Good Morning, Lil Slugger

I woke up to the sounds of the air cooling system sounding like roller skate wheels against concrete. I wanted to get hit over the head with a baseball bat and be left for dead while smiling a smile of relief.

Then I realized that the whole want of having the realization of a character from the show Paranoia Agent was pretty much the easy way out.

You can solve all your problems by killing yourself. You can escape the stresses of life by becoming hospitalized. You can, if only for a brief moment, have people pity you and pretend they care about you starting from the moment you inflict pain on yourself.

Why?

Why do we live in a world where charity and religion go hand in hand with each other like some cute high school couple? For the most part, the only reason people do acts of kindness is to feel good about themselves, to earn a little spot in Heaven or wherever they believe they will end up when they die. Does no one do it just because they can? Is there anyone that does it simply because they want to and not because it will help them feel better about whatever they feel bad about or leave some kind of legacy?

Lil Slugger is very charitable. He gets rid of your problems just because he can. But society tells us that the easy way out isn't the best way. You need to work around that, take the hard road. Life is not meant to be easy.

Life, for me, has never been easy. This blog only goes back so-many years. If it could go back farther, I would let it. Maybe then I could show what to myself and to everyone just what the fuck is wrong with my life. Maybe then I can figure out where I changed and evolved into this bitching pile of shit whom society thinks is better off dead.

But even then, I'm still better off dead. After all, all I am is just a bunch of red numbers and entertaining text. I'm not human. At least, that's what they tell me.

I'm done here.

I want to kill.

I set out to organize the pile of shit in my room to see what I can use for materials, what I can keep for resources, and what I can throw away. I ended up not finishing it because my mom wanted to get my sister's old computer wi-fi connected. Couldn't do it. All outward appearance say everything is working. It's just not finding the box, which I find hard to believe seeing how the box is right under the computer.

Then, while trying make some sort of sense of the piles of crap, I had this sick urge to just blow up the city using car batteries, blasting caps, and several miles of prima-cord. The idea is once a person turns on their car, boom! Works great as a car bomb against people you don't like.

The anger is getting to the point where I can't get rid of it. I can't even transfer it into my art, if you can even call it that. I hate being in the fundamental classes that are required. They are so restrictive because they assume that you don't know jack about what they are going to teach you, which they should because most of the time they are right. Oh, sure, if I make it to the later courses, then I don't see why not. But for now, it looks like I'll be painting the shadows and highlights of squares and other things.

I want to destroy the world. I'm sick of people saying you are wrong and we are right because we rule. We are all going to Hell in a handbag anyway. Might as well FedEx it.

The Drive Home During Lunch

Printmaking should be interesting, but a bit on the frustrating side. I'm in a class with a lot of familiar faces, but at the same time I know their talent levels. Given my own, I'll be very surprised if there is someone that I am better than aesthetically. Thankfully, most of my teachers grade on an individual curve. If you are trying, you'll do well. If you don't, then probably not. Maybe that's why I got a C in Figure Study.

During her lunch hour, I called my mom to pick me up so I could get home earlier. On the ride home, she told me several things.

First off, I can't do this anymore. I'll be stuck in the building until 15:00 at the earliest simply because of the fact that the trip will make her late coming back from lunch. I can't blame her. It's a long distance to drive.

Second? She wants me to take a refresher driving course if they offer a weekly one on Fridays since I have no class. I groaned at this proposal. Once again, my sister came to my mind. How she was so excited about driving after she got her license only to be slowly tortured out of the joy and feeling of independence as my mother treated her as the second driver (Dad being the first driver of the family). My sister even admitted to me once on her day off while I was accompanying her that driving is no longer fun. And this was probably a year after she got her license. She hates driving, but loves her car. It's a strange balance. One that I know she does better than I do.

If I hate something, I avoid it at all cost if I can. So far, that method of dealing with things has worked pretty well. At least up until recently.

I don't know. My aunt doesn't drive, and people let her do as she pleases, both in my family and where she works. People don't mind giving her rides homes. Her friends don't even ask her for gas money. I can see how she would be presented with the same argument as I am right now. Why doesn't she drive in a city where a car is required and public transit pretty much stabs you in the wallet? Simply put, she just doesn't want to.

