Listening to Small Time Crooks

Do you ever hit that peak? That pinnacle of existence, where you realize that once, at this moment, you truly lived? Like everything you knew, learned, experienced, internalized and complicated just slid out from under like a stream of consciousness and the slush in your knees was the knowledge, the bone grown understanding that you can rest. Sit, and let your knees collide inside themselves and remember that this is it. What you wanted is yours. Inhale, hold, exhale existence.

There goes Jane!

Jane trailer from Mark Roberts on Vimeo.

Here is the trailer for the upcoming fall feature: At the Pumpkin Patch with Jane! A beautiful little speed demon, we followed Jane as she explored the local pumpkin patch and posed for the cameras (if only briefly).

Do you ever get that feelings like you never get anything done, yet you're constantly busy.

Ok, so that's an unfair statement. I am not constantly busy, but it feels like it. Today is the day when I start to get done what needs to be done. I need to start working on the highlight videos earlier in the week. I also need to edit these tapes that a guy sent me. I'm notorious for not doing things until someone starts to get privy to the fact that I haven't started working. His tapes were all messed up, and then I thought maybe my camera needed cleaning, so I did that and I can't tell if it's fixed anything or not. Mom needs me to convert those tapes and stuff for her, too. So I need to figure out how that machine works.

Unfortunately I have too much fun living in the glorious ether between being irresponsible and being an adult. I'd much rather lay around with my wife than work on anything, but who wouldn't?

Uh oh, she's home. I gotta go....um....do stuff...?

Hahaha. I'll grow up eventually, right?

!

It was, like, instantaneous. Magic.

Odd, but good

I recently got a lot more Mike Doughty music. He's a solid dude. Odd, but good. I like the nonsensical associations that he makes. In everyday conversation he would run the risk of making absolutely no sense, but on top of his beats and the staccato chords, he sounds like a new age prophet without all the dreadlocks and annoying personality ticks.

That's the thing I like though. Nonsense making perfect sense. In a roundabout kind of way, the most outrageous analogies are probably more true-to-life than the cliches. Not probably, definitely.

I had something to write about, but it took so long for the internet to load (SURPRISE!) that I forgot. I'm just sitting here waiting for a few phone calls. My boss was supposed to call me when he finished uploading some things for the new video, but he hasn't called yet. My friend from work was supposed to call me tonight as well, but he hasn't called either. So I thought "Hey I'll just post that thing to my blog." And then I forgot. Because the internet toook sooo looong tooo loooad.

Let's see how long it takes to load this post to the blog. Ready, GO!

Found it

I had a good day today. I sleep in (it is Tuesday, after all), did my German test, which didn't take that long, snuck in a round of disc golf over on Western, during which I found my little red robot driver that I lost two days ago, go in a little extra exercise at home, had two showers and a decent day at work.

It's the kind of day that makes me feel accomplished, and totally makes up for the fact that after my Theater class is over, I'm coming home to take a mid-morning nap until German. It also makes up for the fact that tomorrow I'm going to have to confront the big bad boss man coach about his newest idea for the highlight video. A quick run-down of the idea might look like this: football, Nazis, violence, football, offensive finale. Taaaa-daaa. It's the kind of thing Dr. Vogel told me about last semester. It's the kind of thing he said you should put money away for, in a "Go to Hell!" fund, in case you have to refuse to participate in a project, tell your boss to "Go to Hell!" and ride out the job search with you fat old bank account. Too bad my last (first) paycheck was $33.47.... and I already spent it.

Words of Advice

Would you rather have a Lexus or justice?
A dream or some substance?
A Beamer? A necklace? Or Freedom?

Rain, rain, go suck it

I had a day full of frisbee planned and then it rained. Darn it!

Sam's at work and I don't have anything to do. She should be getting off in about 30 minutes, so that's exciting. I wish the sun would come out.

That is all.

YAY!

Sam re-did my page for me!

Here's a quick recap of my last few days, ranked from most to least dorky:

1. Started trying to teach myself how to do yo-yo tricks
1 (tie). Left a note asking for people to call/e-mail me if they find my frisbee
2. Bought a new disc (see figure one)
4. Dyed one of my other discs with a new, Dave Matthews Band inspired design (see figure two)
3. Played disc golf


I also threw one of my drivers into the woods and it vanished. I spent awhile looking for it, but I gave up. It was the one the Jason guy gave me when I met him the first time I tried to play. Kind of sad, especially cause I had put the new robot design on it :( Oh well. I left a note so maybe if someone finds it they'll let me know, but not likely. I did get a whole round in, which was nice. Going alone is starting to lose its charm though, and Mike and Dave don't have the patience to learn how to play. And I quote Michael: "I'm just gonna stop playing this game if I keep sucking." This was on the third hole of his second outing. Although I had the same thought after I tossed that frisbee from the edge of the woods deeper into the woods.

