J.P.
Blog Maintenance.
This blog has been the victim of “comment spam” for the past couple of hours, so I’ve turned on the TypeKey registration service for those that wish to leave a comment. I don’t know if it’s going to help or not, but I’m hoping it will.
The internet was so cool at one time. Now it’s become so commercial. Bah, I say, BAH.
Left Field.
I often pride myself on my gaydar. It’s tuned pretty well. I have a relatively easy time picking gay men and lesbians out in a crowd.
George Takei (Star Trek’s Sulu) however never produced a single blip on my gaydar, shields up or down, but there he is.
Jazzed.
This morning I awoke feeling refreshed, centered and absolutely excited about the prospect of going to work this morning. I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me, but I hope the feeling doesn’t go away.
The reason I find this is odd is because I am working the 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. shift today and I usually don’t do well in the morning. I also offered to take a few days of on-call next week for a co-worker because she is working on getting her graduate degree and is a bit swamped in school work.
It could be because of the date I have with my best beau tonight (that would be Earl, by the way). We’re going out to dinner and a movie and then perhaps try our luck at the casino if we feel so inclined. We’ve been going at 1,000 MPH for the past month or so, often in different directions, so this time for just the two of us is a welcomed experience.
Isolation.
Last night as I was driving the mundane New York State Thruway towards Syracuse, I passed several school buses that were packed with students, presumably en route to a football game. It’s a common occurance in these parts, there’s a small convoy of school buses, one or two for the team members (and a few loose cheerleaders), a third bus for the cheerleaders (and one or two loose players) and a bus or two for parents and student spectators.
In the past when you looked into these buses, you’d see signs of rowdy activity, a football player’s ass aimed at you in a moon, cheerleaders bouncing around to practice their ‘perky’, etc. However, looking in these buses I didn’t see any such activity. Instead I saw iPod buds. In almost every set of ears.
How depressing.
When I was a student I looked forward to traveling with the school, the bus ride was a great place to hang out with your friends and you got to experience different things, even if it was just another school across the county. You interacted with others. But now it seems that everyone is turning inward and instead focusing on the latest track from Britney Spears.
After noticing the iPods on the bus, I began looking in other vehicles and noticed a lot of the same; people talking on their cell phones (which didn’t anger me for a change), surly teenagers with their iPods, young ones in the back seat of the family environator (my new word for the day), engrossed in a Disney DVD on the monitor hanging from the ceiling. There appeared to be no interaction among the passengers of any given vehicle. Hell, the father didn’t even seem to be yelling at the mother about directions or anything.
What happened to “count the cow” or “license plate BINGO” or “The wheels on the bus go ’round and ’round”? I would find the prospect of driving across the country with little regard of what was going on around me to be lunacy.
I am a loner. I enjoy being by myself from time to time. But I would hate to live in a world of isolation. Sometimes you need to just turn off the technology and engage in some good old observation and conversation.
Here’s my new motto to share with the world. Feel free to duplicate at will.
“Going somewhere? Just go ‘click’.”
A Little Peace Please.
I came home at lunch to relax a little and enjoy some brief moments of quiet time to myself. I didn’t want to do anything out of the ordinary. I didn’t want to be entertained. I didn’t want to sleep. I didn’t want to tap dance on the ceiling. I just wanted to sit down, gather my thoughts, take some nice deep breaths and then head back to work centered and focused.
When I arrived home the garbage cans were in the middle of the road creating all sorts of chaos. I have a hunch they were headed down to the expressway to play in the street.
When I did my business and tried to flush the toilet, the handle became disconnected from the flap, preventing me from flushing said toilet. I had to put that back together in fear of a nasty smell when I got home from work tonight. My hands will smell lovely as I type at work this afternoon.
Tom decided that the custom woodwork around the bathroom door would make a wonderful ladder to entertain me from as I was slaving over the toilet. He then launched himself at the new bathmat and skidded across the floor, knocking into the plunger. He’s such a comedian.
