Eliot's Blog

2011-02-16T01:38:00.000-08:00

"Independence"

I am on fire.
Sitting here, stir-crazy, fever over,
head full of bliss and thoughts flying faster than-

On the edge of a cliff
I look out towards the horizon and see such sights-
What's there? I want to sail out and touch the sky
Soar into space
Breathe the breath of an untouched land.
Discover a place of my own.

The numbers rattle in my head.
Zero, one, rpush, copy, skip if zero-
if, foreach, do-
my fingers brush the keyboard as I stare into a blank-

It's on the tip of my tounge. I want to say, to shout, to pronounce
It's here! The time is now!
I know the language, but the thought eludes me.

Buffer, drawback, vector, rotation, input, output-
servers crashing behind me like towers collapsing
I jump the fence, the fresh breeze of sea air filling my lungs

and I'm here.

Sitting here, stir-crazy, fever over,
I am on fire.

2009-08-02T17:40:00.000-07:00

A recent late-night coding endeavor has yielded a peculiar result:
Guru Meditation.

I can't really say why I made this or what I was aiming for.
If I was being generous, I'd call it a pastiche of eastern mysticism lite, doggerel humor, and hacker aesthetics.

If you have any material (profound statements, koans, short poems, wordplay, etc.) which you would like to include, please email them to me.

2009-07-06T12:30:00.000-07:00

Phase is now finished thanks to the development team from Cal Poly Pomona.
You can now visit the Phase webpage which has in-game screenshots, a video, and a 3-level playable download for windows!

I just want to thank everyone on the team for all the hard work they put in to make our shared dream a reality. It has been a privilege to stand back and watch the game progress from concept to completion.

2009-04-19T23:49:00.000-07:00

I'm happy to report that after abstaining from playing video games for a year and five days, I'm ready to start again in moderation (on the weekends only.) I'm really happy about this, especially because I'm working with Robert on a brand new game called Phase. We will definitely have a working prototype of the singleplayer game by this summer, since it is being developed by Robert and three other programmers for their Game Development class.

I may start a Phase development blog for the heck of it... I don't feel like posting about it too much here for the time being. Might be nice to lighten the mood around here a bit, though.

Honey pie!

2009-04-07T06:41:00.000-07:00

Blogiversary
Yesterday was the 8th anniversary of my blog...
I was so busy I forgot to post! Here's an update on random things.

Music
I have been practicing guitar again and picking up drums. I learned "St. Ides' Heaven" by Elliott Smith which is pretty much my favorite song, and played it at two open mic nights here at Chapman. I am now learning "Coming Up Roses" by Elliott Smith and a couple of other songs. I finally let go of my old electric Jackson (which I got from Tomas years ago on the condition I never sell it, but only give it away), trading with my friend Jon for his low-end acoustic steel string. I am working on a brand new episode of Radio Free Radical featuring local artists, mostly those I met at the open mics.

Film
I am directing a scene from Good Will Hunting for class and am really excited about it. I am lucky to be working with some talented actors. It's coming along well and I'm planning to shoot it next month.

Hopefully I can find a good hands-on film internship this summer. I had a great time last summer as an engineer intern.
I'm thinking that after I graduate I will try to support myself doing postproduction but hopefully working on some of my own projects on the side where I can write and direct. Oddly, I'm finding it pays better to do tech support than to be a recording engineer! But I might lose my mind if I had to fix computers all day. We'll see.

Blogging
By the way, I have renamed my new blog (Rantbox) to Rainbox which I feel is less angry. It's a nod to the Grateful Dead song "Box of Rain" which is one of my favorite songs. I have abandoned the tech focus and instead plan to use it for sharing anything that I like or love, while this blog will be more focused on my own artistic endeavors and little snippets of life. Which probably sounds more interesting than it actually is.

Spirituality
Overall, I have been trying to devote my life to God. It is the hardest thing I have ever tried to do and I stumble and struggle a lot. I'm trying to be of service to others and go the extra mile, yet I worry that if I give too much away I'll get used up (thankfully this has not been my experience so far.) I find myself very oppositional at times to what I know to be best for me. I am mystified at how there's some subconscious process at work that seems to cause me to self-sabotage and sometimes even self-destruct. It makes no logical sense but it's inside me, pulling constantly. I'm hoping part of this is just growing up... learning to swallow the yucky medicine, i.e. do something I know to be right even if I don't feel like it. But there is more at work here as well, and I'm thankful to have the support of a higher power when I'm wise enough to ask for it.

I have been trying to create a spiritual practice for myself. Right now it's shaping up to be sacrificing the day to God and praying for the healing and well-being of my loved ones if I have time. I would also like to do at least ten minutes per day of shamatha, or sitting breath meditation. However I am finding myself lacking in discipline to sit regularly. I did have a really great experience over winter break when I went to Colorado for a ten-day meditation retreat at Shambhala Mountain Center where I made a lot of friends and learned about buddhism, shamatha, tonglen, dharma art, and a lot of other cool things. I created an animated slideshow of photos I took on the trip for our banquet on the last day, and I will hopefully be able to share that here soon.

I often get caught in tunnel vision and can see only what I perceive as my problems and shortcomings. But all things considered, my life is pretty sweet right now and full of abundant blessings. I get to hang out with Robert and my new friends I met through him every weekend. I have a lot of wonderful opportunities to explore my creative side, and in the process, earn a degree! I hope to try my hand at more writing and directing in the semesters to come, and to share the fruits (rotten or otherwise) of my mind here, as always.

Peace be with you,
Eliot

2009-03-26T17:53:00.001-07:00

"Fire/Frustration"

Why can't I write
like I feel?

Damn.
I thought I was better
the letters don't flow
It's my fault.

Why can't I have
more discipline?

Beat, beat
beat myself up
all the time

I'd better go easy.

Frustration.
That's the word
curdled and burned,
a wreck, technically.

A slob.
Can't be bothered for
rhyme and meter,
consonance is the best I can manage
in this vers libre.

I'm sick of it.
I should quit.

But I can't stop
spewing on the page
Jesus, it's not like I'm
some sort of tortured artist

muse burning a hole in my pocket.

God.

Does everyone do this?

The doubt.
Will it last forever?
Never. It comes and goes
coming up roses
pricking my calloused fingers.

Well, that was cathartic.
The least I can do for you
is to cut off this self-referential bullsh*t before it becomes ridiculous.

Here's something new,
a poem within a poem:

"Negeb"

The ocean breathes so openly
the sand beneath my skin.
I walk across the desert
seeking somewhere to begin.

A seagull floats above me
with its polished charcoal eyes
it followed me, an omen
in an animal disguise.

Kicking up the dust, it clears
so that I can see the stars
I freeze, held by the stare
of the sharp crimson eye of mars.

I close my eyes. God, guide me
back to safety, teach me trust
the darkness closes in on me
step slowly in the dust.

I stop. I am surrounded
by an ever-growing light.
"Son, do not be so foolish;
this is why I gave you sight."

A cascade of manic energy
the rise, the fall, the crash
neurons fire, sweet desire,
rage like hot volcanic ash.

Will they ever understand?
How can I show them, make them see?
That truly being a Messiah
is our responsibility.

"In time, son. Go to sleep.
remember this: to Love and Be."
alone, I head for home, now
Israel lives inside of me.

I hope you liked my poem. I can only write what I know.
Or don't know. Whatever.

I think I'll stop wasting your time.
Think on it.
I would be consistently melodramatic if I said
that I can't rest until I've told everyone.

2009-03-25T23:08:00.000-07:00

Drifting
In a box
Locked?

Don't know.

Coasting...
Not quite.

My dream is bigger than this.

It's simple
Not easy.

Please,
Just stand with me.

Time passes,
Distance heals.

The clouds part

I see a little clearer.

In everything, more than just
her face.

My God.

Who's there?

Someone, someone who knows

Someone who loves.

Alone.

I raise my eyes

Breeze across my face

Light falling in beams

And I know you're there.

2009-03-10T05:28:00.000-07:00

I wanted to share a fake 60 second radio spot I made last year for Audio Techniques class called the "Film School Survival Handbook."

Also, some of my scripts, short films. and other multimedia works are available on my website for your viewing pleasure.

2008-10-15T13:49:00.000-07:00

An untitled poem which meanders from nonsense to sense and current personal truth. I would like to do more on these themes later with a better balance- i.e. making more sense and being less preachy. But I like this anyway, so here it is.

I.

Oh, how I hold!
a borderline, dime
drawn from the depths of the
etherland.

Will. Tell,
the tall tale of daring,
caring, stricken
struck down and
pound

free-flowing, towing
the dawn
a ship of more oars
a thousand ears
dead men's nails,
tails.

To which waters
brickety-bracket,
brackish,
of the brakhage
glue and dirt.

Hurt,
Lost, tossed
Pain, blame
Love, over

To what end.

I love.
I fear.

I die an easy death

Oh, to lay down in the lillies,
lillid,
amidst the blithe, lithe
bed of grass itch and greens

Ani L'dodi v'dodi Li
And if I could only love God
as he Loves me
Love others, as he loves them,
the world would be right

Look for the dove with the olive branch
not the crow with the black eye
bound, found
amidst the muck and grime
of your heart.

Start,
today,
Pray about it.

God knows we can't do it on our own.

II.

Have I lost my purpose
or found it again
amidst the drudge beauty
of this life?

Wandering
lost, found
the sounds resound too loudly

Proudly, I open the gate
Only to find what awaits
is not what my ego expected.

But I am not damaged.
This pain is not coming from higher truth.

