...fine line between insanity and genius

...almost in the clear, we finished the editing, credits, and titles and at 11:07pm . rendering would take approximately 20 minutes , putting us at the hotel at around midnight... then terror strikes again. something was wrong with the file, so we rendered the film again... and again... and again, changing different variables during the process. i couldn't watch... roy and i kept going outside for nicotine breaks. at 11:45pm i began to pray , literally. roy called up ira and told him about our situation, again. he said we'd have some time, and just to call when we got to the hotel. we got a little cushion, but we needed to work fast. another 10 minutes passed and mark and roy have seemed to find the error. at 11:57pm the file is rendering beautifully, as we output it directly to the miniDV tape in the camera. we zoomed to willowbrook and en route, rain began to pour down, making our journey that much more dramatic. it was about 12:45am when we arrived at the hotel, a...

so we've got the beginning and the end of the film complete... there's just this little thing called ' the middle ' that we need to work on. also, the big boss himself, ira livingston , called us and wanted to know what time we were submitting the film... we told him that it would probably be the last possible moment, 11:59pm , and then we asked him if we could drop it off somewhere more convenient for him. turns out, his hotel is in willowbrook , and if you're geographically inclined, you know that that puts us at least 30 minutes closer to our drop off spot. it gives us a little more room to work with, but things are getting really tense in these final moments... as if they weren't already.

it is currently 7:22pm , and it has just started raining in aurora... but it's been raining since 3:45pm in my head. roy is drunk and hungry. mark is working his ass off. sal is at dinner with his father. and i am trying to stay optimistic. we're just about to conclude the editing of act one . i'm going for a smoke.

after a couple cigarettes , some dramatic pacing , blank stares , periodic flailing arms , some internal sobbing , and cursing , mark was able to calm us down and convince us to try to re-edit the whole thing again. we called the man in charge, ira livingston and he told us that we still had to have the film in by 7:30pm ... however, he would accept the film by midnight if we still sought to have it shown during the premiere. again, we won't be eligible to win the "best film" award, however, we can still pull away with audience favorite awards... so we're dejected and i'm still trying to recover from the shock of it all, but we decided that we've come too far to give up . we were gonna just put together a rough cut of all the footage and submit it on time, but who wants to turn in some piece of shit , just to make the cutoff? so we're gonna re-edit, make the film we wanted to make, and turn it in by midnight. pray for us.

our hard drive is corrupt. we're fucked. our complete edited film has disintegrated into non-readable zeros and ones. hours and hours of work destroyed. goodbye.

it's 3:30pm . the computer keeps crashing when we try to edit our film. roy and mark have decided to go back to the city to edit at roy's place, which is about 1 mile from the spot . since the film has to be dropped off at 7:30pm , we feel this is the best scenario... keep your fingers crossed while i have a fucking heart attack.

it's like 2:18pm ... we've got the main edit down... we just need to finish some smaller cuts, put together a quick montage for the traveling scenes, and then add soundtrack and credits, and we're done! if we can just leave sal's house by 6:00pm , we'll be solid...

mark has been editing act one of our film since 7:15am and he has just finished at 11:00am ... it was about 3 minutes of film time, so this means that it takes a little over an hour to edit each minute of film. we're starting to get stressed out...

we're up by 7:10am ... except for sal . mark and roy are hammering through the editing process, while i sit online and re-read the rules of entry, to make sure everything is kosher. i think a coffee run is in order, and maybe some sausage mcmuffins . i've got the video camera set on time lapse to record the nerve-wracking last 11 hours.

i end up passing out on the couch while watching broken flowers . i think sal and roy crashed at about 2:30am , and mark finally took a break around 5:00am .

after finishing the rough edit , roy , sal , and i celebrate with a j while mark begins the fine edit . sorry i'm late. i was out spoiling my liver. i couldn't wait... the sun was up for far too long today . and i can't see straight, but the two of you look awfully pretty. and i couldn't wait... been awake for far too long today. and is it strong enough to burn away the cooking wine? and i'm just tired enough, if i closed my eyes i'll sleep for days, i'll sleep for days ... sorry i'm late. i was out spoiling my liver. i couldn't wait... the sun was up for far too long today. and i can't see straight, but the two of you look awfully pretty... you're fucking beautiful . and is it strong enough to burn away the cooking wine? and i'm just tired enough, if i close my eyes i'll sleep for days, i'll sleep for days... 'cooking wine' - alkaline trio wish you were here... yes, you.

