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On the Road

Luke Stay — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 09:19:55 +0000

I used to love flying. As a child, I used to count down the days until the next plane trip. I used to love staring out the window at the clouds as we flew over them, leaving a whole world below us. It made me feel so free. I even wrote a story about the man that grew from that little boy who loved to fly.

I’m still a window-seat guy, but flying has become little more than something I do. It’s just part of the routine. I’m home for a few weeks, then it’s back to the airport and on to the next gig. Don’t get me wrong, I like what I do and I still enjoy flying. I love to travel and never dread the next trip, it’s just that flying has lost most of the magic.

I just finished watching Up in the Air and found myself identifying with George Clooney’s character. I don’t have near the miles he does, I fly almost exclusively domestic, but something about his routine rang true with me. I think that’s where the magic of flying went. It became routine. I guess that’s what growing up is, finding your routine. It’s kind of sad really, life can be little more than finding your place in line. I think that was also the point of the movie.

I fought it for a long time, the routine. I freelanced for 5 years after graduating college. Floating from gig to gig, never knowing where the next paycheck was going to come from, never knowing what the next day was going to offer. It was kind of exhilarating. My one constant for so many years was change; change of job description, change of venue, change of locale, I even moved to New York City with no solid job lead in sight. It was fun. Little by little, change became routine. It was just something I did.

Flying for me isn’t much different from driving anymore. I do both pretty regularly now. In both cases, you’re just trying to get to your next destination as quickly as possible so you can get to whatever it is you need to do. You do everything in your power to distract yourself from the mind-numbing process of long-distance travel. In both cases, the trip becomes one long blur with sporadic glimpses of real beauty.

Some of the most beautiful things I have ever seen have been through an airplane window. Some of the most beautiful people I’ve ever met I met on the road. There’s nothing quite like driving by the St. Louis arch right as the sun is setting. There’s nothing quite like flying over a sprawling metropolis in the dead of night and watching it light up below you on the 4th of July. Yet, sadly, the more I travel, the longer the blurs become and the glimpses of real beauty are even more sporadic.

It seems that this is just what happens as we get older. We find our routine and the blurs get longer and longer. The next thing we know, we’re 40 or 50 years old and wondering where the time went. Mid-life crises are nothing more than us realizing our blurs have gotten too long and it’s time for a little more beauty in our lives.

In Up in the Air, Clooney’s job is to fire people for companies that don’t want to do it themselves. His main method of easing the pain of job-loss is to help them make the loss a wake-up call, to snap out of their routine and re-focus on their dreams. I think that was the whole point of the movie. Everyone needs to break their routine more often and remember their dreams. We need to stop and take the time to see the beauty in our lives. It’s a little cliche, but I think it’s become a cliche because of how easy it is to get stuck. It’s crazy to think how many movies center around this very phenomenon.

This movie became a wake-up call for me. I went full-time last year for the first time since college 5 years ago. In so doing, I’ve pushed away a lot of the things I enjoyed doing for things that needed to be done. I started making excuses like, “I’m too tired right now, I’ll do it tomorrow,” or “I’ve got more important things to do,” or most often, “I need to catch up on all my TV shows.” Work time was for work, and everything else was for resting and relaxing. That left no time for hobbies or work to further my dreams or develop my talents.

I’m not going to make any pledges in this post, I know myself too well for that. Just look at this site. There are pockets of consistent posts spread over the years, but the last post was much too long ago. I will be writing more, whether here or elsewhere, but the main point of this post was to process the thoughts I had after watching the movie. In college, I was required to keep a weekly “Film Journal” for a semester, where I was supposed to write about the effects any media had on me during the week; to process what I was viewing a little more actively.

At some point last year, I made a goal to do this again on this site. As this is the first one, you can see how well that goal went, but I do need to do this more. I need to quit pushing off the thoughts that race through my mind after viewing some movies or TV shows. I need to take the time to process them. I need to take the time to seek out the real beauty in my routine.

