Much Ado About Nothing

Ok, so this update probably won't be long at all, for those of you who crave the feeling you get from reading from this blog I'm sorry.

I just wanted everyone in the internet world know I'm fine, I just never really feel up to writing in this much right now. My life has become a series of moments, I'm either to busy at a particular moment to write, that or I feel that nothing I am doing is interesting enough to write down in here, that or for one reason or another I simply don't feel like taking the time to write down.

So for all you who desire new material, I am sorry, but at least there's a decent amount of old material to read again.

GLaDOS

Hello all,

I don't have much time. As usual, I've procrastinated to the last minute, and well... that last minute is now upon me. I've been so busy I haven't been able to update you all on what I have been doing. 

This is merely a post to all you concerned readers that I am alive and aside from a cold I seem to be coming down with, I am well.

Also, according to a posting on my last entry, there is apparently someone else who reads this... however I embarrassingly forgot your name... could you write me an email or something to remind me who you are oh mysterious person? I'm real sorry about this.

Hope all is well with you, my beloved readers.

"God That's Good!"

It has come to my attention that probably only two people at best read this blog, I know, shocking isn't it? With such an outstanding blog as this you'd think the internet would explode with excitement, but sadly this is not the case. 

Now seeing as the two readers of this blog are

my life long  best friend, David.

and probably one of the first friends I ever had in The Great White North friend

that I still keep in touch with Lua.

So I realized that I should reward them with something, but I tried to think of the one thing that they both enjoy. Then I realized it, all three of us are MAJOR Star Wars geeks and all three of us like video games, and (to the best of my knowledge) both of them haven't played the newest Star Wars game "The Force Unleashed". So as a treat (cause that's what I'm calling it, ok so just do what kids do to a bad dinner, grin through it and pretend to enjoy it) I'm going to give my own personal review of it with as little spoilers as physically possible.

Ok so let's get the generic stuff out of the way first. The game takes place in between episodes 3 and 4, (I still don't know why they are focusing on that I personally would much rather see them make an episode 1 and 2 but I digress) I'm not going to say where exactly the game takes place, and by that I mean which movie it is closer to, episode 3 or 4, but after playing the game it's quite obvious. You play the game as Darth Vader's secret apprentice who never actually has a name, he is simple called: the apprentice, boy, master (you have a droid in the game), or on occasion Starkiller. This I think was a mistake, I own this game on the PS3 and have awaited it's release since I fist saw the first trailer and I want a bloody name for the character other then The Apprentice. But in the long run I suppose it's not the biggest deal in the world.

Now on to the graphics, Freaking Unbelieable! I obviously can't speak for what the game is like on the lesser systems but the graphics are just breath taking, you would think you're watching it live action. The game play follows right with the graphics as one of the most fun experiences imaginable, whenever I was a kid (including all the way up till like a few months ago) I would drift off into my head and imagine what it's like to be a jedi, and I would envision some of the most marvelous things, and for the most part, this game stole every idea I had.

Now onto my favorite element of the game, the story. Now this is where it gets hard cause I don't want to give anything away, so I apologize if I let something slip or if I'm too vague. The story is so incredible, so much so that I am fully willing to consider it one of the Star Wars movies. Especially with the graphics, it is essentially a playable movie which makes it more enjoyable then a simple movie. 

All in all, this is the greatest game I have ever played, and I am putting my reputation on the line for that, that's how confident and sure I am. The only one problem I had with it, and it's not even a big deal, is that there are load times when you go from one part of the paused menu to another part of the menu, and oddly enough no load time in the game play. But other then that small detail, GREATEST GAME EVER!

All's quite on the Western Font

I don't have too much to report right now, but I figured I should put in something just for fun. The new session has started up and all we are going to be doing is post-production on the films we made last month, so this should be fairly easy with a low amount of work :).

Also just as a side note I am now a great humanitarian because of this new application I downloaded for my Playstation. All I need to do is run this program, then the system goes almost idle, basically all you as the owner can do while it's running is either, turn it off, look at a world map which has dots for every PS3 in the world (there are three locations in India by the way for those loyal fans of this award winner blog who may or may not live in India), or nothing at all. What the Playstation does however when you run this program is it sends internet signals (I believe) to this medical company which gives a boost to their research to cure all forms of Cancer. In other words, by me running this program not only am I making my electricity bill go up, but I'm also helping to cure cancer.

