:: Quiche of the Day ::

:: 12.1.2001 ::

Got some new comix yesterday! Magic Pickle, Powers, and Akiko, plus the first issue of Hopeless Savages, which I had missed. Yum.
Also Deejayed a pretty good radio show tonight. Spun the usual punk and alt stuff, but also threw in a hearty dose of ska. My only mistake was not peeing before I left for the studio. KNAB may be well-endowed in its selection of indie-rock albums you've never heard of before, but it unfortunatly lacks any kind of restrooms. Apparently, it also now lacks a website. The above link should take you to the Chapman radio website, but it, uh . . . doesn't. I'm not sure where it takes you actually, but has far as I know the station hasn't adopted some kind of interstellar adventure theme. We're just pirates. Arrr!
I need to go to bed now, since it's way too late again, and I've got a movie to shoot this weekend. I think it's going to be a werewolf movie based on my life. Should either be really cool or suck really bad. On the other hand, maybe it will just be mediocre. I'll let time do the telling.
More later!
:: Aaron Humphrey 2:44 AM reply [+] ::
...

When did Thanksgiving get to be so close to Christmas? The word on the street is that the two have always been amount a month apart chronologically and that Thanksgiving is always on a Thursday. That's just crazy. I don't know if I buy it.
I went back to the ranch for the big Thanksgiving break, which was nothing to complain about. However, either the holiday wasn't long enough, or I've either got too many friends. I'm pretty sure I'd rather have too many friends than not enough, though. Speaking of excess (and believe me, we really, really are; more than we should be), I've got too much to talk about here. Which means it's bullet time! (Eat that, Keanu!)

*Went to the very sweet Salem Cinema over break with my very cool indie film friends to see the very OK movie adaption of the very excellent comic book Ghost World. The movie was good, but the comic was so much better. The original themes and ideas that were so potent in the comic were just watered down by the required linear story and various sub-plots. The essence of Ghost World was still there, but it was awfully dilluted. Plus, it's a lot easier to relate to Becky and Enid on the page than on screen. Oh well. As an adaption it was good.

*Also hung out at my friend Andy's new apartment and played some new Gamecube. Got down and dirty with Luigi's Mansion and Rouge Leader, which was definetly a good thing. I've really lost touch with the modern gaming world, so I'm not really qualified to make a value judgement about either game, but I can feel cutting edge for a couple of weeks now. Mostly I'm just waiting for the new Super Smash Brothers game, which Andy will have by Christmas break unless he is hit by a car or a comet or something.

*This will mean nothing to you if you've never been enrolled at Dallas High School or live with someone who was, but we had Mr. Steve Travis over for Thanksgiving dinner. We played Scrabble. It was crazy, but not entierly uncool. One of these days I'll post info the documentary my friends and I shot about following him home from school. Now that was intense.

*I also saw my family and a bunch of my friends over Thanksgiving. It was way cool. Did I already say that?

*I finished the second, much improved, and slightly longer version of Blood is Thicker. I'll get some screen shots and new info about it posted up soon, or at least eventually. I think it turned out really well. Unfortunatly, it's not perfect, which means I just want to go back and fix it until it is. It's not gonna happen, though. An improved version of Out of Hand is coming up, though, and hopefully some all new stuff! What a concept!

*I'm also working on a new section of the site where I can post stuff that I've written, including my research paper about why broadband connections are going to destroy The Internet. You know you want to read it.

*I've got a big science presentation tomorrow, so I should sleep.

