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I am now 22 years old. I had a good birthday. On Sunday I saw Casino Royale with my brother and parents, then they took me to Hemingway’s for dinner. I had lobster for the first time! Yum. On Monday I was working/in class until 7:00, then came home and had a few friends over to watch Heroes and Studio 60. Thanks to everyone who stopped by! It was a pretty laid back birthday, unlike last year when I got slightly drunk and went ballroom dancing. Erin made me a carrot cake that was very good, and we also had pretzels and chips and cheese dip. I got a big bag of M&M’s and a card from my step-sister, a movie trivia DVD game and funny card from Stephanie, a huge film encyclopedia from Erin, a six-pack of Guinness from Nate (woot!), and money from my sister. Good times. I wish I could have had a bigger party, but considering schoolwork is keeping me weighted down pretty good right now, it was the best I could do.

I turned in my final act of my Studio 60 script last night. My teacher liked how I ended it, so that’s good considering I was very skeptical about it and wasn’t sure how everyone would like it. I am sitting at about 35 pages right now, so I have to write about 10-15 more for it to be proper length. I haven’t revised it yet, which I have two weeks to do. I am adding another plot line so the 10 pages should easily fit in. Then I’m going to add a few more scenes and try to get as close to a 50-page script as I can. I almost want to take this class again next semester just so I can write another Studio 60 episode. I LOVE SCRIPTWRITING! I am going to submit my script to a few competitions, and then if I win anything or get any recognition I’m going to submit it to an agent. I’m also going to try to write another short film script over the break, or try my hand at another TV show. Unfortunately my Monday nights won’t have a free three-hour critique session anymore. I never realized how fast time could fly reading and critiquing scripts.

I’ve got two weeks left of school and then a week of finals and I’ll be done for the semester. I’ve got one semester left and it will be an extremely busy one. I am hoping to land a producer role in my 562 class next semester, and I am also the gaffer (lighting assistant) for my friend Ed’s film. Plus I have a very difficult producing class and two writing-intensive classes. I’ll be graduating on May 18. I’m sure it will be here in no time. Right now I plan on getting a full-time job in Springfield after I graduate (at a local news station or media production business). I will be looking into moving to L.A. or possibly Vancouver, Washington (big TV production city), or another big city. I am also considering graduate school, if I could possibly get a really good scholarship with something I have written. It’s overwhelming to think about, and I hate when people ask me what I plan on doing after I graduate. I still feel like a clueless teenager sometimes. For some reason I thought at the end of college I would feel like a brilliant individual. And while I know I have learned a lot, especially in my field of study (as you would hope!), I still sometimes feel just as dumb as I felt in high school.

My friend Erin and I have started an online radio show (known as a podcast) about movies we see at the Moxie and other things such as music and adventures we have while fighting crime. Check it out here. And if you have iTunes, you can subscribe to our podcast!

If you’re the slightest bit of a gaming fan, or if you listen to the news on occassion, you probably have heard something about this year’s video game wars. Every five years or so, the big three console companies introduce a new gaming platform to the world. 2006 was one of those years. Microsoft was the first to put out a new system with the XBox 360. Boasting incredibly amazing graphics and HD technology, it became a hit overnight. Microsoft released their system a year ago today, so they’ve had the edge for a while now. Last week, however, both Sony and Nintendo released their new systems. Sony’s Playstation 3 sold out in a matter of hours upon its release, with some people putting their systems on eBay and auctioning them off for thousands of dollars (the highest one sold for $12,000 if I remember correctly). Playstation 3 boasts amazing graphics as well, but is using Blue-ray technology instead of HD. This only adds to the fire of what the next big format will be (HD-DVD movies are out now, with Blue-ray movies on the way). Nintendo released its groundbreaking system, Wii (pronounced “wee”), this past Sunday. While its graphics aren’t quite as powerful as the Xbox 360 or PS3, and it also doesn’t play any format of movies, it has a unique controller that promises to revolutionize gaming and bring in people of all ages, as well as hoping to appeal to the female gender. The controller looks like a remote control and only has a few buttons. It’s more of a “point and click” kind of technology that should avoid the complications of “button-mashing” games that only appeal to hardcore gamers.

I am not an Xbox fan (I have played both Halo games and I’m not crazy about either one), especially when it costs $500 to buy one, and while I would love a Playstation 3, I think it is INCREDIBLY over-priced at $600. The Nintendo Wii only costs $250, a steal when compared to the other consoles. Nintendo also boasts the biggest game of the year: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. A game that I have been waiting nearly three years to play. Many critics have called it the best game of the year, some even saying it’s the best video game ever made. One said that buying a Nintendo Wii was worth the price just to be able to play this game. But it’s not just Zelda that makes me want one. Since I came to college, my interest in video games has dropped dramatically. Even in high school I had lost much of the interest I had in video games when I was younger. I always figured it was just that I had moved on to other things, but I think I figured out the real issue. I hate current video game controllers. Anytime I start to play a game these days, I quickly get frustrated with trying to memorize 15 button actions to be able to play what should be a simple game. Also, the interactivity level of video games is not what it should be for our current technology. Isn’t this supposed to be the future? Shouldn’t video games have some level of virtual reality by now? Nintendo Wii is the first console to really take a big step towards virtual reality. I bet you my GRANDMA could figure out how to play a game on Nintendo Wii. The controller is that easy to use.

Luckily, Wii has caught the Apple bug and has become the elite console among people with “style.” It’s being advertised in all kinds of magazines that normally wouldn’t run video game ads. People are flocking to it like it’s the next iPod. And with games that get everyone in a room involved (such as Wii Sports, which offers a variety of basic games like tennis and bowling), Wii is sure to be a big hit. Nintendo has always been the most forward-thinking video game company, but they have really broken the mold with the Wii. And that’s why this year, I’m asking Santa to bring me a Wii.

Today I was waiting around for my cinematography class to start and I was talking with my TV production teacher about my Forward Report project. He complimented me again for doing a “kickass job” producing (as well as saying he wished I wasn’t taking MED 562 so I could be in the new Forward Report class), but then told me some bad news. He said he was going to submit our shows for competition (Missouri Broadcast Association Awards) as well as to KOZK, but when he was preparing the footage he realized something that 15 people didn’t notice the whole time during production. Our title graphic was misspelled. So unless we want to call our show “The Foward Report,” he said our project couldn’t be submitted for competition. I don’t know, I still think he should. I don’t know the requirements, but I’m guessing he’s worried about MSU looking bad or something. I never should have trusted our CG guy to know how to spell. So I take the blame. But nobody including our teacher noticed it during production, so I don’t feel as bad. He did say he was going to submit it to KOZK for possible air on local TV, or at least to give them an idea of how the show might be next semester. How cool is that? I’m pretty peeved about that word being misspelled though. I think we could have won some awards for it. DAMNIT!!!

Tonight some of the guys from the music show group in my TV production class asked me to check out one of the nice cameras for them and help them shoot a live Nathaniel Carroll show (actually it wasn’t a show, it was a private party in his house). Only two people in our class have access to the nice cameras (me being one of them) and the other person was leaving for Thanksgiving break, so I said I didn’t mind. It was actually really enjoyable. Got to listen to some great music and get practice with the camera. Nathaniel Carroll is an awesome local musician if you haven’t heard his stuff before. He sings like Rufus Wainwright, and he plays piano like Ben Folds and also plays guitar. Anyways, you should all go to one of his shows sometime.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYBODY!