[PD] Doctor's office

So Amelia said i should take some of the drawings i had an place them in a setting, a doctor's office for example. I said that if i did, she'd have to give me a caption. Hm, i'm still waiting. Anyone else?

No vikings anywhere

It seems i'm not the only one that wants this set. It's good to know that lego is having some success.










ebay




lego.com

I also heard it mentioned on NPR's Talk of the Nation that these are hard to find, so it's not just here.

spaceman

fix broken icons and other system troubles

From the /System/Library remove the following files - "Extensions.kextcache", "Extensions.mkext", and the folder "com.apple.kernalcaches"

Then run sudo touch /System/Library/Extensions (in the Terminal) to reset the cache info.

Of Comics and Men

So I've been thinking lately about how the appeal of comics is usually couched in terms of empowerment fantasy; weak, sickly nerds' dreams of retribution and invulnerability. But i wonder if it's not that the superhero is the embodiment of a single person making a difference and so they attract the people that want to change the world . Is wanting to change the world predominately the realm of men? Or, is it that only men dream of doing it by themselves? Do only progressive liberals read comics? Sure, there are some girls that read comics, but it's usually not superheroes.

[PD] Magic Card Trade

Laura Viers

I went and saw Laura Viers at the Dig Fir Lounge a week ago friday. It might be the only show i've gone to this year, and although i've been working extra hours i made the effort to go to this show since she's someone i really like and listen to often even if i did have to go by myself. I thought i was a pretty good show although she mostly did matterial from her new album, which i hadn't heard yey. Now that i've heard it, i don't think that it's as good a Troubled by the Fire (a favorite). The Doug Fir Lounge is a nice venue; new, clean and small. Everyone sat to listen to her when she played. She commented that she felt like she was at the library at reading hour because we were all listening so attentley, but that was ok because she likes libraries. She did a one song encore where they kinda rocked out, but since she's classified as folk in itunes, you kinda have to take it for what it was: a quite vocalist playing with trying to be loud and make noise.
The opening act was the Great Lake Swimmers, which was actually one person that sounded kinda like Nick Drake ( i didn't listen that closely). He sounded pretty good. It might be worth following up on. I mentioned to someone at work about the show, and he said he goes the the Dig Fir web site just to find new acts to listen to.

Powers

So i finally got around to reading the first Powers paperback, Who killed Retrogirl and i was disappointed. Does it get better? I mean, I've thought of the whole "die young and become imortalized" thing. Also, I think i must have read part of it somewhere before too, but i don't know where. I had picked up issue 50 just because Patton Oswald answered the letter column and thought that the dialog was better in that one issue.

I thought the JLA Classified with DeMattis and McGuire had more impact. I had bought issues 4-7 at one store and having read them, i went out the next day to find the last two issues. (the first three issues were a different story)

cat box

Amelia made a outdoor cat box for a friend of hers complete with kitty design cushions.

Jane Says

Is Jane Says our generation's Stairway to Heaven?

It's the song that everyone stops to listen to and sings along to. Maybe it's just the frat boys.

Amelia's blog

Amelia started a blog! And then she actually wrote an entry!

TV or not TV?

So the TV is going to cost $485 to repair, including the in-home fee ( the set weights some 180 lbs.) The motherboard needs to be replaced and has be to ordered.

Funny that we just got a letter saying we've been selected as a nielsen family.

Lego store

I went to the lego store in the washington square mall. No viking sets yet. I asked, but they weren't sure if they were going to get them on the 15th of this month or the next. I assume it was this month since i think i learned about them from an ad.
The store has stuff i haven't seen for sale elsewhere like minifig keychains, shirts and bulk pieces. Actually, Toy Bliss in Pioneer Place has some bulk pieces, some which the lego store wasn't offering. I should have asked if they rotate the pieces they offer. I wanted to buy some white hinge pieces, which the weren't offering.

TV woes

So, the new 32" Sony WEGA TV i bought TWO years ago broke. Don't know what the issue is but that's the last time i buy anything from Sony.

Lego CAD

Hey, Lego i now offering CAD software for both PC and Mac! Not only can you draw designs, you can upload them and buy the pieces as a custom set.
http://shop.lego.com/Product/Factory/About.aspx

btw, i really want this set. I'll wait a few long weeks untill Fred Meyer places their lego on sale.
Forget pirates, vikings kick ass.



