Sorrow
My grandfather is in the hospital. He’s had a massive stroke. They’re not sure if he’ll recover. I’ll let you guys know more as I find out. They won’t know more until the morning.
Matt’s Semi-Annual Complain About Everything Day
I did a very uncharacteristic thing today. I stayed home from work. I needed sleep and felt mildly ill, so I called in. I felt like I deserved it, having gone nearly 9 months without a day off. It was also not entirely a fabrication that I felt under the weather. Apparently things fell apart in my absence. According to my boss, who tends to exaggerate a little, it became so hectic around the office that Paul was called from his day off. I felt kind of bad about that but got over it rather quickly. The main “emergency” work wise is that every girl we’ve taken a picture of over the past two months has decided that today was the day to call in their final selections to be retouched. This, of course, has nothing to do with the fact that their deadline for photo submissions to the Miss Texas USA office happens to be Friday. Of course not.
On top of that, I get a panicked phone call around 3:30 today letting me know that I have a shoot tomorrow with representatives from both the Jiffy Lube corporation and the Houston Texans organization. Joy! Some how these two evil forces have come together and formed a sort of super-evil, where in art directors decapitate photographers for the slightest hint of insubordination. Actually, it’s probably not that bad. Around 11am tomorrow I have to be downtown at Reliant Stadium for a press-conference of sorts, only minus the press. It’s more of a photo-opp for both organizations. It was scheduled to be photographed by the Texans in-house photographer who backed out on them today. Paul, being the Texans official (non-in-house) photographer was first on the “people to call in an emergency” list. The problem is that Paul has scheduled more head-shots for all day tomorrow. This where plan B comes in. I am plan B.
Not that I mind being plan B. Some day I plan on being plan A. But I’m seriously the least responsive person to someone else’s crisis. That’s not saying I wouldn’t go out of my way to help a friend, on the contrary, I would die for my friends, but to be shoved into an obviously tense situation to help out two organizations I could really care less about isn’t exactly my idea of a fun afternoon. Helping a friend is one thing, helping uncaring corporate strangers is another. If I were more involved I would have said “fuck’em, let them call the whole thing off”. But, it’s not my call. It’s not even like we’re trying to take over the job that this would normally fall under, we already have it. We have both accounts fairly locked and shoot regularly for them. They’ve canceled things do to rain before, I say let them cancel one on account of poor planning.
Nope, not gonna happen. Plan B to the rescue.
You’d think after doing something like this I’d get a little appreciation thrown my way. I’m sure I’ll get critiqued on the photos and a nice pat on the back instead. Just once I’d like to hear someone say “thanks Matt, you really saved our ass back there.”
That too will probably never happen. At the very least I’ll have a little more ammo for the “I think I deserve a raise” speech after I’ve been there more than a year.
So, after sitting on the couch sipping Earl Gray all day, I get to jump feet first back into the land’o’stress tomorrow.
Let’s see, what else can I complain about…
I was toying with the idea of sitting down to write about all the things I’m against and why, but that might take a while, and I doubt any of you would stick around to read it. My opinions are so all over the place that it would probably take a small paperback to get through them all.
I actually had about 6 pages written right here, but I’ve just deleted it. I can’t really explain why. Maybe I’ll get around to writing about how I really feel about the war, the economy, gay marriage and whatnot a little bit later. Probably when I’m good and ready. Hell, you could probably guess half my opinions on hot topics and the reasons you make up would probably be more interesting than the truth. So, how about we do that. You make up some reason why I’m against something like gay marriage and we’ll just run with it.
Anyway, I apologize. This post was a lot more organized 4 hours ago. I’ve had dinner and watched a movie since I began writing it so there you have it. I need to get ready for tomorrow and see if I can’t find my suit pants in the back of my closet.
Also, I’d like to send a shout out to both Jason and Nagle, who will be graduating very shortly. I’m really proud of ALL my friends and I wish you guys the best of luck in everything. If you ever, and I mean ever, need anything, I’ll do anything short of whackin’ someone and stuffing them into my trunk.
