I had an epiphany about color vs. black and white while watch­ing Burn Notice. If you don’t know about the show, you should check it out. It’s like this decades A-Team/Remington Steele. A spy dis­avowed by his agency helps a new needy “client” each week. It’s mind­less TV fun at its best. Action and explo­sions with nary an indi­vid­ual get­ting hurt. But I digress. I’ve read all of these books about how some peo­ple pre­fer black and white over color because black and white has more inter­est­ing con­trast, shad­ing, and grayscale gra­di­ents. These books talked about how film­mak­ers of the past would use red lights and yel­low lights to cre­ate dif­fer­ent shades of gray on film. If you saw the scene lit in real life, it would look like a bad acid trip. But because all those col­ored lights turned to shades of gray on film, it just cre­ated an inter­est­ing play of con­trast and grayscale. As a film­maker that grew up in a world of color tv, where I Love Lucy reruns were annoy­ing because they didn’t have color, I’ve always felt too young to really appre­ci­ate black and white. And if I had the choice, I would have always cho­sen color. I mean, why would you choose mono audio over stereo? Strangely, I’ve always appre­ci­ated black and white pho­tog­ra­phy but hav­ing never seen the same pho­to­graph in color and B&W side by side, I’ve never had a true under­stand­ing of the differences.

But then while watch­ing the sea­son 4 episode of Burn Notice “Made Men”, a fade from color to B&W hit me like a ton of bricks and I finally get what peo­ple say about B&W. See, all the read­ing that I had done was too cere­bral. They were all just wordy expla­na­tions using high falutin art words. But what I saw on TV just got to me on an intu­itive level.

To me, the color pic­ture has so much detail that your eye doesn’t pick out shapes. Your eye is draw more to col­ors and indi­vid­ual items as opposed to see­ing the com­po­si­tion as a whole. The best exam­ple of this is the big red siren on the cop car in the fore­ground. In the color pic­ture, you have white and red against a brown­ish gray street. The red pops out and draws your focus to the car. In the B&W ver­sion, the gray of the siren almost matches the street and it draws less atten­tion. Your eye is able to focus on the true sub­ject which are the four char­ac­ters in sil­hou­ette. In the B&W pic­ture, the car at the bot­tom, the white water at the top, and the dark under exposed side of the street on the right of the pic­ture cre­ate a frame for our sub­jects. All of these work together to draw your eye to the sil­hou­ettes and make a much more inter­est­ing com­po­si­tion. Even the sil­hou­ettes pop out more in B&W because they are a pure black against at lighter background. In the color ver­sion, the legs of the woman and the white shirt of the guy to the right of her get a lit­tle lost against the brown­ish gray street. This is prob­a­bly what all the experts mean when they talk about bet­ter con­trast in B&W. Overall, B&W made for a stronger and more dis­tinct com­po­si­tion. And there in a nut­shell is my epiphany on B&W.

The name of my film is back to Beyond the Mat. Orig­i­nally, the movie I’m pro­duc­ing was called Beyond the Mat but because there’s a WWE doc­u­men­tary from 1999 of the same name, we were advised to change our title to some­thing else. After much debate and con­ster­na­tion, we changed it to Near­fall. When we started the project back in 2006, only seven years after the doc­u­men­tary, it made sense that there might be con­fu­sion in the mar­ket­place. But we’ve always retained a fond­ness for our orig­i­nal name and now that things have picked up for the movie again, we’ve decided that a decade is enough water under the bridge and to rename our film Beyond the Mat.

Here’s a quick update. WE HAVE DISTRIBUTION! It’s a small com­pany call Catch22. We’ll be their first the­atri­cal release but we have some Hol­ly­wood Heavy Hit­ters on the team. I can’t dis­close who they are yet but there should be a Vari­ety arti­cle com­ing out in the near future.

Finally, the other big news is that we have signed on our pol­ish­ing edi­tor. He’s the Acad­emy Award win­ner, Scott Con­rad edi­tor of the orig­i­nal Rocky. Maybe you’ve heard of it. I remem­ber when we first started this film, we kept ref­er­enc­ing Rocky and how we wanted to be the next clas­sic sports film. No one would have thought that by the end of this long and ardu­ous jour­ney that we’d actu­ally be work­ing with the edi­tor of that sem­i­nal sports movie. Ask any­one for their top 5 sports movies and chances are Rocky will be on that list. Scott Con­rad helped cre­ate the mod­ern sports movie genre. Now he’s putting his skill and tal­ent into MY sports movie. Isn’t that crazy? Never in the wildest dreams of a first time film­maker would we ever think this was a possibility.

