Monday, July 26, 2004

I got the call about the web content job at BSU today. I got the job, and apparently I get more money for it than I originally thought. In addition to this, I think I get a newly renovated office space to work in. I also know I like my boss, whom I've spoken with a couple of times. She's nice and competent, and I don't imagine she'll ever tell me that I need to work harder to sell reader's advantage cards.

Sunday, July 25, 2004

This hasn't been the case for a long time, but I've been so busy this past week that I haven't blogged. I've been doing things.

Last Monday I was in Muncie for an interview about a web content producer grad position. I think it was a good interview, and I'll hear if I got it or not in the next few days. After that, Gerry and I went and drove to downtown Muncie to find dinner. If I ever need photo-reference for the city at the end of the world, I'll know where to go. I thought certain parts of Toledo were depressing, but this might top that. We did eat at a good restaurant, though. I had a grilled sandwich that I anticipate eating again sometime in the next few months. And there were boats hanging from the ceiling, in the eventual case that Muncie is wiped from the landscape in a flood.

Tuesday through Thursday, work, yadda-yadda.

Friday night after I left the library I went to Cebolla (pronounced seh-boy-ya) for dinner with several of my college friends. It's the second best Mexican food in town, which is still quite good. I ate cheese enchiladas and caught up with two of my old forensics comrades, and life was good. I came home and later my brother and I watched Duck Tales at three in the morning, and it was every bit as cool as I could've hoped.

Saturday evening was my last day at Barnes and Noble, which is both good and bad. I'm happy to be closer to leaving for grad school, but I'm going to miss my co-workers. I went to Henry's with three of these guys after work and they gave me a proper send-off. We talked about books, mostly. These are some freaky-smart guys with literature, which is why I like them, because it gives me something to aspire to and they recommend really good books. We toasted to my success in continued education, and then to The Da Vinci Code and mediocrity.

Today my brother and I went to dinner at Taco Cabana- the highlight of this outing is in his blog. After this, we went to check out the new Mitchell's bookstore that opened where Million Story Books used to be. It is only the second day of business for them, but I wasn't all that impressed. The books were scattered and disheveled, even though we were two of maybe four customers in the store, and the staff were just standing around. Also, it isn't the most efficient use of space. The science section is right in the front, and for some reason they sell luggage. And the fiction wasn't even alphabetized right, and biographies were mixed in all crazy-like. In short, I don't know what they hope to accomplish with this store, but organization really ought to be a priority. I kept feeling that it's just not Million Story, which made the place feel sad, like a dead bird. That sounds dramatic, but it really was a somber feeling in there.

I'm going to turn in my resignation at the library this week. It's not at bad job, but I don't think I'll miss it as much. I'm not all that attached to it.

Sunday, July 18, 2004

I had quite a night last night. As per the mission statement of this blog, every time I do something interesting my small but distinguished audience gets to hear about it.

When I got home from work last night, my brother informed me that the Three Rivers Festival's most essential Junk Food Alley would not last for the duration of the festival, but only half. We had planned on going on Tuesday, but all we would've found then is an empty space and a few bloated carnie corpses (they always leave a few). Our goal was to find something fried and delicious, and this year did not disappoint. First, though, we took a walk through the carnival.


This was the first bright shiny novelty to catch my eye. Most carnival rides are titled "serpent", or "racer", and are painted to reinforce these names. The theme here was film. Apparently, sitting in a teacup and spinning around is just like being in the movies. I think "ciak!" is Italian for either "action" or "motion sickness".


I liked this shot with the lights and the sunset and the helicopter. There was a similar scene in Apocalypse Now, so of course I had to pay homage. There are always helicopter rides every year, but the ride is really expensive. I think Gerry went on it one year, and I didn't want to so I sat on a bench and got to know Wes. Good times.


I hoped I would get a cool tracer effect here, but no such luck. I include this image anyway because Michael dubbed it the dumbest ride there because it holds you upside down for a long time. I agree, that is pretty lame. "Metal fatigue" spelled upside down still means the thing. After I took this picture, some peasant did a slurred impression of someone asking me for fifty cents. Ahh, carnivals.

