The Dark Knight

So, today, I did a lot of writing the script. Yea.

Sean had lots of trouble with his phone today. Let me act it out for you. Kinda.

*phone rings*

*Sean puts on the headset microphone*

“This is Sean”

*Sean fumbles with the phone, and takes the phone off the hook*

“This is Sean”

*Sean presses buttons on the microphone headset controls*

“This is Sean”

*Sean presses another button*

“This is Sean...Oh hi!....”

I laughed.

Then, for lunch, I went on an adventure. I went to find Mr. Beef, in hopes of getting a fantastic Italian Beef. It was North of the loop again, so more west, which incidentally was a more grungy “urban” area than the loop.

When I got there I ordered a “dry beef sweet and hot with juice” In non-Chicagoan language, that's an Italian Beef with dry bread ( not soaked in juice meat), sweet peppers, hot peppers, and a little juice on top.

I got it To Go, then walked around to find a “park,” deemed impossible from the lady I ran into yesterday. I walked west. Eventually, I found large groups of black people standing around, leaning on buildings, and all staring at me. It was then I decided that I was giong in the wrong direction, and after I rounded the corner I went back to the east.

It was then I ran into Moody Bible Institute, which did have a nice little park/eating area. HAH!

The beef sandwich was good, but not the best I've had. The beef flavor was excellent, however it didn't have the savory “kick” given by a combination of good culinary spices. Also, the sweet peppers just tasted like a green pepper, not marinated or anything, and the hot peppers weren't that hot. I enjoyed it nonetheless.

Also, one of my friends was working there, so I called him up and we met up for a few minutes. He showed me where he worked, and I even got a doughnut out of the deal! Yummy.

The rest of the day I was doing some little Keyword Queue tasks, more script stuff, and then I had no less than 24 credit cards to apply to for Citi bank. That was fun. The more fun part is that only some of them were tracking properly, and I had to try to figure out why they weren't. Ugh.

In the midst of Citi testing, Sean was like, “Dan.”

“Huh?”

“Wanna get a Slurpie?”

“Mmmkay”

So, we did. Hooray.

I don't know if any of you know this, but they are filming Batman: The Dark Knight in Chicago, and it's a huge deal. If you don't know, it's the sequel to the film “Batman Begins.”

On the way back from work to the train, there is a parking lot with all of the trailers for anyone in the movie. There are also kinda temporary ones parked near the curb on the street. I looked for the names of famous people on the street trailers, but couldn't see anyone. Don't feel like trespassing in the parking lot.

There are also lights all over the sidewalks that are pointed at buildings. They aren't “on” but there are dudes in yellow shirts that say “security” on them. I guess they are the keepers of the lights.

Anyways, there are a bunch of pink signs taped on to poles letting the crew, extras and actors know where to go. They read things like “SET, LUNCH, BREAKFAST, RESTROOMS, EXTRAS HOLDING AREA”

Sean and I passed the Signs pointing to the building that said “Set” I said I wanted to check it out. When you went in the building, it was just an elevator room, so I decided to get my Slurpie first.

I got my Slurpie, and on the way back I said bye to Sean (who was too chicken to go explore the set of a movie) and I went into the elevator. I had passed this little building so many times, and I was really curious, and I wasn't going to be a sissy and wimp out on something that would be neat to see. What are they going to do to me, tell me to leave?

In the elevator there was this huge sign “effective today, you need your crew ID's to get on the set” Yada Yada Yada. The “SET” was taped over the 6^th floor and 7^th floor buttons. To be honest, I was a little chicken at first, so I built up my courage by pressing floors 4, 5 instead. When 4 opened, I realized it was just a parking garage because I could see cars. So, I got off on the 5^th floor and explored.

The parking garage spiraled around and around like normal parking garages. In the center, however, there was a tightly spinning ramp for a quick way down from the top level. So, at about the 5^th floor, that inner area was open to the sky.

As I was walking up, I saw a yellow-shirted security dude in the inner section. I hid behind a car and waited for him to pass, then continued walking where the 6^th floor just started. I saw a some equipment that looked like a reel. This piece of equipment was right by the ledge overlooking the inner area of the parking garage, with a strong looking cable going to what looked to be the top floor of the parking garage.

After I walked forward, another security dude was looking in a car, then saw me and came up to me and called me Sir. He directed me to the stairwell and told me to go away.

Stairwell eh? Why didn't I think of this before! I just walked up to the 6^th level, then the 7^th level. I looked out of the top floor window, and on the roof of the parking garage there was all this equipment. I snapped a few pictures on my cell phone to prove my existence there.

Out from the window I could see the entrance of the swirly inner ramp on the top floor, and the men were building some ramp thing near buy it. I couldn't get a good look because their was equipment all over and I was peering through a small, dirty window, but I still got to see the set. There was a yellow-shirted security dude walking around, I think he almost saw me, but I was too stealthy-like for him.

I went down to the 4^th floor and started walking down, then saw another stairway. I decided to go up that one.

When I got to the 6^th floor, saw a huge theater light with the tripod on the stairs. There was what looked like a projector screen. The projector screen was positioned against the wall in such a way that the lamp's light bounced off it and illuminated the whole area. If you were looking outside into the stairwell, you would see the that the stairwell was illuminated, but you couldn't see the projector screen. I squeaked past the tripod and all the thick cords and peered out the 7^th floor window, which was really dirty, so I couldn't see much. There was some guy's coffee just sitting there so I was nervous someone would come, so I wasn't there for long.

I did look out the window in the stairwell though to see outside. I noticed that from the perspective of the stairwell, all the buildings surrounding this building had lights positioned around them on the ground. I guess they want to light up all the buildings to make it look neat, so this must be a pretty big scene.

It was really fun to see that though. Just remember, if you see a rooftop scene in on the top of a parking garage and there is an illuminated stairwell, your friend Dan was in that stairwell at some point in time!

That was my day. It was memorable.

I need to get a yellow shirt.