Category: Art

It’s been very quiet in Madison. It’s been work and editing, pretty much everyday. Well, this all changed yesterday.

The first excitement came at work. The good news is, I finally had something to do that wasn’t Hyperion (which is getting old). The bad news is, it was PeopleSoft. Oh, well. It was a nice 20 minute change of pace. Then it was back to Hyperion.

The second excitement came at lunch. My kitchen light bulb had burned out the previous day, but I didn’t want to try to replace it at night, so I left it. The problem is, I am not a tall person. I attempted to use my black stool, but it isn’t a very sturdy design. So, I decided to use my kitchen table instead. Well, the kitchen table is also not very stable. I managed to stand on it, but then it started to seperate. So, the final solution was to stand on the counters.

I got up on the counter, but soon realized that if I wanted to unscrew the dome, I would need both hands, and I couldn’t possibly reach out that far with both arms free from support. What was I to do? Roll in the kitchen table, and laden it with pillows in case I lose my hold on that thing. Luckily, it worked out that I didn’t drop it, but the replacement bulb is about as strong as a keychain flashlight, so I’ll have to do the whole thing over again tonight.

The other excitement was that Holli came up to visit. She has an interview at Daktronics today, so she asked if she could spend the night on my new air mattress. I said, “Heck, yes”. So we made supper. Or, rather, she brough supper, and we reheated it, which didn’t quite go as planned, but still turned out really well. A requisite picture was taken for my Meals set.

Then we exchanged presents. I lucked out when I bought my new cologne in that they gave me a flippin’ nice free gift which she seemed to really like. Then I got a mug, some bowls, and a new shirt from her Florida trip. Then she showed me her and Heather’s pictures from the trip, of which there are about 270+. Then I set to trying to render the whole interview, which was then too big for one DVD, so I called Bob, and tried another rendering method while we watched a couple Seinfeld episodes.

Well, my computer does this thing where, if it has been in screensaver or power-save mode, and I move the mouse to bring it back, it thinks I hit Alt+F4, and closes whatever is open. This will sometimes even result in a Windows Shutdown dialog box. Well, this case it resulted in a “stop rendering and close the program altogether”. So, frustrated, and finding it difficult to burn that file in the first place, I instead just burned the original 9 minutes that I rendered for my own viewing purposes. This didn’t have the goodies of my bleeping, but that’s what made it a teaser.

We went over to Holly and Bob’s for more fondue with Matt Walker (who I’ve worked with before) and Chris Deaver (who’s work I’ve seen, but who I had never met until that moment). We stood around and talked for a while, then we watched the CANNED teaser, then we did photos. Matt was coming out with a compilation DVD similar to The Works, and he wanted some photos for the DVD cover. Because the title of the DVD has the word “Christmas” in it, there was a distinct and disturbing Christmas theme to the pictures, too. At first, when Matt said, “I’m going to take some pictures of you in costume later,” I immediately said, “Sure. Sounds good.” because I’ve learned that caving to peer pressure makes you cooler, but I was unsure what the results would be. It turns out I liked my costume: a smoking jacket, santa hat, knife, and glass of chocolate milk. The chocolate milk was my addition, because I was drinking chocolate milk, and I wasn’t finished. How did the pictures go? Don’t Ask.

After pictures it was fondue time. It went pretty well. You can’t really taste burned carmel like you can burned chocolate, so I didn’t even notice that it had burned. It did take a very long time to get it lit, again, but that’s all in a day’s work of fondue. Fondue is a confusing word because it really refers to the process or behavior, not a type of food. The problem comes in how close “fondue” is to “tofu”, which IS a food (sorta). It turns out, for those who are confused, that “fondue” means heat up some chocolate or carmel or something and dip fruit or whatever into it. And that is from the Wikipedia article.

I just now noticed that I have never spelled “fondue” correctly, so I edited both posts and all my Flickr pictures in Fondue, the First and Fondue, the Second.

At about midnight, we decided that we’d had enough fun. They decided to play Cranium, and I decided that I needed sleep. As it was, it was about 1:00 before I got to sleep, and I think that’s partly why my head hurts so bloody much today. Seriously, this headache could kill a small child. And I am very mad (!) at Premiere, After Effects, Nero, and my screensaver, but I can’t complain too much today. I had a great night.

And Holly Smith and Bob Davidson better keep that $5.00 or I will sink our friendships.

Our journey began Friday at noon. I pulled into Richardson’s parking lot and David hopped in. Me with my iPod and him with his tablet, the topic was music. We discussed David’s favorite bands and his theme song, Ben Folds Five – Whatever and Ever Amen – Fair. That’s right. David has a theme song. I’m so bloody jealous.

Soon we came to Marshall. My memory faltered a little bit upon entering Marshall. It turns out that I took a slightly different path then I did last time, so I called Bryce and got things taken care of. Soon we were driving up to Bryce’s apartment, and so was Bryce, and so was Tony. It worked out perfectly.

The way up was mostly just talking, joking, or listening to music. It turns out that Smith is a victim of the Sony Rootkit. Poor fella. I listened to the smattering of tunes on my iPod, which I should have loaded up with 5 and 4 star music instead of the random stuff I had. I felt cheated. By myself. I mean, I cheated myself, not that I was alone. There was like 5 other people in the van.

We hit Minneapolis as it darkened. That’s winter for you. The trick now was finding our way to the arena. It proved a little trickier then we thought, but I think I speak for everyone when I say that I’m glad I wasn’t driving. Bryce did a good job. We finally got to the arena, with calls from Tyler, Corey, and Britty. We got there and managed to find all three of them immediately.

It turns out that our tickets were student passes bought by Tyler. So, we sat in the student section. Unfortunately, Britty and the rest of the family had Tim tickets, which put them a level up and a little over. From our point of view, we were on the outskirts of a whole mass of UofM students. But, lo and behold, a smattering of NDSU students were in the section with us. One guy even had a hat with bison horns on it.

Bryce and Lindsey hit the concession stand, seeing as we hadn’t had supper yet. When they got back, Chris and I took off. He knew what he wanted: a Famous Dave’s BBQ Sandwhich. I wasn’t quite as sure. I ended up getting a pretzel + chesse with a large soda (for the M cup). When Chris went to buy a sandwhich, they said they were sold out. So, he got ice cream instead. Poor guy.

We watched as the lead UofM had got larger and larger. NDSU did well, I thought. But then again, I’m not a basketball journalist. I’m not even a fan. I just am.

The game ended disappointingly for us. But the good thing about the end of the game is that it allowed us to say “Hi” to family, take some more pictures, and to get to our food and movie.

Bryce and I took pictures like this at KState, though that arena was almost completely clear at the time. In Minneapolis, we had to make do with what we had. This was probably the best of the lot. Then the police and stadium officials asked us to leave the arena.

Outside the arena, we stood near the concessions waiting. The family, of course, wanted to see Tim, as did we, and we all socialized. Grandma asked us what our plan was for tonight. Tony gave her an answer that I don’t think she was looking for. I like this picture in particular because it catches Grandma’s reaction to Tony saying, “We’re getting drunk, Nana.” It was so spur of the moment, that I had to snap it quick, and so they are out of focus.

In any case, Tim eventually came out, we greeted him, said goodbye to each other, and then we headed to the movie. First we had to stop at Tyler’s so he could get his student ID, then we picked up Amanda to add yet one more to our list of people.

We got to the mall, and as we were walking to the ticket counter, I heard a voice say my name. It was Brenna with her friend, Paul. I tried to catch the attention of the other guys, and there were hugs all around. So we got our tickets for the 10:45pm show, then we sought out food. Applebee’s was right there, so we at there. The disappointing thing was that they forgot my sandwhich or something because it took forever, and I had to wolf that thing down in 2 minutes. Thankfully, Brenna ate most of my fries, so I was ready in record time. booya!

The theatre we were in was packed. At 10:45pm?? Yes, at 10:45pm. We ended up sitting in the way front. It was a little uncomfortable, but I was willing to look past that. A dragon never looked so big. I won’t post any spoilers. I think I’ll save that for my new wordpress blog, but I was a little disappointed. Though, seeing it from a filmmaker’s perspective, I can see why they did what they did. A good movie. A better book.

We bid Brenna and Paul adieu, and then we piled back into our vehicle. Our final number of persons was: Corey, Lindsey, Tyler, Amanda, Tony, Chris, Me, David, and Bryce. So that’s, what, 20? It was terrible. We caused the backend of the van’s mudflaps to hit the ground. Often.

We dropped off Amanda. Then we dropped off Tony and Corey at Corey’s place. Then the rest of us crashed at Tyler’s dorm room with his roommate Craig (who had joined us at the game). It was a little interesting fitting everyone in there. When I crawled into one of Tyler’s roommate’s beds, I felt something under one of the pillows. It felt and looked a bit like a gun. Trying not to panic, I asked David to turn on the light, since he was on the floor, and I was 10 feet up. It turns out it was a nerf dart gun, but I was still freaked.

By the way, Tyler’s nickname in college is “Reefer”.

The next morning we picked up Tony, and we headed for someplace to eat. We chose Peking Garden Chinese restaurant nearby. It worked out because Chris, who hates Chinese food even though he’s never tried it, could go to the Arby’s across the street. Our food took forever. There was some confusion amongst the servers. Instead of saying, “We need some menus”, we said, “We’re waiting for menus”, which made all the servers think that someone else was getting our menus.

We finally did get some, we ordered, and Bryce ordered a Chinese beer. The lady asked for his ID, and she would not believe that he was old enough. She held it for a while. She disappeared (poof) and another waiter came by with the beer. He started to hand it towards me, when Bryce said, “That’s mine.” The waiter stopped. “Really? Can I see your ID?” So, he, too, checked Bryce’s ID, commented that he didn’t look that old, laughed, and left. It was great. I kept waiting for the manager to come out, too.

I ordered the sesame chicken which, besides being a little spicy, is bright freakin’ red. Like Rudolf red, I swear to God. It was really good, too. After the food, we dropped off Tyler, then we headed home. Some of the trip was spent by me reading my issue of The Onion that I picked up in the mall. The funniest article was one entitled Life In The Navy Rocks Even Harder Than The Commercial Implied. I loved it. The horoscopes were pretty good, too. After that we played “Would you rather…” and then it was several rounds of “If you could…”. By the way, I made up the names for all those games.

Then we all went home. All-in-all, I had a good weekend. When I got home, I made up a Christmas Wishlist on Amazon. Speaking of which, be very wary of certain emails. I got one that said it was from Amazon.com, but the graphic looked a little wonky. The site asked me to update my Amazon profile information. I clicked the link and noticed that it didn’t send me to Amazon.com, it sent me to an IP address. This site going to log my username and password when I attempted to login, but I didn’t. I just closed it, happy in my shrewdness, and I closed it.

Anyway, that was my weekend, and I have more pictures. How was your weekend? What did you do?