now. let’s get out of the godrobot glare, grab some coffee and sit in the sun to start this day of properlike.

so. that won’t be happening.

as i wrote on the youtube description (if you want to see the vid in high quality, and you may since it’s about the aesthetics/art of something), check it here & click “View in High Quality”) hacking the iPhone is fun …it reminds me of the days i had my 8600 Mac (FOUR GIG HD!!!) and would totally mess with the resources, mostly strings and pict resources, and totally tweaked out the computer. (i still have nifty screenshots) then they changed the entire architecture with OS X and it got scary to go into the System folders and everyone was just trippin over the OS in general (released from pre-OS X limitations! wow! protected memory! multithreaded operations! 3D!!!!). but now we’re back in and i foresee some kickass themes in my future. i know i’ll do a UMX one and a couple hardcore xicano ones. then probably something organic. rough. like wood, or stucco type feel. analog. reel to reel theme so it looks like an old tape  player? it depends. anyway, lots of potential! dont know how much cash it would make, but somehow that’s never what motivates me to begin scribbling! agh!

this was sort of a practice run. most of the icons are not mine, so i can’t call it a XOLAGRAFIK theme or anything. (i created the dock, five icons, and the background image). next one, for sure.

the human body is a metaphor for all reality. the word made flesh, they say?

the good thing about a tower is you can expand the internal drive area. nothing safer or more stable than internal drives. wish i could make more room on this internal drive. funny how fast 250G fills up. and just with applications. hmm. and i bet my iPhoto area is pretty big by now….nah, only 6G. but if i copied my mp3s over to an external drive that would be about 30G free…hmm. ugh. not worth it. i need to have way more than that at the ready. got to buy me one of those new 2T drives. (2000G!!!) but that’s about $400. maybe soon. clearly i need more space, and reliable space. maybe LaCie. tho Maxtor is supposed to be okay, too—and that’s the one that just died on me.

talk about a land of excess. i can buy a hard drive for a few hundred and then it dies on me a few months later (half a year? more?) and i’m accepting its just dead. thats amazing. ready to buy a 2T. i see way too many products that fall apart so much faster than when i was younger. remember when TVs lasted a good decade and cost less than a hard drive does now? hell, our new bed is pretty much dying after a half year. well, it may not have been the best in the world, but it was new, and it wasnt super cheap. the truth is, if you want quality items you almost always have to pay top dollar. its another one of those poor people traps. you cant afford the quality so you repair and replace twice as much using shoddier products. and feel cheap as you look around at cheap goods. thats why i try to get quality items when i can. it pays off. of course sometimes you cant afford them and then there’s nothing you can do about that.

i need something that does disc diagnostics and repair. “Data Rescue II” is good, i hear. need something to make sure i’m keeping my drives defragged. i’d hate to think i’m just going through drives (i have a few in my closet) simply because i’m not defragging them. and please tell me why mac has no defrag app built in yet? really. come on. i’m all about apple, everybody knows. but windows was doing that back in the 90s, probably earlier. let’s get going with the defrag.

okay. quick stretch and then try this thing one more time. i’m feeling less irritated (funny what a resurrected drive will do for the spirits) and tho i’ve broken my rhthym, i’ll pick it back up. need to stand, walk, shake off the cramp. bang the drums for a second, shake the bones. 

i really hope i can get that drive working. or one of them, once i buy a new drive and try one more time to copy the data. if not, i’m back to my complaint yesterday. losing years of work. which means i’d have to pay to have it retrieved. and you’ve ever looked into that, it’s usually highly expensive. yay. just what i was hoping to spend some cash on.  you know. aside from my teeth. and the bed.

sometimes i gaze softly at my matte-finish spongy LCD screen and wonder what would it feel like to punch you until you went completely dark? 

yeah. i’d end up with broken fingers, i’m sure. i guess it’s not worth it. i’ll table the decision.

somewhere in all of this, my back muscles knotted up something fierce. it is actually really painful and cramping my movement. i think i need to immerse myself in a hot, hot shower. knead that out. i wonder, again, how much of that is from the bed. i keep looking at them. its such a chunk of cash, but i am sure it’s worth it. to wake up feeling rested and not aching and cramped for space. this will be the next purchase. this also means that lil ‘nita needs a new bed, as she now has the air mattress which she sleeps in more and more. tho she still wakes up and crawls into bed sometimes. she’ll be happy to get a real bed, her own.

it’s odd, the offense some feel when you affiliate and align yourself with your heritage(s) where you did not before. there were one or two people at the start. they liked me much better when i didn’t bring up many things. it’s still like my father said. so many will appear claiming authority to tell you who you are. well, he didn’t say that. i’ve paraphrased him by now. he said something like “everyone seems to know better than you,” when it came to feeling out your identity, your meaning as attached to what you are made of ethnically, socially, whatever.