This Fall in Television

Luke Stay — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 15:00:34 +0000

After the debacle that was Jay Leno trying to hang on to his talk show on NBC, they’re doing their darnedest to refill the 10pm time slot. That not only means a whole crop of new shows on NBC, but also a whole crop of other networks trying to jump on the opportunity. That means there could actually be some decent TV to watch in the next year. Here’s the new stuff to watch out for:

Mondays:

The Event (NBC) – Some dude looks for his missing girlfriend and ends up uncovering THE LARGEST COVER-UP IN US HISTORY!!!!1111!!!11!!! Look, it will probably be suspenseful and all that, but they’re going to drag you along all season long, giving you little bitty clues along the way just to reveal one tiny kernel of knowledge about this “event” at the end of the season. Then they’re going to drag you along for years until you finally lose interest, at which point they’ll have “the final season” where they frantically throw pieces together in a lame attempt to tie up all the loose ends they created over the years. It’s from the producers of 24, so people are going to watch it, but don’t say I didn’t warn you 6 years from now. Premieres Sep. 20, 9/8c
Chase (NBC) – See, they call it, “Chase” because she’s a US Marshall who “Chases” criminals. Watch Justified on FX or Hulu instead. Premieres Sep. 20, 10/9c
Lone Star (FOX) – Lamest. Title. Ever. A con man juggles identities. Premieres Sep. 20, 9/8c
Mike and Molly (CBS) – Another lame sitcom. As a general rule, I don’t watch anything with a laugh track. Premieres Sep. 20, 9:30/8:30c
Hawaii Five-Oh (CBS) – Same show, different decades. Think of it as CSI: Miami done as a buddy cop show. I’ll watch at least one episode. Premieres Sep. 20, 10/9c

Tuesdays:

Raising Hope (FOX) – The pool boy impregnates a felon. Parenthood ensues. Meh. Premieres Sep. 21, 9/8c
Running Wilde (FOX) – This is the story of Will Arnett as a rich playboy trying to woo Keri Russell, all told through the eyes of a 12-year-old girl. From the creator of Arrested Development, this one should be good. Premieres Sep. 21, 9:30/8:30c
No Ordinary Family (ABC) – Julie Benz (Dexter) and Michael Chiklis (The Shield) have a pretty ordinary family. After some sort of accident, they get super powers. I’m not sure what to make of this one, but if it involves super powers, I watch at least one episode as a general rule. Premieres Sep. 28, 8/7c
Detroit 187 (ABC) – Another cop drama. One guess where this one’s based. Premieres Sep. 21, 10/9c

Wednesdays:

Undercovers (NBC) – JJ Abrams’ (Lost, Alias, Felicity) latest about a married couple that happens to be former spies. JJ Abrams could make a show about a pile of burning tires and I’d watch it at least once. I’ll be checking this one out. Premieres Sep. 22, 8/7c
Law & Order: Los Angeles (NBC) – Yup, another one. This one has Terrence Howard (Iron Man 1, Hustle and Flow). You can thank Jay Leno. Premieres Sep. 29, 10/9c
The Defenders (CBS) – Jim Belushi and Jerry O’Connell (Stand by Me, Jerry Maguire) play 2 Las Vegas lawyers who “play by their own rules.” If Jim Belushi and Jerry O’Connell don’t scare you away from this show, you’re in the wrong place. Premieres Sep. 22, 10/9c
Better With You (ABC) – Another family sitcom, another laugh track. Premieres Sep. 22, 8:30, 7:30c
The Whole Truth (ABC) – That guy from Northern Exposure and that girl from ER star in another lawyer drama. I couldn’t care less. Premieres Sep. 22, 10/9c

Thursdays:

Outsourced (NBC) – A young, American call center manager is sent to India to train the very employees his company outsourced to. The movie was pretty funny, so the premise is good, I’ll give it one shot. Premieres Sep. 23, 9:30/8:30c
$#*! My Dad Says (CBS) – This one’s based on a book that’s based on a Twitter feed and stars William Shatner. I’d just follow the Twitter account if I were you. Premieres Sep. 23, 8:30/7:30c
My Generation (ABC) – The latest in High School/20-something soap operas, this one is based on the premise that a documentary crew followed a group of students in High School and then catches up with them 10 years later to see what they’re up to. I assure you, the shows a lot more fake than anyone at your High School was. Premieres Sep. 23, 8/7c

Fridays:

School Pride (NBC) – Another feel-good makeover show. This one gets students and faculty to rebuild their own schools. And they say TV never amounts to anything good. Premieres Oct. 15, 8/7c
Outlaw (NBC) – Jimmy Smits was a Supreme Court Justice until he quits and goes to private practice, then you get another Lawyer drama. Yay! Premieres Sep. 15, 10/9c
Blue Bloods (CBS) – Tom Selleck and Donnie Wahlberg are cops in NYC. I like this cast, but CBS has already given it the Friday night death-toll that NBC gave Southland once upon a time. Give it the fair shot CBS didn’t. Premieres Sep. 24, 10/9c
Body of Proof (ABC) – Something about a neurosurgeon and a car accident. I got bored halfway through the description. Premieres this Fall [no date yet, always a good sign]

