Funny, I can’t think of anything to post tonight, either I’ve been working too hard recently and just can’t think straight anymore, or I’ve suddenly become so delusional that all the stuff I wanted to post about while this blog was down are just downright boring. I blame our robot overlords.

So I’ll just do a recap of our 48 activity…

This year we once again entered into and competed in the V 48 Hour Filmmaking Competition where we drew horror as our genre and from what I gathered from the screening is that people generally liked it and were both disguisted, horrified and laughing at the same time, which is great, cause that was exactly our intention with the short.

Initially, I hated it upon submittal and thought we’d done a poor effort, or, I should really correct myself as everyone involved were awesome above and beyond the call of awesome duty. But at that point, I felt I had done a poor effort and not spent enough time editing the film together and getting the pacing just right and all sorts of blah, blah, blah, that was capped off with having only 25 minutes to go and our first few go’s of capturing the film back to tape were resulting in no sound (and lots of cursing from me). We only just barely made it in with roughly four minutes to the deadline and at that point, we had not watched the film in whole and only seen it in bits and pieces as there just wasn’t enough time during editing to watch it right through. So it was actually the heats screening where I got to watch it as a whole (due to a new rule of not being allowed to watch it at all by anyone after submittal) and with the bonus of having a full audience there as well, where we got the satisfaction of an audience ‘getting it’, or about as close to getting it, as it’s quite a dipolar film in its shock horror and comedy.

The thing I’m most proud of “Sum of All Parts” (films title) is the music by the good Ben Woollen and apart from caring if we make it to the city finals (just to be on the DVD, fingers crossed), is that he gets some recognition or something for the totally awesome music he contributed to the film, which truly made the bastard work. But we’ll see as there’s still five days to go till the city finalists are announced and a further nine days after that till the actual finals. Time be a bitch.

Anyway, the best part about doing the 48, apart from having done it, is that my energy and enthusiasm levels have once again come back up and I’m back in the routine of doing things to get things done. Or at least I’d like to think that’s the case. It’s part of why I’ve fasttracked this site back up and I’m back to planning a whole bunch of projects to be done which will be announced in due time. It’s good to be busy again. Thanks Chuck Norris.

Oh, one video/song I love and remembered to post… Cup of Brown Joy by Elemental. I have no idea who he is, but this video is great.

Welcome back to the new and not so slightly improved website.

The last few months have been suckaballs boring without this site and blog to write to (which in itself is sad) and finally after waiting hands on foot for my web host to get their shit sorted and get my account up and running, I just went fuck it and went to another provider.

Whilst at it, I’ve gone for a slightly new site design, which to the dismay of some gets rid of the funky picture changing banner which I myself am not too sure on doing, so would love to hear from anyone what their thoughts on this new look is like for them.

Had a small debate with myself on whether to start this blog afresh or continue the old one which is thankfully stored on the blogger servers as well, but also links to a lot of files that aren’t on this new server and were deleted with the last one. But over time I’ll be sorting out those kinks as well, hopfully re-uploading them or just deleting posts here and there.

At this point in writing, the site is pretty much nothing but this blog and the frontpage, but I’ll be adding more and more to it as time goes by and with a whole bunch of stuff I’ve been meaning to put up since last year, along with bits and bobs of sweet Web2.0 oddities. Hooray.

So, enough of that boring shite, stay tuned and welcome back, feels great to be blogging again and a quick check the archives has me starting back up just a day before this site’s 2nd birthday. Happy birthday internet. I’ve missed you.

Hopefully this works…

We’ve been experiencing some technical difficulties. Initially due to an outbreak of Arse Monkeys tampering with our servers and then the owner became ill with the Stupid Virus which he’s only just coming out of now.

I’ve been lazy with this site and since the last post have attended three weddings in one week, been working like a dog, living as a hermit to the world and at times, working on a feature length script with the remarkably talented Ross which I really like and am not so much working on it with him, but more like standing over his shoulder at times, throwing in the odd comment and idea to make it feel like I’m actually contributing something. But pretty excited about that and other stuff to be mention next time.