7018 Viking Ship challenges the Midgard Serpent

[PD] Party

meeting rstevens

SCF sketch

So, this is the sketch i got from Vera Brosgol at the Stumptown Comic Fest. I asked her if show could do a robot or a likeness, she kinda did both. She was talking about how they might move to portland so i told her the joke about the Californian, Texan and Oregonian who were out camping to illustrate the attitude towards outsiders. (but you'd be hard pressed to find a native)

A Texan, an Oregonian (or Seattle-ite), and a Californian were all on a camping trip. They're getting drunk, and they've started in to bragging about their states. The Texan says, "Hell, ah reckon the Free State of Texas is purt'near the finest state in this heyar nation." With that, he lets out a "Yeeeeeeee-Haaaaaaaaw" and tosses his half-full bottle of tequila in the air, whips out a six-gun from its holster, and blows the bottle to smithereens in mid-air. The other two cry out, "What the hell are you doing?!?? That was a perfectly good bottle of tequila!" "Aww, shucks," came the Texan's reply, "We've got plenty of tequila in Texas." Next, the Californian stands up, and says, "That was pretty gnarly, dude, but check this out!" And with that, he tosses his bottle of Napa Valley wine up in the air, pulls out a gangsta-style glock and bullseyes the bottle, sending shards of glass and wine droplets streaming down. "What'd you do that for?" say the Oregonian and Texan in unison. "Dude, it's totally copacetic. California's wine country. We've got lots of wine in California." Finally, the Oregonian stands up. He pulls up his flannel shirt and slips on his Birkenstocks and walks over to his REI backpack and pulls out a sawed off shotgun. He then takes a swig of Deschutes Black Butte Porter (a popular Microbrew) tosses the bottle in the air and shoots the Californian. The Texan is shocked, and says "What the hell'd ya do that for, son?" "Well," came the Oregonian's reply, "We've got plenty of Californians here in Oregon. Besides, I can get a nickel for recycling this bottle!"
http://ars.userfriendly.org/users/read.cgi?id=16240&tid=23605 (saved me the typing)

Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Movie

Wha? The director of Shaun of the Day and Spaced wants to make a movie out of Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life? I'm a little late here since this was announced Feb 2nd. It doesn't look like it's gotten passed the "announced" stage so i doubt it will happen.

Ricky's volcano

Here's Ricky's lino-cut. I think this is from the same trip. I remember this was after we had gone to the museum of natural history in LA.

Ben recommended web comic

http://www.ingredientx.com/index.htm

brushpen

So, at the stumptown comic fest i saw that Aaron Renier was using some sort of brush pen when he was signing books. I asked him what type it was and where to get it since i knew that he lived in portland at one point.

Ricky's painting

So this is my brothers first painting. I'm guessing he was maybe 9 at the time. None of his painting after this were as good.

TV 2005

So every season there tends to be one show that i get excited about and it's the one show i try to watch. Last season it was Robot Chicken. Before that, it was Best Week Ever. There was, of cource also Good Eats, Batman animated, the Daily Show and Buffy. This season it's Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations. He travels the world, eats good food and is willing to try anything, not on the basis of a dare or machimo but just being open minded and up for anything.

Sarah Silverman

the New Yorker has an arcticle about Sarah Silverman this week. She has a film that's going to play at Cinema 21 in december.

Cult of Mac

there's a Cult of Mac blog

Japanese Katamari commercial

http://waxy.org/random/video/katamari_damashii.mov (3.6 MB)

Tom Cruise Kills Oprah

click for an article of this video.

another link from jason

http://www.makingfiends.com/

Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth

Is anyone going to get this game? Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth

Genetic uncertainty

TLC had a show the other day title "I am my own twin". I missed half of the show but it involved a case where a mother had to prove that her own children were hers despite the fact that a genetics test said otherwise! It turns out that she was a chimera, an individual formed from the fusion of two zygotes. The interesting thing is that cells throughout the body can be from either zygote. In cases where a male and female combine, a hermaphodite forms. They showed one baby that had a clear line of different colorization in the skin right down the midline of the belly. (it immeditatly brought to mind side show half man half woman imagary)
I wonder how many souls religions would say they have?

List of weapons that don't exist, but should

A link from todd forkner via Jason uncyclopedia

The Comedians of Comedy

So i saw the The Comedians of Comedy monday night. The film was ok. It has allot of people i like but not enough of the time was them on stage. The rest of it was them fucking around on the tour bus and answering a few questions. When i went and saw it, i didn're realize that it is partly shot here in portland. Two of the guys travel to Excalibur to get their weekly comic book fix so it was cool to see it just because of that.

ha, ha. So there was mention of Patton Oswalt's blog (nice comic book store rack background) in the movie so i looked it up to see what he said about portland. Holy shit! he knows David Roche. Who's David Roche? He's the author of On Subbing.

flickr

I got a flickr account and posted some pictures of Lucy's and Eva's visit + one of Mauricio's friend John.

SCF

the stumptown comic fest is this saturday with an after party starting at 9.
This year it isn't just local tallent, there's going to be allot of people there including all of the pants press people , Derik Kirk Kim and rstevens.

Ahem, if anyone from out of town wants to visit, this would be a good weekend to do so.

Comics meme

If you could have one superpower, what would it be and why? (Assume you also get baseline superhero enhancements like moderately increased strength, endurance and agility.)
invisibility. There are allot of hypocrites in the world I'd like to expose.

Which, if any, 'existing' superhero(es) do you fancy, and why?
uh, kitty pryde? What can i say? i like brunettes.

Which, if any, 'existing' superhero(es) do you hate?
Cable, Domino and pretty much any character from that artist whose name i can't recall now.

