Category: Movies

Laziness Ensues… Again

Posted on by Chewbode

Well, I didn’t hear anything back from my recruiter today. Bit of a bummer. But, I still think there’s a very good chance I’ll be getting the job. Fingers are crossed. I was really, really lazy again today. I’ve been slipping more and more into a bit of a depression. I really need to get out of it.

I played WarCraft a bit more today and got a gob of gold.

I watched this crazy movie called Confessions of a Superhero on NetFlix (streamed it to my laptop). The skinny: it’s a documentary about the street performers on Hollywood Blvd. that dress up like superheroes and make a living off getting tips from people who want to get their picture taken with them. Very interesting to watch, highly recommend it.

I’ve been listening to Pandora on my iPhone 3G a lot lately. I’ve added my Stations to the sidebar on the homepage here. It’s small, but good stuff.

I e-mailed and faxed off the final documentation to close the sale for Shauna’s dad’s house he left us after he died. It’s officially over. Whew.

Ho Hum

Posted on by Chewbode

Spent several hours cleaning yesterday. The apartment needed a good once-over, so I obliged. When I was done playing Molly Maid, I worked on editing together DVD 2 of 2 for my friend. Almost everything is done, except I need to lay down a music track for the slideshow at the end.

I’ve been having a lot of trouble getting motivated the last couple of days. There are a lot of things I’m kinda bummed about and I’m sure it’s not helping me. I’ve mainly just lazed around the house watching movies – I think it’s helping. I watched Twister on Blu-Ray and saw Die Hard: With a Vengeance and Independence Day on TBS HD (which isn’t the same, but I was too lazy to get the DVDs out anyway).

I saw this great short film:

I talked to my recruiter this morning, and it sounds like I’m still in the running for the job in Bradenton. Hopefully I’ll hear some good news in the next couple of days. Getting a job will lift my spirits quite a bit. Donger needs money.

Sick Thought of the Day: Smashing fingers with a hammer.

Finishing Up A DVD

Posted on by Chewbode

Last night I got the itch to watch some movies. The first one was called Wristcutters: A Love Story. The story is about a Zia, who ends up killing himself (via slitting his wrists) and ends up in a purgatory-type world where he befriends some interesting characters. The move is slow at times, but overall I thought it was great. I highly recommend it. Afterward, I watched Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back.

I finished editing DVD 1 of 2 for a friend (it’s footage from his wedding and honeymoon I transferred from MiniDV and 8mm). I should be able to finally finish the second disc tomorrow. It’s a total of almost four hours of footage.

I just played some Star Wars: The Force Unleashed for a bit and progressed pretty far. I’m going to hop into WoW for a bit now.

Sick Thought of the Day: Wet macaroni inside the vomit.

So Begins The Fitness

Posted on by Chewbode

I’m going through a phase of my life right now where there’s a lot of crappy, negative energy all around me. I need to right the boat and get myself back into a cohesive mental state. Energy is being spent all over the place and I have no order to things. The correction is two-fold: make a better mind and make a better body. I’ve gone down this road in the past and know how to do it, and I must start doing it again. To balance my mental state and gain clarity of thought, I have decided to begin studying Tantra again. I was a practitioner for years earlier in my life, and it brought me to a place where I could enjoy life and see things for what they were without losing my place in reality. I don’t practice from a religious perspective, but I use the philosophical and mental disciplines to my advantage, mostly through meditation. I believe inner peace can come from this, and that through such balance my creativity, thought processes, and most importantly, love of life will begin anew.

My second task is much harder for me, but I will conquer it; that of physically correcting myself. I have many things that will help me obtain health. One is that I must begin to eat properly. This I’ve started several days ago with the help of a good friend during the day, and continue to do so during evenings and weekend time. I am beginning to work out again as well, and am about to head into the gym as I type this. Lastly, I need more than running and strength training to satisfy my urge to be physical, so, as of this coming Wednesday, I’ll be playing hockey again at least once per week.

Part of this website is for you, part is for me. So, I plan to journal these things up here as much as I can, even if it’s just private blog posts that you’ll never read. One thing that will keep me going is an old idea I used to abide by: Effort=Results=Satisfaction. The real trick is to put enough Effort into things to make Results occur. However it is equally important to analyze the Results so that it may produce Satisfaction which, ultimately, fuels more Effort. Hence an endless upward trend.

I went out and picked up a helmet, stick, and a few rolls of both black and white friction tape yesterday in preparation for the practice on Wednesday. I’m sure I’ll be sufficiently sore on Thursday, but I’m going to try to minimize that with the workouts over the next few days.

While out yesterday I stopped in at the theater. There’s no better way to start the summer then strapping in and letting some blockbuster movies take a hold of your senses and send you into imagination land. Yesterday I saw Iron Man at the theater down the road. And man, I gotta tell you it was really good. Smart, funny, and full of action. Robert Downey Jr. played the best role I’ve ever seen him in. Go see it. Tell your friends to see it. Next on the list is Indiana Jones.

I also picked up a copy of Roger Waters’ The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking album on CD, which I’ve heard is really good. I’m ripping the CD now. Also been watching a lot of old Battlestar Galactica lately, trying to get Shauna caught up to season 4.

