A quick story about my night

June 21st, 2009 by Mike | Posted in random | Comments

So, I haven’t updated in like 3 months.. yeah.

I felt the urge to spread the tale of awesomeness tonight that I had.

It all began with my new found buddy Brian offering to Jared and myself to go out to an “Ugly Sweater Party” hosted by some people he knew from his work. I agreed, as the idea of such a party made me laugh a bit. So! After Jared and I bought some seriously 90s prep-looking sweaters from Goodwill, we proceeded to get picked up by Brian and head for this party donned in our sweaters. Mind you, it was a good 80 degrees out today, so wearing these sweaters was a serious task for us. Anyways, we get to the party and have a good ol’ time with the 15 or so people there and at some point later on we ended up talking in Scottish accents. Jared, Brian and I were just going at it non-stop. So, we end up taking off from the party around 1:30am to get some IHOP–as we were ALL in the mood for something to eat. Oh and we got semi-lost/confused on the highways coming from dropping off Brian’s friend Erica, but we made our way to IHOP eventually.

We carry on the Scottish (Irish for Jared) accents into IHOP and sit down and take our orders and the waitress honestly believed us to be from ‘across the pond.’ She kept asking us simple questions about why we were here in Michigan and how it’s been since we got here and all that jazz. It was a serious riot. But of course, to keep ourselves into the mood, we kept speaking in the accents while the waitress was away making sure the other customers believed us as well. We made up a story about Jared’s uncle Brenden who was a real party animal and how he was in jail for some reason and Jared kept getting snobbish because ‘we knew damn well why his uncle was in prison and how we shouldn’t speak of it any more’ trying to play off being ashamed. Brian and I played it as if we were cousin’s and how Brian could drive whereas I couldn’t because I didn’t want to take the damn driving test here dispite my being here in the US for a year and a half. We kept our composure for about 45 minutes and didn’t laugh or break character for a second. It was flipping fantastic.

So my night ended in serious talk in Scottish accents and badassery. How about that?

Things have been going down

March 25th, 2009 by Mike | Posted in blog | Comments

Since my last update (almost a month ago) things have been going down.

A student at GVSU was shot on accident or something–no one really knows–I’ve gone unprotected on Twitter, I asked for more hours at my new job, debt is slowly consuming me, I’ve started to drink more water, I’ve been on a Kanye West binge, I’ve switched Twitter clients on my Mac (from Twitterrific to Lounge), I’ve started trimming my comic solicitations (that happened today!), and the biggest of them all: Jeff & Mike Write A Comic Book has begun shooting.

Let’s talk about that last one a bit more. So! After GVSU’s spring break I went to the GVTV meeting that Wednesday and after finding out my producer and (former) director were unavailable to shoot that weekend and was feeling kind of crappy about the show. It didn’t seem to be going anywhere. So many delays with people and I figured it was never going to get aired. Anyways, at the GVTV meeting I mentioned that we were delayed due to people’s availablity John Tremblay jumped on top of things. We had our location, we had our actors–well, two of four–and all was ready to shoot so a crew was assembled on the spot. It was then that I managed to the courage to ask one of the members of the GVTV club to be “Frenemy” on the show. I had been wimping out for the last two weeks to do so and as soon as I asked him he immediately said yes. So we were set. All we needed was the girl character: “Andrea.”

After the GVTV meeting I was so excited for the show I decided to treat Dallas and Jeff to some ‘late nite’ food at the Main St. Pub just off campus. We sat down and hung out for a bit and Jeff and I explained our show to a bunch of Jeff’s friends who we ended up sitting with and for some reason this girl, her name is Ashley, was like, “If you guys ever need any help, let me know,” to which I asked if she wanted to play “Andrea” on the show. She agreed and I almost jumped ten feet in the air because, hey!, we managed to get our whole cast set in one effing day!

