My Alarm Clock Was A Hotel Strike

Years ago, I was traveling to Los Angeles with the creative arts program that I was a part of in high school. I was very excited about this trip. We received an opportunity to perform for a school in Los Angeles, and it was a wonderful way to experience how life was down there in Hollywood. Another thing that was exciting about the trip was that we were going to meet the writers of the crime drama Numbers. That was the icing on the cake. Getting the chance to meet actual screenwriters. Writing is my first love. It has been my first love since the day I was in diapers. I considered it another great learning experience.

We finally arrived in LA, and checked into our hotel. The second we arrived there my mentor dropped a Los Angeles bombshell. We arrived in Los Angeles around the start of the Writer's Guild of America strike. Most people would never forget that strike. Due to that, the writers from Numbers wasn't going to be with us. However, we forged ahead. I completely understood from a writer's perspective what that strike meant to them.

On the very first night, right after a big dinner from this Italian restaurant, I found out I was rooming with Fred, one of the other members of the program. In the beginning, I had no problem with it. That all changed five hours later when it was time to go to bed. Now I realized why everyone was begging me to be his hotel roommate. The reason why is because he snores heavily.

It was hard for me to go to sleep during the first two hours. His snoring sounded like seven people were in the middle of having sex at the same time. Four pillows and two comforters weren't enough to get the snoring away from my ears. I was finally able to go to sleep a few minutes after midnight.

Little did I know it was about to get worse.

Once I was getting ready to finish another great dream, it was suddenly interrupted by some loud noises coming from outside the hotel. In the beginning, I ignored the noises and tried going back to sleep. An hour had passed and the noises didn't go away. I was instantly irritated by what was going on outside. I looked out the window and there was a crazy strike being held outside. In the beginning, I thought the writer's strike came to the hotel. Two seconds later, I realized it was the hotel employees after taking a second look at their uniform.

A few hours later, the owner of the hotel gave us all a wonderful breakfast when we went downstairs to the lobby. It was the hotel's form of apology. While I was eating pancakes, bacon, and scrambled eggs, I just considered it very unusual. While the writer's strike was still going on, a hotel strike suddenly occurs during my first night in Los Angeles.

Talk about ironic.

My Phone Got Their Phone In Trouble

It was the third day on the set of Now You See Me. I felt ready for the entire day. Most people assume it was because of the adrenaline rush my body let out when I woke up. Like I said before, we were on set for a very long time. On this particular day, it was until 5 in the morning.

Me and Farrah, one of the new friends I made on set, were seated next to these two other people. We were playing audience members who were about to watch a magic show come to an end. They were incredibly loud. They didn't know how to use their inside voices. It was driving a few of us crazy. Then top it all up, they had their phones out, playing music in the background.

I looked over at the stage and I saw it was distracting Jesse Eisenberg. The picture above is Jesse on set with director Louis Leterrier. I have to say that I will forever be a fan of Jesse Eisenberg. Not only as an actor, but as a person. While I was on set, I kept on looking at his commitment to the project. He spoke every now and then, but I knew from the beginning that he was doing his best to stay in character. So when I saw that he was wondering where the music in the background was coming from, I was about to yell at the people next to us.

Four people asked them to either turn the music down or turn it off. They didn't do it, which made us dislike them even more. To get mind off their unprofessionalism, I turned on my phone to check my schedule. Within seconds, I found out that I had a voicemail message from an old friend. I click on the voicemail and was about to turn it on, but I couldn't because the crew were going to do another take.

So I put it back in my pocket and got ready to work again.

Cameras began rolling during the first take and the actors were doing their thing. Then all of a sudden, my phone beeped twice. It was out of the blue. I wasn't expecting it to happen. My phone just decided to beep before it turned off because the battery was dead.

When they did the first take, all the blame were aimed at those two loud mouths. They couldn't point the finger at me because my phone died at that point. The two got in trouble and we didn't see them for the rest of the day. I don't know about you, but that was an awesome, unexpected way to get rid of the loud mouths.

