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Disasters large and small

By now, you’ve probably all heard about the 35W bridge that collapsed over the river. I had left early that day with Florence for a doctor’s appointment, and was already home by the time I heard about it. I had noticed a lot of sirens coming through the screen door, but didn’t really think twice about them until Mike called me to let me know what was happening. Florence and I immediately started watching CNN (on mute *shudder*) for pictures and live footage.

In spite of the location of the bridge (smack-dab in between home and work if you take the freeway), I didn’t know anyone who was involved in the collapse in any way. There were a flurry of work emails that night, asking everyone to check in.

At almost the same time, my friend Sarah is living in Japan, and she was dealing with Typhoon Usagi. She said she spent the time indoors, reading Transmetropolitan, which is now medium-high on my reading list. I really like what I’ve read of Warren Ellis’ work, and hadn’t heard of this 11-volume sci-fi epic until she brought it to my attention. (Thanks Sarah!)

Yesterday, the mn fringe festival started. I’ve got a short (but growing) list of shows I wouldn’t mind seeing, but so far my enthusiasm for the festival is less urgent than it has been in past years.

I can think of several reasons, the wedding is really starting to seem eminent, for one thing, and another is that I’ve got a looming work deadline (on monday) that is unlikely to be met if I don’t work a bunch this weekend. I actually worked a 16 hour day yesterday trying to finish one aspect of the project that I’d been putting off (there were plenty of other aspects to work on) until last Monday when I began to work on it in earnest. I’m fairly certain it should have been a two-week portion of the project. Anyway, t’s an internal deadline, but not really any less important for that because other people are waiting for my code. After I left work last night (2:30am), I waited for the bus for about 25 minutes, and then just ended up walking the two miles home.

I’m writing this post waiting for the cats to finish eating, (we give them 15 minutes, but it’s been 10 and they haven’t touched their bowls in 5) after which I’ll take a shower and head in to the office.

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first iPhone post

I’m writing this from my new iPhone. Florence got me a way-super-early birthday gift, presumably because she wanted me to have some time to play with it before the wedding… And then the almost two weeks we’ll be out of the country… Wouldn’t get to use it then either. Antway, it’s exciting. I literally have the internet at my fingertips.

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word press tee-shirts, other spending

I would totally buy one of the new WP tee-shirts if they came in… you guessed it, black. The tee-shirts are simple and appealing, but only come in red. Yes, that’s right, one style, one color. Totally lame.

I’ve also been meaning to buy one of those cool greyscale firefox shirts.

On the other hand, Florence and I have been trying to save money for the wedding. It’s going to cost quite a bit more than we’d expected it to, but in spite of that, I splurged $25 this morning at amazon, buying the new Jasper Fforde novel, (and Phillip K. Dick’s Ubik because I’ve been meaning to read it, and it got me to free shipping).

I absolutely adore all of Fflorde’s novels, and hadn’t known this new one was out.

Last Friday at Midnight, Florence, Nate and I went down to Barnes & Noble for the big Harry Potter release night. Standing in line (or sitting in line) for over an hour wasn’t all that fun, but it gave me a chance to read the first of the Spiderwick Chronicles. (Nate read it too, we’d just watched the preview earlier that day.) I have to remember to request the rest of them from the library before the movie comes out. (Which reminds me I should really read the bridge to tarabithia someday… and then watch the movie.)

Anyway, I finished the final Harry Potter yesterday at lunch. It was the best of the bunch, as far as I remember. I teared up at the end. I was sitting on the stoop outside work, balancing a quesadilla on one knee, and the massive 759 page novel on the other. I can’t say enough about how good it was. J. K. Rowling (or her editors) did such a great job of making it fast paced and readable. It felt like she brought back nearly every character for at least a brief cameo (especially at the end), and tied up seemingly every loose end. It was a brilliant roller coaster of pure joy to read.

For someone who claims to like science fiction way better than fantasy, I’ve sure been on a fantasy kick lately. But it feels kind of wrong to go from Harry Potter straight into what I was going to read next… that Thirteen novel by Richard Morgan. I haven’t decided whether that’s ok.

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nothing posting

So I finished The Amber Spyglass, and now I’m reading Stardust, by Neil Gaiman, rather than Thirteen, which I’d said I was going to start next. Stardust is shorter, and I started it on the plane to Chicago, thinking I’d get to return it to Florence’s sister Susie while we were there, rather than bring it back on the plane with us because I hadn’t finished it, which is of course what happened instead. There is also a connection between the two, as both the Phillip Pullman books and Stardust are on my “to read” pile for the same reason — I wanted to finish them before their movie counterparts are released.

I just got done uploading a few pictures from the trip to flickr, and realized they were all of people, but that we hadn’t taken any with Susie (Florence’s sister, who we spent most of Saturday visiting). I did also meet Florence’s father on Saturday too, (that was the main purpose of the trip), and that meeting went well.

