X-mas Gift List

Received today:

Clothes from Mom (who's been complaining about the lack of clothing options I have)

Heroes Season 1 & 2 from Mom and Dad (though chances are from Mom as well)

WALL-E 3-Disc Special Edition + Digital Copy from Sister (YAY!)

Nightmare Revisited CD from sister (I forgot about this album...)

The Studio Gibi/Miyazaki Film Collection Box Set from my aunt (WITH ALL SEVEN OF HIS FILMS RELEASED THUS FAR!!)

Given today:

A purse (picked out by Mom), The Dark Knight DVD, and a $5 Wal-Mart Gift Card (that came free with the DVD) for my sister

Josh Groban and Il Divo Christmas albums for Mom

The Ansel Adams large print photo book portfolio for my aunt

Discovery Channel's When We Left Earth DVD for Dad

Batman: The Animation Series Soundtrack Review

It's a rare find to come across a soundtrack for a television show, but this is what we have here. The '90s Batman television. The mini-film soundtrack for the half-hour instant classic stories that aired every Saturday morning is now available in limited units for your enjoyment. On two CDs!

The first disc opens with an overture of memorable themes. Namely Batman's theme, followed by Man-Bat, Joker, Charlie Collins, Batgirl, Mr. Freeze, Clayface, Penguin, and a very rare Harley Quinn theme. The track flows very nicely between each theme, though it ends rather abruptly. My only gripe is that it doesn't have either of the Robin themes or Nightwing's theme.

From there, the listener is treated to 11 episodes picked by the writers and producers based on dynamic range and the visual cues evoked by the audio. There are some very classic ones such as the Two-Face episodes and Joker's Favor. However, there are several classic ones missing such as Robin's Reckoning and Heart of Ice. Hell, they don't even have Read My Lips, which was the first time Shirley Walker talked about the music on the DVD commentary. And it has probably one of the nicest jazz tracks in any of the Batman episodes.

The last track on the second disc is titled Music of the Bat 101. It is a short track where Walker explains the inner workings of the Batman animated theme. This sounds like it was recorded for a music class, but the insert book says it was from a press interview. Definitely for the music buffs.

But even then, these tracks are beautiful to listen to. Relaxing but also evoking emotions that made those episodes run chills down my spine.

I found my new background music when I'm working on something.

2

It's the day after the day after the last day of classes for the semester. It's two days after the end of my college education as a fine artist. It's two days before I find out if I'm going to Virginia to pick up my sister or stay at home to take care of the dogs.

Twenty-four hours ago, I was captivated in my first comic book. Watchmen. It's a twenty-tree year old story. I should have read it by now given the research I've done into the culture and genere of comics as a contemporary social art form for political satire and reflection. I wrote a term paper on it, for crying out loud!

It's a good book. I finished it in two days. Will revisit it again to understand the events a little more clearly. So much to take in at once.

It's been two days since I started my so-called life after college. I should be doing something other than blogging. I should be creating art or at least planning some kind of post-college adventure to make up for my teen years and my early twenties when normal people are out enjoying life and hanging out with friends. Forming relationships.

The computer has been off for two days. Both computers. This PC I'm typing on now and the Mac I bought for school purposes. Now it's just going to serve as an editing station for videos I may post on YouTube.

I have only two days to get my Christmas shopping done. My mom is the only one I haven't bought anything for. I should get on that today.

Milk Review

I saw Milk today. Though my intents to be in that theatre was to see if I can secure employment on what is probably going to be the slowest movie season ever (the movies they green-lit during the writer's strike are coming out now) on top of which with the economy being what it is, I decided to treat myself and my mother to a movie. She went to see a different movie than me, but that is because that particular movie would be leaving once the Christmas family films come out in full force next week.

Anyway...

Milk. I really wish I had someone with me to appreciate this movie with. Someone special with a bond that only the two of us would understand. The movie is nothing short of inspirational and moving. It's also very painful to watch, as the arguments against homosexuals made in the film mirror that which are made now. Thirty years have past, and nothing has changed! Why?

I'm not going to praise it; that's been done. I'm not going to comment very much about Lucas Grabeel's small role in the film, though I do wonder why he got an opening credit when he was nothing more than a background character whose importance wasn't addressed until the end of the film. (I will say that Lucas did look rather comfortable playing the role, so who knows what that could mean. Then again, so did James Franco.) I will say that by myself, it's difficult to appreciate the magnitude of what this film is about and its core message without someone special watching it along side.

We're all human. We may have our flaws and disagreements. We may even come to hate each other. But we are still human.

Unfortunately, we've lost sight of this simple fact because of stupid things like the color of our skin, the religious creeds we believe in, or what gender we are attracted to.

Thoughts on Gay Actors

Saw this trailer coupled with an audio review for an Art House film from a website I found over the summer and have been visiting every weekend to hear their honest reviews of movies.

But that's not what I'm going to talk about.

There has been, for a long time, a history of closeted gay actors in Hollywood who refuse to come out of the closet. Now, since Brokeback Mountain made such a success at opening the eyes of a lot of people, you would think that would not be the case. Unfortunately, the sad fact of the matter is that if you are straight and "play gay," you get a more positive review. If you are gay and you "play straight," you don't get anything short of a note-worthy performance. This is a broad brush stroke, I'm aware of that.

The point is that while the cast, lead by Sean Penn, is brillent in their roles, I can't help but wonder how many people in the cast are actually gay.

