January 2008 Archives

Second Skin: Documentary About Gamers and MMORPGs

January 31, 2008

Second Skin looks to be a pretty interesting (and well-done) trailer about MMORPGs and the people who inhabit those imaginary/virtual worlds. Myself, I got into playing WoW a fair amount. But after a while, it began to become more work than game for me. Eventually, to actually feel like... (read more)

Jury Duty Call #9: Final Call

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Jury Duty Call #8

January 30, 2008

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Baby Shower, Mike and Melissa

Post work, Deb organized a little babyshower for Mike and Melissa (they're due sometime late March). It was fun seeing everyone at work gathered together to celebrate, gifts and drinks and all. After a very busy day, it felt nice to kick back with everyone, relax a bit, and... (read more)

Wonderland: Children's Drawings as Photographs

January 29, 2008

Artist Yeondoo Jung has a project entitled Wonderland, which takes drawings done by children and brings them very much to life. Going back and forth between the original drawing and photograph is just all sorts of delightful. I bet this whole translation process from drawing to real life was... (read more)

Jury Duty Call #7

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Jury Duty: The Selection Process

January 28, 2008

Listening to everyone talk, it was surprising how much personal information was given out on the public record. Watching everyone talk (each person held a mic while they spoke), it was like getting this brief little snapshot into their lives. During the process, we were told that if we preferred... (read more)

Jury Duty: Questions

Wayne Adams v. Oscar Szczerbinski, Carol Dougherty, Richard Lalowski, Jeffrey Rotkvich, Michael Holdman, Richard Roszuszka, James Prandini and the City of Des Plaines. Hon. Virginia M. Kendall, U.S. District Court Judge. 1) Your full name, spell the last name. 2) Your age. 3) City of residence for the last 5... (read more)

Jury Duty: Outside the Courtroom

Up in the building, we formed two lines in the hallway and waited outside our courtroom. It was about 24 of us in total, and we all stood against two sides of the hallway, sort of facing one another. We were waiting for what seemed like 5-10 minutes, in almost... (read more)

Jury Duty: The Jury Lounge

[IMAGE REMOVED DUE TO POSSIBLE CONTEMPT OF COURT CITATION] Room 250: the Jury Lounge. Inside here, I waited with about 100 other potential jurors. On walking in, I saw no one at the front desk... and was unsure what to do. Imagine walking into a large college lecture hall, and... (read more)

Jury Duty: Security Check

Outside the Federal Building (219 South Dearborn Street), where I was to report in for the day. Literally? Right around the corner from where I work. Outside, I was a bit nervous taking this photo. I've heard too many horror stories about photographers being hassled for taking shots while... (read more)

New Plugins Installed

January 27, 2008

Added a few new plugins to the layout. I'm still encountering some major errors when trying to republish out the blog. Not sure why, but it's causing a lot of the early 2002 entries to show up broken. For the time being, I've added a little calendar module to the... (read more)

New Install: Movable Type 4.1

January 26, 2008

Downloaded the latest version of Movable Type (4.1), and installed it on my server today. It was a bit nerve-wracking, even though the whole process was pretty simple. It took maybe 10 minutes to back up my files... and another ten to upload/overwrite my old files. Then, a few... (read more)

Jury Duty Call #5

January 25, 2008

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Lilly McElroy: I Throw Myself at Men

January 24, 2008

I learned about Lilly McElroy due to her "I Throw Myself at Men" project, where she photographs herself literally throwing herself at men. The project has been getting a fair amount of attention lately, but while it's an interesting one... I found myself really fascinated with several other projects... (read more)

Jury Duty Call #4

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Scooters and Hairdos: Email from Justin

Below is an email that I got from Justin a while back. I liked it so much, I asked him if I could post it on the blog... and he graciously said yes. I'm sure you'll agree with the sentiment that I expressed back to him, after receiving his message:... (read more)

