When life gives you lemons...

you clone those lemons, and make SUPER-lemons!









'shrug'

A girl in Australia actually told me "Way to take those pictures with a Mac."

Damn Aussies are bloody brilliant blokes.

Before I get to the meat n' 'tatoes part of the usuall blogging, I was just listening to DJ Shadow's- Six Days, and figured I'd throw up the lyrics. What a great effin' song, it's good ol' Americana DJ meets Bollywood...here's a link to a YouTube video of it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZKeSNZhm18
(now look, I just did ALL the work for you, so you might as well check it out. OBVIOUSLY if you have nothing better to do than read my stupid ramblings, you have time to hear that out.)
-----------------------------------------
At the starting of the week
At summit talks you'll hear them speak
It's only Monday
Negotiations breaking down
See those leaders start to frown
It's sword and gun day

Tomorrow never comes until it's too late

You could be sitting taking lunch
The news will hit you like a punch
It's only Tuesday
You never thought we'd go to war
After all the things we saw
It's April Fools' day

Tomorrow never comes until it's too late
Tomorrow never comes until it's too late

You hear a whistling overhead
Are you alive or are you dead?
It's only Thursday
You feel a shaking on the ground
A billion candles burn around
Is it your birthday?

Tomorrow never comes until it's too late
Tomorrow never comes until it's too late
Make tomorrow come I think it's too late
-------------------------------------------

That made me all political feeling...now I'm listening to Nellie McKay. She's a classical pianist that plays politically charged songs...classically...and I always thought she was at least 30 (her hair is always BIG), but it appears she was born the same year as me. AND she was born on the 13th...wow. She just keeps getting cooler...ok, so check her video out too. Honestly, if you skipped over that last one (DJ Shadow- Six Days) then you OWE it to me to see this one. Sorry, that's just how the system works bud (and if you didn't skip the last one, then you she be super psyched for another sweet song). I swear you've never heard anything like this before:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJZY-Czcp2E


Ok time for some BLOGGIN' action. Remember when I had that format of just screaming "BLOG!" and then typing shit? Oh, no no no, don't run away, I'm not bringing it back. I was just wondering if you remembered :)

PSYCH!

!!!BLOG!!!
Grass Shots.
This was probably about 2 weeks ago, but on the way to work Don and I stopped at Robek's to get juice for our fellow employees and ourselves, and it finally dawned on me that there were scraps of turf all over the store. LITERALLY, flats of growing grass.
Apparently it is wheat grass. And even more apparent, wheat grass has some sort of super-healthy super-powers? Because you can actually pay them, REAL money mind you, to have them cut some of the grass with scissors, blend it into a juice, and give you a shot of it.
So of course we did it. I mean...when I was a kid I'd start off my day with eating some grass outside, so at the very least it would bring back the good ol' days.

But the whole time I couldn't help but think about my grandfather (on my mom's side), and how ridiculous he thinks society has gotten. I KNOW that if he was with me he was say something along the lines of "First someone actually got people to actually BUY bottled water, and now they're selling GRASS!?"

I love the way old people think.

!!!BLOG!!!
So these guys are in my room at work, doing a prep for a job, and they have a significant amount of equipment. One of the guys is just REALLY obnoxious, in an over-friendly kind of way. You know, he's the kind of person that seems like they never developed mentally past 14 years-old, and is so happy you KNOW they must have raped and beaten by their cross-dressing father and are suppressing those feeling to the point of over-niceties?
Yeah, so I'm working with this guy, and we're reaching the end of the day. He's got a $100,000 camera overloaded with about $40,000 of gear. I mean, this buys a house in most parts of our country. He turns to me, I'm dead serious, he turns to me and says, "Well it looks like the doo-dad and all it's jim cracks are good to go."

'chokes on water'

UGH!...wh....wh....what? Did you just fucking call that Ferrari of a camera a "DOO DAD?"

WHAT, IN THE NAME OF FUCK, IS A JIM CRACK!!!!?


Ok.....onto the standard format...

