3 weeks off!

IT'S
CHRISTMAS
BREAK!!!

I finished all my crap! Eat THAT, procrastination! You're all like ooooh I'm gonna fart around and make you not do your stuff until the last minute. Not this time! I finished everything the night before it was due. Plus, you tried to distract me with that Mario game, but guess what? I finished that and then did homework, HA! And also, 3 weeks off! And also-also, CHRISTMAS! Suck it, Me! No matter how hard you try, I'm always gonna win. Just give up, do it, give up. Better yet, take a break over there on the couch for 3 weeks and do some online shopping for things you can use to distract me next semester. I hear there's good deals on eBay.

Official Internet Debut

3 hours writing
2 hours of revision
2 hours creating a shot list and shoot schedule
10 hours of shooting
14 hours of editing

What does it all add up to? The internet debut of Last night, I think she left, my final exam project for Communications 211. It's not the most fantastic of videos, but I'm pretty happy with it. I hope to get everyone else's videos from my class and post those as well. Last night was written and directed by myself. This is the first of what I hope is many future (and progressively better) video projects.

We're receiving such critical acclaim as:

"Yeah, I liked it." -Some dude in my class,
"Good editing." -Professor Sholle and, my personal favorite,
"It's depressing." Samantha Roberts

Without further ado:

The Beginning of the End

I finished up editing on my short film for Com211. I spent a lot of time in the editing studio. It's a grueling process, but it's actually pretty fun and interesting.

I planned on coming home and loading it, but I couldn't get the file to work right. I saved it properly (I think) but Final Cut is tricky. It'll only load on the computer I used to edit. I think I made a mistake by not copying the entire file, with all the raw footage and music. On every computer I've tried, either nothing happens or I get a message about missing video files. Luckily, I can play the audio perfectly. There's nothing quite like disembodied voices talking about god-knows-what.

This marks the end of my first day of finals. I turned in my English portfolio, so hopefully that goes well. I can't think of many reasons it wouldn't. I finished the video. And that's it for today.

We're convening tomorrow at 2:45 to watch everyone's videos. It's going to be awesome. Haley, Mike and I were in the studio together for 14 hours over the last two days. Both of their videos are looking great. Originally I thought Haley was insane, trying to do film noir lighting. Then I heard about a Model-T, and I was sure she was crazy. Today I looked over and saw her actors in period costumes, and I realized she was pulling it off. She's got the whole nine yards: fedoras, suits, a shoulder holster, a gun, a BADGE! I got a private viewing of her film, titled Watermarks, and I was impressed. It's funny how Haley thought her project was sucking, Mike thought his project was horrible, and I was sure mine was crap, but by the end of the night everyone was pretty happy with how things turned out.

I'm headed back in tomorrow to burn a DVD and turn everything in. Hopefully I'll have a viable copy to upload to Youtube and, of course, here on 8Ounce. Check back later for the online premier of Last night, I think she left.

If she gets kidnapped again, I'm gonna scream

(Spoiler Warning)

Mario and I just saved Princess Peach again, this time on Super Mario Galaxy. I must say, that was a good game. It's amazing that they still make Mario interesting. As I get older, though, I realize that I sympathize with Bowser more. He always has a grand plan, albeit evil, and things never quite work out. Although this time Nintendo decided to keep him alive, I guess for the sake of continuity. Seems like an odd choice. By now I think we're all used to seeing his demise, and then him popping back up to nab the Princess come Quarter 4 a few years later (just in time for Christmas).

In a related incident, while Googling the picture shown at right I came across something interesting. Note: make sure your moderate safe search is on before Googling "Princess Peach," unless, of course... well... nevermind. That wasn't the interesting thing. The sweet Princess Peach cuff design, hand cross stitched by some dude's mom was what I found.

I've never wanted a princess shirt so badly. Who's thinking of a new screen printing project over winter break? Oh, I am. I AM!

I couldn't help it...

Samantha went out for a run the other day, and posted about it.

Which reminded me of this:

It's funny because it's true.

Goodbyes are for losers

Today marked the end of the best class I've ever taken at Miami: English 320. It was a fiction workshop, and everything you could ask for from that type of class.

It's not often that you can have a room full of people all sharing their writing without anyone blatantly being competitive or trying to make someone else feel bad in an attempt to feed their ego. My last workshop class was like that. There were a handful of people who thought they were the best thing that ever happened to writing (one in particular, the worst of all, happened to write exclusively about getting drunk).

When class was over people lingered around and talked for a few minutes before we all left for our next classes. A few of us decided that we should keep getting together and sharing our writing as a source of inspiration. Like exercise, I need someone around to threaten me. If I'm not watching someone else put forth the effort, there's no way on earth I'll do it on my own.

Need to See:

Mike, Sam and I are drafting a list of movies we need to watch. The idea is to finally see some of the most famous and celebrated movies over the ages. If you have any suggestions add a comment. But not just any film, they need to be well known and celebrated. The Wedding Crashers, for instance, is a great movie, but it doesn't make the "rewatch" list.

Need to see:
Casablanca
Raging Bull
Schindler’s List
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Once Upon a Time in the West
Dr. Strangelove
Alfred Hitchcock:
-Vertigo
- Psycho
-Rear Window
-The Birds
-Dial M for Murder
-North by Northwest
Apocalypse Now
Lawrance of Arabia
Taxi Driver
Amelie
Amadeus
Chinatown
2001 A Space Odyssey
Alien
Pans Labyrinth
Mad Max
The Deer Hunter
Rashomon
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

Rewatch:
Shawshank Redemption
Pulp Fiction
Leon the Professional
ChungKing Express
The Pianist
Donnie Darko
Reservoir Dogs
American Beauty
Braveheart
The Lion King
Almost Famous

A Portrait of Liberty

Weekends are lovely, in case you haven't noticed. I'm indulging myself with lazing around right now. If you haven't tried it this weekend, there are still a few hours left. Hop to it.

Today is Samantha's exhibition. Her class spent the semester in Liberty, Indiana taking pictures to create narratives about this small town just over the Ohio border. They are showing their work off today and the prints will be for sale. There are rumors that a few of Sam's pictures are already being eyed by a potential buyer.

She worked really hard this semester, standing out in the bitter cold. I'm not joking, I went with her a few times and it was cold.

I'm really proud of her. She spent the entire semester in various studios around campus, either perfecting her art or teaching. It wasn't easy, and sometimes I could tell it was the last thing she wanted to do, but she kept working. It's hard to spend days and days on something creative, only to realize your work is never over. A lot of times I finish something and never want to see it again. But Sam strives to make everything fit her vision, and this semester everything came out beautifully. She creates things I can't comprehend. How does she come up with these ideas? A lot of times I'm around when she does, but it's still amazing to see a vague idea jump from her head to a sticky note, to a sketchbook, to the computer and eventually to the wall of an exhibition.

That's the kind of attitude, the kind of perseverance, that I wish I could learn to maintain. That's the kind of woman I married, and I love everything about her.

Keep up the good work, Tick.

I wish I could draw

I hate it when I'm right

After e-mailing back and forth, and after several assurances that, in fact, she would be able to make it, my leading actress for my writing/directorial debut just e-mailed me and canceled. I called it.

Such a starlet, canceling less than 48 hours before the shoot. She was all about it until I sent her the script... hmmmmm... nah, must be a coincidence.

