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?

Photos In The Wild

So I was just informed by a website called schmap.com has included and credited one of my photos from Flickr.com on their Chicago guide. They informed me they were considering my photo about a month ago, and I just received an email confirming its inclusion. They even gave me this nifty little widget to include on my "website, blog or personal page": (My photo of the Liar's Club is #24 in the widget to the right). I'm feeling a little disappointed by it, though; mostly because, after buying an expensive digital SLR camera and spending the last 6 months teaching myself to use it with some minor proficiency, these people choose a photo of mine that was taken with my crappy little point and shoot — on "Automatic" setting — out the window of a moving car. I did have another photo get picked for some sort of web article about amusement parks or something, but I don't know what ever happened to that...

I Saw A Squirrel: "Psychology 101"

Photoshop Chopfest

So I have been known to dabble in a little Photoshopping now and again. Nothing serious, I know how to control it, but I do like to keep my chopping muscles in shape. Also, the wonderful woot.com has a casual chop contest every weekend, so I have a weekly supply of chopping themes.

Along those lines, it seems that a blog wherein I record the haphazard results of the garbled mess sloshing around in my brain is the perfect place to share these little distractions. Also, if you have any ideas on a given theme -- and by "you" I mean, of course, all zero (0) people who read/comment on this blog with any frequency -- then you can help me out! Hooray for communism!

This week's theme: "Branding Irony": Put a corporate logo on a natural or man-made wonder. And make it funny somehow.

The results:

Liberty Bell Atlantic Full size: 550x550.	Great Wal-Mart of China Full size: 400x300.
Little Caesar's Acropolis Full size: 450x390.	Taipei Jenga Tower Full size: 465x585.
Tut's Tupperware Tomb Full size: 475x355.	The Leaning Tower is in Good Hands Full size: 545x405.
St. Peter's Basilica Kisses Full size: 400x585.	Inappropriate Vatican Ads Full size: 385x585.
Giant, Green Liberty Full size: 495x585.	Apple Of Eden Full size: 585x300.
Creation of Man's Modesty Full size: 585x300.	Victoria Fall's Secret Full size: 450x340.
[Note: I'm aware that some of these images may be copyrighted, or based on work that was not originally my own. I've already had several images deleted from my hosting site without explanation. They have been rehosted elsewhere. While I did not get the artists' consent, (though I doubt Michaelangelo would mind), these images are being used for entertainment purposes ONLY. If you are an artist/photog who is offended that I made humorous chops of your work, please let me know and I will remove your image from my blog, hard drive, short-term memory, etc. Harumph.]

I Saw A Squirrel: "Higher Math"

Reflections On Flashing Lights

You may wear the gold, you may hold the
steel, you may drive through nights with
flashing lights and storm each castle you
come upon with strength and rage, the name
of the gods at your command, throwing aside
those who ask you your purpose.

You may raise your voices and issue forth
a black river of glinting power, taking each
shadow by the neck and forcing them out into
the cold, deaf to the protests, the panic,
confusion, and anger.

Do you not, through your armored masks, feel
the way you charge upstream, against the souls
you promise to protect? We raise our voice
as one into the starry sky and sing, and dance,
and drink the nectar that flows sweet from
our joy, and we keep each other warm.

And we would shine our smile on you, mingle
our colored lights with yours, and laugh with
the din of your sirens, if only you would loosen
your fists, uncloud your eyes, and see that you
and we are the same:

We are spirits of the earth. And yet still we
hammer down upon each other.

It is not enough to survive, to go on living
these lives with a boiling sense of privilege.
We must prove that we deserve them. We must
be grateful. We must be at peace.

I Saw A Squirrel: "5 P.M."

Life Update: 2/14/08

I have come to realize that this blog doesn't have really anything about my actual life on it. Cartoons, yes. Real life, no. So I'mma start trying to post little journal entries when I don't have anything else to post. (That is, when something interesting has happened. Most of the time, I'm a lethargic slug--not particularly news-worthy).

Off we go: Last night I had my first of what I hope will be many single-serve theater jobs in Philly. I found a post on the Theater Alliance of Philadelphia webserv for some guy named Todd looking for a light/sound board op for a two-night performance at the Shubin Theater on Bainbridge St. It was a series of one-act staged readings, and so promised to be simple. I called him up, he told me to show up early to go over the scripts, and that was that.

Well, nearly. Tuesday it snowed and sleeted and was generally gross, and after driving downtown -- which took almost 3 times longer than normal because of weather and traffic -- I got a call from Todd saying he was stillstuck in NJ, and was canceling the show that night. So I spent another 1 1/2 hours driving home. Tons of fun.

Fortunately the next night was clearer, and all went smoothly. The job proved easy enough, (mostly a "lights up, lights down" sort of thing), and Todd ended up paying me for both nights, which was very nice of him. I hung out afterwards with Todd and a few of the younger actor-types, (some students, some no-longer-students-because-we're-full-time-actors-now), and he gave me the leftover wine as a sort of tip. Which worked out fine for me.

So I earned some money last night, plus made a great contact, (Todd often does little shows in that space, and also is planning a Fringe Festival show, and he said I was good people and that he'd call me for the next show). Plus, I'm looking forward to a little PEX Heart/Burn action this weekend, so I'm feeling pretty good at the moment.

I'm sure next week I'll feel like a useless slug again. But for now, I'm good.

And hungry. Time to go raid the fridge. Tally-ho!