Ergo,
the peace I find
Serenity of mind and body

Haughty, sometimes
when I'm out of control

The toll of pride,
wide expectations

no humility.

But that is no way to live.

III.

So what is my higher truth?

Love. Be.

Peace. Grace.

Don't feel guilty for being human,
but take responsibility for bettering yourself,
improving your corner of the world.

Colors are so bright!
Tastes so rich,
Air so sweet,
The sky so blue,
Trees so majestic,
People so pure
When you walk in Grace.

Oh, to be Loved!
And to Love.
How fond God is of this little rock
on the edge of nowhere,
in some odd universe.

These humans,
How wonderful are they.
To delight in Creation, creativity
art, music, learning
Hurting, yearning, killing
Giving in to their darkness, indifference

Turning away.

Hurt. Pain. desolation.

Weep. Sob. Cry out,
for the Love not begetting love,
Grace not begetting mercy,
Kindness begetting selfishness.

But we are all children of adam.
We all have our piece of the puzzle,
our part to play in the bigger scheme,
for better or for worse.

Love. Fear. Be in Awe.

Be grateful.
Life is so much better with gratitude.

Don't take this world for granted.
It is a precious gift, our one and only home.

Every day is full of miracles,
big and Small.
All you have to do is look.

NB: Ani L'dodi v'dodi Li is from the Song of Songs, and translates to "I am My Beloved's, and My Beloved is Mine"

2008-04-07T23:11:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the 7th anniversary of this blog. I try to make a post on that day every year, but as of late I've been pretty involved with life, introspection, my girlfriend, etc. Still avoiding work like I always have been, but overall I feel like I've been improving a lot. I got straight A's for the first time in recent memory, and I hope to do very well again this semester. A lot of stuff is still up in the air: Will I get an apartment next year? Where will I live during the summer? Will I get an internship? Am I on track to graduate on time?
I'm trying to deal with this kind of stuff more and worry about it less.

A few interesting things have been happening here at Chapman. Salman Rushide came to speak; he was enlightening, witty, and entertaining. He signed my copy of Haroun and The Sea of Stories, the same copy I received in middle school. It has been one of my favorite stories since, although I have only read it twice.

Today, I went to a poetry reading by William Stobb to promote his new book of poetry, Nervous Systems. I went on a whim with the intention to leave if it "wasn't any good", but I found his writing very interesting. His language, especially the way he read it, possessed a kind of floating quality that's difficult to describe. He generously gave away some copies of his book at the end but I paid for mine on principle and he was kind enough to sign it. The crowd was pretty thin (pretty average for Chapman actually) but I enjoyed it a lot and wanted to plug his book here.

One of the things that I brought up during the Q&A session afterward was the small audience of people who enjoy poetry, and I think we both have similar feelings about it. I don't usually write for an audience, I write to get ideas out of my head and play with them a bit. I don't know all of my reasons for publishing them here, but I figure that if someone happens upon them and enjoys reading them, they have done more good than if they had been sitting around my hard drive or notebook.

That line of thinking is the main reason this blog still exists. It's been here for me when I've needed it, and occasionally has been entertaining or useful to others. By that notion, it has been faithfully serving its purpose for seven years.

2008-02-19T18:32:00.000-08:00

Here is another one.

The web dev went totally pallid;
His XHTML was invalid.
But with an additional
made his doctype transitional
and put closing tags on this ballad.

2008-02-19T03:45:00.000-08:00

I've started composing Limericks for Randall Munroe's LimerickDB. Here is my first go:

A man with great knowledge of media
wrote an article for Wikipedia.
But sadly, the "Moogle"
didn't show up on Google;
Its deletion could not have been speedier.

2007-06-30T03:13:00.000-07:00

Extreme biking! LS3 fine cut! Long ass hikes, eating healthy, unix hacking, sleeping at odd hours.
Not so bad for a summer but I still feel like I need to kick it up a notch.

Looks like the Apple job isn't gonna pan out. Maybe next year.

2007-06-12T09:46:00.000-07:00

So, first year of college is finally over. It's a relief- it was crazy. I disappointed myself but managed to pull a decent average out of the bag, so what the hell. I'll try to not slack off so much next year.

This summer has been mediocre so far, although I've been trying to pack it full of stuff to do and I think I've more than succeeded.
School has been out for almost a month. A lot has happened, and a lot hasn't.

Things I'm looking forward to:

A part-time job at the Apple Store, if I get it.

Getting microeconomics out of the way, and hopefully finding some way to apply it to:

the production business I'm trying to start with Nate. If all goes well, our first video shoot will be this weekend at the Fox.

¿Internships?

Getting shit done on Project Aqua.

Finishing Liquid Strike 3, finally!

Things I'm not looking forward to:

Post-post-postmodernism or some sort of dadaist new wave

Death and taxes

Our sun burning out, universal entropy

After making that list I figured I should just get it all off my chest, so here's a post-post-modern dadaist new wave poem about death, taxes, the sun burning out, and universal entropy:

Sun shifter?! The identity
FACTOR of which killed
and from reborn, WHAT<>
I wait below
above, beyond
moon sun rain earth die
cold showers broken, nozzles
die, die, dead.

2007-04-16T19:49:00.000-07:00

I hate pretentious poetry, but this really happened a few minutes ago and this is what ran through my head, so here it is.

Dammit. I stepped on a snail today.
He didn't do anything wrong.
I had nothing against him.
I never even noticed him until he was dead.

If I had seen him,
if I was paying attention,
I would have stopped.

But I didn't, and his feeble armor
was pulverized by my weight.
And his brief existence
came to an end beneath my shoe.

Is that what it means to be mortal?
Is this how God feels when he steps on a man?

2007-04-12T21:18:00.000-07:00

God made mud.
God got lonesome.
So God said to some of the mud, "Sit up!"
"See all I've made," said God, "the hills, the sea, the sky, the stars."
And I was some of the mud that got to sit up and look around.
Lucky me, lucky mud.
I, mud, sat up and saw what a nice job God had done.
Nice going, God.
Nobody but you could have done it, God! I certainly couldn't have.
I feel very unimportant compared to You.
The only way I can feel the least bit important is to think of all the mud that didn't even get to sit up and look around.
I got so much, and most mud got so little.
Thank you for the honor!
Now mud lies down again and goes to sleep.
What memories for mud to have!
What interesting other kinds of sitting-up mud I met!
I loved everything I saw!
Good night.
I will go to heaven now.
I can hardly wait...
To find out for certain what my wampeter was...
And who was in my karass...
And all the good things our karass did for you.
Amen.

Rest in peace, Kurt Vonnegut.

2007-04-06T15:16:00.000-07:00

Blogiversary
Today is the sixth anniversary of this blog. This is my 258th post.
As I've been concentrating most of my recent efforts on getting Rantbox off the ground, I thought I would step back and take the time to lay out my plans.

Rantbox is decked out with all the latest blogging tools, and I am focusing the content on a few categories of general interest such as filmmaking, technology, and law. I will keep this blog, my personal blog, in operation as a place to put up whatever comes to my mind that would be out of place on a blog intended for general readership. I would like to use this blog as more of a personal and creative outlet.

Here are some of things I will continue to post here:

Poetry, as always.

Excerpts from my Dream log. I've only just started keeping a Dream log and I think I can pull out some interesting stuff.

Updates on personal film projects. I will also keep posting Catman do news to the Catman do Blog.

Anything else that I deem too personal for Rantbox.

So, think of this blog as my metaphorical right brain, and Rantbox as my left.

Six years is a long time, and I've changed a lot since I began. (I was twelve years old when I started this blog!) Not everything I write here is particularily significant or insightful, but it forms a series of snapshots of the interests and concerns that were at the front of my mind. I hope to continue this practice in the coming years. In some ways, I see this blog as a collection of small fragments of my life and the time in which I was living. It's not much, but at its best it can become a window into a time that has since passed.

-Eliot

2007-02-14T05:49:00.000-08:00

I came up with this short vers libre poem in the middle of a class called "War and Human Nature". It sums up my current position on philosophy pretty well.

So you want
to be
a philosopher?
To read, to learn,
to read again
and to teach
perpetuating
the eternal spiral
of academic nothingness.

2007-01-31T07:57:00.000-08:00

So! Interterm is over, and second semester is upon us folks at Chapman. I have to say that I really enjoyed taking Location Filmmaking, and I was lucky enough to land with such a hardworking crew. Definitely glad that I'm able to go into postproduction, though. That film shoot was the hardest I've worked in years, I'm not sure how people can keep it up. Thirteen hour days are plenty; I've even heard stories of some crews working for eighteen hours! That can't be healthy.

I'm not really sure if anyone reads this anymore except for Nate, but I thought I'd throw this out there: I wanted a place to just write about whatever was on my mind at the moment, and this blog doesn't really feel like the place for that. So I'm starting a new one, and I'm calling it Rantbox. If you're reading this I take it you have some sort of interest in what I have to say, so head on over and see if anything catches your eye.

2007-01-16T01:10:00.000-08:00

so now you're in college
you're out on your own
and you wish to indulge;
to go out on the town

you hear of a house party
in some off-campus place
you decide just to get there
either stag or a date.

you first try the miller
but that was too light

you then taste the budweiser
but that's not quite right

here, have some newcastle
now that's a bit better

oh shit you just spilt some
all over my sweater

Let's have margaritas
and other mixed drinks

Cap'n morgan and cuervo
have entered the rink.

