I’m sitting in the cafe watching a tiny bit of Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. Christy was watching it for kicks while I made a few photocopies at church…and now she’s sleeping soundly while it plays on. Kneau Reeves is ridiculous in this movie. I can’t believe becomes immortalized as Neo only 11 years later…

 I am grateful for wonderful friends.

Tonight we hung out with Chris & Melody + Steve & Karen and played some Catchphrase. Boys against girls. And of course, the boys won 3 times in a row.
We.
Were.
Undefeated.

It was a ton of fun. I laughed like I hadn’t in a long time, and it was great to just relax for a few minutes and forget about everything that is stressing us out. We have so much to be grateful for, but tonight, I’m grateful for friends. Wonderful, wonderful friends.

Two Things:

1) Received a call tonight from a composer I had done some work for about a month ago. It turns out that I didn’t do as good of a job as I thought I did…well…I mean, I sucked. It turns out that I don’t know ProTools as well I thought I did, and I didn’t check my work as thourougly as I should have. Not great news, but I expected as much since I didn’t get a call back from him for a month. The really unfortunate thing was that I wasn’t in town to go back and try to fix my mistakes. The session for this gig was on the same weekend we went to Nashville, so I was already in Twain Harte dropping off the kiddies when he called to tell me I screwed up. Usually I like to fix the mistakes I make and correct my errors whenever possible, so I felt helpless being seven hours away (and about to get on a plane…) when I heard that I needed to come back and re-do my work.
 Yikes! So that was a little bit of a downer…

2) The Happening
M. Night Shyamalan. Currently one of the most brilliant storytellers and filmmakers. The Sixth Sense, Signs, The Village…all brilliant. This guy literally ranks among greats like J.J. Abrams (Lost, Alias) and Steven Spielberg (E.T., Indiana Jones, Schindler’s List) as a modern magic-maker when it comes to film.
This movie…not so much…

I’m used to the abstract ideas and plotlines, but this was a little “out there” for me. I even jived with the Lady in the Water story about narfs and otherworldly creatures…but The Happening was never quite as sure of itself as it was in the first five minutes. The first few scenes are magnificently horrible to watch (there’s a bit of killing…primarily people killing themselves), but the morbid concept never really pays off in a way that leaves the audience satisfied.
I am a pretty loyal fan when it comes to someone I really like, and I have stayed through thick-and-thin with “Night”. This just seemed a little thin.

On the other hand–it was scary, in a thrilling way. If you’re looking for a good scare, this movie is a lot less harmful than most movies out right now that are thrilling or scary.

Final thoughts:
Being a musician is hard. Being pretty much any kind of artist is hard. I have a lot to learn…
The Happening didn’t pay off like I was hoping, but it’s not horrible. There are some unforgettable moments, but plenty of forgettable ones too.

I’m really tired…hopefully this makes some sense!!!

Attention all geeks!

There is just so much to cover…where do I even start?

1) iPhone 3G unveiled today.

We’ve all been waiting for it. We knew it was coming…but really? Only $199? AMAZING!
So here’s the deal. There is a TON of new stuff coming out for the iPhone very soon. The kind of stuff that will transform (once again) the industry and undoubtedly catapult the iPhone to the top of the so-called cell phone charts. All new 3rd-party apps, push email and calendar, remote wipe, all kinds of business friendly features to make this thing happen for apple, AND it’s going to run on a network that is almost 3x as fast as the current one. I’m pretty certain iPhone will destroy the blackberry. Apple ran out of them this year…after making 6 million.
But here’s what’s up…for a current iPhone user, all of this will be available with the iPhone 2.0 download–so the new phone will look sleeker and run on the faster network (which, admittedly, is a HUGE draw). But the rest of us won’t be left without all of these cool new features…thank you, Steve Jobs…

2) Lego Indiana Jones for PS2

…rocks! I got it with a Best Buy gift card that APU gave me when I left. Best present ever…and the game is a blast! Nathaniel and I played it for a while today, and we totally kicked butt at it from the GET-GO.
And when he went to sleep he said, “Daddy…don’t play it without me, OK?”.
I didn’t answer…on purpose…muahahaa…

OK FINE, I WON’T PLAY IT….
…(ahhhhhhh…it’s soooooo tempting)…

3) The Happening opens this Friday

M. Night Shyamalan’s next masterpiece.
I’m SO there.
Harkins…Friday night…Time TBA…who wants to go?

Is this what it’s come to? Really?

