Depressed about an interview.

(Cross-posted from a forum I frequent, because I thought it was worth blogging about.)

Maybe everyone already knows about this, but it was news to me: apparently I live just a couple miles south of the epicenter of games production for the East Coast. How all these companies wound up near Baltimore is a mystery to me, but there it is; suddenly visions of animating jobs where I don't have to move my family popped into my head. (Background: my wife has a government job that she loves, and I've been a professional father for six years and it's starting to wear thin, I'm ashamed to say.)

Now gaming, I understand, is difficult to break into. So I devised a Master Plan: go to a school in the area to get myself a certification, maybe even a B.F.A. At the very best, I could get a buttload of contacts and use them as a springboard to a job; at the very worst, I would at least sharpen my animation skills, assuming I found a school that taught the skills and not the software.

Well, with this plan in mind, last night I went to interview at a continuing education school that shall remain nameless. After the counselor discerned where I wanted to be, he showed me some examples of things the students created in the 3D program (after they made it through web design, digital photography, motion graphics, and 2D, which are prerequisites).

Now he did tell me that these were examples of things from students who were just beginning; but even if that's true (and I doubt it, because according to the syllabus, in the first course all you learn is cameras, objects, and lighting, and these things were, um, heavy on the F/X: look, particles! look, rigid body dynamics! look, lens flares!), I could tell this place would not help me grow as an animator--maybe as a guy who did flying logos for a living, which would certainly be an honorable existence if my wife were suddenly fired. But because we're lucky enough to live cheaply on one income, I've promised myself I won't get a job outside the house unless I enjoy it.

I think the guy caught my attitude (I was inwardly recoiling in horror, but I hope I wasn't too obvious), because he asked, "You already do this sort of thing, don't you?"

It gave me newfound respect for Hash's decision to put everything on A:M Films, not just the stuff of "Duel" or "Alien Song" caliber. The reason everything looks so good in 3DSMax or Maya's literature is because they don't let you see what I saw in that interview.

Now I expect most people would be heartened to find their skills are already at the level being taught at this continuing education plant. But I was severely depressed. Why? Because if this is representative of the skills taught at other schools (admittedly, I don't know that for sure) then where am I going to go to get better? Whether my objective is to get a job or just get more skills, how can I make it happen?

Believe me, I have NO illusions that I'm good enough already...

(I dunno, maybe what I'm really asking for is encouragement. Job offers would be nice, too. :lol: )

What I Want a Senator to Ask

Justice Roberts, do you believe American citizens have a right to privacy?

Wait a moment, I didn't ask you about the Constitution. I didn't even ask you about Roe v. Wade. All I asked was: do you believe American citizens have a right to privacy?

Hurrah, Medley returns with a beautiful redesign! But where will I find out about the 2004 holidays?

Rooster Spice, the Podcast--Were you going to speak?

We return to the Long Form for the fifteenth episode; grab an epic 17:20 and 8.7 MB.

Show notes:

• Reflections on NTodd's ten songs podcast, and why I wish I could do one


• Post-mortem on Henry IV Part One (not to be confused with Henry IV--The Revenge)


• Equal time department: Don't Chew Your Dress (at least it's shorter)


• Bootleg of the Week: Peggy's Kitchen Wall by Bruce Cockburn


• Government work, and its closeness thereof

You'll make me a happy camper if you vote at Podcast Alley, and even happier if you ask your friends to give Rooster Spice a try. And as mentioned, tickets are now on sale for the D.C. Shorts Festival, where you can see two of my short animations (one Friday at 9, one Sunday at noon).

edit: Whoops! The link is now fixed. Sorry about that!

A plague upon it!

Today will mark my first time acting on stage since 1999. That it is in a community theater production of Henry IV, performed in a park, for which fully half the cast has quit (two of whom just a week ago--thanks, y'all) is neither here nor there.

If you're within spitting distance of Buddy Attick Park in Greenbelt, MD, why not come by around 5 PM tonight? See swordfighters using light sabers and wearing combat fatigues. (I don't have a sword fight, but I did manage to buy myself a set of dog tags imprinted with VERNON, SIR RICHARD, A POSITIVE.)

Rooster Spice, the Podcast--Half-Assed

A one-story, one-song show, clocking in at 10:45 and 5.5 MB.

• The Michigan adventure


• A message from Shirt-Chewers Anonymous

Don't forget to vote at Podcast Alley; it's a new month!

And when they're not playing funk...

The first podcast from space.

Good Plus X Maneuver.

In honor of today's landing (we hope) of Discovery, we present a slightly remixed (and higher-quality) version of the Shuttle Funk song performed by the STS-114 funk band. Enjoy, or not.

If you're using iTunes 4.9 to subscribe, it'll show up in the Podcast section. Just drag-and-drop it to the Library to keep it part of your collection permanently.

edit: Well, that's what I get for not checking the news before posting. She landed safe and sound at Edwards AFB in California. Good news.

There will be no podcast this coming Friday, since we'll all be in Michigan for the funeral.

Rooster Spice, the Podcast--Saying Goodbye

This episode does not live up to its iTunes genre (comedy).

Show notes:

• Remembering Grandma


• Music: Franz Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, sequenced by Don Buczynski, found on the Classical Archives, performed with GPO.

I know I'm not the only person who has ever had a death in the family. Forgive me my self-centeredness.

'Lectrical!

I just finished reading David Bodanis' Electric Universe, a wonderfully entertaining history of the discovery of electricity (or, as the subtitle has it, "The Shocking True Story of Electricity"). It starts with the early attempts at batteries (leyden jars of Ben Franklin's time and such) and continues with Faraday's postulation of electromagnetic fields, pointing along the way to technological innovations such as telegraphs, telephones, computers, and Prozac. The story is great, but what makes it is Bodanis' sly, knowing commentary. For instance, here's a passage from the section on electrical impulses in our brain:

Nancy Ostrowski was a young American who'd once considered being a nun, and by the 1970s she had switched to research. But she seems to have channeled some of the moral strictures from her previous life into her new work. In her laboratory outside Washington, D.C., she would get something like a small guillotine ready, then encourage mice to have sex, and then decapitate them while they were thus engaged.

(She was searching for endorphins, not just chopping happy mice's heads off.) Or my favorite, in a footnote to a chapter on Alan Turing and "the British government's codebreaking group":

Actually a "cipher-breaking" group. A code is a direct-substitution system, where one word is used to stand for another, as with a child's code in which, for example, the words national embarrassment are substituted wherever the word shrub has been written.

Bloggin' from Pittsburgh.

Pittsburgh Airport to be precise. And I'm typing with one hand, on accounta my other one is covered with goo from these delicious cheesy fries.

OK, that's over with. Thus far, it's been an exceedingly easy set of travel, with the exception of the security line at Baltimore, which started somewhere in Viriginia. It was so long that even though it moved fairly fast, and I went through security itself with no problems, I still had to run to the gate and was the last person on board the plane.

The time in Michigan was not so easy. My grandmother is intubated and sedated, and didn't open her eyes the entire time I was there. I'm glad I went, even so. I hadn't seen her for a year, and it was a shock to see how much she had deteriorated.

My cousins were wonderful as always. I got to see a lot of people because it was my uncle's (step-uncle's? I don't know, but I was there when he married my aunt, and my cousins are my age, so he's their step-father) birthday and they had a small party. In fact, this was the third year I've been at his birthday party; for some reason we always go to Michigan in late July, and always the same weekend. It's never intentional, though.