Time to go stretch out and hit the gym.

Sick Thought of the Day: Pliers on the spine. Squeeze; the tearing of membrane, the oozing of puss. The body goes limp.

High Definition Reappearance

Posted on by Chewbode

I recently made the jump to an HDTV. My old TV, which was a Philips-Magnavox 60” rear projection, was really starting to show its age, and with devices like my AppleTV and the HDTV cable box, I was starting to feel that I was getting behind the times. So, I picked up a Mitsubishi WD-65734 65” DLP monster. I’ve had it for about a week now, and I’m thoroughly impressed. Very vivid colors, tons of inputs, and great 1080p performance.

Of course, I had to go into the settings of my first generation X-Box and set it for 1080 and continued the trend with the AppleTV, cable box, and Wii (well, the Wii I was able to just set to widescreen because it only supports 720). I then decided to get a PlayStation 3 from my local Rent-A-Center to see what it was like and Oh. My. God. I’ll have it for two weeks on a trial and if I like it, I may just go ahead and purchase one. I’ve downloaded several demos of games, which look amazing, and played Sonic The Hedgehog, which looks great too, but honestly, I’ve never liked that series of games.

I picked up I Am Legend on DVD yesterday and Shauna and I watched it last night. Over all, I thought it was pretty good. I’ve never read the book by Richard Matheson, nor have I seen The Last Man on Earth orThe Omega Man, which are also based off of this book. Because I’ve not enjoyed these other renditions, or the original itself, may be the reason why I don’t loathe the new movie like so many out there do. It was fun, and a nice way to spend a Saturday night.

I also picked up a couple of new Wii games, Game Party (because it was only $20) and Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga (because… well, duh… it’s Star Wars). I played some Lego Star Wars yesterday and was thoroughly satisfied for a bit. I got Game Party because I thought it would be a good thing Shauna and I could play, especially the ski-ball game (she loves ski-ball). We’ll most likely play it later today.

Things at my day job are finally slowed down to where I can focus on Suncoast Studios work. I plan on putting together a schedule tomorrow night to give equal and appropriate time to each of the projects I’m working on. I will then be able to touch base with my collaborators and get their expectations in line with what I can provide them. I need to get several of these things done, because I have a very exciting new project that I want to start which will really stretch my abilities. This is a very top-secret project I won’t be talking about until there’s something to show, but involves HD and possibly film work. I’ve only mentioned a one-sentence description to Shauna, but haven’t gone into any details on what I’m doing.

Well, I’ve been cleaning the apartment all day so I need to go take a shower now and head out to get some hotdogs for the grill tonight.

Sick Thought of the Day: Red hole, jagged fingernail.

Cake, Ice Cream, Car Chases

Posted on by Chewbode

Shauna made me a lemon birthday cake yesterday, and I devoured two large (8” l. x 2” w. x 3” h.) pieces and had two large scoops of ice cream. I was seriously jonesing for some cake, and that completely hit the spot. She also cooked me a great dinner with baked whole chicken breasts, pan-fried scalloped potatoes, and broccoli with cheese. Mmm.

We sat and watched the Bourne Ultimatum on DVD and after the movie was over, we dove into the extra bonus material on the disc. That’s such a great trilogy of movies. I’ve always been a fan of Matt Damon’s, and my respect for him took off like crazy when he started to do these flicks.

Well, off to work. Crazy, insane, busy day ahead of me.

Sick Thought of the Day: Yellow poop.

Banal

Posted on by Chewbode

Well, it’s been a little while since I’ve posted, so here I am again. Things have been busy lately, as usual. Most of my time has been spent working on IT stuff for my day job. We’re still in the process of moving into our new building, but there’s the potential of a new client coming on board that’s thrown a wrench into the process. Regardless, I’ve been busy getting last-minute things finished up in the server room. The only things left now are the fire-suppression system and the cleanup, and I hope that’s all done this week. We have a large IT audit going on right now and that’ll take up the rest of my week. I have to implement some new stuff and test some old stuff. I need to focus on getting that done today.

Because of all the crazy hours, I’ve fallen off the wagon and have not been eating right. I’m getting back on track today and will have a bowl of elbow macaroni with tomato sauce when I get home tonight. I made a one-pound loaf of cinnamon raisin walnut bread last night, and will be munching on that from time to time. Fresh, homemade bread is the best.

I spent my idle time this past week(end) watching movies. I saw The Simpsons Movie, which was pretty funny. I also watched SuperBad. I think I’m getting burned out on Judd Apatow movies because I just don’t think that it was really funny. Sure there were a couple of cool moments where I laughed but, over all, it was mediocre. Speaking of movies, Shauna and I went and saw Cloverfield last weekend and, I have to say, I loved it. This movie seems to be one of those where you either completely hate it or completely love it, and there’s very little opinion in between. I mentioned it to Millard and he told me he saw it and he thought it was awful. Sure, one can argue that it was an “artsy” film. For me though, I saw it as a great fake documentary. I’ve always liked stories that are told from the lay person’s point of view and this movie does just that. Even though the camera-work had the potential of making me nauseous, I definitely felt like I was in the action, going through the same trials the characters were. It brought me back to the Marvels limited series by, well, Marvel Comics. The entire story was told from the perspective of the person on the street (was it Ben Urich?). At one point, you followed the character into an office building and saw the day-to-day life, and all of the sudden there’s a noise and everyone turns around and they see Spidey scurrying across the window outside. And the characters are all like “Whoa. Did I just see that?” Cloverfield gave me the same feeling.