Isn't that ROC pretty, though? I didn't even want to play with it for fear of getting it all banged up. That'll go away the second I slam it into a tree trunk, though. Read: the next time I play.

It was a nice day. Had luper with Sam then played golf then watched Scrubs with Mike and Dave. I'm thinking something awesome should happen tomorrow. If I could think of something specific, I'd help it happen. But alas.

Test of Will

It is 10:42PM and in an hour I will start my shift at work. I get off at 7AM. I hope I don't cry at any point during the night.

I came home earlier without Samantha, which is always muy triste :( She had to stay and work the golf outing with Essenza, which seems to have gone pretty well according to what I heard. I came home to get the house straightened out for tomorrow, when Dad is bringing a real estate agent over to see how much Oxford House is worth. I tried to "pick things up" but we have so much junk that I just had to re-arrange it. There's a lot of stuff that just has no better place to be. Where do you put 100 old books when you don't have a bookcase? The floor, I guess. I cleaned up the old computer room, which I think looks waaayy better. I did the dishes, tried to put Sam's paint stuff out of the way in the bathroom. Hopefully she's not really interested in how clean the house is. Ugh. Cleaning isn't so bad with Tick around. Actually, it is kind of fun sometimes. But when she's not here to praise me like a puppy, it's just kind of depressing doing it by yourself.

I packed up a bag for tonight. They never told me I couldn't bring a backpack, so I've got one set up like I'm getting in the car to drive to Mount Pleasant: laptop, DVDs, Nintendo, a book. I'm not sure if any of that is going to be enough to keep me awake, but we'll see. If anyone finds me sleeping it results in immediate termination... so keep your fingers crossed. Although, technically I get a 1 hour unpaid break, but I guess I don't get that break if it's at night? Who knows, this job is the most confusing set of rules I've ever had to remember. There's supposed to be someone else there tonight. The only thing I know about them is their last name: Lowder. I hope s/he isn't a doofus, that would suck. I bet they're thinking the same thing. I'm not sure I would reassure them that I'm not a doofus. I feel like I have high doofus potential and at any moment it'll jump out and doofufy any situation.

Take One

Sam has been talking with the people from Take One Studios recently. They're a primo videography service in Cinci and they're looking for someone to start taking stills for them. Huge opportunity for her. She also managed to bring me up and get me invited to come to the wedding tomorrow. The only problem is that Patti, the lady who is running this wedding, e-mailed Sam back yesterday and told her that they won't have any equipment for me to use. So that was pretty sucky, but I decided to go to Williams Hall and try to steal a camera even though I'm not supposed to have access to equipment until I get my independent study approved.

I walked in and Glenn was there. I emailed him a few days ago about filling out a recommendation for me to get into the internship class, so as I was sneaking through his office to get into the checkout room, he thought I was there to get my form. So he filled that out for me and I asked if I'd be able to get some equipment and lo-and-behold the guy hooked me up with everything a boy could need. I forgot how awesome these cameras are. There's something about holding a state of the art piece of machinery and putting it to good use that I hope never gets old.

So, in the end, I ended up all geared for the wedding tomorrow. Hopefully Samantha can knock the socks off of these peeps and get herself a job there. That would be fantastic. Also, this could be really get my foot in the door for maybe helping them out over the summer and making some cold, hard clams. If nothing else it'll be fun to use the nice camera again. I've never worked with Sam before, so hopefully we won't spend the whole day ruining each other's shots.

Battery check

Lasterday I bought insurance for the scooter and today I went over to Autozone, who offers free battery charging. I have to go pick it up tomorrow.

Sam found interesting things on the internet. Out.

You got me on my knees

*trumpets sound*

Layla is alive! I just got her up and running a few minutes ago and everything seems fine...besides that weird noise coming from the fan shroud. But we're excited and ignoring it for now!

Samantha and I wanted to go to Hamilton and get the title and everything, but it's too late because they close at 4:30 and I have to take the scoot with me, which means cleaning out the Jeep, getting gas and driving to the title office. I'll have to go earl tomorrow and get my title switched over to my name, order some license plates and get my temporary motorcycle certification all squared away. Oh happy days!

