Saturday, September 27, 2008
Monday, September 22, 2008
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Severed Reality
A couple of weeks ago I was down on the waterfront balancing some stones. It's something my design prof Sandy taught us at the beginning of college. It's basically an exercise in achieving what is on the outside, impossible. You pick up a large stone, find it's smallest most extreme point, and with a lot of patience, get it to stand up on that point. It's very relaxing, and terribly satisfying.
Well anyway, in a long story that deserves it's own separate and eventual post, I spent a good deal of time balancing stones on the waterfront, until I dropped an especially large stone on my hand. Essentially crushing my left index and middle fingers. Swelling one up to double it's size and causing a large amount of pain and bleeding. This rendered my left hand fairly useless for several days. And it was in the shower, while I was struggling to wash my hair with the use of only one hand, that I had a visceral recurrence of a semi-regular vision of mine.
I've hesitated to blog about this vision of mine, because I find it a bit frightening. I need to explain this a bit more.
Ok, so going back several years, into my childhood. I've always had a fascination with robots, robotics, cyborgs, futurism. And most especially, and perhaps unheathily, a desire to become more then human.
I always said that I could be completely satisfied with my life, if I had only a brain to think, two eyes to see, and a right hand to draw. The rest, didn't matter! In my later years, as I discovered my singing voice through emulation of Aladdin from the Disney Movie (my young friends were experimenting with underage drinking, I was in my room singing "a whole new world" to an imaginary audience) and as sex became important to me, two things were added to the list of essentials, my voice (ability to speak and sing) and my genitals (ability to reproduce).
But the sentiment remains the same at it's core.
I've always through I could live happily with only these raw essentials.
Now, that's not to say I WISH to loose a limb. And this is where the verbal commitment of these thoughts is really frightening to me, and why it's taken me a long time to build up to having the gall to pen this entry. There I stood in the shower, looking at my busted and broken digits on my useless left hand, and I thought... You know, I wouldn't mind having a sweet custom robot hand on this side!
FUCK!!
Where did that come from!?!
And you know, maybe it was part flashbacks from my party days, and maybe it was part visionary foreshadowing, but it was damned unnerving. I could FEEL my hand going, and being replaced by a robot part. I could SEE it. I KNEW it was real. I was overcome with the reality. The concrete knowledge that this WOULD happen. Was this a vision of my inevitable future? Or just a strong bad day dream?
I've had aspirations of being a prosthetic designer for some time now. I was inspired by a man I saw when working in my Father's store. He had his legs replaced bellow the knees, and his new ones were FAR cooler looking then his originals were I'm sure. He was an older man, so in my opinion, his Blue Anodized aluminum Tibia, and his brushed steel Fibula, both bolted securely to his shiny Chrome plated calves, were a huge aesthetic improvement on what his 50 year old veined stems would have looked like without the upgrade.
I was REALLY floored by this. It has more then caught my interest just a little bit. It fills my waking thoughts and dreams regularly. I've become tuned to notice body enhancements or replacements now. Another one I'm noticing a lot of are those brain stimulating implants on the backs of peoples heads. A small wire snakes it's way up the back of the neck to a plastic disc nestled amongst the hair. Why are they always that gross peach "fleshy" colour? WHY on EARTH if you had to wear an electrode on your brain, would you not make it out of anodized iPod-esque coloured aluminum? WTF?!
Why does this industry flood itself with such UGLY hardware? When are we going to reach the point where these modifications are seen as a bonus and an accessory to accentuate. Not something to murmur about under your breath in the hopes that the wearer doesn't see you pointing.
Anyway. So I have this terrifyingly real visions of loosing my limb, and then fighting for the rest of my life to design pleasing and exciting replacements for it.
So that video that I posted kind of sums up my visions nicely. And galvanizes them in a not too far off reality.
My deep concern is that my obsession will eventually be what leads to the terrible accident that I'll have to go through in order to warrant the enhancement. I've always been extra cautious NOT to spell out these feelings in such direct words. Even when I'm thinking them in my head, I dance around them. I've never met them so head on as in this post. I feared that if I admitted this to myself, I would inherently doom myself to this awful fate. The real BIG fear now, is that by wishing to loose my left hand (I DON'T WISH TO LOOSE MY LEFT HAND! JEEZE! WHAT AM I SAYING?!!) that fate will somehow, it's it's comical, ironic sense, take my RIGHT hand. Which would be such a tragic thing, that it would drive me passed the brink of insanity and into a frightening depression. One that would certainly spurn some sort of maniacal feverish drive towards perfecting a bionic arm that works as well, or better then, the real thing.