Those with a quick eye will have spotted High School Musical's Lucas Gabreel. Disney is notorious for keeping their child stars under lock and key, but when Shia Labeouf was able to act his way away from the Disney company, one has to wonder how he did that. Gabreel could very well be trying to do just that, if not for his career but because of personal interests. It does make me wonder since his breakout role in High School Musical was as the theatre brother of the diva who, at no fault to how he acts in all those behind-the-scenes features, does let the occational gay quirk slip out.

Then you have James Franco and Emille Hersh (Hobgoblin from Spiderman and Speed Racer, respectfully) who look surprisingly very comfortable in their roles. Both are very attractive outside of their Hollywood films, but who knows if I'm reading too much into these things.

I feel kind of bad that this movie came out the week of my thesis defense and public presentation. By the time I'll be able to see it, the movie will have left the theatre. That's how they do independent films: unless it generates a boat load of money during its opening week, it will only stay for that week.

I'll have to look for this on DVD, as well as "Were the World Mine" and "Another Gay Sequel."

Nerd!!!

What Be Your Nerd Type? Your Result: Gamer/Computer Nerd   You enjoy the visual stimulants of a video game, chatting on AIM, or reading online comics. Most of these types of nerds are considered dirty who lack hygeine, of course they always end up being the ones who make a crapload of money. And don't worry, that's just a stereotype; I'm not calling you dirty. ^_~
Science/Math Nerd
Artistic Nerd
Social Nerd
Anime Nerd
Literature Nerd
Musician
Drama Nerd
What Be Your Nerd Type? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Canned Air: 45 Minutes

It should not have to take me 45 minutes just to settle a customer dispute. For all those wanting another reason to hate Wal-Mart, I've got a big one.

I called the closest location to me (READS: within walking distence) yesterday to see if they would have the new Spore Parts Pack in stock. I was told that they would, but it wouldn't be on the shelves until midnight that night or 08:00 the following morning.

I went by at around 09:00 because I needed some canned air for my computer. I'm behind in cleaning the insides and noticed we were out, so I thought I'd pick it up when I went to pick up the expansion pack. When I got there, the PC game shelf was almost bare.

Long story short, they don't have it. But I had to be bounced back and forth between managers like a tennis ball. I don't like being treated like a tennis ball when it comes to Customer Service, and I make it a point not to do that when I'm on the clock whenever I work for the theatre. After 45 minutes, I left very upset that the root of my problem was a communications error that happened yesterday.

I took the off-chance gamble that the local GameStop on my way home would have it, but remembered that they said they don't stock PC titles. Boy, where they right. I asked the store manager if there was a way he could check the inventory of the other stores to see if they had the title I was looking for. Despite being put on hold for longer than my personal rule--and in person no less--their customer service was very much about the customer and trying to find the title in question. Eventually, they found the location of a story that had it in stock and told me where to go. As I was leaving, the manager then rushed out of the store and told me that he got a call from another location that just got the title. The fact that he went out in to the cold with no coat spoke volume to me.

With customer service like this, I wish I was a secret shopper. I should look into how to become one once I get out of school and... *sigh* learn to drive.

Expanding the Universe

I would make a really good secret shopper.

I just called two locations within walking distance of my house. Both carry video games, but only one actually told me that they do not carry PC titles. I enquired if the Spore expansion pack would be stocked, and the employee on the other end pretty much gave me a stock answer of "call back when its scheduled to release." Not really the most ideal thing to say, but that wasn't what bothered me. It was the general "hurry-up" tone of voice. I'm sure I've been guilty of that with my own phone call customer services with the theatre, but this was more like a "hurry up, because I don't want to talk to you" tone.

Tomorrow is going to be dedicated to cleaning up my computer area due to the fact that it has acquired unhealthy amounts of hair, dust, and junk mail that needs to be thrown in the trash. I was actually going to pick up some canned air for all the hardware components, after asking my mom tonight where those static Swiffer sheets are for the non-electronic stuff I can use it on. So I thought I'd pick myself up a little tit for tat while I was out.

I don't know what's happened, but lately I've been babying my computers.

Why me?

I failed to see until now just how far behind I really am with the academic side of my thesis. The weekend of playing tourist, the private party for myself I had watching DVDs of old cartoon shows, and even updating this blog is putting me farther behind.

The surface of the thesis is already establish, the definition and examples of an avatar and how they are constructed. But I'm missing one important question to answer. Why?

Why did I choose to represent myself with a ponytail and why do I refuse to cut it?

Why did I create an avatar for Gaia that is a martial arts stereotype complete with bared chest and muscular built?

Why did I decided to produce a life-size digital collage of a side of myself i don't like talking about in public and yet is comfortable enough to exhibit it in a public space?

Why did I pick these words to represent me and my thoughts?

Why am I listening to a Gothic German polka while I'm typing this?

Why did I ask that last question?

The philosophical part of my paper, the theory side, was something I either ignored or just plain forgot was a requirement until just a while ago when I was staring at my second draft and realizing that I had nothing more to talk about. It was then that I asked Kristi, who told me I completely forgot about the major part of my paper: the concept of identity. She promises me that someone will ask me one of those questions, and if I can't answer them, then my thesis isn't as deep as I could be.

The stupid part of all this is the fact that the only answer I can think of to these questions is this: Why not?

Post-Show Snore

I wish I could say that the reason I was not able to blog was due to some kind of technical hip cup on my end, as I'll end up saying on my Spore Blog. The fact of the matter is that I'm just too lazy to keep up with this having been too busy several weeks before setting up the show which will come down this Saturday.

I have my second draft of my paper due this Friday and was shocked to find how much of my notes you end up forgetting due to the stress of putting up the show. I think being first up had something to do with it. Either way, that's what needs to be done. Followed closely by insurance documentation of the work and maybe sharing those photos here on the blog.

