Woody Cavenaugh

I don't know when it happened but it happened. It seems to have taken place slowly over time. I don't even konw the moment where it began, everytime I think I found the beginning, I think of another.
-New Orleans getting flooded, 1.5 million washed out of their homes.
-The tsunami in South East Asia.
-9/11
-Columbine massacre
-Hurricane Floyd floods
Skip backwards a while...
-Jonestown Massacre
-Vietnam war images
Skip back further...way back further...
-Krakatoa
-Mount Vesuvius
-Pompeii
-Biblical Flood

As a species we just seem to be fascinated by death and destruction. We can't seem to get enough of it. When I sat down here I was going to take a blind stab at the media being to blame but that is clearly not the case. The media is just giving the humans what the humans want.

I've done it, you've done it, we've all done it. We sit eagerly eating up every piece of information available about great loss of property and or life. Thanks to the tool, media, we can sit in front of the tube or the internet and get piped to us 24/7. Again, I'm not blaming media any more than I am calling the entire human race a bunch of sicko's who enjoy the suffering of others. I'm just making an observation here. The next time you are in front of a public TV that is showing some sort of disaster (thanks to CNN or FOX News), peel your eyes away from the tube long enough to look at the faces of the people around you. There will be one or two looking like you expect them to look, like you think you are looking yourself, but the fact is most of them are going to be excited by what they see. Almost gleeful.

Just yesterday standing in a convenience store I heard someone say, "Wow, that is amazing, I hope the whole city floods!" They had no idea how that sounded, and neither did the person they were talking to. For them the flooding of New Orleans was little more than an extra long episode of "24" or something. Let me tell on myself. I saw some footage of a car that went speeding into flood waters on I-10, stall, and start to float away. Some good Samaritan went running out to get the guy out of the car and I turned to Sara and I said, "What an idiot!". As you can imagine, she didn't forgive me for my heartlessness. As the man was pulled from the car it was obvious he was old, and as Sara was quick to point out, scared, and panicked. He probably lived in New Orleans his whole life and simply didn't know what to do. (As it turned out Sara was right on all counts.)

That doesn't make us (me and the guy in the convenience store) bad people mind you. Put all of mankind on a bell curve we would have saints at the bottom right, psychopathic child molesting racest canibals on the bottom left and the big bell curve would define the typical person. The typical person gets excited about this sort of thing. I suppose the draw of it is that if doesn't directly affect them, i.e. them or someone they know aren't directly affected, it isn't real, just entertainment on a grand "Wrath of God" scale. When the various civic and charity groups put out the call for inflatable boats and bottled water, these are the same people who are going to donate. When they get home at night they will probably turn on the TV and stare excitedly watching the coverage of the relief efforts too.

Its just an observation, do with it as you will.

Posted by at 3:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Friday I was given a care package containing some old fencing clothing in a big plastic bag. I unpacked the bag on the way out the door Friday and didn't notice the plastic breast protectors (Hub Caps) until Monday morning. For those that don't know fencing, the Hub Cap was the first hard protection for women. They are about six inches across and concave made of aluminum or plastic (these were plastic), and because of the way they look are often called hub caps or frisbees. These were then inserted into pockets sewn into the inside of the woman's fencing jacket. The problem was that whoever sewed in the pockets were making some pretty wild assumptions about where a woman's breast is found on the chest. Breasts being like dishes, everyone stores them in the kitchen but not necessarily on the same shelf. This poor system was later replaced by a much better one that gave better protection and didn't require pockets at all. (Later still a mens version was made.) But I degress...

I didn't want to forget to bring them to club so I innocently placed them on my desk so as to not forget them. It was just gear to me and I didn't think another thing about it.

The comedy came in two types.

Type One: The visitor knew what they were.
-A former fencers comes into my office sees them and without missing a beat says, "So, are you planning to get those filled today?"

-Another former fencer comes into my office (a woman), sees them, looks at me like she just noticed I was naked or something and says, "I'm not going to ask. I am simply not going to ask." This was extra funny as she immediately spun around and walked out without asking the question that brought her there to begin with. Turned out she wasn't insulted or anything, just completely shocked by my surprising her. (I see a challenge!)

Type Two: The visitor had no idea what they were.
Him: "What are those things?"
Me: "Armor plated yarmelkes, strait from the manufacture in Isreal."
Him: "You're kidding."
Me: "Not at all, the world is a dangerous place, these slip inside of the lining of a normal yarmelkes to give the wearer protection from snipers."
Him: "What are you doing with them."
Me: (sinister) "Like I said, the world is a dangerous place."

-A project manager walked in picked one up and said, "This is the ugliest salad bowl I have ever seen."

Sometimes the joke is on me:
A woman walked in saw them, grinned at me and said, "Wow! I didn't know you were in to that! Very cool..."
I will go to my grave wondering what she was refering to. My office is decorated in fencing stuff.

Posted by at 8:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Fans of the TV Show Crossing Jordan always do a double take when they meet me. They think I'm kidding about my name because they know from the show that Woody Hoyt is a detective and Dr. Jordan Cavanaugh is a medical examiner. *shrug* its pretty weak if you ask me. Many people coincidentally have complete names matching movie and TV characters and it is purely unintentional.

So Sara's watching it and I am in the kitchen. My back is to the TV, and I spin around when I hear something really familiar. Fencing. Yup. There is fencing in last night's episode.

In one scene a detective is fencing with a foilest character in the episode. I say to Sara, there should be a flashing graphic somewhere on the scene that says "This Never Happens". The fencer isn't wearing a mask. The detective isn't wearing anything but his street cloths. It makes for good TV, but it doens't necessarily make a good impression. Especially when the detective grabs himself in pain everytime he is hit. They shot on location in an actual college fencing sale. I didn't catch which one.

In another scene the detective and Jordan are in the dead guy's room. The dead guy was apparently the number two foilest at this particular college. They think the instructor he was sleeping with killed him, but the found incriminating footprints. As soon as the camera showed them I announced to Sara, "The other fencer did it." I knew this because the tread of fencing shoes is unique to all other shoe patterns. (Most likely a PBT shoe) Plus the added bonus of a stripe of missing tread in the pattern. I have seen that before as well. Fencers will often wrap some sort of tape around the shoe at the ball of the foot to protect the tred as this is the part of the shoe that takes the most wear.

Sure enough, that was the answer. In the end they cheesed out and the fencing culprit draws an rapier (whatever..) on Jordan only to be outdrawn by nice detective with a gun. Everyone knows you do not bring a sword to a gunfight. Still, I can't help but believe a writer for that show fences or at least knows someone who does competitively. Cool.

One day I am going to write something with fencing in it. Everyone will be dressed correctly, everyone will fence well, everyone will fence safely, and no one will have a sword or a gun in the salle.

I will not give in to cleche. I promise.

Posted by at 1:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

But its fine if Richard P. Titus over in Undergraduate Admissions talks about my work. Once I recovered from the mini-stroke slash hernia, I did some double time backtracking only to figure out that this info is officially sanctioned info for viewing by the big man himself. So its not like he's spilling state secrets. I just thought the data was supposed to be a state secret. I hope that doesn't mean I am going to go back and turn 348 mandates into 348 PDF's and put them on display.

Anyway, I'm still not going to talk about my work, and I'm not in any way bothered that Rick talked about my work, however it does open up some avenues if I ever want to talk about some other department on campus.

Now listen up people, have I got a story to tell about ISOM you won't believe...

Just kidding.

Posted by at 4:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

I am back from my short, cheap vacation. It was actually better than I imagined. I kicked back, unplugged the phones, read a couple of pages, and truly relaxed. I remember hating vacation time when I was young. As a youth, "Vacation" meant a week of sunrise til sunset hard labor. I am glad things on this front have improved so much. I had so much fun I might even think about doing it again in the next couple of years.

I noticed around the old workplace today that some great stereotypes are really more like longstanding great traditions. If the vehicle has commercial or state tags there will be at least one head hanging out of the window leering at the nearly naked youth.

Perhaps it is like other taboos. If you experience it long enough it stops being taboo. Longer still and it stops even being note worthy. I've been wandering around here since 1992 and the only protection I need to keep from looking like an ass in public is sunglasses. This will change when the whole place is wireless and people can actually read what I write as they pass me on the sidewalk. At that point the only way I would be able to keep from looking like an ass in public would be to never go out into the public, but I'll jump off of that bridge when I come to it.

In unrelated news, with the universities back in session fencing is gearing up for a new compeititve season. As usual, our classes fill our space to capacity, the new are getting experienced, and the experienced are winning. CALL is getting back into the swing of things, and fencing is represented, even Ed Cone found a niche.

