A Simple Way To Go Faster Than Light That Does Not Work

Other things I forgot in my description of last weekend:

Saturday attended that art salon in Union Square, which featured paintings and prints by cthulhia (including her celebrated Surly Pink Bunny Tarot), poetry by Mary and recorder music performed by Carolyn. The funny thing was that I knew all of them were up to something but I didn't quite realize until the weekend itself that they were conspiring on the same event (and had been for months). It was altogether delightful, made moreso by the surprise of my boneheaded last-minute realization.

Here's Mary's Flickr set of it.

Friday entertained lyricon and her dood as they passed through town en route to a friends' wedding in Vermont. We had yummy lunch at one of my favorite nearby restaurants, Porter Square's Passage to India, and had fun catching up and chatting through our respective grogginess, mine from cold medicine and theirs from Hawaii-to-Boston jet lag.

L's been a pen pal - there's really no better term for it - since we met online in 2000, over (what else) Looney Labs fan website administrivia. This was the first time we had actually ever met! Pretty good.

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Had a very good Gameshelf shoot last night. I cross my fingers coz I haven't actually gone over the footage yet, but it went much more smoothly than April's shoot, and the crew already thinks it's the best work we've done. Some of the improvement was reacting to my list of criticisms from last time, but a lot also came from the fact that I scripted almost everything. We were able to film several takes of each bit and still wrap early.

The only completely unscripted bit was our do-over of the Joe-n-Jmac dialogue about the games, but I kept these to 5 minutes or less of raw footage each, mostly of Joe waxing on about the bits he liked. This was good because I'm worried that the episode is otherwise me talking and talking and talking so it's good to give Joe some time, and also in reviewing the March episode more recently I've decided that the weakest part of the show is the unscripted host dialogues. I still want them in there, but they shouldn't be longer than a minute or two, each. After that they're just dead boring, compared to the rest of the show.

I'm giving myself a deadline of, oh, October 15 to get this thing afloat. And in a beautiful world I'd like to have another whole ep done before the year's out, but let's talk about that when it's time.

I finally called Ricky back just now. He wants to come down for Art Beat this year. We went to only a little bit of 2005's (2006 being the Ricky-(and-art-)free Volity Year) but he has only good memories of it, as well as sadness that he didn't buy "that piece with the string". I don't remember this.

I do remember feeling a little antsy when he was trying to have a conversation with one seller about her stuff when it was clear that How much is this? was the only question she wanted to hear. Ricky does not pick up on these things. It is too bad that it makes me antsy, but it always does.

Anyway, he's how tentatively scheduled to be staying at my apt for that weekend. We will probably hit the MFA too so he can enjoy its courtyard, where he hasn't sat in a long time.

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In other news, I finally cleaned my keyboard this afternoon. I didn't have the article author's specialized scrubby tool, but I did have a whole lotta Q-tips and some Windex, so I got most of the gross (and I do mean gross) matter off the base. His sandwich-baggie method of mass key-cleaning worked like a charm.

Sadly, as a fan and frequent user of mammalian skin and hair, it's bound to get all gunked up again soon enough unless I invest in a cover thingum. karlvonl recommends this one. Maybe!

Also, the AC is up again. Whirrr. $$$$. eh

I just paid three dollahs even for a eggs & chorizo burrito and a coffee at the new Boloco, and now I am leeching off their wireless. That's a pretty good deal.

The burritos here are kind of anemic compared to the big fat burritos that my neighbor Tacos Lupita makes, but they're tasty. The coffee is tolerable. It's a nice cheap protein boost though, on a morning when I was expecting to laden myself down with a Diesel bagel.

(I'd post this in davis_square but honestly I'd feel self-conscious about writing more posts about buildings and food there. Not that I don't enjoy the ones that others write. Anyway.)

I'm helping to crew tonight's Rock Candy Show taping. Only one band this time: Octave Club [noisy MySpace link]. As always it's free and open to the public, so come on by if you want to be blasted with some free live rock n roll in our cute lil TV studio.

The website says that taping starts at 7 and that's a damn lie because I just spoke to the director. It will probably be 8:30 or so.

I love the lovely coffee ladies of the Rossini's and Cumberland Farms morning shifts. They always have a smile for me, and in the case of Rossini's have a tall cup of sweet black warmth poured by the time I reach the counter, for they know me. I need only nod.

They are my radiant dark angels of good mornings.

The Stah Mahket Shaw's at Porter is open 24 hours again, just like it was when I first moved here nearly six years ago. This is a good thing. I just visited and bought some phoney-baloney bagels, which is better than no bagels at all, esp. since I v. much wanted a hot buttered bagel and didn't want to go to Dunkies for it. (Also discovered that Shaw's has a half-price bin for day-olds, but all it had it in was, like, bulkie rolls.)

I remember the staff being a little wacky this late, and it's once again true. Sadly they turn off the self-service lanes overnight so you have to interact with checkout clerks. Mine was wearing weird little sunglasses, and I wondered at first if he was blind, but it didn't seem so. Maybe he was a vampire. He really liked the brand of bagels I had chosen and talked at length about how much he loves to eat them straight out of the package, except then he has to wash his hands after. ?!.

At Wednesday's Gameshelf shoot, Director-Joe offered me a gig: he was directing a talk show for Somerville's municipal TV station the next morning, and needed camera help for an hour. So I did that, and the producer asked if I could come in this morning to shoot another talk show. Just got back from that.

I told the producer that I'd continue to welcome these little morning jobs. This is actually quite ideal for me right now. It pays well for only a little time invested, and since it's early in the morning it leaves the whole rest of the day open for Voilty work. Encourages me to get my ass out of bed at a reasonable time, too. Yay.

(This outfit is entirely separate from SCAT. It's a municipally funded and operated TV station, versus a public-access nonprofit. It also has a general theme to its programming, quite unlike SCAT, which lets any Somerville resident willing to pony up a $40 membership produce TV shows about whatever they want.)