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Hi.
This is my old weblog archive and is no longer actively updated. Please visit this link for my current blog.
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Michael's Diary -- 2001-2003 Archive
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4.05.2003
Last night, went to the Silent Movie fundariser. G had to work late and couldn't go. It was nice, in a pleasant, thing-in-an-art-gallery kind of way. Seeing the 100-year-old films on a vintage handcranked projector was cool. The remainder of the program was a video projection of an old silent that I wasn't interested in. I was a) in the front row so it was unpleasant to watch the projection and b) it wasn't a particularly remarkable picture, so I bailed. Stopped at Borders to pick up an absolutely massive tutorial/manual for this high-powered 3D modelling software I acquired. I spent a while trying to figure it out on my own yesterday but found it frustrating. When I saw the manual for it, all 1200 pages' worth, I didn't feel so bad.
Hit Blockbuster to pick up a couple of films. One was With a Friend Like Harry, which was excellent, if a little ambiguous about its protagonist toward the end. One of the things I really liked about it was that it set up a lot of stock thriller situations but did not pay off on them in the stock way, if you know what I mean; the director and screenwriter played on our familiarity with thriller conventions to keep us off-balance and as unnerved as the protagonist. Highly recommended despite a somewhat unsatisfying denoument. The other film was The City of Lost Children, by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, who also directed Amelie and a film that's been highly recommended to me, Delicatessen. I really enjoyed Jeunet's use of color and camera movement in Amelie and I'm looking forward to this film too over the weekend.
As for today, in a few minutes G and I will go for our exercise walk. She is a prisoner of her studies today, so I will likely devote a bundle of time to learning this 3D package. Then, who knows. Maybe a movie. Maybe something with friends. But we'll be doing something fun, I can assure you of that. I can't take another lazy-sack-of-crap weekend like last weekend.
12:36 PM
4.04.2003
The leadfooted little darlings have returned. Thumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthump every thrity seconds. Oh the humanity. God Lord how can people so small make so much noise?
5:02 PM
Rain and cold continue to be the order of the day here at Sheehan HQ. Even the dog doesn't want to go outside. He's hardly moved off his bed all day. Thunderstorms rolling through the neighborhood right now. Added some counters to the home page to salve my curiosity about whether anyone actually checks them out. Doing some 3D modelling work now. Determined to be productive. Have I told you all about my new job?
3:47 PM
Here's a link to the real helpful douche-bag proselytizing our need to go to "war" against various Mideast states. Way to go. Really the sort of thing we need to be hearing right now.
2:10 PM
Last night, a night off, more or less, from worrying about stuff. Out to the pub with a couple of friends for Guinness and conversation, home not too late, in bed by 12:00 or so -- not bad. Up early today as usual, a bit groggy, listening to BBC World Service for my War Fix over my tea, oatmeal, lowfat toaster pastry and sugar-free Tang. I find that in about 10 minutes you can find out all you need to know. The trick is to turn it off before the endless, needless speculation/fear-mongering by the commentators begins. I can hardly stand to watch US media coverage anymore. It's so glitzy and showbiz-y, it makes me ill. Especially egregious is CNN's nightly 'cast, Live from the Front Lines, with the horrible announcer recapping the stories of the day over the acton-film musiuc they have chosen as their soundtrack. I have to turn the volume off. Last night they had some guy talking about how this could turn into World War IV. Did I sleep through WWIII? Certainly possible, some would say.
I hope the city of Baghdad does not turn out to be a giant chemical weapons trap for our young people, not to mention the innocent Iraqi people who are now trapped within.
Alas I am not the only one to rise early here in Lincoln Square. The upstairs neighbors have had some friends staying with them this week. Friends with small children. (Not small enough, it seems.) Children who like to run, apparently, from one end of the apartment to the other. All morning (since 6:30 am) it's been: thump thump thump thump THUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPthumpthumpthump. And then in the other direction: thumpthumpthumpTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMP thump thump thump thump. Seriously, so heavy at times the light fixtures shake. Jumping up and down also seems to be a popular pastime. Now, I am second to no one in my appreciation of high-spirited youths. But this is going to bring me to tears very soon if it doesn't stop, I mean it is every three minutes. I cranked up some Bach in an effort to drown out the gazelle-like trampling and restore some peace to my environment. Only moderate success. I thought before they might be leaving the apartment for the day, but alas I was wrong -- thumpthumpthump.
Tonight G and i are going to a fundraiser for the Silent Film Society of Chicago, with a buffet and a presentation of two turn-of-the-century silent films presented on an actual projector of the period, in much the same way as these films woul have been shown in their day. Looking forward to it. There's a video presentation later in the evening that we might not stick around for. We'll see.
Not a lot in the way of business today but plenty of things to do. So I will keep busy.
8:48 AM
4.03.2003
Well. Ended up getting some good writing -- I mean stuff that I can actually see shaping in other drafts into something good, as opposed to a load of crap -- done on Tuesday night. Busy yesterday evening -- funny how an evening can get away from you. G & I took our walk as soon as we got home (late) from work. The balmy weather of late has gone away, so it was a brisk walk. Will be even brisker tonight. Anyway, by the time we got back, cooked supper, etc., it was too later to do much productive. Played a little guitar and before you know it, it was 11:30 and time for bed. I HAVE to make that my cutoff. Much less and I feel like shit the next day, and then when I do have some time in the evening to get some personal stuff done, I am too tired by far to be any good at it.
