SNL Actually Having Something Funny On It???

Yeah, who woulda thought. I happened to be eating when it was on so I watched some of it. The General Petraeus skit was pretty damn funny



But not as funny as. "Death By Chocolate." Now I normally hate Ashton Kutcher and find him utterly annoying, however this was awesome.



I didn't get to see the 1st one, but did see the 3rd one, I hope it gets posted somewhere cause that was even funnier. Basically the chocolate bar sees a guy digging through trash in an alley and kind of quietly walks up to him and is right behind him watching what he's doing. Then out of nowhere he pulls a kitchen knife and ganks the guy and then tosses the knife and starts running and flailing away. So, funny and dark.

Kool Aid, Totalitarian Societies, and Ambulances

I just stumbled upon this guy by the name of Yahtzee who reviews games apparently. Bloody awesome. Here's this ridiculous funny review of Sim City Societies. Favorite moments, the mention of Nazi germany and how totalitarian societies make my balls feel big and the ritualistic suicide qualified with the Kool Aid man jumping out from seemingly nowhere. Yes, yes, yes, do watch it.



and on a second note, best ambulance ever.

New Additions, Thesis, & What's Cooking?

So, firstly I would like to show you all some additions to the hallway. It makes it a bit dark but still I like, ominous though. Thoughts suggestions?



I had a bit of time before school started up again to cook cook cook. Decided to cook up a nice London Broil roast. I haven't cooked this in probably like 7-8 years now, it's been a long time. It came out well though so worth the effort. Also, the meat dry aged for 20 days, gosh dang it was good meat, I wish I had pictures of it when it was raw. Anyhow I got some pics of it just about done.





The beginning of the end has begun. In fact its now two weeks in and for some classes three weeks in. I'm only taking three classes this semester. One on java and basically working with massive amounts of textual information. It's supposed to be a hard first 4 weeks and then downhill from there. I was on the verge of head splode. Yeah, regular expressions in java, TreeMaps, HashMaps, and Big O! (I miss watching that show on Cartoon Network, I miss cable, CalArts dorms the good ole' days) But ya, head splode it was like the TreeMap biz today with mentions of the HashTable, gosh, talking about stuff like the amount of cycles it will take to index into a concordance N amount of numbers ends up being things like, N to the 12th power, but then we can get it down to N log base 2 N. It's like gagh!!! Next week it's bayesian filters and the hash. Gonna need some hash to get through that class.

Second class is Sousveillance Culture, which is pretty cool, seminar on inverse surveillance. Pointing the camera back at the Man wherever he may be. Have a good teacher, so it should be a good class as well as a nice compliment to my last class the biggie.

THESIS! Yes, it is here, the thesis seminar. Well looks like from the schedule we're presenting every single week 10-15 minutes or more, with weekly crits. This week we had to present some contextual references and contextual projects, present on parts of our personal statement, our background for coming to this project, and our methodology. Pulled out of course some Michael Foucault about the panopticon and then went all og like that and went to the source. Mista Jeremy Bentham himself, the father of the panopticon, 1780's baby. Oh yeah, if that don't get you excited hell I dunno what would. Anyhow, it actually is quite interesting and I have come to realize on re-reading some of the Foucault that Tekserve's database system and its way it operates is a panopticon. The database is always observable from any point and all work is tied into it along with all marks on productivity. Anyone can see what anyone is looking at, at any given time, or working on for that matter, before or after any sort of transaction. Complete control. Anyhow, that aside the presentation went well, I felt I covered all the points that needed to be covered. I presented for the project references Finishing School's "Today It's Voluntary" and Meagan Collins, myself, and Roman Jaster's street sign project back from 2005. Made me start to miss CalArts thought thinking about the street sign project and the people's.

Back to the Tekserve, had a bit of an issue a bit ago had to take somethings up with the HR. However, I may have a chance at a paid internship with Turnstone Consulting LLC. It's the company of one of my professor's. So, if so more than likely I will be taking "this time to tend to my resignation." I'm pretty excited about this prospect. We'll see.

Other than that, it's been mostly school. I didn't even get to watch the super bowl. But I did find the most awesome commercials aired during it. Audi's. The first is the Godfather one, I love the detail with the oil stains all over the sheets, as if it were blood. Take a look here.



However, the best one though is this one. "Truth in the Blacklist." Showing off one of the evilest cars ever made, the Audi quattro S1, the Group B version. Group B rallying that is, aka unlimited technologies, only need for 5000 car production numbers, unlimited boost = unlimited power, basically the monsters. So the quattro, pretty wicked, 600-1000 brake horsepower, 4WD, 2.1L 5 cylinder turbocharged engine, 0-60 in just over 2 seconds. So, fast it was claimed to drive faster than a driver can think. So, yes the best commercial goes to the Group B Audi spot. Enjoy.



Oh, and I almost completely forgot, news. "Death, Destruction, and the Weather Coming Up Next" is coming to NYC in April. It's going to be screened at the Anthology Film Archive. It's going to be part of the New Filmmakers series, I'm going to show with a group of friends from CalArts both the experimental animation program and film/video program. It should be awesome. Lots of CalArts nostalgia going on lately. Anyways that's it for now, back to it.

Long Post Running

Soo, its been a long time, yeah very long time. What can I saw November was insanely hectic as was the beginning of December. School was clamping down, the projects were piling up, the papers where down to the wire. So, I guess the big thing for this semester was the winter show for the NNW, it went very well but I'll post more about that later once the video is edited and I've sorted through all the photo documentation, I've been lagging, aka been on vacation finally!

Well vacation is almost over now and I have spent about 2 and a half or almost 3 weeks sick, it sucked. Being home was a lot of fun, and I needed it. Got to hang with all my friends and stuff and wander around the neighborhood. Saw the Murakami show, I have experienced the "superflat" that is Murakami and his Corporation of art. Ran into this while at the mall while shopping in the heat of the Christmas 11th hour madness that seemed oddly non-existent.



This is from the newly remodeled formerly Max Foods now an Albertson's.



It's weird a lot of things changed when I was back home, a local news reporter died, another news reporter split from the only station I ever knew him on to of all places Fox. Stores were erected and houses as well. Things remodeled and updated. Things appearing out of nowhere.

My mom got some new rubber on her car, so I had a little bit of fun while driving her car when I was back home. I realized one of the biggest differences between NY and LA driving. Throttle. You never put it anywhere near the floor in NY. Gosh I miss mashing that pedal to the floor. Especially during the delivery dash of Christmas cards.

Speaking of driving though, Colin McRae Rally for Mac finally came out, may he rest in peace. Awesome game, totally addicted and one of the reasons why I haven't posted during this vacation besides WoW. It's made me contemplate getting a racing wheel and pedals, they got this nice one from Logitech with paddle shifting, MOMO. Here's some mayhem from the game.


Flying through the air in a Lancia Delta.


Heavily damaged Ford Cosworth.


Flying Subie sans hood.


And Rolling the Subie.


One last jump.


and of course a Rick Roll siting.

It's actually funny Rick Rolling or rather the concept behind rick rolling ended up coming towards the end of the semester which was awesome. Speaking of awesome, a couple of things, first seeing the Lawerence Weiner exhibit at the Whitney during Thanksgiving which was really good and tasty I have to dig up a picture of the Turkey, it came out so damn tender, juicy. The continuing series of Nikkatsu Action Cinema, also super awesome. As well as this new cuban place me and Audrey tried out, the meat was soo good. Oh and danish.



and mariachis



And with that I will end this post for today, more to come hopefully soon.

The Cars is Gone!

Oh just wanted to let everyone know that the burnt out abandoned car has now been removed by I'm guessing the sanitation department. Sadly I was not able to be there for its grand exit. Also, went to the New Museum's family/friends moving into the new building that looks like a stack of white boxes with cheese grater metal facades party day shin-dig. It was nice. I had fun. Audrey has this awesome but odd looking chair. But it's comfortable and knowing that is half the battle.

