Monthly Archives: July 2010
What’s That Crazy Donkey Up To?
Dead Mice
I am cleaning out the garage.
I took an old plastic Christmas tree spilling out of its box and put it on the floor in the center.
I took a half-constructed cabinet, that never got fully-constructed because it was missing some parts, and laid it down in the center.
I took boxes of old broken kitchen appliances and placed them in the center.
I took a rickety, dirty toddler saucer and put it in the center.
Some water-damaged ceiling tiles. A lawn bag of old yard waste whose bottom fell out when I picked it up. Soiled cardboard.
Tomorrow is garbage day.
On Monday and today I have gone to the garage to get my bike, to ride to the train I take to work.
Monday, outside the garage’s side door, I found a dead mouse. I kicked it aside into some weeds near the garage.
This morning, I saw another mouse. I assume it’s a different mouse, and not the same mouse moved by the ants that were crawling all over it on Monday.
I kicked this second mouse (or first mouse that resumed its former position) where I kicked the other/same mouse before.
Tonight, I take heavy-duty garbage bags and waste stickers, collect the garbage from the center of the garage and dump it all to the back alley.
I’ll wear gloves. I’ll look for dead mice.
Here, a movie Stan Brakhage made about his dog’s corpse decaying.
Part 1
Part 2
Adopted Actor David Patrick Kelly In Louie!
If you haven’t seen Louis CK’s new show, Louie, on FX, you really should. It’s a very nice, human show. It’s funny, but is also grounded in a very real emotional place. I have seen other people describe it better than I on the Internet, so that’s all you’ll get from me. Don’t try to wheedle any more out of me. I’ll cut ya!
Anyways, I was watching Louie last week, and in that particular episode he uses some framing scenes with a low-key but slightly disturbing therapist. You never get a close shot of the guy, but it looked kind of like David Patrick Kelly. Well, it looked a little tall for DPK, but it looked like him. A tall version of him. Of DPK. Okay, onward.
I checked the credits and didn’t see DPK’s name, so I figured it wasn’t him. I watched the show again, and decided, well, to be sure, better check out the IMDB, the font of all verified and truthful knowledge about movies and television. Sure enough, it *was* DPK playing the therapist. Hurray! I was very happy it was him.
About five minutes ago, I found this interview with Louis CK where he talks about DPK.
Interviewer: First a little quick thing. I want to make sure that that was David Patrick Kelly playing the shrink, but that’s not my real question. My real question is, looking at the pilot and then the first episode that follows it, there’s quite a bit of a difference between them that I kind of want to see, what evolved between the making of the pilot and that first episode? Which, they’re all fantastic. I mean, as somebody who has seen you live many, many times, it was amazing to see that captured, both the live stuff and then just your personality that comes through a lot of your work. What evolution took place between the pilot and then that first episode?
Louis C.K.: It’s a good question. First of all, it is David Patrick Kelly, who I love from Warriors and 48 Hours and Dreamscape. He’s an actor I always connected with. We did an audition for that therapist part and a lot of people did a really corny, kind of beard stroking Freudian therapists, and he just did this really wild, really freaky character and it made me laugh the instant I saw the audition, so he came in. We only had one scene planned for the therapist, and as we started shooting it, he was just so funny I started throwing things at him, saying, “Try saying this,” and he would do it and it was perfect. So I think we have about eight therapist segments. I’m not done editing all the shows yet so I don’t know if I’m going to use them all in this season. I think we’ve used about four.
Interviewer: It was a huge victory seeing him.
Louis C.K.: He’s so great. He’s another example. There’s actors that you love, that you’ve seen in great movies, and they’re just living in New York City, and they’re so happy to work. And it’s so much a better process to just call New York actors and pay them just a … check to come in and really work hard for a day.
Watch Louie on Hulu (DPK’s episode is #4 — should be uploaded some time within the week)
Unconnected Tuesdays
Waterfall
Blog
This Blog Got 200,000 Hits About I-Don’t-Give-A-Shit-How-Long Ago
So, this blog got 200,000 hits at some point.
It’s at around 201,000 now. I’d do a screenshot of my Sitecounter, but who really gives a goddamn?
I used to look at my stats a lot. Now, not so much.
These days I mostly get hits from people doing image searches, usually finding something on one of my Unconnected Tuesdays posts. Visits generally don’t last long. Oh, except for the Googlebot. Always with the fucking Googlebot.
I’m past fretting about hits, comparing the hits of one month to the previous month, etc., etc., ad nauseum.
No, I haven’t become serene and calm, free of attachments.
Now I wonder when the hell Rosanne Cash is going to realize how awesome I am and start following me on the Twitter.
Priorities…
Webcams As Cameras, Webcams As Mirrors
So, do the majority of webcams display an image of you as if you are having your picture taken, or do they show you as if you are looking in the mirror?
I have seen people use webcam pics on their websites, as their avatar, etc. Often times when there’s writing in the picture, it’s horizontally flipped. This ANNOYS me.
