Saturday, November 12, 2011

Dose of Dangle

It's been insane around the Dangle compound. I've hit the feast part of the freelancer cycle. Juggling three projects. Three live ones. All top secret. And I have a couple others in suspended animation. Turned one down. Hae is busy too, and now a bunch of no-school days are coming up! We’re in trouble.

I have three Apple products now. Hae and I got iPhones. Now I stare at Apple products all day long. My computer that I'm on from dawn to dusk, the iPad that I've been drawing and making videos on, and now the newest device. Nobody ever calls me on my cell phone unless I’m driving. Then it always rings.

Apple products are my constant companions. At first the new ones were counter intuitive, but little by little they trained me to act the way they want me to. Then the devices become friendly and operating them is second nature. I've been using Apple computers since 1988, but Steve Jobs reached more deeply into my psyche with the phone and its sleek counterparts. Most people have been pinching and squeezing and getting their fried-chicken fingers on the Apple screens for a long time now, but it's new to me.

As much as I hated it at first I couldn't live without my iPad now. If you have one, get the apps Brushes and Flip Boom. Brushes records every stroke you make in a drawing and lets you save it as a good quality video. Flip Boom is an animation app for kids but you can do fun stuff with it and save your work as video. The quality of the video is just, eh.

Now there was some useful information.

I've been to Honolulu since my last post. My pal Jesse took me on his motorcycle without a helmet, which was a little out of my comfort zone. I was at the IFVP conference. It was 90% women and there was a lot of powerful sisterly bonding going on. It was great for the men too. Ironically, every time I walked out on the street in Waikiki I was propositioned by one two or three hookers. I fit the customer profile, I guess, 50-year-old white guy in a Hawaiian shirt at a conference. It reminded me of Chester Brown's book, Paying For It, which is a must-read.

Geoffie’s been on me about collaborating again. He wants to buy up some real estate in Michigan and create a media empire, I’m not sure exactly how they’re related. He says that the tax credits are there for people to make movies in the mitten state. He can find investors. When he calls he free associates about the things he’s interested in and asks me to take notes. He never records any of his ideas because it would slow him down. He can’t understand why I don’t drop everything and start working on our collaboration. Am I really happy in what I’m doing, he asks. I did a comic strip for so many years that was so negative. Isn’t it time for me to do something positive?

We've been having lots of little earthquakes out here in northern California. Kinda scary. It motivated Hae to buy some designer survival backpacks with pouches of water and brick-like ready-to-eat meals. I'm happy she did it because it's something I've been meaning to do for nineteen years. Now we have security.

3 Comments:

Anonymous Joel Mielke said...

You may recall your comics as being "negative," but they were a weekly infusion of positive sanity for many of us, especially during the Bush years.

10:34 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yes. Those generous school vacations coming up. YMCA Berkeley has reasonable rates for the couple weeks in December you'll need ($275/week). The rest though, you're probably on your own. Don't sign up at the Y until we get our kids in though. Please!

6:56 AM  
Blogger Lloyd Dangle said...

Thanks Joel, super kind of you. BTW I didn't say they were negative, that was Geoffie talking, and he's out of his mind.

Anonymous, I like the YMCA idea. Thanks. Oscar is a swimming pool aficionado. I must look into it.

12:12 PM  

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