Sutton Street

I have talked at all about where I now reside nor about the trip from California to New York. Well there hasn't been time, it's been a maddening pace from leaving to arriving and then setting up base camp so to speak. There's a lot of pictures and videos to wade through from the trip so all the stories from that will come later. However, for right now I will talk about where I now call home. 43 Sutton Street in Greenpoint Brooklyn, 1st floor. It's pretty roomy. High ceilings, long entrance hallway, air shaft, large kitchen/living room, 2 bedrooms, one larger than the other. The building I'm not sure if it's a true pre-war building or not but the look of it is remniscent if not being the actual thing. Now descriptions are all well and good but, how about some pics, hey?


This is our building. The neighborhood is really nice and quiet. Mostly Polish neighborhood. Five bucks will get you a plate of perogies, bloody awesome.


Here's one part of the Kitchen.


All the appliances are new by the way.


This is aft of the kitchen area.


Part of the hallway obscured by the bathroom door. I swear the bathroom reminds me of closet door, it's like stealth bathroom. Small, but nice.


The air shaft from the smaller of the bedrooms.


Same bedroom.


Here's the connection from one bedroom to the other.


The larger bedroom that looks onto the street.


Got a ceiling fan on the far end of that room.


And of course the decorative fireplace.

To think this was the first and last apartment we looked at. However, of course we had to hit up the IKEA to get some furniture and such for this new place. So, here's the kitchen table.



This pic though was a random site in the IKEA. Someone other than myself apparently has a sense of humor. Hiel!


The kitchen populated and some dinner being cooked up.


Still don't have a couch or anything like that. I've got my desk situated now and I know have access to the interweb as you can tell. It's starting to become more comfortable. However, still unpacking not done yet. But chipping away at it little by little. Anyways, I figure I'd let you all see where I be now. Laters for now.

Next Stop Denver

We made pretty good time yesterday, only a 100 miles outside of Denver. However, finding a hotel was not easy everything was booked, ridiculous. Anyways here's some quick pics.

Seriously getting down to business here.

Terrible Gas, how appealing.

Emery County

Waving the flag, haha.

Return to Nueve York

Well the time has come. The time to say farewell to home and head back to New York to go apartment hunting in anticipation of the new and last school year. Me and Audrey are driving X-Country to New York, I'll finally get to see all that stuff in the middle that I am generally oblivious to when I'm flying over it.

I'm so dead tired and I mean dead tired, I've been up for 27 hours now and only had two-three hours the night before. I wanted to post one entry before I try and sleep for a little bit before we are eastward bound. I had to pack up my entire room, I'm not taking it with me but it's all in anticipation of the eventual sale of our house. I'm going to miss the house I grew up in not to mention the room that I've spent about 18 years building. Every little detail had to be deconstructed and boxed. Tagged and bagged. I'm going to miss my neighborhood.

I finally got a new phone to replace the RAZR that's been driving me nuts for the past 9+ months, oi! Moto RIZR this time, good decent features and much better feel to it. Here's a pic.


I had a lot of work to do while I was here on vacation and in many ways it was exhausting. I'm so glad I was here though. Good times where had and good food eaten. Not to mention good company. Thanks all for making it so. Special thanks to those who helped me pack, I woudn't have been able to get it all done if it weren't for you all. Thanks. See you guys hopefully soon, back to the Big Manzana.

Rewind to the 34th Student Academy Awards: Sad & Laughable Save for Live Action Categories

June 9th, was the 34th Student Academy Awards Ceremony. I went despite the fact that I was not going to receive an award due to the fact that they decided to only award one award in my category that being Alternative, yet i went anyways. I had this super annoying guy sitting next to me and my friend Danny, so overly interested in making connections to the point of disgust. Sid Ganis, or as Danny calls him a Wolf Blitzer look alike, did his little opening speech and introduced the first presenter, Zooey Deschanel. By the end of her time presenting I wanted to put a muzzle on her. She thought she was funny, aka she wasn't funny by a long shot, she sounded like she was drugged up on vicadin or something, and she kept putting out personal commentary on the films. Basically she's an idiot. The second presenter was John Landis, he was awesome, funny, and also made jokes at the Academy's expense. All in all half of the work that won was really good and half was utterly laughable and a complete disgrace to their respective mediums. The winner from my category looked like a Coke commercial or some MTV bubblegum bull shit. The animation category, had some of the worst quality cgi I have ever seen, along with being of some of the most tired and hackneyed tropes in animation. Also, all of them had "morals" of feel goodery. Not to mention one was desecrating Art History, that one was from NYU's undergrad program, if I see them I'll make sure to slap them upside the head for anyone who's seen it and wanted to rip their eyes out. The films that were good were the live action shorts and the live action documentaries. All of them very well concieved for the most part and very well done. Apparently quality control is not a big thing these days for the Academy, well they have reduced the amount of judges fromt he actual academy to three members, so I guess that makes sense along with the overwhelming amount victories for schools on the East Coast (only one West Coast winner, Stanford in documentary, a category they typically win). Anyways, that was wrap up of the Student Academy Awards for 2007.

