Cambyland Comeback

oh boy. Things were not looking good, my friends. TrivMaster JMcC and I, team Cambyland, were battling the tough competition of 6, 7 (illegal), 8, (illegal), and 9 (illegal) person teams. Going into the 4th quarter we were 13 points out of 5th place, in 8th place overall. We had just identified a dismal 5 out of 10 international leaders. And then we tanked the first question of the 4th quarter. For those of you not familiar with the ways of Trivia Night, this means that you're paying your whole tab. 100% of your pitchers, 100% of your pizza. Which at the Newtowne Grille is not a whole lot, but still. Pay full price? Nay.

It started tamely enough: a question about mountain ranges with the highest active volcanoes in the world. We went with Andes. South America = coffee = volcanoes. Bing. correct. hmm, is it possible? No. That's crazy talk. Too much. Even if we ran the table ... Two correct questions later, we were still in about the same positioning going into the final two questions. So, we went for broke, bid the max, and a "Greece" and "Bridges of Madison County" later we're on a 38 point run. Just enough to tie us for third and force a tiebreaker. Tiebreaker, you say? Bring it. Oh, it's already been broughten. Population of Greece? 3.5 Million. Count it. Well, no. It's like 10 million. But we were 400,000 closer than the other team.

Third place. $10 off the tab. Thank you very much.







"I hope nothing. I fear nothing. I am free" - Nikos Kazantzakis

Business Casual Stag Devil Death Boy

I'm about at the halfway point of the rough draft layout of the Business Casual Stag Devil Death Boy graphic novel (aka grown-up's comic book) and it looks a little something like this ------->

Hopefully, I'll be done with the rough draft phase by the end of June. So, assuming I don't get lead poisoning, there's a decent chance that the final product will be done by the end of the year. Then there's just that little part about getting it published and distributed. piece of cake.



Good news:

- journalist Jill Carroll (UMass alumni) was released by her captors in Iraq.
- Jack Abramoff got 6 years in jail.
- I leave the corporate world tomorrow.
- 8 and 1/2 days without a peep from the douchebag.

Word of warning:

- don't get sucked into the buzz about George Mason, the cinderalla team in the Final Four, this weekend. Karl Rove went there. ergo, evil. Go Gators.

doctorsforiraq.org

Last night I went to a seminar on the effects of the war on the health of the Iraqi people - part of an effort not to allow myself to totally ignore news on the Iraq War as a result of numbness. A lot of it was stuff I already knew (like the reports of iraqbodycount.net putting civilian casualties at about 35,000 and the Lancet report which put the number at about 100,000 a year and 1/2 ago), but there was a 15 minute documentary which featured a testimonial from a doctor who was in Falluja during the seiges that killed approximately 2000 Iraqi civilians. It's pretty outrageous. The documentary is being shown around the country now but has not yet been published by any media. Most of what he reported is included in this 5 page pdf file which I got off of the website of the group that he's involved with: doctorsforiraq.org. I highly recommend reading it, especially if you're like me and catch yourself avoiding reading stuff like this. It's important to remind ourselves how unbelievably fucked up this war was, is, and continues to be. That our government continues to defend it is unconscionable.

Dude v Cart - The Remix

ok, if you haven't watched Dude v Cart yet, go back a post and watch it before proceeding.

good? ok. Now, allow me to present The Remix:

Weekend Wrap (one day late)

Sad, Lonely Earplugs: again at the considerable risk of jinxing myself, I'm happy to report that I have not heard a peep from the McGee for close to six days now. This is crazy. Is it possible he's gone? No, no. Bite your tongue, VTK. Do not allow yourself such thoughts. He's lurking out there somewhere. I was struck by a truly horrific thought earlier today: what if he moved out and moved into the apartment I'm moving into next month. Oh the horror. the horror. I believe I would crumble to the ground and sob if that happened.

Damn you, Roberts: I'm starting to wonder if I'm going to spend the better part of the next 30 years reminding myself why I reluctantly supported the nomination of Chief Justice Roberts, trying to justify it to myself, the way I justify my 2000 support for Nader. Not that my qualified support of Roberts had any impact on his nomination or confirmation (not that my Nader vote in Massachusetts had any impact on that election). But after reading articles like this from last week's NY Times, a little reminder is in order: he's a parallel swap with Rehnquist, he's an intelligent, analytical man rather than a wingnut, his expressed respect for stare decisis suggests that he doesn't have an agenda to overturn Roe v Wade, and we're saving the filibuster to block the conservative nominee that Bush will put up to replace O'Connor. What's that? We didn't even use the filibuster on the conservative nominee. ... crap.

Dude v Cart: still working on fine tuning the compression process, but the dvd's turned out pretty good. Oh did I forget to mention that the dvd also has a remix of Dude v Cart using discarded clips? It's hott. As I was saying, the compression thing is still being sorted out. The first attempt to create a quicktime file out of it, knocked it down from 3.5 GB to 7.5 MB, and sacrificed a fair amount of quality, especially in the way the aged film parts look. Nevertheless, the 7.5 MB version is now up and viewable on my youtube account. It's irritates the hell out of my perfectionist streak to see this version up there, but I suppose it does give a pretty good sense of it. Actually, I might be able to post it here. Let's try:



that worked. UPDATE: I also did a little experiment with the compression and managed to get a really good version at 175 MB. I'll try it again tomorrow to see if I can get one under 100 MB (which is the youtube limit). If that works, I'll compress the Remix, featuring never before seen footage.

