Author: grid

Today has been one of those days where link leads to link leads to link. It all started when a friend led me to this weird email tool called ZoË. That just blew me away. The site is so compelling. I installed it, and can’t really say what the big deal is. Maybe if I had all my emails imported into the thing I’d really like it, but for now at least it’s nothing I’d use on a regular basis.

Actually, the appearance of said friend in my inbox is mysterious enough to overwhelm the application disappointment! I hear from this strange character once every six months or so… and because he lives so far away, I imagine his life in this sort of rich fantasy dreamscape. Very european (which of course it is)!

Anyway, the ZoË website led me into this mad metablogging wonderland of RSS developer’s blogs and various blog-related techno-snob-blogs.

[It occurs to me almost as a side note–and perhaps I’ve had this “revelation” before–that I am obsessed with blogs because they epitomize what got me interested in the internet in the first place. They are communication, pure and simple: ideas and words. Blogs are fascinating because they facilitate communication in the same way the web was initially lauded for its ease of idea dissemination. Blogs are what the web was meant to be!]

From some developer’s blog, I discovered Game Studies which is an online academic magazine about… well, about studying games and game development. Very interesting. (And far too much to read right now!)

I spent fairly much the whole day surfing.

On my way to work this morning, I drove past a woman walking down the street crying like something horrible had just happened to her. She was sobbing, and stumbling along, holding a white handkerchief in her right hand next to her face like she was going to use it. I was really moved, and told myself the only reason I didn’t turn around right then and there was that I had to be to work for a meeting. (which I did.) Of course, had I turned around, what would I have said to her?

And now the round red blinding circle of the sunset is piercing my retina through the blinds of my air conditioned office… and I feel I have wasted my afternoon.

My problem is that I have all these things worthy of blogging… ideas, ramblings, opinions, cool links… and as soon as I decide to write, they flee from my consciousness like rats from the sinking ship that is my brain. I was going to title this entry “extra ordinary”, but I’m on AIM with a friend who provided the superior one above.

I hesitate to link this, because I’m going to take it down eventually, but I just added some fest pictures from this year to the ones that were up from last year. (I’m taking those down even more soon, but you can see the dir listing in /fest if you want for a few days.) The pictures will give you a better sense of the level of debauchery that takes place–and the reason I go back year after year. ;)

OK, one more topic, in this fleeting fly-by-the-seat-of-your-non-sequitur blog-entry: Pop Cap Games. The makers of the supremely addicting Bejewled. I love them. They have outdone themselves with a game my mother calls a cross between Scrabble and Tetris, and is aptly named Bookworm. I’m not telling you to play it. Because, if you’re like me, you’ll never want to stop. Instead, I’m just telling you to just look at it, and absorb the fun that I’m having through internet-osmosis.

I’ve gone ahead and manually coppied and pasted all my old comments into movable type. None of them had a timestamp other than day of the week and time of day, so they all look like they were made today. (I briefly toyed with the idea of having them at least look like they were made the date of the post, but it was going to be too much work.)

About halfway through the process, I got sick enough of it that I stopped coppying people’s URLs and email addresses, (at least, for those of you who post regularly) so if they’re missing here and there… well, tough shit. ;)

The bottom line: It took me about 4 hours. Four-fucking hours. Remind me never again to use any non-standardized method for storing data. Those comments were a clusterfuck. I couldn’t even sepparate by newlines, because there were (seemingly randomly) newlines thrown in on occasion!

I have yet to go over to my blogspot template and add a redirect. I’ll do that now…

“The life of every man is a diary, in which he means to write one story, and writes another.”
–Bess Streeter Aldrich (Cheers For Miss Bishop (movie based on the novel Miss Bishop))

This quote reminded me of Tiny’s dreams and rainbows post, which I always wanted to respond to, but never did because I felt I’d just be another person saying “me too”.

