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Yesterday: My job is to make decisions, and his job is to help explain those decisions to the press corps and the American people.
(Source: WhiteHouse.gov)
Today: I’m the decider and I decide what’s best.
(Source: AP)
President George W. Bush wants the American people to know that he’s the one who decided to entangle us, indebt us, and ruin us.
Four of my five entries to The 25th Annual EVVY Awards are nominated. This is a nice reversal of my luck last year.
For Best Website: Emersive.net and The 24th Annual EVVY Awards
For Best Interactive Project: Fireflies
For Best Photo Series: 2006 Hott Guys Calendar
Judging from the other sites nominated, I think Emersive’s site has a nice chance of winning Best Website. Fireflies is fun and I think it’s cooler than any DVD or website, so I think it might have a chance unless that DVD is hella interactive. While I love the calendar, I just don’t think it can compete with all those Developed Images kids in Best Photo Series.
More Massachusetts Flip-Flopping Department: Democrat Senator Kennedy opposes his own position on clean energy… when it might be come to his neighborhood. (more)
Neighborhoods all over the country should be so lucky as to even have a proposal for a wind farm. The spoiled brat won’t have a house with a view of the ocean at all (in 50 years) if clean energy is not adopted.
My favorite lines from Thank You for Smoking.
Jeff: [Talking to Nick on the phone, late at night] Gotta go. It’s 7 AM in the Old Empire.
Nick: When do you sleep?
Jeff: [Pause] Sunday.
I know that my blog has been most impersonal lately. Apologies. School is busy. Life is busy. I’m so ready for the semester to end. But I know the summer will not bring relief.
Financial aid, the added expense of Emerson’s LA program, and the insulting audacity of David Griffin worry and anger me. I don’t know what to do about the required on-campus housing situation that totally discriminates against gay couples… or moving to LA in August in general.
I can’t even plan this summer. I guess I’m working at Harvard with Apple and at Atlantic Research. I am hesitant about going to South Africa because I don’t feel confident in my ability to find the story. I don’t have time to find the story right now. The story is there and it needs to be told, but I fear my inability to tell it. Fortunately, Arthur’s skills far supersede mine here and I know that I shouldn’t worry.
I have to finish my senior honors thesis project and paper, whose story enthralls me but I can’t seem to execute.
The new Emerson.edu looks pretty, but is slow and still not organized logically. It’s also not using XHTML or CSS. It brings no innovation to communication or arts, which is a big shame for the school.
I worry about Emersive‘s survival as an organization. I founded it, presided over it for two years, and now it’s left in capable hands. Emerson students just haven’t responded to it like EIV, Developed Images, Gauge, or other student organizations that I admire.
I submitted work to The EVVY Awards for Best Website, Best Interactive Project, and Best Photo Series. I don’t think that I will win and I probably just wasted $60. I don’t want to leave Emerson without winning an award from the organization to which I’ve dedicated so much time. Regardless, I wish my grandparents would come see the show since they had to cancel unexpectedly last year.
DPL has been so busy lately and I find myself not getting any of my own work done while I am there.
I am struggling with where to intern this fall. I can’t decide to go with interactive development, which I have some self-confidence in, or venture out into 3D and visual effects, which I’m learning lots about but am not good at (yet). I don’t want to work at a movie studio, but I want the 3D and compositing skills to bring online. Motion graphics seem so much more sexy than anything online right now. I should have been a marketing major and a new media minor. I don’t feel that I’m very good at what I do (compared to the pros that I admire) and I don’t think Emerson’s classes (with a few exceptions) have done anything to help me reach the level of those I admire.
I just want my job to make life better somehow. If that’s in entertainment with a message or if that’s with a company making great products in a socially conscious way or if it’s with a grassroots (or grassroots-esque) organization, then I really don’t care which skillset of mine gets used.
Professors Jason Roush, John-Craig Freeman, Claire Andrade-Watkins, and Rachelle Dermer have made this semester magical in some way.
In general, I just feel down about the way things are going in the world. Our government is everything our forefathers wanted to avoid. The environment is being trashed and nobody cares. Intellectual property owners are ruining the innovative spirit of humanity, and again nobody cares. Our society is more obsessed with entertaining itself with itself instead of experiencing things that seem more fundamentally human.