I'd be obsessed. It would take over my life! It would kill me!
See, another frightening realization has come from this post. My obsession to date is superficial. If I loose the left hand, then I'm ok! I can still draw, I can still work and play and eat and provide for myself. So my mission to create aesthetic prosthetics wouldn't grow passed that. I just yearn to make good looking artificial enhancements. If I lost the RIGHT arm, I'd want to make one that WORKS, not just looks nice.
Anyway. It's all quite scary.
I hope I have the ambition to design faceplate for hearing aids and replacement limbs WITHOUT having to loose a limb of my own.
What a terrible experience that would be. Such trauma would certainly provide a lot of motivation towards something really fulfilling and revolutionary.
Lets hope I can use vivid visions of the trauma as enough motivation, and I may not need to actually go through it.
I hope no one ever has to mark these words. I hope this post can be seen as a bit of a visionary but all too insane rant. Rather then an epic chilling prophecy of inevitable doom.
LOL
Well! On that gloomy and unnerving note, it's time for lunch!
:^)
Well anyway, in a long story that deserves it's own separate and eventual post, I spent a good deal of time balancing stones on the waterfront, until I dropped an especially large stone on my hand. Essentially crushing my left index and middle fingers. Swelling one up to double it's size and causing a large amount of pain and bleeding. This rendered my left hand fairly useless for several days. And it was in the shower, while I was struggling to wash my hair with the use of only one hand, that I had a visceral recurrence of a semi-regular vision of mine.
I've hesitated to blog about this vision of mine, because I find it a bit frightening. I need to explain this a bit more.
Ok, so going back several years, into my childhood. I've always had a fascination with robots, robotics, cyborgs, futurism. And most especially, and perhaps unheathily, a desire to become more then human.
I always said that I could be completely satisfied with my life, if I had only a brain to think, two eyes to see, and a right hand to draw. The rest, didn't matter! In my later years, as I discovered my singing voice through emulation of Aladdin from the Disney Movie (my young friends were experimenting with underage drinking, I was in my room singing "a whole new world" to an imaginary audience) and as sex became important to me, two things were added to the list of essentials, my voice (ability to speak and sing) and my genitals (ability to reproduce).
But the sentiment remains the same at it's core.
I've always through I could live happily with only these raw essentials.
Now, that's not to say I WISH to loose a limb. And this is where the verbal commitment of these thoughts is really frightening to me, and why it's taken me a long time to build up to having the gall to pen this entry. There I stood in the shower, looking at my busted and broken digits on my useless left hand, and I thought... You know, I wouldn't mind having a sweet custom robot hand on this side!
FUCK!!
Where did that come from!?!
And you know, maybe it was part flashbacks from my party days, and maybe it was part visionary foreshadowing, but it was damned unnerving. I could FEEL my hand going, and being replaced by a robot part. I could SEE it. I KNEW it was real. I was overcome with the reality. The concrete knowledge that this WOULD happen. Was this a vision of my inevitable future? Or just a strong bad day dream?
I've had aspirations of being a prosthetic designer for some time now. I was inspired by a man I saw when working in my Father's store. He had his legs replaced bellow the knees, and his new ones were FAR cooler looking then his originals were I'm sure. He was an older man, so in my opinion, his Blue Anodized aluminum Tibia, and his brushed steel Fibula, both bolted securely to his shiny Chrome plated calves, were a huge aesthetic improvement on what his 50 year old veined stems would have looked like without the upgrade.
I was REALLY floored by this. It has more then caught my interest just a little bit. It fills my waking thoughts and dreams regularly. I've become tuned to notice body enhancements or replacements now. Another one I'm noticing a lot of are those brain stimulating implants on the backs of peoples heads. A small wire snakes it's way up the back of the neck to a plastic disc nestled amongst the hair. Why are they always that gross peach "fleshy" colour? WHY on EARTH if you had to wear an electrode on your brain, would you not make it out of anodized iPod-esque coloured aluminum? WTF?!
Why does this industry flood itself with such UGLY hardware? When are we going to reach the point where these modifications are seen as a bonus and an accessory to accentuate. Not something to murmur about under your breath in the hopes that the wearer doesn't see you pointing.
Anyway. So I have this terrifyingly real visions of loosing my limb, and then fighting for the rest of my life to design pleasing and exciting replacements for it.
