Phil's G.I. Joe Page


Wait... you're actually reading this?!

Thursday, January 30, 2003
 
We managed to get the filming done today, but glare from the windows may screw things up.

Wednesday, January 29, 2003
 
To all UCSD people who frequent this page:

I need people willing to act in my film for VIS 174 from around 11 am to 3 pm tomorrow. Volunteers welcome.

That is all.

Tuesday, January 28, 2003
 
I'm trying to grow sideburns. Trying seems to be the keyword here, as, just like my dad, I seem to have a gap in the hair growth where the middle part of the sideburn should be. This is the start of the third week where I haven't shaved the hair in front of my ears, and it still looks pretty bare. My only hope right now is that as the week ends, the sideburn hair will be fuller, and I can cover the gap with longer hair from above my ears.

This sounds so weird and abstract without some sort of diagram, no?

Monday, January 27, 2003
 
Kinda hard to make a new post that seems substantial after yesterday's, huh? Well, I'm gonna try anyway.

My script wasn't picked for production in my Visual Arts class, but that's no biggie. She wanted a variety of themes in the stories she did pick, and there were a couple like my main idea. And yeah, my ending was a little predictable. But other than that, she seemed to enjoy it.

Ah, hell! Here's the script:

FADE IN

EXT. SIDEWALK – DAY

A lone student sits on a bench with his nose in a book. We get the impression that he’s been there for a while. He’s not what you’d call a “textbook nerd,” but he definitely doesn’t fit the bill of a jock. The student’s name is JAKE. Jake seems blissfully ignorant of all the other students and visitors passing by.

His cell phone rings. Jake reaches into his pocket, pulls out the phone, and turns it off. Jake is determined not to be distracted from his reading.

All of a sudden, Jake lunges up, with an almost scared look on his face. Jake runs off-screen.

CUT TO:

INT. CAFETERIA – DAY

At a rather large table in the cafeteria are seated a group of women who scream popular. They are all talking and gesticulating at once, leaving the viewer to wonder how any of them can communicate at all.

Focus on girl at head of table. This is NATALIE. If these women were a gang, she would be their leader. Her plate is empty and she’s bored, almost anxious to leave. She sits impatiently in her seat.

Gradually the conversation and action dies down as the girls take note of Natalie’s mood. The girls quickly finish up so that they can leave en masse.

One of the girls drops her fork. She’s the only one wearing glasses. As she reaches down to pick it up,

CUT TO:

INT. UNDER THE TABLE – DAY – CONTINUOUS

The girl with the glasses picks up her fork and begins to sit upright again. As she straightens out,

CUT TO:

INT. CAFETERIA – DAY – CONTINUOUS

The table, save for the girl with glasses, is completely bare. The rest of her party are nowhere in sight. She looks around confused, and eventually resigns herself to having lost her chance to hang with the “in” crowd. She walks with her dish tray slowly off stage, as the camera pans away, showing her somewhat isolated.

CUT TO:

EXT. LIBRARY WALK – DAY

We see Jake run toward the camera. It’s now apparent that his run is rather awkward, as he tries not to separate his legs too much. Occasionally he covers his crotch with both hands. It becomes apparent that the reason Jake is in his rush is that he has to go to the bathroom really, really bad.

Jake rounds the corner into Price Center, almost falling down the steps and on top of the people walking up it. Awkwardly, he regains his balance without breaking stride while still running across Price Center. He runs into the food court.

CUT TO:

INT. FOOD COURT – DAY – MOMENTS LATER

Jake runs to the bathroom. As he approaches the men’s room he sees a sign on the door:

OUT OF ORDER

Jake looks annoyed. He rips the sign off, and throws it to the ground. Slightly jumping up and down, he turns around and looks quizzically at the ladies’ room. Coming to a resolution he reaches for the door handle, only to have the door opened from the inside from a co-ed. Jake uneasily averts the co-ed’s gaze, and looks around for other means of relief. He picks up the Out of Order sign, and puts it back on the men’s room door, trying to flatten out the wrinkles he’s given the paper.

Jake has a moment of enlightenment, and runs off-camera to the next closest bathroom.

CUT TO:

EXT. LIBRARY WALK – DAY

Natalie and her group of friends walk down the walk. Two male solicitors on Library Walk are too distracted by the lovely ladies as they pass that they give each other pamphlets for the same event.

