Jesse's Posts

If you haven't already noticed, there is a tear in the upper left. Shame on you, America, for making Oasisband.net cry! Vanity and fear have brought onto this country a great pestilence. We'll see if Oasisband outlasts another president. One not even elected for a day already talking about censoring media.

I would call upon the video game industry to give parents better information about programs and video games by improving the voluntary rating system we currently have. Broadcasters and video game producers should take it upon themselves to improve this system to include easier to find and easier to understand descriptions of exactly what kind of content is included. But if the industry fails to act, then my administration would.

And even if the industry does do some responsible self-policing, there’s still a role for the federal government to play. We need to understand the impact of these new media better. That’s why I supported federal funding to study the impact of video games on children’s cognitive development.

Oasisband.net has not had a post in forever, so here it goes. The Obloglog is, and has been for quite some time, 95% functional with posting everything but images and movie reviews (mostly because movie reviews *require* posting images...) completed. I think the community just fell out in the down time between OB2 and OB3 because not only has no one posted anything, but we have not had a single comment I didn't write since OB3 went up.

Other news, I got my drivers license today, finally. This was my second attempt, the first time featuring me turning from the wrong lane of a one way into a two way... see: here.

After a long hard weekend of fighting with code, the new Obloglog (writer admin) is nearly complete. There are some unresolved issues / inconsistencies with the way foreign characters are handled, ie: my review of Amélie... but I'm working hard to figure these out as well as some issues with the manner in which post attributes function, but writers will soon be able to post again without bugging me!

Update: Very Rough Version is Online!!!

As you've probably noticed updates have been slow to non-existent lately. A lot of this has been my hectic life as of late. I would like to get some more work in on the site now that my kidney stone is gone and things are starting to settle. First order of business is to get the Writers admin working. I have absolutely nothing to do this weekend, so we'll see if I can't knock that out. I've also got some restructuring I'd like to get in, but one thing at a time.

Let me begin this by stating that I have in fact read every letter you have ever posted to Oasisband and have claimed otherwise because frankly, I've had no idea how to respond to them, with that in mind, I hope we can spark the conversation back up, because I need it. How about you?

I am beginning to realize just how poor a medium the Internet is for human emotion, and beginning to question my attachment to it. Questioning if it made me this way, or if I was this way all along. I honestly cannot remember. I am severely detached. I remember events with precision. I remember in exacting detail a look someone gave me at a party, body movements, the feel of a touch, but rarely dialog. More often than not memories are just symbols of the deep meaning I take from the completely meaningless. If I do recall dialog its usually just the general sense of the conversation, although under certain occasions I remember in exacting detail the tone, the pattern of breath, every last detail of what was said. These are the moments on which I base my life.

Lately there are days where I put serious thought into becoming an Alaskan fisherman. Its completely senseless, I would be lucky to survive a day, but the harsh work in the minimalist environment provokes some kind of primeval need deep within me, something sitting in a desk typing for eight hours a day just isn't doing for me.

Well my father is having heart surgery tomorrow, and I am majorly stressed at the moment. Times I feel like this I used to draw, and it was what I consider some of my best. More and more I find my self heading to bed rather than embracing the anxiety for what its worth, and doing something with it.

This is going to sound completely insane, but I miss the depression of unemployment. I miss the creativity it caused. Now that I am gainfully employed, and am not in complete desperation for social contact, I have dulled.

I'm heading to Japan in about a week and a half, I get mixed signals from you on Paul taking the hint. I hope though it will mean huge growth for me as a person, as it will in fact be the not just the furthest, but the longest I've been away from home. I'm homesick already.

Your Friend Always,
Jesse Gordon Donat

Just a little note before I head to bed, working on restoring most of the missing Oasisband 2 stuff, users pages are kind of back, The Medium / PM5MT is uploading right now and has been moved here: http://medium.oasisband.net and all goes well will be fully functional when I get up in the morning (pending a possible redesign). Obloglog for the writers soon, my attribute system is proving a pain to write an admin around.

