The Best Thing I've Written All Year

I originally wrote it on Facebook for my friend.  I will repost to share with the world.

Ready?

If you were ever to become a pop star, your sophomore album should be called EVAloution.

The end.

Please pay me the big bux now. KTHANXBAI.

Another Chapter in My Life Over.

I love happy endings.
http://novelconcepts.co.uk/FlashElementTD/

I ranked #2 in the past 30 minutes, with 13 (of 20) lives left.

Now I need to get my hands on an iPhone/Pod Touch and defeat TapDefense, and I can forever purge myself from the tower defense genre FOREVER!

...or at least a year.

Number 9, Number 9...

In 2006 I actually made the effort to go to the theatres to watch all the nominated animated shorts for the Academy Awards (Sadly, I haven't since due to the fact I essentially lost my movie buddy that year). We would have seen the live-action shorts, but in the interest of time, we had to skip it. Either way, the selection of nominated shorts were really great that year.

Of course, the one I thought that won (I won't mention by name, but it's easy to look up) nabbed the prize probably mostly based on pure sentiment and not at all by artistic merit. There were two in particular that I fancied most, and "9" by Shane Acker was definitely one of the standouts.



Of course, having an affinity for post-apocalyptic and/or distopian worlds doesn't help my being partial to this short, but I do think the animation is great and the story is really interesting.

Shortly after watching it, I found out that Tim Burton was working on a full-length version of the movie. I was very skeptical. As much as I like Tim Burton, his laying hands on already-created projects didn't fare well in my eyes (Planet of the Apes, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory nee Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory). I thought the short was great at telling its tale; I did not see how a high production value and extended running time could do anything but water it down.

And then when I finally managed to watch Coraline in 3D this weekend, I was treated to see the trailer for this project (and in 3D, no less):



Most of my skepticism has subsided, but it remains to be seen if this full-length maintains the same spirit (pun not intended) as the original, and if possible, takes it to another level. Voices? We'll see.

Either way, September is a very long time to wait for this movie. I can't wait to watch it!

Magic Mac

This is another email entry, as I'm minimizing my webpage visits at my new work.

I as previously mentioned, I am at my freezing office at my new job, on this pretty swanky Apple computer.  Though the carriage features in word processing have its setbacks, I'm really loving typing on this keyboard, which is a step better than the action of a notebook keyboard, and the CPU itself is one of those computers where the whole system is all contained in the monitor...including the camera at the top of the monitor.

If I have some time to myself and I wind up figuring it out, I may be following suit as another friend who is now kept company at work with a brand-new sexxxay computer with camera as well, and we can either stalk each others' productivity silent movie style, or make silly little videos that can feature this little stuffed mouse that's on the desk right now.

Oh, the future looks bright and fun!

I guess I should also officially mention on this blog that yes, after 4 actual days of unemployment, I now have another job, working at another performance company that's nonprofit, based in LA.  They've got a similar budget as my old work, but I have one additional co-worker and have PEOPLE to talk to!

More on that later, I guess.

STORY OF MY LIFE

In other news, Blogger is a great way to want to pull your hair out because it's so damn strict with its coding. I only say that because it always always always makes you close your tags, which I guess is something you should do and is a good habit, but DAMMIT SOMETIMES IT DOESN"T MATTER AND I AM LAZY TO CLOSE MY TAGS.

So thank you, Blogger, for making me a holdin' on to the 90's I-still-build-pages-using-Notepad but very tight with my coding HTML writer.

HTML 4 proper was finalized back in 1999. And I'm sure you're surprised I'm not watching DVDs of original 90210 when new 90210 is airing.

(For the record, I do not own old 90210 on DVD, and I've only seen two episodes of the new one)

Why I Need to Get Out More =or= I'm a Big Nerd

Today's Moment of Zen is the magical use of mail merge, and that you can email merge as well. It blows BCC totally out of the water, especially with its personalize each email.

I don't want to say I can do this stuff all day, but man, it sure makes me happy right now.

My Rock and Roll Fantasy.

Okay. I have decided.

