There’s a million things I can’t do. But what bugs me is that there’s a million things I could do given the chance. I feel pigeonholed by my work history.

The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters

Video game rivalries can be thrilling!

And wow, Billy Mitchell is really made out to be a jerk. Though I read some discussion notes on Wikipedia about how some parts of that stress was manufactured by the director with editing. 2 points being that we never see Billy playing even though he says how important it is to play in public, and that we never see Billy Mitchell and Steve Wiebe speaking to one another except for a single jab that Billy makes. It gives Billy this total jerk feel. Though I read that they do speak to one another at events.  Heh, you can even buy a “Billy Mitchell is a jerk” T-Shirt.

Tropic Thunder

Weeee!

The Hangover

Fun :-)

Superbad

When I first watched Superbad, I thought it was fun and cute. But I recognize now that it is an iconic film. I put it in the rarefied company of films like Napoleon Dynamite, Revenge of the Nerds, Real Genius, and Breakfast Club.

I’ve been fiddling with my blog format for as long as I’ve had a blog. I keep thinking that I’ll develop some sense for how to make a nice layout. I haven’t. I won’t. That is sad. I should move on.

So what should it look like? Or is it fine how it is?

Charlotte and I were wandering around the October 17th San Francisco Open Studios. We stopped at several artists’ studios and Charlotte found many orange and bumpy paintings to admire (she has a thing for orange and bumpy, but that’s a story for another time). At Fort Mason we found ourselves in one room, she was totally keen on some paintings by Jeff Grove, including one with a plastic garbage bag on it. That one turned out to be a terrific painting of a woman in rope bondage, covered up to keep the neighboring Kinkade devotee artists from freaking their shit out. While they chatted, I wandered over to some photos on the wall. There were some nicely shot “common” architectural images… doors, front stoops, cars. Some nice work with light play. And then I fell in love with the most unusual image.

I got in a conversation with David Booth, the artist. After a while he asked me what I liked about it and I said something like, “It’s just such a curious image. I’m looking at this railing and I see how perfect it is in this boringly common scene and I want to ask ‘why is this railing here?’ Why would it be put there? I mean, nobody needs a railing in just that spot, so what’s it doing there?  ’Why are you there, railing? Who put you there? What are you doing, being so perfect there? It’s like your hanging with turkeys when you could be soaring with eagles! You’re just sittin’ there like all in your quiet perfectness. And what are you doing there anyway? I can’t see why you’d be put there, nobody needs a railing there. Nobody would spend all that effort to put a railing there. Come on, tell me what you’re doing there! What are you really doing?’ And then I realize that I’m yelling at a railing in an alley in a photo and I laugh and I laugh and I laugh!”

David was excited. He said he had a similar response to the railing and was glad he could project that in this art. He had walked past it many times, hardly giving it any notice and then it struck him!

You can find the magical railing here, at about 1941 Stockton / 100 Fielding. Here is David Booth describing to me where to find it.

I have a much higher resolution version of this image but I thought it appropriate to only post this low res version. David Booth is an excellent artist and deserves the recognition.

I had a very excellent Christmas eve dinner with the Kosas last night :-)

Erin got me a Christmas present :-)

I baked 2 apple pies :-) The gluten free pie was very well received by the gluten intolerant family members, thanks to Charlotte for suggesting I bake it.

I’ve been using Mozy online backup for a few years and it’s worked well. (you can get some cash back when signing up for Mozy). I’ve been trying Crashplan for a while and I think I like it better but it’s hard to tell until you’ve used a service like this for a while.

They are both about $50/year. A bottleneck will likely be your upstream internet connection. I have a 70 kilobyte/second upstream connection and it took about 2 months to initially backup my 150 gigabyte collection. For $130 Crashplan will send you a hard drive to jump start your backup… Both plans say they offer unlimited backup space. Crashplan also has a free option where you can backup to your friends’ computers (your friend can’t see your data). The free option looks like it works well.

I like these services because my data is backed up offsite, continuously, automatically, with the ability to roll-back to older versions of files.

This is an excellent guide for people wanting to make fire effects and fireworks.

FIRE SAFETY
MANUAL FOR FLAME EFFECTS
&
FIRE PERFORMERS THIRD EDITION

TAUGHT BY LES IZZMORE
FIRE SAFETY EXPERT
Portions of this manual have been copied from the World Wide Web and compiled specifically for artists and performers that use fire. This manual is for educational purposes only and is
NOT FOR SALE

Ken Murphy, a supremely cool guy that I bump into a lot is presenting his recent and ongoing art project, A History of the Sky at the Exploratorium January 5-31. There will be a premiere event at Exploratorium After Dark on January 7th, 2010. I will be there. Maybe you will join me?