*I didn't spell check this page. I am a loser. Goodnight.
:: Aaron Humphrey 1:27 AM reply [+] ::
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Wow, it's been a full ten days since I quit the Internet. Today I finally went through my list of bookmarks and checked up on all my old sites after what is probably my longest hiatus from them in years. I didn't miss much. I actually felt kind of bad going back to The Internet, because I never really missed it that much. Take that, technology!
Yes, I had a nice Thanksgiving, thanks for asking. Bigger, cooler update tomorrow. That wasn't a sentence. I don't care. Click and make the world a better place while I go to bed.
:: Aaron Humphrey 12:05 AM reply [+] ::
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Tonight I was taking a break, lying down and feeling very at peace with the big old world, when I made a silly mistake. I closed my eyes. Instead of going to sleep I just let images play in front of my mind however they found themselves arranged. What I saw was The Internet. That's about it. My imagination had manifested itself into sidebars and flash animations, banner ads and those three or so lines of copywrite and contact info that's the last thing to read on lots of pages. I disturbed me a little. I tried to think of happy things like lush forests full of trees, but they all appeared in quicktime windows. That disturbed me even more.
The Internet's fine I guess. I mean, it does lots of things that I want it to and a few of things I need it to do. I managed to find a bootleg copy of the new Star Wars trailer, keep updated on the comic book scene and read a bunch of reviews of video games that I'll never actually consider buying -- none of which actually makes a difference in the long or contributes signifcantly to my existence. I like The Internet plenty, but I don't like it being what I get up for in the morning and I hate it being the filter I use to make sense of reality. The world is not The Internet and The Internet is not my world.
So I'm done. I'm not going to do any surfing until after Thanksgiving unless it's the real kind, which I've never actually done. I'll update this page to keep y'all informed of my progress and continue doing the e-mail thing, but that's it. I've got this strange feeling that I've typed this kind of thing before, but maybe that's just because I should have done it earlier.
:: Aaron Humphrey 1:14 AM reply [+] ::
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Hi kids, remember me? My name is Mr. Update! Hadoken!
Wow, I've really forgotten how to write these things after taking a week-long break to do, you know, have a life and attempt to pass my classes. Grant, on the other hand, can't get enough of this stuff, and keeps the blogwheel spinning pretty regularly. The best thing about his site of course is that it's got pictures of me! Ed's not updated his page because his computer blew up. Or something similar to blowing up that computers seem to be oh-so-friggin fond of. One case in point coming right up . . .
I used to really like editing back at my high school where I got to essentially take the scrumptious Final Cut Pro out for banana splits and mini golf whenever I felt like it. Sure it may have kind of screwed me over a couple of times, but every relationship's got its kinks, and in the end we always managed to resolve our differences and emerged stronger because of it. Here at Chapman we've got some kind of spliced together mega-network that's powered by discreetEdit, a program no one's heard of. It's not a terrible program, and if I twist its arm far enough back and cuss a little bit I can usually force it to do everything I need it to. However, the limited amount of disk space available to me coupled with the fact that there's usually at least a dozen other film students trying to make the system obey them at any given time makes for a generally nerve-wracking and too frequently time-wasting experience. Once you get everything into the computer, you're usually OK . . . until you have to get everything out of the computer again. Tonight was my first time in there in almost a month, and after two and a half hours of logging footage, the system decided to corrupt my log file, effectively shutting me off from reaping the fruits of my editing labors. I may still be able to retrieve it, or I may have to start from scratch again. That's the great thing about the system here -- you never know what kind of wacky hi-jinx it's going to pull on you next! Keeps me on the edge of my doggone seat. Anyway, I really don't like editing on computers. Back in the day I hated editing on a VCR-to-VCR system, but at least then you could usually crank something out even if it looked like crap. No, I take that back. That system frequently decided to hate us, too. In the long run, I guess technology sucks. I wish that I could edit my video with a nice tree or a rock or something. Good old nature never lets you down! Well, except for that whole El Nino thing.
I knew being a college DJ would eventually treat me to a look at the mystically hip world of alternative rock. I'm listening to some Ben Folds Five right now, and yes, I know it's not anything new . . . but why didn't anybody tell me I'd like this stuff? *sigh* Look, do me a favor and let me know about cool music before or miss out on something else. Please?
While you're at it, go vote for me! There's not even really a choice.
Also, if you like comix (and you should!) and don't know about these guys, please go aquaint yourself.
Need to get rid of some of that nesky free time? My mom tells me this site is lots of fun, and my mom is never wrong. Well, except about turkey burgers. And maybe milk.