This means I'm going to have to convince someone from my group to step up. It shouldn't be a huge problem, seeing as their grade kind of depends on us finishing this project. I guess I could cut one part out completely. It's kind of hard to work out a vision when you've got 8 people, all of the students with different schedules at the crunch time in either their junior or senior year of college trying to get together and make a movie. But that's why we get paid the big bucks.

Well I'm off to e-mail the crew and let them know what's up. If there are any aspiring actresses out there who want to drop by and spend a few hours Saturday morning being on camera, let me know.

Hello out there

Laying in bed, I noticed that Sam was updating her blog, which made me think "Oh, shit, I have a blog."

So here I am.

....how 'bout that weather?

I'm not used to being busy and, let's face it, I'm lazy. So, needless to say, this semester has turned out to be more than I bargained for. I didn't sign up for college to work. Where's the endless party that Hollywood promised? You know, the one full of free beer, drunken frat boys and girls in skirts doing keg stands ?

It's actually across campus and married people aren't invited. Oh well. I did get to play ultimate frisbee this one time, but I kept almost passing out.

So in my endeavor to make college worthwhile by attending classes and doing homework, I spent a bit of time working up a script for my production class. Professor Sholle chose four from the scripts everyone in class turned in, and mine happened to be chosen. Mike and I had this grand plan to work together and make an awesome movie, but his was chosen too.

I've been spending a lot of time getting things together to produce the short, and a lot of time working on a short story for my fiction class. The story is done, or at least I'm sick of it. It's been a solid month of reading and rewriting. I've got the script pretty much squared away, a shot list all worked up, at least 2 actors from the theater department and a tentative shooting schedule for Saturday. Things are coming down to the point of Reckoning. I'm hoping all my work over the past few weeks has prepared me for for shooting the video and to have my story workshopped in class.

It's exciting stuff. I've got the next three years planned out: the short is a huge YouTube hit, which is where Wes Anderson discovers it. We spend the next year working on the screenplay and the theatrical release opens to critical acclaim. Meanwhile, my short story works its way through the hands of various english professors until one, who happens to be good friends with the fiction editor at Esquire, hooks me up with a run in the February issue (the one with Natalie Portman on the cover). That's where Wes Anderson discovers it, and we spend the next year working on the screenplay. The critics are mixed, but it's a runaway blockbuster.

I like to cover all my bases.

In case you aren't a dork... yet

The new trailer for Watchmen was just released. Erik was kind enough to clue me in. Here it is, in case you aren't already thrilled. Watch it and then go get the book. Read that, then wait with baited breath. This is the graphic novel that features Rorschach, the masked vigilante I dressed up as for Halloween.

ANNNNND... TIME!

approximately 11 hours later, Mark finished the first draft of his research paper.

The List

Tomorrow I must:

-write a paper for English 320
-read and write responses for two workshop stories for English 320
-study for an exam in Communications 353

Tomorrow I should:

-work on my workshop piece for 320 - due Dec 3
-work on my paper for Com 354 - due next Thursday
-begin writing (or at least thinking about) a scene for the next video project in Com 211 - due...uh...soon..?

Tomorrow I will:

-freak out

Positive Reinforcement

It's such a pain to wake up, walk to your car and drive to the polling place. Then add the fact that you have to push buttons on an electronic voting machine or, even worse, fill out a paper ballet with a pencil, and then hand it over to someone.

Go through all that trouble and what do you get? A sticker? That's cool, but what else? I love a good sticker and all, but something with a little umph would help get out my vote.



Now we're talking. Vote, then mosey on over to your local Chick-fil-A and flash your brand new sticker and you can land yourself a free chicken sandwich, courtesy of those creepy cows.

If you give a voter a sandwich, he's going to need a drink. No problem.


Swing by Starbucks on the way home for a coffee, free of charge to voters.

Just another way capitalism helps democracy. Even if your guy (or gal, or both) loses, you'll still be encouraged to vote next year with the promise of free deep fried, over caffeinated foods. What could be more American?

Check out some other freebies at USA Today.

Film Ahoy!

I got my camera two weeks ago and it's a real beaut. Everything seems to work fine. I got some discounted film from Kodak because they offer a sweet student discount on their website. Ektachrome 64T is the only color Super 8mm film still in production by Kodak. I got two cartridges because the shipping was too much to justify just buying one. So much for a discount when the shipping is $12 flat rate.

Last Thursday, while Tick was in Liberty, Indiana for the evening, I humped the camera to class and spent my sweet time wandering back, looking for cool things to shoot. With my new Johnny Depp sunglasses and the Super 8 in hand I felt very artsy. I headed up the slant walk looking for squirrels (apparently squirrels is a hard word to spell). I figured I could get pretty close to one, since Oxford is the Squirrel Capitol of Southwest Ohio. Go ahead, look it up...

Some of you might say, "I did look it up and that's wrong," but that's because you looked it up in a book. Next time, try looking it up in your heart.

So I'm crouched down in the grass behind a bench, zeroing in on this particularly interesting squirrel, who's hopping around and digging and all of a sudden his head snaps up and he stares right into my soul. I swear he squinted at me. It made me really uncomfortable, like he knew I was filming him, and did not intend to sign any release forms.

On my way home I had the camera on the tripod, thrown up over my shoulder, enjoying the day and thinking about how cool I must look with this neat camera. I came by the library and passed a girl who was holding what appeared to be a Grade-A digital camcorder, strap around her neck, headphones plugged in to monitor sound, a big old microphone sticking off the front and over each shoulder she had a nice, big digital SLR camera. I thought we might exchange a "hey, nice camera" look, but she didn't notice me. So much for feeling like the coolest kid on campus.

Today I finished off the last 20 feet of film in Liberty, where I went to help Sam finish up her project with one of the high school students. This is the project in the creepy, abandoned opera house, which is even stranger in person. Hopefully the film turns out and I'll be able to post a quick tour.

I'm not sure if I'll send off the cartridge to have it developed, or wait until I film the other one. I'd kind of like to just develop one in case the camera doesn't work and nothing shows up. No sense in possibly ruining two. Of course this whole Super 8 thing is by no means a practical way to shoot, but it really is fun. I'll have to come up with a script for the next cartridge, rather than just shooting squirrels and creepy buildings.

Hmmm, maybe squirrels in creepy buildings.

OMFG

Delicious. Superb. I would write more, but I feel so heavy my brain won't work. Let my darling wife tell you about it. All I can say is that she continues to surprise me. Apple pie is just like icing on the cake, or in this case like pie in my tummy.

Today was kitchen experimentation day. I made Philly Cheesechickens, which turned out okay. I think a little more practice is in order to get them absolutely disgustingly delicious like Penn Station. The ones I made today didn't even soak through the bread :(

In an unrelated incident: Wii Fit told me I gained 5.3 pounds in the last 3 days.

We Eat a Lot of Cereal

Samantha and I went gorcery shopping the other day. To cover more ground (mostly because I was incredi-grumpy and I didn't want to spend a single minute in Kroger) we split up. I had a few items to get, she got some. We both got milk and didn't realize it until we had already paid.

We've got to use this milk before it goes bad. I hate letting food go bad. It's just too expensive to mess around with. So every night I ask Sam how many bowls of cereal she's had. She's doing her best to help me defeat the milk burden in our fridge.

These bowls have all been used in the last 24 hours. We're on a good pace to finish the milk before October 16th. Only one half gallon left.

