Okay, I couldn't very well use that headline twice, now could I? For those of you who are unawares, Armor for Sleep's second full length, What to Do When You Are Dead, was released today. I've already picked up my (legitimate) copy. If you buy it on iTunes, there's an exclusive bonus track called "Imagine All," or something like that. I know it's Imagine-something or something-Imagine. I would have downloaded it already but my iTunes keeps crashing on me. I'll admit it: I've been listening to the album non-stop for at least three weeks (and loving it more and more), so it's cool to actually have a song that's new to me today.

/commercial interruption

So: shooting Nate Kemper on Saturday went amazingly well. Everything went as planned, it kicked ass and was very satisfying and reaffirming. Dan saved my ass and did sound and also brought his digicam along and took these great pics. The new bizarro-lite header is from one of those images.

Switching gears--how crazy is it that Hunter S. Thompson shot himself? Obviously, when you think about it, it makes sense that that's how he would go out. This way he can't whither away and his public legacy will be preserved. Russ recently has been talking to me about how he's afraid he's going crazy and is possibly losing his grip on reality...anyone who has been reading this blog in the past couple of years knows that I'm no stranger to that feeling. But one has to wonder what was going through HST's head. He's one of those figures where the line between genius and insanity isn't just blurred--it was non-existent.

Arthur Miller died.

In other news, I'm basically over my illness. All that remains is nasty congestion. But I can smoke again, which is nice. The past few days have been no good. My house was my prison and I was alone with my thoughts, checking away messages compulsively and reading the same websites every 5 minutes. No good.

Closing in on the first day of Nate shooting. Hopefully all will go well and I'll get some satisfaction from the whole thing. It's at a point where just working mindlessly is the only way to proceed. And by mindlessly, I mean in a less intellectual way and more instinctual, which is something shooting allows.

I didn't go to a single class this week because of sickness. That can't be a good thing.

Today's my dad's birthday. So, happy 57 to the old man. Not that he reads this.

I have an ear infection. It's the least kind of fun.

Shot the first episode of Russ's Sunny Binghamton over the weekend. I'm looking forward to how it turns out.

Well here we are, an early morning entry after a (mostly) sleepless night. I'm dealing with this, well, general ennui lately. It's the same thing that I've experienced before that comes and goes. This period isn't as crippling as others I've gone through, but it's there, nonetheless. I feel like I'm missing something. Like I'm only seeing a small part of a much larger elephant. I also feel like I'm waiting for something to happen to me.

Unfortunately, I've had to push back shooting Nate 1 a week, from Saturday the 12th to the 19th. As I've mentioned before, this work is the thing I care about the most. It's frustrating that it can't always be my number one priority. But I have a good feeling about things this time...I think it's going to be good. I really do feel like once I get in the think of production and editing and all else involving the show, I'll start feeling better. More alive, like I'm living my life.

I fell asleep at 10:00 last night, and I've been up since about 2. I've got class at 11:40 this morning...I'll likely fall asleep before then, but as time goes on it makes less and less sense to do so.

I had a productive day. I cut a class, went to half of another. (That's not the productive part). But then I washed my comforter and sheets, which was no small task. The fucking washers at the laundromat ate my quarters ($4.00 worth) TWICE before I finally got one that worked. That was damn frustrating, let me tell you. But the important thing is that I have clean sheets and blankets. That's nice.

I was listening to a radio show on WHRW (Bing's campus radio) tonight and it sounded like a playlist I might make: Modest Mouse, Coheed and Cambria, And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead. I'm going to the station's general interest meeting tomorrow/today.

God damn I really wish I could sleep. I think I'm going to smoke cigarettes and listen to music instead. Yeah. That's the ticket. I've been realizing how good the new Jimmy Eat World album is. Ditto the new Bright Eyes. Still enjoying the new Armor for Sleep immensely...I must have listened to it two dozen times in the past two days.

