Things are starting to approach stability here. My schedule is free of conflicts and I think I know my weekly routine for work, class, and school work. Computer animation will be just as time-consuming as I remember it from USF. Visual Storytelling, it turns out, is a documentary film-making class. I don't know what I'm going to do for that project yet but I get to work with a friend who collects tech like my old roomie Todd. Digital production seems to be a good excuse to learn a new program and make something with it.

My severe allergic reaction to good weather has kicked in, so I'm on claratin bender this week until a good morning frost or two comes in to kill the pollen. I'm no botanist, but it is my opinion that plants suck. Just give me my oxygen and leave me alone.

Gerry and I were watching the tsunami coverage on TV the other night. The news stations are so in love with the disaster and the spectacle of people displaced by the thousands that after about an hour even we two media crazed twenty-somethings couldn't take any more. To pick our spirits up, Gerry opened up a pack of big-league chew bubble gum and we split the whole thing. It's quite impossible to be somber when you have a speech impairing mouth full of sickeningly sweet bubble gum.

After much running around, I believe I have a workable schedule:
Grad-level Computer Animation (art)
Digital Story Design (icom)
Visual Storytelling (journalism)
My work hours are mostly in the mornings, and my classes are in the afternoon/evenings.
I really hope this works. I got used to drawing up my own schedules in undergrad, where my advisor would sign anything I put in front of him. Now I'm off to see about getting a meal plan, and then I'm going home to read the New Yorker and watch an episode of Dead Like Me.

Let me be clear: cookies and I go back a long time. Despite my slight build, I love cookies in a very deep and meaningful way. When I saw a new kind of soft cookie for sale, the "soft baked Chips Ahoy," I naturally wanted to try them. The competing (and far superior) "soft batch" cookies from keebler are a favorite of mine, and they always remind me of one of my old roommates. This new kind? Not so much. They aren't baked so much as they're shaped out of dough and grease, which leaves a strange aftertaste. To underscore my desire to warn the world, I took the trouble of making a picture of Yoda admonishing the world against these. Ignore me if you will at your own peril, but who among you would ignore Yoda?

Yesterday:
At a quarter after 7:00, I awoke to the sound of trees being pruned and the wood being shredded in the parking lot outside my window. As I was leaving for work, I discovered that all of the music on my iPod was gone after some technical difficulties I had the previous night. I was digging in my bag and got a paper cut. I got to work and was told that because the icom grant dried up, my graduate stipend for the coming year will be about $1600 less than last year. I'm still having difficulty with my fall schedule, which is partially not my fault. After work, I walked home and got stuck in a torrential downpour halfway. I needed to go to the store, but I couldn't because I needed to make sure my rent check would clear and my last paycheck would be deposited properly. This particular area on the north end of shit creek is starting to look familiar.

So far, today has been better.

I've been messing around with the beta version of M$'s new "Acrylic" vector graphic program. I like what I see thus far. Hopefully this is free like windows paint. It's quite useful if you know Adobe Illustrator well. One thing that I love about it is the tracing option. Illustrator has the option of tracing vector lines over raster graphics, but it's just point, click, hope for the best. Acrylic allows the tracing to be fine-tuned. The image below was created in such a manner. It made a zillion points and lines, so editing the image is near-impossible due to the time it takes to change anything. Still, I like what it does. The beta's free of you can find it on the microsoft site.

The next version of Firefox will support vector graphics. I can't wait to see what will be possible. I imagine a mix of vector shapes and javascript could create some really interesting embedded menus- window interfaces in web pages, scalable graphics, even (dare I suggest it?) zooming interfaces! It's almost too much.

I thought about sending this link only to my brother, but this is the sort of thing that must be shared with as much of the world as possible: Conan O'Brien vs Bear.

Hypothetical situation:
If you ran a big expensive web server, would you delegate the responsibility of fixing a mid-grade but oft-recurring security issue to a sleep-deprived student worker making minimum wage? How many other state-funded institutions could get away with this, or do get away with this? Just a hypothetical, mind you.

