On Greeting a Stranger on the Street...

I loved you on this day

Watch Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind trailer.
Speech team.

Fun stuff, but not as good as last year. I guess it has to do with a few factors. The first being, I don't really have a love for either of the things I'm in. I mean, yeah, I love Star Wars for readers theater, but.. I don't love the reader's theater, or being in it. And with Titus, I love the language and I like the piece, a few moments in the performance - but I don't love it. Last year, I loved choral reading. It was a labor of love for so many people, myself included, that this year seems to pale in comparison. Aside from the events, I suppose I had too many things to see this year of ours. Last year I spent most of my time just being with people, and the year just in the improv room, but this year there were so many things I wanted to see that I didn't have time to do anything else, really. But now that I've seen most of them, I won't bother with most of them again at state. Hopefully I'll be able to see some really good stuff there. But anyway, back to districts.

Everyone had a great performance that I saw compared to their previous ones - with choral reading being the exception. It must be kind of a disapointment this year after doing so well with it last year that they performed so poorly at districts. But they still have a few weeks to practice till state. Overall, everything I saw was great, and I may be a bit partial, but I do think Hosbond put together some of our best performances this year. It feels weird that one of our improvs didn't make it past distcrits - first time that's happened since I've been here. But admittedly, I wasn't really expecting the "new group" last year to make it, but they put together a pretty good performance for districts and impressed me. But again, back to districts this year.

I think I did okay in both my events. I wasn't really feeling Titus as much as I thought I should, and I couldn't really improve it or do exceptional during the performance because I just went on automatic - something I do durning performance. Just not think about it and just let it happen. I'll try to work on that for state. And I did fine in readers theater. My voice didn't crack, but it also wasn't as menacing as I could have hoped. But my Chewie got laughs out of people - mostly Erin and Jessica though, heh.

I feel really bad for the people in West Side Story. They got a 2 when they didn't deserve it - so I hear (I couldn't catch the performance - something else was running late so I missed it). When they asked what they did wrong, pretty much what the judge told them was that "one of the girls" was much stronger than the others and didn't blend well with them. Everyone's pretty sure that's Michelle.. I feel really bad for her especially, though, because she was fantastic in it and she doesn't get recognition for it. But what really pissed me off was the way the judge said why they go the 2.. made it sound like if Michelle had been weaker, then they would have moved on. Pissed me off.

I hope we have someone come in and make some suggestions for Titus. Someone who actually knows Shakespeare...

Now, some happy little moments at contest. Sam/Sara/David improv was fantastic - can't wait for them to wow us at state. Laura french chick was cool - especially when she asked me to kiss her on the cheek (HA! corey and collin). Weird gross girl following Jed around. "PICK IT UP!!" then BAM! to David.. Graber/knives and Corey/Smoothandclean.. Pappin being hit on by the judge.. Jim saying "Beauty, Truth, Freedom, and Happiness"... Greasy Injuns... 4 Steel Magnolias... Hmm.. there are probably a lot more, I just can't remember.

Well, after we got back, everyone, and I mean everyone, went to Tiffany's for a post-districts party. That ruled. First I was upstairs with Rachel, Kelsey, and Michelle while everyone else was being loud downstairs, then everyone went upstairs so Kelsey, Rachel, and I went downstairs.. Then other people started coming down, then I got people to start doing a game where you have to tap the other person's head 3 times by any means (but you can't use legs).. Justin totally owned at it, tossing everyone about.. The best 2 moments were when Justin threw Steve literally 15 feet across the room and Steve just having this bewildered look on his face, and when Justin totally flipped Quinn over and smacked him into the ground. It was intense. Sam got into it too, and Jim, but.. I never did.

Instead, I went upstairs where it was quieter. People were more into talking up there, so I joined them. We were doing well until Gemma wanted to leave to hang out with "Tasha" who I'd never met before.. I went back downstairs for a bit, but eventually made my way upstairs... a select few found their way into Tiffany's room where we could just have a nice, quiet conversation. It worked for a while and was really nice... Eventually, more and more people kept filtering in and out of the room, and then, even though everyone objected, Gemma invited Tasha over. The point of the conversation was to get to know people better, not to meet someone new. So I was kind of pissed off because Tasha kind of took the center of attention, instead of having it shared between the group like it was before.

