Friday, May 25, 2012
Evertaste This
This book will blow your mind and satisfy your hunger for awesome!
I guarantee it
http://www.facebook.com/Evertaster
I'm not going to lie either, the Eggbeater is my favorite part!
Friday, November 18, 2011
My Adventures on TinTin
I recently finished managing a couple handfuls of animators through the 1300 shots of Steven Spielberg's latest sure to be blockbuster "The Adventures of Tintin : Secret of the Unicorn" and had a dandy old time figuring out creative ways to schedule, cut pipeline corners and implement efficiency in every facet so Mr Spielberg had his film on time. In the final months though, it required so much still to be done, there was no avoiding 100 hour work weeks and staying until 3am making sure the renderers got what they needed from Animation. It got a tad frustrating, okay, very mega frustrating.
Usually when stressed, i'll dress up and do some antic. A night as Captain Haddock provided only temporary relief.
Lucky there is the Haka.
After Weta delivered the last shot on the film, Spielberg called for a Video Conference Call with all involved in the film - Producer Peter Jackson (and Andy Serkis who were on set filming the Hobbit), Joe Letteri and the 4 other Visual Effects Supervisors, the Live Action producer and his cinema full of crew as well as a warehouse full of all 600 people on the Weta Digital crew. It really was unprecedented and a kind gesture from Steven. Needless to say, the entire animation department was amped to get up early the next morning and enjoy a little bubbly and breakfast and some final wise words from The 'Berg, hopefully a thank you too. :)
Im not Maori, Im mostly a white guy, with some italian edges; It therefore came as a surprise when i received an email the afternoon before the shindig from the world's leading monster stuntman and Weta's resident maori Shane Rangi asking if i was interested in performing the haka with a few others in this conference call celebration. "I'm in! How do you, err....Haka?" was all i replied.
It's customary here in NZ before a Rugby game for the players to perform this traditional Maori ancestral war cry, dance or challenge, a laying down of the gauntlet. You've probably seen the All Blacks perform it at some stage on their quest to world domination in the sport, if not, you're missing the pride of this little country.
I assume that was the idea, that Weta, or me and a few other Kiwi guys, would perform the Haka for Spielberg at the beginning of the call to give him a little taste of NZ culture and history - and probably also to demonstrate that it truly was an epic battle we fought to get his movie out.
That night i studied every clip on youtube i could of the All Blacks slapping their thighs, beating their chest and sticking their tongues out so far it made their eyes eerily vibrate and bulge; but to no avail, i wasn't learning the dance.
The next morning i got to the warehouse an hour early, donned a black singlet like the other 6 in the group and tried to copy their slaps and smacks and now and then mumble a few maori words i'd picked up from the youtube videos the night before. It was glaringly apparent in the first 30 seconds that my biceps were about 16 inches too thin and my teachers never taught me any form of Haka year after year in eledmentary grades or high school growing up. I suddenly regretted the 'heel and toe, heel and toe' square dance steps drilled into my head at Standiford's annual Class Dance Showcase from 1st to the 5th grades. Oh why couldn't my young chicken legs and beanpole arms learned something useful and practical in the 80's like the war cry of the Haka!?!
If you could be cut from volunteering i probably would have. Okay, it wasn't as bad as i'm making it out to be, they told me the haka is mostly be about heart and giving it all you got, but that wasn't too comforting with 600 of your co-workers standing behind you and when the red camera light turns on with a half dozen of Hollywood's elite on the other end staring blankly wondering why you're center frame when they thought they were to be conferencing with the entire tintin crew. Luckily, Shane, the 240lb wall of maori muscle, was dead center and snapped us into focus with is best and loudest blood curdling war cry - Kia rite! Kia ite!
Instantly the other 6 dropped into battle stance and soon followed the practiced slaps to the forearms, thighs, the miming of tearing off the enemies head and slitting their throat and finally the predestined victory poses. We each ended with our own signature war stance at the end, but since i never really developed one learning square dances i threw myself into the most heroic pose i could think of on th efly - IronMan firing his thrusters.' Thunderous applause! The 600 in the warehouse, the cinema with Producer Jason, PJ, Serkis - every golden statue winner was clapping emphatically for our haka.
Spielberg broke the applause first, "Honestly, I can't say i didn't feel that same way a few days on this production!" Then he went on to say how grateful he was and what a great job we did and that he looks forward to the 2nd one blah blah. I was stoked i got to shout at all the people that made my life hard the last 15 months, even more stoked getting closure to having steered the ship for animation for a director the likes Spielberg and most stoked i can now say -
"I did the haka for Steven Spielberg."
Usually when stressed, i'll dress up and do some antic. A night as Captain Haddock provided only temporary relief.
Lucky there is the Haka.
After Weta delivered the last shot on the film, Spielberg called for a Video Conference Call with all involved in the film - Producer Peter Jackson (and Andy Serkis who were on set filming the Hobbit), Joe Letteri and the 4 other Visual Effects Supervisors, the Live Action producer and his cinema full of crew as well as a warehouse full of all 600 people on the Weta Digital crew. It really was unprecedented and a kind gesture from Steven. Needless to say, the entire animation department was amped to get up early the next morning and enjoy a little bubbly and breakfast and some final wise words from The 'Berg, hopefully a thank you too. :)
Im not Maori, Im mostly a white guy, with some italian edges; It therefore came as a surprise when i received an email the afternoon before the shindig from the world's leading monster stuntman and Weta's resident maori Shane Rangi asking if i was interested in performing the haka with a few others in this conference call celebration. "I'm in! How do you, err....Haka?" was all i replied.