So our first day of shooting was planned for that Saturday (March 14 for reference) with the new crew (John Tremblay, Adam Burl, Ryan Smith, Jon Sessions, and Randy Strobl) and the whole cast (Jeff, Randy, Ashley, and myself). Ashley ended up not even being needed, so I sent her home, but after about four hours of shooting, Randy was taking control of the directing and I just threw it out there that we really didn’t have a director and if he wanted the position, it was his to take. Again, he immediately said yes. All of the awesomeness goes to John Sessions for the mastery on his part that day. After six hours of shooting we packed things up and it was an incredible day.

This past weekend (the 21st) we found out we had to re-shoot almost all of what we shot the previous weekend due to some lighting issues and some mis-matching with a camera that no one could predict–which was no problem at all. We started shooting at about 1:30pm and kept on going until about 7. We were only a three piece crew after Greg Farmer–our producer–showed up then after her left, Leah Vukovich showed up to save the day. All in all, we filmed a few different scenes and, according to the crew, everything looked a lot better and Jeff and I were pretty good as well. All in all I was satisfied with everything we got done. I’m so pumped for filming the rest of the show.. which will be taking place at Nick & Rob’s. ha!

From how things are going, the show will be airing next semester (September ‘09). I’m excited to see how ridiculous it all looks on screen.

Something I noticed today

February 27th, 2009 by Mike | Posted in blog, rant | Comments

So, it’s only 10am and I’ve already noticed something big(ish) today: A marketing scheme that pushes fear of technology in people.

Now, I must divulge into my situation to let you fully grasp this whole thing: My typical Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule consists of waking up around 7:20am, showering and heading to campus to drop Dallas off for class then sit around until my class at 9. I have no problem with this at all because it allows me to get to class on time and to just browse around the internet for an hour. But what happened this morning was that I forgot the parking sticker Dallas and I share in my car back at home so after dropping Dallas off I headed home to grab the sticker. All the while as I was driving, I was listening to my favorite morning show Bob & Tom. Now, it just so happened that a commercial came over the radio (as commercials tend to do) and normally I just ignore these ads for whatever but this morning I heard a peculiar one that caught my ear. The ad was for BlackBerrys on Verizon’s phone network and I was intrigued by the ad as it began.

The ad itself was from the point of view of ‘your’ inbox and how it knew you get busy throughout the day and how it’s hard to keep up with your e-mail throughout the day. Blah blah blah the ad goes on about how in the end a BlackBerry would allow you to check your e-mail all day and all that jazz, but the part that struck me was this: At one point the ‘inbox’ says something like, “I already have 100 e-mails ready for you to check–” and he’s cut off by three tones that play quickly and it continues “Oh, make that 103. You wouldn’t want me to put them in your Junk folder would you?”

Now that last part really had me awestruck. To me, a pretty tech-saavy guy, that said “If you don’t start checking your e-mail, I’m going to put your valid e-mail in your Junk folder,” which then had me thinking, “If my mom were listening to this, would she be afraid of her e-mail putting her good e-mails in her Spam folder just because it was so full?” and in that case, I bet she would. I’m betting $5 that she would call me and ask me about that, I think she’d be super worried. I highly doubt she’d go out and get a Blackberry as the ad suggests you do (inadvertently implying that a Blackberry will make sure your e-mail will be fine if you get one) but I’m pretty sure she’d double check her Spam box for a while making sure none of her ‘good e-mail’ got into it.

After the break, I’m going to rant. Just warning you.

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Boxee and Hulu (and me!)

February 23rd, 2009 by Mike | Posted in blog | Comments

I was reading the Boxee wiki about the user-made pitch to Hulu to bring it back to Boxee and I thought I’d share something about my experience with Hulu and Boxee:

I’ve been a fan of Hulu since I got my beta invite back whenever–I honestly don’t remember and apparently my GMail doesn’t either–and I liked it. I really did. I used the service (despite some Flash issues I had after upgrading to Flash 10) and when they gave us the queueing system, my life because so simple.

