| Does PowerPoint hold the answer? |
[Mar. 14th, 2005|06:20 pm] |
Two things caught my attention recently. One is this weblog. Its a weblog discussion of a recent meeting of the International Game Developers Association, an organization of video game developers. They are mad because they have to work long hours for little money without benefits. They are also mad because the gaming industry has consolidated to a very small number of companies which produce overly-decadent and unoriginal games. They have resolved to either stay in the machine that is exploiting their intellectual
capital or create more innovative games on a shoestring budget.
The other thing is a New York Times article about Adult Swim. Adult Swim is a series of late night animated tv shows which break convention. They are produced very cheaply using consumer software such as Final Cut, Flash, After Effects, and Powerpoint. Its another example of creative revolt.
Why am I posting these? I don't know, except that I've been thinking a lot lately about the role of software in librarianship and filmmaking. I think that knowing how software works and knowing a little bit about computer programming could be a powerful tool for librarianship. (That last thought took a lot of mental energy to articulate). |
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| journey to the center |
[Mar. 11th, 2005|12:58 am] |
| [ | mood |
| | you're an errand boy sent by grocery clerks to collect a bill. | ] |
Long absence. I'm very introspective these days. Here's what my schedule looks like.
FRIDAY: Went to work, came home and watched tv
SATURDAY: Went to class, came directly home, played ps2 all day
SUNDAY: Played PS2 all day
MONDAY: Went to work, came directly home, did nothing
TUESDAY: Wrote essay and played PS2 all day and evening
WEDNESDAY: Wrote essay, went to class, played ps2 all evening
THURSDAY: Stayed in bed for a long time, studied, watched tv
I have had a lot of thoughts, but I have distanced myself from friends and family. Talking to people on the phone and meeting people in person are two activities I do not wish to do. This is nothing new, as I have always prefered being by myself and I don't like meeting new people.
Here is a ranking of my human relationships according to my personal comfort right now...
1. Myself
2. Kelly
3. Job & School
4. Family (yep that's right, family forth)
5. Kelly's friends and family
6. My friends
7, Strangers
I've decided to end every post from now on with a linke to an article on Wikipedia. I love this site, and just today, found this article listing some large and very large numbers. There is something palpably soothing about seeing them. |
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| new proclamation |
[Jan. 11th, 2005|06:56 pm] |
Dear Readers,
I was sitting on the couch and watching the Simpsons when a thought occured to me. Why not write this blog as though I were writing to a close friend or someone I truly respect. This is partly because I hope to some day rise above the level of 'bad writer' and ascend to 'o.k. writer.' But also because the Internet is life to me, and without it, I would be deprived. So isn't it only fair that I make each posting a testament to all the makers and seekers of ideas on this planet.
Truthfully,
A.C. |
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| Come See Hell |
[Jan. 8th, 2005|04:07 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | :doom | ] |
| [ | music |
| | The Tiger Lillies: Violin Time | ] |
Hello Readers. Apologies for the lengthy absence. I am in a weird place at the moment. The Winter has brought me her absyssmal macabre, and I am languishing in a pool of self-loathing/aggrandizement. Before you ask "what the fuck are you talking about," I will apologize again for attempting to deceive you. I am not a smart man, but no matter where I go, there are people (friends, family, misc.) who heap praise on top of congradulations on top of cheer on top of my pancakes for what to me is a form of mild psychosis.
Please understand that all this brain can do is struggle and spasm and jerk in a vain attempt to escape its prison. And for those of you who don't get what I'm talking about, I pray that your children don't ask questions and own rock collections, and spill crumbs on your newspaper. We species of the subgroup homocuriosis are a lonely lot. I'd rather be stuck at home, tied to a chair with a thorny vine than free to roam a world with other humans. That is not an exaggeration. I have spent many Friday mornings praying to parasitic demons that a curse of mild salmonella or Jack-in-the-Box disease would liberate me from social interactions.
Seven months ago I was reborn in a hospital after I had a seizure from taking dangerous drugs for depression. I am off the drugs now, but recently, I have been possessed by the spirit from a previous life. And I'll tell you, he's one angry mother fucker. |
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| Who's the boss |
[Dec. 5th, 2004|02:53 pm] |
I have nothing particularly compelling to write about right now, but that won't stop me. Its a beautiful Sunday, and I'm bored. Unemployment [or partial employment in my case] has the effect of turning logic on its ear in that way. I want to stay home all the time by myself and play Killzone all day, and yet doing so increased my depression. I don't want to leave the apartment, nor do I feel like engaging people in face to face contact. My grandma called my cellphone, but I was too busy firing a hydraulic gattling gun at pale-skinned virgins to answer.
