I’m off work for a week, half for holidays, half because I have RSI (repetitive strain injury) in both my freakin’ wrists and I desperately needed to get away from the computer for a while. I’ve had this trouble since last August, when I returned to a huge backlog of tasks at work after a month of holidays. I went to physio for months to treat the tendonitis ricochet effect RSI had on both my arms. Anyway, the RSI would get significantly better, I’d get cocky and go at things with my usual speed and concentrated effort and blammo, my arms would be right back where they started. On fire, injured by passing moths, etc.

So during Christmas holidays I bought an ergonomic mouse, the Microsoft 6000. It did more for me in a week than five months of babying, physio, icing, and non-activity combined. Then a couple of weeks ago, my left wrist started to go.

And the swearing started.

Anyway, this morning I started to do a little online research about RSI. Were there special stretches or exercises I should be doing? Lo and behold, I came across a reference on a UK computer geek’s website to a software solution. Seriously a software solution. The ref is here: "Guy’s Battle with Repetitive Strain Injury".

The software has been around for fifteen years. It’s called WorkPace by the Wellnomics company. It couldn’t be a more perfect fit for me. Not only does it pop up a message every so often reminding me to take a break, it actually freezes the keyboard and mouse so I’m forced to. But it gets better. If this was all it did, I could put a series of recurring appointments in my calendar and apply a little self-discipline.

No, the thing forces you to take micro breaks every couple of minutes and longer breaks every quarter hour and bitches at you that you’ve reached your quota of computer use after a certain number of hours. Nifty, eh? But it gets even better. (Yeah, I know I sound like the Sham-wow guy, but bear with me.)

In the quarter hour intervals, the program displays stretches you can do to counteract all that sitting, typing and mousing. After all, the problem isn’t that humans shouldn’t ever sit, type or mouse, it’s that they shouldn’t be doing it all freaking day for decades on end.

Anyway, I tried the trial version, and it was exactly what my over-concentrating brain and trashed bod’ needed. The thing has a ton of customizations, including graphs of keyboard and mouse use frequency and intensity. For 80 bucks, this is an awesome component of a long-term solution for me. I don’t know how annoying it will be while I’m at my DAW or writing fiction, but at the moment, I can’t do either because I’m now incapacitated by my own type-A behavior.

I’ll keep you posted on my progress.

WorkPace Website

Now we’re talking painter. None of this el-fake-o I-learned-everything-I-know-from-Photoshop-plugins crapola. People, this is how it’s done. Composition, originality, technique, and a veritable beast at execution.

Gallery

There’s image morphing, there’s anamorphic art, and then there’s anthropomorphic art. Which is a fancy way of saying, Monkeys!

His Website

Here’s an important little book I’m reading right now. I’m getting to be a bit of a eco-politics junkie and this book is right up my alley. If you have a shred of interest in clarifying what to think about "the climate change debate", you owe it to yourself to read this book.

I have steadfastly avoided anything to do with real or manufactured conspiracy theories up to now. But I eagerly picked up this book after reading a cover article in last month’s Rolling Stone, called As the World Burns, How Big Oil and Big Coal mounted one of the most aggressive lobbying campaigns in history to block progress on global warming. (If you’re going to read it online, there is a companion piece called The Climate Killers, Meet the 17 polluters and deniers who are derailing efforts to curb global warming.)

Anyway, this is quite a real conspiracy that hinges not on contradictory research, but on a deliberate campaign of obfuscation: dozens of Big Oil- and Big Coal-funded "grassroots" organizations who’s sole purpose is to muddy the waters of public perception and create a "climate of doubt" as to whether human activity has a hand in global warming.

Here’s the Website of a counteractive group that the author belongs to: DeSmogBlog. It’s well worth a perusal.

P.S. The author hails from Vancouver and there is a goodly amount of Canadian content in the book. (I was quite amused at the sections about the Calgary Herald and the National Post.)

The ol’ flag’s at half mast for J.D. Salinger today.

On a good day, those who are described in their hype pamphlets as "visionary artists" make me want to fill the all little holes on my brogues with hurl. But in the grand tradition of Mati Klarwein (who I believe is partially responsible for Santana’s early success) there are those who for whom I am happy to lay aside my prejudice against dumb-assery and enjoy their works as gallery-worthy art. Mr. Gonzalez, you rock. You just gotta give your PR guy two boots for his birthday.

His Website

I don’t even know what to say about these mixed media mashups. They’re like collages with every element chosen and placed with a precision calculated to subvert any attempt at interpretation. You gotta admire them for that – and his inventive textural contrasts.

Geez, I sound like I have a vocabulary today. Who knew?

His Website

Now and again I don’t mind an image that’s larger than its frame.

His Website

Yeah, yeah, this style is a bit Coke commercially. But hey, it’s just a style, and there are those, like Ricardo here who execute it extremely well. (We won’t mention those whose sad attempts appear, um . . . executed.)

His Gallery