Life

[Badfinger]

Went to the 1 year birthday party of one of my college roomate's daughter. Somehow it makes me feel immensely old, and yet time's moving much more quickly for everyone else.

[Thrik]

Argh! Losing confidence is... I haven't pitched my movie script in like 2 months. Because I finally got an answer and the guy never got back to me, never even indicated that he read my screenplay. But I have to get back too it. I love movies, I've watched more movies than months I've been alive, probably by at least a factor of 3.

 

I watched the Red Letter Media review of Star Wars all like 3 times, just to see how movies break down and work, for fun. Get back too it. I don't give a crap if others failed or never succeed in this business. They probably didn't ask for the script for their favorite movie of all time as a birthday present when they were 10, and then read the damned thing to pieces just for fun.

 

But losing and failing again and again and again, with seemingly no hint of success... but I can do it. Agh!

 

Maybe you need 'a guy'. I would imagine that the movie industry is massively influenced by networking and having worked together before; if you're currently in a situation where you don't really know anyone in there, that's something to work on so that you're not just seen as an outsider with no credentials.

[Roderick]

That's good advice. Keep on pushing it, Frenetic, but also consider maybe doing it yourself? As in, start making the movie yourself. Hollywood is hierarchical to a fault, and usually very unwilling to take on outside work that has no pull to it yet (i.e. success in another medium, 95% of everything that gets made is either an adaptation of a book or a real life event). There are of course outliers, but they are exceptions to the rule. Really, if you want anything done, you're far better off doing it yourself. Gather a team of young, willing talents like yourself, raise some funds by whatever means necessary (Kickstarter, robbing Fort Knox through a daring scheme involving helicopters) and make the thing. That'll get you noticed, that'll get you somewhere.

[tegan]

I got a drafting table!

 

Here's the box. It weighed 45 pounds and I had to lug it up the stairs to the fourth floor. Sewaddle and Pikmin for scale.

 

 

 

And here's the finished table! It took two hours with no breaks to assemble the whole thing. I already love it to death, but I'll need to get an adjustable stool or chair to actually get any use out of it. You can see how it towers over my computer chair.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(please ignore the messiness of my apartment. I'm a gross butt)

[Brannigan]

Man that spotless floor is super gross!

You would probably die if you saw my room if you consider yours messy

[Ucantalas]

The drafting table looks awesome!

I just have one question (although its very off-topic and has nothing to do with the table)... yay or nay on the Orville Redenbacher Pop-Up Bowls? I like them, my sister doesn't, I'm just wondering about other opinions on them. 

[chummer]

Congrats, Tegan! Seems neat.

[tegan]

I just have one question (although its very off-topic and has nothing to do with the table)... yay or nay on the Orville Redenbacher Pop-Up Bowls? I like them, my sister doesn't, I'm just wondering about other opinions on them. 

 

They`re okay? I always accidentally burn my popcorn a little bit and it's harder to pick out the burned pieces since they're on the side, but that's my only real opinion on them.

 

 

I bought a folding patio chair at the mall because it was the only thing within my price range that looked like it was tall enough to use with the table. I'll get a better one later.

[singing_pigs]

Man joining this forum and trying to find topics I can weigh in on is reminding how little of a life I have right now, haha. I haven't, like, played games or watched movies in ages. I go to DigiPen which is just a furious amount of work. Rewarding of course, and there's nothing I'd rather do with my life than make video games. But man I'd like free time again someday.

[SecretAsianMan]

For the last two days on my way to work I've driven by a pile of garbage on the side of the road.  What I find interesting about it is that someone put a cardboard sign next to it that says "WHY???".  This person clearly went out of their way to do this.

[melmer]

I saw a closed down Blockbusters store at the weekend which somebody had painted 'Pirate Bay' in big yellow letters on one of the windows. Got a chuckle out of me, but yeah that involved a lot of effort

[syntheticgerbil]

For the last two days on my way to work I've driven by a pile of garbage on the side of the road.  What I find interesting about it is that someone put a cardboard sign next to it that says "WHY???".  This person clearly went out of their way to do this.

That's so awesome, I love when people do shit like that. Littering is the worst.

 

Two places of residence ago there were these trashy neighbors a few duplexes down that would take a shopping cart from the nearby grocery store and just leave it in the middle of the street, sort of near the mailboxes. Eventually the shopping cart would be moved right next to the mailboxes and become the trash bin for the junk mail for all of the residents nearby. I don't know what the fuck is wrong with everyone but that's basically littering and it's not like the garbage men empty a fucking shopping card. Plus all of the junk mail would either blow around or get rained on and be a sopping mess. I eventually started throwing all that crap away and then moving the shopping cart a couple of blocks down and turn it upside down, but then it would reappear next to the mail again like a week later. I kept repeating this gesture until I think the H.E.B. sent someone out to collect their cart, as I hear they pay people to do that. However, it didn't matter because give it a couple of weeks and the nasty neighbors would leave another cart and then repeat the whole fiasco step by step ending me flipping the shopping cart upside again. God litter pisses me off.

 

The last neighborhood I lived in when we were renting a house had a somewhat large CRT TV that sat on the curb for a few weeks with a busted screen. I couldn't fucking believe it, but I didn't want to pick that up and throw it away. Eventually it was just the front part with the screen as the back went missing. I have no idea why that would happen or who would pry it apart. It wasn't laying anywhere nearby. Did someone want the components inside? Fucking trash arrrgh.

[Bjorn]

The last neighborhood I lived in when we were renting a house had a somewhat large CRT TV that sat on the curb for a few weeks with a busted screen. I couldn't fucking believe it, but I didn't want to pick that up and throw it away. Eventually it was just the front part with the screen as the back went missing. I have no idea why that would happen or who would pry it apart. It wasn't laying anywhere nearby. Did someone want the components inside? Fucking trash arrrgh.

 

Salvage prices for certain metals have skyrocketed in the last few years.  I used to go to this freight salvage auction, and I've seen people buy pallets of old CRT monitors for a few bucks to disassemble and pull the copper and whatnot out of them.  When the city workers would do their free pickup day (take anything, any size), some salvagers would drive around and just cut the power cords off every appliance to strip the copper out of it. 

 

It's an interesting culture of people.  When I remodeled my house, I made a couple of trips to the bulk recycler to sell the old wiring and plumbing we pulled out.  The regulars waiting around in line were just fascinating to listen to.  The laws around selling scrap had changed a few years previously, and they were all still complaining about it, clearly repeating a conversation they had had dozens of times. 

[Zeusthecat]

Salvage prices for certain metals have skyrocketed in the last few years.  I used to go to this freight salvage auction, and I've seen people buy pallets of old CRT monitors for a few bucks to disassemble and pull the copper and whatnot out of them.  When the city workers would do their free pickup day (take anything, any size), some salvagers would drive around and just cut the power cords off every appliance to strip the copper out of it. 

 

It's an interesting culture of people.  When I remodeled my house, I made a couple of trips to the bulk recycler to sell the old wiring and plumbing we pulled out.  The regulars waiting around in line were just fascinating to listen to.  The laws around selling scrap had changed a few years previously, and they were all still complaining about it, clearly repeating a conversation they had had dozens of times. 

 

Tangentially related to this, copper theft is actually a huge problem for a lot of government agencies. It is crazy how easy it is to just pull up near a junction box, put some hard hats on, tie the end of the cables to the back of a truck, and drive off, yanking hundreds of feet of copper out of the conduit. A lot of agencies we've done work for have even had to resort to burying and locking their junction boxes to make it harder for copper thieves to locate them. 

[shammack]

Humans are a pretty great species.

[brkl]

What I was thinking was that Americans are gorram weird.

[Thrik]

Copper theft has been a huge problem in the UK in the last few years. There are a bunch of massive wind turbines near where I live, and they've been shut down on numerous occasions because the copper they apparently use extensively was stripped from them — security was lax because who the fuck steals parts of a wind turbine? Nothing like impairing the region's energy capabilities for personal gain.

[Gormongous]

Nothing like impairing the region's energy capabilities for personal gain.

 

Eh, I'm alright, Jack.

 

 

Yes! I finally get to use it properly with an English person!

[brkl]

Damn Anglos.

[osmosisch]

What I was thinking was that Americans are gorram weird.

There's a huge epidemic of copper theft in the Netherlands as well (usally blamed on East-Europeans) that deregulate train traffic for example.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_theft#Netherlands

[clyde]

It is my personal belief that disposal of trash should be paid for by the companies that produce it. I don't know how it's done in other states, but people are charged a deposit when the but a car-battery here and you can take a car-battery to a store and get the deposit back for it. I don't see car-batteries lying around. On the Big Island, you never saw bottles or cans in the trash or littering the place because people were getting their deposits back. I don't see any good reason that there shouldn't be a plastic deposit when you buy packaged goods and have people be able to sell plastic back by the kilo.

[Nachimir]

Copper theft also causes a lot of signalling problems and delays on railways here in the UK.

Iran allegedly did something very smart and vicious at the outbreak of the 2003 Iraq war: sent merchants to the border offering high prices to Iraqis for copper. Within days, a lot of infrastructure had been crippled.

[Dewar]

That's really clever.

[clyde]

Now that i think about my plan, I suppose everyone would be stealing all the plastic they can find and selling it.

[Apelsin]

Copper theft is very common in Sweden as well.

This is an extra bummer as some of the older buildings have these great looking green copper roofs which are apparently targeted.

Also causes quite a grief for our public transport as people break into the train yards to steal wiring, which of course causes delays and brings doubt to the viability of public transport as an alternative to cars.