our friend was here for four months, now he's gone. goodbye andy.

It's friday. this week has felt long, due to the archiving that i'm doing, which is a lot of prep and then even more waiting. raise your hand if you like waiting.

yesterday i got into reading about unsolved and amazing crime capers. it was rather interesting. i knew nothing of the hitler diaries until yesterday. i also knew nothing of the insurance scandal by frankel. it's interesting stuff. i'm tempted to write, it's like tv, but on paper, but that would be ridiculous.

i'm also reading lord of the flies. the prose in that book is weird. i like the concept, and i like where it's going, but it's strange, really dense i guess. i get lost in it, not the lost in a novel feeling, but lost like, what just happened, how did they get here. has anyone else read it?

i find it really hard to be honest and forthright at my work place. not because i'm deceitful but because everything is so nuanced, that i can't accurately portray how i feel without sounding like an rambling idiot. does that make any sense? i'm honest, the best i can be, but sometimes when i'm asked, why'd you do that, that way? i'm like, well, because i wanted to do it that way. and then it's like, why didn't you do it this way, and i'm like, well, um, i don't know. i just didn't. when i'm thinking,


doesn't that sound like a rambling idiot? anyway. it's the small things that matter right? i feel like i'm screwing up the small things. but i'm ignoring all the small things they screwed up, so that i have more self pity than i really need. so i shouldn't ignore those things. i should just accept that it's clear now and hold no grudges.

Posted by jack. |

i was sick on monday.

two things crossed my mind when contemplating blogging this morning. firstly the non comments. i find it interesting what isn't commented upon and what is. not in a i hate what i write sort of way, but really, just interesting. for a while, maybe even up to last week, i was feeling really good about blogging sheerly because of the comments i was getting. and then i got nothing on the last post and felt a little sad about it. then i felt a sort of relief about how somethings don't need comments. but it was more than relief, it was a burden lifted really. a realization that although this blog is read by others, it's really for me. it's a kind of cathartic thing to put words down, whether they be on paper or on keys. if i'm really to write, i don't mind that others read it, and i don't mind if they have comments on it, but they don't have to. comments don't validate my writing. i know this shifts our relationship from eager acceptance of comments to something else, but i don't mind, do you?

secondly, i forgot i guess. but i did have this dream about having a dream that was interpreted. i wonder if it means something.


edit,

i get sick of people assuming that common sense is common knowledge. there are many different ways to do things, just because my sense doesn't line up with your sense doesn't mean that you're right and i'm wrong.

Posted by jack. |

def. rummikub nation. rumination.

besides eating fried chicken, which is a holy mess of an operation, i really like it.

i find it interesting that others have the same interweb on interest about things like handwriting. i guess maybe somethings are a little more universal than you think. like doodling boxes, which is what i always doodle, some say that's very common. i don't like to think of it as common though, that's semi-depressive.

i am working fairly regularly these days, which i'm quite happy about. i even get to edit a little, which may become more of a normal thing. exciting stuff.

today has felt really random, from trying to export a honeymoon to tape to more test exports. i talked with ethan through said web on intertwines. it was good. we need to see eachother again, because without enough ethan a person can go blind, and blind, is never good, especially if you are of the seeing mentality.

went to the city of angels film festival opening thingy last night. it was a showcase of christian filmmakers who are not students. there were only three films, but two of them were quite good. in fact, one of those two was really good in an almost famous sort of awesome way. i really liked it. "wow and flutter" it's called. i guess that's a term for the lp nation. i never heard of it, and then was laughed slightly at because of my young ignorance. eitherway, the film was good. i couldn't even tell you how long it was, somewhere between 10 and 30 minutes i think.

we've been hitting up the settlers of catan like mad men and women as of late. we've taught upwards of 10 people how to play, now they all want to play again. 'tis good. hopefully we don't get sick of it.

community is weird. in a good way. it seems to be easier when you have something to do, or talk about, but there are always those times where you are talking about seemingly nothing but it's really something, and that something is you, and whether or not i really want to get to know you. even if i can't really talk about me very well. i can talk about catan well, because i know it. i must not know me very well.

Posted by jack. |

i've been obsessed, slightly, with handwriting for quite some time. when i label stuff at work, it looks unprofessional to me because it's in my handwriting. when amy does it, it looks the way it supposed to.

sometime during college i switched to doing all capital letters when writing with my hands and a pen. i also switched to using all small letters when typing. that may have started during highschool. one day i was sitting next to brielle, it was either in art history or psychology, and she asked me why and i said so i could read it mostly, and she said, yea, that's why i do it too. i felt like we had a bit of a moment there, a commonality that you don't always get when you take psychology and art history together.

