I come fresh from my first ever Moth here in the D. The Moth is a interesting event where people get 5 minutes to tell a story. There is a basic theme for the night and you just go up and tell your story. A few caveats, no notes, stand-up or ranting. It needs to be real and pretty much of the moment. I put my name in the hat thinking I wouldn’t be called but as the ninth name was pulled from the hat it just happen to sound like my name. So I made my way to the stage and stood in front of the microphone with the stage lights in my eyes. I’ve been in that position before so knowing what to do came pretty easy. The lights make it difficult to see the audience so the nerves calm a bit. I told my story pausing for laughter and awes. All in all it went really well and the applause when I was done was invigorating. I walked back to my drink with people saying that was a great story and great delivery and so on and so forth. The adulation was amazing, I could have done that all night.
I made my first dashboard widget a few days ago and I’m surprised at the positive response. I made a remote control for the social media platform Boxee. If you happen to run Boxee and want to control it from your Mac laptop download it and give it a try.
I’ve already had some requests for a windows version so I will try to port the code over to a gadget soon. Or maybe a Yahoo widget as well. If you really want a linux port of some kind let me know and what widget platform would be best.
I’ve recently spent some time and money getting some new art supplies. Since the new album is almost done there will be a void in creativity. I’m going to fill it up with painting for the time being.
I’ll be attending some of the sketch sessions at the Scarab Club over the next couple of weeks. I’ll post pictures of the sessions and my work as it develops. I’m moving toward oil sticks for some reason, we’ll see how it turns out.
Two of my newest geek crushes are Boxee (an internet on your tv solution) and BuzzFeed (one of the best viral web blogs of all time). If you haven’t checked out either please do so. Today Boxee released a method for getting Vimeo channels onto Boxee with ease. Vimeo is one of my favorite video sharing sites and they maintain a spectacular product. So, I eagerly created a Boxee app for my own channel. Considering I only have 5 videos on vimeo I decided I should make one for a more productive channel. My thoughts turned to BuzzFeed and one of my favorite video bloggers Ze Frank, who’s been doing a rather interesting series on BuzzFeed and Vimeo called HardTimes. Anyway, here it is, the HardTimes Boxee app.
You’ll have to install it manually for now.
::Link Fixed::
Download the app here and extract it to ~/Library/Application Support/BOXEE/User Data/Apps
Then edit up the sources.xml file under ~/Library/Application Support/BOXEE/User Data/Profiles/<username>
and add this peice of code in the video section.
<source>
<name>Hard Times :: Ze Frank</name>
<path>app://zefrank/</path>
<thumbnail>http://images.vimeo.com/11/30/60/113060111/113060111_300.jpg</thumbnail>
<private>false</private>
</source>
You may need to restart Boxee after doing so to get the app to appear. I submitted it to boxee, who knows maybe they’ll put it in their repository.
I was having lunch with my parents at a Hospital cafeteria and we had all pretty much gotten the same thing. So there was little debate as to weather each others food was good or not, we all knew after the first few bites first hand. With that out of the way there was plenty of time for people watching. I managed the good seat and had a perfect view of all the people paying for their meals. Watching people in line has been a favorite past time of mine. I love how people leave their bodies in line while they do other things if they happen to be eating alone. It becomes obvious as to who and who are not together in line. You can point out the single quite easily, they all seem to shatter like glass when the line moves.
After a rather violent destruction of glass I began to notice that the table next to us were also engaged in people watching but they seemed to be vocal about it. I almost never let the thoughts leave my mouth for fear that similar thoughts escape people in my direction. I don’t run fast, they are liable to catch me and take me down. Suddenly they both focused in on a person with a single item on their tray. The woman at the table thought it was a giant salad in a bowl of lettuce. While correct about the salad, she was wrong about the bowl. The bowl was made from a tortilla that had been colored green. The woman in the group however just could not grasp this simple concept. That a food item that was traditionally yellowish was now green. I remember seeing my first bottle of food coloring when I was about 10 along with its magical powers. Maybe she never experienced it, maybe in her house all the food is simply the color it is. Which must have sucked come birthday time. I imagined her cakes as she was growing up with white on white icing and her trying to read the raised lettering of Happy Birthday Michelle. Maybe the candles cast enough of a shadow to make it legible. Probably not until she was about 8 though and only if they used individual candles and not those large number ones.
Her friend tried his best to explain that the tortilla could be green and he offered up a solution of using green maize. Now, I’m no corn expert but I’ve never seen grass green maize before, I would have guessed either mixing it with some legume like spinach or that they simply used some sort of chemical dye. Suddenly the bread I was eating seemed unusually yellow.
So I’ve decided to make a podcast of short stories and other writings from the past few years. I thought it would b a good exercise in diction if nothing else. I’ve uploaded an introduction and the first episode. I’ve included a little player below and the rss feed and iTunes link should you want to subscribe.
It has been snowing for the past three days and rather than despair over the snowfall, I decided to make a snowman. You can tell he’s my creation, he’s a little over dramatic.
I come fresh from my first ever Moth here in the D. The Moth is a interesting event where people get 5 minutes to tell a story. There is a basic theme for the night and you just go up and tell your story. A few caveats, no notes, stand-up or ranting. It needs to be real and pretty much of the moment. I put my name in the hat thinking I wouldn’t be called but as the ninth name was pulled from the hat it just happen to sound like my name. So I made my way to the stage and stood in front of the microphone with the stage lights in my eyes. I’ve been in that position before so knowing what to do came pretty easy. The lights make it difficult to see the audience so the nerves calm a bit. I told my story pausing for laughter and awes. All in all it went really well and the applause when I was done was invigorating. I walked back to my drink with people saying that was a great story and great delivery and so on and so forth. The adulation was amazing, I could have done that all night.
I’ve recently spent some time and money getting some new art supplies. Since the new album is almost done there will be a void in creativity. I’m going to fill it up with painting for the time being.
Two of my newest geek crushes are 