Sundays:

Sunday Night Football (NBC) – It’s in no way a new show, but I’m putting it here so you remember to tune in to watch the Cowboys stomp all over the Redskins in the Season Premiere. Premieres Sep. 12, 8:15 EST

Noteworthy New Cable:

Boardwalk Empire (HBO) – Steve Buscemi stars in a Prohibition-era gangster epic based in Atlantic City. It’s written by one of the guys that did Sopranos and the pilot’s directed by Scorcese. Premieres Sep. 19, 9/8c
The Walking Dead (AMC) – Based on a graphic novel about a guy that wakes up from a coma after a Zombie Apocalypse, this show looks like a modern-day Western … with zombies. Does it get any better? Premieres in October
The League (FX) – It’s not new, but I came into this one late and I loved it. It follows a group of 30-something men that play fantasy football together. It’s a little bit crude, but most women won’t like it anyway, as they thing football and its fantasy spawn is the devil. Premieres Sep. 16, 10:30/9:30c
Conan (TBS) – It’s a long, painful story, but Conan O’Brien is now on cable, where he will be free to serve the comedy gods however it pleases him. If the last month or so of his stint on The Tonight Show was any indication, this is going to be the talk show to watch. Premieres Nov. 8

This Spring in Television

Luke Stay — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 01:50:07 +0000

Never settle for cartoons.

Spring is here, which means the networks have crunched the numbers, analyzed the data, and shed the empty calories of failed Fall programs … for the most part. There aren’t a whole lot of new shows starting this Spring, so I’m going to tell you both what to watch for and what you should already be watching, because as witnessed by the fact that Two and a Half Men is consistently the top-rated sitcom, America has no idea how to watch TV.

New Shows:

Human Target (Fox) – Apparently based on a DC Comic and an old series on ABC, this show stars Mark Valley (Fringe) as some sort of elite bodyguard who lives on the edge. Expect high-paced action and plenty of gun-play, this is Fox after all. Should be some good dumb fun. Premieres Jan 17
Life Unexpected (CW) – It’s a “Dramedy” on the CW. Not interested. Premieres Jan 18
The Deep End (ABC) – They’re calling it “Grey’s Anatomy with lawyers.” I’m calling it poor timing. I’m sure a show about a bunch of pretty twenty-somethings poised to make millions off the plight of others will do great in this economy. But what do I know? I write about TV for free. Premieres Jan 21
Undercover Boss (CBS) – Look people, if you quit watching these lame reality shows, the networks will actually have to hire some real production crews and writing teams to make some quality programming. Promote the economy, don’t watch this show. Premieres Feb. 7
Parenthood (NBC) – This show employs what I like to call the shotgun method of producing, basically you load up a movie or TV show with as many recognizable names as you can and hope you hit something. This one stars Craig T. Nelson, Lauren Graham, Dax Shepard, and Erika Christensen and is based on the 1989 Ron Howard film of the same name. I’m sure people will watch this, but I’m still upset about the whole Leno-sticking-around debacle and the fact that they cancelled Southland just so Leno didn’t throw a temper tantrum and will probably just move him back after the Olympics anyway. If they screw Conan, I’m calling for an NBC boycott. Who’s with me? Premieres March 1
The Marriage Ref (NBC) – Another lame NBC attempt to pinch pennies rather than produce real shows, this is a reality show about couples having stupid arguments that need TV to settle them. And we wonder why people are smuggling explosives in their underwear. Watch this show and the terrorists win. Premieres March 14
Justified (FX) – This show’s on cable and I usually stick to network TV, but cable is quickly turning into the only way to find good TV these days. Justified stars Timothy Olyphant (Deadwood, Die Hard 4) as a sharpshooting US Marshall in his hometown Kentucky. Think of it as a modern spaghetti-Western with Timothy Olyphant as the modern-day Clint Eastwood. Premieres March

Returning Shows that Should Already be on your Radar:

24 (Fox) – As ridiculous as this show is getting, there’s still nothing like sitting down to watch Kiefer Sutherland run around, shooting guns and torturing bad guys for an hour to get the blood pumping. It’s good, old-fashioned, American fun. Premieres Jan 17
Flash Forward (ABC) – This was my favorite drama of the Fall, and I’m mainly including it here because it comes back so late in the season. I just hope they don’t stretch this blackout out too long. Premieres March 4
V (ABC) – It’s all been done before, but I can’t stop watching. It’s just very well done. Another late starter. Premieres March 30
Glee (Fox) – You know my thoughts on this show. I want more satire and less non-plot-moving musical interludes, but there’s worse out there. Premieres April 13
Project Runway (Lifetime) – This one is only here so Megan knows when it starts. That and it’s one of the few “real” competition shows out there. There’s no time for pointless drama when Tim Gunn has you running around NYC (yes, they’re back in NYC) to design a dress for the likes of Nicole Richie. Premieres Jan 14
Southland (TNT) – NBC cancelled it so that Leno could move to 10pm and ruin the ratings of local news across the country and TNT picked up all the episodes already shot. They’ll start by airing all the episodes from the first season and go straight into the new season. This was my favorite drama of last year. Let’s hope TNT picks up more episodes. Premieres Jan 12
Lost (ABC) – NBC should take note, this is how you experiment with television programming and succeed. The Lost writers had an ending in mind almost from the very beginning and this season, we’ll see it. What is the island? Will they ever really get off? Will J.J. Abrams work in any cast members from Felicity? All of these questions have been promised answers in this, the final season of Lost. I hope FlashForward follows suit and gives us viewers a definite ending to look forward to. Premieres Feb 2

This Fall in Television

Luke Stay — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 18:15:37 +0000

Every Fall, a crop of new TV shows comes out with a suck ratio of 5 to 1 and every Spring, some helpless, innocent show gets pushed into oncoming traffic because you aren’t watching it. That’s right, I’m blaming you. It’s all your fault. You obviously don’t know how to watch TV, so this Fall I’m going to tell you which among the pile of steaming dog poo they call new programming you should be watching.

New Shows:

Accidentally on Purpose (CBS) – Jenna Elfman gets knocked up by a younger man, sit-com ensues. Yes, you have seen this before. No, you should not watch this. Premieres Sep. 21.
Trauma (NBC) – If the promos are any indication, this show is about explosions and their relationship with emergency workers. Skip it and watch some quality Michael Bay explosions instead. Premieres Sep. 28.
The Jay Leno Show (NBC) – The only reason NBC agreed to try this little experiment is because it was much cheaper than having to continue to search out quality original programming season after season. In short, if you watch this show, you are killing television as we know it. All the best shows are already running off to cable. I personally don’t enjoy paying for television, so do not let this happen! Do me a favor and wait an hour for Conan. The writing is much better anyway. Or better yet, watch Conan on Hulu so they know you’re watching. And if you know any Nielsen families, block this program from their TV. Original programming is at stake. We must make a stand. Television fans of the world unite! Premiered Sep. 14.
Shark Tank (ABC) – It has nothing to do with sharks, at least not the cool kind. It’s a bunch of Joe Shmoes with get-rich-quick schemes pitching them to five rich dudes (Sharks). The fact that they’re trying to ride the coattails of Shark Week’s popularity is reason enough for me not to watch this show. You should do the same. Premieres Sep. 29.
NCIS: Los Angeles (CBS) – Yes, they made another one. This one’s got Chris O’Donnell and LL Cool J. Does that mean it will be any different than the other one? Absolutely not. Look, if you keep watching these unoriginal crime dramas, they’ll keep making spin-offs. It’s your own dumb fault, America. Premieres Sep. 22.
The Good Wife (CBS) – This one’s about the wife of some scandalous politician who was just outed to the press. Just because it’s timely doesn’t mean it’s good, let alone accurate. Watch it if you’re into that sort of thing. Premieres Sep. 22.
Melrose Place (CW) – Yes, they brought it back. No, you shouldn’t watch it. Premiered Sep. 8.
Hank (ABC) – Kelsey Grammer tries his hand at another sit-com that isn’t Frasier. Friends don’t let friends watch lame ABC sit-coms. Premieres Sep. 30.
The Middle (ABC) – Patricia Heaton and the Scrubs Janitor star in a sit-com about a blue-collar family with oddball kids. I have a feeling hijinks might ensue. Do not watch. Premieres Sep. 30.
Modern Familly (ABC) – Ed Bundy robbed the cradle with Sofia Vergara at the behest of his ex, Shelley Long. That’s seriously the premise of this show. Premieres Sep. 23.
Cougar Town (ABC) – If Monica divorced Chandler, was now 40+, and had her own show, it would be Cougar Town. Now I ask you this, did you watch Friends just for Monica? Yeah, didn’t think so. Premieres Sep. 23.
Eastwick (ABC) – A modern drama about Witches. I’m going to tell you not to watch it just because ABC has wasted so much of my time with their crappy new shows. Premieres Sep. 23.
Mercy (NBC) – An Iraq-war veteran becomes a cranky nurse at a busy hospital. It wants to be Nurse Jackie, but looks more like a poor man’s Grey’s Anatomy. Grey’s Anatomy is already pretty poor. Premieres Sep. 23.
Glee (Fox) – This show could really be a whole lot more. They take the singing segments way too seriously. It’s original though, and funny enough, plus there’s absolutely nothing else to watch on Wednesday, so go ahead and watch it. Premiered Sep. 9.
The Beautiful Life (CW) – It’s produced by Ashton Kutcher, it’s about a bunch of pretty white girls, and it’s on the CW. As far as I’m concerned, that’s three strikes. Premiered Sep. 16.
FlashForward (ABC) – This one looks good. The world blacks out and everyone gets glimpses of their own future. They spend the show trying to figure it all out. It’s produced by David S. Goyer, who wrote The Dark Knight, Batman Begins, and Dark City. This is a guy with serious Sci-Fi cred. My interest is piqued. Premieres Sep. 24.
Community (NBC) – This show has all the ingredients for a tasty treat, and the pilot didn’t fall short. I’m in. Premiered Sep. 17.
The Vampire Diaries (CW) – If you watch these Twilight/True Blood spawns, the terrorists win. Premiered Sep. 10.
Southland (NBC) – Technically not a new show, but they gave it the death toll of a Friday time slot and it’s a great show, so I’m putting it here. This was the best crime drama on TV last season, if not the best drama on network TV. Watch this show and kidnap a Nielsen family and make them watch it. Premieres Oct. 23.
Brothers (Fox) – Oh, brother. Premieres Sep. 25.
The Cleveland Show (Fox) – Family Guy jumped the shark a long time ago and Cleveland was far from the funniest character. You do the math. Premieres Sep. 27.

