Greater Satellites

I think popularity with blogs is commensurate with amount of comment spam. As of late, I’ve had quite a bit of comment spam. It builds up during my long periods of being away, then when I finally return I just empty it out in one feel swoop. I think hooking my blog up with the Akismet plugin is in order this weekend.

Other than working a lot, my 17 month anniversary with Jackie, the government jackin’ me for $1500 in taxes, and not updating this blog — only a few things have been going on that are noteworthy:

I have to be purposefully vague with this in case certain people read this blog, but I’ve set the wheels in motion for making money on a one-time effort that could prove to be quite fruitful. We’re talking one-time payments for services that range from $500 to $5000. Those are pretty substantial chunks of change and not something I would mind making, even if it was just once or twice a month. On a related note, I’ll be redesigning four pretty huge sites in my life: this one, dark driving, B7M (I’ll be vague on this one for the time being), and IntuitSolutions.

Where I used to be stressed about designs for these majors in my life. I’m going to sit down and just do whatever comes naturally for me. If that means that Greater Satellites is a black site with white text and no images, so be it. At least it’s done for the time being and I can expand upon it later. I’ve come to realize, more and more, that content is king, and it’s time I get some bangin content in my corner.

On a semi-related note, I’m thinking about starting a blog solely dedicated to reviewing all the horror movies I’ve ever watched. I talked to a few people here at work and everyone seems to be crazily on board, so there might be more on that soon. Should be pretty cool.

Finally, my five point plan for taking back the web and interacting with others who might like what I have to offer:

1. Finish the design of this damn site. It will serve as the hub for everything else I’m about to talk about
2. Get some new videos filmed for YouTube. The fans demand more!
3. Start posting to del.icio.us once again
4. Sign up for Twitter for unbelievably fast and easy interaction. Shorter than blogs, longer than away messages.
5. Start borrowing my love’s wonderful camera and loading up my Flickr account with interesting things I see from day to day

Assuming everything pans out, I should have all sorts of interesting contacts across the interwebs in no time flat. Next task: seeing the light of day!

Hey Gang! (crips, not bloods…)

Let’s allow the Crypt to be the super mega awesome nickname for my bedroom… Just a few random tid bits of news since I’m in the midst of designing what will hopefully be the new Greater Satellites home page. Now I know what you’re thinking:

“Andrew, isn’t there already a Greater Satellites home page design?”

To which I retort:

“Yes, there is. But in the spirit of paradigm-shifting, I will be creating a design that caters a little more to me and a little less to what I think people would like to see. It’s really that simple.”

There’s a new addition to the Gormley family, an as-of-yet unnamed kitten. I will upload a picture of this cute little fucker so you can all enjoy him as we do.

As many of you know, I have a proclivity towards the creative aspects of life. I love making things, whether they’re videos, audio snippets, pictures, illustrations, or web pages, if there’s some degree of creative freedom involved, I want to be a part of it.

For the last couple of months I’ve been the opposite of inspired, but for no real reason other than lack of time. As a result, all of these (in my mind) great ideas I’ve had were placed in the crock pot that is my mind to simmer for a while and become delicious. Recently I was hit with the urge to create in a big way. It’s a writing/video project and maybe something in the vein of music making (though correlated to the original). I discussed this briefly with the lady last night, but I’d like to extrapolate upon it a little further and give it a life of it’s own, something I can reference back to when need be:

The music idea came to me while walking down Chestnut Street between 2nd & 3rd Streets. I crossed a small walkway, which I always assumed to be an alley and for the first time in my entire life walking around in this area (I’d say I’ve passed this stretch of pavement at least 50 times before), I glanced down the alley to find that it was no alley at all, but a remnant of a long forgotten street. Cobblestone lined and just slightly wider than the width of my arms extended, there was one sign hanging from a building a few yards away, it read: Bank Street Hostel.

The how’s and why’s never really dawned on me, but I instantly had melodies playing in head. Beautiful and dissonant as the phrase Bank Street Hostel swirled around my mind. I immediately began relating it back to a story that I conceptualized, but never actually began. The words started coming to me and I haven’t forgotten them yet:

SCENE: A dark basement room, lit by a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling by a bare wire. A man is tied to a chair, bloodied and bruised. The camera pans slowly around him in a circle to reveal he’s surrounded by four men wielding pipes, bats, etc. A voice starts speaking, but it’s unclear who is actually talking.