Mom, Don't Answer The Door Naked Again

I was working incredibly hard as a background actor on the set of the upcoming thriller Now You See Me. That's why I wasn't blogging for that entire week and re-posting only one story. I'm playing an audience member in an arena scene. The working hours were intense. The past five days were 15-18 hour shooting dates. I was surprised I didn't collapse at all. It was great that I had my friends on set with me. We kept each other together and survived those crazy hours.

Right after I finished working 18 hours on the first night and arriving home at 4 in the morning, my friends dropped me off at my house. I searched my belongings to find out that my house keys were missing. I searched my backpack multiple times in order to make sure it wasn't a joke. It only took me one minute to realize it wasn't. I truly left my keys on the movie set.

My friend told me that I should probably ring the door bell if the keys weren't in there. She didn't have to say it twice. I rang the doorbell and waited for my mother to answer the door.

As much as I didn't want to, I had to wake my mom up, so that she could open the door for me. It was either that or staying at my friend's house. Sadly, she had company staying over around that time. My only choice was to wake up my mother.

She opened the door and a temporary scar just appeared all over my body. It was 4 o'clock in the morning and I was staring at my 43 year old mother, completely nude from top to bottom in front of me. I couldn't believe my eyes. The last thing you ever in your life want to see is your own mother naked. 

As she walked away from the door I thought to myself "Get your 43 year old butt back in your room and put some clothes on. Is this how you normally answer doors?"

Ever since then, I was determined to find my house keys on the set, so that I would never have to see that again. Sadly for me, it took five days to find those keys.

#ConfessionsFriday - Passion and Panhandles

It's Friday. That means TwinsInc Productions has released another #ConfessionsFriday video this week. This episode is titled "Passion and Panhandlers".

I will admit that I was slightly confused by this episode. It felt like a scramble of topics were coming together to one. Their topic were very interesting to listen to, but there were moments when I thought to myself "Oh, that one was over and we're on to the next conversation? Maybe I lost track or something."

The only thing that was clear to me was Talton's parodies of every song the female host were discussing. I chuckled a few times watching it. It was entertainment at it's best. I have to admit this was my funniest episode to date when it came to Talton. 

Everyone else was amazing in their conversations. The only thing that turned me off was the constant use of profanity. It's kind of a turn off for me.  Other than that, it was great.

I might as well stop rambling. You be the judge. Come check out another episode of #ConfessionsFriday.

Rachet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal Is Finally Over

You have no idea how long I've been wanting to say this everyone. After 37 tries, I've finally defeated Dr. Nefarious on Rachet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal. That's right. I have went through a bunch of blood, sweat, tears, and secretly drinking Bud Light Lime beers despite the fact that I'm only 20 years old, to finally see these words being written right here on this blog.

I know the main reason why it took those many times is because I'm a game ender. I didn't level up Rachet that much. I was way too focused on reaching the end of the game. So even though his weaponry was sort of up to date to deal with this final boss, it didn't necessarily reach the requirements to easily defeat Dr. Nefarious.

But I'm now happy to say I've reached the ending. I don't have to bruise my hands or throw things at the TV screen due to frustration. I don't truly throw things at the TV when it comes to losing a game. You win some. You lose some. I know that. But after you've been defeated the 30th time, I think it's fair that you can free pass at throwing something at your TV.

It's finally over. Now I can relax. The saddest thing about this entire blog post is that I've actually been counting how many times I've lost to Dr. Nefarious.

I Forgot The Birthday Speech

I like any kinds of celebrations, especially birthdays. It's the celebration of the day you were born. That's an amazing day for whomever's birthday it is. So when I found out a friend of mine was turning twenty- one, I was ecstatic.

The day before my best friend's birthday (Let's call him Harry), my original plan was to buy a birthday cake, a pair of clothes, and a wonderful birthday card celebrating this amazing day for him. Another friend of mine said that he was going to buy the birthday cake. I just had to worry about getting the rest.

