New, scratched, DVDs

I got 'Angel' DVDs for christmas. All 5 seasons. It's... going to be fun to review. I'll do it another time, today, I want to talk about DVD pressing.

DVD pressing is the industrial replication of DVDs. I honestly don't know how it's done, but I plan to look into it and edit it in if I find it. You'd think, me being in video and all (specifically post production), I'd know, but I send that type of work out in my freelance work, and we have no need for that at the agency. I do hypothesize, though, that it works something like how we make small quantities of copies in a replicator at the agency. Insert master, insert blank DVDs in the copy drives, hit copy and when it's done, take them out, and case them. Silk screening can be done with some of the more expensive replicators. Since pressing companies deal in hundreds of thousands, I expect they remove as much of the human element as they can. Apparently not enough.

One of my Angel disks kept skipping the first time I put it in, so I inspected the bottom and it was significantly scratched. I cleaned it with a mircofiber cloth and it more or less plays now, but that really pisses me off. I kick out maybe 50 DVDs a week at work and I've never seen a single scratched bottom, and absolutely never had one not play or skip. And this is with more of a human element, too. It goes from DVD drive, to printer to replicator to case rather than just 1 or 2 steps. It's absurd that I could open a shrink wrapped DVD box and pull out an already scratched DVD. It's like those jeans that are already worn and have holes in them. I can wear in my own jeans, and I can scratch my own DVDs.

This, of course, is not the first time this has happened. I once worked at blockbuster where we would check out movies not yet available for rent. On several of these I ran into skipping and scratch problems. And I'm positive they were right off the press, many times I signed for them myself and rented them before we (blockbuster employees) had a chance to screw them up.

This all may seem petty, but it's part of a growing trend of corporate irresponsibility and no pride in workmanship. Also, I fuckin hate it when things don't work the way they are supposed to.

The inability to just enjoy movies

It's been developing ever since I got into film. I can't imagine I'm the only one this happens to, but as a movie is playing, less and less am I just being entertained and more and more am I think things like 'I bet the did that shot with a 12 foot jib-boom and a locked fluid head tripod'

The fact that it is becoming more pronounced became evident because I'm starting to do it to animation, too. I pick up on the subtle differences in the types of animation in futurama, and I watch how disney uses layered backgrounds to get the chance to do the animation equivalent of a 'oner' (a long, moving take that stretches on past where you would normally cut).

The truth behind it is- I stopped seeing this:



And started seeing this:



It, of course, comes from knowing too much about what goes on to make the movie. It makes me wonder if people who specialize in special effects (such as the cutting edge CG ones that I am blissfully unaware of the specifics behind) have it even worse than me('do you see the blending around that cutout? LAAAME.')

It's not such a bad thing, I don't guess. Career wise, it helps me identify techniques I might want to employ on one of my own projects. However, when I just want to watch a movie for fun, something just for entertainment, it becomes rather bothersome. Also, when I point these things out it makes me sound extremely pretentious.

Between a rock and the giant pulsating cock that is Time Warner cable

First of all, I've always hated how the cable and telephone companies in each city have you by the balls. If you want TV, internet or telephone you have 2 options- go to the telephone company that services the area or go to the cable company that services the area. It might be different in larger cities, I don't know, but it's moot because here they can take everyone by the genitals and swing them around until their nads are stretched and useless.

So 5 months ago I call up Time Warner and tell them I need internet service and I'm tired of paying for a phone line to get DSL. The sales guy talks me into getting cable as well, telling me I can cancel it within a month and I still get a reduced price on the internet. Well, yeah, I fall for it and I end up leaving the cable even though I never watch it. I'm not mad about it. The sales guy was just doing his job, and hey, I'm the sucker who fell for it.

Then, after a number of broken promises to call me back and set up a time to install my cable, I finally schedule a time to set it up. So I leave work early one day and go wait for the cable guy. No cable guy. This happens 2 more times until he finally comes. I'm still not mad, I'm just happy to have internet.

I have some immediate problems with the internet, but it's my wireless router and I take care of it. Then I have more problems with the internet. It's time warner's fault but the won't do anything about it. I'm still not mad. The problems only knock me off the internet once every few days, and it's usually only for a few hours.

Anyway, I signed up on the website for direct deposit. I get one more paper bill, I pay it, and from there on out my online account tells me not that I don't have a balance- direct deposit has taken over. Well, I got a call this morning that went something like this.

