(Easily one of my favorite episodes of The Simpsons…)

For the past nine months, I have had a baby on board. It’s been a wild ride full of ups and downs (thankfully, more ups than downs) and many surprises. This journey is almost at an end. I am standing by for either that first contraction or word from my doctor that she needs to induce, so I decided to write about my experiences to keep from losing my mind…

I get many of the same questions wherever I go. There’s the standard “so, what’s your major” trio that tends to happen when I am standing in line or waiting in an elevator. They usually come in this order:

1. When are you due?

2. Is it a boy or a girl?

3. Is this your first?

The answers, in order, are April 9th, boy and yes. Usually, after these questions are answered, there is a polite “congratulations.” Sometimes this is followed by a bit of advice or an anecdote if the person has their own children. Sometimes these tips are welcome: “being a parent is an amazing experience” or “here is the name of a friend of mine who is an experienced doula.” Sometimes they aren’t: “say goodbye to your life” or “that’s a terrible name- you should pick names from the Bible” (a verbatim quote. Tip: never discuss names with people and never discuss babies with crazy people). Occasionally, the questions are just shocking. “How old are you?” was rude and confusing, particularly since it was asked because I looked “way too young to be having a baby” (only in Los Angeles). “You’re not carrying twins? That’s a HUGE baby!” almost got a little old lady kicked in the shin. I have had the urge to smack one or two people, but I’ve yet to do it. That leads me to some of my own little surprises about pregnancy. Maybe these are myths, maybe these aren’t, but these are a few of the pregnancy stereotypes that didn’t quite fit me:

Pregnant women are crazy. Are they? I’ve seen so much about the “crazy hormones” that us pregnant women get. I think a lot of it is to make people feel better about being insensitive assholes. Typically on an internet Q&A forum:

Q: HELP!! My wife/girlfriend got angry at me and says I never help around the house but I totally did the dishes once last week! She used to be so happy and carefree and let me do whatever I wanted and made me sandwiches all the time. What is going on?!

A: Relax, bro! It’s just hormones. Women just go inexplicably crazy when they are pregnant. It’s for sure nothing you are doing.

I only had four real emotional breakdowns and they all had VERY valid reasons, one of which included being in my third week of fighting a terrible virus while simultaneously being 9 months pregnant and unable to take most medications, lie in a comfortable position or sleep. At all. Between coughing fits, I was pummeled with tiny fists and feet begging “why are you shaking my house so much, mom?!” I felt terrible because I was horribly sick, but also filled with guilt whenever I would cough, sneeze or blow my nose. I was terrified of going into labor in such a state. I was… quite justifiably… a little emotional. Nah. I’m sure it was just hormones and I was probably just upset about getting fat or whatever…

I do admit that my BS tolerance levels are at an all-time low, but I don’t attribute this to “crazy hormones.” It’s not comfortable being pregnant and it never lets up. You are building a new person 24/7 for nine months and you’re already not getting your usual amount of sleep. You need help. You’re nervous, excited, scared, responsible for every step of that little human’s growth and in a great deal of physical discomfort. You can’t have a glass of wine to unwind and I sure didn’t get to do any of my usual “stress busting” activities (see photos, below).  Hormones were the least of my concerns. Sure, there was the occasional “silly” tear shed for pet food commercials and at movies that weren’t tragically sad, but hey, if you don’t cry during that Sarah McLaughlin Humane Society commercial, you probably don’t have a soul.

Those tears fell LONG before I was pregnant! Which leads me to my next myth:

Pregnant women have wild food cravings. No again. This was another of those FAQs for which I never had a satisfying answer for anyone. Yeah, I love potato chips with a jalapeno pepper slice and dipped in ranch dressing, but I created that little concoction years ago. I had a woman approach me in the grocery store when I was buying ice cream: “Wow! Do pregnant women seriously crave ice cream?” Well, sure. But, uh… do you not? (By the way, being pregnant is apparently like wearing a giant sign that says “PLEASE APPROACH ME AND START A CONVERSATION!”) I probably ate more peanut butter than usual, but otherwise, my diet was pretty much the same. The only exception was my miserable first trimester. That was the only time I had real food aversions. I could not abide chicken. I couldn’t eat it, smell it, look at it or even think about it without feeling ill. Most of the foods I craved at that time were either starchy (bagels) or sugary (lots of fruit- especially mango and watermelon). I didn’t ever wake my boyfriend up in the middle of the night and insist he go get me Pad Thai with a side of chocolate cupcakes and pickle juice. Most of these food preferences were less about a “craving” and more about wanting to eat something that wouldn’t make me feel sick to my stomach. Which leads nicely to:

