Jesse's Posts

I had a conversation with Andy Borne a while back where I said something to the extent that the only way to keep America on top was to keep china poor by any means possible.  He called this Malthusian and frankly I have to agree with him, and more so with Malthus.  While his equations may not have been correct, there was no way he could have predicted the advances of the late nineteenth and twentieth century. Don’t give me any of that optimistic “we’ll find a way” bullshit, we are draining the topsoil at a staggering rate, and as if to add insult to injury we are beginning to use food to power our vehicles (think ethanol)?  Do you have any idea how many calories it takes to power a car? By pure food value a gallon of ethanol has 244,939 (cite: http://reddit.com/info/drah/comments) That’s enough to feed 122 people for a day or more… to get you what? 25 miles? Blasphemy. I’ll come back to why I hate ethanol in a later post.  Anyway, back to china.  Simply put they need to be kept poor for the worlds sake.  Think of the energy demands that would be put on the world if 2 billion Chinese suddenly lived the extravagant American lifestyle.  The world simply couldn’t take it.  America needs to stop importing Chinese goods, for import is undeniably dragging down American Business,  and a huge piece of the Chinese import is from Wal-Mart (despite me liking their anti-union policies) and they need to be stopped.  As much as I enjoy the utopian idea of a completely free, self regulating market, we’re not ready for it, theres too much imbalance, and buying things from china puts American companies out of business, or worse yet sold to China.  In example, RCA’s Television Manufacturing Division.  Well that was random, but it’s a post.

Love and Kisses
Jesse Donat

Here I am, 7 am, unable to sleep, so I figured I'd give a go at writing you a letter. It's come to my attention lying here staring at the ceiling, that it bugs me more and more as times go by how everyone I know seems to be maturing while I sit here stagnating, and honestly despite being two years out of high school, I don't believe my self mentally mature enough for a real college. While most everyone I know has been off making new friends, learning social skills, having the times of their lives, I've just been dawdling away my life because of some mistakes I made in high school and the time thereafter…

Another thing that part of me is trying to talk me out of saying is that part of me spites Brittany. She's never done anything to disserve ill feelings, and quite honestly has always come off as downright nice, but the childish part of me see's her as someone taking away a friend. I don't mean any offence by this, its just a… I suppose subconscious reaction. There is a selfish part of me that honestly wants to hold you back, part of me that didn't want you getting your license. Part of me that wants to keep us peers, so I can have someone I can relate to, but I digress.

I've spent this last week moping around, knowing everyone was going off, a couple of them never to return, and with Paul gone likely never seeing a good number of the ones who do return again anyway. I've been unable to sleep most of the week, and that’s led to a lot of reminiscing. For some reason the one moment that keeps coming up in my mind is when we watched Bleu in Gross's basement. You probably hardly remember it, but something about that crystallized in my mind, and is remembered as one of the highpoints of my life.

I just want you to know, never let me or anyone else for that matter hold you back, as if I could. I hope no offence was taken to this latter, none was meant. This ended up being a lot more honest than usual, perhaps more honest than I want to be, but oh well.

Wishing you the best,
Jesse Donat

I read a yearly summary of movies which had Install in its top ten.  The movie begins with Asako, the main character, daydreaming in English class about talking to a boy in a clock tower.  The teacher wakes her up and asks her “Who were you with in your dreams” which struck me as an odd question, to which Asako replies “Your Sweetheart” and then running out of the classroom.  Folowing this, for reasons unknown to us, Asako decides she doesn’t want anything she owns anymore and hauls it all out to a dumpster outside her apartment.  A 10 year old, Kazuyoshi, sees her throwing out an Apple Classic computer and asks if he can have it, which she allows.  On a further chance encounter she finds out that the 10 year old is filling in for a sex worker in a chat room, which sets the plot in motion for Kazuyoshi to become Asako’s 10 year old cyber pimp.  As the plot, or really lack thereof develops, Asako looses respect for men, has a couple of cheesy dreams and doesn’t go to school for several months.  Its not until several months later when her mom finally discovers her room is empty that everything begins to fall apart.  Also, in usual asian film style, there is a confusing subplot involving the boy whom she was dreaming about in the beginning of the film.

The music of the movie maintains a strangely upbeat and strongly Japanese form, even at some rather akward for the situation, very much adds to the style of the film.
Overall the movie was decent, featuring a number of amusing moments, though I wouldn’t put it in the top 10 of last year by any means.

Though updates have slowed a little, we are still here and will continue to update the site. Jeff has a number of new comics lined up as well as an insight article from a long time Oasisband member who has never written anything before.

I promised Paul a post so here it is.

Quoting The Superficial (link) (not the best source, I know)

Democratic Assemblyman Ted Lieu has introduced a bill that would prohibit the selling, leasing, or distributing of an ultrasound machine by California manufacturers to anyone other than licensed medical professionals, after it was publicized that Tom Cruise had purchased one for use at home with Katie Holmes.

