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November 1, 2002

We Are All Alike

Decided I was hungry this morning, and stopped off at the McDonald's in the Merchandise Mart. I saw a guy in front of me who was a construction worker, but had a piece of cardboard stuffed in his pocket. On closer inspection, the cardboard had writing on it, and I [read more...]

Posted by avoision on November 1, 2002 12:00 AM | | Comments (0)

After Work

Justin and I had a beer around 6 PM. We stayed late, and were messing around with making Flash and ASP play nice with each other. We got a news ticker to work (somewhat), and were both quite happy with the results. We had been talking about collaborating and bringing [read more...]

Posted by avoision on November 1, 2002 12:00 AM | | Comments (0)

New Form

For this month, Matt and I have decided to forego the haiku. Instead, we agreed upon a 5x5 form: five lines total, five syllables per line. Not that big of a stretch, but it's something new. [read more...]

Posted by avoision on November 1, 2002 12:00 AM | | Comments (0)

Traveler, Near Collapse

I am hoping you will smile, and brush your hand across my lips, offer me water and a place to sleep. [read more...]

Posted by avoision on November 1, 2002 12:00 AM | | Comments (0)

November 2, 2002

Car No Go

This morning, I went to my car and it wouldn't start. Crap sammich. Wasn't sure what the problem was - it would rev, but ultimately wouldn't turn over. And I know jack about cars. I talked to my old coworker Dave, and he posited that it might be the battery. [read more...]

Posted by avoision on November 2, 2002 12:00 AM | | Comments (0)

Rewind: Morning

Today was going to be this super productive day where I went on a bunch of errands. After I found out about my car problems, my motivation level sort of plummeted. I walked to K-Mart, the grocery store, and picked up a few items. On the way home (this was [read more...]

Posted by avoision on November 2, 2002 12:00 AM | | Comments (0)

What the? Where Did the Day Go?

No real idea how I spent the day. Puttering is a great word that I use all too often. I cleaned up a few things here and there, but nothing meaningful. My apartment is still largely a mess of boxes intermixed with piles of clean, unfolded laundry. I watched Panic [read more...]

Posted by avoision on November 2, 2002 12:00 AM | | Comments (0)

Is it the Pulp? Or the Spanish?

Why have I been twice hypnotized by movies that air in Spanish? Earlier tonight, it was American Ninja 2: The Confrontation and Kickboxer 2: The Road Back. These aren't terribly compelling movies, but something about them... made me stop and watch for a while. What I want to know is... [read more...]

Posted by avoision on November 2, 2002 12:00 AM | | Comments (0)

Guilty Secret #4

I remember seeing American Ninja on cable when I was a kid. And I remember liking it. [read more...]

Posted by avoision on November 2, 2002 12:00 AM | | Comments (0)

Guilty Secret #5

I liked it so much, I tried to make a black ninja mask out of some fabric laying around the house. And some makeshift nunchuks. [read more...]

Posted by avoision on November 2, 2002 12:00 AM | | Comments (0)

November 3, 2002

Train

On the train, I sat behind a couple and their two kids (boys). I could hear parts of their conversation, and the mom was answering some of the older boy's questions about where babies come from. The dad seemed to be distracted by the window and didn't really say all [read more...]

Posted by avoision on November 3, 2002 12:00 AM | | Comments (0)

Middlesex

I've been trying to read the most recent novel by Jeffrey Eugenides, called Middlesex. Been trying to read it off and on, and it hasn't really grabbed me yet. But I'm only a few pages in, and have been hovering at the point where I'm re-reading the beginning, worried I'm [read more...]

Posted by avoision on November 3, 2002 12:00 AM | | Comments (0)

November 4, 2002

Day

Well, to be honest - nothing all that much happened during the day. Worked on cleaning up a Flash/ASP news ticker that Justin and I started last Friday, so that was quite nice. Everything's working now, and it's one more little "module" that we can offer to the station webmasters. [read more...]

Posted by avoision on November 4, 2002 12:00 AM | | Comments (0)

Night

Stu was in the office this evening, dropping off the photos he took of the UltraCrib promotion. We met up outside the Merchandise Mart, and Stu was really happy with Rey's reactions (or, shall we say that Rey was really taken with Stu's work). We all walked to Stu's car, [read more...]

