To Be Continued... Friday, October 4, 2019

Friday, October 4  8;24 am

... and howdy.

[NOTE: And Happy New Year! So, this is one of a handful of blog posts I impulsively published on the last day of 2019 in an effort to have a few more blog posts for 2019. Yes, I was "cheating" if you understand why I did this. Whatever, I still have to finish the actual posts themselves. So, that's what I'm doing with this one, but, I'm interrupting here from the "present" (Sunday, January 5, 2020) to add some clarifying commentary so-to-speak. That is, hopefully they're clarifying. I guess we'll see.]

So, I'm sort of in the middle of things, mostly cleaning up the house before our (prospective) cat-sitter, Sam(antha), stops by tonight and is introduced to our four cats: Velvet, Pixie, Minnie and Finn.
I just want to get through this day of CLEANING before 6:00 when Sam arrives.
More updates to come.
But first: feed the cats, the birds, eat breakfast and take some ibuprofen...
And FUCK, it's already 8:36 am!

11:16 am

Man, I'm in slow-motion.
Anyway:

- Folded laundry (towels, etc.)
- Fed birds and cats.
- Put more laundry in washer (underwear).
- Washed throws from TV room, then put them in the dryer.

While having breakfast, I finally finished watching the 3-part Netflix documentary limited-series, INSIDE BILL'S BRAIN: DECODING BILL GATES. I have to say, I didn't know much about Gates prior to this series, and now I think he's kind of heroic. I subscribed to his blog soon after.
I just started another multi-part documentary series, TRUMP: AN AMERICAN DREAM.

12:32 pm

Goddammit.
Time is just... moving.

- Cleared the sink.

Wow. Big fucking deal. Grrrr..!

Sunday, October 6  2:27 pm

So, my original plan was to get through Friday, specifically cleaning the house until Sam got here at 6;00 pm and then we'd go through the process of introducing her to the cats and letting her know what we wanted from her as a cat-sitter. After she left, I think I was planning on trying to finally get started on Inktober 2019.
Well, my cleaning more-or-less happened (maybe less), but enough to get the point across. I did keep getting distracted through the day, though. Towards the end of the day, I was getting more scatter-brained and forgetting shit. I was saying to myself, "my method of multi-tasking is forgetting more stuff at once," and to illustrate, I was supposed to drop off a check to town hall for our taxes, plus deposit another check at the bank and then pick up some dry-cleaning and drop off some more. I got to town hall and realized I forgot the check for the bank (part of the reason is because I took another check as well to cash at the bank and I think that threw me off rather than allow me to be more efficient), so after going to the town clerk and taking care of that, I went back home. Not really a LOT of time lost, just... inefficient. It's 6-7 minutes from home to town hall and another couple minutes to the bank and dry-cleaners, but now I added another 15 minutes going back and forth to the house. Part of my scatterbrainery is of course a sense of panic that I hadn't gotten more stuff accomplished during the day, and I was just exacerbating my lack of production through panic.

Interesting.
On the one hand, I'm annoyed and getting anxious about my lack of progress at home (cleaning, organizing, finishing the remodeling) and on creative endeavors (drawing and filmmaking, etc.) and I wonder if I'm just going to fail at everything.
But, as I take the time to write this, I'm feeling somewhat calmed by this immediate process of documenting things, even if it includes my current sense of failure at accomplishing things. I mean, I am working on a blog post. And I always intended these blogs to be a document of my efforts to become accomplished in different fields of creative interest. So, I need to just embrace the process and let it happen. Blog posts don't just happen instantaneously. Drawings don't happen instantaneously. The same goes for scripts, producing films, etc. I just have to invest the time. Regularly.

*HEAVY SIGH*

Alright, I actually have to work today. I start at 3:30 this afternoon and go 'til 11:00. Although, if I'm done by 10:30, I'm outta there. But who am I kidding? I always close later than scheduled, so I think they just tried to adjust to that fact this week in the scheduling.

Monday, October 7  10:27 am

First off, I'm back to "square one" with other matters (stupidly) and... I'll just leave it at that.
Second, I still haven't finished one damn Inktober drawing yet, and we're a full week in to October. I started drawing one out for the first prompt: "ring". We'll see if I finish that one. I started another one about an hour ago for Day 6's prompt, "husky". Of course, like all my ideas, it's a really complicated concept, and also ridiculous and overdone and overthought out. AH, well. That's my m.o.!
Anyway, I'm really trying to see if I can just work my way through this and just FINISH it. We'll see.

11:31 am

Ugh.
Man, am I outta shape! And I mean from a drawing perspective!
I'm making progress on this drawing, but it's exhausting!
Dammit!