You mix in some coke
and some lemonade too

You don't care no more
all you want is more booze

you start chugging cheap wine
and cheaper champagne

you chat up some girl
with mush for a brain

then you black out!
you wake up in your dorm

you're next to your vomit
and the hallway ain't warm

you need to get back there
and find your damn car

okay, I know this time
I went way too far

so next time you want to just chug like a sink
you kids, please remember
JUST DON'T DRIVE AND DRINK.

2006-06-02T23:15:00.000-07:00

Last. Day. Of. Class.

That is all.

2006-05-23T19:13:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've posted any silly poetry, so here's a poem I wrote last month:

I often get confused with the writings of Descartes
with Sartre, Nietzsche- philosophers of existential art.
Their ruminations are too stiff and long-winded to read
I'll be not in their school of thought with referential creeds.

Far too much time they used to spend on silly rumination
and intellectual treatise bred of self-infatuation
"An object's own existence is a purely Boolean state;
the meaning of an object often calls for some debate."

"So what," I oft think to myself, "who cares? It's all the same."
I'd rather spend my time on things I think are far less lame.
The one thing I agree about, while gazing at the steeple
as Sartre phrased so naturally, "Hell is other people."

2006-04-27T14:54:00.000-07:00

Today is the first day in a long, long while that felt like summer.

I've been thinking about this for the past week or two, and today it really hit me. We're going to be done with high school in a few weeks' time. I can already taste the freedom.

Done; finished! This is going to sound corny, but the past four years have been a time of joy, pain, torment, confusion, realization, and self-discovery. Mostly torment though.

And now, here we are. This chapter of my life is drawing to a close. Not so long ago I was apprehensive--I was unsure if I could make it in 'the real world'. But thinking back, that's the same way I felt before high school, and I did alright.

I just realized something that I had never really put a finger on, but had always been there; I like having responsibility because of the freedom that comes with it. I was almost afraid of the transition between teenager and full-fledged adult because of the greater burdens of responsibility that adults face in day-to-day life. However, I now want the great freedom that comes with those responsibilities, and I'm ready to step across the threshold.

There's no way for me to know what's around the bend; but whatever happens, I finally feel ready to face it.

Now, I'm planning on fully enjoying the handful of responsiblity-free months that lie ahead. Peace out.

2006-04-13T03:42:00.000-07:00

Finally, some good news!
I've been accepted to Chapman University, and been awarded a sizeable merit scholarship!

I guess they liked my application! Hopefully I'll get a chance to go down to SoCal soon.

By the by, as of last week this blog has been up and running for five years. Scary.

2006-04-05T01:23:00.000-07:00

It's 1:23 04/05/06!

2006-03-05T18:42:00.000-08:00

It's that time of year when I should be hearing back from the colleges that I've applied to. I'll keep track of them here.

CalArts - Rejected.

Chapman - Accepted!

CSU Northridge - Accepted!

Art Academy - Accepted!

In other stuff, I'm running the slides for the spring play, Remember my Name. Come see it, it's pretty good. Sort of a Laramie Project Lite, but without the fence.

2006-01-08T19:38:00.000-08:00

Feliz Año Nuevo, etc.

Break was nice- I went to Puerto Vallarta for five days. I was hoping to get a chance to Scuba Dive, but the water was too cold.

I enjoyed having some rest and relaxation. I did a ton of reading, averaging about a book a day. The best ones were Night Watch and Angels & Demons. An interesting thing that the latter book features are ambigrams: words that are visual palendromes.

It's a huge relief to have my CalArts application done... I admit that the chances of me getting in are slim, but I've still got my fingers crossed.

Stuff to check out:
Myths, Legends, and Other Rareties - Get your Aquabats fix
minibosses - hardcore VG music covers
googlefight - google doesn't lie

2005-10-29T03:28:00.000-07:00

Wooooo... lots of junk going on right now.

First off, my homepage has finally recieved a much needed face-lift. It is still under heavy construction, but "Eliot's Homepage v3.0" has gone live. I will be revamping the template for this blog as well, but right now I am too busy. And lazy.

Now, on to everything else.

I've recently acquired a Mac Mini, complete with Final Cut Pro 4.5. At last, I have an editing system all to myself- and I've certainly been putting it through its paces, along with my GL2.

I just finished the video for The Wizard of Oz, which will be projected on a giant screen during the play. I can't wait to see it!

I'm flying down to SoCal again this Friday for a portfolio review session with CalArts, and I need to finish the first assembly of my all-new narrative film (Working title: The Interview) by then. I'm also trying to hack together an artsy non-narrative from some random footage I've been shooting.

I got permission to use Espen Gätzschmann's "Nova
Observatory Theme" in my art film. This will be a first for me, as all the other soundtracks to my films have been blatantly stolen.

I may also use the song "Breakaway" for the closing titles in my narrative piece. It was created by my uncle Alan, so I will be able to get permission for it as well.

So- two films to edit, and one week to do it. It will be interesting to see if I can pull it off.

Peace out.

2005-09-17T00:58:00.000-07:00

I picked up a very special delivery from FedEx today:

(click to enlarge)

That's right boys and girls, no more Video-8. I am now the proud owner of a Canon GL2!

2005-07-17T03:26:00.000-07:00

Hey all. I've got some hot new shit going on.

But first, some status updates.
Yes, I got a car. It's a tricked out rice rocket for sure. Oh yeah, and it's green.

As for Project Aqua, it's coming along well. Robert and I are making good progress on the programming side (Robert more so than myself).

Now on to the hot new shit.
Tomas and I decided to open up our own shop on Cafe Press to sell all the cool stuff we had ideas for. This has spun off into two shops so far (more to come, since Cafe Press is stingy with how much merch you are allowed in a free shop).

First off we have Smother Party, a delightfully offensive shop with awesome shirts like "Sidecars are For Bitches" and Tomas' awesome rendition of Muller's classic "Go McFuck Yourself".

Second is the Jesus Christ Superstore which has our "Super Jesus" Tee (Tomas did the logo, I did the text) and my personal favorite, "Turn Up The Jesus". It also has a few designs with the 3D cross I made.

So, I hope you buy some of our awesome merchandise. We don't make a cent off it- the prices are left at base so that you get a great deal!

I'll post some pictures of my car when my "Sidecars Are For Bitches" bumper sticker arrives.

2005-06-18T02:21:00.000-07:00

Summertime, and the living's easy...
well, not entirely, but it's a relief to have school over.

The best news is that I got my hands on a G4 with Final Cut Pro 4 HD! I have to wait to get a working monitor for it, should have one by monday.

I've got a mental todo list for this summer. It'll be interesting to see what I accomplish. This is how it's falling right about now:

Edit wedding video

Edit DVD version of expendable

Produce "Study Session" (a short comedy film)

Edit some gameplay trailers

Work on Project Aqua, write new XML Specification and scripts

Create an elite mod for Vegastrike

Finally finish new website (EDS v3.0)

Create online photography portfolio

Do summer reading

Attend a 2-week spanish class that counts for a year (ugh)

Visit colleges

Do a film/video production internship

I'll be satisfied if I finish about half that crap.

2005-06-02T23:43:00.000-07:00

Aahhhhh!
Two more weeks of school left. Things are getting nutty.
Photography has turned into a real beast of a class... although I will have stuff to show when It's all over. I already have scanned in the majority of my best work, and I'm planning to add a gallery to my new homepage (whenever the hell I sit down for ten minutes and get it into a workable state.)

Also, though Heather did not get that cruise ship job after all, I'm going to check out a G4 from the comp sci lab with.... Final Cut Pro 4! Yay.
It will be awesome to have a real editing station once more. I'll primarily be using it to edit the wedding video that Neyht and I are doing as a contract job.
It seems a little bit odd though, because even though he hasn't even logged the footage he's going to get half the pay. So what the hell is he getting payed for? Having "the eye"?

Oh yes... the one-acts. I have only one word to say about them: Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhheeeyat.

That's all for now. Peace out.

2005-05-03T19:12:00.000-07:00

Great news! My cousin Heather just took a six-month job on a cruise line shooting and editing vacation videos for the passengers. Sounds like a lot of fun (I guess editing isn't all late nighters in the basement after all). AAAND... She's leaving me her editing equipment while she's gone!!!

This means I'll have full access to Final Cut starting in a few weeks and going through the summer. I'll also be able to capture all the stuff I have sitting around on Video-8 cassetes.

In one word: SWEET!

2005-04-21T22:43:00.000-07:00

Hey, just noticed that this blog is over four years old. Damn.

This is kind of old news by now, but me and Neyht won first place for instructional video at the Windy Hill Kids' Film Festival. Woohoo!

Random stuff: I finally bit the bullet and bought Trocadero's CD. Should be coming in the next few weeks. Joy.

Okay, that's all I have to say now. Peace out.

2005-04-01T00:33:00.000-08:00

Today has been depressing. I failed my driver's test yesterday when I got into a head-on collision with a cop cruiser in the center turn lane. On top of that, my permit has now expired, meaning that I will have to re-take both driver's ed and saftey ed again before I can get my liscense.

And to make things worse- after a long and gruelling shoot today, Neyht stormed off the set, shouting "Fuck this! I hate this goddamned movie!" So, without our director, LS3 has been cancelled.

To top it off, I have been diagnosed with a contagious disease that causes me to talk about bullshit on... April Fools!

2005-03-20T18:34:00.000-08:00

Thanks, Tomas!

2005-03-06T19:00:00.000-08:00

Hello! It's been quite a while since my last update.

