The Adventures of Stephen Gashler

Eric came over and we made molasses cookies (without a recipe, of course); they were good, even though Eric added a huge amount of baking soda.  “It’s good for you,” he reasoned.  I don’t think that’s true.

Teresa and I went on a lovely date.  First we ate at Fazoli’s, then we made out in a parking lot, then we watched Wall-E: semi-entertaining left-wing propeganda.  The date was very good.  it reminded us a lot of our early dates, of our dreams, goals and aspirations.  We sure hope we haven’t lost any of that.  We need to keep moving forward.

Another long day working with Paris on his infomercial.  He gave us $350 in cash.  That’s awesome.  It’s been very interesting to hear him describe all the politics of the telemarketing (as in TV-advertising) industry.

We helped LT make a Teen-Girl-Squad-play-off video for his FHE group.

I beat the fourth castle (and almost the fifth) in Zelda 2!  I’m awesome!

Since I broke our blender (the third one), Teresa was hesitant to allow me to buy another one at D.I.  But being as we’ve been living off of nothing but oily starchy and meaty foods, as prompted by our groaning digestives systems, we agreed today that it’s time to buy another blender, especially as our freezer is full of frozen fruit.  But, alas, D.I. only had really retro blenders without lids.

I worked with Paris for seven hours straight on his infomercial, which was tough but good, because we need the money.  For much of the time, I had the song “The Fuhrer’s Face” stuck in my head.

Teresa and I tried to watch the movie Legend.  It was too stupid to watch.

I broke two dishes today.  The Gashler household simply can’t handle glass dishes.

Ariah is cute.

Lots of hours of frustrating computer trouble shooting.  I finally got all of my webpages up and running again.  Then the network stopped working and the server was down again, inspring me to pull out my hair.  Eventually I realized that the pins within the server’s network port were disfigured and needed some bending.  Then everything worked again.

I’ve been teaching myself Flash as I’ve redesigned the Gashler Media website.

Teresa and I have been eating lots of home-made scones and doughnuts lately.  Mmm boy.  For dinner Teresa made Chicken Tetrazini.  What a wonderful wife.

We’ve been watching a Nazi propeganda documentary made in 1943 called Triumph of the Will.  It’s been fascinating to view the collosal pomp, the amazing organization, the unity and excitement of the millions of Germans taking part in the formation of the National Socialist party, oblivious of the dark future that lay before them and the outreaching tentacles and hidden agendas of this evil empire and their evil, but very dynamic fuhrer.  I didn’t realize before that Naziism was primarily a socialist party.  Man, as I learn and think more about it, socialism seems darker and darker to me, a completely erred philosophy whether in large or small implementations.  It’s an evil deception that always starts with big promises but simply can’t prosper by its paradoxical nature, which is this: the government (the minority) promises to care for the people (the majority), so the people are required to give everything to the government.  But a minority can’t possibly run the vast affairs of the majority better than the majority itself could, so the result has always been a glutted minority and an oppressed majority.

Heard Elder Bateman and his wife (the Provo temple president and matron) at a fireside.  He impressed me to want to explore the connection between ancient Egypt, the Book of Abraham and the temple ceremonies (some of which he said is drawn on pyramid murals).

Played the roleplaying game I made last week with Heather and Josh.  Lots of fun.

I acted in a student film by David Swanson, whom I previously acted for in a corporate video.  It was a fun little flick about the straight guy (me), as he drives to work, being assaulted by his friend the goofy guy, who frantically tries to get me to drive him to his new job.

Afterward I went to Taylor’s house and recorded the drum parts for the songs that we recorded at the June Studio tonight.  I, Teresa, Ariah, Curtis and his girlfriend Meggy spent the evening there, and it was fun and reassuring to see just how well we could figure out the fancy studio and make some quality music.  I was ashamed at my inability to belt with quality the high notes of my song (”I Wanna be a Cowboy”).  Teresa’s song, though, “Against the Currents of Time” sounds awesome.

