Haikus for a year
Make me want to play guitar
Just like Biff Tannen

Tom Wilson is also on Netflix. I will definitely have to check it out.

I hope you all are having a happy Veteran’s Day.

On Sunday, this is what I’ll be wearing:

No, Mike, I haven’t converted to something, although you gotta admit that my wife’s texts were a lot funnier than my own. (I said I had converted to Awesomeness. She beat that.)

I’m wearing it in solidarity with believers, specifically with Juma Nuradin Kamil’s family, around the world on a Sunday when we remember and pray for followers of Jesus who have been/are being persecuted. (Really, we should remember and pray all year long, which this app (for iPhone and Android) can help you with, but it’s also good to have a set day on the calendar.)

Thanks, Jeremy, for showing us this video that lines up with one of the songs we play. We won’t be showing it on Sunday, but it’s definitely worth a watch.

Art that expresses my heart? Sign me up.

Travis Prinzi of the Rabbit Room has a great article about telling a meaningful story, quoting from Walk the Line:

I mean, you can’t help nobody if you can’t tell them the right story.

I started a new story as part of NaNoWriMo, yes, but also because it’s straight from my heart. Each book I’ve written, I’ve rejected people-pleasing more and more and now write what I believe to be a good story and not what I think will sell (if you’ve watched the majority of what’s on TV, you’ll notice that it’s not always the best story that sells).

Thanks, Futile Ohm, for the link to the NaNoWriMo version of Scrivener. This project has so many character details that it definitely helps me keep all my notes organized. Anyone that has seen me in the midst of writing a novel knows that they should have bought stock in legal pads and tiny memo notebooks.

And for those praying about agents looking at my manuscripts and all that, James 4:2-3 had some insight for me this morning.

Thanks, nephew, for the poem. Here is the world debut of Moon:

Moon

Oh, beautiful moon
You have a lot of craters
You light up the night

They’re about nature and have a structured format (it was inspired from Bushido traditions and a hierarchy/order to life, but I can get into that later).

This example is not about nature, but follows the 5-7-5 syllable structure:

Run, Luke Skywalker
Obi-Wan Kenobi died
Get to the Falcon

Run, Luke Skywalker – 5 syllables
Obi-Wan Kenobi died – 7 syllables
Get to the Falcon – 5 syllables

Nephew – Hope that helps. Let me know if you need more. When your haiku is all edited and turned in, I’d like to post it to the bloggh (it’s normally blog, but blame Jason for the crazy spelling).

There’s a story here
Of this you can be certain
Go ahead and guess

I shout out for peace
For a glimpse of the river
Washing us today

Those of the Kriege der Sterne persuasion will recognize this as the hermit who has been living for generations on Korriban in cliff-side ruins entangled by a cactus swarm.

Even if you didn’t play on Saturday (although you were invited, @bessiejo), the hermit may look similar to another bearded loon.

You may have heard that there is a Star Wars vs. Star Trek thing on the InterTubes. Have you seen the LEGO version of that fight?

On the topic of loons, I found this scrap of paper from a year ago. I can’t figure out what the epsilon I was talking about. (Editor’s Note: Check the comments for a hint at the solution. I remembered it.)

Don’t worry, Mom. It’s not like I write haikus about the library or anything.


I can’t take credit for the Bell Beast. Go visit the Sidewalk Driver for more details on coping with carrot carcinogens.

To fulfill the cutemetrics for this post, here is my youngest eating a half-pound burrito:

I guess if it’s metrics, it should be the 0.22679618 kg burrito.

Songs stuck in my head right now?

Danse by Caedmon’s Call
All creation moves in a cosmic danse
Before the Lord her King;
and the rythms, the reason, the rhyme
of the danse pulses within everything.
And the universe wheels and whirls like
a dervish in perfect seven-step time
The Lord made the Danse,
He taught her the steps, and He causes the songs to shine.

We must danse, danse, danse
danse in God’s honor.
We must yield all our steps unto the King.
We must danse, danse, danse
danse in God’s honor.
Let His praises ring throughout the earth

Adam and Eve dansed in Eden’s environs
Early in earth’s morning air
They named all the animals musical names
Glorious potentiality shared.
But Lucifer sang out a serpentine song
And offered death’s danse as a token.
And pausing to listen Adam missed his step;
Earth’s harmony in the danse broken.

We must danse, danse, danse
danse in God’s honor.
We must yield all our steps unto the King.
We must danse, danse, danse
danse in God’s honor.
Let his praises ring throughout the earth.

Jesus dansed into the world
Singing His heavenly song.
He taught the Danse to those who would
listen and learn as He moved along.
But the steps of His Danse led to a cross
where He died while the haters mocked on.
But He Dansed through death’s arms
and over Hell’s gate and in three days
dansed forth from His tomb

We must danse, danse, danse
danse in God’s honor.
We must yield all our steps unto the King.
We must danse, danse, danse
danse in God’s honor.
Let His praises ring throughout the earth (x2)

He is Lord by Hillsong
Oh blessed lamb once slain
Will reign forever more
His hands once bound now save
Our God will never fail

He is Lord
He is Lord
Sings my soul
He is Lord
And He lives
Yes He lives
I’m alive ’cause Jesus lives

‘Tis at the cross of Christ
Where earth and heaven meet
Where sin is overcome
To God the victory

And now
Let the earth resound with praise
For our Saviour God He reigns
He is high and lifted up
Arise
For the King of glory waits
He is coming back again

But it seems Elvis
And my good friend Jen have had
Even stranger days

Fanfares and all that.

As we are on the last leg of the trip to Montana (aside from the actual being in Montana and then getting home), we come to the last haiku. I have definitely kept my writing sharpened since college. The daily writings and postings were helpful when it came time to do a technical guidebook for my district and I was basically tech blogging.

I think I will miss the daily challenge. I have a couple of other concepts bouncing around. But first we have today’s adventure:

1. Yellowstone – I hear there’s bears. Or was that Jellystone?
2. Another full day in the Scion. I busted the entire 6 hour drive yesterday and was ready to keep going. I am a new convert to cruise control.
3. A potential foray into…dial-up…where we’ll be staying for a week. You may find me huddling in the parking lot of a local hotel. If the locals have “WHS” (hotel-speak, I guess, for wi-fi. Much shorter/clearer abbreviation than what the rest of the world uses).

There will be an automated post coming up. I will be on the road by then, but I still found the haiku fun. As The Robot promises, there’s a fun treat in post I’m writing (blogging on the road leads to some space-time thingys).

an-open-letter

Enjoy this most recent to the ultimate album, Ultimate Karate.

Thanks for the adventure!

“Muahaha…so, yeah, that’s coming along.”

It’s great to see that Joss Whedon does stuff like “Motion Picture Association of my house“. Reminds us that he’s a nerd like the rest of us. (Okay, so like the rest of me. All of you socially adapted people who follow the blog…thanks for visiting my little domain (domain a double entendre for site or delusional masterpiece)).

Slade, when you mentioned RL DBZ, I thought you meant this or this. (Or, for Devin’s sake, a mention of a con and a link.)

But no. Now I have an image that makes me so nauseous, I won’t be able to sleep. (Great. Although my youngest screamed until 11pm, she did calm down after all the lights were out and was like, “What the…? Well, I’m bored…[snore]“)

Since I don’t know what tonight’s wi-fi situation will look like, here’s a haiku earlier than normal(-ish):
The Haiku
Two days remaining
For this year’s haiku project
Will I need robots?

I thought about automating my June 27 post (1 year!) since we will be on the road between Idaho and Montana, but I will try to find a connection…any way I can.

The Haiku
I’m a knight errant
Questing for some good wi-fi
and soft-baked pretzels

I found some decent wi-fi, but thankfully I had a soft-baked pretzel last night. Previous time to that had been a couple of years.

Quick trip updates: We did go through Zion National Park. Pictures later (Mac and Scion say 10:46pm, Hotel says 11:49pm). We were the only ones going our way in the dark on winding roads. I also went through the longest tunnel ever. I felt elvish – not meant to be underground for so long. Actually, switched to nightvision on my camera and had a rabid lobster flashback from Cloverfield.

Hopefully the next stop we can get to earlier and have better wi-fi. Lots of fun so far.

Funny stuff, Devin.

Teaser from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog on Vimeo.

The Haiku
It’s a good promise
that if he does a bad job
Can’t say we weren’t warned

I like to call this video “My Dad: A Study in Motion Sickness”

My oldest daughter and I went out to eat (our usual McDonald’s) and then went to Bookman’s. Man, no Spirit or Watchmen. But I did get $11 on store credit on returned books. I am now starting to really see the perks of the library. If I want to read the book, chances are there’ll be students wanting to read the book. Pretty cool, and my 8 bookshelves can get a much-needed weeding.

The Old Part: I got my orthopedic inserts today. Someday when I’m not so sensitive about being the youngest person (besides my daughter) in the doctor’s office I will show you the monstrosity that is size 18 inserts. I’m not exaggerating about the old part. The woman in the next room told the doctor, “Well, I’ll probably die within the year or two so whatever happens happens and I won’t worry too much about pain.”

The Game Humor Part: Devin, you asked about games with humor. (Still haven’t sat down to download the Precipice demo yet.) There are a lot of inside jokes in Simpsons Hit and Run (one being the Matlock Expressway). My daughter got Fox in Socks (the actual book, not the psycho video).

And Mike – here’s today’s Star Wars parody.

Here’s how I celebrated being back home after the jewelry party:

The Haiku
No matter how much
Sugar is held in the bowl
Drink it anyways

Check out my two favorite dances. (And a close third.)

The Haiku
Even in one year
I still have trouble saying
“Favorite Dancer”

Much thanks to Jeremy for getting me excited about Wii Sports again. I forgot how cool golf is and I always love when both people get knocked out in boxing.

Day 2 of new contacts – Took me :38 seconds to put them in this morning. Running fast.

And what of spy satellites?

I’m trying out an upgrade of my current type of contacts, but then my eye doctor asked me to compare them to a new type of nighttime tinting contact.

Day 1. I can see.

I need to figure out some way to objectively measure contact performance. (Really, I need more science to my mad.)

“Viennese Waltz. I don’t know much about the Viennese, but I hear they’re good people.”
- Twitch, from So You Think You Can Dance

As x approaches Stan Lee, x is multiplied by the 12 movies so far, rising exponentially by Life, the Universe, and Everything, factored by the amount of gamma radiation present (I find it funny that it looks like a hangman’s gallows) within the boundaries of how many movies make money divided by the 31 attempts so far. Solution: As long as Marvel movies make money, the rate of babies born looking like Stan Lee will increase exponentially. Modus ponens Excelsior! (Not counting ‘Who wants to be a super-hero?’ because, frankly, no one watches that anymore.)
(Do you like my wife’s ultra cool stationery?)
(I being an expert on cool.)