I hadn't ever really been around Joel before, even though I knew he was pretty cool, but he was up in the room with us and I learned just how cool he was. He totally kicks ass. He should hang out with us more often. Nandi was being a bit more talkative than I was used to (granted, I don't normally see her with such small a group) which was really cool, Collin was being really quiet and voiced how I felt for about half the time in Tiffany's room (about how most of the stuff they were talking about was trivial and boring), Tiffany was being.. well, Tiffany, Gemma was kind of spurring the conversation on, and everyone else who came in was sort of quiet (Evan, Kelsey, Rachel), and I've already mentioned Tasha. Quinn and Jenny were in the other room, and it was nice to have a conversation without Quinn complaining about it every 5 minutes. When everyone was leaving, I mentioned to Nandi that I'd want to hang out with her and Gemma, Collin, or whoever, in a smaller group the next day. She agreed.

So on sunday after I finished with TB around 2:30, I called Gemma up and she and Nandi and I went to Nandi's house. Collin said he had work to do at TB, and Gemma couldn't get in contact with Michelle, so it just ended up being the three of us. It was really nice to get to know Nandi a little bit better, and I also enjoyed just being with her and Gemma without anyone else there.. it just made me feel more like they were actually my friends, rather than just people I hang out with on weekends and such.. We talked about anything and everything, from silly to serious - a nice mix, too. We pretty much talked from 2:30 till 9:30.. I don't really know what to say about it other than the fact that it was really fun. Hope I can do stuff more like that more often.


Overall, it was a really nice weekend. The best I've had in ages. Friday with BR fun, Sat with speech and party, and Sun with nandi and gemma... Full schedule, but also fri and sun were relaxed enough that I didn't feel too busy. Fun times.

You kill each other off 'til there's only one left. Nothing's against the rules.

Good morning! How is everyone? Its now 6am. Time for sleepy heads to wake up! Heres the list of your dead friends in the order they died...

I could't decide which would be a better title, so I just left them both. Here's the word, folks: If you haven't seen Battle Royale (which you haven't), go out and watch it. It's a kickass japanese film made a few years ago about a bunch of high school students who get put on an island and must kill each other under a government act. They each get special weapons, supplies, etc. There can only be one left at the end. There's obviously a much more in depth plot then that, but.. I'm hoping that description will make people want to see it. If you do want to see it, borrow the VDCs from Davey.

Districts are tomorrow. Joy. I almost avoided dairy tonight. But then there was a big chocolate incident with Davey and.. well, I just had to. Speech will be a barrell of fun - but not too much, because Titus is later in the day. Well.. I guess the point of this post is to... have people know what a kickass movie Battle Royale is.

Some crazy garbage called the blood of the exploited working class

There're some pretty groovy stuff going on right now. A bit of it I can't talk about, but.. oh well.

Titus.. I've got all my lines. The only problem now is getting them in the right order. We've done 4 full runthroughs, only 1 without prompting. The others i had to get approximatly 3 times each, but only the latest one with no prompting, I got them all with only 1 screwup - but I forgot there was no prompting and went out of character. Oh well. Kasie brought cookies. That was cool. She probably sees Quinn and I as total scumbags just because of how we act there.. I don't know why we do, it's just the environment, I guess. Trying to make hosbond uncomfortable/gross him out, being our crazy selves, and.. well, there must be something else. But I'm sure all that talk about cockstuffing on saturday didn't help. Oh well. She's pretty cool, I guess. She plays the part well enough - though her intro is a bit too peppy - but i don't really think theres anything she could do about that.

Shea plays his part well and is fine in it - apart from when he doesn't show up. Quinn plays his part well, though I wish he had a bit more feeling in his voice, and Cliff... he's not nearly as good as I thought he would be, but he's still okay. He has potential. The part where Marcus, Quinn, and I argue has the best feeling between those two, I believe. Eh, well, Titus is pretty good. I wish we had like.. 3 more weeks before contest, but.. oh well, it's on saturday.