Morning sickness is bullshit. I don’t mean that it doesn’t happen, I mean that “morning sickness” is cruelly misnamed. My nausea usually came at night, right about as I was leaving work. It came off and on throughout most of the day, as well. It was paralyzing. The worst part is, I didn’t actually get sick, I just felt like I was constantly on the verge of getting sick. Though I will admit, hearing about Kate Middleton’s horrible affliction made me complain a little less. Because these symptoms lasted weeks and came rather randomly, I couldn’t really take time off of work, but I had to cease most of the activities I normally would have been able to do in that first trimester. Most notably, this:

And this:

And this:

Sigh… I know I will get to do these things again, but I have really missed them over the past nine months.

We live in an advanced society and people aren’t weird about pregnancy anymore. Um. No. I’ve had all sorts of obstacles to overcome with this. I’ve dealt with loads of outright discrimination and this strange mix of over and under-reaction to my physical activities. I have had to explain to people how my baby is not- even by scientific definition- a “parasite.”  Yes, there were people (coworkers, even) referring to him that way. Even if you WANT to make that argument, don’t make it to a pregnant woman whose feelings about her own pregnancy you do not know. It’s not clever or cute. I had one guy at work get outright angry at me because after a meeting, some of my coworkers lingered to ask me questions about my (newly announced) pregnancy. As our meeting was clearing out, this guy barked, “come on! We have to do a conference call in here in ten minutes and you girls are over there talking about PREGNANCY!” I guess us “girls” don’t get that you need a solid ten minutes of no lady talk before a room is fit for a conference call. Also, for the people who are “grossed out” by pregnancy: you were once a fetus too. Grow the eff up. Yeah, it’s not always pleasant and it’s sometimes gross, but I don’t need you explaining why it’s okay for you to be offensive and make me feel like I should be hidden under a tent. Oh, and while we are at it:

I don’t have a clue what I am doing. Apparently. I’ve never read a book on pregnancy. Never looked it up online (what is Google?) I don’t have a doctor I can talk to. I have no maternal instincts. I’ve never even known anyone else in my entire life who has been pregnant and can tell me things about pregnancy (e.g. my own mother). I am SO HAPPY you know everything about my “condition,” person I hardly know! Please enlighten me. One woman tracked my every movement every day: Did I know I couldn’t eat feta? I should probably sell my cat because of her litter box? I should probably leave my boyfriend because he will be just like her ex husband? My showers are too hot? No wait… too cold? I should see my doctor more often? I shouldn’t get my hair dyed? I shouldn’t drink coffee? I should eat more, even if it doesn’t seem appetizing? I wish it ended there, but this woman had me wondering if I should just quarantine myself. As if it’s not stressful enough that so much of the information out there is conflicting.

It’s all by the books. Except the books say different hings. And why in the world are fetuses measured against the size of produce? I suppose it’s because us ladies spend so much time doing the grocery shopping and wouldn’t be able to envision “golf ball sized” versus “baseball sized” or some other consistent size comparison. But seriously, what the heck? Here is an example of how one baby app sizes up my growing kid:

Week 4: poppyseed. Okay. Yeah, I got that. He’s tiny.

Week 5: appleseed. Yep. I can see that.

Week 6: pea. Again. Pretty consistent. He’s pea sized. Got it.

Week 7: blueberry. Um… wait. I just grabbed a handful. Some are smaller than peas. I don’t…

Week 8: raspberry. Okay? Is he not growing?

Let’s jump ahead to week 11: lime. Okay. That’s bigger than a raspberry. Got it.

Week 12: plum. Week 13: peach. Wait wait. Are we talking about organic fruit or…? Son of a bitch. I give up. Right now, I am at week 39: watermelon. Well, hell! THAT’S gonna hurt:

Next week, I will be at week 40: jackfruit. Whatever the f*&$ that is. Why do I even want to envision him as something edible anyway? Maybe that’s why people dress their babies as food for Halloween.

