Feeling restless again. Creatively aimless. I feel like I need more of a long range goal, but I haven’t been really inspired to move in any particular direction.
Have an idea for a story game. Might sketch it out so it stops scratching my brain. But that would just be a stopgap.
Today was my friend Amanda’s birthday and Nick had put together an awesome day for her and her friends. We had brunch at Chez Zee (Bed and Breakfast French Toast FTW) and then hung out at their place while Nick picked up the cake and Amanda got a massage. We played video games and party games and iphone games. And there was cake.
I’m not a big diggnation fan, but I am a fan of Alex Albrecht and since there wasn’t a live Totally Rad Show this year at SXSW, this was the closest thing.
The line to Stubb’s stretched from Red River down to I-35, but, being Stubb’s, we all got in. While there is a lot of overlap between a TRS and digg crowd, I got the impression that, like the actual site, diggnation had a broader appeal. The whole scene was more rock star 2.0 than a panel at a tech conference.
The whole show was really fun. Local celebrity Brian Brushwood warmed up the audience with magic tricks, Scam School style. We participated in a Twitter hoax, broadcasting the news that Conan O’Brien was joining Revision 3. The digg CEO came out and talked about some new features coming to the site. Then Alex and Kevin did the show, which was really funny and alcohol fueled. Leo Laporte showed up with his mobile webcasting rig and ended up crowdsurfing (while webcasting the whole experience). Surprise guest Robert Rodriguez came on stage to talk about Predators. And then Alex and Kevin did some crowdsurfing.
I hung out with my friend Kristina for a bit. I think I may be allergic to her cats.
I joined a geocaching meetup. I really like geocaching and I thought it would be fun to do it with a group. The first meetup was a meet and greet thing at El Arroyo. The place was really loud, so it was hard to hear what everyone was saying. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it was an odd experience. The woman who organized the meetup had printed out an agenda and was introducing everyone at the table by reading the bios we had posted on the meetup group. Why couldn’t we just introduce ourselves?
Then she gave us a quiz about geocaching which assumed we were all familiar with the geocaching.com web site, which I had never visited. The group was supposed to be laid back and open to all experience levels, so that was a bit weird. She had written a little poem that she wanted us to read in unison at the beginning and end of our meetups, like we were in the Boy Scouts or something. The whole thing was at once over-organized and a little silly.
I’m still going to give it a shot and see what it is like to go find an actual cache with the group.
This isn’t actually a dream I had, but a dream in which I appeared. My new friend Anneke had a dream in which I had been commissioned to design dreamworlds. I would appear in the dreamworld as different objects that had my head (Cheshire cat style) and dispense clues.
One of the worlds was a field of rolling hills through which completely unnecessary channels had been dug. I had built bridges over the channels. I appeared to her as a bridge, explaining that the company intended to eventually charge pedestrians to cross the bridges. She realized that I had made the channels narrow enough that you could jump over them without paying the toll. I explained, in waking life, that this is exactly the sort of passive-aggressive thing I would do to subvert plans I found foolish yet I am for whatever reason obligated to follow.
I’ve been working my way through the complete Calvin and Hobbes, three huge tomes containing the entire run. It has aged well. After 20+ years, Calvin’s antics and Hobbes’ witticisms still amuse. I had forgotten, or perhaps not realized, how profoundly the strip had affected me. It celebrated imagination, making up your own rules, and overlaying reality with your own template. As an adult, I don’t look back and say to Calvin “Oh, you naive boy, you have no understanding of the world’s complexities.” I find myself saying, “You are right, Calvin. That is true, but adults pretend it isn’t.”
When I was a kid, I was bothered by Watterson’s seeming inability to stay on model with Hobbes. Sometimes he drew the tiger like Hobbes was just a stuffed animal. But now I know better. The stuffed animal was a metaphor for how adults just can’t deal with seeing the tigers all around them.
The reoccurring hotel dream had a new twist last night. I was moving between one hotel and another. The new hotel had cascading fountains that were also steps outside the the perimeter. I walked along the wet edges, my suitcase splashing behind me. Once inside the lobby, I of course realized that I didn’t know what room I was supposed to stay in. More than that, I couldn’t remember the name of the hotel I was supposed to go to, so I wasn’t even sure if I was in the correct one. So I called my mom to find out the name of the hotel.
That’s all I remember about that dream before it turned into a dream about me and a group of resistance fighters in battle with a paramilitary group.
I still need to write up an account of STAPLE for yesterday, but I’m still pretty wiped out.
Last night/this morning I found myself at a party with improv peeps from The New Movement. We didn’t know whose house it was. The walls were adorned with large anatomical illustrations where one might find a Van Gogh. Similarly, there were coffee table books about horse anatomy. Outside on the patio, a projector displayed super gay music videos against the side of the wall. I don’t know if it was a primarily gay party or what. It was just the backdrop to some good conversations and some idiot savant wisdom coming out of Milo’s mouth, including some secrets about sloths and the directive to not deny his passion.
I hadn’t heard about STAPLE! until last year. Chris Nicholas, a guy I met in improv classes at The New Movement, created and organized it. It is basically a mini convention for indie comic creators, game designers, and artists in general. You can find out more at www.staple-austin.org .
I had never been a vendor at a convention, so I didn’t know what to expect. Chris warned me that STAPLE! kind of spoils vendors for other conventions because it is such a cool experience. He was not wrong. My vague plan was to roll in there with copies of House of Whack and The Stork and see what happened. Continue reading →