Despite my annoyance, I’m genuinely unqualified to make a judgment regarding what looks “right” and “wrong”. What’s more natural? To see one’s self as a camera does, or as in a mirror?
Let’s throw out the obvious flipped nature of mirrored text. What is more natural to you? If you spend a fair amount of time talking to others via your webcam, wouldn’t the webcam-as-camera be more natural to them? Do they care either way?
Is a mirrored webcam a tool of the ego? Am I crazy?
This beat-up old Dell laptop I am using has a checkbox by which you can choose to flip the webcam image horizontally. I think it defaults to *not* flipping the image, but I’m not entirely sure. That’s what it was when I first went into its settings.
I have no doubt that most webcams give you control over the mirror/camera nature of the picture.
From what I have seen, Mac laptops display a mirror image by default. Are Mac users more narcissitic? OF COURSE. THEY ARE MAC USERS.
Splotchy learns something in the midst of making this post
I was looking at myself in the webcam and moving around a bit. The webcam was set as a camera, not a mirror. When I went left, my image went right. I went right, my image went left. It was disconcerting! Okay, I can see why people might want to have the webcam be a mirror image. When they are obsessively looking into their own eyes, preening, making kissy-faces, it can be helpful to see the image move the same direction.
Now what you’ve been waiting for, but didn’t know it – a terrible camera filter
I have played around with the preset webcam filters on a Mac laptop. It has some nice effects (stretchy stuff, sepia, comic book, etc.).
When I was playing around with the webcam for this post, I noticed this Dell laptop *also* has some “nice” effects. I would be remiss if I didn’t at least give you one sample. It’s called “ArtyFarty” under the “Fashionista” category. YES, REALLY.
Note, the playing card isn’t part of the filter — that’s me. The sneer is all me. But the beret, luxurious hair and sexy glasses? Filter. ALL filter.
Happy birthday, Internet!
Name That Face: Round 4 Prizes
UPDATE:
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@glitterlips24k gets the Fellini book!
@pie_maker gets the Batman mug!
@bondfool gets the Corn Butterers!
@wolfsothern gets the Super 8 movies!
@ladyjerky gets the Police Academy cardgame!
Thanks to everyone who played. You can pick up your participation award(s) here.
***********************************
With another round of Name That Face comes another round of prizes. The current round is scheduled to end on Friday, July 16th, at which time the five highest point-earners will be awarded prizes.
The highest point-earner gets to choose a prize out of the five available. The next highest point-winner will choose from the four remaining prizes, etc. until the 5th place winner has to take the last remaining prize.
Here are the prizes for Round 4, in no particular order.
Fellini’s Faces, a collection of faces from the photo archives of Federico Fellini!
A wicked Batman coffee mug!
Do you miss the shenanigans of the Policy Academy animated series? Well, here they are again, in playing card form! I am not sure if they’re normal playing cards, or are they are a card game all their own. Oh, I almost forgot. The cards are probably in Spanish.
Exciting and potentially lurid exploitative romps on two pulse-pounding reels of vivid Super-8 film!
Just what every house needs — a Corn Butterer! (Set of 4!)
Thanks a lot for playing.
XOXOXO
Splotchy
Abandoned Things
I love things that have been forgotten or disregarded. Hooker motels, for example.
Why do I like them? Because they are old? Because they are fragile? Because no one loves them? A little bit of all that, I suppose.
This blog is now somewhat abandoned. My original website is *woefully* abandoned. I abandoned them both. It was me that did this, and no one else.
I am on Facebook, but only in a very vague and superficial way. I post a stupid status update, and link to a song, mostly on M-F.
These days my online presence is mostly on Twitter.
Twitter is insidious. My naked need for being liked/accepted/validated has never been stronger than it is on Twitter. People “follow” you. Or once following you they decide to “unfollow” you. Several people have unfollowed me and it has really hurt my feelings. Many more have unfollowed me than these few, but you’ll be relieved to know not *every* unfollow is like a cold knife through my psyche.
I think the limitation of 140 chars per tweet actually might be having a negative effect on my thought processes. I don’t know what kind of effect, but it seems unnatural having to reduce thoughts to a limited number of characters. Unnatural and stupid.
I was going to try and stop using Twitter for 30 days, while I am blogging. I haven’t stopped yet. I might not, I don’t know. We’ll see. But I will blog more.
Here I think in paragraphs, not just single bursts of long sentences. Here I can write. Here I can revise, even after I publish.
So, I am going to try and love this abandoned blog, at least for a little bit. I love you, abandoned blog. I love you.
30 Days Of Blogging
Fellow blogger Chris is doing rundown of all the people on his blogroll. It was inspired in part by the decline Chris saw in posting/participation/etc. in the blogosphere (for example, I am probably the first person in six months who has typed the word “blogosphere”.)
Chris says a side benefit of his blogroll retrospective is that it might draw some bloggers out of seclusion. Well, I have been weakly blogging for a looong time, but I am using Chris’ listing of my blog as a motivator to get me to blog *something* for each of the next 30 days.
Thanks, Chris, for the kick in the pants.