A foot of snow in the morning

My first winter in New York has been unseasonably warm and dissapointing for me with my dreams of Antarctic adventure. It's been chilled to the bone cold plenty of times, but hardly any snow. Unti today. Beautiful powdery drifts at least a foot tall, waves of snow cresting to peaks like sand dunes litter Park Slope. I got out and went for a walk, or a trudge. This is what winters should be like, for those who remain in the Northwest.

My street is a one way straight shot to the Hospital up at 7th Ave. A car was blocking the road and ambulances had to reverse back so I formed a neighborhood gang - including, no joke, two staff fighters training at the doors down martial arts academy - and helped this poor guy stuck in a crappy little barely turning over Nissan from 78 move his car out of the way. Except that somehow the group thought we could manage to execute a perfect parallel parking job. So I said "let's pick it up". And the native Brooklyners looked at me like I was deranged. But we tried, and attacked the car, and shoved it right out of the way. Ambulances can get through now.

We asked the guy what he was doing - delivering the NY Times. Talk about dedication. He's still sitting out in his car despite protestations from my and my downstairs neighbor.

Great morning. Only in New York can a 50 year old nurse with a dog in her bag, two Mexican guys, two staff fighters, a poet from upstate and her friends, and a few people tending to their own stoops band together to rescue a NY Times delivery guy.

Ever wonder why you do certain things sometimes? Ever blame it on mind control?

I often blame the 50s movie "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" for my insomnia - it was one of those movies they'd show late at night on television when the glow of a cathode tube can be spooky enough. But having the hero go insane at the end and scream at the camera "Whatever you do, don't go to sleep" did a reasonable head job on me. In actual life, though, brain parasites cannot alter our behavior.

Except for a new study shows that toxoplasma, a parasite found in cat crap that may affect %50 of the human race as it's a benign parasite that doesn't hurt the host... Is definitively showing signs of altering the mental behavior of rats.

There is a causal link between schizophrenia and women who are pregnant who carry toxoplasma.

That's right, there's a parasite present in %50 of the human population (%15 in the US) that is sourced in cats that has been shown to effectively control the minds of rats.

Sleep tight.

Link to creepiest news item ever.


Better detailed story here.

What's in a name

So I am now Aaron Stewart-Ahn. Formerly I was the not yet an artist of any note whatsoever named Aaron Stewart. Why did I change my name? Well, there's another director out there named Aaron Stewart. He's obviously more established than I am, and he's got, I believe, a year or two on me. When my first video got some airplay I received communications about my departure from my animation. Which was interesting, as I'd worked in animation but never done some. On one of those bored days, I googled myself and lo and behold, another Aaron Stewart. I called him, in fact, and had a surreal discussion with my doppleganger which took some convincing on my part to let him know I wasn't lying.

What's the first line of this other Aaron Stewart's bio? "Aaron Stewart likes cartoons. He also likes toys. In particular really old Japanese toys, but just about any toy will do." That could literally be the first line of my bio. Uncanny. Someday I think it would be either fun to collaborate with him, or it'd end up devolving into the last hour of Dead Ringers, but with more Mazinger and Macross toys to fight over.

Even recently I was getting Res magazine a photo and the art editor told me they loved my new animations.

Then there is the curious phenomena of googling yourself, which everyone should do, because you turn up some really interesting variations upon yourself. One Aaron Stewart is really quite a strong Christian and works with small scale multimedia and the church in Texas. He has blonde hair, if I recall. He's the anti-Aaron, the Yin to my Yang. I sometimes worry about this Aaron, as his portfolio mainly seems to be websites he has desiged for his family's business and a wedding. When I check on him I'm hoping for an upgrade to the website, a flourishing and an updated bio which indicates success. We also have quite opposite taste in fonts.

Another Aaron Stewart lives in New Zealand (we share a middle initial, too), and again, writes a scarily Christian blog. He is - a writer! He compares being without god to being like Gollum. This Aaron believes that this Aaron is like Gollum. Not cool. This Aaron, like myself, has ambition, arrogance - but always, always brings it back to the Bible. He wishes to be pious but he seethes with desire - he writes "Women that I find hot shouldn’t be married. thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, young man. yes yes, I know." This Aaron is my Jungian dark half. I've been tempted by women who aren't single. I didn't have prayer to ward off that feeling.

I continue. Here's the Aaron Stewart I never want to be. The nudist. He is a nude newscaster, so again, there is the leaning towards media, the need to communicate to a larger world. He wishes to be a fireman. He has the same unusual desire to help people I find myself burdened with sometimes. But he's nude on the Internet.

This Aaron Stewart draws a crude webcomic that I can't make head or tails of. He likes manga and anime. Again, like myself and Aaron Stewart, too. I can't find out much about him, though I find that once determining his Chinese zodiacal perfect partner, he states that he wants to meet one but with red hair. His comic appears to concern a red head. I sense a lot of Aaron Stewarts are lonely and have had girl troubles. I want to warn this one: the role playing games and the love of comics, they will deny you.

Another religious blogger Aaron Stewart. I suppose the name implies a lineage of Scottish piety, so I should expect it. I'm getting tired of Christian Aaron Stewarts, figuring they must all combine my arrogance with the power of expecting eternal life... But this one really startles me. He's thoughtful, his Christian work seems utterly devoted to mercy and he expresses himself in a kindly manner and he posts a link of a really rad picture of an owl. I realize I have some arrogance myself about my beliefs like my atheism, and for a moment I am humbled by a fine example of an Aaron Stewart.

All of us seem to have suffered for the love of women, and are thoughtful, and are writers and artists and producers and nude newscasters. We like anime and cartoons and animals and ponder the mysteries of the universe with a cocky certainty. We wish to help others.

So anyway, I decided to professionally add the Ahn to my name, which is my mother's maiden surname. I'm actually getting very used to it, proud of it even. And as I am completely both aspects of my mother and father and couldn't be myself without influence and traits from one or the other, it begins to fit well, like a piece of clothing that's adored, as if it belonged to me all along.

Transmissions will stop stop

Interesting article in the NY Times about the last telegram ever sent by Western Union. Completely outmoded, at one point the telegram offered the ability to reach other cities in a day as opposed to the Pony Express who guaranteed 10 days. This is relatively recently, remember.

Link

16 Military Wives wins best video at Plug Awards

I didn't even go to the ceremony because I really didn't think it was possible. I knew the general public were voting, but I'm just speechless now.

Thank you to all the cast and crew who made the video happen for such little money, and all the companies in Portland and Seattle who did the same from Oppenheimer Camera to Downstream Post and Gearhead Grip.

To the Decemberists fans, I shall never underestimate you again. I hope you all form a political party of your own.

Thanks more than anything to The Decemberists for taking a gamble on me. It's not so hard to work with a band that - there's just no other band in the world who I love working more for, not to slight anyone else.

News here.

Where's Ice Cube when we need him most?

From last night's State of the Union speech:

The only alternative to American leadership, Bush said, "is a dramatically more dangerous and anxious world."

I can't seem to find these statements in the prepared text of the speech given to news outlets, but I remember him saying it and it was specifically centred upon the idea that there is no other solution on this planet than American leadership.

That's a great bit of truthiness, but actual logic and reasoning would seem to point to the fact that the human race given some bizzare situation where, say, zombie attacks render our country obliterated, might continue to function without us.