I Was Living in a Moon Colony

I had one of those strange dreams last night. Honestly, I've been having a few more dreams of late that were quite vivid. But much like my life, nothing interesting really happens in them.

But this one's the exception. This was a dream with PLOT.

- The Dream -

It took place sometime in the future, because for some strange reason, I lived on a newly colonized moon. Life is pretty good here, except for the board of directors that did some bad stuff I can't remember, it just felt that they were bad (it's a dream so believe me that they were up to no good. Feelings are as good as evidence and I got a bad feeling around them).

Anyways, I ended up doing some sort of corporate espionage shit that exposed a nasty secret about these guys and the entire colony. Unfortunately, I got caught.

Then I was presented to the board of directors on the moon where for some reason, The Rock was there.



So the board of directors start discussing about how to deal with me and they decide to kill me or some shit (like I said, got a bad feeling about them).

For some reason, The Rock jumps up and says "I'll do it. I'll kill him."

Obviously, I just about shit my dreamt up pants and then he escorts me into the elevator. For some reason, the elevator was operated by this hot blonde chick (Apparently in my future, elevators on the moon need operators). The Rock turns to me and reveals that he is actually a secret agent and was sent to protect me from the bad guys because it's important that this information I got is revealed. The elevator stops he steps out to survey. Then, The Rock gets made into swiss cheese as he's gunned down.

I immediately pushed for the door to close (hot blonde operator couldn't do shit probably because she was in awe that someone killed The Rock. Luckily, I heroed up and pushed the button like a boss).

The elevator rapidly flew down 32 levels (don't know why, but that's the number). We rush out to this rocky terrain under the moon filled with tunnels and shit.

With the bad guys not far behind we run through this really tight maze like dungeon, like something you see out of a Legend of Zelda game (I don't know enough about the moon to confirm or deny such an existence).

Anyways, the tunnels started getting smaller and smaller until we're both on our knees crawling through. Then I started developing an immense phobia about the cramped space and run the hell out, leaving the chick all alone. Basically, I abandon her to save my own ass.

But the bad guys were real close. I manage to dodge them without being seen and I saw that the chasing party was being led by none other than Scarecrow from Batman Begins. Then, I take out my gun and started going Rambo on their asses, protecting my beloved blonde companion whom I just met a few minutes ago. I was poppin' caps left and right while being a bad-ass.

Scarecrow was right on her heels and was about to catch her. I was running through, desperately trying to reach the blonde chick before the guy does any harm to her. I see scarecrow reaching out to her. Then, I blew his brains out and saved her life.

Soon, we make it to safety on a boat where she was no longer a blonde but the hot young red haired version of the maid from American Horror Story. We make out cause I'm a badass.

Action heroes get the hot chicks

I woke up soon after and I knew that this was the one dream I had to blog about for the sheer scale of epicness. It was definitely one of the strangest dreams I had in a while.

Please note: I don't always have strange dreams, but when I do, I make sure it's lucid.

The Winnipeg Jets

I've written a few posts about Hockey on this blog. Usually, it's some lamentation about how the team I'm cheering for won't make it past their opponents in an effort to lessen the blow should my team actually lose. It's so far 1 for 2 in that category (Canada won Gold but Vancouver lost game 7).

Rather than do a post on that, I wanted to reminisce about how I started watching hockey in the first place.

Unlike most Canadian kids, I was never an avid hockey fan. I couldn't tell Mario Lemieux apart from Claude and the only hockey player I knew was Wayne Gretsky (that's only because Canada makes such a big deal out of him). I never got to play a game on a frozen pond lake because I never learned to skate.

I do remember very vividly how in the winter of 2002, my teachers huddled about four classes together to watch a broadcast of the Olympic Hockey game in Salt Lake City. This was the first game I ever watched, and it was something special, but we didn't watch the full game though, just enough. I don't remember the score or if it was a medal game or the round robin portion of the tournament.

But beyond this one little hockey game, I didn't watch any sport in regularity. I have always been one of those people that believed playing sports was far better and far more fun than watching an actual game. Of course, I didn't play much of anything. It was just a lazy kid's sad attempt of lowering the status of spectator sports (that being said, I do enjoy a good game of floor hockey, that was the only thing I ever looked forward to in gym class). I didn't watch hockey at all after the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics. Not until the Winter Olympics of 2010.

2010 was something special to watch because the Olympic games took place in my home city. Despite never having been a close follower of Olympic sport, I had to tune in to this particular one. It was home soil, it was a chance to witness Canadian history. As a country, we haven't won gold on home soil since... ever. We had two prior chances, the 1976 summer games of Montreal and the 1988 winter games of Calgary, both yielding no gold medals.

Would this be our chance? Like every other Canadian, the one medal we actually cared about winning gold in was in Men's Ice Hockey. There was a saying that we would've traded all the gold we won just to guarantee we Hockey Gold. We didn't go through a particularly strong start, losing to the United States in the Round Robin portion of the tournament in a very deciding 3-5 lost. But the team bounced back, eliminating Russia, edging out Slovakia and finally meeting the United States, playing for gold. The game was a harrowing battle, Team Canada dominating play for the first two periods, scoring two goals. But Team U.S.A responded back with two goals of their own, tying the game up in the last few seconds of regulation play. This baby was going into overtime.