I had a great vacation in Oahu. We stayed up on the north shore of the island, away from commercial sprawl of waikiki. We also did four boat dives- two shallow reef dives at about 35 feet, and a wreck dive at 100 feet. The wreck dive was an ordeal unto itself; just about everything went wrong. I'll post my log entry from that dive when I get the dive pictures back.

We also spent a day and a half at the Polynesian Cultural Center, and I took a whole shitload of digital photos there. I also shot some decent quality video of the fire dancers. I will post both at a later date, hopefully along with the dive photos.

In recent events, Neyht and I were interviewed for an article in the San Jose Mercury News. As the article was about a student film contest, I expected only a passing mention, but the segment on us exceeded my expectations. I've reprinted that segment here:

Eliot Lash and Neyht Barker, both 16, sent Shelby a copy of ``The Belmont Bridge Project,'' a film commissioned by the Belmont City Planning Department about the need for a Highway 101 overcrossing for pedestrians.

The two Carlmont High School juniors already have years of filmmaking behind them and they know what they want -- they worked on a seven-minute anti-war film called ``Expendable'' for four years.

Eliot wants to be a film editor, Neyht a director, and their college plans are forming accordingly. But ``my mom wants me to minor in something like business so I can support myself,'' Neyht said.

What now, punks?!?!

The entire article may be viewed on the Mercury Website, but it may bug you for a login. You could also grab a paper copy, on shelves today.

2005-01-17T13:23:00.000-08:00

My little cousin is my biggest critic.
Hahahahahaha.
I just got an email from my cousin, Trevor.

Dear Eliot,
I am sorry to say that your website is boring.
Allthough Phoney the
squirrel is a big hit.Squirrel talk,anger,saying
humans are pathetic,
and injuring people whith a french-frie.
Just visit newgrounds.com/Phoney the Sqirrel/

p.s don't end up whith the squirrel,and also type
back.

your 1st cousin Trevor

When I was over at his house helping to set up his internet connection, I surfed to my blog. He said "This website is poorly designed. The text is hard to read."

As if that isn't enough, here is what Neyht had to say:
powerpiper: you got owned by a fourth grader

2005-01-01T23:31:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!
I just got back from my trip to Dorrington. It was pretty fun, and I have some pictures up.

I think that this crop is of higher quality than my last photo dump, during my trip to Hope Valley a year ago. Judge the content for yourself, but there are two factual differences:

These images, taken with our new digital camera, have a much higher resolution (1600x1200)than the previous 640x480.

For better or for worse, this trip yielded way less photos than Hope Valley.

As the saying goes, less is more. Enjoy!

2004-12-19T22:48:00.000-08:00

New Compu-tar!
It's about time for me to take my poor Inspiron out to pasture. The LCD screen is literally falling off (it's okay, since the screen stopped functioning months ago). The battery is dead, it is disk-space deprived and memory-starved and hooked up to a life-support network consisting of an external monitor, mouse, hard drive, and constant power supply. I had asked for money towards a car this Hannukah, but I decided that a computer would be more immediately useful so I decided to buy myself one.

Anyway, I'm on a budget, so I ordered an eMachines T3256, which is a steal at $400*. I hate eMachines for some reason, and so does Robert Muller (I learned this when I told him what kind of computer I was planning on buying), although neither of us can figure out why.

Oh well, they're dirt cheap for what they come with. It has a nice-sized hard drive, a decent amout of RAM, and a speedy processor, which is all I really want. I'll need to install a firewire card once it arrives, but that's no big deal. Also, I ordered a nifty little device called a KVM switch that lets me use the same keyboard, monitor, and mouse with two computers, in this case my new desktop machine and my server. This will aid me in updating my website more frequently since it will be less of a pain in the ass, seeing as right now I have to crawl around the back and fool with my monitor cable every time I need to get on to my server.

Speaking of my website, I'm making progress on version 3.0, believe it or not. Getting the color scheme right is still giving me a headache, as is using one stylesheet for the whole site instead of embedded CSS. The good news is that I figured out how to have a nifty little randoquote box, which pops up some random Voltaire, Neyht, and Maddox (among others) for your reading pleasure.

A little movie news for y'all:
-Neyht and I shot the choir during their winter concert. I think we got 'em all.
Neyht might have a tape ready in a while, but it all depends on when he can get the nine hours of footage logged in.

-Something will be happening for Liquid Strike III. Soon. Really.

-Evidently, Tomas wants to finish shooting Underdog over break, but I have yet to hear from him.

-Neyht and I have been asked to tape and edit a wedding video for a friend of Ms. Chun. If we accept, this will be our first paying job, at around $150 for each of us if I recall correctly.

That about sums it up for right now. I found out that my reflections photograph got an "award of excellence" (which is supposedly some kind of special merit at the school-level). I still haven't heard how it's doing at the region, but an extra ribbon can never hurt. I also finally found the Carlmont Arts Website where my photogram was posted. Check out the other stuff there- we have a lot of talented people at our school (they're hard to spot amdist the sea of assholes).

Pac-man devours a roll of film. ©2004 Eliot Lash, beeotches.

*Refurbished, with mail-in rebate. Order now while supplies last!

2004-12-08T17:41:00.000-08:00

Good news!
I was one of the winners at Carlmont of the PTA "Reflections" program, with a photo I submitted of an american flag towel. My photo is now going to the regional competition, so that should be cool. If it gets far enough they may even display it or something.

Neyht and I might have a gig this friday, as choir wants us to tape their concert. More news on that if anything comes of it.
The final revisions of out bike movie are to be submitted tomorrow, meaning that we've fucked it up just like belmont wants it. Mrs. Chun *coughcough* will be submitting our original [read: good] version to some sort of film contest, and Mr. Craig wants us to enter Expendable into another contest thing. I guess you can never have too many contests.

By the way, a few others and I have decided to begin researching certain paranormal threats. We've split up our specialties as follows:
Neyht - Zombies (see his report)
Josh - Vampires
Me - Necromancy (animated skeletons, cthulhu mythos)
Robert - Lycanthropes (werewolves and such)
We may divulge some of our findings at a later date.

2004-11-23T23:55:00.000-08:00

Hey all. Sorry I haven't updated in a while. A lot is happening, although I feel like not much is going on. Anyway, here is the lowdown on current events:

•Heliopolis Project: The documentary is picking up momentum as I now have a tentative deadline for the initial cut. I was also privelidged to attend a lunch and site inspection with many people involved in the construction and operation of the Bracewell Observatory, including Professor Bracewell himself. I shot footage during the inspection, and there is also a still gallery online, although it is automatically generated and admittedly pretty crappy (but the photos themselves are nice).

•Bike (The Ralston/101 Overcross Movie): As many of you know, we completed out final cut about a week ago and sumbitted the final product to the city of belmont. The response we recieved was strange- even though this was presented as a contest, they now want us to combine our movie with another person's movie and shoot new footage to merge them together. The way this is being proposed is total bullshit, and I'd like to discuss some alternatives with the city. I talked to Mrs. Chun (the Film & Video teacher) about it today, and she was less than cooperative, to say the least.

•My Homepage (EDS v3.0): I had stopped working on this for a time, but I picked it up again today. My recent changes include tidying up the XHTML and optimizing the style sheet for Mozilla Firefox. I also started toying with page icons.

•Project Aqua: I've decided to join the Project Aqua team as a dialogue writer. This is a student collaboration to create an RPG in the Java language.

•Liquid Strike III: We are hoping to film this week (possibly on thursday or friday, as they are days off).

That sums up the important stuff.
Peace out.

2004-11-05T01:58:00.000-08:00

Blinking Little Lights
Tonight was pretty interesting for me and muller, as I fired up my PDP-8/m for the first time. It was given to me in 2001 by my friend Mike Fox, who is also a friend of the family. I never had the chance to use it, but muller has been badgering me to let him use it to aid his conquest of machine code (assembly). I figured what the hell, and before I knew it we were ready to finally turn the old girl on.

The fan inside it must be massive! As it roared to life, I could have sworn it was preparing to take off. My dad had to troubleshoot it for a little bit, but as it turns out we only needed to start it up with all of the toggle switches off. Taped on top of the box was a short test program called a "worm". It was written out in octal (base-8), which is even more low-level than assembly. Robert entered the program in binary (base-2). This took a while because he would have to set the memory address, flip in the instruction set, and then deposit the instructions into the memory address before moving on to the next instruction.

It didn't quite work at first, but after we fiddled with it some more and switched the dial to display the accumulator, there it was! A worm travelling across the readout. It may not sound very exciting, but seeing that was a real accomplishment. Robert later modified the code to create a "christmas lights" effect, and I changed it to look sort of like a marquee.

Tonight I've really gotten to understand the inner concept of a computer. Hopefully I can learn some Assembly along with robert and we can experiment some more on my newly operational system.

2004-11-03T13:05:00.000-08:00

So, Kerry conceded. I guess that's that.

2004-11-02T19:55:00.000-08:00

So, it looks like the election is gonna be pretty close. There have been thousands of reports from democratic voters in Florida stating that they had trouble selecting their candidate, and that Bush appeared on their confirmation screen instead of kerry. Big fucking surprise there.

There's gonna be a stink about this one, for sure. I hope that in the many elections to come, it won't take a goddamned month for the supreme court to appoint the next president. Hopefully this time round, we'll abolish the electoral college while we're at it.

2004-10-31T23:42:00.000-08:00

Happy Halloween! I hope everyone's been having a good time.
I've been laying low this weekend, avoiding doing homework, etc.
Today I went to see Peter Pan with heather and my parents. That was a lot of fun, and it was a really lavish production. Heather and I wore Kimonos to the play (yes, I was wearing a male kimono), and I had my rice hat on. It was pretty cool.