OK, here's the tough one. What would your superhero name be? (No prefab porn-name formulas here, you have to make up the name you think you'd be proud to mask under.)
Zero? (invisibility + nihilism)

For extra credit: Is there an existing superhero with whom you identify/whom you would like to be?
Batman. He's the renaissance ideal of man. (brains and braun) Not that i want to be him, i'd just like the same level of accomplishment without the mental anguish. Maybe it's not possible.

Pass it on. Three people please, and why they're the wind beneath your wings.
Nope, this is the end since everyone i know with a blog are the same people Philip knows.

Btw, i'd like to point out that This American Life had a segment on people chosing superpowers before.

Barbie Assassin?

Quote from the Amazon page:

Features:

* Born to fight and trained to kill, she was left for
dead...but now she's back with vengeance!

[PD] Perfect Beach

Portland ABC

so i have an idea for a book where i would photograph local landmarks showing just a letter one side of a page and then the full image on the flip side. I'm just going to do this with iPhoto. The question is , what to photograph?

Bagdad
Cinema 21/coffee people
...
Fred Meyer
Hippo Hardware/ Hung Far lo/Hollywood theatre
..
Les Swchwab
..
Movie Madness/Music Millenium
...
OMSI
Powell's
Reed College/Reading Frenzy
...
Voodoo Donuts
...
XV (SW 2nd )
...
Zoo

Netflix vs Blockbuster

So, i noticed something interesting when i added Pedro Almodovar's Bad Education to my Netflix queue, it's NC-17, a rating i haven't seen in a while. The Amazon listing for it refers to it as the (Original Uncut NC-17 Edition) version. I checked the BlockBuster listing for it.
No mention of the "original version".

netflix

we joined netflix today. who else is on it?

When the Levee Breaks

Is it wrong to listen to "When the Levee Breaks" by Led Zepplelin right now?

When The Levee Breaks(Bonham/Jones/Page/Plant/Memphis Minnie)
If it
keeps on rainin', levee's goin' to break, (X2)
When The Levee Breaks I'll have no place to stay.

Mean old levee taught me to weep and moan, (X2)
Got what it takes to make a mountain man leave his home,
Oh, well, oh, well, oh, well.

Don't it make you feel bad
When you're tryin' to find your way home,
You don't know which way to go?
If you're goin' down South
They go no work to do,
If you don't know about Chicago.

Cryin' won't help you, prayin' won't do you no good,
Now, cryin' won't help you, prayin' won't do you no good,
When the levee breaks, mama, you got to move.

All last night sat on the levee and moaned, (X2)
Thinkin' about me baby and my happy home.
Going, going to Chicago... Going to Chicago... Sorry but I can't take
you...
Going down... going down now... going down....

http://www.led-zeppelin.com/EMl4.html

Scott Pilgrim

More links:
http://goodcomics.blogspot.com/2005/09/scott-pilgrims-precious-little-life.html
interview

Politics

I love this image. It's just sums up everything.

comic swap recap

So the comics swap went pretty well. I think that everyone found something. Mike has Bone, Sven took the Metropolis book, Philip borrowed the Weasle comics. Did Gretchin find anything? There wasn't as much digging through boxes as i would have imagined although, i guess at this point Philip and i are the only onese still reading comics and no one seemed the care aboutthe funny books that i like and pointed out for people. I borrowed a beanworld book from sven and various manga books that philip brought + Scott Pilgrim part 2. (btw, i just figured out that he's married to hope larson)

Excalibur is having a half off sale this weekend, as i expected.

another ben link

quote ben:

This flash video takes forever to load, but is too damn cute.

http://myhome.hanafos.com/~sambakza/cakedance/cakedance_eng_(550x310).htm

ipod woes

So, on thurday, at the mac salon we tried to connect my ipod to carl's computer and had no luck. Some sort of error trying to connect. Mike suggested i tried disk utilities which i did that night. I was unable to erase the drive or use the ipod restore function to work. I tried setting it in drive mode (menu+select then select+play) and still no go. It was late so i let drive utilites run overnight. The next morning still no luck. No ipod for me at work friday. I went to the apple store on saturday and explained everything he tried. He just said he was going to give me a new one because he said it sounded like the drive was bad. He asked if it was still under warranty and i replied that i didnt' know since i couldn't recall when i bought it but i hadn't gotten a offer to extend my warranty from apple. He looked it up and said that i was a week and a half out of warranty but that he would replace it anyways.
I have a shinny new ipod (same model).

comic swap

If you're reading this, you're invited.

Something awful

I really should be working.

perl lesson

How to turn this list:

Zwan:Mary Star Of The Sea
k.d. lang:Absolute Torch and Twang
k.d. lang:Hymns Of The 49th Parallel
k.d. lang:Invincible Summer
k.d. lang:Shadowland

into this list:

ZWAN
    Mary Star Of The Sea
K.D. LANG
    Absolute Torch and Twang
    Hymns Of The 49th Parallel
    Inncible Summer
    Shadowland

---------------------------------

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

$header ="random text";

foreach $line (<>)
{
if  ($line =~ /$header/)
{
      $line =~ s/$header/     /;
}else{
      $line =~ s/(.*\:)/\U$1/;
      $header = quotemeta $1;
      $line =~ s/\:/\n\t/; #indent album
}
print $line;
}

It took me a couple of days to figure out i had to use "quotemeta" to
escape all those random, special characters that might appear in any
list.