On the bright side, Earl has cancelled tonight’s trip to Vermont, so he will be able to join me as I head to Syracuse to have dinner with my mother and sister. A little bright spot in the afternoon.
To keep it all in perspective, if this is the worse I have to bitch about then I guess I’m a pretty lucky guy.
Pandora Spocks.
In honor of the release of the second season of Bewitched on DVD, the same season that introduced Samantha’s look alike cousin, Serena, I decided to do a little video project utilizing split screen technology. It’s going to take a little while for me to figure out all the logistics and whatnot (so the project hasn’t been posted yet), but I thought it might be fun to practice with the still camera first.
Now there’s proof that I do talk to myself when Earl is out of town.
Geek Release.
Last night I did something for the first time in my 37 years of existence on this planet. I sat down and watched an entire episode of “Star Trek: Enterprise.” I know the series has been cancelled and unfortunately I couldn’t watch it during it’s original run so I’m relegated to reruns on the New York NBC affiliate on Sunday nights, but I figured it was a good way to get acquainted with the series. One of the reasons that I wanted to see the show was to see what effects they used for the transporter sequences. I know that the transporter is rarely used during ST:E, apparently the crew is hesitant to use it since this series occurs early in Star Trek’s history and the technology is apparently new, but the week’s episode featured transporter use and I found the effect and accompanying sound effects to be way cool. Very retro with an updated look and sound, not overly glitzy.
I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but back when “Star Trek V: The Final Frontier” was filming, I sent a hand-written letter with accompanying storyboards to Paramount describing how the transporter effect should appear in that movie. Remember, this was 1987 or so, before massive adoption of the internet and web browsing and all that, and I can’t draw anything to save my life, so drawing out these storyboards was quite an undertaking. Surprisingly, someone at Paramount did write me back (though I’ve long lost the letter) and said that they would consider my idea. Unfortunately, I’ve never seen it used. I guess I’ll have to recreate it in Apple Motion 2 with myself as the subject and post it to my Video Gallery someday.
This past weekend I downloaded some trial versions of Adobe software to mess around with, mainly GoLive CS2 (for web page design and development), Photoshop CS2 (I currently use Macromedia Fireworks) and Adobe After Effects. I have to tell you that aside from GoLive CS2, I didn’t like using these programs at all. The thing I noticed right off the bat is that installing the software slowed down my PowerBook a lot. Is that normal? Even if the programs weren’t open the computer ran slower. Booting up my PowerBook seemed to take forever. Once I completely uninstalled the try-out software, my PowerBook returned to its old self. I was a Microsoft fanatic for many years before crossing over to the Mac side and I must say that I do not miss the experience of “installing” software. I like the Mac stuff that you basically just drag and drop into your ‘Applications’ folder. It just seems tidier. If there’s a reboot involved after installing the software, there’s a good chance you’re going to have issues.
He’s Lucky I Love Him.
Him: “It’s 67 degrees outside here in Atlanta. Tonight we went to a really nice steakhouse, I had filet mignon stuffed with shrimp. The waiter was really good looking and was pouring on the southern hospitality. I think he wants me. Then I joined the guys for a beer downstairs before calling you. I think I’m going to catch the game at that bar called Woofs before calling it a night.”
Me: “Oh that’s nice. We’re under a Winter Storm Warning and I ate lukewarm leftovers for supper. Last night’s meat is still tough. The furnace man never showed up like he promised, so I went to the mall and looked at the empty storefronts. I decided that was boring so I really lived on the edge and bought a new holster for my cell phone. Then I became absolutely giddy when I discovered at K-mart that Oxy Clean has a liquid version. Right now I’m so lonely I found myself watching an early All In The Family episode with my hand down my pants. I’m finding Meathead very hot because it was one of the episodes where he still had the beard. ”
Do I sound bitter?
A Little Attention.
I came home at lunch to write a typical blog entry about life being insane and all when someone demanded all my attention instead.
Here Tom is in his “I’m going to pretend to look out the door during this photoshoot” pose. Isn’t he cute.
