Daniel Bauman

So i am no longer single. It happened rather unexpectedly when during what was supposed to be a first date ended up spanning a considerably longer amount of time than expected and caused a second date that lasted for roughly two days with only minor breaks and which made us realize that it was a bit silly to keep calling them dates.

It is quite wonderful. I'm sure there will be more to come (unless I forget to post) but thought that this minor detail might be worth posting.

need. sleep.

Got 2 hours of it last night. Not quite enough.

So, like many mobile devices, my shiny iPhone does its level best to try to figure out what I was typing in order to make my life easier.

It has a HUGE dictionary - all sorts of strange words that I would imagine would not regularly get used.

So I had to respond to a work email today from my iPhone, regarding one of our clients - Xerox.

Now, we tend to abbreviate Xerox to xrx a lot when we're talking about it. So I titled my email "Xrx Strategy" and went to write and send it.

Just before I hit send, I noticed that my ever helpful iPhone had read my mind and helpfully retitled my email "Sex Strategy".

I'm REALLY glad I caught that before I sent it to my coworker.

So I was in the car with my parents yesterday, driving more of my seemingly endless stuff to my new apartment in Park Slope - and we passed what has to be one of the coolest storefronts I've ever seen.

Brooklyn Superhero Supply

I haven't the least clue what they have inside (Though if they stock tights and capes, I will be in love. I would probably even buy a set just to be able to say that I own my own superhero costume) but I *must* check at my earliest opportunity.

Unfortunately, they were closed yesterday.

Homestretch.

All the books are boxed.

All the DVDs/Games/etc. are boxed.

The majority of the electronics are boxed, and all that's left are the TV + entertainment center, with no wires. (I'm going to let the movers box that, since it's big and heavy.)

What's left are clothes and kitchen stuff. Still trying to figure out kitchen stuff. Most of the actual food items are getting tossed, aside from the nice stuff. (Items such as alchohol go with me, of course.) It's a waste, but I really don't have space for it, and most of it's been sitting in my pantry since I moved here. I'll try to save the ones that haven't been opened at least. Maybe not the ramen. That seems silly.

I have one big box o' wires and other stuff - eventually the keyboard, mouse and speakers need to go into it, but not yet. I have another big box, which is what the espresso machine will go into, well padded with more of my clothes. The rest of my clothes go in garbage bags - but not yet, because I still have garbage bags I'm using for garbage, and I'd really rather not get them confused.

I post a lot when I'm tired and caffeinated.

Sure. NOW I find the CD binder with lots of room in it after I've already packed all of the loose CD-ROMs in a large ziploc storage bag in a taped box. Mutter.

The zen of packing is as follows - after a certain period of time, ANYTHING squishy becomes eligible for use as cushioning material.

I almost feel like I'm not going to need to pack clothes seperately due to all of it being used to cushion other things.

I do realize now that some of my packrat tendencies with regards to boxes are being repaid. I have the box for nearly all important pieces of electronics in my apartment.

(My only problem now is that I've barely done my closets or kitchen. I don't know what to do with my kitchen stuff - I'm not sure there will be space for any of it, but I'm not throwing it out. I guess I'll grab the best stuff and store the rest)

Back to stuffing things in boxes. I have too many textbooks/tech manuals which refuse to fit neatly into any sort of box and which are too heavy to all stick in one box. Urgh.

Bodega has already gotten rid of yesterday's newspaper. Hasn't yet gotten today's.

Looks like using dirty laundry as packing material is GO!!!

I need to find myself a 24 hour bodega that can sell me a whole pile of NY Posts or other cheap paper.

Need packing material.

Am nauseous. That sucks.

My god... I think www.jonathancoulton.com has collapsed under the weight of Penny Arcade Expo traffic.

Between people there and the frontpage video of Re: Your Brains on PennyArcade...

Good for him :-P too bad the site died.

So, I just got home.

And I still haven't starting packing - my move back to Park Slope occurs Tuesday morning - or at least my stuff moves them. My person moving is largely dependent upon when exactly a bedroom door is actually put onto my future bedroom.

At least I got boxes.

This afternoon I went to see Tragedy: The Musical with Miranda, three of her friends (who in theory I may have met before - but my memory for having met people is likely among the world's worst), and her parents.

Afterwards, most of us headed back to her place (soon my place as well) and had popcorn with sangria and champagne flavored sorbet (which was excellent), and watched the first episode of "Slings and Arrows".

...

And then the second episode.

...

And then, against everyone's better judgement, the third episode.

And now I totally need to finish watching the series, except that I desperately need to pack tomorrow. Ugh.

Tired, but need food.

Relinked via Andrew Sullivan:
"Gay people who are raised in a religious environment, a conservative religious environment are basically told, "You're not good enough / you don't belong here / you need to change / you need to be something else." And so, in a lot of our lives, we end up leaving the church and hating God or hating Religion or hating the whole nine yards. But an inherently spiritual person doesn’t really lose the core of their being. So it’s going to come out somewhere.

I think that what we discovered is that it comes out of Theatre, because Theatre and Church are essentially the same thing. They are story-telling, they are inspirational, and they are true. Theatre brings an even higher truth sometimes. Church basically repeats the same old story over and over again. I often wonder if that’s not one of the reasons so many Gay people wind up getting into Theatre. We’re always told that the reasons are because we're used to hiding and wearing masks and being somebody else. But I think there's something more profound," - Steve Schalchlin, San Francisco Sentinel.

I find this quote really interesting. While I'm not homosexual, I've loved theatre for most of my adult life. What I find intriguing about this is that while I didn't have the whole religious existential crisis that many gays do due to the incompatibility of their religion and their sexuality, I did have my primary disillusionment with the idea of religion at roughly the same time that I started getting into theatre.

While I never really was religious - I don't think I ever actually believed in a god, even when I was really young - I sort of put up with it in the background until just after I started high school. At that point I went through the typical angsty existential crisis that most of humanity does around when they hit puberty, and realized that paying lip service to a religion just felt wrong - and moreover, felt intellectually dishonest.

I became an agnostic then, mostly because I found myself unable to accept anything as true on faith. That included an inability to believe in either the existence or the nonexistence of a god.

In that context, finding theatre as a surrogate for spirituality makes sense to me. Contrary to the wording in the quote, theatre was never one single Truth as far as I was concerned. I think I fully realized this after reading the play Oleanna and realizing how many different and yet totally valid interpretations were being drawn from it - and how this was obviously the intent when it was written.

In other words, the fact that there were multiple valid truths in theatre is what drew me to it. I realize that this can equally apply to the interpretation of great works of literature, cinema and music as well - but theatre is the form that worked for me. I also think that no two performances are ever alike made theatre more appealing to someone who didn't particularly want to find a universal truth, but more sought reinforcement for the idea that everything was really far too complex for universal truths to fit neatly into.

I'm probably trying to rationalize a bit well after I made these decisions. It's far more likely that I initially got into theatre because a girl I liked was into it, and then discovered that I actually liked it. I do happen to like this interpretation of why gay men tend to be involved in theatre though. This may be simply because it actually lets us straight guys who also like theatre have a legitimate reason for doing so, though.

Anyway, long ramble. Back to work.

I woke up at 5ish (after barely managing any sleep due to a cold) in order to catch up on a project. When I got into the office, I couldn't log in. So now it has my laptop and have decided that now us when they want to permanently set it up - it was originally a loaner while we waited to find out what had happened to mine (it was stolen, apparently)

So now it's 9:35 and I still haven't gotten anything done in spite of getting here early because I have no computer. I am so screwed in terms of getting my stuff done today...

Just as a sort of general "life update", it looks like I'm going to be moving back to Brooklyn at the end of August. My friend Miranda's parents have a brownstone in Park Slope, and they're going to be renting the top two floors of it. It'll be me, Miranda, one other guy (who is a friend of hers), and at some point in the future an additional person. The rent is good, the amount of space is great, and the area is absolutely lovely.

