Category Archives: musings

Project 365 4-18-2010

Stopped by the bookstore today among a series of other errands.  Rene had a mission: supplies for home including food, toilet paper and paper towels.  I wanted two things: Mrs. Field’s cookies and something to read.

Clearly one of us had our priorities in order.

I’ll let you discuss with your loved ones which one of us that was.

I really appreciate the simple joy that comes from a good cookie.  Since I was a kid my favorite has always been Mrs. Field’s.  I still judge every cookie I come across by Mrs. Field’s milk chocolate chip with nuts and most fall considerably short.  So my idea of the end of the evening was to sit down with something good to read and eat cookies.

We did the other errands, got the cookies (since it was the end of the day I got the last 10 milk chocolate with nuts – and they were on sale!!!!), and then we headed to the book store where I couldn’t decide on a damn thing.  Did I want a comic trade paperback?  Did I want to read “World War Z”?  Maybe even a movie biz book?  I couldn’t decide and every time I just picked something and started to walk to the register I got buyer’s remorse before I even got to check out.  With the number scripts that I should be reading and all the other stuff that just needs to get done I just couldn’t justify getting anything new.  That was frustrating.

Rene, on the other hand, was thinking with her brain and found these fun quiz books for people getting married!  We got those and took them home to take them.  I ate cookies while we did that.  We also scored very well.  I’d still like to read “World War Z,” but I need to finish Sebastian’s Rocket and three other scripts before I’ll feel comfortable doing that.

Today’s picture is of the quiz book:

See you tomorrow!

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Filed under musings, project 365 2010, the wedding

Uh Oh.


CNN just posted the “12 Most Annoying Facebookers”. Some of these sounded a bit too familiar. Look upon yourself! Are you, like me, guilty of at least ONE of these actions?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!!!?!?!!?!!?!?!!?!?!!? *Evil LOL’z

Here are 12 of the most annoying types of Facebook users:

The Let-Me-Tell-You-Every-Detail-of-My-Day Bore. “I’m waking up.” “I had Wheaties for breakfast.” “I’m bored at work.” “I’m stuck in traffic.” You’re kidding! How fascinating! No moment is too mundane for some people to broadcast unsolicited to the world. Just because you have 432 Facebook friends doesn’t mean we all want to know when you’re waiting for the bus.

The Self-Promoter. OK, so we’ve probably all posted at least once about some achievement. And sure, maybe your friends really do want to read the fascinating article you wrote about beet farming. But when almost EVERY update is a link to your blog, your poetry reading, your 10k results or your art show, you sound like a bragger or a self-centered careerist.

The Friend-Padder. The average Facebook user has 120 friends on the site. Schmoozers and social butterflies — you know, the ones who make lifelong pals on the subway — might reasonably have 300 or 400. But 1,000 “friends?” Unless you’re George Clooney or just won the lottery, no one has that many. That’s just showing off.

The Town Crier. “Michael Jackson is dead!!!” You heard it from me first! Me, and the 213,000 other people who all saw it on TMZ. These Matt Drudge wannabes are the reason many of us learn of breaking news not from TV or news sites but from online social networks. In their rush to trumpet the news, these people also spread rumors, half-truths and innuendo. No, Jeff Goldblum did not plunge to his death from a New Zealand cliff.

The TMIer. “Brad is heading to Walgreens to buy something for these pesky hemorrhoids.” Boundaries of privacy and decorum don’t seem to exist for these too-much-information updaters, who unabashedly offer up details about their sex lives, marital troubles and bodily functions. Thanks for sharing.

The Bad Grammarian. “So sad about Fara Fauset but Im so gladd its friday yippe”. Yes, I know the punctuation rules are different in the digital world. And, no, no one likes a spelling-Nazi schoolmarm. But you sound like a moron.

The Sympathy-Baiter. “Barbara is feeling sad today.” “Man, am I glad that’s over.” “Jim could really use some good news about now.” Like anglers hunting for fish, these sad sacks cast out their hooks — baited with vague tales of woe — in the hopes of landing concerned responses. Genuine bad news is one thing, but these manipulative posts are just pleas for attention.

The Lurker. The Peeping Toms of Facebook, these voyeurs are too cautious, or maybe too lazy, to update their status or write on your wall. But once in a while, you’ll be talking to them and they’ll mention something you posted, so you know they’re on your page, hiding in the shadows. It’s just a little creepy.

The Crank. These curmudgeons, like the trolls who spew hate in blog comments, never met something they couldn’t complain about. “Carl isn’t really that impressed with idiots who don’t realize how idiotic they are.” [Actual status update.] Keep spreading the love.

The Paparazzo. Ever visit your Facebook page and discover that someone’s posted a photo of you from last weekend’s party — a photo you didn’t authorize and haven’t even seen? You’d really rather not have to explain to your mom why you were leering like a drunken hyena and French-kissing a bottle of Jagermeister.

