Todd Terwilliger http://www.toddterwilliger.com Web designer and developer, technical writer, and general man about town. Wed, 16 Dec 2009 18:46:41 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7 en hourly 1 That Long and Long-Winded Road http://www.toddterwilliger.com/blog/2009/12/16/that-long-and-long-winded-road/ http://www.toddterwilliger.com/blog/2009/12/16/that-long-and-long-winded-road/#comments Wed, 16 Dec 2009 18:46:41 +0000 Todd http://www.toddterwilliger.com/?p=1457 I'm sitting here, drinking a cup of Gold Kili instant Chocolate Latte which, frankly, tastes in the neighborhood of chocolate but nothing near a latte, and I'm wondering about this impromptu seven month hiatus I've found myself on. There must be a reason, right? Some deep movement in my emotional, sub-conscious tectonic core? No... At least, I don't think so. That's the short answer. I have longer answers, of course.

]]> I’m sitting here, drinking a cup of Gold Kili instant Chocolate Latte which, frankly, tastes in the neighborhood of chocolate but nothing near a latte, and I’m wondering about this impromptu seven month hiatus I’ve found myself on. There must be a reason, right? Some deep movement in my emotional, sub-conscious tectonic core? No… At least, I don’t think so. That’s the short answer. I have longer answers, of course.

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]]> http://www.toddterwilliger.com/blog/2009/12/16/that-long-and-long-winded-road/feed/ On Night’s Plutonian Shore http://www.toddterwilliger.com/blog/2009/06/09/on-nights-plutonian-shore/ http://www.toddterwilliger.com/blog/2009/06/09/on-nights-plutonian-shore/#comments Tue, 09 Jun 2009 17:01:14 +0000 Todd http://www.toddterwilliger.com/?p=1437 I was halfway across the Brooklyn Bridge when the rain came down in earnest. It slashed down in horizontal slices that rendered my umbrella mostly impotent. Only a full-body parka or a diving bell had any hope of keeping me dry and I had neither on hand. The Manhattan skyline was dissolving in low-hanging murk. The Statue of Liberty was an old gray lady lost in a fog. It was only natural that my mind wandered, as my body plowed through the wet, towards darker, if slightly drier, climes.

]]> I was halfway across the Brooklyn Bridge when the rain came down in earnest. It slashed down in horizontal slices that rendered my umbrella mostly impotent. Only a full-body parka or a diving bell had any hope of keeping me dry and I had neither on hand. The Manhattan skyline was dissolving in low-hanging murk. The Statue of Liberty was an old gray lady lost in a fog. It was only natural that my mind wandered, as my body plowed through the wet, towards darker, if slightly drier, climes.

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]]> http://www.toddterwilliger.com/blog/2009/06/09/on-nights-plutonian-shore/feed/ Dear Diarrhy http://www.toddterwilliger.com/blog/2009/05/28/dear-diarrhy/ http://www.toddterwilliger.com/blog/2009/05/28/dear-diarrhy/#comments Thu, 28 May 2009 20:27:26 +0000 Todd http://www.toddterwilliger.com/?p=1412 I've come to a decision. I do not like the term, "blogger". I don't know what, exactly, a "weblog" is but I don't like it. Okay, I know what a weblog is as a practical matter but what is it, really? I'm not logging webs or webbing logs. I'm not keeping a log of the web nor keeping a web of a log. I've seen logs, loafs, bars, and loads, and my interest in them is, at best, tangential. The only webs I'm interested in are the spun-out lairs of the spiders in my bathroom and what interest I had in those I have already expressed. No, whatever currency the term "weblog" had with me is spent. I must define myself elsewhere.

]]> I’ve come to a decision. I do not like the term, “blogger”. I don’t know what, exactly, a “weblog” is but I don’t like it. Okay, I know what a weblog is as a practical matter but what is it, really? I’m not logging webs or webbing logs. I’m not keeping a log of the web nor keeping a web of a log. I’ve seen logs, loafs, bars, and loads, and my interest in them is, at best, tangential. The only webs I’m interested in are the spun-out lairs of the spiders in my bathroom and what interest I had in those I have already expressed. No, whatever currency the term “weblog” had with me is spent. I must define myself elsewhere.

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]]> http://www.toddterwilliger.com/blog/2009/05/28/dear-diarrhy/feed/ Walkabout http://www.toddterwilliger.com/blog/2009/05/27/walkabout/ http://www.toddterwilliger.com/blog/2009/05/27/walkabout/#comments Wed, 27 May 2009 20:11:56 +0000 Todd http://www.toddterwilliger.com/?p=1380 For the past few weeks, I've exchanged my morning subway ride to work with a walking commute. Even though the time spent in transit has not changed overmuch (on average walking takes me ten to twenty minutes longer), the experience is a completely different animal. Without having to worry about practical matters such as jockeying for subway car position or perfecting proper platform placement for an incoming train, my mind can wander to more esoteric planes, asking questions like, for example, why is that woman screaming in the middle of the street?

