high noon

Carson is going under the knife in a few hours. This time I'm burning the body and cutting off the head.

why? because we can.

Resident Evil 4 Chainsaw Controller
The Tickle-Tron
all the kitties are sleeping

via B3ta

I saw DIG! last night

It's sad that when a "documentary" like F911 sells out theaters, a real documentary like DIG! can't even get 10 people in the theater for a weekday evening show. It got love from the critics, including grand jury at sundance. My favorite review soundbite comes from the LA Times: "The movie, which was seven years in the making, plays like a mid-'90s Amadeus." Still, the sparse audience was somehow a fitting environment - no overwhelming gasps or laughter to socially color your reactions and a sea of empty seats to remind you that both the film and the bands (brian jonestown massacre & the dandy Warhols) it chronicled will never really got the attention/success that they merrit.

DiG! belongs in the same breath as other great recent narrative documentaries like startup.com, american movie, and hoop dreams. But just like these amazing films, DiG feels somehow flawed. The director's mission to tell the essence of the story, yet remain honest to the details stretched out over years, 1,000 of hours of footage and evolving perspectives is an inherent contradiction. Making such a film over time changes both subject and filmmaker, at least if it's done right, and no virtuoso editing feat nor objective stomach can change that fact. Unlike in Hollywood (or the Michael Moore variety of "documentary"), the cards we are dealt in real life and the emotions we have to handle them are much stranger and more complex than can be summed up in 120 minutes. So, the documentary filmmaker has to offer us glimpses, impressions, and moments. Many of my favorite films are fiction, but almost all of my favorite film moments are from documentaries, and DiG! has plenty of honest and radioactive moments that transcend time, space, and grainy VHS.

so old and busted

this shouldn't surpise anyone, but its funny. A German PC magazine has uncovered an obvious case ofmicrosoft piracy:
"A quite dishornoring evidence against Microsoft, while they recently announced to act against pirated versions of Windows XP. A statement has not been given yet by Microsoft."

do you want more

The Grey Video makes me happy.
update: mirror here

5-timers club

I never really liked Penny Hardaway. I guess I was a UTEP two-step Tim Hardaway fan and figured it would be unreasonable to like both players of the same name. Plus, his score from anywhere athletic game was not really something I could even think about imitating on the court. 5 knee surgeries later Penny, now comes off the Knick's bench with limited but consistent impact.

As of 11am today, I have knee surgery scheduled for Nov. 30th. The DOC looked at the MRI and thinks that he can remove the scar tissue lodged under my knee cap which is giving me so much pain. As i was walking out of the orthopedic office this afternoon, the RN said hopefully, "Third times a charm". It'll be my 3rd surgery with this doctor, 5th overall (or 6th depending on how you count). I hope she's right. It's hard, but I hope.

KG, Baron, AI, Rasheed, much love to you guys, but Penny is now my favorite NBA player. Here's to his shot at 6th man of the year, and here's to 5th knee surgeries being the last.

OMG...shoulder blades

In the wake of yet more fake puritanical outrageJeff Jarvis defends us yet again:
I'm going to start a site that allows all us sane, normal, red-blooded Americans send thank-you notes to the networks -- and the FCC -- every time there's a hint of sex or colorful language on broadcast...And as for your prudes who are making it your lifes' work complaining and getting stupid ass media to talk about it: Get a life.
"Get a life" is right. I used to have some asshole neighbors that would complain about everything that happened in our little apartment community, noise, agressive parking, cats, etc. I'm a nice guy and tried to be considerate for a while, addressing their complaints as I could. It took me a while to grasp it, but eventually I realized that they complained because they had boring boring lives - Low octane drama queens. I felt sad for them, and eventually tuned them out. I hope our media can do the same thing. Fuck the John Winthrop wannabees.

Magnetic Screw

I had another MRI, for my knee. it's gotten much worse. New Physical Therapy might help eventually but it hasn't helped with the pain yet. I can do just about anything (well, relatively), I can go up stairs, do free weight, even shoot a few hoops. But no matter what I do or don't do, it lights up when i drive or sit, even for a few minutes. They don't seem to know what's going on - hence the hour I spent in a radioactive metal coffin today. Hopefully, the DOC will have some good news tomorrow, or at least news that doesn't involve scheduling quality time in the O.R.

