New Years Resolutions

I usually don't believe in resolutions because they usually just lead to severe depression that comes as an inevitable result of not living up to them. But I'm feeling positive this year so here I go.


1.) Actually unpack. We moved 2 months ago and we still live amongst boxes.

2.) Get my extended family to understand how to spell my last name. It's the Whidden part that seems to mess them up which is funny because my Aunt Gwen's last name is WHITTEN. Despite it all, I still get everything addressed to Widden-Winter, not Whidden Winter.

3.) To finally process that Niemeyer is spelled IE not EI.

4.) To stop throwing my Final Cut Troubleshooting manual book thing at the wall-- I can't afford to fix the hole I've created NOW, I shouldn't make it bigger.

5.) To stop swearing in front of my mother. The last time I called my brother an "ass clown" she almost had a coronary. I like my mother and would like her around.

6.) To find new ways to show people I appriciate that I appriciate them.

7.) To Grow.

So that's them. I was going to add "blog once a month" but that's probably not going to happen and would lead to the afformentioned depression. Hope everyone had an awesome Christmas and killer New Year.

to explain or apologize...

i was re-reading my to be perfectly honest post and i suddenly became very concerned that it sounded a more than a little passive-aggressive and that my lovely friends might think bad things. so i thought i'd explain a couple of things that sounded, well, down right bitchy. here we go

death cab for cutie - i was being serious when i said that i couldn't name a song. it's not because i don't like them, but because i've never really paid attention. i've been stuck in my guns n' roses faze for about 3 years now so you can see how that might happen

bitching about the war - here's why i said that. that week for some strange reason i had 3 different people--complete strangers mind you--who felt the need to rant on me about it. i don't know if they thought that they were converting me to their cause or what, but if you are at a point where you are complaining loudly to perfect strangers then don't you think you should actually do something about it? The other issue is stupid news channel's panel shows that for some reason my father has on ALL OF THE TIME and since my office is still at my parents I have listen to it all freakin' day. everybody just says the same thing all of the time. after day 3 you want to kill yourself, it doesn't matter what the topic. that being said i think there is a big difference between hearing stuff from strangers and hearing stuff from friends. i like hearing my friends opinions because not only do i care to hear what they have to say, but because they are being genuine and informed and not self serving in their opinion.

the indie music thing - this was mainly a truthism about me. if i told you how much time i spent looking up obscure bands and downloading their music for the sole purpose of being able to hold my own against other music efficionados you'd probably hit me. it's embarrasing. and the truth is that i would rather listen to kelly clarkson most of the time. so when i said "you", i mainly ment "me" and when i said "who's got the time for it?" i meant "i like linkin' park much more than elbow"

nickelback - is that really the name of the band? i really don't know why that guy bugs me so badly but he really does. i have the same reaction to paris hilton, lindsay lohan, tom cruise, and the angry little peanut.

flav-a-flav - i'm serious, watch 10 minutes of flava of love and you'll understand why.

i just felt that further explanation was needed because it really did sound awfully bitchy and i didn't want it to be misconstrued for anything else than it was--a pms extravaganza.

love y'all.

WAIT! I CAN NAME A DEATH CAB SONG! MOVIE SCRIPT ENDING!!!! YAY!!!!!!

oh wait, is that a Radiohead song?

crap.

being a wife...

...means that when my husband has a phone interview for a studio he REALLY likes, I end up being super nervous (as in the shakes, butterflies and whatnot) and by the end of the day have chew off all of my fingernails and spent the entire day playing TextTwist under the guise that I'm trying to keep him distracted.

and i mean the entire day.
entire
ire
tie
tee
net
nit
tire
rein
teen

(if you have ever played TextTwist, you know why that's funny. If you haven't, you should try it by clicking here. It's like computerized boggle)

e-e-mail

because i have recently changed my name, i have recently changed my e-mail from whitneyscholler@pacbell.net to whitneywhiddenwinter@yahoo.com.

i'm going for the longest e-mail address ever.

now just imagine trying to sign all of that on that tiny credit card line.

To be perfectly honest...

1.) I HATE watching movies that make me feel sad or depressed. This pretty much means any major Oscar contender in the last few years. Why? Because life is too short to spend 2 hours watching somebody else be miserable. Consequently my Netflix queue looks something like this: The Benchwarmers, Mystery Science Theater 3000: Santa Claus verse Aliens from Mars, and The Sandlot. You'd think that because I'm a filmmaker I'd be embarrassed, but I'm really not.

