Hey look! A Poll!!!!!!

Yeah, I caved in.

We got "Star Wars" today and we're watching "A New Hope" right now. They did a great job cleaning it up. If it wasn't for the Lucassinine additions and changes it would be perfect. We also got "The Alamo" as well. I loved it in the theatre but I think that has more to do with me being a loyal Texican that the actual quality of the movie.

Nice box! Originally uploaded by pi22seven.

Hey that's my idea! Give it back!!!!!

Some Cannuckrian stole my word and fucked it all up!!!!

2 weeks is a long time.

Today at work we found out that there would be layoffs. This is the second round of layoffs for us since 9/11.

250 people will lose thier jobs corporate wide. About half will be at one property with the other half spread out between 12 or so other sites.

My station is running pretty lean as is and our GM said there would be 3 to 6 people gone. He said that it would happen within the next 2 weeks.

That's a long wait.

While I'm a little nervous, I'm not worried. I'm lucky that I went into the "creative" side of TV as a writer/producer/director/editor. Computers can't create, yet. But they can do other jobs.

We were going to lose staff next year anyway due to automation in our operations department and management will prolly try to wrap those positions into our cuts now to try to lessen the blow to our staff.

There's a "dead man walking" vibe in the building now. When you chat with someone you're wondering if they're gonna get cut.

Even though I've gone through the waiting before, it's not something you get used to.

It sucks.

GROW

You will hate me for this.

Sorry.

Gmail invites Part III

I still have about 12 Gmail invites left, but I got tired of looking at my silly little invite button and pulled it from the site.

If for some reason you want an invite and haven't gotten one yet feel free to let me know.

So you too can bare the burden of the Gmail invites.

a reminder

while it is the anvil that is beaten, it is the hammer which breaks.

the daily grind...

Work is work.

Even if it's something you enjoy it's work.

I love what I do. I get to create TV. It's still magic to a lot of people, myself included and I get to be a part of it.

But there are times when I'm not being creative, when I'm just stringing words and images together to appeal to the LCD; times when I am just cranking out "product" to make deadlines and to give the client what they want. At that point I am in the daily grind that millions of other workers live in day in and out.

While I don't do my job for the creative outlet, it's a nice bonus.

But none of that today. Today I made video Big Macs™.

LOST: 1 Camera Memory Stick

Imagine finding a camera memory stick in a taxi in New York City.

What do you do with it?

Most of us would either give it to the cabbie or we'd be thinking "Score!" and keep it for ourself.

This guy decided to make a blog posting a picture a day. And making up the story of the owner as he goes along.

I hope the owner sees the blog and gets his/her pictures back.

Brilliant.

Johnny Ramone dies at 55

I saw The Ramones for the first time when I was 14. It was my first concert and about 7 of us crammed into a car with somebody's mom driving and headed to Austin. Two of us didn't even have tickets. We got to the Armadillo and there were about 10 people in line. Then we heard music. It was The Ramones doing their soundcheck. After about 10 minutes it was quiet. Then one of our guys said "Hey, it's them" and bolted.

ramones Originally uploaded by pi22seven.

The other people in line said bullshit. But we followed and there they were.

They talked to us for about 15 minutes. Thanked us for driving from San Antonio to see them. When they found out 2 of us didn't have tickets for the show they had the their manager leave them tickets at the box office.

What strikes me now though is how normal they were. They weren't stuck up. They didn't act like rock stars. They were regular guys.

They split and we got back in the line that had grown to about 40 people. The guys at the front jokingly asked us how the Ramones were. We said they were doing great and that they got a couple of us in the show for free. They laughed then figured out we weren't joking.

The show was great. We wormed our way to the front and we had our arms on the stage right in front of Johnny. I couldn't tell what they played, just that the songs were loud and separated by Dee Dee's "1,2,3,4!"s.

But I had a hero after that night. And he played a Mosrite.