Kenny vs Spenny

Have you guys heard of Kenny vs Spenny? The portland mercury had and article about them a few weeks ago. It's on the game show network, which I don't get, but I found an episode on-line. These two guys just have dumb contests about anything and in this one they see who can gain the most weight in a week. One guy eats anything he can, like you'd expect, while the other one decides that muscle weighs more than fat so he works out. Amazingly, they both manage to gain a substantial amount of weight in a week time. I think everyone should watch this.

boxing squirrels

follow the link for more images.

image

I haven't drawn much lately. here's something i did really quick.

Bridge pedal

On Sunday I was one of the 20,000 riders of the Portland bridge pedal. I did the 8 bridge/24 mile ride which covers most of the bridges except the sellwood bridge. I went as far up at the St. John's bridge. I left my house at 7:35, got there at 8 and by the time I got through registration and the queue to start, I didn't get going until 8:30. The Marquam bridge was a big party and you had to walk your bike to get through. As it was, I slipped under the police tape to the side just to get through a little faster. As a result, I missed the water there. The next stop was out of water. And then my chain got stuck between the gears. I had to walk to the top of the Freemont bridge and then wait to get help from the mechanic's station there. That took about a half hour. I ended up walking the last portion up the St. John's because I was tired by then and it's kinda steep. I swear, the wind was blowing against me to and from the St. John's. I finished at 12. It took me another half hour to drag my self home afterwards. My ass is still sore from the ride.

DII

Diablo II came out five years ago and Blizzard just released a new update with new content for the game. I'm almost tempted to play again. I played that game for at least two years, maybe more.

btw, i figured out why that game is so addictive (at least for me). It's a gambling game. I not talking about turning in gold for some random item from a vendor, i mean that everytime you killed something, it dropped something. With the combination of a choice weapon, a good suffix and a good prefix, you had the three wheels of a slot machine. Didn't get anything good this time, it's so easy to "crank the lever" again and see what you get this time.

The drop rates in WoW are much lower. It's not as rewarding to play.

Windows NT = OS/2

Did you know this?

- Microsoft changes the name of OS/2 v3.0 to Windows NT. [40]
[40] Info World, July 29, 1991, Volume 13, Issue 30.

http://web.archive.org/web/19961221074030/www.islandnet.com/~kpolsson/comphist.txt

Fav video

hey, one of my favorite videos is available in high res quicktime 7 now.

alive again

Ok, so i've finally quit World of Warcraft. Maybe i'll start getting some sleep again and stop walking around in a daze. Over 6-7 months i got to level 43 with my paladin. I swear, i did everything wrong with this character, I should have been further along. I'm going to stop playing video games for a while.

For Ben

For Ben, a link relating to one of his favorite comics.

Ben's birthday

yesterday was ben's birthday. I was lame and neglected to call since i spent most of the day doing zine symposium related stuff.

So, here's ben's law web site. Be sure to link often and drive his google ranking higher.

lost postings

doens't look like i'm going to recover the posting from last week. I'll have to do them again.

black circles?

Does anyone know what these black circles in the middle of the Egyptian desert are? I could guess that the green ones are some sort of irrigated vegitation (in the desert?)
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=26.899186,22.102346&spn=0.126528,0.212817&t=k&hl=en

We love Katamari

There's new Katamari footage. It looks like you get a roll around a ball of fire and a sumo wrestler(!) in the sequel. I'm definitely getting this game. I might even pre-order it.

oregon humane society

Did you know that the Oregon Humane Society
has a link for special needs pets?

No, i'm not looking for a pet.

[PD] ChiPs

the Surpremo Court

I was thinking about the fact that it seems more likely that we'll see a hispanic supreme court justice before there will be an asian one. My view point might be skewed, but hispanics seem more politically active; besides David Wu and Judge Ito, i can't think of any other asian lawyer, judge or politician. Also, i never seem to hear of the asian voter block being courted but I've heard plenty of politicians try to speak spanish.

[PD] on the farm

[PD] triangle head

So, i saw someone at work that had this triangle of hair that was nearly isolated from the rest. Kinda odd.