Reader's theater sucks. We most likely won't get past districts. That'll be a first for me. Most of it is stuff we couldn't fix even given time. It's the people involved. The good ones are Carrie Sieren, Katie, Rachel, Steve, and I believe myself. And Evan to a certain extent. He's gotten much better in the past few practices. Darren is okay sometimes, Moschak has potential, but the rest are.. unfortunate. They just aren't actors, sorry to say. I'm sure some of them could do comedy well, but not something like this. This is a voice only thing, and.. they're not a voice for radio. The sound effects suck, the people's movements (up when in scene, down when out, etc), I can't support Hucke in the decision to make it a no-movement thing.. and.. well I kind of think Readers Theater this year was everyone who was just slightly better than the bottom of the barrell - aka TV News. Oh well. It'll be nice not to have to worry about that. Though I am kind of sad I didn't get to have any costumes this year. I love costumes. :(

I don't think I ever posted anything about Return of the King on here, and how brilliantly fucking awsome it was. By far the best of the 3 movies. Deffinately the best fantasy movie of all time. But, unfortunately, not my favorite of the trilogy - as of now. The last time I read the books was in 7th/8th grade, so my memory is kind of scetchy on the books, but.. even then.. Fellowship just feels like Lord of the Rings to me, while RotK, and most certainly TTT, do not. But I love all three - though I have a ton of problems with TTT, a few quibbles about RotK, and a bit of stuff with FotR, I love them all. I only hope that if Jackson makes The Hobbit, that it doesn't pale in comparison to these. But just like the books, it will be very much different from LotR. It will feel more like a traditional fantasy movie.

Big Fish totally ruled. Wish it had been less of a "I'm getting to know my dad as he dies" and more of a "These were my dad's crazy adventures," but.. oh well. Burton is back, baby. Can't wait to see his next - hopefully Wonka. Noir rules. Maltese Falcon, Double Indemnidy (sp?), and.. well, those are the only two I've seen recently, but, still. Yeah. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind will be god, Kill Bill vol. 2 shouldn't have been delayed, Batman is totally going to rule, Star Wars III I'm kind of wary of - this whole Grevious thing just stinks of suck to me, as do some of the rumors I've heard. Oh well. I'll only really be seeing it for the Anakin/Obi-Wan parts, and the Anakin/Palpatine parts anyway. And I wish *slight spoilers*Dooku was in it more than the first 10 minutes */spoilers*. Indy IV better be damn good, lets see. I'm sure there's tons more I'm forgetting, but.. oh well.

People are pretty cool. Nothings really changed much. I talked to Gemma on the phone the other night for a few hours, then was at her house with Tiffany and her, and then just her for a while. That was pretty cool. I should become more real friends with my female friends, if they'd want to. Because I do. Just so ya know.

Errrrm.... *dances around*.. have a bit more to talk about, but.. not on here. Oh well. Maybe I should write it down in my paper journal I haven't used in months, or maybe I should never write it down and therefore never have to think about it! Yaaaay! Block out things! ..wait. No. Boo! ...eh, I'll get around to it. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe in a year, but.. sometime. Blaargh...

I'm out. But first, an old classic I started. Unlike Evan, who didn't. I totally started it with my Google/Pollution thing. Anyway... this is...

"What I need"


..wow.

and a link for this one, for loading purposes..
What My life needs

The end of an era...

I'm sure most of you have heard, but for those who haven't.. I am sorry to have to inform you that... that... (I'm sorry, I'm breaking into sobs)... http://www.goatse.cx ..... is no more.


:'(

The Sleeping Eye

Exciting weekend. Last tuesday, I believe, Collin said "we're totally making a Noir movie this weekend." With doubt, I said "Okay," obviously hoping it would come to fruition. Thursday, he informed me of the details. TheForce.net's amateur film division was holding a 72 hour film contest. It started at 6 pm. central Friday and went through 6 pm. Monday. This was obviously a rush - all of our other (incomplete) films had taken place over several weeks. So we got right to it.

