I'm taking all of my money out of that Kyjawmneuczcstskaia Fund

Nature's pointing towards a really interesting article concerning psychology, finance and statistics. A group has shown that stocks with simple names consistently out perform stocks with more complicated names. It's kind of a chicken and the egg problem, but still interesting results.

Ponderosa Kicked My Ass

This weekend, my awesome roommate was nice enough to drive up to Toronto to pick up some of my outstanding effects (books, CD's etc...) that never made the trip on my initial move to NYC. A nice long weekend was had which was way too short. Ended up doing a lot of shopping (IKEA, bigups) eating of local delicasies (poutine) and hanging with the folks. Also had time to fit in a baseball game, where the local squadron hosted the White Sox. My loyalties were tested, but I cheered for the pale-hose. If the situation were reversed, I'd be cheering for the Jays. Sox won the game!


On the drive back, we stopped for lunch at Ponderosa, a joint we both remembered fondly from childhood, but a place we both haven't went to recently. We went, we ate, we almost hurled. Needless to say, I started feeling really woozy and light headed by my 3rd plate. For real. Sometimes it's best to keep childhood memories as they are. Untouched.

High Drama in Ottawa

Prime Minister Harper is making questionable choices as of late. Most recently his shunning of the parliamentary press gallery (made up of national media correspondents). Harper wanted a system whereby his staff would decide who would be allowed to ask questions during question period. Naturally, the press balked at this idea and they all walked out of a press conference earlier this week leaving the PM twiddling his thumbs. Harper is now saying that he won't talk at all to the parliamentary press folks, and he'll deal exclusively with regional services. He says that the national reporters are out to get him and his government. Either way, I feel that it's a bad idea to not talk with reporters. It would be like Bush refusing to talk with CBS, NBC, ABC and CNN. Bonehead.

Best Awkward Catch Phrase That Somehow Caught On:

SOUL PATROL...SOUL PATROL....SOUL PATROL

Where's Iran when you need them?

President Bush: "For the sake of economic security and national security," [Bush] said, "the United States of America must aggressively move forward with the construction of nuclear power plants."

I think Mahmoud Ahmadinejad should send an envoy to Washington and try to affect American domestic policy.

We's Gonna Dodge That Draft

I grew up in Toronto having a few really cool teachers. Coincidentally, some of them just happened to be old draft-dodgers from back in the day. Good people they were, with their wacky old-hippie ways. A lot of them came up to Canada, and changed it forever. Vancouver is the city it is today because of them, and so are other Canadian towns.

The sculpture in the picture shows a Canadian welcoming two Americans with open arms. It's going to be part of the Our Way Home Reunion later this summer in British Columbia. Although it seems like too much flakey hippie stuff for me, I think it's great that people are finally recognizing the contribution made by these people.

Hobo

I've been helping shoot a Public Service Announcement this weekend working as a 2nd AD. I've met some pretty cool people that I never knew before. It's all about connections.


The bad thing has been the ridiculously long hours. Yesterday, we worked 16 hours, and today 12. All for free.

Anyways, last night I was sitting behind the school we were shooting in with a bunch of lighting equipment waiting for others to bring the grip truck around to haul the lights away. So I was sitting on this ladder, and it was around 9:30pm. I was so exhausted so I took off my hat just to unwind. A group of frat boys walked by and they were well on their way to getting seriously soused, and one of them comes up to me and is like "here ya go buddy, you have a good night" and he flicks a dollar bill at me. I was a bit confused at first, then it dawned on me: OH MY GOD, HE THINKS I'M A BUM! I was going to call him back and tell him the error of his ways, but I decided to avoid a scene and pocket the cash. I also thought I was dressed pretty hipster for a film shoot. Maybe it really is the shoes.


We shot this afternoon in a really cool home in the West Village (why anyone would loan out their house to a film crew is beyond me - I would never do such a thing). At any rate, Isaac Mizrahi walked by which got me all giddy. Last week we saw Philip Seymour Hoffman at NYU yapping on his cell phone. Nothing will ever beat the evening I saw Max Weinberg outside of a local burger joint.

Fade to Black

I was just reading that a chain of the Art-house/repertory cinemas in Toronto will be closing down. I have fond memories of the Festival Cinemas. It was there that you could see relatively new films, but not the crappy ones. They always programmed excellent foreign stuff, new prints of classics and just crazy shit. Where else are you going to see Lars Von Trier's 280-minute 'The Kingdom' in it's entirety?

