theMediaman.com

Been eating out or skipping lunch for the last while, so I haven’t updated my Blog much… not that there hasn’t been anything to write about…

On the weekend I sliced open my finger while helping John cut carpet for the basement. It was a brand-new carpet knife, and I did it on the first cut of the day! The beautiful thing was, even though I cut about 3/4’s of an inch into my left index finger, nearly severing a big chunk of flesh, the blade cut so clean that it barely hurt. However, it bled like a Troma movie.

Simone was concerned, but I let her know that I’ve taken First Aid training throughout Scouts and while training as a lifeguard… and not to mention my extensive, real-world experience with severe injuries. I changed the dressing regularly, and am now down to a fingertip band-aid. I think the dead flesh that was cut off has even re-attached itself and is live skin again. ‘It knows you’re afraid’.

The biggest challenge has been learning to type without my left index finger. I’m a pretty good touch-typist and, although I haven’t tested myself for some time, I can get up to and over 50 words per minute… even though my accuracy sukc sass. That number probably dropped to somewhere in the 30’s since I had to do everything with my left MIDDLE finger. Additionally, my hand tired out quickly because of the extra reaching that I couldn’t type for long.

Now that I’ve got just a band-aid on that finger instead of gauze, I can hit the ‘T’ without also entering ‘5′, ‘6′, and ‘Y’ at the same time. I’ve been spending a large part of the day re-training myself to use all ten fingers again.

Yesterday was a low of -1, and today is a high of 24. More importantly, today is the first day (I think) since the start of the year that it’s been truly warm AND sunny both on the same day. I even went outside. However, my skin started to hurt from all the vitamin D, so I came back into my dark, dark room.

John and I are playing in some baseball game on Saturday, but it looks like it might rain. That would suck. On Sunday it’s looking better, so I might go to the ZX2 Ontario meet… I think it’s sort of like that Honda “Civic Nation” commerical, but with the focus on a real car. Dunno if it’s really going to be my kind of place, but at the least I hope to learn a bit more about my car by talking to people who actually know. Also, the meet is in the parking lot of AMC30, so we’ll probably be digging in to the Team Pitcher at Boston Pizza afterwards! Sweet.

Here’s a list I put together, inspired by Jeff Foxworthy’s “You Might Be A Redneck” comedy and the Leaf fans’ insane celebration over a first-round, game 7 win last night. I call it, “You Might Be A Leaf”:

• If the week’s best offensive player is Tie Domi, you might be a Leaf.
  
• If the puck spends more time in your zone than if it were glued to the goalie’s mask, you might be a Leaf.
  
• If you can’t figure out how to set up a sequence of more than one pass, you might be a Leaf.
  
• If you think chucking the puck down the ice is a strategy, and best used often, you might be a Leaf.
  
• If it’s after Christmas and you’re a .500 team, you might be a Leaf.
  
• If you can’t win a playoff series in less than six games, you might be a Leaf.
  
• If you’re old enough to remember the last Cup in ‘67, you might be a Leaf.

Pretty fun weekend, even if I never did get around to cleaning up the apartment.

Saturday, Simone dragged me out of my cozy basement, kicking and screaming, in order to meet up with Reg, Hwan, Kendrick, Gina and Jenning for lunch at (dim) some restaurant in Scarborough. This was only the second time I’ve been to one of these restaurants where they run carts around and you pick off whatever you want to eat. The last time I ate chicken feet. This time I was far more careful.

After lunch, we went back to Hwan’s and played with Reggie’s new Xbox on a big, fat TV screen. If you get a screen big enough, the quadrants in 4-player Halo is still a pretty good size… but I still got slaughtered. I was up against three guys who play this far more than I do.

A few of us went outside for ‘real’ exercise - Frisbee and a game of tag. Kind of an immature way to spend a Saturday, but you are the company you keep. Fat, ol’ me had a challenge trying to catch my breath after being tagged ‘it’, but I think it was a good idea. I wound up overeating in Barrie the next day.

