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August 20, 2003 - Vein attempts at bloody humor
Just like in my last post, nothing is happening now. I'm
still enjoying my first free week since May, but I'm starting to run
out of "quick entertainment" fixes. I've almost burned myself
out on Warcraft 3, which isn't good since I'll be moving in to the
dorm soon and I need to be prepared for some serious gaming then.
Speaking of moving....
Tomorrow is the day all of my friends move back into the dorm and start
the hell we like to call boot camp (as in summer band boot camp).
This will be the first time in 8 years that I have not been apart of
this so-wonderful ritual. But like all the other things that
are changing in my life, I don't know how to deal with this. Usually
when I am in "boot camp" all I can think about is counting down
until it's over. And yet tomorrow, instead of sleeping in like I
have been, I plan on waking up fairly early just to go up to the
dorm and see my friends and then probably go to some of the "torture
sessions" for the fun of it. You never know how much an event
means to you until you don't have to do it anymore...
Regardless, over the next few days I will
be in the process of moving back to
my
dorm
room. Therefore, I probably won't be updating
this page until the end of the week. I feel bad about doing
this because a few
ranters sent me their new posts for this week after weeks of me
bugging them and now I can't even upload the rants until next week.
For those of you who came here expecting to find the new
posts/comics/pictures I apologize but updating is going to be a bit
sparse until I'm situated in the new dorm. But then again I
might be totally wrong about it all. Maybe I'll be so bored in the
dorm that the only task I could do would be working on the new
rants/comics/pictures and uploading them by tomorrow night.
Then again, maybe not. But I promise I will have those
pictures and other requested items up soon, I will not
procrastinate them any longer, because lord knows once classes start
next week my "free time" will suddenly be non-existent and they'll
never get done.
And now for something completely different.
Recently, I have failed to post any of the major events in my
life. While I will probably fall asleep at the keyboard long before
I can detail them all here, I will try my best to describe as many
of them as possible:
First of all, how do you get a girl out of your head? I got
myself in trouble this summer by falling for a friend of mine even
though I knew it wouldn't work out in the end (long distance college
relationships suck!). And... well that's all I am going to say
about that subject. Those of you who came here earlier this week
know that I wrote *huge* essay about this girl at this spot but left
it unfinished. Well, I decided if I am going to be writing that much
about a single subject I might as well make it a rant. Look for it
here soon (or check the archives if your reading this anytime after
August 2003) Moving on...
Considering that I drive 45 minutes to work every day I had
alot of interesting encounters on the road. Of course nothing
beats the speed trap I duped a fellow driver into this summer, but
these other events are interesting nonetheless. I think one event I
will never forget (no matter how hard I try) is watching a deer get
decapitated by a semi. The poor thing tried to cross the
interstate without looking both directions and only ended
taking a few steps before an eighteen wheeler removed an essential
part of its body. I just so happened to be a couple yards
behind the entire event and witnessed it in all it bloody glory. Now
thats an image that won't leave me any time soon...
Also, all my years of playing car video games (GranTurismo,
Cruisin USA, etc) have finally paid off when I had dodge flaming
debris on the on the interstate. Well it wasn't flaming yet
but I'm sure I would have been if I had hit it. Some idiot
in a truck decided to drive in front of me on my way to
work. Why this alone isn't all that bad, he also forgot to tie down
everything he had stored in the bed of his truck. Dodging
dirty towels and such wasn't hard and wasn't really scary. Now
dodging metal cans spraying gasoline everywhere as they literally
bounced down the highway, well that's scary. Even though I
slept through most of my chemistry classes in high school, I'm
fairly certain that metal objects tend to produce sparks when
hitting other hard objects at high speeds. And unless I'm wrong,
sparks and gasoline are a dangerous mix. After I watched a
full gasoline can bounce clear over my car I knew it was probably
time for me to speed up and pass the guy before I had to dodge a
freaking couch or some other large object.
More to come...
August 18, 2003 - Whoopity-do
Well not much happened this week. That is unless you count me
losing my job as a "big event". But considering the
circumstances, it has actually been a good week.
