Recently in Work Category

Teehee. Call of Duty 4 has been releasing leaders of the world videos where Putin and Castro review the game. Bla bla. This one is purdy funny. VidJump

I think a lot about how it must have been to grow up during the political riots in America, and yeah they were hippies or whatever, but it still holds a place in my soft body human heart. Well, the two things I am going to show you today have a lot to do with that sentiment. I am repping these works on paper right now at the gallery and I thought I would share them as my very first thatsplenty offering. Irene Lipton is one of sweetest, most gracious, hard-working artists I have ever met. She lives in an Airstream here on the Cape with her husband Phil and Jack Russell terrier Jake. She also does all the design work for the gallery, to great visual success. Hearts to Irene. Untitled (LP 502), 2007, o/c, 54" x 65" Next week, I'll be hosting a screening of the amazing documentary B.I.K.E. on Fountainhead, as in Ayn Rand's novel that I will not talk more about at the given moment. One of these guys in this film came to loft space in NA, MA and ate my cheesy puffs, if memory serves me correctly. I also skipped him in the joint rotation and it was a negative experience for all in the room. But I messed that up, it should have gone joint then cheesy puffs, of course. We’ve since made up and all is well. Bon Appetit!

Terrified! I'm going to be at the Ritz Carlton i think that's the same place as lost in translation. I'm going to wear girls undapants

In a message dated 1/3/07 9:50:30 PM, xxxxxxxxx@somebigcosmeticscompany.com writes:

Can we use more pc language for the talent... Caucasian, african american etc.... Don't want to create more work but it will be an oficial document for somebigcosmeticscompany and distributed around.
--------------------------
Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld

Hello! My name is Stephen Bruckert.

I have been building your casting website and I just got a note re: political correctness on the casting website.

While I recognize that you may be pursuing alternate language for the website simply to avoid offending anyone who may see it, your request is somewhat problematic.

None of the dark-skinned women on the website are African-American. They have dark skin and features that we, as Americans, may identify as African-American or 'black', but none of the women are from America. Model 1 is half-Moroccan and has a Moroccan passport and may therefore be considered fully African. Model 2 has African ancestors but is a French citizen. Model 3 self-identifies as being from Martinique (an island in the Caribbean Sea which is a part of France and the European Union) and Egypt.

None of them are from America making them, by definition, not African-American. Two of the women are African-French (French-African?) and one is African.

So, ironically, in adopting language designed to return a full sense of identity to marginalized groups, you have actually robbed these women of their correct and actual identities.

Unless, of course, in the context of the advertisements, the women are 'playing' Americans, in which case your nomenclature would be acceptable.

If I actually hit the 'send' button on this e-mail, I'll probably get fired, so I'll just post it to my blog instead.

- Stephen

We are reading VERBATIM (word of the day, possibly mispelled) from angry message board posts.

i also modern dance in this. Take that bennington dancers. Mediate this Scgorboti

Note: quoted verbatim
CALENDAR OF EXTREME CULTURE
11/30/06

Caution: contents may be hot.

For 36 hours....eek.

But, unfortunatly, tis not me culture that is the odd one

I'm working on a review for a game called God Hand which is a modern day brawler, with tank controlls and is very odd. Above is a Japanese promotional video for it.

Wythe-y, can you tell us what's going on?

I just don't know what.

I went frame by frame. No privates. I'm not quite sure why my tshirt was tucked into my unda-pants in the first shot. How candid. Not very Voltaire. Need to work on my jumping.

For the last five months, I have been working 60 to 80 hour weeks with one exceptional 100 hour monstrosity that left me ragged and punch-drunk for days. I have never worked so much in my entire life. There have been dark times in my life when I did nothing but play video games, peeing in to bottles so that I wouldn't have to get up or leave the room. Even then I did not devote as much time to gaming as I have devoted to working in the last five months.

For a while, it felt good. I felt productive. I had never been needed so badly and I loved the thrill of being part of something so epic. I was proud of myself for being so dedicated, so relentless with my work ethic. Gradually, it started to hurt. I was at work more than I wasn't. Recently, I've started to lose myself. I've felt my personaltiy fading. When friends and family ask what I've been up to, all I can say is 'work.' My mind, which for all of my life has been teeming with stories, playfulness, and observations from the rich world I live in, is deserted. I'm empty, worn out, gutted and deadened. This is not the person I want to be.

I'm a huge nerd. Kids, be over 18 or something...

(I swear I'll stop posting these soon.... my next one is NASCAR. I think it involves driving. Or magic.)

I'm in sf or rather redwood city. This hotel is way to nice to me. I feel like I have fleas just by proximity to its opulence. They misplaced my reservation and somehow it was my fault. Not at the misplacement, but that I was annoying the night porters. They all speak french even when they are breathing english.

Masturbation clubs and real dolls on hbo.

Now I'm at the bar. Business men pound down drinks and barter for more after last call. The foreign bartender tries to imagine he doesn't know the word for inventory.

I hear other videogame journalist being drunk. Oh tomorrow you've come. Past midnight.

My first review is up on gametrailers. Star Fox Command. I used some biggy weird and now I wonder if I was showing off. Alliteration may be a crime. Vulpine ventures? I took Latin for that?

The shuttle drove by Oracle. Their ceo's house is like a samurai's or pbs would have you believe it. Their building seems to be tall and on a bobbing island in the moonlight. All those databases guarded by this floating island...

I should go to Japan. My thumbs hurt.

-MESSAGE SENT FROM MOBILE DEVICE-

This is my dad coolin' on the block with Stephen Hawking and two people I don't know. My father is a speech synthesis engineer and has been the head engineer on DecTalk since the 80s. He recently did some work to update Stephen Hawking's voice, which is why they are together for the picture.

My dad is the one with the beard that I am inching ever closer to resembling.

That's basically it.

LINK

Hello GameTrailers.com and MTV. Or Viacom. Hmm that's a lot of coms.

No more Cinematech. I will be the features editor at gametrailers. I am very scared and have lost the ability to use contractions.

The plan is I will be in CT working at the hospice till Tuesday the 22nd and choo-choo on up to visit the kids (you.)
Plans include buying Sam dinner, buying the Juggernaut a lot of booze and creative face shaving. Fuck yeah. Get somes tats. Full sleaves. Coat tails. Ankle links.

Also work on my decanter gun collection

I will not wear shorts.

Please remain in NYC Aug 22-25th. Please?

He always had Hammer eating in diners rather than restaurants, he liked to say, because he wasn't sure how to spell "restaurant."

Today my job requires me to engage in the lowest form of editing known to man. Bloopers. I'm making a fucking bloopers reel.

To celebrate, I thought some karate bloopers might be fun for everyone here at thatsplenty. (when I took karate in 8th grade, i was sparring with my friend and I accidentally punched her in the mouth. She bled for an hour and wouldn't talk to me for two days. Her big sister also came up to me and said, "Jesus! Be more careful! You're just supposed to tap!" I guess you could call that a blooper, kind of.)

Without further ado, enjoy the accidental crotch kicking:

Side note: 16 color EGA looks very nice on delicate photos.

I've been writing a column called The Gaijin Restoration for GameSetWatch for the last few months. Hohum. It's about Japanese video games. If I keep this up I may eventually be able to reclaim my virginity.

i worked 19 days in a row, two 100 hour weeks and a shitty 25 hour day (also I'm day rate) where I then catnapped for 15 minutes to awake to find I had lost all of my humanity. I was marched into the tape room to qc tapes, snarling and drooling the entire way, untill someone put a digibeta in my hand, and like monoliths and monkeys, something happened. My cold, reptillian brain melted a little....."I remember this" I remembered, this was food for the mouthy thing in front of me... the vcr...

anyways, I got to play the Wii on Friday for 4 minutes. Believe.

Also, I was in my friend Casey's sketch. Can you find me?

I'm going to be awol for the week. E3. I just worked 98 hours. I am not an hourly employee. If all goes well I will get to try the Wii for 5 minutes.

Also, all DS owners: New Super Mario Bros. is childhood on an SDRam card. Bliss.

I'm a 9-5er. (Well, honestly, a 10-6er, but you know, it's a coined term) I work 40 hours a week or more every week on salary. Most people at my office work closer to 50 hours a week. We do not get overtime, yet are expected to stay as late as it takes to get projects in on time. To suggest otherwise would threaten our jobs. We have two weeks of paid vacation. This is normal. That is to say, this is normal in America. I am terrified every day at the prospect of working on and on without a break. The freelancers life seems so magical to me, taking months off at a time. Except I don't want to be a freelancer. I like my job. But how can I keep trucking on like this without a break? I'm not sure that I can.

I did a little research and discovered that Europeans don't. European companies are required to give employees a minimum of four weeks paid vacation time. And in many European countries, it is standard to receive more like 6 weeks. Paid. Vacation.

I am an assistant editor today. Today, this means spending the entire day scanning pages torn from magazines. The pages all have Paris Hilton's face on them. Yesterday, it meant transcribing an interview from a quicktime file. Tomorrow, it will probably mean more transcriptions.

Today, a college flunkout could do my job. The only reason I am doing what I'm doing is because it's not yet profitable to create, produce, and market an automated solution to scanning lots of documents. The job requires no skill or intelligence, just a pair of human hands to switch pages and press the button marked 'SCAN.'

I have just, again, switched documents and pressed 'SCAN.'

And again.

In between scans, I have about one minute. Literally, it takes about sixty seconds to scan one page.

That is just enough time to read a page of a novel. I have finished one today.

That is also just enough time to write a couple of sentences. That is what I am doing now.

It is not enough time to go to the bathroom, have a conversation, watch a trailer, or read a news article.

I have just enough time to do something small and interesting, but not enough time to work on anything else.

I think that today I will think up interesting and hilarious ways to get fired from this job.