Thursday evening, I contacted Nandi about playing the lead female in the movie (we had no idea of the plot then, but we knew a good Noir movie has a female lead). After school, I went to the dungeon and got a bunch of hats, trenchcoats, and shoes for the male characters. We would improvise the rest later on. Collin and Corey were there and helped pick out costumes and such. We called Sara to see if she wanted to be another female in the movie (we had though that we probably needed a femme fatal, too). She agreed. Collin had to go home and then get a tape for the camera (he had checked it out from school earlier in the morning - his brother's camera doesn't have a plug-in for his [expensive] shotgun microphone), so Corey and I stayed around. I had to go to Titus at 4:30, and after that he and I were able to leave. We met everyone at Revelations eventually after picking up a few Noir movies and a book at the library. Andrew had to run and get gas such, so Corey and I stayed behind and looked at the mystery novels section for inspiration.

Eventually, we found a book - not sure of the title at this point - which had the description on the back as something similar to "A woman is shot and goes into a coma for 8 years [months?] and wakes up..." Corey and I read that and agreed that the coma angle was a great one, but then read on, "but is shot and dies." We didn't like that so much. So took the coma angle and came up with our own plot with some ideas we had come up with earlier, and wrote the treatment on the back of the library recipt. When Collin got back, we showed it to him and he liked it, so we had to finish up casting on it. We tried to think of who would play the detective. We came up with 4 major candidates; Corey, Davey, Collin, or Myself. We thought about it for a while, and were probably ready to pick Corey, when Andrew walked in. We all had a general consensus that he would totally rule as the detective - so we had him try on a trenchcoat and hat - and it was perfect. He agreed to be in the part, and after a while, Corey, Collin, and I ended up at my house to write the script.


Andrew, as Detective Miles Stone

When we got there, there were 4 people - 2 of which I knew slightly, and 2 whom i'd never seen before - staying at our house that night. I told my mom that Corey and Collin and I were planning on writing a script late into the night, and I wanted to clear it with her beforehand - my usual bedtime is around 1 or 2. She said she would be staying at her boyfriend's, so we could be up till whenever we wanted. We started writing the script at 11. Quinn, Gemma, Jenny, etc, etc, etc showed up and we were distracted for about an hour, but everyone left around 12 and we got back to screenwriting. Andrew was the only one who stayed longer, and he pretty much layed around and talked to the people who were staying the night.

Although I'm not sure about all these times, I'm either an hour off one way or another. Around 1, we found out we were hungry and went out to Hy-Vee to pick up some pizzas. When we got there, we thought we would park as far from Hy-Vee as possible and then walk in with trenchcoats and hats. We did just that. We got some great looks and comments and such, and felt like total badasses in the process. We got back, put in the pizzas, and got back to witing. We wrote a 17 page script until about 6 am, then went to sleep. Collin and Corey both had to leave in the morning, but we met up later around 1. We had Andrew, Nandi, Quinn, and Davey there for a cast reading. Sara couldn't make it due to schedule conflicts, so we just ran through with all of them. We had Quinn and Davey read for the two parts uncasted, and eventually cast them. The readthrough went well, and eventually, we were off.

We headed to Mary's house - our first location. Corey couldn't make it to the filming, but.. oh well. It involved a bar scene, and she has a wet bar in her basement. We got there and got costumes on. We set up shots, props, and the set. Andrew got makeup for a black eye, and we set up lighting and such. We shot a ton of takes from different angles and such - something I wish we had the time to do in later scenes. The acting turned out pretty good, and the look was great.


Nandi, as Martha Dubuque

Things went well, and we went back into town. We made our way to Revelations and eventually all went to Nandi's house and watched the Maltese Falcon. Quinn, Jenny, and Davey all fell asleep at various times, but everyone else enjoyed it. Sara showed up, and we gave her a script to read through.

Collin and I made our way back to his house and were going to film one more scene before everyone went home. It was going to be a scene where the detective has a secret meeting with a policeman. It was about 12 am, and when I had walked by Collin's earlier in the night, I had seen a streetlight that looked pretty good. It had no buildings behind it - just forest sort of stuff, and it wasnt on a busy street, so I figured we would shoot there. Well anyway, we were out there at 12 and had gone through lines and blocking and such, and we were just about to start filming when a policecar drove by on broadway. I thought to myself, "it would be great if we could have had that in the background." Well low and behold, the policecar made it's way to about 40 feet away from us. They knocked on the door and started talking to ther person inside.