As for me losing my job, it was expected and something I planned
for. I was actually given my "two weeks notice" a month
and a half ago. What really irritates me is that I didn't lose my
job because I was a bad worker, nor did I lose it because the
university had to do some cutbacks. No, I lost my job due to
politics, which just fuels the fire of my hatred towards that
entire concept. As odd as it may sound, I lost my job because
some politicians wrote some benign "law" thing about 50 years ago
which I happened to fall under today. And when I was hired
three years ago everyone knew about that law but it didn't bother
them. I still was a good worker and helped many people over the
years, plus I added so much to the design of the electronic campus.
But then some high-level bureaucrats who have never seen me let
alone know me looked at my name on paper and noticed I fell under
this "law" thingy from decades ago and they gave me the boot.
Regardless, as soon as others heard of my predicament I was offered
two jobs in areas closely related to my fields of study.
My job is a hydra head, I lose one and two more take it's place.
Today I have my first day-off since I started working in May. I have a
week until my new jobs start so suddenly I have all of this free
time and no idea what to do with it. Sure, I've had a vacation
here and there during the summer, but each one consisted of my
having to go somewhere and do something (wedding, convention, etc).
So when I woke up today, I realized I had no where I had to be, nor
did I have to work on something. It was a very odd feeling, so
during the day I walked around lazily trying to figure out what to
do. Is this what retirement feels like? Because if it is I'm
not too sure I like it.
Yes, I had fun playing my games and playing my piano. But
here it is at the end of the day and in retrospect I realize that
I've accomplished absolutely nothing. Nothing I did today will
benefit me five years from now, or even tomorrow for that matter.
Killing people online for four hours straight only entertained me
for those moments, yet whatever skills I honed while doing it won't
make me a better artist/musician/programmer/person. And that
bothers me a little. I like being productive whenever I can, and I
can find productivity in even the games I play. Beating
Frequency and Amplitude has helped my rhythm and musical
skills so much that it's almost unbelievable. Playing through
Xenosaga is like reading a good book, it opens the mind and has a
(relatively) new story to tell that may or may not expand my
imagination. But I can't find anything good in my mass killings of
fantasy creatures today, other than it passed the time and I enjoyed
it. So while overall I had a fun day, I don't think I could do
this for a week straight. I need to bust open my list of
"things-to-do" tomorrow and start knocking some of those things off.
July 28, 2003 - Brave men run in my family (Bob Hope)
Now where did I leave off?
The week of July 14-19 was once again uneventful. I installed
computers all across HSU and didn't really do anything cool.
Well, that's not totally true. During one of my breaks rode our
campus golf cart down the highway to the Sonic and ordered some
drinks. Guessing from the employees' reactions, they don't get too
much business from people driving golf carts.
When the weekend finally came around I went to another long day of work
at the water park. Of course it's always worth it in the end,
but working there does get quite monotonous. Luckily at the
end of the day I had a major LAN party to attend, which I'm proud to
say I totally cleaned house at. I even played a Warcraft 3
game of 3 vs. 1 and beat everyone. The LAN party lasted most of the
night, and the next day I was exhausted from both my long
lifeguarding day and the party itself. I was so exhausted that I
couldn't get out of my bed to do anything. Luckily I was off
of work that day so I didn't miss much there. Unluckily, I was off
work because I was supposed to attend a wedding of a good friend and
was unable to make it due to my worn-out state. To this day I regret
that, but if I had done anything that day I would probably have
crash and burned hard. I stayed bed-ridden for most of the
day, catching up on all of the sleep that working 2 jobs
seven-days-a-week will take of you. Finally, later that night
I was a little more alive so I went back to the LAN party and played
a few games (and won them) before crashing and burning hard that
night. I don't think I need to say that Sunday's life guarding
duty was not the best time I've had there...
So now we are at the week of July 21-25. Once again, I moved
computers at work all day and was pretty much bored out of my mind.