We also shot stuff for the bike movie. If you haven't heard about this, Catman do has been commissioned by the belmont city planning division to create a persuasive video about why a pedestrian bridge should be built across 101. I found out that everyone is interested in you if you have a camera. I have footage of a fat guy yelling for us to buy him a beer and some girls shouting at us out of their car with a megaphone.

I want to make it really cheezy, and have corny 80's music and video effects. Hopefully we can shoot the rest of it next weekend so I can edit it and get it done on time.

Also, check out this page on my dad's site to see where Friends of The Bracewell Observatory has been mentioned in the news. I recently read a great article about us in The Mercury, check it out if you get a chance.

2004-10-19T21:27:00.000-07:00

Eliot and Robert's Drunksailing Adventures.

This weekend, I saw signs posted everywhere for garage sales. As it turned out, saturday was a community-wide garage sale for all of San Carlos. The first thing I thought was, "time to go drunksailing". If you are not aware of the detestable pastime, let me enlighten you.

Drunksailing has been practiced since the first garage sales, most likely during the stone age. More recently, this habit has been publicized on the internet by the late drunkgamers.com, which was operated by the now-famous guys who make Red vs. Blue. What it involves is getting really drunk, and then crusing around various garage sales for video games and other junk. This practice has been recently revived by The New Gamer. Of course, BUI (Biking Under the Influence) is quite dangerous. Therefore, we refrained from the alcohol, so I guess it could be considered sobersailing.

Anyway, seeing that this was quite an opportunity, I rang up my buddy Robert Muller to see if he'd like to join me on a little escapade. Naturally, he accepted, and once he'd arrived at my house we got on bikes and were on our way.

Our first stop was an old lady's house. She had some cool old books for sale- I bought two books on spaceflight from the 60's and robert got an awesome tome of kung-fu mastery.

After that, we cruised around through a couple of sales, eventually winding up at an estate sale where people were selling furniture, fine china, etc. We agreed this was a bit out of our leauge, so we left. Robert bought an arm-mounted slingshot, and then we homed in on the ultimate purchase...

The Jacket. This was a spiffy trenchoat, and the guy wanted $15. Robert talked him down to twelve, and we decided to split the cost. BAD MOVE.

After dropping the crap we had accumulated off at Robert's place, we continued on our quest. We passed up on a hot deal for some N64 cartridges, and continued on to find some really cool merch.

I got a VHS tape of Good Will Hunting, one of my favorite movies. I also purchased some old Vinyls- Saturday Night Fever and an ELO album. I figure I'll never be able to play them (our turntable is broken) but the cover art is so spiffy I might wind up hanging 'em on my walls. We also got a power cord for our new EEG machine!

After that, things started to wind down. Robert must have bought about two gallons of lemonade from this poor kid. He also got an electronics handbook from 1991, which he was very excited about. I asked why, and he told me that the one he was using was from the 70's.

We stopped off at Mike's house to drop shit off. For those poor fools who don't know mike, he's a supacool college man who, incedentally, did NOT nick robert's wallet. After that small detour, we made our final rounds.

The only memorable purchase from our final round was actually not a purchase at all; robert got a free set of sparring gear from some people who were planning to just give them away. They were in a diaper box which we bungee-corded to the back of robert's bike, resulting in many antics and possibly anecdotes.

Our day of drunksailing was now winding to a close. We went back to Mike's house and played some Brute Force with Mike's friend Justin. Afterwards, we biked back to Robert's and, supposedly, got all of my shit that we had left there. Then we headed back to my house for The Ultimate Showdown.

We both knew that the trophy of the day was The Jacket. We both had equal shares and, as I predicted, we both wanted total possesion. What resulted was a frenzied attempt to get the other party to accept our six bucks. Eventually, Robert said I could have $7.25 because of finder's fee. I accepted, and then tried to buy the whole thing back for $16. This was, perhaps, my greatest mistake, as robert refused to give up his newly-earned holdings.

Oh, what a fool am I. He would not relent, and I would not give up, Seeing that I had no chance of winning The Jacket back via coercion, I decided on a method of last resort. We would hold a contest, and the winner would recieve the ultimate prize. I suggested a game of Star Control. He declined, since I would obviously kick his ass. Then I suggested Ping-Pong. I knew I would lose, but at least I would have a slim chance at reclaiming my birthright.

But alas, it was not to be. I was owned with a humiliating 21 to 16. I think. I don't really remember it too much. It was terrible.

But one day, the jacket will be mine. I alone will wield its terrible power over the human psyche. Run, mortal. Run while you still can.

2004-10-03T14:38:00.000-07:00

Last week I had an idea for an emergency meal- one that could be prepared at a moment's notice and still look presentable. I suck at cooking, but I just tested it out and the recipe is viable. I give you:

The Emergency Oriental Dinner
Supplies: A small pot, a bowl, a strainer, a dish for whisking eggs, and a plate.
Ingredients: 1 Package Chicken flavor Ramen, 1 egg, and some water.
1. Pour 2 cups water into the pot and bring to a boil. While you wait for the water to heat, rinse, crack, and whisk an egg in a small dish.
2. Break up ramen noodles laterally and add in. Cook for 3 minutes, stirring occasionally.
3. Remove the pot from heat. Open flavor packet and shake the msg powder stuff down into one corner. As quickly as possible, dump the packet into the pot and shake out the remains, since the steam will cause the powder to stick to the sides of the packet.
4. Stir in flavor. Pour the ramen into a bowl.
5. Place a strainer over the now empty pot and pour the ramen back into the pot.
6. Dump the noodles out of the strainer onto a plate. Put the strainer away.
7. Put the pot back on heat and bring to a boil.
8. Slowly pour in whisked eggs and stir a little. Remove from heat when the egg goop solidifies.
9. Pour the soup back into the bowl. You now have noodles with a side of egg drop soup! (If you're really feeling fancy, you can add in some chopped vegetables to strengthen the subterfuge).

This recipe is great for decieving guests and family alike! Make them think you actually remembered about dinner and prepared a two-course meal. If you really want to lay on the fake oriental bullshit, serve them tea beforehand and fortune cookies afterward. Enjoy.

2004-09-22T22:12:00.000-07:00

Preserving History (and the start of a new Video Project)

I visited the overgrown remains of the Bracewell Observatory today. It is located in Stanford, and is a historic radio astronomy site. I was there to help my dad move out important documents from one of the dilapidated buildings slated for demolition. In the past month he has been spearheading a rescue effort to save the majority of the site from destruction (see more at his site, Friends of the Bracewell Observatory).

I also brought my video camera along to start taping for the documentary my dad has comissioned me to create. I am told that it will be a great aid to his fundraising efforts.

The name "Bracewell Observatory" is actually recent- when it was first built, it was referred to as "Site 515". The people who designed and operated the array (which was often used for solar observation) had a nickname for it: Heliopolis. I think that makes a fitting title for my documentary.

Heliopolis is going to be in the same vein as the Grenada Project. Though the subject matter will appeal to a more narrow audience, I will have the opportunity to visit the site and interview a wider range of people. Hopefully, this will result in a more media-rich presentation. I admit Grenada Project was sparse on the visuals at times, and of course we couldn't fly out to Grenada to shoot our own footage. That is an option for Heliopolis, as the observatory itself is less than half an hour away from my house.

I'm glad to be a part of the rescue effort. If we succeed, restoration of the site will begin and in a few years we may even have a small museum up and running. If we fail, not all is lost. We have already recovered log books, photographs, schematics, and shot video of the site that will aid in the historical preservation of the Bracewell Observatory, if not the physical. I'll keep you posted on any big developments.

2004-09-19T14:49:00.000-07:00

Avast ye! It be international talk like a pirate day.
Yarr!

2004-09-12T21:14:00.000-07:00

Loot!
Today my mom got back from her vacation in south america (with stops in Brazil, Peru, and the Amazon river). The stuff she brought back is amazing by itself. She got some masks and a hand-carved walking stick, beads, a drum, and so forth. My favorites are the ones she got with me in mind- a blowpipe for shooting darts, a hunting knife, and a leather painting of a world map from 1561.

And the good news keeps on rolling in- the rough cut for Liquid Strike II: Brotherhood of Vengeance is complete! I'm nearing completion of the rough cut, and we're shooting for a Friday premiere to kick off Independent Film Club! We will meet the third friday of each month, in Mr. Craig's room at lunch (room B-7). Hope to see you there!

2004-09-07T01:35:00.000-07:00

Haha.

2004-09-04T23:56:00.000-07:00

Wow, have I been productive today. I digitized Liquid Strike II and threw together a rough cut. On top of that, Tomas and the gang came over to tape some stuff for his 'spades' movie.

I also captured the Expendable tech check footage (screen test for the air cannon). I believe that this means there are only two more things we need to grab for the DVD- the footage from the original water dog shoot and the commentary track. I'd like to say that we'll have the DVD out by mid-october, but it all depends on the availability of Alex Tramiel.

I'll try to post some stills from LS2 in the near future. It's going to be campy as usual, but it remains to be seen if we'll outdo the first.

2004-08-29T22:14:00.000-07:00

Hey all.
Today marks the end of the summer, with school starting at 8:00 tomorrow morning. I'ts been months since I've woken up that early... uuugh.

Junior year should be interesting. I've noticed a change in my outlook on life each year, and no doubt I will form another one this year. I'm hoping to enjoy myself more in the coming year, and maybe do a little bit better at school. All in all, let's have fun and make some kickass movies!

