Poker Night

Well out of the biggest tournament I have played in to date with some very very good players I placed 5th. Outside the money but very good and a confidence booster since I came to the final table second in chips!

I played a good game, tight at times and loose at times. I bluffed a couple of pots and took them down!

Overall I feel that when I am able to play in a bigger tournament I'll do well!

Time Warp

When I was a teen I would listen to all of the people who were older than me talk about how life has passed them by. How that they graduated high school and woke up the next day being 30. I never believed them but now I can see what they were talking about.

I understand now that the older you get that time actually speeds up!

I'm sure there is a scientific principle behind this phenomenon!

If I were a person who continually looked backwards and at the decisions I made and what I could have done differently or an action I could have taken or not taken....well if you did that and could harness this power of the aging time warp and find a way to go forward or backward. Well if you could bottle that power!!!!

You would probably sell that bottle of time travel goodness to people who have a lot of regrets. With the grass always being greener in the neighbor's yard you always seem to forget that there is a huge leaking septic tank just below the surface.

A long time ago I learned that I am who I am now because of the decisions made with the best information at the time. It isn't very often that you find someone who says, "I'm going to make the worst decision I could possibly make in every single situation that requires me to make a decision!"

The person you are now is the result of decisions of yourself and others. I have it pretty good, better than I probably should be doing in fact. Yeah I like to complain from time to time but overall I don't know what I could do to make things better or me to be happier...other than working more with my projects that is.

Time travel in a bottle isn't a reality yet so for the time being that decision is one I won't have to make! Thank Goodness!!!

Sometimes A Moment

Is a very powerful thing. It doesn't have to be a lot. Well I just had a two hour moment.

Anyone who knows me pretty well knows I am a boxing fan. In fact when I was younger I believe I could have been a boxer, maybe even a good boxer. Well with the geography of the situation there was just never that opportunity around here so I pursued other dreams.

Funny, this is sort of a two movie review that ties in to a moment. I'll start here, some movies are more than movies, they transcend film and become art and an experience.

Yesterday a friend and I went to see The Devil's Rejects. Hoping that this would take modern horror films and like a shot of adrenaline to the genre, Hollywood would start to make good horror films again. It wouldn't be too bad if this was actually a horror movie, it wasn't. It was more like a road/crime movie.

It had violence, yeah. It had blood, yeah. Horror movie, no. Wasn't even close.

Don't expect scares but you can expect William Forsythe to turn in a good performance and some unexpected laughs. You can also expect many many scenes that are too close and lots of slow motion...

An experience, a moment? Yes, the drive down and back was good and very productive. In fact we came up with a cool idea for a short film that I think would be fairly easy to do! It's innovative, timely, and funny! The meal afterwards wasn't too bad either.

Million Dollar Baby.

Well you will all know it is a boxing movie. Not a boxing movie like Rocky. Rocky was a underdog movie that happened to be about a boxer. A boxing movie is Requiem For A Heavyweight. A moment of art on film.

Million Dollar Baby is about heart and skill. It is about life and death and more importantly the quality of life you lead. Regrets and forgiveness, triumphs and tragedy.

To describe it beyond what I've written is to do it an injustice. To watch it is to experience it. Not like the dreck of War of the Worlds with its tacked on happy family friendly ending and momentum stopping Tim Robbins scenes. Not like the wave of Japanese Ghost Story remakes which has spread like a rash in the cinema. No not like that at all.

AARRRRGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

Well it turns out I deleted some important footage out of the middle of the final edit!

I was running short on hard drive space, so stupid me....I deleted some clips I didn't think I needed anymore so that I could digitize the clips I needed to finish the project right?

Well what happened is this, I started to do the digital cut (transfer it to tape)when all of a sudden a black screen came up and said "Media Offline" which meant that I was stupid and deleted some important scenes!

So I spent another three hours doing some very careful splicing and re-digitzing the scenes I needed from the master tapes. I have fixed about half of the scenes last night before I went to bed.

I am going to fix the rest after work today AND THEN call the productin studio and see if I can schedule a time to have the credits done and any other tweaks that they might be able to add to make it a better quality production.

Surprise Part 2

I am now in the process of transfering Locker to tape!

My plan is to still call the production studio tomorrow and schedule a time to bring the tape by and have credits done to it and if they have any kind of tweaks they could add that they feel would be helpful!