The thing is, suddenly, I found a way home. Every night that Vs. broadcasts a home game of the Vancouver Canucks, I get a little slice of the city I call home. The Winter games was the closest I came to feeling at home in a long time, not counting the yearly vacations back. The gold medal brought a sense of pride in me, that

But over the past few years, I've come to the realization of why sports matters. It's not just because it's something fun to watch but also because it brings people together.

Which brings me to the return of the Winnipeg Jets. Obviously, I had no prior knowledge of the team until very recently. I know for a fact that Winnipeg is a bit of a dustbowl with schizophrenic weather. But I never knew that there was once a hockey team in the city of my birthplace. To me, Winnipeg was always the middle of nowhere "city" that no one really cares about. It was generic, it was unspectacular, it was boring.

But the Jets were there. They gave this city a bit of flavour. The team was Winnipeg's statement that "we're not generic and unimportant. We are here". I was five at the time the Jet's relocated to Phoenix. I wasn't a hockey fan then, and I knew of no one that was. Strangely enough, I too relocated. Before moving permanently to Oakland in 2003, I once stayed in the city for six months when I was five.

My parents grew tired of Winnipeg, which in my family terms, meant my dad grew tired of Winnipeg. He was tired of all the house break ins and broken car windows in my neighborhood, but I suspect it wasn't the true reason. The city was too small.

When you blow through four different restaurants in the span of a year and a half as a cook, the list of restaurants you haven't worked in grow exponentially fewer. There weren't too many chinese restaurants in the city. So we packed our bags and moved to the states for six months.

After the visas expired, we relocated again. This time, to Vancouver. I grew up in that city and it is where I met some of my closest friends and where I still hold my most cherished memories. But living in Vancouver wasn't good enough. My dad wanted to live in the States and pursue his dreams of owning a restaurant that for some reason was unattainable in the city. After six years of living in the beautiful city of Vancouver, off we moved again, this time to Oakland, permanently.

To say that life in Oakland is decent would be a vast overstatement. It's not bad, but it's not great. I don't want to get into the many social and political problems that plague this city because this isn't what the post is about, but it's certainly amongst a few of my complains about living here. All I know is this, ever since I left my home country, nothing felt right in me. It was as though something very distinct about my identity was stripped away never to be seen again. I don't know if you could call it homesick. The word sick implies that you eventually recover from it, like a bad flu. I've been living here for a good eight years, and I still dream as though I never left my home.

When the 2010 Winter Olympics rolled around, I was reminded of the times when all of the sixth and seventh graders huddled around our little television to watch the games, specifically hockey. Being Canadian doesn't mean you have to like hockey, but you certainly appreciate how a simple little sport manages to bring people together.

Hockey instilled a sense of identity in me. I know it's superficial and very stereotypical for a Canadian. But the fact is, every time I watch a Canucks hockey game, I see a little bit of the city that I left. It's not much, but it's a sense of familiarity. Hockey has filled that hole for me, that sense of losing your identity.

When I learned about the Winnipeg Jets in all there history, I cheered for their return as well. Not only because I hailed from the town, but because they too have a history much like my own; unwillingly leaving a beloved home to an new and indifferent city.

When I heard that True North Sports and Entertainment purchased the Atlanta Thrashers team and subsequently renamed them the jets, I was elated that Winnipeg was getting their team back. They weren't the original, but I don't think the fans mind. I certainly don't. I suppose the fanbase regained a little bit of what they lost, and I get the benefit of feeling a little closer to home. I suspect that much of the identity of Winnipeggers have been lost in the 15 years of their absence, like something missing has suddenly been replaced in their return.

All I know is that I'll be watching closely.

Welcome back Jets. You should never have left.

Con Air Chronicles

Sunday October 2. Con Air came on, and the weekend was suddenly better. Con Air is the type of movie that know exactly what it is and doesn't apologize for it. It's a big cliched Hollywood blockbuster that Michael Bay wished he directed.

I can't explain it but every time Con Air comes on, I can't help but tune in. It's perhaps my third time that I've watched it in its entirety on cable t.v. and without a doubt one of the movies that I absolutely have to turn to (save for an important hockey game).

One of the major drawing points is Nicolas Cage and his crazy hillbilly hair. If I didn't know any better, the movie could've been a big advertisement for Conair Hair dryers disguised as a cheesy hollywood action film. Certainly Nic Cage's hair was just dying for some treatment. And what about that accent? It was one of the most unconvincing southern accents I've ever heard, and I absolutely loved it. It pushed the movie from just another cliched action flick to an incredibly cheesy and (un)intentionally funny action movie.

I just thought it was something worth sharing.

Free Write 5

It's strange that despite my interest in writing that I have not been more well read than I should have. As I posted in the last free write, I'm currently taking a creative break from writing my script and focusing instead on writing a short story. It's been dawning on me how shameful it is that I have not read more works by classic authors and have the audacity to call myself a writer in any capacity.

I thought it would be a good idea to read authors that I wasn't very well exposed to in High School. It was just yesterday that I came across the full 201 collection of short stories written by Anton Chekhov. I figured that even though I may not be the most well read of writers, I can certainly start becoming more of one. Hopefully I learn a few things.

Btw, if anyone is interested (I don't know who's sorry soul would dare stumble on this blog), here is the link to the full collection of short stories by Anton Chekhov.

Scariest Nightmare I'll Ever Have

It's been a while since I wrote about what I dreamed. I'm not like most folks who'll have the most absurd and quite honestly best sounding acid induced dream you could ever have the hope of experiencing. My dreams can be rather bland. If I'm lucky, I'll have a nightmare of being chased by an invisible phantom. Usually I either get caught or another dream starts. On the occasion that I do get caught, I usually get a very threatening stern verbal warning, then I'm let go for some strange reason.

