Sunday, February 27, 2005

Quick Update after my Radio Show

Just got back from my radio show on WECB (Emerson College, Boston) 99.9FM or channel 65 on your on campus TV and I wanted to make a quick update to assure you all that I am not dead. Just a heads up.

The radio show went well tonight, as we borrowed Becka's laptop to record the show in digital format directly to a harddrive.... however, her laptop is so archaic, that it ran out of space on it's 4 gig hard drive before the show was over. So it's a good thing we were rolling cassettes as back up, just in case.

If you are interested in listening to old episodes of my radio show "After Midnight" go to http://www.aftermidnight.cjb.net and download our show in a rather decent sounding .mp3 format. The file sizes are pretty managable too, as we split the show into one hour pieces AND encoded the .mp3 at 64kb instead of the standard 128kb.

If you don't understand that, don't worry, it doesn't matter, it just means that the file size is smaller.

So Maxx H. comes to visit tommorow and I audition for Evvy host... fun times straight ahead!

Wednesday, February 23, 2005

I've Started A Script...

Last night, I went down to Suite 724 (home of J-Pizzle, Joe, Dan, Robbie and Jason) and was suprised as heck to find Dan, Pizzle, Becka and Joe watching the pinball machine episode of the old Nickelodeon show "Are You Afraid of the Dark".

I was mesmorized. Quite possibly the lowest budgeted TV series ever, besides the fact that it was made during the trasition years from the 80's into the 90's in CANADA! So you can image what ghastly clothes these nerds were wearing.

Anyway, the night got more and more humorous as we sat bemused by the hilariously un-scary tales which flashed through these kids imaginations. One of the skits even shows the GRIP in TWO SCENES! It's great.

It was as if we had all been stuck by the same lightning bolt: for our MA202 final project, we would work together to make a parody of the show involving J-Pizzle'a hometown of Nahant, Massachussetts, which has some abandoned WWII bunkers, built to protect Boston Harbor from the Nazi's. This is going to be a sweet show.

What else is going on in my life? Well, I'm feeling a little better now that the plague seems to have left me. I'm pretty much back to normal, but I am still trying to take it easy--I don't want a relapse.

I'm listening to Men Without Hats Safety Dance and it's certainly waking me up this Wednesday morning.

Thanks to the miracles of E-File, I filed my Federal, Maine and Massachusetts taxes, and I'm going to get a sweet sweet refund. Feds: $0 Ezra: $423 (Not counting Medicare/SS which no one will get back); Maine: $0 Ezra: $172; Massachussetts: $0 Ezra: $27

Yeah! Money! I plan on using the money to do two things--one, buy myself a Panasonic PV GS120 miniDV camcorder, which, after some research, seems to be a great camera for the lowest price.

Two, I plan to pay for the repairs that I will undoubtedly end up needing on my truck over the summer. (Shocks, Dampner Arm, Transmission Mount). Granted, this money will not go all that way, but I'll figure something out.

Have a non-salacious day!

Monday, February 21, 2005

I'm Sick. Isn't that AWESOME?!?!

Seriously, the reason that I haven't updated in a while is because I've been sick and haven't done anything.

I am thankful that I got sick on the weekend so I actually have the opportunity to rest and get ligitimatly well. Of course, I've been sick since friday and it's monday now, and dispite my constant guzzling of fluids, avoiding of junk food, sleeping frequently, only leaving my room when I absolutely have to, I am still sick. But I think I am a little better.

It is snowing here in Boston, there are about 4-5 inches on the ground, and the weatherfolks are predicting that it'll keep coming down until Wednesday morning. I hope they are right, because I don't want to have to miss classes tommorow. Yeah, like I said, I bet I'm still not 100% well by tommorow. But I'm trying.

Realizing that you have to wait for some more forms before you can file your taxes is annoying because I want my refund so I can buy myself a digital camera. I really think I deserve one, and besides, it's part of my education--I'll be using it for media projects. We'll see.

I'm going to lay down some more, but hopefully I'll post again tommorow. If not, too bad, I'm sick and might not feel like it.

Tuesday, February 15, 2005

Secret Spying System... Spies are SCARY!

Anyway, I was walking out of the Little building Sunday night to head over to the Emerson Channel to finish editing the Lion King Package for Tuesday's GME. As I walked towards the vestibule, I was stopped by Elie. He asked me if I had a minute and I told him that I could. He proceeded to tell me that he had been in a meeting with Pete Chvany the other day and my name came up--and that he thought I should really go introduce myself.

I said, sure I'll do that tommorow.

So the next day I wandered to the 8th floor of the Ansin Building and 'bumped into' Pete, so that I could introduce myself. I think we talked for about an hour.

My head has been a whirlwind ever since. I don't know what to think about eveything that he said to me; and I can't even begin to recreate the bizarreness of this meeting.