Its good to be back.

Posted by at 3:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It is vacation time. I seldom do vacations but Sara talked me into it.
So for the next five or so days I will be at home sitting on the couch away from my glorious internet.

I will be watching Sara play playstation games, and I will think about how bad my shoulder high grass and saplings need to be mowed down.

I don't seriously think I will be doing anything about it though. It is afterall my vacation.

Maybe I will blog via notepad some and paste it in late next week when I am allowed to come back.

I'm homesick already.

Posted by at 4:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

It was kind of ironic. Yesterday comming into work Sara and I saw two women that we thought might be prostitutes as crazy as that sounds. One was on 29 near a truck stop. The other was on Market Street near the downtown. My question was, it was between seven and seven thirty in the morning, were they just getting off of work or something? That time of day people just don't dress like that and be where these women were.

After being on campus all day and constantly seeing women dressed that way I tried to rationalize it by saying to my wife, "Perhaps those were just college students waiting for the bus?" My wife, ever wise, quickly reminded me, "Unlikely as your typical college student doesn't come complete with meth mouth." She has a good point.

Then I read this article by The Greensboro Troublemaker and it makes more since. Gangs form out of paranoia for self protection, turn to crime to pay for their activities, prostitution is a crime, pimps up, hoes down. Question answered.

Now to the other question, what are groups of likeminded youth doing in Greensboro of all places paranoid and afraid? And is this a reason for us to be paranoid and afraid? Paranoia and fear does breed more paranoia and fear. No one seems to know what causes it, so this seems the next logical step, band together for mutual defence, get some web ads for cash to support our activities, and get a tattoo showing our affiliation. I have an idea for us that I got from this guy who got one that says "Human" in Wingdings.

So I'm thinking we could do something like that.

Geek Power!

Posted by at 8:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The news and web have been full of articles about how this tiny little office called The Office of Diversity and Inclusion in the NCAA is forcing colleges to change long standing team names. Its a nice racket really. They sit back with a cup of coffee and wait for the phone to ring. When the phone rings, they take down what the caller is offended at and then they start the process of banning whatever it was that the caller found offending.

So apparently what started the whole ban the Native American team name thing was a couple of offended folks. Remember that many schools have support from the local tribes whose names they borrowed. But it doesn't matter, somewhere, someone is offended, and thus there will be no NCAA teams named for Native American tribes. Perhaps the offended are trying to bury the past, I don't know.

What I do know is that I find the "Fighting Irish of Notre Dame" offensive, for implying that my people are drunken brawlers from France and I promise you as soon as I sober up, I'm marching up there and I'm going to give them all a what for up the side of their heads. And I'm taking my whole Chaomhánach clan with me. Or at the very least the ones close by who are sober enough to travel and stout enough to swing a shillelagh. Notre Dame indeed...

But while we're at it, if we are going to do it we have to be fair to all cultures, all tribes, all groups. If we're doing away with the Native American Names and the Irish Names (Yes, the Celtics too), we have to go after the Spartans, Trojans, and Cretans. (From Crete, what were you thinking?)

We should probably avoid using things like the Steelers, Packers, Pirates, Oilers, Patriots and Yankies too. There are probably generations of steel workers, cheese packers, republicans , privateers, revolutionaries, and carpet baggers who don't want to be associated with a team who has a week line and no quarterback to speak of (or good pitcher where it applies).

A whole bunch of schools are using animal names and while this seems like a good idea on the surface what with paying respect to the animal's major strenghts and all, you just can't do it. All the hippies at Greenpeace and PETA have strong opinions about animals and they don't want their names being used to represent steriod packed, no necked, neanderthols in televised war games. Hippies are just funny like that. But they have rights to, and we can't ignore that. Everytime I eat a steak I always raise my glass to the PETA people, for without them, the meat wouldn't not be nearly as sweet.

Well how about the Quakers, Decons, Puritians, Pilgrims, Angels, Olympians, Saints, Titans? If I have to even say it I will be forced to pray for you.

Now when I thought of the Browns, White Socks, Reds, Red Socks, and Blues, I thought we had something good, but we can't use these either. Nope, this descriminates against the colorblind. You can toss all these names to the wayside.