Now, you must know that until Hulu, I was getting the awesome Thursday night line-up (The Office, My Name Is Earl, 30 Rock, and Scrubs–when it was on NBC) by…. some shady means and really, it worked for me. Then, there was Hulu. It made watching TV so easy. I mean, the reason I was using said shady means to get my TV was because I wasn’t around on Thursday nights or I just plain forgot to watch TV–believe me, I am no good at keeping a TV schedule. Then Hulu came and saved the day. I no long had to do… shady things… to get my TV shows and my life was simple again. Of course, the Flash was killing my computer at times, but it all worked out.

Then, there was Boxee. Now, I had used and kind of liked the Xbox Media Center for the Mac when it came out, but I really saw no use when I simply had VLC and such to watch media that was on my computer but when I first got wind of Boxee… my head nearly burst with excitement. To put Hulu, my iTunes library, and a few other streaming sites all into one cool looking application… that was simply awesome. Mainly because of Hulu. (note: my memory is slipping, but I think there was a time that Hulu wasn’t available on Boxee and I wasn’t a monster fan of the service, but that may be my confusion with XBMC…) As I used Boxee more and more I watched it grow and become more and more unbelievable as it began to integrate Netflix and ABC and Joost all into itself–because really, I effing hated using the streaming on all three of those sites because they seriously suck so much–and I was happy that, if I wanted to, I could watch video from any of those services. But when it came down to it, I used Hulu on Boxee. Hulu had everything I wanted: The Office, My Name Is Earl, 30 Rock, Testees, It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, Buffy The Vampire Slayer and, the show that REALLY got me into Hulu: Dr. Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog. All in one site. All through Boxee.

Now, you may say to me, “Mike,, why didn’t you just use Hulu’s website? What does Boxee have to do with this?” The fact is, as smart and awesome as Hulu’s website is, it kills my browser. Every time. Flash here and there and over there and in the corner and all over. It destroys my computer’s CPU every time. Whether I use Firefox, Safari or Opera, it always kills my computer. Not to say I can’t use the site, but it just make life a bit more of a hassle. With Boxee, navigation was simple. Everything loaded smoothly and everything worked (more or less) perfectly. Hell, I could even use my Apple Remote–which kicks ass.

And now… Hulu is gone. My only use for Boxee now is to watch shady-gained media and maybe stream something random from Netflix or ABC–oh yeah, Scrubs! I’m back to using Hulu’s site for streaming and I am back to dealing with frustrating and random crashes because of all of the flash as well as the clunkyness of a website–I just hate all the navigation to watch one episode of a TV show that isn’t in my queue.

All in all, this just plain sucks. I’m not really clear as to why Hulu pulled their service from Boxee or why they even would think that Boxee was bad for them, but this just sucks for me and I’m pretty damn sure I’m not the only one. I mean, I was watching the advertisements, I didn’t even mind them. Not one bit, but it’s still gone so it’s BS if Hulu–or the people providing their content–say it’s a money issue.

What I’m trying to say is that Hulu needs to come back to Boxee. Done and done.

And I guess things are different

February 14th, 2009 by Mike | Posted in random | Comments

So, my first week of no work has been… interesting.

I’ve never had so much damn free time in my life. Seriously. I guess, I’ve had lots of time for studying and playing video games… I’ve been reading the same amount of comics as usual and my Tumblr addiction has grown a bit more…

Of course, my lack of money is fucking killing me. I’ve been managing on noodles and butter/grilled cheese for lunch and dinner and somehow I’ve been scrounging cash for comics (bad habits die hard) but things are looking up… I think.

I had an interview on Friday (yesterday) for a job as a Technology Manager at GVSU’s Office of Student Life and I’m crossing my fingers on that one. I’ll know the outcome of said interview next week–I think on Monday or Tuesday–and a reliable source gave me some positive news, but that could be me assuming too much… yeah, that’s vague enough I think.

So, here’s to me not becoming overwhelmed by my debts and school and to me finding a job soon.

So… the last two weeks

February 9th, 2009 by Mike | Posted in blog | Comments

Lets see… the last month… hm… I’m being ambiguous because I feel that I should.