Goodbye Mozilla

I feel bad, but I guess I should just say it. Get it over with.

*ehem* Firefox....okay... I don't know how to do this. It's hard, you know? I mean, we've been together a while. And it was fun. It was real fun, but sometimes things change. I'm sorry, but I've been using another browser. 

Don't be like that. We both knew that when I said that I'd never leave you that it was wishful thinking. It just got stale, like we were sitting around staring at each other. You'd be loading

 something and I'd just sit around and wait. Not to mention you'd just crash on me. That's not fair. Am I supposed to just wait for you to crash and then have to be the one to reboot you? I can't take on that responsibility, always fixing things. Why don't you just fix yourself sometimes?

Sure, it's not perfect, but Chrome is just new...exciting. It's so much bigger. I can see all this extra stuff. I can rearrange tabs, pull tabs to new windows, browse incognito! You always wanted to know where I was all the time. Chrome is totally cool just letting me wander around without tracking my every move.

I'm sorry, Firefox, but it's over. There might always be a special place for you on my harddrive, but Chrome is taking your spot on my desktop.

Radio killed the radio star

The radio around here has been a heaping pile of dissapointment lately. So, once again, I've turned to Pandora Radio for my music fix. 

For those of you who don't know about Pandora it's an online radio station. You create your own "channels" by entering a band, a song or even a genre and Pandora grabs songs that are related to your choice by using perameters set up by the Music Genome Project. Then you have the ability to approve or dissapprove of each song it plays by giving a thumb up or down. This tweeks your station to play only music with a style you like. And, luckily, if you give the same band thumbs down twice, they are banned from ever playing on that station again. I quickly used this ability to kill Nirvana. You also get the ability to ban a certain song from the station for one month, and skip a particular song you don't feel like listening to. Try to get that from 94.9

I've been playing my Modest Mouse station exclusively. My hope was that Pandora would grab some new music I haven't heard and play it for me, which it did a few times. It appears that I have extremely predictable tastes, because after about 2 weeks of various thumbs up and down, I've basically tuned the station to play my iPod. The only difference is that it's playing songs from bands from which I only have a few songs. So I'm getting what I like, but a wider array of what I like. And I like that.

Today's mix thus far:

Modest Mouse- A Different City

Cake - Short Skirt, Long Jacket

The Shins - Mine's Not A High Horse

The White Stripes - Seven Nation Army

Modest Mouse - Never Ending Math Equation

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Y Control

Death Cab for Cutie - Crooked Teeth

Spoon - The Way We Get By

Interpol - Narc

The Shins - Tun On Me

Death Cab for Cutie - Hindsight

The White Stripes - The Hardest Button to Button

See any patterns?

Silent Canosound

Samantha recently found a blog at The New York Times website by a man named Jeff Scher. He is an experimental film maker and on his blog you can catch a few of his videos. He uses old formats, in this case a 16mm wind-up that allows him to film for only 30 seconds at a time. Actually, both examples use the 16mm. While You Were Sleeping really got me thinking about the strange, emotional effect that this old format lends to the film.

An even more exaggerated example is 8mm silent film. Silent film lends an extra layer to just about any subject. Take away the sound and all of a sudden you're looking at these tones and nuances you never realized were there. Or perhaps, and I'm sure Mr. Scher would prefer me to say, that feeling is brought about by the fact that the photographer can no longer rely on sound to tell the story. When you enter into this purely visual world, you're forced to make decisions, to propel your narrative without dialogue and that is what really intrigues me.

Long story short, I'm the proud new owner of a Canosound 514XL-S, which, ironically, is one of the few super 8mm sound cameras I've seen lurking around the internet. It took quite a bit of research to find a camera I thought would be well balanced between quality functionality and low learning curves. I'm not sure if this is the one, but it'll have to do because I already paid for it. Of course, after my long, adjective-soaked description of why silent film appeals to me, I should say I don't plan on actually using sound film. It's probably more expensive to develop anyway.

It was a good deal, $35 after shipping on eBay. Hopefully it will be here soon. Next I need more disposable income and after that a projector. I've been researching how to digitize super 8 for editing, and it looks like digitally recording the film from a projector is the best bet. After the projector I'll need some more disposable income, then after that I'll get some film developed and after that I'll be uploading and playing with editing.

So, family and friends who are willing (even if you aren't) could be showing up in silent, exaggeratedly emotional versions of themselves. The only danger here is that simple films highlighting people often come across as in memorandum.

I submit as evidence:

We broke down and bought a new router to try and solve our internet woes. At first it didn't seem to do anything, but then Sam plugged the new router into our old on and then reconnected the computers to the old router. Somehow, and this makes absolutely no sense, it is a lot faster now. Perhaps the old G router feels inadequate next to his new N brother and is beefing up the signal to compensate.

Maybe they are in love and that love is projecting wonderful lovely router signals all over the house. Maybe in another hour it will suck again. Who knows?

Hypothesis:
A new, beefed up N router will undoubtedly improve performance over the old G system

Evidence:
Here's a table outlining the internet speed since Sam hooked it up. As a point of reference, 7000 is the level at which the signal is sent, but usually 1000kbps is lost along the way, making 6000 the best signal:

5:50 pm - 3307
5:50 pm (again) - 2446
5:51 pm- 3600
5:54 pm- 6646 (see bottom left of picture, indicating the last test results)
5:55 pm- 4518 (it dropped even more after I took that picture)
6:04 pm- 3779
6:11 pm- 2295

Then, at 9:31 pm:


Conclusion:
WTF?

The Honest Truth

When he's not talking about math, Randall Munroe can really make me laugh.
Visit XKCD

I have awesome friends

Cincinnati, Aug 5, 2008
Originally uploaded by adark248

A pair of glasses we found on the ground at the Dave Matthews Band concert this summer.

This is how we roll.

Whistle While We Work

At work Saturday I helped put up the large metal bridge that extends across the stage in Ohio State Murders. It took about three hours to get the platforms up and bolted together. You can see how we secured each individual piece to the rail system and ran it up, locked it in place and then we worked underneath to bolt on the legs. Rinse and repeat. Needless to say those things were pretty heavy. They also had some sharp edges, which is how I cut a slice through my ring and pinkie finger on my left hand. I also nearly knocked my boss' eye out when the drill caught on the metal and wrenched itself out of my grip, swinging the chuck key a few inches past his head.


The set is huge. A lot more got done after I left on Saturday at about noon thirty. There's a dorm room nearly twice as big as any real dorm room, this bridge, two stair cases leading up to the bridge and a slew of steps, platforms and levels. I'm really interested to see how the choreography works with all of these steps and obstructions. I'm definitely going to try and see more plays this year.
I'll try and get more pictures throughout the construction process to document the evolution of a large-scale set.


Also please note the hardhats... riiiiight about here. The yellow/white/blue hats. Guess who had the honor of creating that lovely helmet holding area? Yours truly.

I survived the Blackout of '08 and all I got was inconvenienced

Jesus H. Christ. The power was out for 5 days. I snapped some pictures throughout the week on my cell phone. Let's have a look-see:

Samantha being dissapoitned in the dark, followed by pizza on the grill. Those are individual sized DiGiornio's pepperoni pizzas you're looking at. Primo stuff. You can see the lovely coals glowing beneath them, some lawn detritus all packed up and ready for Rumpke. Those were the most disgusting pizzas ever. Sure they look good and they cooked all the way through... Have you ever had pizza that tasted like shrimp/steak/chicken/hamburger and burnt? I should have cleaned the grill first.