Here’s a brief update on some other things. The legal issue with the film was recently set­tled and that took a huge bur­den off of my chest. Because of the law­suit and the cash issues that it caused, I had to get a day job. I started work­ing at a mar­ket­ing com­pany whose main client is Suzuki. Then the econ­omy fell apart and the auto indus­try was slapped across the face with cut­backs. My com­pany was no excep­tion. I got put to part time sta­tus at only 12 hours a week. We the free­lanc­ing needed to make ends meet, the law­suit, and a moun­tain of debt; I was in no mood to work on Beyond the Mat. That’s also why I stopped writ­ing. But all that is over now. I’ve been back to full time since May 1st. We got the fin­ish­ing funds we need for our film. The law­suit is com­pletely over. I’ve paid off all of my legal fees. We’ve picked up dis­tri­b­u­tion. And we even have some guest celebri­ties appear­ing in our film. We shot pick­ups with Ken Sham­rock a few months ago and we are final­iz­ing our con­tract with Kurt Angle to film at the end of July.

Van the direc­tor has been stressed about sched­ul­ing and I have been hav­ing trou­ble moti­vat­ing myself through all the tribu­la­tions, but I’m feel­ing like I’m get­ting back into the groove. It’s time for me to rally to troops and get this baby done.

A: yo
B: yeah
A: when you say hi to a girl and she responds “hey you” what do you think that means?
B: in what con­text?
on aim?
in real life?
do you know her?
A: hmm tex­ting
B: just hol­lar­ing?
A: i do
like we talked for a bit
B: play­ful
but non com­mit­tal
A: and recently
say­ing that do you think it’s play­ful?
B: casual
A: i feel it’s more dis­tant
B: depends on the girl
like she’s not being for­mal
so maybe shows a level of com­fort
or it could be dis­tant
A: ahaha
B: but depends on your feel­ing
A: but going from “hey” to “hey you” seems weird no?
B: going from hi to hey you
or hey to hey you
cause hey to hey you seems nat­ural
A: but why add the “you”?
i mean obvi­ously the hey is directed at me
im try­ing to decide if it’s a flirty response or a keep my dis­tance response
B: flirty
A: really?
B: yeah
i think so
A: would you respond to a girl with “hey you”?
B: yeah
i have before
it’s casual, play­ful
A: it’s an odd response
i’ve never had a girl really say that
haha
B: i don’t think so
i think it’s fairly com­mon
A: haha damn i need to get out more
B: yeah you do
…i’m going to remove your name and post this on fb

[…yes, guys really do have con­ver­sa­tions like this]

So I’ve been MIA for awhile. But it’s been for a good rea­son. I had a girl­friend and she was tak­ing up most of my time. But now I’ve been cured of that. She broke up with me the other night. Below is a list of things peo­ple have told me to try and help me get over it. Some are bet­ter than others…

i can say you’ll every­thing will be ok. but what ever i say isn’t going to make you feel bet­ter. it’s just gonna have to take time to get over it. — PT

OMG. DONT BE SO GAY. — LC

and how does this make you feel? — JC

that sucks man — YK

so you’re gonna be sin­gle this week­end then. nice. — JS

maybe the story isn’t fin­ished. let her go. and she will real­ize that u were the best. and u should try to move on too. and in the guture when she real­izes that u are the best. she will come back — JL

I was faced with a tough deci­sion this past week as I strolled through the local drug store. I was in the con­dom aisle and was con­fronted with over 40 dif­fer­ent con­doms to choose from: ribbed, lubri­cated, polyurethane, etc. I pre­fer the ultra thin kind but even that didn’t nar­row down my selec­tion. To top it off, there were two new mod­els that must have just come on the mar­ket. I was stuck between my tried and true work­horse the Tro­jan Ultra Thin latex con­dom and one of these new­fan­gled options. What to do? What to do? So I did what EVERY hot-blooded guy with a blog would and bought all three to do an in depth com­par­i­son test. Here are my find­ing. Please enjoy because the tests for this post were the most tir­ing three min­utes of my life.

Tro­jan Ultra Thin

Details:

Latex Con­doms
Width: 2 in
Length: 7.6 in
Thick­ness: 0.0024 in
Lubri­ca­tion: Water Based
Sper­mi­cide: No
Spe­cial Fea­tures: Reser­voir Tip

Claims:

“Our Thinnest Latex Con­doms Ever!“
“For Ulti­mate Sensitivity”

• Thinnest TROJAN Latex Con­dom — Designed for a more nat­ural feeling
• Over 25% Thin­ner than Stan­dard Condoms
• Made from Pre­mium Qual­ity Latex — To help reduce the risk
• Low Latex Odor
• Spe­cial Reser­voir End — For extra safety

For Him:

These are my tried and true stand bys. They’re thin­ner and trans­mit more sen­sa­tion than reg­u­lar latex con­doms. I can’t say they give that noth­ing but skin feel­ing but it’s a good deal closer.  One of the big bonuses is that they don’t give off that funky latex smell.

For Her:

Bet­ter than reg­u­lar con­doms. Do I really have to do this? I’m so embarrassed.

Tro­jan Supra

Details:

Microsheer Polyurethane Con­dom
Width: 2.25 in
Length: 7.87 in
Thick­ness: .0015 in
Sper­mi­ci­dal: No
Lubri­ca­tion: Yes
Spe­cial Fea­tures: Reser­voir Tip

Claims:

“Ulti­mate Sen­sual Pleasure!”

For Him:

These con­doms didn’t have the same tex­ture as reg­u­lar latex con­doms. They felt a lit­tle harder/rigid and not as stretchy or flex­i­ble. They def­i­nitely felt thin­ner than the ultra thin latex con­doms and in my opin­ion were able to trans­fer more sen­sa­tion through to my skin. I felt like the con­doms could have had a lit­tle more lubri­cant on them but you can always buy extra. And although it didn’t feel as good as noth­ing at all, these con­doms came closer than the Ultra-Thin latex condoms.

For Her:

The Supra had a more pla­s­ticky (is that a word?) feel­ing which resulted in fric­tion. Which …is a good thing.

LifeStyles SKYN

Details:

New Poly­iso­prene Mate­r­ial
Width: 2.13 in
Length: 7.48 in
Thick­ness: 0.0028 in
Lubri­ca­tion: Yes
Sper­mi­ci­dal: No
Spe­cial Fea­tures: Reser­voir Tip

Claims:

“Clos­est thing to wear­ing nothing”

• New SKYN con­doms pro­vide a softer, more nat­ural feel and have been clin­i­cally proven to enhance sensation.
• Com­bines the strength of pre­mium latex with the sen­si­tiv­ity of an ultra thin con­dom for that Skyn-to-Skyn sensation.
• Long-lasting, ultra smooth lubri­cant enhances the experience
• Tech­no­log­i­cally advances Poly­iso­prene mate­r­ial that is strong and sensitive.

For Him:

At .oo28”, these are actu­ally as thick as reg­u­lar con­doms. The poly­iso­prene mate­r­ial had a more nat­ural sup­ple feel­ing to it. Maybe it’s the stuff they make sex toys out of. I’d say they feel bet­ter than reg­u­lar con­doms and the mate­r­ial def­i­nitely trans­fer sen­sa­tion bet­ter than polyurethane. But because of the thick­ness, I still liked the polyurethane bet­ter. If they made these in ultra-thin, I think they’d be the clear wiener. (hehe, I’m punny.)

For Her:

Seemed thin­ner than a reg­u­lar con­dom even though it wasn’t. There wasn’t as much sen­sa­tion as the Polyurethane Supra but way bet­ter than a reg­u­lar con­dom. I hate you for mak­ing me do this and I hate your blog.

And the win­ner is:

Tro­jan Supra!!!

My new go-to work horse. Actu­ally when I started look­ing online for specs on con­doms, I kept see­ing sites rec­om­mend these Japan­ese brands, “Beyond Seven” and “Crown Skin­less Con­dom”. So I guess I’ll with­hold my true deci­sion until I’ve tried those. But on another note, I have a rant:

Who the hell buys reg­u­lar con­doms any­more? I don’t under­stand why they just don’t make ultra-thin con­doms and call THEM reg­u­lar? Who are these peo­ple? “Hi, I’d like a box of your thick­est con­doms please. Actu­ally, can I just get a plas­tic gro­cery bag? I don’t like to feel ANYTHING when I’m hav­ing sex.” I mean seri­ously, it’s either that or these peo­ple are hav­ing sex with the skeezi­est sluts on earth and are super scared of catch­ing an STD. To me, using reg­u­lar con­doms is like play­ing Counter-strike with oven mitts on. You can mash on the con­trols and maybe win a game or two. But in the end, you’d be bet­ter off just play­ing with yourself.