Tuesday, March 31, 2009

3-31-09

I'm swamped...

I've got a lot to do by Wednesday. I had to do a power clean on my apartment because there is an appraisal inspection today. That means an appraiser for the complex must check my apartment. I have some projects that I must complete by the end of the week. I have a field trip tomorrow. I have dress rehearsals yesterday and today and a performance tomorrow and Thursday. Plus I decided to continue working out this week. That's a lot of stuff. I can't wait for this week to be done.

It's really nice out and I would love to be at the track running but I have to leave and run lines. I'm pretty bummed.

Monday, March 30, 2009

Be Careful. It's the Killing Season

On May 16th 2006 my life was forever changed. A deranged neighbor came onto our family farm and murdered my parents. He also shot me three times. Since that day I've been sensitive to shootings that I see on television. Every time I see a news story about a gunman on the rampage I remember the terror and disbelief that I felt.
Since 2006 I have noticed a trend. I've done some research into this and what I've noticed is that there is a spike in shootings and random acts of violence in the U.S. during certain months. The first trend is March through May. The second is September through October. Columbine was April 20th. Virginia Tech was April 16th. A number of school suicides and lesser shootings peak in September.
I watched the news today and heard about a man who killed two of his sisters and tried to kill a third before police gunned him down. A man in Oakland killed four police officers. A man in Alabama went on a shooting rampage. Yesterday a man killed seven people in a nursing home in North Carolina. This all happened in March. April isn't even here yet.
I remember watching the news with my parents the weekend before they were murdered. We saw on the news where a man had shot the neighbor's dog one day and shot the neighbors the next day. I remember watching the news thinking that was something that happend to other people. It could never happen to us. Never in a million years would I think that days later my neighbor would leave his home with a rifle and make the decision to end our lives. Like I said. It happens to other people.
I write this asking everyone to be careful. Pay attention to your relationships and the people around you. It's the killing season right now and the worst thing you can think is that it can never happen to you. People are stressed over the economy and life in general.

Please. Be Careful

Saturday, March 28, 2009

3-28-09

Monsters vs. Aliens vs. Boredom...



I went to see Monsters vs. Aliens tonight. Except for some funny one liners it was pretty boring. I would discuss the plot but what it was seems to escape me for the moment. Something about some giant girl and an alien chasing her.

Total rental.

Friday, March 27, 2009

3-27-09

Why do transvestites always have to pick on me?



I went to a midnight showing of Rocky Horror Picture Show. Now before you start freakin out or thinking that this is something rather odd for me to do, let me give a little insight into Bob. It may explain why I'm the way I am.

By the age of seven I had seen every episode of the first season of Saturday Night Live, Pink Floyd's The Wall, A Clockwork Orange, and yes, Rocky Horror Picture Show. Add in about 14 hours of non-stop MTV and you get one very interesting kid in grade school. Somewhere between the first Bush president and now there has been a mellowing but when it comes to counter-culture influence, I've been around it more often then you would think.

Rocky Horror can be placed in the category of great works of American art. It's one of very few works that mainstream culture has embraced. Rocky Horror is performed on college campuses and theaters across the nation and continues to have a cult following today. Some people respect Rocky Horror for the art that it is. Others bastardize it make it a joke. Let's just say that what I saw was the latter and not the former.

I'm not going to go into specifics. I'm just going to say that it was awful. An audience participation musical was turned into a chaotic pornographic farce. That's all I have to say about that.

Now I'll get to my transvestite story. There were two drunk guys there with squirt guns. They wore wigs that made them look like Howard Stern but they were dressed in Franken Furter attire. I guess I was a target considering I was wearing a polo shirt and some dockers. That's not the appropriate attire to a Rocky Horror show but I thought I'd be ironic. The irony being that I'm wearing clothes considered counter culture to the counter cultured at a counter culture show. Well, I was constantly squirted with water and hollered at by these two transvestites. I got up and moved to get out of squirt gun range and I ignored their verbal offenses.

At the end of the show as me and my friends were leaving one of the transvestites pulled the victim card and lamented to everyone in the crowd that I wouldn't talk to them. That somehow my silence was a hate crime. The only offense of the night was that I tried to enjoy myself and was constantly interrupted by a drunk man who dresses like a bar fly in Fairmont.

I guess it goes to show that no matter what gender, ethnicity, social economic status, religion etc. there are always those who become party poopers.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

3-26-09

Just Hanging Out...

Don't worry. I'm not forgetting to blog. It's just that it's been uneventful so I haven't had a lot to blog about.

I've had some projects due this past week. Nothing of note really. The way that my classes are set up this quarter are that we have one large project due at the end of the quarter. Each week we learn a step in the process and we are graded on our progression. By the end of the quarter we should have a finished product. That's why I'm not all geeked out to explain how to insert keyframes into a Flash project.