Burnt Out Cars and Thangs

One might speculate, does this mean the neighborhood has gone to the dogs? Will real estate plummit? Is crime encroaching or already upon us? I'm not sure if it means any of that to Greenpoint in relation to what I found on the way to class on November 1st. So, what did I find. I found a burnt out Chevy sedan on the street over from where I live. It's nearly in the intersection, definitely in the cross walk, with a charred driver/passenger side exterior and interior, burns to the hood, burnt and broken windshield partially melted, melted driver side mirror, and two flats in the front. Oh ya, and it had it's plates removed and what looks to be the glove rummaged through.















So, one might ask, what the bloody hell happened? One could probably come to the conclusion that something had definitely happen that was possibly just a hair outside of the land of legality, I mean, abandoned burnt out car with no plates, hmmm, seems a bit fishy. Are the police investigating it? Has it been towed? Why no, it's still sitting out there right now exactly where it was found. Of course now it's sporting a nice neon orange sticker from the Department of Sanitation, saying it's a derelict vehicle and is to be disposed of.



However, when that is going to occur is quite unknown at this point since it's been sitting there for now two days and will likely sit there over the weekend and into monday. Who knows? There's a bus stop right there and I could see how the bus driver may be upset since hey can't pull up to the curb as normal. I wonder if the various drivers have already complained about it slowing down their routes and just generally cramping their style. "I got business to attend to." So, what is going to happen to this car and what happened to it originally to put it into such a state? I'm rather invested in it now. I wonder if it will just become a fixture of the intersection, like a neighbors dog or the corner liquor store. I might miss it when it's gone.

Anyhows on an odd tangential coincidence, I've just begun reading the book "Buda's Wagon: A Brief History of the Car Bomb" by Mike Davis. I've barely started into it but it has been rather interesting thus far. It's just odd the day I got the book was the day that car showed up. Coincidence or divine intervention???

School has slowed just a hair this week thank goodness. It's been pretty mad and has left me quite ragged. Class continues as do the projects. Oh and I just recently acquired an iPod Touch for a project. It's really quite nice. Hacked it and now it can be my portable wifi stumbler aka spotter for networks and also portable packet sniffer. It also lets me play my NES and SNES games, minesweeper and it can even dice a tomato. Now I'm just waiting for them to bloody get cases for them to stores, gosh dang it. Very annoying. However, it has proved itself to be a quite formidible asset thus for in doing the work of the NNW and just reducing the weight on my back. Oh and the controls work pretty well. I need to start thinking about a paper I need to start researching and writing. It should be fun but how to enter the subject and what to cover is the question and how to cover and research something that isn't really something academic and such. What is this subject. Drift Racing, in regards to globalization, soft power, and hybridization. So, if you got mags, videos, interviews and the like send them my way I'm gonna need them. That's all for now I think I'm gonna play some games.

D.D.A.T.W.C.U.N. on Pagina 164 of T.I.A.F. 2007 Catalog

So, I got a package this morning from Taiwan, I wasn't expecting one. It was from the people at the Taiwanese International Animation Festival returning the copy of my film as well as sending me the Festival's catalog. It was more book than catalog, being it was like 300 pages long. Of course I started to look to see if I was included in anyway asides from mention of my name or something in it. To my surprise I found that I was on the title page for my category and the first entry (non-alphabetical order). I actually hadn't known what category I had been placed in, it ended up being Docu-Anim, documentary animation. I had never really thought of the piece as such but in actuallity I think it fits that category, I had never before heard of such a category of animation prior. So, on that page there's a 1/4 of a page of "Death, Destruction, and the Weather Coming Up Next" and I couldn't be happier.

60lb Paper Weight

So, I'm on hold right, with applecare over the 4th repair of my G5. Talking to customer care right now complaining first about it being the 4th bloody repair and the customer service I have received from the Fifth Avenue Store. I'm at wits end at this point. All I have to say is reparations, forty acres, a mule, and a kick @$$ Mac Pro! And I don't want no nVidia 7300GT card cause that's slower than my 6800 Ultra. That's all for now.

Stephen A. "Kitty Face" and Uncle Ben's Original Curry, Sounds Tasty

School continues to barrel down the highway to the ends of the semester. It has pretty much been non-stop with presentations or projects due 5 out of 6 weeks thus far. That will continue its current trend with week 7 having a project due once again. So I've been bloody busy, argh.

