It's gratifying to see so many people I know around me (figuratively, not physically) working on cool projects. And it's nice to be able to help them.

For instance, on Saturday I spent 3 hours on a Skype call with José, who lives in Madrid, discussing, with many tangents along the way, a project he's been working on for 2 years (or more, in a way) that will someday become, I suppose, an animated web-based graphic novel. Or maybe even a movie? It should be a movie. Anyway, I won't link to the site for it because I don't know if he wants the in-progress work to be public, but it's pretty cool. A sort of science-fiction allegory set in a dystopian near-future.

Another example is more disappointing. Petr just reported that he is cancelling a film project he's been working on for several months. Doesn't really give a reason. This is one of 3 or 4 films he's in the middle of and on his blog he reports every day on progress he is making on one or more of them, in addition to other artistic pursuits. It's exciting but then I remember he has yet to finish a film. Even one of the many short projects I've seen him start over the years, to my knowledge has never been pronounced "done" and made available to the world. And I've collaborated and helped out (as crewperson, sound designer, etc) on several of these projects. I wish I could break into his house and make copies of a bunch of his raw footage and then edit it into something and release it.

See, I know how to polish a turd. José and I were talking about this during our long skypecall. I told him the story I heard long ago about Stanley Kubrick, who told a fellow director that, yes, you can polish a turd - if it's frozen.

The point in this case is, life doesn't usually give you jewels. You get rough stones, or even turds, and you have to figure out how to make them shiny and nice, or at least passable. But Petr seems, sometimes, to be unwilling to accept anything but jewels, which he will then polish into superjewels, he thinks.
sigh. No! take the crap and run with it, Petr!

Ok, this totally rocks. a talk show in a car. The latest one is about "belt-sander races."

I'm against driving, but if you have to commute in a car, at least doing something creative like this mitigates things somewhat. Plus, hey, it's car-pooling.

This is already one of my favorite vlogs. not just because of the gimmick, but the guy is really charismatic, and a good interviewer. And a good driver, too, I guess.

(via We Are The Media)

I just remembered something that happened yesterday that annoyed me slightly. I stopped by the Dry River space to see if the internet connection was up, because it had been out all the day before. I'm one of the 2-3 people who set up the computer lab and sort of maintain it. So I come in and boot up one of machines, it's just opening time so nobody else has tried them yet, and I'm waiting for it to boot and this guy that hangs out there, one of the many eccentric street characters that hangs out there, asks me "So what's the scoop, Perfessor? Is there internet?"

This is the equivalent of being called "4-eyes" or whatever back in grade school. It was said semi-jokingly, or maybe the intent was to be completely humorous. But I was irritated. And to some extent "perfessor" is an honoriffic, so it's complicated. It's a bit like beefy jock types that call people who are less beefy "big guy." (this has happened quite a bit in my past). Obviously it's an insult, it's sarcasm, but it may be unconcious, or if not it's easily deniable that it was intentional.

I'll qualify these gripes by saying that as I'm a privileged white middle-class straight male I actually have no real idea what I'm talking about, but in no way am I comparing it to the daily abuse that women and people of color and other opressed peoples are subjected to. However it's interesting to notice through that lens, so to speak. For instance how often are women annoyed when they're called "girls"? How often in general are people mean to each other, especially to those different from them, without even noticing?

At first I was confused, but I guess that a new anti-coke consumer boycott campaign is somewhat in response to a Coca-Cola ad campagn to sell their "Coke Zero" sugar-free product. The boycott actually goes further and mentions that you should stop drinking all soft drinks, drink water instead and send the money you would spend to fund efforts to get clean water to those who don't have it.

This is good advice. I don't drink soft drinks, or packaged beverages at all, except the occasional bottle of juice. Coffee is my guilty disposable-income vice, but I only have about 1 latte or whatever a day, so I don't think I'm that bad.

This seems like a silly thing to even be blogging about. but I saw that page and then thought of some people I know who are drinking cans of soda all the time. Plus we just had a big discussion on a mailing list I'm on about fatness in the U.S. and high-fructose corn syrup. bleah.