Video card fire & nonsense
So, Richard's video card caught fire yesterday afternoon. A real fire. Flames. Flames coming off of the video card. It's a visiontek x1650 pro . I'd be careful out there if I were you.
I'm trying to make an effort to produce these animaltions. Some recent topics of interest: Voodoo drawings, wedding fight-partners, and relationsihp clones.
So little time. Boo.
posted in May at 12:39PM
comic and song for today, yes for you
Oh! Yes, and the Velvet Underground - Who Love the Sun (mp3)
posted in March at 12:48
esri ds map book walkthrough
A very special post today, for users of ESRI's Developer Sample Map Book Application
DSMapbook – How I made it work
This is some step-by-step action for using esri ds mapbook or esri ds map book. Good luck.
Open ArcCatalog
Navigate to your personal geodatabase that holds all of the shapefiles you are using to make the mapbook.
Create a new polygon feature class, call it “INDEX_LAYER”. Give it projection information. You will create four fields in the new feature class. One called “GRID_ID” as a text field, “SCALE” as a long integer field, “ROW_NUMBER” as a long integer field, and “COLUMN NUMBER” as a long integer field.
Save and continue.
Open ArcView.
Add all the data layers you need for your mapbook.
Create in layout view, the layout template that each mapbook page will use. Each page will have the same layout.
Save and continue.
Add the “INDEX_LAYER” dataset.
Zoom out/in your map view so that you can see the extent of what you want the mapbook to cover.
Click “Create/Update Map Grids”
Set your scale (mine is 2900, do some experimenting, this is the scale that each mapbook page will be in) I also use “current extent” for the coordinates.
Use the default on the next two screens.
Click Finish.
Save and continue
Click on “Create Map Series”
The detail data frame will be “Layers”
The index layer is the layer you named “INDEX_LAYER”
The field that specifies the page name is “GRID_ID”
Choose use all of the tiles (you can de-select them later)
Use the default on the next screen
Click Finish
Save and continue
ArcView will now calculate your mapbook. On the mapbook tab at the bottom of your table of contents, there will now be one page for each page of your map book. This is a very bare bones description, lots of other tweaks and layout stuff can be done using DSMapbook, but this covers the basics to get you started without a lot of the headaches I encountered.
posted in March at 1:26PM
for today
Insomnia
Last night was one of those. So many weird things go through your mind when you can't sleep. Little flashes of things, of memories and anxieties I'm sure. In a period of only a few minutes I thought about colorfully sprinkled cookies, a memory of getting scolded for muddying a spring as I climbed closer to it's pure source as a teenager in a Kansas creek, and about a citizen at work who didn't think I knew what I was talking about. I can understand the anxiety things about work, sure, but cookies and the spring at the creek? Such weird obsessive thoughts.
I'm managing on four hours of sleep today, I'm going to try to make up my deficit tonight with the help of my friend Ambien. I just hate the way Ambien makes me feel the next morning, groggy and still sleepy and half hungover. Sometimes I feel like a frying pan to the skull would do me just as well.
posted in March at 2:57PM
dream zombie
The dream I had last night, wow. It's been awhile since I had one that was in the "thriller" genre. It wasn't the run-of-the-mill zombie action, either.
The first thing that I can remember about the dream is that there was deffinately an unexpected zombification, I was in a dream place, some house in some neighborhood. I wasn't all sad or crying, mostly because I didn't know anyone that was a zombie before they were, uh, turned into a zombie.
Also, I watched a lot of Project Runway the day before, and Chris March from that show was like, the HERO in the dream. His black hair, I can remember that mostly. Sort of widows-peak action, maybe a tiny bit of gray. I was trying to use my computer to track the zombie action, but nothing was coming up on some CSI type program I was using on my machine. How frustrating. The zombies were also really slack-jawed, all open mouthed and stroke looking. I felt sad for them.
I remember killing them with swords. But like, not slicing their heads off. More like if you were a kid playing swords with a friend. You kind of just go, "ugh." and your friend falls over all pantomime.
-the end-
posted in February at 11:34AM
Amateur Porno
Yesterday at work...
Long day, I'm working on this project that looks at historical placement and size of parcels to help set a jumping off point for new development within that historically studied area. So it's a lot of digitizing, georeferencing and concentrating...
I get a knock on my door, it's a lady and a man who have been referred by the receptioinist that I'd be the one to help them out. You see, they are in town for a short time and want to make some amateur video on BLM land, or some public land that is secluded and does not require a permit. I don't keep this kind of info on hand, i only want the parks and shit that are within the city limits or really close to the city limits. But I can humor this guy. The lady has HUGE porno boobs, and he has a thin mustache.
