The Jack Noodle Journal

Scary! I had two Mondays written in for this week. Let me fix that right now. One Monday a week is bad enough! The holiday threw me off. Today also feels like a Monday because it’s the first day of school. Argh! Good early morning to you all! Oh yes, I must go get some coffee right now or I will truly die. I am sleepy and my back hurts. Lets see what else can I complain about? Oh yes, it feels like a Monday today. Hold on one second.

Do you think anyone would come to my art showing at a gallery if it was called “One Hundred Photos of Phillip and Pierre”? Wouldn’t that be a crazy sight? One hundred 5×7 photos stacked up of a dog and cat. Maybe I should do one giant poster with one hundred shots of them. Oh man, I should go back to bed.

Boy oh boy, It sure has been nice outside this week! Perfect weather. It has been hard staying inside and working on homework. I actually buckled down and did some good work yesterday. I have a sinking feeling that we are going to get another lame test in my html class this morning. Those tests are killing me! I’m not much of a test guy. I’m more of a reports and projects man.

Last night I was in the kitchen again! I made a recipe that my mom use to make when I was a wee lad. Hungarian Goulash. Oh yeah. I followed her recipe perfectly because it tasted just like I remembered it. I think it must be a cousin of the potato salad so I didn’t venture too far from the path. This puppy was more of a casserole though. 1 large sliced polish sausage, onions, sliced hard boiled eggs, potatoes, bread crumbs and lots and lots of sour cream. K thought it was an unholy mix of a hotdog, an omelet, and potato salad. Very good. I don’t remember it being as much of a gut bomb when I was a kid.

They say it is suppose to reach the 80’s today. Woo Hoo! It’s going to be a beautiful one, people! I am definitely going to have to wear shorts today. I just pulled back the laboratory curtains and let the Sun shine in. I didn’t do my homework yesterday, and went to Mr. Baptist’s house instead. Now I’m going to try to do some today with the weather like this? Oh man, I don’t know.

I’ve got to hurry up, take a shower and get this day started as soon as possible. I should have started at 6 this morning. I’m going to head over to the school and check out a digital camera and take a bunch of pictures. I know I have my own, but the school’s will be better. I don’t like my camera. The resolution isn’t high enough. I have a good idea forming for the new contest piece, which for now is called, “Steve and Phillip”. It involves some digital photos and they must be high quality.

One of my old friends from long ago called out of the blue last night. Travis. I haven’t talked to him in a long time. It was good to hear from him. He gave me some updates on how the old crowd is doing. I should really go see some of those old hoodlums. We all live in the same area for crying out loud! How can 8 to 12 years go by without not bumping in to these people? Maybe they see me coming and turn down side streets to escape. I think I may go see Travis at work today. No Noodle, you have homework, remember?

Oh, but it is so nice outside. Maybe I should close the curtains.

Ahoy thar mateys! How be ye this fine morn? Doing okay here. Happy Memorial day to you. Hopefully you all have the day off from school and work like we do. How was your weekend? Ours was down right peachy. We were pretty busy each day. I’m glad it’s Memorial day because we needed an extra day to recover.

Yes. So what is going on today? Not too much. I think there’s some chores to be done and some cleaning up to do but that’s it for work. I mowed the lawn yesterday so it looks pretty nice. I’m still a little sleepy right now. The coffee hasn’t kicked in yet. Maybe I should go back to bed. I should sit down today and do some serious homework. There is no math and no image manipulation classes to go to today. I am quite happy about that. There’s a big math test to take next Monday so I really need to study for that. I’m starting to get nervous and anxious now that the end of the term is getting closer. I have to keep it together for just a little bit longer before I can relax. I’m a little worried that I may be slacking too early. I need to keep up with the intensity that I had at the beginning of the term. This only the start. I have 2 and a half more years of this.

