rhythmic ceremonial ritual
2007.03.31 22.13
Been busy writing lots of documentation at work this week to the point that I'm starting to get writer's block. For every one thing that I've figured out how to resolve there's two things that I have to figure out why I had to do anything about whatever it was giving me s*** in the first place. Whee! I'm keeping a diary now to keep things straight. I will never post that diary on this site because it will reveal how uber geeky I am even beyond how much I share on here. That's saying a lot.I posted a video collage on YouTube of my friend Dawn that I put together sometime around 1991. This was done on my camcorder using its magic flying erase head technology. In the olden days when videotapes were made from bearskins and steak knives, you'd record an ugly static gap whenever you'd pause the video tape and start it back up again. My camcorder, however, had crisp perfect edits between pauses. You could even leave gaps behind and fill them in later with the camera's on-board video dubbing and audio dubbing features. I like the word dubbing. Dubbing dubbing dubbing. Ah. So, anyway, this was all linear editing which was painful if you had to insert something longer or shorter than the gap you left behind. Now you can use Windows MovieMaker or Adobe Premiere to do the same thing on the computer and it's all non-linear. Shweet. So, yeah, I guess I am an uber geek. Oh well. In case none of that made sense to you, pretend I didn't say anything and just watch this:
the chew chew experience
2007.03.22 18.01
Last summer I was searching for a tiny camcorder to take with me to the Madonna concert. I bought a JVC HDD (hard disk drive) camcorder. I eventually returned it because it was large and bulky, but not before I filmed this snip of video featuring Chew Chew. Today I randomly decided to make this clip of my cute dog available for the world to see. Bask in his glory. Yeah, that camcorder filmed some good video. Now that I reflect upon my time with that camcorder, I also used it to film video of my ex-girlfriend Christina hooking up with another female friend of hers. The memories around that evening are not pleasant, unfortunately. As I vividly recall, Christina asked me if I thought her friend was attractive or not. At this point the only correct answer was, ''Not as attractive as you are!'' However, I thought she was asking about it from an empirical perspective. And yes, I had been drinking. I was wayyyy off my game as a result. So, like an idiot I replied, ''Ah, she's O.K. I guess?'' That seemed like a safe benign answer. Bzzzt! We're sorry, sir. Thank you for playing. It turned into a huuuuuge argument. Great lord a'mighty. So, remember folks, if your girl/boy friend asks you if someone else -- anyone else -- even a celebrity -- is attractive or not, you should always always always respond with, ''No, they are butt ass fugly bugly and should have been killed at birth with a blunt rock.'' No room for empirical honesty here, friends. Especially when love is on the line. Ah, love. And speaking of love... here's Mark's best friend... Chew Chew Shields!
may 16, 1985
2007.03.21 5.15
This is wild. I'm converting my tapes and I've randomly selected a tape that I made for the Jersey Village High School band banquet on May 16, 1985. It's 11 PM and Antoinette ''Toni'' White and I have just finishing giving my ''Rock Me Amadeus'' inspired senior will for Doug Caesar. The tradition is that the juniors give a fictional future prediction for a senior who will soon be leaving. If I can get my 5.25 floppy drive working then I can probably find the actual script I wrote. I interview pretty much everyone in my immediate vicinity for several minutes. Cassette tapes are cool.the total perspective vortex
2007.03.20 21.04
Up late once again. Bought replacement memory for MONSTERBOX on Sunday after visiting the car show with Aaron, Wade and Crazy Carl. Saw the Lotus Exige on display and decided it could safely replace the Eclipse for a few years. Never heard of the Exige? Here's a photo of one that's for sale in downtown Minneapolis:
Not bad, huh? So back to that replacement memory. Last September I purchased Corsair brand memory paying just over $100 for a 1 GB stick. While I was at the car show on Sunday, I ran Microsoft's free memory test software. That stupid Corsair stick failed every test. No wonder MONSTERBOX has been rebooting itself at random times and losing the occasional digital photo during file copies among other odd behavior. How did I end up putting up with this for so long? Patience and tolerance. I learned about those between 2002 and 2005. I took a four month break from patience and tolerance during Spring Break 2005. After the break was over, it was right back to the patience and tolerance grindstone for the super genius.
