I Saw A Squirrel: "Impressing The Pope"

Seriously? This is our president? Awesome.

Response: Founder's Day

In regards to Justin's post, I whole-heartedly agree. We will need a T-shirt. I will also voice my stern opinion that those Candyland kids are scary as hell -- as I put it to Justin earlier, "they remind me of the kids of one of my old high school teachers... They were frightening children-of-the-corn type kids..." -- but as no other ideas have yet been suggested, I've done the initial tracing:

(Click for full size)

God, those kids are creepy. It is just me, or does the black and white make them look like they're wearing prison jumpsuits? Also, keep in mind that this isn't quite stencil-ready; I couldn't get it to work in my head, so you should all feel free to chop away at it until it works.

Or, (please, dear lord), suggest something different. I was thinking a stencil of one of the Candyland game pieces, (you know those little plastic 2-D figurines?), but I can't find a good image. Or hell, it doesn't even have to relate to Candyland, per se, (though it probably shouldn't be about Brisco Country Jr. or something quite that far off. Much as I like a non sequitur, that would just be weird).

Response: ::floating::

Why must one walk calmly through this
ordered plane — where logic
precedes action;
where practicality
precludes every piece of the
puzzle; where programming
prevents spontaneity,
those psychological splashes
of silver and satin color —
when the world within
my wandering mind
wears a wild fantasy,
a fearless fervor
which feeds my dreams?

Jump —

Why do they insist
that imagination resides
entirely inside, behind
the eyes?

They say you wake, or fall;
yet I see you fly.

Ben Franklin, Ed Rendell, and A Dozen Eagles Cheerleaders

On Wednesday, I proudly stood in several lines, dripped vegetarian sandwich sauce on my pants, took off my belt for the metal detectors, and giggled gleefully like a little girl all for the sake of being in the studio audience for the Colbert Report in Philly.

...Or, as it has been officially dubbed, Stephen Colbert's Doritos Spicy Sweet Pennsylvania Primary Coverage Live from Chiladelphia, the City of Brotherly Crunch.

And it was amazing. I sat in the second row right at the corner of the stage. I saw how a TV show is filmed. I got to slap Colbert's hand. Benjamin Franklin made reference to French prostitutes. One of the Eagles cheerleaders smiled and waved at me. I got to slap Colbert's hand again. The only thing that could have made it better would have been a delicious Philly cheesesteak slathered in Whiz presented to me by a tuxedo-clad waiter riding a velociraptor. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to bring food into the theater, or I would have been all over that, too.

...And just to prove it, here is a an actual screen capture from the show that aired at 11.30pm on Wed. April 16. Let's play a little game of "Where's Waldo," shall we?

Can you locate all the important characters in the above photo? Give up? Here are the answers:

All in all, 'twas a wonderful day. I'm thinking next time I go up to NYC, I should really try and get tickets to The Daily Show. You know, complete my experience of the Comedy Central dynamic duo; the dream ticket; the late-night political power hour.

In the meantime, I'mma go vote in the Pennsylvania Democratic primary, which is being hailed as "the first time since 1976 that Pennsylvania will play a major role in a presidential nomination." Take that, Bicentennial.

I Saw A Squirrel: "In The News"

Side note: This was inspired by an actual news story from Dec. 2007, starring a dude in Wenatchee, Washington. No joke. You can read about it from the local Wenatchee World article; or, even better, here's another write-up from metro.co.uk, (be sure to read all the way to the last paragraph).

I Done Did It Good

Today I did a little freelance electrician work for a small theater in the next town over. Woke up at 6.30am, (holy crap was I not ready for that), so I could be on the train by 7.30 and at the theater by 8. My mom greeted me at the bottom of the stairs with, "Oh, wow, I forgot you were getting up this early. I'm impressed you're awake! Too bad I'm going to school, I could have given you a ride." (Thanks, mom).

I got to the theater a bit early, and sat in the amazing morning air until Lauren, the production manager, unlocked the doors and let me in. At first I was annoyed that the first brilliant spring day of the year would be spent in a dark, dusty theater, but then I realized that on any other day I wouldn't even be awake until 11, and I should be grateful to see this so-called "morning" at all.

It was the kind of invigorating theater work I haven't done in so long: I deciphered an incoherent plot; I climbed ladders while carrying too much heavy equipment; I hung, struck and rehung lights; I ran circuits; I ate a donut; I joked about how annoying actors can be. We ended up finishing everything in only 4 hours. When I left, I had cuts and scrapes, not to mention a layer of generic filth, all over my hands and arms. Man, did it feel good.

It seems stupid, however, to have to fill out a bunch of tax forms so they can pay me $52... Minus taxes.

Damn you, IRS. Damn you.

I Saw A Squirrel: "Mentalism"

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?