LA is a fake city

Today ended the third day I have been on the set of a student film. Jean, (pronounced like a French 'John' not 'Gene') is a friend from church who is also a student at AFI (American Film Institute). He is producing a film, "Amy Ling" and I said I was interested in coming out to help. I was part of the Art department, which basically sets up the set for every shoot, and I also worked the boom mic, which is that long mic that is held above the actors'/actresses' heads. It's tiring. Your arms start to hurt after a while.

It was really cool to see everything that goes on during a movie shoot. I have come to a couple conclusions.

1) Making a movie is hard work. The last 3 days have been 12 hour days. You work HARD. They have to set everything up BEFORE the shoot (lights, camera, set, props, EVERYTHING has to be perfect), and then DURING the shoot, they take a couple rehersals, and then do probably 4-5 real shots which they actually record. During the shoot, everyone has to be silent. Even if you're on the other end of the house. Or outside.

2) Everything is done out of order, so you really don't get a sense of the movie even if you've worked on it. I always read how directors, actors, etc. say, "Yeah, the movie came out great" after the screening, and I'm always thinking, "Weren't you there when it was being made?". But seriously, you don't know how it will turn out until it's all put together. Everything is shot out of order, there is no background music, and you don't really get a sense of the movie. All you see are individual scenes. I don't even understand how the director can keep everything in his/her head while the movie is being made.

3) Continuity is a big problem. Now I know why there are so many mistakes in movies. There are so many takes, and everytime, they try to make everything the same, but things slip through the cracks.

4) EVERYTHING IS SO FAKE. The set is so fake. You just make things 'look' like you want them to, but it's not real. Perfect example: the milk in almost all commercials is not real milk, because it would look blue under all the lights. They use Elmer's glue.

There are often things hiding behind tables or shelves that you're not supposed to see. The crew is just too lazy to move everything. The actors/actresses are one minute joking with you, the next they are in character. It's pretty impressive. All the lights are artificial. They use all sorts of lights, filters, mirrors, and whatnot to achieve the perfect look. If you only see the top half of a person in a suit, chances are, they are wearing jeans and tennis shoes. It's cool to watch, and very enlightening.

I now understand why LA is the way it is. The entertainment industry influences society here. So everything is based on appearance and is so artificial. I seriously have never seen so many 'beautiful' people in the same place in my life. But not everyone is fake. There are also a lot of really nice people here.

Only in Taiwan do they have Mercedes taxis.

These are some quclyty socks. Click to see the big version.

Chinese business sense

Just got back from the Chinese supermarket. Back in Ohio, when I go to the (one of three) Chinese supermarkets, I see only Chinese food. Well, some Japanese, some Korean, but whatever. Here in LA, the Chinese supermarket sells everything. Laundry detergent, bottled water, there's even a bank inside. They are trying to reach out to non-asians, maybe? I did see one white person there, though. Anyway, the point of this babbling is there is a section that sells American juice, milk, etc. It was virtually untouched. It was in its original pristine, everything-perfectly-stacked condition. Guess that's not their money making section.

Make a decision and stick to it. Either jump in or jump out when the train is departure, but not both.

Redirect

I moved my blog to calculon0.blogspot.com because the canaan.org.tw site was my church in Taiwan's server. If I start posting a lot of pictures on there, it'll eat up their bandwidth and my web space. Also, blogspot hosts my pictures for FREE. So I'll probably start posting my pics, a few at a time starting with the previous post. I'll probably post the regular pictures at photobucket or something for Stan, Melissa and Just who want the pics from Taiwan. Do you want just one big zip file with everything? Or do you want a gallery?

My car is still not fixed, but at least they have ordered the parts and will be working on it. I went to play beach volleyball (76 degrees in LA) on MLK Jr. Day.

Don't you love Taiwanese advertising?

Pictures, hold on

My car is still not fixed. I don't know how long it'll take, but hopefully by the end of this week I'll have it back. In the meantime, I got all the pictures from Taiwan and I'll put them up soon. I'm looking for a picture place online that I can start putting my pictures at.