Batman Begins w/ spoilers

So i saw Batman Begins. It's the best of the batman movies because it's not campy. There were like two jokes, and they fell flat. I'm glad for that. It's not a great movie though. X-men and Spiderman were better. I didn't leave the theatre charged, wanting to be batman and drive around in my car really fast i stealth mode and zip in and out of traffic (ok maybe a little)

Here's the problems i had with the plot. First Alfred buys into the costumed crimefighter without a thought. What? Gordon says at the end of the movie about how this is now an arms race implying that he's maybe the first to don a mask so what bruce did is even odder. Sure, if half of society is running around at night, it might be seen as ok but... Alfred doesn't even argue that he might get hurt. I suppose that would be the cliched reaction and a waste of film time. "Gordon, i want you to drive this strange vehicle and destroy part of the city. Sure thing stranger in a mask that held a weapon to my head!" Secondly batman is a driven character. He achieves extraordinary things by force of will. I this movie, it's almost a path of least resistance. He has no aim, he stumbles into his present situation and why he becomes batman is not explained. It's not revenge, they explain that. He's told he can't let anger rule him. The closest reason given is that he subverts the training he's given by Ducat. Thirdly, a secret society that destroys feted civilization thought history? No problem in a comic book, but it's given no credibility in the movie.
I did like the fact the populous' first exposure to batman is under a fear inducing hallucinogen further enhancing his myth.

The casting was great, except for scarecrow. That guy looked alike a wantabe smallville clark kent and i'm suppose to believe he has a doctorate? Does Christian Bale always talk with his lips jutting? At first i thought he was doing it to sound younger when he "came back from college" but then he did it later in the present.

Anyways, i liked the movie and i've always liked batman so i hope they make more now that they've gotten the orgin out of the way.

Calling all Star Wars geeks

there's a Star Wars lecture at PSU tomorrow at 7PM

http://www.ammon-ra.com/skywalkerparadigm/art/swpsbposter.pdf

Planetary

So i bought the first three paperbacks of Planetary and read them. It's really not doing it for me. Now, i'll have to admit that i kinda read them out of order because i had found the second book at the library and that i didn't pick up on the fact that the Four are the Fantastic Four but i don't think it's my thing.

Bizzaro Comics

I bought the Bizzaro Comics book after i figured out that it wasn't comics about Bizzaro but comics that he would have made. It has allot of people i like; Kochalka, Kyle Baker, Dave Cooper... I was disapointed. I didn't think it was funny.
Miles, however, did like the supper baby illustration and kept going back to look at it.
I should try to draw something, but alas i'm not a writer.

[PD] finger lickin'

don't have a punch line. What should the box say?

*another leg

I was at a party once and one of the girls said that she saw a manikin leg in the back of a truck.





Except she swears that it had hair on it. She was pretty shook up about it. They said they took down the plate number. I never heard anything about it again.

Did you see this news item?

A man's leg and spine fell from an airplane onto a woman's lawn. There was no picture so i provided an illustration.

Coffee

The owner of my local coffee shop is starting her own record label with Sarah Dougher. And to think a year ago she was griping that BMI had come in and tagged her for playing recorded music in her shop.

And I want to give Coffee Haven a plug since it's the only place i know where i can always get a cup of Stumptown Trapper Creek decaf. They'll even make me a pot is there is none and Dale is meticulous about making sure the coffee is always fresh.

Do you know how hard it is to find a fresh pot of decaf? Most places will just offer to make you and americano which just isn't the same. I always find that they have a woody taste i don't like.

a link from ben

http://www.nantes.fr/ext/royal_de_luxe_2005/index.asp

Skunk works

Everyone know about the PPC graphing calculator story, right? This American Life did a story about it.

Btw, Ira is suppose to be getting a tv show on showtime.

tiger on pismo

Before i installed tiger on the pismo (2000 firewire) laptop i made a disc image of the hard drive by placing it in target disc mode, connecting it to the G5 and used the disc utility. If amelia for some reason didn't like the new mail program or the OS for some reason, i could revert back. The pismo only has a 6 GB drive. The drive is usually pretty full. This was the transitional computer between my first computer and the G5 so my stuff was on there as was amelia's and miles' and any apps i used. There was usually only about 300 MB free which would dwindle to less than 200MB after the computer had been in use for a while triggering a "your disc is almost full alert". Tiger, with all the options turned off still wants about 1.3 GB of free space. I managed to prune enough files to clear up the need space only to find that Tiger wanted to install some language packs that were going to take another 300 MB. I figured that i must have intalled the extra languages during some earlier install so this time i dove into the system folder and tried to find those packages because i didn't know where else i was going to find another 300 MB. I rebooted to find that now the installer now wanted to do a clean install, no update option, which would require 4.7 GB. I don't know what i threw away that goofed it up. Ok, great, i'll have to place it target disc mode, use the disc image and start throwing away stuff all over again. Well, something i threw way was needed for that too. The system wasn't so crippled that it wouldn't boot. Now i'd have to erase the drive to find enough space, do a clean install and then revert back to the old disc image and then start all over again. Amelia would kill me if i lost her email. I thought about this for a while. I did the new install and tried placing the G5 in target mode, mounted the disc image and used the migration tool to move her account to the new install. It worked! I figured that i still had access to anything that might have been on the drive with the disc image and a clean install might clear up some space.
I only had 700MB left afterwards, no iLife or any other apps the computer might have come with.