"If someone sees Tom Cruise buy one, they think this is the thing to do," Lieu said. "This is a public safety measure. There's really no medical reason for an untrained person to use this machine."

Despite this, quoting Wikipedia: "There are no substantiated side-effects documented in studies."

Why make something illegal that has no harm? That?s not freedom, that?s not capitalism, that?s totalitarianism. Laws are to be kept to a minimum, and there to protect us, not there to keep us in our place. They want to take away our rights, one by one.

One thing that’s been bugging me a lot lately is what’s the point of doing anything at all. For example, I’ve always liked to doodle/create, but I know there are probably billions of people out there who are magnitudes better than I. What’s the point is what I just can’t figure out. And yet I continue, but why, what drive to I have when I know I’ll never be good. I can’t even draw a straight line as well as my father. Is that because he was a draftsman? I don’t believe so, I’ve seen his high school works and the technics behind even some of the simplest things beat anything I’ve ever done. If I had just an ounce of that talent. Playing video games falls somewhat in this boat too. They are in no way productive. I gain nothing by playing them so what is the point. At least when I do something artistic I have something pretty in the end to look at. I don’t game nearly as much as I used to, even Oblivion, I am nowhere near as into as you. I collect, I have many many cartridges, discs, roms, etc that I don’t play. Whats the point of that? Some kind of just collection urge? I collect images, I have a folder full of just stupid images like a japanse guy with a frog on his head, do I use them for anything? You’re well aware how many 8 balls I have, how many lava lamps I have. I have seven graphing calculators Ti-82, Ti-83, Ti-83 Silver, Ti-85, Ti-89, Ti-92, and a Color Casio one. Three of them are within reach. What do I need these for? You know I have a huge movie collection; I have something like 300 movies, what percent have I actually watched? It’s pretty small. There is some kind of hording instinct in me.

On Of fear and the golden rule, for me it wasn’t a fear of pushing myself upon people perse. I guess I just always valid humbleness. I always liked just solid color shirts myself. During high school my mom would go to the store and come back with shirts with skulls and shit on them (I’ve no idea why she thought I liked that), but now I wear just solid colors. Yesterday I was at target wearing red shirt, khakis, and got asked “do you work here?” twice. Today, blue shirt, khackies. My fear of color is gone, I don’t know what happened. Its reflected in my art, in what I wear. Etc. There’s still no excuse for the color yellow though, ever.
It’s more of a tendency to think everything I ever do is a mistake, especially in a social context, rather than to think I’m forcing myself upon people, though I have to say I agree completely on the point that the people who isolate themselves, myself included want things thrust upon them. As you know, I am completely indecisive. This too roots from my complete fear of mistakes. I don’t make the mistake, its not my fault. And yet theres part of me that wants to take charge, like in a group, people argue about who does what, I just want to yell ‘shut up, I’ll do it all myself’ I dislike working in groups because it never fails that someone isn’t going to pull their weight, its just the entire basis of groups.

The concept of work is something that drives me insane. What is life really other than a period of time we get to exist, and we trade portions of it to someone else, for things to keep us existing.

Now for just a random whine. Deviant art’s gone completely to hell, no? There’s an option now to disallow critique. What’s the point of posting your art on the web if you’re not trying to improve, if all you want is praise because you believe yourself perfect. I take offense to the pure idea of this.

In response to of school and educators, if not teachers, perhaps instructors.

As for questions of you, I have no idea. This is another one of my weaknesses. An x-girlfriend who shall remain nameless during the processes of dumping me informed me that I knew nothing about her, which was true, she asked me what her favorite color was, I had no idea but I wondered at the time why that was even relevant.

What do I want of this open letter writing experience? More than anything just a place to vent I suppose. I don’t get to talk to people much. I don’t get to converse. I go to school and the only people I really have any kind of conversations with are the instructors and that’s only ocasionaly. Then I come home where my mothers idea of a conversation is her whining on and on, everything having to do with the context of her. Having a conversation with my dad is little better because hes stubborn as a mule, if he has an opinion on something he sticks to it, you argue otherwise and he basicly just says no, this is how it is, which can be very frustrating. Then I get on AIM to have a conversation, and It ends up usually as an argument with Borne or just a lame ‘Sup? Not Much’ conversation, or lack thereof as it were.

Well this was completely randomly tossed together at 4am this morning. I’m not sure who knows this, I know Borne does, but I have a lazy eye and when I get tired it becomes increasingly hard to control. My eyes right now are looking in two completely different directions and neither in focus. On the love at the end of my previous letter, it was more along the lines of uncertainty as to the spelling of something more extravagant such as ‘Sincerely’ but it was not overly uncomfortable to use.