I brought back my entire cassette tape collection among other various items from my house in Houston. I've been wondering what the heck to do with all of these tapes. Converting them to MP3s was the most logical choice, but it took me an entire day to do a few tapes last year. Here's my tapes and below that there's a look at the old way I was converting tapes to MP3s.
Now I can pop a tape into the Plus Deck which fits in a 5.25'' drive bay in MONSTERBOX -- and let the automatic importing commence. It will supposedly try to create separate MP3 files, but I would rather just let you download the whole thing and skim through the MP3. It's only fair -- I had to do it with the tape, so why shouldn't you get to suffer? I'll try to get a few tapes scanned in every week until I make it through all of them. Here's a look at the unit itself:
So, what else? I ran three miles and walked one mile at the gym last night. More specifically, I ran mile one and two at six miles an hour. I walked mile three uphill with the treadmill set at a 15 degree angle. I reduced the pitch by 2.5 degrees every quarter mile. I then ran mile four at six miles an hour again, but it was pretty tough going and I wanted to stop several times. I rarely go further than three miles at a time. Today I'm feeling minor repurcussions. After I got back from the gym and parked my car, I ran into Team Chaos. They in turn took me up to visit Team Awesome. Three margaritas were then imbibed by me. Woot.
Oh, and speaking of woot, there's a site with one-a-day gizmo specials called woot that I learned about last week when I was in California with my fellow insurance company programming brothers and sisters. Very interesting.
I need to post the other half of my Austrian video blog, but I've been slow to edit down the rant that I give on our way to buy kaesekrainers. Trust me, I'm talking crazy. Also included in this half of the video is the brief overview outside the Berlin police station we give on how our rental car was towed. It's then off to a rest stop in the middle of Germany that has really cool automatically washing toilets seats. I believe we are in Bavaria briefly while Amy writes letters to friends and family. The tape finally ends on the aforementioned walk. Here's the food we finally get being carefully balanced by Amy. I call this the kaesekrainer workout video:
washing the batmobile
2007.03.11 9.09
Yes, the 1989 Batmobile Replica as driven by Michael Keaton as Batman and directed by Tim Burton... is dirty. So I washed it. This video was droll the first time I rendered it, so I threw an appropriate audio channel on top and doubled the speed of the video. Good times.the super genius and mark wahlberg
2007.03.10 13.18
"You'll have to go around to the short red carpet, sir."I was perplexed by the nameless security guard, but took the situation in stride knowing that I was having a conversation with him because of a fortunate set of circumstances in the late 1990s.
I walked around the fenced off red carpet and passed Mark Wahlberg who was posing alongside his co-star Kate Mara several feet away. Cameras flashed and photographers yelled out, "Mark! Mark! Over here!" They snapped away endlessly thanks to digital camera technology. I wended my way through the surrounding crowds and made my way up to the front of the Mann's Westwood Theater. I flashed my tickets and took my place at the end of the red carpet which led into the lobby of the theater. Free bags of popcorn and soft drinks lined the concession stand counters. Folks involved in both ends of the film making spectrum intermingled. Black suited security guards stoicly brayed, "Folks, please move into the theater and clear the lobby as soon as possible." Danny Glover grabbed two bags and inquired about which stack of soft drinks were "the diet stuff." I'd been in the lobby several times before and observed that nothing had changed in all those times. I'd attended the premieres for THREE KINGS, THE PERFECT STORM, and ROCK STAR there. Today's premiere was the Antoine Fuqua (TRAINING DAY) directed thriller SHOOTER.
"There's actual seat numbers on these tickets," announced Aaron, one of my co-workers who attended the show with me.
"Really? Hmmm. Most of the time people sit where they want to," I offered half-heartedly.
It was true – I'd never been to a premiere that had followed strict This Is Where You Are Going To Sit mandates. I left the lobby to retrieve my boss who was waiting outside. After passing four different groups of black suited sunglass wearing security guards, I was back across the street from the theater. I looked up at the neon tower above the theater that had the word "FOX" where a lighted beacon would go. I then motioned to Rich, the aforementioned boss man, and we proceeded to walk back inside.