Other than that?

I got a DVD box set featuring the complete run of Batman: The Animated Series and have been enjoying it since, even if only at a slow pace. My mom teased me saying that all I need is the Ninja Turtles DVD and I'll have all the shows that she remembers me watching while I was growing up. I teased her back saying that I still would need a whole slew of other shows before that statement would be considered true, namely shows like Tiny Toons and Chip & Dale's Rescue Rangers and the long lost educational cartoon Hystaria!, which had the best time slot for any cartoon of its genre from what I remember.

I'm expecting Kung Fu Panda at the end of the week and will be checking out the 2D sequel that will be coming with the "Panda-monium" pack. I was talking with my friends in graphic design as to how rare 2D animation is these days, so any chance to see it is like being able to watch a Broadway production in NYC. Or at least it is starting to become like that.

I don't know. I think I'm throwing my own private party for myself seeing how there wasn't much celebration sponsored by my family post-show. This was mostly due to the fact that we had a guest due to the fact that my sister doesn't feel comfortable driving from Virginia on the interstate by herself. So most of the post-show weekend was spent entertaining my sister's friend. I tried to get at least one of my wants in during that time, but it was shot down because of budget (and the fact that I was in a very public location and couldn't argue as loudly as I wanted to). So, yeah, no sushi until this coming Saturday, but unfortunately it will have to be between the hours of 11:00 and 14:00. Not exactly ideal, but better than nothing I suppose.

Well, I guess I should go back to figuring out my notes and then inserting them into my second draft now that I'm done with my lunch that I was eating between paragraph breaks. The meal of college champions: Ramen.

The Big Day

I know that I haven't been posting anything in a long time. Too long, in fact. Hell, my Spore blog is probably as dead as this one right now, but that's another story.

The point is that I've been busier than I ever been. Frustrated doesn't describe it. Nervous doesn't seem to come close. Frantic? Possibly. But one thing is for sure: I've been working hard for the last several weeks trying to get today to happen. And in a little over two hours from this post, it will be all worth the trouble.

The show is installed and I get to make face with a public I locked myself away from. Or at least tried to.

This is the first time where I've finally taken notice of all the new faces in the school, what few there are floating around. And there are some cute ones. Some real twinks in the freshman class that make me feel very old and very ugly despite the compliments I'm getting from finally shaving off my three-month-long facial hair. At this point, I'm starting to feel more and more like my third avatar I posted here. Sexually stimulated but yet unable to enjoy it due to personal hang-ups and a lack of social finesse.

Tonight will be interesting. I'll have to make face, try to look like I know what I'm talking about, and above all else, behave.

Still, as much as this day is meant to be all about me, I can't help but wonder if it really is. My mom is getting the house ready for a friend of my sister who is staying the weekend due to the uncomfortable nature of driving alone from her college to my college on the interstate. Then there's the fact that I can't even pick where I would like to eat out for my celebratory dinner because I like seafood but none of my sister's friends do. And I was feeling like sushi!! Oh, and tomorrow? We're all playing the role of tour guides for my sister's friend, with an intent to kill two birds with one stone by having my celebratory dinner, which has been pushed up to lunch, at a tourist hot spot. So instead of sushi, I get hamburgers at Opry Mills.

As upset as all this could make me, I have only this thought to cancel it all out: I got published in the Nashville Scene and my image took up half of the front page of the Critics' Pick section. To quote a Disney Channel character, "YAY ME!"

Avatar Murder

I guess you can get arrested now for "online murder."

http://videogames.yahoo.com/feature/online-divorcee-jailed-after-killing-virtual-hubby/1259111

Just posting this for my own refferance later, as it is still rather too early for me to think properly since I came home late last night, but I'll talk more about that later as well. It's not what you may be thinking/hoping it was.

Invitation Invites Infatuation

I'm in the studio bumming my ass off in the cafe because of a lack of creative drive at the moment. So I took it upon myself to call the only person I know that is still in town and extend an invitation to my show.

I was expecting his machine. I got him on the other end.

We talked for a little bit, and I got my invitation out, even extending it to another friend. I wanted to catch up, but got scared about saying something I knew I shouldn't. I ended the conversation as abruptly as I was surprised that he picked up, saying that we will catch up at the show.

That was about an hour and a half ago. Now I'm feeling rather like I made yet another mistake. Who knows what will happen when that day comes. Will I be able to behave myself or will I clam up because of my feelings for him and being in such a public space?

I hate having this longing feeling for a close friend or a significant other. I wish I didn't have this problem, but every time I try to control it, it just gets worse and worse. (Though this year hasn't been as bad as it could have been compared to past experiences.)

I think I'm going to puke...

Have you ever had that feeling like you know you just made a mistake but you're not sure as to what it is? And no matter how many times you run the scenario over in your head and feel that you did the right thing, it still feels wrong?

Is it paranoia or just general anxiety?

The reason I ask is because I just got back from dropping off my images to be framed. The price quote I was given over the phone was more attractive than what I actually paid due to a difference in frame thickness. I choose one that was more stable for the length, but was also thicker. Comparing the two in the shop, neither one would be distracting to the piece, but the cheaper one would suffer from bowing during transit.

I keep replaying the scenario over in my head while staring at the second largest purchase I've made in my life (the first going to the MacBook). I feel I chose correctly given all the factors.

So why do I feel so sick to my stomach that I'm not sure if I can eat anything tonight?

I think it's time.

I've been preparing for my graduation show for a while now, and I'm on the final stretch which involves getting things framed and other formalities.

