We left the pristine grounds of Chautauqua yesterday and drove straight on to Taco Bell in Cleveland for food served on cardboard by teenagers who were neither pretty nor talented- a sharp contrast to the previous week of watching children play Mozart's recognizable hits in the park while eating grilled veggie sandwiches. Before we left we attended a Q&A with Arlen Specter and Lee Hamilton, and the day before that a speech by Arthur Sulzberger Jr. They were all as interesting as one would expect, which means a lot coming from me, as I generally don't want to hear about any political issue not covered in a Metal Gear or Splinter Cell game.

Here are a few more pictures from the past few days:

Things old people like:
High waistlines
Sitting
Ice cream
Walking slowly and looking around
Paying attention to anyone who happens to be talking
Large glasses
T-shirts with buttons
Flowers, both fresh and as floral print on wallpaper and clothing
Breakfast
Eating together (any meal)
Nodding at things
Where they used to live
Their grown children and each offspring’s marital state and vocation
The term “Digital Storytelling”
Church at any hour of the day, any day of the week

Things old people don’t like:
The internet
My brother and I until they find out that we still read books, then we’re “very nice”
Poor restaurant service
Restaurant service that reminds them of previous poor service
Rain
Hot weather
When people take their scooter parking, even when they clearly have reserved scooter parking

This much has been clear, so far, here at Chautauqua. As for me, I’ve enjoyed the past couple of days. Today I took a watercolor class with a room full of flower painting geriatrics, a guy who makes charts, and a landscape architect guy from Florida. Turns out I still have my layout and design chops, even if my brush technique is a little shaky. Last night I went to an opera for the first time if my life. Now, I enjoy the theatre and the musical as much as and perhaps more than the average heterosexual male, and I’m not entirely sworn off opera for the rest of my life, but damnation The Marriage of Figaro is long: three and a half hours with intermissions (plural) and enough time between relevant plot points to work out a Thursday NYT crossword. Superman Returns moves like an episode of Robot Chicken by comparison. On the other hand, the performers were all amazingly talented, and getting to hear the famous prologue piece live complete with a real harpsichord made me giddy. I also went to the ballet, which was quite enjoyable. The highlight of the evening was a huge group performance of Ravel’s Bolero done in a cool Spanish style. Apparently this was the world premiere of this particular arrangement mixed with this particular choreography, for what that’s worth. More harmonica class tomorrow, and I might have time to drive to a comic shop to buy 52. All this high-class living is giving me the shakes for some good-ole low culture like I’m used to. I make a habit of re-dumbening a bit at the end of the day with a little Mario Kart DS, just to keep my center.
Curiously, I seem to be in social demand in Indiana during the one week in several months I happen to leave. For those who have asked, I’ll be back on Monday definitely, and maybe Saturday or Sunday, depending on whether or not I go to Chicago. In short: you know me and concrete plans, so I’ll see you when I see you.

I sat down here in the library to get a strong wi-fi signal so I could upload pictures I took last night and as I was checking Penny Arcade (a tri-weekly staple of life), an old lady walked by and paused to express amusement that I was reading a comic strip on the internet. Imagine that- humor has endured well after the twilight of the rotary phone. Her grandson rolled his eyes and ushered her on to the books, most likely concious of the sort of humor that can be found in webcomics.

The harmonica class was a strange sort of fun. The instructor used the time to painstakingly explain the scale we were to practice, as well as several other topics. I'd summarize them here, but playing my new harmonica has been an exercise in oxygen depravation.

I took a walk last night and took some pictures with my door lens. I also stood for a while under the trees at dusk and watched the bats fly by overhead and in some cases right past me at close range.



































































After spending most of my life far removed from anything nautical, I felt compelled to photograph the heck out of the lake and the boats, as these things only exist to me in Tom Waits songs. For all I know, the Edmund Fitzgerald is sitting at the bottom of this lake next to the Lusitania and a giant kracken. I'd totally believe that if someone told me it was true.

After a drive across the intrusively placed state of Ohio, I am currently sitting in a preposterously quaint hotel on the grounds of Chautauqua (shuh-TAW-kwah), a town devoted to arts and humanities of every stripe. My initial impression is it’s kind of like Austin, TX for the black-socks-with-shorts crowd. The main parking lot has a handicap section the nearly the size of Fenway’s outfield, if that tells you anything. I’ll be here for a week with my mom and brother, going to art galleries and attending seminars that look interesting. Notable enough to plan ahead for are a series of classes to learn the harmonica and a basic watercolor class. I never learned watercolor properly, but I’ve messed around with ink washes and gouache. As for the harmonica, I think we’re doing it just because we can.

Being here is a bit like scuba diving while dependent on a tank of oxygen. I’m cut off from my natural environment; and iron lung made of PS2 games, high-end Adobe products, and at least three months of comic books within arm’s reach at almost all times. For life support, I have my iPod (currently playing Velvet Underground); Mom’s DS with Mario Kart, Advance Wars, Brain Age, and some kind of surgery game I have to try at some point; Mom’s laptop with a spotty wi-fi signal from somewhere nearby; and the vague prospect of a comic shop in a town nearby where I can purchase 52 on Wednesday. I also have a few books along, and I plan to work on school-related things too.

Blogger currently is sort of loading as of this sentence, but a while ago I got Wikipedia to load to look up the Spanish-American war for an aborted old-people joke- just assume it would be funny if you knew what I was talking about. Hopefully this will post correctly. I should be able to upload photos of this place when I’m in better proximity to the library. For now, you’ll have to take my word for it that the room we’re staying in is floor-to-ceiling floral print. The flowers outnumber the resident population of Monaco.

Kal-L, I believe.
One of the Medici, probably. I don't remember. Michael and I saw this in Chicago.
If you don't know Yoda, don't read this blog.
Thanks to Michelle, I have two pleasant looking monkies.
One of Gerry's old Zorro comics.

I saw an idea for cheap fisheye photography on the internet last week, and on a trip to wallyworld I decided to test this method. A one-way peep hole with the inside end removed makes for a cheap way to deform a subject. I made a stand for the lens with green floral wire, a cheap and versatile material I discovered in undergrad when my friends used it for sculpy clay armature understructure. The original faq I found has comments and links to other methods of mounting the lens to the camera. If I can find a cheap lenscap or filter, I'll try to make a mount for it. The images are all orange due to the light in my apartment, and PS couldn't do much to change the saturated orange.

