so
every once in awhile i feel like i am waking up from a dream. it happens at the oddest times.
i look at my life and my mind and where i have been and what i have done
and i feel like i have been pretty hard on myself and i don't appreciate it, and i should feel better about it. but instead i choose to write about it in a stupid online journal so that hopefully, i will look at this message on some other random night at some other random point in my life and remember just what it was i was trying to decide that i felt.
and now, right now, i have to go and close my eyes and pass out and go back into that dream, wherever that actually is.
there, then, was my point.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Sunday, July 15, 2007
resurrected
sigh. a little typin'.
tired.. the past few days, a whole lot of running around. work is busy (as usual) and my social life has been actin' up. thursday todd w was in town, so i met he + the gang for some drinks (disregard in my previous entry where i noted that i'd be going home to chill that evening). friday night may and i went to the grove with edwin, for a little pizza, a little wine, a little whine, and some ratatouille. the movie was quite well-done actually. cute story, beautiful visuals. Saturday marvelously followed Friday, as it often does - I got up and out early to visit mr Long Lin and his Auto Mechanic shop. He got my ride all oil-changed and stuff. then i headed over to just tires where my poor car sat for several hours as i hoofed around town. i am putting tons of mileage on my vehicle these days, so i don't want to slack to badly in maintainence - i really don't want the thing to belly-up on me at this point in my life right now. Wel the thing sat in the shop i walked a block over to pink's hatdogs, rather hotdogs (but a hatdog would be an interesting thing to have, as well). I seldom go there, ever (uh.. maybe once or twice a year?) as there's always a retardedly super-extendo line reaching aorund the building. i musta waited about 45 minutes to get my dog, but that was fine, i needed to kill some time - and i had my friend bryan's book to finish reading, to keep me occupied. I finally got my quarry, i always order an Ozzy Dog at this place - they have all sorts of crazy combos - this one is a super-spicy polish dog covered with onions, nacho cheese, and guacamole. it's the biggest hot dog i have ever seen, condiments envelop my hand as i try to hold it and devour it with my gapin' maw. yeah, it's messy (even for ME, who was apparently raised in the jungle by wild animals).. and the tin is so spicy it always makes my nose get runny ad my eyes extremely teary. "So why do you eat the damned thing!" what can i say, sometimes certain experiences are enjoyable for reasons that we've not got words for, and i wouldn't have it any other way. fortunately, unlike most times, i was able to score a seat indoors so all my napkins would not blow away as i ate.
last night i met an old buddy of mine who i seldom see, since we live several miles apart - we went to Poubelle for a couple drinks (nice lil bar up the street) and then headed into Hollywood. The evening was a little lopsided, but not bad. I got home in one piece and didn't make a scene, so I am proud of myself. And today? Today was supposed to be Beach Day! But that didn't happen so I ended up having Backyard Hammock day, while I soaked in the sun and finished reading my book.
And now, well, it is sunday evening. The apartment is still quite warm, and the air outside is getting pleasantly slightly chillier. I am calm, thoughtful.. as i lay outside, I surveyed my little chunk of land. I don't usually do that, I am always freaking out neurotically about this or that or what have you, but today i just lay and looked at my apartment and my car parked in it's port, the apartment building next to me, all the little trees and plants lining the periphery. I looked towards the window in my hallway and saw the ceiling fan spinning in my room. Everything is covered with blocks of cement.. dirt lines their cracks, occasionally little clumps of grass or weeds will poke through as well. It is nice to have this spot, this quiet area, this peaceful little space to call my own. I don't OWN it, but it's close enough to feeling that way that i am satisfied. I head my coworkers going on about their stressful mortgage payments for tiny property and while I would love to own my own land someday, it feels like a perfect tradeoff for the time being, not to have to deal with such headache on top of everything else. I hope I can spend several years in this apartment, it suits my needs pretty perfectly.
There was a report in the news this week, there's a parking spot in Manhattan in NYC somewhere and the things costs like.. $250,000 to own. My god. It sounds so ludicrous. And you know what's more, if I had that kinda money I would jump on the thing right now. It's only gonna appreciate - and ten years from now who knows what it would be worth? AT the very least, you wouldn't be stuck losing any real money trying to sell it. Man.. My friend had an opportunity to buy a little shithole bldg in NYC a couple years back, I really wish he shelled out for it. SOMEONE would cough up for it sooner or later, and then he could just lie back and do something with the dough. That'd be nice.. man, I wish I had the time and inclination to invest in some real estate. I already have another industry to take up too many of my brain cells as it is.
Looking around, my apartment is in decent condition. I could be so much happier if the bathroom was cleaned, and the kitchen floor could use some love too. I wonder if I can get myself out of this chair and do something to that effect...
tired.. the past few days, a whole lot of running around. work is busy (as usual) and my social life has been actin' up. thursday todd w was in town, so i met he + the gang for some drinks (disregard in my previous entry where i noted that i'd be going home to chill that evening). friday night may and i went to the grove with edwin, for a little pizza, a little wine, a little whine, and some ratatouille. the movie was quite well-done actually. cute story, beautiful visuals. Saturday marvelously followed Friday, as it often does - I got up and out early to visit mr Long Lin and his Auto Mechanic shop. He got my ride all oil-changed and stuff. then i headed over to just tires where my poor car sat for several hours as i hoofed around town. i am putting tons of mileage on my vehicle these days, so i don't want to slack to badly in maintainence - i really don't want the thing to belly-up on me at this point in my life right now. Wel the thing sat in the shop i walked a block over to pink's hatdogs, rather hotdogs (but a hatdog would be an interesting thing to have, as well). I seldom go there, ever (uh.. maybe once or twice a year?) as there's always a retardedly super-extendo line reaching aorund the building. i musta waited about 45 minutes to get my dog, but that was fine, i needed to kill some time - and i had my friend bryan's book to finish reading, to keep me occupied. I finally got my quarry, i always order an Ozzy Dog at this place - they have all sorts of crazy combos - this one is a super-spicy polish dog covered with onions, nacho cheese, and guacamole. it's the biggest hot dog i have ever seen, condiments envelop my hand as i try to hold it and devour it with my gapin' maw. yeah, it's messy (even for ME, who was apparently raised in the jungle by wild animals).. and the tin is so spicy it always makes my nose get runny ad my eyes extremely teary. "So why do you eat the damned thing!" what can i say, sometimes certain experiences are enjoyable for reasons that we've not got words for, and i wouldn't have it any other way. fortunately, unlike most times, i was able to score a seat indoors so all my napkins would not blow away as i ate.
last night i met an old buddy of mine who i seldom see, since we live several miles apart - we went to Poubelle for a couple drinks (nice lil bar up the street) and then headed into Hollywood. The evening was a little lopsided, but not bad. I got home in one piece and didn't make a scene, so I am proud of myself. And today? Today was supposed to be Beach Day! But that didn't happen so I ended up having Backyard Hammock day, while I soaked in the sun and finished reading my book.
And now, well, it is sunday evening. The apartment is still quite warm, and the air outside is getting pleasantly slightly chillier. I am calm, thoughtful.. as i lay outside, I surveyed my little chunk of land. I don't usually do that, I am always freaking out neurotically about this or that or what have you, but today i just lay and looked at my apartment and my car parked in it's port, the apartment building next to me, all the little trees and plants lining the periphery. I looked towards the window in my hallway and saw the ceiling fan spinning in my room. Everything is covered with blocks of cement.. dirt lines their cracks, occasionally little clumps of grass or weeds will poke through as well. It is nice to have this spot, this quiet area, this peaceful little space to call my own. I don't OWN it, but it's close enough to feeling that way that i am satisfied. I head my coworkers going on about their stressful mortgage payments for tiny property and while I would love to own my own land someday, it feels like a perfect tradeoff for the time being, not to have to deal with such headache on top of everything else. I hope I can spend several years in this apartment, it suits my needs pretty perfectly.
There was a report in the news this week, there's a parking spot in Manhattan in NYC somewhere and the things costs like.. $250,000 to own. My god. It sounds so ludicrous. And you know what's more, if I had that kinda money I would jump on the thing right now. It's only gonna appreciate - and ten years from now who knows what it would be worth? AT the very least, you wouldn't be stuck losing any real money trying to sell it. Man.. My friend had an opportunity to buy a little shithole bldg in NYC a couple years back, I really wish he shelled out for it. SOMEONE would cough up for it sooner or later, and then he could just lie back and do something with the dough. That'd be nice.. man, I wish I had the time and inclination to invest in some real estate. I already have another industry to take up too many of my brain cells as it is.
Looking around, my apartment is in decent condition. I could be so much happier if the bathroom was cleaned, and the kitchen floor could use some love too. I wonder if I can get myself out of this chair and do something to that effect...
Thursday, July 12, 2007
so oooo ooooo 0088
feels like it should say ninth. but it says twelfth. suck it up.
what's up, whoever reads my blog. it's been awhile since i have posted in here.. needless to say i do not like to do it so much anymore. tired of writin' and tired of chroniclin'. but what the hell.
so, things are alright. smoothed out at work a little i guess (yeah and now i have just jinxed myself for saying so, i am sure).... but it's alright. my mood is always gonna be weird about work, by virtue of it being me, being work, and it being a mood. all the bases are covered, or if you prefer, spoken for.
i have been overworked a bit lately and that leads to --ding-- partying a little. yah, but isn't it funny how the two can be incessantly linked together? Now is no different - well it sure doesn't feel like it. but you know, it is thursday night, it is 9pm, i am in my office in orange county.. after i write this blog i will pack it in for the evening and rather than go out and do whatever, i will relax at home and take it easy, then get some shuteye. and the weekend ought to be more of the same. and, well, yes it makes me sad to say that.. the mood i have been in lately, that of.. "i work hard to make other people really really rich, i want to live it up a little also!" has been sort of a factor, but i know it's not gonna really do much to help anything.
so E3 was this week. it's weird, this is the 1st time in 7 years where i've not attended. i have written enough about the event not to really wanna rehash it all right now, but at least i have kinda been keeping tabs on the boards to see what's the fuss been all about. the answer is - not much. the industry is kind of hitting a big stall. oh, so there's a shock. a bunch of somewhat interesting stuff coming down the pipe, but really nothing new, nothing revolutionary, nothing even sort of "holy crap that's different, and fun!" Just more shit. video games have become top-heavy, boring, redundant. I mean alright, last year was a dull showing, but the consoles were all new and everyone was in crush-cram-damage control mode. Is this the opposite of moore's law? The more advanced tech gets, the slower we manage to conquer it? There's probably something to that, if you think about it. This means we are kind of in a middle period then - a bell curve, this is the "golden age," before the deneoumont (spelled very wrong but i don't feel like checking it) and we are no longer in quite so much control of it.. and the chaos part of it starts accelerating.
it's okay, the universe thrives on the acceleration and deceleration of chaos and order. so basically, it's nothing new.. just on another scale. and pardon me while i reel it in before i start sounding completely like just another stoner (though mind you, talking about this stuff is doing no help to my urge to resist going out and living the nightlife) Enjoy it while it lasts, that is all i am saying.. damn consumer culture...
i love yahoo news. it always cracks me up. i could be criticized for even looking at it and considering that any kind of valid news source, but hell.. it's there, it's easy to digest, i don't have the time or energy to let my mind get swept up in all the underbelly of what's REALLY going on. News is pretty much entertainment right? Anyway, front page of yahoo mentions among it's seven bulleted items, and i cutNpaste here, "Trampoline injuries have soared in the last decade, study finds." Now that - THAT is ace journalism my friends. Trampoline accidents are on the up and up, and apparently it is on everyone's lips. Call a microsurgeon - it's time to organize a charity even. Can we get Ben Stiller to speak out on this, PSA style? David Schwimmer? Someone? The Streis?
Yeah, so you know where i am at, then. Basically awash in my own cynicism. I am in a decent mood i guess, in spite of it. And i have not been a complete homebody or office slug too much the past recent little bit and so it's got my charge up a little. But -- honestly -- and i feel like this has been ringing in my head a little bit, lately -- I feel like it's coming to a time when i need to do some huge re-evaluation of my philosophy. I am not the type to say or do such things since "oh, it's been awhile, time to re-configure my thoughts - let's check the schedule!" I mean I observe whenever there's some point in time like my borthday, the new year, or some other meaningful mark of time "where was i last year? 5 years ago?" etc. but this is different. this is when i just look at myself, my character. I really honestly do like myself, warts and all.. but sometimes, lately, I am starting to get pissed, or just maye kind of tired of it. Well, not tired of ME, but tired of the notion of this particular path I am following, these patterns I exhibit. Okay not so much THAT either but rather that once in awhile i will notice that it maybe doesn't completely jive with the world around me, and what my plans are with all of that.. what I want to seriously do with my life, what i have hoped for my future. I always will just rely on my own recognizance to see everything through, and the fact that the world is --essentially-- built for/catering to stupid people. I guess I must swallow my pride for a minute and own up to being one of them (well not STUPID stupid, but I know I ain't no Doctorate either). Though that starts a different argument about ow that's a completely different measure of intellect, and just what IS "stupid" then - and i really don't feel like getting off onto that tangent right now.
But yeah, stupid - and I will cling to my self esteem and say "I should know better" but honestly, if not for whatever degree of naivete/innocence/cluelessness I've got left, I wouldn't have even bothered venturing this far, never mind my ideas for what's to follow (and just what i am doing to get there).
I haven't really got a model for any of this, whether that is good or bad I can't say. I look up to my peers, and of course my parents, but really - we are different enough that it feels like it's a decent blueprint to follow if i wanted to be just like any of THEM, and yet the older i get, the more i feel myself being pulled away from it.
