Author: Dave

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trite green halloween


Happy Tuesday my friends, it was a fairly mundane day at work – just the same old routine of answering e-mails, attending meetings, and finding time to pee in between. Came home, fed the baby and put her down while Sharaun was out getting her hair did. Poked around the net for any new leaked albums of note and caught myself up on the LG15 goings-on. Not a lot here today, I’m still in feeling something of a slump in the inspiration department. That’s how it’s gonna be, so that’s how it is.

With my Keaton “featurettes” becoming more and more complicated, I decided I need to take it all to the next level and figure out how to greenscreeen her into different sequences. Since my movie-editor of choice thus far, the free Windows Movie Maker, can’t do chromakeying (the official term for blue- or green-screening something into other footage), I once again turned to the freeware program Wax. After reading a tutorial online, the whole process sounded almost braindead simple so I decided to bust out an old blue sheet we have and take some test footage of Keaton on it. With the test footage on the PC, I loaded a static image behind it and then keyed out the blue. Amazingly, in under 5min I had some very nice chromakeyed footage (you can see it here if you’re interested – it’s DivX-enocded so you may need something like VLC to view it). Putting live action instead of a static image behind the “cut in” items is trivial, and Wax supports advanced techniques like scaling and moving the bluescreened items around the frame. So, as soon as I can dream up a worthy concept, I’ll be cutting Keaton into all sorts of scenes. My first thought was to actually have her running from a real charging bear, thus bringing to life one of my better static goofs, so maybe I’ll start with that.

Halloween’s creeping up. I finally broke down and ordered my PicoBoo today, I splurged and got the one with AC outlets instead of fiddly voltage posts. I intend for it to control the wolf prop, but I’ve had some renewed interest in doing the “scarycrow” project of late – being that I think I can do it rather cheaply and easily (the motion and activation of course being the chief cost-drivers). In honesty, I’d still ideally want the prop to be a hanging man – but I’m just too much of a politically-correct coward and am concerned about what a animated “lynching” on my front lawn might come off as to the over-sensitive. Sitting today thinking about it though, I came up with another idea which I absolutely love. Right now I’m calling it the “guillotine/headman” prop, because it’s one of those. The basis of the prop would be a prone figure with his head on a chopping block or in a guillotine. In the “headman” version there would also be a standing figure holding an axe, and the whole falling-axe head-chop thing would be animated via pneumatics. The guillotine would work the same way, but not require the second headman dummy. Problem is, altho it’s an outstanding idea – it would require two-to-three pneumatic cylinders and as many solenoids, plus a PicoBoo to get the timing right. Too much money for this year, maybe filed away for next year with the “pulling his head off” man idea.

Check out the Democrats gettin’ all MySpace with their new social networking tool, partybuilder. Fancy.

Goodnight.

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officially good


Three-day weekends are officially good. Managed to mow the lawn, do some long-waiting-to-be-done “fix it” stuff around the house, and attend three barbecues. Back to work tomorrow, not something I’m looking forward to at all. I keep thinking about my weeks upon weeks of state-funded “bonding leave” coming up in December, and the blissful days spent not going into the office. Yeah, I’m way ready for that. Mostly music; deal.

Oh, I did update Keaton’s gallery Monday, check it out (and yes, I added this sentence late, post-publishing).

I am chomping at the bit to see the movie Jesus Camp ever since catching the trailer on YouTube and reading David Byrne’s blog entry on his thoughts after seeing a screening. I have to see this movie, it looks ultimately compelling. Hopefully, it’ll make the rounds at one of the local artsy joints here in town.

Seriously, all the hubbub about the Pitchfork leak of Joanna Newsom’s new album made me positively itchy to hear the thing. The indie crowd is in a state of multiple-orgasm over it, leaving me perplexed. See, I couldn’t for the life of me get into her previously lauded effort, The Milk Eyed Mender. I’ll say up front that I’m not a huge fan of this whole “psych folk” or “freak folk” movement that’s been so hot over the past years – the sound is just a bit too “weak” for me. Anyway, I used my leak-locating superpowers and tracked down a YSI link for the album (which was just a rip of the “oops’d” shared PF directory).