So there you have it, the only new shows really worth watching are Glee, FlashForward, Community, and Southland. I was going to tell you what you should already be watching, but I wasted a lot of time writing this. I did manage to save you hours of brain-rotting trauma, so you’re welcome.

Random Posts:

NBC Live Olympic Coverage Not So Live in Las Vegas

Luke Stay — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 18:27:02 +0000

Let me start off by saying I love NBC. It is by far the station I watch the most during the year. They have a vast majority of my favorite shows and are generally pretty relevant with their news programs. That is why I was so surprised they dropped the ball like they did with their Olympic coverage.

Last night Megan and I rushed home from dinner with friends to make sure we caught the Women’s Gymnastic Finals, Megan’s favorite event in the Olympics. We got home, turned on the TV, and luckily it hadn’t started yet. We then went on to check our email and work on some projects on our computers while we waited for the event. I had just stepped into the office when Megan shouted, “I’m seeing results online, why aren’t they showing it on TV?”

I checked it out, and sure enough, NBC was posting live scores to their website, but we were seeing Men’s Beach Volleyball on the TV. The local coverage was being delayed to adjust for the time zone. I looked around NBC.com for a live feed, but nothing. They offered no live feeds online of their primetime events. I looked around the internet for other live feeds. CBC was clever enough to block their internet feed to users outside of Canada. I tried a YouTube hack Jesse shared from Valleywag, but YouTube had since patched the hole. Frustrated, I finally went back to NBC.com to send them an email and in doing so, I saw the results of the very event I was trying to watch posted on their main page! Ridiculous.

Luckily, Megan hadn’t seen the results (although the swimming results were spoiled for her by the CNN feed on her home page), so we stayed up to watch the delayed coverage, but every time I saw that “Live” bug in the top right corner of the screen, my blood boiled.

I took this picture at 10:40pm Pacific time. At this point, the US is warming up for their first event, but in reality, the event has long been completed, and I have already seen the results. Notice the “Live” bug floating prominently next to the NBC Olympic logo. There’s no indication anywhere that this “Live” feed has been delayed to compensate for time differences.

This is unacceptable. No other live sports coverage is handled this way. They would never dream of doing this with Football. Why did they decide to delay the mother of all international sporting events? It doesn’t make any sense.

I was okay with the delayed Opening Ceremonies, I am okay with the small amount of events available to watch on NBC. I am okay with them spreading the coverage over their partner stations and the internet. I am even okay with them breaking for commercials. I understand that they are still trying to make money. What I am not okay with is delaying a live feed just to put the coverage in line with the local primetime slot. No other sporting event is handled this way, not even Nascar.

