Lies By Doc

Early Days With Jamieson

2011-03-20T04:50:00.000-07:00

****note****
I just found this in my rough drafts. It is two years old and I never posted it, I guess I thought it would be too tough for some people to read, and also that it would be too personal. This is LONG before we found a doctor that would help us solve Jamieson's food allergies. Reading it now, unedited, makes me sad at now helpless we were to help him and angry at the "experts" that kept telling us that nothing was wrong. We begged for help, and were made to feel like we were the ones that didn't understand. At the end, I make a mention of seeing a pediatric GI, I can still hear the snark in the voice of his first doctor "If you REALLY want, you could take him to the GI, but thats NOT going to help... He is just "highstrung"". Ironically that visit that with the GI (Dr. Annette Whitney who is great) is when everything began to turn around. We never went back to that first pediatrician.

Here is the post I composed when Jamie was just a tiny (well, never tiny) screaming bright red klaxon of distress and I was sick with worry for him, Katy and our family.
******

What do you do when the two people you love most in the world are in conflict? Not just a normal conflict mind you, but a soul draining contest of endurance versus need that shakes everyone involved to the core and could be described as the hardest challenge any of you has ever faced.

You put yourself between them and try you best to absorb as much of the discomfort as you can take.

I don't know for sure that Jamieson is more needy than other babies of his same age but it would not surprise me to find out that he is. Since he was born, he has on average wanted to be feed every 2 hours (often times less). For short periods of time this has stretched out to 3... but it quickly snaps back. Now consider that it takes about 30-45 minutes to feed him, that only leaves a very short window to sleep and rest between feedings.

Also he cries a LOT. It seems to me like he has problems getting rid of lower gas. He wakes from a dead sleep and will start to kick and flail if he has not passed gas within a few minutes he will become frustrated and begin to cry. These episodes can quickly escalate into massive shrieking freak-outs if he is not quickly comforted. He will still cry, kick and flail for long periods of time even if held and if you do manage to get him to sleep in your arms... you CAN'T put him down. The comfort is like a counter balance to the pain/discomfort in his gut. If you remove the soothing... the tower topples and he is back in crisis. If he starts to break wind... a lot of wind. Then he starts to relax and can sometimes be put down.

So combine those two things and you have a baby that requires a lot of attention.

I have been desperately trying to provide as much of that attention as I can I am a seasoned insomniac... Katy is not. She is learning the ropes of how to survive on so little sleep but it has been really tough for me to watch her get raked over the coals on this. She is a person that NEEDS her sleep.

So for weeks now I have done everything I could to keep him soothed and get her more sleep. Since I don't need much sleep I keep him downstairs with me in between feedings because it is seldom that he sleeps from one feeding to the next. Its MUCH more common that he needs to be held and comforted, often the entire time between feedings. If I am really good, I can keep him asleep for 2.5 hours in my arms... but this usually means that I can't move or do anything else because if I do he will wake up and instantly want to be comforted with food.

So, I am very caught in the middle. He wants and needs to eat and I know that if I take him up to her she will be loosing sleep that she needs! I try to keep him soothed because sometimes he just wants to "snack" for comfort or eat early because he woke up due to gas.

these have been my goals over the last few weeks

1. Make it possible for Katy to go to bed at an early hour. (front load sleep)

2. Keep Jamieson downstairs with me between the 2-3 feedings after katy has gone to bed so that she gets chunks of undisturbed (if not uninterrupted) sleep. This helps her be more alert during the 2-3 late night feedings that I am likely to be asleep during, and hopefully gives her the energy to deal with him when he won't sleep between those feedings. I know that we only got her less than a couple of hours of "up front" sleep last night and she told me she was up with him the entire time between the next two feedings... I have to try harder to keep us on track so that its easier to deal with when this happens.

3. Wake up and take him downstairs between the first couple of feedings as needed. This is great for her catching up on sleep as he seems a bit less "fussy" in the mornings and I can keep him soothed and encourage him to sleep longer, but its also the prime time that she wants to be pumping and since it the time he is lest likely to be cranky its also the best time of day to play with him and have him be a bit more interactive and less distracted by his own discomfort.

4. Change every diaper I can get my hands on. It's a little thing, but I enjoy it and it is one less demand that she has to feel he is putting on her. I am sure she wouldn't mind changing more... she lets me do it because I have made it "Daddy's Job".

5. Soothe him as much as he will let me. Now when I said before that he gets upset, I am not sure I communicated what really happens here... I have seen him will turn dark purple over 100% of his body, go stiff as a board from head to toe and cry so hard and intensely that he seems to forget to breathe. At first, this upset Katy a great deal, I also get very unnerved by it.

I know Jamieson is on the verge of making a breakthrough in his eating and sleep schedule and I just have to wait it out a bit longer... but it is getting to me, I hate that I can't seem to do more for him when he is really upset and I feel like I have to absorb as much of his cranky-ness as I can and try to lessen his impact on Katy when he is being really demanding, That may sound odd to some people reading this but maybe people with difficult babies may understand. She is giving so much of herself to him as it is, I feel I need to deflect the screaming/complaining if I can. when I can't, I feel like I have failed.

I have had to compose this post over several days because I never have a long enough stretch of time to finish a complete blog post without needing to pick him up. Actually he is in my arms now but he is quiet enough that I can type (slowly) with my free hand.

It is now months later (around may 2009)... from a note I started to write someone then decided to not explain...

I know we probably discussed that he has had a rough start, He just has never been comfortable Like something was hurting him badly. I know I may have seemed over protective at the CPR class, But he has me well trained to respond quickly to his signs of distress early and try to stack the deck on the side of his comfort and happiness otherwise he can quickly get upset to the point were people question weather something is dramatically wrong with him. The way he responds to his discomfort can be a bit shocking to people if they are used to babies acting like "normal" babies.

I am sure it would not have surprised you, but I think it would have disrupted your class if he had reached the peak of what he is capable of.

Now all that sounds pretty dramatic, but he is a great and amazing baby when he fells well! So I have every confidence that when he finally "outgrows" the colic completely. Or his little digestive tract gets working a bit better... he will be able to let more of that side of himself shine.

We have been frustrated by our pediatrician and how her answer to everything seems to be "he is growing and thriving, so he is therefore fine" Wow, I sure am glad MY doctor doesn't take that attitude with me. "Oh, Doc you gained 5 pounds so clearly nothing else is wrong with you!" We are just now coming to the conclusion that he is allergic to something that he has been eating and we have finaly made an appointment with a pediatric GI in hopes that they will be able to shed some light on his discomfort.

Man Movies? Fella Flicks? Sensitive Gentleman Cinema?...

2011-03-16T12:49:00.000-07:00

The fact that there is not a popular nickname for the type of movie I am about to talk about should clue you in to how rare they are and why I feel they need more attention.

So for a while now, I have been keeping a short list in my head of films that I think communicate (in some small way) what its like to be a man in the modern world. These films deal with issues that men face. We live in an increasingly technological and feminized world, which strike me as good things in general... But very little art is created to give a voice to mens emotions about our changing role in this culture or the fact that in some ways we are being displaced altogether. We once where hunters, warriors, protectors, fathers, explorers, risk takers... and now we are often asked to tightly control all those instincts and yet it is those very things that still make us viable and desirable biologically. We are being pulled in two different directions. Now before I start losing people, keep in mind I am speaking about individuals. I won't argue that men have needed to share the power, but our culture doesn't seem to have collectively given a rats ass about how these sweeping changes have affected men emotionally. Of course, men are not supposed to HAVE feelings, and women may not notice because they are enjoying the improved status that has been so hard won over the last century. In many cases our culture is counter balancing too dramatically on the individual level and many poor schmucks (is that word an old slang for penis?) get bowled over by the changes, never really knowing what exactly is expected of them. It seems that the pitfalls of being a man (not a boy, by the way. Boy-hood is still highly praised and tolerated, which is part of the big joke) are more treacherous than ever. It would be nice if our entertainment didn't treat us all like uncaring, action addicted, warmongering, sex crazed, bumbling fools.

These films at least take a stab at it... they are so few and far between that it makes me sad. Hopefully there will be more as men and women wake up to the need to stare down the changing role of men.

Growing list, first draft: (Got suggestions?)

World According to Garp

Bottle Rocket

Punch Drunk Love

About Shmit

Lost In Translation

Falling Down

American Splendor

Notice something interesting about that list? They are all pretty small films. I would venture to say that most people have never heard of most of them.

Oh also, here is something fun to do... go into a book store and ask to see the "Men's Studies Section" if they have such a thing... laugh at how pitifully small it is in comparison to books for women or LGBT folk.

And Thus The Identity Crackdown Begins...

2011-03-14T20:16:00.000-07:00

FaceBook has launched a new service that ties commenting on other sites to your FaceBook account. So if a website turns it on, (and I think many will make it the default) most commenters will no longer be able to post with anything but their ACTUAL identity.

I have encouraged people to be themselves online for years. I knew that everyone running around pretending to be 20 different people and acting in a range of bad behavior from impolite to horrid, would not be tolerated for long. People were just loading up corporate cannons with reasons for a siege on anonymity. I also knew that when it DID start to change it would probably be at the hands of a big powerful entity. Back in the 90's I would have thought MS would be the one, then maybe Google... but of course the big winner of all our data now looks like it will be FaceBook, Google only WISHES you were building such a detailed profile into their database compared to what you shovel into FB each day.

I am of two minds, I look forward to a day when there is two thirds less crap polluting the web, but of course I don't want to tie all my opinions, thoughts, hopes and dreams back to a single (clearly untrustworthy) corporation. I just wish more people had decided to act civilized and not made such a service an easy sell.

The internet is the MOST public place you will ever make your voice heard. I believe that anything you post may someday be attached to your actual identity and viewed by anyone. I am a firm believer that de-anonymization tools will largely remove the illusion of anonymity in the near future. So its best to act the way you would in any very public place. Your home, work, or even a bar, all seem to be much more private places than any place you post online... but strangely, others seem to imagine the internet as the most private of places and assume everything they post under a pseudo identity would never be tracked back to them... even long before all the successful de-anonymization research, I just could not see that lasting.

In real life we feel pained and sometimes shamed for the stupid things we do and say, I causes us to examine ourselves and hopefully grow, mature, and respect others. Being held accountable for what you say is a fundamental part of being a person that exists in society. Bringing that accountability to the internet is long over due. We can't have a more meaningful dialog without looking each other in the eye.

How Do I Stop My Transformation?

2011-02-08T17:42:00.000-08:00

Recently my 2 year old son has been taking a mouth full of whatever he is drinking and letting it run out of his mouth. This has been a HUGE problem and mess. So I decided to let him explore this and told him he could do it in the bathtub and his swimming pool when it was warmer. Wanting to keep my promise I took him to spit out water in the bath tub after lunch today… He was thrilled!

But then, like many of my plans to do something nice for him or to teach him something, it turned bad. He quickly went from being overjoyed to being outraged at me for not letting him turn on the faucet in the tub. He had a full-on melt down and there was little I could have done to prevent it (you have to know him). He wants to have things his way 100% of the time, He is stubborn, willful, strong as a baby OX, and he is not likely to give me a break or relax on ANY issue. It is very tiring to try so hard to please someone only to have them act like you are a monster.

Also this day, my wife had left a pie pad full of bird seed out on our deck table. He reached for it and I asked him to STOP! but he ignored me and poured it out onto our deck as I repeated the stop command 2-3 more times. I calmed myself and spent 30 minuets teaching him that the seed was for the birds and getting him to help me sweep up what we could so that the birds would have something to eat. He really seemed to "Get it" and seemed concerned for the birdies. I thought I had scored a big "daddy win".

Thirty minutes later he rushed over to the pie pan again and spilled it out before I could stop him then just acted like he could not hear me when I tried to talk to him about it and charged into the house with muddy boots making me leap up from my "gentle (down at his level) teaching guru position" and grab his arm like the "angry dad" I have never wanted to be.

Did I mention that he makes me tired and often frustrates my best efforts to be a "cool dad".

He also defeated the play yard keeping him out of my work area forcing me to consider moving my office behind closed (and locked) doors and making it so I can't work while I am with the rest of the family now. He had the run of the whole downstairs and I had just fenced off a small area… but thats not good enough, he has to have access to everything or he will hurt himself trying to get to it. This will also mean that I will have less time to work and will need to stay up later at night to keep my clients happy.

In addition to that, defeated a fence that I built to prevent him from crawling under our deck through a hole a tree and bush grow out of. He just kicked it apart ignoring me while I was asking him to stop. (it only took seconds) I now need a more sturdy solution, which is crazy because he will only be in danger of getting "stuck" under there for the next 6 months to a year. I think I may just toss some sand bags in the hole or something.

I think he is changing me. I am now a protector in a world that doesn't really respect protectors. A man forced to "set rules" for a lovable and irrepressible Dennis the menace. A squasher of freedom and joy. The "MAN", The foil of 75% of all sit-coms, a curmudgeon, an increasingly stoic pillar of authority, an out of touch fool to be gradually more and more despised over time... in a word, Father.

Crash Report

2011-01-28T15:27:00.000-08:00

Adobe has detected that the application Photoshop has unexpectedly quit.

Problem description:

I deactivated a used font and switched to PS then slected the text to change the font to something else and PS crashed hard. I had been doing the same thing several times before but instinctivly changing the font first to a placeholder in PS before deactivating it, but I thought, "Thats silly its 2011 PS can handle such things in an elagant way by now"...

: )

But more importantly I have other problems with PS...
My first copy of PS came on floppy, I have owned PS for close to 2 decades and dutifully upgraded it over and over. As you look into this problem, Please also consider doing something about the fact that anyone with even a casual interest can acquire a cracked copy of PS, learn it, never purchase it, compete with a small business like mine by using it, and yet I see little benefit from my long time loyalty, sometimes paying three times the going rate of any functional PS replacement just to upgrade.

Speaking of those modestly priced PS replacements, most have come and gone over the years not because they were necessarily inferior (although admittedly not as feature rich) but they likely failed because adobe has such a lock on the category and sets the price purposely high completely aware that it will encourage piracy on the low end of users and thus making any such alternatives redundant to a "free" copy of PS acquired from an acquaintance or online. Adobe wins in the long run from lack of viable competition and selling expensive licenses to businesses that can easily afford them. Meanwhile, independent people like myself who want to own the tools they use find it increasing illogical to continue paying the somewhat outrageous upgrade fees and feel tempted to search for pro level alternatives.

When someone pays such a premium for a product (the most expensive piece of software many individuals will ever buy) it should come with an expectation of added value. In my oppinion you should have been tracking us long time users all along and finding ways to keep us happy, but something tells me you don't even know or care who we are. I certainly expect to have more value from my sizable expense over the years than the people that I believe you expect to steal (while inflating my price) the product. Largely my value using PS is the same as someone that never pays for it. None of which would be grating to me except for the fact that I strongly believe your company is aware of all this and that it is part of your business model.

I would guess that an honest internal breakdown of your customers would look something like this:
Corporate accounts: 90% of users purchase a license (actively enforced I would bet)

Medium sized: business 50%-60% of users purchase a license ( not worth enforcing, guilt driven I imagine)

Small business: maybe 25% of users purchase a license (a small percentage will pay even if the price is too high out of a sense of honestly. Being in this category makes me feel like you see us as "suckers")

Enthusiasts: 2% of users purchase a license (so many people "have" PS that it is dominant, and thats the way Adobe likes it. God forbid people refer to editing images as something other than "photoshoping".

Students: 30% of users purchase a license (hell even with healthy student discounts I doubt most non graphic design students purchase PS, but I bet a huge number of them have a copy).

So, every time Photoshop crashes and I lose even a few minutes of work these are the sort of things I think about. So thats the "bug" I would prefer your company address before anything else.

Proudly Owning Your Identity Seems To Be A Lost Concept

2011-01-10T11:56:00.000-08:00

I recently read this article about unique internet ID's Americans.

I am not completely opposed to such a system but I wish wholeheartedly that the internet had evolved in such a way that made it feel less nessasary. For years I have argued that people needed to "be themselves" online and act the same way as you would in ANY public space. The alternative, I argued, would be that "the powers that be" (corporations and governments) would use the various forms of rampant bad behavior as an excuse to bring down the hammer on the open system we have enjoyed. The amusing thing is just how many people assume that because they use a "nick" (as we called them in the old days) that they would be forever separated from their actions online. I won't go into the detail, but I have always believed that data mining was too tempting to let much of ANY data that may be useful now or in the future vanish or ever really be erased. I assume that every digital bread crumb I have ever dropped is stored SOMEWHERE and that it is simply a matter of time before all that data is sold, traded, stolen, and eventually collected in one place to be de-anonymized with frighting accuracy.

Some reading on that...
wired

microsoft de-anonymize

Fear the ubercookies!

Geo location data in uploaded pictures is FUN!...

The bottom line is...
I believe that for the vast majority of users, being anonymous online is an illusion. I am not saying that rare people might be able to cover their tracks, but I would bet that many people that THINK they are good at it, are actually not that great. My guess is that a good, modern private investigator could pinpoint most online posters with some ease.

What is surprising to me is how different my feelings on this seem to be in comparison to so many people.

Reading the comments attached to that article are mind blowing...
"I have a right to anonymity. It's the same as the right to privacy."
" There's no F__KING way in hell that he or anyone else in the government is taking away my RIGHT to anonymity"
"Anonymity is what drives the internet."
"Just cause it's not in the Constitution doesn't mean it's not a right."
"Quit living by a piece of paper and make your own rights based on being a living, thinking, feeling human being with good sense!"

Yeah those last two get me. People are making up their own "rights" and treating them as if they were law. Now I agree that basic rights may go beyond everything we have thought to right down... but no way does going by mrfluffypants69 on a forum count as a basic human right. That is just a strange idea. Yes I am aware of the political uses of being anonymous, but I don't think that people reporting human rights violations from some hellish dictatorship consider it a "RIGHT". I think they are just glad that their oppressive governments have not yet found a way to stop it. Did a guy in the 60's broadcasting on a ham radio about how terrible things were in Eastern Crapistan see it as a right? No, I think he was just glad that he didn't get caught.

At what point did people feel it was a right to be anonymous online? Clearly it's a culture and society based thing that has shifted dramatically over the last couple of decades. Not many older people expect to be able to say any crazy or hurtful thing you want in a public place and get away with it.

Say for example you threatened to kill someone in an ad you took out in the news paper, The police would likely be at your door asking you a few questions regardless if you posted your name or not. (The paper would never print it in the first place but lets say it slipped by...) Our culture would never get mad at the newspaper or the cops for maintaining the right to expose a person who did such a thing was. I don't even think anyone taking out such an ad would expect to remain anonymous, unless they were kinda dull witted.

Do you have the right to shout whatever you want in a crowded park? If you said loudly that you thought some under age person was sexually attractive, or that you planed to do harm a specific person, or even property, would you not expect to face some reprisal?

Here is an experiment. Go about your daily routine one saturday. Go to the store, take the kids to a park, go see a movie, shop around at the mall for a while, hit a few bars if thats your thing... but do it all wearing a mask and REFUSE to take it off claiming its your right to be anonymous. THAT should be fun. Personally I don't see much difference

So even though we have clearly defined rules of civilized behavior, people ignore those rules online and expect impunity as if it were a RIGHT! In fact many people clearly state that they feel being anonymous online IS, without question, a right as if it was granted by some recent legislation or covered under some existing privacy law. *blink* *Blink* Is it me, or would privacy laws (if they applied at all) only make sense if you didn't POST the information in the first place. In other words you were the one that said or did the crazy thing online. You MADE it public! Perhaps I am naive about the law (It would not surprise me) but this seems to be common sense.

So... As I see it, you are linked to what you say and do by thousands and thousands of years of tradition and developing laws. Pretending you can be a virtual version of yourself and do whatever you want is just fantasy. The only reason that people have gotten away with it up to this point is that it wasn't cost effective to control it. Now that computing power is cheap enough, peoples behavior is altered beyond any hope of putting the genie back in the bottle by decades of false belief that they were "magically invisible", and databases are full to a point of glut from people believing they are not exposing themselves, its time to start locking down the system and cashing in. People will think they are having freedoms removed... no sorry I really don't think anyone in a position of power ever intended to let you keep those privileges.

I’m not a nerd. I used to be one...

2010-12-29T22:03:00.000-08:00

Thats the opening statement in a recent essay by Patton Oswalt. My friend Rich pointed it out to me and that first line realy caught my attention because it was very close to something I have been saying for years.

In fact, I have been meaning to make a post about how I am an "Anti Geek", A selective geek that denies being a nerd/geek and since I don't refer to myself in those terms and don't embrace ALL geek touchstones. I am shunned by current geek culture. This essay gave me new insights into that phenomenon and I hope to make that post soon. But in the meantime, here are my thoughts on Mr. Oswalts article itself.

Wake Up, Geek Culture. Time to Die

I copied the text and listened to "Wake Up, Geek Culture. Time to Die" on my smartphone using a text to speech app I purchased for $2... (I think there is much to be said about THAT as it relates to the essay and I leave you to ponder the ramifications).

Many have been witness to my strong opinions about "geek culture" and how I have sought to avoid that label even though I love select things that are considered VERY geeky.

I agree with much of what he is saying, but believe he is glossing over a larger picture. Aspects of counter culture have ALWAYS been cherry picked by pop culture as they became "ripe"... Its just simply geek cultures turn. Its funny because he seems to set the dates for the beginning of the harvest a bit later than me. He blames the internet for the rapid acceleration, and I agree... But I would go much further back and say it really got rolling with the introduction of widely available cable television, home gaming, and home computing in general. As an example, I would most likely have complained about someone his age (he is only slightly younger than me) being the reason for good arcades closing because he was willing to sit at home and play sub standard home versions of the games! "Grumble Grumble! Spend a damn quarter ya cheapskate kid!" It's interesting, but because of big technology shifts, just those few birthdays probably mean that he and I had a vastly different teenage experience. In my oppinion, Geekdom was already on the upswing in popularity by the time he hit his teen years.

