Exorcist
Alright, scariest thing ever. Right as we are watching the Exorcist on HBO, and rewinding it a few times at choice moments using the brilliant Tivo, a lightning bolt or two hit and knock out the power to our house for about 45 minutes. the only thing going through my head are the visions of the demon flashing in the background randomly during the movie. We were reduced to our childhoods as we broke out candles and played a few games of War while drinking a few beers. As you can tell, i'm glad the electricity is back on, and there hasn't been too much going on in the life of jeff chin. On a happier note, congratulations to Andrew Werner for graduating college (in a few days), and also Dave for following his dream and going to the creative arts school.
"Solo" (probably not the name of the actual song) Yngwie Malmsteen, "Get By" Talib Kweli, "Family System" Chevelle, "Anything but Ordinary" Avril Lavigne, "Second Grade" Preppy, and finally "Darling We're Dead" Luck Be a Lady.
Wednesday, April 30 at 9:10 PM
A P R I L 0 3
If you only visit one blog archives this summer, make it the April 2003 archives. Dave talked about the rising popularity of weblogs and pointed out a Washington Post TFA article. Jeff gave a much-needed update on AOL, websites and TV shows. Dave was excited about Hotlanta and visited his future educational institution, Portfolio Center. Dave then launched his class website, Northeast Island and watched the movie Bulletproof Monk with Andrew. Don remembered the infamous "shoryuken incident". Dave wrote the defninitive Summer 2003 Movie Guide. Finally, the movie Ladder 49 was filming a block away from Dave, so he wrote about it not once, but twice (Jeff added his two cents as well).
nice way to spend an afternoon
Our neighbor Jesse has a house directly across the street from St. Michael's church, the filming site for the movie Ladder 49 yesterday. So I got past "security" (short guy with glasses, wielding a walkie-talkie with his arms crossed) by saying I lived with Jesse (Tammer gave the guy an "okay" sign), and proceeded to walk past a small crowd directly onto the set. We stayed for about an hour, and it was freakin' awesome. I watched five takes of a funeral procession scene. Hundreds of firefighters (I'm guessing that they were real Baltimore firefighters and not actors) surrounded the church and crowded onto several fire trucks. After the director's motivating "It's a funeral, look somber" command to the extras, a line of firefighters started slowly walking out of the church. Joaquin Phoenix (Gladiator) led the pack, holding a hat. Then came the pallbearers with the casket, and then...Travolta. I triumphantly sipped my Boddingtons from Jesse's porch and resisted all urges to run out and get my Battlefield Earth en espanol tape signed. It was a pretty cool experience actually being on the set, watching the camera crane in for an overhead shot as we looked over shoulders at video editing screens. Oh, and they plucked all the leaves off of the trees in front of the church - this was a winter scene. They actually stopped once in mid-take because the sun had come out, so production was halted until it was covered by clouds again.
I'm excited to say that Northeast Island is going really well. I'm getting rocked, however, in Vocabulary Video Games. I started to get a little too cocky today and had the students pick which Super Smash Bros. character I would play as. Suffice to say, Jigglypuff just doesn't bring his A-game. With me losing in video games and Ruben in the bottom two tonight, you would think the world has gone mad. "Meet Me In Margaritaville" (new Jimmy Buffet album)
at 7:28 PM
dave2n.com summer movie guide
I've honestly seen about three movies since I started teaching, and one was Vin Diesel's XXX, so I'm not even sure that counts. But here's the definitive summer movie guide anyway. I'll probably only see The Matrix Reloaded...okay, all right, you got me, maybe Daddy Day Care too.