At this point, we made our meandering way to the food. Last year, we ate Milky Way candy bars dipped in funnel cake batter and fried and covered in powdered sugar on a stick. If your religion doesn't include some mention of this, you're being seriously gypped. After solemn consideration and perusal of the various fried-dough-capable neon trailers, we decided on...


Fried Oreos.
Served hot and delicious, these were our fried indulgence of the evening. Even as they lay cooling on my lap, I could smell how sweet they were.



Inside view. Michael commented that for the price we paid, they could've at least used double-stuff. They're still good, though.



One of Michael's cookies actually fused together in the frying process. This is dangerous science, here; not to be trifled with. When we were standing in line pondering what we were going to eat, we heard somebody call the various fried cookies and candy bars "heart-attack on a stick." As we were eating, Michael responded to this: "I've had a heart attack, and it kind of sucked. These are awesome." We made our way back to the car as it began to rain slightly, our stomachs full of fried dough and lard cookies. It's bliss, I tell you what.

After we got home, I remembered that one of my co-workers at the Library was having a party. I've known her since middle school, and she said that there would be live DJs there, so I figured I ought to give it a go. After all, the premise was lucrative in of itself- an outdoor party at night in the middle of nowhere with live techno music. I'm no socialite, but I am a sucker for novelty.

I exited the interstate by the General Motors plant and drove east into the uncertain lightless void that is rural Allen county. My invitation said to take the second exit and turn left, putting me in increasingly unfamiliar territory. Still, I pressed on through the directions and pulled into an unassuming farm driveway. There were cars parked on the grass, indicating I had found the place. Still no sign of a party, though. No lights or music, just a quiet farm at ten o'clock at night. There was a grass path with tire tracks on it and a sign advising against driving on the muddy grass. I took this as an indication that the rest of the trip would be on foot.

The walk back was dark and quiet, with a field to my left and eventually trees to my right. The clouds overhead obscured the moon and stars, so the only light I had to navigate by was the ambient light from the GM plant two miles away. I could feel that the soft ground under my boots was grass and occasionally mud, so I took this as a good sign. Tire tracks lead to people, or so my theory went. After about ten minutes or so I came upon a pond dimly illuminated by the industrial light bounce off the clouds. On the far side I could see a bonfire and a lantern, and movement that looked like people. The way around the pond was shrouded in trees. To quote my wise Grandpa, it was "darker than a sack of assholes."

I reached the bonfire circle of partially visible strangers and scanned for a familiar face. My co-worker Levon was the first person I could recognize, so I sat down in a chair beside him and we talked about stuff and idle chitchat. I knew a few people, including the host. This was all well and good, but the real fun started with the music.

Two DJs were standing at a table under a tent. Their equipment was laid out in front of them like something at NASA. Like funky NASA, to be specific. Each had some sort of drum machine with blinking light buttons to indicate which beats and parts were playing. Each was linked to a larger control box in the center with sliders and lights that shifted the sound in different ways. I stood watching as they worked, listening to the thumping music and studying how each guy changed the music every now and then. Though the beats and sounds were pre-programmed, the whole thing came off as one continuous jam session. The free form aspects of it came from the DJ's improvisation and ad-lib. I kind of felt like Mr. Rogers, visiting an unfamiliar place and learning all about it. Like the aforementioned sage, I felt hopelessly square among the cool people around me, but I watched enthusiastically and nodded my head to the beat.

