Mr. Ball,
I believe it was Wayne Newton who famously said for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. To put it in layman’s terms, if a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, so too must there be a tree not falling over and someone is in fact there to hear it.
Which brings me to the concept of the good luck penny. As a scientist of science, you seemed to be the leading authority to turn to on such manners. But first, a little back-story:
The other day someone showed me his good luck penny.
First and foremost, I feel it is necessary to establish if it is within the realm of plausibility for such a thing as a good luck penny to exist. How does one measure the different gradients of luck found in a penny, or is one good luck penny just as lucky as the next good luck penny? If it is conceivable for a good luck penny to exist, is it not also conceivable for bad luck penny(s) to exist? Again, do they have different degrees of bad luck attached to them, or does their bad luck come at a flat rate?
What about an indifferent penny? If superhero movies have taught us anything, it is that nothing is painted in black and white. So perhaps there is such a thing as a gray area penny, a yin and yang penny if you will, that neither affect luck one way or the other.
After showing me the good luck penny, this person proceeded to introduce me to their good luck Go America! dollar, which of course, raised more questions. Is it possible for other denominations of currency to carry with them a specific luck factor—perhaps the pence, the rupee, or peso? What about other objects altogether? Is it possible to have good luck zip cords, love seats, and hot dog buns? Or is the luck a characteristic of only a select few forms of objects, similarly to how Asians are blessed with the ability to do math really well?
It seems like after finding one lucky penny, the chances of finding more lucky objects would increase, lest of course, there are lots of unlucky objects acting against it. I don’t know. You are the scientist. In theory, I am a theoretician that theorizes theories, not a scientist, so aside from proposing these issues, I am useless when it comes to pursuing these issues further than the hypothesis stage. Please let me know what your scientific method finds.
Sincerely,
V.
To read Geneball's beautiful mind, copy and paste the below thing to your internet thing:
http://geneball.blogspot.com/
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Friday, December 5, 2008
A Landmark Moment
After a night of carefully crossing my t’s and dotting my i’s on my application for the movie theater, I got up bright and early around 10:30am so I could be at the open interview at noon.
A little about the Landmark Theatre:
It’s quite immaculate. First, it takes up an entire side of the mall, it is three stories tall, the bottom floor being renovated to put in a restaurant, and the second two floors house twelve movie theaters between themselves. It has your typical amenities you find at a any movie theater—box office, concession stand, ticket taker, etc.—but it goes above and beyond in so many ways. When purchasing tickets, you pick out the seat you want at the same time. That seat is then reserved for you and you alone. The concession stand has your standard Raisnets (milk chocolate and dark) and Milk Duds, but also has Hebrew National Hotdogs, pizzas, Toblerone (milk chocolate and dark) and something called a Tim Tam, which later I find out is a delicious Australian chocolate wafer snack. Once you pass the ticket taker, there are employees there to show you to your reserved seat. Before the movie starts, someone presents the movie, it’s title, running time, and MPAA rating, all while trying to pimp some wares available at the concierge desk, such as DVDs, soundtracks, and books based on the movie you are about to see.
The place is nice. However, as I sat waiting in the wine bar (there’s a wine bar) with my neatly composed application, across from a bunch of sixteen and seventeen-year olds, one whose application was folded in half, and a girl, who upon learning that I was from Iowa, asked me, “Oh, where’s that at?”, I felt the most humiliated quite possibly ever in my life. On the other hand, right now I’m jobless, so beggars can’t be choosers. On the other hand, upon asking these kids what their plans were after graduating high school, they stared blankly at me before one of them chirped up and asked, “What do you mean?”
After this display of the merits of the California school system, I went into the interview quite confident. Seeing as how I could enunciate words without drooling and understand the first half of this sentence without getting confused, I should be fine. Even if I don’t get the job, I’ll be fine, all things considered.
The interview went swimmingly. General interview questions were asked. General interview questions were answered. I was asked back for a follow-up interview, which I had to sign up for at the concierge desk. There, I met someone named Xavier and Spencer. Spencer assured me I’d love working here and wished me luck on Monday.
Part II of my day involved driving down to posh Santa Monica for a meet and greet with a bunch of people in the industry. How did I learn about such an event? A large woman living at the hostel who is quite unpleasant to be around and converse with, informed me of it, and since I ignore all of her other attempts to get me to go to things, I thought today I should reciprocate the offer with a quick appearance just so she’d leave me alone.