ALSO. Tonight is $1 margaritas at 45 and Tyler is coming up for the occasion. We'll discuss how seeing Star Trek three times was not only unnecessary, but reckless and snooty.

Sam wants to nap out in the sun but, as the Disney commercial goes: "I'm too excited to sleep!"

50 cents a minute

So you may be wondering "What's new?"

That's a good question. School is over, which is weird. It's all nice outside, which is weird. I don't have anything to do, which is weird. But that last part I can fix. I got another job from Craigslist. A guy wants me to edit some home videos he's made down to their best parts and put it on a DVD. So that should be pretty interesting.

Last night Kamal, Kate, Samantha, Mike and I all ended up hanging out at our house and then going to Balcony for a show by the Sinsinnati Sinners, a two man band featuring a friend Matt. Matt used to drive a snow white Vespa, which was amazing, until he apparently traded it to a guy at Vertigo Tattoos for free tattoos for life. He's that kind of guy. So we went to see them, which was a total blast for me. I haven't had that much fun Uptown for a while. After the show came to an abrupt stop when the drummer fell off his stool and couldn't play anymore, we hung out with Matt for a few minutes and then headed home. We also worked out some details for a double date with Kamal and Kate.

Before that, Annie and Tony were in town camping in Hueston Woods. Sam and I visited them at their campsite and they came and had fun at our house when the world decided to rain all over the place. They actually went back to their tent about an hour before all hell broke loose and all the roads in and out of Hueston Woods flooded. We tried to go out there on Friday, but the road was covered with water and we couldn't get to them and Hueston Woods is so gigantic and confusing I couldn't find the road to get to the campsites from a different direction.

Oooh. Samantha, Mike and I also went to the park. Mike and I played half a game of croquet, because I'm missing 4 of the 9 wickets. Sam jogged while we were there. I had plans to lay out in the sun like Zeek, but the ground was soaking wet, so we just left instead.

Probably one of the least eloquent blog posts. Oh well. I'll review this list whenever I need to think of something to do.

As luck would have it

I finally got the title to my scooter a while ago, but I've been to busy to take care of any of that junk. So I decided to start it up last week and natta. The thing won't start.... ugh. So it looks like I'm back to scouring the internet and taking the thing apart over and over again until everything clicks and it's running. I need it running in the next week, so that when I get scheduled I can ride it to work because that would be awesome. If I can't get it fixed soon... I'm afraid I'm getting tired of looking at the poor pooped out thing... and a garage sale is all but eminent.

Something about little cubes

I found this while browsing Vimeo. The best animated short film I've ever seen.

La maison en petits cubes from javier cuello on Vimeo.

T Minus

2:14 until German exam

Is this going to last forever?

Just got home from my final day of class. It would be perfect if there weren't finals next week. But I'm willing to forget about them for at least a day, and just enjoy the molasses crawl of summer for a change.

I finished editing the show, and got it on DVD. I've watched it at least 4 times on DVD, not to mention the countless times on the computer. Mike, Kate and I decided to be real college students last night, so we agreed to meet up and head out to the free Girltalk concert in Millet. As Mike and I were sitting around and talking with Sam, who couldn't come because of stupid homework, Hans (the ShotBong guy) called and invited us to come experience his invention before the concert. Mike and I went over, because Tess lives right next to Hans and it was on our way to meet Kate. Good ol' Hans got Wildberry uptown to agree to stock the ShotBong, so I guess this is really working out for him.

We walked all the way to Millet, waited around for Girltalk, and once he started playing his music, we promptly left. I've never heard acoustics so bad. The old Macbook Sam bought like 6 years ago sounds better than that concert did. We walked all the way back in the pouring rain and hung out with Sam at home. It was way more fun than being at a concert. Kate also gave us free dance t-shirts. All in all it was a pretty interesting night.

As we left the house to go visit Hans and see if Tess wanted to hang out, Mike said "This is going to be the craziest thing we ever do in college."

He was right, just not in the way he meant.

Some Day

This the brand new editing suite we've been using for our show. Both of those monitors are about the size of my television. I'm sitting here trying to export the video so I can burn it to a DVD...but looks like it's going to take another 30 minutes. It seems like blogging has changed from something I do when I'm bored, to something I do while projects are exporting. Let me take you on a tour of this picture while we wait.

