"These mics are so sensitive, I can hear a gnat fart." -My night at the film set.

So there I was, walking back from Bloomfield with Liz, Heather, and Yaleh. It seemed much like a boring night - Heather was talking about how she wanted to do nothing else but go to bed. There was BOUND to be nothing exciting about that right?

WRONG.

Almost back to campus, we pass by a lot of bright lights and people standing around. Someone mentions that they were filming a scene for the new Tom Cruise movie. There was the first security guard person that we got talking to about the new Batman movie that got filmed over the summer. He said he had met Tom, and Christian Bale, and you-name-it. Then he showed us a picture of him sitting on the motorcycle they used in the new Batman movie.

NBD, right?

When security pushed us further up the street, we decided to cross to the other side of the road, where we met the security guard up there. Now, if I told you this guy had dreadlocks, a lip piercing, a blue and purple plaid flannel, a scarf, and some skater shoes, what would you say an appropriate name was for this fellow?

Ziggy? That's what I thought you said. You would be right, in that case.

After we got pushed up the street more, we walked down to the opposite corner in the hopes of being able to see more of the auto shop set they had built. We saw Tom Cruise a few times... 500 feet away.

He's kinda short.

Moving to our final destination, to a not-so-exciting security guard, and to a crowded corner of the street where people were constantly asking "Is that Tom?!" we find ourselves squished within a fairly large group of people trying to look through a tiny window and some bright lights to see Tom Cruise. And I'll admit, I'm not the biggest fan of Tom Cruise, but I'm pretty sure this doesn't happen very often. But as you can imagine, there was some noise from the crowd of people standing around at 11:30 at night, and of course, this IS Oakland on a Friday night, so it's safe to assume there will be a fair amount of drunk people stalking the streets. When we first stopped at the set, we spotted a very (very) drunk college age kid being held up by two girls walking by, and we also spotted the big burly security guard laughing at them as they strolled by.

That, however, does not trump this man.

For all intents and purposes, let's call this man Joe. Now, Joe was an older man, I would say between the ages of 60 and 70, and he was probably very (very) drunk. He also sort of looked homeless, or had some sort of crap apartment in a shady part of the neighborhood. My guess as a Psychology major is that he probably also had some sort of mental problem, as most homeless or very low-income men and women do. So in a way, I felt bad. However, he still provided some comedic effect for the rest of us in the sense that he just wouldn't shut up. The poor guard told us he had been telling him to shut up all day, to which he would respond "You're right, Tom Cruise will get mad and tell me to leave" or some other sort of remark.

If you would like a mental image of this man, this is probably the best you'll get:

And even after one of the crew people (sound guys, directors of photography... I dunno what he was.) came over and told us that "These mics on the set, yeah, they're so sensitive, I can hear every word you're saying. I could hear a gnat fart with those mics if I wanted to. So be quiet when we're filming" we only stayed for a few more shots and left Tom Cruise to finish his scene in some sort of peace.

Not gonna lie though, if he took pictures with people after we left, I'm gonna be REALLY upset.

So that was my Friday night. Sorry, yours probably wasn't as awesome.