Also, later, but before the internet, publishing was in on the spread and dressing up of the techie underground to the mainstream. I was reader of Mondo 2000 (The Authoritative & Scholarly Journal of Cyberpunk Subculture) and during its run beginning in 1989, it could be found on many "fully stocked" magazine racks in pretty mainstream bookstores. It was freaky and tried hard to make things that had once been the realm of pure geeks, ultra fashionable. Look at these covers... http://www.mondo2000.net/ Notice anything? heh. Smart drugs, Hot scientists and Virtual reality where already on the lips of many "normal" people through the power of the hot chick on the magazine cover.

Of course, Geek culture is not the first counter culture to be "adopted" by the masses, but it may be the final one... there are few sub culture berries left to pick. Much like getting chosen for sports teams, seems like the geeks may have been picked last.

Convention for the horrifically yet proudly deformed

2010-10-19T04:58:00.000-07:00

Now thats an unusual dream...

I was walking through a dark and stylish hotel filled with creatures that looked as if human skeletons had been resized and rearranged in every conceivable way, then organs replaced in them at whim and finally, skin tightly stretched over the results. All this with no regard for wether the resulting construct would constitute a viable living being. These convention goers were mostly nude and displaying themselves to each other with delight at their great diversity of form. The handful that had working genitalia were very proud of themselves and demanded a lot of attention. Some smaller participants were in ornate glass cabinets but it was clear that they were not prisoners, instead, it was for their protection as they needed a more pure environment to survive.

I wasn't fearful, just astounded. The setting was beautiful and richly ornate. None of the creatures seemed to be unhappy... But I DO recall that they had a little display, like a model of many identical six inch high beings doing some type of forced labor and the plaque beneath it read "Abused" I took it to be some sort of memorial to a less enlightened time when "normal" people had taken advantage of a population of them.

I am sure the dream means nothing other than that my "internal storyteller" is a creepy little fellow.

Sounds like my "external storyteller" should work that up into a short story someday...

Shaun The Sheep Is GREAT!

2010-10-04T18:01:00.000-07:00

Oh wait now it sucks...

I have a 2 year old and I am building a library of quality entertainment for him on a server so that he won't be exposed to broadcast TV (and advertising) for a while. I was so happy discover that Shaun The Sheep had his own TV show and that it was so great! I started buying up episodes of season one and it is really stunning! Like mini episodes of Wallace and Gromit! They are subtle, funny and completely non verbal. The characters tell the story with hand gestures, eye rolls, and body language. One of the best shows I have come across for him yet!

So Last night when I found a new DVD that we did not have yet and I snagged it with glee. I popped it in today and I got my first taste of season 2. I will now stop collecting...

I am so disheartened. What happened?! Not only are the characters less endearing, but the color palate of the whole world is super saturated, the players express emotions with much more broad and clownish facial expressions, the once beautiful pastoral farm sets now lack detail (the junk heap that the sheep always pull resources from to build stuff is now less "junky" for example), even the grass looks bad! WHY would Aardman do this to such an amazing show?!

Cost I imagine played a big role. Lots of changes seem to involve not using clay but instead using what looks like foam rubber. I believe that the new lines around the mouths on the charters of The Farmer and Bitzer allow them to switch mouths instead of whole heads to speed animation. Still many of the other changes just confuse and sadden me. Constant "rasberry" blowing has replaced the eye roll, glower, and "sheepish look" that were more common in season one. I get the feeling that they were under pressure to make it more accessible to a larger audience (profitable) and in doing so they have crushed out much of the charm.

I think kids crave some realism, not everything needs to look like a candy wrapper. This new art direction is a mistake. One thing I noticed that most people may overlook is that the ever present poo adorning the fields of season one is now gone... I guess in this new reality Shaun and the other sheep have stopped going to the baaathroom. (sorry about that)

I am dying to know the behind the scenes story as to why this gem has become so... average. I am searching for an explanation.

I am sure Wallace and Gromit are safe from such de-evolution... so at least we will can look forward to future high quality shorts and movies involving those characters.

Son, you can't throw your toys...

2010-09-19T07:20:00.001-07:00

Jamieson is 21 months old now and much has happened in that time. But suffice to say he is still often cranky and is going through the "terrible twos" early. Thats pretty much par for course with him, he seems advanced in so many ways.

Yesterday I was trying to talk to him about throwing his toys (I sternly told him not to throw his toys in the house, put him down, and turned my back on him) and he had a pretty bad meltdown. Now when it's just he and I, we work this sort of thing out and often he is mostly over in a short time. I always still feel like a jerk for having made him cry, but I also get over it eventually. This time however, was different. We are staying at Katy's parents house and he has had more freedom and far less lessons of this nature for over a week. He has been quite pampered and had few restrictions. People just want to keep him happy and I understand that. So when I decided to put my foot down about behavior we are trying to shape in a positive way, he did NOT like it. He screamed bloody murder in front of both of Katy's parents and her brother and nothing I did could calm him down. He just kept crying Moma over and over, which tears me up inside because it is something I imagine I would have done when I was a little boy and was frightened by my awful father.

Earlier in the day he had tried to grab my glasses off my face and when he would not let go after a long negotiation, I pried them out of his hands. This made him mad and he beat me up pretty good (scratching at my eyes, slapping and pulling out hair. he is really fast) right in front of everyone at the breakfast table. I was stunned as I often am and could not react fast enough because it takes me a while to collect myself and deal with the fact that my baby wants to hurt me. Katy scooped him up out of my arms and carried him off to give him the same stern "no no" and turn away treatment leaving me sitting there disheveled and trying not to sob.

So my grand attempt to show what a good dad I was, that I could handle tough situations, and be consistent with the messages we are sending him, turned into about the most embarrassing and heartbreaking scenario I can imagine. It could have gone many ways, the best outcome would have been for him to asked to be picked up and hug me in some golden light Norman Rockwell father son moment... I never expected that, I would not have been so lax all week in regards to his lessons if I thought that would happen. No, I knew their would be tears and I knew he would be mad at me for telling him he could not do something. So, I knew it was a gamble, but I didn't expect to loose so completely and utterly.

Confused By Your Dazziling Hubris

2010-07-25T10:52:00.000-07:00

I hate to be the fly in the ointment. I don't want it to be true… But I can not stand by and let a talent go unrecognized while the people that profited by taking what was his are held up as god-like heros.

Well, meet Jake Homes I have only heard two songs that he recorded back in the late 60's but so far I dig the music he did back then very much… I will certainly be seeking out more. If his recordings from that time are still in print… I will be buying them. The reason being, he wrote one of the most recognizable rock songs of the last few decades… and very few people know it. See if this sounds familiar.

Thats right, back in 1967 Jake Holmes wrote a song called "Dazed and Confused", a song that sounds very similar to led Zeppelins Dazed and Confused.

Here is the history as I understand it… (I don't claim to really know, please poke around and draw your own conclusions, )
Holmes opened for the Yardbirds in 1967 while talented young Jimmy Page was in that band.

The Yardbirds then started to perform a version of the song as written by Jake Holmes (with his lyrics) on stage. Its a straight cover with more instrumentation and some added guitar interludes (as you would expect). A year later The Yardbirds have disbanded.

Jimmy Page then forms Led Zeppelin, and records "their" Dazed and Confused The lyrics are somewhat different but it is clearly the same song. Not only does he not credit Jake Holmes, but denies ever hearing the original… The original song that there are recordings of him PLAYING.

Apparently there are many examples of Led Zeppelin doing similar things… I am not on a wicth hunt here. Some people will point to very weak examples and as a musician I understand that creating something never happens in a vacuum, but this is also pretty damming…

Honestly, that example made me greatly sad. How fucking hard would it have been for them to give credit? Share in the glory of their accomplishment in some small way? I understand the reason. Fear. Scared young men afraid that they were not good enough to live up to the hype they and their record company had created. Its not like a line of text on an album cover would have made them any less successful or famous. What it MIGHT have done however is cast doubt on the illusion that they were somehow extraordinary geniuses.

What pitiful weaklings that use, yet blatantly don't honor the talents of others.

You and your iPad

2010-01-29T19:46:00.000-08:00

I have been thinking about pad computing over the last few days. I am fond of saying that I have needed a hand held computer for decades and I finally got the right one in my iPhone. So when people started complaining that the iPad was "just" a big, fast, iPhone... I honestly started to wonder what it was that they were complaining about.

Yes, as an old school power user I would have liked to have some more ports, multitasking and I would have liked to have a camera, but I understand that I am not the main audience for such a device and I don't see any of these things as destroying it's potential.

Off the top of my head I have has some ideas of who could use this thing right away...

Education (small children)
Flash Cards, Maps, Games, Science apps (Starmap!), Music Apps

Higher Education
Note taking, Lecture recording, TEXTBOOKS!!!

Book Reading
(I will never bring a laptop to bed... I WILL break it). (I understand the whole digital ink debate, but I know people who lie in bed reading text on their iPhone so until there is a Digital ink LCD hybrid device I think many of us will stick with a multi-funtion LCD based device.)

Tethered Photography (Apps and adaptors pending)

Universal Cookbook (Laptops are bad for this in comparison, imagine yours in the kitchen)

Picture Frame (While charging)

Time sheets, other record keeping/logging

Musical instruments (Musical input device)

Medical Use (Doctors can face us again while updating our records)

Then I started thinking of all the "one trick pony" devices that may not be needed if you had an iPad...
Here is my quick list of things the iPad could potentially replace that only do one thing, or are much more limited, and in some cases are much more expensive.

Yamaha Tenori-On LED Performance Instrument - $999.99
Cintiq 12wx - $999.99
(I would have to see if the stylus for the iPad that is available works worth a damn)
Tranzport Wireless DAW Remote Control - $199.99
Sony Reader Daily Addition - $399.99
Archos - 5 16GB Internet Media Tablet - $299
Harmony® 1100 Advanced Universal Remote - $399.99
(The iPad lacks RF and would need Wifi to RF hardware but I bet a company could make a cheap little box)
HP DreamScreen 100 10.2" Wi-Fi Digital Photo Frame - $249.99

Then there is the cheap ass software! I have filled my iPhone with games and fun and even useful stuff for almost no money... Most of the apps I got for free due to the competition between developers and their tendency to put stuff on sale. A person buying an iPad would not likely have to pay much for software.

People seem to want it to be a replacement for netbooks. Well it's not a netbook. people who buy netbooks want small computers. I think people who will buy an iPad are people who want to buy an appliance. Or the occasional power user who wants to ride on their coat tails and will use the device beyond what it was intended for.

This thing is very close to the promise of a low complexity computer for the masses, based on touch and simple well behaved apps. Don't be pissy because it was not made to suit your particular needs... be happy for the people that WILL get a lot out of it, and, if you want... have fun with it until the pro version come out.

Just remember, If its a failure, Apple or some other company may not make the reasonably priced, totally open, 3rd generation or knockoff of your dreams someday.

***Update***
My wife and I had and interesting discussion and I realized that much of the backlash against the iPad might be attributed to technically savvy people being annoyed at Apple for not building the "high end" version FIRST, but instead having the gall to build a simple and elegant device aimed at non technical people BEFORE they built one for them. These type of folks are used to it working the other way around. They get the cool new thing with all the bells and whistles and maybe a few years later if they "bless" it, then and only then does it trickle down to the masses. Apple has skipped that tradition and just made something that could go right into the hands of grandpa with zero advice or tech support from the wizards on the hill.

The wizards are angered and they are casting magic missile at the iPad.

I Should Just Never Sleep

2009-12-29T00:09:00.000-08:00

Adapted from a nightmare I had tonight:

I knew HE was coming again but I was older and wiser now. I could call upon all the guile that 33 years since it had happened now afforded me. I could not let him steal the same things from you.

I ran down the wet street my strides seeming smaller as I ran and he chased me, I turned up the narrow street of the old city and past the men I had hired to intercept him... and I kept running. I heard them call out through the light rain "we will take care of this one... run along now" I knew that you would soon be safe from him... and I kept running. I was smaller now for sure.

Eventually I made it to the doorway of the shop. The man who was the boss of the other men I had hired, greeted me in gleeful haste asking if I had the components for him... I reached into the pockets of the coat that was now so large on me and pulled out the package for him. He didn't need to mix anything or chant, he just kicked open an azure painted wall to reveal a contraption which had a large wheel that he cranked twice with grand, fluid gestures. Then he tossed my package in the top and the sky opened up making the street even more wet and filling the air with a loud hiss from the hard rain. Even with all the noise when he leaned in close and spoke I could hear him as if it was snowing instead. "it's done, he is gone. The one you were protecting is safe."

I sat down in the chair he offered me rain falling on us both. I was so small now, so helpless and young, very hansom in my youth like I used to be... like you would be some day. "Do you hear the music coming from upstairs? Would you like to come up for a while and get dry?" Something was wrong with me... I was having trouble moving or speaking. I started to tell him that I was leaving but he reached out and I recoiled and froze as he touched my face... I could not move and I was falling backwards in my chair at an impossibly slow rate. I now understood that the money I had paid was only part of the price... I was helpless, powerless, young, beautiful and in the control of another man with no empathy for my horror.

I felt myself being carried away... but I knew you were safe.

Creepy I know... But thats how my brain works when I fall asleep in my office chair!

Crafty Spartan

2009-12-11T18:34:00.000-08:00

Where the lion's skin falls short it must be eked out with the fox's.
—Lysander
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysander

Technology Run Amok!

2009-11-30T08:08:00.000-08:00

Actually it is kinda cool... It would have been cooler used in a Laurie Anderson show though. heh.

Questions on symmetry and the Alhambra

2009-11-04T08:29:00.000-08:00

I wanted to jot down some notes about something I want to teach Jamieson someday and I am too tired to do the research right now... I worked all night and need to nap while I can so I can take care of him when he wakes up shortly so I am posting my questions/notes here for "future Doc" to remember and answer.

Who Was the scientist that described Symmetry?

How many total symmetries are there?

Did the moorish artists find all the possible Symmetries?

When was it built?

Did the Alhambra pre-date the science of symmetry and by how much?

Was Esher inspired by the Alhambra or other structures like it?

From Wikipedia:
M. C. Escher's visit in 1922 inspired his following work on regular divisions of the plane after studying the Moorish use of symmetry in the Alhambra tiles.

Aesop's Fables

2009-10-28T20:39:00.000-07:00

Today I wondered if children still read these or if they are considered passe, boring or just plain out of date for the real world. I mean hell, they are over 140 charters long and the graphics SUCK!

I hope they are still taught. I recall that they shaped my thinking quite a bit as a young person. It might help to explain some of the difference in attitudes I see in myself when compared to people younger than me if they had fallen out of common use. By that I mean that sometimes I seem pretty extreme compared to the more relaxed and sometimes more "reasonable for modern times" mores of others. I wish I didn't worry so much about paying for the software and media I use and consume for example. But I do.

As I recall, we sort of lived and died by them as a kid. We read them all the time and studied what they were meant to teach. I wonder if schools would even do that now. Is that crossing a line these days? I guess I will find out soon enough. : )

But I won't wait. I plan to reacquaint myself with the dear old Aesop and introduce my son to the fables as soon as it is appropriate.

http://aesopfables.com/aesopsel.html
http://www.aesops-fables.org.uk/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesop's_Fables

Bakery Lies

2009-06-12T15:57:00.001-07:00

Muffins are merely cupcakes that offer the person consuming them some measure of plausible deniability.

Oh Noes! The Web May Not Be Free For Me To Harrass People!

2009-05-11T08:37:00.000-07:00

Yeah, well it never was...

People are in a bunch over a bill that attempts to address "cyber bullying". Yes, as does most attempts to police the web, it has flaws... and probably should never have been drafted. Here is a thought. Use the existing laws and social norms to stop people who hide behind false identity and anonymity on the web to harass people.

All it would take is for us to admit that IT'S NOT REALLY NEW OR DIFFERENT! The web is not magic... good lord, people read to much William Gibson or something! "Ha Ha! I have done something vile but you will never find me because I have escaped into the INTERNET!" : )

It is just a way of communicating... in a few years it will be as thrilling as a CD ROM.

Here is my post to people up in arms over it on a popular news aggregation site...

Regardless of foolish attempts at legislation, I believe that the distinction should be that you never say anything that you would not say directly to a persons face or in a public place... hiding behind a false persona on the internet just proves cowardice. Only the people that post know for sure if what they type is really in their "own voice". If people took the time to be honest with themselves then we would not have gotten to this point.

For 15 years I have argued for more civilized behavior on the web as I have watched people become more brazen and spiteful. Saying crap and even pulling stunts that simply intend to injure others. The web could have REMAINED open and free longer before this sort of thing started... but what so many people don't get is that the stupid ass "wild west" behavior is one thing that will be used as an excuse to eventually bring down the hammer. Look at history and you will see examples.

Do you think THIS technology is beyond control? (from the comments here I can see many do) Sadly, no... powerful people are just waiting for the right time to take control of it. Most likely when it will make a small hand full of those people the most money to lock it down. At that time the law will be brought into play to suit their needs... and not just in the U.S. The crazy thing is... many people who use the web are giving them all the ammunition they need.

Mark my words, as we speak, interesting information about you and everything you have ever uttered on the internet is being collected by several entities. Hell, most people are GIVING it to commercial databases. How many "top 5 surveys" have you taken this month? Even if you are sorta careful and they have not de-anonymized your 16 different online "personalities" now... they will in the future. The data is too intriguing and valuable. Never before in history have so many people revealed so much about themselves. When people act badly... that is useful not from a marketing standpoint... but from a control standpoint. "THINK OF THE CHILDREN!" But then, its hard to see them as evil since you can hardly blame them for using the club that the users of the web put in their hands. Ugh.

Do a search for "de-anonymize" and consider that if the University Of Texas is doing this publicly, think about what the capabilities of more nefarious organizations might be.

Good luck everyone... and remember to play nice.

Pulling back the curtain on "anonymous" Twitterers

Oh, and by cross posting that, I just TOTALY de-anonymized myself! lol Thats all it takes. Posting any portion of my own text in 2 places would be a HUGE ping in an engine designed to figure out who people on "popular news aggregation sites" are. : )

I don't care HOW careful you are... some unfeeling piece of software will figure out all your secrets someday... best to plan ahead and act accordingly.

My Pad Computer Gets VOIP

2009-04-19T15:55:00.000-07:00

OK so this is weird... I can download an application to my "phone" that lets me make calls over the internet bypassing the people I buy phone service from!

Meet the Skype iPhone client! (iTunes store link... while there be sure to buy a copy of this jewel.)

A year ago, I would not have thought that skype would have been allowed into the app store in ANY form, ever... but it happened. The fact that AT&T managed to keep the calls off G3 is only the spasm of a dying business model in my opinion. (You need to make Skype calls from a wifi connection) They see the writing on the wall, Apple has changed the game and that thing in your hand is not just a phone... With growing dexterity, its whatever you need it to be at the moment. In the near future AT&T will mostly get their money, from selling you the connection you need to make that "anything device" work. Phone service? Text Messaging? Say those phrases over and over and they start to sound really old and silly, like something a guy in a fedora would be trying to sell you door to door.

140? Why so many... Pft.

2009-03-24T10:25:00.000-07:00

This animation comes close to my feelings on twitter... Its really damn funny, Check it out!

"Twouble with Twitter" sous-titré
by LePostfr

I mostly tweet about the futility of tweeting.

The video takes some funny jabs at tweeting, but it misses a big one in my book. I am most annoyed by the fact that twitter sets the new standard of "important thoughts" at 140 characters. I find it nearly impossible to convey all the information necessary to complete a statement in a 140 character "tweet". Take the post I made this morning.

"The moby wrap still works really well to put Jamieson to sleep but unfortunatly its just too hot for he and I to use for very long now."

Now that note is missing some key information! I think Jamieson has inherited my "warm blooded" nature and he seems to get warm fast, and I would also have liked to include the time of year that we are having to stop using it and that we could have used the wrap year round in some place other than the dreaded Texas. Someone reading this out of context might simply think I don't like the something about the Moby wrap... but the opposite is true, I love the thing and I am sad that I have to put it away due to the place I live.

So the choice is to leave out detail or use a Tarzan like shorthand.

"Moby wrap good for putting Jamieson to sleep, but its too hot for us to use for long. March + Texas + Warm baby wraped on warm daddy = bad" (138 ugh)

Honestly, I think that the idea that most thoughts can be fully formed in 140 characters brings us one step closer to ushering in an era of sub verbal grunt based communication.

Get ready.

I remember these!

2009-03-15T21:49:00.000-07:00

They came on right after the smurfs, but it only lasted for like one season.

Just kidding... Its a parody, add it to the collection with Watchnuts and Watchmen babies. : )

Unimplemented t-shirt idea #482

2009-03-12T23:25:00.000-07:00

I have wanted to design a t-shirt for many years that reads... "I used to be angst ridden, now I'm just curmudgeonly."

Maybe if I wore t-shirts I would be more inspired to actually get them made when I have ideas for them...

Hulu Asks Boxee To Not Be A Browser...

2009-02-21T06:51:00.000-08:00

Thats about the size of it. it would be the same as if Internet Explorer became really good at displaying and organizing media and Hulu said to them "Oh, wow that makes our content providers uncomfortable... can you stop?"

Here is the story from their respective blog posts:
http://blog.boxee.tv/
blog.hulu/doing-hard-things

And here is the post I made at the hulu.com user message boards:

I just wanted to say that even if Hulu never returns to boxee, I will STILL be dropping my cable service. I will make due with content from other sources that remain available via Boxee. (long live Netflix!) I think many other users like me are tired of being treated so poorly and having ridiculous bundling packages forced down our throats. I honestly believe that cable and satellite companies could have used their influence, wealth and power to make something like Hulu/Boxee happen MANY years ago and they and the content providers could have had absolute control over it... But they were all too driven by greed and ended up treating their customers like they were morons.