Poker Night at Home

January 23, 2008

When Kent first arrived, there was talk about getting some folks together for a possible poker game. I asked around, and Ben and Chris were both up for some Holdem... and they all came over to my place for a night of cards. We started the night off right... (read more)

Jury Duty Call #3

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Ben's Photo on Gapersblock

A little over a week ago, I mentioned how Ben purchased a Holga, and began taking photos with it. As I'm going over my regular morning surfing routine, guess whose photo happened to be on Gapersblock today (check out the homepage, if you want to see it in context). Not... (read more)

Jury Duty Call #2

January 22, 2008

As some of you already know, my friend Dave is a musician. But recently, he's also been stretching his remixing fingers and taken on the moniker Spoolwork. His first collaboration is with Jens Lekman, and the mp3 is available for download on the Spoolwork site. As if that wasn't... (read more)

Drinks with Kent, Logan Square

January 21, 2008

Kent is visiting Chicago this week, and is bouncing around a few apartments during his stay. A bunch of us (Dave, Rob, Gretchen, Kent and me) all met up at Dunlay's on Logan Square for a few drinks. Good seeing everyone again, gathered together at a table over a... (read more)

Jury Duty Call #1

January 20, 2008

January 19, 2008

Liz and I were at Dick Blick's on North Ave a few days ago (Liz was looking for a portfolio thingy, to store all her loose papers for bookbinding). As we were shopping around, a guy got on the intercom and started throwing out movie trivia questions to all the... (read more)

Bobby Fischer, 1943 - 2008

January 18, 2008

Found out this morning that Bobby Fischer passed away today in Iceland, at the age of 64. While I was never deep into chess, I played a fair amount as a dabbler... and even went so far as to replay a few of his games. I was always a fan... (read more)

On the Way to Work: Six Heavily-Armed Asians

January 17, 2008

This morning, while walking to work, I stumbled across three asian tourists (the two women and the man on the right), standing at the corner of Jackson and Wabash. As I passed by, I noticed they were ARMED TO THE GILLS with cameras. And not just regular 'ol cameras.... (read more)

The Peekaboo Paradox, by Gene Weingarten

This morning, while going through my routine of browsing sites and updating the blog... I came across an incredibly long article about a clown named "The Great Zucchini." Ok, that sounded a bit weird. For context, I was on MetaFilter and was reading this post. That post led me to... (read more)

Corey Worthington Takes a Good, Long, Hard Look at Himself

January 16, 2008

Admittedly, this video is a bit much to bear for the full 3:00+, but my favorite part is the last 30 seconds. I go from thinking the kid is an idiot... to actually rooting for him, due in no small part to the asinine and condescending attitude from the... (read more)

Dear Senar Kamal, I Have Your School Supply List

January 15, 2008

This morning, while walking to work with Liz (we take the Blue line to the Jackson stop, and walk over to the Red Line exit)... I walked by a folded piece of paper. I stopped, turned back, and picked it up. Here's what I got: Not terribly exciting or funny,... (read more)

Red Pomelo: Mysterious Citrus

January 14, 2008

After the holidays, Liz and I decided to jump back on to Southbeach. We'd both been lax in our eating habits during Thanksgiving/Christmas, and decided to start watching what we eat a little bit more. As of last weekend, we're now officially on the second phase (where fruit is back... (read more)

Blah

January 13, 2008

Wintery doldrums kicking in. Work has been proceeding in such a way that, try as I might, I sometimes can't seem to shut it off. Even on the weekends. Today, there wasn't a lot that was making me happy. Watching TV, putzing on the Internet, playing video games... even updating... (read more)

People in Order: Lenka Clayton and James Price

January 12, 2008

This 3-minute video of people (aged 1 to 100) all hitting a drum really gets me thinking about my love of repetition/variation. This is a great idea, and realized incredibly well. For some additional tastes of things similar, check out my You Are I Am experiment, or the best... (read more)

Ben Shoots with a Holga

January 11, 2008

Ben recently bought a Holga, and just posted up a few shots from his first roll. I'm digging the textures of these shots. Such a cool camera, and such cool results.... (read more)

