Talked about "Smells Like Teen Spirit" today. Mentioned how it is the official anthem of our generation ("our" meaning me and people who're around my age). This seems to be something that people agree with. Funny though, I didn't really like the song when it was big. I wasn't even trying to be anti-mainstream in those days either, I just only really liked bands like Queen and Billy Joel and the Who. It wasn't until later that I decided I liked the Nirvana song.
It makes me sad that I missed out on the whole grunge scene. I would have liked to have been a part of the whole grunge "happening" when it was happening. Then I could have stories about going to see cool bands when they were in their prime instead of the actual concerts I went to when I was in high school, which was basically two Rush concerts and one The Who concert where they'd played with the philharmonic.
If it counts for any kind of grunge cred, Eddie Vedder showed up at that Who concert. Also: Linda Perry from 4 Non Blondes, and also The Spin Doctors who sang "My Generation". So even though it wasn't a cool concert to go to it was still clearly a part of the sign of the times. Incidentally, I always really loved Linda Perry's cover of "Captain Jack". Embarassingly it got me to become the one and only fan of the 4 Non Blondes album "bigger, faster, better, more..." (or something). This lead me to become a fan of today's hot act "Pink", when I saw on the MTV show "Driven" that she too was a Linda Perry fan. Now I think "Mizzundastood" is a great listen. Thus: My out of touchness back in my own youth has somehow brought me into being in touch with the kids of today.
I don't know what I'm on about today. It's six o' clock friday, and I wanna go home.
Thursday, June 05, 2003
The radio was telling me the news this morning as I was getting ready for work. As usual, the news was depressing. Today they were talking about how the unemployment rate went from such and such percentage last year up to such and such a higher percentage this year. I liked it better during the web boom, when everyone was getting paid big money for work they weren't necessarily qualified to do. Then I thought about how the bottom fell out, and all the investors took all their money away. Then I got pissed, and socialistic, because really all that was happening with the boom was that some of the money that the rich people have anyway was getting spread around a bit. Why shouldn't we internet workers get paid inflated wages for little work? What's wrong with that? It's not like these wealthy people don't get money for nothing.
Anyway, I am finally feeling less sick, which is good because I have a busy weekend coming up. Aliza and I are going to go see the rabbi for a second time, and I am going to be scolded for not doing my readings on Jewish weddings (I already know what happens, we smash a glass, and then I ride around on a chair), and then we are going to go help Aliza's mom get ready for our Engagement Party on sunday. The Engagement Party will be interesting, it will be the first time I've been in a setting with my whole family, someone else's whole family, and then a bunch of my friends from different walks of life. I'm one of those people who likes to compartmentalize the people I know, and not mix them up that often. It helps me, because it's easier for me to keep track of how I behave around which people. Am I condescending to this person?, am I a suck-up to this person, do talk about comics with this person or not? etc... I don't know how I'll behave with everyone there at once. I guess I'll know next week.
Got my Gabagool! shirts in the mail yesterday, and they look nice. Apparently the cafepress site will start charging money if I don't sell a certina amount of product in six months, so if anyone is thinking of getting a snappy looking Gabagool! 4 t-shirt, waste no time! (Wife-beater shirts recently added)
Anyway, I am finally feeling less sick, which is good because I have a busy weekend coming up. Aliza and I are going to go see the rabbi for a second time, and I am going to be scolded for not doing my readings on Jewish weddings (I already know what happens, we smash a glass, and then I ride around on a chair), and then we are going to go help Aliza's mom get ready for our Engagement Party on sunday. The Engagement Party will be interesting, it will be the first time I've been in a setting with my whole family, someone else's whole family, and then a bunch of my friends from different walks of life. I'm one of those people who likes to compartmentalize the people I know, and not mix them up that often. It helps me, because it's easier for me to keep track of how I behave around which people. Am I condescending to this person?, am I a suck-up to this person, do talk about comics with this person or not? etc... I don't know how I'll behave with everyone there at once. I guess I'll know next week.
Got my Gabagool! shirts in the mail yesterday, and they look nice. Apparently the cafepress site will start charging money if I don't sell a certina amount of product in six months, so if anyone is thinking of getting a snappy looking Gabagool! 4 t-shirt, waste no time! (Wife-beater shirts recently added)
Tuesday, June 03, 2003
Lousy weekend. I have had a cold I can't quite shake, so I pretty much stayed in and moped.
Started watching the Toy Story DVD disc with all the extras. Some of it was pretty interesting, but it is mostly a series of slideshows that you have to scroll through. Like, they have a segment called "character design ", which I figured would be a neat little mini-documentary showing the various designs of the characters and a little bit of commentary. Sadly, like I said, it was just a slideshow of about a billion little drawings of each character that you had to hit your arrow buttons to look through. I don't know about anyone else's DVD players, but mine takes a good 2 or 3 seconds to load everytime you hit one of those buttons, so I quit watching almost immediately.
There were also "Deleted Animations", which mainly showed little segments that were made, but then later edited out, or changed. This was pretty interesting, but on the Toy Story I features under this heading was a segment called "Render Bigs". I checked that out, and it turns out to be about 8 or 9 little snippets of animations where things got fucked up in the rendering. So in some cases the wrong symbol was being used in the animation (in one case Rex's head is replaced by a human hand), or the pieces are out of synch, or placed wrong in the frame. I don't know why they thought this was something that people wanted to see. I have animated stuff for work from time to time, and it's not that unusual to fuck something up as you're building it. You make the animation, you look at it, you see the bug, and then you fix it. You don't make a DVD reel out of it. That's just self-indulgence.
On the upside, when Aliza comes back from her trip we will watch Toy Story 2, which I think it the best Pixar movie, and I daresay may be one of my favorite animated movies of all time. She has not seen it yet, so that'll be fun.
Started watching the Toy Story DVD disc with all the extras. Some of it was pretty interesting, but it is mostly a series of slideshows that you have to scroll through. Like, they have a segment called "character design ", which I figured would be a neat little mini-documentary showing the various designs of the characters and a little bit of commentary. Sadly, like I said, it was just a slideshow of about a billion little drawings of each character that you had to hit your arrow buttons to look through. I don't know about anyone else's DVD players, but mine takes a good 2 or 3 seconds to load everytime you hit one of those buttons, so I quit watching almost immediately.
There were also "Deleted Animations", which mainly showed little segments that were made, but then later edited out, or changed. This was pretty interesting, but on the Toy Story I features under this heading was a segment called "Render Bigs". I checked that out, and it turns out to be about 8 or 9 little snippets of animations where things got fucked up in the rendering. So in some cases the wrong symbol was being used in the animation (in one case Rex's head is replaced by a human hand), or the pieces are out of synch, or placed wrong in the frame. I don't know why they thought this was something that people wanted to see. I have animated stuff for work from time to time, and it's not that unusual to fuck something up as you're building it. You make the animation, you look at it, you see the bug, and then you fix it. You don't make a DVD reel out of it. That's just self-indulgence.
On the upside, when Aliza comes back from her trip we will watch Toy Story 2, which I think it the best Pixar movie, and I daresay may be one of my favorite animated movies of all time. She has not seen it yet, so that'll be fun.
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