Well I am afraid that after a long wait, the genie is out of the bottle and under the command of the customers. No matter how you try to shove him back in, he will slip through your fingers like so much pink smoke. If these moves manage to damage Boxee, what is to stop someone from creating a free "Hulu viewer" based on open source browser code with many of the same advantages? And maybe these people won't have the same respect for the imbedded advertising and will find some way to allow users to mask it? Perhaps THAT will become the standard for how people view Hulu on a "living room monitor"

And not to beat a dead horse, but as many others have mentioned there is the piracy issue, hopefully I can ad a slightly different perspective. As a musician, photographer and short film maker, I don't want to see file sharing become the standard of our society because ultimately it leaves little room for small independents and creators of genuinely unique content to monetize due to the fact that it creates a culture that lacks respect for creative people. (It helps to dislike the people you steal from and think of them all as rich and arrogant even if that clearly is not true.) But if people behind this move continue with the old way of thinking... more and more people will be lead down the wrong path and everyone who creates and consumes media will suffer in the long run.

So on the constructive side, can I ask why not create a separate stream for TV bound browsers like boxee (there will eventually be many...) and pop in a few more ads? I doubt many of us would mind, as long as it stayed well below the ridiculous amount of broadcast TV. Most of us understand the unspoken contract of "TV" is that the ads pay for the content and that it has never been "Free" no matter what an Alec Bladwin shaped alien says. (BTW, thanks for propagating the myth amongst young people that they somehow "deserve" free TV. It makes it much harder to argue the point that TV has a price and that downloading is wrong to a young teenager when a TV star/alien told him that TV was free. : P) --I sincerely hope this can be resolved, and thank you for reading.

Without Hulu Boxee is quite hobbled, but I expect it to be worked out. I am serious though. I will just do without Hulu if they don't kiss and make up. The cable companies had decades to find a solution that made sense and they squandered my trust... now let them be regulated to what they really are... a utility. And just like my water, trash, electric and gas... I expect that internet connection to be fast and on all the time.

I have seen the future of "TV" and it shall be be know as BOXEE!

2009-02-11T15:01:00.000-08:00

Or at least if its not THE future, it at least has a real good shot at getting installed in a LOT of entertainment centers in the coming years.

The ultra short version of this post...
Go to this link and get Boxee. It is really cool, play around with it and give it enough time so that you really get a feel for the potential of it. You will thank me.

Boxee home page

OK, for those of you with a bit more attention/time...

About 6 months ago I got into an alpha test of a media application called Boxee and started playing with it. I quickly realized it was the thing I had been waiting for. For quite some time now I have thought that Cable and broadcast television were dying slow deaths and I had began looking for a way to do away with then once and for all. Also I want to present any video content for our new son Jamieson in a more controlled fashion. I want to own the programs he is allowed to watch and have them stored locally. Mainly so that he is exposed to as little advertising as possible for the first several years of his life. After several less than perfect attempts at a solution fell flat. I finally became aware of boxee and I got to tell you its been great! Just about everyone I have shown Boxee to has thought it was revolutionary and several people have installed it after getting a tour of what it could do over at the house. Its quite amusing to me that it has taken someone so long to something like this so well! Honestly, I started imagining a product with many of these capabilities a very long time ago.

OK, so what IS Boxee?

The best way to describe it is that it is a "media browser" that is designed for your TV. If you are fimilliar with apples front row then you can put boxee in that class of product. BUT Boxee is very extensible and powerful! it playes TONS of media formats and handles streaming from the enternet like a pro. Do you like Like Hulu? boxee can be your front end for Hulu. Have some DVDs you ripped? Boxee understands those files and lets you play them without conversion. Want yo go to CNN.com and see the top stories? not a problem. Do you like Lost? Navigate over to ABC.com's channel in boxee and watch episodes. Got pictures on flickr that you want to show off in a fancy slide show? Covered! In fact you can view you friends flickr accounts also! And here is the big one... Netflix! Yup, you can pull up your netflix account and start an instant play movie or TV show any time you want. I am currently working my way through the second season of Dead Like Me. and Katy and I burned through all of the first season of 30 Rock recently. The combination of a netflix account, and streamed shows from services like Joost and Hulu and you are pretty covered as far as watching a huge variety of shows. The selection seems to be growing rapidly too!

So, another way to look at it is that Boxee is like a cable guide... for a bunch of differently formated stuff thats spread out all over the web, on your local drives, or on a household server.

So why is Boxee important?
Because it brings all that crazy stuff together under one simple interface... that you can work with a REMOTE!

Die Cable Die!

Cable has killing itself by treating its customers like idiots and doggedly refusing to introduce services that would meet their changing needs. Why in the hell do I still need to buy a huge package of channels in order to get the half dozen I am actually interested in?! For gods sake! It's the 21st century! The year 2009! Even new services like AT&T universe STILL bundle content in ridiculous ways. What could possibly be motivating them to continue these seriously outdated practices? Well thats a rhetorical question... it makes them money and they can get away with it.

This situation is so bad that I believe (as many people do) that it actually contributes to piracy. People don't want to be limited to what they watch and when. Just give me the things I am in the mood for and make it simple for me to find them!

Arg! hey... where are you all going? don't you guys want to play pirates anymore?
People have taken it into their own hands to use the available technology to do just what I described above. hook an inexpensive computer up to your TV get a decent internet connection and a bittorrent client and you CAN bybass the traditional methods of content delivery altogether. Sites and services like Hulu and ABC.com have come into being partly due to the realization by the content creators that if they did not give fans of their shows options in how to receive them other than cable... they would simply download them from the file sharing communities and at that point they would lose all control of the delivery and also lose any opportunity to be compensated fairly through the the inclusion of advertising.

More and more people have been unwilling to continue playing the sucker to the cable companies when such a simple alternative was available, even if that alternative is questionable in its "morality". The way we pay for TV has always been a simple contract that most people clearly understand. You watch a show and no matter how hard you try you WILL see some ads and the people that made the show get paid. But as it got simpler and simpler to get shows and movies in a modern on demand fashion via file sharing and as cable companies doggedly resisted providing logical ways for people to find and get the content they wanted, more and more people justified downloading movies and TV shows. You might be surprised at the types of people that participate in file sharing, its a huge and rapidly growing trend... what could stop it? Making the content from legitimate sources MORE CONVENIENT than file sharing!

Boxee goes a long way to doing just that.

Your turn!
Try it, the alpha is now open to the public and its pretty easy to get started, especially if you don't mess with hooking it up to a TV and just watch on the computer screen. Just remember its designed to work with a remote so learn the keyboard commands before launching because it hides the cursor by default.

Trip To Grandmas House, incomplete...

2009-01-31T11:18:00.000-08:00

I am feeling heartbroken...

For months now I have wanted to write a short story about a trip I took when I was 16 or so that included a visit to my grandmother... I believe It was a defining moment in my life because she treated me like an adult and made me feel sophisticated. In retrospect, she always had to some degree and that meant a lot to me growing up. Just the artifacts she would have in her house inspired a sense of wonder, I remember being fascinated by the artwork she would have on the walls (originals signed by a real artist!) and the book titles on her shelf.

Well, with all the things going on in my life I just let the story bounce around in my head and it never came out. My 8 week old son Jamieson has been 3 times more demanding than I ever imagined... and I imagined he would be pretty darned demanding. I discussed the story with some people and was pleased to find that they had had the same types of experiences with Grandma Rose, clearly she touched many peoples lives in a very positive way.

So I don't feel like I got a chance to say the things that would really explain how much she meant to me. All I said when I got to talk to her on the phone was: "You have inspired me and I have always wanted to be more like you" and "I love you very much." I don't know, in hindsight it seems not to express all the things I wanted her to know...

So it saddens me a great deal that Rose didn't get a chance to hear the story before she passed away and now I feel like there is less of a point in writing it, but I feel like I should still do it, so I intend to try soon.

The written word and I are not really friends, we don't get along at all really so composing text is a chore that I literally despise... But these days, thats the only way to get your thoughts out and hope to be heard it seems.

It's not like people listen to song lyrics.

Early Days With Jamieson

2009-01-15T23:22:00.000-08:00

****note****
I just found this in my rough drafts. It is two years old when I am writing this note and I never posted it, I tend want things very chronological... so I am leaving a copy of it posted with the date it was started, and I am making a new post with updated notes published near the date I found it (march 2011).
******

What do you do when the two people you love most in the world are in conflict? Not just a normal conflict mind you, but a soul draining contest of endurance versus need that shakes everyone involved to the core and could be described as the hardest challenge any of you has ever faced.

You put yourself between them and try you best to absorb as much of the discomfort as you can take.

So combine those two things and you have a baby that requires a lot of attention.

these have been my goals over the last few weeks

1. Make it possible for Katy to go to bed at an early hour. (front load sleep)

Consumers Union Buys Consumerist!

2008-12-31T15:49:00.000-08:00

If you have followed my blog... (yes there are a few weird people out there) you may have seen my unsolisisied advice to consumer Reports post a while back...

Doc's Unsolicited Advice To Consumer Reports Post

In that post about how I took a survey for them and offered a long laundry list of how I felt they needed to get really aggressive or perish in the modern world. Here is a short snip:

I may be telling you a bunch of stuff you already know, but I never see a CR story listed on Digg for example. Now your in a tough spot due to the whole "information wants to be free" dogma that is sweeping our culture and how that is in serious conflict with how you do your work... so I guess you may have to let "some" of it go... a "short attention span version" of the reviews. Get them reading, then REALLY play up the direct support with no advertising angle and maybe even EXPOSE the hidden advertising and "gaming" (fixing ratings) on other sources that people seem oblivious too.

Now I am not suggesting that I personaly motivated this move but they seem to be doing exactly sort of thing I thing they I would suggest they do in order to get up to date, Like acquiring The Consumerist!. Maybe a lot of people are sending emails and including sharp tongued notes in their surveys. : )
Check out the story here... Consumers Union Buys Consumerist!

I love this website, they have been kicking ass in exactly the way I want a consumer advocacy

website to do. My only regret is that I haven't had time to read it MORE.

The possibility that the long time credibility and experience of CR could be influenced by the Consumerist staff and vice versa makes me feel kinda warm and fuzzy inside. It's the kinda thing that could POSSIBLY lead to very good things. At any rate, it can't be as bad as CR stagnating and becoming more obscure to younger people. Lets hope they are not just interested in The Consumerist as a cheap way to advertise...

I sincerely hope the see them as a resource for new ideas on how to use the web to fire people up about getting what you pay for and hold companies feet to the fire when they make crappy products.

More Unsolicited Advice For Consumer Reports

2008-12-31T15:37:00.000-08:00

Back in June I sent may this email which was a follow-up to the survey comments offered them back in April.

CR Staff,
I just wanted to let you know that I have attempted to use your website 4 times now and have unfortunately not found information on products I was interested in each time.

This last time was a bit confusing because I was using other sources of information and one review quoted Consumer Reports! I was overjoyed that my subscription would pay off and I could get good solid information without having to muck about on the web sifting through the shills and hype.

Imagine my surprise when I logged on only to find out that a search pulled up nothing. I narrowed my search and found an interesting page of content that WAS NOT on the site, with instructions on how to get it... The way it reads, it sounds like you would pay $7.95 for a back issue or if thats not available... you will get a photocopy of the story for that same $7.95.

My question is, why not encourage more people like me to keep their online subscriptions and just scan the reviews from the back issues into a library of PDFs accessible to subscribers? I don't want to have another traditional publication in the house, I am trying to reduce the number of magazines we get as it is. CR seems perfect to be subscribed to in an electronic form... as long as it takes advantage of the strengths of that medium like access to archived materials.

As I see it, my number one issue with CR is that every time I try to use it, the item I am looking for is not there. These are not crazy items either, the thing I signed up to get reviews on was electric toothbrushes! And the thing I could not find today was backyard mosquito traps. I love what you guys do, and I want to keep supporting it... but so far, I have personally received no value from the service. That can only go on for so long.

I am sure you have many smart people working on the website and that there is a plan that I am not seeing, but from my outside prospective, it just doesn't seem aggressive enough when compared to the "free" (and crappy) alternatives out in the world. I don't want to see a world ruled by blatant shills writing fake reviews... But I think in order for that to be averted, you guys need to start kicking some butt!

Sadly, I can't report that in the last 4 times I have tried to use the site, butt kicking has ensued...

Thanks for your ear,
Doc.

I think they are getting the message from people like me, some news today that would seem to be VERY good.

The Story Of Jamieson's Birth

2008-12-26T01:53:00.000-08:00

I have not been updating my blog... something has been taking a huge amount of my time recently... Actually he is asleep on my chest right now and I am typing at a weird angle. its 3:56pm. This is about normal for the last 2.5 weeks.

So as late as this post is, I want to get it up for posterity.

A strange thing happened in the delivery room while both my son and wife were having problems... A nurse asked me if I had a camera and if I wanted to take pictures! Know she may have known that the worst part was over or perhaps she was just trying to distract the increasingly distraught and now mostly useless dad... I thought she was crazy at the time, It was only later that I realized that most dads take a couple of "snappy happy" shots of the birth weight and such.

I am glad I got more of the story than that...

My Son Is Born

2008-12-15T13:38:00.000-08:00

I have been crazy busy this last week because I am now a dad...

Its a very sorted tale with lots of twists and turns but with all there is to do now I may not find the time to tell a complete story for quite a while... so here is a picture of him for now. : )

Prop 8 The Musical!

2008-12-05T14:44:00.000-08:00

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

So many stars all joined together to sing and dance a message of peace, love and commerce! Plus NPH!

A whole bucket of win.

Clever lyrics sneak back into Pop music?

2008-12-05T06:53:00.000-08:00

When I first heard Lilly Allen I detected something in the music and imagery that gave me a slight pause. She was unconventional in her attractiveness and I always think its great when the media machine allows a person that looks like they were not stamped from a mold sell records. Don't take that the wrong way, I think she is a very pretty young woman... She just is unique when compared to what "pop stars" have looked like over the last 15 years.

But thats not the only thing that piqued my curiosity. there seemed to be a cleverness in her eyes of the video "Smile". She looked like she was having fun and more importantly she seemed to have a bit of comic timing. The song itself however, although having a lot of potential with its jaunty reggae-esque bounce and interwoven vocal lines, fell short for me as it was too repetitive and did not deliver the lyrical heft I usually demand.

So I never recommended her to anyone else, and just assumed she had a clever producer and video director that had coaxed a good one off performance out of her like so many pop stars before. She did not in fact appear to be the vanguard of a revival in pop music that would give us an occasional song or two that had some substance.

A few mounts later I found out that her father is Keith Allen. I pretty famous Actor/comedian. Best in the UK it would seem. I discovered him by watching his documentary "Keith Allen Will Burn In Hell". Which is a biting expose profiling the controversial Westboro Baptist Church, led by Fred Phelps. In the film Allen basts the Church's anti-homosexuality views, confronts them directly and returns their insults with a bit of wit and a large dose of distain. (once the gloves are off). It was really fun to watch someone say some of the things I have always wanted to say to these fuckers, and in their own home no less! He really proved just how stupid they actually are just in the fact that they allowed him so much assess.

In addition to being a funny smart-ass, her dad apparently has some music industry connections... He co-wrote New Order's only UK number one single "World In Motion" and occasionally performed with them live. Lilly is also the god-daughter of late Clash singer and guitarist, Joe Strummer. Hmmmm. Don't get me started about nepotism in the entertainment industry. My father was only a radio announcer and if he could have pulled strings to help my music career, I doubt he would have since we stopped speaking when I was 16. But I am sure Lilly got a "leg up". Usually that annoys me, but strangely I am willing to give a pass on this due to the fact that I think she may have inherited some interesting positive traits from her dad...

Look at this...

She is credited as the songwriter, That doesn't mean anything I'm afraid, people often don't write their own books either folks! But lets give her the benefit of the doubt...

Life’s about film stars and less about mothers
It’s all about fast cars and passing each other
But it doesn’t matter cause I’m packing plastic
and that’s what makes my life so f***ing fantastic
And I am a weapon of massive consumption
and its not my fault it’s how I’m program to function

Nice... and I do mean that. I would have been proud to have written that.

I want to be rich and I want lots of money
I don’t care about clever I don’t care about funny

You know, this is a damn good skewering of the attitudes common in our society.

The song itself if popish and light sounding, almost fun, but with a pinch of melancholy. It has a "killer Hook" ugh... but thats all perfectly planed and constructed like a missile to deliver the payload of these lyrics into the minds of placid people... and THAT is EXACTLY what has been largely missing from good pop music for so many years.

God speed Ms. Allen! I hope your little stealth smart bomb explodes in the minds of lots of young people that need to change their view a bit.

Dr. Henry Killinger Costume

2008-11-02T19:23:00.000-08:00

I know there are flaws... try to see past them and consider this my Dr. Henry Killinger 1.0 costume.... That is If I ever do him again. I tend to only do a costume once. : ) If I had had time to do the slippers... trust me I would have. heh

As far as Venture Brothers costumes go... I think I did OK. : )

Oh... full disclosure, I did cheat the eyes in LightRoom, I didn't have time to rig anything up to get "real" glowing eyes. I throw myself on the mercy of the interwebs. : )

Synchronicity Regarding Cute Ancient Fictitious Evil

2008-11-01T13:18:00.000-07:00

Has an ancient evil been unleashed in my waking dreams?

OK, so I love juxtiposition... and I also love instances of synchronicity, so therefore I must post about this. Yesterday I was chatting with my good friend Leslie (wave) and we were discussing Kappa. A mythic colon eating creature reviled but also seemingly adored in Japan. (Full Kappa post soon I promise...) and I mentioned that they even have cute plush toys of the beast for kids. This lead her to mention The plush Cthulhu dolls that you can buy, I mentioned that I thought that was not quite the same because those are meant to be ironic and it is unlikely that they are often actually given to children.

Fast forward....

Today I see that another friend, Angela had joined a group that supports Cthulhu For President! (quite amusing stuff) Oooooo spooky. But it gets moore interesting. I follow some of the humorous links associated with that "movement" and find this.....

So, it would seem something strange IS afoot! Be sure to vote. hehe.

*Better version of this post...Here*

My Voting Experience 2008

2008-10-30T13:54:00.000-07:00

Well it's done and I've cast my ballot.

As I approached the library or the early voting was taking place I was quite amazed by the number of people standing in line waiting for their turn to vote. The queue stretched out of the door down the sidewalk and around the corner of the building. Both parking lots were almost completely full and this was just before 10 o'clock in the morning, so I assume this was before any kind of lunch time rush.

I went to the end of the line and started reading the book I had not really expecting to engage any of the other voters in conversation. The older gentleman that had fallen into line behind me took a phone call and somewhat loudly announced to the person on the other end of a line that since he had recently seen socialism up close and personal and, "he didn't like it." I was pretty sure he had made that statement loudly enough so that the people around him would be able to hear it but I took it in stride and kept reading my book.

A little while later a woman came by and handed out change of address forms to people who needed them. That same gentleman behind me took one and started filling it out. He then asked me if I knew the date, so I looked it up on my cell phone for him. After he was done filling out the form it was clear that we were both pretty bored since it was taking quite a while for the line to advance. So I made a comment about how nice the weather was and this opened the door for us to start having little bit more of a serious conversation now want to stress that this man struck me as very intelligent, quite sharp, professional, and respectful to me. He was also quite inquisitive about my opinions and seemed to genuinely want to understand my point of view. He listened everything I had to say, and seemed to want to absorb and understand it.

This is how I remember the conversation going:

Voter: Never in all my years have I seen this kind of turnout for voting, it's really quite amazing.

Me: Well I think, whatever side you come down on, people understand that there's a lot at stake. They're excited, and they want to do what they think is best for the country.

Voter: There is a lot at stake.

Me: I think the thing to remember is that when this is over...

Voter: That we all come together...

Me: Yes, no one wants to ruin this country. Both of these candidates have very similar goals.

Voter: Well, me tell you that I've just come back from France, and I got a firsthand look at what a socialist government is like and what it can do to its people. Firstly, the French people are very nice and very accommodating. Whatever you've heard about them being rude to Americans is untrue. But socialism was ingrained in everything that they did there seem to be a sense that the government would take care of everything for you. (He gave an example involving travel and the increased costs of ticket prices due to government involvement in infrastructure and how the population simply accepted it without question but frankly I had a little bit of difficulty following his logic)

Me: Well, I can understand why you would want to guard against us going that far in our government, but they have a long history and tradition of embracing socialism. We on the other hand are almost the opposite. We can't hardly stand the thought of using socialism as a tool. I don't think if you took the most liberal of us --- people raised in America -- and put them in control of the government that they could affect the kind of changes that would lead us to a system like France has an eight or even 16 years it's just not ingrained in us.

Voter: Maybe you're right. The people who came here originally were attempting to escape persecution and practice their religion freely. And then the push west and the freedom that that allowed people seems to create a permanent spirit of individuality not wanting to be under the thumb of an overbearing government. (I'm beginning to paraphrase here because the conversation is starting to fade in my memory. I don't think he was quite that eloquent but I understood his meaning)

Me: Yes, so given 100 years even, I don't believe that our government could be driven in a direction that would put it in the same league with the most socialist democracies going today. That would be a major shift for us and I just don't think it's possible.

Voter: Interesting viewpoint, and yet it seems like such a danger, like it's lurking, on the verge of destroying everything we have worked for.

Me: Well do you think that's a product of the Cold War? For so long we've been afraid of anything that resembled communism or an attempt at communism that even using modest socialist leaning programs becomes extremely offensive to us. The fact of matter is, that we already are...

Voter: We are?

Me: the "S" word

Voter: the "S" word?

Me: Socialist.

Voter: Oh, yes yes, of course! Since the 30s.

Me: We don't like to think about it. We certainly don't like to talk about. It's sort of like the Fonz on the TV show happy days we could never say the words "I'm wrong". (I do the impersonation stammering on the W. sound)

Voter: (laughs)

Me: But you know, some of the things that have made this country great and powerful are really socialist programs. Like for example public education, where would we be without public education?