Anyway, it's important to have some relaxation time, too. I just feel there is so much that I have to do in the next 8-9 months and I don't feel like I have moved them forward enough. Have to set some firm deadlines. I try to give myself some structure but, apparently, not enough. So I am going to try to get some things accomplished tonight, among them scheduling myself time to get stuff done >i>and have some fun too.
Today I spent most of my time at one customer, troubleshooting a backup problem in the small cupboard of a room where they keep their server. They're great customers, but sitting in a closet all day is not all that much fun, amusing as it sounds. Have a few more work-related tasks and then I will move on to some other to-dos. G is out with the ladies this evening. I am tempted to round up a few of the lads for a pint or two and a bite to eat at the local.
A hilarious article on the poet laureate of the Bush administration can be found here.
I keep wondering, why do I write this thing? Well, it's actually been pretty useful. It encourages me to be honest with myself. It gives me an excuse to keep writing. And it serves as a kind of pointed stick to remind me of where I have been and where I am headed. I wonder about it because it's not like this is read by many people, if any. I wish there was some way I could tell -- perhaps there is a blog counter thingy here somewhere. I will have to look into that. I talked with G about it last night and she said, "So what? You don't write it for others, anyway, you write it for you." And she's right
4:46 PM
4.01.2003
Today was kind of a catching-up day. Saw some of the baseball game, a grisly performance by the New York Mets. If they play at this level the season is over before it even starts. Took care of some laundry issues, did a bunch of small but time-consuming things on my to-do list, actually got some screenplay writing done. I have really not been feeling positive and creative, at a time when i really need to be. I need to produce some creative pieces and as so often happens, when I am sitting down trying to "be creative," the well runs dry.
Well, a couple of ideas bobbed insistently up to the surface this evening and I thought of a way of combining them, I think, and I know what the story would be about. I even have some sketchy idea of how to get from point A to B. Much more than I have had previously, so hopefully this bodes well for this attempt. I initially got two pages into it, then realized I was framing the whole thing wrong, edited and readjusted, and then was able to crank out three pages and sketch out probably 5 or six more, maybe more than that. Off to the races.
It's funny how creative ideas are such elusive things. David Lynch talks about how he "fishes" for ideas. Finds a nice comfy chair. Lets his mind kind of drift, and sometimes the ideas come and he tries to catch them, gently. Explains a lot about David Lynch, I guess.
Well it's time for bed, now. Somehow managed to be productive today. The sour weekend kind of gave me the blahs. Seeing some baseball today -- and it was a beautiful day, if a little on the cool side -- lifted my spirits. Felt even better after knocking some tasks off my list. Now to bed at a decent hour, for me, to try to keep the ball rolling tomorrow.
12:18 AM
3.31.2003
Finally figured out my Premiere problem. Had two huge and fragmented AVIs on the drive I was capturing to which apparently were screwing up my file system. Deleted them, captures fine again.
8:57 AM
This weekend blew. We didn't do jack. At least yesterday was opening day; scored the game, which is always a treat. Had some hot dogs. Pretty much the highlight of the weekend. Not a lot scheduled for today, yet.
Interesting article here on the evil Don Rumsfeld. Sheesh. I always thought that at least we could expect the Republicans to bomb the piss out of people the right way. Oh, how blind I was. I almost wrote to the president about Rumsfeld (or "Rummy" as the headline writers amusingly call him) and what a flaming ass he is, trotting around the globe, pissing on everyone's Wheaties, insulting our allies and making statements that seem to unilaterally define American foreign policy -- in short, doing an awful lot that is well outside his brief as Secretary of Defense. Who does this guy think he is? And now we have the US military itself taking the piss out of him. His head will be on a plate if this "war" goes awry.
7:35 AM
3.30.2003
No updates lately -- sorry -- but judging by the vast hordes of people visiting the Guestbook nobody's missing it. Not much to report anyway.
A blah weekend. Friday we were both really exhausted so we did . . . nothing. I watched Thunderball, one of the most spectacular of the early Bonds. Played some Toontown with Genevieve and messed about on the computer.
Yesterday, a lazy day of doing . . . nothing. The kind of day that feels great while it's happeneing -- just kind of blowing things off, sleeping late, eating a nice brunch, pizza for dinner, watch a movie (not my choice -- About a Boy, not bad per se, but highly overrated) but sucks the next day when you look back on it and see you had things to do. Which I would be doing today. . . except. . .
Major headaches with my video editing rig ate most of my day today. Very disheartening as it is the core tool for my next year of work toward school. The fallback is to use a different program than the one exhibiting the problem (basically, one of my video programs is dropping frames when I capture -- out of the blue, not caused by anything as far as I can figure out, GRRRR!). That's not very satisfactory. I HATE not being able to resolve computer problems (fancy that). I tried everything, and I mean everything -- uninstalls, reinstalls, defrags, changing all the settings, every trick in my book, still the same result. Basically, wasted almost my whole Sunday dicking with it. It's possible my capture board has fizzled, but if that were the case I would think my captures would be hosed across the board. Not so. Very puzzling and irritating and now I am in a grumpy, bitchy mood.
Going to run to the store and get some food for dinner and watch the first baseball game of the season and try to cheer up.
5:02 PM
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