On Wednesday evening I fired my therapist. I told her that because she is a woman, I can't help but try to appease her the way I appease all the females in my life and that prevents me from being emotionally open. That's part of it, but the real reason is that the only time I'm able to get a word in is when she falls asleep. This setback may force me to entrust my mental health to Pfizer. So readers, savor these messages because they may no longer be absent of references to The Apprentice and Desperate Housewives. |
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| you're cold as ice |
[Dec. 2nd, 2004|10:09 pm] |
When you are writing a blog that nobody looks at, what is the point? And if nobody looks at it but you, why do you self-censor? I've discovered a new hobby to augment my swollen internet addiction. I google unusual strings of boolean on specific websites or the whole internet to discover clues about why the world sucks. Okay, so if you type in the expression Bush AND abstinence site:whitehouse.gov , you will find over a hundred hits. Then if you try Bush AND condoms site:whitehouse.gov, you will find a paltry eleven documents. Cooincidence? Maybe? Now try Bush AND condoms -abstinence site:whitehouse.gov. Still think its a cooincidence?
Really?
You do?
Well, I know but- Don't interrupt me! Don't you fucking interrupt me! |
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| I dunno |
[Nov. 11th, 2004|01:46 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  hopeful | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Roberto Lange | ] |
I'm pretty bummed today. Lost my job on Tuesday because there's not enough work to do. Now I have some kind of throat infection so I took the day off. I'm pretty sure I'm making myself ill. It seems to happen once or twice a year that when life gets tough my body bails out. My skin is really dry and cracking too, which really sucks because I'm afraid to go outside into the cold.
In January I embark on my graduate education. My money's running out, so yesterday I started working on Financial Aid applications. Its really an area I know nothing about, and no one is willing to sit down with me and explain it. I don't really understand. I called my friend Sarah who went to BU on the government dime. She was nice at first, but as soon as I mentioned paying for college she clammed up, told me to call up the financial aid office. I called Pratt's Financial Aid office and that went nowhere. I got some bitch on the phone who was incredulous that me, a twenty-five year old college graduate had never filled out a FAFSA before. They intuit that if you know you need financial aid, you must already have grasped the vocabulary and syntax of the process. Then I went down to the school and spoke to Sonya, who kindly stopped inhaling her greasy dinner for three minutes to patronize a rich white boy who doesn't know Stafford Loan from a Dirty Sanchez.
I was confused, frustrated; wondering aimlessly through the East Village, stopping for a Big Mac and a small coke when it occured to me that I am not alone in my struggles. One day in the Lower East Side some ninety years ago, my ancestry decided that if they were going to throttle this S.O.B. called life, they had to stand up and tighten their laces. And when that bell rang, they'd better have the other guy's face smeared on their tattered gloves.
So this is it. I'm determined to take advantage of the system, and if I can't go to college for nothing, I will at least have enough money left over when I'm done to get really loaded. Step one, get educated. After cramming my colon full of Big Mac, I went to Barnes and Noble and picked up The Princeton Review's book called "Going to Graduate School Without Going Broke." As I checked out, the pretty little black girl with braces glances at my purchase and says "wouldn't y'all like to know." I will. |
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| Before Dawn |
[Nov. 3rd, 2004|01:40 am] |
I am predicting that George Bush will win this election. The country has spoken and it cannot be denied that its voice was heard. On September 11th, a sizable majority of good, decent Americans were hurt in a profound and unexpected way. America has reacted as would any human victim of violence: the fist tightened. That fist stays locked on November 2, 2004.
We are human beings and we are urged by our pathology to protect ourselves at the cost of our humanity. Still, I am continually shocked by the callousness of nationalism, which beats down and neglects that which lies over the fence. What hurts me the most is that the ring-leaders of this wave of patriotism/exclusiveness are the beknighted "moral majority" that believe in self-sacrifice and human dignity. So called Christians prop themselves up on platforms of compassion while turning a blind eye to the suffering they inflict in order to preserve the status quo.
The point I am trying to make is that the Republican Party has successfully conducted a campaign of racism to protect White America from urban blacks [google "Black Nascar Driver."] Middle America (white, Christian) compulsively fears the tide of overpopulation and racial blending. The plague will come one day when their pristine homes are denegraded with pornographic graffiti, their spouses and children give-in to the carnal decedence of black and homoerotic sexual activity, and then naturally, slaves will thrust daggers through their master's heart.
On 9/11, half of America saw death while the other half saw their reflection. I regret that the product of this election portends a dark path. |
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| took the day off |
[Oct. 28th, 2004|11:45 am] |
| [ | mood |
| | chipotle | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Interpol: Leif Erikson | ] |
I'm home today doing some video research [watching television]. When did City Confidential change its format? I like it, very sleek. I might do some real video work. I found this link for the Zombie Remix contest, and if I can beat the deadline I'll put in an entry.