But it's work and I need the cash to sustain my nasty cocaine
habit.... er, I mean my computer habit. In truth this
was the first week that I finally saw the benefits of working two
jobs all summer. Up until this week, all of the money I made at work
went to paying off my bills, taking girls out on dates, and
paying for the
wild and
crazy trips I had taken at the beginning of summer. After
paying all of my bills through September, I finally started saving
the money I made from my two jobs and by the beginning of this week
I was ready to make my first major purchases. Suddenly my
house was riddled with packages from all across the US as my
WACOM tablet, 17 inch flat screen/panel
monitor, and replacement
Oakleys (some people leave their heart in San Francisco, I left
my damn
Oakleys) all arrived.
July 15, 2003 - The trap is sprung
Time to catch all my loyal "fans" up on
what I've been doing lately:
As soon as I came back from my vacation earlier this month I went
straight to work. I ended up working almost 35 hours over the 3-day
July 4th weekend. I showed my patriotism to this wonderful
country by making sure most of it's water-going inhabitants didn't
drown themselves in their drunken stupor. Too bad everyone
didn't do the same thing, because there was a drowning at our local
lake. Which is a shame because when there is one drowning around
here everyone suddenly becomes scared and stops going to
water-recreational areas. Well that and it's a shame that
someone died by drowning. After working as a lifeguard I
realize that has to be one of the worse ways to die. In
previous years they trained the lifeguards by tying them to heavy
chairs and dropping them in the deep end of the pool to teach them
what it feels like to drown. Not exactly the smartest way of
training us, might I add. Anyways, due to political
interventions they stopped that practice but it still made a deep
impact on the lifeguards involved. But I digress, I plan on
writing a rant on this subject sooner or later so I shall move on to
the rest of my week...
At my Henderson job we received over 240
new computers to replace the faculty and staff's old ones.
Needless to say I was worn out after moving all of those around.
But at least I was able to fulfill my dream of having a computer
throne. If Arthas can have his
Frozen Throne, I at least deserve to have my
computer throne (you can see me trying my best evil-Arthas
look). I also had to check each individual computer to make sure it
the correct serial number, which practically is the definition of
"monotonous job". Luckily I had another 32 hour lifeguard work
weekend to look forward to, so at least I knew I didn't have to work
at a monotonous job for much longer. Dang it, what ever
happened to my
sarcasm font?
The only major thing that happened at my lifeguard job that
weekend (July 11-13) was I rescued two kids from drowning (at
different times, that is). Finally, those numerous hours (40+)
of training and keeping my skills up to par have paid off. I
never come to work as a lifeguard hoping that someone will drown,
but it is rather depressing to train for so long and never actually
get to use your skills. I have CPR and rescue breathing almost
subconsciously memorized, and yet I'll probably never get to use
them, which is both good and bad. I don't want someone to stop
breathing and require me to use rescue breathing, but then again I
don't like learning information I'll never use. Regardless, at least
I know I made a major impact in two kids lives by showing up to work
that weekend.
At the end of the day I finally extracted my revenge on an random
annoying driver. As John has already
mentioned, people should really learn how to drive and some of
the speeding tactics they use annoy the hell out of me. Like
driving up on your rear trying to get you to speed up, especially
when you are already going over the speed limit. I had a car
ride my tail most of the way home from work trying to get me to
speed up even though I was going 7 mph over the speed limit.
Of course it just pissed him off even more when I didn't speed up,
and since there was only one lane who was stuck behind me for good.
As we neared a city I suddenly had a plan to teach this guy a lesson
and help him learn some proper driving manners. I slowed my
car to go exactly the speed limit, which probably put his
feeble mind in a blood-red rage. He actually dared the
oncoming traffic in the other lane to pass me and in the process he
showed me his favorite finger. I just smiled back because I
knew I would have the last laugh. And sure enough, a few
miles down the road a passed my raging driver as he was being
interrogated by two cop cars. My trap had succeeded and I
couldn't have been happier. I had seen the cops waiting at the
town when I came to work earlier that morning and I made a mental
note about it because there are never cops there and I usually like
to speed there. Luckily I didn't speed that morning or it
would have been me being pulled over. So when we approached
the town on the way back I slowed down just to piss the guy off even
more. The problem with drivers like this is when they get mad they
tend to drive faster than they normally would, which puts them 20-30
mph over the limit. He played right into my trap and I took
him down. Yes, I am an evil, conniving little bastard so don't piss
me off...