First of many

Yesterday was the tuesday the 2nd of september, the day after the labour day. I knew somewhere inside that this would be coming. It's just kinda sad now that it actually has. For those who are completely lost, let this 6 year club veteran explain. Every year for the past 20 years Maxwell International Baha'i School began it's first of two orientation days the day after labour day. This is the first year in 20 years that it won't be opening.

I don't know, call me nostalgic, call me lame, I don't care... I'm just having a hard time letting go and moving on from Maxwell. Especially with all the pressure and awfulness that comes with living in the land of concrete it's very hard to move on.

Anyway just wanted to make mention that yesterday Maxwell should have opened, but it didn't.

Moving homes + Major hassle at LAX = ?

First let me start by apologizing for that extremely complicated math problem, in case you were wondering, the answer is "Missing Camera".

You see ladies and gentlemen, the reasons for this posting are many. Firstly, I haven't made a posting for the Final Maxwell Graduation and due to much more spiritual plans that had been prior to the graduation I know that the vast majority of my readers unfortunately couldn't make it to that momentous Graduation. Secondly some strange and Angry American recently told me a story of her camera being stolen which made me think that I should remind you all that I have not forgotten about my recollection of that weekend. And lastly I felt I haven't put enough stuff into this blog yet. And if I'm going to get more posts then my friend in India, I better get cracking.

Ok, so if memory serves me well, me and my brother (who had been down here a while) was packing some of my stuff from my old apartment in order to move it into my house when I had to take a quick break to pick up my best friend David at the terrible Los Angeles International Airport, also known as LAX, also known as the seventh circle of hell. Traffic was worse then I had ever seen it, which is saying a lot. All I had to do was get to his gate, gate 4. Each gate, terminal thingy is about 3 hundred meters long  or so and all are on the right hand side, there were 5 lanes, I was in the middle lane, I began putting the blinker on and couldn't make it over to the right most lane until gate 6. And after gate 7 if you're not in the far left lanes you get shipped to some small out of the way highway... guess where I went... An hour and a half later I finally was able to pick up David. However at this point my stomach was reminding me that I hadn't had anything to eat or drink in about 7 or 8 hours, so it was protesting. Unfortunately it was around 12am and the only thing that would be open were certain fast food joints and Denny's either way, I was going to eat low quality food. However I don't know my way around LA unless I'm going to certain studios, film processing plants, or other film things. So I had to call my Dad (who is thankfully a person who goes to bed kinda late) and ask him to google food joints along the highway. Blah Blah Blah Blah, I just realized you don't really care about me searching for food for the next 45 minutes. Back to the story.

Anyway REAL long story short, we finally got all our stuff into my house at around 330am or so, then we decided it might not be a good idea to leave tomorrow morning, seeing as how both me and my brother hadn't finished packing, I had it all planned out just not started. I usually pack at the last minute, but even for me 330 am the day before we leave is too last minute for me. So I packed up the next day, got all my clothes in Duffle-bag A, Laptop, cell, cell ear piece, and toiletries in backpack A, all chargers, my external hard drive, Indig07 sweater in backpack B. It was perfect that is until (by the way in case I haven't mentioned it yet or you haven't gotten it yet we were driving up) we reached the 2 and a half an hour mark and saw what could only be described as a cow concentration camp, I went to grab my brand new 12 mega pixel digital camera from its designated spot in Backpack A which was by my feet. I couldn't find it, so I figured I must have accidentally placed it in either the duffle-bag or Backpack B, however at the first break when I went through those bags a vision came to me, it was a vision from my third eye, showing me some black rectangular thing sitting on my cardboard box or a night stand, it was my camera in it's case! I had forgotten my beautiful camera back in California for what will probably be one of the most memorable weekends of my life! Needless to say I'm still kicking myself over that huge blunder on my part.

Anyway, that's why I haven't talked about grad yet cause, when I do I want to have pictures of it so I'm still waiting on my brother to send me his pictures and video. But soon my friends, soon.