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day. No school, whoohoo!

Check out this video Kyle sent me. http://www.funpic.hu/swf/numanuma.html

Welcome to 2005

I got back from Taiwan on Sunday night. I'll upload the pictures soon. Someone tried to steal my car while I was gone (it was parked at my cousin's place in West LA) but all they managed to do was to rip out my ignition.

This is the second time my car has been broken into. The first, back in Ohio, they tried to pick my lock, failed, broke my window instead and didn't steal anything. This time, they didn't steal anything, either, but they picked the lock. Californian car thieves are better, I guess.

Anyway, school has started, and it's pretty boring so far. I do have one funny professor for my database class, though. Half the things he says, he's kidding. But you can't tell when he's kidding and when he's not. He says even his research students have a hard time. It'll be an interesting class.

How many of you take showers at night? And how many that do are asian?

Apparently, Taiwanese people are very touchy about this topic and consider American showering habits to be very strange and disgusting to them. Well, if you could just see all the professionals going to work in the morning with their hair in disarray, you'll know why we shower in the morning.

The lean-over

I'm here back in Taiwan, where this blog originally started. I've been taking pictures of botched English, as usual.

One thing that falls under the I-really-have-no-idea-what-they're-thinking category is how Taiwanese people will use their cellphones anywhere, anytime. I was at a church service yesterday when someone's cellphone went off. If we were in say, I dunno, the USA, the person if he was half-polite, would either turn off the cell phone, OR walk outside if he/she really needed to answer the call. In Taiwan? No. I have seen this many times. The person just looks at the cellphone, determines if they NEED to take the call (this has a positive result 95% of the time) and then LEANS-OVER right there and takes the call. It's as if they are hunched down in their seat then nobody else can hear their call. ?????? I don't even know what to say.

I have seen this in class, in church, etc. It's SO foreign to me.

I'll be updating this blog as I have time.

Ah, the stories we'll tell

December 15, 2004 flight to Taipei, Taiwan with layover in Narita, Japan

9:00AM Leave my cousin's house for the airport to catch my 11:05AM flight to Taipei
9:30AM Arrive at LAX, get in line to use an eTicket terminal to check in
9:40AM Slide in my credit card, am presented with many flight options, none of which are mine. When I punch in my ticket number, the machine says "Cannot find your reservation."
10:00AM Finally am able to speak with an overworked counter agent, who tells me I need to get in a different line to talk to a ticketing agent
10:02AM Get in other line to talk to ticketing agent
10:05AM Call United's toll free telephone to ask about my problem. Am told my ticket was scheduled for NOVEMBER 15th.
10:10AM Call Taiwan to wake up my dad (Taiwan local time is 2:00AM) to let him know what has happened.
10:40AM Receive a call from Taiwan saying my dad has changed my flight to today's flight.
10:45AM Finally can talk to a ticketing agent. I am notified that the gate is already closed and the plane is about to leave. There is no way for me to make the flight today and there is only one flight per day leaving for Narita, Japan.
12:25PM Get picked up to go back home

What a hectic day. I'm now scheduled to leave tomorrow.

On another note, there are these monks who roam the airports and give you books on Yoga, Dharma, the Dali Llama and whatnot. They come up to you, TELL YOU YOUR HAIRCUT LOOKS GOOD, and then hand you a book. They say it is FREE but they then proceed to ask you for a donation. This happened to me on the way to Ohio for Thanksgiving at the Chicago O'Hare airport. This also happened to me TWICE today as I was waiting to get picked up. They look like any other person getting ready to fly; one of them was actually pushing around one of those luggage carts with boxes in it. I just said I already had the books and they pretty much left me alone. Crazy. Just be warned. If someone comes up to you and compliments you on your hair, you know what's coming.

End of year babies

I was reading a friend's xanga and he mentioned that there are a lot of babies being born this time of year (he was doing his OBGYN rotation). Do the math, and that amounts to (approximately) Valentine's Day conceptions. Go look on Yahoo's homepage right now and pay careful attention to the "Popular Searches". I wonder what the breakdown of people born in which month looks like. I should start a poll.

