April 28, 2005
Going out comfortable
Oddly, it really feel like it's high-time for school to end. I don't necessarily want it to, nor do I mean that I feel terminally over-worked. Rather, it feels like I've outgrown this whole business about higher education and all that comes with it. I've been standing in a long line since freshman year; back then I didn't even know what was waiting for me at the front of it. Now I'm just a few spots from the head of the line, and I feel neither surprised, nor disappointed. It's just about time.
My translation of the movie Sonnenallee was finally finished and presented for my film class, and I have to say that it's probably the sole reason I feel prepared to be done with school. It felt very much like a senior thesis, as I was guided along continuously branching stems of research in order to fully understand the movie. But the best part of it all had to be how well the movie was received by my class. The film is padded on all sides with esoteric cultural references to East Germany, so much so that I didn't know how well things would go over, especially given my non-native translation. But as I sat in class watching the movie run on the big screen, my subtitles blinking obediently on queue under the picture, I was ecstatic to see people laugh throughout the film. I felt like the only person in the world, my face flushed red for the entire 2 hours. In the discussion next class, I was afforded still more ecstacy to see how vibrant our discussion was. I feel like I've been waiting all of college to make this kind of connection to something.
If anybody is interested in seeing/getting the movie, be in touch somehow. I'll be glad to give is as broad an audience as possible.
I also got a really cool toy recently.
Panasonic DMC FZ3
Biggest understatement of the year. This camera rocks my balls raw.
Having messed with it for the past couple days, I think I finally have some decent pictures to share. I could say so much about what it's capable of, but I don't want to bother. Just click the links below.
Macro demonstration
The start of spring, a great time for a new camera.
People are going to get pissed at me.
Items in my room.
Another macro demonstration
You could fit your head in the lense.
The pictures went through some degree of post processing in Photoshop, but as my experience with post-proc is still limited, you can bet not much was done to them. Enjoy, and expect more
April 27, 2005
April 20, 2005
Mackes and the Snail Hunter
This is probably the first time I'll be using the 'story' category for what I originally intended it for: a story I wrote.
This is part one of the story of Mackes and the Snail Hunter. Give a read and leave some comments if you're compelled to.
Mackes and the Snail Hunter - Part 1
One day on the walk home from school, Mackes paused by a stream that flowed along the trodden dirt path which lead to his house. Kneeling at its soggy, musky banks, he peered into the briskly trickling water to look for his reflection, but he could not find it. Adjusting his eyes, he peered at the muddy silt inches below the surface. "Why doesn't the dirt move?" he thought to himself. His finger tips curious, he dipped them into the silt, watching as strands of particulate came to life at the whim of his touch.
"Best be washin' your hands a'fore you do any eatin'," said a voice from across the stream. It was rough and bubbly, as though its owner was in the middle of a productive coughing spell. "Dunno what's in these streams." Mackes, startled, looked up to see a man kneeling on the opposite bank. He was clad from head to toe with an outfit that looked like a number of hobo's satchels had been sewn together into one great, filthy tapestry, his knees darkened from having recently knelt in soily moisture. With long gnarled fingers dangling in the stream, he locked a pair of weathered eyes with the young, startled Mackes. There they sat, the man like a bullfrog, and Mackes waiting for some outside force to carry the encounter someplace other than this durable silence. Effortless patience fell over the two. Mackes, young and yet unladen with social grace, let himself be fascinated by this man. He explored the man's face as he would a leaf or a rock, transfixed with the wonderment of something he did not understand. The corners of his eyes were the most interesting. Though bunched up like dried seaweed, they moved like the skin above a sleeping cat's ribs. One even seemed to have a different personality than the other, the left coming across as the calming equilizer to the right's almost disconcerting wileyness.
The man then produced something from a pouch at his thigh. The bag made stoney, crackling sounds as he rummaged through it, its contents packed closely banged their hard surfaces together until his hand finally emerged once more, now convered in a snotty sheen of stringy gel.
