I Am Adam.

I statred thinking about some projects that seem very useful and very gratifying. Right now i'm looking at making a paracord bracelet
http://www.instructables.com/id/Paracord-bracelet-with-a-side-release-buckle/

and try making a pair of moccasins, preferrably like the DIY shoe from patagonia.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqn_riEIFBw

that and i'd like to make some tire tread sandals for when my crocs wear out. (I know, shut up.)

i'm looking at a trip north and west, for as little money as possible. I'd like to have the trip end in Seattle. But I don't know so much about that. If anyone has any ideas or suggestions or offers, please let me know. Its part of my goals to work on using the next 5 years as best to my abilities so that I can say I really made an effort to make my first 30 years the best I can.

I've also been studying herbalism and plant uses, its been interesting studying ethnogens and vegetable health uses. For example celery is known to help put you to sleep and lower blood pressure. The plant coleus has been used as a dream potentiator.

I'll hopefully get to study more of that shortly, but my real goal right now is to scratch off as many things on my list of things I want to accomplish before I die by november, so I wont feel bad as a 3 job carrying shmoe for the next few years after that. ohmygod, life.

http://www.earth-touch.com/
this podcast is so very wonderful. I hope someone else agrees.


http://www.archive.org/details/acp043_herv_-_interiority
http://www.archive.org/details/EatMe_-_st_album

both of these are technoey things to enjoy.

I'm making a rework to my back tattoo design and then I think I might start the process, maybe doing the whole piece to skin in one sitting if I can. I want to let people who I care about to put their hands in on the design so that I have a memory of them in it.

Wide angle is the tentative name of the online zine project. The group has an assignment sent out, and I have been working on graphic work and assigning people to certain positions of responsibility.

Hopefully this little experiment doesn't fail.

Currently we're at a beta site point.
http://wideanglemag.blogspot.com/

it needs more work, but i'm waiting till graduation ends so I can let people get back to a quieter time before I start up the posting runs.

In other news.. I took photos of all my painting pieces and i'm working on a commission set as soon as I get the motivation for it. I'm also looking at more graphic ventures like tattoo flashing and poster designs. I'll be putting stuff out there for people to see pretty soon. When I have my website set up, I might start a new blog specifically for it.

A rather blue couple of months have left me pretty out of it on the productivity end, so lets hope that is going to pass soon. I've been going through little painting rushes. If nothing more, i'm starting to build up enough pieces for my own gallery show.

*****______M_ _U_ _S_ _I_ _C_______*****

http://www.peppermillrecords.com/pm011
some arty folky music

i've developed quite the skill in not updating.

so here's what i'm gonna do..


this post i'll tell you about what i've been up to.
next post i'll talk about arty shit.
the post after that will be about some personal stuff i wanna do.


_________________________B_u_l_l_s_h_i_t_________________________


So it's been a while for me. i've been working on a group project. the idea of it is something i posted about last year. i've culled together a pretty decent small list of people who are interested in it, and we're about ready to start on our first month of the magazine releases.

i'm killing off older things from my life. one of those is my hotmail account. if you already have my email address it will be easy enough to change. just change the location from @hotmail to @gmail.

another one of those things is my ties to Lakeland Fl. no, i'm not going to start cutting away friends. i'm getting rid of bank accounts and things, and soon enough i might be getting rid of my phone number for a new one, or just going without for a while.

i'm also getting rid of other things i own. like cds, dvds, books, extra clothes, furniture, fixtures.

Sounds sorta newage-y to want to get rid of all my things. I know. I cant skirt the truth there all the way. It is partly because there's no way in hell I need half the shit I own, so why not go ahead and spread the wealth around. But there is another reason..



by September of 09' I will hopefully be in training in eastern Europe or Central Asia with the peace corps.

The countries included in this are:
Ukraine
Moldova
Romania
Bulgaria
Macedonia
Albania
Georgia
Armenia
Azerbaijan
Kazakhstan
Turkmenistan
Kyrgyz Republic
Mongolia

I was nominated for community development or municipal infrastructure. Those should make sense but what I know of what I will be doing probably, helping to build buildings, helping to plan, design, dig and construct infrastructure lines for the towns or villages, or maybe even shantytowns. There might be other stuff, but that's where I thought i'd be.
Now things are changing.. i'm now set for ESL teaching, same place, different timeframe and job.

