Day 27

Ooh! I'm coming up on a month! Go me!

Vote in the poll, it may change the way you see my blog forever!

Sorry, I'm going a little crazy with the exclamation points today. But as you can see from my picture of the day (it always appears on top of the post when I 'mail it in' {my post, via e-mail, litterally mailed in from my home where I don't have a computer} I am obviously very excited).

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On to the awesomosity of the day. Once again, so many choices; I slept till 1:30, there are birds making a nest over my front door, I'm doing laundry today, etc., etc., etc.

However my choice comes from an email I received today (I can now check and send email on my phone, which is pretty awesome on its own.). You may remember a post of mine a few days ago, describing the adventures of a short film I was the D.P. (director of photography, a fancy term for cameraman) of, called The Doubtful Martyr. We had entered it into the st.louis filmmakers showcase and were accepted. But I wrote all about the experience of watching my film appear with 15 other shorts. Of course by now you're saying, "We know Ben, we read all about it Thursday!" Well, here's what you don't know:

TDM was accepted to the St. Louis International Film Festival in November!!! You can read all about it (and the awards which are said to be posted sometime today) at www.cinemastlouis.org.

So now all of you that had "something better to do" when TDM screened the first time have another chance to see it on the big screen!! I'll keep you updated as we approach SLIFF.

So, that is pretty awesome for me today, tell me what makes your day awesome?!?!

See you tomorrow!

Day 26

I can't believe I've made it this far. I couldn't have done it without you, faithful reader. So far 437 people have read my blog total. That's awesome.

On to the awesomosity. There is so much to choose from today. My leading thought coming here this morning was to have it be firefighter's funeral. Ryan Hummert died Monday in the tragedy in Maplewood. You can read more about it here. They say the funeral procession could be five miles long, with firefighters and other emergency service people coming from all over the country. That is awesome.

However, that seems like a bit of a downer, and I don't like downers, especially on this blog, so I have chosen a different awesomosity for today. Rain.

Normally I do not like rain, but the rain yesterday and through the weekend is great for so many reasons. I'll start with yesterday. Did you realize how cool (obviously comparitively, it was still like 80 or so) it was yesterday? My AC didn't run all day and I was very comfortable in my home.

I was supposed to have a baseball game (playing) last night at 9pm in East St. Louis at Jackee-Joyner-Kersee (I have no idea where the dashes go in her name, so I put them everywhere). Needless to say, who wants to be in East St. Louis from 9-11:30 at night? Besides that, I had to get up early yesterday and today, and haven't had a night at home in a while. I've had "The Bank Job" (great Jason Statham movie, but I like most of his stuff) sitting at home for almost a week and haven't had the chance to watch it yet, until last night.

What else is good about rain? Well, this Monday my mother will help me do some weeding in my yard, and more importantly, in my rasberry garden. All this rain will help out with pulling weeds.

Do you want to learn more about rain? Check these out:

Wikipedia (the definitive source for everything)

A kid's page about where rain comes from (much more comfortable conversation for parents than the old, "Where do babies come from?")

So, today, rain is awesome. So is my mother, which is why she is featured in today's picture of the day (also because she was still home when I got here, but she really is awesome!)

See you tomorrow! Don't forget to vote in the poll and leave me a comment!

Day 25

25 Days! Thats a quarter of 100 days, which is just over a quarter of a year, so, if my math is right, I'm like a 16th or so through the year!

Vote in my poll and comment on my posts. Please.

All right. Yesterday I had a pretty good idea of what todays aweomosity would be, and I was totally right. You see, as some of you know, I had a movie I helped make premiere at the St. Louis Filmmaker's Showcase last night at the Tivoli. And it was awesome. My film specifically, but the whole contest was awesome too. I was able to get a few of my friends to come see it, Ben and Erin Shepard. And they can back me up on what I'm going to do next. See, there were 16 shorts in this viewing, all comedies (well, all labeled as comedies), so I'm gonna give a one sentence review of all 16 (in alphabetical order so as to not show preference). So, here goes:

101 Damnations - Good quality film, good acting, somewhat funny, deserved to make the showcase.

Coffee - Good film that portrays a conversation between a father and son that work together; funny and well-made.

Dog Park - Animated short about dogs that was cute. Not funny, but entertaining.

The Doubtful Martyr - Easily got the most laughs of the night, very funny and well-made; special kudos to the Director of Photography (Ok, so this was my film, but most of what I just wrote was true).

Flapjacked - Odd film, I think about the downfall of art and commercialism in America, odd.

Four Squares - Mockumentary that could have been the best film of the night were it not for the noticeably bad quality

Gus Over Easy - wierd movie about a guy with sunny-side up eggs for ears. Seriously.