Well, first off, I had a stressful two weeks because of one semi-big thing that, well, I’d much rather not talk about. Then, to top it all off I hear that I don’t have a summer job, nor a job come next fall… Well, I guess there was nothing I could do about that. They told me it was budget cuts, so I’m believing it.

So, the following Thursday I have a normal and, actually, pretty good day. There was a new group on campus here at school called “Comic Book Club” (I assume you can grasp what that’s about) and, after a semi-frustrating night of trying to find information on my university’s web site (http://www.gvsu.edu/), I tweeted my frustration… Bad idea. Come the next morning, I’m skimming my e-mail and, guess what!?, I’m fired. Why? Well, my bad idea of tweeting my frustration equaled me being an ass and misrepresenting my place of work. BAM, fired. People were telling me to fight it–nameless people–and I decided to just move on. I messed up, I get it, the end. I don’t want to say much more than that.

So! now I’m on the prowl. Jobless, broke, and ready to find a new job. I’ve begun to look/apply for jobs and I’m crossing my fingers. It’s been quite a while since I was just plain out of a job (try like four or five years, so more like never) so this will definitely be an experience. I have some freelance work here and there and I’m hoping that those will get me by for now until I find something/anything steady for now and through the summer. Again, fingers crossed.

My guess… this will be a bumpy road. I’m trying to keep my chin up. I mean, there’s always studying, reading comics, and side-projects to work on.

I bought my first real DC comic(s) yesterday

January 25th, 2009 by Mike | Posted in comics | Comments

Despite my normally going to the comic shop on Wednesday to pick up comics, I hit up the comic shop a total of three times this week.

Why? Well because 1) Tommy asked me to go on Tuesday, 2) Wednesday was new-comic-book-day and 3) Amra/Jared/Tommy wanted to go on Saturday.

So there I was, at Tardy’s and the four of us has been looking around at comics for a good 45 minutes or so talking it up and such when, as everyone was seriously ready to leave, I notice something… I noticed DC’s Justice Society of America Kingdom Come tie-in for Superman.

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Just being a blogger and updating

January 14th, 2009 by Mike | Posted in random | Comments

So shit.

It’s 2009.

Yeah.

I’m back to classes and shiz and basically doing what I call “dragging the drudge.” I was originally going to blog and bitch about something or othjer, but really, I don’t feel like doing it any more.

I got my bad ass headphones that I talked about in my last post and boy are they fuckin’ sweet. I definitely won’t be going back to iPod headphones willingly any time soon.

For those who use it, I got StatusTweet.com back to working again. There was a problem with RSS parsing on a certain user’s account and blah blah blah–now it’s fixed.

MikeRapin.com/playlist is now officially working correctly too. I know this is a personal thing for me, but I was thinking of opening it up for people who want to share playlists and such… Maybe one day.

One more thing that I can’t say, but am saying now, is I got a side-project working with a new and life-easing addition. I can’t say what because, well it isn’t exactly public–for good reason–but nevertheless, I’m happy because I built a new feature and I’ve been meaning to build it for a while, and yeah. It’s awesome.

So that’s that.

Until Next Time.

-Mike

PS. If you know anyone who wants to review comics… have them send and e-mail to cyborg@destroythecyb.org

Christmas Break — I’m 3/4 done

December 29th, 2008 by Mike | Posted in random | Comments

I just saw The Spirit yesterday… Make sure to check out DestroyTheCyb.org! for my feelings about that film later this week…

But as I talked about in my last post, I have been writing like crazy for Jeff & Mike Write A Comic Book. I have a solid two episodes, thanks for help with my struggle with the end of the second episode goes to Tommy V. I’ve managed to get like one review done for DestroyTheCyb.org and have not been keeping up with my .75-1 review a day goal. Ugh. I’m pretty pissed about that.

With that aside, I’ve probably watched enough TV to fill a weekend… and I know that’s sad. I’ve seen some good flicks, but still, my time could have probably been spent much better. Thanks AMC/VH1/MTV!