So that video that I posted kind of sums up my visions nicely. And galvanizes them in a not too far off reality.
My deep concern is that my obsession will eventually be what leads to the terrible accident that I'll have to go through in order to warrant the enhancement. I've always been extra cautious NOT to spell out these feelings in such direct words. Even when I'm thinking them in my head, I dance around them. I've never met them so head on as in this post. I feared that if I admitted this to myself, I would inherently doom myself to this awful fate. The real BIG fear now, is that by wishing to loose my left hand (I DON'T WISH TO LOOSE MY LEFT HAND! JEEZE! WHAT AM I SAYING?!!) that fate will somehow, it's it's comical, ironic sense, take my RIGHT hand. Which would be such a tragic thing, that it would drive me passed the brink of insanity and into a frightening depression. One that would certainly spurn some sort of maniacal feverish drive towards perfecting a bionic arm that works as well, or better then, the real thing.
I'd be obsessed. It would take over my life! It would kill me!
See, another frightening realization has come from this post. My obsession to date is superficial. If I loose the left hand, then I'm ok! I can still draw, I can still work and play and eat and provide for myself. So my mission to create aesthetic prosthetics wouldn't grow passed that. I just yearn to make good looking artificial enhancements. If I lost the RIGHT arm, I'd want to make one that WORKS, not just looks nice.
Anyway. It's all quite scary.
I hope I have the ambition to design faceplate for hearing aids and replacement limbs WITHOUT having to loose a limb of my own.
What a terrible experience that would be. Such trauma would certainly provide a lot of motivation towards something really fulfilling and revolutionary.
Lets hope I can use vivid visions of the trauma as enough motivation, and I may not need to actually go through it.
I hope no one ever has to mark these words. I hope this post can be seen as a bit of a visionary but all too insane rant. Rather then an epic chilling prophecy of inevitable doom.
LOL
Well! On that gloomy and unnerving note, it's time for lunch!
:^)
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
For Shame!
I'm really ashamed of this blog. LOL It looks TERRIBLE!
Nevermind that I haven't even designed a header for it. Nevermind that my colour scheme is a blatant rip off of one of my favorite Graphic Designer's (Kelley Toombs) Blogs. Nevermind that it's a piss poor rip off! Nevermind that I haven't been updating it daily, as I so blatantly advertise.
Nevermind nevermind!
Enough lamenting what could be. Time for some content!
Aesthetic changes will come once the work load calms down a bit. Still a lot of freelance stuff to finish before I can concentrate of personal projects.
Ok, so something AMAZING has happened to my iPod.
A new FREE application was launched in the app store a couple days ago. It's called Air Share.
ANYONE who has an iPhone or iPod touch NEED THIS APP!!!
It turned my iPod into a WIRELESS MOUNTABLE HARD DRIVE!!
That's right. With a simple click of a button, I can now mount my iPod as though it's an external hard drive and throw ANYTHING on it or take anything off of it! WIRELESSLY!
AAAAAAMAZING!!!
I'll never carry another USB thumb drive again! It works with any wireless network and any computer and is REALL fast and slick.
GO GET IT!
Nevermind that I haven't even designed a header for it. Nevermind that my colour scheme is a blatant rip off of one of my favorite Graphic Designer's (Kelley Toombs) Blogs. Nevermind that it's a piss poor rip off! Nevermind that I haven't been updating it daily, as I so blatantly advertise.
Nevermind nevermind!
Enough lamenting what could be. Time for some content!
Aesthetic changes will come once the work load calms down a bit. Still a lot of freelance stuff to finish before I can concentrate of personal projects.
Ok, so something AMAZING has happened to my iPod.
A new FREE application was launched in the app store a couple days ago. It's called Air Share.
ANYONE who has an iPhone or iPod touch NEED THIS APP!!!
It turned my iPod into a WIRELESS MOUNTABLE HARD DRIVE!!
That's right. With a simple click of a button, I can now mount my iPod as though it's an external hard drive and throw ANYTHING on it or take anything off of it! WIRELESSLY!
AAAAAAMAZING!!!
I'll never carry another USB thumb drive again! It works with any wireless network and any computer and is REALL fast and slick.
GO GET IT!
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Life of Excessive Luxury Hits Lower Middle Class
So I can never help but feel guilty when I order Swiss Chalet.
