Mike Browne’s Blog

…made relativley simple. Personal and Historical Perspectives of Hans Bethe.

Whatever, it still makes me want to cry. The guy just passed away. I’ve never heard of him until today. Where was he when I was flunking high school physics? ***sigh***

As you may or may not know from the very cryptic post on Friday, I am no longer employed by Riptown.com Media. As my perception differs vastly from those who let me go, ‘without cause’ (their words) I’m not sure I want to get into the reasons why. The deed is done, regardless of all the convoluted perceptions of everyone involved including my own. I am essentially, and quite literally, jobless.

I have a pretty rough few days emotionally. But, they’re only emotions and will pass. I’ve seen the whole gamut in just a few short days. It feels like grief. Not on the same level as when my grandmother died, but deep all the same. I worked there for 4 years, pretty much to the day I left, and had much of myself invested in my work there no matter what someone else may have thought. The people there are like family to me, quirks and all, and I’ll honestly miss every one of them. Yes, even ‘the senators’ who had me seen to.

A lot of friends have rallied around me already. Many are offering support in a variety of ways. Everyone is giving me great advice and as a result I have some concrete direction. This gem from Bill is especially great: (just stay focused, and fer godssakes away from the Haney Bingoplex). Don’t worry Bill I’m not a degenerate gambler. Hey, wait a minute… Ah shit. Anyway, it’s nice to know that people actually care.

What’s next for me? I’m not sure, but I think something big is on it’s way. I’ve seen time and time again that everytime a door closes another one opens. It’s up to me to put one foot in front of the other to walk through it.

Immediately on the brightside: We’re selling our place so we need to spend some time doing the little things to prep. I know have the time to dedicate to some home improvements and a friend with a home repar company has offered some help. I got a severance package that takes care of a good portion of the bills for three months, so on top of having time to dedicate to following my bliss and continuing on toward deeper involvement in the film and tv biz.

Wish me luck. I have work to do…

Yahoo! News – Inventors Find Niche in Office Toys also check out happyworker.com

I’m boning up on my hobo lingo.

And I’m the old… Let’s make a long story short. Suprisingly (or not so suprisingly), I’m looking for a new gig. Let’s see what happens. Anyone who needs a slightly whacky creative type… I’m available. Maybe now’s the time to really do what I love. And no it’s not sit around and grow hair on my ass.

From MetaFilter “Dear Condi – Lloyd Axworthy was Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs for five years (1995-2000). Now that he’s no longer in government, he doesn’t need to be so diplomatic.”

The Strand :: Venice CA
The creators of Blair Witch are at it again.

What a great idea. I signed up for a free pass to the first webisode. Subsequent ones are 99 cents a piece and you know, with enough people paying 99 cents a pop the filmmakers could really be onto something here. It’s cheap to produce this kind of thing, especially for web, so they stand to make a lot of money if they can pull this off. The spinoff potential, DVD’s, books etc is quite good too.

If the video for each webisode is presented (streamed) in such a way that you have to be at the site to view it they may beable to prevent the amount of pirating that Hollywood’s more mainstream biz is grumping about now. Of course where there’s a will there’s a way, but not everyone will be savvy enough to rip them off. If the product is good enough after the first, I would pay, and I’m good at finding stuff ‘for free’ on the web.

I think I’ll pay close attention to this and see how it develops, but I have ideas how I could utilize this for my stuff.

CBC News: Millionaire lands safely, breaking flight record
I’m not sure why but ths news bores me almost to tears. Perhaps it’s that these jackasses have done stunts like this and failed so many times, to actually see them succeed is rather anticlimatic. The story would have been better had he had to bail out and landed in cow poop 10 miles before his goal.

CBC News: Coffee contest highlights litter issue … so much so that 22% of all of the province’s litter is made up of Tim Horton’s cups. There are (I think) 5 Tim Hortons in my hometown of Bridgewater, NS and the population is only 7600. I’m not surprised there are so many blasted cups laying around, but the sheer number seems insane.

Don’t forget Tim Ho’s makes shiatty donuts too. The only residue they leave is large people. See Rita McNeil for a prime example of a Nova Scotian I suspect likes donuts.