"Do you have a hypothesis?"

Behold, my new short film, Detour, is now online. When the first video ends, be sure to click on the "pt. 2" pop-up to see the second part.

Outtakes for the movie can be found on my YouTube homepage - www.fravit.net/films is the quick way there.

Cooking by the Book (?)

So it's my mom's birthday, and my little sister, Jessie, was tasked with baking her a cake while my mom was out at the casino for most of today, as Jessie is the one around my house typically does the baking. Well, I guess she decided she had plans of her own today, and left the job to my other sister, Andrea, who has never baked anything in her life. This left Jessie feeling the need to completely idiot proof every step of the process, including labeling "eggs" and "water", you know, in case she didn't know what those were. The above image is what I found when I awoke today and wandered into the kitchen (as always, click for a larger view.)


So last night I ventured out into San Diego with Brett, Sarah, and Christina, who are some of my performing arts buddies. It was Christina's 21st birthday, and we met up with some of her other friends at the Shout House, which is a dueling piano club in the Gaslamp. Music came from all genres, ranging from classic rock to rap, country, contemporary, and everything in between. The strangest moment had to be the transition between them playing Baby Got Back, and then someone paying them $20 to play Nintendo songs, which included every song from Mario Bros 1 through 3, the themes from Zelda, Mike Tyson's Punch Out, and a few other obscurities.

After some random wanderings and adventurings, we ended up in some random dance club type place in North Park for about half an hour before they closed up. I'm not even sure where North Park is, to tell the truth, but it was kind of shady and made for a good adventure, I think. Then I somehow ended up in some strangers house for a while before Brett and I decided we were both tired and it was time to head out. On the way out we were told of a burrito stand up the street, which we somehow thought was in proper walking distance, but ended up being a bit farther than we thought, so we ended up on an hour long round-trip burrito adventure through North Park at 2 am. The upshot was that I was treated with easily the largest breakfast burrito I'd ever seen in my life. And now I can't eat for the next 3 days.


You know, getting back to my sister's cake situation, I'm now thinking that, if she really needs that much help trying to figure out how to bake a cake, maybe I should just do it for her. Yeah... I think I'm going to go do that before the kitchen is destroyed.

Here's Something

So, my computer is up and running again. I never got my internet card working, so I went to the store and bought the cheapest network card that said "works with vista" on the box. I cheated, I know, but the $8 card seemed to do the trick, and everything is now running beautifully.

While I was transferring files from my old computer I found a notepad file I compiled while I was reading the Twilight series. I've recently taken habit of noting book page numbers in my cell phone when I'm reading and I find a passage I like. Not sure why. At any rate, since I never gave my full thoughts of the series (and probably never will,) I'll just leave you with these - many of them reflect how I feel or may have felt at some period of time, and some of them I just like how they're written; I'll leave you to decide which are which.

__________________________________________________

Twilight

"When life offers you a dream so far beyond any of your expectations, it's not reasonable to greive when it comes to an end." pg 1

"I intuitively knew - and sense he did, too - that tomorrow would be pivotal. Our relationship couldn't continue to balance, as it did, on the point of a knife. We would fall off one edge or the other..." pg 248

"For three and a half hours I stared at the wall, culred in a ball, rocking. My mind went around in circles, trying to come up with some way out of this nightmare. There was no escape, no reprieve. I could see only one possible end looming darkly in the my future. The only question was how many other people would be hurt before I reached it." pg 425

New Moon

"Time passes. Even when it seems impossible. Even when each tick of the second hand aches like the pulse of blood behind a bruise. It passes unevenly, in strange lurches and dragging lulls, but pass it does. Even for me." pg 93

"Jacob was simply a perpetually happy person, and he carried that happiness with him like an aura, sharing it with whoever was near him. Like an earthbound sun, whenever someone was within his gravitational pull, Jacob warmed them. It was natural, a part of who he was. No wonder I was so eager to see him." pg 145

"What was the point of going any farther? Nothing lingered here. Nothing more than the memories that I could have called back whenever I wanted to, if I was ever willing to endure the corresponding pain - the pain that had me now, had me cold. There was nothing special about this place without him. I wasn't exactly sure what I'd hoped to feel here, but the meadow was empty of atmosphere, empty of everything, just like everywhere else. Just like my nightmares. My head swirled dizzily." pg 234

"I shook my head sadly. Love is irrational, I reminded myself. The more you loved someone, the less sense anything made." pg 340

"How many ways can one heart be mangled and still be expected to keep beating? I'd lived through a lot that should have finished me in the last few days, but it didn't make me feel strong. Instead, I felt horribly fragile, like one word could shatter me." pg 495

"Before you, Bella, my life was like a motionless night. Very dark, but there were stars - points of light and reason.
...and then you shot across my sky like a meteor. Suddenly everything was on fire; there was billiancy, there was beauty. When you were gone, when the meteor had fallen over the horizon, everything went black. Nothing had changed, but my eyes were blinded by the light. I couldn't see stars anymore. And there was no more reason for anything." pg 514

Eclipse

"It's so hard to describe. It's not like love at first sight, really. It's more like ... gravity moves. When you see her, suddenly it's not the earth holding you here anymore. She does. And nothing matters more than her. And you would do anything for he, be anything for her... You become whatever she needs you to be, whether that's a protector, or a lover, or a friend, or a brother." pg 176

__________________________________________________

More Tidbits:

- I just watched Saw V and High School Musical 3 both in the same evening, which was really disorienting for some reason. I still feel perplexed, dizzy, and somewhat queasy, and I'm not sure which movie is responsible for what entirely.

- My next project pic is "Hotel for Dogs" - not a bad choice, I guess. Also, I'm sad to report that I got no lovin' for Narnia, but just means I need to get crazier next time around. My resolve remains unbroken!

- I'm going to be featured in the school newspaper at CSUSM for my artwork and my DDR poetry performance from last month. So that's pretty cool.

- Big news in the So-Cal theme park industry this week. New rides for California Adventure, Universal Studios, and Magic Mountain have been announced. I also hear rumors that Knott's is getting another big ride next year, also. I'm going to dedicate a post to all this later, I think.

- I'm about to get real busy real quickly, as I have a TON of school work to catch up on. Somehow it all crept up on me. The timing on this can't be worse, because...

- HOLY CRAP, CALL OF DUTY 4 IS AWESOME !!!

Sandwich

Balloon Shop wishes everyone a happy sandwich.

Some tidbits:
- Knott's Scary Farm was amazing this year, probably the best so far (except for the Hanging - I am never going to watch that show again.)
- My student film,'Detour', is finished now. Should be online soon.
- Still trying to get internet to work on my PC, and I'm tearing my hair out over it. But at least I can play Call of Duty 4...
- There's a chance I might be going out dancing (?) with some CSU friends this Saturday night. That should be interesting.
- High School Musical 3 comes out this Thursday at midnight - BE THERE.

I'll leave you with these words of wisdom from the great Kyle Foot:

"...that's like flying the Wright brothers' plane into the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier!"

My Never Ending Battle

Updates have been scarce because I just recently purchased an Nvidia GTX 260 card and Windows Vista for my home PC, and I'm having trouble getting everything in my system to work. As of right now, it seems the only thing I still haven't been able to get up and running is the internet, so I've had my laptop set up on my desk next to my PC to download drivers and transfer them over to my PC using a thumb drive.

So far I'm actually really liking Windows Vista, but I can see why people complain about compatibility issues - it should not take this long to get simple things like sound and networking to work. All in all, it's been a real pain in the ass, but it'll be worth it as long as I can play Tomb Raider Underworld when it comes out next month.

Aside from working on my PC this last week, I filmed a short movie with some CSU peeps, entitled "Detour", which I've been hard at work editing. Earlier this week I briefly posted an early cut of the movie on this blog, but removed it shortly after since the finished version (complete with outtakes) should been ready sometime next week. Shooting happened almost entirely in one day, with our group driving all around San Marcos scouting different locations and what not. Highlights from this project included:
- Jumping out of a moving car.
- Cameos from Ryan and Jay, with Jay playing a schizophrenic hitchhiker named Pancho Villa.
- "Borrowing" the theater's entire supply of rubber bands and inexplicably spreading them all over the back seats of my car.
- Getting yelled at and almost gotten the cops called on us by a crazy lady in some neighborhood because she thought we were child rapists.