It's customary here in NZ before a Rugby game for the players to perform this traditional Maori ancestral war cry, dance or challenge, a laying down of the gauntlet. You've probably seen the All Blacks perform it at some stage on their quest to world domination in the sport, if not, you're missing the pride of this little country.
I assume that was the idea, that Weta, or me and a few other Kiwi guys, would perform the Haka for Spielberg at the beginning of the call to give him a little taste of NZ culture and history - and probably also to demonstrate that it truly was an epic battle we fought to get his movie out.
That night i studied every clip on youtube i could of the All Blacks slapping their thighs, beating their chest and sticking their tongues out so far it made their eyes eerily vibrate and bulge; but to no avail, i wasn't learning the dance.
The next morning i got to the warehouse an hour early, donned a black singlet like the other 6 in the group and tried to copy their slaps and smacks and now and then mumble a few maori words i'd picked up from the youtube videos the night before. It was glaringly apparent in the first 30 seconds that my biceps were about 16 inches too thin and my teachers never taught me any form of Haka year after year in eledmentary grades or high school growing up. I suddenly regretted the 'heel and toe, heel and toe' square dance steps drilled into my head at Standiford's annual Class Dance Showcase from 1st to the 5th grades. Oh why couldn't my young chicken legs and beanpole arms learned something useful and practical in the 80's like the war cry of the Haka!?!
If you could be cut from volunteering i probably would have. Okay, it wasn't as bad as i'm making it out to be, they told me the haka is mostly be about heart and giving it all you got, but that wasn't too comforting with 600 of your co-workers standing behind you and when the red camera light turns on with a half dozen of Hollywood's elite on the other end staring blankly wondering why you're center frame when they thought they were to be conferencing with the entire tintin crew. Luckily, Shane, the 240lb wall of maori muscle, was dead center and snapped us into focus with is best and loudest blood curdling war cry - Kia rite! Kia ite!
Instantly the other 6 dropped into battle stance and soon followed the practiced slaps to the forearms, thighs, the miming of tearing off the enemies head and slitting their throat and finally the predestined victory poses. We each ended with our own signature war stance at the end, but since i never really developed one learning square dances i threw myself into the most heroic pose i could think of on th efly - IronMan firing his thrusters.' Thunderous applause! The 600 in the warehouse, the cinema with Producer Jason, PJ, Serkis - every golden statue winner was clapping emphatically for our haka.
Spielberg broke the applause first, "Honestly, I can't say i didn't feel that same way a few days on this production!" Then he went on to say how grateful he was and what a great job we did and that he looks forward to the 2nd one blah blah. I was stoked i got to shout at all the people that made my life hard the last 15 months, even more stoked getting closure to having steered the ship for animation for a director the likes Spielberg and most stoked i can now say -
"I did the haka for Steven Spielberg."
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Arriving back in Wellington
Last Tuesday, after 40 hours of flying around the world, from Orlando to Miami to LAX to Melbourne to Auckland to Wellington, we made it home to where our lives and friends are. As we rounded the corner there was a huge lineup of Kiwis clad in black and waving banners : a most radical welcome for us, their beloved heroes.
Turns out it was for this guy, the captain of the All Blacks who led the New Zealand rugby team to the Rugby World Cup title just 2 days earlier and had nothing to do with the 2 exPats after an awesome week holiday.
We went to the USA versus Australia Rugby match and right as we entered the TSB Arena in Wellington, the crowd erupted with cheers and waving of Red White and Blue. Now, perhaps it's that i think i'm more the center of the universe than i am or i flashed back to university days and my social experiments conducted in crowded cafeterias and packed study rooms that drew rooms full of staring eyes, but my natural reaction to the cheers was to raise my arms and turn to the adoring fans. To my surprise, USA had just scored a 'try' against the favorite Wallabies, pulled the game within a single touchdown and the NZ crowd was hoping for an upset.
Weelllll, USA is really just a club team compared to the juggernauts of The Pacific and Europeand we never scored again, final score 67-5. But it was great to be amongst fans cheering for Old Glory in a sport half of America doesn't know exists.
Turns out it was for this guy, the captain of the All Blacks who led the New Zealand rugby team to the Rugby World Cup title just 2 days earlier and had nothing to do with the 2 exPats after an awesome week holiday.
We went to the USA versus Australia Rugby match and right as we entered the TSB Arena in Wellington, the crowd erupted with cheers and waving of Red White and Blue. Now, perhaps it's that i think i'm more the center of the universe than i am or i flashed back to university days and my social experiments conducted in crowded cafeterias and packed study rooms that drew rooms full of staring eyes, but my natural reaction to the cheers was to raise my arms and turn to the adoring fans. To my surprise, USA had just scored a 'try' against the favorite Wallabies, pulled the game within a single touchdown and the NZ crowd was hoping for an upset.