Quinn, as Officer Joe Smith

We saw this as the perfect opportunity. We shot the scene with the policecar in the background and the lights swishing around everywhere. It looked great. Eventually, everyone made their way to their respective homes. Collin and I went in and started writing up a shooting schedule for the next day - as we had a lot to shoot. We wrote it up, then went to sleep. The next day, Evan was having a party that night which we were all hoping to go to. We had wanted to get up to check out a possible location for the warehouse scene, so we got up at 11 or earlier, made pancakes, and.. ended up not being able to visit.

Nandi wasn't able to shoot anything until after 3:30 - she had mime and family stuff, so we shot some minor stuff with Andrew then. We rounded up Quinn and Davey, and went to shoot another scene with Quinn. On the way, we found Collin's mom and got the key to the warehouse scene we'd be shooting in a warehouse [co]owned by her. Collin had forgotten the wind protector for the mic at Mary's house, so we ended up filming the scene in an alleyway. It turned out good (especially Davey's "NO HABLA ENGLAIS!!" and "SENIOR!"). Quinn was working really well for the part, and Andrew was too.

Corey called us up and brought his gun prop. It was a pellet gun that's modelled to look like a real pistol. It felt, looked, and worked just like one. It was great. We pocketed that, and went on. We went to pick up Nandi and Sara from Mime, and had to drop Collin off. We went to Austin's Pad at Evan's house to film inside scenes for the Detective's apartment. I didn't know the equiptment well, and one of the shots was a 1 shot thing, and we were hurried, tons of people were there and talking around us (most used phrase of the day - "Quiet on the set!" or "Shut up!!"), and so I had to wade my way through filming without Collin. The scene ended up looking fine - though a few small problems. Everything was going great. And then...


Davey, as Frankie the Snitch

BAM! Sara situation. She was told that she had to go to dinner with her family, then had to babysit her brother while her parents were at a movie. She had told her parents that she wanted to be free that night for Evan's party, but they went to Big Fish and were having her babysit and then not letting her go out afterwards. Then Collin called. He was free. We picked him up, ran to the warehouse, and quickly filmed Sara and Nandi's scene. But it wasn't enough. We had to rush, as her dad was in mediation and couldn't get the message that he shouldn't pick her up at Evan's house - where he thought she would be, so we had about half an hour to set up, find locations, film, etc, etc. OH BOY.

Well she had to leave, and Collin and I had asked Gemma if she would take Sara's part if it came to that - and it looked like it would. She agreed (THANK YOU! WE LOVE YOU GEMMA!!), got her dress from home, and when she was about to come back... Sara called. She convinced her parents to let he come back, reluctantly, and so everything was back on track. By this time, it was 7:00, so Quinn and I had to run to Titus for about an hour. We did so, and then when we got back, Collin had almost finished filming the office scenes. When I got there, he finished office stuff, and was about to shoot Quinn/Andrew/Davey scenes. We did those, then finally we got back to the extremely patient girls (we love you Sara and Nandi! thank you so much for being wonderful!). We filmed the Andrew/Sara scene which took a while due to the extremely wordy dialogue and the fact that we wanted most of the shot continuous. Finally, we were about to leave, and I suggested that we quickly refilm the Nandi/Sara scene, just to make sure we have a good quality shot. We were about to start filming when someone came upstairs and told us that the police were there.

I was half expecting this from the beginning - as I had noticed and pointed out the "Protected by [blah] alarm systems" when Collin was checking to see if the doors were open earlier in the day. Well, the policeman said that the alarm had gone off about 2 minutes previously. We apologized and told him that we had permission from the owner of the warehouse and Collin showed the key. We thanked the man and he went on his way. We finished filming Sara/Nandi scene, then were about leave when I noticed that there was a nice kitchen table setup we could use for one of the scenes (it is a furniture warehouse, after all - we used the same principal to film the office scenes - actually shot in a bathroom with a blank wall and door). Gemma brought us cookies as we were about to leave, then we let everyone go off to Evan's party who wanted to except Sara, Andrew, Collin, Corey, and myself. We filmed living room scenes as fast as we could at Andrew's house - Sara had to be home by 11, and we finished filming at 10:50. Her brother was angry about having to wait outside for about 10 minutes.