Voter: Well, I would be uneducated.

Me: Oh I would be too! I very seriously doubt that my family could have afforded any kind of education for me had it not been for public schools. I had very modest beginnings and want to see before you now is someone who's benefited from that opportunity. And I think that's what we are talking about, opportunity. I don't think that this country would have stayed in power as long as it has without an educated and technologically savvy workforce. The public school system for all its faults is one of the things that has made this country great. Just imagine. If we had not had it, and the larger portion of our population had remained only basically educated? I can't see that having any effect other than negative for our country. Especially with the way our economy is changed.

Voter: But you wanted to help yourself, you pulled yourself up?

Me: Sure but I was only able to do it partly because of the existence of a strong public education system. Its a combination of creating those kinds of opportunities for a large segment of our population AND the independent "American Spirit" that I think has made os great.

I think we have to be willing to embrace the social tools we are already using and maybe carefully explore others that make sense. I don't think that anyone has the power to convince us to turn an unreasonable amount of control over to the government though. I guess the sticking point is what each individual person considers unreasonable.

(A woman needs to get between us to enter the library we have a short funny conversation about her wanting to use the building for what it's intended use.)

Voter: I'm not trying to bring race into this, (yet I sense he is about to) (he also tells me a story about his business partner and what a great guy he is, I assume the gentleman he is talking about is black and this is his "proof" that he is not a racist, but its kind of hard to understand because he has lowered his voice so much.) (I start to get uncomfortable but try not to show it.) but I've worked with FEMA and I can tell you that the people in New Orleans had plenty of warning to evacuate their homes. They were told repeatedly to leave and yet they stayed. It was if they thought the government would rescue them. And I can tell you that the people who left and the people that stayed split pretty much right down racial lines. I believe that we have set up a condition that makes lower income people rely too heavily on the government for assistance. (once again paraphrasing, I am trying to stick to what he said but this is the spirit of it. It was not cruel or angry. He seemed honestly concerned that socialist policies had lead to people to not taking responsibility for themselves. I hesitate to speak on matters of race as I am hardly an expert, but his lack of understanding of what challenges people face I thought needed some form of response.)

(So, at this point my respect for him drops by several points because I feel like he does not have a clear understanding of what motivates lower income people (regardless of race) but I try not to show disrespect for him so that possibly I can get through to him and perhaps be a Rosetta Stone to some small degree and give him a few points of reference that he can understand.)

Me: As a young man, I lived in a lot of those neighborhoods...

Voter: New Orleans?

Me: No, poor neighborhoods here and there. As I mentioned before, I don't have a lot of opportunity starting out. So as a young man I lived in some of the worst neighborhoods in cities that I lived in because that's where I could afford to live. I do pretty well now, I have a nice career, but I can tell you, I feel I had one advantage that the people around me may not have had. (I point to the back of my hand)

Voter: The pigment in your skin... (He is quick)

Me: Yeah, I feel many people made assumptions about me because I was white, and conversely I feel some people would make assumptions about those people living around me because they were not. Things are different now, I don't know how much different. But I hope they're significantly different. (He nods in agreement) But having lived in those neighborhoods I can tell you that when people in position of authority tell you what you should be doing, it may not always seem to be in your best interest. (We are nearing the end of the line and I don't think I could've timed this better if I tried)

Voter: What you mean?

Me: I understand why you might feel that lower income people have been conditioned to rely too heavily on the government. But honestly I don't see it that way. Mostly, the people in these neighborhoods that I lived in seem to be hard-working people who didn't have as much advantage. I mean, frankly that's why I was there. (The look on his face shows that this is an epiphany to him) I've never taken a dime of government assistance except for being on unemployment for a few weeks. But the reason I think many people in those neighborhoods are less likely to trust authority is that time and time again I saw the services that are taken for granted in nice neighborhoods completely under served to impoverished ones.

Voter: You think poor neighborhoods are treated differently?

Me: Well, I will just tell you about a personal experience and let you draw your own conclusion. I was trying to stop a robbery of my roommates car and I was shot in the leg. It took 25 minutes for an ambulance to arrive, and 35 minutes for the police to arrive. They took a statement and left. We had to call and ask for them to send someone out to investigate the crime and when the detective arrived next morning he literally looked into the vehicle and announced that there were no fingerprints and left again. It was very frustrating and actually kind of frightening to think that you were that exposed.

Voter: that's terrible.

(I'm now at the head of the line and the person directing people where to go makes a joke about "no talking in line!" So we both make jokes about being in trouble and prepare for the serious task ahead)

Not wanting to be like France and not wanting the grubby poor people to get more than their fair share, I of course vote out of fear. Good thing I had that conversation with that guy! *wink*

As I left I saw him at his car and said "Have a good day sir!" He replied "You too! I enjoyed our talk!"

Now, up to the point where he started talking about the poor and making somewhat broad assumptions about race. I was quite impressed with the man. He was clearly raised to believe things quite different than what I believe, but to his credit he listen to what I had to say and seemed open to. I don't know, maybe he was just being pleasant to the crazy strange guy in line? Or maybe we've crossed some magic threshold where we can actually start talking to each other about things that in the past would have caused an instant and immediate shutdown of dialogue.

Maybe it's a new world.

********************************************

Oh my... Look how much better this looks in my developing WordPress Blog format! Link

Ridley Scott to Make Film Based On "The Forever War"

2008-10-13T13:29:00.000-07:00

Fox has acquired rights to Joe Haldeman's 1974 novel "The Forever War," and Ridley Scott is planning to make it into his first science fiction film since he delivered back-to-back classics with "Blade Runner" and "Alien."

Full Story At variety.com

I loved the book, I love the films of Ridley Scott, I have wanted him to return to science fiction for a long time.
I could not be happier.

Win,win,win.

I had to reconstitute myself at a subatomic level after an experiment! Arrrrrggggggg!

2008-10-08T08:13:00.000-07:00

I would like to spend a moment today paying homage to someone who cracked me up mightily.

Another Doc no less! Evan "Doc" Shaner. He created this hilarious culture bomb you see to the right... visit his blog to get the story and a MUCH larger than thumbnail version. (Being respectful of other artists I am cautious not to step on someone's toes while trying to popularize and praise them)

"What if Charles Schulz created the Watchmen?"

According to his post, it has been brought to his attention that someone else had the same Idea back it the 80's. So I am on a quest to find that art as well... maybe I can also get a thumbnail still of the "Watchmen Babies" comic from the Simpsons. : )

***Update***

Found it!

This was done by Jeff Parker sometime in the 80's

Here is Jeff Parkers take on Watchnuts from his blog...
Great Minds, Thinking Alike

Ahhh, what fun. : )

Volkswagens, Cats & Chunky Peanut Butter

2008-10-05T22:03:00.000-07:00

Recently I have felt like I may have come off like conspiracy theorist among a few people when it comes to personal privacy issues due to recent caution I have shown over using cloud based applications and because I railed against a Facebook app that asked "random" questions of my friends like:
1. Was I bisexual?
2. Was I an eggs and bacon guy rather than a cornflakes guy?
3. Would I travel outside the country to see a concert?

Wow... those are SOME questions...

You know that I am not trying to stay out of every database in the world... That would be pointless. if someone wanted to find out about me, it would take them about 5-10 min to get the meat and a couple of days to get a pretty detailed overview of who I am just from the breadcrumbs I have already left so far on the web.

I actually have been really public on the web for many years because I see it as a public place. I have assumed that anonymity would become an illusion at some point and I would not necessarily know when that happened so I treated it as if I was never anonymous. Instead I act on the web much like I would in any public area... in other words I try to be civil and respectful. *blink* wah! *blink* hehe

So, I just don't throw my information around frivolously. I don't see any reason to make compiling a "everything there is to know about Doc record" easier than it already is. heh. I hope I don't come off as a conspiracy theorist just because I advise caution and don't like to hand out my information it I don't have to. : )

Its just a personal thing... The spread of personal information really can't be stopped, only slowed somewhat. At some point we will have no privacy. To many people and companies want to know about us, they WILL find a way to entice us to give up the info. My question is, why give up the data to them willingly? Why give up data to just anyone that can profit from it? Its valuable! And we just give it away! Hell, at least we should be paid!

Let me introduce you to Steve Rambam, He is a private investigator who lectures on privacy, or the lack there of...
I haven't been able to watch all of the video on his lecture, but check out this section and how Volkswagen was able to determine that people who own cats and eat chunky peanut butter are more likely to buy a Bug...

Jump to 2:30 to hear about dipping your cat in peanut butter...

So... wanna know the funny part? my wife has always wanted a bug, I don't care for them... and we have to by 2 jars of peanut butter at the store. Guess which kind she likes and yes we have cats. : )

He starts to talk about "Roveology" when it cuts off (watch all of these videos if you really want to be freaked out) in honor of that here is a bit of video that shows the roots of evil! Jump to 3:50 if you are in a hurry. heh.

Notice how they talk about sending mail to people who order steaks looking for donations? Thats pure Rove it seems. Even back then... wow.

Actually watch this part also...

Ah, dangit... I still sound like a wacko... but really I swear I'm not, I'm just more careful than most people these days and man, that is not hard. : )

If you don't fix the cracks, the rats can get in and infest the place

2008-09-23T08:26:00.000-07:00

For many years I have felt like I was shouting into the wind about the decline in news media. It is most visible to me in broadcast, but consolidation and demand for profit have dealt the print media multiple blows over the years and from my perspective it seems like they have been in a weakened position, unable to compete or fully deliver on the mission the once charged themselves with.

That weakness has come to be exploited more and more by the powerful but now apparently its time to attempt a killing strike, at least in one jackass' mind.

Its rare to hear of someone quite this arrogant, but the tone of the McCain campaign begins to make more and more sense after listening to McCain chief strategist Steve Schmidt speak about our press this morning.

This is what he said in part...
“Whatever the New York Times once was, it is today not by any standard a journalistic organization, This is an organization that is completely, totally, 150 percent in the tank for the Democratic candidate, which is their prerogative to be. Everything that is read in The New York Times that attacks this campaign should be evaluated by the American people from that perspective.”

He also indirectly implied that they were on par with blogs, using the term "blogosphere", and called them "pro Obama Advocacy organization"

Here is a recording of the audio...

This all came after a CNN reporter ask Rick Davis an "uncomfortable" question...
At this point it should be noted that Rick Davis is Mr. McCain’s campaign manager, and at one time had been paid nearly $2 million by Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac to head a group devoted to defend the mortgage giants against the imposition of stricter regulations. He was a deregulation wank for the failed groups that desperately NEEDED to be regulated! This on top of the fact that they have been running ads blasting Obama for having "friends" involved in those groups... Yeah, I wonder how they even know that... Maybe because McCain's campaign manager actually headed a lobbyist group that worked directly with them!

Here is my main point, on all this.

The mainstream news media can not afford to have the public perception be that they are anything less than near PERFECT. They have to strive constantly for the highest standards at all times because if they don't it will give bastards like this a large enough flaw in their armor to stick their knife in and twist. This attack was on the New York Times but recently he has made comments similar in tone about many other news outlets reporting stories that he didn't care for.

He feels like he can say things like this, even about a well respected news organization, because a good percentage of the people will believe him completely and many more of us will consider that there may be some truth in it!

I want that to sink in... We have gotten to the point were people don't trust integrity of the news... and it didn't take much. It should not be this easy for someone like him to feel like he can go on the attack against the mainstream media! Part of the blame goes to news organizations themselves, for allowing a slackening of the rules and a blurring of opinion/news/entertainment to raise readership and ratings, and part of the blame goes to us for letting it happen and not demanding better.

We as people that enjoy a free-ish press should stop taking it for granted and expecting it to entertain us like a puppet show. We should demand it to be better and support it when it is.

***Update***
Some interesting related links:
http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2008/09/schmidt_jumps_the_shark.html
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0908/13747.html

The little things that drive me nuts once again prove that they can be huge problems under the right conditions...

2008-09-10T13:01:00.000-07:00

For years I have complained to anyone that would listen that a large quantity of content on the web is not dated and therefore useless. if soeone posts a review of an Apple Airport Extreme, how the hell am I going to guess what firmware revision they have if they don't mention it specifically and if they don't date the post? I would love to be able to sort searches by date, but since so much information has no indication of when it was posted or created and there is really no one following any standard to indicate this information in metadata consistently. Its a mess for the person trying to find content.

Well it has happened, that mess has caused a major issue.

Old story on bankruptcy wipes out shares of United Airlines

United Airlines Tallies Damage From False Stock Report

"Frank Ahrens, business reporter at The Washington Post, tried to figure out what happened."

FRANK AHRENS, BUSINESS REPORTER, THE WASHINGTON POST: "The simple answer is, it was a Google search. And Google discovered a six-year-old story on the Web site of a South Florida newspaper that did not have a date on it.

And, so, when Google found it, it applied the date of the search, put it on that story, popped it up on Google news. A human being saw it, took it as being a fresh story, "United Declares Bankruptcy," punches it into Bloomberg. It hits Wall Street.

And, within a matter of minutes, more than 15 million shares had traded. And United Airlines, already shaky, had lost 75 percent of its value."

Holy Crap! Sometimes I hate that I can predict the future... As more and more "stuff" gets dumped on the web, its only gonna get more confusing folks...ugh.

My Insane Venture Brothers Predictions

2008-08-23T11:50:00.000-07:00

Well, It all fell into place last night... I watched the new venture Brothers online and my fun/crazy theories seem to have more weight today than they did before...

If you haven't seen it because you still watch "TV" then there are spoilers ahead.... *****SPOILER ALERT*****

A few weeks back I told a my wife that I though Henchman #21 was secretly a super scientist... Now I am almost sure of it, or at least I am sure I WANT it to be true. Some major events happened in the season finale and I will cover how I think they will effect the show.. Read on...My wacky ideas will be revealed. Who knows by posting this at adult swim a while ago maybe I just contributed major plot points to the next season! Who would ever know? They could just say "Yeah man, you sure called it!" Ah the internet...

Venture Brother Season Finale Ramifications and Fun Time Speculation:

1. The clones were mentioned as being "illegal" I don't think Rusty will be allowed to start up that process again, he is now under scrutiny for such activity. Also keep in mind the time frame needed to develop the slugs... he had a "stash" of Hank and Dean clone slugs, one would assume it took years to grow the slugs to maturity in the clone farm... Why else would he keep so many? They are gone. The boys are mortal.

2. Brock IS actualy quitting, he needs to get away, He is missing something from the relationship with the ventures. When he has been saying stuff like "we arent a family" I think he really feels that way, but its not because of the boys. I do think he cares for them... Its Rusty. He is sick of Rusty's crap and the fact that he saves his ass on a daily basis and gets no respect for doing it. Rusty needs to redeem himself to Brock for him to come back. They need to admit that they are friends and work on a new relationship from there. If Brock comes back he should not be merely a body guard but a partial partner in venture industries. (with a osi mission and license)

I think Rusty will have to realize and admit that he needs and even loves Brock, he will have to admit that he wants him as a permanent member of the family and I also think he will have to prove this to Brock by using his skill (maybe even going beyond what he his normally capable of) and saving Brock from some peril in the same way Brock has always saved him.

3. Yes, I think they killed 24... and for good reason. Drama. We like these guys, hell we LOVE these guys! Because they represent us in a way. But what better way to bring us INTO the story than to give us something to fight for.

******Wild speculation for fun begins here********
For a long time now I have had a pet theory about #21 that I will now share for the first time publicly... I think he is secretly a super scientist! The best part is that he himself is not aware of it. You know how he is always saying "HOW DID I NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS!" I think its because he was the one (working alongside Dr. Girlfriend) who reverse engineered the stolen technology from sergeant hatred and also created many original technologies, but the Monarch erases his memory regarding these projects on a regular basis to keep him under control. Only the Monarch and Dr. Girlfriend knows that he is a savant. The only give him access to the tools and technology that spur his talents as needed. Am I insane? Yes... but I like to think I am a fun kinda crazy. And it would explain a LOT. He is always talking about how he worked on this or that but didn't know about all its features, also his physical condition doesn't seem like it would be tolerated unless he had something else to contribute. Also, his crush on Dr. Girlfriend may play into this... perhaps thats part of the way they get him to do what they want and those two would have had to work closely together... even if he doesn't recall WHY he loves her it could be because he has spent a lot of time with her.

Now with that in mind... I think the death of #24 is the catalyst for a rebirth of #21! I think with nothing to ground him he falls into himself and becomes something darker, maybe something even dangerous. I think he begins a quest to resurrect #24! He KNOWS that Hank and Dean "cant die" and he has seen the army of clone slugs. So maybe he strikes out on his own and attempts to get Rusty to clone #24, perhaps by force. Maybe along the way he realizes that he is every bit as smart as Rusty and can do it himself if he just steals the money/equipment he needs. At some point maybe he even gets visited by Dr. Henry Killinger and a new villain is born. All this would put him in conflict with Rusty, Brock, JJ (he needs to steal stuff from spider skull), and even the Monarch as he realizes how he has been manipulated all these years!

It could even return to the status quo after... because once #24 is alive again, he will be happy and want to be placated. He never wanted to be the hard ass. He was just doing what he had to do to save his friend.

Hows that for wacky!

One person on the Adult Swim boards read my post and remind me that he has been talking about becoming "The Viceroy" for a long time, He seemed to think my theories might fit with this. : ) Fun stuff indeed.

Who wouldn't want to see a trimmed down 21 fighting for the life of his only true friend, seen by the world as a villain but on the most noble of quests, willing to do almost whatever it takes to bring... him... back... and maybe even bringing Brock to his knees if he were unlucky enough to get in his way. Can they stop him? Should they stop him? Will 24 be 24?... or some horrible 24 like, thing!

Hell thats the friggin VB movie right there if you ask me!

The cloud still sucks damp wind... here is why.

2008-08-20T11:41:00.000-07:00

This is from the Digg FAQ:
"I don't see my comment. Where did it go?"
"Also, when a spammer is banned from Digg or a spam/abusive comment is removed from a story, all replies to that comment are also removed as they clutter the comments of that story and confuse users."

This is the suggestion email I just sent them which explains what happened to me and why the fluffy clouds cant be trusted...

Well, I was farming my comments for my blog and recalled this great little bit I had punched up about why yung-uns should pick up and read Allan Moore and Frank Miller. Ya know, trying to pass on some of my fading cool before the *cough* old *cough* ticker *cough* gives out... : ) (I'm not really old but hanging out on Digg sometimes makes you feel like an old man!)

So I click on it in my history and even though I only posted the comment like 2 days ago I got a "echo" message... I don't like to loose ideas, so I have spent quite a while trying to find a way to recover my words.

No such luck... I just think thats sorta brutal guys. I didn't break the TOS... I don't care if my comments are "grayed out" or "redacted" somehow. But often times they apply to the whole thread and this persons comment, in this thread at least, was simple and non offensive.

I picked it to respond to because it was representative of the typical person in the thread! So when his account got pulled my participation in the thread died along with it, even though he was only a sounding board for what I wanted to say to all the people like him that may read my post.

Plus, I dont see why I can't see my own words in my history... I can see the first part of it, so I assume it still exists in a data base.

Sorry to be bothersome. I just really hate loosing something I have written, it bothers me in ways it may be difficult for others to understand... I had gotten to the point were I trusted digg to use it for input and now I see I will need to reinsert an extra step and go back to using a text editor and save everything to the hard drive... what a pain.

Please consider changing these things in the future.

Thanks!
Doc.

*update Aug 27 2008:

More sucking wind

I just lost 5 more very impassioned comments about artists rights and poor attitudes that people that engage in file sharing have for he craft of creating. It was good stuff and I think it may have even made a few people see the issue from a different perspective. Not many artists/musicians are rich and those people are also effected by the diminishing respect for art.

But since I made these wonderfully worded arguments as responses to posts in a thread of someone who was about to be banned from Digg... they are all now GONE. Man I hate this. I have sent them another suggestion email.

Digg Staff,
Several of my responses to a recent discussion on file sharing have vanished, I assume because the person who posted the comment I was responding to got banned and had all their threads deleted for all history.

In this discussion I contributed 7 controversial comments that all remained positive in popularity I like to think because even though they went against conventional thinking... they made sense and got people thinking in different directions... well all that is gone now. Well, 2 remain. Ugh.

Can't there be a better solution than the "Brutal History Erase Button"?

Please at lease consider giving us access to our OWN history so at least the cloud has some use as a place to collect personal ideas as you engage in conversation with others.

You may still see Digg as a fun site with no real important mission... but whether or not you planed it, a lot social ideas and information is being exchanged here. I am not sure it should be poofed so casually.

Thank you,
Doc.

I should always be quiet when people around me start talking about music.

2008-08-12T12:22:00.000-07:00

Other people still see the creation or music as a healthy and positive thing... I need to remember this.

Some things that kill a conversation:

People don't want to know the depth of the rot in the industry and they don't want to know about all the heartbreak I have witnessed as people who have worked like mad, driven, creatures and sacrificed so much "made it" only to have all that work and time stolen from them because the record companies could make a few more dollars if they "adjusted the lineup" in the band even if it meant replacing founding members.

People don't want to hear that "popular music" is all still horribly broken and that almost everything about it is basically a lie. A magic trick that has been growing in size and scale year after year and that they are the patsy. We used to laugh about The Monkeys... They seem honest now... like quaint folksy media pioneers, at least they were funny and they got Jimmy Hendix open for them and had Tim Buckley on their show singing Song To The Siren as if to whisper..."Hey kids, here is the REAL stuff... don't tell your folks!"

No one wants to think about the fact that their favorite singer may not be able to sing that well... or that they don't need to have the talent any more, real time pitch correction makes it possible to give the modestly talented a live mic if you are feeling brave.

Its not A good move to mention that many music acts are only partially responsible for their own sound... talented producers often shape them dramatically into the finished product you eventually hear.