So it hardly constitutes as a nightmare. The ending is usually disappointing which is why I think those dreams usually end right in the middle of being chased being scared shitless for my life.

This is a dream where I was being chased, and my friends was I scared shitless.

For some reason, I'm back in highschool, except that my highschool is suddenly built with an indoor playground you would find at a Chuck E. Cheese. Nothing really happens here except that I'm going to classes, meeting my old highschool teachers. Until... complete fear enters my veins. I fucking duck down underneath a table and slowly begin finding an escape out. Why? I was being chased. Who?



Steven Seagal.

No, not fat Steven. I'm talking about in his prime, Under Siege, Hard to Kill, Steven Seagal.

Luckily, I managed to out wit him a few times as I tried to make my escape (that or he was simply lulling me into a false sense of security). I don't remember much of what happened, maybe because much didn't happen or the nightmare was far too traumatizing for me to remember the ending. I just knew that when I woke up, I was never more thankful to be living a shitty life. Nothing could possibly compare to the nightmare of being hunted down by a Hard to Kill era Steven Seagal.

As soon as I woke up in bed, I checked every limb of my body to make sure I didn't have any broken bones.

I didn't.

Free Write 4

I'm currently taking a creative break from writing my script. I felt that I've been steeped in building a story for so long that I've forgotten what a story looks and feels like.

So to remedy that, I've decided to slow things down (technically sped things up, I didn't feel like I was getting anywhere by breaking the story) and start writing a short story or two. It might be the perfect way of recharging my creative batteries. I don't have to worry about page count and I don't have to worry about adhering to the conventions of writing a script. Lately, I've been feeling like I was in a creative drought working on the script (which wasn't even any real writing, just outlining and simple prep work stuff -- Took me damn near 6 months to do, yeah totally the poster boy for hard working writer).

So yeah, hopefully I'll get back to it soon with some fresh ideas.

Free Write 3: The Wallaby Hypothesis

There was an article on Yahoo today about possible explanations for crop circles. Now, being a person who is really interested in the idea of extraterrestrials, I've heard of every possible explanation about how crop circles are created. It's very obvious that people are prone to perpetuating hoaxes and it's no surprise that the Yahoo article makes note of human reasons why farmers wake up the next morning to find that their crops look rather flat.

We've heard of the hoaxes, we've heard of the possibility of Alien forces, we've even entertained the idea of the planet's magnetism having something to do with this phenomenon. Now, science has a new theory for the creation of crop circles: Wallabies.

Before you go "huh?", yes it's the Australian marsupial. I'm talking about these creatures:


The article claims that wallabies are responsible for the crop circles in Australia because they consume Poppy plants and get high. Wallabies high on the opium start jumping up and down in circles and inadvertently create crop circles.

Let me repeat this, wallabies are a responsible for crop circles.

Wallabies getting high off of opium.

What the fuck kind of world do we live in?

Those goddamn wallabies.

Free Write 2

I've been thinking about the reasons why somebody would avoid hell. Sure, no one wants to spend an eternity being tortured to death only to realize that you can't die.

But think about Heaven for a second. In heaven you can't do all the sinful things that we enjoy down here on earth. That means no porn, adultery, prostitutes, drugs, provocative music videos (and their music), violence, alcohol, killing, fast cars, fake tits, money, Michael Bay movies, and shellfish. To top it all off, you probably don't even have an internet connection to watch any of these things.

On the other hand, here you have hell for all the sinners, con men, drug addicts, gluttons, adulterers, gamblers, shell fish aficionados and Jersey Shore fans.

Plus I hear it's rather toasty. Can hell really be that bad?

Free Write: The Inception

Anything unstructured goes. Basically, it means that this is the absolute most bullshitting piece of writing I'll ever post because let's face it, when your teachers in elementary school told you to spend five minutes just freewriting, you know they were preparing you on how to bullshit writing.

(See how grammatically incorrect that last sentence was? FREE WRITING baby!)

Translated into proper English, this is the place where goofy things are supposed to happen. Sort of like dreaming but without the images. Like what I imagine blind people do when they fall asleep.

(Yeah I made a blind joke, it shouldn't be too offensive. Besides, it's not like they can braille on a computer screen.)

Somethings I'll feel like writing stuff just because. And these will be my free writes.

How you know you're watching a Micheal Bay Film

Most people by now would know when they're watching a Micheal Bay film. For those who are unfamiliar with his work, I've compiled an easy checklist so that you too, will be able to tell when you are watching a Micheal Bay movie.

American flag waving proudly in either the background or used as an establishing shot in the foreground

A character looks forlornly at the Sunset

A character looks forlornly at the sunrise

Military vehicles

Military Weaponry

Military jargon

Military missiles

token funny black guy

Token funny latino guy

Token funny ethnic stereotype if token funny latino or black guy isn't available

Ill conceived moment of humour

Shouting

homosexual joke, usually done in a way where the main character is mistakenly assumed to be gay, Look to: Bad Boys II and Transformers Dark of the Moon for examples.

Highly saturated colours, often either orange or blue tinged. Usually combined with a sunset or sunrise.

Car chases

Sports cars

Explosions (Duh)

Questionable physics

Polt inaccuracies

Rock music that thinks it's on the edge.

A panning 360 degree shot of our protagonists, usually with the sunset in the background.

