What A Weekend

I've had the strangest, most chaotic, and most unexpected events happen over the last few days.

Wednesday was really nice, I got to hang out with Corey, Bridget, and Eric. We caught up with each other, had a few drinks, and I dominated at the pop culture edition of Trivial Pursuit.

Thanksgiving was cool. Went to Granny's and visited with everyone. The day was a blur.

Friday rolled around and it was time for game night. Corey, Brendan, Eric, and Aaron all gathered and the games began. As we played, though, I started to feel a bit...off. After everyone left, I went to bed and ended up staying there until Sunday night.

Out of nowhere, I had the worst cough I've had in years. I coughed for about 48 hours nonstop.

I went to the doctor today and he gave me an antibiotic, I'm feeling much better, but still far from 100%.

I was really scared this was going to compromise the trip to St Catharines, but, thankfully, it appears I'm in the clear. As a matter of fact, we're leaving in the morning, so I better get some sleep.
I'll write when I get back Thursday!

Do You Hear What I Hear?

Everywhere I go, I hear Christmas music. Even as I type this, I'm listening to Dido's "Christmas Day" on the radio. It's nice and calming, it would be a perfect little holiday moment...except for the fact that it's not even Thanksgiving yet. Not to mention that I've been hearing Christmas music in stores since before Halloween.

I'm a guy who likes tradition. Every Thanksgiving morning is the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, at the very end of the parade is the grand arrival of Santa. That is when the holiday season starts. The music, the decorations, the lights, that's when they should all begin.

Now, don't go thinking I'm channeling Scrooge here, ask anybody who knows me and they'll tell you the Christmas spirit takes over during the season. What's going on right now, though, is overkill. Everyone's going to be sick of these songs weeks before the holiday arrives, the meaning of them will be sucked dry from the overexposure.

So, I'm going to try to shield myself from the premature holly jolly tunes and enjoy my Thanksgiving for the day it actually is. I love Christmas too much to jump the gun and spoil it. Candy canes aren't quite as special if you eat them every day.

Sunday Afternoon Ramblings

I can't believe Thanksgiving is this week. I can't believe I haven't posted since the 3rd. Truthfully though, not much worth posting about has happened.

I've been on a big DVD kick lately. Target had an excellent deal and I bought Ghostbusters 1 & 2 for a total of $10, I forgot how great those movies are. Animation was the order of the day, as I recently rented Over the Hedge and Curious George from Netflix and bought Cars. All were great, each had its own unique strengths.
Having a love for creepy and paranormal movies, I rented An American Haunting, sadly, it was a major disappointment.
And now I find myself addicted to yet another TV series. I just rented the first couple discs of the recent incarnation of Battlestar Galactica and I'm already hooked. Surprisingly awesome on every level.

In other movie news, Batman's Gonna Get Shot in the Face passed the 10,000 view mark on iFilm a few days ago! It took a little while, but people are watching and that's all that matters.
On a related note, I'm not too crazy about iFilm's new layout.

And my main source of excitement...only 10 days til I see Chantal Kreviazuk! I really can't wait, it'll be fantastic.

Gert a Load of This Kid

I saw this on YouTube and had to share.

Updating Again

Blogger recently upgraded their layouts and all, so I'll be revamping the blog a bit over the next few days. Bear with me and don't mind the rough look it currently has.

Change of Plans

At the last minute, I got a quick and easy costume idea that I'm confident nobody else anywhere was wearing tonight. I decided to go as...

Cartoon Jacob!(click for full size)

And now for my pumpkin. The star of my most recent short...

Batman!
(click for full size)

Yeah, I'm weird, but it's fun.

Ghosts in the Machines?

Technology hates me. I no longer have any doubt in my mind about that.

Our TV (only 5 years old) died back in July, then the one we put in its place died, leaving us with a ridiculously tiny one. It looks like the old TV got pushed back about twenty feet through the wall.

I listen to music as I go to sleep. I pick the CDs that'll help me relax, press play, and drift off. It's just what I do.
From the beginning, my stereo (only 3 years old) never worked quite right. It would skip songs or entire CDs for no apparent reason. Sometimes it wouldn't even read a CD. It was pretty much just a minor annoyance, then it got worse...after the warranty expired.
A couple nights ago, it died completely. Dad opened it up and found the wires warped and discolored from heat as well as a hot smell to it.
Toast.

