takin'a break, takin' a break
i am beat. well actually i have some energy. well actually actually i have some seriously wound-up energy like you would not believe. i am a little tired of being planted in front of the PC i must say, i really really need to go out for a night on the town. drink some booze. dance to some stupid music. have some weird adventure... in due time, in due time (it's due goddamn time!) I can feel my belly getting rounder... Anyway, i am working hard. the name of the game these days is "revisions," not only do you do a test to get a job but then you get it sent back to you with requests for a 2nd pass. i guess that's good, at least they don't outright hate it (haha) but working on numerous things, for free, over time can wear ya down. well, at least there's a point to it.. and use.
my PC is acting up. i will be cranking away in photoshop, granted i can be ehhh "generous" with my layers.. also have a 3D app open, not a large scene mind you (but still, it's gonna chip away at memory) and of course winamp so i can listen to something. a delicate, precarious balance, for if anything else seems to be running it then seems like only a matter of time until someone's pulled out the wrong Jenga piece and --blooey-- my PC flatout resets. I've gotten quite good with saving periodically enough that I have not lost too much work, but still it's aggravating, after all of this time. "New computer?" I can hear people saying, but nah.. at least i gotta reformat this one and try a fresh-install of everything. That'll happen when I get some time, of course.. much cheaper, though, and worth a shot. Besides, even if I did have a brand-spanking new machine right here beside me, i'd still have to take a nice chunk of time to install all of my crap and customize it as well...
my patience is waning a but, but my motivation to work is still propelling me forward. I look at the work I've been doing - I know I have said this, lately.. and I can look at it and see that it is coming along well. I don't purport to be the best in the business, but i think my stuff is pretty good and I am on my way. Digital art, in it's many avenues, is certainly a strange thing to judge, between output and technique... efficiency.. etc.
Sigh. tired of talking/thinking about work. It's really become such a central part of my life in these past few years, i feel fortunate to have something to get so wrapped up in but I do miss having a life, sometimes. I know I am beyond the point of "chucking it all" and doing something different with my life, WAY past that point. My character has become beyond ingrained in my business by now, and furthermore as I've alluded to, there's so far to go (especially with such development every step of the way). But, yeah, I have to say that once in a while it is depressing to consider "is this all that there is to it?" I know how that sounds, but in some ways it can not be argued - a man is more than just a machine, part of a system, responsible for output (isn't he?) yeah so the next phase of life then, getting married and having kids. Isn't that what i just mentioned though, precisely? I am tired of the song and dance.. I don't wanna just be another name on a slot somewhere "I want my life to matter" but, yeah, it matters to yourself, at least...
don't mind me, i am just flipping out due to being endlessly cooped up here with no perceivable end in sight...
the more i dwell on it lately, the more some things in our society piss me off. what is te point, what is the point!! make money, buy shit. yeah, things are NICE, no one will argue that fact (a few may). I don't know that much of it is necessity, but it's still cool to have things like cars, clothes, music, flatscreen LCD monitors for one's PC. But then looking down the road it's an endless change for a bigger bait. keep making money, but keep having to buy more epxensive things. Is there much room in this world for people who want to just explore something different.. philosophy, education, etc.
That's another ball of wax too. There IS plenty of room for those hungy for information, in fact overwhelmingly so. The world is what it is, and there's absolutely too much of it - I am overstimulated, daily, with information. You try to put blinders on, in whatever aspect, to filter only what is relevant, and maybe that works for most people, but me - as I get older, and more sucked into the incredbly effective "information superhighway" (dated term, i know) I just feel more miniscule, insignificant, anonymous. All of that being irrelevant at the end of the day, mind you, but as I am going through information I get more and more of an idea what the world around is like, but in it's simplicity and complexity. Reassuring, then, that my "problems" are likewise rendered absolutely meaningless and relatively inconsequential, but a part of me considers how comforting it would be to be able to retreat to "ignorance is bliss." What lies down the road, then, i fear to wonder, as I soak up more and time passes. Ehhh, you get older, you deal with it. You have good times, bad times, you learn some shit/accomplish some things, forget other shit, and fail some things. Then one day you croak while everyone else does the exact same thing, but they have slightly different hats then you wore.
11pm. the hours fly by, as do the days lately, the months. In a few days January will be no more, that's remarkable... And so it rains outside, it's dark and cold, and I resume my work on things that will never matter.
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Thursday, January 25, 2007
how to change a spare tire/please a woman orally
The best place to start is your owner’s manual. Thoroughly read the section that describes how to change your tire/administer cunnilingus properly. Then locate your spare tire, lug wrench and jack. If your wheels lock, make sure you have the wheel key. Regularly check your spare tire to be sure it is properly inflated.
TIP: Lug wrenches that are shaped like a cross are the best better bet, as they are more stable and don't slip. You can purchase one at any auto parts store.
Get familiar with the basics. Women’s external genitals include the fleshy outer vaginal lips, the thinner pink inner lips, the clitoris nestled under the clitoral hood at the upper junction of the vaginal lips, the vaginal opening, and the erotically sensitive urethral sponge between the clitoris and vagina. Basic cunnilingus involves licking the vulva from the vaginal opening to the clitoris. As women become sexually aroused, their outer vaginal lips fill with extra blood, which parts them somewhat, exposing the inner lips and the sensitive tissue between them.
Find a level spot completely off the side of the road, even if you must drive for a few hundred yards on a flat tire. Make sure you are out of the way of traffic. Apply your parking brake. If you have an automatic transmission, place the car in “park.” Manual transmissions should be placed in first gear or reverse. Turn off your engine and turn on your hazard lights.
The tongue is much softer than fingers, so it can provide the gentlest possible stimulation of the clitoris and vulva. For many women, the gentleness of oral sex is what makes it so enjoyable. Tell a new lover that you’d like to go down on her. Either say something, or kiss her on the way down--her neck, the tops of her breasts, her nipples, her belly, so she gets the idea where you’re headed. You might check in saying, “I’d like to keep going down. It that okay?” Move down slowly.
Remove your wheel covers (if applicable). Depending on the type you have, you may need to unlock them first. Others can be popped off or unscrewed. Loosen, but do not remove, the lug nuts. Usually you can achieve this by turning them about a half-turn counterclockwise. Determine the proper positioning for your jack according to the owner’s manual and raise the car until the tire barely touches the ground. It should take the weight off the tire, but not come off the ground.
Make sure you're in a comfortable position. Lying on the bed on your stomach between the woman’s legs might strain your neck. You might slip a pillow under the woman’s hips to raise her a bit. Or you might coax her butt to the side of the bed and kneel on the floor to lick her. Begin slowly--and very gently. Don’t dive into cunnilingus all at once. Start by nuzzling, kissing, and licking her inner thighs and the area around her vulva. Anticipation of cunnilingus can feel very arousing to women. As you move toward her genitals, begin by licking the fleshy outer lips. Run your tongue up and down them. Nibble them gently with your lips. Next, work your tongue in between the outer lips to caress the smaller, thinner inner lips. Then circle the vaginal opening and perhaps insert your tongue--or a finger or two--lovingly inside her vagina. Approach the clitoris very slowly and gently. Some women enjoy a man’s tongue directly on the clitoris. Others find direct clitoral licking too intense, even uncomfortable. They prefer it when the tongue only lightly caresses the clitoris or circles it, which stimulates it, but less directly.
Rotate the lug wrench counterclockwise, removing each lug nut. In order to remove the flat tire, it will be easiest if you position your hands at the “three o’clock” and “nine o’clock” positions and pull it straight toward you. Replace the flat with your spare tire. It’s easier if you align the holes in your spare tire with the bolts first, then place it firmly on them. Replace and slightly tighten the lug nuts. Lower your car back to the ground and then finish tightening the lug nuts in a cross pattern.
Check in with her as you lick: "Is this too intense?" "Do you want it lighter? Or should I bear down more?" Check in often until you're confident that you know her preferences. Then check in periodically after that. Preferences change, or she may just be in the mood for something a little different. Be patient. Some women feel reluctant to discuss their reactions to oral sex. Instead they use “body language.” They might squirm if they find a certain lick uncomfortable. Unfortunately, it’s very easy for a man to misinterpret body language and think that when she’s writhing in discomfort, she’s actually in the throes of delight. That’s why it’s important to check in verbally: “Is this too intense?” "Is this okay?”
Place the flat tire where the spare was located. Put your tools back in the proper places and conduct a final check to be sure you haven’t forgotten anything. Get to a service station as soon as possible. You will need to have the flat tire repaired and reinstalled (if possible) and have your lug nuts tightened with a torque wrench to the proper specification for your vehicle.
Be gentle while she's having her orgasm and after. Many women experience unusual clitoral sensitivity and don’t like to be touched or licked there. This is normal. If you like “last licks” after she comes, check in about where and when she might like to be licked. If not her clitoris, perhaps her vaginal lips or vaginal opening. Or come up from between her legs and hold her, kiss her, and massage her any way she likes. Many men enjoy being very close to the vulva as the woman ejaculates, and have no problem ingesting some of the fluid. It’s safe to ingest. Female ejaculate is not urine, though it may contain some dilute urine. It appears to be chemically closer to prostate fluid, so ingesting it is not all that different from a woman swallowing a man’s semen.
TIP: Lug wrenches that are shaped like a cross are the best better bet, as they are more stable and don't slip. You can purchase one at any auto parts store.
Get familiar with the basics. Women’s external genitals include the fleshy outer vaginal lips, the thinner pink inner lips, the clitoris nestled under the clitoral hood at the upper junction of the vaginal lips, the vaginal opening, and the erotically sensitive urethral sponge between the clitoris and vagina. Basic cunnilingus involves licking the vulva from the vaginal opening to the clitoris. As women become sexually aroused, their outer vaginal lips fill with extra blood, which parts them somewhat, exposing the inner lips and the sensitive tissue between them.
Find a level spot completely off the side of the road, even if you must drive for a few hundred yards on a flat tire. Make sure you are out of the way of traffic. Apply your parking brake. If you have an automatic transmission, place the car in “park.” Manual transmissions should be placed in first gear or reverse. Turn off your engine and turn on your hazard lights.
The tongue is much softer than fingers, so it can provide the gentlest possible stimulation of the clitoris and vulva. For many women, the gentleness of oral sex is what makes it so enjoyable. Tell a new lover that you’d like to go down on her. Either say something, or kiss her on the way down--her neck, the tops of her breasts, her nipples, her belly, so she gets the idea where you’re headed. You might check in saying, “I’d like to keep going down. It that okay?” Move down slowly.
Remove your wheel covers (if applicable). Depending on the type you have, you may need to unlock them first. Others can be popped off or unscrewed. Loosen, but do not remove, the lug nuts. Usually you can achieve this by turning them about a half-turn counterclockwise. Determine the proper positioning for your jack according to the owner’s manual and raise the car until the tire barely touches the ground. It should take the weight off the tire, but not come off the ground.
Make sure you're in a comfortable position. Lying on the bed on your stomach between the woman’s legs might strain your neck. You might slip a pillow under the woman’s hips to raise her a bit. Or you might coax her butt to the side of the bed and kneel on the floor to lick her. Begin slowly--and very gently. Don’t dive into cunnilingus all at once. Start by nuzzling, kissing, and licking her inner thighs and the area around her vulva. Anticipation of cunnilingus can feel very arousing to women. As you move toward her genitals, begin by licking the fleshy outer lips. Run your tongue up and down them. Nibble them gently with your lips. Next, work your tongue in between the outer lips to caress the smaller, thinner inner lips. Then circle the vaginal opening and perhaps insert your tongue--or a finger or two--lovingly inside her vagina. Approach the clitoris very slowly and gently. Some women enjoy a man’s tongue directly on the clitoris. Others find direct clitoral licking too intense, even uncomfortable. They prefer it when the tongue only lightly caresses the clitoris or circles it, which stimulates it, but less directly.
Rotate the lug wrench counterclockwise, removing each lug nut. In order to remove the flat tire, it will be easiest if you position your hands at the “three o’clock” and “nine o’clock” positions and pull it straight toward you. Replace the flat with your spare tire. It’s easier if you align the holes in your spare tire with the bolts first, then place it firmly on them. Replace and slightly tighten the lug nuts. Lower your car back to the ground and then finish tightening the lug nuts in a cross pattern.
Check in with her as you lick: "Is this too intense?" "Do you want it lighter? Or should I bear down more?" Check in often until you're confident that you know her preferences. Then check in periodically after that. Preferences change, or she may just be in the mood for something a little different. Be patient. Some women feel reluctant to discuss their reactions to oral sex. Instead they use “body language.” They might squirm if they find a certain lick uncomfortable. Unfortunately, it’s very easy for a man to misinterpret body language and think that when she’s writhing in discomfort, she’s actually in the throes of delight. That’s why it’s important to check in verbally: “Is this too intense?” "Is this okay?”
Place the flat tire where the spare was located. Put your tools back in the proper places and conduct a final check to be sure you haven’t forgotten anything. Get to a service station as soon as possible. You will need to have the flat tire repaired and reinstalled (if possible) and have your lug nuts tightened with a torque wrench to the proper specification for your vehicle.
Be gentle while she's having her orgasm and after. Many women experience unusual clitoral sensitivity and don’t like to be touched or licked there. This is normal. If you like “last licks” after she comes, check in about where and when she might like to be licked. If not her clitoris, perhaps her vaginal lips or vaginal opening. Or come up from between her legs and hold her, kiss her, and massage her any way she likes. Many men enjoy being very close to the vulva as the woman ejaculates, and have no problem ingesting some of the fluid. It’s safe to ingest. Female ejaculate is not urine, though it may contain some dilute urine. It appears to be chemically closer to prostate fluid, so ingesting it is not all that different from a woman swallowing a man’s semen.
Monday, January 22, 2007
burying morphine/Natural High
wow! i forgot that the band Sister Machine Gun existed. I only ever had one of their albums.. well, two, but one was scratched/rendered unlistenable when i bought it used. and i downloaded the MP3s but forgot anyway/ also I bought their 3rd or fourth album as well, listened a couple of tims, and got bored. But "Burn" was good. See this is what happens when you have a CD player in your car, which is pretty much neglected as the technology is obsolete these days. But since my iPod is in disrepair, i was forced to dig through my CD Graveyard...
+++RANDOM THOUGHTS+++
Myspace is just no fun anymore. I can't just log in and browse thru random strangers' profiles at the drop of a hat any longer. "This profile is viewable by member's friends only, he or she must add you as a friend first..." blah blah blah. No more stalking. I used to come home drunk from the bars, back in the good old days, after hitting on real women in person I could spend the next couple of hours wearing down the remainder of my drunk energy hitting on cyberwomen. I had some good lines too, dammit. I am a better writer drunk than sober, ya know. But those days are gone, now all I can do when I come home is cry while i masturbate in front of the PC, ulimately to pass out for my girlfriend to find.. a lovely sight, indeed..
I know, my page is "private" as well, but hell I am looking for a job. When that situation changes I'll probably unhide it anyway (unless... too lazy)
I broke level 30 on Columns today. Level 32 to be exact. no one in the world would care about this, except maybe the swede who invented the damn game. Except he probably would not care either, he's probably too high off his goddaned royalties. Screw you Sega. i want royalties too dammit. I must have put like 45 minutes into that session. Someday my gameboy battery will wither up an die and I will have to get back to reading things... sigh..
Good show at the local comedy club tomorrow night. Some of my favorite stand-ups.. i'd love to go. Five dollar! Plus about the same number of minutes ot walk there from my apartment. Sold out, but some tix are available atthe door... hmm.
i remember partying in college. so different from the drunk i would eventually become. I would nurse several beers (10?) all night, they'd get me very mellow but pretty happy.. and i was still particularly shy. a far cry from my Hollywood Alter Ego.. "Take No Prisoners" they call me (not really). I miss that guy, he's been dead and buried in the ground/frozen in the Tundra for ages now. I wonder what he's up to.. not even needling around in my subconciousness. What's a good mutliple personality disorder without some way to express itself? This is what i get for being somewhat responsible, or organized. I'll blame it on being Jewish, there's a limit to how fucked up we can get (that's not true, there's comedy gold to be mined in that joke right there.. save that for another time, though). Yeah, everyone's got their particular flavor of fucked-up, is all i gotta say...
i still have a horrible addiciton to wikipedia. Everytime I see that word written out it registers in my head as "wicked pedophile" - no, that's a far different website. Could be a good old-school punk song though... anyway my HD is loaded with half-read wiki bookmarks. I am infinitely interested in he oodlesof endless odds n ends in this world, so we're a natural fit.. I should maybe take some speedreading course so I can process it faster (no good, my ADD would clash with it off the bat) Maybe I could drink more decaf tea and less Coke for starters, either waay the fact/problem remains i am an info junkie for everything between the history of Ferrari to Civil War memoribilia and how much Pro NFL players made in 1964. Why this is, I am not sure, the brain is a large, unfathomable place...
sometimes I look on other people's blogs and i see the BS they write and they'll have lik 484 friends (plus a couple placeholders ahead of that) and "who gives kudos" is usually quite a long list (remember when they used to be called "props" for 15 minutes?), followed by all the actual comments. "You go girl!" "I hear you sister!! We still love you!!" "Yur so hottt n sxxxxyYYY" and etc etc. I notice the disparity on my blog, where's MY PAGES OF PROPS? Oh gah wait I am not a drunk teenybopper with pigtail who everyone wants to bang, i am a stifled psuedo-intellectual retard with long swervy and meandering sentances pretty much whining and bitching about metaphysical non-problems from a Future wich May Not Happen Anyway (see what I mean?) Once the Time Travel issues with blogging have been neutralized, then the Mexicans in the Real Future AB Earth-2 will bombard all of my websites and fill up my guestbooks with quotations, notes of peace and love, letters of agreement and perfunctory marriage proposals, so it's only a matter of time and I don't mind - I'll enjoy the peace and quiet while it lasts.
