Writing more and more (and more)
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:
- 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
- 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.
- 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?
Nearly 20 years old
It's that time of the year again when the leaves start to change and all that other cliché stuff starts to happen, but what also occurs this time of year is my birthday.
I realized that come next Tuesday I'll be 20 years old. 2 decades. Yes, I know people always say "wow I'm old" but I don't feel old. Should I feel old? I know people in my age bracket who are stressed about being 19 or being 21 and I can't help but say, "You're only [insert age] and you're worrying about being old?" When the hell did being around 19-24 become an issue? I thought you were supposed to be happy that you were so young.
All I'm saying is that I'm glad to only be 20. It's kind of a cool feeling now. I mean, sure I am young compared to many of my friends (most of them are 20-21 by now), but now for the first time in my life I am able to just look at freshmen coming into college or seniors graduating and say "Yea, been there. It sucked and it's only going to get harder." It's a great feeling.
I guess I'm coming out of this whole "I own the world!" phase of being a teenager now and am seeing a bigger picture and blah blah blah. It's not like I'm going to join some cause or become part of a cult (do comic books count?) because I am still a liberal cynic at heart--so cynical I can't even get into movies sometimes--but it's like, I see the world as the world now and not so much as just whatever is in driving distance. I'm sure it's some part of "growing up" that anyone who is older than 20ish will come and say "Yea, been there. It sucked and it's only going to get harder," and I'm fine with that.
It's just a good-weird feeling I have now being so close to being 20.
To somewhat add to this whole "feeling" I am having, I was coming upstairs from my room after a nap today and had a mini-panic attack. I was thinking of how on bad days I work at a bare minimum just to get by and how in a worse-case scenario I would lose both of my jobs for some reason or another. Then sets in the "holy shit, I owe so much money in student loans" feeling. Then the, "holy fuck balls, I owe my parents my own weight in hundreds for raising me, how am I going to ever pay them back after paying for my student loans?" ... it's not fun. But as I said, this was a mini-panic attack, and those only come up randomly.
Now, when something like that mini-panic attack hits me, I later start to think of how I'll manage to pass all my classes and how I would have NO FUCKING CLUE of what to do if I didn't get through college and get a degree. Pile on top of my relationship and how I would have no idea where that would go if I couldn't find a job that paid well enough to pay back my loans and my parents and whatever debts I have. It turns into another mini-panic attack.
So, I guess what it comes down to is me being afraid of being a full-on adult. I mean, I know everyone gets scared of the unknown (some much more than others) at some point but I wonder sometimes if people have back up plans for their life. Like, for me, if I failed out of school I don't know what I'd do. I'd seriously be fucked beyond reason. Or if I lost one or both of my jobs, I don't know what I'd do. It scares me. I guess that is normal though, right? I mean, being a student my grades depend on me, so if I work hard I will/should do good in school. As for my jobs... it all depends. It's the working world. You may get fired for doing shotty work, or for being lazy or for doing your job incorrectly or for being disliked (though, your employer would never say that). Thank whatever for the kindness of people when it comes to that though.
Maybe it's just me, but I see a lot of things in life as if they are hanging by the brim. It could be my irrational fear of whatever, but from where I sit and from what I know, I don't see much security in a lot of things. I trust Google with my e-mail because I just do, but how do I know that some joe working at Google is having a bad day, does a bare minimum job and because of that someone can exploit some flaw in the GMail log-in system and get into my e-mail? I guess I don't, and it's my half-faith in humanity that reassures me that all is well. Yes I said half-faith... that's for another time though.
So ranting aside, my birthday is coming up and I'm pretty excited. I'll try to update and let whoever reads know how things went and how it feels to be 20.
--ending note, I hate how I defend myself before being attacked when I write sometime...
Stressful two days
I don't know what it is, but since yesterday morning I have just felt damn stressed. Sure I know nothing of the pressures of being a non-student living in the "real world" but fucking hell I have been feeling stressed.
I could say that it all started when I ended up taking a shower on Tuesday night--where usually I take showers in the morning--and so on Wednesday my day was just whacked all out of shape from that. Or it could have been that I broke my Monday, Wednesday Thursday schedule of working for the web team on Wednesday morning going to the dentist and finding out I have a fucking cavity--I haven't had one since I was nine (god damned wisdom teeth fucking everything up for me). Or it could be the massive amount of homework I've had since Tuesday and my first exam in CS350--a class so boring not even an energy drink can keep me awake--along with my German vocab quiz which is going to be harder than solid steel.