Posted by avoision on November 4, 2002 12:00 AM | | Comments (0)

Issues

My ISP is, apparently, experiencing some serious technical difficulties. Again. Their servers were acting up a bit while I was in Alabama, and now this. Ah well, it's not life or death for me here. Just my little blog. But I can't update, or get e-mail or anything - we'll [read more...]

Posted by avoision on November 4, 2002 12:00 AM | | Comments (0)

NM

Nevermind. Back up now. [read more...]

Posted by avoision on November 4, 2002 12:00 AM | | Comments (0)

November 5, 2002

We're Here Again!

Oh man o man o man. Yeah, baby! After quite the absence, www.were-here.com is back online! Dayam! People are posting like crazy in Just Converastion, and nerdy me... I never took WH off as my homepage. Earlier, as I was opening a new IE window, I thought "Gee, maybe I [read more...]

Posted by avoision on November 5, 2002 12:00 AM | | Comments (0)

Tomorrow People

So all of a sudden Speccy PM's me, and somehow The Tomorrow People come up. This was an old show that I used to watch as a wee one, on Nickelodeon. Something about a newer species of humans, they could teleport at will... with these belts. On looking over the [read more...]

Posted by avoision on November 5, 2002 12:00 AM | | Comments (0)

Warmth

Thinking of you I think: lost skiers, half- buried in snow. They sip whiskey, even though they know better. [read more...]

Posted by avoision on November 5, 2002 12:00 AM | | Comments (0)

Half a Song

You can hum it, sans words, the garbled tune with someone loving someone more, or not enough. Learn the words. [read more...]

Posted by avoision on November 5, 2002 12:00 AM | | Comments (0)

November 6, 2002

Opera Baby

Strong design. Usability. Effective communication, visually complemented. This is why I wanted to learn Flash in the first place! [read more...]

Posted by avoision on November 6, 2002 12:00 AM | | Comments (0)

Short Post

Still have a poem to write up for Matt. Sorry for the brevity. Here ya go. How about a picture to look at? [read more...]

Posted by avoision on November 6, 2002 12:00 AM | | Comments (0)

Juliet!

Long, good converastion with Juliet. We were chatting away for hours, and next thing I know it's 12:30. We decided to tentatively "do something" the weekend of the 16th. Not sure what, not sure where. But we both have decided. We're both decisive like that. [read more...]

Posted by avoision on November 6, 2002 12:00 AM | | Comments (0)

November 7, 2002

Chess

A while back, when MoonDragon visited, she gave me a great gift as a "thank you" for letting her crash here. Well, I broke down and brought it in to work. I've been playing for a few days now, sort of a "me versus the rest of the company" type [read more...]

Posted by avoision on November 7, 2002 12:00 AM | | Comments (0)

Intervew

A few days back, a friend of Justin and Dave's e-mailed me, saying that she and her classmates were doing some sort of study for school. Something about learning (I don't have the e-mail here at home). Two classmates in particular were looking for people who use Flash, both users [read more...]

Posted by avoision on November 7, 2002 12:00 AM | | Comments (0)

Ben Raises the Bar

SWEET BEAUTIFUL JEBUS! Oh, maaaaan this thing is nice. Ben was telling us about the chess set he made, a few years back. This ltitle beaut has been tucked away for the past three years. Can you believe that?!?! Ben hand-made each piece, and did a fair amount of [read more...]

Posted by avoision on November 7, 2002 12:00 AM | | Comments (0)

November 8, 2002

You Are Beautiful

On the walk to the Blue Line this morning, I came across another one of those "You are beautiful" signs that I found a few weeks back. I like the idea of communicating through these little stickers, especially since there's not any tangible product that's being hawked. I'll be so [read more...]

Posted by avoision on November 8, 2002 12:00 AM | | Comments (0)

This Kind of Crucial News is What Makes the Internet So Valuable

It's not funny. People are getting hurt. But... it's funny. [read more...]

Posted by avoision on November 8, 2002 12:00 AM | | Comments (0)

Moving Hardware

This weekend, Justin, Ben and I will be making some big global changes across all of the Emmis websites. Since our connection is so crappy at work, we decided to relocate this weekend at Justin's house, and use his cable modem. Seriously - work speed is THAT shitty. So... Justin [read more...]

Posted by avoision on November 8, 2002 12:00 AM | | Comments (0)

Zaireeka

Tomorrow night will be cooler. Stu's throwing a party at his house, and he told me he was planning to make it a Zaireeka evening. Since I'm not as well versed in music, he explained to me that the Flaming Lips put out a 4 CD album, where all four [read more...]

Posted by avoision on November 8, 2002 12:00 AM | | Comments (0)

Ask...

Dear New York Review of Books Permissions Department, My name is Felix Jung, and I was recently mentioned in an article entitled "Tales Told by the Computer" (October 24, 2002). I am writing to request permission to reproduce this article on my blog, located at http://www.avoision.com/portnoy/. The blog (or web [read more...]

Posted by avoision on November 8, 2002 12:00 AM | | Comments (0)

And You Shall Receive!

You may reproduce the essay by Tim Parks on your blog. There is no charge, but please credit The New York Review of Books as follows: Reprinted with permission from The New York Review of Books Copyright c 2002 NYREV, Inc. [read more...]

Posted by avoision on November 8, 2002 12:00 AM | | Comments (0)

Tales Told by the Computer

by >Tim Parks The New York Review of Books October 24, 2002 Among the many things the computer is supposed to change in our lives, one of the most profound, if the change were really to occur, is our experience of narrative. For the way we tell ourselves storiesóour sense [read more...]

Posted by avoision on November 8, 2002 12:00 AM | | Comments (0)

Addendum

When my poem was cited (above), a few errors were introduced. I have corrected them, and the poem appears as it should. In the article, Tim capitalized the start of each line. He also omitted the colon at the end of line one. There was also an incorrect line break [read more...]

Posted by avoision on November 8, 2002 12:00 AM | | Comments (0)

Segue Into Thoughts on Hypertext

As interesting as it sounds, I'm a bit wary. Similar to how I'm wary towards what is considered "hypertext" fiction. From what I understand of hypertext, it's a piece of writing that allows the user to choose/click on particular words/phrases. Each click/choice then initiates a different narrative or storyline or [read more...]

Posted by avoision on November 8, 2002 12:00 AM | | Comments (0)

November 9, 2002

Thoughts on Hypertext, Addendum

Reading over yesterday's post, some of my comments are really a bit much. I hope to clarify my stance on hypertext some more, without being so unnecessarily aggressive about it. [read more...]

Posted by avoision on November 9, 2002 12:00 AM | | Comments (0)

Walking to Justin's

Today is the day we run a lot of sweeps over several sites, converting them over to aspx. Changing include tags, any links, along with the filenames. Not too tough, and the bulk of it is babysitting the computers as they download/upload. This morning was gorgeous. Warm weather, and I [read more...]

Posted by avoision on November 9, 2002 12:00 AM | | Comments (0)

Locked Out

Arriving at Justin's, I find him outside, looking incredibly upset, wearing his slippers. He had come outside for a smoke, and locked himself out. We checked all the windows, and couldn't find any good way to break in (without breaking something). At his old place, a long time ago (back [read more...]

Posted by avoision on November 9, 2002 12:00 AM | | Comments (0)

I Always Wanted to Learn How to Pick Locks

I got an estimate for the locksmith, and walked back to Justin's. It was a bit outside of his "range," so I headed back to confer. I met up with Ben there, and the two of them were eating breakfast on the steps. After a quick discussion, Ben and I [read more...]

Posted by avoision on November 9, 2002 12:00 AM | | Comments (0)

Transferring Files

Babysat the computers, mainly. Took a long while downloading some of the sites (who in god's name makes a 15 MB RealMedia file? I didn't even think that kind of shit was possible!). Basically just watched the computers download, change the necessary files and syntax, then watched it upload. Ben [read more...]

Posted by avoision on November 9, 2002 12:00 AM | | Comments (0)

Heading to Stu's

Hopping in the shower now. Going to swing by Justin's and chat with him and Emma for a bit. Then I think we're going to listen to Zaireeka, all four CD's at once. It'll be interesting... [read more...]

Posted by avoision on November 9, 2002 12:00 AM