Provided I don't go the solo route and have a Pat Benatar-like career, if I were in a band/duo/whatever non-solo music career, I want to make music that sounds like Mates of State - The Re-Arranger. It doesn't have a YouTube video up yet or anything, since it doesn't seem to be the new album's (came out on the 20th), single.

Why, you may ask. And this is my blog, and I don't want to make it too boring, so I'll explain why.

Because this is the type of song that sounds great the way it's produced for the album, but I will die of amazing to hear the acoustic version of this song. I am not kidding that I would probably die of ultimate song happiness if I were to ever hear this song live, and acoustic. I'm sure the piano part can be transposed to the guitar pretty well (anyone care to try?), or maybe a toy keyboard/piano would work. This is the type of song where you have two singers with guitars, facing each other, singing the song, harmonizing and just being amazing.

That's it. In my rock and roll fantasy world, my band/group/duo/whatever would have songs where we'd sit across from each other (or in some kind of semi-circle configuration what-have-you, depending on the number of band members), with your appropriate instruments, singing/harmonizing/jamming/awesome-making with each other.

Have I said amazing enough? Amazing. I'm simply in love with this song. I will stay on a mountain top with an acoustic guitar for the rest of my life just so I can create harmonies like that, moments of singing in counterpoint only to start singing together again. I could picture them smiling as they're singing this song, I love it, it's so happy sounding. Sure, maybe it helps Mates of State are actually married and now they have baby, which may help in the happy sounding-ness, but I'm sure as happy sounding-like could be achieved pretty well.

Sure, I'm kind of congested, really tired, and a bit loopy, but I am convinced, this is what my rock band aspirations are now. I don't sound cute like Jenny Lewis, and I don't know enough people who are total metalheads who don't want to play in their Iron Maiden cover band anymore, so I'm not going to have a The Cardigans-like band. I'm not a genius or British to create another Radiohead, and no, never ever ever would I want to be like Coldplay. Sure, I'll have to know how to play the guitar or sing or something, but this is why this is my fantasy. It's a semi-feasible one, at least.

Maybe I can convince the make-believe family band my sister, cousins and I have that we should do this. I'll confer with my cousin, as he's the leader and really wants us to be a Cat Stevens Peace Train wearing tunic-like shirts kind of band. My cousin is pretty close to the look, at least, my sister and I went tunic-like shirt shopping with him and he's got a pair of Crocs (black, though, I'm thinking green would be more fitting).

I mean, don't get me wrong, I love Cat Stevens. I'm seriously considering naming the daughter I may have one day Lisa, because I would sing that song to her when she's sad.

But really...


No, please. Joyful harmonies, thank you.

I'm thinking I should just get Mates of State's new album.

Ich Bin Geliebt.

Yesterday was a beautifully odd day.

Things that everyone must do:

Go see the Kara Walker Exhibit at the Hammer. It's there through June 8. I can get into it in greater detail at a later date, but what I can say now is that it is absolutely breathtaking. I can easily say that the images of her cutouts, drawings, paintings, and projections has to be seen in person. I didn't even have the time to go into the video gallery. In addition to going to see Kara Walker, everyone has to tell me when you're going, because I definitely need to go again and see what I missed.

Eat Peruvian food. Take people who've never eaten Peruvian food to eat Peruvian food.

Things I must do:

Send thank yous.

I already got my spare stylus, and I'm ready to play my new DS game: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Justice for All. Never would I have thought I'd be playing an attorney video game, but after helping my friend play the demo if its sequel during the super geek out DS demo download session, the format is pretty fun. One can easily say...OBSESSION!



Needless to say, the checkbook has been removed and has been replaced with the DS and a brand new organza bag of games the only holds two games, not including the one loaded into the DS. Let's just hope that this one isn't lost.

BIG NERD ALERT - BIG, LONG ENTRY

I should be reading, but the timing on this is something I should not pass up.

We'll be here for a while, folks.


First...I think you should listen to/watch this. It's pretty awesome.