Yeah, I'm supposed to be cramming for my last final tomorrow, but you need breaks, right?

I just realized that I must be one of those babies.

White Castle

Sliders were mentioned on last Thursday's ER.

Reality of dreams

I was dreaming this morning about buying a new car. A car that doesn't exist, but that's not the point. As I walked into the dealership, my eyes couldn't see anything. You know when you go outside from a very dark building and it's really sunny outside? You have to take a minute to adjust your eyes. It was like that. Except in my dream, my eyes wouldn't adjust. I kept squinting and not being able to see anything really clearly. It was very strange. This happened in another dream of mine about 2 weeks ago. I woke up today to find the sun shining into my eyes. That's the same thing that happened 2 weeks ago. It's so weird that real life things would impact my dreams. And that I would find a rationale for them in my dreams. I "thought" (in my dream) that my eyes had to adjust because I was wearing sunglasses and my car window's were tinted.

Do you dream in color or black & white? I have yet to find someone who dreams in black & white.

The solution to all your problems (assuming your problems are my problems)

tstayp: RSS.

There exists, in this crazy world of ours, a neat little protocol known as RSS. Really Simple Sydication. You may find that people say it stands for something else, but don't believe them. Believe me. After all, that's why you read this page, right?

Anywho, (never thought I'd use that word) this protocol lets you know when an oft-updated site has been oft-updated. Example: a news site such as nytimes.com (great newspaper, BTW). Basically, you use your handy-dandy newsaggregator and subscribe to an RSS feed. Then, presto-whamo-chango (I always thought I'd use that word), whenever that site is updated, you get a message containing the title, maybe the first few lines, and a link to the page.

Why is this tstayp? Because now, those of you who read this blog on a regular basis (all 3 of you), can be instantly auto-magically notified when I post something new. AND, get-this, are you ready? This works with comments as well. So no more digging through the comments to see if anybody posted something new. Now, you'll KNOW.

And, this works for torrent-sites as well. So, sta&jus, you no longer have to ask me or check any website to know what torrents have been released. If you subscribe to its RSS feed, it will notify you of all its torrents, when they are released. Cool, ya? Now I sound Russian.

If you are confused, please be. Go google RSS. OR, forget that and just subscribe to my blog.

I'm using Mozilla Thunderbird to get RSS feeds, because it's the greatest email program in the world. On the internet anyway. Yes, that's right, you can check email AND receive RSS feeds. All in one program. The feeling your feeling right now is probably what Adam felt when he found out his urine could water the plants. (It's harder for Eve, but anyway....) goto www.mozilla.org to get it.

You can use Mozilla Firefox to get RSS feeds too. It's called a live bookmark and it works like any other bookmark, except it'll constantly be updated to show you the articles/blog entries that are new.

Now, all you have to do is subscibe to my blog using this link Mozo.

This link is for my comments: Mozo comments.

The links are meant to be used to subscribe to the RSS feeds, not to necessarily be clicked on in your browser. Also, blogger.com uses Atom (competing RSS protocol) instead of RSS 2.0, so if you use something other than Thunderbird, make sure it supports both RSS and Atom.

BTW, welcome to the new font. Mozo v.1.0.0.0.0.0.1

Comment system

Man, you guys leave comments WAY after the original post was made. What do you do, go back and read the comments to see if anybody else has left any new ones? Of course, who am I to talk, since I obviously do the same or I wouldn't have noticed .....

Stupid Americans and balloons

My aunt watches game shows (almost) every night after dinner. Usually Jeopardy, Who Wants to be a Millionaire, and Family Feud. So the other day (last night I think) they were playing the "Fast Money" round on Family Feud. Basically, you have to answer 5 questions, and based on a survey of 100 people (this is the key), however many people gave the same answer as you, that's how many points you get. For example, "Name a female in a fairy tale." There are 2 people, and you need a combined total of 200 points to win. Let's recap what happened....

