I was dicking around with Wordle (Wordle.net) and I came up with this gem.
It looks all Christmas-y and shit, but laced within its pagan boughs lies true evil! MWAHAHAHAHAHA. Awesome.
266 search results for “round”
I am not a daily routine kind of person. I wish I was. I would love to learn how to have that sort of discipline. I’m sure I would get more done. Unfortunately, flying by the seat of my pants has worked out well enough for me so far that I have no great pressing reason to change, no matter how much my brain knows it’s a good idea to approach my work with a more regimented schedule. It’s kind of stressful knowing that I would be better off having a work schedule, but not having the discipline to enact it for longer than a few weeks at the most. Where does one learn this skill of self-discipline? Is it something inate? If that’s the case, I’m fucked. I’ve never been a good self-motivator and I am too easily distracted by whatever the hell is going on around me. Even right now, I’ve written, what?, eight sentences?, and already I want to get up and walk around and blah blah blah blah. What’s that shit about?
If it’s not innate, where can I learn it? Again, my history of getting by winging it about 95% of the time doesn’t help at all. Winging it is great when I have to fix the Avid or cut together an animatic for clients, but not so great for more serious work. I’ve got this built in perception that if I can’t nail it right away, that’s it’s either a) fucked or b) a shitty idea to begin with. Neither of those are very helpful for seeing something through to the end. How do I unlearn that unconscious tendency? How do I learn to feel good about the work I do so I can stand behind it and continue until it be thoroughly finished? I am always impressed with my friend Jesse who has this seemingly limitless capacity for sitting down and just hacking through what needs to be hacked through like a champion. It has certainly paid off for him thus far. Where the hell do I learn that shit?
This is something I think about a lot. It’s probably my major struggle as a creative person—how do I continue to create when I already have a fairly full schedule? How can I be a creative person? How can I be a productive person? How can I produce? Oh how these questions taunt me! I had it going for a minute earlier this month, but it’s lapsed again. I need to figure out how to get it going for longer than a week or two.
If you, humble reader, are like me, then it will be inspiring to you to read about other creative people and how they schedule themselves to create. Daily Routines – How writers, artists, and other interesting people organize their days. I really like Saul Bellow and Ingmar Bergman’s routines.
In the wake of the Christmas holiday, I wonder how many of you fully understand the true threat of Santa Claus. Obviously, Santa, as a clear anagram of SATAN, is the Great Deceiver in disguise, leading our youth into degeneracy and sin. Santa wears red; Satan wears red. Santa goes by the moniker “Old St. Nick”; Satan goes by the moniker “Old Nick”. Santa has a beard; Satan has a beard. Truth be told, the parallels are far too many and too clear to be anything but the honest truth. Here, hard, cold logic prevails in proving that Santa Claus and Satan are THE ONE AND THE SAME—the Prince of Darkness, the Lord of Flies, The Great Deceiver, Beelzebub, Lucifer.
Don’t believe me? Well, get the full low-down right here:
SANTA CLAUS: The Great Imposter
I think my favorite piece of “logic” from the page I’ve linked is this:
What about Claus?
Is “Claus” another anagram for “Lucas”?
It’s no secret Lucas and Lucis are new-age “code words” for Lucifer. The Alice Bailey founded new age, occult publishing company was originally named Lucifer Publishing Company but in 1924 the name was cleverly changed to Lucis Trust. By the way, the Lucifer worshipping Lucis Trust is a major player in the works of the United Nations, formerly located in the United Nations building but now located on prime-time 1200 Wall Street.
Claus sounds a lot like “claws.”
Maybe Santa Claus means “Satan’s Claws”? Like a lion’s “claws”?
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:
1 Peter 5:8
The emphasis is mine. What sterling, marvelous reasoning is presented here! Clearly “Claus” is just a secret, “new-age” (code for lesbian witch satanists who hate America) way of conjuring the Devil’s name: Lucifer. Duh. I mean, isn’t it obvious? Anyone can see the truth in that!
Here’s another marvelous gem of deductive reasoning.
Everyone knows Santa lives at the North Pole.
Brrr. . . Why the north pole? Nobody lives at the North Pole. . . Why did they pick the NORTH Pole?
Could it possibly be because someone else lives in the north?
Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the LORD’S house which was toward the north; . . . Ezekiel 8:14
1 Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, in the mountain of his holiness.
2 Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is mount Zion, on the sides of the north, the city of the great King. Psalm 48:1-2The Lord dwells in “the north, the city of the great King”.
By the way, remember what Lucifer said in Isaiah 14:13, when he rebelled against God? Remember where he was going to exalt his throne?
12 How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!
13 For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:
14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. Isaiah 14:12-14Where else would Satan (oops. . . it’s just too easy to get those two mixed up) Claus be but in the NORTH?
Oh, jeez, of course! Santa live in the North Pole, and Satan, who wants to be like God, ALSO LIVES IN THE NORTH. Therefore they are the same person! Wow! I can’t believe I never recognized this before.
Well, now that all you good boys and girls are saved by hearing the Good News I have relayed to you here, remember that Christmas time is a time for remembering Christ (who was not born in December) by decorating a cold weather evergreen tree (not native to Israel), giving gifts (like the Magi, I’ll give you this), and surrounding yourself with northern European symbols of winter (zuh?) and the solstice! It is not a time to revere the heathen image of Santa (SATAN) Claws for he is naught but the Devil himself in Disguise!