Here's to the future.
-Eliot

2004-08-25T00:38:00.000-07:00

Whoopee.

Oscar gone WILDE!

Peace out.

2004-08-23T14:03:00.000-07:00

As it turns out, Neyht has my Hi-8 master tape of Liquid Strike II. Since I can't edit LS2 until he gives it back to me, I've decided to start redesigning my homepage (as I had planned to). Here is a quick screenshot of my initial Mock-up:

Right now it doesn't seem to be drastically different from my current one, but I plan to add background graphics and such to spruce it up. Also, you'll notice I have space set aside for content. This is the most important change from the current version of my homepage. Comments are welcome!

2004-08-19T23:28:00.000-07:00

Great news! The sound work for Expendable is complete, and I'm going to edit Liquid Strike II: Brotherhood of Vengeance soon. I plan to get it all done this weekend (when heather's not here, so I can use the editing station uninterrupted). I should be able to digitize, edit, and dump the movie all in one day if I work solid.

Expendable is almost ready to be put onto DVD. We still need to record the commentary and edit the blooper reels/special features. All of the neccessary stuff is at alex's house, although he will be away on vacation for about two weeks. When he gets back, I will edit the special features on his system and we'll finally compile the DVD.

Also, I posted a couple of the better dive photos taken last winter during my trip to Curacao. You can find them at http://eliot.bambi.net/eliot/Personal/Photography/Dive/.

2004-08-11T15:04:00.000-07:00

Heyos. I got back from my trip yesterday with plenty of cool stories. On saturday I flew down to san diego with my parents and heather. We went to the bar mitzvah in the evening and the dinner afterwards. There were kiddie gambling tables (fake money, real games) there and I broke even at blackjack. Nothing to write home about, but I used the chips to buy gift certificates to baskin robbins.

The reason this bar mitzvah is one of the best I've been to in a while really came up the next day, at the party. It was a place called david and buster's which is an arcade gamer's wet dream. It's like the metreon arcade but with food, beer, and a helluva lot more games. Whoo.

I played stand-ups of Space Invaders, Joust, Asteroids, Strider, Centipede, Missle Command, and Galaga, of course. Playing Galaga was intense. I probably I blew around $10 on that one game, but it was well worth it. I got past level 68 at least (I forget which one I ran out of money on) but I scored upards of 450,000. As far as I know, that's around half the points possible in the game. Not too shabby. (I also made it to the #4 slot for centipede hi scores board with 92589 points, which isn't bad considering I seldom play it.)

It was really great seeing my cousins and I went over to their house afterwards. When it was over, It was time to depart on the second leg of this mini-vacation: the drive back.

I decided to drive back with my grandparents instead of flying back. This turned out to be a great decision as there was lots of neat stuff on the way. We stopped off in Long Beach (where the queen mary is moored) to visit a brazillian family. It's a long story, but one of the women there is the sister-in-law of some lost family in brazil that we're trying to meet. Anyway, they were awesome cooks and nice people all around.

After spending the night in long beach, it was time to pack off once again. This time, Destination: Solvang. It's a touristy little scandinavian village that I like a lot, and it was great to go back.

I saw my friend Jack there (he lives about two miles away), and we ate at a danish Smørgasboard. He also told me about this awesome weapons shop downtown where I finally found a reasonably priced....
Katana! Doooooooosh.

It seems as if everyone in suburbia has one of these nowadays. I know Neyht (is that how you're spelling it now?) has a set with a Katana, Wakizashi, and Tanto (that's what the seppuku one is called, I believe). Robert has a similar set, minus the tanto. It would be cool as fuck to make some sort of samurai movie with 'em.

I'll post pics of my entire dagger (and now sword) collection once I get a new digital camera, as the old one broke after so many years. For now, here's a pic of the late Toshirô Mifune in Yojimbo. Classic movie, go rent it.

2004-08-07T09:48:00.000-07:00

Heyah! I'm down in san diego for the weekend for my cousins' bar mitzvah, so I'll see everyone later. I should be getting back monday or possibly tuesday (we're flying out and driving back).

When I get back, It'll be time to wrap up expendable and ship it off to dvd. Once I'm done with that, it'll be easy to finally edit Liquid Strike II.

Gotta go, bye!

2004-08-05T02:27:00.000-07:00

Wohoo! Muller finally got a blog. Check out muller on your mind if you know what's best for you.

2004-08-03T22:39:00.000-07:00

I finally got my hard drive back from Alex, so I can clean up the sound mix of Ependable before we ship it off to DVD. We plan to have a commentary track, loads of outtakes, unused footage from the first water dog shoot, and possibly a behind-the-scenes featurette along with lots of other stuff. American Death Rider (the movie we made while shooting scene 2) and possibly Zeta Squad will be included on the disc as well.

I'm also going to start editing Liquid Strike II: Brotherhood of Vengeance (aka the movie that josh fucked up). It'll be a snap with my new hard drive. Neight and I are making plans to shoot Liquid Strike III sometime in the near future, so I'll keep y'all posted on what's happening with that.

Peace out.

2004-08-02T23:16:00.000-07:00

I went kayaking in monterey bay this weekend. It was really cool. I was in a double with my cuz Heather in the back. We paddled 1.5 miles to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, where a baby harbor seal decided to flop up onto one of our kayaks and take a nap. This was kind of a problem, as there is something like a 20,000 dollar fine for changing the natural behavior patterns of protected wildlife. A guide that was with a big group af kayakers helped us get the seal off, and we went the 1.5 miles back to the beach. After that we got clam chowder and taffy. Now that I've been in the water there, I think I'd like to go diving sometime in the kelp forests.

On an interesting side note, I recently found out that John Kerry played bass for a band called The Electras. You can now order a reissue of their first album online. Here's a sample of the Democratic Presidential Cantidate rocking out. Find out more at KerryRocks.com. Also, this is a good place to plug Johnkerryisadouchebagbutimvotingforhimanyway.com since I love the url.

2004-07-29T00:42:00.000-07:00

Ok, it's evident that I'm not the only person getting weird pop-ups from my blog. It's probably from my tag board.
Here's a poll for y'all:
Should I switch burn bars yet again (probably to the same kind neight has), leave it how it is, or just get rid of the burn bar completely?
It's not used very much now anyway, as a lot of the discussion spans onto other people's blogs or the comment system.

2004-07-20T16:09:00.000-07:00

'lo all. I turned sixteen today. Other than that, no major developments.

Peace out.

Edit: I just got a 250 Gb portable hard drive. Sweet jesus!
This should completely eradicate all of my space issues for a very long time. Phew.

2004-07-14T11:21:00.000-07:00

I had this really weird dream last night. For my birthday, I had rented a screen at a movie theater to show Expendable for my family and friends. I had a helluva time rounding up everyone to get to the theater. Once the lights were dimmed and the opening credits began to roll, I started noticing differences. The guys at the theater had changed my movie! As it progressed, I realised they had changed the whole thing into a trite, computer-generated parody of Star Trek. Those bastards.

I was just about to have a little "word" with the managment when I woke up. Trippy.

2004-07-09T03:38:00.000-07:00

God damn. I just woke up five minutes ago. As I slowly gained consciousness, I realised that the side of my chest really hurt and that my left hand was completely numb. Arrgh.
I then noticed that I had passed out somewhere on the floor. Half of me was on the carpet, but my side and my face were on that goddamned plastic sheet I have for my rolling chair.
And I still need to shower and pack my lunch. Fuck me.

That has got to be the worst 'nap' I've ever had in my life.

2004-07-05T22:51:00.000-07:00

I don't remeber if I've talked about the EEG project on here yet, but It's something I'm working on with Muller. Our goal is to construct an electroencephalogram (EEG) machine for less than $200 and use it to monitor brain activity. The EEG machine would then be hooked up to some sort of control system so that a remote controlled car, computer, or other device could be operated using only your mind.

We're following the specifications detailed in the OpenEEG project. We already have some of the components, and I just mailed an order to a company in Bulgaria, who are the only people that print the neccessary circuit boards. Once we get the bare boards, it'll be a simple matter of ordering the additional components (from domestic companies) and soldering them on. The tricky part is hooking the EEG machine up as a controller and training ourselves to use it properly.

Robert's ultimate goal is to be able to play hands-free Counter-strike. That would be insanely cool, but It's a long way off. Once the boards have arrived (and Robert comes back from Japan), we should be able to really get started. I'll keep ya'll posted.

2004-06-30T19:46:00.000-07:00

I have found the ultimate solution to all of our Expendable woes: A Digitally Replaced Tyler (Courtesy of Bud Light).
Check it out now, cause it's only good for two weeks.

2004-06-28T01:25:00.000-07:00

Great news! Today, Neight came over and we filmed a short movie.
"Big deal," you say? I think not, Mister Man! This is probably the first time the word 'filmed' has been used correctly by anyone in our little group (as he likes to point out, shooting on DV is in fact taping).

That's right boys and girls, Catman do Film has crossed the boundary between working on video to working on film. We shot the movie on Super-8 Kodachrome and if we need to edit it at all (once we get it developed), all cuts will be made with an actual razor edge. That is so cool.

Since there's no quick way to get actual frames from the film onto the internet and nobody was around to take production photos (like I usually do), here is me posing with the camera. Don't ask about the monkey, okay?

2004-06-26T07:09:00.000-07:00

Hola! I cleaned up my site today, deleting that useless 'profile' page (well, not really, but it's not accessible from the menu now) and all of the broken links I could find. The art section looks a little different now, linking to the new Catman do Films homepage instead of the old catman do music directory.