Along my way home, I got a call from a friend, one who was unfortunate enough to succumb to my suggestion he try this one video game I thought he'd enjoy, which he did...immensely, and is now addicted to it. Addicted enough, in fact, that the reason he was calling was to tell me that he FINALLY managed to beat my score that I set on his system, and how happy and satisfied he was.

What happened was that I was over this past weekend, and after finishing my crochet project and watching enough of him playing, I felt the need to play. After some one on one battles (to which his girlfriend found really amusing, as I guess I was being subconsciously looking for a challenge), I took the reigns and played a couple of levels on my own. I was set on getting him a few comets and presents. And yes, I did break a few of his records doing so, and then saved it in order to brighten his cosmos.

As it turned out, he noticed that I set some new records on his game, since he would play a level and realize that he did not come close to the top score. That would only mean that I was there and broke his record. When he realized this, he spent the rest of the weekend and a long time last night working to beat my scores, but there was one level he just could not do. After a very dramatic telling of his process and sore, callused thumbs, he told me he beat my score by a full centimeter! I was really proud. He called me because he knew I would share in his happiness for beating my score. Now he would be able to shower and go on with his life.

The funny thing is, I really don't play a lot of video games per se, it's just that I know A LOT about them, and from the games I do play, I play them A LOT. I grew up with two older boy cousins, one 3 and the other 5 years older than I am. My parents bought "me" an NES deluxe when it first came out (prior to that, we had an Atari 2600 and yes, I do remember playing and enjoying E.T. The Extraterrestrial...I was three and liked the movie and Reese's Pieces, okay?), but they spent more time playing it than I did (my dad could beat Super Mario Bros. 7 times in an hour at his peak). The same went when I was with my cousins, I would just watch them play and go through Zelda while I happily watched and read the instruction manual (I never played the game, but at least I knew how to play). I'd read issues of Nintendo Power from my one cousin's subscription, and I convinced my parents to get Kid Icarus because it came in a silver box and the main character was a Kid and had wings. But I couldn't play it, because I was too afraid to play it myself (the fact that they had the reaper that would FREAK OUT when he saw you and sent mini-reapers after you is REALLY SCARY to a 7 year old...or just me). More often that not, I would watch others play video games, and I really enjoyed watching others play and finish games, like how my cousins played Kid Icarus for me. That's not to say I never played, but when I did, I much preferred playing with someone else. Sometimes, my role was to be the assistant, like act as the robot in Gyromite or something to that effect to where I pushed the fire button on the second controller, or helped input secret codes for extra lives.

Not much has changed since then, really. I had a subscription to Electronic Gaming Monthly one year at a time when I didn't have any of the new systems (I just enjoyed knowing what games were out, and was lucky enough to subscribe to the best issue EGM ever printed). I still would much prefer playing video games in the company of other people, with the exception of computer games. And yes, some (okay...a good number) of games still really scare me, but I want to watch the plot unfold and make other people play it for me.

There are some games I have no problem playing by myself, like the Katamari games (the PS2 ones), the Zelda games, and Animal Crossing to an extent. Of course, the handheld consoles are hard to play with others, but even with systems like the Nintendo DS, but even with a system like that, the connectivity capabilities allowed you to play with friends, and some games had features where you could play a simple game of ping pong with a buddy (which I have had... T_T)

INTERMISSION


Which I think is such an amazing thing about video game consoles nowadays. Sure, being able to play with other people remotely like LAN games are great, but the ability to play the same game with multiple people on one cartridge is amazing, and to think you'd be playing it with a handheld device that has a tiny touch screen! Touchscreens are a lot more commonplace than before, but never would I have imagined it being used for a device with which kids play! It's no surprise that Nintendo won Technology and Engineering Emmys for the Wii and DS. The use of the IR controllers for the Wii are so amazing, even moreso, there are people out there developing Wii technology in other ways than playing video games (and of course, there are the rehabilitative applications of playing as well).