Simone showed me an article on Bobby Ore’s Driving School where they use Escort ZX2’s for initial training. While on the site, I read up about something called shuffle steering. Take some time to read the linked article. It outlines the lazy-man’s “palming” method of steering (that we’re all guilty of at one time or another), the “hand-over-hand” which is what most of us are taught from Day 1, and “shuffle steering”. The last is apparently far safer - especially since the advent of airbags - giving the driver more consistent control and power in steering.

I’ve been re-training myself to use Ore’s variation on shuffle steering, which keeps the left hand on the left half of the wheel, the right hand on the right side, and both hands always at the same height. It’s a real challenge to re-train myself after 12 years of driving, but I’m already feeling more control and quicker response on 90 degree turns.

Since getting the ZX2, I’ve been trying to get comfortable with the steering wheel. My hands just couldn’t sit where they wanted to. With Ore’s style of steering, (hands at 8-and-4) my fingers all sit comfortably. Since Ford is a sponsor of his stunt driving school, he might have had some input on the design of the steering wheel.

Just as I’m getting some new life out of my car, some fucknut comes along and snaps the antenna off my car while I was parked outside my parent’s house. The antenna doesn’t cost much, and even I can install it myself.

But it’s still a real bitch that I couldn’t hear the Leaf’s lose in OT last night. I really would have enjoyed that.

Yesterday was a bit of a highs-and-lows kinda day. It started off with me bringing in some new hardware for work. We’re finally upgrading the video editing suite. Here’s what we’ve got after all the upgrades are done:

• Pentium 4 2.8 GHz - 800 MHz bus, Hyperthreading, 1 MB cache and Prescott 90 nm core
  
• 1 GB of Corsair Dual-channel DDR400 - the RAM is rated up to 500 MHz, so I could logically overclock the machine to 3.5 GHz
  
• Asus P4P800 Deluxe motherboard with SATA, RAID and onboard FireWire
  
• Antec Case and 350W PSU
  
• 80 GB + 120 GB hard drives - both Western Digital with 8MB cache
  
• Matrox RT.100 Xtreme video capture and accelerator board
  
• Dual flatscreen CRTs - Samsung 753DF

The point is, I’ve built this system to be completely void of bottlenecks. The only thing I could do better is get some Serial ATA hard drives, but the current two drives will be coming out of the old system… so buying new hard drive(s) would add another few hundred to the already steep price tag.

Unfortunately, the hardware came about a week too late. We’re already ramping up for Livewire’s busiest time of the year. Yesterday was filled with frustration after frustration. So by the time I had to go downtown for my final Video and Sound Editing I class, I was in a pretty miserable mood.

Compounded on that was the knowledge that I COULD be going downtown to watch the preview showing of “The Punisher” with the tickets I won. Additionally, everyone I tried to give the tickets to had to turn them down for the same reason I did - last week of classes. So, one day after the fact, the prize is still proudly punctured with a push-pin and displayed on the corkboard at home. Wasted.

After I got marked for my less-than-inspired edit of a music video (live performance of Eric Andersen doing “You Can’t Relive The Past”) we all went to this hole of a bar just off the Ryerson campus. I can’t remember the name, but it’s a block-and-a-half East of Yonge St. on Dundas. There’s a bar on the main floor (where the patrons look really depressed every time I’ve passed it) and a “drinking room” upstairs. We caught the last period of the Canadiens’ 5-1 slaughter over Boston and waited 10 full minutes for a waitress. Finally, I flagged the waitress with a frantically waving arm from across the room. I didn’t see what she did after that, but one of my classmates at the same table said he could read that the next words out of her lips weren’t pleasant.

She came over, inconvenienced, and took our orders. By the time Alan (the class Prof) showed up, I was ready to order another pint of Keith’s. The waitress we had on the second round couldn’t care less for my existence on the planet, but that was a far better reception than the first one gave - who seemed to hate me.

This part of the evening was a real high for me, and even made up for missing the movie. We bumped back and forth between round-table discussions, and asking Alan specific questions about The Industry or his own career. Apparently, he’s yet another Film Industry veteran who got his start thanks to Roger Corman.

