Gaijin · Quinn

Well I had a very fun day today. I went to school and enjoyed a work period. We have been getting quite a few of these. It is an opportunity to work on our various projects but have the resources of the instructors available to bounce ideas off of. Downside is I am surrounded by fellow students, and I really don't have the attention span to concentrate to long.

The afternoon was another work period, but instead I went and volunteered to be an extra on a film that is being shot here in Edmonton. They were looking for "Hardcore Gothic" people. So I put on my club wear and headed out. The film is called the Pharmacist. It is pretty low budget, but it was fun. I will give you some of the exciting moments:

When I realized that they were using Reds as their camera's I had a little squee moment. Reds are so cool, and to see them in action was awesome. Yes, them... they had two! Reds are modular cameras that can be built to whatever spec you need. Think Mechanix toys, and camera mixed. So awesome.

Also for the majority of the scene I was in the front because I was part of the team that was doing the crowd surfing... ever crowd surfed people for 5 hours straight? I can now take that off my bucket list. The hardest part was at one point they would get us to surf the main actor, Corey was his name, and just hold him there until they called action... which would take a painfully long time. Especially because I was placed specifically in a spot where I would get the majority of the weight cause I guess I looked meaty or something.

Once the shoot was over they needed 20 extras to stay behind. The casting, event coordinator specifically asked for Shaena, Travis and myself to stay behind... we said no... she asked 3-4 separate times. She mentioned we had a "good look" aka we were fucking pretty.

All in all it was really nice to see real lighting crews, and real sound people, do real things on real sets since we have been learning this theoretically at school. Although I still snicker when one of the lighting people called to the extras "who is making that jingle sound" and the crowd responded "all of us". They seriously proceeded to ask the chain laden goths to stop jingling...

The casting lady asked me to keep in touch with her for future projects. May be fun. I do like being in front of the camera.

The day ended with Shaena and myself going out for dinner with Natasha, Travis, and Joshua. Then Shaena and I headed back to her place to cuddle. Iain showed up later and brought a movie I have been dying to see. I watch the first part of it a while back but never saw the rest. The recent remake was called Quarantine, but I was watching the original Spanish version. It was nice.

because it is a good idea, although I am showing no symptoms, I went in to get check for every STD known to man the other day.  It is just smart.  While I am there, the doctor asks me the questions:

Doc -"have you had multiple partners"

Quinn - "ummm ever? uummm ya"

Doc - "have you ever had sex with animals?"

Quinn - "snerk, ummm nooooooooo."

this goes on a while, like a very formal web purity test.  All of my answers seem to be no, and I realize I may not be as sexually adventurous as I though... (probably shouldn't think of her list as a to do list eh?) although she never did ask anything really interstesting like, "have you ever had oral sex on a Russian train whilst twirling through the air on the back of a panda singing the Star Spangled Banner".  Would that be sex with animals? aaannnnywho.

Then she ask me, "Do you have sex with only woman, only men, or both sexes" I say "Only woman" she raises an eyebrow, "Do you consider yourself to be gay" I answer "Only woman", her eyebrows raise to an even higher height, "being bi means you sleep with both men and woman, are you bi?" I speak slower "O N L Y W O M A N".  I swear she really thought that if she rephrased the question she would get a different answer. 

Guess it's the frosted hair.
 

So many people have asked me to update my blog more often.  Due to school I have been way to busy... but then, I just went through another breakup so it seems like a good time to update.  I am going to change the format a little bit, instead of giving a boring list of the crap I did, I am only going to write something significant as it occurs to me. Some days there may be nothing significant, and some I may have many entries. I give no promises.  And so here it goes...

This morning I woke up in a fugue.  Stretching in my empty bed I thought of what had come before, the thoughts stretch back.  I let it flood me, and wash over me.  New York, Edmonton, and Downstairs.   The people that I care about, and all of our perceived and real insecurities washing together.  Each one of them ride on my shoulders.  I let them rest there and whisper in my ear. I put the Tibetan monks on, and lift the phones to my ears.  A bell rings and I swim a little longer in the moment.  "Step out the door", I tell myself.  One last look at her door, and I step. The world lightens. Step. We can only do so much. Step. I am honest. Step. As honest as I can be. Step. They do care about me. Step.  She cares about her. Step. We all mean well. Step. In the long run it will ease her suffering.  Step.

I was not able to make it home for thanksgiving and my family here in town were a bit to busy to have me over for turkey dinner, as such I had me some Thanksgiving Pizza Pops... hmmmm... Pizza Pops.  I also got alot of coding done on the website I am creating for Mad Dog Blues Band.  I have a vast majority of it done, I just need some more copy from the band, aswell as I have to teach myself a little Java so I can put in some streaming audio. 

I started planning my Birthday party.  Originally I was supposed to have a joint birthday with Dave since he was also born on Oct. 25th, but his roomate had to reschedule because of a conflict in her schedule to Oct. 24th.  This would mean that a few of my guests would not be able to come, and I would only be able to make it there for about 1-2 hours because of work.  As such I decided to hold my own birthday party at my house on Satuday Oct. 25th.  I have so far invited 80ish people, and so far about 10 people have backed out, but I am still having a nightmare that most of the people I invited will actually show up.  You see I am planning for the 80/20 rule, that if you invite 100 people only about 20 people will show up.  Oh well if that many people show up, it will be one hell of a party, and the house is relatively big.  Dave has mentioned that he will be there on Saturday and I have promised that I would save some candles for him too. 

