Well, tomorrow ought to be an interesting day. I’ll be able to sleep in a bit, but at one, I’m doing Community Service at the res. hall next to mine. My job will apparently be conducting various activities. They’ll have stuff like pinatas and musical chairs and such. Little kids are going trick or treating there, so there’ll be that and other activities.

After that, though, I’ll be attending some or all of the Matchbook Romance/Sugarcult concert that’s going on here. I’ll be able to get in backstage thanks to my press pass. So, we’ll get some footage of setup and breakdown and the like. It ought to be awesome. Afterward, I’ll be helping to break down. If our club has signed up five people to do it, we’ll be able to get $200. So, I hope we got the five. We’ll see…that goes from 10pm until like 2am, so it’ll be a long night for sure.

So, that’s my Saturday. Also, I have plans to upload my Lamont/Palwekiwicz interview sometime next week. I’ll probably put it on YouTube, and I’ll be sure to upload it in full, not just the cut down, non-partisan version I did for the newscast here.

Well, I got some good news this morning. My passport arrived three weeks earlier than the guy at the post office said it would. Now I don’t have to worry about it getting caught up in the rush that might happen once people have to get passports so they can get in to Canada, Bermuda, South America, and whoever else doesn’t require a passport now. So, I can now officially go to Greece!

Well, that is all for tonight. Just a little update on that situation.

Well, today was Eastern Expedition again. Neither show went too bad and everyone was good. This was my first time directing the show, and I definitely liked it. Directing Expedition is a little different than directing the news, because the newscast is more formulatic, and you are expected to do certain shots at certain times, because it has a script. However, Expedition doesn’t have a script, and while you have to be sure to follow action, you can be more creative when calling the shots. So, I’ve had just about 24 hours of Expedition; yesterday, I was at work at 2pm, and stayed until they were done lighting at 11:45pm, then today I was working on Expedition stuff from 8:30am until about 2:30pm. I’m all Expedition’d out, at least until next month!

The three roommates who were supposed to be our second show’s (my show) contestants never showed up! We knew they were just drunk and/or hungover, so that’s why. They pretty much told Adam (the producer) that if they showed, they’d be hungover. So, if anyone ever says that again, they sure won’t be contestants! I also think our backups had to backout, so we had to get three new contestants. One was my RA, Liz, who had initially come to watch. So, she was upgraded from an audience member to a contestant in a short amount of time. The second was camera 3, Tiana’s, boyfriend. The third was a friend of the first show director, Scott.

Adam, and a couple of friends are going to a Bare Naked Ladies concert tonight! We tried to get an interview with them, but no go. Unfortunately, it is at Mohegan Sun, and although it’s free, it’s 21+ only, so I cannot go. Which brings up an interesting question. I’m only 20. Adam wanted me to be the cameraman…would they have let me in? Well, I’ll never know now! So, I’m not sure what to do tonight. I’ve been invited to go to a party, but I don’t know if I want to do that after hours upon hours of Expedition stuff. I might get some sleep and then watch a couple movies and do my laundry.

Tomorrow, I’ll be helping at the Open House, specifically in the area of the studio, showing people it, and talking about the club. Should be a good thing to do for a couple hours.

Ok, enough ramblings for one day. I’ll have something more beefy later today, or tomorrow.

Can’t sleep right now, since I had too much to eat tonight, so I’m feeling a bit bloated. Also a bit excited about today.

Always a bit exhilarating when a new day of News 22 is on the horizon. Not only am I directing a show, but I’m directing a show that has, since Tuesday, gone from featuring interviews with two politicians to interviews with three politicians. Yup. Joe Courtney has been added to the list of interviews we will be showing tonight. Me and Steve (the guy who does reporting with me) didn’t conduct this one, but it should be good.

As well as two shows going on tonight, one of our TV 22 alumni is coming up from New Haven to tape a short reel for himself, since he can’t do it at his work place, News Channel 8. We will also be under the viewership of a few people from the (now completely online) campus newspaper. Some talk has been going back and forth about streaming the show on their website. They’re also probably showing up to see the complete story on the new format. So, it’s going to be a big night.

Well, back to bed for me in a few. I need to be bright eyed coming 7:30pm.

Not me, since I already made a Shays rant on Wednesday. And yes, the category is right.

I had an exam in one of my political science classes today. The first thing the professor did was to rant about Shays’ comment. And not only Shays, he complained about how both parties have tactics which he compared to the sometimes childish behavior of his four year old kids. On that account, I must admit, I think he’s right. They really can both act stupid…a lot of times.

I think I should make it clear that this isn’t the typical liberal college professor. Yea, he’s liberal, and readily admits that himself, but he also appears to be more independently minded than some other professors. He gets a lot of his statistics from the Cato Institute, since, paraphrased from his own words, “They’re libertarian, so they hate everyone.” He also listens to Rush Limbaugh and reads people like Ann Coulter as much as he reads Karl Marx.

Man, was he pissed. And I thought I was angry at Panasonic and Apple last night, though I’ve gotten over that now. Anyway, it was an interesting way to start my day.

Yes, I still stand by what I said on Wednesday. While I’m not sure what he said will affect much, he really shouldn’t be surprised if he loses the election. Time will tell…time will tell.

Time for one of those rare, boring, “why are you doing this to me” updates. Haven’t done one in some time, so I’m overdue.

