Remembering Names

Admit it, you suck at remembering peoples names. When you first meet someone you don't store that name info unless you think you might actually need it at some point. Then you still don't store it because you got distracted by the chips, a shiny thing, etc. You hear the name then almost instantly something wipes it from your mind.

People will admit that this happens, but never to the person who's name they forgot. They play games instead. They wait for someone else to say the name. They ask how the name is spelled (usually results in you looking like a dumbass). They don't want to seem like a jerk. (Not that I know a person who actually gets mad when you ask.)

While it's innocent to forget the name of someone you don't know very well, it's pretty bad when it's someone you've met many times. There comes a point that if you don't already know their names it's a problem. You can't ask without seeming like (and being) a total jerk.

My dad is notoriously bad with names. He, however, at least has the excuse of hearing issues. From a few years he just refered to one of my friends as, "That Campbell Kid." Finally my sister dated his older brother and my dad actually remembered their names. On a trip to Wyoming with friends, my dad kept botching the name of one of my friends (see Hearing Aid Please). This still isn't as bad as some of the name forgetting I've participated in.

Back in sixth grade, I hung out with one of my friends and he had a friend that hang out with us as well. I don't think that we were introduced when I met him and I didn't ask his name. This proved problematic later on. A couple months in, I discovered that I didn't know his name. At that point I couldn't ask what it was. So, I did the listening and hope someone says it thing. Someone would say it and I'd make a note to remember it, but was thwarted by my lack of an attention span. I could never remember it. I hung out with him for an entire school year and managed to not know or use his name. (I want to say it was JT or maybe TJ or was it Theodore?)

There's another incident that occurred back in eighth grade where I couldn't remember someone's name, but I wasn't alone in this. My two best guy friends participated as well. In fact one of them actually dated this girl. We couldn't remember her name at all. (Actually, I don't think the one who dated her knew her name while dating her.) I remember her face and that she had red hair, but not her name. Since we couldn't remember her name we reffered to her as, "Whatserface." (We didn't actually say this to her face.) It was pretty bad, but then she moved so we didn't have to worry about it. Then she came back and one of my friends (not the one that dated her) asked her her name. We then proptly forgot it. (Was it Taylor? I think it started with a T. Maybe I just think of T's when I don't remember a person's name.)

My friend, the one who didn't date Whatserface, came up with a system to remember one girls name. It went like this, "Morgotha, Duck, Mallard, Mallory!" He would say that everytime he saw this girl that our friend, the one who dated Whatserface, liked.

It's not inhuman to forget a persons name, but try to learn it before the first few meetings are up. Otherwise, you'll end up dating someone who's name you don't know and being unable to ask for it. Basically, just don't do any of the stupid things me and my friends did in middle school.

Women in Film

Even today there is a lack of strong female characters in film. It's getting better with movies like Brave and the Hunger Games coming out, but still most films are male dominated. If you look at the cast list for a movie there's a good chance that more male actors will be needed to fill the roles. Nowadays, it's not nearly as uncommon for us to see films with strong female characters as it was in say the 1950s. Back then so much sexism existed, it was near impossible to find shows that weren't he same way. Just Check out some of these actual ads from the era.

Totally What I Want For Christmas.

Fifty Bucks Says He Lost It Himself

That Means Get Off Your Ass and Help

*Gasp Spasm*

Yes! Especially Not Over Your Ugly Tie!

Alcoholic Anyone?

Wasn't the 1950s such a wonderful time? Everyone was friendly, children were well brought up, families spent quality time together, and let's not forget

Despite all this there is actually a film from the era that is dominated by a female cast. The film Swamp Women (1955) is almost entirely composed of a female ensemble. When it first starts out, you are almost dreading watching this film. You start out seeing an incredibly stupid and obnoxious, gold digging woman kissing a handsome and rich man. (The only thought that went through my mind was, "She better die.") I was groaning and even debating shutting off the film until we actually meet the protagonist, a young police woman. In the first couple moments on screen, we see her basically hand a drunk idiot back his ass. (She does it with wit and intelligence, how unthinkable!) 