Here is a social tip, Since most musical acts are not that original and can be traced back to someone they where trying to emulate... don't ever point this out to the person who likes that band, they will hate you for it, even if you honestly think they might enjoy the music of the first band... I mean, clearly their heroes were fans of the earlier band... why wouldn't they want to check them out? : P

Never talk about how making music is "serious" for you. People don't want to think of music that way. It is supposed to be fun and joyous even though most rock is about alienation and anger, somehow making it is supposed to be about having a good time... weird. I know very few musicians who are "happy" most are poor as crap and are wishing for something better... I guess thats all part of the illusion (lie).

All of this leads me to the point of this post...

Even though you would imagine I would be pretty good at it... This is why I don't want to play Rock Band with you when you ask,

It's a lie.

Leslie Lee Appreciation Week Grand Finale!

2008-08-03T00:25:00.000-07:00

I have uploaded all of the remaining photography I wanted to share of Leslie from over the years...

It includes a ton of interesting stuff... for those of us that think Leslie is "interesting" that is.

But really how can you argue that point!?

So thats all I have, add more if you like, we can keep the group up. I will thin my stuff out eventually to a handful of picks, so grab your faves soon!

I hope everyone had fun, and most of all I hope Leslie had fun with it.

Click below to view the group.
Leslie Lee Appreciation Week 08 Group

Something Wicked This Way Comes...

2008-07-31T15:05:00.000-07:00

And now she is HERE...

Stomp, Stomp, Stomp! Here she comes.....

Better run, You definitely don't want her answering the door to give you candy!

As part of Leslie Lee Appreciation Week 08 I have posted a few pictures of leslie in her fantastic Fuckofficus costume from a few years back. Enjoy!

Click below to view the group. Join in the fun and leave comments or pictures of your own if you like. : )
Leslie Lee Appreciation Week 08 Group

When Does Construction On The Lair Begin?

2008-07-30T08:24:00.000-07:00

And for that matter, can you even get real estate in a volcano these days? Maybe a dark swamp or a skull shaped island will have to do for now. Its a sellers market for prime "lair" properties I bet.

Regular visiter BENDER BENDING RODRIGUEZ has burst onto the blog-o-sphere for hacking a child's toy into an evil robot minion...

gizmodo.com
www.destructoid.com
blog.makezine.com

Let his career in supper science/costumed aggression Begin! (We won't judge his lifestyle choice. Villain or good guy, we will still support and nurture him as he carves the turkey at thanksgiving time with his superscience lasers.)

Way to go!

Latest Video:

Leslie Lee Appreciation Week 08

2008-07-25T13:42:00.000-07:00

Friends, It has finally come again, the time each 486 years that we take one week to fully honor Leslie for no reason other than that she is awesome.

The aztec had a name for Leslie, it was Quaxiquatiataltaxabelgle. Unfortunately the modern attempts at translation have only come up with something close to "have you seen my red feathers? I need them for my ass fan." But I am sure it has lost something over the millennia and once meant something far more grand... I mean they had a frigin NAME for her! They just don't do that for anyone... do they?

Anyway... I have collected some photographic evidence of Leslie's greatness...

Click here to visit Leslie Lee Appreciation Week photo set
Click here to view in Fancy Pants™ Slide show format

I will be adding more as the week goes on (not nessasarily every day mind you) so check back often! Also please leave links to any cool leslie photos you have posted... maybe we can start a group. hehe.

*Update*
New images added today! Behold Renaissance Leslie!

Also we have a new content provider... squeezymoose! Since we have more than one person chiping in... as promised I have started the Leslie Lee Appreciation Week 08 Group where everyone can pool all the Leslie goodness.

Be sure to leave comments on the pictures when you stop by, share stories of Leslie inspired by the pictures! (hint: factuality is optional if you ask me.) Have fun with the festivities everyone! HAPPY LLAW08!

Everything I Need To know, I Learn From Alan Moore It Seems

2008-07-24T03:23:00.000-07:00

A man goes to the doctor. He tells the doctor that he's depressed. He says life seems too harsh and cruel. He says that he feels all alone in a threatening world where what lies ahead is vague and uncertain.

The doctor thinks about this for a while and then confidently says "Well the treatment is simple! The great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go and see him, that should pick you up." The man then bursts into tears, and barely able to speak through his own sobs says "But doctor... I am Pagliacci."

Yes, I am reading Watchmen yet again. Rorschach recounts this "joke" much more simply, as you would expect, so I embellished it some here. It is so beautiful and sad to me because I understand exactly how "the clown" must feel at that moment.

As near as I can tell the joke has existed for a very long time and Mr. Moore borrowed it to deftly use as a very clever device in Watchmen, The more I read his work the more I am convinced he is brilliant.

Darth Needs a Makeover

2008-07-23T10:03:00.000-07:00

Here are my favorites...

Oh my god... you have to give love to "Darth Fink!"

Be sure to go check out the rest here..

*Update*
BBR pointed out that this photographer doesn't link back to the artists or the project website, so if you would rather have the WHOLE story... Here is the home of the project: The Vader Project They of course list all the artist and have many more pictures!

Sorry for the sloppy reporting in the first place my friends!

Hellboy: The Golden Army... Well, It Sure Was Pretty!

2008-07-13T21:55:00.000-07:00

I have to admit that a bit of shine is off my golden boys.

I freak'n LOVE the work of Guillermo del Toro and Mike Mignola and since they are both credited as writing the screenplay for this film I can't let mike off the hook totally here it would seem. But I was a touch let down by Hellboy II... Maybe my expectations were to high.

It was fun, it was visually stunning as you would expect, but the story just cut too many corners (My friend Leslie pointed out the abrupt and poorly explored change of attitude in one character as something that bothered her and thats a perfect example.) and the film overall treated the source material too lightly for my taste. I suspect they gave in to pressure to make a commercially viable film and sacrificed even more of the tone of the oftentimes heartbreaking work of Mike Mignola than even the first film did.

I know all the arguments about making graphic novels and comics into films and how you have to change them to suit the audience... but you know what? Maybe its time we took back film from the "audience" which is actually just a metaphor for "box office" which is in turn a metaphor for greed.

Make smaller films, make them cheaper, have less people go see them and keep them running for longer periods of time, convert more theaters to digital to accommodate quickly adjusting to a smaller film gaining popularity quickly by word of mouth. In short make films that are not such a compromise because you feel you need to sell "X" number of tickets. I would like to see the death of the "blockbuster" and I would certainly like to see great martial like Hellboy avoid the "blockbuster treatment" in the future... and yet still get made into films. Yeah, I know, I am insane. : )

I am pretty sure about this "compromise to be able to make the big film at all" theory I have. I could be wrong, but if I go read Conqueror Worm and then watch Devils backbone again, I somehow don't think I will come away convinced that those 2 guys REALY wanted to cast Seth MacFarlane as the soulful and deeply troubled Johann Kraus. I was so thrown off by his voice that I turned to my friend during the credits and said "I guess I can't be annoyed about the changes to the Klaus character if Mike Mignola was credited on the screen writing." it was shortly after that that my wife pointed out that it WAS Seth MacFarlane, and after that I could'nt seem to call him Kraus... it kept coming out "Klaus" I think because after making the connection, he was then just a goldfish with a somewhat fake german accent that had been turned into ectoplasm just like Johann was and somehow ended up in this movie.

I have read they cast him because he could do the wheezing and mechanical sound (huh, mechanical sound?)... Sorry, I'm not buying that, we perfected that technology in the 70's with James Earl Jones. I think it would have been much more important to find a "good actor" if thats what they were really going for and worry about letting foley artist and sound engineers do their job after getting the performance... they, (or the studio) where hoping for funny I think... and honestly I don't think they got it. Oh well.

Honestly, There was still lots about it to love and I will watch it again. It just won't end up being in my top 100... which is so strange for me because I love the work of these 2 men so much and it seemed like a sure thing.

Night Terrors Suck

2008-07-06T03:31:00.000-07:00

I was in a bar just now walking around, a few other patrons ignored me. Something was wrong and I tried to call out to them for help. I figured I was drunk, but that was weird since I don't drink really. Like most of these types of events I was trying desperately to communicate but couldn't get any sound to come out. People kept leaving and eventually I was alone in this old smelly bar. I couldn't hold my head up and I still couldn't call for help.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw my old boss and I tried to yell to her for help... thats when I became un-paralyzed enough to make a sound and realized I was "asleep" sitting upright in the chair at the kitchen table where I had been working. Luckily my yell for help was not enough to wake anyone in the house.

Finally realizing what was going on, I set my mind at ease and relaxed as I very slowly got "unstuck" and was able to fully return to mobility and other aspects of consciousness again and wait till they where all in sync as they should be.

Its an over simplification, but night terrors are caused when you are more lightly asleep but the mechanism of deep sleep that keeps you immobile fails to switch off. As the name implies, the experience can be quite disconcerting, even downright horrifying as your brain struggles to explain why you can't move when you should be able to.

Its funny the "stories" your still dreaming mind will make up to explain to you why you can't move and can't talk even though you are becoming partially awake. Crossing that threshhold has become commonplace for me now and I have that moment of panic before I realize whats going on but then I "figure it out" and treat it like its old hat... but man I remember when it was still something I didn't understand... Good lord they suck.

I have to say, I don't know what dying feels like but it must feel like a night terror.

I wish I could have known him, if only to know for sure...

2008-06-22T23:14:00.000-07:00

I don't usually spend much time fussing about when celebrities pass away. I figure many people die each day and they all have played a part... But Mr. Carlin leaving this world is worth taking a few extra moments and commenting on how much I admired his wit and his ability show us the folly in the things we do.

He often just did silly, fun, humor that was light and didn't take any effort to enjoy. He could always turn mundane things such as dogs licking themselves into gut busting comedy... but when the man got "serious" and made us laugh at ourselves and the stupid crap we do as a society/culture/people... THATS when the man blazed like the sun.

I don't like to call people I have never personally met "heroes" because you can never really know what kind of a person they are from the "persona" and PR we get fed. But lets just say I would have really liked to have known this man and I strongly suspect I would have liked him a hell of a lot, and I am pretty sure he would have qualified as a hero to me.

Thank you George.

These are NSFW as if I should have to say that... it IS George Carlin after all. : ) If you are not able to listen in private or are easily offeneded... (who are you and why are you reading my blog! heh) then its best not to click the videos below.

Otherwise please enjoy... these are just a few I quickly found that I like.

Update: Its funny, but I had forgotten how influenced I have been by him. I know I have heard scientist speaking about the overall impact of humans on the earth being temporary, and that it is only us and our way of life that is really in danger from ourselves on the grand scale... but I had forgotten that much of the "feel" of my opinion comes from his well crafted and nearly perfectly argued monologue linked above.

So, much like the old adage "you don't know what you've got till its gone" I am sure I will discover more little Carlin-isims stuck in my mind. He wasn't always the person that originated these ideas mind you, I had often heard them discussed dryly before they ended up in a routine of his, But he found the ways to make them understandable and accessible.

Think about that for a second... The ten commandments routine above for example is essentially a breakdown of human MORALITY! And its not bad! He arguably tightens-up moral issues and gives people a vastly simpler code to live by in just a few minutes while making you laugh... and it mostly makes sense. Not that anyone should take his comedy as serious philosophy... but, honestly its quite tempting at times. He was just that smart and good at "connecting the dots", the great thing was that he loved to show us the solution to each puzzle after he did it.

The world needed him.

Japanese Office

2008-05-28T21:25:00.000-07:00

This is just to make my wife laugh, she is more a fan of the show than me, but I also enjoy it...

Other people can look at the clip too I guess. : )

By the way, allow me to whip out my crystal ball regarding the office...

Don't read this if you don't want to hear my prediction of how the office series will/should end.

A few nights ago I told Katy that I had come up with the perfect way to do a series finale of the office. I think when it has all run its course, and maybe as a central plot point Jim and Pam have still not gotten engaged because of several missed opportunities and misunderstandings. Pam should have a bit of a breakdown in an interview, just talk about how she thought things were supposed to be "different" (Jim could have also had an emotive interview as well) and the "camera" will start to move like its trying to decide what to do.

Then suddenly, not able to hold his tongue any longer Ricky Gervais steps out from behind the camera revealing himself to have been the director of the documentary the whole time. He consoles her and once he lets slip a bit of confidential information that he thinks will make her feel better... he starts to lose all objectivity and starts spill the beans about lots of things to everyone because he can't stand to see them hurting.

The "director" could then take on a role of the great and powerful OZ, showing them how much they really care for each other by running the tapes that they have never seen. Like explaining to Pam that Jim intended to propose to her on the night of Toby's party and showing her all the lengths that he went through to make it perfect. I can even see a perfect comedic moment were he could be scrubbing the tape back and fourth at the point he is almost certain Jim was about to ask.

We could also start seeing more of the camera crew in a more loose style as a "character itself" bringing quite a bit of comic relief about how they have been doing this over the years and why... it might be funny to hear Ricky Gervais mention off handedly that he used to manage an office before getting into doing these documentaries.

If I am in anyway right... please give me a dollar for being psychic. : )

Clearly Bowie is Evil

2008-05-22T18:46:00.000-07:00

I have a friend (who shall remain nameless) who has never seen the venture Brothers, so I collected a few of the clips involving fun music references for him. The show is full of stuff like this and I highly recommend it for anyone who is of a certain age and likes having their pop culture served a bit blacken and on a skewer.

It's clear to me that these guys that created the show are big fans of Johnny Quest, David Bowie, comics and cartoons and everything that gets parodied on the show in general... but like a lot of us, they just can't help being smart asses... I like that.

Enjoy!

The new season begins in June if I am not mistaken.

Selectively Utopian (Or... Small Content Creators Are The Redshirts Of The 21st Century)

2008-05-12T08:24:00.000-07:00

I finally figured it out... People that share files and have this moral attitude that they are doing nothing wrong are not just misguided or using the technology to justify a arguably questionable act, They are just Star Trek fans!

They are trying to force the first steps of a Roddenberrien vision of the future where there is no money, there is no work other than what you do to better yourself and here is the good part... Technology has advanced to the point were all basic human needs are met at zero cost.

Relevant Utopian Points of a Star Trek future:

Energy is essentially free
Food can be "replicated" using the free energy
Living space and shelter is free (somehow)
People create art because they can, not out of a need to earn a living from their talent
All human knowledge, entertainment and information, is freely accessible to anyone

So, we have the beginnings of point 5... without any of the other points to support it! What I think people who share files are basically doing is putting the IDEA of intangible media having no monetary value before the needs of the real people that still depend on the income from that content!

The file Sharing community is fond of repeating mantra like "Information wants to be free" well I think I have coined the perfect response by saying that what they are are proposing is a "Selective Utopia"!

They want certain obtainable elements of a futuristic utopia without other supporting elements that make it all plausible to a working society, and they are willing to sacrifice the well being and rights of other human beings in order to get those first elements.

They want the parts of the "perfect future" that they can have now even if that will cause hardship and difficulty to the very people trying to create interesting, unique, or simply new content for them because the other parts of the "perfect human utopia" are impossible with our current technology. I honestly think some of them understand this but instead of being sympathetic or trying to find a interim solution, it is simpler to blame large media companies and and ignore the very existence of small, independent content creators because that causes a moral dilemma for them.

In other words, they see us as expendable, much like a poor guy who made the poor choice to wear red on the day he got picked to beam down with the lading party. Problem is, I don't think this will be a reversible trend and I don't think these attitudes will be "undone" once the war with "big media" is over. How will new art be supported in the future? Good question. Its one that doesn't seem to be getting asked... let alone answered.

I have never had a problem with file sharing really, I do have a problem with the growing lack of respect for the talent of the people that create content. It seems to get worse as time goes by. I am fearful that recorded music, photography, programing and other inherently digital skills will just be seen as valueless in the future, and thats sickening if you understand how much effort can go into becoming good at those things. I don't want file sharing to end... I just want it to grow with a healthy respect for the content being shared and to find ways to support new and unique artist... I realize this is likely a pipe dream at this point but I keep trying.

There is apparently a movement going on to grow file sharing, to legitimize it. The idea being that if enough people do it then it become the legal standard. That makes sense, I am betting it will happen in some form, but I am afraid the people pushing for this haven't really thought it out, at least from the viewpoint of a small independent content creator.

If enough people buy into the idea that they should not have to pay for intangible media, many people stand to loose their livelihood. This goes for photographers, musicians, illustrators, programers, writers, filmmakers, painters, anyone whose work starts out or can eventually be converted into ones and zeroes.

Sometimes its only a portion of their livelihood, but it could be the difference between being able to continue to create art or not being able to continue to afford the costs associated with it. In any case, taking income away from hard working people that may need it to survive or to continue making the art that others enjoy.

We are not just talking about huge record labels and movie studios here... The same technology that has given rise to file sharing has also empowered artist and programers worldwide to take charge of their own destiny.

The concept of "Pro" and "amateur" is as outdated as the CD and SoundWarehouse. If a person can make $1000 a year off their photography then by god they should $1000 a year off if and don't let ANYONE call them a hobbyist. When was the last time any of us had a job for more than 2-5 years? If Someone can make music for the rest of their life and sell a few thousand downloads a year then its likely that music may end up being the single highest grossing job they will ever have regardless if they never have a "HIT".

That is of course if people continue to apply any value to recorded music...

We may all just end up living in a selectively utopian world and such a person just ends up working extra shifts at the Sack-N-Save because they can't yet heat their house with free power or replicate free food to feed their kids.

Art takes time and effort, it has value. If it is eventually delivered in a digital form... that dosen't mater! If you make a copy you still are receiving the VALUE when you enjoy the work that was done. If the Content creator offers a digital file for free. GREAT! I do, and I will continue to. But if you are asked to support the art by paying a licence... well, until the time that we have invented dilithium reactors, food replicators, and transporters, you have an obligation, especially to independent content creators.

You could say that the way the file sharing community is currently implementing the progression of the march towards their Selective Utopia, Will end up possibly permanently denying any hope of a Artists Utopia in the foreseeable future.

Yeah, People Are Awesome

2008-05-08T22:46:00.000-07:00

Sorry to invoke Judge Judy but the "star" of this clip is just to good to pass up regardless of the pop culture setting...

I came across this remarkable bit of daytime television justice because I was reading about how useless Ebay has become and how overrun it is with scammers. The article told a story about a man that had listed his laptop 5 times. The first time it didn't sell because he didn't pay the $20 extra dollars to get a "featured" listing and it was always so deeply buried that it was never higher than 6 pages deep in searches for identical items.

After that he posted it 3 more times and had people bid outrageous sums for it but insist he ship it to Nigeria, he would get spoofed emails from "PayPal" saying that due to Nigerian law he had to send them a shipping receipt before they could release the funds.

On the 5th atempt to sell the laptop he stated in his listing that he would not ship to Nigeria and this caused his account to be shut down presumably by an automated system looking for keywords.

This entire time he tried several time to contact Ebay and only got automated email responses that had nothing to do with the problems he was having. Even after his account was shut down he could not talk to a person on the phone or by email. The online "Live chat" proved to be a bot.

So the asylum is unmanned and the inmates are running amok... use Ebay at your own peril.

The Light Coming From The Window

2008-05-08T17:04:00.000-07:00

I can see this light, shining through this glass bowl sitting on my countertop. The light is coming into the window, streaming down the hall, shining through the glass bowl and eventually finding its way to my eye.

That’s what light does. It shines through, it penetrates. We don’t always see the light penetrating the things around us, they seem opaque, they seem to obscure the light. But that’s only because the light is so slow and methodical and operating on different scale of time, it’s always shining always penetrating always flowing through even the darkest and most heavy of objects. Given enough time light would erode through everything like an explosion, an instant flash of destruction that takes forever. Light is an eruption, a ripping corruption of the solid.

The light coming through the window, streaming down the hall, shining through the glass bowl and eventually finding its way to my eye is killing me.

Silly Light, you are too slow...

I'm Not All Doom And Gloom...

2008-04-30T10:28:00.000-07:00

I know my posts can sometimes focus on the downside of existence and how to avoid some of the traps I see in the world. Also a lot of the art I post about as well as create tends to be somewhat melancholy to put it lightly.

So just to remind everyone that I am not a completely dark person, here is something to cleanse the palette...

More Amazing Short Film

2008-04-30T09:53:00.000-07:00

This one comes from a man named Shane Acker. He and his cohorts have created a very dark and twisted dystopia... in miniature!

Many of you who know me understand I have a fascination with the minuscule. Mr. Acker builds a strange place from the broken, rusted, discarded gimcrack of the world we know, and somehow in that landscape of heaped refuse, something resembling life has taken hold using that same junk as raw material for itself. Of course, wherever there is life, there is struggle...

Behold "9"

*Warning* turn down your volume if you are at work.... its out of context, but the creator started the film with some "distant badly recorded sex cries" I think its supposed to set a mood of discomfort... It's only faint at the beginning but I didn't want anyone to get in trouble.

Beautiful enough in its own right... A feature length film based on this short is in the works. I hope they don't loose what is good about it in extending it, but I am sure they will get my money regardless.

Why Maurice Sendak Puts Kid Characters in Danger

2008-04-25T23:31:00.000-07:00

I am so glad I was not off base with the thinking of this wonderful creative man. He pretty much is every bit as cool as I have always imagined him to be.

Get to know him through his own words.

Why Maurice Sendak Puts Kid Characters in Danger : NPR

A Conversation with Maurice Sendak : NPR

I few things I found interesting...

He says that he doesn't write for children.

He called the "current" Mickey Mouse a fat whore.

He works at night... like me. : )

Child psychologist Bruno Bettelheim warned that parents should not allow children to read Where the Wild Things Are because it would frighten them too much.

"Childhood is a tricky business," Sendak says. "Usually, something goes wrong."That theme got him into trouble with adult critics in the past, but he’s not worried about how his younger readers will react."Kids," he explains, "are so shrewd."

My already massive respect for this him just grew even more.

Where the Wild Things Is As Dark As You Are... or were.

