biocursion.com

yay!  My vacation is almost over.  One thing that definitely made this a vacation is being not only away from work - but I haven’t don’t jack squat with anything related to computers (excpet my glorious blog! and uploading some photos on my puffy-head’s photo site).  I brought a pile of books home with me from work, and actually got them out of the car onto my desk in the Man Cave.  And, that’s where they’s been the whole fucking time.  Sweet.

I did almost everything planned on yesterday.  I didn’t go to the public market for lunch because I was extra woosie from lack-o-food coupled by the fact somebody asked me to check out the Two Bells Tavern.  So - that’s where I went for lunch.  The other points of interest were mostly met.  I worked on my little scheme for Rolf at the public library on the 10th or so floor.  It’s nice up there.  Too bad it mostly attracts the homeless.  I swear a dude was giving himself a sponge bath in the 1st floor bathroom.  Yay.  Yeah, I even scored three more Banks books.  BUT - the bridge wasn’t a book they had, nor did I think to ask if they could order it for me.  I would call them to ask - but amazon.com is the easy way out.  $20 for a used copy - in “collectible” condition.  What does that mean?

Now, I am in my new favorite coffee shop in seattle.  Not Sickman - but that’s only because that place has crappy chairs that put my bum to sleep in 40 minutes.  My schlong was obvilious to the world for a while.  This place is still “untitled”.  All I do know about it is they serve “Zoka” coffee.  If this place is at noon, there’s a coffee shop at 6:00 on the other side of the block.

Poo!  I didn’t bring my camera.  One of these days I will.  

Time to spend a couple of minutes on my rolf work, and then to home.  I thought I would do a spot of cleaning before the gestater (sp?) comes home.

Tmorrow is my last day of freedom.  At least now I know what I would do if I was single and did not have to work: wander the streets, read and drink a lot of coffee.  It was actually hard to not start up some project and just “hang out”.  Absolutely nothing had been planned.  Was nice, but I’m ready to go back to work on Monday.  It’s going to take another two weeks to get completely back into the swing of work, too.  My mailbox most likely has over a thousand emails.  Love.

Tmorrow will be a little different.  Some tiny inkling of some plans.  I’ve got a couple of things to aim for: wander around downtown Seattle for about two hours after eating breakfast in Capitol Hill.  There’s a book needing to be purchased - the next Iain Banks book: “The Bridge”.  He writes fiction and science fiction - his fiction is under “Iain Banks” and his science-fiction is under “Iain M. Banks”.  So far, I like his fiction better (only read about 75 pages of “Consider Phlebas”).  It’s not an overly available book - so another author’s full body of work may need to be chosen..

My smart brain cell is telling me to not start another project until the last one is done.  That last one is “biocursion”.  The dvd is done, but there are some loose ends.  I need to cut a single-layer version so I can get it on amazon’s do-it-yourself site, createspace.com.    Then, kill my e-commerce page.  The dual-layer version will still be available from filmbaby.com, but not me.  The site’s blog (me!) said the site would be updated.  That needs to happen.  I’ve got lots more stills to post and some animations.  Then, call it “good”.  Maybe it will start selling more than just enough to keep the heat on.  Get one now! 

The biocursion work requires me to lock myself in my man-cave (aka basement “office”).  That kinda sucks when I can be out and about.  So, that’s where my smart brain cell will be overwhelmed by all the other brain cells that are.. a little lacking.  They will convince me to spent two hours at the downtown library and my new favorite coffee shop in Ballard.  Lunch will be snagged in the public market downtown - since that was the first place I went on the first day of the vacation.  Home by 4:00.  The final two hours working on biocursion. 

I’ll try to take a few photos tomorrow, too - to let you see what I’ve been up to lately.

I swear, the only thing consistant over the past week is the consumption of coffee and eggs.  That was my glorious plan for this two week period of time.  The first week was spent doing a couple of things around the house - like, hanging a new (additional) cabinent and a couple of shelving units here and there to fill some empty space.  That went well.  This week is being spend not doing much, and actually enjoying not doing anything.  It’s been a while since I could just not do anything.  My original plan was to read some computery books (one on virtualization using ESX, one on some SAN basics and a final on - an introductory into Microsoft’s Power Shell.)  Then it was to kickstart a new animation project.  That didn’t happen yet, but it will.

The idea now is to not take this vacation as a catch up to all the things needed to get done or learned or started, but just as a vacation!  In fact, I think I will call this my holidays.  That’s what our little pals in Ireland and England call it.

The big event was finishing a book, reading a book and starting another.

Right now I am in some tiny coffee shop in Ballard.  Don’t know the name of it - it’s across the street and up from Hatties Hat.  There’s a little balcony just above the barista, but it looks like it’s only used for storage.  There are offices in the building - so there’s a hallway that leads around back with some tiny tables.  That’s where I am now.  The place is currently empty - outside of me, the coffee chick and some guy asking for an 8oz coffee in a very loud voice.

I want to have one of these offices!  Hmm..  a good reason to make my little animtion thing more than a thing,  Super.

Gotta go.  Feeling the pressure of being a slacker with a natural aversion to being a slacker.

Anyway - too bad I don’t have a camera.  From where I am sitting, a good still life would be snapped.

Uncle Sam Cereal and a cup of PG Tips tomorrow!$!@#$

I hate vacations!  Whenever there are swathes of time with nothing telling me “HEY!  You, over there!  Don’t waste any time!” I end up wasting a lot of time.  This happens when you are 1) lazy and 2) haven’t taken a day off in over a year (not counting when the daycare is closed) and 3) take your car in for a brake job downtown and don’t have anything except for a laptop.  The brakes should be done anytime now.  It’s almost 2:00 - the car was dropped off around 8:45.  

Wandering in downtown Seattle is relaxing as long as there is a lack of a checklist of things to do and see.

After making my way to the public market - I found a little diner in there with decent food.  It was dark with short steel stools with thin padding on the top clustered around all the tables.  The room was small and clean - with one wall consisting of four windows.  The view looked out at the sound and a bit of West Seattle way over “there”.  .. West Seattle is super.

After that, I meandered up and down streets with my chin up in the air like a fresh tourist off the bus.  No camera.  This time.  Years ago - I came downtown two times for a “photo shoot”.  One of my favorite photos was of a building with a set of stairs on the side.  Somewhere just before Yestler goes over I5.  That little corner used to be in shambles - old office buildings with lots of vacancies and nothing in the street level commercial spots.  There was a microscopic deli on one end, but that was about it.

The deli is still there, but now - all the building seem to be full of offices and noody-naw organizations.  People working in front of large desks behind 32″ Mac monitors, designing new offices for the next generation.  Super.  Things are looking better.  In one of the corner offices is a coffee shop - on the corner of Prefontaine and S. Washington Street, where I sat sipping an americano in a paper cup for about an hour and a half.  I looked closer at four books I picked up at the Elliot Bay bookshop: “The Sea” by John Banville, “Consider Phlebas” and “Walking on Glass” by Ian Banks and a replacement copy of “The Futurological Congress” by Stanislaw Lem.  (the original was left of a public bus back about four years ago - with only about 20 pages left to read).

Now I’m in the public library.  It’s the coolest public library that’s not one of those old, paper smelling libraries that don’t seem to exist anymore.  It looks like a time / space warp accident in a physical form.

I need to get walking to the garage soon.  And, figure out what I am going to do for the next two weeks.

Way back in 1995, when I started to really get into the indepenent film “thing” - there was “Smoke”.  1995 was the year I saw no less than 25 non-hollywood films (”movie” is a good word for something that came from Hollywood..) and “Smoke” was one of them.  This was one of a handful I actualy saw at least two times in the theatre.  You see film at a theatre.  Movies are shown in theaters.  (heh-heh)  I loved “Smoke” -  it was a dumping of gas on a bonfire.  The kind of storytelling this film used was not too common with American movies, at least with my limited exposure to it.  (I hadn’t seen “Strangers in Paradise” yet..)

I always liked Harvey Keitel, for some reason.  He was in a slew of shit in his career - but I’d still watch anything with him it it.  Anyway - there’s a great shot where he is explaining a story to another character (William Hurt) and it’s one long camera cut.  I’d say it lasts about three minutes?  Maybe less..  The shot starts out a a medium-long shot, and the camera slowly creeps up into an extreme close-up of his face.

Last week I watched it again - the first time in at least ten years.  After seeing it three times in the theatre - I saw it maybe three more times on video.  It was still a “favorite film” - and was needing a quick check to make sure it past the test of time.  It did, but there was a lot of annoyingnesses sprinkled throughout.  One was the drippiness of William Hurt.  Yeah - I know that he’s always a bit of a drip..  Forrest Whitaker was over the top - but nowhere as bad as he was in “Species”.  See “Ghost Dog” for a “good” Worrest Whitaker movie.

 The black kid reminded me of somebody..  He kinda looked like the guy who plays Michael in “Lost”, but he was too young in this movie.  So, I looked him up and it turned out that it really was the Lost Dude.  He just looked way too young - just two years younger than Forest Whitaker.  BTW - Forest Whitaker played his dad. 

The humor almost ruined it for me, too, during this recent viewing.  But all was forgiven when the movie was almost over.  Harvey Keitel is telling a story that happened to him (how he came to own his camera) all during a super long camera cut.  The scene is in black and white, and matches the verbal version perfectly.  All the while, Tom Waits is wailing about being innocent when you dream.  The scene starts with a medium shot, and over a course of three to five minutes - the camera slowly pulls up to an ultra close-up of his face.  That’s not all, but you’ll need to watch it on your own to see.