On a positive note, I saw a new ending for PIEHOLE while i was crammed in the MRI tube. I've had a few moments like this before, when I see a movie scene or something. it's always been when I was doing a big editing job and i saw scenes which never existed as a daydream. If i can communicate what I saw, i think it'll be a good ending. I hope so at least, I hadn't been happy at all with any of the endings i've crapped out so far. Could the MRI machine and all the radioactivity and loud electronic drumming have helped the creative process?...maybe. it'd be nice. though, i'd much rather it help in the getting my knee to stop fucking hurting process.

first lance now indie rock - what else?

Somewhere in The Crying of Lot 49, Thomas Pynchon has forseen this bizarre sponsorship story...The Postal Service -w- The Postal Service

Though the specifics seem unbelievable, somehow it should not suprise us that The national mail carrier and indie rock should become bedfellows. It's been said before and proven yet again, our upandcoming generation of artists don't necc view corporate (or even goverment) sponsorship as some sell-out kiss of death, it's just another means to support your music. nice to see that Cliff Claven and Co. realized the opportunnity here instead of just knee jerking and litigatin. still, if i think about it too much, my head hurts.

Having no apparatus except gut fear and female cunning to examine this formless magic, to understand how it works, how to measure its field strength, count its lines of force, she may fall back on superstition, or take up a useful hobby like embroidery, or go mad, or marry a disc jockey. If the tower is everywhere and the knight of deliverance no proof against its magic, what else?
--The Crying of Lot 49, Chapter 1

for those of you in chapel hill

mark's university massage story

"University Massage. That's the one for me, I thought, can't get much more respectable than the university. Might be a bit cold and clinical, but no worries about having a twitch of the ear misinterpreted as the secret sign for "can you just move the stiffness elsewhere ?"

Onionhead goes solo

Just heard that ONION HEAD MONSTER creator and Raleigh, NC artist Paul Friedrich has his first solo show at the Bickett Gallery. Go check it out! better yet, hit up the opening reception:
"the opening reception is saturday the 13th from 7pm to midnight. come for the art, stay for the bar. tell your friends about either one.
in a feat not seen since the days of houdini, paul friedrich is goingto attempt to fill up the entire space of bickett gallery with newpaintings, new watercolors, new xmas ornaments, new bottles, new t-shirts, comic books, flower pots and a bunch of other stuff!"

and i was all like i want to make the table light up and 45 min later...i'm a turdburgler

watch the cheeseball director of ELEKTRA describe in used car salesman detail how he goes about butchering my favorite comic book storyline. What a dumbass. go back to directing mancuso, fbi and baywatch episodes.

how do these people get jobs you ask? by sucking.

hunky dory

In times like these, I am drawn to Bowie. No one else celebrates perverse despair as some sort of searching theatric kooky hope.
We find the sublime in ragged holes, in rats scurrying across power lines, and in whatever affair we can.

Life on Mars?
It's on Amerika's tortured brow
That Mickey Mouse
has grown up a cow
Now the workers
have struck for fame
'Cause Lennon's on sale again
See the mice in their million hordes
From Ibeza to the Norfolk Broads
Rule Britannia is out of bounds
To my mother, my dog, and clowns
But the film is a saddening bore
'Cause I wrote it
ten times or more
It's about to be writ again
As I ask you to focus on
time's like these
Sailors fighting in the dance hall
Oh man!
Look at those cavemen go
It's the freakiest show
Take a look at the Lawman
Beating up the wrong guy
Oh man! Wonder if he'll ever know
He's in the best selling show
Is there life on Mars?

take a penny

I have a dark and cynical heart that says all hell could break loose today. I hope I am wrong, but I am expecting the worst.

This adorable commercial gives me a sliver of hope, if not for the actual goodness of people, then for the untapped effectiveness to appeal to our belief in such goodness, and for the power of images and stories to do so.

the danger must be growing for the rowers keep on rowing

UGHH. A little too much halloween last night. made it home in one piece though.

Probably not the best time to do this given last night's indulgences, but today I start Operation Thanksgiving. I'm going to go on a restricted calorie diet until turkey day. 1600 calories per day, about 1000 less than I normally eat. My reasons are 50% health related and 50% "just to see if I can do it" related. I've tried it before and failed pretty quick, but I didn't really have a plan or a time period goal. I'm kicking things off with fruit only for 5 days. i'll update my progress. already day dreaming about clam dip and other thanksgiving delectibles

Gene Wilder's infamous demented rambling from Willy Wonka's boat ride to Hell somehow sums up things quite well.