Ahhhh, after a grueling 2 day workweek, it's summer vacation part 2! This time it's in NY with my family, a joint engagement party for me and Anne as well as my sister and her fiance, dealing with the New York State DMV, and hanging out with friends. Should be fun. There probably won't be any updates for a week. What else is new?

We were going to attempt to see 4 films in 4 nights, but by last night we were both too tired to go see 24 Hour Party People. But on Saturday night, we made it to see The Good Girl with Jennifer Aniston, John C. Reily and the kid from Donnie Darko. It was pretty good. Before the movie started, they were showing this slide show of what looked like vacation pictures and the last one was a big diamond ring and this guy got up and proposed to his girlfriend right in the front row. Even with all of the films I've seen this weekend, I've gotten a lot of work done on editing Washington Interns Gone Bad! I've made it through the entire date scene which puts us right around the halfway point. The new firewire drive I got is a piece of shit though. It has no trouble capturing, no trouble editing, but it chokes during playback which means I can't dump to tape from that drive and it's pissing me off like you wouldn't believe. It's a 7200rpm drive with a 2 meg buffer. It should not be giving me problems like this. It'll still be good to have so that I can swap drives around with people, but it just adds an aditional layer of work to get things all on tape. Ggggrrrrrrrrrr.

This is turning out to be a great weekend for films, both in viewing and in working on Washington Interns Gone Bad. Last night we caught Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars, a killer Bowie concert film from his last show ever as Ziggy Stardust and it rocked my fucking world! I wish I could just go back to 1973 and catch one of those shows live, instead of having seen him in 95 with Nine Inch Nails trying to be all industrial. I've also been cranking through the editing. By the end of the weekend I will have hit around the halfway point. I've finally gotten around to reading Robert Rodriguez' great book, Rebel Without a Crew or How a 23-Year-Old Filmmaker with $7000 Became a Hollywood Player which was his diary through the process of making El Marichi and winding up with an agent and a film deal. My sister Bree got it for me for my birthday from my Amazon wishlist, so thanks Bree! This book is truly inspiring though. I'm sitting here with 14 hours of footage for a 90 minute film and I'm bitching about wishing I had more. He only shot 4 hours of film for El Mariachi, a full blown action film with squib effects and crazy stunts, in the streets of a small town in Mexico.

We finally saw Tadpole last night. See this film! It was so well done, so smart, so funny, and with a great cast.

Hey, who wants to live on an official Washington Interns Gone Bad set with members of the Washington Interns Gone Bad cast and crew (and other cool peeps)??? That's right, you could be housemates with the likes of Karen Zamperini, Marissa Torrieri and Zoe Mitchell, and then brag about it years later when they're all famous (or notorious -- either way it's pretty freakin' cool). You can party on the very balcony where we shot the party scene, cook in the kitchen where we shot kitchen scenes, use the bathroom... well you get the idea. OK, so here's the info: Bedroom with two closets (1 walk-in) available Sept. 1 in progressive group house in the Howard/Shaw northwest area. We are a group of artists, musicians, writers and activists seeking someone with similar interests. We are looking for a responsible male (age 22-35), full time student and/or employed. Rent is $460 a month + utilities. House has a/c, washer/dryer, dishwasher, DSL, two decks, artist studio and fenced-in backyard. The house is located at 942 Westminster St. NW, one block from the U St./Cardozo Metro stop on the Green Line. We will have an open house this Sunday, Aug. 25 from noon to 3pm. For more information, email dcwestminster@yahoo.com.

Ahh, another weekend has come and gone and I wonder where it all went. Well, I know a good chunk of it went to editing more scenes of Washington Interns Gone Bad. On Saturday, I used some Best Buy gift certificates that I had gotten for my birthday to get a new hard drive and a firewire conversion kit to add 100 gigs to my editing space. Of course, getting it all installed and working was not exactly plug and play. I had to take my computer apart, put the drive in there to format it, then stick it back into the conversion kit before finally getting it usable. I used the rest of my gift certificates on DVDs, Lord of the Rings and Royal Tenenbaums, neither of which I'd gotten to see since buying them. There were other films that I really wanted to see this weekend which I didn't get to because of how freakin' hot and miserable it is outside in DC these days and because I was editing like a madman. They're showing The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars at Visons for a couple of weeks (including midnight showings!), plus Tadpole, The Kid Stays in Pictures and 24 Hour Party People are all out and all look really cool. Well, hopefully I'll have the chance to see at least one of these on the big screen. In a couple of weeks Visions is having midnight showings of Pink Flamingos and I am so not missing that! We did wind up renting Super Troopers which was mindlessly dumb and very funny in some parts but way too long and drawn out for a mindless comedy.

Roert Rodriguez is my hero! Check out this great interview in the often overlooked section of The Onion where he talks about how he put together Spy Kids 2 practically by himself, directing, shooting, editing, coordinating effects and even production design.

Free Adam Ant! He just wanted to be a coyboy.

OK, I'm finally recovered from my trip back from California and as promised, I've posted pictures of the places where Anne and I are getting married and having the reception as well as a collage of me getting tattooed. They're both available on my pictures page. This week is all about playing catch-up at work and on editing the film. Besides the 3 Park City festivals that I'm aiming at, I'm also planning on entering a scene into the Project Greenlight Director Contest so I really need to get my ass in gear in order to make all of these deadlines.

Hey movie fans, who wants to be an extra in the next Kevin Smith film?

OK, so we never quite connected with Elizabeth in Santa Barbara which is a bummer because I had a tape to give to her, but we'll just have to mail it. The good news is that after 2 days of looking at places to have our wedding, we booked the one that we liked the best! I will post pictures of it as soon as I get a chance after getting back to DC. Tomorrow, I'll be getting my birthday tattoo and Anne will be taking pictures throughout that process which I will also post. Thanks to everyone who chipped in to the birthday tattoo fund. It's going to be cool!

Yesterday Anne and I flew out to California for a week of visiting her family, wedding planning, and just getting away from our jobs and working on the film for a whole week, as well as to continue milking my 30th birthday for all its worth by taking a vacation. It's beautiful out here. The air is clean and cool, not like that heavy feeling that it has in DC. I read two entire Chuck Palahniuk books on the plane, Survivor and Fight Club. I've been on a kick since reading Choke last week. Such dark stuff, and such quick reading. I think I may like the movie version of Fight Club better than the book, which isn't something I can say too often about films made from books. The book was good and all, but I think the film really took it slightly differently in a way that I liked more. I plan on reading whatever else he has out while I'm out here. Tomorrow we go to Santa Barbara so Anne and her mom can look at wedding dresses while I go do my own thing and meet up with Elizabeth who is living just a few hours down the coast from there.