I seriously just get more and more angry every time I go to get gas these days. It is SO, terribly, horribly frustrating.

I want to never drive again…just so I don’t have to pay this ridiculous price for gas.

SO FRUSTRATING!

Nathaniel is pretty good at video games (you know…to a point).
He catches on to games pretty quickly, and every time we’re at our friends’ house (J & A–our friends with a Wii) we lose ourselves in the magical Nintendo land called Wii.
Some people go to magical lands like Narnia, Middle-Earth, or Care-a-lot…we go to Wii.

And what a magical place it is indeed.

Noah sometimes likes to join in the fun and pretend to play or throw the wii-mote around pushing buttons trying to accomplish whatever task the Wii-zard has set before him. He is usually not all that successful at such attempts.

But today…

Today Noah BEAT Nathaniel at Wii bowling…124 to 103.

Nathaniel was shocked.

So were we.

It went like this:

Nathaniel: “I think Noah beat me…”

Noah: “I WIIIIIIIIIIIIIN!!!!!”

This song has some definite sentimental value. It was the first thing I taught both at MLCS and at Midway…
It also has a timeless message and is pretty much straight-up scripture. Word. It doesn’t get much better than that…

I’m going to read this passage again today…cause with gas prices at freakin $4.39 gallon, I’m stressin’ out.
I never want to drive ANYWHERE ever again. Oh dang…but I have to…and don’t we all?

That said–praise the Lord I work 10 feet from my house, and Christy may have just found a job that is about 1.5 miles from our house…

We still drive to San Diego…so that’s the only time we’ll really feel the burn. OUCH.

Life has been interesting.

The first two weeks of my venture into self-employment/pursuing musical things was slim. I made lots of phone calls…sent lots of emails…and played a lot of Wii (btw–don’t have one of my own…but would love to get one sometime after I pay some bills).
I relaxed, organized myself a tiny bit, and walked out of a highly structured environment into a place where I was absolutely free to do whatever wanted. I’m afraid I was not prepared for that…and I’m still trying to figure out what my “normal” day will look like. Right now I’m playing-it-by-ear a lot…and it’s scary for a type-A personality like myself.

Although, I have to say that I like being my own boss. I mean, who could be a better boss of me than MYSELF?
HAhaha…just kidding.

So the next two weeks of my life were FAR more interesting. I got work! And the last few days have been especially busy–in a really good way. I’m learning a lot and still settling in…and I think it will take me some time to figure out my normal routine–if that will even happen. But now it’s late and I’m not thinking clearly…

Ah–please lift up a prayer for Christy to find a job. She needs to find something asap. The house we moved out of had a $1600.00 deposit, which we were planning on getting most of back to help in this tight time. We got $400 back.
So Christy called and fought with them on the phone, several times. They made some huge mistakes, and ended up giving back another couple hundred dollars, but not nearly enough. So my work couldn’t have come at a better time, but isn’t enough to really live off of YET—so please pray for her to find something in the meantime…

Nathaniel’s having a birthday party for his school friends in Covina this Friday even though his real birthday isn’t for another 6 weeks. We wanted to give his friends a chance to come to his party since we’ll be too far away once school is out. We’ll also celebrate in San Diego.
Don’t ask me what he wants, because I’m not really sure. But Christy knows. (or just buy him a Wii…muahahahahaaaaa)

I just discovered the new-in-MAC-OSX-v5-application SPACES.

AND I LOVE IT.

I feel sorry for all of you PC users. You don’t know what you’re missing…