Artistic musical dissonance: In other words, a well written and composed orchestral piece played amidst a highly energetic action sequence, used to class up the action.

Helicopter flying to a government destination, usually combined with a shot of the sun in the background.

If your movie has six of these or more, you're watching a Michael Bay Movie. If you have a problem with any of these things being in a movie, well then...



Fuck You. He's Michael Bay.

The Chronicles of Rick

I was walking to the parking garage in Chinatown after a long morning. I had to wake up around 8 o'clock (which in my world means it's still bedtime for me) to go to my bi-annual dentist appointment which doubled as a hair-cut day for the family.

Anyways, we just finished buying our groceries for the week and were about to go home. I just received a call from my buddies to go hang out and have lunch at the chinese buffet (9.99 for all you can eat lunch, fuck yeah I'm going). Given that I was already in Chinatown, it was an offer I couldn't refuse for the sake of convenience. Holding bags of groceries in my hand, I ventured down to the parking garage with my mom and sis to drop things off and head back out. It was there that I heard a familiar tune, which if anybody has ever been rick rolled, would have recognized almost instantaneously.

Now, having been on the internet for a while, I've been rickroll'd quite a few times. I hate it when it happens, not because I hate the song, but more for the utter disappointment you feel when you click on a link to see whatever it is you want to see (no, I'm not talking about porn... ahem) and be greeted with the elvis haired ginger Rick Astley dancing as hard as a white kid could in the 80's.

It's just the thought that someone would actually be singing along to a C.D. of Rick Astley that disturbs me the most. Not that I have anything against it. I just wished I could see the face of the driver when he realized he wasn't the only person in the garage (the music died rather quickly after he saw us).

I guess this could be a continuing series of posts. If I'm unlucky enough to get rickroll'd in real life (meaning I encounter the song never gonna give you up in real life and not on the internet), I will record the circumstances of the rick roll and add it on my blog.

this was when I was rickroll'd in Chinatown's parking garage.

The Agony of Defeat

Stanley Cup finals are over and as you'd expect, and much to my disappointment over my pessimistic prediction, the Vancouver Canucks lost against the Boston Bruins in seven games. I'm sad but strangely not too much so.

The Canucks accomplished quite a lot this season. We led the league in goals differential, had the best power play, penalty kill, won the President's Trophy and finally defeated the Blackhawks and advanced past the second round to play to the seventh game of the Stanley Cup finals. We were just one win away from winning it all. All in all, it's not too bad of an improvement over last year where we fell in the second round to the Chicago Blackhawks.

But you know, you're not really a true sports fan until after you shared in their many disappointments. It's great sharing in a team's victory, you're overjoyed, you scream and you bask in the glow of the team winning the championship. But when you lose, man it sucks, especially when you're so close to winning the Cup.

That's really the spirit of being a sports fan. You celebrate the victories as one and you share the disappointment of defeat.

So ends my extended vacation from writing. I'm getting back on the bike and trying to write consistently again. Maybe I'll have more blog posts, but most likely, I'm gonna finish my outline for my script. I haven't been showing up for work the past few weeks on this thing (mainly because it's summer) so hopefully, I find my writing legs soon.

Getting back on the Bike

It's been a while since I fired up the word processor to write, outline or do any kind of prep work for my script. Actually it's been a while since I wrote anything that wasn't school related. But that's the thing about life, you go to school (or if you're older, work), come home study and relax a little and once magic hour comes for you to start getting work done on the page, you think to yourself that you had a big day, you're kinda exhausted, and quite frankly, you're not feeling like writing.

Welcome to the last few months of my life.

I've been off of school for about two weeks and it certainly doesn't feel like it. It feels that I just finished my last final the night before and I still need to catch up on my rest to be at 100 percent before I start writing again.

Every night I tell myself, "tonight is the night I'm gonna sit my ass down and write" and every night for the last two weeks, I've found another excuse not to. Either I want to catch up on the movies I haven't seen or I want to finish giving notes on a script to a friend, or whatever. I blame the fact that school has been a burdensome orangutan for the past few months. It sapped me of what little will power I had to write by making me write essays. By the end of the school year, I just wanted to sit back and let myself go a little. Just relax. It's gotten so bad that I stared playing video games again, that's how much I wanted to escape putting words to the page.

But... I have only about two months left before I leave for school in the fall. That means I have about two months left to finish writing my script... or at least an outline.

Hockey News: Vancouver vs San Jose

Well, it's a dream match up for me. The San Jose Sharks are playing against my team, the Vancouver Canucks.

This is truly a hockey series where the fan wins no matter who does. Vancouver has finally advanced to their first western conference finals in 17 years and will battle for the position to compete in the Stanley Cup Finals.

The San Jose Sharks are repeat visitors from last year hoping to break through the conference finals after they lost in a sweep against Chicago, the eventual Stanley Cup champions of last year.

Both sides are battling against criticism as playoff underachievers. Both are hoping to prove these very critics wrong, but only one team will be able to do so.

I am very excited to watch this series.

Hockey: Or Why There's Going to be Few Updates this Month

I know that I haven't been updating this blog as much as I want to, but that's mainly because of my having to worry about schoolwork as well as doing my own writing. But it's April, and that means one thing:

It's the Stanley Cup Playoffs. If there's one thing that's going to keep me from writing, it's going to be hockey. But this year, much like last, won't be too much of a problem.