I’ll get by with a little help from my friends. This one is true. My friends have really been there for me. Sure, there were a couple who shunned me (pregnancy is not contagious, you know) and acted like my professional and social lives were over, but by and large, my real friends and family came through for me. Sometimes the love was almost overwhelming, but for those of you who have been checking in on me, inviting me to hang out, reminding me that I can ask you for help, driving me to my appointments when needed, cooking me food: you are all wonderful and I love each and every one of you. You kept me sane and happy. Which leads me to my final point:

Pregnant women are smug. Hmm. I was feeling a lot of things: tired, happy, sad, brooding, worried, alone, scared, overwhelmed, gassy, bloated, lazy… Sorry Garfunkel and Oates, but smug just wasn’t one of them!

This shot took me DAYS to set up and render. I made it for my demo reel so I could get a job at Rhythm + Hues in 2006.

R+H created Babe, Richard Parker from Life of Pi, Aslan, the Geiko gecko and countless other memorable CG characters. They recently filed for bankruptcy (a disturbing trend amongst VFX houses lately). Pi won best VFX tonight and when the rep started thanking R+H, they not only played him off stage, but they muted his mic. R+H got no mention from the cinematographer (who, let’s face it, owes many of his gorgeous “shots” to the VFX) to even the director, who only expressed that he wished VFX could be cheaper.

People are under the impression that CGI requires nothing more than a button press. Computers are a tool, just like a pen, but it still takes real artists to pull it all off. I spent thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours learning these skills and I consider myself to be nowhere near the caliber of the people who pulled off Life of Pi. I struggled to find work when I moved out here and was SHOCKED at what people were willing to pay. Luckily, I had other skills to fall back on, but I miss this work and would like to think that I could someday return to it AND support my family. And for my friends who are struggling to find that balance, I hope it gets better. Without the VFX artists, many of the most profitable movies would be nothing more than a couple of actors standing in front of a green screen. I hope to see a reverse in this trend and respect to the artist.

Since I couldn’t show up in person to stand with the artists, I have to settle for making a point via the internets: https://www.facebook.com/VfxSolidarityIntl and @VFXSoldier on Twitter are two great sources of more information.

Ah, Futurama! One of the few things on television that actually fact checks their science references… and takes great pleasure in ripping apart things that don’t.

The recent meteor event in Russia has made me wish that newscasters and blog writers had Morbo sitting next to them whenever they made some lame joke or speculation about some scientific phenomenon.

I suppose the news stopped being objective and checking their facts a long time ago, and about more than just science, but the confidence with which newscasters and writers present their scientific “facts” really irritates me.

I don’t claim to be a science expert, but it is a passion of mine. I studied astronomy and physics for a while and almost made a career out of it. You don’t have to get that far into science, though, to know how to do a quick cross-referenced Google search. And if you are about to explain some scientific phenomenon to a worried public, you should consult a scientist. Otherwise, you end up saying stupid things like this:

(Please ignore the fact that this video clip is coming from a UFO playlist- it is a very much identified falling object.) First of all “I tracked those meteors…” No you didn’t. You simply did a Google search to see if there were any meteor showers that happened to be taking place when the footage was captured. Also, meteors don’t actually come from constellations, they just appear to. Constellations are apparent arrangements of stars many light years away, not throwers of fireballs. And while the name “Quadrands Muralis” is obsolete, constellations do not “go extinct.” We just decide we don’t like them anymore. Then we have “they are often hard to see because the northern sky is usually cloudy.” That’s right. Clouds like to gather in the north… for… strategic… science purposes. Forget that “The Northern Sky” is relative to where you are standing and… you know what, I’m not even going to dignify that statement with further commenting.

Actually, the women who were joking around were absolutely right! This was, in fact, a Russian rocket body that entered the Earth’s atmosphere, broke into pieces and fell to the ground. I suspected it was something like this the first time I saw this footage. First of all, it is moving pretty slowly. Meteors streak and burn up quite a bit faster than this. Secondly, if you compare the colors and the shapes of the fragments to actual man-made objects burning in the atmosphere (sadly, the Columbia footage comes to mind), this what it looks like.

