Inflight notes pt.2
Same day, I just didn't want to post any more yesterday.
1:01pm - Houston time.
Dammit. Same freakin' sized plane, same rock hard seat. How the hell can these seats be used as floatation devices? Are they styrofoam? What they aren't is comfortable. Give me a seat that doesn't numb my ass in the first half hour of the flight, and I'll take my chances with drowning.
I read a book for the remainder of the trip.
A little turbulance, but nothing like the first part of the trip.
Looking around at my fellow passengers, I've decided flying in these small planes is like riding in a Greyhound bus. In the sky. At least it's faster than taking a bus.
2:30 pm - Nashville time
Arrived fine. The air is thick and smells odd, but it's good to be done with flying for a week.
It's odd. I'm seriously afraid of heights, but I'm not afraid of flying. I had a window seat for the first flight, and I watched the scenery for most of the trip. Even when the plane would bank left and I was looking almost straight down I was fine. Not even a flutter of fear. No real anxiety at take-off or during landing.
I just don't like to fly.
4:00pm
That's it. I need to do something about my weight. The mortician is large. Wide large. Wobbles a bit while walking. He seems like a very nice fellow, and I'm not being mean when I mention his size. He knows how big he is.
When we were talking about the flight in, he looked at me and said, "Those seats just aren't made for big fellas like us."
Ouch.
Inflight notes pt. 1
9:30am -
Turbulicious.
Our flight attendant had to use an air sickness bag.
More legroom my ass.
Speaking of my ass; it's asleep. Dammit.
I think the seat I had at Freak Train last night was more comfortable, and it was broken with a sprung spring that was poking my right buttcheak for the whole night.
9:57am -
We must be getting close. Dropped out of the clouds and I see some damned city below.
Still rocking and shaking with short periods of calm.
12:02pm -
Landed safely in Houston and have an hour layover. Next stop Nashville. I hope. I also hope this plane is larger than the last one.
Im leaving on a jet plane…
More precisely, a couple of jet planes over the next five hours. Posting from the phone, so no edititng. More details to come at some point.
This is my travel face.
Inspired
"If only I'd thought of that first."
There are so many things I wish I'd thought of first. I mean things that I actually could have thought of first. Not things like "computers" or "fire". Lesser, yet still fun things.
Not just things that would have made me rich, either. Things that look like they would be a blast to do. If they helped pay the bills then gravy.
Like Bill Zeman's project "Tiny Art Director" that he's been working on with his daughter since she was 2-1/2 years old. He now has a book out, I bought it and it's awesome. I could have done that, if I'd thought of it.
Or what "The Crap Archivist" is doing. There's some very funny stuff there, and I'm always looking for an outlet for my pent-up funny. Many occasions I've found some really amazingly crappy things that just beg to be dragged back out into the public eye and mocked. I've even done a bit of that in the past on this site; just nothing so focused and consistent as what he's doing. That kind of dedication takes work and I've already got a job. Still, I wish I'd thought of it. I wish I was doing it. Or something like it.
Perhaps after my trip to Tennessee, I'll be a little more focused on how I want to spend the rest of my life. I have a pretty good idea right now of how I don't want to spend it.
A litle song.
Oh the weather outside is shitty.
It brings to mind this ditty.
I have places that I need to go.
Fuck you snow.
Fuck you snow.
Fuck you snow.
The philosophy around here.
I think I've just figured it out. Indeed I do. I've always known, really, but now I've been able to put it into words that I'm satisfied with.
After more than ten years of doing this job, I've decided that the driving philosophy behind this place is "We want the world in a fraction of the time it took God to deliver." In some ways it's always been like that, but lately it's worse.
"We know you've accomplished five impossible tasks today, but we REALLY need this one done too. So. Do it." The fucked part is so far I pretty much always manage to get it done. Which sets a precedent. So, essentially, it's my own damned fault for trying so hard. If only I cared less.
I know if I manage to get everything done, then it wasn't really impossible. But in the moment it's very easy to feel that it is, and very hard to remember to take a breath and step back from the situation to regroup rather than lash out. I'm working at it. Still, running balls-to-the-wall every day of the work week gets old.
I have seen many freelancers crash and burn when they try to keep up with what's expected of us here, so I know it's not all in my head.
I believe a taoist representation of me is that I'm a rock and not the water. If I'm unable to move with the flow of the events around me on a daily basis, I'll wear down.