I did not check to see if this problem just affected Las Vegas or if it stretched across the entire Pacific Time Zone, so please, leave a comment if you’ve noticed the delay in your area too. If it has, send an email over to NBC to complain along with me.

Update: Gizmodo has some workarounds that might help you get a live stream online. Let me know if any of these work. I’ve lost all faith in NBC.

U WIN

Luke Stay — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:42:41 +0000

I don’t consider myself a lucky man, but I’m not altogether unlucky either. Some people are lucky at cards; others are lucky with women; I’m lucky with soda.

I don’t know when it started, but for as long as I can remember, I’ve had the uncanny ability to pick out the 20oz soda that will earn me a free soda. I used to go to the gas station with my friends relying on this ability. We’d pool our money together for one soda, I’d pick it out, and sure enough, I’d win another soda for my friend. I can’t even begin to count the amount of 20oz beverages I’ve won over the years. Lately though, I feel like my gift is starting to fade.

Last weekend, Megan and I went up to Utah to do some shooting for a video assignment. On the way back, we stop at a gas station and I pick up a Dr. Pepper. I unscrew the cap and check the inside as I always do and I see a message a lot like the one in the picture above. “Sweet!” I think to myself, “It happened again!”

Now, usually when there’s a winning message like that on the inside of a bottle cap, it means I’ve won a free soda. But this time, I see no indication anywhere on the cap or bottle to tell me what exactly I’ve won.

I get home and get online as I usually do, and eventually remember the cap I left sitting somewhere. I find it and head over to DrPepper.com to enter the code, all the while thinking I’ll be able to print out some sort of coupon for a free soda. I fill out the registration form and punch in the numbers when this screen pops up:

Computer Wallpaper. That’s my prize. No free soda, just some ugly, fabricated, over-produced piece of promotional filth to stick on my computer and give them free advertising. I don’t think Shia LeBouf even carries a sword at any point in that movie. He just flips around that knife all movie long. I was so upset, I didn’t even bother saving the actual image.

Dr. Pepper, you broke my heart.

U-Fail

Luke Stay — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 16:21:21 +0000

Apparently I just became internet famous. This is a little weird. My friend, Nate was stumbling and came across the picture above on this website. After a little Googling, I found it again here. The weird thing is that the only place I have this picture posted is on Facebook.

Someone must have ripped it from there, added a little text, and submitted it to the fail blog. I wonder who it was. I figured I’d repost it here so that I get a little credit for the picture. Here’s what happened:

So there we were, driving through the middle of nowhere, Wyoming, when out of nowhere we got ambushed by a rogue wind. The back end started to slide right, I calmly said, “Here we go,” and turned the wheel to correct, it slid back left, and I suddenly remembered the 18-wheeler we passed not too long ago that was sure to be barreling toward us. I saw the edge of the road and decided that’s where I wanted to be. Off we slid, I pumped the brake once, the back end swung right, off the road, and behind us, and next thing I knew, we were perched 5 feet in the air.

We were going maybe 25 mph, more likely less when it happened, no tickets were issued, and there was absolutely no damage whatsoever to the car. We followed the tow truck towing the trailer to the nearest Uhaul, stayed the night, and swapped out the trailer the next day. It was relatively painless since I bought the insurance on the trailer, although I did have to completely repack it. The only major damage done was to a Wal-Mart particle board entertainment center, but the entire contents was covered by the insurance.

It took 2 tow trucks to un-perch us from the trailer. Luckily, I had my video camera with me.

WPvideo 1.10

It was crazy, after getting un-stuck, we sat on the freeway for like 5 hours waiting for them to clear all the toppled semis and wrecked cars off the freeway. Apparently they closed the freeway right after we passed the last closing point. Just too much wind on a snowy day. Hooray for failing!

Taking the Long Way Home

Luke Stay — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 09:26:27 +0000

Last December, I had just gotten home from a gig when my business partner, Scott called me. One of our clients had just been selected as a McDonalds All-American Basketball player and wanted more copies of his promo DVD.

“That’s great! No sweat. I’ll get those right out!”

I fire up the computer and open up Avid Xpress Pro to export the necessary video to burn a few new copies (unfortunately, I didn’t keep a copy of the most recent DVD that I could just duplicate and my 500 GB external is nearly maxed out, so I had no room to save the exported video from the original creation). I begin my export, wait a few minutes, and realize my computer is frozen

… Restart … Frozen startup screen … Another hard restart … Click … Click … Click … Nothing. The hard drive is dead.