Don't be sad Steven, it's not going to get easier, but maybe it can get better.
I'm sick of this constant work/fear cycle also. I have the dream blue colar job that makes a enough and I only have to work two days a week, "New York City bartender with 5 years club experience", so I theoretically have a lot of time to make art, but it's still a constant compromise that I have to justify. I don't make "small women's works on paper" and am a little insulted by the idea. I want to make huge installations using multiple mediums that I have to buy, work in a studio that's larger then 4'x5', go to the darkroom, buy a computer, use a scanner. All that costs more money then I can make in two days, and how long can I do these jobs. five years? ten years? and then what? I apply for grants, but so do hundreds of others.

This week I shall be seeking employment anew. As most of you are no doubt aware, I am a musician with a music degree, and without any practical skills....Or am I? This is the question that shall be answered over the next month as I try to find someone or someones to pay ME for WHAT I KNOW.

Oh, and if people want to slightly contribute to me not getting fired, subscribe to the 2 Cinematech podcasts:
Itunes One Click For Cinamatech: NE: http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=97971180
Itunes One Click for Cinematech: http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=93637111

If that doesn't work, there's more subscription info at the two homepages.

Daily video game clips.

So no one seems to think that I will ever blog. Some even question my existence. But tonight is the night that I prove everyone wrong.

As it is Sunday night yet once again, I am pondering my devotion to my office job as Monday morning draws nearer and nearer. Last Monday I called in sick. I wasn't really sick, just sick of my job. Besides, who's to say that a job can't make you legitimately ill? In fact, my boss has caused me to roll my eyes with much more frequency than is natural. Surely that is a sign of some sort of fatal disease. Which means that I must flee from my job as quickly as possible. But then there's that whole money issue.

But I won't elaborate on that topic for fear of reiterating Stephen's points in his "I hate money" post. You may just refer to his post at this point to touch on my sentiments.

As for my grand plans for this blog, I'm not sure what my angle is going to be yet. Clearly, Sam is the music-blogger. Then there's Ryan who is the tech-blogger. Dylan is the pop-culture-blogger. And Stephen of course is the writer-blogger. What do you want to hear about? (I'm very good at complaining. Bitchy-blogger?)

You know that whole thing Dylan is talking about, with the fun and pressumo and Jim and everything?

Well, I've been dying to see Jim too. It's been so long! He even wrote me these sweet, like, LOVE letters on friendster about how much he missed me and how much fun we were going to have when he got home.

But between winter sucking all the juice out of my body and my dog turning me in to a morning person, I went to bed at 8pm last night.

EIGHT PEE EM ON A SATURDAY NIGHT. BECAUSE I WAS TIRED ENOUGH TO FALL ASLEEP.

I woke up at Seven this morning. Check out the time of this entry. I'm not even fucking lying to you.

Will someone pick me up so we can take my dog to the pound together? I should be waking up at noon for chrissakes!

7am! On a Sunday! FUCK!

I don't wake up this motherfucking early on workdays! Do you understand how upsetting this is?!

Do you!?

This is GOATSE upsetting.

EAT THIS, FUCKERS!

Note:

He was born and raised in the Bronx, is black, and does not fart. Not around me, anyway.

"Burritos? I want burritos. You can eat whatever you want but before we leave this island I need burritos."

"Burritos is cool with me, man, that's fine."

"No, really, we can stop anywhere you want and get food you like but I need to have a burrito. I could eat a burrito every day for every meal for the rest of my life and die happy. I need a burrito."

He laughed. "Cool. Burritos."

Once he figured out that you pronounce C-H-I-P-O-T-L-E as "chip-oat-lay," Sam knew exactly where to find one of their fine restaurants on our way to JFK. We stopped and I wrote down my simple vegetarian order on a scrap of paper. He even had the good sense to call my cell from inside and ask me what I wanted to drink.

I was reminded of how earlier in the day he held back as we loaded heavy equipment into the production office. He held back to keep the door open for me and when it was my turn to return the favor, I let it close in his face.

"Oh shit. I'm sorry."

"No problem," he said without any hint of frustration.

I am an idiot.

So, once he returned from Chipotle with two burritos, a water and an apple juice, we took off on our supersonic rocketship, actually a KIA minivan with one of the back seats taken out, and he asked me, "You ready for that burrito now?"

I was and said so. I ate the fucker one handed, navigating with the other hand through single lane one-way streets with cars parked on each side, the midtown tunnel, and JFK traffic. By the time I had popped the butt of the burrito in my mouth there was a coating of guacamole shellac on the steering wheel. I wiped my fingers off on the bag and held on to the steering wheel with oversized napkin mitts.

We were on the hunt for Building 77 at JFK airport. We had been charged with the task of... well, it wasn't exactly clear. We had to get customs to check out some cases that we had been given, but we were never told what the proper verb was or what we were to return with. The Production Manager had called me specifically, he said, because he needed someone willing and able to gatecrash the bureaucratic bullshit they expected to encounter at the airport and fight through to success.