2 Fast 2 Furious: Yeah, that's really what the sequel to The Fast and the Furious is called, not Big Cars Go Fast Vroom!. With no Vin Diesel, who's going to say all the incredibly deep car-to-life metaphors? "I live my life a quarter-mile at a time," I mean, you could start a religion with that. Expect an oscar nomination for Ja Rule. (June 6)
Bad Bad Boys 2: They've wanted to make this sequel for years. It's gonna make millions. My only gripe is that Will Smith continues to get all this attention while DJ Jazzy Jeff is forgotten, probably selling bottle rockets at South of the Border. (July 18)
Bruce Almighty: There is a scene where a dog is reading a newspaper on a toilet. I'm sold. (May 23)
Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle: I think that this movie will make some money. (June 27)
Daddy Day Care: Eddie Murphy's most critically-acclaimed role since The Adventures of Pluto Nash. Chances of a scene where a kid hits Eddie Murphy in the crotch with a baseball or something: 100%. (May 9)
Finding Nemo: The latest Pixar (Toy Story, Monsters Inc.) offering. Has fish. Should be good. (May 30)
From Justin To Kelly: I saw a poster for this last weekend and couldn't believe it...believe how AWESOME A MOVIE IDEA THIS IS! Justin and Kelly from American Idol in a musical comedy! American commercialism at its finest; brings a tear to my eye. (June 13)
Hulk: A teacher at my school thought The Hulk "wasn't going to be all that." It's directed by the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon guy, Ang Lee, so it's got potential. I think I remember seeing an ad where the Hulk throws a tank or something with lots of 'splosions. (June 20)
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Yet another comic book movie. Sean "You're the man now dawg" Connery stars. Might give From Justin To Kelly a run for its money. (July 11)
The Matrix Reloaded: Rumored to have the best car chase sequence ever. I'm seeing this with the 6th grade teaching crew on the day it comes out. This is going to be the biggest movie of the summer, hands down. (May 15)
Pirates of the Caribbean: I love the ride at Disneyworld, so by association I have to like this movie, even if there aren't any animatronic robots. (July 9)
Pokemon Heroes: I didn't think that the 4 previous Pokemon movies answered all my questions about the Pokeverse. (May 16)
Shaolin Soccer: Kung-fu soccer, I'm telling you, this is going to rock. Already the all-time most successful Hong Kong production ever. (August 8)
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines: I'm sad that the guy who played Bobby Budnick on Salute Your Shorts isn't going to be back for this one. I don't know how this movie can possibly top T2. (July 2)
When Harry Met Lloyd : Dumb and Dumberer: Different director, different actors, no Sea Bass...I don't know. The first movie is a classic. (June 13)
X2: Nightcrawler looks awesome. Wolverine's hair is still awesome. Fights look awesome. High awesomeness level for this one. (May 2)
Saturday, April 26 at 9:31 AM
ladder 49 cntd.
Dave, just wanted to mention that the 5K that me and my roommate were going to run (but ended up not running) in baltimore on st. patty's day is also going to be featured in Ladder 49. I suppose it was just going to be a flyover of the race or whatever, but in your 'hood nonetheless.
-jeff
Thursday, April 24 at 6:29 AM
ladder 49
Mike and I were watching American Idol tonight when a piece of paper was slipped through our mail slot. Turns out that from April 28 through May 1, they're shooting scenes for an upcoming John Travolta movie called Ladder 49 at the church that I go to, just one freakin' block away from our house. Might have to check that action out. Instead of the predictable "Hey Mr. Kot-ter" or "Grease Lightning", if I see Travolta I'm gonna yell "I want to take his face...off" from, yes, Face Off. And thanks to Tammer - you have to check out this Honda ad. It took 606 takes to complete; no computer tricks.
Tuesday, April 22 at 7:46 PM
speaking of hadoken, oh kids do I have a story for you...
If my memory serves me correctly, approximately 5 years ago, when Dave, Jeff, Eugene, and myself were seniors at Robinson H.S. (Andrew was a measely junior), our good friend and long-time die hard "South of the Border" fan, Dave Broussard and I were cruising the halls of the 8th grade portion of the school, where all the "eight-balls" reside. Dave turned to me and said, "watch this...", immediately following in a completely spontaneous and out of the blue nature he turned to a poor, unsuspecting 8th grade boy and gave him a full out upper-cut dragon punch and screamed at the top of his lungs "SHORYUKEN!!!!!", nearly grazing the poor kids face by a mere 8-10 inches. The boy was obviously incredibly frightened, upon which, Dave and I laughed long and hard at the pure hilarity and brilliance of the performance. Good times had by Paul. Oh, a special thanks goes out to Dave, Tamer, Nick, and Mike for letting me and my coworker Janine stay at your crib for 2 nights in lieu of fighting both the DC and Baltimore rush hour traffic to and from training in linthicum, md. Much appreciated boys and I shall repay you by gracing you again soon with another unfathomable beer pong performance. Have a good week."Listen to the Music" (Doobie Brothers), "Like a Stone" (Audio Slave), "Up on Cripple Creek" (The Band)
Monday, April 21 at 7:51 AM
with no offense to the former secretary of state
Andrew and I obviously saw Bulletproof Monk this weekend, but we also jumped on our trampoline. And of course we had a kung-fu fight with a broom while jumping on the aforementioned trampoline. We've got special moves, most notably the "Madeline Albright." That's when you jump backwards at someone while yelling "Madeline Albright." Like two simulaneous Hadoken fireballs, we unfortunately jumped at each other with our Madeline Albrights at the same time, cancelling each other out and falling down.
Anyone who followed that story and understood the Hadoken reference, 15 points. Use them wisely.
Sunday, April 20 at 8:12 PM
northeast island!
I put the Northeast Island class website up today at dave2n.com/island. It's basically a themed layout and system that we'll be following during the fourth quarter. Once some students get parental permission, they will be able to showcase their work on the Northeast Island website. I know you're not supposed to do work over spring break, but this was fun and didn't take up too much time.
Looks like I'm going to have to follow that "switch" ad campaign and get a Mac for Portfolio Center. I went to the store a couple of days ago and will probably end up getting a 12-inch Powerbook down the road. I gotta admit, they're pretty shweet with a DVD burner and wireless internet capability. Sarah has been spending her spring break addicted to Animal Crossing; she's asking for a Gamecube for her birthday. I've been playing Eternal Darkness, which is giving me non-dinosaur (for once) nightmares. If you don't keep your "sanity meter" full, your character goes insane during the game and strange things happen like the walls start to bleed, your limbs start falling off or bugs crawl along the screen. The cooler effects trick the player, pretending to reset the game, delete all your saved files, tell you that your controller isn't plugged in properly or make it look like someone pressed the mute button on your TV. The game was released a while back and was critically acclaimed, but since it's on the kid-targeted Nintendo Gamecube, it never sold that well. I got it for half-price at a pawn store.
Friday, April 18 at 2:44 PM
portfolio center
Portfolio Center is, well, underwhelming at first glance. Tucked away after a row of antique stores, the grey warehouse-ish building seems weathered and smaller than expected. A simple black awning lets you know that yes, this is the Portfolio Center that you drove ten hours south to visit. The only other distinguishing exterior features are a few trees, a small porch with benches, and three banners that read "Live to Learn."
Inside the double doors, away from a hot Atlanta (not Hotlanta) Monday morning, a modern reception area is complimented with display cases and framed student work. Fernando, the admissions guy, introduced himself and poured coffee (that's right, I just changed tenses for those of you keeping score at home). Before I move on, let me say that Fernando is the man. So Fernando begins to explain some of the stories behind the student work on display. There's a scale model of a Virgin Megastore. Wine bottles with labels and the packaging they come in. Model airplanes and trucks, banners, and press passes for the Olympics - each emblazoned with personalized logos. Several artsy chairs. Magazine ads, paintings, photos, boxes, corporate logos, book covers, stationery and even a juicer for oranges. This is what you do here; these are your graded projects. I'm probably not doing justice to how professional and perfect everything looked.
I sat in on two classes. The small, student-centered discussions were led by instructors from the advertising design industry. One class was given the assignment to basically reinvent a company image. One girl was talking about Baskin-Robbins and how desperately they were in need of a change. She shared some of her research about how the 31 flavors used to correspond to the days of the month and how there have been so many special limited-time flavors over the years. The instructor left the room for a second and came back with some Baskin-Robbins postcards that a student had created for another class a few years ago. She had focused on the iconic pink plastic spoon and placed it in familiar pictures, like Sean Connery's James Bond holding the pink spoon instead of a gun (which also celebrated an old limited-time "0013 Secret Flavor"). The other class was just as interesting. Both seemed to revolve around students sharing their work and spending the bulk of the time critiquing and learning from each other.
A recent UVA grad joined Fernando and I for lunch and answered a lot of questions that I had. Afterwards, she showed me her walking-distance apartment, which I was immediately sold on. The spacious rooms and the surrounding grass and trees made it seem like a hidden neighborhood inside the city, but the outdoor swimming pool and the free laundry service really hooked me. If you know about my laundry habits, you're probably wondering why I didn't sign a lease right then and there.
But then I went back to the school and met with the president, Hank Richardson. He shut the door and we talked for an hour about anything and everything. I showed him the portfolio section of this website. He showed me a DVD about the PC students. Even after the hundreds of things that already impressed me that day, his attitude and excitement were contagious. He warned that it wouldn't be easy and that I'd be working extremely hard during school and into whatever career direction school would take me. But it was easy to see that I would be enjoying every second of it, constantly challenging myself and working on exciting projects. Hank's big-picture mentality was essentially that he wanted to get the most out of life, living by a "you can sleep when you die" mantra. And PC grads are working everywhere from Martha Stewart Living to Pentagram to MTV (and MTV Asia) to Hallmark to Victoria's Secret to Microsoft to Abercrombie and Fitch (designing ads, not folding clothes or pre-fraying hats) to Disney to starting up their own companies and design agencies. You know that whole UPS "what can brown do for you?" campaign or the Volkswagen "oops we returned the wrong video" ad? The possibilites of this kind of a post-graduate career are racing through my overstimulated imagination. This guy Hank is absolutely incredible, and he even teaches one of the "rite of passage" classes - a 5:30 AM design theory class where you create a chair from concept to final product. Hank was the one that made me so excited when I saw Portfolio Center's presentation at UVA, and a long year later, that much-needed excitement exploded inside of me again.
So it's official. I'm leaving Teach For America and Baltimore City Public Schools after this school year and will be attending Portfolio Center in Atlanta, Georgia in the fall.
Tuesday, April 15 at 9:55 PM
please don't call it hotlanta
A project called Northeast Island is on the way, and it's the most excited that I've been about teaching since the New York Institute. I was going to have this big colored preview sketch for my students but my scanner's not working. They'll have to settle for Easter cupcakes tomorrow instead. I'll be working on it over next week...my spring break.
Atlanta, here I come. On Monday the 14th I'll be checking out Portfolio Center, the grad school that I'm hoping to attend in the fall. Now, the last time I went to Atlanta I was kicked out of the CNN building, rode the Batman roller coaster at Six Flags three times, slept on a chair for three nights and nearly tossed my cookies after sampling some "international flavors" (read: cough medicine) at the Coca-Cola factory. But maybe Don or Jeff can elaborate on these incidents since they all happened during our 1998 Guitar Ensemble trip. Anyway, I don't know how the last Atlanta trip can be topped, but the details from Monday's adventures will be posted here on Wednesday.
The latest and greatest from Okay Samurai - kudos to Jeff for breaking up the incoherent ramblings that were my last consecutive 9 posts. Don will be staying at my house on Tuesday...without me? I think that Andrew is knee-deep in labs, school and Time Crisis II. Mike doesn't like our Johns Hopkins class very much, except for their overhead lightbulbs (not that he took some or anything, the guy just likes overheads). Last I heard, Russ, Eugene "the math machine" Jung and Eric are doing well too.
Thursday, April 10 at 5:47 PM
long time no blog
sorry to leave dave hangin'. It seems like he's the only one that's been posting/paying attention to this blog, but fear not, i still check it everyday. now that we have cable in our house, i'm officially online for no less than 12 hours a day. impressive, huh? now you kids don't try and log 12 hours of hardcore web-surfing every day. Leave that to the pros. I guess working at AOL, I can always say I'm doing research. So things have been really hectic with my work, not that anyone cares. That's just my excuse for not posting anything in a month or so. Not much to say, but if anyone out there is a paying aol subscriber, download the new 8.0 plus client at aol.com. It's cutting edge technology and has a lot of features for those users on broadband connections. (wow that was boring)
So yeah, i'll stop this blog now, but leave you with websites to visit, tv shows to watch, and of course...background music.
Favorite sites (the first few are updated often, so you can check them a lot to work towards the 12 hours of browsing/day)
Fark - collection of weird news stories from around the internet
penny arcade dave already linked to this site before, but it's still great
CNN tons of war coverage
TV shows:
The Chapelle Show - dave chapelle does a bunch of skits and movie parodies. usually about 1 good skit/show. def. worth it for that one good skit. maybe not a show to watch al the time, but worth Tivo'ing.
That 70's Show - always hilarious, the one today (4/9) was hilarious.
Al Green - tired of being alone, Talib Kweli - Get By, Transplants - Diamonds and Guns, The White Stripes - 7 Nation Army, No Doubt - Running, Chevelle - Family System and Comfortable Liar.
There...that should occupy some people for a while...
jeff
Wednesday, April 9 at 9:06 PM
washington post TFA article
There's an article in today's Washington Post about two Teach For America teachers' experiences. One got a $20 million lawsuit filed against him for supposed corporal punishment. I had read his side of the story when it was published in New York's City Journal. I think that the Post article gave a more well-rounded view of the reality of inner-city schools, but it's an experience that can't possibly be fully translated into words. Both articles are on the long side but worth a read. And while you're at it, check out our own Mike Ferenczy gracing the pages of the Tufts Daily. So...Zombie Prom, eh?
Sunday, April 6 at 2:47 PM
makar's behind the waterfall, use the grappling hook
Apparently the war is heightening interest in blogs, online journals like what you're reading right now. Dear Raed has been getting a lot of attention lately because it's written by a person in Baghdad. Possible presidential candidate Gary Hart and humor columnist Dave Barry have recently started up blogs as well. So maybe you'll hear about blogs more often now that they're moving away from their grassroots beginnings and into the mainstream. When I started this blog, I did it mainly as an easy way for anyone in Okay Samurai to update the website. Now I sort of feel that it's become a means of self-promotion, which I'm trying to back away from. Blogs seem inherently egotistical.
Saturday, April 5 at 6:55 AM
Okay Samurai Multimedia is Dave Werner's personal site. I'm currently working at Minor Studios in San Francisco. Thanks for visiting! (more...)
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