- My mom called and told me she got promoted to Vice President at whatever the name of the company is that she works for. I’m proud of her.
- We had the McRib challenge today. A friend of mine (who shall remain nameless) ate 8 McRib sandwiches. It was excruciating to watch. I don’t think I could have held down more than 2.
- I’m in the thick of a new (new to me) fantasy series by George R.R. Martin. You know a series is going to be good when the author has two middle initials. The books are engrossing, especially for their level of detail. I do find myself getting annoyed by the recurring mention of certain words or phrases. It’s hard to read when you keep rolling your eyes. All in all, they are excellent as far as fantasy novels go. If you go to his website, he has a section where he lists what he’s currently reading, which is cool because I like getting book recommendations from authors.
- If you’re like me, you don’t make a lot of money. So, it’s good to know where it’s going and how much you have squirreled away in different accounts and locations. For that reason, I heartily recommend Microsoft Money. I’ve been using it for almost 2 years since it came preloaded on my laptop. I liked it, so much that I bought the 2004 edition some time last year. Microsoft Money connects to my bank and downloads and organizes all my transactions. I can pull reports on how much I’ve spent on coffee throughout the year, for example, and it does other things like provide reminders to pay bills, etc. Microsoft Money has really helped me get my financial house in order. I can honestly say that it has saved me thousands of dollars just because I have a handle on my money situation. Knowledge is power. I haven’t tried Quicken, but I would assume it does a lot of the same things.
Arts
05
Dec 04
Little bits worth mentioning
30
Nov 04
I like lists and bullets
I haven’t been inspired to write long entries and I find little notes to be more helpful lately.
- Soundtrack for today:
- Pantera – This Love You have to love caveman lyrics like: “You keep this love, fist, scar, break”
- Notorious B.I.G – Hypnotize It just came on the radio. Nice sampling.
- Christmas wishlist:
- XM MyFi
- Treadmill (I have a spare tire that needs puncturing especially if I even think about going to my 10 year high school reunion.)
- Books by or about Otto Weininger. I’ve always been perversely fascinated with history’s heretics.
- Provocative William Blake quotations:
- Active Evil is better than Passive Good.
- Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead.
- The fox provides for himself, but God provides for the lion.
16
Nov 04
Learn-ding
With every new project I learn something. Every time I have a vision of how a project should turn out I keep trying different tactics until the desired result is achieved. Having to try a bunch of different things is frustrating but also very rewarding when you have a breakthrough moment. Last night when I was working on something I figured out a couple of things that are probably obvious to millions of other people. Namely:
- Blending two layers using a layer mask in Photoshop
- The utility of saving swatches of color and storing them with the base files
The strategies you learn get added to your mental arsenal like wads of gum. You won’t need to learn the same things twice. Websites like CreativeBits are a big help. My next goal is to master Adobe Illustrator.
05
Nov 04
The Incredibles
The company rented a screen at the Barton Creek AMC theatre today for everyone at work to watch the debut of Pixar’s new animated film, The Incredibles. We were able to bring a guest, so I brought Jody with me and she really enjoyed it. The Incredibles was …incredible. It seems like Pixar gets better with everything they do and it didn’t hurt that they enlisted the talents of Brad Bird, the man responsible for The Iron Giant. While I was watching it, I kept thinking how amazing it would be to be involved in something like that. To nurture a project from idea to reality over the course of 3 years. It is rare to see a group of individuals who are so focused on producing work of true quality. It is awe-inspiring. Real quality takes tremendous discipline and talent to achieve and when you see something done right, you can’t help but feel a large measure of respect for those responsible.
19
Oct 04
Selections from the Hagakure:
This is a nice passage:
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“To hate injustice and stand on righteousness is a difficult thing. Furthermore, to think that being righteous is the best one can do and to do one’s utmost to be righteous will, on the contrary, brig many mistakes. The Way is in a higher place then righteousness. This is very difficult to discover, but it is the highest wisdom. When seen from this standpoint, things like righteousness are rather shallow. If one does not understand this on his own, it cannot be known. There is a method of getting to this Way, however, even if one cannot discover it by himself. This is found in consultation with others. Even a person who has not attained this Way sees others front the side. It is like the saying from the game of go: “He who sees from the side has eight eyes.” The saying, “Thought by thought we see our own mistakes,” also means that the highest Way is in discussion with others. Listening to the old stories and reading books are for the purpose of sloughing off one’s own discrimination and attaching oneself to that of the ancients.”
