My mom has email now. The Internet has officially Arrived™.
I just finished reading Tom Clancy's new book, Rainbow Six. It was OK.
The Avengers is possibly the worst movie I've seen since The Fifth Element.
Go rent Good Will Hunting. You know who you are.
I bought some drawstring pants. My unemployment experience is complete.
I will be gone for the weekend.
I'm looking though the Sunday paper today...searching for bargains. I open up the ad sheet for Dayton's, an upscale department store, and what do I see but dinnerware by Calvin Klein. Let me repeat that: dinnerware by Calvin Klein. And Ralph Lauren makes Polo house paint. Tommy, Calvin, and Ralph all have their own "lines" of bed linen. I'm currently looking for a new car...does anyone know if I can get a Tommy car yet? If I can, I bet it'll look just like a low-end Toyota and cost as much as a high-end Lexus.
And borrowing liberally from Henry Ford, Mr. Hilfiger had this to say about the Tommy car: "they can have a Tommy car in any color they want, as long as it's red, white, or blue."
On the one hand, you've got the good. On the other hand, you have the bad. And then there's a bunch of stuff in the middle. I was in the middle for a long time. Most of my life actually...just sort of floating nonchalantly along.
Then life got weird. Ever since, I've been oscillating between the good and the bad, swinging (sometimes violently) back and forth from one extreme to the other. This weekend, I felt as bad as I've ever felt in my life. Despair the size of a watermelon. But, I also felt as good as I ever felt this weekend. Happiness you only see in the face of a small child during a really ripping game of Peek-a-boo.
And this existance is really different for me...I used to be on cruise control, but now I'm driving in the city, stopping and starting again at all the intersections. I really don't know where I'm going to end up. Is all this oscillating going to rip me apart or will I settle on one or the other or end up somewhere in the middle again?
Right now, the good is far outpacing the bad...and I think that trend will continue for a while.
I got my first cease and desist letter today. Sort of. Here's the letter:
Jason,
I am contacting you to let you know that the site:
http://www.0sil8.com/episodes/98/05/06/index2.html
is in violation of logo usage and copyright infringement and you could face legal litigation if the usage continues.
Thank you,
Matthew Barnes
Senior Multimedia Designer
This letter is really strange for two reasons:
a) It's not from a lawyer. It's from the "Senior Multimedia Designer" from a company called Rossroy Interactive. I guess this guy is cheaper than a lawyer. Of course, the lawyer might have realized that the Apple Dodge Neon page is a parody of both the Dodge Neon and the Apple iMac and is therefore probably protected under copyright laws.
b) It's unclear what is wrong with the page. Is it the Dodge logo or the Apple one? I did some checking and Rossroy Interactive is in Michigan...making it a good bet that the Dodge logo is the one in question. It might have been nice of them to mention that.
Anyway, I don't think I'll be taking the page down right now. I've got a couple letters to write and some legal codes to pore over.
You know the best thing about mailing lists? It's the stupid people. It's the people that say "this is the way it works because I'm an expert, and I've been on the web since Lynx 1.0" and then they do something like post twice to the list with HTML code and an image imbedded in the message. Priceless. It's *so* perfect.
Oh, so what you meant to say was, "I'm a clueless dolt who can't even use my email client."
Actions speak louder than words.
Today is my last day at work. And people keep asking me if I'm sad to be leaving...like I should be, I guess. But I'm not sad at all. Not a bit. All the people I hung out with here, all my good friends, are gone already. I don't like the atmosphere here anymore. I don't like working here. There's no challenge anymore...if there was ever a challenge.
So I'm very happy to be leaving. And moving on with my life. Finally.
Usually when the hype machine is up and running on a film, I tend to be a little sceptical about it, even when I've seen it and enjoyed it. A lot of "yeah, I liked it, but...." I love to ride the backlash.
Saving Private Ryan is the hyped movie of the moment. I liked it. That's it. I liked it. It was a good movie. I don't care if it's not the best war picture ever made. Or the bloodiest. Or the most shell shocking. Or if Tom Hanks' character was too Mr. Goody Two Shoes. It was just good. I went twice and it was good both times. And I'd recommend it to friends.
Things have been happening. No, let me rephrase that: Things™ have been happening. That's why I've been less than punctual in updating this journal, and to a lesser extent, this Web site. Here's what's been going on:
The first Thing™ is that I quit my job. Finally. I worked at Imation Internet Studio/Imaginet for almost two years...and it was fun...for a while. Then, I figured out that it just wasn't the place for me...in almost every way one can imagine. So I quit. I'm going to take two or three weeks off to walk the earth and then figure out what I'm going to do next: freelance Web design or sign on with another (better) Web shop here in Minneapolis. Decisions, decisions.
As for the second Thing™....no comment.