Loosing cameras also reminds me of a funny story of when me and my mom were on pilgrimage back in 2004, but that will have to wait for another time when my eye lids aren't so heavy.

All good things come to an end

With the end of this session comes the end of many things, some of which I have struggled with both on an emotional level but a spiritual level as I try and figure out what is the right thing to do.  I suppose I'll start at the easiest point, with my film group. 
We've had now 2 months in which to come together, arrange all pre-production work, got all permits to shoot as well as actors, shot our project, developed the film, transfered the film onto a digital format and colour corrected it. Next session we will have two months in which to edit and create sound for it. However, things didn't go quite as simple as I just showed. My camera operator (the one not shown in the picture because he was late) only showed up for two of the four shooting days, one of the countless numbers of meetings, was completely unable to be reached outside of school, and had already failed this class once before and was now repeating it. Now let me be clear, I did not mention all that merely to gossip or backbite, I simple mentioned it so that my hundreds of readers could more easily put themselves in my position. You see, for the majority of this session I've had a heavy heart for the camera operator, I really didn't want to have him fail the class again, I really didn't, in fact I tried to find ways that he could take credit for things that he didn't do so that he wouldn't have to repeat the class a third time. However, it was no use, and he now has, and I feel a little guilty and somewhat responsible for it all. What do you, my adoring fans think? Should I feel guilty for allowing the teacher to know of his performance and thus having him fail the class?

The next thing that I also feel guilty/bad about is my housemate. You see, it was my idea months and months ago for Matt, Alex and I to all move in together, however, the week we finally did move in together I immediately regretted it. Alex was (again I'm only stating his flaws to put you in my shoes) obnoxious, rude, insulting, and very self centered. We have now asked him to move out by the end of September, I don't feel too bad about this because he did make my life very unpleasant, it's just I'm wondering if it all could have happened a bite differently is all. But I guess that's for The Sisters of Fate to decide.

Also I'm not sure but I tried to upload some pictures for the first time and I don't know if they worked out or not. We'll soon find out I guess.

Death and Taxes... And Life

So I feel it's important to state something that happened today. My lighting DP Devin and his fiance (they are only not married because they wouldn't get as good of a health care plan then if they weren't married) and a healthy baby girl last night at 11:21pm. Her name is Alexandra and I got to say she is a pretty cute kid. For me also it's somewhat symbolic because my uncle died from cancer less then a month ago. 

I don't know it's just made me think and all that, as one person who was somewhat young leaves this world, another enters. It's nothing new I'm sure, people die and are born all the time it just... I don't know.  Ya... I don't really know what else to put, it's just been a while since I updated this site and all, and a new born seemed like a good enough update to put then anything. 

So I guess that's all for now.

Is there any remover of difficulties save God? Say: Praised be God! All are his servants and all abide by his bidding.

I find myself saying the repeating those words more, and more often these days... I even contemplated leaving it at that but I suppose that an explanation is in order. So I don't know if I've yet mentioned this yet but I'm directing a short story now and as such I'm the head of a 6 man group, there's: me, Matt (my housemate) as Producer, Kevin as Assistant Director; and for those who are unsure what that is, it is in no way like a Co-Director or an Assistant he's the guy in charge of times, schedules and making sure everyone is doing their job, then there's Devin my lighting Director of Photography, Jake my Production Master who is in charge of all props and everything on every set, and then there's Geoff my Camera Operator. 

Now to avoid backbiting I am simple going to say that one of these people has only shown up to one meeting, does the bare minimum and can never be reached by phone which is extremely stressful on me because I have to work around his failures and somehow stay on corse. 

Pray For Me.

Je ne pourrais pas penser à quelque chose intéressante pour écrire car un titre ainsi moi écrira juste ceci en français.

So here's whats been going on in Ian's life recently.

At the beginning of this session of school every student had to make a script for homework during the break and those who want to try and get their projects made that session print out 32 copies and everyone else print just 1 copy for the teacher, now me and my friend Marc (who wants to be a director and has directed several times before) came up with a joke of an idea last session, but he convinced me to make it into a script this session and try and get it made so the two of us have a greater chance on getting picked so that we can choose what position we have. However, only five people wanted to make their scripts, which was the exact amount that was needed to vote down two, so everyone that made a script up got theirs done, unfortunately that means that me and Marc wouldn't be working on the same project this time, but that's fine, plus I'm directing for the first time which, in this session is a big deal because we spend 2 months on pre-production and production and the next class is nothing but post-production of this project, then when this project is finished we move into upper division so this is a very important one! I'll keep you guys up to date with that as it goes along.

Also this Friday I saw The Dark Knight, now I'm not going to give anything away for those who are out of the country for a while all I'm going to say is that it has the quality of The Godfather only for this generation, by far one of the best films I've seen in many, many years!

Then on Saturday I went down to southern Orange County to a bonfire that was happening to welcome back a long time friend of mine, and by long time friend I mean like, our parents had a shared baby shower for the two of us, we've known each other that long. She had just come back from a YOS in Ethiopia where she was editing a Baha'i children's show as well as making two documentaries while she was there. So it was really fun seeing her again cause I hadn't seen her for a long time.

So that's all for now. Again I apologize for not yet updating about Grad, I forgot my camera so I'm waiting for pictures and possibly a video from my mom to get to me.

I am a Grey Jedi

This past week I've been doing a lot of driving to and from LAX both as a passenger and as a driver, and after also having a lot of recent time behind the wheel in Canada's lovely highways I've come to notice a very subtle difference in both the state of the highway and the way the drivers drive. You see in Canada the surrounding area around the highway is beautiful trees and towns and bodies of water, the roads are smooth and even, and the drivers respect eachother's right of way and are generally quite polite to one another. In fact when I got off the ferry terminal I saw something that was so astonishing; there were these two cars in the left hand lane, and a car from the right hand lane that wanted to merge into the left lane so, he turned on his blinker (which by itself is quite odd) and waited for an opening in traffic, but then suddenly one of the guys in the left hand lane put on his brakes to that he could merge with the left hand lane. That has never happened, not in the whole year that I've been here in California have I ever seen someone make room for someone else on the highway unless someone is merging without waiting for you to make room (which is most commonly how people merge here). Anyway back to the main point.

So I realized the main difference between Canadian highways and American Highways and the people who drive them. Americans are the Sith and Canadians are the Jedi. You see, in America, when you're on the road it's all about you, you have the right of way ALWAYS you can go (practically) any speed you want and it's the base emotions of driving, oh and quite often (especially when you're in unnecessary traffic) you are forced to give in to your anger, and to let the hate flow through you. For the Dark Side is hard to resist. Also my point is proven once again, because as we know, when someone becomes one with the dark side the force disfigures them giving them wrinkles and other marks, and if you've ever driven on an american highway then you would understand, it's terrible, there's no other way to describe it, there are HUGE cracks in it, bumps and other parts that are just torn to pieces, which definitely means that the roads are mirroring the internal image of the evilness of the drivers. But with Canada, it's totally different, the drivers are friendly polite and obey the speed limits and well... all other driving laws for that matter and it shows once again, the roads are well maintained, and the scenery is beautiful.

And as I have said before power of the Dark Side is hard to resist, it is so easy to fall and give in to you're lower driving instincts, however I have tried my best but after spending around 2 weeks in Canada I realize that I am not a good Jedi, at best I'm a Padawan who has a constent battle against the Dark Side, and at the very least I am a Grey Jedi, I'm not evil like the Sith in their driving, but I'm not always calm and serene like the Jedi.

I will make a post about the final Grad and everything as soon as I A) Receive the photos of the weekend from my mom, and B) My friend in India tells me how to upload pictures onto the blog (hintedy hint, hint)

Also, here's my rating of the last few movies I saw:

Walle - 10 Lightsaber

Kung Fu Panda - 8.5 Lightsabers

well I guess I haven't seen as many movies as I thought...

Oh well.

Another Anos

Well today I finished my last class that completed my first year (and by year I mean 12 month cycle) at Brooks, and to celebrate that fact I ordered online a gift for myself that also arrived today. I splurged on myself and bought an original (but used) copy of Final Fantasy 7! I don't know yet if I will be able to play that before I go home but I hope I can, which by the way is tomorrow, in fact later today my best friend is flying in and him, my brother and I are going home. So this should be a fun trip.

Time to catch my breath 2

So then my mom left and my brother drove down to be with his girlfriend who goes to the same school as him in D.C. but lives in San Diego so I had my place to myself, also, our landlord who has the exact same floor plane as my place sold us his very large couch and lazy boy for a very big discount cause he's moving to a much smaller place. So all is now well at my place. Then we shot our project at this super abandoned location as well as my place and I was the producer of it, and that was A LOT of fun and I really think that that's what I will be doing as a living, being a Producer. Now the director Marc and my roommate Matt who is the editor are just finishing the CGI scenes and burning the dvd's so that we can hand in our project. And when that was all over I kinda made a big/bad/awesome financial decision and bought Rock Band and now I've gotten pretty good and both the guitar and singing. I created a band called The C47s which is a nickname for a piece of film equipment and all the members are named after film equipment. So that's awesomely nerdy.

Time to catch my breath 1

Hello all for you person who is still reading this. 

Well right now I'm editing a video I made for my science class and there are points where it takes a long time in order to render so I figured I would update my blog in that down time. So where did I leave off?

Right, so, my mom flew down in the hopes of finding me a new home for me and two friends, the only desires me and my future roommates wanted were a washer and dryer, a lawn (even if it's small) possibly a second story, a private bathroom for one of them, and rent under $700, the first house we found was even better then either me, my mom, or roommates wanted, except the normal rent is $700 so me and Matt (one of my roommates that will most likely be here with me for the rest of our time at Brooks) get the garage but have to pay $725 that comes with our place and Alex (a guy who is most likely going to move out in 6 months and move in with his girlfriend) has to park on the street and pays $650 which is also a little unfair because he also gets all the downstairs, a walk in closet and his own private bathroom but whatever. So we signed the lease and everything and once we got the internet set up everything started to settle down. However due to some unforeseen events in Washington D.C. my brother is staying here in California until we drive up for Grad, so I've had to find space around my house for him, which means I still haven't unpacked fully yet. And my room is a total mess with his and my stuff.

Just cause you missed me

Hey everyone,
Just to inform everyone I have moved into my new place and now have internet but my computer has finally started giving me problems after about 2 and half years of nothing but goodness. Anyway I just wanted to inform anyone (if anyone is actually reading this) that that's the reason why I haven't updated this thing in like 2 or 3 weeks is cause I've been either, too busy, don't have internet, or don't have a computer at my disposal. I'll update some more when I can.

Busy week

Ok people of the interweb, this upcoming week for me is unusually busy so I decided to do a somewhat large update on what's going on now and not get far behind, since I know that your lives revolve solely around this blog and activities I put in it. So for starters, I'm the Producer of the sole project in my group of four this session and so far I've posted our project on a casting site and have gotten about 60 or so replies from both SAG (Screen Actor's Guild), SAG Eligible, and non unionized actors, and it's my job to go through them and contact the ones we believe would suite the part and have them come to our audition which is this monday and friday. Then I have secure our location for the shoot and have the owner's sign some legal papers and then arrange for some food for the shoot; it's keeping me real busy. Also this tuesday morning there's a field trip to big time business in LA (grrrrr...) where we can get our film developed then tuesday afternoon my mom is flying to help me find a place to live since my lease on my mediocre apartment with shitting roommates ends soon and then that evening my mom, my two new roommates Matt and Alex (and possibly Alex's girlfriend), and me are all going out to dinner. Then Wednesday the two or four (if they are up for an early morning) will go out and look at different houses and possibly buy/rent one and also juggle our class in there as well. Then on wednesday night or thursday morning my brother arrives and has agreed to help me move in and shop at Ikea in exchange for him staying with me till I drive up to grad, so it's a win win situation :)! Then thursday (hopefully) or possibly friday I'm going to get dressed up and see the new Indiana Jones movie which (for some reason) comes out on a thursday, don't ask me why cause I really don't know. Then friday or something my mom, I guess now my brother, and me are going down south, seeing my uncle, aunt, and niece, my niece by the way worked on the latest Narnia film, then see my grandma, then my Southern Californian/Persian family, so that will be fun. Also on friday there's a callback audition and an audition for those who couldn't make it to the monday audition.