I have been suffering from not wanting to do a lot of Suncoast Studios work. There are only really three projects on my plate right now: Eman’s project, promoting Jeff’s book, and (possibly) getting another author’s book published. I think the problem has been that I’ve not been eating right and there’s been no exercise in my day. This had lead to the collapse of my enthusiasm and creativity. Also, my work environment in the studio is a joke. My desk is a complete mess right now and is not conducive to being productive. I’m going to go home tonight and change all of that as well. I need to dedicate as much time as possible for these things. I have people counting on me to do this stuff, and I don’t want to let them down. Last weekend I went out and bought a new chair for my desk, so there’s obviously some sort of subliminal part of my mind wanting me to do this.

Well, that’s all for now…

Sick Thought of the Day: Using a guitar string to sever a toe.

A Little Sore, A Lot Busy

Posted on by Chewbode

Things have been crazy at the office this past week, preventing me (out of sheer exhaustion) from posting any entries up here. We’re still on target to begin our office move next week, but I’m starting to doubt whether it’ll really happen. There are a few factors outside of our control influencing the move, and those deadlines seem to be slipping. In any case, it seems that my body isn’t used to standing all day anymore and the lifting and bending I’m doing is beginning to take its toll on my lower back. I’m sure it’ll just be a matter of time before my muscles remember how to do all this.

This weekend is going to be full of Suncoast Studios work. I plan to spend tons of time working on Eman’s project. I feel bad that I haven’t been able to spend more time on it, as I know he’s waiting for something solid. The only real challenge is coming up with a friendly, easy way to make the animation of some text work. The more I delve into it, the more difficult it seems, but I think that I’m just starting to peer too deeply. I need to resurface on that line of thought and maybe a simple way will present itself to me.

Speaking of Suncoast Studios, I finished the basic layout of the Suncoast Studios Publishing division this past week. This part of the company was used to develop Jeff’s book, and now that I’ve got another author interested, I need to make it a bit more formal. Feel free to visit the new site. Over the coming weeks it’ll grow and morph into a business-entity.

Last night I rented Shrek The Third on pay-per-view. I thought it was a great bookend to the trilogy. Pretty funny in some spots.

I finished erasing all the hard drives. I found out that the 10 GB drive was dead, and one of the 40 GB drives actually turned out to only be a 4 GB drive. I need to start reading all the letters and numbers. Anyway, the 4 GB drive was also dead, so I donated the two 40 GB and 80 GB drives to work and have the 200 GB and 160 GB drives here for other projects.

Looks like NetFlix shipped more Lost discs. I can’t wait.

I’m going to go get a haircut and wash the car, then I’ll be back to begin the day’s work.

Sick Thought of the Day: Worms in the poop.

Oraganizing and Updating

Posted on by Chewbode

I’ve been busy at work here in the studio. I’m not really doing any SCS work, per se, but I’m getting things organized, cleaned, fixed, etc. I’ve been shredding a bunch of old paperwork that means nothing to anyone anymore. That, along with organizing the paperwork on my desk, should put me in a much better mood today. I hate clutter, especially in my work area.

I reorganized the closet in the studio and got all of the 1K lights back in there that I leant to work while our new office was being built. Other than being a bit dusty and having a little paint on them, they’re all still in great order. I’ll find time at some point to clean them up; most likely by the time I have a new production about to be shot.

After years of using the application, I finally purchased DVD Profiler today. I got the unlimited registration for $29.95. I’ve updated the database with all of the DVDs I own and published it to their online service for everyone to see. The most recent DVDs added are from Christmas: Spider-Man 3 (with Bonus Disc), The Last Unicorn 25th Anniversary Edition, and Doctor Strange.

In about an hour I’m going to make some jambalaya with sausage and listen to the Lightning game on WDAE’s streaming internet radio.

Inspired By Robots

Posted on by Chewbode

I went out yesterday to run some errands and ended up buying Transformers on DVD. I haven’t watched the movie yet (I saw it in the theater), but I watched the behind-the-scenes bonus disc. I have to say that it was very inspiring to see all that. They went over the rendering process and how the shots were blocked for the special effects which, in my opinion, are the most fun of all – to see how a director or visual effects supervisor figures out all that stuff. So, now I feel like shooting a movie. But, I’ve got so many things going on that I don’t have the time. I really need to look at all my projects today and figure out some sense of order and start banging them out.

Here’s what I need to do today:

  • Clean and organize my desk. I’ve let it turn into a pigsty, which I completely hate.
  • Pay some bills
  • Organize all the Suncoast Studios projects

I’m sure that the third bullet point will unfold into a decent sized list.

Sick Thought of the Day: Pieces of rectum on the broken Coke bottle.