And I'm finding out fast that my lack of mobility is beginning to be an intrusive burden on others. I am reluctant to accept free rides from those who offer it, and have clearly caused some friction with those who I explain the situation to. I try to make it so that the ride flow isn't going to be a major interruption but just minor detours, but I guess there is no such thing when you end up losing 10 minutes as a result, which naturally just piles on top of itself making my rides even that much more late.

I'm feeling very ashamed right now. So much so that it is triggering my depression in this matter. It's bad enough that I don't know what I'm going to do with myself immediately after graduation.

Sex Dolls and Disney Heroes

My God, I've got some interesting e-mails in my inbox today (which I've devoted entirely to being lazy).

First up is art related. Because of the new direction my last piece has taken, the quiet, family-man of the faculty sent me something that actually relates to it. At least visually. Apparently, a performance artist actually ordered a RealDoll of herself and constructed a piece where she would have sex it with. She even went as far as to marry it in a Las Vegas chapel! My morning skim of the article took note of a lot of use of the word "feminism" with a paragraph acting like an advertisement for the RealDoll company. While this is no doubt exploring sex, sexuality, and gender roles, I can't help but wonder how exactly this relates to my last piece other than similarity in content. Admittedly, I'm unwilling to read the article in its entirety out of a want to be lazy today.

On a similar note, Jason e-mailed me an article he found involving a deviantART artist who has a series devoted to sexual representation of Disney male characters. It's quite an impressive series that you can view here and here if you have a DA account. Of the ones that I was able to view, I kind of like the direction he went with Kocoum. He kept that proud Native American look while still added a hint of sexual tension which just made the image that much more exotic and not so much erotic unless you look below the waist. Another Disney "hottie" that I like in this series is Aladdin. He's practically topless already in the film, but the image places him in a rather candid expression as if he or the actor playing him (if we go from the Roger Rabbit kind of angle with animated features, that is) was being asked a question and caught between reactions. It makes Al look even more hot than he did in the film. Other Disney characters include Milo and Jim from the Disney Animation "bomb" films Atlantis and Treasure Planet. Jim looks especially hot given the fact that he's practically jail bait in the film but "matured" for the image produced.

But, much like someone I know who does have a DA account, these kind of artists just make me feel bad about myself. If you can wade through all the anime that has blown up on the site, you can find some amazing photographs and illustrations, most of which are from either untrained artists or people like me who are being properly schooled. It's mostly a graphic designers and photographers protfolio community if you REALLY dig, but someone was able to show me some really sweet Flash animation there that looked like it was hand rendered.

Okay, enough of that. I'm going to play Spore since I haven't touched it in so long and I'm over saturated with art as it is. Of course, it doesn't help that I'm playing a game that awards my creativity instead of my gaming skills, but still.

Tired of Being Tired

Just when I think I have things done, I find out that I'm far from finished. I knew that I would never get to an ideal point in thesis, but at the same time, I didn't expect to hit so many road blocks. I felt like I was on the right path, that I was actually going somewhere with what I was doing. But it turns out I still have some work to do before I can actually get these three large-scale pieces printed. Nothing big, but things that will no doubt push projects back.

I'm just as exhausted right now as I was last week because of all these back and forth and editing and printing and trying to get things ready to show. I'm worried that I may have my tires slashed out from under me again because of some reason I can't foresee. My ultimate due date of Halloween is coming up fast, and while I'm blogging right now at the advise of my teacher to just rest for the day and not tool around with the work any more, I can't help but worry about so many things.

I haven't actually played the game portion of Spore in three weeks now. I barely touch the game except to try and post something about one of my creations on my other blog, which I'm also neglecting due to my thesis. But most of all, I'm just feeling rather tired when I get home or come to the studio. I want to sleep, but I also need to work. I rather play video games and unwind that way rather than struggle to sleep because my work is on my mind.

If this ends well for me, I'm going to look into a vacation to Tokyo.

Bad Luck Chuck

Last night while I was winding down from the weekend's labor, I somehow got into a conversation with my mother about how my sister met her current boyfriend. And the story couldn't be... what's the word I'm looking for? Oh yeah, painful.

She apparently met him on Facebook. Much like myself about ten years ago, she started an online relationship. Only this time, the boy made an effort to meet the girl he was so interested in. Things hit off well and the two of them couldn't be more perfect for each other. I witnessed this first hand as their personalities seem to mesh quite nicely. He's also a very nice guy, with no real creepy factor to him outside of how the relationship initially got started. Don't know how I feel about the fact that he is as old as I am, but then again my dad is older than my mom by the same amount.

It's no secret I envy my sister sometimes, but her relationship now is making me all that more jealous of her. I mean, she's doing things with him we couldn't get her to do by ourselves like eat food she would never touch or do things she would never do. And what does he do in return? He drives her all over the place just so he can spend time with her. He took a weekend to visit her because she was feeling home sick. He's a rare find, a true romantic in every sense of the word, and my sister got damn lucky with her gambles on the game of love.

I wish my search for love was like this. But no, the people I met online I have yet to meet in person. I am of little risk and consequence to them, so meeting me in person won't change anything unless we hit it off from the start. But no, fear kept the other party away. That lack of contact has led me to where I am right now. Burned by a crush in real life during my high school days and then taken advantage of during my even more naive days out of high school. What do you have left?

A porn-hungry, eye-lusting, nerdy blogger who is afraid to even approach his current crush and tell him that I like him.

I guess I have some balls after all.