Here’s a cool mash-up of Stan Lee’s cameos:

With the upcoming X-Men Origins: Wolverine movie slated for May 1, 2009:
The Good News

1. Remy LeBeau
2. Deadpool

(my obsession ever since Ultimate Alliance)

3. Dominic Monaghan

The Bad News

1. Will.i.am

(Remember a Wayans in DnD? Surprisingly, the Academy didn’t!)

And Mike, here’s your Star Wars parody. I felt like demonstrating another funny situation where real life people interact with a fantasy world:

(Star Wars being reality and American Politics a fantasy. I thought we all knew that.)

The Haiku
Math illustrated
by non-traditional means
makes it spicier!

J got his Wii today. Simple strategy? Find a store manager who actually tracks his shipments and has a reliable UPS driver who shows up at the same time every delivery.

In your face, Wal-Mart! EBGames beat you out of another big sale.

Three Earth-ish planets have been found. Should be big news. But then Billy Ray Cyrus was on the Today show talking about a photo of his daughter. My daughter wouldn’t let me change the channel so I sat through it. No big deal, right? But now crazy bloggers are calling him an unfit dad because he won’t throw a fit.

fit…Fit…

The Wiis are sold out, again. No worries for me since I have one, but my brother-in-law (Rockstar 2.0, not Rockstar 3.0 beta) was promised one from his wife for Father’s Day. I’m helping him out (thus the Twitters from 4:30am in a Wal-Mart) but I’m trying to get a hold of Wii Fit. While staring at a Wii ad waiting for someone to respond to our cries for help in the electronics section, I became quite familiar with Wii Fit’s features.

How long did we wait at Wal-Mart the first night? Well, we saw the Journey concert series HD ad loops on the TVs five times.

I guess people are buying up entire shipments of Wii Fit and going crazy on eBay. There was one story where two guys walked into a Gamestop and bought 80 copies of WiiFit. Paid cash. Craziness.

It can be determined that Wal-Mart workers still have no clue when video game stuff comes in.

On the topic of 3.0, I did get Firefox 3.0 (see, there are some things you can get, even if there’s a huge line…and it didn’t take forever to download).

I dig the huge back button because, yes, users do actually miss it when they try and click. Users who have been teaching for 30+ years and I have to teach them how to attach documents to an e-mail.

I also like the “Awesome Bar”, giving headlines from your recently visited sites. Pretty cool stuff.
Want in on the fun?

But have you seen what Berkley put out?

My prediction? iPhone-guided nanobot swarm. Helpful AND terrifying! Two for one deal.

I wonder how the military reconciles this:

Applications may not be designed or marketed for real time route guidance; automatic or autonomous control of vehicles, aircraft, or other mechanical devices; dispatch or fleet management; or emergency or life-saving purposes.

Straight from Section 3.3.7 of the Software Developer’s Kit.

I guess Apple wants to limit the deaths of people using iPhones to people distracted in traffic while watching YouTube videos of lonelygirl.

On the topic of robot death, my cousin showed me a great website to watch anime on. Now I can figure out why all my students wear those crazy metal plates on their heads. (Not to protect against alien transmissions, I find out.)

I bought books one and two of Gundam towards the end of this past school year. My students responded, “Oh, I think my dad told me about this show once.” Come on! I’m not that old! It was on when I taught high school. Well, at least this old guy can watch the episodes. I recorded the first episode when it first aired on Cartoon Network way back when. I missed one episode (being an adult with a job and all) and the whole continuity was ebbed. Click here to watch some Gundam.

Sorry, Slade. No GT, but I think you’ll still be happy.

Mike and Devin, we should try and re-live college some time.

The Haiku
Blue garbled dog voice
and a monster-obsessed boy
My college dorm room

Thinking about Ecclesiastes 12 in conjunction with a picture of growing old. “grinders cease because they are few” – Now I get it. He’s talking about teeth. Booyor as an old man…

Dad, I hope I get your sideburns.

Went shopping tonight. Came back with a book. There’s not enough New Republic insignias out there.

Nice Battle Royale, Slade!
The Conduit by High Voltage Studios is scheduled for the first part of next year. It’s going to have a competitive multiplayer (whatever that means…the press release was written by The Sphinx, I think) and they’re focusing on graphics.

Hopefully they also get good controls.

These guys are the ones who made Leisure Suit Larry and the White Men Can’t Jump officially licensed game. What’s the worst that could happen?

The Haiku
Low expectations
are just one coping technique
used by modern nerds

I actually think it would be cool to take a blimp/airship to Montana this summer. SkyCat says that their SkyShuttle costs $9 per 100km. It’s okay. I’m not traveling in kilometers. I’m using miles.

Oh wait.

Hmm…$9 per every 62 miles. 1,306 to Billings, MT. $189 one way using an airship. United Airlines is cheapest with $267 right now. That’s some decent savings. But…

These airships average around 100mph. 13 hours to get to Billings? It could work. Too bad there’s only 12 seats. I don’t think they could maintain the $9 promise for long.

That and there’s not many airships flying to Big Sky Country.

The Haiku
Much thanks to The Count
(Ferdinand von Zeppelin)
and flying machines

Nope. Just some crazy driving tricks. Some are good (check tire inflation to reduce surface resistance) but some are kinda kooky (turn off your engine in a coast or when in traffic) that take some risk (which I probably won’t do).

Check out EcoModder and tell me what you think.

The Haiku
I may save on gas
but replacing transmissions
will not come cheap, bro!

With stories of dragon attacks and watching a Star Wars room on Extreme Home Makeover (my goodness! The boy had a cockpit desk jumping to hyperspace on one wall and an X-Wing bed making the Death Star run (complete with Vader’s TIE firing) on the other) I have decided to show you some of the stuff I captured today on my phone:

At Sunday school a kid asked me to build a robot. I built a Mad Cat Mk II taking out a Raptor fighter.


Of the marketing ploys used, which book is a junior high boy supposed to read? Or do they not read but only grunt over a grill? This was in the teen section.

Have you seen the Titan AE-ish Doomsday Vault? Reminds me of the frozen room in the season finale of LOST (which can be watched and understood having not followed the rest of the show – it branches into crazy sci-fi and military action. Worth your time.). Also, the nickname generator is pretty funny. My nickname is “Huckleberry Pinhead” (my mother named me after her favorite literary figure – Ethan Frome).

A lot less awesome than when Devinistan’s Led Zeppelin Armada participated in a coup by Lord Beverage.

Since last we met our fair heroes, a new car had been introduced into the mix. Firefly transports being a little fuel inefficient for my taste, I had another option. A 2009 Scion XB. (Yes, I added a new category but I won’t rant too much. But I will be tracking some stats. (Like any good testing coordinator.))

I just finished making labeled DVD boxes and stuffing them with stickered DVDs, enough for 19 ballet parents to enjoy. (Thus the hour of my post. Woo, summer! Anything is possible!)

While working on the DVD project I learned a lot of stuff.
(Some of this pertains to even non-Mac users, but if you don’t want to read about DVD technology, you can scroll down.)

(You’ll know it’s time to turn the page when you see Mittens dance like this:
)

Let’s begin:

1. DVDs have uniform digital codes in them that give clues to a player on how to interpret the signal.
2. There’s a code that allows newer-ish DVD players to do what’s called “Pan and Scan”.
3. Pan and Scan is where instead of letterboxing a widescreen film on a 4:3 TV, the DVD player tries to guess where the camera motion is going and zooms in on that part, cutting off a huge chunk of both sides of the picture rectangle. I guess this was invented for those old guys who would come in and argue with Jeremy about how widescreen cuts off the picture. (It doesn’t. Just watch the end credits of A New Hope. (By the way…now I know why watching the podrace scene in Episode I hurt so bad. My copy did pan and scan. (Second reason it hurt, I guess. The first was the two-headed announcer’s,”Oh, that’s going to leave a mark.” [shudder]))
4. Jeremy is officially the man when it comes to DVDs. I had spent some time trying to figure out why my iDVD-produced ballet project was zoomed in in a weird spot. He walks into the room. “Oh, hey, it’s a pan and scan DVD.”
5. I found a mini-program that takes a DVD disc image and tweaks it how you’d like.
6. iDVD doesn’t just do pan and scan by default, it doesn’t let you turn that off when you burn discs. Still boggled by that. I watched Fever Pitch and wondered why I could only see the guy’s mouth and it was all pixely.
7. Here’s the program by Daniel Rogers that lets you tweak the IFOs automatically on your disc images. (Without having to edit in hexadecimal. It has been nine years since I’ve had to do that.) Put the two utility Perl programs in your usr/local/bin. (Yeah, I know. Me, too. How I found that folder was Finder->Go->Go to Folder and then typed in usr/local/bin.) Now you can type “idvd-ws-fix” and your option codes (check the README) in Terminal and it will start tweaking your disc image.
8. I like seeing crazy decimal percentages scrolling by to tell me my progress. I think it said David Lightman was ready to play.
9. Another issue is that QuickTime will display a video in 720×480 even if the aspect is, say, 854×480. Simple fix (Thank you, Peter the Futile Ohm, especially since my crazy schedule postponed you from Tuesday to Wednesday to Thursday.). In QuickTime, go to Window->Show Movie Properties and click on Video Track. Uncheck Preserve Aspect Ratio and change the dimensions to what you need. Make sure that you save.
10. Here’s another cool trick for iDVD (Thanks again, Peter!). You can only do automatic chapters every few minutes, right? Not limited anymore! If you add chapter markers in Final Cut (or even iMovie), iDVD will honor those. Now I have unleashed Ultimate Ken Burns Power XIII!!!

Go, Mr. Mittens!
Thanks for indulging in that little DVD geek session. It’s mainly for my own reference later, but I know that I could have used an article like this…Now, to work on the district technology handbook…ballet is done!

As promised in days of yore…yore being Wednesday…here are some pictures!

Here I celebrate two of my favorite things from Japan. Auron was not present for comment.

My wife took this picture of my first hundred miles. I’ve never had a new car (Frankly, I only had the ’88 Reliant K. This is kindof a jump.).

We then went with a friend to RA to get some official sushi.

The Haiku(s)
Dinosaurs happen
Get used to the claws and horns
That’s just how it goes

I thought I was cool
Until I complained about
the teenager noise

It’s also a big jump from the Reliant.
(More details/photos later…)

A juggernaut (American pronunciation) is a term used to describe a force regarded as unstoppable, that will crush all in its path.

