What the Hell?

Ok, Internet, you've finally fried my brain.

We've all seen the stupid banner ads on every website ever. Refinance your home, get government grants to go back to school, click the button and win a free iPod, this hot girl in her underwear is just dying to talk to YOU. That's all great and everything... but today I saw one that just contained more WTF than I could handle:

Seriously, this is a real ad.

About 3 years ago, I was offered a chance to "audition" for a Faustian-sounding job designing banner ads for the web. Work from home, embarrassingly high salary, and all I would have to do is toss off irritating little boxes and rectangles containing misleading, irritating propaganda. I spent a few hours designing 3 different versions of what I thought was a beautiful, sophisticated submission.

Did not. Get. The job.

Now, look up at that banner ad I posted. The old man with 7 chins and a confused, hurt expression. After consulting the ad's text, I can only assume that the pitiful puppy-dog eyes have something to do with this man's profound remorse that no, he is not a mother who has finished some college credits. And if he is, then I am convinced that there is a God-- a cruel, twisted God with an incredibly sick sense of humor.

On second thought, he may just be sharing my observations on this matter. I have never in my life seen a human face so accurately expressing the thought: "What the fuck am I doing in this ad?"

Testing mobile post

This is something. Yay!

Confessions of The Synchronicity Killer

Robert Culp is dead, and it's all my fault. Apparently my actions have the power to murder people from vast distances. It's never intentional, but it always seems to happen to talented celebrities that I happen to admire. Let me explain.

It all started in the summer of 2004, when I saw a Rick James t-shirt at a tacky beach gift store in New Hampshire:

Basically this, but with the actual Rick James's face.

I bought the shirt, mostly due to the mildly-amusing coincidence that my first name is Rick and my middle name happens to be James. (I sometimes use "Rick James" as a sort of pseudonym when singing karaoke or posting potentially inflammatory comments on web discussion boards. It's also a really good icebreaker at parties and bars.)

A month or so later, I was getting ready to drive to Pennsylvania for a camping trip with my college friends, affectionately known as the Popov Society. Stopping at McDonald's to pick up a cup of coffee, I accidentally pushed the lid on the coffee cup down too hard and the cup exploded boiling hot coffee all over me and the brand-new Rick James t-shirt I was wearing in public for the first time ever.

After a quick stop back home to change my shirt, I made the 5-hour drive to the campsite. I was the first to arrive. The second was my friend Mike. During some chit-chat, I recounted the story of my ill-fated Rick James shirt, and he just stared at me in disbelief.

"Dude... you killed Rick James," he said. I asked him what he was talking about, and he informed me that Mr. James had been found dead in Burbank that very morning, and it was all over the news.

I can accept mere coincidence, but something this huge and so seemingly connected blew my mind. I started to question the very fabric of the universe, and the possibility that I had just experienced, or even caused, a shockingly potent case of Jungian synchronicity (although technically, the very concept of synchronicity is, by definition, not directly related to causality). At any rate, to this day, I still feel responsible for the death of one of funk's greatest legends.

This is what everyone thinks of when you say the word "synchronicity".

Fast forward a few years, to March 2010:

As a longtime Netflix customer, I discover that they have the entire series of "The Greatest American Hero" available in streaming format, so I decide to start from the beginning and watch every single episode. It's not a particularly great show. The writing is corny and sloppy, the production is weak, but I still find that through the magic of nostalgia, I have no problem enjoying the escapades of Ralph, Bill, and the "magic jammies" as they repeatedly save the world from Russian spies and Arab terrorists.

In addition, I discover a local TV station has been playing reruns of the 1960's series "I Spy". On Tuesday night, I watched an episode of this equally ridiculous show for the first time since I was probably 10 or 11 years old.

Wednesday after work, my revisiting of "The Greatest American Hero" came to an end as I watched the series finale during dinner. 20 minutes later, I was informed that Robert Culp had died at the age of 79 after accidentally falling and hitting his head.

I'm sorry, everybody.

Believe it or not... this is the murder weapon.