People would periodically get up and dance when the DJs were doing something interesting. Not the lame-ass R&B club dancing that keeps me away from dance clubs, but cool crazy dancing. This is often accompanied by people waving various colored lights around with varying degrees of success. One guy had two glowsticks tied together, but every time he'd swing them around one of them would fly off and he'd have to go chase it. That was kind of funny, but the really cool thing was the girl who was swinging two wires with clusters of LEDs on the ends. Each strand twirls opposite the other, and in the dark with the music it looks really intricate. The lights illuminated her as they swung past quickly with red, blue, and yellow light. I can't help but think that Degas would have absolutely loved this dancing with weird light. Her next feat was holding the lights close to her hands, standing in front of people and moving the lights in front of and around the person's head in a dizzying display. She turned to me and asked if I'd like to try. I gave an affirmative and she introduced herself. Then, lights in hands, she rapidly waved them around in a random pattern, sometimes in opposite ways so my eyes couldn't follow both. It was quite something. I watched the DJs for a little while more, but I had to leave early because I had to work for eight hours the next day.

Friday, July 16, 2004

Like an Orc peon with four trees left within reasonable walking distance of his Orc encampment, I'm getting close to being done with my work at Barnes and Noble. It's funny, because different people have all said "so, I hear you're leaving us" in the same casual way. This leads to me telling them that I'm going back to school at Ball State. Inevitably, I then have to explain what Digital Storytelling is. It feels pretty darn good to be working behind a counter and think about how I could break out in a dance like Christopher Walken in that Fatboy Slim video. Coincidentally, I found this list of things that people ask in bookstores. I've heard most of them, often more than once. I recommend perusing the other lists on the site, too.

Tuesday, July 13, 2004

Well, wonder of wonders, the computer is fine. The guy at A-plus was able to install a new drive and even recover all the data from the old one. Looks like I can keep all of my digital ephemera.

Now that I have a fully armed and operational machine again, I want to try something a little different with this blog. Since blogger hosts images, I plan on doing more photo blogging. It's something to do as I kill time until/ prepare for mid-August. The only subject I can think of is the Three Rivers Festival's annual Junk Food Alley. That ought to be worth taking pictures of. That, and there are a few places around the city that I want pictures of. There's a really great side-street alley that I walk through to get to the library that I've always liked. Todd and I filmed part of Courier there.

Here's a site that made me laugh. FU-H2. This is good therapy after working at Jefferson Pointe for so long.

Monday, July 12, 2004

I got a call about the computer today. It turns out that my big 120GB drive is kaput. That means I lose a ton of cool stuff. 20+ MST3k movies, seven or eight Smashing Pumpkins concerts of varying quality, and most of the 2D computer art I’ve done in the past few years. Fortunately, I’ve been saving my 3D files on another drive. There’s still a chance that some of the data can be recovered, but things don’t look good.

In better news, I’ve turned in my 2-weeks notice at Barnes and Noble. I like the store and the staff, don’t get me wrong. I’ll probably still go there for books I wish to purchase that I can’t find at Hyde Brothers. I also have an interview (or something similar) next Monday at BSU to find out about being a content producer for the BSU website. So not only is this a substantial financial windfall, but I might get to do something that will count as real work experience.

Tuesday, July 06, 2004

It’s been quite a week. I worked quite a bit over the weekend at both jobs, so I was already worn out when I got home on Sunday night, when I could feel myself coming down with a cold. My two days off, Monday and Tuesday, I get sick. Then, to add insult to injury, the computer crapped out on me, so I had to drive across town to get it repaired. They’re backed up right now, so it will be Monday before they call with an estimate. Call me Okonkwo, because my things are falling apart.

I’m blogging from my Mom’s laptop now, which is kind of odd. I’ve used it before for blogging, but now I’m faced with a week or more of being a “Mac Person.” I wonder when the mindset sets in? When does one become a full-on Mac enthusiast? If I find myself trying to sell anybody on the many features the Mac has, and the many great games that will eventually see Mac release, I’m going to jump into the St. Mary’s.

Well, one feature does warrant mentioning. When I plug in my iPod, the Mac reads it as an external drive. It even charges the battery through the firewire port. Kind of cool, right? Well, no. For some reason, iTunes is incapable of playing songs in the intended album order. It even goes so far as to rearrange the songs on the iPod. I used iTunes for MS to rip the songs, too, so I know that the track order is all correct. Maybe when Steve Jobs gets done hula dancing in a skirt of money in front of Michael Eisner’s house he could get somebody on this problem. That would be great.