Letter Never Sent

I really enjoyed this new Fiona Apple song, Extraordinary Machine, which I came across via the ever linkworthy Waxy.org. It doesn’t sound like her hit songs, Criminal, etc., but it’s great. It sounds like something from an old disney movie or something. It has a very catchy phrasing. Oh, just listen to it.

I came across a video from a French television program on comics featuring Chris Ware. You can download the torrent here.

A number of things he said struck me, namely about how drawing comics is more about how you remember things than the things themselves and how he feels that drawing comics is an inherently difficult and depressing art since you are busy drawing while everyone else is living. Maybe that says more about Chris Ware than it does comics, but it is true to a certain extent. Drawing comics means being an observer, more so than other art forms because your main task is to tell a story with words and pictures. This position as observer dictates a certain amount of distance from life and then the sense of alienation he describes as you retreat into memory and the past.

His home is lined with antique photographs and he fiddles with a phonograph while he explains the superiority of bygone times when people knew what life was really about. His nostalgia for and idealization of the past reminds me of Robert Crumb with his identical collection of ragtime 78 RPM records. In the same way, it is not his own past he is nostalgic for, but the remote past from the stories of his grandmother. Is it easier to be nostalgic for a time you never experienced? If you feel like you don’t fit in, is it easier to construct an idealized representation of a dead reality? Retreating into the past is a strategy for avoiding the alienation and uncertainty of the present. Even though the past is dead the imagination can imbue it with an almost mystical reality. In a sense, the past is the ideal framework for the imagination since it has a more definite form in the mind and can be more easily controlled as far as its meaning. The future is unlimited in possibility and in definition.

Lists are your friend… your best friend, if you can rely on yourself to keep them updated and fresh. They’re useless if you don’t check things off the list. The web design job I’ve been waiting to apply for has finally opened up here. I need to do several things this weekend and next week to be ready for it. I’ve also done a few things to get to the point where I can start freelancing as a full-time occupation if I decide to take the plunge. I have nothing to lose, but I wanted to wait and try for the web design spot here before I seriously considered it. In the event I fail to get either position I’m going for, I will resign and go into business for myself.

Here’s the list for the freelance side of things:

1. Get assumed name (DBA) in order to operate a business as a sole-proprietor without needing to create a separate business entity (incorporate). You would normally do this in each city you do business.
2. Get P.O. Box address.
3. Design and print business literature (envelopes, business cards, etc.)
4. Open business account in order to keep separate books.
5. Complete main site design for business website.

For this particular position:

1. Rework resume. I generally create a new resume for each job I apply to.
2. Create resume website.
3. Compile portfolio of recent work.
4. Create demo site specifically for interview.

This is the funniest thing I’ve seen today. Some guy made a video advertisement to sell his ‘88 Dodge Aries K car. I admire people who spend this much time and effort doing something just for a laugh.

I have never read anything by Hunter S. Thompson, nor did I like the film adaptation of “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas“. Yet, his suicide is strangely compelling. Who can understand the depth of another person’s pain? I can’t, but I can relate to the desire to have everything just stop. Putting the tragedy of the situation aside because I don’t pretend to know or love the man, I am in awe of anyone who commits suicide. Not because I think it’s cool or because I admire their decision, just because of how it goes against what seems to me a natural urge for continuance. Suicidal thoughts are commonplace, but the act itself is not. I always wonder how much thought goes into it. Are most suicides impulsive expressions of agony, or well-planned, well-thought actions? How can you ever be sure you’re making a decision you would not take back if you could?

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Google introduced a Rotten-Tomatoes-like film rating function today. Check it out. I like being able to get an idea of the average opinion on things like films, books, food, and music.

Last night some guys from work and I grouped up for World of Warcraft. Before I quit for the night we did a bit of dueling and I actually did pretty well, especially considering my heals (healing spells) are pretty weak. Here’s a few good strategies when dueling with an affliction-specced warlock character:

Against warriors:

1. Summon your succubus prior to PvP. When duel countdown begins set her to Seduce the target. She will wind-up Seduction before duel actually begins, which is most likely a bug. When Seduction hits the warrior will be mezzed preventing him from rushing you.
2. Cast a couple of your DoT’s (damage over time spells) like Corruption or Curse of Agony, both of which are instacast (no casting time) with an affliction specification.
3. Before Seduction interrupts from the damage cast Fear, making the warrior run off out of control.



4. Cast any remaining DoT’s like Immolation or Siphon Life while the warrior is Feared.
5. If warrior comes out of Fear, you can fear him again up to a total of three times per duel. This buys you a lot of time. In the mean time, you can also continue to Seduce. It’s all about preventing him from hitting you with a melee attack. Just keep applying the DoT’s while he runs around Feared. Any spells with more damage will interrupt the Fear effect.
6. When the opponent’s hit points get low enough start using Drain Life, which drain the target’s life while adding to your own. By this time you will also need some heals, so use your Health Stone and healing potions or bandages.
7. Eventually, once all the DoT’s stack you will start doing some serious damage. Just keep him out of melee range and under siege the entire time and you will eventually eat through all his armor and hitpoints. This same strategy works pretty well if you summon your Imp, except he will be unable to Seduce.

I like this photo I took at work of the egg timer on my desk. I use the timer occasionally to help me keep track of how much time I spend on certain tasks since I have trouble either spending too little or too much time on one thing. It comes in handy especially when I’m doing something I don’t want to do. I’ll tell myself to focus on that one thing for fifteen to twenty minutes. Although, I think I need to get one that doesn’t ring as loud.

• The elusive and amazing Jorn Borg has come out of hiding to resume his great info-deep and timely weblog, Robot Wisdom. That means I can put his link back up. Great news. His site is highly recommended.
• Jason Kottke of Kottke.org has quit his job to blog for a living! His plan is to earn the necessary revenue through visitor donations. This is daring, and I can’t wait to see what happens, especially since his site is not topical. Why is this interesting? Because we are entering an era where some people will be able to live and produce what they want via a system of micro-patronage. This is part of the fragmentation of the global economy into small, highly-profitable parallel economies. Micro business with a global reach. Big business will never go away, but it will be forced to compete with smaller, more agile groups. Significant economic activity now takes place largely among individuals, and it is easier than ever for small groups to make money quickly. You do not need to buy retail property and you are not limited by geography. Many people are now making a living selling goods and services to a global market without being “employed” in the classic sense. All this is made possible with the communication and efficiency enabled by software and networks. Micro-patronage is just one facet what’s possible.

  Kottke has stated that he will not be using advertisements to earn revenue, which is a good idea for his site. In my opinion, accepting donations is not much different than using ads except that you spare your audience the visual annoyance intrinsic to advertising. I would go the donation route if I thought it was feasible. I’d like to see some figures on how donation revenues compare to advertising revenues for sites of equivalent traffice levels. My guess is advertising is still more lucrative since you are not depending strictly on the good will and beneficence of your audience, and since your revenue is tied to traffic you benefit directly from the number of people you bring to the site. Of course, as the number of advertisements increase, traffic and revenue should decrease as advertising clutter will alienate readers and ruin the aesthetic of the site.

Here are a few changes to the site. I’ll need to check my AdSense account to see if my clicks have gone down as a result of the change over from the previous template, but I won’t be able to do that until Google has re-indexed the site. I’m curious how the horizontal banner will differ results-wise.

1. Disabled descriptive post permalinks - This was interfering with the “previous entries” links.
2. Added Google search form on the sidebar.
3. Added Google ad banner to top of front page and removed vertical ads from sidebar.
4. Archive sections now have the vertical ads.
5. Added latest del.icio.us links to sidebar