Now I start to panic. My computer is my livelihood. Good thing I back up … wait … I just disabled and deleted my backup system to give myself more space on my external. Luckily, most of my important documents are backed up through various emails and really old backups, all my music is on my Ipod, and my raw video data is stored on the external (which is what trumped my backup in the first place), but all the files that reference the raw video are stored locally. In other words, I have video, but would have to re-edit all of it if the files cannot be recovered. Plus, I only have a hard copy of the most recent edition of my feature-length screenplay. It would have to be re-typed. All this a week before I have to fly from New York City to Los Angeles to get married.

Thanks to my amazing then fiance, now wife, Megan, I get my hard drive replaced before we leave so I can at least use my computer while I search for the time and money to send out the bad drive and the next few months are spent getting married, going on a honeymoon, then finding out all the programs I forgot to install before packing everything up. Finally, my amazing wife finds the time to send the drive out right before we move to Las Vegas. I begin to feel better.

It is now 12:12am PST on February 27. Scott called yesterday to tell me our client really needs more DVDs now as he has just made it to the State Finals and is starting to get scouts from high profile division 1 colleges. We have a copy of the most recent DVD we made, but the client wants to swap out one of the games shown. My failed hard drive is currently in Chicago being assessed for a ~~repair~~ recovery estimate.

Luckily, I am able to find the other game in the raw footage on my external, but everything else will have to be extracted from the DVD to make a new DVD with the new game added. In other words, I have to completely deconstruct one DVD before I can construct a new one. It’s like remodeling a house by demolishing it, then building it again using all original parts except in the kitchen.

As Megan watches American Idol and we discuss the state of rock in the 70s …

Megan: There was no good rock in the 70s.

Me: ??? Rock was born in the 70s!

Megan: No, rock was born in the 60s, or even the 50s.

Me: Okay, but rock’s balls dropped in the 70s.

… while I attempt to use Handbrake to extract each video separately from the DVD. Of course, Handbrake doesn’t like me tonight and after about an hour of fiddling, I finally figure out I have to disable the update check before it will work (there is a new update out, which it wanted me to use, but it’s only for Leopard and I’m running Tiger). Finally, Handbrake cooperates and I quickly find out Megan’s computer will do everything much faster (I’m running on a 3-year-old Powerbook. She’s got a first-gen MacBook Pro), so I move the entire project to her computer.

So what should have taken an hour or two, tops, last December is now taking 5 hours and counting (I have at least another hour of encoding before the DVDs even start burning) two months later. On top of that, I have to get up early to package, label, and overnight the DVDs before I head to my gig at 1:00pm. All of this because I wanted to save a few bucks and stretch my external hard drive as far as I could.

As soon as things settle down, I’m buying this and downloading this. With these gems, I could’ve used Megan’s computer to boot my computer on her computer from the external hard drive right after the hard drive failed and saved myself hours and hours of extra work and headache.

Man, I’m a geek.

Goodbye Blockbuster, You Broke My Heart

Luke Stay — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 07:00:34 +0000

During the summer of 2004, I worked at the local Blockbuster store in South Riding, VA. I loved that job. The pay was only marginally above minimum wage, but I got 5 free movies per week and discounts on all purchases, including new and used DVDs. My DVD collection nearly tripled while I was there. When I left, they were just kicking off there online service. I was eligible for an employee discount to the service, so I promptly signed up. I had pretty much rented everything I could from the store and wanted to get more obscure movies through their more extensive online catalog.

Fast-forward to January 2008, when Blockbuster Total Rewards sent me yet another email notifying me of yet another price increase. This after waiting about 6 months to finally receive Umbrellas of Cherbourg, while they sent me whatever movie they felt like from my queue, regardless of my ranking. It was time to reconsider my online rental options.

Reasons for Staying with Blockbuster:

Ability to swap mail-ins with in-store rentals.

Reasons for Leaving Blockbuster:

My choice was clear and I decided to cancel. When asked for additional explanation, I replied,

I have been a blockbuster online customer from the very beginning of the service. The price has gone up for the same service at least 5 times since then. Why? Rarely do I ever get the movies I put at the top of my list and the other movies randomly change from available to not available. What is the purpose of ranking movies in a queue if you’re not going to follow it. I’m sick of it. I used to tell all my friends to switch from Netflix to Blockbuster, but after you jacked up the price yet again for what has become horrible service, I am switching from Blockbuster to Netflix. It’s a shame you wasted all my money getting Alec Baldwin to do your voice-overs instead of maintaining the service I came to expect years ago when you first started. How about a little loyalty to your long-time customers?