Now I have been told that the PlayStation Portable (PSP) can double as a controller and a remote for the PlayStation 3, which is pretty darn spiffy, especially since the PS3 doubles as a blu-ray player. I'm sure playing games where you have to obscure plans from one's opponent sitting next to you (like football plays) comes in handy when having a mini-screen right in your hands (something the Sega Dreamcast took advantage of). The GameCube and GameBoy Advance had similar capabilities as well, and in some games, it was required for play, and in others, it unlocked secret/special content.

Like I mentioned before, I will always be a Nintendo gal, and I have to say that they really know what they're doing. The last two systems they've come out with (one being portable, the other one not so much) have WiFi capabilities. The DS can play GBA games, and the Wii can play GameCube games (much to my sister's shock and surprise when I told her she could yesterday...she didn't believe me, since GC game discs are much smaller than the regular CD/Wii disc). Wii can also read GC memory cards (thankfully) and can use GC controllers with some games like Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and is reported to be the optimal controller to use when playing Mario Kart Wii.

But the biggest geek out of my life came Sunday night when my friend updated her parents' Wii and downloaded this new, free channel called The Nintendo Channel. It's basically a channel that gives you information about new and upcoming Nintendo releases, and have videos and clips of what's to come. What blew me away is that the channel virtually makes the Wii a DS Download Station.

What was once a trip to a Game Stop/EB Games or Toys R Us with your DS to temporarily download playable demos of DS games to see if it's worth buying is now as easy as having your Wii connected to the Internet. More often than not, locations that supposedly had Download Stations were not aware that they had one, and sometimes did not have them on. This became problematic for some hardcore gamers when Nintendo would be giving away "treats" for certain games (like Animal Crossing: Wild World), and frenzied players would flock to their nearest Toys R Us to make sure to get exclusive content, only to discover they couldn't, even when one went out of one's way to try downloading presents when they were supposed to be halfway to Vegas for the weekend (so I've been told...).

I would think and hope that such treats will be just as accessible via Wii, but I had the biggest geek out moment when I saw my friends bust out their DSes and download demos for a whole bunch of games (including non-Nintendo publishers). I'd comment/make fun of some of the games they wound up playing, but this entry is long enough. Yes, this is done by Nintendo in order for them to get people to buy more games for their systems, but you have to admit, that was FUCKING BRILLIANT on their part, so brilliant, in fact, I'm geeking out all over again just thinking about it.

My only disappointment is that I didn't have my DS with me at the time, and was even more disheartened when my friends told me that they thought and expected me to have my DS with me at all times. I actually used to have it with me ALL THE TIME, since I had a bag that had a pocket where the DS fit perfectly, but after losing my first stylus, I decided to take it out of my purse, which was a dumb idea, and in its place I put my checkbook (which is essentially even a dumber idea).

Having exhausted myself and most certainly your eyes and patience should you be still reading at this point, this is an abstract (if you can believe it is one) of why I have this deep and complex love for video games.

I promise, next time I go on one of these, I'll try to focus on one thing, like a game or talking gameplay mechanics, etc.

BIG NERD ALERT WARNING

This is just to remind myself that I really, really, really have to write an entry about video games, because I spend a good part of the day thinking about stuff like that, and I feel that once I actually put those thoughts down somewhere, I'll stop thinking about it.

Why? Because video game technology is really amazing, and when you think about it, is so affordable and accessible for what you actually get from it.

Of course, that's not to say that you should spend ALL your time on them...there are other things to do, like uh...read about video games on peoples' blogs and stuff...

Before I actually flesh that entry out, you can check out Game with a Brain, Gamespot.com, my personal source of inspiration and obsession, and of course, Nintendo, because even though I play games on the computer and on other platforms (really, only Sony systems), I'll always be a Nintendo girl.


This song has been stuck in my head all day. Ironic choice of cousin and katamari for me.

Y...and Y

This entire week has been both the best and worst week.

I don't think I can adequately recollect it, except for maybe trying to summarizing it.

Part of it showed me that I haven't spent these past years pencil pushing for naught; and that I actually have some knowledge that would actually benefit people outside my place of work.

Parts of it helped me reaffirm how many amazing, talented, wonderful, caring, hospitable, loving, supportive, funny, brilliant, etc. friends I have.