On Monday we celebrated Amy's birthday at Disneyland, which proved to be a pleasant day despite the fireworks being canceled due to winds. Note of interest - Monday was the first time in at least a decade where I rode the carousel. Six adults riding a carousel belting the lyrics to "Once Upon a Dream" must have been a sight, I'm sure.

I'm starting to feel the crunch of school right now, but my head's still above water at the moment. I have our annual Knott's Haunt trip on Thursday to look forward to (which literally my entire year builds up to,) and lets not forgot tonight's finale of Project Runway! So much excitement awaits for me, dear readers.

If I don't write again for a while, it will be because I'm too stubborn to take a break from trying to get internet to work on my PC.

The Little Mermaid

A few movie nights ago I opted for the Hunchback of Notre Dame as one of our picks, which was met with much opposition. After getting one of my friends to admit that Hunchback is, in fact, a good movie, he continued on to say that "...there's no denying that it is a complete bastardization of the the book." I cannot agree more with this statement, but it did get me thinking about some of the other Disney adaptations one day while I was driving around listening to Disney songs in my car, as I do quite often. With the amount of liberties that Disney has taken with it's stories in the past, why is Hunchback the one that gets picked on for it? Surely, there must be an adaptation that's more damaging, I thought. One such movie that struck me was The Little Mermaid.

Few need a recap of this story, but I'll go ahead and provide one anyway:

Ariel is the daughter of King Triton, ruler of the sea, and lives with her six (or so) other sisters in a huge undersea palace, with every luxury royalty can provide. But this luxury is not enough for Ariel, as she longs to live in the world of men, from which she's collected many strange artifacts in a secret cavern - a cavern which is secret because she knows her dad would lose it if he ever found out about it. Her interest in the world above is only heightened by a chance encounter with Prince Eric, whom Ariel rescues after a shipwreck (but not before serenading him with a beautiful, impromptu love song as he chokes on water.) Of course, it's not long before Triton finds the cavern and totally freaking loses it, destroying all of her possessions and succeeding to ruin her life. This leads Ariel to sign a deal with Ursula, who's long been exiled from the kingdom for unknown reasons. Ursula has a sketchy reputation, but luckily knows a bit of magic and makes a living from screwing over those "poor, unfortunate souls" who think they're about to have their dreams come true. She is essentially the devil. Ariel agrees to an arrangement in which she's temporarily turned into a human and must get Eric to fall in love with her and kiss her before the end of three days. If the terms are met, she stays human; if not, she turns into a slimy, sea slug thingy and becomes part of Ursula's gross sea garden for all eternity. Her fee for the spell is her voice - a sketchy deal indeed, but Ariel reluctantly agrees.

Unfortunately, Ariel has a hard time getting the prince to fall in love with her without her voice, as it was the beautiful love song that Eric associated her with in the first place. She also has a hard time not looking completely retarded as a human, which is a good reason for Eric to not want to marry her because, hey, he's a prince! What would the kingdom think, you know?

So two days pass and, aside from a close call involving a spiffy musical number in a boat with some singing fish, not much happens. Ursula, now becoming increasingly uneasy, decides to turn herself into a human and use Ariel's voice to get Eric to fall in love with her instead. It works, and they decide to get married THE NEXT DAY. To summarize the last bits of the movie, Ariel and her sea friends totally frack up the wedding (which is conveniently held on a boat), Ursula loses it, reveals to everyone that Ariel is a mermaid and that she is a scary octopus bitch, and she steals Ariel to add her to her garden. It's then that Triton shows up and makes a deal of his own, offering up himself to the slug garden in place of Ariel. Ursula jumps at the deal, reversing the transformation, and uses the opportunity to steal Triton's magic trident and then turn Ariel into a slug anyway. Turns out, this was Ursula's plan all along; she wanted to control the sea via the trident, using Ariel as a pawn to take down the king - how no one saw this coming is a mystery to me. Just when Ursula begins to transform into a towering column of tentacled doom and all hope appears to be lost, enter Prince Eric! His plan? Drive a boat straight into the middle of that bitch and watch her burn! Simple, yet effective. There's lightning, fireworks, explosions, and all kinds of awesome special effects. Sweet.

The story ends with Triton realizing that maybe he's been too hard on his daughter and uses his trident to restore Ariel's voice and turn her into a human for good. Music plays, rainbows appear, and Ariel and Eric are married as Triton and co. wonder if they'll ever see Ariel again. Meh... maybe in the direct to video sequel.





Let me first begin my stating that I love The Little Mermaid. Now that that's out of the way, here's what we've got in our story: a spoiled teenage girl who has everything she could ask for, yet somehow still think she's deprived. She's got a loving, responsible father with only the best intentions. While every father may be fearful of seeing their daughter grow up and leave one day, Triton's concern is primarily that of safety - the human world provides a serious threat to the merpeople, and he's really just trying to make sure she doesn't get killed via spear or fishhook - not unreasonable.

Perhaps Triton went a bit overboard destroying her stuff, but Ariel's next move - essentially selling her soul to the devil - is never justified. What follows is a situation where Ariel manages to mess things up so badly than only those around her can pull her out of the tangled mess shes managed to make. Ariel never grows or changes as a character - by the end, she relies on everyone else to fix the mistake she's created, and yet is still the same whiny teenager from the start. So I ask: does anyone else see a problem with this situation??? Why is a character who complains about her wonderful life, signs a deal with Satan, disowns her father for being responsible, and puts all of her friends in mortal peril still awarded with a happy ending? Ariel literally does nothing to earn anything in this story, and still gets everything she wants. What kind of a message is this sending to all the little girls watching, especially those who are prone to become followers of Paris Hilton and other such spoiled, rich skanks?

Of course, while we're on the subject on bastardizing books, the original Little Mermaid's ending plays out nothing like this. Ariel's motivations are far different; mermaids, according to the book, do not have souls, and eventually become sea foam when they die after 200 years of life - something that can be remedied by marrying a human. I'll spare the rest of the details, but the story ultimately ends with Ariel sacrificing her own life so that Prince Eric can live a happy one with an already human girl. Obviously, the movie deviates quite a bit from the original story - as much, if not more than Hunchback does. Both movies take many liberties with the source materials, but Hunchback, I believe, is the clear victor when it comes to telling something our youth needs to hear: life can be cruel and unfair, but it does absolutely no good to wallow in self-pity. Quasimodo, unlike Ariel, has been dealt some of the worst cards in life what can be dealt; he's deformed, orphaned, raised by an evil tyrant, and is forever locked inside a bell tower because, according to his master, the world will not accept him. After fighting the good fight, and rescuing the girl who ultimately does not reciprocate his feelings of love, Quasimodo discovers that, yes, life is cruel, but that doesn't mean you can't still make the best of it - a much better message for today's youth.

I seemed to have complained a lot about The Little Mermaid and yet have offered little to no solutions. So here's what I'd do to change the ending, if given the chance:

Option 1: The ending plays out much like it does currently, with one change: Triton and Eric end up in the garden, and it is Ariel who somehow has to defeat Ursula in the end. Given this scenario, she will have at least done something to earn her happy ending, and feminists would probably get a kick out of the princess saving the prince.

Option 2: After Ursula is defeated by Eric, we learn that only Ursula's black magic could have given Ariel legs, and she is to remain a mermaid. Ariel and Eric are dismayed by this discovery, but ultimately decide that their love is too great to let something like that get in the way, and they decide to somehow be together anyway. In this situation, Ariel is still bailed out by her friends, but does not get everything she wants - she has to work for her happy ending. This would be just the type of change in character she needs, and a perfect example of how two people can make a relationship work, despite great obstacles, if their love is great enough.