July 3, 2003 - California Dreams
(updated July
13)
Boy do I ever feel like an idiot. I just started scanning my
recently-developed California pictures so I could post them for all
to see. It wasn't until the scanner was halfway finished that
I realized that the pictures were taken on a digital camera
and were already on my computer. Well, at least that speeds up
the process a bit... So lets get on with my summer vacation!
Tuesday, June 24, 2003 - My day started rather early since I
had to catch a 6:30 AM flight to Dallas. I made the rather
ingenious decision not to sleep the night before just so I could
sleep through most of the ride to California. Unfortunately
this plan backfired on me since I forgot that in between my plane
rides I had to carry my luggage from one destination to the next.
So while I did sleep comfortably on the plane rides, the in-betweens
were pure hell. Trying to carry 40 lb bags across airplane terminals
is hard enough as it is, adding the lack-of-REM-sleep feeling to it
makes it feel worse than all my art history classes combined.
Regardless, once we arrived in
San Francisco I was so hyped up on caffeine and adrenaline that
I could care less about getting sleep ever again. Our first
stop was Pier 39 where I saw a bunch of
seals, and then it was off to the
Academy of Art College in San Francisco where I had a
nice talk with a few of the graduate school faculty members.
All I can say is that I am going to work my tail off to get accepted
there, for everything I've ever wanted to work with is there.
My jaw hit the floor so many times during the tour that the janitors
had to follow me just to clean up the drool on each floor.
This college has millions-of-dollars worth of computer and
video imaging equipment that every student is allowed to use
whenever they want. Feel like using a 40 sq ft blue
screen room to edit your sci-fi film? Just walk in and use it for a
weekend. Want to make a movie just for fun? Just rent a few
thousand dollars of film equipment and shoot away! They have
video editing equipment that costs $500 an hour that any
student can use for free. And need I mention the entire floor of
computers that have every program I've ever wanted plus 25 inch
wacom tablets connected to them? Needless to say I was in
heaven for the few hour I was on campus. And just in case I
didn't have enough incentives to go there, the
Metreon is less than a block away from the campus. Just
the fact that they have an entire store dedicated to only
Playstation products makes me shiver with joy. While I was
there I was able to play
Amplitude on a TV screen that cost more
than my college education. Those of you who actually live near
a large city wouldn't understand what a place like this means to me.
I live in Arkansas, where the closest thing to a videogame store is
the Super Wal-mart down the street (which only carries "family-safe"
games at that). Sure my city is pretty and peaceful, but if
you ever want anything that has more technology than a horse plow
you are usually in for a long drive to the "thriving metropolis" of
Little Rock. I think it's pretty sad that the Dallas/Fort Worth area has
more people living in it than my entire state. But I
digress...
After my tour at the academy we drove to my grandmother's house
across the
bay. I won't bore you with the details of my stay there,
because it was mostly family stuff which wouldn't interest anyone
other than me. I did find it cool that George Lucas and Sean
Penn both lived less the 3 blocks from my grandmothers house, but
alas I couldn't get past their anti-paparazzi security systems to
take pictures. Heck, George Lucas's house took up an entire
mountain, I couldn't even cross the moat (with DNA spliced
super-fish in it I'm sure) to get to his place. After a nice
walk through the neighborhood and some dinner at a *real* Chinese
restaurant my family headed back to our hotel for some much needed
shut-eye.
Wednesday, June 25, 2003 - Wednesday was
the big day, the one I've been anticipating for the past two months:
I was off to
Pixar. There's not much I can say about the place other
than it was awesome (well that and I signed a confidentiality form).
I took a nice tour of the place and ate at the restaurant that was
in the
lobby of Pixar. Heck, the food there was better than every other
restaurant we ate at during the trip. All I know is at Pixar
they don't actually work, they breed fun and happiness.
I've never felt more at home at any place than I did there.
