The Jack Noodle Journal

Why didn’t you guys tell me I was managing my RSS feeds like a chump? Before yesterday I was just saving my feeds in my bookmarks bar up top in safari and clicking on each bookmark when a new number popped up.

Yesterday morning while sipping a fresh cup of coffee and checking my Gmail, I stumbled into the Google Reader area. Google reader is awesome! Why haven’t I been using it all along? I have all of my feeds in one nicely organized page now. All of my updates are conveniently located in one spot. I slipped in a Craigslist RSS that loads up all of the art/media/design job postings in Portland when they get posted (you never know). I also have a folder that loads up all of the new Flickr photo updates that I follow.

It’s also cool because you can automatically share articles with your other Google Reader friends that you are hooked up with. Oh yes, and look at the handy link that I can connect to the journal so all you all can view my shared items. This really adds a new twist to the blog notes posts I have been doing.

Gosh, I know. Welcome to Web 2.0 Noodle! Don’t laugh. I’m silly. I know it. I should have known better. I have been aware of the RSS aggregator, reader fun since my school days, but never investigated.

If you haven’t though, you should totally check out the Google Reader.

OH YES! 9.5 hours until the weekend! I can’t wait!

I’ve been checking my vitals regularly at Feedburner for about 6 months or so now. Over the years I haven’t been too concerned with the journal’s numbers. I write and the peoples come or they don’t. I keep writing though.

I have been finding it interesting seeing where the eyeballs are coming from and some of ways people are landing on my little homestead.

One of the cool landing spots a few weeks ago was The Martyrdom of St. Thomas. How did someone find Noodle through that route?

Today I found that one of you made it to Overgrown Thumb Nail Weapon coming from a search for “nail weapon”. Hmm. Okay.

I don’t remember writing half of this stuff so it has been a good way for me to go back and visit the old posts.

I’m also thinking that it might be a good time to backup the ole database. I think there has been 189 posts since my last save.

I don’t know about you kids, but I’m ready for some summer. This gray has got to go. The weather has been so lame. The grayness is bringing me down. Maybe the Noodle family should pack up and move to a brighter climate. Gosh what would that be like? I’ve never been a resident of another state. What kind of adventure would that be?

How was your memorial day weekend? Ours was pretty alright.

On Friday night we celebrated Lianne’s birthday.

On Saturday we recovered from Lianne’s birthday.

On Sunday we had a fun day of hanging out with Kathleen, Lynarra, Lianne and Martin. We went on a stroll down Mississippi street. Did some shopping and some eating and drinking. Mostly window shopping. I don’t think anybody bought anything.

There are quite a few new little shops that we hadn’t been to before. Martin and I checked out Bridge City comics. It’s a pretty cool shop. It made me hungry for comics again. I wasn’t sure which one to get though. It seems like there was a comic I did want, but I couldn’t remember which one it was. I could walk there from the office during the work week without exerting too much energy so maybe I’ll go back after payday.

Oh! I just remembered which comic I wanted to check out. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Martin says I should check out Death Note. I do believe he’s right.

There was some grumblings from the crew over a barkeep who wouldn’t let Gilby past the NO MINORS sign. Sure he’s just a baby. What’s the big deal right? I had actually contemplated this before this weekend and came to the conclusion that the NO MINORS sign is actually also for the patrons who want to spend a nice relaxing time away from the minors. I understand this. Sure Gilby won’t be sneaking in and having a manhattan, but people should also be able to enjoy their drinks without having to listen to a crying baby. I myself don’t want to go out for a drink and have to watch someone deal with their kids.

Gilby’s parents are going to have to expand their haunts to include family friendly establishments. ICKY!

The memorial day weekend wrapped up with a Monday of chores, sitting around the house, and Battlestar Galactica in the evening.

Now you are up to date.

Some items for to-do this week:

-Get K a new cellphone to replace the one that went through the washing machine.
-Figure out how to return the extra stroller we ordered.
-See about getting the oven fixed.
-Create some strategies for getting a solid “where are we” with hospital bills and such.

-Form some sort of organizational plan to help Mr. Noodle feel less insane.

hmm… what else?

I have been listening to a podcast from UC Berkeley this week that has been riveting. It’s the ART 23AC course lectures for Foundations of American Cyber-Culture. There’s some really interesting stuff. The lecture on the life of Alan Turing was fascinating. I had no idea!

That podcast reminds me of some of the stuff I was running into while doing research for my dissertation on new media. Hmm. I should go back and look at that again.

There’s some good stuff on iTunes U. Makes me feel less dumb and more smart like when I be listening. Ooooh, No wait, this one.

The MySpace page for the band Spiritualized has the whole new album, “Songs in A&E” up for listening. Quite tasty. I’ll be getting it.

When is the new Notwist album coming out? Early June? Yes please.

There were a couple of sites I failed to mention the other day while going on with my steampunk ramblings. They are two very important sites that deserved my linkage long ago. Steampunk Workshop and Steampunk Magazine.

I’m going to totally get a hold of those Steampunk Magazine kids and see what sort of services I could provide them. I would love to do some illustrations for the magazine. Hey you’re in Portland, I’m in Portland. I could fill in with some layout, some graphics? Website? Have your people call my people.

I’ve also been listening to the Steampunk Spectacular podcast this week. Looking forward to some new episodes there.

Oh hey, what’s this? I found this link in some notes that I don’t remember jotting down probably a day before baby came. Was I thinking about an interactive product design degree? Hmmm… I should investigate this more closely.

The shadows of family and well wishers aren’t darkening our doorstep this week. We knew this week was coming. You can only be congratulated for the arrival of your new born baby for so long. The freezer is getting back to the state it was in before casseroles and dinners were stuffed in it.

Time to make your own meals again.

This is it. You and baby.

This was the week that the rubber met the road.

We’re starting to read the mail that was stacked up by the door. No more cards. Just unread bills.

We’ve been working hard. Figuring out how this stuff works. Getting down to brass tacks.

We all have been learning. Who am I now as a daddy? A husband? Who is she now as a mommy? A wife? Who is that little dude as a baby? A son?

I have been doing a lot of measuring this week.

If you add too much to one side the whole thing tips over. Shave off a little bit here and then add a few tiny grains to the other side.

You want to watch McNulty and his crew, but do you dare watch 2 episodes while baby sleeps? How does that hour of sleep affect you on the other end? You need to weigh what 3 in the morning will bring as well as 3 in the afternoon the next day at the office.

How many beers will tip the scale? 1 or 2 might be alright but you’re really pushing it with 3.
How many coffees?

Yeah, and what about work? How much sleep can you get for the next day? Should you be helping out with the little one at 4:30 AM or wait for the alarm clock to ring at 5:45, when you can get up and change a diaper before taking a shower and getting ready for work?

They gave me a week of reprieve there at the office. This week though I’m starting to feel like I’m getting poked and jabbed a bit. My month off is being rewarded now with a slowly rising tide of annoyance and unnecessary job related frustration. Nothing too blatant. I might be overly sensitive.
“While you were away…” stuff.

I have been perfecting my half awake driving skills.

Scratch my back! No, not there. Not there. Not there. Not there. Oh yeah, right there.

Stand up as straight as you can. Try not to wobble. Keep looking forward. Okay, now take a step. No, don’t look down you big dummy!

It’s been good. I can’t complain too much.
We are just figuring out the nuts and bolts of our new family life.

I’m sure in another month or so when we’ve figured this stuff out and moved on to something new, this post will seem quaint.

The Little Noodle came in to visit his old man at the office last Thursday. Here we jumped onto a live set out in the studio and got our photo snapped. G Noodle wasn’t impressed yet. The blue patch to the right of us is computer generated cover up of the top secret product of who’s shot we were invading.

Yes, yes. Going back to work after my time off, totally sucks. My first day back was the longest amount of time that I had been away from Gilby since he was born. Last week was pretty tough. At least I have the kind of job where easing back into it is totally possible. Not too many demands were placed on me right away. I had the hardest time keeping my eyes open! I was so sleepy. I swear I must have dozed off a time or two and lost a couple of files that I was working on.

K being a teacher and all, won’t be going back to work until after summer break at the end of August or early September. It’s great that she will be able to spend that time with the little guy. K will be going back part time then.

We are going to try our best to avoid sending the young Noodle to daycare for as long as possible. We don’t see the point of working a job who’s paycheck goes entirely to the daycare that you need to able to go to work. Hopefully I will be able to work some sort of schedule out at the office so that I am at home with G Noodle while K is at work, and she is home when I am at work.

We’ll see.

Mother took some really cool photos of her G Noodle. I posted them up to the Flickr for your viewing enjoyment. Images captured by a mother of her baby are always insightful and beautiful.

Okay, I’m going to go out and finish mowing the lawn right now. It’s a tad cooler than it was yesterday. Maybe I’ll take a nap first.

There has been a few rumblings on the nets and in other venues about the steampunk genre over the last few weeks. Is this something that’s going to take off pretty soon? Is there some buzz building? I tend to agree with McCracken that if we’re talking about it now then the truly cool kids and early adopters have already moved on to something else.

I can’t claim anything on it myself except for an early interest. I have been keeping my eyes peeled and paying attention. Really I’m looking for a new freak flag to fly when I start dressing like these dudes.

The Portland art kids should really jump up to the plate and have a steampunk influenced gallery show or two. The Japanese, cutesy, comic stuff is done now, really people, enough. I say no more graffiti inspired shows from now on either while we’re at it.

I think that BoingBoing is really on top of this steampunk thing and could probably take the role of official torch bearer. I’ve been going there to find all of my info.

I read the piece in the New York Times yesterday. I’m planning on reading this giant article in the Boston Phoenix when I get a spare moment.

I’ve also investigated this “Edge of Twilight” video game that’s going to be coming out. It looks gorgeous.

I haven’t seen the Iron Man movie yet but I’m hearing that it had some steampunk overtones?

I’m also predicting we’ll be hearing more about the steampunk aesthetic once “Hellboy 2” drops.

(PLEASE NOTE: I am well aware that this steampunk stuff isn’t brand new and has been around for several years. It just seems like new chatter has been increasing recently.)

Little Gilby is one month old today! Can you believe it? My oh my, how fast these kids grow up.

I was asked the other day what my first week or twos impressions of being a dad were. Huh, kind of hard to express successfully with typing. It has been the best thing ever. Marvelous! See, I don’t have the words. I really had no idea how cool it was going to be. I’m sleepy, but it’s good, happy, rewarding, peaceful sleepy. Raising a little one is hard work!

I’ve been amazed over the last couple of days at just how fast he is developing. Every few hours there seems to be something new. I don’t want to speed him out of being a newborn, but I’m really looking forward to the meaningful smiles, laughs and giggles that come when he’s a tiny bit older. He’s Smiled a couple of times already but we think it’s just been gas.

Yes, not to rush him along, but I have been staring blissfully at him and imagining how much fun it’s going to be when he’s a little boy.

Oh my, and I’m absolutely speechless when it comes to another little creature. K is such an amazing mom! I have mountains and mountains of ever increasing love and wonder for that lady!

The sad day is almost here my friends! My paternity leave has now wound down to an end.

I have to go back to the office tomorrow!
Ah man! Work stinks! I wish I could stay on paternity leave forever. Unfortunately I have to work now more than ever. There’s another wonderful mouth to feed. It would be great if I could just retire.

I can’t complain though. My workplace was very cool with how much time they gave me off. I can’t imagine bringing a newborn home without anything less than a month off. How do those parents do it?

Thinking about working again has got me contemplating different schemes and strategies. Not so much just with the office but with the whole bacon bringing home dance. What the heck can I do to bring home buckets of cash without spending more time away from my family?

We haven’t felt any money crunching yet, but I am very interested in remaining as comfortable as we are now.

Being an artsy fellow, the only way I could image for it to be possible to bring home some extra money would be through some sort of creative art type venture or project. What would that be?

Perhaps I could get some extra graphic freelance work or something? Take some projects on the side?

I need to go back through the journal and refresh my before baby memory. What sort of stuff was I sticking my nose into before the arrival of G Noodle? I need to reread the old schemes.

It seems to me I was all about digital video more than a year ago. I’m not as interested in that now.
I’m really more into digital still photography now. That’s right, I was going to buy a new camera!

I think earlier this year I wanted to start to really get back into illustrating. DRAW! DRAW! DRAW! Get to the doodles Noodles!
I remember wanting Corel Painter X.

I haven’t been doing any web work since 2005. I think my web muscles have atrophied. I’m not even that interested in web stuff anymore. A few months ago though I did get a bit of a bug to try to get back into Flash. I thought it might be fun to design a Flash website or two. One of these days I’m going to get serious about REALLY learning Flash.

I like to write. Perhaps I should get a story typed out? I had wanted to dig back through my papers and read the notes I had jotted down for my “Holy” television series. With all of the interest stirred up from the news about the polygamist compound in Texas, the Holy screenplay would have been a hit.

I really enjoy surfing the internet and posting blog entries. If only there was a way to make extra money doing that!

We’ll get something going. I’m going to go back and read some old posts now.
Being back at work will be good because I’ll have plenty of time to sit, think, daydream and get something brewing.

Have you heard the new Nine Inch Nails album yet? No, no, I’m not talking about Ghosts I-IV. I’m talking about “The Slip”. NIN is giving it away for free this time. You can get it here and give it a listen. Another album already! Hasn’t it only been 2 months since the last release?

Yeah, yeah we get it. Mr. Reznor has now become insanely prolific. Starting with the release of “With Teeth” in 2005 there has been 5 releases in 3 years. It use to take him 5 years to release one album. I’m finding myself starting to get nervous about this. What the heck is he doing? Is he just emptying everything off of his hard drive? Will my favorite band not be so special to me if I can get a new album every month? How are we supposed to get albums like “The Slip” burrowed deep down into our souls if we aren’t forced to play them over and over for years while waiting for new material like we did when “The Downward Spiral” came out?

I really listened closely to “The Slip” this morning. It’s a pretty good album. It’s fine. It has some of the same themes, motifs, sounds, beats and ideas that were on “Year Zero”. Come to think of it, it also has a lot of the same stuff from “Ghosts” on it. How does this all relate to “With Teeth”? Thinking a little bit more about it, I finally came to a conclusion.

“With Teeth”, “Year Zero”, “Y34RZ3R0R3M1X3D”, “Ghosts I-IV”, and “The Slip” are actually all one giant work. Five different chapters of the same album. It’s an 89 song, 5.7 hour CD that should be listened together as one piece!

I created a playlist on my iPod that has them all collected into one long continuous piece. Actually, I took the remix album off of the playlist so there are 4 albums containing 75 songs, with the whole thing clocking in at 4.5 hours. I listened to the “NIN works” playlist on shuffle while doing chores and was pretty impressed. All of the songs jumbled together work well with each other. It’s a seamless shuffle. I haven’t made it all the way through a 4.5 hour shuffle yet, but I think that’s the way I will be listening to this body of work from now on. It’s way good that way.

With most of our music being digital now, we aren’t held to the same time constraints that were forced on us with having to flip records and tapes over to side two or being held to the 80 minute CD format. Maybe we should be making longer 4 and 5 hour works? Perhaps Reznor, like some crazy classical composer, had it planned out ahead of time that the last 3 years of Nine Inch Nails work should be heard on your iPod or computer all in one sitting.

I have found the behind the scenes stuff with the last 3 years of NIN work really interesting as well. Kind of like a conceptual art project where the actual journey and creation of the piece is where the “Art” is at and not in the final product. The path to the destination is more important than the actual destination.

There has been interesting innovations formed by NIN as they figure out how to get above the dying music industry. There has been new paths traveled down concerning digital music and traditional music distribution. There has been some fun marketing schemes and interesting video and gamer elements tied in. The new remix site has been pretty cool in getting fans to feel like they are part of the creative process. What they have also been doing by pulling everything under the creative commons licensing is also very cool.

I don’t know, it seems to me that there has been a lot of cool exploring, expeditions, and trail blazings going on here trying to plant a flag on the ever moving new world of music entertainment. This is just a glimpse of what our interactive digital world may look like in the future kids!

and…

END WEIRD RAMBLE