Its a 2 year gig. I'd been hoping I could use all of my personal vacation time beforehand to travel and just suck in as much of life and the US before I go.

Now its likely that i'll have to put those plans on hold. my family and i have been on the ropes, and its been very turbulent. i'd say something more about it but frankly the more i think about it the less stable i feel these days.


So yeah...

http://grinding.be/2009/02/12/chinas-death-buses-deliver-executions-organ-harvesting-on-the-go/


yep..

http://www.tor.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=comic&id=11740&page=all

...
so, uh... what?

i found this to be pretty interesting.. although surreal and sort of goofy.


http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/cable-city-and-hanging-hotel.html

this thing would be really fitting on a low gravity planet, assuming we ever get to one. i think its an interesting thing to consider what other planetary conditions would yield to architecture.

also. i love urban decay
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/01/18/the-beauty-of-urban-decay/

i'm gonna write as much as i can down that i did from this year...

January;
went to Tybee Island to see fireworks.

Trained to do volunteer reenactment at old fort jackson.

Drank a lot, danced a bunch, and camped out overnight on the top of the fort beside the Savannah River

put a song of mine on internet archive, I should do more of this.

pretty sure I finished a painting around this time.

February;
went to a banquet for the company I worked for, said banquet had free bar, this resulted in the firing to the guy I worked with for 4 months... I dressed up pretty.

Went to Florida for my moms birthday. Made her a picture that she likes

March;
another St Patricks day, probably the best one I've been around for. Was with our bosses and having a good day.

Tried absinthe. It tastes minty sort of.

Hosted Mathias when he was couchsurfing through Savannah

April;
got my first tattoo, it's on my ankle

May;
old fort jackson turned 200 years old, we fired cannons and had a great day of it

finished my first tapestry. Hoping to do more of that soon.

June;
went up to Chattanooga Tennessee and camped in raccoon mountain. Hiked all over the mountain, and went on a tour of the cave there. It was really surreal.

July;
helped build a log cabin, spent a week in the most delightful place in Virginia with a family, sharing cooking duties and wandering the woods.

Bought a jar of moonshine.

August;
started kicking around the idea of a magazine project.

September;
started demolishing concrete at work. Pretty much went full time doing that on and off until January

Went to Florida to see my uncles funeral

picnic in the park with bosses. Listened to orchestra and ate finger foods.

Played half life 2 mods for a week or so

October;
saw NIN on the best tour I've seen, it was really well done.

Shut down and packed away my tower pc. Now only using my laptop.

Had a great Halloween night, drank and ate candy. danced the night away. I was a steampunk engineer.

November;
voted and felt good about it.

Helped put some of the last touches on the project to fix the first arch on the bridge that the city of savannah granted our organization for running trains across.

Blues & BBQ celebration, I had food and helped a little, dipped out.

Squished a finger under a granite slab.

Celebrated thanksgiving in Baltimore. Had an unsettling evening with the doll fiends. Saw quantum of solace and loved it

got sick

December;
baked a lot of food

got sick

turned in my peace corps application.

went to a bazillion parties with the bosses

made my own barbecue recipe with my brother

designed a portrait of Billie and I



so it was a big year. I dont feel i've done enough, but I cant say that this year was bad or slow. I've felt busy for a lot of it, but my resolutions for this coming year are

to help more people. To move forward with my life. To finish things. To stay sane and make an effort to be happy.

Heres to o9'

So, the lead singer of the eels is the son of the man who wrote the theory of parallel universes in quantum physics. I just watched a show about it on nova. It was really touching, to me, as a view of the bonding of son and father through the sons searching., sort of the way I always see my dad...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7BHFieatVE

Theres another thing I've seen that is sort of the same thing. Its called My Architect. It was done by the , excuse my saying it like so, bastard son of Louis Kahn, the modernist architect from the 60's and 70's. Just like the nova show, the son really knew very little about his deceased father, and is learning about and slowly bonding with his father by seeing his work and his history.

http://www.myarchitectfilm.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2wyXJiIwjk

Its pushing me to consider some of the subjects of intimacy more.

