Killing for Love

Woah, got my first comment. I was surprised, to say the least ^^;. I’ll respond here as well as reply to the comment, but I also have Saturday – Wednesday to discuss.

In response to Deb: WALL-E was awesome, but Saturday I saw another movie, which I’ll discuss, and it may top WALL-E , though it was still a great movie. Did you hear people complaining about how the way humans were portrayed in the movie? Because they were fat, lazy, etc., people are actually upset, saying that we were shown in a poor way. I thought it was great, so they can all screw off in my opinion.

Rosetta Stone software (I got the French one, I still have the Japanese one somewhere) is pretty good. It dives right into learning with pictures, written / audible words describing them, then you have to listen and match up the words / sentences (like “The boy is under the table” and such). For now, it’s pretty cool actually, just have to stick with it.

I’ll get to Long Beach Island in this entry. I usually enjoy it, and I still did sorta, but this weekend was filled with stuff that just made it insane.

Okay, so onto Saturday. I woke up in Gavino’s living room because I slept over there from the night before. We started playing some Toe Jam & Earl on his xbox genesis emulator, then April came in and we were discussing breakfast while I loaded up and beat Junk Man and Cloud Man in Mega Man 7. We decided on Perkins instead of filming (procrastinating as usual, hah). Perkins was incredible. The place changed so much since I remember going when I was younger. Food was great and it was enjoyed by all of us. We decided while eating that we would go see The Dark Knight before I left for Long Beach Island.

I was pretty excited because I’ve already heard all the hype and wanted to see it since it was first announced. Just as I had hoped, it was incredible beyond all means. *SPOILER ALERT* From the moment the Joker came onto the screen with his pencil in the eye trick, to when you see him speeding away from the jail in a cop car with his head out the window, it was a rush. I gave the movie 3 3/4 stars out of 4. I can’t give it 4 stars because there were parts, like the end fight w/the joker, using that cell phone tapping technology thing, that I was just confused and didn’t understand why it was in the movie (it made the last fight scene too busy). *END OF SPOILER ALERT* Anyway, still a tremendously incredible movie that everyone should see, not only for Heath’s last performance.

So after the movie, I dropped Gavino and April off and proceeded to head down to LBI. There wasn’t much traffic on the parkway, so I got there in an hour and 20 minutes (give or take). When I got there, I already missed appetizers (clams /cry), but was treated to make-your-own paninis for dinner. Good stuff, had a few drinks to go with it. We played Mad Gab, which was fun, but nowhere near as fun as Scrabble/Up Words or any games involving charades of any kind. Walked on the beach for a bit at night before heading to bed.

Sunday was supposed to be beach day, but it ended up being horrible. The morning weather was nice, mom Suzanne and I went to the stores and they picked out some stuff and then got some Henna tattoos. Mom at first was the only one who wanted one. She got a tramp stamp (tat right above your butt on the small of your back, for those who don’t know) of the kanji for protect. Suzanne took 8 hours trying to figure out which one she wanted, finally chose one, then saw a girl with one on her foot, so had to choose again. By the time we finally got back to the house, torrential rains and winds had begun to rape the coastline.

So the rest of Saturday was filled with thunder/lightning ( which sadly, I heard someone was struck and killed while we were down there O_o), tons of rain and wind (tossing furnature outside all over the place), and insane family drama. I won’t go into it much. It was mom’s turn to make appetizers, so I helped her make the delicious bree & jam pastery dish and served drinks. Then after dinner, we ended up playing miniature golf and had a great time. I ended up leaving that night, opting out of having to wake up at god-awful o’clock to leave in the morning for work.

Monday wasn’t very eventful from what I can remember, except I think that night I finally got to work on the video? No, I got all the footage off the cameras and whatnot. Monday I think I fell asleep early? I can’t even remember. I obviously didn’t do too much on Monday.

Tuesday: Work went by as normal. Got home and was getting ready for raid. I believe by the time raid was over and I spent like half an hour more on WoW, I got my fishing and cooking over 300 finally pretty exciting, lol. Raid was Hyjal. Tore through it, though we wiped twice on Anatheron for some god awful reasons. Even killed Arch, full clear Hyjal in one night. It was a pretty exciting night, even though my internet (that piece of UGH, stupid Comcast, if it happens one more time, I’m just bringing the modem over immediately and getting a new one) died on me and I was replaced, with Arch going down two shots after ><.

Tuesday night I worked on the video for F.A.M. / Bless. Here’s the finished product before I discuss it:

http://vimeo.com/1434719 (HD version)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2jnjnD9iOU (youtube version - can watch in higher quality by clicking “watch in higher quality)

I worked on the video for what seemed like 2 1/2 hours. The music video portion starts around 1 min 50 seconds. I was pleased, for the first time, in my own work. I think the simplicity of the job made me enjoy it more.

I’ll cut myself short here, at over 1k words at the moment, so I’ll finish discussing the video (and talks w/F.A.M. about it), Wednesday (hanging w/Gavino, filming 1st continuation episode of “How Was Your Day” skit, etc.), and today (going to Matt’s house for a bit after work to celebrate Haley’s [his daughter's] birthday and possibly over Gavino’s again for more filming).

Later.

Conversation’s getting dull, there’s a constant ringing in my ears

I Can’t Go On, I’ll Go On

So, I’ve got Friday night, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday to go over on today’s post. Sounds like a lot to go through, but when you see what I write about, you’ll realize it’s not as much as you’d think.

Friday after work, I went to mom’s to say hi before heading to Gavino’s house.  Once there, we watched the new AVGN video, and after a bit of talk we were on our way. Of course, we were heading up to Cagney’s in Parlin to do some video taping. We got there a few minutes before 8PM, which was apparently too early, because there was like 1 car in the parking lot. I called “Bless” and told him we were here, and he said that he hasn’t left yet and that we should get a bite to eat. So we did.

We ended up going to this diner that was a few miles down the road. Mediocre food: Had some fried calamariand a chicken caesar salad (which couldn’t be FURTHER from a chicken caesar salad than what was on my plate – besides the normal stuff, there was also huge slices of tomato and soggy red peppers). Paid for the meal (around $40 after tip) and headed back to the club.

Once there, we started setting our stuff up inside. We got this decent corner of the open (what seems to be for dining) area. Set up my lights and made what seemed to be a badass interviewing section. I felt bad for myself and Gavino (who was using it), because we had to bring two cameras, and the only one I had available was my old piece of crap one (which was good when I got it…or at least I thought it was…ugh). So the rappers came up one-by-one or in groups to do their interview action, me taping on the fly in the background, Gavino stationary on my tripod, rappers grasping the Zoom H2 mic when they had something they felt was interesting enough to tell the cameras.

That part was actually not too bad, it seemed like we knew what we were doing, even though we didn’t have the best gear. I also think that footage will look pretty good before or after (or both, I haven’t really decided) the music video that I’ll be putting together for the whole event (more on that later).

So there was this other crew filming there, called BlokTV. They seemed pretty big time, had a nice camera (which was the same size as mine, just with more attachments (I know, I know, I’ll upgrade soon ><), and awesome lighting for the stage (again, I know *sigh* I gotta look into better lighting). Anyway, they were there filming the event as well, but basically the one guy just stood in the corner the entire time with his camera on the tripod, just facing the stage.

So we started getting our stuff ready for filming the show. Originally, “Bless” said that he wanted a collaboration of the night, with focus more on them (FAM) for the video, and we’ll overlay it with one of their songs. Random members of the group throughout the night would come up and say what else they wanted in the video (people dancing, group members drinking around the bar, etc.), which was fine.

Once everything started, I knew it was going to be awful, just like last time. I hate standing / kneeling (I’ve GOT to remember to bring something for my knees for things like this) for long periods of time, but I have to be up close and get good shots. It seemed like we filmed for an eternity. Once everything was over (can’t forget that before the interviews I had to run to the store and pick up batteries for the H2), we started packing our shit up and headed out. Of course, they (Swagga {Julius} and Bless} grabbed the camera and had to turn it on us at one point, and then one of the security guys (who in turn asked “Where is this airing” and  “Can I give you my info?” – lol BrooklynBouncer77 or something like that).

