marqular

love is disgusting

Sat, 05 Jan 2008 06:47:32 GMT

So baby Amelia's cold seems gone,as does her eye crust. She's even playing with Lucy! On the down side, her drugs are giving her the runs and their so horrifically stinky she can't even take it... So this morning she left me a puddle next to her litter. Yay! Cleaned that, ran to the bus in horriffic rain, did my 8 hours, came back to find she'd replaced it. In the middle of clean up number two our neighbor stopped by because she'd locked herself out... And Lucy had to go potty... And I did... Choooo. Man I'm glad this day is over.

Gooey Crust Cats and the end of time.

Tue, 01 Jan 2008 01:42:12 GMT

Due do popular demand... Purrcilla became Amelia today. Sadly she came back from the vet today with antibiotics for what might be an infection where she was fixed (and a slight upper respitory infection) and some topical eye meds for what may be cat eye herpies. Yay! I can't help but wonder if they got her from the infirmary because we talked about having Tubby on iv fluids and they thought, "These people will take care of her better than we can." Good call. Nothing like putting something the consistency of neosporin on a cat's eye for fun.

Just saw an awe inspiring sunset from our little mansion in Emeryville. Aside from loosing Mewberta 2007 was an amazing year.

I spent a few hours playing with software instruments and effects yesterday. Then this morning I shot down German Bombers over London. These are truly amazing times. Where is my robot friend though?

RIP: Mewberta 1993-2007

Sat, 29 Dec 2007 22:52:22 GMT

Hey kids.

I waited a while to post this. Writing about it was too hard. Still is. Anyway, my sweet girl Tubby died of Kidney failure a month ago. The rest of her never got old, so other than a bad last week or so, she lived a good life where she was never sick. Even in the end she extended the feline equivalent of a middle finger to our dog Lucy by spending a final day in poor Lucy's bed. I miss her every day and I can't even write about it now I'm realizing.

However... the good news is that we thought it was best to rescue another life. We found the sweetest kitten EVER at the Oakland animal shelter. People adopted her, had her chipped and fixed... and never returned for her! She's about 4 month old and she's already a lapcat. (for short times between running around with her ball) Her name is Purrcilla and she's a tiny black kitten. If you come on over and are expecting the bite of the infamous Tubby, you'll be disappointed. A lover, not a fighter! That's good news for Lucy too. There hasn't been a single swat and it looks like they may end up friends. They keep starting on that route and someone will come to the door, Lucy will have one of her barking fits and Purrcilla will hide. I think she's slowly getting that Lucy's all bark.

Anyway, all in all it's been an amazing year. Married... new home, pet mania, new job. Whew! OK, my studio has warmed up enough to play so I'm going to before the Comcast guy comes (switching to cable from DSL as it SUCKS HERE)

Oh oh, I think he's here!

Cheerio and to all a good night,

M

Ultimatium

Sat, 04 Aug 2007 21:21:24 GMT

What's Jason Bourne up to? Let's find out!

http://www.imdb.com/rg/showtimes/location_cinema/http://www.fandango.com/tms.asp?t=AAFBD&a=10243&d=2007-08-04+21:15&m=58848&title=The%20Bourne%20Ultimatum

Other than that, life has been super busy. Milestone on friday caused many late nights this week, the good news is the developer liked it and I got a super trial by fire hand at putting graphics directly into a game. Might have been nice to get that tutorial more than a few hours before the build when out the the client, but what would be the fun of that?

More than meets the eye?

Wed, 04 Jul 2007 05:02:32 GMT

So...

Transformers. Sorry nerd pals. I was already old enough to think, "Why would a robot ever want to be a boombox?" by the time they came out. However, I'm not heartless. They are robots for crissake. I shall go tomorrow! I'm meeting my friend Chris for a late afternoon show... 4:40 at the Metreon. I know, but it's near stuff and things and my friend Chris. So if you're up for it, come meet us there.

and... NEW JOB. Man, it's good to be AWAY from InVision. I think it's going well so far, but I still have that new guy lost feeling. Rob's up to his neck in stuff and I... well I'm not sure exactly how to be really useful yet. The game we're working on couldn't be more up my pipick though. Woo hoo!

and finally iPHONE! It's beuuuuuuutiful. Finally someone made a phone that works like it should. I have a few issues with it, but they're all mimimal and can probably be changed with a software update. Like... no Flash on the web? Can't drag songs in iTunes into the phone (only sync to playlists)? No games? Odd there's not a single game on it.

The camera is beautiful. The image browser is also beautiful. The song browser really makes me want to get album artwork for all my albums. So pretty... Voice sounds great too.

Oh, and my biggest issue is the recessed headphone jack. STOOPIT. I can't use my sweet Shure e5s with it. Belkin's coming out with an adaptor... but it's not in stores yet. Oh wait.. just use the apple headphone remote... nope, won't work. Rrrr.

Perfect day.

Sun, 17 Jun 2007 02:26:34 GMT

1) Wake up have alone time with my granola and a new Computer Music Mag.

2) Wake up sweetwife

3) Ride bikes to supercute cafe for bagles and lox. The owner comes over and talks to us and gives us coupons for free lattes.

4) We take a steam bath/shower in our spa

5) Sweet love

6) Play music

7) Success at ordering blinds

8) Walk Lucy/Talk Winky

9) Seared Ahi Tuna and sweetpotato fries

1/2 Year Job Review

Fri, 15 Jun 2007 18:39:40 GMT

Please list employee’s current strengths

Mark is incredibly creative and a very hard worker. I’d venture to say he’s by far the most creative person at InVision with his talents in both visual design, music and fine arts. He spends a lot of time reading to make sure he’s up on new trends in design, art and technical aspects of his job.

Did I mention he also has a winning personality? Quick-witted and articulate, he’s always there with a funny quip and rarely bothers to (outwardly) vent is frustrations with the fact that almost no one (outside the creative services department) bothers to follow any sort of process. When his boss yells at him for not requesting comp time when he actually did.. did he get mad and complain about the fact that there wasn’t even an attempt at an apology? No sir! He’s a real trooper, that Mark is. I’d like to buy him lunch and tell him what a truly special, beautiful and amazing person he is.

Please list employee’s current developmental areas

N/A (P.S. I got a new job! SEE YA!)

Who is the nicest?

Thu, 14 Jun 2007 22:04:06 GMT

My wife. Amazing. After all my curtain drama and much lost sheet rock, I come back from a work trip to Vegas (not fun, trust me) and what did she do while I was gone? Find light blue/gray velvet curtains and install them in my studio! AMAZING! I can already tell they help the sound in quality a lot. Jennifer, are you reading this? YOU'RE THE SWEET! SWEET I SAY.

It is so good to be back. I think I might like Vegas if it wasn't for the smoking... and the inbred mutant zombies that sit and pour money into machines that make the most annoying sounds ever created by humans. I guess wat I'm saying is that I like the Cirque shows, good restaurants and pools. Can't we make a town for that? Oh yeah, and make it easier to walk around in, please.

There is very good news coming. Very good. A storm that's been brewing is about to break. Stay tuned...

How to live correctly #2

Mon, 11 Jun 2007 18:00:02 GMT

Don't start drilling screws into your walls thinking that perhaps the sheetrock will hold the metal cable, or perhaps the wood was just really easy to drill into with your screwgun. (don't doors have frames you can drill into?)

As a matter of fact, if you ignored all manners of traditional "boy" things, like carpentry or sports... hitting woman who don't listen... thinking that perhaps you'd end up a captain of a large starship where such things screws aren't important, don't even bother EVER trying to do home improvement. Instead, use your telecommunication skills to call someone with that knowledge base and skill set to do it for you. Pay them money gleefully knowing you're contributing to a healthy economy.

How to live correctly, by Mark

Mon, 11 Jun 2007 17:50:48 GMT

Hi kids! This is the first in my new series! Maybe I'll do an installment every day!

How to live correctly #1

If you see someone on public transportation and they're near the door waiting to board, don't push past them so you can be in front of them. This also holds true for lines of merging cars.

