Tuesday, November 9, 2010

"Writing and Web 2.0" presentation for English 575


The above video is a presentation given by Keith Hoffman, author of the 2007 Intercom article entitled "Writing and Web 2.0."

More information about the author is available on the following blog:
http://idratherbewriting.com/2007/05/08/keith-hoffman-presentation-on-writing-and-web-20/

The blog also contains a podcast feed pertaining to technical writing topics.

Monday, February 22, 2010

Senses, I...

I smell like a sleeping giant resting after a long day of peering down on others.

I taste like terrible victory with a side of hash browns.

I feel like I just crashed my bike when no one was looking.

I sound like a ferocious jazz bassist named "Treble."

I move like the wind, the night and the swing of a baseball bat weighted with pine tar.

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Ad is/n't Art


"An ad that pretends to be art is -- at absolute best -- like somebody who smiles warmly at you only because he wants something from you."


--from the 1997 essay "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again" by David Foster Wallace




I like this. It makes me feel queasy about my job whenever I read it. As a result, I delve more deeply into what makes me/my job different. This town of Bozeman, MT is my hometown. My advertising job at the Bozeman Daily Chronicle lets me see the people I grew up with, the business owners and citizens who showed me the thing we most want from each other is kindness. The connection I experience in community is much like the one I find in nature. I can enjoy Andy Warhol on Hebgen Mountain in much the same way that I can enjoy reading Edward Abbey on Bozeman's Main Street.


Advertising, from hieroglyphics to Google, certainly passes a message spawned from a core sociological response/reward archetype--a model of communication ego-driven and capitalistic to the core. However, it serves a need and a purpose in which cultures must work together in order to survive. Ain't that downright socialism?


With an overloaded regimen of some 5,000 ads every day, we react only when there is a commercial connection between the Consumer and its Control Machine. 


Surely, any MBA will tell you that such a connection must travel through at least one small instance of art!

Sunday, October 25, 2009

I eat like Dom DeLuise


Proudly, I have much in common with the late comedy legend Dom DeLuise. For example, our fathers were both Italian immigrants and we were dear friends of Burt Reynolds. However, our passion has always been food. We've never missed a meal and will eat anything and everything, anytime, anywhere.

Sadly, I never met Dom before he left this world for that big ol' pizza pie in the sky last May. But I know that if we did meet, it would have been somewhere away from food and drink, perhaps inside an old outhouse. (Public restrooms  are not an option, since I eat garbage and drink toilet water. I imagine Dom was the same way.) End of digression.

The best time to eat is when I'm left unattended and the batteries die in my barrier collar. Or when Bob & Vanessa Drownforget to put the damn collar back on me. When it's "working" (not my word), I hear a high-pitched beeping for a few seconds. If I don't back away from the food, I get a little zap/taze--which I hate. Everyone was shocked (what pun?) when it was discovered that this actually worked on me.

By the way, don't you love when pets write in the first person?

Here is a list of recent food items I've retrieved. I'll try to post as often as I can infiltrate security and find things to eat (edible or otherwise).

When: Friday 10/23/09
Where: In car, parked at Pierce Flooring & Design
What: One bag of pita bread
Details: Just purchased at Costco. I was caught by Bob but not before I made nearly the entire bag disappear. Bob & Vanessa had to stop at Town & Country to buy more for their fancy falafel!


When: Thursday10/15/09
Where: At home in the living room & kitchen
What: Full jar of Nutella spread, bag of Hershey's semi-sweet chocolate chips, bag of brown rice, several dog pork chews, bag of panko bread crumbs
Details: Bob walked in the door and caught me with a pork chewy in my mouth. I left dozens of pieces of chewed up plastic from the Nutella jar. I later pooped plastic pieces and choco chip bag remnants.


Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Rock fans line up to see Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore (i'm the 'fans' in the photo)


http://reddit.com/goto?id=2ty43



'carly' -- this reporter in her cheap navy business suit, jill-of-no-trade, talking yuppy smack & crackin' on hoboken's neo-frathouse de-chic -- got schooled by us 'rock fans' this night, 'splained to her why there is no life without or before sonic youth. i got way better pics of steve & thurston at maxwell's, but check out how geeked out i was with my knapsack!

the show was beyond measure. you know that feeling you get when someone tells you they found your stolen cassettes? this night was that feeling times redundancy. like driving your first police car, or giving birth to a healthy baby midget, or making a mime scream.

audio cataclysm. if only vanessa could've been there, i'd have asked to die right then, cuz i knew i was reborn.

also, check out a better review of the show:
'More on Moore'
www.nj.com/hobokennow/index.ssf/2007/09/more_on_moore.html

Thursday, August 16, 2007

movie week

i've seen a few flicks this week. such is life when my girl's on her vanessacation.

the list:

in theatre:
bourne ultimatum
rescue dawn (christian bale)
the simpsons movie

in-home theater:
28 weeks later (not nearly as good as the danny boyle original, 28 days later)
let's go to prison (writeen & directed by mr. show's bob odenkirk)
perfume: the story of a murderer (i'd like to read the book; nirvana's 'scentless apprentice' was written about the character)
river's edge ('that feck weed')
the lookout (disappointing)
al franken: god spoke (not a lot of new light shed but as an avid fan, listener, reader of al's, it was worth checking out. when i was an intern at snl, he once bitched me out for my poor research into conspiracy theories.)

next:
inland empire (new david lynch. 'nuff said.)

the highlight of the week was meeting coach bobby knight ('the general') at the theater when hayward & i saw bourne ultimatum. we had a rather pleasant chat with the coach afterward. he laughed when i told him the next bourne movie should be titled 'bourne again' ... he told me i should get a patent for that idea. i peed next to him and got stage-fright. but he couldn't have been more pleasant.

rescue dawn was my favorite of the week, followed by perfume. (not counting river's edge cuz it's in a class by itself, and i've already seen it. crispin glover's performance is truly one of the greatest celluloid-captures in history.) the lookout could've been skipped.)

Thursday, August 9, 2007

MySpace.com - www.myspace.com/44405208

MySpace.com - www.myspace.com/44405208

BobSpace blog ... now on blogger

if you want to catch up on what i've heard, check out my other blog ... blog.myspace.com/bobblyboy ... fresh!