Physical distance makes me long for the friendships the way they used to be. I don’t have any particular relationship or persons in mind. I just know that I haven’t been that good with keeping up with friends in VA and CA.
At the same time, I am so appreciative of the people in Boston whose friendship I have probably not had time to value enough. Allyson, Mark, and Greg are highlights of my day at Emerson. In general, my fellow DPL labbies and select people in The EVVYs are just wonderful. I know that I’m lucky to be around such people. I’ve always been lucky to be around amazing people.
Arthur and Steph are in Nicaragua. I miss them. I wish I could be there with the good presence of Ana, the spontaneous experience that is attracted to her, and the hope that the country resonated.
I love people’s reactions to Barang. I hope to make something so powerful.
I miss my mom regularly these days. My Uncle Jon sent me DVDs of some home video from two Christmases in the late 80s. I haven’t had the time to call and thank him and he’ll probably read this before I get to, but I needed to see them. The timing was perfect.
Every conversation with my Dad (even though they are few with my schedule) seems to remind me of how wonderful a man he is.
I miss my siblings. I feel that I’m missing the best years to be a kid (high school) the same way my mother missed my best years to be a kid. I know that she didn’t want to leave and miss that experience and I feel the same, even though I’m fortunate enough to be alive.
I feel that I have neglected myself spiritually for the past year. I just don’t agree with the church on so much and I don’t want to be with people who largely use blind faith as an excuse to not think critically. I don’t believe the faith of a child is desirable. at all. I want a Blue Ridge Community Church with a progressive statement of faith and that just doesn’t seem to exist.
Arthur & I haven’t taken up Lesley (the wonderful traveling companion from Boston we met in Nicaragua) on her offer to go to Arlington St Church yet.
I feel like less of an artist now more than I ever have before in some ways.
I want to have time to workout regularly. I don’t even care about the health benefits or physique benefits anymore. I just want to be committed to something just for me on a regular basis.
I can’t wait until Arthur comes home. He makes me happy when I feel too much. And I’m feeling too much right now.
So I know that I sound depressed right now. I’m not. I just needed to dump my mind. It’s 3 AM. I’ve been trying to fall asleep since midnight to no avail.
Music: Spem In Alium (40-Voice Motet) by Thomas Tallis, performed by Oxford Camerata
NOVA sent chills over my body tonight. Global dimming is another major problem associated with burning fossil fuels. The visible pollutants of fossil fuel emissions get caught in the atmosphere and reflect sunlight before it gets to the earth’s surface. The result is a cooling of the earth.
Sounds good, especially with global warming, right? Wrong. Global dimming significantly alters the precipitation cycles around the world. Worse, it masks the effect of global warming by more than half. As visible pollutants decrease global dimming (the trend in US & Europe, but not Asia), global warming increases. It’s like a Red Bull vodka shot for the climate.
The world needs to wake up. Clean air isn’t enough. The need to reduce greenhouse is more urgent now than ever because of this discovery.
Related: Global dimming on Wikipedia
The earth used to have 19% oxygen in its atmosphere and now it has 9%. Now, I know that’s not a fact you’ll find in the Bible, and I know it’s not a fact we should really care about like activist judges or boys kissing, but maybe it matters a little.
— Bill Maher, Earth to America
Emersive decided to donate some of the funds raised from its 2006 Hott Guys Calendar to the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Emerson’s crazy financial policies require that I get some paperwork from the EFF before Emersive can make a donation.
When I went to check something on the site, I received a bandwidth exceeded error. Shocked, I raised its limit and then checked the server stats. Apparently, word about Emersive’s donation got around the EFF office and out into the larger blogosphere.
It’s nice to see that my project is more appreciated in the rest of the world since sales weren’t that great on campus. We still have ~75 left if you’re interested.
Links to a few comments: Fleshbot, EFF staff attorney, Violet Blue, Ball of Confusion
That’s one hell of a chipmunk!
— Pete Chvany, after a loud dolphin noise echoed in the DPL hallway from an editing suite.
Howdy, I’m on a new server. Let me know if something doesn’t seem to be working.
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