"hey guys. this is ben. i want to thank all of you for doing an awesome job of not posting our new cd anywhere...at least in a widespread type of way. we and equal vision and everyone involved with this cd have really been trying to keep things on the dl until the release date. as you probably know, our first cd was leaked for about a year before it came out. i know this upset a lot of people involved, but to me it was awesome. we were a new band and everyone who wanted to hear it at the time made us all really excited. we would all still be really flattered if this one got leaked, but its even more flattering that the people who do have it are keeping it to themselves. i cant tell you how much it means to all of us. we spent a lot of time with this cd working on the art and making everything a complete package. i think we're always going to try to use everything possible to express ourselves. in this case the artwork does play an important part in our album and we want you all to be sucked completely into our world. that is all. thanks."---Ben, AFS

About BSG the other night...wow. One of the best TV shows on right now, period. Not just good sci-fi TV. Unfortunately, I think a lot of people will dismiss it right off the bat because of its name. But its ratings on SciFi are the highest SciFi has ever gotten, so, hey...season 2 much? Damn well better be. This is a bigger cliffhanger than TNG's "The Best of Both Worlds." (How's that for nerd-speak?)

Okay, I've got it down now. Class, that is. I should be in class right now, but I'm not. I've figured it out so that I can get away with only going to one class a day. Today it's at 4:25-7:45. Long. Ass. Class.

I need to cut back on my smoking. Even Russ said so. I smoked way way too much today.

"Kobol's Last Gleaming: Part II." Wow. Wowowowowowowowwow.

Wow.

SO tired.

I got back from my first class a little bit ago. Ariana said I could petition and she'd let me in the class, so woohoo, yea?

But I swear to god, it is such a fucking damn mess out there with the snow and the slush and the salt and the sand. I don't want to leave the house. I feel so fucking disgusting after walking from my car to the lecture hall in knee-deep snow and sitting in the damp filth of my clothes. This is no good. No, this is no good.

I failed to mention in my earlier entry that I've been wide-awake since 6:30. I broke this horrible sleep cycle I've been in (that is, unless I nap after my 3:30, which is looking more likely with every blink). Somehow last night I was in the proper tomorrow-is-the-first-day-of-school mindset and my body let itself fall asleep at midnight. So I had a productive morning. Firstly, I went and bought a carton of American Spirits. After a full day of Camel Lights, Marlboro Lights, and Winston Reds, damn was that first one tasty.

Then I went to Staples and I ended up buying a scanner. I've been without a working scanner for well over a year, and I need one for making some props for Nate. It also has a built-in negative scanner, so that'll be really useful for digitizing work I do with the AE1. I dropped off the film from yesterday's "shoot," so hopefully there will be some scan-worthy shots.

I have to get ready for class. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.

So much snow, so much cold. Why do I get the feeling I'm going to be cutting a lot of classes this semester?

Nice thing to say on this, the first day of classes. My only scheduled class today is at 3:30, but I'm petitioning to get into this documentary class that starts at 12. So I'm going to show up for that. I seem to recall already being promised a place in the class, so hey, that might work out. I'm also hoping to TA for Cinema 121 (the intro cinema course) which meets this morning.

I've been watching The Office, and I've been enjoying it muchly. I wish there were more episodes though. Ah well. Quality > Quantity.

Yesterday me and Russ took some prop photos of Jon and Nell as Nate and Gena for the 'new' Nate Kemper Project. It was late in the day, really cold outside, and I was just going to say forget about it. I knew in the back of my mind it was that "I don't feel like it today" attitude that was the reason why I hadn't finished the show by now. It was an easy choice really: puss out or just do it. And we did it. Good way to start off fresh.

Yesterday I had to dig out my car. Excavate is more appropriate actually. See, the night before I didn't move my car to the other side of the street for the plows. My car was literally buried in snow. It took me 45 minutes to get it out. Thanks to mom and dad for insisting I take a little shovel to keep in my trunk on my last trip home...otherwise, that fucking car would still be there.

That heading has nothing to do with what I intend to write about, but it, you know, just popped in there.

Personal blogging is an interesting phenomenon. So self-aware of itself and the...phenomenon of itself. But 'blog' is a relatively new term--newer still is its usage as a verb ('blogging). Everyone knows what it means. Weird. People did this before it even was a word. Before LiveJournal existed. Back then, you either had to edit the HTML manually or have some knowledge of scripting to manage a blog yourself.