I was in Hobby Lobby earlier (craft-kitsch for miles) looking for linoleum for ink prints. That's not the point, though, just the context. As I was searching through the bizarre menagerie of truly awful decorative crap, I passed an old lady in a wheelchair being pushed by another woman. The elderly matron was stooped forward with that sort of listless expression that old people get upon the realization that they've outlived the Prussian Empire, clutching a cane. As I moved down an aisle to get out of her way, I heard her let loose with a belch worthy of a high school tuba player. It was outstanding. I know it was her because I heard her laugh out loud about it right after she did it.

More Google Earth fun: the Sphynx
Go to 29° 58' 32.01" N, 31° 08'13.91" E.
To the north and west are a few pyramids and some ruins of something. Then continue northwest to see a huge cluster of newer symmetrical buildings that I'm guessing are residential. Zoom in all the way you might see a guy in a red fez. If you know why to follow him, you're my kind of people.

Things I have accomplished at work today:

Unlocked door.
Found that I am the only one here.
Logged in.
Checked work e-mail, confirmed that half of the department is out for one reason or another.
Checked personal e-mail.
Turned on music, updated podcasts.
Started working on Emens calendar stuff.
Found conch shell, blew into it. Nobody came to investigate.
Worked on Emens calendar stuff.
Watched the trailer for "V for Vendetta."
Purchased beverage, Dr. Pepper(x1) from vending machine. Stamina +10, temporary "caffeinated" status effect
Stole some fat kid's glasses to try to make fire.
Gave up on fire.
Listened to omnipresent sound of computer fans.
Made umpteenth mental note to have network cable replaced because it seems to be frayed somewhere within the plastic and periodically loses my connection.
Started blogging.
Entered another calendar event.
Listened to Black Sabbath out loud on my speakers, a rare event reserved for when I'm alone in the office.
Killed a wild pig, mounted said pig's head on a stick for symbolic effect or something.
Held my hand up to the vent above me, muttered about lack of air flow.
Sat idle thinking of things to write here, felt a little bad about not working.
Went back to calendar entries.
Procrastinated leaving work due to long walk in weather that weather.com claims "Feels Like: 112°F."
Ate granola bar(x1). Stamina +15
Satisfied with getting most of my work done, logged out and left the office.

Burst into flames.

On Saturday I went to Indy to see the movie Howl's Moving Castle and a Black Keys concert. Between these events, I wandered around as I am prone to do when given leisure time in a city. Howl's Moving Castle was great. Miyazaki/Studio Ghibli have created another fun, complex children's movie full of amazing characters and locations. I thoroughly enjoyed it. After the movie, I drove to Broad Ripple to see what it looks like in the daylight. It was about this time that the rain started coming down in buckets, and the streets were flooding. I got soaked even though I had an umbrella, so I sat in a starbucks until the weather subsided. After I had dried off a bit and changed into my flip-flops, I went to Keystone to look for good stuff on clearance at Pottery Barn. It's that little streak of suburbanite in me that I can't seem to fight. I ended up buying some coasters because I need one for my desk, and I found little candle holders for 45 cents, which according to the employee at the register, was the cheapest she'd seen anything in the store. I felt pretty darn good about that. After that, I ate dinner and wandered around Borders to kill time. The show was going to start at 9:00, and my socks still felt damp, so I made a quick stop at Target for dry socks. I got to the concert early, just in case it started on time. I don't know what made me think it would, but you never know. It turned out that there was an opening act planned, much to my dismay. Spookie Daly Pride notwithstanding, I've never really liked opening acts. I'm there to see a specific band, not a band that sounds similar to the main event but isn't as good. After a half hour of standing there staring at the stage, a voice over the PA said that the opening act had to cancel. At this point I figured that the Black Keys would be on soon, so I made my way to the front of the crowd. I was so close that I couldn't hear the vocals very well, but I was right in front of the drummer and I was getting the guitar sound directly from the amp. It was an amazing show. They played all the songs I wanted to hear, including "the Breaks" from their first album, which I love. The crowd was really into it, which is nice. When I first got there I noticed right away that half the guys there were tall skinny crackers with long hair. It was euphoric for me to be in a crowd like that.

