Life Is More Fun When You're Living

First of all, whhhoooooaaaaaaaa!!!!

1) I'm taking a really hard class that I don't care about.
2) I'm taking an easy online class that I don't care about.
3)  Video Blog facing much opposition, but it is happening and I feel really good about it!
4)  Singing gigs?  How about no.

Sooooo, about three weeks ago we shot our first short, "The Audition".  It was a last minute thing because I was originally planning to shoot something else, but as a result of not getting the desired location and people not being able to go cross eyed, we had a change in what was being shot and last minute cast changes.  I was determined to shoot though because I'm not going to sit here and dream any longer, I'm going to act.

Scene from "The Audition"

The talented Ryan King

We shot it.  It was just OK.  It was really good to get back into things though and for that I feel it's all worth it.  It isn't going to be posted.  We will probably re-shoot it later this year.

So this vlog is going to take a lot of time.  My friend who was going to compose music for it dropped out.  I understand it would have been a lot of time for him and can't blame him because he's already really busy.

Who is going to write music now?  Well, I am.  I need to learn some more Pro Tools, but this a skill I've ALWAYS wanted to perfect and now it's happening.  My buddy Shane Jensen shares this same passion about music making, so he will help out as well.  Of course my sister Christy is an awesome composer and we will definitely be working together.  I already shot the first video I'm going to give to her to compose music to.  It'll be good practice for both of us and the video is going to freakin rock.

I intend on this vlog to have shorts, original songs, vlogs, pranks, etc.  I've been studying Pro Tools as much as possible in my free time so I can master the art of recording the music that lives inside of me.

Speaking of music, I wrote a song in Chinese and sung it at the BYU Chinese New Year celebration.  It was my first time singing and playing the piano at the same time, performing an original song, and writing a song in Chinese.  The performance was a little pitchy because I couldn't hear myself.

Singing my original "给你们的歌".  I plan on recording it in the near future.

Afterwards I was apporached by a woman who asked me to sing for her businesses Chinese something or other.  She wants me to take 15 minutes to entertain everyone at the convention.  It's going to be held at UVU.  I'll be honest, I'm a little freaked out.  I'm not near good enough to be considered "entertainment" anywhere except for a ward talent show.  I have less than two weeks to learn some new songs.  Aside from school and my vlog I'm not sure how I'm gonna do this.  But I like a good challenge and I'm making things happen these days, so I accepted the invitation.

This past Saturday Shane and Steve came down and shot our first official short with Kurt, Chloe, Buddy and myself.

A frame from our new official first short "Ordering Pizza"

Buddy was the mastermind behind this one and I'm excited for it to come out in a little less than two weeks. It wasn't a perfect shoot, but we're not going for that.  We're just having fun and if our families are the only ones who watch our stuff, great!

My room is now called "The Studio"

Who is Wong Fu?

They are my major inspiration to starting my vlog.  They are three ABCs (American Born Chinese) that just started making movies for fun, only they got huge.  I don't expect to get huge, but I do want to give those around me some fun stuff to watch, so I'm starting my own channel on Youtube, Facetious Face Productions.

I'm excited to get our channel up.

I need to do some homework now.  See ya'll.

Facetious Face WILL be coming soon!

Ok, sooooooo we've had some obstacles come up.  There has been soooo much opposition with this vlog.  It's going to happen.  Our last video we shot may never come out.  Maybe sometime later (in 9 months or so) it might make its way to the surface, but for now it will have to be re shot.

We are shooting this Saturday morning our new first movie.  I officially don't have an official composer, so guess who is going to take that job.  Yup, me.  I'm kinda excited really.  I have all the stuff and am confident that I can write some stuff that'll do the job.

I have a project do this Saturday that I need to get on right now.  I hope it goes well.  I'm excited for stuff.

Hey Blog, I Have Not Forgotten About You

School has started and I am keeping myself busy.  I'll explain more later.  Word!

PS.  My Political Science teacher offered a cash prize to the student in the class that can sing/perform their state song the very best.  I got this. 

I Am Blessed Beyond What I Deserve. The World Is Against Me.

Hey hey hey howdy howdy howdy.  I am comfortably sitting next to a burning fire, sitting on a chair with my new lap-desk on my lap with my little net-book on top of that.  I'm am in a wonderful state of relaxation.

I apologize for the amount of text in this entry.

I am a computer science major, so I'm always programming on my computer for school.  18 months ago I bought a computer because my previous one had issues.  I transferred all of my stuff to it in the middle of the semester, which takes tons of time.  After a few days, keys on the keyboard started falling off.  I was miffed.  I exchanged it for another, again spending a ton of time putting all my stuff on the new one.  A day later the screen goes berserk.  Wow.  I then swapped it again and finally all was well.