As I have learned in my research, names have been a whole lot worse in the past. We've given up the Dons, The Bridegrooms, The Ambrose Jellymakers (I'm not making that up), the Ballhawgs, the Beaneaters (I wish I were making that up), the Colt .45s, the Gunslingers, the Gwizzlies (aww, isn't that cute!) the Innocents and the long strange list goes on.

So what's left, I mean if you can't call your team the Ambrose Jellymakers what can you call them. I've been kicking around the idea of calling teams either adjectives, adverbs, or abstract concepts. The Heat, the Cold, the Courage, the Lost, the Around, the Heartfelt, or the Abstracts (though we might get in trouble with certain artist.) So I'm stumped. It sounds like the NCAA either needs to put up or shut up. Do you think we can call a team the "Shut the *&%^$ ups"?

Posted by at 7:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Recently in Albany in an alley behind a Karate dojo an instructor was teaching students how to deal with a gun or knife attack. They had been doing it in the dojo for a while, but as part of his lesson, he takes them to a more realistic environment out back. If you've ever taken a martial arts class you are familiar with the rubber knives, toy guns, and martial art uniforms. I'm blogging it here so you can guess what happens next. Some idiot calls barney fife and the springfield police, and the next thing you know a five year old is getting cuffed, stuffed, and ticked for disturbing the peace. All while at real-gun point. That's a fine of $2,500 and maximum jail time of six months. And yes that was each person in the whole group, including the five year old getting their own charge. The police confiscated the rubber toys as evidence. They are serious, they are angry that they had to go arrest a five year old for being a threat to society, they feel their time was wasted and they believe it is the fault of the people they arrested. Uh what? Don't you mean the fault of the idiot who calls 911 without a clue. Nope, they are pissed off at the uniformed karate kids with the rubber training equipment.

So now I am left in a really strange situation. Someone calls 911, and says that a group is training a militia to fight with swords at the YWCA. The five oh's show up to discover a fencing class in progress and brings me and my students up on terrorist charges. And somehow this is all my fault?

Has the world always been like this and I've been too wrapped up with myself to notice?

Posted by at 10:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

It is not like you are helping!

Credit where credit is due this entry is inspired by this blog in of all things, an entry in the form of a poem about anti-gay laws. It makes since in my head, so I am running with it.

Laws are for the most part, a set of rules to make sure we don't do anything to hurt our fellow man, and penalities to inspire you to stay good. So what the heck happened? It used to be so simple, don't steal, don't kill, "Do no harm", and now we have to wear seat belts, and helmets.

What are we doing with laws designed to protect stupid people from themselves? We are helping to destroy our very own species by removing ourselves from the natural order. If people were still free to ride motorcycles without helmets and drive cars without seat belts, sure there would be more business at the mortuaries, but whatever gene made the victim feel invulnerable has been removed from the gene pool at least in that subject. Plus, it's good for the mortuary business!

Where's the problem?

"We're going to put you in jail because you tried to kill yourself."

That is the dummest statement I have ever heard next to "Hey ya'll, watch this!". Better answer. "You tried to kill yourself and failed, here's a pamplet. On one side is places to go to help cure depression. On the otherside is instructions on how to be more successful when trying to killing yourself. Don't forget to get a liscense from the courthouse so the county knows to go pick up your body. Any children? No? Good.

Scientist are working around the clock to cure genetic ailments that are only there at all because we work so hard to keep the genetic maladies in the genepool.

And yes, everyone here including myself can talk about ourselves or someone we know and love fighting some genetic problem that just "X" number of years ago would have ment we would not survive. People are important! No, individual people might be important. You, me, our love ones might be important, but on the grand scale we do our species a disservice.

The gay example. This drives me nuts. The christians in one side of their mouths are all about forgiving this and forgiving that, but they can't wait to send those gay sinners strait to hell. There are people spending a great deal of time trying to make "gay" itself a crime punishable by stoning (or at least jail time). What does it harm? "It harms the family!" Whose family does it harm? Yours? Mine? Nope. It doesn't harm any family. That's because gay people can't make families from having gay sex. If you want to stamp out gayness, embrase it. They don't breed. Built in population control just like the almight intended. Are you questioning the almighty's plan? If so, you are going to be in for a BIG surprise later.

