XKCD Comics

There's this quite clever gent named Randall Munroe that does these wonderful and bizarre comics. This one makes me laugh, it has a bit of the same sort of zen sensibility as the AT&T / Steve Colbert video.

And actually, they all make me laugh.

Little Jack?

Fellow BC-er and 24 fan, Vic Lana just sent this to me.

Thanks Vic, a good laugh!

A Simpsons Sky

Yesterday, and the day before – the sky has looked EXACTLY like the blue colored, puffy clouded rendering in The Simpsons opening credits. It’s so strange to look out and see the thick cotton sky-shapes and not hear the happy theme song that has brightened many a Sunday night.

Which reminds me:




Woo Hoo!!

AT&T History

This is timely, given the recent frustrations with my tax filings. Plus, gotta love that Terminator synchronicity

Terminator 2: Judgement Day

Though I’m struck with the beauty of the younger Arnold and Robert Patrick, how tight and fresh they look; something else needs to be addressed. Why would the future John Connor send back a cybernetic organism to Southern California – with an Austrian accent? Why not Chicano?

OK, now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s just have fun with random T-2 observations
Love the T 1000 masquerading as a housewife with that mimetic polyalloy arm. Never drink from the carton again! Brilliant too is when T 1000 just comes out of that floor at the Pescadero State Hospital, that checkerboard linoleum suddenly rippling and forming into something unholy. A beautiful bit of filming -lovely!

How about when Sarah clobbers the face-licking orderly with a broken mop handle turned huge shank/tonfa. Nice! Then she exchanges it for a the orderly’s real tonfa and she’s set to go. Yeah, about Sarah, she’s a different girl this time out. She’s buff and paranoid. Don’t much care for that too long fringe of bangs over her eyes, but yet it fits. She can’t really looked too coiffed in the nuthouse!

You forget how good something is like the scene when Sarah confronts her nemesis The Terminator. When the elevator doors open, her terror evident in her skidding on the floor all nice and slo-mo.

And of course, Robert Patrick as T 1000 – his movements; spare and single-minded, usually in pursuit of Sarah and young John. Good, good stuff.

Music Delivery

Another Hot Topic for discussion at The Mondo Project - involves our chosen method of music delivery. Below was my unabridged contribution:

Ah, I don’t have any one special preference of my music listening experience. Vinyl is out, for no more reason than our turntable just stopped working, and with the advent of the CD, there seemed no reason to resurrect the process of listening to a vinyl recording.

Now, the CD is all purpose, it’s fairly transportable and the quality is fine – that is until it gets scratched. Then you have to endure the disdain of anyone else in your listening area. Typically what happens to me is that I’m driving along, windows down, and whatever CD in question moves to a beloved track, for example “Run Like Hell” from Pink Floyd’s The Wall. Of course, I raise the volume and hit the accelerator simultaneously.

Then either one of two things happen; I have to screech to a sudden halt at a traffic light, and the CD decides to stat skipping. Heads swivel in my direction, and I pretend to find something important in the backseat. OR – as I’m driving along merrily, red and blue lights flash behind me, I am pulled over, and as the officer approaches à la Robert Patrick’s motorcycle cop in Terminator 2, the bloody CD skips all over the place. At that point, I wish I were terminated.

But I am also delighting in the absolute special kind of internalized joy and musical fidelity that is provided by wearing headphones. I was just commenting to Sir Saleski recently that music, especially when delivered by headphones is so friggin motivating! This works by either plugging headphones right into the computer, or by carrying the music with me. Now of course, wandering around the house carrying my laptop and cleaning is just a mite unwieldy, so that’s where the mp3 player comes into the picture.

And how can someone NOT want to scrub their toilets just a bit brighter when hearing Mahalia Jackson’s “Didn’t it Rain” or for that matter, Lily Allen pondering the sights and sounds of London as only she can in her Pop/Ska offering “LDN”. I mean, seriously! And I swear to God that I wouldn’t have trained so hard for my black belt if it weren’t for Greenday’s “Brain Stew”, or Mighty Mighty Bosstones’ “The Impression that I Get” queued up on my little Rio Nitrus.

But one of my favorite ways to hear music is at an outdoor concert, on a perfect sunny 78 degree day. The sound system may not reproduce the music as well as those methods I just spoke of, but there’s something about this setting that raises the endorphins sky high.

Lost Words

It’s a shame when I as an artist start to resent all and everything around me. It sucks when I am blessed with the nub of an idea, but the opportunity to expand on that idea is wiped away. It’s more then frustration – for me, its grief.

I had so loved that idea that developed in the shower, while driving to the grocery store or helping with homework. I could see it develop in my mind’s eye, like a time-lapse film that shows the transformation from seedling to flower blossom. And I get excited and hurry through the rest of the task, itching to sit down and work through whatever beauty of a concept or anecdote that I had just conceived.

But something stops me. It doesn’t matter what that thing is; it could be a child’s request or a phone call. No, it doesn’t matter what blocked my path to creative Nirvana, something else grows inside me: resentment. I am losing an idea, again. I feel like an emergency room doctor in the most disease ridden, or war-savaged location on earth. A doctor who has seen too much loss, who feels like “time of death” is part of her vocabulary way more then something like, “and now you can have ice cream, and go home tomorrow.”

And just like our doctor’s frustration with lack of resources, political climate or corrupt governments, I am discouraged by lack of time, respect and privacy. Discouraged and saddened because those oh so pretty words that formed in my head hours ago are missing. Oh sure, if I got that one good idea, chances are I’ll come up with another one. And I do! But I still hold a little empty place in my heart for that sweet turn of phrase that spent only the briefest of moments alive in my right brain.

Time of Birth: 11:46 AM
Time of Death: 11: 52 AM