible for me to get my foot in. Also, some of my professors know former students that work there and in other spots in London in media, so I can get some hookups right off the bat.

I could stay in Boston and probably get by alright doing things I enjoy, but why not aim high off the bat? It's the best time in my life to make a huge step, and if things go badly, I won't be falling very far. Trying to do something like this when I'm 30 would be a much bigger risk and a much bigger set of hurdles to overcome. If I am back in 2 years where I started, I know I won't be totally up shit creek as I've already formulated about 5 different backup plans (some more desirable than others) on how to put food in my mouth.

It's a lot to think about, especially while I'm just trying to get through the semester, but I think it's a good direction to head in.

Osama

Taking a more topical approach to things...

Is Osama Bin Laden dead or not? If you haven't yet heard, there are a whole bunch of rumors circulating the globe that the alleged visionary behind the WTC/Pentagon attacks is either very sick or already dead from very non-assault rifle-related complications. This whole thing strikes me as being really funny. I think it'd be great if he died of typhoid because then possibly (although I'm not even thinking about holding my breath on this one) maybe people would see how inconsequential he truly is.

Succumbing not to a geniusly masterminded internationally collaborated manhunt, but instead to some dirty water, would be a fantastically anti-climactic end to all of the drama. That way he would be denied that ever-elusive, widely sought-after title of martyr, greedy opportunistic politicians wouldn't be able to benefit from his capture and the ensuing circus sideshow they would try to call a trial (see Saddam Hussein), and pissed off Americans wouldn't be quite so lulled into a false sense of closure. That is of course assuming that Bush and Co. are even still bothering to hunt down the asshole, which hasn't seemed to be the case as of late.

A disease-dead Osama means the one nationally recognized symbol of unadultered evil, the one man for which forgiveness and salvation are absolutely out of the question would essentially become an emblematic nullity. I guess we'll just have to direct our hatred elsewhere...

The cynic in me, however, says that even if Bin Laden dies from some bacteria, Bush's approval rating will still manage to climb. Politics are dumb.