WALL-E!!!!!
oh my god. i fucking LOVED IT. like obsessively loved it. it was so freakin cute. jesus christ. wow. gah. i can't even explain how much i liked that movie. every moment was sheer cute overload. the first like 20 or so minutes you get to see wall-e just roaming around piling trash and discovering funny little things like a fire extinguisher, rubik's cube, and frisbee. all of which he puts in his trusty cooler that he hangs off his back. gah it's so cute. and his fascination and love for "hello dolly." the "romance" btwn wall-e and eve is insanely cute in an adolescent sort of way. he wants to hold her hand but can't bring himself to make the move. and when she closes up he tries anything to get her to "wake up." i don't want to give more away but i simply loved it. like it's totally going to be one of my favorite movies of the year. if not THE favorite. i know i know. a fucking animated movie. but it's about a robot with big googley eyes. wall-e is essentially the robot i always wished dan would make for me. well, sort of. close enough. i don't see how you can't like this movie. it's just so goddamn cute! except one guy behind us on our way out didn't seem to like it. he said something along the lines of "it was a poor mix of inappropriate jokes, music and story." wha??!!?!? his friend, who seemed equally as baffled as i, merely sad in return "well you liked cars. to-may-to...to-maah-to." clearly that man is either out of his mind or just trying to be different for the sake of being different. again i ask, who wouldn't like this movie?
excitement! i'm going to see wall-e tomorrow night!!!! i can't wait!!! i'm so excited!!! yes this all warrants multiple exclamation marks! haha
in other exciting news, i totally forgot to mention that alex's parents bought us (and them) tickets to see mutherfucking elton john in vegas in october. it has been a dream of mine to see sir elton. this is his red piano show which is done in collaboration with david lachapelle. i don't entirely know what that means but if lachapelle is involved, you know it'll be vibrant and fun. oh i can't wait!!!! gah. and if stacey's friend comes through, we'll be hitting up vegas a few weeks prior for the NKOTB show. oh my. great things to come in october.
i'm listening to the new girl talk album "feed the animals." i should be listening to it in my car driving back from HB but i'm not because dommie messaged me this morning saying plans had changed with his work and he couldn't hang out tonight. so sad. i mean it's ok cuz i didn't really want to drive all the fuck way down there since i'll be seeing him in a month. but still. oh well. regardless, the new girl talk album is PHE-NOMENAL. i can't stop listening to it. it's just so fucking good. the last album "night ripper" was really good but this shit is just busting through the walls good. whenever i listen to it i simultaneously want to bust my ass while saying "oh that one! oh that one!" it's so nostalgic to listen to this album since at least half of it's tracks are from the 90's. it's executed so brilliantly. and i don't say that in any sort of real critical way. since i don't know shit about the art of mixing and mashing songs. i just know that this album gets me moving and that's all i care about. gregg gillis is like the mashup master. you'd NEVER think to put jay-z over radiohead but when you hear it you nod your head in agreement for how fucking good it sounds. even the small hints of awful songs like "gimme more" (britney spears) and "footloose" (kenny fuckin loggins) sound good when spliced in with other fabulous baselines and beats. ahhh i could go on. just listen for yourself if you haven't already. it's available for download here for any price you want. enjoy.
tonight some of my coworkers went out to a bar after work. it's been like pulling teeth to get the office to so anything social outside of work. i was even reluctant to invite them to my housewarming party because i thought they'd just all secretly laugh knowing that none would come. but a couple did come. a couple. so sad. the office just really isn't very social. sigh....but tonight a few people went out to a bar. we can do better than that though! we'll try again next week maybe.
in other news. i saw two movies at the LA film fest this year. on sunday i went alone (yes ALONE, no one would come with me) to see paper or plastic?. the website is crap but that is no reflection of the movie. i swear. the movie is a documentary in the vain of spellbound and wordplay. essentially it follows a selection of people who are all trying to make it to the national championship for bagging groceries. yes, BAGGING GROCERIES. it's fucking hilarious. i mean these people are very passionate about what they do. well, most of them. some just think it's kind of funny and wouldn't mind winning. but some really care a lot. they practice and train for it. there is an art to grocery bagging. an art which i was somewhat aware of just from bagging my own groceries from time to time. but the competition takes it to the nth degree. speed. weight distribution btwn all the bags. stacking order. all these things matter. and of course you can't forget the pesky roll of lifesavers that they strategically place in the corner so that half the people forget to even put it in the bag because it's seemingly "hidden" in their view. i really thoroughly enjoyed the film and i think if you are down to watch a light-hearted doc about people's quirky obsessions, then you will like this film. i bet it will release in indie theaters and then hit dvds by the end of the year. so check it out!