Got back yesterday from a few days off on the road helping out some friends filming and generally visiting the good people of other cities and drinking booze. Also shopped a little excessively and bought a digital camera, some CDs and DVDs and couple hundred worth of books.

But best story I got out of all of this is I almost died Saturday night/Sunday Morning.

Was driving along the motorway at the dead of night and had just changed the music when I noticed up ahead that there was a car that looked like it didn’t have its headlights on. Not too long after, I realised that that particular car was getting bigger and bigger and then the thought “oh shit, that car is on the wrong side of the motorway and heading straight for me” and we’re both at top speed.

Then it flicked its headlights on as I veered into the next lane to avoid it. Doing so I spun out several times in the middle of the road, the other car just zips on past and I come to a full stop in the middle of the motorway facing the opposite way and watch as the cars that were ‘behind me’ come to a full stop just short of hitting me.

So hazard lights, a wave of OK to the others and pushing my flooded car to the side of the road, I called the cops and though I couldn’t give a description, there was cop that had pulled over a speeder a couple of kilometers back and hopefully that douchebag was caught. I haven’t seen anything of this in the news, so hopefully no one was hurt because of it, but man, that was close and lucky whoever the hell it was didn’t switch lanes either.

It was a pretty narrow miss too. A couple of seconds off and would have been a pretty messy scene considering at least I was going top speed and it would have been head on. But hey, I had changed the music over to Lovage just beforehand, so at least I would have died to some damn fine music.

So it’s now New Years Eve and Jared and Angela’s wedding will be on this afternoon. I’ve been hanging out with the organisation team tonight as they’ve been planning, well… everything.

But now everything is set to fall into its right place and I’ve put together a playlist for the reception, which at this point, I’m not sure why me, but just had a lot of fun trying to figure out what might or might not be appropriate for a reception and look forward to the results. I’ve also been made a last minute groomsman, but not quite a groomsman, as I’m going to hold the title as “official tie tier” which I’m quite amused and happy about.

So I hope everyone has a lovely New Years and stay safe.

Went to Papamoa Thursday night/Friday morning where I took part in filming some scenes of Brad’s new short film Cockroaches. This time though, I’m in front of the camera acting, as opposed to behind it, which is a totally different experience, but still good fun.

Being behind a camera, I’ve always kept myself aware of the pressure that can be on an actor with all the focus around being on them, but man, even in a small group situation like this one, its still something on the side of discomforting to do.

But I hope they’re getting what they need. I had a lot of fun doing it and its a welcome change of role for me. We’re planning to shoot the rest of the film next month and that’s going to be a lot more scenes and a lot more fun and a lot more pressure too. Hooray.

The rest of my weekend was spent sitting on a beach, having some small drinks, luging down a hill, driving around the country side and then getting tired of driving around the country side and pulling over to rest and nap and then waking up, but at first, not quite waking up enough to remember where I was and then remembering and then going home.

Times are busy and less blogging has been happening thanks to the stress that was Christmas and the fact I was playing video games to escape when I could. Been working a lot too which isn’t always fun, but some upcoming time off is going to be very much looked forward to.

Christmas was good where there was much food and a reunion of sorts with some old, old, old family friends from way back in the days, including meeting up with my childhood friend whom I’d not seen for at least… 17-18 years. Totally surreal experience there. Actually, writing about it now, there were photos taken. I wonder if there are any photos lying around the parent’s house of us as wee little kids and if it’ll be interesting enough to compare the two side by side… well if it works, I might blog it, if it doesn’t, this’ll be the last you hear of that crazy idea.

But anyway, the next few weeks will be seeing me attending several weddings and by then I’ll have picked a camera to buy and use for this blog and also, upon the new years, this site should also get its facelift, which has been nagging at me to happen for sometime.

Wishing everyone a happy holiday and lots of cheer. Hooray!