I told you about these moments, but I thought I’d share them with you…have fun, and enjoy!
Will Farrell and Jack Black’s Oscar Song
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Sound Editing
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Ellen Says Hi to Martin Scorcese
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Ellen says Hi to Clint Eastwood
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Seinfeld at the Oscars
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I told you that was good.
I really enjoyed watching the Oscars last night. Not only was it a very classy event, but my DVR just made the evening go so much more quickly as I fast-forwarded through commercials and speeches I didn’t really care to hear. It was fabulous.
A few highlights for me:
-Ellen Degeneres handing a screenplay to Martin Scorcese and making Steven Speilberg take a picture of her and Clint Eastwood with her digital camera. Hilarious.
-Will Ferrell and Jack Black’s song about the comedian being the saddest man at the Oscars.
-Jerry Seinfeld presenting the best documentary category. That man will perhaps forever be my favorite funny-dude.
-Steve Carell and Greg Kinnear were also pretty funny, as well as the girl duo from The Devil Wears Prada (actually, the funny part was the look on Meryl Streep’s face-in character from the movie-during their presentation).
-Those cool tumbling people that kept making shapes behind the screen that are seemingly impossible no matter how flexible you are.
Congrats to all the winners (I’m sure a lot of them read my blog) and I guess now I’ll watch The Departed.
On an unrelated note, I’m finding it increasingly difficult to keep myself organized. It’s not a problem with calendars and such, it’s more a problem of keeping track of everything I have to do for the 97 jobs I’m doing. My brain is on overload, and I have this compulsive thing that makes me go on a rampage to make at least SOME order out of the chaos that surrounds me. So this weekend I did about 12 loads of laundry (not exaggerating). I also cleared a bunch of decorative things off my desk at home and boxed them up, again to make a little more order.
I also sat down for about 10 minutes at home last night and just made an extensive list of things to do. There’s about 30 or more things on there, some large tasks, some small-but all equally important. This was really helpful. Now I can use this list to aid me in accomplishing a bunch of stuff I need to do, and help me feel a sense of gratification when crossing things off the list when completed. Yay for lists.
I got a great “The Way I See It” blurb on my Starbucks cup this morning, written by former mayor of NYC, Rudy Giuliani:
“Leadership requires relentless preparation. You cannot predict every possible challenge. But if you prepare for those challenges that you can predict, you will be better equipped to handle all problems, even the unexpected ones.”
I cannot begin to tell you how true that is.
EDIT ADD: My APU email address is down. It should be up sometime today hopefully, but if you want to contact me, do it @mac.com or hotmail.com
Mike is right-30 Rock is so funny, but it’s still not as funny as The Office.
San Diego was fantastic. It is super fun to go back to the program I built up and be able to direct those great folks again. We are loving the weekly adventure!
And Erica G, welcome to xangaland! Erica says she’s coming up one weekend for a Nertz night, so all you LA players better get practicing, ‘cause I’m going to whoop you again-and I can’t WAIT!!
We watched American Idol from the last two nights. Ugh. Why am I so bored? We haven’t even watched 24 yet…and all I kept thinking to myself (as the hours and hours of meaningless drivel kept pumping out of my TV) is “I want to watch LOST!”. I mean, this show is weird, the judges are so contradictory sometimes. Seriously–”That was bland. You didn’t take a risk. It was too safe.” and then they say “That song was too big for you.” Like taking the risk they knew they were supposed to take was just a bad idea in the end. Geez. It just doesn’t make sense to me. Just freaking decide instead of being retarded about it. Dumb American Idol. I hate it. I can’t tell you why, I’m just bored of it. It’s constantly the same, (as is much of the reality TV). The same show over and over again, every season. I’m done with AI. Life it too short to fight your body’s desire to go to sleep in order to watch a show that bores you to tears. Christy, you can watch it without me and give me the 10-minute recap later. That’s all there is to that show anyways, about ten good minutes worth, stretched into two horrible, endless hours.
