gotfinnegan

I'm not afraid to admit that I often pass judgment on people. but I'm not the only one who does it. and that isn't an argument for why it's okay, because it generally isn't, but the phrase "passing judgment" carries so much negative weight that I feel I have to dumb it down a few notches....to something like, getting a feel for someone. when I meet someone, I try to get a sense of what they're like from how they are, or at least, how I perceive them to be. and sometimes I'm wrong about that. scratch that, most of the time I'm wrong about that - and if things go well, I realize that later because I hang out more and more with the person and learn more and more about the person.

but this also works in the reverse way. there have been times where I've pegged someone to be cool, and they turn out to be a total treat the better I get to know them. and such is the case today. cue crypticism and lj-cut, because this is going to be pretty long.

( what the fuck is your problem? )

born in the middle of a useless generation
never gave a fuck about the suicide nation
locked down lockers at the anti-christ station
the kids are getting ready for death and starvation

don't need no company
need no authority
don't need to hang out about
this is why no company town

it's all about now and my present situation
don't wanna go past my fourth grade education
all these mixed emotions and foreign complications
just an unfinished production of a teenage generation

NO COMPANY TOWN

two years in a few weeks. why does it feel a lot longer?

let's see, choice of word....surprised? astounded? flabberghasted? take your pick. I am one of them every time I come back to my livejournal and realize how long its been since I've written. I used to update this thing like, every two or three days but lately I've just not gotten around to it. now, looking at my calender on the dock of my desktop, I realize I'm at it every two weeks or so which seems like an eternity.

the music video shoot went well. we got all of the shoot done in one day, 8am to 9pm. it was emotionally and physically draining but overall an incredible experience, and the footage came out great. it was also really cool to hang out with two really cool guys, belief and sumkid. the music video should be edited, color corrected and ready for distribution by the start of the school year.

I'm late on my screenplay. I've been so busy doing other things that I haven't had much time to write the screenplay I've been working on for a while, and similarly I haven't been able to really get some editing done on my documentary. hopefully now that the music video has been finished, or at least my part in it is over, I will have more time to get around to my own projects, which will hopefully be shot in the fall.

as for other updates, long time chelsea midfielder claude "the human shield" makalele finally announced his "retirement" at the age of 35. I put retirement in quotations because he signed another professional contract with PSG in france, but when big players sign contracts for way smaller teams for less than half the money they're currently making at an old age, that is pretty much retiring. however, I am gutted because no one short of john terry has served chelsea's blue more whole heartedly than maka. he is the foundation of the midfield and an unsung hero of the blues. thanks maka.

onto other news. I tell everyone that the reason I couldn't come home to pacifica for the summer was because I needed to take summer classes in order to graduate on time. that's half true, but the real reason was that I just needed to get away for a while and forget what is there. not that I want to forget, but I do want to move on. I mean, this isn't to say that I don't want to be friends with people and hang out because in all honesty my friends are my life and I couldn't live without them, but there are some people that it is better for me not to see often, or ever. how strange how these things work out sometimes.

these past few months have been unreal. honestly, I've never been this busy. let's see, monday through friday I have spanish class from 9-12pm. then, after that I head home and do one of four things: write screenplays, do create work with julian for the music video, find actors/actresses, and edit my documentary. basically, that's what the past few weeks have been.



that's sum kid. he's the LA hip hop artist we're doing a music video for. he is the man. well spoken, intelligent, driven and passionate about music, art, and writing. he brings an incredible energy to whatever he does and I am stoked on being able to flex my creative muscle and do the visuals for this music video. julian shapiro, a producer, and I are doing cinematography while a friend of ours, jason, is directing it. this will give me a chance to focus solely on cinematography, since in most of my projects I've had to do both directing and cinematography and in some cases, one or the other has suffered as a result.

the music video will be shot next weekend, after we do some lighting tests and location preparation tonight and tomorrow, and possibly even sunday. I'm really, really excited about this.

things have been busy. I've been writing a screenplay, helping out my producer julian shapiro film his projects (one of which includes a full music video for a LA rap artist), and pulling concepts for a horror short we plan to do in november. all of this on top of soccer and summer classes. but I'm happy. and it's been a while since I've been happy, so I'm welcoming this new experience with open arms.