My team, the Vancouver Canucks, can't seem to win against the Chicago Blackhawks in any series ever and even though the series stands at 3-2 in favour of the Canucks, I'm not holding my breath for a victory. We were blown out of the water two games in a row: 7-2 in game four and shut out 5-0 in game 5. And this is after securing a 3-0 lead in the series. Let's face it, gotta give it to the Blackhawks for having the skills to beat us despite the great purge last year where they traded 10 players in order to remain under their salary cap. Canucks added depth to the roster but it never seems like enough to beat the Blackhawks.

It's hard to watch the game when the team, in it's regular season, was the president's trophy winner and have them lose two games back to back in blowout fashion. It's hard to watch the game knowing that the team leads the league in power play, penalty kills, goals for and goals against and have them play that horribly against the Blackhawks to games in a row. It's hard to believe after watching this, that this teams still has a legitimate run at the cup, knowing full well that the teams we may be facing against will either be the San Jose Sharks or the Detroit Red Wings.

This may not be our year but hopefully, it will be soon. Hopefully in a few years from now, I will have a full stoppage in writing and watch the Stanley Cup Playoffs with my team in the finals and their shot of finally winning the Cup.

My Writing Style

If you ask 10 writers how they write, you're going to get 10 different answers. I had taken the advice to write a specific page quota. Stephen King writes 10 pages a day. Because I try to write scripts, I wrote 3 pages a day (so that I could have finish a draft in a month's time). The problem I found, was that I wasn't so concerned with the quality of the pages that I was writing, I was more concerned with how fast I could finish it.

Now, some will say that, for first drafts, that should be your only concern. But for me, it becomes a big roadblock because I lose interest in the draft. I don't want to continue writing something that I know is bad. That's not to say I expect gold from the first minute I write either. It's just a self defeating process when you plow away at 3 pages a day and not look back at the story thinking to yourself, "Don't worry about it, you'll fix in the next draft" only to go back and read that draft and think to yourself "There's nothing here I can use". It sucks the passion out of the project for me. Pretty soon, you look at the page count and kick yourself for not writing three pages a day and you pull up the Final Draft program.

You start writing only to lose passion in it because you start to think about what you wrote the night before and how shitty it is. You plow through another 3 pages of shitty writing and want nothing more than to start over again but you're too far into the draft to give up. Then you start finding excuses not to write, because 3 pages a night is too much damn work with school to worry about.

Suffice it to say, writing 3 pages a day may get the pages done, but it don't write a script.

Frustrated with my current process, I decided to write a short script a few weeks ago in order to take my mind off of this current behemoth of a script. The short concerned a coulrophobic businessman being stuck in an elevator with a clown. It's not any good, but it got me excited to write a new story. Because I knew it wouldn't be longer than 20 pages, I wasn't concerned with making a page quota so I was free to write as much as I could for as long as I could. I was free to experiment.

And strangely enough it worked.

Here were a few things I discovered about my own writing process as I was writing this short script. I found that I liked to edit things and reread what I wrote as I was writing. It certainly goes against the conventional wisdom people tell you about writing, "Just get the first draft done, don't edit and don't concern yourself with making it good". I guess it's just not me. I like the hybrid of editing while I write, I like being able to throw a scene out that I just wrote and completely restructure it. I like this way, my way.

So here I am with another process. Instead of a page quota, I'm setting aside a certain amount of time each night to write. It seems to be working fine for the moment, but it is an incredibly slow process. There are nights where I did nothing but editing what I wrote the night before and look at the page count only to see that I'm two pages shorter than I was last night. But the work is something that I can be proud enough to say that it's a work in progress.

But I guess my main concern right now should be consistency. I'll do whatever thing is necessary to keep me writing.

Strange Sight

It was a Saturday and I was out on one of the rare occasions where I was in Chinatown with my Mother and little sister. I just got my hair cut and my mom wanted to go and get some groceries for the night's dinner.

Because I didn't want to wait inside the grocery store, and neither did my sister, we elected to go out and wait by the street, directly in front of the store, right in front of the vegetables and newspapers and the seemingly always wet concrete. It was better than staying inside the perpetually dirty and fishy smelling grocery store (comes with the territory if you actually sell fish)

So this guy comes out of the grocery store with his dad. Now, the dude couldn't have been older than me, but he certainly was bigger (I'm 5 "5 in comparison -- short, but that shouldn't stop you, ladies). He had this real "Don't fuck with me" kinda attitude, the sorta person that doesn't take bullshit and bad news too well. His little brother was less like him and more "in the moment" and completely happy for being in it. The kid looked downright jovial in comparison to his ultra serious big bro. So the little kid goes in one direction play pretending like he was either an airplane or Superman (can't really tell what goes on in a little kid's mind). His big bro and their father were going in the other direction.

Now, at this point I was thinking that the little kid should be more mindful of his surroundings. Will the kid snap out of his daydream and follow his family? Will the kid's family even notice that this little kid was too busy playing in his pretend world that he's ? How pissed off will this bigger brother look if he found out his little brother went missing? Is there an even more pissed off face than the one he wears?

But I guess I didn't really have much to wonder about. It was like he had this sixth sense of where his brother is. Without turning his head, the big brother snapped his fingers, yelled "Phillip!" and like a little dog, his brother came scampering up to his sides.

My sister and I witnessed this and I remarked that I've never seen such a well trained sibling. We both laughed and felt sorry for this dude's little brother.

Then, my sister turned to me looked me in the eyes and said, "If you ever treated me like that, I would've cut your balls off".

Somehow I get the feeling I missed out on an opportunity when my parents looked to me to babysit my sister when we were younger.