Matt out.
Quickie
Have to run to work, but found this while I was checking my email this morning and just had to pass it along.
“RIAA, deceit in sales figures”
It’s nothing we didn’t know before, but now it’s just a bit more obvious. The RIAA is fudging figured about how many CDs are sold. And technically they’re selling even more than before, a 10% increase since last year even. What a surprise!
E3 goodness and a photo shoot too!
Word has come down from the mountain. Doom 3 and HL2 WILL go head to head for FPS supremacy this summer. Not this winter, not next year, THIS summer. Also, as if actually getting our hands on HL2 isn’t cool enough, Counter-Strike 2 will ship with it. Yeah. It’s a good day. There will apparently be a CS2 game-play video up on FileShack this evening, so look for that.
I’ve also got to go get changed for a photo shoot in a few minutes. I’m shooting the Houston Police Officers Union “Office of the Year” awards. I’m a bit excited to be finally getting my own shoots.
Matt’s doing a little happy dance today.
Almost forgot
There’s a few links I was going to pass on.
Check this out techno fans…. a Danny Howells action figure! I kid you not. That company, Sweatfrog, has some really interesting figures for those of you who are into odd little desktop thingies.
I also found the weirdest t-shirts humanly possible. Some are actually kinda cool. I doubt any of them are cheaper the $40 those. Yeah, those “trendy” t-shirts no one really understands.
Does anyone want to take a vacation to Russia? Apparently you can shoot uber-high-powered sniper rifles (like the VSS), jump out of planes and helicopters and drive tanks. Ye-haw!
Lastly, the highly anticipated windows port of Konfabulator looks to be very very behind schedule. Apparently a programmer was fired after not really working and being confronted and asked to show code that he had obviously not written… hmmm. Anyway, looks like they’re working on it again but it’ll be a while. Why can’t you Mac people get on the ball and just write everything cross platform. (that was sarcasm)
That is all. You are dismissed.
Now Playing : Paul Van Dyk – Time Of Our Lives (Starecase Remix)
Zombies are the best
The era of zombies not running for you is officially over. 28 Days Later didn’t really feel like a proper zombie movie when I initially went to see it. Mostly because the zombies didn’t shuffle and moan after you and they didn’t really “eat” anyone, just kind of spit blood at them. Yesterday Lauren’s dad and I checked out Dawn of The Dead. Now that’s a zombie movie. Not quite as good as it’s 1978 original, but a fun ride none-the-less.
But Matt, you usually only like movie with plots and characters and all that good artsy stuff, what gives?
Well, you see, I have this soft spot deep inside the movie critic portion of my brain, specially reserved for horribly cheesy zombie movies. I love’em, I don’t know why.
Dawn of The Dead had absolutely no story whatsoever. None. The movie starts with a nurse coming home from work and turning off a report of “a disturbance” on the radio. That’s pretty much all we get. After that it’s full on zombie chasing mayhem. Our main characters eventually get trapped in a mall and spend a good portion of the movie there, fending off zombies and trying to figure out what to do next. And, once again, this movie proves that the mighty shotgun is the single most powerful weapon in all of existence. Anyway, good popcorn flick, just don’t be expecting Shakespeare.
Outside of that it’s been a pretty mundane week. Lots of work and the lack of my 6-month review have left me rather disenchanted with going to work tomorrow. I was supposed to have a review 2 weeks ago and it’s yet to happen.
I’m also working on a website design for Lauren’s company. It’s going a bit slowly because I’ve lost all my photoshop settings, styles, actions and all of my windows fonts. I’m working to get them back slowly, finding bits and pieces here and there on backup disks. I’m also at a bit of a loss in terms of motivation. I don’t really like where the design is going. But that’s just half the fun isn’t it. That should take me the better part of this coming week in the evenings.
I’m really tired. I think I might take a little power nap before getting back into designing. Later.
Now Playing : Syntax – Bliss (Original Extended Version)
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