I trusted my friend and went to get the rest of Harry's gifts. During the next day, before I came to work, I went to go buy some designer clothes, and a birthday card. I love fashion and I know Harry does too. So I felt a new pair of clothes would be perfect for him. I didn't buy alcohol because his cousin had everything ready when it came to that. Not only that, but I knew I would get arrested if I tried to buy alcohol.

Obviously, I had to leave that one alone. All I told him was to give him a Skinny Girl Margarita, created by Bethenny Frankel.

I arrived at work and Harry still didn't know a thing. It was a few hours before it was time to give him the presents. My friend brought the cake like he promised and I had the gifts with me. There was only one thing left to make the day complete. The birthday speech.

I love writing speeches. It's another amazing way to show off my comedic and personal appreciation to whomever I'm writing it for. I spent two hours developing this amazing speech for Harry. By the time I was done with it, I just knew that this birthday surprise was going to be perfect, despite the fact that I don't believe in the word "perfect".

Three hours later, it was finally time to show off some birthday cheers. My friend closed Harry's eyes and brought him over to the conference room. The birthday cake was already there. All I needed to get was the presents and the speech. I got the presents, but I lost the speech. I had no idea where I put it. I couldn't find it anywhere.

So you know how I felt on my way to the conference room. I felt the birthday surprise was ruined. Everything didn't go as planned. I wanted to kick myself in head and try to remember where I put the speech. I was an emotional wreck.

However, I didn't let that get to me. I decided to go ahead with what I had and continue on with surprise. Harry got his birthday surprise and celebration. It was a huge success. There were no more problems. Harry felt happy, which made me feel happy.

Two hours later after cleaning up the mess, I found the birthday speech. Guess where it was? In the janitor's closet.

#ConfessionsFriday: Family Feuds

TwinsInc Productions has released another episode of #ConfessionsFriday this week. In this one, they talk about family feuds.

It's a sad thing, but it's true. We each have family feuds. Whether it's good or bad, we have it. I'm pretty sure that's what hysterically led to the creation of Family Feud that the majority of the world can't resist watching. So it was very interesting to hear that each of them had to say.

I love their honesty in this video. Whether it's funny or serious, they went in on this topic. I would describe it all the way down, but that might lead me to being overly descriptive. Why don't you guys see it for yourself. Enjoy another episode of one of my Friday web shows to watch.

Addict Of Fiction: Rayman Deserves More Game Titles

Last night, I relived my childhood by playing “Rayman 2: The Great Escape” from my old Nintendo 64. Playing this game made me completely ashamed at myself because I completely forgot about one of my favorite game characters of all time.

As much as I love Sonic the Hedgehog, Rayman just jumped into my life and I never let go of him when I was little. For me, Rayman was so different from any character I ever played. I have never seen a character that could shoot lums out of his arms, glide using his own hair, and launch long range punches before. Not only that, but his friendship with Globax was completely different from any game that I’ve ever seen.

Rayman is an icon in his own way.

Click on the picture to read more.

Chinese Order Led To A Broken Backpack

I walked over to my favorite Chinese restaurant in New Orleans to order take out. If you are looking for a wonderful Chinese restaurant, I recommend Golden Wall downtown on Canal Street. I go there all the time and order the same fried chicken wings with french fries from there. I can't explain how good their fried chicken is. It's like they put a secret ingredient in there to make it taste so good. I know I include this thing about the secret ingredient multiple times whenever I talk about this restaurant, but it's the truth.

This is my favorite spot when it comes to ordering take out.

I left the restaurant after they gave me my order. While on my way to the bike, I noticed that my body was feeling heavy due to the extra baggage. My backpack was already full, so the extra weight from the Chinese food brought too much pressure on my body on both ends. I instantly decided that one side should deal with the pressure while I rode the bike home.

I opened my backpack and jammed the Chinese food in an opening that I found next to the laptop. I was going to put all the weight on one side. It appeared to have worked. No problem didn't occur. I got on my bike and began riding home. I managed to balance the weight from both ends of the bike and continued to ride safely.

All of a sudden, the strap on my backpack came apart and the entire thing fell to the ground. The weight was just too much for the strap and it decided to let go. I was lucky that no one was around to see this episode. I was so embarrassed at what just happened right there in the middle of the street.

Now that the strap was broken, I had to hold onto this hot and heavy backpack using my left arm while steering the bike with my right arm. Everyone that managed to catch a glimpse of me thought I was a pizza man from the way I was holding onto to that backpack.

When you think about it, I kind of did look like a pizza man. I'm a 20 year old man who looks sixteen due to his baby face. I'm holding a bag that is hot because of the Chinese food and heavy because of the laptop. I'm riding my bike incredibly fast, as if I'm getting ready to audition for a PG-13 version of a Fast &Furious movie. The true definition of a pizza man.

I arrived home with a bruised left side that took a day and a half to recover. The lesson I learned from that is to not test gravity by putting Chinese food right next to your laptop.

If you want to eat some of their great food, here is their address. The fried chicken wings with french fries is on the menu. It only costs $7.

The Golden Wall

930 Canal St
New Orleans, LA 70112

#Confessions Friday: Peaceful Poop | Fake People

I am seconds away from falling to the ground. I'm seriously laughing so hard at this recent episode of #ConfessionsFriday. I understand that being an open book person is awesome, but this is just crazy. You just never know what's going to come out of their mouths and that's what I like about this show.

In this episode, we hear them talk about peaceful #2's and fake people. Fake people is of course a daily topic. I'm truly one that believes that you should have a friendship or relationship with someone for good intentions. Don't be fake and try to play a puzzle game with someone's mind. Also, don't pull a bipolar disorder type of thing when a part of your life is twisted now. That's just crazy. So I was interested in hearing what these guys had to say on this topic.

Then in came Talton. He gave me that blushing moment when he started talking about his toilet situations. To be honest, I'm not embarrassed by it. I wrote a blog post a year ago and expressed my bathroom episode the same way he did.

But this video also includes the group expressing their thoughts on marriage, Cash Money, couples, etc. Enjoy it everyone.

This Is Not A "Small Thing"

We have all been victims of a lie when it comes to a friend asking you to come over and help them out with a "small thing". If you haven't been a victim of that yet, you will be someday.

One afternoon, my friend Troy called me while I was riding my bike around the city.

"Hello?" I answered.

"Hey Roque," said Troy. "I have a favor. I need some help with a small thing over here. Can you come over and help me out this evening."

Knowing that I can't say "No" when it comes to a friend, I said I would help him out. In my mind, it was a small thing. I had a whole bunch of stuff to do during that night. So I felt I could squeeze in this quick thing for my friend, and then head back home to finish the other stuff.

I arrived at Troy's house an hour later. The small thing appeared to be his broke down computer. He thought it was dead. Since I'm a computer guy, I fixed it while also making a few updates to his desktop. It took me probably a half hour to finish everything. Once I was done and about to walk out the door, Troy stopped me and revealed to me the true reason why he made me come over.

"Before you go," he started, "I was wondering if you could help me out with one more thing. I have a few boxes I have to pick up from this hotel. I need some help putting them in the van and bringing them back to the house. Since you're here, I was wondering if you could help me out."

I immediately raised my eyebrow. I couldn't believe I was tricked like that. This small thing was actually a big thing. But knowing me, I couldn't turn it down.

"Just a few boxes?" I asked.

"Just a few boxes," he said.

Once we arrived at the hotel I found myself staring at thirty-seven large boxes right in front of me. Troy was doing his best not to look at me because he knew I was furious that he lied to me again. I couldn't back out of this thing my bike was ten miles away from where the hotel was.

We drove the van back and forth three times. There weren't enough seats. So I had to stay in the back of the van with the other boxes. We ran into multiple speed bumps, which led to me falling into the boxes numerous times, bruising my sides and my butt.

Once we were finally done, I went over to Troy and said "You lie to me like that again, I'll kill you."