And to top all that off I'm behind on Ugly Betty, and Lost and Battlestar Galactica are getting super suspenseful.

Also I've decided that whenever I see a movie in the theatre I'll give it my own rating for those who haven't yet seen it. So here's the first ratings from movies I've recently seen:

Harold and Kumar Escape for Guantanamo Bay: 4.3/5 stars

Forgetting Sarah Marshell: 4.7/5 stars

In Bruges: 10/5 stars

The Chronicles of Narnia Prince Caspian: 3.5/5 stars

Speed Racer: 4.6/5 stars

Ironman: 4.6/5 stars

Rat race

So as some here know, I had a job working at my schools prop house, I was responsible for people checking out props for their assignments and also for their return. However, at this job I work from 8-5 one day a week and only get paid minimum wage which here is $8.00/hr also during my time at work I had a total of maybe 45 minutes of actual work that needs to be done, so for the rest of the time I merely sat around and either read some of The Count of Monte Cristo or played around in one of our wheelchairs. However fun that may sound it gets quite boring quite fast and if I want to read a book and fool around I'll do it on my time, if I'm at work I want to work, plus the 20 minute commute each way isn't all the fun either. So just moments ago I emailed my boss and kindly thanked him for hiring me and giving me the opportunity to work there and then I told him I could no longer work there, so, now I'm looking for a new job at either a restaurant or a local game stop (which is America's version of eb games).

If you wish to wish me luck or offer a suggestion as to another good job then now is the time to hear it.

Harbour City & PA

Bonjour,

So the most recent news thus far is I just returned from the Land of Reason also known as "My home and native land" or Canada for short. As some of you know, my school has its own odd schedule where we have classes for 7 weeks and then take a 1 week break except in the summer and winter where we get an additional 2 weeks added on to the mandatory 1 making three. So last week was one of those highly coveted week off and I spent it helping my parents move from my high school home in Mill Bay to their new home in Nanaimo, it's a nice house, pretty view from the living room, and better still is that it's only 1.5km from my dad's office who had to spend an hour each way in commute for the past 7 years. For those familiar to the highway in Nanaimo it's just off the first jingle pot exit.

Just before I left however, my screenwriting teacher told me about this opportunity that I would really appreciate your opinion on. My teacher, Paul B. Margolis (you can even imdb him) told me about this mini series that is filming in Newfoundland and parts of some gulf islands of Quebec and they are looking for full Canadian citizens (such as myself) to work as a PA or "Production Assistant" for all those who aren't savvy on the lingo of the industry. As of so far I don't know what company is making the mini series, what it's name is, whose making it, how much they pay, or how long they are going to need me; all I know is that they are looking for someone who is a full citizen to work for them at some point in august. This is a very big opportunity for me, I would be working with industry people and getting real experience as well as getting my name out there in the world. However I would be missing a lot of school, since I don't know yet when they start or finish, as well as the fact that they may not pay me enough to make it worth it. But not only that but I would be delaying the last session of film classes in the lower division which is nothing but what the school tells me to do, and the upper devisions we decide whether we were to go into a Feature Film track or a Commercial track, this can obviously be taken later on but still.

So there's all the information I have at the moment people who live in these narrow tubes of the interweb. What do you think I should do? Stay in school and hope another opportunity comes later on, or go to newfoundland and take the time off? Let me know what you think

The Beginning

One simple thing about me is that I am a modest person and don't normally like talking about all thats going on in my life to people face to face, so I've decided to take a page from my friend in India and start a blog about my life in this Land of Concrete known as Southern California.

For starters, this blog will not be super deep or have hidden symbols in it although occasionally I will try and place a cheesy poetic phrase or use other artistic sayings every now and then, they may be cheesy, unnecessary, or not needed, and for this I apologies in advance.

As I said before I am a modest person, however I still do have an ego which is one of the reasons why I created this blog (the other to appease my mom and keep her up to date with what's going on down here) to let the people I know, know what's going on with little old me, and more importantly to get your feedback on my life without it having to be all face to face and all. Every now and then I'll pose questions that are either hard for me to figure out on my own and will want your feedback. 

I'll try and keep the interweb updated on my exploits at least once a week. so check in every now and then.