Natalie and others take note of this, and giggle in a slightly flirtatious way. Natalie gets a devilish look in her eyes. She purposefully drops an item in front of the distracted solicitors. She leans over with exaggerated emphasis to pick it up.

As if on cue, the distracted solicitors trip on their own feet and fall down, in opposite directions. There’s a kind of symmetry to the mise-en-scène, as the boys’ falls sort of frame Natalie and her cohorts.

The women laugh out loud, occasionally pointing at the embarrassed boys. Behind them, a MAN IN A FEDORA walks by.

CUT TO:

EXT. PRICE CENTER – DAY

Jake runs back up the steps, taking a moment at the top to calm down his agitated bladder, on his quest to find another bathroom.

The man in the fedora walks on-screen, when he sees Jake and approaches him. This man is BOBBY, Jake’s friend. No one really knows why Bobby wears a fedora, except possibly Bobby himself. He’s just one of those guys who wears a fedora.

Bobby wants to chat with Jake, but is instead blocking his path. Jake doesn’t want to be rude, so he uncomfortably tries to make the small talk as abridged as possible. As the two begin to talk, Jake is quite obviously doing the pee-pee dance. Bobby either doesn’t realize this, or doesn’t care.

Finally, Jake can take no more of Bobby’s delay. He pushes by Bobby, and right as he makes his pace-setting leap, runs right into Natalie and Company, knocking a few of them over.

Everybody stops. Those on Library Walk turn to look at the mess. Bobby approaches, scratching his head, but of course, still with the fedora on. Tumbleweed rolls by in the background.

This couldn’t look worse. Jake is practically straddling Natalie. Fear grips Jake and momentarily halts his bathroom troubles. Jake jumps up and sprints for the farthest possible place away from Natalie.

CUT TO:

EXT. – CENTER HALL STAIRS - DAY

Jake runs to Center Hall. He’s halfway up the stairs before he realizes he still has to go to the bathroom. Jake slows his run to a walk, almost leaning on the handle for support. He finishes going up the stairs much slower than he started.

CUT TO:

EXT. LIBRARY WALK – DAY – MOMENTS LATER

Natalie is not amused. As she gets up, she scorns the help of her peers, eyes aimed intently at the path Jake ran. Her clothes are covered in dirt. Natalie futilely attempts to clean herself up, but only for a few seconds.

She takes off in a dead walk for Jake, leaving her group to tend to the others and gossip about what just happened. Bobby is seen hitting on a few of the girls in the back.

CUT TO:

INT. SECOND LEVEL CENTER HALL, JUST OUTSIDE THE MEN’S RESTROOM – DAY

Jake comes out of the bathroom, an obvious look of relaxation on his face. He leans against the wall, partly because he’s exhausted from the run, partly because he’s afraid of what will happen if he leaves the building.

To his terror, Natalie approaches him, a stern expression chiseled onto her face. She lunges for him with both arms. Jake pulls back, afraid he’s going to be beaten up by a girl. Again.

Instead, Natalie embraces Jake and give him a passionate kiss. As their lips part, Jake looks bewildered, but elated. That’s when Natalie gives the strongest slap of her life across his face, and walks off.

Jake slumps to the ground, obviously confused. He rubs his sore jaw, and attempts to translate what the hell just happened; he gives up. At this rate, he’ll never understand women.

FADE OUT

Sunday, January 26, 2003
 
I'd like to make this entry about the comic book Gen 13. Those of you uninterested in this type of topice, feel free to skip this one.

I've been a regular reader of this comic book since 1995 or so. I'd grown to love Fairchild, Freefall, Rainmaker, Grunge and Burnout. (In that order, but not necessarily the same type of love for each...) But I need to be frank: Arcudi and Frank killed the line. Frank's art changed the look of the comic, from dynamic and lively to static and well, boring. Arcudi's storylines lost the fun and I think, the appeal, of the series. Gen 13 was more about fun than seriousness, and Arcudi just filled the line with drama when he took over.

So I was relieved when they left the book. I believe Scott Lobdell was next given the reigns of the line. I thought he was successful in bringing back the fun of Gen 13. But, I must admit, there were times when he took this lack of seriousness a little too far. (I.E. Issue #50 had characters referring to themselves existing only in comic books.) I read the complaints of one prominent fan, and I understood her position, but I held on through Arcudi and Frank, so I'd stick with Lobdell, especially since I loved Ed Benes pencils.