Guess I'll update the fan fic.
My leg is falling asleep, which I think is my cue to do the same.
:: Aaron Humphrey 2:03 AM reply [+] ::
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Whoo boy. My life is spiraling out of control like, I don't know, some kind of spiral thing. I've got way too much to do and way too little time to do it. Yesterday I spent most of the day at class or working on projects for class, most of the evening doing research for my ethics term paper and most of the early morning writing up stuff for my sciene project, and basically all my free time was spent moving my damp laundry around my room and trying to get it dry. Yes, we do have dryer in the dorms. No, it doesn't work.
Anyway, today I've been just as busy, if not more-so. The Busy Machine chugging along at full speed, and tends to neglect silly things like updating webpages. Just so you know.
In the meantime, those of you who haven't already been exposed to it in one way or another, can find my only real attempt at poetry on Grant's shiny new poetry section. I guess the rest of you can check it out, too if you want.
Also, prepare yourself for a onslaught of refreshing alternative and independent media coverage, then take your browers for a ride down to the the Independent Media Center. Unless you like being blindly force-fed your views of the world, you really don't have an excuse not to.
Um . . . they're named after one of my favorite foods, and I, too want a girl with a short skirt and a long jacket. How's that for an ambiguous, esoteric sentence? Ha!
:: Aaron Humphrey 9:38 PM reply [+] ::
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I was supposed to spend all this weekend shooting video. I'm trying to re-cut my first two film school movies with new scenes and stuff, but it's proving to be kind of difficult because I've got to gather all the elements (like actors and props and locations) that I had before just to shoot a few really short scenes. It's frustrating to know exactly what needs to be done, yet be unable to actually get all the piece together in the right place at the right time and just film it. Grr. Plus, putting charcoal briquettes in a tinfoil pan and lighting them on fire didn't produce the heat wave effect that I wanted, which left me, Ed, Grant and Christina all crouching around a flaming lasagna tin in the middle of the grocery store parking lot for about 20 minutes. Someone else probably got a kick out of that, but it wasn't us.
On the other hand, the one that likes to slack off and have fun, I actually got out and did quite a bit of cool stuff this weekend, which included watching three (!) movies. And none of them were for class!! Crazy. I'll toss out some mini-reviews here, 'cause I'm tired.
Monsters Inc. - when it comes down to it, you really can't beat squishy, marketable and decidedly non-toxic fun. Someone's getting rich off of this movie, but at least I enjoyed myself while watching it. The character development gears certainly didn't get stripped while churning out this movie and it takes a lot longer to care about the characters than it should; the most entertaining character is not any of those wacky monsters you see on the teevee commercials, but a little girl who finds her way into the Monster Dimension or whatever. Even though she's "human," she's just as imaginary as any of the one-eyed, five legged jello things in the movie -- if real kids were as sweet and funny and cute as this moppet is, everyone would want one! The one time she cries, it's a plot device. The rest of the time all she has to do is gurgle something and smile and the audience busts up. Ah well, there's some good stuff in here at least. In a world filled with monsters, Steve Buscemi's "evil" monster manages to be genuinely creepy, and John Ratzenberger (hey, he was in Star Wars!) plays an abominable snowman that rivals even Rudolph's. Plus the whole thing climaxes in a great action/chase sequence that's at least as good as the one in Toy Story 2.

Pi - Not as crazy as I thought, but definely out there. Visually, this movie is astounding, although I can't imagine that it would appeal to the same audience as Monsters, Inc. The whole thing is black and white, over-exposed and a little jerky, but I don't think it would have worked any other way. I usually associate black and white with noir-style lighting and composition, but Pi used it completely differently. Rather than being iconic, the images were chaotic and convoluted; light collides with darkness and all you're left is the contrast to pull meaning from. It actually reminded me of the thick black brush strokes of a lot of indie comix, Paul Pope's in particular. Gotta ask Aronofsky if comics were an influence when he's out shooting that new Batman movie.

Almost Famous- What, I've seen this four times now? Three maybe? No other movie, not The Empire Strikes Back, not even Memento continues to impress me and show me new things after this many viewings. There is so much in this film that is excellent. The acting, the script, the editing, the mise en scene, the music . . . wow. I was simply overwhelmed by the shear amount of detail in this movie; I cannot fathom making anything better. There are certainly more important and revolutionary films out there, but I this one is still my favorite.

I finally put some new comix reviews up! Read my take on Hopeless Savages and Magic Pickle, then go eat some cake. You know you want to.
:: Aaron Humphrey 2:23 AM reply [+] ::
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