A Conversation At Work:
C0-Worker: You should have been a comedian. You missed your calling.
Me: Mm. I definitely missed something.
*********
This is what my day was like on Thursday:
10-11: Meeting
11-12: Meeting
1-2: Meeting
2-3: Meeting (Actually, I was triple-booked)
3-5: Meeting
5-5:30: Meeting
With all of these meetings, how am I supposed to get anything done? And how am I going to juggle the demands of my career when I'm a recent widower trying to raise my three daughters, with the help of my brother-in-law, the bad boy rocker, and my best friend, the zany stand-up comic?
Oh, wait. That last bit was the premise of Full House, and bears no relation to my life.
Still, the point about too many meetings remains valid.
*********
It only took two and a half years or so, but I've finally finished bagging and boarding all of my comics. The next step is getting them all in order and entering them into my database, but when it's all over, if someone asks me, "What have you accomplished in life?" I'll have somethig I can point to and say "This."
And yes, that really is as sad as it sounds.
*********
Now It Can (Probably) Be Told Department:
When I bought my condo back in early 2006 there was a knock on my door sometime within the first day or two of my moving in.
It was a representative from Nielsen Media (the people who, among other things, do TV ratings) who informed me that for the last few months or so he'd been driving by my place waiting to see if anyone had moved in yet.
Turns out that the previous tenants had been a Nielsen Household, and he explained that Nielsen Households are selected by address and are typically selected for a period of about two years. The previous tenants had been a Nielsen Household for about six months, which meant that, now that I had moved in, it was my turn to be a Nielsen Household for the balance of the two years.
So from that point until I moved, I had a hand in determining what people watch.
I'll probably write more about my experience as a Nielsen Household some other time, but it just occurred to me that it's been about two years since I moved, and "up to two years" was the period during which I was not legally permitted to reveal to strangers that I had been a Nielsen Household. So now that I can, I'm spilling the beans.
*********
On my way in to work this morning (I had meetings from 9-10, 10-11, 12-1, and 1-2) I was listening to the Suicidal Tendencies album Lights...Camera...Revolution, and got several lines from some of the songs stuck in my head. It had been my intention to greet Scott, via IM, with the line "Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, fuck you Jack I be a lunatic," but circumstances (and a faulty memory) prevented that. However, when I had a spare moment and visited Comics Should Be Good! I read an article that started off with another line from a song on that album (albeit with the very last part omitted): "And if I offended you, oh I'm sorry but maybe you need to be offended, but here's my apology and one more thing: fuck you." There was a footnote attached to that quote, which was actually another line from the song I was going to quote at Scott: "I don't need no PhD to be a doctor of fuckin' misery."
There's no point to that anecdote, of course, other than to draw attention to a weird - and profanity-laden - coincidence.
*********
This Is Why You're Fat.
Showing posts with label accomplishments. Show all posts
Showing posts with label accomplishments. Show all posts
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Sunday, August 03, 2008
Stuck In A 2D World
I didn’t accomplish much of anything yesterday. I did some sketches for an idea I had, but nothing much came of it, other than some really crappy sketches, each one worse than the last, annd each one bearing little resemblance to the last; consistency: I don’t has it.
Well, not in a good way, at least.
Today I’ve been a bit more productive, but only on the totally pragmatic, non-creative side of things.
I went out into the world and gassed up, then did some grocery shopping. Now I’m doing the laundry.
So yeah, it’s not some artistic masterpiece or the great American novel, but it’s important stuff that needs to get done, and, more importantly, it’s important stuff that I can actually accomplish.
Oh, one thing I did yesterday was finally get around to signing up with Facebook.
There’s no real reason for me to do so – I’ll probably just ignore it the way I do MySpace – but I figured I might as well, and I’ve been meaning to do it for a while.
Really the only reason I thought I should was so that I could have another spot on the Web to post a link to Heroic Portraits, not that doing so on MySpace has done me any good.
Anyway, if you’re on Facebook, you can look me up to add me as one of your friends. I sent out requests to a few people that I know are on it, but beyond that I haven’t made any effort to increase my number of friends (so far my niece Jourdan is my only friend).
But like I said, I’ll most likely just ignore the thing and will only check it when I see that some spammer has asked to be my friend or if someone leaves a comment or something, but I won’t be on there every day pimping my page or sending out various virtual whatnots to people or anything like that.
Social networks aren’t really that compelling to people who are anti-social.