In other news, it's good to be a comic geek right now. The last panel of Astonishing X-men #15 made me (quite literally) jump out of bed and dance around for what it referenced, and hopefully everybody else who reads this issue will get the meaning. Gerry and I purchased our advance tickets for the first showing of Superman Returns next week, so we're all ready to go.

This week saw the similarly abrupt arrival and exeunt of a small orange cat at Gerry's apartment. From what I gather, Monday evening three excitable undergrads presented him with a year-old cat wrapped in a light blue sweater and a smattering of cat supplies purchased so recently the receipt ink was scarcely dry. Essentially, an all-in-one cat care kit, presented with the sincere hope that said cat might live with Gerry. Gerry, being the probable exclusive caregiver, was incredulous to the idea, though the girls made promises to stop by often to help with care and feeding of the feline presently hiding under the bed for lack of a say in the matter. If there is a common factor to any of Gerry's few questionable decisions, it is my consort, so he called me to come see the cat. They had coaxed it back to the couch when I arrived, where it was shedding by the bale from the stress of being lugged around campus by such an excitable gaggle, all the while quietly praising the management of their apartment complex for a rule against cats. Yadda yadda, Gerry got a cat. Ever wonder what happens when you introduce an unpredictable element into a controlled environment? Gerry's expression while watching the cat was often that of a Swiss engineer surveying a room full of children fingerpainting- open befuddlement at the random behaviors and quiet amusement. I got to play the role of the cool uncle who only shows up long enough to spoil the cat rotten with attention, never once having to put up with the nighttime quirks when the cat couldn't sleep. The aforementioned girls put up fliers in the village and the owner claimed him, confirming his gender for us. Though they were grateful, they failed to offer any recompense for the expenses of boarding a cat. The term "schmucks" has been suggested more than once. Curiously, the cat is missed. Of course I miss the little bugger, because I didn't do much to care for him aside from checking in once and helping with some basic cat knowledge gained from caring for June at USF. Gerry freely admits to being attached to the cat, having tentatively dubbed him "Streaky" after Supergirl's cat circa 1960. This was a good little cat- he sat on our laps and greeted people like a dog.

I just saw Everthus the Deadbeats play an outdoor show- good stuff as always. They travel with a rubbermaid bin full of various noise makers that the crowd can play along with, and one stalwart fan always shows up with a skillet and spoon. The act before them was one guy dressed in black with a cape and large sunglasses. He sang along with some sort of old background music CD and danced around. It was funny, then annoying, then ultimately cool. At one point he danced out to the middle of the road to dance in front of an alpha-male stereotype driving a convertible. The guy looked pretty confused, as most people would, and the crowd loved it. The Belle Ends were conspicuously absent, as this was supposed to be their big comeback show.

Those of you who are in or near Muncie ought to plan to head down to Villiage Green Records in the villiage next Friday, June 9th at 6PM. Everthus the Deadbeats will be playing a CD realease show with The Belle Ends. All-ages, so tall people won't have any trouble seeing over the crowd.

I thought about reviewing The Da Vinci Code and X-Men here, but I wasn't particularly blown away by either. Da Vinci Code follows a pretty standard formula for the sake of having a plot, which often gets in the way of the more interesting parts about architecture and symbolism. I would rather see a re-edit with most of the plot crap removed, save for Sir Ian McKellen's scenes. Most expository dialogue is accompanied by short vignettes of historic events. Someone mentions the crusades, and suddenly a huge, lavish depiction of the crusades comes up to remind the audience what it probably looked like. While I normally love big fx shots, I thought these scenes were tedious and tacked on to keep the average person's attention until the next time someone pointed a gun at someone else. Yes, academics pack heat in this movie. Are Ivy league tenured faculty normally strapped when travelling abroad? I mean, aside from Indiana Jones, whose movies are easily comparable and superior to this movie, as they can take an absurd premise and actually have fun with it. No such fun is found in this movie, not even in the foundation of the Louvre, a building that has been dug up and remodeled so many times in the last thousand years or so one wonders how there could be any mystery left in it.

X-Men wasn't really great, or terrible, which is probably the worst way to tackle the Dark Phoenix story, perhaps the most signifigant story in the Marvel U. I really don't have much to say about it, except that too many characters and no real plot was the reason I stopped reading X-Men when I was 15. The film effectively sinks the franchise, despite the box office gross, which is just as well. I'm ready for Superman Returns.

Star Wars Unaltered!
It's about bloody time! The special editions were a cool exercise in CGI compositing, and it was great to see the trilogy on the big screen (best valentines day date ever, back in the day), but I strongly prefer the original trilogy as it first appeared. The added elements were mostly just distracting, and now everything that blows up in the SW universe has that weird ring effect. Also, the second image in the article clearly shows Han shooting Greedo because he had it coming, not in self-defense because Greedo couldn't draw a bead on a seated target over the space of a table. For that, I'd like to thank Kevin Smith, who gave us the phrase "that's the worst idea since Greedo shoots first." Gerry said this would never happen. :)

Thanks to Michael for the link.

There should be a restaurant here.

True to personal form, I took an academically ill-advised trip on the eve of finals this past weekend. In undergrad I saw the Smashing Pumpkins at the end of two semesters, studying in the car. This time I visited my brother at Kenyon College to go to the senior send-off weekend celebration. The headline act was Talib Kweli (in a rare flyover state performance), and a slew of Kenyon bands. I was fortunate to see Potato Famine in their last performance together. It was a great set- Fields of Athenry, one by Flogging Molly, and a great Irish style version of Freebird as a finale; all complete with two violins and a flute player. Talib Kweli was great too- The songs I really wanted to hear, Old School, Roll Off Me, and Get By were great. It was funny, though, because the jubilant crowd was nearly all academic geeks and trust fund hippies, and nearly all white.

I also got to meet Michael's friends, eat at the deli, and get schooled at Super Smash Brothers- karmic retribution for the DS Halo parties, I guess. I also lost a milk drinking race to Michael's roommate that had warranted a detour to a second dining hall after brunch. It wasn't even close. I had a little more than half done when I heard his cup hit the table- "like pouring it down the sink."

All in all, a fun weekend. I have finals to finish this week and end of year parties to attend. Charlie Don't Surf is playing at the Heorot with some band from Italy tonight, and tomorrow Tool has a new CD out. All this and Free Comic Day next Saturday? I'll be busier than a labradoodle watching tennis.

This is a post about comic books, so if you skip it, I won't blame you.

This was originally an e-mail rant about big events in comic books I sent Gerry. It's long enough that I decided to put it here too.