The Obscurist. “If not now then when?” “You’ll see…” “Grist for the mill.” “John is, small world.” “Dave thought he was immune, but no. No, he is not.” [Actual status updates, all.] Sorry, but you’re not being mysterious — just nonsensical.

The Chronic Inviter. “Support my cause. Sign my petition. Play Mafia Wars with me. Which ‘Star Trek’ character are you? Here are the ‘Top 5 cars I have personally owned.’ Here are ’25 Things About Me.’ Here’s a drink. What drink are you? We’re related! I took the ‘What President Are You?’ quiz and found out I’m Millard Fillmore! What president are you?”

I took out all the other commentary from the article because I didn’t care. It’s a slurry puff piece, but the “types” listed here – I know all these folks on FB, and you do too! And I can admit to being at least a few of them, and you probably can too! Now watch as you spend the rest of the day fitting all of your friends into one of these twelve arch-types!

See you tomorrow!

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Filed under Facebook, general, musings, social networking

You’re gonna’ hate me, but you’ll love me for it!

There is an internet craze that is rarely exploited, mostly because it can get REALLY obnoxious. Here are some links to follow. I’m sorry and you’re welcome.

Shut up, lady, get on my horse!

Llama, llama, duck!

Badgers

See you tomorrow!

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Filed under music video, musings, videos

Halloween Eve!!!

BOO!!

Were you scared?

If you were you might want to seek help because that really wasn’t scary.

It bordered on stupid.

I love Halloween! I love the time of year, the movies associated with and all the events like Scary Farm, parties, Trick or Treating… It’s a great time of year!

This year Rene and I are taking it easy. Halloween is fun, but it can also be pricey and this year has not been all that lucrative. So no costumes this year, no major parties, just family, some trick or treating and home spun fun!

By the way, this is the coolest t-shirt image ever!

So this weekend Rene and I will celebrate by watching Trick ‘r Treat and Drag Me to Hell after helping her nieces go trick or treating. I may post some photos later if we do some kind of dressing up.

See you tomorrow!

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Filed under general, musings

It’s Cheese!

I enjoy pop culture. I memorize song lyrics, tag lines and slogans. I also use them in “inside jokes” all the time. Tonight I wanted to let Rene inside a joke I’ve had since Junior High, but not really used in a while, “It’s cheese!”

I think it’s hysterical.

To let her in I found the commercial it was stolen from on YouTube. Here it is:

When I was a pre-teen/teen I found this HYSTERICAL! Now, whenever I can, I describe cheese this way, but I remember the “it’s cheese!” line bigger, more scared and, therefore, funnier. This next commercial, however, is exactly as I remember it, and is still one of my featured “go to” jokes when I improv:

These Little Ceasar’s commercials were some of the greatest of my childhood/adolescence. To this day they still work in getting me to crave Crazy Bread. They helped to groom my love of the ridiculous. We don’t get a lot of commercials like this anymore. Now we have “high concepts” and dramatic commercials, but sometimes I really miss the days of camp and “set-up/punchline” gags.

Here’s one last one, for old time’s sake. See you tomorrow!

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Filed under commercials, funny, musings, pop culture, videos

NINE Days!


It’s been nine days since my last post! Well except for the Paris review I posted yesterday. It feels like a lifetime. It’s amazing to me how fast time passes in “internet time.” Philip DeFranco was actually talking about this on one of his videos last week and it really hit home for me when I realized how far behind I had gotten on my own blogging.

Admittedly I have not been keeping up because I am spending more time on other commitments that are, in actual fact, more important to me. There’s family, friends, movie stuff on the move and the end of a fiscal year coming up. You don’t need my excuses, but what I can say is that I’m finding the balance right now between social networking and how that interacts with my work and the actual work that goes into my work.

Uh, that sounds udderly droll – but I got to use the word “droll” so that gives me hipster cred, right? Totes.

See you tomorrow!

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Four Minutes


I was watching the Discovery Channel, I forget which show, and they were talking about near Earth objects or NEO’s. NEO’s are the objects that are flying through space and have the possibility of hitting the Earth. These objects range in size from a pebble to hundreds on miles wide. The NEO’s that are tracked are the ones that are considered dangerous. There are thousands of these objects being tracked at all times. The scientist who was being interviewed said that even though there are thousands of these objects being tracked there are thousands, perhaps even hundreds of thousands of these objects that we aren’t tracking.

The scary fact of it all is that there could be an object over 600 miles wide that might be headed directly at the Earth right now and if it is, and we aren’t tracking it, we would have four minutes of warning before it struck the Earth and effectively wiped all life off of the planet.

Four minutes.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, not because I’m obsessed with the idea of being killed by a rock falling from space but because of the phenomenon that I’m becoming way too aware off lately – Nanny Laws.

