November 2001 Archives
Jun 06, 2008
all is tension and pent-up chemistry
until the flood-gates are loosed
the shutter gives way to the
pummeling waves of light
chemical bodies in excitation
crystalize into hard lines and smoothe curves
the creamy homogenaity titilated by
the graffiti of light
but beyond nonsense
the image left is real - undeniably real
like a taste in your mouth from the night before
but forever
despite our intentions
sometimes forgotten or shoved back into a drawer somewhere
sometimes faded, like a memory that's sat too long on the windowsill
photography is love.
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Posted by Administrator on Nov 19, 2001
i shot my very first wedding yesterday.
ben
and
ani finally tied the
knot! woohoo. it still blows my mind. just like when i look back at
people that i graduated highschool with and they've got their degrees
already and have a down payment on a house, etc. babies are not things
that i plan on making any time soon. my parents got together a little
later on in life, and i probably will too. who knows? que sera sera.
the wedding was really pretty. it was held at the zilker botanical gardens
(in the oriental section). i shot around 5 rolls of b&w film through the pentax and 1 roll of medium format b&w through the yashica. when they exchanged
vows the heavily-makeupped judge asked
ben,
"will you take this woman to be your wife, etc etc", to which he responded,
"yup!", "sure". she phrased the sentence so that couldn't be answered by an
"i do". it was cute. little baby cute.
that was the second wedding that i've ever been to. i really dug the
casualness and intimacy of it. mine will be like that.
food poisoning. i think i have food poisoning. at the reception i ate
this delicious salmon ravioli from the east side cafe. i think
it may not have agreed with me. if i sit still i feel alright,
but every time i move around my stomach hurts. not good.
i'm super-excited about getting the photos back from holland phoho.
this was the first time that i shot ISO400 Ilford HP5 plus. i should
be scanning some of the better ones for y'all. they are set to be printed
by wednesday.
i have a fever too. whatever is wrong with me is impeding my ability
to compose words, so forgive the scattered-ness of this post.
i want to peel open my skull and launder my brain with cool spring water.
it feels as if it's bathing in molasses now.
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Posted by Administrator on Nov 18, 2001
geeky shit, but then it gets better:
i bit my tongue on the left side of my mouth three times last night,
waking me up, each time, in the throes of excruciating pain. i think
i may be grinding my teeth in my sleep. i need me one of them
kung-fu mouth guards.
the past few days i have been doing some contract programming in
php and
mysql. for a long
time, SQL intimidated me so i steered away from it. this job forced me to
learn it. it turns out that it's all very simple, and very powerful.
i really should apply for more of those SQL jobs. anyhow, i whipped
together a php/mysql script that displays the monthly bandwidth usage of
a whole buttload of subnets. it made me realize just how sharp my coding chops
are, it gave me the satisfaction of building something useful, and it will
pay my rent next month. woohoo!
now i just need to find a steady gig and i'll be all set.
while drinking homemade red wine tonight with my pal
jeremy, i got
to thinking of how incredible life is. if i declined rob shufelt's birthday
party invitation in 8th grade i wouldn't have befriended
tim. if i hadn't
befriended
tim
i wouldn't have met brian. if i hadn't met brian then he couldn't have
invited me out to shoot pool and dance the fateful night that i met wendi.
if i hadn't met wendi, then i sure as hell wouldn't have moved to austin.
if i didn't discover the ut-austin chapter of the
acm's mailing list, then i
wouldn't have known about (and attended) the job fair that landed me my
first phat software development job. if i hadn't worked at
kazan, then i wouldn't have
met becky. if i hadn't met becky, then i wouldn't have known that
st edwards existed,
let alone sat in on a class, and eventually attended. if i hadn't attended
st edwards, then
i wouldn't have met
dory.
if i hadn't met dory then i wouldn't have met jeremy. if i wasn't laid
off back in march, then i wouldn't have to be doing contract work now,
and i wouldn't be sitting in dory and jeremy's kitchen drinking
delicious homemade red wine out of mason jars, waxing nostalgic
about life, and watching
catahoula hounds licking each other's
genitals.