There was a riot/protest/party on campus during the blackout. I'm using the slash because your point of view determines how you label it. Over two thousand students convened on President Hodges lawn to "protest" class while most off campus students still had no power. The police showed up in riot gear and one girl told me she left because she "thought they were going to start throwing tear gas." It wasn't that bad, but the idea is haunting. It's a good thing they didn't try to take the crowd by force because then we would've had a full fledged riot in the streets. Imagine thousands of bored twenty-somethings raiding the liquor stores all over Oxford, cops on their segways weaving through the crowd tazing bros. Not a good image. Although a squadron of officers was sent to the liquor store in town. They were turning away thirsty scholars despite the fact that the store still had power.

Oh and also the post office lost yet another one of my packages, which means I'm going to have to eat the cost of sending out a replacement. So, all in all, this week was awesome.

Torndaic

When I woke up this...er...afternoon the wind was blowing like crazy-go-nuts. Actually, it's still crazy out there. Completely sunny and pretty nice, but the wind is howling. I went outside to move Sam's car, because branches were snapping off the tree in front and landing all around the hood. I'd safely estimate the wind at 40 MPH.


The closest branch is about 20 feet long. For some reason this tree will gladly shed it's healthy, leafy limbs, but that one dead one I want gone holds on for dear life. There's a thumping noise every time the wind picks up, like when a bird hits the window. I hope the wind isn't blowing birds off course and into a collision course with our windows.

Payback for those devious Windex Birds.

What assholes.

You've Got Me On My Knees, Layla

The latest update on The Misadventures of Legalizing Layla:

Not working out. It's finally boiled down to the fact that I have to contact the Court of Common Please in Columbus about getting the title for my scooter. Uck with a side of uck. I did, however, discover that Ohio has updated it's title FAQ website, including information for people who have bought a motor vehicle from an individual in state/ out of state and were not provided a title. That's me. I guess I'll call the number and listen to whatever run-around their passing out.

In the meantime, it's back to Craig's List, this time searching for a buyer.

The latest update on The Misadventures of Classes at College:

Things seem more adventurous than unadventurous at this point, which is good. I got the job at the Scene Shop on campus making scenery for the myriad of theatrical productions. It's a sweet job: the hours aren't bad, the people are nice and I get to use pneumatic staple guns that "could easily pierce bone." That job simultaneously makes me want to build something and gives me the opportunity to build things. It's a self perpetuating machine, pure synergy. Also, I get to wear a hardhat, which can make anyone feel surprisingly important while standing in line at the water fountain.

Here's a view from the gallery at the Scene Shop. Don't tell anyone, I'm not supposed to be carrying my cell phone around, but the only personal storage space I have are my pockets. I was trying to get a feel for the scale by shooting the railing, but it didn't work. Those panels on the right are around 15 feet long, the gray platform is probably 20. Monica and I screwed the gray platform to the deck and then flipped the skinny platform to the left over top to create a step up. We only had to do it 3 times to get it right.

On the far wall is the Rail System. Those white ropes are attached to rails that run stage right to stage left and are suspended in the air, even higher up than the gallery. We can attach all kinds of scenery (or anything else) to the rails and raise and lower them into or out of view. There are numbered 1 to 37, 37 downstage closest to the audience, 1 furthest upstage. We have to know where the rail are because when someone lowers them you have to get out of the way. There's a call and response system. Whenever someone drops a rail they call out the number so people know which way to dodge, and everyone in the shop responds so the rail operator knows that the message was received. I'll just go ahead and say it: I have high aspirations of one day being tapped as Rail Operator.

The rest of the shop is about as big as the stage area pictured, but back behind the camera and behind a giant fire door that slams closed (and I suspect would kill anyone underneath it) in case a fire breaks out on stage. There's also a giant asbestos curtain that falls off frame right, at the end of the stage, in order to protect the largest number of people (for the theater department's sake, let's hope the audience) from the fire. Of course that curtain was installed a while ago. Chances are that the giant asbestos cloud that falling curtain would let off would probably kill the first 10 rows. Admittedly, though, not nearly as quickly or painfully as a fire.

If you're the kind of person who enjoys surviving potentially dangerous situations twice a week, is this a job for you.

I'm starting to realize I am that type of person.

Blog of the Day award

Holy hell. I got an email announcing that I've been chosen as the Blog of the Day on Fuel My Blog. Quite the honor, especially considering I post like, what, once every month? (I think Sam's jealous. Which makes sense considering she posts all kinds of great pictures and content on a near daily basis.)

It must've been that excellent review of Batman I wrote yesterday.

Anyways, we haven't heard back from the Northwest Tea Festival about the 500 shirts they wanted. Kendra says to be positive. I like being positive, so I guess I'll give that a shot. I didn't even think about how we haven't heard back until she asked how business was going. Samantha and I have the whole deal figured out, we just need the go-ahead to get started. Hand dyeing 500 shirts in tea happens to be on my bucket list. Yes I have a bucket list, I'm all of 21 now. I'm just getting a head start.

The other thing on my bucket list is to get back into making new shirts. The giant Roloflex shirt is awesome. I forgot how fun it is making new shirts.

We're still looking for some designs of an architectural nature for the lady who runs the Antique store where PearMcGee sells her handmade purses and handbags. I'm thinking some large pillars, kind of like the huge camera print. Those prints that are so gigantic you think they're never going to work are the most fun to make.

There's nothing quite like impressing myself.

The Dark Knight: a Bright light for movie making

Samantha and I went with Tyler to see The Dark Knight last night. I'm not sure what I expected, but it was above and beyond what I thought it would be. Batman Begins was a good movie, but this was a great movie. I've heard people say that Heath Ledger "lost himself" in the role of The Joker. I 'm not exactly sure what they mean, but his performance is spot on. Creepy to the point of making you feel exceedingly uncomfortable when he's on screen, even if Batman is there to bust some heads.

They continued with the development of Batman, mostly illustrated through a few short mentions of upgrading the Bat suit, which was nice. Usually the sequel just begins with the super hero we all know and we're supposed to just believe that they figured out exactly how to use their powers, or in this case perfected their tools. Although I was worried in the beginning, because the Bat suit looked kind of stupid. Later on, though, Wayne sets out for another tweak to the suit, and it looks pretty cool for the rest of the movie. I think in the next one they'll have yet another update, because the suit wasn't perfect... yet.

There's also a lot of other characters. It isn't just shots of Batman terrorizing thugs on the streets and lounging in his penthouse like past Batman movies. Gordon, the Mayor and even other police officers play major roles, not to mention regular citizens who, in the chaos of The Joker's game, end up with one of the most important decisions in their hands.

Technically, the movie was great. They pulled back about 3 feet while filming the fighting scenes, which was a vast improvement over the (I now admit) confusing and somewhat frustrating fight scenes from Begins. The choreography was spot on. Coupled with the intense pounding sounds of Batman's fists, it'll make you cringe at how real the fights look. Those thugs really take a beating. The camera work was interesting, but not overtly flashy to the point of distraction.

All in all, it's one that anyone should see. If you're a Batman fan, I can't imagine you won't enjoy it. If you're not a Batman fan, I bet you really are and you just don't know it yet.