My dad, who was planning to head home before I arrived, has wound up staying, and isn't going back until Grandma wakes up, so he can tell her that he's going and when he'll be back. He has an apartment in Connecticut, so it's not exactly a quick trip for him (he drives).

As for us, we're planning on coming back with the whole family in the fall. I just hope Grandma will be in good shape again.

Can't forget the Motor City.

I'm traveling to Michigan today, and I'll be back Sunday evening. I won't go into why; if you want to know, you can listen to the podcast, in all its lurid detail.

However, I will point out something from the aforementioned podcast which I only realized after I was done editing. From the transcript:

But, that's enough about me. Let's move on to the next edition of What You Don't Know About Squelch!

The irony of this moment is left as an exercise for the reader.

Rooster Spice, the Podcast--War of the Cheesy Music

Episode 12 right here with bells on. Glockenspiel, in fact. You can get your bits and bytes on in a handy 14 minute and 48 second package, after about 7.2 MB of transfer.

Show notez:

• Going to Michigan this weekend, and why.
• What You Don't Know About Squelch, complete with listener questions from Godfrey.
• Bootleg of the Week returns after an apocalyptic pub crawl to play He's a Bum by Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys.

I'll be a happy camper if you like it. I'll be a happy camper if you don't. Just listen. Please?

Why does Jessica Simpson hate America?

JESSICA SIMPSON wants to know where missing footage of her and husband NICK LACHEY's harrowing trip to Iraq got to - because she thinks Americans would like to see just how bad conditions are there.

The pop singers-turned-reality TV couple travelled to the war-torn nation to visit US troops as part of a recent ABC TV variety special, and they were both left shellshocked by what they saw.

But all the controversial moments and harrowing footage of the trip didn't appear in the fun-filled TV show.

Simpson says, "It was unbelievable. They didn't show a lot of what really went on with the enemy attacks and the shelling. There was so much stuff that went on and somehow the tapes got mysteriously misplaced.

"It put everything in perspective for me. It really did teach me the definition of sacrifice. I can't even fathom being out there right now. I was ready to come home."

(via Atrios.)

Rooster Spice, the Podcast--Shuttle Mash!

Episode 11, hot off the press and a day late (12:53, 6.7 MB). Could have been worse. Well, that's for you to judge, actually, isn't it?

Show notes:

• Alternate formats for RSTP: Top 40, public radio, and Jack


• Podsafe music! Whoa, by the Gonnas, as mentioned in the Ten-Song Meme


• The launch of Shuttle Discovery


• A song from the STS-114 funk band


• Exeunt omnes

The bootleg of the week didn't show up for work.

By the way, I noticed that my total number of votes at Podcast Alley increased by 50% recently, and I'd like to thank the voter responsible. There's still time for me to break into the top 600, so vote, vote, vote!

I think this is a good episode. Do you agree? Let me know at roosterspice AT gmail DOT com.

Incredible!

This site from MSNBC is amazing. You can view the shuttle launch, in real-time, from any of the NASA cameras, including the one on the fuel tank. Seeing Cape Canaveral fall away below them is stunning.

Difficulties.

There will most likely not be a podcast posted tonight. Try to contain your despair, and check back tomorrow.

The Ten-Song Meme

NTodd tagged me for this, even if he didn't want to admit it:

List ten songs that you are currently digging...it doesn't matter what genre they are from, whether they have words, or even if they're no good, but they must be songs you're really enjoying right now. Post these instructions, the artists, and the ten songs in your blog. Then tag five other people to see what they're listening to.

• What Goes On, The Velvet Underground, The Velvet Underground
• Foggy Notion, ibid, VU
• Doctor Worm, They Might Be Giants, Dial-a-Song: 20 Years of They Might Be Giants
• Everyday Is A Winding Road, Sheryl Crow, Sheryl Crow
• 1,000,000, R.E.M., Chronic Town
• Whoa, the Gonnas, no album because it's my band (Tony wrote the song)
• Diminuendo in Blue and Crescendo in Blue, Duke Ellington, Ellington at Newport 1956
• Down the Line, Buddy Holly, The Buddy Holly Collection
• Rumours of Glory, Bruce Cockburn, Humans
• Love Shack, the B-52s, Time Capsule

If you have iTunes, click here to jump to an iMix with all the tracks--well, except the Gonnas, I guess.

No Beatles included, because I'm always enjoying them. Ditto for the Beach Boys.

Now, to tag people. It could be tough to choose five, because I only have about four readers. Oh well, let's try Godfrey, Clarence, Lyn, Mike, and of course Laura.

If you have a blog, leave a list to your link--er, a link to your list in the comments; if you don't have a blog or don't feel like cluttering up your purple prose, just put the whole list in the comments. Then tag five other people, so you can annoy them as much as I've annoyed you.

Rob Pegoraro's Podcasting podcast.

Well, the Washington Post has finally jumped on the podcasting bandwagon. I've subscribed to this one, simply because I like Rob Pegoraro as a writer and have followed his columns for a long time now. (He also appears to be younger than me, depressingly.) Still, it's hard not to smile that, as he discusses whether or not podcasting is a "fad," he's jumping into the fad himself. Of course, he's jumping into the fad with the full power of Big Media behind him.

He doesn't talk (yet) about Adam Curry's assertion that podcasting is not producer-driven (like blogs), but listener-driven, i.e. commercial radio stinks, and listeners want an alternative. I think there's some truth in that. For instance, I live in a town with no dedicated jazz station, and subscribe and listen to No Idle Frets, an excellent podcast featuring jazz guitar. (I found it before Adam Curry, thank you very much.) The point is, I'm hearing music I can't hear on the radio; and that justifies podcasting in my view.

On the other hand, there are those folks who got into podcasting simply for the sake of narcissism (ahem), and in that case it is rather like blogs, except that you can't Google-search it and there's less editing and it takes more time and...

Mating a post.

By request, here's Dating a Ghost, 3.3 MB, 3:20, AAC format for iPods, iTunes, and QuickTime. Can't guarantee how long it'll be on-line. Also, it's not part of the podcast feed, so you'll need to download it manually.

Thanks for liking it! Foul-ups and all...

Rooster Spice, the Podcast--LIVE!

The big tenth episode, for 22 July 2005.

Get it here (14:19, 6.9 MB).

Show notes as follows:

• Recorded before a live studio audience! (The undead studio audience wasn't available 'til after sunset.)


• Supreme Court nominee


• James Doohan boldly goes where billions of people have gone before


• 1776 and the sunshine patriots


• Podsafe song performed by Squelch himself: Dating a Ghost


• Sign-off and applause

As always, subscribe here, and vote here. And, of course, email roosterspice AT gmail DOT com. Audio comments welcome. What, you have better things to do with your time?

The D.C. Shorts website is now online. Check out my screenings here and here.

Linger on, Montauk.

Back, oh, a decade or so ago, a friend turned me on to heroin. That is, the song "Heroin" and other tunes by the Velvet Underground. (The first song was actually "What Goes On," but that wouldn't have provided a joke.) As two college kids in the pre-mp3 age, we communicated via mix tapes. Mostly, he sent me weird pop and alternative from his collection, and occasionally I sent him Beatles bootlegs from mine (and occasionally what passed for weird pop from my very, very pedestrian collection).

Anyway, I finally bought a Velvets album (off iTunes, no less), their self-titled release. (Not their first release, by the way, their third. I like artists who self-title non-debut albums, like the Beatles and... erm... Sheryl Crow.) I had just recently dropped some dimes on albums by Bruce Cockburn (an excellent purchase) and the B-52s (jury's still out) in the quest to get the iTunes 500 millionth song. But I woke up last night with the Velvets in my head and just had to give Apple more money.