After the tour I went to a conference room and presented my
portfolio to the employees. And what do you know? They
loved it. Hello, summer internship? Here I come! (well not
quite, I won't know for sure until next spring, but my foot is in
the door) It seems that students with a
traditional-art/computer-science/Photoshop/computer-animation
background are hard to come by so they were rather interested in my
work. Plus they said if I sent them a copy of my portfolio
they would also pass it along to a few contacts at ILM just in case
ILM needed an intern too. So now I am on a personal quest to
improve and copy my portfolio so Pixar and ILM can have their own
versions sitting in a recruiting office just in case a position
opens up. My next few weeks are going to be hectic...
After my stint at Pixar I took a scenic driving tour of San
Francisco. Well, actually my family drove and looked at the
sights while I sat in the back engorging a Robert Jordan book.
Anyways, we took quite a few pictures of the place and I have them
all on my computer so I can check out what I missed at any given
time. Finally we crossed the Golden Gate bridge and headed to Muir
woods to spend some time among the
redwoods.
It was nice to get some fresh air for once, and it's not everyday
you get to walk through trees with trunks the size of
cars. For the few hours I was there I was able to get in
touch with nature (and with that came a part of my childhood) and
overall just relax next to a calming stream and natural ferns. Of
course all good things must come to an end, and before I knew it we
were off to my grandmother's house once again for some good ole
family reminiscing.
Thursday, June 26, 2003 - Thursday was mostly
spent traveling from San Francisco to Lake Tahoe. Once again I sat
in the back of the van reading (and completing) Winter's Heart
while everyone else looked at "all the pretty mountains". Like
I mentioned in my
rant, it's not too often I am bit by the reading bug so when it
does happen I do everything to prevent myself from losing it.
I did see the mountains and the beautiful scenery that came with
them, but ever since my family took annual vacations to Colorado
when I was child the mountains don't impress me anymore. Plus
I knew I would get a better view of them once I climbed the
mountains, so at that point reading was the most important task on
my "to do" list. When we arrived in Tahoe, we ate at a
"Mexican" restaurant which in truth was nothing of the sort. It was
then I realized California sees foods differently than the South
does. I ordered quesadillas which according to the menu
contained only "beef and cheese". Little did I know that in
California it is understood that everything automatically comes with
an assortment of odd looking vegetables mixed with whatever is
described on the menu. There was a larger assortment of
vegetable colors in my quesadillas than I have on my paint palette
at home.
In the South, the word "vegetables" means corn, potatoes, and fried
okra only. Don't be trying to put no squash, avocado, zucchini,
artichoke, green beans, pinto beans, or olives in nothing that don't
need no vegetables (sic). At least the dessert was delicious,
even if it had nothing to do with Mexican food. After dinner
the family went to the condo and unpacked for the weekend while I
started reading
The Da Vinci Code.
Friday, June 27, 2003 - On Friday my sister
arrived to the condo along with my cousin and other people I hadn't
seen in a few years. Seeing how this entire trip was made for the
purpose of attending my cousin's wedding, I was prepared to visit a
lot of obscure relatives who probably didn't even remember me.
Before everyone arrived I took a long hike with my mother into the
mountains to explore our surrounding area. While it wasn't as
fun as the Muir woods trip, it was refreshing and I did get an
opportunity to see the local wildlife.
Later that day I went
to the wedding rehearsal and dinner at one of the casinos.
Beyond eating at another Hard Rock Cafe (my HRC city t-shirt
collection is now up nine) the events were pretty dull. Afterwards I
participated in my first-ever activity of legalized gambling.
Basically I walked around the casino and blew a bunch of quarters on
slot machines which took no skill to play. And because of that
I hated it. I guess I would prefer gambling games that relied
less on chance and more on skill. But for now, my gambling days are
over. My money could have been better spent in an arcade playing DDR
or something. At least then I would be having fun and
getting exercise as opposed to being pissed off and inhaling
second-hand smoke (and god knows what else) from the horror-movie
rejects at the slot machines. When losing my money
one-quarter-at-a-time finally bored me, I left for the condo and
decided it was time to pick up my book again. Less than 24 hours
after starting the book, I finished The Da Vinci Code
and set a new
personal record for speed reading a book.
