“kittens inspired by kittens”

A 6 year old girl provides commentary on a kitten book. She should write every LOLcat. (Thanks Emily!)

Top 5 Favorite Sandwiches (in no particular order):

1. BLT from Stone Park in Park Slope (Renda)
2. From Holland: cucumber, peanut butter, sambal (spicy indonesian paste) (Renda)
3. Bahn Mi: We found out that Nicky’s will deliver Bahn Mi to Dumbo if we order more than $20 worth – we will try this out next week.
4. In Philly they make some really great Italian hoagies (Sarcone’s is the best, maybe?). (Holly)
5.  Chicken Tikka Kati Roll (or the potato one for vegetarians). A Kati roll is like an Indian burrito. There’s one on 39th Street, check it out when you’re in midtown. (Thanks Jody aka sandwich number one for introducing us!)

“Wages of Fear” (1952, Henri-Georges Clouzot)

Yves Montand is a drifter who’s come to a dreary oil town in Venezuela with hopes of striking it rich. He and his friends spend most of their time in a dingy town bar drinking and waiting for their big break; then suddenly it comes—an offer of two thousand dollars to drive a truck full of nitro-glycerin over treacherous roads to the other side of a jungle. One false move and—BOOM—the whole rig’ll blow sky-high. The best suspense set-up ever (sustaining the constant risk of death through a whole picture), and another relentless portrait of a world where money always trumps a man’s life, and humanity itself is worthless. Also, the only sequence in movies where a man drives a truck to the rhythm of “The Blue Danube Waltz.”

An anonymous tipster (that’s tips@801a.info, FYI) alerted us on Saturday night that Bjork would be recording on the 8th floor of 10 Jay Street on Monday. We all came into work on Monday, excited and waiting for Bjork to arrive.

For the past two days, I’ve run to the peephole whenever I heard heels in the hall, or every 10 minutes. Monday came and went, but today, finally, success! Upon return from our lunch break, Renda and I receive a text message from Andy Pressman: Bjork has just entered the ladies room (which now, coincidentally, contains soap and paper towels).

Renda rushes to the bathroom and body-checks Bjork with the door. I peep out the door and see Bjork walking by, bells a-jinglin’. She is actually wearing furry boots, not heels. Renda says she was wearing a weird flowy mumu, and that Bjork made her just a little nervous.

Fifteen minutes later, we make our way over to the door of Atlantic Sound, where Bjork is recording. We can hear her: Bjork is singing behind that door. We took a video as proof. If you want to see it email us—this would definitely start an internet sensation, and someone would inevitably get sued. BEST TUESDAY EVER!

Note: If you are into my Photoshop work, I am having a recession sale!

Behold, the brilliant Puddleblog.

That’s all from the courthouse. Case dismissed!

What I neglected to mention is that a while ago I found a program that grants me this isolated writing space, free from the tyranny of the visual interface: WriteRoom, from Hog Bay Software. I use it to compose emails, keep notes, write assessments of projects, etc. It goes without saying that it’s the word processor in which I composed this blog entry. It has become a very comfortable friend.

WR occupies your entire screenspace, giving you nothing but an empty zone for words to occupy. It does not format. It does not make tables. It will not output to HTML. It sticks to a very strict idea of what a word processor is. There is no visual interface to speak of, save a blinking cursor block. A word count will fade into view if the mouse is placed in the corner of the screen. A scrollbar is also invisible, off to the side, until called into use.

And that’s it. Nothing but possibility. All your other programs are hidden from view; nothing gets through its inky black space (or royal blue or lush green – the background color is adjustable).

Actually, according to the marketing material and public testemonials, the main selling point of Write Room is that it takes up your entire screen, thus freeing you from distractions. No bouncing IMs, no iTunes, no e-mail notifications. As one review puts it, “This is an awesome app! Without distractions, I was able to pump out a few blog posts in about half the time it normally takes.” Whether this is a desired state of affairs is a question left unanswered.

Welcome back to the Patent Office! Here are some ideas I’ve had for 15m radio dramas:

The night before
he can’t remember
wakes up but can’t see
now what

Two guys are racing on foot through a very crowded city. It’s the day of a festival – everyone’s out in costumes and singing songs, playing ball, having street BBQs. It is clear that the first man who reaches the river wins something tangible, that there is more at stake here than just pride.
The men begin the race far apart, so they never know where the other is in relation – whether he’s closing in on you, or taking a totally different route, or even whether he’s reached the finish line.
We follow one of the two men over the course of the race. The city is heavily secured, with travel between one zone and another a locked-down transaction of papers and assurances. Every few minutes, the man reaches another zone.

AND

He weaves through the city – running next to the animals that have been brought out to march the streets, the elephants and the zebras, and the high school bands, and the general pandemonium. He begins to realize that the man he’s racing is somewhere nearby, maybe he catches glimpses of him.

OR

The man gets lost

OR

He eats a hot dog

AND

he calls it a fucking day.

She’s been hired to babysit two teenagers too old to need a babysitter. They intimidate her, bully her, drive her into the attic. She cowers there, listening from the door as the two girls wreck havok in the house below.

A man tries to break an awkward habit of beginning all his conversations with outright lies. Each time he has to explain away or justify the lie before it gets out of control. After each encounter he engages himself in a righteous monologue about this habit.
–I can break this habit.
–Don’t lie to me, asshole!

A golfer is hitting nothing but holes-in-one and finds himself getting bored. He begins to take his time in between holes, drinking heavily. Soon he is a drunkard and is happy with his newfound freedom from perfection.

A day at the pool, culminating in a beautiful game of marco polo.

A man fancies himself a gourmand and goes to the market one day. He is single, and no longer young. While there he sees a young woman in line waiting for a duck. The man goes up and gets in line behind her, and begins to flirt. She hesitates, but he continues. He’s telling her his favorite duck recipe. As he does so, he begins to gather small ingredients off the racks around him, and starts a demonstration of the recipe.
Soon people gather to watch him prepare the recipe. The meal sounds mouth-watering. The woman, we can only assume, is as charmed as we are.

My halloween crew. Videos of us (Rajiv, Jenna, me, Steve) playing a live action version of Hungry Hungry Hippos:

Round #1
Round #2