Hiding out in video games like QUAKE and then shooting people from a great distance (in the game) has always been one of my favorite pastimes. I've been called a "camper" for doing this, and it hasn't greatly improved my ability to shoot my virtual buddies, but it did make the thought of a sharp shooter film very appealing to me. Bob Swagger, Mark's character, is haunted by an offensive gone wrong. He's a gifted prodigy when it comes to the art of sharp shooting. The U.S. government ask Bobby for assistance in sniffing out a possible presidential assassin by asking him, "If you were to kill the president, how would you do it?" As you can imagine, things don't go as planned and Bobby is framed for the assassination. What follows are exciting chases and shoot outs. As Aaron put it, "There was quite a bit of shooting." I give the film an 8 out of 10. I give co-star Kate Mara a 10 out of 10, however. Wow! I was a few feet away from her for several minutes in the theater lobby after the film was over. Some young girls begged for a photo and she observed, "You guys are lucky you got to see the movie!" SHOOTER is rated R for strong graphic violence and language. Dammit.
I'm constantly asked to explain how I get the tickets to attend a Hollywood premiere. That's a long story.
When I attended my first premiere in 1999 it was to see THREE KINGS. Outside the theater on the red carpet I was introduced to Johnny Alves, Donnie Carroll (also known as Donkey) and Eric Weinstein (also known as E or E-Factor). This group, along with Mark, would eventually be immortalized in the HBO comedy series ENTOURAGE. For those not in the know, ENTOURAGE is loosely based upon the group of friends that lived together in Los Angeles when Mark was on his way to becoming the A-List actor that he is today. Eric is practically Mark's bodyguard, although I've seen several other big guys help Mark during such events. Donkey managed the transport of Mark's belongings from gig to gig during his musical career. Johnny is Mark's cousin and, like on ENTOURAGE, is also called Johnny Drama.
"This is amazing!" I kept announcing to anyone that would listen. Donkey and Jamie were focused on their own conversation, but nodded in acknowledgement. I forgot to mention who Jamie is. Jamie Kennedy. I figured he was another member of the group. Rebecca, my girlfriend at the time (see photo below), also nodded as she took a long drag on her cigarette. She was wearing a low cut black dress that we'd purchased the day before on Rodeo drive. Her skin reflected the red and blue neon light from the FOX sign above thanks to generously applied moisturizer on her face and shoulders. At the after party in the Armand Hammer museum, Mark Wahlberg's body double would declare her "a porcelain doll!"
I was standing by myself at one point early on at the after party. Someone approached me from the side and extended his hand.
"Hey, I'm Mark Wahlberg. It's really nice to meet you. I appreciate what you're doing with the site and working with us on it."
It was a both a sincere hello and the first indication of many that Mark was both a gentleman and a really nice guy. We talked briefly about the site and the brief history that led me to Sarah and Lev. Noticing a group waiting to the side to speak to him, he shook my hand once again and excused himself. I watched as he was promptly surrounded by the nearby group of folks who'd been waiting for their chance to speak with him. From that point on I've been a big fan. Before that, I was really into the site because we had the same name. I thought it was cool that he was an actor, but our brief meeting converted me on the spot.
I'd picked up the domain MARKYMARK.COM on a whim a year earlier in 1998 when I'd decided that I wanted my own domain name. A group of European girls who went by the name Funky Vibe Productions had been running a Mark Wahlberg fan site using the domain for years. Its focus was mainly upon Mark's music career which had continued to blossom in Europe while his American musical success had been on the wane. The girls had grown tired of running the site and were looking for a replacement webmaster. I fit the bill and they turned the site over to me within a day.
I redesigned the old site and gave it a darker, more masculine look that seemed to be more apropos to Mark Wahlberg in general, with a slight 1970s feel in the spirit of BOOGIE NIGHTS. The site was quite popular. I would occasionally touch base with inside informant Eric who had the scoop on where Mark was going and what he was doing. The board also boasted a fan named Lianne who has always proven to be an invaluable resource. It was Lianne who clued me in when the domain MARKWAHLBERG.COM was available for purchase. I snapped it up and the transformation was complete.