What do I think about this album? What the hell? The message boards of the thick-rimmed set are lighting up, already proclaiming this five-track effort “album of the year.” Seriously? I’ll admit it’s interesting, the lyrics are somewhat engaging and there’s no denying an abundance of songwriting talent here, but it’s about as unapproachable to me as Natalie Portman – I’ll never get it. With lush orchestrated background approximating a Disney score and Newsom’s fragile annoying voice warbling out in a worse-than-Bjork timbre, I just don’t get it. Best album of the year? You’ve got to be effing kidding me. You guys can have your gay-ass freak folk, or whatever you call it. Give me something like The Figurines or Midlake or The Islands or The Decemberists… you can have this pansy crap.

By the way, I’m gonna get like tons more chicks than you when I’m blasting Wolfmother from my open car windows in response to your dainty Newsom “Monkey and Bear” harpischord balladry. That is, unless you want to date the Lilith Fair. Personally, I’d rather date Ozzfest.

Goodnight.

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wasted time


Been feeling particularly uninspired this week, don’t really know why. Maybe it’s some sort of “senioritis” type anticipation for the extra-day weekend. Seriously, this three-day affair couldn’t have come soon enough for me… I’m ready for a “free day” from work about now. So, should we run down the normal pleasantries? Thursday night, blah, Sharaun and the gym, do tell, Keaton asleep, no kidding, and I’m sitting here typing. Right. That’s about what I figured.

But, despite all this nothing… I did manage to find, like, five or so free hours to slap together a “thank the Lord for the three-day weekend” Keaton bonus video. You can surf over and watch it right now, by clicking these words.

Tonight was some kind of awards, and Sharaun was making me watch them. Nah… I can feign ignorance, but I’ll admit I knew it was the MTV ones. Anyway, most of the show consisted of me asking “who’s that?” as the MTV roving cameras panned to someone in the audience. “That’s so-and-so whats-her-shit, I can’t believe you don’t recognize her… she’s only like the most famous who’s-it-now out there right now,” Sharaun would exclaim. Ahhh… I should’ve known, I feel so ignorant know. First thing tomorrow I’m going down to the community college and signing up for a class in pop culture… I wonder if I’ll have to buy my own “grill” or they’ll issue one to me?

Weekend!!

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mostly politics


So I took a day off, can’t a brother get a couple days off per month? I had intended to write last night, but got caught up working on my Akismet plugin for Coppermine and lost interest. If it means anything, I got a lot done with the plugin… but… let’s be realistic, it doesn’t mean anything. Mostly politics today, sorry.

Been looking for tickets back to Florida for Christmas lately, prices are insane. Every year it seems to get worse. I remember being able to get Sharaun and I there for under $500 round trip, and now it’s hard to get it under $1,000 – and Keaton still flies free on a lap, I can’t wait until I have to purchase a 3rd full-fare ticket for her. Soon enough we’ll have to putting into a “Christmas in Florida” fund every month. Not that I don’t love my Florida peoples, but dang your state is far.

I’ve linked to the Political Arithmetik blog before, but more and more it’s becoming a part of my daily online regiment. I’m a data-whore by nature, as I firmly believe that knowledge truly is power, and I enjoy increasing my understanding of the political machine. This site combines those two things into one neat politicarithmetical package, perfect for civic-minded slide-rule jockeys like me. Of the regularly updated features, I think my favorite are the Bush approval ratings trend and the so-called “generic ballot” trend. Lots of political trending sites report on the generic ballot or Bush’s approval ratings, but I like Franklin’s statistical approach of charting these things over time and fitting trend lines as predictors. It’s interesting to see most political blogs showing Democrats with a lead in the 2006 generic ballot polls for the Senate and them compare this with Franklin’s line of best fit trend. Hope the aren’t getting too overconfident, American opinion, as tracked by pollingreports.com, gives them only a 10% lead over the GOP – and you better believe they’ve seen the numbers too. Bush ain’t just sitting around doing nothing about it, he’s flying around doing something about it. I wonder if the Democrats will ever get a platform solid enough to make a real run at it… one can only hope (that is, if “one” is Blue).