I haven't gotten a new video games in nearly a year. So, what happened when I recently got one?
If you guessed "the Playstation 2 died before I ever got to play the game", give yourself a gold star.

I love electronics...when they, y'know, work. Is nothing made to last anymore? This stuff costs so much to repair, you might as well just replace it. If you can afford it. Which I can't.
Bah.

I can't believe it's Halloween already. Where did the rest of the year go? This is the first year I haven't dressed up in at least a thrown together costume. We'll be carving pumpkins in a bit here and handing out candy later, though I doubt we'll get many trick or treaters with the chilly and rainy weather.
After that? Veronica Mars, Boston Legal, and tonight's live episode of Ghost Hunters. Low key, but works for me.
I'll probably watch Silent Hill tonight too, gotta have a scary movie. Reviews seem mixed on the movie, but I'm a fan.

Maybe I'll put up some pictures from Halloweens gone by a little later.

Have a fun and safe one!

Hmph.

I haven't posted an entry in a few days. I wish I could offer a good excuse, but the only one I have is that I've been excessively bored.

It's been cold, windy, rainy, and snowy these last few days. Add to that that there's really nowhere to go around here that really interests me and I'm sure you'll get the picture that I'm already going a bit stir crazy. And it's not even November yet.

As I've said, I don't like the cold months all that much, but I am looking forward to November for two specific reasons:

1. The concert trip up to St Catharines
2. The end of the increasingly annoying political ads on TV

I'm still keeping myself really busy writing. I've written the next installment of Ask the Reading Monkey, I finished a poem for a friend, and I'm working out some ideas for possible film projects.

Along with all that, I'm also re-working my script. I was given some brilliant and very helpful advice from Rachel, who voiced Batgirl in Batman's Gonna Get Shot in the Face.
I took a few days off between drafts (as Larry advised) and like magic, I felt the creative spark. A tweak here, a minor change there, and I can already see some drastic improvements. It's always nice to have friends who know their stuff. Thanks, guys.

In the spirit of Halloween, I'll leave you with something kinda scary. Check out this creepy (and seemingly pointless) commercial for the upcoming Playstation 3.

Script Update

Weighing in at 95 pages long, this draft of the script is finished! I'm extremely pleased with it, but of course, it still needs some fine tuning.

I was a bit nervous sending it to Larry for feedback, but to my surprise, he really liked it. Larry's not one to hide it if he doesn't like a movie, so this was a big confidence boost for me.

Not quite sure what the next step is, but I'm excited.

Out With the Cold, In With the Cold

After about a week, my cold is finally gone. I still have the occasional cough, but it's done for the most part, thankfully.

I can't believe it, we got the first snow of the year today. Granted, it didn't stick and only lasted for a couple minutes, but it snowed. It was 70 degrees just a couple days ago.
Ohio.

The current draft of my script is just a couple pages away from completion. It'll still need some tweaking and polishing, but progress is progress.

I've been trying to write steadily, but keep getting distracted by my recently purchased box set of Scrubs: Season 4 and my resurrected addiction to Snood. Curse those freaky little faces and the joy of firing them from their cannon!

Back to work. Focus, Jacob. Focus.

My Achin' Head

I've got a cold. A nasty, all encompassing, annoying cold.

My sinuses are working like there's no tomorrow, my nose hurts, I feel the start of a tickle cough coming on, and my head just aches.

I woke up at 8 AM today. I think it's been about a year and a half since I've gotten up that early. It's a result of me falling asleep early last night, which was a result of not being able to sleep at all Saturday night.
I normally stay up all night working on my various projects and head to bed around 6 AM.

I'm all messed up.

I've realized one thing today: daytime TV blows. I've never gotten into The Price is Right, the kiddy shows on PBS are kind of terrifying, and they've changed Family Feud. John O'Hurley is the host now? Peterman?
I can't keep up.

Okay, I better get back to my orange juice.