I’ve seen Marvel fall into this pattern before, where they keep trying to one-up themselves by building event on top of event. I think the staff gets locked into that because they feel like they’re pushing themselves creatively when they upset the status quo. Also, crossovers inflate sales, which keeps the executives happy. This is unfortunate because (we keep saying this!) the major strength at Marvel is the individual books. Some of their best stuff is coming from minds like Whedon, Way, and Brubaker- all more or less standalone storylines. Also, the reason people like Bendis is because of his work on Ultimate Spider-Man and Alias- two staunchly continuity-independent books. I think they got lucky in the past with the first Secret War, the Dark Phoenix saga, and a few other big events, and they’re still trying to create their “Crisis”- the big continuity shattering event to define everything for years to come.

The problem is, they either don’t do enough to resonate throughout the universe (any X-book crossover circa 95), or they go nuts and have to backpedal just to get all their writers and fans on the same page (Onslaught, Heroes Reborn, House of M). Either way, nothing as of yet has really stuck. I think this may be because the Marvel Universe is organized well enough that they don’t need to reboot the universe like DC. The only real chaos for Marvel comes from their big events, whereas DC uses events to simplify things. And the universe chugs along.

To what end, though? A big event will generate sales among the fanboys who know enough to keep it all straight, but the highly coveted new reader will skip it entirely, and the casual reader in Borders may only flip through it if the cover looks good. If I was to act as Virgil to a new reader, I would dissuade them from reading Crisis or Civil War until the trades come out, and start them on Captain America and Astonishing X-men. Or Alias, or Ultimate Spider-Man, or a slew of other self-contained comics with easily accessible characters.

Speaking of comics, Infinite Crisis wraps up this week with #7 and the largest hero-villain battle ever, no hyperbole. The Villains United special this week set it all up, with nearly every hero and villain ending up in Metropolis after a worldwide prison break. Considering how free Geoff Johns has been with killing off characters in this series, and considering that Doomsday, Bane, Solomon Grundy, and a noticably more psychotic than usual Bizarro are all there, the issue is going to be incredible.


Go watch C for Cookie. You'll be glad you did.

I am basically familiar with the Protestant work ethic, but where in this philosophy does it say that labor must be performed at 9:45 in the morning? This morning I had just rolled out of bed and commenced to relieving myself when I heard a knock at the door, followed by the door opening and the heralding of a maintenance man come to paint my water heater closet. I had worked out with the landlady that the guy could come today. I should note that we spoke on the phone at 2:00 in the afternoon on Monday, when this sounded sensible. I ended up getting dressed in the kitchen and scurrying out the door. Presently, the fellow is whitewashing my WC where the leaking water left spots on the wall. His hat did not suggest fealty to Jefferson Davis like the last guy, which I appreciate. He had better not touch my comics.

In other news, the Google Blog just announced the release of a free 3-D app, Google Sketch-Up. It doesn't appear to do much, so I'm excited to see what I can do with it. Simple open-ended apps are great for creativity sometimes. Also, there's a pretty strong rumor that Google will be making a free word processor online soon- basically MS Word in a web browser for free.

The Smashing Pumpkins website is back up after being down for a few years. There's also a new SP guitar book on Amazon, so I hope my neighbors don't mind hearing the opening riff from the song Siva for days on end this summer.

Legal Animatics
One possible place for my skills to pay the bills. Cracker got to get paid, son.

I found this article on Slashdot, about how computer design software has weakened drawing skills in the current crop of art students. It's kind of reassuring to know that I'm not alone in thinking that, and also that there are others with my same problem. When I started pursuing art in a serious manner my approach was from a musical and theatrical/technical background. These parlayed well into computer animation, given my inclination toward using a computer for creative pursuits. Traditional drawing has been frustrating to me for years. In undergrad it was a hurdle; an obstacle between me and what I saw as the land of pixels and honey. I wouldn't say that my work is "uninspired," but I do wonder how much better I could be if I would develop my fundamentals more. I've kept a couple of sketchbooks going for the past couple of years to keep my design skills up, and also because drawing frustrates me, hence I must be doing something right.

Since I arrived at Ball State, I've noticed a glaring lack of realism and figural work from the art department here. Many of the senior exhibitions feature work with human figures, but often the rendering and proportions are sophomoric at best. Not that I can do better, or even as well, but I know what craftsmanship looks like. I've seen great work from my friends in years past, and I am often disappointed with what I see here. Are computer programs to blame, then? Many traditional artists I've known have written digital media off as "cheating," as a quick and dirty way to achieve eye-candy. As ready as I am to argue for the virtue of digital art, I also recognize that most of it is cheap and forgettable. I cringe every time I see a lens flare effect in a professionally produced comic book, but I am enamored with Ben Templesmith's purely digital art in Fell.

So in defense of digital art, here are the artists that I think give legitimacy to the medium as an art form:

Alessandro Bavari: A fantastic Italian artist, and the nicest guy ever I met in Italy.

Dave Devries: He came to Ball State last year and gave a demo on digital painting. I'm still finding new uses for the techniques he imparted to us.

Ben Templesmith: The digital artist of the comic Fell. His drawings are surreal, but each panel pops in a way that few digital artists are capable of.

Tim Bradstreet: He mixes photography, digital, and traditional skill to create some of my favorite contemporary illustration work.

Conspicuously absent (to me at least) is the webcomic Penny Arcade. They're at the top of my list of great web cartoonists, but their art is more "form follows function," rather than producing individual independent works.

Quick link: The Simpsons Movie trailer

Just links and no actual content pertaining to me? This is called the Gerry method. :)

Sunday, Bloody Sunday by U2 remixed with Dubya doing the vocals. Pure ineffable genius.

Star Wars TV series confirmed

"It would cover the 20 years in the life of Luke Skywalker growing up that remains a mystery to most film-goers."

Hmm... this sounds so familiar. An adopted farmboy with paternal issues who is destined for greatness hangs out with his friends in the middle of nowhere and eventually meets an old person who tells him of his future. Perhaps the planet Coruscant is so close you almost don't need a spaceship to get there.

How will this work, exactly? Luke doesn't know anything about the Force when he meets Obi-Wan, and the Empire is barely a presence on Tatooine until the death star plans end up there. On the other hand, Tatooine is a planet run by the hutts, and Luke did a lot of racing in his youth, so this could make for some good TV. The events leading up to his friend Biggs going to the Imperial academy and then defecting to the Alliance could be great, but that would be seasons 4-5, at least.