Yearn for a Yesterday

When we were children, we looked forward to the new world, to feel the grass between our feet, the freedom to run as wild as the wind. We wish we weren't burdened by the rules of our parents and so become infatuated with maturity.

When we are young adults, youthful still in spirit, our worries grow only towards the superficial. we looked back to the days of childhood, wishing the innocent world we were brought up in to come back. We wish again to be children.

When we are adults, fresh into the world, we look onto the first steps of being men. We take joy in our newfound responsibilities. finding employment, enjoying a career. However, we feel nothing more than the want to worry about the superficial. We wish nothing more than to again be younger.

At mid-life, responsibility takes hold. We have settled into this life, having grown a family, raised a house, become fathers, become uncles, mothers, aunts, breadwinners. However, living as long as we have, we at this stage long nothing more than to become a person on the precipice of beginning life. We wish we looked onto the world with the simple naivety of an adult experiencing life for the first time. To be imbued with a fresh sense of the world that has long since been missing. Life has at his point exhausted us.

When we become old, life becomes slower. The body deteriorates and at this stage, we wish that we were mid-life, that the only that bothers our minds is whether our children are safe and secure for the night and not whether we have the ability to climb the stairs to work the net day. We wish that the simple things in life such as strolling in the park isn't nearly as difficult as it now is.

At the twilight of our lives, the pains of life are numbed as death waits at the door. We are not concerned with many things at this point. However, much like how we've done so for most of our lives, we look back and reflect on our lives.

But at this point, we don't wish we were again young and youthful and filled with unbridled energy. On our deathbeds, we regret that we spent a lifetime of yearning for something that has passed and can never return.

Math: A Poem

I hate math

It's frustrating

There's too many numbers

Wastes paper.

Oysters and other thoughts about Food

I was having dinner one night not too long ago, where my mom cooked a meal, which is an occurrence that's getting rarer by the day (due in no part for a particular reason that because I am a good son and will never speak ill of my own mother or her abilities as a cook, will refrain from further explanation). That night, she prepared a fried oyster dinner served with worchester sauce which I have to admit was quite delicious. Now, I was never a fan of eating oysters but somehow (they are rather disgusting to look at and to eat), the fried nature of the dish along with the zesty punch of worchester sauce made consuming the oysters enjoyable, perhaps, for the first time.

As I gazed upon this thing people call "food", which looked like a deep fried zombie's vagina, I wondered to myself; Whoever was the first to do it, it would've taken someone quite brave to pry open an oyster and think eating such a creature was a good idea.

To think that someone back in ancient times picked up an oyster shell, which by all means looks like a fancy rock to a simple man, pried it open thinking that there was something useful in said fancy rock, looked upon this thing inside that looked like coconut pudding mixed with a bad bacterial infection and said to himself, "what the hell?", chucked his neck back and swallowed it whole with nary a worry about what exactly it was he consumed.

Did this man lose a bet? Was he just a starving man looking for something to eat? Or did he really think that there was something inherently important in rocks that no one else had discovered and thought to be the first pioneer in aquatic rock examination and just stumbled upon oysters by accident?

And let's not forget how difficult it actually is to pry open an oyster shell. Whoever this person was, really lived on the wild and dangerous side of life or really really wanted to eat this thing.

But perhaps the Irish author, essayist and satirist, Jonathan Swift, said it best: "He was a bold man that first ate an oyster".

Bold or crazy? Or just plain stupid? I think the fact that there isn't a clear answer is what disturbs me the most. It's the idea that an entire cuisine was possibly created upon the whims of a crazy man's stomach is what keeps me up at night.

It leads me to think; what about other foods? Forget about the bizarre things like snails and insects, what about the "normal foods"? Like milk? Some guy observed a calf sucking on a cow's teat for food and thought it was a good idea to do the same.
Or pomegranates? These fruits don't make sense, they're fruits that are only an inch and a half of skin and seeds, nothing more.

How many crazy people must have there been that took the bold path and said to the world when presented with a new animal, plant, or mollusk, "fuck it, I'm eating it"?

The human stomach knows no bounds.

A few of my contemplations

There seems to be this prevailing notion amongst those in my age bracket that the only goal in life is to be successful. You know the type, the wide eyed 18 year old that just graduated from high school, and thinks he can study something tough and prestigious and be given the power to change the world, marry a beautiful wife, buy two houses, have a family and gain the respect of his peers. It almost seems that our youth is put on a rail car, that our lives and future are chosen for us and we just make a decision every once in while which track to take: left or right. Never once do we ask if we want to be on such a transportation.

How many of us have dreams that are outright crazy, only to be told that the journey there is too tough, too financially insecure, too unfulfilling, or perhaps too unrespected?

Which leads me to think a rather depressing thought: How many of us deny ourselves to dream that would lead us to become the people we are meant to be for fear of failure, rejection and misunderstanding from those around you? How many potential artists, scientists, musicians, painters exist?

Perhaps the tragic part of all this isn't simply the denial of the individual but rather the passivity one has towards life. To live and be passionless, to sleepwalk through life, to be without any curiosity. It's an common occurrence whenever I ask people around me what subjects they are interested only to hear "nothing really".

What kind of world do we live in when intellectual curiosity is killed when there's a stratification amongst education. What does it say about us when Art programs in schools are always the first on the chopping block because they are deemed unimportant subjects?