Saturday, June 28, 2003 - Saturday was the big day for the
rest of my family, the day they had anticipated for the last two
months. My cousin was getting married and everyone was over
joyous about the entire event. I was happy for the occasion,
but my favorite event for the trip had already happened on
Wednesday. Not much happened at the wedding that you don't already know. It
was your typical wedding and it was fine. I realized I owned almost
every piece of "love music" they played over the sound system, so I
guess my taste in music is shared by many. Afterwards we had
the wedding reception where I "met" people who seemed to know
me but I still had no memory of them. I'm never too fond of the "lost
relatives" meetings because I can never remember people's names and
they all say the same thing to me: "I didn't recognize you" or "You
were this tall the last time I saw you" or "You've grown into a
handsome young man". I also learned the hard way that an open liquor
bar and an all-you-can-eat sushi buffet are two bad combinations at
any event. Most of the night I sat next to my empty tequila
sunrise and margarita glasses just waiting for my sushi to come up
and make a second appearance. Ironically, if I did throw up the
sushi then it would have been cooked more than when I first ate it.
I did manage to get up and participate in the garter-catching
tradition, though. And interestingly enough, I was the one who
actually caught the garter, so I guess I'm getting married pretty
soon. Now I just have to find a suitable wife. Tradition
says I will marry the woman who caught the bride's bouquet, but
that's not going to work for me. Sure, if I followed tradition
then I would be marrying a Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader which is always
something to brag about, but then again I would also be marrying my
cousin (pic: sister, cousin, me) which isn't something to brag
about (not even in Arkansas).
Sunday June 29, 2003 - My last day in Tahoe was spent
climbing a
mountain and taking
pictures of the entire event. I had
the odd experience of having a snowball fight with my family in the
middle of Summer while wearing a t-shirt and shorts. Actually,
the snowball fight was pretty one-sided since I was the only one who
climbed high enough to get the snow. Maybe I was high on
adrenaline or maybe it was the lack of oxygen to my brain, but I
found it odd that I wasn't even cold wearing a thin shirt and shorts
in a place where snow covered the ground. While the cold
didn't phase me, the elevation sure did. I found out the hard way
that running a mile at 10,000 ft is slightly different than running
a mile at the near-sea level of Arkansas. That was the first
time I have been seriously winded in a long time. I think my
family suffered the same thing because they wimped out just a mere
50 feet from the summit and turned back for the long trek home.
Who climbs a mountain only to quit 50 feet from the top?!? I mean
seriously, how do convince yourself you succeeded in doing something
if you quit before reaching the finish line? Needless to say,
I was not happy with my family when I finally gave up waiting
for them at the summit and ran down the mountain to catch up to
them.
June 15, 2003 - Sunburned feet
So, I guess it's time I start another page in my journal. While
I have every intention of explaining each important thing that has happened to
me over the past month, I know that I'll probably be distracted by some new
project or pretty girl and end up not going into detail about anything. So
for now, I'm going to ramble off a few words that somehow describe the
various activities that I have been apart of recently, and maybe eventually I'll
sit down and further describe them:
A-kon. surreal, fun, enlightening, scary,
cosplay, Aeris cosplay that looks actually like Aeris = great, Aeris cosplay
that looks like Aeris but has a low bass voice and bulge under dress =
horrifying beyond belief, FFX-2 Rikku cosplay on 16 year old girl =
true-to-game, true-to-game = scary that people are attracted to that, DDR,
free posters, Gameworks, Cowboy Bebop movie in large-fancy-art-house theater.
Lifeguarding. swim laps, kids don't listen,
cute girls end up being jail bait, Human lives save = 0, Dummy lives saved
= too many, note-to-self: always partner up with cute girl when time for CPR
practice, sun can burn skin even through the clouds, boss is
trickier than Loki. Webpage work. it's done!! guest comic
completed, fun, relief, ready to start new project. Movies. Matrix
Reloaded = cool fight scenes, skip the talking, Finding Nemo = must send resume
to Pixar NOW, Equilibrium = HOLY CRAP! How did I miss this in theaters?
Xenosaga = when do I actually get to play the game?
Whee, maybe later I'll do more!
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What
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