2008-04-23T20:04:00.000-07:00

On message boards around the globe the battle rages on about a mature minded movie involving what its like to be a child, made from a children's book containing adult concepts like the balance of love against anger and being in control of ones own destiny.

Many people seem to want this to be an all around "happy" film with no challenging content or themes. The way I read their comments, I think they would be happy if it was along the lines of Garfield or Spongebob Squaqrepants. They clearly don't see the book the same way I always have. I have even read many people complain that the Wild Things in the leaked test (now gone from the internet) were not smiling like they are in the book!

Holy crap! They think the beasts in the book are smiling! Grinning would be more like it large toothy grins, but mostly they are barring their teeth. Sometimes cracking what might be called a smirk. I mean, they threaten to eat him because they love him so much. : P

Some others in these threads try to point out that the actual words found in the book are not exactly "nice". But people seem to insist that the Wild Things are the 1960's equivalent of Mike and Skully from Monsters Inc. (I love Monsters Inc. btw but Its a different "beast") They call them "cute" and "cuddly". Good God are they missing the mark. I hope they didn't ruin those great characters for their kids by reading the book to them in a "baby talk voice"

I Imagine the parental censorship going something like this...
"They woared their terrwible woars, wolled their terrwible eyes, mooshed their terrwible teeffhies, and showed their terrwible softy-wofty paws."

"They cried, Oh please don't go, we love you so! We'll eat...er kiss you on your belly welly!"

Ugh.

Anyone really looking at the art and reading the content should see that it is not a "cute" story. Its supposed to be a bit on the edge, without crossing the line. Max is an angry boy. He is frustrated, a bit out of control, and he is trying to deal with his anger at being punished. When he "runs away" what he is doing is working through his problems with his imagination. The wild things ARE his dark side! At least that is my take on it... It seems so clear to me and It's quite brilliant really.

In addition to its simple and elegant story, Maurice Sendak's art in the book is stunning and I can say with no hesitation that it was one of the things that influenced me to pursue my creative abilities. I am a bit subversive, dark, and spooky myself... coincidence? Only somewhat, I am sure I was drawn to the book because of those budding aesthetics in me, but all kids NEED influences that cover a full spectrum of tone. Spooky, joyful, wondrous, dire, playful. Just giving them one "flavor" of life is cheating them and not giving them the tools to deal with the dark uncomfortable feelings they may already have. Children can understand a lot, we just don't give them credit for it. Maybe the fact that I got my hands on a dark and creepy little book about a bad little boy that imagined being the king of the Wild Things helped me work through some of my problems.

Maybe some kids out there need a equally powerful film about that same boy to help them with their problems.

So I guess what I am saying is if you had a happy go lucky childhood, or choose to deny yourself access to those dark feelings you had as a child, then the monsters were smiling... for the rest of us, they were "gnashing their terrible teeth" in an attempt to keep the rage under control. If you grew up like I did, constantly feeling under attack and in danger, you may be more interested in the Spike Jones version... in the same way that the original work by Maurice Sendak was more than just a cute little book to me when I was a kid.

Mr. Sendak gave me a tremendous gift back then... he showed me how to escape.

I like Katie

2008-04-21T09:42:00.000-07:00

This is my second favorite clip of her antics but I cant find a good example of the other one were she is even more "eccentric". I relate to her in some strange way.

Enjoy...

Adobe Survey Responce

2008-04-09T08:47:00.000-07:00

Once again, a company has asked me to take a survey... and provided a comments section! When will they learn.

Dear Adobe people,

Perhaps you could make this part of a collection of benefits for people that actually PAY for your software. As someone who has owned Photoshop for a very long time I have to tell you I am a bit sick of competing against people that simply download it and make the claim that piracy is part of your business model. It is even suggested at times that the cost that I pay is adjusted to account for the lost revenue from piracy. I feel like after all this time Adobe treats me no better than someone who has never purchased it. The company seems indifferent to both extremes of user. The hoops I have had to jump through to install an upgrade on occasion have often make me feel no more trusted than a criminal.

Offering services like I imagine you may be planning here at reduced rates or perhaps even freely to long time owners of your products might go a long way to making people like me feel like we have not been made fools of for all these years for trying to be honest. I often wonder if Adobe even knows who I am... or even cares. Considering how many people rip you guys off and how much simpler that is getting to do every day, maybe you should be doing everything in your power to build relationships with the people that have shown themselves to be loyal. Tying your products to online components that are NOT accessible to pirates or giving long time users access to online services seems to be one GREAT solution.

Thanks,

Murdock Scott.

My Advice To Consumer Reports.

2008-04-07T18:34:00.000-07:00

Not to long ago I got fed up with looking for product information on the web. It's a quagmire out there. I am convinced that user to user sites are populated with people of questionable interest. like people trying to sell training on a software product, or just plain old sales and marketing people hired to sit in front of computers and relate their "personal" experiences about the product. Sure, many honest "real" people take the time to rate stuff they buy, but for each one of those, it would be a really simple matter to offset any timid "it didn't work that great" 3 star ratting with a glowing "OMG, this thing is awesome!" 5 star fix.

So, it dawned on me that I DID know of at least ONE impartial source of consumer information... The now classic Consumer Reports. So I signed up for their website to see what they had been up to. Now for those of you that don't know how CR works, here is the scoop.
1. They sell no ads.
2. They test all products impartially. I believe they actually buy them when possible.
3. They are a non-profit
4. All the testing is supported through the sale of the publications and now subscription to the website.

Problem is I think only people my age or older even, know anything about them... and I had forgotten. Worse yet, when I signed up the 2 things I looked for, had no reviews... sorta common stuff too if you ask me. I looked for electric toothbrushes and colorimeters for calibrating monitors... what? you don't think everyone needs clean teeth and a color correct LCD?

Today I got an email from them asking me to take a survey. I have a feeling that they are feeling a bit like a fish out of watter in a time when people throw up oppinions on the web constantly and they are scrambling to understand their place in it.

It's simple really, there is NO shortage of product information on the web... what there IS a desperate shortage of is QUALITY ORGANIZED IMPARTIAL product information. At the end of the survey they gave a place for notes... allways a bad idea when it comes to me, heh. Here is what I wrote to them.

Consumer Reports people,
I really hope you can become a force to be reckoned with in the digital age. User to user message boards and user "review sites are RIFE with companies "virally" hawking their goods disguised as real people. My own blog about headaches has people constantly posting about remedies that I highly suspect are paid to act as if they too are sufferers... It's getting really sick out there.

But in order to remain relevant I am afraid you may need to get aggressive. I was a very young kid in the 70's when consumer rights was the rage. People need to get mad again about being sold things that don't work, don't last, or are dangerous. I might suggest fighting fire with fire and get some people that really understand the bleeding edge of tech and have them creating "short attention span versions" of the hottest reviews and comparisons you do. (you may have to do a faster less in-depth "quickie" to be sure its still a product people are currently exited about) then they should "seed" these stories on sites like digg and reddit.

I may be telling you a bunch of stuff you already know, but I never see a CR story listed on Digg for example. Now your in a tough spot due to the whole "information wants to be free" dogma that is sweeping our culture and how that is in serious conflict with how you do your work... so I guess you may have to let "some" of it go... like I mentioned.. the "short attention span version" of the reviews. Get them reading, then REALLY play up the direct support with no advertising angle and maybe even EXPOSE the hidden advertising and "gaming" (fixing ratings) on other sources that they seem oblivious too.

The new systems of "monetizing" information are becoming too indirect and convoluted. Advertising is embedded in everything, as a response to our abandonment of our end of the contract to "Pay" for the content we watch and listen to. So now, the consumer has no tools to know wether he is looking at an ad, customer opinion, expert review, entertainment, piece of art or some combination of all of the above.

I am afraid I see it as a bit of a war, and you may be some of the last remaining "good guys". You offer a simple and honest relationship. "Buy our publication and we will gather a well rounded opinion of products for you so you can make better purchases."

I would hate to loose that.

ʇxǝʇ uʍop ǝpısdn

2008-03-27T16:37:00.000-07:00

ɥǝɥ ˙sʞɹoʍ ʇı llǝʍ ʍoɥ ʇɐ ʇno pǝpɹıǝʍ ɟo ʇɹos ɯɐ ı ˙ƃƃıp uo ƃuıʇsod ɐ ɯoɹɟ ʎɐpoʇ looʇ sıɥʇ punoɟ ı ˙ʎʞǝǝɹɟ ʇsnɾ sı sıɥʇ ʞo

Go here to play

120 minutes archive

2008-03-09T23:03:00.000-07:00

I came accross this tonight and just wanted to make a post to remind myself mostly. : )

It is a collection of compiled playlists from many of MTVs old alternative music show, 120 minutes.

The first one they have is episode #4 and it included such jewels as:

The Art of Noise-Peter Gunn Theme
Hoodoo Gurus-Bittersweet
Oingo Boingo-Stay
X-Ray: Laurie Anderson
Laurie Anderson-Language Is a Virus

Nice.

120 minutes archive

Where The Wild Things Are film... Laugh or cry?

2008-03-06T08:16:00.000-08:00

I just learned of this a few minutes ago and it was a bit of an opinion roller coaster...

Doc learns:
Someone is making a film of his favorite childhood book Where The Wild Things Are
Immediate Response: Yes!
Slightly delayed response: Oh no... what if they don't honor the art or story

Doc learns fact #2:
Its a Spike Jones film
Immediate Response: Yes!
Slightly delayed response: Wait a minute... that could be bad, or could be good. Better look for pictures...

Immediate Response to image: No! No! No! Its never ending story 2008! please "random deity" NO! *sobbing ensues*
Slightly delayed response: Sure its live action, sure those are guys in big furry suits, but it still kinda looks cool. *sobbing ceases*

Doc learns fact #3:
The creatures are lovingly crafted by Henson studios
Immediate Response: Yes! If anyone can pull it off they can...
Slightly delayed response: But can they do it without inserting themselves into the designs? The beasts of WTWTA have a look that is very unique and classic, the same can be said for Hensons creations, problem is, muppets usually LOOK like muppets. Even ones not supposed to, like Yoda for example.

Doc learns fact/rumor #4:
The whole thing is getting killed. Warner Brothers is considering reshooting the entire film, fireing Jones and the writer Dave Eggers so they can rework it as a much more "Kid Friendly" film
Immediate Response: That never sounds good, Studio executives tend to think of kids in the lowest common denominator. The EXACT thing I loved about the book when I was a child was that it WAS subversive! It did make me feel like I may have some power or control over my own destiny, at least in my imagination. Children are smarter than anyone EVER gives then credit for, at least some of them are. When you make dumb media for them, you fail to challenge them and thats a tragedy. Please do NOT make a sub par "kid friendly" overly bright and cheery, trend laden, product placement filed, piece of crap in the name of Maurice Sendak!
Slightly delayed response: Eh, It probably would have sucked no matter what... *sigh*

Doc learns fact/rumor #5
Maurice Sendak has been quoted as saying that he loved Jonze and Eggers's script and that it was the perfect approach to the movie and if the movie was not made that way he would prefer there never to be a Where the Wild Things Are movie.
Immediate Response: Yes! Go get them Maurice!!!
Slightly delayed response: Wait a minute... Artist never have any control. Once he signed that paper WB can do what ever the hell they want. Even if thats a film version of Wild Things On Ice! Staring Dorothy Hamill as Max!

I have also just learned that some clips are starting to turn up on the interwebs. Aperantly there may be a fight going on and Spike Jones may be relesing the clips to prove that the film didnt need to be reshot due to tech dificulties like WB has be making souns about.

This is aperantly an early test... thats not the actual actor as Max and thats not his wolf costume, its an off the shelf sheep sleeper they purchased for the test.

That looked pretty cool... man, I don't know about this whole thing.

As I said... I am very conflicted. One thing is for sure... creative decisions about something very precious to me are currently being made by men in suits trying to maximize gross earenings... I hate that.

Updates:
Rumor: Dan Masse / Film Threat says... "I was talking to Roger Ebert about it after he saw the preview - he said it was by far one of the best things he'd seen in the last DECADE."

Embeding Hulu?

2008-03-03T12:23:00.000-08:00

I am dubious at best...

Wow! well, my column width is too narrow but otherwise it freaking works. I guess TV is finally getting dragged into the present kicking and screaming.

Great to see the old SNL content. : )

Green Glob Gone! (sorta.)

2008-02-27T12:33:00.000-08:00

As you may have read, my sony TV has had a big greenish yellow pee stain covering one side of the screen for a while. I learned that this was due to a poorly manufactured "Optical Block" or "OB". and that Sony would replace this part due to a class action lawsuit settlement.

I have been hesitant to take action till I absolutely HAD to because I was not sure a replaced OB will be any better at this time. You see, I know a small bit about how manufacturers deal with “refurbished” parts… and to be honest I was hoping to wait for the supply of bad ones to quit cycling through the system.

Well, In the last few days my set became unwatchable… it had gotten much worse than those pictures and was getting noticeably more discolored day by day. So I called Sony.

I was polite but confident, explained the problem and the testing I had done. They pretty quickly generated a problem ticket and gave me repair centers to call. Pretty easy really. I called all 3 numbers they gave me and picked the one I felt understood the issue best and was most straight forward about it and set up the repair with them.
The tech called this morning saying that they recived the OB and wanting to come out so we set it up…

I now have a second bad OB.

The tech was great, a real nice guy. We talked quite a bit as it takes a while to disassemble the XBR1. I was very confident that things would all be made right. But after he finished and we flipped on the power, I put up my 50% gray test screen and sure enough it was pinkish gray on one side and greenish gray on the other.

It’s subtle, like something a color minded person like me would see but a bench tech refurbishing 50 OBs a day wold blow off. But I know its the start of the “stain”. My tech also saw the issue and offered to order me a new OB… but for the reasons I stated above, I told him I wanted to wait and see if it “goes away”. I of course know it won’t but maybe in a month I may have a better chance of getting an OB that isn’t cursed from the beginning.

Don’t be like me though… replace your OB often! Don’t make your friends and family suffer the green stain! : )

No country for old men waves its privates in the face of people that thought it sucked.

2008-02-25T14:21:00.000-08:00

When we saw this great film, we had people in our theater shouting at the end of the movie.

My guess is that they where so offended that brutality would go unpunished or that a hero would fail and surrender against insurmountable odds, that they could not contain the frustration. Their illusion had been shattered and they really did NOT like it!

Me, I know the world can be a brutal and unjust place. Why the hell should every movie made be a lie? I am sick of being patted on the head and told it will be OK.

So the cries of "That Sucked!", "Oh My God!" and "I Want My Money Back!" Were really saying to me "Please don't make me think about the fact that this kinda thing most likely really happens."

Good work shaking it up C-Bros. Those Oscar wins renewed my faith in the film industry a tiny bit.

The internet and its effect on the concept of an original idea

2008-02-25T13:06:00.000-08:00

Recently we got a comment on our youtube posting of Coda from a person who seemed pretty upset and claimed that they and another person had essentially made the same film 2 years earlier. By her tone, we felt she was implying that we had seen the film they made and duplicated key elements from it.

Well, for the people involved in Coda we know this to not be the case. Whatever direct influences we had, we were largely unaware of them... well except for rules of the race of course. Old Twilight Zones, Hitchcock, M. Night Shyamalan and other such broad influences, sure, I think were clear about those... but none of us had ever seen a film exactly like what we were quickly writing and we had certainly never seen their film which was never distributed and played once at a film festival in Florida as near as I can tell. We simply would not have had the opportunity.

I still haven't seen their film, but I am taking it on faith that it has some strong similarities. (They seem like nice and honest people after getting to know them a bit) Thats really interesting to me. I have been speaking with the person that made the post and I think I have convinced her that we never saw their film. (they are trying to get it up on youtube, I hope they do I am dying to see it) If it really is as similar as they say, then it will have some interesting social ramifications to me.

Like I told her in a message "I really do understand, I know it must have been shocking to see something that appeared to be a copy of your work. Having done creative work professionally and personally for 20+ years I know that feeling... and Its always disturbing. The internet is only going to make it worse I think. In the past we may have lived the rest of our lives never knowing we did films so similar! But I suspect this is a good thing, It allowed us to meet, have a great story to tell, and perhaps have a few more people seeing our projects because of it."

Will people feel less compeled to create if they feel all the good Ideas are spoken for? what If you have a concept for a film 10 years from now and you search the web wich by that time is overflowing with films and videos from vast millions of people. and you find that in 2011 some person did almost the exact concept withsome friends on handhelds an barebulb 3 point lighting... will you keep going knowing that you will likely get accused of ripping them off?

With so many people making so much media, duplication of ideas is almost guaranteed.

The real answer of course is to not care and ignore the crys of foul... interestingly this is the same answer for both the person that honestly arrived at the concept on their own as it would be for the person that DID steal it. I just don't know if I can "not care" because I really pride myself on supporting the creators of content and just the idea that someone thought I would blatantly steal from someone else would make me ill.

By the way if you haven't seen Coda, and liked it... go give it a good rating. : )

Green glob of doom

2008-02-22T04:28:00.001-08:00

Have you ever purchased a TV that was much more expensive than you should have ever paid but you justified it to yourself and bit the bullet... only to have it do this two years later?

*sob*

Two Amazing Short Films

2008-02-21T14:24:00.000-08:00

I was thinking of this blog as mostly a place for me to write, but I have to tell people about a couple of extraordinary short films I have seen recently.

First, Terminus

Official Site – Direct link high quality (200mb)

Terminus is a disturbing bit of work. The graphics are impressive, not in a flashy "OMG look at that 14 headed alien" kinda way, but more of a "this is what it looks like when I dream" way. Bringing the fantastic into common settings is highly effective at creating tension and boy did these film makers ever cause tension. Excellent work.

I hope you like it as much as I did.

Next is Space Alone

Full Screen flash

Apparently a solo work from Ilias Sounas, its really beautiful plus he is a gifted story teller. I hope he does more animation.
Here is a link to his blog.

Robot Dreams

2008-02-14T19:23:00.000-08:00

I picked a book called Robot Dreams on a whim while I was perusing the graphic novels at a book store last night and I could tell very quickly I held a treasure in my hands. (Good thing I looked between the oversized copies of Batman Eats Lasagna, How To Draw Manga Vol. 44, and Hulk Universe Ultra.)

Every now and then I get ahold of something like Robot Dreams that really effects me.

Find it here

People that know me understand that I don't give endorsements lightly as I find so few things in this world truly special... Robot Dreams has made my list.

Go buy it....

Expensive software + Pirates make me a sucker

2008-02-13T12:39:00.000-08:00

As you may have noticed I am on a tear about what is good and bad in the world of P2P file sharing.

As I was poking around the web I found an argument by a person that claimed "Ask any graphics designer, I'll bet my ass that his/her intro to photo editing would have been a pirated version of Photoshop."

Ooooo I suddenly feel out of touch with the general population again... Its sort of a queasy, light-headed feeling.

Why do I feel this way? Because, after only playing around with it on machines at my work and on friends computers, I bought photoshop as soon as I could scrape together the money to do so even though I was very poor. (I did get a good deal on an older version) Was I mad? A lunatic? I must be at least a freak of nature.

I have personal owned Photoshop since the 1.2 version. (I have the floppies to prove it.) I have kept it up to date at a pretty large personal expense. it was often a financial challenge to keep it current, but I saw this as necessary for me to advance in my profession. So…

A. Is it fair that because I respect the work that goes into making something as complex as PS, I have such a higher cost of entry to its use? Is it right that I have to compete with people that didn’t have the same feelings of obligation, didn’t pay to own the software and honed their skills on cracked copies or copies using borrowed serial numbers? Especially now that it is so easy to get?

B. I have heard it implied many times that software companies set the price for applications with piracy in mind. Since they know that a certain number of people will not pay. They adjust the price higher for those of us that will, in order to cover those losses. The insane cost of PS that I have paid over the years may be in part due to this and it could be said that I am paying a tax so that the people not willing to pay can use the software.

These are just some thoughts… I agree that file sharing won’t be going away and that we need to get used to its effects, both positive and negative. Maybe Adobe will create a “Loyal user program” and start giving me every other update for free… heh, I wont hold my breath.

So, what about the people that have always paid for the software? Are we just stupid? Maybe so.

File sharers seem not to respect musicians... Or at least they don't understand the crap we go through.

2008-02-11T01:18:00.000-08:00

On a heated message board recently a few folks and I tried to convince file-sharers not to lump the musicians in with the music industry they hate so much.

This person makes a good point:
"To say piracy helps small artists, is not accurate. Exposure helps small artists. If the goal of p2p is to help small musicians (as opposed to just getting stuff without paying for it) it could be done more fairly by streaming free music instead of just downloading everything for free."-Ray Tardo

Very true, hell even if people were just TRYING to encourage support for independents then even open sharing would be fine. But I can tell you it is not my personal experience that people support independents when the files are offered freely. On one service that tracked free downloads we put up back in the old OMD days we had well around 20,000 unique downloads of our most popular track... I'll let you guess how many people choose to come back and click the button that would pay us the extremely modest fee for our effort and hard work.

As does this guy:
"All free download sites should have a donation button for the artist. Hello!"-anonymous

Someone would have figured this out a long time ago if they were really interested... I honestly don't believe they are. People seem to think it is easy to produce interesting well crafted songs recorded to the standards the public demands and therefore don't assign vale to them. I don't know how independents can convince them otherwise. Many of us have tried for years.

Unfortunatly most seem to belive that small musicians make good money performing live:
"its easy for a band to grow outside its local area when people around the world can hear their music at the click of button. and this is the exposure that everyone seems to be talking about. the more an artist is exposed, the more gigs theyre gonna get. any artist will tell you that they get the majority of their money from live gigs, and from selling their merchandise at these gigs. have you ever wondered why artists actually go out and play live shows?"-macD

2 things here. One, what do you say to a really talented musician that can't tour or perform? does the music they produce have no worth if they cant spend 10 months out of the year on the road? Second, were the hell do you live that people still go out to see live music that isn't from an already fully established artist? Maybe you do live in one of those dwindling few places like austin or hipper cities of the pacific NW, but in most parts of the US original live music has been dying slowly for a long time... god forbid you do something a bit out of the mainstream... if thats the case you can just forget it.