Is intimacy truly damaged by distance now, with current technology? Does the cloud form of communication cause a more complete form of relationship or affectionate experience, or is that form of ambient intimacy that has been forming only effective because theres something tangible in the sense that you see a relic of their lives each time.

Does the Son of Kahn (heh) feel the same sort of connection with his father by seeing one of his buildings as two lovers would from feeling each others touch through one of these bracelets or by rereading that love letter that you kept?

Is it that our ability to look back on the thing or to feel it what truly makes the experience real enough to make you feel for the person? Either way, I would love to feel more bonding to the people I've lost, because thats sort of what searching for your heritage is, right?

Heres 2 great articles that touch on this, both by clive thompson. Good writer.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/07/magazine/07awareness-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/17-01/st_thompson

 

Last night I dreamed that I went to an underground amusement park, made like those cities carved into the sides of caverns and canyons. I got a job there, and then immediately was forced to do some kind of impromptu yoga ballet in front of an audience and keep up with the other person who knew the choreography.

Also in the dream a new fingernail grew underneath the one I hurt a bit ago, and I had to rip out the one on top with needle nose pliers.

So yeah...

 

Happy New Year!

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/15/nyregion/15budget.html?em

okay, so heres why I call bullshit on this. I think it would be considerably noble to put an effort into creating a taxation program around purchases. Retail taxation is proven to work, because we all have to eat, and most of us wear clothes.

So heres what I think would be an interesting but never implemented program. Reinstate the budget cuts on schools and medical programs. They need that money more than you. Run a govt audit for spending, and then all corporate tax cuts go out, which will free up plenty of cash. Now you have some wiggle room.

And with that wiggle room start working out programs for retail taxation. Exempt things that are innately healthier, and hefty up the taxation on things that are worse for you, so you promote health in the lower income brackets, because they will be the only ones giving a shit that soda costs 20 cents more, and pure orange juice 20 cents less.

Once the balances between those is created, you're likely to begin to see a good flow of money by the upper levels of people who will be buying their taxed goods, and a forced hardship for people who are too hardheaded to change to healthier food , as well as to those producing it.

I could keep pushing the idea, but you get it. The point is that I figure that if you're gonna start taxing shit, then why not go ahead and tax shit that helps to curve people into healthier lifestyles, like how smoking taxes were intended to work.

 

But of course this is all just theoretical. And there are plenty of more realistic ways to go about this.

(7:10:50 PM) ShadowyCoho: my shoe is atom dari
(7:11:07 PM) atomdari: well my shoe is what the fuck are you talking about

i've been hit by a messaging chat bot lately. it likes me, and its getting craftier at screwing with me.

so after thanksgiving i havent posted much here because i got sick and then never got back to doing things on here. i've got some stuff i wanted to post so i'll probably put down a couple posts when things slow down over the trip to the parents.

yesterday i got sick and then by midday my stomach was wonky but i did alright. i blamed it on the whiskey. i've learned my lesson, that i dont really like mint juleps, or makers mark for that matter. whiskey is usually just too bitter for me.

so last night i'm asleep, and suddenly billie bolts up and runs off. to puke. sorry i gave you whatever it was... :(

anyways i'm headed out tomorrow night for home. i'll try to post some stuff when the family isnt watching.
merry solstice.

this show was on channel 101 back in my sophomore year, so,... like 05

( here's the rest of the series )

and sorry if this post is wonky, i'm so tired of the backwards buggy formatting that lj uses.

i sat in my room with the laptop streaming NPR and watching FiveThirtyEight for the reports.

while i was there i came up with a drink.

publix black cherry soda
1 shot moonshine (or other clear type alcohol)

and this is what alcohol and a steady stream of halloween candy makes.

i think it's pretty. do you think its pretty? TELL ME IT'S PRETTY!

so firstly. I voted. Yay.

And second, you're going to vote so I dont have to hunt you down like a dog. Right? I thought so. Yay.