Anyway. Tangent.

I came home last night because today I had an appointment with a speech pathologist in Manhattan. It was a follow-up appointment--I never wrote about the intial one three weeks ago. Why? I don't really know. Actually, I think I kinda do, but I don't know. Anyway, there's this device called "Speech Easy" (web or web, take your pick) for stutterers. Stuttering, apparently they've always known, is usually a neurological problem. This makes sense to me. In a normal person's brain, scans reveal activity in one hemisphere of the brain while speaking. A stutterer, on the other hand, has activity in both sides. The two signals come into conflict and viola: a blockage at the point of verbiage. <> This device which is basically a hearing aid delays and pitches sound, the idea being that the other side of your brain is concentrating on listening, thereby allowing for normal speech. Anyway, I got the device today, and it's...interesting. Does it work? I don't know, but I'm leaning toward yes. Assuming it does, the biggest issue I have is just getting used to hearing what sounds like a little gremlin in my ear, mocking me by repeating everything I say in a high-pitched gremlin voice. Obviously you get used to it after time and tune it out, but it's still not really good for things like listening to music and watching movies which I, like, do a lot. I'm supposed to wear it for 8-10 hours a day ideally. And I think the more I wear it the longer the positive effects will last once I take it out. I don't know though. The speech pathologist I saw and all the testimonials say that very often people who've been stuttering for years just put it in and presto (there's a 90% success rate). I don't know if it's working for me though. I'll give it a chance.

Anyway, yeah...back to Bing tomorrow. I got all caught up on 24 this season so I'm going to watch the new one tonight. Fun fun. I'm horribly addicted to cigarettes, but that's something we've known for a while.

Just saw the cover of the new New York mag: Conor Oberst: New York's Newest Hearthrob.

I have no energy. I'm so tired. I can't do anything.

In a fit of something, yesterday I spat out this idea I've had for a while for a Further Seems Forever t-shirt design. I'm going to get one of those iron-on kits and make one on a black t-shirt. Or some fabric paint. I dunno, but I want one of these.

Never mentioned this, but I'm going to this show at the end of April that's featuring a FSF reunion with the original line-up. They're playing the entire The Moon is Down album. You don't understand, this is like The Beatles reunion for me.

Okay. On to other geek issues: for inquiring minds who want to know, yes, I did watch 12 episodes of 24 the other night. And it got pretty intense. You can imagine me lit by the glow of the TV and the cherry of my cigarette as I chainsmoked the night away. 24 pulls a lot of cheap shots, and they're not taking advantage of their success and exploring what else they can do with the format (IE every season is some variation of the same theme/story). But I'll be damnd if they haven't pimped the serial for everything it's worth. I started watching season 4, but I imagine I'll get bored with it like I did with 3 and I'll end up seeing it on DVD. This is not the kind of show you can wait a week in between episodes for.

I've been doing a lot of writing lately. Writing is really difficult for me. I was talking to Mike last night about writing and we have opposite processes. He just starts writing before he knows where the story is going, whereas I don't start writing in longform until I've mapped out the entire thing in my head. Writing is almost painful for me, so I like to minimize the time I have to actually do it. Basically writing the whole thing in my head beforehand helps.

Since Saturday night we haven't had any heat in the house. We got it back today. It reached a pinnacle lastnight/this morning when you could see your breath whilst sitting and watching TV in the living room. The extreme cold rendered it rather difficult to do anything but, well, bundle up and sleep. So I've been pretty useless for the past few days.

But the heat's back now, so all is well.

I've been in something of a funk recently. I think the only definitive cure is getting started shooting/editing/finishing episodes of The Nate Kemper Project. It's been rather lonely here, but never really boring, since I've been writing/thinking/watching TV and movies, etc. But lonely, most definitely. I'm sure it's just a combination of (non)things.

Did I mention we have heat in the house now?

I need to capture a buttload of video for Bracey to edit tomorrow, so since my computer will be busy with that, I rented the last half the last season of 24 (about the point I stopped watching). Can Josh watch 12 episodes of 24 in a row? Of course he can.