A Day for Observations
Today has been a day full of observations, mostly because unlike most days, I was forced to do nothing for 6 hours in the middle of the day. Normally I just kind of run myself into the ground and don't think much until I'm asleep, then I re-awaken, toss and turn and think about all the things I was too busy to properly consider during the day. It's not a healthy habit.
Anyway, today I have a video to edit and had set up this crazy deal where I can edit off an external hard drive while a passenger in a minivan. It's kind of a clever thing but kind of stupid too, and I did it half for the challenge and half because my mom moving across Alberta is coming at a really inconvenient time. The Terminal, my company, has to deliver 6 edits to our client on the 15th of this month. That's 3 days from now.
This trip, which is solely to help my mom move, has been a welcome break from all the business going on on Toronto right now. All the business is generally good business, but I feel exhausted by it all. This break is a working break: I have already edited a pair of interstitials which look way cool, wrote a script, grabbed music, all while helping my mother move and wishing my poor brother well as he heads to the farm, where they still connect via dial-up.
Fortunately my mother is very organized, and fortunately Shelley is editing the two most difficult videos right now, even as I type. However, I have a long one - 3 minutes - to get done for Wednesday, and I am not in very good shape to get it done.
I planned to edit during today's 7 hour drive using this makeshift contraption involving power inverters and homemade shock absorbing hard-drive mounts (leather gloves and thermal mittens). The contraption worked like a dream, but the Alberta sun is bright. Normally, the screen on the Powerbook seems bright. When the sun is shining on it from all angles, and that same sun is radiating through a beautiful blue sky, and that sun and the blue sky are both reflecting again in turn off the fresh, cold snow, that screen seems dim indeed through the untinted windows of my mom's Caravan.
So I squinted, threw on the sunglasses and scrubbed through four tapes - very quickly - and dug out 3 soundbites. Then a pain hit me. I can only compare it to what a ripe tomato would feel as it was being sliced with a dull knife, assuming that tomatos had feelings. You know that feeling of total muscle fatigue you get when you go skating (or do some other sport or physical activity) after a break of several years, enjoy it so much that you completely overdo it, then can't move? That feeling was inside my eyeballs. I couldn't focus on anything and the light was the dull knife scraping against my soft-tomato eyeballs. I grabbed a toque and pulled it over my eyes and kept it there for an hour.
So no editing while driving. That's a forced break. Time to observe.
For today's blog, just observation number 1.
At lunch today, we went to K's Donairs in Lloydminster. In the dining room of K's Donairs there is a fish tank. In that tank are 3 piranhas and about 9 tiny tropical fish. The tiny tropical fish hang out at the top of the tank and look scared. The owner of the restaurant tells us that the piranhas really will eat the little fish. Not long after this statement, we see the three piranhas turn in unison. Until now, they have been staring out the window on the left, watching people walk in and out of Tim Horton's. But now, their attention is fixed on the little fish. It's feeding time.
The piranhas don't even look like they are moving. They just kind of drift around, but it's clear they are in charge of where they go, because they just swivelled from facing Tim Hortons to facing the little fish in perfect synch. Now each piranha is clocking a different little fish. Their eyes are swivelling to track the little fish, but their bodies are perfectly still. Their mouths have drifted open and you can see their menacing little teeth above their cruel, fat lower lips.
The little fish know what's up. They get closer to the top of the tank and swim over behind the plants to the right. One that looks like an angel fish has obviously forgotten himself and he drifts more or less right over top of one piranha.
We are so enthralled that we've forgotten our egg salad sandwiches. Although it goes unspoken, we all want the same thing, for the piranhas to strike and eat one of those poor, hapless little fish. Will there be blood in the water and Jaws-style thrashing, or will that fat piranha suck back that little angelfish in one bite?
Neither.
The piranhas turn back around in unison, close their mouths, and go back to watching people walk in and out of Tim Horton's. No blood today. We go back to our sandwiches.
I can't see myself sitting in a popular pizza or donair shop in Little Italy, watching the restaurant owner's pets devour one another. That's one difference between Lloydminster and Toronto.