Oh ya and I apologize for the massive delay in this post. I was just so disgusted with it all I could not write in any way to express my anger until it cooled off for a few months.

Za Autos

Pretty insane. The new Spyker F1 car got airborne in qualifying for the Canadian Grand Prix. I just can't believe he didn't go into the wall after landing, save. Today though during the race, there was a pretty bad or rather horendous crash, Kubica went into the wall and bounced back the other way while barrel rolling. Horrible however he's ok no broken bones. You can see the video here on the Axis of Oversteer.

Today I was driving on the freeway back from Valencia and still had a lot of cars on the road at 9pm, sucked I really have needed to stretch out and actually drive drive. I feel so constrained lately. Miss my old MKI. Maybe sometime after graduation I'll get another one =|.

Been working on my website, finally. It's coming along, I'll post the link once it gets more complete. The Continental is now level 25 and now has a hood, oh yeah. Oh ya and a ring made from 30 human skulls, it's alright but it sounds super bad, haha. Kinda, tired so gonna head off to bed.

The Brazillians?

EBaita has a page apparently with the NNW's first PSA on it along with other videos all dealing with tcpdump. I'm not exactly sure if ebaita.com is a brazillian search engine or site or something or other. Anyways, it's there check it out and the other videos around it.

The Call: The N.N.W.

So, apparently one individual living in Colorado has felt "The Call." That is to participate in any way he possibly can in the Neighborhood Network Watch. It's just great to see such upstanding young citizens willing to do their part to help facillitate domestic spying programs within their own communities. Here is what he had to say below.



There you have it, the N.N.W. is gaining loyal members.

Bike Detail in NYC or Idle Hands Makes the Devils Work

So, I didn't know this but apparently in NYC this is how the NYPD rolls in regards to bikes. The Gothamist had an article about a recent police raid operation on the excessive amount of bikes in the 6th Ave between 1st & 2nd areas. You can read the details in the article, the thing that gets me though is the fact that they arrested two people who were asking questions about the seizure. The first person apparently was asking for the badge number of a plain clothes officer and the other was asking about why that first person was being arrested. The pic at the top I think has to sum up quite a bit about what I think is going on here.

Another Enzo: Death By Bus

So, another enzo is gone. Sad, sad, sad. This time by a bus according to the Daily Mail

A/S/L & Are You Lying About Your Age?

Pretty funny article on Discover Magazine today. It's an article where they let loose two chat bots to chat with each other and see what the results were. Highlights include:

J: Do you believe in God?
A: Of course I believe in God.
J: Why do you believe in God?
A: The Bible tells us to believe in God.
J: That’s circular reasoning.
A: I’m glad we have that all cleared up.

and my favorite

A: Do you experience love?
J: No. I’m 53 years old.
A: Can you explain how it feels to be 53 years old?
J: How old are you?
A: I am 9 years old.
J: Nine? I don’t believe you : ).
A: : -) I don’t have any reason to deceive you.
J: Yes, you do, you’re a woman.

All I have to say is sounds like some sex predator minor stuff going on between ALICE and Jabberwacky. So, I think this proves the fact that online everyone lies about their age even computers.

Neighborhood Network Watch: Introduction PSA

The first public service announcement from the Neighborhood Network Watch is now up. It discusses the inception, goals, and history of the group. The first results of the New York Chapter are also discussed in this first PSA. Enjoy.

The Face of the N.N.W.

Ah yes the N.N.W., the Neighborhood Network Watch. I figure I'd finally post up some pics and hopefully a video if it finishes compressing. Modeled on our friendly baddy from the Neighborhood Watch signs of yesteryear only with the added wifi connectivity. Aiming to keep our citizens "safe."

Here is the Neighborhood Network Watch's Advisory System. Similar to the Department of Homeland Security's Threat Advisory System, same colors, same beveled rects and drop shadows. The PSA has not finished compressing so I'll post and then prolly revise this post so you all can see the first NNW PSA that discusses mostly the history of the NNW and their role within the community and the fight against terror.

2nd Place for D.D.A.T.W.C.U.N. @ Carless Drive In Video Festival

I finally have reached home and started to look at my mail. I was informed that "Death, Destruction, & the Weather Coming Up Next" won 2nd place in the Abstract category at the 4th Annual Carless Drive In Video Festival. Unfortunately I was unable to attend and I have no clue why i was grouped into that category or why I was put down as being from NYU when making the film (I was at CalArts at the time). Oh well, second place is second place. I should hear from the Academy this week, so fingers crossed.