Those of you who use Google Earth, try this:

Go to 29˚ 20'16.54 N, 101˚ 42'17.56W. The object itself is diffacult to see, but the shadow on the ground is unmistakably a giant easel. This is the world's largest Van Gogh sunflowers copy, located in Goodland, Kansas. I was marooned in that little town during a blizzard while on a trip during undergrad, and I haven't forgotten this landmark.

Edit: The above cooridinates should read 39˚ 20'16.54 N, 101˚ 42'17.56W. 39 instead of 29. This makes a big difference. The wrong coordinates put you in the middle of nowhere, instead of the middle of nowhere with a kitch landmark.

I work as a happy little cog in the university PR machine, so periodically I look at what other schools are doing to promote themselves, then figure out how to do it better. Case in point, the map. Well, I just got a link that blows us away. Franklin and Marshall University has a great little animated pitch for applying to their school. If you like Terry Gilliam or historical humor, then give this a look.

This is my new clock. It came with a craptastic Office Depot logo on the face, so I painted over it. It's a cloud from Super Mario Brothers, those of you who missed the 8-bit era. Click on it to see the full-res version and my decidedly sub-pre-Raphaelite brush control.

I had a good three-day weekend, and I have pictures to prove some of it. Gerry, Tom, and I all went to the Indianapolis zoo on Sunday, where we saw several creatures that were more photogenic than we are. Ditto for our trip to Broad Ripple (more on that below). Click each image for the full version.

A young Baboon chewing on a branch.











If there's anything in nature funnier than a baboon's red arse, I have yet to see it.








I wish I could have taken this one closer. It's some kind of monkey lounging in a log.









Tom communes with nature. Lorakeet eats, bites Tom. It would have been a better story if he had shrieked like a schoolgirl, but he was tough. Then we all went and used the free hand sanitizer.







This eel can do whatever it darn well pleases, as far as I'm concerned. It's things like this that keep me out of non-chlorinated water.







After the zoo we drove around downtown looking for somewhere to eat. As a rule, there is never any convenient parking in Indy, so anywhere we wanted to go was going to require a zig-zag trek through the city's commercial center. A short walk later we arrived at the Ram. Tom swore it was good, and it had TVs with sports, so Gerry wouldn't get fussy. Fun for the whole family, right? Well, sort of. The menu was a gallery of giant size burgers and multi-meat sandwiches. I don't like beef, but I found something that fascinated me: a burger made of bratwurst with mustard, onions, and cheese. It was delicious. Maybe it was the euphoric effect of prolonged exposure to sunlight and fresh air, but I really enjoyed that brat burger.

Broad Ripple is the sort of place that people in my demographic go to on weekends. We played pool for awhile, then wandered down the street to see the rest of the area. After a few stops, we ended up at the Rock Lobster. This was probably my favorite place. They play good music, and the back end is an open-air patio, so it isn't too smoky. I had a couple in me, so I had my hair down, and Weezer was playing on the speakers. Some crazy chick started air-guitaring, so I did too, and then another guy was talking to me about playing the guitar. I may have let it slip that I can play Led Zeppelin's "Over the hills" (which is partially true) and "Stairway to heaven" (which is mostly untrue). Yeah, fun times. We crashed with Tom and drove back home the next morning. Gerry and I stopped at Mcdonald's for breakfast, and as we were going to sit down, a septuagenarian man said "hey, nice shirt." We turned, and he was wearing the same American flag shirt at Gerry. Old men have similar tastes.

Later on that day we went to a cookout at our neighbor's house. It was a simple affair of lawn chairs and a charcoal grill. Then we watched the Muncie fireworks display from the roof of a parking garage on campus. This was a good vantage point, as it is safely removed from the rest of the town. Townies and phosphorous charges are a dangerous mix.