Blogger Ruined My Life

Ok, maybe that's a bit dramatic. Anyway, everyone who reads this blog (yes, both of you) will notice that it looks like a piece of off-the-shelf preformatted crap right now. There's a reason for that. As of May 1st, 2010, Blogger will no longer support FTP publishing, which also means that the custom HTML blog templates I spent hundreds of tedious, meticulous hours designing for my own blog and two or three others are going directly into the toilet.

I figured I may as well get a jump on things and experiment with the remaining possibilities while I still have a little over a month to make the switch. I have set up a redirect from my site to the blogspot address that my blog is now being hosted on. I really hate this template, but it was the closest match I could find to the color scheme of my website. I hate that the post width is like an inch, or that there seems to be an indelible navigation bar built in to every template that Blogger uses.

Please, if anyone can point me to a fully-customizable blog service that doesn't require me learning an entirely new programming language to use, I would appreciate it. I am great with HTML and CSS, as well as SQL. I have experimented a very little bit with WordPress and was also looking into Tumblr, but I'd like some suggestions and advice before I decide to get too committed and entrenched in a new service. Blogger just isn't going to cut it anymore. Thanks!

EDIT: Since this post was published, I have discovered that Blogger has incorporated some new beta features that will hopefully allow me to customize the blog layout more than I had originally thought possible. Experiments to follow. Over and out.

Rick's Favorite Psuedo-Christmas Movies!

I was woken up this morning by the sound of snowplow blades scraping against asphalt, and looked out the window to see 5 inches of snow on my car. While mildly annoying, it is really nothing new or extraordinary to anyone who has lived in New England for any extended period of time. However, this being the first significantly-accumulating snowfall of the year, tonight I will be partaking in a long-standing tradition of watching The Shining when I get home from work.

Years ago, my friend Craig suggested this as the perfect movie for when it's snowing, and my friends and I made a yearly ritual out of it. The idea was such a good one that it has stayed with me in the 10 or so years since it was conceived. But the real connection between the film and the conditions is obviously just the snow, not anything to do with Christmas or the holiday season in general.

For some reason, this got me thinking on a tangent as I was driving to work this morning at 15 MPH. Sure, there are plenty of bona fide Christmas movies out there, such as Bob Clark's ubiquitous A Christmas Story, or my personal favorite, Brian Desmond Hurst's 1951 version of Scrooge, starring the perfectly-cast Alastair Sim. But for some reason, I have always loved movies that are sort of about Christmas, but not really. Movies in which Christmas is featured, but in a more tangential or incidental sense. So, without further ado, here is my short personal list of favorite "Sort-Of Christmas Movies":

Die Hard - NYPD Detective John McClane (Bruce Willis) is invited to LA by his estranged wife (Bonnie Bedelia) to attend her office Christmas party. It just so happens that at the same time, a group of German terrorists (led by the incomparable Alan Rickman) has infiltrated and beseiged the entire building. In a series of physics-defying Christmas miracles, McClane manages to slip away, assess the situation, and pretty much singlehandedly kill the shit out of all the bad guys, while also managing to piss off the FBI and befriend the dad from Family Matters, who seems to always play a cop in everything he's ever been in. (Cracked's Robert Brockway weighs in on this one here.)

Gremlins - Steven Spielberg and Joe Dante bring us the story of a young bank teller who is given a bizarre and exotic Christmas gift by his eccentric inventor dad, Hoyt Axton. It is an impossibly adorable little furry thing called a mogwai, which, through the violation of some logically arbitrary "rules" and Corey Feldman being an idiot, manages to reproduce and spawn an army of evil, obnoxious reptiles. Chaos ensues, of course. I love this movie mostly because it manages to combine the elements of small-town politics from It's A Wonderful Life with the campy "Monsters are invading the town and the authorities don't believe me!" premise from virtually every monster and sci-fi movie of the 1950's.