Add to that the news I've received about my father, and I'm one drained and distracted art-monkey.
Updatin’
I've been going through my old links, shining them up and stacking them on the side over there. The list is a lot smaller than it used to be. I decided that I wouldn't bring over any links to sites that haven't been updated in 2010. That left a lot of people out, but I'm sure they don't mind. All of the old links, living and dead, are still on the abandoned Blogger site, if anyone's curious as to who has been phased out.
If you were phased out and would like to be relinked, just leave a comment.
I still need to go through the art site links, and then I'll move on to my archive. My goal is to categorize as much as possible and weed out the especially crappy posts. Turn it into the lean, mean, nonsense machine that I always knew it could be. I know some of the old posts that might actually have been deemed good have lost their images, and unless I can find them parked on my computer somewhere, they'll be purged too.
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What's new in my life? A whole lot of not-that-great, but one thing I've done is join up with a local ToastMasters group in an effort to conquer my paralyzing fear of public speaking. It's something I really want - no, NEED - to do. If I can either rid myself of the fear, or learn to work through it, I feel it could open a lot of opportunities that are currently too stupid to consider. Like trying my hand at stand-up comedy, or as a street corner doomsday prophet. It's pretty hard to stand on a corner and shout at hundreds of strangers that their end is neigh when you're afraid to speak. 2012 isn't that far away. It's one goal I really should try to make. I missed out on the Y2K fun, and this could very well be my last chance. I probably should also start growing out my beard so it's at least long enough to hold twigs. It's good to have goals.
Clip Show #2
Since it's better than not posting anything at all, here's another Clip Show. I'm not going to say this will be a regular thing, because anytime I say that I tend to stop blogging altogether. Let me say instead that you might see this style of post more often than you want and leave it at that.
Far fewer links this time because I went out to get lunch, rather than bringing it with me like I should have done.
- Reality is a quantum computer*
- Teacher's heartbreak and anger at No Child Left Behind
- Amazon's worst garden sculptures
All clips are again from BoingBoing.net. Yes, I do go other places. Just not recently.
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*2012 is just scheduled maintenance so the system can be rebooted. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
A clip show?!
WTF? Don't you hate it when you sit down to watch a favorite show and it's basically a filler episode with clips from previous episodes tied together with a loose "plot"...
Those shows that are made when the writers are either too lazy or too burned out to come up with something new.
Well, this post is the equivalent of that. Kinda. Only instead of pulling old bits of posts from the lumpy stew of my past archives, I'm going to link to things I've found interesting today that I don't actually have the time right now to explore as fully as they may deserve.
But it's still a step up from posting about my lunch. Which is chilli.
Off we go!
- Send in your samples to be photographed by a scanning electron microscope
- Jane McGonigal on how games can make the world a better place
- Rentokil's misleading marketing is "brilliant"
- YouTube: Viacom secretly posted its videos even as they sued us for not taking down Viacom videos*
- Entertainment industry sours on term "pirate" -- too sexy
- Raiding Eternity
- Mark Dery: What do zombies Mean?
- Photo series of baby dressed up as ruthless dictators
- Loud sex is a reason for cops to search your home, rules court
- The Young Man's Book of Amusement
- Trailer for Parallel Lines: five short films that use the same dialogue
- Future of Publishing video will amuse and delight
And that will do it for today. Big thanks to BoingBoing.net for being awesome.
*Fun Fact! I posted a video on YouTube a couple years back showing how I developed a sketch in Photoshop and it was taken down by order of Viacom because it had the word "Help" in the title. It had nothing in it that wasn't created by me. I later changed the name and reposted it without any problem. Fuck them and their draconic copyright enforcement. I hope their entire legal department spontaneously shit themselves inside out, all at once. baBOOMF! *wobble*
A Great Deal…
... for all of you Photoshop jockeys that are using a Mac. Today only, at MacUpdate they are offering Brush Pilot for $5.99 – down from $15.00. A 60% savings. Looking at the program on their site it seems like a great deal if, like me, you enjoy working in Photoshop and have so many brushes that you can't remember what they are and don't want to take the time of loading them all in. Seriously, check it out:
Brush Pilot™ - The fast and easy Photoshop Brush preview for Mac OS X
Edit: The one day sale is over, however they're continuing at a 33% discount for the next 14 days at this link. So you can still save $5 on it if you weren't able to get it yesterday.