Idea for idol

I’m an idea guy, I come up with ideas but don’t have the means to execute them. The B-SAC bus, The Bluetooth WristBrace, WWMMAA, countless movie ideas etc. etc. I should write some of them down, but I don’t – I don’t know why.

Anyways, I have an interesting idea for American Idol, that would be sure to boost the ratings for the beginning of the show. A lot of people that I know who care about Idol just watch it for the last double digits of contestants, so an idea to boost ratings for the beginning of the show I think would be great.

My idea is easy, take any current pop star.. The jimmy eats the world guy, Brittany, Ashley Simpson.. Fuck it, get Eddie Veddar in there. Slap some makeup on them, change their hair color put a witch nose on Brit, maybe stick Ashley in a fat suit, make them disgusting looking… Then have 2 celebrities per show audition for the show, and see how the professional staff judges them.

I don’t watch the show, but if advertised correctly, the shit could be interesting.

So at any rate, that’s my idea.
free of charge.

jw

Local Tomfoolery.

Hello!
Whilst having a few ales last night during the movie “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” My friends and I came up with a rather novel idea. This idea can move into territories of development and craziness. I’ll give you the version that would probably be the easiest to execute, then I’ll throw a few more layers into the mix, and show you just how far this ruse could go.

It’s easy. easy as FUCK. Go party at a hotel bar. Hotels are always brimming with interesting people from out of town. Have a couple beverages, and see what happens. If anything, you could have some interesting conversation, or you could meet your soul mate (ick, long distance relationship?) You could pretend you’re out of town as well though, you could even attempt to develop a character to use the whole night. My buddy Mike who works at the Buffalo Irish Center said he’s been around it enough that he could pull off quite the Irish accent. I might do a Philly/Boston accent, I don’t know.. staying in character and drinking can get a little tough, but if you were committed… it would rock.

It would be the best if you could hook up with someone though. Someone that was staying at the hotel. You could pretend that you were staying there too! (which could backfire horribly or work out awesome) “Oh, you want to go back to your room? Yeah.. that can work… let me stop up to my room, and get a couple things.. what room are you in?” Shit could get intense real quick.

But I think it’s important to pick a hotel that’s classy and has a bar in it that people would want to go to. You certainly wouldn’t want to go to some place that was shabby. Or who knows, maybe a shabby place would be more fun. I don’t know. I think that the only way to find out is to experiment with this concept and to dress up like you just got out of some crazy business related function or a wedding. I think you gotta shoot the shit with the bartenders and you gotta maybe already have a good buzz when you show up in that place.

The most important thing is to have your story down if you’re going to try and pull off a different life story. Don’t say you’re visiting from Philly if you don’t know anything about the place. You never know when someone you run into is going to be like: “Yo! I’m from Philly too! what part are you from!” and you have no understanding of the geography of the city. Safe bet would be to pick one of the directions of a compass and say “side” after. “North side” or.. “me? I got a little place over on the west side.” But they might volley back with more geographical inquiries, and that’s when you gotta say “well, I’m still a little new to the area.” or something like that.

I think ideally, you want to maybe establish with the hotel bar staff what you’re doing. That way they can give you an assist once and a while, and laaaauuuggghh. And who knows, they might look forward to you coming in and engaging in this unabashed ridiculousness.

Think about it. Could be fun. I’ll leave you with a couple videos to meditate with.

First a funny video

Next.. you could fake this accent and be abrasive like these guys

And finally, you might see some hilarious shit.. like this:

Cheerio Mate!

hijinx@wrrk.com

Hello! Everyone has tomfoolery that goes down at work I’m sure. Thats what makes our jobs a little more tolerable. Jokes and tomfoolery. If shit was serious all the time, and I’m sure there are jobs out there that are a fuckin’ bore, then life at our jobs would be horrible I think. So, I managed to scrape up a little footage of a little something we called “pallet bowling!” Enjoy.

Youtube busting my balls!

