symbot

I'm supposedly a "Master" of some sort of ARTS.

Thu, 08 May 2008 22:06:31 GMT

So supposedly, assuming all goes well, I've "graduated." I finished my thesis and gave it to my advisors, and now I'm just waiting for wealth to pour in!

At any rate, what this means is that I've finished the final music video in my enormous practical/theoretical exploration of this amazing medium. It features a sick band, a couple great actors, and the best stylist and director of photography you could possibly ask for. Some of you guys may know the latter... she takes pictures sometimes, too.

You can check it out in any of the following places... the miksimum version is a lot prettier, with really sharp encoding and nice presentation. On the other hand, the YouTube version will count you when you watch it, and it will allow you to re-post the video and leave silly comments.

Take a look if you have any interest. Now that I'm done, I'll be going back to my normal spastic pursuits of film, literature, philosophy, design, and general self-distraction. Hope you're all doing awesomely.

ON MIKSIMUM:
http://www.miksimum.com/screening/MidnightSnack
http://www.miksimum.com/screening/MidnightSnack/performance.html

(that second one is just the band performing... it's some of the best footage I've ever gotten, though, so I did a complete edit and posted it seperately)

ON YOUTUBE:

Things Coming to Fruition

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 05:08:39 GMT

Yo! Stuff's getting finished!

http://www.lehottomato.com/

A site I made for a friend of mine, who's an awesome seamstress and costume designer. I can't thank her enough for all her help, let alone being extremely easy to work with. She's gonna take off, man.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wpUohIRgBc

This is the first music video I made specifically for my thesis. I'm working on a second one now, and it's going to be AWESOME.

Hope yer all good... I'm keeping up with your LJ's, I promise, even though I don't post or comment much myself. Happy February!

Jesse

What's Jesse been up to?

Sun, 13 Jan 2008 03:49:38 GMT

I had a one-of-a-kind experience a week or two ago.

I went to Vicious Vaudeville at Galapagos in Williamsburg, and I got to watch some sideshow people, along with some burlesque performers. One of the sideshow performers, Pete the Human Floor, collected tips by letting you staple them to him with a carpenter's stapler.

I gave the biggest tip, so I got the prime stapling real-estate.

And in case you don't believe me, there's actually a video to prove it.

Hope you all had as interesting a weekend as I did!

Jesus It's Done

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 08:32:02 GMT

The project that's manhandled my time for the past month, and positively dismembered it this past week, is finally in a presentable state online. It required the help of some important people... our new marketing manager to organize the effort and push the project through to completion... our VP of development and our programming gurus to make the video and the complex interaction work... our new designer to take some of the last-minute stress off our hands while we were scrambling to complete it. But it came together.

My hand is woven deeply into the fabric of the site... I designed the layout, both with my own eye and by working with the VP to revise the look, feel, and form of the site... and I created most of the top banners. Some are mine from concept to execution... like the Asteroids one and the very first quick-flashing-text banner... others are just my craftwork, built on inspiration and brainstorming with my peers. For three of them, I mostly stepped aside and let my co-workers do their things. For instance, the parts that are really heavily based on small videos of people -- those are Jim's work. He's better, and more dedicated, to integrating the cuts of video with design.

And I've gotta hand it to Andrew, our new marketing guy, for writing all the copy and finding all the excellent stock photography to fill in the content areas... and for managing the project during the last couple month, when it's in the most difficult throes of birth.

It's here... you should check it out: http://www.stream57.com/

Now I can get back to normal full-time work, and blogging, and creating music videos for my thesis. Those used to sound like a lot to think about, but now they seem pretty manageable.

How people found my blog this month

Thu, 27 Sep 2007 06:00:28 GMT

For best search phrase used to find Benefit Of The Doubt this month, I think this one takes it:

morpheus lovecraft

Morpheus Lovecraft just might be the coolest combination of proper nouns offered since The Matrix. Neo, you can take the blue pill and forget any of this ever happened. Or you can take the red pill and follow the Elder Gods into the howling depths of the black void beyond the veil of reason. What do you choose?