So, this project due this week, it's taking a look at the real time strategy game Command & Conquer: Generals, primarily the dialogue spoken by the GLA troops. The GLA, Global Liberation Army, is kind of an amalgamation of the Taliban, Al Queda, and some aspects of Somalian rebels. Most of the phrases spoke are particularly stereotypical. With phrases such as "I love a crowd" this unit of course is a suicide bomber. I'm going to be using audio bits such as this to create a conversation with those language tapes, of course it being Arabic. Audrey very instrumental in thinking up the idea of comparing it with language tapes. Never woulda thought of that.

Some things going on in L.A. this week, the LAPD takes responsibility for the May Day Melee, the 405 maybe getting an animal path, so animals can cross the 405, that would raise the cost for bridge to around $1.4 million, and a massive accident on the 5 freeway up in Santa Clarita. It's about time the LAPD owned up but I want to see people getting punished and losing jobs or demotions and such, restructuring and retraining of the department, however will it happen or will it be effective, prolly not. This 405 animal path is a crock, seriously ok, you build this concrete path and expect animals to use it like a bridge, sure. Not to mention there's cars whizzing by and even though they may not be able to see them they will be able to hear them. If they build it will they come and play pedestrian? Lastly, this wreck on the 5, man really bad. I wonder if it was structurally damaged and is safe. All those interchanges there get real hairy and with rain a disaster waiting to happen.

In other news Al Gore as we know got the nobel peace prize, however his film can't be shown in UK schools without proper disclaimer about its inaccuracies or unfounded assertions as reporter by the wonderful Register.

Now for some randomness before I leave. V8 shopping cart OH YEAH!!!

It's a Mopar V8 mind you.

Gotta love mister Stephen A. "Kitty Face" Smith.


And nothing quite hits the spot like some curry. Uncle Ben's Original Curry of course. What a carpet bagger.

RC Jumps Garage! Hoonage!

I can't even began to say why this is so awesome. I mean really it jumped the freakin' garage and not just barely made it or almost didn't. It jumped that thing with authority and it didn't die. Hoonage!

The Law Giver

Toyota you've just made my day. "Oh what a feeling."

So Much Contact

Rain Heroes from Bzzz on Vimeo.

There's so much contact here between Massa and Raikkonen that it's a wonder that they didn't crash. Bloody hell in the rain on top of that. Insanity.

Nikkatsu, Barricade, and Mas School

So, today after class Audrey and I went up into the East side of Midtown to Japan Society. It was the opening of a film series, "No Borders, No Limits: 1960's Nikkatsu Action Cinema," that's looking at the old Nikkatsu action films from the 1960's (tad redundant taint we?). This being during the Japanese New Wave period in cinema. I personally love the films from this period, with films such as "Branded to Kill" and "The Pornographers" (a must see if you haven't seen it go watch it now, now I say, you can finish reading about what's going on in my daily possibly not so interesting life later. Don't forget to come back and comment mind ye).

So, the first in this series was "A Colt is My Passport." It was awesome, it had the lead actor from "Branded to Kill" as well as it is directed by the same director, Seijun Suzuki. There is a lot of reflexivity in the film upon its own events. Like there is one scene that has the main character trying to figure out what weapon to use in a confrontation, then we see the opposition pondering what weapon he might use, that is then being watched by the main character by some binoculars. Oh, and don't forget awesome timing with music cues that are trumpet heavy, so heavy and melo-dramatic at times that you half expect a trumpet player to come marching in the room. Also, the end awesome, some McGuyver stuff goes down and the main character essentially sticks a time bomb on the bottom of a car as it is attempting to run him down, which then explodes.

They had a reception after the film, the food was so good, we didn't have to get any dinner. Two words, beef rolls. They were so good. Oh and guess what, they got student rates as well, oh yah!

In other news I got books in the mail and my so-called gift to myself for my b-day, the Deluxe Transformers Barricade. That thing was nigh on impossible to find. I never saw it in a store, Amazon is trying to sell this 10 dollar toy for 60 bucks. Insane hey? Ya, I was able to get it much cheaper which was good, otherwise I wouldn't have gotten it. It's really nice and looks wicked as you can see.