it's really amazing.
life, that is.. ;)
going back even further, when my father and mother were en coitus, back
before i was a sparkle in anybody's eye, if he had decided to wiggle a little
to the right instead of wiggling a little to the left, i could be a girl now.
or a dwarf. or even a republican. jesus, think of that.
every single moment, every single decision is a tremendously critical one.
seizing or passing up even the smallest, least obviously significant
opportunity sends a tidal wave of fate surging forward, unstoppably,
and forever, irrevokably changing everything. everything.
everything. every decision changes EVERYTHING.
don't _make_ me use the blink tag. ;)
the bare white blank canvas of life stretches out before us.
our paint is pure will. the capacity to create beauty and
pleasure and adventure and life is but a willful stroke away.
yet so many are reluctant to lift their brush. fear of marring the
empty white serenity paralyzes them into an illusion of blank
security.
life is art.
lift that brush.
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Posted by Administrator on Nov 14, 2001
i planned on coming home and posting about how good the colors
looked after the rain today, but it didn't work out like that.
i write now, instead, exhausted after repeatedly overriding the
"shut-down, dummy!" signals coming from the part of my brain that
knows better.
and now i sleep.
goodnight.
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Posted by Administrator on Nov 12, 2001
i was up too late last night shopping for pretend boyfriends for
ben aqua when i
came across this fine little number:
a confused transvestite Akira with poor fashion sense
so which he responded, "seriously that guy is gonna like jump kick your face or something"
funny guy, that ben.
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Posted by Administrator on Nov 08, 2001
i added a bunch of new photos to the pics section.
go looky.
i discovered a secret cache of mp3's on my harddrive. it contains
about 1.3G of miscellaneous mp3s from around a year ago.
i'm currently listening to sonic youth & cyprus hill's "i love you mary jane".
are you a pothead, focker?
i took
natasha
up to "le fun" arcade tonight. for a few quarters we had "le fun". har har har.
those crazy scientologists tried to lure us into their cult again tonight.
crazy scientologist lady: would you like to take a stress test?
me: i already know i'm stressed
csl: but would you like to know where?
me: uhhhhhhhhhh
..and we kept walking..
natasha and i
conjectured that they would do this by inserting their "scientology probe"
into an unsuspecting passerby's rectum and then proclaiming, "there it is!
the source of your stress appears to be .. your ass!"
and, of course, they would be correct. and then the person would be so
impressed that he'd cut them a fat check.
because that's what scientology is all about: anal probes.
just ask john travolta.
i've thought of the perfect response for the next time they try
to coax me in there.
"i'm unemployed."
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Posted by Administrator on Nov 07, 2001
last night i went to a writer's group meeting with
ben and
ani.
we met up with
ds hendler at lovejoys for a few drinks and writing discussion.
ani beat my ass in pool.
after that scene was played out we headed up to the "little city" coffee shop.
we yapped nostalgic about old school geekiness, hair follicles, and ghosts. and then .. we plotted .. austin domination. muhahhahahhaha.
it was good.
natasha neglected
to tell me that her dad was picking her up from school so i waited around for her for about a half hour. doh. i was all "grr". she appologized
genuinely. she kissed my face. she rubbed my tummy. i can't compete with that. i just can't bear a grudge against that girl. i try. really, i do. ;)
ooh yeah, and she redesigned. go looky.
and in completely unrelated news:
the weblog review is
a big steamy pile of horseshit. the numeric scores that they assign to weblogs
are completely meaningless because the review staff is so piss-poor (with the exception of a few reviewers). there is no consistency. it all falls on the luck of the draw. the quality of review ya get (as well as the weight of your score) depends entirely upon which reviewer chooses to review your site. and the reviewers there are sooooo bad (with a few exceptions). i have been ejected from my reviewer's position there for extremely weak justifications. i was the second most productive reviewer there last month too, producing around 20 reviews. the only respect for TWR that i have remaining is for the (few) quality reviewers there still churning out quality reviews in good faith. to those very few reviewers, hear this: no matter how good of a reviewer you are, and how many reviews you write, they will fuck you over in a blink of an eye. there is no loyalty and no appreciation. discovering fantastic sites like
akacooties amd
the mighty geek! have made this bitter pill a little easier to swallow. besides that factor, writing all those reviews was a giant waste of time. unless authors get a 5.0 they're gonna piss and moan and make personally defamatory attacks. yes, because they are fucking nuts.