I'm not expecting this image to last very long where I uploaded it to, so for what it's worth, here is a work in progress involving my sexual frustration. I'm looking into my blog's entries when I was feeling like this to see which one captures the more honest expression.

Still, for someone like me who hasn't done many "obscene" art, this is a very bold piece. (Though I bet someone will want me to push it to an even bolder realm.)

Chocolate Dreams

I keep having this dream where I'm working in the studio and is interrupted by a face from the past. David. The only person from those days I'm not mad at or have any ill-will towards. The only person I want to be a real person and not some avatar for some dirty liar I knew when I was young and naive.

I wake up confused, angry at myself, lonely, depressed, and feeling rather dead. The past is something hard to let go of, but what was in the past is in the past and I either have to, as one monkey put it, "run from it or learn from it."

The moral of my story? No more sneaking into the Halloween candy before bed.

Stress, Headaches, and Something Else

A boat load of new responsibilities has been thrown on me that all need to be met by this Friday. I'm researching identity theory as it pertains to the avatar while avoiding the part of that subject that I don't understand, mostly the psychology part. I just finished sending off press release information. I finally printed the final stage of my first two avatars on a smaller scale and will be doing minor tweaking with it before printing them large scale/life size. I even started on my third piece which I hope to have done in time for my mandatory candidacy presentation.

My head is spinning to the point where I'm not sure if it is stress or my equilibrium really is starting to fail on me. I take breaks, but while I'm on them, I can't relax. I get more anxious about falling behind even if it is only for five minutes. Even now, during this point in the evening where I'm telling myself to stop and do something else, I can't stop thinking about what needs to get done and what I want to do and how little time I have to do both of those things.

It's driving me insane. And I don't have any left over comfort food to bring me back down from it when I get home.

Another Vice, Another Night of Sexual Frustration

It's bad enough that one of the porn blogs I follow had a video featuring well-built college frat boys wrestling in the nude. But even without that, the athletes I've been seeing on my sister's campus (We're here for her birthday as well as deliver presents from her boyfriend.) have just been making me very insecure.

I worked on my Warrior avatar last night, which features a frontal image of an underwear model whose torso I cut out and pasted my head on top of. I even went out of the way to match skin tones, something I haven't done since my pirate days. And as disproportionate the image is, I couldn't help but wonder how my sex life would be if I actually looked like that.

Supposedly your metabolism slows down around my age. Then again, they say a lot of things become stagnated at my age, but who really knows when you have thirty year olds that look like they are no older than 24 (JASON!). It may no be impossible for me to look as hot as a 18-year-old porn model in the twink genre, but it will increasingly difficult to get and maintain that look long enough to perform the contemporary gay mating ritual our culture calls dating.

My parents are now watching a replay of a college football game, and naturally they are showing fitness equipment ads during the commercial breaks. Knowing that some of those attractive athletes are somewhat real and not the result of set lighting and photo tricks is just making me... well, if anything, it is making me realize how little of a sex life I have. The only thing I have going for me is my porn viewing.

I like athletes, but I hate watching sports. It just makes me and my pants uncomfortable.

Looks like it can't do everything.

The Mac finally showed its first sign that it isn't the be-all-end-all product everyone in Film and Graphic Design said it can be. Sure, it will last me for a long time, but last night I discovered something that compromised its use.

These past few nights, I've been revisiting old DVDs to watch episodes that I liked for one reason or another before going to sleep. It sort of acts like a pallet cleanser for the mind. Last night, when I popped in one of the DVDs, the Mac said that it couldn't recognize it. The help section wasn't much help at all, but that's par for the course in most situations. All it said was that there are some formats that the MackBook just won't read at all.

Which is odd since it is a commercial DVD, and you would think those being professionally manufactured would have the widest range of compatibility. Apparently not.

With all the technology breaking down for one reason or another, the household is left with two DVD players: the one on the Mac and the one on the PC. There is a 50% chance that a DVD will fail to read now. And I thought gambling with intrusive DRMs was bad.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled blogging sans the tech talk.

Swim Away!

Insecurity is mounting as of late. It's hard to believe, but I'm back to where I was the last time around. Only this time, the panic is self-produced. I keep telling myself that it's no big deal. After all, I've done this before. But even that isn't helping me. I can see my mistakes before I make them, and trying to fix them is like trying to patch a pair of perfectly fine jeans before they get worn down. In one respect, it's nice to have those patches on the inside where the knees are suppose to line up at. But the majority of the time, you're asking yourself why those patches are even there in the first place.

Either way, I'm at a point now where not only do I have to face my fears all over again, but I have to do so with some kind of acknowledgement of my mistakes from the last round. But it doesn't look like I learned much other than what not to do. From where I stand, everything is exactly how it was the last time. And in a week's time, the rest of the world will also see that. It doesn't matter how many drafts and revisions I turn over and show; the fact still remains that I am back to where I was with the only difference being that I actually have something to show instead of an intangible idea nobody understands or is interested in.

If only I could live more carefree and not be so scared of living life...

Distracted by the Second Head

It was bound to happen.

I am pulling some overtime in the studio, which means I'm coming in during my "days off." Mostly to get some things done that I cannot do at home due to other distractions. While taking a break from the computer to get some blood flowing and to give my eyes a rest from being bombarded by whatever dangerous invisible rays are being emitted off this computer screen, I ran into my current crush Luke. Head-to-toe denim with a newly shaved head and a trim but attractive facial hair that hid what little grey he has rather nicely but still made him look as young as he really is. As usual, he was all smiles with a mug of coffee in his hand.