So maybe I am kind of stunted. Maybe I am eternally a bit immature. Maybe my philosophy, such as it is, has already colored my perceptions and expectations of the world enough to get me stuck in my particular character (isn't it true of anyone with a brain?) Maybe I would be happier to force myself to hunker down with a bunch of mountain dew just start force feeding myself large doses of television. Nah, too boring.
there's a reason why i still live in hollywood.
what's up, whoever reads my blog. it's been awhile since i have posted in here.. needless to say i do not like to do it so much anymore. tired of writin' and tired of chroniclin'. but what the hell.
so, things are alright. smoothed out at work a little i guess (yeah and now i have just jinxed myself for saying so, i am sure).... but it's alright. my mood is always gonna be weird about work, by virtue of it being me, being work, and it being a mood. all the bases are covered, or if you prefer, spoken for.
i have been overworked a bit lately and that leads to --ding-- partying a little. yah, but isn't it funny how the two can be incessantly linked together? Now is no different - well it sure doesn't feel like it. but you know, it is thursday night, it is 9pm, i am in my office in orange county.. after i write this blog i will pack it in for the evening and rather than go out and do whatever, i will relax at home and take it easy, then get some shuteye. and the weekend ought to be more of the same. and, well, yes it makes me sad to say that.. the mood i have been in lately, that of.. "i work hard to make other people really really rich, i want to live it up a little also!" has been sort of a factor, but i know it's not gonna really do much to help anything.
so E3 was this week. it's weird, this is the 1st time in 7 years where i've not attended. i have written enough about the event not to really wanna rehash it all right now, but at least i have kinda been keeping tabs on the boards to see what's the fuss been all about. the answer is - not much. the industry is kind of hitting a big stall. oh, so there's a shock. a bunch of somewhat interesting stuff coming down the pipe, but really nothing new, nothing revolutionary, nothing even sort of "holy crap that's different, and fun!" Just more shit. video games have become top-heavy, boring, redundant. I mean alright, last year was a dull showing, but the consoles were all new and everyone was in crush-cram-damage control mode. Is this the opposite of moore's law? The more advanced tech gets, the slower we manage to conquer it? There's probably something to that, if you think about it. This means we are kind of in a middle period then - a bell curve, this is the "golden age," before the deneoumont (spelled very wrong but i don't feel like checking it) and we are no longer in quite so much control of it.. and the chaos part of it starts accelerating.
it's okay, the universe thrives on the acceleration and deceleration of chaos and order. so basically, it's nothing new.. just on another scale. and pardon me while i reel it in before i start sounding completely like just another stoner (though mind you, talking about this stuff is doing no help to my urge to resist going out and living the nightlife) Enjoy it while it lasts, that is all i am saying.. damn consumer culture...
i love yahoo news. it always cracks me up. i could be criticized for even looking at it and considering that any kind of valid news source, but hell.. it's there, it's easy to digest, i don't have the time or energy to let my mind get swept up in all the underbelly of what's REALLY going on. News is pretty much entertainment right? Anyway, front page of yahoo mentions among it's seven bulleted items, and i cutNpaste here, "Trampoline injuries have soared in the last decade, study finds." Now that - THAT is ace journalism my friends. Trampoline accidents are on the up and up, and apparently it is on everyone's lips. Call a microsurgeon - it's time to organize a charity even. Can we get Ben Stiller to speak out on this, PSA style? David Schwimmer? Someone? The Streis?
Yeah, so you know where i am at, then. Basically awash in my own cynicism. I am in a decent mood i guess, in spite of it. And i have not been a complete homebody or office slug too much the past recent little bit and so it's got my charge up a little. But -- honestly -- and i feel like this has been ringing in my head a little bit, lately -- I feel like it's coming to a time when i need to do some huge re-evaluation of my philosophy. I am not the type to say or do such things since "oh, it's been awhile, time to re-configure my thoughts - let's check the schedule!" I mean I observe whenever there's some point in time like my borthday, the new year, or some other meaningful mark of time "where was i last year? 5 years ago?" etc. but this is different. this is when i just look at myself, my character. I really honestly do like myself, warts and all.. but sometimes, lately, I am starting to get pissed, or just maye kind of tired of it. Well, not tired of ME, but tired of the notion of this particular path I am following, these patterns I exhibit. Okay not so much THAT either but rather that once in awhile i will notice that it maybe doesn't completely jive with the world around me, and what my plans are with all of that.. what I want to seriously do with my life, what i have hoped for my future. I always will just rely on my own recognizance to see everything through, and the fact that the world is --essentially-- built for/catering to stupid people. I guess I must swallow my pride for a minute and own up to being one of them (well not STUPID stupid, but I know I ain't no Doctorate either). Though that starts a different argument about ow that's a completely different measure of intellect, and just what IS "stupid" then - and i really don't feel like getting off onto that tangent right now.
But yeah, stupid - and I will cling to my self esteem and say "I should know better" but honestly, if not for whatever degree of naivete/innocence/cluelessness I've got left, I wouldn't have even bothered venturing this far, never mind my ideas for what's to follow (and just what i am doing to get there).
I haven't really got a model for any of this, whether that is good or bad I can't say. I look up to my peers, and of course my parents, but really - we are different enough that it feels like it's a decent blueprint to follow if i wanted to be just like any of THEM, and yet the older i get, the more i feel myself being pulled away from it.
So maybe I am kind of stunted. Maybe I am eternally a bit immature. Maybe my philosophy, such as it is, has already colored my perceptions and expectations of the world enough to get me stuck in my particular character (isn't it true of anyone with a brain?) Maybe I would be happier to force myself to hunker down with a bunch of mountain dew just start force feeding myself large doses of television. Nah, too boring.
there's a reason why i still live in hollywood.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
blogstinks
alright let me see if i can make it through one blog entry without cussin all over the place.
so i got possessed by the devil and went out to the bar last night. well i went out saturday and last night (tues night) and both nights were full of debaucherous merriment, of which i remember very little. but it is okay, i haven't been partying at all lately, so i guess it is not the end of the world if i make a smear on the scene here and there once in awhile. that will do for now, though.
i do miss the days of yore though. and i do have to knock off the jagermeister.. it works wonders but it also nukes my brain cells. i can't imagine what happens to alcoholics' brains, just being permanently zapped out of your skull like that all the time. seriously, in these periods where i don't get down very much, it strikes me more dramatically (and makes me grateful that i have the ability to just say no rather than relentlessly throw down, as they say)
or so i have led myself to believe..
work is going alright. it's still kicking me in the ass. it's a LOT of work! I was thinking this job was gonna be cushey, man i was wrong! so much stuff to learn.. this is how it goes my friends, get yourself into a different culture and there's tons of different rules and regulations to follow. and so that's life, adapt or die!
traffic bit this morning, driving a little hungover is bad enough but adding insult to injury is even more betterer. people always ask me how much i hate my drive, it's a haul but i am not turned off by it (could be much worse!) It's nice to have that time to myself and honestly, i do enjoy driving! even after all these years.. it sort of stimulates the same part of my brain that enjoys playing tetris or something. that's not to say that i don't like being a PASSENGER at times as well. hell i would be immensely happier if i was carpooling to work, in some ways. when that has been an option in the past, it has helped things quite a bit!
watched the sopranos tonight - 3 episodes to go (they're downloading now). I am sad it's over but, well, whatever. i enjoyed watching the show, but really, the end of the show - even if it is still good - it's kind of a drag. Especially in a show like this, when the show is officially ending, they start pulling some stunts "since it's ending anyway" that breaks from the normal continuity and sort of ruins the whole "suspension of disbelief" aspect. So, yeah, like i said.. whatever. And then i will have NOTHING to watch anymore (oh boo hoo). I need to get back to reading anyway. but i will say, it is kinda nice to have something to briefly escape into and care about which DOES NOT MATTER AT ALL, IN THE SLIGHTEST. Ha ha.
End of June, yikes! July is... like.. a few days away! That's halfway through 2007! I almost said 2006. 2006 sounds too futurey enough as it is. 2007 might as well be 2014 or 2023. I wonder what i will be doing then, when i am 39 or 48. Argh. HolyCRAP. You know I talked to my Dad the other night on the phone and he mentioned about how he is closing in on 60. SIXTY! My Dad is almost sixty... yeah, and I am sure he is enjoying reading this. Ah well, at least he made it to sixty without either of his kids killing anybody or something like that, I suppose that has to account for something. Or had illegitimate children or whatever. Yeah, you made out, Dad!!
I wonder if my next 30 years will be anywhere near as hectic as the past 30. Sure the world will evolve in new and strange ways, a lot has happened since i started paying more attention to things. I have no doubt that some cataclysmic weirdness of biblical proportions is in store. Well, hopefully nothing too earth-shattering (hoping my audience is relishing my metaphors) Honestly though, it is strange to think that my coming years are just gonna be spent stuck in the current mode.. until i DIE really. As opposed to the first half, growing up and going through adolescence and generally forming my personality and stuff - turning into an actual person - schooling, figuring out just what it is i'd do with my life - well from here on out it is all just about working. Work, work, work. Isn't that pathetic? Work, make money, spend money, save money. Scrape scrape scrape. A trip here, an indulgence there.. but pretty much locked into this stuff for the long haul. Year in ad out of the same thing! Learn new stuff to add to my skillset, meet new similar people, apply all of that, keep making products. And all the while just getting progressively older and fartier and smellier and more overweight. ... BAH!!! Is that it? Is that all? Buy some crap, maybe go through a few cars. Now you know why i like to go out and act crazy and get out of myself and out of my head and stuff once in awhile. i can't bare to think of all these coming years of just being force-fed a stead diet of crappier movies and crappier television programs and stuff.
this is sort of the philosophical argument i had in my life not too many months ago "what kind of life do i want to have? what kind of person do i want to be?" I opted for the more stable, comfortable route rather than the less assured, more random kind of life. i made my bed and here i lie. the thing that's great about it all is, i can really ditch it all at any time and just go wherever and start over and do it all differently. . hope that it will somehow color me differently and cause me to experience life in a more profound way than i'd detailed in that previous paragraph.
but damn it - i am an american. this is my pedigree, this is what i have born into, this is what i have always expected and how my world has outlined life for a guy like me. it's what i am supposed to want, to do - that's just evolution. but then, alongside order there's always been chaos. that's why people flip out sometimes, maybe - that's why our world has so much seemingly random bizarre going-on sometimes i guess (even though it can be extremely dreary at times). That's the part of myself i will always grasp onto, even if i can never completely satisfy it - my urge to just be wild and unbound, whatever you want to call it! maybe it will make me nuts, maybe it already has..
or i will just keep working, jumping from job to job, eventually slipping into the place that fits the closest.. find my weird nights out at the occasional random places to satisfy
my urge for breaking the pattern now and again. yeah, so i guess i need to travel. Someday.
it's interesting to watch some of my friends going through some of this stuff as well. perhaps they don't verbalize it the same way i do, but just the age that we are, and what we do with our lives -- the stuff we have been through, none of it particularly special (but special enough to draw us together) Anyway I guess it makes it a little easier to deal with, if nothing else!
so i got possessed by the devil and went out to the bar last night. well i went out saturday and last night (tues night) and both nights were full of debaucherous merriment, of which i remember very little. but it is okay, i haven't been partying at all lately, so i guess it is not the end of the world if i make a smear on the scene here and there once in awhile. that will do for now, though.
i do miss the days of yore though. and i do have to knock off the jagermeister.. it works wonders but it also nukes my brain cells. i can't imagine what happens to alcoholics' brains, just being permanently zapped out of your skull like that all the time. seriously, in these periods where i don't get down very much, it strikes me more dramatically (and makes me grateful that i have the ability to just say no rather than relentlessly throw down, as they say)
or so i have led myself to believe..
work is going alright. it's still kicking me in the ass. it's a LOT of work! I was thinking this job was gonna be cushey, man i was wrong! so much stuff to learn.. this is how it goes my friends, get yourself into a different culture and there's tons of different rules and regulations to follow. and so that's life, adapt or die!
traffic bit this morning, driving a little hungover is bad enough but adding insult to injury is even more betterer. people always ask me how much i hate my drive, it's a haul but i am not turned off by it (could be much worse!) It's nice to have that time to myself and honestly, i do enjoy driving! even after all these years.. it sort of stimulates the same part of my brain that enjoys playing tetris or something. that's not to say that i don't like being a PASSENGER at times as well. hell i would be immensely happier if i was carpooling to work, in some ways. when that has been an option in the past, it has helped things quite a bit!
watched the sopranos tonight - 3 episodes to go (they're downloading now). I am sad it's over but, well, whatever. i enjoyed watching the show, but really, the end of the show - even if it is still good - it's kind of a drag. Especially in a show like this, when the show is officially ending, they start pulling some stunts "since it's ending anyway" that breaks from the normal continuity and sort of ruins the whole "suspension of disbelief" aspect. So, yeah, like i said.. whatever. And then i will have NOTHING to watch anymore (oh boo hoo). I need to get back to reading anyway. but i will say, it is kinda nice to have something to briefly escape into and care about which DOES NOT MATTER AT ALL, IN THE SLIGHTEST. Ha ha.
End of June, yikes! July is... like.. a few days away! That's halfway through 2007! I almost said 2006. 2006 sounds too futurey enough as it is. 2007 might as well be 2014 or 2023. I wonder what i will be doing then, when i am 39 or 48. Argh. HolyCRAP. You know I talked to my Dad the other night on the phone and he mentioned about how he is closing in on 60. SIXTY! My Dad is almost sixty... yeah, and I am sure he is enjoying reading this. Ah well, at least he made it to sixty without either of his kids killing anybody or something like that, I suppose that has to account for something. Or had illegitimate children or whatever. Yeah, you made out, Dad!!
I wonder if my next 30 years will be anywhere near as hectic as the past 30. Sure the world will evolve in new and strange ways, a lot has happened since i started paying more attention to things. I have no doubt that some cataclysmic weirdness of biblical proportions is in store. Well, hopefully nothing too earth-shattering (hoping my audience is relishing my metaphors) Honestly though, it is strange to think that my coming years are just gonna be spent stuck in the current mode.. until i DIE really. As opposed to the first half, growing up and going through adolescence and generally forming my personality and stuff - turning into an actual person - schooling, figuring out just what it is i'd do with my life - well from here on out it is all just about working. Work, work, work. Isn't that pathetic? Work, make money, spend money, save money. Scrape scrape scrape. A trip here, an indulgence there.. but pretty much locked into this stuff for the long haul. Year in ad out of the same thing! Learn new stuff to add to my skillset, meet new similar people, apply all of that, keep making products. And all the while just getting progressively older and fartier and smellier and more overweight. ... BAH!!! Is that it? Is that all? Buy some crap, maybe go through a few cars. Now you know why i like to go out and act crazy and get out of myself and out of my head and stuff once in awhile. i can't bare to think of all these coming years of just being force-fed a stead diet of crappier movies and crappier television programs and stuff.
this is sort of the philosophical argument i had in my life not too many months ago "what kind of life do i want to have? what kind of person do i want to be?" I opted for the more stable, comfortable route rather than the less assured, more random kind of life. i made my bed and here i lie. the thing that's great about it all is, i can really ditch it all at any time and just go wherever and start over and do it all differently. . hope that it will somehow color me differently and cause me to experience life in a more profound way than i'd detailed in that previous paragraph.
but damn it - i am an american. this is my pedigree, this is what i have born into, this is what i have always expected and how my world has outlined life for a guy like me. it's what i am supposed to want, to do - that's just evolution. but then, alongside order there's always been chaos. that's why people flip out sometimes, maybe - that's why our world has so much seemingly random bizarre going-on sometimes i guess (even though it can be extremely dreary at times). That's the part of myself i will always grasp onto, even if i can never completely satisfy it - my urge to just be wild and unbound, whatever you want to call it! maybe it will make me nuts, maybe it already has..
or i will just keep working, jumping from job to job, eventually slipping into the place that fits the closest.. find my weird nights out at the occasional random places to satisfy
my urge for breaking the pattern now and again. yeah, so i guess i need to travel. Someday.
it's interesting to watch some of my friends going through some of this stuff as well. perhaps they don't verbalize it the same way i do, but just the age that we are, and what we do with our lives -- the stuff we have been through, none of it particularly special (but special enough to draw us together) Anyway I guess it makes it a little easier to deal with, if nothing else!
