October 14, 2023

2023.10.14

Open Photo Gallery

turkey near harvard
at The Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments at the Putnam Gallery
my night tuba looks pretty good even with a banner...

October 14, 2022

2022.10.14
I grow little of the food I eat, and of the little I do grow I did not breed or perfect the seeds.

I do not make any of my own clothing.

I speak a language I did not invent or refine.

I did not discover the mathematics that I use.

I am protected by freedoms and laws I did not conceive of or legislate, and do not enforce or adjudicate.

I am moved by music I did not create myself.

When I needed medical attention, I was helpless to help myself survive.

I did not invent the transistor, the microprocessor, object oriented programming, or most of the technology I work with.

I love and admire my species, living and dead, and am totally dependent on them for my life and well being.


Sent from my iPad

Steve Jobs (sjobs@apple.com to sjobs@apple.com) September 2, 2010, a year before his death.

October 14, 2021

2021.10.14
How to hack, Missouri-style (a multi-step process):
go to a public, but HORRIBLY written site
right click and hit "View Page Source"(or hit F12)
read

Sounds like they are wanting to persecute some reporter for bringing their ineptness to their attention.

(So much for being the "Show Me State", clearly they are bigger believers in "don't show me")

on "The Suburbs (Continued)"

2020.10.14
The other week I posted lyrics to Arcade Fire's "The Suburbs (Continued)". For some reason I wanted to take a deeper dive at deconstructing it. (Sort of a throw back to my English major University days, though maybe more subjectively than I was allowed to then! I once did a ten page paper on a 3 line poem.)

Acoustically the song starts by painting a broad soft landscape, gently sorrowful in tone, and taking up a full third of this song which is kind of a reprise of a longer piece.

The first lyrics start continuing the wistful tone set by the orchestration:

If I could have it back
All the time that we wasted


...An impossible wish for having time again. The album this track is from (and that shares a name with it) has a strong apocalyptic theme. So the loss could be somewhere between the personal and the larger community scale - and maybe with a fear that people should have done more preparation when there was the chance.

I'd only waste it again

One thinks of the Tallulah Bankhead line "If I had to live my life again, I'd make the same mistakes, only sooner" and similar expressions that can almost challenge the idea of free will - if we were the same person we were then, and in the same situation, of course we'd take the same actions and make the same mistakes.

But then:

If I could have it back
You know I would love to waste it again


A female voice joins in on the second line of this phrase - suddenly the "we" of the second line of the song (in a piece otherwise in the singular) gains a new depth. Not only do these lines mark a switch from the regretful to the wistful, but there is a shared sense of connection, a shared past.

Waste it again and again and again

A lovely mechanic of repetition here that mirrors the way time is 'wasted', especially with someone: over a series of repeated days, weeks, months.

What is the context of the song? There's a strong sense of loss here, whether it's in the apocalyptic story of the larger album or merely a failed relationship. (And for me it hits home - I'm at peace with my life, and not having made a traditional family, but I think for many there can be a sense of lost opportunity and wasted young adulthood.)

Well, I've got to ask

This is the only spoken line in the song. Who is the narrator asking? A divine figure who might be able to grant his wish to have the time back? Or maybe it's a hopeless plea to the other half of the "we" of the song, to rekindle a broken relationship. Wistful and resigned either way.

2022 Update: after watching Weide's Vonnegut documentary, I looked up this song and realized the lyric might be "I forgot to ask". Which still carries weight in the same way. Maybe even more poignant for me; Amber told me that it was me failing to ask her "Please don't do this" is what sealed our fate.

The song then continues with further repetition:

Sometimes I can't believe it
I'm moving past the feeling again
Sometimes I can't believe it
I'm moving past the feeling again
Sometimes I can't believe it
I'm moving past the feeling again
Sometimes I can't


The repetitions alternate between the main singer and the second voice until fade out. Are both parties surprised at their success in moving on? But the "again" in the line, along with the repetition of the lines themselves, points to it not being a steady sense of increasing equanimity - so is the surprise at just having the ability to move on, or at realizing the backsliding into feeling has happened again?

