MJ

i don't know who made this but it's rad!

WEIRD BUT FUNNY

LET IT BE KNOWN - PART 2

let it be known that my comment was the one that super-charged miss a-rodriguez to update her blog. this makes me feel good. no, this makes me feel great! G - R - E - A - T - ! i feel like i can do anything. i feel like i should be in the obama administration and i'd have no problem passing socialized health care!

FINDING JOY IN THE LITTLE THINGS

a funny thing happened to me tonight. i've had the flu for a few days and i'll admit i've been taking medication that makes me a little slower than normal. i decided to go take a hot shower before bed because that usually makes me feel a bit better. i got in, showered, got out, etc. i toweled off and dried my ears with a q-tip. all of this stuff is pretty a standard part of my post-shower routine.

i put my sweatpants, briefs, and t-shirt back on and started walking to my bedroom upstairs. suddenly, i stopped and remembered i had a load of wash that needed to be changed to the dryer. i did that and then i got a glass of water at the kitchen sink and headed back to my room upstairs. it wasn't until i was about halfway up the stairs that it occurred to me that something felt different. it felt like i had something in the left pocket of my sweatpants. i reached down to satisfy my curiosity and realized that i didn't have pockets in these sweatpants! i thought it was strange. then i felt a sense of freedom. serious freedom!

i realized that when i put my briefs and sweatpants back on, i got lazy and, like i had done when i removed them, i went for the the ol' two-fer. the bottom line is that i had somehow managed to get both legs down not only the elastic waist-band of my briefs, but also down one of the leg holes!

needless to say, i felt somewhat foolish.

THE HAPPS

i'm not going to apologize for being really shitty at updating this blog. i'm just not. so get over it.

i am in a garage in olympia, washington. it's furnished with a futon, a dvd player, a tv and prototype of an experimental electrolysis engine that runs on water. i am watching the extras on the life aquatic dvd.

i'm in olympia, washinton because it's relatively close to portland, oregon (my new home). i'm here on the type of business i won't get paid for. i made this business connection on the world wide web (namely facebook; have you heard of it?)

i'm here helping a few ambitious guys from NYU film school to make their micro-budget (i'd guess less than ten grand) feature length movie. i'm in charge of sound, and today i established myself as bestboy in spite of the fact that i don't yet know what the bestboy responsibilities are on a film set. i'd never met any of the other crew members when i got here but they are turning out to be great guys. for the next month i'm sleeping on an air matress and sharing a room with nandan (pronounced nun-dun) rao. He's the director of photography for the film and he's got one of the coolest cars i've ever seen. it's a 1972 Cooper Mini that he imported from new zealand when he has 16 years old. it's about half the size of the new BMW minis and it's even still got the steering wheel on the right side of the cabin (technical note: despite the right hand drive, the transmission is traditional american configuration with first gear at the upper left position.) i've been tagging along with him to his always informal meetings with director zack weintraub. tonight was a day off from shooting but instead involved a trek to locate and procure a canoe for shooting tomorrow's summertime rope swing scene on the deschutes river with the two 15 year old lead actors who are playing 17 year olds in the production. if this film sounds at all interesting please visit http://lotlmovie.com for details and extremely up-to-date coverage of the project.

to say the least, olympia has held nothing but good experiences for me (although a few long hours) and i've already met a lot of people. all of these people seem to be interesting in their own ways and i'm glad to have met each and every one of them.

dateline: prior to july 7, 2009

the beginning of the month of june saw me returning from a great week-long trip to lake powell with my family. my oldest sister, holly, helped me pack up my stuff and clean my apartment. we set out with two cars and a u-haul trailer en-route to portland from logan on the first day of june. just two hours outside of cache valley, my subaru broke down on the side of the highway. it ended up spending the night there in southern idaho while holly and i continued our drive to boise. with much appreciated rescue from my dad, grandpa, and grandma the old subaru rolled into the capital city of the gem state the next day and was quickly checked in for diagnosis at a boise mechanic shop. diagnosis failing fuel pump (which i like to think of as the heart of the car since it delivers the vital fluid to the engine). my graduate school entrance exam taught me that fuel pump is to engine as heart is to muscle tissue.

