My Life

On Birthday Wishlists from Amazon

A most special holiday is approaching (hint: it rhymes with ‘sly firthday’) and I thought I would share my wishlist with you guys, since I know y’all want to buy me nice things! I’ve had this Amazon wishlist set up for years and went through it a bit last night to get rid of old listings and items I’ve gotten over the years. Kind of a strange trip down memory lane. “Oh yeah, I wanted that once!” or “Why did I ever want THAT?”

Anyway, enough about my weirdness. Let’s recap my wishlist!

1. Apple OSX 10.6 Snow Leopard

I don’t need to have the most up to date things, but being behind by two OS versions is kind of ridiculous. The Chromium builds don’t work, and a few other programs that I’d like to use won’t install because my OS is as old “as the dinosaurs.”

2. Bones: The Complete First Season

I like this show, and would love to have it be a part of my collection.

3. Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 2: Scott Pilgrim Versus The World

Read the first book and I’m interested to see where the story goes. There’s also that movie coming out in the not-to-distant future so I’d like to be caught up before that releases to the general public.

4. Six Feet Under: The Complete First Season

Perhaps the best and worst summer of my life was spent watching the entire Six Feet Under series. I’m very interested in re-watching this in the near future.

Yep. So, that’s pretty much it. I’ve reached a new blogging low. Join us next week when I ask for spare change.

On Resume Typos

From The Consumerist:

Sorry, kids, but humor has no place in a cover letter, and unfunny humor has no place anywhere.

Don’t depend on a spell checker – print your resume out and look it over, read it out loud to yourself, and have another person look at it for you.

So far my most egregious mistake on a resume has been of the grammatical nature, something that I hope never changes. But if I want to be realistic about things, I’d have to say that this could very well happen to me. Even worse, sometimes I feel inclined to throw some humor into my resume to make it lighter or just DO SOMETHING new and fresh with it. After reading this article though, I know better.

Still, the joke about the wallpaper was hilarious. I actually giggled like an idiot.

On Writing Despite The Void

Writer’s block is a terrible tragedy that befalls even the best of writers. How they get through this debacle varies. Some take a walk to clear their mind, some eat a bunch of junk food, some watch movies, some take drugs, and so on and so forth. I’ve written a few blog posts about this before and thought I would do so again. Truth is, I’ve been in a bit of a “void” these past few weeks, and really haven’t had that much to write about be it for the blog or for my own script. The question then is, do I “write despite the void?”

The short answer: yes.

The less-short answer: yes, but it sure is a bitch and a half.

See, when you’re in the “void,” you’re fighting an uphill battle. The ideas are all gone, and the inspiration that you may have once had decided to go on that Vegas vacation it has been talking about all these years and not leave you a contact number. You still have to write, though, which brings up the obvious question: How? Here’s some things that have helped me get something onto the page, despite having nothing up there in my noggin.

Incentives

Sounds cheesy, but I reward myself for writing. I reward myself MORE for writing in the void. Ice cream, sweets, coffee, anything that might encourage me to get a few words out. Hell, I’ve even used social engagements as a reward for writing. Oftentimes, the stuff I write under these conditions aren’t all that great, but at least it’s something.

White Noise Method

Sometimes I’ve been able to crank out a page or two of something through what I call the “White Noise Method.” It’s a really simple method involving having the television on, the itunes playing on random, and having my cats racing each other around the room. Somehow through all the chaos I can get myself to focus. If you don’t have a cat, I’m sure you can substitute with a second tv.

Internet Removal Method

This is perhaps the most effective, but the hardest to initiate. It involves halting your access to the internet while you try to write.

Writing Groups

Another method that I’m always keen on trying to get myself writing more is one in which I gather with one or more people and just write. Sometimes, being amongst others is all it takes to get the creative juices flowing. You can step away from the page briefly to chat, and then just as quickly return. You also run the good chance of gaining some insight to what you’re writing as well as some useful brainstorming for future projects.

Anyway, just a few thoughts on what you can do to write while you’re in the “void.” It might be tough as hell, but eventually you’ll find that you have a lot of stuff written that you can go back and re-write. Oh yeah…re-writing. That’s a different story altogether.

On The Things I Do

I’ve been kind of a busy bee these past few weeks with various projects and just trying to get things moving in a forward momentum. I thought I would let you know how those things are going, in case you….you know…actually cared!

Technicolor Commentary

The film commentary podcast I started awhile back is still going strong. In fact, we’re going to be releasing our 24th episode this friday. We’ve also starting tinkering with methods of live-streaming when we record and various other things to spruce up the overall experience for our listeners. This month we started a new gimmick where we let our listeners decide what we do commentary on for the month of August. So far, we’ve seen Top Gun and will be watching True Lies on Saturday. I’ve also been experimenting with streaming old episodes with the commentary attached like you were actually watching commentary from the DVD. We’ll see if that sticks.