I bought a CD after hearing some of it in Tom's car. "A Grand Don't Come for Free" by the Streets. They're a British band that combine strange brass samples and odd drum beats with half-sung, half-spoken lyrics. The album tells a story of a guy trying to get money and handle a relationship with a girl he meets in the second song, then breaks up with in the tenth. The thick accents and the story remind me of Guy Ritchie's early movies. It's well cool.

A couple of noteworthy links:

Liquid Man
An interview with the guy I buy comics from

I'm going to Indy at some point this weekend, but I don't know when. If I remember, I'll take my camera and post pictures here with blogger's new image serving feature. Speaking of which, I tried the new MS blog service that some of the CICS people here would like the students to use. The image upload feature on that reprocesses the image and spits out a really crappy, pixelated image. The test pic I uploaded was 24K, and it looked fine. The pic that it displayed was poorly aliased and the file size was 48K. Unacceptable, if you ask me. I'd almost rather see students using xanga. If anyone out there is looking at different free blog services, I recommend Blogger or Livejournal. I've done a pretty good amount of research lately at work, and those are the two standout choices.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending the wedding of my old friend Sarah and the newest induction to the Fools, Kris. The services were held in the lobby of the Embassy Theatre, a beautiful old building with handmade wall sconces, intricate floor tile patterns, and naught but the finest metal folding chairs for the guests. The ceremony proceeded as such things do: music, vows, and that feeling of giddy solemnity that is exclusive to weddings. The collective esteem for the happy couple was palpable. This wasn't one of those weddings where you sit there and cynically envision the pending union as a commuter train careening off of the tracks into a herd of cattle. These two are far too cool and likeable. Gerry and I will die alone, so we can at least glean some vicarious matrimonial joy from this. The open bar and the large dinner spread at the reception didn't hurt, either.

The reception was quite pleasant. I wore my brand new coat that I purchased at a significant discount, along with a newly-acquired dress shirt that wasn'’t such a good deal, but actually fits my Ent-ish frame pretty well. The social setting was peculiar though. The party consisted of people with the stamp of approval from two very nice people, so socializing was easy enough even for me. Sarah is still as sweet as ever, though she has developed an assertive wit in the years since I knew her in high school. Kris is, in all regards, a great guy. I caught up with a few other people who I hadn't seen since high school, and met a couple of new people as well.

If you're like me, with such an insufferabley high opinion of yourself that you must tell the world about the minutiae of your life via a blog, then click on the link graphic below to take a blogging survey created by a PhD candidate at MIT.

From an interview with Billy Corgan:

"They proved me right, which is that the whole indie thing is just a pose. I can'’t say that about everybody, but our general feeling in the Pumpkins always was that people took the indie route because deep down they knew they didn'’t have the talent to make it on the mainstream level... If you'’re going to play music at a high level to a large audience, it can'’t really be about you. You have to make it seem like it's about you, but it has to really be about others, it'’s really about sharing. And their indie-cred mentality really is about, '‘What'’s it got to do with me?' and '‘Can I find people who agree with me, who think like me, who dress like me, smoke pot like me?'’ They'’re just assholes. It'’s simple." -Billy Corgan in Paste magazine, referring to the Zwan breakup.

This pretty well sums up quite a few people who have frustrated me, particularly in undergrad. Just because someone dresses as though they are avant-garde, and their work doesn't make sense without lengthy discussion or knowledge of the inside jokes of their peers, that doesn't mean they're genius. I used to hold myself to their odd standard, and I eventually gave up drawing because I didn't feel I was at their level. Only in the past year has it become clear to me that I needn't conform to the standard of people I don't care about. I'm an animator, damnit. I'm a content designer, a storyteller, an (extremely) amateur musician, a decent writer, and I came here to use these skills to better myself and learn to create new things. Gad it feels good to say that.