Thursday, June 21, 2007
this blog is titled, "ron complains about his life for a change"
hello and welcome to Happy Magic Blog Afterdinner Time. My name is Ron and I am goign to share this special time with you right now and tell you about some things in my life which are fun to whine about. So please pull up a McShake and some french fries, smother them with ketchup (the McShake too), take off your shoes and buckle in for some good bloggity goodness.
Well it is thursday night and i am here at my office in santa ana. it is the end of a long day, following a long week and beofre that a long month/few months. Okay I guess the length of things is well established at this point. I have been sitting around all day long making little rooftop elements and doodads, it's been great fun. Actually I do enjoy doing that stuff, I suppose maybe that means there's something a little wrong with me or I have been steadily unearthing the autistic layers of my brain, or something, but there you have it.
Work is going alright. I don't really wanna talk about it right now, it's been sort of frustrating. I spend too much time here and I am at a point where I am both very thankful to be working at a place like this and at the same time getting really tired of the videogame industry. I think I need some more positive reinforcement beyond just seeing my wallet get slightly fatter every so often (which is usually immediately depleted as I chip away at my debt).. I need some pat on the back or something, I dunno. I think I am pretty good at what I do, but I work in an industry that favors superficiality over, uh, tremendously bizarre aesthetic.. or something.. anyway the point is it's business for $$$ over personal gratification (well, for us grunts anyway) no matter where you are or who you are working for I suppose. Anyway I tend to flip flop on my feeling on the whole general shebang so I won't linger on bitching about it at length (...it's true, I swear!) I guess no matter what I did for a living, I'd take issue with the politics of it, that's the kind of guy I am. I am still waiting for a golden age whose day is past, I suppose.
So I have an ant problem, I have mentioned this before. Honestly I see ants crawling all over my desk all day long. I can look down and see like 4 or five of them at any given time, walking on my keyboard, my mousepad, up the side of my monitor. Yeah it used to be fucking revolting but it's almost become sort of cute by now. I love pulling them off of my arms, wrists, and pants. I don't want to think about the ones which are probably crawling near my orifices. Apologies to Salvatore Dali. This would all be well and good if i was a slob but i am really not, there's a couple of empty water bottles on my desk that that's it really. Our office is just infested with ants - I need to buy some serious ant traps and just obliterate the whole colony. DIE you little fuckers! (waiting for the ironic part where i see ants crawling across the screen over the word "ants" which i'd just typed)
I am no stranger to ant infestation. I am forgetting if i have memorialized my Anty Past in my blog before, and since myspace blog tools are anemic to say the least, I will assume I've not gone off on it - if so, chalk this up to a rerun (hey it is summertime). I remember living in the valley during one particularly hot summer. And then - the ants came. They came by the dozens, the hundreds, the thousands.. I can't count. There was this thick long line leading into the house from the back door, a line comprised completely of ants coming to and going fro. We called it "the Ants 405". You could smash as many of them as you wanted, but it wouldn't matter, they'd just keep coming, as ants do. Over the carcasses of their fallen bretheren, it would not matter. PROGRESS-- EXPLORE!! SEARCH!!! CONTINUE!! ADVANCE!! They'd got all over the house. Again let me say that I was not a slob and we didn't have a messy house or food lying around (Well, besides the dog dish). But the ants where everywhere. I would wake up in the morning and there'd be several ants crushed under my back from when I was sleeping. I'd pick up my alarm clock and ants would be walking all in and out of it. I'd open the fridge and there'd be ants in EVERYTHING. And even the freezer.. I would put a glass under the ice depositor thingy and ice cubes with frozen dead ants would come out. I opened the freezer and there'd just be these big balls of dead frozen ants clumped together inside. Yup, so.. pretty gross.
We had a hot tub. I mentioned the tub beofre, I am sure.. it was Pam Anderson's manager's tub. Or something. Anyway we'd routinely clena it (as one has to) - there was a huge ant colony inside the motor housing. I opened up the housing for whatever reason and more ants then I had ever seen in my life just came streaming out.. we put some water or something in the housing and they all fled. It was like a moving sea of blackness, for like 15 minutes.
So. Yeah. Ants. There you have it. I am making myself feel itchy now.
I am tired. I have been working all hours lately and little else - my social life has withered up and died, essentially. I am not too happy about that, but you can't have it all.. It will be back, anyway. And I have doen my share of partying and hanging out I suppose. But, yeah, it's taking a toll on me lately. It's colored my mood and got me kind of down - I can't really moan about it too much 'cause the whole point of it all is "get a job, keep a job!" these days, and that's usually a tough thing to do in my life it seems. Oh, I like it, at the end of the day - things are never stagnant, there's always tons of new shit to learn, new rhythms to adjust to, new technology and technique to conquer and coexist with, new politics to finagle - things are not dull and dreary. It's just tiring, and as I get older it wears me down a little more as the years pass. In the recent years I would counter it with some excessive party-heartying, but the times are frowning on the continuing of that lifestyle for a number of reasons, and so I have to stick to the straight-and-narrow. Yeah, that's fine too, and I feel like a good american and consumer - I fill my tank, i eat my carbs, I flush my toilet, i pay my bills. But where I'd usually had this feeling of "inevitably building towards something greater," I feel like my ignorance and naivete is giving way to desire for security, stability, and steadiness (bless those acronyms) and rather than mess with the world on a daily basis, I just want to make it thru the weeks and keep my head above water and my S together.
Yeah, so... I need a little vacation. An honest, worry-free time in my life where I can just chill and not sweat the immediate future and just plunk down and relax for five freakin' minutes. I need a solid weekend where my only concern is finding a decen tparking spot on the beach, and if there is enough suntan lotion in my bag so i won't look like a lobster at the end of the day. I want to lie down on my couch and marvel at how comfortably soft it is without slipping immediately into slumber-mode 'cause i am worn down from making myself nuts with overblown neuroses. I want to look at my life and my work and my society and put it into a manageable schedule for all it's elements, how much it will all cost and how much time I will spend on it and how many more miles my car will be able to sustain me as we power thru it all together before i need to take out a new loan for a newer uglier ride.
i think the only solution is to buy a convertible, at this point.. skin cancer or no skin cancer..!
Well it is thursday night and i am here at my office in santa ana. it is the end of a long day, following a long week and beofre that a long month/few months. Okay I guess the length of things is well established at this point. I have been sitting around all day long making little rooftop elements and doodads, it's been great fun. Actually I do enjoy doing that stuff, I suppose maybe that means there's something a little wrong with me or I have been steadily unearthing the autistic layers of my brain, or something, but there you have it.
Work is going alright. I don't really wanna talk about it right now, it's been sort of frustrating. I spend too much time here and I am at a point where I am both very thankful to be working at a place like this and at the same time getting really tired of the videogame industry. I think I need some more positive reinforcement beyond just seeing my wallet get slightly fatter every so often (which is usually immediately depleted as I chip away at my debt).. I need some pat on the back or something, I dunno. I think I am pretty good at what I do, but I work in an industry that favors superficiality over, uh, tremendously bizarre aesthetic.. or something.. anyway the point is it's business for $$$ over personal gratification (well, for us grunts anyway) no matter where you are or who you are working for I suppose. Anyway I tend to flip flop on my feeling on the whole general shebang so I won't linger on bitching about it at length (...it's true, I swear!) I guess no matter what I did for a living, I'd take issue with the politics of it, that's the kind of guy I am. I am still waiting for a golden age whose day is past, I suppose.
So I have an ant problem, I have mentioned this before. Honestly I see ants crawling all over my desk all day long. I can look down and see like 4 or five of them at any given time, walking on my keyboard, my mousepad, up the side of my monitor. Yeah it used to be fucking revolting but it's almost become sort of cute by now. I love pulling them off of my arms, wrists, and pants. I don't want to think about the ones which are probably crawling near my orifices. Apologies to Salvatore Dali. This would all be well and good if i was a slob but i am really not, there's a couple of empty water bottles on my desk that that's it really. Our office is just infested with ants - I need to buy some serious ant traps and just obliterate the whole colony. DIE you little fuckers! (waiting for the ironic part where i see ants crawling across the screen over the word "ants" which i'd just typed)
I am no stranger to ant infestation. I am forgetting if i have memorialized my Anty Past in my blog before, and since myspace blog tools are anemic to say the least, I will assume I've not gone off on it - if so, chalk this up to a rerun (hey it is summertime). I remember living in the valley during one particularly hot summer. And then - the ants came. They came by the dozens, the hundreds, the thousands.. I can't count. There was this thick long line leading into the house from the back door, a line comprised completely of ants coming to and going fro. We called it "the Ants 405". You could smash as many of them as you wanted, but it wouldn't matter, they'd just keep coming, as ants do. Over the carcasses of their fallen bretheren, it would not matter. PROGRESS-- EXPLORE!! SEARCH!!! CONTINUE!! ADVANCE!! They'd got all over the house. Again let me say that I was not a slob and we didn't have a messy house or food lying around (Well, besides the dog dish). But the ants where everywhere. I would wake up in the morning and there'd be several ants crushed under my back from when I was sleeping. I'd pick up my alarm clock and ants would be walking all in and out of it. I'd open the fridge and there'd be ants in EVERYTHING. And even the freezer.. I would put a glass under the ice depositor thingy and ice cubes with frozen dead ants would come out. I opened the freezer and there'd just be these big balls of dead frozen ants clumped together inside. Yup, so.. pretty gross.
We had a hot tub. I mentioned the tub beofre, I am sure.. it was Pam Anderson's manager's tub. Or something. Anyway we'd routinely clena it (as one has to) - there was a huge ant colony inside the motor housing. I opened up the housing for whatever reason and more ants then I had ever seen in my life just came streaming out.. we put some water or something in the housing and they all fled. It was like a moving sea of blackness, for like 15 minutes.
So. Yeah. Ants. There you have it. I am making myself feel itchy now.
I am tired. I have been working all hours lately and little else - my social life has withered up and died, essentially. I am not too happy about that, but you can't have it all.. It will be back, anyway. And I have doen my share of partying and hanging out I suppose. But, yeah, it's taking a toll on me lately. It's colored my mood and got me kind of down - I can't really moan about it too much 'cause the whole point of it all is "get a job, keep a job!" these days, and that's usually a tough thing to do in my life it seems. Oh, I like it, at the end of the day - things are never stagnant, there's always tons of new shit to learn, new rhythms to adjust to, new technology and technique to conquer and coexist with, new politics to finagle - things are not dull and dreary. It's just tiring, and as I get older it wears me down a little more as the years pass. In the recent years I would counter it with some excessive party-heartying, but the times are frowning on the continuing of that lifestyle for a number of reasons, and so I have to stick to the straight-and-narrow. Yeah, that's fine too, and I feel like a good american and consumer - I fill my tank, i eat my carbs, I flush my toilet, i pay my bills. But where I'd usually had this feeling of "inevitably building towards something greater," I feel like my ignorance and naivete is giving way to desire for security, stability, and steadiness (bless those acronyms) and rather than mess with the world on a daily basis, I just want to make it thru the weeks and keep my head above water and my S together.
Yeah, so... I need a little vacation. An honest, worry-free time in my life where I can just chill and not sweat the immediate future and just plunk down and relax for five freakin' minutes. I need a solid weekend where my only concern is finding a decen tparking spot on the beach, and if there is enough suntan lotion in my bag so i won't look like a lobster at the end of the day. I want to lie down on my couch and marvel at how comfortably soft it is without slipping immediately into slumber-mode 'cause i am worn down from making myself nuts with overblown neuroses. I want to look at my life and my work and my society and put it into a manageable schedule for all it's elements, how much it will all cost and how much time I will spend on it and how many more miles my car will be able to sustain me as we power thru it all together before i need to take out a new loan for a newer uglier ride.
i think the only solution is to buy a convertible, at this point.. skin cancer or no skin cancer..!
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
the mooooovies
got the day off from work today - i am behind, but rather than going into the office (the daily haul!) i decided to work from home. not something i can do often, but it's a nice option when it is available.
i am backing up some files to free up some space on the ol' HD, so i got a couple min free. might as well kill it with the blog. or whatever.
beautiful day - smogy, as usual, but it feels nice and the air is gentle, if it can be called that. it's just nice to cruise around hollywood and hang out for a quiet day at my place - it's nice to get some work done here too, as opposed to being office-bound. no commute, no ants crawling onme. i mentioned that already, huh. also i can look out my window at the lemon trees, and gawk at the hot chicks exiting the apartment bldg next door.
so i thought i would write an uncharacteristic post about the theater. "what? ron hates things that everybody else likes! Oh be quiet dammit (it's hilarious how many different
friends of mine like to tease me about that, independently of one another).
it's been years since i have been an honest-to-goodness movie buff.. in fact i have really only had a passing interest in that whole scene, in general. sure, i like films, but as i have often written, i never usually get juiced up to see some movie or other, really. there's often something i might be somewhat interested in seeing, but really i never have this feeling like "ohhh i NEED to see this film!" I guess i used to feel that way when i was a kid, i can think of a couple different episodes in my history.. more on that later. I guess growing up in a time when there'd been such a heavy emphasis on interactive entertainment, it was always more compelling to me to spend my leisure time DOING something rather than just sitting back and observing. If only what i was actually "doing" all those years involved more physical activity, outside in the sunshine, rather than sitting in front of the tube with a Nintendo controller gripped between my adolescent fingers. Sigh, like i said, symptomatic of my generation (and also, we jewish children are usually too nerdy to be jocks) I guess i can blame my parents for not forcibly kicking me outside more often anyway. If i am ever a dad, that's something i would force my kids to do "go...outside.. and PLAYYYY!!!" Even if they hate me for it, it will be better for them.
Anyway, so movie memories - yeah, for me, my past experiences with films usually pertain to what was going on in my life when i saw some film or other, and the circumstances leading up to seeing it. if the film sucked, then whatever, but if it was a good (or interesting) time leading up to that, then a good film would be received much better (or, at least more memorably).