I don’t understand quite why but this piece fills me with emotion and sometimes tears every time I experience it. I am very much looking forward to seeing this piece in person again.

A preview of the project

There are times when things just don’t go that well for long stretches of time. When that gets me down, I tell myself “I just need a win”. It’s a way of reminding myself that if I can change one thing about my situation, then the sky is the limit. It’s also a bit of a wake-up call for myself. When I find myself muttering, “I just need a win, just anything, anything!” I know that my frustration level has peaked.

Well, I’ve needed a win for a while. And I just got a couple. They’re small, but real.

I spent much of last night trying to diagnose people’s computer problems on JustAnswer.com; I recently signed up as a paid Expert. The signup process has been a bit of a chore and after hours of trying to answer questions, I came up empty.

Win: I woke up this morning and one of my Answers was accepted. I’m now a couple dollars richer. And he even left a little bonus for me. I now have a rating of “1″ on JustAnswer instead of a rating of “0″.

I’ve been throwing my heart into making a web site and video for the Tap Pen. I realize I have no graphic design skills… web page layout, color schemes and such. I’ve stared for hours (embarrassingly, literally hours) at blank sheets of paper and blank screens trying to drum something up. And the video I’ve been working on has taken waaay too long to make.

Win: Last night, I did the video. This morning I’m putting some finishing touches on it and it looks pretty good. I got to exercise my video production and editing skills and my endurance for pushing though technical problems (For instance, did you know that while you can record a 30 minute video on a Canon Powershot SD1000 Elph, there is no way to get the resulting 1.3 gigabyte video onto your computer? Just reshoot it. And WTF is up with Adobe Premiere dropping partial audio during WMV renders?).

I’m going to take these wins and run with them.

Today’s todo list:

• buy the last of the xmas presents
• talk with the logistics guy about SWARM going to Techkriti in India (!!)
• Call the tutoring company about my part time tutoring gig
• Answer some more JustAnswer.com questions
• Get my car looked at so I can take it on a Christmas Roadtrip
• Borrow the website design Mark suggested for the Tap Pen site
• Make bread and bring it to the housewarming party for a friend

Ok, I won’t get through the whole list today. But I’m on a roll, I can feel it.

Man, time flies… When I wrote this 8 years or so it was useful, fun stuff. But now I’ll just relegate it to the data pile. I updated it in 2005 but… feh, don’t read this, it’s old and most of my recommendations don’t hold true any more.

Lee Recommends Toys

[last reviewed (poorly) 9-16-05 - Lee]

Here’s a list of many of the “good things” I enjoy.

Tivo - bought 11-01 – It just plain works. This thing has allowed me to watch exactly what I want, exactly when I want. The recorded picture quality is indistinguishable from live tv… Did you hear that? A perfect playback of tv. Your old VCR is going to start gathering a lot of dust. And the program guide is…. why didn’t they come out with this thing 50 years ago?! It’s so intuitive and easy and… gush gush gush! Suffice to say, I like my Tivo. I bought a suped-up one on eBay. It has an extra 80 gig hard drive giving me 80 hrs or recording time on “high” quality. I would get 200 hrs on “basic” but the picture quality there is ucky. I’d say that 50-80 hours of recording time is the minimum you’d want to get your Tivo with. You think that sounds crazy but it isn’t. It’s important to have enough space on it so that you don’t have to watch your favorite programs before they expire… and have some space left over so you can sample new programs, record entire mini-series, movie marathons, etc…
Bread maker – bought 12-96 – Breadman Ultimate. See my cooking page. I -still- use it all the time.

Sharper Image Quadra air filter – bought 1-01 – It really works to reduce allergy problems, it’s quiet and saves money over filters. I sold mine a while back and haven’t bought another because I don’t feel like I’ve needed it.

Pocket PC Cassiopeia E-125 – bought 5-01 – I used to have a Palm III but I got tired of my eyes getting tired with the crappy screen. I’m happy with it. I use it 10 times a day every day. With Avantgo, I get to read the newspaper while I’m on the train every day. That’s cool. 9-9-07 update: I haven’t used it in a while. I just use my cell phone or my home computer. I’m -still- waiting for a cell phone/PDA that fits in my pocket. :-(

Avantgo for the Pocket PC. So there I am reading the newspaper every morning on the train, but my “paper” is this tiny (but legible) thing! The electronic newspaper has arrived! 9-9-07 update: I haven’t used it in a while only because I only used it on my Pocket PC.