Basically he told me that my name had been mentioned (didn't say why exactly) and he began asking questions to the people at this meeting and he said that he learned I was reliable, got my work done, I show up, ecetera. "Does he have the room to advance" "Yeah he can do that" Who was he talking to? I dunno.

Anyway I told him I was from Utah and he asked me if I was Mormon (yes) "Are you A practicing Mormon?" (yes) "... when are you going on your mission?" I don't know, I'm working on that. "Good! That's what college is about, figuring yourself out!" he then proceeded to tell me that Emerson is not the most hospitable place for "believers" but that his best Executive Producers, Directers, ETC, were Born-Again Christian, Mormons, Conservative Jews, etc--because they have backbone. He also mentioned that when he was in the service that he felt most comfortable around mormons, and that he had never had a Mormon let him down.

But now I'm really scared because I know I have to be as good if not better than those in the past. So then I talked about how I like architecture, and besically after chatting for a while he told me that I should make a documentary about something that I said, which was "I'm fascinated by the way that an artist or and architect can get a client to pay more for less efficient, less effective space for the sake of art."

And he said that he was going to harrass me into doing it, he was going to get me cameras, etc.... I just don't know what is going to happen now.

I'm really sorry if this post was disjointed, but I needed to get this out. Oh! One of the first things that he said to me when I introduced myself to him was "I got all these people saying 'Ezra's hot shit, Ezra's hot shit'" Oh boy, if he was serious, I might be in trouble.

Saturday, February 12, 2005

Jake and Ezra visit Bunka' Hill!

Well, I'm sorry I haven't updated in a while, but like always, I have be B-U-S-Y!

So anyway, I was chatting on AIM with Jake Sasseville, and I said he should come up for a visit. About a week later he arrived on the Chinatown bus from New York. He arrived thursday the tenth, and I showed him around campus and he followed me into the control room to watch what I do on the shows and to see more closely how the shows are actually produced.

As 'talent,' he doesn't have to worry too much about the technical stuff but he wants to make sure he understands everyone's job. Which I think is good.

So anyway, today we both work up around 11:30am, ate brunch, and took the T over to "Community College" on the Orange line, to visit the Bunker Hill Monument. Now, the last time I visited the monument was in the 6th grade. I am kinda suprised that I've been in Boston for so long already and haven't visited it. Anyway, we hiked up the 294 steps (only stopping at 125 (about 90 seconds) and 250 (about 10 seconds). I was actually suprised that I did it--but Jake pushed me. But don't push him! He's very sensitive about his personal space and having his coat touched our pulled on.

The view was amazing. After we got down (and interestingly enough, going down is also hard because you have to resist falling over and tumbling to your (and everyone else below you) doom. I compared the 1700's maps to the current landforms, and it's amazing how much they have filled in with dirt! The prudential center is in the middle of the old "Back Bay". Amazing.

So at the bottom of the monument, we sat and chatted for a few minutes, and I saw some missionaries, so I hollared over to them and we talked for a while. Elder Thorn and Elder Jones.... I don't know about Jones. I can't remember honestly. But there was an Elder Thorn. They were missionaries from the Longfellow Park Second Ward. (They meet before us in the same chapel in Cambridge) One was from California and the other from Salt Lake City. We had a nice chat and went our seperate ways, as Jake and I had decided to walk back to Emerson from there and he would then hop the 4pm bus back to New York City.

All in all it was a good experience, and a fun time, but I am really tired and there is only so much of him I can take at once--it's always been that way.

So tonight I realized that I only had two meals left this week, and I wanted them both for Sunday, so I decided to get Chinese food from a restaurant called "Shang Hi Restaurant" just around the corner from the dorm. I got General Gau's Chicken. Aparently this General had many names because I've also heard the same reciepe called General Cho's (pronounced ch-o (long o)) chicken or general CHOW's chicken (I don't know how it supposed to be spelled. Anyway, it was great and it only cost about $6.25)

So now I'm up in my room killing time before my midnight radio show on WECB! It's called "After Midnight" but we just started calling it that. It used to be "Secret Layer: Delving Deeper into Music" Oh well, too bad the internet streaming doesn't work. :(

G'night!

Wednesday, February 09, 2005

Pat's Parade, HD Night (Wasted Day)

Well, today was the victory parade for the New England Patriots, and it basically was the exact same affair as the Red Sox parade--huge crowds, closed roads, news choppers, and players on Duckboats. I watched as they went by from the 7th floor of the Ansin Building, and over all it was pretty neat.

So anyway, I then began to edit a package for Good Morning Emerson (GME) about the Lion King musical. But then I am told that they are going to move that package to next Tuesday and that they'd like it if I'd edit a package on the Boston "Beanpot" Hockey tournament, because it is more time sensitive. The problem with this is that I am a really busy person and had spent 2 hours the night before uploading clips to the computer for the lion king, and I could have had it finished by today had I not had to start over with a new package.

