A Question of Ethics?
As I sit in my first year multi-media lecture, bored to tears and burnt out from late night paper writing I came across a news article on the dangers of posting personal information on the web via MySpace or Facebook. Obviously there is hope that common sense rules the day. By that, people don’t post their credit card numbers, SIN, or any other piece that can really cause problems. The concern of the article pertained to how future employers could search for you on the internet and find out who you are which could determine whether you would get hired. This, to me, seems to be somewhat of a problem. Using a website, that most people don’t even take seriously (i.e. me), where personal info, interests, and photos of drunken escapades to be a main force of decision, despite how well the interview went, (and actual work ethic) can pose as a form of discrimination. I find that for the most part, a first glance by the viewer only gets a tiny piece of the personality puzzle that the person processes. However, within that glimpse the employer could find something that they disagree with and indirectly use it as a way for an excuse to not hire.
This is what I am assuming. If others can think of any other reason, or ague my points, feel free. I always feel like I seem to miss the point of these things.
Dear Subconscious Mind, How are you?
I am not in the power of knowledge that my tendency to over exhort myself creates trouble mentally in the long run, not to mention the physical destruction as well. The key to surviving this road of this self desecration is as followed: Remember that you are not getting paid; It is supposed to be fun; Nobody will care about the current works six months down the road; Why should you care when the boss doesn’t care?; What the fuck is the rush? and so forth. For those not familiar with my personal endeavors it will not matter. For those who will be on the receiving end of a certain project that was over played with horrible hype with less thought on effort and quality, you probably will care to varying degrees. I care to a degree; this is based upon the fact that mistakes done in the past will not be ironed out, and remaining loose ends will be slopped together. I am to blame to a certain extent, but I am not the only one to be blamed as I never made the go ahead.
Even if I get a pile of blame, I know that there are others involved who will back my claims that expectations where made extremely high in my department, and that I have seen why the boss took so long to fulfill his end of the bargain. Maybe I am making a bigger deal out of this, but I don’t care … I want others to know that I said that time should have been taken to make a better quality product.
A Summer of Plague and Pestilence
Ah summer time. A fun time of the year where all independent filmmakers come out of their burrows and commit themselves to a series of ritualistic torture in the name of art. It’s really not that bad; but there are times when it feels like it. Last summer in particular was chalk full of those moments on many levels. This summer doesn’t seem so bad; but I am also not taking on a large project with a slew of other small projects. This summer is all about port-production on a large part for They Didn’t Make It (TDMI) and The Temple of the Sapphire Moon (TOTSM.)
The shorts that I am working on in production this summer are The Perfect Cliche (TPC) and A Lion’s Tale (LT). Where I am doing Sound and Assistant Camera respectively. Sound will not be as a challenge for TPC as the short will be done in a minimalist fashion with only two characters in a secure environment. Assistant Camera, however, will be a different story. I have only done one shoot, Captain Awesome, in which I was both the first and second AC for a day. The challenges that I will face in terms of sound will be for TDMI. It being a feature length movie in which I am responsible for the dialogue and Foley for it’s entirety. The main challenge was that the dialogue was not synced properly before hand — normally the audio is synced with the picture via the slate. Thus, I will have to sit and tweak it so that it looks proper. For TOTSM, I will have to work on both the picture edit and the sound edit. Another challenge because I have minimal experience in the area of picture editing, but I am up for the challenge — plus the way the short was shot it will be a matter of picking the best takes of the master shot and the two shots in sequence of the action.
That, my friend, is the basis of what my summer entails outside of work and school. Which makes it oh so fun to be in the summer of plague and pestilence.
Going Nowhere Fast
Once and a while, my brain gets bored, more so when I’m tired, and decides to think about things I probably should not ponder because it can wrap me in a preoccupied space in my mind for quite some time. In this particular episode, I was thinking in terms of working customer service and how if I were to make a snide remark on an off day that the customer would basically assume that because of the remark would be a valid reason for me to be stuck in a dead end job for the rest of my life. Which I find is funny on a couple of levels. For one, there are plenty of people who are cheery, go getters, etc. who are still working in customer service, and will probably not go “somewhere.” The other is that just because I’m having a bad day, or I am tired for whatever reason and a person who interacts with me for a couple of minutes that I will result as a nobody.
Another point I want to get across is that what does it mean to go “somewhere.” Not pertaining to traveling, but in terms of a job, and life in general. I know that for the most part, humans have this sense of superiority that makes one think that by doing something such as making more than a fair share of money from a job makes a person think that they are better than someone who makes less. I know that’s not true of all, or even the majority of people out there, but there are the few who think very highly of themselves just because they have a managerial position in a company, or something like that. I just wonder what makes people think like that? By having a nice house, a car, and all sorts of luxuries, makes one more worthy than another person who has somewhat the same possessions, but on a lesser scale in price range. Which brings me back to the original point of going somewhere. Does it pertain to money? Happiness? some sort of physical state of being, or spiritual? I dunno, I guess it’s what you make of it. Doing what you want to do is good enough for me. But I guess those with money who feel superior have the wrong S word. I believe the word they want is security.