Last night we watched a couple of good movies. We saw “Road to Perdition,” staring Tom Hanks and Jude Law, and we saw “Adaptation” with Nicolas Cage and Meryl Streep. I fell asleep during Road to Perdition so I am going to have to watch that one again. What I do remember seeing of it I thought was quite good. Beautifully filmed. Adaptation was great. I love that director Spike Jonze. It was so nice to see Nicolas Cage do a good job in a movie again. I knew he had it in him. The whole process of Nicolas’s character racking his brain to get his ideas out onto paper was well done I thought. I’ve experienced the frustration of trying to squeeze a good idea out on several occasions.

Oh yes, idea squeezing. I found an excellent resource on the web the other day. A web site that has information on all kinds of design competitions. There are plenty of competitions to keep me busy for the rest of the year. Entering competitions really can be a full time job. I wish I had a way of knowing if the direction I’m heading in artistically with these pieces is the right one. I guess that wouldn’t be competing though if I knew those answers. I wish I could layout a bunch of my ideas and have someone look them over and say yes, yes, no, yes, no, no. Perhaps after entering competition 5 or 6, I will have more of a grasp on those things and be a seasoned competition veteran. A lot of what I should be doing is keeping my eyes open and looking at everything that is out there right now. The competition I am in now is actually getting judged on June 15th, which is good. I thought it was going to be judged in August. When that puppy is finished I can examine what I did and what they actually ended up picking and compare the two. I will also study the winners work and compare that to the judges bios and see if that will give me any clues to use when analyzing up coming judges.

Good morning sunshine! How are you doing? It’s Saturday and I think it’s going to be another scorcher here. Yesterday was a bright, Sun filled, warm day. Today should be the same. Hey, would you hold on for one brief moment while I go start a pot of coffee? Thank you, I knew you would. One second. There we go. Now the wonderful smell of fresh coffee is floating through the house. I opened up both of the doors to get a breeze flowing through here. It’s already starting to get stuffy. I’m not sure why we didn’t have any of the windows open last night.

I had a great Friday people. One for the history books. Why was it so good you ask? It’s not really one thing, or a series of dramatic events, I just had a happy day. The Sun was out, school went well, and we went to a fun birthday party at G’s house at night. Yep the old girl turned the big three – oh! It was pretty fun. I brought my laptop and Stu and I rocked out in the basement. I had some good drum beats popping out of that puppy. Hold on one more sec, the coffee is finished. Oh yeah.

Perhaps yesterday was a good day because I have been so annoyed on all of the other days this week. I have really been getting tired of a lot of crap lately. Of course relatively speaking life isn’t that bad and I should stop whining. I really felt like I was on hold all week. Things will be better when, it won’t be so hard when… I’m ready for the when people. Little nuisances have been stacking up and making larger grievances. You know when you just need someone or anyone to cut you some slack and give you a break? Where is all of this going? I don’t know, but I feel good today and not annoyed because of a good Friday.

The lawn is in need of some mowing once again. I’ve let it grow just one day too long. I should probably get out there today and get that dude cut. If not today, then for sure tomorrow. You know what I was noticing this morning? There’s not that many dandelions out there right now. Last year at this time wasn’t I cursing those evil weeds repeatedly? Who knows, maybe this is an off season for them.

Well, the weekend continues. There is a party at Joel #1’s house this evening. That should be fun. You should all attend. Tomorrow evening K is hosting a Martha Stewart party for the ladies. We are going to sit around and sing Martha’s praises as we watch her get slammed on that unauthorized biography TV movie, “Martha Inc.” Yes we have it recorded. I think there may be some craft making involved also.

Hey there. Once again a quick, early morning, before school post. How’s it going? Uh oh, the dog just got up. Hold on I’ve got to go take him out for potty time.

There, I’m back. What’s happening today? Not too much to report here for today. It seems to me that our whole weekend is going to be jam packed full of events. Lots of stuff is going on for once. Today is last Thursday. The gallery hop over in North Portland is happening tonight. We probably won’t go to that once again. We should though because there is some good art over in that direction. I have my html class this morning and that’s it for classes today. I have some studying and reading for my Friday classes, but nothing too painful.

Hey! A happy birthday well wish goes out to the lovely Lianne this fine morning! Another one also goes out to the always dapper G for tomorrow!