Edward Scissorhands - In this highly stylized modern-day fairy tale about a hopelessly deformed misfit adopted by a suburban family, Tim Burton manages to maintain a charming tone while teaching us satirical lessons on morality, love, tolerance, gossip, and the origin of snow. Another bizarre cross-genre film that mixes the gothic feel of Frankenstein with the small-town sensibilities of Anytown, USA. Also notable for being Vincent Price's final film appearance, and I must say that for what amounts to little more than an extended cameo, he really added a beautiful dimension to the film as Edward's creepy-cute mad scientist "father".

Love Actually - A sprawling, sappy manifesto on the many facets of love, which I happen to think is completely adorable. This movie tells the 653 intertwining stories of 1,022 characters who all know each other or are related or fall in love or whatever. The brilliant Bill Nighy totally steals the show as the burned-out former rock star hilariously attempting to use Christmas to resurrect his fame and fortune. Also features some dated and awkwardly shoehorned-in UK vs. USA political commentary between altruistic Prime Minister Hugh Grant, and sleazy US President Billy Bob Thornton, when a momentary love triangle between them and Martine McCutcheon somehow translates into a pissy foreign relations incident. (??)

Brazil - Set during the Holiday Season in some unspecified, dystopian year in the near future, Terry Gilliam's masterpiece is a sort of tongue-in-cheek version of Orwell's Nineteen Eighty Four. In my opinion, this is not only an incredibly great movie and a chilling vision of a totalitarian and beaurocratic future, it is also the single most re-watchable movie I have ever seen (like, 50 times). If you haven't seen this movie, you haven't lived. Features top-notch performances by Jonathan Pryce, Ian Holm, Katherine Helmond, Robert DeNiro, Jim Broadbent, and Michael Palin. (Note: Also available in the despicably mangled studio edit, scornfully referred to as the "Love Conquers All" version. Do NOT watch this under any circumstances.)

So, there you have it. Something a little different for this year's Christmas movie-watching festivities, if you're in the mood. All of these movies are great on their own merits, but they are especially fun to watch during the holidays. Enjoy!

Muse Project Update

After about 4 months of very off-and-on work on my Muse painting, I am nearing completion.

Life has been busy, especially at the old 9-to-5, due to the upcoming AWS and STAFDA trade shows in Chicago and Atlanta, respectively. Since about August, I have usually been too tired to do anything other than eat and take a nap when I get home from work. Shows are shipped, finally, and the stress levels are down a bit, at least for the time being.

In any case, updates on the progress of the Muse project can be seen in slideshow format here (requires Flash plugin). I have more photos in my camera, slideshow will be updated in the next day or two as I continue toward the finish line.

The Movie That Was Made Just For Me

...And I don't even really know what it's about, exactly.

Mostly-genius filmmaker Terry Gilliam has a new movie coming out soon. Watch this trailer and tell me if your mind just completely explodes at the speed of light:

FINALLY, a movie in which Tom Waits plays the Devil. It's pretty much the role he was born to play, a thought that was cemented in my mind after listening to The Black Rider for the first time.

I could write about sixteen thousand paragraphs here about Terry Gilliam's body of work, which is pretty much hit-or-miss: in his case, "hit" equals mind-blowing film genius, and "miss" means it's just not his best work, but still pretty great. "Dr. Parnassus" looks to me like it's getting filed in the "hit" column for sure.

I Quit

I quit smoking today. For realsies. I also found a nifty little gadget that helps me appreciate the progress I'm making and the money I'm saving.

Wish me luck, although I honestly don't think I'll need it. I read Alan Carr's "The Easy Way to Stop Smoking" and it really did help change my mindset about quitting. Of course, I did have to read the book about 4 times for it to really sink in, but it was totally worth it.

With cigarettes in Massachusetts going from 5 to almost 8 dollars a pack over the last 2 years, I really had no choice. But also, I kind of don't want to die. I did some basic math last night before bed, and calculated that at the very LEAST, I have smoked about NINETY-FIVE THOUSAND cigarettes in the 13 years since I've started. That scared the living shit out of me, especially knowing what a cigarette filter looks like after you smoke ONE.