The word is derived from the Sanskrit Jagannātha[1] (meaning “Lord of the universe”) which is one of the many names of Krishna from the ancient Vedic scriptures of India. One of the most famous of Indian temples is the Jagannath Temple in Puri, Orissa, which has the Ratha Yatra (chariot procession), an annual procession of chariots carrying the murtis/statues of Jagannâth (Krishna), Subhadra and Baladeva (Krishna’s elder brother).

from Wikipedia (yes, I use it when I’m not in school librarian mode)

Sometimes people would get crushed under these giant rolling statues.

The Haiku
The word Juggernaut:
Now it’s not just for freakos
with big, fat helmets.

(Or Clone turbo tanks, for that matter. Mike – the guy who helped us at the Scion dealer was named ‘Sean Lanigan’. Pretty funny.)

I understand the spirit behind using “Road not Taken” as a framework for challenging criminals to seize opportunities for critical choices, but are they more responsive than, say, a class full of speeding driving school students? It’s a multiple day class, so hopefully after a couple of sessions it will start to sink in with at least one student.

The Haiku
What good are poems?
Can they change a life or not?
Bitter irony

Editor’s Note: Can the Associated Press throw in any more puns to their human interest stories?

An additional note – Did you see that C.S. Lewis and Lawrence Lessig are listed as podcasts for changing the world by iTunes U? Pretty cool. (And they also listed off a new favorite class of mine, Future of the Internet. I feel intellectual all over.)

Check out the version 9 page. You can now add Flash.

Do you realize what this means?

1. Keynote (PowerPoint, but smoother) presentations can be narrated and someone can open my PDF and have it talk them through my presentation, guaranteed (or close enough) to synchronize the way I want the presentation to flow. Keep in mind that Jobs designed Keynote so he could present in all of his black T-shirted glory. (I like how he said, “Zhoom” at this most recent MacWorld.)
2. YouTube (you may have heard of it) uses Flash-encoding to distribute videos. Imagine what you can do with documents that have video encoded easily into them. “Here’s our Christmas letter…blah blah…take a look for yourself.”
3. Flash applications in a PDF. Imagine if I put my capstone, with the Grammar Ninja, into a PDF resume. (Instead of, say, Brianland, my brother’s birthday game, or Booyortovich embedded. That would be silly. )
4. Comics that are published (or RPG sourcebooks, for that matter) will have sweeter interfaces and searchability. (Imagine the Star Wars rulebook where you could actually run the algorithm for ship combat inside the PDF document to speed up the math.)(Or a Batman comic that made the OOF! ZOWEE! noises.)

Like any cool technology, somebody’s gonna mess it up. But there is a lot of potential. I just hope that PDFs don’t become Websense blocked.

“Because sometimes the connected world is too confident.”

Yeah thanks, Websense. Way to boost my feeling of confidence and security. The workplace is all warm and fuzzy because of you.

The Haiku
With video PDFs
there’s less imagination -
need librarians

Everyone’s posting their reaction to the Twilight trailer. (Remember: their reaction, not the actual trailer.) There was some pretty funny stuff with Panda vs. Iron Man (Ben Stiller using a phone for filming to be “viral” and reminding us over and over again, as well as his comment on Robert Downey, Jr.’s past) but there was so much blech in the skit that it’s not worth the effort of linking to.

Is this who will dominate the Internet in a few years? Whatever happened to the good old days when all you could find were X-Files fans sites and Kirk vs. Picard vs. Death Star vs. Enterprise debates?

It’s also the name of Bella’s production company (Monteverde/Verástegui’s company they created specifically to make the movie).

The Electric Slide
vs.
The Cha Cha Slide

Categories of Combat
Similarity to MC Hammer Video:
Winner: Electric Slide
Great use of balloon pants lets me forgive wearing an open jacket over a bikini.

Ability to be danced by even me:
Winner: Cha Cha Slide
“Slide to the left, slide to the right. Now breathe! In and out, in and out. Charlie Brown!”

Best mysterious lyrics:
Winner: Electric Slide
“Umb diddle luppa sure like to boogie!”

By the way, the real lyrics are:

Jiggle-a-mesa-cara
She’s a pumpin’ like a matic
She’s a movin’ like electric
She sure got the boogie

Jiggle-a-mesa? What, are they Gungan?

The Winner: The Classic, Electric Slide

Hey. I remember watching Macarena on Univision before Los del Rio ever got a hold of it.

By the way, the next time you’re hired out to teach dancing, check out this site that my wife found.

AND MIKE: Here’s your Star Wars parody.

The Haiku
It’s interesting
to dance to a sliding beat
outside the wedding

Meesa funky Gungan!

I forgot that they were going to do the Lifehouse Skit. Always awesome.

The second freedom concert. Very fun. No babies delivered (I think).

My brother and I got River City Ransom on the Virtual Console.

Pros:

1. Two people fighting on the screen simultaneously.
2. Bad Japanese Translations = Very Fun Dialogue (“*OOF BARF!!*” being my favorite from the ‘Generic’ gang)
3. Beating people with tires and crates

Cons:

1. It’s not Double Dragon. It definitely came earlier, especially graphics-wise. It’s from the same company, though.
2. Sauna Nudity
3. 5 bucks.

Still fun, but there are some major glitches. My brother and I must have skipped over quite a bit, even though we were actually trying to play. And the passwords are pretty easy for kids to enter. Here’s ours:

Slade – We missed, like, four bosses. Here’s just the beginning of the FAQ:

The Beginning—————————————–>

Crosstown High School:
Easy enough, just pummel on everyone and grab the cash.

Sticksville #1:
Make sure to grab the trashcan once you’ve cleared the area.

Grotto Mall:
Buy Dragon Feet from the bookstore, and then continue onwards.

Sticksville #2:
Use the railing to stall your opponents, before dealing some serious
death from above! Ignore the path upwards for now, and instead leave via
the right.

Sticksville #3:
Avoid the pit and use the wall to get the drop on the enemies here. Unlike
the other enemy turfs you’ve been on though, there’s only four normal punks
here. Once they’re defeated, we come face-to-face with our first boss!

[%%%]Boss: Moose [07b.1][%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%]
Part of the Mob gang, he’s still not all that tough. Like normal punks,
climbing the wall will freeze him in place, so your best bet is to lure him
towards the middle of the screen, and then go with the death from above
tactic, climbing back up once you’ve knocked him down.
[%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%]

Once he’s out of the way, leave via the way he came in.

Another shot of the Zone of Corto (MGH) and a cast for orthotics. One side of my fascist is .47 cm but the injured fascist is .84 cm (that’s bad…but it comes with free ice cream…that’s good!), according to today’s ultrasound. (Like my foot’s givin’ birth to the ugliest vegetable ever.)

The Big Question: Did God design my foot but my finite eyes don’t appreciate the beauty or are my feet a result of the fallen nature of the world’s entropy?

If I ever go for my Philosophy doctorate (as my fellow grad students suggested)…

Tonight we present the doctoral thesis “Predestined Podiatry in a Post-modern Pedagogy”, as defended by an immensely hairy manbeast and his just-off-the-mountain Gorgosh yams.

On the bright side, my oldest daughter was working on reading Go, Dog. Go tonight and my youngest was trying to get people’s attention by grunting/grabbing faces in order to laugh at them.

I had missed:

1. The new Mars polar landing
2. Apple patenting touchscreen solar power for iPods/iPhones
3. The NBA Finals haven’t happened yet?

(This happens every time I play Final Fantasy.)

The Haiku
They won’t laugh at you
Riding on giant chickens
if you’re a good shot

Shivaree - (also spelled charivari (if you’re French)) –

n. Midwestern & Western U.S.
A noisy mock serenade for newlyweds. Also called regionally charivari, belling, horning, serenade.

Shivaree is the most common American regional form of charivari, a French word meaning “a noisy mock serenade for newlyweds” and probably deriving in turn from a Late Latin word meaning “headache.” The term, most likely borrowed from French traders and settlers along the Mississippi River, was well established in the United States by 1805; an account dating from that year describes a shivaree in New Orleans: “The house is mobbed by thousands of the people of the town, vociferating and shouting with loud acclaim…. [M]any [are] in disguises and masks; and all have some kind of discordant and noisy music, such as old kettles, and shovels, and tongs…. All civil authority and rule seems laid aside” (John F. Watson). The word shivaree is especially common along and west of the Mississippi River. Its use thus forms a dialect boundary running north-south, dividing western usage from eastern. This is unusual in that most dialect boundaries run east-west, dividing the country into northern and southern dialect regions. Some regional equivalents are belling, used in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan; horning, from upstate New York, northern Pennsylvania, and western New England; and serenade, a term used chiefly in the South Atlantic states.

This will greet the newlyweds tomorrow as they enter their new house/life together (I assume that they won’t check the bloggh while they drive back from Canada):
The Haiku
Welcome to your home
You may find hidden treasures
Know that we love you

Hidden treasures = 200 Post-Its as well as some other fun items.

We sent Teddi this picture in a text:


with the caption “Breaking it in”.

We did clean the house up a little bit, but I don’t want to reveal too much more just yet…

The Haiku
I would give to you
my old sarcastic spoiler
but now it is real

Have you ever had to install files first before playing a game? On PC, yes. Even on Wii, with the Super Mario Galaxy Wii Update.

But 4.6GB? That’s how big the file is that Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots will require in order to play the game. This is a growing tend, sadly. Many of the hot, new games require an installation before you can even play. I remember Penny Arcade flipping about Halo not being able to be put in, booted, and played quickly.

4.6GB. Umm, that’s a DVD being copied straight to your HDD.

If the trend continues it will put a roadblock in playing games at a friend’s house. A quick match now might mean clearing of an HDD onto an external or whatever. Now, MGS4 is not multiplayer, but you may want to show it off to a friend. Or let your PS3-less older brother stalk you.

Or you may want to sit down with some Dots and your Harkins cup to endure the 90 minute cutscenes.

Yeah, 90 minutes. And that’s just one cutscene. (But there are multiple ones just as huge.) The 4.6GB makes more sense now. With Final Fantasy X, with its unpausing cutscenes, made it real tough to play when anyone else was around. Because, well, I like to hear dialogue. It’s one of my quirks. That and with FFXII, I’m dad now. Naptimes for kids end all too quickly when you’re in video game mode. (Unless you have an awesome 4 year-old who wants to play Brawl with you. Not big in the “games with dialogue” genre.)

Maybe if they could give me a little play bar that tells me how much time the movie will take.

It’s important to hear the dialogue because you’re not playing a game, you’re playing a movie when it’s Final Fantasy. I mean, the giant fire golem might, surprise, be weak against ice-type stuff. For the most part, it’s about the engrossing storyline (although FFXII is the first FF game in a long time when my entire party died repeatedly…still need to try and finish that game).

All I know is that Hideo Kojima better give me the opportunity to save wherever I patriot please if he’s eating up the HDD.

Check out the site, though, for some semi-innovative marketing by the Khan of Otaku, Hal Emmerich. The training missions are pretty fun and are required if you want to download anything from the site. (You gain points by exploring the site and playing the games. Points = downloads.)

The photo shoot for the Beauty and the Beast Corps is stereotypically funny. With all of the awkward/revealing camera angles on the female lead of MGS3 (what was her name?)(I remember Meryl, but none of the other women’s names in the series. Was Sniper Wolf one? The smoking Russian? Raiden?) Well, now we have Nordic, Latin, Asian, and African Beauty. Yeah, that’s their name. And they’re based on a real-life model search. More awkward cutscenes, but now for 90 minutes worth of family fun.

What? You say there’s a remote-controlled Metal Gear in the game? Okay, the game rocks now.

The Haiku
I will sit and watch
as my brother tears up
with great robot force.

6 years and counting.

(Oh yeah. And don’t eat your Wii.)

The big question: are these used just at San Tan because it’s new or are these songs throughout Harkinses everywhere? Crazy to think about.

Also, if you want to see what I taught a kid about ActionScript, check out his game. (Great, more GarageBand!)

The Haiku
It is tough to find
Good songs to use, like right now
when default won’t pass

1. I have decided that if I have to charge in for a covert aerial assault, instead of riding broomsticks I would much rather fly in the claws of a griffin, silent through the night until the last minute when the sound of my blade severing helmet rings out.
2. Reepicheep has the best theme song so far for any character this year (yes, I know Friday that will change with Crystal Skulls and such, but give a mouse his time to shine). (Enemy soldiers disappearing into the grass by a rampaging mouse? Yes, awesome.)
3. Saw a trailer for Beverly Hills Chihuahua. Will you watch it just to say you did? And Baghead? Tom and I did that video back during our Sitcom Pilot.
4. Apple making a videogame console inside Apple TV?
   
5. Improv Everywhere turned a Little League into a Big League game, complete with Jumbotron. I await a Brooklyn Bridge explanation and find myself browsing for Cloverfield clues. (I still think it’s Mega Telephone.)
6. My wife predicted Archuleta from the start. We’ll see tomorrow night’s results show and check her February 19 foresight.
7. Bubbles at a wedding:
   
8. 
9. Nerf clips. Because Nerf clips mean that there’s a group of groomsmen loose in a church at 1am listening to techno and playing real-life FPS with automatic dart fire.
   
   
   Remnants of just one gun’s Nerf apocalypse.
10. My pants:
    
    (I also love Amp Tall Boy (and irony) after a long day at work followed by a long rehearsal in the sun.)
11. This hat:
    
12. My family:
    
13. My trained killer pinstripe and daisies outfit:
    
14. Ballet recitals:
    

The Haiku
People scream for pop
and the young crying singers -
give me knightly mice

While you wait for photos from the wedding and the Nerf Apocalypse, I give you a fun web treat: Photoshop Disasters. It’s almost like Worth1000, except for not on purpose.

And did you see Edd Hifeng, the Second Life AI experiment?

Here is video of him acting as a security guard, passing an inference test.

The Haiku
I gain confidence
in my art skills when I see
lazy Photoshop

Teddi’s now married. Woo. Talk later.

Update 5-17 – A little bit more info

The Haiku
I will watch and wait
frozen like Grand Central guys
until he updates.

While cleaning house to get ready for the wedding, I was listening to a Stanford lecture by Ramesh Johari about the actual architecture/structure of the Internet and if it’s a sustainable model for greater use.

The big question? Packet or switch to transfer information. It’s actually interesting, I swear.

The Haiku
Don’t take for granted
the power to wash your hands
in a nice, bright sink

(Here’s the church website.)

Man Dressed as Darth Vader Spared Jail for Attack on Founder of Britain’s Jedi Church

Tuesday , May 13, 2008
HOLYHEAD, Wales —

A man who dressed up as Darth Vader, wearing a black garbage bag for a cape, and assaulted the founders of Britain’s first Jedi church was given a suspended sentence Tuesday.

Arwel Wynne Hughes, 27, attacked Jedi church founder Barney Jones — a.k.a. Master Jonba Hehol — with a metal crutch, hitting him on the head, prosecutors told Holyhead Magistrates’ Court. He also whacked Jones’ 18-year-old cousin, Michael Jones — or Master Mormi Hehol — bruising his thigh, in the March 25 incident.

Unfortunately for Hughes, the incident was recorded on a video camera that the cousins had set up to film themselves in a light saber battle.

“Darth Vader! Jedis!” Hughes shouted as he approached.

Hughes claimed he couldn’t remember the incident, having drunk the best part of a 2 1/2-gallon box of wine beforehand.

“He knows his behavior was wrong and didn’t want it to happen but he has no recollection of it,” said Hughes’ lawyer, Frances Jones.

District Judge Andrew Shaw sentenced Hughes to two months in jail but suspended the sentence for one year. He also ordered Hughes to pay $195 to each of his victims and $117 in court costs.

Barney Jones, his brother Daniel and cousin Michael set up the Church of Jediism, Anglesey order, last year. It claims about 30 members.

Jedi is the faith followed by some of the central characters in the “Star Wars” films. In the 2001 United Kingdom census, 390,000 — 0.7 percent of the population — listed Jedi as their religion.

Wow. Just, wow. Lasso privileges need to be revoked.

The Haiku
Scarier than Jaws
and rabid ninja werewolves
are tights and lassos

Darth Maul is Storm Shadow. George Lucas is rolling in his carbonite-encrusted grave. (That is a droid, right, on the Episode III Making Of?)

Today I was thinking…When I ponder the words Internet Christianity, I shudder. I think of forums where people argue about what they hate or how they know every detail of the universe, or I’m reminded of being able to be ordained easier than joining a Usenet, or at the very least images of kittens “hangin’ in there”/flapping doves clip art.

Consider me flipping inspired.

But here are some cool tech things that I find can help a spiritual walk:

1. We have friends who went with their kids to a semi-undisclosed Middle Eastern country as emissaries. The kids are kinda lonely. So today we hooked up some Skype, put the MacBook on top of a TV, and I teared up as kids re-connected with friends across oceans. I hadn’t messed with Skype before, but the video is pretty good (much better than Yahoo or Messenger).
2. The Bible Podcast. Still rockin’ strong.
3. Here’s the phone obsession – I’ve been loving having books on my phone. I found a Bible that is completely searchable and bookmarkable. Depending on the phone, you may need to download it in parts. My Nokia 5300 has a 1MB limit to Java applications and as one single file it’s 1.4MB.

The Haiku
Wide information
Gutenberg is, like, “What the?”
And the press goes on

The biggest resource that I use is the WordPress Plugin directory (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/)

Even though these are user submitted (what on the Internet isn’t these days? [end crotchety nostalgia]), they’re pretty thoroughly reviewed.

A must is wp-cache. That speeds up your page load times. (You can tell when I’ve emptied the cache because the pages take a little bit longer to load.)

The Math Comment Spam plugin is also necessary. When I re-did some of the files on the site recently, my e-mail started filling up with lots of blargh. I think it works better than the captchas because I don’t have to cross my eyes to see if letters are capitalized or not.

WordPress 2.5.1 is actually pretty sweet. My brother-in-law is setting up a WordPress for our pastor at church. We were joking about how Jeremy would not know the difference between the older versions because this version is where he starts. It’s just like how I was amazed at the jump between Tiger and Leopard (or, more appropriately, MS-DOS 5.0 to Windows 3.1) but other people buying new MacBooks only know Leopard, with its Spaces and Time Machine goodness.

If you’re using your own host server, you can set up the plugins. I think that if you have one on wordpress.org, it’s like blogspot or typepad and you don’t have full access to certain folders.

I think it’s a great idea for you to set up your own blog. (I’m envisioning the Scott Kurtz/Gabe and Tycho linkbacks.)

Any questions and I’d love to add any insight.

But the big question: What’s up with Wipeout? Is it a rip-off of MXC?

Instead of going the traditional way, they are supposedly responding to the comments on the IGN site to find ways to improve their Crystal Chronicles game (which looks more chocobo/monkey-tailed thief and less Golbez/Meteo).

vs.
(This is a different Zidane, by the way.)

We’ll see how the comments go. It’s kinda like what Peter Jackson and J.J. Abrams have forced upon them daily, what with their Hobbitses and Sylar-Spocks.

The Haiku
Do you really want
To incorporate comments
For nude chocobos?

Seriously, Slade, nice posting. And I, too, use Khan as a definition of the classy antagonist. Not necessarily evil, but sure causing complications.

But I never knew how much I was obsessed with Tony Jay until Devin pointed him out. Magneto in X-Men Legends? Teen Titans? Spider-Man? The Tick? And WoW, Treasure Planet, and a whole bunch of other famous narrations? This guy may actually rank up next to James Earl Jones for me. The funniest part was ReBoot (not counting his Rugrats/Ms. Spider days). I hadn’t thought of that show for so long but I totally enjoyed it. Megabyte! To quote Slade – “Oh noezorz!” (He even unites with your TMNT fans, my friends.)

You entertain me.

I reward you all with some cool stuff. Have you seen Books in my Phone yet? I had tried text files on my Nokia but the big thing was when I came back to the file I had to scroll through it to get to where I last was.

Not anymore.

Books in my Phone uses a Java program to remember where I was reading. So, if you’re like me, you can switch between Sherlock, the Virginian (blame Firefly and its burnt land/boiled seas), and some Lessig essays.

Just like Michael Stackpole trying out some technology to help readers, Neil Gaiman was the one that started this search by mentioning Doctorow.
It’s funny to think that in the next decade silent reading may involve every 8th grader busting out their phones/mobile devices. Have fun monitoring that.

Oh, wait. I’ll have to.

D’oh.

(Actually, check out this familiar site for a cool wrap-up to a modern history unit.)

I’m thinking that if I’m going to pursue worldly wealth, why not baboons? Show those off at my lecture series. Maybe this is him trying out everything under the sun that lead to the writing of Ecclesiastes.

12 The sleep of a laborer is sweet,
whether he eats little or much,
but the abundance of a rich man
permits him no sleep.

13 I have seen a grievous evil under the sun:
wealth hoarded to the harm of its owner,

14 or wealth lost through some misfortune,
so that when he has a son
there is nothing left for him.