Being one person/car closer to your destination isn't going to make you not late for anything. Try setting your alarm earlier.

If you do decide to go ahead and push past people, you're an asshole.

Deep inside a sector of difficult space...

Fri, 08 Jun 2007 20:38:51 GMT

Stardate 60807... We seem to have entered a sector of difficult space. It contains a never before encountered type of energy that seems to try to increase entropy. Normal tasks like buying curtains now seem nearly impossible as the matter the curtains are made of end up being different than the specifications on the package... Telecommunications packages from Comcast mysteriously change into something different than they were when ordered... One of my favorite Indian restaurants in Berkeley is now serving bland charred crap instead of food.

The odd energy is affecting my wife as well. Cake was nearly impossible to obtain on her birthday. Her main officer as slipped into insanity and is stepping down. Another in her crew stopped doing her job effectively and then left with no notice.

I hope my science officer (Josh?) can help me reconfigure the main sensor array so that this energy can be neutralized.... must get control...

Damon's meth coctail

Tue, 05 Jun 2007 21:22:12 GMT

So I had a dream where we were at Romi and Damon's future wedding. Damon was making a drink that seemed like frozen Margarita served in a Cold Stone style. He was able to some how get it to suck up into an inverted glass, which was very cool. What was NOT cool was that upon drinking it I realize he'd laced it with meth. I remember thinking, "OK. Remain calm and try to just enjoy it. Freaking out will only make it worse."

Then I woke up.

Sunday night after Jennifer assured me she'd be fine walking Lucy at 10pm for potty time, we came upon a man near the train tracks in a little fenced in area. He was on his knees looking down. Pretty much not responding to us at all. Seemed a bit sedate for crack... heroin? Hard to know. Having had our really nice Jade plant and Kumquat tree recently stolen from outside our place, I called Emeryville police. Perhaps this odd man needed help? Nice to have a dog that's 85 lbs and half pit bull. Her fear of feathers would make us a mark for any boa'd marauding tranny though. Today our alarm is being installed (coincidence) and I shall continue to ignore Jennifer if she insists to go for night-time dog walks alone. My wish is to have a mace dart gun with a built in TASER.

Why don't people I work with understand that a page full of text on a powerpoint slide isn't a good idea. Sure, the person in question believes that Jesus walked to upstate NY and that there are underwear with magical powers to protect them from evil, but that still doesn't mean that me, a mere mortal, can fit a large easy to see graphic and a ton of text on an 800x600 screen and make it look nice. My god had no saviors that gave me any type of garment that would protect me from these requests. I stuff it all on. It looks like crap. She is happy. Later, I'll be yelled at for being a poor designer. That's my cross to bear, suckah!

I think that I shall never see...

Mon, 04 Jun 2007 22:28:39 GMT

a poem more lovely than a TREE. Well we finally found a tree to replace my old cyst encrusted Ficus. It's pretty damn huge so we're having it delivered. I hope it lives or we're going ot have one big twig in our living room. It's another Ficus, as we were basically talked out of all other trees for indoor use. Don't ask me why, but I loves me some indoor tree. Also, I'm hoping it will be a big part of my de-echoing project. Sound really carries in this place, but voice gets so muddled with reflections you can't understand what people are saying in the next room... so I can clearly hear my cellphone's low battery tone from the top floor, but I can't make out a single word from someone in the next room. It is getting better though with the inclusion of a big fluffy rug.

I also found some brown velvet curtain panels on sale at Z-Gallery for my studio. The color wasn't my first pick as it's a dark chocolate and they'll be the end of my natural light in that room. However, they were half of what anything else I've seen. Why the fuck are curtains so much money? For the price of a basic single panel of curtain you can buy a DVD player. That fact hurts me. I did need something to dampen the sound in that room though, so there you go. Tonight I'll get some cheap stuff for the double door area from IKEA. I'm eager to start playing again and soundproofing that room is a top priority.