I take it back, though, i forget I AM a drunken teenybopper who everyone wants to bang, I haven't got pigtails though. Maybe it's 'cause of the smelly ass and sweaty palms (so many of my problems in the greater avenues of my life become suddenly, glaringly apparent)
I just wrote a nice paragraph about infections, boils and cancer, and subsequent imagines home-remedies for treating such things (hogwash, BTW) but then I promptly deleted that as it was starting to make me feel a little upset with myself. I need a drink. A backrub would be nice too. Fuck, a Hot Tub.
I hate Flash-created Advertisements on the web. Nothing is more irritating than when you are trying to read something and then this bullshit is looping on the side of the screen, some ad for a new movie with cars crashing and rain falling and thunderbolts and shit. Here's a tip, it doesn't work every time but often enough.. if that stuff is making you insane, right click over the ad. If it's Flash, sometimes it will give you the option to Rewind or something.. set that, and it'll revert to the first frame and maybe even stay there, frozen.. sometimes just a black display or something. Whewwwwwww...
+++RANDOM THOUGHTS+++
Myspace is just no fun anymore. I can't just log in and browse thru random strangers' profiles at the drop of a hat any longer. "This profile is viewable by member's friends only, he or she must add you as a friend first..." blah blah blah. No more stalking. I used to come home drunk from the bars, back in the good old days, after hitting on real women in person I could spend the next couple of hours wearing down the remainder of my drunk energy hitting on cyberwomen. I had some good lines too, dammit. I am a better writer drunk than sober, ya know. But those days are gone, now all I can do when I come home is cry while i masturbate in front of the PC, ulimately to pass out for my girlfriend to find.. a lovely sight, indeed..
I know, my page is "private" as well, but hell I am looking for a job. When that situation changes I'll probably unhide it anyway (unless... too lazy)
I broke level 30 on Columns today. Level 32 to be exact. no one in the world would care about this, except maybe the swede who invented the damn game. Except he probably would not care either, he's probably too high off his goddaned royalties. Screw you Sega. i want royalties too dammit. I must have put like 45 minutes into that session. Someday my gameboy battery will wither up an die and I will have to get back to reading things... sigh..
Good show at the local comedy club tomorrow night. Some of my favorite stand-ups.. i'd love to go. Five dollar! Plus about the same number of minutes ot walk there from my apartment. Sold out, but some tix are available atthe door... hmm.
i remember partying in college. so different from the drunk i would eventually become. I would nurse several beers (10?) all night, they'd get me very mellow but pretty happy.. and i was still particularly shy. a far cry from my Hollywood Alter Ego.. "Take No Prisoners" they call me (not really). I miss that guy, he's been dead and buried in the ground/frozen in the Tundra for ages now. I wonder what he's up to.. not even needling around in my subconciousness. What's a good mutliple personality disorder without some way to express itself? This is what i get for being somewhat responsible, or organized. I'll blame it on being Jewish, there's a limit to how fucked up we can get (that's not true, there's comedy gold to be mined in that joke right there.. save that for another time, though). Yeah, everyone's got their particular flavor of fucked-up, is all i gotta say...
i still have a horrible addiciton to wikipedia. Everytime I see that word written out it registers in my head as "wicked pedophile" - no, that's a far different website. Could be a good old-school punk song though... anyway my HD is loaded with half-read wiki bookmarks. I am infinitely interested in he oodlesof endless odds n ends in this world, so we're a natural fit.. I should maybe take some speedreading course so I can process it faster (no good, my ADD would clash with it off the bat) Maybe I could drink more decaf tea and less Coke for starters, either waay the fact/problem remains i am an info junkie for everything between the history of Ferrari to Civil War memoribilia and how much Pro NFL players made in 1964. Why this is, I am not sure, the brain is a large, unfathomable place...
sometimes I look on other people's blogs and i see the BS they write and they'll have lik 484 friends (plus a couple placeholders ahead of that) and "who gives kudos" is usually quite a long list (remember when they used to be called "props" for 15 minutes?), followed by all the actual comments. "You go girl!" "I hear you sister!! We still love you!!" "Yur so hottt n sxxxxyYYY" and etc etc. I notice the disparity on my blog, where's MY PAGES OF PROPS? Oh gah wait I am not a drunk teenybopper with pigtail who everyone wants to bang, i am a stifled psuedo-intellectual retard with long swervy and meandering sentances pretty much whining and bitching about metaphysical non-problems from a Future wich May Not Happen Anyway (see what I mean?) Once the Time Travel issues with blogging have been neutralized, then the Mexicans in the Real Future AB Earth-2 will bombard all of my websites and fill up my guestbooks with quotations, notes of peace and love, letters of agreement and perfunctory marriage proposals, so it's only a matter of time and I don't mind - I'll enjoy the peace and quiet while it lasts.
I take it back, though, i forget I AM a drunken teenybopper who everyone wants to bang, I haven't got pigtails though. Maybe it's 'cause of the smelly ass and sweaty palms (so many of my problems in the greater avenues of my life become suddenly, glaringly apparent)
I just wrote a nice paragraph about infections, boils and cancer, and subsequent imagines home-remedies for treating such things (hogwash, BTW) but then I promptly deleted that as it was starting to make me feel a little upset with myself. I need a drink. A backrub would be nice too. Fuck, a Hot Tub.
I hate Flash-created Advertisements on the web. Nothing is more irritating than when you are trying to read something and then this bullshit is looping on the side of the screen, some ad for a new movie with cars crashing and rain falling and thunderbolts and shit. Here's a tip, it doesn't work every time but often enough.. if that stuff is making you insane, right click over the ad. If it's Flash, sometimes it will give you the option to Rewind or something.. set that, and it'll revert to the first frame and maybe even stay there, frozen.. sometimes just a black display or something. Whewwwwwww...
stacked with misery
saturday night was weird dreams night. i never have those, you know?
another work-related dream (love those though) but it was not too bad. actually it didn't get that contextual.. anyway it was one of those "flying dreams," of which I have had a handful in my life. most of them were when i was a little kid, and rather than fly per se i could jump extremly high into the air, coast easily, then land and take another huge jump. this dream was more controllable flying though. felt REALLY COOL whatever it was. too bad you can't do stuff like that in real life (btw.. jumping out of a plane does not feel like flying...)
anyway at some point in the dream I was holding a piece of paper, and noticed that there was this extremely tiny dot on it. for some reason it struck me as odd, and i concentrated on it and noticed that.. it was a microscopic PERSON! he was wearing some kind of blue full-body suit.. i suddenly feared for him (as he was so tiny and i didn't want to drop or squish him somehow) Though, mind you, he was small enough that he wouldn't even be step-on-able, if you know what i mean. Anyway he somehow told me that he was working for the military, and he needed help getting back to fullsize as some experiment had gone awry and he was being left to figure it out on his own. I woke up and had one of those confused feelings where it happened too fast and my dream-logic overlapped with my real-world logic, momentarily.. as I roused, I feared I might lose him in my bed somewhere, or my girlfriend might roll onto him, and I was sad that i didn't get to find out more about how, exactly, he'd gotten so small. He was about to call me on his cell phone and explain it...
dream logic frightens me... i wish i could tap into that unreality some more, sometimes, but i have come to the conclusion that I don't wanna fuck with my brain too much because it will unseat everything that is real and logical to me. hnce, no psychotropic drugs, thanks very much. There's always the chance that such a thing could occur naturally i suppose, especially if i keep up this habit of keeping such crazy hours.
my head is really all over the place about the recent developments in my life. the usual things I have been bitching about,a nd feel no need to repeat. suffice to say it's still a very real and pertinent thing in many regards, to how i am conducting my days right now. i love the irony of "a new year, a fresh start" and all of that. oh, how much richer it would be if i was almost 30... i would take that as a sign, most likely. Stranger still (or not so mucjh, if you know how my brain works) I have actually considered putting certain future decisions to the flip of a coin. That's how i will usualy gambled in vegas, and it's served me fairly well enough. It would be a great story for my life, but somehow that feels a little to0 ludicrous even for me. I have enough stories by now don't I, anyway?
Probably not.
In the meantime, I have been crankin' away on another art test - and I have an interview for a possibly decent job tomorrow (unrelated). let's see what else this week brings, siiiiigh.
things to do:
finish art test
wash couch slipcover, bedding
start trackin' down my god-dadaDAMNED car title (still haven't received it)
return to the gym (it's been about 6 weeks.. at least?)
shoot some photos in town, i need a lot more reference while the getting's good
waiting for 2 paychecks in the mail
comedy show tues night would be fun to check out
read bryan's novel
shave (it's reassuring to put easy things on the list)
look for iPod warranty, though it's a futile task
buy some food for my fridge, stop eating so much take-out (expensive)
valentine's day??
guess that's it for my life, then... for the moment.
another work-related dream (love those though) but it was not too bad. actually it didn't get that contextual.. anyway it was one of those "flying dreams," of which I have had a handful in my life. most of them were when i was a little kid, and rather than fly per se i could jump extremly high into the air, coast easily, then land and take another huge jump. this dream was more controllable flying though. felt REALLY COOL whatever it was. too bad you can't do stuff like that in real life (btw.. jumping out of a plane does not feel like flying...)
anyway at some point in the dream I was holding a piece of paper, and noticed that there was this extremely tiny dot on it. for some reason it struck me as odd, and i concentrated on it and noticed that.. it was a microscopic PERSON! he was wearing some kind of blue full-body suit.. i suddenly feared for him (as he was so tiny and i didn't want to drop or squish him somehow) Though, mind you, he was small enough that he wouldn't even be step-on-able, if you know what i mean. Anyway he somehow told me that he was working for the military, and he needed help getting back to fullsize as some experiment had gone awry and he was being left to figure it out on his own. I woke up and had one of those confused feelings where it happened too fast and my dream-logic overlapped with my real-world logic, momentarily.. as I roused, I feared I might lose him in my bed somewhere, or my girlfriend might roll onto him, and I was sad that i didn't get to find out more about how, exactly, he'd gotten so small. He was about to call me on his cell phone and explain it...
dream logic frightens me... i wish i could tap into that unreality some more, sometimes, but i have come to the conclusion that I don't wanna fuck with my brain too much because it will unseat everything that is real and logical to me. hnce, no psychotropic drugs, thanks very much. There's always the chance that such a thing could occur naturally i suppose, especially if i keep up this habit of keeping such crazy hours.
my head is really all over the place about the recent developments in my life. the usual things I have been bitching about,a nd feel no need to repeat. suffice to say it's still a very real and pertinent thing in many regards, to how i am conducting my days right now. i love the irony of "a new year, a fresh start" and all of that. oh, how much richer it would be if i was almost 30... i would take that as a sign, most likely. Stranger still (or not so mucjh, if you know how my brain works) I have actually considered putting certain future decisions to the flip of a coin. That's how i will usualy gambled in vegas, and it's served me fairly well enough. It would be a great story for my life, but somehow that feels a little to0 ludicrous even for me. I have enough stories by now don't I, anyway?
Probably not.
In the meantime, I have been crankin' away on another art test - and I have an interview for a possibly decent job tomorrow (unrelated). let's see what else this week brings, siiiiigh.
things to do:
finish art test
wash couch slipcover, bedding
start trackin' down my god-dadaDAMNED car title (still haven't received it)
return to the gym (it's been about 6 weeks.. at least?)
shoot some photos in town, i need a lot more reference while the getting's good
waiting for 2 paychecks in the mail
comedy show tues night would be fun to check out
read bryan's novel
shave (it's reassuring to put easy things on the list)
look for iPod warranty, though it's a futile task
buy some food for my fridge, stop eating so much take-out (expensive)
valentine's day??
guess that's it for my life, then... for the moment.
Saturday, January 20, 2007
scratch multiply
whew, there goes january. pooped out like a deuce through the hole at the bottom of my soul.
if i am not the geniusest poet yet, i don't know who is. BAH! WORSHIP MY GENIUS! Bow before my criminal neglect... open the flue into the chimneys of your collective discontent, my poor sorry children, and eat the nectar of my flowerbed of Obsessive Compulsive Whackitude. Or was that whack-a-mole. Screw you, buddy, screw youuuuu.
Okay, well it is now about nearly 3:30 in the morning. Time is sort of an irrelevancy around here, I am in the phase where I will work until exhaustion, then go upstairs (or just collapse on the couch) and turn off for a brief coupla hours, before snapping back in and reloading to the workstation. I gotta say, I have been a heavily prolific mofo the past couple days, weeks, maybe the past month and a half really. I completed an art test for the NYC job, here's some renders of how this thing came out.
I did some different things with lighting for the first time, which is nice to be able to have. It used to be a very dirty and painful thing to set up realistic lighting inhe 3D packages (though the effects would be worth it for those willing to put in the time and effort). but take it from a nerd, you hadda be a SUPERnerd to really manage that stuff properly. Imagine those huge soundboards you see in pictures of recording studios, you know with like the hundreds of tiny knobs on them, to control gazillions of settings. Ok not QUITE that bad but they definitely have to be neighbors. Your grama couldn't do it anyway (mine could!). Point being is now it's a lot easier for "joe Schmoe" texture artist such as mysef to get that sweet sweet realistic looking lighting going, as opposed to the flat useless "simple grade with shitty grainy aliased edges" that is part of your usual garden variety playstation game, or the "plastic toy was made in Taiwan" look that's usually been the only other option.
So there.
Anyway I sent my stuff off to NYC. Tha's been doing a number onmy head, but as it's out of my hands now, i feel some relief in that I don't have to deal with it anymore (for the time being). In fact i rather hope they take their time. Meanwhile I have set up another interview in Orange County for next Tuesday - phone interview, projct could be cool and might even be worth the hassle of commuting. The NYC job still wins hands-down for "most likely to be rotten fun and also make Ron rich," and usually that's enough reasons for me to ask for a dotted line to sign on. But of course, there's reasons not to pack my bags just yet.
Also I am working on a follow-up art test for a well-know santa monica developer, I churned it out a month ao (in the middle of cranking on freelance) and was rejected at that point. I had the guy's email and buttered him up a tad to ask for "one more chance?" He appreciated the note and gave me the green light, so I am once again grindng away.. and so goes my weekend...
It's weird, I have been in absolute workaholic mode for a little while now, and it's not been.. well it's not been bad, it's been very god for me to keep as busy as I have been, and working purely under my own steam with some kind of future hanging in the balance, "it's all up to me.." This is very very different than working on a straight project, a personal one or as part of some production staff, as I am basically doing the one-an operation across the board by my lonesome. Lonesome yes, but empowering and ego-gratifying in a way as well. I would think many people would be miserable with their situation at this point "cabin fever! get me outta my house!" But it is nice on those occasions when I feel like I am in charge of my space.. a one-man wrecing crew.
It must be noted that my social life has become completely dissolved as of late. I have made the rare appearance here or there, and it's definitely frustrating enough to make me "miss being active within the social context of the human race.." I will say that in hindsight, I DO miss it, and as such my general happiness level is not the same. Hey, I LIKE to go out! Dance around, have some drinks, be a person! most guys of my caliber would probably prefer the opposite but sitting on my ass this much makes me cagey in any event. Also it is weird to break out of the "work-party-work-party" pattern, but it is reassuring to know that altough I can drink my share of Madman Formula, i don't seem to be suffering from the typical levels of Alcoholism. When I am getting good i can go out and wreck it a couple of times a week, at least - but in tese as of lacking time and money that's not an option, and ye while I sure miss the fun of it, the release, the wild abandon. the chaos.. (I COULD go on).. i am definitely not suffering some kind of shitty withdrawal, a beer will always be appealing but I am not by any means jonesing "I NEEEED MY MEDICINE!" That's a relief anyway, sometimes I know I can be pretty demonstrative, in some ways, of the darker side of those sort of things, well at least due the consistent blackouts (both in my braincells and wallet contents).but hey, we all have our things.
Almost 4am. I am resisting the urge to hop inmy car and drive somewhere and just buy a cheeseburger or somethin.. I have the urge to consume lots of junk lately. I will burn through a 2Liter of Coke in like, a day or two. I think I am hurting for caffiene and sugar.
btw, the renders above.. I worked on that stuff for shy of a week I guess, but it didn't start looking actually "nice" until te very last day.. it seriously went from 65 percent to 89 percent... now that I am getting clued on by the "ease of new lighting tools" I am getting a fire lit under my ass to make some nice new work for my portfolio, actually. shoot some pics, build some city blocks.. that would be fun and pay off, i do believe. We'll see what next week brings, I suppose.
So, that's where my brain's at. Okay brain, stop documenting and get back to the work, WHIP CRACK NOISE--
if i am not the geniusest poet yet, i don't know who is. BAH! WORSHIP MY GENIUS! Bow before my criminal neglect... open the flue into the chimneys of your collective discontent, my poor sorry children, and eat the nectar of my flowerbed of Obsessive Compulsive Whackitude. Or was that whack-a-mole. Screw you, buddy, screw youuuuu.
Okay, well it is now about nearly 3:30 in the morning. Time is sort of an irrelevancy around here, I am in the phase where I will work until exhaustion, then go upstairs (or just collapse on the couch) and turn off for a brief coupla hours, before snapping back in and reloading to the workstation. I gotta say, I have been a heavily prolific mofo the past couple days, weeks, maybe the past month and a half really. I completed an art test for the NYC job, here's some renders of how this thing came out.
I did some different things with lighting for the first time, which is nice to be able to have. It used to be a very dirty and painful thing to set up realistic lighting inhe 3D packages (though the effects would be worth it for those willing to put in the time and effort). but take it from a nerd, you hadda be a SUPERnerd to really manage that stuff properly. Imagine those huge soundboards you see in pictures of recording studios, you know with like the hundreds of tiny knobs on them, to control gazillions of settings. Ok not QUITE that bad but they definitely have to be neighbors. Your grama couldn't do it anyway (mine could!). Point being is now it's a lot easier for "joe Schmoe" texture artist such as mysef to get that sweet sweet realistic looking lighting going, as opposed to the flat useless "simple grade with shitty grainy aliased edges" that is part of your usual garden variety playstation game, or the "plastic toy was made in Taiwan" look that's usually been the only other option.
So there.