Thursday, October 10  8:51 am

I haven't done any further drawing on my "husky" prompt. Columbus Day Weekend is coming up and we're heading out of town and I've been distracted cleaning and preparing the house for that.
So, I have more of that to do today. Who knows if I'll ever finish that "husky" drawing or do any drawing for that matter.
Ah, I'm just whining.
Okay, I have to get some chores out of the way before I go to work late this afternoon. It's a weird shift, only 5.5 hours (5:00-10:30pm), so I'm leaving late in the afternoon. I'm going to try and stay focused and attempt to get shit accomplished today around the house before I go (besides cleaning, also cut the grass, etc.).
We'll see...

Friday, October 11  8:51 am (again! how weird!)

So, we're leaving today and there's a bunch of stuff I have to do before my wife gets home and then we leave. I'm trying to be a good boy and stay focused.
I'm also planning to bring my notebooks, my sketchbook, my list of Inktober prompts, my camera and my video camera. Maybe I'll do something spontaneously creative. Maybe not.
But mostly, I have to stay focused from now until 3:30 when she comes home and be ready to head out.
Ugh.
Adulting. And being self-motivated. Grrrr....

Thursday, October 24  7:36 am

Okay, here's a run-down of the various things I have going on, or at least, things I'd LIKE to have going on.

Like:

1. INKTOBER: ....which I've started two drawings for, have a number of ideas for, but have yet to finish penciling any one drawing, let alone do any inking yet. And it's October 24th. Yeah.

2. BM-VM SHORTY CONTEST: Monday night (October 21) was a BM-VM meeting and the annual Shorty Contest. And, no, I didn't enter anything. Part of it was due to the fact that I had left making a film entry until the last weekend before the meeting, specifically Saturday (Oct. 19). I had the day off but then there was a speech and debate meeting in the morning at Mount Mercy Academy (MMA) and my wife (A.) and I were judging. This is the first (second?) year that the tournament is not fielding a team from my wife's school since her debate coach formerly retired and since my wife has been the forensics coach for her school since she started in... 2000? 1999? (I think 2000), she chose to retire as well and no other faculty member or alumni has stepped up (or been able to step up) to taking over the team. So, occasionally we're called in to do some judging duties as "independent contractors," hahaha! Anyway, it was fun seeing the kids perform and it made my mind wander re: performing and writing, etc.
So, there was that in the morning, and then I briefly stopped by the Marriott and the Buffalo ComiCon put on by Queen City Book Store. And then we had shopping to do, but my wife was tired, so we came home first, and I was tired as well, so we napped and had something to eat, then went to Sam's Club, Walmart and Wegmans and while on the road, my wife had been trying to reach her mom by phone and kept getting a busy signal. After four hours of that, we called J., her brother, to see if her mom had talked to him earlier and maybe she just forgot to hang up, but it turns out both A. and J. had been trying to reach Mom, so we decided to go out to Lockport and see what was going on. It turns out her mom was having a bad day, and she hadn't really eaten and she was cold and wondered why no one called her. So, stuff was going on. There's a lot more to this story, but I won't get into that. But, A.'s mom has been having a bunch of issues going on and some of them are because she is reluctant to accept she's getting older and that physically she's deteriorating, whether she likes it or not. ANYWAY, A. and I were there for a few hours getting her mom back on track and we didn't get home until late. And then I had to work in the morning (Sunday, 8:00 am)... so, long story short (HAHAHA!), I didn't work on my film entry Saturday night. And then working on it Sunday was lame because I was tired and basically, I had to remember how to download the new footage, etc. I shot with the camera I bought in August. True, I had shot a number of things since August when I worked on the Buffalo 48 Hour Film Project and Team BM-VM's entry, THE CASE OF THE MISPLACED HERRING. Like, A. and I have been to Griffis Sculpture Park and I shot footage there, and also some incidental footage of birds and deer and turkeys in our backyard at various times. Plus, we had been to Delaware for Columbus Day Weekend and I shot footage at White Clay Creek Park with A. and her best friend, C. who lives down there, and also some footage from the car as we were returning home on the road. So, I had some options for film entries in terms of raw footage. I just had to load the footage onto my computer. Which is a long fucking process, and I hadn't done since August when I worked on the 48 Hour Film Project and it doesn't help that I'm forgetful and have to remind myself by trial and error how to do anything technical or computer-related.

So, by the time I figured out how to do it, and more or less did it, I had no time left by the time I went to work Monday morning to complete the editing process, so I had no entry to show Monday night.

HOWEVER, having said all this, I did luck out. No one else brought in a contest entry, except for Hernan Caraballo. And, officially, we need at least three entries to actually hold the contest. So, I have another month to make an entry! 