"Snails," he said frankly. Mackes just watched further, as he would a creature crawling over something. The man stood suddenly and repeated. "Snails."
April 17, 2005
a quickie
I went down to DC over the weekend to see Ulrich Schnauss pwn a crowd with his sound. Unfortunately, he wasn't the headline act so he only stayed on for about an hour, only to be replaced by some loud french band that hit more wrong nerves than right ones. It was a sweet night though. I was pleased to piss off the wirey and overzealous nonce who was working the door because I drank my beer outside.
Ulrich gets all of my respect. He's a modest nerdy German who makes really special music; he's a real stand-up guy.
April 08, 2005
It's spreadible, and it's edible
Of all the great things that come with warm weather--new outdoor scents, rain storms that aren't a drag to be caught in, tighter-fitting clothes on women, to name a few--one must still contend with some annoying things about warm weather.
I broke out my shorts for the first time tonight. I had been rained on and needed something dry and comfortable. As I'm sitting in my chair though, I keep getting leg hairs stuck in the splinters of my garbage dorm chair. Every few times I reposition myself, I feel like something small and insectile is snapping at my skin. It's not even far-fetched that I keep mistaking hair yanks for pinching mandibles; that's the other thing about the start of warm weather: damn bugs.
Tonight alone, I evicted 2 centipedes and one stink bug is on borrowed time. Mosquitoes are staking out all the popular smoking areas (as if cigarette smoke would actually ruin their appetite).
I was in Philadelphia today to take the Civil Service exam. I would love to gloat that I finished two hours early, but anyone without packing foam between their ears could do the same. I did get a bit ruffled at one point in the test though, and plan on contesting one of the questions. It was in the "following directions" section, which consists of a paragraph describing some procedure and some questions about how you are to carry out your duties. In this example, they had me filing different types of license applications (what do with the yellow carbon, what to do with disapproved forms, where to send the green form and where to put the staple when collating it with FormIIa before sending off the lot to Ricardo Enchilada in the District Office.) One question asked "For which of the following did you receive no instructions?" I read the stupid passage over and over (after all, it wasn't like I was racing a clock or anything) and I am completely convinced that there were two correct answers. There was no information about A) discarding disapproved M forms or D) where to file the pink carbon copy for Form L.
Where the hell are all these centipedes coming from!?!?
April 04, 2005
Scoff
The lost entry asked you to turn your attention to the content on the right, where you will find a new heading, underwhich you can see what I'm listening to. I can't believe it took me this long to realize how interested everybody must be in whatever esoteric song I'm currently playing. Rampant egotism. That's the nature of these websites.
(if it doesn't load, you can blame the ever-finicky audioscrobber website or the equally unreliable denness.net, which runs the actual php script.)
I was at a party over the weekend and came to learn that the most attractive girl in the place was 16 years old, which cast an ill pall over my evening. Dressed not to kill, but rather to die at the hands of a twisted rapist, this diminuative little blossom was making the rounds with every male in the building, polluting what I was fond of understanding as an adult affair. She was packaged to sell, this dim-looking, peripubescent snot, and she was way out of her element. It chafes me to know she had every guy in the palm of her hand, perhaps most regrettably me. As I came to learn, she wasn't interesting; a lukewarm gaze betrayed what I took to be a lukewarm mind, while her lukewarm manner carried her around the house wafting scents of fruit and lameness. Her party trick was to go up to every male and say "Have I met you already?" If you said no, she asked your name and gave you hers. If you said yes, she would pull a pout and try to remember your name. This happened to me three times, my friends likewise. My ire towards Ms. Asking-for-It has little to do with statutory rape. What makes my skin crawl is that someone as finite as her, someone so willing to live a stereotype, someone so obviously raring to become just another cockpark, is rewarded with so much attention. It's really distressingly unjust.
I guess I was out of my element.