gordeonbleu's Xanga

the last emperor (penguin)

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 07:05:43 GMT

i figure things ought to be circular, so here we go.

here's to five and a half years of uninterrupted xanga posts, not the kind of the posts with bare links to sites unaccompanied by a personal backstory or anecdote, but posts that i sat down to compose to capture the feeling of the moment over this half of a decade, from office chairs in dhahran to internet cafes in hong kong to dorms in both pebble beach to berkeley.

here's to the posts about college acceptances, limericks, commentary about design, posts about projects in websites and t-shirts, my threadless phase, my flickr phase, the presidential elections, travels to dubai and spain and italy and the netherlands and places i'm forgetting to name, haikus, a love confession, dream logs, death in the family, a semester withdrawal, social commentary, and everything in between through most of stevenson high school and college at cal. over six hundred entries, and absolutely every single one of them public. and it all started in 2001, when a spammer discovered my personal site hosted at geocities and convinced me to sign up for xanga.

i stuck around here for years beyond the sprouting of attractive alternatives because of the community and my friends, but readership here has long peaked and dwindled. i've explored wordpress, blogspot, and livejournal during the past few years, and while i could put my css skills to better use at the first two, for community reasons, my successor will now be livejournal for good. (ask me for access to friends-only posts.) for the last handful of you who've stuck with me this long, thank you so much for your support and (especially) comments, and i hope to see you on the livejournal side.

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Sun, 10 Feb 2008 08:27:36 GMT

supposedly, BART is going to change its maps from its iconic geographically accurate maps that we locals have come to love to something more linear (or diagrammatic). i wish i had more solid sources, but the sf weekly blurb from late last year was claiming that a BART spokesperson said this change would happen. sure, the maps of the past were linear, but that was before my time. (note: the diagrammatic map i linked is the work of a third party, not the planned official map).

maybe straight lines would be easier to read to an outsider. perhaps the style of the london underground maps would add some extra sophistication to what some people perceive as an aging transit system. but those geographically accurate maps did emphasize the unique geography of the bay, with four of the five lines meandering from opposite ends of the bay area and merging harmoniously through the heart of san francisco. and it's probably the map-loving boy inside me professing that i will miss them.

(if anyone knows what happens to old maps from the insides of the trains, please let me know.)

Monday, February 04, 2008

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 05:52:28 GMT

as you may know, i've posted about ads here over and over again, as they've been an area of interest to me. the super bowl has quite a bit of hits and misses, usually leaning on the side of the misses with ads on shaky foundations of bodily functions humor, but this is probably my favorite among the super bowl ads this year - an ad by coca-cola. incidentally, this other ad also by coca-cola is particularly sweet (particularly during primaries season), and i'm not just talking about the artificial sweeteners.

(alternatives in case the links break: coca-cola parade and jinxed)

speaking of primary elections, if you're a nonpartisan (no party) registrant in california, you can in fact request an independent or democratic party ballot to participate in the primaries without altering your no party status. (i believe the republican party does not offer this option in california - it varies from state to state.) given that the day after tomorrow is super tuesday, the date of california's primaries, it's too late if you haven't requested one by mail already. but i figured i should clear this up for the future, as people seem to generally hold this misunderstanding that the primaries still restrict participation by party affiliation.

edit: i should clarify. i meant that it's too late for the mail-in absentee method, but the other ballots can always be requested on the spot at the polling locations. and yes, you can drop your absentee ballot in any polling station in your county (and it would not be provisional). and no, if you're registered with, say, the green party, you can't request a democratic ballot, as crossovers are only allowed for the unregistered party folks.

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 01:24:42 GMT

this has to be one of the more interesting polls to come out of slashdot. it asks what percentage of people would select the same poll option as you, with several ranges from which to choose. it's turning out to be dynamic and contradictory, much like one of those questions where option C claims options A, B, and C are false. if you check it out, please try to at least mentally pick one before peeking at the results.

oh yeah, and the world of solitaire is an online solitaire game that looks and runs as smoothly as the one bundled with windows machines (arguably better looking). great if you're feeling sporadic solitaire urges on the go.