Obviously, I need to work on an entry NOW.
And wow, that was an excuse-filled explanation as to why I didn't make a film for the Shorty Contest...

3. #horrromoviefaves: This local writer/journalist Toni Ruberto's hash tag thing going on Twitter about horror films throughout October. I want to participate in this, partly because I wanna play, too! but also because I think it's a nice way to network with a journalist.

4. 50,000 WORDS OF BLOGGING FOR 2019: So far, I haven't done ANYTHING except what I've written here in private. Dude, TIME WAITS FOR NO MAN.

Sunday, November 17  1:33 pm

Trying to be productive at home, mostly doing housecleaning. Too bad I stuffed myself on leftover Wegmans' pizza this morning for breakfast. I had my two slices, but my wife didn't want hers and so I decided to "go for the whole schmeer." So, I essentially ate half a large pizza for breakfast and boy, am I feeling it now. I'm such a stupid-head.
Alright. Boo hoo. I have to put an air conditioner in the attic and then wash some dishes and vacuum.
SIGH, he sighed fatly.
#HouseOfTheBloatedFucks

2:23 pm

Well! THAT took forever.

- Put the A/C from the library up in the attic. Plus, re-baited the mousetraps (live-catch) up there AND put the two fans up there, too, that have been sitting in the TV room for the last month.

4:54 pm

- More or less finished washing the dishes and loaded the dishwasher (yeah, the dishwasher by itself is an ineffective way for us to wash ALL our dishes, pans, tupperware, etc. So, I do both - hand wash and by machine).
- Emptied the clothes dryer.
- Helped my wife clean the shower.
- Put the underwear in the washer.

Also:
- FINALLY posted a Meetup and Facebook event for tomorrow's BM-VM meeting. I suck, in terms of promoting stuff well ahead of time.

UGH.
My wife and I are completely NOT in the mood to do anything constructive today, so we're dragging ourselves around trying to be productive. Yay.
Alright, one more hurdle: do some vacuuming and then head off to another meeting of Beaver Alley Studios (BAS) in Lockport...

December 3, 6:21 am

Wow.
Right now, I'm REALLY glad I have no actual readership for these blog posts because, holy crap, they are ALL OVER THE PLACE! And repetitive!

Sunday, January 5, 2020, 1:43 pm

Well, let me try to wrap this post up as I balance a phone between my neck and shoulder. I'm on hold with Consumer Cellular. My phone's had "no service" practically all week and I have no idea why. Between my work schedule, doing other things, or otherwise forgetting to do so, I'm finally getting around to calling customer service. 
I finally finished watching Rhonda and Mark Parker's A CHRISTMAS MONSTROSITY for the second time, although this time at home on DVD. I originally watched it at the Premiere screening at the Screening Room on December 21. I hope to write a review for it later today.
Getting back to the topics I discussed above:

1. INKTOBER: Sad to say, I never finished a single drawing... and I'm just talking about pencilling! I never even got to the inking stage! Argghh! But, the ideas were interesting, so I hope to simply finish those ideas I started and ink them as well, at some point. Stay tuned...

