do you recall the frantic summer
when rainstorms boiled the sky
like the deliriously sweet need we felt
a thousand mad moments together
delicate raw moaning beneath me
these urges drive dreams from sleep
and leave only a weak pounding
... a misty blue smear of you

(assembled from stock magnetic poetry kit)

The winners of the Ten Second Film contest have been announced. Interesting picks. I'm not sure I would have made the same choices.

and we sing about the goddess of love
chanting in the black forest
enormous moon
produces visions of honey skin
and heaves my breast
essential lust screams in me
falling under her light
into a garden bed of purple petals
languid shadowy love

(assembled from stock magnetic poetry kit)

What is tapioca? When was color movie film invented? When did daylight savings time start?

Zoinks! Check out this sequence of images of V838 Monocerotis captured by the Hubble Space Telescope.

Totally geeky, but amusing, song about weblogging. If you use MovableType you'll understand completely.

Lauri's mom passed away a few days ago and I feel so sad. She just recently brought her mother home to live with her, care for her, surround her with family love and support. The family was at her side when she passed, which is a beautiful thing. My family knew my grandmother was dying after a long battle with cancer and we were there up until the end. It hurts, but you don't want it any other way and I do believe it helps in the grieving process. I wish I could have been there for my grandfather, too. I don't have many words, but I keep thinking of this little Buddhist saying: "In the end these things matter most: how well did you love? how fully did you live? how deeply did you learn to let go?"

Radiohead is soliciting video clips! Get your camera rolling and slap something together and submit. [via BoingBoing]

We've got a plan. We need your help. We're looking for moving pictures. Can you make moving pictures? Time is short. This is what you have to do.
1. Take one of the live MP3's of a Radiohead track.
2. Make some moving pictures to it (can be anything: live action, animation, graphics etc).
3. Make it at least 10 seconds and at most a song's length (although we prefer shorter).
OR... Have you already made a short film that would benefit from an airing?
Send your work to Radiohead at: The Picture Gallery, w.a.s.te, PO box 322, Oxford, UK by Monday 8th May 2003. Formats Required: For short films / whole songs : VHS (PAL) (You will be contacted if we require higher quality masters) For shorter animations, graphics: Quicktime (720 x 576 pixels) CODEC: Motion JPEG B (High Quality). Please enclose with it your name and e-mail address/telephone number.

Ok, so here's MY kind of awards list: IFP Independent Spirit Awards. As you can see, "my" movie made a well-deserved sweep.

Best Feature
Far From Heaven (Focus Features )
Producers: Jody Patton and Christine Vachon

Best Director
Todd Haynes
Far From Heaven (Focus Features)
* First-time filmmakers are not eligible for this category

Best Screenplay
Mike White
The Good Girl (Fox Searchlight Pictures)

Best First Feature
The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys (THINKfilm)
Director: Peter Care

Best First Screenplay
Erin Cressida Wilson
Secretary (Lions Gate Films)

John Cassavetes Award (for the Best Feature made for Under $500,000)
Personal Velocity (United Artists)
Writer/Director: Rebecca Miller
Producers: Lemore Syvan, Alexis Alexanian, and Gary Winick

Best Debut Performance
Nia Vardalos
My Big Fat Greek Wedding (IFC Films)
*Actors making their first appearance in a feature film

Best Supporting Female
Emily Mortimer
Lovely & Amazing (Lions Gate Films)

Best Supporting Male
Dennis Quaid
Far From Heaven (Focus Features)

Best Female Lead
Julianne Moore
Far From Heaven (Focus Features)

Best Male Lead
Derek Luke
Antwone Fisher (Fox Searchlight Pictures)

Best Cinematographer
Edward Lachman
Far From Heaven (Focus Features)

Best Foreign Film
Y Tu Mama Tambien (IFC Films)
Director: Alfonso Cuaron

Best Documentary
Bowling for Columbine (United Artists)
Director: Michael Moore

Yeah, yeah, I know, "Far From Heaven" didn't win a darn thing last night. I'm over it already. But it should have won... something. I guess not having Michael Douglas behind your movie and influencing people through massive promotions means you get relegated to just "nominated" status. I was very pleased, however, with "The Pianist" winning (just out of principal, the underdog, etc) and with Almodovar and Moore's wins.