Weelllll, USA is really just a club team compared to the juggernauts of The Pacific and Europeand we never scored again, final score 67-5. But it was great to be amongst fans cheering for Old Glory in a sport half of America doesn't know exists.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
An Essay on Entropy
Jessie B is a small kiwi librarian who loves scholarly things, like books and essays. One day she asked me why on earth my email was entropysid and how in the world i came up with that and what in tarnation it meant. Seeing that she had written me an riveting essay on The Tick, I figured I owed her an equally entertaining response.
Albert’s hair was unruly most of his life, probably due to the fact he spent more time in front of his Schreibmaschine than he ever did in front of a mirror. But that was mostly a good thing, since he wrote some of the greatest scientific articles that forever changed the course of human thought and never once won any money for beauty pageants. When Albert Einstein was 26 he wrote and published 3 essays that revolutionized the worldview of thermodynamics and physics. Really, it didn’t require an entire publication; he could have achieved the same results by scribbling those three simple letters and that single number on a dirty lunch napkin. This formula might look familiar to you : E=mc^2; or energy equals mass multiplied by the speed of light squared. It’s meaning is simple - there is a buttload, or a really huge amount, of energy in every material thing.
Rudolf Clausius, another German speaking physicist who probably also knew little about beauty pageants and more about greavity–defying hair products, was disproving prevailing thoughts on energy change by developing a slightly more complicated equation about a decade before Albert’s publications (and by more complicated I mean it had more than 3 letters). Rudolf discovered EnTr0Py and coined the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, which measures the amount of disorder, chaos, or randomness in a system. And that seems like a fun thing to measure on a rainy day!
More than 100 years later, an insignificant and inconsequential 18yr old with as equally untamed hair as Albert sat in front of his desktop computer in northern California trying to concoct a clever email alias that didn’t require the word ‘dude’, an underscore or 2 irrelevant numbers tagged to the end of his email name, thereby preserving the purity of his true identity and avoiding being lumped into the abysmal cyberspace of the less creative email addresses. But, “Who am I? What defines me?” he asked himself. This essay details how a trifling lad with a rather abnormal first name sealed his social expectations for life in a half moment of brilliance, a flash of celestial inspiration and in just a few quick keystrokes; for with these, he created his identity and forever owned the title EnTr0PySid (@yahooo.com).
***
You’re bound to be a little different with a name like Jarom. I mean, your whole life you have to answer the same question; “Jeremy?” No. “Jared?” No. “Ah, Jerome?” No, it’s Jarom. Promise. After about 2,000 similar conversations, I developed about 100 different and increasingly more random explanations why ‘Jarom’ is so hard to say and it’s my fault because my name actually stems from a dead language or I had the same skin disease as Michael Jackson and my name was Jerome when I was black or that my parents meant to name me Jeremy, but the doctor and my parents were so enthralled with BYU’s game clinching touchdown on screen at that very moment of signing my birth certificate, they simply forgot to finish the ‘y’ in my name. At any rate, with every explanation I attempted to be more creative and more random and at the same time was separating myself from what I once understood as normal. And so a life of storytelling, antics and planned disorder began.
One should not suppose that I disagree with order, for I do not; in fact, organization and creating awesome are a passion of mine. I do believe that most social norms or status quos inhibit the majority of people from enjoying themselves fully. Humans (and their close relatives, like my bearded Aunt Susan) are severely complex organisms that rarely outwardly express what is occurring inside our complex bodies. Some famous physicist dude named PT Matthews said every “human being is…an assembly of chemicals constructed and maintained in a state of fantastically complicated organization of quite unimaginable improbability.” We humanoids act at times far too introverted and placid for the organized chaos within. While at University, I saw my fellow students as human capsules holding repressed energy in the prime of their life – personality, zaniness; randomness waiting to burst forth - they were defying Einstein’s most famous theory on Energy and the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. They were fighting EnTr0Py and the honor code demanded that rules be adhered to!
My identity as entropy, and the chaotic inducing powers with them, fully blossomed at University. For the first time in my life I had complete freedom and embraced the ensuing improbability. I would revive randomness in the lives of these young, boring freshman! Oozing Energy and inclined to share it as quickly as I could with the mass of peers at my immediate disposal, I set to work teaching Clausius’ formula through the powerful tool of parables by antic. Within the first month I collected a dozen or so unlocked bikes, unclaimed couches and chairs from the dorms and hung them in the center tree; I rode a table down 4 flights of the steepest stairs on campus, walking away with only a bruised tailbone; I wore a different costume to class every Friday, announced in the middle of my accounting class that they were all welcome to come over and jump on my trampoline after the lecture. For a midterm I turned in a lifesize stuffed dummy in a refrigerator box and every February 14th I dressed as Cupid and shot potential couples with Love’s Nerf Arrow. These smaller, yet significant events eventually culminated to the blissful moment in which I felt I achieved entropic nirvana - dancing polka in Lederhose whilst 1258 similarly clad individuals flung pieces of an 8’x4’ cake as well as chunks of the recently demolished faux Berlin Wall through the air. At this moment, I knew I had done it. I had become entropy – the catalyst for pure, uninhibited chaos at BYU.
