Erik’s Blog

Barring any unforseen circumstances, I believe I have an internship lined up at Richter7 in downtown SLC.

Schwing…

[Update: It’s confirmed. I begin on May 9th.]

The final push is on… Day after tomorrow, another semester from hell ends.

I recently read a post on Signal vs. Noise that discussed top-replying to emails (i.e. when you respond to an email, you type your response above a full, un-edited copy of the email to which you’re responding).

Techies tend to mix their responses with the quoted copy of the email instead of typing a chunk of text on top and calling it done. They also tend to get nasty when they receive emails that have not followed this procedure. Non-techies tend to top-reply.

Like many of the folks who commented to the SvN post I’m finding it difficult to continue with the cumbersome process of the mix-responses-in-quoted-emails approach. I’m also finding it more difficult to justify doing so. Top-replying communicates your thoughts more quickly than the hunt and peck method favored by techies. It’s also the response method used by the majority of the folks I encounter.

I think I may need to switch gears. Effective today, I’m doing top-replies.

And to all my techie friends who object… You’ll be alright.

Larry Miller @ the U of U, originally uploaded by erat.

As promised, a picture of Larry Miller entertaining lots of folks wearing cowboy hats.

(Update: Kinda sucks that I can’t get Flickr to set the width of the photo correctly, huh? I’ll hack this out some time after this semester is over. Grrrr…)

Find your own pose!

The U of U is holding its first ever “Discover U Days” event. It’s actually a number of events that begin today and end tomorrow.

The “keynote” for the event is none other than Larry H. Miller, the guy who pulled Brokeback Mountain from his Megaplex theater in Sandy, UT. His keynote is going on as I’m typing this. In fact, I just got back from checking out the scene (one of the benefits to working on campus).

Lots of folks were protesting. They were doing so quietly, opting to simply wear cowboy hats. If I had to guess, I’d say at least half of the folks there wore these hats. That can’t be fun for Larry. Poor guy. (Not really.)

I took a few photos while I was there. My camera can’t zoom so I’m going to need to load the shots in Photoshop and see if I can blow them up. I’ll do what I can to post them to my Flickr account tonight.

Everyone who’s been reading this blog — all two of you — know that I’ve been on a major McSweeney’s kick lately. It’s a damn good thing that I’m not a trendy guy or else I’d reject McSweeney’s as being so 2001. Fuggedaboutit, they rock.

One of the books I’ve purchased with my limited funds is McSweeneys’ release of Future Dictionary of America. The book was originally created to raise funds to help vote Dubya out of office. I guess you could say the effort failed, huh? (As always, Democrats are great at attending fundraisers and other events but SUCK at voting. You know what they say about getting the government you deserve…)

Part of the package is a CD called Future Soundtrack of America. It’s about half filled with stuff I like, but that half has made it into heavy rotation at Chez Erat. The Old 97’s tune “Northern Line” and Mike Doughty’s “Move On” in particular are hot. I’m even getting into the Death Cab for Cutie song “This Temporary Life,” and I’m not a DCfC fan.

As always, I could completely do without the Blink 182 song. Didn’t that band go belly up? I sure as hell hope so.

Anyway, I figured I’d share. Don’t get the CD on iTunes, get it from McSweeney’s by purchasing a copy of the fore-mentioned book. These guys need to keep going, like, forever.

I ordered a subscription to McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern the day after Christmas. Merry Christmas to me! However, it’s mid-April and I have not seen a single issue. Late in March I got an email from McSweeney’s stating that the issue is about ready to ship and to get any address changes submitted by something like March 29th. That’s the last I’ve heard.

They’re going to have to change the name of the publication with this kind of release schedule. Yikes.

(Update 4/21: It shipped on the 18th. S’about fuggin’ time!)

That’s what’s left in this semester.

What do I think about that? It’s 12:50am Monday morning. I’m working on stuff that’s due at 8:30am. I’ve been working on this on and off for days. I still have a lot of work to do. The fact that I’m doing this for 10 lousy points is just icing on the cake. Am I learning anything from this? Hell if I know. I look back at the end of every semester and wonder why I bothered at all. I’m busting my ass for grades, and as I’ve mentioned already, grades don’t mean a damn thing in graphic design.

I can’t begin to count how many times this semester I’ve found myself in this exact situation. And no, I’m not behind in my work. This is just kind of how it is.

Do you really need to ask what I think about having only one and a half weeks left?

Update: It’s now 3:23am. Is this what college is like for everyone? If so, I’m sorry but this is a f**king joke.

Another update: It’s now 1:25pm. Sorry. I was (and still am) tired. It’s been a long semester. Wednesday next week at approximately 7pm I’m going to forget how difficult this semester has been and I’ll go back to being optimistic about my college experience. Really.