random blog updates

in october of 2006 i announced my attempts at an amateur career in photography. well, it's taken me half a year, but i finally made $100!

in december of 2005 i deemed death cab for cutie's "what sarah said" my favorite sad song. in that month, "what sarah said" also happened to top my charts in the death related rock genre. now, unfortunately for death cab, their piano-based elegy has been supplanted by a.j. roach's "grandaddy" (this link passes directly through the artist's site; no pesky video). incidentally, "what sarah said" is still my favorite sad song about death that can be twisted into an interesting metaphor for baptism.

also, i'm really proud of the internet tonight. i'm not a fan of the official "what sarah said" video, so i was searching for something a bit more palpable. i wasn't too successful, but i did find about a dozen how-to videos related to the piano score. generally speaking, i tend to consider the internet a vast impersonal resource for information and time-wasting. if i were to personify the internet, i might describe ms. web as a nasty vindictive nerd, but tonight she was something of a musical saint, generously spreading the gift of music-making throughout the four corners of the globe. way to go!

andrew david. "the look of an istock photographer" somewhere in guatemala.

barred from my own blog

by reading this blog you could be making a grave error. it's just one step from the 17 point scale to an online morass of vice and debauchery. i'm warning you because it almost happened to me.

you may have noticed that i haven't posted for a week. like most americans i spent the weekend as far away from my cubicle as possible: i wake surfed, conversed with a great dane, and grilled burgers. i pitched tents, moved pianos, and caught a cold. once labor day passed, a lingering sore throat kept me at home in my bed. but it was neither vacation nor illness that kept me from my beloved blog, it was my conscience, or more precisely, my unconscious conscience.

in an attempt to rid my computer of licentious pop-ups and porn, i recently installed a trial version of contentprotect on my home computer. many of you are probably familiar with programs like contentprotect--they may prevent you from watching march madness or downloading hip-hop tunes to your office desktop. in my case, an override code can be used to unblock these potentially perverse websites.

one reviewer of the program advised that it is best to have a friend set the password; that way the user can't be tempted to barrel onward through the warning into a waiting cesspool of internet sex. "hmmm" i thought, "that sounds wise."

but it was 1am. i wasn't about to call someone up and say, "errr, sorry to wake you, frankenberg. wanna' stop me from looking at porn? no, what i mean is...." so i devised an even better plan: pick a nearly random string of numbers that i would never remember and use them as my password--perfect!

well, my plan worked. the next day, i clicked on the firefox icon and received a startling message, "you are being blocked from viewing the17pointscale.blogspot.com for content of the following types: intimate apparel; adult/mature." for several days the 16 digit access code to my blog was lost in space, and i was spared the corrupting influence of my blog.

then, when i finally recovered the number, it was with great fear and trepidation that i ventured back. what provocative pictures might await me there? how might my moral compass be shattered by a peek at my own writing? tonight, i invite you to disengage your contentprotect and join me in this immoral journey through the 17 point scale.

(enough of that. just an fyi: this new version of blogger is prohibiting me from posting pictures. but unless google is in league with contentprotect, this should only be a temporary glitch)

the story of my life

there was a chap named andrew. he liked to play the piano and surf the web. one day he got a free email account from juno. andrew liked to imagine himself owning a beautiful grand piano with shiny white keys. therefore, he named his first email account "sparklin-ivorees@juno.com." then one day he realized that juno was ridiculous. after this epiphany, he found himself a hotmail account of the same name and passed the old address on to his mom. in the meantime, andrew grew up and went to college. oblivious to the fact that he may one day need this email address for professional correspondence or to apply for jobs, andrew named his college address: "fatman@u.spu.edu." four years later andrew graduated and decided to work for the university of washington (andrewdtwo@u.washington.edu) at the va hospital (andrewdavid@va.gov). in his spare time, he posted random stories and pictures on his blog. therefore, in july of 2006, when google seduced him with 2750mb gmail accounts, it was only natural that he named his newest account after his blog: the17pointscale@gmail.com.

it's a bit ridiculous, but this is the way my generation can tell stories. rather than building a timeline based on outdoor forts, wicked math teachers, or the lives of presidents, we may be just as likely to our electronic selves. in a few years, i'll be saying, "...then in 2005 i started my first blog. it was a happy disaster...."


andrew david. "amazing art" moma, nyc.

http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?object_id=80103
http://www.insecula.com/us/oeuvre/O0026252.html
http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?object_id=80103