< /shameless_geek >

The once steel tough fabric of a Union man Was sold and Bartered away Fed to money wolves in the Reagan years, Caught in a drift in greedy nineties days So inside this song is our rally cry

chorus: Your dreams are in danger, and "We Must Rise" Our time has come we are under the gun "It's Do or Die"

Its not a rebel cry of some socialist Scheme to push for human rights Just the facts an obvious mentioned on the Behalf of the working man, for his family and his livelihood

-Do or Die, DKM

First off, happy birthday to my brother from me over on this side of the pond. He's over in Scotland this week, ensuring a little less anarchy in the UK. I look forward to a massive blog post.

I got a new hot water heater this week. The old one leaked a bit off and on until a few days ago when I woke up to the sound of running water. I thought it was just the normal sound of the person above me getting ready, but there were none of the accompanying elephantine stomping sounds her Nimitz-class feet make. On the floor in the closet there was a puddle with actual ripples in it as the water drained. First things first, I moved every comic book in the room to the top shelf of the bedroom closet. It occurred to me to turn off the water completely, turn off the hot water heater valve and power, then turn the water back on. I drained what water I could with the shower, but there was still a pretty good size puddle on the carpet. I lysoled (it's a verb now) the hell out of the area to avoid mildew, so now the carpet smells like dusty wet apples. I bought some "shop towels," which are essentially thicker than average blue paper towels towels in a really manly package. No flowers, bears, or platitudes- just blue. These worked to an extent, and the area is nearly dry now.

The maintenance guys came to inspect the problem in the morning. He turned on the water and said "yup, it's leaking." Brilliant. I'm the one with 92% of a masters, he's the one in the confederate ballcap- one of us is the expert and it's not me. Yadda yadda, now I have warm water.

Off to Scotty's now, for a black bean burger and Guinness with Gerry and Michelle, who are both more Irish than I am in their own ways.

"And finally I'm going to thank all the booksellers of the world. Remember, "Brokeback Mountain" was a book before it was a movie. From the humblest paperback exchange to the masters of the great bookshops of the world. All are contributors to the survival of the culture of the book. A wonderful culture, which we mustn't lose. Thank you." - from Larry McMurtry's oscar acceptance speech

This speech and Robert Altman's speech are the two that have stuck with me from the oscars. I didn't see most of the big nominees, mostly due to my schedule. I was happy to see Nick Park and Aardman studios get the win for best animated feature. On the other hand, Batman Begins got snubbed- a best adapted screenplay nod would've been nice, as this is the first Batman movie to get the character right, as well as tell the origin story effectively enough to warrant repeat viewing. That, and for whatever reason, Star Wars Ep. III wasn't in the best FX category. It was good to see WETA win, though.

I saw this on the Onion A.V. Club- set your mp3 player to random and list the first five songs that come up without skipping any, then comment on each. I used my iPod, which only has a small portion of the music on my computer at work, hence no Smashing Pumpkins bootlegs or Muncie music.

Lonely- Tom Waits
A Tom Waits song all about being alone in a room full of people- of course it resonates with me. It's not my favorite on the album, though, that would be either Virginia Avenue or I Hope that I Don't Fall in Love With You.

Get Out of My House- The Streets
Gad, what a weird song. It's a hard one to explain without describing the whole album. I bought the CD for another song after hearing it in a friend's car, and ended up liking the whole thing.

Breathe- The Prodigy
Kind of a guilty pleasure, like all of the music I liked in high school. I used to listen to it at speech meets. Ahh, bass-boosted nostalgia.

Better Man- Pearl Jam
Classic. If you're under 30, you may remember why. The band is still going strong, though their intensity dropped off after their third album.

Bouree- Jethro Tull
A short, all-instrumental flute rock interlude. The album is a little inconsistent, due to the strength of the songs Aqualung, Cross-Eyed Mary, and Hymn 43. They rock beyond my comprehension, and I suspect their may be even more rock happening beyond the human hearing range in each song.

Since moving here, I've found that this area lacks many the resources that I enjoyed in Fort Wayne, such as access to independent and foreign films. There's a theater that shows a few independent movies, but most of the really interesting releases never make it this far into no man's land. I've subscribed to Netflix in order to fill this void. So far, my movie cue consists of a couple classic movies (Young Mr. Lincoln, Once Upon a Time in America), a few favorites (Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark), and a few oddities (Primer, Oldboy). There is quite a bit of catching up to do, and if anyone would like to recommend a good movie, feel free. Netflix offers an RSS feed of my cue, and if I can figure it out, I plan to put the list in the sidebar here so that it updates automatically. Because I can.

Last Wednesday I went to the student center to see Dr. Brian Greene speak about string theory. He did a great job explaining it without the insanely complex math involved, and explained where his research may lead. The basic idea is that subatomic particles are made of little strings and shapes that vibrate, and the vibration patterns are what determine what the particle is. The size of these, as near as anyone can tell, is 10 to the -35 meters. Pretty darn small. He also talked about the possibility of other dimensions- not in a sci-fi sense, but in terms of an experiment to be performed in Geneva in the next few years. Fascinating stuff, even to a non-physicist.

Something else of note: there's a new British TV series called "The IT Crowd" about IT workers in the basement of an office building. It's pretty funny, and the network has made it available on Google video: link, and a link to the proper episode order: link

"Literature was not promulgated by a pale and emasculated critical priesthood singing their litanies in empty churches - nor is it a game for the cloistered elect, the tinhorn mendicants of low calorie despair." -John Steinbeck

This is from his acceptance speech for the 1962 Nobel prize in literature. It resonates with me, hence it goes here for digital posterity.

First off, here's an embedded Google text ad from the spam folder section of my gmail account:




Spam, bacon, sausage and spam, if I'm not mistaken. Google ads work by scanning the page for any word that matches the meta tag words in their ad database. As a result, the overzealous ad script found "spam" (used as a negative term here) and served up an ad for MRE-grade meat-based spam fajitas in a quantity that could satisfy the Supreme Court, provided that Stevens declines, citing seniority over canned meat (see Marbury v. Hormel). The option of extra salsa is proposed and left to the discretion of the court.

School keeps me pretty busy. I'm working on a research paper about the portrayal of banks in the movie The Grapes of Wrath. I'm enjoying the research, oddly enough. It's a history paper, so everything is based in fact- no theory at all. The great depression was a more volatile time than I thought it was, and the writing from the era is really interesting. Tomorrow night I'm going to hear Dr. Brian Greene speak in the student center. He writes books about space and time, and people say that he was really interesting the last time he was here.

Also tomorrow- Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-men #13 arrives in my pull file at Alter Ego. Shortly thereafter it will be read on my couch, re-read, flipped through, and passed on to Gerry to sit in his pile of my comics for six months until he has time to read it.

I'm not actually dead, though the prospect loomed unnervingly close in the past two weeks when I had the flu and then a pretty bad sore throat. I couldn't talk, but it took me a few days to realize this, as I don't talk much. I came down with the flu during the last DS Halo fragfest- cold sweats, nausea, headache, the works. I still managed to win four out of five rounds either by myself or with the help of Michelle. The last round the kill count was set at 25, and the level was huge for four people, and all I could think was "I can't go home to bed until this is over." I couldn't even see straight when I shotgunned my 25th kill in the back of the head. I got home, walked into the kitchen, and threw up for the first time in four years. The last time I vomited was when I got sick and had to postpone getting my wisdom teeth removed, thus missing seeing Zwan in Columbus, Ohio- right across from the Ohio State University.

So, I'm feeling better now. Still coughing a bit, much to the joy of my lumbering brick-footed upstairs neighbor. The parents have provided much in the way of medicine and food during this, and I'm gradually eating all of it like Pac-Man.

The semester is going pretty well. I had blocked out all kinds of time to work on my various projects, and recently I've spent this time sleeping and trying to stay at least minimally current with classes.

Two excerpts from Sweeney Todd:

"Mrs Mooney has a pie shop.
Does a business, but I notice something weird,
lately all her neighbor's cats have disappeared."

"There's a hole in the world like a great black pit,
and the vermin of the world inhabit it,
and its morals aren't worth what a pig could spit
and it goes by the name of London. "


Why? Because I just read a rumor that Tim Burton will direct a movie musical version. I don't know who else out there is familiar with this particular work, but it's my favorite musical. Link to the story. It says that Johnny Depp is somehow attached, which sounds a bit odd. The titular character is an older man, at least in his mid-fifties or even early sixties. Aint it cool predicts an official announcement in a few weeks.

Most news blog sites have lists of notable events, memes, and novelties that made an impact on various factions of society in 2005. The compulsion to code and quantify such ephemera is not lost on me, and while I can't really explain this, I recall Nick Hornby explaining the phenomena of lists in his novel High Fidelity. Anyway, here is my list of things I enjoyed in 2005.

Comics:
I met Geoff Johns.
Fell- supercompressed Ellis
Loveless- Azzarello's take on Leone's western style
Infinite Crisis- I knew I'd have to read and cross-reference a lot in grad school, but not this much.
Astonishing X-men

Movies:
Serenity
Revenge of the Sith
Batman Begins
The Aristocrats
Corpse Bride
Back to the Future marathon viewing
Batman and Robin/ Superman IV double feature night
Zatoichi

Music:
the Black Keys in Indy
Spookie Daly Pride in Indy
the Tomkats at the Heorot
Charlie Don't Surf in the basement next door
Jethro Tull in my headphones
the faint prospect of a Smashing Pumpkins reunion

Academia:
more animation
a foray into true non-linear storytelling
met a slew of new students, most of whom I hold in extremely high regard
worked on a documentary, didn't actually see any ghosts
got straight A's for the first time in my life
the Fickle Peach- a great place for out of class discussion, pool, and fooseball

Consumables:
macaroni and cheese is still roughly 40 percent of my diet
spicy noodle bowls
far too much atrium food
Boddingtons- it's always nice to name-drop my favorite beer and get approving nods from worldly types
Guiness- the old standby
La fin du Monde- gotta love a beer named "the end of the world"
the brat burger at the Ram
avgolomeno soup from Michelle
pretty much anything I ever ate at Mark and Sarah's place

The sonuvabitch works!!!! Bwa-hahaha! The button states all highlight correctly, the menu doesn't jump nearly as bad as it used to! It all links back to the main screen like it's supposed to! It was due at noon, and I just got it working now seven and a half hours later, but by Yoda it's working.

You just can't rush art. Or this, either.

Last night Jessie and I saw the Empire Brass in concert in Sursa. I was pretty worn out before that from a day spent working on projects, but I walked out feeling great. One of the many highlights of the evening was hearing Rondo alla Turka played on a tuba. These people are amazing.

The documentary is pretty well in the can. I'm going to add some music that Scott and I forgot last night and maybe clean the audio in one section (weird buzz), but the big work is done. Now to finish my animation and assemble the corresponding DVD, and I think I'm done.

Here's something for visual-types and internet tab users such as myself- foxpose. It adds a little box at the bottom the browser window that displays clickable thumbnails of all the tabs you have open. Install 1.5 first, though.

The rough cut of the IGT documentary is done, so this weekend we'll go back to editing. Nothing major needs to change, thankfully, just a lot of cutting in one particularly long segment. That, and fixing the part where Greedo shoots first. We were very tired. After class last night, Scott and I went to Cheeseburger in Paradise. I really don't like Jimmy Buffett, as a cursory glance at my facebook music list will indicate, but this restaurant has it's own sort of vacuum-sealed charm. The sweet potato chips are delicious and cheap for a big plate, and the bar staff did something funny for someone's birthday while we were there- the birthday victim tucks a big napkin into their shirt collar and the employee stands up on the bar with some kind of small cake or cookie covered in whipped cream that is flung from a napkin for the victim to catch in their mouth. I couldn't see too well, but it was funny. Then some guy started playing guitar too loud for a Wednesday night, including a too-loud version of Wish You Were Here, precluded by Wonderwall. If you're going to apologize to the audience for playing Oasis, don't play Pink Floyd wrong- two negatives don't equal a positive.

Here are two reasons so far this week for me to feel smug: article and article. The first article says that introverts get more out of independent thought than people who require external stimuli to constantly entertain them. The second article is my favorite, though: visually-minded people have better creative ability and often filter out a lot of information.

Scott and I were up quite late last night editing our documentary. He’s a journalist, so working with him is a bit different from the artists I’m used to in a good way- he used a method of logging our roughly twenty hours of footage with a spreadsheet with tape names, time codes, and dialogue prompts. Thanks to this, we got eighteen minutes of final product done in four hours- far better than the standard one hour of editing for one minute of footage. I went home and slept for three consecutive hours before my cell phone alarm I set as a failsafe started blasting a midi version of Stars and Stripes Forever and vibrating loudly on the metal box fan in my room. I planned it that way, and I pretty well jumped out of bed to shut it off. The documentary is coming along nicely. Tonight we present it for “critique.” I use the quote marks because I haven’t had an honest-to-goodness critique since undergrad. Everybody is so nice here that it’s next to impossible to hear anything negative about my work. At USF I had a professor threaten to shoot me with his paintball gun because I didn’t have my drawing done, and later tell my then-girlfriend that he would put me in a rocket and send me to the moon if she didn’t get her work done. The scary thing is that this professor here at BSU isn’t a ball breaker during class, but her grading certainly qualifies. I want to do well on this because I genuinely care about the project, more so than any paper I’ve written.

