willhines.net

If you’ve talked to me for more than 10 minutes the past week you’ve heard me mention how I’m reading Getting Things Done, a book on better organizing your time. I’m halfway through and while I do think it’s a helpful, sensible book — I also find it hilarious because of the incredibly vague “business” specifics these type of books use as examples.

How good could that conference potentially be? How effective could the training program be, or the structure of your executives’ compensation package? How inspiring is the essay you’re writing? How motivating the staff meeting? How functional the reorganization?

On one hand, I understand why David Allen, the author, chooses such non-examples [...]

18 Comments | Tags: productivity

Come on out tonight and see a sketch show called Sketch & Awe that I helped write.

Sketch & Awe
UCBT, 9:30pm
More Details

I had to create a burro costume for it, if that’s the type of thing that entices you. I couldn’t find a burro costume, so after conferring with Dyna Moe I purchased white bunny ears and went to get grey spray paint. When I got to the paint store, the guy there asked me “What kind of grey spray paint?”

I said “I’m not sure.”
He said “What do you need it for?”
“I’m going to paint these white bunny ears grey for a burro costume.” I held up the bunny ears.
He paused for not [...]

2 Comments

Eliza pointed out that when my cats meow, it sounds impressively close to “hello.” This is because my cats draw out their meows for a split-second longer than you expect, and that is because they are selfish, quarter-feral creature who tend to do everything in a primitive we-still-think-we-live-outside way. Thanks to this observation, whenever my cats meow I can now hear the “hello” buried within it as clearly as a bell ringing. That’s some creepy shit.

5 Comments

If you are a web programmer, and you want to have fancy fading- in- and- out, sliding- up- and- down, refreshing-without-full-page-load effects, then you should check out JQuery. It is a TINY Javascript library that lets you accomplish all this nonsense with remarkably little code. The Javascript portion of a page is normally a huge spider-web of messy code that barely works on more than one browser type — but JQuery somehow lets you get the same amount done with terse, readable lines — that NEVER mixes with your HTML! When I read the documentation, it was like someone pointing out that every door in my house had another knob that I had never noticed before. I’m impressed! [...]

8 Comments | Tags: computers

I know I’m more than 30 years behind on this, but The French Connection is a really good movie. It was my second movie from Netflix and I enjoyed it very much.

The commentary by director William Friedkin is good too. You know how on some, maybe most, commentaries the director either talks in such minute detail about what lens they used that it’s useless? Or else they go in the other direction and say basically NOTHING, just summarizing what is going on on the screen (”and now the main guy picks up the stapler — there, he’s done it”). Friedkin actually explains his thinking behind story decisions and filmmaking in a [...]

10 Comments | Tags: movies

Today is the birthday of Jerry Siegel. In 1932, when he was 19, Siegel and his artist friend Joe Shuster came up with the character and story of Superman. That’s more than just the first superhero, more than just the most famous comic book character — that is arguably the most successful and popular STORY from ANY medium in all of Western Civilization! There, I said it! And you know what? It’s not that crazy what I just said! You put on a red cape with a S on your chest and walk up to any child on this planet and say “Who am I?” and that kid will know. That [...]

5 Comments

I am performing stand-up tonight as part of this showcase. Maybe you could like come out and watch? The show is called “Low Profile” hosted by a bunch of silly people I am friends with. Details, arbitrarily boldfaced:

Low Profile (show), at Fat Baby (bar)
112 Rivington St near the corner of Essex
Time: 8PM, cost: 5 bucks

And a round-up of things:

• I drink coffee mostly for the chance to run out and buy it, which is to say: for the breaks. It’s like a smoke break for non-smokers. I also believe that if I had ever smoked a cigarette even once I would be the most hard-core chain smoker you knew. It’s life-changing observations like this that you will be able [...]

4 Comments | Tags: kevin, music, pkd, stand-up

…right down to the domain name.
http://www.5ives.com/

This is a funny one.

He also mentions a lot of songs. Someone get me a Ted Leo and the Whoevers album, please.

2 Comments | Tags: lists

The largest amount of traffic to my site, by far, is to an old post about Liz Phair. The traffic goes there because in the comments Charlie Todd posted a link to a picture of her which showed the dark circular objects which naturally occur at the end of a women’s mammary glands. I am being clincial because using any common terminology would attract thousands and thousands of hits from Internet users, rabidly searching for any mention of “Liz Phair” and “common term for dark circular portions of the end of a woman’s mammary glands.” I had to change Mr. Todd’s comment because I feel violated that all these pervy users are taking advantage of my blog.

7 Comments

I’m reading PKD book number 11: Martian Time-Slip. I love them all, but it is just plain SILLY how every single one involves 1) the main character discovering that there is more than one reality, and it’s impossible to tell at any given time which is “real” and 2) some powerfully addictive, awkwardly named drug (Substance D, Chew-Z, JJ-180).

I joined Netflix. Love the recommendation system. I’m ready to be innundated by media!

Finished up a Channel 102 pilot with DeCoster, Rocco and Thunder. I’d say there’s an 80% chance of it making sense by the time we’re done.

I’ve given up looking for a great Content Management System for web sites. Instead, I’m looking for great web site-building TOOLS. My [...]

3 Comments | Tags: pkd