2.) I am a sucker for really crappy reality television. Like really crappy. It's not on purpose. It just happens and I hate myself for watching it. That being said...

3.) Flav-a-Flav is BRILLIANT and here's why: he's not good looking, he's not cultured, he's not smart, he's not tremendously funny (on purpose anyway), he's not that talented and despite this he's managed to get VH1 to pay him to stay in an incredible house, all expenses paid, while a group of women fight to have sex with him. Granted these women aren't exactly good looking, cultured, smart, funny or talented either, but I don't think he cares--he just wants to get laid. So shout out to the man for working the system.

4.) Staying on top of the indie music scene is just too time consuming. Have you ever noticed that if you are really into music and you start talking to somebody else who's really into music it turns into this bizarre competition of who knows the most obscure band? So in order to keep your cred you end up spending all of this time researching all of these bands and downloading and for the most part they aren't that great which you would NEVER admit. Who's got the time for it?

5.) I have never (and I'm going to get SO MUCH CRAP for this) been able to sit and listen to a Death Cab for Cutie album all of the way through. It's kind of like Norah Jones for me--wonderful background music but damned if I could name one song. I'M SORRY! I HAVE TO ADMIT IT! I'VE BEEN LIVING THE LIE FOR SO LONG! DON'T HATE ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!

6.) I REALLY hate Nickelback. At least I think it's Nickelback--I've never actually bothered to figure out the name of the band. Whatever the band is with the lead singer with the kinda longer wavey blond hair. I just mainly want to punch him in the neck.

7.) I cannot stand Angelina Jolie and all of her "aren't I an amazing humanitarian" crap. I'm sorry, I have a really hard time respecting anybody who travels to impoverished countries by either private jet or on first class and stays at a $1000 a night hotel while she's there. That and I'm totally team Aniston.

8.) I'm tired of talking about politics. I'm tired of hearing people bitch about George Bush and the war in Iraq. I'm not saying that I like the guy, I'm just saying that I'm sick of hearing people bitch about it. At a certain point I think that if it bothers you that bad that you should do something about it. Complaining about it isn't making it change any faster. And I'm specifically talking about you, random lady in the coffee bean-I just wanted my green tea ice blended.

9.) Green Tea Ice Blendeds are oddly good. And by "oddly good" I mean "friggin' awesome".

10.) I am baffled by this week's Project Runway. I feel the urge to seek out Michael Kors and have a long and very stern conversation with him. What started out as a fun challenge quickly spiraled into a very dark and disturbing place where Captain Basket Hat actually got to win a challenge. I swear if he ends up in the top 3 I'm quitting. Did they learn NOTHING from the whole Wendy Pepper experience? I've been with them since Season 1 and I don't want to have to leave because of their bad choices.



That's all I have to say about that.

So it's been what, 7 months?

Since I last posted Tannan was in Italy for FOREVER, he came back, we got married and had THE BEST WEDDING I COULD EVER HAVE IMAGINED, went on our honeymoon, moved into a house we were housesitting, went to a million weddings, met Lizzie Alexander and were shocked to discover it made us excited not freaked out to have a baby around, went to a million more weddings, Tannan fell off a ladder and scared the hell out of me, I turned 25, and we moved out of the house we were housesitting.

Now we are nomads and trying to decide our next move. Which we're pretty sure is to Seattle. In like 2 weeks.

Today is sad.

I leave this evening, 7:30, for Frankfurt.

I'm very, very sad.

the title

as some of you might have noticed I have been changing my title of my blog with primarily misquotes from movies (because I never quite get it right). Well "We are not Machines" is actually not a quote from a film but my favorite "I'm so frustrated with the my job" story that I've heard so far from any NBC employee. My new friend Debbie, who is actually Tannan's boss and let us stay at her apartment for a couple of nights, is having some problems with her Italian employees. The Italian PSA (Production Services Assistant) have been working for her since the fall. From the beginning she's had some trouble getting them to understand that working for an American company was quite different from working for an Italian one. For example, when she was having them inventory one day by opening all of the boxes that they had stored from Greece and counting the contents, she caught one employee just putting boxes on the shelf. When she asked what he was doing he said to her, "it is impossible to do this thing that you ask, this counting. Impossible." That kind of stuff. So when she told them that starting in the new year they were no longer going to have weekends off and 2 hour lunches with breaks every 2 hours one employee said in shock, "Debbie, We are not Machines." That has turned into the slogan of the games--We are not Machines. I'm making T-Shirts.