Stupidity should be painful. We have no problem with this in the animal world. People are lining up to get shock collars for their dogs. "It will learn." The world needs more electric fences. People are thought of as more intelligent, so they will learn faster not to go where they don't belong right? Wrong, or at least apparently wrong due to the total lack of electric fences around places where people don't need to be. Like electric substations. At an electric substation, there is a tall fence with keep out signs, warning signs, no tresspassing signs, and barbed wire on top. Its sort of like a "don't come here sundae". Yet if some idiot ignores the signs, climbs the fence gets past the barbed wire and manages to discover electricity, the electric company gets sued.

If things in our society keep on going like this our gene pool is going to get weaker and weaker until one day coffee will have to be labeled "hot" and an idiot is going to be elected president.

Stop the madness.

Posted by at 12:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

So, recently a documentary came to town that like most films I didn't see. It was called "What The Bleep Do We Know". Recently some friends of mine saw this on DVD and they were amazed by what they saw and raved about it. I have yet to see it, but I am really looking forward to borrowing that DVD. The night Sara saw it she told me much about it and what she said had the ring of truth about it. I remember one ancidote Sara told me about water being changed simply by labels put on the bottles. Specific thought went each label via words like "Love" and "I hate you". Through an electron microscope, they were able to see these changes. Remember we are something like 80% water. Pretty neat stuff huh?

I filed it away under "Good to know, must research more later". I never really got a chance to do that and I am still meaning to. Instead, what falls into my lap is this article which suggested that people who were "jinxed" where electronic doodads are concerned might be causing the problem at a much lower level than simple PEBKAC (Problem Exist Between Keyboard and Chair). I'm talking the electron level via their own "bad vibes". This tripped a trigger in me and I bookmarked the news article so I could bring it up once I had seen the movie.

I still haven't seen the movie.

So most things, both positive and negative, seem to come in threes. Tonight, I am kicked back in my office long after hours reading a book that Sara bought called You The Owner's Manual. Being dyslexic, reading is generally more difficult, so being in a place without distraction to read (like my office) is a good thing. So I am reading (slowly but surely) and there starting on the bottom of page 57 I'm seeing this same thing all over again. Positive thoughts are more healthy than negative ones, thus depression and rage can make you physically sick. "Duh. We all know that." It is what you are thinking isn't it? So why did you think "bull pucky" when I referenced the water experiment? Why did you think "unlikely" when I mentioned people's bad vibes having an effect on their electronics? These are all different examples of the same thing, only two of them we have never really thought about before.

Do you know a "drama queen"? You may even be one yourself. You find yourself constantly surrounded by drama in your life that you can't seem to get away from, and may even find entertaining. Who is the most unlucky person you know? Who is the most lucky? These are living breathing examples of the power the more organized electrons in our heads are exerting on the less organized electrons everywhere else. Or maybe our skulls hold the chaos and we spin the order of our subatomic surroundings. Either way, it is interesting science, interesting philosophy, or if you insist, interesting bull pucky.

What I am walking away with is, in the immortal words of Bobby Mcfarren, "Don't worry, be happy". My good health, my good luck, and my sunny disposition depend on it.

Posted by at 8:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I just read an article from the Associated Press about Bunnatine Greenhouse. (Dated August 7th) This is a woman who stood up to Army Corp of Engineers and blew the whistle, having had enough of the unethical, illegal, and expencive practices of US Government Contract spending, specifically with Halliburton. In checking further than one article I find that ABC News covered the same event(via Associated Press) on October 25th of 2004. She originally drew the line in the sand back in 1993. Halliburton does what it always does, states they have done nothing wrong and then throw up a smokescreen. In the ABC article, they state that this recycled aligation is only comming up again because it is election time. Well, its August 2005 and it isn't election time. I wonder why this is comming up again? Could it be because there is a problem and it won't go away. And which is the problem, Bunnatine Greenhouse or Halliburton?

I guess that depends on who you ask. If you ask me, who as a general rule is suspicious of our government spiraling away from its roots and its growing interest in empire, I say Bunnatine Greenhouse is a hero unmatched since the days of our founding fathers.

I suppose if you were to ask the ruling elite they would tell you that Bunnatine Greenhouse is a busy body who doesn't know what she is talking about, and everything would be fine if we'd just let them get back to the business of trying to rule the world.

I think what I find most offensive about this whole thing is that what Bunnatine Greenhouse was reporting isn't some strange new breaking of protocal, its standard government practice. Its how things get done. Just because that is how it is done doesn't mean it is right. History shows us a whole bunch of standard business practices that just aren't right. Slavery, church marriage being a legal distinction, prohibition, flat earth, earth center of solar system, Pepsi Clear, the list goes on, and I bet everyone reading this can add something to the list. And let us not forget current things we haven't learned are mistakes yet, President Bush, Pimpjuice, Scion, gigayachts, tofu (I'm on the fence on tofu).

