Reading, writing, rapping, and differential equations.

Overheard in my house today:

(In singsong voice)

Odile's got ears where her nose should be
I wonder what she hears when she smells me!

What's new? Well all kindsa shit. Painting the front porch chocolate brown with oil paints. It looks beautiful and yummy, but I'm worried that the sun will make it scorching hot. I'm thinking about lining the side of the porch with lattice and growing plants on it to block the sun out.

Getting back into film again. Bought a bunch of film, dusted off the old cameras, been shooting a lot, got some chemicals for film developing and print making. Got some good shots so far, but I'm still torn between film and digital. They both have their pros and cons. I'm thinking about just getting a good digital point and shoot- that way we can take quick pics and video, but when we want to take an "artistic" shot we can break out the film cameras. One of my prints got chosen to be in the Blue Moon customer show (I actually like this one better)- no big deal, but it was cool to get picked. Their annual customer shows are the coolest photo exhibits I've ever seen. The spread of voices and styles is insane, and they really do try to pick only stunning photos. I don't think mine really qualifies. I'm sure they were just trying to keep me coming back, which I will be doing anyway, but it's a nice gesture.

Going to SF next week for Ryan Leblanc's (yes, that Ryan!) wedding. Should be exciting and fun. We have a little money, so it's not going to break the bank like we were worried, and after SF we're going to go up to Eureka and stay with a friend, then do the redwoods, then stop in Medford and stay with Corinne's parents. Nice leisurely drive back. I've done the SF to PDX drive a few times now and it ain't all that great. 101 sounds much nicer than I-5...

Just watched::: Wholphin #3 (methinks)- pretty good! There's a Paul Rudd/Amy Lippmann piece that's well done, a Guy Maddin ripoff piece that was cool, an obvious lift, but great in its own way, a piece on drunk bees (they get kicked out of the hive until their hangovers wear off; some of them return to the hive but some head straight back to the bar (the bar being a weird plant that has fermented juice coming out of it)), a musical piece where someone attacks a full drum kit with a semi-automatic weapon (the cymbals were surprisingly resilient), some guy who likes to hang on vertical poles with just one leg and one arm (he seems kinda... out of it, but there's a twist at the end of this mini-documentary). Needless to say, if you haven't seen any of the Wholphins, check them out. They are without a doubt the best quarterly DVD magazine out there. They may be the only one, but that doesn't detract from this kudos. It's put out by McSweeney's, so take that as you will.

I dreamed some crazy dreams last night. High school people everywhere, people that I remember from high school days. Not just my high school, but all the high schools around where I grew up. My dream was stinking with high schoolers. I had Odile on one arm and some paraphernalia in the other... I lost Odile wandering through throngs of old acquaintances and enemies. I was freaking OUT- she was about 2 months old in the dream- Corinne eventually found her, but she was hurt and I felt awful. I woke up, went back to sleep and dreamed an alternate ending: someone who looked like Tom Hanks had a submarine and a side-kick and they took Odile away to a faraway black market.

Books I'm reading and you probably won't:

Beginning Game Development with Python and Pygame- I want to get some Python under my belt and this seemed like a fun way to do that. Python is an interesting language- I like the way it tells you that you've fucked up as you're programming. Pretty handy.

Faraday's Experimental Researches in Electricity- Faraday's the guy who really nailed down what the hell was happening with electricity and magnetism. This book is a compendium of his experiments that he gave to students, along with annotations to help the reader follow. Very cool stuff actually. It gives a good insight into what is going on in the weird world of electricity.

Understanding Renewable Energy Resources- Not for the meek, lots of calculus and physics in here; good for the up and coming renewable energy engineer- that's me! Could it be you?

The girls are doing well, they need lots of outside time, even if they don't think so. It's good for them to get the hell out and go crazy- they seem to do better away from the house and preferably with lots of other kids they can pester and psycho-analyze. Heavy on the psycho.

Some cool links that have come my way:

carboard and conductive paint noise maker

My new hot thing (there's a little store in Fubonn here in Portland called serenity arts that has an amazing selection at great prices)

get weird

Thanks go to Mo for this one great way to make your enemies love you

Kyusu-ishi since I've gone completely out of my mind tea crazy, I've been drooling over some of these amazing teapots. They also have iron teacups on this site- what could be more zen manly? you drop your tea cup and instead of breaking it demolishes the floor! cool.