The goal behind Team Entropy (for it was much more fun to not do it alone) was to target the most socially dense areas on campus and there create such a disturbance that the students could not help but break free of the icy, numbing chokehold the standard Trinity of Get to Know You’s had on their minds and tongues since week one; Where are you from? What’s your major? How many credits do you have this semester? Indubitably, after each chaotic rendezvous, the questions of the crowd had a more creative tinge in them, the stress of messing up eased and two people that were previously engaged in a slow, dying conversation began to build upon this abnormal experience and sew a common framework, unique and separate to each beholder of this entropic disarray.
Let us use a real life example, accounted firsthand to me by one individual who triumphed at the hand(s) of EnTr0Py. One lovely February 14th on which love wafted through campus, cupid trounced about the humanities building in the customary pink, red, and glitter from head to toe when an excited young man stopped him asking if he was the very same cupid from the year before. Taken somewhat aback, I lowered my crossbow and uncocked the heart-shaped arrow I had at the ready for love-spreading and answered curiously in the affirmative, assuring him that there is but only one true cupid in all of Lovedom. Even more curiously, he then hugged me and began to explain that because of a carefully placed Hershey Kiss on his study table exactly one year ago, he was now happily married and expecting. a baby. person. He recalled that he had nothing to say to the beautiful woman who sat across from him that fateful day, a crush he had been nurturing to no avail for months. Oh, how he desperately wanted to ask her something – say anything interesting - any sort of quip that would set him apart from other suitors and win her favor. Well, apparently Cupid’s Rambo crawl approach, the smooth slide on his back across their homework papers, the backwards roll with a twist off the edge, both being shot simultaneously with Cupid’s love arrow and having only a single Hershey Kiss undulating in the exact center of the table as the only proof that the last 4 seconds ever occurred in either of their lives was just enough to strike up a conversation between them. That was all it took! This newly married lad further explained that that single event was enough of an ice breaker that soon brought about the sharing of past odd events in their individual lives and built enough of an immediate bond that he gained sufficient courage within that conversation to ask her out. They were married 7 months later and 5 months after that he was explaining this story to me.
This was but one instance of many where EnTr0Py fulfilled its purpose by disrupting solid social structure and allowing for richer and more personal relationship building. In this instance it was between two relative strangers, but the theory of social entropy and it’s proven principles apply in almost every situation with every combination of people from every walk of life (yes, even Aunt Susan or that weird guy that hums the same Dolly Parton song in the elevator every morning), each subconsciously seeking a small catalyst that boosts their confidence and enables them to lift themselves to a higher, perhaps hidden, social and emotional sphere. Social energy flow adheres to thermodynamic law, confidence and creativity flowing from high concentrations to low, eventually leading to equalization. Organized chaos spawns comfort; comfort creates confidence and confidence coolness. I have devoted the last decade of my life to hypothesizing, testing and proving this fascinating social theory based on randomness and individuals’ reaction to structured chaos and there through have become a more refined edition of the personality I first created 10+ years ago whilst sitting before my schreibmaschine - I am EnTr0Py Sid.
Albert’s hair was unruly most of his life, probably due to the fact he spent more time in front of his Schreibmaschine than he ever did in front of a mirror. But that was mostly a good thing, since he wrote some of the greatest scientific articles that forever changed the course of human thought and never once won any money for beauty pageants. When Albert Einstein was 26 he wrote and published 3 essays that revolutionized the worldview of thermodynamics and physics. Really, it didn’t require an entire publication; he could have achieved the same results by scribbling those three simple letters and that single number on a dirty lunch napkin. This formula might look familiar to you : E=mc^2; or energy equals mass multiplied by the speed of light squared. It’s meaning is simple - there is a buttload, or a really huge amount, of energy in every material thing.
Rudolf Clausius, another German speaking physicist who probably also knew little about beauty pageants and more about greavity–defying hair products, was disproving prevailing thoughts on energy change by developing a slightly more complicated equation about a decade before Albert’s publications (and by more complicated I mean it had more than 3 letters). Rudolf discovered EnTr0Py and coined the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, which measures the amount of disorder, chaos, or randomness in a system. And that seems like a fun thing to measure on a rainy day!
More than 100 years later, an insignificant and inconsequential 18yr old with as equally untamed hair as Albert sat in front of his desktop computer in northern California trying to concoct a clever email alias that didn’t require the word ‘dude’, an underscore or 2 irrelevant numbers tagged to the end of his email name, thereby preserving the purity of his true identity and avoiding being lumped into the abysmal cyberspace of the less creative email addresses. But, “Who am I? What defines me?” he asked himself. This essay details how a trifling lad with a rather abnormal first name sealed his social expectations for life in a half moment of brilliance, a flash of celestial inspiration and in just a few quick keystrokes; for with these, he created his identity and forever owned the title EnTr0PySid (@yahooo.com).
***
You’re bound to be a little different with a name like Jarom. I mean, your whole life you have to answer the same question; “Jeremy?” No. “Jared?” No. “Ah, Jerome?” No, it’s Jarom. Promise. After about 2,000 similar conversations, I developed about 100 different and increasingly more random explanations why ‘Jarom’ is so hard to say and it’s my fault because my name actually stems from a dead language or I had the same skin disease as Michael Jackson and my name was Jerome when I was black or that my parents meant to name me Jeremy, but the doctor and my parents were so enthralled with BYU’s game clinching touchdown on screen at that very moment of signing my birth certificate, they simply forgot to finish the ‘y’ in my name. At any rate, with every explanation I attempted to be more creative and more random and at the same time was separating myself from what I once understood as normal. And so a life of storytelling, antics and planned disorder began.