the other movie i saw was choke which was adapted from the novel written by chuck palahniuk who also wrote fight club. i didn't have any expectations going into the film because i didn't know much about it. all i knew was that it was about a guy who pretends to choke to get women. at least that's what alex said. but even that wasn't true! basically it's about a guy who is a sex addict and has a lot of family issues which is partially why he pretends to choke to get people to help him. i don't want to get into details because i want everyone to see this movie. it's quite good. i enjoyed it greatly. it's very perverse though so if you aren't up for that then maybe this isn't for you. sam rockwell was an excellent choice for the lead role. i want to say more but i really don't want to give things away. just go see it when it hits theaters in september. i think everyone i went with enjoyed it. at least it seemed that way. oh and pete wentz was there in the audience a couple rows in front of us. hilarious. i would never think he would be at such a film. maybe he's more cultured than i thought. haha
in other other news (lots of news because i haven't written in awhile), the annual beach bbq was a blast! it was hot as hell this weekend and the traffic leading up to the beach sucked ass. but once we got there it was great. good times indeed!
tomorrow i'm leaving work early to head down to huntington beach (yes, ugh, i know. don't get me started) to visit laurel at her work and then see dominic who is in town for work. he's staying at a hotel down there (why sbux? why?!) so i said i'd go down for a night to get some dinner and drinks. i can only make the trek once. HB is far. and not very fun. according to the traffic site i use to track stuff, it's going to take at least 80min if not more to get down there. i am leaving work at 4pm so i don't arrive too late. i hope it will be good times. it's funny because i rarely see dom and yet i will be seeing him tomorrow and then in a month when i head up to seattle with rick for his sister's wedding. so i'll see dom two times in a month's span and then nada for months if not years.
a couple of things.
1. i do NOT want to work late again tonight. esp not like last night. i was here til 9. ugh. i foresee it though. but i have shit to get done at home. i'm so behind and i haven't worked out in days. DAYS. ugh!
2. i saw these two girls on the train wearing the EXACT SAME things. like jeans, shoes, socks, bracelets, etc. same cell phone holder for christ sake! one would say they are twins. but they didn't look like twins. i'm sure they were fraternal but still. it looked weird cuz it wasn't like a doublemint commercial. it was more like two girls being obsessively similar to each other. it was just plain weird.
3. ok maybe this is more like a few things than a couple. but wtf is it with people getting married? i'm starting to see this happening more. gah!! it's scaring me.....
it's pouring right now. though not rain, work. (it's actually really fucking hot and sunny outside) i am so exhausted with everything. and it doesn't help that i stayed out somewhat late last night. thanks to laurel, i got to see islands perform at the el rey. she got us two tickets for my birthday. and man the show was fantastic! islands is a band that when their first album came out i didn't really pay much attention. in looking back, i totally remember the album coming out. the artwork is very familiar to me. yet at the time i swear i didn't even listen to it once. fast foward to a couple months ago when laurel was asking me if i could find a leak of it and now i'm damn well hooked. i love the new album. so i was thrilled to hear that she had gotten us tickets to the show. they played coachella this year and i saw a brief moment of them from afar but decided i would wait to see them in proper form with laurel. and man, were they ever in proper form.
first of all, when they took the stage i had no idea what to expect. they are definitely one of those bands were their physical presence is a mystery to me. i didn't know how many people were in the band. what they looked like. if they were men or women (well of course the singer is a man...but the rest). where they came from. nothing. i know nothing about them other than their album is really damn good. so when they got on stage i was shit-eating grin delighted to see that there were not one, but TWO asian men in the band. normally asians are not in rock bands. and this band has TWO of them! insane! they look nerdy just like many of my former classmates in high school but i don't care, they play the shit out of their instruments (for the record, violins and keyboards). i think the best way to sum up the show is a dialogue laurel and i had last night. (truncated...before the show started)
me: i think i'm so tired that i'm like past it all. i think my body is used to being tired. i told it "you are going to be tired for the next two weeks. so just get used to it." and i think it has. because i should be exhausted right now but i feel ok.