The premise of the story is that this police woman is to go undercover in a prison and help three diamond thieves escape and find the jewels, so that the police can recover them. In the entire film there are only a handful of men. The women in this film are tenacious, cunning, intelligent, and can kick some serious ass. The main character jumps in to rescue the dumb chick from the beginning and a guy they're holding hostage jumps in to help her, but there is none of that helpless "Oh No! This situation was completely avoidable and I need a man to save me!" that goes on in so many films even today. 

The women can kick just about anyone's ass and actually fight each other. Not in the whining, screeching, slapping, cat fight type way we see on TV, but in the punching "I will kill you!" type way that's we see in male dominated films. The women in this movie save their own asses. They don't wait around to be saved. They come up with their own plans. They kill each other (and best of all the film didn't waist time on pointless gore scenes). They even have their own distinctive personalities. 

This classic old film is awesome and should be known by more people. Even by todays standards, it's surprisingly female dominated.

Melting

What is with the 1960s and melting people? There is an overwhelming amount of horror movie scenes from the 1960s where people melt. (Note: In the following paragraphs there will be spoilers for The Wizard of Oz, Bloodlust, Othello, and The Terror)

The classic melting scene in The Wizard of Oz back in 1939 was wonderfully well done. These was smoke, shrieking, easily repeatable movie lines, and above all else it actually works for the story. When the 1960s rolled around they completely forgot about the idea of plausability.

The film Bloodlust (1961) is actually an interesting film. It's based off the short story The Most Dangerous Game. Of course instead of the irony of a hunter becoming the hunted, they attempted to draw the teenage crowds by making it a group of teenagers with a drunk boat captain instead. Still an interesting film. There is really only one scene in that movie that bothers the hell out of me. The teenagers are snooping around Mr. Rich Hunter Man's house and they come across the place where his sasquatch like servant taxidermies people. They end up in a scuffle with him and he gets thrust into the vat of boiling taxidermy liquid (I don't actually know that much about the taxidermy process). Sasquatch then flails around while his face melts. He falls back in the vat and pops up one last time to deliver his stunning line of gurbling. (It's vaguely like in Othello when Desdamonia pops back up and says she's been murdered after she was smothered to death.

The Terror (1963) on the other hand is just a random compilation. the beginning of the movie isn't so bad and it manages to be pretty interesting for most of the film. Then a character who never talks above a whisper for no explainable reason (my theory: the actor had larangitus) gets his eyes pecked out by a hawk, bleeds carrot juice, falls off a cliff, and then still manages to whisper a line to what you now realize to be a young Jack Nicholson. (What do you know another Desdamona type scene.) Once you recognize that Andre is played by Jack Nicholson things just start going down hill. (I'm not ragging on the actor at all, I'm just saying that we're so used to seeing him old we forget that he wasn't always that way.) After this "dramatic" death the plot still remains intreguing.

It's once we start learning what's actually going on that the movie starts to stink. We discover that the Barron is in fact the delusional lover of the ghost chick. That's when we also discover that the creepy lady controlling the ghost chick is actual the Barron's mother. (This might not be so bad if the actress playing the creepy lady wasn't 49 and the Barron wasn't 75.) Then the creepy lady gets struck by lightning and burns to death. Then there's a big dramatic scene with a crypt flooding while Ghost Girl tries to strangle the Barron. A wall bursts and the rocks (that look like wet paper) float. Then Jack Nicholson rescues the Ghost Chick and takes her outside where he kisses her and tells her she's free. She then melts like a candle. The film has some awesome camera shots and actors, but in the last ten minutes of the film, it starts pulling stuff out of it's ass. (Aparently it was largely shot on adlibs. This might be why the ending sucks.

Look what you started Wizard of Oz! You should be ashamed of yourself!

Film School

Film school is an intense experience. I am only a month in and I have already completed the filming of two short films. One of which is completely edited and received a grade of 100%. The other is in the final stages of post production. Not all film schools are like this, but mine is entirely hands on.