We exchanged polite conversation, but I noticed that I was unusually close to him in proximity during the walk down the hallway. By the time I caught myself, he had to duck back into the class he was in. Apparently he needed the mug of coffee in order to get his mind ready for the critique that was going to happen.

I've been very good so far at curbing my perversions and dirty thoughts, limiting them to only the occasional Freudian slip or purposely-placed innuendo. Now that I'm back from my walk around the building to keep my blood flowing to my legs, I'm back to acting like a dog in heat. At least in my own mind as I silently use the pen tool to cutout digital images of my head we took this morning with the school's camera.

I know someone is going to call me out on this behavior sooner than later, and before you know it, I'll be in a very socially awkward position. And I hate when that happens, because I just don't know what to do when those moments happen. I like to think I know what I would do in those moments, but those scenarios are similar to sexual fantasies that will never be played out even if the situation presents itself.

Connect the Thoughts

So I was going over my thesis from last semester in preparation for a process paper when I noticed some interesting connections from it with my current thesis. With the books involving hacker culture, I found a quote I forgot I wrote down stating that the internet is the ideal media for contemporary youth to express themselves because it engages their imagination, their ideals, and reality all at once. Bring in Murakami's quote about how otaku lifestyle tends to lead to a fantasy world overlapping with reality, and you have the reason people construct avatars on the internet in the first place when given the appropriate tools.

I was originally looking for any information about cosplay in my old thesis, but it looks like that was never really utilized. What little notes on the subject I still have all point to the Trekkie fanbase, specifically the fans that go out of their way to dress up as Klingons and learn the alien races language through special interest classes. The documentary of the same name actually shows a group of fans dressed up as Klingons order fast food AS Klingons, complete with dead pan stare and confrontational tone of voice. Kind of wish I had a better example than that, because very few people will take that as a serious academic example in the context of creating a new identity in order to be or act in a way you cannot as your normal "non-Klingon" self.

It's a good thing I blog, because now I need to search my past musings to see if I can't make the connection I'm looking for at the moment. Who knows, maybe I already made that connection and didn't know it at the time.

My Ultimate Vice and Weakness

I just learned during this downtime that apparently there is an anime out there that involves the most forbidden of forbidden fruits in my small known fetishes. I'm not going to tell you what that is, because even I'm a bit ashamed that this turns me on, but I'll give you a hint.

Process Documentation

Studio as of Friday. Has since changed in order to make more room for things to be put up.


Left Side


Right Side


First Triptic. Found favorable were the first two on the left.


Detail


Detail


Detail


Second Triptic. Digitally documented individually on the Mac, so all I did was take the picture of them together to get a better sense of how they would look properly arranged. Same goes for the two peices above it. I'll probably post JPEGs of those if pursuaded.


Detail from Left Side


Detail from Left Side


Detail from Left Side


Largest peice on the Left Side. Also the least worked on.


Detail from Left Side. The result of not caring about how it would turn out. Surprisingly, nobody's called me out on the potential "penis envy" signifier with the black sandpaper.

Presentation for the show is in two weeks. Ideally, I know they want me to be ready to hang and have nothing to do but frame my pieces. Thing is, if it has taken me this long just to get the process done, how long will it take me to get pieces printed and framed? Everything is due the week of Halloween, and life got in the way with the whole identity theft fiasco.

I guess a part of me has resigned to believing that no matter what I do or how well I do it, there will always be someone out there that won't like it. And as such, I'm probably not trying or pushing myself as hard. Which is bothering me since I've heard nothing but genuine interest from the faculty about the SUBJECT of my thesis.

Distractions, Distractions

iPod doesn't like LP and skips due to corrupted data transfer.
Need to check that out when I'm home.
Might have to switch to manual sync if problem continues.
(Third time this has happened.)

The power of creation at my fingertips.
I can create life and take it away!
(Provided all the bugs have been patched.)
For some reason, I want to play God rather than be one.

Silence is annoying.

Spore Critique

It's been about a week since I got Spore and started playing it every chance I can get, mostly at the risk of being productive with my art work. And while I am enjoying the overall experience of the game, I feel the need to review it for one reason or another.

For those of you who have been living under a rock, Spore is the latest game to come out of the mind of Will Wright, creator of the popular Sims franchise and pretty much the entire simulation gaming genre. In Spore, the player is in charge of creating and evolving life on an alien world from the microscopic stage all the way up to the space age. The game even caters to those that believe in Creationism by letting you pick which stage to start out in once you've played enough of the game your first time around. Along the way, your creation will encounter other alien creations with several options available in regards to interact with them. The big selling point of the game is the fact that everything the player will encounter will be created by other players who own the game. Spore boasts having some powerful content creation tools that allows even the non-gaming types to create a creature on par with that of a Pixar or ILM employee without the hours or sometimes weeks it would take to construct such a creation normally.

For the most part, the game holds up to all the marketing hype and selling points. I'm continued to be amazed at some of the surprises that the game will throw at you in the various stages where player-created content is essential. (There's at least two stages where you will rarely see creations from other players due to the game mechanics.) It's very addictive, as I'm sure I've said in a previous post.

The game is no without their problems. It is clear that there was some kind of pressure from some higher power to get the game out as soon as possible. The game isn't buggy as hell, but it could be worse. I have not encountered some of the really bad ones as of yet, but the ones I've encountered are rather annoying.

For one, the creatures I made in the stand-alone Creature Creator do not translate very well into the final game, specifically if your creature has wings. As a result, I've been going through my game and redesigning those creatures slightly so that their wings are positioned properly.