Anyway I sent my stuff off to NYC. Tha's been doing a number onmy head, but as it's out of my hands now, i feel some relief in that I don't have to deal with it anymore (for the time being). In fact i rather hope they take their time. Meanwhile I have set up another interview in Orange County for next Tuesday - phone interview, projct could be cool and might even be worth the hassle of commuting. The NYC job still wins hands-down for "most likely to be rotten fun and also make Ron rich," and usually that's enough reasons for me to ask for a dotted line to sign on. But of course, there's reasons not to pack my bags just yet.
Also I am working on a follow-up art test for a well-know santa monica developer, I churned it out a month ao (in the middle of cranking on freelance) and was rejected at that point. I had the guy's email and buttered him up a tad to ask for "one more chance?" He appreciated the note and gave me the green light, so I am once again grindng away.. and so goes my weekend...
It's weird, I have been in absolute workaholic mode for a little while now, and it's not been.. well it's not been bad, it's been very god for me to keep as busy as I have been, and working purely under my own steam with some kind of future hanging in the balance, "it's all up to me.." This is very very different than working on a straight project, a personal one or as part of some production staff, as I am basically doing the one-an operation across the board by my lonesome. Lonesome yes, but empowering and ego-gratifying in a way as well. I would think many people would be miserable with their situation at this point "cabin fever! get me outta my house!" But it is nice on those occasions when I feel like I am in charge of my space.. a one-man wrecing crew.
It must be noted that my social life has become completely dissolved as of late. I have made the rare appearance here or there, and it's definitely frustrating enough to make me "miss being active within the social context of the human race.." I will say that in hindsight, I DO miss it, and as such my general happiness level is not the same. Hey, I LIKE to go out! Dance around, have some drinks, be a person! most guys of my caliber would probably prefer the opposite but sitting on my ass this much makes me cagey in any event. Also it is weird to break out of the "work-party-work-party" pattern, but it is reassuring to know that altough I can drink my share of Madman Formula, i don't seem to be suffering from the typical levels of Alcoholism. When I am getting good i can go out and wreck it a couple of times a week, at least - but in tese as of lacking time and money that's not an option, and ye while I sure miss the fun of it, the release, the wild abandon. the chaos.. (I COULD go on).. i am definitely not suffering some kind of shitty withdrawal, a beer will always be appealing but I am not by any means jonesing "I NEEEED MY MEDICINE!" That's a relief anyway, sometimes I know I can be pretty demonstrative, in some ways, of the darker side of those sort of things, well at least due the consistent blackouts (both in my braincells and wallet contents).but hey, we all have our things.
Almost 4am. I am resisting the urge to hop inmy car and drive somewhere and just buy a cheeseburger or somethin.. I have the urge to consume lots of junk lately. I will burn through a 2Liter of Coke in like, a day or two. I think I am hurting for caffiene and sugar.
btw, the renders above.. I worked on that stuff for shy of a week I guess, but it didn't start looking actually "nice" until te very last day.. it seriously went from 65 percent to 89 percent... now that I am getting clued on by the "ease of new lighting tools" I am getting a fire lit under my ass to make some nice new work for my portfolio, actually. shoot some pics, build some city blocks.. that would be fun and pay off, i do believe. We'll see what next week brings, I suppose.
So, that's where my brain's at. Okay brain, stop documenting and get back to the work, WHIP CRACK NOISE--
Monday, January 15, 2007
send me an angel
the following is an email i just sent to my friend Josh, synopsizing a dream I had last night:
last night i dreamt we were all in vegas at a fancy-expensive hotel (you me mullahy jess lynn myklynn.. however you spell her damned name.. fuckin hippie irish parents)... also some Jewish guy who was sleeping with my girlfriend (yay!), but was my roomate. We were all doing some kinda weird drug, and you had some fancy suite there. I found a sega saturn (1990s video gam system) in there (you were holding out on me!) and a ton of games, but they were all stored in this strange razor-sharp disc case which would SLICE YOUR PENIS OFF if you didn't have a key to open it properly. i am not kidding.
the only game not in the penis-slicing case was already in the saturn, which you were playing while everyone else was getting fucked up. it was some Japanese RPG where you could turn into different characters, one of which was a brown wolf who could spontaneously combust and kill sheep and farmers (in school classrooms, or government offices) with his flames.
last night i dreamt we were all in vegas at a fancy-expensive hotel (you me mullahy jess lynn myklynn.. however you spell her damned name.. fuckin hippie irish parents)... also some Jewish guy who was sleeping with my girlfriend (yay!), but was my roomate. We were all doing some kinda weird drug, and you had some fancy suite there. I found a sega saturn (1990s video gam system) in there (you were holding out on me!) and a ton of games, but they were all stored in this strange razor-sharp disc case which would SLICE YOUR PENIS OFF if you didn't have a key to open it properly. i am not kidding.
the only game not in the penis-slicing case was already in the saturn, which you were playing while everyone else was getting fucked up. it was some Japanese RPG where you could turn into different characters, one of which was a brown wolf who could spontaneously combust and kill sheep and farmers (in school classrooms, or government offices) with his flames.
lemur rollovers
sunday night/monday morning, and guess what.. yep, another weekend of work, work, work. that's my new name. Work W. Work. But it is cool. Good to be busy. good output is coming out of me as well - mind you, switching gears is always a pain in the ass, even when i am going between relatively similar types of work - trying to change up a style/tech/purpose can be a little tricky. but hey, versatility is the name of this job, right? As usual, I am working under the gun - have to get high-quality churned out in minimal amount of time, which can be a bitch (today i had lots of tech problms with my PC - it --needs-- a serious reformatting, and that is much easier sad than done.. like, a couple of days, in my usual case) - so i lost a bit of time trying to keep mymachine from blowing up all over the place. But like I said, my work is coming along relativly well, I keep matching it up to the reference material, and it's looking nice beside it. Pulling off nice lighting (using a method sort of alien to me) will be the true pain-in-the-ass part of this process, I believe. Cross tht bridge when i come to it.
Last night was interesting, I went out to meet some friends for a little birthday get-together. that was fun, i haven't gone out in what amounts to a little while. The evening did start getting a little pricey, and so I had to cut out early. I regretted being a lame-o and leaving, but in my current lifestyle I can not afford to be a partier anymore, that's for sure. besides, I'd had enough fun for one night, drank a little, danced a little, feeling a little better in health.. Had some nice conversation, etc. I stopped by Tommy's to get a burger to soak up my booze and wipe out my buzz (it was getting close to the edge, meaning - I would have stayed out and partied all night!) But a hamburger and brisk walk home kept me grounded. Some dudes hit on me as I innocently ate my Tommyburger, that seems to be happening to me a bit lately (being hit on by dudes, as opposed to chicks - not to imply that the ladies hit on me particularly very much). A lot of guys would usually have an aggressive reaction to such a thing, I guess, but it always strikes me as kinda funny.. but more than that, I am a guy and being a guy, I know what urges men are possessed of - so I will try to keep my cool and give a "leave me alone" without being an asshole vibe, surprisingly that will work.. amazing eh?? Especially if it's someone with an advantage over you (they have a car, or there's more of them than you, etc) - you DON'T wanna be messing with people at crazy hours when they may be out of their minds on whatever substances - whatever their sexual proclivities may be. Anyway, that was that - i walked home, took a shower (to wash the FILTH OF THE CITY OFF OF ME), worked for a couple of hours, and then passed out, safe and sound in my bed...
Today, as I was saying, was just working.. I did do something pretty stupid though. I like to think that like most people of my age, I know a thing or two about.. the world, I mean I can make a sandwich, built a fighter jet in Maya, win a game of Altered Beast on Sega Genesis with my feet -- but apparently little else. I pikced up some pizza for dinner, and it was rather cold by the time I managed to get the thing home, so i fired the ol' oven up to 400 degrees and slid in the pizza. This may be a surprise, but honestly, i have NEVER DONE THIS BEFORE. If the pizza is cold I will zap it in the micro, but for some reason the non-rubberiness of oven-baked heating sounded more apprealing on this particularly chilly, and hungry, evening. So yeah, slid the pizza in, but in my infinite ignorance I stuck the whole cardboard box in there. Yup, you can guess what happened next - ten minutes had barely passed (even that long?) and I smelled some bad burning stench coming from the oven, "uh oh, that cannot be goooood.." And of course, natch, i opened the oven to see what's up and was greeted by a huge noxious black smoke cloud which proceeded to fill my kitchen, as the pizza box started BURSTING INTO FLAMES. Awesome. Cough, cough, luckily my girlfriend isn't half the panicky moron I am and she managed to get the fire put out inside of about a half-minute (the thing wasn't like.. BIG, but the smoke was getting thick and I didn't want to be inhaling much of that shit - especially as things were burning in front of me). Anyway, she got it to mellow out, the things was still kindling so i got the whole box (pizza and all) outside onto the cement driveway and doused it generously with water. Then I went and ordered another pizza, which actually got eaten instead of burned. So yeah, even at 32 years of age, we do stupid-ass clueless things sometimes. It's a good thing I am not an astronaut. The irony is that I took the little plastic "Y" out of the box before sliding it into the oven "so it would not melt into the pizza and get eaten." Whatever, crisis averted, pride is swallowed, some money wasted, no Anal Rape from Drunk Gay Men, and life goes on. C'est la Vie.
Last night was interesting, I went out to meet some friends for a little birthday get-together. that was fun, i haven't gone out in what amounts to a little while. The evening did start getting a little pricey, and so I had to cut out early. I regretted being a lame-o and leaving, but in my current lifestyle I can not afford to be a partier anymore, that's for sure. besides, I'd had enough fun for one night, drank a little, danced a little, feeling a little better in health.. Had some nice conversation, etc. I stopped by Tommy's to get a burger to soak up my booze and wipe out my buzz (it was getting close to the edge, meaning - I would have stayed out and partied all night!) But a hamburger and brisk walk home kept me grounded. Some dudes hit on me as I innocently ate my Tommyburger, that seems to be happening to me a bit lately (being hit on by dudes, as opposed to chicks - not to imply that the ladies hit on me particularly very much). A lot of guys would usually have an aggressive reaction to such a thing, I guess, but it always strikes me as kinda funny.. but more than that, I am a guy and being a guy, I know what urges men are possessed of - so I will try to keep my cool and give a "leave me alone" without being an asshole vibe, surprisingly that will work.. amazing eh?? Especially if it's someone with an advantage over you (they have a car, or there's more of them than you, etc) - you DON'T wanna be messing with people at crazy hours when they may be out of their minds on whatever substances - whatever their sexual proclivities may be. Anyway, that was that - i walked home, took a shower (to wash the FILTH OF THE CITY OFF OF ME), worked for a couple of hours, and then passed out, safe and sound in my bed...
Today, as I was saying, was just working.. I did do something pretty stupid though. I like to think that like most people of my age, I know a thing or two about.. the world, I mean I can make a sandwich, built a fighter jet in Maya, win a game of Altered Beast on Sega Genesis with my feet -- but apparently little else. I pikced up some pizza for dinner, and it was rather cold by the time I managed to get the thing home, so i fired the ol' oven up to 400 degrees and slid in the pizza. This may be a surprise, but honestly, i have NEVER DONE THIS BEFORE. If the pizza is cold I will zap it in the micro, but for some reason the non-rubberiness of oven-baked heating sounded more apprealing on this particularly chilly, and hungry, evening. So yeah, slid the pizza in, but in my infinite ignorance I stuck the whole cardboard box in there. Yup, you can guess what happened next - ten minutes had barely passed (even that long?) and I smelled some bad burning stench coming from the oven, "uh oh, that cannot be goooood.." And of course, natch, i opened the oven to see what's up and was greeted by a huge noxious black smoke cloud which proceeded to fill my kitchen, as the pizza box started BURSTING INTO FLAMES. Awesome. Cough, cough, luckily my girlfriend isn't half the panicky moron I am and she managed to get the fire put out inside of about a half-minute (the thing wasn't like.. BIG, but the smoke was getting thick and I didn't want to be inhaling much of that shit - especially as things were burning in front of me). Anyway, she got it to mellow out, the things was still kindling so i got the whole box (pizza and all) outside onto the cement driveway and doused it generously with water. Then I went and ordered another pizza, which actually got eaten instead of burned. So yeah, even at 32 years of age, we do stupid-ass clueless things sometimes. It's a good thing I am not an astronaut. The irony is that I took the little plastic "Y" out of the box before sliding it into the oven "so it would not melt into the pizza and get eaten." Whatever, crisis averted, pride is swallowed, some money wasted, no Anal Rape from Drunk Gay Men, and life goes on. C'est la Vie.
Saturday, January 13, 2007
petulance goes unanswered
hard to believe time is a-chuggin' on as quickly as it has been. JAWHOL!! Yeah, well, saturday night. Another day plasterized in front of the computer, I am doing an art test for the NYC job. Phone interview was yesterday, and it went well (hence the art test). My spirits've been a little sluggish to get all wrapped up in it, but i am, as i said, "chuggin' along..." Easy stuff, more of the sae I've been doing, though perhaps a little knee-urdier. Actually this job is looking prety good, and of all the prospects i have going on right now (.....) it's one of the best for my career, in some ways. I am sad, still, thinking about the prospect of leaving LA - for ANY reason.. hopefully some other shit will get moving next week. As I always say, "we shall see," friends...
going to tokio tonight as it is Mrs. Brad Lee's birthday celebration-skaganza.. or whatever ya wanna call it. It's been awhile since I have hauled ass out to the Cahuenga Corridor on a Saturday night, leastways so much as I have any real memory of such a thing, and I will also admit I sure do not feel like going out and getting, as the young'uns say, all fuxxorezed up, but I guess i can pound back a beer and a vodka and something or other, or two. Though my constitution is not terribly drinkin' friendly right now, I think it'll be a good shot of enthusiasm into my otherwise dull doldromy demeanor of late. Lighten up, bro.
LA is cold, ma. Ca ca ca COLD. Not like horribly freezing, hell not even bad.. if anything, it is feeling somewhat appropriate for the time of year which it is - but HEY now. I have been blasting the heater night and day to keep warm, glad that thing is there!! Whew.... It's definitely the coldest that I have experienced since living out here. Either way, preferable to the usual weather we get at this time of the year (days and days of relentless downpour, actually). Nah, haven't really seen much more than the odd-drop..
YAWN! Tired. these days I do not go outside much, at all. Check the mail, take the garbage barrels in/out, that's about it. the gym? Forget it. I bet my system already has.. I want to get back on the ball with that shit soon, though. hopefully next week will be a little rest, of sorts, for me, and then I can go about grinding back into some more normal of a pattern besides "wake up, plunk down in front of te PC, work till exhaustion, pass out, do again" In spite of my tone, it should be noted that i have been enjoying the work I have done lately, quite a bit - all things considered - and it's ben a nice way to pass the time. In fact if I could crank it up to more regularity/better pay then overall my outlook on everything could drastically improve (..."possbly!") That's a tall order, and a weirder wish than anything else. i think I would have to have things be a lo more stable in such departments, and a little beter feedback overall - but at least i have proven to myself that I can successfully, and happily maintain a freelance lifestyle "working from home." If something else was about to land in my lap of a similar nature, it would be hard to be adverse to it. Maybe.
Yeah, I say that, but there's something nice about having somewhere else to go, and people to be around, all of that. Feeling a little more "normal."
Okay, on that note, time to get me some dinnnnnnner. Vodka cranberry will kick my ass across to Jupiter if i don't have a little food waiting to intercept it.
BTW please pardon my EXTRA-typing atrocities, I know I am pretty bad to begin with but this new keyboard -- which is very nice, might i add -- is still taking a little time for my "flow" to get used to, and once in awhile i'll go back and read a blog or an email and cringe, more than usual. I'm trying...
going to tokio tonight as it is Mrs. Brad Lee's birthday celebration-skaganza.. or whatever ya wanna call it. It's been awhile since I have hauled ass out to the Cahuenga Corridor on a Saturday night, leastways so much as I have any real memory of such a thing, and I will also admit I sure do not feel like going out and getting, as the young'uns say, all fuxxorezed up, but I guess i can pound back a beer and a vodka and something or other, or two. Though my constitution is not terribly drinkin' friendly right now, I think it'll be a good shot of enthusiasm into my otherwise dull doldromy demeanor of late. Lighten up, bro.
LA is cold, ma. Ca ca ca COLD. Not like horribly freezing, hell not even bad.. if anything, it is feeling somewhat appropriate for the time of year which it is - but HEY now. I have been blasting the heater night and day to keep warm, glad that thing is there!! Whew.... It's definitely the coldest that I have experienced since living out here. Either way, preferable to the usual weather we get at this time of the year (days and days of relentless downpour, actually). Nah, haven't really seen much more than the odd-drop..
YAWN! Tired. these days I do not go outside much, at all. Check the mail, take the garbage barrels in/out, that's about it. the gym? Forget it. I bet my system already has.. I want to get back on the ball with that shit soon, though. hopefully next week will be a little rest, of sorts, for me, and then I can go about grinding back into some more normal of a pattern besides "wake up, plunk down in front of te PC, work till exhaustion, pass out, do again" In spite of my tone, it should be noted that i have been enjoying the work I have done lately, quite a bit - all things considered - and it's ben a nice way to pass the time. In fact if I could crank it up to more regularity/better pay then overall my outlook on everything could drastically improve (..."possbly!") That's a tall order, and a weirder wish than anything else. i think I would have to have things be a lo more stable in such departments, and a little beter feedback overall - but at least i have proven to myself that I can successfully, and happily maintain a freelance lifestyle "working from home." If something else was about to land in my lap of a similar nature, it would be hard to be adverse to it. Maybe.
Yeah, I say that, but there's something nice about having somewhere else to go, and people to be around, all of that. Feeling a little more "normal."
Okay, on that note, time to get me some dinnnnnnner. Vodka cranberry will kick my ass across to Jupiter if i don't have a little food waiting to intercept it.