Sara, as Elizabeth Stark

The footage of that turned out fine, if a little bit rushed (a small continuity error due to clothing was made, though), and we finally picked up Davey from Evan's party at around 11. We were about to film the last scene - probably the coolest scene, in my opinion. It's the secret meeting between the Snitch and the Detective in an alleyway. We filmed the scene using Corey's car headlights (with one covered up so there wasn't a double shadow), and made the scene take place purely with shadows. We finished up around 1 and then started editing. I worked on the poster and such until about 4, while Collin edited. I went to bed, and woke up around 12. The time limit was extended till 9 that night, and the rules stated that it had to start uploading by 9:00. Collin edited. Collin started uploading at 8:58. Everything was going well until... upload fails.

The copy that we were uploading was the "contest version." We are still currently editing the final version (for a most likely dvd/vcd relase to cast/crew), but found out that we will not be able to enter the contest after all. Collin and I are not disapointed, as the contest simply served as motivation to finish a movie. The contest was an extra. We finished the movie, and are pleased (enough) with the final product, so the weekend was successful.

I just want to thank everybody involved in the production. You helped us so much, gave us your time and energy, and we hope you had fun. Thank you.

Good advice from a refrigerator

I looked at the Griffin's refrigerator the other day, and saw some little newspaper clipping.. Initially I thought it was pretty stupid, but then I thought about one of them.. it was "Maturity is the ability to humbly bear an injustice" or something similar. I completely agree with this, and should take it more to heart - as should most people. I wish I had at other times.

Everybody wants prosthetic foreheads for their real heads

"When you get here.. send some fat guys in here first."
"Look out, he's gonna eat you!"
"Ha ha.. he's playing Pac Man back there"


You should be angry too.

Well.. I really should be memorizing Titus right now, but.. I don't know. I've got half of it pretty much down, and there are 6 practices left. I'll deffinately have at least 4 fully memorized practices. I wonder if Cliff has his lines down... He'd better. Though I'm fairly confident he'll make a good Marcus - he fits the part very well. Though I don't know if he can act.

Theres a trash can outside of my window, and theres a bag inside of it, and it's blowing around in the wind. I keep seeing it outside the window and think its like.. a cat or something. It's really annoying. I don't like it. What I do like, is the insane adult swim thats on tonight. Instead of having one episode of each of the series, they're smashing them all together in a "party" episode... but they're also having their own individual episodes.. or something. It's really weird, but cool. Its twice the funny :D

I really wish I had a working scanner. I have two pictures at my dads house that I want to scan, but I never get around to it. Just like a few drawings I wish I had scanned in. If I had $70 that I cared to spend, I would totally buy a wacom.. I keep thinking of opportunities that I would want to use it, even if I were to just draw a picture every once in a while... think it's worth it? I just might do it.. I wish my birthday was soon.. maybe I can somehow convince my dad we need one for the new computer....

My dad bought some really bad candy, and seemed to eat all the chocolate from christmas. And I want a little sweet snack thingie. But alas, I guess I'll just either have the bad candy or nothing.


BAD CANDY MAKES ANGRY STEVE ANGRY

On another completely random note, my toe really hurts. I hit it in Xander's basement on a little metal thing. I couldhave sworn it was bleeding, but.. I guess it never broke the skin. Or maybe it's bleeding under the nail or something. And so does my finger. I burnt my finger the other day, and the skin broke open when i hit it on something.

Oh yeah, and I was flipping through channels the other day, and I saw the original Birdman episode with the shrink-ray guy that I'd only seen at Harvey Birdman Attorney at Law. It was.. interesting. I love old tv shows. I also saw a Fantastic Four show (from 1967, not the later one), where they were saving some race under the water.. well.. I loved it when Johnny started setting things on fire - under water. And, well, of course, himself being alight. And the fantastic dialogue and plot movement. God older animation is so cheap.

I swear.. Davey, Quinn, Collin, Xander, Andrew, and I must be the most homosexual straight guys ever. I love it.

This post was purposeful. And I totally stole Evan's thing with linking words.

"I am absolutely riddled with Pac Man fever."
"Hey! Aren't you made of meat! ...I mean thoughtful."