Because there tend to be lots of layoffs. Like me. Today. Well, maybe this is my chance to once again try and use my new found contacts to get film work and such.
*sings*
Always look on the bright side of life
*whistles*
Everyone who likes to use the internet and access all websites equally should at least give a glance to www.savetheinternet.com. There is a lot of information and some handy links and such to allow you to easily send your representatives a message stating that the Internet should star neutral, free and unmanipulated by corporations who would love to have control over what websites get precedence.
I’ve uploaded some of the segments that we’ve produced for the Austin Movie show. More to come! Sadly, I can’t seem to get any better quality from my uploads, but they should suffice for now.
If you’ve been wanting to turn your home PC into a recording studio, but don’t have hundreds or thousands of dollars to spend on expensive program,s I highly suggest checking out Reaper. This program is currently in development and completely free. Its capabilities are absolutely amazing and can very much give extremely expensive commercial programs a run for their money. In fact in some ways, and depending on your personal needs, it may be better than some of the big fish. Don’t be fooled by its plain appearance. It may look a bit primitive, but really that’s a good thing. You’re not wasting precious CPU cycles on shiny pretty graphics and bells and whistles. Instead all your computer power can go into important things like processing audio. While the UI may not be the sleekest looking thing, it’s certainly functional and easily does everything you need to do.
Though it is technically “in development”, there are extremely frequent updates, and it is a solid program, not some buggy beta. With this one free program, you can have more recording power in your PC than The Beatles had during their entire career. Talent, however, is not included.
I was trying the ever futile task of growing my hair out long, which I’ve never been able to successfully do as it starts bothering me and I always end up cutting it off. I was trying to weather the storm, but then it was suggested that I might get a bald wig to be Lex Luthor in a segment for Austin Movie Show. That was all the inspiration I needed. I figured I would buzz my head with clippers, then next month when it is time for the shoot, I’ll go full on cueball for a night. I figured I’d think about it a little more though.
Today was the day when I’d finally had enough of my hair. I got out the clippers, and had Larry start buzzing me. Then I figured, since it was only the second time I’d ever buzzed my head, and something I wouldn’t likely do many more times, if at all, I might as well buzz it into a mohawk just for fun to see what it looked like. I had planned on just taking pictures, then buzzing the rest of my head too, but Larry and Jess convinced me to at least keep the mohawk for a day or so.
So there ya go.
Today at work someone asked what came after a trillion. I realized that I didn’t know, so I found this mind bending web page.
Then Neal asked “how far do numbers go before we get to start just making up names?” Well since it’s all just based on numeric prefixes, I suppose we’ve got names covered infinitely, but I did express my surprise that corporate sponsorship hadn’t tried to get in on this. Just be thankful we don’t have to deal with a “Pepsilion”, or maybe a “Verizonillion.” They could also take the route of naming numbers in honor of celebrities, scientists, politicians, and such. You could end up with a “Cruiseillion” or worse yet, a “Bushillion”.
I’ll stick with the good old traditionals, as I can remember first being told about a “googol plex” by my childhood friend, Chris. Thats 10 to the power of a googol (a googol being 10 to the 100th power). We carried that little factoid around proudly and would whip it out as out brainiac weapon whenever we needed it.
“Well you’re dumb times a million!”
“You’re dumb times a googol plex!”
No using infinity, because that’s just cheap and cheating. If only we’d known that 10 to the 201st power is a sexsexagintillion, we would have had a very childish laugh. In fact I just did.
I am Assistant Directing a new short film. This is a project produced by some of my Austin Movie Show compadres, and I’m taking some vacation days to help make it happen. We are shooting for about 6 days spread over three weeks, and our first two days were Tuesday and Wednesday. I loved it. Every experience I have like this just affirms how much I love this field of work. Even when I was doing Production Assistant work (which people say is the lowliest, “pay your dues” kind of work on a set), I loved every minute of it. I always thought that my next professional step behind the camera would as an Assistant Director, and this is my first chance to add that credit to my resume (though I have directed my own short films, of course).
Many people wonder why I would possibly want to be an A.D. when they are usually one of the most hated people on the set apparently because they are the ones who have to crack the whip and keep things moving and on schedule, so consequently they have to kind of push everyone. Many people firmly believe you can’t be a good A.D. without being an asshole. I am determined to prove this wrong. I always thought I would be good at it because I think I’m good at motivating people and getting things done, but keeping things fun and still being friendly and diplomatic. Sure, I have the ability to be a more of a slave driver if that’s necessary, but I believe that overall I can get things done and still leave the crew liking me when it’s all over. I felt very at home during our first two shoot days. In addition to the AMS people I’ve already raved about, I’ve met even more incredibly fun, cool, and talented people on this film. Austin is jam packed with them!
Now if I could only find a way to do this all the time and get paid for it.
I think Mitch’s Spirit once again paid me a visit this morning. This is what he said:
My friend gave me some toast. I said “Hey, is this ‘I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter’ on this toast? He said “No.” I said “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it’s not ‘I can’t believe it’s not butter.'”
I’ve had several conversations recently about the subject of attraction, so I decided to collect many of the interesting points here (some direct quotes from emails, blog discussions and such). I’ve always been very happy that Jess and I are completely on the same page regarding attraction. Most people have completely unreasonable expectations of relationships and think that when someone falls in love with you, this turns off some magical brain switch and they are never supposed to find anyone else attractive again. I think Soupytwist wrote a great article about it here. Relationships are a choice. They don’t mean you stop being human, and stop finding people attractive, they just mean that you commit to that one person and choose to be with only them (of course there are some who believe in “open marriages”, polygamy, etc., but that is outside the scope of this particular discussion).