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16 August 2002 (Friday): on call

Having a passion, whether it's a serious hobby or one's daily bread, seems to mean living it to some extent. The world, or at least your perception of it, shifts. It's not enough to notice; you must also capture, crop, mount and frame. I think it was Paul Kerschen who noted that writers never get off work. All moments are possible scenes; every sentence out of a friend's mouth could be a key bit of character development. Exhausting, that nonstop vigil. Eric Cheng told me once that he had to step away from the camera for a while, as he'd come to see everything with little frames around it, poses, angles, examples of lighting technique. He'd become a constant observer, not a participant.

And blogs, as I think Dardy said a while back -- keep a blog religiously enough, and soon everything is a post. Separate your life into noteworthy and not-noteworthy. Look up at a tree shivering in the breeze and think "I'll blog about that...how would I phrase it?..."

Back in the day, every now and again I'd dream in C. Days, weeks, months, years: all for loops, decremented from an unknown supply of time. for(life=span;life>0;life--) {...} My family was an array of pointers. It all made so much sense, all of reality neatly filed and categorized and humming along as programmed. I think I always woke up from those believing I'd had a nightmare.

posted by enjelani @ 11:11 AM PST

Replies: 13 comments

Know what else is weird about blogs? Sometimes two people can be having the same thoughts at nearly the exact same time.

Freaky.

posted by jim @ 16 08 2002 12:26 PM PST

hey! i was going to say that.

:)

posted by echeng @ 16 08 2002 01:15 PM PST

Random thought: I used to dream in shorthand when I was taking those classes. Of course, no one uses shorthand anymore, but it was a very odd thing.

And it is funny how something happens, and I immediately think what I'm going to say about it in my blog.

Does that makes us obsessive? Or compulsive? Or both?

posted by Karin @ 16 08 2002 04:54 PM PST

both obsessive and compulsive, maybe. :) I thought like that for awhile, until morons destroyed any sense of community my /output section could have had. if you draw enough of a crowd, someone eventually will decide to be really annoying.

but it's better now: i just dump photos up there. nothing personal, or too complicated.

posted by echeng @ 16 08 2002 06:18 PM PST

i wonder if i stop blogging, whether i will stop my habit of scanning every incident and thought for worthiness. it's too much stress sometimes, like days when i have no thing to say, and i fret about keeping people entertained.

posted by dardi! @ 17 08 2002 01:01 AM PST

I tend to swing in and out of moods...

Some days I want to blog about every (useless) little thing I notice.

Most other days, I have no idea what to write and don't post a damn thing. I try to blog enough, about enough things, to the point where in a few years I can look back on it as some sort of time-capsule of how I viewed the world, and myself in it, at that moment.

Every once in awhile i'll stumble onto shit I posted back in 1994/95, up through the present. It's interesting to note how much or how little i've changed from back then.

Blogs (and peoples views of them) are weird :)

posted by syndromes @ 18 08 2002 10:36 PM PST

1994!! Damn. I was still telnetting/ftping/gophering/bbsing back then.

My freshman dorm didn't have ethernet. I distinctly remember thinking, "the world wide web? that's just ftp for dumb people."

Man, was I stupid.

posted by echeng @ 19 08 2002 12:45 AM PST

:) No no, 1994 for me was the year of ytalk, tin, and irc for me. I wasn't into html yet. I got lots of pr0n via zmodem though ;) BBS'... what a wonderful thing! Loved knowing the sysop of the main one I frequented... pr0n via 14.4 sucked ass though :(

But I found some postings of mine from USEnet groups back in 94. I think my first webpage was either late 95 or early 96. I was so proud when I discovered the "hr" tag...

"Dude, those horizontal 3d line graphics are SWEET!!"

Oi... You weren't the only stupid one Mr. Cheng ;)

posted by syndromes @ 19 08 2002 01:25 AM PST


blows. I like
, though.

although... it doesn't work with newer browsers. that's what you have to use to get that nice, 1px line in NS4. :)

posted by echeng @ 19 08 2002 06:27 PM PST

hey!
greymatter filters out tags.

it should have been:

< hr > blows. I like < hr noshade size="1" >, though.

:)

posted by echeng @ 19 08 2002 06:28 PM PST

aaaaack! I can't win. that should have been [hr] and [hr noshade size="1"], where [ and ] should be angled-brackets. :)

posted by echeng @ 19 08 2002 06:29 PM PST

LOL!

i thought you were repeating your preference for certain sexual activites in yoda-speak.

posted by soren @ 20 08 2002 01:49 PM PST

HAHAHAHA! that's funny. i didn't see it that way until just now. :)

hey -- let's watch wizard of oz sometime, at my place.

posted by echeng @ 23 08 2002 01:57 AM PST