Every year they had a 'pick the Oscars' contest and once I won it. The prize: Free Movies for a year plus a guest. Needless to say, I watched a ton of movies that year. The place was dark, musty and never ever full. However, that was part of the charm. You felt part of a club.

The way we watch movies has changed the game, Netflix has changed the game and pirating has changed the game. I understand when places like this go under, and I'm surprised that they stuck around for so long. Prost.

Bookworms.

The Times asked a bunch of bibliophiles what they thought the best book by an American author was in the past 25 years. The results are here. On top was Toni Morrison's 'Beloved', which I haven't read. Come to think of it, I haven't read any of the books on that list, which I think is a damn shame on my part. For what it's worth, I think the best book I've read by an American writer in the past 25 years would have to be Helen DeWitt's "The Last Samurai", which is always confused for the Tom Cruise movie, which was unfortunately titled the same thing. It was so creative in it's narrative structure. I still don't know if Ms. DeWitt has done anything else, or if a movie adaptation is in the works.

Ladies, how hot is this guy?

Research from the crew at UofC has shown how women use men's faces as judges for flings and fathers. Not any of it is surprising.

Perhaps most notable, is a woman's ability to determine a man's testosterone level solely on looks. That's kind of scary:

The women were asked to rate the men on four qualities: "likes children,"
"masculine," "physically attractive" and "kind." Then they were asked to rate
how attractive they found each man for short-term and long-term romance.
The
study found women did well at rating men on their interest in babies, and those
they rated masculine generally had higher testosterone levels than those that
didn't.

On to the good news:
The features that research has suggested denote high testosterone levels include a prominent jaw and a heavy beard.

Awww yeah.

Tragedy

The bad news is that the hard-drive on my laptop completely conked out a couple of days ago, and Apple says it will take about a week to get fixed. Thankfully, everything is generally backed up, and there was nothing of great importance on it. There was a lot of music, but I can always download that stuff again.

I'm just a magnet for computer problems. In the new year, my external harddrive (with all of my film stuff) died, before leaving Chicago last summer, my dell laptop broke down yet again for the one year that I owned that piece of junk for. Dell laptops are crap. I'm just happy that I've got important stuff backed up, and I will continue to be vigilant about that. Computers are great, but they break down. Get the extended warranty.

Don't Drop the Soap

Perhaps the hardest part of teaching is dealing with academic dishonesty. Cheating on exams, essays and lab reports is rampant, and there's very much one can do. It's usually very hard to accuse a student of cheating and to provide the proof of it.

I think that most students have cheated in one form or another in school, but we've got to be willing to pay the penalty for our actions. From what I've seen, most instructors make a judgment call depending on how severe they feel it is.

Not to get into details, but a student (not one of mine) created an entire web of lies (that included me) surrounding an entire semester's worth of work. Completely suspicious, the said student has yet to provide a reasonable answer to how this work was done and provides a changing story every single time. We had a small 'hearing' yesterday, and the chair ruled to send it off to the disciplinary branch of the university. No doubt, he will get kicked out.

I genuinely feel bad for the kid, as he made a stupid mistake, and we should all be able to make mistakes. Also, his entire college is done for, and tens of thousands (if not hundreds?) of dollars are down the drain.

Students are well aware of the rules, and must abide by them and pay the penalties if they are found to not abide by them.

Marathons

Two weekends ago was the NYU 1st year grad film showcase (which I was a part of). Last weekend was the 2nd year film showcase, and this weekend is the thesis showcase.

After working on some of them, and getting to know the people that made each of them, it's still such a thrill to see YOUR work on a big screen and your name in the credits.

It's also humbling to know that I'm part of such an incredibly talented group of people that can consistently churn out beautiful work.

If you're in the NYC area this weekend, check out the Thesis Screenings.

How's the Weather?

It's been a long time since posting. So much has happened in the past week:
-finished editing my last short film of the year.
-screened it on Sunday afternoon.
-moved to some new digs this weekend.
-brokers are evil people, and I hate them all. Or at least one in particular. Not Fun.
-not being able to steal wireless signal, is not fun.
-packing up is not fun.
-packing stuff away, is not fun.
-waking up in a strange house for the first time is fun.
-living closer to the train is fun.
-having more space is fun
-having windows is fun.
-having awesome people help you move is BEAUTIFUL.
-went to a psychic. what i learned:
-I will die at age 87
-Great change will occur for me on the 16th of this month. It will be good.
-The next two weeks will have misunderstandings. I should keep conversations to trivial things like the weather.
-Went to a Mets game last night
-went with a bunch of film kids from my program. It was great to know that although we sometimes are a bunch of snobs, we all like the ball-game.