michael a

zak galifianakis

2009-05-07T02:57:00.000-07:00

would be funny as the unfunny comedian in a movie.

therapy

2009-04-25T13:10:00.000-07:00

i find it's generally self obsessed people that are drawn to therapy and I wonder if they really need another hour to talk about themselves.

pot.

2009-04-25T09:31:00.000-07:00

I wish pot worked for me. I have an inner dialogue I have spent a life time trying to quiet that for some reason pot amplifies to unbearable levels. To say pot makes me paranoid would imply that what it makes me think unreasonable thoughts, the problem is they are extremely reasonable thoughts. I know for a fact we are all doomed. I envy the people that just laugh and get the munchies.

10 days till 40

2009-04-22T09:49:00.000-07:00

On my 30th birthday I woke up in a small bachelor apartment in that building on Wilton and Melrose.

I had one of my typical heroin habits, like 2 months into maybe a 20 dollar a day habit, and always sick.

I really was a flunky junkie. I never felt like Nico.

I had lost everything.

I had lost the record deal about a year earlier. I spent that year in my underwear playing Sony playstation and trying to see as many naked women as a 28k modem would allow through the 1998 aol web browser. I was living with a cute 23 year old girlfriend, and apparently a lot of other people, some of whom I meet today with no recollection of.

One day I looked at her and asked her if I looked fat, and she stared at me vapidly.

I said "It's over isn't it" she concurred.

The band had broken up. The vessel of my constant self reinvention trying to find my footing in this town to get "mine". After numerous hair dues, looks, a sadly a fairly small body of work, and the natural contention that comes when 3 people are stuck together with something offering nothing, we called it quits.

I had traded in the never realized muscle car for what was a postal truck, sans irony, but out of practicality and financial need.

Most of my friends at that point had gone crazy, or disappeared. I had started detaching years ago, when it became apparent the band wasn't gonna make it.

It was all riding on that. Funny enough you'd never know it by how little energy I put into it.

30 seemed to have more weight to it 10 years ago. Maybe because my generation would some how make it ok to wear tight pants, Vans and to skateboard well into them.

I was still carrying the boomer implications of 30. A logans Run where you no longer have any relevance and essentially go straight and get out of touch or just end up relegated to the bad taste of the era you got stuck in. In some regards we paved the way for the kids born in 79 and after.

I was PAing a car commercial that day. I remember waking up with a hole in my gut, slightly dope sick, with a feeling of impending doom knowing the day I had ahead of me.

The emptiness and disappointment.

I had nothing. The apartment was tiny, and housed nothing but a bed, a mac 7600 and the TV I had bought at the Good Guys at 2 am one night years prior with my record deal money. It was all I had left from the deal.

I can't believe that was 10 years ago. It was in fact the beginning of the life I have today and I had no idea.

I had spent that day scraping paint off a hanger floor, and trying to figure out how to get out of there to cash the 25 dollar check my grandmother had sent me for my birthday for drugs.

I thought it was over.

and it was.

Everything I had known was over.

I only remember portions of that day, but I remember laying in bed that night crying harder than I may have cried since I had been a kid.

And now i sit on the precipice watching a world I had spent the past 10 years working so hard to get on top of now fade. Not because of luck, or talent or because of my own laziness or addictions, but because the whole deal is changing. You can't stop things from losing their value, no matter what they are, and the things I have become good at helping to make are losing theirs.

But it's ok, the one thing age gives you is perspective.

I'm not as scared of 40 as I was of 30.

I'm too busy being scared of 50.

The problem

2009-04-15T18:06:00.001-07:00

The problem with this country is that jesus, aspartame and high fructose corn syrup find their way into everything.

They are all basically the same thing.

I wish Apple made everything.

2009-04-13T07:31:00.001-07:00

For my 40th birthday I got myself a truly age appropriate gift, a device endorsed by Oprah,

a device that maybe the final nail in the paper coffin, a very small reading device made by the company that changed retail as we know it... Amazons Kindle.

I had been quietly lusting after one of these devices for awhile now. It really spoke to my inner aesthetic, as a person who wished he could store everything ( including you) on a small flash drive.

