High Octane Energy

Discovery of the day is Jeff Gordon 24 Energy. It's a "high octane energy supplement."

Sunshine

Danny Boyle, the English director of Trainspotting, 28 Days Later and Millions, presents his newest film Sunshine.

Fifty years in the future, the sun's about to die. The fate of humanity relies on 8 men & women to revive our life-sustaining star.

Sunshine lights up theaters on July 20--less than three weeks.

From this extended trailer it looks like Boyle takes a sci-fi story, and adds horror to the mix.

Some of my favorite movies are Boyle's projects. I've seen him direct a drug movie, a zombie movie, and a religious drama. Looking forward to seeing Boyle's take on science fiction.

New Finds

The Twilight Zone now makes Audio Dramas. You can stream them from the front page. Downloads of episodes are $1.95 each, though they have three free downloads (one features Jason Alexander).

* * *

Saturday I discovered an inviting comic book shop called All Star Comics. It's nested in side a shopping center at 6900 N May in Oklahoma City. It's like a hometown shop tucked into Oklahoma City. They have what you would expect--current & back issues of comics, graphic novels, manga. Plus they have original superhero art, movie posters and...dolls. They're collectible dolls from around the world.

Besides the friendliness, they also offer free promotional materials for movies. Where else can you get free Ghost Rider temp tattoos, 28 Weeks Later decals, LOTR bookmarks and Fantastic Four/Silver Surfer posters?

Message to Rachel

I'm addicted to chocolate. If I know there's chocolate in the house, then I have to eat it.

It's like my brain can't think about anything else for too long if I know chocolate is at hand.

Bubble Nest

I just replaced Amos' water. Now he's got to rebuild his bubble nest.

* * *

On Wednesday, friend Rachel and I found a spread of dead fish along the enterance to to back-forty. I threw the five live fish back into a pond.

Any help identifying these fish genus would be great.

My shoe is about eleven inches.

This is the last live fish I found. I picked him up by his back fin. While I ran him to the nearest pond, he flopped in my hand trying to escape to the grass.

Amarillo by morning, west from OKC.

Matthew and I roadtripped to Amarillo this weekend. We left OKC Friday morning, and came home this morning.

In honor of Matthew's brother's, Jonathan's, birthday, we hiked at Palo Duro Canyon.

Jonathan went higher than the rest of us.

I took this picture four other times before I got this one. I wanted the clouds & sky to be bright, but defined.

Luke, age seven, wasn't shy about going into any of the caves.

My goal for this photograph was to get the light to illuminate the spider's legs. Now that I look at it, I'm distracted by brightness from the bottom.

Here's the other friend I we made. He was shy around us at first, but was also pretty curious about looking at us, after he warmed up.

Apparently the internet is not the place to share personal conversations. Maria asked me to take down the dialog from two weeks ago.

I convinced her that my wide audience were not the gossiping type, so she let me leave it up under the condition that I use discretion in the future.

Figaro's Bath

Earlier today, I was taking a nap, and the sounds that woke me up I thought were from a dying cat.

Turns out that Figaro was receiving a bath in the kitchen sink.

My butt feels like there was a wedge in it for a few hours.

I rode the trails around Lake Hefner tonight--all 9.1 miles. The whole outting took about two hours. Addition to the trails, I also rescued a small nylon kite from a tree, used my cellphone to record the dialog, assembled and dismantled my bike.

My goal was to sprint the penultimate half-mile, and slowly cruise the last half-mile. Turns out that I'm in terrible shape, and can't bike sprint more than a quarter-mile.

* * *

EXT. LAKE HEFNER BIKE TRAIL. NIGHT

Daniel rides his bike through the darkness. As he approaches a bridge, he notices white debris on the left side of the bridge. When he reaches the bridge, the debris flys towards his tires.

DANIEL:
Ahhh!

He sees the debris is a cat. The cat races inches from his tire along a parallel path.

DANIEL:
Ahhh!

The tires squeal as Daniel brakes. The cat speeds ahead and disappears into some brush.

* * *

My internship at Walker Creative started yesterday. The first assignment my supervisor gave me was to invent and sketch logos for a sports management company. I spent a few morning hours on that.

I spent the afternoon watching Total Training tutorials.

Tomorrow's day two!

* * *

Matthew and I changed Amos' water earlier this week. He's really happy in it. Matthew gave me aquarium salt, and Amos really seems to love it. He's swimming much more. He keeps his fins fully extended.

* * *

Christi Mitchell introduced me to this band yesterday. She suggested the song Firecracker. I like Every Day alot too.

DANIEL:
Maria, how long have we known each other?

MARIA:
Why are you asking?

DANIEL:
Do you ever think that our friendship is more than a friendship?

MARIA:
Do you think it's more?

DANIEL:
Would that be a bad thing?

MARIA:
Should it be?

DANIEL:
Is that what you think?

MARIA:
What are we talking about?

INT. KITCHEN. EVENING.

Daniel rinses off a plate and loads it into the the dishwasher. He sprays the basin. The elbow noodles dance into the garbage disposal.

Daniel locates a switch on the wall to the right of the sink. He puts his fingers on the switch and says:

DANIEL:
Devour!