Hemisphere: I was down in Sandwich for a day and change this weekend to help do some sanding and painting in Tracy and Eric's new restaurant. Looking good, kids.

Friday's the last day: well, at Fidelity anyways. 5 and 1/2 years is a long time.

McGee Does Spring Break

I know I might be jinxing myself by saying this, but I think Jazzy McGee might be on on Spring Break. After a marathon 10 hour vitriolic, profanity laced, shit talking phone session on Tuesday afternoon/evening, Jazzy has been silent for about 57 hours now. 10 hours of him yelling about how his "fucking outrageous" "fucking ridiculous" neighbors better "back the fuck up", among other hostilities, culminating in him yelling "wake the fuck up! wake the fuck up!", as I laughed myself to sleep with my earplugs in. His negativity has totally turned on him; he was practically crying about how he's sick of it, he hates it, he hates what its making him, he's literally sick to his stomach, he's refusing to leave, he's not leaving, "all my life" blah blah blah. Almost enough to make you feel sorry for him. Except then you remember what an unbelievable asshole he is. And I think I can add idiot at this point. I mean, did he really think he could sustain this level of negativity, without it having serious deleterious effects on his well-being? You reap what you sow, bitch. Learn it. Know it. Anyways, the 1:30 AM "wake the fuck up" shouts were the last noises I've heard. 57 hours and nary a sub-woof, a shout, a woo, an "oh yeah", a "wooeee", a stomp, a dropped or dragged item of 50 pounds or more, a 10 hour pacing session, a 10 hour bitching session. Either one of his other neighbors killed him or had him abducted, or he's on Spring Break. Getting attacked by a shark. Woops - that was a little negative. I guess that's to be expected, when you walk around for 3 days ready to fight.

One more month ... one more month ... I could balance a deviled egg on my nose for longer than that. ahh sweet silence. The concept of having some control over my sonic environment is blowing my mind.

Pan-Mass Portraiture Tour - P-Town to Pittsfield

I've been planning on putting together a string of gallery shows for this summer now that I have all this free time. Seemed like an appropriate move for someone making a run at being a professional artist, which I'm sort of, not really, doing. The idea was to hit a bunch of spots across Massachusetts that I have spent some time in and that have thriving arts communities, so I've tentatively settled on Provincetown (partying at Hamilton's house for 5 years counts), Cambridge (currently residing), Northampton (UMass, post-UMass time spent at Hugos), and of course - Pittsfield. The home of the Mighty Housatonic. I'm still looking into solidifying spots at the first three, but it is with great pleasure that I announce that 10 or more of my paintings will be hanging in Pittsfield City Hall (pictured) for the month of August. How you like me now, Coach Belanger?

[UPDATE: and then just this afternoon, I secured a show at the Middle East here in Cambridge. I went to the Zeitgeist Gallery and the guy wasn't there, but the other guy said they were booked for like 8 months. Then I walked by the Out of the Blue Gallery (who manages the Middle East shows) and the guy there said that he could give me a show on the restaurant (non-corner-bar) side for the month of September. So my concept of working my way across the state in order may not work out, but it's a pretty good place for a show. And I have more of a connection to it than the Zeitgeist or some other gallery (connection being that I've hung out there and gone to shows there for over 5 years).]

Dude v Cart

The first digital short, coming in at just under 4 minutes and a whopping 3.5 gig, Dude v Cart, is officially complete. Two guys (me, Nick-Lo), a camcorder, a shopping cart, iMovies, and some nifty sound mixing from Joel, and we're done. It's pretty amazing how much work goes into such a short project. I can't imagine what a massive undertaking a full length film is. I guess that's why the credits are so long. Right now, I'm sorting out how to disseminate this little bad boy. As is, it's too big to throw up on a website or blog. I found a tutorial on how to compress it to a quicktime movie format, but I need to do a little more reading/experimentation on that (ensure I have a back-up, choose a codec, etc). If I can get a version under 10 MB that's not too degraded, I can throw it up on youtube.com for free; or a version under 15 MB could suit a submission to something like Famous For 15 MB. In the meantime, I think I'm going to burn up some dvd versions, so if you'd like one, email me your physical address (and dvd + or - specs if you can only view one or the other). Or if you want me to FTP the whole thing to you and your server or you have webspace to house it, please let me know.

March Madness

That's sign language for basketball, which pretty much explains my weekend. I watched tons of hoop and was generally too drunk to talk about it, so I just kept doing this sign.

By myself, lying in a pile of garbage in the alley behind the Plough and Stars.

Just kidding. That's not true. It was behind JJ Foley's.

[update: Apparently, I need to clarify: I really was joking. I didn't spend the weekend drunk lying in the trash behind the Plough and Stars or JJ Foley's.


(it was heroin)]

Har Ta Tar Tar