My first day of classes, I was wrenched awake by the lady across the hall blasting marriachi music. (See Neighbors). We received our first scripts and had to set up a shot list. Setting up a shot list is incredibly difficult when you have been awake since 5:00 am and don't get to go hame and sleep until 8:00 pm-ish. The technical aspects of film are incredibly detailed and are far to under appreciated. Most of them are actually done on minimal amounts of sleep. (Look at that. I'm getting a taste for the industry already.)

After our shot lists are approved we get shoot approval and rent equipment from the cage. The cage is basically the Holy Center for the entire school. I kid you not. It's where we rent all our equipment. It's where every person who needs technical help goes. If you piss off the cage you are a very screwed film student. It's like pissing off the Greek Gods! You may not be struck by a lightning bolt, but you're pissing off a cave full of nerds who have a lot of electrical equipment.

In order to avoid pissing off the cage you must:

a) Recharge your batteries before returning them. (Amazingly they're never actually charged when you rent them though.)

b) Pick everything up on time (They actually charge you when you eat into your own film time by not picking it up on time.)

c) Return equipment on time (This will bring about your demise if not done properly.)

d) DON'T DAMAGE THE EQUIPMENT! (You will forever being paying off a camera if you are not careful. There's a reason there is more padding in the camera case than there is equipment.)

Once you've managed to appease the Nerds of the Cage, you can use equipment.

On my first shoot, I managed to reserve my equipment in time to get a really nice camera. Since it decided to rain on shoot day, we shot in the rain (See Dry Feet). There were three umbrellas used on the shoot. Two of which were reserved for the camera the other of which sat on the ground because we needed our hands. Rain shoots our intense and you have to be damn right dedicated to them. Editing that shoot was pretty simple. Not a lot of sound issues and I was dry for this final process.

Our next short we got to write ourselves. I filmed it using my hand held Cannon Vixia HF R21. Not exactly professional grade, but works for this purpose. I  starred in it and a pal of mine worked as amateur cameraman for the price of chinese food.

There is so much needed for a film. While the audience thinks that there are multiple camera's set up, that's only done in  sitcoms. For actual films (unless it's an expensive stunt), there is one camera that you set up again and again. There is roughly two hours of filming for roughly a minute on screen. (Just think about that if you intend to work in the film industry.)

Since classes have started, I have been writing screenplays, filming, editing, writing essays, writing critiques, watching short and feature films, eating roughly once every eleven hours (I keep forgetting about food), and sleeping. I have also managed to complete the gameplay in The Journey Man Project Turbo (with the Ghandi bonus on all levels.)

I actually, at this moment am acting as an extra in another students short. (I figured I owed him after having him stand in the rain for an hour and a half on my film.) I'm portraying a student working on a computer. It works out wonderfully. I really suck at sitting still for long periods of time, so this gives me something to do.

Anime Conventions

Nerds are a little bit crazy when it comes to being nerdy. I went to an anime convention with some friends over the weekend. It was awesome, but people are a bit insane. I salute everyone who cosplays. There was all sorts of badassery going on.

Some people did costumes that aren't accurate, but close enough. Then there are people who are accurate down to the last detail. You make their day everytime you ask for a picture, but some go crazy if you ask who they are. One lady drew fangs at my friend because she couldn't figure out what pokemon she was. Nerds are insane!

While waiting inline for something there was a guy behind us who was telling someone that people just come to these conventions because they think it's fun! What other reason is there to go to these conventions? (Not counting press coverage or vending.)

The scariest of nerds from least to most:

10. A Convention Filled With Anti-Social Nerds
When a group of about seven thousand people, who generally are socially awkward, accumulate in the same place, it's incredibly weird. They usually come with friends and stand with them and talk. They'll get really excited when they see someone cosplaying as their favorite character. Then spend several minutes arguing over who's going to go up and ask them for a picture. Everyone stays in their groups and doesn't talk outside of them. They are usually very nice, but can't quite grasp the idea of interaction. (Tip: When they say weird things like, "I'd take a picture if I could." Or they ask you to marry them don't get weirded out.)

