A lot of things came together today. I say today but technically it was yesterday because it is after midnight now. I finally heard back from a few places that I mailed questions to over the weekend. We went and got our car smogged finally. I got Long Live The Dead submitted to Createspace. I should hear back tomorrow or the day after at the latest but I will get the proof sent out ASAP. I just hope I didn’t wait too long in submitting it. I finally got my refund from a snafu with a survey thing so I spent that money on some stuff on Amazon I have had my eye on for a while. I accepted the new Howcast video that I was assigned after requesting it and tidied up the office a bunch to shoot it. Now that LLTD is off my desk for a while I am going to try and shoot/edit this video quickly and stuff. I might try doing it in HD too because my SD camera is on the fritz. I called Sony about getting it looked at and they told me that they will fix it no questions asked for $500. Which I don’t have so it is going to have to wait a while… and at that price I might as well just buy a new one. Lots going on. too much for my poor little brain right now so instead of subjecting you to anymore of this drivel I will say goodnight and return in a couple of days when more things have happened and I can write of them more clearly.

The title of this post has a double meaning… I shall explain.

As repeat readers may know I recently got my “Legal permanent resident card” (A.k.a: My Green card) after 9 years and 9 months. well a few days after getting that one… I got another one. yup I now have TWO green cards. Now, Long story short while we were waiting for the first card we received three identical e-mails with different dates letting me know my card was approved… so we figure if we received three e-mails maybe we will get three cards? Only time will tell. Now for the OTHER third thing.

Today is my 11th wedding anniversary. To celebrate my wife suggested we go have a picnic in the park because it would be free and we are broke. So we went and had a nice pleasant little walk around the park, fed the ducks, ate some food, took a bunch of pictures and video of the kids… it was nice. Then we went back to the car where a nice shiny $70 ticket was waiting for us because our car registration is expired. That was one. We drove home a little miffed because our nice little family day out had so far cost us $70 more than expected. So we get about a mile or so from home and one of our tires SHREDS. It didn’t go flat and thankfully it didn’t blow out but it really shredded. we pull over and start to try and change it ourselves when my wife realizes that we have roadside assistance still that we paid a lot of money for when we got he car (Back when we had money) and luckily we were just about 2,000 miles still inside our expiration mileage. so we called, they came and it ended up not costing us anything which was good. But still that is the TWO… so I am waiting on the third one. I guess I shall be grateful that when we got home out house was still standing and hadn’t burnt down.

Okay that’s it. I am going to go and try to work on stuff… maybe my computer will blow up? I think I will back up some files first… just in case.

Life is really getting to me right now. it might just be a “side effect” of having just woke up a little while ago and still having the cloying heavy blanket of my dreams still weighing me down but I don’t think so. Anyway, despite that feeling I am going to try and have a good day. Yesterday was bad but could have been better, the biggest thing I got done yesterday was pulling a bunch of weeds in the front yard. That just seemed to drain me and I got nothing creative accomplished. I tried but failed repeatedly and that always drives me into that stereotypical artist’s funk.

This week is going to be a busy one… we have a government thing to go to, a doctors appointment, it is out wedding anniversary and then fathers day. so four out of the next seven days each have their own big thing and then in between all of that we also have to take care of bills and work our butts off to try and earn ANY money.

I submitted the Howcast video with all of the changes they wanted and so we are waiting on that again… another seven to ten days. I can’t remember what day I uploaded it so I can’t even count right now, I will have to work it out later.

I Think I will shave that sometimes makes me feel like I have gotten something accomplished. Sigh. A lot to do and very little energy with which to do it. time is running out for LLTD and Roadkill… but that’s okay, I usually work better under pressure. one way or another I will meet both deadlines every if I don’t end up having everything exactly how I want them. Sigh. Until next time.

Yup it is official,

Today in the mail on the 30th day of an expected 30 day wait I received my “Green Card”. It only took 9 years and nine months, being married for a decade and having two children but the government finally has granted me legal permanent residency.

Also on the bright side the movie I have been waiting 20+ years for came out today - “The A Team” and according to the early reviews it is actually kind of good. The bad news is that I am so SUPER broke that I can’t afford to go see it. I have been so broke I haven’t even gone to see Iron man 2 at the theater yet.