ever since crazyface tried to use the word “jew” to stab at me recently, i have been thinking more and more on that side of my family. i’m writing a long post on it. soon, i am thinking i may change the star in my UMX symbol to some fashion of a Star of David. the eagle, the serpent and the rock at the start of tenochtitlán, in front of the Jewish star. i was using the EZLN star, but i think its time for this change. i have to try the design out. it may mean a new blog. or it may just mean a tweaking of the old. more on this later…this quandary i’m in lately over whether i should change my UMX blog as i change…or just let it rest at some point as an archive and sign of an earlier time and move on.

i’ve just been thinking of it a lot, jews and mexicans. how both peoples have been persecuted, displaced, despised and hunted, becoming almost nomadic in quests to live and survive. nowadays illegal is slurred and dripping with ugliness and hate and a blanket license to treat as subhuman just as much as jew was in scary days past. not that people cannot resurrect that ugly past with much more than one word.

i was not taught much affiliation or pride with being descended from jews or mexicans, but (in addition to my personal need to reconnect with my roots) as both peoples are under attack, and have been, i feel very strongly that my remaining silent and unidentified with them is somewhat disloyal. not to die out, and not to hide out. it’s never been about pretending to be something i’m not. to me, living under some adopted name and by speech and appearance attempting to distance myself from these is pretending. and i feel a duty to underline and resuscitate my affiliations with mi antepasados and my ancestors, considering not only have the groups typically been “nomadic and hunted,” but specifically, my ancestors who came into this country only 2 and three generations ago on both sides did so to live, to prosper. for a chance at a better life or even moving away from violence that sought them. not simply to move in some exotic or worldly way.

and i’d have to add that it’s not all about them being persecuted. it’s about the name of jews being used in israel to oppress others, and i feel i should say something on that, too, as i do not approve of that, and would add my voice to that disapproval. as a person, and as someone affiated in some way, even if small. but i’ll save the rest for the post.

there is so much to know as a craftsperson and an artist who uses digital means. oh if it were only so easy just to write and make visual art/video or record music. before any of these finished products can be presented, there is SO much learning about the tools. ugh. mix camera with computer (shooting/editing video) and you have a library of information you have to know. how tape is made, how it captures, what 60i vs 24p vs 24Pa mean, how to digitize them, how to use various software programs, tools IN those programs, how they all interact, how to troubleshoot problems in everything from blogs to mixing boards, i can go on and i know you know what i mean. i taught myself adobe illustrator “on the job,” as when i illustrated my first book (i’ve written a few, only one is published now), it seemed that vector art would be a better bet than pixel-based art, so i had to learn the software. that’s usually how it goes. need gives way to self-teaching in a new area. i love the new learning. and the bigger knowledge base. as i’ve said before the more you learn the more it can overlap and intersect, and thus deepen your understanding in all areas at once, a sort of whole-greater-than-the-sum-of-parts thing, but with understanding and intuition to use that understanding in new ways. sometimes all the pockets of ignorance that can rise up and stymie a project at various points, or the demand for time that is needed to keep moving forward with different learnings in different areas is frustrating. and the technology moves so fast that you really have to work hard to stay on top of all the changes in all the various places. but nothing makes me feel more alive than learning something new. well, perhaps that is hyperbole. but if so, only barely.

i was really annoyed that my obama vid showed so much interlacing. i wont bore you with technical talk, but there was a lot to figure out in the way of avoiding that, and i’m still not sure i get it all. it will take a few times shooting/editing more until i can test out some things and see what the best workflow is. interesecting considerations between cameras, formats, software, settings, final presentation format, etc. ugh.

i’m so hungry. i guess i should push Submit (on the compression window, as well as for this post) and then go eat. and then shower to try and work out these knots. and then come back to this virtual tail-gunner seat and try to finish up icirr. hop back to richard’s illustrations before dawn tomorrow. hit UMX posts in nibbles, hope to have a solid one for monday. i think i may have some Headline posts saved up not posted yet. see if those are still timely, fill the weekend up a bit. i think i have a youtube on reserve too.

lately my dinners have been so big and heavy full of sauces and calories and flavors and butters and steaks and i wonder if i’m trying to put on weight for the summer. it’s all very odd. i was running on the regular and really getting fit. and then i just sort of fell into king henry the eighth mode. a drumstick in one hand, a carafe in the other, and gravy running down my neck. mmmm. gravychest. it’s like i’m singlehandedly battling (and batter-ing) winter away from the dining hall doors. trying to bundle up in a regal layer of fat or something. hunker down in my throne room of ribeye. king fatty will rule with a tenderized fist.

moo-yah!