Hopefully I'll get off my ass and make a new homepage this summer. I was thinking sort of a dark blue color scheme, and It'd all be done in W3C-compliant HTML/CSS (not the mess of tables and font tags it is currently). And of course, lovingly hand-coded. Oh yeah, I was also thinking of adding (what was it called?)... content! That's the one.

Mmm, I also posted a new POTWIFLI a few days ago. Those silly jews!

2004-06-23T14:38:00.000-07:00

Some of you may have seen Tomas' most recent attempt to shamelessly transfrom their movie into merchandise. Never to be outdone, Catman do films is now offering the limited edition...

For only $39.95 plus shipping and handling!

2004-06-22T22:41:00.000-07:00

There will be some EDS downtime following a hacker assault on my server last night. My website and any hosted files will be unavailable at this time. I apologize for the inconvenience.

Since you, my loyal readers, will no longer be able to peruse the vast, rapidly changing content of my website for an indefinite period, here are some neat statistics gleaned from my profile in lieu of anything interesting:
This is post #201 of my blog.
I have been blogging since april 2001. I have written 249 total posts in all of my blogs. As of right now I have written a total of 16,482 words. There are 182 outbound links in all of my blogs. On average, I post once per week.

2004-06-21T11:48:00.000-07:00

E-mail hell.

I spent the greater part of today switching my mail client from Netscape Communicator (which was crapping out) to Mozilla Thunderbird. What I didn't realize is that one little checkbox was going to give me a lot of trouble.

When I first set up my laptop, I was using my desktop computer primairly, so I didn't want e-mail messages to wind up only on the laptop. Therefore, I configured Communicator to leave the messages on the mail server, effectively copying them instead of moving them each time I checked my email. This worked fine at the time, because my desktop comp was configured to move the mail and served as the main repository. The problem is that once my windows desktop machine was reincarnated into my linux-based download server, all my mail was left to pile up on the bambi server.

I didn't know about this problem until today, when I had Thunderbird check my mail for the first time and watched in shock as it began to download over ten thousand emails dating back to the year 2000. That's around four years worth of spam crammed into my inbox. Yeowch.

After a few hours of siphoning out wanted mail into the "not spam" folder, I whacked away at my inbox with Thunderbird's adaptive spam filter. What makes it adaptive is that the filter actually improves with your input of what is spam and what isn't, making it more efficient with each message marked as junk. Anyway, my inbox is in order now, I've imported my adress book from Communicator, and I'll stop ranting about tech stuff nobody understands or cares about.

On a side note- I have five Gmail invites left. If you want one, send an email to fadookie@gmail.com and I'll consider giving you one.

2004-06-20T01:39:00.000-07:00

Some of you may remeber how earlier this year, I was talking about building an amp for my guitar. This was not one of those all talk ideas. In fact, I built and tested a functional preamp tonight (It helps to have a dad with a bachelor's in electrical engineering).

That's me testing out the completed preamp box. Incidentally, you may recognize the backdrop- we shot Expendable's war room sequence in my dad's project room. Here is a close-up of the curcuitry:

I'm proud to say that I placed and soldered all of the components myself. I did ask for my dad to supervise me- it helps to have someone who knows what he's doing when you're working with a 700° soldering iron. Yeowch!

While I mounted the PCB board in its metal casing, my dad wired a patch cable that would let me hook up my guitar to the RCA input jack on the preamp box.

Since I have almost no skill with the guitar whatsoever, I think that working with the technical aspect would be a good idea. Hopefully I can practice with my new preamp (and the amplifier I'm planning to build soon) and get better, but just building stuff is enough to keep me occupied for the moment.

2004-06-19T00:28:00.000-07:00

School is out! Do the Hitler dance!

2004-06-16T00:33:00.000-07:00

Good times at Carlmont High!
Here's a rundown of the past week's high points.

Movie: The Expendable premiere went better than I thought it would. People liked it! Tomas also showed Zeta Squad, which was better than I thought it would be. It was good to see all of our hard work pay off.

School: It's almost fucking out! The only real final I have left to take is in math, but it'll probably be really easy. School gets out this Thursday- Finally!

Driving: My permit is valid! My permit is fucking valid! I drove down to and around Palo Alto today with an instructor from Stanford driving school. When I got home I drove to Yumi Yogurt with my mom. I didn't realize what a behemoth her car is until today. It's like a whale.

2004-06-14T04:37:00.000-07:00

Going All The Way.

I've been up all night getting the final cut of Expendable ready for the premiere tomorrow. It's still rough around the edges and the sound mix sucks, but it's in good enough shape for the premiere. I've already layed off a copy and a backup, and now I'm working on getting the blooper reel onto tape- I also got rid of that over-used "woo hoo" track in favor of a 50's indian (as in india) rock song.

The cut that will appear on the DVD will be much more finished and will hopefully have some decent sound effects. I also plan to include commentaries, more bloopers, cut footage (and footage from the scrapped water dog shoot), original movie posters, and a cast interview.

2004-06-08T12:22:00.000-07:00

Ernest just gave me a CD with the muzzle flare on it and we checked it out at the Comp Sci lab. It's pretty cool, and will look good when I add the proper sound effect.
I've got to rush to get the final cut done by friday. The version released on DVD will be much more finished than the one I hope to premeire this friday, but the cut should at least be decent. I have an idea of how to get around the skipping problem by exporting the final versions of edits into movies read straight from the hard drive. I'm working on getting the sound effects from MOHAA. Wish me luck.

2004-06-03T22:53:00.000-07:00

After incessant nagging and badgering, I've posted a new POTWIFLI.

Also, Kurni has been gracious enough to host the Expendable Trailer on his server, along with Served Cold. Here is the URL to his "films" directory:
http://24.7.55.129/films/
Thanks a bunch Jonathan!

2004-06-03T15:29:00.000-07:00

New and exciting stuff around the corner. Neight and I will be starting work on our first film project soon. This is not the same as the one previously discussed. I'm not really at liberty to disclose too much at this time about this or the other two projects.

The editing station has been spewing a lot of crap in my direction as of late, and it's getting consistently more difficult to edit. I believe I can still pull everything together on time, and if worst comes to worst, we can always show the rough cut at school instead of the finished movie.

I have most of the specific sound effects we'll be using, and I'll be able to take the rest of the ambient fire straight from medal of honor. (I'm really glad I bought the game- even though I don't play it much anymore, it's been useful for sound effects and music for Expendable and the Grenada Project.)

With summer and freedom up ahead, this is looking to be a pretty good month. Stay tuned for more updates- same bat blog, same bat channel.

2004-05-30T14:01:00.000-07:00

This weekend has been pretty good. I went to the Moffett Field air show yesterday. It was cool. The Thunderbirds did some interesting formation flying. I also got to visit the Spammobile™ and try a thoroughly disgusting Spamburger®.

2004-05-27T21:42:00.000-07:00

Things are going considerably better with Expendable. I've found some time to work on the sound this week, and it's swell. I found a great site with a lot of sound effects and I'm going to start mixing soon.

Here's a few snaps of our newly dug-up cutting station and camera:

Heather waiting for me to take the goddamned picture already. The metal desk with the clips is the cutting station.

Heather's Super-8 camera. Kickass.

Remember kids: live wires can lead to electrocution!

2004-05-23T23:43:00.000-07:00

I'm getting pissed off how I have so little time to work on Expendable. This weekend my mom had a birthday party, my cousin had a bar mitzvah, and I had some homework. I would have been able to work. but the problem is I can no longer sit down and just edit for a half hour or whatnot. It takes about 25 minutes to copy all the footage onto disk and re-render the project. Once I'm done, I have to delete the files and scrap the renders, too. Also, Heather has been using her computer some this weekend so my window of opportunity is smaller. I'm going to try to get some editing done this week after school, but again, there's a lot of shit going on after school. Thank god I at least have access to an editing station and don't have to rent time.

I think this is going to boil down to me just sitting down sometime and working on it solid. It's not like grenada project, I actually need to plan my hours this time. I'll also try to clear up enough free space to install MOHAA. That should at least solve the SFX problem.

On a lighter note, heather finally found her Super-8 camera and cleared out space for her cutting station. Getting that set up will be one of our summer projects, and I'd definitely like to explore the possibilites of working on film.

In other stuff: I lost my glasses last week, so I got a new pair of glasses today. They're pretty cool.

2004-05-21T08:41:00.000-07:00

Oh god. We're here in the stupid computer lab again working on this stupid college thing. MAKE IT STOP!
By the way, check out A Modest Destiny, it's a pretty sweet little webcomic. Makes no sense if you don't read it from the start, though. Here's one of those toight banners they have about:

2004-05-19T15:24:00.000-07:00

What is this with everyone ond their Rubik's Cubes? I mean god, those went out of style around 1987. Of course, It's tight when Ernest does it. He can complete a cube in like 53 seconds, it's pretty tight. He's like "bambamskriitchclickclickbamabambam here you go!" Of course now that ernest has made it cool, everyone including that sonavavbitch muller who's standing right next to me has their little cu-bits.

Dorks.

2004-05-17T08:35:00.000-07:00

Here at the computer lab once again.
Today we're signing up for this stupid career thing, www.kuder.com.
I don't even get the point of this.

I feel like shit ran over twice this morning. Sore throat, runny nose, congestion, the works.

Interestingly, I found that a lot of the files on my server were being hotlinked by several mp3 sites.
There are also hits directed from singingfish.com (an audio/video search engine where catman do films can be found)
and laspirale.tk (some french thing), among others.

