Maxx Productions Photography

Man, I'm terrible at blogging. But in my defense I've been busy. In fact, busy in part to what I am blogging about this time: "After Grace"

"After Grace" is a short film that I was director of photography on, among other roles. It's screening at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival as part of the Long Distance Short program.

Date: Sunday May 2nd, 2010
Time: 9:00 pm
Location: Directors Guild of America Theatre 2. Click here for directions
Tickets: $12 general/$10 students/seniors. Available at the venue or online here.

It's not often that zombies roam around the town of Alhambra. Actually, I don't think they ever have, but thanks to the Gallery Nucleus' latest exhibit, they did last night. As part of opening night festivities, the gallery organized a zombie procession down Main Street in the heart of downtown Alhambra that ended at the exhibit itself. The procession was lead by a very familiar but hideous looking zombie bride.

If you missed out on the walk, you can at least check out the exhibit which runs until February 22nd, 2010. Find details at: http://www.gallerynucleus.com/gallery

Here's some video I took:

Richard Schave and Crimebo the Clown I've always found crime a fascinating subject. I find it even more interesting when it happens in my own back yard. Unfortunately I have yet to experience the Blood and Dumplings Tour, offered by Esotouric, which actually does go around to spots in my home town and the surrounding areas. Instead I went with the next best thing, a a crime tour of the Pasadena area, they call Pasadena Confidential.

The 7D, as seen from the eye of an SD600I finally bought myself a fairly serious camera and it arrived yesterday. I've been meaning to write about it sooner, but I've just spent too much time playing with and researching accessories for it. It's the much talked about Canon EOS 7D. It's a relatively new offering from Canon's line of DSLRs, and what excites me about it is that it's a good, affordable still camera that happens to record video at 1920x1080@24p! That's "Full HD" at cinema frame-rate, with SLR lenses!

It used to be just about
                          all the simple things
We never used to worry about
                            what tomorrow would bring
Life was just so easy, we'd
                              run free with no strings
We could fly with no wings
                  finding heaven on the swings

Oh, whatever happened to those simple things

It was about 10pm when I stopped at a gas station on my way home from work. I was immediately greeted by two women, one noticeably older than the other who I presumed to be mother and daughter, but that's just a guess. They were by their car at a pump in the next row from me and called me over. You never hear good stories about meeting strangers at gas stations, so I already had a sense of what was about to transpire.

At first, I tried merely to ignore them and go about filling up my car. Since my tank was nearly empty, I knew I had a whole lot of ignoring to do. Unfortunately for me, ignoring things is difficult to do, so I gave in and decided to acknowledge these people. The older one started telling me that they were trying to get home to Riverside and needed gas money with a sad, desperate look on her face. I stood looking at them in silence while they both repeated their story adding extra "please"'s at the end each time. I've become quite a cynic over the years, but a big part of me is still a sucker for the sad and desperate so it only took a moment when I knew I was going to give them something. The matter of what and how much would come later.

I received the following message earlier today:

From: Maxx_eats_shit <MaxxLikesLittleBoys@fagg.com>

Your review of Utada's new album is awful and grossly inaccurate.
You think you can do better? fucking weabo fag.
Please do everyone a favor and just die.

p.s: I'm glad you lost your job, LOL

I'm very excited because it's my first real feedback for something I've written on my blog. Funny though, when I tried to respond, my e-mails all got bounced back. I wanted to thank this person for his or her feedback, so below is my response to the feedback:

Crank: High Voltage, the sequel to the adrenaline-pumped Crank is gratuitous in every way. Whether it be through comedy, language, nudity, racial stereotypes, gore or balls out action, this film goes over and above to deliver on all fronts, to a nearly pornographic level. So, needless to say, I enjoyed every moment of it. It is a movie that knows exactly what it is and never stops to apologizes. And why should it? If you're easily offended then you would probably hate this movie. But if you're easily offended, you need to learn how to lighten up because Crank: High Voltage is freakin' awesome.

I entered into a most interesting discussion with coworkers debating whether or not Jesus was a zombie. It was more so me trying to convince them that, given the accounts in the bible, Jesus could not be in fact classified as a zombie, at least not in a classical George A. Romero sense. Without digging too deeply, I will try use this opportunity as a writing exercise to make my case.

For convenience, I will refer to events I understand to be in the bible as fact. I do this not to promote the biblical account as fact, but I figure if you're going to argue whether or not Jesus is a zombie, you might as well, for argument sake, also take the bible as fact--contradictions aside.

Here we go...

My friend asked me today about my thoughts on a tough choice he is currently facing. He must decide between going to Columbia's business school or to UCLA's--the latter coming with a fellowship. I know, what a terrible dilemma. It may be a fortunate problem to have, but it's still a problem nonetheless. After writing my response I realized that it contained much of my general philosophy, especially in regards to decision making, so I'm posting it here.

Some Context: My friend sent me one of his acquaintances' advice to him that recommended UCLA. I didn't get permission to publish it, but my response directly references some arguments in that advice, so I'll try to summarize the relevant points made to give some context to my writing.