Friday THE 13th
------------------
Obviously I have an unhealthy obsession with the number 13. Soooooooo Friday the 13th. In October. It's basically the day I wish I was born on.
Way to go mom. Way to RUIN MY LIFE!
'slams the bedroom door and turns on Marlyn Manson'

Later at night, well after work, a bunch of us went to the Red Lion in Silver Lake. Kamila actually met us there, really didn't think she was going to make it.
After spending an hour or two there, we headed to the Cat and Fiddle- in the heart of Hollywood. It's this kick-ass little court-yard/pub, currently complete with Halloween decorations, and a cooly lit creepy water fountain in the middle of the courtyard. The water fountain is really the main reason I like that place. Water fountains rock.
Oh man, when we were parking before we went in, I had to pee SOOOOO bad. It must have been that german beer from the Lion. But man, I've NEVER had to pee that bad. I burst out of the car, swiftly walked into a deserted Hollywood alley, and thanked God for the benefits of being a boy.
After Cat and Fiddle we drove to Angela's apartment (she's the girl that did the make-up for the last music video).
Now see, every time I go anywhere I hardly know anyone. It's cool though, I'm a big fan of meeting new people. But when you walk into an apartment of strangers, and one of the girls says hello to you and kisses you on the mouth, and then you sit down to have a political vs. artistic discussion with (whom I later discovered was) her boyfriend...you tend to take step back and think to yourself "Ok, that was a little TOO friendly."
There was more to this night, but it was too long ago to really re-count the memories. You get the gist though.

Guitar Hero 2 is going to feature "Every Time I Die" in it!!! Wooooo! Way to go Buffalo, you're on the map now! (It's a hardcore band straigh-outta Buffalo)
I actually JUST found out that DethKlok, the band in Adult Swim's "Metalocalypse " will be in the game, as well as Strongbad's "Trogdor!" song!!!!!!!


Saturday 14
------------
Watched "The Incredibles" and did other random shit I don't really re-call. Later at night Jay and I played Defcon for a couple hours. What a creepy game...you basically just nuke the world trying to destory each-other's countries, while ambient music that contains samples of women crying in it is playing...


Sunday 15
-------------
Didn't go to the haunted boat with Gladys, it was shut-down for a reason they would not tell me. So I ended up watching "Clue," playing a bunch of Okami, and attempting to eat a pomegranate Kamila gave me.
Honestly, those things are just more trouble than they're worth. Jay walked in on me while I was stabbing it with a knife, and said "Jesus! What did you kill!?"
There was bloody red juice all over the place.


Monday 16
------------
Went to Don's after work, drank lots to put myself at a disadvantage at Guitar Hero, only to recieve an ass-kicking by a new guy I've never met before. It was awesome to finally play with someone that could beat me, but next time I want to play against him sober.


Wednesday 18
---------------
We got 1st place in trivia again. We're just too damned good.
You know, it's almost UNFAIR how fucking awesome we are. I wish I could take my excessive amounts of awesome and slice it up for all the deprived children of the world.


Friday 20
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After much thought I've decided to put my car back on the road, but first I need to run it for a few miles so that it can actually pass it's smog test (you know...dont' want it to have all that carbon build-up, and nitrogen levels in the gas tank, to keep it from passing). So I decided to go to the grocery store.
I wasn't going to shower before I left, but I had a feeling of impending doom wipe over me. A feeling like I was going to run into a ton of people I knew, and should shower before I went.
So I showered, threw on some shitty jeans and a white undershirt and went on my way.

Let it be said, in retrospect I must have been the spitting image of a "single guy." With wet hair, white undershirt, ripped jeans, and stumbling around all alone at a grocery store on a Friday night. Way to go Derek. Way to go.

So when I got to the store I started in the fruit section (because that's the first thing every grocery store makes you walk through), and was intensely choosing ABOUT to be ripe fruit, from the ALREADY ripe fruit, when I glaned up to see a girl starring at me.
Low-and-behold it was Tiffany, my first intern at Moviola :) So I wheeled my cart over to her, hugged her, and stood around and talked for about a half hour.
I was thinking to myself, "Man. Good thing I showered, otherwise that hug could potentially be very smelly," when who passed by but none-other than a girl I had a "fleeting" night with. (I feel like it needs to be said that an occurance like that is completely out of context to my character, but it was a while ago when my life/circumstances were quite different, therefore it made sense at the time.)
So here I am standing around looking like the stereotypical single guy, talking with some chick in the fruit section of the grocery store, while a "one night stander" walks by twice (double-take), and I'm just WAITING for her to start screaming "DON'T TALK TO HIM! HE'S JUST GOING TO UUUUUUSE YOU!"

It was terrifying.

Later that night Don, Ben and I went to a party. We got miserably lost trying to find it, and when we finally got there I was like, "Oh! I've been here before!" Don looks at me and says, "No you haven't."
Then I says, "Yes I have! They have a huge tv and an Xbox 360!" (I had been there before with Dave to play Halo)

It's scary that I'm starting to know more people from Emerson than the people that actually went there. (Previously I asked Tiffany if her and Matt were going and she said no, she didn't really know anyone at that party. I was like, huh...I'm gonna know at least 20 people...)

A key moment during the night was when I was standing around talking to some peoples and I hear this wild screech, "DEEEEEREK!"
It was Jade :)
I'm sure I've mentioned her before, but she's a skinny, built-to-be-a-model, brunette who of course is an aspiring actress. She's completely not the type of girl I usually get along with, but the FIRST party I went to when I became single/moved to North Hollywood, she was the first peson to say "Hi" to me on their own. And now we only run into each other at parties, and when we do it feels like I've known her forever...very strange.
Her roomate is the girl from Buffalo :) She was trying to get me to dance with her...
Awww. Those two make me happy :)


Saturday 21
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Kate has introduced me to OkCupid. It literally is a "Singles" website...

My how the mighty have fallen.

But it's actually pretty interesting. It was made by some Harvard math students, who go into a good amount of detail on how they go about matching people...mathematically. So if not for anything else, I am curious to see how that whole system works.


Sunday 22
------------
I was supposed to go to the Cat and Fiddle to drink with Lexi (the director lady), Don, Steve and Chris, but I wasn't feeling good at all.
Eventually, when the sun was starting to set, I decided to take my car for a ride towards the hills. I love driving when the sun is setting, with music blasting and the windows down.

I...also....enjoy long walks on the beach?....and....playing frisbee with my dog?


Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday
---------------------------------
UNCLE media is renting a shit-ton of equipment from us (two loaded F-900 camera packages) and they keep a) breaking everything and b)not knowing how to use anything.
So all three days I've had to drive out to their set (during my work-day) to help them not be retards.
Why am I not getting paid $500/day to be a technician on a set?

We 3rd place trivia, which is still good. If you remember 1st and 3rd are the only ones that get free drinks out of the deal. 2nd place gets the shitty appetizer platter. So we're still doing good on the free drinks :)

I also OFFICIALLY registered/insured my car!!! I mean, I was proud that I was capable of not needing one, but growing up in the country I had this hankerin' in ma' blood to just drive around randomly.
Ultimately the only reason I put it back on the road was so I could drive around and listen to music....
(there's no one I can't get to by foot or train)

I do have an overwhelming desire to drive a girl to the beach at night. Awwww look...Derek went So-Cal.
Maybe pretty soon I'll have a surfboard to compliment my Modest Mouse mp3's.


Friday 27
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Had a half day at work, since the night before I had to drive to UNCLE's set to replace BOTH cameras. YUP. Both of them.
They broke the paint box cable off on one of them, completely destroying that port. And they literally MELTED the other one. I don't know who their fucking gaffer is, but they somehow ran too much power to the camera until, as they described "It started to get REALLY hot, then it smelled like electrical fire and smoke was comming out of it."

'clap'....'clap'.......'clap'

Way to go guys. Wayyyyyyyy. To. Go.

Then, of course, I had to spend about an hour talking with the producers about the whole ordeal. I was THIS close to knocking them out, tying them to the front of my car and driving it full speed into a brick wall.
On the bright side, I got to meet Jason Priesltley, Andy Dick ('shutter'), and Punky Brewster.

Back to Friday though...Don and I left work at around 2, and went to Best Buy so I could pre-order Gears of War and get 1600 free MS points (to purchase Lumines with :) ). Somehow, during the process I convinced Don that he really did need a 360.
So....way to impulse buy $500 worth of video game console and games Don.

Later that night I went over to his house to play Dead Rising (you're tapped in a mall with zombies and you kill them with any object you can manage to get your hands on), and get my as whomped in Guitar Hero by Mike.
To my defense though, playing Guitar Hero high is even HARDER than drunk.

Dave called me and left a message offering tickets to Digital Domain's Halloween party. If you didn't know, Digital Domain is the company that did the special effects for:
Lord of the Rings
Fight Club
X-Men
Titanic
5th Element
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (the new one)
Aeon Flux
Stealth
iRobot
DareDevil
Star Trek Nemesis
Vanilla Sky
The Grinch

Amongst many, MANY, other movies.

AND, possibly the least expected part of the night, Jenn called me and left a message. Jenn is potentially the coolest girl I've met out here so far. Therefore, to seperate her from the other Jens in my cell phone, she is known as "Jenn (cool)"
She has a cat named Jello. Which in itself is awesome, but it makes me think back to 4th grade. One day I had Jell-O in my lunch, and for some reason thought it would hilarious to eat it through a straw.
Well, that lead to the discovery of launching it out of the straw like a blow-gun, and inevitably to launching it at the ceiling of the lunchroom.
I'll be damned, that Jell-O stuck there until the day I graduated high school. It's probably still there. (Obviously it became an icon of the good old days, and an inside joke that made it into all my friend's and I's yearbooks EVERY year).


Saturday 28
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Played some Lumines. Made some eggs and english muffins (that alone is pretty fucking productive for my Saturday mornings). Drove to Dave's to get the tickets for the party.
Dave is awesome. I really like that guy. I stood around in his apartment for at least an hour discussing the advantages and disadvantages of MMORPG's (online roleplaying games) currency systems and how they effect our "real" lives.
The key points, in case you aren't aware of them, are:
-------------------------
Children in asian countries are paid to skip school and sit in internet cafe's to play these games and aquire as much currency as possible. Their bossess (more like "pimps") then take the money they've aquired in-game, and sell it on the internet for real money. That way people that play the games can spend real money to buy the fake money...and...not have to earn the fake money on their own.

The U.S. government keeps contemplating TAXING the currency aquired in MMORPG's because of the way it is traded/valued in the online community as well as real life.
--------------------------

When I got home I talked to Jenn on the internetS for...hours? (complimented with PowerBook webcam...why is using a webcam so amusing?)
It amazes me that there is another person out there that can keep up with my excessive typing, AND knows all of the following without me introducing it to them: Mindless Self Indulgence, Invader Zim, Lloyd Kaufmann, Nightwatch, and Don Hertzfield.

I'd delve further into it, but it's hard to explain the epic battle of the "Dereks vs. The Black Hairs of Jenntopia" while simultaneously....making sense.

Not to be sappy, but she's the first person I've "met" out here that actually reminds me of all my friends back home.

My insides just smiled.

Alright, I'm gonna go play Okami, Lumines and Guitar Hero.

Death by stereo!!!

The title of this blog entry is a quote from "The Lost Boys." The BEST goddamn vampire movie that stars "The Corey's" AND Keither Sutherland of "24" fame!

So lets kick off things a little different eh? Here's some more pictures from the first two music videos Don and I shot:

Starting with the Conex video-

This is the half-circle dolly track in which we used for our "matrix" move (you know, setting the camera to 60 fps and shoving the dolly as fast as it can go without flying off the roof...ending up with footage that looks "matrix"-esque)


"Yeah Don, I swear this sandbag will stop you from going off the roof!"


The intense look just makes me look important.


Our fine young star in front of the Capital Records building...