I have a play performance next week. I don't have all my lines memorised so I'm workin on that in my spare time.

Of course the gym rocks. The other day I overslept and showed up to workout half asleep. I don't recommend it.

I would blog about politics but I'm just too tired. I told everyone that Obama was a train wreck during the election and no one listened. It's not worth wasting my breath when people still take what this man says at face value. Just to let you know I already have my "I told you so" t-shirt already printed and ready to wear.

Well, I'm heading to the gym. It's shoulders and chest day.

Monday, March 23, 2009

3-20-09

Battlestar Galactica: Mission Accomplished!!!



Friday night was the series finale of Battlestar Galactica. It was sad and emotional for me for a number of reasons.

Galactica was the last show that my dad and I started watching together. If we weren't going to the movies on Friday night we were watching Scifi Channel. Our evening consisted of Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis and Battlestar Galactica. Both Stargate series have ended their run and now make movies. Galactica was the last. So it was sad for me to see the last part of Friday night go away. Heck! My mom even starting watching it with us. She didn't like the red eyed cylons though.

What made Battlestar Galactica one of the greatest shows on television was it's committment to characters. The show was driven solely on characters. Galactica could have gotten wrapped up in the space opera (i.e. Star Wars) but instead stayed very close to the characters that made the show what is was. The tone of the show made that possible. The first Galactica series was a cheesy late 70's knock off of Star Wars. This re-imagining dealt with the suffering and the flaws people deal with in a post-9/11 world. The military father trying to fix a relationship with his son. The hot shot pilot with the self destructive personality looking for meaning. The edjucation secretary who get's thrusted into the office of President. The narcistic womanizing genius who finds out he's responsible for the holocaust of his entire race leaving only 50,000 survivors out of billions. Following all of these characters to their final end was a great journey.

The Galactica is one of those iconic ships that can be placed up there with Enterprise. In this series the Galactica was a aircraft carrier in space which should have been decommissioned years ago. After a holocaust at the hands of their enemies the Cylons, Galactica is the only battlestar left the defend the fleet of 50,000 humans left. Their only hope left is to find a mythical planet their religion talks about called Earth.

Good science fiction always tells a story that is an allegory for modern day problems. The first season was amazing because it dealt with the war on terror. Cylons look like humans and live among the fleet. The question they dealt with was whether to take away personal freedoms their democracy gives for the sake of security. The same can be said about the patriot act. They underlying story of the show is that Cylons were created by man. They are machines with artificial intelligence which rebel. The question which is always asked is whether or not mankind should play god. Are we rebuilding the tower of babel?

This was a show I was emotionally invested in and I'm content with the way it ended. I will miss the Galactica and it's crew. Thank you Ron Moore and Dave Eick for an amazing show.

So say we all!

3-21-09

TIME FOR BOB'S MOVIE REVIEWS!!!!



I loved this movie man! It has a really great story. Peter Klaven (Paul Rudd) has asked his girlfriend Zoey (Rashida Jones) to marry him. Peter realizes that he doesn't have any man friends. So he goes on a series of man-dates to find the Best Man for his wedding. He finally meets Sydney Fife (Jason Segel) and they become B.F.F'S. They spend so much time together that is puts a strain on his relationship with Zoey.

This movie has some great sub-plots. Peter is a real estate agent and his big break is selling Lou Farigno's house. Plus the bond between Peter and Sydney is their love for the band Rush. These two sub-plots make the movie gel very well. It's full of one liners and all around fun! The best part of the movie is it's about real friendship and finding someone you can really trust. It's not a kids movie though.



I was pleasantly suprised by this movie. I expected one thing and got another. Alex Proyas directed this movie so I should have known. He also directed Dark City and The Crow. Nicholas Cage playse John Koesler. He's a professor at MIT. He's lost his wife in a tragic accident and raises his 8 year old son alone. Koesler struggles with the question of whether life has some divine meaning or are we just chemical reactions that happened randomly by change thus making life meaningless. This question begins to get answered when a time capsule is opened at his son's school and he receives a paper that has a list of every disaster for the past 50 years and the day they happened.

Koesler sees that there are three events left that haven't happened yet and he tries to stop them without any success. The last event is the complete destruction of the earth.

I'm going to leave some spoilers out just in case anyone reading this wants to see this movie. It's a crazy ride from beginning to end. If you're a Nick Cage fan then this is yet another gem. I love movies that throw me for a loop. This one definitely did.

That was my Saturday pretty much. Double feature at the movies...

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

3-18-09

My Day Off

No class today and no gym today too. Woo Hoo!

