the paper work to purchase a new home is mind boggling. it is impossible to read and fully understand document. at one point, i actually signed a document verifying that i had signed a batch of other documents.

the title company and mortgage banker had me sign a detailed breakdown of costs rolled into the mortgage. now as i look at the document a little closer, i wonder what i have gotten into. below are a few contract lines and costs that concern me.

line 3440 - gopher hats, 43.94
line 4860 - slobovian liberation front fund, 88.23
line 4980 - circus peanuts for everyone, 122.59
line 5590 - new bowling shirts, 732.98
line 6190 - filling home with air, 22.54
line 6380 - microsoft new home fee, 83.88
line 7470 - tigers milk and green bananas, 43.34
line 8160 - built on ancient indian burial ground fee, 32.23
line 8840 - fee processing fee, 92.88
line 8930 - eradication of nonsmellable odors, 441.87
line 9220 - monkey butt retrieval fee, 332.42

i think i will just let it go. totaled and rolled into a 30 year mortgage, it's only an extra 14.54 a month.

i ran out of room for my stuff, so i am moving to a new bigger place to put my stuff. i have no isp set up at the new place. griffATultramicroscopicDOTcom will still work but will not be checked much for a few days. the other mailbox @attbi.com will cease to exist, i have checked it porn spam for the last time this morning. in closing for a few short blogless days, GO SPARTANS!

what i have learned about the war from my television

1. every soldier has a pregnant wife waiting at home and on morning shows.

2. we're winning, no wait, ... we're losing, no wait, ... we're winning, no wait, ...

3. the massive coalition war machine roles on completely unaffected by zero visibility sand storms.

4. the most wicked and technologically advanced killing machine (known as the apache helicopter) can be brought down with a pea shooter.

5. the war will last only a couple of weeks, no wait, ... a month, no wait, ... a long time.

6. turkey is our ally, no wait, ... turkey is our enemy, no wait, ...

7. saddam has no respect for the geneva convention and rules of war. the u.s. never use tactics that might violate the geneva convention.

8. dubya is much to busy with the war to learn how to pronounce "nuclear" or "iraq"

9. gps pinpoint bombing can be accurate within 10 meters.

10. gps pinpoint bombing is generally ineffective.

11. tony blair is an upstanding man of integrity, no wait, ... he is a puppet, no wait, ...

12. michael moore and natalie maines can generate more chatter and debate in 38 seconds than george and tony could in a 3 hour press conference.

13. investors are very fickle and confused.

14. we all want this thing to end, no wait, ...

hmmmm, i guess i really have not learned much at all. maybe i need a bigger television.

it is amazing to me that albert einstein never committed suicide.

i find that being the smartest person on the planet is exhausting. my gift of superior intelligence has become a curse. all of you simpletons are draining the life force from me.

my motivation to exist is waning.

i am in the process of moving. realtors are idiots, inspectors are idiots, mortgage bankers are idiots, builders are idiots and buyers are idiots.

i work at a information technology company. project managers are idiots, tech leads are idiots, information architects are idiots, graphic artists are idiots, c.e.o.s are idiots and clients are idiots.

i teach at a local college. administrators are idiots, deans are idiots, instructors are idiots, and students are idiots.

i am watching a war. reporters are idiots, generals are idiots, analysts are idiots, world leaders are idiots, protesters are idiots, and supporters are idiots.

i really can't take much more of this. every one just listen to what i say, do what i tell you and everything will be ok.

if you choose not to listen to me, i may just poke my brain with a q-tip and join the world of the stupid, it must be easier.

the winds of change are scattering balloon animals across my yard.

recently our CEO was dismissed. when the news came down, laughter and song spontaneously erupted through out the cube farm.

the stock is moving upward and hearts are filled with helium.

i imagine this feeling is similar to the storming of the bastille in 1789.

well, i know it is kinda late, but come join my bracket on ESPN.com. i'll put up some sort of ultramicroscopic prize if i can get a minimum of 5 in the group. no money, just for fun!

do it now, games begin late thursday morning!

Public group name: ultramicroscopic

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the upper management here at ultramicroscpic would like to take this opportunity to formally appologize to any and all attendees of sxsw. it seem an un-named representative of ultramicroscopic has been identified as the "typhoid mary" responsible for bringing illness and excess mucus buildup upon the masses.

hey, don't be too upset, it got you out of work for a couple days!

when rummaging through the attic for garage sale items, i found the above item. i made him over 8 years ago. he has been waiting for me to rescue him from the attic for 5 years. i could not put a price on him.

garage sales suck, the effort that goes into finding, cleaning, pricing, and arranging a pile of garbage is never worth the monetary reward. it would be more profitable to search the couch cushins for loose change.

first you sift through all of your stuff and actually sucker yourself into believing you have some things of value. then as they day wears on you can't understand why no one wants to buy it.

i decided to spin it around and walk into our garage sale as if i were a customer. i took an objective look at all the stuff and realized i would not purchase any of it at any price. then i took it a step further. i walked into my house as a stranger would and looked around for anything i would buy. there was nothing. i own a huge collection of crap.

