First Week!

Wow, really have not had the time to blog this entire week. Mainly just lots of stuff having to do with settling into work, meeting up with a bunch of people, and overall getting used to the hectic lifestyle of this city. Okay, here's a breakdown of what happened this week:

Monday

Contrary to the video, my monday did not involve going to a chain restaurant to try to fight a terrible day and consequently meeting Jennifer Aniston. No, I was more like the version of Ron Livingston's character later in the movie. Except I actually came to work. And liked my job. And didn't have a terrible boss and...god dammit... ok maybe Office Space isn't the best analogy here but whatever. The point is, Monday was my first day on the job at CollegeHumor! The office atmosphere is the opposite of what you can imagine in Office Space (knew I could actually work this in somehow), with people between the ages of 20 and mid-thirties wearing jeans and a t-shirt writing scripts about dick jokes. What more could you ask for! But in all seriousness, the office is super nice, friendly, and just cool to work in. As an added bonus, Dan Siegel, the head of Northwestern Sketch Television in 2010, works right next to me, which is just nice to see someone from Northwestern working in the business. The day went by pretty quickly, and I couldn't wait for tomorrow.

Also, discovered a puppy shop on my walk to the subway that has a huge window filled with at least thirty puppies at all times. I missed my subway that day.

Tuesday

So I got my first actual assignment from CollegeHumor: art assistant. Out of all the film departments, I think that actually might be the one I have absolutely zero experience in. But, I want to try anything they tell me to do, so I got paired up with a really cool art director named Amelia. We began by searching the CollegeHumor storage for props. Needless to say, this was an adventure in itself. The place was a mess to put it lightly, but it was filled with some cool props. Costumes, props, and other nonsense for any type of occasion lined all the walls in a somewhat ordered fashion. They even had a wall filled with nothing but sex stuff.

This was not the only box of these...

So after a long time in the prop storage, we ran around Manhattan looking for a few items we didn't have already. We made it through most of midtown and downtown, going from store to store, trying to find very precise clothing and accessories to make the scene perfect. After this day, I really have respect for art directors. They put in so much time for preproduction.

Wednesday

Yeah, sorry, couldn't really find any videos for Wednesday. Wednesday's historically are not funny. The only famous Wednesday I can think of is Ash Wednesday, and I don't think it's considered funny.

This picture makes me laugh for some reason

But enough about that, Wednesday came with another day of art shopping. But, after work I got to finally meet up with some Northwestern people! A few of us went to Central Park and got to experience one of the great parts of living in New York, free summer concerts. The concept that I could see a show almost every day of the summer in the great parks of New York still baffles me, and I plan on taking full advantage of it. Especially if the talent is as good as Wednesday, when I got to see Indecision 2012 in the Park, where many of the Daily Show correspondents came and performed some amazing standup. Good night with friends, and definitely the perfect way to make it halfway through the week.

My buddy Marshall, enjoying the free show

Thursday

1st Set! Seriously, what a change of pace from Northwestern sets. We ended up filming in a 5 million dollar apartment near Wall Street, and we filled every single inch with film equipment. I was amazed at the Director of Photography's style for the shoot, and even more impressed with how well he worked with the gaffer. It definitely was a change of pace for me, since I ended up coloring Phineas and Ferb microphones to look realistic instead of setting up lights, but I still had a lot of fun. Here are a few shots from the set:

I also bonded with my crew when 14 of us got trapped in a service elevator. I think our DP was hands-down the most scared, seeing he went to the floor and advised us to not laugh because we would use up the oxygen. Sure man, sure.

Friday

Hey, I finally almost died! Seriously, this actually almost happened. From this:

I was out in Queens on a shoot in the middle of the woods, when a bolt of lightning crashed about 200 feet from our set and a monsoon flooded out our location. It lasted less than ten minutes, but we all took a beating. Our art director actually lost his hearing for twenty minutes!

So, with a near death experience, I needed to somehow recuperate. And this came with Ariana's birthday! Drinks all around at a great Cuban restaurant in the East Village, and a great time just hanging out with some cool Northwestern people again. Even if none of us could find the restaurant for over half an hour, it paid off because I could finally make the "1st and 1st nexus of the universe" joke, because the place was actually at 1st and 1st!

Slightly tipsy, I headed home to sleep for the long weekend ahead of me.

Saturday and Sunday

Governors Ball!!!! Seriously, one of the greatest weekends of my life. Amazing performances from some of my favorite bands like Passion Pit, Modest Mouse, and Beck, but I also now have a couple new bands that I am really starting to get into like Phantogram, Cults, and Big Gigantic. Probably one of the bigger surprise bands for me was this Australian band called Art vs Science, who came out in metallic silver space suits and played some crazy electrorock. Give them a listen!

Also, Duck Sauce played and gave out some duck masks.

Surprisingly the first picture of me on this blog

Sorry for the long post guys! I'll try to update more often so it'll be a little shorter!

The First Day: New Home, New Places to Explore

So, the morning my family and I drove into New York we almost got arrested. Turns out the minute difference between having your EZ pass on your dash and in your glove compartment is enough to trigger the cops. Luckily, we made it through and made our way down through Harlem to my new apartment.

Not too shabby, right? I think my neighbors will like me more once my Dad stops creeping on them from the back window.

So my apartment is in East Harlem, which originally scared my mom to death, as shown by the amount of times she tried to lock the doors when we drove through it. But, in all honesty, the area is super nice and really friendly. It's mostly a hispanic neighborhood, so really good food and a lively neighborhood are pretty much a guarantee. I got a taste of the liveliness while my parents were still here when a parade made it's way down 3rd Avenue while a children's choir sang hispanic children's songs.

So, after a farewell lunch with my parents, I decided to figure out the parts of the city that I would need to get to on a pretty regular basis. First stop: work. CollegeHumor is located at pretty much the opposite end of Manhattan from me, so it takes a good amount of travel time. After a few mishaps on the subway, I made it down to Chelsea. I found my work, got lost, then found one of the coolest things in Manhattan, The High Line.

It's an old elevated subway line that they converted into a long walkway with trees, yards, and other park-like elements on it. Also, it has this thing painted on the side of a building along the way, so you know it's a good time.

But, alas, I had other places I needed to find. Next stop was Riverside Park, a beautiful strip of greenery along the Upper West Side.

It's one of the best views of the Hudson River, and it reminds me a lot of the North Side River Walk in Pittsburgh. I mean, New Jersey even looks a little like Mt. Washington across the river! I came here to find a soccer field that I had an ultimate game at the next day, and sure enough, there was a field right underneath a major highway next to the river. I'm amazed at how New York adapts to its urban environment.

As I was about to go, I heard heavy electronic music with a weird twist coming from somewhere outside. Curious, I followed the sound along the river until I found quite a strange sight: a Middle Eastern/Reggae rave. On a pier. At 5pm. On a Sunday. Needless to say, I was in awe at the events you can find in New York at any point.

So, that concluded my first day. New York is definitely leaving an impression on me already, and I can't wait to see what it has in store for me the next couple days.

And, of course, you know I joined the rave. Come on, when's the next chance I'll stumble upon something like that again?!

The Journey Begins

Before you start to see images of Frodo, Sam, and the Shire, this blog is not about that.

Tumblr has enough about these two that I need not to touch on it here. Instead, this blog will take you on a different journey, one through the different parts of New York City that I'll experience in the next three months.

To give you a little perspective of who writes this blog, I'm a twenty-year-old Radio/Television/Film and Economics double major at Northwestern University. I'll be in New York the next couple of months interning at CollegeHumor as a Production Intern. For a while, I've wanted to try living in NYC to figure out if this city is the place I want to be after graduation, and now I finally have that opportunity.

So, for the most part, this blog will consist of a few things. Mostly it will be stories of what random shenanigans occur during my time here in New York. Embarrassing photos will be included. Other than that, I'll probably talk about anything cool happening at CollegeHumor or just what is important to me at the time I write the blog posts. Speaking of which, I hope to keep this updated about twice a week, depending on what I'm doing/where I am/whether I actually remember to write things.

So, my journey begins in Ridgefield, New Jersey, which is pretty much a bunch of corporate offices with a hotel and a huge Loews Theater. Nothing special. But it does lie about forty-five minutes outside of NYC, and I'll be heading in tomorrow to meet my roommate, unpack, and discover the wonders of NYC public transit. But until then, I'll be super antsy and continue to watch Science Channel shows about the possibility of life on other planets.

Also, my dad continues to call my Android phone an "Intelliphone" instead of a smartphone. Says it'll be the next big trend. #intelliphone