The Roulette Wheel

So it's been a wild ride here at the Asian Film Festival of Dallas. No really. It's been taking it's toll. I'm spending about 14 hour days here working for the fest and tonight and tomorrow I'll be working back at school to help take care of the film that's shooting there. The last couple days they have been going to 3am. My mom has been taking care of it during the fest but she can't take it anymore. I'm going to have to go from here to there to relieve her. So yeah...taking it's toll. I have barely been sleeping and when I don't get enough sleep for long periods of time I start to lose my shit. I have been talking in my sleep to the point of actually keeping me up at night. I will start talking but since I'm sleeping so lightly I'll start to wake myself up with it. I even had the days so wrong that all day yesterday I was telling people it was Wednesday. When your film festival is scheduled by days, this is not a good thing to have happen. All of that mischief was managed but not before I could really feel like an ass in a facebook message sent off in the middle of the night in a fit of loneliness. Sorry about that by the way, I genuinely feel terrible. Anyway...that's been my week: Running myself ragged. As usual.

Outside of that, I'm getting ready for Seeing Big L at PAX this year! I'll be buying my plane tickets this weekend no matter which way it swings. Before that though I'm headed down to San Antonio with Elizabeth to hit Dan's "Bachelor" party. Hopefully that will go well. The last time I went down to SA with a girl I came back and didn't have one much longer. Hopefully that won't happen again. Then again, if it does, it's probably for the best. It's been a while since I've seen most of the people down there. Actually I think it might have been since New Years. I really miss them. Not as much as I miss Mike and Erin and Moen but still. I miss them. This will also be the second time I've seen Ted since he left early in the summer. He came back for a weekend once. Then I guess a couple weekends after that it's time for the big wedding. I'm getting excited to see everyone! I'm excited about the wedding and all that goes with it too, but I'm more excited about seeing Mike, Mike, Erin and Gabe. I mean like REALLY excited. So yeah...the next several weeks and weekends are BALLS busy! My yard is starting to look a little worse for wear but there's really nothing I can do to help with that without hiring someone to do it and being down TWO renters doesn't really help with the financials. Sigh.

I have also been watching this show called Ashes to Ashes. It's the sequel to the British version of Life on Mars. Completely explaining how that alternate world works and what it is. Really wanted to punch the main character but I kept watching just to find out the secret and to see what happened to all the side characters. I guess I recommend it but not strongly. I've been really getting into different tv shows. I think this has been the summer of blasting through tv shows. I wish it wasn't $4 to rent movies at Premiere video though. They DO have all the best shows.

So anyway...I'm hoping that sitting down and talking about this will help me to get through the rest of the week and weekend without freaking out or crying. Though I fully expect to cry at some point in time this weekend. I have been feeling it coming on all week. Just the usual bullshit though so nothing to really worry about. Stress plus summer coming to an end plus lack of sleep plus missing all my friends. Eh.

I guess I should stop typing. Already fell asleep at this table once today and need to start getting ready to receive the droves of people that will soon be showing up to see ROBOGEISHA. I will be joining them but I can promise that I will be falling asleep in the middle of it at some point in time.

Tommy "volunteer coordinator?" Schubert

I have waited. I have made an effort not to jinx this. I have done everything in my power to make sure this has every chance of working. It has paid off. I now officially have a girlfriend. This is no rebound. This is no fluke. This is not a drill. So...on that note: I guess it's about time I gushed. If I'm going to fuck this up by talking about it too much, it should be around now. Before it gets in too deep.

Her name is Elizabeth. She works at Neimann Marcus as a lead copy editor for the website. She turns 25 in about 5 days. Tall, blond, skinny, really shy, really funny (my kind of funny), agnostic, hmm...what else? Lives down near Love Field, hates to drive, LOVES to eat, has a little puppy, wears glasses, and most importantly: Thinks I'm really cute and generally awesome.

That's about the low-down on Elizabeth. Be happy to answer any questions within reason.

Onto other things: I've been keeping at it. My list, AFFD, playing games, etc. AFFD.org just went live. Well...the NEW site just went live. It looks pretty good and marks a new era for the festival. Stress is running kinda high with the board though. I'm hopeful things will go ok. One of the major things I was doing didn't seem to go through. Not happy about that.

Just played through Metro 2033 and really enjoyed it. It was painfully linear and the monsters were just about some of the worst and most frustrating I have played against in my time. Outside of that it was an interesting story with some of the most compelling and realistic locations and atmosphere I have been immersed in in quite a while. You all know very well that I just don't play straight through games very often and this one I definitely got all the way through at a good clip. Recommended. Now I've been enjoying Just Cause 2 on PC. Good stuff so far. Really really interesting game. HUGE world. No. Really. I've played just about every open world game out there and I have to say: I think this is the biggest. Strangely it's not just open space. It's really full of life and an absurd amount of vehicles. And Jets. Didn't I mention the jets? Landing those little fuckers on highways is about as harrowing as it sounds BTW. If you liked Red Faction Guerrilla, you'll probably like this one. Though it's probably better on console.

Kung Fu is fun, difficult and completely exhausting in under an hour. Also, I look awesome in my uniform. That is all.

I am also about to have a completely empty house. Some might think this a good thing. It is not. It's like getting the whole place to myself, but in exchange taking a $1500 a month pay-cut. This did involve telling Phil he's only got 45 days. This did not go over well as he still doesn't have a real job and hasn't been looking for one. I just hope he doesn't try and fuck me over or steal my shit. That would be really really uncool.

Anyway...I really need to get to sleep as tomorrow is going to be a REALLY long day. Good night all.

Tommy "scared, but happy" Schubert