Then I heard Adam Warren would be writing the book. I don't know how to tell you how pleased this made me! Warren wrote possibly the best story arc for Gen 13: Bootleg, "Grunge: The Movie." And his stories did not disappoint. I loved Gen 13 again, but apparently the general public did not. Issue sales stayed low, until Jim Lee made the decision to cancel the book. Warren literally blew up the team, with only Caitlin surviving as some non-corporeal entity, composed of the Gen-Active entities of her teammates. In the last issue, Warren wrote of his disappointment with having the comic book cancelled, and how he never got to finished a storyline he gave a one-page start to (it would have become a large-scale story focusing heavily on Rainmaker).

I was still wondering about all the other loose-ends never tied-up. The killer at UCSD, Lynch's transformation into an obese hospital patient at an undisclosed location, Caitlin's debt owed to Ivana.

Now we have a new series called "Gen 13," only it's nothing like theseries of old. I just read up to issue 5, having put off reading any of it simce August 1st, when I met the man behind the stories: Chris Claremont. I met him at the Comic Con International, signing free issues of Gen 13 #0. I intended to ask him if he would ever finish those storylines, but he was still talking about how he found it odd that the shortest X-Man, Wolverine, was the tallest member in the movie, and how the tallest, Storm, was the shortest in the movie. Don't get me wrong, I have great respect for Claremont, and he was completely polite with me, but I got a sinking sensation that I would never get the answersfor these questions. And to top it off, he hadn't managed to find the last issues of the original ongoing series, so he wasn't sure what happened.

And to some extent, it shows. Fairchild is alive and well, a human as we've always known her, though she's now some vice-principal of a New York high school secretly keeping an eye on these super-beings who keep popping up. She seems older to me, like in her late 20s or early 30s, even though she remained about 21 throughout the earlier series, and only months have passed in the comic timeline. Maybe I'm just interpreting it wrong. I've read six issues, and not once have I read the phrase "gen-active." The new characters are given powers by some bad guy named Herod, who will apparently judge them later on, causing them to "flash." (Near as I can tell, die with some high amount of released energy.) The super-beings are referred to as "genies," though I have no idea why. There's no mention of Ivana, Lynch, or anyone else who may link the storylines better together. (Yet. I'm still willing to give Claremont the benefit of the doubt.)

The book itself is not a bad read, and it's fairly interesting at times. But it's not within the defined rules that created Gen 13 and Deviants. (Though the premise that the gen-actives were the childrem of Team 7 seemed to have disappeared from later issues of the original series, too.) I would have rather given this book an entirely new title, and if they had to make a new Gen 13, then use the gen-actives Fairchild & Co. got to know and befriend near the end of the first series.

Wow, I rarely make substantial entries, much less something as long as this...

Saturday, January 25, 2003
 
I just remembered why I should keep my radio on when I drive. Listening to my thoughts can be damn depressing.

Don't worry, people, I'll get over it.

Friday, January 24, 2003
 
I'm in the middle of a Visual Arts class right now, and I'm updating my thoughts page. Oh yeah, I'm a rebel.

For those who care, I do plan on stopping by Ken's apartment in Irvine tonight. Happy birthday Kanme!

Thursday, January 23, 2003
 
Y'know, I really need newer versions of Dreamweaver and Flash. My copies haven't been up-to-date since 1999! However, I kinda boubt I'll use Flash as much as Dreamweaver; but it's still nice to know my technology's on the cutting edge.

On a side note, I've been debating whether or not to delete my February 2002 archive once next month begins. It seems oddly appropriate to keep my archives only going back a year. The archives take up space, but at this point, it's not a lot.... I would still keep copies of the archives off-line, but I'm wondering whether or not I need to delete them. Suggestions? Opinions?

Wednesday, January 22, 2003
 
Random Thoughts for the Day:

- My VIS 174 class reallly like my video! Woo-hoo!

- I hope our TA picks my script as one of the 13 to be produced.

- Man, this CS 1.6 upgrade is taking friggin' forever to do!

- I ordered a whole wave of G.I. Joes online. Usually I just wait for them to show up, but I just couldn't take it! God, I hope this doesn't become a regular thing; shipping charges are enormous!

Tuesday, January 21, 2003
 
I have to write a 5-page script for tomorrow. Doesn't sound like much, does it? But then I'd tell you that there's the possibility that I'll have to end up shooting it (50-50 chance), AND that it has to be silent. The only other requirement is that it's two separate stories that meet up somewhere along the way. And I want to make it a comedy.