9. Convention Junkies
These are the people who plan out where the need to be months in advance. They've got a schedule programmed into their brain of where they need to be and what they need to do programmed into their brain. They want to do everything and then get disapointed when the thing they wanted to go to was full. If you have one in your group be prepared for the demanding and moping (possibly bitch slapping if they get too annoying). The scariest ones are the groups of these. They send a person to scout out the line for the next event and save a spot while they go to another event. They then allow the scout to live vicariously through them. Another then becomes the next scout and goes to another line while they do this event. (Tip: Don't snipe their plans if you want them to remain congenial.)

8. Serious Nerds
These are the people that insist that they know everything about a certain subject. They will lecture for hours if you get even a minor fact wrong. And if you argue with them be prepaired to have your soul figuratively ripped out using something that doesn't exist. (Tip: Don't prove them wrong, no matter how wrong they are. They'll never admit that you were right.)

7. Casual Cosplayers
These are the people who make their own costumes while paying a minimal amount to detail. Even if their costume looks nothing like the character they are trying to be, they will blow up at you if you can't figure out who they are. (Tip: No matter what, don't make assumptions about who they're supposed to be if you're not sure.)

6. D&D Players
Not all are scarey, but after too long of spending their hours playing Dungeons & Dragons and not getting layed, they tend to do things like rape your character to death. (Tip: Don't be the only girl playing with them. Or really any girl for that matter.)

5. Casual Fan Fiction Writers
Similar to yaoi fan fiction writers, but not insisting that their story was intended to be cannon or even that it should. They're still a little bit crazy in the fact that they will spend ours trying to figure out how a specific scenario could happen. Also, many of their story lines border on porn. This is how the Fifty Shades of Grey series came about. (Tip: Don't ask them their opinion on the ending of anything.)

4. Twihards
These people are so obssessed with Twilight that they will stand in line for hours screaming, just to be the first to see a movie (other groups of fans do the line thing, but they are usually quiet and anti-social). For some reason these people want an abusive relationship involving a sparkly vampire. (Tip: Always bring earplugs when near them.)

3. Reenactors
Not only are they cosplayers and LARPers, but they'll never admit it and they have actual functioning weapons (no matter how outdated). They will go off on hour long lectures about the color of a person's sleave in a certain movie was the improper color for his rank. (Tip: Don't ask questions.)

2. First Generation Pokemon Obsessed Nerds
These people will take you out if you don't remember that their favorite pokemon was actually in the first ever episode. (Tip: Don't even mention the new pokemon generations.)

1. Yaoi Fan Fiction Writers
Instead of just enjoying the story the artist created, they have to create imaginary stories about the guys dating the guys. They also refuse to believe that the artists who actually created the characters intended for them to be straight. (Tip: Don't attempt to argue. Even if you win, they will insist that Naruto was intended to be gay.)

After spending an entire weekend in confined quarters with people of all colors (Litterally all colors. I'm talking rainbows.), your brain gets close to exploding. When normally your friend with pink hair would be easy to find, at an anime convention it's like trying to find a lesbian buying condomns.

When you go to a nerd rave it's pretty crazy. It's just as bright as a normal rave, but people are throwing glow in the dark Hello Kittys around, they're not on ecstacy, and you will likely get smacked I the face by wings and duel disks. (Note: They all know how to Gangnam Style.)

Water

I officially give up. This week is damn right ridiculous! I have had all manner of new experiences in this past week. Many of which involve water.

At the beginning of the week I was freaking out about finding actors for my first film shoot. When we got actors I thought things were all good. Then on shoot day, it was pooring rain. My first rainy film shoot. After being damp and or wet for elevenish hours, I finally got dry clothes and enjoyed my evening.