bad back

So monday of last week i didn't go into work because i "threw my back out". It had been bothering me the week before. I was walking with vito at work and he asked me what was wrong with me. He said i was almost walking sideways. His wife is a chiropractor. Sunday night i carried Miles to bed. He always like to be carried. That night i couldn't sleep the way i normally sleep, face down because it bothered my back. Monday morning it was allot of work to get to a full upright position. It took about a week to get back to "normal", although running seems kinda awkward now and i find myself bracing my upper body with my hand on my leg when i do somethings. (have i always done that?)
I've talked to a few people and it seems to be more common than i would have thought. Shawn said he had to go the hospital when it happened to him and Jeff said it took him a year to fully recover. I went back to work after only taking one day off, but was tempted to stay a second day. I know i would have been bored. Monday i didn't' want to do anything, not watch tv, not sit at the computer and play games or walk to a store.
I'm not sure why it happened. I've done more exercise since my sabbatical than i've done in the last 10 years. I've lost weight. The last few weeks i have been working long hours and eating crap and not working out. The week before when my back started to bother me, i think started because i was slouching in my chair at work. I had back pain once when i was doing apple service, but that was about 8 years ago and when i was probably in my worst shape and it was no where near as bad as this. It was hard to get out of bed for a week.
This is kinda of embarrassing. I guess i need to stop playing WoW.

Meet the Fockers

A waste of 2 hours. Didn't laugh. It's not a bad film, except that it's a comedy. Before, with I heart Huckabee's i couldn't say that i hadn't seen a Dustin Hoffman movie, now i can't say i haven't seen a barbra streisand movie.
Amelia was confusing this movie with Flirting with Disaster which was a better movie as i recall + that movie has Tea Leoni.
Does anyone remember her in that sitcom where she was in Flying Blind? I think all she did was walk around being beautiful since she played a model.

music

So i started playing my ipod music in alphabetical order. It somehow seems more random that shuffle, it seems to hit songs i haven't heard otherwise instead of what seems like the the same songs over and over. The only drawback is that if a song appears on more than one ablum, then you end up hearing it twice in a row. (well, and dupes also)

also, the Damian Rice album "O" is a great album despite whatever dislike you might have of Closer.

closer

So i saw Closer, the film where natalie portman plays a stripper. Bad casting, she like Brittney Murphy in Sin City, seems like she's never known a hard day in her life. I felt i could have watched the whole movie at 1.5x speed but i kinda liked the ending. Maybe it becuase i saw Clive Owen in the Croupier, but he ended up playing everyone like it was some kind of conman film.
I was surprised to find out that it was based on a play. Usually most movies based on plays are just talking heads so it's easy to tell, but not with this film. It's not an action movie, but i have a hard time imagining it being performed on stage.

a thing

I mention the Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes thing to Amelia once and she's like, "you have a thing for her don't you?"
Well, i did...

This is either the best thing or the worst

Ok, who has Tony's email?

Btw, look at the google ads on this page.

[PD] son of automator

So, that las cartoon a drew because ben said i should develop the character i drew in CINE #2, which was a long time ago.

I love portland

http://www.portlandstoryproject.com/

[PD] automator?

npr

have you noticed that companies that have a public image problem support NPR? Microsoft, Wal-mart, Starbucks, Nike, CBS...

http://www.npr.org/about/annualreports/npr2003.pdf

i guess so.

* flaming skull

Told you i like skulls. That last skull drawing was awful.

[PD] aliens?

gorey

portland has a store dedicated to edward gorey.

I'm ambivalent about huckabees

So I saw I heart huckabees on Ben's raving review. I think I would have liked this film had it not had an all star cast + mark walburg is mark walburg and I tend to not like dustin hoffman and lily tomlin. I can see the point that the movie was trying to make, but I don't think it sold it. Also, I kept thinking, "oh, they're trying to do that surreal michael gondry thing" which they don't do as well. Ben did say he had really low expectations going in.
I give it a middle grade.

So, what's the opposite of nihilism anyways?

[PD] keep studying

[PD] personal demons

[PD] fight

Film idea 2

Film a cross profile of people in an interview setting. Ask them their job, background and level of education. Ideally, this would be from older, well-to-do to younger less well-to-do. This should show a correlation between education level and success. Ask them at what point they decided to go as far through school as they did. How fully this will show that kids early on decide if they will go to college or not.
Kids aren't dumb, they know what their chances of going to a good school are and whether or not they can afford it. They know long before they're college age. If they know they're not going to go far, why put in any effort? Sure, there are exeptions that the right will bring out. But those are the few that are willing to swim against the current. On the flip side, you can't convince me that if Quayle and W. weren't privileged like they are, that they would have gotten as far as they have.
A long time ago, this was suppose to be the education administration. People talk about how to improve academic scores and get kids to do better. No one has bothered to ask the kids.
I don't think you should try to push kids, you should entice them with the benefits of education and the assurance that anyone that has the grades to attend a good school has the money to back it up.

Flim idea 1

Take all the drawings from an art studio class and film them in order to get a rotating camera effect ala Matrix.

Rx Dr Seuss

Last week NPR had a report by Richard Knox about COx in hibitors like Vioxx being pulled from the market. My question is, "was it sold in a box?"

5/5

I'm 5/5 in the pepsi/itunes cap game.

[PD] Sandy Brain

Worst Movie

The worst movie i ever saw was Up Close and Personal. I'm not talking about a low budget movie with bad actors, this movie starred Michelle Pfeiffer and Robert Redford. This movie went through something like 12 rewrites. Someone ended up writing a book about it. The movie was based on a real person, but they couldn't even stick to that. Instead of having Pfeiffer's character die, like she really did, they kill off her lover. I kept waiting for the movie to end. I kept thinking it was over, but it kept on going. I should have just left, but as of yet, i've never walked out of a movie.

SNL

SNL has gotten really bad. It got bad when Will Ferrell left, it got worst when Jimmy Fallon left. I can't believe how bad the jokes have gotten. I've always thought that Weekend Update was the best part of the show. Even when it was bad before, i would be content to just watch Weekend Update but Amy isn't working out. It's too bad becuase i always liked her as Andy's Sister on Conan O'Brien and i was hoping she would do great stuff on SNL.
I watched a skit last week that was so lame, i resented the time lost. I kept watching, i kept waiting for the payoff. It never came.

Sin City Review

Ok, here's my take on it. It's a little long and the pacing is kinda flat. Maybe it's just because I already know what's going to happen or maybe it's because the comics are mostly dialog and not allot of action. Maybe the pace is flat because there was allot material, as it is they cut some of the material from the That Yellow Bastard. When they realize that they killed a hero cop and everything was fucked, the movie just kept going along, no dramatic pause.
In any case, there was allot of tits and ass to look at, more than I would have expected. Seems the script called for it.

[PD] ernie?

I thought this was a pretty good drawing. It kinda has a New Yorker feel to it i think.

list 2, favorite movies

1. Rushmore. I could have watched this movie for hours. The characters were great and believable even if it was a fantasy. Scott has a theory that any movie with the idea of "if i knew then when i know now" has an instant appeal. Peggy Sue got Married, Ferris Bueller's Day Off...
2. Fight Club. I saw this on a trip to Seattle when i was planning to got to Ikea...
I didn't know anything about the movie except that i had the impression that it was about machismo, that may been a big part of why it made such an impression. You might think it's dark, i think it's hilarous.
3. Henry Fool. Another movie with great characters. You might know people like those in the film but it's not about mundane characters. It's the only Hal Hartly movie i really like (sorry ben) although i have to admit that i haven't seen any of the films he's made since this one.

animated videos

yeah for animated music videos. The Shouty Track (ra) by Lemon Jelly or via iTunes,
Move Your Feet by Junior Senior, and Go With the Flow by Queens of the Stone Age, which i can't find anywhere but iTunes.
If anyone knows where to find a downloadable version, let me know.

circular reference, the start of lists as a theme

now that ben is in another state and i'm on the far side of this one i can talk about how devil's food donuts are one of my favorite foods. Any other donut i can take or leave but there's something about deep fried dough and the crust it forms that awakens all of the flavor of chocolate. Chocolate ice cream, on the other hand, i don't like. (how many people can say that?) It just seems gritty and bitter and wrong. Chocolate is best warm.

Amelia Approved.

Well, it seems that I've found another "Amelia Approved" game, Burnout 3. The point of this game is to crash other cars, and who can't do that? It made allot of end of year lists, including Time's (right along with Katamari Damacy) although most of the lists mention the xbox version. The game seems to have allot load times so i wonder if that's not an issue with the xbox since it has more memory. Amelia hates to admit that she likes it and that she wants to keep playing it. I think she even said that this might be the most fun game ever, but she won't repeat it.

Speaking of Katamari, have you seen all the Katamari links on memepool for Feb. 25th?

[PD] A is for Annie

so, this is different from the way i drew it, but this is what i originally intended.
It's worded badly. It should say something more like "why do so many cute girls have names that start with vowels?" and list more than "A" names.

[PD] Monster Draw

[PD] Drag cars

hm, i mispelled "elementary"

cerebus

Picked up a Papo cerebus figure today. This image doesn't show how nice it is.


I figured out that i could use Apple's Preview to crop and save an image like i did here.


here's my drawing of the figure.

Answer the door, it's pizza nazi

Last sunday was Amelia's birthday so i got dinner from Portland's very own pizza nazi. "Pizza nazi" you say? Yes, they make their dough the day before and when they run out, they close up. You're only allowed 3 topping and only one can be meat. It was good and not any more expensive than another fancy pizza in town (pizzacato, vincente's). I'll have to try it again, when i'm not at the tail end of a cold to really appreciate it.

[PD] Crush

It always happens. Everytime I'm in a new social setting, I'll find myself attracted to some girl or another. Sometimes it's almost a conscious decision about who the cutest girl in any group is because that's the person who I want to validate my existence. Go ahead and ask me, in any group, I'll tell you who the one person is that I want to pay attention to me.
Growing up, I had this f'd up idea that the 10% most attractive people date themselves and the rest of us have to fight amongst ourselves to climb the social ladder. Sure, the top 10% could choose to date below their level, but that was their choice. I have no idea where this theory came from. All I can figure is that growing up watching media and seeing that beautiful actors dated other beautiful actors, it must be the way it is.

