The home stretch

Now that the magazine project has been completed, I can breathe a sigh of relief. The amount of time it took to put everything together is staggering. Thankfully I worked with a solid group, where everyone busted their buns to make our magazine very professional looking. It will be interesting to hear what people say at the magazine trade fair next Thursday.
There are a few major assignments left, one of which is my montage. I have shot about 300 clips of material, and so far it is looking really good. By the end of this week I anticipate that I'll have all the material that I need. The home stretch is within reach!

j

Off to Riding Mountain

For an assignment in school, I am required to go on a trip somewhere in either Manitoba, Saskatchewan or even Ontario. My group chose Riding Mountain. It should be a great time, a chance to get to know some of my fellow students a little bit better. I am bringing my guitar along for some campfire sing-alongs. It's gonna be a great time. Hopefully I'll learn something new about Riding Mountain.
woohooo!

j

Twitter vs. Facebook

Although I try to get on Twitter as much as possible, the reality is that I don't use it that much. Facebook is certainly something that I use more frequently, but in terms of my schedule with school and music, I just don't have time to spend communicating through these mediums. When I do find a moment here or there, I use Twitter to hopefully inspire people, I use Facebook to catch up with friends and promote my various musical activities. I notice that a lot of my friends use each medium in a similar manner. My sister uses Facebook to update everyone on what her kids did that day.

When it comes to people I befriend on Facebook, or follow on Twitter, I'll never know how much spam I get from them until I have signed up. If I find that I get spammed too much with useless info, I will unfriend or unfollow them.

Once I have completed school and have more time on my hands, I plan to use Twitter more as I believe it can be a powerful tool to inspire. I'd like to start yweeting song lyrics, I think that would be neat.

Cheerio,

j

To publish or self publish

Here's what I know about publishing a book. Nothing. Well, almost nothing. My brother in law had a book published one time. The publisher basically took 90% of the sale proceeds of each book in exchange for putting it on the shelves in stores like Chapters. I believe he also got a slightly better deal on printing costs than he would've had he self published. I guess if you want to self publish, you will get much more of the proceeds of the book sale cash, but you would have a tougher time getting access to the masses.
Unless you have lady luck on your side, as well as a solid book, you might hit it big like the author of Time Travelers' Wife. But in some ways that's almost like winning the lottery. Chances are slim, but you can play anytime you want.

j

Sunny gets shot down

I wrote a script today. Here it is.

SUNNY GETS SHOT DOWN

Int. Stella’s restaurant

SUNNY SIMPSON, 17, leans forward and whispers quietly to her friend and crush JOHN FRANKLIN, 17. They are seated on the opposite sides of the table, and she is gossiping and trying to avoid eye contact with the waitress, LISA FREEMAN, 18, who walks by their table.

SUNNY

She’s such a slut. (whisper)

JOHN

Really? I was thinking of asking her to the prom.

SUNNY

What? Why? Do you find her attractive? I heard she’s really bitchy.

JOHN

She’s nice to me. What, you don’t think she’s pretty?

SUNNY

Ah-

LISA interrupts the conversation by showing up with a pot of coffee. She glares at SUNNY and then smiles at JOHN.

LISA

Do you need any sugar hun?

JOHN

          (chuckles and nods)

SUNNY

I’ll take some cream and sugar, but hold the spit.

LISA

Well isn’t that classy. What’s your problem?

sunny

No problem. I’m just fine.

LISA pauses for a moment, then turns and smiles at JOHN. She puts her hand on his shoulder as she pours coffee into his cup. SUNNY bristles as she notices LISA touching him.

JOHN

Thanks.

LISA

Anytime sweetheart. You just call me if you need anything.

As LISA lingers and faces JOHN who is sheepishly smiling back, SUNNY is mouthing the words that LISA just said in mockery.

SUNNY

That’s all we need for now.

LISA ignores her and walks over to her other tables to serve more coffee. JOHN stares at LISA’s ass as she walks away, and SUNNY looks upset.

SUNNY

I hear that she’s spends her time on the weekends trying to make it with bands that play at the Albert.

JOHN

How do you know all this? Is that even true?

SUNNY

Don’t just take my word for it. Ask Matti and Tiera. They have seen her there, all fucked up on god knows what, parading herself all over these guys. What a whore.