So on Wednesday night I was in Jacksonville. Billie and I drove there to meet two of my friends, Justin and Erick (generally referred to as Blackman).

So the trip was great into jacksonville, and if any of you know from using Google Maps, or navigating jax downtown, then you can understand how I felt here. There was yelling and cursing, and eventually after passing the right roads unknowingly about 4 times, we reached our destination, a bar down the block from the arena we were headed toward.

We met up with Justin and Blackman, and chitchatted with them while they finished their glasses of yuengling, which you cant get in Georgia, for whatever sucky reason.

So anyhow, we all get ready, they clear their tabs, and we go to watch the show.

Opening act – Health

http://www.myspace.com/healthmusic

this band doesnt sound so bad in recordings, but let me jus tsay that they were terrible live. They would start off alright, but all the tracks sounded the same for the most part, and the mix for their output was so bad that it was either a muddled mess, or some mild acourstic bits.

And then there was a 15 minute break. It was dark, and slowly color and lights started to fade in with a soft musical bit, the intro from the new album.

Opening

a spotlight flickered on the drumset, the bang, bang, bang begins. And then the whole band comes in piece by piece. And BAM, trent is singing into the mic, and the aurdience is already pumped, and the mosh pit starts to swell by the halfway point of the first track (!,000,000).


the production values for this show really are amazing.

The fisrt set is flashbulbs and a wall of articulating LED floodlights set on a wave motion. Shortly after it moves into using sets of spotlights on varios members of the band as they play parts. A series of screens are lowered and broadacst differelt overlays of video, with lighting on spotlights bringing the band members in an out of view through it all.

As the show goes on, the mosh pit gets bigger, when they play march of the pigs, the crowd starts the first, and (I guess thankfully)
only big surge foreward and backward. I'm jumping about and headbanging, I mean its nine inch nails, i'm thrilled.

March Of The Pigs

Reptile

So the show reaches a really nice head, and theres a short break, needed I think, by then trent's taking off his overshirt, and my throat has just taken me screaming through a good 3 harder songs. We've gone through the brunt of the slip, and a few steps back into the hits, reptile, march of the pigs, terrible lie, etc. so now we move to something never done in a nin concert before. A pause, and a whole middle bit that works like an orchestral or chillout piece.

I'll break here to explain something..

I loved ghosts. I'm a big fan of ambient work and movie scores. Music I do is something akin to that. I'm also a sucker for seamless presentation of tracks, so when you can put something from 20 years ago next to something that you just made this year and make them fit , then I heart you for it.

The way this was presented though was truly great. An assortment of instruments were lined on the stage for this. 3 or 4 sampler pasd and keyboards and such were lined across the front wo that behind a screen, people could run about and setup the xylophone, bassoon, and all that.

Me, I'm Not

A few tracks are played up front, and then the band moves backwards to the now opened area.

"Ghosts" Track & Piggy

Now they went into the ghosts songs, as well as a reworked version of piggy, and I believe another track, before shifting out to do a near instrumental track from year zero, complete with an amazing waveform playing amidst the ghostlike blip of trents face, slowly creeping across the screen.

The Greater Good, Pinion, & Wish

And then pinion plays while the stange is black, as soon as it finishes, lights all come on and wish plays. The most pit starts hard, and the next few songs keep the action hitting hard. There is a version of closer done, where trent meshes in a part of only time into it, i'd heard about it, but it really is good in the live set. I think its showing how trent is changing as a person and embracing his music, and his fans. It makes me all ooey gooey

Closer (Version)

so anyhow when the show is over and the encore is going to happen, a giant NIN symbol comes across the screen, followed shortly by the screen lifting, and this really awesome interactive drum machine being set up and playing you into echoplex.

Echoplex

after that, i'm pretty sure was when they played hurt. It had such an overpowering energy to it, because EVERYONE was singing along.

Hurt (complete with heckler people in background)

It gets hazy on what happened after that, I wasnt drinking or anything, but mind you, this show went on for well up to 20 hours straight for nin performing.

Anyhow, during a bit that the hand that feeds plays, Bush is projected on the screen in the back, and slowly morphs into mccain. Trent politely told the jacksonville public that they owe the US for birthing fred durst, and voting poorly in BOTH past elections. And asked us to make sure to vote.

Then, after a big blowout, the show was over. It was a good time, and by this point its well into 11. my car is parked at the bard down the block, so we go back there, and enjoy sweet delicious Yuengling on draft for 2 bucks, and dollar wells which I spiked with my sweet wonderful georgia moonshine in a flask.

Yeah, I'm classy like that.


Pictures that Justin took of our night

and so that's about the best i can let you experience my awesome night. thanks nine inch nails, Justin, Blackman. And most of all THANK YOU Billie, for driving home while I slept like the narcoleptic that I have become. You didn't kill us, and i'm proud.

This is a chunk of blog posts and articles

I thought about writing things to go along with them, but i've decided that just getting this out there is going to be the only way I get it posted.

Minor Landscapes and the Geography of American Political Campaigns

Yayoi Kusma - The Gleaming Lights of the Souls (Gallery pieces)

Awesome wall calendar

BBC article talking pro-bigger apartment sizes, talking about compact apts in england

Sarah Sze (Gallery pieces)

Game/Space: An Interview with Daniel Dociu

Wired articles about Infrastructure, needs a few on..
Fate of America's First Bullet Train Rests With California Voters
Note to Next President: Modern-Day WPA Will Save the Economy
Energy Independent housing, like this one
Three Junipers Off-Grid itHouse Project

RBW Core House (Rehab of a shotgun house)
More shots of the Core House


Make It Right: First Brad Pitt Homes Completed in New Orleans


Only in Japan. QR codes on a homeless tent.



__________________F_R_E_E___M_U_S_I_C___F_O_R___Y_O_U___________________


i didn't like track one, its really lo-fi and then track two gets into some really playful electronic stuffs.
http://www.archive.org/details/headphonica.hpcd051

i really really liked this album. its this wierd mesh of indie rock and electro. i wish i could find all of it online for free, but i found lots of single tracks. if you like them, then look for them, you'll find about 7 tracks online for free.
http://www.emusic.com/album/Deastro-Keeper-s-MP3-Download/11227977.html

some ambient. it does what good ambient does, it plays in the background and can loop nearly endlessly and you wont mind, but it still sounds good.
http://autresgrooves.blogspot.com/2008/10/post-77.html

first i want to start this with a rant, because i think i need to do it.
there have been alot of discussions about kids and their lack of real education now. they tend to be taught in such a way that really the education that they pick up is little more than whats needed to pass a test, and usually not touched again, therefore not worth retaining in the eyes of a child.

i think this is pathetic.

i've also noticed that there is a movement in the stories and items being given to kids in some places now. like how wall-e was actually ABOUT something, beneath it all. like how there are songs out there for even the most nerdy thing if you just look for it.

games have proven no exception as of late. portal, prey, super paper mario, spore, the doom 3 expansion even. theres more, but i dont have the energy to pull more from my head right now. these all have different stories, different levels of adulthoodiness, and so forth. but they all bring to mind something from my past that i bet NO kid reads now, sadly. do you remember a wrinkle in time?

they all talk about physics and dimensions. portals, 2d & 3d worlds, gravity manipulation, evolutionary processes, time and speed, all kinds of things being brought into these games that could potentially be used for good, they could be melded into educational games, with different chapters that let you play with the different concepts. suddenly your textbooks are your smallest part of your class.

the technology is out there to get things started,

model whole cities super fast

ways to get really fast at making your model maps

advanced model scans for scripted acting

hell, a nearly free version of a 3d laser scanner

http://www.human-anatomy.net/
you could even make a fantastic voyage game really, teach kids about their bodies.

these sorts of things being ported into simple game engines would be a good start. some kind  of game engine that people know pretty easily, or one that is open source.

use developer commentary speech bubbles, or qr codes for bits of lectures or texts or equations, and you'd be pulling double duty really well.

i know that not all of this is perfect before someone brightly lays that to my attention, but my point for this is that we have plenty of ways to make creative programmers of the future, to make great physicists, nuclear engineers, mathematicians, molecular biologists. we could be using the talents we have to cycle something creative back into our society, and making kids CARE.

