I Made A MOVIE!

Hey all. So here it is: The cinematic equivalent of giving 110%. I worked really hard on this movie and I'm really proud of it. I hope you are too. I love you all! Happy Holidays!!
Love,
Pete




KA-POW!!: THE RUBBER BAND SHOOTING MOVIE!! from Pete Fritz on Vimeo.

One Hundred and Ten Percent (110%)

Hey all. Last Friday I made a promise to you that I would continue to give 110% to this blog. It may seem to many of you that I'm not even giving 100% much less 110%. Well, rest assured friends, I've been giving 110%. You just haven't been getting 110%. But that will soon change...keep hitting your refresh button.

"Quote" of the day...

................................(stunned silence)
-Parker (this guy I work with), Mike (the dick), and Matt (another guy I work with) upon seeing me blast a rubber band through the wrapping of a wine bottle neck (less than 1" in diameter) from across the whole kitchen (approx 15 feet)...KA-POW! RUBBER BAND CITY!

UPDATE:
It seems that some people (Agmac) are confused by this post. Below is a picture which will help you (Agmac) understand exactly what I blasted a rubber band through last night. Hope it helps!

Quote of the Day

Did you buy that camera just for your rubber band movie?

                                                          -Melanie (This girl I work with)

Back on track!

hey all. so i realize i've been a little off message recently. this blog isn't called "pete is really good at shooting rubber bands" (even though i am). it's called "mike is a dick" because mike is a dick. he ruined my rubber band target and left me with no choice but to start this blog. i have to say it's been really cathartic. it's important to have a place to vent about problems in your life. i've also really enjoyed being able to share my thoughts about rubber bands with you all. i hope it's been not just extremely informative but also entertaining. 

so friends, as the sun begins to set on the first week of this blog, i've been looking back, taking stock, seeing how much i've accomplished and realizing how far i still have to go. i want to make a promise to you all and to myself that i'll continue to give 110% on this blog, and in life.
i want to leave you with a link to a kindred spirit, a sister blog if you will- "fuck with me and find out". it's sort of a mike-is-a-dick blog for all the mikes you encounter in day to day life. enjoy.
see you all next week! have a great weekend. also, laura could you ask your mom if it's ok to substitute the beef sausage with chicken or turkey? thanx!

Quote of the (yester)Day:

How did you get so good at shooting rubber bands?

                                        -Parker (this guy i work with)

Recipe?

hey all. this might be a little off topic but does anybody have a good stuffed pepper recipe they'd like to share? thanks in advance!

Different kind of Rubber bands...

hey all. so i was thinking. since michael bryson was asking me a lot of questions about how i learned to shoot rubber bands and how i got so good at shooting rubber bands and stuff like that, i figured i could use this blog to actually do some good instead of just ranting about mike all day. so since i already had the scanner fired up from yesterday (i left it on by accident last night...oops.) i thought i'd scan some rubberbands and talk about the strengths and weaknesses of the various kinds. bare in mind this is really only going to cover the shooting of these various types. i will not be talking about how good they can hold stuff together or any of their other uses like rolling newspapers or flinging paper clips. that being said, here we go!!!

RUBBER BANDS 101:

A. This is one of the small, colored rubber bands. it's super thin and weak. i really can't for the life of me imagine using this for holding things together much less shooting. talk about lack of momentum!! completely worthless.

B. Basically same as above but yellow.

C. This one is what most people think of when they hear the word "rubber band". these are ok for shooting but i find them a little thick. there's a lot of drag on them because of their thickness so they fly neither far nor fast. their thickness also makes them quite strong and can result in finger fatigue. Good for flinging paper clips though. PING!

4. So i messed up the numbering but whatever. i have to go back and type the letters anyway when that dick mike gets off the photoshop computer. Anyway...number 4 has two things going for it: A) it's about twice as long as a normal rubberband and B) it comes in TONS of different colors. there are 2 good things about having tons of different colors: 1) they are easy to spot on a hardwood floor and 2) if you're shooting with friends you can each choose a different color for differentiational purposes. like in bocce or croquet.

5. I use these rubberbands occasionally......................NOT! Come on! Give me a fucking break! who makes these things? completely useless.

