Short Week  

I updated the art page...so my blog will be short.  The End.

Random Weekend Thoughts  

Why would someone want to ruin a perfectly good piece of watermelon by putting salt on it?  

Tron is still a great movie.  

Cowboy Bebop is a great cartoon.

Scott Joplin Rags are fun to play on the piano.

Sucker!  

I captured an image of mosquito from a video tape for a guy who's going to put it on a billboard.  I guess it's a public service announcement warning us of the coming plague.  A lady I work with suggested we put the picture on the brick wall of our warehouse-y "room".  Just to have something to look at.  I had to offer that the last thing we need is something else to suck the life out of us.  

Postal  

Why do I rummage through the mail everyday looking for a letter?  I assume that's what I'm sub-consciously doing, which is interesting because I can't remember one time that I looked through the mail and found a letter to me from someone other than the Columbia Record Club.  Yet I persist in looking through the mail each day just to make sure that no one sent me anything.  Very very odd.

ROCK ON  

Every once in a while I get into a funky mood where every song I hear just leaves me cold.  This is probably because I mostly listen to CDs and I haven't bought any new CDs in a while.  So as I was driving home I was scanning through the radio stations and heard a Michelle Branch song.  The song was well written and recorded but halfway through I noticed something.  The parts where she is obviously singing on the verge of a scream is the EXACT same volume in the mix as the parts where she is singing quietly.  At some point recording engineers decided that dynamics were not important...so they compressed, limited, and mixed all parts to an equal volume.  And that volume is IN YOUR FACE.  What bothers me most is that it took me a while to catch it.  Everything is so in your face you get really desensitized to the music.  I read an article in a recording magazine where the guy likened these mixes to TYPING AN ENTIRE MESSAGE IN ALL CAPS.  AT SOME POINT YOUR BRAIN SHUTS DOWN AND STOPS PROCESSING THE INFORMATION BECAUSE IT'S ALL ONE UNIFORM "VOLUME".  SO IF I KEEP TYPING THIS WAY YOU WILL EVENTUALLY LOSE INTEREST IN WHAT I'M SAYING.  WHY?  BECAUSE DYNAMICS ARE IMPORTANT.  So if you ever mix an album...remember...quiet parts should be quiet...and LOUD PARTS SHOULD GET OBVIOUSLY LOUDER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  

Get Out!  

I need something to do that requires being outside but doesn't take much effort.  I spent the first 20 some odd years of my life always being outdoors, though I never noticed until recently.  When I was a kid I played outside and by the time I was in college I spent a lot of time outside simply because I had a lot of time to kill.  But now that I've been working in a warehouse for almost 5 years (*shudder*) I realize that I really miss being outside.  So I decided to go out into my backyard and piddle around in the shed for a while.  Only I couldn't find anything to do.  So I came back in.  And got back on my computer.  And wrote this blog. 

I suck.   

Serve you Meat, Sir?  

I received a phone call today from the Organization for Begging Money in the Name of the Police.  The guy went right into his dealie and asked if I would rather pledge 25 or 50 dollars.  I said we weren't in a position to do that.  He then said,

"Well, should I sign you up for $15 or $10?  I know that might be more comfortable for you."  

"We're not in a position to do that right now, sorry."  I replied.  

"I'm sure you can afford $5.  How about I sign you up for...*click*"

So I hung up on the pseudo police organizationshiptation thingy doodle.  I fully expect to be arrested any minute now.  At least he's not coming to the door trying to sell me meat out of his truck.   I don't know what I'd do if I had to deal with TWO guys that did that.

Star$  

Just about every morning I go to Starbucks.  I do this because the shortest distance between two points is a straight line and it's faster to just go ahead and go through one as opposed to trying to dodge them all.  A friend of ours did the refinancing of our house.  When she looked at the credit report it looked like this:

Starbucks Coffee  $1.66

Starbucks Coffee  $1.66

Starbucks Coffee  $1.66

Starbucks Coffee  $1.66

Starbucks Coffee  $1.66

Starbucks Coffee  $1.66

Starbucks Coffee  $1.66

Starbucks Coffee  $1.66

Acme Comics      $40.88

Starbucks Coffee  $1.66

Starbucks Coffee  $1.66

Starbucks Coffee  $1.66

Starbucks Coffee  $1.66

Starbucks Coffee  $1.66

Starbucks Coffee  $1.66

Starbucks Coffee  $1.66

Starbucks Coffee  $1.66

Maybe it's time to start brewing my own coffee.  Or at least start carrying cash so no one will know how much of a loser I am.

Feel The Burn!  

There's nothing manlier than walking into the gym, throwing 2 pounds on the leg machines, and then lifting it with one leg and going *grrrrrrrrrrrruuunnnt*.  After 5 or 6 reps my leg starts quivering so much you'd think I was trying to leg press a Cessna. I can only hope that my prodigious knee brace communicates: "I'm injured...STOP LOOKING AT ME!" 

Humility...it's what's for dinner.

Why Am I Doing This?  

I don't know if anyone ever reads this or looks here.  Although regular visitors would be a big self-esteem booster (which I could use), I think I'm doing this more for me.  I'm not sure why, but I find intrinsic satisfaction in doing this website.  Perhaps because I feel that I have random mediocre talent in several things and this website brings them together in a semi-cohesive whole.  I hope you vague virtual vistors find something to entertain you...or at the very least find something to kill the time at work. 

Oh, and speaking of killing time at work. If you have any good websites to visit PLEASE email me with them.  I'm fresh out of things to read. 

Timeless Classic?  

Okay I'm at a loss to explain this one.  I mean, I could offer an explanation if I tried.  It would probably involve an 18th century poet, 14 Chinese Monks, Two cross-eyed three-toed sloths, and a chimpanzee with gout, but an explanation nonetheless .  This time, however,  as much as I enjoy living in my monkey ridden delusions, I'm more interested in the truth.  Why do I keep hearing "We've Got to Take Control" from the Ghostbusters II soundtrack being played wherever I go?  It was in the gym today, for example.  Don't get me wrong, it's not that I'm against movie soundtracks or obscure references, in fact I love them (especially the obscure references**), but this one has me stumped.  I just can't fathom the process that occurred that allowed the most obscure Bobby Brown song about the Ghostbusters fighting Lord Viggo to be played in public places to a new generation that was in diapers when the movie was out.  Please explain.

** "San Demas High School Football RULES!!!"

B-Movies:  The B is for Bob

I am a glutton for punishment when it comes to bad movies. I like bad movies when I can watch them with other people who can appreciate bad movies.  I mean really bad movies.   I'm not talking about your typical, big-budget, plot-forsaken, frag fest.  I'm talking about a serious attempt at movie-making.  Serious attempts at art by mediocre talent equals pure, unequalled entertainment.   For example, tonight I will be viewing an hour long piece of film fodder about a Serial Killer named Bob.  The title of this masterpiece?  Serial Killer Bob.  Oh wait, it gets better.  At the beginning of the "film"  we are given enough back story to suspend our disbelief for the next hour of our lives:  "5:10PM  Bob comes home...and promptly goes insane."   Well, it's good to see that he's prompt.  There's nothing worse than a lackadaisical serial killer.  His insanity drives him to kill his wife and her lover, after which he looks directly at the camera and says that he just killed these two people and "I guess that makes me a serial killer."  No, Bob...it really doesn't.  If you continue murdering wives and their adulterous lovers in the middle of the afternoon in public parks with that computer-generated knife (yes, you read that right) and leaving a gruesome scene filled with computer-generated blood (again, that's right) THEN and ONLY THEN will you be a true serial killer.  The film goes on a delightful romp through the woods with incredibly bad actors, horrid dialogue, and excruciating camera work.  The best part of the whole thing?  I know the guy who made it.  Or knew him at least.  That's what makes it so grand...I can tell the story behind the film.  That's truly what makes it so great.  Maybe I'll write an in-depth review of it here someday.  But for now you'll have to settle for this little gem of dialogue from the movie (this is one of my favorite):

Sheriff:  I just found 2 dead bodies at the rear entrance of your park

Park Ranger:  How were they killed?

Sheriff:  They were murdered

Heheheheh...what a horrible way to be killed.  Death by murder.  wow.

There Will Be A Test

Essay Question:  Explain the Correlation between Eli Whitney and Francis Scott Key.

Answer:   These two figures are pillars of our culture for their contributions to to our educational system.  If not for these two useless biographies, educators all over the country may have been forced to teach things that would come in handy later in life.  Like zip codes.  Or budgeting.  As it stands now, I am well equipped to give props to the creators of a outdated farm machine and a song I hear once a year.  

Oh, and there's George Washington Carver.  The savior of the peanut.

Thanks For The Encouragement, Now Just Shoot Me

As most everyone around me knows, I recently had surgery on my knee to correct a torn MCL.  Of course, this resulted in a two week absence from work.  I had several clients since my return asking about my health.  One of those clients, bless his heart, is a little space cadet who produces little artsy television commercials.  He called me and we had this conversation:

him: "How is your leg doing?"

me:  "Oh, it's getting better."

him:  "Boy, wouldn't it be scary to think that it might never get better, and you would just have to drag it around for the rest of your life?  Wouldn't that be awful?"

me:  "uh, yeah.  That...um...that would be bad."

him:  "I hope you never start thinking about that."

Gee...thanks.  I'll get right on not thinking about that.