journal page 19
august 23 and 24, 2001 brian is keen on shooting a documentary about the making of this current film and it's hard for me to imagine a more boring subject to watch. but he has some good ideas and it could be a nice extra thingy to include on the dvd whenever that happens, so it's something to think about. have been inking like crazy ink person these last few days and just wrapped them up and ready to plow forward ahead. errr, onward that is. going to bed at about 6:20 these days (nights?) and it has been awful pretty seeing the sun rise every night (morning?) before i go to sleep. in fact my daytime errands still demand that i need to get going again just a few hours later so come to think of it i haven't been sleeping very much at all lately which partially is why i wager that not only is this sentence so poorly structured but also why it is kinda hard to write this entry at the moment. hey here's something fun: if you consume enough caffeine and sugar, the mild "error" beeps and other sudden alert noises that your computer makes from time to time become STARTLING AS HELL back to work for a bit. have to pencil in some faces.. don
august 10, 2001
but when i look at the workload ahead compared to what's done so far, my shoulders sort of slump and my eyes get squinty and i make a noise that sounds quite a bit like, "ooooooog." i could very well still be animating this beast a year from now (knocking on wood furiously)... maybe not, but it just grows and grows. which would push our overall dvd release to 2003. but let's not think of such things. if you all keep sending in sugar products my output may in fact increase.. draw draw draw. ink ink ink. christine mailed us these little wire models in little plastic cubes that she made, which are downright darling... y'all are such enterprising little scamps. the decor in the studio continues to improve. sorry these pics are kinda lousy. the sides of my head are really really itchy right now.  
  thanks christine! well the plunge has been taken to join the 20th century and i finally have a dvd player. as soon as i got it i tromped straight out and got the stanley kubrick super deluxe box set, with the magnetic decoder ring and the limited edition plastic stanley mask and the moon boots. have been in touch with the local government departments and should be receiving the certificate and accompanying documents declaring that i am officially cool now. fear my credit card. feeaaaaaar. i read somewhere the other day that caterpillars and butterflies share just about none of the same dna. every cell in their bodies before and after their cocoon is entirely different. so even though they are the same individual, they are arguably entirely different animals. ever hear this old riddle?: a very large boat carrying a hundred men and many supplies sets out to sail around the world. along the way they encounter a fierce storm and their mast is broken and lost at sea. so as they carry on the next day, they replace the mast. soon they're hit by another storm and the deck is damaged and ridden with holes. so they stop at an island, chop down some trees and replace the deck. this continues throughout the entire voyage: damage, repair, damage, repair. by the end of the voyage, incredibly, every single inch of the vessel has been eventually replaced due to repairs. there is not a single nail, piece of rigging, or splinter of wood left in the ship that was originally there when it set sail. so as it docks at home from its around the world trip, is it the same ship? it carries the same crew, they refer to it by the same name, and it occupies the same space. it even returns on time, as promised when it departed. but it's entirely physically different. you buy a hatchet. over the years, you replace the blade three times and the handle two times. is it the same hatchet? you probably think of it as the same hatchet even though it's not the same physical one you bought back then. it occupies the same space in your mind and that takes precedence over its physical makeup somehow. to you, it has the 'aura' of being the same hatchet. the cells in your body die and regenerate constantly - - you are not made up of any of the same bits and pieces you were ten years ago. but everyone refers to you as the same thing. scientists were able to sample a chunk of brain cells from a fresh corpse and keep them living for quite awhile independently in a dish. is there identity to the undead piece of brain? is it the same fellow in there, or are his individual bits something else? are pieces of lost thoughts or memories still swimming around inside the neurons? when the caterpillar spins the cocoon around him, does he think he's dying? does the butterfly have any memories of being a caterpillar? if entirely different parts can make up the same individual, at least in our heads, we therefore seem to value 'aura' space over physical space. otherwise we'd be changing our names every decade or so in light of all our brand new bits and pieces. so nothing is ever the sum of its parts. we just give things names and our minds associate them with a given space and time. and then those things, to us, become "the same." this is my hatchet. all of its parts have come and gone over the years, but it's still my hatchet. this is bob. he is not the same bob he was 30 years ago but he is still bob somehow. the only thing we use to differentiate these "same" individuals and objects in different bodies is time. so physical reality is not as dull and definite as most take for granted. objects in reality are dependent on mind to give them presence and identity. and then figure this: in quantum physics, the end result of a physical experiment may actually change, depending on whether or not there is a passive observer there to witness the experiment take place. even though he's not physically interfering, the mere presence of that conscious observer actually alters unrelated physical events on a subatomic scale; the experimenter cannot be separated from the experiment. amazingly, consciousness and mind, at least on a quantum level, appears to play a major part in dictating the very physical make-up of matter and reality in the universe. all of the little parts that make up the universe, on the smallest scale, are affected and altered by the mere presence of conscious life. true story. time for sleep. don
july 24?, 2001
woeeee, it's been a long day of chores and now i have to perk up and get animating. my head is all swirly and light at the moment which is usually the best time to write in this thing. many of you have expressed concern about nocturnal don, the pale blinky one who never sleeps and draws all night. ya know i used to really like sleeping, especially sleeping in, but lately falling asleep actually really scares me and it's best avoided until i am so exhausted that i practically pass out. this is far too complex an issue to get into at the moment, but the point is, elephants need to be shaved quite frequently. chrisopher walken just said that on tv. thank god for christopher walken. say, i saw the new jurassic park movie last weekend because i heard that there were dinosaurs in this one. and there were. lots of them. let's move on. look-a here, after seeing 'rejected' twice, karin in austin has done gotten herself a tattoo. she will now forever have a happy fluffy fishstick sheep thingy on her shoulder. (i hereby apologize in advance to her children and grandchildren, as well as the extended families of the rest of you writing about your new tats and the flesh i've indirectly desecrated) ...pretty soon we will be able to roll all of you tattooed folk naked down a hill and the flipping images of the successive rolling tats will appear animated! neat!
 karin is cooler than you
...i knew at once that this little line drawing perfectly captured joy, positivity, happy, like the way my two little pomeranians look and act when i come home - celebration of life, eager to hug, ok, like i said JOY... fair enough! kids, send in pics of your related tats and we will make you like a star or something. the best part is, i actually receive a 10-cent residual from every person who looks at your tattoo. before i forget, here is a video clip my brother sent that i could just watch for hours.. back to work with me... say, i hear i was a big hit at the comic con and i wasn't even there this year. hmmm, maybe i'm on to something here... don
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