Runners up in the non-sequitors category:

jesus plagiarism
gerard butler prefers women
horror movie creepy tiny people

Then there were all the searches for Metroid and its relationship to the feminine mystique:

samus and her boyfriend
postmodern theorists samus aran
feminist theories and sexy gaming characters
metroid feminism

This month, there was also a run of essay questions about Grendel... it seems that some kid typed each possible essay question into a search engine, and then clicked on my blog every time, for some reason. Here were some of their test questions, and I'm sure I wasn't even remotely helpful to them:

what traits of beowulf and grendel raise the fight between them to an epic struggle between two great opposing forces in the world?
does the behavior of grendel s mother seem as wicked or unreasonable as grendel s behavior?
what do you think of john gardnerâ€™s depiction of grendel in connections? do you feel any sympathy for grendel? why or why not?

By the way, you guys should visit Al Talk, a blog my friend made to record her boyfriend's sleep-talking. I know I do this, too, if you try to talk to me when I'm half asleep, but I'm not as talkative as this dude. He's hilarious.

A few choice phrases

Mon, 27 Aug 2007 20:49:26 GMT

I think each month I should post the best phrase someone has searched for and subsequently found my website. This is something the stat programs track. They're not usually very funny, but each month there's a gem or two. I particularly like the ones that are obviously searches for porn. What makes these people click on my website?

Some of the runners-up this month:

"Julia Stiles fucking"
"weird gay film with david lynchian overtones"
"not surprised grindhouse"

But the winner, strangest phrase someone has used to find Benefit of the Doubt in August:

"adult video sharing big thighs -plump"

This wasn't the best month, by the way... in June somebody found me by searching for "anna nicole smith afterlife communications"

Three reasons you haven't heard from me

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 03:14:33 GMT

Okay, I got out of the habit of reposting my new crap on my livejournal for a while. I think I was a little afraid it was getting REALLY annoying. But Kelly suggested I start doing it again, so as long as I know there's one person who doesn't find it totally obnoxious, I'll go ahead and do it.

You know, I want to talk about my life, but my life is pretty much what you see below... I spend all day working at my job, which is fairly unremarkable at this point, and I spend evenings either 1) out with Maggie, or 2) doing some combination of taking pictures, writing, making stuff, and playing video games. I see my life as pretty much a tapestry of the things I do in my spare time.

So here's what I've been up to since last post:

1) I wrote two more stories. I don't put that stuff online, because that counts as "publication," but if any of you guys wants to read them (and copy edit, and/or make suggestions) just let me know and I'll send them out.

2) I've written a few things for BlogCritics:

Movie Reviews: The Simpsons and Sunshine, both of which were good (cause I have trouble disapproving of ANY movie, EVER... does this make me a bad reviewer?) Also weird little essays: Unnatural Manifesto, which is a piece where I call nature to task for its issues, and The Invisible Hipster, where I argue that the "hipster" that everybody seems to hate doesn't actually exist.

For more elaboration on each of those (except Unnatural Manifesto), check out my blog, in which I've written revised versions of each of those pieces. I also wrote something in there about Lawrence Lessing and intellectual property, but I'm not gonna post it for a couple days.

3) Posted a few new shots on Flickr. My group is also getting bigger really fast-like.

4) I started a new project in motion graphics. If anybody wants to see where it's going, check out the project summary page. I'm looking for someone who can do super-short audio treatments for these, like soundtracks, or sound effects... if you guys know anybody who might want to work on it with me, let me know, mmmkay?!?

Hope you're all doing good!

I'm such a goddamn blogger troll

Thu, 19 Jul 2007 22:20:11 GMT

Work's moving along well... I'm feeling pretty confident in my role now, and I'm getting the benefit of confidence from my superiors, as well. This whole thing has given me a boost in momentum re: my long-term project, the website, which we're now more fully committed to completing. In the meantime, I took a day and worked on a long-term holding page, which is pretty cool in itself.

I've been working on getting this music video project together, too. There's a lot to do, but for tonight, I'm taking a break and going to see Paprika. Hopefully after this weekend I'll be able to write some more movie reviews.

