You know those things that you didn't really quite understand when you were little, that you go back to and realize "Oh.. that's what that meant."? Lately I've been sort of going through the past and been feeling a lot of that.

I decided to make my mom a CD mix of all the songs she used to listen to when I was little. And now I'm sort of understanding more of what she was feeling during that time, I think. I can remember sitting in the car with her listening to Rick Astley or (old school) Whitney Houston. And it brings back so many memories, and images. And things that I couldn't really figure out at the time that now have so much more relevance. I think it's beautiful. Getting the songs for this CD has turned out to be more bittersweet and introspective than I anticipated.

I remember when we would stop and rewind the cassette and listen over and over to this part of the Madonna song "Crazy For You". And now hearing it in a crisp mp3, instead of beaten up tape, the lyrics are so clear.

I hope she likes this and doesn't think it's just a cheap present.

The good news -

I'm 60 or 70 pages away from the end of Malaise, draft 3. Which is almost a complete re-write. I find it funny what I have ended up bringing over from the previous drafts and what's being dropped behind (including an entire character... haha, woops..) I also find it interesting the new ways these crossovers are being implemented. I'm happy with it so far. And I know that it's only getting easier as I get closer to the ending. Since the ending is the part of the story I've been thinking about the longest. It always is.

This week, Kanzen Radio got over 100 listeners. Considering we're only two weeks deep, I'm very happy with this number. I'm thrilled.

I will be able to see Kate again soon.

Things are good right now with my mom. And I'm glad about that.

The Bad

Not much really. Well, except one thing.

Sarah.

She's so clearly not over me. The way she talks to me, calls me, acts around me. She still loves me. She still wants me back. And I feel that in spite of every intention to maintain a platonic friendship, all my presence is doing is holding her back from moving on. As though as long as I'm in the picture, she won't be able to let go. I know that sounds arrogant of me to say, but it's true. She won't let it go, and my continued presence in her life isn't helping things. And in fact, it's hurting both of us.

Which leads me to a difficult decision I have to make again.


Speaking of decisions. Stu, Pat and I were bouncing ideas off of eachother for a video episode of Kanzen Radio and we came up with something we found pretty hilarious. The problem is that it's in EXTREMELY poor taste. Like, it might be fine for us to discuss between in our group, but actually publishing it into the interweb might show such a... classless and nihilsitic worldview that, well, frankly I'm a little scared of doing it. I have no qualms with poking fun at extremely serious topics, but this one is such a loooooow blow - that I could see the complaints getting us kicked off our server (no, it's nothing illegal).

Of course, getting complaints to our server is assuming people would watch it in the first place.

I think I may be a fan of doing something a little less overtly offensive ("WTF!!!"), and more just plain bizarre ("WTF?").

I don't like the holidays and I don't like that I don't like them. Specifically Thanksgiving and Christmas. I like the idea of holidays more than the days themselves. They're sort of like movies. And the days leading up to them are the trailers. Trailers are always good. They're always fun to watch, but then you actually see the movie and it's rarely as good as the trailer made it look. That's how holidays are to me.

Like, my cousin came in my room to make small talk and introduce me to his new girlfriend. He asked me about school and I said something like, "Not sure how I feel about my impending graduation.." and he said, "... Im.. pending?" and I was like, "Uhh.. 'coming soon'?" and felt like an asshole for using the word "impending". As though it was pretentious of me or something. But upon further reflection, I don't think it was. That's just how I talk goddammit. It was a perfectly valid usage of the word.

And then on the complete flip side of the intellectual spectrum, within the same family, his sister began informing us of her plans for a MD/PHD and becoming a neural surgeon - or something. I was sipping gross raspberry wine that tasted like rancid fermening raspberries more than any sort of flavored "wine". I said, "I make movies." and everyone looked at me like I was crazy. So I drank more gross wine.

