The Great Interview Experiment II

I interviewed Chris of cdcstudios.com as my part in The Great Interview Experiment.


You share a birthday with a famous man from Nazareth. How's that going for you?

When I was a child it wasn't the most spectacular thing (either nobody could come to my birthday party due to being out town or else I'd get combo presents from relatives). Typically when people ask me nowadays if I'm a Christmas baby I just reply so far, but then I have a rather dry sense of humor. As for the guy from Nazareth, it's a shame that his standard bearers are so very unlike him.

How a long haired hippie who hung out with the dregs of society and copious amounts of THC (turns out the anointing oil was 70% Cannabis according to the Smithsonian) could be similar in any way shape or form to the right wing neo-con movement is almost as confusing as Ann Coulter (off topic I still think she's secretly a very good performance artist that we just don't "get") being a sane person.


You've written how wonderful it was to hold your baby for the first time and you've got another one on the way. Would you consider yourself a daddyblogger? And what's with the funny spelling of Alexandr's name?

Holding my son is and was one of the greatest things ever! As for being a daddyblogger I split my blogging topics evenly enough to say I'm an all around blogger not just a daddyblogger. Besides, the term daddyblogger makes me think they should make a live action movie based on the comic strip "Adam" with Michael Keaton in the lead role.

As for the spelling of his name it's the spelling used for a long dead ancestor. His full name is Alexandr Phelan O'Rourke so he's got a healthy mix of easily pronounceable yet unique names. If he wants to spell it differently when he's older, no problem by me.


What is a Nerd and are you a Nerd? If not, then why are you a fan of XKCD and write at length about CSS?

I am a firm believer in the hierarchy of status (not really) and think that a nerd is a very smart person with negligible social skills. The lowest rung is dork (smart with zero social skills). Geeks are the penultimate state of the really smart (almost too smart but with decent to good social skills). xkcd is a hilarious geek comic with some very profound ideas (the chinese proverb strip is amongst my favorite).

CSS is a geek designers wet dream. Combing the best of semantics with the structure of art is something that is astounding to see. Even more so when it's accepted by all (for the most part) yet not being the intellectual property of some greedy corporation.


Mac or Windows?

It depends. I like to mix the two but am leaning more and more towards Apple in the workplace. Lesser cost of deployment for server infrastructure ($999 for an unlimited client license copy of Leopard Server) than a windows environment plus a greater amount of functionality out of the box. I hope that Microsoft can clue into that.

Of course, on the other hand Mac is still playing catchup in the gaming world but happily that's changing (dear Valve, plz give us an osx steam client soon). My overall preference is about 60% mac / 40% windows. (No offense to the Linux crew but I work on broken computers all day long. The last thing I want to do when I get home is tinker with an OS).


Drum and Bugle corps? Do you do it for all the ladies?

Drum & Bugle corps is the coolest thing ever. Like marching band without all the woodwinds. Good brass blowing your face off plus huge meaty drum licks equals an awesome way to spend the summer. I miss being able to march since it's only for 14-21 year olds (at least the competitive side of the activity) but hope my sons will follow in my footsteps.

I do it all for the great feeling of playing an intricate multi-metered exercise spotlessly clean with no ticks. There is nothing like that feeling. If you've never experienced it there are tons of videos on youtube as well as multiple events in most parts of the country all summer long.


You've started a film-related site called DreamFlicks.com. Seen any good movies lately?

I did start dreamflicks although it was originally purchased for a vastly different reason than it ended up being. A friend of mine and I thought it would be neat to have a site where people could suggest ideas for movie casting for properties the studios hadn't done anything with. Implementing that proved to be something we both lost interest in, so after owning the domain for 4+ years I started a wordpress multiuser blogging site.

Good movies? I watch tons of them. My recent favorites were Juno (phenomenal cast, script, music, everything. I hope Ellen Page gets the Oscar) and Across the Universe (everything I liked about Juno plus Eddie Izzard & Bono add just the right touch of hilarity).


iPhone user eh? Do you remember the Apple Newton?

I am an iPhone user (and love nearly everything about it although there are a few things I'd fix/change:

1. either make notes sync to my mac or else get rid of them
2. hard disk mode
3. copy and paste
4. unlock for tmobile to use).

As for the Newton I do remember it quite fondly. I knew they'd eventually bring it back in fact when the iPod was originally released I predicted something like the iPhone because the name iPod was too generalist to just be a media player.


I was in Portland many years ago to entice Intel into a buyout. Have those bastards started spending again? What else is going on in Portland?

Nope, Intel are still the cheap disorganized un-streamlined companies they've always been. I think their success is in spite of their organization rather than because of it.

Portland is a hugely tech-friendly place. It's sort of become the Berlin between the East (Microsoft/Seattle) and the West (Yahoo/Apple/Bay Area).


How has your thoughts on the war in Iraq been shaped by the loss of your friend Mike?

I'll support our troops through thick and thin but I have yet to see a valid reason why our troops are in Iraq. Afghanistan makes sense since our fight with the Soviets 25+ years ago helped the Taliban rise to power but Iraq was and is a quagmire that we need to either find humility and ask the rest of the world to help or risk losing forever what little respect we have left.

Mike is a perfect example of why we've lost sight of things. He was a devoted caring father who didn't ever want to hurt anyone. He joined for his daughter and she'll never get to know him because we needed more cheap oil. I really wonder how anyone in government sleeps at night. In their shoes I don't think I could.