Speaking of Heroic Portraits and my half-assed efforts to promote it, yesterday I ordered some business cards for it. I’m sure that will generate me all kinds of business.
There are a lot of things I would like to do with Heroic Portraits, but I’m not really able to because I lack the money, ambition, and skills to do them, and ultimately, I’m not sure my efforts would be worthwhile. At this point – especially if you consider the time invested into it – I’m well into the negative numbers as far as money goes. The profit from my one sale has been offset by the costs of hosting and printing.
So I can’t help but wonder which is the better approach: spending more time and money on it, or spending less?
Anyway, now that I mention the business cards, I guess I accomplished a little bit more yesterday than I thought, at least for some broadly-defined value of “accomplished.”
Every so often I get it into my head that I should do more stuff with 3D modeling software, which is to say that I get it into my head that I should do something with 3D modeling software.
Off and on over the years I’ve messed around with a program called Poser, which lets you render and pose 3D figures of humans and various animals.
Given that I don’t have anyone to model for me, I’m generally forced to rely on reference images that I can find online (or conjure in my head) when I draw, which is sort of limiting, in that if I have a particular pose in mind, I have to try to find a reference image of someone in that particular position and hope that if I do find an image of someone suitably posed, she (this is, after all, me that we’re talking about; it’s pretty much always going to be a “she”) has the body type that I’m looking for, and that there isn’t a bunch of distracting crap, like weird props, a puppy – there are far too many pictures of hot celebrities holding puppies – or some attempt at “artistry” by the photographer that involves using grainy, black and white photography and covering the model with some kind of dirt.
(This is, by the way, a common tactic used by photographers for Playboy. If a famous actress or model poses for Playboy, it’s almost guaranteed that the pictures will involve her being covered from head to toe in mud, and they’ll appear to have been taken using a Civil War-era camera.)
So, yeah, it would be very cool if I could generate my own fully-poseable 3D models.
In any case, yesterday I found a free human modeling program that I decided to try out, hoping that it would be easier to use and be an improvement over Poser.
No dice.
The biggest problem I’ve had with 3D apps is that the interface is appalling and as counter-intuitive as possible. For example, you might think, “Okay, if I click onto her hand and drag it up, it should raise her arm,” but you find that doing this somehow pushes the figure completely off “camera,” and there’s no way to find where it went or to bring it back.
The other problem comes up after you manage to figure out what the various tools in the interface actually do (as opposed to what you think they ought to do), the results are usually grotesque, as the program doesn’t seem to have any sort of built-in collision detection. So, for example, if you pose a figure of a woman so that she’s standing with her hands at her sides, there’s a good chance that her arms will have merged with her ribcage, and her fingers are buried into her thighs. Oh, and if you try bending her knee and rotating it slightly, the skin will twist around like the she’s gotten the world’s most severe Indian Burn.
Now, clearly there are ways around these limitations – otherwise CGI characters in movies would look like they have some mutant form of arthritis and their skin is melting – but I don’t know what they are, and my level of frustration skyrockets the second I try to lift a figure’s arm slightly and it ends up bent all the way over to the other side and sticking through its head and so it becomes difficult to try to force myself to learn, and the solution is never immediately, or even eventually, apparent.
Anyway, this new program I tried doesn’t seem to be any easier to use or provide substantially better results than anything else I’ve tried.
So I guess I’ll be sticking to using reference photos for the foreseeable future.
Well, not in a good way, at least.
Today I’ve been a bit more productive, but only on the totally pragmatic, non-creative side of things.
I went out into the world and gassed up, then did some grocery shopping. Now I’m doing the laundry.
So yeah, it’s not some artistic masterpiece or the great American novel, but it’s important stuff that needs to get done, and, more importantly, it’s important stuff that I can actually accomplish.
Oh, one thing I did yesterday was finally get around to signing up with Facebook.
There’s no real reason for me to do so – I’ll probably just ignore it the way I do MySpace – but I figured I might as well, and I’ve been meaning to do it for a while.
Really the only reason I thought I should was so that I could have another spot on the Web to post a link to Heroic Portraits, not that doing so on MySpace has done me any good.
Anyway, if you’re on Facebook, you can look me up to add me as one of your friends. I sent out requests to a few people that I know are on it, but beyond that I haven’t made any effort to increase my number of friends (so far my niece Jourdan is my only friend).
But like I said, I’ll most likely just ignore the thing and will only check it when I see that some spammer has asked to be my friend or if someone leaves a comment or something, but I won’t be on there every day pimping my page or sending out various virtual whatnots to people or anything like that.