Don’t forget kids, Jesus loves you and he wants you to hate those that are different, i.e., non-white, non-Protestant, both of which categories the historical Jesus falls under!
Merry Christmas!
Here’s your daily music video from me. Be careful, since there be boobs in that thar vidya. Nothing sexual or nothing, just some naked French boobs.
I wish the director had put it up on Vimeo in HD since the photography is excellent. The edit is sharp and smart and really matches the track nicely. It’s just a damn good video all around. Check out the director’s other work on his page.
Previously I had discussed the little game I play with myself in the elevators in the morning, but recently I have been playing a new game I refer to a the “Do I Have To Swipe My Security Card” game. The game involves walking in the front door in the morning and walking by the security table, making eye contact with the girl at the desk, and purposefully not swiping my security card. Technically, we are supposed to swipe our cards every time we enter the building, but, ever the shit disturber, I try to see how far I can get without swiping my card.
Typically I am pretty successful when the girl is working. She is very lax with people she knows work here, which includes me. Awesome. When the other maintenance guys are in the lobby, I swipe my card because I don’t really want to get her in trouble with them or get grief from them. When it’s a new guy (there seem to be random guys kind of regularly) I swipe my card. But, I’d say about 90% of the time I can walk straight in sans card-swipe.
I imagine that this is thrilling information for everyone, but this is my goddamned website, so deal. I spent a lot of time grounded when I was a kids (deservedly so) and have thus figured out myriad ways to entertain myself all the time. It’s good fun. Being grounded builds character.
Also, another random thought, whenever I say the word “goddamn” or the phrase “goddamn it”, I can’t help but think of my mother because this is easily her favorite curse. And since I spent much of my childhood pissing her off, I heard “Goddamn it, Joseph Michael!” frequently. Very frequently. I will catch myself using it in the exact same way and then I think of her while I’m all pissed off and it feels really weird because I like my mom and being all pissed about something and thinking randomly of something you like is a weird sensation, like laughing when you’ve hurt yourself which I also do, or eating something and expecting one texture and getting a completely different one.
Hi mom! Love you!
On Saturday, Juli, Jesse, and I went to see our friends perform in a musical/dance/multimedia/burlesque extravaganza called “How to Disappear Completely”. I figured it was a good time to put the 5d Mk II through the ringer a little, so I did.
Here is the set with a few random photos at the end.
You can view them in high res here: How To Disappear Completely @ Flickr
Some thoughts on the low-light capabilities of the new 5d Mk II—awesome. About half of the play was shot at ISO 1600 and the other half at ISO 3200. Those two settings are effectively unusable on my old 20D so it was with some trepidation I threw the camera in 1600 to shoot. It was just too dark and my focal length was too long and there was too much movement not to use a very high ISO. It was a grand experiment and, based on the sample shots I’ve seen from the 1d Mk III and 1ds Mk III, I was reasonably confident that it would work out in my favor.
Well, it worked out and then some. Besides some fairly minor chroma noise at 3200, I have absolutely no objections to the amount of noise coming through. What’s more is that the lighting conditions were FAR from ideal—severe pools of light and dark, wildly shifting lighting, colors like you wouldn’t believe—yet I was able to capture images at a decent enough shutter (1/30ish) at a good focal length (200mm IS) wide open (f/2.8) and still get sharp as tack photos. Are you serious? That is so fucking awesome it hurts. It absolutely does away with any complaints I had with my 20D not allowing me to take the photos I saw in my head. I don’t feel limited by my camera which is really nice.
There is one strange thing I noticed though. Early in the shoot I had the camera set to Highlight Expansion mode and I noticed on the RAWs some very strange effects, almost like the air boiling around very bright areas that were next to very dark areas. It’s pretty obvious around Brian’s arms (on the left) in this photo. You might have to look at it in full size to really see it. I will post a real full size crop when I get home to demonstrate the effect fully since I resized the images for Flickr.
It’s not really that bad, and would be easily removed in PS if I were so inclined, but it is strange nonetheless. When I turned off Highlight Expansion, I didn’t see it again. Now, it might be some weirdness because Lightroom does not yet have a proper profile or even real support for 5d Mk II raws, but it might also be an issue with the camera. When I get home tonight, I will check the original CR2 in Canon’s raw converter and let you know what I see. Only minorly annoying, and since I can’t really be sure of the cause, we’ll have to wait and see what happens when full support is available. At least it’s not like that horrid banding noise on the 20D at ISO 1600.
More to come!
On September 17th, I preordered the new Canon 5D mkII. That was the first day it was available to preorder at Adorama, my photo supplier of choice, and only the second day after it was announced. Frank at Adorama called me last week to let me know that the camera would be shipping either Friday 11/28 or Monday 12/01. Well, it actually shipped Wednesday 11/26 (YES) and they’ve already tried to deliver it to the office according to the tracking information on the UPS site.
Do you know what that means? That means that I will receive the damn thing on Monday which means that I will have it not only in time for the Metric System party, but I will have some time before hand to dick around with it. How great is that? I am mega excited. There is nothing quite like a new toy to get the old creative juices flowing.
I had e-mailed Adorama a few weeks ago to try and get an ETA for the delivery of the camera and all they could tell me was that they anticipated having it shipped by the end of December. That was not exactly wonderful, but not entirely horrible either. There was no tentative ship date when I ordered, so there was nothing to be disappointed about with an end-of-December ship date. But now it feels like I’m getting it a month early! AWESOME.
Expect more posts in the coming week.
Can't find what you're looking for? Try refining your search: