Shoot Him Again! His Blog Is Still Dancing!

Ughghghghghgh.

I seem to have come down with something nasty, and it's making me feel like crap today. Coupled with the fact that I'm "caught between jobs" and also a major holiday, it's going to be a complicated few weeks.

I also got news from Nintendo last week that they will NOT support our children's charity, which was kind of devastating. Like they couldn't afford to pitch us a couple hundred bucks for hospitals. Fssssh. Whatever, we'll keep raising it ourselves anyway.

I've been really struggling to write lately, and part of it is because I have a perfectionist attitude. I've heard time and again, "Just skip the hard parts and keep going. Come back to them later -- don't let them freeze you up." But the thing is, I'm recalling the last major screenplay I was at work on and how I hit a major snag early in and tried exactly that. "Let's just power through with whatever comes out and keep moving." But here's what happened: I ended up writing story events that I don't think are probably effective, and a full scene of the most painful dialog I've ever written. Seriously, it makes me cringe every time I glance at it, because I can't believe what a capacity I have to write bad work when I'm in an "off" mood. How can I move on with the rest of the screenplay when there's an absolute groaner of a scene back toward the beginning, and certain events may later hinge on it?

So that's my dilemma. My guess is that I should "keep writing" anyway... but, like I said, I don't even want to open that notebook knowing some of what's inside right now. It's shameful and awful and would be better off not existing, and that's a risk I'm too scared to take: making work that not only doesn't live up to my expectations, but also makes people DISpleased. It's an awkward psychological phobia that I'm kind of still working on. -_-; I think I need to lose it to be a successful writer.

On the flip side, my editing seems to be faring fine right now, and I just recorded a new song the other day for a DVD menu. It's about the goofiest song I've worked on, so I'm excited to discover how it turns out once my post prod partner gets done with it. This one plays with something new I've not tried before: a capella/barber shop music where all instruments are replaced with human voices.

I find that music incredibly irritating, which is precisely why I thought it'd fit this DVD so well. I'll try to make the song public once it's done.

I'm A Blogger, Not A Scientist!

Butternuts.

After two days of office work for Fox's new comedy, "Keep Hope Alive," I'm on relative hiatus until the shoot starts in December. And that, of course, means free time... which, unfortunately, does not at all translate to "rest" or "relax."

I've recently undergone a surge of renewed interest in video games, which is absolutely terrible given the point of life I'm in and what I'm trying to do. Video games have become an absolute Time- and Soul-Sucker. They eat up time like candy, because they're so gosh-darn addicting... and they suck up souls because, well, how else can I write well when I'm distractedly wishing I was playing Mario right now?

Wow. I really wish I was playing Mario right now...

Of course, I'm somewhat happy to embrace my return to nerdship again, too. I really didn't like myself when I backed off games as long as I did; it just didn't feel right, to not get antsy looking over box art or flipping through strategy guides. AJ Pinkerton was not meant to be immune to their charms; he was made to love games and play them, and after going fairly cold for many moons, it's been a welcome refresher to emotionally open up to them again.

Of course, now there's eight months backlogged on store shelves, and no budget for fun and games around this pad. That sounds pretty close to the glory days, actually. Tradition lives forever.

Prepare Blog For Ludacris Speed!

I've been recently watching several of my lower-budget indie movies, as a way of looking for both inspiration and advice on making my break as a director. Tonight, the inevitable happened: I turned to Sam Raimi's Evil Dead II.

I find myself presently unsure still whether it's shockingly stellar or horribly awful. I think part of my confusion comes from watching the behind-the-scenes footage and discovering things like puppeteering wires, goofy dummy corpses, and rotten fat suits with major revealing holes in the butt. And yet, for all these obvious imperfections, I'm still pretty mesmerized with most everything else -- the camera work, the performances, the make up and prosthetics, Raimi's own clever solutions to filming the impossible. And he was so young, too! I'm either in complete awe and respect of him, or terribly jealous.

So now I'm here with notebook open, pondering over new "simple" movie ideas I can pull off with minimal equipment, minimal budget, and minimal help. Coming up with a simple story -- no effects, no stunts, few people -- is certainly not in my genetic make-up.

It's time to be extra special.

Your Blogs Are The Cancer Of This Planet, And We Are The Cure

Today was the first time in a very, very long time -- possibly ever -- where the day started out so hideously that I decided to go back to bed for several more hours.

It turns out that my recently-obtained traffic ticket -- the first of my life -- is commanding a $290 fee. Add to that a $60 fee to take online traffic school and a third fee to update my (valid) drivers license to CA standards, and you've got one irritable AJ with not enough money to invest in Adobe Flash any longer. And I've been very eager to get my hands on that and resume my animation work for quite a while now.

There have been no calls from either Insomniac Games or Square Enix today, either, which also has me a bit sour. Being in their offices yesterday was incredible -- definitely a workplace to end all workplaces. It was half like being at a fresh, lemon-scented GameStop, and half like going to Heaven. Not a bad mix at all.

Tomorrow's looking like a trip to the DMV. "You won't find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy," in the wise words of Obi-Wan.

Life Here Ain't Worth A Blog Of Beans, Elsa

Wow. What an unhappy Halloween.

So on top of a miserable Jack o Lantern fail (picture soon, hopefully), and a pathetic costume fail, and a lack of trick-or-treating and partying, I topped off the night with an unsuccessful hunt for missing video footage and the lame discovery that, of the two major projects I'm still devoting editor's attention to, one is missing key audio and the other probably needs to a full editing overhaul in order to achieve the effect I need.

And to think, I gave up a night of bad horror movies and video games to make these discoveries.

Once again, Macintosh proves to be a total anus about cooperating with my lust for file types, and without hunting down old freeware and trialware that I'd armed my last lappy with, I can rest assured that nothing will work properly. I'd whine and ask why life feels the need to be so darn difficult... but had I put in a DVD four hours ago, I'd have found that sometimes, it isn't. Sigh.

Church tomorrow -- a place I haven't been at in two weeks, which I feel bad about. Go figure, I'm already drained from just facing the day (and missing all expectations) and trying to find corners to cut in enjoying my day tomorrow. Probably what I need most right now is sleep, but I hate giving up on the day and going to bed without achieving some form of victory. Like running away to bed is actually solving anything. But I think tonight, I don't want to deal with .asf and .ogg and .idon'tloveyou and .thiscan'tbeopened.