Liveblogging
Feb 28th, 2006 by Jinja
Blogging Live Feb 28
Email to blog means big fun.
Today I’m going to post what I do live. I’ll unscramble it later, tidy up a few details.
Liveblogging: blog your day, on the go, as you go. Take notes on paper or tote your laptop. Work or weekend, dull or transcendent. Add links and pictures later.
Today I’m going to post what I do live. I’ll unscramble it later, tidy up a few details.
Liveblogging: blog your day, on the go, as you go. Take notes on paper or tote your laptop. Work or weekend, dull or transcendent. Add links and pictures later.
7:45 wake up, scramble out of bed, have a Kuy Tiew.
I glance over and see Leang Seckon and Tomas, two arty folk.
I tell him my idea to make a kuy tiew place into a guerilla gallery. If I can frame like, 10 *good* strips in Khmer.
Hit the office.
Vuth has a great sketch finished, and Samphos cleans it up a bit in photoshop.
Boot up email and that coffee machine.
Hey, a note from related to my comic – someone’s found an original strip I did about 10 years ago! Blast from the past.
I really need to do a ‘where are they now’ feature on my comics blog at some point.
Vuth is off to frame the sketch (more details on that tomorrow) and make photocopies for a project of legal illustrations we’re working on.
I get moving on an invoice.
Phone call from Cambodian Living Arts about arts retreat. Must catch up with the CLA crew, I’m doing more literature work at the moment.
They’ve got some new young staff who are really motoring.
Emails to answer re: Komik Cambodia, Malaysian conference followup, Kep adventures, Malaysian blog updates, and more.
Samphos is busy defeminizing (via photoshop) some of the pretty boys in art turned in by Sin Yang Pirom. We’ve got to make them less pretty and more handsome.
Just gotta lose those eyelashes and big lips.
9:45 Ot Pleung! (No power)
The power goes out and so I go upstairs, fire up the generator, and by the time I come back downstairs, the CD player’s come on and is playing the ‘Team America’ theme. That’s the second time it’s happened, for some reason power on/off = automatic play.
“America! (Fuck Yeah!) The Internet (Fuck Yeah!) Christmas (Fuck Yeah!)” By informal office consensus we turn it off.
(Cheers for CD Elsie!)
Rith is big on an ambient Indian CD we’ve got. Is it a music morning? Are we laid back enough? Well, we have our power, internet and coffee. No aircon though.
10:00 Mien Pleung! OK, that’s good. Mmmm, that’s strong coffee.
Liveblogging part 2
Go into my Yahoo account and delete some huge oversized files that are screwing up my email. Download virus definitions to wrap a virtual condom around my treasured laptop.
Spoof sketch is done and framed. I get a CD from Tess [Ms. Quotable] for tomorrow’s blog post. The photos are stunning, revealing and sad.
Cambodia is so full of daily drama if you pause to digest it it can really be overwhelming. That’s why there’s such a high burnout rate I think.
My Flickr photo account is overloaded, I’ve got to wait to tomorrow to upload my photos & scans.
More emails: Justin Hall is in Australia and hoping my friends can catch him.
Flamenco concert @ Centre Culturel Francais, I forward it to ‘What’s On‘. Hard to unpack those pictures for blogging.
Jane and Rith are working on the Phnom Penh Arts Festival.
Sen Samandara has 4 pictures completed, we’re hoping to see when we can get more. Samphos is jamming on photoshop.
May go offline for rest of day and record on paper 4 laters. Email barrage just hit. 10:50 am
Liveblogging Part 3
Need to finalize a short report on an arts project. I promise it in the next 24 hours. No beers for me tonight.
Text from Dougald. He’s amused at Vuth’s sketch. Hee hee.
Paper clip crisis! We must all stop work and get paper clips! (Joke.)Vuth gets some paper clips.
A friend is applying to the ASK program in Hawaii, and in addition to a recommendation letter I send her a ‘hang in there’ email.
Also via email: Phatry Pan‘s back! And of course an email to my parents.
Also via email: Phatry Pan‘s back! And of course an email to my parents.
Getting near lunchtime. I coordinate with Vuth, Rith and Samphos on getting some details about local literary awards.
They’re antsy to go but I want to know the scoop. 12:15 everyone heads out.
Kathryn of DDD and Phnom Penh Redheads Anonymous stops by. She’s here to say adios to office partner Jane as she’s leaving t’gnai s’aek. (Tomorrow).
I’m emailing off the literary award info and burning a CD of one of Geoff Ryman‘s old talks. Kibitzing together Kathyrn and Jane are a riot. (They’re not that bad in individual servings either.)
I threaten to whip out my video camera and document them. Who needs sitcoms with friends like these?
They’re antsy to go but I want to know the scoop. 12:15 everyone heads out.
Kathryn of DDD and Phnom Penh Redheads Anonymous stops by. She’s here to say adios to office partner Jane as she’s leaving t’gnai s’aek. (Tomorrow).
I’m emailing off the literary award info and burning a CD of one of Geoff Ryman‘s old talks. Kibitzing together Kathyrn and Jane are a riot. (They’re not that bad in individual servings either.)
I threaten to whip out my video camera and document them. Who needs sitcoms with friends like these?
Mo-Ling calls, we’ll meet up later today to talk tech. I zap a note to Tharum - game for Blog workshop?
Meanwhile, via email, I see there’s a number of ripples going on in the Malaysian blogosphere. For tomorrow.
Meanwhile, via email, I see there’s a number of ripples going on in the Malaysian blogosphere. For tomorrow.
Off to internet cafe, need to zap a fax off to tie up some paperwork. It’s getting on to 1:30. Feeling jittery. Enough coffee for today.