I look back on my childhood and remember the films i saw as a kid - mostly it would just be my folks dragging me to a film, i don't remember really nagging my parents to take me to this film or that very much (it's happened a couple of times, but not a normal thing) I remember my dad took me to see the Muppet Movie when i was like.. 3???? I enjoyed it, but the part with Mel Brooks and the Electric Yarmulke scared the crap out of me. I guess I must have seen Star Wars @ 1981 or something, i am not totally sure when that was. Unlike 90 percent of my generation, i have never held that film in such unbelievable reverence.. I enjoyed it, but I never felt so utterly captivated by it as my peers claimed to. Even back in the days, i can't remember the other kids being quite so ga-ga about it (at least no more so than anything else). i guess it just wasn't a big Star Wars scene in Framingham, what can I tell you. A couple of things stand out, however.. early in the film, when Luke's adoptive family (and their entire town) is referred to as having been destroyed while he was away, it really FREAKED me out!! So much so that I had this uneasy feeling for the entire rest of the film, i never could get over that. (well, i have by NOW). Also I remember the film seemed to be extremely LONG. I enjoyed it but when it was draggingon I'd get anxious and just want the amn thing to wrap up already ("Ron are you sure you're not Gay?" I can hear it now..) I remember my dad took me to The Empire Strikes back when it was released and enjoying it so-so, not terribly memorable for me at the time (I guess i was like 8 or something) - though by the tme the final one released, I was interested in seeing that one. Hey , i just realized, I am writing a BLOG about STAR WARS. I have finally come full circle!
I guess that's my queue to change the subject- though I will mention, I had a playroom as a child, and my mother bought all these cool posters to hang up in there (Muppet Show with the full cast, etc) and this awesome Darth Vader poster. My little brother's friend would get scared and cry when he saw it, so she took that one down (awww...)
I guess I should get this one out of the way, I also saw Tron when I as 8. Man, that movie was weird. I don't know if I compelled my mother to take me to that picture, or if they just did anyway, but man.. that film was WEIRD. I was a pretty big videogame freak even at that young age, and this film just completely sucked me in. It's still pretty taboo to refer to it in mixed company these days, unless you're kind of a hardcore dork, but I don't care - my brother and I loved that film, even though it waqs truly bizarre and surreal and overall really firghtening, foreboding and nightmarish. The visuals, the concepts, the overal ambience, the music, everything about it just seemed like this crazy alien world.
More than a few films coming out in that period reflected a general cultural tone, again I'll refer to the star wars movies - more so than in the 70s and prior, we had a lot of high-concept sci-fi films and stuff sort of gathering notice in the mainstream, these htings were getting serious budgets (relatively), expensive fantasy was becoming this new and marketable thing in a way that it never was before (always very much niche, prior). I guess anyone who witnessed the 70s and 80s would have to agree about that. It's funny, since I am so apathetic about fantasy now in my adult life, but as a child I grew up absolutely immersed in it... it was hard not to!
Damn how long does this CD take to BURN????
A couple of other films. i remember when the Transformers movie was being released in 1986, I was 11 years old. MAN OH MAN was a I a huge fan of that show - It was a very unusual thing for a movie version of a TV show to be released, and so I was suitably excited for this one. I remember the day it came out, there was a hurricane warning and my mother did not want to drive mt to the movie theater. OH MY GOD, you would think I had just found out I was going to be jailed or something, i was so very upset with my poor mom... I wailed and whined and almost cried, I wanted oh-so-badly to see this movie "HAVE to see the Transformers movie!" Well she gave in, ultimately, and drove us to the theater - i think I missed the prologue (who cares), but I was riveted. In hindsight.. SUCH an upsetting and violent movie! I won't repeat what's been said so many times before, but that was sort of a traumatic day of my young life. 10 minutes into the film and half of the characters are shot and killed. That's hilarious.
Man, it's just a cartoon.
I am tired of writing about my stupid nostalgia...
I remember going to see Pee-Wee's big adventure with my friend Danny Kaufman (or was it Dan Freedman? i don't remember). This was another example of one saturday afternoon, I am minding my own business, and my mother says "I am going to drive you and Danny to the movie theater to see Pee Wee's Big adventure." Me: "Mom what the hell is that? I don't wanna see some dumb sounding movie called 'Pee Wee's Big whatever', it sounds so stupid" Her "Well you're going, put on your shoes" Man.. needless to say, she dragged me there and dropped me off, but about 5 minutes ino the film I had totally come around on the subject. that movie KICKED ASS. I guess my mom is pretty cool. Sigh.. I could watch it RIGHT NOW.
In a similar vein, i remember going to see the Weird Al movie "UHF" when it came out in 1989. Ever since i was a young'un i LOOOOOVED weird al - he was just so, uh, "weird.." I saw a preview for that thing and knew i had to see it. The movie was awful, but honestly it was probably one of the best movie theater experiences i have ever had! I have never laughed so much in a theater in my life. That thing was amazing. For years my friends made fun of me for enjoying it so much, until they got a little older ad could appreciate it the way I did. Sigh, it's a difficult thing when you are so much smarter than EVERYONE around you, y'know what I am saying? Y'all?
That year (1989) was the first "big movie year" I can remember. Yeah.. 1989. Just finished up middle school, getting ready to start as a freshman at Framingham North High. The new Batman movie with Michael Keaton was coming out, with tonnnns of hype behind it. the new Indy film also. I was pretty excited. I had to go see Batman the first day it was playing, at the first showing. I had already bought the comic adaption but kept it stowed away so as not to ruin the surprise. I kept watching the 20/20 sneak preview on VHS to get psyched for it. Batman was my favorite. I had on my batman tie-dyed Tshirt. i was ready.
I was disappointed. the movie sucked. well it did not suck, but man.. it kinda bored me. it started out cool but just deflated pretty quickly. the action scenes were sparse and strangely shot, there was too much joker time and not enough batman kicking the shit out of the criminal underworld time (though, the action scenes were pretty tight). I thik I was just let down by the hype. Still, I had to see it again, and I enjoyed it. The next few summers, they started rolling out the new Action fests pretty regularly, each season being phenomenally more expensive than the last, you had all the Schwarzenegger films (T2, total recall, etc), Disney movies were in vogue suddenly (hip and stylish, not just for little kids anymore)
When I went to college, this was around the time when movies were starting to be something that could be collected - growing up I'd always see them advertised in the TV guide VHS review section with MSRP's @ $120 or so - buying a film was a retarded idea! We'd just dupe them if we liked them, not with flawless results, but that's how it was and so you didn't mind (besides, you could fit a couple onto a tape, at the sacrifice of more quality). "tapes," those days were all about "tapes." VHS tapes, cassette tapes.. people even called NES cartridges "tapes." People are idiots. THERE'S NO "TAPE" IN THERE, YOU STUPID WHITE TRASH MORON!! Sorry, i am still a little bit angry. there, there.
Anyway, College. So now people were buying VHS tapes of movies left and right, @20 a pop - they'd also release them onto video much soon after the theatrical run would conclude (it used to take what seemed like ages, like.. at LEAST 6 months for a video to release after the theater was thru squeezing it dry. No matter what the film was!) Anyway the point was, being in college suddenly meant watching WAY more movies. Lots of my friends had at least small collections of films, and half the time we'd be hanging out in someone's dorm watching something or other, drinking beer, eating delivered pizza, making out, usually at least half the people in the room would be under the influence of some controlled substance or other.. sigh, yeah, those were the days! We had this thing called "HSCN" (Housing services cable network) which would prety much be showing newly-released videos 24/7. no flash, just cheesy-looking Amiga Toaster graphics with bulletins about a pep rally or committee meeting or NCAA game and a bunch of movie times, some shit you'd like to see, some you wouldn't. some you wouldn't even know WHAT it was, but if it was on and there's nothing else to do then might as well give it a shot, luck of the draw eh? It's free anyway (saw some cool movies, randomly, that way. "barton fink") Also back in those days, for the first time in my life, we'd go in HORDES to see movies. Your dorm-side was your extended family, so about 15 or so of us would pile into the car's of whoever was privileged enough to actually OWN a ride, head out to the mall, and just all catch the latest flick together. yeah, those were GOOD times, 'cause even if the movie was atrocious ("jim carrey film") it was the weekend and you were out having a blast causing some mayhem with all of your gang. then you'd go back to campus and get loaded. Whew!!
I remember going out to see "te new Quentin Tarantino flick" during early sophmore year. I had seen reservoir dogs years before, and enjoyed it enough, but not enough to become, I suppose, a connoiseur. Anyway, there was a preview for this thing called "Pulp Fiction" and it looked.. well.. not so wonderful, in the preview. and I am one of those retarded peopl who "hates some words" and Pulp is not a word that i like. "Orange juice pulp" - it just sound gross! But i LIKE orange juice! It's alright. Anyway, what do you want from me. Anyway point is i was not too psyched to see this film, but i got dragged along. John travolta's in it? How can it NOT be good? (haha) Anyway I won't state the obvious, let's just say that the movie definitively altered the path for popular culture for some time. Shawshank Redemption came out arond the same weekend and got DESTROYED. I remember seeing it later and enjoying it very much, and feeling like they got super-shafted...
I remember going to see Shindler's List.. haha i snuck a subway sandwich into the film with me and chowed on the thing for the first 20 minutes of the Holocaust. What am I if not classy, though? I remember there was a fair degree of hubbub surrounding the film (duh) at the time of it's release, though at a party college campus you're not really going to get waves of excitement over such a thing. Still my interest was piqued, and my half-german roomate was eager to see it (we each dressed in the opposing team's colors for the event.. we also carried little flags to cheer the teams on. He even had a giant foam finger with a swastika on it.. oh ok, enough already) Seriously, that was a tough film to watch, I remember when it ended the whole audience just sat and stared at the screen, silently, through the entire credit roll. then we went outside to wait for a bus to bring us back to campus, it was snowing and freezing and bright (though very late)-- the bus took like another hour to arrive. It was a bizarre night.
Movies.. movies movies... Danny Freedman (who I also went to see Bill and Ted's Excellent adventure with.. we weren't daring enough to skip scholl to see it like the Skids did, though) wet with me to see Police Academy IV, I guess we were in Middle School? I will always remember that (terrible) movie as the one that had the longest dragging-on ending. I had to pee sooo bad, but i really wanted to catch the ending. Which sucked. I don't know what is wrong with me. i sat there twitching in my seat for like 25 minutes. OCD anybody?
I remember seeing the Disney flop "the rocketeer" - and then going to see "the naked gun 2 1/2" wth my friend Pat (1990?) As his folks pick us up, he tells me "tell them we're going to the rocketeer" then after they left us off at the theater, we got our Naked Gun tix and walked on in. About 20 minutes into the film, his mom and dad show up - IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FILM - and somehow find us and drag him away "Patrick, you are coming with us!" And he spilt. So weird! What the hell? Did his dad have a thing against leslie nielsen? All i can think of is that they didn't like the double-entendre name and thought it was some completely different kind of movie. I'll never know.
Okay this has been a long and pointless ramblefest. I have plenty of other appendages to this story, but my DVD is done burning, and I have stuff to do. So, that's where I go now.
i am backing up some files to free up some space on the ol' HD, so i got a couple min free. might as well kill it with the blog. or whatever.
beautiful day - smogy, as usual, but it feels nice and the air is gentle, if it can be called that. it's just nice to cruise around hollywood and hang out for a quiet day at my place - it's nice to get some work done here too, as opposed to being office-bound. no commute, no ants crawling onme. i mentioned that already, huh. also i can look out my window at the lemon trees, and gawk at the hot chicks exiting the apartment bldg next door.
so i thought i would write an uncharacteristic post about the theater. "what? ron hates things that everybody else likes! Oh be quiet dammit (it's hilarious how many different
friends of mine like to tease me about that, independently of one another).
it's been years since i have been an honest-to-goodness movie buff.. in fact i have really only had a passing interest in that whole scene, in general. sure, i like films, but as i have often written, i never usually get juiced up to see some movie or other, really. there's often something i might be somewhat interested in seeing, but really i never have this feeling like "ohhh i NEED to see this film!" I guess i used to feel that way when i was a kid, i can think of a couple different episodes in my history.. more on that later. I guess growing up in a time when there'd been such a heavy emphasis on interactive entertainment, it was always more compelling to me to spend my leisure time DOING something rather than just sitting back and observing. If only what i was actually "doing" all those years involved more physical activity, outside in the sunshine, rather than sitting in front of the tube with a Nintendo controller gripped between my adolescent fingers. Sigh, like i said, symptomatic of my generation (and also, we jewish children are usually too nerdy to be jocks) I guess i can blame my parents for not forcibly kicking me outside more often anyway. If i am ever a dad, that's something i would force my kids to do "go...outside.. and PLAYYYY!!!" Even if they hate me for it, it will be better for them.
Anyway, so movie memories - yeah, for me, my past experiences with films usually pertain to what was going on in my life when i saw some film or other, and the circumstances leading up to seeing it. if the film sucked, then whatever, but if it was a good (or interesting) time leading up to that, then a good film would be received much better (or, at least more memorably).
I look back on my childhood and remember the films i saw as a kid - mostly it would just be my folks dragging me to a film, i don't remember really nagging my parents to take me to this film or that very much (it's happened a couple of times, but not a normal thing) I remember my dad took me to see the Muppet Movie when i was like.. 3???? I enjoyed it, but the part with Mel Brooks and the Electric Yarmulke scared the crap out of me. I guess I must have seen Star Wars @ 1981 or something, i am not totally sure when that was. Unlike 90 percent of my generation, i have never held that film in such unbelievable reverence.. I enjoyed it, but I never felt so utterly captivated by it as my peers claimed to. Even back in the days, i can't remember the other kids being quite so ga-ga about it (at least no more so than anything else). i guess it just wasn't a big Star Wars scene in Framingham, what can I tell you. A couple of things stand out, however.. early in the film, when Luke's adoptive family (and their entire town) is referred to as having been destroyed while he was away, it really FREAKED me out!! So much so that I had this uneasy feeling for the entire rest of the film, i never could get over that. (well, i have by NOW). Also I remember the film seemed to be extremely LONG. I enjoyed it but when it was draggingon I'd get anxious and just want the amn thing to wrap up already ("Ron are you sure you're not Gay?" I can hear it now..) I remember my dad took me to The Empire Strikes back when it was released and enjoying it so-so, not terribly memorable for me at the time (I guess i was like 8 or something) - though by the tme the final one released, I was interested in seeing that one. Hey , i just realized, I am writing a BLOG about STAR WARS. I have finally come full circle!
I guess that's my queue to change the subject- though I will mention, I had a playroom as a child, and my mother bought all these cool posters to hang up in there (Muppet Show with the full cast, etc) and this awesome Darth Vader poster. My little brother's friend would get scared and cry when he saw it, so she took that one down (awww...)