wow... we've driven over 200 miles today and shot almost 2 hours tape. we're beat to shit. we ended up not leaving until about 1:00pm , after shooting some moving, interior car shots with danny at the helm. we finished our aurora shooting with sal getting into the car with danny. the road trip begins! we had to stop at best buy to pick up some utilities to aid us in filming, and then a quick stop at bp for smokes and lunch. the next hour and a half, we filmed a lot of shots from the sunroof of sal's car... from the front, behind, and around... all while driving over 75 mph . i thought the camera and the tripod were gonna get sucked out of the car. i know that none of this makes sense yet... not until you see the final product , but bear with me. it's not until like 3:45pm that we get to oregon, illinois , sight of the big chief blackhawk statue, and the final location of shooting. we shoot angles from across the river, approach shots, travel shots, and steady-c...

it's almost 11:30am and we've shot enough footage for just the first minute of the film! yikes. we need to get the ball rolling. we're all a little tense with the time frame. we'll be heading on the road trip very shortly... i won't be able to post until we get back, so wish us luck!

dan and i got to sal's house at 8:15 . we've done a quick read-through of the script... dan and sal have a good chemistry. we're about to go out and film some exteriors and some shots of the dan pulling up in the car. we'll probably do some shots of dan inside the car as well. so right now, i guess i'm the sound guy . you'll get to see me in action when i can put together the documentary on this project. here we go...

roy , mark , and i showed up at the spot at 5:35pm , after walking 10 city blocks... from belmont to montrose on broadway. sweaty and nervous, we went upstairs and were greeted by the 48 hour committee, who sort of snickered when they heard roy introduce our team as meat is murder . we were all nervous, but roy was an absolute bloody mess ... unable to speak, staring blankly, and just generally morose. mark and i tried to make small talk, but we were just dying to get the damn genre . finally at 6:25pm , they had the teams pull slips of paper out of the hat and we got... ROAD MOVIE ! we were pretty happy, because we had a good general plot for that genre. but i was a little sad because i knew that our story didn't involve many characters, and therefore some of the people who wanted to join, wouldn't get a chance to. if we did not pull road movie as our genre, it would have been more reasonable to have a big crew, with more actors/extras/helpers. sigh . i digress... we almost...

wow. i've shit like 3 times today already. maybe because of all those jalape&#241os i had with the nachos last night, or maybe it's because i'm in a freaking frenzy about this project! check here for updates all weekend!

the 48 hour film project begins this evening... and i'm scared/excited shitless! let's not think about it. let me instead write a quick review of blades of glory . BLADES OF GLORY : A- finally, a movie where the plot and the most memorable scenes , were not destroyed by the relentless previews and teasers leading to and following the premiere. it was a unique storyline, intelligent humor, and great acting all around. it also had a lot of memorable lines... which is what disappointed me about talladega nights . there were also excellent cameo appearances by world renowned figure skaters, which were pleasantly surprising. and i thought there was some nice subtle humor in casting the coach , craig t. nelson , as 'the coach'. how can you go wrong with undertones of sexual ambiguity and incest going on throughout? a dvd purchase definitely awaits. i'm gonna try to sleep now. but you know that disney vacation commercial, where the little kids are trying to sleep an...

that's right. i said it. a yogi . so today i got to see my longtime high school friend bethie rae fuller , who i haven't seen in like seven years . she made it a point to let me know that we haven't exchanged emails in like three years either. so we got a chance to catch up and talk about old and new times, and even discovered a sushi joint, hidden in some dilapidated strip mall off of golf road. sushi two days in a row... it's a sickness. so i come to find out that beth has been a vegetarian for a couple of years and has also been practicing yoga when she can. as it turns out, this place that she has been going to locally, has some special guest yogi hosting a workshop this weekend! the best part of it is... they asked beth to pick this dude up at midway airport ! what the fuck!?! crazy! better yet, she did it! i think they're giving her a free class... really, it's probably not as big a deal as i'm making it out to be. it's not like i know any yog...

