1. Most importantly, the “music” portion of this website will be transferred to jb.com.  That includes the 12 EP Project as well as my free, internet-only album How I Remember You.  All music stuff will be located in the music.joshuabelville.com directory, EXCEPT FOR the 12 EP Project, which will be located at 12eps.joshuabelville.com (just because it looks prettier than music.joshuabelville.com/12eps/)

2.  joshuabelville.com will contain two main portions: acting and music.  It is my “professional” website, while zornog.net/.com/.org (I registered them all!) is my “personal” website.  jb.com will contain my acting resume and photos and headshots, and an EPK (that’s electronic press kit, not a fancy new pregnancy test) for my music.

3.  zornog.net will containg my writing (prose, poetry, etc) and my blog, and Test Comic and other nonsensical/silly stuff that I do.
3a. Unless someone decides to write something soon, I am ENDING the Trifecta blog.  It seems redundant if I’m the only one writing.  Plus it should be its own website, if anything.

I think that’s it.  Essentially, jb.com will be a sleeker, simpler site and zornog.net will just contain all of the junk that I like to do.

I don’t expect this to be a quick process, but I do expect it to happen in fits and bursts, probably on weekends.  So don’t freak out if something suddenly moves or disappears — chances are it’s probably on the other site.

Okay!  Thanks for following along, I hope this isn’t too confusing, and I hope you enjoy joshuabelville.com (when it goes live).

My job is pretty sweet.  My life is pretty sweet.  I can’t wait to get started on the Twelve EP project.  Ummm … I like a girl.  She likes me.  That’s pretty cool.

I guess I don’t have much to write about these days?  December is always such a slow month anyway.

One of these days I’ll write a proper entry!

I have, at this point, about thirty to forty songs that have been unreleased and generally not heard by anyone except FAWMers and 50/90ers (and some songs that haven’t been heard by anyone!).  So I thought that next year, 2009, I would come up with a year-long project, which I call the Twelve EP Project.  It’s not about selling EPs so much as it is coming up with a solid tracklist for a new album, which is why I need your help.

Here’s my plan.  On the third day of every month, I will release a new EP with three songs on it (three on three, if you will — a vague basketball reference perhaps?).  The EP will be free to stream, but if you would like to buy a high quality MP3 copy for yourself, it will cost about two bucks or so.  Nothing extravagant.  There will be official album art, done by myself and friends of mine, I hope, and that will all come with the album should you choose to buy it (maybe with some other goodies too, I haven’t decided).

But here’s the cool part.  I will also have a poll with each EP, which simply asks, Which song do you like the most?  You, the listener, get to choose your favorite song out of the three!  The idea being that by the end of the year, I will have twelve songs that you, the listener, really enjoy.  From that I will create a full-length album, and this one will be Official, meaning, iTunes/AmazonMP3 placement, actual physical CDs, maybe even a bit of touring.  The whole nine yards.

It effectively gives me a year to construct an album — with your help!  It’s a lot like Jonathan Coulton’s “Thing A Week” idea, really.  I guess I’m blatantly stealing it for my own good.

So!  January 3rd will be the first release.  Mark your calendars!  Tell your friends.  Construct a robot that travels the countryside!  Make a hot air balloon.  Purchase space on your local newspaper!  Throw things at people!  Do other things! ]]> http://zornog.net/blog/2008/11/the-twelve-ep-project/feed/ 7 http://zornog.net/blog/2008/11/what-im-doing-this-week-vol-2/ http://zornog.net/blog/2008/11/what-im-doing-this-week-vol-2/#comments Sat, 22 Nov 2008 06:36:33 +0000 Josh http://zornog.net/blog/?p=200 I had originally planned on updating this weekly, but soon realized that sometimes, I just don’t have anything interesting going on.  Like, this past week was all applications, applications, applications, etc etc ad nauseum.

But today some really cool things happened.  First, I got a reply from these people, essentially casting me.  I’m not sure what the series is going to be about, or what I’m going to do, but if it’s TLC and it’s a crime series, I wager I’ll be selling kids drugs or something.  Excellent!  It’s on TLC for Chrissakes!  I could be on TLC.

