A Child Of Atom

Are we living in the 1970's again? High unemployment, recession, rising prices, and now Swine Flu...

I love how these 70's PSAs are just shy of being horror movie trailers.

Since yesterday was 12 of 12 I am skipping Photo Phriday this week. Instead, let's have Meme Day!

Via Vinnie:
A. Go to Google
B. Type your name and the words "likes to" all in quotation marks… re: "Cully likes to"
C. Report back on the first ten things that come up for your name. (I only have 7, but frankly I'm surprised that many came up since I have an unusual name.)

1. Cully likes to be quiet and focus on what he has to do.
2. Cully likes to eat lizard legs.
3. Cully likes to read. (Links to a PDF, so I'm not linking it here.)
4. Cully likes to play peek-a-boo.
5. Cully likes to run with balls. And scissors.
6. Cully likes to be around other people.
7. Cully likes to complete your SB. (Which is short for "small blind," a Poker term I guess.)

Ready to have some fun? Lock your door, get everything really quiet, turn on your microphone and play with this tool from the incomparable Ze Frank. Imagine an Etch-a-sketch, but controlled by your own voice, or whatever sound there is in the room. Several people have already mapped songs or TV shows using the tool. It is difficult to control, but has some fun results, if for nothing else than seeing what you can accomplish with sounds out of your own vocal cords.

Have fun!

But really... just the tiniest, tiniest bit.

Similar to the album meme that I participated in a few months ago, Typophile's current "Type Battle" is a novel cover. The title is a random article from Wikipedia, the cover image is taken from a search of all or part of the title in Google's new Life Magazine archives. (I searched "white bread.")


I imagine that it is a sex farce about a small town British baker and his many mistresses.

Look at this, a fascinating map and discussion explaining how the ocean levels during the Cretaceous period influenced the Presidential Election. Incredibly cool stuff.

While researching that I came across this, a map claiming to use the availability of Sweet Tea as a menu option at McDonalds locations in Virginia as a new way to map the divide between North and South. Unfortunately it turns out to be a fiction created as part of a graphic design class assignment on information graphics, but still, a very cool idea, and one that could probably have been turned into reality prior to McD's current addition of "Southern Style" items to their nationwide menu.

Finally, an art meme I can get behind! Dave Valeza seems to have unintentionally started a meme, asking people to draw themselves as teens, and as adults to compare. Here is my own take on this idea, me at 16, and at 36. You can see all of the others who have participated at Dave's site here.

Kristen at mediatinker has suggested an interesting bit of introspection, and with my birthday just passed a little introspection seems like a good idea.

Her concept runs like this: Charting the Big 5 Personality Traits on a spiderweb graph against age should form a conceptual shape revealing your personality changes over time.

She admits that it has flaws, but it is a work in progress, and one that intrigues me right now, so I thought I'd give it a try.

In case you aren't familiar, here is a rundown of the Big 5:
* Openness - appreciation for art, emotion, adventure, unusual ideas, imagination, curiosity, and variety of experience.
* Conscientiousness - a tendency to show self-discipline, act dutifully, and aim for achievement; planned rather than spontaneous behaviour.
* Extraversion - energy, positive emotions, surgency, and the tendency to seek stimulation and the company of others.
* Agreeableness - a tendency to be compassionate and cooperative rather than suspicious and antagonistic towards others.
* Neuroticism - a tendency to experience unpleasant emotions easily, such as anger, anxiety, depression, or vulnerability; sometimes called emotional instability.

With that in mind, here's my chart.

Openness The sample openness items are like a description of my life! This is by FAR my strongest personality trait I think. At least the one that tends most towards my positive attributes. I rated myself fairly high at all points in my life for this trait, but highest in my 20's when I was in art school and at my highest creative output. I was also swimming in ideas at that time and constantly searching for new outlets and concepts. I waffled just a bit on the rank for the present, almost dropping it to a 7 because in some ways my current creative output, and my quest to be creative has diminished a bit. Signs for the next year are looking good though. With my comic book project and a few other new creative outlets growing... it didn't feel quite right to drop it just yet.

Conscientiousness So let's follow that up with the trait that reflects most negatively on me. I mean, look at these traits! I'm messy. Chaotic in my lifestyle. I can't keep a schedule to save my life. Yeah... bad. I've gotten somewhat better about it over the years, peaking (if you want to call it that) during the period that I was living with BFE Michelle probably. It will likely go up again if/when I ever move in with Kid Flash. But for now... low.