One more thing: Firefox 1.5 is out now. All of my (cool) friends have probably already installed it, but I felt I should bring this up.

So it's come to this- I'm a media darling again. (If I wasn’t so opposed to wearing yellow and purple, I could be a Laker) Last week I got to test the new xbox for the CMD, and then I was interviewed by the CMD, newslink, and the star press for the aforelinked story. The console that I tried ran pretty well, with none of the crashing bugs that I read about on Slashdot last week. There don’t seem to be any standout games as of yet, so don’t be too disappointed if you don’t see the new console under your tree/ in proximity to your menorah/ wherever the hell the mores of Festivus dictate gifts are to be placed. My quotations in the article are probably what I said during the interview, and I must commend the reporter for making some sense of what I was trying to say in my addled, sleep-deprived condition.

Thanksgiving break was enjoyable- I got a little bit of work done, but mostly I just read, ate, and traipsed around the fort with Michael. We went shopping on Friday and Saturday, much to our shared chagrin and amusement. I found gifts for a few people, and I picked up a tie for myself because I feel that I should be regaled in diagonal stripes should I ever have cause to dress up again. I also saw two people with matching rhinoplasty bandages- I know there’s a story there. They looked like a married couple, so did they just roll over one morning and mutually decide that they were ugly? Did they meet at a convention for people who look like California condors? Boggles the mind, it does.

On Saturday night I dug out my old Fireball Island game. Michael read the rule book out loud with consideration for emphasis given by the author. We each played two pieces to make things more interesting- I was red and orange, and he was blue and purple, the plucky little amputee who lost his arm many years ago. Fireball Island is not meant for the good and noble. The object of the game is to make it to the top of a mountain with a fire breathing demon head, steal a large plastic jewel, and escape to a boat at the end. To this end, each player is granted the limited geologic power to smite the bejeezus out of opponents with strategically deployed red fire marbles that roll around and destroy players. I hope I’m preaching to the choir here, because if you haven’t played this at least once in your life, you’re missing out. Michael’s blue player emerged from the plastic jungle victorious, despite being repeatedly nuked by my Damaclean fireballs, and despite me splitting hairs over the rules of when cards can be played and some tom-foolery at the end.

Here's a little preview (no video, sorry) of my forthcoming documentary with Scott on the Indiana Ghost Trackers: I have footage of one of them interviewing a moderately mentally handicapped guy about a ghost of a little girl that talks to him though an oscillating fan in his room. The fan had no comment at the time of the investigation.

SNAFU: my animation project is behind schedule, to the point that I've pretty well jettisoned the simulated cloth in favor of solid puppets. It's a pisser to be sure, but I have to get this project done. I got the cloth to work to the point that it would hang from the figure properly, but it couldn't react to the figure moving fast enough, so the arms would move through the cloth and the garment would fall off. This isn't that kind of movie, so the only cloth in the scene will be the curtain, if I use cloth at all. At the current rate, I could have it working well enough two weeks after the project is due in both classes. The up-side to all of this is that I'm spending long periods of time in VIA-1 in AB, much like I used to do at USF. VIA-1 is a nice lab, but the room has old fluorescent lights instead of warmer incandescent lights like VIA-2 and the USF animation lab. If I could logically fit another abbreviation into this paragraph, I would.

I found this rant while browsing IM profiles, and it reminded me of my friends in undergrad.

Here's me incrementally burning my fifteen minutes of fame: iPod finger. I was interviewed last week by a collumnist for the Star Press that my boss knows and who is married to a guy I'm working with in the Journalism department, neither of whom know Kevin Bacon. The print piece has my mug grinning above an illustration of what using an ipod is supposedly doing to my poor joints. Honestly, I haven't had a problem with my joints yet, despite all I use them for. I play guitar, type, play video games, and crack my knuckles alternately all day- using an ipod isn't high-impact.

Last night I watched the Colts game with a group of grad students. We ate oven-baked nachos and cookies and laughed at the opposing team's coaches with their matching hoodies.

You've got to be kidding me. Pretty soon it'll be possible to do the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs.

Halloween weekend was fun, ergo I didn't get anything done, ergo I haven't had time to blog this week. Last Friday Gerry and I went to a basement party at the house next door. Usually these are worth making an appearance at, as the young lady of the house is quite pleasant to be around, but this event had live music by a local band called "Charlie Don't Surf." Any band that takes it's name from a line in Apocalypse Now is probably cool, but these guys backed it up with some really great meandering psychedelic rock. Their setup had parts from a cardboard robot costume scattered around, and a cheesy Troma film projected on a sheet in the background. Fun times.

Saturday was the big party day around here, so I got all dressed up for the occasion. I made a green mesh apple and attached it to a plastic bowler hat so that it covered my face. If you aren't familiar with French surrealism, I'm not about to explain the painting I was dressed as, but a lot of people did get it. The first party I went to was at my boss's house, a legendary yearly celebration where they decorate the entire downstairs from floor to ceiling with Halloween brickabrack. It's funny to see what costumes faculty come up with. I wasn't the only painting there- one of the art professors was dressed as the Mona Lisa. He wasn't as greenish as the original, but he did have a beard, so there was still that element of the unexpected. One of my favorite professors was there as the obsessive-compulsive Dr. House from the TV show, complete with a few days of stubble and a bottle of pills in his pocket. My boss was dolled-up (ahem) as a goth raggedy-ann doll. I didn't happen to win anything at that party, but I wasn't aware of a costume contest until the winners were announced.

The next party I went to was in Windemere apartments. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy- just turn left at the lady who turned into a pillar of salt last week and you're there. It's a nice place to visit, especially on weekends when all the undergrads throw parties. This one had the requisite beerpong and bad music, but it also had people who knew what I was dressed up as. One of the girls was rather shocked to see me as the guy from the Magritte painting because her boyfriend was the same thing 500 miles away. I wonder what the global total was? Certainly no more than six billion. I received a ribbon for "most original costume," which means that they didn't get it either but they appreciated the effort. There was a guy dressed as the pope, and he was such a nice guy. Of course, the best costume there was Gerry as Batman. This year that goes undisputed because nobody challenged him to do a flip.