What sucks most about this next paragraph is that I actually wrote it on Tuesday, intending to post it Wednesday. However, I slacked Tuesday night and and didn’t come up with anything other than this sole paragraph. Figuring it wasn’t enough to justify and entry, I decided to just roll it into Thursday’s entry (I really liked the writing, or else I may have just scrapped it altogether). Then, come Wednesday, I see CNN has picked up the whole WWII/Fascism thing – and thus my story, once just a bit stale, now seems completely trite and pre-chewed. I’m still posting it though, and you’ll just have to pretend you heard it here before CNN, OK? Thanks.

I read with interest a few days ago this article which puts forth the notion that our administration is slowly changing the name of our “terrorist” enemies. In what the article refers to as a slow “linguistic makeover,” what we were previously calling the “war on terror” is now being referred to as the “war on Islamofacism.” When I first read the article, I thought it was an interesting commentary, as I too had noticed Bush’s out-of-place-ish reference to “fighting the Islamo-facists” in a recent speech (I think it was the newness of the term that caught my ear). However, I didn’t give the whole thing much thought – until I read this article today about Rumsfield’s recent “history lesson” speech. Reading excerpts from that speech, peppered with references to “a new kind of fascism,” I started to wonder if the administration really is doing an branding do-over on our enemy.

I imagine some young political strategist working in a small windowless office, pulling out his hair after being tasked with finding a way to turn the tide of America’s perception of the current “war on terror.” Slowly, he begins studying past conflicts and the support they received from the populous. Soon, he’s got a plan to re-cast the current “terrorist” enemies as “Islamofacist” enemies – a brilliant turn of the tongue which instantly evokes imagery of some of history’s most cruel, evil, and heartless regimes and leaders. Suddenly, we’re not just fighting a faceless verb, we’re fighting the scum-of-the-earth bloodlines of those universally-perceived devils of the past – none other than the prodigies of Mussolini and Hitler. By spinning the poorly-defined and impalpable “terrorist collective” as understudies to universally-loathed Fascist alliances from history, the administration can stir up long-dormant but pre-existing emotion and perhaps reinvogorate waning support. While fighting “terror” may seem endless and futile, fighting Islamofacism may seem like a shining example of America’s indomitable democratic spirit. All with a turn of a phrase; brilliant. Anyway, read the article – it does a better job than me.

And, before I go… will Lonelygirl15 be outed by botanists?

Goodnight.

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discovery


Monday night, and I’ve realized I’ve taken to opening entries with a simple statement about what night it is. Not much here tonight (canned stuff), been trying to work on the big three-year anniversary entry (not much progress there either, actually). Yeah, that’s right – sounds familiar, my humble little blog that started because I wanted to emulate others, is turning three years old next month. I’m not really sure what I’ve got planned for the occasion, maybe a statistic-driven entry tooting my own horn, sure a GIMP’d image, and likely nothing more. Sound underwhelming? That’s my style.

Today at work, my thighs burned as I walked up and down the stairs and the palms of my hands felt noticeably rough compared to their normal “computer engineer” suppleness. And I do believe I felt better for it. Each near-cramping step reminded me that I actually did something over the weekend. Breaking a sweat, getting things done – I love it. Compared to my daily job where I literally sit on my ass and type. No, seriously, I type all day long – staring at a monitor. In any given day, I experience so little outside the chest-high walls of my cubicle, my excitement is limited to corporate politics. It may sound like I’m complaining, but I’m actually torn. In some ways, I love that I’m able to do so little physically and make a living. On the other hand, I occasionally become desperate for something more – with wider boundaries and scope, maybe something more impactful or that has more quantifiable end-results. Because, at the end of the day now, would it really make a difference whether or not I answered those 100 e-mails? Probably not. I guess you’re just hearing my frustration with work of late, where the environment hasn’t been the best for a while.

Remember how I told you guys I thought there was a song on the new Decemberists album that had a “Doors sound” to it? I decided tonight to take some MP3 clips to try and make my point. Now, I’ll admit, when I heard the songs next to each other the similarities weren’t that striking – but I still think it’s worth sharing (especially since I spent 10min in Audacity whipping up the clips). So, for comparison, I present the clips

[audio:the_perfect_crime_clip.mp3]
The Perfect Crime 2, by the Decemberists

[audio:riders_on_the_storm_clip.mp3]
Riders On The Storm, by the Doors.

Let me know what you think. By the way, if you couldn’t tell from that badass driving bassline and steady drumming, that Decemberists song is excellent.