TWC: Hi, this is time warner cable.
Dave: Hi. Thanks for calling me in the middle of work, I appreciate that.
TWC: No problem. So guess what.
Dave: What?
TWC: You owe us $360
Dave: .......what.
TWC: Yeah, turns out that for the last 3 months and this month your direct deposit didn't go through. So, if you could pay that today, that'd be great.
Dave: .......what.
TWC: Yup. If you can't pay today, that's cool. We'll just add some late charges, effectively doubling your bill.
Dave: .......what.
TWC: Cool, huh?
Dave: But... 3 months is $180ish and 4 is $240ish.
TWC: Oh, yeah, well we decided to add about $100 in returned check fees.
Dave: Did you?
TWC: Yep, you can pay me, or online as long as it's today.
Dave: ........


So I go online to pay this ridiculous thing and I CAN'T. MY ACCOUNT BALANCE IS STILL $0 ACCORDING TO THE WEBSITE. I'm going to call and clear this up at lunch. I pity the person who takes the call.

I have the money, it's not an issue of that. Doesn't stop me from wanting to choke someone though. Now, I'm mad.

A disturbing mental picture

I was wildly dancing around the apartment to the above song when a few things occurred to me.


1) For as much as I talk about being a big kid, I’m way too much of an adult.

Doing something stupid like that made me think of how rarely I do stupid things anymore. I’m growing up, but I can fight it.

I want to start doing things that made me dream of being an adult when I was 8. Like jumping on my bed and wandering around in seedy neighborhoods at night. And hell, I already eat enough candy to make anyone sick.

It seems like I’d lose a part of myself if I wised up too much and started being totally responsible.


2) This is my new favorite song.

The stupid contradictory video notwithstanding. But the early nineties punk sound (as in pre-whiney-emo-punk) that Bowling for Soup gets has me looking for more of their stuff. They remind me of a time when punk rock was actually still had something in common with rock and not emo-bullshit.

Also, the comedy of the song has real truth to it, depressing as that is. Well said, in addition being groin grabbingly accurate.

In some ways they remind me of Sum 41 and in others they remind me of early green day. And in still others they remind me of new green day. And fuck you, I like new green day.


3) Dancing naked is more dangerous than previously anticipated.

Things bounce around and, well, there is a slappage factor. All I could do was try not to jump so much and pray the cat didn’t do what she was clearly thinking about doing.

Maybe next time I’ll wear boxers

Invention

As necessity is the mother of invention, recent paternity tests show that individuality is the father. Also tested were genius, luck and booze (necessity, that slut).

I think the subject of efficiency using a hive mind society came up while watching Independence
Day (the aliens in the movie appear to have one consciousness, probably to keep them all as 'bad guys' and not complicate things). Anyway, I said a hive mind wouldn't be efficient because
individuality was necessary for invention. It just sort of slipped out, but I think that it is true.

Corporations hire outside the company to refresh the flow and avoid group think. They want new ideas, and to get new ideas you need new, individual people. New ideas aren't always good, we all remember new coke and Pepsi blue, but new ideas are the basis of progress.

Sure, the hive mind could be more efficient on something that doesn't take ingenuity or is mostly grunt work, like working in a grocery store or building a house. And even then, the group think spreads to the architects, all the houses end up looking the same, and bam- we have a worldwide suburb.

I don't think anyone would argue that individuality is valuable, but it isn't just valuable, it's necessary.

Joke Machine

I'd say on average I make about 30 jokes a day and at least 10 of them are funny enough for me to want to retell. This varies greatly, considering I can hit a hot streak and make a joke a minute for about an hour(usually these are funny, too, or I'd just stop talking) and some days I'll just be in a shitty mood or the only person I talk to is Pepper (who, by the way, thinks I'm hilarious). But regardless, I estimate it evens out to about 30 a day, and 1/3rd are real zingers.


So for about the last year I've sort-of been putting together a stand up act. I say sort-of because there are no places around here for me to try an open mic or anything, so there is no real point to me actively putting together an act. I also say sort-of because I don't like force comedy. It has to come to me on it's own. Once I get a good premise I can expand without a problem, but if I just try to write shit without waiting for inspiration what I get is decidedly mediocre. So rather then just sit my computer and wait to think of something funny, I created a file on my desktop and add to it whenever I remember one of those 10 jokes a day I'd like to retell.

So it turns out that a significant part of comedy is memory.

They actually pay me for this.

And a good bit, too. This project, if billed at my normal rate (what Mullen charges clients for my time) would be worth about 4K.