Oh well. I am still excited about editing at least one package a week because by the end of the semester I'm going to have something like 15-18 packages that I've edited and I can show off on my reel.

After that I went to help set the Remote Shoot for "High-Definition Night" put on by the Evvy's and the FPS club. It was pretty dissapointing because I was there for a really long time and I had a lot of other stuff to do, and I feel like I didn't get much accomplished at all. *Sigh* oh well.

*Reminds himself he's just a freshman and has 3 years to get experience with all of this stuff*

So then I came back to my room, wrote this post, skipped my meeting, because I realized that I don't have to go unless I want to and it won't adversely affect me.

I'm speaking in speech class tommorow. Wish me luck!

Monday, February 07, 2005

New Week, New Package, New Problems

This week the Ladies Room segment producer, Leslie, has asked me to edit another package for her. Now I'm happy to do it, however I've encountered some problems getting into the station to import the clips both because the computer has been busy and also because I am busy.

It's not that easy being busy--but I chose it.

Anyway, I've got this Women in Motion meeting tonight and people are going to be pitching their screenplays to be made for this semesters projects. I wanted to write something and try to get something of mine made, but instead of writing something I am here writing a blog post.

Awesome.

As you are probably aware, the Patriots won the XXXIX Superbowl last night. Tommorrow at about 11am, they will have a parade down the street, following the same route as the Red Sox Parade a few months earlier. Hopefully I'll get some good pictures for you all, and post them.

I think I'm going to get to working on something productive, like writing a script, writing an essay or working on my applications.

Have fun!

Friday, February 04, 2005

Well It's Been A Long, Been A Long, Been A Long Day!

The title on this post is, of course, an allusion to How To Succeed in Business without really trying. Congratulations if you got that before you read the explanation.

Moving on to more interesting things: I had a very very busy day today. I woke up at 10:45am, dress, showered, and ate a big lunch: Italian Sausage w/ peppers, plain chicken patty, and some type of delicious hash-brown thing, with a Dr. Pepper and a grapefruit juice.

I know the last thing you want to read is a laundry list of things that I ate for an 11 o'clock lunch, but I wanted to make special note of it, since I didn't get to eat another thing (excluding a bottle of Mt. Dew) until 9:30pm. Awesome. 10.5 hours between lunch and dinner is wierd for me, because I usually eat lunch at 12 noon and dinner at 6-ish.

So anyway, I went to my one class of the day, Research Writing, and that got out at 12:45pm. I walked over to Studio A in the Tufte Preformance and Production Center, where I had a Broadcast operations meeting, followed immediately by an intensive/immersive crash course in operating the Chyron and importing graphics. But I did well, and man, I had a great time. I am in the front row of the studio, and that's awesome.

Speechless wrapped at 4pm, and I ran over to the Ansin Building to do the Friday afternoon tape change for the Emerson Channel. It went smoothly, but when I got back to Studio A I was told that the package I had edited for Ladies Room (The next show to be taped in the studio) had exported without any sound.

So I ran up to my room, got the Firewire drive and went BACK to Ansin to re-export the package. What wackiness. Er, wackyness. Wackeyness? Jeez, I dunno.

Anyway, I got back, taped Ladies Room as Camera Operator, and I think I was the best operator, since I only had to be told what to do a few times. Anyway, I got a lot of compliments about the package, and they want me to continue to edit for them, which is TOTALLY awesome. I am syked. Siked. Syced? This is getting BAD!

Like some of you may know, I think I may want to go into editing proffessionally, so that's a good sign--of course, I really need to work on my speed and efficiency, but I have 3 years, so I'm not worried.

(Okay, random interjection time.) I have had some bad experiences in the past with writing out a really long post and then having something happen that makes all my effort a waste--because my words don't get saved. So I just saved this post as a draft, and loaded it up again, just so if something did happen, I would have most of it. When I looked at my posts, however, I realized that I have two posts that are titled "I'm Friggin' Awesome"--I knew it would happen, but I just didn't know when. There are only so many original blog post titles. (Anyway, back to my day.)

Ladies Room wrapped at 7pm, just as Gentlemen's Club stuff got underway. Since Gentlemen's Club has all new crew and graphics, I had to import all the files and stuff onto the computer and then build them up. I think I did really well considering my experience level (about 2 hours of learning/doing). So that show went well too, but it certainly isn't up to the snuff of the other shows I work on. But that's okay, because I find the show really funny regardless.(Or irregardless, as my friend from Nahant, MA would say, despite my efforts to tell him that it is not a real word.)

So I got back to my room and ate two packets of easy-mac and now I am updating this blog. Life is good, and I'm going to sleep well tonight.