I hit one of the Trung Nguyen places for some quiet chicken and rice. I brood on my comics backlog. I’ve got ‘Song’ and ‘Tea’ on my plate courtesy of ‘Illustration Friday‘, both eminently illustratable but deserving of a proper day each.
Not gonna get it. Think I have some ideas on ‘Song’ which I sketch out. “Tea” is a bit more challenging. I’m drinking it, I’m just not getting it.
I hit one of the Trung Nguyen places for some quiet chicken and rice. I brood on my comics backlog. I’ve got ‘Song’ and ‘Tea’ on my plate courtesy of ‘Illustration Friday‘, both eminently illustratable but deserving of a proper day each.
Not gonna get it. Think I have some ideas on ‘Song’ which I sketch out. “Tea” is a bit more challenging. I’m drinking it, I’m just not getting it.
Gossip update via phone We discuss the term ‘partner’, which doesn’t cut it for anyone you’re romantically involved with. How about ‘affiliated’? Maybe too impersonal.
2:30. Quiet time over. Purchase of phone card. Back to office, aircon on full blast. Vuth should be hitting the Khmer Writer’s Association (followup) and Sen Samandara’s place.
He’s got 4 illustrations for us. He’s got a great style and I would like to find out a little more about his background. Wonder if he’s ever done non-NGO comics back during the 1980s-early 90′s ‘silver age’?
He’s got 4 illustrations for us. He’s got a great style and I would like to find out a little more about his background. Wonder if he’s ever done non-NGO comics back during the 1980s-early 90′s ‘silver age’?
Vuth’s way the heck over on the other side of town. Argh. He forgot he needs my invoice. Such is the drama of office work.
He will come back, we’ll swap stuff. Then he’ll head off to his English class.
He will come back, we’ll swap stuff. Then he’ll head off to his English class.
Jitteryness is subsiding. One of Phnom Penh’s many blind massage places is nearby. Wonder if I can sneak out for half an hour?
(BTW, if you’ve never heard of ‘Seeing Hands’, just google it – it’s an intriguing Cambodian success story that’s created many imitators.)
Cambodia. The disabled dance, the voiceless make art with their hands, the blind do massage. Hmm… tagline in there somewhere.
A generator goes on and the lights and connection come back on. Newspaper says at Electricite du Cambodge two more generators are online, so this should be short. I hope.
(BTW, if you’ve never heard of ‘Seeing Hands’, just google it – it’s an intriguing Cambodian success story that’s created many imitators.)
Cambodia. The disabled dance, the voiceless make art with their hands, the blind do massage. Hmm… tagline in there somewhere.
Liveblogging Part 4
I should make this a meme and ‘tag’ other weblogger people to do it themselves. Liveblogging/lifeblogging.
Beats watching a rerun of ‘Friends’.
Vuth brought in the art and headed off to class. All alone in the office, rockin’ the email.
Have to pay Y Lida for some sketches he’s done.
Called Pal Vannarirak to get the lowdown on her upcoming ‘Good Books’ TV show. It starts filming this month! Cool.
Heads up: Mo-Ling Chui will be doing a talk on multimedia tomorrow at the Royal University of Fine Arts. Time and Classroom to be announced. Sorry such short notice.
Liveblogging part 5: you guessed it
Thought it would be pretty dull after this.
4pm-ish Vuth is off to his class. I optimize some photos and get cracking on some emails and writing stuff.
There’s a film on tonight about the joys of hobo-hopping freight trains in the USA at the Oxfam Boat. (Khmer translation included? Hell, in Cambodia people MAKE their own trains. Now that’s innovation.) I beg off two text messages, crank up the music and keep typing.
Need to send some email but the office system isn’t connecting well. So I decide to take the laptop to an internet cafe to cut to the chase.
Suddenly (and this is the dry season) rain! Big rain! This is rainy season style rain!
I wrap up the laptop and sprint down the street. It’s more like swimming than running, I get soaked.
Spit off the email and get a few more.
7:05 pm? OT PLEUNG!
A chorus of beeps as the ‘ups’ power protectors on each computer in the cafe beep.
A generator goes on and the lights and connection come back on. Newspaper says at Electricite du Cambodge two more generators are online, so this should be short. I hope.
Rain, power out, what’s next, a plague of locusts?
OK, going to get some food and do some quiet writing.
Not terribly adventurous today but hey, it was an experiment.
Liveblogging part 6
Generators are humming as I splash across the street to get some noodles.
Slurp them down and get sucked into a Khmer soap opera for half an hour then realize it’s stopped raining.
Have a hankering to buy a DVD of ‘Chronicles of Narnia’ but well, the power is out.
Nokia, Honda Dream; lots of targeted commercials for the post baby boom college age generation. One of the commercials grabs me, it’s selling a phone but it’s really selling a lifestyle you aspire to. Such a shame to see good imagery harnessed to Mammon.
Good reminder too, I need to get off my ass and clear out my inbox. If I’m actually going to do some drawing this week.
To facilitate or make works that compete with commercial fodder I’ve got to make the time.
Gerard Ashworth: “My competition isn’t other cartoonists. My competition is James Cameron’s Titanic.” I miss the Oz comics scene. Hope Justin’s having fun over there.
I lug my laptop home, wading through streets that have become streams. I’d take a moto but often they’ve gotten me just as wet.
Shower and then a bit of accounting fun. Now it’s 9pm. Wow, that’s pretty long for an outage. Must to buy candles. Oh wait, it just came on.
OK, a little writing, a little email, then sleep.
Liveblogging: I tag Miss Helen, Wanna, and EternalWanderer.
Tags:liveblogging, Cambodia,
Hmm.. mien pleung and ot pleung become common in Cambodia. However, I love this post