Bob's agenda today involved sleeping in. I was going to just relax today but it was in the 70's. So I went to the track and did some running. It's going to rain for the rest of the week and this was my chance to get out.

Other than that I've just been sitting around watching televison and hanging with Charley. I watched Lost and some Fox News programs. I like Fox because they actually discuss real topics. If I wanted to stay stupid then I'd watch CNN where I could get hours on end of what Michelle Obama is going to wear tomorrow and what the Obama kids like to drink in their lunches. oooh! That's real news!!!!

Time for sleep. I'm rested and ready to close out the rest of the week.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

3-17-09

Happy Birthday Dad.

Most people know today as St. Patrick's Day. I know it as my dad's birthday. While everyone else uses today as an excuse to get drunk and wear green, I see today a bit differently.

My dad would have been fifty nine. I don't know what he would have thought about that. I'm sure we would have had a small celebration and my mom would have made his favorite cake (pineapple upside down cake). I'm totally sure that we would have done something with the alpacas too. That goes without saying.

I must admit that this birthday was harder than the last three. I don't know why. They say wounds heal with time. They also say absence makes the heart grow fonder. Such a padox.

I still deal with some negative issues. I know that it's just me being hard on myself and I shouldn't dwell on things, but I feel like I should have done more. I still second guess whether I should have called the police or if I should have pulled my dad from the Explorer and helped him to the house. I guess I'll live that for the rest of my life. Everything happened so fast. I shouldn't second guess but I do. This bothers me but I know I can't change what has happened. If I did it's more than likely there would have been three caskets and not two.

What hits close to home the most is that I miss my dad and my mom very much. My dad and I had so much in common. We worked together on the farm and we made a pretty good team. I have friends who don't have a good relationship with their dads and I'm blessed to say that I had a wonderful relationship with mine.

It's easy to make someone out to be greater than they were when they were alive. That's not the case with my dad. He never tried to be something he wasn't. I think that's what drew people to my dad. I also think that's why Dale hated him so much.

I could have stayed in bed today and moped around and dwelled on things I shoudn't, but I didn't. I went to school. I went to the gym and worked my tail off. I went to play rehearsal and focused on my lines. I had a full day. I went to bed tired. I went to bed knowing that I did exactly what my dad would have wanted me to do today...something productive and not to waste the day.

Happy Birthday Dad

I miss you.

Monday, March 16, 2009

3-16-09

i was two things
i had in F in
Because more than
likely
i was gone"


A teacher of mine gave me this. He calls it "Inspirational Student Poem." It was an e-mail he had received from a student a few years back. I don't believe this kid was an honor roll student.

Sunday, March 15, 2009

3-15-09

Let's start with some good news...

I thought I'd give an update on some things I find positive that has happened in the past few weeks.

I have been participating in a workout program geared toward losing body fat and gaining muscle. It started in the last week of January and on the 6th I was weighed and measured. I have lost 5 body fat percentage points and gained three pounds. That's pretty good. Congrads to Bob!!!

I have also decided to do something I haven't done in years. What is it you say? Well, it has something to do with me getting up in front of an audience and telling jokes. Yup! I'm getting back into stand-up comedy. There is an Improv Comedy Club in Pittsburgh and they have open mic nights. I plan on putting some material together and seeing if I still got it. I don't see myself doing this as a job but just another creative outlet. If I can get a few gigs at local comedy clubs and just enjoy myself then I will have accomplished my goal.

I have a teacher who does improvisational theater. A friend and I went to watch their show last night. I enjoyed it immensely. I felt the improv bug again. I just don't know if I want to do it again. I asked to come to an improv jam and see how I feel. If I feel good about it then I may ask if I can audition to join their troupe.

I think I'm in a good place in Pittsburgh. There is a lot for me to do and I'm getting back in touch with my inner creative spirit. It's funny. For most of my life I felt being funny was a curse. I always felt like I had to be funny all the time and I am especially annoyed by people who think I should be funny all the time. Going through tragedy and suffering has made me look upon comedy and laughter differently. I don't see my comedic talent as a curse anymore. The world can be a miserable place and If I can bring just a few minutes of laughter to someone (including myself), then I think that is wonderful. I understand there is a time and a place for comedy and being serious, but when it's time to laugh I'm gonna make sure I make you pee your pants!!!!

I'll definitely post when I'll be at the Improv.

Tcau..

Friday, March 13, 2009

3-13-09

Changes to my website.

I've decided that this will be my official blog site. I will be using my website as an actual web page. I would like to post my multimedia projects and enhance my web design without losing blog content. I will post a link to this site on the page.

I will blog tomorrow about more daily life.

Promise.