My brother and I just scored 3424 on Oregon Trail. He didn't want to start as a carpenter because they have no money, but I wanted to because they can fix things. Case in point- an axle broke and we fixed it. Booyah! And being a carpenter means that your score is doubled in the end. We lost one member of our party, a poor sap named RED SHIRT. His name was in all caps because the Apple IIe emulator defaulted to caps. This poor soul bought it while crossing the second river we came to. Since this was a watery demise, we didn't have to bury him with a clever epitaph. He probably just floated out to the gulf of Mexico. It's just as well, though: he kept eating all the hard-tack and he kept telling us all that he was the Les Claypool of the jawharp. We continued on westward at a strenuous pace, stopping on occasion to hunt. My years of bragging about what a mighty hunter I am went up in smoke when I only brought back 75 lbs of food. Then Michael tried and killed a bear. Another time, he got stuck walking around when he ran into a pixelated cactus. We ate well. Further along, we came across a tombstone from the previous owner of the game. It was a simple affair with this curious etching: "Here lies andy" next line: "peperony and chease" (misspelled pizza references suggest that this person probably should never have left Independence, Missouri). EDGAR was bitten by a snake, and MICHAEL came down with cholera after we let some strange Shoshone Indian help us cross a river. The stupid jerk didn't know what he was talking about- the wagon tipped over and we lost two spare axles. I should have known something was up when he requested two sets of clothing as currency for his services. Everyone lived through their particular ordeals after that, and we made it to the cool part where you have to guide the wagon on a flatboat down a river, avoiding identical rocks as you float by. This is where I made up for my inadequacy as a hunter. I deftly maneuvered the wagon down the river, past the three arrow signs to the trail on the shore that marks the end. We made it, in fair health but good spirits.

Summer is an odd time here. You’d think it would be easier to get around in a college town during the summer when the population around campus clears out, but it actually got worse. The amount of road construction around here has made everything inconvenient.

I went out to dinner with several of my classmates last night to the local Mexican restaurant. It’s not quite on par with what I’ve had in California or Fort Wayne, but the cheese enchiladas satisfy the monkey on my back just fine. We talked about all the things you might expect- Star Wars, the Office, David Sedaris- stuff like that. Then, much to my foundation-rattling shock, I was asked about doing some freelance animation. There’s a lab here on campus that I can use for such a project, and I’ve been looking for an opportunity to ply my trade. Sometimes I feel like I haven’t used Maya since it was installed on a UNIVAC. The project is a promo video for a company in Indy that makes gigantic lawnmowers. The kind of mower that causes a noticeable decrease in oxygen output from the grass it mows over. The big selling point is something about how the blades move, so in lieu of holding the camera three inches away from a six foot span of gas-powered spinning blades (ostensibly blades of death), a CGI shot will serve just as well to show the process in detail. That’s where I come in. I do hope this pans out. There has been an offer of money, but before I give a quote I need to know exactly what sort of shot will be needed. The way it looks now, there will be modeling the under side of the mower, animating the action, match-moving the model to live footage, and compositing the video- which might be done by somebody else, I’m not sure. Ye Gods it feels good to talk about this stuff again.