This is also a common opinion:
"But either way, id rather have a larger fanbase than alot of cash. I mean id make more money if 100,000 kids come to a show and atleast 25% purchase a shirt or cd there. Than selling 100,000 cd's off of iTunes or from a record store. -goemon4"

100,000? thats like arena rock crowds bud... Most independents are glad to get 50-200 people at a show if they are pretty well know. You have to get pretty huge before the economy of scale would make that work. Many talented artist would simply not have the choice to continue waiting for that to happen. If your talking about big established acts... sure. But then who will make the new music? in a future were recorded music has no value, who could afford to?

This is the guy that wrote the article we were all discussing:
"Studies have shown that artist actually make more money and sell more CDs if people can "try" their albums, by downloading them from P2P-networks.

Don't get me wrong, Piracy is not a solution, it's a signal that the recording industry should adapt to the preview / collect / sample demand of the public.

They will make MORE money on the long run, period"-Ernesto

Man, I don't know what to say other than my personal experience differs wildly from those studies. The music I make is way out of the mainstream and therefor its gonna be nearly impossible to reach a tipping point were having only a small percentage of the listeners directly support it makes it a viable choice for putting the time required into it.

The evil music industry needs to die, sure... Tons of musicians will agree... we hate it too. But we honestly thought we would all be working together on a solution to replace it and we thought that all the people tired of paying to much would support the efforts of true independents. The truth turns out to be very different and somewhat saddening.

I like this guy, he is a classic anarchist, but he fails to see some big holes in his thinking. and if one person in this thread summed up why file sharers feel justified it would be this guy. I would call him the voice of that community:
I'll tear down a corrupt system and replace it with nothing any day of the week, and proudly so.

I have no idea how the music industry is going to work in the future, but I do know that music is an art form that does not need any industry whatsoever to survive.

Music does not need to be a moneymachine for all involved. Ask yourself how music could exist before record companies. Some made a living by it, most did not.

Before recorded music existed, music was the property of all and enjoyed by all. That's what music is about."- Anonymous

From your statements, I think you're not a musician that has sacrificed relationships, comfort, security, and more so that you could bring your music to the people who might enjoy it...

Yes, we do it for "art" (at least a few of us) but we can't KEEP doing it if we are not supported. We at some point need the help of the people that enjoy the music. and back before recorded music, people gave coin to performers... or paid them to be in a house band as a regular job. The thing that has mostly changed is what the audience expects... to deliver a piece of music that is considered "good" you have to invest a lot of time and quite a bit of money.

My project studio and other music related expenses most likely cost more over the years than many people paid for their college educations. Yet if someone is a programer or a web developer they are not going to give your services away for free are they? Most likely they would never do any work on "spec". But somehow only a tiny fraction of people seem obligated to give musicians respect and support. I waste my breath I am sure... I have made these arguments for years and years and either I am just completely wrong... or people don't want to listen.

Before recorded music existed you couldn't have 10,000 songs on your hard drive. and unless you convinced uncle jake to pull out the banjo you would have no music at all.

So, Respectfully I say to you that unless your 80gig zune (heh zune) is full of music recorded in your home with your friends playing boron, mandolin, and a string bass then I am afraid your above statements are flawed in my option.

You can start learning here... http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2w7z4_boron-drummp4_music

I was not prepared for this...

2008-02-06T18:42:00.000-08:00

My wife has written her own description of these events and I have not yet read them because I don't think I am ready... I had to defer some of my emotion while I was taking care of her and I am still pretty shaken up.

As some people reading this may know, my wife and I were expecting a child. After many many years together we had made the important decision to add a member to our family. She got pregnant very quickly and we both started getting used to the idea that we would be parents. At 6-7 weeks we had a sonogram and saw the heart of our future child beating. I dont know how to describe what that is like other than to say "it changed me". I started preparing, trying to get more done, make myself believe I would be a good father. The love and respect for my wife grew to new heights. The fact that she would choose to start this adventure with me was powerful to say the least. I was proud and I had redefined purpose in my life.

Weeks passed, everything was on track, we had an appointment for a new sonogram in a day or two that would mark her officially being in her second trimester.

One morning about two weeks ago she called me from work and told me she was bleeding a bit and having cramps. I got a terrible sinking feeling like all the air had been let out of my lungs but I acted brave and asked her if she had called her doctor. She said that she was waiting to hear back from them so I offered to come meet her for lunch in order to hopefully offer her some reassurance and take her mind off of it. She sounded very uneasy and stressed.

A short time later she called me and told me that she had spoken with her doctor and that he had said that this happens sometimes and not to worry too much and to call if it became worse. We decided to still meet for lunch. I felt helpless when I saw her, like nothing I said or did would make one bit of difference. We talked about the fact that it may be something that just happens in a certain number of pregnancies and I tried to remind her that a lot of changes are going on inside her and that it may just be normal... but really I think looking back we both knew something was wrong.

She came home early and we tried to distract ourselves but the cramps just became worse over time and she started bleeding more. In the evening I suggested she should call the doctor again. She said that she didn't want to bother them and I reminded her that that was their job and that for once she needed to be put her own interests first. Eventually I convinced her to call and after waiting for the doctor that was covering at that hour to call us back, they gave her more advice that it may just be normal and to watch the bleeding... With the ominous instruction that if it got to a certain level that she needed to go to the emergency room.

Another couple of hours passed and her pain became worse and worse. Now and then she would disappear into the bathroom and I would listen in case she called for me... I was very torn I wanted to be at her side at every second but I also wanted to respect her boundaries. Every part of me was a bundle of nerves. She started bleeding still more and at the first sign that she thought she might want to go to the emergency room I jumped on it and told her "lets not mess around on this... If you think you may need to go, then we are going now" We gathered our stuff quickly, put her in the car and started off to the hospital.

It was some time after 10pm. She was reclined in the passenger side of the car and I couldn't really see her face most of the time so I took her hand and was constantly giving her squeezes like a code. It seemed like I was asking her how she was every few feet of the trip. I have to say that in the dark, driving as fast as I could safely drive, only getting a chance to look over at her now and then I started getting scared... she was weak, she had lost a lost of blood at that point and was in tremendous pain. I have this image in my head of seeing her like that as light from a street lamps played over her and thinking that I could loose her.

We arrived at the emergency room and as you might expect they seemed disinterested and overly casual. This of course pissed me off to no end but I knew that if I wanted to get her taken care of efficiently I would need to not freak out on them. She was in a wheel chair and I kept her close to the desk and stood by her, when I saw a spot closer to the desk and in their field of vision I moved us there so we could get help quicker if needed.

Then my wife very sheepishly told me she was going to pass out. I was trying to get her to lean back when she just collapsed and slumped forward. I yelled her name, I tried to push her upright but she was just dead weight and the wheelchair was not locked. I put my arms around her and started yelling at the desk that she had passed out. They slowly, begrudgingly turned their attention to us just in time to see her start jerking and kicking. Someone said "Is she having a seziure?!" and I just shouted out "I don't Know!" and I think I started saying something like "please help her!" over and over. But it was probably not necessary. They where already in action calling out things to each other like in a hospital drama. They moved slower than I would have liked but I understood that the speed at which I perceived things to be happening was modified by my swelling panic and fear for my mate. It seemed like I answered a question and when I turned around she was being wheeled away so fast I had to jog to catch up held into the wheelchair by the same woman I felt like yelling at a few minutes before because she struck me as flip. She came out of it as they were taking her back and started asking questions. She was very pale and her lips had almost no color. I was terrified that she was in real trouble.

My disrespect for the staff melted while I watched her being made ready to examined and taken care of. At one point the same woman who I had been so mad at seemed to see how worried I was, put her hand on my arm and gently said "She will be ok, they work fast, and they are very good".

Getting her set up and on the monitoring machines was a disturbing, she was bleeding so much and the staff all seemed surprised by this and at times they seemed perplexed by why she was passing out. When they got her on the monitors I started to feel a bit better. They all seemed a bit relived and I asked if she looked OK from what was on the screens one nurse was kind enough to say that her vital signs looked good. I didnt know at that point that the next many hours would be spent watching those little squiggly lines.

We waited for a doctor for what must have been well over an hour. Every so often my wife would start quaking like she was violently shivering. She also could not seem to get warm and we kept asking for more blankets. The other thing that was freaking me out was that she kept saying she was thirsty over and over. I think I brought her 3 glasses of water. I kept thinking this was a bad sign for her to be worried about her thirst when she was in such pain and distress otherwise. We still didn't know for sure what was going on at this point and how serious it was. So these long waits became more and more torturous.

When the doctor arrived he asked a few questions and disappeared again for another 45min to an hour. Thankfully after this first visit, my wife was given some pain medication and was started to relax. She asked to go to the bathroom and insisted on getting up to go. I am struggling with this as I don't want to be to direct... but she lost a lot of material before getting back to the room. She seemed to be in less pain and with all the pain she had been in I was thankful.

On the doctors return he examined her and this was more than a bit hard to take, it was gory and miserable. He told us she was having a miscarriage. Of course we new this by this point and he of course was just confirming what was happening. I asked him if she would be alright because she was in so much pain and she was passing out. Thats when the oddness of it all hit me... This was normal. Rare yes, as most miscarriages happen much sooner, but perfectly normal. And I had no Idea. The hushed tones that people use to talk about such things had always lead me to believe it was a relatively heartbreaking but less eventful process. I asked the nurse if we had done the right thing by coming to the emergency room and she said that it was. I told her I never expected it to be so traumatic and she told me that they see many women and that when its this far along, its a very serious situation.

A sonogram was ordered, more waiting, the sonogram was performed, more waiting, shifts changed and we got a new doctor that told us that the miscarriage was incomplete and to follow up with her personal doctor ASAP because surgery may be required. She was discharged around 3AM and I wheeled her out and was paying the bill when she called out to me that she was going to pass out again. I rushed over to her and it was like the whole thing was starting over again! I could not get her to respond and the nurse that had been tending to her most of the evening rushed over and took her back to a room.

More waiting, the second doctor visited and informed us that they were getting new blood work done and that they wanted to watch her for a while and get an opinion from the "gyno" on call. I made a joke to my wife, pretending to think the doctor had said the "Dyno" on call and explaining how I was imagining a T-Rex in a lab coat with little flippity floppity arms... my wife laughed and I loved her for it.

With this new round of emergency and worry, I couldn't help but think that something was horribly wrong... it just didn't seem right for her to be so sick, so hurt, so weak and in so much pain. I pushed back hard against the thoughts of losing her. While we were still waiting she lost some more material and when the blood work came back doctor #3 told us it would not be necessary to check her into the hospital. By this time it was after 7AM and we had been there for over eight hours.

We picked up her prescriptions for pain medication, antibiotics and grabbed a few supplies, drove home to clean up and then got back in the car to make the long drive to her regular doctor to keep the appointment we already had for the second sonogram... What should have been our second "baby picture" now had the purpose of checking to see if she needed surgery.

So, she is recovering... and I am starting to feel like I can relax a bit and drop out of "protector" mode. We are feeling very close at the moment, both of us seem to go through irrational bouts of guilt, but we have been very good at supporting and loving each other. I have moments of deep sadness that I know will pass eventualy...

The thing I came away from this experience with is that I wish I had known. I know its not something people want to talk about, I know what we went through was a rare extreme example of what can happen, and I know we had the misfortune of it occurring in the middle of the night when her regular doctor was not available. But I don't think we needed to be taken by surprise like that... I held my wife in my arms and thought she was going to die...

And I thought she was going to die because I had gotten her pregnant. I felt like I would go mad. If anyone reads this and is more prepared for the possibility of this happening then its worth the uncomfortable sadness and embarrassment I feel now.

If my wife, my love, my best friend, decides she wants to try this again, I will be ready and experienced. I will protect her with all my strength and love her with all my heart.

Destroy or change the music industry?

2008-01-23T10:57:00.000-08:00

Today it was announced that Last.FM would be allowing users to steam songs in full length for 3 plays and offer a subscription model if you want to open it up to play those songs indefinitely. Aditionaly they will be paying artists directly for the plays out of the money generated from advertising and subscriptions.

Seems like a step in the right direction to me. But once again I am freaked out by the lack of respect for the artists themselves on the message boards. Shouts of "Music wants to be free!" and "down with the music industry!" were common. People that know me might understand that this set my head spinning with what is wrong with this line of thinking.

File sharing people and unlimited streaming people feel that it is them versus the evil suits that have been getting rich for decades off of overpriced record and CD sales and they are screaming for the end if the music industry!

Don't they realy mean, the end of the music industry... as we know it?

I don't think many people would be happy if the hard working people that make music all stopped because they had to get jobs at walmart. You have to think about all the people involved in music creation... musicians, producers, recording engineers, even the talented independent artist that has invested a huge amount of time learning the craft and money on decent equipment.

Anyone who has ever tried to make a great song knows just how hard, expensive, and time consuming it is. Even with the vast advances in music technology over the last few decades it still takes a lot of skill, imagination and time. If you are someone who has never tried, and you think I am full of it... then I challenge you to go make an interesting original song that is ready for distribution. Go ahead, I'll wait here... no? yeah, It's not so easy as most people assume. Dire straights were being sardonic suckas!

The music industry is not just a few vastly wealthy jerks at the top. Any new model needs to consider how to compensate the "worker class" people that put themselves into bringing you music that doesn't suck. Hopefully Last.FMs announcement is a step in the right direction.

Now if we could just get the average joe thinking about the people that make music as being worth supporting.

Is Tom a nut job? Or just the most recent nut job.

2008-01-15T08:01:00.000-08:00

At the moment the web seems to be going bonkers over a leaked internal video of Tom Cruise speaking on his involvement with Scientology. From the looks of it I would say it was produced for a large cooperate style meeting where he was being honored. In the video he seems to ramble on and somewhat confirm that he is a bit off his rocker in comparison to the average joe. This got me thinking again about cults, what people perceive as cults, and religion as a whole.

Here are some things I know about Scientology:
a). They think they are helping people...
b). They have strange rituals...
c). They have beliefs that can't be confirmed through observation...
d). They want to convert as many people as possible to their way of thinking...

Sounds like a pretty typical religion to me. :)

Sure, they seem pretty wacky, and I don't know enough about them to make a judgement wether they are dangerous or bad for our society, but I find it interesting that the religions that we find most strange are the youngest ones. I think time makes us think of unlikely events as more plausible and therefore legitimizes older religions. In actuality, is believing in resurrections, virgin births, creating humans from clay and the like really any different from thinking Jesus visited the native americans or that space aliens are involved with the course of human events?

In another 2000 years I wonder if people will see much of a distinction...

Is only 18% of people who download an album paying for it bad?

2008-01-10T12:53:00.000-08:00

In a word...Yes.

Recently an interview was posted with Trent Reznor and in it he expressed his disappointment that people had not supported the direct distribution of the The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust project he had worked on with Saul Williams. Digg and the talkback forum went nuts with people doing napkin math and claiming that the record had made $140k in 2 months.

*sign*

People don't seem to know or care what goes into making a record... The recording and distribution cost is a big point. studio time and hiring people to put out what is considered a "Pro" product still costs a lot. if you do it all yourself and forego those costs then you have to invest a hell of a lot of time. Another point is that this project was promoted by Trent Reznor, a very popular artist with lots of fans. Imagine being a small or new artist without that support? Your costs are still the same... but the percentage of people paying will likely be much lower because someone well respected isn't essentially asking fans to support it.

Now do that same napkin math on a new artist without a record company or a big name behind him or her it looks pretty dismal. For future independent artists to hope for this model to work the sales would have needed to be dramatically better.

Once again people are only seeing the tip of the iceburg and ignoring all thats underneath. If friggin Radio Head or a project promoted by Trent Reznor can't sell enough to make it worth wile, then what chance do the thousands and thousands of talented independent recording artists have... not to get rich mind you, just to make a modest living.

The Steve Perry Haiku

2007-12-20T15:15:00.000-08:00

I insulted steve
it was very traumatic
the tale is too long

People Show Failing Respect For Creatives

2007-12-20T12:33:00.000-08:00

Recently I came across a story through Digg about Creative Commons and photographers.
http://rising.blackstar.com/why-photographers-hate-creative-commons.html

The posts in the comment thread were somewhat brutal and many people seemed to be adamant that photography and creativity no longer had value because it was so commonly available for free. One person even insinuated that if people expected to be paid for creativity then they should be paid for bodily functions... nice.

This was my response that immediately started getting buried by negative ratings one would assume because I dare to want something in-between "only pros get paid" and "all information should be free".

***snip***

I am not sure that CC is really working to foster and protect creativity. Actually, I have not seen much work done as it relates to the web to promote a photographers ability to earn fair compensation for what they do. Honestly, I think we have a deeper problem here, as reflected in these comments. Creativity is losing value in the minds of people.

The line between pro and amateur is the real outdated concept here... We had a great opportunity to bring in hordes of new contributers and content generators and allow them to be good at what they do while earning a modest income from...*shock* art! There is no reason people shouldn't make some portion of their income from creativity even if it never becomes their main source of income. Saying a work has no value depending on who the creator is and what title they have is ridiculous.

Talented people should be informed that their work has value. Often I think they just assume it doesn't and others take advantage of that. Maybe thats the real issue. Even if you take one great image in your whole life... its still a great image.

***snip***

I understand why people would want to share and I certainly don't mean to imply that they are wrong to do so, But I think there are also a lot of talented non-pro people that are not being given an opportunity or encouragement to use their skill to help pay their bills because the current vibe seems to be "set it free or you are being antisocial"

We are spending lots of effort on sharing content and not enough effort on creating a system/attitude that supports creatives throughout the range of skill, equipment, and creativity. All I am wishing for is something in between "no value" and traditional "over priced pro". A range of "creative middle class artist" supported by licensing system that allows much of the freedom of CC but also encourages modest compensation when it makes sense. I have spent quite a bit of time at Creative Commons trying to figure out if it would fit that goal and honestly I just haven't found a way that I think it could. Someone here mentioned dual licensing and I need to put some thought into that before closing the book on CC though.

If we are going to tear down the status quo, maybe we should consider finding ways to include the talented people that have traditionally been left out. Do I want to continue to pay Getty $500 for a rights managed image? Hell no! But I would be glad to pay $10-$50 to a struggling person who is studying photography at night and managed to get a great shot that was similar to the $500 one.

***snip***

This person had some good points... but still he was sort of an "all or nothing" advocate... summed up by this statement. "You seem to be suggesting that 'creative output' deserves some form of income. It does. It deserves the income that their customers are willing to pay for it. No more, no less. "

Yes, and I am trying to encourage people to be honest with themselves about the value of that output... lets say someone makes a decent living and also has a popular blog on the side that promotes them and therefore indirectly increases their income. One day you see an image on flicker that you think would be perfect to communicate the "feel" of a post. Instead of just taking it because the person has put it up under a CC license and you are in the "gray area" perhaps they should offer to pay a small fee for it. I would like to change peoples minds in a broad way about what that value for creativity IS. (crazy I know) We don't seem to be talking about a scale of worth... either its free, nearly free, or it is prohibitively expensive. There could be a huge range of value and affordability.

Content creators and content users could ultimately benefit from a system that made it simple and convenient to freely share, or pay on a sliding scale depending on the quality and the usage. I see this as one of the largest wasted online opportunities of the last decade. Call it "having a micro job" or "The Creative Middle Class" but the trading and exchange of digital content for (very small) payments never evolved the way I had hoped it would and it seems to me that just people that use the content or want to make money distributing / organizing of that content are getting most of the advantage, while people that are good at making images, music, etc... have not. You mentioned that the worth of "creative output" is set by the market and competition – I would say that the worth is set by the market and competition and modified by the tools available to deliver and license it. Its easy to leave a tip for a waitperson because the system and the social standard is in place. It is a huge pain to try to pay a small fair fee to a web based creative.

I am not advocating things returning to the way they were... I was just hoping for something different and perhaps better than what has happened.

*****Snip*****

I don't know why I still fight it... Its not new, people have always had a low opinion of "artists". The idea that you should be able to make a living doing art is still foreign and confusing to most people. Its just that now the web has uncovered so many people with artistic leanings and since we all are so convinced of our own worthlessness by all the lack of respect... we are just giving away all we create even if it does have modest commercial worth. Nothings going to stop the landslide... Soon the dream of the web allowing for an "creative middle class" will be fully crushed and only the very rich or people willing to live in poverty or off the kindness of others will have the time to develop artistic skill... much like its always been.

The "Incident”

2007-12-19T21:02:00.000-08:00

The time frame of this story is around the mid-1990s, and this is how I remember it, although I’m sure that some of the details are getting a bit fuzzy...

So, one of the many things that I’ve done to support myself while making art and music all these years was selling high-end recording systems and synthesizers at a shop here in Dallas that catered to studios and professional musicians.

One day, a local producer came in with two guys I’d never seen before, and they were trying to find a really good piano sound for a project they were working on. We had just gotten in the Kurzweil Micropiano, and at the time it was a hell of a deal for such a cool little box. I think we had them on sale for like $279, which was a great price.

I hooked one up for them, and let them play with it for a while, and they really seemed to enjoy it. The guy who was sitting at the keyboard kept saying “Yeah, this is it, this is the sex!” All the while, they kept hassling me about the price, trying to get it for cheaper than the $279 that we had it on sale for.

I explained to them that it was an excellent price, and that was as low as we were going on those because they were selling so fast. But they wouldn’t shut up about getting a little extra off. They kept asking for the “Portuguese discount,” saying things like “Hey, what’s the Portuguese price on this?” I had NO IDEA what they were talking about.

So, to try to get their attention away from the price, I casually asked, “So, what kind of music do you guys do?” The guy at the keyboard responded, “Oh, pop rock.” I said, “Oh, yeah, really, like what? Does it sound like something I may have heard?” He responded, “Well, do you know Journey?” and I said to him, “Oh, yeah, sure,” with a less-than-enthusiastic tone in my voice. I guess as he picked up on this and said, “What, didn’t you like them?”

