lines can haunt you

2006-02-13

In which the word fuck is bandied about and finally makes it into the title space

I watched Office Space last night. In it, the main character, while suffering a bout of existential angst, asks a colleague the million dollar question: what would you do if you had a million dollars and never needed to work again? Whatever you answer is supposed to be what you would do with your life - he gives the example of 'if you answer "fix cars"ť then you should be an auto mechanic'. The colleague has no answer but calls the question bullshit anyway because 'no one is going to answer "clean up shit" and then there would be no janitors'. No matter the particular iteration, the question fascinates me nonetheless.

In fact, you could easily say I am tormented by trying to answer 'what should I do with my life?'ť And there is a few problems with that. First because there is a want/should aspect that needs to be clarified, and second, because spending time thinking about it is an excuse to not be moving forward in other areas of life, or to just being productive in general - basically, it allows one to sit on the couch and watch movies and not feel guilty about it as there is no point in moving toward something if it isn't the thing you definitely ultimately want. Which is bullshit also, of course.

(Side note: I am at Capers in Vancouver. I am using someone's unsecured wireless connection and currently engaging in some kind of undeclared bandwidth war. He is continuously booting me from the network and I keep connecting again. I have taken to whispering, loudly, 'Fuck Hugh', every time I reconnect, which is one of the funniest scenes I can remember from some season of Curb Your Enthusiasm.)

Because if you sit around waiting for a perfect situation you will never find one, and in the meantime you could miss out on a lot of other cool stuff, or perhaps even die, which would probably be worse, were you later able to regret it.

So fuck waiting, and fuck being cautious, and fuck not making progress in the name of idealism. Fuck the sidelines, I want into the game. (And fuck you whoever keeps opening this door and freezing my ass to death. Seriously, it's getting opened like every 15 seconds, and it's not even a main entrance.)

I don't know what I want to do but I do know that I am going to do the things that I can recognize that are a close approximation to it or which make me happy and accomplish something besides. Like design t-shirts. Like get into live comedy. Like write more. Like take more photos and learn more about what makes a good one. Like get into radio.

(Side note: Is the word 'never' derived from a contraction of 'not ever'? As in, n'ever, which later became never - or does it have its own distinct etymology?)

If I do these things, I will get closer to becoming more like Bob Kronbauer, who is some guy I read about in an interview who basically leads the life I want for myself. According to one source, he has been described as 'a modern Jack of all trades'ť, a 'hermit'ť, and 'an asshole'ť. Exactly. I need to meet this guy.

Over the weekend, I created the first ever camera phone, by which I mean I attached my cell phone to my camera using an elastic band. It was pretty sweet, though I have to admit its functionality was quite limited. Because of the constraints I had placed on materials and budget for the project (camera, phone, elastic band, $0.00), and the limited number of ways to physically attach a camera to a phone, we ended up losing the digital display and the viewfinder of the camera and hence any ability to know what I was taking a picture of, or if I had accidentally changed any of the settings while dialling. This I called the randomizer effect, and tried to play up its benefits as best I could. Another possible advantage was its increased girth, which made it considerably easier to find when ringing, but this improvement was pretty well cancelled out by the possibility of now losing both objects instead of just one.

Of course, the best part was phoning someone and trying to explain to them very slowly and loudly that I was speaking into a 'cam-er-a phone'ť, and that, although I could not see them, I hoped they could see me waving. "Hold on, hold on - I'll take a photo to commemorate this moment. OK. Can you see me? No? OK. I'll have to email it to you much later. I'll take another one. OK. This is exciting. It's a picture of exactly what my right ear would have seen, had it had eyeballs. This technology is amazing. It's so small! It's basically the size of a human heart - you can take it anywhere!"ť

Some people liked it better than others. I'm not going to lie to you; there were a few haters. One guy wanted to give me money for my creation. A girl rolled her eyes at me. (Note: this often occurs anyway, regardless of inventor status.) Another girl smiled at me, but it could have been at the guy sitting beside me. The band took my song request, but only after denying me repeatedly. So, basically nothing changed, even though I was the progenitor of a technology that has swept the globe in the short time since I woke up on the couch with my camera, my phone, and one broken elastic band. Nothing else to report.

