winds of change

March 04, 2004 by Eric Richardson

The pastels look lasted November through February, but it was time for a change. The image is from this picture. To answer the obvious questions, yes, that's me, and yes, I did mean to do that. You'll notice that my form is quite good.

This look, for no apparent reason, is titled style.

modern technology

March 04, 2004 by Eric Richardson

Walking to Carl's, I noticed two facilities people looking at a TV monitor. I thought that was kind of odd; while there's always filming going on at USC, usually it's not the maintenance people doing it. Looking closer, though, they were using a tool called a SeeSnake. Aside from the monitor, they also had a spool of cable, one end of which was stuck down into a presumably clogged drainage pipe. That end contained a camera and a light, and they were using it to scope out the source of the blockage. That's cool stuff. I want one.

ah the sun

March 04, 2004 by Eric Richardson

It's been a long time since it was nice outside... Finally yesterday and today have brought some sunshine and nice temps. I'm sitting here in the shadow of Annenberg (to prevent glare on the laptop), enjoying the smell of outdoors. I'm listening to Martina Topley Bird's Quixotic, which I'm addicted to right now.

I recently picked up a box of Penguin Reds, and I think I'm getting re-addicted to those too. Way back when (over five years ago now? Crazy) I was involved in a little controversy over these mints. They are good, especially the cinnamons.

Now it's off to Carl's Jr. for my regular five piece chicken strips meal with honey mustard and a bottle of coke. USC's a Pepsi campus, and the Carl's on campus recently switched to Pepsi products for their fountain drinks, but they still carry bottles of Coke products that they'll give you for a little bit more. I can't stand Pepsi, or Pepsi products (Mountain Dew excepted, but I will say that it's not that great as a fountain drink).

Speaking of things I don't like: I don't like Taco Bell. I love Del Taco, though, and I thought it was really funny that Jack Black and Wil Farrell used Del Taco in their song during the Oscars. Of all the national chains or products they could have mentioned, how funny is it that they instead use a very regional chain that most of the country has never heard of? I just found that interesting.

roundup time

March 03, 2004 by Eric Richardson

Whenever I've been putting off work or bored lately, I've been wandering over to LA Blogs and clicking around to some of the most recently updated sites on the blogroll. Trying to figure out why my site didn't show up updated there was even the impetus behind writing XML/RPC ping support for eThreads. The blog part of LA Blogs might not update all that often, but the site is invaluable if just for that blogroll.

In the 5+ years I've been doing this site, this is the first time I've made a post on a March 3rd. That got me wondering how many days of the year I have covered and how many I've missed. I didn't have to wonder long, though... In 5+ years I've posted on 322 of 366 possible dates. The next upcoming gap? March 13 and 14, and then the 17th and 18th. I missed a big-time chance on Sunday, neglecting to post on Feb 29. That one will take a while now.

CRM114 training is going well. This morning it had missed two spam and marked a Speakeasy invoice incorrectly. It filed 100+ spam correctly overnight, though. It's still not to the point that I would go without checking my crm-spam folder, but it's getting better and is already doing better than spamassassin was at the end.

productivity. me. separate ends of the universe.

March 02, 2004 by Eric Richardson

I've been "writing" a paper all morning on "extra-cinematic cultural products and leisure acitivities" in postmodern Hollywood cinema. The only thing I've managed to do well so far is use a Simpsons reference as my intro:

A recent Simpsons episode opened with a movie inside the Springfield Googolplex. Soldiers are seen landing on a beach, gunfire flashing around them. A storming soldier stands over a slain foe, and then reaches into his foe's pocket and pulls out -- a buzz cola. Voiceover tells the audience, "Buzz Cola -- the taste you'll kill for." The dead soldier leans up to add in a German accent, "Available in ze lobby!" Lisa is appalled. She asks, "Do they really think cheapening the memory of our veterans will sell soda?" Almost before she can finish her question Homer is rising from his seat: "I have to go to ze lobby!"

Lisa is objecting to a central element of post-modern cinema. Though present to some extent in other eras of film, postmodern cinema has made extra-cinematic elements integral to all aspects of the movie-making process.

I then go on to talk about nothing, but my Simpsons reference quota is fulfilled so that's not as bad as it could be. I really need to write 4 pages or so in the next two hours.