Lindsey and I were at The Bad Waitress and this network showed up for about an hour.  Just when I thought I’d seen everthing.  Wireless porn.

Goodness Mc-Gracious!

I believe that honesty is the best policy.  Unless it’s better to lie.  Then that’s the best policy.  So, in the sake of being perfectly honest (so long as it behooves me to do so, this is what is on the up in up in the down south town of Iowa City, Iowa)

In short, things in Iowa City have gone utterly crazy pants as of late.  Infact, things are currently SO CRAZY-pants, that I have not spent a weekend in Iowa City since school has started.  That’s right.  Between trips to Grinnell and random flights that transport me in the heaven that is the Pacific Northwest (I went to Seattle, which I’ll write about later), poor little Iowa City has been unable to contain me.

So what’re we up to?  Good question.

Sam and I are producting, writing, directing and starring in our new pilot, called “Best Roomates Forever!”, which is infact a remake of our pilot last year, which was called “BEST ROOMATES FOREVER!”  You might say that it’s the same title, and charachters, but believe you me, this new pilot is the best pilot ever.

I have a radio show from 1-4 am on Fridays on KRUI, oh, you know, 89.7, the Iowa City Sound Alternative.  I’m terribly awkward on the air, mostly because I lack confidence with the whole thing.  Bleh.  You can listen off the website if you’re up that late.  I also take requests, that’s right!  You can tell me what you want to hear, and I may or may not be able to play it for you! AHA!

I also have a new job working for the College Of Liberal Arts and Sciences as an IT Support Staff member.  I fix things, break things, and on most days, reformat things.  That or sit arround and do homework.  Either way it takes up 20 hours of my week.  For 8 dollars an hour, I’ve no complaints.

Capoeira’s going well.  I got my Green Rope this weekend (I can’t really think of an equivilent belt in TKD or whatever).

Classes.  Guh.  2 tests next week.  Plus my research project is kinda killing me.  Mostly because I don’t do it, and then have to rush to catch up.  The fault is mine truthfully.

I’m lookin’ forward to Architecture in Helsinki, ’cause hopefully Benny and Billy will come with, and fun times will ensue.  It’s gonna be swell, I’m sure!

That’s it for this lame status update, and I have FUN FUN FUN stories from my trip to Seattle that I shall tell this weekend.  They’re naughty.  Real Naughty.

Man, is this an old picture. I’ve been filling in more squares in my sketchbook. I think I’ll post a compilation of those soon.

Good things:
– Mark Mallman was by definition the most rockin-est concert I’ve ever been to.
– I just ate some delicious dinner consisting of pasta, pasta sauce, peppers, onions, tomatoes, and chicken.
– I’m probably never going to have homework in my Lighting class.
– I found Joel’s Tetris DS and started playing it again. It is still the best game ever made.
– Bill and I (maybe Joel) will be down at least twice during October. Once on the weekend of the 5th for the Architecture in Helsinki concert and also to hold auditions for my movie. Once during the weekend of the 20th to actually SHOOT my movie (holycrapimsonervousihopeicangetitdoneinoneweekend).
– It’s been around 55º this past week.
– The Black and White ball is this Friday.

Bad things:
– We won’t get to see Patrick because he will be in the land of schoolgirls and mobilesuits.
– It’s getting warmer outside.
– I have to get up ridiculously early on Saturday to go assist in the shooting of exterior locations for my internship.
– The Black and White ball is the night before Saturday. Staying up late does not mix well with getting up early.
– I ate too much dinner and now I an uncomfortably full.

The new iTunes is crazy, but their movies are not formatted for TVs.

Mark Mallman

Originally uploaded by howwastheshow.

ok guys, for those not in the Em Pee El Ess area, you should know that we all had our faces rocked off by Mark Mallman at First Ave. on Saturday night. Thanks to the genius that is flickr I have found some pretty sweet pictures of the event, taken by “howwastheshow”. Do you remember this guy, boys? He was walking around all night with his fancypants camera.

For those who don’t know Mr. Mallman, why not hop over to his website and listen to one of his way cool songs? “Substances” pops up in it’s own window and plays all the way through, unlike the ones on the main page.