I guess I should get this one out of the way, I also saw Tron when I as 8. Man, that movie was weird. I don't know if I compelled my mother to take me to that picture, or if they just did anyway, but man.. that film was WEIRD. I was a pretty big videogame freak even at that young age, and this film just completely sucked me in. It's still pretty taboo to refer to it in mixed company these days, unless you're kind of a hardcore dork, but I don't care - my brother and I loved that film, even though it waqs truly bizarre and surreal and overall really firghtening, foreboding and nightmarish. The visuals, the concepts, the overal ambience, the music, everything about it just seemed like this crazy alien world.
More than a few films coming out in that period reflected a general cultural tone, again I'll refer to the star wars movies - more so than in the 70s and prior, we had a lot of high-concept sci-fi films and stuff sort of gathering notice in the mainstream, these htings were getting serious budgets (relatively), expensive fantasy was becoming this new and marketable thing in a way that it never was before (always very much niche, prior). I guess anyone who witnessed the 70s and 80s would have to agree about that. It's funny, since I am so apathetic about fantasy now in my adult life, but as a child I grew up absolutely immersed in it... it was hard not to!
Damn how long does this CD take to BURN????
A couple of other films. i remember when the Transformers movie was being released in 1986, I was 11 years old. MAN OH MAN was a I a huge fan of that show - It was a very unusual thing for a movie version of a TV show to be released, and so I was suitably excited for this one. I remember the day it came out, there was a hurricane warning and my mother did not want to drive mt to the movie theater. OH MY GOD, you would think I had just found out I was going to be jailed or something, i was so very upset with my poor mom... I wailed and whined and almost cried, I wanted oh-so-badly to see this movie "HAVE to see the Transformers movie!" Well she gave in, ultimately, and drove us to the theater - i think I missed the prologue (who cares), but I was riveted. In hindsight.. SUCH an upsetting and violent movie! I won't repeat what's been said so many times before, but that was sort of a traumatic day of my young life. 10 minutes into the film and half of the characters are shot and killed. That's hilarious.
Man, it's just a cartoon.
I am tired of writing about my stupid nostalgia...
I remember going to see Pee-Wee's big adventure with my friend Danny Kaufman (or was it Dan Freedman? i don't remember). This was another example of one saturday afternoon, I am minding my own business, and my mother says "I am going to drive you and Danny to the movie theater to see Pee Wee's Big adventure." Me: "Mom what the hell is that? I don't wanna see some dumb sounding movie called 'Pee Wee's Big whatever', it sounds so stupid" Her "Well you're going, put on your shoes" Man.. needless to say, she dragged me there and dropped me off, but about 5 minutes ino the film I had totally come around on the subject. that movie KICKED ASS. I guess my mom is pretty cool. Sigh.. I could watch it RIGHT NOW.
In a similar vein, i remember going to see the Weird Al movie "UHF" when it came out in 1989. Ever since i was a young'un i LOOOOOVED weird al - he was just so, uh, "weird.." I saw a preview for that thing and knew i had to see it. The movie was awful, but honestly it was probably one of the best movie theater experiences i have ever had! I have never laughed so much in a theater in my life. That thing was amazing. For years my friends made fun of me for enjoying it so much, until they got a little older ad could appreciate it the way I did. Sigh, it's a difficult thing when you are so much smarter than EVERYONE around you, y'know what I am saying? Y'all?
That year (1989) was the first "big movie year" I can remember. Yeah.. 1989. Just finished up middle school, getting ready to start as a freshman at Framingham North High. The new Batman movie with Michael Keaton was coming out, with tonnnns of hype behind it. the new Indy film also. I was pretty excited. I had to go see Batman the first day it was playing, at the first showing. I had already bought the comic adaption but kept it stowed away so as not to ruin the surprise. I kept watching the 20/20 sneak preview on VHS to get psyched for it. Batman was my favorite. I had on my batman tie-dyed Tshirt. i was ready.
I was disappointed. the movie sucked. well it did not suck, but man.. it kinda bored me. it started out cool but just deflated pretty quickly. the action scenes were sparse and strangely shot, there was too much joker time and not enough batman kicking the shit out of the criminal underworld time (though, the action scenes were pretty tight). I thik I was just let down by the hype. Still, I had to see it again, and I enjoyed it. The next few summers, they started rolling out the new Action fests pretty regularly, each season being phenomenally more expensive than the last, you had all the Schwarzenegger films (T2, total recall, etc), Disney movies were in vogue suddenly (hip and stylish, not just for little kids anymore)
When I went to college, this was around the time when movies were starting to be something that could be collected - growing up I'd always see them advertised in the TV guide VHS review section with MSRP's @ $120 or so - buying a film was a retarded idea! We'd just dupe them if we liked them, not with flawless results, but that's how it was and so you didn't mind (besides, you could fit a couple onto a tape, at the sacrifice of more quality). "tapes," those days were all about "tapes." VHS tapes, cassette tapes.. people even called NES cartridges "tapes." People are idiots. THERE'S NO "TAPE" IN THERE, YOU STUPID WHITE TRASH MORON!! Sorry, i am still a little bit angry. there, there.
Anyway, College. So now people were buying VHS tapes of movies left and right, @20 a pop - they'd also release them onto video much soon after the theatrical run would conclude (it used to take what seemed like ages, like.. at LEAST 6 months for a video to release after the theater was thru squeezing it dry. No matter what the film was!) Anyway the point was, being in college suddenly meant watching WAY more movies. Lots of my friends had at least small collections of films, and half the time we'd be hanging out in someone's dorm watching something or other, drinking beer, eating delivered pizza, making out, usually at least half the people in the room would be under the influence of some controlled substance or other.. sigh, yeah, those were the days! We had this thing called "HSCN" (Housing services cable network) which would prety much be showing newly-released videos 24/7. no flash, just cheesy-looking Amiga Toaster graphics with bulletins about a pep rally or committee meeting or NCAA game and a bunch of movie times, some shit you'd like to see, some you wouldn't. some you wouldn't even know WHAT it was, but if it was on and there's nothing else to do then might as well give it a shot, luck of the draw eh? It's free anyway (saw some cool movies, randomly, that way. "barton fink") Also back in those days, for the first time in my life, we'd go in HORDES to see movies. Your dorm-side was your extended family, so about 15 or so of us would pile into the car's of whoever was privileged enough to actually OWN a ride, head out to the mall, and just all catch the latest flick together. yeah, those were GOOD times, 'cause even if the movie was atrocious ("jim carrey film") it was the weekend and you were out having a blast causing some mayhem with all of your gang. then you'd go back to campus and get loaded. Whew!!
I remember going out to see "te new Quentin Tarantino flick" during early sophmore year. I had seen reservoir dogs years before, and enjoyed it enough, but not enough to become, I suppose, a connoiseur. Anyway, there was a preview for this thing called "Pulp Fiction" and it looked.. well.. not so wonderful, in the preview. and I am one of those retarded peopl who "hates some words" and Pulp is not a word that i like. "Orange juice pulp" - it just sound gross! But i LIKE orange juice! It's alright. Anyway, what do you want from me. Anyway point is i was not too psyched to see this film, but i got dragged along. John travolta's in it? How can it NOT be good? (haha) Anyway I won't state the obvious, let's just say that the movie definitively altered the path for popular culture for some time. Shawshank Redemption came out arond the same weekend and got DESTROYED. I remember seeing it later and enjoying it very much, and feeling like they got super-shafted...
I remember going to see Shindler's List.. haha i snuck a subway sandwich into the film with me and chowed on the thing for the first 20 minutes of the Holocaust. What am I if not classy, though? I remember there was a fair degree of hubbub surrounding the film (duh) at the time of it's release, though at a party college campus you're not really going to get waves of excitement over such a thing. Still my interest was piqued, and my half-german roomate was eager to see it (we each dressed in the opposing team's colors for the event.. we also carried little flags to cheer the teams on. He even had a giant foam finger with a swastika on it.. oh ok, enough already) Seriously, that was a tough film to watch, I remember when it ended the whole audience just sat and stared at the screen, silently, through the entire credit roll. then we went outside to wait for a bus to bring us back to campus, it was snowing and freezing and bright (though very late)-- the bus took like another hour to arrive. It was a bizarre night.
Movies.. movies movies... Danny Freedman (who I also went to see Bill and Ted's Excellent adventure with.. we weren't daring enough to skip scholl to see it like the Skids did, though) wet with me to see Police Academy IV, I guess we were in Middle School? I will always remember that (terrible) movie as the one that had the longest dragging-on ending. I had to pee sooo bad, but i really wanted to catch the ending. Which sucked. I don't know what is wrong with me. i sat there twitching in my seat for like 25 minutes. OCD anybody?
I remember seeing the Disney flop "the rocketeer" - and then going to see "the naked gun 2 1/2" wth my friend Pat (1990?) As his folks pick us up, he tells me "tell them we're going to the rocketeer" then after they left us off at the theater, we got our Naked Gun tix and walked on in. About 20 minutes into the film, his mom and dad show up - IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FILM - and somehow find us and drag him away "Patrick, you are coming with us!" And he spilt. So weird! What the hell? Did his dad have a thing against leslie nielsen? All i can think of is that they didn't like the double-entendre name and thought it was some completely different kind of movie. I'll never know.
Okay this has been a long and pointless ramblefest. I have plenty of other appendages to this story, but my DVD is done burning, and I have stuff to do. So, that's where I go now.
Friday, June 08, 2007
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
TUES JUN 5
yeah i wrote a couple hours ago, but i needed to write an update. to vent. to complain. drum roll.
1. my food came here earlier than i realized - no one told me! it sat, alone, on the ant table. no ants appeared to be init though. also it was warm enough to still taste good. BUT - they skimped on the hot n sour soup. also there were minimal pieces of chicken in there. Pfeh.
2. I hate when guys named Christopher are called "Topher." I never heard of this until i read an annoyin book some years ago by that dave eggers jerk who is from SF. "Toe-fer" - F that. "Christopher" is bad enough - "Chris" I can deal with but "Topher" has gotta go. I also disliked the name "Drew" for many years until listening to loveline- but if i hear the name drew and it's not preceded by And- or Doctor, then I am pissed off.
What's with long versions of names anyway? Why can't most of them sound not-obnoxious? I hate when I know a "Jim" who insists on being referred to as James. Or "Jason" isn't just Jay. Could you tell I did not like being referred to as Ronald while i was growing up...
hey, I am gonna buy a Tron book. That's not a complaint, though. I wonder if there's any Tron Coloring Books on Ebay - or Tron Puzzles. Or Tron Halloween Costumes. Or Hide n Sleep's.
Oh my god. I would completely buy a Tron Hide N Sleep. Can you imagine just how cool (no one knows what I am talking about, that's alright)
1. my food came here earlier than i realized - no one told me! it sat, alone, on the ant table. no ants appeared to be init though. also it was warm enough to still taste good. BUT - they skimped on the hot n sour soup. also there were minimal pieces of chicken in there. Pfeh.
2. I hate when guys named Christopher are called "Topher." I never heard of this until i read an annoyin book some years ago by that dave eggers jerk who is from SF. "Toe-fer" - F that. "Christopher" is bad enough - "Chris" I can deal with but "Topher" has gotta go. I also disliked the name "Drew" for many years until listening to loveline- but if i hear the name drew and it's not preceded by And- or Doctor, then I am pissed off.
What's with long versions of names anyway? Why can't most of them sound not-obnoxious? I hate when I know a "Jim" who insists on being referred to as James. Or "Jason" isn't just Jay. Could you tell I did not like being referred to as Ronald while i was growing up...
hey, I am gonna buy a Tron book. That's not a complaint, though. I wonder if there's any Tron Coloring Books on Ebay - or Tron Puzzles. Or Tron Halloween Costumes. Or Hide n Sleep's.
Oh my god. I would completely buy a Tron Hide N Sleep. Can you imagine just how cool (no one knows what I am talking about, that's alright)
flesh-colored cheetos
didn't i write in this last nite already? WTF? i have a friend who actually says "double-you Tee Eff" when he gets mad. It's-a great.
7:57, waiting for chin's cafe or whatevr the hell it is called to arrive. they said it would be her ONE MINUTE AGOOOO. why is it not here now. another late night of working, i have been powering through my work lately.. i have so much stuff to make, in such a short amount of time. please refer to older post about "the pain in the ass-ness of making nextgen art" Ah well at least it seems to be looking better, i guess. keep building.
weird dream last night - i was kind of an asshole in my dream. i forget a lot of it, basically i was single and living in new york i guess. i was at the bookstore and met a couple of girls, one of them was real cute but her less-attractive friend started to kiss me so i decided "whatever, i guess i can go out with her instead." We made plans to go out and i headed around town and met some other girl at a grocery store or something.. she gave me her card. cruising around, wasting time, i realized i was a bit late (like 1 hour) for the date i had with the unattractive chick. i am always late for everything, what's the difference? anyway she called and left a voicemail on my phone, i listened to it - it was the LONGEST VM EVER (not true, i hold the record for that..) Anyway she started off sounding sad and disappointed in the message, which gave way to anger, screaming at me, and sobbing... i suddenly was very glad that i had not met up with her as she was apparently very crazy and pathetic. i decided to avoid her (i love the word "avoid!") and decided to meet the other chick who'd given me her card. i entered her building quite brazenly, as she lived a few flights upstairs from the crazy and dejected female...
now where's my food. dammit.