Vindigo for the Pocket PC – started 12-01 – Vindigo was the best thing I had for the Palm… now it’s available! Wee! It’s great! 9-9-07 update: I haven’t used it in a while only because I only used it on my Pocket PC.

Canon Ultura mini-DV video camera – bought 12-99. 9-9-07 update. I’m still happy with it. Though I use a digital still camera far more often. I use the still-mode and video mode on the digital camera. It is just more convenient.

Nikon 775 digital camera – 9-9-07 update. This camera went wonky on me a little while back so I bought the 5 megapixel Canon Powershot. That one got accidentally left in the Albertsons in El Cerrito just before Burning Man so I’ll be shopping for another soon. The Nikon 775 was a good camera.

Here’s my original review (with updates)

bought 12-01 – I figure that what I really
want is a 35 megapixel camera (1200 dpi 3×5 photos… a real film camera) and they’ll be available in 5 years, Moore’s law (5 years later and we’re only up to 7 megapixel :-( ). This 2 megapixel camera works quite well enough for now. After having this camera for a while, probably the most important features are:

• small size. If it’s not small enough to bring with me everywhere, I won’t!
• reasonably durable. I passed over cameras that didn’t have automatically closing lens caps and too many protrusions.
• a good case. I’ve got this little aftermarket pack that keeps it safe and nearby. It’s really really worth the $30 and looking around for just the right size.
• easy uploading to my PC. Mine is USB. You plug it in and Zoop! it’s in my computer
• good editing software. I use Jasc Paintshop Pro 7.0 to fix shots with bad color and red-eye. (I now use Picasa for most straightforward edits. It’s easy to use)
• good viewing software. I haven’t found -really- good viewing software yet but I use ACDSee 4.0 (Picasa is the one!)
• good printing setup. I haven’t printed any pictures yet but I might use ofoto.com, fototime.com, or one of the new (as of 7-02) $180 photo printers. I still don’t print photos often. I like PSPrint.com)
• at least a 32 meg memory card. My 32 meg card holds 64 images in 2 megapixel mode. The price of memory is falling rapidly… get a 64 meg or 128 meg card. Remember that when you’re on your next 2 week vacation, there won’t be any place to buy new “film”. (now I have a 2 gig card :-)
• movie mode is kind of nice but not essential. If you get it, it should record sound too. (movie mode is essential!)
• rechargeable battery. These cameras can eat batteries like nobody’s business

FRS Radios -

9-9-07 update: I haven’t used my FRS radios in a long while. They don’t have the range needed to be useful in many places… large events, Burning Man, etc.. Cell phone coverage keeps getting better such that there aren’t many places that aren’t covered any more. And the single-duplex talking gets on your nerves after a while as opposed to a telephone.

Here is my previous review:

Family Radio Service radios are just like the walkie talkies you had when you were a kid, but all grown up. The sound is crystal clear for between 1/2 and 2 miles. Perfect for keeping together on a road trip, at a convention (warning, at the Las Vegas Convention Center, they had a range of like 75 yards. Combined with the ambient noise in there, they aren’t worth it) , festivals, camping, at flea markets, etc.

I like them because they’re cheaper than cell phones. A set can cost you $80, that’s 2 months cell phone service. But these radios will last for years. They work where cell phones don’t, in the country, or when service is flaky.

If you are buying an FRS radio, the most important features to consider are:

• Power button that doesn’t accidentally push while in your bag. It sucks when your batteries are dead before you even get there!
• Rechargeable batteries. Radios last 12-18 hours on a charge, which is a full day. But then buying another 6 AA batteries for tomorrow kinda sucks. You got these things because they are cheaper than cell phones and you want to keep them that way.
• Privacy codes are nice. They keep the random static to nill.
• Call buttons and Vibrate modes are good. Just like a cell phone!
• A good belt holster.

I have a pair of Cobra FRS-305s with rechargeable NiMH batteries. After I put some cardboard over the power switch so they wouldn’t accidentally switch on, they work very well (thanks to the guy in Staples for that suggestion!). The holster isn’t perfect either, but it’ll do. I also have a pair of Motorola Talkabout 250s. They eat batteries, turn on accidentally, turn off accidentally, have a poorly placed Talk switch, and mediocre holster. Wanna buy some radios, cheap?

My good friend Barry is co-owner of a solar consultancy. Pathways Energy Solar Brokers

He goes to businesses and homes and figures out what kind of solar electric systems would work for their situation. Then he shops around to different solar integrators to get the best price. He helps with the whole process, making sure no funny business happens. He knows the solar industry really well and he’s a really great guy. I’d trust him with my roof.

