amazon so smart

Apparently, this is a common combo purchase.

when the mob listened

Sure, in twenty-five minutes we're not going to get all the details of new health care, health insurance and election reforms, but I'm still pretty impressed both at Franken's ability to address the concerns of the constituents and the crowd's openness to hearing actual responses. You could attribute it to Scandinavian reservedness or funnel-cake-and-midwestern-summer-heat-induced lethargy, but really I hope this kind of direct conversation is not an "only in Minnesota" occurrence.

quick history lesson

I'm not sure what the medium is, but it kinda looks like chocolate. I hope so, because I like chocolate, even more than Metallica played on strings (I hear it's sand, not so tasty). Srsly, tho, this is pretty cool (though the YT comments show a saddening lack of education in history).

in public again

I'm in the final throes of preparing a few photos for this show. I'm only showing 10 images but it's taken me the better part of the week to sift through what I've shot and get those into a printable state. It's made me realize a few things:



- My film scans probably suck or I'm getting really used to, and preferring, the smoothness of digital. Now all the film grain looks like noise to me. There's no reason why shots from my Leica look cruddier than those from various Canons besides this.



- Cropping into an 8MP images doesn't look nearly as acceptable as I once thought it did. Maybe because I'm actually printing them now instead of just viewing them on the screen. Maybe I'm getting too used to screens instead of print, too. If I print more, maybe I'll understand why all there are still so many print nerds.



- I need to shoot more characters around the scenes instead of just the racing. Some of my favorite shots (which may go into another show in the near future- see crappy film scans point above) were taken with my M6 when it was broken- the limitation of the camera made me more creative instead of only looking to shoot tight action shots with a long lens.

- The whole unknown viewing color space thing tempers how detailed I get about printing. That's a good thing because otherwise I would probably never stop tweaking some photos.

- I feel a little bad about getting all this stuff together for this group thing sinc my friends at Pushbike have been offering to put my stuff up since last summer. It really shows that I don't motivate without a deadline. Thanks Starla; sorry Sarah.

Okay, gotta get these things on some fomcore, clean up and eat something before heading to SF to hang.


Sports Basement, 1590 Bryant St, San Francisco, October 16 thru Idunnowhen. Reception tonight, 6-8pm.

baseball and architecture

The site for the Hyperart: Thomasson project I'm collaborating on is now online! As with a lot of things I'm interested in, the concept is somewhat intellectual, but unlike many dry ideas in postmodern art, I think this one, especially in its execution, makes connections that any modern city dweller can relate to. Please check out the site, submit a Thomasson near you and, if you feel so inclined, make a contribution to help this project come together.

nerdwear

If I had to choose, I don't know if I'd have a hard time deciding between this and the Boba Fett hoodie. It would be nice to have both just to have a better chance of matching my footwear du jour.

too much hair

I realize I may get very little sympathy about this current problem (and from the looks of recent contacts from back in the high school days this includes many men my age), but I've got way too much hair on my head right now. It's all over my apartment, it intercepts my food as I lift a utensil to my mouth, it interferes with shaving it's stunted kin on my chin. But now that I've been getting my hair cut by a friend who is an actual hair stylist, I feel kinda bad about chopping it off myself. I don't want to mooch someone's professional skills, but I also feel bad if I do it myself like it's saying I don't want her skills, either- it doesn't make sense, but so it goes. Maybe it has something to do with feeling like I have to pay a little more attention to my appearance now that I'm kinda in a professional world, or something like that (though, as a "creative", I think I'm allowed quite a bit more freedom than most people- nevertheless, I'm not looking to inflict some kind of assymetrical crusty thing on myself). Being Chinese, it's pretty tough to find a really decent haircut looking at immediately available media- many cuts that look decent or even good on a White person look hecka dorky on an Asian- so I've been checking out a Japanese site which helps, but doesn't cover too much range unless I'm really in tune with the subtle differences of mussed up Japanese boy hair. Darnit, how did I look so good with so little effort when I was younger?