This unofficial site eventually led to my being contacted by Steve Levinson of Leverage Management in the late summer of 1999. Someone named Sarah had contacted me via email and asked me to call Steve. I was scared and worried not knowing what the topic of the conversation would hold. All that stress was for nothing, however, as Steve, or Lev as everyone calls him, was a cool guy who wanted to take ownership of the site but keep me on board as the de-facto webmaster claiming there were a dearth of webmasters in California. After looking up what the heck dearth meant, I was relieved. The best part of the deal, however, was that I'd be added to the permanent list of attendees for Mark's movie premieres. All I had to do was ask ahead of time.
The site underwent a second transition where I was asked to drop all of the music career references and focus on the film career. References to Marky Mark were updated to just say Mark. It's like Ricky Schroeder being called Rick or my childhood friend Jamie Bergerone preferring to be called James. You drop the Y when you grow up. My friends, however, are still welcome to call me Marky Mark. I'll take over that moniker, thank you very much.
Being a part of MarkWahlberg.com has given me a chance to witness the sometimes magical machinery that is the Hollywood film industry. I'm a minor unimportant player, in my opinion, but it's a blessing to be around those who were in the business of making movies. I know I have an impressive career of application development under my belt, but I always like to think that one day I'll be able to take a more active role in the industry. Don't count me out yet.
the sentimentally handicapped journey
2007.03.03 13.25
The weekend in Houston was quick and dirty. I used frequent flier miles to book the trip last minute as I was rapidly approaching the end of my time with the rental car in Minneapolis. Emptying my house and driving my car back were my main goals.On Thursday night, I arrived at 10 PM and had a couple beers with my dad at Baker Street Pub near Willowbrook Mall. The crowd wasn't very interesting. Our waitress reminded me of my ex-girlfriend from last summer. Pfft. After adjourning from the bar, we stopped by his house where I borrowed THE PRESTIGE dvd and said hello to my aunt Sister Zepur. She's in town for a month taking a break from, uh, nun'ing? Actually, she's working in a convent in Lebanon. I was four years old the last time I was there. She informs me that things are about the same. I'll take her word for it.
On Friday morning, I drove to Whataburger to buy a double-egg no-sausage breakfast on a bun ranchero sandwich and an orange juice on the side. I always try to hit up the Whataburger. Mmm! I was then off to work at The Consulting Company where I had scheduled my much feared Exit Interview at 10 AM. It turns out that the interview was more like a focus group with a group of one – me. The hardest question was whether my job had changed from when I first started. That was nearly 10 years ago, so of course it had. I was not the interweb super genius back then that I am now (or at least that I try to be). My web site from 1996 clearly proves that. I recently found some QBASIC code that I wrote in late 1995 that's fairly well organized, although it's also very procedural versus being object oriented as is the current standard. Okay, enough geek speak.
My dad, niece and I saw THE ASTRONAUT FARMER early Friday evening. I'd later contract a wonderful sore throat and cough from the niece thanks to popcorn and Reese's Pieces sharing. I wouldn't find that out until next week, luckily. The movie had some charm to it but there were a lot of 1970s clichés in there that I wasn't too impressed with (the two FBI guys watching the farm is one thing that comes to mind). It was family friendly, though, so that's what counts. I don't think that I laughed once, unfortunately.
