Would you agree with the assertion that it’s good to keep up with current events? If a person cuts himself off from the rest of the world, the chances of him going insane increase incredibly! Beyond that, keeping up with the goings-on of the times keeps you in touch with the people around you. At the very least, it gives you something to talk about while waiting in line at the grocery store. Ideally, however, knowing what’s up with the world will help you orient yourself and make the right decisions. What I want to do here is briefly tease apart what is genuinely news-worthy from the garbage that I prefer to refer to as entertainment news. Read the rest of this entry »
As some of you know, Dan isn’t my real name, and I make short films. Some are longer, I guess, but they’re still pretty short. Sometimes I’ll throw together something like this. You can watch me draw this, too.
DES CRIP SHON!: “Richard’s birthday is nearing, so Team Unicorn gathers. Well, some of them anyway, since Bowman is far out in space or something. Anyway, nothing really happened, and then Richard did his homework.”
Today, my Dell Inspiron 1520 Notebook, named Mercy, greeted me with a message; it said, in an all too convenient little text bubble, that today was the day I could effectively solve “the problem with Windows Vista.”
The first three things that popped in my head with that little remark was this:
Inaccessability of the option to record the computer’s stereo mix (unless using specific audio cards)
Heavy reliance on CPU-hogging background programs
Parakeets The disposal of Robert Fripp’s contributions to the Vista system soundtrack
I looked closer at the little text bubble though, hoping to see a message along the lines of “We’re sorry we fucked with all of you King Crimson fans out there, it won’t happen again,” only to discover that it there were no notes. No mention of a critical update or driver issues or all that programming “stuff” for lack of a better word. Not even some gimmicky Windows Media Player upgrade or something. Only the open-ended note that it would solve “the problem with Windows Vista.” So I clicked the bubble. A little help page appeared. I looked at the first three lines. And what did I find?
Follow these steps to solve the problem with Windows Vista
This problem was caused by Windows Vista, which was created by Microsoft Corporation.
A solution is available that will solve that problem.
The assignment was to make a storyboard in colour, but it’s more like a comic book page and it only has red, blue, and black. Different “shades” of black are achieved by using markers of varying dryness. And my materials were the farthest you could get from professional; I had a couple dried up sharpies, a black, a blue, and a red Crayola Washable marker…
I was looking at old .txt files lying around in my starcraft maps folder, and I found something bizarre. For one, it has nothing to do with custom starcraft scenarios. Furthermore, I don’t remember ever writing it, yet when I take chunks of it and run a google search, nothing turns up. How mysterious! Anyway, I thought it was interesting and kinda goofy, so I’ll post it for amusement. Find it after the break.
I went to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), where the Richard Serra exhibit was showing. Basically, this man decides that he doesn’t care about how his art turns out. No, the important thing is the process of creating it.
It’s actually okay. There were giant slabs of metal. There were rubber belts. There were a lot of huge walls that curved. Walking through them made me feel safe, then enclosed, then trapped, and then I’d been walking through them for so long (and was slightly hungover) that I reached this strange state of… not really being able to process anything. Read the rest of this entry »
One of the things I got an awful lot of credit for in Plano was my bike rides. Often, people ask me how I do it. So, here is my ’strategy’ in brief:
Push yourself physically to build strength
Always be careful and courteous to pedestrians, drivers, and other bikers
If you have nowhere to go, just start riding and don’t stop
That last reason has always been critical to me. Perhaps this is the reason that the other day, I got on Congress Avenue and just kept going South for an afternoon. This is what happenned:
Good view, isn’t it? But you haven’t seen the half of it.
If you’re looking for something to do to take your mind off the monotony of the day, I have a flash game that can make your hours magically vanish. The name of the game is bloxorz (lame, I know), and the premise is simple. You have a 2×1x1 block that you have to drop into a 1×1 square-shaped hole. Add in some interesting gameplay mechanics, and you have yourself a puzzle that will amuse, bemuse, and confuse you for hours on end.