I’ve been meaning to blog my feelings about Revenge of the Sith for some time now. It'll be long-winded and geeky, and probably meandering, so skip this unless you really care about Star Wars. Obviously, spoilers abound, so stop reading if you haven’t seen the movie (then find the nearest available geek and explain your situation- we are available 24/7 to remedy this problem). I have a new perspective on the Jedi and the Old Republic now. I always held the belief that the Jedi that kept order before the Empire were wise and just heroes, and above all that they were independent of any governing force but virtue. This is the model set by Ben Kenobi in IV, and this paradigm endures in every other piece of supplemental material. In this movie, we see the Jedi in a different light. Their ties to the Senate are so complete that they can’t fathom why the Chancellor should ever be considered a threat until he kills four Jedi right in front of Mace Windu. Anakin enters at the Shakespearianly awkward time of seeing Master Windu about to kill the Chancellor, and suddenly everything the council has said about justice and fairness is called into question by the wrathful expression on Master Windu’s face. But why should Anakin even listen to him? The Jedi council made it abundantly clear that they didn’t like him even when he was just a grubby little kid from Tatooine. Anakin represented a break from the status quo. He wasn’t an adorable little youngling waving a lightsaber around in Yoda’s intro to laser blocking class; he was a sweatshop mechanic from the ass-end of Hutt controlled space. Anakin’s tenure as a Padawan learner the academy on Coruscant was difficult as well, even though he possessed natural ability. Obi-Wan was the only Jedi who didn’t regard him with disdainful eye-rolling, but it was several years before he saw Anakin as a friend and not an awkward inheritance from Qui-Gon. Anakin persevered out of a desire to promote justice in the galaxy. Strictly speaking, this desire is against the Jedi code. But Obi-Wan, one of two surviving Jedi when all is said and done, points out "only a Sith Lord deals in absolutes." Yoda, by contrast, persists in advising Anakin to go against his natural instincts. Anakin is constantly caught between the opposing viewpoints of those who seek to maintain or create some kind of order after their own design. The one good thing Anakin had going for him was Padme and the possibility of becoming a father. In less turbulent times, when he would have time to think rationally, Anakin may have realized that this was his way out. He could move out to a little chateau on Naboo, raise twins (surprise!), fix up a T-16 with Luke and Leia, learn to talk to his wife like a grown-up, and grow old bullshitting about podracing with the old men in the village. What would be the alternative, really? If he had allowed Master Windu to kill Palpatine, the Jedi would be pariahs. As we all know, even the most self-serving weasel can attain unparalleled popularity if he manufactures a war against beings that look different to boost his career. The Jedi were too close to the senate to see what was going on, all the while preaching a life without attachment. Alas, the Last Temptation of Anakin ends as expected. I blame the Jedi council for what happens to the galaxy. Yoda takes a different tack with Luke on Dagobah, much more straightforward than he was with Anakin. No more platitudes about avoiding the dark side- he sends Luke into the cave to face his dark side before he ever learns of his heritage. That's the Yoda I remember- not the CGI imp acting as a general in the clone wars, but the wise old master preparing a farm boy to save the universe by showing him what he will have to overcome.

There it is. Most of you shouldn't have read all of that. If you did, well, on your own head be it.

I've finally ended my self-imposed boycott of all music published by RIAA-affiliated record labels. I still don't like them as an organization that takes money from artists and files massive scattershot lawsuits, but my big reason to stop buying their music was that they wouldn't endorse a legal download alternative. That was the case two years ago when I started my self-righteous stand. Now you can't go anywhere on the internet without finding somebody who will sell you digital music- even walmart is trying some sort of download system. The classic litmus test for when a technology has caught on firmly is when the yokels get access. If wallyworld is digitally offering their brand of sanitized pop and rock music to the hilljack masses, then it appears that digital music has caught on.

My first purchase? The new System of a Down album. It rocks quite a lot. If you could imagine a huge truck full of rock with big letters on the side that spell “ROCK” speeding down the highway on fire, then you'd have a good idea of what is on this CD. The second track contains the oft-repeated lyrics “why don't presidents fight the war/ why do they always send the poor.” If there is one good thing about corporate music, it's that the desire to sell music and make money trumps the right-wing pressure to quash dissenting material.

One other thing is worth blogging: on my way back to school, I almost hit a deer on the interstate. I saw one run across the street just in front of my headlights so I slowed down, and then a second apeared on the road. It saw me coming, got scared, and ran straight across. I pulled over on to the shoulder and avoided it by probably ten feet or less. My reaction saved us both. All the deer did was panic, crap on the side of the road, and run. Yet again, thank you violent video games. The deer and I would have been in serious trouble without the reflexes I've developed during countless nights fragging zombies and terrorists.