I'm glad I did; I'm listening to the Velvets right now, and they're amazing. While the recording of "What Goes On" was not the one I was familiar with (apparently it comes from a live album), it's still excellent. I had only heard the R.E.M. cover of "Pale Blue Eyes," not the original, which is much sparser.

Now I'm trying to determine whether I should buy their debut, The Velvet Underground and Nico. It'd be a no-brainer, but in iTunes, the only options are either the "deluxe" set at $30, or buying the "partial" album by song only (11 tracks at 99 cents each). The thing is, as far as I can tell the whole album is only 11 tracks anyway, so what's this "partial album" crap? Readers more knowledgeable than me about the Velvets are invited to comment. (So are the rest of you.)

Over the intercom.

Would the surfer who searched for "The Gonnas" please report to the main office. Your coolie has a hernia.

Rooster Spice, the Podcast--the bad Beatles edition

Episode 9 right here, sitting pretty at 14:31 and 7.1 MB. This is a good 'un.

Show notes!

• Squelch in powdered form


• What You Don't Know About Squelch, number two, featuring listener questions!


• Bootleg of the Week: Money, performed by the Beatles


• Leftovers from the basement

Also features music from Don Giovanni, in a public domain recording by J.S.L.; and I Saw Her Standing There by way of Elvis and a televangelist, performed with alacrity and possible drunkenness by Squelch and Tony L. (This is a parody, which is "fair use" and protected under copyright law.)

As always, get your subscription fix here, or via iTunes.

Also, if you want to make me happy, vote at Podcast Alley. C'mon, like it'll take a year off your life or something? (I swear, those studies weren't properly peer-reviewed!)

And if you really want to make me happy, send me an email with comments, audio or otherwise.

In case you thought they were only after same-sex couples...

A Protestant adoption services group does not accept Catholic parents. Link via Andrew Sullivan.

And Jesus spake unto his disciples, and said, Go forth in bigotry, dudes!

Rooster Spice, the Podcast--Episode 8

Another fun exciting fourteen minutes of your life you'll never get back!

Show notes:

• Rooster Spice now listed in iTunes!
• Definition of "bootleg"
• Depressed about Iraq
• FBI seeks thespians! (thanks, Clarence)
• Is Squelch a CIA operative?
• Undignified begging for votes and emails

Also, allow me to point out that two of my films are being shown at the D.C. Shorts Festival in mid-September, as alluded to in the 'cast. So, now, in addition to voting at Podcast Alley, you can make a pilgrimage to D.C. to express your appreciation for me. Just do it, it'll make you feel all warm and fuzzy.

Walk Like a Nicaraguan

Well, Odeo is on-line, and looky there, Rooster Spice the Podcast is already listed. Please go check it out.

(Why the title of this post? Well, because "Odeo" reminds me of "oh-WAY-oh" from Walk Like an Egyptian. So sue me. Wait, the RIAA is already suing me.)

Oh, and...

Don't forget to vote at Podcast Alley if you haven't already done it this month. Vote for other podcasts you like, too.

Rooster Spice, the Podcast--Episode 7

12 July 2005, wherein Squelch discovers that figuring out what to say is, like, hard. (11:48, 5.7 MB, torrent here.)

Show notes:

• Emma dresses up
• when did my folks become filthy rich?
• the Doofus Dad syndrome
• Bootleg of the Week: Cuba Si Nixon No, by Simon and Garfunkel
• more thoughts on London, and Iraq
• counterpoint from Satan
• halfhearted sign-off
• clavicus majorus

As always, send your thoughts, comments, libel, and CIA covert agents' identities to roosterspice AT gmail DOT com. Subscribe at http://feeds.feedburner.com/RoosterSpice.

(Most of the laughs are at the end. But I can't guarantee that's worth getting through the rest of it.)

Those of you who subscribe to the podcast may notice yet another change in the feed. It shouldn't affect anything, however, and may make it easier for all of us.

Rooster Spice, the Podcast--Episode 6

No theme music today. Didn't seem appropriate.

Get the podcast (9.2 MB, twenty minutes, torrent found here), or subscribe, or send me an email at roosterspice AT gmail DOT com with your thoughts.

Show notes:

• Sandra Day O'Connor
• The one million dollar hole
• London
• Cancer
• Johann Christian Bach's Sonata in A for Flute and Piano, Op. 16 No. 4, second movement

A multiple-day podcast. What a difference a few days makes.

Dear London

Amanda pretty much says exactly what I'm feeling right now.

What a difference an edition makes.

Headline on the second editorial of the print edition of today's Washington Post: Congratulations, London.

Headline on washingtonpost.com: London Rocked by Series of Blasts.

Nothing more to say for now.

Begging is pathetic, but that never stopped me.

Rooster Spice, the Podcast is finally up at Podcast Alley. Do yourself a favor and vote for it. It'll make you feel all gooey inside.

<C3PO>I've just about had enough of this blog.</C3PO>

Maybe it's time to take another break, I don't know. Maybe it's time to admit I don't have anything to say. But lately, writing to Rooster Spice has been a chore, not a pleasure. (I can only imagine how awful reading it must be.) I wonder, am I worrying too much about readers, and that's why I don't enjoy it? Would I be more interested, and happier, if I were to eliminate the Site Meter entirely, and remove the comments boxes?

When I first added comments, I was fearful; I thought I'd get discouraged when I saw nothing but 0s all the way down the page. And that is, indeed, discouraging. What I should do, I suppose, is endeavor to write entries which demand comment, but I worry I'll lapse into demogoguery. ("Question: are all liberals traitors, or only 80% of them? Discuss.")

Meanwhile, I'm much more interested in podcasting than blogging and that's well and good, except when I don't make an effort to say anything interesting, it doesn't matter whether it's spoken or typed. And, of course, my podcast audience is even smaller than my blog audience. (Yesterday's RSS circulation, according to FeedBurner: 6. And two of those were me.)

Someone once told me to act as if I have as many readers as Atrios, and eventually I actually would. (Mind you, I've been blogging longer than Atrios, natch.) But that method never really clicked with me, since I would rather, like Achenbach, revel in the Select Audience of Fifteen (fifteen! wow! if only I had so many!). The problem being, of course, that I'm neither as good a writer as Achenbach, nor do I have his actual readership. You can afford to joke that only fifteen people read you when in fact it's actually at least a hundred and fifty.

But there's always Google if I want my hit counts to spike, I suppose. Recently people have found Rooster Spice looking for pictures of Lara Logan. So I guess that should be my slogan: "Rooster Spice: Come for the bikinis, stay for the prose!"

That there aren't any actual bikinis is a mere technicality.

Rooster Spice, the Podcast--Episode 5

A little later than usual, eh? Yawn....

Rooster Spice, the Podcast--Episode 5, clocking in at a regulation 13:47 and 6.7 MB.

Show notes:

• One family's Fourth of July
• Bootleg of the Week: Peggy Sue Got Married by Buddy Holly
• Sayonara!

Remember to subscribe to the podcast, or, if you're reading this in the podcast feed, check out the blog itself at roosterspice.blogspot.com.

Also, if anyone isn't subscribed and just does direct downloads, please consider using the torrent instead. There's always a seed going, and it won't be any slower than a download.