Extroversion I'm just on the positive side of the fence with this one. The traits are certainly not my strongest. I'm not the most outgoing. I am awkward in social situations with strangers or people I don't know well, and it has only gotten progressively worse over the years. That ability to chit-chat and interact with strangers is something that I've long envied in other people.
Agreeableness Again, a fairly strong set of traits for me. I think this is the area of my life where I've fluctuated the least. I've always been a fairly empathic person, with the ability to understand other's feelings almost to a degree stronger than my ability to understand my own. I'm more likely to cry when someone wins on a game show than I am for something that happens to me personally. At the same time I have a tendency to stick my foot in my mouth sometimes, and to insult people without meaning to, so I can't rank myself TOO highly here.

Neuroticism I'm not neurotic. I don't worry. I don't stress. I'm even keeled. I don't get depressed easily. I had a slight boost in that towards the end of grad school which is why I ranked that era slightly higher, but all in all, I've never been much for excessively dark moods or worry.

As an exercise... an interesting one. I agree with Kristen that I'm not sure this is the ideal way to measure this. So after some tinkering in Photoshop here is another look at the same chart.

Shifting the traits to the flat sides of the chart and coloring in wide areas shows me something more like a progression, where I as stronger personality wise at certain points in my life, and where I was weaker. The 10 Year Blue is completely subsumed, as I guess you'd anticipate, personalities become stronger over time. And the Extroversion trait shows the expansion ad retraction that I've mentioned, peaking at the 20 Year Old Purple, an dthen retracting by decade to the current green. It is now easier to see that I was both more neurotic and more conscientious in my 30's (yellow) and both of those traits have relaxed as I've aged through them.

If real life was like a musical it would look just like this. Improv Everywhere, man, you gotta love'em.

Try it yourself here.

Memes. How bloggers love them. I very rarely participate in them, but when I saw this one at Secret Simon I knew that I had to participate.

The ingredients are simple. Clicking here will get you a random Wikipedia entry. The title of the entry is the name of your band.

Clicking here gets you a list of random quotations. The last 4 words of the LAST quotation is the name of your album.

Finally, clicking here gets you random photos from Flickr's Interestingness pool. The THIRD photo is the cover of your album.

Drag them all into your favorite photo editing software and you have the cover of the premiere album of the band you were never in. Fun, huh?


Yes, I cheated a little and used the last 5 words of my quote, it just made more sense. Incidentally it was "There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home." said by Ken Olsen in 1976, at the time he was the president of Digital Equipment. Fairly apropos I think. I appear to have named my band after a train system that runs between France and Italy, also fairly apropos.

Mmmmm.... seems I'm only a C-Lister, still... not bad!

Here's what the fat-man has to say about me: "Nice, but has naughty lapses. High marks in the good deeds department. Better than average manners. Hopefully, thoughtfulness will continue to be as good as last month. Neatness needs improvement!"

What does he have to say about you?

I assume that since this is based on 1990 Census data and Cully is not technically my first name they just missed me, but still... nice to know I'm unique.

Saw this little meme in another blog and thought I'd try it. After I saw the first answer I knew I'd have to post it. Some make sense, some don't and others... a bit spooky.

Here's the rules: Set your preffered music player to "shuffle/random" and answer these questions with the song titles that come up. Don't cheat!

1. How does the world see you? "Riding On A Subway" by Jesse Malin (Well... that was obvious.)
2. Will I have a happy life? "Life is Sweet" by Natalie Merchant (Nice to hear.)
3. What do my friends think of me? "Atlanta and Birmingham" by Deana Carter (Birmingham being where my best friend is from, Atlanta being where my other best friend lives.)
4. Do people secretly lust after me? "The Devil's Haircut" by Beck (Is being bald the devil's haircut?)
5. How can I make myself happy? "Let it Be" by The Beatles (Good advice for anyone.)
6. What should I do with my life? "Note to Self: Don't Die" by Ryan Adams (More good advice!)
7. Will I ever have children? "For What It's Worth" by the Cardigans
8. What is some good advice for me? "Cowboys are Frequently Secretly (Fond of each Other)" by Willie Nelson (Uhm... thanks?)
9. How will I be remembered? "Ghost in This House" by Alison Krauss and Union Station (Who's ready to be haunted?)
10. What's my signature dancing song? "Walking After Midnight" by Patsy Cline (Cause I DO dance like a white boy.)
11. What's my current theme song? "Sunday Morning Song" by Howie Day
12. What do others think is my current theme song? "Kiss Me" by Shelly Fairchild
13. What shall they play at my funeral? "The Long Day Is Over" by Norah Jones (Sweet.)
14. What type of men do I like? "Loose String" by Son Volt (So many interpretations....)
15. How's my love life? "Back to You" by John Mayer (No, no... please, no more going backwards.)

Tagged! Michael Nobbs has tagged me to participate in the Four Things Meme, so here goes:

Four Jobs I’ve Had
1. Hotel desk clerk
2. Comic book shop clerk
3. Animator/Animation cameraman
4. Waiter at a Chinese restaurant

Four Films I Can Watch Over And Over Again
1. The American President
2. Dragonslayer
3. Singles
4. Auntie Mame

Four places I've lived
1. New York, NY
2. Manchester, CT
3. Savannah, GA
4. Blacksburg, SC

Four TV shows I love
1. The Amazing Race
2. Project Runway
3. Lost
4. Supernatural

Four albums I love
1. Heartbreaker, by Ryan Adams
2. Graceland, by Paul Simon
3. Ten, by Pearl Jam
4. Somewhere Near Patterson, by Richard Shindell

Four places I've been on vacation
1. Prague, Czech Republic
2. Osaka, Japan
3. San Diego, CA
4. Boston, MA

Four of my favorite dishes
1. Chicken and dumplings
2. Pinto beans and cornbread
3. Pecan pie
4. Tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwhiches

Four websites I visit daily
1. Gothamist
2. Boing Boing
3. Newsarama
4. Towleroad

Four places I’d rather be right now
1. The Toucan Cafe in Savannah, GA having vegetable samosas and mushroom soup.
2. Uflecku Beer Hall in Prague
3. Any museum in Venice
4. Any museum in Paris

Four books I recommend
1. A Short History of Nearly Everything, by Bill Bryson
2. Einstein's Dreams, by Alan Lightman
3. Calculating God, by Robert Sawyer
4. Tales of the City, by Armistead Maupin

Four artists that have inspired me
(I'm keeping these contemporary)
1. Dave Mckean
2. Chris Ware
3. Frank Cho
4. William Stout

Four bloggers I’m tagging
Well... I never do that. I have no idea who's reading this, beyond a few faithful, so I'll leave it be. Trust me... the meme will go on!

Kyle has given my very first official meme tag! I've officially joined the world of bloggers now.

7 Things I Plan To Do Before I Die:
1) Hike through the Aztec and Inca ruins on the Yuccatan
2) Become conversationally functional in Japanese
3) At least be nominated for a Tony
4) Publish a comic book
5) Learn to bake biscuits as well as my mother
6) Attempt the Appalachian Trail
7) Produce theatre in Savannah, GA

7 Things I Can Do:
1) Replicate almost any texture with scene paint, drywall plaster, and white glue
2) Turn even the most innocuos comment into something dirty
3) Predict with fairly certain accuracy when someone will come out
4) Be charming
5) Word puzzles
6) Say "thank you" and mean "fuck you'
7) Bake a MEAN macaroni and cheese

7 Things I Cannot Do:
1) Dance
2) Any form of math involving both letters and numbers
3) Flirt with someone I'm actually attracted to (though this is getting better)
4) Finish things
5) Break up gracefully
6) Swim
7) Small talk

7 Things That Attract Me To Guys:
1) Hands
2) Large noses
3) Furry butts
4) The ability to play an instrument
5) A well pressed white dress shirt and jeans
6) Modesty
7) (This is the most specific one) Thick blonde hair on a heavily muscled forearm

7 Things That I Say Most Often:
1) Fuck a goat! (Alternatively "God bless a goat!)
2) Christ on a cracker!
3) Ya'll
4) Where the hell did I put ______
5) What the fuck?!
6) Oooooo-kla-homa! (very badly sung)
7) Goddamnrrrrgh! (Degrading into a snarl and a growl)

7 Celebrity Crushes:
1) Anderson Cooper
2) Patrick Dempsey
3) Jason Mraz
4) Paul Rudd
5) Orlando Bloom
6) Heath Ledger
7) Paul Bettany

7 People I Want To Do This:
Well... this one's a problem. I don't really know enough people in the blogging community to be able to call anyone out on this. Kyle tagged me... Dorian might pick it up... I could pin it on my sister as a way to force her to pay attention to her dormant blog... Maybe Bohb could use it for his secret blog that he created but hasn't posted to yet... It doesn't seem like the sort of thing that my mom would be into... so if anyone wants to pick this up, just let us know where you posted it, and I'll happily come read it.

This test tells me that I can expect to live for 84.58 years. Not a bad life span, I reckon.

I took the test again and adjusted it a bit, answering as if I had taken it 2 years ago when I lived in Connecticut and my life expectancy went down to 80.78 years, adjusting mainly for the fact that I drove a car a lot more when I lived there than I do now. Funny to think that it made such a difference. Now I need a test that will take into account subway muggings, city pollution, bad taxi drivers and the stress created by pushing tourists out of the way when I'm trying to get through Times Square to the comic shop.