And now for something completely different

Dear Mark,

Today you felt like a college student. Which is strange. Or maybe not strange, seeing as you are a college student (you're half way through at this point), but at least out of the ordinary. There were times when you've felt like this before. They usually come during the summer. They're always accompanied by friends.

Let's face it: you don't have a whole lot of friends. I'm not being mean, just saying. But that has to do with the whole quantity versus quality argument. Tyler came over, Dave followed a little later. Of course Samantha was there. We all watched X-Files episodes, Batman Begins and then sat outside about 20 yards from a failed bonfire. (You wanted to have a bonfire and no one else was interested. Also, for some reason, sticks don't burn that well around here).

Tyler, Dave and you played cards out on the back patio while Sam cleaned around the house. She didn't want to play cards.

It seems odd how a perfectly lazy, simple day can feel good. There's plenty of shit to worry about but we ignored it today. We sat outside and played cards, sweating and cursing over Death Cab for Cutie.

There might be something profound hidden somewhere in the details of today. Let's not worry about it too much. I just thought you'd like to remember today.

We should do this again some time.

-Mark

Forever 21

I turned 21 on the 8th. It's been really hard work staying alive this long, but it's totally worth it.

I haven't done anything with this blog in a long, long time. Which is normally what I do with stuff like this.

We're headed up to Defiance with baby Jane, Velda and the girls this weekend. I think this is Jane's first trip. It's going to be Babypalooza up there. Jane, Brody and Riddick. Luckily babies aren't like dogs, so we won't have to keep them separated while they eat. There are few things worse than a baby fight. That'll ruin your weekend.

A few days ago we were contacted by a guy who's interested in ordering 500 of our hand tea-dyed shirts. Yeah, 500. When I read the email the first time I was terrified and said there was no way we could do it. But then I thought about it, Sam and I sat down and talked about some details and we think it is more than do-able. If we go about it the right way we should be fine. Plus, it's not like either of us have jobs, so we can spend 8 hours a day dyeing t-shirts. No prob.

I called him today and talked numbers. He isn't the decision maker, so he's passing along our info to the committee, who should be getting back to us within the next week. Sam's making up a few samples to send their way. It's pretty exciting stuff. This would be our biggest deal ever. I think it might actually be fun to fill an order so gigantic. Plus, the shirts are for the First Annual Northwest Tea Festival which sounds like a great time. I wish we lived in Seattle so we could check it out.

That's all for today. Don't want to over do it...

So Long, so very long

My first (and last) final was today. Which might explain to those of you who read this blog (thanks, Mom) why there hasn't been anything new in quite some time.

I've been studying. Or, more appropriately: stressing. I don't really have any classes that require "study" this semester. English Lit was the exam I had today and even the professor admitted that we can't go back and read everything again. I turned in a portfolio for Creative Non Fiction on Friday, which was nice to get out of the way. My group finished our video for IMS which we debut tonight in front of the class. My COM paper on Citizen Cane isn't due until Thursday, so there's still time for that.

It's nice not having to cram for an exam. I think I enjoy the low, nagging stress of things piling up that can (theoretically) be done over a period of time.

In other news: Oxford is a gorgeous place. Summer here is amazing. I'd like to think that summer above the Mason-Dixon is more fantastic. Like how you appreciate Novocaine more after it's worn off and you feel like someone's kicked your teeth in. Samantha and I have been walking and riding our bikes around. The crazy girl has me convinced that we should buy what Eddie Izzard would call a Push-Me-Pull-You lawn mower, you know, one without an engine. Supposedly there have been great strides in motorless lawn mowers since the 1950s. Who knew they were still making those? So after the next batch of orders at TealTown, perhaps we'll be doing that. She said she would help mow the grass if we got one, because the motorized ones scare her. I think this was intended to suggest that she would help cut the grass if it weren't for the fact that the thing had an engine. Which I refuse to believe. No one likes to mow grass. My brother once told me he liked to mow the grass, but when he lived at home my mom still drug the mower up and down the yard in long green lines. Not that I was volunteering to mow the grass or anything.

Everything is green like you wouldn't believe. I've even been admiring the dandelions. And, for me, that is about the best thing I could ask for. Summer is one prayer that God always answers.

Stuck in my head today

Karina, by Ryan Adams.

A quick Google image search for "Karina" turned up a handful of half-naked ladies and this:

For the benefit of Mr. Kite

This week is a whopper of a week.

Today my group had to do our presentation on Wes Anderson for COM. All went fairly well, although we didn't take up the full 45 minutes. The professor nodded several times and seemed to take notes that took some considerable concentration. I'll take that as a good sign.

Tomorrow my Creative Nonfiction class is workshopping my latest piece. When I turned it in last week Pierce walked by to pick it up, looked at it, then at me and said "No title" and clucked his tongue like my grandmother. Last time we went over one of my pieces Pierce asked me to learn the english language. I'm not sure he enjoys my work.

Thursday I have a paper due for my other English Class, 1945-present literature. Really interesting stuff. I'm not exactly sure what to write my paper about. On my last paper my professor said "despite all its obvious strengths, I'm not sure you answered the question put to you. Next time try to answer the prompt." He liked my work, just wasn't right on target I guess. So I'm trying to be more careful this time.

I also want to send out shirts to some consignment jobs that I haven't done and should have last month. I also want to clean out my closet and get stuff ready for the Salvation Army. I also want to write more, just for funsies and read some books. There's a lot I want to do and more I need to do, but I'm not sure I'll find the time. The human drama continues, no?

Tagalicious

I got hit. Kim Bagwill, a fellow Blogger and interesting artist (I meant the fellow part about Blogger. I don't consider myself an interesting artist... yet) tagged me. It happened a while ago but I never did it because... well because I didn't have time. Also I didn't know what to put. Then I realized it doesn't really matter that much. So here it goes!

The rules of tagging are as follows:

1. Link to the person that tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.
4. Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
5. Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.

Six random things/habits/quirks about me:

1. My instinct is to never answer the door. When random people walk up to my house I always want to hid. Actually, I do hide. I can see them head up the driveway from my computer so I usually plaster my face to the desk and wait for them to leave. It doesn't matter if they're friendly looking. I did this today. My car was in the driveway with the windows open. The garage door was open, too.

2. Every once in a while I catch myself coming up with elaborate escape strategies. In class I'll look for the nearest door or open window. Then I'll think about how to duck and dodge my way outside... you know, just in case.

3. I have hobbit feet. People usually don't believe me until I show them. They're really hairy on top and each toe has a puff of hair on it.

4. There are three foods that I eat for a month at a time. Clementines, bagels and chocolate milk that I mix myself with Hersey Syrup. For some reason I rotate them. I'll have each fairly regularly for a few weeks and then not again for a year.

5. I once purposefully pronounced the word "gross" as "grahss" for a long time until I couldn't really make a distinction between the two. I'm not really sure why. I also taught myself to say "Do what?" instead of "What?" or "What did you say?" when I didn't understand or hear someone.

6. Every morning I wake up with a different song in my head. Sometimes it's a song I haven't heard for a while. Just one phrase will be stuck in my head until I either go out and start doing something or listen to it on my iTunes.

One Good Reason to Overthrow the Government

Taxes.

I know, I know. Most people, those of you who have been doing taxes all your life, don't want to hear about it. I don't want to talk about it, either. And I especially don't want to hear about it.