Would anyone be interested in a feed with just the torrents, for BitTorrent-aware podcatchers like iPodder and iPodderX? If so, leave a comment; it'll mean a little more work for me, but it might be worth it.

Who's listening?!

So, my Site Meter tells me I'm getting my usual 3 to 4 hits daily; feedburner says I've got an average circulation of, oh, six; yet according to BlogMatrix, I've sent out 540 MB worth of podcasts this week alone, and that means I'm over the free bandwidth cap. Kee-rist! Who's doing all this downloading? I don't mind if it's actual listeners, but if it's bots? I'm gonna pay a bandwidth fee for bots? At this rate, I'll have to do a special feed for BitTorrent.

Minor changes.

I've implemented a wee change here at Rooster Spice. The previous XML feed is now a podcast-only subscription. If you've only subscribed so you can get the podcast, you don't have to change anything. However, if you've subscribed with the intention of getting the podcast and these wondrous, incredible, incomparable blog posts, you'll want to subscribe to the Atom feed. Note well, I'm not sure whether this feed will work for podcasting, if you use a hybrid newsreader/podcatcher like iPodderX.

I'm doing this so I can show more podcasts in the podcast feed; the Blogger feed, from which the original podcast feed was derived, only syndicated the first page of the blog, which means the first podcast would drop off the bottom of the page. And we can't have that, can we?

Take it to Karl!

Lookit all them soldiers who want to give therapy to Bin Laden. I particularly like this post. (Via Dohiyi Mir.)

Rooster Spice, the Podcast--Episode 4

Here we go again: get it here (13 minutes, 6.7 MB).

Show notes:

• iTunes podcasting!
• The terrible, horrible, no good, very bad Skype attempt
• I got the part! and other braggadocio
• What you don't know about Squelch
• Leftovers

I've solved my storage problem! So all the glorious episodes are back on-line, thanks to BlogMatrix.

Again, subscribe by copying the link of the orange XML and pasting it into your podcatching application (if you're using iTunes, you want "Subscribe to Podcast..." under the Advanced menu).

And if you like me (if you really, really like me), please do shoot an email and an MP3 to roosterspice AT gmail DOT com. Doesn't have to be a comment--if you have a podsafe song you want me to play, send it!

The Nomination Pool

I suspect we'll be seeing Associate Justice Karl Rove, personally. I mean, seriously, who's gonna stop him?

Eine Neuen Linken.

Long overdue, this... we're adding to our blog-roll Dohiyi Mir, the blog (and podcast!) of an old college acquaintance, with whom I sparred on the pre-Internet notesboards system, hosted on the old UNIX VAX, which you accessed with green VT100-style terminals. Ah, those were the days...

This makes a total of three (3) bloggers in my link bar who also attended my micro-ivy.

If anyone is searching the archives...

I have changed the link for the first podcast so it's at least findable (I think). It won't work from a podcatching app, though. Still on the look-out for a permanent yet cheap solution.

Edit: Nope, didn't work. Damn it.

It's official.

Podcasting is now part and parcel of iTunes. And me without my knickers on.

Rooster Spice, the Podcast--Episode 3

Coming LIVE to a portable audio player near you (well, maybe your audio player isn't actually living):

Rooster Spice, the Podcast clocking in today at just over 17 (!) entrancing minutes and just under nine inexpensive megabytes. Show notes:

• Feeding kids like Hobbits
• Two recent Supreme Court decisions
• Two recent Squelch auditions
• Bootleg of the Week: Revolution by the Beatles
• No leftovers, the fridge is busted.

As always, send your audio and/or text comments to roosterspice AT gmail DOT com. Please?

Incidentally, the first RSTP episode is currently off-line. My ISP has a storage limit, although I did expect to get at least THREE shows up before I had to delete one. If anyone would like to donate some storage, on a temporary basis, until I consult the Mistress of Funds and price out a solution, please let me know. I really would like all the episodes to be on-line when I enter this thing into the various directories.

A New Look.

I'm not in love with this new template, but at least it's not broken. (Yes, throwing myself upon the goodwill of my readers was as effective as throwing myself upon a sword. Could be because no one actually reads this darn thing.)

Apropos of nothing, let me give a plug to the increasingly inaccurately named Holidays 2004 weblog. The former Medley/Cozy has been on fire recently, particularly when describing the anti-speech amendment (which could, incidentally, snag our current president).

The ultimate do-it-yourself music video.

This is making the rounds of the intarwebs, so do yourself a favor and check it out. (Link via Pandagon).

Okay...

Back to the old template for the time being. Despite Godfrey's suggestion, I can't find any reference to <div style> in the template (though it does show up in the source), which makes me think that Blogger is putting it there and breaking things. I don't know enough about CSS or HTML to figure out why the call is breaking things, or how I can fix it. I throw myself upon the knowledge and good will of my readers...

Darn you, Google!

I have now replaced the template with a plain-vanilla version. But it's still fouled up. Which makes me wonder: is it Blogger's fault?

Erm...

Is anyone else seeing a big blank space where the posts ought to be?

Rooster Spice, the Podcast--Episode 2

So! here we are, it's a Friday, and you're looking for something to listen to, right? Wait no longer.

Rooster Spice, the Podcast

Show notes:

• Comments and commentary
• World's largest ice pop
• Thoughts on first-person shooters
• The Supreme Court's view of private property
• A message from Satan
• Leftovers

And, yeah, I know the filename says it's released tomorrow, not today. Sorry about that.

Remember, you can send comments, audio or otherwise, to roosterspice AT gmail DOT com.

Rooster Spice, the Podcast--Episode 1

Yes, that's right; instead of reading esoteric, rambling, self-piteous blog entries, you can now listen to esoteric, rambling, self-piteous blog entries!

Get the podcast here (64kbps mp3, VBR, 5.7MB, 12:00). Or, if you prefer, you can subscribe to the podcast--copy this link into your favorite podcatching client.

I welcome your thoughts in the comment boxes, or at my new email address: roosterspice AT gmail [dot] com. If you like, send audio files (ogg, AAC, or mp3) and I'll play them in the 'cast!

And tell me if you want me to stop...

Show notes: First episode ever! Features Father's Day; thoughts on returning to theatre; reading from Twelfth Night; leftovers.

Daddydaddydaddy.

I'll have some more to say about Father's Day, but for now, let me just share this comment from a thread over at Pandagon:

My father committed suicide when I was two, unfortnately I found him dead.

My mother, an immigrant, raised my sister, my brother and I alone (with the help of the community we lived in and Social Security) until I was six, when she married an abusive asshole who liked to beat her and us.

Tonight my son, ten, asked if he could take me to McDonalds for dinner on Father's Day. He had thirteen dollars he'd somehow saved from his birthday two weeks ago...

Tonight I had the best meal I've ever had and I'm a vegan.

I'm going to cry for years thinking about the joy in my son's eyes when I said I would love McDonalds, and when he paid for his Dad's supper. My supper.

Nothing means more to me than the love that little boy has for HIS Dad. Father's Day?

It's a wonderful thing.
(Posted by sixteenwords.)

The blog post itself is also well worth reading, if a little less uplifting.

Newses.

Whew! Things are getting out of hand here chez Rooster Spice, what with all our millions of readers clamoring for easy ways to get Rooster Spice to their mobile phones, PDAs, neural implants, and the like. So we have implemented an RSS feed, which our Tech Guys tell us will bring us up to date, or at least to 2003 or so. To subscribe, just copy the link at the orange XML chicklet to the right there, and you too can get up-to-the-minute updates on the level of Squelch's self-pity! (Shrewd readers will find a clue to Rooster Spice's future direction embedded in the XML...)