Then the facepalm moment. “I mean you know it all, Tomer. YOU’RE OUR METEOROLOGIST?!” A. Meteorology is not astronomy. B. Please see my comment about “northern clouds.” An actual weather scientist should know better.

The reason the recent Russia event reminded me of this was that I am getting sick of every streak of light being attributed to a “meteor shower.” I wish the above footage is what a meteor shower looked like! It would make those chilly early morning trips to the mountains so much more exciting than the 10-15 quick streaks you actually end up seeing.

Early reports of the Russian meteor were that it was a meteor shower or even… meteor rain? I’m sure everyone has seen the footage a million times at this point, but here it is again:

Okay, some quick vocabulary (from NASA):

Asteroid: A relatively small, inactive, rocky body orbiting the Sun.

Comet: A relatively small, at times active, object whose ices can vaporize in sunlight forming an atmosphere (coma) of dust and gas and, sometimes, a tail of dust and/or gas.

Meteoroid: A small particle from a comet or asteroid orbiting the Sun.

Meteor: The light phenomena which results when a meteoroid enters the Earth’s atmosphere and vaporizes; a shooting star.

Meteorite: A meteoroid that survives its passage through the Earth’s atmosphere and lands upon the Earth’s surface.

So, an asteroid or a meteoroid enters the Earth’s atmosphere where it become a meteor. It either burns up or it makes it to the surface as a meteorite. OR in the case of the Russian event, it’s a bolide, or fireball or in this particular case, a “detonating fireball.”

Pretty cool, right? Contrast that with a meteor shower. Meteor showers occur when the Earth passes through clouds of debris from comets. Yes, you can have all of that excitement in a meteor shower, but usually what you have is tiny streaks across the sky over several hours. Still cool, but not quite as spectacular as either of the two videos above. They are also global events (you can’t have a Russian meteor shower, for example) and come like clockwork every year- not just randomly.

And meteor rain? That… doesn’t exist, actually. At least, not in scientific terms.

So the next time a newscaster attributes some weird thing in the sky to a meteor shower, I want Morbo there to tell them:

A while back I thought it would be a good idea to chronicle some of my extras gigs in my blog. Then all the social networks, my day job as a web developer and my noveling and screenwriting efforts made maintaining my website seem more like a chore than the fun thing I used to do. This is a return to that. I’m not going to make the promise that I will regularly update (a promise that I will inevitably break), but I would like to get back in the habit.

As for extras work, it was a super fun thing I did when I first moved out to Los Angeles and could afford to fart around before getting down to business. I don’t mean to diminish the life of the full-time professional extra. It’s actually a tough way to make money and if you can do it regularly, you are magic and I salute you. Yes, it’s quite possible to make your living being a “blur” as people will so kindly refer to them (hey, ninjas are blurs too, and NO ONE messes with ninjas), but I had other aspirations and other obligations. Sadly, my blur days are becoming just that… So I want to write about them before they are gone.

My first gig was 100 Questions. A very short-lived sitcom on… some network. I don’t think my scene ever made it onto the small screen, but I basically had to sit in a pants suit and fake sip a fake martini. I’ve already written that story. I’ve also already written the Cold Case story, so you can catch up on those if you so desire.

My third extras gig was Castle. NOW we’re talking! Though I don’t watch it regularly, I do enjoy the show- especially the Nathan Fillion part of the show- so I was excited when they told me I would be in it. They informed me that I would be a New York subway patron. Sweet! I can play that! I lived in New York for almost four years. I know from ridin’ the subway, yo! I decided to go method for this one.

On that note, one thing you should know, should you desire to be an extra or find yourself on set one day: background work is NOT acting. No one appreciates your efforts to stand out. You are “background talent.” Your goal is to blend in (see earlier ninja comment). Also, no one on the set really wants to hear about all of the acting you do, the workshops and schools you attended, the people you have met… Actually, scratch that. Some people do want to hear about that. And they are sitting at that table over there. Not at my table, where I am clearly trying to read American Gods by Neil Gaiman.

Yes, I was being crabby on the set that night. It took far too long for me to find parking and meander through the trailers to find the 2nd AD. Plus, this was a night shoot and I’d heard rumors that we might not get done until four in the morning. There was also limited food for my then-vegetarian self to eat and I was starving. Knowing every eatery nearby would be closing soon and I would be reduced to eating chips and fruit snacks for the next six hours filled me with dread. On top of that, I found out that the scene we were shooting would have NOTHING TO DO with Nathan Fillion. At all. I have this annoying curse of being where he is- sometimes EXACTLY where he is- and never getting to see or meet him. More on that later.