After saying goodbye to the niece and fasha, I drove straight to Number's Night Club where I met up with my old school pal Jason. He's recently reentered Single Land and I was ready to reintroduce him to the inhabitants. We had such a good time! There was this one petite brunette girl in a short skirt and tank top that had the entire male population at the club desperately trying to figure out how to dance with her. I saw guys left and right get denied. Jason was particularly impressed by this girl – and I'll admit it -- so was I. Jason took a quick break from dancing at one point and stood on the sidelines. As I was dancing there all alone it suddenly occurred to me that the guys trying to dance with this girl were just trying to worm their way in based on looks and charm. Hah! I don't even have those. Well, okay, I have lucky charms, but little kids keep trying to take them from me. Okay, where was I? When the song I was dancing to ended, I walked straight up to pretty skirt girl and said, "Hi! Could I please dance with you to make my friend think that you like me?" She smiled, looked at her female dance partner for 3 seconds... and then agreed! See? You just gotta ask. So we start dancing up close to one another and I can see out of the corner of my eye all the guys that'd been previously trying to hook up with her looking completely shocked. Jason was really shocked. Heck, I was super shocked. However, after a great one song dance I thanked her and went along my merry way smiling like a Cheshire cat. I have no idea who that girl is, but she's super cool. That dance also did wonders for my ego. I should look into a getting some kind of negotiation job in my next life.
Saturday and Sunday were filled with family times and the packing of my house. I don't recall what I did exactly. Packing. Goofing off. Going through bills. Moving stuff in the truck. During a break, I took my sister to Papadeaux and split a greek salad for two. I had the seafood skewer thing. My younger niece Katelien was there to terrorize me. What'd I do wrong? Did she somehow know about skirt girl and my ruse? Doubtful. She's only, like, 6.
I watched the Academy Awards on Sunday night with my dad on the big screen HDTV in his room. I was originally going to start my drive to Minneapolis on Sunday afternoon, but I deferred. The Academy Awards only happens once a year, after all. Mark Wahlberg didn't win for best supporting actor, but he did get a lot of good lines during the show, in my humble opinion. "You sir, are a bad ass!" comes directly to mind. Once the show was over, I headed downstairs, hugged my family goodbye, hopped into my car and drove off into the night.
I drove until 4 AM when I arrived in Oklahoma. I pulled over to a respectable looking rest area and attempted to doze off for a few hours. I was soon awake and driving again thereafter. I'd loaded my car up with all my exercise equipment which amounted to at least 600 extra pounds of weight. This did not do wonders for my gas mileage. It did help driving through the snow, as I only had to briefly deal with blizzard conditions about 100 miles south of Minneapolis. That lasted for all of 20 minutes. I was soon in the clear and back at home in Uptown. A buttload of snow had accumulated during my absence which made unloading my car a bit tricky. I was fast asleep as soon as everything was in the condo and I'd brushed my teeth. The trip took 21 hours including the nap. Don't try this at home, kids. I'm still tired.
I visited my office for about 2.5 hours on Tuesday only to leave in order to fly out to Philadelphia. Talk about a lot of traveling!? I had dinner with Super Heather at the Race Street Café In Old City, Philadelphia. I was in town to evangelize our portal and portlet application framework. I met up with my boss the next morning where we embarked on a 90 mile drive to northern New Jersey. The trip was made much easier thanks to Howard Stern on my SIRIUS satellite radio. I desperately wanted to go to Nocturne Nightclub on Wednesday evening, but I'd come down with the aforementioned sore throat that my niece donated to me the previous Friday night. I was grumpy that I wouldn't get to don my black trenchcoat and show off my fly goth moves, but figured I would probably be back again another day. That, plus I don't think there is such a thing as fly goth moves. Ahem.
On Thursday, I was back in Ft. Washington, PA where I'd worked previously from 2001 through 2005. Not a lot had changed. I got to catch up with my friends and coworkers. We had a quick lunch meeting and I was back on a plane to return to the land of 10,000 lakes once again.
My arrival in Minneapolis was far different from when I arrived previously. We landed during blizzard conditions. I sat next to a pretty redhead girl on the plane named Stephanie. She didn't lower the arm rest between us during the whole flight so we were constantly brushing against each other. Wow! I know, I'm single and I know this is pretty lame that I'm so thrilled at brushing up against someone, but hey, gimme a break. I am not sure what to attribute my recent lack of rejection from the opposite sex. The Hummer cologne? (yes, there really is a band of cologne called Hummer – and it's named after the car, okay, ya pervert). Anyway, I don't care. I'm happy. I hope something leads to something. It always seems to.