Today, I lugged back all the camera equipment. I carried a heavy tripod and camera sixish blocks along with all my school stuff. I even managed to make it to class on time and get the homework for that class done before class started. Despite sore arms my day was working out quite nicely. I even got a ride to the cage after algebra so I didn't have to carry the stuff further.

I then edited the footage of my shoot into a one minute short and burned several copies onto dvd for family and friends. I came home in a super good mood finally relaxed after finishing my short. I cleaned up a lovely hairball left by my cat (still couldn't kill my good mood). I ate the leftovers of a less than tastey salad (still rocking that good mood). I sat down with a glass of orange juice and was watching Singing In the Rain, when my mother called me.

As soon as I asked my mom the question about tomorrow, I heard the sound of water running in my bathroom. I turned on the light and there was water pouring down from the light socket in my bathroom. My trash cans quickly had the liners pulled out of them and are being used to collect water. The maintenance guy just showed up and the water has stopped. Tomorrow morning there should be someone coming to fix it.

Despite all this, I'm still not in a bad mood. I'm just sort of wandering around my apartment in disbelief. Like I said, I give up. I swear though, if I end up with wet feet tomorrow, I'm gonna go balistic. I intend to stay dry tomorrow and if anyone does something to prevent that, they should be prepaired to run for their lives.

Truely Terrifying Moments

As of right now, I can think of only a handful of moments that have truly terrified me. They don't come all that often but when they do you sure as hell know it.

When I was about six or seven, I was privy to one of my family's stay all summer and never leave 'scapades. I had just gone upstairs for some reason I don't remember and was coming back down them when an angry two hundred pound woman wearing an ill-fitting and ugly wig grabbed me by my shirt collar. It was what is collectively know as MAM. She started yelling at me about not helping Grandma. While I don't remember exactly what I was doing, I'm pretty sure I had either just brought something upstairs for grandma or brought something else upstairs and was coming down to help Grandma. Either way I was intending to help Grandma. When a two hundred pound, red faced woman, is holding you six year old body off the ground (by your shirt) you are lucky not to shit your pants.

Rolling a car is another truely terrifying moment. (No matter how pathetic the cicumstances. See The Perfect Ending) When your adrenaline is pumping that hard you realize that what your doing was the wrong choice, but have no way of changing it. You're brain is ahead of your body and for a moment you see the future. The only thing in it is your fail. You know it won't end well, but can't do anything to stop it. There were two moments of terror. The first was from when I fished tailed to when I hit the bank. There was a moment of almost relief. Then terror slammed into me again as the car tipped.

Another incredibly terrifying moment was yesterday when we were attempting to download our footage for our first film. After standing in the rain for an hour and a half we thought that our footage had either been deleted or not recorded at all. For a fraction of a second, there was a collective holding of our breath as our heart plummeted to our feet. Thanks to one incredibly nice albino, we figured out that the battery was dying and it was reading the wrong memory storage.

Dry Feet

There is a traggic under-appreciation for having dry feet.

This morning, I woke up at seven in order to get up and ready for a film shoot at nine. Of course, due to the fact that Zeus hates me, it was pooring rain. I trecked the fifteen minute walk to campus carrying a god aweful amount of stuff and holding my pink Winnie the Pooh umbrella. I picked up the camera from the cage (the rental room for film equipment). Then carried it a block (with the help of my co-director) to the other part of campus where we met our actors.We then carried it around back to where we were filming. It is not easy to carry an insanely heavy camera, backpack full of books, and an umbrella. (I got my exercise today.)

By the time we started filming, I could already feel water sloshing around in my shoes. We set up the camera and it was lucky enough to have all three umbrellas dedicated to it's protection. The third was eventually dropped due to a lack of hands.

While the camera had a personal umbrella crew composed of my co-director (and on occasion one or two other people), me and two other very dedicated film students stood in the rain. The driest of us four was my expert umbrella stand and co-director. She came prepaired with galloshes and was the luckt umbrella stand.