Once outside, we started putting stuff in the car and then looked around for “Bless”. Best part of the night had to be when we finally talked to him. He thanked us for everything, and then proceeded to tell us that he wanted us to film them in Baltimore in August. On top of that, he wanted us to collaborate with their former “video guy” and work on a documentary (including their “barbecue footage” and “random visits where you can just whip out the camera and start filming) with them. And lets not forget their video guy and his unforgettable quote “Yo, I got that Quicktime”.

Anyway, let’s just say I wasn’t too happy about all that.

Saturday wasn’t too bad. I think I may save the rest of this for another post tonight or tomorrow, because I just realized Friday took up a lot and I’d rather not keep it too clustered.

I believe that the world should revolve around me

time means nothing

Needed an update. I’m missing Tues-Thurs, and I won’t be able to update again utnil Monday.

Tuesday: Nothing special enough that I can remember. I think it was Tuesday however that I got the phone call from “Bless” about filming at Cagney’s again. It has to have been Tuesday, cause that’s when the “week/weekend planning from hell” began.

It all started w/being asked to film for this dude named “Bless”. I think his real name is Chris and I THINK the group he runs with is called FAM (Forever About Music – as seen in my show preview a few months ago; they’re the guys in white shirts with writing on them, near the end). Anyway, he asked me if I could do a concert music video, something along those lines, on Friday. Of course, after receiving the old “do whatever you think looks best”, I was stuck with trying to think of ideas myself and dig up my old camera (since he wanted two angles – feel bad, Gavino has to walk around with this tiny PoS [though it was my first, so i guess it gets love]).

Raid went well. MH was cleared up to Arch, got a few attempts in, and called it a night. Full night of Arch Thursday we figured.

Wednesday: Talked to Gavino about the whole thing, he was up for it. Went to mom’s after work for dinner. She seems so strange lately. While we were eating, there was a moment of silence, and it wasn’t for very long. We were watching Cash Cab like we usually do on Fridays, and she freaked out all of a sudden (if she knew I said “freaked out”, she really would freak out, lol). She was like “WHY is noone saying anything” and such. After telling her to calm down, and hearing her say things like “Why am I the one to always start a conversation”, we moved the topic and moved on with our lives.

Speaking of her, the follwing is a mix of things that has been going on up till today (and probably will happen at least once more, which will drive me to the point of screaming). As I’ve discussed already, mom’s going to Long Beach Island and I said I’d go w/her this weekend so she wasn’t alone (since Terry’s drugs drain his energy until mid-week, when she will pick him up and I’ll watch the house [next week]). She asked me, what feels like, nine thousand times “Are you sure you want to go? Are you really sure? If you think you won’t have a good time, you don’t have to go. Don’t go just because of me. Don’t go if you don’t want to. I want to make sure you really want to go”.

At first, I went along with it and told her I wanted to go and keep her company, but after the 5th time (at least), I started saying things like “I don’t really want to go, but I’m going to because I’d like to keep you company”. Then a few more times hearing it, “You know I hate the beach, but I’ll go” and “Well, Gavino wants to hang on Saturday, so I’ll drive up Saturday night and we’ll have Sunday at least”. Today I got it again and I had it. “Stop pestering me about it, it’s driving me crazy”, received by “You’re driving ME crazy”, and retorted with “Listen, I can’t stand it anymore, I’m driving down Saturady night, I’ll be there all of Sunday, stop asking me” (of course there was a bit more involved, like me stating how she wouldn’t stop pestering me). She ended with “I’ll talk to you later” and that was the end of the conversation.

To end Wed. night, I got home around 8:30, laid on the bed for a minute, and woke up at 4:45AM.

Thursday: Work was as usual, nothing special. I think I got some deliveries at some point this week, though I can’t remember (besides the ones today [Friday]). Raid was great. Archimonde down after only a few attempts. Zauvirr was haven’t lag problems, so we replaced him and got someone else in while he restarted his shit. We downed Arch that next attempt, in which he proceeded to have a hissy fit. Whatever. Then we traversed to Black Temple and killed the first 3 bosses again and called it a night. I then proceeded to hop on the alli warrior and get to level 17.