laurel: yea i was totally exhausted this morning but then i woke up in the afternoon. otherwise i would have been in bad shape right now.
me: yea it sucks when you go to a show and you start off being tired. because then when it starts all you can think about it the show ending. "how many more songs do they have? encore? ok, ok just play one."
laurel: "ok. maaaaybe two. three tops."
me: yea that always sucks. because usually you just want the band to play forever. but when you are tired you just want it to end. no fun.
after the band was over and their encore was done.
laurel: this was definitely one of those nights where i wanted them to just play forever.
me: yes, definitely.
so yea. it was one of those kind of nights, and it was awesome. but now i'm back to being tired. i had a hard time waking up this morning and i totally fell asleep the entire train ride. i could have stayed on and rode it back home! haha i have so much work to do at work that i work overtime everyday. which like i said, is cool but i'm tired. so i just have to barrel through all of this. next week dominic is coming down to the LA area for work. so i'll meet up with him for dinner on wednesday. that will be a nice change of pace for a few hours. too bad it's in fucking huntington beach!!! sigh. i'm monitoring the traffic daily to see when best to leave. haha i am NOT looking fwd to that drive. however, i think i'm going to leave work a couple hours early to 1) beat some of the traffic and 2) go visit laurel at her work. anyway, i s'pose i should get back to work.
when it rains, it pours. and for this posting i have to mention both good and bad pouring. let's start with the good.
so as i said earlier, i had to work last weekend. currently at work we have a lot on our plate. we took on this really big project for a big company (we have an NDA, i can't talk about it) that we've done other work for before and now we are swamped. the deadline is very near and we have to build an entire site that's about 25 pages deep. lots of stuff is repetition of course but still, all the pages have to be comped out. now last weekend andrew and i were working on the homepage teaser comp. well they went with his design so my work was marginally in vain. they really liked mine but went with his. and if i didn't do mine at all, then we'd have no comparison for them and clients always like choice. always. so c'est la vie. but now the task at hand is for him, me and jason to comp out the rest of the pages by next friday. now we don't have to comp all 25 but we have to comp about half. so this means we have a lot of work ahead of us. the producer on the job, steven, said we could work overtime if need be. just do what we gotta do to make it happen. so while it sucks to be heavily overworked, at least i can pull in extra cash. this will help pay for the digital SLR and lenses i want to get in november. and possibly an iphone if i deem it worth my time. the new version that is.
meanwhile at work we also have yet another large project due at about the same time as the project i just mentioned. it's also big budget and will take some time to complete. but we're heavily underway on that so it's not so bad. my involvement with that is mostly over. but i do have some work still left to do. and then finally i'm deeply involved in this other project that is sort of large. it's all print and as i know, print takes longer than people think. it seems easier but it takes a long time because you had to spec out paper and ink. you have to print comps and assemble them. you have to do press checks. i mean it all takes time. time that people tend to think isn't that much but really it is. to print an A22 sheet of paper full color on an inkjet takes about 5 minutes. not 15 secs like a printout of a webpage comp. so it all adds up. and we have to go to press by friday and i'm the only one really on the project. so yea. i'm swamped.
furthermore, i have now 3 freelance projects. the one cd i mentioned before from the lead singer of the defunct band rick liked so much. that's underway and moving at a nice pace. then i have a smaller thing to do some edits to this site i made for my old neighbor. not too much work there. and now i just landed this larger project from a girl who found me on AIGA. she wants to start a blog network much like the sugar network (ala popsugar, casasuper, fabsugar, etc) and she needs basically everything for it. so i'm going to help her with that. she's got a decent budget for it too. so with all this work combined i'm both excited and scared. lots of work and lots of money. but lots of time. lots of tiredness in my future i predict.