Social networks aren’t really that compelling to people who are anti-social.
Speaking of Heroic Portraits and my half-assed efforts to promote it, yesterday I ordered some business cards for it. I’m sure that will generate me all kinds of business.
There are a lot of things I would like to do with Heroic Portraits, but I’m not really able to because I lack the money, ambition, and skills to do them, and ultimately, I’m not sure my efforts would be worthwhile. At this point – especially if you consider the time invested into it – I’m well into the negative numbers as far as money goes. The profit from my one sale has been offset by the costs of hosting and printing.
So I can’t help but wonder which is the better approach: spending more time and money on it, or spending less?
Anyway, now that I mention the business cards, I guess I accomplished a little bit more yesterday than I thought, at least for some broadly-defined value of “accomplished.”
Every so often I get it into my head that I should do more stuff with 3D modeling software, which is to say that I get it into my head that I should do something with 3D modeling software.
Off and on over the years I’ve messed around with a program called Poser, which lets you render and pose 3D figures of humans and various animals.
Given that I don’t have anyone to model for me, I’m generally forced to rely on reference images that I can find online (or conjure in my head) when I draw, which is sort of limiting, in that if I have a particular pose in mind, I have to try to find a reference image of someone in that particular position and hope that if I do find an image of someone suitably posed, she (this is, after all, me that we’re talking about; it’s pretty much always going to be a “she”) has the body type that I’m looking for, and that there isn’t a bunch of distracting crap, like weird props, a puppy – there are far too many pictures of hot celebrities holding puppies – or some attempt at “artistry” by the photographer that involves using grainy, black and white photography and covering the model with some kind of dirt.
(This is, by the way, a common tactic used by photographers for Playboy. If a famous actress or model poses for Playboy, it’s almost guaranteed that the pictures will involve her being covered from head to toe in mud, and they’ll appear to have been taken using a Civil War-era camera.)
So, yeah, it would be very cool if I could generate my own fully-poseable 3D models.
In any case, yesterday I found a free human modeling program that I decided to try out, hoping that it would be easier to use and be an improvement over Poser.
No dice.
The biggest problem I’ve had with 3D apps is that the interface is appalling and as counter-intuitive as possible. For example, you might think, “Okay, if I click onto her hand and drag it up, it should raise her arm,” but you find that doing this somehow pushes the figure completely off “camera,” and there’s no way to find where it went or to bring it back.
The other problem comes up after you manage to figure out what the various tools in the interface actually do (as opposed to what you think they ought to do), the results are usually grotesque, as the program doesn’t seem to have any sort of built-in collision detection. So, for example, if you pose a figure of a woman so that she’s standing with her hands at her sides, there’s a good chance that her arms will have merged with her ribcage, and her fingers are buried into her thighs. Oh, and if you try bending her knee and rotating it slightly, the skin will twist around like the she’s gotten the world’s most severe Indian Burn.
Now, clearly there are ways around these limitations – otherwise CGI characters in movies would look like they have some mutant form of arthritis and their skin is melting – but I don’t know what they are, and my level of frustration skyrockets the second I try to lift a figure’s arm slightly and it ends up bent all the way over to the other side and sticking through its head and so it becomes difficult to try to force myself to learn, and the solution is never immediately, or even eventually, apparent.
Anyway, this new program I tried doesn’t seem to be any easier to use or provide substantially better results than anything else I’ve tried.
So I guess I’ll be sticking to using reference photos for the foreseeable future.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
So I Lied
I realized that I lied yesterday, as I had actually accomplished rather more than what I laid claim to, in that I also bought a new hamper:
It has a divider, so I'm freed up from having to separate darks and lights after the fact, making me, by my estimation*, 133.4% more efficient when it comes to doing the laundry.
In any case, my sincerest apologies for not sharing the whole truth with you yesterday, and I hope that you can find it in your hearts to forgive me.
*Math was never my strongest subject.
It has a divider, so I'm freed up from having to separate darks and lights after the fact, making me, by my estimation*, 133.4% more efficient when it comes to doing the laundry.
In any case, my sincerest apologies for not sharing the whole truth with you yesterday, and I hope that you can find it in your hearts to forgive me.
*Math was never my strongest subject.
Friday, September 21, 2007
Call Me Mr. Junior Achiever
So I managed to accomplish a lot (for me) today.