We've never done taxes before. So, naturally, the whole thing was daunting. Add to that the fact that in 2007 we opened our own business (which I was determined to make legal, so that we could participate in shows and order from wholesalers). Then add to that the fact that Samantha has some kind of magical write off for spending money on school related things out of a specific magical fund. I call these things magical not out of cynicism or jest, but simply because, despite all my best efforts, I don't understand how they work. I just finished China Men tonight and have decided that mysticism, honestly, may be the only answer for some things; so they are magic.

My Dad gave me this advice: "I'd just wave my hand and pretend you started in 2008." He meant the business. But it's kind of obvious when I started it. I applied for a Federal Employer Identification Number and for a license from the State of Ohio. The one thing I don't need is for the IRS to show up and land me with an audit; my paperwork is hardly in order. So I filed the business papers, or at least what I assumed to be the business papers. This was all done with TurboTax which, contrary to popular belief, does not make taxes easy. Undoubtedly it makes them easier, but not easy.

I won't go into too much detail about Sam's school expenses. We made at least 3 phone calls to ask her Dad about the information we needed. He's one of those people who doesn't read numbers correctly, straight from Kevin James' standup. The best I can figure, he was feeding me numbers with decimals without my knowledge. However it happened TurboTax was showing that we owed the IRS upwards of $80,000. Which couldn't have been right. Sam ended up going through it line by line with him and, since they have the same numberspeak, was able to input the right numbers.

Like I said, I don't want to talk about taxes. But I also don't like the last post about going to Pittsburgh (which I posted because I didn't like the post before that, either). So, I'll have to post something in the next week to replace this post, and the next week to replace that post. It's like sweeping the dirt under the carpet, except I'm sweeping dirt under more dirt.

All's Fair in Love and Warhol

On a whim (and I mean complete whim) Samantha and I joined my brother, Adam, and his wife, Kendra, on their trip to Pittsburgh this weekend.

I never thought of Pittsburgh as being awesome, which it is. I didn't know anything about the place before this weekend, so it seemed strange that Sam wanted to go. I was thinking "what's in Pittsburgh"?

The answer to that question is kind of complicated. It's a city full of the things I like. We hit The Strip and browsed a ton of street vendors and storefronts, and we headed over to South Side to check out that shopping district. There's a lot going on and the city was lovely. Or at least lovely as much as a city can be. My only real experience with a city is Cincinnati. Pittsburgh seemed to be much cleaner than Cinci and our hotel was smack in the middle of everything we wanted to do, so walking the streets gave you a real feel of liveliness that I've never gotten a glimpse of in Cincinnati.

We took a quick walk to the Andy Warhol museum and got in for $4 with a student ID, which was sweet. That place was pretty cool, with tons of Warhol hanging around and a fair amount of other artists. I'll fully admit that I never "got" Andy Warhol. I thought he was kind of a hack. And he is. He's a total hack. But after seeing what he was doing up close, and learning that he didn't really do much of the art himself, I started to get the point. It helps that I'm a screen printer. If you've ever learned to play an instrument, you have a new appreciation for music. It's the same here; when I saw his screen prints, knowing what it takes, I had much more respect for the art. Warhol's story is pretty great too, and the museum did a fantastic job of incorporating information about not only the art but its inspiration and method.

This cow is probably one of my favorite of Warhol's pieces. At the museum they have all of his source images laid out for this piece. You can see where the idea began. One of these prints is hanging in the poster store in Uptown, Oxford. Some day I'll get one and hang it in my house. Or maybe I'll just make it for myself.

The lovin' feelin'

Can't stop, won't stop.

It's been a while, but lo-and-behold TealTown hits the front page of Etsy.com yet again.


I'd like to thank the Academy, everyone who has ever supported me and even some people who haven't, and God who probably had something to do with this.

Craft (Af)fair

Yesterday was the 1st Annual Craft (Af)fair in Oxford, Ohio.

We got set up by about 11 and man was it cold. The sun was about and tricked me into thinking it was going to be a warm, summery kind of day. It wasn't. In fact, the wind blew so hard it felt like it was in the 30s all day. We powered through the first two hours and eventually I got so numb it didn't matter what temperature it was anymore. A lot of people stopped by our table and had tons of positive things to say about the shirts, which was fantastic. We're grateful for anyone who took the time to rummage around (and extremely grateful to those people who ran to grab things as they blew away).


The little knuckle buster I bought worked out, although I was so frantic to make sure I was processing cards fast enough that a couple girls skirted away with one free shirt. Lucky ducks. I love free stuff. I wish I got free shirts. This whole episode prompted me to panic because I absolutely hate myself when I make stupid mistakes (which is fairly often). I ended up yelling "I fucked it up!" which I think ran at least 2 people away from the booth, thinking I was losing my mind. Probably a safe assumption at the time. Very unprofessional of me and I was forced to chide myself. As you may know, when you're your own boss there's no one else to wag their finger at you.

We sold some shirts to a member of 64 South who said he's always looking for great stuff to wear on stage. They're working on getting a gig at Stadium. Hopefully that works out for them and they'll get a chance to play in town. If they do we might be designing and printing some shirts for them which would be incredible.

We were trying to get out of there at about 3 because it was so cold, but a few people came by and said they were going to be back, so we held out. Thank God we did, because we made a whole lot more sales waiting for a guy to come back. It's funny how things work out like that.

My parents came up for the occasion and Mom snapped some pictures. You can see how inviting it was to buy a t-shirt. Sam's wrapped up in, count them, 2 blankets and we're both drinking hot chocolate. I even wore that stupid hat I hate (it's too small) because my ears were going to snap off.

Thanks to everybody at Green Oxford for putting the thing together and letting us hang out. Thanks to all the people who came by and we're glad so many people enjoyed looking through our hard work. We'll see y'all next year!

The Prone Wars

Tomorrow is our first show ever. I'm actually getting a little nervous. Since we took Spring Break in Texas I put off doing a lot of prep work for this week, and then it turned out that this week was pretty busy. So I have a lot to do today, but I'm really tired. I think I'm going to get some sleep real quick before I set in on getting ready for everything.

I hope to have an exciting update tomorrow or the day after about the show. If you don't hear from me, it probably went poorly and I'm probably irritated. But no worries, I've promised myself that if it doesn't go well it isn't the end of the world (just the end of my aspirations to get a job outside of a cubicle).

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Our feedback rating has gone up over the last few weeks, which is nice. People are starting to really pour in the positive comments, so I'm adding the newest one to our "Praise" section at the top. You know, that section where I post great things people say about me. It's not egotistical, it's advertising!

Ugh I feel sick. I'm going to power nap and that should clear things up a bit.

Homecoming

Spring Break is over and it's breaking my heart.

We flew from Dallas to Columbus, 75 and sunny to 30something and snowing. That was hard. Actually it was too easy. It's not like you can turn a plane around. While we were there in the sun we snapped some pictures of our shirts and expanded our inventory a bit, which was great.


We got some old, vintage suitcases over break too, which we're going to use to display shirts at the show on Saturday. Today they people running the show sent out an e-mail to the sellers and there were nearly 30 of us (they apparently don't know the purpose BCC to hide email addresses) which is good. Sam brought up a good point: The more people are there the more people are going to want to come. This helped put to rest my fear that we'd end up standing out in the park by ourselves looking crazy. Now at least I know there will be a bunch of other people looking crazy, too.