Spent most of the day  trying to record some dummy tracks for the songs we’re going to record in the June Studio tomorrow.  Lots of technical difficulties.  It was amusingly self-relexive to watch Curtis get so mad at his computer.  Teresa asked me yesterday if I really want to spend a career in front of computers when they constantly cause me so much grief.  It seems these metal boxes are perfectly designed to foil everything human.  Still, if humans could obey my orders as efficiently, I’d base my career on them, but as is, computers make much better slaves, even if they routinely cause steam to shoot out my ears.

Based off of one of Curtis’s guitar ditties, I wrote a new song called “I Wanna be a Cowboy.”  I think it’s got potential.

This morning I found out from Teresa that we actually owed closer to $600 to the hospital today.  I was able to get ahold of a client who owed us $355, and that added to the few hundred we had in savings, barely covered the bill.  Once again, “sufficient is the morrow unto the evils thereof.”  I don’t quote that as a justification for procrastination, just as evidence that God truly does look out for us when we do all that we can, and therefore there’s no need to worry.  So I don’t.

I suppose the concept of doing all that one can do is rather arbitrary, when there’s always more we can do.  Yet, when contrasted against the principle of not running faster than we have strength, I like to think that there’s a very reasonable balance to it, and therefore perhaps the best summation of the concept is to just live one’s life “right.”  I’m not working long and hard everyday just to make a living, but I do what seems prudent, and then I invest myself into what also matters so much to me: my writing, my music, my puppetry, etc.  When contemplating my purpose on this earth, which I believe is to learn how to become a god, I believe that these things are just as important as making a living, and I believe that my God sustains me in this belief.

This very interesting new client found me named Paris, the self-proclaimed “Health Man.”  He came into our house yesterday and told us (until Teresa started falling asleep and escaped into the bedroon, so then just me) for at least an hour all about his past and the evils of the medicine industry and how he had developed the true system of health, a remedy and program that can cure all types of cancer and just about everything, and how cruel federal regulation shut down his thriving business of “natural herbs,” just because he couldn’t prove their eficacy or harmlessness.  I kept trying to ask, “But what IS your product?  What’s the main ingredient?”  He finally referred to some herb I’d never heard of, but from what I gathered, it was mainly a laxitive.  His product supposedly cleanses the colon.  Anyway, I transferred this really bogus infommercial to DVD.  It put my mocumentary Victims of Rare Disease to shame!  The funny thing was how this guy seemed to believe so much in his program, but then he would seem to blatantly contradict himself as he said again and again, “Anyway, it’s not the product I’m selling, it’s me (he was the main star of the infomercial).  I could be selling anything in the world, and It wouldn’t make a difference.  He then went on to idealize this sleazy business man who was sued for over a million dollars because his book on health didn’t actually have anything to do with losing a pound a day, which his infomercial advertised.  This man didn’t care, because he’d made such a huge fortune.  “Hopefully I’ll be the next [this guy]” he said.  When he finally left, Teresa and I debated the ethics of working for a client with a deceptive product like this.  We decided that while there are lines we will draw for moral reasons, in this case, as in many other cases, it’s not our job to endorse the product, it’s our job to create professional multimedia.  The reason we wouldn’t necessarily draw a red flag here is because there will always be a market for placebos, and if this makes them happy, why not?  Heck, placebos are called placebos because, well, they work.  Sometimes.  In any case, whether it’s morally wrong or not, the guy is so nice and has such high esteem for me, someone who would actually listen to his ideas, that I don’t have the heart to turn him down…and nor do we have the financial liberty to do so.  Alas, once again, we’re scraping rock bottom.  Today we found out we owe a $500 hospital bill that was due today (we just got it in the mail today).  Luckily Teresa was able to call the hospital, explain our case and get the deadline extended to tomorrow.  We’ll see what we can cough up between now and then.  Fun times.

Tonight Teresa and I started playing our own live action role-playing-game, like the old pre-Nintendo games I would act out with Eric.  Teresa lives in a kingdom that’s being taken over by werevolves.  In her escape from the madness, she teamed up with an eccentric giant spider named Boober.  Boober exploded when Teresa fed him the leg of a werewolf she killed, forgetting that the werewolfs explode when they die.