A Documentary and a Doppelgänger

07 February 2010
I found myself very bored on this, my least-favorite holiday of the year (Super Bowl Sunday). In the past, I’d been invited to Super Bowl parties at people’s homes, but I think everyone finally got the hint that I really don’t care about football. Actually, there were a few times that people would say things like: “Oh, I don’t care about the Super Bowl either. We’ll just watch the commercials.” I’m sure their intentions were good, but here’s a rule-of-thumb: when people invite you over on Super Bowl Sunday and claim they’re just gonna watch the commercials, they’re lying. See, they don’t actually watch the commercials. They do what they do whenever commercials are on: they talk to each other, get up and refill their beverage or empty their bladder. More importantly however, is that a good commercial is kind of like a good cup of coffee: it’s still tastes like dirt to me.
So with my wife and son sick, and my homework done for the week, I got very bored. My friend Ryan emailed me with some updated footage for a filmlet we’d been working on called Flattened. He then called to see if I liked the footage. I said I did, and then he said the only thing remaining would be for us to get all the audio and video together onto one computer. He said I was welcome to go to his place. To Jennifer, this was great news, as she hates having a bored, antsy husband around the house.

08 February 2010
Today, I uploaded the completed version of Flattened onto YouTube. YouTube is one of the least intuitive, most frustrating sites I visit, but since that’s where everyone puts their videos, that where I have to put my videos if I want people to see them. I actually uploaded the filmlet yesterday, but then discovered that there was a glitch. So, I immediately removed the video and corrected the problem. I was going to re-export the filmlet, but this takes about a half hour and I was too tired. So I did it today.
And, in fact, I had to do it twice today. I successfully uploaded it once, this morning, only to have one of my co-workers point out that I had two audio tracks slightly out of sync with each other. The reasons why this happened are really boring, so I won’t go into it here, but at least I knew how to fix it. I promptly opened up my laptop, corrected the problem, and set the filmlet to export for a third time.
But my laptop ran out of battery power.
And, no, I can’t just plug it in because, you see, my wife and I only have one functioning plug between our two laptops, and the plug was at home with her. I even pulled out the defective cord and stripped the insulation and retwist the wires in an effort to get my old cord to work again. This worked for about 15 seconds, during which time my computer went from 0% to, well, still 0% power, and then the wire short-circuited and my cube smelled like ozone for a while.
So I finally got the video up on the web tonight. Here it is:

FLATTENED

09 February 2010
I never would have expected to discuss a trip to the gas station here on this blog, but that’s what’s about to happen:
As I drove into the Super America lot this afternoon, I noticed a pick-up truck pulling in ahead of me. The truck’s license plate read “Jimmy Z.” I laughed, thinking to myself, ‘hey, that’s what my license plate should say!’
The truck pulled up to a gas pump on the opposite side of the island, and it was then that I noticed the wood chipper they were towing. On the sides, it read: “Zimmerman’s Tree Service.” So then I thought: “Wow, that guy’s name is probably James Zimmerman. That’s my name, too!”
A minute passed, and he and I were standing about ten feet apart, each waiting for our vehicle’s tank to fill. He looked to be about 60 years old, about my height, wearing a camo jacket and a baeball cap. It looked like he hadn’t shaved in a few days.
I walked over to him and said: “Is your name James Zimmerman?” Admittedly, this was a long shot. I mean, just because someone works for Zimmerman Tree Service does not mean that they themselves are the namesake.
“Yes,” he said, sounding as proud of it as he damn well should.
“That’s my name, too,” I said, and he smiled real big and stuck out his hand to shake mine.
We talked for a couple of minutes, instant kin due to our names. He mentioned there are a lot of Zimmermans in Minnesota, and I agreed. He explained that he and his partner (the guy sitting in the passenger side of the truck, presumably wondering how it is we made such fast friends) had just gotten back into town from Oklahoma. They volunteered their services to go help with the large branches that had fallen onto homes due to a recent snow storm. “There’s a lot of poor people in Oklahoma,” he noted, sounding somber.
The conversation returned to our names, and he mentioned – get this – that he named his son James, too.
“Oh, hey,” I said, “My Dad and I are both named James.”
“Yeah,” he continued, “But my son and I have different middle initials. I’m a ‘D’ and he’s a ‘P’.
“No way,” I said, sounding way too astonished. “My Dad’s middle initial is P, and mine is D!”
The old guy laughed. There he and I were, two James D. Zimmermans, who were father and son, respectively, to two James P. Zimmermans, just contemplating the coincidence. I was going to shake his hand again, but I was afraid we’d cancel each other out and open a wormhole, or something like that.

In other news: Ryan sent the link to our filmlet to PZ Myers, a noted evolutionary biologist and proprietor of one of the most popular science blogs on the web. Dr. Myers was impressed, evidently, or maybe just amused, because he saw fit to post it on his blog, which is RIGHT HERE. Thank you, PZ! Our little film has garnered over 2,000 views in the 28 hours it has been on the internet.