Lunchbreak - One of my favorites, though it did have quite a bit of foul language, but a guy died a rather gruesome death.

The Nightly Potato, Episode 5 - This is apparently an ongoing short film. This was computer animated debate between Clinton and Obama, also starring Tom Brokaw and the late Tim Russert, the only film that may have gotten more laughs than TDM.

Scalpel - No. This should have never been made, much less put in this contest.

Sugar - Easily the most professionally produced and expensive film of the night (they had Nat King Cole music in it, plus a lot of choreography, and I think they shot on actual film) very good, probably the "winner". I think Matt Wertz (the Christian singer) was involved.

This Really Happened - True story of an interview where the interviewer whooped out her boobs and started breastfeeding during the interview. Uncomfortable.

Three Days, Spencer - Wierd story of a troubled middle-schooler failing a grade for not speaking, then rips everyone a new one. Not great.

Tuesday - Winner of oddest of the night, this guy is just going through the motions until one Tuesday, he is suddenly surrounded, followed and befriended by lots and lots of pink flamingo yard things. Really wierd and not that good.

Two Fine Gentlemen Find a Dollar - Why are all these so wierd? It had its funny moments, I suppose.

The Ugly Turkey - Animated story of the plight of an ugly turkey, started the night off with some good laughs.

So, now that I have bored you with reviews of movies you will never see (except for the Doubtful Martyr, I have DVDs and will be happy to show anyone this awesomeness), I guess I'll just show you my picture of the day. Actually, today you get two, one was from yesterday, on the roof of an inspection, then todays in my folks basement.

Thanks for reading, I appreciate it, talk to you all soon!!

Day 24

I can't believe (I before E, except after C...) I've made it this far! Go me! Don't forget to vote in the poll!!

For today's awesomeness, I'm gonna pull one out that I've been saving for a little while. You see, my family is pretty tight. I mean, we all get along fairly well and hang out regularly. Our most regular get togethers are family dinners, which we try to do once a week. This is challenging a lot of the time since my mother works a lot of late hours, both grandmas try to make it, I'm busy as all get out, and my brother and his wife have three kids. Organizing a time that works for all of us is a bit difficult most of the time. So, when we do get us all together for a meal, time is of the essence and meal preparation is usually done in advance. Except for some small things, which can be done quickly. Which leads me to the awesomeness of the day; the way my mother cuts up a watermelon.

I know what you're thinking, "But Ben, you said something that is done quickly. Who ever heard of a quick way to cut up a watermelon?" I know. Watermelon cubing takes forever, unless you're my mother (who learned this trick from a co-worker, Laura Calys). My momma took a fair sized watermelon from oval to cubes in under 4 minutes. I'm serious. So, I thought I would share with you how it was done, because it's awesome!

First, you cut the watermelon in half, right down the middle. Then you cut the halves in half (or quarter the watemelon for those keeping track). Once you have four quarters, take one and slice the knive between the goodness and the rind from both sides. Then you make 3-4 slices horizontal on each side. Then you cut straight down from the top and: voila! cubed watermelon!

For those that have no clue what I just said, here are some pictures, taken from here:

I know! It's amazing! Awesome even! And it takes like no time at all!

So, you want some watermelon, but you don't want cubes, right? Well, here is a link to Wikihow that shows another way to cut a watermelon. At the bottom of the page, there are several more links on how to do more fun stuff with watermelon, like a watermelon basket, or cutting a watermelon to look like a swan and stuff like that.

If you are just interested in everything watermelon (who isn't, really?) visit www.watermelon.org. Yes, watermelons have a website. What a crazy world we live in!

I hoep you enjoyed the post, even if it is slightly recycled material. Let me know what you think with a comment. By the way, I'm gonna put some tags into this post to see if more people come to visit me. (I've been getting 15-40 visitors a day for a while now, in case you were interested.)

Here's my picture of the day, taken with my wonderful father in his basement; come back tomorrow and see what's awesome! (I already have an idea what it's going to be, and it really is awesome!)

Day 23

Jump Man's number, my consecutive streak. I'm no Cal Ripken, but I'm shattering personal records here.

So, My original plan for today's awesomosity was to have my dish dryer be the winner and show you these pictures to prove it.


Now, I'm not saying my dish dryer isn't awesome, as you can see it clearly is. I mean, look how many dishes fit in that thing. Of course, if you don't do dishes for like 3 weeks, that's what happens. Also, you probably need to be a bachelor that doesn't entertain people much. Anyway, now I know you're just dying to know what could have possibly trumped my dish dryer to be the awesomeness of the day, right?

Cop's mad driving skills. Let Uncle Ben tell you a little story. Last night I'm hanging out with my buddy Sean (the one with Google Maps on his phone, remember?) and we get some dinner and talk about a video project we want to work on. So, were hanging out in the CWE for a while, ate at Culpeppers (they really do have great wings) then we went to Jonathan's place to talk more about our little project.