I could be on national television.  That kicks ass.

And while I was perusing Craigslist I found an ad for a consortium of dancer/actor folks who were holding workshops for some future performance.  It’s all modern dance kinda stuff, and they were looking for “beginning dancers and actors who move” and I said, well, despite the fact that I sit at the computer all day lately, I am an actor who can move!  So I e-mailed them and expressed interest.  That’s Sunday afternoon.

So my schedule so far is:

Tomorrow — Go to Buffy rehearsal.  Have fun, something I’ve desperately needed all week.
Later, go see a play at Reed College with my friend Maarvi, who may or may not give me rice.  I hope she does.  I love rice.

Sunday — Go to the dancer workshop, get in the “zone,” dance and move around like a jackass, hopefully they’ll like me and invite me to more workshops, because eventually they pay, and I like pay.

Thanksgiving — probably eating peanut butter sandwiches with my brother and sister-in-law.  We’s poor!

The Future — Dec 1st, 2nd, 3rd are the days to shoot the TLC thing.  Again, what.  Crazy.  It’s crazy.

OH!  I almost forgot.  I’ll be playing in a Battle of the Bands contest on December 15th!  December 15th!  I don’t know when I go on (I get 45 minutes for my set) but the whole thing starts at 10pm.  If you are in the Portland area, for the love of god and all things holy, PLEASE COME AND SUPPORT ME.  I would be lying if I said I wasn’t scared out of my mind.  New city, nobody knows me, and I’m playing alone?!  Yipes!  Should be a blast, and I’m just hoping to get some new fans.

So that’s December 15th.  December 18th is the Buffy show, and January is rehearsals for Perfection, and February is the show itself.

The good news? I’m busy.  The bad news?  I’m not getting paid yet!  Argh!

Hey, before I begin though, just a quick favor to ask: if you like reading this blog, or going to my website, or maybe thinking of horrible jokes about me and my ridiculously orange hair, then I suggest you subscribe to my blog feed.  That way you can keep up with my posts, and I can get a semi-accurate number of how many people are reading.  And more people reading makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.  Like when an alligator eats a bear cub.

There are currently two links to subscribe: one next to my blog title up top and one below it.  The former one kinda sucks, so I suggest you use the one below it.  It has a handy drop down menu, allowing you to choose what you want to save the feed with (like Google Reader, Blogger, something else owned by Google, etc).  Subscribing to blog feeds is essentially going to run newspapers into the ground, and I for one say good riddance!  The world needs more trees, less paper.

My site has been getting more hits/pageviews this month than ever before, and I love it, but I always want more.  I’m like Hungry Mungry.  You know what I’m talking about.  Shel Silverstein?  Anyone?  Come on, don’t be douches here, everyone knows who Shel Silverstein is.  Wrote A Boy Named Sue?  Anyone?  A Boy Named Sue?  Only one of the most famous Johnny Cash songs ever?  … Okay, Ring of Fire is probably more famous, you’re right, but still.  It’s about a boy whose name is Sue!  That’s kinda funny, right?

Anyway, Hungry Mungry.  Come on now.

What I’m Doing This Week!  READ ON!

MONDAY: Write this blog post.  Probably practice music for future open mic nights which I will be setting up sometime soon (read: when I stop being a pussy).  Quietly sob into beer.

TUESDAY: An event I call the Great 82nd Street Job Hunt.  I, armed with a man bag full of resumes and pepper spray (if necessary), am going to traverse up an down 82nd St in search of a job.  After a rather informative conversation with my friend Kira (who is awesome), I have now formulated a theory, and this theory is: Online job hunting does not work.  The reason is different from the usual (that I’m lazy), but rather because everyone else in the godforsaken world is apparently lazy because people who accept applications online get a bazillion of them.  I don’t know how much a bazillion is but I know it’s greater than a hundred, and that’s a lot.  So a lot of companies aren’t expecting the Wanderer, who just waltzes into their store and demands a resume.

Plus it’s Chrimmis time, and Chrimmis time means seasonal jobs, and by god if I can’t get a seasonal retail job then I should just shoot myself in the face right now and get my miserable life over with.