Might does not make right. The best it can do is "right now". My point? The government is flushing our tax money into the septic tanks of big business, without restraint, without ethics, and without air freshiner. What are we going to do about it?

Posted by at 4:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

You've read about it, you might even know someone involved with it. Interested in seeing what a team can create in only 48 hours?

The 2004 DVD is for sale! This was purchased out of pocket by the organizers and if they can at least break even they might be willing to send 2005 to press.

The price is $20.00 each, and includes bonus content.

See not only the winners, but all entrants on this 2 disk set.

Contact: render_media (at) yahoo.com to get yours! Be sure to put "48 Hour DVD" in the subject line.

For those interested in just what Greensboro's film scene is capable of, this is for you.

Posted by at 8:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

This is me putting two and two together.

I am a regular reader of Viewfinder Blues, a blog by a Greensboro photojournalist who lets the rest of us peer through his tv camera lens into his world. Through the list of bloggers he has linked to on his blog I have found a whole bunch of news types blogging and feel like I have a much greater grasp of their world.

In the afterglow of the "48 Hour Misunderstanding" (12 or so blog entries covering a week of info about a 48 hour film contest, that exploded into controversy and died in about 48 hours) I have come to realize that Greensboro has far too few film bloggers. We seem to have hundreds of folks who work and play in some way in the film scene in both local indie fashion as well as big budget flicks. We have five local film schools that I can think of off the top of my head. Yet I can only find two blogs by film folk, Ike Quigley's and Rusty Sheridan's. (Mine I don't count because I am only a part time amature boom operator.)

There is far too much talent and know how in this town not to blog about it.

And in a related note, (probaby should be in its own entry). There is enough talent and resources here in Greensboro that we could put together a week long summer day camp for kids to teach them film making. As one of only a handful of part time amature boom operators in this town I would be thrilled to volunteer my knowledge at such a camp. (Until someone better and professional was found of course.)

Posted by at 4:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Everything I am reading right down to official press releases makes it clear that this whole failure to pass a budget (Due July 1st) isn't about dollars. Based on everything I am watching and reading the two houses are simply having a battle over who has to largest political penis.

Put this pettiness asside and pass a budget already! All of you are equally massive dicks in my eyes. There is no reason take this any further.

Thank you for your time, I know it is valuable.

Posted by at 9:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This has been a really long weekend, I can tell you. As soon as I walked into The Sky Bar on Saturday night, I knew something was up. People were walking up and introducing themselves to me and saying things like, "You're the guy with the blog.". I had no idea how to take it until someone walked up to me and said,

"I think you may have accidentally put your foot into it with your blog. Watch your back my friend."

Suddenly I knew how Ed Cone and David Hoggard must feel every day. I'm being read!!!!! How cool is that! Of course, with great circulation comes great controversy. My blog has always been my words, my opinions, my way. It never occured to me that anyone anywhere would ever confuse my musings with journalism. The closest I have ever come to anything journalistic (If that's even a word) is the occasional Op-Ed which I model after my Op-Ed hero from way back Brad Rich of the Carteret County News Times. Were it not for folks like him, Lewis Grizzard, and Dave Barry, I am sure I would be much less funny than I currently think I am.

It also never occured to me that I might not be qualified to have an opinion. This may be true, I have never thought of opinions as having to be given only by qualified persons. If that is the case, I am in big trouble, because I give opinion about everything from the weather on up. Much of my opinion ends up here. So I guess what I have here is several years worth of incriminating evidence against myself for giving opinion without license. To this I plead guilty. I don't know what credentials Ebert and Roper have, but they have professional paid for opinions and sometimes I agree with at least one of them. I'm not a paid opinionist, I'm not a journalist, and I'm not even a filmmaker. I'm just an amature boom operator who likes movies. I hope I never implied I was more.

The cool thing about giving opinion is that eventually someone is going to disagree with me. I see this as a good thing. When someone disagrees it means that we are a people free to have opinions, and someone feels strongly enough about something to put it to words. This creates discussion, and discussion more often than not makes us better. Who wouldn't want to be better? The really cool thing is that the other opinion came from a really cool guy who has absolutely no fear about taking risk. I have huge respect for him and his work even if I don't always "get it". He doesn't shoot for me or anyone else to "get it", he's a true artist, and I am proud to post his rebuttal here live from his own webpage.