In other news I now kinda know how to use the Children’s Theatre ticket office ticketing system – did you know that there is actual software out there JUST for ticketing? The one they’re using is called Patron’s Edge. If I wanted to, I could go in there and give myself 200 free tickets! Or more! madness. However, I don’t think I will be working at the ticket office because it takes up too much time. I have given the Children’s Theatre enough of my time, dudes.

ALSO today I raised my hand, virtually. AND the new iTunes is fun.

As the title implies I will be leaving for tokyo in exactly a week from today. Needless to say I am terrified. I am not ready whatsoever, and all of a sudden being in a place where I can’t understand 50-70% of what people are saying terrifies me. Plus I don’t know anyone who is going with me. It will be sort of strange to start all over in a new school, but not be able to communicate effectively with others. All I can say is, I hope deadpan hyperirony humor is a splash over there. Otherwise, I might get lynched.

Sam, Katie, Hannah, Emma (not SHAMBOT!’s emma), and I went to the ethiopian place in IC again. I ordered the same thing again, and it was delicious (again). I would highly recommend the restaurant, and get the Kay Wat, it’s pretty spicy though.

I’ll try to keep you guys posed with pictures and interesting stories when I’m there. However, right now nothing exciting is happening. So I will leave you with a quote from my main man, Justin Timberlake. I feel it sums up the extent of my existence.

“I’m bringing sexy back! YEAH!”

Ben has inspired to me to write about classes. I might write about all of them in the future, but right now I want to talk about my big class: ILLUSTRATION THREEEE(threethreethree)

long story short, we were supposed to have Mr. Awesome Illustration Teacher who everybody raves about but I have never had. However, Mr. AIT has been bumped up to Design Department Chair Head, which is awesome because it means Illustration will rule the school, BUT consequently he isn’t teaching our class anymore. Enter Mrs. Student Quality. Mrs. SQ, I really hate to say it, is about just as good as our class, maybe even worse then a few of the superstars. Granted she is older and more experienced in the illustration world, but I mean… it’s worrying. However, class has not been horrendous and I am not totally upset – yet.

What I am a little bit upset about is that I decided to use acrylic for my first final illustration. I have not used acrylic ALL SUMMER and it’s scaring the bejesus out of me right now, especially with Bill “The Fancypants” Ferenc sitting right next to me. I like the piece fine right now, but something’s bound to go wrong soon. It’s sitting in my studio right now, I kind of hope it doesn’t get vandalized.

Which brings us to the drawing at the top of this post. Hello, it is a watecolor piece from the summer that I did using Joelie’s kinda poopy watercolors (I bet you didn’t even know I used them, joel!). It is calling me back. Winsor and Newton are both crying my name over and over in my sleep. Next illustration I am SO doing watercolor.

Also I have come up with a FANTASTIC project proposal for whenever I decide to apply for the Ireland program. More on that later.

This:

Also, I’ll give everyone the lowdown on my classes this semester.

(In order of appearance)

Advanced Lighting (Mondays from 1pm-6pm): Nerdfest 2k6 over here. We’ve only had one day so far due to yesterday being labor day and all. Our teacher is a first time teacher, I believe. First time at MCAD, anyway, so he’s a little awkward which is fine. This class is pretty much going to be a cinematography class. What that means is that we are learning lighting for MOVIES. This is unlike my last lighting class in which we learned how to light for photos. The two are vastly different and I’m excited to learn about it. That said, there are an awful lot of photo majors in the class, which leads me to believe that they will either drop the class soon, or learn nothing useful from it. The first class was a lot of review of lights and terms that everyone pretty much knew, but it was nice to have a refresher. Since the MCAD lighting equipment is pretty limited, our teacher is going to try and rent grip trucks for nearly every class. Grip trucks are huge trucks with an immense amount of lighting equipment inside. We used one for the music video shoot this summer for SES and I was dumbfounded by what was on the truck because I had no idea what most of it was. I learned a little about it, but now I’m ready to learn a LOT about it, and this class will be awesome. Also: there was really no talk of homework in this class, which I am both excited and confused about. We’ll see how that pans out.