Option 3: Eric still saves the day, which is then followed by a scene where Ariel has to choose between Eric and his world or her friends and family. She then realizes what a spoiled brat she's been and decides to remain a mermaid, despite her love for Eric. Triton, clearly moved by his daughter's decision and change of character, decides to change Eric into a merman, thus rewarding Ariel for her new found maturity. The two live happily ever after, under the sea.


Like I said before, I still think The Little Mermaid is a great movie, but only when I consciously decide to look past the protagonist's obvious character flaws.

And damn it, one of these movie nights we are going to watch Hunchback! I swear, it WILL happen...

Wordle

A friend of mine is a member of a blog that he keeps with his former college roommates, and one of those roommates recently posted a link to a website which creates some rather interesting art work from words. The above image is comprised of random text from my last 10 blog posts - a pretty good visual representation of my brain at the moment (click on the image for a larger view.) I'll try to post one of these every once in a while, just to get a good look at where my head's at.


www.wordle.net

Best. Wedding. Evar.

Not much else needs to be said.



The DDR pads at Dave and Buster's better be ready for me when I get there tonight.

Live and Learn

Disclaimer: Despite the promises made in the last post, I haven't watched High School Musical yet. I'm still the same person as before - a liar and a coward. But soon, very soon...

So in a stunning turn of events, I actually find myself having to retract my prior statements on my recent performing arts workshop. While it may have been true that by the end of Wednesday night I was ready to smash my head into concrete, Thursday proved to be almost an entire 180 - it seemed everyone's cumulative frustrations in our group resulted in a razor sharp focus the next day, with many new ideas to help improve our act. Everyone's contributions mingled and merged, which eventually turned our disaster of a play into something cohesive and actually somewhat entertaining.

I was feeling much more confident by the time Friday rolled around, with the only remaining worry being whether or not people who came to the show would get involved. The concept of forum theater is that groups of actors create short plays which address certain issues or social problems. Each play is performed once through, and then repeated in exactly the same matter after all have been performed. The difference the second time through is that audience members have the opportunity and are encouraged to stop the action of the play (by literally yelling "stop") at the appropriate moment and take the place of the protagonist in the show. They are then able to alter the course of the narrative, showing how they would solve the social problem and ultimately beat their oppressor.

The night before the show, someone in our class asked what would happen if no one wanted to participate, to which the instructor said "I've never seen that happen. Ever." Our show was no different. The first two sketches were about materialism, and big businesses sacrificing the environment for money. Our group went on third, and we did a sketch which addressed technology, and how cell phone usage actually moves society more towards isolation than towards being connected. It was a little cheesy, with myself and another girl playing the malevolent spirits of technology who are out to ruin a party by keeping people from interacting through text messages, but it was overall played more for laughs, and I think it got the point across.

It was the fourth group, however, who stole the show, addressing illegal immigration. Their sketch involved an illegal immigrant working at a clothing store who has to confront his boss about why he was being payed less than minimum wage. Apparently, this was an issue that hit home with nearly everyone in attendance - the time spent reenacting this sketch was nearly an hour, making it so that we never actually got a chance to replay our sketch a second time (which was both a relief and kind of disappointing at the same time.) Solutions to the issue included flattering the boss, taking legal action, forming unions, blackmail, and even shoplifting from the store. By far the most exciting moment of the night came when one of the audience members actually managed to start a full on protest on stage, which involved all four groups storming the stage to become protesters.

In all, this issue seemed to be something that many people really cared about. I also feel like the ones who didn't care all that much about it cared a little more when they left the show. So, I have to take back what I said in the last post; I believe that, while we may not have actually solved anything, we did accomplish something, and hopefully inspired a few people.

Following the show, everyone enjoyed snacks and refreshments, during which actors could talk to the audience members and such. While I didn't hear much about our sketch or the first two, what with the immigration group clearly being the highlight, I was surprised and extremely flattered when at least four different people approached me saying that they remembered me and my DDR act from the last performance and how much they liked it. One woman said that she was deeply moved by how I've managed to use a hobby to get myself back on my feet, and someone else said that they were actually inspired to go out and buy DDR - none of this I was expecting, though I guess I didn't stick around long after the last performance for people to notice me. I'm really happy that I was able to inspire people - something I don't have much experience in.