A list of my accomplishments:
Contacted Verizon to establish FiOS, phone, and FiOS TV service.
Contacted the power company to make the account switch.
Hired a moving company.
Canceled my gas service.
Updated my address with the DMV.
Ate lunch.
Bought ice cream.
I know it’s not much, and the lunch/ice cream thing are just padding (delicious padding), but even so, it’s more than I would normally accomplish in a day.
The Verizon thing was a bit of a hassle. Because the current service is not connected it was difficult to get my order placed, so the lady I talked to said she would keep trying and get back to me once she got it entered, which she did.
Of course, she informed me that the soonest it could get hooked up is currently October 4th (My response? “Holy crap!”), which wouldn’t work for me, as I’ll be working that day, so that pushed it to October 8th.
Presumably once the disconnect order is completed that should move things much closer.
I’m hoping that at the very least the FiOS Internet will still be working when I move in up to the date of disconnect (whenever that is).
I can get by without the TV, as I can get all of the networks with an antenna, and I have my cell, but no Internet? Without phone service, I wouldn’t even be able to do dial-up.
The horror!
Of course, I could just leave this crappy Internet service connected to the end of the month and bring my laptop over to download stuff and check mail and blog and whatnot, which would only leave me with 8 days (at worst) without service. I guess I could manage, though I shudder to think what the withdrawals will be like…
The first person I talked to at Verizon was very helpful and explained the various packages and whatnot, but once we got to my address she had to transfer me, as she was for the Florida market, so I had to be transferred to the Virginia market.
I only mention this because once I got to the Virginia person I was a bit bummed, as the Florida version of the packet was slightly cheaper and offered 20 Mbps service as opposed to the 15 I’ll be getting here.
Oh well.
After eating lunch at Ruby Tuesday I swung by Staples to check out their desk selection and actually found one that would be perfect. However, there was no price, they didn’t appear to have any in stock anywhere, the whole area seemed like it was sort of a dumping ground, and there didn’t appear to be any helpful employees wandering around the store, so I left, figuring I’d go online to see if I could find it.
Naturally I haven’t been able to find it, or even anything close.
I may try going back and getting someone’s attention and asking if it’s actually available and for how much.
In any case, I think that’ll do it for this entry.
A list of my accomplishments:
Contacted Verizon to establish FiOS, phone, and FiOS TV service.
Contacted the power company to make the account switch.
Hired a moving company.
Canceled my gas service.
Updated my address with the DMV.
Ate lunch.
Bought ice cream.
I know it’s not much, and the lunch/ice cream thing are just padding (delicious padding), but even so, it’s more than I would normally accomplish in a day.
The Verizon thing was a bit of a hassle. Because the current service is not connected it was difficult to get my order placed, so the lady I talked to said she would keep trying and get back to me once she got it entered, which she did.
Of course, she informed me that the soonest it could get hooked up is currently October 4th (My response? “Holy crap!”), which wouldn’t work for me, as I’ll be working that day, so that pushed it to October 8th.
Presumably once the disconnect order is completed that should move things much closer.
I’m hoping that at the very least the FiOS Internet will still be working when I move in up to the date of disconnect (whenever that is).
I can get by without the TV, as I can get all of the networks with an antenna, and I have my cell, but no Internet? Without phone service, I wouldn’t even be able to do dial-up.
The horror!
Of course, I could just leave this crappy Internet service connected to the end of the month and bring my laptop over to download stuff and check mail and blog and whatnot, which would only leave me with 8 days (at worst) without service. I guess I could manage, though I shudder to think what the withdrawals will be like…
The first person I talked to at Verizon was very helpful and explained the various packages and whatnot, but once we got to my address she had to transfer me, as she was for the Florida market, so I had to be transferred to the Virginia market.
I only mention this because once I got to the Virginia person I was a bit bummed, as the Florida version of the packet was slightly cheaper and offered 20 Mbps service as opposed to the 15 I’ll be getting here.
Oh well.
After eating lunch at Ruby Tuesday I swung by Staples to check out their desk selection and actually found one that would be perfect. However, there was no price, they didn’t appear to have any in stock anywhere, the whole area seemed like it was sort of a dumping ground, and there didn’t appear to be any helpful employees wandering around the store, so I left, figuring I’d go online to see if I could find it.
Naturally I haven’t been able to find it, or even anything close.
I may try going back and getting someone’s attention and asking if it’s actually available and for how much.
In any case, I think that’ll do it for this entry.
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