The usual.

I'd love to be able to get worked up about politics and eroding privacy and creeping fascism. But how can I get worked up about troubles in our country's public life if I can't even handle my own private life?

This morning was another day of losing my temper and taking it out on my kids. E fell and scraped her knee a little bit. She's extremely pain-averse since she chewed her toenails down to the root a couple weeks ago. Now even the tiniest injury makes her wail and cry. She is only two and a half, after all.

But I couldn't distract her or make her laugh to defuse the situation, no. I just plowed on ahead (we were walking D to his summer camp and on a deadline). So naturally she got more upset the more we walked. I wound up carrying her all the way home after dropping D off, getting more and more angry the whole time.

There's a little more to it than that of course, but what's the difference? The point is, all I could do was get angry. I couldn't stop and calm myself down. Actually, I did try to; but after getting calm, E refused to move, and I got angry again. When we got home, I put her in her room for her own safety. I was drenched with sweat and shaking with rage.

K says I should take an anger management class, and maybe I should. But like a typical male I feel I should be able to fix this problem on my own.

Posts like this are why I keep this blog pseudonymous, so there's no danger my family will Google me and get themselves worried for my (and my kids') safety. Unfortunately, much of my family and a few friends already bookmarked this stupid blog back before it went pseudonymous, and they're my only readers.

So--why am I pressing the "Publish" button?

Rumors shall swirl no longer.

So it's true, although there's very little info about it on the Apple site: Macs are moving to Intel, and Mac OS X already works on a Pentium 4. God damn. Cognitive dissonance abounds. They couldn't even move to AMD chips?

As long as Mac OS X still works, I don't really care. But gee whiz...

Deep thoughts.

How long, do you suppose, before the wingnuts start "rehabilitating" Mark Felt from a man who helped bring down a criminal enterprise in the White House, into a evil traitor who ruined a presidency to which he should have been loyal?

I mean, besides Pat Buchanan, who has already called Felt a traitor.

Let's not forget this: the Nixon White House was bad. They attempted to subvert the American political process through illegal means. Then they attempted to cover it up. In my arrogant opinion, no one should have felt loyalty to Nixon and his cronies.

We cannot let Watergate go down the memory hole. It was a significant event, and not just because it happened during the baby boomers' coming of age. And we cannot let others gloss over Nixon's crimes, just because he was a conservative and conservatives are ascendant.

(Well, he wasn't a conservative in today's terms, of course. Did you know that a centerpiece of his second term was supposed to be nationalized health care?)

Some good news.

No, I'm never gonna describe Day 3. As usual, I don't follow through.

But here's some neat news. Ever heard of the Hi Mom! Film Festival? Neither had I. But they're showing my one-minute epic <ESC> on Friday June 3. This marks the second time it's been part of a film festival (the first time was on Nicktoons last year). I'm pretty excited and proud. Now, all I have to do is create a movie that's as popular as <ESC> has been.

The folks at Hi Mom! seem pretty cool, and their fest is now in its eighth year--not a bad run at all. If you're in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, why not grab a ticket?

I had already told them I wouldn't be able to make it (if it had been on a Saturday night, it would have been very, very tempting), so they mailed a program to me; sweet stuff! Interviews with some of the filmmakers, stills from every film, and my personal favorite, a two-page spread of Mom pictures. (Part of the application requirement was that you sent a snapshot, or even a drawing, of your mother.) And there in the lower right-hand corner is a picture of my mom holding her granddaughter. As George Harrison said, "You don't see one of those every day."

Well, does he?

My Dad turned me on to this one:

When the President Talks to God

It's also a free download from iTunes. Let's make it the number one downloaded song.

The Post had a headline yesterday which read: "Contracting Rush For Security Led To Waste, Abuse."

Well, duh. What do you expect if you contract your security out to Rush Limbaugh?

It's official.

You can no longer be both a Democrat and a Christian. (Thanks to Lyn for the link.)

The trip.

The first day was a whirl of dark caves, dripping water, and aching legs. Not content with merely showing us part of Mt. St. Helens, the Hash gang elected to send us under it, through the Ape Cave (which, I'm told, is so named after the spelunking club which first found it, not after the future inhabitants of Earth who will eventually try to enslave Charlton Heston). It was about three miles of rock and moisture, with nary a living creature in sight. Incredible stuff, sure, but not exactly how one spends vacations. Well, not how I spend vacations, anyway.

This was the point when my sneakers gave up the ghost. In fact, had it been up to them, I would have left them in the cave (they got stuck in the wet volcanic sand). I thought I wouldn't need my hiking boots, despite what the folks had planned for us. Silly me.

Annoyingly, despite all the physical exertion, I still didn't sleep very well. Damn jet lag.

The next day was slightly less punishing, but just as much fun; a jaunt to the Seaside. Literally: Seaside, Oregon. It was still pretty gray and windy, but was decent walking weather, so most of us did just that. I thought about renting a bike, but never got around to it. I had as cheap a lunch as I could manage and then tried, unsuccessfully, to call K collect from a pay-phone (the time difference meant this was basically my only chance to talk to D and E, too). I'm not sure what she and the kids were doing, but all I got was the answering machine.

After the trip, we went to the Hash HQ to play with motion-capture. Hash owns a mocap suit, and their software can work with the data, so it was a no-brainer. I was the first one strapped into the thing--sensors attached to wires and velcro--it could have been a prop for a very kinky club in another life. Unfortunately, I pretty much wasted my time in it. I did a couple things that might be useful in the Hash Film Project (more about that later, maybe) but didn't really do anything that interested me. I guess I was worried about being self-indulgent. Later, of course, people got silly, doing The Hulk lifting up cars and so on. And have I mentioned...

<rant>the folly of having non-actors do mocap and calling it "animation"? I mean, I was self-conscious up there, and I used to be a professional actor. One guy's interpretation of a fiery Baptist preacher basically just involved waving his forearms about while his elbows were locked at his side. It was all I could do to not run up there and start directing him. I probably would have if I hadn't been so worn out. (Incidentally, this problem isn't limited to non-studio animators like us--check out the motion capture work on Final Fantasy. It's not just the animators' fault that everyone is as stiff as a board.) </rant>

Day 3 to follow...

2005: A Plane Odyssey.

No, I didn't do regular updates. Sue me. They worked us so damn hard it was like a boot camp. "YOU WILL HAVE FUN--NOW!" (crack!)

I hope to write about the events in the order they happened, but for the moment, let me tell you about the ride home.

Portland to Dallas--no incidents. I actually had a DC power outlet this time, so my laptop didn't run out. Watched most of The Incredibles. Hey, I am a 3D character animator after all.

Arrived in Dallas, had enough of a layover to grab lunch at McDonald's and rush to the gate. Got on the plane. Took off. Our captain seemed to like to hear himself talk, but this would turn out to be an asset when, about 15 minutes after takeoff, there was a Big Red Light flashing in the cabin and he had to turn us around and fly back to Dallas. Uh boy.

To his credit, he did his best to keep us informed throughout the process. But, to no avail--we got off the plane, and they tried to find us another one, but instead the flight was cancelled.

Did I mention that they told us there was only one more flight to BWI, and it had only four seats available? And no seats on any flights to National or Dulles?