We are currently living in a society where our leaders keep doing things to make us feel more safe when, in actuality, there is nothing that can keep us safe.

Examples:

  • Security checks at the airport are great for seeing what’s in passenger baggage, but no one checks the cargo placed in stowage – THIS IS ON YOUR FLIGHT! If someone REALLY wants to blow up a plane all they have to do is ship it.
  • Dog Bans and Breed Specific Legislation do not accomplish the goal of stopping dog bites, once one breed is gone the other dogs pick up the slack. This has lead to over 70 breeds of dog being banned or restricted in some way in Italy and multiple dog bans across the United States.
  • Gun Laws
  • Tobacco Laws
  • The Drug War

All of these only punish the law abiding, the people who want these things will have them anyway – only the innocent get punished.

And for what? What are we really being kept safe from? When does personal responsibility become a factor? I would actually like to see a return of personal responsibility!

Why does AIG get a bail out for being a failure? I wouldn’t. You wouldn’t. And I don’t agree that any company is too large to fail. In fact I would argue that some companies have become too large to succeed!

This is really just the beginning of a much bigger conversation and I would like to encourage you to comment so we can continue the discussion.

Four minutes.

Think of all the stuff you would cease to care about if you knew it was your last four minutes and then tell me what’s really important to you.

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Filed under geek, general, musings, politics, rant, REVOLUTION

A New Computer


Oh the joys of technology! On September 6, 2009 I shut down my old computer and prepared to move into the new tower as provided by my friend Scott. Scott is a computer genius. He has built, and bent to his will, machines that could control the Earth if he really wanted them too. If it weren’t for the fact that he clicks “No” every morning on his computer at home the machines would over-run the Earth killing all of humanity and then crowning him king.

This machine tried to make a mockery of his powers.

I’m using Scott’s scraps. This is far from a bad thing, Scott’s scraps, as confirmed by other computer folks, are REALLY nice. The trouble was that we just couldn’t seem to make it work.

It took almost a week to solve the problem. That fact that it took so long makes me want to sacrifice the dragging out cadence that I had intended for this paragraph because I am done with that “dragging on” feeling, so to make a long story short – we were missing a plug. The whole plug was missing! There was a perfectly good reason for the plug being gone but not for why three grown and intelligent men didn’t realize it until after tearing the whole thing apart and then drinking a few 7&7’s.

I like to thank the 7&7’s and Dean’s ability to divine a schematic.

Finally my computer is back up and happy! It’s got a fresh start, although a few of my programs still need to be loaded, and everything is working so well!

The last computer that Scott built for me lasted for eight years! I hope this one can pull that off too!

See you tomorrow!

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Filed under computers, drinking, musings

Random Thoughts From 25-35 Year Olds


I was cruising the internet, like you do, and I found this list of things that have been attributed to 25-35 years olds. I believe it because I related to many of them a bit too much and I’m definitely in the range. I hope you like them and I look forward to your comments!

RANDOM THOUGHTS – 25-35 YEAR OLDS…

Is it just me, or are 80% of the faces in the “people you may know” feature on Facebook, people that I do know, but I deliberately choose not to be friends with?

You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you’ve made up your mind that you just aren’t doing anything productive for the rest of the day.

Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you’re wrong.

I don’t understand the purpose of the line, “I don’t need to drink to have fun.” Great, no one does. But why start a fire with flint and sticks when they’ve invented the lighter?

Have you ever been walking down the street and realized that you’re going in the complete opposite direction of where you are supposed to be going? But instead of just turning a 180 and walking back in the direction from which you came, you have to first do something like check your watch or phone or make a grand arm gesture and mutter to yourself to ensure that no one in the surrounding area thinks you’re crazy by randomly switching directions on the sidewalk.

I totally take back all those times I didn’t want to nap when I was younger.

The letters T and G are very close to each other on a keyboard. This recently became all too apparent to me and consequently I will never be ending a work email with the phrase “Regards” again.

Do you remember when you were a kid, playing Nintendo and it wouldn’t work? You take the cartridge out, blow in it and that would magically fix the problem. Every kid did that, but how did we all know how to fix the problem? There were no internet or message boards or FAQ’s. We just figured it out. Today’s kids are soft.

There is a great need for sarcasm font.

Sometimes, I’ll watch a movie that I watched when I was younger and suddenly realize I had no idea what the fuck was going on when I first saw it.

I think everyone has a movie that they love so much, it actually becomes stressful to watch it with other people. I’ll end up wasting 90 minutes shiftily glancing around to confirm that everyone’s definitely watching and laughing at the right parts.

How the hell are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?

I would rather try to carry 10 plastic grocery bags in each hand than take 2 trips to bring my groceries in.

I think part of a best friend’s job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die.

The only time I look forward to a red light is when I’m trying to finish a text.