[PD] circles

More movies

I broke down and bought Roxio's Popcorn. I was going to build a PC with the processor they gave me(fast) just to use dvdshrink (free) and also considered buying VPC(I have a G5!) if that would run dvdshrink but then thought, "Why not just spend the $40 and be done with it?"
I works just fine. It doesn't require Toast like I thought it did. I was able to copy Harold and Kumar just fine, without compression using the "movie only" option which is funny, because it was just slightly to big to copy using just dvdbackup and Toast with the menus like i normally would. I'm not sure how long it takes to re-encode video since i walk away after starting it. I did see a progress bar with a 40 minute counter when i set up another movie, but don't know how accurate that is and if that's for the whole process.
Speaking of which, Harold and Kumar go to White Castle is a funny movie. It's almost as funny as Half-Baked and has the same sense of humor. As testament to the movie, I was watching it with Amelia. She said she had to go to bed. She got up and stood in the doorway while I kept watching. Eventually, she sat back down and watched another half hour. That never happens.

[PD] personal demons

Bone

Ok, so i finished Bone and it's good story, but i wouldn't say it's great. I wouldn't push it on anyone and tell them that they have to read it. I'm not saying that it's bad, I enjoyed it, but it's not as good as Hate, Cerbus or Why I Hate Saturn.
It appears 7 times on this list, but i still don't see why. What am I missing?

People on your street

Amelia told me that a bag of potting soil that she had out front is no longer there, our neighbor's lemon tree is missing and someone broke into Kirk's car and took a bunch of papers including bank statements. So that's possible identity theft and maybe you could sell a bag of soil, but who steals a lemon tree? Are these people on drugs?

Better living through dentistry

I'm down to about 190 lbs. It seems that I continued to lose some weight after my sabbatical. So either, that month of working out had a long term effect on me, or not eating after having my wisdom teeth pulled altered my eating habits. (or a combination of the two) I lost about 7 lbs.
I bought pants a size smaller and I finally found Levis with a 29" inseam. Did they just start making these? A 30" inseam was long enough that I would step on the pants leg if I was barefoot which always annoyed me.
I'm not going to toss out my old pants yet...

ouch

I think i gave myself a headache. I while ago, i bought a paradigm subwoofer to go with the bookself speakers i have. I was just going to buy a 10" sub, but they were out and they offered to sell me a 12" at the same price. (i think they were getting a new version of the 12" in soon). This weekend i was listening to Meat Beat Manifesto, and they must have had some very low frequency sounds on one of the tracks. It was something i had never noticed before and with the radio cranked up, it was making me ill. I just waited for the ipod to get to the next song. I should have bought a smaller sub.

Dr. Sin

I went to Mike's the week before last to watch Dr. Who for the first time. I caught the end of Pyramids of Mars and saw a Peter Davidson episode. The only thing I liked was the idea of containing fire through the power of thought for some reason. The Peter Davidson character had a companion that was suppose to be American and I didn't think that she did that bad of a job but then it occurred to me that she sounded like a teenager from a John Hughes movie. She was doing Molly Ringwald.
While I was there, Mike showed me the trailer for Sin City. It looks just like the comic book. It's amazing. I'm going to have to show people the comic before they see the movie so that they'll be impressed.

This picture of Oldman from Batman Begins is enough to want me to see this movie. It's like he got Gordon's mustache perfectly.

Reading list

I'm currently reading the collected Bone one volume($40). It's a really good deal since it's 1300 pages collecting some 13 books that retail for $10+ apiece. You can get it for even less at Amazon.
I bought it at the comic book store, because that's where I saw it. It seems cheesy to browse one place and buy elsewhere + I want to support my comic book shop.
The comic book store clerk told me that Scholastic books has picked up Bone and will be reprinting the books in color. I suppose the books will reach a whole new audience. I did find the one volume collection at Borders, but then they also carry Kolcha's books as well. I wonder if the the bone books will also appear in those grade school order forms?

It's a good book, very enjoyable and really a page turner but so far I don't see why it's so lauded. Is it just the best thing out there? Isn't Usagi Yojimbo just as good? (I haven't read Usagi yet). Bone doesn't seem so extraordinary so far.

Girl Next Door

I watched the Girl Next Door the other night because sometimes I just want to watch a dumb movie with a good looking girl. But even for a dumb teen movie, it wasn't that funny and it wasn't that titillating. Things happened too easily and just when I thought the movie was going to end, it kept going. I've read that it's an uncredited remake of Risky Business and I can see why they say that since it has basically all of the same plot points, it's just a whole lot more boring.
Although, i have to admit that i was a teenager when i saw Risky Business so that movie may not have as much impact now as it did then. Oddly, the Girl Next Door gets a slightly higher rating in IMDB. (6.8 vs 6.7)

[PD]genesis

I drew this after viewing a Joseph Campbell documentary. I forgot what else he said and never went back to the drawing.