12
Oct 04
Pirate Radio
Here’s a good tutorial on how to convert your iPod into a pirate radio station.
22
Sep 04
Quotations
- “Dost thou love life? Then waste not time; for time is the stuff that life is made of. ”
— Benjamin Franklin - “Life is a tragedy for those who feel, and a comedy for those who think. ”
–Jean de La Bruyère - “Fill what’s empty. Empty what’s full. Scratch where it itches. ”
— Alice Longworth - “Many of life’s circumstances are created by three basic choices: the disciplines you choose to keep, the people you choose to be with; and, the laws you choose to obey.”
— Charles Millhuff - “Life is the childhood of our immortality. ”
–Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
18
Aug 04
The trend toward commercial blogs
I’ve been watching Boing Boing pile on the ads and cluttering their front page for the past few months. They need a fresh redesign of the site if that’s what they want to do. The Boing Boing people have some ties with Denton and the Gawker Media crowd and it seems like they’re trying to do something along the same lines by placing prominent advertisements along each side of their page. Boing Boing shoots for a more eclectic and general subject matter, whereas most of Gawker Media’s sites are based on targeted themes (most likely to concentrate on a target ad base), for example: their gadget site, Gizmodo, and their porn site, Fleshbot. Is this the start of a trend toward more commercial blogging? With the proliferation of so many personal blogs is there a demand for strict content-based blogging? Do more blogs need editors to be successful? Will more blogs jump on the ad bandwagon?
Update: Most of the editors at Boing Boing are also contributors to Wired or Wired Magazine. Back in June, I speculated on the link between BB and Gawker Media because of all the gratuitous cross-posting and mentionitis going on at the time. Back then, Wired/BB contributor Xeni Jardin denied a link or deal between Boing Boing and Gawker, yet now at Nick Denton‘s website it describes Gizmodo (the gadget blog) as: “Gizmodo, a blog for the gadget obsessive, recently partnered with Wired Magazine. ” Interesting?
Edit 19:56 CST: Maybe, but Chris Anderson, the editor of Wired, points out in the comments below that there is no money changing hands between Gawker/BB/Wired and that the relationship could be best characterized as that of mutual admiration:
“I’m a big fan of Gizmodo (and Nick’s other projects), so when we launched Gadget Lab, our weekly email newsletter, we agreed to highlight some Gizmodo content in exchange for a link on their site. Just a trade, with no money changing hands.”
This may all be true, although I would argue that since all three groups derive most of their income from advertising revenue that this amounts to a de facto business relationship as items of value are being exchanged as part of an agreement. It goes without saying that I do not have a problem with business of this type, only that it is important to know that such relationships exist.
Related:
18
Aug 04
Wes Anderson: The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou
There’s a new trailer out for the upcoming Wes Anderson film, The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou. Judging from first glance it looks like typical Wes Anderson, which means it should be good. His films are uniquely quirky in a full and complete style, brimming with a trademark sense of humor and nostalgia. His films have always seemed to me to be monuments to innocence and imagination. (List of songs in the trailer, most of them will be familiar) Parts of the trailer reminded me of Fantastic Voyage (the movie where they explore the human body in a tiny submarine) and all those ocean movies of the late 60’s and early 70’s. Did you spot the vampire squid in the trailer?! It’s my favorite cephalopod.
I recently saw Napoleon Dynamite. It was enjoyable and very funny at times. There seemed to be a discernible influence of Wes Anderson in its sentimentality. Napoleon Dynamite seems to lack more substance, plot and character-wise, than Rushmore or The Royal Tannenbaums, but it was impressive as a debut.
Here are some pics from The Life Aquatic, and here are some cast photos.