Trials and Tribulations

Today was not an easy day. It should have been. But it most certainly was not. The idea was to take a quick trip to Home Depot on 59th and 3rd, pick up the cable I need for the lights for the DCUP Land video, hit the grocery store on the way back and do some lighting tests in the apartment. Well this all happened just not in the efficiently smooth way I saw it in my head. Home Depot disappointed for the 2nd time in one week. They did not have the cables. I guess I should explain what I was looking for. You see when you're making a production with no budget, you seek out the cheapest ways to make the image look as good as possible. For instance the lighting is extremely costly. So instead you take stock in Chinese Lanterns which can serve the purpose for the most part if used properly. The problem is you need to find these little fuckers and then assemble them. Unfortunately the place I bought my light from didn't have the cable/socket things with them, so I had to go again looking for them. Because Home Depot sucks I had to go down to Chinatown once again and search for some store for about an hour. Apparently as I found out today Broadway and West Broadway are NOT the same. But before I found that out I was walking in circles going crazy. Finally I found the place, The Pearl River Market, which is an AWESOME asian store with everything there from clothing to statues to tableware to weaponary to gongs to lights to musical instruments. If I had the means, I would have taken a whole lotta Japan out of that store! But I didn't so I grabbed my wire sets and power outlet strip and got the hell out of there. Unfortunately I forgot to grab the lightbulbs I wanted at Home Depot. The enery savers. This idea I was really proud of. You see because Chinses lanterns are made out of thin paper, they have a tendency to burn up when in contact with regular bulbs because the bulbs burn so hot. But the energy savers, they don't burn nearly as hot as just as bright. So I can actually get better light with less risk of fiery surprise.

From there I went back into Queens to check out prices on t-shirts at a local store, then to the grocery store to pick up ingredients for a Thai dish. However, I forgot a certain ingredient so I had to turn right back around once I reached my place and head out again to get it. The ingredient was brown sugar and the brown sugar I bought happened to come in the form of an indestructable brick. I tried microwaving a bit of it, and forgot that sugar burns and smells awful!!! Then I finally cut through it. To be honest I thought the dinner was going to turn out horrible, but I kept giving it my all and it ended up pretty damn good. Room for improvement, but still good.

Then it was on to the lighting tests. Since it was just me, I had to put a few screws in the ceiling to position the lights. Long story short I gave myself a quick self-taught lesson on lighting and the results seem pretty good. I plan on doing some more work with it tomorrow and well as some dialect stuff for Saturday and then I'll be set I think. More on this tomorrow.