Blog Assessment 3

I haven't written much in the blog lately, as my arcade has taken over my conscious life. My assessment will therefore reflect my technological experience.

I could have kept going with these assignment for, well, the rest of my life, perhaps. Maybe I should. I have enjoyed this tremendously.

So, I find it odd that I might never continue with this kind of expression without being forced to. Why am I not motivated to express my self? This is bothering me.

But, enough navel-gazing. I am finished. I must admit, when I am not required to, I spend less time writing and and more time with the family.

More ranting...

I tried to post a couple of days ago with a whole thing about ...okay, I am not sure what the heck it was about, but isn't that the point of blogging?

Anyway, I went to post the damn thing and I got the internet equivalent of "Blogger is not in right now, please try again later, click...dial tone..." and so it is lost, the post that could have been my best post ever, the one that would have made you laugh and cry, the one that would have made you reconsider everything you knew about life and the perceptions of reality...ah, wtf, I should change rant subjects. This one even bores me.

I just cannot get off the schneid with my arcade project. I am trying to write in html this time, especially because I wanna use interesting backgrounds (pictures, montages, etc. from the Kaufman films), but I am running into a pragmatic problem - everytime I try to capture an image from the film I cannot; I have tried using ScreenPrint, tried my dig camera, and a few other ways. Man, Hollywood is freaky about the use of images, even from a marginally successful arthouse film from (almost) ten years ago.

This brings me to the ethical/legal dilemma: do I use any images for which I do not own the copyright? If not, I am in trouble, because I don't have the first clue how to get images that relate to Kaufman and his scripts without using ones that belong to someone else. I could always draw 'em, I suppose.

So, as much as I love to write using images, I may have to figure out how to create images using text, which is sad, because I have a "spectacular" image of a woman in a low cut red dress with Malkovich's head on it (from the scene at 1:09:41 when Malkovich enters the portal into his own head and when he arrives, everyone is Malkovich and all they can say is "Malkovich"), and it demonstrates the play with gender and subject position in the film.

Ugh. Again. If it weren't for ranting, I might never have anything to say.

Beginnings of the Arcade Project

I have decided to think through my arcades ideas here on the blog. Except that I am interested in the process I will use to create this arcade, this is for no good reason. This post may in fact be one of the entries in the arcade.

I want to know how I find my way through the project, because the process is integral to the idea, it is Sirc's "trace capturing" (138).

And then I went off to www.IMDB.com to find Kaufman's films, to www.amazon.com to order screenplays, and got lost at www.beingcharliekaufman.com. I found some interesting journal articles from the MLA search at the CSUSB website.

And I don't know exactly what I should do next, watch the films again or read the screenplays?

My second assessment of :The Blog:

I have grown to enjoy blogging. I haven't changed my mind that blogging requires emotional exhibitionism, I have learned how much to show before I get too embarassed. For example, the experience I had with my yearbook staff this week makes a good story, and I don't need to feel bad after I write it.

Somehow my Yearbook staff figured out (oh yeah, I told a couple of students that I "trusted") that this past Friday's deadline was a class deadline, not a publisher deadline, so it would not incur any late charges if we missed it. They must have forgotten, however, that they all signed contracts that require them to drop the class at the sememster if they miss a deadline. 5 of the 7 groups missed the deadline, so now I have 18 of 26 students that will have to drop the class if I enforce my rule. Included in those 18 are 3 of my editors.

There, see? The story acknowledges my own misguidedness (what the hell made me tell ANYONE that this wasn't a publisher deadline?) while venting my frustration. I have decided, by the way, that ranting is my reason for blogging.

Blogs are emotional and artisitic playgrounds (or dumping grounds) that the world can witness live. Blogging is voyeurism, Jerry Springer and Heloise's Helpful Hints, depending on where you look.

From a pedagogical standpoint, I believe strongly in stream-of-consciousness writing, and blogs are stream of consciousness. Blogging is great for reflection, and as a person who requires a lot of navel gazing to get through the day, I would suggest it to anyone who is stressed and can type more than 20 words per minute. By the way, according to that online test, I type 32 wpm and should consider a class.

I had this great idea to digitize some videos and music that I have created or heloped to create over the years, edit them to manageable size and upload to my OOO. I even bought a neat little video capture device - I mean, I do need to transfer these old tape gems onto a media that is more stable.

But my unfortunate streak of bad luck continues. With no time for any problems, I am having many problems.

Some of the items I want to transfer are actually on cassette tape. Do you have any idea how hard it is to transfer cassette tape to computer file? Of course you don't.

Sounds easy on the website, but in reality, you have to find a loaner cassette player with an audio output first - especially if you have dropped almost $100 for the video capture device (but it will be worth it, right? Just imagine all the precious memories saved from degradation) - and then there is the matter of that little phrase, right there on that website I linked to: "equipment needed: software: audio recording software." Don't run right over that. That will turn out to be quite a little bugaboo. Because the software that came with the video capture device is only a limited version, it won't record audio. The software won't tell you, either, you will just have to hunt around in the menus, get frustrated and finally search (and search and search) through the horrid help section for help - by the way, I get perturbed with help applications that ask if its suggested fix answered the question when the suggested fix did not answer the question; it's like rubbing salt in the wound.

You know, I could rant on, but the shareware audio recording software I found from a Google search is ready to load. Cross you fingers for me: There is a better than fifty-fifty chance that this won't work either. Take even money that I don't have the right connectors.