I'm Back...

I'm back, finally back. Sunny Kali-fornia. LAPD beating down immigrants in MacArthur Park. Ah the sun, the scandals, how I miss thee. Anyhow, I'm back but not without incident of course. I had the worse plane ride back home. It consisted of sitting on the tarmac for 2+ hours and a final delay of over 3 hours. I'm going to get in contact with Delta's corporate cusomter service to try and get compensation, it was obscene. Not to mention not even the inflight programming was working, not to mention the poor people who bought movies on board that were instead given Norbit to watch, not the movie they choose, gagh.

My first year of grad school is done and it has been good overall. A lot of work but then I've also produced a lot of work and learned a lot of things. I kind of judge time by school years and not by years. So, this year has been good, actually pretty darn good. My film from last year has been getting screened here and there and is nominated for a Student Academy Award which is totally crazy. I have some largish projects I am verry interested in working on. I've had a chance to do a lot of reading. Been able to take a more active role in politics and talk more about it. Rather happy.

First to get a bit of biz out of the way. If you want to come to the Student Academy Awards Award Ceremony, you can request tickets, they're free but you do have to request them. It's only snail mail as well, no online ordering. The award ceremony is June 9th. You can find out more information at oscars.org. To RSVP for tickets you can print out the form from Oscars RSVP Tickets.

I never got a chance to post pictures from the Philadelphia Film Festival. So, here's two pics of me outside of the International House where it screened.

Here's a pic from the making of "I Will Make More Bolts of Linen." It's the final two pages of writing that I did to make it.

Here comes another pic but wait for it, here's some explanation. So, when I was doing some voice over for the Network Neighborhood Watch PSA which I will post hopefully soon, I had to check out a mic. Not a bad mic, a Røde. However, they forgot to give me the shockmount for it. This is the sort of mic you definitely cannot hold in your hand so I was like crap. I decided to bust a McGuyver and make one out of a Pringles can and some painters tape. Worker perfectly. Here it is.

And of course for something completely different.

This blog entry was posted on location with the men and women of postal enforcement.

I Will Make More Bolts of Linen

I'm finally done with this semester, it was a particularly grueling one. One of the fruits of my labor, "I Will Make More Bolts of Linen" is a live action/machinima short made for my Massively Multi-User class. It references John Baldessari's piece "I Will Not Make Anymore Boring Art" from 1971. Taking a look at and pointing at some of the banal aspects of playing WoW and the blind consumptive nature of MMORPG and WoW game play. People in class seemed to like it and actually wanted it to be longer. I may make a recut of it or remake parts of it to make it longer, they wanted a second page turn.

The semester is done and now I'm prepping to move back home. Just secured storage for some of my stuff. Going through the process of sorting and cleaning. Currently doing backups that's why I'm up so bloody late. I will speak more about the final projects and end of the semester later, when I have a large amount of time to write also when I can think clearer, I can tell you though it went well. A lil peeved that I didn't get into the department show, however I'm not sure my piece matched the theme of this semester's show, ITP as a Funhouse. My piece dealt with national security, the manufacturing of information and facts, and all around deception, haha. Indicative of the political climate at ITP? Indeed.

Death, Destruction, & the Weather Coming Up Next to Contend for Student Academy in Nationals

I just got word that my film "Death, Destruction, & the Weather Coming Up Next" is going to be going to the Student Academy Nationals. It ended up being the only film of the four contending in my category to move on to the nationals. So, D.D.A.T.W.C.U.N. will be coming to Los Angeles again with the potential for a Student Academy, which also includes a little bit of cash. I'm pretty shocked, I didn't think I would end up being the only qualifier from my category, I figure they'd move two forward but nope. So, I guess on June 9th we'll find out what happens. I will post the details about the June 9th screening when I receive the information. Wooohooo! Now back to work to finish a final before tomorrow morning, agh.

"Death, Destruction, & The Weather Coming Up Next" Going To Student Academy Awards Regionals!

I just got an email today from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, informing me that my film that I finished last year, "Death, Destruction, & the Weather Coming Up Next," has made it to the regional finals for the Student Academy Awards. 175 films were submitted and 16 were choosen to move on to the regionals in the 4 categories. The whole list is at the bottom. So, from here a maximum of three finalists are choosen to proceed to the nationals in Los Angeles.

The Regional Finalists will be screened on Monday, April 23, 6p.m. at the Northwest Film Center/Portland Art Museum's Whitsell Auditorium. I was pretty shocked to hear this news as well as excited. So, I guess we'll see what happens.