I just feel fucking stressed.
But with that aside, DestroyTheCyb.org! is doing fantastic. Mark Millar just featured THREE of our reviews in his forums (Jake's War Heroes review, Nick's Fantastic Four review and my Marvel 1985 review) and that just kicks so much ass. I really couldn't be happier with that site, unless I had a few more writers... that'd be cool. haha
BUT, let's hope tomorrow doesn't fucking kill me. This exam is going to blow majorly because I couldn't give two shits about software models, use cases and fucking software requirements. BLEH.
I'll be back...
The Alkaline Trio, Wizard World Chicago, and Wall-E
This weekend was pretty much 100% bad ass: I attended an Alkaline Trio concert, had the privilege of going to Wizard World Chicago and meeting Brian Michael Bendis (the whole reason for going to the ordeal) along with doing some other awesome stuff throughout the whole convention, and I saw Wall-E with Dallas.
Sweet right? Well, let me elaborate:
Friday:
I worked my normal schedule until 5pm and met a friend of mine to head to Yesterdog. One hot dog was all I needed from that landmark place in Grand Rapids to be ready to go see The Alkaline Trio. Come 7pm, we were let in the doors of the show and stood around for about a half an hour just goofing around until The Fashion made their way to the stage. They were a psudo-pop-punk band with a strange techno feel that was neither good nor bad, but still a listen. They played a 35-minute set and took off leading straight into the band Bayside. They too had an iffy sound, something along the lines of pop-punk, but a tad slower. My friend Tori was very into them, yet they didn't really hit for me (like a lot of pop-punk bands usually do, if only for a moment). They finished their 45-minute set and after a very boring 35 minute wait, The Alkaline Trio made their way to the stage. Let me tell you, it was fucking incredible. Song after song of perfection and amazing Alkaline Trio-goodness ensued for a little over an hour. They played songs from their last two albums, Crimson, Good Mourning (more notably: "This Could Be Love", "Mercy Me", "Time To Waste" and "This Could Be Love"), a few new songs from their album and finished their encore with "Radio" from their album Maybe I'll Catch Fire. For any Alkaline Trio, such as myself, it was seriously amazing (especially "This Could Be Love." Boy do I love that song).
Despite being tired, I ended up staying up until 2:30am talking about comics with my buddy Jeff Lanning once I got back from the concert.
An AppleScript to turn the brightness of your laptop display on/off
Yesterday at work, Eric was asking me if I knew of a way to immediately make the screen of his MacBook go straight to off (0 brightness). The only way I could think of doing such a thing was just holding down the button to dim the brightness or perhaps via AppleScript. He, of course, didn't want to just hold down the brightness key, and asked me to write an AppleScript to be triggered via QuickSilver to turn the brightness off and then back on.
And of course, there was a way to do it via AppleScript.
So, after much searching and reading on various sites (I forget them all or I would definitely credit them) here is what I got:
Now, what the code here does is simply this:
First, it checks to see if "TextEdit" is open, sets a boolean accordingly, then checks to see if the logfile "brightness--.txt" exists in your Documents folder and sets another boolean accordingly. Next, it opens System Preferences and opens the Displays pane. Using very dirty code, it grabs the current brightness level and stores it into 'brightness'. It checks to see if 'brightness' is over 0 then it sets your display brightness to 0 and follows that by storing 'brightness' into the logfile "brightness--.txt". But if your brightness is at 0, then it opens up "brightness--.txt" and reads the value it previously had stored and sets your display to that value.
This all of course assumes that you've used this script when your display was on or had a brightness greater than 0. But other than that works pretty well.
In case you didn't want to create the script/application, I've bundled a .scpt and .app of this script into a zip file which can be downloaded by following this link:
brightnesskiller.app & brightnesskiller.scpt
Feel free to modify it and such so long as you give me some kind of credit in the code (I leave a claiming comment at the top). I hope someone finds some use out of it.
--Edit: 06/04/2008 3:45PM--
Found an error with my original code. Made a small update. Check the source ^^ :)