School has been marching on and with it so has my life and my time, oi. I've been forced to cut back my hours at Tekserve, two days a week now, we'll see how that works out. The globalization/hybridization class continues to get better and more interesting along with fun digressions like the movie Red Dawn, GO WOLVERINES SAVE OUR MCDONALDS FROM THE COMMIES! Last week in Media Change I presented on a chapter from Flusser about looking at the camera as an apparatus, made me think about Web 2.0 and issues of power, who really has it, (hint it's not the users). That assertion heated up the discussion, and lately I've become the real Web 2.0 basher. It's become my deal almost that and issues of power, the real and post-modernity all of which came up within the mapping class. I feel with that class, it could be a lot more interesting or could become it if people wanted to engage more thoroughly the issue of power in relation to the practice of mapping or its inherent presence. Oh well, I get my presentation in two weeks on the manipulative aspects of mapping, exactly what I'm interested and doing. That brings me to the NNW, I have now integrated the FBI's to wanted terrorists and domestic terrorists into the word list. There's so many aliases for everyone, it's insane, not to mention what people are wanted for.

Anyways I need to get up tomorrow to go to work, oi. So, laters.

Car Sounds & 50 Years with the M16

So, I've never heard this guy Michael Winslow before, apparently he's a stand up comedian who makes noises and such. His car noises, damn. Just listen because it's really ridiculous. He does a Led Zepplin guitar solo at the end as well.



The News Hour on monday did an interview with Jim Sullivan one of the original people working on developing the M16. It brought up the concern and question about certain priorities of the U.S.' military procurement process. The M16 of course is a rather old gun, since it began development in 1957. The issue is that the U.S. has not moved forward with technology at all in regards to the rifles issued to troops on the ground, whereas those who they are combating have rifles that are much more contemporary and functional. Functional in the terms of the operation of the weapon, with the M16 still apparently suffering from problems with jamming and the like even under light circumstances versus the rugged and nearly indestructible Kalashnikov. Back when the M16 was adopted the military fought it in every way possible and was later investigated to be almost criminally negligent to be equipping soldiers with older rifles. I wonder if this may deemed the case with the current state of the M16 in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, food rations have improved tremendously apparently.

Colin & Other News

First off, I want to pay some respects to Colin McRae (1968-2007). For those of you who don't know who Colin McRae is, he's a Scottish rally driver. He won the World Rally Championship in 1995 for Subaru. He was runner up in 1996, 1997, and 2001. Known for being quite a fearless driver which resulted numerous times in offs, crashes, and the like due to pushing just a little to hard. Always haven driven flat out there was no toning down his tenacity. I had the chance to see him in 2006 at the X-Games, the first year they held a rally event. He was well out front of the competition, however he landed wrong after the final jump and rolled his car. He landed wheels down and took off as soon as they hit the ground and finished only a tenth of a second shy of 1st place. I was utterly shocked and amazed that he could pull off almost winning even after rolling his car. Here is a video from that day.



It's been a very rapid ascent this fall semester. right off the bat during the first week and continuing on I've had on minimum 150-200 pages of reading. Now this ain't your light reading it's all freakin' dense as hell. A lot of modernity, postmodernity, globalization, hybridity, economics, cultural relations, and the list goes on. I had two presentations this week and a paper due on top of that so I'm pretty spent. The paper and conjoining presentation was rather interesting material. It was a response to chapter by Flusser on the camera as an apparatus. Talked a lot about power relationships, medium, the "program" or design, and the entrapment of apparatuses. One of the examples I threw out during my presentation was the fallacy of power afforded by the Web 2.0 phenomina. Some people had some ardent arguements about that. My teacher backed me up on it, but it was definitely interesting discussion. However, all this left me very tired. I do have to say it's all very interesting reading and I enjoy it even if it's utterly draining sometimes. I find it will probably come in handy during thesis time this coming semester.

