I Saw A Squirrel: "Olympic Hopeful"

A More Perfect Union

Once again, I must apologize for presenting you with a political post. It is not my intention to influence anyone's voting or ideal candidate. But if you didn't catch Barack Obama's speech earlier this week, or if you haven't seen any of the hundreds of videos posted on YouTube, I urge you to seek it out. Forget the politics. Forget the campaigns. Forget the Democratic nomination. I simply encourage you to experience his speech as a human being living in America in 2008.

I realize that this video is almost 40 minutes long, so if you don't have that kind of time, then track down a "greatest hits" montage on YouTube; I'm sure it's out there. But if do have the time, or can make the time, do watch this:

Also, the transcript is available on Obama's website if you're interested in reading along.

I Saw A Squirrel

Colbert In Philly

Well, shit. I think I might be the winner.

During tonight's airing of The Colbert Report, he announced that they were coming to Philly in April to cover the primary elections, and pronounced that "tickets [were] available starting now on ColbertNation.com."

I thought to myself: "That's awesome! I should go see if I can get tickets as soon as this show is over!"

And then I thought: "Wait. Who the hell do I think I'm kidding? I gotta get them NOW."

So I ran. I sprinted upstairs, jumped on the computer. ColbertNation.com. Loading... (Thoughts of site crashes leaped to mind, but I kept my cool). I clicked the link, entered my info, requested four tickets, hit submit... Error. Requested tickets unavailable.

Shit.

Based on what, I thought? Did Monday sell out already? Did I request too many tickets? So I tried again. Entered my info, picked Wednesday, (who ever picks Wednesday?), lowered the ticket request to two, hit submit...

"Tickets reserved." WINNER!!!

Moral of the story: I will be in the audience for the taping of the Colbert Report on Wednesday, April 16. I will be going with my friend Nate Kleinman, (he runs the International Aurora blog that I have a link to on my sidebar), who has spent countless hours getting involved in the Obama campaign, even going so far as to get on the ballot in my county as a potential delegate with a real chance of going to Denver for the Democratic convention. So if anyone deserves to see Stephen Colbert make ruthless fun of the Democratic party, it's him.

Needless to say, I'm psyched. Beyond psyched.

Oh, man. Unemployment was worth it for this.

St. Patty's Day!

Happy Saint Patrick's day to you all! May your cup (read: pint glass) runeth o'er, and your day be full of th' luck o' the Irish. It was a beautiful day in Philly, though I spent most of it in a car driving to a piano repair company because the keyboard we're using in Sweeney Todd died yesterday. And I have another 3 hr. rehearsal tonight. But hopefully I'll be able to finish my night in my most favorite of dives, Buckets Tavern, which has been fully decorated since Friday. Here's hoping they went all out and got some Magners Irish cider for the evening; if not, it'll have to be a traditional Irish whiskey night!

I was thinking we bloggers should track down some multimedia for this festive occasion. Music, videos, music videos, etc. For example, here's a little video from the Official Saint Patrick's Festival of Ireland website:

Ah, that brings me back. Who remembers St. Patty's Day, 2006? I hope I still have my Irish flag/cape around here somewhere... And Ricky, you'd better still have that cap! Anyway, in the spirit of the day, I'll post a bunch my pictures from Ireland 2006 on Flickr, (don't worry, nothing too incriminating).

Here's one more video, for the road:



Éirinn go Brágh!

I prefer cherry pi...

Happy Pi Day, everybody! At 1:59:26pm today, I expect you all to be doing something meaningful and/or delicious.

Some links for your edification:

• The Official Pi Day Website
• Wikipedia's Pi Day entry
• The Exploratorium (I don't know, blame Google)
• The first 1,000,000-digits of Pi
• Pie recipes from PastryWiz.com
• There's also a National Pie Day sponsored by The American Pie Council, (I bet you didn't know America had a Pie Council, did you?)

Yellow Tulips

This seems like as good a place as any to advertise my Flickr photos, especially when I'm feeling good about them.

Recently, a friend of mine posted a couple of photos of a bunch of yellow tulips on a table. They were a nice touch of color compared to pretty much everyone's recent cold, gray winter photos, and I liked them a lot. Then, a few days later, what should appear on my own kitchen table but a vase of yellow tulips. As it happened, this was also on a day that I woke up with the sun at 8am, a time of day I have not seen for months. I immediately thought "photo response" and ran for my camera. The results can be found here.


These photos became part of a larger series of photos taken around my house. My parents recently decided to redo the plumbing in their bathroom, hiring some guys to come in and rip the room apart. Literally. Sink--gone. Toilet--gone. Floor--gone. Which, knowing me, became a veritable treasure hunt for things to photograph. Pipes, wires, etc. It's way more interesting, in my opinion, to take pictures of things you don't see every day. I think most people would agree. And it isn't every day that you see the gutted remains of a room that is usually clean and -- well, usable in some way. Something about looking through the hall closet and seeing the knobs of the bathtub faucets suspended in the void that used to be a wall is a very unusual perspective. It sort of brings me back to the days when I was young, my imagination was overactive, and I would pretend to be a superhero with x-ray vision. (Not that I don't still do that now, I'm just more subtle about it these days).