BTW please pardon my EXTRA-typing atrocities, I know I am pretty bad to begin with but this new keyboard -- which is very nice, might i add -- is still taking a little time for my "flow" to get used to, and once in awhile i'll go back and read a blog or an email and cringe, more than usual. I'm trying...
Thursday, January 11, 2007
i beat my inner child
tired. it's been a helluva week (again, and again, and.. again). Forst of all, my place reeks of Garlic. I went to my number one Armenian Muthafuckin' Joint tonight Zankou chicken, and I got the usual - beef Schwaerma with Garlic Sauce - I alwas plow through it and when it's gone, i think to myself hot DAMN, I could do it all over again right now! So tonight, as a bit of a reward to myself for various reasons, i bought two of the damn things, and engulfed them one after the other. Well, sorta. Apparently, the Single Sandwich idea was the proper one, as I got about 1/4 into the second one before my appetite began to diminish. I made it about three-quarters through the Second Schwaerma before my lust for consumption got the kibosh, yo. The remains sat on the plate in front of me for the better part of 90 minutes, or so, as I watched a divx on the telly, uhm, yah.
The movie wasn't so hot. but. I need some time splayed out on my couch, no, SMEARED on my couch like so much cheese sauce, just staring unthinking like some lethargic crustacean, Yes, that sounds somewhat closer to appropriate. Let us restart, shall we.
So I have been working on my freelance gig for just a little more than a month now, and yesterday I wrapped up te end of it. And then today we had our kind of "see ya, all set" meeting to close the book. So, it is done, and I am thrust back into the realm of Free Time.. no more excuses "can't go to the gym," no more dilly-dallying "sorry Matt I haven't time to make a logo for you," no more procrastinating "my apologies, girlfriend, but i must spend all of my waking hours in front of this infernal machine."
And yet.. the job was good to me, when I started it there was little feeling other than "this is a pain in the ass that I do not feel like doing, how can I even pretend to be enthusiastic about working at home, well working at all really, in this godforsaken unforgivin' shit-industry to any degree anymore.." And honestly, I still managed to get into it, got my file-structures all legible, my long-mothballed home methods of getting some shit done back in some sort of order, and I -- gulp -- enjoyed it, for what it was worth. Moreover, I got paid yesterday at LONG FUCKIN' LAST, to add non-insult to lack of injury I received my other check from the stupid stock options today (which I have been trailing for, literally, MONTHS). Needless to say, now one can understand why it was important for me to purchase Two Schwaermas this evening.
And now my belly hurts, and bad garlicky farts come out of my butthole. Take that, Vampires.
And so, I am a little melancholy tonight - yes, that word's extremely appropriate for how I am feeling right now. Lord, I'm tired. Lord, I don't rightly b'lieve in ya, but I sure like using your name to begin a sentance, for effect. But honestly, I am.. TIRED, I am a worn-out sack o' moldy potatoes, yessiree. So I spoke with the studio in NYC today, not my job interview (yet) but more of a mini-Pre interview with te HR person over there. I will have the actual more interviewy interview tomorrow, and it's.. well, it's a mixed feeling in my head, in my heart. the same things I have bitched aboout in here, in recent months, it's definitely getting closer to some kind of bittersweet reality. I am not a dumb little ignoramus anymore, to the same degree anyway, and so I know all the shit that's to lie ahead if i go through with this thing. I really wsh I could just fucking lighten up about it, I am having one of those times in my life where I am feelin absolutely sorta untethered, completely dependant on my own whim. What a powerful, freeing feeling, but the flipside of that is that it's also sort of crushing when facing the reality of it. To be honest, my mental state is sort of whisked back in time 7 years, to where my mind was at when I decided to ditch all the shit and come out to Los Angeles to begin with. Now I am facing a possible bookend to it all, and so all the ups and downs of this whole rollercoaster experience are kinda bubbling about within me. Really, part of me WANTS to just level the damned playing field, shove a gun up it's tokus, let fly and not look back. I spent a couple of minutes in Sherman Oaks for some business this afternoon, and it just reminded me of the Ron i was not too terribly long ago, but then again my life was so damned different, in a lot of ways. I had no idea what was in store for me here, and now I feel the same way albeit a litte wiser.
And you know, sitting here, in my little workspace area of my apartment, I look around at what this place is, what it represents - the culmination of the past few years of my life, again building up from scratch some more. I remember (partially) all the nights walking home, lonely, from the bars on Caheunga to my places in Los Feliz, the whole town just there for me, only for me, as the rest of the world was long since asleep, silently. Wondering where I was going, eventually, what I was building towards. The past few jobs I had taken, moving my shit into this office or that corner, "well, I suppose this will be mynew home, for awhile..." Each time, never wanting to get to comfy, but you ALWAYS do, it's natural - with your space, with your friends, with your business. your relationships, your feelings. And now I am here on Chula Vista, I have been here just over a year, we always joke "Ron moves pretty much once every year" and the shitty joke comes to rear its head at me once again. But even more shittier now.
Well. I sent out a bunch of messages for jobs today. I got some more contacts - I am still trying. If someone gives me a fair shake and their shit is somewhat spot-on, I will certainly see about sliding into whatever they can fit me into. but if there's nothing doing in this town of "too busy to care" no-names, then I haven't much choice but to see about taking my business elsewhere, really. I'm gonna be 32 years old in a few weeks, it's long-overdue that i started feeling like my life was getting somewhat on the ball. Don't you think?
The movie wasn't so hot. but. I need some time splayed out on my couch, no, SMEARED on my couch like so much cheese sauce, just staring unthinking like some lethargic crustacean, Yes, that sounds somewhat closer to appropriate. Let us restart, shall we.
So I have been working on my freelance gig for just a little more than a month now, and yesterday I wrapped up te end of it. And then today we had our kind of "see ya, all set" meeting to close the book. So, it is done, and I am thrust back into the realm of Free Time.. no more excuses "can't go to the gym," no more dilly-dallying "sorry Matt I haven't time to make a logo for you," no more procrastinating "my apologies, girlfriend, but i must spend all of my waking hours in front of this infernal machine."
And yet.. the job was good to me, when I started it there was little feeling other than "this is a pain in the ass that I do not feel like doing, how can I even pretend to be enthusiastic about working at home, well working at all really, in this godforsaken unforgivin' shit-industry to any degree anymore.." And honestly, I still managed to get into it, got my file-structures all legible, my long-mothballed home methods of getting some shit done back in some sort of order, and I -- gulp -- enjoyed it, for what it was worth. Moreover, I got paid yesterday at LONG FUCKIN' LAST, to add non-insult to lack of injury I received my other check from the stupid stock options today (which I have been trailing for, literally, MONTHS). Needless to say, now one can understand why it was important for me to purchase Two Schwaermas this evening.
And now my belly hurts, and bad garlicky farts come out of my butthole. Take that, Vampires.
And so, I am a little melancholy tonight - yes, that word's extremely appropriate for how I am feeling right now. Lord, I'm tired. Lord, I don't rightly b'lieve in ya, but I sure like using your name to begin a sentance, for effect. But honestly, I am.. TIRED, I am a worn-out sack o' moldy potatoes, yessiree. So I spoke with the studio in NYC today, not my job interview (yet) but more of a mini-Pre interview with te HR person over there. I will have the actual more interviewy interview tomorrow, and it's.. well, it's a mixed feeling in my head, in my heart. the same things I have bitched aboout in here, in recent months, it's definitely getting closer to some kind of bittersweet reality. I am not a dumb little ignoramus anymore, to the same degree anyway, and so I know all the shit that's to lie ahead if i go through with this thing. I really wsh I could just fucking lighten up about it, I am having one of those times in my life where I am feelin absolutely sorta untethered, completely dependant on my own whim. What a powerful, freeing feeling, but the flipside of that is that it's also sort of crushing when facing the reality of it. To be honest, my mental state is sort of whisked back in time 7 years, to where my mind was at when I decided to ditch all the shit and come out to Los Angeles to begin with. Now I am facing a possible bookend to it all, and so all the ups and downs of this whole rollercoaster experience are kinda bubbling about within me. Really, part of me WANTS to just level the damned playing field, shove a gun up it's tokus, let fly and not look back. I spent a couple of minutes in Sherman Oaks for some business this afternoon, and it just reminded me of the Ron i was not too terribly long ago, but then again my life was so damned different, in a lot of ways. I had no idea what was in store for me here, and now I feel the same way albeit a litte wiser.
And you know, sitting here, in my little workspace area of my apartment, I look around at what this place is, what it represents - the culmination of the past few years of my life, again building up from scratch some more. I remember (partially) all the nights walking home, lonely, from the bars on Caheunga to my places in Los Feliz, the whole town just there for me, only for me, as the rest of the world was long since asleep, silently. Wondering where I was going, eventually, what I was building towards. The past few jobs I had taken, moving my shit into this office or that corner, "well, I suppose this will be mynew home, for awhile..." Each time, never wanting to get to comfy, but you ALWAYS do, it's natural - with your space, with your friends, with your business. your relationships, your feelings. And now I am here on Chula Vista, I have been here just over a year, we always joke "Ron moves pretty much once every year" and the shitty joke comes to rear its head at me once again. But even more shittier now.
Well. I sent out a bunch of messages for jobs today. I got some more contacts - I am still trying. If someone gives me a fair shake and their shit is somewhat spot-on, I will certainly see about sliding into whatever they can fit me into. but if there's nothing doing in this town of "too busy to care" no-names, then I haven't much choice but to see about taking my business elsewhere, really. I'm gonna be 32 years old in a few weeks, it's long-overdue that i started feeling like my life was getting somewhat on the ball. Don't you think?
Monday, January 08, 2007
eggs call ME round
some unimportant notes (mostly)
the roast beef is starting to smell funny. i'm about to eat the last from the package.
coleslaw is good from Ralph's or Mayfair, not so much Albertson's - too pasty.
yesterday watched steven king's "the stand" as I worked... ALL DAY. the thing was like 10 hours long! I remember that i rented it like 8 or 9 years ago, after reading it. Next time I see it I will be 41, at this rate.
No news is good news.. right? They fnally downloaded one of my Art test submissions, on Friday.
Back to it...
the roast beef is starting to smell funny. i'm about to eat the last from the package.
coleslaw is good from Ralph's or Mayfair, not so much Albertson's - too pasty.
yesterday watched steven king's "the stand" as I worked... ALL DAY. the thing was like 10 hours long! I remember that i rented it like 8 or 9 years ago, after reading it. Next time I see it I will be 41, at this rate.
No news is good news.. right? They fnally downloaded one of my Art test submissions, on Friday.
Back to it...
Thursday, January 04, 2007
super cold alive
sitting here building a french hotel (don't ask), i just got a whup of memory from a weird dream i had last night. i had inadvertantly wandered into an integrated circut etching facility, where technicians would create masks for UV light to shine through, which would define the paths of the circuit. The lab was actually a little mechanic shop located in a european alleyway, looking much like a mechanic's hallway (though lacking much in the way of technology) and the techs were actually a bunch of dorky librarian-looking fellows -- stamp collectors -- something. I asked them if they were looking to hire another hand, apparently they'd pay $3000 per circuit diagram (a couple of days work, apiece) - each one was basically assembled by laying out domino-shaped blocks on a large piece of tracing paper, then plotting points from each of the four corners. the inside of the resulting shape would be darkened with a graphite pencil, depending on how much voltage would be conducted through (and marked accordingly with notes and numbers). It looked very complicated but also somewhat easy as hell - probably mind-numbing more than anything else, it just required some intense precision (all the squares would need to be lined up completely perfectly or the whole Mask would be useless). I was considering giving up my graphic profession to get into the hardware end of the business, interested in the endlessly complicated surreal patterns I could create for hours on end..
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
cruller tactics
whew, 3:30 in the afternoon. I, for one, feel like ass. ASS, not AN ass. the last couple of days my body's been fighting off something, but I think I have half-succumbed to it - I woke up this morning feeling feverish, with chills. As the day's worn on, I definitely feel better, and hey - I DID get a good amount of sleep last night, after I finally did pass out. But one thing is for sure, my body is sending me a message - I need to relax, a little. I need to just rest a bit. I have been pushing myself pretty hard and it's wearing me down.
I had a big fight with my girlfriend last night - honestly, that doesn't happen very often, but when it does, it is definitely more of the "big blowout" type. I think we two are the sort who have little things pile up and bother us, over time - and we just brush it aside, or ignore it generally. Of course, that stuff festers inside of you and then --BLAM-- it will come out in a big fireball. Already I was feeling rather gross last night and not in the mood for any kind of arguing, but of course that shit's just gonna happen sometimes., and you just have to sort of deal with it. Strangely, I actually welcome that stuff sometimes - I think I am generally awful about communication in my relationships, and it's really something that I have a problem with (as far as my own character) - so when we have blow-outs, I find it hard to be generally pissed at her, as it's definitely my own fault for letting my shit build up as well, and the way I will act as a result. So when we do have it out, I tend to get shit off my chest, and the person i am with now - well, she ain't perfect, but one of the great things about her is that after she calms down a little (admittedly, that is kind of a tough part, at the time..) then it becomes really easy to talk to her, to relate - she is very understanding. It's a shame that we have to go through such hell to reach that point, but again that is due to the nature of conflicts within our personalities. Still, the payoff makes it worth it. What does that mean for our future? It's hard to say, especially since a lot of the stuff we end up talking about - namely, our frustrations and incompatibilities - often point towards the likelihood that our relationship either needs some bigtime work, or it could be doomed. that's not an easy pill to swallow, but it still is preferable to the alternative (like I said, just keeping all that fire inside and letting it sit there). 'Cause THAT, my friends, is one of the most aggravating things in my day-to-day life. I guess, the point is, even though we argue at times like this, it definitely ends up pullling us closer together, and reminding me of the good reasons that i am in a relationship like this.
Something else which I have alluded to in the past, is how I am changing as I get older - I am not totally sure of the depth of it, but I can see things in my brother and I, which we've got from our father, and no disrespect to either of 'em, but it's troubling to me - I have definitely become more neurotic the past few years, and it's not exactly a healthy thing. Neurosis has it's place, and I am proud to have figured out ways to use it positively in my life, but then when I look at some parts of my life (in this case, the relationship troubles) I can see where it's more messed up, more out of my control than I would say I feel comfortable with it. And that's why I can feel a little relieved to have pulled away from that neurosis a bit, in light of all I've just said (being able to talk things out, and lay on the table some of the more, errr, idiosyncratic feelings and issues I have been having). I've always thought of myself as a fairly easygoing guy, but not so much so that I would let my shit go unchecked, really - which is kind of a delicate balance, i'll admit, but something about myself which I admire. Well, i hold it with a certain amount of pride, but the last couple of years I have suddenly felt that pride slipping away and replaced with --- well, the neurosis! Anyone who follows the events of my life will probably not be too hard-pressed to see how such feelings could develop (look specifically at my job history, my romantic circumstances) and couple that with the background I came from (I was pretty low on the self-esteem scale for so many years, to begin with) and the picture gets a little less fuzzy.
It's probably a little strange to write about this stuff in a semi-public forum (yeah, this spiel again...) but it is important for me to put these words down, knowing the things I am going through in my life at this moment. I may be a bit of a drama queen, or whatever, but it's definitely a period of some weird disturbance, exciting or otherwise - and it's reassuring to have points like this where I have achieved some degree of clarity about myself and my issues, and positive steps I have taken to working with them, as well the people around me. It's important to me, useful, and someday when I am into some other weirdness it will be helpful for me, reassuring to dip back into this period of my life and reflect on this feeling.
Alright, i gotta take a shower and get to work.
I had a big fight with my girlfriend last night - honestly, that doesn't happen very often, but when it does, it is definitely more of the "big blowout" type. I think we two are the sort who have little things pile up and bother us, over time - and we just brush it aside, or ignore it generally. Of course, that stuff festers inside of you and then --BLAM-- it will come out in a big fireball. Already I was feeling rather gross last night and not in the mood for any kind of arguing, but of course that shit's just gonna happen sometimes., and you just have to sort of deal with it. Strangely, I actually welcome that stuff sometimes - I think I am generally awful about communication in my relationships, and it's really something that I have a problem with (as far as my own character) - so when we have blow-outs, I find it hard to be generally pissed at her, as it's definitely my own fault for letting my shit build up as well, and the way I will act as a result. So when we do have it out, I tend to get shit off my chest, and the person i am with now - well, she ain't perfect, but one of the great things about her is that after she calms down a little (admittedly, that is kind of a tough part, at the time..) then it becomes really easy to talk to her, to relate - she is very understanding. It's a shame that we have to go through such hell to reach that point, but again that is due to the nature of conflicts within our personalities. Still, the payoff makes it worth it. What does that mean for our future? It's hard to say, especially since a lot of the stuff we end up talking about - namely, our frustrations and incompatibilities - often point towards the likelihood that our relationship either needs some bigtime work, or it could be doomed. that's not an easy pill to swallow, but it still is preferable to the alternative (like I said, just keeping all that fire inside and letting it sit there). 'Cause THAT, my friends, is one of the most aggravating things in my day-to-day life. I guess, the point is, even though we argue at times like this, it definitely ends up pullling us closer together, and reminding me of the good reasons that i am in a relationship like this.
Something else which I have alluded to in the past, is how I am changing as I get older - I am not totally sure of the depth of it, but I can see things in my brother and I, which we've got from our father, and no disrespect to either of 'em, but it's troubling to me - I have definitely become more neurotic the past few years, and it's not exactly a healthy thing. Neurosis has it's place, and I am proud to have figured out ways to use it positively in my life, but then when I look at some parts of my life (in this case, the relationship troubles) I can see where it's more messed up, more out of my control than I would say I feel comfortable with it. And that's why I can feel a little relieved to have pulled away from that neurosis a bit, in light of all I've just said (being able to talk things out, and lay on the table some of the more, errr, idiosyncratic feelings and issues I have been having). I've always thought of myself as a fairly easygoing guy, but not so much so that I would let my shit go unchecked, really - which is kind of a delicate balance, i'll admit, but something about myself which I admire. Well, i hold it with a certain amount of pride, but the last couple of years I have suddenly felt that pride slipping away and replaced with --- well, the neurosis! Anyone who follows the events of my life will probably not be too hard-pressed to see how such feelings could develop (look specifically at my job history, my romantic circumstances) and couple that with the background I came from (I was pretty low on the self-esteem scale for so many years, to begin with) and the picture gets a little less fuzzy.
It's probably a little strange to write about this stuff in a semi-public forum (yeah, this spiel again...) but it is important for me to put these words down, knowing the things I am going through in my life at this moment. I may be a bit of a drama queen, or whatever, but it's definitely a period of some weird disturbance, exciting or otherwise - and it's reassuring to have points like this where I have achieved some degree of clarity about myself and my issues, and positive steps I have taken to working with them, as well the people around me. It's important to me, useful, and someday when I am into some other weirdness it will be helpful for me, reassuring to dip back into this period of my life and reflect on this feeling.
Alright, i gotta take a shower and get to work.
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
the fast track to la-la-love-icide
yes it's tuesday but it feels like a monday.
last night i fell asleep for a second and dreamt that my girlfried was in a porno, she walked into the room with a big smile on her face and said "do you want to get laid off?" (then i buried my face in my hands and groaned, ohhh engrish)
Speaking of dreams, i am buried with anxiety dreams still, it's better than the night terrors so i will be grateful. still i don't know what it says of my mental state when i am having dreams of personal relationships with xerox machines (no, there were no organs being photocopied or anything of that nature.. i merely had to write a good-bye note to the machine and then copy it so it could "read" it)
feels weird, i haven't been partying in a longggggg time. just work, work, work.. work is alright though, BTW if I have emailed you and you wonder why my typography (??) is worse than usual (bar's set pretty low, here folks.. admittedly) it's 'cause i have a new keyboard.. at last!!! But my fingers are still adjusting. And quite honestly i miss the years of shmutz building, grime ad plaque on the vowel keys, and general cushiony-ness that only comes with years of pubic-hair buildup. you didn't read that.
As i sit here and scratch my thigh (and my throat is scratchy as well) i must mention that finally, in nearly 32 years of life (i almost wrote "24," wishful thinking) i have finally discovered this,
all the crunchy hippies in the world love the hummus but to me it's always been too saucy, gooey, and just.. ehhh.. kinda chunky and phlegmy. But recently I tried this shit and it was pretty good. Better than the clumps of cheese I would otherwise shovel into my face. oh yes, I am not gonna die. Anyway, yay for food. i haven't had some good nachos in awhile BTW (and oh yeah, it is worth mentioning that tonight's del taco night)
So what else can i say. Hopefully I am trying to have a kinder, gentler blog for my new year's resolution (yeah, that'll last) Uhm. Not muh! I have to make a phone call to the stupid smith and barney and see if my extremely-delayed stock purchase $$$ (like, 3 months delayed) paycheck has showed up at their stupid office yet. For those of you in the know i received about 2/3 of the cash but i need the rest. Pronto. Jellybeans are not free.
otherwise, umm.. I should do my dishes (they sit, unloved, in the sink... covered with a thin film of grease and filth). take a shower. get back to work.
And so it goes. happy *(*(%(*%& new year to you too.
___________________________________________________________
ohhh. before i forget. video games! every year i seem to go through a period here and there where I fixate on some stupid old-ass video game or other. Nothing new, i know, i am a tremendous manchild as much as my peers, but perhaps in a more creepy fashion. So lately my addiction is this old-ass game called Columns, it's pretty much nearly a 1:1 Tetris ripoff but with a different freneticism. i just like a good puzzle game which starts off hectic right away and can either kill you in about 35 seconds or keep you moments from death for the duration of the remainder of the period.. yeah, like that. I don't sit around and play i so much, as such, but when my god-DAMNED computer overheats and crashes.. like.. when i am in the middle of working, then I take a break and cool off with the gameboy and play some columns to cool off and regain my composure for a bit. Unlike 9/10 of most other gamers in this world, i am not too concerned with unlocking shit and saving my progress, i just want to turn the thing on, get my fix, get it outta my life and mind for a little while and then periodically pick it up again. Wash rinse, repeat, add, subtract and die.
last night i fell asleep for a second and dreamt that my girlfried was in a porno, she walked into the room with a big smile on her face and said "do you want to get laid off?" (then i buried my face in my hands and groaned, ohhh engrish)
Speaking of dreams, i am buried with anxiety dreams still, it's better than the night terrors so i will be grateful. still i don't know what it says of my mental state when i am having dreams of personal relationships with xerox machines (no, there were no organs being photocopied or anything of that nature.. i merely had to write a good-bye note to the machine and then copy it so it could "read" it)
feels weird, i haven't been partying in a longggggg time. just work, work, work.. work is alright though, BTW if I have emailed you and you wonder why my typography (??) is worse than usual (bar's set pretty low, here folks.. admittedly) it's 'cause i have a new keyboard.. at last!!! But my fingers are still adjusting. And quite honestly i miss the years of shmutz building, grime ad plaque on the vowel keys, and general cushiony-ness that only comes with years of pubic-hair buildup. you didn't read that.
As i sit here and scratch my thigh (and my throat is scratchy as well) i must mention that finally, in nearly 32 years of life (i almost wrote "24," wishful thinking) i have finally discovered this,
all the crunchy hippies in the world love the hummus but to me it's always been too saucy, gooey, and just.. ehhh.. kinda chunky and phlegmy. But recently I tried this shit and it was pretty good. Better than the clumps of cheese I would otherwise shovel into my face. oh yes, I am not gonna die. Anyway, yay for food. i haven't had some good nachos in awhile BTW (and oh yeah, it is worth mentioning that tonight's del taco night)
So what else can i say. Hopefully I am trying to have a kinder, gentler blog for my new year's resolution (yeah, that'll last) Uhm. Not muh! I have to make a phone call to the stupid smith and barney and see if my extremely-delayed stock purchase $$$ (like, 3 months delayed) paycheck has showed up at their stupid office yet. For those of you in the know i received about 2/3 of the cash but i need the rest. Pronto. Jellybeans are not free.
otherwise, umm.. I should do my dishes (they sit, unloved, in the sink... covered with a thin film of grease and filth). take a shower. get back to work.
And so it goes. happy *(*(%(*%& new year to you too.
___________________________________________________________
ohhh. before i forget. video games! every year i seem to go through a period here and there where I fixate on some stupid old-ass video game or other. Nothing new, i know, i am a tremendous manchild as much as my peers, but perhaps in a more creepy fashion. So lately my addiction is this old-ass game called Columns, it's pretty much nearly a 1:1 Tetris ripoff but with a different freneticism. i just like a good puzzle game which starts off hectic right away and can either kill you in about 35 seconds or keep you moments from death for the duration of the remainder of the period.. yeah, like that. I don't sit around and play i so much, as such, but when my god-DAMNED computer overheats and crashes.. like.. when i am in the middle of working, then I take a break and cool off with the gameboy and play some columns to cool off and regain my composure for a bit. Unlike 9/10 of most other gamers in this world, i am not too concerned with unlocking shit and saving my progress, i just want to turn the thing on, get my fix, get it outta my life and mind for a little while and then periodically pick it up again. Wash rinse, repeat, add, subtract and die.
Sunday, December 31, 2006
fare well to 2006
hmm i would have to say -- it is the un-new-year's-iest-feeling new year's i have experienced in quite some time. let's see, last year i was in SF with neal, josh, lynn, jess, max. year before that was a club in echo parkay after darkey (....) Which was fun. Year before that was Adam L's place in Boston, then Joe's later that night. Before that, I am not too sure...moreover, no one cares.
And now, here I am, sitting in front of the PC, another full day of work behind me "makin' buildings, makin' buildings..." May came home and we both passed out HARD on the couch. I am planning to head out (as she's still passed out) and wondering whether i will take a cab or car (cab sounds good).
I look around my apartment and wonder if this will be my final new year's eve living in Los Angeles. Perhaps I should rock it out a bit more.
Happy new year, from the bee's knees...
And now, here I am, sitting in front of the PC, another full day of work behind me "makin' buildings, makin' buildings..." May came home and we both passed out HARD on the couch. I am planning to head out (as she's still passed out) and wondering whether i will take a cab or car (cab sounds good).
I look around my apartment and wonder if this will be my final new year's eve living in Los Angeles. Perhaps I should rock it out a bit more.
Happy new year, from the bee's knees...
Saturday, December 30, 2006
cry for lust
ok so i have written some entires but then never finished them and scrapped 'em? WTF is up with that???
I am beat. I have been working steadily. My PC is a little underpowered and at times that becomes an issue, and so my work takes a little longer than it might. It's not to bad though. Also the new software I am using, it is a little... persnickety.that's right, always someone else's fault! Anyway ihave been rockin' steady since i got up yesterday (2ish?) and it's nearly 11am now. i gotta get me alittle shuteye I reckon. It just feels good to sed the stuff thru to compile and though it comes out rather ugly, it's not crashing anymore...
the last few weeks have felt thusly. Just a lot of straight workin', sitting here in my cell, in the cold, beside te closed window. Eatin gthe same 3 things, drinking lotsa coke, getting no exercise, not sure where the end is. A few thoughts lighting up the back of my head, at the same time both upsetting and exciting. An end is coming, an end to something but not sure what.
I guess I've not really updated this thing properly thru xmas, which was about a week ago - it was alright, i took a breather for a couple of days, caught up with some friends. Lost my momentum in some ways, unfortuantely, but that cannot be avoided sometimes. Eh, either way.
Still waiting to get paid. Lots of tought of the future going through my noggin. grandiose plans and kinda more easy follow-through as an alternative - which am I gonna do? Well, let me say this, 2006 was a sucky year i have decided, overall. But at least it planted the seeds for some interesting times to come, i'll say that much.
Alright. Files're done uploadin. time to knock out for a few hrs. And whoever mysteriously keeps calling me at odd hours, STOP!!!!!
I am beat. I have been working steadily. My PC is a little underpowered and at times that becomes an issue, and so my work takes a little longer than it might. It's not to bad though. Also the new software I am using, it is a little... persnickety.that's right, always someone else's fault! Anyway ihave been rockin' steady since i got up yesterday (2ish?) and it's nearly 11am now. i gotta get me alittle shuteye I reckon. It just feels good to sed the stuff thru to compile and though it comes out rather ugly, it's not crashing anymore...
the last few weeks have felt thusly. Just a lot of straight workin', sitting here in my cell, in the cold, beside te closed window. Eatin gthe same 3 things, drinking lotsa coke, getting no exercise, not sure where the end is. A few thoughts lighting up the back of my head, at the same time both upsetting and exciting. An end is coming, an end to something but not sure what.
I guess I've not really updated this thing properly thru xmas, which was about a week ago - it was alright, i took a breather for a couple of days, caught up with some friends. Lost my momentum in some ways, unfortuantely, but that cannot be avoided sometimes. Eh, either way.
Still waiting to get paid. Lots of tought of the future going through my noggin. grandiose plans and kinda more easy follow-through as an alternative - which am I gonna do? Well, let me say this, 2006 was a sucky year i have decided, overall. But at least it planted the seeds for some interesting times to come, i'll say that much.
Alright. Files're done uploadin. time to knock out for a few hrs. And whoever mysteriously keeps calling me at odd hours, STOP!!!!!
Monday, December 25, 2006
Sunday, December 24, 2006
Thursday, December 21, 2006
dreaming of lemon pine
that's teh job in NYC. I recently recall saying something to the tune of "if there was a half-decent job in New York, London, or Tokyo, then I'd jump on it in a second.."
...
time to put my money where my mouth is. Seriously, this stuff is aggravating. I really wish I had someone to honestly consult about this stuff, at least someone who's gone through the same thing as me. I can't really say I have a progenitor in that fashion. I mean, I bitch about LA but this place is my home, and there's a lot for me here. Queue the same laundry list of reasons I always kick into at this point. the thing is, it gets scary when these things start to become a possible reality. It'slike killing yourself, I know I have said that before as well - you stop the entire momentum of your life, only to get born again as a different person in a different place. Based on your past experiences, sure, but time + place = difference. Yeah, I am worried. I am worried on both sides of the equation. Though I am certainly a 'go with the flow" ype of person, once in while you come across these crossroads whee you know that everything in your life hinges on this one very binary decision. It's not like last time when I had overwhelming reasons to git outta Dodge - no, the odds are pretty evenly stacked on both sides.
And so, once again, i resort to the not-too-distant memory of a conversation with my friend Jeff recently, he put into words something that really definies my entire philosophy - "it depends how interesting you want your life to be." Again, I know I have written that in here as well, by now. Perhaps once or twice. Me, I am not one who looks for signs in the cosmos, or some such - I believe that opportuinty is ever-present, it's up to you as an individual to chart your path, or blindly follow that spark that pushes your life along. Erratically or determinedly.
I went for a walk tonight after several hours of work. my life is comfortable, although it's a stressful time (no need to get into it again, eh?) and I step back and look at it all, every so often, and I won't say I feel "blessed," as such, but I have certainly clawed my way into a particularly enviable position, in my life - all things considered. I have worked hard and long, and I appreciate that as well as my talent, my determination to get here. No, it's not smooth sailing, it's not even fuckin' stable, but it would not be me if that were the case, and no matter how unsatisfied I claim to feel right now through it all, I can surely say that if it was all cut and dried I'd be about ready to through myself off the pier. anyway, point is, I appreciate what I am, what I've got, who I am with, who my friends are - and with all of that, the potential it's all charged with.
And then, the unknown. When I was young, not even THAT young, few things were more frightening to me than being in a liquid situation - out of sorts, disoriented, out of my element. Well, it's all relative, sure, but as I've got older i have learned that the most enjoyable things in this world come from figuring out those puzzles. Whereas most people want to go the absolute safe path A to B, I neeeeeed to see something else. Within reason, I suppose.. but it's the definition of my character at this point. Some call it crazy, I guess, but that's just a write-off. Nah. I want to get more out of life than what I've got by now, almost 32 years in, and it's been a lot. So then.. in light of this alll - what's that mean? what the hell should I do?
Just keep pushing on and seeing who has got it, and that's all there is to it. I'll be here, in my own head, either way - no matter where it is, and what it is turning me into...
egg wrecker.
damn. so, after midnight, i sit here slumped in my chair. my posture is less than picture-perfect, my ass is weakishly trying not to fart, my eyes feel like cold metal marbles. my fingers are tingly and trembly and a little raw from cutting the nails a little too-close.
i got some sleep last night, for the first time in days, honestly - it's been a lot of work to deal with, and i can't say for sure that it was necessarily all worth it, even though it always ends up feeling that way - so, no regrets. I sent in my art test (a day late, mind you) to naughty dog, but i doubt they'll even look at it before the new year. For what it's worth, i made an INCREDIBLY filthy barrel for them. Score. Beyond that, I have been cranking away on my freelance job.
Freelance is interesting, because it usually means that I can work from home. This is nice 'cause I can keep whatever insaniac hours I dig (and they usually are just that), likewise it means I've got no commute to speak of. The bad thing about it is that you lose that separation between WORK AND HOME. I'll tell yah though, it's super-nice to have a bedroom that's upstairs - I don't have the goddamned PC staring at me, humming away, just out of reach -but alwasy there. "Here is your life, come and take care of it." You know, I could be a prisoner and do this job, funny eh? In that regard, it was nice to walk up to the supermarket today and buy a couple of provisions (I sound like I'm fromthe 1930s, what gives?)
Anyway I am digging this freelance job, in spite of my whining. It's nice to do what I enjoy doing and being left to do it on my terms, even after all these years I still get a charge out of it (and yeah, getting a little bit of $ $ $ helps) On the job search front, no big news. A studio in NYC replied ot my application and wants to speak with me after the new year. I sent out a couple of other applications today, one's a big film FX house (they did Titanic) and the other's more broadcast-related, I believe (commercials and stuff). I usually get something out to maybe 4 or 5 studios a week, on the average. I am pretty optimistic that I'll land a job within a month's time.. We will see, I need to get some serious income booting back up over here, y'know?
Yesterday was rough, although strange. I was on Day 3 of being constantly awake (for work reasons), I probably got about an hour of sleep in there the last day. At one point my body literally disobeyed my brain's orders to go back to the desk and do more work, as I saw myself meandering over to the couch and lie down and shut my eyes - I protested but biology won out. Somehow, luck kicked in and a phone call snapped me out of it, and I was kickstarted to getting productive once again. The same thing happened later in the day (same phone caller too, haha). I DID not sound happy to be answering that phone, though I was thankful as there was shit to do. I managed to be in decent/productive shape the rest of the day, though I was definitely hallucinating at the end of the evening (past midnight) - that's when my brain finally got it's wish to turn off and go die for a spell.
I know I have wondered this before, but I am curious about the effects of sleeplessness. That was almost my longest consecutive period of staying awake (sunday afternoon till late-night tuesday), I am sure I could go longer if I needed to but honestly, I have never felt the urge to just go 'n do it - the thought interests me but I KNOW i'll be miserable, moreover I do have more important things to do with my time I guess. Still, the concept intrigues me (hopefully I'll never "need to find out")
End of 2006, I guess I need to write my yearly recap of events shortly. I got a few days, yet. Meantime, there's work to do.
i got some sleep last night, for the first time in days, honestly - it's been a lot of work to deal with, and i can't say for sure that it was necessarily all worth it, even though it always ends up feeling that way - so, no regrets. I sent in my art test (a day late, mind you) to naughty dog, but i doubt they'll even look at it before the new year. For what it's worth, i made an INCREDIBLY filthy barrel for them. Score. Beyond that, I have been cranking away on my freelance job.
Freelance is interesting, because it usually means that I can work from home. This is nice 'cause I can keep whatever insaniac hours I dig (and they usually are just that), likewise it means I've got no commute to speak of. The bad thing about it is that you lose that separation between WORK AND HOME. I'll tell yah though, it's super-nice to have a bedroom that's upstairs - I don't have the goddamned PC staring at me, humming away, just out of reach -but alwasy there. "Here is your life, come and take care of it." You know, I could be a prisoner and do this job, funny eh? In that regard, it was nice to walk up to the supermarket today and buy a couple of provisions (I sound like I'm fromthe 1930s, what gives?)
Anyway I am digging this freelance job, in spite of my whining. It's nice to do what I enjoy doing and being left to do it on my terms, even after all these years I still get a charge out of it (and yeah, getting a little bit of $ $ $ helps) On the job search front, no big news. A studio in NYC replied ot my application and wants to speak with me after the new year. I sent out a couple of other applications today, one's a big film FX house (they did Titanic) and the other's more broadcast-related, I believe (commercials and stuff). I usually get something out to maybe 4 or 5 studios a week, on the average. I am pretty optimistic that I'll land a job within a month's time.. We will see, I need to get some serious income booting back up over here, y'know?
Yesterday was rough, although strange. I was on Day 3 of being constantly awake (for work reasons), I probably got about an hour of sleep in there the last day. At one point my body literally disobeyed my brain's orders to go back to the desk and do more work, as I saw myself meandering over to the couch and lie down and shut my eyes - I protested but biology won out. Somehow, luck kicked in and a phone call snapped me out of it, and I was kickstarted to getting productive once again. The same thing happened later in the day (same phone caller too, haha). I DID not sound happy to be answering that phone, though I was thankful as there was shit to do. I managed to be in decent/productive shape the rest of the day, though I was definitely hallucinating at the end of the evening (past midnight) - that's when my brain finally got it's wish to turn off and go die for a spell.
I know I have wondered this before, but I am curious about the effects of sleeplessness. That was almost my longest consecutive period of staying awake (sunday afternoon till late-night tuesday), I am sure I could go longer if I needed to but honestly, I have never felt the urge to just go 'n do it - the thought interests me but I KNOW i'll be miserable, moreover I do have more important things to do with my time I guess. Still, the concept intrigues me (hopefully I'll never "need to find out")
End of 2006, I guess I need to write my yearly recap of events shortly. I got a few days, yet. Meantime, there's work to do.
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
cybersleepy
cybersleepy - MON DEC 19
dig a ding dang d-d-d-damn. man i am experiencing some serious deja vu right now, in a way. 2 years ago, i was doing the same damned thing (working night n day around the clock on an art test for a job I wanted). I got that job.. for awhile, anyway.. But yeah, that was two years ago, same exact time of the year. Different apartment though. Other weird shit going on in my life.
Tired. This art test was due today and it's now the evening. I couldn't turn it in unfinished though (what's the point?) They'll give me a day, i am hoping. If not, then that's how the cookies crumble.
I worked all night last night and likely to be another very late night tonight. Hopefully not two all-nighters in a row - I haven't done that in.. ummm... 5 years!! Yuck, that sucked, I'll tell ya.
okay back to work. Make barrels. Then houses. Then a bit of sleep, before I begin hallucinating, I hope.
Sunday, December 17, 2006
update on the state of personal affairs
i found my cellphone!!!! wooooooooOOOO!!!
"but.. but you said someone stole it! You were SURE!!"
Nah. nah. I just misplaced it.
"But.. you were SURE. You said it had to be someone else's fault!"
Nope. It was mine. I just misplaced it. Left it in my jacket pocket. For a WEEK.
"But.. but.. why go on blaming others when the fault is clearly your own? Isn't that a bit irresponsible?"
Hey, don't you have something better to do anyways? Like make me a sandwich or something? Take a shower? Layoff.
--Happy Holidays, from all of your friends at Chronic Schizophrenia!!--
________________________________________________________
P.S. Last night I dreamt that my father and I both accidentally discovered each other's pornography, but we were both too tired/stressed to care. Also, Florida was revealed as the original Capitol of the country, and continually referenced as no longer being of such status due to to their insistence that their state was "of intergalactic origin," the news of which I was reading in a local newspaper's sports section.
"but.. but you said someone stole it! You were SURE!!"
Nah. nah. I just misplaced it.
"But.. you were SURE. You said it had to be someone else's fault!"
Nope. It was mine. I just misplaced it. Left it in my jacket pocket. For a WEEK.
"But.. but.. why go on blaming others when the fault is clearly your own? Isn't that a bit irresponsible?"
Hey, don't you have something better to do anyways? Like make me a sandwich or something? Take a shower? Layoff.
--Happy Holidays, from all of your friends at Chronic Schizophrenia!!--
________________________________________________________
P.S. Last night I dreamt that my father and I both accidentally discovered each other's pornography, but we were both too tired/stressed to care. Also, Florida was revealed as the original Capitol of the country, and continually referenced as no longer being of such status due to to their insistence that their state was "of intergalactic origin," the news of which I was reading in a local newspaper's sports section.
beware of giant crab!!! and fare well to lost architecture
oh alrighty, so Friday was "pay the bills day" (muttttter) and i filled out all the things that needed to be filled out and headed over to the post office. fed the meter, waited in line, played zaxxon on my gameboy advance whilei waited for the x-mas crowd to get their shit sent in line ahead of me. Among the things i was mailing was a money order for a speeding ticket incurred in Indiana recently, more money than would be required to buy an Xbox 360 or a Nintendo Wii (I love bringing up videogames for no reason at all, and it'll be a theme of this entry on purpoise) and yet, not quite as fun as those. I begrudingly sent the shit out, only to find a $40 parking ticket J-U-S-T slapped on my windshield outside, fo rthe luvva pete. Ironically, I turned down a bid for a Sega CD Model One on ebay earlier this week for the same amount of money (for obvious reasons) - later last night I folded my pants to put away on the shelf, and the other time which iw as too stingy to feed the meter earlier fell out.
I hate you, world.
So, so so so, working on an art test for a game job. A good job, dunno if I am at all in the running, but regardless I should try. My efforts have been hampered by crashy shitty software, which seems to have laid off on irritating me a but finally, so I plod on. Meanwhile, I take a break to eat reheated Barbeque Wings and Ice Cream, and surf the net - as is my wont - and read all manner of random things. And I happen upon some articles about traveling, and seeing weird different strange things in other countries, and my memories whisk back to when I had a glimpse of such things. In my 32 years almost, and I notice that I live in a place and time where travel (or relocation) is not such a huge pain in the ass (well.. as it COULD be). But for a number of reasons, it's just never been a huge important thing in my life. Ironically, then, that I always intend to alter my lifestyle and get a more "worldly" view of things, as opposed to limiting myself to the culture and circumstances from which I've originated..
and yet.. yeah, I'm a pussy. Well, I'm programmed, and I've done well to follow through (nearly to a Tee, in some ways) in keeping up my end of that bargain. Sure, I have moved away from my family and all the things of my adolescence, but to what? There's plenty of Blockbuster Videos, Staples and Wal-Marts and Applebee's on this side of the coast as there are in New England. (yes, it is THIS rant again). Same TV shows, same movies, same school curriculum, religions, Time Magazines, etc etc. You can buy the same brands of cars, dishwasher detergents. I guess we have our own unique newscasters in different areas and television call-letters. So yeah, I am not getting any ya-ya-younger, and I look down the road at what's to come and it's feeling a little bleah, at times. I mean, it would be one thing if the world at large was boring and stupid, but it's rich and full and, well, exploding with interesting things! The tiny bit of traveling I have done was enough to open my eyes to that fact.
Problems - again, I am from a heavily conservative background, in spite of everyone telling me I am nuts, and all my crazy partying or whatever. Picking it all up and moving to California is certainly nothing to balk at (nearly 7 years later, mind you!) but it's pretty "safe," and though the local culture has certainly influenced and changed me, it feels a bit worn by now. The point I was making - my conservatism, plus the fact that I am a workaholic (yeah, again for good reason - in my field it's fucking tough to get or keep a good job!) and with that, when I work it feels like my ultimate goal is to eventually build UP, save up, buy a house, the American Dream of Domestication and all of that. Why change it up when you can settle down, eh? And moreover, something i have bitched about in this forum time and again, we live in this crazy-overboard consumer culture. Materialistic. Get money, buy things, things you need, things that end up owning you. Yeah, so, I have a car, TV, bed, nice apartment, all of those hard-won things make it hard to want to jettison my worldy belongings inexchange for searching for the greater truth. The more you accumulate, the more you need to accumulate. Did I mention an ebay auction earlier in here?
A little more to complain - continuing on with the thought above - we are a society which has got a HUGE focus on leisure. All that stuff we buy, we use it to lock down into our homes, safe and sound, to experience the world safely thru a glass tube (or, lately, Plasma or LCD screen). Broadcast and transmitted and edited and sanitized for mass consumption. Just raunchy enough to keep it interesting, but bite-sized enough not to tense our increasing Collective Attention Deficit Disorder. Clean, concise, content. Congratulations.
You know, I had some hope to see some weirdness during my cross country trip back to Los Angeles, and I did see a bit of a cross section, but mostly what I saw was.. nothing. Mesas, man, mesas. IHOPs and Arby's. No, I am not dissing Arby's - but even during the odd chances that I do return home to boston, I see a lot of the familiar mom-n-pop places I remembered from growing up, steamrolled and replaced with generic corporate-owned updates. Nah, I can't diss the corporations, much as it's trendy to - I am looking for my piece 'o the pie as much as the next guy.
So, yeah, what now. Usual whining, i have got it out of my system. I can return to doing my art test and hope it will help me find my hole to comfortably return to, a perfect fit, just another cog in the huge machine. Making money for some rich guys who don't even know me (or need to), vying for my own chance to be a somewhat rich guy as well, so that I can amass some wealth and trivialize further the fact that I'm just another boring useless shithead with a webpage who will die someday without ever having experienced even a fraction of the great grandness of it all even though he got a whiff of the fact that it was oozing out from every corner. Maybe I will still send my shit out to Shanghai.. just to see...
I hate you, world.
So, so so so, working on an art test for a game job. A good job, dunno if I am at all in the running, but regardless I should try. My efforts have been hampered by crashy shitty software, which seems to have laid off on irritating me a but finally, so I plod on. Meanwhile, I take a break to eat reheated Barbeque Wings and Ice Cream, and surf the net - as is my wont - and read all manner of random things. And I happen upon some articles about traveling, and seeing weird different strange things in other countries, and my memories whisk back to when I had a glimpse of such things. In my 32 years almost, and I notice that I live in a place and time where travel (or relocation) is not such a huge pain in the ass (well.. as it COULD be). But for a number of reasons, it's just never been a huge important thing in my life. Ironically, then, that I always intend to alter my lifestyle and get a more "worldly" view of things, as opposed to limiting myself to the culture and circumstances from which I've originated..
and yet.. yeah, I'm a pussy. Well, I'm programmed, and I've done well to follow through (nearly to a Tee, in some ways) in keeping up my end of that bargain. Sure, I have moved away from my family and all the things of my adolescence, but to what? There's plenty of Blockbuster Videos, Staples and Wal-Marts and Applebee's on this side of the coast as there are in New England. (yes, it is THIS rant again). Same TV shows, same movies, same school curriculum, religions, Time Magazines, etc etc. You can buy the same brands of cars, dishwasher detergents. I guess we have our own unique newscasters in different areas and television call-letters. So yeah, I am not getting any ya-ya-younger, and I look down the road at what's to come and it's feeling a little bleah, at times. I mean, it would be one thing if the world at large was boring and stupid, but it's rich and full and, well, exploding with interesting things! The tiny bit of traveling I have done was enough to open my eyes to that fact.
Problems - again, I am from a heavily conservative background, in spite of everyone telling me I am nuts, and all my crazy partying or whatever. Picking it all up and moving to California is certainly nothing to balk at (nearly 7 years later, mind you!) but it's pretty "safe," and though the local culture has certainly influenced and changed me, it feels a bit worn by now. The point I was making - my conservatism, plus the fact that I am a workaholic (yeah, again for good reason - in my field it's fucking tough to get or keep a good job!) and with that, when I work it feels like my ultimate goal is to eventually build UP, save up, buy a house, the American Dream of Domestication and all of that. Why change it up when you can settle down, eh? And moreover, something i have bitched about in this forum time and again, we live in this crazy-overboard consumer culture. Materialistic. Get money, buy things, things you need, things that end up owning you. Yeah, so, I have a car, TV, bed, nice apartment, all of those hard-won things make it hard to want to jettison my worldy belongings inexchange for searching for the greater truth. The more you accumulate, the more you need to accumulate. Did I mention an ebay auction earlier in here?
A little more to complain - continuing on with the thought above - we are a society which has got a HUGE focus on leisure. All that stuff we buy, we use it to lock down into our homes, safe and sound, to experience the world safely thru a glass tube (or, lately, Plasma or LCD screen). Broadcast and transmitted and edited and sanitized for mass consumption. Just raunchy enough to keep it interesting, but bite-sized enough not to tense our increasing Collective Attention Deficit Disorder. Clean, concise, content. Congratulations.
You know, I had some hope to see some weirdness during my cross country trip back to Los Angeles, and I did see a bit of a cross section, but mostly what I saw was.. nothing. Mesas, man, mesas. IHOPs and Arby's. No, I am not dissing Arby's - but even during the odd chances that I do return home to boston, I see a lot of the familiar mom-n-pop places I remembered from growing up, steamrolled and replaced with generic corporate-owned updates. Nah, I can't diss the corporations, much as it's trendy to - I am looking for my piece 'o the pie as much as the next guy.
So, yeah, what now. Usual whining, i have got it out of my system. I can return to doing my art test and hope it will help me find my hole to comfortably return to, a perfect fit, just another cog in the huge machine. Making money for some rich guys who don't even know me (or need to), vying for my own chance to be a somewhat rich guy as well, so that I can amass some wealth and trivialize further the fact that I'm just another boring useless shithead with a webpage who will die someday without ever having experienced even a fraction of the great grandness of it all even though he got a whiff of the fact that it was oozing out from every corner. Maybe I will still send my shit out to Shanghai.. just to see...
Thursday, December 14, 2006
cadillac smoothie
right so it's another late-late-late-night. lots of those in my life, but then, that's what they're there for, isn't that right mascara snake? Fast and Bulbous? Tight also? Right, right. And anyway, I have been working in crunch time pretty steadily, with the odd break here or there to go party (it's been awhile already.. feels like it!) or shmooze (that's a different story). All in all, it definitely doesn't really feel like a couple weeks before the end of the year. Fine, I am happy to kick 2006 to the curb, then. Whatever. So, who's got the plans for New Year's Eve then?
Here's a note, I had a little get-together at my place last New Year's, (well, I think it was actually xmas, if you want to be... TECHNICAL) though it already feels like several years ago - anyway, I guess if nothng else happens I'll follow suit and do the same thing, it'll be more of a BYOB though. I can't quite shell out the bucks this time around (though I'll probably spring for a half-keg). Anybody into it? Get drunk and play videogames and Celebrity?
or maybe I am gettin' old and will be happy to crank the lights down low, put some soft tunes on the stereo, and gently and warmly let the night pass by, if all else fails. it IS peacefully quiet here.
Okay now i remember. Last new year's (after the xmas gathering at my pad.. jewish xmas.. whatever) I was rolling around, literally, on the streets of SF. It was rainy and freezing. There were lots of drunk people and angry women arguing and fighting on the subway. That was awhile ago.
Oh so it's late. I have a lot of work to do, and so this jaggedly haphazard entry is gonna go to the birds. Bye birds.
Here's a note, I had a little get-together at my place last New Year's, (well, I think it was actually xmas, if you want to be... TECHNICAL) though it already feels like several years ago - anyway, I guess if nothng else happens I'll follow suit and do the same thing, it'll be more of a BYOB though. I can't quite shell out the bucks this time around (though I'll probably spring for a half-keg). Anybody into it? Get drunk and play videogames and Celebrity?
or maybe I am gettin' old and will be happy to crank the lights down low, put some soft tunes on the stereo, and gently and warmly let the night pass by, if all else fails. it IS peacefully quiet here.
Okay now i remember. Last new year's (after the xmas gathering at my pad.. jewish xmas.. whatever) I was rolling around, literally, on the streets of SF. It was rainy and freezing. There were lots of drunk people and angry women arguing and fighting on the subway. That was awhile ago.
Oh so it's late. I have a lot of work to do, and so this jaggedly haphazard entry is gonna go to the birds. Bye birds.
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
revenge fantasies
i am sitting here at my desk, making several sides of buildings for whatever reason (oh alright it's a bit of work) and listening to one of the cooler things on internet-radio, though admittedly a little light in the loafers, but still - This American Life hosted by Ira Glass (plug, plug) and I was struck by some of the current conversation. We've all had them, but - what if someone else had a revenge fantasy for YOU? I have never considered this scenario before. We all have that guy who's ass we would looOooove to kick, "oh, if i could only push him off of a rooftop," etc. etc. But what if you are the particular culprit in someone else's life? What if in their head, they've gone over and over again the many fascinating, macabre, gruesomely horrifically detailed ways they'd love to see you suffer (slowly, painfully) and perish while your stupid chums looked on helplessly as they waited to get theirs next?
Okay, I like to paint a pretty picture, I am an artiste by trade. I can't help it. Anyway I am sure that more than a few of us have been an unwitting mental target before, for whatever reason - mind you, it's often probably the case that we are absolutely oblivious to the fact. What if you've cut someone off in traffic, blind to the day while you're yakkin' away on your cellphone, and you've just crossed the path of someone who's needing to get a very good mad on right at that moment in particular. Maybe they follow you for a couple of miles, memorizing the outline of your trunk and imagining smashing the shit out of it while the two of you explode in a gigantically enormous fireball. I could go on.. but I won't... 'cause this is starting to get creepy.
Busy week, my busiest in some time actually (and that is saying something). I have work to do and an art test for a local studio which I've not even begun yet (due in a couple days, yet). Applied for a couple more jobs here, and there... I even sent an application to NYC, a job's opened up there. No idea what my odds are of that happening, but might as well give 'er a shot.
Meanwhile, I am starving and it's cheap-ass taco night at Del Taco. I count down the hours.
Back to work.