Another problem I've encountered was a crash scenario that made it impossible for me to advance in the Space stage of the game. This resulted in a lot of deleted games for one reason or another. The same can also be said for the sharing aspect of the game, as some creations just refuse to upload to the servers properly. This has resulted in my second blog and my PhotoBucket account becoming a place for "exclusive content" for Spore that I've created.

Other than that, I now know what it feels like to have your life be sucked into a game a la Worlds of Warcraft and The Sims. And for that feeling alone, I will tolerate the bugs and glitches. I've even made a few buildings and characters as a result of channelling these frustrating encounters, so all is not lost.

Now if only I could stop playing it long enough to be more productive. I'm just happy I didn't install it on my "work" computer.

Work and Play

I'm not stuck. I'm not creatively dead or inept. I'm sure there are ideas brewing inside my brain trying to get out. I'm just majorly distracted. With Spore, with life, with trying to escape life by using Spore to gain a control I never had in my life. (Although, for what it's worth, I don't have much control over what's going on in Spore either. The game's AI finally figured out my play style and is starting to give me some interesting environmental effects as a result.)

I think a depression is starting to creep in, and as much as I'm trying to fight it, I simply cannot. It takes over the moment I walk into my drab studio, the moment I open my MacBook--which I love to death--in an attempt to get some work done. And it's here now that I've done almost nothing for the last two hours but formal paper work for the administration office and the class itself. Things like turning in drafts of statements and applications for degrees and the like.

The only light of hope in this madness is the fact that Spore has created a conversation avenue for my thesis, almost accidently. I've created two alien races that are both similar and completely different from how I am in real life. I'm working on a third avatar which will be a religious fanatic who will either convert the planet to their belief system or blow it up if they resist.

And then there's Halloween coming up! A time when avatars run rampant in a candy-begging frenzy, as I've said in an earlier post.

I seriously need to just focus on the research associated with these two. If I can peel myself away from exploring the galactic core and running out an evil cyborg empire in an attempt to escape my own real life insecurities and nightmares.

Lost a Day & My Identity

Irony seems to follow me like... well, like my dog whenever I'm not where I'm suppose to be.

I lost an entire day and possibly sleep yesterday. Why? I got Spore in the mail almost immediately as soon as I got home from school on Monday. So all day, despite the protest from Skippy for not taking him out to the back yard for potty (I'm still surprised he was able to hold it for 12 hours.), I was glued to the front of my computer screen impatiently evolving my creature and playing through the game to get familiar with the controls and other settings. The in-game achievement of Galactic God is a fitting one. As well as the other two I can earn for spending 50 hours in the content creation editors and 100 hours playing the game.

But for what it's worth, I enjoyed every moment of it. I found it very difficult to delete my first game, which was a dry run anyway with no intent of keeping it. The game does an amazing job of making you emotionally attached to your creation through very subtle things, like the occasional breaking of the 4th wall when it stares back at you because you haven't given it a command after several minutes. And once they get to the next stage of their existence, you cannot help but want to build their houses and cars in a way that is kind of like spoiling your favorite grandkid. It's addictive to the point of madness, but I love it.

I'm sure my tone and opinion will change in about three weeks.

Meanwhile, as I was staring into the shiny picture frame of a monitor that is my computer, someone found my debit card number and has been making purchases.

I found out fairly quick, as you have probably guess given the timeline of event. The total damage so far is only $50 at the most, but still. That's my $50! They were, strangely enough, all online purchases that had the name of the website posted on them. What hinted to me that they were ID Theft related was the purchase from iTunes. I didn't purchase anything since the Kanye West video was released. The others were for adult porn websites that I never visited. I do deal with the dirty videos, but when I do, I keep a strict eye on those purchases. That's how I found out that my bank account was compromised; I was checking up on a purchase and saw that more than what I bought.

The ironic part? My thesis involves identity and avatars. One one hand, you have me playing God channelling myself into an alien creature who will function as my identity in the game. On the other, my real identity is being used to make porno purchases I know for a fact I didn't make.

Life's funny sometimes.

Forced Representation

I forced myself to produce something, mostly to turn in for Monday.

The digital sketches, as I call them, suck. They look like (and excuse my internet terminology here) noobish photoshopping attempts by some skript kiddie that bit torrented GIMP because of some scary DRM Adobe may or may not have installed with their best selling products. They aren't my worst works, but they are certainly not something I want to look at again. However, given the nature of the class, I will have to look at these ugly cut-and-paste digital photo montages again as I tighten them up over the course of the next three weeks.

My first critique is next Monday. I'll start with the easiest one, as I'm not even sure IF the most difficult one of the two ideas that I've solidified will work when I clean it up. I have a third idea involving the avatars I use to create a more sexually attractive me, but nothing that has solidified into a visual idea.

Work About Me Without Me

The more I think about this thesis, the more I wonder if it is even appropriate for me to have myself in the work. The reason I say this is because of how avatars work in both the religious world and in the contemporary world.

In the old world, any god or divine being that would form a mortal shell as an avatar for their power would never look like what they are suppose to look like. That's why God doesn't have a face despite being constantly painted and characterized as some balding white man with a flowing gray beard. I believe the movie Dogma has a line saying that to see and hear the true form and voice of God would cause mortals to explode due to the sheer magnitude of not being able to comprehend the awesome power of the universe that is spilling forth before them. Or something like that. So what does God do? He gives us Jesus in order for Him to communicate with us in one sense or another. Or an angel, or some other sign that is normally accompanied with bright lights. You know the kind. There is no physical feature in any of his diplomats He sends down that is exclusive to God, mostly because we don't know what He looks like.