I Saw A Squirrel: "The Box, II"

This Just In: "Hillary Clinton Is A Monster"

...That is, according to Samantha Power, Obama's most prominent ex-foreign policy adviser. Excuse me, ex-unpaid, volunteer foreign policy adviser.

The big news story came yesterday when Samantha Power spoke her honest opinion about Hillary and her recent ruthless and underhanded campaign strategies. During an interview, Power blurted out that she thought Clinton was "a monster" willing to "stoop to anything." (Oddly, the issue of whether Power was "off the record" or not made almost as big a headline as the actual remarks she made; read the Washington Post's story here).

In the end, Power apologized and resigned her post almost immediately after the initial outrage from the Clinton camp, another swift response from the Obama campaign. Which is too bad, considering all the nasty things a whole load of people on the Clinton bus have said about Barack. None of them have been asked to step down, let alone have done it of their own accord. I just hope Samantha Power takes this opportunity to say whatever she wants.

Re: Short and Sweet

Swampy posted a link yesterday informing us that Gary Gygax, creator of the game Dungeons & Dragons, passed away.

Each of us deals with our grief in a different way. The good folks at woot.com, as always, put faith in the healing power of laughter.

EDIT: And here's a tribute from xkcd.com.

I Saw A Squirrel: "Shooting Star"

Photoshop Chopfest

Another weekend, another Photoshop contest.

Results from last week's contest: I received an "Honorable Mention", which I will add to my collection of Honorable Mentions. Woot.com offers free shipping to HM winners, but since I'm poor, I don't order anything from them with any frequency. If anyone wants to save $5 on a woot.com order, let me know.

This week's theme: "Refurbished Art": "Fix" a classic but "defective" piece of visual art.

My entries:
(And be sure to look at the original art to see the differences)

The Norman Rockwell series:
Thirst Conditions (Based on Rockwell's "Traffic Conditions") (Click for full size)	"The Critic" (Based on Rockwell's "The Connoisseur") (Click for full size)	Accurate Triple Self-Portrait (Based on Rockwell's Triple Self-Portrait) (Click for full size)
100% Orange Juice (Based on Rube Goldberg's Automatic Orange Juicer) (click for full size)	Nighthawks and Webslingers (Based on Edward Hopper's Nighthawks) (Click for full size)
[I better not have any copyright issues this week. Unless I get a letter from Norman Rockwell himself, I'll be really pissed if my images get deleted.]

My Internal Clock Is Analog. And Needs Winding.

I'm nocturnal. I can't deny it. I've always known it. I love all-night parties. I love astronomy. At school I always did my best paper-writing while the sun was dampened and dark. Most of all, I love sleeping, which generally means that my waking hours begin in what most people would call the "Afternoon." And because of these factors, I recently found myself stuck in the most terrible sleep pattern that I can imagine.

• The average American wakes up between 7.30-9am.
• I, on the other hand, did not rise until between 1-2pm. Late; I concede.
• The average American goes to sleep between 9-11.30pm.
• I, on average, did not hit my pillow until between 4-5am.

I would normally chalk this inconsistency up to what I'll dub the "Employment Factor," (or "EF"): that other people have jobs to go to, while I am, at present, a useless carbon-based humanoid. However, I know other people that are also unemployed, or who work only in the evenings, and their bodies are programmed to somehow bounce awake in accordance with the AAS, ("Average American Schedule"). So it must be more something more.

Recently I have been trying to reprogram myself, to wind and reset my internal clock if you will, and have discovered a most peculiar phenomenon. Setting my alarm for 10.30am, and then my phone alarm for 11am, (well of course I'll ignore the first one), I have experience two different results:

1. I will turn off the phone alarm, ignore the radio alarm for it's full two hour run, and wake up at 1pm feeling groggy and confused;
   
2. I will heed the phone alarm, get up by 11.30am, be proud that I've taken control of my life, and then feel horribly tired and unfocused all day.

Whichever the result, they both end up leading to the same place. By the 6-7pm stretch, I'm feeling tired and in dire need of a nap. I ignore these urges, spend the evening yawning, and push through until whatever seems like a reasonable bedtime.

Inevitably, at this precise moment, something will occur: I will stop feeling tired. I feel energized, creative, social, etc. If I attempt to ignore this newfound energy and go to bed anyway, I will lie awake for up to 2 hours with no result. If I just go with it, (as, you will note by this post's time stamp, I have done tonight), I can work until 4am without even noticing the time. This then makes it even harder to heed my alarms the following morning, and the reprogramming fails again.

What the hell? What is going on here?