I did manage to get my studio in a 90% hooked up mode and did some playing over the weekend. FUN. I hope I can do some jamming in there without disrupting the neighbors. Wish me luck...

FOUND.

Fri, 01 Jun 2007 18:00:17 GMT

Of course. All I had to do was order one. Where was it? Wedged in the crux of a bass drum pedal. I can't tell you what it's done for my general mood though. Now I finally live in Emeryville!

There's also something else very exciting on the horizon... Stay tuned...

M

LOST.

Wed, 30 May 2007 20:54:04 GMT

Not the TV show. I tried to watch an episode and I was totally lost so I put that in my "Maybe one day on DVD" pile. Something way more important. THE POWER SUPPLY FOR MY GUITAR PREAMP! (Vox Tonelab SE) It's driving me mad... like an itch in my brain I can't get to. Of course I could plug right into my laptop and use software to do mostly the same thing, but it's not about logic or reality. There's something about being 100% SET UP... I can't explain it. It's driving me mad. I hope this adaptor works.

Normally I'd just go and get a universal power supply, but this one is 9V AC to a 4 pin DIN connector. Totally non standard and so far the exact one is a special order. That's also retarded. OK, you've decided to A) Make a non standard power cable and then B) make it hard to get a replacement. I found what looks to be the right thing made for another company's guitar gear at Musician's Friend so I'm having it over-nighted... because if I don't I'll be driven to madness and go through the same boxes over and over again searching...

Why do I get like this? It's for sure an artifact of the move. I've noticed a flock of gray hairs in my beard that are telling me, "Mark, you're stressed" even though I don't feel particularly stressed by this move. I attribute it to the fact that you build habits in every place you live that allow you to do a lot of stuff on autopilot. When you move all that goes out the window and everything has to be thought about down to the tiny stuff. The place is well designed though, and most stuff is degrees easier. Probably because it was designed in this century when things like TV and ethernet cable are common place... oh, except when they wired the ethernet they just tied all the wires together! Wee! Better have a talk to someone about that. At first I've been pretty, "Oh well, they kind of fucked that up, maybe I'll do something about it." Now I think we'd better start being a bit more hard ass about it. When I did a "walk through" there were things the foreman just said, "Oh we can't fix that." (a badly scratched window frame) but what he meant was, "Oh we WON'T fix that." Why not? We were told it would be fixed. I'm always torn between not wanting to be a jerk and not wanting to be walked over. Where is that line?

On more fun news, we were blown off trying to (Jennifer trying to) make a birthday waffle brunch for the 10 year old daughter of one of her coworkers. (the child has made it to her 10th birthday never having tried a waffle... how could that be? Is the word "waffle" not Swiss for "corrugated goodness?") No call, no show. Why is that good? Because the Cheerio's and Kristin showed up and saved the day! Man that Orion sure is CUTE. I can't believe what he said to me! He looked me straight in the face and said, "Habajabajabajaba." and then smeared syrup on my glasses! What a maniac! Fun times... The moral to this story is that if you're not a friend to waffles, you're no friend of mine.

Grandmother

Wed, 23 May 2007 19:42:44 GMT

So my dad calls me to say "Hello..." and "your grandmother went into the hospital on monday feeling sick."

Weird. Why the lag? What's wrong? Why is my family so bizarro? I think a week went by before they told me my grandfather died.

My visit to Comcast...

Tue, 22 May 2007 23:07:33 GMT

So, we've been really happy to find that we actually get HDTV using a powered Turk TV antenna. Jest like the good ol' days! Who'd a thunk it? Heroes was beautiful. STUNNING.

But... we long for the snarky commentary of John Stewart... the idiotic home design shows of HGTV... scenes of roaming wildebeests getting taken down by big lions and rockets bringing home Helium 3 from the moon...

So cable. DA MAN says we can't put up a dish. (not true, CA law prohibits any one from being denied any form of telecommunications, but maybe this isn't the boat to rock)

Comcast? THEY SUCK! FUCK THEM. When did silly cable become so god damn expensive? When I was your age we used to pay $21 for extended cable! A loaf of bread was a nickel and we'd pin a clove of garlic to our lapel, as was the fashion of the time... The truth is we just don't even watch that much TV.

Last season we were late in finding Heroes and we caught up by getting them off iTunes. I started doing math and thinking. For what "enhanced" (not enhanced enough to get you a HBO or anything) digital cable costs $81.40 a month! (including a DVR and Discovery HD your basic channels) They have a $29.95 deal with a DVR and a year of HBO... but after 6 months POOF gone. It's now $53.50. Bastards. Why not just buy shows ala carte on iTunes? That'll buy us at least a show a day. Sometimes we watch more, but more often that not we watch a lot less. Am I crazy? Supplemented with Netflix why not just go that route?

Dyslexia or Cyrillic?

Fri, 18 May 2007 17:25:06 GMT

Which ever it is, it sure should be put under "Electronics that make me horny."

My first post!

Thu, 17 May 2007 18:32:11 GMT

Well well well. We finally made it. Moved to Emeryville! Bought our own condo. Who'd a thunk? Lil'ol me a homeowner. It's a rags to riches story I tell ya.

The place is beautiful. They really did an amazing job. This is it before we moved in:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/15553182@N00/sets/72157600112319248/

Check out that Eurospa thing. It fucking rules. Two people can easily shower together without the horrible "My turn to be in the water!" issue ever coming up. Oh, are you tired and hung over? Sit down, there's a bench! You can also use the steam unit... but it doesn't work for some reason. Probably not hooked up to power but they haven't fixed it yet. Look out though, I was born to live in a place that has a shower with a digital display.

http://www.us.kohler.com/tech/products/why_steam.jsp

It'll be just like this:

The whole layout is great too. I'm so glad I don't live in a home that was built before people had clothes (and therefore no closets) and entertainment was the family gathering around the Victrola... Jennifer's totally loving the kitchen, it's not gigantic, but it's so nicely laid out it feels that way.

Four floors though. Whew. Once we get settled in I'm sure it will be no big thang, but boy is my buttocks getting a workout making trips up and down. Forgot your keys on your nightstand? Pack a picnic lunch and start the ascent. The plus side of it is that Sirius radio comes in great up there and it's a fetching angle to view Rt 80 from... and that beautiful expanse of blue... oh IKEA!

A few silly things though... like the garage. Sure is nice having a 2 car garage... just don't forget to let your passengers out before you pull in, as the door is so close to the wall that you won't be able to get it open. I have no idea what it would be like if we tried to get two cars in there. Sure makes a good place to put crap in though. Where the fuck are my gull wing doors I was promised? WHERE IS MY JETPACK!? Oh, and thanks for that iPod dock built into the wall... what? The only place it pumps audio to is 15 feet away from it? DUMB. Oh, and where it is is probably the last place you'd ever want to put your stereo anyway. Looks like my dream for a world were cables don't have to be snaked everywhere is dashed to bits. Oh well, at least the room is a perfect shape. By that I mean there's a place for your TV and surround sound speakers and the squareness of it all is good for conversation.

The move itself went smoothly. Zhang's movers were great. The part that was bad was the two weeks leading up to the move I was neck deep in a 3D animation project that, while fun work, had a totally unrealistic due date. My days were basically me getting up at 6, going to my computer (not time to commute to Walnut Creek) and sitting in front of it until 11-12 at night. There was a lot of stuff I wish I was more prepared for, but it happened anyway. I still have to go back and gather up some debris and take it to the trash. It was nice that when I got back to work my boss thanked me by yelling at me for not telling him I was taking Monday off. He did this by actually quoting my email where I clearly explain that I'd be taking friday and monday off. I eagerly await his apology, but instead I fear there will be none and he will continue to hassle me about chicken shit stuff because he honestly has no idea what I do or how I do it. My guess is he wedged his way into this business by the grace of his ex wife who was a CEO of a huge tech company. The good news is that it was this behavior that caused our entire dept to rise up and have a talk to HR about his assholery. That resulted in his pending demotion. We all eagerly await his replacement... any one's got to be better.