scout, catonsville, 11.12
To the guy in the Accord who crossed four lanes of traffic into my blind spot, almost crashed into me, and then flipped me the bird: I’m driving a Scout, you ignorant doorknob. That’s over a ton of Ohio steel, moving at high velocity and with great momentum. My truck would make little flat pieces of tin out of that crap you’re driving. You’re lucky I saw you at the last minute.
I signed up for the new Macromedia content-management product, Contribute. I have no idea how this thing works, or what it could mean for several different clients of mine, but I’m going to test out the Win version of it perhaps tomorrow. Details to follow.
Because of phone snafus, I have to wait until tomorrow to find out what the cost of the sewer problems might be. Although I have a solid “oh shit” fund in the bank, I’m afraid this is going to seriously damage my plans to do a lot of things in the near future. In the meantime, I’m showering at Jen’s house and trying not to worry too much.
→ This is a syndicated post from my Scout weblog. More info here.
The verdict on the drain is that my waste pipe is broken somewhere between the back wall of my house and the back wall of the alley—in the middle of my yard. So there’s a man coming out this afternoon to estimate how much of the brick will be torn up.
Today I’m marveling in the power of Unforgettable Fire-era U2. Wire and the title track are two of my favorites of all time. Good to hear them again (I threw the worn-out cassette tapes years ago.)
Todd alerted me to this link in the Urban Archaeology vein, based on my early work with the Letter Project: B-More Ghosts.
It appears that my main waste line in the house is clogged up. I have somebody coming in on Monday to snake it out; please say a prayer for me that the whole line has not collapsed (warranting the destruction of all the work we’ve done in the backyard to date to install a new line.) It is for this reason that I am in a foul mood today.
Jen and I are knee-deep in two freelance projects that will simultaneously eat all our free time and also provide much-needed capital in our bank accounts. They are both very exciting projects, and should be challenging to work on together. Meanwhile, I’m juggling three separate home improvement projects right now- grouting the tub, wiring the backyard, and finishing the deck. Sleep? Bah. For lightweights.
Sen. John McCain was on NPR yesterday talking about campaign-finance reform and sounding like the intelligent, free-thinking man he is. He brought up a very good point about advertising during elections: We, the citizens, own the airwaves, leasing time on them out to the big communication companies. Instead of mandating that equal free airtime be provided to each of the candidates, we instead let the conglomerates sell time for campaign ads to PACs, who devise attack ads designed to blur the facts and smear the opponents. Originally, this idea was built in to the reform bill, but the telecommunications lobby shot it down. Imagine a campaign cycle dominated by debate and discourse instead of mudslinging?
Note: This will be the last vaguely political thing I write here for a while. I’m going to get off the soapbox and put my high horse away. Thanks for indulging me.
I’m going to attempt to avoid all news reports regarding the elections tonight. I think I’m gonna pop a DVD in the player and tune out the whole thing until I wake up tomorrow. No thanks.
Dammit. It’s raining outside. That means no outdoor work—no dry sink, no lighting. I thought I was good in the tile grout department; I have a whole milk crate full of tile adhesive, grout, and caulk. Unfortunately the box of white unsanded grout was empty when I opened it. So no tub repairs inside.
1998 - 2002
The website of Aidan Hughes, the man responsible for all those awesome KMFDM covers, the original Rocky! bumper for MTV (It’s there on his site to watch, but it’s in Real format—have fun) and ZPC, an unplayable, oddly disturbing game released for the Mac back in ’97 or so. I’m tempted to buy some of the original art when I get the money together. I like his earlier work a lot better- the newer stuff doesn’t hold up graphically for me.
trees, catonsville, 11.3
Perhaps it was the terse, one line reply I sent back to the spam I mentioned last friday; I should have known, even as I was pressing the “send” button that it would bite me in the ass again. I’ve now gotten about 10 identical emails from ten different senders.
The deck is 9/10 done. I have to go out with a few beers and a box of deck screws and finish the planking, but it’s all down and in place. There are two small sections to be milled at this point- at the foot of the stairs and at the edge of the doorway. We also tried to hang the sink on the wall, but I wasn’t able to line the hooks up with the tongues on the back of the sink. besides, I estimated wrong and hung it about six inches too high. Another evening with a drill and all should be good, though. Pictures to come, including a beginning shot before the oil tank was removed.
Here’s a link to the initial design of the letterform project I mentioned yesterday; it’s all static HTML and in a very alpha phase right now, so keep that in mind. And there are a lot of letters missing right now.
OK, somebody gently chided me about sending stuff back to spam e-mailers. For the record, my replay was a simple phrase: “Fuck off.”
What if there was a way to pre-register and pre-vote for your candidate of choice, and then all ads, electioneering and other useless crap directed at you would just disappear? If I have to see another crappy locally-produced TV attack spot, I’m gonna hurl. Or how about this: They make the loser go around and personally clean up all those stupid roadside signs planted on every divider, turn lane, and streetcorner.
Todd wrote this in response to my post yesterday about the Boy Scouts:
One thing Scouting wants to forget is its founder was a homosexual British imperialist who believed a paramilitary youth organization would further the cause of the waning Victorian empire.
If you ask me, I think the BSA should keep worrying about the sexual predators that seem to infiltrate their leadership ranks, not a successful Eagle Scout with non-tradional convictions.
Look here soon for a project I’m working on slowly this month: a collection of letterforms from old Baltimore. There’s a wealth of old hand-painted and commercially produced signage in town, and I’ve begun taking pictures of the stuff that strikes my eye. I’m going to arrange and catalog it, then post it for review.
How not to solicit work: I got an email this afternoon at work from “chingzkhan” with a subject line of “I have visited your site…” Upon opening it, the first line read: I have visited your site and I think that design looks not good now. Then it goes on to list their website (a template sales site) and says, Check it out! We have hired two new designers from indonesia. They rocks!
Way to go, there, captain. See how many hits you get with that.