this rant is over, and it's all pointless, and i'm not taking it so seriously anymore. i just need something else to take pride in.
besides my dashing looks.
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Posted by Administrator on Nov 06, 2001
i just got back from picking julie up at the airport. the
curbside waiting area that usually has stopped cars pulled up
alongside of it, instead, was barricaded off with big cement
highway barriers. a military person with an M-16 rifle slung
over his shoulder paced back and forth protecting them.
an aircraft tow truck was parked next to a sign that read,
"unattended vehicles will be towed". it was an _aircraft_
tow truck. it had _one_ wheel sling thing on the back of it (for an airplane)
instead of two (for an automobile). i think it was just there for show.
i think _all_ of this may be for show. if this current state of
national paranoia (aka security) were permanent, they would have stuck
a real tow truck there.
it seems really unlikely to me that an airport checkin/pickup would be
a target of a terrorist attack. and i doubt that an armed force of terrorists
would attempt to attack an airport coming through the front doors.
the dropoff/pickup area _is_ the most visible part of the airport.
everybody going in or out has to pass through it. i think it's more
of a gesture. "look, we're doing _something_"
the wtc and the pentagon were direct strikes against economic and military
infrastructure. the anthrax shit seems to be more of a pervasive/disruptive
strategy. and look who is targeted: big media. not joe blow your average
shmoe. from all of these strategies, those big suspension bridges in san francisco would make great targets. hundreds of people would die on the bridges when they
blew and lots of people wouldn't be able to get to work. plus, the third
requirement: it's _very_ visible. i'm glad that i'm not living in san francisco right now. by the way, before you send me hate mail, i think it would be a horrible thing to happen and i hope that it doesn't.
hey, why are we bombing afghanistan again? all the suspected terrorists
were saudi nationals.
here is a really good article (with not enough verifiable sources)
that should get you thinking. when this all happened i reminded my
loyal readers to "watch the oil".
this article seems to agree.
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Posted by Administrator on Nov 05, 2001
my epic novel stands at around 200 words. everybody but
natasha
that i have shown it to has liked it. i've thought of a little
more plot, so i may write more. i also intend on reading a lot more
in the next few weeks. i went to a bookstore with
natasha
and her mom today. rachel and natasha walked through the aisles and
commented on all these different books and authors. periodically
rachel would ask me if i've read anything by a certain author.
the answer was always no. i felt pretty ignorant.
i keep amassing books faster than i can read them. i've been chewing
on "island" by aldous huxley for about three months. i don't read
for pleasure very often. much of the time that i spend online is
foolishly wasted. i'm gonna try to spend some more of that time doing
enriching things. like reading.
i feel so good after i clean my room. i wonder why i do it so infrequently. :) i blame it on genetic predisposition. i've got a 'Y' chromosone, you know.
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Posted by Administrator on Nov 04, 2001
in honor of "national novel writing month" (
nanowrimo) i tried my hand at writing tonight. i have such trouble writing in
any kind of quantity. i spend too much time on the wording and little details. i want whatever small thing i do to be perfect before moving on to the next.
the effort required to flesh out a novel plot
seems really overwhelming. what's the point of writing a whole
bunch of words, if when put all together, suck? word count does
not give me jollies. i did succeed in writing about 200 words in an hour. the target is 50000 words in a month. that's about 1600 a day. being unemployed and all, i could theoretically write 8 hours a day for the next month. unless a fountain of inspiration erupts inside my head and fills it with characters, plot devices, and a theme or two, i'll probably let my fingers be content with their one scene.
while waiting for the crew to arrive at dennys tonight,
natasha and i
vandalized each other's bodies with ink. she drew a couple neat sailor-style tattoos on my arms. one says, "MOM", and one says "NATASHA".
after only a few days the
austin index is marvelously popular with 22 members and growing daily. that makes me happy.
sleep also makes me happy, so i think i'll do it.