If you're feeling curious/masochistic, you can view my access log for this month.

2004-05-15T13:00:00.000-07:00

EDS Lockdown Initiated on 05-15-04.
There has been an increasing amount of hits to my download server over the past month or so, with people in remote locations (read:Yugoslavia) downloading large files. In the past month alone there were over 2000 music downloads, and 18 people downloaded the grenada project! Our DSL connection has been severely slowed, so I have been forced to take down most of the files on EDS. The hosted images should still be there, please email me if there is a problem with an image I'm hosting for you.

I should be able to implement a secure download server and give out passwords to friends or find (bleech) an external host for some of the files, maybe Alex Tramiel could host the Catman do movies (i'm going to ask him about it). Until that time, there will only be a few files available for download. I apologize for the inconvenience.

2004-05-15T00:11:00.000-07:00

Megaman sucks. What a shitty game.
You can't duck. For chrissakes, you can't even fire upwards!
This has got to be the most frustrating game I've played in a long time. I always find myself cheering whenever megaman dies. Kinda looks like fireworks, so maybe the developers actually wanted joy to be the gamer's response.

The bosses suck, the controls suck, the powerups suck, the gameplay sucks.

There is one good part though. When you select a level at the beginning, it plays the most awesome theme music. I wonder if it's by sheer coincidence that the best parts of the game are right before you enter a level and right when you fail it.
So yeah, If you're ever playing an NES and see a MEGAMAN or ROCKMAN cartridge, dispose of it immediately and pick up a good game such as METROID or NINJA GAIDEN.

2004-05-13T15:31:00.000-07:00

I talked with Ryan Moyer today. He was interested in having me join his web design company. Sounds like some good stuff- I'll probably wind up hosting their site.

Nothing much going on with Expendable right now. Ernest is working on muzzle flares while I tighten up our rough cut. Catman do may be starting production for our next film shortly. It's a small project compared to Expendable, we're going to take a break before starting on another huge movie. Stay tuned for further details.

2004-05-11T00:17:00.000-07:00

Woah. The new blogger is... interesting. I'm not sure if I should stick with BlogBack or switch over to the new native commenting system. The new system has comments on a separate page under the respective post, like livejournal. Shit, I hate livejournal. I think I'll stick with blogback. Still, tell me what you think.

I'm working on a new Killer Apps page for my website. I figured I'd share useful programs and cool games I've found. I'll also be revising my links page to have some good sites.

2004-05-10T00:13:00.000-07:00

I may have found a sport more awesome than curling. It's called a biathlon. Contestants cross-country ski with a rifle on their back. When the skiiers arrive at the target range, they whip out their rifles and proceed to shoot the shit out of some targets.

Now if that isn't a badass sport, I don't know what is.

2004-05-04T11:03:00.000-07:00

At the guidance office once again. I think I failed my Chemistry test last period. It's kind of stupid how we get graded on practice tests for the STAR test, as our score on the STAR doesn't actually affect our grades.
This week is turning out to be kind of dumb. We're not doing much in class because of block scheduling, which is all for the better. We had to write a poem about a work of art for English class. I selected something from Boring3D, called "Tar Dipped Carrot Wired For Combat".

Here is the poem:

sitting in a bushel
one tiny, one orange
carrot is plucked
from the pack
and taken
to the vat

cast in
like achilles
simmering in tar
then lifted
our warrior
the atlas carrot

it must be brought
under control
we shall retrofit it
allowing for remote
access and we
have ourselves a superweapon.

Target [+locked+]
swishing, zooming overhead
carrot of death
is on the war path
the flight path
the doom of us all

2004-05-01T23:52:00.000-07:00

Good times. Neight and I did some community service today, then came back to my place to tie up most of the loose ends for Expendable. I still have some more editing work to do, but the rough cut is nearly complete. We shot the missing teletype footage and re-shot eye close-ups. I think that wraps up even the post-production pick-ups, which is good news. We're probably about 83% done with the entire movie.

On to other stuff. I'm watching the entire third season of ReBoot, because that's all that is available on the white market. Does anyone have tapes of episodes from seasons one or two? I doubt it, but no harm in asking.

Also, I finally got the whole default BlogThis shit worked out. This means worlds to me. All it means to you is that I'm not going to be bitching anymore on the Catman do Blog about accidental posts. Unfortunately, this constituted about 50% of the total activity on that blog, so we may need to dust off some cobwebs before we start revving up for our next big project.

So, it's been a pretty good weekend so far. I still have to write that stupid essay for Reynolds. I'll do it tomorrow.
Generic Farewell.
-Eliot

2004-04-29T12:01:00.000-07:00

3rd period, I'm at the language lab to browse the net for this stupid AVID assignment. I might have to go soon. Chris is sitting next to me. Hey chris, thanks for watching me type. Chris says: "I hate my teacher, it is hot in here!" That's right chris, there are so many HOTTIES in this room. Hardy har har.

We have dress rehearsal for A Few Good Men after school today, the play is on friday. Ahhh! I know my lines but we're having trouble with the order.

Eurgh, the bottom of my shoe is disgusting. I stepped on a packet of mayo someone left on the ground and it popped, plastering the sole of my shoe and the ground with a stream of something resembling Creme du Jism. Ick.

Oh, and kudos to Tomas, he actually burned someone for a change.

The Eaaand!

2004-04-27T15:52:00.000-07:00

Eurgh. STAR testing this week. That, and our play is on friday. Whee.
It's been pretty hot out lately. I got a little dehydrated earlier today and sort of slept it off in 3rd period. I also got some water and a popsicle at the student store before 7th period, so it's all good now.

We shot pick-ups yesterday at a creek near my house. All went well, and I would now like to announce that we are completely done with production for Expendable. The remaining two pick-ups are classified as post-production as to make everyone happy. I'm going to run into problems with editng soon, as I will have to share time and space with my cousins as they are working on a project. What I may be able to do is dump all the music and stuff off my ipod and move all the footage onto there, meaning I could "plug in" Expendable whenever I need to edit it.

This puts the film at probably around 80% complete, well within our master deadline of getting the VHS done before school gets out. Instead of going with the typical 'two weeks' campaign promise, I'm going to say we could realistically complete the final cut in three to four weeks and then dump to VHS. We were planning to premiere it at the independent film club, but seeing as how it rarely ever meets, we might do something at my house.

Sounds like fun in the sun folks. I'll talk to you all once I get heat stroke.

2004-04-25T21:01:00.000-07:00

I've been doing some community service this weekend by designing a website for my Mom's jewish center thing. Ernest is also going to help with graphics.
I've also been working on a page for someone that contacted me through my website (hah! hear that? Clients!), you can see the mockup if you really want to. It looks like shit right now but once I finish it it should look decent. The cool thing about it is that I did all the formatting with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). The next iteration of eliot.bambi.net (v3.0) will most likely use CSS.

I was able to get some editing done on the Expendable rough cut this friday. I'd say we're about 75% done with the rough cut and the entire film. After we finish the rough cut we get to do (oh joy) muzzle flares, sound effects, and color correction! Sounds like heaps of fun folks. Peace out.

2004-04-21T23:23:00.000-07:00

Hey, this is kind of cool. They don't have a Kill Bill game on the american site.

By the way, I got a Gmail account. Drop me a line at fadookie@gmail.com.

2004-04-18T22:34:00.000-07:00

This weekend has been bizarre. I have a lot of moronic homework from various idiotic classes.

We're doing a shitty poetry unit in English class. The poems are alright but the fucking analysis is what sucks. It's like walking into the MOMA with a chainsaw so you can slice up all the paintings to find out what kind of canvas they were painted on. Actually, I'd do that if I had the chance. Bad example.

Anyway, Safety Ed is one of the most mind-numbing classes I've ever taken, which is kind of a mixed blessing as my first period. I can basically bullshit my way through class, but I also have to do all the pathetic homework the night before instead of waiting for 5th period clerking to do it (like I do for my second most mindless class, Algebra).

I also sliced my tongue on a hard candy a few minutes ago. What the fuck!? I didn't even know you could do that. It was bleeding, too.

I never got a chance to shoot robert's eyes (haha) for pick-ups, I really hope I can just get it out of the way sometime next week. And there is no way in hell I'm reshooting any of the shit with Josh again. I want to get this motherfucking production done so we can go to post. Post will take at least two weeks. And of course, our reward is to be laughed at by those video whores in B-7. Fuck them and fuck everything. I hate kittens.

2004-04-17T13:47:00.000-07:00

A hoy hoy.
Just got back from the AVID car wash. It wasn't actually that bad, and I got to hang out with Chris.
Saw Kill Bill vol. 2 last night with Garrett, Chris, and Tomas. Very cool, I liked it better than the first half (which was really good).
Pai Mei is the coolest.

2004-04-11T19:07:00.000-07:00

Last day of spring break, then back to 'la escuela'. I think that means "purgatory" in english.

Anyhoo, I had to dump all non-essential capture scratches for expendable onto my iPod hard disk because Heather was pissed that there was only six gigs free on her hard drive. This is okay because I still left all of the essential footage on there (meaning I can continue work on the rough cut) but American Death Rider and the Outcuts Reel will have to wait.

Independent Film Club is supposedly meeting on monday, I think I still have moonlighting in my locker. I want the expendable trailer back from ryan so I can show it to those video whores in B-7. If I have time tonight, I might slap together a new trailer including the new footage but I doubt it.

Vae Victus!
-Eliot