I am still coveting the blasted iPod Touch, but seriously, I need to know if it can be jailbaited before I buy one. I'm telling myself I want it for the N.N.W., but another part is I just want it. Really it's just trying to justify the means. Oi! Maybe I should take up a collection for "The Buy Emery an iPod Touch Foundation." I've also begun to eye the Logitech Revolution MX mouse, it feels so good, nice and heavy, and really nice ergonomic fit in the hand. It's got a place for your thumb. It feels real nice. I have to see if I will need it for the amount of time I'll be on the comp. We'll see. That one is a lot more in reach than the Touch.

On the 14th, "Death, Destruction, and the Weather Coming Up Next" screened in Milan, Italy at the Milano Film Festival. It was part of the "Different American Cinema" program. I'm still really shocked that it made it there. Sometime in this week or next week it will be getting shown in Taipei, Taiwan, at the Taiwanese International Animation Festival. I guess it has a hint at having legs.

Anyways I got more reading to do, so I'm gonna head back to that. but before I go here's a few little random tidbits. The first from the military industrial complex, of Russia. The other from the G-Train stations. Enjoy.


Amazing jet the Russian SU35.



"Me and Pookie put something special in the 'Special Sauce.'"

The Alamo

This weekend at my work, that being Tekserve has been a nightmare. It has been like the Alamo. Short staffed, like 2 to 1 people to cover a section, and toss in a dash of incompetant irregulars, no reinforcements for most of the day. It was like being in the French Foreign Legion. Saturday I was covering two sections when we opened, which is ridiculous when you got 2-3 people a section. Eventually they shifted one person to the iPod section and then another one to the main counter. So, it was just mean and one other person for almost all of saturday, until this one useless worker came stumbling in I'm assuming hours late, hung over and looking like hell. Obviously this doesen't help him since he's already incompetant. Sunday was more of the same, with two people in the main section, the line was over 30 minutes for most of the day, 4.5 hours straight of that barely making a dent, the service area was hit harder with an 85+ minute wait. So, I ask myself what is wrong with this picture? Either it's a huge mistake on part of scheduling, every able body is on vacation or called out sick or plain didn't show up, or c. which is the unknown. All I know though is I'm kind of fed up of having to deal with pulling the weight of what should be a contingent of workers.

Speaking of work though, we got the iPod "Fattie" in today. You know it looks better in person, and it feels nice, but it's thin as heck just super stout. The screen is pretty nice a bright. But, damn Apple for making me want the iPod Touch. Curses upon them! Seriously I want one almost despite the lack of space, I'd have to to get the 16GB one though.

Oh Friday went to see 3:10 to Yuma, some friends couldn't handle it but me and Audrey loved it. It was really good, I highly recommend it. Charlie Prince, he was awesome, and awesome civil war-esque coat. Go see it, you won't be disappointed, oh and I don't like westerns so don't pull that on me.

Speaking of movies though here's a few more posters with some liberties taken.



¡PHEAR THE GARNER-KRIEG!



And of course our friend Chris Cooper trying to prove his point, just not very well.

Been reading some Jameson, it's not bad. "The Cultural Turn: Postmodernism and Consumer Society." He talks about the Bonaventure Hotel in Downtown L.A. in one part, I'm all like I know where that's at. Not completely through it but it has been interesting thus far. Anyways I gotta head off and get some sleep, got class tomorrow. Oh by the way the Iron Man Trailer looks freaking wicked, I wanna go see that!

Good Ole' 1997

The beginning of the hey day for Dot Com companies, the internet, information super highway, the Webby's, graphic design, MacAddict Magazine, and a seemingly promising future. That's what I think of 1997. Me and Audrey went down to IKEA this weekend, yes again. I found this mug, it was so awesome. It reminded me of everything the Dot Com era was made of. I now call it my Internet mug or 1997. Here it is.



Makes me think of when I was in middle school teaching myself Photoshop, reading MacAddict magazine, going to the computer lab at lunch, wanting to become a graphic designer, web companies, and signing bonuses, hehe. Those where the days. I was dying to have Close Combat the game, I was playing Tie Fighter (one of the best games ever mind you), and Lucas Arts adventure games.