Hidden Blogs

It's interesting to see how few posts I managed to come up with over the course of a year. Fifty seven seems like a light amount by blog standards. Still, fifty seven for the past two years is still more than the average writer who only blogs once on a blue moon. The thing is, I have spent far more time writing uncompleted blog posts than publishing them. What you actually read is merely the stuff that I have completed.

I have about fifty more posts in the drafts and editing stage hidden behind this blog. Blogs about movies, more script reviews I never completed reviewing, contemplations about life, two short stories and many others.

Yes, there's far more underneath than what my blog has shown but due to my laziness and perfectionist nature, I have not have the time to go back and complete said posts. The blog is the result of half completed ideas.

That's not to say I won't go back to complete them. Most likely, I will. But don't hold your breath on it happening any time soon since school has resumed a few days ago.

About Time

So I finally went on to finish my first "draft" and despite my misgivings, it's actually not as bad as I thought it would turn out to be. Don't get me wrong, it's still rather unreadable, and I doubt anybody who reads it will find anything from the script enjoyable or workable. But I feel damned proud that I managed to write something that wasn't a complete disaster.

But I guess I'm just surprised at myself for actually completing something that wasn't all that terrible. The script still needs a lot of work but overall, I'm happy I did it. Plus it's much better than sitting around coming up with ideas for things I will never write because I think it's just going to suck. Better to make something a reality and learn from your mistakes than thinking about doing something perfectly the first time around.

Realistically speaking, even with a re-written outline to work off of after I finish reading my own script, I think the actual script is about four or five drafts away from being mediocre. I guess part of the hard work is over, which is laying down the groundwork for subsequent drafts.

But I should pop open a glass of digital Apple Cider to celebrate.

Ah, the sweet taste of accomplishment

Fifty Seven

That's the number of updates I have for the year of 2010. That's a twenty-six post improvement over the year before.

I think a self congratulatory pat on the back is in full order.

*pats self on the back

Good work ol' chap.

Now let's see some more consistent writing on this damn pathetic blog.

A few thoughts about taking advice from other writers...

I've been thinking a bit... I really have no idea what I'm talking about. Over the past year on this blog, I've been thinking about scripts, scripts, scripts and more scripts. The movies I've been reviewing were more about the story structure and less about my enjoyment of it. The thing is, I have all these ideas about what I think makes a good story...

and I really have nothing to show for it. Nothing that really shows that I understand anything about screenwriting or good storytelling.

I fear that the more I write about story structure, and without actually having too much writing experience, the less I actually understand about writing. Allow me to explain.

The reason I've been more contemplative the past few months, is because of my Intro to Islam class that I took last semester. Let's rewind a bit.

Back in the summer, I was perusing the academic requirements for transferring into a university (as anyone who knows, I'm the loser who chose to drop out UC Davis because I didn't like it -- and hate seems to be too mild a word to describe my tumultuous year as a college freshman but that's another story for another day).

I found out that I needed to take a few specific classes, I got a few requirements out of the way, but needed one more humanities course, a math course (fuck math btw), and an logic course. I really wanted to get into the Mythology Symbols and Folklore class because I heard how some people felt learning about Mythology helped in understanding character archetypes, etc, etc, Joseph Campbell, blah blah blah... Suffice it to say, I wanted in because it related to what I was trying to learn about: Screenwriting. And anyone who's perused sites about screenwriting, Joseph Campbell's name seems to pop up quite frequently because many aspiring writers use his work as a structure to organize their writing.

But as luck would have it, the class was filled up. I put myself on the waitlist and in the meantime, I looked over for other humanities courses. Intro To Islam popped up as one of the few other open Humanities courses so I signed myself up for that class as a back-up in case I didn't get in. Religious studies isn't really my thing, I'm an atheist and believe that religion has brought nothing but pain to the world (more on this in another blog post for another time). But in between Intro to Islam and a boring sounding class like Human Experience and Aesthetics, I think Islam sounded like a pretty good bet as far as interest goes. Afterall, I live in the western world and people worship Jesus like he's... well Jesus. So learning about someone like Mohammed instead should at least be new and kinda interesting. Except I was really hoping that I wouldn't have to take the class.

So fast forward to the day where class started. I went back to the college website and looked on the mythologies class. Surprisingly, someone dropped out of the class last minute so... joy! I don't have to take the Islam class. Only one more problem, I don't have enough credits to be considered a full time student. I figured that since I was already signed up for the Islam class, I would go try it out and if I hated it, I'll go back home, drop the class and look for another one. Shouldn't be too hard right?

Sure, the study of any religion is something that I felt would never appreciate and admittedly, I was only taking the class because I needed to complete a humanities course for my transfer requirements.

I guess you can say what happens next was one of those happy little accidents that you experience once on a blue moon.

So I entered the classroom, it was a hot and humid day. The kind of day I wish I didn't come so prepared for mildly cool weather. We have forty some sweaty people cramped up in this little classroom with the sun shining directly in through the window and absolutely no air conditioning to speak of. I went in, sweat and all, and took my seat.

At the front of the classroom stood this man. Amir Sabsevary. He wore this white tunic like thing that made him look like one of those religious men you see travelling to mecca. And as soon as he talked, he cracked a joke. I don't remember exactly what it was he said but I chuckled and laughed. If you sat in his class for a day, you come to realize, this guy was pretty self deprecating and didn't take himself too seriously.

Strangely for some reason, he reminded me of Steve Carell... if he were Muslim. It wasn't long before I found out that behind this teacher was one of the few teachers, one of the few people, who truly had something important to teach.