The Sun Senital had an article this morning about 58,000 absentee ballots that are missing in South Florida. Sometimes I wonder if this latest conterversy over missing ballots is a calculated October Surprise perpetrated by media teactitions who are adept at magnifying and calyzing the mundane entropy of modern life. I wouldn't expect any less from the vicous dogs at the Sun Sentinal, the Miami Herald, who brought us smash and grabs, shark attacks, and now, electoral graft.
I'm transferring a mpeg1video of Night of the Living Dead that I downloaded from the Internet Archive. It takes forever, but the audio part of the movie doesn't play when I import the file in fcp. That, and I'm not updating the program to FCP HD.
I think I may buy a pocket firewire drive. It seems like a good buy. I don't really have the money, but I have a really nice light meter that I got when I graduated film school. I have never used it and practically refuse to take it out of the apartment even for legitiment reasons. Time to sell.
Gotta go. |
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 24th, 2004|07:10 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | awan | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Intestinal Blockage | ] |
Writing this blog is pretty tedious. I'm only one day into it and I'm derailing like a rusty Monorail at Disneyworld. Reading my first column, I find myself wanting to drag this entire effort into the dustbin of history, but I'll keep going.
This whole election has had a schizo-fying effect on my mind. The countdown to election has a portentious quality, which I can only describe as the moving platform in a slaughterhouse.
Who really thinks that Tuesday night, the whole world will rejoice at exactly 10:00 PM that "John Kerry has been elected the next president of the United States. Now off to bed, children, daddy and mommy are going to watch the nighttime news."
The 2004 election will be so close that victors will be decided by votes [double digit] over a period of time that will exceed the length of his term. Tuesday night is not the end or the beginning, just another dispiriting plunge into a the moral abyss of "partisan hackery" [thank you Jon Stewart.] I expect weeks and weeks of searing pundentry and spinning with less attention paid to our problems in Iraq and Afghanistan and Iran and Israel and North Korea and Haiti. Our fearless leader (whichever Yale stooge) will be weaker than a titmouse with its balls cut off.
Here I go again, spouting hearsay without citing examples. Please bare with me, readers, for I have not yet embarked upon my graduate education. (But so neither has Bill O'Reilly or for that matter W).
In order to gain your trust, I have to present evidence that what I say is not excaggerated santorum. I would like to start with this piece from The Nation called James Baker's Double Life by Naomi Klein. This article raised me to a new level of outrage. Why isn't the mainstream media reporting on this??!! The answer of course is that its not news. Corporate Raqueteering happens every day in conference rooms and trading floors spanning the globe.
Print it out, ladies and gentlemen, and pass it to as many people as you can! The media belongs to the people and it's balls are in the vice of the corporations. |
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| i'm angry as hell and i'm not gonna take it anymore |
[Oct. 22nd, 2004|02:08 pm] |
I haven't even begun to dictate and I'm already getting hundreds of e-mails from people, some learned some unlearnt, who tell me I have no right to add my piece of discourse to the public fray. Professor Sharpy Sniffer of the Institute for the Study of Endowments writes, "the world wide web has far too many radical voices since the number of liberals who can read far exceeds the number of mainstream conservatives who don't watch fox news, and yet the number of conservatives who cannot operate a toaster oven dwarfs the percentage of liberals who find Tina Brown spellbinding." My response to you, Professor Sniffer, is that while your statistics do check out, you cannot stop me from expressing my fourth ammendment right. Yes, I am a little to the left of the mainstream. I am against school prayer. I think it should be okay to burn the American flag. I am in favor of abortion. In fact, I think abortions should be forced upon all people west of Ohio and south of Maryland. I believe that all Americans should be taxed 99% of their income. The remaining 1% should be used to pay for programs that teach schoolchildren to be gay and hate Jesus. I think no American should be permitted to own a firearm unless they are police or the army, who incidentally, should be permitted to enter your home at any time to have their way with your pure white daughters. That said, I have never endorsed the policies of so many liberal activist judges to allow stem cells to be extracted from the fetuses of unborn babies and used in experiments to rebuild spinal tissue and cure alzheimers disease. I say why stop at unborn babies? If a kid's not old enough to talk or tie his shoelaces, his stem cells are up for grabs. I will conclude by saying, nothing shall prevent me from speaking my mind. The man can follow me, toss my apartment, throw me in jail, and put my mugshot on the smoking gun (www.smokinggun.com). I'll be a hero to my countrymen and countryladies by going on Nancy Grace and writing a book that will be on the New Times Best Seller list for 2 weeks. |
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