Sixfoot6.com - Putting Stuff Away.

So sometime this morning as I moseyed along Hoover Street toward campus, it hit me that one way or another I didn't get enough sleep last night. I'm not sure how that happened, but it might have had something to do with too much Cowboy Bebop, or too much Simpsons: Hit and Run, or the hash oil, or the book I've been reading.

Anyway, as I approached the Leavey Library, the somewhat regal building that houses my cozy little office, I started thinking about the long hours I once spent in the Boston University Mugar Library. During exam periods the library would go into 24-hour mode, and I'd pull odd, moderately-productive all-nighters there, breaking sporadically to stretch my legs and swill Arizona iced tea.

Sometimes, though, when I started getting really sleepy, I would find me a hiding place in the art history stacks, and I'd take a short nap on the floor with my head resting on a pile of books. If only my office had a nap room, full of colorful carpet squares. Maybe I should just put my head down on my desk.

Thanks to Joe Maddalone's little trick, I'm now running IE 6, IE 5.5, IE 5.0, IE 4.01, and IE 3 concurrently on my Windows machine at work. I can't tell you what a designer's delight this is - no more running to a friend's machine to ensure that pages look okay in the frustrating boxy-hack that is IE 5.5; I've got all the power right here on one screen. Download each standalone browser from Skyzyx.com.

Beyond the practicality, it's loads of fun to see how various sites degrade in old browsers. I'm proud to say the Sixfoot6.com is fully functional in IE 3 (albeit without style). CSS-based designs such as this portfolio site, however, often render as an unreadable mess in IE 4.01 but as a clean semantic document in IE 3. Such is the pain of half-assed stylesheet support.

Well, life has finally cooled out. Somewhat. Two weeks ago my glorious New England retreat ended, and I returned to find Los Angeles behaving like some absurd parody of itself, complete with post-wildfire ultrasmog and nearly zero public transportation to speak of, thanks to continuing MTA mechanic strikes. So morning and night I sit in traffic, still without a car stereo, singing to myself. It's kind of nice, now that I've started taking Alvarado street across to campus, to save time. Fortunately, I really enjoy my job.

The big busy factor these past two weeks came in the form of constant rehearsals for the Mighty McPilgrim show last Friday, at a private dinner function for a construction management company. It went well, all in all, despite some sound trouble and our anxiety about performing at a convention center we'd never seen before. People laughed and clapped, and our improv games went well, so I guess that's all you can ask for. We certainly gave it our best.

I love live performance, but it drains me. We rehearsed our asses off for weeks in preparation for Friday's show, working and reworking material, only to have our focus undermined during the actual performance by forces outside of our control. I keep reviewing those lines I slightly flubbed and the cues I came in late on, even though the audience probably noticed nothing. We're doing this in the name of fun and experience, and I have no regrets. But I'm looking forward to a time when I'll step off stage and feel 100% confident that I just did my best work. I bet I have a long way to go, still.

A few weeks ago my friend Leonard Lin asked me and my roomate Andrew if we could help him make a short movie for his film class. After a quick visit to Hollywood Toys and Costumes (where we purchased sunglasses and some fake blood), we spent about five hours one afternoon shooting footage in my girlfriend Jenny's former apartment building. Fortunately for us, we found a shopping cart dolly for Leonard to climb into for the moving shots.

After toiling through hours and hours of editing, tweaking and rendering, Mr. Lin released his completed film, entitled Fear to Fear (23 megs QuickTime, 5:47). It should be of special interest to those of you who download music despite the best efforts of the RIAA. The film may appear somewhat dark on PCs, so crank up the brightness on your monitor. Keep an eye out for my long neck and brillant acting! Enjoy!