15 Naked a man comes from his mother’s womb,
and as he comes, so he departs.
He takes nothing from his labor
that he can carry in his hand.

16 This too is a grievous evil:
As a man comes, so he departs,
and what does he gain,
since he toils for the wind?

from Ecclesiastes 5

It’s like, “I strive after baboon parades, but it was all a chasing after the wind.” How similar are some of our pursuits?

Teen Challenge International visited with me today. I should probably use my baboon funding and redirect it towards getting some tables and chairs donated to them. (For my own later reference the number is 602-271-4081.)

The Haiku
I have determined
that when it’s rock origins
no one has a clue

I was driving home today and thinking, “What kind of band starts out an album with a minute worth of stomping and clapping in a gym?” Well, the same that declared they were princes of the universe and how obsessed they were with bicycles.

But why did Queen write “We Will Rock You”? When it was first released in 1977 it was the opening track for the album News of the World. In the UK it was the flipside from “We are the Champions”. They recorded it by dubbing themselves over and over again, staggering the claps to make it sound like many people were involved. When it hit the U.S., many radio stations played them back to back and a tradition was started. (Here they are in 1985 at Live Aid.) (And here it is in 1986, but performed in a giant cape. (’86 was a big cape year))

But what does it mean?

Maybe I should ask Dr. Brian May on his site.

Here’s one take from a fan:

I was at the very first public performance of this song in 1976. Yews, I said 1976.

This song was commissioned for the defunct NASL San Jose Earthquakes as a theme song for the struggling professional soccer team. In a short pre-game concert (I was there for the game, I had won tickets from my youth soccer league) Queen played the song. The Earthquakes owned the rights to the song for one year, after that Queen was free to present it to the world as their work.

San Jose Earthquakes also went as the Golden Bay Earthquakes. But searching for them led to the Oakland Stompers using “We Will Rock You”. (San Jose used, appropriately, “Do you know the way to San Jose?” Makes you want to play soccer, right?)(I’m just surprised that there’s a soccer forum [insert Ugly American joke].)

But what do we all want to see? You got it.

Here’s some trivia that jumped out in my research from the album Jazz:

As publicity for the forthcoming single – Bicycle Race – the band hired Wimbledon Stadium and fifty naked girls had their own Bicycle Race. The original cover of the single featured the naked rear of one of the girls, but due to public outcry in some countries, panties had to be drawn on! More touring in the USA and Canada began in October. November 10th saw the release of JAZZ. The sleeve was packaged to contain a fold out poster of the naked bike race, but the Americans banned it from the actual sleeve and instead inserted an application form so fans could send away for it! The launch party for Jazz was hold in New Orleans, and has since gone down in history.

from lunchbox

Here’s what the Wikipedia monkeys have found about where the song has been used in pop culture:

A version of the song was performed by Britney Spears, Pink, Beyoncé Knowles in a Pepsi-Cola TV advertisement is shown in the some countries like United Kingdom, Finland, Brazil, Malaysia, Romania, Philippines, India, Mexico, and Latin America. The producer of this version was Brian May. The scenario was the Collosseum in ancient Rome; Pink, Beyoncé and Britney were female gladiators who defeated the emperor – played by Enrique Iglesias – by singing “We Will Rock You” together with the audience. Brian May and Roger Taylor both make guest appearances in the ad.
This song was used as a promotional song for The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course. It was sung as “He will, He will, Croc you!”
One of the more inventive, if whimsical, applications of “We Will Rock You” comes in the film A Knight’s Tale (2001). Featured as the soundtrack of the opening sequence of this 21st century Chaucerian tale, medieval English peasants (actually Czech extras) are seen stomping and clapping in the bleachers of a jousting match. This film’s soundtrack relies heavily upon 1970s rock classics, especially to indulge in its favorite delight of anachronistic play between modern and medieval times.
The Detroit Pistons used the song as their theme during the Bad Boys era of the late 1980s and early 1990s. The current Pistons also play it at their home games, especially since their city gained popularity through the film Detroit Rock City.
Chicago White Sox organist Nancy Faust includes it in her playlist, and the fans put a twist on the chant: “We will, we will, SOX YOU!”
Blondie’s song “Good Boys” (2003) contains lyrics that are a modified quote from “We Will Rock You” sung in a rap style reminiscent of the original.
This song was used as the official song of football (soccer) game Winning Eleven 5, also known as Pro Evolution Soccer 2 in Europe.
Rapper Eminem has sampled the track twice on The Eminem Show’s “‘Till I Collapse” and Encore’s “Puke.”
Rappers Chamillionaire and Lil Wayne sampled the song’s well known ‘boom, boom, clap’ for their own song, “Rock Star”, found on Chamillionaire’s album, Ultimate Victory
In an episode of Cheers, bar patrons spontaneously stomped floorboards and broke out with the song. This clip has been played at sporting events to get the crowd doing it and is usually followed by the actual song. This has been done at Texas Rangers games, as well as others.
In an episode of Friends, Ross Geller recorded the audio message of the answering machine using this song, but changing the lyrics to “We will, we will, call you back”.
In an episode of Full House, while Rebecca Donaldson was in labour and doing her breathing exercises, Danny Tanner (who was with her) began singing “We Will, we will, rock you” to the beat of her breathing.
This song was used as the promotional song for The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas movie.
In a Taco Bell commercial with a crunchy taco, three men bang their elbows on the table and bite their tacos to the tune of “We Will Rock You”, then say, “We will, we will” and a woman says “Stop doing that!” Later, they say, “You’ve got cheese on your face, you big disgrace!”
In the 1994 movie D2: The Mighty Ducks, during a montage of a hockey game the audience cheers “We Will Quack You” as the Mighty Ducks go onto victory. This is followed several minutes later in the credits with the Ducks singing “We Are the Champions” around a campfire.
The song was used in the TV show Gladiators.
In the Drake and Josh episode “The Storm”, the guests in Drake’s house sing the song as entertainment when the electricity goes out.
In the film The Recruit, Colin Farrell sings the opening verse of the song during a card game.
It was used by Homer the long running animated series The Simpsons in the episode “Please Homer, Don’t Hammer ‘Em…”.
In the Tour Generacion RBD the Mexican group uses the beat of it to introduce their band singing “Yo si soy Rebelde” instead and adding their popular “Yo digo R tu dices BD” to it.
The song was also used in the senatorial political TV ad of Team Unity in the Philippines.
We Will Rock You is also the title of the musical performed in the Dominion Theatre in London. It was written by Ben Elton and Queen.
“We Will Rock You” is the first track on the compilation album VH1 Rocks.
In the video game Final Fantasy XII, there is an earth elemental attack called “Rock You”. This was confirmed by director Yasumi Matsuno to be a reference to the song in an interview at E³ 2006. [1]
In the manga and anime Cromartie High School there is a chapter/episode named “Rock You”. In the chapter/episode, the main character meets a man who looks like Freddie Mercury. So he names him Freddie.
A variation was used by Domino’s Pizza during the mid-1990s as “Gotta be, gotta be…Domino’s”. When the chain introduced buffalo wings in 1994, the words “buffalo wings” were added after Domino’s.
During the MST3K episode “Final Sacrifice”, Crow and Tom Servo sing along with drums on the film soundtrack, adding their own lyrics about the main character in the film- “We will, we will Rowsdower!”

The Haiku(s)
8:30 at night
Peaceful with the gliding gears
And a straining seat

Six foot 9 is not
Customized for bike riding
The pavement scrapes shoes

The Haiku
Appreciation
of the Sunday school teachers -
complete with white pants

I gave Jeremy the option to not have it online, but this is mainly for Peter’s benefit. (But I’m sure other people might enjoy it.)

Here’s some footage from the Disco King (minus the decimal performance scores) Dance Competition:
Double Trouble 1
Double Trouble 2
Monsieur Music
(from my phone)

Here’s the movie trivia list:

70’s Movie Trivia
1. John Travolta took the dance floor in the movie not called “Stayin’ Alive”.
The price of white polyester and multi-colored floors increased exponentially.

2. Philadelphia has a statue of this fictional character striking a victory pose.
Cheese steaks were added later.

3. In this movie, Marlon Brando made an offer you couldn’t refuse.
Do your Sunday school kids know you watch these movies? ☺

4. In a decade of memorable soundtracks, no one seems to remember the words to this
movie’s title song of “Suicide is Painless”.
Who knew the Korean War could be so hilarious?

5. Opie went through his teenage years and Harrison Ford played a drag-racing cowboy in
this definition of Americana.
(…before all the tagging began…)

6. Sir Alec Guiness was one of the first actors to forego a huge salary in exchange for a
percentage of this movie’s profits.
It made filming in Tunisia worth it.

7. British sketch comedy became a full-length movie and took the hearts of nerds
everywhere. It’s merely a flesh wound!

8. This movie beat out Star Wars as Best Picture at the Academy Awards.
If I had been born yet, I would’ve wept.

9. Sigourney Weaver was the last, sole survivor in this movie about an intergalactic
stomachache. In space, no one can hear you overact.

10. Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman uncover stolen tapes.
Hoffman didn’t care anymore that Redford had stood up Mrs. Robinson.

11. Roy Scheider defended Amity Island from a giant fish in this film.
We’re gonna need a bigger boat.

12. Barbra Streisand plays a Marxist, Robert Redford writes sitcoms and they both argue
with each other for 118 minutes in this film about how they can’t live up to each other’s
expectations. It was the feel-good movie of 1973.

13. Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel’s character from the 1930′s finally made it to the big
screen. Speeding bullet, my foot!

14. Bruce Lee took on Chuck Norris in this Chinese crossover hit.
The lack of shirts disturbs me…

15. Richard Dreyfus built a tower of mashed potatoes.
This means something…

Bonus:
What is the total number of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas movies mentioned here?

My daughter was pretty tired before the party even began:

Maybe you’ve read the story about James Buck getting arrested for reporting an anti-government protest in Egypt. He tweeted the one word message as he was being questioned by Egyptian officials.

Buck finally got out, but his translator Maree is still reported missing. Was theirs a solidarity-friendly decision to be free while his friend disappeared? Would the Egyptians split them anyways?

Disseminating information is cool, sorta. Do we really need to know that two old people had an affair? Even if it’s Barbara Walters and a senator?

I think this deserves a new tag.
(I weep for the Internets.)

I knew about Alien Ant Farm and Smooth Criminal but no one told me of the Fallout Boy cover of “Beat It” – out of garbage bags?
I must admit that after Rush Hour I have been a fan of this song.

The Haiku
Information Age –
Why do we care of Britney
But not Mugabe?

