Lovely evening at mph's last night. First game night I've attended. [Was that the first one he's held?] We played "Hunters and Gatherers" -- which I quite enjoyed -- and three rounds of Cosmic Encounter. Which I like... but which always makes me feel dumb.

Busy, busy week, in terms of being out of the house:

Monday was at a PWCL board meeting.

Tuesday, spent the day with bi activist Robyn Ochs at PSU, and the evening at an F&L "boys night out".

Wednesday I took G to work in the morning, helped move another load over in the afternoon, and spent the evening with the Unconscious Collective.

Spent Thursday tweaking the UC website that I was up creating til 5am the night before. Went over to mph's to watch Firefly, G & Leopoldo also in attendance.

Finally sat down this morning and put an hour into planning. Had been feeling increasingly overwhelmed by what all I need to get accomplished, increasingly foggy about what all responsibilities I'm falling down on. Things aren't quite under control yet -- but I've got an outline for what next week's going to look like, and that makes me feel a sight better.

It's really quite irritating, how linked my mood is to how "productive" I'm being.

Gosh I'm appreciative to G, for helping me figure out "what to do next" when I get into these overwhelmed spaces and start shutting down...

New address (2nd time today) for The Unconscious Collective.

Please change your bookmarks to:

http://unconsciouscollective.puddingbowl.org/

New address for The Unconscious Collective website.

...Not like any of y'all have bookmarked it yet -- but just in case. Thanks to G for constructive crit about how to name my files. :-)

And always, always: Thank you mph for hosting!

Fixed the cosmetic issue with the Unconscious Collective site. Simpler error than I'd thought.

...The more challenging issue was finding plug-ins for America Online and Internet Explorer, so they could make use of QuickTime's ability to play mp4's. Pleased to say that I can view the movies equally well on IE, AOL, and Safari now.

For IE, I found this site useful.

For AOL, I found this site useful.

...However, neither was exactly what I was looking for. I did have to twiddle around a little to get things working. But at least these sites pointed me in the right direction, so I could figure stuff out myself then.

All movies by The Unconscious Collective are now online!

...Just finished coding the html myself, I'm proud to say! Looks good in Safari. A detail or two to fix in Internet Explorer. Similar issues on AOL.

I'll be interested to hear from folks about how the site works out for them. I used mp4's because they're the best-thing-ever re compression -- but I suspect some viewers are going to have trouble, since it's a relatively new codec.

Tech boys: I'm inviting feedback. :-)

New Unconscious Collective film, completed... well... NOW!



Suburban Hell
2.9 MB mp4 - 1:04min

Well, I'm beginning to get on track, after a few weeks of falling down on record keeping. ...Not that record keeping in itself is all that important -- but it's an indicator factor. When I'm on top of my records, I'm more on top of everything.

Yesterday G & I & Laura from filmmakers went to a documentary on the Bread and Puppet theater. [What the hell is the difference between "theater" and "theatre" anyway?] This was the final day of the Portland experimental film fest. Wow -- actually managed to get out to three film blocks. Makes me feel like a bona fide film buff. :-)

J made it off to California on Thursday. She gave me a call as she crossed the border, so we could ritualistically sing "The Sun is a Mass of Incandescent Gas" together. I could try to explain how that ritual came about, but it's probably just one of those "you had to be there" thangs.

Ah, Monday -- a new week. I find that I have a tendency to get all single-minded when I get into projects; so I'm trying something new this week: defining an "A task" geared toward productivity, and a "B task" geared toward creativity. A task: cleaning up the office (oy!). B task: do my final project for Artist's Way.

This Thursday I have my final Artist's Way meeting with G. Aaawww! :-( ...It's been really cool -- for my birthday she gave me the book and a commitment to play facilitator for 13 weeks -- giving me a taste of what going to a group would be like. I've had several ideas for a final project, but am beginning to get worried, because this week is going to be busy. Should have started earlier? Duh! But, c'mon, it's hard to settle down and say "this project is good enough to be my final project." Stay tuned.