The Disgruntled Screenwriter

I decided that I couldn’t get enough of the whole podcasting thing so I decided to start my own. It’s about the ins and outs of screenwriting that I learned while in film school as well as just going through general knowledge and questioning the rules and why they exist. As of the release of this blog post I’m at 2 episodes, so this venture is a fairly young one. I have high hopes for this and think that I can perhaps become a better speaker by talking into a microphone to no one in particular for a half an hour at a time each week. I might also incorporate my struggles as a screenwriter in the episode for flavor. We’ll see.

Hilarious Henry

I’ve been doodling my alter-ego again recently and have decided to bring back my webcomic from it’s lengthy hiatus. So far I’ve done the rough sketch of three new strips and I plan on doing more in the next day or so. As for when I’m going to be re-debuting this little comic, I’m not quite sure yet. I was thinking next week, but I might go the route of building up a buffer and taking an extra week to do so.

SCREENWRITING

Yeah, I’m working on finishing a really dorky screenplay. I’ve also got another script I need to decide what to do with as well as a garbage rough draft of another that I need to get back to. It’s just a matter of actually getting off my ass and doing this, though. Or on my ass, as I don’t really do any writing while standing.

Do You Force It?

When I have writer’s block, I try to force myself to write something whether it’s any good or not. This tends to put me at odds with myself since I don’t like writing anything unless I have something to actually write. I’ve been told countless times to just get something “on the page” no matter what and that it’s not always going to be good. Do you hold to that? Do you force it when you know you don’t have it in you? Is forcing it a good idea?

I’m definitely curious what other writers think about this…

Writing and Re-Writing

One of the frustrating things about my process is the part where I go back and change a bunch of shit and essentially rewrite my script from page one. It’s not like I actually want to do this, especially considering I have to get 100 or so pages done by the end of the month. What ends up happening is that I get ideas about what I wrote before and those ideas pester me until I do something about them. Case in point, day one and two for me for Script Frenzy. I wrote roughly four or five pages that were solid and took a break from it. As I went about doing other things, the need to change EVERYTHING surfaced and it was all I could think about.

I need to get a better writing process..

Going Into a Script Frenzy

For a writer, one of the biggest challenges is actually sitting down and facing off against the blank page, or screen if you’ve ditched your typewriter for a trendier, more electronic word processing unit! When I sit down to start writing, I find myself daunted by all the white space that occupies my screen. Once that happens, the motivation kind of deteriorates and then I get distracted by the various web services that call to me on a continual basis (thanks, Friendfeed, twitter, etc). In short, I don’t get a lot of writing done.

But I was pointed to an interesting site from John August’s blog that might just cure my Writer’s Block: Script Frenzy. Think, NaNoWriMo for screenplays. Within 30 days of April, everyone who signs up for the site will be writing toward a goal of 100 script pages. Sounds pretty neat, actually. So much so that I’ve signed up and am going to be participating this year. I’ve already come up with the story I’m going to write and am pretty much going to free style this script come April 1st.

If you’re into screenwriting even in the slightest, I’d suggest giving it a try. It will be a fun challenge, and you get 100 pages of…well…something that can be molded into your finest work ever, at least. If you do sign up, look me up. Movieguyjon, as usual!

Here’s some particulars about the script I plan on writing for Script Frenzy:

Title: Year of the Con
Genre: Comedy
Logline: Frustrated with the lackluster conventions in their area, four friends decide to create their own Super Con and turn it into the biggest event of the year.

You can keep up to date with my script via this blag or through my Script Frenzy profile. I plan on making my script profile on the site more complete by the end of the month.

Can’t wait!

What I’ve Been Up To

Just so you don’t think I was yanking your chain the other day about being really really really (did I mention really?) busy, I thought I’d give you a little bit of an update about what I’ve been up to and do some general self-promotion. You’ve been hereby warned.

Things with Geek Troika Productions are going swimmingly! I still edit the podcast on a weekly basis and write little articles when I can. We just recorded our 20th episode last week, which is pretty exciting. Twenty freakin’ episodes, people! I never thought that we would last that long, or that we’d develop such an amazing rapport with each other. Now, my Mondays are spent waiting for the evening’s recording session, quite impatiently I might add. Mattie and Mike are awesome and recording just wouldn’t be the same without them.

Anyways, enough gushing…

To celebrate or 20th episode, we opened a merch store. It’s only got one item at the moment, but I’m drawing up new artwork and preparing logos to post later this week. I’m sure I’ll be pestering the lot of you about this later on in the week. So, if you have a little extra money to spare and want some pretty schweet schwag, go the Geek Troika Merch Store NOWZ and click “buy!” If not, well…..don’t. I just won’t like you anymore. Hrmphh.