One should not suppose that I disagree with order, for I do not; in fact, organization and creating awesome are a passion of mine. I do believe that most social norms or status quos inhibit the majority of people from enjoying themselves fully. Humans (and their close relatives, like my bearded Aunt Susan) are severely complex organisms that rarely outwardly express what is occurring inside our complex bodies. Some famous physicist dude named PT Matthews said every “human being is…an assembly of chemicals constructed and maintained in a state of fantastically complicated organization of quite unimaginable improbability.” We humanoids act at times far too introverted and placid for the organized chaos within. While at University, I saw my fellow students as human capsules holding repressed energy in the prime of their life – personality, zaniness; randomness waiting to burst forth - they were defying Einstein’s most famous theory on Energy and the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. They were fighting EnTr0Py and the honor code demanded that rules be adhered to!
My identity as entropy, and the chaotic inducing powers with them, fully blossomed at University. For the first time in my life I had complete freedom and embraced the ensuing improbability. I would revive randomness in the lives of these young, boring freshman! Oozing Energy and inclined to share it as quickly as I could with the mass of peers at my immediate disposal, I set to work teaching Clausius’ formula through the powerful tool of parables by antic. Within the first month I collected a dozen or so unlocked bikes, unclaimed couches and chairs from the dorms and hung them in the center tree; I rode a table down 4 flights of the steepest stairs on campus, walking away with only a bruised tailbone; I wore a different costume to class every Friday, announced in the middle of my accounting class that they were all welcome to come over and jump on my trampoline after the lecture. For a midterm I turned in a lifesize stuffed dummy in a refrigerator box and every February 14th I dressed as Cupid and shot potential couples with Love’s Nerf Arrow. These smaller, yet significant events eventually culminated to the blissful moment in which I felt I achieved entropic nirvana - dancing polka in Lederhose whilst 1258 similarly clad individuals flung pieces of an 8’x4’ cake as well as chunks of the recently demolished faux Berlin Wall through the air. At this moment, I knew I had done it. I had become entropy – the catalyst for pure, uninhibited chaos at BYU.
The goal behind Team Entropy (for it was much more fun to not do it alone) was to target the most socially dense areas on campus and there create such a disturbance that the students could not help but break free of the icy, numbing chokehold the standard Trinity of Get to Know You’s had on their minds and tongues since week one; Where are you from? What’s your major? How many credits do you have this semester? Indubitably, after each chaotic rendezvous, the questions of the crowd had a more creative tinge in them, the stress of messing up eased and two people that were previously engaged in a slow, dying conversation began to build upon this abnormal experience and sew a common framework, unique and separate to each beholder of this entropic disarray.
Let us use a real life example, accounted firsthand to me by one individual who triumphed at the hand(s) of EnTr0Py. One lovely February 14th on which love wafted through campus, cupid trounced about the humanities building in the customary pink, red, and glitter from head to toe when an excited young man stopped him asking if he was the very same cupid from the year before. Taken somewhat aback, I lowered my crossbow and uncocked the heart-shaped arrow I had at the ready for love-spreading and answered curiously in the affirmative, assuring him that there is but only one true cupid in all of Lovedom. Even more curiously, he then hugged me and began to explain that because of a carefully placed Hershey Kiss on his study table exactly one year ago, he was now happily married and expecting. a baby. person. He recalled that he had nothing to say to the beautiful woman who sat across from him that fateful day, a crush he had been nurturing to no avail for months. Oh, how he desperately wanted to ask her something – say anything interesting - any sort of quip that would set him apart from other suitors and win her favor. Well, apparently Cupid’s Rambo crawl approach, the smooth slide on his back across their homework papers, the backwards roll with a twist off the edge, both being shot simultaneously with Cupid’s love arrow and having only a single Hershey Kiss undulating in the exact center of the table as the only proof that the last 4 seconds ever occurred in either of their lives was just enough to strike up a conversation between them. That was all it took! This newly married lad further explained that that single event was enough of an ice breaker that soon brought about the sharing of past odd events in their individual lives and built enough of an immediate bond that he gained sufficient courage within that conversation to ask her out. They were married 7 months later and 5 months after that he was explaining this story to me.
This was but one instance of many where EnTr0Py fulfilled its purpose by disrupting solid social structure and allowing for richer and more personal relationship building. In this instance it was between two relative strangers, but the theory of social entropy and it’s proven principles apply in almost every situation with every combination of people from every walk of life (yes, even Aunt Susan or that weird guy that hums the same Dolly Parton song in the elevator every morning), each subconsciously seeking a small catalyst that boosts their confidence and enables them to lift themselves to a higher, perhaps hidden, social and emotional sphere. Social energy flow adheres to thermodynamic law, confidence and creativity flowing from high concentrations to low, eventually leading to equalization. Organized chaos spawns comfort; comfort creates confidence and confidence coolness. I have devoted the last decade of my life to hypothesizing, testing and proving this fascinating social theory based on randomness and individuals’ reaction to structured chaos and there through have become a more refined edition of the personality I first created 10+ years ago whilst sitting before my schreibmaschine - I am EnTr0Py Sid.
Friday, December 11, 2009
November
I grew my very first mustache.
Updates by weeks.
Slick and hip
upper lip
pointy on the ends
Basically, it was a Mustache Feeling of a Month.
Updates by weeks.
Slick and hip
upper lip
pointy on the ends
Basically, it was a Mustache Feeling of a Month.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Entropy Re-Unites in Oregon
Entropy was once the most powerful force ot be reckoned with in Helaman Halls. That was 10 years ago. Much has happened since then. This is what happened that fateful weekend -
Jensens made Oktoberfest, Matty made calzones, they both made babies a few years back, VooDoo made bacon maple bars, I made a maze with 1200ft of string and the Pequod made it to 100,000 miles.
a 3 day Triumph!
Katie and Matty makin' the 'zones. when we couldn't handle the cannon center anymore or we were hungry at 3am, matty would take us down to the budge basement and wip out a few sweet sassy molassy calzones. 
Some cool falls off the Columbia river Gorge that we hiked to the top of. Katie carried me on her shoulders the whole way.
Jacob, son of jensen, rode this horse all through costco shopping extravaganza. Uncle Sid taught him how to take advantage of all the cool play toys they have on the floor as well as the free samples. 
A cool park with 1 cool slide. Trigger, son of Matty, and Claire, daighter of Jensen enjoyed being sling shotted down by their dads. 
Dads also enjoyed slingshotting himself down the slide.
Voodoo donutes.
Bacon
Maple Bar. Heaven. no really, it was probably the best donut i have ever had. in my life. on earth.
So i decide to randomly and for no apparent reason tie 1200ft of string starting from katie's finger, twining thru the Jensen neighborhood and into a nearby grove. It was fun, even when the neighbors discovered it.
Proof of the Pequods' journeys.Thanks entropy for a weekend of the most delightful chaos.
Monday, November 9, 2009
PINK and GRAY on a Brown & Orange backdrop
I usually like to spell Grey with an 'e'. I'll make special occasion of it since such a one occurred October 9th.
Mutant or Pink, my dear, cute and cool yeah-yeah-yeah little sister, tied the knot with Mr Handy-with-the-Steel-if-You-Know-what-I-Mean, Grayden Ridd, who comes from an equally cool family.
And as with every wedding, it was logistical crazy time with everyone running around trying to keep up and not get left behind. Yeah, verily, we keep to the pirate code.
My favorite moments of the wedding -
Me Mum rode in the boot of the car from Motown to the Cliffhouse in SF balancing the cake the whole way.
Picture time was actually fun. The photographer wasn't picky about balancing family members, i got to keep my long hair and we could do super hero poses and just be Sidwells. All very organic.
The ceremonial passing of the sister to the new family.
Dance Floor at the Cliff house - The only way we know how.
The boquet toss was caught by a man. Coincidentally, he was the only one that went for it.
I also quite enjoyed the sweetheart of a blonde that accompanied me through the festivities.
Mutant and Gray did a most excellent and praiseworthy job with planning and hosting and just being generally awesome all around to their guests and families. It was relaxed and yet classy, fancy, yet affordable, traditional, yet a twist of both of them in it.
Congratulations to my wee sister and her cool new acquisition - a real man.
Mutant or Pink, my dear, cute and cool yeah-yeah-yeah little sister, tied the knot with Mr Handy-with-the-Steel-if-You-Know-what-I-Mean, Grayden Ridd, who comes from an equally cool family.
And as with every wedding, it was logistical crazy time with everyone running around trying to keep up and not get left behind. Yeah, verily, we keep to the pirate code.
My favorite moments of the wedding -
Me Mum rode in the boot of the car from Motown to the Cliffhouse in SF balancing the cake the whole way.
Picture time was actually fun. The photographer wasn't picky about balancing family members, i got to keep my long hair and we could do super hero poses and just be Sidwells. All very organic.
The ceremonial passing of the sister to the new family.
Dance Floor at the Cliff house - The only way we know how.
The boquet toss was caught by a man. Coincidentally, he was the only one that went for it.
I also quite enjoyed the sweetheart of a blonde that accompanied me through the festivities.
Mutant and Gray did a most excellent and praiseworthy job with planning and hosting and just being generally awesome all around to their guests and families. It was relaxed and yet classy, fancy, yet affordable, traditional, yet a twist of both of them in it.
Congratulations to my wee sister and her cool new acquisition - a real man.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
A Kiwi in Los Angeles and into a Galaxy Far Far Away
I knew i was back in Santa Monica as soon as iinoticed the same inner nostril inflammation that i used to get after a long cycle ride up the PCH. I was back and ready to see old friends.
After a brief stint at SM3 FHE, i dropped into the back parking lot to down some cool guy drinks with some of the coolest guys i know, mostly the ones i lived with at 2464. Though now disbanded, the brethren of that flat still shared the camaraderie that brought the mantel of the alpha male, the post HTing scrum and the mighty Kartoffel Panzerfaust!
The next day, Katie packed for our upcoming excursions while i visited every single friend i could find and even had to make some more to full the time until she was done. After singular visits to Jpaul, brother & Rockwell at Digital Domain, where i started my movie career, i caught up with the dear Lynsey Davis and shared wonders of a TimTamSlam, the traditional kiwi cookie challenge. she sucked it up.