Just for the record… I have to get a damn cavity tomorrow. This will be my first in probably 10 years. 10 damn years and I am so scared. Why? I don’t know. I have a thing about my teeth where I hate pain. Is that so wrong? Ugh. I really hate the idea of a cavity in my mouth. From how I remember back when I was probably 10 years old, it hurts and the shot hurts and the drill is terrible and afterwards you can’t eat anything and it all just sucks. IT SUCKS. Damn it all I don’t want to get this damn cavity. I cannot express it enough. I know I’m going to get this cavity, then come home and be pissed about having it and play some Hulk: Ultimate Destruction, write some more of Jeff & Mike and just be pissed. Even so, with that awesome sounding afternoon ahead, I am dreading 3:40pm tomorrow. God damn it this is going to suck.

I guess after tomorrow I have a few things to look forward to: working on a side project I’ve had for about 2 months that I finally have information (after a 3 week waiting period) to finish, reviewing comics, and my giant New Years Bash at my house. So I guess as soon as this cavity is over with I’ll have some good stuff ahead of me. What would you guys do if you had a day and a half of free and clear nothing to do?

Oh and before I forget, I’m getting new high-quality headphones in the mail. In case you’re wondering they’re the V-MODA Vibe Duo Earbuds/Headset for the iPhone. I’m so excited. They should be arriving in the mail in about a week or so (I hope!) and I will/should review them after a week or so of use.

I guess that’s all I have for you all. Your thoughts?

Writing more and more (and more)

December 15th, 2008 by Mike | Posted in blog | Comments

So, since I had my TV show accepted to be made on GVtv, I’ve been working on and off on the script(s) for the show.

I think today I finally finished a full 24-minute script done and ready for production though. For a while, I was stuck writing 10 or so minute scripts and I was trying to add filler that wasn’t too funny. Luckily my friends Jeff and Nick were there to help me get through those not-so-funny times (I mean, I’m trying to write a clever and funny comedy here!) and I think the pilot episode I have is pretty good.

Sadly, this has been pulling away from my comic book reviews on DestroyTheCyb.org! and that’s never good! (It seriously isn’t good how much I have been lacking lately) so I’m making it a goal for the next 3 weeks while I’m on winter break to write at least .75-1 review a day. That should be too hard, right?

On top of that I recently lost one of my two jobs. Yeah, big deal, but not really a big deal. The facts are/were these:

1. This job (aka CTS) was like… 4th on my list of priorities and they pretty much knew this by the end of this semester
   • With School coming in at number 1, my job as a Web Developer at number 2, and comics/freelance work coming in at number 3 in a straight tie
2. On my last shift, some bull shit that I has suspected about co-workers and supervisors talking shit behind my back about me was TRUE which makes me wonder why they didn’t just fire me back in October when all of my ideas of “I’m probably getting fired” came into my mind and as I assume came to theirs as well
   • Then again, I was being a super fuck-face via Twitter talking bad about one of my former-not-really-my-boss-bosses, which pretty much put them over the threshold to fire me–which my real boss came to tell me
   • But in all seriousness, I wish I would have been “let go” or whatever back in October because I really fucking hated working at 6:30am and getting bitched at for oversleeping when all of my bosses and supervisors knew that morning shifts and I have never gotten along at all (given the problems I had last winter semester).
   • Half of me votes conspiracy… but that’s the impractical, cynical and outrageous half of me.
3. When it all came down to it, I told them right-out I knew it was coming and left as a gentlemen and shook all of their hands. They told me if need be I could use them as a reference because overall, they really are all nice guys. And really, they told me I wasn’t being “fired” but more of “not being invited back” which when I think about it means “we don’t need any liabilities for this” which is understandable… I guess.

So I’m out one job, but it’s really not so bad. Now I have more time to work for the web team and more time to do the things that were already higher on my list of priorities for next semester.

My only real gripes right now are that my show is funny. Man I don’t want to have a sucky TV show… Hopefully once we get things recorded I’ll find a way to get it online and you, the internet community, can judge me…

So that’s what’s up with me. What’s up with you lately?