2. BM-VM SHORTY CONTEST (Take 2): Well, as I explained above, I had a second chance to enter a film in the contest and... well, I sort of did it. Actually, no. I really didn't, well, not the way I intended to. I still wound up procrastinating but I didn't completely wait until the last second. But I really cut it damn close. I was expecting Hernan to show his entry, INTERNET DATING SUCKS!, again. He was also a new BM-VM member, having joined at the previous (October) meeting and I was worried that he was going to be the only one who showed up with an entry again in November. In October, long-time BM-VM member (and our club archivist), John Weiksnar, was out of town for work reasons and didn't have time to put together an entry. I was hoping he could put something together this second time around, but I wasn't sure. Another long-time member, Cindy Liber, occasionally made some films, but she had been distracted by work and transportation issues over the previous months, so I wasn't sure about her, either. And our club president, David Gaffney, has been busy with work (which sometimes made it challenging for him to simply attend our monthly meetings), plus, he had also recently married in the summer, so I wasn't sure what his spare time situation was like for putting together an entry. Anyway, I was worried that we wouldn't have enough entries to have the contest again, but we couldn't postpone again, so in the event we didn't have enough entries again, we just wouldn't have a Shorty Contest this season. So, I mostly was trying to throw together two entries so that we could have a contest. And since I was the Club (interim) Contest Chairman, that seemed like an appropriate task for me.
Well, somehow, quite barely, I was able to pull it off but it was a real technical clusterfuck. My main problem was trying to figure out why my footage was not permanently downloading to Final Cut Pro or even iMovie on my computer. My video camera is a Sony HDR-CX675 Handycam and you use this program called PlayMemories Home in order to download your files. I somehow pulled it off, thank god, in August bit I was having problems this time around. At best I could edit my footage, but for some reason, it wasn't actually downloading the files to the computer, it was only available when i had the Sony connected to the computer. So, once I disconnected my camera, those files would no longer be available on the computer, WTF.
So, long story short, I wound up making an entry from a very short video I shot a few years ago of my dad. I intended it to be part of a documentary about him. It's pretty much a single take of him where I ask him some questions. I added some credits and also some explanatory subtitles and that was one entry. I called it THE DEE-DEE DEE-DEE SONG. I then quickly posted it on Youtube and hoped I could play it at the Screening Room off Bob Golibersuch's computer (Bob G. is the owner of the Screening Room, natch!). We've accessed Youtube videos for screening at meetings before. Then, I very quickly did yet another edit of the footage I shot in Delaware and at White Clay Creek Park and I called it WATCH CHILDREN. In this case, I think because of time issues, I couldn't download it to youtube, or it wouldn't, so I wound up doing this ungodly other option: I videotaped the film off my computer screen with my Canon PowerShot A2000 IS digital camera, which is primarily a still camera, but it does have a serviceable video function, standard quality at best. I then ran off to the meeting. In my mind, I'm thinking, well, I can show everybody the video from the Canon, but I'd be walking around to groups because, well, it's a small screen. Well, as it turned out, I think we were able to connect the Canon to someone's laptop and then we were able to show it on the big screen. but, OMG, it was an ugly looking image. The video itself was of standard quality, but it was form an image off my computer monitor in the first place, so there were some second generation visual quality issues. Like, you could barely read any of the titles I had on the screen. It was miserable looking. But... we had our three entires! Hernan did return and David called in sick, and John and Cindy didn't have an entry. So, as Contest Chair, I did my job. that's about the brightest spot of the evening.
Meanwhile, the big lesson from this whole Shorty Contest experience is: I need to figure out how to "permanently" download my files to my computer! And I still haven't! But the holidays are over, so maybe I can get my shit together regarding this matter.
NOTE: BTW, I never figured any of my two entries would get any votes, but out of the eight votes from eligible voters attending the November meeting, I actually got two votes for THE DEE-DEE DEE-DEE SONG! Crazy! Ah, sentimental voters... But Hernan did win first place.

Friday, March 20, 2020 5:39 pm

Hi!
So, I return.
This is in red because... I like colors! No, this is in red to indicate that this portion of the post was written in 2020 because, well, see NOTE in blue at beginning of this post for explanation.
Anyway, I thought there were a couple of these posts that I snuck in at the end of 2019 that I need to finish and this is one of them. So, I'm just going to address the rest of that list and wrap this up.

3. #horrormoviefaves: Okay, as I mentioned above, Buffalo writer Toni Ruberto was doing this thing during October 2019, with a different prompt each day. I wanted to participate, but I just never got my shit together to pull it off. But, I'd still like to do it. So, I will.  Just stay tuned to a later post with the 31 prompts and my answers! Oooh!

4. 50,000 WORDS OF BLOGGING FOR 2019: Well, again, I'm going to try this. This will be my third attempt, I think. I did around 29,000 words in 2018, and only 13, 529 for 2019. Plus, I also cheated in 2019, because I snuck in some posts that were unfinished, like this one, so that the very least I had some multiple posts in 2019. So, it was a technical legality that I got those posts published in 2019. So, yeah, 2019 was a real bust. Thus, I'm trying to do it again. Attempting to do 50, 000 words of total blogging, and at least 6 posts per blog (this blog, my comics blog and my film blog), so 18 posts total. That averages out to about 2,778 words each post, if I only do 18 posts. Bla bla bla... whatever, forget about numbers. My point is, I'm trying to post more in my freaking blogs and this is one way to sort of track my progress. As of today, I have two posts published this year totaling 3,002 words. Eh. It's a start.

So, on to the wrap up. 
A lot of my recent posts have this annoying habit of me listing chores or goals I'm trying to accomplish just to get through the day. I set my goals or To-Do List, then later I say what I've done (and it's usually not a complete success). As dull as that is as blog content (oh, and it IS dull), it shows how my ability to accomplish shit (like, anything) is really at a low pathetic state. But, I'm plugging away. 
I'll try to limit how many To-Do List posts, though, from now on, because... well, that's just super lame to have to read.
Finally, as I write conclude this post FIVE AND A HALF MONTHS after I started it, the world has also changed. We're currently in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic and everybody's getting used to "socially distancing" ourselves in order to limit contact and possible transmission of the virus. Ive already started writing a post focusing on living in this social climate and will start publishing those soon, hopefully. 
Again, to be continued. And thanks for stopping by!