An hour and a half later, our lead actress had to go take a math test, so we got the last of our shots. Three very wet film students returned to the wonderful indoors. I had never been so glad to drink crappy coffee in my life. We were inside just long enough to get coffee and a sandwich or two before returning to the outdoors and trecking back to the film school.

One of the most terrifying things I've ever experienced, is thinking that the footage we spent an hour and a half standing in the rain to get had been deleted. It wasn't, but for a moment my life flashed before my eyes (maybe it was just my morning).

I was sopping for a fair amount of time and damp all the rest of it. From 8:30am to 5:30pm my feet were either soked or damp. Thanks to one amazingly nice and dedicated film student (and our lead actor), I got a ride home to drop off camera equipment and get dry shoes before my next class. Nothing compares to the feeling of putting on dry socks and shoes after wearing wet one's all day. It is like putting soft warm kittens on your feet. (A little less gorey.)

Diversity

Where I grew up, diversity was hard to come by. (See The Twilight Zone Theory) It is very much a white, republican, gun toting area.

For the first few days after I moved, I was still thinking in the "Oh my gosh, an asian!" mentallity. I wasn't really concerned about it. I just had to get over the excitement of seeing diversity.

The area where I currently live is seriously the most diverse area I've ever been to. There are people from all over the world here. In my English class alone, there are people from India, Korea, Mexico, Canada (not overly exotic but still), and Africa. In my math class, there is even more diversity. The majority of people don't have blonde hair and blue eyes.

The amount of diversity and friendly attitudes is overwhelming. Not a single person has been rude to me. I've met a total of one person who gets on my nerves and that's only because of his cocky demeaner. He's not rude (outside of post-production class).

Librarian's Daughter

My mom, for most of my life has worked as a librarian. I find it absolutely awesome. There are some awesome aspects of growing up as a librarian's daughter.

Bookworms tend to talk about how they are known by the local librarian. My mom is the local librarian and she knows just about everyone. There is not a chance that we will go and do something in our area without her running into someone she knows. (I have twittled my thumbs through many spur of the moment "how are you?" conversations.)

From elementary school, I have known the Dewey Decimal System. (You wouldn't guess it by the fact that my mom still asks if I can find a book by the call number.) If I pull a book off the shelf without marking where it came from, I can reorganize it into the proper location without thinking about it. I can even spot a book that's out of place and reorganize it. I have been saving librarians work for over a decade.

Being in charge of inter-library loan, my mom can find almost any book I wish to read. Even the one's that are no longer in print (Picnic At Hanging Rock). I have read so many awesome books and seen so many awesome movies due to the magic of the inter-library loan system. (I am singularly responsible for driving mother mad with over requests of movies and books no one knows about.)

I have spent hours in a library reading kids books and no one even looks at me weird. At my mom's library no one even glances twice when someone over four feet tall enters the kid section (without kids). At other library's when I check out what's new in the Hundred Acre Wood, I get stared at by all manner of children and disgruntled parents. My mom even on occasion brings home the new kids books and I get to learn about Skippy John Jones.

I can suggest books for the library and can almost garantee that they make it onto the shelves (manga and comics excluded as well as the occasional other book). When I read a good book I want the world to know about it and if not that, then the residents of Cripple Creek will suffice.

The one thing that has happened to me as a result of being a librarian's daughter is I can't stand when people miss handle books. I'm not talking the accidental coffee spill or even notes in the margins. I'm talking about laying them down face first (it's horrible on the spine), folding the paper back cover around (also horrible on the spine), and above all else, I hate dog ears.

When someone dog ears a book I cringe (I physically cringe). It doesn't matter if it's a library book, a book you own, or a magazine, it drives me insane. Dog ears are the equivalent of Satan to me. In my favorite movie (But I'm a Cheerleader) the lead character dog ears the page of a book. Out of all the movies I've seen it's the most cringe worthy. It's worse than the vomiting scene in Monty Python's The Meaning of Life.
DON'T DOG EAR BOOKS!!!!!!!!
JUST DON'T DO IT!!!!!!