On the issue of USA Today altering a photo of Condi Rice:
I used to do digital image correction for a living (well, at least for Taco Bell money) during undergrad. It's standard practice to sharpen the eyes of any subject, as it makes the photo more attention-grabbing. People notice eyes more than anything else in the photo. I don't believe that this was done on purpose. I don't really even care to make any other comment than to put up a picture of Cthulhu with the demon eyes- the first thing I thought of, naturally.

Seriously, whoever worked on that photo can be replaced with five minutes of searching monster.com for recent college grads with Photoshop skills- a number that rivals the population of China. The job market is grossly oversaturated, and mistakes like this can ruin you.

I was under the impression that the universe and I had an understanding: don't bug me when I'm eating alone unless you know me. Seems logical, right? Today, this social contract was broken by a bespectacled tablewipe with a penchant for gab. I was sitting at a table, just reading a newspaper and eating my waffle fries, when the cleaning guy came to wipe down the table next to me. He asked me if the newspapers on this table were mine, and I said no. He took them and I went back to reading and eating. Then he came back to clean the table, and told me that somebody else would get the one I was sitting at. Most people would see this as the end of social pleasantries, but not this guy. He wanted to interrupt my daily reading of the op-ed page with his feelings about the chemical makeup of the table cleaning fluid. He told me that the bottle said it would irritate the skin and eyes, but that he had gotten it in his eyes a few times and it didn't hurt. I nodded politely, recalling the scene in the Mos Eisley cantina where Greedo confronts Han, and realizing that I was outgunned by a spray bottle filled with what he hypothesized was salt water. I was cornered, prone, and I still had half a sandwich to go before I could leave. He kept insisting that the chemical wasn't harmful, but I didn't want to find out. He left eventually, after talking my ear off.

Back to the academic grind for me today. Not academic in the traditonal sense, perhaps, as I'm rendering a movement test right now. The arms get a little weird when they're raised above shoulder level.

I bought a new amp yesterday- a decently badarse 500 watt that's a behemouth compared to my little practice amp. I had resisted getting a larger amp before now because I didn't need anything huge, but the new one sounds good even at low volume. I underestimated my little Mexican strat- it sounds pretty good through this amp. When I tried the amp out at the store, I used a cheap beginner model because I figured the sound would compare. It turns out that my guitar sounds much better. I haven't tried my distortion pedal yet, as the natural gain is already pretty good. I'll be practicing with a drummer soon, so I wanted to get an amp that could be heard over that. If we happen to record any of the cacophony, I'll post the highlights.

Thanks to what I suspect were updates to CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) in blogger, my old blog template didn't really work anymore. You may have noticed the gaps in the top of the page large enough to insert a proper analogy about the size of the gap, and then some. I'm still trying to decide if I like the monochrome green.

Trading one campus for another, I'm currently sitting in the Middle Ground coffee shop in the middle of Kenyon. I'm here for the family weekend, when the students somehow drop what they're doing to indulge a mob of blood-related tourists. Michael has been gracious enough to show us all the places he would be going to anyway, like his room (messy as mine), the newspaper office, and other points of interest. The paper office is in a tower in the old part of campus, making it cooler than any other office I've seen, even counting my own with the purple wall.

We got into town yesterday in time to see a wind ensemble concert that Michael was in. It was an enjoyable show- I hadn't heard live classical music in longer than I care to admit. We all went out to dinner at an Itialian restaraunt where I saw an old guy eating dinner with a head-mounted flashlight on his forehead. The food was good too, but the guy is more blog-worthy.

We went to see Michael performing in one of a series of vocal groups in the evening. Most of them were fun and entertaining, save for the first, the (group)*. Their style hearkens back to a day when gay wasn't analagous to being fabulous or talented. And just because the song "Good bye my Coney Island Baby" is an old standard, that doesn't mean it was ever a good song. My enthusiasm for traditional acapella music is normally strained at best, and Michael tells me that one of the guys in the group is a dick, so in my estimation the whole lot of the limp-wristed bluebloods can sod off. The other groups were great, though. They sang for the sheer love of it, and one group even did a humorous reinactment of a scene from The Lion King.

I got to meet Rebekah, whom Michael is quite taken with. She's nice, and every bit the introvert that I am when I'm not around my family. She reminded me of a young Audrey Hepburn (see Charade), if that means anything. I met the Greek professor, who imeediately identified me as a grad student (wether by conspicuous black bag or emmaciated physique, I don't know). I saw Michael's suitemate in passing on an elevator, and then later on I saw someone that we assume to be related to his suitemate alseep on the couch. We went to a midnight pancake breakfastand ate until the smoke alarm went off from the cooking.

I'll probably post some pictures of this trip later tonight or tomorrow when I can get them off of my camera. It's time I stopped abusing the free wi-fi and went to find my family in their various locations.

*edit, 5-12-06: While I enjoy the churlish ability to scattershot-libel anything that comes to mind on the internet, it is not my intent to tarnish the name of the group I previously bitched about in this post. Apparently, this post came up in a Google list as the one negative result, and I don't want to be that guy. That said, I still don't like most acapella- possibly because I'm an idiot.

And Dummy begat Dummy:

This is the first render I've done of my latest creation- a marionette for my animation project.
All of the joints are articulated like a puppet would be, and it even has kung-fu grip modeled after GI Joe circa 1968. My next challenge is to build a skeleton for it and make a cloth kimono that will move realistically, then see if I can make some sort of gravity field. If I actually totaled up my list of problems with this project it would come to 99 (one external issue not germane to the project is conspicuously absent), ergo I have little time for anything else.

Some schools throw you out for having this much fun.

Serenity was awesome. Comparing it on its own merits to the Star Wars prequels on their own merits, Serenity is a better movie. I think it helps to have seen the Firefly TV series that precedes the movie, but most people I've talked to disagree.

I'm really tired. My days are filled with things I really enjoy doing, but I think I've reached a saturation point. I'm doing all kinds of production and tech related stuff; so much so that I barely have time to eat, sleep, or even clean my apartment, which looks sort of like it was transported from the Gulf of Mexico right now. There's a Treehouse of Horror (number 2, I believe) where Homer is sent to hell and forced to eat donuts constantly for eternity, much to his delight. That's my life right now- I asked for projects, and I got them.

Freedom League: I had this one on the back burner for awhile, as I didn't think it would ever get out of development. It turns out that my colleagues Gerry and Ryan are still serious about doing it, so I'll be working on this quite a bit for the next month or so.