And it’s pretty cool that his services are essentially free for the customer. From his site:

Since the solar companies have to spend very little time competing, they are able to keep their costs down and these savings are passed on to you. We receive our fee from the solar contractor for delivering a sold client to them, so we are able to offer our services to you at no cost.

It’s a little like the old Progressive Insurance ads… “When solar companies compete, you save.”

If you live in the San Francisco North Bay… Santa Rosa, Sonoma, Napa, Petaluma, Novato, Healdsburg, Vallejo, anywhere in the whole North Bay… and you are thinking of putting solar on your roof, call Barry!

This is the followup to 1575 things Mr. Welch can no longer do during an RPG

Don’t read this here. Instead read it on the author’s site!

Continue reading ‘1575 things Mr. Welch can no longer do during an RPG: Part 2’ »

Oh. My. God.

Back in 2005 I came across this list. My sides hurt every time I look at it. Really. Try it. Caveat: if you haven’t ever played an RPG, your sides will remain pain-free.

I just revisited the site and see that there are now 1575 things that Mr. Welch is prohibited from doing. TheGlen is a fricking genius.

I have blatantly stolen his list. I very strongly encourage you to go to his Livejournal blog and read them there. Besides, there are loads of comments on his site.

Moreover, do not read too many of these at once. Bookmark this page. Stop reading after your sides start to hurt. You can come back next week or next year. We’ll be here for you.

Continue reading ‘1575 things Mr. Welch can no longer do during an RPG’ »

Every time I fly my ears hurt upon decent. It’s been like that for as long as I’ve been flying. My ears just don’t clear themselves on their own. I have  tried chewing gum and yawning and swallowing hard; they will sometimes work to get air into my ears but the technique I’m about to show you works every time.

1. Tilt your head to the left and back slightly to straighten the Eustachian tube on the right side of your neck
2. Pinch your nose with your fingers
3. Blow gently out your nose. The pressure will release from the right ear fairly suddenly and with some discomfort for a few seconds. Best to do it slowly!
4. Repeat with the other side

I have done just that on tens of flights over tens of years. I usually have to clear both ears 3 times during a decent. I make sure to do the procedure before too much pressure builds up. If there is a lot of pressure, it can be downright painful when the air releases. But the alternative is to be in pain and be partially deaf for an hour or two while the pressure equalizes on its own.

You just need the tiniest bit of air to make it into your ear so go easy!

Most every time I’m in a plane descending, I hear a child start to cry. My last flight, the kid was whining loudly for 30 minutes about all sorts of problems, “Mom, I want to sit with my mommy” (repeated 500 freaking times), “My arm hurts” (repeated 50 freaking times), “I’m thirsty” (repeated and repeated and repeated). I will bet that the kid was suffering from ear pain and didn’t even know it. It’s a really unusual pain that many kids have rarely or never even experienced… they don’t know where it’s coming from… inside their heads? ridiculous!

I  think I’ll write a letter to some airlines and suggest they offer a pamphlet to families titled something like “Mommy, it Hurts! Helping Children Clear Their Ears During Descent“. What do you think?

It’s a single evil fucking red eye scanning, absorbing and p0wning your world.

It’s the new Verizon Droid!

Continue reading ‘The Droid Phone Marketing Freaks Me Out’ »

I am being pelted with kosher salt sized hail on the top of san Bruno mountain! and I’m singing!

That was my Twitter post from the top of a wet rainy icy wonderful mountain top yesterday.

Hmm, I actually meant to say “rock salt sized” hail. :-)

Here’s the pix

I note that iPhone touch screens don’t work as well when they have water droplets on the screen. I’m guessing the conductance of the water drops confuses the capacitive sensors.

The absolute classic space horror movie Alien was inspired by the awesomely classic and low budget Dark Star! (via)

• @rrmutt my visits in the last 5 years have been decidedly non-terrible. Good times at SF branch near gg park in reply to rrmutt #

This is going out mostly to friends of mine…

Would you like to be my Crashplan.com backup buddy? I’ve been playing with it a bit now and I feel pretty good about it. We trade disk space on each others computers… we can’t see each other’s data, but it’s backed up nicely. And it doesn’t cost money to run it peer-to-peer like this. It can be set up so that the Crashplan people don’t have any backdoors into your backup.

I’m looking for maybe 100 gig and I can offer you the same.

Preference will go to friends that don’t live very close to me since one concern is the whole San Francisco earthquake –> fire –> destruction thing.

A terrific video series for people that love children (but not in the way you think… and not that way either!)

Big Bunny!