I have never been a "stuff " person. I never was a collector. I don't take pride in my "things", media to me is purely for consumption, and I don't covet the wrappers.

Media has became so much more consumable and interesting for me now that it left the confines of containers like vinyl, cassettes, video, compact disks, the DVD and paper. Its immediate, which is all I want out of anything.

I started actually reading the New York times once it could show up on my browsers homepage. I started rediscovering music for the first time in 20 years once I could download it . I haven't even used my DVR (or tivo) since the Itunes store started carrying TV and Hulu took off.

I understand the romantic value to all those 20th century containers. Trust me, I am old enough to remember the magic of an actual album cover. I grew up across the street from the Bodhi tree bookstore, which in fact spoiled me, giving me access to just about any piece of information that might interest me ( mainly in my teens books on the consciousness expanding effects of psychedelic drugs). I know the magic of opening a book and the tactile experience of turning the pages and the smell of the paper.

But these days, i want information, and I want it now. I don't want to have to cart around media I have already consumed and figure out where to store it. Anyone who has moved a few times knows books are the biggest pains in the ass. And really, I mean are you going to read that book again? or do you just want to keep that collection on a bookshelf to showing off your intellectual prowess.

This is where the Kindle comes in.

At 1/3 of an inch thick and about 12 inches tall, this piece of technology holds 1500 titles and its smaller than Newsweek. You can sit and lay in any position and this thing just floats in your hand. Gone are the days of holding a massive book that never really feels right until your halfway through it, allowing for a brief period of page symmetry and comfort. You can bounce between books with a click, anywhere.

3g wireless connectivity, a free service provided by Kindle allows you access to to the entire Amazon collection anywhere. In a click you can have just about any book in about 60 seconds.

Watching the Daily show and someone is touting a book laying out all the details on how we got into our financial crisis? Its yours in 60 seconds. For someone like me, with about a 60 second attention span, this means that not only will I get the book, but I will read it, or at least the first few chapters, while the interest is still fresh in my mind. I can't tell you how many times I've walked through Barnes and Noble trying to remember who that guy was on Maher, and what that book was his wrote. I imagine if your tastes lean more towards Glenn Beck the same applies, though for some reason I don't think his viewers read books so much at survival manuals.

But, the greatest feature the Kindle has for me, is a search feature. It basically gives every book you download an index, allow you access to the information you are most interested in immediately. Hit the menu button, scroll down to search and punch in a word and every page that word appears on will show up.

My only wish is that they give you that option when browsing books, to see if the book you maybe interested in covers the specific ground you are looking for.

You can also view documents on it, and it has a fairly basic web browser, however thats not what its for, and I am all for keeping it purely a reading device.I know I am blowing out my eyes staring at computer monitors all day long, and my main reason for getting a Kindle was to spare my eyes, as 95 percent of my reading has become digital.

The Speak text feature is nice, reading the books to you at a slightly smoother cadence than the old Apple speak used in that Radiohead song, but it does basically sound similar.

So, with that said, 3 days into this thing here are my issues.

I wish Apple made everything.

Apples philosophy seems to have always been to make the user experience even more important than what that experience can offer you. The Iphone is indicative of this, as they introduced a device that for the most part had even less features than the top smart phones available at the time, yet its beautiful OS, intuitive ease of use, and over all feel trumped the competition.

The Kindle feels clunky, frankly even archaic given where we have come with most portable devices. The Grey tone screen probably doesn't do it any favors in avoiding this perception, however that grey screen is the reason why it they made it. To be able to read digital material without shining a light into your eyes.

That being said, you do need a lot of light actually on it to read. It has a low contrast level which I am guessing is yet another precaution to protect your eyes, but it can be difficult to read in even fairly lit circumstances. I'm getting the clip light thats a suggested accessory.

I feel if Apple had made this product, it would feel a bit more innovative in its experience, they most likely would have invested more in the actual grey tone technology insuring an improved reading experience and still protecting your eyes. But, I also think If Apple made it, they would only have 8 tittles available with a total of maybe 20 within the first year of its release.

Amazons dedication to content is where this device truly shines. You can subscribe to numerous magazines, and I have yet to stumble on a book they didn't have.