Common Sense is not that Common
The title has been stated many times by myself on many occasions. Particular to this occasion is pointed towards the controversy surrounding Wikipedia. For the most part, people are familiar with what the website provides in terms of content. However, the site has been under heat lately because of people vandalizing the site on purpose for kicks. Such as the case with a journalist John Seigenthaler being linked with the Kennedy assassinations, both J.F. and Bobby. This is just one of the many issues that Wikipedia has had to deal with. But given all of the knowledge that Wikipedia is an open source based information page; how can people still take the information as complete fact? Sure there is actual truth posted on the pages, but obviously one needs to understand that material needs to be properly sourced to take as truth. The other point to make is that University, and College kids are using Wiki as an actual source. In fact a College in the States had to make a ban on the use of Wikipedia as a legit source for History papers. Which is a new rant in itself.
Obviously, Wikipedia’s popularity makes it an easy target. However, how is it that people can take Wiki as verbatim and not independent websites that could contain the same false information? Sometimes I wonder what goes through people’s heads when they can’t grasp simple concepts, yet they are, supposedly, productive citizens of society. It is probably best not to think about it, but it is kind of hard not to when one works in customer service.
The Never Ever Aftermath
Yes, I am a nerd. After further tinkering, I have managed to install OS X onto the iBook via Firewire from my mac mini. It was an interesting experience to learn how to get around annoying stipulations. It was pretty simple actually. I just had to boot the iBook as an external Hard drive and partition the iBook’s drive. It really was that simple. So far, there has not been any problems with the hard drive, with the exception that I should have partitioned the boot drive larger for applications.
On another note, the new THE END album – Elementary – is pretty solid. It still has elements of the old style along with general song structure, and the singer doesn’t scream through out the entire album. It’s worth picking up if you’re into the heavier side of music. Other recommendations: Explosions in the Sky – All of the Sudden I miss Everyone, Bloc Party – A Weekend in the City, and from what I heard, the new Arcade Fire album.
So Far, So Good … So What?
As the first March Break weekend draws to a close, I have replaced a battery to Matt’s 3rd generation iPod, and unsuccessfully tried to install OS X onto the iBook via the Mac mini. In terms of testing for the iPod, it is a success. I have banked about 4 hours into it without any problems, which beats the < 15min of playtime of the previous battery.
As current, I am bored at work without my glasses making it hard for me to plow through the 100s of pages I have to had read by now. Instead, I am skimming over items in Wikipedia for fun (primarily on memory and partial derivative calculus.) And I have a production meeting for Brit’s Perfect Cliche. Hopefully I will another crack at trying to install OS X Tiger onto the iBook and get some reading done.
March Break Fun … BC
Well, it’s that time of year again. March Break, a time to kick back and relax. Yes, that’s right. I said I am relaxing. For the most part I am. The majority of the time will be spent catching up on readings for school and starting those oh so fun essays. On the other hand, I just replaced Matt’s iPOD battery and test it out for the week. I acquired Nato’s old iBook and prying away at that. The Hard drive is supposedly corrupted, and as of right now I am trying to figure out if I can salvage the drive until the end of the semester, and then opt for a new drive. As of right now, I am trying to install OS X Tiger that came with my Mac mini via firewire from the mini (as it would not install directly on the iBook.) Fingers and Toes crossed on this one. ciao.
So…Things are not as planned
So yeah, reviewing the albums and posting did not happen. I think it has something to do with the fact that I am extremely busy with school, work, and films. Oh well. But never fear, I will continue to update on a regular basis. The subject matter will pertain to films and what I am up to in general.
So far in terms of film I have: Post Production for They Didn’t Make It, Pre-Production for Temple of the Shappire Moon, Pre-Production for Perfect Cliche, and the possability of working on Post-Production of shorts I worked on this past summer. The other project that has seem to have new life is work on a music video for a local group On Vinyl for Caught Up (from my understanding.)
Try it once more, but this time with feelings…
So its time for a new approach. For this day forth posts will mostly consist of Music reviews. However, I will review albums that I have the source: CD and Vinyl. The albums will be based on different characteristics: How well the songs are written, recorded, etc. And I will give any other information that I find noteable. Since there is a back log of music that I have purchased recently, I will try to get to it when I can. Upcoming reviews: Deftones – Saturday Night Wrist; Boris – Pink; +44 – +44; The Decemberists – The Crane Wife; Mastodon – Blood Mountain; Strappinng Young Lad – The New Black