A little over a month ago my computer died.  I went to the store and bought a new one.  It was sleek, fast, and just beautiful, though occasional it acted a little strange.  A week later it got fried.  Um, OK.  I took it back and exchanged it.  I took the new one home and immediately noticed wacko things wrong with it.  Oh, and this is the week before finals, you know, the time when all of your group projects are due.  Angry as, I slammed it shut and stormed out of my apartment and back to Best Buy I went.  I swapped again, but before I left the store I opened the new one and made sure it worked.  It was buggy, so I just returned it.  The workers were really nice and understanding.

A week went by and I was looking for a model of a computer made by Samsung that I wanted to buy.  Literally no store in Utah or any store online had them in stock.  I searched thoroughly for a whole week.  Finals week was here and freakin crap.  On the Wednesday of finals week I got a call from the hospital saying I needed to have surgery that Friday, the last day of finals.  Wow, so now I had to finish finals a day earlier than expected, but it ended up working out and I had surgery that Friday.

While on some narcotics after surgery, I grabbed my handy dandy net-book (which has saved my life several times is an  academic sense) and went computer shopping.  As the thoughts of making a video blog went through my head, the more I looked for a killer machine.  I found one and bought it.  It wasn't cheap.  Santa butted it and proclaimed it a gift.

Stoked as, I waited and waited for it to come.  The day I suspected it to come I literally sat at my Dad's house and waited for it to come by staring at the screen which showed the camera at the front door.  It came at like 5:30pm or something.  Hooray!!!  I opened it and was so happy!  It was kinda very big, but that's OK, I just won't be hauling to school everyday like my old one.

Within ten minutes of playing with it, it froze five times and core dumped once.  Spectacular.  I silently closed it up and walked away.  I was far too angry to discuss it with anyone.  I did mention it to my brother-in-law Ben because he's chill and in no way dramatic, so I knew telling him wouldn't set off any fire within.  It was at this point in time I realized things just got a lot harder.  I'm going to have to get these two projects off the ground during the semester which isn't going to be easy.  I soon after went to dinner with my Sister and her husband Ben along with my brother and my cousin and her husband.  That helped me get my mind off of it.

During the semester I am very busy, so I was looking forward to this break when I can get a head start on my video blog AND start making an app with my friend Scott.  Two major project I'm trying to get off the ground, and I have two weeks here to do it!  School starts in less than a week now and I still don't have a computer.  I suspect I will be forever bitter about this situation.  I have all this equipment and stuff but I can't do anything with it because I don't have a computer to edit with or to code with.  I won't let this change anything.  I am going to sit down and set some pretty good goals and I plan on getting less sleep so I can make sure things get done.  I am going to make a video blog because I love to do that kind of thing, nothing more.

Below are some of my toys, some new, the others not, that I can't really do anything with until I get a computer.

Since my camera is in this shot I took this with my Panasonic FZ-30 that I bought in high school.

I also bought a pop filter for my recording mic, but it's in the mail.

I'm kind of a one man show at the moment, but that is changing.  I have a friend, Ryan King, who is rather Pro Tools savvy who is up to making a video blog with me.  Whether or not he knows much about shooting movies and editing, I know he could learn it if he's recording and using Pro Tools.  I'm glad he's on board.  I'm still in the recruiting stage.  I have to not only find people that are naturally likable, but people who actually WANT to do make a video blog, and they need to be able to contribute in one way or another.  My friend Ryan fits all of those rather well.  I'd love to get a (cute) girl on board.

That's all.

Computerless, but with high ambitions... I'm on post-surgery meds :S

Ok, so my blog pretty much hasn't seen ANY action lately.  I have so many ideas for good blog entries,  BUT I've run into a little bit of a problem lately.

So about a month ago my computer died.  Yeah, it sucks.  So I bought a new one.  It was a pretty sleek and quick Samsung thing, but literally one week after I bought it, it died.  I swapped it for a new one of that same model, but it had issues, so I returned it.  Now this was all happening a week before finals, you know, the week when all of the huge projects are do.  I had two group programming projects, so I was a little more stressed than I should have been.  I had no time at that point to worry about getting a new computer, so I just toughed it out till finals ended.

I do have this little netbook that I am using to type this which has saved my face!  It's super slow, but it works and I love it for that.  I also have an old desktop that works, but it's old and usage is limited.  Why am I complaining?  I'm not, but there are some things I can't do with just a machine that merely works.

First of all, I write this entree knowing that one day I will print my blog into a book and some 40 years later someone will read it, because this much text surely can't be interesting to anyone in this day, except for maybe my mom, she might enjoy reading this.