a sampling of crap is pictured above. the box contained a first generation digital camera, a first generation web cam, a wacom tablet, 28k and 56k modems, an inkjet printer, a mouse, a 105mb syquest drive, and tons of odd cables and adapters. the whole box was marked at $5 (if priced as new, about $1400). it did not sell till late in the day. i probably could have made $10 on ebay.

i am amazed to see how quickly and how enthusiastically the web community has embraced creative commons licensing. unfortunately i believe many (not you of course) have embraced it because it is a web trendy thing to do. i also believe few have thought beyond the licensing to understand the potential ramifications of creative commons.

although i may not agree with the creative commons as it is designed today, i support lessig in his efforts. current copyright laws were not written with the internet or digital formats in mind, an issue that needs to be addressed immediately. the creative commons ideas are great in theory, but i am very skeptical of the execution for several reasons.

1. the average person has very little understanding of how current copyright laws apply, i believe the creative commons ideas will be even harder to the populous to understand.

2. it has been argued that creative commons could close the gap between the haves and have nots. i argue it could widen the gap. it becomes a matter of distribution channels. you and i don't have the same distribution channels that disney does. borrowing from you and i, disney could do very well.

3. creative commons has more fuzzy areas than the current copyright laws. on the back end, that leaves a great deal of personal interpretation to a judge.

4. i don't really get excited about letting you borrow my stuff because... well, let's face it... you suck.
as a big headed, ego maniac artist, odds are what ever you do to my stuff will ruin it. honestly, there are creators and consumers. consumers outnumber creators 100 to 1. no matter how much your mother tells you that you are a talented artist, you are not. you are most likely a consumer and there is nothing wrong with that. (of course all of my readers are very creative creators with no need to every borroe anything of mine, "you" is referring to all the non-readers!)

i think many people are so starved for exposure, they are willing to give up rights just to be seen. these people may feel very different about that when some one turns a buck by cultivating their creative seed.

creative commons is the first step in the right direction, but don't confuse it as the solution (yet). Lessig is a man much smarter than me, i believe he can figure it out.

one of the requirements to graduate with a bachelor of fine arts is a bfa show. It is customary for students to attend other student's shows. everyone mills about pretending to be interested, then when they just can't fake it any more, it is customary to greet the artist and tell them that it is a fantastic show, regardless of whether it really is or not.

once i was one milling about a particularly bad show of a fellow student. an apple monitor perched upon a pedestal looped through a series of images and simple animation. my stomach dropped when i recognized six of the images were mine. unbeknownst to me, the student had found my diskette in the computer lab. finders keeper's loser's weepers. he had manipulated the images for the worse, and in my judgement, he had not altered them enough to make them his own.

at the time computer art was a new frontier, he was praised as a pioneer. in my opinion, a pioneer that steals shit.

this was one of the worst feelings of my life, it still bothers me now, 14 years later.

hey, what do ya know? i'm the featured doodle of the day!

the greatest thing about having young children is the constant barrage of non sequiturs. not just in what they say, but in their movements, their games, and almost everything they do. it can be very confusing.

yesterday both boys came rambling into the living room where my wife an i sat, they were giggling maniacally. the naked one was holding an egg timer that rang only a second after they had entered the room. upon hearing the alarm the one wearing a pillow case on his head said "awwwe, maaannnnnnn!" then they both started giggling again and sprinted out of the room. the entire scene took only a few seconds.

the wife and i looked at each other silently for a second then resumed reading the paper. there was nothing to say because there was nothing to understand.

in my son's eagerness to return to the dave and buster's midway, he finished up at the urinal and walked past the sinks towards the door. for a five year old, he is usually very good about washing his hands.

me - "did you forget to wash your hands?"
son - "oh, yeah, i forgot"

he returns to the sink. an employee (neither dave or buster, i assume) dressed in kitchen garb was washing his hands. he joins in the conversation.

kitchen guy - "yes, you must always remember to wash your hands. not just because of germs, but because one day you may grow up to have a job where people will report you if you don't wash your hands and you could be fired."

wtf?

the fact that some people need the fear of being fired just to motivate them to wash their hands tells me that this country is going straight down the shitter.

dear mr. armstrong,

i was recently in austin, and had my bicycle stolen. but i am quite sure you already know that.

it doesn't take john holmes and mr. watson to figure out you stole my bicycle. you ask what evidence i have?

1. it was stolen in austin, you live in austin.
2. you like bikes, i used to own a bike.
3. you see me as an up and coming competitive threat in the 2008 tour de france
4. my bike was the fastest in the whole world, you would want that.
5. my bike was red, i bet red is your favorite color.
6. i set the combination number to the last 4 digits of your social security number, only you would know that.
7. i heard you had cancer, some times cancer causes stealing.
8. i recently saw you in a television commercial and you have shifty eyes.
9. there was dna evidence at the scene, you have dna.
10. um, some other stuff too.

i rest my case.

so, just return it to the rack outside the convention center and i will stop knocking over your garbage can. please don't use one of those cheap cable locks, use one of those big u locks. i don't want willie nelson stealing it before i can get back down there.

if you decide not to return it, you should be very careful of where you leave your bike parked during the tour de france. i've got people all over the place.

thanks,
griff

ps. that bicycle seat has touched me in the most intimate of my manly regions, are you sure you want to keep it?

just something i have been meaning to clear up since sxsw.

i think the difference is obvious.

the bondage mask is much more comfortable.

whew! the skinny on sxsw...

the good
met many of my web heros.
met many bloggers face to face.
fray cafe.
20x2.*
kickball in the park.
20% of the panels.
creative commons debate.*
dfw bloggers reprezentin.
seeing my design adorning 2,500 canvas bags (above).*
ultramicroscopic winning a sxsw web award.
more doodles than you can shake a stick at.*

the bad
50% of the panels.
where did my money go?
my hotel.

the ugly
30% of the panels.
sore throat saturday.
snot head sunday.
drippy nose monday.
coughing fit tuesday.
having my bike stolen.*
sustaining a wicked shin scrape and bruise.
returning home.

*more details will soon be posted. maybe.

several people here have informed me of the existence of my evil twin down the hall.

evil twin part 1, the unfortunate urinal event

one of my co-workers had a close encounter with my evil twin in the bathroom recently. the co-worker was standing at the urinal when he saw me (or so he thought) in his peripheral vision saddle up to the urinal next to him. assuming it was me and that there was no one else in the bathroom, he greeted the evil twin with a loud and extended "GRRRRRRrrrrrRRRIFF!!". evil twin stood quietly peeing. no response made the co-worker think that perhaps i was embarrassed and did not want to talk. they both continued to urinate in silence. it was not till they washed hands, that the co-worker realized it was not me. he said nothing. co-worker told me it was very embarrassing.

evil twin part 2, universes collide

the evil twin and i know of each others existence, but have never spoke. we look at the ground when passing in the halls. we respect our parallel universes and understand the importance of keeping them from colliding.

till today.

we walked towards each other, the hallway offered no turn offs or escapes between he and i. i tried to watch the floor, but glanced up only a few feet from him. he glanced up also. our eyes locked, we could not look away. i was looking into a mirror, an evil mirror. his mouth opened, "...grramph...".

i offered little in return, just sorta raised my eyebrows. we passed each other and kept walking.
i still am not sure what he mumbled, but it doesn't matter. he broke the silence. nothing good can come from this, we now share the same universe.

i think he is scheming some thing. i think a battle royale to the death for the griff identity is unavoidable. if you notice a slight change in the content of this blog, perhaps a touch of evil, you will know i have lost the battle.

another doodle from my latest obsession with foreground, background and negative space. i have many many of these, only a few turn out interesting. i am sparing you the 485 that didn't.

i think dead people watch us having sex.

i look forward to meeting you at the sxsw conference. please do say hello to me. here are a few distinctive characteristics that may help you recognize me. some day these may also be helpful to the coroner tasked with identifying my corpse.

1. bionic nostril
2. my height is hard to tell but i am roughly the size of 10 men
3. glass leg filled with jelly beans. yes you may, if you ask politely
4.unfortunate hair
5. the mark of the beast, old gooseberry sort of botched this one up, it looks like triple nines but when i stand on my head it is quite apparent that they really are sixes
6. unwieldy pubic hair
7. a 5th nipple
8. a scar from having the extra eye removed from my hand
9. a scar from the cattle prod
10. a birthmark oddly resembling nipsey russell
11. extended butt crack that rises all the way up to vertebrate L1
12. tiny pig like eyes that see all

ps, this is why i love the internet, i can be anything i want to be and no one knows better.

part one

the wife handles all the finances her at the ultramicroscopic corporate offices. that means she rifles through my wallet multiple times a day, looking for receipts, and withdrawl slips to feed the insatiable quicken monster.

i always keep a several month old lottery ticket in the wallet. being the clean fanatic she is, this drives her absolutely crazy. "why don't you check the lottery results so you can finally throw that away!? what if you won, and you don't even know it?!?" she asks.

i kind of like the idea that i may be obscenely rich and don't know it. if i actually check the results, i will most likely find out i am a loser. i don't like to find out i am a loser.

part two

each week the 7-11 prints last weeks winning numbers on the exact same ticket paper that the live tickets use. there is usually a small stack on the counter the day after the numbers are drawn. at a glance it is nearly impossible to tell the difference between the results and a live ticket.

once a year or so, i pick up a results ticket and put it in my wallet for her to find. her frustration that i have a what appears to be a 3 month old lottery ticket in my wallet gets the best of her. she pulls it out and checks the results on the web. momentarily she believes we have won the lottery.

this prank usually results in a large bruise on my upper arm that lasts as long as a lottery ticket in my wallet, but man, is it worth it!