David Sedaris @ Steppenwolf

January 10, 2008

A few months back, Liz bought us tickets to see David Sedaris at Steppenwolf. We went over shortly after work tonight, and it marked my first visit ever to Steppenwolf. Of all things, as we were taking the elevator up to the second or third floor... we got in... (read more)

Wrist Problems, Wherein a Splint is Involved

January 9, 2008

Ever since I went bowling around Christmas, my wrist has been feeling a bit weird. Beyond weird, actually - hurting is probably more accurate. At first I thought it was sore, but I began noticing things like how hard it was to retrieve my wallet, how difficult it was for... (read more)

Multi-Touch Whiteboards and Head Tracking with the Wii Remote: Johnny Lee

January 8, 2008

Amazing, amazing stuff. His site's getting slammed at the moment, as I'm probably one among many who're interested in seeing how he did all this magic, behind the scenes. Doing some digging, it turns out that Johnny Lee is also the creator of the $14 SteadyCam. The man does... (read more)

UNIQLO_GRID: Simultaneous Multi-User Logo Game

January 7, 2008

Question: What's the best way to get your logo to repeatedly appear in front of a potential customer, and have them stare at it for minutes on end? Answer: Create an online, multi-user "game" where people from all over the world simultaneously tweak multiple instances of your logo. It's... (read more)

Another Reason I Love My Coworkers

I opened the fridge this morning, and just started laughing when I saw this. I love the fact that there's a Spider-Man lunchbox, sitting in our work fridge - it delights me to no end. In fact, I was reminded of my old metallic pacman lunchbox that I used... (read more)

Sugarshock: Online Comic by Joss Whedon and Fábio Moon

January 6, 2008

Sugarshock is a very funny (and very playful) 3-issue comic (Issue 1, Issue 2, Issue 3) by Joss Whedon and Fábio Moon, made available on the web. What I like most about Whedon's work is how his characters all really seem to have their own distinct (and quirky) personalities.... (read more)

befuddlr: an Image Puzzle Game

January 5, 2008

befuddlr is a fun little image-based puzzle game, utilizing images from Flickr. Designed by Erik Kastner and Amy Hoy, this thing is surprisingly addictive (and challenging). Very cool idea, and incredibly well-executed. [via]... (read more)

Cursor*10: Cooperate By Oneself

January 4, 2008

Cursor*10 is a fantastic, fantastic game by designer Yoshio Ishii. I'm not going to give you too much info on how to play, as I think part of the delight of this game is the discovery process... figuring out how it works, and what the best strategy is. One... (read more)

Baxter Nibbles the Christmas Tree

Liz and I put the tree up in the apartment a few weeks back. And since then, not only have we liked it... but Baxter's liked it as well. I have a new plan. Instead of throwing out the tree, we'll just wait until she eats it all. Less work... (read more)

Douglas Coupland's JPod Reminds Me of the Hulk Gloves

January 3, 2008

I recently purchased Douglas Coupland's JPod over the holidays. I was a big fan of microserfs, and heard about this "follow-up" novel a while ago... and only just now picked it up (it was published back in 2003). While not an actual sequel, the style is somewhat similar... and the... (read more)

I Get Called for Jury Duty: The Summoning

I got this in the mail a few days ago, and it's the first time I've ever been called in to Jury Duty. I brought the form in to work, hoping to ask a few others (who have done this before) what the process is like, and what I... (read more)

Nostalgia Isn't What I Remember It To Be

January 2, 2008

I had such high hopes. Such high hopes. Alas, I had the same reaction to this DVD as when I first got NetFlix and ordered up a gazillion SuperFriends episodes... they all just didn't seem to quite live up to my memories. It was cool to see the animations... (read more)

Happy New Year

January 1, 2008

May your words be surprisingly precise, may your actions be of benefit to others, may your friends be intimate and plentiful, may your work be satisfying, may your luck be overwhelming, may your laughter overtake you, every day Happy New Year, everyone!... (read more)