Luckily they forgot my dead tree wipes (napkins) and my triple processed petroleum silverware (plastic utensils) so I can at least feel comforted by using a proper fork. A proper fork that will help me consume my 5 distinct individual dishes. Mass produced caricatures of the various ethnic foods they are loosely meant to represent. I couldn't help but feel over privileged as I re-fastened the lid to my Greek Salad dish and shook it up, ensuring a homogeneous coating of Heinz single serving Greek Dressing. My 3 separate, clear top, black bottom for ultimate presentation, disposable display cases, plus two plastic containers for dressing, plus four individual containers of dipping sauces (3 foam with plastic tops 1 all plastic) all carrying enough dipping sauces for 5 times one humans safe consumption level.
Holy crap. I better stop typing and eat before my crispy dried rib bites get lukewarm!
Luckily they forgot my dead tree wipes (napkins) and my triple processed petroleum silverware (plastic utensils) so I can at least feel comforted by using a proper fork. A proper fork that will help me consume my 5 distinct individual dishes. Mass produced caricatures of the various ethnic foods they are loosely meant to represent. I couldn't help but feel over privileged as I re-fastened the lid to my Greek Salad dish and shook it up, ensuring a homogeneous coating of Heinz single serving Greek Dressing. My 3 separate, clear top, black bottom for ultimate presentation, disposable display cases, plus two plastic containers for dressing, plus four individual containers of dipping sauces (3 foam with plastic tops 1 all plastic) all carrying enough dipping sauces for 5 times one humans safe consumption level.
Holy crap. I better stop typing and eat before my crispy dried rib bites get lukewarm!
LAZY Boy
What a glorious time to be alive.
I just placed my order with Swiss Chalet from the comfort of my lap! I didn't even have to use the telephone! Just went online, entered my e-mail address, and they had my name and address on file. I clicked on the pictures that looked delicious, and the website told me my order was guaranteed at my door by 5:55pm!
WHOOOO!!
I've spent the entire day processing photos. And I still have hours of work left. It's terribly time consuming, but also very rewarding!
Back at it!
I just placed my order with Swiss Chalet from the comfort of my lap! I didn't even have to use the telephone! Just went online, entered my e-mail address, and they had my name and address on file. I clicked on the pictures that looked delicious, and the website told me my order was guaranteed at my door by 5:55pm!
WHOOOO!!
I've spent the entire day processing photos. And I still have hours of work left. It's terribly time consuming, but also very rewarding!
Back at it!
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Shakin' it up!
I went into school to visit Nigel and Sandy and to see the old space. It looks SO GOOD in there now. They painted some of the dry mustard yellow walls BLACK. Makes the art work look SIIIICK!
So good.
Also, the smell of paint made me sad that I wasn't going back to school.
But it's ok! I already learned graphic design fundementals. Now I'm teaching myself video editing and sound engineering and web design and I've been writing poetry and song again and all kinds of new exciting things!!
So I may not be going back to College. But I'm still enrolled in Life University dammit! haha
I just made a milestone video for myself. YouTube to date has been a pretty masturbatory experience for me. Don't take that the wrong way. There's no porn on YouTube. I meant it metaphorically. Try as I must I can't seem to convince very many of my flesh friends that it's a good idea to partake in the YouTube experience with me. No one that I know in real life wants to have anything to do with it. But the whole doing it alone thing wasn't really so satisfying anymore. I've really been intrigued by the social aspect of the phenomenon. I subscribe to a few people, and watch their videos very regularly. Like, daily. And a couple of these people have begun to interact with one another. It's really neat to see the community grow as more people become more popular and all start collaborating with one another. A few of these chaps; SxePhil, ShayCarl, and Peron75 (Michael Buckley), and HotForWords regularly call out to their viewership for input. It's really a much more interactive experience. Much less masturbatory as I so poignantly expressed it earlier. I've had intentions of participating in these call outs on SEVERAL occasions. I'm super disappointed that I snoozed on the opportunity to be a part of What The Bucks Dance Crew. So anyway. SxePhil called out to his people and asked us why we watch him and how we got started.
Well, he was the 2nd person I ever subscribed to and the one I relate to the most. So I REALLY wanted to reply with something. I must have watched his video 6 times, and hit "respond" an equal amount of times. But always someone would come walking into the room, or the phone would ring, or the camera would come on and I'd see how disgustingly unshaven and wild haired I was, and I skipped out on recording something.
Until last night after work.