I think this whole thing may be based on some basic confusion however. There was almost no mainstream media involvement in the 48 Hour Film Project this year. My plan with my blog was to write a somewhat humorous mostly true account of what went on with our team (Team Underexposed) shooting our spy flick. I also planned to link to actual news articles about the 48 Hour Film Project in Greensboro. Of which, I could only find one, and it was written in June. I also reviewed each film, giving my own opinion, and certainly not with the intention of crushing souls. So what happened was people went out looking for real news about it and all they could find was me. That had to be both a confusion and a disappointment.

This said, stay tuned, tomorrow I just might make suggestions!

Posted by at 9:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

One of the things I like the most about working with the Greensboro Film making crowd is that though it is such a large and diverse crowd, everyone likes everyone else, and they really see themselves as one big group and not a bunch of little groups, even when competing. If you think that this simply isn't possible, you obviously weren't at the Awards Ceremony held at the Sky Bar in beautiful downtown Greensboro last night. I wonder if there is some sort of accurate head count of total number of people involved, perhaps based on the waivers we all had to sign. I bet there were well over 200 people involved in the project across the 33 teams, and not a bad one in the bunch.

Going into it last night I usually had two teams in mind for each award, if one team didn't didn't win, I expected the other team to win it. I was very pleased by how spot on my predictions were. There was even one team that I picked for things, but felt in my heart they might get overlooked. I was thrilled to find out that not only were they not overlooked, they got credit where it was due. Great job all teams! Even if you didn't win something yourself, you raised the bar for everyone and made the win even more special (and hard to get) for the team that got it.

Also special thanks to Steven van Vuuren (Thanks for the spelling correction!) who organized a really nice thank you gift for Ed and Nisha on very short notice, you're a hell of a guy Steven, and I am glad I had a chance to work with you back on Soliloquy.

Now the winners.
The Audience Award was based on ballots filled out each night. You had to pick three or your ballot wouldn't count. There were three place awards for each night the winner got the highest percentage of votes on their night.
A Group.
1st place Unhinged: The Sly Stephens Story by Hyperactive Entertainment
2nd place Triggerfinger by The Jive Mechanics
3rd place Slice of Life by The Dirt Bags

B Group.
1st place Organized Art by Good As A Mugg
2nd place The Gift by Team Underexposed
3rd place The Super Best Buds by Nexus

C Group.
1st Place Rappa On Da Ruuf by The Macaroni Project
2nd Place Love Overdue by The Strait 90's
3rd Place Late To A Kill by Phenomena

The other awards are single awards based on the judges pick of the overall best in each particular category.

Best Use of Character - "Unhinged: The Sly Stephens Story" by Hyperative Entertainment

Best Use of Prop - "Super Best Buds" by Nexus

Best Use of Line of Dialogue - "Scarred" by See-Saw Productions

Best Choreography - "Rappa On Da Ruuf" by The Macaroni Project

Best Costumes - "Organized Art" by Good As A Mugg

Best Musical Score - "Love Overdue" by The Strait 90's

Best Sound Design - "The Gift" by Team Underexposed

Best Graphics - "Organized Art" by Good As A Mugg

Best Special Effects - "The Gift" by Team Underexposed

Best Acting - "Unhinged: The Sly Stephens Story" by Hyperactive Entertainment

Best Writing - "Unhinged: The Sly Stephens Story" by Hyperactive Entertainment

Best Editing - "Scarred" by See-Saw Productions

Best Cinematagraphy - "Organized Art" by Good As A Mugg

Best Directing(TIE) - "Organized Art" by Good As A Mugg and - "Unhinged: The Sly Stephens Story" by Hyperactive Entertainment

Best Overall - "Organized Art" by Good As A Mugg

Congratulations to all teams, each win was earned by hard work, and no sleep! Special congratulations to Matt Moore and all of Good As A Mugg for representing Greensboro again this year at the world finals. Last year, their piece called, Yesterday got huge buzz amoung the audience but failed to impress the judges enough for a win in any category. This year we've paid our dues, and the overall bar was raised so high, you can be sure, they will make an even stronger impression. Kick Ass guys!

Posted by at 8:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)