7:57, waiting for chin's cafe or whatevr the hell it is called to arrive. they said it would be her ONE MINUTE AGOOOO. why is it not here now. another late night of working, i have been powering through my work lately.. i have so much stuff to make, in such a short amount of time. please refer to older post about "the pain in the ass-ness of making nextgen art" Ah well at least it seems to be looking better, i guess. keep building.
weird dream last night - i was kind of an asshole in my dream. i forget a lot of it, basically i was single and living in new york i guess. i was at the bookstore and met a couple of girls, one of them was real cute but her less-attractive friend started to kiss me so i decided "whatever, i guess i can go out with her instead." We made plans to go out and i headed around town and met some other girl at a grocery store or something.. she gave me her card. cruising around, wasting time, i realized i was a bit late (like 1 hour) for the date i had with the unattractive chick. i am always late for everything, what's the difference? anyway she called and left a voicemail on my phone, i listened to it - it was the LONGEST VM EVER (not true, i hold the record for that..) Anyway she started off sounding sad and disappointed in the message, which gave way to anger, screaming at me, and sobbing... i suddenly was very glad that i had not met up with her as she was apparently very crazy and pathetic. i decided to avoid her (i love the word "avoid!") and decided to meet the other chick who'd given me her card. i entered her building quite brazenly, as she lived a few flights upstairs from the crazy and dejected female...
now where's my food. dammit.
what if i spat on the horizontal?
yup. another night. another night with my bum planted firmly in the seat.
i think i freaked out a little bit lately. not "oh oh OHHH MY GOD" freaked out, but more of the usual "ahh, damn, whining, grumpy old man-type observations" freaked out.
i AM getting grumpier. that's no surprise - my friends make fun of me now "what's wrong ron why do you have to hate everything!" I used to be the one with all the sheer unbridled obnoxious enthusiasm all the time. it remains, but it's definitely got covered with a layer of urine, it seems, lately.
i went to target tonight to buy a brook and dustpan. it perturbed me that the target on bristol in santa ana was exactly like the target in van nuys. the home appliances, the picture frames, the DVD burners, the stools.. the little salty pretzel stand.. all the same. okay we were maybe facing a different direction, but yes. i am no stranger to complaining about these types of things "why's it all gotta be cookie cutter!" and to be honest if it was laid out differently, i would also have been pissed "ohh shoot the store's closing in 15 minutes how am i gonna find what i am looking for?" so you see, really, the universe can not win. no matter what it does to me, i will still bitch about it. anyway they didn't have the type of broom i wanted. i did find a reasonable version up the street at bed bath and beyond, which closed just as i had paid for my purchase. i still haven't cleaned up those stupid ashes....
then i got a cheeseburger. i am not supposed to eat cheeseburgers. i had one for lunch already. i had one yesterday off my BBQ grill. i had one the night before when i was stumbling home drunk from the bar (or so my wallet tells me, from the tommy's receipt). ergo, no more cheeseburgers for awhile. it's alright, i have been eating way to omuch roughage to balance it out in general, anyway. Mmm.. leafy! Salady goodness.
i bought a few design books the other day - we have a great store for that in los feliz. this store is GREAT, the place is overloading with tons of books about all manner of kitschy americana trash. seriously, if i had money i would buy the entire place out. i can go in there and just wile away hours, looking at albums of futurist architects or german advertisements from the 1970s or whatever. refridgerator magnet collection books. that sort of thing. okay it might sound a litte bit retarded but trust me, it's very cool.
driving home tonight i was pissing on santa ana in my mind. oh, get over it! when i was having to work again in the valley, i was pissed as well. i was SO done with the place. it's just a place where your office building is located. i don't even mind the drive so much.
i guess i should echo my recent sentiments though - yeah i am TIRED of doing the same thing. i mean, i have different things to do (all the time). gotta keep up withmy peers, always gotta learn tonnnns of new stuff, new technique, new style, get faster, better, etc. But i think my stamina's waning a little. maybe it's just a settling period, maybe i am just tired of always getting so sucked into this thing all the time.. sucked in, spat out, back and forth. like i said - i'll complain if it's stable, or i will complain about it if it's dramatic. i am a grumpy old man!!!
but yeah i was fantasizing about having a different life as i drove. like, what if i was some different guy. not just another suit, or just another nerdy game guy, but just another wild weirdo out there doing whatever. i am so plugged into society, with my car and my paycheck and my girlfriend, my friday night, my usual place to get a burrito. the jobs change, the faces change, but the years pass and "the more it changes, the more it stays the same." I guess you do hit some kind of plateau after awhile. And it does feel good to have stuff behind you, the worrisome mystery gone "now how the hell am i gonna handle it when X happens? What if she wants to see other people? What if i lose my job? What if my car breaks down? What if so-and-so moves away? If there's traffic going to blah blah destination, what other route can i take?"
anyway, i guess i miss the excitement of the mystery a little, sometimes. but i am glad to have things waiting for me to figure out, still.
go to sleep. you think too much.
i think i freaked out a little bit lately. not "oh oh OHHH MY GOD" freaked out, but more of the usual "ahh, damn, whining, grumpy old man-type observations" freaked out.
i AM getting grumpier. that's no surprise - my friends make fun of me now "what's wrong ron why do you have to hate everything!" I used to be the one with all the sheer unbridled obnoxious enthusiasm all the time. it remains, but it's definitely got covered with a layer of urine, it seems, lately.
i went to target tonight to buy a brook and dustpan. it perturbed me that the target on bristol in santa ana was exactly like the target in van nuys. the home appliances, the picture frames, the DVD burners, the stools.. the little salty pretzel stand.. all the same. okay we were maybe facing a different direction, but yes. i am no stranger to complaining about these types of things "why's it all gotta be cookie cutter!" and to be honest if it was laid out differently, i would also have been pissed "ohh shoot the store's closing in 15 minutes how am i gonna find what i am looking for?" so you see, really, the universe can not win. no matter what it does to me, i will still bitch about it. anyway they didn't have the type of broom i wanted. i did find a reasonable version up the street at bed bath and beyond, which closed just as i had paid for my purchase. i still haven't cleaned up those stupid ashes....
then i got a cheeseburger. i am not supposed to eat cheeseburgers. i had one for lunch already. i had one yesterday off my BBQ grill. i had one the night before when i was stumbling home drunk from the bar (or so my wallet tells me, from the tommy's receipt). ergo, no more cheeseburgers for awhile. it's alright, i have been eating way to omuch roughage to balance it out in general, anyway. Mmm.. leafy! Salady goodness.
i bought a few design books the other day - we have a great store for that in los feliz. this store is GREAT, the place is overloading with tons of books about all manner of kitschy americana trash. seriously, if i had money i would buy the entire place out. i can go in there and just wile away hours, looking at albums of futurist architects or german advertisements from the 1970s or whatever. refridgerator magnet collection books. that sort of thing. okay it might sound a litte bit retarded but trust me, it's very cool.
driving home tonight i was pissing on santa ana in my mind. oh, get over it! when i was having to work again in the valley, i was pissed as well. i was SO done with the place. it's just a place where your office building is located. i don't even mind the drive so much.
i guess i should echo my recent sentiments though - yeah i am TIRED of doing the same thing. i mean, i have different things to do (all the time). gotta keep up withmy peers, always gotta learn tonnnns of new stuff, new technique, new style, get faster, better, etc. But i think my stamina's waning a little. maybe it's just a settling period, maybe i am just tired of always getting so sucked into this thing all the time.. sucked in, spat out, back and forth. like i said - i'll complain if it's stable, or i will complain about it if it's dramatic. i am a grumpy old man!!!
but yeah i was fantasizing about having a different life as i drove. like, what if i was some different guy. not just another suit, or just another nerdy game guy, but just another wild weirdo out there doing whatever. i am so plugged into society, with my car and my paycheck and my girlfriend, my friday night, my usual place to get a burrito. the jobs change, the faces change, but the years pass and "the more it changes, the more it stays the same." I guess you do hit some kind of plateau after awhile. And it does feel good to have stuff behind you, the worrisome mystery gone "now how the hell am i gonna handle it when X happens? What if she wants to see other people? What if i lose my job? What if my car breaks down? What if so-and-so moves away? If there's traffic going to blah blah destination, what other route can i take?"
anyway, i guess i miss the excitement of the mystery a little, sometimes. but i am glad to have things waiting for me to figure out, still.
go to sleep. you think too much.
Saturday, June 02, 2007
yes and no pt 2
sigh. another weekend spent in the office. i actually was planning to let my hair down this weekend.. guess it's not to be.
there's something to be said about next-generation technology. we get all psyched because "ohhh ohh look at all the things we had to do before to make things look nice, we now have all this POWER to play with and we can do so much more - everything will be easier!!!" Well bullshit, with the extra power comes "oh look how much higher quality we can make everything, let's skirt realism less and work that much harder to make things even more detailed!" Yeah, so it is and has always been, and little changes in that situation. Anyway, that's why i am in on weekends, ever.
bitching about work aside, things are alright. i would not say i am in a particularly wonderful mood lately, but at least things are better than they were months ago. i still like working here, and everything else in my immediate circle is going according to plan. i will be happy when i pass some forthcoming milestones in my life though. as usual i am trying to keep mellow these days, i have not been partying much... at all.. and just trying to keep out of trouble and save up some money. it always feels like that takes so long to do! I feel like i wish i could lock my personality in a time capsule while my work-self just chugged through a couple of years, just to even everything out. sometimes it almost feels like that's how it goes -
to be honest, a little bit lately i have been reminiscing about the truly weirder times in my life, like when i was newer to LA and much stupider about many things in general. i do miss that energy, even with the weird drama i was going through. it was just new and exciting. nothing really has felt new and exciting in a way i have wanted it to for awhile - i guess you become familiar with the same basic things in your life, overall, after awhile and as you get older, you kind of just bond with that. yeah, here i go talking like an old guy - you get settled into your patterns. what you eat, what type of things you do for fun, what types of movies you watch, books you read. getting older is all about less experimentation and more like going with what you know, don't take chances - don't waste your time! okay, so i am having some problems dealing with being 30.
halfway to 60.
1/3 to 90.
So don't worry, I am absolutely sure I will not live 'till 90. But I digress.
I think I will cheer up when I wrap up this level and have some cool work behind me to feel proud of, at least.. cleaning up my apartment would help too.
don't mind me. i am just whiny because i am unwrapping a sofa for the last hour and change.
there's something to be said about next-generation technology. we get all psyched because "ohhh ohh look at all the things we had to do before to make things look nice, we now have all this POWER to play with and we can do so much more - everything will be easier!!!" Well bullshit, with the extra power comes "oh look how much higher quality we can make everything, let's skirt realism less and work that much harder to make things even more detailed!" Yeah, so it is and has always been, and little changes in that situation. Anyway, that's why i am in on weekends, ever.
bitching about work aside, things are alright. i would not say i am in a particularly wonderful mood lately, but at least things are better than they were months ago. i still like working here, and everything else in my immediate circle is going according to plan. i will be happy when i pass some forthcoming milestones in my life though. as usual i am trying to keep mellow these days, i have not been partying much... at all.. and just trying to keep out of trouble and save up some money. it always feels like that takes so long to do! I feel like i wish i could lock my personality in a time capsule while my work-self just chugged through a couple of years, just to even everything out. sometimes it almost feels like that's how it goes -
to be honest, a little bit lately i have been reminiscing about the truly weirder times in my life, like when i was newer to LA and much stupider about many things in general. i do miss that energy, even with the weird drama i was going through. it was just new and exciting. nothing really has felt new and exciting in a way i have wanted it to for awhile - i guess you become familiar with the same basic things in your life, overall, after awhile and as you get older, you kind of just bond with that. yeah, here i go talking like an old guy - you get settled into your patterns. what you eat, what type of things you do for fun, what types of movies you watch, books you read. getting older is all about less experimentation and more like going with what you know, don't take chances - don't waste your time! okay, so i am having some problems dealing with being 30.
halfway to 60.
1/3 to 90.
So don't worry, I am absolutely sure I will not live 'till 90. But I digress.
I think I will cheer up when I wrap up this level and have some cool work behind me to feel proud of, at least.. cleaning up my apartment would help too.
don't mind me. i am just whiny because i am unwrapping a sofa for the last hour and change.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
also
last night i dreamed that i was traveling cross country with my brother, who was (a not-quite-as-old) Ted Danson. He was ridiculously drunk all the time however, and required constant supervision. We stopped at a gas station and i turned my back for one second, and already he jumped into the driver's seat of some other motorist's Plymouth Prowler. He revved the wheels and the thing jumped forward as it was gassing up at the pump, and the front wheelguards got sliiiightly scratched - the owner became very angry with uus and demanded that I pay him a few thousand dollars, or he'd have my brother arrested or sued..
ch8ng3?
may sept. feb july. no different.
yahooo search highlights "spiderman 4 -national treasure - dustin diamond - et cetera"
VACUOUS.
i just had a glimmer.. i have complained about the internet before. my job plants me in front of it daily. i am wired 24/7. i am tired of it, but hopelessly locked in till my body expires.
sigh. i want to unplug. i feel sad lately, in no small part due to the digitalization of my day-to-day life. i just had a one-moment fantasy of a life where i never get online, don't even look at or interface with a computer. obviously my chosen line of work will not jive with such a philosophy. Ah well, it would be happy. Maybe this is why people join the peace corps (don't worry)
yeah i would miss it. i have been spoiled.
all that is in the gameplan of my life, what has been drilled into my psyche by life/love/relationship expectations/society/competitiveness of industry.. "work work work, innovate, earn, save up, progress, adhere to the standard." It's no wonder I had become a scenester the past couple of years in rebellion to that mentality, eh?
(i think i need a vacation!) Maybe next year. Maybe in a few weeks I will go to the beach. spend a few days without interacting with anyone or looking at a screen of any sort.. just dig my toes into the sand, listen to the waves crash, munch on a hot dog with coleslaw and onions, and give not a shit about what time of day it is.
yahooo search highlights "spiderman 4 -national treasure - dustin diamond - et cetera"
VACUOUS.
i just had a glimmer.. i have complained about the internet before. my job plants me in front of it daily. i am wired 24/7. i am tired of it, but hopelessly locked in till my body expires.
sigh. i want to unplug. i feel sad lately, in no small part due to the digitalization of my day-to-day life. i just had a one-moment fantasy of a life where i never get online, don't even look at or interface with a computer. obviously my chosen line of work will not jive with such a philosophy. Ah well, it would be happy. Maybe this is why people join the peace corps (don't worry)
yeah i would miss it. i have been spoiled.
all that is in the gameplan of my life, what has been drilled into my psyche by life/love/relationship expectations/society/competitiveness of industry.. "work work work, innovate, earn, save up, progress, adhere to the standard." It's no wonder I had become a scenester the past couple of years in rebellion to that mentality, eh?
(i think i need a vacation!) Maybe next year. Maybe in a few weeks I will go to the beach. spend a few days without interacting with anyone or looking at a screen of any sort.. just dig my toes into the sand, listen to the waves crash, munch on a hot dog with coleslaw and onions, and give not a shit about what time of day it is.
a very short blog - TUES MAY 22
yesterday fired up some more BBQ (i actually got to eat some this time). big parties are cool but sometimes it's just as good to chill in the backyard with just a couple of buddies, a couple of beers and a couple of cheeseburgers. i think i see a lot of that going on this summer.
it's super-late and i am pretty sleepy. 1am and i am just leaving the office right now. i have been making decent work all day though (and got into my rhythm as the day wore on). I miss the old days when i would work late and there'd bye my brothers beside me, toiling away "for the love of the game..." Yup I do miss those days. Sansui with Ted, Skillz, Andy. I found some pictures and they brought me back, what can I say.
Soon enough, eh...
Monday, May 21, 2007
no more cold crotchless undies for you!!
damn is it time to send out my rent check again, already?? damn.. damn damn...
wel, i suppose i had better get on with writing my "semi-weekly blog" out of the way, or whatever. blogging is not really too fun/therapeautic for me anymore, too many people read it (too many people means any more people other than just me), but i guess that is the point.. to keep me from getting too full of myself or something (yeah, isn't that possible?)