After driving around for twenty minutes looking for a parking space, I found one in a supermarket’s lot reserved for customers of that supermarket’s lot only. Violators would be towed at owner’s expense. Gotta love California.
The box social itself was on the rooftop of an apartment complex. A quick description of the party would look alarmingly like the pool scene from “Boogie Nights.” The centerpiece of the get together was of course, the rooftop pool. No one was actually swimming in it, but it forced people to huddle closer together and converse. There was a potluck barbecue to the side where I ingested as much free food as I could. Not ironic at all, so too was the large woman that invited me to the party to begin with.
Everyone was wearing a “Hi, My Name Is” nametag on their shirts. People would give their name and their profession. There was Steve, a director/writer, and Brad, an actor/writer, and Rhonda, producer/writer and on and on down the line. It seems as though everyone here is a writer of some sort. To break the mold, on my nametag, I wrote writer/stunt performer. I listened to several of these people rattle on and on about what they did while I shoveled handfuls of free Ruffles into my gullet. For all of the actors/writers, directors/writers, clergymen/writers in attendance, not a single one of them had directed, acted, produced, lighted, mixed a damn thing. You’d imagine all of that time not doing what they said they did would leave them plenty of time to write. But no, no one had actually written anything either. They all had ideas for things they wanted to write—shorts and features and webisodes—but no one had actually written anything down. This blog entry alone probably has more words written than the cumulative of everyone else on that rooftop. This wasn’t a party for people in the industry. It was a party for industry wannabes to get together and sound like they were somebody. To that extent, everyone was quite successful.
After excusing myself from a discussion with one of the caterers/writers, I hightailed it back to my not towed car and cruised down the Ten back to hostel purgatory for the final act.
Having been in Los Angeles for over a month at this point, outside of Venice Beach, I had yet to do any touristy things. That all changed when Ben took me down to the Hollywood Bowl. This is where the Walk of Fame I skimmed previously rests, along with the Kodak Theater, the Scientology Museum, and other Hollywood attractions you’ve always heard about but have never seen reside.
It’s also worth noting that everything you would associate with Hollywood resides within a two block diameter. It’s also not as glitzy and glamorous as you might think. It’s quite dirty, actually. Bums and panderers are everywhere. So is their poo. But you can spend a lot of time in that area, like Ben and I did this particular evening. In traffic alone for those two blocks, Ben and I were there for an hour and a half. We were in a parking garage for another half hour looking for parking, then spent about 15 minutes seeing all the sights to be seen.
Ben and I went to a rock n’ roll concert so Ben could see a friend. Shortly after our ears started to bleed, we left, agreeing the no-name band performing wasn’t worth permanent hearing loss, nor was the friend, who clearly didn’t mind the thumping bass that jiggled your stomach acids. Fortunately, Gramm’s Chinese Theater was close by and we stood in a bunch of living and dead actor’s cemented footprints. It’s worth noting that John Wayne’s feet are beyond tiny. They are maybe one size larger than a newborn baby’s foot. His tough guy persona must be to compensate for something. Will Smith’s feet are about the size of my forearm. Big Willie Style indeed. But Burt Reynolds’s feet were juuuuuust right.
Being close to midnight at this point, Ben and I decided to pack up and head home—Ben because he had to get up early and work the next day, me because I aged 34 years the day I turned 23 and was tired at this point. So ended another glitzy, glamorous, superficial Hollywood day.
A little about the Landmark Theatre:
It’s quite immaculate. First, it takes up an entire side of the mall, it is three stories tall, the bottom floor being renovated to put in a restaurant, and the second two floors house twelve movie theaters between themselves. It has your typical amenities you find at a any movie theater—box office, concession stand, ticket taker, etc.—but it goes above and beyond in so many ways. When purchasing tickets, you pick out the seat you want at the same time. That seat is then reserved for you and you alone. The concession stand has your standard Raisnets (milk chocolate and dark) and Milk Duds, but also has Hebrew National Hotdogs, pizzas, Toblerone (milk chocolate and dark) and something called a Tim Tam, which later I find out is a delicious Australian chocolate wafer snack. Once you pass the ticket taker, there are employees there to show you to your reserved seat. Before the movie starts, someone presents the movie, it’s title, running time, and MPAA rating, all while trying to pimp some wares available at the concierge desk, such as DVDs, soundtracks, and books based on the movie you are about to see.
The place is nice. However, as I sat waiting in the wine bar (there’s a wine bar) with my neatly composed application, across from a bunch of sixteen and seventeen-year olds, one whose application was folded in half, and a girl, who upon learning that I was from Iowa, asked me, “Oh, where’s that at?”, I felt the most humiliated quite possibly ever in my life. On the other hand, right now I’m jobless, so beggars can’t be choosers. On the other hand, upon asking these kids what their plans were after graduating high school, they stared blankly at me before one of them chirped up and asked, “What do you mean?”
After this display of the merits of the California school system, I went into the interview quite confident. Seeing as how I could enunciate words without drooling and understand the first half of this sentence without getting confused, I should be fine. Even if I don’t get the job, I’ll be fine, all things considered.
The interview went swimmingly. General interview questions were asked. General interview questions were answered. I was asked back for a follow-up interview, which I had to sign up for at the concierge desk. There, I met someone named Xavier and Spencer. Spencer assured me I’d love working here and wished me luck on Monday.
Part II of my day involved driving down to posh Santa Monica for a meet and greet with a bunch of people in the industry. How did I learn about such an event? A large woman living at the hostel who is quite unpleasant to be around and converse with, informed me of it, and since I ignore all of her other attempts to get me to go to things, I thought today I should reciprocate the offer with a quick appearance just so she’d leave me alone.
After driving around for twenty minutes looking for a parking space, I found one in a supermarket’s lot reserved for customers of that supermarket’s lot only. Violators would be towed at owner’s expense. Gotta love California.
The box social itself was on the rooftop of an apartment complex. A quick description of the party would look alarmingly like the pool scene from “Boogie Nights.” The centerpiece of the get together was of course, the rooftop pool. No one was actually swimming in it, but it forced people to huddle closer together and converse. There was a potluck barbecue to the side where I ingested as much free food as I could. Not ironic at all, so too was the large woman that invited me to the party to begin with.
Everyone was wearing a “Hi, My Name Is” nametag on their shirts. People would give their name and their profession. There was Steve, a director/writer, and Brad, an actor/writer, and Rhonda, producer/writer and on and on down the line. It seems as though everyone here is a writer of some sort. To break the mold, on my nametag, I wrote writer/stunt performer. I listened to several of these people rattle on and on about what they did while I shoveled handfuls of free Ruffles into my gullet. For all of the actors/writers, directors/writers, clergymen/writers in attendance, not a single one of them had directed, acted, produced, lighted, mixed a damn thing. You’d imagine all of that time not doing what they said they did would leave them plenty of time to write. But no, no one had actually written anything either. They all had ideas for things they wanted to write—shorts and features and webisodes—but no one had actually written anything down. This blog entry alone probably has more words written than the cumulative of everyone else on that rooftop. This wasn’t a party for people in the industry. It was a party for industry wannabes to get together and sound like they were somebody. To that extent, everyone was quite successful.
After excusing myself from a discussion with one of the caterers/writers, I hightailed it back to my not towed car and cruised down the Ten back to hostel purgatory for the final act.
Having been in Los Angeles for over a month at this point, outside of Venice Beach, I had yet to do any touristy things. That all changed when Ben took me down to the Hollywood Bowl. This is where the Walk of Fame I skimmed previously rests, along with the Kodak Theater, the Scientology Museum, and other Hollywood attractions you’ve always heard about but have never seen reside.
It’s also worth noting that everything you would associate with Hollywood resides within a two block diameter. It’s also not as glitzy and glamorous as you might think. It’s quite dirty, actually. Bums and panderers are everywhere. So is their poo. But you can spend a lot of time in that area, like Ben and I did this particular evening. In traffic alone for those two blocks, Ben and I were there for an hour and a half. We were in a parking garage for another half hour looking for parking, then spent about 15 minutes seeing all the sights to be seen.
Ben and I went to a rock n’ roll concert so Ben could see a friend. Shortly after our ears started to bleed, we left, agreeing the no-name band performing wasn’t worth permanent hearing loss, nor was the friend, who clearly didn’t mind the thumping bass that jiggled your stomach acids. Fortunately, Gramm’s Chinese Theater was close by and we stood in a bunch of living and dead actor’s cemented footprints. It’s worth noting that John Wayne’s feet are beyond tiny. They are maybe one size larger than a newborn baby’s foot. His tough guy persona must be to compensate for something. Will Smith’s feet are about the size of my forearm. Big Willie Style indeed. But Burt Reynolds’s feet were juuuuuust right.
Being close to midnight at this point, Ben and I decided to pack up and head home—Ben because he had to get up early and work the next day, me because I aged 34 years the day I turned 23 and was tired at this point. So ended another glitzy, glamorous, superficial Hollywood day.
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