Well, now I wouldn’t say “me too”, I’d post that quote, proving that Tiny is actually the one saying “me too”, only he’s said it longer and better. And really, this quote (from a movie, based on a book!) probably isn’t even the first time anyone has said something like this. people say things like this all the time, and it’s like there’s this giant “me too” chorus of people, around the world, holding hands, singing it, screaming it, living it, yes living “ME TOO!!!” from the tops of mountains that aren’t high enough and at the bottoms of oceans that are really just small lakes and ponds… ponds that dry up, evaporate into cloud layers (like the one outside–clouds with imperceptible silver linings) and then rain down, in the midst of thunder and lightening, rain down on the rooftops of sleeping dreamers, and rain down occasionally in the sunlight forming rainbows out of the wrong story.

but the wrong story is the one you’re living, and you better read it, baby. you’d better read it.

This past weekend will live in my puny brain as memorable for many reasons. I am not going to go into those reasons, other than to say that there was some nudity involved, a hot tub, and much drunken kissing.

Today is one of those hot and windy fall days. The kind that screams that fall is fast approaching, but does not (yet) blow leaves across the streets and sidewalks.

I just want to sit on a concrete slab downtown, and people watch.
I feel diffuse and exuberant.
Tonight we are juggling fire.

My eyelid is swoolen. I think I might have some kind of strep. I’m going to the doctor this afternoon.

The movable type conversion isn’t happening as fast or easy as I’d like. Maybe after I get back from the doctor I’ll work on it some more. On the other hand, I have a character here that is almost to level 10!

I’m trying to import into mt.

Just had a 2 minute “team meeting” to announce the firing of a co-worker. (His last day was yesterday.) He’s not dead, but I’ll mourn his passing anyway. Nice start to this particuarly rainy and misserable day.

On the plus side, he “willed” me his java books and Pessimism poster!

He’s in a better place, believe me.

While I’m talking about juggling, let me say that it’s a mixed bag. Like anything you do, you’re good at it sometimes, and other times you just suck.

Tonight I was ok. Sunday, I was terrible.

Sunday afternoon, I went to see cirque again. 2 for 1 tickets courtesy of dan, who worked as an usher. Awesome, awesome, awesome. Made me want to do something, anything, for cirque du soleil. I would run lights, sound, backstage makeup, clean the theater, or be a fucking usher… just made me want to be a part of it.

But then we bustled out to fest right after, brought along my friend Kristin to watch me play volley club. I sucked. No, to say I sucked is an understatement. To do badly, you have to at least DO. I just didn’t. I basically just stood there and dropped the club whenever it came to me.

It’s like a performance, volley club. And I choked, big time.

Anyway, tonight was practice. Monday nights at the neverthriving.

I played some good combat, and flashed six balls a few more times. I don’t really know why I care, but suddenly I really want to be able to do six balls. It’s just that one tiny step more impressive than five, and all of a sudden–for the first time–it seems remotely possible… remotely.

So yeah, performance sucks. But I would give my left leg to be a part of cirque du soleil. Go figure.

I don’t really like performing. I have to pipe up and quickly note that, while I unerstand what Buddah and MJ are saying (over on Meghan’s blog,) generally for me the rush you get performing doesn’t outweigh–in importance–the feeling of dread. (and yes, I’m too lazy to find the deep link…you may have to search through her archives if you’re seeing this later than, say, next week.)

And then there is a second feeling of dread if I receive no feedback after the performance. With good feedback, I feel better–bad feedback, it’s like a relief that at least I know I was right–I did suck! But no feedback, and I sit there the rest of the night, thinking… did I suck? Sometimes it’s so bad I can’t even think about the performers still up on stage. (we’re talking open mics here… when I used to perform an actual act–yes, juggling–that was different, because I felt a sort of “Whew! Glad that’s over!” after every show.)

I agree with the sentiment that the “true artist” is never satisfied with their work. And given the chance, a good poet would keep revising their work forever. (Lets not get into the beat movement, or my favorite poet, Frank O’Hara.) Point is, taking the stage to read something (or sing something) that you’ve written is like saying “this is done”–or at least done enough to perform. It’s a bit like publishing something, I guess. Stage publishing.

When do you let go? when is something “done enough” to perform, or whatever… I don’t know…

This isn’t even making sense to me. I’m going to go play unicycle hockey now. Yes really, unicycle hockey.