34th ANNUAL STUDENT ACADEMY AWARDS REGION 1 FINALISTS

A L T E R N A T I V E
DEATH, DESTRUCTION, & THE WEATHER COMING UP NEXT Emery C. Martin/California Institute of the Arts
THE GRANDE FINALE John Suits/California Institute of the Arts
LOUD SOLITUDE AND ALSO I SAID I WOULD NEVER LEAVE YOU Orly Shuber/University of Southern California
POSTMARKS Lisa Franek/San Diego State University

A N I M A T I O N
AFRICA PARTING Robyn Alice Yannoukos/University of California at Los Angeles
AQUALIBRAE Chanya Hetayothin/University of California at Los Angeles
CAMP BEAN, ALL THINGS WOODSEY Michelle Banta Tessier/University of California at Los Angeles
DOPPELGANGER Ki-Peum Lee/California Institute of the Arts
ICARUS AND THE TREE HERDER Ian Worrel/California Institute of the Arts
SUNDAY PARTY Sirirat Thawilvejakul/University of Southern California

D O C U M E N T A R Y
CROSS YOUR EYES KEEP THEM WIDE Ben Wu/Stanford University
LEFT IN BAGHDAD Peter Jordan, John Kane/Stanford University
LONG HAUL Erin Hudson/Stanford University

N A R R A T I V E
DEACON'S MONDAYS Destin Cretton, Lowell Frank/San Diego State University
HOUSE OF THE OLIVE TREES Thouly Dosios/University of California at Los Angeles
SVEN STROMSON BLUE Joseph Campanale/Chapman University

About Bloody Time...

Hello peoples out there! I'm back, finally. It's been forever. I've been so insanely busy. I got back after vacation, got sick, which lingered up until this past weekend. I began training for a position at TekServe, which I got. Final project proposals had to get written up, along with one midterm had to get finished. So, I now have a moment to breathe and update a lil. I have pictures I still need to post and such, that will come later, possibly not this week mind you though.

So, what am I bloody doing for final projects? Well, I'm doing work regarding the hoods from the March 17th anti-war march, mostly anaylsis of the event. I am writing a program that will be used to manufacture a quasi factual "terror index" and "terror related data" percentage by capturing network traffic and then annaylzing the packets contents against my own list of keywords, in order to generate profiles of wireless networks. It's going to be under the guise of an extension of Homeland Security, known as the Neighborhood Network Watch, a play off of Neighborhood watch groups. I will also hopefully be creating a machinama short within WoW for another class that tosses in John Baldessari, as a character as well as references to his work. It will mainly explore the conceptual/post modernistic aspects of game play especially MMORPGs.

I guess, that is all for now since I need to get to sleep. But I will return soon!

Protest, Interviews, & Censorship by the Los Angeles Times

On Saturday, March 17th, 2007, I participated in an Anti-War Protest in Los Angeles on the anniversary of the begining of the current Iraq War. I went with Audrey, (check her blog entry for more details on the protest) other students from Cal Arts and UCLA, and the L.A. Chapter of Artists Against the War. Audrey, had sewn black hood liken to the hoods worn by detainees. These were worn by 10 of us, including Audrey and myself.

At the begining of the march, I was approached by a LA Times staff writer who asked if he could ask me some questions. He requested I remove my hood so I could speak to him, I obliged him. He first asked of course why the hoods. He asked where I was from and if I was a student and was surprised that I was here all the way from New York. The question of why I was out here protesting came up, during the course of answering the question I mentioned the military history of my family. This seemed to interest him a great deal and spent much time going over it with me.

During the rest of the march there was a group of us wearing the hoods that walked together for the most part and were of much interest to the press who were continually photographing us throughout the march.

Upon reaching the end, Audrey and Myself went and stood among the mock coffins placed in the street by Veterens Against the War. A strong symbolic image and also iconic that resulted in a continuous flow of attention from the press. Some of these images can be seen here about midway down the page on LA Indie Media.

That evening Audrey and myself checked the Los Angeles Times website for any article about the protest. We did find one about the protest which included a full 3 paragraphs about me with two quotes. The article was for the most part pro anti-war. The screenshots of the original article are below.







The next day, I returned to New York and upon landing Audrey notified me that the article had been completely edited and the article that went to print was the revised version. The new article looked to marginalize the protest by saying it lacked large turnout, that it included celebrities and musicians, and all in all was a "kind of a freak show." You can see the revised article here Thousands protest in Hollywood.

So, it seems that the article was completely revamped likely by the parental corporate structure that now exercises oversite over its operation. In recent this has caused resignations by editors. Apparently I am worthy of being censored by the "parental units" of the Los Angeles Times.

"Death, Destruction, & the Weather Coming Up Next" Coming to Philly Fest

I finally have the date and it is confirmed. My film "Death, Destruction, & the Weather Coming Up Next" will be screened on April 14th, at 4:30 PM, in the "Visions of Persistence" program at the Philedelphia Film Festival. So, if you will be in town or want to go see it, you can buy tickets starting on March 19th.