I somehow got nominated for a Grammy. I'm not entirely sure how this happened, and it's in a category in the hundreds that will be presented (and lost) at some hotel banquet hall eighteen hours before the main ceremony probably. I've been sort of speechless all day, opting to just spend some quiet time with the girlfriend and buy myself a video game machine. But I get to go to the ceremony. I'm just wondering how I will afford an outfit for something like that, so yes, like a true prima donna I am already thinking about what to wear. It was for producing the Death Cab for Cutie 'Directions' DVD. Honestly I don't think I've ever watched a Grammy's ceremony in my life. But I like how it's made my parents proud and a reflection of how they've crazily supported my interest in a career in the arts.

I guess the only thing I can say out of it, too, is that there is a lot of prognostication of gloom and doom in the music video world. Which I think doesn't have to be the case and that was the intention with Directions. We could've done better, but I think projects like offer a future for videos. Why should we even bother anymore? Because I think the best videos, the really rare unique ones, offer collaboration between two mediums that's also the closest thing we have in the US to an experimental short cinema.

And I couldn't really do anything else yesterday because I have some other good news: I'm directing a video for The Decemberists. We have finally been able to come together again and prepare a reprise of my first video, 16 military wives. It's not going to be anything like it and I hope it will really twist people's expectations of what this band are. So Saturday I'm flying out to PDX, and I'm back in the swing of it in New York right now. Lots of phone calls and strategizing to pull it together. Right now we've got 9 days to pull together something epic. I hope I get a break!

Before I go, my pick for holiday cheer:

Oh, those Asian-American Whiz Kids! Wrecking the grade curve and preparing to run the IT industry where they can look forward to quiet lives of sexual repression and lots of classical music.





What's even cooler is that the boy on the left side of the picture is Masi Oka, who plays Hiro, the only really endearing character on the show Heroes. Dude also worked at ILM. I think he has officially dethroned Data as asian american geek god.

I don't even know what to say about this one. Poor hamster... I hope he input the lives code before it started.