Amir Sabsevary is one of those teachers that you meet once in a lifetime. He's probably one of the most important people I have ever had the pleasure of being a student of.

Amid all the things the he taught us, he talked more about the pains felt by people, the frustrations that people feel as they live these infinitely insignificant lives. Despite my thoughts and feelings about religious institutions, I felt compelled to learn more about them. So every class I went in, quietly eager to learn more about religion.

I know what you're thinking dear reader -- what does any of this have with screenwriting? All in due time. Patience.

Amir lectured about the religious figures: Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, and Moses. My understanding of these people have changed drastically over the course.

He lectured less about the religion of islam and more about the reasons why religion was and still is necessary for people. He talked about the amount of emotional pain that many individuals all tragically face in life. You see, when we look at figures such as Jesus Christ, Moses, Mohammed, The Buddha, we come to understand that these are people who have everything they could hope for in their life but for whatever reason, found the life that they lived unfulfilling.

Mohammed, Buddha, and Moses were all people who lived lives of wealth. Jesus, we didn't talk much about though but the point of the course wasn't about Jesus. The thing is, there's a common thread between these religious figures. They all felt, for whatever reason, disillusioned about their lives. Despite having everything that SHOULD make them happy, they were unsatisfied. And so, these religious figures go on their own journeys. They abandoned their kingdom, their wealth, in search for and end to their emotional sufferings. Buddha meditated under a tree, Mohammed the mountains, and Moses... uh... the mountains. Eventually, Angels, or God depending on your denomination, spoke to these individuals and gave them their spiritual guidance. They returned back to society changed men, with a new insight to life. They have found the solution to the end of suffering.

Because of their spiritual enlightenment, many people became drawn towards these individuals and they wanted to be more like them. They followed in the footsteps of these figures and became prophets.

Of course generations pass and we're no closer towards ending suffering. People are just as lost spiritually as they have been since religion took shape. So why is that? Why is it that people who follow the teachings of Buddha, Christ, Mohammed, and Moses still find life frustrating? Why is it that despite having a belief in their religious doctrines, doctrines that promises spiritual salvation, that people still feel the bleakness and frustrations of life?

The thing is he argues, is that many people look on to these religious figures and put them up on these pedestals because they have lived a life filled with passion, and we worship them because we want to attain the same spiritual plane as these figures. We read their works, the bible, the Koran, the four noble truths, the torah, in the hopes that we can understand these people and perhaps selfishly, to become more like them. We are, as Amir would argue, blinded people trapped in a cave looking for a light to guide the way. Human beings looking up at the sky wishing to be a part of what we can never be.

But what I've come to understand is that reading about these figures and their journeys through their lives will not in any way give you any more insight into what you will find to be personal spiritual salvation.

We will never understand Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha and Moses because we have never walked in their shoes. People follow religion because they too feel the pains and frustrations with life much like these religious figures, and they look upon them hoping that there are wise insights into dealing with these chaotic emotions. But they will never truly understand these men because of one important fact: People who follow religion have not become as enlightened as the religious figures they worship. They have not walked the path of Christ, have not felt the pain Mohammed felt, and have not become compelled to discover the root of these problems that society faces. Religious worshipers are shadows. Blindly following their chosen prophets without truly understanding who they are. See, Mohammed, Jesus, Buddha, and Moses became enlightened. They discovered the truth about their own spiritual suffering, became touched by "God", and wrote down the pillars of their enlightenment to teach to people. And generations go by and we have these different sects within religions, people arguing over who's right who's wrong, which testament to follow, which version of the Koran to read. People have, in their search for spiritual salvation, perverted the very teachings of these religious figures by blindly following them.

These things were part of what Amir taught us in the Intro to Islam class.

Now comes the answer you've been wondering about. What does this have to do with anything? Well as I've said, I've been contemplating a lot about my life the past few months. I've been thinking about my own experiences with writing and how, much like a religious worshiper, looked upon individuals of great knowledge teach about the craft of screenwriting and incorporating it all into my own writing without truly understanding what it is I was doing.

The thing is, I haven't suffered the life of a writer. All I have accomplished is essentially the same thing as many who follow religion. Instead of trying to understand through my own experiences what works and what doesn't work, I've looked onto other authors, the Jesus' and Mohammed's of the writing world, as inspiration so that I can be more like them, so that I can understand what they are trying to communicate about their process of writing. But because I haven't walked in their shoes, and will never do, I can never understand whatever it is they offer to teach.

Writing, much like life is a personal journey. We can look at the works of others, and listen to them talk about writing and their own processes in regards to the craft but will never understand what it means to truly be a writer until we have poured our own sweat and blood into our own pieces of writing, to suffer for our own passions.

So I guess, until I have actually experienced success as a writer, whatever my meditations are regarding the craft will ultimately be useless and whatever I have to say about the craft will therefore be useless to others. The contemplations will only be able to serve my own needs and no others because no one will venture step by step the same path as I have, much like how I will never venture forth step by step on the same path as you, or Steven King or William Shakespeare. Their meditations on writing will serve only themselves because it worked for them and anyone who looks upon their advice for inspiration, for solutions, will come up empty. To understand is to become.

So I guess I say this to someone who happens to accidentally happen upon my blog and even more miraculously, click on this specific post. Whatever it is you do, don't spend too much time listening to the professionals of the field trying to understand how THEY do things, don't worship them, don't try to understand them and their processes. To truly be, you must do.

Become passionate. Do, as though tomorrow is your last day. Do it from the heart.