Yesterday I began the initial steps of the opening planning for my Canon Digital Creators piece. You know what? I should document the whole process from beginning to end. Get every last small detail down on paper. That might be an interesting side project. “Yeah, maybe interesting to you, Noodle.” Yesterday I began studying Giclee printing. Have you guys heard about Giclee printing? I hadn’t. I guess it’s fine art quality, ink jet printing that you can do on archival quality stock. You can do large format sizes. I think I might spend a few extra bucks to get my canon project printed that way. We’ll see. A hundred or so bucks on a potential 20 thousand dollar investment isn’t that bad is it?

I hate to say it people, and probably shouldn’t in case my computer hears, but I think that the video card in my laptop is going out. The monitor has been doing some weird things and going out a time or two. It did it twice during this post. GREAT! That’s all I need.

Good morning all. How did you sleep? I slept alright. I had a massive film festival of dreams last night. None of them were scary which was nice for a change. They were just normal events that were slightly askew One of them was about me going back to work at Musicland and yelling at these kids who were knocking stuff down in the store and starting fights. The other one was about me yelling at some religious fanatics up in a cabin in the woods. Boy, I really told everybody off last night! In one of the final dreams, K kept talking about babies. Uh oh!

I heard the weather report last night and they said that it was suppose to be a nice day today. They’re thinking that it may be in the 70’s. Wow that’s warm! I may have to put some shorts on. My legs are probably so white that they are reflective in the sun. It should be nice for at least a few more days and then the clouds will be rolling in. I wish it would hurry up and get warm. I’m kind of cold right now. Maybe the fresh coffee that has just finished brewing will warm me up.

Yesterday I registered for summer term. Yep. I think I got some interesting picks this time. I am taking: Argumentative Research, General Sociology, Environmental Science, History of Material Culture 1, and a Modern Japan Area Study. Some of those sound pretty tough. Those are like real college courses huh? It’s cool because all of my classes are on Monday and Tuesday. That leaves the rest of the week to myself. Actually that schedule would really lend itself to a part time job. Wouldn’t that be nice? Those classes are all general study courses. No design classes. I was thinking I would take the summer off from design study and work the entire time on my Canon competition piece. I think it’s going to be a good summer.

Well, what’s going on today? I’m not sure. I think that I will probably just go with the flow. A notary keeps calling the house so I think we’ll have to meet with her today and get some papers signed for the lower interest rate on the house. Pretty boring stuff. I got a really good book at the library that I’m going to try to read all of it before it’s due back. I don’t remember the last time I finished a book. This book now is called “Pause and Effect” by Mark Stephen Meadows. It’s really good. It’s about the art of interactive narrative. Yes, I would like to read a healthy portion of that today and maybe do some writing. Perhaps I will work on some homework assignments also.

Oh yes. Monday morning once again. I think the weekend wasn’t long enough. Argh. Well I guess Monday will be over before I know it. It looks like today may be a nice day. Yesterday was pretty nice. It was fairly sunny most of the day. The Sun is shining right now. I think that if it stays sunny like this, I will mow the lawn this afternoon between classes. It’s not too tall right now, I just want to get it before it gets too tall and thick like last week.

How was your weekend? Ours was good. We went and saw the Matrix Reloaded yesterday afternoon. Yeah. I’m not sure if I liked it or not. It was okay. It was a very hyper movie. We did talk about it quite a bit afterwards which is often good when a movie can get you doing that. We were wondering actually about the state of cinema. One day soon, if it hasn’t already happened, they will make a movie that is entirely action sequences and special effects with no story. Yeah my feelings about the Matrix are strange. I may have to go see it again to figure out what I think. I do think that has been way to hyped by everybody and my expectations were pretty high. At one point during the beginning, I thought the movie was kind of boring and then at the end I was thinking it was too much and I was over stimulated. Both ends of the spectrum. The effects were definitely spectacular. They didn’t blend them with the story very well though. The story clunked along and then everything stopped, the music started up and there was a 15 minute special effects fight sequence thrown in. Then the story would clunk along some more and then the loud music would start up and a giant battle on a freeway happened for some reason. Yeah, I’ll probably go see it again though, so I guess they won.