My girlfriend Andy and I made a deal last night, since we're both pretty much dead broke at the moment. "I'll quit if you will." The thought of us quitting together is a helpful one, but I mostly have Alan Carr to thank for my attitude this time around. Last time I tried to go cold turkey was New Year's Day, 2007. Total disaster. I was feverish, shaky, sweaty, and irritable all day long, and I caved. This time, none of that. It really does make me believe in mind over matter more than I ever have before.

So like I was saying, this little meter thing (below) is actually kind of helpful. It will be super-awesome when I can forget about it for a couple of weeks or months, and go back and look at it and realize the money I have NOT spent on cigarettes is in the hundreds of dollars. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a "live" version of it, so you have to refresh (F5) the page to keep updating the meter if you so desire.

Oh, and one other thing: I actually quit at 12:30 last night, but I figured it would be kind of cheating to count the 8 hours that I was asleep. I set the meter to start this morning when I woke up, just to be extra fair.

Adios for now.

The Onion Sells Out

For any form of satire to be considered truly great, I believe it has to walk so close to the truth that it's barely distinguishable from it. Whether exaggerated or slightly understated, satire is probably my favorite form of comedy. It often brings about some of the most sophisticated, clever, and disturbing genius comedy has to offer.

Many years ago, my sister introduced me to The Onion, and its brilliant satirical walk through fake journalistic history called "Our Dumb Century". By creating imaginary past issues of a newspaper that would often make either terrifyingly true or intentionally false predictions about the future (which was actually the past or present), "Our Dumb Century" underlined much of the stupidity and ridiculousness of human progress and historical events. The 1969 Moon Landing, for example. Taking into account the entire scope of human history, it seems a little less exciting today than it probably did 40 years ago.

Today, after a long hiatus from reading The Onion, I clicked on it this morning before heading off to work, and was simultaneously awed, disturbed, and greatly amused by the Onion's latest meta-joke. The owner of the Onion, one T. Herman Zweibel (think the Simpsons' Monty Burns with a bad case of Alzheimer's) has sold the paper to China. Today's issue features disinformation, propaganda galore, self-aggrandizing nationalistic rhetoric, harsh criticism of Americans and American culture, and a lot of censorship. Included are such hilarious articles as:

• Internet Adds 12th Website (see next paragraph for more on this)
• China Strong
• Nothing At All Happens to 28 Tibetan Protestors, Their Families
• Weakling President Asks Imaginary Man In Sky To Bless Nation
• And much more.

This "sale" comes on the heels of many terrifying stories reported from China, such as the blocking of the wildly popular micro-blogging site Twitter due to the fact that it seems to have allowed too much communicating between Chinese citizens that directly contradicted official, sanitized government reports. The paper's sale also seems to have roots in the many shutdown scares of long-respected American newspapers on the verge of bankruptcy.

In any case, I applaud the Onion for bringing attention to such full-blown fascism, and doing it in such a way that makes us laugh instead of cry. The political and social climate in China remains fascinating food for thought, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't stop and have a few much-needed laughs along the way to whatever solution might lie on the horizon.

Theft or Flattery?

After reading an interesting article on spam email and how it is generated, I decided to Google my email address. I was a bit disturbed to find that one of the search results was a post on some weird Italian pop music discussion board containing an outright theft of one of my favorite design pieces, a CD cover I made for a dear friend a few years ago.

Although I'm a bit annoyed that someone would steal my work without my permission, I realized that in this age of 1s and 0s, "borrowing" someone's digital artwork is only as easy as the artist allows it to be. I have been neglectful of this until now, thinking not only that my work was not popular enough by any stretch of the imagination to be stolen, but also that nobody would have the gall to do such a thing.

Part of me is also somewhat flattered, however. The idea that someone looking for an image to illustrate the phrase "Rainbow in the Dark" stumbled upon my work in a Google search (or whatever) and decided it was a perfect match, well... it's reaffirming in a way. Perhaps theft is an even more sincere form of flattery than imitation.

My solution at the moment strikes me as inelegant but necessary, at least until I find a better one. I plan to watermark all of the work on my site. I hope to achieve this in a manner that is subtle and obvious at the same time. Apologies in advance.