I won’t be watching this film again.  The way I remember it from the first three times I saw it in the theatre is slightly better than how it was from my trip to blockbuster (not really a trip - it was from blockbuster online!).  If I ever quit my job and become a writer, though - I may need to start smoking.

blah blah blah.  Who cares about what I think of coffee…  I don’t even care anymore.  Lemme think here a little bit…  how I can write a last entry about it.

 At work, the break room coffee is sickning.  A few guy and myself got together and started pooling money and buying beans.  We set up “Cafe Toit” in an enpty cubicle.  It was fantastic.  Dark dark dark strong French roasted coffee brewed several times a day.  That was back when I started at 5:30 everyday.  The routine was to gat that first pot brewed first thing.  The coffee was brewed in the break room, and poured into a carafe.  It caught on to a lot of people at first, but after about six months - only the coffee whores stuck to it.

Then I got a different job in the same company and moved to desk in the same area.  IT.  I went from Cafe Toit to Starbucks to brewing at home every morning and using a fancy $75 thermos from my wife. 

blah blah blah

The end of the story is that I drink pretty much only strong tea (PG Tips) with some milk at work now.  I went from 12 shots a day to about five shots a week.  At home I drink mostly tea, too.  No, I’m not off coffee.  There are two reasons for this change.  At the end of the day - I was bizarrely exhausted.  I think the coffee was buring all my energy off too fast.  Once I cut back, I wasn’t falling asleep during story time (yeah, I do storytime with the boy every once in a while..)  The second reason is because too much of a good thing is bad.  Coffee, really good coffee (kona, Kenyan, etc) can’t be beat as a think to enjoy above all over things which are enjoyable.  But, I found if I don’t drink any for a few days - when I finally do, it tastes super.  That’s it.

Don’t worry - I won’t have a series of posts on my exploits with tea.  Fear not.

I’m waiting for a dvd to burn.  Somebody ordered a copy of biocursion and they need the “high compatible” version.  That just means the dual layer version is spread across two single layer dvds.  The biocursion sales have been slower than a year ago - but more than enough to keep the fire burning.  It’s weird how biocursion was my top priority only a year ago - and the preceeding three years before that..  Too bad it didn’t make me an insane millionaire so I could retire in Copenhagen.  NOW I rarely think of the whole thing and if anybody asks about it, it takes a second to get into the right mental gear.  The odds of another biocursion are fairly zero.  Well, unless there’s a massive break-through in the next couple of years in terms of mega-fast desktops.  They just take too long to render.  And, by the time the desktops are fast enough - the world will be adopting a 2048p tv standard.  Yikes. 

The dvd is almost done.  Another $20 for the cause…

I was completely surprised when I found out people were actually READING this blog.  There are so many blogs out there, this tiny spot should’ve been looked over.  The first comments were from relatives - primarily complaining (commenting) about the language.  That’s cool.  If anybody else complains, they will be labed as a delicate flower and ignored.  Somebody, somebody who also bought a copy of biocursion (thanks, man), even said he enjoyed reading my post about the boxlady.  I need to update that post - it was written either too early in the morning, or too late in the evening.  Something about it didn’t flow to super when I re-read it.  No hot chicks emailing me naked photos.. yet, but that’s okay. 

Let’s see… What to say…You’d think there would be a lot of amazingness to post up here conidering the amounts of nothing for months and months.  Nope.  Well. work.  And the boy is getting big.  Work is .. work.  Not much to report there.  I’m a systems engineer - a Windows Server engineer, that is.  The boy..  He’s getting good at talking and asking to watch tv first thing in the morning.  Heh-heh.  Check out his photo gallery.  It’s something like thomas dot biocursion dot com forward slash tgallery.  You’ll see a couple of photos of me in there, but don’t worry - I keep that to a minimum.

that’s it for now.  A few people at my place of employment have been asking me about my next post.  Here it is!

I was at Las Vegas for my first time last week.  Boiled down to one word: “surreal”.  The scale of it is amazing - a vast playground for adults.  Nice place to visit a couple of times, but not my ideal destination.  I tried to see the Fear and Loathing spots, but didn’t get far.  The Circus-Circus was as far as I got.  Much smaller and less freaky then expected.  Too bad..

In two Days I will be watching “300″.  Talk about a movie aimed for Y-Y Chromo Boys..  Somebody said it was directed by a guy with three machine guns for a dick.  That’s all I needed to know.  In preparation to see this - yeah, preparation! - I bought a book by some Paul Cartledge dude (and read it).  Holy shit.  Talk about an event which reeks of pure fiction.  I don’t know what the movie will be like (exactly), but it looks like it shows the 300 fighting a million.  Slight exaggeration.  Yeah, they’re wearing shoes, the red cloak and have an unshaven upper lip. Who cares?  I’m going to see two and a half hours of thinly sliced Persian lunchmeat.