last night as a part of one.org we gathered, called possible representatives, and talked about aids and extreme poverty in africa. it was a good thing to do, although the whole experience made me uncomfortable. at first i really didn't want to call, but i did and left a message. i'm not sure why things like this make me uncomfortable, i think it's the whole politics thing. while an auroa of argument seemed to be brewing we left, in hopes of avoiding the fray.

on the way home i decided this, I care deeply about fair trade, and i want my representative to know that as a part of his or her constituency, that fair trade is something that i care about. what annoys me is when people see a solution to the problem of say, extreme poverty and then vote soley on that issue. i'm not saying that extreme poverty isn't something that you should care about, but what i'm saying is that you shouldn't paint the solution into a box, and that box contains only one candidate. i say vote for smart people that you feel would be able to solve this problem. it may not be the solution that you thought should be implemented, but if they are smart i bet they'll consider all the options--possibly even some that you wouldn't have thought up. the benifit to voting for smart people is that they may also solve problems that you couldn't have even considered when you voted.

my computers about to be hijacked, so i stop writing.

Posted by jack. |

you've got 5 minutes and three questions, ready, go.

Given the current state of the union, would you rather eat a fried duck or a fried apple fritter?

without using a calculator, what bitrate should we use in order to get the 1.5 hr hd film onto a dvd as a file?

Who was president during 1963?

Posted by jack. |

on my way to drop off some films this week, i saw a bunch of pigeons on the side of the road, off the exit ramp. i didn't think anything of it, but then they all flew away at the same time--so i looked more closely and there was a man sitting in the brush, actually it looked like he was sleeping. at first i though, boy, those pigeons were invading his space, good thing he got them to get out of there. but then, he threw some crumbs around him and the pigeons returned. eventually one of them stood on his arm and ate some crumbs out of his hand and then he opened his mouth a little, and the light turned green -- i had to drive away.

our picture/photo of the week is numbers. i'm extremely uninspired. i've been thinking about ways to be creative with it, and i can't come up with anything yet. i'm sure it'll come, but it's frustrating at the moment, like something i should be doing, but am not.

i picked up mark and lana from the airport yesterday. the traffick coming home was especially bad. well, it was bad. being able to drive in the carpool lane was a life saver. you know how the carpool lane ends when you get near downtown on the 110? isn't that the dumbest thing they could have done? i mean, why when you are getting into the heat of it, they take away the one way that you could expidite the travel. silly people. the radio told me it would cost 120 billion dollars to fix the congestion problem in la. if we dedicated 5 billion each year, it would take 25 years. the amazing thing is that's only like 5% of the budget i think.

When i was working security at the d-o-r-d-t college, ryan the champion of the world de haan was working with me for a time, until he vanished into this air. he told me this story once about how after coming home from buying smokes, back home in alberta, all these birds were flying around him and he felt like a vampire because birds can smell death. i always imagined that he was wearing some sort of black cape which tipped the birds off to his vampire tendancies.

Ryan was also always talking about art and photography. he wanted to do a series of this kind of photo, and then he wanted to do this other kind of thing, and then he wanted to make this movie. he had amazing talent for thinking of ideas. for some reason i always felt like i was raining on his parade when i was like, "you know, that's going to be really hard to do, making the person be in color and the brick wall be in black and white." and he'd be like, "you can do, can't you jack? you're good at that stuff?"

When ryan realized that he wouldn't be able to get paid at d-o-r-d-t because of a snafu with his i20 immigration papers, he wrote me a note saying that we should leave right now and go to the border so that he could get his papers. his note went something like this,

oh jack, you need to come with me.
you see, jack, the routine that is, that is you
needs changing
it needs sublime comfort in the open road
it needs a trip a vaction a way
we need to travel to that border up above.

that's the memory paraphrase. i didn't go. i think eric vw did. i was torn. i may have had homework or papers or something to do.

i bet there wouldn't have been traffick though.

Posted by jack. |

got mad because no one is posting, and realized that i haven't posted for a week. hurumph. my condolences go out to dane. it sucks being far away when someone close to you passes away.

for those of you who are updating, it's been good reading, thankyou. not much has happened since we last talked. my toe nail came off, which was good and bad all at the same time, you see, i had been wanting it to come off because of the pressure it was causing where it is, but now i know, just like eyebrows, when there gone, how helpful those toe nails are. my walking is almost back to normal. i wear shoes most of the time though, sandals would be bad for all people involved.

we had a super relaxazaxing weekend. not much happened. we watched rv, which, was surprisingly funny, stupid, but funny. i don't think robin williams can make a not funny movie. so i'm looking forward to man of the year, even if people are saying it's full of silly simple jokes, i trust that williams man will be funny. we also rented the inside man, which i'm anxious to see, jodie foster, denzel washington, clive owen, spike lee, it's gotta be good.

the parents that weren't mine until march 11 are coming on thursday. it may be one of theirs first time flying (read it's lana's first time flying). i expect good times.

ihopeyouarewell.

Posted by jack. |