Anyways, I need access to my pictures and of course Photoshop.  I've been without that stuff for so long I'm going crazy!  Also, one of my lifelong best friends, Scott Erickson, and I have begun working with each other on a project.  We are making a game for the Android market.  Be excited.  More on this later.  I need a computer for this.

Also, I've had a knack for a long time and lately it's become stronger than ever to start making a video blog. I've talked to some friends about it and even have a composer, so now I just need to sit down, do some planning, and set aside certain hours of the week for shooting and editing and so forth.  I need a computer in order to edit.

I had knee surgery two days ago and I'm all drugged up.  It's 1:57am right now and I'm watch the Lord of the Ring: The Return of the King right now at my dad's house.  I am so content right now I love everything.

Below is a Christmas card I made of my roommates and me.  When it comes to photography/videography I'm all or nothin.  The shoot was fun, but annoying at the same time because I kept yelling, "hold still!"  The lighting was very low so I kept the lens open longer to better expose the shot.  I don't like cranking up the iso because pictures get grainy that way.  Anyways, the majority of the pictures were blurry because people are stupid and didn't listen to me.  Wow, these drugs I'm on make me really kind.  I think the card ended up all right.  It was after this photo shoot did I decided to never make a movie starring my roommates.  Don't get me wrong, they are great and I love them, but yeah.

Ryan Miller, Kurt Christiansen, Dalton Purnell, Preston Purnell, Me, Zach Romney

Oh yeah, surgery pictures.

I just had my knee scoped.  I am blessed with amazing health, I really am.  I do have a few weird things to deal with like loose joints, and weird knees.  But I'm blessed with the people and the means to fix these minor deficiencies and allow my life to be that much fuller.  Even if I weren't able to fix these things I still have no room to complain.  I will always be grateful for my good health.

Beseech to tell the horrible tail,
refute at the sound of comic relief,
like horses you prance, resorting to bail
the beautiful niche, your beautiful grief

Spun down and clouded, over shorn,
light fear I feel, my conciseness torn,
Though soon it halts, its end is near
a trail like tar, my mind to shear

deceptive treatment it goes about
to fools that beckon and welcome in
to sell away and shout shout shout
that silent purr will thrash about

It leaves the tomb so empty and bare
it's greedy tight hands unwilling to share
now at war, between this great schism,
this evil, this deep dark hedonism

Wow, that just came out of me.  I wrote it with the drugs I'm taking in mind.  They help pass the time away, but at the end of the day I feel like I was being kept up inside somewhere, comfortable yes, but while there just outside I imagined were many friends of mine, having fun, riding all the rides, being ambitious and getting things done.  Me, just being content doing nothing.  So damaging.  Tomorrow will be my last day on them.

This is a super long movie.  I just put the second disk in.  It's 3:05am now :)

So a week ago I went online and bought a new computer, NP700Z5A-S03US, I'm way excited for it to come.  Today they emailed me and told me it's on back order.  Why didn't they tell me this a week ago?   I'm not very happy.  Blogging, video blog, programming, and audio recording are all on hold because of not having a computer, and now this.  Now I'm complaining.  I should be sleeping.  I'm going to keep watching the rest of this movie now.  Peace.

Revin Lindsey, son of Buddy and Rachel Lindsey

11/11/11

The date today is rather cool.  All ones!  This happens but once every long time!  In China November 11 is "Singles Day", a day when those that a single celebrate and have a good time, so this year singles day was bigger than ever.

Today is also the day I walked all the way to school and upon arriving realized I forgot my backpack.


..update

Sadly at the time 11:11 on 11/11/11 I was studying in the library.  Meh.

Hong 10

Ok, so this post is really just an excuse I have to put on my headphones and listen to Kelly Clarkson's new album that came out today.  So far, it's pretty freakin good.

Ok, so now a bit about Hong 10.  He is Korean.

Why do I love Hong 10?

Hong 10 is a BBoy.

What is a BBoy?

"He is a BBoy", or "I saw Hong 10  B-Boying."  In other words, it's short for breakdancing.   There are things I love that I am passionate about, and BBoying is one of them.  

But now I'm a retired gymnast.  Or rather, I'm a crippled gymnast since my crash of 09'.

And as a result, breakdancing is also a thing of the past, but I can still watch it.  

Everyone who watches even just 15 seconds of breakdancing absolutely loves it, so I wonder why it's not more popular.  It isn't rap, or punk even, but rather BBoy is all about peace and love.  

So I thought I share a BRIEF description of it all.

This is one of my favorite crews.  They are called "Gamblerz Crew".  The cool thing about this picture is they were all dancing, and then for a split second they all froze, and that's when this picture was taken.

Skip two minutes into the below video.  What you'll see is a "crew".  Basically when you're a legit BBoy, you join a crew.  They perform together and battle other crews and such.