The Star-Crossed Writer

Dead And Loving It

Aaron — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 15:59:23 +0000

This blog is officially dead. I have pronounced it thus, therefore it shall be… thusly… so?

Whatever, I’m too damned busy to blog nowadays. If you’re that curious about what I’ve been up to, go check out my youtube channel. Plan is to keep uploading crap to there when I’ve got something worth watching (maybe even when I don’t). Other than that, I love you all. Thanks for the love, the kind words, the inspiration, and for just being you.

Catch you on the flip flipside. Which would be this side, I guess?

On Location Again, Bitches!

Aaron — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 20:48:45 +0000

Working on films really is an amazing process. Even the little ones.

Today I’m helping with a local production company shoot inside a Comfort Inn. I know how that sounds, but trust me, it’s on the up and up. I know the internet closes on the weekend, but we’re on smoke break and I’ve got nothing better to do at the moment.

So hopefully you’re enjoying your Sunday wherever you are. I am.

You Kids Reduce Your Decibels!

Aaron — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 14:49:28 +0000

I’m becoming far more crotchety when it comes to tech of late. I realize that this is probably something that comes with getting older and more crotchety, but pay attention! You kids… I tell you.

I’d like to shoot the person who thought everything required a touch screen in their pinky toe… with a low velocity pellet. I just ordered a camera that has all of its controls buried in a touch screen interface. Dear God, why? What’s wrong with buttons? I loathe the fact that every time I want to skip a track on my Slacker app I need to set aside about 30 seconds of my time. Power up the screen, unlock the screen, tap the Slacker app, wait for it to load up, wait for it to get responsive, tap the next track button. Bleugh! Give me a button!

The same attitude goes for 3D. Why did we need another “D”? 2 of them were doing just fine delivering the same shit over and over again. It’s not like having one more D improves the image quality or makes colors more vibrant like the jump from Standard Def to HD.

Is this what it feels like to get old and hate things? I don’t like it.

Eat My Ass, Melhart Music Center

Aaron — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 15:28:28 +0000

Where I live, Melhart Music Center is something of an institution. It’s one of the only local music shops that’s still standing after the invasion of the almighty Guitar Center. But that’s not important. Honestly, I could have just gotten to the point of this entry without the tiny intro. Yet I persist in typing. I think that maybe at some point you’ll get the hint and stop reading this and just jump to the next paragraph. It’d be a good idea to right about now. I’m going to start calling you names pretty soon if you don’t. Seriously, stop reading this. Oh my God, why are you still reading this paragraph? Well, you asked for it, fish face. See. You brought that on yourself. Don’t you just feel ashamed? Okay, I’m going to start the real entry now.

So I had volunteered to ply my sexy musicality all over the lobby of Cine El Rey for a friend who was screening a movie he appeared in and helped write. The movie was shot locally and it was very neat-o. Now, I didn’t know what to expect for this gig. Was I going to be on stage? Would I need a mic? Acoustic? Electric? In the end I decided to dust off the ol’ Stratocaster and borrow a friend’s amp. But lo! I hadn’t picked up my Strat in ages. Years, even. So I decided I should go to Melhart Music Center and get it restrung, since that is one of the services they offer. Here’s where the nightmare starts.

The guy who does repairs/string replacement isn’t in when I take the guitar. No big deal, though. One of the floor grunts happily takes my guitar off my hands, reassuring me that once the guy gets in he’ll, to use his words, “knock it out”. I figure this shouldn’t take too terribly long, maybe an hour, two tops. I quietly begin to think to myself, maybe I’d have saved time had I just bought the strings and changed them myself. But no, I thought, it shouldn’t be that big a deal. I can change my own strings I just freakin’ hate it with all of my being! So I go and fill up the wife’s car with gas, pay the internet bill, tool around a Best Buy and fill up an hour with pointless meandering.

A bit over an hour I call the tech line. No answer. No big, I think. I’ll just show up. If it’s not done, fine. I’ll just do it myself. When I get back, I check with the guy who does repairs. He finally came in! He was sort of just sitting there chatting with some dude but I didn’t think he was slacking on the job. Honest. I didn’t think about it at all. Not until I asked him about my guitar.

“Oh that won’t be ready ’til about Tuesday.”

“For a string change?” I ask, eyebrows raised, tone even yet incredulous.

“Yup. I do them in the order they come in.”

Now far be it from me to second guess a man’s work priorities… wait, yes. Yes I will. Seriously? You don’t prioritize string replacement? I mean, sure, a big job needs to get done, but string changes don’t take terribly long, especially for a seasoned tech who doesn’t give two shits about the instrument they’re servicing so I figure you can do a restring in about ten minutes if even that long. I asked for my guitar back, bought the damn strings and changed them myself.

So there. Eat my ass, Melhart Music Center. You inconvenienced me for a grand total of about an hour and a half and I have rained my vengeance upon thee via the internet. Suck it!

Let’s Move Past This, Shall We?

Aaron — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 05:15:42 +0000

I suppose this is where I should apologize to anyone who may still be keeping up with this S-O 2006 web-log business. Summer was a heady time, a time of sun, of new friendships (but still keeping the old, as the song goes), of hard-ass work, and of growing as a person. To any who may still read this, you do have my sincerest apologies. I will try to return to the world of online journal keeping. I will not end my poetic ways, but I shall, to use corporate speak, diversify. What that means is more posts, most likely, as I try to acknowledge even the most minute detail of what may be interesting about my life that will satisfy your dark, voyeuristic needs. I should be in bed now. But the writing bug has bitten me and I must vent the gases like in that ancient Simpsons episode.

Toot toot.