Friday: So far, not too bad. 2 deliveries, some print work, some map work. This morning was a bit hectic, had to get everything ready for tonight. Not really looking forward to filming another rap show, but whatever, what can I do. I want to do film, so I guess I have to continue starting somewhere with things like this. As I said before, I feel bad for Gavino cause he’s gonna have to use my old camera, which isn’t the best, but I can’t find any video camera rental places and I didn’t want to ask mom for hers (and it’s more of a hastle anyway for probably the same quality).

So after work, in 30 min, I’ll head to mom’s, say hi, and then head to Gavino’s. Then we’ll get the address again and head up to Cagney’s to meet “Bless”. I’m sure it will be awkward, since it’s not really my scene, and I’d rather be doing drunken Kara, or even just hanging with Gavino and April, but whatever…maybe it won’t be so bad and we’ll actually do something decent/get paid for it this time.

Then the rest of the weekend will be filled with hanging w/Gavino and April (Saturday) until I finally decide to leave and head to Long Beach Island (Saturday night sometime) and beach it up (Sunday). Then it’s right back to work Monday morning FROM Long Beach Island…so that should be a blast ><

Time to finish up at work…bleh

Vast open sky can do no harm

delicious sandwich

that’s what i’m currently eating (of the peanut butter and jelly variety).

So monday, lets see: Well, before I went to bed last night I watched the rest of WALL-E. Great movie, I must say. I wanted to watch Ratatouille again, so I watched a bit of that to see which I liked more. Woke up very tired, of course only getting like 3 hours of sleep Shaved, showered, gelled up the hair, and went to work (yep, no clothes).

Raou had called out so it was just Pam and I. There were two deliveries scheduled, one to Trenton, one to New York (well, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey). Ended up finding a closer one in Newark, right near our other office, in the Gateway Center. So I headed up there, got there by 11:15 I’d say, was outta there and saying hi to Sonia by 11:50-ish. Ended up leaving there around 12:10-ish? Got back on the turnpike/parkway and got some lunch, was back in the work parking lot around 1:30 or so. Figured I’d take a nap and ended up getting a phone call from Art around 2:35 asking when I would be back (LOL). Told him I was there and would be up in a minute. I guess my lunch nap was too long, even though there was NOTHING going on upstairs.

Anyway, the rest of the day was boring. Played some Sudoku online, talked to Gavino about fun stuff (new skit/show ideas like “You Call THAT An Opinion” and him doing the Genesis version of the SNES Challenge [finally decided on that]). The rest of the day flew by. Finally left around 6 cause I had to drop Andy Raichle off at the Honda dealership. Got home, watched some Spongebob w/the lil sis, had some dinner, played some Scrabble, then hopped on the computer finally.

Downloaded some stuff (Rosetta Stone French, that new Sandler movie “…Zohan” [too lazy to type it all out], and cruised around the warez forums for more stuff). Continued work on the first episode of the SNES Challenge, took a break around midnight to hop on the Crimson forums and WoW to level up cooking (150) and fishing (135-ish?). Hopped off, encoded a preview of Ep1, started watching that Sandler movie, got my clothes out of the drier, and then remembered that I had to update this. While updating this, I started uploading the Ep1 preview, so I’ll probably have that linked tomorrow morning at the latest.

That’s about it. Raid tomorrow night. Before and after I’ll probably work on the rest of Ep1 to get it finished (if not before cause of dailies that I like to do before raids, then DEFINITELY after). If I somehow get it done and have time, which I doubt, I’ll hop on the alli warrior and level her up a bit. If not, I always have Wednesday (which mom mistook for NEXT Wednesday which, with next Thursday, is when she wanted me to watch the house). Looking past Wednesday, Thursday is another raid, but I’ll have to miss this weeks due to planning to be at mom’s and making plans w/Gavino (though I told him we need to switch to Wednesdays for hanging lol). So I’ll hang w/him and maybe work on some stuff. Then Friday I have to debate whether I’m going to have dinner at mom’s due to the fact that Saturday we’ll be leaving for Long Beach Island.

Night humans

Who can say if I’ve been changed for the better

Edit 3:45 AM – http://vimeo.com/1385676 High quality version of episode 1 preview. Youtube version will be up soon, but meh, it’s youtube, i’m sure I can post that tomorrow.