6. Don't judge it by it's average appearance because sometimes looks can be deceiving. This is THE king of shooting rubberbands. Strong but thin, perfect weight, and durable. Boy are they durable. You can blast through stacks of paper cups or tissue paper targets all day and then roll up your poster and take it on the subway with complete confidence that the rubberband won't snap in the middle of your commute. Our office manager used to buy the thick ones like number C. I told her those are bad for the environment because they use too much rubber and the rubber comes from the rainforests in Brazil. Now she buys number 6.
KA-POW!! RUBBER BAND CITY!!

Diagram

hey all. so i just wanted to show you this diagram so you could see exactly how i rigged up the rubberband target. i thought it was pretty clever but i'll let you be the judge of that. you see i rigged it so that when the door was open and people were in my office you couldn't see anything. but when i was alone and "working" with the door closed...KA-POW!! RUBBER BAND CITY!!!

i know the diagram is kinda sloppy but i think it serves it's purpose. maybe i'll make a better one down the line when i have access to a wacom tablet so my hand doesn't hurt so much. (cough, cough, good christmas present mom, cough!)

*UPDATE*

here is a much improved diagram. hope it eliminates any confusion the previous one caused!

my new ally: bryson

so i showed my new blog to michael bryson and he thought it was pretty great. i think he was almost as sad as me to see the rubberband target go. i think he had grown pretty attached to it. until i talked to him today i was never able to look past my own affection for the rubberband target to see what it meant to other people. i know he was impressed with my rubberband shooting skill before i made the target. i mean he's never actually come out and said it but i could just tell, y'know? he once asked me where i learned to shoot rubberbands that well and i told him i just practiced a lot. i think that's what the rubberband target came to mean to him. it was like that picture of the person jogging up a hill and below it says "determination: is the key that unlocks the door to success" or something like that. for him the rubberband target was like a picture of me shooting a rubberband and below it it says "practice: it makes you better at things." or something like that but more dramatic. "practice: achieving your goals through whatever." i don't know. i can't think of an example right now. anyway. here's to you, michael bryson!

Quote of the Day:

"why did you do that? that was my favorite thing in the whole office!"

-frank to mike after witnessing mike tear the rubberband
target from the wall and throw it in the trash

pictures of my rubberband target

here are a couple of pictures of my rubberband target. i didn't have my camera with me but i was able to scan both sides of it. as you can see he really crumpled it up. there was a whole bunch of tape on too so it got super stuck together. i tried to just uncrumple it but it i couldn't do it without ripping it. oh and to add insult to injury, while i was rooting through the trash to find it so i could scan it, our executive producer came in and was like "um...what are you doing?" and when i explained it to her she just sort of looked at me for a second and then she goes, "grow up."

my "friend" mike is a serious dick.

so, a while back, during a particularly slow day at work, i made something that i thought was pretty cool. what i did was i found a large sheet of tissue paper (approx. 3'x 3'). then i used some white-out (approx. 2 bottles) to draw concentric circles resulting in a white on black bulls-eye. now, on it's own this is pretty f-ing cool but just wait, it get's better. i taped it up in the corner of my office between the wall and the door. this way, when the door was open it would fold up out of site. but when the door was closed it would fold out into THE ULTIMATE RUBBER BAND TARGET!!!!!
it was fucking fantastic. so i spent the rest of that week secretly shooting holes in my kick ass target. and it ruled. once i blasted a shit-ton of holes in it (yeah, about 97% were bullseyes) i took it down and showed it off to my coworkers. they were all really impressed, not just with my rubber band accuracy but also with my creativity and ability to take initiative. after all their ooohing and ahhhing they convinced me to hang it on the wall so it could continue to be enjoyed.
for months it hung on the wall just below the dry erase board. it made me really proud to have it displayed like that, to know that whenever anyone ventured into the storage room, they'd get to see my handiwork. i also thought it'd be pretty neat if years from now, after i had moved on to another job, new employees might see it and say, "hey what's that?" and someone who knew me would pass on the story of my rubber band target.
well, that's impossible now. mike tore it down today and threw it in the trash. he's a serious dick.