Here’s my first video that I’ve uploaded to Youtube:

Yeah, it’s just fucking around with a camera at work, but it’s a moral booster, and it gives my production crew something to be excited about. I told them that the end of the work week would be movie day, and that they should be thinking of funny shit for us to tape. So I had the video above, and that made it onto youtube no problem. However, there’s this one that I want to upload so badly, but can’t because it uses Sinead O’Conner’s “Nothing Compares to You” track.. a for whatever reason, Youtube is magically able to read that I used it in my video, and it’s being a prick to me! for RILLZA!
It makes me rather angry to say the least.

Anyone have any solutions?

Headaches Somewhat solved

So, I bought a program online for $15 called “EasyWMV” which converts files fairly easily from AVI to MOV. Takes a little time, but it seemed to work out pretty good. Only problem is that the audio gets corrupted if I try to play it in reverse. For example, I have this video that I shot of my coworkers making signs, and I thought it would be need to watch the process in reverse. Even though I was planning on dubbing some choonage over the action, there is a possibility that I would be interested in hearing the reverse audio in the future. Yknow.. like if I wanted to do a video response to KyleMonkey’s “grapes and my ass” video on youtube:

So.. I’m figuring it out slowly buy surely, and we’ll see how it goes. Either way, considering how much I paid for the camera, I guess I can wait a little bit to do the conversions, using my $15 proggie. Videos are on their way my friends!

jw

New Camera Head Trauma

Hey gang,

So I recorded some video with my new camera, and I unfortunately have run into a serious problem. This camera is not designed for video production whatsoever. On top of that, it’s designed to function with Windows machines instead of Macs! I am cross platform, but my PC isn’t ‘high speed USB’ compatible. When I plug the camera into my mac, it acts like an external hard drive – which isn’t so bad when you finally figure it out after trying countless things to get Final Cut Pro to recognize that you have something hooked up to the fucking computer. I then open the drive, and there’s a folder “movies” and a folder “pictures” – pretty cut and dry! NOICE! The movie files are AVI files… unfortunately for me, Macs have issues with some types of AVI files, and sure ’nuff – these AVI files make my Mac Barf – and they’re corrupted when I try to play them. The immediate thought is, -Shit, now I need to get a DELL ! but that would be foolish, as to spend $600 on a laptop that will be slow as shit with viruses in a matter of months would prove to make me a little crazy.

So my concept is to scour the web, try ffmpegx, VCL, and a few other options before I get crazy and take the camera back to best buy and tell them to shove their sweet little camera up their ass. I mean, any video camera this day and age should be compatible in a “log and capture” setting as found in Final Cut Pro I would think. The fact is, that this Bill Gates hookup is designed to be no different than your cell phone in that you would use it for immediate playback out of your pocket or on your TV primarily, then you could watch them on your Bill Gates computer. Editing, and actually doing something with it? I’ve yet to figure out how to do it.

If anyone has any ideas on how to convert a screwed up AVI file into a working MOV file or MPG or MP4 or anything USEFUL – without spending $50 on a program to do it – please let me know!

Thanks.

SCORE!

Hey gang, I just scored a HD vid cam. It’s a cheapy.. nothing special.. but a vid cam none the less. have a look:

Pretty soon, I’ll be postin’ a little love on here.
who’s excited?

NYC: A reflective 2520 word essay pt 4 of 4

But there is a lot about NYC that could be regarded as either good or bad, depending on your personal standards all the way up to just your mood that day. I’ll go right down the list of cons that I came across in my short time there. Public transportation could drive you fuckin bonkers as during rush hour, the cars are filled “nuts to butts”. If you’re an outdoorsy kind of person, you’d really have to terminate that part of you (Out here I can drive 10 minutes, burn an entire sofa, and not get in trouble). Some of the people seemed very miserable, which could rub off on you. Hipsters and stuck up model quality girls not giving you the time of day could make it difficult to make friends or find love. Insane work schedules to hit creative industry deadlines could stress you out to no end. Garbage on the ground, tight and expensive living quarters, expensive drinks at bars. People paying way too much attention to clothing, All these items could very well make you crazy, and are the reason for my ability to contain this fire that continues to burn in my belly.