Was talking with Jon and he sent me a link to an old Outpost.com commercial. Oh my gosh they were some of the best. High watermark for Dot Com commercials if there ever were. Here are some.



Ravenous Wolves genius.



"Ohh, so close. Fire."

In a slightly more contemporary twist let's turn our attention to Jamie Foxx. I saw this up in the Nassau Station on the G Line. Nothing sums it up quite like this picture.



I'm sorry so amazingly funny, not to mention this one that gets honorable mention.



It took me forever to remember his name.

School starts again tomorrow. Last year. Rather scary. That's why I'm up writing this post cause I can't sleep, big surprise. I always get like this at the beginning of the semester. Anyways before I head off, let's return to IKEA.



All I gotta say is this. "But life is one big question when your staring at the clock. And the answer's always waiting at the IKEA, 40 ounces to freedom. So I take that walk...A 40oz to freedom is the only chance I have to feel good even though I feel bad. And I know that..."

I'm 23 Homes...

IMG_1088.JPG, originally uploaded by thecat16.

That's right essay. I'm 23, that means it's back to skoo. Gonna be writing some long essays, essay. Anyhows, yes I turned 23. What did I do? I watch the Yakuza Papers : Proxy Wars, very good series highly recommend it, very gritty documentary feel to it. Played some WoW, made some new pants oh yeah. Met Audrey after work and had some BBQ and went to see Balls of Fury. It was so kitschy but not enough, they didn't push it far enough, makes me sad but I got a free t-shirt. The weird/funny/disgusting thing though was there was a mouse playing with a wad of paper in the back row. It was all jumping around and junk, freaky. I wish I had a video of it. Going to have a b-day party with friends from NY, school, and maybe some from work. Then menu stuffed shells, so tasty. Marketed and prepped today. I enjoy going to the market and doing this sorta thing.

So, any new news? Yes, I don't think I ever mentioned but "Death, Destruction, & The Weather Coming Up Next" is/was going to go to the Taiwanese International Animation Festival in Taipei, this September. It will go on to tour Taiwan after the festival. One of the stops will be Taichung City in October. I have cleaned my desk in preperation for school starting. One of my classes got cancelled it sucks, was looking forward to it. I finished reading the two books that Audrey got me for my birthday, Mao Tse-Tung on Guerrilla Warfare and Instructions for American Servicemen in Iraq During World War II. Both, have some very illuminating information that should have been heeded prior to entering Iraq, they both feel very pertinent currently.

Anyways, I have some random pics that will be coming soon as well as more pictures of the X-Country trip will trickle in and maybe a movie too. Just remember, the revolution will not help fight the gum disease formerly known as Gingervitis with a cool minty menthol flavor, because we all know the revolution has nothing on Listerine and is only cherry flavored.

SAP : Where Available

Up, Up and away from AC and Vimeo.

I swear hearing spanish commentators just makes everything more exciting. But let's not forget the burnout of flame.



DC on fire! from AxisOfOversteer.com and Vimeo.

DDATWCUN Going to Milano Film Festival 2007

Well looks like "Death, Destruction, & the Weather Coming Up Next" likes to travel. It has been selected for a special out of competition program, "Different American Cinema" for the 12th annual Milano Film Festival. There is a chance I may actually get to go to Milan as well, which is really cool. Here is the description of the program.

"Since this year's edition of the feature film competition includes two US works for the first time, we asked ourselves "What do American films today portray?" and tried to find an answer with the help of the short and feature films that were submitted to the competitions. Considering the high number of works, we decided to carve out some space for a few stories by young directors.
The short films in this section highlight human stories of greatness and more often of misery, family relationships marked by guilt and sorrow, friendships in which the seeds of doubts and rejection are planted. When it comes to the feature films there is something different to say: it would be difficult to describe their contents in a few words. If we should define them in conventional terms, we would use adjectives like "disturbing", "unconventional", "experimental" or "narratively disjointed". In spite of the feeling of spontaneous, personal, poor and instinctive films, a deeper analysis reveals that the works are well studied and depict self-absorbed characters, created by directors focusing on complex and troublesome individuals."

Milano Film Festival 2007