That said, I’ll definitely tune in to see David Hasslehoff cry again…oh, and I DO love Chris Sligh.
Another thought that makes what the judges say really off–the performance sounds COMPLETELY different in the studio live than it does coming across our TV sets. The judges hear a live mix in the studio and judge that, while we hear the fantastic mixed version coming through our controlled medium. This is why sometimes the judges will say things that are totally off from what we hear. Christy and Mike know first-hand since they attended a dress-rehearsal of the show last year. There’s got to be a way to remedy that problem.
I finally did our taxes on Tuesday morning. Our return is going to be smaller than I anticipated, mostly due to the fact that I did a lot of freelance work that I had to report via those awful 1099 forms. Funny thing about the whole thing is that I’m pretty sure my preparer was about 85 years old–no exaggeration. The paradox of thought going through my head was “He can’t possibly be up on all the new tax laws since he’s so old” and “Well, at least I know he has plenty of experience since he’s been doing it so long” and other thoughts like that…ahhh, but I amuse myself…
In other news, I turned in a portfolio of my arranging and orchestration work to a TV/Film composer this week for review. One of my professors emailed a bunch of commercial music students letting know of this opportunity. She said that the orchestrator that was working with this composer was getting too busy, so the composer was looking for a NEW orchestrator and was open to reviewing work from the Comm Music Masters students. Awesome. I’m there.
We’ll see if anything comes of it, but I DID work pretty hard to select appropriate stuff and update/facelift my professional résumé.
Another cool thing I found out this week is that APU has decided to bring back the School of Music traveling Summer Small Groups. They will be re-forming two groups to go out this summer, and one of my friends over here is going to be involved in the re-forming process and wants your input. So, if you’ve ever been on a small group–go give your feedback.
EDIT ADD: So I was a little sad to hear from a friend about this, but then I read this, and it made me feel a little bit better.
Studio 60 is one of those shows that Christy and I love, because yes, it IS smart. The writing is impeccable. It is also a great show for us to record on our DVR and bust out on a Friday or Saturday or something. I know it’s not super popular, but I hope it sticks around.
You can see some pictures I uploaded from the wedding here. I didn’t take a million, but a few. I’m not a great picture taker, just ask Chris & Melody–I took pictures at their engagement, and they were pretty shabby…
On a related note, two CRAZY and frightening things happened to us today:
1) It was really windy at Karen’s wedding. We were scheduled to sing “The Prayer” (why is this such a popular wedding song?). We were not comfortable trying to do the song memorized, so we used music. During the soundcheck, our music was kind of flying all over the place due to the wind, but we got some binder clips and figured we’d be OK. So we get up to sing, and as Christy is about 30 seconds into the song, I notice that the pages aren’t really right. At first I thought she had turned two pages and skipped ahead in the music, but as I kept looking, I discovered that the music went from page 4, to page 7. It was only at this point that I FREAKED OUT. My part was coming up, and I do NOT have this song memorized. But we continued on…and I have no idea how the lyrics came out, but they did…mostly. We were pretty much petrified, though. Thankfully, page 7 came none too soon. I also made a track for it myself, and it turned out pretty cool. Yay Logic!
2) On the way home, a strange thing happened on the 57 North. We were traveling northbound and come upon the 57 and 60 interchange (where all the traffic usually stems from). It is at this point, right at Diamond Bar, that they have been doing construction on the freeway for at least 150 years, seemingly to no avail. Well tonight, my friends, I accidentally got sucked onto a new carpool ramp at this place. It was really freaky because we have driven that route a million times and had never encountered this road. It was so scary that we both were questioning where we were. What is this? Did I just go through a wormhole? What street am I on? Should I get over?
And we saw the cars in front of us having the same reaction. One of the guys swerved over to the normal part of the road, and then changed his mind (it was too late) and swerved back.
I had actually seen this part of the road being built, but the last time I saw it, the end of it just dropped off into nothing. It was incomplete. I actually saw our cars jumping off the ramp in my head, like my life was flashing before my eyes or something. And having the fear that this road might not actually go anywhere–was terrifying. We were stunned. And for the eternity of 60 seconds that we were on that connecting car-pool ramp, we didn’t breathe in horror of plummeting to our inevitable demise.
