I was thinking earlier, you know those “bargain-basement” DVDs you see in big racks and bins near the checkout counter at the supermarket? You know, the ones neither you nor anyone you’ve ever known has ever heard of before?
I was thinking, the actors in those movies, for better or worse, have probably made less of an impact on the world than the greasy-spoon cook who once made me the best omelette I’ve ever had.
Your random thought for the day.
If you’re at all into design and/or web development, I think you’ll get a kick out of this. Good way to get some entertainment to punctuate your Fridays at the office this fall.
All about Layer Tennis. The gist? One designer “serves” by sending a design over to another designer. That player volleys it back, having played with the design in photoshop, built upon it, changed it entirely while maintaining the central theme, etc. It goes back and forth every 15 minutes till the match is over, but I have no idea who decides that, and when.
Anyway, the first match is going on right now, and it’s pretty funny. If you’re on Twitter, I suggest following the action that way.
I was thinking, this morning, that the hardest concept I’ll ever have to teach my kids is “and where does it end?” For example, you do something greedy, you effect someone’s life negatively, and often they’ll do something equally nasty in return, or perhaps you’ve just taught an onlooker that they can get away with it too…where does it end?
The radio show I was listening to on the way to work was focusing on the housing market, the problems faced by major cities across the country because of the housing market’s fucked-up state, etc. Someone called in, mentioned that in the early ’70s she owned a home in Atlanta as a single mother of five. And each of her children has gone on to own a home in Atlanta as well, but there’s no fucking WAY her grandkids will be able to do so. Not if things don’t change drastically.
And I’ll be the first to admit I don’t know jack about owning real estate, renting to people, upkeep expenses, etc. But I really have to think that all along the path from then till now, lots of greed has been in play, rents being raised more than necessary, prices just getting bloated for no reason, and so on and so on. Where does it end? Well, it ends fucking badly is where it ends.
Another concept that was mentioned today that stuck in my head (and isn’t entirely un-related) is the fact that the disparity between the rich and the poor is getting wider and wider, and as a result the middle class almost doesn’t exist anymore.
When I was a kid, my dad carried a camera everywhere, and he probably took close to a half-million pictures in his life. Shit, probably more. Sounds like hyperbole, but you should see the bags and bags, boxes upon boxes of photos my brother has to sort through at his house, in addition to all the weddings he’d shot in his life. It’s staggering. It’s even more staggering to think of the money that was put into film and processing over the years. Sure, it wasn’t as expensive back then to get film developed, but it wasn’t free. These days, I take pictures with my camera phone and a digital camera, and it probably costs me less than one cent for the bandwidth it takes to email or post photos to the web each month from my computer. And still, I struggle.
I think I need to read some Abbie Hoffman.
on a whim, i went into the Helio store in Palo Alto, to check out the supposed “iphone killer,” the Helio Ocean. I’d seen a bunch of side-by-side comparisons of the features, and it looked kinda like the Ocean really was a better phone. Anyway, i picked one up and played with it for a while, and it’s a piece of junk. I don’t know what i expected, but the thing was totally unintuitive. The buttons apparently don’t work unless you slide the keyboard out, the menu system is not entirely straightforward, there are multiple pairs of buttons that supposedly do the same thing… Yeah, i dunno, there’s just a lot to be said for simplicity and elegance. I mean jesus, i’ve typed this whole blog post on my iphone’s on-screen keyboard, in bed, and haven’t even disturbed my sleeping girlfriend. Bonus.
I should have known, before Tim left, that shit would go wrong. He said “make sure you get the artwork from the designer on Friday, ’cause this site has to go live on the 21st.”
The designer didn’t get the artwork to me till Monday morning, which I thought was kinda ok, since I built the flash thing lickety-split, no problems. But apparently there are two other pages (not flash, html) that need to be CSS’d out and built. I didn’t know this. It’s 5:12 on September 21st. The designer just got me a revised artwork file for the flash deal, and he hasn’t sent me anything for the two other pages yet. Apparently he’s working on it now.
What the fuck? Sounds like I should have been told WHAT artwork to get from the designer. Christ, I hate being put in spots like this.
True to the title of this blog, I’m going to start making short posts on the spur of the moment. Too often, lately, I’ve had things cross my mind that I really wanted to get down, but I just don’t have the time to flesh out the thought, or perhaps I get sidetracked and would just like to revisit the thought later.
Earlier, I thought of something beautiful to post to Twitter, but in my quest to find a browser window, I got sidetracked by my email program (of course, doing actual work at work kinda takes precedence…crazy, right?). And by the time I got twitter up on my screen, I forgot why I wanted it.
Funny, when I was in high school, I was amused by the phrase “I once got a message from god, but it was in Swahili, so I couldn’t understand it.” The things that are funny to stupid kids… Anyway, I should update that phrase to say “I frequently get messages from god, but usually they get forgotten when the words that cross my lips are ‘ooo, shiny…’”
It’s funny to think that if I had more time on my hands, I’d kill it. I’d destroy it. And I’d enjoy every minute of it.
I was just looking through my iTunes library, and I think I’ve created a monster. A lot of my songs are shit I ripped from friends’ CDs, a lot is from my own CDs, some are from my days of using Limewire (a long time ago), some is from the iTunes Store (I bought it), and some is from my brother’s iTS-purchased collection (he’s authorized me). And I’ve got about 1000 songs that don’t have an album title, so I probably used Streamripper to get ‘em from Groove Salad, etc.
The thing is, iTunes really has a ton of ways for you to do crazy random shit like “hey, I want to listen to songs from the ’70s that feature guest vocals by Peter Frampton” or some such. But for the albums I’ve got (and the orphaned songs as well), I haven’t got even the year filled in.
Last weekend, I took a little time to hop on Amazon, and use a little program called Curator to grab album artwork for the stuff that I can at least identify the artist and album, so now I’ve at least got a pretty Coverflow on my phone.
This isn’t a commentary on my relationship, so don’t take it there, but I remember what it was like when I was single, when I could just completely annihilate an idle Sunday by sitting at the computer and doing the tedious little shit that took no brainpower at all, but would allow me to be slightly happier about the state of one or another affair. Like adding the year to each of my MP3s’ id3 tags. Or re-arranging my bookshelves. Stupid shit like that. When you’re single, you do things to purposely shut off your mind to the fact that you’re single. And as punctuation between the masturbation.
Anyway. Random stream-of-consciousness for the day. You’re welcome.
I was just wondering to myself, “I wonder what it tastes like in my dog’s mouth.”
Yes, you read it right.
No, I’m not that weird. I’m just feeling a little empathy for her, ’cause she got sprayed by a skunk the night before last, and she got it right in the mouth and eyes. Poor girl, she was just trying to make a friend. Trot-trot-trot, “hey, you look friendl-UGH!!! Fuuuck, man, what the hell was THAT for?!?!”
Now, honestly, she probably wouldn’t have said that, because, to her credit, she didn’t bark, she didn’t whimper, she didn’t complain. Her eyes were burning, she was foaming at the mouth to try and get the fucking taste out, but she didn’t once vocalize about it. I swear to god this dog is just the most pure creature in the world.
Anyway, she only really stinks like skunk when we go for a walk and she starts breathing heavily. Then, it’s godawful. But we’ve been giving her a little extra kibble, brushing her teeth (which Liz normally does anyway), and letting her lick on a candy cane to try and help scrub the taste and smell out of her mouth.
But man, when she burps, it’s like death warmed over.
For the skunk’s part, I’m thinkin’ there must have been something wrong with its ass glands, ersumthin. The smell that woke me wasn’t exactly skunk. It was like a mixture of burnout competition (roasted tires), roofing tar, and well, a little skunk thrown in for good measure. Sure, it was acrid and putrid, but it just didn’t smell like skunk. It was like the musk did a burnout while exiting the skunk’s ass, it was in such a hurry.
Halfway through the movie High Fidelity, John Cusack says “I will now sell five copies of The Three EPs by the Beta Band.” Truth be told, I’m very curious to know exactly how much of an up-tick in sales there was in the wake of that movie. I’d be surprised if he didn’t actually sell 50,000 or more copies of The Three EPs, simply by saying it.
Every time I hear Dry the Rain (or any other Beta Band track), I silently thank John Cusack. Definitely one of the greatest surprise music finds in modern movies. If you don’t own The Three EPs, I highly suggest you check it out.
While I’m at it, I’d like to thank Volkswagen for turning me on to Nick Drake’s Pink Moon, and my friend Jennifer for opening my eyes to Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians. And my brother for Ben Taylor and Erin Mckeown, and about a thousand other musicians.
Almost half the day was gone before I realized it was September 11.