I hate spanish. I have to wake up every morning at 8am to be at class at 9am monday through friday, until 12pm. most of the people in my class aren't cool, and a select few of them I can't stand entirely. there are only two things that make it bearable. well three actually. the first is that my professor is this smoking hot columbian woman. I think everything she does is super cute, and she's a total hottie, and she winks at me and cracks sex jokes a lot. she's awesome. the second is that there are two or three pretty cool kids in the class who sit in the corner with me and help me point out treats. one's name is duncan, the other is john. then there's like 10-12 other people who are okay, and three or four I really don't like.

there's this girl, britney, who simply doesn't get how I work. see, when I'm in class I'm enthusiastic about learning and always participating and trying to do my best on all the exercises and what have you. why? definitely not because I want to learn spanish. and I already told you I hate being in the class. the reason I am like that is because it is my way of ridiculing something I think is worthless for me. it's satire. it's deep rooted sarcasm. anyway, this britney character hates me. she always tries to call me out on shit, and today she called me a busybody. I don't even know what that means and I'm actually on my way to urbandictionary to look it up.

busybody (n.) - a dumbass who has too much time on their hands. They use this time to annoy, monitor, and try controlling others. AltarCrystal is a prime example of this.

I started laughing, and I looked over at her with this bewildered grin on my face (at this point everyone in the class including the teacher stopped what they were doing and looked over) and I said to her, "why so serious?" honestly, it was hilarious to me. the whole class is hilarious to me and my way of ridiculing it is by participating in the hilarity.

on the whole, it's remarkable how well I remember spanish though. anyway, I'm off for now.

is this not the funniest thing you've seen in a while? someone linked it on ventrilo and we seriously laughed for like 25 minutes and had a huge discussion about what those actually are. for 15 minutes we settled on lobsters. but then someone did some research and we found out they're trilobites.

my family's cell phone plan is going through some turmoil, so right now I don't have a working cell phone. if you want to contact me send me an email, and AIM/MSN message, or facebook me. or find me on ventrilo. but that last one only applies to a limited few of you who read this.

I guess I have to assume that mankind has made leaps and bounds in progress with regards to intergalactic travel...otherwise the question would ask where in the world I'd serve out my exile, instead of where in space. so, assuming that mankind has mastered the technology to propel objects at the speed of life, I would choose to serve my exile in the furthest possible reaches of the galaxy that are still within the reach of a lifespan. now, from reading a brief history of time I know that traveling in space slows time for the person traveling (why this is the case I don't know, I'm not a theoretical physicist) but I would have to imagine I could make it a few million light years and still be pretty young. again, I don't know why this is the case but apparently it is. ask stephen hawking.

I would choose to go to NGC 5866, pictured here.



the distance of this galaxy as given by wikipedia is 50 ± 3 Mly (15.3 ± 0.7 Mpc). I have no idea how far that is. I can only guess that Mly means million light years, so it'd be 50 million light years away, give or take three million.

I would probably bring a few medical encyclopedias. a computer that ran on self-generating electricity would be great. a self generating electrical source for other appliances like my ipod and camera would accompany me too, since I'd do a great deal of music listening and filming. of course, I'd bring my cam and as many tapes as I could stuff in the ship.

the point of going so far away would be to really experience true isolation. if I am going to be banished from my home world, I would want to see nothing that ever resembles it again. I wouldn't want to be able to see earth, or our solar system. I wouldn't want to be reminded of the times that were, or perceive the times that would be. I would want to be completely alone, forgotten by everything intelligent. I would want to leave and forget everyone I ever loved and everyone that ever loved me.

http://ipower.ning.com/netneutrality2

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/usermovies/185319.html?playlist=featured

the above video is a good video about net neutrality, which has been and continues to be a major issue in today's information technology age. what is even worse is that most people my age (generation x, or whatever you want to call it) aren't even aware that this battle directly affects their world, as well as our fundamental rights as citizens of the USA (read: free speech).

essentially, net neutrality is the unbiased presentation of any and all content by persons of the internet. it is being able to find whatever content is on the internet whenever you want, and have it presented to you as is. companies who control the distribution of internet, like ISPs and communications giants like telecom want to increase priority for content that THEY deem more important, and that goes against net neutrality. if a company decides what content to prioritize, what is to stop them from aligning the priorities of content with an ideology that is similar to theirs?

example: some company that provides internet to a community is ran by a board of mormons. because the mormon religion does not allow for gay marriage, or gay rights, they decide that their service will load anti-gay marriage and anti-gay sites faster and more efficiently for their customers. pro-gay and pro-gay marriage sites will load much slower, or won't load at all.

net neutrality is what prevents ISPs and companies from doing this. many of these companies want to abolish net neutrality, and the government is actually considering it. so please, support net neutrality and spread the word to defend it. there's facebook groups and everything.