Holiday's and 09'

I ended up spending the holidays in Chicago to visit Audrey before she headed off to Nante. It was quite nice and very restful. Had deep dish pizza of course, I can never get enough of that stuff. Saw two rather good movies, Slumdog Millionaire and Gran Torino. Both very good with the former being a bit more uplifting and the later dealing more with race and mortality. I feel like the films that Clint Eastwood directs are typically about death and mortality, also preparation or trying to understand death. He continues to surprise and amaze me and has since Mystic River. I need to really see the few that I've missed that he directed. Sadly though considering his age I feel almost like it makes sense for him to really deal with death since likely his time is coming to a close, however I doubt that he will stop generating new work til he does die. A note on my own mortality at a later date. Saw some amazing work at the MCA specifically Jenny Holzer. The work with her LED ticker tape like installations were the ones that seemed to be directed straight at my sensibilities. Multiple streams of information, text, ticker, strobing, perception of information/vision. I was totally loving it trying to take in this bright strobing information stream that was massive in scale. Also, very nice to see Audrey's family and eat lots of food with them as well, recurrent theme. Also, of course had my dose of White Castle, cause it's what I crave.

Flew back on New Year's Eve to LA. Oddly both flights going and leaving were completely on time, quite a feat especially with my airline luck. Got back to LA and ended up spending the eve with Matt and his family. It was nice and relaxed. Lots of jokes, music and new inventions like PowerFade. One thing though that I had not expected but was rather how do I put it, I guess honored? I was told by Matt's dad that he was very happy that I was Matt's friend and that I've been there for him. He also told me that don't worry about anythings that maybe bothering me in a very non-specific way that felt all too specific internally. But, it put me at ease for whatever reason. I needed it and needed to have that told to me that things would work out alright in the end.

The last few days of vacation just left me running errands and sorting out stuff that needed to be dealt with upon leaving. Got to go have some ramen with some of my x-country buddies from high school which was nice. Hadn't seen them in like a year. Need to see the rest of em. Also, picked me up some new shoes. Two words, adonized blue.



Last evening of vacation I came down with a cold of course and it has been plaguing me since. I miss vacation already because of course I'd much rather get paid and not work and be able to do what I want to do for all 24 hours of the day. Oh well. My business cards came in so I guess I'm all official like that.



To end off for the night as promised in the last post some pictures of the apartment in it's current state. Next time maybe some talk about my new past time, terrorizing the greater Liberty City area in Grand Theft Auto IV.

The Good, the Bad, the New, and 2009

So, it has been a really really long time since I posted last. Probably the longest stretch I think I've gone. A lot has happened in these past months since July. There's more to talk about than can really be talked about but a short run down, hey?

I graduated grad school and it ended with a flurry of the best kind. My thesis got written about in The Register along with the site getting a ton of traffic to it right before presenting my thesis. It came at just the right time and wrapped everything up very nicely. I have yet to return to working on it and processing and reading through and archiving all the posts in the blogosphere but in time hopefully I can. There's just so much information to trawl through it will take time. Plus I still have a few videos to finish. The web site though got included in the group show OURS: Democracy in the Age of Branding with some pretty lofty names and really is an honor to be included.

Post grad school left me scrambling looking for work. With money dwindling to the point of forgoing the purchase of things like the monthly unlimited Metro card and instead either walking 2 miles at times to go do things or just buying single rides when I had to get somewhere I couldn't walk to. Also, it meant a lot of staying home. Stress was high and it was not the best time for sure. At the end of August when my money was about to run out I got an offer to be the Digital Systems Specialist at CalArts. I took the position and had to pack up everything in 10 days to move back to LA. Audrey would also pack up but leave a few days after me and head to Chicago for a month.

Within hours after landing in LA things went pear shape and was left bouncing from couch to couch or spare bed with the help of some of my good friends. Thanks.