I've been involved in a fairly intensive philosophical discussion over the use of language on one of the BlogCritics threads. Any of you who's interested in everyday language usage, and the philosophical discussion of meaning, might find the argument a little elementary, but pretty interesting, too. The article that started it is about an Anti-Islamist manifesto published by a bunch of intellectuals in Europe, and my first comment is number 22, which starts a long exchange about the validity of word meanings and such.

I also posted something about Michael Moore, when he went on a tirade against Wolf Blitzer, on my blog. It might be a little Moore-sympathetic for some of you guys (Joe), but it's written in the standard Jesse spirit of balance, I guess.

OH! I'm not coming down this weekend. I'm postponing till next weekend, since so many people will be away for the 'kon. So plan to be in town on July 27 to 29! See ya's.

Stuff going on

Fri, 13 Jul 2007 18:01:31 GMT

Going to the Jersey shore this weekend. Should be a blast. Hopefully while I'm there I can keep my head out of politics for a while... why is it that I don't start obsessing over political principles until AFTER I leave American? Maybe it's because I'm now a confirmed resident of the blogosphere. This strange place is like the moon... you live here for a while and it changes you. Slowly, but unmistakbly, it has wrought its violent effects upon my psyche.

Here's the last political thing I posted, which has prompted a ton of commentary from the politics geeks who frequent the site: Tansgressions and Feedback Loops: A Partisan Rant.

I've written some lighter stuff, too, though... a blog post on Paper Mario and Postmodernism.

And in continuation of my Flickr preoccupation recently, I've created a group. Very conceptually nerdtastic. Checkitout!

Hope you're all well... I'm still hoping to come down to DC next weekend, so let's have a pahty. Laters all!

Weekend Update Upstate New York

Mon, 09 Jul 2007 06:54:48 GMT

Weekend update - went to Upstate New York. Highlights include:

FLIES - tons of flies for some reason. Possibly because we were so aggressive with the spiders last time.
SWIMMING - a rarer treat than I'd like to admit, due to the freezing water at the lake
SEAGULLS - our third day, we attracted a bunch of seagulls while we were trying to feed a poor lonely duck
NABAKOV - finally reading Lolita. It's really good so far... very evocative.
SQUALL - there was a short little hurricane our last day there... twenty minutes of pouring rain, bookended by lovely July weather
FIRE(WORKS) - we had a campfire Saturday. The rest of the lake joined us with other pyrotechnic gestures.

I got some photos, too... mostly artsy shots, experimenting with the technical capabilites of the camera. I've posted my favorites, including some shots of seagulls, the storm, the scenery, and the water, over on Flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/gp/56861655@N00/621x7s

It was a nice vacation, but I'm glad to be back in busy New York, too.

Photos from Pride Weekend

Tue, 26 Jun 2007 03:57:37 GMT

Since I've undergone this explosion of posting (once!) I'm going to ride the wave (i.e. one more!)

Pride and the Mermaid Parade were awesome this weekend. I got some shots of colorful people in Coney Island and Lower Midtown, Manhattan... you should check them out here:

Flickr Photoset: Pride Weekend

Damn, but it was a party.

Got an essay posted on tha Intarwebs

Mon, 25 Jun 2007 17:43:02 GMT

Okay, I'm gonna try using LJ as a notification board when I post things online.

Test case: I just posted an article on BlogCritics. I wanted a different, less boring title, but the content of the essay is fresh from my brain Saturday night. Synopsis: a simple meta-political rubric for making a mark on the political sphere. If you've got any comments or feedback, let me know. And thanks to everyone who's discussed this topic with me, in whatever fashion.

BlogCritics: Jesse's Sensible Political Program

The bottom line

Wed, 14 Sep 2005 06:27:47 GMT

I like to let my thoughts stew around in my head instead of ejaculating them into the void of the Inter-tron, but if you want to see some of my finished verbiage, check out writing.miksimum.com.

Besides that, no consistent updating. Sorry, guys.