Animation: I'm modeling a series of wooden puppets for a movie based on the short story In a Grove. The finished product will go on a DVD for my digital production class. Two birds with one insofar very large and difficult stone.

Documentary: Sunday afternoon I'm going to a meeting of the Indiana Ghost Trackers to start a documentary about them and their activities. There is some added mystique here because my partner and I have heard of other students who have started documentaries on this group, only to stop abruptly and never release any footage. What could this mean? We're grad students, though. Dogs in the refrigerator don't hold a candle to three hour methodology classes.

I'm also helping a friend of mine out with his thesis. Normally academia and I mix like oil, water, and feral cats, but here's what I get to do: I record ten minutes of me playing the top ten most popular games of last year, and get paid for my time. It's some kind of comparative study about violent video games here and in Asia. Anything for a friend, that's my motto.

Amidst all of this I'm still buying comic books. This is worth a paragraph because next week is the first issue of "Infinite Crisis," a gigantic hoopla in the DC universe that's been slowly building for years. The whole thing is being orchestrated by a team including Geoff Johns, the great comic author Gerry and I got to meet last Spring. The story so far has been broken up in small pieces in individual books, so readers have gotten different versions of the story depending on what they normally read. All these parallel plots have been coming together recently, and it's been interesting to see it all happen with what I know about story design and nonlinearity now. Is it obvious that I don't date much?

Tomorrow's my birthday. I'm pretty sure I'll be 26, if my math is right. 26 going on 12.

The transition to cooler weather here is usually one of my favorite times of the year because my allergies don't bother me anymore. This week, as the pollen count dropped, I got a cold, so I felt kind of crappy for a few days. Especially Sunday, when I had allergies and a cold. Monday night I quarantined myself in my apartment to get healthy again, and got a fair amount of reading done during that.

I saw Corpse Bride, the new Tim Burton stop-motion movie. The character design is incredible- like, Studio Ghibli incredible. Each character has a distinct way of moving that conveys the vocal performance very well. The story comes from a Russian folktale, hence it doesn't really follow the story pattern that we're used to. I don't know how this movie will do in the long run- it's a thinking movie in a pretty wrapper. It's also a musical, which I did not expect.

I figured out how to use simulated cloth in Maya this week. It's all physics-based, so there are a bunch of variables to play with. That, and the effect happens without keyframing anything, so the material just reacts to whatever happens in the scene. It looks darn cool. I'll probably be using this in my animation project this semester. I like my animation instructor- he's more art focused than Matt was, so I think they could have worked well together. One of my geekier tendencies is that I keep an all-star roster in my head of academics from the different institutions I've attended.

Tonight I'm going to go see Serenity with at least one other devout fan of the Firefly TV series. I'm all geeked out for it, too. I read the comic mini-series over the summer, and if I knew how I'd be swearing in Chinese to express my anticipation.

I haven't blogged lately because I've been helping so many other people with their blogs lately that I'm a little tired of it. The university is sponsoring a group of students to blog and podcast about life at BSU. That is, everything is furnished by the school, but the school doesn't have any editorial control over the content. It should be a good project. I did research over the summer looking at what other schools call "blogs." Most were just static html pages, ostensibly written by students with no prodding (ahem) from their respective colleges. There was even one school that posted mp3 files of students reading a script about how great the school is. No RSS enclosure, just a file on a server, so technically it wasn't really a podcast. My current role in the project is general tech support- help students where I can with wordpress and report any bugs I find. A few students have yet to do anything significant on their blogs, but most are off to a great start. Seeing how the project is growing through them is really interesting.

Yesterday this blog turned 2. The past year (as marked by this blog's age) passed much faster for me than the first year when I was working in Fort Wayne. My posting regimen has dropped off considerably, due to the ammount of work and other opportunities I have now. I started this blog because I had nothing else to do, and now I'm so busy that I often can't think of good topics.

While I've been away at school my parents have carried on with various forays into modern technology, at times without the direct supervision of my brother or myself. A few weeks ago my Dad got a camera phone, so now I get pictures of the dogs in my e-mail every once in a while. This is innovative in a way, as the intended use of a camera phone is to take blurry, washed-out snapshots of car accidents and morons making strange faces. As I always suspected, they invested in a new deadbolt lock as soon as my brother and I were out of the house. This is notable because the can be locked with an infrared remote keychain. In order to open the door you must have the key in your hand, meaning that you cannot be wearing night vision goggles when approaching the locked door. You also can't make references to a game that only one other person you know has played.

Another fun technology that I got to mess with is my Dad's new car with a GPS navigation system and DVD audio sound system. The whole deal is voice activated, which is supposed to make it easy to use, but the way it works is more akin to programming. To tune the radio to 98.9 FM, I hit the button and said "FM nine eight point nine." It repeated this back to me in a neutral female voice (with a familiar disinterested tone) and tuned to the proper station. The way I said it was like running a program or script in a command line: radio\FM <98.9>. This is a good deal more complicated than just hitting a button on the radio. The GPS is kind of funny because it doesn't know how to get around Fort Wayne any better than any other non-native. The DVD audio sounds nice, and the car came with a mix DVD from Acura to demonstrate how different genres sound. The funny thing is, the track listing includes "Do You Realize?" by the Flaming Lips, "Let's Get it On" by Marvin Gaye, and some Faith Hill song. Such an amorous mix is sort of odd from a car company to a customer. It also has a truncated version of "O Fortuna" from Carmina Burana by Carl Orff that sounds really cool.

I'm not really sure that DVD audio will catch on in a big way, though. I recall seeing an article in Wired that showed how most current music is recorded and engineered to be loud without any volume variation- everything is constantly spiked. Also, the big trend in music sales is compressed digital audio files with mid-range two channel quality for use in digital music players. There doesn't seem to be a way to have anything more than two channels with headphones, and DVD audio has more than that at a bitrate well beyond 128 kbps. It seems like a great idea that came at exactly the wrong time. I suspect that the new format was intended to boost lagging music sales and to try to create a format that can be easily copy protected. The thing is, the standards for the format were established in 1996, before copy protection in general was rendered useless by the power of internet hobbyists who break encryption for fun. I'm interested to see where this format goes. It sounds fantastic, that's for darn sure. Something epic, like the Raiders of the Lost Arc score would sound great. On the other hand, something like "Never Mind the Bollocks" is meant to be two-channeled and fuzzy. Miles Davis would probably sound great.

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.