The Haiku
Like grass on the wind
are our swift lives and the cost
of technology

(This puts it into context.)

The Haikus(s)
Amnon and Tamar
Leaves a desolate woman
And two years revenge

Field as signal fire
A son’s fake humility
Father and son chase

“Our lives are like water spilled out on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again.” 2 Samuel 14:14
Caught my attention when thinking about relating to family.

(For nerdy time travel, try here.)

As a reference point, here’s what I listen to to get in a remodeling mood.

Letterbox of just my eyes: “I hate mildew.”

Sink

Front door (don’t ask)

But I will distract you with a link to entertain my wife.

Kit Kittredge, American Girl. Once a doll, now a movie. Oh joy.

The Haiku
Devin is aware
of what evil lurks outside
that fears the shinai

I think Cloak and Dagger may have injected me with the MGH. Here’s what’s really fun. My foot didn’t fit on the X-rays. The pictures look like I have no tips to my toes. To get a better angle, the lab tech set up the X-ray shot at a weird perspective. The lab tech hid behind a wall, leaving me on the platform, while she clicked the trigger.

If I can suddenly walk through walls or attract metal objects to my foot, it’s not my fault.

The Haiku
Mild-mannered goofball
Gets sudden dose of X-Rays
Lab tech ran and hid

2. Flint Marco and Alex O’Hirn are friends and thugs in Spectacular Spider-Man. Flint…Sand? O’Hirn….Rhino? It’s funny the liberties that they took with the series. Rhino was originally named Aleksei Sytsevich in the comics. He was one of those super-soldier types. (But, then again, who wasn’t at one time or another?) Robbing banks vs. Capture Col. Jameson for national secrets

The Haiku
Those super-soldiers
wacky with motivation -
Bank? Secret? Same diff.

So now, loyal readers, you have two ways to read the ravings of a barbarian. You can use the categories (located at the top of each post, in a sidebar widget, or in your overhead compartment in case of a drop in cabin pressure) to view chronologically. You can use the series (also in widget form) to view them, well, I guess chronologically, but now it starts with entry 1.

The current series are:

1. Kraka’s Holocam
2. Vanguard

I’ve re-envisioned “Vanguard”. At first it was going to be short chapters in straight-up narrative form.

But on Friday I read I Heart You, You Haunt Me in one day. Verse books are very popular, and this one deserves to be, as well. But it hit me that there are some guys who like to read verse books but there’s not many out there for guys.

Now, you can’t have a book called “Vanguard” and have it be about dating troubles at the mall (but that may be a subplot). I thought, you know what? Let’s see this as an epic poem. The Haiku Project has helped me think in poetry, and as the Ohm would say, “Code is poetry”, so I thought, “Meh. Why not?”

Part of the idea sparked from the fun that I had writing scavenger hunt cards for my sister-in-law’s bachelorette party. (Which, by the way, was in San Francisco while I was at home.)
Here’s an excerpt from a challenge card:

Times grew tough one year in the castle
And carriage payments became quite a hassle
Perform on the streets to put tips in the hat
(I’m sorry I didn’t quite mean it like that)

I cracked myself up the entire time. And it flowed pretty easily late at night. (Picture a nice card with Disney font.) Writing mini-chapters for a book as a poem sounds like a fun challenge.

The Haiku
Haikus for a year
has caused my brain damage, yet
fear what comes next year.

Supportive

Helpful

Welcoming

Skilled

Peaceful

Of course, here’s the rebuttal:

Fair, objective coverage.

What? They lost the 16 point lead in double overtime?
Blech. Gotta love a Suns/Spurs playoff series.

With my brother in California this weekend, I thought I’d help him out.

The Haiku
For being grown men
Millionaire ball players cry
and flop like Shamu

Ninja Run Up Raja

No Comment

After Devin made myself and my wife crack up, I felt like his comment deserved its own post and illustration.

The Haiku
It never made sense
what my momma used to say
until the Small Moon

I love Ben Stein. I remember in college I would try to win his money and I loved every minute of it. Man, he even makes itchy, watery eyes hilarious. But if I learned anything from Jimmy Kimmel, Ben’s smart. Check out fora.tv with the cool chapter markers to navigate through Ben speaking at the Commonwealth Club about all sorts of stuff. (If you don’t want to sit in on an economics and education lecture, watch America’s Most Smartest Model for more Ben wit.)

With Expelled, I love that Ben Stein’s not some crazy ranter but actually presents himself, well, intelligently.

I just now have to figure out when to watch the movie. Not necessarily one that a four year-old will find captivating.

On the topic of captivating, the Gallagher Girls are week 14 on the Times bestsellers. Woo! (And I’m excited for Ally’s cat burglar series.)

Have you checked out the new Photoshop for sound, DNA? Direct Note Access lets you talking not just one section of music but actually the specific notes/frequencies.

Have you seen the Get Smart Shoe Phone Contest? Very similar to the Google Mail one.

The Haiku
So I asked myself
The most important question:
What can’t Ben Stein do?

Shaun Tan is a fan of strangers in a strange land, and The Arrival follows his trend.

The story of an immigrant man leaving his family behind to pave the way for them in the land of opportunity, there is absolutely no dialogue. It relies solely on symbolism and inferences.

For an old Language Arts teacher? Yeah, pretty cool.

Finishing up the labels today for standardized testing, I found the following picture hilarious:

It’s a great read and is good for a quick pace. Once the Language Arts teachers are done with it I’ll need to sit down and figure out just where those Giants are from. (Is it a Holocaust reference?)

The permanent links on his site are a little weird, so I quote a big chunk of his description knowing that I link back to the source.

The following is an extract from an article written for Viewpoint Magazine http://extranet.edfac.unimelb.edu.au/LLAE/viewpoint/, describing some of the ideas and process behind this book.

Looking over much of my previous work as an illustrator and writer, such as The Rabbits (about colonisation), The Lost Thing (about a creature lost in a strange city) or The Red Tree (a girl wandering through shifting dreamscapes), I realise that I have a recurring interest in notions of ‘belonging’, particularly the finding or losing of it. Whether this has anything to do with my own life, I’m not sure, it seems to be more of a subconscious than conscious concern. One contributing experience may have been that of growing up in Perth, one of the most isolated cities in the world, sandwiched between a vast desert and a vaster ocean. More specifically, my parents pegged a spot in a freshly minted northern suburb that was quite devoid of any clear cultural identity or history. A vague awareness of Aboriginal displacement (which later sharpened into focus with a project like The Rabbits) only further troubled any sense of a connection to a ‘homeland’ in this universe of bulldozed ‘tabula rasa’ coastal dunes, and fast-tracked, walled-in housing estates.

Being a half-Chinese at a time a place when this was fairly unusual may have compounded this, as I was constantly being asked ‘where are you from?’ to which my response of ‘here’ only prompted a deeper inquiry, ‘where do your parents come from?’ At least this was far more positive attention than the occasional low-level racism I experienced as a child, and which I also noticed directed either overtly or surreptitiously at my Chinese father from time to time. Growing up I did have a vague sense of separateness, an unclear notion of identity or detachment from roots, on top of that traditionally contested concept of what it is to be ‘Australian’, or worse, ‘un-Australian’ (whatever that might mean).

Beyond any personal issues, though, I think that the ‘problem’ of belonging is perhaps more of a basic existential question that everybody deals with from time to time, if not on a regular basis. It especially rises to the surface when things ‘go wrong’ with our usual lives, when something challenges our comfortable reality or defies our expectations – which is typically the moment when a good story begins, so good fuel for fiction. We often find ourselves in new realities – a new school, job, relationship or country, any of which demand some reinvention of ‘belonging’.

This was uppermost in my mind during the long period of work on The Arrival, a book which deals with the theme of migrant experience. Given my preoccupation with ‘strangers in strange lands’, this was an obvious subject to tackle, a story about somebody leaving their home to find a new life in an unseen country, where even the most basic details of ordinary life are strange, confronting or confusing – not to mention beyond the grasp of language. It’s a scenario I had been thinking about for a number of years before it crystallised into some kind of narrative form.

The book had no single source of inspiration, but rather represents the convergence of several ideas. I had been thinking at one stage about the somewhat invisible history of the Chinese in Western Australia, particularly in an area of South Perth once used as vast market gardens a century ago, which is now grassed parkland. I did a little research into who these people were and how they related to the Anglo-Australian community around them, and came to be particularly motivated by one short story, ‘Wong Chu and The Queen’s Letterbox’ by the West Australian writer T.A.G. Hungerford, which draws on the author’s childhood memories of a strange, segregated group of misunderstood men, and considers their tragic isolation from families back in China.

Drawing on more immediate sources, my father came to Australia from Malaysia in 1960 to study architecture, where he met my mother in who was then working in a store that supplied technical pens (hence my existence some time later – I have a special appreciation for technical pens). Dad’s stories are sketchy, and usually focus on specific details, as is the way of most anecdotes – the unpalatable food, too cold or too hot weather, amusing misunderstandings, difficult isolation, odd student jobs and so on. In researching a variety of other migrant stories, beginning with post-war Australia and then broadening out to periods of mass-migration to the US around 1900, it was the day to day details that seemed most telling and suggested some common, universal human experiences. I was reminded that migration is a fundamental part of human history, both in the distant and recent past. On gathering further anecdotes of overseas-born friends – and my partner who comes from Finland – as well as looking at old photographs and documents, I became aware of the many common problems faced by all migrants, regardless of nationality and destination: grappling with language difficulties, home-sickness, poverty, a loss of social status and recognisable qualifications, not to mention the separation from family.

In seeking to re-imagine such circumstances (of which I have no first-hand experience) my original idea for a fairly conventional picture book developed into a quite different kind of structure. It seemed that a longer, more fragmented visual sequence without any words would best captured a certain feeling of uncertainty and discovery I absorbed from my research. I was also struck with the idea of borrowing the ‘language’ of old pictorial archives and family photo albums I’d been looking at, which have both a documentary clarity and an enigmatic, sepia-toned silence. It occurred to me that photo albums are really just another kind of picture book that everybody makes and reads, a series of chronological images illustrating the story of someone’s life. They work by inspiring memory and urging us to fill in the silent gaps, animating them with the addition of our own storyline.

In ‘The Arrival’, the absence of any written description also plants the reader more firmly in the shoes of an immigrant character. There is no guidance as to how the images might be interpreted, and we must ourselves search for meaning and seek familiarity in a world where such things are either scarce or concealed. Words have a remarkable magnetic pull on our attention, and how we interpret attendant images: in their absence, an image can often have more conceptual space around it, and invite a more lingering attention from a reader who might otherwise reach for the nearest convenient caption, and let that rule their imagination.

