Though the web offers us an abundance of important, entertaining and useful information, occasionally it shows itself as a dumping ground for old crap. Quite a bit of that crap, unsurprisingly, comes from me.

Case in point, this excerpt from an article by Susan G. Strother in the November 2, 1997 edition of the Orlando Sentinel:

With a click of the mouse, William Chinda caused images to flicker across the computer screen.

He saw a shopping mall, a man in Mickey Mouse ears, the same man laughing hysterically and waving his arms. The frenetic scenes, titled ”Inertia: An Examination of the Narcoleptic Cyborg,” lasted for several minutes until William moved on.

”This is pretty cool,” said the Cypress Creek High School junior. ”But it’s a little weird.”

Welcome to cyber-culture, where the computer is as much a part of art as traditional paints and canvas. The Orlando Museum of Art this weekend is home to more than 50 pieces of computer-driven artwork – composed by people who call themselves ”digital artists” – in Art & Technology ‘97: Beyond the Virtual Edge.

Really? I have the opportunity to make a statement that will somehow encapsulate the importance of technology on the future of creative endeavors and the best I could come up with was THAT?

When I was 16, I desperately wanted to do something with my life that would involve art and computers, and I remember really looking forward to that exhibition. Unfortunately, what I found was fairly uninteresting, and the Sentinel reporter caught me completely off guard.

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Of course, when I did know exactly what to say, the results were not much better. This is a letter to the editor, published on February 3, 1999, in the Sentinel:

FOR NEARLY 10 years, I have lived in the suburban wasteland midway between downtown Orlando and Disney World. What I see every day driving these neighborhoods is disturbing: traffic jams, lack of trees and a general feeling of artificiality. It reminds me very much of Los Angeles – a city full of people who found the American dream in nice cars and suburban houses but lost touch with the city.

Light rail won’t guarantee that Orlando won’t become New Los Angeles, but it may just slow the process by stopping the dreaded sprawl monster that is responsible for the decline of American cities. William Chinda, ORLANDO

That was off the charts on the pretentiousness scale. It actually reads more like an artist’s statement (I’m pretty sure it was adapted from one) than anything else.

At the time, I remember reading nothing but architecture magazines and articles about new urbanism. I also spent my days slogging through traffic to get to school, dreaming of the day when I could get out of Orlando. To me, the city felt like a backwater that would be left even further behind without any serious reconsideration of its transit scheme, which was being vehemently debated at the time. A decade later, things still seem contentious and unclear.

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Before the Internet, I remember going to the library and being amazed by the vast number of drawers that held nothing but microfiche of newspaper articles. The machinery was so damn complicated, I never quite figured out how to work it, having to bug the librarians for help anytime I wanted to look for something.

But now I can find any article I want, “with a click of the mouse.”

Unfortunately for me, I won’t be able to write a blog 10 years from now complaining how my terribly pretentious and nonsensical writing from now is still on Google.

I recently saw American Splendor, a movie about the life of the underground comic book writer Harvey Pekar. It’s a fantastic movie, and currently sits near the top of my favorite movie list. I’ve never read any of his comics (I was a fan of the typical superhero comics back in the day), but after seeing this I’ll probably be picking some up. A particularly powerful monologue is delivered near the end of the movie, and if not for the cruel mistress that is American copyright law, I would probably post a video clip. Unfortunately plain text will have to do:

My name is Harvey Pekar – that’s an unusual name – Harvey Pekar. 1960 was the year I got my first apartment and my first phone book. Now imagine my surprise when I looked up my name and saw that in addition to me, another Harvey Pekar was listed. Now I was listed as “Harvey L. Pekar”, my middle name is Lawrence, and he was listed as “Harvey Pekar” therefore his was a – was a pure listing. Then in the ’70s, I noticed that a third Harvey Pekar was listed in the phone book, now this filled me with curiousity. How can there be three people with such an unusual name in the world, let alone in one city? Then one day, a person I work with, expressed her sympathy with me, concerning what she thought, was the death of my father, and she pointed out an obituary notice in the newspaper for a man named Harvey Pekar. And one of his sons was named Harvey. And these were the other Harvey Pekar’s. And six months later, Harvey Pekar Jr. died. And although I’ve met neither man, I was filled with sadness, ‘what were they like?’, I thought, it seemed that our lives had been linked in some indefineable way. But the story does not end there, for two years later, another ‘Harvey Pekar’ appeared in the phone book. Who are these people? Where do they come from? What do they do? What’s in a name? Who is “Harvey Pekar”?

I work with phone books all day long, and I rarely give much thought to the significance within its listings (familiarity and contempt and all that). But this made me think about how we create such intricate and complex systems that organize our world, making connections that we might otherwise not notice.

So thanks to the magic of Google, I bring to you this random collection of things which share my name, but nothing else (in the course of searching for these things, I’ve found Chinda to be a very common first name, so I’ve limited it to surnames and business/place names):

Chinda Barbeque: a hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant in Glendale, CA.

Chinda International: a toy company in LA. We found one of their stuffed animals at a local florist a few months ago.

Chinda Institute International: a martial arts dojo in what looks to be Pittsburgh. I’m pretty sure that guy isn’t related to me.

Monalisa Chinda: again, I’m pretty sure there’s no relation. Apparently she’s a fairly well-known Nigerian actress who has been in more than 80(!) movies. Her recent divorce has apparently stirred much emotion among her fans.

Yuk Chinda: I guess she is some Cambodian Television journalist? There’s a ridiculous amount of her videos on Youtube, and somehow they are all 5 star rated.

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Chinda, Honduras: a municipality in Honduras with a population of about 3,000, almost all of whom are Lenca subsistence farmers. The charity Water for People does work there to expand sanitation (PDF).

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Fine Chinda and Gifts: somehow I feel this is a typo. Unfortunately (for both me and this business), it’s a typo that occurs all the freaking time.

As of late, the local news media has been running a number of “holy crap, it’s a recession! Why is [insert public agency] spending your tax dollars on [insert derogatory adjective] art while they’re facing a [insert random number] million dollar shortfall?!!” Apparently, they assume their viewers cannot grasp the concept of budget allocation that takes place months or years in advance.

10 Connects (the bizarre new name for our local CBS affiliate) ran a story last night (my apologies if their embedded video takes long to load – their player doesn’t seem as efficient as YouTube’s) about the new $27,000 topiary bull sitting in front of the new Marshall Center. The pictures don’t really do it justice – I drove by it last week, and I honestly think it looks pretty dope. It’s a nice touch for our campus, which frankly looks like a giant office park (with the exception of MLK plaza). Based on comments to the 10 Connects story, and on a similar story run by the Oracle, it would seem I am in the minority.

As an aside, I actually have nothing personal against 10 Connects – I interviewed for a job there once, and tend prefer their newscasts over their competitors.

The local ABC affiliate ran a similar story last week about the upcoming Lights On Tampa light show, which projects the work of animators and video artists onto various buildings around downtown. The project cost an incredible amount of money, though the majority comes from private donors. The rest comes from the state (money that can’t be spent on anything else), and about $70,000 comes from the city. Seems a small price to pay to spruce up a city that is about to host a very small game of American football called the Super Bowl (perhaps you’ve heard of it?).