At this point, I was wishing I had stayed in the Portland area. I would have been able to see my college buddy (who I missed entirely), or maybe hang out with the Hash gang a little longer, or just enjoy the Pacific Northwest weather (maybe not that last one). I started racking my brains for alternatives to sleeping at DFW.

On the advice of another passenger I decided to take my chances at the ticket counter, rather than waiting in line at the gate. Good thing, too; I got a flight to National that arrived at 11:00 PM, which would let me take the Metro home. But I still had four hours to kill at the Dallas airport. And did I mention: there are almost no power outlets anywhere in that God-forsaken place? I spent most of my time wandering around, looking for a plug. And when I finally found one at the gate for the National flight, they changed the gate to one so far away that I had to take light rail to get there.

In all this time I had, I did manage to get a good deal of animating done (what good is an animation conference, if you aren't inspired to animate?), and I finished watching Fellowship of the Ring. I finally walked in my front door at 12:30 A.M. My original flight was supposed to arrive at BWI at 4:30 P.M.

I kissed E and D as they slept, and crawled into bed with K. It was all worth it.

D'oh.

Well, here I am at Portland International Airport, waiting to see if I get a seat on the plane. Not lookin' good Oh they called me.

Greetings from...

I arrived at BWI in plenty, some would say too much, of time. But as long as I had my laptop and a power outlet, I was happy.

Surprisingly, for a man traveling alone with only carry-on luggage, I had very little trouble with security. (I haven't flown since 2000, so it was all new to me.) I made some idle chitchat with an elderly couple on their way to Vegas, did a little animating, and then headed to the rear of the plane to gawp at the modern marvel of air travel... or to be more specific, gawp at Liv Tyler in Fellowship of the Ring. I got about halfway through by the end of the flight, coincidentally also the end of my battery. No problem, I had a three-hour layover in Dallas to look forward to.

Of course, I was meeting up with a fellow animator in Dallas--let's call him "Robert," because that's his name--and he took me out to Denny's for dinner, where there were no power outlets to charge my laptop. Bingo, and suddenly I had no way to pass the time on the next leg of the trip--no book, nothin'. Mind you it was great fun meeting Robert, and I don't regret it at all. We had a great time and it's always good to meet people face-to-face with whom you've worked in the past.

But, I still needed my boredom stopper, and so it was that when I arrived back at the gate--where boarding had already begun--I ran down the terminal frantically, searching for a place that sold a DC power adapter so I could plug my laptop in on the flight. I found one--for $50--and also grabbed a copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy as a backup plan. Good thing, too--my assigned seat did not have a DC power outlet. Argh.

In the Kevin Bacon department, not only did the person next to whom I was sitting come from BWI like me, she even knew someone with whom I worked at the Kennedy Center. Bizarre stuff.

We arrived at Portland right on time, and after a bathroom break (I've followed your advice to the letter, gentle readers, and drunk tons of water), I met, for the first time, my good friend Godfrey, and no doubt this momentous event will be commemorated in the future. We took his rental car back to the hotel; I had brought along a print-out of the directions, and he had brought along a laptop equipped with GPS. I used my print-out to direct us to the wrong exit, and his GPS brought us to the hotel. Score: Laptop 1, Paper 0. (Yeah, but at least I didn't have to charge up my erroneous directions...)

Now, in a true affirmation of geekdom, we're both sitting at a table, using the wireless network to write in our blogs simultaneously. I'll have more news from today's adventures next time--suffice it to say, my legs hurt like hell and I'm fucking tired.

And out the door he goes!

Stay tuned.

Naturally.

I never get colds. I mean, never. Well, actually I mean almost never. But regardless. The point remains, they're very rare for me, rarer than my Dad likes his hamburgers. You'd expect that a father of a kindergartener and a pre-schooler would get colds all the time, but I don't. Er, well, I should say I don't get them from my kids. I do, in fact, get colds often, but I'm usually the first to get them, and then I'm immune to whatever the other family members try to harpoon me with.

So, of course as I'm about to go on my first flight since 2000, I get a frickin' cold! From my daughter, no less! Worse, I can tell the cold is going to be at its peak right in the middle of the trip. Minor sore throat and some congestion yesterday (lost hearing in my right ear for a while, which made it interesting to mix my entry for the KVR song contest), major sore throat today--and that means tomorrow will be full-blown, nose-runnin' joy. Even a gallon of orange juice, laced with ecinachia, couldn't help at this point. (Old joke: Before I started taking ecinachia, my colds would last for seven days. Now, they're gone in a week!)

I've flown with bad congestion before, and it is not pretty. Your head asplodes as the plane ascends. Must remember to try a bunch of decongestants and figure out which one works for me--in LESS THAN 24 HOURS. ARGH!

The great adventure, or "Ten-Four, good 'tooner!"

On Sunday, I'm going West, young man (though not as young as I used to be). Hash, Inc. is sponsoring a gathering at their heaquarters in Vancouver, Washington. It's for their 'top artists,' but I was invited anyway. I'm pretty excited. I'll be meeting two of the people who worked on Duck Sauce--one of them at the gathering, and the other during my three-hour (!) layover in Dallas on the way out. I'll try to post regular updates, if only to compete with Godfrey, who is also going. We're splitting a hotel room, so expect lots of dish about snoring, bathroom habits, etc., and maybe even a Great Drama of Friends Who Meet For The First Time and Can't Stand Each Other (well, hopefully not that last).

It's going to be exciting but strange, and makes me think of my days in CB radio, when I would occasionally meet people whom I only knew by voice. At least in this case, I know we'll all have something in common other than the need to avoid smokeys.

I'll also, with luck and time, be able to meet up with an old college roommate, who lives across the river in Portland, Oregon. I didn't do a great job planning for that, though--how was I supposed to know that Hash would be working us 24-7?

Ten years.

Why don't we remember Oklahoma City?

It can be done.

A thirty minute animated film, made by one person.

Haruwo, by Shao Guee.

Psyche!

A recent comment thread reminded me that I've never written about the back operation I had over Christmas of 1990, which kept me out of high school for over two months and changed my life in interesting ways. Well, I won't be writing about it today either. Ha!

DeLay must go.

I'm happy to say that Christopher Shays was once my Congressman.

Improbable Name Dept.

From today's Washington Post:

"One of the Social Security trustees, Thomas R. Saving, has been advising a group... which promotes [private Social Security] accounts."

All about ME!

The Netizen's Guide to Flame Warriors

Recently I managed to goad a couple people on a forum to tell me how Talented I Was. I thought it was inadvertent, but having read the description of Ego, now I'm not so sure.

Rain.

It's a hideously vicious circle--I stay up late so I'm tired the following day, and when I'm tired I'm depressed, and when I'm depressed I don't want to go to bed...

I have to break it, somehow. Obviously, staying awake and writing blog entries is not the way to do so.

Used to be, every Friday I would go out and jam with the Gonnas. Now, the Gonnas are no more, but for some reason I don't find myself calling the remaining ex-Gonnas and saying, "Let's see a movie" or something. So I stay at home, the same place I've been all week, slowly but inexorably becoming more and more stir-crazy.

I will get out of the house at the end of April, at least, to go to Washington State for an animation thingy. That will help, and with any luck the jet lag won't utterly destroy me. But even that seems like less a vacation than a business trip, given how busy I'll be. Every day is scheduled to within an inch of its life.

And of course to get there, it's a 3 1/2 hour flight to Dallas, then a 3 hour layover, then a 4 hour flight to Portland, Oregon. I'm seriously considering copying the complete Lord of the Rings extended editions to my laptop hard drive. And even then I still have time to kill...

