Jonathan Coulton

My daughter just had her last day of school for the year, and I can’t understand why she’s not terribly sad about it. I’m sad about it, and I don’t even GO to preschool. There’s something about school that will always make me feel a little melancholy I guess – a school year is such a discrete thing, a big chunk of life behind you that will never come again. I can already imagine the hazy memory 08-09 will become for her, just a couple of snapshots really: that time they made macaroni necklaces, that friend she had who moved to another school, the one kid who was always peeing his pants. Obviously this is my baggage not hers, and it has a lot to do with having a child who’s growing up in front of my eyes, but I also think I’m identifying with the end of the school year because I’m taking something of a Summer vacation myself.

NO TOURING. That is the rule for the next couple of months. I really do enjoy playing for all of you, much more than I ever thought I would. But the airplanes and hotels and suitcases are a real drag, and it’s the closest thing to actual “work” I ever get in this ridiculous career. And it chops up my personal and professional life; I’m always either on a trip, getting ready for one, or recovering from one. So I’m going to defrag a little, recharge, waste some time, play guitar for no reason at all, mess around with various bits of hardware and software that I’ve purchased but never used, see what happens.

Merlin Mann gave a great talk at MaxFunCon about creativity, specifically about that pesky “getting started” part of it. It’s the thing I was trying to defeat when I started Thing a Week, and while I had it on the ropes for a while, it was just a temporary victory. I still struggle with it, and I suspect I always will. I can use the traveling as an excuse, but if it wasn’t traveling it would be groceries, or Xbox or whatever (Marble Blast Ultra, seriously, I am getting my ass kicked by a bunch of 13-year-olds, but I dig it). I can always find distractions that seem like higher priorities than making stuff. So part of my goal for this Summer is to take as much pressure off as I can and pry apart some space for doing just that. I’m not promising to write you a bunch of songs exactly, in fact I kind of have to keep my goals a little fuzzier than that in order to not frighten the muse away. I don’t know exactly where I’m going or what I’m working towards, and I forgive myself in advance for that because that’s sort of the point. I’m just hoping to have some fun making music in the privacy of my own head for a while. Maybe you can hear it when I’m done (whatever it turns out to be).

In the meantime, I am JoCo4Realz on Xbox Live and I will see you in Sprawl emmer effers!

I am a long time fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000, a television show in which a human and his robot friends watch movies and make fun of them (it maybe is not a surprise to you that I like this sort of thing). Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett, formerly of said show, now do this thing called Rifftrax – sort of an alternate audio track for movies that you can sync up as you watch, MST3K roll-your-own style. Imagine my delight when they invited me and Paul and Storm to record one of these for the movie TRON. I’ll wait while you imagine. Did you imagine me jumping up and down and peeing my pants? Because that’s what happened.

Now you can purchase this item! I am serious! This banner proves it (when you click on it)!

At long last, here it is.

BEST. CONCERT. EVER.

A live DVD/CD super combo package, now available to you, the general public. It’s currently in pre-sales but discs will ship May 15th, and if you buy now you can download the mp3s immediately.

If you’ve been listening to me on the Twitter this morning then you’ll be tired of this, but here’s the thing. I made a dumb joke referencing an aphorism I have heard: “all animals can swim.” Then I started wondering if that was true. A lot of people replied saying that great apes can’t swim, in particular chimpanzees. That didn’t sound right to me, or at least it sounded like one of those things that everybody says that nobody really knows if it’s true or not (kind of like “all animals can swim”).

So I asked again on the Twitter: for reals? Great apes can’t swim? A lot of people responded “yes they can” or “no they can’t” which wasn’t helpful. And a lot of links came in, a lot of conflicting information. This site says they have too little animal fat and so they sink. This person says they can outswim an olympic swimmer (human, presumably) and tantalizingly links to a video called “seemychimpswim” that no longer exists. According to The Big Zoo they can only swim “if extremely excited” (?). And here’s a story about a swimming orangutan. From what I can tell, it’s kind of “some chimps can swim but mostly they hate it and are not good at it.”

Or worse, it’s still an open question, which is a terrible thought. What the hell scientists? What are we doing here? Can we please start throwing some monkeys into pools and taking notes? IT IS 2009, SERIOUSLY!

Also, giraffes.

Which is what this will be for many of you today – traffic on the First of May is always a little heavy for some reason, but my poor server is doing its best to keep up. I wish you all a happy Spring, even if you don’t know it.

This song is free even when it is not this day of the year, but it is especially free today (if you know what I mean):

First of May (<–Not At All Safe For Work)