People, it pains me to no end that the season finale of the Simpsons was last night! The season can’t be over already! It just started. The season enders were okay. They haven’t done any season cliff hangers on the Simpsons since the “Who shot Mr. Burns” episodes. I wish they would do something like that again. Gosh, now I have to wait all summer and way into the fall before I can see some new episodes.

The season finale of 24 is tomorrow. The final hour of the 24 hours. That was a pretty good show this season. It sure was over the top quite a few times. Other than that I think that’s it for our TV viewing season. Now we can get on with our lives and get out in the great outdoors.

Oh yeah, I meant to comment on this last week. I can’t believe I am admitting to watching this but did you notice the song that started up when Joey finally decided to go up to Rachell’s hotel room and bed her on the Friends season finale? It was Interpol! Ha ha Interpol was on Friends. What does that do to your alterna-cred? It can’t be good for it. Wait a second what does that do to your web-cred, talking about Friends in your journal? Oops. Uh yeah, never mind.

Good morning! I am doing much better today than I was yesterday morning. I actually got some rest last night! Phillip is doing good once again. His giant welts are all gone now. Crazy. You know, Bostons as a breed are generally allergic to onions. I wonder if Phillip got a hold of some onions while we were eating at La Cruda? If that’s the case, then no more onions for that guy. Ah yes, a good morning. I’ve got a fresh cup of coffee here now and I am ready to take on the day.

Okay, where to begin. Well, it’s Saturday. It’s the weekend. That’s a good thing. I have a couple of assignments to work on this weekend, but nothing too demanding. You all would be quite proud of me. I actually did some math homework on Wednesday instead of Sunday this week. I still have quite a bit more that I could do with it though. I don’t have too many chores to do today. That’s nice. I do have to get some bills in the mail today though. That’s not too nice. I think the first order of business today is to get the print version of the Transmission West project finally finished up. I just have a couple wires left to connect and then Eugene should be able to slap it down on the press and go to town.

Oh yes, I figured out the next competition I am going to enter. I am going to enter the Canon Digital Creators Contest 2003.This one is going to be tough. I think that it is open to everyone, not just students. The grand prize is 20,000 dollars. Wouldn’t that be nice. I’ll probably enter the illustration category again. I really need to get going on my photography work, animation work, and flash work so I can enter more categories. I have an idea already for my entry I think. Whatever I do end up doing is really going to have to kick ass for me to compete. I really have to up the ante this time. I need to win some of these competitions. The deadline for the Canon contest isn’t until September 24th, so that gives me quite a bit of time to do something really great.

I was staring at the walls the other day and my eyes roamed over the titles of the books I have sitting on the bookshelf here in the laboratory. I have quite the collection of interesting design and multimedia books starting to stack up. I must have had lots of money for book buying way back in ‘96 and ‘97 because that’s the date on most of these books. Boy those were the days. I took a book on graphic design and digital media to school with me yesterday to read between classes. Man, it was so good! The ideas and concepts in the book reminded me why I like all things digital and gave me a new zeal and excitement for this crap again. I went on Amazon to see if they had an updated version of the book and they didn’t. I did find a book by Hillman Curtis about process and inspiration that looks pretty amazing. I remember holding it in my hands and thumbing through it the other day but I can’t remember where I was. It’s cool on Amazon now they have like 8 pages of the books that you can read to get a taste of what it is about.

Oh, got to run. K needs a ride to work now.

Oh my gosh! I am so tired this morning! We decided to take Phillip into the pet emergency at 1 in the morning. He’s okay people, don’t freak out. Phillip had a crazy rash that was turning into huge welts last night, making his body swell up in bumps everywhere. We think he rolled around in something he was allergic to on our wonderful walk the other day or he ate something that was bad for him. God people, pets! Well we took him in, they gave him some medicine, gave him some steroids and the bumps shrank. Now I am tired. I’ve got school this morning! At least the weekend is almost here huh?