Saturday, January 26, 2008

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 05:16:03 GMT

hahaha. so i was linked to this flip chart comedy bit by demetri martin on comedy central. it's not brand new, but it's still amusing to me. it also reminds me of one of my favorite blogspots that i linked here a couple years ago, indexed, whose author creates some fun graphs. the difference since my last post about that site is that it appears that it's expanding to the print book form next month. seems like the trend among my favorites at the moment.

also, this was probably the most glum starting semester week i've ever seen. at least the courses are interesting, some of the people are back, and the california primaries are approaching.

edit: oh yeah, speaking of flipbooks, about a little over a week ago, i created some frame-by-frame drawn animations with quicktime for the first time ever. these were were the first real motion clips i've created since my animated GIFs from the turn of the century (just my pompous way of saying 1999/2000). i actually previously didn't realize quicktime could generate motions so easily until i saw sue create one last, last fall in a cs art of animation course at cal. i couldn't get in last fall, but some documentation online showed me how to import image sequences and mix audio clips.

also, i showed karen how to do it, and she created her own animation segment better than mine.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 07:38:21 GMT

i took this from bri, who took this from john. so i'm ripping off two people.

how it works: put your music playlist on shuffle, ask the following questions aloud, and answer with the song titles (absolutely no cheating).

1. How does the world see me?
Brian Hyland - "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini"
Yikes.

2. Will I have a happy life?
From Hairspray - "The Nicest Kids In Town"
Well, this one does make me happy. I'll take that as a yes.

3. What do my friends think of me?
Daniel Bedingfield - "Friday"
Sappy.

4. Do people secretly lust after me?
Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston - "When You Believe"
I hate you, iTunes shuffle.

5. How can I make myself happy?
Daniel Bedingfield - "Gotta Get Thru This (Acoustic Version)"
Apparently by getting over the girl who supposedly broke my heart in #3... with an acoustic guitar.

6. What should I do with my life?
Clay Aiken - "O, Holy Night"
Well, at least the weary world rejoices at the end.

7. Will I ever have children?
Aerosmith - "Sweet Emotion"
Hmm?

8. What is some good advice for me?
Fatboy Slim - "Weapon of Choice"
Teehee. Advice heeded.

9. How will I be remembered?
From Aladdin - "Marketplace" (Score by Alan Menken)
Common bread thief?

10. What's my signature dancing song?
Alanis Morissette - Uninvited
Ouch.

11. What's my current theme song?
From Bourne Supremacy Soundtrack - "Gathering Data" (Score by John Powell)
Right soundtrack, wrong song.

12. What do others think is my current theme song?
Westlife - "To Be Loved"
*Sigh*

13. What shall they play at my funeral?
From Bourne Ultimatum Soundtrack - "Assets and Targets" (Score by John Powell)
The hitman's not invited to service.

14. What type of men/women do I like?
Aerosmith - "Sweet Emotion"
Again? That was #7.

15. How's my love life?
Semisonic - "Closing Time"
Okay, I'm done.

grr, itunes shuffle is a guilt pleasures magnet.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 03:22:02 GMT

hmm, this explanation is handy. it talks about what i dub the megapixel myth, after the megahertz myth, for the lack of a better name. the main point is that more megapixels is not necessarily better, though it has been difficult to convince elders without some basic level technical reasons to back it up. unsurprisingly, compact digital cameras have smaller sensors, and consequently suffers in lower sensitivity and higher noise as it divides itself among more and more pixels. dslr owners out there, yes, i know you know that you're fine with your huge sensors.

i've also told myself i'm going to resume my photography hobby, despite its amateurish nature with the point-and-click i have. the whole thing died off after my flickr craze in 2006. i tried to set up a panorama shot on the roof last month, but it was fairly bad timing because that happened to be the time when the local post new year's storm started picking up, so they all looked like ipod nano light blur ads. i really need to get out of this region though, because as much as i love the bay area, it has become the same subjects over and over.

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Thu, 10 Jan 2008 21:26:01 GMT

ever since i started using mobile phones, i've tried spelling out words with my phone numbers. the problem is that "0" and "1" have no letters assigned to them, which most of my numbers had, even when disregarding the "510" area code. at one point, i even started writing psuedocode in preparation for writing a script that would generate possible combinations in the style of an anagram generator. this past month, i finally acquired a new number with no 1's or 0's after the area code, and what impeccable timing because i discovered a word generator based on your digits.

i'm using the international keypad, which is used on pretty much all the mobile phones i've seen regionally.

so far, the best i could find was za taboo, wc taboo, and z cubano? hmph.

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Wed, 09 Jan 2008 05:12:41 GMT

ahahaha. love this idea. it's an ad campaign addressing pedestrians being vulnerable to cars when their ear buds are in. of course, "look both ways before you cross" would be equally helpful advice.

also note the humanflipbook ad, where multiple shirts were used for the effect of the animation.

Tuesday, January 01, 2008

Tue, 01 Jan 2008 02:25:39 GMT

goodbye, 2007. how different you turned out to be.