Am I wrong?
Anyway, today I have a video to edit and had set up this crazy deal where I can edit off an external hard drive while a passenger in a minivan. It's kind of a clever thing but kind of stupid too, and I did it half for the challenge and half because my mom moving across Alberta is coming at a really inconvenient time. The Terminal, my company, has to deliver 6 edits to our client on the 15th of this month. That's 3 days from now.
This trip, which is solely to help my mom move, has been a welcome break from all the business going on on Toronto right now. All the business is generally good business, but I feel exhausted by it all. This break is a working break: I have already edited a pair of interstitials which look way cool, wrote a script, grabbed music, all while helping my mother move and wishing my poor brother well as he heads to the farm, where they still connect via dial-up.
Fortunately my mother is very organized, and fortunately Shelley is editing the two most difficult videos right now, even as I type. However, I have a long one - 3 minutes - to get done for Wednesday, and I am not in very good shape to get it done.
I planned to edit during today's 7 hour drive using this makeshift contraption involving power inverters and homemade shock absorbing hard-drive mounts (leather gloves and thermal mittens). The contraption worked like a dream, but the Alberta sun is bright. Normally, the screen on the Powerbook seems bright. When the sun is shining on it from all angles, and that same sun is radiating through a beautiful blue sky, and that sun and the blue sky are both reflecting again in turn off the fresh, cold snow, that screen seems dim indeed through the untinted windows of my mom's Caravan.
So I squinted, threw on the sunglasses and scrubbed through four tapes - very quickly - and dug out 3 soundbites. Then a pain hit me. I can only compare it to what a ripe tomato would feel as it was being sliced with a dull knife, assuming that tomatos had feelings. You know that feeling of total muscle fatigue you get when you go skating (or do some other sport or physical activity) after a break of several years, enjoy it so much that you completely overdo it, then can't move? That feeling was inside my eyeballs. I couldn't focus on anything and the light was the dull knife scraping against my soft-tomato eyeballs. I grabbed a toque and pulled it over my eyes and kept it there for an hour.
So no editing while driving. That's a forced break. Time to observe.
For today's blog, just observation number 1.
At lunch today, we went to K's Donairs in Lloydminster. In the dining room of K's Donairs there is a fish tank. In that tank are 3 piranhas and about 9 tiny tropical fish. The tiny tropical fish hang out at the top of the tank and look scared. The owner of the restaurant tells us that the piranhas really will eat the little fish. Not long after this statement, we see the three piranhas turn in unison. Until now, they have been staring out the window on the left, watching people walk in and out of Tim Horton's. But now, their attention is fixed on the little fish. It's feeding time.
The piranhas don't even look like they are moving. They just kind of drift around, but it's clear they are in charge of where they go, because they just swivelled from facing Tim Hortons to facing the little fish in perfect synch. Now each piranha is clocking a different little fish. Their eyes are swivelling to track the little fish, but their bodies are perfectly still. Their mouths have drifted open and you can see their menacing little teeth above their cruel, fat lower lips.
The little fish know what's up. They get closer to the top of the tank and swim over behind the plants to the right. One that looks like an angel fish has obviously forgotten himself and he drifts more or less right over top of one piranha.
We are so enthralled that we've forgotten our egg salad sandwiches. Although it goes unspoken, we all want the same thing, for the piranhas to strike and eat one of those poor, hapless little fish. Will there be blood in the water and Jaws-style thrashing, or will that fat piranha suck back that little angelfish in one bite?
Neither.
The piranhas turn back around in unison, close their mouths, and go back to watching people walk in and out of Tim Horton's. No blood today. We go back to our sandwiches.
I can't see myself sitting in a popular pizza or donair shop in Little Italy, watching the restaurant owner's pets devour one another. That's one difference between Lloydminster and Toronto.
Am I wrong?
posted by Jared at 12:58 AM
1 Comments:
TOMATO!! See! I told you, you were a tomato!
Maybe not little Italy, but you should try Chinatown. I bet you can see all kinds of things in Chinatown...
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