Ugly Honesty + Too Many Photos = Tedium Infinitum

Every time I boot up, it says there's an Adobe Reader update, or a Java update, or a Windows Security Update, or a HP Printer Driver update.... mildly annoying at best. I try to look at it positively.... if it weren't for software updates, I'd have no dates at all!

OK, so what was with yesterday's sad little post? No clue. It was just the mood I was in, my apologies. It was true, what I said, and yes, a bit unnerving, but I should have just kept it to myself. And no, I shouldn't blame it on the beard.

Funny thing about the beard (which is now truly epic)... I've tried having pictures taken, but I feel like such a moron... "Hey, lemme post my picture on my blog!" I don't know... it just feels so stupid. Like, good grief, how old am I again? Still in Junior High? Maybe it ties in with what I said yesterday... I don't recognize myself, in a real, weird way... so I don't want to post a picture of an impostor or something.

"Whew! That was close!

So Youngest had her birthday costume party yesterday. Seemed to be a success. I dressed up as exactly nothing, yet again. I wish I'd seen this photo sooner...

I would have painted a white bucket with a Storm Trooper face, big time... How funny is that?

I just yelled at my computers. I am embarrassed. Sure, I could have said nothing, and you would never know... But I always have tech problems, when it comes to importing a video file into an editor. I have an hour-long video that my sister needs two clips pulled from and sent to her. Easy, right? Should take minutes, right? WRONG. It always is a traumatizing, exquisitely frustrating and time-consuming experience... and I never remember that fact until I go to do it again. Then the memories all flood back. And I just lost it. Here I am, home, alone, trying to get a quick video edit job done... and I blew up. I just launched a minutes-long screaming invective-filled diatribe at my iMac and powerbook laptop...

Kinda wish I'd video taped it. Probably would have gone viral.

Man, this is ugly, brutal truth day, eh?

Finished reading The Ten Thousand by Paul Kearney. I wanted to like it, really. But honestly, it was pretty dull. There were some good battle descriptions, but I really didn't care a whit for any of the characters. There are two more books in the series, and I was going to stop here... but I read reviews of the other two in the series, and apparently, the second volume is light-years better than both volume 1 and 3... so I *may* try the second book, if the price is right. Anyway, I give The Ten Thousand a score of 3 out of 5.

Trying (and close to abandoning) another book called The Kinshield Legacy (K.C. May) at the moment. It started off well, but it's quickly devolving into insipidity. Shame. I'd read good things about it. But come on... there's a female warrior character named "Brawna".... LOL, are you kidding me? Brawna? Really? OMG, I can't stop laughing. I thought I was bad at coming up with character names, lol....

Brawna. lol

Nice. I'd live in it. Maybe.

Or maybe I'd live here instead...

OK, that's cool. Even the Union Jack comforter is cool. Are those walls concrete?

That's a great job of colorizing and cleaning up an old photo. Click it and look at it big. That's skill, right there. I've done stuff like that before, so I know of which I speak.

In fact, lemme grab an example that I've done, just to show off a bit.

A couple years ago, the pastor of my church sent me a photo of a dog he used to own, a dog he loved muchly. It was the only good photo of the dog he had left... but there was a chainlink fence in front of him...

So I scanned it and removed the fence...

Now, as helpful and powerful as computers have made things, there's still no shortcut for doing this. I had to go in really tight, and carefully use the cloning tool in photoshop to remove the fence from the whole thing. I must say, I was proud of the results. I even got the ultimate compliment from another member of our church (Mark O.) who said he went in close to find the evidence of photo manipulation, but couldn't see it, even zoomed way in. And he has an eye for those things. He was impressed.

Anyway, Pastor was very pleased with the results as well.

So, on another note, we're moving forward with the play. Only 7 weeks until Christmas... I'm excited and terrified at the same time. We still have two roles not filled yet! AAAAAAHHHHH!!! OK, I won't panic...[takes deep breaths]. All will be well. It always is.

Dang... I guess this is the Ugly Honesty and Too Many Photos Post....

I think I'll end it here.

Hope your week is a good one.

Dave the Meanderer

Bah, What a Waste of Your Time....

This is going to sound far more light-hearted than it is. Cuz I mean it, actually...

Do you ever stare at yourself in the mirror and wonder who in the world is staring back at you? Yeah, sounds cliche/corny, eh? I'm serious, though. More and more often, I look myself in the eye, and have no idea who that yahoo is. Mildly unnerving.