Music fanatics, rock and roll historians, and popular culture experts – you may want to shut your ears tight for this personal revelation: Up until this week, I’ve never, ever, sat down and listened to Pet Sounds all the way through. That’s right; never. Oh, I’ve read article on article about the merits and impact and durability of the Beach Boys’ crowning achievement – but I’ve always poo-pooed it all. Why? Simple: I hate(d) the Beach Boys. That’s right folks. All this time, I associated the Beach Boys with the “surf sound” that I so abhor; that Jan and Dean “Dead Man’s Curve” crap that I just cannot stomach. Really, it’s the “early” Beach Boys stuff… the surf-o-rama sound… that I can’t stand. It just took me this long to decouple that slick surfer group from the Beach Boys who did “God Only Knows” and “Vegetables,” y’know, the amazing ones. I guess it’s kinda like the guy who can’t stand the Beatles early records, the tripe like “Honey Don’t” and “I’ll Follow the Sun.”

So, what finally made me take off my blinder and listen to Pet Sounds as an album, rather than a “surf” album? I think my absolute fanatic love of Brain Wilson’s recently finished opus, Smile, had a lot do to with it. Listening to Smile, I was able to hear Wilson’s melodies and hooks as more than just surf music. I was able to hear the brilliant harmonies and layering, was able to hear the pure pop craft in the pieces, the attention to detail. Even though, to the casual listener, it may sound like “Beach Boys,” to me I was hearing something entirely different. In the end, I don’t remember what pushed me over the edge – but I finally gave in and picked up the Hoffman remastered DCC (25k gold) release of the album (in lossless FLAC format). Oh. My. God. This thing is brilliant. Dave, where the fuck have your ears been all these years?! How could you have ignored this gorgeous gem for so long, and purposely at that! Oh, gods of music, I am sorry… I lay this gold CD at your alter in atonement. Please, please find it in your heart to forgive me.

Before I go, I wanted to link over to this article at the new Porkbusters blog (blogging about government waste). Seems that senators Tom Coburn and Barak Obama have propose a piece of legalisation that would create a public-accessible website containing a searchable database of almost all federal funding recipients. This would be an awesome resource for John Q. Public, and, in my opinion, would go a long way in perhaps forcing some accountability on for whom and what funding is secured. Or, it’ll just make the money-getters become more creative in securing funds in less traceable ways. Anyway, some senator has placed a “secret hold” on the legislation, and Porkbusters is urging folks to call their senator asking for confirmation they aren’t the “secret holder.” Interesting. By the way, what the hell kinda thing is a “secret hold?”

Sorry for all the tune-talk. Love you bunches, goodnight.

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wait for the stone on your window


Sunday night right now, didn’t have much “good” writing time tonight, so there’s really not a lot here. Had a productive weekend (a little more on that below), with a couple early morning starts helping to make the non-working days seem blissfully long. And, before I go, you probably don’t need the reminder, having grown used to my dedication to schedule, but I did manage to post some new pictures (and a movie) to Keaton’s gallery. Let’s get this tripe over with.

I thought I hated this Decemberists album, oh, I thought I did. Then, I put it on as I mowed the lawn Saturday morning. There, with time to listen to it properly, as a collection of stories, I changed my mind. Once again the Oregon outfit had me fooled off the blocks. The imagery conjured is outstanding if you really let yourself listen, and the music behind it has some great late-sixties swirly Leslie-Hammond organ stabs and Doors-esque muted-bouncy romps. Out of the two recent leaks I initially panned, I ended coming around on both. Guess I should learn to let an album simmer a little longer before putting my opinion on the web. But, how, then, do I brag about being among the first to a leak? Speaking of leaks, I ended up getting the whole new Tenderlegs album for Sharaun on Friday – needless to say she was ecstatic. Me? I’m once again impressed with the production on the album, and could easily ID at least four or five radio-ready singles. That’s all I’m gonna say.