But being back has landed me in a seriously depressive funk. I've been trying to print the last 50 shirts to get us ready and I keep freezing up. I just didn't feel like doing anything today and when I got ready to make some shirts I didn't know which one I wanted to do. So I ended up pacing back and forth from the studio into the living room. Eventually I forced myself to just make one, which seemed to break through the fog and I made a few more. Hopefully I'll just make a few a day until Friday and we'll sell what we can. It was strange. I've heard of writers' block but this was apparently printers' block.

In other news: I also have writers' block. I can't let myself write more than a page or two on my last nonfiction piece. Luckily I found out it's due nearly two weeks later than I thought.

It's going to be a rough week.

Unplugged

Tomorrow I'm going off the grid.

Well, for a couple of days at least. Samantha and I are headed out to Texas for Spring Break. My grandmother is flying us down and we're spending the week with our family down there.

Last I heard the temperature is going to be in the mid 60s all week. It's not 73, but, hey, I'll take it. I'll take it all year long.

Today was kind of crazy. I had to print a whole lot of orders I've been putting off. A customer wanted a set of curtains and can't wait until we get back from vacation so I had to do them tonight. "Man, this is getting easier." Famous last words. I had to run out and get another set of curtains because I messed the print up. I shouldn't ever declare that anything is anywhere near easy. People always talk about the power of positive thinking, but I think negative thinking works just as well. Low expectations lead to great surprises.

It'll probably rain all Spring Break. It might even snow. Hell, I should probably pack my coat.

Juxtaposition

The world is fantastic.

Today my professors were laughing and joking, people are stumbling around decked out in Green Beer Day shirts, there's only a hint of the blizzard in the snowy gutters around town.

There's a tiny flower in the garden out front. On Saturday we're flying into Dallas where the temperature should hover right around 72 degrees. No school for a week. Randy's Burgers. My grandmother promised me a chicken pot pie. I'm going to sit outside and let my skin drink the sun. I'm going to watch to The Wheel at a torturous volume. I'm going to drive out past Bo Pilgrim's giant fiberglass head on my way to antiques. I'm going to ask Jack about his boots (the ones with the round toe, made of soft leather that don't come up so high). I'm going to walk barefoot in the broad, sharpened edges of the arid grass. I'll play with Ringo and Ginger and watch my grandma put food in their mouth and move their jaws "just so they get a taste of it." I'll forget to pick up the milk again and have a perfect excuse to drive into town with the windows down and the conversation up. I'll walk around the pasture with that mean ass pony, trying to get a look at the goose. I'll probably have fried chicken and talk about how it tastes just the same as it always did (she won't believe me). The mashed potatoes will be better than they used to. I'll hug them both and say goodbye. We'll fly back to Columbus on the 23rd and I might cry. I'll be rejuvenated, the summer will come and there will truly and honestly be no other time than the present.

The world is fantastic. So much more fantastic that it has ever been.

Blizzards aren't all that bad

Apparently we had a legitimate blizzard this weekend. We got over a foot of snow in one day and it was pretty awesome. I'm of the opinion that if it's going to be ass-cold, it might as well snow.

Mike came over on Friday and the snows came and he stayed on the couch because the roads weren't all that great. We woke up to the most snow we've had in years. The neighbors down the street had a guy out with a snowblower going over the sidewalks and their driveways, he even did a little path to the main road for them. He didn't come down to our house so I attacked the snow with a broom to get Mike's car out so we could go to Kroger.

We came back and spent all day playing games and I made a new screen and made up some shirts. I can't find the little Kodak camera and the other one doesn't appear to be working with my computer today so I can't load some pictures I snapped of the design in the mirror. I'll have to wait for Sam to get up to get some pictures.

One good thing about snow: it makes an excellent light reflector. We can take pictures in the house now as long as the sun is shining down on that lovely snow.

Winter come late

It's snowing today. Last weekend it was almost warm, and today it is snowing. Oh well. We were planning on traveling to Milford this weekend because it's been a while since we visited. Plus we need to deliver some curtains to Sam's sister and to pick up a copy of TurboTax my Dad bought for me.

We haven't uploaded any new designs in a while, mostly because we kept thinking we'd wait until the sun came back and then we'd get some nice pictures. Well, turns out that when the sun comes out we end up playing outside and don't really work on anything so we're working on new designs now. Hopefully we'll get some fresh stuff up soon, we'd like to have new designs before the Craft Affair on March 29th. I think it would be a good place to launch some fresh ideas and get some immediate reactions from customers.

I know, I know... half of this blog is promising new designs and the other half is talking about how we don't put up new designs often enough. In the eternal words of Everlast: "It ain't easy bein' greasy."

What that has to do with it, I'm not sure, but it's bound to be poignant to someone.

The fighting koi design I finished a while ago and never printed.
I drew the koi by hand, the cherry blossoms are digital.
Perhaps it will find its way to a t-shirt someday.

Craft Affair

We've signed up for a art/craft show on March 29th in our new little hometown, Oxford, Ohio, home of Miami University.

It's being put together by a student group on campus called Green Oxford. They've set aside the park uptown for the event and it's sure to be a fantastic day. The application was the easiest thing I've ever done: a simple e-mail with a few tid-bits of information about us and what we do with a link to our site. They sent back a reply and that was that, they're not even requiring a booth fee, probably because the venue has been donated - the park has a lot of events during the warmer months like free concerts, student organization meetings and the such.

This is going to be our first show and we're really excited to get everything ready and see how the whole show scene turns out. I'm fairly confident that we'll have a fantastic time and I'm hoping to see a few fellow Etsians that are coming. It will be nice to finally meet some of the people I've met through Etsy and especially to see all the fine handmade merch that will undoubtedly be in tow.

If you'd like to participate all you have to do is e-mail the people at Craft Affair: craftaffair@gmail.com for more info. If you do come, be sure to stop by TealTown Ink's booth and introduce yourself!

I turned my first piece in for my creative nonfiction workshop today. I emailed my professor yesterday worried that I had too many pages, which was a first, and that I wouldn't be able to get it together before the due date Thursday.

His response was to inform me that he too was concerned, the number of pages didn't matter, and the due date was actually Tuesday. You see we don't have class on Thursday, one of the only times not having class turned out to be a detriment.

I wrote 4 pages on Sunday and came to no point. It may not seem like a lot, but for me it was a large chunk of writing. I don't write a lot, a blog post is my most frequent style. The longest thing I've written in my life besides research papers is a mildly entertaining screenplay of a miraculous 8 pages of trite descriptions and epicly awkward dialog.

My piece is about a trip to climb Mount Baker with my dad and beyond some supposedly good descriptions I had no idea where I was taking the paper, much less where the story was taking me. I started working on it again at about 11 oclock on Monday and kept piecing it together until about 6:30. I bugged Sam to read and she did, all 11 pages of it, and confirmed my worst fears - it was rather emotionless. There were highlights she pointed out that I hadn't been to proud of before but I started to like.

It's frustrating to want so badly to do something, to reach some kind of goal and fall flat. I guess most people know that, but I'm only reminded every so often of the fact that many things, so many things, take skills that I don't have; or at least that I don't have yet.

It reminds me of sitting in the Shriver food court when Mike asked me what three skills I would want if I was granted them without any effort, without learning or practicing - to just wake up one morning and suddenly be able perform beyond expectation. I remember one of mine was writing. Michael chose cooking.