...and of course The Knickerbocker Hotel (now senior home, but still believed to be haunted by the ghosts of many Hollywood stars, including the one-and-only Houdini).


Derek Says: Fuck bounce boards and flags, I got a motha fuckin' paper plate!



Alright, and moving onto some Polus pictures-

The band (Polus), the star (Rachael), and the motha' fuckin' BEAT BOX YO!


Ryan blows a mean balloon.


"It's like there's a party inside my camera, and everyone's invited!"


"Stop guys, I see a unicorn!"


Streamers = Fun.


Who farted?


It took a lot of convincing to get Don up there.



Alright, and now for the boring stuff that only Derek cares about (yes I just referred to myself in 3rd person, it's all the rage with the kids these days). Let it be known that this whole time I've been itchin' to use the term "you old so-and-so," but haven't found the right opportunity.

FRIDAY
---------
I think I summed it up pretty well in the following away message I typed at 3 a.m. Friday night/morning.
--------------------
HAVE A FLABTESTICLE DAY!
(i'm sending this at 3a.m. my time, even though i'm super tired, just to make up for the last couple days i didn't send my daily "have ___ day" message)

I also want to make sure everyone knows that I:

a) saw Weird Al tonight on the escalator/sidewalk with what appeared to be his very young daughter, while waiting to be seated at The Cheesecake Factory (yes it was DEFINATELY him!)

b) saw "The Departed" and think it's the goddamn best movie I've seen since "Nightwatch".

c) get psyched for the movie "300" (slade and OP, I'm lookin at you guys)
--------------------
Pretty self-explanitory eh?


MONDAY
------------
At some point during this week, or the middle of last week Lexi (director) came to Moviola to show Don and I the rough cut of the music video.
It was neat of her to go out of her way to come visit us. Yay. :)

Spent the majority of the day watching "The Lost Boys." Man, that movie is just as good, if not better, than the last time I saw it...when I was 11.

I spent the other part of my work-day collaborating on a story with Gladys (a.k.a. G-Spot and/or G-Funk). Gladys is neat. <--later to be decided some sort of...Super...girl.

I also learned this interesting tid-bit!
"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo." Is a real English sentence. This was discovered by an English professor from where I went to college...which is cool...comming from Buffalo ;)

It would read as:
"Buffalo (the town) buffalo (as in animal) [that] Buffalo (town) buffalo (animal) buffalo (as in hassel) [,] [also] buffalo (hassel) Buffalo (town) buffalo (animal).

or

"Buffalos that are themselves intimidated by buffalo in their community also happen to intimidate buffalo also in their community."
Get it?


TUESDAY
------------
After work I went home and cut my hair...for maximum spikeablility. Then I headed over to Andy's place (allllllllllllllllllll the way across the street) to watch some UFC, drink beer and eat pizza.

Which was excellent after a long day of sitting on the couch at work watching more "Lost Boys"!!! Yup, I'm addicted to this movied. And Keither's studdly "Billy Idol" bleach hair.

The "Ed Hardy" clothing company (which operates in our building) was also holding a casting call for a t.v. show they're trying to start. I guess it would be similar to Trump's "Apprentice."
So all day there were tons of douche-bags lined up outside our building partaking in douche-baggery.
It was really obnoxious. ESPECIALLY when Christian A. (CEO of Ed Hardy) would purposely drive up and down the road in his ferrari to make them all scream (for stock footage).


WEDNESDAY
-----------------
Loooooooooooong day at work, eased yet again for the 3rd day in a row by the internet marvel herself, G-Spot.
Unfortuntely, this is consequentially forcing me into spending much more time on myspace than usual, something that makes me question my sexuality.

After work, of course, was Trivia Night! Low-and-behold tonight we placed 1st for the first time in our six week history :)
w00t w00t!
Take that "Werewolves of London," "Old Dudes Rule," "Touched By An Uncle," "Han Solo," and all you other bar slobs!
You are officially reading the blog of a Trivia Night winner. I understand this may be overwhelming to you readers, it's ok, you can go masturbate if you need too. Because I'mmmmm going to bed!

A WINNER.