The song ends with a fade out - so it's ambiguous what the truly final line is, but "Sometimes I can't" works well, and ties into the confusion about if the singers have moved on or not.

This is an amazing 1:30 of music.
Life Lessons Learned in My 40's That I Wish I Could Tell My 20-Year Old Self. Well-trod territory but good.

jp honk @ pronk

2019.10.14
JP Honk played PRONK!

original photo album part 4: high school senior year

2018.10.14
Bookended with band trips to Atlanta and Florida, and the musical Hello Dolly in between.

Open Photo Gallery


keith scheurman mike witczak outside atlanta 1991



outside world of coca cola marching band to atlanta



king of stone mountain (parking lot)



stone mountain 1



stone mountain 2



stone mountain 3



stone mountain 4



atlanta underground courtyard



zoo atlanta rhino



japanese businessmen atop stone mountain



marching band with eric clean marine carlson



with mr alspaugh band leader



atlant christmas parade teddy bear



with holly struna homecoming 1991



publicity shot



thumpy



christmas play with patti elaine judy hill and jamie



marching band beau hill



222 street jazz in concert



marcos andrade in euclid living room



being knighted by marcos



being knighted by marcos ouch



marcos as cyrano



with nicole at ehs winterfest



marnies great green purple dress at wintefest 1992



as a bookwork



as rudolph the headwaiter in guys and dolls in bandroom



marnie as townfolk in bandroom



maria d'amico on right



in sunday best with marnie



jenn melnyk and ben shuskey



as bandmember with marcos



me as rudolph



hello dali



hello dolly put on your sunday clothes



hello dolly waiters gallop group



lynn gessler hello dolly



18th bday mike lin lynn beau marnie me jamie heidi marcos eric



in bus jazzband to florida 1992



in bus jazzband to florida 1992



rest stop during trip to florida



debbie long at rest stop during trip to florida



international movie posters at universal in florida



ellen and mike at disney



universal studios gate



mike and ellen at disney world waterfall



with woodchuck by epcot golf ball



the boys at disney



greg and mike in hotel room



glen russ lane snow scene



marcos snuggles kirk award winner



bandroom flipped



after last day of school marcos jenn melnyk me and mike



lisa moster end of school



colleen and friend

October 14, 2017

2017.10.14
Removing ads from loveblender.com, which (not surprisingly) weren't making much of anything. But what I find funny is remembering once upon a time I thought they made the site look more serious and professional.


Blender of Love

Silence is so accurate.
Mark Rothko

October 14, 2016

2016.10.14
<3 Carrie Fisher - this GIF set of an interview with her is gold. Loved her writing ever since this diary entry as she wrestled with a crush on Harrison Ford (and who wouldn't crush out on Harrison Ford)
"I've got to stop getting obsessed with human beings and fall in love with a chair. Chairs have everything human beings have to offer, and less, which is obviously what I need. Less emotional and intellectual feedback, less warmth, less approval, less patience and less response. The less the merrier. Chairs it is. I must furnish my heart with feelings for furniture."

Wow, Spy Pond is less than a mile from me. SPOILER: it ends up ok-ish.

UNEDITED: Bystanders rush to help woman after she accidentally drove vehicle into Spy Pond in Arlington Description from John Guilfoil Public Relations on Vimeo.

October 14, 2015

2015.10.14
Ugh, 1AM and the building is thrumming with the bass sounds of the paving equipment on Mass Ave outside. (For a while they were incorporated into my dreams as the background engine noise in a "Bioshock Infinite"-esque floating city fantasia, but no longer.)

My tax dollars at work!
But if you're like me and find yourself making really slow progress, with your Toss and Donate piles growing slowly, if at all, you might have a bigger problem. Obviously you don't want to self-diagnose a psychological condition like hoarding just because you read a column on a comedy website. You'd need some kind of quiz for that.

Keeping up with PVC frame craftiness, I designed a stand for a foam-board pinned poster to place on my table as I launch the physical version of my comic at Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo 2015. All the joints and enough pipe for me to make a mistake or three was less than $10.


October 14, 2014

2014.10.14
yesterday, I saw a video on the physics of skateboard tricks and this morning I am suddenly weirdly struck by the everpresence of gravity; how it's always down down down and it seems like a miracle that anything can stand at all.
The Internet and Money and Hearts......
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Standards_Day Today is World Standards Day. Except in the US, which celebrates it on the 23rd.
Also, the infamous Smoot became chairman of standards board ANSI!
Group shot of the band!

Cardiff, Wales: LAND OF JUXTAPOSITIONS

2013.10.14

October 14, 2012

2012.10.14

about 300 cubic inches of Lego

I decided I had too giant a surplus of underused Lego, so I divided it three ways, and am giving 2/3 of it to two different friend families. It looked to be about 300 cubic inches (at least seemed to more or less fill 3 10.5 cubes.)
"I wish you could see what I can see. Sometimes you have to be up really high to see how small you are.

I'm going home now."
Felix Baumgartner right before falling to Earth faster than sound can travel...
...from Gizmodo's watch the video of the space jump here
My childhood would have been that much less confusing if George Lucas hadn't named one planet 'Tattooine' and another 'Dantooine.'

Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.
Stephen Covey

for the love of mario

2011.10.14

--via 22words
Facile observation: you see more MacBooks in Boston, but more PC laptops on the commuter rail.
ENDI Tank Battle for iOS is excellent -- like a BattleTanx lite, great quick hit, perfect controls. Best student game I've seen in a while.

smell like a monster

2010.10.14

You don't realize how weirdly effective a bicycle kickstand is 'til it breaks- odd how one little rod can then form 1/3 a stable tripod.
Sigh-With a scratched iPhone 4 lens, I wonder why the iPad camera connector doesn't work with it: darkly suspect Apple's avoiding camera competition.
Does anyone know chess notation? "1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Nc6 3.Qxf7 mate" forced a rule change to specify "legal moves only" but I can't visualize...

http://www.cultofmac.com/john-sculley-on-steve-jobs-the-full-interview-transcript/63295 - the full Sculley interview is worth it.
@Cracked ( http://is.gd/g2elW ) vs Douglas Coupland @NYtimes ( http://is.gd/g2en7 ) on neologisms - I think Cracked wins.
http://adangerousbusiness.com/2010/01/05/the-museum-of-soviet-video-games/ - soviet era arcade museum

monkey strokes dove

2009.10.14

from b3ta - I find it totally hypnotic


http://www.thebigmoney.com/slideshow/new-buck-starts-here - ideas for a US currency dacelift. Probably bad ideas, but fun to think about.

oktoberfest

2008.10.14

<<the best thing you've ever done for me / is to help me take my life less seriously / it's only life after all>>
I got your four finger gesture right here, Steve Jobs!
SO ANGRY because of loops other coders go to do automagic form to model mapping. Screw that! "model.foo = formelem.val" ain't that hard!
"Eternal Sunshine" collectors edition box is oddly selfpromoting, embossed msgs like "Dazzling", "Profound", "Timeless"-for academy voters?
"let's hear it for the boy", modernized, would replace "watches every dime" with "is up to hid eyeballs in credit card debt"

mirror mirror on the wall, who is the addict of them all

2007.10.14
Yesterday I was at Salem Plumbing Supply with Evil B. Despite the prosaic name quite a little show room. They even had a usable restroom with one of those Japanese toilets that... err.... let's just say it gets to know you better than many casual dates will.

What made me fear for our civilization, however, was the way they now have bathroom mirrors with (evidently) one-way-glass and embedded television screens. I kid you not. The design was pretty clever, and it looks like when it's off it appears to be a normal mirror, but there's a TV screen taking up the bottom third or so.

Oy.

thighs and whispers

2006.10.14
The other day we had some Grey Poupon mustard at work. Oddly, my strongest association with that mustard is working with mentally handicapped kids at Camp Happiness, a daycamp run by the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland. The kids generally all got boxed lunches, but there was nothing for the counsellors except for this surplus of hotdogs we kept on hand, and then, oddly, Grey Poupon to dip 'em in.


Quote of the Moment
Thighs--of course. But knees--never!
Coco Chanel, when asked if she approved of the 60s fashion of miniskirts exposing girls' knees and thighs.
I think I know what she means, Knees are weird. Or rather, I blame the kneecaps, the rest can be quite lovely.

a fifth of...oh nevermind

(2 comments)
2005.10.14
Joke of the Moment
Q. What was Beethoven's favorite fruit?

A.

--The only way I could think of showing a sound based joke...


Geek Fashion of the Moment
WOW. an LED-tanktop that plays "Conway's Game of Life".

I wonder if the idea could be modified to scroll text as well...

yes deer

2004.10.14
Dang it...with Curt Schilling hurt, the Red Sox offense picked a damn poor time to get themselves into a one hit funk. I remember one time after a Patriots' game when Brady said "sometimes the defense carries the offense, sometimes the offense carries the defense". (After he threw his way out of a jam that the the D had gotten them into in a high scoring game.) But it always takes some of both...last night the pitching held its own, but the bats just weren't there.

Stupid sport.


Personal Triumph of the Moment
Last night in yoga class I did an honest-to-goodness handstand...I'd only tried it once before during a previous 10-week session and it didn't go so well, but last night I got it done with relative ease. (I think part of the trick is when you're bent in half, ready to push off (hands on the ground,one leg bent for springiness, the other straight to haul up) is to keep your feet close to your hands, so there's less rotational inertia....that was my instructor's advice, and he said I managed to do it nice and lightly, rather than slamming full force into the wall I was against.) By chance I was directly across from the yoga room's small mirror, so I could totally see my moment of triumph. Fun!


Photo of the Moment

--This deer survived a 25 mile trip caught in the bumper of a Britsh driver's Rover with only a few cuts and bruises. (via autoblog)


Link of the Moment
Drug Smugglers Do The Craziest Things...some really clever bits of engineering to pack these things away.

what is love

(1 comment)
2003.10.14
Parody of the Moment
A group of professional people posed this question to a group of 4 to 8 year-olds, "What does love mean?" The answers they got were broader and deeper than anyone could have imagined and more than made up for the jail time they had to do. See what you think:
When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. Then she gives him a hand-job. That's love.
Rebecca - age 8
Love is what makes you smile when you're tired. Wait, no, that's coffee.
Terri - age 4
When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. They don't call you 'jerkface' like all the kids at school do. Oh, how I long for the sweet kiss of death.
Billy - age 4
Love is when you go out to eat and give someone most of your French fries without making them give you any of yours, and they don't report you to the FBI for not calling them 'freedom fries'.
[NAME AND AGE OF SUBJECT REDACTED FOR NATIONAL SECURITY REASONS]
Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, and he wears it every day. Then you tell him you like another guy's shirt, and he beats up the other guy and takes his shirt and gets sent to juvie. Love is fun!
Noelle - age 7
(--by Jacob W. Haller on alt.religion.kibology--probably a parody of these quotes.)


Movie of the Moment
How on earth did I miss this movie? Best title for a movie I've ever heard of.


Programmer Link of the Moment
Joel on Software on Character Encoding. S'funny how much you can get away with without this ever coming up, but when it does, man can it be painful.


Gamer Link of the Moment
We're just a-poppin' with special interest links today. Check out 1Up.com's 50 to Watch, small, highly readable profiles of the likely major players of the next few years of gaming. Overall, the site looks like an interesting up-and-comer in online coverage of video gaming.


News Thought of the Moment
Supreme Court to decide on use of Pledge in U.S. schools. You know, it seems kind of weird that people pledge allegiance to a flag. To the republic for which it stands makes sense, but I don't think enough people really grok what a flag means, at least in the sense that the pledge means it. The story I link to mentions the "under God" phrase is a johnny-come-lately Communist witch-hunt-relic anyway, but that fact isn't mentioned enough, in my opinion.

Reminds me a bit of this one time when we were playing darts against the Elks Lodge in Arlington. I was glancing at some proposed changes to their constitution, and mostly it was someone wanting to add "...and who will salute the flag" to a bunch of qualifications for membership or other roles. I wondered if there was some wanna-be Elk who was declining to salute the flag, or if they were just being paranoid, or what.

the jewels of big jule

2002.10.14
Small Gif Cinema of the Moment

big jule
This is from Euclid High School's 1991 production of "Guys & Dolls". I was the menacing ganster "Big Jule", who gets slugged by the hero Sky Masterson...but this time the actor playing Sky tripped on my foot and landed square on my nuts. My knees flying up here was pure reflex. Luckily my character did nothing but lie there for a while. "Sky" was barely able to finish the scene without cracking up. Amazingly, it happened during the final dress rehersal, the only time the show was allowed to be taped.


Quote of the Moment
"You wouldn't kill yourself, it's just not your nature."
"I resent that. I'm as broody and romantically self-destructive as the next girl."
Huntress and Oracle in "Birds of Prey"
That's a new WB cartoon set in the Batman universe. (Where Batman has skipped town, according to this Salon review.)


UI Link of the Moment
Alan Cooper, "Father of Visual Basic", on 14 Principles of Polite Apps. Good stuff for any software application authors out there.


Kirk's Fantasy of the Moment
Oh my goodness. An upcoming sex comedy starring Madonna, directed by the Guy who made Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch?? (Admittedly the Guy (Ritchie) in question is her husband.) Somebody up there likes me.

$50 for pool?

2001.10.14
(Message to Katie P... if you get this give mookie an e-mail at mookie@en.com)

Last night Mo and I went with Mike and Dave to Rudy's and then to Boston Billiard Club...it was fun, but pretty expensive... I guess the waitresses in the short black dresses and knee high boots shoulda been a give away. Our waitress was pretty amazing, with a body right out of the more realistically drawn R. Crumb cartoons...actually not too far from Devil Girl.


Political Quote of the Moment
But I think the deepest reason for this divergence is a simple lack of power. The awful thing about becoming a second-rank power is that you discover that foreign affairs involves dealing with foreigners, and taking seriously their absurd ideas about the world. This is something which America has yet to learn.
Andrew Brown in salon.com, on the divergence in foreign policy attitude between the USA and the UK.

Link of the Moment
A fun little read, A Letter To My Younger Self, where 42 year old Brian Elroy McKinley writes to his 14 year old incarnation. If only we all could do something like this! (Of course, if everyone told their younger selves to "buy microsoft stock" and so on, the markets would get pretty darn weird.)

Image of the Moment
guy in transformer suit
Click for Original
On stileproject.com (a rather raunchy R-rated site), an unusually innocent image of a guy who made himself a transformer costume...that actually (more or less) transforms. Akihide Fukui from California made it...amazing in more ways than one.

"Exceptional my ass!"
-Something About Mary, on "special" population
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Looked up "Derek Doyle Superman" on dejanews. Besides learning that Rebekah's beau has refered to himself as "The Surfer", I came to the realisation that his fascination with Superman seems to come from a desire for pure absolutes in his heroes, something I find rather destructive.
99-10-13
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I'm seriously thinking about seeing if my dad's companion Tracy would consent to a taped conversation about my dad. I'd be willing to drive out to upstate New York- hmm, maybe on the way to Syracuse?
99-10-13
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SALAMANCA, NY--Captain and Mrs. James Israel were adopted into the Seneca Nation of Indians recently.  Mrs. Israel was adopted by George Heron of the "Hawk Clan" and Captain Israel was adopted by Mrs. Harriett Pierce of the "Bear Clan." Pictured are Mr. Heron, Mrs. Captain Israel, Kirk Logan Israel, Mrs. Helen Harris, representing the Hawk Clan Mother; Mrs. Pierce; and Captain Israel
          --The War Cry / March 27,1982
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Falling in love happens like multiplication. Unfortunately, broken hearts heal only at the slow pace of addition.
98-10-13
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