Okay, I like to paint a pretty picture, I am an artiste by trade. I can't help it. Anyway I am sure that more than a few of us have been an unwitting mental target before, for whatever reason - mind you, it's often probably the case that we are absolutely oblivious to the fact. What if you've cut someone off in traffic, blind to the day while you're yakkin' away on your cellphone, and you've just crossed the path of someone who's needing to get a very good mad on right at that moment in particular. Maybe they follow you for a couple of miles, memorizing the outline of your trunk and imagining smashing the shit out of it while the two of you explode in a gigantically enormous fireball. I could go on.. but I won't... 'cause this is starting to get creepy.
Busy week, my busiest in some time actually (and that is saying something). I have work to do and an art test for a local studio which I've not even begun yet (due in a couple days, yet). Applied for a couple more jobs here, and there... I even sent an application to NYC, a job's opened up there. No idea what my odds are of that happening, but might as well give 'er a shot.
Meanwhile, I am starving and it's cheap-ass taco night at Del Taco. I count down the hours.
Back to work.
Monday, December 11, 2006
you just make a FOOL out of me
"ron, call me.. call me.. NOW.. I PROMISE I will get you a job, whever you want to work" --> promises, promises. What if I don't want to work anywhere? Better yet, what if I want YOUR job? Nah, I definitely don't want that. How much do vultures get paid to circle carrion anyway? Okay sorry, I am a litle bitter for being awoken from my nearly peaceful slumber. Nearly. Actually I was waking up in a Vegas hotel room with my buddies when the phone rang and the recruiter woke me up and I was back in my stupid Normal Bedroom.
Another weekend has passed. I'm trying to maintain the mental difference between weekdays and weekends, which is a little harder now as my girlfriend is on winter break (that shit happens fast?? I don't recall that being the case when I was a young gun) and now everyday is saturday. As I've complained to about 54 of my friends, I have been meaddeningly turning my apartment upside-down looking for the wretched evil Service Agreement for my fallen Ipod. It's got to be here somewhere! I like to think that I was a little more organizixed than this. Also I have been trying to rebuild my texture library, compiled of years of unevenly numbered shots, on my external HD - not for shits and giggles mind you but 'cause that's the tools of my trade. I seem to have got mostly thru that. On top of that I have been applying to jobs here and there and actualy getting into some talks with a couple diffferent companies about taking that next step. No, no hires yet, but it's getting closer.
I have to say now is where I mention that I am "tired of working..." Which is pretty true. I feel sufficiently burned out. I don't wanna make video games anymore, paint textures anymore, collapse the goddamned Edit Meshes anymore. Send, test, revise, meet, complain, "you can't do that with these restrictions," try again, wash, rinse, repeat. The dream is over! You know what's worse than contemplating getting another job in games or graphics, is getting another job doing anything else. Seriously,the dumb young full of love recruiter calls me up and says "I can get you a job at ANY STUDIO YOU LIKE" dude I don't wanna work anywhere. I think it's my emboldened love of all the miserably loveable losers in history catching up with me. The drug addicts, the hitch hikers, the needless useless drunks, the petty criminals. I wanna ditch everything and be on the lam. At least when that runs out of gas then you are at Game Over, ironically.
Alright so don't worry, the ringing phone interrupted my somber vegas dreaming and charged my batteries up a bit, perhaps a little much. I am actually slipping into "the good work mode" and my environment is in decent shape. Well it's alittle torn up and thrashed but I can tune it out alright. And I guess my right ear feels packed with wax and that's annoying and I have some mysterious gash on my right inner heel but it's only sort of itchy. And my endless toothache seems to have subsided. And I saw a cool concert for free (well, as free as you can get anyway) the other night which was fun.
Ok also I seem to have lost my cellphone (so if you know me, don't bother trying to call me on it). I am not sure how this happened. I have a couple of bars to call and see if they know what's up. (If anyone gets the irony in that almost-joke, then yes, you are cool). I'm a little split on how I feel about this - if I were to HAVE to lose something, voluntarily, a cellphone would be the tops on my list. It's a nice little accoutrement, but it's also one of the Seven Signs of the Devil which can assuredly lead me to nothing but endless unhappiness and terminal ruin, which I am sure of. These days it's kind of a nice thing to have. I guess someday in fifteen years they'll start grafting them into our cortexes anyway, whether we like it or not, so perhaps I should appreciate it while I still have my semi-freedom.
I have tons of pictures to put up from the previous weeks of traveling and debauchery and all of that, but too busy dealing with actual work that needs to be done. I feel guilty even taking 15 minutes to write about this bullshit. But I gotta expend some of the energy somehow before shuttling right back into it.. right..
BTW two week till xmess, to the DAY, huh? That is a little wild? Good, bring it on and get out of 2006 already so we can get further flung into the future and I can have my monogrammed Jumpsuit and Bubble car which turns into a (very very heavy) briefcase. Alright, I need to take shower.
Another weekend has passed. I'm trying to maintain the mental difference between weekdays and weekends, which is a little harder now as my girlfriend is on winter break (that shit happens fast?? I don't recall that being the case when I was a young gun) and now everyday is saturday. As I've complained to about 54 of my friends, I have been meaddeningly turning my apartment upside-down looking for the wretched evil Service Agreement for my fallen Ipod. It's got to be here somewhere! I like to think that I was a little more organizixed than this. Also I have been trying to rebuild my texture library, compiled of years of unevenly numbered shots, on my external HD - not for shits and giggles mind you but 'cause that's the tools of my trade. I seem to have got mostly thru that. On top of that I have been applying to jobs here and there and actualy getting into some talks with a couple diffferent companies about taking that next step. No, no hires yet, but it's getting closer.
I have to say now is where I mention that I am "tired of working..." Which is pretty true. I feel sufficiently burned out. I don't wanna make video games anymore, paint textures anymore, collapse the goddamned Edit Meshes anymore. Send, test, revise, meet, complain, "you can't do that with these restrictions," try again, wash, rinse, repeat. The dream is over! You know what's worse than contemplating getting another job in games or graphics, is getting another job doing anything else. Seriously,the dumb young full of love recruiter calls me up and says "I can get you a job at ANY STUDIO YOU LIKE" dude I don't wanna work anywhere. I think it's my emboldened love of all the miserably loveable losers in history catching up with me. The drug addicts, the hitch hikers, the needless useless drunks, the petty criminals. I wanna ditch everything and be on the lam. At least when that runs out of gas then you are at Game Over, ironically.
Alright so don't worry, the ringing phone interrupted my somber vegas dreaming and charged my batteries up a bit, perhaps a little much. I am actually slipping into "the good work mode" and my environment is in decent shape. Well it's alittle torn up and thrashed but I can tune it out alright. And I guess my right ear feels packed with wax and that's annoying and I have some mysterious gash on my right inner heel but it's only sort of itchy. And my endless toothache seems to have subsided. And I saw a cool concert for free (well, as free as you can get anyway) the other night which was fun.
Ok also I seem to have lost my cellphone (so if you know me, don't bother trying to call me on it). I am not sure how this happened. I have a couple of bars to call and see if they know what's up. (If anyone gets the irony in that almost-joke, then yes, you are cool). I'm a little split on how I feel about this - if I were to HAVE to lose something, voluntarily, a cellphone would be the tops on my list. It's a nice little accoutrement, but it's also one of the Seven Signs of the Devil which can assuredly lead me to nothing but endless unhappiness and terminal ruin, which I am sure of. These days it's kind of a nice thing to have. I guess someday in fifteen years they'll start grafting them into our cortexes anyway, whether we like it or not, so perhaps I should appreciate it while I still have my semi-freedom.
I have tons of pictures to put up from the previous weeks of traveling and debauchery and all of that, but too busy dealing with actual work that needs to be done. I feel guilty even taking 15 minutes to write about this bullshit. But I gotta expend some of the energy somehow before shuttling right back into it.. right..
BTW two week till xmess, to the DAY, huh? That is a little wild? Good, bring it on and get out of 2006 already so we can get further flung into the future and I can have my monogrammed Jumpsuit and Bubble car which turns into a (very very heavy) briefcase. Alright, I need to take shower.
Thursday, December 07, 2006
if it pleases the court
people, whoever reads this, promise me this - if and when i die, which hopefully won't be shortly, please do NOT turn my myspace page into a memorial. i am fascniated by the pages which have become memorials to dead 20-somethings, it's interesting to read the gibberish comments people left on their departed friends' pages and then suddenly all the notes become macabre and sorrowful, at best. "we miss you here at Starbucks!" Oh please... Anyway, if on the other hand people want to use my myspace page as a way to continue to poke fun at me and degrade/humiliate my character in the afterlife, then so be it. Go on, who's going to stop you, aside from the intangible barriers of Taste. Sticks and Stones can't hurt me from beyond the gates of Oblivion, but even I have to have a chuckle at the thought that my removed presence is still obnoxious to someone, somewhere.. eternally..
I guess I will have to start writing Advance Blog Entries (A.B.E.'s) for someone to post in the future after I am gone, much like wen a poshumous author's work is published. The only difference being that there's an audience for the dead author, but you know. I will have to think beforehand about what I will complain about in the Afterlife and commit it to keyboard, so that people can still read about the trivial bullshit Ron is whining about from a supposed Other Plane of Existence.
Anyway, enough of that. Once in awhile it's fun to toy with the idea of pondering one's own mortality and imminent doom, but not too wonderful to get carried away with it. Meanwhile, I am facing some new bizarre considerations, and the question I have is this - if everyone you know tells you that you're crazy, then does that mean, indeed, that you ARE CRAZY? For years I have had to weather such accusations from my friends and loved ones, to whatever, degree, but it was always sort of lain on me in jest. though the past couple of years, it's been coming at me more... uh.. substantially. So what if I am crazy.. what then? Do I get a card for my wallet, perhaps a bracelet? A tax break? Should I just turn over all my belongings and check, indefinitely, into the nearest mental institution?
Or should I just start acting crazy "for real?" Walking around half-dressed in the streets. Throwing things at cops, trying to drink gasoline straight out of the pump. Screaming at strangers in public places and try to relieve myself at the entrances of libraries, you know, that sort of thing. Okay, well, short of being a little abrasive here and there, I do have the switch in my head which says "do not irritate society and piss people off FOR REAL," likewise don't do things that are utterly irrational for the sake of irrationality and completely disregard any such consequences. So my wy fo going abotu things, and the levels of my interactions with certain people in the world might be measured as a little bit unusual here and there, but I maintain that I am by no means honestly crazy. Perhaps, it's more the case the case that nearly everyone else around me is just so fucking boring.
I guess I will have to start writing Advance Blog Entries (A.B.E.'s) for someone to post in the future after I am gone, much like wen a poshumous author's work is published. The only difference being that there's an audience for the dead author, but you know. I will have to think beforehand about what I will complain about in the Afterlife and commit it to keyboard, so that people can still read about the trivial bullshit Ron is whining about from a supposed Other Plane of Existence.
Anyway, enough of that. Once in awhile it's fun to toy with the idea of pondering one's own mortality and imminent doom, but not too wonderful to get carried away with it. Meanwhile, I am facing some new bizarre considerations, and the question I have is this - if everyone you know tells you that you're crazy, then does that mean, indeed, that you ARE CRAZY? For years I have had to weather such accusations from my friends and loved ones, to whatever, degree, but it was always sort of lain on me in jest. though the past couple of years, it's been coming at me more... uh.. substantially. So what if I am crazy.. what then? Do I get a card for my wallet, perhaps a bracelet? A tax break? Should I just turn over all my belongings and check, indefinitely, into the nearest mental institution?
Or should I just start acting crazy "for real?" Walking around half-dressed in the streets. Throwing things at cops, trying to drink gasoline straight out of the pump. Screaming at strangers in public places and try to relieve myself at the entrances of libraries, you know, that sort of thing. Okay, well, short of being a little abrasive here and there, I do have the switch in my head which says "do not irritate society and piss people off FOR REAL," likewise don't do things that are utterly irrational for the sake of irrationality and completely disregard any such consequences. So my wy fo going abotu things, and the levels of my interactions with certain people in the world might be measured as a little bit unusual here and there, but I maintain that I am by no means honestly crazy. Perhaps, it's more the case the case that nearly everyone else around me is just so fucking boring.
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
the sin is corrupting
you know, i had planned to keep more of an active "travel diary" during the time I was on the road, but that just didn't seem to happen -- after all -- I was on the road! And since my return home, lack of time coupled with a lack of enthusiasm has likewise crippled my efforts to put anything into this journal. But, in the spirit of putting some notes down before my memory starts to wither, I have taken it upon myself to.. uhhh... bleh bleh blah.
Anyway, here's the bargain-basement recap, so much as I am capable of:
Sunday Nov 26, @6pm - my friend picked me up in Framingham, Massachusettes (just outside of Boston) and we hit the road. About 4 hours and change later, we arrived in Astoria, NYC. We hit a bar to catch up with some friends and ogle the cute, nerdy waitress.
Monday, Nov 27 - We hit the road at about noon. Drove all day, we split the driving roughly 50/50. I got nailed with a shitty speeding ticket (i've not got one in 6 years) which will probably cost me in excess of $200. I will make the phone call to figure that out AFTER I write this, my mood is perturbed enough as it is. Arrived in Chicago shortly before 2am, to find that all the hotels in town were booked as a radiology convention was going on. We stopped into a Greek Tavern to have a couple of drinks (Sam Adams was usually my beer of choice during this adventure, my accomplice stuck to the Bud Light - for those keeping score). At this tavern, I learned that it is not looked well upon to pick up the errant $1 bills strewn across the bar floor. Whoops... Anyway, we checked into a Marriott by the airport and got some shuteye.
Tuesday November 28 - We spent the entire day in Chicago, a city I have long wanted to see. Snapped a lot of pictures, wandering around, chilling at a couple of bars, downed a corned beef sandwich. Nothing too special during the day, as we'd not really planned out our trip too thoroughly and so weren't quite sure of what to see or where to go. just the same, after the previous day's heavy driving, it was nice to plunk down in the middle of the city, sit on our asses and down a couple beers while shooting the breeze. That night was a whole different story - we found a (much cheaper) hotel outside of the city limits, and caught the Metra rail back into the city to get some Chicago Pizza, and then meet my friend Mike (Tough Love.. or, Evil Fat) who was duty-bound to show us some of the night scene in the city. He picked us up after dinner and drove us to a couple of places. The first two were pretty mellow, but as the evening picked up we got into some happening joints. Nothing too special, but just what I was hoping for on a Tuesday night. One thing that I noticed, was that people just seemed really cool, really NICE in this town. Not like LA or Boston, where people are dripping (quite often) with the negative attitude, to the tune of "get outta my way and leave me the hell alone." Ironically, I did meet some chick who was not the friendliest sort around, but it wasn't enough to dampen my spirits - I definitely liked that bar a lot. After this place we hit another one, looked kind of like a Harley Bar or something - and right as we approached it we saw some big bruiser guy had just met the pavement in front with his forehead, and there was a nice little line of blood dripping down the asphalt. Mike and I kind of gawked, while my other friend rushed to his aid (he found a pulse!) An.. interesting introduction to a bar, to be sure, apparently this guy and some other guy inside were stepping outside to brawl, and I guess this guy tripped and knocked himself clean out. Regardless, we classily literally STEPPED OVER HIS UNCONCIOUS BODY and entered the joint. Inside was considerably much mellower than the scene outside, likewise much more so than the last bar we'd left. This was kind of like the "come-down" bar, after which we headed home and decided to call it a night.
Wednesday November 29 - Check out at noon, it's pouring rain (the previous day was a little cool, but still very nice weather). We hit the road bound for Wyoming, but the weather worsened and some poor navigation (not our fault) hindered our approach somewhat. We spent some extra hours frozen in standstill traffic amongst an army of behemoth trucks, there must have been some huge railyard nearby or something. Anyway, as the night (and shitty weather) wore on, we approached Des Moines, Iowa and stopped to get a bite to eat. About 9pm, around the financial district - a couple bars, restaurants, but it was a GHOST TOWN, there wasn't anything going on anywhere. It was cold as hell (<20 degree I believe?) so we rushed into some random restaurant, got some grub, and continued to plot our progress. Earlier on we decided to skip Wyoming altogether, as we'd originally intended to make it to tempe, Arizona by Thursday night. This was about 24 hours away, and we had a good 1500 miles or so to travel, yet!! At this point, we'd decided to just bite the bullet and keep plowing straight on through until we got to Tempe - which would likely take us a full 24 hours of nonstop driving, anyway. So, what the hell. He'd been driving all day, and now after dinner I took the wheel as he passed out for a few hours. I drove as long as I could (made it nearly clear through Nebraska) before my concentration started to stutter, so I handed the wheel to my buddy and caught some Z's myself, I think about 3:30am into the new Thursday.
Thursday November 30 - Driver woke me up @6:30 as he'd pulled into an IHOP in Denver, Colorado. I dragged myself sluggishly out of the car (freezing, and snow everywhere - I hadn't seen that in awhile!) for some much appreciated breakfast. Paid the bill, hit the road, and poor Chris got to manage with the morning city traffic as I slowly drifted back to sleep. I guess it was about 1 in the afternoon when I woke up, we had just passed into New Mexico (yup, Chris negotiated the entire state of Colorado all by himself) and pulled into Denny's to recharge. We ate, then hit the road once more - and it was my turn to drive. I got us completely through New Mexico, and then all the way through to that evening's destination, Tempe, Arizona (just beside Phoenix). I believe we got there at about 11:30 in the evening, and we parked our car and dropped our gear off at my buddy Aaron C's apartment. He and I used to work together a few years ago, he's since relocated and got a job with a studio in this particular town. We hopped in the shower, and though exhausted from the long TWO FULL DAYS OF DRIVING we headed out to check out the Tempe scene. Late at night, yah, but still here it was and here we were, with only a night to see what's up. We dutifully pounded a couple of drinks after a magically mind-reading cabbie showed up to give us a ride into town (it's amazing when that works out!), we were in a regular frat-type bar with some heavy-metal impersonators on stage playing some LOUD GODDAMN MUSIC which fortunately subsided not too long after we hit that scene. Likewise, 2am came and the place dispersed without much craziness to ensue... or so, we thought. As the place emptied into the street, we mingled with the crowd a bit (I picked up some random guy's girlfriend, I mean LITERALLY picked her up, of course he wasn't too psyched with this and showed up to collect her rather quickly.. she didn't seem to mind, either way!!) A bit drunk and beat, my friends and I headed to Jack in the Box to get some grub so as to soak up the night's booze. Little did we know what would meet us within...