But my biggest complaint and the reason it took me so long to get one is the price.

At $359.00 this item is priced between the two top end Ipod Touches, and I feel the technology is not nearly as advanced as Apples media player, nor does it feel as... well, as expensive.

I have always felt Kindles price point should be closer to $250.00, which to me is a fair gadget price. $359.00 is basically $400.00 after all is said and done, which in this economy is an expensive proposition. However, with 1500 books I would imagine you would spend that on a book shelf, which this essentially is, and it couldn't read to you.

Moorpark

2009-04-12T21:30:00.000-07:00

I’m looking at a picture of a girl who commented on a twitter of mine.

She lives in Moorpark California,

She looks familiar, but I’m at that age where when someone who is 30 or under looks familiar it is only because they bare a resemblance to someone I knew at least 10 or 15 years ago.

I want to sleep with her for all the wrong reasons.

I’m working off of no more than a web cam picture of her face. I can make out her non descript blouse. The pattern appears leopard but not a rock n roll leopard. She looks like she could have an un-ironic unicorn somewhere in her house. The hair is brown, its layered, but not the hipster layered bang thing you see on the east side , usually accompanied by big vintage sunglasses and a nod to the sixties.

She is waving a peace sign showing off a thumb ring. She is slightly sticking out her tongue.

She's kinda Westood 82.

She feels a bit like a 9th grader I would've had a crush on in 7th grade.

She follows John Mayer on Twiter, which says everything, proving I want to sleep with her for all the wrong reasons.

She identified with my twit " I wish clinical depression could be used as an excuse to get out of doing things without freaking people out". She replied concurring with the sentiment.

I imagine her wearing a fuschia thong underneath the wrong brand of jeans. This wouldn't normally excite me but in the particular case it does.

She follows Andy Dick, whom twitist cwalken evoked before he pulled the plug on his profile as he became less and less funny, using Dick as the comparison point.

I imagine she drives a 5 year old Mustang or some equivalent there of.

She follows Rachel Maddow and David Gregory but not Kieth Ulberman.

I imagine she is going to Coachella, though probably not to see Throbbing Gristle.

I just got relieved for the first time that Plexi didn't get that one hit. That I'm not starving myself in a manic depraved state asking some 23 year old if I look fat in the leather pants, and hoping maybe someone at Coachella will hook us up with a good tour. I'd rather worry about selling HP computers this week.

She is studying to be a nurse, that appeals to me more in an access to meds way than in a bad youporn clip way.

Her posts always go back to her boredom and how she loves TV. That is very attractive to me.

Her overall taste level comforts me in knowing she generally keeps the bar low, further exemplifying all the more reasons why I would like to sleep with her for all the wrong reasons.

iphone 2.0

2008-07-15T22:19:00.002-07:00

iphone 3g 2.0

So after a month of waiting to get the newly released Iphone, I now have my second iphone, the iphone 3g.

The nominal changes in the hardware ( 3g and proper gps) were the deal breakers for me with the original iphone.

There was nothing like showing off that cool web browser to someone and then waiting 20 minutes for the page to load.

Copy and paste was heartbreaking, and still is, though apparently Joswaiak says "though they are not against the feature it wasn't on the list of priorities", leading me to believe its in the ether somewhere.

The search feature now added to contacts in 2.0 has also made the iphone more of a reality for me.

The 3g makes browsing something you can do without getting an ulcer, and short of flash intensive sites you can view quite a bit on content quickly.

Flash support maybe asking too much, but it does beg the question, what's the deal with Adobe and Apple? Flash would definitely complete the picture.

Now the bad news.

I implore someone to give Steve Jobs a Blackberry.

Blackberry vs Iphone takes me back the days when PC's had all the goodies, and macs were

for blue state art fags who liked the pretty, easy to use OS.

Outside of copy and paste there are some quintessential features that a Blackberry has, that you will have to sacrifice on an Iphone.

A shared inbox.

I have about four email address's in current use.

On a Blackberry those address's all seamlessly unite into one inbox.

With an Iphone its 4 click process between email accounts.

Search feature for mail.

