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Thursday, May 3
Some minor housekeeping details: I've recently gone through and made some programming changes in the site in an effort to make it run faster. Do you think it's made a difference?.
The changes are part of a general cleanup as the school year winds down and I prepare to move the site to a real ISP. In preperation for that, if there's anything you've noticed on the site that you think I should modify, let me know,
posted at 6:57 PM by Timothy J. Gibbons | link
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If I ever become a serial killer (not terribly likely -- all the good firms have hiring freezes), I think I'll target construction workers. This was a decision arrived at after long and careful thought. Or, to put it another way, in the 12 seconds this morning after I was awoken by a buzzing power saw.
I got to bed around 4:30 a.m., after working half the night on the J-School yearbook (another story in itself; I wandered in around 9 p.m. to see if they needed help and stumbled out seven hours laters with the title of Production Editor). It seemed my head had scarcely hit the pillow when I was shocked into consciouness by the whirrling blades of a whining saw, sounding like they were about to enter my skull.
Falling from the bed, I dragged myself to the window, where I see a bearded, potbellied man humming to himself as he chopped up two-by-fours. The construction scaffolding has been around my building for months; the workers usually content themselves with pounding arhythmically on the walls. This time, though, they felt it necessary to chop away at their lumber supply at 7 a.m., jolting me from a sound sleep and coating my room with sawdust.
The saw guy was standing directly behind my bed, with only the cardboard-thin walls (and some bricks) saving me from sudden, gruesome death. It was only my grogginess that saved the construction worker from a similar fate.
posted at 1:57 AM by Timothy J. Gibbons | link
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Monday, April 30
Spider-Man, Spider-Man
Does whatever a spider can
Spins a web, any size
Catches thieves just like flies
Look out! Here comes the Spider-Man!
Is he strong? Listen, bud,
He's got radioactive blood
Can he swing from a thread?
Take a look overhead
Hey there! There goes the Spider-Man!
My spider sense began tingling when I walked onto campus the other day and saw a huge crowd gathered on the steps of Low Library, watching Toby Maguire and Kirsten Dunst walk back and forth across College Walk for several hours. That's right, arachnophiles: Spider-Man: The Movie is finally, after decades of speculation, being filmed -- and part of the web-slinger's film is being shot on Columbia's campus -- appropriately enough, considering Spidey is one of three superheroes with ties to journalism (Sure, Superman's one of the others; extra points if you get the third.) (Though I would have sworn Peter Parker went to NYU, but, hey, it's the movies ...)
I'm actually getting used to seeing film crews loitering in the area, as my little corner of New York has become movie central: I snagged a coffee from the catering folk outside the Riverside Church the other day while they sat around waiting for Kevin Kline to show up for his arty mentor movie Palace Thief. On the other side of the block, Russell Crowe was playing a Noble-prize winning economist (!) in Beautiful Mind, a film based on a book by J-School prof Sylvia Nasar.
They sound like good flicks, too, but I'm geeky enough to get most excited about Spidey, joining the crowd watching the filming and searching for leftover web stuff on the buildings afterwards.
Spider-Man, Spider-Man
Friendly neighborhood Spider-Man
Wealth and fame he's ignored
Action is his reward
To him, life is a great big bang-up
Whenever there's a hang-up
You'll find the Spider-Man!
posted at 5:21 PM by Timothy J. Gibbons | link
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