As if that wasn’t enough, I went ahead and created a new podcast under the Geek Troika banner. Technicolor Commentary isĀ  podcast of young film school alumni making commentary tracks to replace the boring ones you find on your DVDs. We bitch about what’s on screen as well as provide insight based on our film school background. With me on this project is Tom and Graham, my co-hosts. When we’re not recording the commentary tracks, we’re busy writing up posts about films, television and media in general. Be sure and bookmark the site and add it to your RSS reader. TCC will be here for years to come!

Later on this year there will be some web series that Geek Troika Productions will be dishing out for your viewing pleasure. The first is Matsie Reads Her Spam, a web series about a girl named MatsieĀ  and her relationship with the spam that she collects in her inbox. I’ll update you more as it develops but just know that you’re in for a treat. Next will be an animated web series that my friend Tom thought up awhile back. I can’t really dish out too many details yet, but I will fill you in more as time goes on.

That about wraps it up for what I’ve been up to lately. When I’m not working on all of this, I’ve been working my butt off with contract gigs and making ends meet. It’s some kind of crazy, I tells ya.

Fakin’ the Nut Allergy – A Rant

According to Joel Stein:

  • My nut allergy is a product of my white upbringing.
  • I can stop my anaphylactic shock with my mind.
  • My parents were yuppies.
  • Your parents are yuppies.
  • God hates retarded children.
  • Fat friends make you fat (He quoted a guy for this fact).
  • Nuts are good.
  • Durr.

Ok, the last few bullet points were me being silly, but I think you get where I’m coming from. It’s hard to take this opinion piece seriously when the writer didn’t really bother to make a “good” point. As someone who’s experienced anaphylactic shock numerous times growing up (most involving hospital visits), I hardly think that my nut allergy is a product of my parents worrying I could be allergic to things. In fact, it’s because they let me eat whatever the hell I wanted as a young’un that we discovered my little “aversion” to nuts.

While I can’t necessarily argue against certain illnesses and allergies being “all in the mind,” I can’t outright say that that’s the case either. I’ve met people who fit into both sides of the argument and it’s led me to believe that things like this CAN be in the mind and CAN actually exist. And sure, there’s yuppie paranoia and the issue of being “too clean” and “too healthy,” but people like me still do exist and our problems are real.

Am I crazy in finding this guy’s ramblings aggravatingly written?

People Know Me

I got a little shoutout the other day from fellow Friendfeeder Mona on her blog Pixel Bits for a meme I participated in. Apparently I’ve been in a lot of vehicle accidents! Woo! Anyway, here’s the meme I participated in, reprinted for your edification. Enjoy.

  1. I loathe lotions of any kind. I won’t even use sunscreen because of how horrible it feels on my hands.
  2. I chew on the string of my hoodies.
  3. I’m very jittery. Watch me try to keep still and see…
  4. I lose my train of thought in the middle of stories.
  5. I have some kind of insomnia. I say “some” because I manage to get sleep in there somewhere. Stayed up till 6am this morning, matter of fact. (edit: That was a day or so ago, by the way)
  6. I get panic attacks. They last awhile sometimes.
  7. I walk a lot.
  8. I have two pet cats who have steadily become more and more important in my life. I carry conversations with them regularly.
  9. I’m allergic to wood nuts (almonds, walnuts, pecans, cashews, anything like that that grows on trees). Many trips to the ER have proven this. And yes, it’s a fatal allergy.
  10. I can eat the same thing day in and day out and not get sick of it, provided that I only have it once a day….if that makes sense.
  11. I usually WILL go there. That’s right! You heard me.
  12. Before I can get truly relaxed for bed, I need to rub my feet together a few times. It’s very soothing.
  13. I have been hit by a taxi before, while crossing the street.
  14. You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry…in a car…during rush hour.
  15. I have fan art published in the Knuckles spin-off comic from Archie Comics.
  16. I absolutely MUST MUST watch a TV show from episode 1 forward. If I watch it out of context, I don’t get into it.
  17. I have crashed two vehicles, one a conversion van and the other a pickup truck. Both were my fault, but no one was hurt except me…
  18. I fear even the smallest of heights. If I’m on a ladder, my knees shake and I get all sweaty in the palms.
  19. Bloody noses tend to push my panic button in a very serious way.
  20. I’m a writer because I’m not good with the talky talky.
  21. I have a difficult time looking people in the eyes. A very difficult time.
  22. I’m one of those people who becomes way friendlier when booze is involved.
  23. My shoe size is 13.
  24. I overthink things way too much.
  25. Public mirrors. Cannot stand to see myself in them. I HATE HATE HATE them. I hate myself in them. I don’t think I can stress this enough.

Oh yeah, and we have a new president now. Fun times.