Yup those are the two good bits of news from the Lost Gotham camp, everything else is basically bad… I haven’t worked on Roadkill, I am not finished with Long Live The Dead yet (But I am almost) we have two VERY overdrawn bank accounts, we haven’t paid our mortgage yet or made our car payment. We have zero money coming in in the next 2 weeks and we have over $1,000 to pay out “Or else.” You don’t have to be a math wiz to know that doesn’t add up.

In other news despite waiting the required 10 days my Howcast submission has not yet been accepted and there is no ETA on when it will be. I found out some interesting info though… for me to make Howcast videos remotely “profitable” if that word even applies I would need to make at least 10 a month… and be accepted into level three of the film maker program. I am currently on level 1 and have to make at least 10 accepted videos before I can move up to level 2. Please bare in mind that it took me over a week to get the first video done and it is pushing 2 weeks since I submitted it. even if I pull my finger out and film as quickly as I can/should I am looking at potentially a 2 week turn around on videos at first. I can’t even shoot more than one at once until I go up a level. So I am looking at 5 months or more until I can move up a level? sigh.

And not to be melodramatic but it really seems like my 3 CCD camera is on it’s way out. Or is at least in need of a tune up. Yes I have the two cheap HD’s but I NEED a new camera and with the way things are looking… I am not going to get one. Maybe, MAYBE if I make a big push and I am very lucky I can work my butt off and move up in levels at Howcast and start actually earning money with them, then if I can clean my credit report up some… Maybe I can see about getting a loan and get a new camera next year. sigh.

In the mean time, if I am shooting back to back tutorials that isn’t going to leave me much time to shoot anything else. so I am going to be stuck doing nothing but writing. which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it means I will be finishing some of those pesky outstanding scripts I have wanted to write.

Sigh. wow what a really interesting and inspirational blog post huh!? Okay I am going to go now before I drive myself or anyone else to suicide.

UPDATE: Okay so I finally heard back from How cast they have about a dozen fixes they want done, nothing major… it will probably take longer to render than to do them, but still. I am going to try and do them this afternoon and get it uploaded tonight. Let’s see how long it takes for them to review it again. :/

Yup. June is here already.

Time is flying again… I am getting some stuff done, just not as much as I would like. I am 129 pages into the edit of Long Live The Dead, so a little over 170 to go… I will probably try to have a second pass through it if I can before the deadline at the end of this month. I have also been working hard at a cover design for it… I am not in love with it yet but hopefully it should come out okay. I just hope that by self publishing I don’t shoot myself in the foot trying to sell it to a publisher.

In other news… I shot my first HowCast tutorial and submitted it. I haven’t heard back from them yet but I should in the next week or so. It will either be an e-mail telling me to make changes or a “congratulations, you check is in the mail!”… Hopefully the latter, that way I can pick another one and try to get some more money coming in. I haven’t worked outside of the house in nine months now and things are getting tough.

In movie making news that is not my own… Scream 4 is moving ahead nicely with a three of the original cast and some new blood (to get splattered around everywhere) in the forms of Emma Roberts and Hayden Panettiere. Could be cool, I liked all three of the others… okay to a lesser degree each time but they were all watchable.

What else… Tom Selleck has kind of made it Semi-official that a new “Three men” movie is in the works. That could be cool too. Not a blockbuster or anything but a “Nice” movie.

There have been a lot of “Big” deaths lately. I didn’t intend for that to be a pun in any way but Gary Coleman passed and so did Rue McClanahan (from Golden girls - which I watched as a young kid) and finally the biggest name on the list… Dennis Hopper. They may not have been doing much lately but they are still big names to me, people I liked and they will be missed.

Finally I guess I just want to say that anticipation is building for a handful of projects to be released in the next couple of years… Thor and Captain America have both had “Leaked” pictures of concept art for their stars. They look okay, I will wait to see the final product before I cast judgment. I am more excited by the news that Joss Whedon is officially directing “The Avengers” THAT will be something to see. But all of those are a little way off… Closer to home we have A-team and The Expendables both of which I have been waiting for since I was a kid - A big screen adaption of one of my favorite shows and the ULTIMATE action movie staring every bad-ass 80’s action star you could want.

Anyway, I have procrastinated enough. No News from Immigration yet, should be any day now. I should know by the next time I write. Sigh… Wish me luck, as usual.