Come around 10:30 its time to go home. I give Sean a ride to his girl's house near Grand and Gravois since I live right down the street from there. I let him out of the car, we say our goodbyes, I go home and he crosses Gravois. Then there are sirens. I pause as I'm pulling out of White Castle to see what's up. It is about this time that Sean is midway across the street. Then I see a cop car doing at least 70, maybe up to 90, its hard to tell. It's coming right for Sean. He freezes for a second, then tries to run the rest of the way across the street. The cop had already compensated for Sean staying put, so he (or she, I suppose) had to swerve to avoid Sean's new path. The cop lost all control of the vehicle. They skidded across the intersection, fishtailing all over, coming to a stop facing the other direction on the other side of the road. Then pulled a U-turn and continued on their way, apparently unfazed.

It was the craziest thing I have ever seen with my own eyes. So, maybe I'm exxagerating, but I have to applaud the cop for successfully avoiding my friend. So that is today's awesomosity, great driving skills by cops.

Of course, they could just slow down a bit, especially at intersections, huh?

Here's the puicture of the day, taken in an attic on an inspection. See you tomorrow!

Day 22

22. Great number for a consecutive streak of blogs, even better rifle.

So I had a great day yesterday as you can tell by my post yesterday. Sweat a lot. Got the cold shower thing. Saw the new Batman. Slept well. All around awesomeness.

I know what you're saying, "Just get on with the awesomeness Ben, I'm not here to read about your stupid Sunday!" Ok then, I will.

Popcorn. Of course, not just any popcorn, but movie theater popcorn. There is nothing quite like slightly stale, liquid buttery-like goo covered popcorn in a bag. When we (Mark, Gabe, Kris, Kelly, Matt and Conor and I) went to see the Dark Knight, we first went to Red Robin, where I had this incredible salad (I know, a salad.) that had like fajita fiesta chicken on it. Delicious. But I digress. So we plan on seeing the 7pm show. I'm thinking, we show up at 6:30, should be plenty of time to get tickets. I mean, I figured it would be full, but seriously. It was sold out. So, we got tickets to the 8pm show, which sold out like 10 minutes later. But, we were first in line for seats, so we got primo seats in the middle of the middle (we actually had a long conversation about where to go and our plan for saving seats and what the middle of the middle meant, but we had over an hour to kill just waiting in line.)

We finally get into the theatre and get our very nice seats when I decide I want some popcorn. Of course, everyone I was with said they didn't want anything until I brought the popcorn back, then everyone suddenly had a craving for popcorn (and/or my soda, Mark). But that's totally cool with me, since I can't/shouldn't finish a whole bag of popcorn by myself.

So, the 7 of us enjoyed popcorn and did what I think the majority of America did this weekend, saw The Dark Knight. (It set records by making $155.3 million on opening weekend and something close to half of that was at the midnight showing on Thursday night, I mean that has to be more than every Brendan Fraser movie has made total.)

If you haven't seen it, I totally recommend it. Heck, I'd probably go with you if you can't find anyone else to go. As long as you buy the popcorn. Mmmmm....Popcorn.

Here's the pic, pretty boring today.


See ya'll tomorrow!

Day 21

Blackjack! Pay up 3:2!

I really hope the above pictures go up in the right order. I'm trying something new, attempting to give you the full body shot. Lemme know what you think.

So, as you can probably guess, I played baseball today. Holy cow, is it hot. Serious. I wish I could say that todays awesomosity was mypitching effort (I started the game), but alas I can't. I went 3+ innings. The first inning was awesome, 3 straight popouts. the second inning saw a few baserunners, but still no score. The third inning got a little rougher, I gave up a few hits and 4 runs (I think). By the 4th inning, I was done. I gave up a hit and then two walks. Then I hit a guy to score a run. Then they pulled the plug.

We ended up losing something like 13 - 0. Ooph. After I was done pitching, I caught. That when things got really hot. Wow. It also leads me to the awesomeness of the day. The umpire.

My league has had some kind of fallout with umpires and therefore struggled to get 2 for every game. Today we only had one (they get paid $45/game or $90/game for a solo). not only did he do a great job, but he was rather funny and conversational. That's always nice to have an ump that'll talk to you. So what if he's not that experienced and had to ask several times how many outs there were, but he was a good ump.

Turns out he actually plays in another division of our league. He told me to be an ump takes virtually no experience and they are looking hard for more umps. Anybody want to make some extra scrilla? Let me know.

Have an awesome day (I'm going to see Dark Knight later, so don't you worry about me) and I'll see you all tomorrow!