First things first was getting a car and apartment. I was able to get myself a little black hatchback stick shift Toyota Yaris. Nothing like my old departed friend the AW11 SC but a small fuel efficient and smart car for now. I have had a little fun with it not too much yet though. However, last night to my amazement I beat an Acura RSX off the line. I guess I had the better reaction time or better shifting skills. I don't have a proper picture of the Yaris yet but will hopefully take some soon. Over a month in I finally found an apartment after going to crappy apartment after crappy apartment. It was depressing for sure but the apartment I found I'd like to think is quite nice. Situated in the Hollywood/Los Feliz/Silverlake area it has quite a few nice things, especially a 24hour Vons just a block away. Nice to be able to walk to the market. More proper and updated pictures to come.

Work at CalArts required a fast transition as I was coming in literally the week before the kids came back. However, I quickly fell into the rhythm of things and began implementing new things and trying to standardize things. Teaching has been the best part especially the one independent study I had. I've begun to play with some new things since starting, such as Linux and have been having a steady stream of potential thoughts for new projects.

Speaking of projects, during this transition I was also involved in a number of group shows with new or old work. Death, Destruction, and the Weather Coming Up Next was in the Printed Matter NY Art Book Fair. I took part in the ExchageRate: 2008 performance exchange. Audrey came to LA to work with Elana Mann on the project and spend some time with me of course. Audrey and Elana aka Chan and Mann MC'd the event on probably the most historic election day since Kennedy, definitely for my generation. I performed a political speech written by Jason Kunke and he performed a script of mine created from the sound bytes from Grand Theft: Auto San Andreas. He did an awesome job and hopefully I'll sift through the images soon and post some. Lastly I had my quote unquote first Solo Show along with some 100 other artists all at the same time and at the same place, Sea & Space, in Echo Park. My piece Dialogues in Command & Conquer Generals: Unit 30 was installed side by side with Audrey's, Mrs. X. Which is on loan from her while she's away in Chicago/Miami/France.

One of the most eventful and crazed fall's in recent history for me. It has been intense to say the least. To think that this is when I'm typically not that productive (still don't feel that productive but how can I really rationalize that after writing all this?)(yeah didn't think so). Anyways, it has been good and bad being back in LA and I definitely miss NYC just as I missed LA when I was there. I need to visit soon I hope. Maybe to actually see the show I'm in at Parson's. I hope I get to see it.

I am slowly beginning to learn a bit of Max MSP, ewwww I got MSP on my hands. Naw, seriously it maybe the tool needed for this very specific project I want to do that deals with our wonderful economic financialpoclypse. Makes being in eduction kind of the safe/smart position, who would have thought? I am getting sleepy so I'm going to end this post. I look forward to the New Year and hopefully it will bring some much needed stability and sanity but more importantly personal growth. I'm going to try and take care of myself a bit better, I realize I need to. More updates hopefully soon. Take care all.

The LEGO Vault

My sister sent me a news article from Gizmodo that made me want to cry tonight. It was an article on the LEGO vault that contains all the LEGO sets ever created. Just amazing. Just seeing the video which only highlighted a few sets made me get emotional. I can't even imagine how it would seeing that in person, overwhelming. Saw a few of my sets that are in storage right now on the video, like the Airport Shuttle.



Also, seeing probably the set that I wanted the most ever but never got, the Black Sea Barracuda.



Anyways, read the article on Gizmodo and watch the video. One day I will reassemble my LEGO collection, one day.

Three Times The Charm

It would have been if Need For Speed Carbon was a better game. It's so odd it became like a casual game it was so easy once you got the hang of it. But not a bad game necessarily and it had some good music, sometimes. Anyways, I have now beat the game with all three sides: exotic, muscle, and tuner. Therefore I have now played the game three times from beginning to end and have unlocked everything save for the online unlocks. Don't know what I'm going to do now to get my racing fix since Colin McRae still isn't working since I got the Mac Pro (very very very sad about that). Anyways I figure I would celebrate the occasion with posting the three highest tier cars I used.


My blue Nissan GTR R34 from my first time through the game under the tuner class.


Here's the good ole' red Ford GT from when I played the muscle class, very fun car with very nice engine sound.


Lastly we have my matte black Porsche Carrera GT which is the best sounding and fastest car of the whole bunch.

Times Square Fails

Today Audrey and I along with two of her friends went to see WALL-E down at the Regal 13 in the Times Square area. We got there a bit early and audrey spotted this sign with a dialog box on it and I was like no way. Apparently someone's massive LED display down in the Times Square area has a warning for it's owner. That being that the virus definitions are 30 days old and out of date and they have been updated. Of course letting the owner know this interrupted whatever ad or ads running on this display. Even though the dialog box really only notifies you of this and does nothing else other than the option for this box never to come up again. Yeah, that might be a useful thing to check in this case. But no, it's after 5 and the work day is over. It'll be like that til tomorrow morning and people will be pissed.

A video of the display at 42nd and 8th Ave.


A few stills as well for good measure, wish I didn't just have my camera phone on me to get this.











On a separate note WALL-E was pretty great. Really enjoyed it. But really pretty scary, not quite Fallout level scary but scary none the less. Especially with the Buy Large corporation. I was though really impressed with the lighting in WALL-E, down to the little particulates in the air on earth, probably the best I've seen done yet.

In Response to the LA Times Article "Amid rising gas prices, more in L.A. turning to commuter rail"

I grew up and lived in LA for most of my life, however grad school took me out to NYC. Which in a lot of ways have given me a certain amount of perspective on how vastly different the cities operate and the effects of public transit.

In NYC you have a very small land area that is extremely dense population wise. LA is as we know spread out and diffuse and sprawling with many different neighborhoods and cities that are encompassed by LA county and neighboring counties. Therefore you end up with two major problems with mass transit, the first being decentralization of the population that needs to be serviced which often requires traversing longer distances than cities with large mass transit systems. The second problem is how to effectively plan and build transit lines to service all these areas effectively and equally. NYC may not have such a large issue with population decentralization but they definitely still deal heavily with the issue of effective planning and location of transit lines. They essentially have done very little to address the push of people having to leave Manhattan due to rent prices, to the outer boroughs. They have essentially done nothing or very little to address this problem which makes commuting a nightmare for a large amount of people with commutes taking as long as or worse than LA gridlock. This is because the system is completely Manhattan centric and does not effectively allow for transportation between the boroughs coupled with less service.

I see this same problem for when I used to ride the Metrolink in LA. The time between trains was ridiculous, miss one train (oh and they used to leave early often times) and your waiting 20-40 minutes. There is no margin for error. At least most of the time in NYC they run enough trains to actually make it feasible to catch the next one. However, LA may fall into the same trap as NYC with becoming downtown centric or limiting service only to specific select areas and completely disenfranchising areas. However can this be avoided with the current structure of LA?

Another aspect is once you get off the train, how fast or how hard is it to get to your destination. When I was taking the Metrolink, my destination was anywhere from 20-30 minutes by bus from the train stop versus a 5-minute car ride. This is yet another deterrent and problem with the train system that being the low number of stations along the lines and infrequent and slow bus service to pick up where the trains leave off.

Lastly in regards to fare prices, I saw the rate hiked during the course of my riding the Metrolink without absolutely any change in service at all save for the impact it was having on my wallet. Yes there is needed more funding needed but if it is not spent to improve the overall infrastructure it will ultimately be a band aid over a wound that needs surgery stat. There needs to be broad and coordinated restructuring and re-evaluation of the transit systems of LA. Those are my thoughts.

You can read the original article here at the LA Times

Pitching Terrorist Attacks

http://view.break.com/509422 - Watch more free videos

Personally the attack they pitched was a bit boring and generic, not like we haven't seen that in a hollywood movie before. I like the end part about having an appointment with Hezbollah. Oi. Anyways, Maybe I'll get some graduation pictures up here soonish? Hopefully.