While I was sitting at one of the few tables that had adequate reading light and feeling sorry for my(let’s face it, pretty spoiled)self, I got a call. When I answered it, the voice of my dad’s partner answered back and I suddenly got very nervous. Don’t get me wrong, we get along great and I love talking to her, but it was a bit odd to get a call from her late at night, knowing that it was three hours later where she was. As it turns out, I had reason to be nervous. My dad had suffered a heart attack. Now, I do love suspense, but not where my family is concerned, so let me just spoil this and spare you: he’s fine. Everything turned out great. However, that information would not come to light for another few weeks and the rest of my time on set was spent worrying about him.

I felt trapped. He would need a surgery and I wanted to fly out for it, but I was unable to do anything about it. I alternated between distracting myself with my book and researching flights on my ten-percent-battery-life phone. I decided the best thing for me to do would be to just finish out the night and go home. Needless to say, much of the evening was a bit of a blur after that. I remember walking with my book, trying to look like a New Yorker. I was depressed and self-occupied, so I think I pulled it off quite nicely.

The one detail I do remember from the night is that I was selected to be one of the subway patrons who would go through the turnstile right as the bad guy jumped over to escape Beckett. Since my face would be in the shot, I had to pretend like I noticed, but not really care. Much like I would have reacted in New York had I seen someone jump over the turnstile. The turnstiles the actors were to jump over were very clearly marked with tape. We were told that we could go through any of the other turnstiles, but that we had to stay out of the way of the marked turnstiles.

When the first take came up, I found an unmarked turnstile and set my intention to walk through it. I headed toward it (without looking like I’m heading toward it) and BOOM, the bad guy jumps over the unmarked turnstile. Any look of shock I had as this actor came hurtling at me uncontrollably was completely genuine. They called a cut. No one blamed anyone (mostly because it wasn’t my fault… they have no problem yelling at extras, but tend to hold back with the talent), but I was much more cautious about approaching the turnstiles on subsequent takes. I mean, I would love to be a stuntwoman, but that’s a completely different pay grade with a totally different set of rules and insurance requirements.

I did manage to make it in the shot, at least- see above picture. This was season 2, episode 18. I’m that blur that looks kind of like… well a rather gothy New Yorker. And see that green blur? That’s my copy of American Gods (that book really did help me get through that shoot).

I was later used in three other shots, but never made it onto the screen. It’s pretty amazing. With the exception of two people veryone you see on the screen was an extra or a stunt person. Some of them got paid more than others. I got paid about $80 to be there that night, and I was on the lower end of that price range so… do the math. It’s expensive to put bodies in scenes!

I heard on the local news that this weather was responsible for countless traffic problems. Being from Colorado, where I had to drive my 1988 Honda Civic while dealing with weather phenomena such as hail storms, tornado warnings, blizzards that dump a foot or more of snow,  sub zero temperatures and black ice on a fairly regular basis, I found it hard to relate, initially. I assumed the problem was psychological. Upon further study (and my gradual SoCal acclimatization), however, I have come to the conclusion that the weather- and probably science- is clearly to blame. Here are some of my findings:

1. Turn signals no longer work. How else can we account for the complete lack of them? I hypothesize that either the precipitation seeps into most vehicles’ electrical systems and attacks only the turn signal functionality, or that the rain droplets somehow refract the light from  turn signals so that they go unseen by the drivers behind or around them. Both of these explanations satisfactorily explain why visual signals are rendered useless, but horn-honking functionality remains unaffected.

2. Braking can only be applied forcefully and suddenly. Gradual braking is not an option, possibly due to the coefficient of friction approaching zero when there is moisture on the road. Sudden and forceful braking must be applied to overcome this. Another possibility is that the rain droplets refract light around objects and intersections, making them essentially invisible to drivers until they are literally right there and have to turn or stop.

2. Drivers can no longer see lines on the road, read road signs, or see traffic signals. I believe this is due to the refraction of light through the rain droplets.