Parts of it reminded me how much I love LA, thanks in part of the horse-drawn Cinderella-like coach that rode past my house (that's just the tip of the iceberg).

Parts of it also reminded me of how much of a super gamer geek I can really be.

Parts of it further proved I am not the same person to any two people, and that I'm still not even sure who that person is.

Lots of it reminded me how much I miss reading, creating, playing video games, thinking/dreaming up ideas, and even experiment with cooking.

And all of it made me realize that I need to follow my bliss, even if it scares me, it makes me feel vulnerable, I might fail a bit, I'll have to swallow my pride, I have to stand up for myself, I'm better trusting my instincts, and most of all, I just have to close my eyes, hold my breath, and just jump in.

With Age Comes Wisdom...

...or just better observational skills.

I grew up with Hello Kitty and the Sanrio gang. I loved My Melody and the Little Twin Stars, but Hello Kitty was also a standby favorite.

For those who haven't been into my bathroom before, it's hall Hello Kitty-d out. That's no fault of my own; it's all my roommate's doing.

Even so, in all my life, and all this time living here with all this Hello Kitty towels, washcloths, bathmat, soap dispenser, etc. etc. etc. Hello Kitty always in my life, have I never noticed until tonight that she's a bobtail!



Not convinced? Here's a CGI version of Hello Kitty (and friends). It's actually really cute and random, and I think very much worth the watch. I will love the person who can point out my absolute favorite part of this video:


And if you're still not convinced, here's another video with older clips. Yes, more bunny bobtail action going on:


I cannot believe I've never noticed it before. I also never would have thought I would discover such a thing when I was on the toilet, brushing my teeth while I was staring at her butt.

I can never see Hello Kitty the same way again. What a great role model! It goes to show that being a little different than most (in her case, being a bobtail cat) doesn't mean that anyone would love you less. Look at Miss Kitty White, everyone loves her!

I'm Kind of Into Sports.

I called my friend who goes to school in Hawaii so we could try hanging out while she's here. Aside from the fact that she was so great in helping me out for work on Saturday, I thought it would be nice to hang out and just chill.

This conversation happened yesterday afternoon:
Me: We need to hang out!
Her: Yeah, totally. What are you doing this week?
Me: Well, if you were at all interested, Natilie and I were thinking about going to Hooters in Burbank to get hot wings and watch the Dodgers game, and then tomorrow I'm going to the Dodgers game...Wednesday, I guess we can hang out? Oh, but I'll just visit my family because I haven't seen them in a while and I can watch the Lakers game there, and then I'm going to hang out with my friend who's going to be out of town for a while on Thursday, and Friday is a Lakers game.
[off topic conversation regarding her needing to write a paper, she has no car and is in Long Beach, which is convenient for her]
Her: Wow, I never realized that you were so into sports...
Me: I guess I am, kinda.

She's not too into sports, or at all. There have been many a-time where she's ranted about sports, and never really mentioned my take on it.

Once Natilie and I get to Hooters, we ask to be sat in the TV area where they have a few flat screens and some "tubes" playing different games. Of course, it's fiesta time in there since it was Cinco de Mayo, and they were blasting some mariachi music, which they finally and thankfully turned off. I was also happy that on one of the smaller TVs, I could see the NBA Spurs-Hornets game, and was even happier when after some time, they switched the game to one of the big TVs, right next to the Dodgers game.

Me: Ohhhhhh, thank you! But man...now I don't know....which one do I watch?
Nat: Too bad you can't devote one eye to each!

That was tough. But it was okay, since the Hornets were spanking the Spurs, there wasn't much to worry about. Then again, I could have said the same for the Dodgers against the Mets.

And yay, the teams I was rooting for won!

As I mentioned earlier, I'm going to eat-all-I-can popcorn, peanuts and Dodger Dogs while the Dodgers better beat the Mets tonight, and I cannot miss the second of the Lakers-Jazz series since I missed game one on Sunday. I don't care that much for other teams for the playoffs, so I'm safe for Thursday, but I have actually told people with whom I've been planning to hang out, that we can hang out pending the Lakers schedule, unless they actually want to watch the game as well.