3 nights in boise while waiting for repair. 600 dollar repair bill. the highway out of boise long and littered with anticlimactic excitement. a new life. a test of character. potential. potential for neither success nor failure but likely something in-between.

after extremely slow email, phone and in-person negotiations it was decided i would not be immediately gainfully employed through my first attempt. this led to long days of handyman tasks, resume advances, sleeping in 'til noon or more, a new love for domesticated canines, and increased discovery channel viewership.

the last month has been a bit of a blur. the next month will likely result in a similar blur with an underlying theme of film-making with would be strangers in olympia, washington. we're slated to wrap on august 8th and from there i foresee that unknown potential i mentioned earlier. income will be paramount on my to-do list followed closely by shelter i can call my own which may be followed by musical endeavors in pdx.

as you trudge though this post you may be asking yourself, "what's the bottom line here?" where is all of this going? i'll oblige to answer such an inquiry with the following:

bottom line: i dearly miss the friends and family i left behind in utah (or the ones in finland). i want them to know i'm doing well. i hope that those friends and family are doing better than i and i hope against hope that i will see them all again. the thought of only seeing them for a temporay visit is quite literally (at very least it would seem) heart breaking.

ANA CHRISTINA RODRIGUEZ

was her blog really removed or did she just get even more exclusive than she already was?

you make the call.

LANGUAGE

as i pulled up to the McDonald's drive up window i extended my hand to receive the bag of goodness i'd just purchased. without hesitation, the worker uttered these wise words as if it had only taken her a split second to read my palm and contemplate my fortune.

"you are a strong zebra in the back."

i looked at her puzzled and thought to myself, "when did they start giving out free palm readings with every meal?" as i rolled up my window and pulled away i realized that what she probably meant to say was:

"your straw and receipt are in the bag"

maybe this is just a testament to how overworked i've been. but i figured i'd share this for all of the mormon abstractos and the jokers out there ready to live.

p.s. i realize this will only make sense for a select few.

ANOTHER THOUGHT

there will come a day when you have ceased, as have i, and none of these emotions, nor all combined, will amount to that which could will any scale to tip.

-DW 01/06/09

REALLY RANDOM

so it seems to me that my mood usually correlates to how clean i keep my apartment. in fact i'd say that my tidiness can range pretty widely from "OCD freak" to "complete slob". I'm not sure if other people deal with this same phenomena. anyway, to commemorate this trait of mine i made a very short seemingly pointless video. check it out.

BALLOONS

POLITICS SCHMOLITICS

i will be the first to admit that i don't know much about the current affairs of our nation because i rarely see the news. i don't read newspapers. i don't listen to radio (especially not talk radio). for some this would be an indication that i'm very misinformed (and maybe that's a factual assumption). the little trickle of news i know of either comes to me by way of word of mouth or by watching online streaming video. i can make the assumption that i am less affected by mass media than some and possibly most.

i watched most of the first presidential debate last night and here's what i deduced from it:

both candidates seemed to me to be better informed about issues than our current president. they were both able to refer to figures when analyzing questions and responses. they both seemed to be far more skilled in the "oratory arts" than our current president. at various times throughout the debate, both senators tried to exploit the negatives of their opposition. however, while i noticed that there were many times that sen. obama tried to clarify these points, there were few times that sen. mccain did the same. this led me to believe that the republicans either had less accurate stats on obama's plan or that they had skillfully twisted points of his plan in order to make them seem less appealing.

it seemed to be rare that mccain would try to defend or further explain the negatives of the republican plan presented by sen. obama.

i will admit that i am your average joe schmoe that knows less about politics and our country's current state of being than some (and possbly most) others, however, i am of the current stance that the democrats seem to be the better choice for presidential election.

i feel that this choice is the lesser of two evils. from the small amount of exposure i've had to nader's ideas, i think he maybe be a better suited commander-in-chief than either of the bi-partisan candidates. it is a shame that the system doesn't allow him (or anyone else who might possess good, or for that matter, bad ideas) a unbiased shot at leading our country.

my vote as an individual counts just as much as anyone else's. i will be at the polls on nov. 4th.

WHAT I PLAN TO READ

i just returned from some friends' house where i had three short stories read aloud to me. the stories were all written by miranda july. i decided that i really enjoyed her writing after hearing the first short story. it was about a birthmark and the human interactions that such a thing carries with it. i didn't think i was familiar with her work until my friend told me that she wrote, directed, and acted in the indie film me and you and everyone we know. i think i will go buy one of her books tomorrow. i already find her creative mind to be nothing short of amazing.

i remember kind of liking her movie. it was interesting and very endearing while also being downright disturbing and off-putting at times. i feel it takes a lot to offend me but there were certain parts of this movie that made me uncomfortable. from the 20ish or so pages i've heard read aloud, i think i like her writing more.

LET IT BE KNOWN

it has been a rough week

























but i can get through it

SUMMER FESTIVITIES

i copped some of lance pance's photos today and got bored enough to photoshop a few. if some of my students handed in stuff like this i'd eff them (as in give them an F for their grade) but for some reason i'm choosing to share this crap with you all. enjoy.