A friend told me the other day that Blogger now has a photo hosting thingy that you can upload pics with through an instant messenger client. So I thought I might give it a shot and post something with a bit more lively color to this otherwise dreary dull blog…



It’s me and “Weird Al” Yankovic from August 2003, after a concert that he gave at Carowinds.
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My first article for The Washington Dispatch was posted on that site a little while ago. Titled “George W. Bush and History”, it examines the flawed perspective that the man is taking in regards to his place in history: not exactly a throwaway thing when we’re dealing with the President of the United States, after all. Anyway, I’ve long believed that the greatest leaders were those with the most humbleness and didn’t try to make more of their lives than what God has given them already. They’re the ones who don’t try to frame the world in reference to themselves, because they understand that they are just one small part of it, and not the whole.

Too bad that the modern American celebritocracy tolerates nobody but those who really do believe that the world revolves around themselves.
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My last blog was dated June 2, 2004. In the almost three months that have transpired since then, I have…

– Attended a concert where Howard Shore conducted most of the score from “The Lord Of The Rings” movie trilogy.

– Stood on the corner of Constitution and 15th in Washington D.C. to watch President Reagan’s procession to the Capitol, and then waited in line for seven hours throughout the following night to visit the Rotunda, witnessing one of the last changes of the guard that took place during the public viewing there.

– Earned two technical certifications in website design and management.

– Given myself a thorough self-education in how to use Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects.

– Started teaching myself Macromedia Flash.

– Spent three days shooting footage for my upcoming short film “Forcery” and several more preparing it for the final product.

– Began learning how ...

Whew… why is it every time I get started on “blogging” again that this pesky thing called life rears its ugly head and throws a kink in my plans? Ahhh well… at least it’s not the usual BAD stuff, right?

So I’ve been studying up bigtime to take the exam for Microsoft CIW certification (45 needed out of 60), take that tomorrow. Hope it goes better than a month ago when Dad and I drove out to Nashville so I could try out for Jeopardy! Am pretty sure I missed passing that exam by two questions and I’ll be the first to admit that I know nothing about obscure 17th century Italian opera!

We also finally finally FINALLY started principle photography on my film “Forcery”. The idea came in early September 2001 (a little over a week before 9/11) after a crazy incident at Dragon*Con in Atlanta that a ...

This was a very good day…. until I received some news that hit me in the chest like a sledgehammer. Can’t really reiterate afresh what I wrote earlier tonight to Liberty Post so with that as the context, here’s to you Maggi…

LP forumer 6bg posted this afternoon that Maggi had died and… just couldn’t believe it. After getting confirmation I lay on my bed and buried my face into the pillow, crying my eyes out for at least half an hour this afternoon.

She died toward the end of February but today was the first I’d seen it announced anywhere. Longtime Freepers (and those of us still Freepers at heart from the old days) will remember Maggi, better known by her screenname MouthOfSouth. I imagine any one of us would have something about the impression she left on a lot of people during her life both online and off.

At the senior picnic a week before we graduated high school in 1992 a history teacher remarked to our principal that “Chris is a real conservative whether he realizes that or not.” It came during a lil’ discussion we’d been having about what might happen with that year’s presidential election since Ross Perot was developing into a strong challenger to the two major parties.

“Conservative?” I wondered: “I don’t even know what that really means… am I one?”

I registered to vote the day after my eighteenth birthday, and have gone to the polls in every major elections since. That I’ve made that effort to be far from an apathetic citizen is something I’m very proud of: the freedoms we enjoy in this country were bought at too high a price, and we take them for granted at our peril. That doesn’t mean we MUST vote in every single race ...

It was announced Thursday on Ain’t It Cool News that the long long LONG delayed (going back at least to 1988) film production of Alan Moore’s “Watchmen” has found a director: Darren Aronfosky. You might remember Aronofsky as the writer/director of 1997’s offbeat black-and-white mathematical thriller “Pi”. He’s done a few things since then but “Pi” beyond all doubt proved his mettle. The one thing he screwed up badly on was the work he did on the “Batman: Year One” script (Alfred the butler as a black man who says “Slammin’!” a lot: what the …?!)

That said, Darren Aronofsky is a very gifted director. He could probably handle any production task given him with the direst sense of responsibility. He’s a true cinematic artist. He’s going to destroy his career when he fails miserably by attempting to bring “Watchmen” to the big screen.

This is what Terry Gilliam has ...

“Why are you doing this to yourselves?” a history instructor at Elon University asked us about six years ago. “You’re going to find yourselves laying awake one of these days at three in the morning, the only sounds you hear being the breathing of your spouse and the beating of your own heart as you are trapped thinking about the horrible things that humanity is capable of doing. You guys are asking for madness, I hope you realize!”

Ever since then I’ve considered why I majored in history because his warning has proved all too prophetic. There are times that do I find myself in bed, unable to sleep, burdened with the weary knowledge of the shape of things as my beautiful wife slumbers beside me. I have to wonder if all our hopes and dreams are really all for naught – so much so that I struggle with thoughts ...

The tagline of the upcoming Alien vs. Predator movie says it all…

“Whoever wins… we lose.”

Today marks the first time in almost two months that I’ve updated the blog. The time was needed for some real-life issues. I like to think that it’s part of the beginning of a new era, when I’ll be able to focus more energies into creative endeavours. Have had to scale back on some projects but hey, you gotta take baby steps before making the big strides.

Since January I’ve been looking for work. But finally it dawned on me that I needed not so much work as I do a career. For guys like me that’s the hardest thing to settle on in the world: ever since I was a small child I’ve dabbled in so many fields, from writing to teaching to science to history to computers to cooking to… well you get the point. I’m now working toward being MS CIW-certified which would put me in ...