You can't search your email on your iphone.

Not only that but now you cant even log on to the new "Mobile Me" from your iphone to use the web based search feature you could once use on dot mac. ( Mobile me is still a mess by they way)

It surprises me with the great and very successful lengths Apple has gone to to insure great search technology on its computers.

I cant even find the control panel on a PC, Apple's search engine will find a telephone number off a pdf.

Why not on the Iphone?

Attachments/contacts:

You can only save photos to your iphone.

You can not save documents, nor attach them to an email.

You also can't send contacts.

MMS:

When someone sends you one of these things, usually a voice note or a picture sent through SMS, the iphone will direct you to a service providers password protected server where the photo is loaded for you to view. The message usually provides a convoluted password that with no copy and paste is useless.

You will be asking your friends to email you the pic, not to text it. Voice notes do however seem to work.

Address book dialing:

Hit the green phone button on your Blackberry and you start punching in the first few letters in a name and the contact will appear ready to be dialed with one click.

Apples search feature in contacts has helped, but finding a number still takes a few extra clicks, which during those uncommon moments when the 101 Fwy is moving, can be dangerous.

If your considering migrating from a Blackberry you may also miss BBM.

BBM is really the mobile chat of choice for today's hipster on the go.

If someone on the east side is gonna tell someone they are gonna be late to the gallery opening but can pick them up a Kambucha,

it's going down on BBM.

BBM also allows you to send contact and photos and documents directly to you contacts.

The Iphone so far has no similar proprietary application with those options. You'll bum your Blackberry peeps out by going SMS on them, though it is pretty on the Iphone

Now on to the apps.

Any dork was thrilled by the release of the Iphone SDK.

Basically it opened the iphone up to developers to come up with applications for the iphone, without having to crack your iphone, possibly rendering it unable to update or even ruined.

There apparently was a catch.

Apple is in truth the ultimate Big Brother.

Yes its dressed in a more utopian Huxley like package, but, not to sound paranoid, they are the people that put a camera on everyones computer.

They are in full control of all the apps as they have to be downloaded from Itunes exclusively.

Now they are taking GPS to a whole new level.

"Cence Me " for instance offers to share with everybody not only where you are, but what you are doing with Iphones sensors and GPS:

"CenceMe helps you to remain connected to your Facebook™ friends on the move. Using advanced machine learning techniques, CenceMe software infers human presence information based on iPhone™ 2.0 sensors, for example, activity, location. Soon, CenceMe will even be able to determine if a person is busy in a conversation, or dancing at a party, and will automatically learn your buddies' favorite hang outs! This presence can be gathered and shared with your social circle via Facebook™ without any extra effort."

There are a number of similar applications offering to tell everyone were you are.

Even the camera now asks if you want to let it to find out where you are before you take a picture.

It's all for fun, but if your the type of person that maybe spent a day or two at least investigating the possibility that 911 was an inside job, and the Bohemian Grove gives you the willies, then these apps will scare the shit out of you.

All this on the heals of telecom immunity adds more to the fun.

Outside of that, most of the over 500 applications are fairly useless.

Don't get me wrong, I had to resort to "Acid Mothers Temple" to stump "Shazam" an application that can guess what your listening to and then lead you to any content available for it on Itunes and You Tube, thats a fun app.

Yet from an app that mimics a light saber to a half dozen that turn your iphone into a flashlight, there is not one single application that actually enhances the iphone.

Basically there are about 50 different ways to find out what restaurants are close by, and what movies are playing near you. I wonder who can't live without the four abacus programs I've counted.

If you were excited about AIM finally on the iphone, it logs you out when its not opened, and you can't silence the famous incoming IM underwater chime sound. It also always crashes.

I promise you Apple will not green light an app that will showcase the iphone flaws. If it was truly open source, there would be third party search engines for your phone and some sort of copy and paste app. I'd pay 50 bucks for each.

So why am I keeping my Iphone?

In truth its for the same reasons I voted for Barack Obama.

It looks good. It sounds good.

But just like Obama I know its not gonna do what I want it to do and its too early in its development to handle the very basic things I need it to do. I guess, at the end of the day I'm just a blue state art fag.