This is my thing. If you ask me to come over and do a small thing, that's what I'm thinking. I'm preparing myself for what? A small thing. If it's really a big thing, just tell me. That way, I could get myself mentally and physically prepared for a big thing. Tell me the truth for God's sake!

The Future Forward| Aren't You Tired Of Being The Caller?

I remember writing a post many months ago about making the call to your best friends. I considered it a wonderful thing to do if you want to maintain your friendship. You don't have to wait for the other person, so that things can progress. If one of you guys aren't calling each other, you have to take action to call the other person. It's time to stop waiting and take action.

Click on the picture to read more.

#ConfessionsFriday: Things White People Say

I was introduced to this show that was created by TwinsInc Productions called "Confessions Friday". This is a weekly Friday show where they each confess about one topic. They stand right in front of a camera and just let loose. I will admit that this can be quite shocking. After all, you never know what each of them are going to say. I can just see that each of them have a lot of things to say.

That's what I like to see. For me, there are so many things about the world that we don't know. So when a new topic comes to us, it's awesome to see and give a great perspective. That's what I like about this show. Talton Jett, I want to commend you for doing something like this, and I look forward to watching new episodes every week. Keep doing it my fellow New Orleanian.

So let me stop talking and let you see what I'm talking about. This episode is entitled "Things White People Say". Now I'm sure a few of ya'll have you guards up. Well you should.

Addict Of Fiction: Should The Original Sonic Team Founders Return To The Franchise?

I have been trying to avoid saying this for years. It’s something that I try not to be critical at. But after playing “Sonic Unleashed” a few weeks ago, I just can’t take it anymore.

A part of me feels like the Sonic franchise is heading towards a downward spiral. Even though I know that Sonic the Hedgehog fans take their mascot to heart and will remain by his side despite the terrible games, a part of me thinks enough is enough. I just finished playing “Sonic Unleashed” and I was terribly disappointed. The entire storyline was confusing. Some of Sonic’s actions whether he was a hedgehog or a werewolf was incredibly difficult. The entire game was a flop to me.

Click on the picture to read more.

Thirty Minutes With Oil Covered Hands

My life has always had an unusual relationship with bikes. From learning how to ride one to now when I got to check on it on a daily basis due to the fact that I work out, me and bikes always had a dysfunctional relationship. It's like it's waiting to embarrass me on a daily basis. It's been a while since I've actually walked a mile or two to the other side of the city without having my bike involved for the first few minutes..

Here is another chapter in our dysfunctional relationship. 

I was leaving the mall over in the business side of the city. I would normally walk around and do a little site seeing, but it wasn't the best day to do it. There was a large breeze blowing and it was partially still winter season. Cold weather and a swift breeze isn't a good combination for those who love the heat.

I made it over to the bike and saw it on the ground. It was chained to the no parking sign, but it was on the ground. My instant thought was the wind rotated the bike. It happens all the time in my life.

I looked down at the bike and saw that the chain wasn't on it anymore. It was slightly tangled up and it was going to require my hands to fix it. I raised the bike up and tried fixing the chains. Within seconds, my hands were covered in oil. It was dark and slimy, as though a black snail was moving around on the chains while I was gone. I remembered that I put lubricant on the chains two days ago to prevent it from getting rusty. I forgot to wash it down, which led the oil drying up on the chains.

Due to the chains being so oily, I did my best to try and avoid touching it in order to fix the bike. Sadly, I didn't have my gloves. I had to fix it with my bare hands. It took ten minutes to put the chain back together, but in the process, my hands got completely covered in oil. Both of them looked like I was suffering from frostbite.

I got on the bike and rode all the way home, hoping that no one noticed that there wasn't oil all over my hands. If they did notice me, they probably thought I had frostbite, which was what I wanted them to think. For a second, I really thought I had it as well. It was cold outside and my hands were the dark black color. It took over an hour to wash my hands and three days for it to completely dissolve. That was the end of another chapter when it comes to the dysfunctional relationship with me and my bike.