January 20, 2008

How limits make me better

I love taking on creative projects, but it's a little depressing when they don't turn out well. I've "produced" a number of songs on my Mac, and they make me chuckle, but I won't let anyone else hear them.

I got some cool juggling balls for X-Mas

Well, I think of Twitter, Vimeo, Flickr, and my two blogs (TypePad and Tumblr) as ongoing, public creative projects. I'm proud when I put up fun or insightful content, and I get down on myself when I haven't posted in a while.

Here's where limits come in: I rarely fall behind on my Twitter or Tumblr posting, because, the way those sights have built their technology, the most you can possibly hope to do with a single post is still pretty simple. It's hard to imagine spending more than 90 seconds updating either.

This is great, because I don't put mounting pressure on myself to do an increasingly better job with those projects. My TypePad blog (this site that you're reading), however, feels a bit daunting at times. I feel like posts here should be longer, contain original content, and frequent.

Lately, I'm finding that I don't enjoy this form of expression as much as Twitter and Tumblr, because of the pressure that comes with it. My response will be the following: instead of posting roughly weekly, as I have been since October of 2004 (even though my archives are incomplete), I'll be posting closer to monthly, going forward. I recommend you subscribe to the site via RSS, through something like Google Reader or NetNewsWire, which are both excellent, free tools that prevent the problem of frequently checking sites, usually blogs, that may or may not have new content since your last visit.

I'm looking for a way to integrate all of the above listed projects into a single site, so that you'll be able to see my pictures, videos, links and commentary all in a single place. I'd even settle for something like what Zach Klein did, where he has a single page that links to everything. AlexBain.com is supposed to serve that purpose, but it's sorely in need of an update.

In the meantime, I'm going to have my Twitter posts streaming into my other blog, MaximumAlexBain.com, so that you can get 95% of what I'm doing all in one place. If you have this site bookmarked, I'd probably replace it with a bookmark to that site. I'll make sure to mention there when anything worthwhile shows up here.

You'll find that site is more about what I'm doing than what I'm thinking, and the updates are real time, coming from my phone, but the pictures are often blurry. If you like that site, you may also like my cat's site, FurioBain.com. He's pretty clever, for a creature without an opposable grip :-)

Jan 20, 2008 4:20:06 PM | Musings, Web/Tech, Weblogs

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Uncle Michael Teasing Uncle BJ My Uncle Michael is hilarious. This is footage he filmed and narrated in the 70's. He's really giving his older brother, my Uncle BJ, a hard time about being chubby. BJ takes it incredibly well. Unfortunately for BJ, his high pitched laugh actually makes him sound a little like a dolphin, which will be funnier after you watch the video. I don't have footage of it, but I'm sure BJ gives it right back to Michael later that day. Uncle Michael Teasing Uncle BJ from alexander_bain on Vimeo. [Here's my description of my trip to the Saratoga races with him this past summer] I'm about to start a project where I archive a lot of old family movies and photos. I'll make the highlights available on this blog. I have a tag in Flickr for any photo produced by scanning, as opposed to digitally captured. I suppose I'll make the best clips from the old movies available on Vimeo with some sort of similar tag.
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Some thoughts on Superbowl XLII Here's what I have to say about the game last night: The game called to mind the quote from Varsity Blues (but substitute Matt Light or Ellis Hobbs for Billy Bob): Oh, Big Billy Bob Crybaby!? You cost me my perfect season. How's it feel? My quarterback is off limping, and to top it off I got watch you cry about it? The Pats worst offensive player, Matt Light, and worst defensive player, Ellis Hobbs, both really cost the team. Even if Light couldn't have held off the impressive Giants D-line, it'd have been great if he could have remembered the snap count. Likewise, I know that covering Plaxico is a tall order for Hobbs, but it's not like he forced him to make a super-human catch on that final touchdown; he practically broke his ankles when Plaxico threw one juke at him, and he watched the catch from the ground as the game slipped away from us. Writers are going to write articles about how we lost because of the bad karma from "cheating" in game 1. Writers are going to write articles about how beautiful it is that two brothers won consecutive SuperBowl MVPs. these will be crappy articles. Some writer will eventually write an article about how, even though we lost, the 2007 Pats still have to be mentioned among the greatest all-time teams. It was a curious decision not to kick a 48 or 49 yard field goal earlier in the game, opting instead to attempt to convert on 4th and 13. I'd have to love to have had those 3 points at the end of the game, but perhaps Belichick knew something about our kicker that I don't. I don't know why the refs forced the Giants to run that final play to get the last second off the clock. That was a crappy move, and some idiot writer will claim Belichick should have sat around and watched it. No rational person could have predicted that the Giants would win the game, and just because they did doesn't prove those people right. I've heard people mention that this game may have been the biggest upset of all-time. This drives me crazy. People in the media must not want to mention Vegas for fear of sounding like a degenerate gambler, but gambling lines are necessary to back statements like "biggest upset" or "we get no respect"....

alexander_bain

I'm a Sox fan first and a Harvard Business School student second.

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