As you have probably already noticed Oasisband version 3 is live. There's quite a bit left to do yet, but frankly, I was sick of looking at the old one. If you're one of the crazy few using IE6 I feel sorry for you because frankly, I didn't make this site to work in IE6 at all.

As for the few remaining writers, a new version of the Obloglog is heading nearing completion, and you'll be able to post again fairly soon, I can get anyone their login info who needs it.

I'm arguing with my self over if I should, and which rich text editor to use. I built one based on a friend at works, but it has some flaws.

This isn't quite what I had planned, but it is certainly a stepping stone to better things. If anything the new database will empower us to do a lot more. There are several design elements in the works, certainly some art-deco-ing. A prettier footer, and integrating a search box into the header.

Any way about it, things are going to get fixed. I realize I forgot about Omnipresence when my widget broke, hehe. That'll be fixed soon.

I hesitate to say I hated this movie, because I didn't. I want to hate it, I desperately want to hate it. I can't though, mostly because if anything it did get me thinking.

This film was the polar opposite of the first which I reviewed a little over a year ago. Whereas the first was artful and creative with its character construction, they knew with this film that the characters were already built our and despite being put into very straining situations there was very little character growth. Heck, the whole play of how the number 7 connected the two Nana's was almost completely avoided, although I imagine some could argue this is a good thing.

One of the oddities of this film is of the six main characters, three were played by different actors than in the original film. I honestly didn't even notice, save the fact that I was wondering why Ryuhei Matsuda's character had received such a bit part, as he was one of the larger focuses of the first film. This was why I did some research and found out that it wasn't even him. They do their best to mask this by hiding his face for most of scenes he is in, often having his back to the camera, or more creatively having him reading while wearing a baseball cap.

This film, in stark contrast to its predecessor, is largely a series of unfortunate events and ends on an exceedingly sour note. The climax of the film involves the happy go lucky Nana finding out she is pregnant. Having recently dumped the guitarist from Trapnest (whom she only sought in a moment need) for the guitarist from BLAST who genuinely cares for her, she is uncertain which is the father. The guitarist from Trapnest (Takumi) offers to marry her, and after some reluctance she agrees. She moves in with him just in time for him to leave on a 6 month tour. While Trapnest gathers outside, the lead singer makes a comment about how Takumi has a wife in the UK, though this fact is never again mentioned. At the end of the movie, Nana cries while holding the other Nana, realizing she has ruined her life.

When the credits rolled I was genuinely surprised, expecting some kind of at least semi-happy resolve.

The movie ends with everyone's life in shambles.

Not only for the massive change in direction, but the genuine lack of style which the other film pulled off fairly well, I have to say this film didn't even come close to living up to the first film. I was genuinely disappointed in this film.

As I've told people with the original Matrix, if you liked it, don't see the sequel, the same applies to this, unless you enjoy seeing characters and concepts you've grown to like being terribly abused.

The new site is coming along quite well, although its not up to "the dream" yet, not even close, but any way two ways about it its better and more maintainable than the current site. Theres not that much left to do before I'd be happy with a launch, I'm currently fixing some database stuff, I need to get some major work in on the Obloglog, finish up the comics section, get some preliminary work done on the users pages and maybe improve the way movie reviews work a little, but really end of the month is a doable goal.

It is actually something of a forced launch date as our gracious host is shutting down this server, and has intentions of migrating us to a new server with all the latest bells and whistles (PHP5, MySQL 5, etc) and I figure why monkey with the old site to make it work on the new server when I've got this shining new one. So as it stands, expect the new Oband sometime around the first of the year!

-Jesse Gordon Donat

Oasisband has been under some neglect as of late, but I assure you the promised new site is still under active development. There are a number of things I want to get working prior to the new site going live, one of the most challenging as well as most important of these is the completely rewritten admin. There have been some challenges as of late, and some things going on in my personal life which have hindered my work on the site. I am still optimistic for a launch by the end of the year. I’m sure as many of you are well aware the shout box has been constantly attacked by spam bots for the last few months. I’ve taken steps to protect it currently, and the one coming will be far better protected. Thank you for your patience.