JOHN looks down at his coffee, and then out the window in silence. Some sunlight peers through the clouds and casts light on his face as he starts to squint. SUNNY realizes she pushed things too far and changes the subject.

SUNNY

So I’ve been thinking about whom I’d like to go to the prom with.

JOHN

Oh yeah? Who is that?

SUNNY

Well, he’s a quiet guy who is really cute and sweet. He doesn’t know that I’m into him. But I’ve known him for such a long time, and I know that if we were together, we’d be perfect for each other.

JOHN

(leans forward)

Wow. Who is it?

SUNNY

It’s you.

JOHN jolts a bit in shock. He stares at SUNNY in silence as he gathers his thoughts.

JOHN

Woah! I’m flattered SUNNY but we are just friends. I don’t wanna mess that up.

SUNNY sits up straight and looks out the window, fighting back a tear. She excuses herself, grabs her purse, and leaves to go to the restroom. JOHN slumps in his seat and looks out the window. LISA returns with two plates of banana pancakes and lovingly places one of them in front of JOHN. 

LISA

Here you go baby. I’ll get you some maple syrup.

JOHN

Hey Lisa, I have a question for you. Would you wanna go to the prom with me?

LISA

O my god! Are you serious? I’d love to!

JOHN

Right on!

SUNNY comes back to the table and catches wind of the conversation. She is red faced and freaks out. She starts shouting at LISA and pushes her.

SUNNY

You fucking vulture! Stay the hell away from him! He’s mine!

LISA pushes SUNNY back and a fight ensues. The girls start pulling each other’s hair. JOHN stands up and tries to intervene but he trips and falls. SUNNY pulls a small hand gun out of her back pocket and points it at LISA. LISA backs off.

JOHN

SUNNY! Stop it! You and I are just friends. We can’t be together!

SUNNY stops and looks at JOHN in shock. She then gazes at the gun.

SUNNY

If I can’t have you then I have nothing.

SUNNY puts the gun in her mouth and to the horror of everyone, the scene ends as she pulls the trigger to shoot herself.

Who's gonna sell their soul? Not me.

So the other day I got an email from a financial planning firm offering to give me money if they could advertise on my blog. I guess my buyer beware blog from last semester caught their attention. In the post, I talked a little about my past experience as a financial planner, and spoke diplomatically about the pitfalls to look for when choosing a financial institution.
I decided to let this organization humor me so I asked them what they had in mind. As it turned out they actually wanted to change some of the wording in my blog post to highlight their services, which in turn would have completely contradicted what I was trying to say.
I immediately said no, and sent them on their way, after all, integrity is paramount.

And I will reiterate my point. In the world of investing, the typical winners are the financial institutions. They win most of the time because no matter how your portfolio performs, they still charge you a fee to manage it. The average Joe investor might have a shot at winning so long as he or she does not invest with their emotions. Joe/Josephine should not pay attention to any commercials or media that plays on their emotions. They should stick to their guns, and stay invested for the long haul.

j

So hot! Like pizza on the dance floor!

On regular occasion I spend my time playing music with my band mates. Many times when we get together we just spend our time jamming. Someone starts playing something like a drum beat, a bass line, a guitar lick, whatever, and everyone just starts playing along. Through this process we eventually turn really strong jams, or grooves as I like to call them, into songs.

Although it didn't start out this way, we soon began realizing that when we create music in this manner, we tend to forget some of the solid grooves when it comes time to get together again. So we decided to start recording these grooves. One of these recent recordings is called Pizza on the Dance Floor.

The song started off with a funk-disco bass line that Bruce, our bass player, had been playing around with. Tim, our keyboardist, didn't manage to join us for the rehearsal, and so Ian, our drummer, spent his time initially working out some beats on Tim's sequencer, then switched to playing his kit. I started to play guitar along with Bruce's bad ass groove, and within a minute or two we had something really cool happening.

The next thing you know I started thinking about how cold it's been outside, and how great it is to stay inside and warm up to a fine lady. That led to thoughts of dancing in a club with some hot ladies, which led to thoughts of love making which then led to thoughts of being hungry,( I'm always hungry after.)

So I started to sing about pizza on the dance floor, which to much of my band mates delight, elicited a rouse of cheering as well as vocal harmonies. From there both Ian and I started to rap about things relating to dance floors, pretty women, and eating pizza, and it just got ridiculous.

But that's the way I like it!