3. The laws at intersections no longer apply. This isn’t as much of a scientific problem as it is a legal one. I still haven’t learned what the alt-weather laws are at four way stops, so this is probably just my fault. That or refracted light through rain droplets either cloaks vehicles completely, or alters our sense of time and space, making us unable to determine who arrived first and has the right-of-way.

4. Perspective changes and varies dramatically from person to person. An acquaintance claimed that he couldn’t see ten feet in front of his vehicle while going seventy miles an hour down the highway on his way in to work. This cannot possibly be the case, as visibility was not limited and it is impossible for any vehicle to move at seventy miles an hour on an L.A. freeway during rush hour. Yet he believed it so fervently and dramatically, that altered perspective (possibly due to refraction of light waves by rain droplets) is the only explanation.

5. Wifi and cell phone signals no longer work. Okay, this one isn’t related to traffic, but a guy in a hotel was explaining to me that this was the reason the internet service that I was paying $9/day to use wasn’t working and he couldn’t refund me. And also my calls like NEVER go through and sometimes my tweets get held up for ages. What the hell, science? The only thing I can think of is that the signals used in such devices are some how “refracted” through the rain droplets and re-routed to people who don’t have AT&T or Time Warner Cable.

6. The world essentially ends. Seriously. I didn’t feel like going to the beach, people had to cancel their flying trapeze and paddleboard classes and I totally didn’t feel like eating at Pinkberry. This is most probably due to the refraction of joy out of life by rain droplets.

You might detect some sarcasm in this post (and a lot of refraction). It’s not that I don’t appreciate that relatively speaking, a couple of days of rain is a monsoon and forty degrees is freezing, it’s just that, well come on, SoCal. You are where the weather forecaster stands when talking about weather happening in the rest of the country.

Because if we can get worked up to believe that the opposition represents an affront to our most cherished beliefs and that their policies are “evil,” we will get worked up enough to put the other side into power, which is exactly what they want. We can do their fighting for them. If we can blame “the other side” for all of our problems, we feel like we have an enemy we can defeat. If only things were that easy.

We aren’t as different as politicians would have us believe. Heroes and villains sit on both sides of the political aisle, and have throughout history. Most of that posturing is their fight, not ours. On top of that, no one person elected can fix or change everything. Lincoln alone did not end slavery, that was a long-fought group effort. Civil rights and women’s rights were fought and won because groups of people came together and worked for change, not because one person or one political party made it happen, no matter who sat in the Oval Office at the time.

I’m not going to deny that certain issues are important to me and that I will fight for them. I’m not going to deny that crazy people run for office and get elected on both sides, or that there are candidates that I support in full. I just get disheartened when people claim that they have lost faith in the entire country or in all of humanity because of the outcome of one race. We are greater than that.

We vote for more than a President. The President can’t act alone. Your vote yesterday mattered for so many reasons. Senators, congresspeople, DAs, council members, state and local issues… your vote does not stop at the top and it may even speak more loudly the bottom. Nor does your ability to affect change end when the voting booths come down. If you want change and feel strongly about it, don’t wait for some figurehead to do what you hope they will, go work to make it happen. Work with people instead of against them. Put party labels aside and don’t resort to name calling or violence. Change starts with you. Run for office. Volunteer. Write. Do whatever you can to fight for what is important to you. It matters.

Not only that, there is so much more to life than political bickering. Take a break from fighting and arguing about abstract ideals and issues and appreciate the life and people around you.

We won’t be here forever.

My new web series! My Two Brads is a sitcom spoof in which we take one lame joke and spin it a million different ways.  You know, just like a real sitcom? Only difference: we promise to keep every episode about one minute in length. Made with Brad Bishop and Brad Smith (yes, the show is based on real events) and with the musical talents of Sven Faulconer. Here is our pilot episode. Head over to http://mytwobrads.com to subsribe on YouTube or Vimeo, follow us on Twitter, Facebook, G+, all of that stuff…

This is my official entry to the Slusho!! commercial contest. It is a fictional commercial for a fictional drink that may or may not somehow play into the new film “Cloverfield,” produced by J.J. Abrams.

Or doesn’t it?

For those of you who think that sounds vague, let me explain:

It is.

Last summer, the movie “Transformers” opened in theatres across the U.S. (yeah, I loved it, so sue me). Immediately after the first East Coast screenings let out, Google began getting hit with thousands of searches for things like “mystery jj abrams trailer transformers” and “transformers trailer monster movie” and “1-18-08″ and “free porn.” With the exception of the last search, all of this was seriously pleasing the folks over at Bad Robot productions. Why? Before “Transformers,” audiences were treated to a movie trailer (or “preview,” if you will) consisting of a sort of first person video clip of what appeared to be a monster attack on New York City. It began with the taping of a surprise going away party and ended with the severed head of the Statue of Liberty skidding down a SoHo street. Vague bits of dialog like “I saw it! It’s alive! It’s huge!” could be heard through the chaos of the crowded streets below, as the party-goers evacuate their apartment and attempt to glean more information. The audience was given nothing more than the name of the producers (“Lost” creator J.J. Abrams and his parent companies, Bad Robot and Paramount Pictures), and what seemed to be a release date of 1-18-08. A wave of “what the f*@$?!” spread across the crowd. A massive viral marketing campaign was born…

Youtube was soon inundated with pirated copies of the trailer, the web world was abuzz with “what’s it all about” speculation, Paramount pictures was “denying” involvement in this titleless production, and geeks and “Lost” fans like myself were salivating over having a new way to waste precious time.

Fine. What the hell does this have to do with some slushy drink thing? Honestly, no one knows! The drink was first mentioned in an episode of “Alias” (also created by Abrams, also a show that I love). Additionally, in the original trailer, one of the characters from the film was wearing a slusho! shirt. It didn’t take web geeks like myself long to find the slusho! web site, where even more oddness was revealed (like a donkey swimming underwater while thinking of a blue oven mitt and a bizarre story about some “secret” deep sea ingredient that is evidentially used in the manufacture of slusho).

Now it appears that some company called “Tagruato Corp.” has been harvesting this slusho ingredient (?) using off shore oil rigs, one of which (according to foreign “news sources” whose videos are available on YouTube) was just destroyed this last weekend, as the monster makes its way to New York City. Also, the main character from the movie trailer, Rob, has announced on “his” MySpace page that he is going to go work for this company…

This kind of realtime buildup to movies and alternate reality gaming is fascinating to me. The Internet is becoming an increasingly collaborative and accessible space for the human race.

I’m really looking forward to the film. At this point, I have an almost scientific fascination with it. I’ll only be disappointed if, like so many other movies this year, this turns out to be yet another zombie movie…

Magic uncovers the beauty of beginnings and endings in an ordinary cafe…

This was my submission to the Moby music video contest hosted by Genero. This was also my final project for my dynamics effects class at the Gnomon school (the flower, in particular). I wore several hats for this project: writer, producer, director, cinematographer, matchmover, editor, animator, VFX artist…

What I didn’t do was any of the acting. I am extremely grateful to Jameelah Nuriddin, Marie Kleinschmidt, Brian Sounalath, Ace Marrero, and Erin Stegeman for doing this on short notice and for nothing but the love of acting and my eternal gratitude.

It’s a little rough around the edges, but I only had about two weeks to get the entire thing made (with the exception of the flower- I worked on that throughout the course of the term).

I’ve always had a bit of a fear of heights. It’s nothing unreasonable. I can get a little dizzy on ladders or scaffolding and shudder when I see people falling in movies. This fear became a full-blown phobia after the terrorist attacks on September 11. I was in New York when that happened and saw the buildings fall right in front of me from my roof in Brooklyn. It took me a while to get to the point where I am now: comfortably working- despite the constant threat of earthquakes- on the 18th floor of a high-rise.

Over the years, people have tried to get me over this fear (though I personally think you SHOULD be a little nervous about being high off the ground- it is a natural self-preservation  mechanism, after all). Soaring through the air on a flying trapeze, safely in a harness and with a net beneath me, seemed like an exciting way to confront my nervousness.

Here is the video proof of my willingness to overcome! I had a BLAST doing this and hope to do it again soon. I got a little distracted by the aerial silks (which I have been doing almost every week since this video was made), but I hope to return to the sky soon.

Many thanks to Brad Bishop and Hermione Leach for filming and SUPER thanks to Morningstar Bloom for NOT LISTENING TO ME AT ALL when I told her I couldn’t do it!