Next Radium, where i produced some commercials and hung out with some of the coolest kids in LA for 1.5 years. Matt had a baby, Ian got a husband, Derek had storyboards for his script and they all still wear ties to work every thursday.
Katie finished packing by 930. We drove to Bean's to make an appearance at Jack jack's bday Jedi party.
Little scotty didn't really trust me since he knew me only very briefly before i went down under. too soften him up, i let him play with the stuffed animals in the disney store.
He was happy. Happy as two dozen jedi's being taught by Jedi Master Snuggius. Yes, the Snuggie makes a perfect jedi robe.
Shortly after completing their training of blocks, spin moves and proper lightsaber safety techniques, the skilled Jedi Master was called away for meditation. unAmazingly, in that short expanse, Darth Vader entered scene and challenged each youngling to a duel.
Jack Jack passed the test and was knighted Jedi. 
Then Chewie brought the cake in to celebrate, complete with lava and figurines posed to perfection.
My favorite part - The moms called bethany because they thought their kids were telling stories - they thought it impossible that both Chewbacca AND Darth Vader AND a jedi master could appear at the same party.
That night, to avoid traffic, we drove to Modesto for wedding preparations.
robby played with my ipod for 5 hours straight while jack jack slept to keep me company.
Next up, the real reason for my trip back to america : Anne and Grayden's wedding.
After a brief stint at SM3 FHE, i dropped into the back parking lot to down some cool guy drinks with some of the coolest guys i know, mostly the ones i lived with at 2464. Though now disbanded, the brethren of that flat still shared the camaraderie that brought the mantel of the alpha male, the post HTing scrum and the mighty Kartoffel Panzerfaust!
The next day, Katie packed for our upcoming excursions while i visited every single friend i could find and even had to make some more to full the time until she was done. After singular visits to Jpaul, brother & Rockwell at Digital Domain, where i started my movie career, i caught up with the dear Lynsey Davis and shared wonders of a TimTamSlam, the traditional kiwi cookie challenge. she sucked it up.
Next Radium, where i produced some commercials and hung out with some of the coolest kids in LA for 1.5 years. Matt had a baby, Ian got a husband, Derek had storyboards for his script and they all still wear ties to work every thursday.
Katie finished packing by 930. We drove to Bean's to make an appearance at Jack jack's bday Jedi party.Little scotty didn't really trust me since he knew me only very briefly before i went down under. too soften him up, i let him play with the stuffed animals in the disney store.
He was happy. Happy as two dozen jedi's being taught by Jedi Master Snuggius. Yes, the Snuggie makes a perfect jedi robe.
Shortly after completing their training of blocks, spin moves and proper lightsaber safety techniques, the skilled Jedi Master was called away for meditation. unAmazingly, in that short expanse, Darth Vader entered scene and challenged each youngling to a duel. 
Jack Jack passed the test and was knighted Jedi. 
Then Chewie brought the cake in to celebrate, complete with lava and figurines posed to perfection.
My favorite part - The moms called bethany because they thought their kids were telling stories - they thought it impossible that both Chewbacca AND Darth Vader AND a jedi master could appear at the same party.
That night, to avoid traffic, we drove to Modesto for wedding preparations.
robby played with my ipod for 5 hours straight while jack jack slept to keep me company.
Next up, the real reason for my trip back to america : Anne and Grayden's wedding.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Back to the States and into Prison
I flew back to the Land of the Free just so i could be incarcerated.
So it works like this. Flew out of wellington at 2pm on Friday, arrive in noon in SF on that same day, then fill up with things i am lacking in NZ : I got some mexican food, did yoga on allison's rooftop, bought a headlamp for less than $30 at Sports Basement and then met my LA friends, got on a boat and headed for a night on the Rock.
A quick background how this was all possible. Each year for the past 25 years, 18 groups of 35 people are allowed to spend the night on Alcatraz Island. Year-to-date, there are only 16,000 individuals in the world who have had the experience to witness firsthand history behind the scenes of one of the nation’s most infamous penitentiaries. So, Dave Broadbent in LA won the raffle and since i was coming back to the states for Mutant's wedding anyway, might as well go to do some genealogy of my italian mobster ancestors that spent some time on Alcatraz. Apple doesn't fall far from the tree, eh?
After a rousing game of dead kitty on a boat, we arrived to Ranger Jon's moving speech on the history of the island and a short 15 min video. It went well until someone mentioned the 3 that escaped and the postcard they sent the FBI from S. America. Ranger Jon hates escaped convicts more than he hates DB Cooper.
Now, its not all fun and games in prison, the winners of the lottery also have to perform some sort of service that night on the island, but all we had to do was stack 100 chairs. Needless to say, with 35 people, that was about 15 min of our day. Our extended private tour began directly thereafter.
A shot from the psychiatric wing. This cell was directly across from Al Capone's. His was the same size as this one, roughly 8x bigger than others inmate's and 10x larger than Maxfield's and mine room in LA. He lived quite the high life on Alcatraz b/c his syphilis was making him go crazy and he needed the sunlight. Next up was some scenes from The Rock. Like where Nic Cage jabbed himself in the heart.
After taking the audio tour that night and seeing how the 3 guys escaped through the grates in their cell and then through the roof, i began to formulate my evening activities for when the lights went out.