Thankfully, it did connect with the rest of the road, and did in fact bypass all the congestion. The only problem was trying to merge 5 lanes to the right in the span of a mile to continue north on the 57 and not get stuck on the 60.
All in all, it was a pretty eventful day.
Stephen King: amazing author. We’re talking over 60 books published, an annual income of approximately $40 million (est. 1999), and America’s quintessential scary man.
So what’s he doing nowadays?
Well, one thing he’s doing is writing a one-page column on pretty much whatever he wants in EW Magazine on a biweekly basis. This week he wrote a very poignant article about Anna Nicole Smith. It’s well worth the read, and I promise it’s not scary…
Stephen King’s books I’ve read:
-The Stand
-Rose Madder
-Desperation
-The Regulators
-The Eyes of the Dragon
-The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
-Dark Tower I (soooo boring)
-The Green Mile
-Different Seasons (4 short stories, including The Shawshank Redemption)
I fell in love with his writing back in high school, but never really touched on some of the classic SK. Then, after a while, I just stopped. I’m not sure if I lost interest, or just time. I was much less motivated to read his books, and partly, I think I didn’t want to keep filling my head with his stories. They WERE a little creepy…I’m so over that…
Sometimes I feel like a chicken with my head cut off. Running around everywhere doing stuff, but not really with my brain…and unfortunately, my brain is split up between three places. And when I say three places, I mean my three different computers…my PC at work, my G5 at home, and my MacBookPro. My two apple (and awesome) computers will sync with each other in regards to emails and contacts and such, but not with my work PC–and that’s where I spend the bulk of my day. So I’ll get an email about something and put it on my calendar at work, but not at home…all that to say that even though my plate is full and overflowing, I don’t feel burnt out. I’m just truly challenged to find and maintain balance in my life with physical fitness, the Lord, work, family, sleep, and all of that…
sometimes I achieve it, and sometimes I do not.
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Something that stood out to me today:
Psalm 37:34
Wait for the LORD
and keep his way.
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Alright, I’ve been thinking about some decisions–
1) I will keep my laptop open next to me at work so I can keep it current with calendar events.
2) I will continue to strive for balance in my life.
3) I will run more, as opposed to working out at the gym.
4) I will not let TV stand in the way or inhibit my quest for balance.
5) I will eat much less sweets.
As far as the gym goes–I find that I get a good workout there, but that I need to run around the streets of Covina more often than work out at the gym. I can barely run a mile right now, and that is just sad. I can spend half an hour on one of those elliptical machines, but who cares about that? I need to run. Plus, if I run, then at least I will get ready at home, and Christy really prefers I do that instead of just leaving for the day at 5:30 in the morning–and I’ll see my kids in the morning if I’m getting ready at home. So, I’ll still go to the gym, just less often.
Lost was great. I like Desmond, and his backstory was intruiging.
Also-San Diego was great. It was fabulous to be there again. I think we are going to enjoy the next 7 or 8 Tuesdays very much!
EDIT ADD: Looks to me like google missed something their Valentine’s page…
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Heroes continues to rock Monday nights with another fantastic and intriguing episode. It may be my favorite show on Mondays (sorry Jack Bauer). Funny thing is, I wasn’t even going to watch the show. I saw the first episode or two with Christy and I thought is was contrived and overdone. I was about to give up, but Mike convinced me otherwise. I watched a few episodes on my iPod while working out, and then I became totally hooked. I love it. I think Hiro is my favorite dude…
24 was OK.
San Diego, here we come!
Also–I just found this shocking and compelling article on how to talk to your kids. It’s incredible, and probably explains a lot about why this guy I knew growing up that scored 1600 on his SATs (and is quite brilliant) was last seen working in a coffee shop in Twain Harte. It’s really crazy. If you have kids, or ever plan on having them, you should check it out. Thank goodness my dad was such a hard worker and built into us a great work ethic.
Last week in APU’s newspaper “The Clause” I read one of the most lame articles I’ve ever come across. Below is the heinous article in it’s entirety, along with a GREAT letter to the editor that was published in today’s edition of “The Clause” in rebuttal.
IF ONLY LIFE WAS EASIER
ARIEL FORTUNE | news editor
I messed up my
chapel card again. I filled in the “zero” bubble instead of the “two” on my
chapel card. One little mistake and my entire existence at this chapel is in
jeopardy. I lean over to ask my best friend if she has an eraser but I see a
chapel patrolman eye me down. There goes that idea.
Busted.
I think to myself of various ways I can shift around my schedule, leave early
from one of my two jobs or pay someone to attend chapel for me in the next two
days. I cannot miss another chapel this week.
Do you ever wish APU just made your day a little bit easier?
As a freshman, I was very ill one weekend but was unable to receive any true
clarity for my sickness. By the time I was able to locate the Health Center
I had contemplated turning back. Something about the sign labeled “Office of
Study Abroad” just did not strike me as a place for getting shots or taking
your temperature.
As college students, we carry a very heavy load. For many of us the constant
vigor of classes, two jobs and an indispensable social life leave us no room
for fooling around. While we cannot decrease the homework load or simply refill
our wallets with cash we do not have, it seems there has to be something APU
can do to make our days more hassle-free.
“There should be a gondola between East and West,” senior international
business major Kyle Bishop said. “Or a zip line if that costs too much.”
Granted, we could also play the Top 40 every night on the trolley or serve
filet mignon and crème brulee in the Den, but this is unlikely to happen.
However, there are a few changes APU could look into, besides creating a lengthy
water canal for couples to rendezvous between classes. Instead of taking your
girlfriend out to dinner, you could simply ask her if she wants to go to West.
Young couples could celebrate their engagement by riding hand in hand on the
gondola down Citrus and over Foothill. During Spring, we would probably need
two gondolas.
We could employ the friendly individuals at the front gate on East as gondola
guides. I always get so confused driving into the front gate. Where is the
lollipop with that wave? Why not hand out some candy?
Speaking of food, why is it that lunch and dinner at the cafeteria seem so
expensive? I mean, have you ever forgotten your identification card? It is
like, “Let me see your I.D. or fork over your life savings.”
“I think there should be some way for us to just purchase the salad bar,”
Bishop said.
Perhaps we need a monitor where you can manually touch a button labeled “salad
bar” and enter your I.D. number. We could fingerprint everyone like they do at
local tanning salons. Rarely do students go anywhere without their hands.
But getting past the front may not be your biggest problem. It is when you get
in to find there is no chocolate milk and no bagels. You consider the fries but
decide against it when you recall earlier last week when you squirted ketchup
all over your new shirt by trying to open a million little ketchup packets. By
the time you were able to get a decent amount of ketchup on your plate, you
were fatigued, no longer hungry and filthy. Why does someone not do us all a
favor and get a big ketchup dispenser like the ones at McDonald’s.
Eventually you realize the ketchup dilemma is going to have to wait because you
have a class in Duke at 1:05. You have to hurry. At 1:45 you are still standing
in front of room 224. You step to the classroom on the right and it reads 287.
You need room 234. What is going on? Perhaps if we stood long enough the
classroom will appear like the Marketplace did in Harry Potter. Why not just
label the doors one, two, three and four?
“They go from one number to another and you have no idea how it makes sense.
You can just count on getting lost,” senior applied health major Laura Heiner
said.
Finally you are able to locate your classroom and sit down. Within minutes you
begin pulling up your sleeves and rubbing ice cubes across your forehead. With
the vast temperature ranges in the classrooms it seems that your motto these
days is “Biology hot, Spanish not.” In Biology you could use a cup of ice-cold
lemonade and a couple grape popsicles but in Spanish you better bring a couple
sweaters and a solar-powered heat generator next to you. There has to be
something to make our days easier.
