Zombie Infection Simulation: “Zombies are grey, move very slowly and change direction randomly and frequently unless they can see something moving in front of them, in which case they start walking towards it. After a while they get bored and wander randomly again.

If a zombie finds a human directly in front of it, it infects them; the human immediately joins the ranks of the undead.

Humans are pink and run five times as fast as zombies, occasionally changing direction at random. If they see a zombie directly in front of them, they turn around and panic.

Panicked humans are bright pink and run twice as fast as other humans. If a human sees another panicked human, it starts panicking as well. A panicked human who has seen nothing to panic about for a while will calm down again.”

Male and female voices affect brain differently: “Scientists at the University of Sheffield have explained the differences in the way the male brain interprets male and female voices, explaining why people who hallucinate and hear false voices almost always hear a man. It also sheds new light on the way the brain processes voices to produce an `auditory face� that allows people to determine aspects of someone�s physical appearance based solely on the way they sound.
“

Alton Brown.com � Rants & Raves!: “Dear Tom Cruise,

Your lack of belief in the existence of clinical depression tells me one thing: you didn�t spend $10. to see War Of The Worlds. If vitamins can possibly help me out of this spiraling funk, please let me know which ones. Dinos? Pebbles? Freds?

Please, I�m crying out for help.

Alton Brown”

“SCIENTISTS have been warned that their latest experiments may accidently produce monkeys with brains more human than animal.

In cutting-edge experiments, scientists have injected human brain cells into monkey fetuses to study the effects.

Critics argue that if these fetuses are allowed to develop into self-aware subjects, science will be thrown into an ethical nightmare.”

damn, dirty apes…

Open Letter to Kansas School Board: “…I am writing you with much concern after having read of your hearing to decide whether the alternative theory of Intelligent Design should be taught along with the theory of Evolution. I think we can all agree that it is important for students to hear multiple viewpoints so they can choose for themselves the theory that makes the most sense to them. I am concerned, however, that students will only hear one theory of Intelligent Design.

Let us remember that there are multiple theories of Intelligent Design. I and many others around the world are of the strong belief that the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster. It was He who created all that we see and all that we feel. We feel strongly that the overwhelming scientific evidence pointing towards evolutionary processes is nothing but a coincidence, put in place by Him….”

Step after step we try controlling our fate
When we finally start living its become too late

Trapped inside this octavarium
Trapped inside this octavarium
Trapped inside this octavarium
Trapped inside this octavarium

- Dream Theater (yes, again - it’s on heavy rotation today. Fuck off.)

Why Do You Work So Hard? / Is it maybe time to quit your safe job and follow your path and infuriate the establishment?: “Oh you’re so lucky that you have the means to do that, we think. I’d love to do that but I can’t because I have too many a) bills b) babies c) doubts, we insist. We always think such lives are for others and never for ourselves, something people with huge chunks of cash reserves or huge hunks of time or huge gobs of wildly ambitious talent can do. It is never for us.

And truly, this mind-set is the national plague, a fate worse than death.

And while it must be acknowledged that there are plenty who are in such dire financial or emotional circumstances that they simply cannot bring change, no matter how much they might wish it, you still always gotta ask: How much is legit, and how much is an excuse born of fear?”

We teach best that which we most need to learn.

*

When you say about a dog or a cat, “That’s just who they are,” well — that’s just who they are. Animal personalities can’t be changed internally; they have no concept of what’s healthy or unhealthy, right or wrong. As a human you can try to train the behavior out of them, though positive or negative reinforcement, but otherwise, they are what they is. Why should they change, after all? Hasn’t this behavior worked fine for their survival so far?

But humans — we get so attached to ourselves that we stand firmly, hands wrapped around the nearest light pole or oak tree and refuse to change. That’s just who we are, we say. That’s a part of me, for better or worse.

But if it’s for worse, why do we steadfastly hold on to that? Rebeliousness? Pride?

I truly believe that you should NEVER change for another person, not one bit. Not because they ask or demand it. But if there’s a trait that you have — pride, sloth, impulse control, whatever — perhaps you might consider letting it go for yourself.

That might make it easier to hold on to the other parts of yourself that are so wonderful, maybe.

*

“We move in circles
Balanced all the while
On a gleaming razor’s edge

A perfect sphere
Colliding with our fate
This story ends where it began”

- Dream Theater, Octavarium

And that’s my horrific thought for the day.

*

Am I at a point in my life where I am capable of being in a relationship?

There are sacrificces that have to be made in relationships. You have to be willing to give up some thigns that you want in order to give the other person what they need, sometimes. Attention, time, etc… And I’m not sure that I’m there.

I’m not sure that I ever have been.

My values are different from most people. Most people see their future, their mark on the world, through children (never mind that too many people see children as a way to live out dreams that they never had the balls to chase themselves…). I had someone recently tell me that she hoped to leave her mark on the world with a child that was a better person than she; that’s an admirable hope.

Me, though — not so interested in children. I was once, but I believe honestly that I have only met one - maybe two, but I lean towards the singular - woman with whom I would ever have had children (Melissa, second wife, by the way). And if you ask what the difference between her and the rest of the world is, I’ll tell you that i have no idea. It’s a gut thing; and the more I think about it, the more that I suspect it has to do with my abilities and fears about fatherhood than her (or anyone else’s) abilities as a mother.

And so, having destroyed that relationship (and the likelihood that I will ever [intentionally] have a child), I move back to my goals of leaving my mark on the world, through art of some sort. And I work, and work, and work, writing and making movies and music and coming up with new ideas and half-finishing them. And it’s in those moments that I’m happiest, releasing my creative side. Things rarely come out as good as I want them to, but I know I’m getting better each time, and besides — I enjoy the process.

And that’s so much easier than relating to people, way too much of the time.

And it’s amazingly good distraction. You find yourself unable to focus on the work at the same time that you’re thinking about all the depressing parts of your life - so the depressing stuff gets shoved to the back while you work.

Ah, yes, and the workaholic is born again.

For thirty years, where have I been?

And I’m not even sure that I know what “leaving my mark” means: short-term fame? Money? Critical raves?

But I am fairly sure that it will never be enough, and that I will always push myself to do more, to want more, to be more. And that’s a scary thought.

And maybe it’s time to re-evaluate all this.

And maybe Montana’s not looking so bad after all. A week under the stars, laying in big piles of rattlesnakes and cowshit — that couldn’t possibly be a bad idea, could it?

*

Isn’t it ironic, Alanis?

The existence of the thing that you want most can only become possible by the absolute and utter destruction of the possibility that the thing you most want can ever exist.

To wit: only by knowing that certain things can never happen have I been able to create the conditions in the world and changes within myself that would have been necessary for those things to happen.

*

(Those pure and virgin apprehensions I had
from the beginning, and that warmth I felt when
I was young were the best unto this day
I knew that there is much more to…)

these days will be forever mine

…find
(… so I celebrate again…)

now I am standing here among your faces
a new constellation
enfold me, share my confidence
awake now, you should be there at every turn
all prevalent images confirm the spirit
to search for an answer
am I worthy of recalling my deepest well
from where all waters torn off?

I’ll break free
confusion will be the audience of my existence
the euphoric sense of the flying
defines me and my inner dance

(…to seem the stranger falls my lot)
yet all your glowing eyes reflecting slumber
they long for a distance
have I seen them on the edge of dreams
or been there
I don’t know whatever that means

I’ll break free
confusion will be the audience of my existenc
the euphoric sense of the flying
defines me and my inner dance

I see a broken (clown) man
a paralysed shape without form
the past lapping him
like a cloak of
pain

the more he vanished into the dark
the deeper I felt a serious loss in my heart
but I guess it must be the flag of my disposition
not to linger
but to follow the crowd

I’ll break free
confusion will be the audience of my existence
the euphoric sense of the flying
blindfolded and turning into swans

(I didn’t know that they were born or should die, but
I know that it is easy to forget what I came for
among so many who have always lived here…)

A brief summary of the Scramble, since I just got cable connection back and I have way too much to do today:

It’s over.

Okay, a little more, then. Shooting went amazingly well; we finished by 5 PM Saturday, which was exactly my goal. Then on to editing: 1 hour of dump time into Vegas (capturing straight outta the camera at 24p, which rocks, by the way), rough edit assembled by midnight. Took a brief break to talk documentary to the guys from APT who tailed us this weekend (doc to air in November, so I hear), and Chance and James Brown joined me somewhere around 10 PM.

Eric dropped by at some point — my memory is blurred — to drop off the music: two great little tag pieces (a la Laurence Juber/Leo Kottke) and an long instrumental inspired by Ozzy’s “Goodbye to Romance”. THe original idea was to have him record an acoustic version of the song in the style of John Mayer, but we scrapped that over unclear rights issues and rules (I do have the recording though, and it’s painfully brilliant — his vocal parody of Mayer’s style is dead on hilarious).

We tweaked the story progression idea — some of the shots involving Michael and Kevin were too perfect to use audio-only, as originally planned, so the edit (and concept) had to be rethought; thank god for Chance and his outside pair of eyes. James came up with the idea of titling the damn thing in Swedish, and so by about 2 AM, we had a really nice almost final version of “Tv� R�rmont�r och Fyra Het Hyndan.”

James left around this point, being the smart one who understands the value of sleep. Chance and I are not so smart, and so continued to tweak the edit and add sound effects until about 5 AM, when Chance took the emergency runner copy with him to render and catch a few hours of power nap.

Me? Yeah, sleep is for the weak. I stayed up obsessively tweaking and retweaking the audio, finishing with that around noon or so. Took a brief break to chat for an hour with Christina, who had just woken up, and then back to work — designing a full DVD package (I should so get brownie points for that) and fixing a credits typo that I had made the night before.

Turned in the film at exactly five PM. I was the fourth one there — apparently, there were three groups waiting for Catherine when she arrived.

Oh, and somewhere in there, a hurricane roared into town and killed us all, according to the weather people. Me, I just lost cable and had the power blink a few times.

Chicken Little James Spann….

Bathroom scenes are shot (and it’s not even a porno, although the dialogue threatens at times…). Kevin and Michael are turning this into a laugh riot — it’s been a really hard time not busting takes thanks to their improv.

Next up is the girls. Things are going frighteningly well. No jinxing, though…