It is the year 2003, the future! for fuck's sake, and we (and I mean 'we' very loosely) still can't figure out a way to communicate and coexist with one another. Grunting and waving big sticks and rocks (with those oh-so-handy freshly developed opposable thumbs), we smash each other on our sagittal crests and whack off one another's vestigial tails while claiming ourselves to be superior and civilized. And we laugh when we see monkeys flinging poo at each other. "Oh, ha ha! look at those simple creatures!" Maybe Watson was right when he suggested we should use gene therapy to cure stupidity. It has to be a better option than this freaky dream currently trapping us in stress, fear, loss, and copious amounts of tears.

This morning, such a gorgeous morning, I felt productive. House-project productive. So I attacked the bathroom. I've not liked it much since I bought the house two years ago and today seemed like a good day to change that dislike into potential love. The linoleum on the floor was rather blah, so I chipped it off with this big ice-scraper thingy from Menard's. Underneath was some cool old tile, but in nasty condition and I figured it would be too much work to make nice and non-linoleum-gluey. Ick. I forged ahead and started prying and chiseling and peeling up the tile. It was not installed properly but that is probably why it came up rather easily! I got it all up except for under the sink but some of the tar-paper/sub-floor stuff is on the hardwood pretty good. I'll have to be careful and do that in small sections. Just a few hours later, "Phase One" of the bathroom is complete. Unfortunately, at some point in the house's history the toilet must have leaked water for an extended period of time which will make the remaining phases much more involved. Ugh.

O'Reilly's new book, Mac OS X Hacks is now out and it looks awesome. Truly worthy of a geek alert.

Check out this amazing collection of actual (real! live!) people from a 30-meter section of sidewalk over the course of a year in London. Pretty amazing... the faces, expressions, emotions.

Ah, some levity. Crazy Apple Rumors posted this story the other day regarding Al Gore's election to Apple's Board of Directors and Apple themselves found some humor in it and posted it to their Hot News section. Apple is also holding a special conference during NAB the first week of April to reveal their new digital video strategy. I am secretly hoping for a new Final Cut Pro version!

The RealWorld Adobe GoLive 6 book is now available in its entirety as a freely downloadable 23-megabyte PDF.

Scott Rosenberg, editor over at Salon, wrote this thoughtful little piece.

Apparently generic cereal names ("Honey Buzzers") are hilariously funny as I spewed a mouth full of water all over my Thai food tonight. Amy thought it extremely classic. Scooterville has the new Stella scooters in stock, but going fast. Warm weather has scooters out and about town. Irish-girl got a new convertible VW bug and a scooter riding lesson. Lots of smiles. Dad and Vick cooked me breakfast on Sunday and I found out two of my cousins are expecting. Dad sold his '73 Stingray convertible Corvette. My order from IKEA arrived and I put together my new Poang chair. Comfy. Time to start working on the house if it stays warm. Could be lots of work coming up, but am looking forward to this weekend already. Remember: Julianne Moore deserves the Oscar for "Far From Heaven."

The band System Of A Down have teamed up with amateur filmmakers around the world and with Michael Moore to create a video for their anti-war song "Boom!"

Ani Difranco's poem "Self Evident" is one powerful piece of work. Read it or listen to it. Wow. I've got prickly sensations on the back of my neck.

Geek alert: Sony has a memory-stick WiFi card coming out in approximately July 2003. Zoinks! Will it work in my digital camera and my clie and my camcorder and my...?

Ok, you laggards still have a chance to see the (truly) best movie of last year as "Far From Heaven" is currently playing at Block E in downtown Minneapolis. It also comes out on DVD on April 1st. Cinematic perfection.

Win Without War

DPReview finds 22-year old Russian girl's self-portrait digital photo collection. Nice work.

yup, get your pennies saved and get up those consumerific urges 'cuz IKEA is officially coming to town! Woohoo! Construction could begin as soon as May on the former Met Center location next to the Mall of America. (I can't stand that I just said "woohoo" to a big retail chain).

Cats jokes are always funny, although this one, if it is actually real, will make you wince. Turn off the fan! [BoingBoing]

I almost forgot to tell you all about my dream the other night! Not quite as good as Bill's dream where he made Lionel Ritchie cry, but still entertaining.
I was out in the country at a farm-type of place (lots of fields and open space) and there were a bunch of people out there for some sort of event, like racing cars on a big homemade track or something similar. You know how dreams are and how some details never quite solidify. Anyway, I was videotaping the event and Ozzy Osbourne was there and a whole bunch of people who worked with him, helped him tour, etc, but all these people were totally slagging on Ozzy behind his back, saying he was over, done, washed up, too old, etc. Ozzy knew what they were saying and he was pretty sad about it, very down and depressed. I was worried he might even be suicidal and nobody else seemed to care at all. I was shocked. I decided I better talk to him. I went over to him and said, "Hey Ozzy, don't be down, man. You are Ozzy Osbourne, for crying out loud! All the music you've made, Sabbath, the TV show, all that stuff means something to millions of people out there. You've had a huge impact on them. You're important, Ozzy!" He started coming around a bit but was shy about all my lavish attentions. Some of the people were milling around, checking out the situation and I looked around from person to person and then turned back to Ozzy and started singing in a deep voice: "Come on, Ozzy... I AM I-RON MAN..." as I was motioning with my hands to get everybody else to join in, which they did. So we all sang and Ozzy got happy and all was well.
Funny thing is, I don't particularly like Ozzy's music. Oh well, you can thank me later. I saved him.

Somebody in Wisconsin is hopefully enjoying my Groove Armada and Neko Case CDs. I think they jumped ship at some point while refueling. Good thing I have them 'archived' on my computer and iPod.

Left Friday afternoon and went over to St. Paul to meet up with Nate, Renee, Donna, Geshay and Amy and promptly departed for points east (IKEA Chicago) at 4:30pm. Weather and traffic were good and we drove rapidly towards Janesville Wisconsin, our sleep-over point. We stopped for victuals along the way and Nate and I got Subway and took it over to McDonald's so the others could get their Friday fish special. I felt bad for eating outside food... yeah, for about a second. There was this clown in the corner cozying up to Ronald.
'Round about 10:45pm we arrived in Janesville where we crammed six people into a hotel room. Renee sat on the bed and got booty cooties (as you know they don't wash the bedspreads as often as the sheets). Eeek.

Nate and Geshay slept on the floor in some sleeping bags so they could 'prepare for the Boundary Waters.' Yeah, that'll do it, boys. I thought I would but I didn't sleep all night as I was really hot (slight fever maybe?) and maybe I was just a little uncomfortable about sleeping in a room with five other people, which is crazy as I can usually sleep anywhere. Plus, someone was snoring most of the night and somebody else got up like 7 times to go the bathroom and the toilet was industrial strength and just as loud.
We got up early Saturday morning, at 6:30am for pete's sake, so some people could have an early morning hot-tub session and we could all take showers and get pretty and all that stuff. I stayed huddled under the blankets, ignoring them as long as I could. Hotel breakfast was adequate.
We drove the remaining hour-plus to IKEA and shopped militantly for three-plus hours. The girls were in charge and we met at our rendezvous points each hour on the hour to check status. We swept through the entire store in a very efficient manner that even scared me. Of course, the girls are IKEA professionals. Seriously. They've got it down pat. I checked out almost every one of the kitchen displays to get ideas for my future project. We had lunch in the store (tasty!) and then took our multiple carts of consumer goods and headed for the checkouts. Several large sums later we collectively emerged and though we were flagging in energy proceeded to the shipping department to send our big items home to the Twin Cities. We are a "local" shipping zone for the store which means you can ship 25 items for about $150.00. We had 23. Sweet! Although we still had plenty to fill up the vehicles.
Wouldn't you know it, it snowed while we were shopping and a call back home revealed a snow fall of about five inches. The drive back was very sketchy until about mid-Wisconsin as roads were icy and snow-covered. In one particular area we saw about 15 cars in the ditch in about a 6-mile stretch. Fresh incidents, too, as people were still in the cars in some cases. We had walkie-talkies along and suddenly Nate said, "Where are you guys?! We just saw three cars fly into the ditch right in front of us." I looked in the rear-view mirror and saw only a single vehicle behind me. Yikes. The roads were glare ice and traffic was stacking up in the east-bound lanes. We were intending to stop at the next exit and just wait for road conditions to clear up, but by the next exit, they pretty much had, so we kept going, slowly and soon were back on safer surfaces.
Many hours later, we finally arrived back home in Minnesota. The iPod full of music was handy to have in addition to the six-disc CD changer. Although a case with a few discs in it (brand new ones, too) seems to have disappeared somewhere along the way. The walkie-talkies were also nice. We were all tired, but all happy we had a safe trip and a fun time. Now we wait for a week or so for our big items to arrive and maybe, with some forgetfulness or distractions, we'll be super excited when they show up and not wonder how we got worked up into a buying frenzy and purchased yet another Billy bookcase.

Ohmigosh! Somehow beyond all comprehension and effort (which is none) I've been nominated for two (count 'em) Dilly Awards! I can scarcely believe it {blush}. Check out the other nominations and vote accordingly.

The Science Fiction Book Club has a list of their top 50 most significant SF and Fantasy books of the last 50 years. I've read 8 of the top 10 so I guess I better get to work and read some more. I am impressed that Pratchett is so high on the list but I think Hitchhiker's Guide and Snow Crash should be higher.

Dang, this doesn't happen very often, but when it does, oh man, I'm on cloud 10... of course, maybe I should actually act upon it once in a while. Huh? Oh, I just went and saw "Russian Ark" at the Lagoon and on the way home swung through Whole Foods to get some soy milk and Soy Dream Organic frozen treats and the young lady at the checkout was ... stunning. Not in an obvious way, but behind her tribal jewelry and her grocery store smock was an amazing woman with bright blue eyes and dark long hair. We did the usual customer-clerk verbal exchange, but there was much more to the exchange than was audible. So now I'm wondering, what exactly is happening when your eyes lock and sparkle and you fill with a bouyant glow and feel buzzy and tingly and an entire universe of information and possibilities is instantly blossomed between you? Is there some sort of swapping of data or code, like we are each other's specific retinal scanner, zipping compatibility along our eye-beams? The look she gave me, and I know I wasn't imagining things, was beautiful and powerful and melting and intentional... and I returned it. So now what the heck is wrong with me that I just bathe in this fabulous experience and don't pur it any further and simply smile giddily and walk out the door?

"And rapt'rous Hope, and unrestrain'd Desire
Bathe in her brilliant eye-beam's fluid fire."
-- Dermody

Hey ladies! Dig the "new" vintage threads. Not only did I find a great tie down in Iowa a few weeks ago, but locally I scored three vintage ties, three vintage shirts and a vintage single-breasted suit coat that fits me perfectly for the low low cost of only $45.00 (for all). Yeah! A new haircut today (and a new 120-gig hard drive for my computer) and I'm feeling pretty special. Watch out!

A handy-dandy page of Applescripts for Adobe InDesign. InDesign rocks.

wow. this is really dang cool. a palm-sized digital photo wallet/mp3 player with 3.5" color LCD screen with a 30gb drive, USB 2 and interface for most memory card formats. I want my iPod to do this!! Wonder if the next 'pod will do such stuff... guess the bar has been raised.

Went down to First Ave last night with Amy (Derrick cancelled) to check out Simian and Ladytron. Missed a bit of Simian as the opener cancelled and they must've moved up the schedule. Simian was pretty cool and I wanted to see them most. Ladytron was cool, too, and the packed crowd was way way into them, but really, they are rather monotonic automatons in their performance (even though it was fun). The boys have longer hair than the girls, but the girls are oh-so-cute in their little jackets and pants. I wanted to yell out, "come on, let go, get crazy, show some emotion" but I guess putting hands on hips and wiggling a bit is how they do it. Oh, and is there some kind of new trend with guys wearing old-man fuzzy hats or hunting hats or something? I noticed several in the crowd...
Afterwards Amy made me watch what she thinks is the best show on TV -- Gilmore Girls. I rarely watch TV as I'd rather create than consume but I'm game to check out things and I have to say that it really is a well-written/acted show. Snappy dialogue, intelligence and good humor. A reference to Michael Moore, even. Yeah, I guess I liked it.

Hey, this is cool: the first vehicle for our light rail system is on the way here from Mexico!

I don't usually post much political stuff here, but this caught my attention this morning:
"Details of the aggressive surveillance operation, which involves interception of the home and office telephones and the emails of UN delegates in New York, are revealed in a document leaked to The Observer." [The Observer]

Hooked with the crew tonight after work and went to Uptown for Indian food at Natraj (during which I asked for a fork and got a Coke!) and then to the Uptown (theater) for "Lost in La Mancha." Yikes. What a painful experience they must've had trying to make their movie -- everything that could go wrong did... and then some... but an amazingly cool documentary about Terry Gilliam and his attempt at a big movie in Spain. The things they dealt with, I hope I never have to go through. Torrential rivers of mud, filming near an air base (jets are loud, eh?), contracts, insurance, health, funding... oh boy. Depressing, really. But I recommend the movie! I mean, the one that got made (the documentary). On the way home Bill spotted this funny truck in a north 'burbs parking lot. Doh!