I want to touch on the public transportation system again briefly. The beggars in NYC are a lot more chill than the ones in Buffalo. Buffalo Bums will harass the shit out of you and intimidate you into giving them money. NYC Bums will just say a few words, and move right along. On the train in NYC, as well as the stations, I was privy to panhandlers ranging from street musicians all the way down to dude with no arm and all sorts of mental problems. One group however, if I had a dollar would have gotten my shit in a snap. They were two dudes that in my opinion were not bums, but possibly two dudes looking to scrape up a little extra scratch for whatever. I could tell by their shoes – they were in good shape. They did straight up acrobatics on a moving subway train. The one guy did a handspring to a backflip one foot away from me. One guy balanced on just his hands holding the hands of a guy laying on his back on the floor of the train. They were hanging off the bars that one would hold on for stability, and doing straight up cirque du soleil shit. It was nuts.

Finally before I close, I would like to talk about the last place I went before going home. The Alligator Lounge. A place where with every single drink you get, whether you want it or not, you are given a free personal pan brick oven pizza It is ridiculous. Every beer = free pizza. How can you go wrong with that concept, I would like to know?! But more importantly, skottey, Beki and I acted like complete crazy people there. We just went in circles seeing who could make who laugh harder with ridiculous acts. skottey’s one hand hidden in the shirt while holding the empty sleeve with the other hand, punching the hidden hand out of his chest throw-back was a high point. Beki’s insanely loud laughter to try and scare and isolate individuals in the front end of the bar was also a high point. I hope I contributed a high point, I don’t really remember because it was all happening so fast. Like the whole trip. It was just so fast but I had a blast.

Overall, again, I would say I got exactly what I was looking for out of the trip. I have a firm understanding of what I want to try and accomplish in the next year of my life, and I can’t wait to start executing the initial stages of it. I have to get organized, and once I do, I know things will get easier for me. Well, I think I’ve said just about everything I can remember I did have a bagel, I did have some straight up good brooklyn pizza. Saw the Empire state building from afar, shopping, soul searching, good friends, FUCK. good times. I think I’ll start saving for the next adventure.

NYC: a 2520 word reflective essay part 2 of 4

We went back to their apartment, which I might add, shattered my existing stereotype of NYC living. It wasn’t massive by any means, but it was a lot bigger than I anticipated. 2 bedrooms that were larger than mine here, a livingroom/kitchen that was big enough for two sets of people to wrestle in, and a backyard (which is apparently unheard of in NYC) The pricetag however, didn’t shatter my existing stereotype, and actually made me throw up a little bit in my mouth. Their place was comfortable though, and although their futon was dubbed as being “quite uncomfortable” I was able to pass right the fuck out on it, and found it quite comfortable. Having the hot water heater for the whole building right under me made the prewinter temperatures unknown also.

Saturday morning we went shopping in the NoHo/SoHo area, I don’t really know what that means to tell you the truth, (NoHoSoHo) but it was a bustling area, not too far from the empire state building, and where skottey worked. Check Wikipedia if you really want to know: link to SoHo on Wikipedia. Going into Forever21 with Beki when it occurred to me in the most triumphant way – This place is full of gorgeous women. Fulllllll of gorgeous women. I was surprised that I didn’t sprain my neck looking at all the model quality talent rolling around this NoHo/SoHo area. We went into a lot of great stores and I really did want to buy something. But considering that the purchase that I would be making would be completely spontaneous, my standards were up quite a bit. It really had to be 100% me if I were to buy. I didn’t find anything, but the experience of seeing everything was great. We went to a wide variety of stores, the place I would have had the best luck if I REALLY needed something, would have been a store called: Yellow Rat Bastard the place just rocked.