Survey of Film History (Mondays 6:30pm-9pm): This is exactly how it sounds. We go to class, we watch a movie or excerpts from a movie(s) and we talk about it afterwards. This is coupled with online readings and of course the final test and film analysis paper. It’s pretty straightforward, but I like the teacher and it seems interesting enough. Hoorah.

Intermediate Film (Tuesdays 1pm-6pm): Oh man. The big mamma of the semester. This is a year-long class; I make one movie this semester, and one movie next semester. No more making 4 movies per-semester, this time we go through the process nice and slow, constantly improving and refining as we go. The goal this semester is to make a film (16mm color film, 5 minutes about) with non-sync sound (which pretty much just means no dialogue) and it has to be GOOD. Judging from the past Intermediate film classes, a lot of people just don’t step it up to the level of having four times as long to work on a film. I’m certainly going to, and I hope my class will, too, because there are some good filmmakers in there. Of course, there are some bad ones, too. Really bad ones. Mostly bad ones. I’ll post the script for my film later, because I have yet to write it! You guys can critique me and whatnot, because I’ll need it.

Workshops (Tuesdays/Thursdays 6:30pm-9pm): I’m taking three 5-week workshops in place of a studio class (much like last semester). The one I’m in now is Final Cut Pro. I really didn’t think I was going to learn a lot about it, but just in the past three class sessions, I’ve learned more than I did in the two or three years I thought I knew it. It’s a complex little program. The other two workshops are: After Effects, which is just gonna be like motion graphics and stuff like that, just an overview of the application. Also, Special Effects. The special effects workshop, contrary to popular belief, is going to be analog special effects. That means: set building, blood squirting, camera tricks, that kind of thing. I’m real excited for that.

New Worlds (Wednesdays 9:30am-Noon): The full title for this class is “New Worlds: Creating Altered Realities in Sci-Fi and Fantasy Writing” and OH MY GOD is it the NERDIEST CLASS I’ve EVER BEEN IN. Honestly, the first 30 minutes of the last class consisted of people going back and forth talking about whether they liked Ring World or Dragonlance or some other fantasy book series better. Unfortunately, that’s what this class is ABOUT. I can’t complain about the content because that’s what’s IN THE NAME OF THE COURSE. Whatever, I’m sure it’ll be a fine writing class.

T.A. for Intro to Film (Thursdays 1pm-6pm): Basically I help set up the class, sit around during class, and help end the class. It’s pretty boring, but I’m getting full credit for it so I can’t complain.

Work at Accounting (Fridays 9am-5pm): I’m getting all my workstudy hours in on my free day from class. It’s an easy job where I basically man the window, see what students need, and get them to the right people in our office. It’s good homework time, which I will use most definitely. Lots of alphabetizing.

So there you have it! My weekly schedule in all its glory. In addition to this, I’m doing an internship helping with a documentary about urban homes planning around the Twin Cities! Fun!

Whoops! I had made this last week and forgot to post it on this blog: a Shambot! Tribute

That was for my motion graphics class. We learned some basics of After Effects and had the rest of the class time to experiment and play and learn as we pleased. For homework we were to choose a company logo that appealed to us and make storyboards for today. Then, we animated them!

[UPDATE: Storyboard link fixed]

I’m breaking the ties with my “analog” posts to create my first digital post. This is the front of a postcard I created for my graphic design class, my first completed assignment for the new artistic school year. We had to incorporate text with imagery and create a unified theme. I guess my theme is mind and body, specifically the hand. My brain comes up with the idea, but my hand has to create the visual, which relates to the front of this postcard (also for graphic design):

I really hope Kindra (the instructor) likes them. She’s a tough gal when it comes to grades, so I’m a little worried for this semester. I also have a digital illustration class to go along with graphic design, so these next few months will be spent staring a monitor for hours at a time. I’ll write more about my classes later. Perhaps everyone here could enlighten each other on which classes we are taking? I would like to know everyone else’s schedules.