If I got to do stuff like this all the time I'd never leave work.

(I shot, co-directed and edited this. I also got to do the voiceover, even though I suggested we use someone else.)

Hello again

Since I graduated college I've been struggling, mostly in vain, to stay in shape. My job requires I sit in front of a computer for 8 hours a day, so it's been an ordeal. I started gaining weight quickly and found myself at 190 pounds about 2 months into my job. I had to stop wearing 32 waist pants because I no longer fit in them. I also checked BMI and I was classified as 'overweight'.

So I decided to lose some weight. This was all new territory to me, I had always been underweight except for a brief period when I was a freshman in college and discovered binge drinking, and when I cut back the weight just melted off. So first, I knew I had to cut way back on beer and switch to diet soda. I started running with Pepper, but it wasn't doing much. Pepper could only run for about 5 minutes at a time and then she would sleep for 6 hours. So I responded to a listing for a free exercise bike. I started using it 20 minutes a day and eating healthier and less.

About a week ago I tried my 32 waist pants and they fit without the danger of popping off the front button. They were a little tight, but whatever, that had been my main goal. I'm not going to go to any weightlifting competitions, but I also didn't want to get all new pants just because I had gained weight.

My other goal had been to get well back onto 'Healthy' range for BMI. Originally, I thought 175 would put me good and well back onto the Healthy side, but that is when I insisted that I was 5'11". Using my new, more accurate height of 5'10" I have to get down to about 170.

I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror this morning. I can see my abs again. They aren't as defined as they once were but they are there. I weighed myself again. 175, my original goal. 1 more pound to get to the healthy side of BMI and 4 after that to get to my new goal.

It's going to be a bit before I can drink beer again, but it's a start.

Big Brother again

Apparently being 'probably gay' didn't queer the deal (get it? get it?) because I got assigned a little brother today. His name is Joey and he is 8. I had asked for an older kid, but I don't suppose many older kids need a big brother. Anyway, the case manager said we have similar personalities. Then she went on to say that Joey is ADHD, and very smart but doesn't have many social skills. I wasn't sure how to take that. I told them I had ADD, but I like to think I can hide it pretty well post-high school.

Anyway, his Grandmother apparently bought him a bike and wants me to teach him and he doesn't play sports and wants to learn. He also really likes board games and chess (I don't fancy getting whooped by an 8 year old) so it doesn't look like we'll be missing anything things to do.

I'm supposed to meet him and his grandmother next week.

Video Game Writer

I've been exploring career options lately, as I've said, and one that came up in my head as an outside possibility was in the video game industry. Now, someone with my non-existent industry experience could really only start as a tester. That doesn't sound so bad, but where would I go from there? I never cared for computery stuff, I even shy away from the technical side of filmmaking. So I more or less ruled it out.

But then I was playing Resident Evil 4 and listening to the terrible dialogue (barely covered up by superb voice acting) and I though 'You know what video game production companies need? They need writers. Good ones, too. Not programmer/writers or modeler/writers but writer writers.

So I went online and I started looking for companies to pitch the idea of hiring a writer to. The biggest part for a writer is in RPGs, right? So I looked to the biggest producer of RPGs in the country (I'm not learning f'n japanese), BioWare, recently purchased by EA. Well, it turns out they already hire writers. Comes as quite a shock to me, the writing in their games sucks. But it's too bad, they want industry experience.

So I've looked up a few other companies (I actually noticed Rockstar was hiring a 'cinematographer' for the gameplay in ads and I applied), but so far nothing looks very promising. I should probably tell this story to Capcom and see if they hire me, but I don't think companies respond to 'The writing in your game was so bad it made me want to change careers'.

I'm going to keep this as an option on the backburner, but I still want to put in my time at mullen so I don't really see this as an immediate endeavor.

101 Dalmatians

Once again, I decided to watch a 90's movie. This time it was the live action version of 101 Dalmatians. What an awful film. But it did raise a few points.

-House doesn't make a very good bumbling henchman.
-I'm not sure how anyone could be attracted to jeff daniels.
-Those dogs have to be mutts, because dalmatians are too f'n stupid to be trained to do those things.
-I don't care how evil you are, you don't deserve to get as dirty as Glenn Close does.
-I'm not sure why they decided to make a live action version if they were going to make the live action version as cartoony as possible.
-Maybe I was wrong about movies when I was a kid being better than kid's movies now.

Truly enlightening.