I should have had this done months ago!!!!

SURPRISE!!!

I have finished editing Locker!

That is right, I just took the bull by the horns here and decided to cut the rest of it together myself!

It sucked! I am starting to hate editing but I finished it!

Now all I have to do is take it to a local production studio and have the credits added and have it transfered to either tape or a dvd that I can have duplicated!

I appreciate everyone who responded to the recent email posting about asking for a editor! I really do! Thanks!

Yes I feel so relieved now! It clocks in around 55 minutes without the credits so that should bump it up to about 2 more minutes so I'm pushing the hour mark! I really wanted to hit the 70 minute mark however I just didn't have enough material or story to do it.

I am confidant that I will have the copies to my actors and producers ready within a month and will have some to sell soon!

What a great day it is to be alive!!!!

My Confession

My friends I come to you today to confess my sin...of enjoying a (GASP) reality series. I know I know, please don't tell me about it but hear me out first. Anyone who knows me knows that I hate reality shows.

I hate them with a passion unrivaled with any other kind of pop culture hatred I could muster...the kind that is normally reserved for Tim Burton kind.

However I also have a weakness my friends. I have a weakness that is my kryptonite and that is for has been stars. It has long been my theory that sometimes celebs tend to surround themselves with yes-men (or women), people who will tell them what they think they want to hear instead of being straight with them and giving them a much needed dose of reality...so to speak.

Well they get ungrounded and lose themselves in vanity, self absorbtion, and start to believe they actually are what everyone has marketed them as....which is usually a fantasy.

Well when someone is at the top of their game there is only one way to go and no matter how at the top you really are the public changes and their tastes change and you are no longer what you once were. You could be the highest paid star of all time but in a few short years it is likely that you will be a memory. There are very very few people who have staying power that lasts years let alone decades.

Well the Surreal Life meets the bill for people who were at the top at one time or another in one fashion or another and have been passed by and have fallen into the archives of pop culture to make room for the next big thing. These disposable pop icons have become footnotes or punchlines with delusions of jumpstarting a career or extending their fame for another 15 minutes.

They get paid. They get to be seen. They get to show off how pet coon crazy they really are to a huge audience!!!

I have a passion for stories of people with instant fame and fortune. Dave Chapelle for instance! All of a sudden his small little show blew up big time and made Comedy Central a lot of money! Well they rewarded Dave with a huge contract which overwhelmed him and everyone knows the rest of that story with how he bolted out of the country.

My reality series fascination (with only one show) is just that friends, a fascination. I won't start watching Survivor:Guatamala or anything like that. I have the fortitude to check myself to this one and only series of misfits who are real victims in a way.

They are the victims of other people's expectations. They are the victims of marketing machines and even though they probably went along with it willingly if not happily they got more than they bargained for.

Modern Advanced Radio

Well friends I have done something I really didn't think I had a need for.

I have done something I really didn't think I would use very much.

I have seen the future friends!
More precisely I have heard the future friends!

What is this miracle of modern science that has enthralled me like a moth to a flame, like a neanderthal to a club, or Michael Jackson to a child's birthday party at a Chuckie Cheese?

It is satellite radio! That's right!
Three geo-synchronous satellites are beaming delicious audio into my very place of work!

GONE are the static infested airwaves!
GONE are the commercial laden broadcasts which occasionally produce a song, like dreck dredged up to the bright sunshine only to be exposed as the dreck it is!
GONE are the playlists that feature so many predictable songs DAY IN AND DAY OUT!
GONE are the DJ's who rattle on and on but are censored by the terrestrially based FCC!

After a mere two days of satellite radio at work with everyone and their dog, cat, fish, in-laws, outlaws, and total strangers coming in to hear the crisp clear tones of musical purity! They have experienced and marveled at...YES...channel 23!!!

The Amazing Hair Nation channel!!!!

The glory that is 80's hair bands!!!!
Friends I can hear everything from Twisted Sister to TNT.
From Guns N Roses to Great White.
From Def Leppard to Dokken.
From Aerosmith to Zebra.

That's right, I have died and gone to metal maven heaven!

Now you may ask yourself, Why, yes WHY do you care so much about 80's metal bands?

Well my friends I'll tell you...
I have a THEORY!

