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Post after post of Twitter Logs. Sure, it’s a good gauge to track where I am, what I’m doing and whether I’m still alive or not, but it isn’t entertaining reading. What changed? Why have I written so little here lately? Did I get burned out in November? Does the constant clicking on Twitter kill my willingness to write in earnest?
Maybe I’m just writing so much for my other weblogs that I have nothing left for this one.
That sounds like a good theory, but it just isn’t true. My writing has been suffering on ALL of my blogs.
Maybe this is just a cyclical thing. Sometimes I’m really inspired to write. Sometimes I feel like I can’t write. Fortunately, I’m not stopped up and completely unable to create. I’m just a little slower now than I was before. I’m sure the pace will pick up again.
Until then, maybe I’ll just take photos or draw pictures or something like that. Whatever I do, I need to stem off the tide of constant Twitter Logs.
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I’m up. I’m dressed. I’m ready to attack CES, but Mike and I made a deal. I was going to let him sleep until 8am. It’s 7:37 right now. Twenty-three minutes! I can’t believe how slow time flows when I want to get something done!
Last night, we went to Bloghaus. We were going to go to the Bill Gates Keynote Address, but we decided to hang with the bloggers instead. Fortunately, they were streaming the keynote there. It was my best Bill Gates keynote experience because we could hang out with other people and make fun of the television just as if it was 1992 and we were all watching Melrose Place.
Scoble was showing off his Nokia N95 phone with 3G by streaming live video to Qik. He filmed me, Michael and a bunch of people from Gear Live on this video.
I’m at the 2:55 mark. A special thank you to Matthew Reinbold for finding me in the pile of video. When he walked up to me with the camera, I had no idea it was streaming live. I kind of figured whatever he filmed with me would end up on the cutting room floor, so I didn’t really try very hard to be cool or even promote The Gadgets Page.
Ah… self promotion’s overrated, anyway.
God, it’s only 7:50 am. Ten minutes until I can wake up Michael.
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The Elvis Fan Club didn’t forget, but apparently I’ve missed another birthday. It was January 8th.
I’ll never forget the day I found out Elvis died. A neighborhood boy came up to me and said,
“The King is dead.”
I replied in all seriousness,
“We’re America. We don’t have a king.”
No amount of explaining could save that conversation, mostly because we were only eight years old.
I am tired. I walked over four miles today and that is just what the Nike+ recorded. It kept turning itself off, so I know I walked more than that. As much as I’m enjoying myself, I can’t bear to go to any of the awesome parties. I was invited to so many parties and Bloghaus is a constant party every day, but I am tuckered out. It’s all I can do just to go home and write the Gadgets Page entries every night. I see so much during the day that there is no way I can possible write about it all while I’m here.
I’m going down to the casino to get a fruity drink (’cause I can’t shoot whiskey) and go to bed. Last night’s Warp Core Breach was exactly what I needed, but I’m too far away from Quarks to repeat that.
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I don’t know why CES was so tiring this year. Maybe it’s because the Blogger Lounge was an additional mile away from everything else. Maybe it’s because I’m WAY out of shape right now and carrying extra weight around makes it more difficult to get around. Maybe it’s because after three years of this, it all looks exactly the same.
Whatever the reason, I’m physically exhausted. My mind is going a million miles a minute and I have tons of new things to write about on the Gadgets Page, but my body is tired, achy and unwilling to cooperate.
I am wide awake at 3:20 am, but unable to do anything but type words on the computer.
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I told myself this morning that I was going to quit Twitter. The constant interruption from other people and the constant responses from me have seemed to deplete my writing reserves. When I’m constantly chatting away on Twitter, it interrupts my “real” writing. It actually makes writing harder. So I’m going on a Twitter Fast.
Of course, I said that to myself and then immediately loaded up Twitter to see how my friends are doing. I commented to a few of them before I even remembered that I had decided to quit Twitter. So… I’m quitting Twitter… really I am.
Most importantly, writing on all my sites has become so difficult for me that I am willing to do anything to get my writing reserves stored back up. If that means that I have to quit Twitter and suffer with the loneliness that will accompany that decision, then that’s what I have to do.
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Yesterday, we visited Dylan at his house. This morning, he is going in for surgery to have a tumor removed from his hand. The tumor has eaten away at the bone, so they are going to take some bone from his wrist to reconstruct his finger. We wanted to see him before he went under anesthesia because after the surgery, he’ll be down for a while.
Most importantly, he won’t be able to play guitar.
I remember when Dylan started playing guitar in high school. I was impressed with his abilities and I thought he had learned guitar just to be my accompaniment. Kearns High was having a talent show, so I asked him if he wanted to be in the talent show. I could sing and he could play the guitar. He wasn’t interested in that idea at all. In fact, he had no desire to play the guitar in front of anyone else at the time. I figured he was good enough to play in front of the whole school, but he basically told me that there wasn’t a chance in hell that he would play in the talent show.
I think that was senior year because I wanted us to do Fast Car by Tracy Chapman.
Today, I’m hoping Dylan’s surgery is going well. I hope his hand heals well and we are all able to listen to him play guitar soon. I promise, I won’t make you stand in front of the whole school and play a song you don’t like. Just get better, man.
Update 01-17-08: He’s fine, he’s home and his x-rays are online:
I have a love/hate relationship with the Craftzine blog. I LOVE them because they find cute little guys like this for me. I hate them because they post SO many items that it’s time-consuming just to scroll past them all. They post so many things that they don’t have time to try out the things that they post, so they will link to things that have instructions in French, no instructions at all or in this case, instructions written by a graphic artist.
Christopher Bonnette, the creator of Macula.tv, is genius, but not a writer.
When Craftzine linked to Macula.tv’s Chibi Yeti Paper Toy on Flickr, I was so excited. I love these little papercraft figurines. Unfortunately, the directions were cryptic at best. I was about to give up, but I looked at Christopher’s website and everything there was so beautiful, I decided there MUST be a way to put it together and have it look good. Fortunately, I had just enough experience in topology to fathom it. If you would like to make this little guy, continue reading for more specific directions:
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Every time I pull out the camera and ask Sid to sit, he sits… for about 10 seconds. Then he immediately starts doing all of his other tricks. He’ll lift his paw to shake, he’ll take a bow, he’ll start sneezing and yawning.
Honestly, he was just yawning in this photo, but doesn’t he look like something you would meet on the way to hell? Sid Vicious: Demon Dog.
Here’s a better photo:
Did you know that it’s virtually impossible to correct red-eye on this dog? Not even iPhoto could do it. I had to do it myself and it looks horrible. Oh well, I never said I was a Photoshop expert…
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You might not be able to see it. Not because I had a good dentist or anything. It’s just that it’s not something that people really notice unless you’re missing a whole tooth. A tooth broken in half and haphazardly fixed with a bit of porcelain on the top held in by a metal pin is hardly noticeable.
The porcelain has worn away over the years and the metal pin has become visible, but you can’t even see it in this photograph.
In fifth grade, we were having a bake sale. My mom made some awesome brownies for the bake sale. They were dark, chocolately and they were decorated with half a walnut on the top of each one. They were beautiful, simple and I KNEW they would sell out immediately at the bake sale, so I wanted one of my own.
Unfortunately, she had put them in the green FAKE tupperware container. You know, the one that little fifth grade hands cannot open, not by design, but by lack of it.
I was determined to have a brownie before I relinquished them to my teacher, so I took a butter knife and slide it under the lid of the container. I figured that with gentle prying, it would come off. It didn’t. I tried prying it harder, but the butter knife slipped out from under the edge of the lid and hit me square in the mouth.
I had a piece of tooth on my tongue and a bruised ego.
I have no idea where my mom was when I broke my tooth, but I got her. There was scolding and telephone calls to the dentist. They couldn’t get us in until the afternoon, so my mom sent me to school with a broken tooth in my mouth and the impenetrable box of brownies in my hands.
I visited the dentist while my mom’s brownies sold out at the bake sale. It didn’t matter. I never had money to buy things at the bake sale anyway. At least, that’s what I told myself. I never did get one of those brownies.
Over the years, I learned to smile without showing my bottom teeth (or upper gums, but that’s another story). If you look at my photos, you’ll hardly ever see my lower teeth because I have been hiding them for 28 years. When I look at that broken tooth now, it almost serves as a indicator of my gluttony. I wanted brownies for breakfast and I was punished for it. I still think of it with shame even though it was so long ago.
I really should get that tooth fixed…
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I love this video! My favorite is 44! He looks so happy! What is it about banging on a snare drum that seems so joyful?
The Portable Film Festival is a video podcast available on iTunes as well as YouTube, so if you’re looking for some interesting little videos to fill your shiny iPhone, you can subscribe for free.
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I’ve been reading Megan Wallent’s blog and commenting FAR too much.
Megan is transitioning from Micheal to Megan. Almost every entry she writes makes me think about what it means to be a girl. It all reminds me of a song by Suzanne Vega, “As Girls Go.”
You make a really good girl
As girls go
Still kind of look like a guy
I never thought to wonder why
The most important line of that song is the title, “As Girls Go.” It implies that underlying scrutiny that girls put each other through CONSTANTLY. It was worse in junior high and high school, but I find myself surprised that it still occurs when we are adults. Most surprising of all is what I’ve noticed about myself.