now for the bad pouring. deaths. they always say that deaths come in 3's and that's about as accurate as the idea of "earthquake weather." nevertheless, when it happens, people notice. for example, the 1989 loma prieta earthquake that struck the bay area. that day it was unusually hot for early october. people deemed it "earthquake weather." is there such a thing? no, not really. and i'm sure there have been plenty of earthquakes occur when the weather was as normal as can be. likewise, many people die everyday and there is not usually any connection yet the times when there are, people are quick to say "deaths come in 3's." well just recently i've noticed this statement come to truth, not one, but two times. and it's really quite sad to me. first there was my friend from the magazine. then the other day i got word that one of my friends' grandfather had passed on. and then like a day later i heard that another one of my friends' dad passed away. 3 deaths related to people i know in about a 2-3 wk span. very very sad. and now publicly, 3 newscasters have passed away. tim russert, charlie jones, and jim mckay. all within about a week or so. i wish everyone the best as they deal with the pain in their own way.
so the weekend wasn't a total bust because the party was great. people seemed to really like our place and i thought the party was of comfortable partyness. i didn't want it to get crazy because i was worried about all our stuff. namely our couch. but everything managed to stay nice so that's good. aside from that though, it was all working over the weekend. LAME. they didn't even pick my comp either. so it was sort of all for nothing. except i made about $275 in overtime. so that's nice. the taxman will take a good chunk of that. thanks taxman. work has been hectic to say the least. all these projects all at once that are due all at once. poor andrew (at work) is A.D.ing a lot of it and i think it's running him down. he needs some rest. but who has time to rest when you have to work on comps over the weekend?! sigh.
i went to the dmv yesterday to get ANOTHER duplicate license. let's hope this one gets mailed out to me correctly. i'm really worried. ugh!
i also have seen a fair number of people on the street coming from the metro. one day i saw this guy who was a cheerleader in high school. actually i saw him two days in a row. i also saw ATO dan and this intern from the mag. face recognition, why can't you make me some money?!
i have to work this weekend. like basically i'm working right now on freelance work and then all day tomorrow and sunday i'll be doing work for work. of course we are still having the party but this just means not a moment of relaxation for jen. the only saving grace is it'll be mad overtime which is great cuz i want to buy a pro grade digital SLR and two lenses by november. so this will help nicely.
oh and here is the reminder email for my party:
i'm obsessed. OB-SESSED with wall-e. like i HAVE to see this movie. it looks insanely cute. and i LOVE robots. and cute robots? gah. seriously. seeeeriously. i love how he says waaaaaaaaaall-eee. i've watched the trailer a few times already. i saw this video of a lifesize wall-e somewhere in LA. and now i have learned that they are going to make a functional robotic wall-e toy with voice activation and sensors. i must have that! he will be so cute next to my toy R2-D2 that moves around as well as scooter, my inflatable remote-controlled robot. i'll have a mini robot family! gah i just love robots. ones with cute googley eyes. i can't wait for this movie. i plan to see it opening night. i'm OBSESSED i tell you!
well. i was going to write this long post about the memorial service and my views on death and whatnot but now i'm not feelin that. i don't want to drudge it all up again. i probably should have done it at the time but to be honest my eyes were stinging a bit from the crying and i couldn't bring myself to push through to write the post. suffice is to say, the service was beautiful and very touching and likewise very sad. a whole slew of filter peeps came out. new and old. some i hadn't seen in years. it was really nice to see everyone out there supporting each other and joe's family and friends. there were definitely a lot of tears and a lot of hugs and it was both sad and happy. sad because we all lost a dear friend and/or colleague, and happy because at least there were so many people there showing just how much he meant to us and really bringing out the caring in people. but no matter how you shake it, it was sad. very sad. like i said, i used to really like this guy. like i wanted to date him type deal. and while in recent months we haven't been in as close contact as we used to be, i still felt really sad when it heard the news. and when i was at the service and saw all the filter people there, i couldn't help but think if (god forbid) someone from AA passed on, it would be similar. tight-knit group of people who really care a lot about each other. that's the one great thing we had at AA amongst all the complete bullshit. we had each other. and it sounds so sappy but shit, we all know how drab the workplace can be if our coworkers aren't cool and fun. so anyway, no more sadness. at least not on this blog. hopefully not for awhile. a long while.
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