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.

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]

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.

You fancy your­self a writer. Well what have you written?

You say that you’re a direc­tor. What the hell have you directed?

You con­sider your­self alive. Then tell me what you have lived through.

–con­ver­sa­tion i had this morn­ing with the reflec­tion in my mirror

So I have recently become a vic­tim of the cur­rent eco­nomic down­turn. I don’t like to use the word vic­tim because no one is really a vic­tim. We should all be work­ing towards mak­ing our­selves indis­pens­able at our places of work. But some­times it can’t be helped. If a com­pany doesn’t have money, it doesn’t have money. And although it’s not good to blame your­self and wal­low in guilt, this would be an appro­pri­ate time to reassess your­self, your skills, and your cur­rent direc­tion in life. Take a moment to ignore the impend­ing bar­rage of bills that are about to start falling on your head and think hard about whether you need a course adjust­ment in where the hell you’re steer­ing your life.  Based on that, I have come up with 8 sim­ple steps to stay­ing sane, stay­ing pro­duc­tive, and prop­erly nav­i­gat­ing unemployment.

1. Find a sup­port system

No one is an island. It’s true. Find some­one you trust: a friend, a sig­nif­i­cant other, fam­ily. Some­one to share the bur­den of this stress­ful sit­u­a­tion. If you’ve done every­thing you can but still can’t find some­one, maybe you have big­ger prob­lems than unem­ploy­ment and the real rea­son you got fired was due to you per­son­al­ity and not the econ­omy. But this isn’t a post about how to find friends and even the friend­less need to sur­vive. So I sug­gest to those peo­ple, get a dog. We all need inter­ac­tion to help alle­vi­ate the stress. Hell, get a ger­bil or a cat for that mat­ter. The point is, don’t deal with this alone.

2. Stick to a reg­i­mented schedule

No going to bed at 4am and wak­ing up at 1pm. You’re out of col­lege and you need to feel pro­duc­tive. Oth­er­wise, you’re just going to enter a down­ward spi­ral of self loathing and depres­sion. You should already be use to wak­ing up at a cer­tain time for work, don’t change your sched­ule. Go to bed at the same time and wake up at the same time that you would have were you still employed. Not only will it give you a sense of nor­malcy, but you’ll also feel a lit­tle more pro­duc­tive. I have also com­mit­ted myself to tak­ing my lunch hour at the same time that I did when I was at work. In addi­tion, I have sched­uled out my day with spe­cific tasks to help me accom­plish the goals I defined and out­lined in Step 5.

3. Do some­thing physical

You need to stay healthy. As much as peo­ple hate to say it, a youth­ful appearence plays a big role in whether you will get hired. A seden­tary lifestyle for even a few weeks can play havoc on your appear­ance. Your skin color and tone, your pos­ture, your over­all appear­ance. There’s noth­ing bet­ter to help you look younger than some good old fash­ioned exer­cise. I’m per­son­ally going to med­i­tate each morn­ing for 10 min­utes right after I wake up and then go for a swim. In addi­tion, I meet three times a week with my friends at the gym. This also con­tribute to Step 1, inter­ac­tion with friends. And even though this might be more exer­cise than you’ve ever had, hey, what else are you gonna do with all your free time. Might as well get healthy.

4. Tighten your belt

You have no more income. Stop spend­ing money! Com­mon sense right? You’re not the United States Gov­ern­ment after all. Start look­ing for places that you can cut cor­ners. In addi­tion to not going out to din­ner as much, get cre­ative about it. The lease on my Mer­cedes is up in a few months. I’m going to see if I can return it early with­out penalty and get rid of my car pay­ment. I can drive my mom’s jalopy around for a few months until I get back on my feet. I also turned an extra room in my house into my office. Although I hate to give it up, the cur­rent hous­ing sit­u­a­tion should make it fairly easy to rent out.

5. Keep busy and stay productive

For God’s sake, keep busy. Day­time tele­vi­sion is for old peo­ple and house­wives, not the down­sized. Find a pur­pose. Make daily tasks and weekly objec­tives. In addi­tion to your resume build­ing and job search­ing, you need to find some­thing to fill the rest of the daily void. Read that book you’ve never had the time to read. Learn a new lan­guage. Learn a new skill. Build your­self a web­site. Start a project.

I have a laun­dry list of things that I haven’t had enough time to do and now I’m tak­ing advan­tage of the free time by stay­ing pro­duc­tive. I have a doc­u­men­tary that I’ve been putting together on my off time that I can now focus on. I have a few screen­play ideas that I’m plan­ning on mov­ing to stage two. I also have a few tele­vi­sion ideas that I have been mean­ing write treat­ments for so that I can pitch. I’m also been mean­ing to pol­ish up my reel and build by busi­ness web­site. The great part is that all of these goals will help me out of the hole that is unemployment.

6. Get outside

It is very easy to stay in your paja­mas and just loaf around the house. But if you do too much of that, I starts to bleed into your pro­duc­tive­ness. Going to apply for jobs on the inter­net? Go to a library or a cof­fee shop with inter­net. Read­ing the Clas­si­fieds? Do it some­where pub­lic. In addi­tion to feel­ing like a part of soci­ety, the change of scenery will do you good. Vit­a­min D from the sun has been proven to fight depression.

7. Be hum­ble and believe in yourself.

Be hum­ble with your­self and you won’t take some of the sac­ri­fices you’ll be mak­ing as hard. Although you need a cer­tain amount of con­fi­dence to sur­vive in today’s world, don’t think of your­self as invin­ci­ble. Sh#t hap­pens to the best of peo­ple. If you stop think­ing about your­self as Super­man, you might have a chance to for­give the sit­u­a­tion, get over your­self, and move for­ward. You’re going to have to make some choices that you think are beneath you and being hum­ble will help you swal­low that pill called pride. I was for­tu­nate to just be cut to part time, but if I had been fired out­right, it would have been hard to not take it per­sonal. But you just have to believe that your self worth isn’t depen­dent on how oth­ers per­ceive you. You can never know the exten­u­at­ing cir­cum­stances that moti­vated which depart­ment got cut. For all you know, Joe Schmoe over in receiv­ing might be the nephew of the long lost sis­ter of the boss.

I’ve been pretty pub­lic with my down­siz­ing. I unabashedly broad­casted my job sta­tus on Face­book. And I’ve twit­tered it as well as writ­ten about it here on my blog. Sure there’s peo­ple out there that I’d rather not know, then again maybe there’s peo­ple our there that might have a job for me. I believe enough in myself to know that my friends won’t judge me based on my cur­rent employ­ment sit­u­a­tion. And if they do and con­tact me less, then bet­ter for me. Who needs friends like that.  I also have enough belief in myself that this is only a tem­po­rary sit­u­a­tion. This is some­thing that I will be able to look back upon as a minor hic­cup in the long road that is my career to suc­cess. And how we han­dle our­selves in the tough­est of times is the true marker of what kind of per­son we really are.

8. Get a new job

Get a new job dumb dumb. Use your new found free time to take stock of your skills, pol­ish up your resumen, renew acquain­tances, and hit the pave­ment hard. After all, you can’t stay job­less forever.