Hello, Lovine.com

Kat and I are big fans of analog. We've always had a thing for vintage and classics, warm saturated tones and colors and what not. This is a print from her Diana F+ Lomo that's fitted with Fuji Instamax film (basically: polaroid) that makes instant prints. Pretty dope, but took her awhile to get a framing technique together (which is still far from perfect). We have dozens of prints in various states of failure, many pitch black, total white, or of our friends with no heads. So basically, its pretty accurate and depicts real life very well.

Meanwhile I'm holding a box contraption that blocks out light of a Kodak Duaflex III, which is a medium format camera. I point my camera through the viewfinder to come up with a picture of, well, a picture of what a person sees when looking through the viewfinder (TTV). It's a pretty big square piece of glass, and really cool looking through it. It's amazing how the image can pop out - it's basically my own portable camera obscura.

We've all been conditioned to think that perfect is always better, that you want clean, pure, expensive, unadulterated. Yet the warm hiss and pop of vinyl, the saturated tones of a lomo print, the struggle of a 79 VW bus traversing a grade, these embody for me the beauty and soul of art. It's more fun making mistakes, it's a lot more beautiful, than being perfect.

So much has happened that I wanted to write about, but I'll probably just back-date the posts to coincide with what I wanted to write. I couldn't update since I moved out of Blogger and moved to my own install of WordPress until all the dust hath settled. The biggest hurdles were porting the old comments over from Haloscan and choosing a new theme to go with it. Well, there's still some loose ends that I need to fix and fortunately there is always a late night awaiting me at the end of every day. Long days, can quickly turn into very, very late nights.

Keep steadfast in the battles you choose to fight. Think about the words you choose to say, more so on the actions you choose to take. Make up your mind, but realise that all that glitters is not gold, that trying to clear the smoke can be a conduit for a firestorm. Decide who'll be the fool by listening, and then you'll understand. What the heart speaks, and the mind understands, are sometimes different languages across changing tides of the water. Sometimes, the prize has already been won even before the games have started. Bring it all back down, and take it all out. This is all your one shot at life. Make it count - it's the least the each of us can do.

Our pride is a cross that we choose to carry. The only thing that we own, are our relationships with each other. And the only thing that other bitchez and douche bags in the world cannot take away from you, is your happiness.

Depressed when I find awesome bands and found out they were at Coachella and totally missed them. Like the Black Keys.

I'm still debating about the naked wizard that got tazed though. That must've been for the books. Just like that time we seriously missed winning Carpoolchella by literally 6 seconds.

EDIT: Just researched, and they were playing the same time when we were shakin' our asses to Buraka Som Sistema. Life ain't so bad. Time to go to bed. Yikes.

Starting to heat up the credit card. Just reserved an f/1.2L lens I'm planning to use on a wedding in a few weeks, and bought a new flyscreen on a whim for the Vespa in anticipation of a big trip.

So many things I want to get done, but there's never enough time in the world to do anything that you actually like doing. Maybe that's what makes it all the more tempting to achieve. Trying to reach the horizon never ends, even if you're already there.

If I could replace my stash of Red Bull with 32oz. Acai shakes from Robek's Juice, I'd be a healthier man with many more years to live. Until that day, I'll have to crash and burn through each day like nobody's business. Watch out!

In the meantime, can someone get me a Nixie clock for my birthday next month?

Please?

Two artists on top of my list when we get a record player for the house: Nick Drake and Grand Funk Railroad. Beautiful, in their own way. Just like the rest of us.

My favorite part after getting lost in the noise, is the longing for silence.

You are complete, when you have nothing.

Was totally smitten by the Maker Faire festival, which Kat and I attended this afternoon in San Mateo. It's literally a Disneyland for adults (AND for kids), without the sappy characters and blatant capitalism that makes you want to drop acid and/or kill yourself (with apologies to Disneyland season pass holders, just exercising my first amendment rights). Most of the day we were gawking at all the stuff people created - from kinetic doo-dads, giant metal crab robots, and other random crap like watching ourselves in 3D being broadcast on a projector. Kat is a very petite girl, and I had to catch myself from squeezing her arm and pulling it off in excitement.

By and far, my favorite parts were the Camera Obscura installation, and metal sculptures of polyhedra from Vladimir Bulatov. I've seen different iterations of a camera obscura before (of the pinhole variety), but this one totally blew my mind. I have never, in my life, seen an image reproduced in super high def, better than your dumb 1080p HD crap, and I will even say, better than what real life looks like. An image reproduced on a round piece of wood painted white, mind you. Very exciting. I've always had a fascination with polyhedra (hello dodecahedrons), and squealed loudly like a schoolgirl when I saw the Bulatov sculptures. I'll try to post pictures tomorrow, along with overdue shenanigans from NY and DC.

Also, congratulations to Dan Portman for finishing law school and for being one of my favorite public defenders. Had an awesome (albeit too short) time meeting the rest of his family, and had to jet to the other side of the city to catch the showing of Up with the Bassholes. That movie, was really good. Point!

Earning money - one hard worked dollar at a time.

It's 3:25am and I'm still in the nerdery. Found this cool website EasyVMX! that creates blank VMWare images for you to play with. Now, all of this wouldn't have been necessary if my old printer is supported under Vista. Unfortunately, I am being forced to run a VMWare image running XP just to be able to print crap out. It seems wasteful to junk a perfectly good printer (HP Photosmart 1115) because a purportedly new and better OS (i.e. Vistacrap) does NOT support it. At. All. Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot.

Insanity.

Tomorrow is never an option, because today has already been too late.

The room is in an eternal state of disorder. Tidbits and knick-knacks, strewn across all flat level surfaces. Boxes of half-finished projects (2 year old sun-jars, 3 year old floating picture frames), an ever growing to-do list, an anxious fur-ball waiting for a walk. I need some sort of personal time-and-priority management program, to start trimming some of the habitual junk (i.e. surfing the intarwebz) that's invading the precious waking minutes of the day. Such an easy excuse to blame the existence of a tomorrow, to put it off when your state of mind is a bit more willing to bend under pressure. Not when you're too busy doing absolutely nothing.

Behind all the signals, lie white noise. You'll miss the point, if you listen too hard. You'll forget the music, if you can't listen at all.

"Today, I turn five. And tomorrow is always another adventure that life brings, always I wonder what it shall bring. To chilly camping in Yosemite, a boorish office day, or a leisure trip to the park. The best part really, is when my Mama Kat comes home from an airport called Burbank. Happy Birthday to me, the little furball with a black birthmark (on my balls). So come and visit me, ya'll."

Nick, you're the bestest friend anyone could ever ask for. Even if you have accidents and are a needy little bastard, I will love you for only another 5 years unless you start growing nicer hair that I don't need to brush every frikkin' day, prissy boy. Gosh.

I'm online from the Bolt Bus, en route from NY to DC. It's 7:50am, and I'm running on a few hours of sleep with a barely manageable hangover. Yet, here I am, writing nonsense on this thing called the intarwebz while I remotely print payroll reports for the office. So, this must be the future. Pretty cool, but I must say, it's weird being online on the road - the jitters make me dizzy, and I can hear my mom in the back of my head saying that it's bad to read in a car, it'll ruin my eyesight. Maybe if I had another beer, it could numb the pain a bit better.

New York is a blast. To be honest, Kat and I were barely in the city for 48 hours but I am pretty certain we've milked it for what it's worth. A new quote came about this morning as we trudged our way out of Gus's apartment: "Party like a rock star, wake up like.. shit."