Posts Tagged ‘Blog’
Photoshop
Saturday, February 27th, 2010
Photoshop is an interesting program. Just for fun I’ve been playing around with it. Skipping over the graphic design and animation classes in school means I’m behind most people in skill.
Limited hours spent staring at the pixels and my eyes are already going cross. It is becoming clear why all computer geeks sport glasses. Or maybe it’s that they previously had glasses and that is drawing them into computer based majors. Chicken or the egg?
Their bespectacled selves may be way more proficient in making Photoshop do what Photoshop was designed to do. But when I get distracted or screw up an image I make a really good zombie-devil scene with some asteroid action. Michael Bay inspires me.
*A sample of the awesomeness that is failed Photoshop drawings will be provided as soon as the world is ready to see them.
Tags: Blog, Bored
Posted in Blog | No Comments »
Dog v Cat
Saturday, December 19th, 2009
It’s true: it’s not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog. Meaning this 50-pound mutt is useless against the kitten. Maybe that’s better for coexistence since Saba can fit Blondie’s entire head in her mouth.
Saba will start on her dog bed, the cat will then do pretty much whatever she wants. Took a while but Blondie finally stopped trying to nurse the dog, and Saba learned that purring is not growling.
The dog gets fed up first surrendering the comfort. Wimp.
The only time this doesn’t happen is when there’s a sliver of morning sunlight to share. White flags are raised and mortal enemies are friends.
They also are adorable to watch “wrestle” each other. So far there has only been one bloody lip, and that was when the cat clamped down on the dog. (camera-phone)
These pictures were asked for a while ago, apologies for the delay.
Tags: Blog, Blondie, cat, Dog, Pictures, Saba
Posted in Blog | 1 Comment »
Sharing About TShirts
Friday, November 13th, 2009
We’ve all secretly designed shirts.. on napkins, in CAD, for the company softball team, for that high school club you refuse to admit to have been a part of.
Working on a film in Chicago we had a crew that for some reason or another spewed out ideas for t-shirts at an alarming rate. Most weren’t good, but any idea is seen as great during hour 16 of a work day. That’s the beauty of it.
The best shirt idea stemmed from the dealings with a producer who refused to call and Production Assistant (read: pee-on) by name. Instead he used PA as a derogatory term for whoever happened to be standing closest. So all Pas, myself included, were going to wear in:
Note that the name on the back was not allowed to be our own. That way, if this producer decided to try and use our names he’d be outing himself as having no clue who we were to the rest of the crew. They wouldn’t have fired all of us at the same time… we hoped.
Another shirt actually got made from an offhanded comment I made to a gaffer working for ESPN with me one day. We were talking about students who were “too emo to be emo” and their t-shirts. Turns out he owned a silkscreen company to occupy his spare time, and a week later some of these showed up in the mail (It’s wrinkly, that’s what happens when you pull a shirt out of a gym bag for a picture)
Another shirt I would totally wear if someone would produce it (after making it look good of course)…
After shopping around for a new road bike I realize the phrase may be a little off base. Maybe something like “Cheaper then a lifetime of therapy” would be a more accurate price point.
And although this isn’t a shirt, I’d sport this bumper sticker on my car somewhere.
It’s supposed to be a bit of a slap in the face. People often act stupid towards one another without thinking. Though I think Yield to Life goes for a bit of a different public image then the sticker represents. Still. I’m excited to see how the organization moves forward and in the mean time I’m going to think about what I’d do if I were them.
Last time I got bored on hiatus the web site was made (see the footer of the site for proof). This time, I’m playing with PhotoShop.
Tags: Blog, Bored, creative, cycling
Posted in Blog | 1 Comment »
Thought I was Watching Glee
Wednesday, November 11th, 2009
Sat down to and turned on Glee and found myself watching Ugly Betty: The High School Years
Similarities anyone?
- High key lighting
- Bright colors everywhere
- Sparse sets with a bit of an industrial feel
- Similar camera style with awkward headshots looking dead into the camera
- Soundtracks are both unnatural, obtrusive and poignant (I think. Haven’t seen Ugly Betty for a few years)
- Lead male character in charge, good looking, but “shockingly” insecure and geeky.
- America Ferrera look-alike.
- Over the top female Cruella De Vil evil character
- Overly melodramatic (can that even be a phrase?) soap opera story lines
All that said Ugly Betty is a great show. Glee adds a musical element to the style adding to what has come before it. Unless you hate musicals, then you should probably stick to Ugly Betty. The rest are invited to Wednesday night sing alongs.
Tags: Blog, Review, TV
Posted in Blog | 1 Comment »
I Want To Go To There
Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009
Google has mapped a village known as Argleton, located in England. Place looks interesting, not somewhere I would have ever thought about visiting but wouldn’t be bad if I stumbled upon it. My interest grew exponentially when I found out that the place doesn’t actually exist. It is listed on Google Maps with no explanation for it being there.
Google’s response is pretty lackluster, “Google Maps data comes from third party data sources. While the vast majority of this information is correct, there are occasional errors.” It’s fine, don’t blame Google, whatever. Do however explain how a village gets made up, placed somewhere, has pictures, and gets placed in online directories.
A Google search brings up a whole bunch of conspiracy theories, complaints, news stories, economic afflictions, and other (sometimes) entertaining reactions. I started to sift through it all to give a summary, but got blown away. Search at your own risk.
Argleton will soon be the road trip destination of high schoolers looking for a specific group of fields.
Tags: Blog, News, Weird
Posted in Blog | No Comments »
Halloween
Saturday, October 31st, 2009
This year I made up for three years of not participating, by celebrating Halloween three times before Oct 31st rolled around. Work was having the Second Annual Michael Scott Dunder Mifflin Scranton Office Memorial Cast and Crew Fun Halloween Contest for the Duldrums Cure and I was told I had to dress up.
Fight Club. No, not Tyler Durden. Fight Club. The people in the movie that participated in the underground fight club and then had to show up to work in their normal clothes with the crap beaten out of them.
We showed up dressed as usual. Lori was awesome enough to come in just to do our makeup. Then whenever anyone asked what we were we said that we can’t talk about it or that the first rule is that we couldn’t talk about it.
We had three brilliant judges: Vartan (crafty), Brian, and BJ. They gave us a much undeserved third place in the costume contest! We were pretty baffled, but took our candy and prize just the same. Really we should have won the Jim Halpert Award: something witty, but only requiring minimal effort.
Quite a few people thought I crashed out on my bike over the weekend, and one of our security guards offered to beat up whoever did this to me before he figured out it was makeup.
The only thing that could have made it better was if Lori was working that day, because who doesn’t love a pregnant lady in their fight club?
Classy: Drinking Vintage Don Perignon at wrap. Some of the best Champaign I’ve ever had, with my face as is. Looked like I was celebrating an abusive husband divorce settlement.
Tags: Blog, Halloween, Holiday, Los Angeles, Work
Posted in Blog | No Comments »
Road to Seven (boo Steelers)
Wednesday, October 7th, 2009
Having never really grasped the game, Fantasy Football seemed like a lot of work. There are plenty of obsessed people out there who spend hours every week prepping their roster. Hours that I don’t have to spare in my week. The idea always intrigued me but I felt way too far behind to catch up. There is a small chance that I can get hyper-competitive and didn’t want my fall/winter spent losing to people who understand what is going on.
This year I joined a league at work (Road to Seven)where no one really has any idea what is going on. Went out and grabbed a magazine telling me what I needed to know and realized that I hadn’t watched the NFL in five years. (College ball is just more fun when you go to a school with a good team and parties book-ending every game win or lose.) Kept telling myself that I was fine losing as long as I understood the game and why I was losing, err wasn’t winning. That mantra didn’t last come Monday night week one.
My season started off shaky. Got LT’s first fumble, lost my first game, and there was nothing I could do to change the points I receive on game day… why would anyone enjoy this? Immediately wanted to swap my whole roster and was convinced by a guy at work that Fantasy Football “is a marathon not a sprint.” Still don’t understand why I can’t sprint the whole marathon. Start strong, end strong, stay strong in the middle. Then again, I’ve never ran a marathon, so maybe there’s a problem with that strategy that I’m missing.
Week four. My record: 3-1. This game is awesome! Unless there are injuries there really isn’t too much work to be put into the team after a good roster is set. I get bragging rights and trash talk for exerting zero energy. No wonder so many Americans love this game. It is so much easier then taking on a bruised and battered game of Ultimate every Sunday, and has the same opportunity for dancing around with a win.