He engages the switch and the lamp above the sink turns on.

Collide Festival: Cancelled!

I had plans to go to Collide Festival at the end of this week. It would have started on Thursday and finished on Saturday. Sister Sharon, her two kids, Deena and I all had plans to camp for the whole event and now we get zip.

Eight inches of rain left the event field saturated. Technically, the festival isn't cancelled, just rescheduled. Collide Management has an idea that rescheduling the event for June 12, 13, & 14, 2008 is postponing.

All tickets for this year's fest are valid for Collide 08. 41,711 ticket holders shouldn't be upset about that. The Collide site doesn't say anything about refunds.

Ticket holders, event organizers, bands--everyone loses.

So I'm in Talala, which is about 40 miles north of Tulsa. I'm at my brother's house, and Lightning the cat is keeping me company.

* * *

Yesterday I bought a new tire. It turns out I didn't have road hazard warranty like I suspected, but they did pro-rate my tire. They sold me the new tire for $30, plus labor, and a few fees (including a fee for disposing of the old tire). The total cost was $44. Not bad considering the tire I got is typically about $75.

When I was putting my tire back on my car, Scott (Matthew's padre) noticed that my brake pads were awfully thin.

* * *

Mi hermana, Deena, and I worked promotional today! Last week, I responded to a post on Craig’s List looking for help with the Get Animated tour by Cox & Cartoon Network. Cartoon Network started Get Animated to encourage kids to be active this summer. Think VBS kinda recreation--tennis, inflatable obstacle course, grab bags, limbo, soccer kick, bikes. This event is touring across the country. One of my favorite things about the event is that it was held at the Oklahoma Aquarium.

We started setting up at 10:30 this morning. Set up lasted until 2pm, and nothing worth reading about happened during that time.

The event opened at 2, and that's when the day really got fun. The first hour I supervised the tennis court. But then I switched with the girl at the bike stand. Two kids' bikes were mounted so that they wouldn't move, but you could still pedal. So I'd time the kids for 3 minutes and make them pedal as hard as they could. I also gave them lessons in bike safety. "Do you wear a helmet when you ride?" "It's best to ride in tennis shoes, incase your toes get in the chain!"

In addition to a nice hourly wage, we got great Cartoon Netwrok dry-fit shirts.

* * *

We finished at 1am last night. Richard (brother) and I replaced my front brakes, fixed a loose CV joint boot, and rotated my tires. Now I'm proud to list all the work I've done on my car.

• replaced the oxygen sensor
• diagnosed and fixed a problem with the radiator
• replaced front brake pads
  

The plan for tonight is to replace the back brake pads.

Flat Tire

EXT. WILSHIRE BLVD. NIGHT.

We see Daniel's Camry cruising down the rural end of Wilshire. Tree lines sandwich the hazardous road.

INT. DANIEL'S CAR. NIGHT.
Both of Daniel's hands are on the wheel and his window's down. He's swaying off beat to Le Disko by Shiny Toy Guns. He's alone.

A sudden thud and jolt to the right rip his attention for the radio.

DANIEL:
Acthung! Never hit a pothole so hard.

There's no immediate damage, so Daniel keeps driving.

EXT. MATTHEW'S HOUSE. MORNING.

Daniel gets in his Camry, starts it, and drives six feet. Somethings not right. He parks the car and goes straight to the front right tire. Totally flat.

* * *

So I've been driving on a spare since yesterday morning. Matthew's dad, Scott, helped me examine the tire. We found a large bubble where the side wall was busted. These are still pretty new tires, so I was pretty upset about replacing it.

I called my brother (he bought the tires for me), and told me I had road hazard warranty on my tires. But I don't have the receipt. I'm going to visit Hibdon Tire today, and see if they will replace the tire without the receipt. Hopefully! I'd rather not spend $70 dollars on a new tire.

I'm in Tulsa for the weekend, and typing this in a rush. My 7 year old nephew gave me a time limit on the internet, then he's going to play games. 8...seconds.

Day at the Dairy

INT. MATTHEW'S HOUSE. MORNING

Daniel teeters down the bunk bed ladder. He staggers to the fridge and pulls a gallon jug filled with a blue liquid. He pours himself a glass and drinks.

DANIEL
Hope this isn't anti-freeze.

* * * * *

I started a temporary job today with Midwest Technology Applicators, Inc. today. I worked with the owner, Drew Johnson at the Braum's farms in Tuttle, OK. Basically, we cleaned a damaged section of the floor with denatured alcohol, put on a conditioning/bonding element on the damaged section of the floor, then covered the bonding element with mortar. I enjoyed the getting to see the inside of the Braum's dairy plant. I saw ice cream cartons being shot through clear tubes (like drive-through at the bank). I saw plastic milk jugs being made. I saw split milk, but no one cried over it. The job was enjoyable, but working in the 38 degree cooler wasn't.


This Friday I'm working with MTA again, this time in Tulsa at a machine shop. I'm looking forward to a dry and hot place.

* * * * *

I bought The Spinal Cord Perception at the Showbread concert last Friday. The most notable thing I have to say about Josh Porter's writing style is that he includes a lot of social commentary--particularly about the rock music scene.