Just off the frame left is a nice little JVC minDV deck, which you use to import tapes into the computer. It has a monitor hooked up to it, so you can see the playback in higher quality. There's also a VCR, but I'm not quite sure why... maybe just for nostalgia's sake. NExt is the gigantic Mac sitting on the desk. I would tell you what model it is, but they refuse to sully their desing with any kind of identificating marks. Holy crap, I just pulled up the "About This Mac" menu and it appears that this is a Quad-Core Intel.... I didn't even know they made quad core. I'm not even sure what that means. Right in front of me are two Samsung displays that look as crisp as Santana Champagne.

We're at 28% now and the time has gone up to 38 minutes... bummer. I think I'm going to go home and nap while this finishes and come back and burn it some other time.

Biblical Terms

A translation of part of a dialogue for my final exam revealed the Old World nature of the German language.

Monuesday [Mawhn-oose-dai]

n. colloquial- a) meant to emphasize the overlap of Monday and Tuesday b) when Monday and Tuesday blur together due to extreme workloads

14 hours of editing done, the video isn't. It's 3:20AM, and I'm just beginning the rest of my work for Monuesday.

Living the Dream

So it's not really a secret to anyone that I've always loved to dress up. Super heroes, knights, policemen... anything with a definite uniform. Well, a little more secretly, I've always wanted to dress up in a giant animal suit. One summer I almost applied for a character job at King's Island, but thought about it too much, and decided it was a bad idea. Well, when I heard that we had access to a bear suit for my Com312 class, I jumped all over it. Tess and I wrote a character into our story who is a bear, or more specifically: an anonymous jerk dressed up like a bear. I'll admit that part, if not the only good reason I wrote this character was so I could get my hands on that bear suit.

I'm proud to report that I can now cross "wear a giant animal costume" off my bucket list.


It takes some people 70 years, others must face terminal illness, but me? I'm fulfilling one of my life's goals on the cusp of my 22nd birthday. It's good to know when hit your peak, instead of realizing it much, much later, and being all sad and lonely about it, you know, like in Wes Anderson movies.

Video madness

Yet another. This time, the killer promo for The Tie That Binds. AKA Impromptu project to avoid reading that dumb play.


A Bear, Booze and a Banana from Mark Roberts on Vimeo.

The cool thing is...

Introducing.... The ShotBong!


ShotBong promotional video from Mark Roberts on Vimeo.

Working from home

Finished

Here's a sneak peak still frame from the Caldwell/Turney wedding.

It was a lovely wedding. I hope the video does it enough justice.

"The cool thing is that the tube holds exactly 1.25 ounces, so you don't have to worry about over or under pouring."

The ever-lovely Samantha and I just got back from Decibel, the bar above 45 East, where we were shooting a product demo for the ShotBong. It's an aptly named product that lets you take shots like a beer bong. It actually separates out the liquor and the chaser, so they don't mix.

I'm not sure I get it either, but it was a job. There was a lot of drink talk, and I'm not a big drinker, but the people who came for the shoot seemed to enjoy it. Free drinks, who doesn't enjoy that? So that's two commissioned projects "in the can" as they say in the biz. Craigslist was the best thing that ever happened to my bank account. This is like being at a hands on technical school, but getting paid to do your homework. It's turning out to be a heck of a lot of fun, too.

Today I used the sexy little Panasonic DVCpro HD. Although we weren't filming in HD, this camera makes everything else I've used look like crudely drawn cartoons. I'm uploading the footage now. Should be pretty interesting. The inventor of the ShotBong even suggested we keep in touch for future projects.

Actually, Hans just dropped by the house and gave us a $50 gift card to the Cheesecake Factory and thanked us again for the help. This has to be the nicest guy I've met in a long time... who on Earth would go through the trouble of driving over here to give up a little something extra that we didn't even agree on? Jeez.

In other news, the wedding video is pretty much done. I'm just trying to work out some glitches, and there are quite a few. I hope to get some snippets loaded on Vimeo. I won't load the whole thing because it's 45 minutes long and I'm pretty sure my free Vimeo account wont let me upload a file that big.

It's only 9 oclock and now I'm all jazzed. I wish there was something awesome to do in Oxford that wouldn't require me to spend my newly found wealth.

When the Birds come to Roost

The Cardinal's Safe Haven from Mark Roberts on Vimeo.

This Cardinal set up shop on the deck. We discovered her when grillin some foods. Sorry for the poor quality, but I was shooting through windows and screens, trying to not frighten her off.

Ich habe meine Zukunft gekauft

Check this beauty out. I heard rumors about Final Cut Express being much cheaper at the bookstore than on Apple's website. For once rumors are great! Check out the price point of $69, that's $131 less than online. Still kind of expensive for my budget and the educational edition can't be upgraded when new versions come out, but it'll be worth it. Now I can work from home on all my projects, near light and food, rather than the dark, empty, sad looking editing studio in Williams Hall.