Back when we needed one more person I convinced my grandpa to join our league. And now I will slaughter him. We face off this coming weekend, but I’d like to point out the league’s rankings:
Yea, I’m the condescending Clowns. Because not much is scarier then a clown and nothing is scarier then a flying clown.
Tags: Blog, Competitive, FantasyFootball, Sports
Posted in Blog | 1 Comment »
Times When Sarcasm Has Proven to be Less then Appreciated (Part III)
Sunday, August 9th, 2009
PART THREE: AIRPORT SECURITY CHECKS
Airport security guards take their job seriously. I am not saying their jobs aren’t serious, I’m just pointing out that they do take their jobs very seriously. And they have guns instead of tasers. This never has stopped me from being me.
Long before 2001 my stuff and I have been searched regularly by airport security. Taking golf clubs to Arizona? Terrorist sticks. Only taking a backpack, and you’re taking it as a carryon? Terrori… Security does put forth a valiant effort of checking bags, but seem to be dumbfounded by the straps on backpacking packs. They gave up. One-way ticket to Russia? Terrorist to another country, still going to dig through everything you’ve got, we’ll try not to break your framing.
Being checked so regularly means that I am quite comfortable with airport security, and forget that they can take me into far away rooms to do whatever they’d do to me. My plans to sleep through an early flight out of NYC meant I was pre-coffee on no sleep with the sun rising. My bags were opened and checked at security, fine. Turning on every one of my electronic devices that I was carrying on board, whatever. Refusing to take a photo with me when you checked that my camera was indeed a camera, lame.
When I asked for the photo I should have assumed they’d check me further. I know the whole spiel, and practiced while waiting for a female guard to come touch my back and stomach (riskay!). I’d put most of my other stuff back on, which I’m pretty sure is against regulation. My belt set off her wand, and instead of revealing the buckle under my oversized hoodie I mentioned in my sleep deprived state that I’d forgotten my doctor’s certificate for my iron lung. Now I truly forgot I had a belt on, and she seemed to be as zoned as I was. I was trying to brighten her morning with something amusing while I remembered that I had a belt on. I did go on to remember I had my belt back on, but during that time she became highly alerted and jumped into a string of thoughts on what steps needed to be taken about my iron lung. Talking to some guys, needing clearance, and some other stuff that I stopped listening to because I was more worried about the snickering guy behind me blowing my cover meaning I would actually have some serious issues to deal with.
It was supposed to make her laugh after starting work at the crack of dawn; instead it freaked everyone out. I “remembered” my belt and assured her that if the iron lung didn’t set off the metal detector that I would be fine for the flight. I didn’t really realize what I potentially had done until a couple people came up to me laughing about it at the gate. I made my flight and was asleep before takeoff.
Tags: Blog, Bored, NYC, Travel
Posted in Blog | 2 Comments »
Times When Sarcasm Has Proven to be Less then Appreciated (Part I)
Tuesday, July 14th, 2009
PART ONE: LOT GUARDS
Studio lot guards are encountered every day, so be nice because they can waste a lot of your time if they want to. Generally I have had good experiences with security at work, but there is one lot in particular that has it out for me. Not just one guard at this lot, all guards at this lot. A memo must have gone out.
Recently I was stopped by two security women when their system was down and I wasn’t listed as cleared to enter. I had seen both of these women the day before at this exact spot. In fact I saw them a few days before that too, and another few days before that… people say patience is a virtue. I waited nicely while their computers mustered enough strength to reboot, then reboot again, and finally while they checked that all the cabling was plugged in. No good. I could easily outrun both of them but feared a taser. My destination was nearly in eye shot of them and after being denied an escort I started bartering. I offered my phone if they promised not to call anyone internationally; no go. Offered a shoe as collateral; no go. This went on for quite a while with multiple failed attempts at getting to the payroll person. Eventually I was getting bored and realized that while I was making one woman laugh hysterically, every time she laughed it pissed off the other one that much more. I switched to Twittering for the rest of my wait which probably didn’t help their heightened sense of security either.
Tags: Blog, California, Hollywood, Not My Fault, Ouch, Work
Posted in Blog | No Comments »