The Time of the Season

I don't like the Fall. Sure, the leaves and the big billowy clouds are beautiful, but then there's also the days getting shorter, the air getting colder, and the overall dreary look of it, which leads to the complete lack of desire to leave the house.

On the bright side, it's also the start of the new TV season.

In the new show category, I'm already a fan of Heroes, but I'm really loving Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. It's just brilliant, I'm hooked.

Last Thursday was great with My Name is Earl, The Office, Grey's Anatomy, and ER all premiering, but tonight, my Superman sweet tooth gets its fill with the premier of Smallville.

And then next week is the season premier of my most recent TV show obsession, Veronica Mars. Jenny got me hooked over the summer. I got the first disc of season 1 from Netflix and I wasn't quite sure what to think. It had some really cool elements and it was really unique, but something left me feeling iffy. Maybe it was Paris Hilton guest starring in the second episode.
By the end of disc 2, I was completely hooked and itching to see the resolution of the Lily Kane murder mystery. The investigation spanned the entire season and somehow managed to never get old or tiresome, plus, after you've suspected everyone of being the killer, the big reveal at the end actually delivered.
I got Mom hooked and when the season 2 DVD set came out, we watched the whole thing in just 3 or 4 days.
The show is just excellent. Great cast, great characters, and fantastic writing.
So now we're eagerly awaiting the start of season 3 on Tuesday.

Okay, it looks like this Fall should be alright.

Shiny and New

My MacBook rules. Flat out. Without a doubt. No ifs, ands, or buts.

I'm finally able to play The Sims 2 and I'm addicted. I'm a police officer on the vice squad, I married Andrea Corr, and we have a son named Fernando.


He looks nothing like me. Scandal!

I've also been having lots of fun with the built in iSight and a program called Photo Booth. It lets you take snapshots and warp them in various ways in real time. I now have a bunch of creepy pictures of myself.

I've got my iTunes library all set up and organized, including cover art for the cool new jukebox-like feature. It's not really important, but man, it looks slick.

So, I've set up shop on my new computer, now it's time to get to work again. If only the writing bug would bite me.

That wasn't meant to sound mean, I have no animosity toward the writing bug. You know what I meant.

100th Entry!

This, lads and lasses, is the 100th entry of this blog!
To mark this special occasion, I'm unveiling my new toy. Watch the video below and guess how excited I am.

Losers and Monkeys and Bats. Oh My.

After one week on iFilm, the films are doing pretty well. The Losers Have a Junkyard has chalked up 18,471 views so far at the moment I'm typing this, while Batman's Gonna Get Shot in the Face has been viewed 8,833 times and is currently the #1 most viewed animation in the past 7 days. A cool little bonus is that still hanging in at #3 is Nintendo: OldSchool Revolution, which is currently up to a total of 411,171 views. Thanks to everyone who's been watching!

I think Revolution spoiled me. In its first week online, it racked up over 200,000 views. I've been finding myself disappointed with Batman's numbers, thinking "Okay...only 8,000? What's the problem here?" Then I remind myself that a year ago I would have freaked at the thought of eight hundred people seeing my work would have freaked me out. No matter what the numbers, I'm extremely proud of Batman.

Another cool note, Batman and Losers are both officially listed on the Internet Movie Database! You can view the pages here and here.

I'm still plugging away at that script of mine. It's taking longer than I'd have liked, but I'd rather take a bit longer and get it right as opposed to rushing it at the cost of quality. Wow, with all this talk, this thing better not suck.

I watched Sin City again tonight and it's got me feeling the creative flow, not only because it's an awesome movie that was amazingly executed, but because, cheesy as it might sound, Robert Rodriguez inspires me.
I mean, the guy started out by basically being a guinea pig at a drug testing facility to make enough money to shoot his first feature. He worked his way up to where he is now because he loves doing what he does.
He's such a hands-on filmmaker, doing everything he can do himself to keep the films as close to his vision as possible. That's how I want to do things. It'd be torture for me to film a whole movie and then just pass it off to somebody else to edit.
His movies just get me pumped to make movies. Can you tell?

I'll end this post with something I have recently finished, the second installment of Ask the Reading Monkey! Enjoy!