WEDNESDAY:  The Great 82nd Street Job Hunt (Probably) Continues.  The day is open, but at night I am going to see my good friend Jon Crocker play music at the Twin Paradox.  Jon writes good songs and he plays guitar upside down (and by that I mean left-handed), and the last time I saw him play it was him, me, and my future girlfriend (at the time) in a park for a show that no one came to except her.  Oh, memories!

Oh!  I might be auditioning for a part in a local production of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Episode “Once More, With Feeling”.  Doesn’t pay, but who cares?  They rehearse on Saturdays only and it’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer!  I was kind of wishy-washy with them regarding whether I could audition, but now I really want to and I hope they don’t shun me because of my flip-flop attitude.  Because I would be a kickass Xander.

THURSDAY:  I really have no clue!  Probably continue to look for work during the day, and maybe play an open mic at night, if I get the nerve.  Or the noive, as they say in 1930s gangster films.

FRIDAY:  Armenian bear wrestling.

SATURDAY:  Hopefully, rehearsal for that Buffy musical!  I must sound so gay right now.  Well I can’t help it, I’m in theatre and even straight men act a little gay sometimes!

SUNDAY: Worshiping the Lord.  By watching football.

Well that’s enough of that!

I think these two things will be the only things I do for November, unless some job, you know, wants to call or e-mail me back or something.  Not that I’m in a hurry or anything…

That last part was sarcastic.  I am kind of in a hurry.

Now, the other blogs are going to stay there.  The music blog I need for last.fm.  The VZW blog is for NaNoWriMo, and the Here Lies Laika blog … well, I’ll probably get rid of that.  Or suspend it, at least.

In other news, the Halloween Party at the Oregon house was a success.  Here are some photos of it that my brother took.  My only regret is that it was full of people I did not know, who were all older than me.  I’m looking at photos of my friends back in Boise and it makes me a little homesick for the fun Halloween parties down there.  Buuuut what can ya do?

There is potentially exciting stuff for me regarding music in the future.  I don’t want to talk too much about it because I don’t want to jinx anything.  I’ll just say that I was surprised when I got the e-mail.

Hope you all had a fun Halloween!

It’s out. Snocap works, the upload works, everything worked.

If you can spare $3.99, I suggest you download a copy for yourself!

To be quite blunt, I, Josh Belville, have been on the internet Far Too Much.  It dawned on me today as I signed up for LinkedIn, yet another in a growing trend of social networking sites.  When I signed up for it, I didn’t know anyone on it, and had to use other social networking sites, like Twitter and Facebook, to let people know that I had joined LinkedIn.  This broke something in my brain, and it melted.  My brain melted.

With that all in mind, I  just wanted to make a brief statement about what I’m going to do.  If you care, great.  If you don’t care, why the hell are you reading this in the first place?

National Novel Writing Month and National Solo Album Month are both in November.  I have signed up to do both.  Why?  Because I’m an idiot.  But having goals and deadlines is a good thing to have when most of your day is spent with four tabs open on your browser, each one on a different job website.  I feel like a vulture, circling an economy waiting to die for some scrap of food that will keep me going.  I mean, shit.  I went to an interview yesterday to recruit people to take surveys at movie theaters.  Surveys at movie theaters.  A monkey dressed like a human could do a job like that.  A mentally-challenged ostrich could do a job like that.  Hell, a mime could do it.  And yet they haven’t called me back.

This leads me to one invaluable-yet-surprising conclusion:  I have a terrible presence at face-to-face interviews.  Which is unsettling, and is something I have to work on.

But that’s not why I’m writing this entry.  I’m writing because I’m setting some goals for myself.  Primary is, as always, to get a job (preferably one I like).  The second goal is one 50,000 word novel and one 15-track album created in November.  And the third goal is No Internet.  No Facebook, no Myspace, no Twitter for November, and potentially for the rest of the year.  I think all I’ll do is write the occasional blog for this site, and update my website with NaNo and NaSo stuff, and regular music stuff like shows I might get.  That sounds about right.

I think I’m going to start this tomorrow after I promote Songs for Autumn.  I’m going to promote, promote, promote, and then it’s radio silence (mostly) for a month.