I was particularly impressed by Raymond Briggs’ The Snowman, having come across it for the first time while thinking about my migrant story. In silent pencil drawings, Briggs describes a boy building a snowman which then comes to life, and is introduced to the magical indoor world of light-switches, running water, refrigeration, clothing and so on; the snowman in turn introduces the boy to the night-time world of snow, air and flight. The parallels between this situation and my own gestating project were very strong, so I could not help reading the silent snowman and small boy as ‘temporary migrants’, discovering the ordinary miracles of each other’s country in a modest, enchanting fashion. It also confirmed the power of the silent narrative, not only in removing the distraction of words, but slowing down to reader so that they might mediate on each small object and action, as well as reflect in many different ways on the story as a whole.

Of course, this came at some expense, as words are wonderfully convenient conveyors of ideas. In their absence, even describing the simplest of actions, like someone packing a suitcase, buying a ticket, cooking a meal or asking for work threatened to become a very complicated, laborious and potentially slippery exercise in drawing. I had to find a way of carrying this kind of narrative that was practical, clear and visually economical.

Unwittingly, I had found myself working on a graphic novel rather than a picture book. There is not a great difference between the two, but in a graphic novel there is perhaps far more emphasis on continuity between multiple frames, actually closer in many ways to film-making than book illustration. I have never been a great reader of comics (having come at illustration as a painter) so much of my research was redirected to a study of different kinds of comics and graphic novels. What shapes are the panels? How many should be on a page? What is the best way to cut from one moment to the next? How is the pace of the narrative controlled, especially when there are no words? A useful reference was Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud, which details many aspects of ‘sequential art’ in a way that is both theoretical and practical, not least because it’s a textbook written as a comic – and very cleverly done. I noticed also that many Japanese comics (manga) use large tracts of silent narrative, and exploit a sense of visual timing that is slightly different from Western comics, which I found very instructive. Simultaneously, I had been working in some capacity as an animation director recently with a studio in London, adapting The Lost Thing as a short film (where much of the narrative is silent) and closely studying to the techniques used by storyboard artists and editors in that industry. All of these pieces of ‘research’ informed the style and structure of the book over several full-length revisions.

The actual process of then producing the final images came to be more like film-making than conventional illustration. Realising the importance of consistency over multiple panels, coupled with a stylistic interest in early photographs, I physically constructed some basic ‘sets’ using bits of wood and fridge-box cardboard, furniture and household objects. These became simple models for drawn structures in the book, anything from towering buildings to breakfast tables. With the right lighting, and some helpful friends acting out the roles of characters plotted in rough drawings, I was able to video or photograph compositions and sequences of action that seemed to approximate each scene. Selecting still images, I played with these by digitally, distorting, adding and subtracting, drawing over the top of them, and testing various sequences to see how they could be ‘read’. These became the compositional references for finished drawings that were produced by a more old-fashioned method – graphite pencil on cartridge paper. For each page of up to twelve images, the whole process took about a week… not including any rejects, of which there were several.

Much of the difficulty involved combining realistic reference images of people and objects into a wholly imaginary world, as this was always my central concept. In order to best understand what it is like to travel to a new country, I wanted to create a fictional place equally unfamiliar to readers of any age or background (including myself). This of course is where my penchant for ‘strange lands’ took flight, as I had some early notions of a place where birds are merely ‘bird-like’ and trees ‘tree-like’; where people dress strangely, apartment fixtures are confounding and ordinary street activities are very peculiar. This is what I imagine it must be like for many immigrants, a condition ideally examined through illustration, where every detail can be hand-drawn.

That said, imaginary worlds should never be ‘pure fantasy’, and without a concrete ring of truth, they can easily cripple the reader’s suspended disbelief, or simply confuse them too much. I’m always interested in striking the right balance between everyday objects, animals and people, and their much more fanciful alternatives. In the case of ‘The Arrival’, I drew heavily my own memories of travelling to foreign countries, that feeling of having basic but imprecise notions of things around me, an awareness of environments saturated with hidden meanings: all very strange yet utterly convincing. In my own nameless country, peculiar creatures emerge from pots and bowls, floating lights drift inquisitively along streets, doors and cupboards conceal their contents, and all around are notices that beckon, invite or warn in loud, indecipherable alphabets. These are all equivalents to some moments I’ve experienced as a traveller, where even simple acts of understanding are challenging.

One of my main sources for visual reference was New York in the early 1900s, a great hub of mass-migration for Europeans. A lot of my ‘inspirational images’ blu-tacked to the walls of my studio were old photographs of immigrant processing at Ellis Island, visual notes that provided underlying concepts, mood and atmosphere behind many scenes that appear in the book. Other images I collected depicted street scenes in European, Asian and Middle-Eastern cities, old-fashioned vehicles, random plants and animals, shopfront signs and posters, apartment interiors, photos of people working, eating, talking and playing, all of them chosen as much for their ordinariness as their possible strangeness. Elements in my drawings evolved gradually from these fairly simple origins. A colossal sculpture in the middle of a city harbour, the first strange sight that greets arriving migrants, suggests some sisterhood with the Statue of Liberty. A scene of a immigrants travelling in a cloud of white balloons was inspired by pictures of migrants boarding trains as well as the night-time spawning of coral polyps, two ideas associated by common underlying themes – dispersal and regeneration.

Even the most imaginary phenomena in the book are intended to carry some metaphorical weight, even though they don’t refer to specific things, and may be hard to fully explain. One of the images I had been thinking about for years involved a scene of rotting tenement buildings, over which are ‘swimming’ some kind of huge black serpents. I realised that these could be read a number of ways: literally, as an infestation of monsters, or more figuratively, as some kind of oppressive threat. And even then it is open to the individual reader to decide whether this might be political, economic, personal or something else, depending on what ideas or feelings the picture may inspire.

I am rarely interested in symbolic meanings, where one thing ‘stands for’ something else, because this dissolves the power of fiction to be reinterpreted. I’m more attracted to a kind of intuitive resonance or poetry we can enjoy when looking at pictures, and ‘understanding’ what we see without necessarily being able to articulate it. One key character in my story is a creature that looks something like a walking tadpole, as big as a cat and intent on forming an uninvited friendship with the main protagonist. I have my own impressions as to what this is about, again something to do with learning about acceptance and belonging, but I would have a lot of trouble trying to express this fully in words. It seems to make much more sense as a series of silent pencil drawings.

I am often searching in each image for things that are odd enough to invite a high degree of personal interpretation, and still maintain a ring of truth. The experience of many immigrants actually draws an interesting parallel with the creative and critical way of looking I try to follow as an artist. There is a similar kind of search for meaning, sense and identity in an environment that can be alternately transparent and opaque, sensible and confounding, but always open to re-assessment. I would hope that beyond its immediate subject, any illustrated narrative might encourage its readers take a moment to look beyond the ‘ordinariness’ of their own circumstances, and consider it from a slightly different perspective. One of the great powers of storytelling is that invites us to walk in other people’s shoes for a while, but perhaps even more importantly, it invites us to contemplate our own shoes also. We might do well to think of ourselves as possible strangers in our own strange land. What conclusions we draw from this are unlikely to be easily summarised, all the more reason to think further on the connections between people and places, and what we might mean when we talk about ‘belonging’.

During AIMS today (ironically enough) I was browsing my incoming links when I saw that the admin of michaelstackpole.com had spent some time reading one of my articles. I guess by being fans and talking about his books he actually noticed. I would have written geeky stuff anyways, but now my favorite author is checking out my stuff?

!!!

Now to get him, the populator of Rogue Squadron, Corran Horn, the Jensaarai, and pretty much anything else cool about the Star Wars Expanded Universe, to visit my library…

The Haiku
It is worth the sit
To quietly proctor here
When authors visit

A post about how I finally turned on the house AC (realizing it was 85 when I got home) – are we becoming one of those blogs?

So, I know that Wired is a geek’s dream magazine of sorts, but as geekdom a la Chuck becomes trendier, will it make geeks more socially acceptable? Truly?

Here’s the big challenge: What if geeks that looked like the majority of geeks were actually used as models? (Instead of people that I think look like they’re from American Idol. Is it just me, or does the Video Game Geek in figure 3 look a lot like David Cook from this season?)

Here is my quick litmus test of geekiness:

1. Are they excited about Dr. Who streaming video, even more than Sarah Connor?
2. Are they friends with a munchkin rules lawyer?
3. Do they already know about Rogue Shadow being in LEGO form?
   
4. Would they probably get run over by an electric car?
5. And an addition: do they think it’s ridiculous that the government wants to intentionally make cars louder because of our gadget fixations?

My wife says that the big thing to check for in that Wired photo is to check for chiseled jaw or not.

The Haiku
Can they market us -
the antiestablishment -
with established looks?

I actually am not too horribly offended by trying to mainstream my people, but here’s the picture that I think they should have used (yes, still loving the Wacom):

By the way – have you seen the new video that Yahoo! Mail is using to explain chat and directions? Fun Lord of the Rings references. Here’s a screenshot.

If you haven’t seen iTunes U, there are some great college courses that have free podcasts.

Now PBS has teamed up with iTunes U for free, downloadable TV shows. Great stuff.

And I busted out my own college CD stuff tonight with my daughter. Moby’s Play has a good ratio of tracks to tracks I will actually listen to.

The Haiku(s)
Electromagnets
and proton/neutron hang outs
inspire crazy hair

There will be knowledge
prevailing over the ‘nets
but will we listen?

I’m getting used to it, now that I installed the drivers. Above is an example from day 1 (tonight). I smell some fun learning projects. (Keep in mind Booyor’s BLOGgh spawned from my Master’s degree where I needed a place to break web pages before I had to turn in assignments and capstones. Now it’s just a sick obsession.)

I know this will sound dumb, but it’s so much easier to draw. (Yeah, smack your forehead, but whatever.) With the pressure sensitivity I’m getting some cool non-pencil-scanning results. The kids (especially the manga-aspiring students of my club) will flip.

The Haiku
In a new body
limited by mouse – but now
I draw like fifth grade

Watching Back to the Future last night and number II tonight, I realize that there is a crazy (almost distracting) amount of foreshadowing and making fun of their own series.

One of Ally Carter’s biggest pet peeves is how people she meets say, “Oh! You’re an author? I have this book idea. It must be so easy and fun to write all day.” And yet…where’s their book? Not so easy, sucka! (Although Ally says it in a nicer tone of voice.)

I’ve been excited about the Haiku experiment. I’ve got some other Artsy stuff in the works, and I definitely dig Kraka’s Holocam (even if the stupid Chiss did short it out last adventure). I’m trying out Vanguard, a fun YA fiction (hopefully).