Being a very diplomatic guy, I simply said, “No, not really, it just wasn’t my thing,” to which one of them responded, “Well, they were more of a chick band.” I said, “Well, not any ‘chicks’ I hang out with.” They kind of smirked at that. Then he said, “So, you really didn’t like Journey?”

At this point, they’d been hassling me for so long about the price, and they seemed really oddly intent on just giving me a hard time, so I decided to give them a hard time back. I responded, “What are you, some kind of Journey freaks?” They all had a great laugh about that, and the guy at the piano looked at the other guys and said, “Well, yeah, we kind of liked them!”

Then he turned to me and said, “No, I’m really curious: what didn’t you like about them?” At this point, I was in full Smartass Mode, and didn’t see any reason to hold back. So I said, “What, you mean you like that guy’s voice?” And in my most shrill Steve-Perry impersonation I sang “Ooh, he’s lovin’, ooh he’s touchin’, anothaaaaaaaaah!” For some reason they found this incredibly amusing. They were slapping each other on the back, laughing, and I thought that the guy at the keyboard was about to fall off the stool.

When he had calmed down enough, he said, “So, you didn’t like his voice?” And I said, “Well no, I like men that sing like MEN,” which brought on another round of thunderous laughter and backslapping.

I couldn’t figure out why they kept asking me about Journey. Before I could figure it out, he asked me, “You didn’t like ANYTHING that they did?” So I said, “Well, there was that solo stuff that he had,” and sang a few notes of my mock-version of “Oh Sherrie,” to which he replied, “Oh, so you liked that?” I said, “No, that pretty much sucked too.”

It was about this time that I noticed that the local producer was turning beet-red and quivering with anger. I made a lame excuse and excused myself to go check on something in the back room, knowing that I had said something terribly terribly wrong, but not able to figure out what it was. One of the other salesmen came into the back room and I asked him, “Hey, do you know what I might have said to make John [not his real name] so pissed off?”

And it was at that point that he said, “Well, that’s Steve Perry you’ve been saying all those things to.”

I felt like somebody had punched me in the stomach. I mean, I was being honest, I don’t really care for his voice and wasn’t ever really into Journey, but just the idea of insulting anyone so badly made me feel ill. It’s not the sort of thing I go around doing. I have a lot of respect for talent in general, and he’s obviously a talented man… just not my cup of tea.

So I steeled myself and came out of hiding in the back room, and walked up to him and said something completely lame like “I’m sorry, Mr. Perry, I didn’t realize it was you.” And he said, “That’s OK, [XYZ] Record Company has the same opinion of my voice that you do. Maybe you could go work for them.”

He ended up buying the Micropiano… for the $279. And I was thankful that he was very gracious about the whole thing. I only hope that he didn’t take it too personally, and thought it was funny, and gets a kick out of telling the story about the goofy guy in Dallas who was mocking him right to his face.

I’ve NEVER been able to live this down with the people I used to work with, and it came to be known as “The Steve Perry Incident.”

Creative Middle Class, Part 1

2007-12-06T08:25:00.000-08:00

I have been reading online arguments regarding DRM/copyright and it has me thinking about this touchy subject again.

I wish that in these arguments people would consider all content creators, not just big studios/record companies. As a self published photographer, musician, and short film maker, it seems like no people don't stop to think about the new "creative middle class". People just want digital content to be free even if it means hobbling someone who relies on a modest income from digital works.

I know that the model is to "set it free" and hope for a return... but I only see that working on a very large scale. For example, if I made a well produced instructional video for a rarely used art technique and the 5000 people in the world who where interested in using it could either pay me a modest $10 or download a hijacked version of it... I hate to say it but the number of people that would choose to just snag it for free would most likely make the project not worth doing and thus a valuable bit of fairly priced content would never be made. If you are a well established and famous band with a very devoted fan base you may be able to get a minority portion of them to pay a modest price for your works and that would be OK because of the scale. The rest of us... good luck with that.

Is "A" Jethro Tull's Worst Album? Hell No I Say!

2007-11-12T13:39:00.000-08:00

I visited the iTunes music store to check if I had all the tracks for Jethro Tull's "A" and found it was victim of some pretty hateful reviews. Well feeling that the record didn't deserve that much spite, I decided to pen my own review. Here it is saved for all time in case it gets dropped off iTunes for people rating it unhelpful.

*******snip******

Not So Fast...

Take another look folks. People afraid of change have been bashing this record for decades but I think it has a lot to offer in the lexicon of Jethro Tull. Several songs influenced me as a young man. "Uniform" weaves a wonderful dark texture that owes a lot to the fantastic playing of Eddie Jobson; what a wonderful counterpoint to everyone's favorite rock flutist. My main issue with the track is that they fade out the stunning riffing at the end too soon.

"Batteries Not Included", "Crossfire", and "Protect And Survive" touched on something in me as a young person and helped cement my love for JT as I was really too young to have appreciated previous records when they came out. "A" was not my introduction to the band as my father was a rock DJ and brought home records for us all the time. But "A" was the first Tull album that I bought with my own money and it sealed the deal. I often wonder if people that don't like this record have really given it a chance. "And Further On", "The Pine Marten's Jig", and "Fylingdale Flyer" all strike me as tracks that are very much in line with the traditional sound of the more classic version of the band. Is it "Thick As A Brick"? no... But these are talented people. Even if they just pass wind into a mic it would likely sound better than 80% of popular music.

I agree that the record company made a mistake releasing it as a Jethro Tull record; chances are that if they had stuck to the original plan, more people would have been able to accept the record for what it is and there may not have been such a backlash.

Synthesizers don't kill albums... closed-minded people that hate them do. heh.

**********snip*********

Seems I am obsessing on music a lot recently, maybe that means I need to get back to writing some of my own. : )

Doc's Ever Growing List Of Perfect Albums

2007-11-11T20:29:00.000-08:00

I have been thinking about music recently as you might have been able to tell from my posts. I was involved in an online discussion about "perfect" records recently. Albums that have no "filler". As fun as this sounds, but also very hard. So few rock albums were created with the intention of every track being great. Thats just not how the economics of the industry has worked usually. I think most record companies would have preferred to spread 11 great tracks over 3 albums. : )

As Katy and I have been playing this game and mentioning it to other friends I find myself wanting to make suggestions and then removing them from my list due to one or two dud songs!

Here is all I have so far...
Filigree In Shadow - This Mortal Coil
UK - Danger Money
The Clash - London Calling
Traffic – Traffic
David Bowie - Ziggy Stardust
The Police - Synchronicity
Public Image Ltd. - Album (man, I love this record)
The Who - Whos Next
Elton John – Madman Across the Water
Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon
Elvis Costello – My Aim is True
The The - Mind Bomb
Jethro Tull - Thick as a Brick
Aim is True - Elvis Costello
Untitled #3 "Melting Face" - Peter Gabriel
The Who - Quadrophenia

If you read this and want to play... just remember to be honest with yourself... don't put "Madman Across The Water" on you list unless you would REALLY be willing to listen to "Tiny Dancer" every time. : )

The Greatest Record Ever Made

2007-11-10T03:44:00.000-08:00

So many great albums... so many true works of art...

The Clash - London Calling
Traffic – Traffic
David Bowie - Ziggy Stardust
The Police - Synchronicity
Public Image Ltd. - Album (man, I love this record)
The Who - Whos Next
Elton John – Madman Across the Water
Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon
Elvis Costello – My Aim is True

All frigg'in great... So much great music to choose from. So what is the all time favorite of some freak like me who's musical tastes span across acts like XTC, Scraping Foetus Off The Wheel, Jethro Tull, This Mortal Coil, The Damed, Laurie Anderson, UK and Radiohead???

No question.... Its Lamb... Always Lamb, I will never falter in my love for this record or change my mind that it is the greatest rock album ever made. It is pure genius. The stars really had to be aligned for such a perfect thing to have been created.

Hard to believe that anyone that played on Lamb could have gone on to suck so very hard as they did a hand full of years later on crap like Invisible Touch. *shudder* I think it just goes to prove just how much PG oozes creativity. But to be fair I really like Trick Of The Tail too, so even after he left I guess they still COULD do good music but eventually choose to cash in. *sob*

If for some reason you have not heard Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, please seek it out. It really should be listened to from start to finish if possible.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lamb_Lies_Down_on_Broadway

It made it into this list of the 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.
Nice list... I may need to explore it more.

Toss a Coin at the Village Idiot and Feel Better Because Its Not You.

2007-11-08T08:29:00.000-08:00

I was recently perusing a message board I frequent and found a post ridiculing a autistic man that had been getting a lot of attention on the web due to his Youtube uploads, online comics he had crudely drawn, and sometimes disturbing rants on his myspace page. Basically he is becoming a viral star because of his online antics. People have even gone as far as scouring the web for mentions of him in the blogs of people that know him personally and staking out places he goes in order to photograph him... wow. He has a page devoted to him on the wiki-style Encyclopedia Dramatica where all this information is consolidated and anyone can basically make fun of him or out right accuse him of anything... true or not.

I didn't know that the teasing of people who are different had gone so digital and global and brutal!

I won't mention details on this guy since that would only be adding fuel to the fire. But I can tell you he is not always the most pleasant fellow. He seems to be a bit intolerant towards minorities and gay people. Not a hate spitting, loud mouth mind you, he just strikes me as someone that was raised by closed minded parents and since he is autistic, he doesn't always know how to filter those ideas, or make his own decisions. He will say things like "Ladies" should only kiss "gentlemen" or other such over simplifications that if they came out of the mouth of a kid we might find them cute but since he is a 25 year old man the words come off as super creepy. Also he tends to get arrested for loitering in his attempts to find a girlfriend. So he does have some bad behaivior, but mostly it seems that he is just a big, socialy inept, creepy guy.

What follows is my response in the thread about why I think using a person that acts "creepy" as a form of web entertainment might be showing us something even more disturbing about ourselves.

*snip*
Assuming we take the information on encyclopedia dramatica at face value, the bottom line for me is that the dude seems to have problems... possibly both physiological and psychological. For that reason, I don't know if I want to participate in mocking him publicly.

He IS putting himself out there to be mocked for sure... but if we choose not to take the bait, then other people will be less likely to seek fame from encouraging ridicule of their shortcomings. And to be honest, I am not so sure he "gets" the underlying tone of his "popularity" he is unable to successfully interact socially after all. I wonder if any attention at all satisfies a need in him, even if it is negative and can only add to his issues down the road. Will making him "famous" stop him from acting badly in public and getting arrested in places he goes to look for girls? Nah.

To me his "star status" just seems like a digital equivalent to an old circus side show. Something we as a culture thought we were beyond but in fact we are still starring at the people who are vastly different from what is considered average because it helps us each individually feel more "normal".

As far as him having psychological issues that go beyond being autistic, who is to say how much being autistic screws with your self esteem and general mental health? Aspects of your brain function may be normal or even superior to average but I think that could be a serious detriment to being otherwise balanced because you may have the ability to comprehend just how your autism effects your life and limits what you can accomplish. I think thats gotta mess with ya.

Brain dysfunction has a wide range of effects on people and we are nowhere near being able to understand it fully. I think at some point in the future we will have a better grasp of just how unique and different each persons "mind" is and we look back on the idea of thinking that people are either "normal" or "abnormal" as naive.

More Early MTV Nonsense

2007-11-06T09:16:00.001-08:00

That first critical year...

According to something I read attributed to Nina Blackwood, in the early days of MTV they only had around 300 clips to choose from total (125 at the time of launch). Even though some videos were already a few years old, they wound up in major rotation because there was just not a lot to choose from and little or no competition for airtime amongst the artists.

1982 seemed to be the year that it began to change and the music industry started seeing MTV as a promotion tool mainly due to the success of J. Geils Band's "Centerfold". The song went to number one after being in heavy rotation on MTV in early 1982. Also notable was the Go-Go's "We Got the Beat". The song was a year old but due to the popularity of the video started climbing the charts and got to number 2 in early 1982... I can visualize the record industry "sharks" starting to gather around the sent of money in preparation of the frenzy that would soon devour my beloved eclectic video music channel.

So it seems that the slide into what quickly became a 24hr ad campaign for easily consumable top 40 pop music started a lot sooner than I remembered or was aware of at the time. I was a smart kid, but I doubt I could have perceived the underlying forces that where redirecting the course of the creek I was floating down as it became a rushing river of commercialism.

Its no wonder that when I talk about early MTV to people that they don't remember bands like The Buggles. By the time most kids had done a month of chores and raised their grades enough to finally convince their parents to get cable, the tide had most likely already turned. People only remember Talking Heads because by that time they where firmly entrenched and I suspect MTV picked a hand full of unique acts from the early days to carry forward in order to not be seen as selling out.

I never really realized how small MTVs audience was in that first year... In hindsight I feel very lucky to have been exposed to it before it became corrupted. Elvis Costello, Kate Bush, Talking Heads, Pretenders... Man I shudder to think what my musical tastes would be like had I been listening to the RADIO during that time. It was like having a (somewhat) cool late night DJ at a college station you could barely pick up playing weird and wonderful stuff you would never have heard otherwise. I am still searching for a list of everything that was played during that first year. I know there are so many gems I have forgotten from that hazy magic time...

A few years later I would be deeply engrossed in playing in avant-garde bands, re-discovering progressive rock and uncovering the punk music from the late 70's that I had missed being somewhat musically isolated in Wichita KS at the time. Its hard to say how much of my musically vocabulary came from that first year of MTV but I would say it had a substantial effect on the direction of the music I make and enjoy.

My favorite videos aired on the first day of MTV

2007-11-04T14:35:00.000-08:00

On the day MTV went live I was really just a kid, I was actually very poor but I was fortunate enough to be living in the basement of a house that was wired for cable and I was glued to the set. The music was necessarily eclectic as the idea of making videos was still new. What I saw changed my musical tastes forever and broadened my horizons in a way that I don't think is possible now, I mean you HAD to sit through the April Wine video to see Elvis Costello and along the way you got a dose of Kate Bush, Iron Maiden and The Specials! Oh how the times have changed...

August 1, 1981:

"Video Killed the Radio Star" by The Buggles
"You Better You Bet" by The Whol
"Brass in Pocket" by The Pretenders
"Time Heals" by Todd Rundgren
"Message of Love" by The Pretenders
"Double Life" by The Cars
"In the Air Tonight" by Phil Collins
"Looking For Clues" by Robert Palmer
"Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" by Stevie Nicks and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
"One Step Ahead" by Split Enz
"I Wanna Be a Lifeguard" by Blotto (So bad its good?)
"Oliver's Army" by Elvis Costello
"Is it You?" by Lee Ritenour
"Tusk" by Fleetwood Mac
"Rapture" by Blondie
"Don't Let Go the Coat" by The Who
"Talk of the Town" by The Pretenders
"Can't Happen Here" by Rainbow
"The Man with the Child in His Eyes" by Kate Bush
"Ashes to Ashes" by David Bowie
"Rat Race" by The Specials
"Once in a Lifetime" by Talking Heads

I am still looking for a list of everything that was played the first year or two... MTV was struggling to fill up the playlist and it forced some odd and wonderful choices. Once more and more commercial music started to "clue in" and infiltrate the programing, it started to loose its luster for me... hard to think of the Talking Heads as being "unknown" but if other bands that where popular on the radio at the time had also produced visual content so early, then I doubt most people would have never heard of them as they would have just never made it on the air. Those first 12-24 months of MTV was a rare moment in the history of popular music.

Note: The dates of the music releases can be a little confusing as a lot of these where shot as promos for the band and the videos got shown before the record was released.

Woman rides mechanical bull, pole dances for an elderly woman, and fakes an orgasm to sell underpants...

2007-11-02T10:28:00.000-07:00

Maybe we HAVE gone too far... : )

Sensuality used in advertising is one thing, but somehow I think that this may cross the line, I think its the fake orgasm that gave me pause.

The blatant commercialization of sex is an unfortunate aspect of human nature that we don't seem to be able to get past. Some women don't seem to be willing to stop tying to cash in on their sexuality and many men don't seem to be able to resist it no matter how insincere. Marketers (both male and female) understand this relationship and can't avoid the temptation to exploit it.

I think human sexuality can be beautiful. As one of our most powerful motivations, it is often the source of great works of art, music, and more importantly can be a powerful component in simple human relations. However, the more gratuitously its used as a commodity the more distorted and unattractive it becomes.

Battling Raccoons

2007-10-18T03:30:00.000-07:00

The other night I was in my studio and started hearing these god awful vocalizations coming from somewhere near me. I was trying to pinpoint the direction of the screeches and otherworldly coos when the thumping started.

The thing was on the roof.

I grabbed my biggest flashlight, ( those that know me know that I have a quite extensive flashlight collection... maybe as many as 20) and snuck out the back door onto the deck. I turned the "X-files" strength beam onto the corner of the roof were the commotion was still going on and saw meaty heads bobbing around, there was more than one. More than one big ass pissed off raccoon that is.

Then I saw them looking at me and in their eyes I saw that they no longer wanted to kill each other... but were forming a plan to kill me.

Almost immediately one hopped into the tree and started down, I kept the flashlight on him not wanting to get flanked... but the other was making scraping noises and I needed to see what he was doing so I but the beam back on him. The fucker was trying to find a way to jump down onto me! He was pacing back and fourth at the high edge of the roof looking for a way down to the lower part and then to me. he kept reaching his paws out like he was going to try to jump. I yelled at him but this had no effect what so ever. he was going to jump down and leap on me if I didn't get the hell out of there! The problem was I needed to go under him to get back to the door, It he got bold at the moment I made a break for it, I would end up with a face full of teeth, claws, fur, and bitterness.

I chanced a swing of the beam around to check on raccoon "B" and yes he was in fact making his way along the fence towards me. It was now or never... I made a dash for the door, flailing like a hippy ghost hunter running from a guy in a rubber mask. I fumbled at the knob and once I was more in then out I dared to pause and exact some verbal revenge... "Fuck you! You fucking raccoons!" I am sure they felt the full sting of my harsh words and are even now, several days later astonished that I could have been so cruel.

Soured legacy

2007-07-11T09:04:00.000-07:00

Alan Shepard
Yuri Gagarin
Joseph A. Walker
John Glenn
Edwin 'Buzz' Aldrin
Neil Armstrong

The work and bravery of these men and many others, freed us. And how have we repaid them? By re-closing the door and cowering in our cage.

The Ever Growing List Of Doc's Favorite First Year MTV Videos

2007-07-01T14:20:00.000-07:00

Ultravox - Vienna

Wall of Voodoo - Mexican Radio

Elvis Costtello - Oliver's Army

U2 - I Will Follow
Siouxsie and the Banshees - Spellbound
Split Enz - I Got You and One Step Ahead
Gary Newman - Cars
Madness - One Step Beyond
Thomas Dolby - Europa And The Pirate Twins
Devo - Satisfaction
The Clash - This Is Radio Clash
David Bowie - Fashion
Adam and the Ants - Ant Music (guilty pleasure? 2 drummers gotta earn them some points. )

Squeeze - Tempted

The Fixx - Stand or Fall

Please comment about videos that you think should be on the list keeping in mind that they should have first aired in 1981 or 1982 at the latest.

I started telling stories to her.

2007-06-22T14:29:00.000-07:00

The act of dictating has reminded me of something important.

Have always considered myself a storyteller, I wonder if this event in my past helps explain why.

I recall when I was very young someone at the school I attended noticed I had a very large vocabulary for my age so for short time I was given special "one on one" attention with a wonderful young teacher who let me dictate stories to her. She would type the short little tales up in either an effort to teach me to read the words that seemed so over ambitious coming from a young boys mouth or perhaps it was just to document that I a was somehow different. Thinking back, I wish I could recall more about her and why she took the time to do that. But for what ever reason it was done, it was one of the first times I can recall feeling special and feeling smart, I remember her as being full of praise, and that was a very rare commodity in my childhood.

I find myself hoping that she is well and happy and wishing that I could thank her.

But then of course, she probably never existed.

Type what I mean, not what I say.

2007-06-22T14:27:00.000-07:00

This blog will also give me a reason to do something have wanted to do for a long time which is learn how to use, and train a voice recognition system.

As much as the spoken word is always been my friend, the written word has always been my enemy. I don't want to reveal too much about myself in such a public forum but I think most people that know me are aware that I have what are known currently as "learning differences". So as smart as I hope I am, I have always had trouble with things like typing. My head has always been filled with wonderful ideas, but my hands were never capable of transcribing them. In some ways it's a very cruel joke, to be given talents in an area and not given the means to express those talents. Like having perfect pitch and a musical mind, but hands to weak to play an instrument or a voice to corse to sing.

I've always gotten by, using tricks and methods that have learned to overcome my deficiencies, but the idea of sitting down and writing even a short story has always been daunting. The mechanics of it are unfortunately beyond me. So I've patiently waited in hopes that at some point like it has so many times before, technology would allow me to do something that I otherwise wouldn't be able to do. Let me just say that up to this point, that wait has been very disappointing. But it is time to try again. I've purchased the current version of the iListen software and have dictated this article so far using that system looking back over the text I find myself thinking that this blog may not get too far... looks like I have a lot of correcting to do.

I leave it to you to decide if any of this post is the truth.

The initial lie

2007-06-22T13:14:00.000-07:00

Well, it had to happen at some point, I must admit have avoided it for quite some time but at long last.. I have begun a personal blog.

I don't quite remember how the title came about, but I know was discussion with my wife Katy. Somehow the idea came up that I should create a blog that consisted completely of fabrications. I still like that idea quite a bit so I think the concept of this blog will be that I will occasionally tell the truth but just as often, I will make something completely up. Maybe tell fun little stories that have no basis in reality. So in a way it could be condidered a game. You will be left to decide what is true and what is a boondogle.

I could say it will be fun for everyone but mostly it will just be fun to me.