Some people associate May with stressing over finals and the end of the school year, I associate May with gloomy days, tests, and the now even more drawn out NBA playoffs.

Running on Empty

So not cool.

Had soup for breakfast: Veggie broth, egg drop and a whole mess of spinach, and after that, I had a can of Pepsi that I found in my car when I was helping load our frame/set from the show into our storage unit on the Westside, and when I returned here, worked a bit and realized I needed food, so I went for my meal of beans and an apple, only to find that I was without the can of beans. So I had apple and now I'm feeling a bit loopy. Theoretically, I can try to snag a bite of food the housekeeper prepared for dinner here, but they're having guests over, and that's not cool.

I may leave soon to now...drive home, make my roommate drive us to dinner, where we plan on having hot wings and baseball game for the night.

I'm also getting very itchy with my photographic resources as of late. It just takes a tiny crack to break the dam, and that has definitely happened. With the looming job of shooting my friends for their company's first proper production, I'm starting to get myself in the habit of taking pictures again, but it's a bit frustrating to know I'm very limited in what I can do right now. The cheapest and easiest way to get things done is to shoot 35mm C41 and get the film processed and scanned at a place like Target next day. But it's inevitable I'm going to start shooting in proper black and white again, and more importantly, in 120mm. That means more money and not-so convenient access to services.

Even more exciting/frustrating is the fact that opportunities to scratch this photographic itch is all of a sudden coming my way, and I have plenty of ideas and concepts I'd love to execute and submit...only, I envision these things to happen in black and white, on 120 film. Not only that, I'd want to go in the darkroom myself and go through the painstaking process of printing, so I can scan it and send it off. Yes, I can just get the negative scanned and do the Photoshop digital darkroom, but I'm not very good at photo manipulation digitally as I am the old-fashioned way. Plus, it would be sooooooooo satisfying for me to do that again.

I just have to accept the fact I'm going to have to shell out the money to rent time in a darkroom (thankfully there is one close to my house), because all the classes I'd consider taking just to use a darkroom won't start soon enough or are too far away. Of course, I could always buck up and figure out how to convert my bathroom to become a after-hours darkroom, but that will take up a lot of time and logistics and money, all of which I don't have much of right now, especially if I want to whip something up as soon as a few weeks from today and next month.

At the very least, all this frustration and opportunities are firing me up. Things are slowly getting set into place. I'm pretty sure that I'm going to make some of these things happen.

...of the Day

Quote:
"May the fourth be with you"
-Andrea Seabrook, from All Things Considered

Thought:
If I owned and operated a gas station and/or oil company, I'd want to call it something like, Dino Sauce Petroleum, and have some kind of really strange graphic to the extent that they're running our cars, maybe a la The Flintstones kind of car. Because they are.

Discovered News:
I'm not sure if I'm happy about this, but I've proven to myself that I'm one step closer to becoming a bitter, old cynic. In light of the whole Beijing Olympics/Free Tibet ordeal, I've been convinced for some time now that in some factory in China, they're manufacturing a bunch of "FREE TIBET" flags and other things of the sort, and for some time now, have been half-expecting those mini-flags that are clipped on the windows on cars to appear as it's assumed that those flags would have been made in China. Because you know, that would be the greatest irony ever and is something that could actually happen.

...AND IT HAS.


"Free Tibet" Flags Made in China
(click for article)

Nerd/Blog Frustration:
I'm still rather irked that there is an inconsistency in line spacing on blog entries after an image or embedded object is placed. Following the inserted image/object, the line spacing gets a lot smaller. It doesn't change the content, but it's just kind of visually annoying. I definitely am very sensitive to my line spacing consistency.

Raw Hawaii

Realizing that it's coming close to three months since I took a week out of my everyday life and spent it on a boat cruising Hawaii, I've decided to release ALL my photos from the trip, despite the fact that I haven't finished ordering and captioning/titling all the images.


Click to view the collection

The first four days of my pictures are correctly ordered, and captions go as far as the first two pictures into day three. Once at Kauai, the images may be not as easy to navigate chronologically, since I was shooting with 4 cameras, 3 using film, the timestamps don't work quite as well as the digital shots. I'm also pretty sure the panoramic shots are not next to the composite images that made them up, which I made a great effort to keep together in the albums I was able to organize.

What's scary is the fact that I have two more rolls I have yet to develop, because I've been a bit lazy and cheap to take the two proper black and white shots to a place that can develop them and scan to cd (I don't do prints).

Maybe now that I know people can view these images, I'll be bugged enough about their ordering/lack of captions that I'll slowly chip away at organizing everything. I'm sure it will eventually happen, but I wouldn't hold your breath if I were you.

Still, I hope you enjoy the images. Hawaii is too photogenic for words.

Voyeurism at its Finest

Even though our set/lighting designer is not too keen on our using his plans for it, I've designed our next show's "program"/ticket from the plans for the frame construction. I removed the notes and dimensions from the plans, and the quality of the images aren't too sharp when printed since I took them from a PDF and spliced them as a Bitmap in MS Paint, then threw everything together in Photoshop since Illustrator refuses to install on this compy. I have to find a better install disc.

I'm pretty happy with it, since Heidi wanted to have some sort of program for the show (people like that) and the thought of making some plain leaflet would be boring, especially since this is the first performance and we don't have images from the show. I initially thought that since we are treating this like a gallery piece and providing a gallery-like reception for this show, it would be cool to mock up one of those pieces of paper one gets in some exhibits that lists all the artwork based off a layout of the room. The top portion gives the audience member their time reservation, much like museums that have time reservations to see an exhibit. I could have figured something out a little more like that, but the frame plans were easier for me to access, and Heidi liked the idea.

I hope I can actually get a chance to see the show this time around. I got to see bits and pieces of the last one, but I really want to see this one. Driving to Culver City and all these places, getting in trouble with parking managers and restaurant managers, and basically trying to defy the Law of Murphy for this production, I think I deserve just that.

I'm just glad everything has fallen into place...last minute.

If I Had My Way...

...politics really would be like Pokemon!


I'd soooooooo play! I'd be a winner as long as other people don't play over my game and delete my amazing game file of well-trained Pokemon I cared for and loved and replaced them with a lame Charmander named K-dawg.

But of course, Pokemon are never defeated, they faint. But I guess in Poke-politics, such things happen in order to evolve.

(I got the image from here, though it's not certain of this image's origin. Wow. I try to be good this time and host the image from my own account instead of hot linking. I tried uploading that image through Picasa AND Flickr, and for some reason, they don't seem to support animated gifs. LAME. Photobucket, I choose YOU!)

I Went and Did It Again...

I signed up for some Interwebz thing.


View my page on 29-Day Giving Challenge


Yet another online something or another that would involve a bit of writing. Do I actually work? Or perhaps sleep?

I was reading green LA girl's blog and happened upon her entry where she announces that she threw her hat into the 29-Day Giving Challenge.


The title of the challenge explains it all; to commit one's self to giving something for 29 consecutive days. What one gives can be something material, like toys, clothing, or a service, like help with a project, braiding someone's hair, or something completely abstract, like a compliment, or a smile; or maybe a hug or something.

Reading green LA girl's entry really caught my eye when I read it yesterday, for I had given away something that was pretty dear to me earlier that day. Although I'm in some way kind of sad I gave it away, it also made me very happy that I did it, because I truly think that I perhaps was not meant to have it and the recipients were much more deserving. Don't worry, I'll dedicate an entire entry to that giveaway. I guess I've already fulfilled my giving quota today as well, so I'm pretty much on a roll.

I think this will be a good challenge for me, especially since that I really don't see a lot of people in person on a day-to-day basis, especially since my boss is out for the rest of the week. But I guess I don't have to be face to face with a person to give someone something, and that's what the fun, creative and exciting part of this challenge will be I think...it will really get me thinking about the giving and taking we do on an everyday basis, whether we're aware of it or not.

I think I will have fun with this challenge, provided I keep up with it. I'm hoping that I'll get pretty creative and not do the same type of giving every day, but that remains to be seen.

Now the bigger question is whether I should write all my entries on this blog then have the entries here posted on my Challenge Page using an RSS feed. I could also just post my entries and images on the actual site, since that's what it's there for, and then maybe post an link in an entry here on my blog. I suppose it doesn't make much difference considering I only have what, 4 readers anyway?

Either way, I'll have to think about it. I think this will be more fun than frustrating. Aside from giving one thing away each day, I'm sure there will be some interesting side effects while going through this process.

I guess we'll just have wait and see.

At Wit's End

The main computer is having a case of the Mondays.

I thought Day One of a week being entirely alone in the office and in the house (save the pets and the housekeeper for part of the day) was going pretty well. I checked in with Heidi and asked a couple of questions I had, confirmed with our bookkeeper that she was coming in. I was going to burn a DVD for our lighting designer as well as your run of the mill multitasking work when the computer froze. Okay, no problem. Ended a few programs and that was fine. I had Windows Explorer up, and that wasn't responding, so I killed that program, and when I thought the Start bar went away, I expected it to return within a moment or two, but it didn't. I decided to reboot the computer. That in itself was a bit of a mess, and so I did a manual shutdown. I did the required wait a bit to make sure the discs stop spinning, and turned on the computer once again. The HP splash goes up, and then the screen goes blank, save for a blinking cursor on the top left screen. After some time of waiting for something to happen, I realize that nothing was going to.

I get more of this, and then I start to try debugging. After many failed attempts, I rush over to the other computer (thank goodness we have one) to look up known problems and solutions similar to what I was dealing with. I called our inept IT guy to no avail (he may be inept, but he may know how to fix this glitch). Then our bookkeeper finally came to work on things as scheduled, which was inconvenient considering it was the only working computer. Thankfully, I am staying here, which means my computer comes with me, and I pop it open to try troubleshooting. I was getting nowhere fast. What was frustrating for the bookkeeper was that she needed to print things, and since the printers are connected to the main computer, we couldn't print. I could have printed on my computer, simpoly by taking my laptop to the cable and downloading the drivers, but my computer doesn't have Quickbooks. Even scarier is the fact that we have two grant deadlines this week: one postmark deadline for today, and a receipt deadline for tomorrow. I tried calling our IT guy again. Nada. Not having quick access to the files on the computer would make things difficult, even though our grant writer has everything she needs.

Then I get the brilliant idea of hooking our external backup hard drive to my computer to see if I can access files. I could simply install FileMaker Pro on my computer and access that names and address I need to send out documents, and all would be good. Even better was the fact that our external hard drive is a hybrid drive, which means it serves as a backup, but also functions as another hard drive where you can access files within its own mini OS. Pretty cool.

Once I figure out how to use it, I realize that the regular weekly scheduled backups haven't happened in aabout three weeks, and even with that (since my main concern was getting database names), the backup is arranged such that it's all zipped into one file that restores everyting on the computer, and I sure as hell did not want all those work files overwriting my stuff.

I was going crazy. I was able to circumvent getting someone's address by looking through emails on the other computer, but that also poses its own problem, since we just got that computer at the beginning of the month, and it only has a month's worth of emails in which to delve.

I decided to give it another try. I don't know what I did, I'm not sure if I did it through DOS, but I got the computer working in safe mode, through which I was able to do a full backup onto the external drive just in case and tried booting a system restore from yesterday evening.

I thought I was home free. The computer restarted itself to boot up with the older settings (I hadn't done much at this point, it was around 11:30 when this all happened), and it still didn't work.

I was going to die. Then, I noticed something that I really didn't pay attention to until that moment; the green disc drive light was on. Was it trying to read the blank DVD for a boot? I pressed the eject button, which I was hoping was going to work, the DVD pops out, and Windows loads.

Oh.
Sweet.
Cheese.

I'd almost want to do and die now, but I'm still waiting for this grant application that I need to print out and send off.