Jason Porath

Denver Int’l Airport is so thorough that even penguins must go through the metal detector. I’m breathing easier tonight!

Bastard Tetris, a version of tetris that chooses the worst possible block for you as your next block, every time.

In college, I had a friend. He is not my friend anymore, and most of his opinions I have grown to disrespect. He is a very elitist person, one who often ridicules what he considers inferior works of art. Music, in particular. Considering my musical tastes, I saw this side of him rather often.

That friend has stayed with me, in spirit if not in mind. Every time I move to express myself, or put up a song lyric, I hear his voice remarking how insipid and hackneyed that is. His voice is soon joined by every english major and film teacher I’ve ever met, telling me how one must find one’s own voice.

I have always found it a great irony that my voice sounds completely different in my head than it does on tape.

I cannot say if I am a unique snowflake. I cannot put in words how I differ from other people. I doubt that anyone could prove that I am qualitatively different from every other human being in the world, living or dead. Ten years ago, this would have upset me deeply. Not anymore.

I’m not settling for mediocrity. I’m not letting myself just stay put. I am coming to terms with who and what I am, and not letting notions of singularity and originality bother me.

For the first time in a long time, I can feel again. Even if what I feel is pain, sorrow, and bittersweet love.

To quote a bad Papa Roach song, just to piss off my ex-friend:

Those scars remind me
That the past is real
I tear myself open
Just to feel

The Arab world is westernizing in strange ways.

Alright, so, after that dour note, I figure I should post about a couple of things that have caught my attention lately:

1) Quicksilver is about the best application ever. I just bought a Powerbook, and since installing this application, I have not had to launch the finder at all. Within six keystrokes, I can launch any application, start any song, pretty well do anything I want.
2) Kung Fu Hustle is showing starting this week. I must see it.
3) I just passed by the kitchen at work, and seven people were sitting at a table, all chatting eagerly. They were all on cell phones.
4) Went to see Sin City a couple days ago, and while walking back to my car late at night, I saw a middle-aged white woman in a fur coat surrounded by a gang of burly black men in thuggish clothing. She was laughing and calling them her niggas. They were in hysterics. Standing and watching this scene was a bespectacled, pudgy man in his thirties. He was wearing a Superman costume, complete with cape, and appeared to be waiting for the bus.

Today marked the end of the movie I have spent the last seven months of my life working on.

It ended with a whimper. Word came down from on high that time was up. Pencils down. Hand in what you got. There was no champagne. There was no hooting, no shouts of glee. No goodbyes. No celebrations. Just another day gone by.

I don’t know what’s going to happen to it. The whole thing has run afoul of problems in color timing. The colorspace for everything else is pretty limited, due to issues too numerous to list here. Our work, which has a decent colorspace, stands out like a sore thumb. Just to match our stuff up, they had to crush the colors, to where it… basically ruined it, in my eyes.

Seven months down the drain. Countless wasted weekends and weeknights.

I’d talk about it to my co-workers, except they moved me to make room for more people downstairs. For the time being.

I’m adrift at another desk, in another building, on another show, in another world.

And you know, it’s just how the game is played. Every day’s a crapshoot. Fall down, pick up, and move on.