If only I had waited to upload that wedding footage. It's all saved on the computer at school. Class is starting so I gotta jet.

Happy Time Fun Hour

We started shooting "The Tie that Binds" today. For those of you out of the loop with my day to day academic career (don't worry, I'm pretty much in that category as well) "The Tie that Binds" is a soap opera I wrote with Tess Waldburger. It's a project for our studio production class, and our team of 7 is creating it from scratch. Kamal is even composing original music. It's kind of hard to explain... it's a show within a show. The soap opera follows the crew of a children's TV show named Happy Time Fun Hour, as they struggle to finish the pilot episode and their lives fall apart, all because of one mysterious force, the tie that binds them to each other. It's being heralded as "an emotional tour de force," and "the most suspenseful series since Dallas."

Today we shot a scene with Mike and Kate. Mike plays the silly dentist on the kid's show whose continuous struggle with drug addiction brings his producer and sister, Kate, to her last nerve. It went great.

I've never finished up an initial day of shooting and been excited. Everyone was really into it and we got more done than we expected. I have my fingers crossed that the next 7 days of shooting will turn out as well.

At the end of the day, I had everyone put their hand in for a classic "dugout" moment, like you see in emotional sports movies... didn't turn out quite how I expected.

It only took 4 months to upload this

Another video, this time Samantha taking pictures in Buckwheat Park. I've also joined Vimeo and will be uploading all of my future videos there as well. It's much more artsy than Youtube... better quality too.



An Afternoon with My Wife from Mark Roberts on Vimeo.

One day, two posts? Both technically the next day? THIS IS MADNESS!

Today, I went to a wedding that had less than 15 people in attendance. I wasn't even aware that was an option, I just assumed you had to invite everyone you knew. It was actually refreshingly simple. No music, no fan fare. Heck, the matron of honor, the mother of the groom and the flowers didn't show up until after everything was over.

The bride hired me to do some videography of the ceremony and the reception. Luckily there were a few photographers, because I was still messing around, trying to figure out what I was going to do when the bride rolled up in a car, hopped out and marched directly down the aisle. They started snapping pictures which served as my cue to turn my camera on. I was still waiting for music...or at least 1 person to sign as witness.

But it actually was really well done. The festivities were at the reception, instead of at the church. There were some great performers, a singer and keyboard player, a good DJ and a fantastic solo lyrical dance. I hope to god that footage turns out because she was great. Also because I got paid and if it doesn't turn out, we've got problems. To those of you who are planning weddings and want them video taped, remember: if there are no lights, there is no film.

I actually had fun. It took a few minutes to get used to the idea of being basically invisible while drawing an inordinate amount of attention to myself. There are two basic reactions to a video camera: a) attempt to play it cool, as if you are unaware of being taped, while smiling a little more than usual, ceasing conversation, and periodically glancing out of the corner of your eye to check if the camera is gone yet; or b) engaging with the camera as if it got you thumbing through your collection of unopened, mint condition Phantom Menace action figures (or some other guilty pleasure). I got more of the former, less of the latter. One lady, when her friend brought me to her attention, immediately stopped dancing and turned to look at me in a way not unlike the dramatic chipmunk.



Everyone seemed to have a good time, and no one got belligerently drunk. I think that should be the mark of a successful wedding: no one getting goners. Drunk, sure, but still sober enough to know the limits of the dollar dance. There are limits. I'm not making this stuff up. I figured they were just understood by all. I've been wrong before...

I'm kind of dreading and looking forward to editing at the same time. It should be interesting, if nothing else. If I had Final Cut at home, I wouldn't care, but having to spend 10 hours in the dark, windowless belly of William's Hall, trying to avoid Steve who specifically told me not to use university equipment to make money... it just wears on one's psyche.

I'll try and put up some snippets for your viewing pleasure in the coming days, or more likely weeks... maybe next month, but definitely by 2010.

Shazbot

After nearly a decade, my glasses have broken. They've been faithful, useful and relatively stylish this entire time, which is more than you can ask for from a pair of glasses. I took them off my face and the left ear stick (for lack of a better term) just dangled from my ear. I thought "Oh I'll have to get a new screw" but the problem is more complicated. See the little silvery piece jutting off to the left, near the lens? That is supposed to be inside the ear stick, but the two have come loose. I just stuck it back together and am wearing them anyways. I'll just have to let them be all flimsy and fall off my face until I can get some white tape. What kind of tape are you supposed to use to fix glasses, anyway? It always looked like that medical tape to me.

My wife is pretty, awesome

30 MPH here I come

Got this pretty little number in the mail today.


Very official looking, complete with stags holding a shield and shiny metallic watermarks. The next step is to get to Hamilton and pay some fees to get this transfered to my name, and then the scooter will be ready to hit Kroger every night for the next 6 months. That is, of course, if I can get her running again. I made the mistake of being lazy and not winterizing properly (read: at all). I had lost faith in getting a title completely and had decided to hawk it this spring. But my lovely wife is tricky, and knows how to put together a bitchin' Christmas present. Sooooo, if anyone wants to take a motorcycle safety class with me, let me know your availability. Don't worry, they provide the motorcycles.

In other news Sam's gallery show in Covington is practically here! I can't believe it. It just came out of no where and BOOM, big time placement in a prime location. I mean, they call this place "the art district" which sounds just snooty enough to be awesome. I'm not sure what to expect once we get there, but I'm sure it's going to be delicious... erm, I mean artistic.

In other other news (today has been a good day) my Craigslist posting just turned to pure gold. Last night I was hired to produce a baseball scouting video for a high school student. His mom has hired me to shoot, edit and publish his techniques and skills for a kind of sports portfolio. It's something athletes have done to show to prospective college coaches and professional talent scouts. Not only that, but she wants photographs done as well, how convenient, so Sam has a job, too. We're even going to carpool. I'm pretty excited about my first real (read: paid) gig in video production. The team is a "select" team, which is for especially talented athletes and word in the dugout is that all the players are going to need similar reels produced. Guess who just got their feet in the door? That's right, we did. God I love the internet. Baseball teams have , what?, at least 9 players? Plus, she's already courting Sam to shoot her other son's football games, and let me know that, over the next few years she is going to need 4 to 6 of these types of projects done for her various children and their various sports. I don't want to count my eggs before they hatch or anything but....

*drool*

Youd got to be kidding me

While surfing around on Craigslist under job listings I came across this gem. I'm not sure I want children to be anywhere near that school...

Craigslist

So I've been trolling Craigslist for job listings recently. I've been looking for jobs beyond working in food or retail (there aren't many) and also for photography jobs Sam might be able to do.

Then I decided that, after the positive response to the video of Jane and Mom's suggestion that people might pay for such a thing, I should post a listing offering video services.

I never expected anyone to reply, but lo and behold. A window installation company contacted me and wants to go over some details about a promotional video. They also want some still photography. How perfect?

I just worked up some numbers and shot off an e-mail to Mr. Mann (no joke). So, hopefully, by next week Sam and I will both be out working.

Annnnnnd by the time I typed this he has responded. Looks like it's a no-go. So, hopefully, by next week I will receive another inquiry.

My Eyeball itches and I'm grumpy

My eyeball decided to spite my face. I had this weird tenderness around my eye for a few days, which I naturally blamed on Sam beating me in the middle of the night.

Turns out something else happened. What exactly, we're not sure. I went to the health center and they hooked me up with antibiotics and antihystemine pills. I'm taking medicine 4 times a day. The doctor said that it "might start to get better in a week," which is not encouraging. My eyelid is about 10 times bigger than it's supposed to be, all red and itchy and irritating. I'm pretty sure the bulbulous growth has consumed my eyelashes. It's pretty bad, but it seems to be getting better. Sam says that when I have my glasses on, it's hard to notice. No one in my classes seems to notice until I mention it, so that could be a good sign. Or it could mean that people can't tell the real me from the Elephantitus me, which concerns me.... there's a difference, right? I mean, I don't look like this all the time, do I?

I've been coping in some new and exciting ways, namely lots of strawberry shortcake. Although I'll never abandon my true coping mechanism: being pissed at the world.


[note: I meant to include a picture of the Elephant man in a light hearted attempt to exaggerate my illness, but I didn't. Not because I couldn't find a picture, they are plentiful, but that shit's way grosser than I remembered.]

Yay!

Lindsey Saum got engaged! Apparently she wasn't expecting it, but we all know she probably was.

Yay for her and Alex! They're going to lead a fantastically hyppie-istic life full of Reggae and Techno... oh and liquor.

I hope they invite us to the wedding ;)

Oh, BTW

IT'S FRIGGIN MARCH!
RAWR!

Clams, Gs, Smackaroos, etc.