Lauren's smart and probably will be a great, wealthy, succesful and benevolent doctor, but.. fuck.. I don't know. When she started talking about her friend's "brilliant" idea to buy XBox 360's and sell them on eBay I could barely keep the sarcasm inside. If she was a friend and not a family member I would have quickly said, "Because no one's done that before. You know.. like last year.. when the XBox came out. Or two years before that.. when the PS2 came out." Funny how you're more honest with friends than family.

Then I went to sleep and slept through the rest of Thanksgiving.

Christmas will be worse, because I can't sleep through that holiday like I did this one.



I'm listening to a rendition of O Come O Come Emanuele by "Peter, Paul and Mary" and it sounds like Mr. Burn's from the Simpsons is singing it. Which is kinda cool.

I like Kamel Red Lights. I think I may replace my Camel Lights with them as my "official" cigarette of choice. Because they are yummy. And I dig the white filters.

We had over 100 listeners this week for Kanzen Radio. I am happy.

The last piece I was missing is back in. For the time being anyway. Her name is Kate.

:)

Feeling pretty good right now. The last couple of weeks have been great. And instead of waiting around for the floor to drop out from under me, I'm just enjoying it one day at a time.

Oh, and Kanzen Radio 115 is streaming.

You are a Social Liberal (76% permissive) and an... Economic Conservative (81% permissive) You are best described as a: Libertarian Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

Down the same road, just a different friend.

Kanzen Radio's back again. And with any luck, it'll be there for a long time to come. Stu and I have been putting a lot of work into this. And it's refreshing, because it's not just "Me". It's no longer me going at it solo, advertising solo and gathering listeners alone. He's having fun with it, and that makes me happy. Stu almost seems the best medium between Alex and Pat. The extremeness of Alex, with the intelligence and thoughtfulness of Pat. People criticized Stray Radio of having the hosts be too similar to eachother. That Pat and I were too much "the same", which is a complaint *I* really never thought was true. But I don't think anyone can accuse Stu and I of being too similar.

Plus, with David, the Finiaks, Pat Schie and possibly Richard, all on board to help out - I feel more secure and confident in this show than I did when I began things with Stray Radio. Maybe so much time's gone by that I can distance myself from all the strings that were left around, and create a new show that has its own individual style and approach. I hope so anyway.

As part of our new "advertising" campaign - we're now on the oh-so-trendy MySpace... http://myspace.com/studiokanzen

Also, starting with next week's episode - we're going to release "Mobile Kanzen" episodes. That is, episodes with lower bitrates made for portable mp3 players. Lets be honest, this actually is in response to the explosion of iPods, and I have to assume that a sizeable portion of our listening audience is the same type of people who would invest in iPods.

Speaking of iPods, I really dislike that I want one. But what bothers me more is that I'm bothered about getting it simply because it's trendy. I don't want one because it's "the hot thing". I want it because it's useful not only as a mp3 player, but as a portable firewire HDD. It's like a giant multi-purpose flash drive.

But - I'll probably hold off on the iPod for a while. Because I just got a new video camera. Say hello to my new little baby:



Cute, no?

It's the same format as my last camera. Digital-8. This is for two reasons. 1) I have tons of D8 tapes that were rendered useless when my last camera died. There are many memories and projects on those tapes, and to not have access to them is tragic. Thus, my only alternative was another D8 cam. 2) I have a fondness for Digital 8mm. It's a great format. Same res as MiniDV, but half the price. Plus, when it comes to electronics like this, I do enjoy SONY's work.

Now, more than ever, I feel motivated to get shit together and do something. Which is what I am doing. Kanzen Radio's re-launch is only the beginning.

Bet on it ^_^

I'm really happy now. I'm happy that David and I have become such good friends. I'm happy Stu and I have become such good friends. I'm happy that inspite of a rocky period inbetween, Sarah and I have continued to be best friends. I'm happy I'm writing again. I'm happy that after feeling useless and alone for several months, I'm back to normal. I'm really enjoying life at the moment.

And I really hope everyone else out there is too.

^ something my screenwriting teacher said today.