Damn writer's block.

Monday, January 20, 2003
 
Thinking about the work I have due this week, I know it's not much, but... I dunno... it seems a little overbearing, I guess. I feel a little claustrophobic, y'know? Oh well, it'll pass.

Friday, January 17, 2003
 
All right! Three-day weekend! My aunt and grandparents will be at my house tonight because my dad's going to drive my aunt and grandmother to the airport tomorrow morning for a wedding. My grandpa will be staying with my parents for the week.

I'm hoping that after dad comes back from the airport he'll take me to a camera store to get a lot of supplies for class. And boy, are these expensive supplies!

Thursday, January 16, 2003
 
Get your Miller Lite Cat Fight Commercial while the getting's good! It's a Quiktime file, so you need to have that on your computer before you can play it. And for those of you with slow connections (*cough*Mike!*cough*), right-click and choose "Save As."

Wednesday, January 15, 2003
 
It seems like everybody in my Vis 174 class are 2-5 years older than me. It's a little intimidating, frankly, to be a kid in the class. Then I start to wonder why everybody in the class is 2-5 years older than me. This is a class you need to take to get your major, but you also need to take this class before you do any more upper-division classes for your major!

Tuesday, January 14, 2003
 
Woo-hoo! The project's finally done! Thanks to Nammy and especially Derek for figuring out a way to put it on videotape!

 
AAAARRRRGGHHH!!!! Stupid video project! Why won't you export?!?

Monday, January 13, 2003
 
Looks like I'll be getting into that fourth class after all. You know what this means? Poli 100C has a date with pass / no pass! Yes!

Sunday, January 12, 2003
 
Little update on the flat tire: It appears I drove on something that sliced part of the tire. There was a nice inch-and-a-half cut on a spot on the outer tread. Unfortunately, this meant that the tire, which has an advertised life of 70,000 miles, and of which my family and I had driven only a tenth, could not be repaired or replaced under warranty. So my dad had to pay for a new tire instead of getting it fixed for free.

Friday, January 10, 2003
 
Now come's the tricky part... So my dad can help me with the repair of the flat, I have to drive 90 miles back home on a donut! And, I have to keep my speed under 55! Woo!

Thursday, January 09, 2003
 

Son of a!





Heh, this was not what I expected when I walked to my car today. But, there's nothing like a job well done:



Now, you may ask, how did I take that picture when my hands had to be covered in grease and oil? Mwuh-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! That's MY secret!

 
Dammit! So I got to my car to drive off-campus to buy some school supplies, and what do I discover? One of my tires is flat! This, I do not need. I found somebody to take me to get the stuff I needed, but now I need to change the flat. And the car's in the parking structure, too, so I can't really change the tire now without dodging cars. That, and I don't have a whole lot of experience changing flat tires.

Wednesday, January 08, 2003
 
I'm feeling rather indifferent as to whether or not I get into my wait-listed class. If I get in, it's more work, but then I can take my one GE class for pass/no pass. If I don't get in, I have much more free time, but then I'll have to go through the hassle of getting into the class again since it's required for my major. And I'll have to do all the extra work anyway. I'm leaving this decision up to fate at present.

I had my first class in VIS 40 today. This class sounds really fun. It sounds kinda like the Media Production class I took way back in sophomore year at Troy!

Tuesday, January 07, 2003
 
Well, hey! Here's a change! VIS 60: Intro to Photography sounds not only like an easy class, but maybe, just maybe, an easy one, too!

In other news, I finally broke down and bought a new copy of Neon Genesis Evangelion vol. 4 (along with vol. 6). I still have no clue where the other copy went and it looks increasingly less likely like I'll find it. Oh well.

Monday, January 06, 2003
 
And thus we enter the phase of the quarter where all our classes sound like they'll be a lot harder than they really are. And I always believe them. I'm cringing just from the one class outline I HAVE had.

Sunday, January 05, 2003
 
I'm back in my apartment, Mike's back in Philadelphia, and I'm printing off my new schedule. *Sigh.* Looks like Winter Break is over. I no longer work at Edward's (again), and I have 8 am classes. Here's to another 10 weeks.

 


The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of Phillip Donnelly. Unless explicitly stated, all statements are those of Phillip Donnelly. So there!

Speak to me, people!
IM Me!

Get fonts for this page!