Today I turned in my entry for the Edward J Montaine writing award. It's a thing Miami does every year to recognize excellence in English. I hope they don't hold it against me that I'm not an English major. I was for about 3 weeks... does that count?

My professor from my last creative writing class brought the awards to my attention and said I should enter. So I did. I guess at some point in the future I'll find out how it went. If I don't ever find out, I guess that means I didn't win.

It is kind of odd though, how this whole thing works. There are different awards for Seniors and Juniors, which makes sense I guess. The weird part is that all entries from all categories are judged for the same three or four spots. So non-fiction essays are compared to journalism pieces are compared to poetry are compared to fiction. I guess it's easier to only hand out over-all first, second and third than it is to give multiple awards for each genre. It's a good thing, though, because spreading the awards around too much would water down the $3,000 first place finish for Juniors.

If you had the same reaction to that figure that I did, go wash your mouth out with soap. It's no joke, either. First place is $3,000, second place weighs in at over $1k and third is still a hefty $500. Not that the money is the most important part of applying to be recognized by Miami and its panel of outside judges as a great writer, but it sure does get the imagination going.

I think whoever wins could officially consider themselves as a paid writer, which is the Holy Grail for writers. It would probably be the first time that person would ever earn money writing. Maybe I'm not as romantic as my starving-artist brethren, but damn, that's a lot of money. Needless to say, I'm not too egotistical to sell out.

Semester before last I was in a creative non-fiction class with a girl who wrote some of the best things I've ever read. She wrote stories from her life like they were a novel. And not any novel, a good one. She wasn't flamboyant or verbose, which a lot of people seem to strive for these days. She was honest, almost painfully so, and her writing made me feel both inspired and hopeless. She won last year's Senior award of $5,000. She won with a journalism piece. I hope no one that good is submitting this year.

Twitterpated

It's almost spring and you know what that means.

Yeah, well Spring Break...right. But what else?

Mmhmm, warm weather.... and?

Baby animals? Okay thats a stretch. Try again.

Easter! Correct! But what about Easter?

The fabulous candy. Easter is the best time of for candy. Forget Halloween. Halloween is all about quantity. Children throw quality aside in a mad rush to accumulate enough candy to maintain a month long sugar buzz. Easter is a grown up's holiday, as far as candy is concerned. Need proof? Let me introduce you to some of my friends.
First up: Starburst Jellybeans. These are the best thing to happen to jellybeans since J.K. Rowling invented them. She did. She makes everything better, even the bad Harry Potter movies. The problem with normal jellybeans is that they don't taste all that great. Sure, its fun to mix buttered popcorn with lime juice and almost throw up, but beyond taste experiments, jellybeans never had much to offer. Until now.

Next: Cadbury Creme Eggs. Despite the fact that these have actually shrunk over the years, they're still delicious. There was one one Easter when my Dad bought like 8 eggs for me. I kept them in my room. I'm pretty sure there were at least 4 left months later. They're delicious, but I can't even ignore the fact that they're a little too much.


Lastly: Reese's Peanut Butter eggs. Nuff said. These are the best of all the shaped Reese's. Pumpkins? They're okay. Trees? Those are pretty good, too. But eggs are definitely the best.

Join me and together we could rule the Universe as father and son!

Flame retardant jacket - check
Respirator - check
Goggles - check
Hard hat - check
Face shield - check
Gloves - check
Enough math skills to properly measure and cut metal tubing - ...almost?

I'm all about dressing up, and sometimes my job at the Scene Shop provides the perfect excuse.

If those respirators came in black, they'd be perfect for a movie featuring soldiers in a post apocalyptic hellscape chasing down the only people known to survive the nuclear fallout without contracting an ultra-mutated form of cancer, whom they'd like to force into highly invasive medical testing in order to find the cure. Holy crap that's a great idea.... I gotta go.

Feeling Official

Today was the day that Dana Priest, reporter for the Washington Post, held a lecture on campus. She is the reporter who brought the conditions at Walter Reed Hospital to the light, among some other important news stories of recent years. For my studio production class we set out to do a mobile show, trucking 3 cameras and tri-pods, audio equipment, a full intercom system, two tape decks, a mobile switcher/graphics generator and a ton of cables.