i'm happy and mad at aymeei at the same time. i'm happy first and foremost, because aymeei's mom made me some sushi and cut some dried seaweed and red lettuce so that i could make my own little rolls. she even had a pot of whole grain rice (very healthy), and she made some fresh korean hot sauce for me to dip my rolls in. finally, she gave me some soju (korean liquor) to wash everything down. after about 4 baby sips (about 2oz.), i decided that i had enough korean alcohol for one night. yuck. it actually wasn't that bad, but i don't like to pound shots while i'm eating a tasty meal. so i was full and the food was delicious. then came the part where aymeei introduced me to the modern korean drama . and now i'm mad at aymeei because i'm afraid of the new addiction it may have caused. korean dramas are kinda like soap operas , except that they eventually end. some shows can be as short as 24 episodes and others as long as 100 episodes ! you must b...

hey kids, check bjflores.com for the latest 48 hour film project updates. we still need actors ! trust me, you don't want to see my acting... i smile every 2 seconds, like a complete jackass ! maybe if we were making a comedy, that would be okay, but i still need to be more serious. anyways, just check the website. read up on it and then let us know. the more the merrier.

i spent all day working on web pages... and btw, the new bjflores.com is gonna be up and running soon. i was hoping to assemble some kids over at red star tonight, but no one could make it. so i ended up drinking a liter of miller and watching the bulls beat the heat to be up 2-0 in the playoffs. i was gonna rent a movie and watch it at aymeei's , but i'm too exhausted for some reason. well, it's still early for me tonight, but i'm crashing out. hopefully i'll have something interesting to talk about tomorrow...

i jumped to this link from abby's blog, so i cannot take credit for finding this. just watch it... it's a video entitled ' the landlord ', with will ferrell. click here to watch it.

there's a show on the travel channel called bizarre foods , and i just spent the last hour watching all sorts of weird shit that my people eat in the philippines . most notable was the uok , a giant coconut grub that they serve daily at a restaurant called balaw balaw , 20 miles outside of manila ( pictured ). oh, there was also the mangrove worm , which lives inside of bark on the beach. apparently the locals eat them live after dipping them in lime juice. i give the host mad respect for eating everything that he did. i'm also mad jealous because i wish i had his job.

lazy sunday to the max. i guess jim's bachelor party damaged me a little bit. usually i post these blogs at like 4am the morning after... but i was tired yesterday. got up at the ass-crack of 3pm in the afternoon . i baked a crappy pizza with a rising crust and zoned out in front of the tv like i was baked. after i snapped out of it, i called up danny for a trip to the old kerasotes theater to watch a little film called vacancy (movie review to follow). aymeei sun worked a floorset and then closed down express, but still had the stamina to meet danny and myself for the last showing. we then ended the night at the quality diner known as steak and shake . one thing i now know for sho , is that aymeei is a strict older sister... but only out of love, i think (j/k). she told us about how she regulated her little brother's birthday sleepover party. at the end of the night, she pulled that shit where she sat on a stool and watched all the kids until they all fell asleep... like...

yesterday was a long day. we started out by meeting at timmy's place, and taking the longest cab ride ever, to 3637 north sheffield, the location of the ivy league baseball club . it was my first cubs rooftop game and it was quite an experience. it was the perfect weather for the game, and just being outside in general... bright and sunny, but not too hot because of the slight breeze. after getting up there, food and drinks are free, so tim and i decided to drink a beer an inning. we were also able to eat like kings... devouring bratwurst after burger after hot dog. to top it all off, the cubs beat st. louis six to zero and i believe that the bulls beat the heat in the first game of the series. dan, tim, and i went back to tim's to change and we met up with emer and took a cab downtown to espn zone where jim and the gang were busy drinking. we had a big group dinner and finally, jim was starting to feel a little drunky. he ended up puking right outside of the ballet ,...