The Haiku
Maybe by blogging
I may be able to write
more than monster flicks

So, I had such an insane day yesterday, we thought it worthy of a blog post. As a point of reference, I stay at home with our two daughters (4 and almost-5-months). Some days we all get up early (6:30am) to take Dad to work. Here is a run-down of my Thursday:

6:00am: Both girls are awake. One is telling me it’s time to get dressed. The other is talking to herself in her crib. I should’ve realized it was going to be an off day…

7:00am: We drop Dad off at work. The 4 year-old asks me, “Mom, what does 3 plus 3 makes?” I show her how to count it on your fingers, and ask her to tell me. She answers, “Three.” Then she asks about 2 plus 2. She figures it out on her own this time. So, then I’m curious and I ask her about 2 plus 3. “Five” comes the answer from the back seat. More computation ensues as we drive down the freeways… Basically, as long as the numbers she’s adding are 5 or less, she’s adding perfectly.

7:30am-1:30pm: Lots of time spent in time out. Mostly, the 4 year-old… a couple of times: me.

8:30am: She asks me to get her scissors so she can cut some paper. I say no.

8:31am: She asks me to get her scissors so she can cut some paper. I say no.

8:32am: She asks me to get her scissors so she can cut some paper. I say no.

8:35am: She has gotten her step stool and has one knee on the stove. (The scissors are kept on the hood above the stove. They earned that spot after a self-inflicted hair style.) I say no, and send her to time-out.

8:40am: She asks me to get her scissors so she can cut some paper. I say no.

10:00am: The baby is asleep. The girl is playing by herself. I decide it’s time for a shower! While showering, the phone rings. I decide to let the answering machine get it.

10:20am: As I am drying off, my 4 year-old comes in and says, “Mom, the phone was ringing while you were in the shower. It was your friend.” I’m floored, “You answered the phone???? Who was it?” Girl: “I don’t know.” Me: “What did you say when you answered it? Girl: “Hello.” Me: “What did they say?” Girl: “Who is this?” Me: “And what did you say?” Girl: “The [last name].” Me: “What did they say?” Girl: “They’ll call you back.” I have decided it’s time to teach her how to answer the phone.

10:45am: “Mom, come see what I wrote on the computer.” Now, my daughter loves words, and she loves typing on the computer. Just last week, she showed me how she could open up Microsoft Word. When I cam out to look, the font was about 28-point and it was turquoise. Yep, she knows how to do that, too!

11:30am: I decide to clean off the table for lunch. Yep, I found the scissors and several pieces of cut paper on the table. At least my daughter owns up to her disobedience, but I still sent her to her room until lunch was ready… or so I had plan.

11:45am: I opened the fridge. I discovered the leftover bacon (uncooked, mind you) sitting on top of its ziploc bag on the floor of the fridge. I called the little girl from her bedroom, “Did you eat this bacon???!!?” “Yes.” I proceeded to tell her that it was not okay to eat bacon that hadn’t been cooked, that next time she wants a snack she should get some string cheese. Then I notice a folded up paper towel on one of the shelves. I opened it up to find a piece of bacon. I asked her if she had done this. She said, “Yes. I was full.” “How many pieces did you eat?” She thought about it… “Three.” MY CHILD ATE 3 PIECES OF UNCOOKED BACON!!!

12:00pm: I called my mom to find out if my child could DIE from eating uncooked bacon. Good news: she should be okay. I’m watching for parasite-like symptoms. Great.

Thankfully, aside from many more disobedient episodes, she was done with the experiments for the day. (Until she went to cooking lessons with Grandma… but that was supervised experimenting.)

Days like that are always good for a story. I’m very glad that they only come rarely. I fully expect her to grow about 3 inches next week, just to throw me for another loop. Finally, at the request of my Japanese poetry-loving husband, Booyor:

The Haiku
Phone calls and bacon
make for an interesting
day with my daughter

“The Force is my ally, sucka!”

Did you hear about the new compression codec technology put out by the University of Rochester’s Mark Bock, Xiaoxiao Dong and Mark Sterling. If you follow that link you’ll be able to compare an MP3 file and a WAV re-recording that sound very similar.

Here’s how it works:

The team then set about creating a virtual player for the virtual clarinet. They modeled how a clarinet player interacts with the instrument including the fingerings, the force of breath, and the pressure of the player’s lips to determine how they would affect the response of the virtual clarinet. Then, says Bocko, it’s a matter of letting the computer “listen” to a real clarinet performance to infer and record the various actions required to create a specific sound. The original sound is then reproduced by feeding the record of the player’s actions back into the computer model.

It is 1000 times more powerful than an MP3. A MIDI file is 32K of the 20 second clarinet solo. With this Bock way of doing it, it’s less than 1K. (And much smaller than the MP3 and WAV.) It’s reproducing the musician, not the music. Craziness.

Much props, Rochester! Even if you did treat Jane Eyre like pajunk.

On the topic of pajunk:

New Kids on the Block just announced a reunion tour, I guess. (Thirtysomething=musical midlife crisis)

Tune back in to the Today show on May 16 to hear the live concert from their new album (and some of their old stuff, too).

I remember being in 6th grade and my friend telling me that the way to pick up girls was to dance the NKOTB routines and sing in falsetto.

Nope, still a dork.

The Haiku
Using new codecs
scientists have captured sound
and boy bands weep

“We must follow standardized testing procedures so we don’t get jacked by ADE.”

I also was the griller today. I grilled up roughly 60+ hot dogs and 60+ hamburgers. I just smelled grease thinking about it. I also got in trouble (or at least rumors). I was drinking an IBC in one hand while flipping burgers with the other. Imagine a 6’9″ librarian wearing an apron. Many students walked by, most very encouraging (“Is there anything you don’t do?” “Those smell great. You must be a good cook.”) but I guess a couple of concerned students went to their teachers about my brown bottle. Even teachers walking in to the meeting did a double take. “This is how librarians roll.”

Another sentence probably never uttered before.

I’m totally digging my phone. I loaded up Great and Terrible Beauty by Libby Bray and I plan on loading Neil Gaiman’s Fragile Things. (The one where Sherlock Holmes tackles H.P. Lovecraft.)

I also want to take this time to point readers towards Michael Stackpole’s Talion Revenant. I was like, “Why the JPGs, man? For a Second-Lifer that’s not too tech savvy.”

Now that I have a phone that creates folders but doesn’t do PDFs, I get it.

I might even have to check out Stackpole’s Serial Fiction. I’m digging Kraka’s Holocam. I may need to do another project like this. (It’s crazy to think that the Year of Haikus is almost up. I feel like I can do them pretty fluidly. I should tackle finding where the turning point was for me…)

The Haiku
What will I type out -
a cinquain, a fluff sonnet?
The year finds a gap.

They re-did the entire authoring environment. Very nice that the dashboard has widgets and stats now and the design is as sleek as the rest of the fun.

The Haiku
A farmer found space junk
in Australia – now he flies
and spits a black goo.

The LOLcats were funny, but this strikes me as something I would do and that scares me:

I still remember making the Science club’s blood drive music video (yes, I was one of those students) and hardcoring it in the front yard of my friend’s house. I do remember a trombonist coming out of the dryer in the front yard. Very Hard Days Night.

What was the super awesome gift my wife gave me for an early birthday present? A Nokia that has a removable SD card and connects to the MacBook. And remember Zamzar? It converts to 3GP, which just happens to be how videos are displayed on the phone.

My wallpaper is straight from the computer. AND it plays .SWF files. Having not upgraded our phones (my wife got herself a RAZR) for four years, these are huge culture shocks.

I think I’ll go play Brawl with my daughter now.

The Haiku
Livin’ the good life
with paper and pencil last night
and tricked phones today.

Instead she got me
some uber tech that was cheap
renewing phone plans

The Haiku
How many of us
could take a loud alien
repeating wrong names?

Are they flipping serious?

Now, I’m not one to judge. I, being a fan of alternate universes. Do I think I’m a Jedi? Only when the doors open for me at the grocery store. But do I attempt to strike my students down with chain lightning? No. (Although I’m glad it’s just a fantasy power when a staff member called me up in real life to ask what my phone extension was.)

I do not post this to mock. I submit entries, entreating your opinion. Help me.

Evidence 1
Evidence 2
Evidence 3
Evidence 4

For reference, here’s a gardevoir:

The Question:
Are they flipping serious? Or are they the best role-players ever?

I have no clue.

The Haiku
Scan for sentience
Science Officer reports
“How fascinating.”

The Haiku
Yes, He is risen.
Jesus is no longer dead.
It’s just like he said.

Only if it’s to use as a bludgeoning device. I had a ThinkPad in college. Yes, we all made mistakes freshman year. I know I’m a MacBook snob, but I know there’s some other good laptops out there. But a ThinkPad? Words fail to describe.

From the depths of Sheol arises an accursed spawn, a Chimaera possessing the laugh of Fran Drescher, the facial hair of J. C. Chasez, and the Bitter Tears of a Hot Pocket left in the microwave all night.

Seriously. That laptop had the most annoying start-up beep all the way to the hard disk failure. It was cool to have a laptop to work late nights in the hallways of Cowden (instead of keeping Mike up as I typed Intro. to Ed. entries for my “scrapbook”-thing that were supposed to be a part of a daily journal. To be fair, the one night I decided to go to bed early across the room he’s cursing the TV, mutedly. “Yeah, sure, watch the game.” Little did I know that it would be the 4/13/99 game versus the Dodgers. (A hint: 16 innings.))

I find it interesting that on this “Shape of the New Thin” they’re running Windows XP Professional. Is Vista not an option for new computers? Do people have a choice anymore? Without having to fly the Chinese Skull and Crossbones?

As of 3/22/08 you’re looking at $2,799 without the $250 basic service plan for the ThinkPad versus $1,799 without the $250 full Apple service plan for the MacBook Air.

I usually don’t make comparisons like this because I don’t want people to feel bad after they’ve made such a big purchase, but wow! That photo was hilarious. Manila envelope… what next, a silhouette gyrating in front of neon colors holding a Zune?

The Haiku
A wise man once said
“Thin manila envelopes
Do not make one great“

What was kindof fun on a separate note is that Channel 3 news was out filming and they interviewed us. If for whatever you read this before 5pm (ha) we will be on the afternoon news. It affirms my belief that the coolest/craziest situations in my life are from following God. (It is a definite addition to the Weirdness Magnet.)

Another cool thing from today: a wife who takes you to a teppan restaurant for your anniversary. Honmachi rocks in a desert.

The Haiku
Go to the garden
for peace and love and then eat
teppan for greatness