Whatever.

Dave the Mildly Unnerved

I Blame the French....

Ladies and gentlemen, it is 5 minutes until 2 in the morning as I start this blog post. That is a record for me, and you were there! Sort of. I have never started blogging this late in the day before. Are you extremely proud of me, or just sort of proud of me? Does it instill within you a strong urge to emulate me, and stay up waaaay past your bedtime to write a blog post for your (mostly imaginary) blog fan club? Does it, eh? Eh?

Well, Wednesday is my scheduled blogging day! Yes, technically, it's 2 hours into Thursday... but somewhere in the world it's still Wednesday! Like, in Hawaii, perhaps.

Aloha, everyone! It is I, Dave the Late, with an exhaustion-laced blast of hot air for your enjoyment. Although why you enjoy hot air as a casual form of entertainment is beyond me. Shouldn't you be watching episodes of Lie To Me on Netflix instead? If not, why not?!?! It's a great show! In fact, I watched a bunch of episodes of it tonight instead of blogging. The good news is, I've learned a lot about lie detection from watching the show... so now I can tell when you're lying in the comments. So type carefully! I can read facial tics also... so you don't even have to leave a comment and I'll know that you're lying!

Here, lemme prove it. Look at this Tokyo office building that has a freeway overpass going right through it...

Now, let me ask you this: Would you enjoy having to deliver a pizza to this building, or not?

LIAR!!!!

Moving right along...

Today (10/25) is officially my Youngest Daughter's birthday. She's 7! Yay! It rhymes with Heaven! Because she's a little angel, she is! See? It fits perfectly! Well, it also rhymes with "eleven" and "leaven", but I don't know what that means. I'm going with the "angel" thing, if you don't mind.

I made her a little coupon book containing 10 coupons that are good for 1 EXTRA BOOK during our nightly reading time. I'll tell her she can redeem them occasionally, or all at once. Let's see how greedy she will be! MUAHAHAHA!!! Happy birthday, Mags! Here's a social experiment! Well, we're also getting her a new bike and having a party this weekend. Which reminds me... the oven broke yesterday... we were going to cook food for 50 people on Saturday! Yay! Broken oven! YAAYY!!! Well, I hope everyone likes Costco pizza! MUAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Wifey and I are going to dress up as Salt and Pepper for the party. I'll be in all black, with a P on my chest, and she'll be in all white with an S on her chest. We may also wear aluminum foil caps with holes in them. Hey, don't roll your eyes! They are opposites that also go together, just like wifey and I! And besides, it's a step up from what I usually dress as, which is nothing. And I also have gray in my beard, which some people call "salt and pepper", so there... that's some irony right there!

Come on... Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra in dapper suits, with stogies? The "Coolness Quotient" in this blog just went up 30 points right there. Did you feel it?

So I went and saw the movie Looper the other day, with my good friend Todd F. Really good movie, though too long, and with a couple plot holes. Great acting performances across the board, especially Jeff Daniels' bit, and the kid, Pierce Gagnon. Where they found that little kid, and how they got such a crazy-good acting performance out of him is beyond me. The kid is 5 years old, for crying out loud! I guarantee, you'll never see another performance from a 5 year old that will ever approach this one. See the movie and tell me if I'm wrong. The kid destroyed it. I can't wait to watch the film again when it comes out on DVD, so I can watch the extras and hopefully get to hear the director discussing how he worked with that little guy. His performance blew me away.

So, yeah, good movie.

So, my reading time with Youngest for the past week or two has included our wading through all of the Winnie the Pooh stories. They're such fun to read. Early on, I challenged myself to read the stories and do all of the character voices from the cartoon versions. I have to admit, I have the Pooh and Piglet voices down pat. Eeyore, too, of course, since that one's easy. But it's great fun for me, and Youngest enjoys it thoroughly as well.

Buahahaha! Ah, story of my wife...

So I've been toiling away recently in Minecraft, building a giant glass-and-wood tower. When I get it finished (or at least presentable), I'll post a screen shot of it. I bet you can hardly wait, eh! EH!?!?! I should just break down and dress up as a Creeper for Halloween. All I'd need is a cardboard box and some green paint... So in my mind, Minecraft is indelibly linked with the show Lie To Me... because Minecraft can be played in a browser window, I have the game running on one monitor, while I watch episodes of Lie To Me on the monitor right next to it. Yes, I can multitask my forms of entertainment! That means I can waste two hours of time in only one hour! Man, how efficient is that? I know, right?