More esteem.

Somebody liked Corned Beef and Cabbage, and I'll be darned if they didn't say so in the coolest manner possible.

(Everyone votes for their top 5 songs, and then the votes are tabulated after the 1st of the month. This is the first vote I've gotten, but it's a number 1, no less!)

Esteem (thanks, Stephanie).

Need to feel liked?

Look at that there participle a-danglin' there!

Below, I wrote:

Occasionally I designate a "personal day," where I resolutely refuse to make lunches, play with them, etc.

It's a sad day indeed when a father refuses to play with lunches.

Listen to my works, ye mighty, and despair!

Here's Corned Beef and Cabbage (1.9 MB mp3), an entry in the KVR monthly song contest. Naturally, the first month I entered set the record for number of entries: 87. I'll be lucky to make the top 80.

Trials.

Being a professional father is not a hard job. I know, according to the prevailing zeitgeist, I'm supposed to say, "Parenting is the hardest job in the world," but you know what? That's not the case. Shocking, I know. Here you were all thinking that I had it even worse than a commercial fisherman, a sweatshop worker, or an Iraqi policeman, and I ruin your preconceptions. (I have very few friends with kids, and now the ones without 'em will no longer buy me drinks after I've had a hard day with sick children, like today.)

Nonetheless, being a full-time parent (what a silly idiom--who isn't a full-time parent?) does have its own set of trials and tribulations:

• Sloth. When I was working outside the home, I would religiously shave and brush my teeth. (Which religion? I'm an atheist.) Now, I sit here typing this blog with three days' growth of stubble on my face. What's worse, I only brush my teeth in the evening now, even though I think it's disgusting. There just doesn't seem to be a reason to take care of myself.
  
• Leisure (or lack thereof). I have it pretty cushy, I know. Many people would kill to be able to stay home with their kids all day. But there's a flip side to this: I never really have a day off. Sure, on the weekends I get a hired hand, also known as my wife, to help out. But seven days a week I do my job, except under rare circumstances. Occasionally I designate a "personal day," where I resolutely refuse to make lunches, play with them, etc. Unless things are really bad, I make sure that doesn't happen when K is at work.
  
• Self-esteem. Everyone thinks they should be in a different place than they are, so I can't really claim I'm unique in saying that I didn't expect to be a full-time dad. But the Big Lie of the western world--or maybe I should call it the Big Expectation--that the man is supposed to bring home the bacon--well, that's ingrained pretty well into my soul. Especially since I basically grew up in a bachelor household, and my father's identity was and is bound up in his work. That I don't hold a "paying" job is sometimes a source of great shame to me. Even if you factor in the cost of day care.
  
• Temper. Regular readers--yes, you and you--know that I have trouble keeping my anger in check at times. So do my kids. And when we both holler at each other, which happens more often than I'd like... well, it's nasty.
  
• Time management. Uninterrupted blocks of time are so scarce that if I have personal projects on which I work, I inevitably wind up sacrificing the kids--or getting angry at them if they interrupt me (see Temper, above). But more than that, I can never budget enough time to just get out the door; no matter how hard I try, we're always five minutes late for everything.
  
• Lust. Some stay-at-home fathers, I'm told, are so bored during the down time that they just surf the Internet, looking at porn. Not me, of course. I would never do such a thing.

ooo-WEEE-oo-oo!

God damn it. I recently got into the Beach Boys (K got me Pet Sounds for Christmas, and I bought a compilation off iTunes after I got my iPod) and I had been meaning to blog about it for a long time now. I just never got around to it. Now, though, I can't, because it'll seem like I'm stalking Laura again. Stupid cosmic coincidences.

Bloat.

I've had to battle "gigabyte creep" on my laptop's hard drive. Not a big surprise, really, for someone who works in video as much as I do. Them movies is expensive. Anyway, I deleted some of the usual suspects: animations which I had finished, old versions of WAV files that have been replaced, and I got rid of a couple gigabytes that way.

Then, I cast a baleful eye on my applications folder, and in particular my cherished WWII first-person shooters. I mean, I love Battlefield 1942 (2.8 GB), Call of Duty (2.2 GB), and Medal of Honor (1.7 GB), but this machine (our only one powerful enough to run them) is after all supposed to be my work computer. But doesn't all work and no play make Jack a dull boy? Ah, the pain! My mouse pointer hovered over the games...

I took one last look around my home folder, and saw a nondescript directory labeled "Final Cut Express documents." Ah, yes, the detritus of my video editor. So how much is that, I wonder?

Click. "Get Info." Oh, 17 gigabytes.

Seventeen gigabytes?! What am I doing, editing Lawrence of Arabia?

At least now I know what to get rid of. That is, if I can archive all this stuff.

How can I justify buying a musical toy when all my training, interest, and skill was left at college over ten years ago? I better stop writing this entry before the pity party starts.

Today is my wife's birthday.

Happy birthday, K. May you live another [undisclosed number of] years, and may I get even halfway to deserving you.

Come with me to the metal wheel, we shall make beautiful music together.

Music, by hamsters.

Life is short, and there is more to it than APPLIANCES!

Haven't posted one of these in a while...

I Am A: Neutral Good Half-Elf Ranger Bard

Alignment:
Neutral Good characters believe in the power of good above all else. They will work to make the world a better place, and will do whatever is necessary to bring that about, whether it goes for or against whatever is considered 'normal'.

Race:
Half-Elves are a cross between a human and an elf. They are smaller, like their elven ancestors, but have a much shorter lifespan. They are sometimes looked down upon as half-breeds, but this is rare. They have both the curious drive of humans and the patience of elves.

Primary Class:
Rangers are the defenders of nature and the elements. They are in tune with the Earth, and work to keep it safe and healthy.

Secondary Class:
Bards are the entertainers. They sing, dance, and play instruments to make other people happy, and, frequently, make money. They also tend to dabble in magic a bit.

Deity:
Mielikki is the Neutral Good goddess of the forest and autumn. She is also known as the Lady of the Forest, and is the Patron of Rangers. Her followers are devoted to nature, and believe in the positive and outreaching elements of it. They use light armor, and a variety of weapons suitable for hunting, which they are quite skilled at. Mielikki's symbol is a unicorn head.

Find out What D&D Character Are You?, courtesy of NeppyMan (e-mail)

AAARGH!

Every single time...

For my regular readers.

Today, I am moved to give something back. Maybe it's because I can now listen to music while vacuuming, maybe it's because my son's ear infection is getting better, maybe I'm just high. Anyway, with so few readers of this blog I can't afford to take y'all for granted, so here are some things, some small things, for my regulars, at least those I know about.

These are all bootleg recordings, so although posting them may be technically illegal, at the very least I'm not taking money out of the artists' pockets. They'll only be up for a week or so, so grab 'em while they're hot. They're all in MPEG-4 audio format, suitable for iPod, iTunes, or QuickTime player. Be sure to right-click and save unless you know that your browser is set up to handle .m4a correctly.

First of all, for Clarence, one day past your birthday: a live version of Imagine, the only known recording of John Lennon playing it on guitar. Recorded at the Apollo in New York in December of 1971. Don't worry, you still know more about the Beatles than I do.

For Godfrey, a solo acoustic version of Bruce Cockburn's song If I Had a Rocket Launcher. You know why.

For Mike: I'm not sure if you are a regular reader anymore, but I know you're a Paul Simon fan, so I offer up Bridge Over Troubled Water from Simon and Garfunkel's recent tour. This was recorded at the MCI Center in D.C., one night before K and I saw them.