But I am already working on a new project. I'm thinking about attaching a clock to my wrist by way of a strap. Possibly leather. I don't know what to call this one yet. Maybe wrist-clock. I'll keep you posted.


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Whatever you answer is supposed to be what you would do with your life - he gives the example of 'if you answer "fix cars"ť then you should be an auto mechanic'. The colleague has no answer but calls the question bullshit anyway because 'no one is going to answer "clean up shit" and then there would be no janitors'. No matter the particular iteration, the question fascinates me nonetheless. In fact, you could easily say I am tormented by trying to answer 'what should I do with my life?'ť And there is a few problems with that. First because there is a want/should aspect that needs to be clarified, and second, because spending time thinking about it is an excuse to not be moving forward in other areas of life, or to just being productive in general - basically, it allows one to sit on the couch and watch movies and not feel guilty about it as there is no point in moving toward something if it isn't the thing you definitely ultimately want. Which is bullshit also, of course. (Side note: I am at Capers in Vancouver. I am using someone's unsecured wireless connection and currently engaging in some kind of undeclared bandwidth war. He is continuously booting me from the network and I keep connecting again. I have taken to whispering, loudly, 'Fuck Hugh', every time I reconnect, which is one of the funniest scenes I can remember from some season of Curb Your Enthusiasm.) Because if you sit around waiting for a perfect situation you will never find one, and in the meantime you could miss out on a lot of other cool stuff, or perhaps even die, which would probably be worse, were you later able to regret it. So fuck waiting, and fuck being cautious, and fuck not making progress in the name of idealism. Fuck the sidelines, I want into the game. (And fuck you whoever keeps opening this door and freezing my ass to death. Seriously, it's getting opened like every 15 seconds, and it's not even a main entrance.) I don't know what I want to do but I do know that I am going to do the things that I can recognize that are a close approximation to it or which make me happy and accomplish something besides. Like design t-shirts. Like get into live comedy. Like write more. Like take more photos and learn more about what makes a good one. Like get into radio. (Side note: Is the word 'never' derived from a contraction of 'not ever'? As in, n'ever, which later became never - or does it have its own distinct etymology?) If I do these things, I will get closer to becoming more like Bob Kronbauer, who is some guy I read about in an interview who basically leads the life I want for myself. According to one source, he has been described as 'a modern Jack of all trades'ť, a 'hermit'ť, and 'an asshole'ť. Exactly. I need to meet this guy. Over the weekend, I created the first ever camera phone, by which I mean I attached my cell phone to my camera using an elastic band. It was pretty sweet, though I have to admit its functionality was quite limited. Because of the constraints I had placed on materials and budget for the project (camera, phone, elastic band, $0.00), and the limited number of ways to physically attach a camera to a phone, we ended up losing the digital display and the viewfinder of the camera and hence any ability to know what I was taking a picture of, or if I had accidentally changed any of the settings while dialling. This I called the randomizer effect, and tried to play up its benefits as best I could. Another possible advantage was its increased girth, which made it considerably easier to find when ringing, but this improvement was pretty well cancelled out by the possibility of now losing both objects instead of just one. Of course, the best part was phoning someone and trying to explain to them very slowly and loudly that I was speaking into a 'cam-er-a phone'ť, and that, although I could not see them, I hoped they could see me waving. "Hold on, hold on - I'll take a photo to commemorate this moment. OK. Can you see me? No? OK. I'll have to email it to you much later. I'll take another one. OK. This is exciting. It's a picture of exactly what my right ear would have seen, had it had eyeballs. This technology is amazing. It's so small! It's basically the size of a human heart - you can take it anywhere!"ť Some people liked it better than others. I'm not going to lie to you; there were a few haters. One guy wanted to give me money for my creation. A girl rolled her eyes at me. (Note: this often occurs anyway, regardless of inventor status.) Another girl smiled at me, but it could have been at the guy sitting beside me. The band took my song request, but only after denying me repeatedly. So, basically nothing changed, even though I was the progenitor of a technology that has swept the globe in the short time since I woke up on the couch with my camera, my phone, and one broken elastic band. Nothing else to report. But I am already working on a new project. I'm thinking about attaching a clock to my wrist by way of a strap. Possibly leather. I don't know what to call this one yet. Maybe wrist-clock. I'll keep you posted. Tell me when this blog is updated email: