Denver, Colo. 2008

Denver, Colorado 2007

A forecast calling for 3 inches over 2 days. Outside, 4 inches and it isn’t even 9 o’clock yet. I’m not complaining, but just wait until tomorrow when I have to drive 600 miles to Ice City, Missouri.

I’m neither religious nor into holidays (or winter for that matter), but I don’t usually mind excuses to get together. Unfortunately, we’re not together. Jenn gets in tonight, then she and I as well as my brother and father go to KC to meet up with my mom and aunt to attend the funeral. Holidays 2007 - -

Pine, Colorado 2007

This fall the god of men with small dicks found me in the saddle of a stranger’s speedy motorcycle on a semi-regular basis. I was lucky enough to probably put more miles on it than he had a chance to yet, as well as properly scrub in his Dunlops. All in a pair of CMYK Adidas, like a total unsafe twat.

The bike is now in some garage, behind a driveway of snowpack, dreaming of all of my weight pressing down on the left peg, my right knee digging down into the tank with just a single furry cheek clenching onto the seat.

And I sit hoping that the yellow Japanese turd doesn’t get picked up by its owner and that it somehow finds an extra 50hp somewhere in the cold.

Seeing as this seems to be the time of the year to make lists, here it is.

1. I’m lazy.
A few other items on this list will speak to this, but really, most of the time I find it hard to be bothered. My thoughts, opinions and ideas have other venues already.

2. I write down most things I would probably consider blogging about.
As a compulsive notebook purchaser, carrier, and user—most things get logged physically. I am aware that it is a huge pain in the ass to go through five different 100 page notebooks to find where I listed the fibonacci series as related to type size in scale, 1/2 scale and 1/4 scale. I would probably just make a little laminated card to toss on my desk before I would blog it (which seems to contradict reason #1).

3. I’m rarely compelled to make incomplete projects “public.”
This is not because I am particularly private about what I am working on, but rather due to my complete inconsistency I have little to no audience and what I do have I tend to talk with individually on a near daily basis. It was nice of them to humor me and add me to their feed reader, though.

4. I have ADD.
It would be really easy to make a stupid attention-span joke here.

5. The only time I really feel like blogging is when I am either on my bike,
in my car or about to fall asleep.
This is classic ADD loser/procrastinator behavior. The motivation miraculously appears when there is absolutely nothing you can do about it.

6. I don’t need the validation.
Or maybe I am just pretty good at convincing myself I don’t.

7. It’s too easy to be negative.
Being acerbic and rude was my “default” for quite a while—until I realized I just don’t care.

8. I resent technology…
…but yet I love my computer. The overwhelming amount of social networking sites, applications and other nerdery that are just vehicles for advertising and zombie bites makes me sad. Even though blogs are easy to hate, they can be among the least annoying because my favorites are usually individuals without insane levels of ad-integration.

9. I always think of how I need to fix the comment formatting.
I mean, really.

10. Other people do it better.
Let’s give me the benefit of the doubt and say I have a unique, valuable opinion. In this Ross-Topia of thought, all other 9 reasons would still apply and that can be difficult to overcome. Then there are the people in the world making interesting connections and plenty of other people to blog about those people.

I wouldn’t say that I don’t see the value of blogging—for personal reasons or for an audience—but the nature of it has never really made sense for the way I process my ideas and other information. Why I am compelled to continue to try? I have no idea, but 2008 is already shaping up to be strangely different.

There is a very bloggable project I am working on. I am getting married and moving to another country. There is a fair amount of interesting things that are going to happen—that I happen to know about in advance.

Eight pages of things that could have been blogged.

Toronto, Ontario 2007

I wonder how much energy all of these machines are using, blogging about the environment.

Read all about Blog Action Day

Finally, a fragrance ad that actually makes me want to smell something.

Toronto, Ontario 2007

While I was in Toronto, with no sense of irony at all, I made dozens of photographs of the CN Tower. It is the tallest free standing structure in the world, but it quickly becomes a highly ubiquitous feature of the skyline when you are plodding around the city on foot.

From any distance it looks like a dated sci-fi prop and up until the moment I was standing underneath it I had a hard time mustering any awe whatsoever. Nonetheless, its’ omnipresence during my explorations in the city—the never ending spire-peak-a-boo, popping out behind other structures—compelled me to photograph and rephotograph.

For this reason alone would have I cast my vote for the Canadian National Tower in Cabinet Magazine’s Most Phallic Building in the World contest, had some lame building in Michigan not already won.

Davin made these comps a few years ago, but I am pretty sure I was the inspiration. I think.

In addition to making photographs I also have a highly successful panda-humor comic. Here is a classic with a cameo appearance from Antelope.