Of Mice/Men

So it seems I've fallen behind in my time wasting. Those points where I'm awake, not at work and not with friends are few and far between. As such I have a fairly impressive backlog of media to peruse

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Media Landon Has To Finish
Bleach (episodes 96 to present)
Mission Hill (entire series)
Deadwood (Season 3, eps 6 through conclusion)
24 (Season 5, eps 9 through conclusion)
Scrubs (Season 6, episode 2)
The OC (Season 4, episode 6)
Heroes (Episode 6 to present)
~30 movies
Final Fantasy XII (PS2 Game)
Tony Hawk's Project 8 (PS2 Game)
Guitar Hero II (Really, just Jordan. Fucking Jordan.)
Shadow of the Colossus (Last 3 bosses)
~15-20 untouched games

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as well as other projects I've been meaning to fail to neglect, including working on the website I've procured, recording and editing more music, writing, etc...

Last night I got back to my place at around 12:30 or so and decided to try and put some effort in and updated the site I hold, howwearecurious.com. For some reason the colors don't match up very well in Firefox and I need to make the "logo" transparent to take care of that. Then I need to get some actual content on board.

The content part I can handle. I've got a mess on my computer of audio and the written word and it'll take time to sort through the mess and proof some of the stuff, but it's there. I plan to transplant bits of these blogs over there, but it's not going to be a blog site. I really like things situated like this:

and designs such as you'd find at sites like believermag.com and http://www.mcsweeneys.net/ and so forth. These sort of things are good for us, I believe, and I would do my best to pay tribute to, homage towards, borrow from, imitate or mimic, replicate, emulate and downright steal from these publishings, both in print and digital conceptualizations.

But! Allow me to explain:

The M&M's and I have spoken loosely of creating a publication. I've mentioned this several times. It started as a pipe-dream "Eh, we could do that" and pretty quickly became a pipe-dream "Eh, we COULD do that." They work in the Industrial Design field, which is a technicality step-child of Graphic Design, as I undestand it. The fact of the matter is they are both very skilled at designing products and logos and straws and things like that and I would trust them with designing logos and fonts and layouts for print. I like to waste my time and yours with the written word and I also find myself particularly fond of design and content delivery and secretly pine for the days when life was easy and I would spend my nights editing pages for a high school newspaper and my days as a lumberjack, harvesting the very raw materials we needed to put our ink on so that we could make a place for ourselves in the world. And none of that last bit might be true but some of it is at least partially not false, so it really evens out. My current vision of this is that if it happens it will happen on a quarterly scale, it will not be large and the content will be more or less conjecture on technology and culture, rather than a collection of fiction or review material. We could locally print up a rough copy and Mike and I have the luxury of having two sets of relatives that own print shops in La Crosse. This would more or less be for ourselves and friends and family and would serve as good material to provide Mike and Maya's prospective clients or to present in similar situation.

The above essentially serves as a mission statement, but to rephrase: I'm interested in creating a non-profit, quarterly publication to distribute on a very small scale with the desired goal of drumming up support and interest in further installments and expansion, as well as to provide a pulpit for those involved to display their skills and for myself to feel self-important.

Even with the expectancy that it will never lift off the ground I would feel accomplished if we get together a gameplan and materials, tests, etc... and these webpages form the first step in the process.

Next up: Music.

I've always been independent and I prefer a combination of observance and practice over instruction when it comes to learning nearly anything. When I played String Bass my introduction came in the form of two weeks spent alone in a practice room with a book and the instrument. I got my first guitar when I was 18 and learned by playing by ear and reading tabs. I still don't know very much about what I'm doing, but I'm confident enough to say that I can play in at least a limited fashion. I do want to record more than I have but the problem is I need to buck up and actually study the theory now. I have a few specific people I'd like to read up on and listen to and I need to give in and do the grunt work of chord memorization. Because when it comes down to it, I can think of a handful of people that I would claim to play better than (or at least "Fake It" better) but when it comes down to some basic, basic stuff I'm clueless.

So, it's probably going to be a good few months before I step it up on the music front. I still plan to record and experiment with the programs I have, but I have neither the skills nor the equipment for some of what I would like to do.

Lastly, a conveyance:

My room is very small. It's a good room, I have no complaints, but the fact is it is not a large room. I don't have the space for a desk, so my PC sits on the floor next to my TV stand and the monitor rests on top of it. If I want to use it I just sit on the floor next to my bed, and it usually isn't a big deal because I rarely use the computer for more than 5-10 minutes at a time. Last night as I was testing out edits to the How We Are Curious! site I notice out of the corner of my eye something pop out from behind my tower, shoot me an "Oh Shit..." look and then pop back out of view.

Aaron had told me about the mice and a trap set behind our fridge caught/walloped one of them in half--but this was the first I'd actually seen of any of it. Keep in mind with the small space the thing might as well of popped up in my lap, but other than making a shift from the floor to the bed I wasn't too concerned. It's a mouse--it's like a tiny cat that chews on shit. Tomorrow I'm going to have to make a trip to buy a humane trap, and while I'm well aware that by capturing it and releasing it outside I'm putting it in conditions that will likely kill it anyway, but my conscience doesn't mind leaving it to deal with nature. It's a better alternative to me beheading it and picking up the pieces. Plus, it's not like it's a giant rat or anything--it's a little, tiny mouse.

Any suggestions?