Yeah, that sounds good.

In short, the news is good.  Trying to find a job through Craigslist is kind of like navigating a maze, complete with dead ends, odd twists and turns, and the occasional axe-wielding psychopath.  The sad thing though is that it’s easier to navigate than CareerBuilder or Monster, which have become bloated, egomaniacal worthless shells of what they once were, and should be now.  CL is good because it just shows me jobs.  CareerBuilder wants me to sign up for things, or wants to recommend jobs for me because it thinks it’s better than me.  Well you’re not, CareerBuilder.  I am better than you, for I am a human and you are a program on the internet.

I’ve sent lots of e-mail replies, and in doing so have experimented with proper e-mail responses.  Too much information or too little?  Should I put my name in there as soon as possible, or just leave it at the end of the e-mail?  Should I tell them I’m not wearing pants?  Surely at some point in the sit down interview they will notice.  All of these questions raced through my head as I sent reply after reply.  To anyone.  From dishwashers to manufacturers to tutors and gardeners.  I tried not to send replies to positions in which I had no experience, but sometimes I get desperate.  I sent no replies to telemarketers or appointment setters, and none to sales.  The thing about these jobs is that they will always hire you, because they’re the worst jobs, in that they require you to manipulate people to buy things they probably didn’t want to buy in the first place.  And that’s just wrong.

At some point I got really fed up with this process.  Why, the fuck, on websites, do I have to upload a resume AND fill out an application?  Why?  Why Safeway?  Why Rivermark Credit Union?  Why Barnes & Noble?  Don’t you take my word for it?  Do you not see the resume I have graciously uploaded for you?

Listen, employers: this is ridiculous, redundant, and really annoying.  If someone uploads a resume to your application process, they should be able to skip your application process.  They should be able to put “see resume” on there, just like they do on paper applications.  Stop being thoughtless jerks.  The last thing I want to do is memorize phone numbers for jobs I don’t work at anymore, for the sole purpose of not shooting my brains out after typing them in the nth online application.

Anyhoo.  So after a month of job surfing, I finally got a response.  A good one, too.  I think my reply was probably one of my “late stage” replies, which consists of me not giving a crap about my response, which ironically increases my appeal to employers.  Something about being suave, or … I don’t know.  I don’t care.  If I think about it I’ll jinx it.

(For the record, I have three stages of e-mail replies to potential employers: 1) Early Stage, which is where I am chipper and quick; 2) Late Stage, where I am long-winded and somewhat cynical; and 3) Dead Stage, where I say “Hey, I am interested in your job, here’s my resume” and that’s it.)

The job is with an online bookseller.  It is not Powells.  They, I think, buy books from people and sell them used.  Either way, they must’ve liked my e-mail (and now that I look at it in my glorious, glorious Gmail account, I was quite confident, almost to the point of cockiness).  I got a call for a phone interview, which was this morning around 11:30.  I bumbled my way through it, I thought, but the whole thing sounded exactly like the Hastings interview I did two years ago, so I knew what I was expecting.

At the end of the interview the lady said, “Well, we’ve got a couple more days of interviews, so we’ll get in contact with you,” which I expected.

Then, fifteen minutes later, she called back for a face-to-face interview on Wednesday. This I did not expect.

… Okay, I expected it a little bit.

Plus, in her e-mail to me giving me directions to the place, she wrote, “I enjoyed our phone conversation today regarding the Part-Time Shipping Associate Position”, which I’m pretty sure means that she’s into me.  Since I’m considering the phone conversation to be our first date, I think I’ll take her to a movie.  Maybe see some Beverly Hills Chihuahua.

(If you’re reading this, bookseller lady, I’m just kidding, and your bookstore looks like a great place to work.  Also, do you like pasta?  You do?  Great.  … What?  Oh, I’m just curious.  No, I’m writing something else completely unrelated to pasta into this notebook.  It’s a … uh, a note.  For a friend.  Who likes pasta.  I mean doesn’t like pasta.  I mean has nothing to do with pasta.)

Anyway, that’s it.  I plan on going to this interview on Wednesday and knocking some socks off, whatever the hell that means.  Wish me luck!