It's an interesting question and the ultimate illustration of our lazy asses. What would you do if you didn't have to actually do anything? Well, shit, I'd do any number of things, but limit it to 3 and it becomes a great philosophical debate: do you choose for the benefit of yourself or all of humanity? Do you become a neurosurgeon for the thick wallet, or to save the lives of strangers? Is it okay to be motivated by both?

When I think about that question now I wish I had chosen motivation. If I woke up having gained the skill to hone motivation into action I would have an endless ability to chase after any other thing I might want. It would be making your first wish for infinite wishes.

Brain annureisms never seemed so fun

We just watched the pilot to Eli Stone. I wish I had known about this show before tonight, because it was one of the best pilots I've seen in quite a while.

It features George Michael's Faith which I'm fairly confident will be stuck in my head for a few days. Just when I thought I might be able to power through without being reminded of the song Sam pointed out that it's in my iTunes. It's a good song too. Let me demonstrate:

Well I guess it would be nice
If I could touch your body
I know not everybody
Has got a body like you

But I've got to think twice
Before I give my heart away
And I know all the games you play
Because I play them too

The show made me feel like doing something. I like it when shows make me feel inspired or whatever. I wish I had something to write about for my first workshop piece in Creative Nonfiction, it's coming up sooner than I'd like to admit and all I have is a few paragraphs sprinkled in a notebook, every one on a different topic. My problem is that I never realize where my writing is going beforehand. I don't set out with a goal other than to write, and I'm often surprised by the insights that seem to come from those rocky outcrops in my brain.

That's not an entirely bad thing, but it does mean that I have to write through an idea in its entirety before any of it seems to make any sense, so expanding all those paragraphs into full pieces will take quite a bit of time and I'm not sure if it's worth all the work if only one of them will turn out. But then again writing isn't supposed to be easy, right? I guess nothing is. And to think this is my plan for the rest of my life... sweet.

I guess I should give up on the idea that some day I'll be "grown up" and things will come to me more easily. I grew like 5 inches last year but I think that's the extent of my physical expansion, and I don't hold out much hope for my mental expansion - that just sounds painful. Plus if my arms get any longer my coat is going to be one of those three quater sleeved baseball shirts, and as good as I looked in those when I was 15, I'm not sure I could pull that off with a wool overcoat.

It's snowing outside

Originally uploaded by sammysofa

I haven't been blogging much lately. I haven't been doing much of anything lately.

er... maybe I have, being lazy is always kind of a gray area

Samantha and I went to visit my brother Adam and his wife Kendra in Cleveland over the long weekend. Contrary to popular belief, Cleveland does not rock per say. It gets cold there, and no place that has blizzards can be said to "rock." Although Cleveland does have some fantastic things going for it.

One of which being the market where we had fantastic gryos and a decent discussion on the pronunciation of gyro. Of course the wife was there snapping pictures, and in all her glory. I'm stealing this pic from her flickr... hopefully she won't mind.

I'd just like to point out how gorgeous she is. She's asleep on the couch right now, I just snuck in to look at her. She's impressive in many respects. This picture just hints at the great work she does and her good looks.

I really like this picture. I like sitting in my chair and having her ask "Which one is better? This one... or this one... or this one... first... second?" It reminds me of being at the optometrist's office, except fun and entertaining rather than annoying. She doesn't puff my eyes with a giant air gun either.

She may sucker punch me up under the ribs sometimes, but it's still better than that damn air gun, plus I usually know when she's about to abuse me. The optometrist surprises you, Sam is pretty consistent.

Okay, I'll stop it now

The title "sorry about that last one" on the post immediately before this was meant to signify my move away for verbose self reflection. Turns out I wasn't ready to give that up, but now I am.

We got a request from Still Life, a small hipster's paradise in San Francisco. They are interested in carrying some of our items in their store and needless to say, the prospect is exciting.

Today a girl sent a message inquiring about having some artwork printed for her on tote bags or shirts and that prospect is also exciting. I sent her some info about pricing, hopefully she'll at least respond. The last time I sent anything out I never heard a peep, which made me seriously doubt our prices. Hopefully, though, those other people were just browsing, not actually interested in getting down to business which - let's all face it - costs money. It's a unfortunate evil, the spending of money.

Which brings me to my next point: I should never go out, or perhaps I should go out more often. It had been a long time since the Roberts family ventured out of Oxford and we found ourselves in Colerain with the 815 crew. By the time the trip was over I had spent way too much money, and when I got home I just kept going and spent about that much again. Some of it was for giggles, some of it business. I had an itch to buy something and scratched it so hard my bank account started bleeding. I shouldn't get urges, because I can't control myself. Maybe going out more often would keep those urges at bay, but more than likely I'd just spend more money over a longer period of time. Eh, the new surround sound system is pretty rad in the living room so I think I'll survive.

Sorry about that last one

My Creative Nonfiction class is a break from... well everything. I've never taken a class like this - one that celebrates writing in its most natural form: about oneself.

Writing is a dangerous pebble on which so many people dream of balancing. Forget about the fact that nearly all of us fall on our asses, a lot of people are "writers." Now I don't put "writers" in quotes because I am an elitest, a successful writer, or an asshole, I'm none of those although the latter could be argued. I put it in quotes because writing is such a broad craft.

I tend to roll my eyes at the prevalence of the student population, especially in High School, which declare with no uncertain terms that they "write poetry" (that time I was being elitest) but that has mostly to do with my distaste for confessional poetry. I don't like Sylvia Plath, she was whiny and had very little to say that wasn't self aggrandizing, she was enamored with suicide, with people who took their lives and essentially spent a majority of her time patting herself on the back for giving it a shot every 10 years. She died with her head in the oven, she thought he husband would come home and find her, save her, but he was held up at work and got home later than usual. She was interested in being a martyr to her own cause. Of course none of that takes away the fact that she was a great poet and had a great deal of influence on the genre.

My point is that in poetry you can write about your ex and how you cried yourself to sleep or tried to cook your head and it'll pass. It may not be good, and people might not like it, but they'll nod and say to themselves "yup, there's some poetry." But the fact that anyone can partake doesn't make it a democratizing medium, poetry is still transient and every new generation finds a new style in the mad dash to distinguish their poetry from every other amateur's. Creative Nonfiction takes what poetry started, blows it apart and the pieces scatter, anyone can pick up a piece of the genre and make it their own. You don't have to have credentials, you don't need a nod from the critics to reach out and connect with people, you don't need to attempt suicide or even cry yourself to sleep although, admittedly, all of these things would make a great narrative.

Whenever I start to write I'm constantly plagued by the fact that I'm a white, middle class, young male. The De Facto history of my people points to the fact that I'm the reason for other people's problems, they should write about me, and I should stay the villain. But this class has taken a crowbar to the notion that tragedy alone breeds good literature. I've noticed that even in the most mundane situations of the pieces I've read there is something to be gained, a knowledge that this author posses which I can't learn any other way. Sure I can experience the same idea, the same emotions, the same day under the same sun, but until I read how the sun felt on their face I retain a bias toward my own existence. It is up to them to tear down how I have experienced life and rebuild it with a piece of their understanding. In the end most succeed and I feel as if each time I am rebuilt I grow steadily upward toward a culminating human experience.