At some point, Sarah, the other malevolent cell phone demon from my group, hooked up her Ipod to the AV system and started playing Daft Punk and some other cool dance music. Normally, I don't dance, nor do I do it in public in front of strangers (as Brett put it, "I've got the rhythm, but I don't have the moves.") None of that stopped me on Friday night, though. For about 6 or 7 of us it turned into a crazy dance party. Karen Schaffman, one of the instructors of this course, even tried to talk me into taking up a dance minor - unlikely, but I don't think I'd rule out taking some dance classes for fun. That all lasted for nearly an hour until we were all too tired and decided to help clean up and go home. Before I left, I made sure to thank Doug Paterson, the artist who led the workshop, for opening my eyes to another form of performance art, despite my initial frustrations. I ended up getting home at midnight, where I then had to write a paper on the shipping industry and containerization...

So I've been feeling pretty good as of late. I seem to have found a good balance between school, work, and friends, at least for the moment. I had a bunch of my friends over on Saturday night for "movie night", which was real relaxing, and also a nice change, as people don't usually visit my house.

My birthday is on Tuesday, but as I type I can feel myself catching a cold. Hopefully it'll peak tomorrow and I'll be well enough for Dave and Busters by Tuesday night - it won't prevent me from going, but potentially from enjoying myself. Regardless, some Spanish homework, and then time for bed.

"In order to summon the power for the conflict to come you must first have power over that which conflicts you."

Half Time

I'm sitting in my car, listening to OC Supertones and waiting for performing arts workshop. And, I feel like writing, I guess.

Started the day heading to my 9am Spanish class slightly late, and traffic was particularly bad this morning, so I did my homework in the car at stoplights. I've gotten pretty good at that actually. I used my Tech/Social change class as a chance to catch up on some journal assignments for the course, as well as pay my bills, which was funny to me. Thank God I can use my laptop during that class.

I left school at around noon to discover that my gas gauge was way below the E on my car. Last time it was that low, I actually did run out of gas. I had to find a creative way to make it to the nearest gas station while using as little gas as possible. I ended up riding down hills most of the way. The car started sputtering just as I pulled up to the pump.

I went to work for three hours after that, mainly putting up High School Musical 3 promo materials, and planning to put up more High School Musical 3 materials. I'm starting to get a little carried away with this. I've decided that, yes, it has to happen, I'm going to watch the first two movies. In fact, I've decided I'm not going to blog again until I've seen at least the first one. Know this - I might not necessarily write anything about it in my next blog, but I WILL have watched it by then, so it'll be like a completely different person blogging.

I went to Fry's after work to price party lights to add to my High School Musical display (and because I've always wanted party lights for some reason,) but I instead became distracted by DDR. I was pissed off when every song I tried to play unexpectedly ended half way through, resetting the game. Must have been in some kind of demo mode. Fuck that, said I.

So now I'm here. I'm waiting for this session of workshop to begin. I have to say, I really haven't enjoyed this one very much. It's supposed to be about forum theater, "Theater for the Oppressed", and it's supposed to promote community and such and such, but I think most people in the workshop agree when I say that I feel more oppressed at the end of each night. Furthermore, I'm tired of people arguing about which issues are relevant for theater, which "problems we need to solve," etc. Surely I'm not the only one who realizes that we AREN'T GOING TO SOLVE ANYTHING through this workshop - we're just beginning actors. I'm really afraid that this performance is going to come off as childish and/or be a disaster. In short, I've come home feeling murderous rage after the last two nights of workshop. At least most of the people are still cool.

When this is over, I'll be going back to work for another 3 hours to do marquee and such. So my schedule will have been school, work, school, work by the time the day is over. It's only half-time, and I'm already beat. Ugh.

Well, that was probably interesting to no one. Time to head to class.