I got a message in myspace today that reads:
hey. i just made a profile on this. i searched marmion and you popped up. crazy. i remember you were a big anime fan. how is life

So that's it. That's how I will be remembered. "the big anime fan". Wow. I rock.

I'm pushing myself deeper into films and radio, to distract myself from how bored and lonely I feel.

Lots to say this time around -


What I lost, I've found. For the moment anyway. I sat down and pounded out 8 pages of the new Malaise script. I'm starting and square one. This isn't a matter of re-writing certain scenes, editing out others, and adding new ones. No, this is a entirely different plot based on the same story. Characters that were merely referenced in the original, are now living, breathing, people with things to say and do. And it's much better. My god, it's much better.

Of course, part of this because I am no longer writing unde the confines of a real production. That is, I'm not worrying about how many actors I have to play parts or access to sets/locations. I'm writing it with zero limitations, simply as best as I can.

I've also returned to my insomnia/love-story project, and something new. A revenge story, or more like a psychological profile of revenge stories.

My mom told me she'd buy me a new camera, within reasonable price ranges of course, as my early christmas preasant. I'd love to move up to MiniDV, however I have hundreds of Digital8 videotapes with memories, experiments and other shit on them. Therefore, I'm gonna stick in the realm of Digital8 for both economic reasons (D8 is still cheaper, and of comparable quality, to MiniDV) and practical ones (I want to convert all my D8 tapes to DVD so I don't run into this problem again).

I'm dictching the radio play idea, aka "No Radar". However, I was reading the episode I wrote over the summer on the long train ride to Aurora and I had forgotten how, forgive my immodesty, good it was. So I am going to publish the episodes every so often. Maybe somebody else out there will want to perform them. When I get back to Chicago, "Immaculate Red - A Del Harvey Mystery" episode 1 will be formatted to HTML and go online.

Is it bad that I want to revive Otaku no Radio? I miss the easy success of that show. That we really didn't have to "work" at it. Wave a flag that says "Anime!" and the otaku come to you. And the only thing stopping me, quite frankly, is that I have no one to host it with me.

I saw the XBox 360 in action today. Some kid was playing Call of Duty (2?). The actual hardware looks very pretty. It's much more visually pleasing than the Big Black Box design of the original XBox.

How did the game look? It looked pretty goddamn sweet. Keeping in mind it's a launch game and obviously doesn't take advantage of the full power of the new hardware yet, it's definitely next-gen looking and that's exciting. But what bothers me is there is no Halo-esque game at launch for the 360. Perfect Dark Zero looks cool, but, eh, I dunno. It lacks the epic scope of Halo. Now, if the rumors of Halo 2.5 pan out - that will be a huge motivation to purchase. Well, I mean, next year's (?) Halo 3 not withstanding.

Plus the wireless controllers are $50 a pop. That's insanity. I thought $30 for the old XBox controllers was steep!

Not that any of this matters. Because I won't be buying ANY next-gen console until the prices drop. And I still haven't ruled out PS3.

Has anyone else noticed Nintendo is like Apple?


Why am I talking about next-gen consoles and games? In 9 days HALF-LIFE 2 HITS THIS XBOX!!! FINALLY.



A year after release on PC (and year after I BOUGHT it on PC - only to discover my Vaio couldn't handle it), I will finally be able to get my hands on the game that means a billion times more to me than Halo 2. The game I'm optimistically hoping will blow Halo 2 clear out of the fucking water.



And finally, why is it ladies, that after telling a guy how special they are, how much better you treat them than their ex(s), that you're the first to buy them gifts, dinners - anything - that you end things, and then go back to the ex you so villified?

It doesn't "bother" me because frankly I've gotten a little tired of my hero complex, of swooping down and making abused and emotionally fractured girls like themselves/open up/piece their lives together/etc. So I don't care anymore. Plus, I know the answer. I just think it's stupid of you. And you know it's stupid too. But, and I'm the same way, safety is often more tempting than making the right call.