]]> For the past few weeks, I’ve exchanged my morning subway ride to work with a walking commute. Even though the time spent in transit has not changed overmuch (on average walking takes me ten to twenty minutes longer), the experience is a completely different animal. Without having to worry about practical matters such as jockeying for subway car position or perfecting proper platform placement for an incoming train, my mind can wander to more esoteric planes, asking questions like, for example, why is that woman screaming in the middle of the street?

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]]> http://www.toddterwilliger.com/blog/2009/05/27/walkabout/feed/ Terminal Illness http://www.toddterwilliger.com/blog/2009/05/26/terminal-illness/ http://www.toddterwilliger.com/blog/2009/05/26/terminal-illness/#comments Tue, 26 May 2009 16:17:32 +0000 Todd http://www.toddterwilliger.com/?p=1357 Bless me, readers, for I have sinned. It's been a month since my last confession. Over a month, actually, but what a busy, busy month it's been. I'm still chewing over my Cannes 2009 experience- the meat of it still churning slowly through my digestive tract. In the meantime, over the long weekend, I watched Terminator: Salvation and could only conclude my viewing with a single thought: when did John Connor become a complete and monstrous prick?

]]> Bless me, readers, for I have sinned. It’s been a month since my last confession. Over a month, actually, but what a busy, busy month it’s been. I’m still chewing over my Cannes 2009 experience- the meat of it still churning slowly through my digestive tract. In the meantime, over the long weekend, I watched Terminator: Salvation and could only conclude my viewing with a single thought: when did John Connor become a complete and monstrous prick?

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]]> http://www.toddterwilliger.com/blog/2009/05/26/terminal-illness/feed/ Whither, Twittiquette? http://www.toddterwilliger.com/blog/2009/04/20/whither-twittiquette/ http://www.toddterwilliger.com/blog/2009/04/20/whither-twittiquette/#comments Mon, 20 Apr 2009 16:25:04 +0000 Todd http://www.toddterwilliger.com/?p=1342 I got into an argument with a gentleman last night over twitter. I had posted a tweet about his application (which I hashtagged) in which I questioned certain aspects of that application. Inevitably, sometime later, he responded. A few back-and-forths later, he tried to dismiss me as a troll. Now I've been around the internets long enough to know the cold, slime-slick claw of a troll when I see it and this wasn't it. Besides, how can I be trolling in my own feed?

]]> I got into an argument with a gentleman last night over twitter. I had posted a tweet about his application (which I hashtagged) in which I questioned certain aspects of that application. Inevitably, sometime later, he responded. A few back-and-forths later, he tried to dismiss me as a troll. Now I’ve been around the internets long enough to know the cold, slime-slick claw of a troll when I see it and this wasn’t it. Besides, how can I be trolling in my own feed?

Let me say this first: I don’t begrudge a man who wants to defend his own creation. I most certainly would do the same. I appreciate that twitter is a medium through which he could address me both personally and in the larger context of anyone else interested in him or his product. That being said, what I found distressing was his attempt to paint me as some sort of skulk by suggesting that if I post, in my own feed, something negative about his creation, I’m somehow interloping into his inviolate demesne.

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]]> http://www.toddterwilliger.com/blog/2009/04/20/whither-twittiquette/feed/ A Whisper from the Dark http://www.toddterwilliger.com/blog/2009/04/13/a-whisper-from-the-dark/ http://www.toddterwilliger.com/blog/2009/04/13/a-whisper-from-the-dark/#comments Mon, 13 Apr 2009 16:28:31 +0000 Todd http://www.toddterwilliger.com/?p=1327 Things have been quiet lately around here, the sort of eerie quiet that inspires tales of death or, in my case, extreme apathy. However, in this particular case, nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, things are slogging steadily ahead here at Terwilliger HQ. Like Willy Wonka's chocolate factory after Slugworth's betrayal, the gates are closed but the chimneys, productively and, perhaps, ominously, are still billowing with a hidden feverish activity.

]]> Things have been quiet lately around here, the sort of eerie quiet that inspires tales of death or, in my case, extreme apathy. However, in this particular case, nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, things are slogging steadily ahead here at Terwilliger HQ. Like Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory after Slugworth’s betrayal, the gates are closed but the chimneys, productively and, perhaps, ominously, are still billowing with a hidden feverish activity.

First things first. I haven’t talked about it in a long while but the short film I wrote and my sister directed, The Power of Freedom, will be heading to the Cannes Film Festival. We’ll both be tagging along with it, more or less- her more, me less. Last week she cut the trailer for it:

Feel free to watch it (and rate it!) directly on Vimeo and YouTube.