Was learning cursive really necessary?

LOL has gone from meaning, “laugh out loud” to “I have nothing else to say”.

I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.

Whenever someone says “I’m not book smart, but I’m street smart”, all I hear is “I’m not real smart, but I’m imaginary smart”.

How many times is it appropriate to say “What?” before you just nod and smile because you still didn’t hear what they said?


While driving yesterday I saw a banana peel in the road and instinctively swerved to avoid it… thanks Mario Kart.

Every time I have to spell a word over the phone using ‘as in’ examples, I will undoubtedly draw a blank and sound like a complete idiot. Today I had to spell my boss’s last name to an client and said “Yes that’s G as in…(10 second lapse)… ummm… Goonies”.

Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.

I find it hard to believe there are actually people who get in the shower first and THEN turn on the water.

Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty, and you can wear them forever.

I love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars teams up to prevent a dick from cutting in at the front. Stay strong, brothers!

I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t at least kind of tired.

Bad decisions make good stories.

Whenever I’m Facebook stalking someone and I find out that their profile is public I feel like a kid on Christmas morning who just got the Red Ryder BB gun that I always wanted. 546 pictures? Don’t mind if I do!

Is it just me or do high school girls get sluttier and sluttier every year?

Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after DVDs? I don’t want to have to restart my collection.

As a driver I hate pedestrians and as a pedestrian I hate drivers, but no matter what the mode of transportation, I always hate cyclists.

There’s no worse feeling than that millisecond you’re sure you are going to die after leaning your chair back a little too far.

I’m always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten page research paper that I swear I did not make any changes to.

“Do not machine wash or tumble dry” means I will never wash this ever.

I hate being the one with the remote in a room full of people watching TV. There’s so much pressure. ‘I love this show, but will they judge me if I keep it on? I bet everyone is wishing we weren’t watching this. It’s only a matter of time before they all get up and leave the room. Will we still be friends after this?’

I hate when I just miss a call by the last ring (Hello? Hello? Darnit!), but when I immediately call back, it rings nine times and goes to voicemail. What’d you do after I didn’t answer? Drop the phone and run away?

I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not seeing anyone of importance the entire day. What a waste.

When I meet a new girl, I’m terrified of mentioning something she hasn’t already told me but that I have learned from some light internet stalking.

I like all of the music in my iTunes, except when it’s on shuffle, then I like about one in every fifteen songs in my iTunes.

Why is a school zone 25 mph? That seems like the optimal cruising speed for pedophiles…

Sometimes I’ll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still not know what time it is.

I keep some people’s phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.

Even under ideal conditions people have trouble locating their car keys in a pocket, finding their cell phone, and Pinning the Tail on the Donkey – but I’d bet my ass everyone can find and push the Snooze button from 3 feet away, in about 1.7 seconds, eyes closed, first time every time…

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Filed under general, musings, social commentary

Problem Solving


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When your movie loses financing and you’re suddenly without a real paycheck and you need to find replacement financing then you, sir, you have some problems that need solving. In working those problems out you get a very up close an personal look at practical problem solving. I think it’s important to differentiate “problem solving” from “practical problem solving” because they really are two separate things.

Problem Solving: By definition problem solving is, “Considered the most complex of all intellectual functions, problem solving has been defined as higher-order cognitive process that requires the modulation and control of more routine or fundamental skills. Problem solving occurs when an organism or an artificial intelligence system needs to move from a given state to a desired goal state.”* So what does that mean? It means you sit there, consider your options and find a way to achieve your goal. This can often lead to outlandish, sometimes expensive, solutions that, while completely viable, aren’t preferable.

Practical Problem Solving: Really my own definition because if a problem gets solved it probably will be practical to the situation, but sometimes it is easy to get distracted by the complexity of a group of problems and lose sight of which ones need to be solved right away versus problems that can either wait or may solve themselves. This is where I have been doing most of my work.

The triage of problems has been a study in crisis and how to put out fires – both personally and in business. There are, reasonably, 16 possible work hours per day – assuming you sleep 8 hours a day. You only have so much time to get way too much done and so decision making goes hand in hand with problem solving. Also, most of us have the luxury of being able to follow the problem solving paths laid out by people who have already had to navigate the troubled waters we try to cross – in the entertainment industry we are entering completely new territory and so reliable “go to solutions” are hard to come by. So what do we do? We try stuff. We experiment. We look for the paths that other people haven’t found or ignore. We look for the “Bob’s” who have had some success and try to build off of it.

It’s amazing to me how open entertainment veterans are to new ideas right now. It’s a really exciting time to be a filmmaker or musician – maybe not as profitable as it once was, but exciting all the same.

Well, I’ve got more problems to solve. I hope you solve yours too.

See you tomorrow!

*Thanks Wikipedia

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Filed under business, making movies, musings