Clusterf#@k

I fried my memory stick at some point in the last few days, without knowing it. Apparently, USB 1.1 ports require more power than USB 2.0 ports do; I have USB 1.1 on my laptop and when I switched the memory stick to my desktop, the memory stick fried. I took it to one of the tech places and they tried to help me, but all of my data is lost. This is devastating because this is the place I have been keeping all my work from 609 and 658 this quarter.

I can't write any more.

That ^^^ was yesterday. I tried to post it and the server locked up on me. I could only save a draft. Hilariously coincidental...if only I used pencil and paper, oh wait: I can't blog (or research online or save .pdf or or or) with pencil and paper.

So today I bought a new laptop; I couldn't risk my previous laptop (hereafter to be referred to as old smokey) frying any more of my precious information. I just forgot how much time it takes to set up a new computer. I am emotionally fried, up against deadlines and unable to function.

tough few days

I fried my memory stick at some point in the last few days, without knowing it. Apparently, USB 1.1 ports require more power than USB 2.0 ports do; I have USB 1.1 on my laptop and when I switched the memory stick to my desktop, the memory stick fried. I took it to one of the tech places and they tried to help me, but all of my data is lost. This is devastating because this is the place I have been keeping all my work from 609 and 658 this quarter.

I can't write any more.

My wife is a painter. She has painted flowers and other still life items onto cards for years. A couple of years ago I put together a site for her, complete with photos of her work. Every card is hand-painted (I took the pics with an old two mega-pixel camera, so the pictures don't show the quality of her work, unfortunately).

I (just) decided to take picture(s) of her more recent work with my new camera and insert it into the blog. Here we go...







These two are much larger than her other work...the lily is a 3'x4' copy of a Georgia O'Keeffe painting and the other is 2'x 3' of a bird of paradise in our front yard. I think she is very talented...

[If you look at the source code of this post, you will see a real mess...]

What the...?

This evening, I had a fight with the Redlands Volunteer Citizen Patrol (or as my thirteen year-old called him/them, "Cotton"). I argued with them for a good solid five minutes, as though something could come of it, either that they would give in, or do a darn thing to me. I mean, they can't even issue a ticket. But, perhaps I should digress.

I parked my 1992 Volvo wagon (see right, except mine is black - sweet, huh?) in front of my house, oh, let's say... three weeks ago. I mean, I was going to move it some day, really. But the white-haired men, armed with orange stickers and digital cameras, changed all that. They rolled up on my hoopdie, probably because it was connected to the ground by cobwebs - no, not probably, definitely because it was connected to the ground by cobwebs; I was in the crosshairs.

Okay, I have digressed enough.

I argued and the minutes felt like hours:
"How far would I have to move it to qualify it to be parked and not stored?"
"Well if I check the odometer and it hasn't moved...," he said.
"You check my odometer?!"
"I just look in the window"
"There has to be a better use of your time than to bother me about my car in front of my house?"
"You can't store a car on a public street."
"My next-door neighbor never moved his car from one spot for over a year!" I was getting irrational.
"I know, we gave him several warnings."

It should have hit me by then. We gave him several warnings. These guys couldn't do anything. I was the asshole. They even handed me the orange sticker instead of putting it on my car.

By this point, most of my neighbors and my three year-old son had come out to watch the show. Unabashed, I stomped into my house, got the keys and headed out to move the car. I'd show those bastards.

It took me a half-hour, double parked in my other car, to charge the battery. Mercifully, the brave men in the Chrysler minivan had moved on to another adventure. I only hope it was, as described on the web site, to be "bicycle rodeo technicians."

my reflection on writing a blog

I love to journal. It is a release for me. I write without looking back, a stream of consciousness oulet without regard for grammar, style or topoi. I journal deeply personal, in-the-moment reactions, thoughts and emotions. Blogging feels like journaling, but for me it isn't.

When I blog, I consider my audience. I want to write about things that are meaningful to me, then wonder if anyone would really care. I write, then wonder if I have shared too much. I consider topoi and style and everything else that goes with more formal writing. I have worried that my school district would somehow read this blog and censure me for writing about them.

I want blogging to mirror my journal experience, but sharing my deepest feelings this way doesn't feel appropriate. I imagine that good bloggers have to possess a certain emotional exhibitionism that I just don't have.

I found a way into the blog!

I am really excited to be able to post. Maybe too excited.

I was thinking about my relationship with sports. I like to think of myself as more sophisticated than I really am; I love to watch sports, but I am somewhat ashamed I enjoy such a visceral experience. My mood can visibly change depending on the outcome of important sporting events when they involve the teams I follow. In 2004, I had physical symptoms related to the Yankees/Red Sox American League Championship Series . Here is an excerpt from my journal at that time (the Sox would come back from 0-3 to win the series 4-3 in one of the most famous trips to the World Series):

I have lost my drive. Maybe it is the dizzyingly horrible Red Sox series with
the Yankees. Man, I hate the Yankees. It is a symbol of all that is
American, and horrible. Using force and money to get the best players,
assembled in a joyless march to victory. This was epitomized by the pick-up
of A Rodriguez after the Red Sox tried to get him...awful.

Maybe sports are a metaphorical way to work out issues in my life (now there is a personal revelation). Naah.

I cannot access blogger.com from my classroom, where I spend most of my days; the district must think I will write anti-Beaumont propaganda.

I have been teaching in this district for two years, and teaching (including substitute) for about three. I remember well, Jason, the gauntlet of examination I ran to get to teach: first was the CBEST, then the CSET, then the CSET again (don't try to take all five English CSET sub-tests in one sitting).

I teach tenth grade English and I am the advisor for Yearbook. My mind doesn't switch easily from teaching adolescents to the composition studies. There it is: end of day. I will write more another time.