When I said I learned nothing useful at UB I lied. I learned to solder in my electronics class and tonight I needed to recharge batteries so that I can test the GPS for the web tracekr project I am working on. Unfortunately, the battery charger was broken. So I opened it up with the new found courage I developed in electronics class and soldered the power supply back onto the circuit board where it was severed. It worked and my batteries are recharging happily ever after.

Of course, I did this in a totally unventialted area and inhaled a bunch of chemical that are known to cause cancer in the state of california. I am so glad I don't live there. It seems like everything is so much more dangerous on that side of the country. Here I can safely inhale spray paint, right? I wonder what about the california environment makes everything so much more toxic to use there. lol.

Just when I am ready to never see another form again, I find more forms to fill out and more signatures to chase after.

In Paul's class today I finally learned how to make the machine I promised to make for (e:matthew) . Now I just need some transistors and a relay, a motor, etc. I am sure he will be pleased. But that is on hold until I get all this stuff worked out.

I also met with arzu? today and the project seemed pretty interesting. She had a GPS for me to test with, so we will see how that goes. When talking with her she informed me that in Fine Arts they don't need to write a thesis, they only have to have a final project. I have worked on my project for 2 years probably about 30 hours a week, so it is really annoying to now have to write a 60 page thesis on top of that only to get the same degree they get. I feel like I should get a higher degree with the added written thesis requirement.

I made such a mistake choosing media studies at UB. I guess its almost done now, and it wasn't hard really. Just a big waste of time and really costly. I wish I could say that it really taught me anything but in actuality it just set me back like a year in the devlopment of my projects. I guess I will have the paper to prove I can jump through hoops. To bad it cost me like $20,000.

I am out to dinner with (e:twisted). I love it. We ate at Casa Di Pizza.

Well, the Buffalo news wrote another article about blogging as (e:metalpeter) reported [inlink]metalpeter,276[/inlink]. This time they had this quote that is totally consistent with our statistics here.

[size=m]Blog creation and readership jumped in 2004 [/size]

Though blog readership jumped, the percentage of online Americans who write blogs grew only slightly - to 7 percent in November, up from 5 percent early in the year. Blog creators tend to be male, affluent, well-educated and young; 70 percent of them have high-speed connections at home, and 82 percent have been online at least six years.

Let's try and make that change otherwise blogs are just going to end up re-enforcing the status quo. It is so crazy that so many people ar enow being provided with the utility to publish themselves and to have a public voice and are just rejecting it. I think it is just another example of the American consumer attitude.

Today we went to go see Paul Vanouse in his studio downtown. I followed the instructions wrong and ended up going way far the wrong way down sycamore. By the time I almost got to the galeria, I decided this can't be right because he would have said to just take the 90 instead of the 33 to get there.

He is building this giant button response platform using basic stamps and max/msp . It repsonds with information taken from a an enormouse world wide census taken in 2004. Sometimes I really want to get into this type of installation artwork, but another part of me says to stick to communication programming.







This one is a sonar sensing bra that alerts the wearer when someone approaches by flashing the nipples and making noises and was commisioned for an art show about the bra.



I kind of wish I had a giant studio space, although, I would not like to live in one. I am not saying I don't love my new home office that I share with tortoises, just that it would be great if me and (e:matthew) could share some larger space for making larger stuff and keeping stuff all over the place.

The carriage house at our mansion is perfect and for rent but we really can't afford to pay another $750 per month. Maybe next year :)