Considering the fact that I’m looking at going into editing myself, this was also a perfect opportunity to answer all the minute questions about BECOMING an editor. There was another guy there (can’t remember his name) who seemed to be in the same boat as I… 50% learning Everything I Ever Wanted To Know About Editing and 50% getting face-time with someone who might be able to help a newbie’s career at some later time.

Last night was part of what I was hoping for by taking these classes. I even came out and started NETWORKING during this term! Anyone who knows me understands how averted I am to meeting new people. I just don’t tend to take the initiative. However, this first term I got to know a few people. And in The Industry, that’s pretty much essential to attaining any degree of success.

So, all-in-all this was a very good term. I’ve learned a few things and made a few connections…

…looks like there might be something to this whole Film Industry… Thing.

Just a warning. I really rant in this entry. I mean REALLY rant. I’m just trying to figure something out and have found that writing in my Blog sometimes helps. Read parts or all of it, but I hope you get something out of my progressive thoughts-on-digital-paper:

Without even seeing “The Passion Of The Christ”, I’ve always found something was unsettling about it.

At first I thought it might have been because of the critics. They have been talking all about its senseless violence and lack of modern, political undertones. The natural comparisons to films like Jesus Christ Superstar and The Last Temptation of Christ were inevitable, but I think Mel Gibson was trying to do something different with Jesus’ story.

I was also concerned about how it portrays Jews in such a negative light. After being so welcomed into a Jewish household like I have been with Simone’s family, I’m hesitant to challenge my emotions with a telling of that story which - allegedly - places most or all of the blame on the Hebrews. The counter-argument is that it reproduces what can already be found in The Good Book. But that’s a simple argument. The point is, I still didn’t know what was making me uneasy about that movie.

Then once again - a show that is historically chastised for being crude and immoral itself - comes along and manages to state the problem completely and concisely. South Park.

Stan and Kenny go to see the Road Warrior himself in order to get their money back from the movie. When they meet with him, this is the conversation that happens (WAV file here)

Mel Gibson: You CAN’T say my movie sucked, or else your saying Christianity SUCKS!

Stan: No, dude! If you want to be Christian, that’s cool but, you should follow what Jesus taught instead of how he got killed. Focusing on how he got killed is what what people did in the Dark Ages and it ends up with really bad results.

The dumbing-down of society has eaten this up. We’re talking about a movie that’ll top $500 million domestically after it’s been re-released in December (and don’t kid yourself… it WILL be re-released before Christmas). So why is this so appealing to the TV and MTV generations?

Could it be the Reality TV craze that’s created a want for this kind of bare-bones telling of the Greatest Story Ever Told? I believe that it’s a hypothesis with legs. After all, this is the same group of people who created a demand for The Simple Life First Season DVD.

Somehow - and in an unrelated situation - the phrase “The Masses are Asses” entered my mind this afternoon. It reminded me to remain humble when making assumptions about the vast majority of modern society being able to make intelligent, informed decisions. All marketing is designed to simplify and homogenize our thought patterns. The better that job done, the more people will have a built-in need/want for McDonald’s and The GAP.

By reducing our ability to grasp larger concepts, we risk following a technological Renaissance with a tragic Dark Ages… effectively reversing the work of humanity’s intellectual giants like Michelangelo and Shakespeare.

So is this what concerns me about seeing The Passion? Perhaps. The simplicity of the movie’s story is uncomforting. It needs to be talked about - and I have heard many people say that - you need to talk about it. As long as people use this film to expand on their understanding of Jesus, then that’s what I want. Using it as an opportunity to let everyone know what you think is what I fear.

We live in a generation when buying an Acura or staying at the Holiday Inn Express tells us that we’re “smart enough”. Once we leave school, there’s little effort pushing us to continuously re-interpret the world around us, and what we believe in our hearts and our heads.

Perhaps that’s a new warning tag that should go on the posters, right beside Mature Theme and Brutal Violence… Discuss This Movie.