One store that stuck out to me the most was the ‘kidrobot’ store. I found a video of the grand opening of the store which I’ll put on here below, but let me preface – This store was fucking packed to the gills. Do they sell robots? No.. They sell small vinyl sculptures of weird figurines. They’re kind of like homies But they look like cute and morbid computer generated anime toys. They don’t do anything except look cool. But the store has this insane marketing ploy, the ones that you want are like $150 – $7000. The ones that you can afford, are broken down into certain series (i.e. burgertown series, smorkin’ labbit series, all the way up to familiar series names like the simpsons series) Each one of these ’series’ are designed by artists that you would swear are the cream of the crop of all artists in the universe by the way the kidrobot staff talks about them. The ploy of the small, affordable series? – You aren’t allowed to know which one you’re buying, they come in a sealed mylar bag, inside of a sealed box that tells you what your chances of getting the one you really want are on the side of it. You break the seal, you buy. Oh and they have a clothing line. All are ‘limited edition’ designed by so and so… and cost like 90 bucks for a shirt, and about $250 for a hoodie. you’ll see them in this video!

Here’s their website!

That’s the thing about NYC, and I talked about this with my friend Voula on Saturday night, there is shit in NYC that people go bonkers for, that anywhere else in the world, people would just stare at and say – “jesus, I don’t get it – let’s go” She makes ‘found art’ jewelry, that apparently sells very well in NYC – and that’s pretty bad ass!

Part 3 tomorrow

NYC: a 2520 word reflective essay part 1 of 4

HEy GANG!

Well, this is it – my official review of my NYC trip last weekend. And I’m going to break it up into a bunch of posts.. because you don’t deserve 2520 words.. I’ll give you 650 today.

Let me first start off by saying that NYC wears its pros and cons on its sleeve, and it’s not hard to determine if it’s somewhere that you would be interested in moving to. Some of you might read this post, having a full on existing opinion of the Big City, but this is what I got out of it, and I would encourage you to comment with your own thoughts – especially if you’re from or familiar with that area.

First and Foremost, I told my friends (skottey & Beki) that I didn’t want to do any of that touristy shit. I wanted to just see what life was like out there. What the weekends could be like if you were making a semi decent buck and had a little money to blow on having fun. If someone from out of town came to visit me in Buffalo, and found out it was a 20 minute ride to Niagara Falls and wanted to go, sure, I would take them. But it’s not something I think about doing, just like I’m sure my friends don’t really think about checking out the statue of Liberty or The Empire State Building, or Ground zero.

So I got there on Friday evening, and immediately was exposed to the confusing aspect of the subway system. I am sure that after a year of living there, you completely understand the subway system, but to a newcomer, even leaving JFK can get confusing. It didn’t dawn on me until I realized that I was the only person using guard rails in stairwells of the stations that the subway system and the stations are a breeding ground for horrible diseases, and that I should avoid touching anything…

I met up with my crew, and we made our way down to a high end french cuisine place called Raoul’s This place was fucking unbelievable. skottey just so happened to know the sous chef, which worked out for out benefit as free champagne and appetizers came to our table, and 2/3rds of the beer that we ordered was forgotten about. Great conversation and reconnection with my old friends was just the beginning of this amazing dining experience. There were many moments where a bite was taken, and the eating utensils had to be set down so I could concentrate on not losing control of my self due to over enjoyment of the flavors that were invading my mouth.

After dinner we walked around the SoHo NoHo area. I tried my best to not look around at all the amazing buildings and shops (as I hear that’s how you can pick a tourist out of a crowd) but there was just so much for my monkey brain to focus on and I was rubber necking like crazy. We ended up at a bar where a DJ was crushin out some records, and decent beer was on tap. The place was surprisingly low key for a bar with a record spinning DJ on a Friday night, but it was getting late. We chatted like crazy and really caught up on what was up with our lives. It was at about this time that a “small fire” (as I’ve been referring to it as) was ignited in my stomach/liver area, where I pictured myself living in the city, and fuckin’ loving it. Ideas and concepts of freelance illustrators making anywhere from $400-700 a day doing storyboards for animation firms as well as other stuff made my mouth water as I reality checked myself into understanding that I would be screen printing back in Buffalo come Monday morning, and probably hating the shit out of it. I realized that it is time for me to begin compiling a professional illustrator portfolio.

part 2 tomorrow-