“We should install mirrors on the corners of the Shire and behind Trinity for
safety,” senior youth ministries major Kyle Cummins said.
Given the amount of ailing children attempting to make it in time to the Health Center,
it may be a good idea.
Small improvements such as these could save us a minute here or a minute there.
I could use a handful of fries without the ketchup disasters and I definitely
would not mind riding a zip line to West. So APU, how about making my life
easier?
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Dear Editor,
Perhaps it was meant to be funny, perhaps a little bit of exaggeration was used
to make the point, but the point made in last week’s “If Only Life Was Easier”
was perhaps the most self-centered and warped I have ever heard made in the
Clause. It was outright complaining, and the humor did not, by any means, make
it less inappropriate.
Especially in the midst of Economic Justice Week when we learned in the
“Inequality in Education” forum on Monday night about inner-city classrooms
that don’t even have enough chairs for students to sit in, when we learned at
the ELI Walk-a-Thon about the children that walk for two hours one way to get
to the school that ELI built in Africa, when we learned at the “Black Gold”
screening about the man in Ethiopia who would sell the shirt off of his back if
it would help to build a schoolhouse for his children to be educated in –
especially in the midst of all this truth about the general state of education
in this world, I am absolutely shocked that we have allowed ourselves to
complain about the facilities we have and to whine for better. To do so is to
mock God’s gifts to us and to prove ourselves the most ignorantly
self-centered, self-indulgent people on the planet.
I read this article and thought of the children I met in Ecuador this summer
who learn in one-room schoolhouses that are roofed with corrugated iron, furnished
with splintery wooden desks (and too few of those), and baked in the nearly
unbearably humid Amazonian sun. And I thought of the children in the rural town
of Carrerras, Ecuador who walk a fair distance
three times a week in wind that chaps their cheeks just to receive a lunch of
white rice and beets at the Christian school. I thought of the billions who
desperately need food and health care and who desire education of any kind, and
thought what a sin it is that we cannot be content to have a cafeteria, a
health center, and classrooms at all – let alone a cafeteria with choices and
so many classrooms that we get lost finding them.
We have lost perspective. We have lost the ability to look beyond ourselves and
be thankful. It is not wrong to receive the blessings we have been given, but
it is wrong to suggest that we have not been given enough. It is not even wrong
to bring up preferences and safety issues to the administration, but it is
entirely wrong to incite fellow students to complain. A joke can make
selfishness seem ok.
So take a sweater to your cold classroom and be thankful that you have air
conditioning. Walk the half-mile to West Campus and be thankful that you don’t
have to walk two hours for an education. And if you get ketchup on your new
shirt, be thankful that you have forty others. Be thankful.
Let’s open our eyes and stop being frivolous and self-centered. If you don’t
think your life is easy enough, the fault lies in your perspective, not in a
lack of blessing.
Sincerely,
Amy S*******
Senior, English major
I’ve been stuck in this Psalm for a long time. I can’t read past it, I just keep coming back. It’s like mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving dinner–you know there is other food at the table, but you just don’t want to eat anything else. So you keep saying “Pass the mashed potatoes, please!” (although in real life, that’s really not healthy…it’s like Brad Pitt once said, “My two greatest enemies–Rachel Greene and complex carbohydrates…”. But I digress…)
This Psalm has some incredibly powerful stuff. Words that speak life, and speak power to the name of God. I really believe that in the first part of this Psalm there are four key things–key action verbs for every Christ-follower. Read the passage here, then let’s take a look…
1) TRUST in the Lord (v3)
2) DELIGHT yourself in the Lord (v4)
3) COMMIT your way to the Lord (v5)
4) BE STILL before the Lord (v7)
I’d also quickly like to point out that the phrase (and another important action here) “Do not fret” (or worry) is mentioned three times just in these eight verses.
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We’re such worry-warts. We’re such control-freaks. Where did we inherit this idea that we can actually control our destiny? OK, forget destiny–where did we get the idea that we can control what is going to happen to us today? Or we can control the situations around us? Who is feeding us the garbage that as long as we think of everything, we’re OK–we’ll do just fine? Or that we have the power to control the universe? Man, I gotta say, sometimes I listen to the things Nathaniel says and I wonder, “Where did he learn that?” He’ll give me the exact details of how to set up the Nintendo before we play, down to “plug in my paddle, then plug in your paddle, then turn up the volume, and sit down here…” and I’m thinking “DUDE–I’ve been playing Nintendo since the 80’s–and you don’t even know what that means! Or yesterday we were eating at Boston Market and he got up to go to the bathroom, instructing Christy and I– “Don’t eat my food, and don’t let Noah touch my food, or take my fork. I’ll be right back, but don’t let Noah get my spoon or eat my macaroni and cheese, and my cornbread, cause I’m going to eat the rest when I get back, OK?”. Then ten minutes later when he went to the bathroom, he gave us the same spiel again…
…and he learned it from me.
OUCH.
Daily, I need to learn to give up my natural tendencies to be a control-freak. I need to not worry about circumstances that are not in my control–which is pretty much EVERYTHING except my own attitude. Yeah, you cannot control what goes on around you, but you CAN control your own attitude, and the person that can maintain a positive attitude in the midst of grave circumstances has truly found joy and contentment.
Trust, Delight, Commit, Be Still.
-Trust in the Lord
-Delight in the Lord
-Commit your way to the Lord
-Be still before the Lord
Now that tastes good…
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LOST was great. Welcome back-I’m so glad you’re with us again Sawyer, Jack, Kate, and the Others…a fantastic start to the spring season. I loved it.
OK–the baby thing. Ethan was trying to steal Claire’s baby–now we find out that they tricked that chick into coming to do research to try and impregnate people on the island…ooooo, this is getting good. Good story stuff.
This blog took a long time to write…
If you know me, you know I’m not a sports fan at all. I enjoy playing some sports, but not the popular American sports. I enjoy playing soccer, racquetball (just started that one), and maybe a couple others–but I don’t enjoy playing basketball or football like the majority of folks out there.
I also don’t like watching sports. I don’t know why, I just don’t. But today was the Super Bowl, and everybody watches the Super Bowl. It’s like going to church on Easter, or wrapping presents at Christmas–everybody does it. So we watched it…kinda. God bless my DVR. We actually (turn away die-hards) fast-forwarded through most all of the game and just stopped to watch the commercials and the half-time show.
What!?!?!
Well, it was awesome. I’ve never enjoyed a Super Bowl so much. We just went through the nonsense (ahem, the game) and stopped to watch the commercials that companies literally spent millions to make and put out for todays event. I’m pretty sure that most of them were for beer, which tells me something about football fans…
I was actually also hoping to see a friend of mine that filmed a Bud Light commercial a couple of months ago. He wasn’t sure if it was going to be for Thanksgiving or for Super Bowl, but it wasn’t shown at Thanksgiving so we were looking for it today. We didn’t see it. 
A couple of notes:
-Billy Joel singing the national anthem was an intriguing idea, but it fell a little flat. I love Billy Joel, he’s one of my all-time favorite artists. But it sounded odd. Maybe it was the rain, (which was all over the piano) or maybe it was something else, I don’t know. But it was not fantastic. It was just what it was, Billy’s voice doing the national anthem.
-Prince’s half-time show was better than I thought it would be. In stark contrast to Billy Joel, I’m not a fan of Prince. It’s not necessarily that I don’t like him, I just haven’t heard a lot of his tunes and he looks a little weird. That said, it was kind of cool looking and I didn’t want to turn it off, so for me it was better than the strange artist on SNL last night (which I did skip after the first song).
-Once we reached the show in real time (unable to fast-forward it anymore) we just paused it and played Super Mario World on our vintage SNES and waited until we could do some more forwarding.
Yay for fast-forwarding the Super Bowl!!!
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This is for all you crazy TV watchers that are addicted to so many shows that you don’t know what to do…