We stayed with my Aunt Maureen and Uncle Michael, and my cousin Patrick, who I discovered shares my love for “casual” (mostly web-based) video games. We took turns showing each other games we like on Kongregate, and I’ll admit he took way more turns than I did. He also showed an interest in Flash game development. Too bad the program is so expensive, or I’d get him a copy for his birthday or something.

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library thing reprise

I love librarything.com. It’s really cool. I was basically just surfing around over there, trying to find the place where they post their bookpiles, (’cause I just uploaded this one) and ended up in a forum talking about what I’ve been reading lately.

Long story short, I decided it would make a good blog post, and here I am. So here’s what I’m reading lately:

I’m in the last few dozen pages of The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman. I’m also in the midst of A Theory of Fun, by Raph Koster. I usually have a non-fiction book I’m just carrying around while I actually read a novel.

When I finish The Amber Spyglass, I intend to start reading Thirteen, by Richard K. Morgan, hopefully tomorrow night.

Other books on the night side stand (ie, ones I’ve started reading, but not yet completed, or just like having near at hand): Astro City: Local Heroes, Kabuki: Metamorphosis, Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall, Motherless Daughters by Hope Edelman, The Automatic Message, The Making of a Poem, ActionScript for Flash MX, Stardust (The original with illustrations by Charles Vess), Make Magazine: Issue 8, and numerous other individual comic books.

That’s about it.

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transformers

I got to see a sneak preview of the new transformers movie last night, and it transformed my dreams into a weird kaleidoscope of military landscapes. The movie itself was great! It was funnier than expected, and there were some not-so-subtle references to the cartoon that we all watched growing up. I especially liked seeing John Turturro again (he’s always great), and the cameo by Bernie Mac was fun too.

Of note is how I got the tickets for this one. They’re getting more technological in how they deliver these. For years now they’ve had you print out emails if you “win” tickets to a preview (usually from a newspaper or radio). The printouts really mean nothing, because they’re just trying to fill the seats, they don’t actually care if you won when you get to the theater. (Although, come to think of it, they’ll occasionally cross-reference with a printout of some kind.) Anyway, it’s not like they check the email’s headers or anything, and you can usually just forward your “winning” email to people and they can come too.

For this one I had to text someone. I got an automated response with another thing to text to the same number. Then they texted me back a second time letting me know they’d be picking winners the day before the preview. When tuesday came around, I got a text letting me know I’d won, and that I should show the text at the door to get in. Sure enough, they weren’t checking a list or anything, you just had to show them the text on your phone, and they let you in. They should have had more “winners” though, because the house was only about half full. This seems like an odd movie to have had so few people turn out for the preview.

Tonight is another preview for the new Harry Potter movie. Tickets for that one can be found on myspace.

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impressions and computations

OK, well, Flashbelt is done. (With the possible exception of the bar that people are going to tonight. We’ll see. It depends on what’s going on later.)

I was totally and completely blown away by the last presenter: Jared Tarbell‘s work is absolutely positively phenomenal. Words can’t really do it justice, and honestly, I don’t even think looking at the websites can do it justice. The art is good. Awesome even, but the way he creates it is what will totally blow your mind.

In the middle of the presentation, (as if, somehow, ridiculously, it wasn’t enough,) Jared gave away a few of his prints to audience members who answered various questions sprinkled he in. At some point he asked a question summing two three-digit numbers (assuming you knew the fibonacci sequence), and I wasn’t quick enough to be the first. At that point I resigned myself to not getting one of these amazing prints. But then he asked a logic question that I blurted out the answer to without thinking, and suddenly I was at the podium gratefully accepting this amazing piece of art! Highlight of the conference.

It gets better. After his presentation was a “mixer” where I stick around and talked to a bunch of people I’d met throughout the week. Eventually I was standing near Jared and thanked him again for the print. He then asked me if I’d fixed my actionscript bug. I was taken aback for a minute, not knowing what he was talking about, and then realized that he’d been sitting next to me in another panel on Monday, and had been looking over my shoulder while I was debugging the latest version of Go Tetris!. I couldn’t believe it. I had no idea who it was sitting next to me at the time, and I’m pretty sure I even gave him a card.

I’m totally starstruck right now.

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flashbelt

I’m at flashbelt this week.

I’ve learned some interesting stuff thus far, but seemingly more important to the experience has been a rising sense of wonder. As tech conferences go, I’ll bet flash conferences have a lot more art than other conferences. Anyway, the best presentations have been these crazy flash artists. Their work is of course next to entirely impractical, but so interesting that these guys probably make their livings traveling from conference to conference and presenting on their art. (I’m sure this is not entirely true, Joshua Davis, for instance, has actual art showings, and of course teaches classes in what he does.)

Anyway, at some point maybe I’ll sift through all the other links I’ve collected, and post some more of them. I didn’t have internet yesterday, so all of my notes were hand-written.