We didn’t see the Matrix on Wednesday after all. Decided it wasn’t financially prudent at that time. We were right. How was it though, people? K and I will probably try to sneak in without paying or call in a favor from our movie guy. Oh well.

Not much going on. School in about an hour and a half. Must go get ready. I need to shave my beard off. It’s really itching me. I hope I don’t fall asleep in the middle and accidently slip and slit my throat open. School went pretty well this week. I think my html test yesterday went good. I’m learning quite a bit in that class. Today should be a pretty mellow school day. I just have to stay awake or at least appear to look like I am awake.

People, I really need to get a part time job unfortunately. Have you guys and gals heard of anything? I did quite an extensive search yesterday with my standards totally lowered and I still didn’t see anything promising. Maybe I’ll go check the student board at the school again today. They don’t seem to be updating it though. I’m almost to the point where I will do about anything for some extra dough. Sucks!

HEY EVERYBODY! I’m back. I know you were all worried sick. The ole web site was down for a couple of days. I had thought that something was wrong with my server, but then I did some investigating and found out it was my fault. My domain name had expired! For a brief moment there JackNoodle.com was unregistered and could have been bought up by anyone. Oh goodness! I would have to have opened back up with JackNoodle.org. Everything is straightened away now though. Lets promise to never be separated like that again, okay? I thought I would be a little more freaked out by the web site being down, but I think I did alright. I was a little uncomfortable without my email. I know a couple of you tried to send me email and it got returned. Re-send it! One final note on the downed site, the day my domain expired on: May 5th, 2003. See I told you, Cinco De Mayo! Forever the day of evil towards Noodle.

What has been happening during my brief absence? Not too much around these parts. Yesterday was an absolutely beautiful day outside. The Sun was shining and it was warm out. K, Phillip, and I went on an awesome walk. We all walked over to La Cruda, sat outside and had Mexican food and drinks. We were so hungry! I actually got kind of hot on our walk. That was a strange feeling. Phillip gets heated quick also, so you have to keep an eye on him and make sure he drinks lots of water.

I think we are going to try to go and see The Matrix, “Reloaded” tonight. Yep. Martin found a place that is showing it before Thursday. It looks like it will be pretty entertaining. Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne and others were talking about the movie on Charlie Rose last night. They sure were talking it up big. I guess that’s what they are suppose to do. They were saying that these movies will forever change the way we view cinema. They also said things like it’s as important a trilogy as the Star Wars movies. Do you think so? I don’t know, those are awfully strong statement. Most of the interview turned into a love fest for the directors who weren’t there, the Wachowski bothers. Is Reloaded getting bad reviews? I’m looking at review now for my spelling check and it doesn’t look very favorable to the movie. Hold on, I’ll stop reading it now.

For those of you worried about my broken Radiohead CD situation, worry no more. I safely loaded it onto the computer and it still plays in a couple of my players without skipping. I think that this CD will forever change the way we view cinema, and it’s as important an album as the Star Wars trilogies. What? No it’s really good. It may be a little too early to pick a summer album, but this might be it. K thinks that it isn’t fun enough to be a summer album. She thinks it’s more of a winter CD. It is pretty dark.

I have to go in and meet with the multimedia department head today and figure out my summer schedule. I should probably sit down here before going to the school and figure out what classes I want to take. I should try to take courses that aren’t too difficult for me. It might be hard to focus sitting in a classroom with all of the summer fun going on all around me.

After my meeting, I MUST hit the books. If I’m not careful it’s going to be Sunday again and I will be asking myself why I hadn’t done my math homework yet. I really must study for my html test tomorrow also. Oh god, that’s going to suck if I stay up late watching the Matrix then go in to take a test the next morning. Another thing I have to do today is get a grip on our bill crisis here in the Noodle compound. Things in the financial world here are absolutely out of control. Argh! Okay, deep breaths, it’s okay, breath, you’ll be fine. Calm down. Remember your blood pressure.