Omnipresence goes public! I've added a new page to the site "Oasisband Services" which is currently just Omnipresence. Omnipresence is a notepad like tool that can be used either as a standalone application, or through the services page to keep track of notes between multiple computers, (school, home, work, etc) Personally I use it to keep track of things between my laptop, my tower, and my parents machine. I had found myself keeping text files on my desktops to keep track of notes and thought "There has to be a better way" so over the last Year Omnipresence has developed into its current form. All Oasisband writers have accounts, though the ones I don't have email addresses for (Chris Franson, Hans Kuder, and Nick Miller) might have trouble with their accounts. If anyone needs their passwords, the password recovery system will send it to the email address we have on file, though they may be outdated. If anyone needs assistance just email me (donatj@oasisband.net) and I'll be more than happy to help.

For Christmas this year, I got a wired Xbox 360 controller. I had asked for it, so it was not unexpected. I do not own an Xbox 360, but the controller is usable with a pc. I have been meaning to write a review for a while, so here it goes. Microsoft is trying to push the Xbox 360 controller as the new "Standard PC Controller"

Pros:

• Most Comfortable Controller I've ever used.
• Works great with a Dreamcast emulator.
• Supported by newer games with zero configuration necessary. (Marc Ecko's Getting Up, support expected for Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion with first patch)

Cons:

• *With Microsoft's driver, the same axis is used for the L and R analog triggers, making using both at the same time impossible.
• *Also, with Microsoft's driver, they use a new system for programs to use the controller, only allowing the newest games to use its force feedback function. So far the only game I've found where the vibrate works is Marc Ecko's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure.
• The D-Pad is lame, not good for SNES/NES games that need any level of accuracy.
• The Four button arrangement rather than 6 as the N64 controller, makes playing N64 games awkward.

Note on *: There is a 3rd party driver which fixes these problems, allowing older games with Force Feedback support to use the vibrate and mapping the controller differently. It though is simply a hack of a driver for the original Xbox controller, and at least last time I tried it was exceedingly buggy.

Honestly, most computer games are designed to be played mouse and keyboard. I've tried a number of FPS games with it, and quite honestly I won't be trading in my mouse and keyboard anytime soon. However I am looking forward to trying it with Oblivion.
Overall, I give the controller an 8/10 rating. (BTW, new rating system on the way)

Brick is an oddity as it?s a sort of film noir revolving around a group of high school kids. The dialog of the movie is the sort that smacks you across the face and leaves you either loving it or hating it, in that it is stunningly out of place for high school students, and would be far more fitting in a 1950?s crime drama. For about the first third of the film I was sitting there thinking "What the hell is this I'm watching?!" but I soon realized to just flow with it.

The film began with this perfectly fitting kind of indistinguishable yet completely coherent clanging music unlike anything I think I've heard before, as the main character, Brendan, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt of "3rd Rock from the Sun" fame, standing over a dead body in a culvert, who you soon find out is his ex-girlfriend Emily. The film flashes back to two days earlier, where he learns she was in some kind of unknown trouble. He spends the next portion of the film trying to find out where she is and what kind of trouble she is in, until ultimately coming across her deceased body two days later. He decides to get vigilante justice against those who set her up, working his way into a drug ring and putting himself in grave danger on several occasions.

The movie was quite enjoyable overall. As mentioned previously, the language takes some getting past, there are several spots of "extreme emotion" where I couldn?t help myself but laugh at what ends up being very inappropriate times to laugh, similar to that found in the movie Saw

As a side note, the only other song I remember throughout the rest of the film sounds awfully similar to a Joanna Newsom song with a note extended for dramatic purposes, and bothered me throughout.

Back when the stars aligned and we created Oasisband, we used Geocities for hosting, Namezero as a registrar, and Blogger for posting. We have now successfully moved away from all of them. The news page (you're reading) was the last page to be moved to my posting system.

Well, this weekend a lot has happened with the site. Firstly you might notice the new main page. Internet Explorer hates it, I plan on writing some code to catch if you're using IE, but for now I suggest you upgrade to Firefox or at least the IE7 beta. The new pages are all going to be XHtml Transitional Compliant, though thus far I believe the only pages that are are the main page and Oasisband Insight. A number of pages look really ugly at the moment, but rest assured they'll be fixed. Also, if anyone actually uses Narwhal Email anymore drop me a line. donatj@oasisband.net else I shall be sending it the way of the They Might Be Giants page.

Server-side as well as application-side coding of the new version of Omnipresence has completed. There will soon be a "Oasisband Services" page (to possibly replace the crappy software page) which will include the awesome downloadable version of Omnipresence as well as a web based version (at forshizzles request). PS: Oasisband Writers can download an advance version right now here.

The Album Reviews Page is nearly ready to go mainstream. It's in the sidebar now as well as the new and improved in vogue screen. Some links still don't work and the page alignments is still a little off, but expect to see it working in full by the end of the week. Also, many of you have been whining at me to get the search up. It's just about ready as well so be patient.

The image server is soon to be implimented sitewide. You can see an example image here. This will allow all the writers to easily include images inline in their posts.

Also, you may have noticed some kind of bot was spamming the crap out of the shoutbox. That should be fixed now, but the cost is you can no longer use @'s in the name of the shoutbox, I guess not really that big of a deal.