so another friday night and another trip to the buddha with the usual suspects, +1 . but buddha wasn't the normal buddha tonight. they were throwing an after party for the chicago leg of the green festival . long story short, buddha was a refuge for environmentalists and hippies tonight, rather than the usual brand of soulful hip-hoppers. not that it was bad, in fact it was rather interesting and refreshing to see a different crowd... problem was, the music selection was experimental and difficult to relax to. it was cool though, because there were highly pixelated videos playing on two screens, two djs getting crazy with mac books and other miscellaneous audio equipment, and even 3 artists painting canvas on easels, on the dance floor. we even saw murph (with crew) in the vip room... we left after 10 minutes . and then we headed to sound bar , but it took us almost 25 minutes to park and after we did get our rock star spot, courtney was denied entry because he didn't ...

happy four twenty to all the kids getting high today! on a serious note, be safe out there, as brittany told me that her school closed down because of threats. tonight is buddah night, but unfortunately danny cannot drink due to the medications he's on. it's all good, because he volunteered to be the dd tonight. still, i wish he could be drinking with me so that i have someone to act like a jackass with. actually, we would probably do fine acting like jackasses without the influence of liquor . so driving home from granny's, i passed by these 3 pre-teen little shits playing basketball, when one of them shouts out, "hey, i saw that guy on tv!" i assumed it was in reference to the virginia tech massacre , so i slammed on the breaks and stopped. i was thinking about getting out of the car and saying some nasty shit, but in the end i just drove away. at first i was super fucking pissed, but now that i've had time to cool off... well, fuck 'em. i could pro...

danny got 4 free tickets to watch some intense united hockey league action. it was the chicago hounds hockey team play the fort wayne komets at the sears center for the colonial cup playoffs . incidentally, the uhl consists of 10 minor league hockey teams, in which the chicago hounds are ranked 7th , and the komets are ranked 1st . we lost 4 to 2 , but danny and i had a blast heckling the other team. we weren't able to find anyone available to take the last 2 tickets, but it seemed like they couldn't give tickets away at that place. we're thinking of getting a group together for next season... as the price for club seats are an affordable $20 ! we then met up with aymeei and lonnie at houlihan's , for a post game drink. my throat was cashed from all the screaming at the game, so i drank mango tea all night... very punk rock. xavius was there too, but he called up some girl and hung out in the parking lot all night... nice. so it's officially 4.20 ! smoke ...

just got back from lunch with brittany at lily garden to find this video in my mailbox. so from a couple of posts ago, you know about meat is murder , and you know that roy , mark , and i met up to record some footage and practice overdubbing our voices. well, here it is... and remember, roy is dubbing over my parts, and i'm reading his lines. it's really crap , but i find it amusing. and here is the ridiculous image of brittany's tatoo idea photoshopped on my arm. i put it under my sleeve to give it a more realistic feel, but whatever. i took me like five minutes to put it together, so it is what it is. and don't ask me why i have a picture of danny and myself at the boat. i'm pretty sure it was my birthday that day. btw. lunch with brittany was nice today, even though she had eaten already. maybe tuesdays and thursdays will be 'lunch at the garden feat. brittany' ... we'll see. although i may have to reconsider , because brittany just call...

i had a hard time getting up this morning, what with all the drinking last night. plus, i was up until all hours trying to fix my myspace layout. as a web designer i'm always trying to figure out how other people are programming their shit. plus, being borderline obsessive compulsive , i had to figure out how to put the damn scrollbar in my comments section. jesus h. christ! what a pain in my ass. then i get up today and proceed to spend the next ten hours messing with css stylesheets and html code . for most of you, it's just cut and paste, which is fine... i just have this uncontrollable need to figure out why things work. my layout is close to being where i want it to be... i'm just not a fan of centered text . to me, it's typographically unpleasing and difficult to read. but then again, i'm a fucking web nerd and readability is a huge issue with me. i also hate ALL CAPS . i'm an advocate for all lowercase letters . before i go to bed, i'm gonna phot...