Since the last one of these entries, I have began college again, and am, for the most part, enjoying my classes. I have two of them with the same guy (State & Local Politics and The Presidency…interesting how much both of them overlap), and he’s a bit crazy, but in a good way. I think he has a bit of cynical view of life, but maybe that’s just me. It doesn’t impede his teaching, and that’s the important thing. He can go off on tangents, but not as wildly as my old polysci professor from last semester. I particularly enjoy the night class I have with him. In all, classes with him go pretty quickly. He’s a flaming liberal, but at least he educates himself with everything. I have to let him know his antics have got me reading the 9/11 Commission Report.

I’m also taking a course called Culture and National Security. It’s apparently one of the few that exist in the country, apparently (for one reason) because Americans tend to be awful at integrating cultural understanding whilst doing international relations. I guess the goal of the course is to improve on this problem. The book we use is from 1996, so the professor says someone could make a lot of money at making an updated version. I don’t think I’m up for the task, though. My other two courses are Western Civilization after 1500, which not much can be said about, except…history…and Scriptwriting, which allows me to be a little creative in something that isn’t getting awesome video footage. Hopefully it’ll prompt me to update Creative a bit more.

On a slightly less academic topic, the clubs I’m in are going pretty strong. As I think I’ve said, I was elected Treasurer at the end of last semester. Haven’t done much yet, but I will soon, since I’ll have to work to get prizes for previous contestants. Then in January, I’ll be working a lot for the Vegas trip. I have yet to do much for that position, but I think I will soon to get some prizes for the Expedition game show. Aside from Treasurer, on Thursday I tried out for and got the position of Director for the B-team of the newscast. I’m very excited and a little nervous about this, as being a director can be both fun, intense, and terrifying at the same time. You have to be alert to everything, since you’re the one to which everybody else is listening. The newscast has two teams, one that goes live, the A-team, and one that goes live-to-tape, the B-team, so I’m sorta anxiously anticipating next semester, when I’ll be in the A-team position. Being one of the directors, I’m fairly certain I’ll be asked to also direct at least one of the Expedition episodes, so I may have that to look forward to. At least I can be a little more creative there, as that’s all in-studio. No switching to and from tapes, and a game show is not as formulatic as a newscast setting.

Other than the TV club, I’m still participating in my hall’s resident council, now known as Nutmeg Residence Hall Association, which is a more informal version of Hall Council. So, after finally gaining President last semester, I lost it…heh. But, that’s ok. I’m more in the business of getting some fun stuff planned for the hall. So, if I can help do that, I’ve done my job.

Well, that’s the short of what’s been going on. Time to watch one or two episodes of Stargate, then off to bed.

I have again taken the Political Compas survey. From the last time I took it, I’ve apparently moved slightly further left economically, and have gotten slightly more authoritarian. Here are the two graphs:

Funny how these things can change. If you want to find out where you stand, and because franky, the whole Liberal-Conservative line kind of sucks to study a person, take the survey at the Political Compass website.

Just realized I never blogged about the New York trip.

We got into New Haven around about 9:30 in the morning. We stopped by Dunkin Donuts, and took the 9:57 train, and got to New York around 11:30.

It would had been faster just to subway to 49th street, but instead we walked down 42nd until we realized we were going the wrong way. So, we then turned around and finally got to 6th Ave, and worked our way up to 51st street, then crossed over to 7th Ave. Couldn’t pick much of a better spot. We were right up the road from Times Square, and right down the road from Central Park.

We were able to get in to our room right away, which was good given the time of day. After we were settled, we got a taxi to the dock from where the cruise took off. We all got hot dogs, and then went on the cruise. It was nice, and the tour guide was knowledgeable, and apparently a geology geek . 😛 Some bridge was broken, so we weren’t able to go up to the Harlem River, so they turned back and went as far north as possible, before returning to dock.

After the cruise, we went up 42nd Street and to Times Square, and looked around in that area for shopping, etc. Oh, did you know that 1 Times Square is a vacant building and they still make $20 million a year off it? That’s what that advertising will do for you.

After shopping, we went back up toward the hotel to look for some food. We finally found this deli, where our waitress kinda sucked. However, the food was good, and there was plenty of it, so that kind of made up for sucky service. After we ate, we hung around the room a bit. Then we took the subway to 34th street and went to the Empire State Building. I’ve never been to the 86th floor, so it was an experience, even if it was windy and chilly. I got some decent pictures, which can be found on my Flickr account.

The next day, we got up at 9:00am, and showered, then me and Amber went down to the pool while Aunt Anne got some breakfast. Afterward, we made our way to Central Park and walked around there a lot, went on the carousel, etc. We kept trying to find the zoo that’s there. We finally got to it, and it started pouring. So, we took a subway to 34th and went to the Manhattan Mall, and other smaller shops.

Around 4pm, we hopped on a subway, and went back to Grand Central Terminal. We did some shopping there, and were able to get a 5:07pm train back home, getting to New Haven around 6:30 or so.

Overall, the trip was fun because the last two times I’ve been there, it was as part of a school trip, or it was very cold. However, the rain could have held up for us. 😛 That put a bit of a damper in our second day plans, but we still had fun. If you want to see some more pictures, click on the picture of the Statue of Liberty.