The fun part of this party is going to be the cimbination of people that will be there.  I am rather social, and I have rather diverse interests.  I have invited people from all of my interests.  This means that the party will have gamer nerds, poli-amorous goths, artists, martial arts, gun nuts... all under one roof.  I feel like I should invite a sociology major or two just so they can document what happens when these worlds collide. 

It should be an interesting evening.  Oh and if you didn't get an invite from me already, and I know you, you are invited... just contact me and let me know.

Final note: check out my newest work on my deviant art site (url in the previous post) .  It was a Miniproject for school.  It was based off of Grimm's version of Sleeping Beauty.  Most people decided to visually narrate their respective stories, which ended up making their pieces look a little like a scrap book page of fairy tales.  I came at it with a different approach.  I concentrated on the moment of the kiss, and the expection of it.  Aswell as being rather heavy handed with the death and life themes.  I mean... it has a rose dripping blood....
anyway, check it out and let me know what you think.  I really think, as far as technique is concerned, one of my best pieces.  The veins, skin tone, sallowness, etc on her face alone took me 2-3 hours.

Occurance 1:

So, I am working my shift at the Wine and Spirits Warehouse.  And a man comes in with two ladies.  They are nice ladies, and he is a very charming man.  We discuss the in's and out's of various wines, styles, and countries.  He displays a great deal of knowledge and understanding of wine without sounding pretentious.  This is a difficult balance to find I would like to say. He chooses a couple of my recomendations and proceeds to the check-out counter. I am part way ringing his order through.  Somewhere between "will this be all" and "Would you like paper or plastic" he pops his own question on me: "So... do you like swords?"  I have to admit, I studdered, I sputtered, and squeaked. "So... have you seen one of my performances?" I retort.  He simply shakes his head, "No you just look like a swords kind of guy".  I cock my head to one side, "Well" I say while squinting one eye, "I train in Noble House Kenjutsu, training in traditional Japanese sword.  We do alot of performances at cultural events... So... why did you ask me about the sword?"  The man is about to open his mouth when one of the girls he is with cuts him off, "He always asks weird questions like that".  I shake his hand, "Well you were bang-on this time, talk to you later."  And with that he left the store.

Occurance 2:


My last day at the range was relatively uneventful.  But I did have an interesting moment with one person.  He came into the range.  He mentioned that except for Ice Tea movies he had no experience with guns.  I assured him that 90% of the people that come into the range have never touched a gun before either.  I went through the safety speech, and explain to him that he must keep it pointed downrange with his finger off the trigger, and inside the booth at all time.  He nods and agrees.  Then commences to shoot his first magazine.  He has fairly good accuracy for someone that has never shot before.  He has put bullet onto of bullet and got a pretty good grouping.  Finally he is finished his box of ammo, I retrieve the target for him.  As I hand the paper to him he looks me straight in the eye and asks "So... do you guys have real bullets in these guns"

www.youtube.com/watch


When I looked at the mountains, the forest, I kinda started to get the idea.  The parasites that are humans could come and go, and really would the planet even notice? It was a surprisingly comforting feeling.  So after we got back from the mountain, we had a mighty nap.  And at the end of the nap Jenny showed up and the three of us went for supper in Jasper.  The next day we went white water rafting down the athabasca.  It was nifty, but best of all the Guide, Brian, showed me a hike that I really want to do next year.  It is a 2-3 day hike called Skyline.  Basically you hike up a mountain, across the summit/ridge then back down again.  I want to convince some of my fellow martial artists to go up with me.  Doing sword and Jo kata at the top of the mountain would be so... perfect.

Suicide


No not mine!?!  Some of you may have heard about the recent shooting death at Wild West Shooting Centre. I have had enough people ask that I decided to put the details up on the blog.  Yes I was working and was watching the range when a gentleman ran across the firing line and shot himself in the head.  I am not going to go into details, but I am okay.  I am a bit pissed that he chose such a public and busy time to kill himself.  I just thank God that there were no children on the range at that time.  I am also a little frustrated with how the Sun reported and made it sound like he had been shot by the other customers which is so not even true. See covered a story on the many himself, and I included a link below about him.

www.seemagazine.com/article/music/music-column/star-spangled-blair-1094/


Graphic Design


Finally, good news.  As of yesterday I got confirmation of my funding.  I am going to be going to Guru Digital Media College.  After the 6 month course I will have my diploma and be set to work at a marketing creative house (aka what I wanted to do with my degree off the start).  Unfortunately my student loan and bursaries only cover the tuition and not living expenses.  As such I will be selling my 2005 Mitsubishi Lancer for $18,995, my Beretta 92FS 9mm pistol, and anything else I can think of that will give me a couple dollars to buy rice with.  I just hope I don't have to sell my Motorbike though.  Mental note, I am not above free dinner offers *cough cough*.