though this still doesnt address phys ed......

okay enough of my rant. now to stuff about video games i've been playing through lately, and some real lifey crap to do with them
 
i'm addicted to portal, so i've been going back every once in a while to play through some new puzzles, and dying for more.

hahahahaha unintentional GLaDOS style speakers
http://www.yankodesign.com/2008/09/04/like-peas-in-a-pod/

some leg springs

another type


fan mods worth reviewing, if not playing.

i played the flash game pack and affinity all the way through, they were both pretty good, though the flash game pack has some very very very frustrating bits, and some fairly underpolished parts that could have been considered more.

also.
Minerva. its a half life 2 mod, and its really good. so good in fact that i would pay money for it. so good that the guy who made it is now working for Valve because they liked it so much. play it. one thing to note is that this seems to be chapter one, and there is some rumor of there being another half to be released involving a northern city.

also i think you HAVE to have Episode One to play this. it sucks, but i still say its worth it.


and listen to some music. its by the guy who did sound design for minerva
http://www.zhaymusic.com/
http://www.virheroicus.com/

so some days i have a lot i want to talk about with people. some days i want to be quiet and just listen. today was one of those days, and work is not the most condusive to this now, as headphones are banned altogether. i need to find an alternative that makes working without headphones less irritating when i'm next to the most annoying intersection in savannah.

i swear, large diesel engines are the loudest thing i deal with in a day.

things i listened to were from the long now foundation seminars, and let me just say that those lectures are long, but in almost every case they stay interesting. i wanted to get more news about some things that i heard of yesterday, so i got home and picked up some more info before i turned on the music to drown out my brain for the day.

the government wants corperations to own our roads.


Obama acctually responded to the 08 science debate questionaire sent to all presidential candidates in june or may or whatever it was.

Google released a web browser. it might be worth checking out to you. i'm planning to try it right after i post this.

comic book overview
download page

the published articles on it got me hyped enough to at least beta test it. and hope for the best.

i hope that it does well as far as what it offers, but i really want to see firefox in this position, and google pushing R&D on an operating system , perhaps even one that utilizes the ubuntu crowd.

throw a couple developer team guys into the mix with ubuntu ibex labs. bring that great google clout they have, drag in the mozilla guys and start looking for team connections. they could make linux badckground software run on an accessable user interface, and the world would rejoice, or at least i would.

it'd be amazing.

here's some back story if you want some.
wired article


also someone made a minute long video award contest...
look through the others, i only posted two i thought were funny.

naked truth
gym jam

have some free open source textbooks. its one of those things that could very well become a great resource to all people without educational funds. these may prove to be great for me and my continued education.

firstly, some mild art pimping

this would be a guy i know named pranas, he has no idea i've been reading this i bet.
http://ghostcarpress.com/inkdick/

and the other is my friend nicki, who has started to sell her pysanky. ask her what pysanky is, i dont want to tell you.
http://daisyodd.deviantart.com/
http://www.new.facebook.com/pages/Daisy-Odd-Pysanky/21049686617

and now...

so i've been thinking about creating some kind of zine or podcast or blog thing. and i've only been more inspired by the seqalab podcasts
and their words of wisdom for artists and writers.

i'm looking at the one page of comic work a day project plan,  and trying to find ways to convert that to my positiopn as a painter and poet and general fuckaround.

so i wanted to brainstorm, what would be a good plan? would anyone else like to collaborate on the zine idea? i'm thinking about mixing art and photography and essays. maybe it could be like a true magazine, reviewing cds, doing articles, but played with, and more fun to look at, or spanning a bunch of topics and directions.

maybe make it biweekly or monthly.

of course, i should probably finish some mroe projects i have before i get to this.

1
a free book to read. it's about a person finding an abandoned hardiman mech suit from the 60s.


2
some articles that would be great for coffee conversation.

this one is about the players psychology while playing videogames.

Jay Leno's chin talks about the future of american cars

a mod design prosthetic leg project by a design student

article of Govt sanctioned thought crimes being schooled illegally

piece on hidden tunnels with a link to an AMAZING interview with an urban explorer in the Vancouver area


3