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Posted by Administrator on Nov 03, 2001
i saw
superchunk
last night at "la zona rosa". for those of you who don't know,
they are my favorite band in the whole wide world.
before the show i picked up a sony tape recorder and an audiotechnica lavalier
microphone. this is the first show i ever bootlegged. the tape
came out surprisingly well. i didn't expect to be able to hear much of anything.
i got there around 9:30pm thinking they would go on soon thereafter.
"schatzi" and "the good life" opened for them, both playing good sets.
while waiting for superchunk to come on i spotted jim (their guitarist)
at the concession stand. i introduced myself as a "big fanboy", yapped
about austin for a while, then rubbed his bald head for no good reason.
i felt like a lunatic. oh well, i'm sure he gets that a lot.
i just so happened to be standing next to sven, a guy
natasha has
been talking to for a few months. he introduced himself, blowing my mind,
then watched the show with me in reverent silence of "the chunk".
they played mostly their new album, a few oldies-but-goodies, and one
that i was never performed in front of people before. woohoo.
and i have it on tape. nyah nyah nyah!
after the show i realized that i had lost most of the hearing in my right ear. we walked out into the parking lot and sven showed me his snazzy new honda motorcycle. and his little (like a spy camera) pentax 110 camera i inspired him to purchase. somebody
had stolen the "C" from the marquee, so it read "SUPER HUNK". sven took a picture of that.
i grabbed a blueberry muffin from a very dead ruta maya coffee shop and
moseyed on home.
the end.
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Posted by Administrator on Nov 02, 2001
i met
ben brown and
ani moller today
at spiderhouse with julie. i learned that they call new zealanders
"kiwis". we drank cocacola and pepsicola out of big glass bottles
dispensed from an old-fashioned coin-operated vending machine.
i bumped into jessica caplan on my way out. austin is so small -
i see that girl everywhere, but never on purpose.
good times, good times.
julie and i then drove downtown for a crash course in photography.
she's on a plane en route to chicago as i write this.
i taught her about aperture, shutter speed, and her light meter.
she's got an old pentax spotmatic. the light meter is a bit
wonky on it. we used the light meter in mine to gauge how far off
her's was. she took three identical photos of ruta maya, one at 60,
125, and 250. the negatives all came out virtually identical. that
really surprised me. i totally expected at least one of the frames
to be either under or overexposed.
we had dinner at this fantastic vietnamese restaurant on oltorf just
east of congress. i ate the entire bowl of food (which is quite
a feat for skinny ole me). vietnamese
tastes so much better than chinese. i could eat it all day long.
mmmmm good.
we picked up diego and made our way to emos for the mates of state,
mars volta, the anniversary, and those peabodies show.
mates of state were all that i expected them to be. they put on
a good live show. mars volta, which everybody worships because they're ex-members of at the drive in, really sucked. they all played their instruments well
but the sound was a big ball of undifferentiated noise. there was nothing
to listen to. there was no rhythm, no melodies. they had afros and they
jumped around a lot. that's gotta count for something, right? the anniversary
played mediocrely. i think they're more of a studio band. the sound
was muddled and dirty. those peabodies rocked the house and provided a nice
toe-tapping end to a fun evening.
after the show i met up with
johnny,
ben aqua,
cristina,
kelly,
amd
james
for coffee at magnolia cafe. the idea was to get johnny hopped up on
caffeine enough to pull an all-nighter. he had a five page paper to finish on
brave new world. again, every time you get us all together, shenanigans
ensue.
by the time my head hit the pillow i was a very, very tired boy.
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Posted by Administrator on Nov 01, 2001