I volunteered to direct the show and Mike signed up for Technical Director, so we had a lot to do during the show. Since the show was on location at Hall Auditorium we were extremely limited in what we could do. All of our cameras were set up in the balcony, which made for some awkward angles. Dana Priest also decided to talk for over an hour and a half, which, when you're shooting three stationary cameras (or sitting in the audience, for that matter) makes for a grueling experience. There's only so much you can do with tri-pods, so we had our cameras searching for interesting shots all night, mostly to no avail. We got some interesting stuff going about half an hour in, when Mike suggested adding some camera movement. We panned across the crowd and eventually ended up with one shot that was a pan, a tilt and a zoom all rolled into one (that is every possible thing you can do with a camera on a tri-pod without messing with the focus). Long story short: we were desperate for something interesting.

At one point Stephanie said," Is camera 2 on air?"
"Yes, you're still on," I said.
"Ok, I just wanted to show you something."
I laughed and had Mike put a different camera on. "Take camera 3. Okay camera 2, what was it?"
On the preview screen, camera 2 pulled off of Ms. Priest and passed over the heads in the darkened theater, then zoomed in on a guy in a brown shirt, completely conked out. His head had rolled over and come to rest on the shoulder of the guy sitting next to him.
We all started laughing and someone said, "That pretty much sums up the night."

I just checked my e-mail and Glenn has made an announcement:
"Hello Folks, Due to the unbelievably long program at Hall Auditorium on Monday night, I have decided to declare an official COM312 Skip Day. There will be no Com 312 class on Tuesday Feb. 10. Enjoy the day and don't say I never gave you anything. "

Another good thing about being married

I can put garlic powder on my pizza, without harming my chances of getting a date.

Das tut mir leid

For those of you who don't keep up with The Colbert Report (read: unAmericans) Stephen sometimes pulls out what he calls the "On Notice" board. Being put On Notice signifies the official rebuke of Stephen and the Colbert Nation. Pictured left is the dry-erase version available at Comedy Central's website.

As most of you know, I'm generally a carefree, fun-loving individual. With that said, I'm putting a few things On Notice:

1. The German language
2. Cold
3. My bank account
4. Whoever invented the German language
5. Germans (presumably invented German language)
6. Windchill
7. Miami University (I saw a girl writhing on the ground with a broken leg yesterday, from slipping on the snowy sidewalk)
8. John Mayer improvising live

EDIT:
9. Ohio is also On Notice until it decides to be warm

Superbored Sunday

Lazy Sunday, wake up in the late afternoon...

Right now I'm waiting for my video to export. There wasn't anything to do today, so when Samantha said she was headed out to work on some homework, I drove over to Williams and finished up my latest video project. That's right, I actually came to campus on a Sunday. I'm pretty certain I have sworn to never do this. Of well.

I was expecting to spend an hour here. Looks more like 2 and a half. Unfortunately technology is never quite as fast as it should be. But, on the bright side, there's a new video coming soon! It should only take about 72 hours to upload it to Youtube, so check back.

WOOT! I think it's done. Peace.

Snow Day / Snow Crab Legs

Yesterday was a snow day. Samantha and I had Snow Crab legs. Mike and Dave came over and we played Call of Duty IV and watched House of the Flying Daggers. Needless to say it was pretty sweet just hanging out all day, which is making today feel like another Monday, which is a bummer.

But it'll be like today is Monday, tomorrow is still Friday. So, technically, this is a one day week. SCORE!

Plugged in

Now that school's settled down or, more appropriately, I've settled down about school, I've had the opportunity to start getting into this whole "second semester" groove.

I managed to drop by the editing studio the other day and start putting together some footage I took of the darling wife when we went out snapping photos over Winter Break. Since I didn't have much to do and Samantha had to go back to campus and work on her printmaking projects, I just hopped over to Williams Hall. That's where they keep Final Cut Express on these little white boxes they call computers. It'll be a pain trying to get any personal projects done after about week 4, because everyone is going to be piled into the studio trying to get their video projects edited. So I started early.

Hopefully I'll be able to pirate some music and get it uploaded soon, which will seal the deal on another Mark Roberts Video Production.

In a related story: I'm taking suggestions in case anyone has a better name than Mark Roberts Video Production. Something like Blazin' Flapjacks Productions....except less dumb.

In 5...4...3...2...

Annnnnnnd we're back with another exciting episode of second semester.

Back in Oxford after the long, long, luxurious, lovely break and oh what a sight it is. Snow lightly dusting the streets, etc. etc. It's hard to get excited knowing school starts tomorrow. Oh and so does my job (same as before). It's going to be weird being here and going to school again. A guy can really get used to mooching off his parents and doing absolutely nothing.

Check that...I did manage to catch a lot of good fish in Animal Crossing. But other than that, nothing.