My theory is very simple and yet complex.
On the surface it is simple, the music you grow up with is what imprints itself into your mind and that is the music that you associate to good times of youth, fun, revelry, and rebellion!

Now the complex part is this, for some of our seasoned citizens out there they probably get the same feelings from Frank Sinatra, Tommy Dorsey, and Glen Miller!

It just so happens that my day of discovery had bands around like The Scorpions, Metallica, Van Halen pre and post Sammy Hagar, the Mighty Motley Crue, and the brash, bold, and badass Guns-N-Roses!

A band that was capable of stellar heights and dismally low lows but what they put on vinyl was immortal! What they did with Appetite For Destruction and Lies scaled the highest mountains and used that as a launching pad and redefined the genre for years to come!

But I digress....Satellite Radio Rocks!

Poker Night With Friends

Well tonight was a poker night at a friend's house. It was great! It really showed me that my skills are improving.

I started with 40 bucks. Which was kind of a challenge to get. I went to a local grocery store and asked for 40 extra after making a purchase right? Well the cashier acted really put out and upset that I needed quarters and some ones instead of two 20's.

Ugh, what does it matter? It is the same amount, just count it differently please.

Anyway I arrive and so does everyone else and we start playing! there are six of us in a dime ante game where the basic bet is a quarter. I feel pretty good about it! After about two hours I'm up quite a bit and then one guy calls a game that builds the pot up to huge amounts. You have a high card and a low card and you bet to see if the next card delt is in the middle of the high and low card. The only way the game ends is if one person clears the pot.

It was towards the end of the deck and I am dealt a Q3, there is a lot of money in the pot. I'm talking over 50 dollars, I bet 15. The card is a Q which doubles the amount you have to pay....yeah, my nice stack takes a huge 30 dollar hit. Well by the time this game ends I'm down to about 5 dollars.

Here is the good thing though. By the time the game broke up around midnight I was at exactly $40.05!!!! I worked my stack back up again to even. Although I was ultimately down from the stack I had I was still very happy I didn't lose money after a big hit on my stack and was able to build it back up!!!

Yeah...it was a good night!

July 5th's Pictures Very Moving!

The spirit of the 4th of July was on display today in the local paper. After seeing the pictures it really hit me about all that is important in a modern 4th celebration and why.

Not the original 4th when our founders decided to take on many many hardships to overcome the British Empire to gain our freedom but what they foresaw the 4th could eventually be. The freedom to celebrate with family and friends. No, the only outdoor grilling then was probably rabbit on a spit over a open fire. There was no such thing as a fishing derby or a harmless fireworks display. The 4th had an entirely different meaning then and I'm proud that we continue to be the leader of the free world and a beacon of hope to others.

What my friend captured in those pictures is nothing short of beauty and majesty:
1. A child with a flag painted on his forehead.
2. Two fish on a bridge that crosses the park lake...er...pond.
3. A child with a sparkler.
4. A massive aerial fireworks display with the bridge in the lower third of the picture and reflections on the water.
5. A nine year old in a seed spitting contest.

What was captured in these pictures....well it is immortal. It is the spirit of the 4th made manifest and tangible. Anyone who knows me knows that I get choked up kind of easily when I get emotional and I had to really compose myself this morning when I saw these pictures.

Now what I can also tell you is what my friend will probably tell me after she reads this, "Why do you always like my worst shots?" She will then probably tell me about the technical aspects of them and how she could have made them much better after seeing them in the paper.

Well I can't argue that since still photography is something that is still kind of alien to me. I have no training in that and she is probably right in everything she will tell me about them...in a technical aspect.

I'll probably respond by saying, "No one since Norman Rockwell has captured that kind of feeling in me in still life, and I am grateful anyway. Thank you."

So The Choice Remains...

I am still pricing XL1s cameras via Ebay...however while I have been doing this I have also been saving money and now have nearly enough for a XL2.

So what do I do about that? I am more excited about a XL2 and the best set up would be to have two XL2s as I have said earlier. Since there is no project looming in the near term I believe I am going to save for the XL2s....unless I can get so much value by getting another XL1s at such a good price I couldn't pass it up.

My secret project is well underway and progressing and I will soon hold some meetings with the trusted circle that knows the details to flesh out the storyline and related arcs.

Since my first choice to edit Locker hasn't responded to me I have choice B on deck and will be contacting them tonight or tomorrow.