As part of this Sherman’s march to Cannes, I’m trying to put together a little podcast roundtable about the fest. My sister has been once already. This will be my first of hopefully many trips.

To that end, I have been busy as a beaver trying to write a full-length script to take with me. As I hope to sell this little gem, I can’t share too much about it now save that I think I’ve got a pretty good premise (I really like it anyway) but I’ve got a LOT of work to do between now and the festival to whip it into shape.

In totally unrelated news, I just saw a trailer for Valhalla Rising, a Mads Mikkelsen powered Viking movie. It looks good. Then again, Severed Ways looked good and we all know how that turned out. Hope springs eternal.

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]]> http://www.toddterwilliger.com/blog/2009/04/13/a-whisper-from-the-dark/feed/ Counting Cabs http://www.toddterwilliger.com/blog/2009/04/03/counting-cabs/ http://www.toddterwilliger.com/blog/2009/04/03/counting-cabs/#comments Fri, 03 Apr 2009 18:08:35 +0000 Todd http://www.toddterwilliger.com/?p=1303 I spent most of last night ensconced at the Brooklyn Public House which is, depending on who you talk to, either the best or worst new edition to my home turf of Fort Greene/Clinton Hill in Brooklyn. That it is a sign of the times for the neighborhood, no one questions. What it means, on the other hand, is up for debate, fierce debate. This is the chief problem with divination, ever since the first disheveled Homeric sage squinted his eyes into a muddle of thrown bones or a strange bird formation: one man's vision of a divine face is another man's vision of a lumpy Abe Vigoda. What the devil does it all mean? Everybody sees something different. This only is beyond a doubt: the neighborhood, it is a' changing. You don't have to venture inside the latest gastropub to see it, it's there in the street. Just look at the cabs.

]]> I spent most of last night ensconced at the Brooklyn Public House which is, depending on who you talk to, either the best or worst new edition to my home turf of Fort Greene/Clinton Hill in Brooklyn. That it is a sign of the times for the neighborhood, no one questions. What it means, on the other hand, is up for debate, fierce debate. This is the chief problem with divination, ever since the first disheveled Homeric sage squinted his eyes into a muddle of thrown bones or a strange bird formation: one man’s vision of a divine face is another man’s vision of a lumpy Abe Vigoda. What the devil does it all mean? Everybody sees something different. This only is beyond a doubt: the neighborhood, it is a’ changing. You don’t have to venture inside the latest gastropub to see it, it’s there in the street. Just look at the cabs.

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]]> http://www.toddterwilliger.com/blog/2009/04/03/counting-cabs/feed/ A Pitch With Teeth (Mandibles Actually) http://www.toddterwilliger.com/blog/2009/04/01/a-pitch-with-teeth/ http://www.toddterwilliger.com/blog/2009/04/01/a-pitch-with-teeth/#comments Wed, 01 Apr 2009 17:31:25 +0000 Todd http://www.toddterwilliger.com/?p=1272 I'd like to pitch my idea for the next film in the Predator franchise. No, it's not another Predator vs. Alien or even Predator vs. Danny Glover. No, this will be a new direction, a bold new direction, from north to north-northeast into a virgin untamed movie landscape. Allow me to set the scene.

]]> I’d like to pitch my idea for the next film in the Predator franchise. No, it’s not another Predator vs. Alien or even Predator vs. Danny Glover. No, this will be a new direction, a bold new direction, from north to north-northeast into a virgin untamed movie landscape. Allow me to set the scene.

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]]> http://www.toddterwilliger.com/blog/2009/04/01/a-pitch-with-teeth/feed/ The Death of Good Manners in the Internet Age http://www.toddterwilliger.com/blog/2009/03/28/the-death-of-good-manners-in-the-internet-age/ http://www.toddterwilliger.com/blog/2009/03/28/the-death-of-good-manners-in-the-internet-age/#comments Sun, 29 Mar 2009 04:04:35 +0000 Todd http://www.toddterwilliger.com/?p=1256 I've been stewing on this for the better part of the week: a girl I know de-friended (un-friended?) me on Facebook. That didn't bother me at all. What bothered me was the total lack of decorum in the whole affair. Hallowed laws of etiquette had been infringed at my expense. That was a crime I could not abide.

]]> I’ve been stewing on this for the better part of the week: a girl I know de-friended (un-friended?) me on Facebook. That didn’t bother me at all. What bothered me was the total lack of decorum in the whole affair. Hallowed laws of etiquette had been infringed at my expense. That was a crime I could not abide.

First, let me rewind the tape. There is, in this world, the tiniest percentage of people over whom I have a disturbing power: I am given a mainline into their very psyche, direct access to their cerebral cortex. For whatever reason (I don’t pretend to know), the smallest things I say (or don’t say), do (or don’t do), take on a monstrous life in their tortured cerebellums.

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