Our cells in Cell Block D Solitary Confinement were pretty comfy, all 3o+ of us filling up almost every 5x9' cell in the 3 story tall section of cells. As the Ranger paced his final rounds before retiring to his quarters, i lie alert in my bed with my shoes on, peering through the bars of my cell, out the small window and across the 1.2 miles of treacherous currents deep into the dim lit, civilian streets of freedom. I was making my escape tonight.
The lights went out, the door to solitary slammed shut and immediately the creaks of old metal, the howl of the wind and the noise of my fellow inmates shuffling in their cots stole the silence. I made my move. I was leaving the other suckers to rot in the slammer.
Getting through the grate was easy, the 3 escapees had removed it 30 years earlier and it still wasn't fixed! At that moment i didn't care where my tax dollars were going, i was busting out.
Into the crawl space for piping between the cell blocks and up through the gunnery and to the roof.
I hid in the underground tunnels and the catacombs of the old naval base until morning. When the ferry came, i stowed away in the life rafts, Alcatraz was shrinking into the horizon and the sound of sea lions and smell of clam chowder in bread bowls aroused my faculties.
Well, after a successful escape from The Rock, i went with Rock to see granmary in SanBruno on an insanely windy day. After a battle with the wind, most of us made it to the usual italian joint we eat at everytime katie and see granmary. This was my hair after the wind. I do not look like a crazed criminal in my opinion.
Alas, freedom last only so long. I was apprehended and sent to solitary.
The only light of day i see is through this window i broke with my hardened criminal fist.
I am taking donations - hand grenade pies, dynamite lollipops, bacon maple bar donuts, anything really - to bust me out of here in time for my sisters wedding.
So it works like this. Flew out of wellington at 2pm on Friday, arrive in noon in SF on that same day, then fill up with things i am lacking in NZ : I got some mexican food, did yoga on allison's rooftop, bought a headlamp for less than $30 at Sports Basement and then met my LA friends, got on a boat and headed for a night on the Rock.
A quick background how this was all possible. Each year for the past 25 years, 18 groups of 35 people are allowed to spend the night on Alcatraz Island. Year-to-date, there are only 16,000 individuals in the world who have had the experience to witness firsthand history behind the scenes of one of the nation’s most infamous penitentiaries. So, Dave Broadbent in LA won the raffle and since i was coming back to the states for Mutant's wedding anyway, might as well go to do some genealogy of my italian mobster ancestors that spent some time on Alcatraz. Apple doesn't fall far from the tree, eh?
After a rousing game of dead kitty on a boat, we arrived to Ranger Jon's moving speech on the history of the island and a short 15 min video. It went well until someone mentioned the 3 that escaped and the postcard they sent the FBI from S. America. Ranger Jon hates escaped convicts more than he hates DB Cooper.
Now, its not all fun and games in prison, the winners of the lottery also have to perform some sort of service that night on the island, but all we had to do was stack 100 chairs. Needless to say, with 35 people, that was about 15 min of our day. Our extended private tour began directly thereafter.
A shot from the psychiatric wing. This cell was directly across from Al Capone's. His was the same size as this one, roughly 8x bigger than others inmate's and 10x larger than Maxfield's and mine room in LA. He lived quite the high life on Alcatraz b/c his syphilis was making him go crazy and he needed the sunlight. Next up was some scenes from The Rock. Like where Nic Cage jabbed himself in the heart.
After taking the audio tour that night and seeing how the 3 guys escaped through the grates in their cell and then through the roof, i began to formulate my evening activities for when the lights went out.
Our cells in Cell Block D Solitary Confinement were pretty comfy, all 3o+ of us filling up almost every 5x9' cell in the 3 story tall section of cells. As the Ranger paced his final rounds before retiring to his quarters, i lie alert in my bed with my shoes on, peering through the bars of my cell, out the small window and across the 1.2 miles of treacherous currents deep into the dim lit, civilian streets of freedom. I was making my escape tonight. 
The lights went out, the door to solitary slammed shut and immediately the creaks of old metal, the howl of the wind and the noise of my fellow inmates shuffling in their cots stole the silence. I made my move. I was leaving the other suckers to rot in the slammer.
Getting through the grate was easy, the 3 escapees had removed it 30 years earlier and it still wasn't fixed! At that moment i didn't care where my tax dollars were going, i was busting out.
Into the crawl space for piping between the cell blocks and up through the gunnery and to the roof.
I hid in the underground tunnels and the catacombs of the old naval base until morning. When the ferry came, i stowed away in the life rafts, Alcatraz was shrinking into the horizon and the sound of sea lions and smell of clam chowder in bread bowls aroused my faculties.
Well, after a successful escape from The Rock, i went with Rock to see granmary in SanBruno on an insanely windy day. After a battle with the wind, most of us made it to the usual italian joint we eat at everytime katie and see granmary. This was my hair after the wind. I do not look like a crazed criminal in my opinion.
Alas, freedom last only so long. I was apprehended and sent to solitary.
The only light of day i see is through this window i broke with my hardened criminal fist. 
I am taking donations - hand grenade pies, dynamite lollipops, bacon maple bar donuts, anything really - to bust me out of here in time for my sisters wedding.
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