I was so jazzed about all the sweet back drops my office affords me, that I just decided. Everyone had gone home except for Milla. And when I expressed my desire to do some recording she gleefully and generously offered to shut her office door, as to allow me the privacy my nervous and self conscious self needed to act like an ass and talk to my computer in a corner.
Of course I babbled like an idiot for about 8 minutes, and overall, had nothing worth posting.
Then I thought, don't give up. Do what the pros do.
EDIT!
And I did!
I shot about 8 minutes worth of Bla bla bla last night. And after work today, spent an hour cutting it up and splicing it back together into something that hopefully doesn't suck! And something that hopefully, Phil will see, and approve!
Next time, the goal is to get it filmed, cut, and posted while the video I'm responding to is still on the most viewed page. Which, in Phil's case is usually only a day, since he records new videos so frequently.
So I'm feeling really good about it. It's a creative milestone that I needed in order to get me out of the funk that being booted from the line up of Fringe Festival had left me in.
I've decided not to comment on that, since this blog seems to reach to many more eyes then I ever thought it did.
The shit just didn't happen. I didn't perform. But I now have to pieces of music to continue writing over. And hopefully I can get some studio time and cut some tracks very soon!
Gotta keep it rollin'!
Mission Ambition.
I'm tired of cutting and correcting things tonight. So I'm not even going to re-read this post to check it for errors.
I've got some dinner to eat, and some website to design.
:^)
So good.
Also, the smell of paint made me sad that I wasn't going back to school.
But it's ok! I already learned graphic design fundementals. Now I'm teaching myself video editing and sound engineering and web design and I've been writing poetry and song again and all kinds of new exciting things!!
So I may not be going back to College. But I'm still enrolled in Life University dammit! haha
I just made a milestone video for myself. YouTube to date has been a pretty masturbatory experience for me. Don't take that the wrong way. There's no porn on YouTube. I meant it metaphorically. Try as I must I can't seem to convince very many of my flesh friends that it's a good idea to partake in the YouTube experience with me. No one that I know in real life wants to have anything to do with it. But the whole doing it alone thing wasn't really so satisfying anymore. I've really been intrigued by the social aspect of the phenomenon. I subscribe to a few people, and watch their videos very regularly. Like, daily. And a couple of these people have begun to interact with one another. It's really neat to see the community grow as more people become more popular and all start collaborating with one another. A few of these chaps; SxePhil, ShayCarl, and Peron75 (Michael Buckley), and HotForWords regularly call out to their viewership for input. It's really a much more interactive experience. Much less masturbatory as I so poignantly expressed it earlier. I've had intentions of participating in these call outs on SEVERAL occasions. I'm super disappointed that I snoozed on the opportunity to be a part of What The Bucks Dance Crew. So anyway. SxePhil called out to his people and asked us why we watch him and how we got started.
Well, he was the 2nd person I ever subscribed to and the one I relate to the most. So I REALLY wanted to reply with something. I must have watched his video 6 times, and hit "respond" an equal amount of times. But always someone would come walking into the room, or the phone would ring, or the camera would come on and I'd see how disgustingly unshaven and wild haired I was, and I skipped out on recording something.
Until last night after work.
I was so jazzed about all the sweet back drops my office affords me, that I just decided. Everyone had gone home except for Milla. And when I expressed my desire to do some recording she gleefully and generously offered to shut her office door, as to allow me the privacy my nervous and self conscious self needed to act like an ass and talk to my computer in a corner.
Of course I babbled like an idiot for about 8 minutes, and overall, had nothing worth posting.
Then I thought, don't give up. Do what the pros do.
EDIT!
And I did!
I shot about 8 minutes worth of Bla bla bla last night. And after work today, spent an hour cutting it up and splicing it back together into something that hopefully doesn't suck! And something that hopefully, Phil will see, and approve!
Next time, the goal is to get it filmed, cut, and posted while the video I'm responding to is still on the most viewed page. Which, in Phil's case is usually only a day, since he records new videos so frequently.
So I'm feeling really good about it. It's a creative milestone that I needed in order to get me out of the funk that being booted from the line up of Fringe Festival had left me in.
I've decided not to comment on that, since this blog seems to reach to many more eyes then I ever thought it did.
The shit just didn't happen. I didn't perform. But I now have to pieces of music to continue writing over. And hopefully I can get some studio time and cut some tracks very soon!
Gotta keep it rollin'!
Mission Ambition.
I'm tired of cutting and correcting things tonight. So I'm not even going to re-read this post to check it for errors.
I've got some dinner to eat, and some website to design.
:^)
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