I saw no banjo. I want my money back.

Somethings you find are just so cool that you must post them. From Wikipedia: "Animusic is an American company specializing in the 3D visualization of MIDI-based music." They sell DVDs full of the stuff, and there could hardly be a cooler concept. The rendering is so realistic that I've seen emails touting one of Animusic's videos as proof of a real instrument made from farm machinery parts. I saw this one today and was so enchanted by both the (fantastically beautiful) music itself and the meticulous movements of the string-pickers and fingerers that it had to be shared.

Sometimes when you expect something to happen, but do not expect that something to happen FOUR TIMES you make faces like this. My readers are aware that I got a new computer, one of the perks of which is that I can take ridiculous pictures of myself without giving the photo developer dudes a hearty laugh while I'm at it.



Ian and I had a good time trying out all the features. I feel as if he and I are Nancy Drew and a Hardy Boy discovering some horrifying entity here.



I've often said that Ian doesn't understand film; he makes funny faces just as I'm going to take a picture with my film camera, a behavior I have always attributed to ignoring the fact that I can't instantly delete photos. Well, Ian, I have wronged you with such accusations. It turns out that you make funny faces in otherwise nice photos ANYWAY. I still hate you for it, though. See, you flaunt the fact that you can control such things. I, on the other hand, lack the ability to CHOOSE to mess up a photo; I just do it.

However, I think that you are adorable anyhow. Especially in this one:



Randi was amused by the "emo MySpace" quality of some of my self-portraits, so she decided to make this one, which I forced her to set as her Facebook photo:



The prize for the best use of iSight, though, undoubtedly goes to Ian, who made this and didn't even bother to show me so that I could hang it up like a proud girlfriend on my refrigerator (ahem, blog).

Just call me De Daubier-Smith

Come to find out, one of the glorious perks of defiling my computer with - excuse me, running - Windows is having the indispensable program Microsoft Paint, a super-helpful widget that lets you create crappy, pixelated art like a pro. The only thing I'm actually somewhat decent at drawing is mountains, so the subject of this nature scene/ still life seemed like a natural choice. Look to see my first solo show up at the Met next week:



And, as all three of my readers know, I've been ever-so-gleeful about the other new gadget, an iPod Touch. Music! Videos! Pictures! But wait, there's more! Internet! Note-taking! Internet some more! OMGBBQROFLLOLFEMA! It's so magical.

Say uncle.

I track my uncle’s wanderings into the fluorescent neighborhood diners, through the alleys carpeted with that timeless puke-and-brown-glass-shard ambiance, and down the artfully crimped sidewalks of this city, carefully inspecting everything; they all beckon to me, even while they raise the hair on my neck and give me the distinct feeling that I need to wash my hands a few times before I wipe the cold, greasy sweat from my brow.

Along the way, I knock on every speakeasy door. It’s easy to get in. Sometimes all it takes is the proper knock – a Google search with just the right combination of code words, a click on a fuchsia hyperlink, and I’m in. Other times, they’ll open the little sliding door and question me: Email address? Name? Zip code? Word hidden in the image above? If they interrogate me, I slip them what they want, but only just. I never tell them my first name; I always give an email I don’t check. It satisfies them, though, and I duck through their portal into a whole new world wide web.

When my eyes adjust to the harsh black backgrounds, I must nod to the undeniable, vulgar power of these rough havens. I blink, and in a flash of the screen, the safe, tame internet I love, with its sleek webpages, site maps, calm sans serifs, and working search functions, is swept into oblivion by flashing animated GIFs, crawling text, and blinking headlines screaming things about cosmic sperm, solar-powered adventures, and declassified reports.

I stumble, drunk on puce promises and dizzy with swirling conspiracies, from one end-times coven to the next – lost here in discussion threads, gazing now at the doctored photos of tragedies – hoping to find some trace of him. Someday a click will bring me to a little scrap my uncle has left behind. It will be chartreuse, with strangely capitalized phrases – “Honest Eyes,” “No Nudity or Obscenity,” “a Purple Penis” – and I will suddenly see, will abruptly understand some esoteric truth of the Universe that will explain, pardon, condone somehow his drifting soul.

Eternal Ethernet.

I am finding myself unable, through some fluke of Carroll's internet system, to access certain websites that essentially rule my life- Hotmail, Wikipedia, various webcomics and blogs. I think that maybe it is a sign from God that I should go study for my Social Psychology test that transpires in one hour (less, actually) or maybe read the Talmud for Honors. Yeah, I should go do that. Hmm.

Ironically, I am (obviously) able to load Blogger, so my homework avoidance is prolonged. God is such a funny, funny tempter. Okay, okay, I'm going now. Damn guilt.


UPDATE: Internet is working fully again and I can once again go on ignoring the fact that I have too much to do.