Yesterday was the final day to install an Artomatic exhibit, and while I’m prone to procrastination, especially when it involves carrying a gallon of paint to Crystal City via Metro, I finished my Artomatic exhibit in record time. Five days.

It’s also a record because this is my first Artomatic.

During this time my ideas on doing lines evolved from, “just eyeball it” to “measure it, mark it, level it, mark it, hang prints, adjust prints, measure it, adjust prints, [F]uck it, I’m done.”

This is monumental. I will never go back to “just eyeballing it”. Lines really make a difference. So to you museum people, and artists around the world, I applaud your obsession with getting the best line possible!

Stay tuned, I’m doing Artomatic this year!!! Finally. And so far the prep/experience has been lots of fun.

In the next few days I’ll update this specific page/post with everything – and more – you need to know about Artomatic.

“Any luck with the roommate search?”

“Well…” I trailed off. “We had six people stop by, and most seem pretty cool. Oh, I mentioned that I did some photography for fun and one chica responded.”

“Oh! Nice. What’d she say?”

“She said ‘Do you want to shoot some erotic photography? Of me?’”

“What? I’ll bust a [b]itch!”

I started laughing.

“Yeah, I looked at my roommate, whose face was happily perched between shocked and confused, and after an awkward silence, I was like, ‘ummmm, let me ask my girlfriend about that.’ She got the hint.”

“I veto her.”

“Yeah, we did too.”

If I were made of money, I’d print them all and archive them in a humidity adjusted, fireproof storage center that can withstand a variety of natural disasters, and the whims of political funding.

Every.

Single.

Photo.

That’s a lot of photos. That’s a lot of money.

Too.

Much.

Money.

So here I am, looking through thousands of photos I can pseudo-anonymously print and display.  I think I can afford 10 very large, archival quality prints. [F]uck storage. That’s out of the question. To be honest, until I own a home, that’s not even a question.

How do you choose just ten photos from thousands? You have to be brutal, selfish, and irreverent. That’s how.

…or you just let other people decide.

I read for hours, days if you want to know the truth. Between August 2011 and March 2012, all five books of the Game of Thrones series were devoured page by page. My imagination was joyfully working, creating a world from 4,825 pages of fantastic neural prompts.

Is it really any surprise that I’d want to see how my interpretation of this world, my imagination, compared to the world created by HBO? Nope. I’m a curious guy.

It didn’t take long to procure a copy of Season One. They were already scattered throughout my house. Season Two, however, was a different story. Everywhere I looked, I couldn’t find a place to legally download and pay for episodes (or even a season pass). Well, there’s a reason for that.

The only place you can find Season Two – legally – is on HBO GO. To get HBO GO, you need to pay for and install cable.

What the [F]uck, HBO? I’m willing to pay you money – directly – to view each episode as it is aired. Hell, I’m even willing to wait a few days. What I’m not willing to do is set up and subscribe to a cable service. Given the technology and tech infrastructure in today’s marketplace, your practice is unscrupulous.

Now hear me out.

I don’t condone piracy, mostly for the sake of content creators who deserve to be paid for their creativity, perseverance, and imagination. Yet when I encounter a business whose profit model deliberately does not accommodate or even leverage potential customers’ willingness to legally pay for content, ostensibly in order to “make a profit”, something in my mind goes, “This is stupid. This won’t last. This is why piracy is practiced.”

And again, I’m forced to ask myself, who are the unscrupulous data pirates of the 21^st century? And how long will businesses stay afloat when they do very little to connect to islands of gold all over the world?

(The Oatmeal has a cartoon about this too. Check it out right here!)

As I approach the glass doors, a woman enters ahead of me. She stops and immediately turns around to exit. I hold the door and let her exit, then enter. A few more steps and I see my mission – blue mailboxes.

Thank you Pennsylvania Ave post office!

Are the blue mailboxes outside the glass enclosure? Yes? Yes! That’s weird.

I turn around.  An impatient suit devolves and greets me with something marginally human, uttering a Gollum-like, “Mooooooooove”. It is long, drawn out, devoid of sincerity or humanity, and focused on something precious within those glass doors.

(This all takes place last Friday in Chinatown’s Regal Cinema. By the way, two tickets to watch Titanic 3D cost $32.00.)

After watching Titanic 3D, a very long movie, I stop by the bathroom.  I hear a father and child talking in one of the stalls.

“Daddy, are you poo’ing,” a young child asks.

“No, honey.”

“One time I went to the bathroom with Mommy. She had to poo.”

The father stifles a laugh. The little girl continues her story, now with more enthusiasm.

“She poo’ed blood,” exclaims the child.

“Oh Realllllllly”

“Yeah,” the little girl replies. “Why did she poo blood, daddy?”

I do my best to refrain from laughing, mostly because I’m pissing out 3 hours and 15 minutes worth of Sprite and Malibu Rum.

“I don’t know,” says the father.

“I know,” says the girl, self-assured.

“Mommy says it’s what happens to old people. But why daddy?”

I try to stifle it, but at this point I just can’t hold it in. I start laughing.  And so does the dad.

“Daddy, why are you all laughing?”

Still laughing, I wash my hands and catch a glimpse of the daddy carrying his daughter – eyes shielded – out of the bathroom. He’s still chuckling.

If you work, live, or commute within Washington, D.C., you’ve probably encountered the Express, a ‘Publication of the Washington Post’. These small daily newspapers are available at bright yellow newsstands, or even better, during rush hour you can grab one from a person hovering around Metro stations, passing them out to fatigue-drunk commuters descending into despair. There was a time I devoured these dailies as a nice antidote to the poisons of a monotonous daily commute with suit clad morning zombies.

“If the Washington Post were a Starbucks venti caramel mocha with soy milk, then the Express is a bare bones Italian espresso shot. And if you’re like me, then you need that morning jolt of caffeinated information. When there aren’t any slightly sane people to keep you awake on your morning Metro ride into work, the Express is a suitable substitute. So imagine the scathing contempt I felt for the person who nabbed the last Express on Tuesday. Imagine the depth of my fury when on Wednesday, yet again, there were no papers available. And finally, on Thursday, imagine my outrage when I saw the gentlemen who regularly hands out the Express make a dash to those bright yellow receptacles in an attempt to procure more papers. When he turned around empty handed I felt the logic of withdrawal creep up into conversation. I needed information… I needed closure.” (From a blog post dating back to September 19, 2008)

Those days are over.

In 2010 I purchased a smartphone, and for a while I continued to read the Express, mostly using my phone as a music player and as a means to send the all-too-occasional “Hey, I’m gonna be late, Metro’s having issues” email. Soon, however, the battery acid of convenience dissolved habit.  I stopped grabbing the Express en route to work.

Why read the Express when I have a phone that can access a cornucopia of distraction? Isn’t it easier to read from a smartphone while riding a crowded train? Why carry around extra stuff? Why waste time trying to squeeze the Express into those tiny-slotted recycle bins? Why read printed AP articles of events I’ve already heard about via Twitter, Facebook, or my feeds?

Despite my own transition away from print, it was easy to observe that lots of people still read the Express.  I didn’t really know why, especially when many of these people had smartphones and tablets in their laps, bags, or even hands. I suppose this prompted me to start tracking my own diminishing print-reading habit.  While I already kept a variety of data (to be used in visualizations), at some point I also started collecting data about “Read The Express While Metro’ing”.  The numbers are abysmal.

• For the last three quarters (i.e., 9 months), I’ve read the Express twice.
• During quarter 3 of 2010 (July-September), I read the express 9 times. This was the largest number.  After investigating, it turns out that I read the express because I was conserving my phone’s battery for those long, marathon-training runs (which I track while playing music). That quarter I bought another charger and brought it to work. The next quarter I didn’t read the Express at all.
• I’ve read the Express 15 times since I started tracking this data. That’s 15 months. That averages out to once a month.

I wish I’d acquired data prior to the purchase of my smartphone, but I can tell you that I definitely read the Express more than once a month. As the excerpt demonstrates, I tried to read the daily… daily. Yes, the Associated Press articles and other syndicated articles were often compelling, but what REALLY brought me back were the hyper-local elements of the paper. This included such things as the ‘Local News’ section, elements of the “Lookout” section like the local concerts/shows, museum events, home, goods, rent lookouts, and perhaps most importantly, the Blog Log – back when it sourced its material from genuine local neighborhood blogs and DC bloggers. This really introduced me to new information/entertainment sources.

Those days are over.

I haven’t looked at the numbers, but I expect the Express to fail, which is too bad. They had me hooked for years. Even though they maintain an online presence (ExpressNightOut.com), I never visit their site because I’ve since developed my own dynamic information network that provides more relevant (to me) information without completely shutting out serendipitous discoveries.

But who knows, maybe the Express, “A Publication Of The Washington Post”, will get down and dirty and innovative?

This isn’t about politics.

This is about the weather.

It’s beautiful outside, and because of this I feel an unrelenting obligation to go for an eight mile walk before rising sea levels inundate Washington DC, returning this glorious capital to a mosquito ridden marshland.

Global warming, or alternatively, natural fluctuations in our weather – bringing you scantily dressed women and weather anomalies since the advent of evolution.

Photo Title – Groupies

Photo Title – More Groupies

Photo Title – Gumby Three Point Oh