Jesse says...

The last thing you want to have happen while you’re traveling is to get a phone call that your house got broken into. And all your stuff got taken. And what didn’t get taken was trashed and thrown around. And that the back door was left wide open so that your cat escaped.

And yet that’s the phone call that I just got. Luckily they found my cat. And they’re starting to clean the house. But I’m still really frustrated and angry right now. And I feel sick to my stomach.

24 hours ago I couldn’t wait to get back home… not I’m not sure I want to be there.

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Leaving college was sad for me. I didn’t really get to know the people I was going to school with until my senior year. Just as I had found these amazing friends, the year was over and I was out in the real world. Thankfully I’ve managed to stay in touch with many of them, and they’ve become even better friends.

Today was the last shoot for Chasing Windmills. For me anyways, and I’m sure for most of the other cast members. It was a fun event, as I finally met many of the people I’ve been watching nearly every day. And yet, I couldn’t help but think how sad it was that this was the first time that the bulk of us were all in the same room together, and very nearly the last, as our cast party — the big final event — is next Thursday. The Chasing Windmills experience has been so rewarding: I’ve been working with brilliant people, creating something that will live on the internet forever, and doing it all simply for the passion of making. I’ll miss these folks, and I’ll miss having never had the opportunity to really get to know most of them, as they are certainly an amazing group of talented people. It feels like the last day of school all over again, but instead of a year with them I only got an afternoon. Still, Thursday holds a lot of promise, and I look forward to seeing the wonderful Chasing Windmills cast soon.

We have a lot of it right now…

My brother is a big tattoo fiend. I’m not sure how many he has, but it’s more than I have. I can count at least 4 from memory, and I’m sure there are more. At any rate, he asked me about looking into prices on tattoo gun, as he wants to get into it. I had actually been looking at them too, as I think it could be a fun thing to know how to do (you know, for when this Internet fad dies down).

I know I want to get at least one more tattoo, and I’ve been pretty committed to the idea for about 3 years now, so I’m fairly certain that the tattoo that I want is something that I would be happy with for the rest of my life. The question is this: do I want to try to learn how to tattoo on myself? I’m not sure I could go through with that, but, honestly, I trust myself a hell of a lot more than I trust anyone else to mark up my body.

Also, I bet my brother would let me practice on him… ;)

So, I discovered as of late that I’ve been added to a bunch of MN tech blog feeds. That means that people are probably subscribed to them (otherwise why would they have made them), and they’re looking for all the latest and greatest in tech news in the frozen midwest.

Well, sorry to disappoint, but you’re going to get me in the mix too.

Yes, I may write about some tech stuff. But I also rant about sappy shit like love. Which is the topic of tonight’s post.

Valentine’s Day is tomorrow. I’m feeling pretty meh about the whole thing. The only redeeming feature about tomorrow is the fact that Ali gets to have a big party at school… and that I am guaranteed to get at least one Valentine card (from her, of course). I guess it’s expected for single bloggers to bitch about tomorrow (hence groups like this), but I’m not really that bitter. Sure, I would love to have someone to share dinner with tomorrow, but I haven’t decided if replacing all my free time with wooing attempts on the phone late into the night is really worth the trade.

I started writing a post complaining about how New Year’s always lets me down, but that’s really no way to start out 2007. So, instead, let’s talk about what cool things I’m working on for this year:

• Go to FOSDEM in Belgium
• Animate/create special effects for a short film
• Evangelize Jabber
• Launch an alternate reality game
• Wrap up season 2 of Chasing Windmills
• Do a 5 week immersion in Brazil this summer
• Participate in 24 Hour Comics Day
• Create a vlog mini-series
• Teach Ali to read so that I can teach her how to use a computer and build web sites

You wake up in a good mood. The birds are chirping, the air smells fresh and wonderful. You are excited to take in all the adventures of the day. You get to work and get everything done early, so that you can take the afternoon off and just enjoy yourself. You feel accomplished, you feel amazing. Then, as you walk, you notice a dead bird on the ground. Broke it’s neck after flying into a glass pane it didn’t see. You continue to walk, but you see that bird everywhere, most importantly you project that possible future into every other bird you see and hear. You eventually get back home and go to bed. In your dreams you imagine yourself caring for a bird as a pet, but you get distracted by some other task and when you return to the cage, the bird is either dead or gone. You wake the next morning to the chirping of a bird.

My life is pretty cyclic. Oh, that could be a can of worms… let’s rephrase:

My hobbies are pretty cyclic.

I find that I get really obsessed with one thing, go crazy on it for a month or two, then jump to something else. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

It’s a pretty consistent cycle, though, so I can probalby start to anticipate when I’m getting bored and start picking up the next thing… let’s see:

Comic Books > Illustration > Interface Design > Operating Systems > Dynamic Languages > Real Time Communications (Instant Messaging) > Web Design > Movies > Comic Books

Now, I could have started with anything, but comics seemed like as good a place as any. And, speaking of comics, buy Demo. It’s simply amazing. It’s hands-down one of the best new-ish comics I read in a few years. (Oh, and Heroes totally ripped off the Demo story “Emmy” with this comic… jerks.)

Tanya has become the Blog Nazi as of late. Now, let’s get one thing clear: I’m thrilled to have at least one reader. Even if she is my ex-wife/slash/roommate/slash/mother-of-my-daughter, and thus somewhat obligated to check up on my blog to make sure I’m not smack-talking her, it’s still nice to have an audience. But, one thing that they should have told me when I signed up to Camp Blog-My-Life-Away is that you NEVER, under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, want to live with your audience. Especially an audience that also blogs. It affords them way to many opportunities to guilt you into doing things.

Still… I can’t say she’s wrong. Mostly I’m just a (Choose one: lazy | busy) bastard.

Man, forget the future. My real live and my fictional lives are converging at an ever increasing rate. I already have problems separating dreams from reality, and now I’m verging on the possibility of having to get into conversations with myself. That’s just… weird.

I think the universe may be conspiring against me in order to drive me schizophrenic.