This explanation, however, was rejected because apparently I was supposed to keep my explanation limited to a meager 255 characters. I happily obliged.

Apparently your web programmers didn’t think to limit this text box to only allow me 255 characters as I type. This is a sort of microcosm of the ineptitude that I have become so accustomed to from Blockbuster Online.

Goodbye Blockbuster, you will not be missed.

Netflix, I’ll see you soon.

I Heart Google

Luke Stay — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 20:36:16 +0000

It all started last year when I joined a Virtual Stock Exchange competition with a bunch of friends. We were to play the stock market for a year straight using $10,000 of fake money. Whoever had the biggest gain by the end of the year would win. I came in second, right behind a guy who made some last-minute shortsells, and I have Google to thank for it. I almost doubled my fake money.

I bought their fake stock about 6 months or so ago and it rose slowly in the next months. Then, rumors started about a Google Phone soon to be released and their stock exploded. It rose even higher after they actually released the “Google Phone” and continued to rise after that. What makes them so special? Release after release of easy-to-use, life-easing web applications. Let me just share a few that have struck my fancy.

1. Google Maps

“Google Maps is the best! / Trudat! / Double True!”

Andy Samberg and Chris Parnell knew what they were talking about. Even if Lazy Sunday was a year or so ago. I use it at least once a day without even thinking about it, it has become that much a part of my life.

What makes Google Maps so great is their constant innovation. I once used street view to prove the accuracy of a photo sent to me in an email (Proof here). I just used Satellite view last Sunday to see if there was anywhere to park near our new church building. Over the holidays, I used the route-drag feature to change my driving directions to use the Merrit Parkway to get from Boston to New Jersey, and then to add a pit-stop in Manhattan on the way back. For our wedding, I made my own embedded Google Map that contained markers for all the important venues in the area around our reception. I can’t wait to see what they do next!

2. Google Reader

I used to spend hours every week just checking my friend’s various blogs to see if they had updated anything. After a while I just gave up, it was too much to keep track of. I had heard of reader programs, but never tried any because they seemed so foreign. It wasn’t until I installed Lifehacker’s Better Gmail Firefox extension that I realized how great a reader program could be. It put Google Reader right there in my Gmail window (the new version does not have this feature yet, they’re waiting on someone to come up with an updated Greasemonkey script). I had to try it out.

Basically, like any other reader, it stores your blogs in one central place and updates when your blogs update. But what makes Google Reader so great (besides seamless integration with all the other Google products) is their new sharing feature. I can mark blogs that I think will be useful to my friends without having to email them a link to the site. I just click “share” and move on. Then it’s up to them to look or not.

My wife shares a lot of design possibilities to try in our house after we move and I’ve been exposed to a world I never knew existed with my brother’s programming blog shares. Sure, there’s programs like del.icio.us, digg, and StumbleUpon that do similar things, but with Google Reader, it’s all right in front of me as I read my blogs, no need to bookmark or install anything else.

3. GMail + Google Talk

Before I moved to New York City, I mainly used AOL’s Instant Messenger. I’ve had an account with them since junior high when AOL was the way to the internet. A few of my friends were on MSN Messenger, so I started using programs like Trillian (for PC), or Adium (for Mac) to talk to both in a single program. When I moved to New York, I discovered that I was years behind. Sure I had a gmail account, but I was not on Google Talk. Everyone was on Google Talk. I decided to check it out.

What makes Google Talk so great, is the fact that you don’t have to install any additional software, it’s right there in your web browser. This means I can chat with just about all my friends no matter where I am, whether on my computer or not. My wife uses it at work because it’s so easy to hide. It just looks like you’re typing an email. In fact, that’s how we got to know each other at first. She never would’ve married me if not for GTalk. Sure I use Adium for all my chatting purposes, but that’s only because a few of my friends still have not moved over to Google.

There’s not much to say about GMail that you probably don’t already know except that it’s great. I have about 4 different accounts that forward to one master account for easy labeling on emails like work, family, and online accounts. I use that same account to check my business email using POP, and I have most of my contacts grouped for quick mass emails.

So there it is. Call me a fanboy if you want, but I heart Google. Honorable mentions include iGoogle, Google Calendar (my wife and I share ours to keep up on each other’s appointments), and Google Text. Google Info has potential, but I have yet to see it give me reliable results.

And while I’m linking, check out www.japanesebugfights.com. Yes, it’s exactly what it sounds like.

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