This is actually going to be my first time living with a friend/friends since college. I'm not really worried, since I tend to get along well with Miranda's friends. She tends to have decent taste, at least.

It actually should do wonders for my social life, given that when I live alone I tend to retreat into "Go home. Use computer." mode. Which is really sort of spectacularly boring.

Also, since I'm saving a lot on rent, I think I want to use the extra money to start taking lessons in some sort of instrument. The trouble is that I'd like to learn how to play too many things, and am having trouble deciding. Fiddle? Guitar? Drums? Bass?

I'd love to learn fiddle, but I really want to learn fiddle and not classical violin - and I'm not sure where I can go to learn that way. If I wanted to get started, I guess I could just take basic violin courses - I imagine many of the fundamentals are the same.

It would be pretty cool to learn a more traditionally "Rock Band"y instrument though, too. (And yes, I will be buying that game as soon as it comes out....)

Decisions, decisions...

456 totally not running

Buses entirely overloaded.

I am on a bus to somewhere. Not sure where. It was supposed to cross the park at 72d and didn't.

Now it's going along central park south.

And it stopped! So I am off of it now.

Need to figure out where I'm going. When I left I meant to go to Stamford, but now I just need to find anywhere that I can sit and get work done at.

Any suggestions?

I think it must be because these damned iPod earplugs simply WON'T STAY IN that ear.

Argh.

When will someone make me a good set of audio-earmuffs with a microphone and play/pause/fastforward control?

I am listening to Ace of Bass's "The Sign" on my iPhone.

Aside from betraying a horrible lack of taste in dance music, this isn't that exciting.

Until you realize that The Sign is not on my iPhone's flash drive.

(Okay it is.  But the point is that I am not playing it off of my iPhone's flash drive)

See, I just set up TVersity on my PC, and am testing out its ability to serve my myriad wireless devices with music remotely.  Hence the iPhone experiment.  And for some reason, listening to music which is actually on my PC directly from my phone is incredibly cool - even if I actually have the mp3 file on my phone, and could actually be listening to it in better quality.

It's amazing the satisfaction that a computer program (which someone else wrote) and a little bit of port forwarding can bring.

One other aspect to my Imp DS concept.

You could take it on walks - real walks, which would use random WiFi data to determine what you encounter. It could use this to identify certain semi-permanent features - that is, it doesn't need to be able to log into that private wireless network down the block, but it *can* remember it and decide that that wireless network is a certain feature on the walk.

You could also meet other people walking their Nintendogs and eat their Nintendogs. That'll be fun.

I had an idea for a great twisted DS game this morning.

It's similar to Nintendogs, except instead of a Dog you have a sentient imp which *knows* it's living inside of a DS. It's sarcastic, doesn't particularly like living in the DS, and complains constantly.

There's an accelerometer/tilt sensor embedded in either the cart or an add on GBA cart (Those chips are pretty small, but I'm not sure they fit on a DS cart) so that the movement of the DS can actually annoy him. If you turn the DS upside down, all his furniture falls onto the ceiling. If you shake him, he starts yelling at you (see title).

Sorta the creature handling aspects of Black and White, but in a real world casing. You could enter your imp into contests, a la Nintendogs, but ones slightly more appropriate to a demonic familiar. (Actually, instead of an imp, it would be very cool if you had a generic familiar which would develop depending on how you treated it - again, pulling VERY strongly from Black and White. I love Molyneux concepts even if I often don't like his implementations.)

So.. er... Any DS programmers out there want to help me make this happen? :-P

So, in summary, it's a self aware pet game, strongly influenced by Nintendogs and Black and White. I just think the entire concept of the familiar knowing it's stuck in a DS and being annoyed about it would be quite cool.

(And it would be great if it could tell if it was in a DS Lite or a Phat. It could keep complaining about not being in a DS Lite if you used it in a Phat!)

Late to the party on this one, I think :-P

Grand Theft Auto 4 delayed until 2008.


Wailing and gnashing of teeth!