I search around the net a little bit looking for "just the right spot" for their videos to take place, and finally decide on Stebbin's Cold Canyon that's about 10 miles from my work. Should be secluded on a lazy monday afternoon, and it's nice up there.
I'm thanked immensely, the lady is happy, the man is happy. THey offer me an orange. I decline.
Back to work on those, ahem, parcels now.
posted in February 4:30PM
Things that I didn't buy on ebay today
It's so stupid that I get bored at work and I go back to the horrible online shopping thing. It's retarded. Yes. Totally. Retarded. Nobody should do any kind of shopping at work, I can agree. Only bad decisions are made. So these are the things I *almost* bought on ebay today.
A set of vintage embroidered handkerchiefs from a probably dead lady named "Mabel". My last name starts with "M" and so I thought it would be cute. I like this stuff, and it's practical. I can blow snot into them, and then wash them, and repeat. I did not buy these. THe seller lady wants like, sixteen bucks to ship basically weightless handkerchiefs. Werd up.
The second thing I didn't buy on ebay is the Webkinz Retired Pegasus. Richard keeps telling me I need to just let the poor webkinz retire in peace, but anyway. I thought I really needed this Pegasus. I didn't.
There you have it. The things I didn't buy on ebay today. I'm not even going to tell you what I did end up buying. Beh.
Poseted in January at 1:24pm
Something awesome i've been hearing
Jack Peñate is pretty badass, well, for some flouncy brittish pop singer really. I've been hearing Second-Minute-or-Hour for awhile now on sirius, so i found it and another one that I really like. Don't overdo it, like add this to a bunch of your playlists, but it'll be good for a week or two until the next Katie Nash-type-person comes to the surface. It's good, and disposable, and dancy. Heh, check out the skull tee shirt he's wearing, so edgy! rawr!
I do actually think he looks like Tim Robbins, but that's just me.
Second Minute or Hour (mp3)
Torn on the Platform (mp3)
(homepage) (myspace) (this dude has a flickr, awesome) (wiki)(youtube vid)
posted in January at 12:05PM
Vote zombie obama
posed in January at 4:24pm
Today's comic for snarky step-parents everywhere
friday's comic
posed in January 8:43AM
Kimya dawson mp3
I saw Juno with Richard this past weekend and it sort of renewed my love for the moldy peaches, kimya dawson and how awesome lo-fi still is. Over vacation I was reminded (again thanks) that I have a terrible singing voice, and it's really true, but how adorable is Kimya's horrible singing voice in this track. Can't I just be adorable too?
Listen, then buy it at her site.
Kimya Dawson - Loose Lips (mp3)
and a bonus youtube vid of the song with complimentary singalong action:
posed in January 8:36AM
Today's comic
It doesn't have to be today
A couple of projects have come to me, some multimedia stuff that I can't wait to dig into, doing a second printing of YouAreHere #5, which includes "The Second Death" and "Gaylord Gone Missing", a couple of my favorites, and I'm sure yours too, in the entire series.
The mail I'd been getting from prison has trailed off over the last year, the start of which was spurred by a review that MaximumRockNRoll did of YouAreHere in 2005 or so, I've got the issue somewhere. So I'm looking forward to getting some new stuff out there, more on the web than I've done ever before, with voices and moving pictures and the like.
I'm also an official Sacramentan now, which sounds pretty awesome. My Davis days are behind me. I've added a few dozen more miles between me and Berkeley, and maybe that's the kick-start I'm looking for.
I've been getting distracted. In the last year or I've completed outlining "101 ways to die at work", as well as halfway storyboarded out the multimedia project I've been so jazzed up about. The fact is that I haven't completed anything. Absolutely zippo.
I did move, and finish up exams with what I think is moderate success, and help out a few friends that needed me at the time... but nothing published, self-published, or otherwise printed in the last year. My blogging has been sporadic at best. No more, my friend, no more.
So 2008 is going to be awesome. I'm going to get some shit together and make you proud. Promise.
Posted in December @ 9:47AM
Anytime I think of working
I think about godzilla and space out.
Posted in December @ 9:41AM
yesterday's cover
If you're here for ESRi ds mapbook, use edit > find , it's here.
bio
Jen Michaelis is an American artist, illustrator, author, and blogger living in Sacramento, California. Michaelis' best known work is the zine "You Are Here", but her work has also been featured in collections such as "I Keee You!! A Collection of Overheards" by Atomic Books as well as an exhibitor at the Alternative Press Expo and the San Francisco Zine Festival.