Frankly, I don't want to deal with what comes with driving. Like I said, being able to drive in my family means taking my mom places she doesn't want to go given several reasons like she doesn't know where it is or she just doesn't feel like driving. In general, that means being on the insurance and making sure you are responsible enough to drive defensively. This coming from a person with several years of pent up angst, none of which has been released on the canvas or drawing paper. And people want me to drive?

You have heard of road rage, right? Put me behind the wheel, and I'm pretty sure that I'll bring that to the level of any demolision derby. I can't promise it, but it will more than likely happen. Go ahead and say I'm just making excuses up to avoid the problem. Just remember one thing when you do.

A good chunk of the average murderers on Death Row right now probably have anger management issues similar if not exactly like my own that they somehow lost control over. And every human being has their limits.

A Long First Day

I need to get used to the fact that I'll be getting home at this hour, which leaves me little time to do any real homework that may be due the next day.

Okay, now on with the real post.

First impressions. The new Terry that came in to the school is my painting teacher. He's not really how I pictured he would be. Chatty like how most people who have had him said he is, yes. But he sounded rather like a hippie. I kept thinking that the way he would talk must be one of those long-term affects pot has on you even after you quit. A bit harsh, I know. I know he's very knowledgeable in the field of painting, as well as very flexible in how one will go about painting. I'm just wondering how he is going to be over all as a teacher.

I had a long wait between my first class of the day and my second class. I used this time to socialize with whomever would talk to me until about noon when I had an idea that I needed to talk to the other Terry about. Terry G. suggested I look up a few artists to give myself some kind of direction for what I found out is probably my strongest artistic attribute when it comes to the fine arts. Cartoon character design. I wanted to know if there was any working artist right now that I could look at to help me figure out how to take that strong point and turn it into a legitimate art form. He suggested to people, and I quickly e-mailed myself the links to the Google searches for my own records. I'll probably pick them up and bookmark them in the morning.

World Civilization is going to suck. The teacher has the title of doctor, and looks the part. Complete with pocket protector. Serious, he broke it while putting his pen back in his shirt pocket. I couldn't help but noticed that his choice of hair style looked like that of Senator Palpatine before that strange transformation in Episode III. If you can remember what that looked like, imagine a bread that extends about two inches out from the chin and thick glasses. That's my teacher. He also did something I'm not too happy with. Instead of introducing the class like everyone else, he decided to start teaching the class! The first day! Naturally, half of us were not prepared for this, while the other half were. The half that were, surprisingly, had his class before. He also gave out a pre-test. It didn't count for a grade, but it was just for his own curiosity. He gave us a blank map of the world and said to name as many countries as we can from the list on the same page. If we know more than what is on the list, feel free to label them. The entire time, I was trying to remember the old Animaniacs bit Yakko's World. You know, the one where Yakko Warner sings every name of every country in the world to the Mexican Hat Dance theme? It probably wouldn't have helped me, seeing how most of the countries' names have changed since the mid-90's, but it wouldn't hurt.

Tomorrow my only class is Printmaking. I'm out by 11:00, so there may be a chance I can catch a ride home during my mom's lunch break. I can only hope. For now, it's very late as far as my clock goes, and my class starts at 08:00.

Man Launches Ice Cream Stick Viking Ship

Yahoo! News

A former Hollywood stunt man now living in the Netherlands launched his greatest project to date Tuesday: a 45-foot replica Viking ship made of millions of wooden ice cream sticks and more than a ton of glue.

"I have a dream to show children they can do anything," McDonald said before the launch. "If they can dream it, they can do it."

He said he was confident the ship would float, but organizers had prepared an alternate press statement just in case something went wrong. The biggest fear was that the ship's keel might be too light and it would capsize. But the launch went smoothly, and McDonald plans to apply for a mention in the Guinness Book of Records.

McDonald set the previous record in 2003 with a smaller version of a Viking ship built from 370,000 wooden ice cream sticks, which has been approved by the Guinness Book of World Records.

[The] boat was moved back onto dry land and will be on display at Sail 2005, a major show for antique ships that begins in Amsterdam on Wednesday.

I'm at a loss for words right now.

My Last Few Hours of Summer

And I'm spending them blogging because if I don't, I'm just going to annoy the hell out of the people that I talk to on all those free games I have linked in the side bar.

So let's see. How has my summer been? In a word, productive. I worked on my skills drawing the human figure, but I've reached yet another blockade that I must get over. Apparently, I lost the ability to pull a pose for the figure out of the blue. I guess that's what I get for working from photos. My best work that I've done all summer I feel I have no right to have produced, but other than that, my outside-of-class practice did me some justice. Hopefully I won't lose any of that come Painting 1.

My love life died after I came back from the Smokies. If you can call it that, that is. Sometime between coming back from the trip and about a week later, I realized that even if I was to go after the model I drew and talked to on and off, it would still never work out. He's too much of a free spirit, and I'm still chained down at no fault but my own.

I developed a new fantasy for me to sleep to. A caring, clean-cut, open-minded blond boy who could easily model. Who, because it's such a small world, knows the people that broke my very soul. Who is rich but doesn't act it because he doesn't live in a fancy house or buys expensive things. Hell, I day dreamed about him getting on my ass about not sticking to a budget when shopping! What rich person thinks about a budget while shopping for pleasure, I ask you? Very forgiving, and likes very much to cuddle and mess around in bed. Very lean thanks to a high metabolism. The kind of guy that doesn't need to work out. The kind of guy that also would stay up to make sure I fell asleep soundly and would ask permission before kissing me. Yeah, I know, all too much like a fairy tale. But it helps me sleep at night dreaming this fantasy boy.

As the summer began to draw more and more to its end, the idea of how much I needed to get a job got stronger and stronger. It became more and more apparent that I still won't be able to do anything I want even with money. Without it, I wouldn't be able to do what I need to do like buy food when I want to eat something that isn't in the house. Maybe even later on pay rent for some apartment with only 100 square feet of space, provided I could afford something that big.

Yeah, the lack of self-esteem is showing. I know. Just bear with me.

In any event, work to me is a for letter word. I, somehow, got it solidified deep within me that what Mark Twain said once is indeed true. To paraphrase, he said that if you enjoy what you are doing, you'll never work a day in your life. I believe this to be true. I mean, what is the point of working if you can't have fun and enjoy it? Every night while my sister was being a server, she would come home 9 out of 10 times with a story of horror. How the idiot boss made her and several others take home the napkins because he is too cheap to get a washer himself to clean them all. Dad said for her not to do that unless she gets paid the next time. Or about how people stiff her on the tip or say that they change their minds when the food comes out, to which he just forces herself to smile and bite her lip. Or worst of all, when her co-workers ditch her leaving her to run half of the restaurant's tables by herself! Did I mention she has to bus her own tables as well? With all this in mind, there is no way work for her can be fun. The only things that make it fun for her are those little 5 minute breaks in the back where she gets to talk about little things with the co-workers that actually respect her and treat her like family. That's probably her only escape.

Too bad for me I'm not people friendly. Oh, sure, if you ask anyone that doesn't hate me about me, and they'll say I'm alright. But do they really know me? I don't think so, nor do I think most will.

That's why I've pretty much decided to leave all the self-expression out of my art for awhile. I'll probably do something more along the lines of what I've been doing over the summer. Blatantly sexual and very idealized male anime figures in very suggestive attire should go over very nicely with the conservative board that runs the school. Maybe even give my fellow students something to psychoanalize as to why all my prints and paintings are coming out looking generally the same.

Either way, I'm not going with my original plan of doing pieces where people don't have mouths or hearts and have a very sad look in their eyes until I find the right piece that just tears the living soul out of everyone that looks at it and makes them cry knowing how much pain I've had to deal with and that I've become aware that nobody really gives a damn about it. That everyone thinks it is just so easy for someone to just get over it because if they can do it, why not whiney me?

Apparently, I must be the only person in the world that knows that individuality doesn't come from conforming to the main stream and is trying to live it.

Conformity and capitalism seem to be the two things I'm against to the point where, if this was another time and era, I'd be labeled a Communist. Like I even know what it means to be a Communist. If anything, I'll probably be called a long-haired hippie of the Charlies. (Wow, I'm being brutal!)

I guess when you boil away all the water in the pot, the fact of the matter is I'm tired of being who I am because society tells me who I am is wrong. But at the same time I don't want to change who I am while I continue to give society the bird. There's really no compromise the way I see it. You either lose your identity by not being different enough to where individuality is brought to a whole new level outside of every other stereotypical role the media and everyday life presents (which, ironically, if you think about it, is a form of conforming anyways), or you lose your very life because the society has become so well grounded to the point where going against the grain is like driving on the wrong side of the street. Okay, bad comparison, but you get the idea.

This rant has gone on long enough, and by now I probably lost whoever I gained over the summer as far as regular readers go. I doubt anyone cares, but like I said in the Blogger survey I filled out earlier in the week, I need to get this off my chest before I end up killing something or someone.

Damned If I Do, Damned If I Don't

It hasn't even been a month, and I already know that I'm failing at trying, in general, to keep from presenting myself in such an open fashion to the point where I'll end up being hurt. Over the course of the past few weeks, I've noticed that every other site I go to has been infected with some kind of bitterness that I've built up recently due to the lack of being unable to express myself. My doodles have become scratchy, almost as if I'm tearing at the page to make an image. If I talk, which is becoming more and more rare in general, my voice just seems to ring with this "Alright, fine, whatever. I'm just here, after all." kind of tone.

It's rather sad, to be perfectly honest.

So here I am. Like every other time I try to change something about me people generally don't like in a cold turkey kind of way, I've hit the proverbial reset button on my personality and habit. Why? Because I didn't like the way I was becoming as a result of it. It just didn't feel like I was me. You think I would have learned by now to not listen to other people, especially the ones that hate me for whatever reasons.

Oh well, so much for a happy and positive blog instead of a festering pit of negativity and lack of personal growth as a result of my brooding and self-infliction upon my self-esteem simply because I don't have enough of it left to think highly of myself.

Cyprus plane crash victims "frozen solid"

This is a very disturbing.

Most of the bodies recovered from a Cypriot plane that crashed near Athens with 121 people on board were frozen solid, a Greek official said, suggesting the airliner was a flying tomb before it plunged to earth.

As accident investigators combed the crash site for clues, aviation experts were baffled at what appeared to have been a catastrophic failure of cabin pressure or oxygen supply in freezing temperatures at 35,000 feet -- nearly 10 km (6 miles) up, higher than Mount Everest.

One expert said reports of extreme cold suggested there was no air circulating in the cabin.

Giant Waterfall Discovered in Calif. Park

While great this discovery is, some of the names will make you laugh. You've been warned.

Dick McDermott knows these parts as well as any man can. But McDermott says he's never laid eyes on the nearly 400-foot waterfall that park officials recently discovered in a remote corner of the Whiskeytown National Recreation Area, 43,000 acres of wilderness in northern California.

Until recently, very few had seen the roaring water that tumbles three tiers before pouring neatly into Crystal Creek. That such a spectacle should evade even park officials for nearly 40 years is remarkable, said park superintendent Jim Milestone.

"It wasn't on a map, no one on the trail crew knew about it. People who been here 27 years had never seen it," said Milestone, who is leading an effort to clear a trail to the newly named Whiskeytown Falls. It's expected to be finished by next summer.

There's no doubt the falls have had visitors over the years. The Wintu Indians were probably the first, although archeologists have so far found no traces on the site. A small band of loggers that harvested Douglas firs in the early 1950s left behind a choker cable and part of a bulldozer. A knife blade stuck in a nearby tree indicates that others have also made the trek.

But for park officials, the falls were merely a rumor for many years...

Yet like the article says, there's a huge chance that someone's been to that spot long before this discovery.

Smoky Mountain Trip Photos

For more pictures, make sure to visit
Photographic Memories.

I posted what pictures I felt were the best out of the five rolls of film I used during the trip several weeks back. They are now up on my photo blog. Check them out!