1: “Ever hear stories about deep meditation? I wouldn’t expect you to have… The Cliff’s Notes version is this: the end-all be-all goal is reaching a higher level consciousness, a deep, spiritual sanctuary within. Buddhists are probably the most notorious meditators on the planet.”

2: “Is that a fact?”

1: “It certainly is. Get this… true story: a Buddhist monk once meditated for 10 straight years with no food and no water. When scientists heard about this, they immediately came seeking permission to study him. Their findings revealed that this monk, simply with his mind, was able to slow his heart rate and breathing down to unbelievably low levels while constantly maintaining his higher brain functions.”

3: “Sounds like a crock.”

1: “You haven’t even heard the best part. After the ten years, this guy just wakes up and tells everyone that he now has ‘a heightened sense of things’.

4: “Whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean.”

1: “While walking through his hometown afterwards, he hesitates before going into a market. Moments later the market building bursts into flames. While traveling along a cliff he felt the imperative need to rest in a small cave moments before a 170 foot Cypress tree came rolling down the edge of the mountain.”

2: “And just what the fuck does this story have to do with you?”

1: “I’m also feeling a heightened sense of things, and it’s telling me you’re all going to die very soon.”

2, 3, 4, 5: [Laughter]

2: “And how do you…”

SCENE: Just at that moment, the ropes drop from the hands of the man bound to the chair. He swings his right arm up and around hard enough to send the gun hidden up his sleeve into his hand where he immediately shoots the man in front of him, quickly grabbing the pipe he once held from mid air with his left, then snapping his arm right and shooting the man frozen there, who was too paralyzed to die immediately. He simultaneously swings the pipe he’s holding in his left hand into the jaw of the man on his left and kicks the chair he was on backwards and it slams into the man, moments ago standing coolly behind him, now charging him with a nail-bat. He does all of this with a grace that would make you uneasy to watch, you can tell he’s done this before. Maybe a million times. Before either of the two remaining men have a chance to hit the ground, they have a flurry of bullets headed in their direction that they should be worrying about first. The once-bound man walks off toward a door in the distance. He exits into what appears to be an alleyway, throwing the bloodied pipe into a sewer. The sign hanging from the building is white and pronounced and defiant in this cold, midnight air. It reads: Bank Street Hostel.

And that, as they say, is a wrap. Any and all comments appreciated.

This is perhaps the most innovative use of 18,500 gallons of paint EVER.

http://www.bravia-advert.com/paint/thead/full

So I’ve noticed that since the dawn of 2006, I’ve written in this blog approximately 19 times (not including this one). That’s like one blog every two and a half weeks. UNACCEPTABLE! Compare that with 78 posts in 2005 and you can see how much of a slacker I really am. Either way, I hope I can get this up to the mid 50s by December 31st by doing an incredible amount of writing and actually doing things that are worthy of writing about. I’ve also decided to be as crazy honest as I can be from here on out. I’ve always been honest, but I’ve also been vague (see: post titled “I Can See Clearly Now…”). I know what I’m talking about, but sometimes I glaze over situations so much that they’re practically indecipherable to the normal human being. I’m not sure how many people read this and it’s probably better off that way. If I know you, then you’re on my radar, and my radar is used to launch surface-to-air missiles made of words and descriptions.

In unrelated news, Denise and I just got done watching Click with Adam Sandler. It was a surprisingly good movie, and this is coming from someone who really hasn’t really liked an Adam Sandler movie since Happy Gilmore. The tell is that Christopher Walken is in it and he generally only attaches his names to quality scripts. He did a great job, as well. It’s seems to be a biopic that closely rivals our situation with our dad, so maybe the relatability makes it a better movie for me. Either way, check it out. It might end up being Adam Sandler’s last funny movie.

Speaking of movies, I’ve been banging out scripts and ideas left and right recently. I’ve told a few people some of my ideas for feedback purposes and responses range from mild intrigue to complete obessesion, so that’s dandy. Thus far the “crime” script I’ve been working on for a few months now is finally coming together. The “dark dramedy” (drama+comedy), as I’ve dubbed it, is still in its formative stages but has a premise that’s primed for the silver screen. We’ll be filming some great new stuff over the coming weekends and I hope I get to see some new faces on the script as well as some of the veteran players. Exciting times.