Switched my keyboard at home again to the new wireless one may got for me, which means that i am liable to type even more horribly than usual, at least until my fingers re-adjust to this thing. keep it in mind.
exhausted, such a tiring weekend. i actually passed out at my desk (home desk) about an hour ago, i guess.. the phone rang and scared the beejeezus out of me and woke me from my slumber, i screamed and struggled to get up (the chair had pushed all the way up to the desk ad squished me in the space between them). it was a mathematical quandary, yet i loosened myself. So there's the weekend... friday night motored back to LA, stopped in Koreatown to pick up lots of short ribs. Took may out for a drink and then we caught a cab home and passed out. Next day, woke up and ran all around town getting ready for the BBQ, getting keg/buying more food/cleaning apartment/etc. The whole day whizzed and before you know it the thing was full-bore, to all who came out to pay their regards. Always fun to hang out with my friends. We ate lots of meat, nothing got burned, the keg got drained (and the rest of the booze likewise). Tons of food left over but what're ya gonna do, it will be gone in a few days i am sure anyway.
Today got up and ran out w some friends for breakfast, the sun cae out and makde me happy. Then lounged a bit, back home to lounge a but and throw back a couple of beers and actually relax for a couple of hours (!!!!), a couple friends came over and we fired up some of the leftovers. And so it goes. They tried to get me to go out dancing, sooo glad i didn't go (i have no more energy!) and i have been just slowly fading into unconsciousness all evening (until the phonecall). In that vein, R.I.P. to May's little turtle, he is in the giant terrarium in the sky now.. sniff, sniff..
things are alright, as usual.. this keyboard isn't very responsive and so i might have to send it to the giant Dumpster in the sky as well (or across the street) unfortunately. I hate typing words while looking elsewhere, only to discover that they've not made it to the screen.
a very long and busy week ahead of me with work, i still want to start my "industry blog," hopefully i will get to launch that soon. i have a lot of thoughts in my head, work-related, that deserve being committed to the page.
wel, i suppose i had better get on with writing my "semi-weekly blog" out of the way, or whatever. blogging is not really too fun/therapeautic for me anymore, too many people read it (too many people means any more people other than just me), but i guess that is the point.. to keep me from getting too full of myself or something (yeah, isn't that possible?)
Switched my keyboard at home again to the new wireless one may got for me, which means that i am liable to type even more horribly than usual, at least until my fingers re-adjust to this thing. keep it in mind.
exhausted, such a tiring weekend. i actually passed out at my desk (home desk) about an hour ago, i guess.. the phone rang and scared the beejeezus out of me and woke me from my slumber, i screamed and struggled to get up (the chair had pushed all the way up to the desk ad squished me in the space between them). it was a mathematical quandary, yet i loosened myself. So there's the weekend... friday night motored back to LA, stopped in Koreatown to pick up lots of short ribs. Took may out for a drink and then we caught a cab home and passed out. Next day, woke up and ran all around town getting ready for the BBQ, getting keg/buying more food/cleaning apartment/etc. The whole day whizzed and before you know it the thing was full-bore, to all who came out to pay their regards. Always fun to hang out with my friends. We ate lots of meat, nothing got burned, the keg got drained (and the rest of the booze likewise). Tons of food left over but what're ya gonna do, it will be gone in a few days i am sure anyway.
Today got up and ran out w some friends for breakfast, the sun cae out and makde me happy. Then lounged a bit, back home to lounge a but and throw back a couple of beers and actually relax for a couple of hours (!!!!), a couple friends came over and we fired up some of the leftovers. And so it goes. They tried to get me to go out dancing, sooo glad i didn't go (i have no more energy!) and i have been just slowly fading into unconsciousness all evening (until the phonecall). In that vein, R.I.P. to May's little turtle, he is in the giant terrarium in the sky now.. sniff, sniff..
things are alright, as usual.. this keyboard isn't very responsive and so i might have to send it to the giant Dumpster in the sky as well (or across the street) unfortunately. I hate typing words while looking elsewhere, only to discover that they've not made it to the screen.
a very long and busy week ahead of me with work, i still want to start my "industry blog," hopefully i will get to launch that soon. i have a lot of thoughts in my head, work-related, that deserve being committed to the page.
Sunday, May 13, 2007
preservatives for the nacho-less
oh okay and one more thing
WHO THE HELL IS READING MY BLOGGGGGGG???? WHO DAMN IT??? WHO WHO WHO?
I updated the damned thing 15 f-ing minutes ago. that's all well and good. 7 people have read my blog since i updated it? on sunday evening? is this for real? in FIFTEEN MINUTES?
okay now i want some goddamned answers. is there some weird bug in the myspace blog viewer tally program? is there some spider bot that constantly keeps tabs on all of the pages all over the vastness of the entire internet, and whenever any page ANYWHERE has some kind of text update then it will ping it and send a "viewed" -- and in this case, this means there's like 10 of these?
or do i have an army of obsessive compulsive followers, keeping up-to-date on the day-to-day nothing that is my non-life? Is it really so riveting to read about how many sodas I drank yesterday, ro what the temperature in la habra was, or what neo-geo game I wish I had bought when i was 16, or that i was fantasizing about some ponytailed overweight white trash gas-station attendent in des moines who made eye contact with me for 4 awkward seconds? is all of this really the fuel for someone's livelihood? please, don't get me wrong, i appreciate your worship, but take my advice, if my blog page is so fascinating to you that you have examined my natural rhythms and developed a sixth sense about when I would irregularly update this thing DOWN TO THE HALF-HOUR, then pleeeaaase find some much more constructive and useful way to spend your mind and your hours than pecking about with my middling bullshit.
Either that, or i am some clueless, sexy genius living in my own time and completely unaware of it altogether. Awash in my own depleted self-esteem, i plod endlessly on through the lonely, empty days of my dark colorless imagined bleak reality while in fact throngs of hot 18-to-37-year old cybervixens hang on every word i type, in between WOWing and applying mascara and making love to themselves in the mirror, and fantasize about me quietly as i spank their pale chunky behindeds in their supercharged virile young nightmarish sexual fantasies.
Either that, or the government is keeping a keen on on me and waiting for an exploitative moment. George Orwell might be right.
BTW two more views since I typed this. Send naked pics to ralp99@hotmail.com
WHO THE HELL IS READING MY BLOGGGGGGG???? WHO DAMN IT??? WHO WHO WHO?
I updated the damned thing 15 f-ing minutes ago. that's all well and good. 7 people have read my blog since i updated it? on sunday evening? is this for real? in FIFTEEN MINUTES?
okay now i want some goddamned answers. is there some weird bug in the myspace blog viewer tally program? is there some spider bot that constantly keeps tabs on all of the pages all over the vastness of the entire internet, and whenever any page ANYWHERE has some kind of text update then it will ping it and send a "viewed" -- and in this case, this means there's like 10 of these?
or do i have an army of obsessive compulsive followers, keeping up-to-date on the day-to-day nothing that is my non-life? Is it really so riveting to read about how many sodas I drank yesterday, ro what the temperature in la habra was, or what neo-geo game I wish I had bought when i was 16, or that i was fantasizing about some ponytailed overweight white trash gas-station attendent in des moines who made eye contact with me for 4 awkward seconds? is all of this really the fuel for someone's livelihood? please, don't get me wrong, i appreciate your worship, but take my advice, if my blog page is so fascinating to you that you have examined my natural rhythms and developed a sixth sense about when I would irregularly update this thing DOWN TO THE HALF-HOUR, then pleeeaaase find some much more constructive and useful way to spend your mind and your hours than pecking about with my middling bullshit.
Either that, or i am some clueless, sexy genius living in my own time and completely unaware of it altogether. Awash in my own depleted self-esteem, i plod endlessly on through the lonely, empty days of my dark colorless imagined bleak reality while in fact throngs of hot 18-to-37-year old cybervixens hang on every word i type, in between WOWing and applying mascara and making love to themselves in the mirror, and fantasize about me quietly as i spank their pale chunky behindeds in their supercharged virile young nightmarish sexual fantasies.
Either that, or the government is keeping a keen on on me and waiting for an exploitative moment. George Orwell might be right.
BTW two more views since I typed this. Send naked pics to ralp99@hotmail.com
happy mother's day xbox 360 custom faceplate secret agent royal jew
another day in the office.
the A/C isn't working so i am sweaty.
car accident on the 5 so i sat in traffic.
bought metal gear solid 3 for $7 at fry's. maybe i need to play the first two however.
drinking cocacola zero. low in calories, high in sodium.. my blood pressure could use the boost.
my friends all went out partying last night, i stayed in and saved @ $80. we had korean BBQ and i did my laundry anyway.
my fingernails are getting quite long, i keep rubbing my lip and hurting my face. And the keyboard is hard to type on.
my girlfriend reallllly got on my nerves this weekend, but then she wears that dumb cute little skirt to go running and makes me forget why i was pissed at her.. damn it.
I just watched two people playing "The Punisher" (an old 1990s video game, not an egregious medieval sex act) and made a nerdy comment to them about how they could upload more Mame games to their Xbox via FTP. Then I felt ashamed and walked on.
I saw pictures of myself from Skillz & Mong's wedding last September. My hairdo was very messy and sloppy. Like a gross bedhead. I looked like I was having a good time though.
Yesterday I ate an enormous pickle. Hopefully I will not party this week.
the A/C isn't working so i am sweaty.
car accident on the 5 so i sat in traffic.
bought metal gear solid 3 for $7 at fry's. maybe i need to play the first two however.
drinking cocacola zero. low in calories, high in sodium.. my blood pressure could use the boost.
my friends all went out partying last night, i stayed in and saved @ $80. we had korean BBQ and i did my laundry anyway.
my fingernails are getting quite long, i keep rubbing my lip and hurting my face. And the keyboard is hard to type on.
my girlfriend reallllly got on my nerves this weekend, but then she wears that dumb cute little skirt to go running and makes me forget why i was pissed at her.. damn it.
I just watched two people playing "The Punisher" (an old 1990s video game, not an egregious medieval sex act) and made a nerdy comment to them about how they could upload more Mame games to their Xbox via FTP. Then I felt ashamed and walked on.
I saw pictures of myself from Skillz & Mong's wedding last September. My hairdo was very messy and sloppy. Like a gross bedhead. I looked like I was having a good time though.
Yesterday I ate an enormous pickle. Hopefully I will not party this week.
Saturday, May 12, 2007
fat towels
sattt may twelve, sattt may twelve.
3:30pm, i am sitting in the office on a saturday. trying to pick roast beef out from between my two front teeth, with my tongue. i am not finding much success.
waiting for the sync program to finish file updating so i can open my scene and work on it some more. it usually blasts through in ten minutes or so.. right now it's getting on 1 hr. Dammit. Waste my time.
Things are alright. I had an okay evening last night but woke up in a very lousy mood. It's not much better right now.. i feel like i am fighting with so many things in my life right now. Job, relationship, money. Yeah, everyone else can really say the exact same things, can't they. In fact when one of those drops out, then things get perturbed for real, it seems.
We saw the new zombie movie last night, it was fun! It was sort of a seat-of-the-pants plan to go and check it out, i like things like that. got some food, caught the film, had a couple of drinks (nuthin crazy). the evening was chilly but i decided to walk to mile-or-so home, and it felt really relaxing. i think i will always have a soft spot for the cool nights, if every night was that way i honestly would not mind.
walking home chilled me out a bit, i think i just don't do simple stuff like that enough anymore. as i get older, i am definitely becoming more of a desk-sitter.. not out of laziness, just out of necessity. our society DEMANDS it! Well, i have complained about that countless times so i can leave it on the shelf for the moment.
It was hot this week, like "holy crap oh my god" -hot. I think it was getting on 100, unseasonably warm! We had a big fire in griffith park near my apartment, i could see the glowing smoke from my back lot. Fortunately they contained it, quickly, before any major expensive damage could occur. I see a lot of fires coming up this season - we had almost zero precipitation during the winter, which is usually the rain season - everything is "bone dry" as they say. Maybe California will burn up as it slips into the Pacific Ocean.
I remember when I was in middle school i saw a movie called "bill and ted's excellent adventure," starring a couple of doofus stoners from southern california. They had that shitty surfer accent and way of speaking that just seemed too cartoony to be real. Fast forward a couple of decades and i still regularly see people who talk like IDIOTS in my day to day life. I know, I am not better, I cuss like a drunken sailor (hey, it's a way to be) and it makes me sound pretty stupid at times - i shouldn't throw stones. Anyway it just amazes me when i hear relatively smart people with retarded dialects. It actually surprises me sometimes. While i am on a roll with complaining about how people talk, my new pet peeve is the general public's cutesy nicknames for the internet.. people like to say shit like "i heard of it on the interwebs, the internets, the intertubes.." etc etc. Gah! it pisses me off! I guess just cause it's one of those "trendy smart-alecky" things that people like to say to come off like they are snarky and well-to-do, "ohh i am cool, i make fun of the internet." You damned bozo, you have a fucking myspace page like everyone else. When were nerds allowed to make fun of nerds (in a demeaning way?) Okay, now I am being snarky too. I can't help it though. I dislike.
I had to get it off my chest, anyway.
Anyway, my file update completed at last. I have to listen to 8bit music on my headphones now. Rock on, BlasterMaster.
3:30pm, i am sitting in the office on a saturday. trying to pick roast beef out from between my two front teeth, with my tongue. i am not finding much success.
waiting for the sync program to finish file updating so i can open my scene and work on it some more. it usually blasts through in ten minutes or so.. right now it's getting on 1 hr. Dammit. Waste my time.
Things are alright. I had an okay evening last night but woke up in a very lousy mood. It's not much better right now.. i feel like i am fighting with so many things in my life right now. Job, relationship, money. Yeah, everyone else can really say the exact same things, can't they. In fact when one of those drops out, then things get perturbed for real, it seems.
We saw the new zombie movie last night, it was fun! It was sort of a seat-of-the-pants plan to go and check it out, i like things like that. got some food, caught the film, had a couple of drinks (nuthin crazy). the evening was chilly but i decided to walk to mile-or-so home, and it felt really relaxing. i think i will always have a soft spot for the cool nights, if every night was that way i honestly would not mind.
walking home chilled me out a bit, i think i just don't do simple stuff like that enough anymore. as i get older, i am definitely becoming more of a desk-sitter.. not out of laziness, just out of necessity. our society DEMANDS it! Well, i have complained about that countless times so i can leave it on the shelf for the moment.
It was hot this week, like "holy crap oh my god" -hot. I think it was getting on 100, unseasonably warm! We had a big fire in griffith park near my apartment, i could see the glowing smoke from my back lot. Fortunately they contained it, quickly, before any major expensive damage could occur. I see a lot of fires coming up this season - we had almost zero precipitation during the winter, which is usually the rain season - everything is "bone dry" as they say. Maybe California will burn up as it slips into the Pacific Ocean.
I remember when I was in middle school i saw a movie called "bill and ted's excellent adventure," starring a couple of doofus stoners from southern california. They had that shitty surfer accent and way of speaking that just seemed too cartoony to be real. Fast forward a couple of decades and i still regularly see people who talk like IDIOTS in my day to day life. I know, I am not better, I cuss like a drunken sailor (hey, it's a way to be) and it makes me sound pretty stupid at times - i shouldn't throw stones. Anyway it just amazes me when i hear relatively smart people with retarded dialects. It actually surprises me sometimes. While i am on a roll with complaining about how people talk, my new pet peeve is the general public's cutesy nicknames for the internet.. people like to say shit like "i heard of it on the interwebs, the internets, the intertubes.." etc etc. Gah! it pisses me off! I guess just cause it's one of those "trendy smart-alecky" things that people like to say to come off like they are snarky and well-to-do, "ohh i am cool, i make fun of the internet." You damned bozo, you have a fucking myspace page like everyone else. When were nerds allowed to make fun of nerds (in a demeaning way?) Okay, now I am being snarky too. I can't help it though. I dislike.
I had to get it off my chest, anyway.
Anyway, my file update completed at last. I have to listen to 8bit music on my headphones now. Rock on, BlasterMaster.
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
boredwitcha
alright. today was a really hot one. i heard it was creeping on close to 100 degees in Orange County today.. I believe that... the ride home tonight in my car was extremely stuffy, even at 9 in the evening, enough to make me feel very disgusting. i came home, threw all the windows open upstairs in the bedroom, then back downstairs to chill out a little and crank the AC for the first time in many, many months.
sigh,. and i realized that there's no water in the fridge. i don't really feel like havin' a beer either.
come to think of it. i have not had a drink in a little over a week now. okay i had a single beer saturday night, but y'know. seriously, once in awhile i will go on a sobriety binge, to the tune of a few weeks/a month, for whatever reason. it can be a harsh reality check (my soul needs the escapism), but when i get my feet wet with it then it becomes hard to want to go the other direction. yeah, my personality has been split in half for a few years now.. each of us can't really stand the other, but we know the reason that the other has to be there (don't you love the talk of the schizophrenic?)
Actually my "crazy self" has been retired for a long time now, or at least he is deep in hibernation. If anything, his mellowed-out distant cousin is all that gets expressed when I am letting loose. I think it's symptomatic of age, and exhaustion. Do I sound defeated yet? I guess my mood is pretty somber, beaten-down lately. That's no surprise, there's only so many times you can bounce back with full-on fervor before you start to flag a little. I am definitely feeling winded from the events of the past couple of years, not so much physically tired as mentally and emotionally wrung out..! Okay, I over-dramaticize (as usual) and anybody could call me out with the usual accusations ("Ron, you think too much!") But well, what else is new. I DO think too much.. that's who I am, and how it'll always be, more and more. I couldn't do what I do the way I do it, if i wasn't over-analytic (to a fault) It's okay, I have met enough people who function in the same way.
Hey, I am hitting my midlife crisis! What the hell, aren't I supposed to be about 15 years too early for this crap? I have this nagging feeling, that a lot of the people I am talking to lately are easily about 10 years my junior, and they can't relate to a lot of the stupid stuff that is buzzing around in the back of my head. It's really bizarre. Whenever I go out, most of the girls at the clubs I'll be at were probably born at least in the mid-80s. At least! That's no big deal, but the truth is I never really attached much significance to this stuff until the last year or so. When I turned thirty I kind of wrote it off as "just another number" but now it's already been a couple of years. Two years is nothing but 2 more will fly by just as easily. Then a couple more. Pretty soon I will have to start thinking about behaving like an adult... --gulp--
I am feeling a bit alienated from the popular culture lately. I can't think of hardly a SINGLE album that I want to buy. Maybe, seriously, just one, and even then I could give or take. I used to be such a music hound. I heard a commercial on the radio "Tonight is the last episode of King of Queens" hey I have never even SEEN the show! And then, there's my industry. Most people I associate with have serious honest-to-goodness nostalgia for videogames that got released long after I stopped playing them! Yeah. I am really getting left behind.
I need a kick in the ass with the "media consumption," as they say. Most of my contemporaries like to buy and collect things.. I collect a little crap here and there, nothing heavy duty beyond the occasional passing fancy. Anyone who reads this with any regularity knows my usual credo "I'd rather create stuff than just consume it," but these days when I am throwing myself into a new creative, uh... whirlwind, I can't really completely count on my work to help me express my serious underlying need for that cathartic release.
I have been in a bad mood, not terrible but just adjusting. My new job is making me appreciate the old one (and the old one pissed me off). I think it's more of the same, I am just getting tired of jumping from one ship to the next, one life to the next - no surprise there. A new cast of characters, once again. Of course, after all these years, I kind of have developed these templates in my head for the basic types of people I'll work with. It's a little strange, I can almost effortlessly break down most of them into stereotypes at this point, it's been so many revolutions. I guess I am on someone else's template as well then, yeah? No one is really special, are they...
I am still planning on starting a game industry blog. I feel like it is kind of vital for me, again not just to vent but rather to stir up a bit more of my own presence in the industry. I want to launch into it immediately but there's a few things holding me back, this stuff can be sort of delicate for a bunch of reasons. Lately I find myself spending several hours each week listening to industry-related podcasts, and for a moment I considered possibly even going that route. Sigh. that's a weirder though. Blogging is one thing, but literally having a "regular voice" is a whole other matter. At this point it is easy as hell to create such a thing, even market it, and with my particular perspective I wouldn't have much trouble stirring up some attention with one. The one's I have heard, which are popular enough, are already put out by relative sideliners (I said relative, not to take away from the people that actually go through all the regular trouble of doing those things).. but I do know if I hopped on that bandwagon and kept at it with some regularity and fervor, it would put me on the fast track to where I'd like to be (out of gruntsville and in charge of some larger business). Maybe I will dabble in it, maybe I will throw myself at it's mercy.. it's such a strange time now, with that sort of thing - this "new media," and everyone can have their fifteen minutes of fame.
For those that don't know, if there is anyone who reads this thing and doesn't know what a podcast is, here's a super-brief rundown.. basically it's a regularly-produced episodic program on whatever topic you can imagine, in the style of a radio show. usually extremely low-budget, it'll consist of about 4 or 5 guys yakking over their PC microphones to each other and recording a sound file, which will then be distributed over itunes or the web or whatever to be played back on an ipod (hence the name) or, just winamp or whatever. It's a new thing and there's a bajillion of them out there already, but for what I do, there's only a tiny handful of pro-level ones. And from what I can tell, there's not really more than a couple of developers who actually produce such things with any regularity, and certainly not on the micro level of a game artist or designer. Yeah, Insomniac studios has their usual thing, Hideo Kojima's got something in that fashion (last I checked it was unlistenable, but either it's got better by now or they've since scrapped it) - I am sure there's gotta be a couple more out there, somewhere. Anyway - I don't wanna ramble on too much about this stuff, it's exactly the reason that I wanted to start a second industry-related blog. Maybe I will launch a site right NOW (man, it's so weird that one can do that in the blink of an eye)
Myspace is no longer of much interest to me (maybe if i was single, ha) and in fact I don't find myself scouring the web for much frivolity these days.. maybe cause i have started working and my mind's on that stuff, or maybe it's just a crazy enough time with everything else going on that it's hard to get bored enough. Maybe the novelty's worn off, and last but not least maybe I'm too self-centered and would rather just work or write something halfway interesting. I do spend a lot of time reading up on what's going on over at the forums though, but that seems to be about it.
My friend Matt made a short film, it is in the wrapping-up stage (when is it gonna get "put out into the world." man?) I decided to throw him a bone and contributed a little time to make a lo-tech website for the project (that's about as far as my web-prowess extends anyway), check it out... http://www.bornhye.com/ .. at the very least you can see a preview for the actual film. I have mentioned it before in this journal, matt and scott did an excellent job putting this film together and I hope they can get it out there while the gettin's good!!
1am. time for some shut-eye.
sigh,. and i realized that there's no water in the fridge. i don't really feel like havin' a beer either.
come to think of it. i have not had a drink in a little over a week now. okay i had a single beer saturday night, but y'know. seriously, once in awhile i will go on a sobriety binge, to the tune of a few weeks/a month, for whatever reason. it can be a harsh reality check (my soul needs the escapism), but when i get my feet wet with it then it becomes hard to want to go the other direction. yeah, my personality has been split in half for a few years now.. each of us can't really stand the other, but we know the reason that the other has to be there (don't you love the talk of the schizophrenic?)
Actually my "crazy self" has been retired for a long time now, or at least he is deep in hibernation. If anything, his mellowed-out distant cousin is all that gets expressed when I am letting loose. I think it's symptomatic of age, and exhaustion. Do I sound defeated yet? I guess my mood is pretty somber, beaten-down lately. That's no surprise, there's only so many times you can bounce back with full-on fervor before you start to flag a little. I am definitely feeling winded from the events of the past couple of years, not so much physically tired as mentally and emotionally wrung out..! Okay, I over-dramaticize (as usual) and anybody could call me out with the usual accusations ("Ron, you think too much!") But well, what else is new. I DO think too much.. that's who I am, and how it'll always be, more and more. I couldn't do what I do the way I do it, if i wasn't over-analytic (to a fault) It's okay, I have met enough people who function in the same way.
Hey, I am hitting my midlife crisis! What the hell, aren't I supposed to be about 15 years too early for this crap? I have this nagging feeling, that a lot of the people I am talking to lately are easily about 10 years my junior, and they can't relate to a lot of the stupid stuff that is buzzing around in the back of my head. It's really bizarre. Whenever I go out, most of the girls at the clubs I'll be at were probably born at least in the mid-80s. At least! That's no big deal, but the truth is I never really attached much significance to this stuff until the last year or so. When I turned thirty I kind of wrote it off as "just another number" but now it's already been a couple of years. Two years is nothing but 2 more will fly by just as easily. Then a couple more. Pretty soon I will have to start thinking about behaving like an adult... --gulp--
I am feeling a bit alienated from the popular culture lately. I can't think of hardly a SINGLE album that I want to buy. Maybe, seriously, just one, and even then I could give or take. I used to be such a music hound. I heard a commercial on the radio "Tonight is the last episode of King of Queens" hey I have never even SEEN the show! And then, there's my industry. Most people I associate with have serious honest-to-goodness nostalgia for videogames that got released long after I stopped playing them! Yeah. I am really getting left behind.
I need a kick in the ass with the "media consumption," as they say. Most of my contemporaries like to buy and collect things.. I collect a little crap here and there, nothing heavy duty beyond the occasional passing fancy. Anyone who reads this with any regularity knows my usual credo "I'd rather create stuff than just consume it," but these days when I am throwing myself into a new creative, uh... whirlwind, I can't really completely count on my work to help me express my serious underlying need for that cathartic release.
I have been in a bad mood, not terrible but just adjusting. My new job is making me appreciate the old one (and the old one pissed me off). I think it's more of the same, I am just getting tired of jumping from one ship to the next, one life to the next - no surprise there. A new cast of characters, once again. Of course, after all these years, I kind of have developed these templates in my head for the basic types of people I'll work with. It's a little strange, I can almost effortlessly break down most of them into stereotypes at this point, it's been so many revolutions. I guess I am on someone else's template as well then, yeah? No one is really special, are they...
I am still planning on starting a game industry blog. I feel like it is kind of vital for me, again not just to vent but rather to stir up a bit more of my own presence in the industry. I want to launch into it immediately but there's a few things holding me back, this stuff can be sort of delicate for a bunch of reasons. Lately I find myself spending several hours each week listening to industry-related podcasts, and for a moment I considered possibly even going that route. Sigh. that's a weirder though. Blogging is one thing, but literally having a "regular voice" is a whole other matter. At this point it is easy as hell to create such a thing, even market it, and with my particular perspective I wouldn't have much trouble stirring up some attention with one. The one's I have heard, which are popular enough, are already put out by relative sideliners (I said relative, not to take away from the people that actually go through all the regular trouble of doing those things).. but I do know if I hopped on that bandwagon and kept at it with some regularity and fervor, it would put me on the fast track to where I'd like to be (out of gruntsville and in charge of some larger business). Maybe I will dabble in it, maybe I will throw myself at it's mercy.. it's such a strange time now, with that sort of thing - this "new media," and everyone can have their fifteen minutes of fame.
For those that don't know, if there is anyone who reads this thing and doesn't know what a podcast is, here's a super-brief rundown.. basically it's a regularly-produced episodic program on whatever topic you can imagine, in the style of a radio show. usually extremely low-budget, it'll consist of about 4 or 5 guys yakking over their PC microphones to each other and recording a sound file, which will then be distributed over itunes or the web or whatever to be played back on an ipod (hence the name) or, just winamp or whatever. It's a new thing and there's a bajillion of them out there already, but for what I do, there's only a tiny handful of pro-level ones. And from what I can tell, there's not really more than a couple of developers who actually produce such things with any regularity, and certainly not on the micro level of a game artist or designer. Yeah, Insomniac studios has their usual thing, Hideo Kojima's got something in that fashion (last I checked it was unlistenable, but either it's got better by now or they've since scrapped it) - I am sure there's gotta be a couple more out there, somewhere. Anyway - I don't wanna ramble on too much about this stuff, it's exactly the reason that I wanted to start a second industry-related blog. Maybe I will launch a site right NOW (man, it's so weird that one can do that in the blink of an eye)
Myspace is no longer of much interest to me (maybe if i was single, ha) and in fact I don't find myself scouring the web for much frivolity these days.. maybe cause i have started working and my mind's on that stuff, or maybe it's just a crazy enough time with everything else going on that it's hard to get bored enough. Maybe the novelty's worn off, and last but not least maybe I'm too self-centered and would rather just work or write something halfway interesting. I do spend a lot of time reading up on what's going on over at the forums though, but that seems to be about it.
My friend Matt made a short film, it is in the wrapping-up stage (when is it gonna get "put out into the world." man?) I decided to throw him a bone and contributed a little time to make a lo-tech website for the project (that's about as far as my web-prowess extends anyway), check it out... http://www.bornhye.com/ .. at the very least you can see a preview for the actual film. I have mentioned it before in this journal, matt and scott did an excellent job putting this film together and I hope they can get it out there while the gettin's good!!
1am. time for some shut-eye.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)