Ahhh, Sunday

Fun times.

I did a whole lot of nothing exciting today, but I guess a whole lot of interesting things happened? Meh, i guess it depends on what you describe as interesting. Neighbor’s kid was having a bday party and Jewel was invited, so dad and Carol went w/her. Before that, I got up, played some Brain Age 2 and My Word Coach, did some work on my first episode (of the show I can’t think of a name for…SNES CHALLENGE? hmm…), and watched The Sandlot.

Dad’s mom was scheduled to come today apparently, which I had no idea about. Carol came home and said she couldn’t stand the heat and wanted to be here for when she got dropped off. Dad and his mom ended up coming in like half an hour later and he ended up taking her back over to the party next door. So I got to say hi to his mom for like 10 seconds before I was asked to get dad some cigarettes (his reasoning was he had to watch Jewel and take his mom over…which makes a lot of sense ~_~, more like he wanted to drink more and not go anywhere).

So I picked up cigs but didn’t bring them over (he said he had some, but wanted some for when he got back? hmm…). So, then I had some food and loaded up WoW to do some fishing and cooking on the priest. Got him to like 100 +/- with both and then raid started. Archimonde attempts. 19 to be exact. Closest we got him to was 15%. Pretty fucking sad since the fight’s over at 10%…but we had so many god damn stupid mistakes happening, and the raid can’t really stand to lose more than 1 person, if even that. But I guess it was good cause people got to experience the fight…w/e

So during this, dad and his mom came home at some point. He apparently drank QUITE a lot. He also apparently pushed Carol once in the bedroom (after which she came in, looking/sounding very upset and said “I’m going to need help” and then left O_o). She was already getting pissed, dad was obviously EXTREMELY drunk. I went back in the room cause it wasn’t too far into the attempts, and then I hear chaos. I know now that something has just gone down.

Seems dad pushed Carol again for whatever reason (is what she says) and she pushed him back, but his mom was behind him and was shoved into the wall or trash can or something. Well this caused insanity to ensue. Carol was screaming and crying, Jewel was confused and crying (about what I don’t know, I guess just Carol yelling/crying; though she was seemingly cuddling w/dad later), and dad’s mom in my room at some point crying about “I don’t know what’s going on, I don’t get it” …

Then Carol came into my room to talk to her, and then dad came in and I started to freak out cause I was fucking playing my game in peace and all this shit starts erupting in my room. Yeah it was probably selfish, but fuck, I knew what was going on and being in my room wasn’t going to solve it. They finally all left and I was back to playing. By the time raid was over (and creepy – dad comes in and just fucking stands there watching me raid for like…3 minutes…ugh), dad was still out of his mind.

Anyway, I’d like to finish my first episode. All the audio should be done, I gotta listen to it and match it up to the video (which next time I think I’ll script out certain things, but I should play and record once, because it was pretty hard once I started watching my game footage and trying to match it up w/what I wrote…and I only had like 5 games reviewed, when I needed like 15…yay improv). <— longest run on sentence evar…in parenthesis even.

Tomorrow starts work again. Barely have any clean clothes…gonna have to do like two loads tomorrow. And I need to shave. And I need to fill out my car insurance. And Gavino didn’t call all weekend. And my mom wants me to sleep over Wed. & Thurs.; I told her I could do Wed, but Thurs I was busy. Then as soon as she said “okay” she followed up w/”what are you doing Thurs?” and a split second later with “i don’t know why you can’t tell me, you’re always so secretive”. I’m like “are you fucking serious? I had NO time to even say anything and you immediately jump on me with your inquisitiveness”. I think she got all upset, so I said I’d get back to her if I could do Thurs. I might just call her tomorrow morning and say “i’ll do thurs”…ugh

NIGHT

before you let me know, before you let me go…

Edit: I also forgot to mention that although I finally beat two levels of Sudoku, apparently i’m still pretty terrible at it. Trying to get better! Gonna turn hints off now (5 times it’ll tell you if you put the number in the wrong block or the game is over). Also, I almost forgot to add delicious tags!