for those of you not in the know... 'meat is murder' is the name of our little video production crew. it really began in 2000, when roy, jim, and i used to meet on a weekly basis to discuss filmmaking, and how in the hell we were gonna get something put together. constantly busy with work, school, and other extra-curriculars, we ended up meeting less and less, until finally the dream was put on the back burner. through the years, we've tossed around ideas and projects, and when possible, i get back to writing my screen opus entitled, 'meat is murder' , hence the production name. a year back, jim signed up for film school at depaul university, where they specialize in the digital filmmaking proccess, and he's made some films for his portfolio. also, providing constant fuel and inspiration was mark, who kept us updated on new technologies and techniques in filmmaking. but the dream of mim , the production team, truly became re-ignited when someone stumbled upon t...

have you ever looked up at the clock and cringed, after realizing that you've been a zombie for hours and hours? and i mean like really just lost track of time so bad that you're like ' holy fuck! ' and it's like 3 hours later than you thought it was. it usually happens when you're watching some sort of vh1 marathon of some mundane reality show. that wasn't it tonight though. tonight it was my lame ass, guilty obsession at the moment... i fucking hate youtube . it's garbage. that's the thing about not having a regular job anymore... the old addictions come back. the internet. the television. i've been keeping up with a couple shows on a weekly basis. what the fuck!?! i have joined the ranks of the fucking neilsen's . just tonight, i watched 24 for the 2nd consecutive week and i haven't watched an episode since the first season. i also watched the riches , on fx , after having seen a marathon of the first 4 episodes with aymeei and da...

so at this point, you've all seen this video... meat is murder presents, ' easter sunday '. well, april 27th is the magic day where all the madness begins! we're still looking for actors for leading and supporting roles, as well as extras for any other scenes, so let me know if you are interested. also today, i've set up a google group dedicated to my fellow wayward travelers. so if you wonder where the hell i'll be going this summer for the europe 2007 tour , check this page out. it's called effing tourists and it should be updated regularly.

well, indeed it was a lazy sunday after all. i did a load of laundry... ate some lunch with the family... and spent several hours at danny's place, talking to aymeei's cousin about weddings. danny can't eat anything high in fat anymore, so we ate the last of his ice cream sandwiches. disgusting. after the ladies left, dan and i booked the rest of the flights for our europe trip... 4 flights in all. by the end of our two week journey, we will have been on 10 airplanes. the itinerary is treacherous. i'll leave it in a future post, as soon as we work out the train details. to top off a productive booking day, dan and i finished with another trip to the fucking theater. this time it was disturbia , and this time i actually left the theater feeling satisfied. the story has been done before ( see ' the burbs ', with tom hanks or the hitchcock classic, ' rear window ' ), but the suspense wasn't forced or predictable. plus, sarah roemer was hot, even thou...

bean sent me a picture of her new shirt, so i sent her an old picture of my new shirt?!? it's probably only funny to her, but as you can see, i photoshoped her picture onto my shirt. just trying to get a laugh, while practicing my skills. had a fun time tonight... jojo's birthday party at her condo. watched the solis vs. paquiao fight and played a little guitar hero . there was some delicious food there, however danny and i ate at china palace beforehand. it's nice not having to work at express on a sunday! tomorrow will entail some much needed laundry time and perhaps a movie... but a lazy sunday definitely awaits.

...and i think she knows it. but we already know how the story ends, don't we? good news is, danny and i have booked our flights to europe, so i guess it's a done deal. i'm starting to shit about the passport issue... it expires may 2007. we depart on may 26 and return on june 11, so i'm not sure how that's going to work. we watched the reaping with aymeei tonight and i'm still unsure about how i feel about it. interesting twist, but clichéd ending. you won't believe me, but i saw it play out before it was revealed. too easy. i really wanted to get mind fucked and leave the theater in shock and horror, however i just left trying to figure out why they had to go through the 'reveal' so quickly. i give it a C . had dinner with the belmonts at olive garden and saw arielle on the way out. i think she may have gotten a little drinky tonight. hope everyone had a safe and happy friday the thirteenth.

today is officially the first day i'm out of the limited brands system. no longer a co-manager at express and no longer accountable for credit cards , conversion , or pants . fuck it. here now begins the journey of the rest of my life. what the fuck do i do now ? i suppose a vacation is in order and at some point i'll have to get this company off its feet. i only hope that i don't procrastinate through the next few weeks...