Don't get me wrong, I'm still keeping to my writing schedule. I've worked on my novel and screenplay on the appointed days, still going strong. In fact, I've been thinking of making a daily workout schedule as well.

OK, whatever, I've rambled enough for one night. Well, for one early morning. It's 2:30am. See how efficient I am? All this hot air only took a half-hour to generate! Only the best for my (mostly invisible) blog fan club.

Dave the Tired (and Feathered)

Watch a Sunrise at Least Once a Day

Sadly, you know what I think first when I see that awesome woods photo right there? I think:

"Bugs." [shudder]

Isn't that sad? That I would wonder what types of creepy-crawlies would eat me alive as I strolled through the woods? I could tell you something sadder, but I won't... I'll keep that one to myself, thank you very much!

So, here it is, Saturday, and I'm blogging at my appointed time. Gee, I'm so organized! Too bad I don't have anything to say today!

Well, we're closing in on Halloween. The thing I like best about Halloween is that it means Thanksgiving and Christmas are drawing near. I love Fall, more than any other time of year. To me, it brings me back to when I was young, throwing the football around in the grass with my brother Bryan, fallen leaves scattered around, my dog Jesse running around, the cool edge to the air.

Geez, how corny does that sound? Feels like I'm about to break forth into a poem...

Still, I'm a fan of the season. Halloween? Meh, it has it's charms, too. Here, watch this cool video...

The Green Ruby Pumpkin from miguel ortega on Vimeo.

Nice vibe, cool art, I think.

Trying to think of some of my most memorable Halloween-related memories. I dressed as Gene Simmons from the band KISS one year - I was young, under 10 years old, I believe. My dear sweet mom has photographic proof of it somewhere. I had the face paint and the open shirt and the chains and everything, lol. One year in high school, I dressed as a woman and went to the Halloween party at the church I was attending at the time. The youth pastor was not amused. I was sent home. Don't think there's any photos of that, sorry.

That's pretty much it. Nothing pops to mind from my married years. I always contemplate costumes, but never pull the trigger on it. I still have a week or so to decide about this year. We'll see. Basically, I could wear what I wear everyday, and just tell people I'm dressed as a nerd. Well, a nerd with an unruly bushy beard. I think the beard is helping me write gooder. Now all I need is a beret and some John Lennon glasses and I'll be tip-top!

So I worked on my screenplay Thursday and Friday night, as planned. It's exciting to feel like I'm making progress on my projects again. I found a large online screenplay archive, which is helping me see how to structure the script.

I've discovered something about my neck pain, by the way. When I'm standing, it's fine... almost non-existent. When I'm sitting (which I do practically non-stop), that's when the pain ebbs and flows. Gotta be a pinched nerve somewhere. I'll have to consult with my chiropractor this week and see what the good doctor has to say. But what if he gets mad at me and punches me in the kidneys? What do I do if that happens? Would the police believe me if I said my chiropractor rabbit-punched me? Who would you believe: a respected doctor of chiropractic, or a nerdy graphic artist with self-image issues?

"But officer, they said I could park it anywhere..."

I had the day to myself today. Wifey took Youngest and Oldest to Sea World, while Middlest went with a group of church friends to Six Flags to ride rollycoasters. I could have done ANYTHING today! Think of it! The world was my oyster! I have a car with gas in it, a bit of breathing room in my bank account, and fast freeway access granting me a path to anywhere in San Diego! But did I leave the house at all today? Well, did I?!?! You should know, I know you were spying on me. Admit it! You reverse-accessed my webcam again, right? So you could watch me sitting on my duff in front of my computer all day, right? Man, you really need to get out more!

So do I.

Getting the Christmas play rolling this year is proving exceptionally difficult. We haven't even had our first cast read-through yet. In fact, I still have roles that need actors. I could go into all the extenuating circumstances for all of this, but I won't. This blog is a gossip-free zone, thank you very much! But if we can't get things rolling soon, we'll have to pull the plug on the play and go another, less-involved route. The script is going to be tricky to begin with; we really should have been into production for the last couple weeks already...

Ah, well, such is life.

I suppose that's all for now. I'll post a pic of the beard soon. I'll give you ample warning, so you can hide the children and small animals...

Adios for now,

Dave the Hairy