Sunday I decided it was finally time to put down weed-cloth, dripline, and mulch in the planter strips in my backyard. I could’ve done this in about 2hrs any day before, but I’ve been putting it off now for months. After that’s done, I can choose some plants to go back there and get ’em in. So, I set out around 11am to get it done. Ran the drip, put down the weed-cloth, and headed to the shed to get out my trusty wheelbarrow, #1 Rolla. Turns out, #1 Rolla’s long period of inactivity caused his tire to go flat. I’ve dealt with this before, Pat and I struggled for about 15min trying to hold the weel onto the beads and simultaneously hit it with enough air from the compressor that it “took” and inflated. If you’re wondering, this is just a rubber tire on beads held there by air pressure – no tube. So, I fired up the compressor to a decent pressure and recruited Sharaun. We slaved for 15min or so in the sun to no avail. Then, I got the bright idea to check the internet for some kind of “wheelbarrow tire inflating” magic trick. I should’ve consulted the internet first. Turns out if you wrap a rope (I used a nylon tie-down) around the circumference of the tire and tie a stick (I used a short piece of rebar) into the cinching not, you can twist the stick like a garrot and pressure the tire back onto the beads. Worked like a charm, inflated the tire perfectly the fist time. From now on, I’m going to the internet first.

Anyway, got the job done and the yard looks better for it. I was going to upload some pictures to the backyard gallery, but I’ll wait until we have some plant life in the ground so it’s a bit more engaging.

Thinking about raising the capital for my dreamy co-op idea, and I do believe I’ve hit on a nugget of one. Ready? We pitch it to PBS as a reality show. C’mon, it’s brilliant – PBS is always doing reality shows with an “edutainment” bent. What could be better than my pitch for “Going Green,” the chronicle of a group of friends spending their first year in an idealist community environment where they seek to live lighter, cleaner, and with a reduced reliance on outside goods and services. I can almost hear it now, that deep-voiced TV pitchman running down the list of my rich tapestry of friends: “Four engineers, a seamstress, the beekeeper and his trapeze-artist wife, the ranch-hand and the sea captain. This Fall on PBS, they all cast their lots together to follow a common dream of a simpler way of life. Out here working the land, three master’s degrees and two doctorates won’t keep them from starving. Will they succeed at creating their own little Utopian lifestyle, or will the land best them? Find out, this Fall on PBS.” Oh yeah, I could totally get all the funding I need to get things working – then, I just wouldn’t ever leave. Right.

Somehow, I stumbled on the Voices from Inside page the other day. It’s part of a project by an anti-death penalty group. While their ultimate goal is the abolishment of capital punishment (not saying I’m aligned with that), the point of the page linked above is to get pen-pals for correspondence with condemned death row inmates. Without getting into the whole debate, I think it’s interesting that a campaign like this exists. I bet one could develop some very interesting written exchanges by sending out a few letters here and there, would make for a good themed-blog… something catchy like “dead men talking.” Sure, not the most tasteful of ideas – but I bet it’d pull hits. Anyway, if you liked that link and are interested in reading more about the prison scene, head over to the prisontalk.com forums and check out the many entertaining threads there. I find the “Husbands & Boyfriends” section of the board most intriguing.

I totally want to see this movie.

Goodnight.

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no tears in sleepyland


Eating dinner tonight, I brought my fork down on a yellow pepper to cut it for easier eating and some pepper-juice sprayed in my eye. Sucked. Poor Keaton had a tough time tonight, teething and screaming. So, we cancelled our plans for the evening and got her to bed instead (no tears in sleepyland). I just got done whipping up some brownies to fix Sharaun’s sweet craving (I’m the baker in the family), and in 20min we will eat them. Small blog today, not much in a writing mood… suppose I shot my wad over the course of the multi-thousand-word week. Here we go.

My tiny blog experienced a small bit of increased exposure today due to a rash of internet searches for the word “crumbelievable.” A search for said word, which is a Kraft cheese marketing campaign, on Google turns up my January entry on it as the 3rd return. Not bad. The “crumbelievable” search has always been a leader in the blog stats, but I didn’t have a good explanation for yesterday’s spike – that is, until I went home to make a sandwich for lunch and instructed the TiVo to serve up Wednesday’s Colbert Report. Turns out Colbert did a bit on American “cultural cohesiveness” in which he cited the Kraft Crumbles crumbelievable television ads as the campaign which can bring people together, a sort of “Where’s the beef? or “I’ve fallen…” for the modern age. Ahhh… the ebb and flow of pop culture, at least it’s good for copy.

Time for brownies, goodnight.