And for Laura: this is a tough one. I don't have any bootlegs of the Beach Boys, Dylan, or The Band. So I chose, simply, another beautiful Bruce Cockburn song, called Open. I hope you enjoy it.

Joining the game.

So I bought an iPod the other day. No, not an iPod shuffle--my one sacrifice to non-comformity is that I stay One Cool Thing Behind, so I went for an iPod mini. The shuffle is cool and cheap, but half my reason for wanting a music player of any kind was to be able to play specific songs--say, something I just wrote--over my stereo immediately. And the shuffle wouldn't cut it for that.

Plus, I already owned a mini dock. Don't ask why.

It's a nice little machine. And my gosh, the click wheel has got to be the best piece of human interface design on the planet. It was beyond intuitive. It was instinctual.

Unfortunately, as anyone who knows me will realize, I'm not a headphones kind of person. Oh, sure, I'll wear them if I'm working on music or gaming. But when I'm out and about, I find my music in the ambient noise of the world. (Ooooh, purple prose!) Listening to a Walkman (I always think of them as Walkmen--I'm a child of the '80s) is such an inherently anti-social act, and frankly it repulses me, unless I really want to be alone. But even then, as I said, I'd rather listen to the birds chirp, the cars drive by, the boomboxes next door pound--

Oh, wait. That's why I bought it.

Not a dime a dozen?

I had a friend in college who got really upset the first time Michael Jordan retired. Well, he wasn't a friend, more like an aquaintance. Well, no actually, I just plain didn't like him. He was the kind of economics major who thought about the whole world in terms of economics--for instance, he was against the death penalty not for moral, scientific, or social reasons, but because it cost too much to hold someone on Death Row during the appeals process. "If we executed them quicker, it would cost less, and I'd be for it," he said once. He was that kind of guy. Anyway, he was a Chicagoan and revered Jordan, so when the retirement happened and I said, "Not to be callous, but so what?" he was incredibly pissed off at me. He knew that I revered the playwright Arthur Miller, and said "How would you like it if I said that when Arthur Miller died?"

Well, of course, Michael Jordan hadn't died, just retired--and as history showed, he could unretire himself, and did so twice. But now, Arthur Miller will never write another play.

I wanted to be a playwright once, and Miller was my idol. I think I've read more of his plays than most doctoral theater students, and I'm even one of the few people to direct one of his later plays: "Some Kind of Love Story," a one-act. Very few of Miller's later plays garnered attention, but I read them anyway. Some were bad, some were brilliant. All were Arthur Miller.

I admit, probably some of my affection for him came from his living in Connecticut, like me. He was also born in Brooklyn, like me. From thereon, there aren't any similarities, but I'll take what I can.

When I was in high school and college, it was very fashionable for snot-nosed kids like me (and the theater folks with whom I hung out) to denigrate Miller, pointing out that "he only wrote Death of a Salesman and nothing else," as if Death of a Salesman wasn't enough to put anyone on the map. But we were more impressed by Edward Albee, especially in his avant-garde phase; Miller was just so conventional. Or so we thought. Never mind that he built a play around his life, After the Fall, which was wonderfully avant-garde. Never mind that he also wrote a less well-known, but incredibly theatrical, play called The American Clock, about the Great Depression, which used vaudeville of all things as a jumping-off point. (And never mind that Salesman certainly wasn't his only theatrical success.)

Still, I was a closet Miller lover, and I think time has proved me right. There's just something simple and primal about his work, and he deserves his place in the pantheon of American theater.

I'll miss him...

Shazam!

And I thought my first eBay sale was successful; I just listed, sold, and shipped my Technics receiver in under two hours. Damn!

It can't always be this easy... can it?

Slalom week.

It's been a week of ups and downs, but I think on average the ups won--which is a good thing by any standards.

Down: K and D were both sick enough to stay home--D only one day, fortunately, but K missed two days of work. And one of those days she was essentially bedridden, poor thing. It's all because of Super Bowl Sunday. (And I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that I first typo'ed that as Super Bowel Sunday, which was appropriate considering K's symptoms.) They went to a party and I didn't; they got sick and I didn't. Of course, E went to the party also, which mucks up the hypothesis, but whatcha gonna do?

Down: I wasn't throwing up, but I was recovering from a cold, and the coughing and hacking were enough to throw out my back, and I've been chugging ibuprofen to stay out of pain. On Tuesday, I couldn't even lift E to the changing table without screaming to wake the dead (yes, those of you on the Eastern seaboard, that's what you heard around 11:35 A.M.).

Up: I got a book in the mail about making 3D short films as a prize for the aforementioned Nicktoons short. I had no idea it was coming. Quite a nice surprise. Mind you, although I "know" some of the artists whose work is highlighted in the book, I'm not one of them. Maybe someday...

Up: In light of the recent tribulations with TiVo, I was quite pleased to discover that, thanks to the FireWire jack in the back of my cable box, I can record HDTV onto my computer. In fact, apparently back in the day that this article was written, it was only Macs that could do so. Even now, someone has written a little utility which acts like a poor man's TiVo. Down: Unfortunately, there's no commercial detection and my computer's screen isn't big enough (nor is my processor fast enough) to watch it in full 1080i resolution--and I can't figure out how to hook it up to the TV. Apparently, if my HDTV had FireWire in, I'd be all set, but wouldn't you know...

Up: However, good ol' Godfrey was kind enough to assure me that building my own PVR was a piece of cake, and even did a step-by-step photojournal (he's building an audio system, not a PVR, but that's just details). So now, I've got the mini-ITX bug and will probably wind up tearing apart an old VCR. What would be a better case for a PVR than a broken Betamax? Down: Unfortunately, funds are tight at the moment, given that we're putting an addition on our house. And yet, that motherboard is calling me.

Up: And speaking of eBay, I listed my DVD changer which I just replaced. I put it up as a $1.00 starting bid and $25 Buy it Now just for the hell of it, figuring I'd be lucky to get ten bucks. Lo and behold, in five hours it was sold to a buyer in Arkansas. Not a bad showing for my first-ever auction.

Why Does Windows Still Suck?

Pullin' a Godfrey!

Woo hoo!

I'd say more, but I have to sign an NDA.

(I hate NDAs, but at least I can talk about this once it expires...)

A happy ending.

The good news is that I was able to create a treatment and send it off. Thank goodness. I felt a million times better once that was off my shoulders.

Maybe I'm amazed.

Maybe it's because I'm tired, or sick, or stressed; but I don't feel creative, nor confident in my creative abilities right now. The story I mentioned below still isn't coming, and I almost wish I could scuttle the project entirely because of the pain and the stress it could cause. But on the other hand, if I wanted to make my own gigantic film, I'd do it in a second. Hell, I just did. So how is this different?

More later, after a nap, maybe.

Goodness me.

My story sense seems to have vanished with my cold. I've been given a commission to, in essence, make a short film, with very few "givens" that I have to put in it. Suddenly, I'm discovering the disadvantage of waiting for my Good Ideas to appear in dreams or in the shower, because at the moment, no stories are popping up unbidden, and thinking them up is Hard Work. Not only that, but stories I force myself into are always worse than stories that come unbidden from my unconscious.

But my darn unconscious just doesn't want to work for money. I can't say I blame it. I'm not sure I'm up to the task, myself--if it wasn't for Lots of Cash, I wouldn't do it at all, even given the fun it could be. I mean, how many people get paid to make short animated films?