I find myself quick to point out the spots where she “still kind of looks like a guy.” In my mind I’m just “helping,” but it’s more than that. I’ve written about this before:
I never wanted to be the girl to say, “Why would you wear THOSE pants?” Yet, I find myself nit-picking at Megan. It was ME that mentioned something about her watch. ME. I’m the one who has to constantly NOT buy a men’s watch because it has more features than the girl’s watch. I guess if I had to sacrifice features to beauty, I figured Megan did too. Uncool, Laura, Uncool.
If I wasn’t worried about looking too butch, I would buy the men’s Fossil watch with the black metal and the negative display. All the features and big and chunky. It’s the watch I keep trying to get Mike to buy for himself because it’s so pretty. I should just buy it for myself.
I am so far from the kind of girl who should be giving Megan advice. I’m the kind of girl who buys seven red shirts and seven pairs of jeans so that I don’t have to decide what I’m going to wear every morning. It’s always the same. Red shirt and jeans. Sometimes I go crazy and mix it up with khakis. In fact, now that I don’t work in an office anymore, I only pull out the high heels for really special occasions.
I’m not going to comment on Megan’s site anymore. She seems to be handling things just fine without some catty girl asking, “Why would you wear THAT watch?”
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Note to self: Download this B-17 Model and put it together. Fun thing to do with Ian.
Ask Mike about this…
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This is a funny little video.
The thing is, I actually learned how to do paths with this video. He was right. I HAVE only been using about $75 worth of PhotoShop! Funny AND Informative!
This is an EXCELLENT pattern for fingerless gloves.
I love this pattern works in spirals instead of rounds. It makes it so easy for someone who never really learned how to work in rounds.
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Yesterday, when I was putting on lotion, I found myself staring at my bedspread. After a few moments, my gaze started to wander and I noticed that my bedspread is like one of those Magic Eye pictures where you can see something in the pattern.
I snapped a photo. This picture was adjusted for lighting and cropped. I didn’t change anything else in it. If you click on it, you can see a larger version on Flickr.
Mike saw me playing with the photo partially dressed. “What are you doing? I thought we were getting ready to go.”
“I noticed that there was some weird Magic Eye thing on the bedspread, so I took a picture of it. I can still see it even though it’s a photo.”
“Yeah, any repetitive thing will do that. So, what do you see? A squirrel?”
“No, it’s just some random shapes and stuff. No picture. Want to try it?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“If I’m going to get a headache, I should at least be able to see a squirrel.”
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My friend, Naked Jen, just moved here. She just discovered LDS Seminary, which is LDS religious training that takes place in the junior high and high schools here in Utah. Sadly, it wasn’t explained to her very well and the resulting misinformation has her thinking that her tax dollars will go to pay for religious training.
There was far more for me to say about this subject than would fit into a tiny little comment form, so I thought I’d write a blog entry about the subject.
Be calm. NO tax dollars are spent to teach the LDS classes. It is ENTIRELY separate. The LDS church pays the salary of the teachers. The LDS church has paid to buy land next to EVERY junior high and high school in Utah. You actually have to leave school grounds to go to seminary.
To take seminary classes, you have to sign up for “Released Time,” which means that the school system is releasing you for the length of the class. It’s very much like if you had a job and took “Work Release.” You don’t get any school credit for the time you go to seminary. It just shows up as a blank on your schedule AND report card.
If you aren’t Mormon, like I was when I went to school, you don’t take seminary. Of course, you’re welcome to take the seminary classes, even if you’re not Mormon. I did when I was in ninth grade. That year, we studied the Old Testament. If you follow the curriculum, you end up reading the entire Old Testament over the course of that year. I believe they cover the New Testament in tenth grade, and then The Book of Mormon and triplet the following two years. If you aren’t Mormon, you can even take seminary, slough it, and no one can get you in trouble. If you ARE Mormon, you’ll have to suffer the wrath of your parents if you slough seminary, but I guess that depends on your family.
If you aren’t Mormon, and you don’t take seminary, you have one extra class a year that you can do anything with. Since the system is set up so you can graduate, even if you take seminary, you can get extra credits by taking classes that aren’t required (like art or music or shop or whatever). So, Naked Jen, you got your wish. All those non-LDS children have a wonderful advantage and are able to use that extra time however they choose.
Now, as far as separation of church and state? No, there is NO separation of church and state here in Utah. There is an appearance of it, but in actuality, there is none. I know this will change and Utah will slowly become more secular, but it won’t happen in my lifetime. I understand that I will never see it come to pass and I have come to accept this negative aspect of Utah with all the good that the state has to offer.
All the good…
Like huge snow storms that cause whiteout conditions and close the canyon to Park City… Maybe I need to rethink this whole Utah thing… :)
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