16:30 |
2003/01/30
17:16 |
2003/01/29
17:00 |
2003/01/28
Here's an idea: in an attempt to make this place more interesting, and give me something daily to write about it, I'm gonna tell you what I'm wearing every day! Today it's a blue t-shirt, blue/white/yellow/brown plaid shirt, beige corduroy pants, and blue socks, oh yeah, and a blue cardigan sweater; I like it!
17:21 |
2003/01/24
Well, computer, it's Friday afternoon. I bid you farewell for a couple days. Sleep tight. I'll wait until it's safe, then I'll turn you off, k?
17:02 |
2003/01/23
1984 for modern times . . . sort of, w/ a corporate twist. It's worth the long read. Also by the same author: a scary walk down the street of future capitalists. Great stuff!
17:12 |
2003/01/21
Some patent silliness: US telecom company tries to enforce it's patent which claims rights to standard interface features on web sites (ie, links in frames and sidebars).
Wow! Check out these amazing advances in cell phone vibration technology!
It's all horrible stuff, but which of us is actually gonna do anything about it?
An except from this article hits close to home:
In the book, QuarterLife Crisis, the authors outline a new phenomenon affecting twentysomethings in this country. They say that we have too many options and too much pressure to become immediately successful, and thus we become depressed. Poor us.
So, I guess our unhappiness, depression, unfulfillment, dissatisfaction, whatever you want to call it, becomes the driving force in our lives. We become preoccupied with fixing our problems, whether they are: finding a job, losing a job, hating a job, finding a lover, losing a lover, hating a lover. These problems seem so consuming and relate to the ever-so-popular quest to establish one's true self.
Luckily, therapists, parents, and Oprah constantly validate this quest. We are told, "everyone is special," that we need to "find a passion," that we must "love what we do," that we should "put our needs first," that we should be "searching for authenticity." Our Gen X roots allow us to embrace these cliches under the guise of individuality. However, our need to be individuals has manifested itself as self-important bullshit that is ironically so maudlin.
In our quest to be original we have lost sight of each other, not to mention the world at large. We would so much rather be proud of ourselves than proud of our country. We would rather seek love and validation than recognize the need to address human rights. We would rather immortalize our limited knowledge in a Taliban animation sequence than search for truth. We would so much rather spend time writing an "important" screenplay or losing weight than stop to realize that our generation has no voice in this war.
See, this would require a sense of community that we have been taught to avoid. This would require us to give up time at the gym, on the slopes, at the bars, or at work. This would mean that we might not be as successful. And this is scary. We have spent our whole lives cultivating our self-importance, cynicism, and notions of intelligence that to ask us to change now might be too difficult.
That pretty much sums up the feelings I've been experiencing while reading things like 'No Logo,' 'The Ingenuity Gap,' 'Fast Food Nation,' and 'Stupid White Men.' All these books proclaim 'best seller!' on the cover, and they all convey things that seem to be really bad about the world. Yet if so many people have read these books -- as implied by so many people buying them -- how come our collective asses have yet to change anything?
Is it laziness and self-absorbtion as illustrated above, or is it an epidemic of the whole "I'm only one person and I can't make a difference" thing?
Beats me.
(It's pretty damned ironic that this post begins w/ me touting myself as being featured on another site . . . and now that I've blogged about the whole thing, I can rest easy at night knowing I've done my part by sharing my unique wisdom and insight w/ my readership. Because through blogging, I'm helping the world to be a better place, right?
15:43 |
My host says they're upgrading my server tomorrow, 22 Jan., in the afternoon, and there may be some interruptions here during that time; as well due to DNS caching (whatever that is) there may be disruptions for the following 24 hours. Just thought you should know.
09:44 |
2003/01/20
This is pretty neat: a band makes music w/ lyrics from an old answering machine. It works better than you'd imagine. You can dig around their site and listen to couple ditties here.
17:47 |
09:50 |
2003/01/17
I just learned last night that my tentative March show at Shanghai has been bumped to any of April, May, or June, due to some organizational follies. Bah! Not really discouraging, but Babylon kept pushing me off week after week, and we all know where that went. The delay gives me more time to get some stuff done, but if it turns into a sliding window, I'll be none too happy.
I'm giving Shanghai the benefit of the doubt since of all the places of I've approached, they've been one of the most supportive about my work.
Link(s)
A thoroughly amusing drawing by Sam Brown.
It's time to get your robots on . . . this year's OCAD Sumo Competition will be held 22 March, 2003, and Basey's got some bones to pick . . .
14:53 |
2003/01/16
16:45 |
2003/01/15
So far I've noticed that people really take to work on canvas. It seems to be a matter of the artist's hand being involved in the work. I'm quite surprised by the contrast between how far digital tools have come, but how slow people are to accepting works output by said digital means as 'art' . . .
14:01 |
2003/01/14
dEb threw me a surprise party this past weekend for my birthday. It was great! I had a no idea, it was a genuine surprise! She managed to collect a bunch of my Ottawa friends at her place and have me come over, unsuspecting, under the guise of picking her up to go to another party. Wow. Very fun.
The weekend before that, I had a good birthday weekend at home w/ the fam. It wasn't a surprise, but I was surprised by the loot I raked in -- not that birthdays should be about gifts . . . at least not entirely. Everyone really seemed to go all out this year :)
Art by Andrew not yet coming to a store near you
Went to a local commercial gallery this weekend to show my prints and paintings. The owner liked my work, but felt that the prints would have to be marked up too high to make them 'commercially viable' in his gallery. Unfortunately, the prints are quite costly to make, and he made a good point. Perhaps I'll have to find a cheaper way to produce them, or stick w/ indepedant sales -- not that I'm making prints to make a lot of $$$, but it'd be great to recoop some of the costs, AND get them out there in people's places. There seemed more hope for my paintings, however, so I will keep showing him those as my collection grows.
. . . and so the great 'decorative vs. expressive art' divide makes itself known. Surprise, surprise . . .
13:07 |
2003/01/08
15:51 |
2003/01/07
17:20 |
2003/01/02
NYE was good. A nice dinner, and a relatively quiet night at Alex's place.
The Christmas break was nice, too. Pretty quiet, actually. Didn't visit as many people as I originally thought I would, nor did I keep myself too busy. Instead, I laid low and relaxed; worked on a few projects and did some reading.
Next Monday things will really feel back to normal. For the time being, I'm still lost in the week: it's Thursday but it feels like Monday, which means tomorrow is actually Friday, but . . . you know what I mean.
Link(s)
Smoking Gun's top mugshot picks for 2002.
16:37 |