So, Arizona has always struck me, generally, as a rather desolate area. I mean, it's desert, right? A cattle skull here, a tumbleweed there. Maybe a reservation or two, who knows. Anyway, the pics I've seen of it just usually show rustic looking Adobe-type houses, and I picture lots of old men with handlebar mustaches, big golden belts, and cowboy hats passing through Trading Posts and the like. As for the city, I expected it to be pretty new and streamlined, lots of construction underway, which is pretty much how it shaped up. And the frat bar likewise fulfilled my expectation of kind of apreppy, vanilla atmosphere. But man, when we stepped into the Jack in the Box, things suddenly became very unexpected. We found some dude slumped in a booth alternating between madly-passionately making out with his girlfriend and passing out in his chair, limply.. His friends were tryingto get him to board a cab and get the hell outta there with them, despite his extremely drunken objections. Again, Chris rose to the occasion (as I tried to tune it out) and helped the guy. I was trying to defuse a possibly dangerous situation between my other friend and some folks in the restaurant who were looking for trouble (my buddy was happy and hungry, and I think we were all a little bit oblivious about how dark it was going to get in there). I got everybody to wait outside and keep an eye out for our cab as I waited to order (also difficult, as the dudes behind the counter were having their own drama and running back and forth between their work area and outside to angrily yell at whoever on the phone). In the meantime, some bizarre wispy business-suit-clad gentleman sidles up to me and tells me in a sort of sing-songy voice, " i LooOOOooooOOve heroin!" Asking me if I have any drugs I could hook him up with. Drugless, I deny him and try to get him to leave me alone (politely, since I can tell he's.. uhm.. in an altered state of conciousness) And so he starts in nagging the fella next to me, "you got any coke? got any heroin?" The dude is jonesing, and the kid he is bothering is not happy about it. They go back and forth, each of them becoming increasingly irate and rude with one another, to the point where I decide to ditch my idea and wait outside with my buddies rather than get any further ensconced with this bullshit. I meet my friends, who tell me the cab is enroute.. the heroin-needing business man follows me out and starts asking my friends for coke as well. They are not too psyched about this and start giving him a tough time, and he follows suit (pun?!) and manages to get a move on and leave us alone. SOMEHOW I got back in, got a few burgers, and we caught or cab and made it to Aaron's place, in one piece. natch. Ironically, today was my girlfriend's 25th birthday..!
Friday December 1 - Another day, we wake up, shower, get some lunch at the slowwwwest eating establishment I have seen in some time. Food wasn't much to speak of either, but at that point anything they'd served would have made me overjoyed as we were all pretty hungry, and emotionally taxed from the night before. We ate, bid our friend farewell, and hit the road one last time for the final leg of the journey. We left AZ a little past 3 in the afternoon, and I drove straight through to my apartment in Hollywood, California. It took almost 6 hours, and mannn was I happy to get home! We hit the shower again, then walked up the street to Birds to get a couple of drinks and have some dinner. I wasn't too psyched to go there, not that it is a bad place - but the food usually disappoints. I mention this because I decided to order the ribs and they were FUCK KING GOOD. I have found a new amazing rib joint and it's 5 minutes to walk from where my bed is at. Happy! Anyway, we got picked up by our friend Edwin to welcome us home, and went to some little scenestery party in echo park. I wasn't too psyched to do this either, and honestly from when we walked in through the first hour or so, I was really totally being a pill. I didn't wanna be at this shitty place! But as I got afew drinks in me, I lightened up a bit and ended up having a really good time after all, meeting some cool people, and the strange bartender chick, who loved me and hated me at the same time. or something. Some cops made fun of us as we ended the night "you'll never get a cab here!" right as one immediately pulled up and took us away (haha! bitches!!) safe and sound to my home sweet home.
Saturday December 2 - okay I guess i can start stopping with the timestamping now eh? But still appropriate, as the experience was not yet over. Today I took Chris out to Santa Monica, a popular travel spot, to check out the 3rd Street Promenade, the pier (from a distance) and of course the beach, with a very nice sunset. A nice night to end the craziness we'd been entrenched in, sort of - calmand peaceful, anyway. Also we chanced to end up in a very wonderful italian resturant on the Promenade when the Beanery denied us a place to sit and eat, and we had some of the best pizza I've ever had in my LIFE. Trastevere, I think it was called. We headed back to my place after a full day, again hit the showers/etc and headed out to the LAX nightclub (in hollywood, NOT at the airport) for some overpriced drinks and irritating crowd. Actually the night was quite fun, we snuck some booze in and only drank sparingly. The music was cheesy, but fun to dance to (all that matters, right?) and we got out of there and walked home at the end of the night, with a little of the usual destruction taking place (i think i destroyed some ballons and we threw some Adult Ad pamphlets around), likewise annoyed some late-nighter's in the local cafe. Then home to play SF2 till we passed out.
Sunday we got shabu for lunch with edwin, then parted company with him and I gave chris the Tour (de force) of LA. We were just driving around town and I was showing him the sights, the spectacle.. the sunset strip, Roxy, Viper room.. crazy rock-side houses up in the nosebleed Hollywood Hills, Beverly Hills, Hollywood proper (walk of fame, Mann's Theater), and of course Downtown LA to see the wanton decrepitness (if it's a word.. I am not sure). We planned to go out for one more night, buut exhaustion crept in and he crashed on the couch after the day of driving. I was gonna yank him up to go out anyway, but hey - the guy had a ful day(s) of driving back to the East Coast by himself ahead of him, and to give him some credit he'd been quite good at hanging with my steady-nonstop lifestyle - but yeah, we all need a damned rest for a night here or there! To be fair, I passed out on my carpet for a few hours here and there. We were both pretty beat... And so, the next day (Monday) we got some lunch real quick, oil change for his ride, and then off into the sunset he went. And still on the road, somewhere, he is now. And as for me? I have work to so.
And that's that.
Anyway, here's the bargain-basement recap, so much as I am capable of:
Sunday Nov 26, @6pm - my friend picked me up in Framingham, Massachusettes (just outside of Boston) and we hit the road. About 4 hours and change later, we arrived in Astoria, NYC. We hit a bar to catch up with some friends and ogle the cute, nerdy waitress.
Monday, Nov 27 - We hit the road at about noon. Drove all day, we split the driving roughly 50/50. I got nailed with a shitty speeding ticket (i've not got one in 6 years) which will probably cost me in excess of $200. I will make the phone call to figure that out AFTER I write this, my mood is perturbed enough as it is. Arrived in Chicago shortly before 2am, to find that all the hotels in town were booked as a radiology convention was going on. We stopped into a Greek Tavern to have a couple of drinks (Sam Adams was usually my beer of choice during this adventure, my accomplice stuck to the Bud Light - for those keeping score). At this tavern, I learned that it is not looked well upon to pick up the errant $1 bills strewn across the bar floor. Whoops... Anyway, we checked into a Marriott by the airport and got some shuteye.
Tuesday November 28 - We spent the entire day in Chicago, a city I have long wanted to see. Snapped a lot of pictures, wandering around, chilling at a couple of bars, downed a corned beef sandwich. Nothing too special during the day, as we'd not really planned out our trip too thoroughly and so weren't quite sure of what to see or where to go. just the same, after the previous day's heavy driving, it was nice to plunk down in the middle of the city, sit on our asses and down a couple beers while shooting the breeze. That night was a whole different story - we found a (much cheaper) hotel outside of the city limits, and caught the Metra rail back into the city to get some Chicago Pizza, and then meet my friend Mike (Tough Love.. or, Evil Fat) who was duty-bound to show us some of the night scene in the city. He picked us up after dinner and drove us to a couple of places. The first two were pretty mellow, but as the evening picked up we got into some happening joints. Nothing too special, but just what I was hoping for on a Tuesday night. One thing that I noticed, was that people just seemed really cool, really NICE in this town. Not like LA or Boston, where people are dripping (quite often) with the negative attitude, to the tune of "get outta my way and leave me the hell alone." Ironically, I did meet some chick who was not the friendliest sort around, but it wasn't enough to dampen my spirits - I definitely liked that bar a lot. After this place we hit another one, looked kind of like a Harley Bar or something - and right as we approached it we saw some big bruiser guy had just met the pavement in front with his forehead, and there was a nice little line of blood dripping down the asphalt. Mike and I kind of gawked, while my other friend rushed to his aid (he found a pulse!) An.. interesting introduction to a bar, to be sure, apparently this guy and some other guy inside were stepping outside to brawl, and I guess this guy tripped and knocked himself clean out. Regardless, we classily literally STEPPED OVER HIS UNCONCIOUS BODY and entered the joint. Inside was considerably much mellower than the scene outside, likewise much more so than the last bar we'd left. This was kind of like the "come-down" bar, after which we headed home and decided to call it a night.
Wednesday November 29 - Check out at noon, it's pouring rain (the previous day was a little cool, but still very nice weather). We hit the road bound for Wyoming, but the weather worsened and some poor navigation (not our fault) hindered our approach somewhat. We spent some extra hours frozen in standstill traffic amongst an army of behemoth trucks, there must have been some huge railyard nearby or something. Anyway, as the night (and shitty weather) wore on, we approached Des Moines, Iowa and stopped to get a bite to eat. About 9pm, around the financial district - a couple bars, restaurants, but it was a GHOST TOWN, there wasn't anything going on anywhere. It was cold as hell (<20 degree I believe?) so we rushed into some random restaurant, got some grub, and continued to plot our progress. Earlier on we decided to skip Wyoming altogether, as we'd originally intended to make it to tempe, Arizona by Thursday night. This was about 24 hours away, and we had a good 1500 miles or so to travel, yet!! At this point, we'd decided to just bite the bullet and keep plowing straight on through until we got to Tempe - which would likely take us a full 24 hours of nonstop driving, anyway. So, what the hell. He'd been driving all day, and now after dinner I took the wheel as he passed out for a few hours. I drove as long as I could (made it nearly clear through Nebraska) before my concentration started to stutter, so I handed the wheel to my buddy and caught some Z's myself, I think about 3:30am into the new Thursday.
Thursday November 30 - Driver woke me up @6:30 as he'd pulled into an IHOP in Denver, Colorado. I dragged myself sluggishly out of the car (freezing, and snow everywhere - I hadn't seen that in awhile!) for some much appreciated breakfast. Paid the bill, hit the road, and poor Chris got to manage with the morning city traffic as I slowly drifted back to sleep. I guess it was about 1 in the afternoon when I woke up, we had just passed into New Mexico (yup, Chris negotiated the entire state of Colorado all by himself) and pulled into Denny's to recharge. We ate, then hit the road once more - and it was my turn to drive. I got us completely through New Mexico, and then all the way through to that evening's destination, Tempe, Arizona (just beside Phoenix). I believe we got there at about 11:30 in the evening, and we parked our car and dropped our gear off at my buddy Aaron C's apartment. He and I used to work together a few years ago, he's since relocated and got a job with a studio in this particular town. We hopped in the shower, and though exhausted from the long TWO FULL DAYS OF DRIVING we headed out to check out the Tempe scene. Late at night, yah, but still here it was and here we were, with only a night to see what's up. We dutifully pounded a couple of drinks after a magically mind-reading cabbie showed up to give us a ride into town (it's amazing when that works out!), we were in a regular frat-type bar with some heavy-metal impersonators on stage playing some LOUD GODDAMN MUSIC which fortunately subsided not too long after we hit that scene. Likewise, 2am came and the place dispersed without much craziness to ensue... or so, we thought. As the place emptied into the street, we mingled with the crowd a bit (I picked up some random guy's girlfriend, I mean LITERALLY picked her up, of course he wasn't too psyched with this and showed up to collect her rather quickly.. she didn't seem to mind, either way!!) A bit drunk and beat, my friends and I headed to Jack in the Box to get some grub so as to soak up the night's booze. Little did we know what would meet us within...
So, Arizona has always struck me, generally, as a rather desolate area. I mean, it's desert, right? A cattle skull here, a tumbleweed there. Maybe a reservation or two, who knows. Anyway, the pics I've seen of it just usually show rustic looking Adobe-type houses, and I picture lots of old men with handlebar mustaches, big golden belts, and cowboy hats passing through Trading Posts and the like. As for the city, I expected it to be pretty new and streamlined, lots of construction underway, which is pretty much how it shaped up. And the frat bar likewise fulfilled my expectation of kind of apreppy, vanilla atmosphere. But man, when we stepped into the Jack in the Box, things suddenly became very unexpected. We found some dude slumped in a booth alternating between madly-passionately making out with his girlfriend and passing out in his chair, limply.. His friends were tryingto get him to board a cab and get the hell outta there with them, despite his extremely drunken objections. Again, Chris rose to the occasion (as I tried to tune it out) and helped the guy. I was trying to defuse a possibly dangerous situation between my other friend and some folks in the restaurant who were looking for trouble (my buddy was happy and hungry, and I think we were all a little bit oblivious about how dark it was going to get in there). I got everybody to wait outside and keep an eye out for our cab as I waited to order (also difficult, as the dudes behind the counter were having their own drama and running back and forth between their work area and outside to angrily yell at whoever on the phone). In the meantime, some bizarre wispy business-suit-clad gentleman sidles up to me and tells me in a sort of sing-songy voice, " i LooOOOooooOOve heroin!" Asking me if I have any drugs I could hook him up with. Drugless, I deny him and try to get him to leave me alone (politely, since I can tell he's.. uhm.. in an altered state of conciousness) And so he starts in nagging the fella next to me, "you got any coke? got any heroin?" The dude is jonesing, and the kid he is bothering is not happy about it. They go back and forth, each of them becoming increasingly irate and rude with one another, to the point where I decide to ditch my idea and wait outside with my buddies rather than get any further ensconced with this bullshit. I meet my friends, who tell me the cab is enroute.. the heroin-needing business man follows me out and starts asking my friends for coke as well. They are not too psyched about this and start giving him a tough time, and he follows suit (pun?!) and manages to get a move on and leave us alone. SOMEHOW I got back in, got a few burgers, and we caught or cab and made it to Aaron's place, in one piece. natch. Ironically, today was my girlfriend's 25th birthday..!
Friday December 1 - Another day, we wake up, shower, get some lunch at the slowwwwest eating establishment I have seen in some time. Food wasn't much to speak of either, but at that point anything they'd served would have made me overjoyed as we were all pretty hungry, and emotionally taxed from the night before. We ate, bid our friend farewell, and hit the road one last time for the final leg of the journey. We left AZ a little past 3 in the afternoon, and I drove straight through to my apartment in Hollywood, California. It took almost 6 hours, and mannn was I happy to get home! We hit the shower again, then walked up the street to Birds to get a couple of drinks and have some dinner. I wasn't too psyched to go there, not that it is a bad place - but the food usually disappoints. I mention this because I decided to order the ribs and they were FUCK KING GOOD. I have found a new amazing rib joint and it's 5 minutes to walk from where my bed is at. Happy! Anyway, we got picked up by our friend Edwin to welcome us home, and went to some little scenestery party in echo park. I wasn't too psyched to do this either, and honestly from when we walked in through the first hour or so, I was really totally being a pill. I didn't wanna be at this shitty place! But as I got afew drinks in me, I lightened up a bit and ended up having a really good time after all, meeting some cool people, and the strange bartender chick, who loved me and hated me at the same time. or something. Some cops made fun of us as we ended the night "you'll never get a cab here!" right as one immediately pulled up and took us away (haha! bitches!!) safe and sound to my home sweet home.
Saturday December 2 - okay I guess i can start stopping with the timestamping now eh? But still appropriate, as the experience was not yet over. Today I took Chris out to Santa Monica, a popular travel spot, to check out the 3rd Street Promenade, the pier (from a distance) and of course the beach, with a very nice sunset. A nice night to end the craziness we'd been entrenched in, sort of - calmand peaceful, anyway. Also we chanced to end up in a very wonderful italian resturant on the Promenade when the Beanery denied us a place to sit and eat, and we had some of the best pizza I've ever had in my LIFE. Trastevere, I think it was called. We headed back to my place after a full day, again hit the showers/etc and headed out to the LAX nightclub (in hollywood, NOT at the airport) for some overpriced drinks and irritating crowd. Actually the night was quite fun, we snuck some booze in and only drank sparingly. The music was cheesy, but fun to dance to (all that matters, right?) and we got out of there and walked home at the end of the night, with a little of the usual destruction taking place (i think i destroyed some ballons and we threw some Adult Ad pamphlets around), likewise annoyed some late-nighter's in the local cafe. Then home to play SF2 till we passed out.
Sunday we got shabu for lunch with edwin, then parted company with him and I gave chris the Tour (de force) of LA. We were just driving around town and I was showing him the sights, the spectacle.. the sunset strip, Roxy, Viper room.. crazy rock-side houses up in the nosebleed Hollywood Hills, Beverly Hills, Hollywood proper (walk of fame, Mann's Theater), and of course Downtown LA to see the wanton decrepitness (if it's a word.. I am not sure). We planned to go out for one more night, buut exhaustion crept in and he crashed on the couch after the day of driving. I was gonna yank him up to go out anyway, but hey - the guy had a ful day(s) of driving back to the East Coast by himself ahead of him, and to give him some credit he'd been quite good at hanging with my steady-nonstop lifestyle - but yeah, we all need a damned rest for a night here or there! To be fair, I passed out on my carpet for a few hours here and there. We were both pretty beat... And so, the next day (Monday) we got some lunch real quick, oil change for his ride, and then off into the sunset he went. And still on the road, somewhere, he is now. And as for me? I have work to so.
And that's that.
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