Here's the questions: (I forget #3)
1) name something people have on their skin
2) name a female in a fairy tale
3)
4) name a sport in which athletes are paid the most
5) name someone who sets you up on blind dates

The first person goes. She's not very good, and gets a total of 53 or something. (Her answer to #1 was "clothes") Question #5 she gets 25 points (i.e. 25 people answered the same as her on Ques. 5) . The second person goes. He is asked the EXACT SAME questions. He answers them, and they start going through the results. After question #4, they have a combined total of 123 points. He needs 77 points on Question #5 to win. The host (Richard Karn, Al Borland on Home Improvement) is like, "Let's see if 77 people answered the same as you..." I was like WHAT?! How stupid is the American public?! (Don't answer that, it'll take about 50 years to answer) Anyone with basic math skills and common sense can see that he already lost. If 25 people answered the same as the first person, then there are only 75 people left. Man, we live in a society that is getting fatter and dumber everyday....not everyone, mind you, just the fat and/or dumb people.

Also, if you don't believe me about what they did to my car on my birthday, check out the pics and video here: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=exodusLA.

Finals

Finals week has descended upon those of us still in school. Sucks.

I have 2 finals, one on next Monday, one on next Tuesday. All this week, I have nothing to do except to study. I'm sitting here in the computer lab listening to lectures online. I'm gonna be so burned out by Friday.

Dennis won an Xbox at his company's casino night. This is the second Xbox that he has that he did not pay for. The first was won by his parents in Vegas. That one broke. He has held off on buying another one because his wife, Wendy, doesn't really want him to get one. The funny thing is that Wendy was playing craps, and Dennis had to go answer a page. When he got back, Wendy had all these chips in front of her. They put all the raffle tickets (the casino night was a raffle system) in the 3 Xbox boxes and they won one. Crazy. We'll probably be playing lots of 4 on 4 Halo 2 on Wednesday.

I was talking to Jean (pronounced 'Jean' like a French John) who is currently studying at AFI (American Film Institute). He is studying to be a producer. He said the next time he does a shoot for his student project, he'll call me. Cool. I wanna see what it's like to shoot a movie. He already was working in China producing TV shows and movies. Crazy. He showed us some of his work. It was really good, very professional.

Man, I wanna be done with finals and go to Taiwan.

Stuck on a freeway

So last night, after our monthly prayer meeting, I was driving home with Benny. And my car ran out of gas. On the freeway. We pulled to the right and called Sam. It was like 1:00AM in the morning. (that's kinda redundant, but whatever) We waiting for about 40 min for him to come with some gas. Thanks Sam!! I feel bad for waking him up. There were like 5 cops that passed us and they didn't stop to help. Our tax dollars at work right there.

I bought a digital camera off ebay, cuz I don't like mine. The battery life is too short, it takes too long to charge the flash and there's no manual controls. But the thing is, the seller just emailed me and said she doesn't have the camera. Apparently she let her friend borrow it and it hasn't been returned yet. So she's offering me a refund. I took it. Now I have to buy another one.

23 years and 2 days

I gotta say, the first two days of being 23 have not been up to snuff. That's probably because I spent all yesterday finishing a semester project. At least it's done now. In other news, both my partners are very deep into World of Warcraft, a MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game for the less acronym inclined). It actually looks like a lot of fun, but I know if I start (which they are trying to get me to do) I will waste wisely spend a lot of time on the game.

Tonight, aside from the usual poker, I'm going to bring my bass over and use Wendy's amp. The Exodusians want me to play for Sunday worship. I've been very noncommittal up to this point, but I'll probably play this Sunday.

All I have left this semester is to study for finals (and one other homework, but whatever). I hope I pass at least some of my classes, haha. /me cries

It's cold in California at night. I'm getting wimpier by the second the longer I stay here. C'mon! I'm an Ohioan! I can go outside in below freezing weather and not flinch at the shockingly cold air that blows against my face, hands, and sometimes goes in my jacket and makes me want to set myself on fire just to keep warm. Yeah! Californians can't take anything! Ok, I'm going back to bed where my sheets keep me warm.