I think it is just human nature to want to put a face to a name. Disney's Gargoyles even questions why we name things, which was borrowed from Shakespeare's "A rose by any other name would smell just as sweet" line from Romeo & Juliet. That's why when you talk about Buddha, most people associate it with the fat and joyful incarnation of the Buddha. But when you mention that Buddha was a monkey at one point in his many lives, people go "What?"

Meanwhile, you have the contemporary idea of the avatar, which for argument's sake is more of an icon than it is the actual person it is representing. There is a parody of Norman Rockwell's--the title of I can never remember--where he is painting himself looking into the mirror. The most famous one is that of Walt Disney in the same pose drawing Mickey looking back in the mirror. The equally famous opposite (Mickey drawing a picture of Walt looking back in the mirror) has been seen almost just as widely as the one I recently saw advertising laser eye surgery (Rockwell with glasses drawing a picture of him with no glasses looking back at himself in the mirror). Yet people will continue to look at Mickey Mouse and see Walt Disney. At least until that part of history ends up becoming lost to memory.

It seems almost ironic that Halloween will occur during this thesis exploration. You have the casual trick-or-treater who doesn't care if the neighbors know it is them. They just like to dress up, and that's fine. But what makes Halloween really fun for some people are when they get to dress up and completely own the character they are dressed up as. We are talking about those people who change the way they walk, moan and groan at anyone that talks to them, and actually become whatever they are dressed up as. Their true identity is only known to the friends that saw and/or helped them dress up. This is what separates cosplayers from role-players.

Knowing this, (well, more like after I discovered this) I can't help but wonder why I need to interject myself into the work now. I mean, these are self representations of myself if not my alter ego Zeek Slider. And Zeek doesn't look a thing like me, nor does he act like me. And yet, much like an incarnation of Vishnu, we share a common bond. I didn't just create him so that he can be some kind of internet identity or whatever Zeek ended up being. Zeek is a vessel for the things that I cannot do. He can be a wizard when I want to be, or as he is right now, he can talk to alien races from beyond the stars. But Zeek can't do what I can. For some reason, as adaptable and mutable as he is, he can't create things. I've never given him that ability to be imaginative. That's my job.

In some strange logic, the relationship I have with my alter ego is that bridge between the old world and the new world definition of the word "Avatar." I created Zeek in order to do the things I could not do for one reason or another, very similar to how the gods would create beings to interact among us mortals. I gave Zeek special abilities for the world you can find him in, very much how the gods would give their incarnations special abilities and how contemporary costume role players in the park would roll dice to determine the various statistics of their characters own abilities. But at the same time, Zeek cannot do what I can do, exactly how most mortal incarnations of gods in classic myths are set up.

He isn't me. He doesn't act like me or look like me. But he is me in a form that I cannot take. I cannot become him, so he is me for as long as I need him to be me. And though him and his abilities, I'm able to be something that I cannot be on my own. But he'll still never be me. He didn't create me; I created him. I act as his god, and he acts like what I want to be.

Due Monday

Images of how I envision my show space as well as preliminary sketches of the work I want to exhibit and/or photographs of past works so that the teachers can figure out whose work works best with whose.

And I'm having the hardest time trying to jump start this! It's driving me insane! it isn't so much distractions so much as it is that I just don't like looking at photographs of myself. Every last one, including the one where I Photoshopped the hell out of it! As narcissistic as I could be, I seriously cannot stand looking at myself. That's why I avoid cameras, and when I can't avoid them, I avoid seeing the results of the filming of photographing.

The idea of drawing myself or an avatar of myself is kind of out of the question. Actual real representation, something that is undeniably me to even the casual stranger must be shown. But working from even the best photographs I find extremely frustrating. I want to draw myself as I see myself and then place something that is genuinely me in the piece that people who don't even know me can say, "Yep, that's him alright."

Maybe if I try this image concept with an image of the web camera's lens. Or maybe I should wait until my aunt gets back from her cruise. She does have the best camera in the house.

Blogatar

So after a semester of being constantly told that my blog can be used or incorporated into my artwork, I finally came upon an idea that could work. Maybe.

In the arena of self-representation, I have a few physical attributes that could qualify as an avatar. The first is my ponytail; the second is my wandering eye. The third is my blog, which is also the most interesting way of representing myself. Here I am airing my dirty laundry in public for anyone and everyone to see without worry or care as to what people think of me. They can find this place and read what I really think about people or events. You cannot get any more honest and raw than this site.

And yet, I have another site that is filled with fictional stories and musings from an imagination generated by nothing but science fiction and flights of fantasy. You have an alter ego who is living a very secure life with an easy job and no real worries in the world outside of what his job requires of him.

In my research into the avatar, I found a duality that was very interesting to me. You have the old definition of the avatar in which the Gods would lower themselves for the sake of being mortal, often not realizing they are the human vessels for a very powerful divine identity. Then you have the contemporary definition with the online culture which is an elevated representation of how one wants to see themselves. This up- and down-grade of self could lead to some very interesting pieces.

So here I am with this idea having no way of actually making it into a visually interesting piece that people can look at and have conversations about. My intuition is telling me to pick the physical part of me and then place a body of text over that part or in the shape of that part. That text would be a blog-like entry explaining why that part of my body functions as an avatar. The problem continues to snowball when you ask things like "so how is this going to look in the gallery space?" As of right now, I honestly don't have an answer to that question.

In my conversation with my teacher, I remembered my video piece that Terry liked after my Study Abroad class. It was about memory and how an experience can often be forgotten rather quickly despite taking photographs to document it. In the video, I took the shots I loved the most and selectively faded them out until all that was left on the screen was a juvenile drawing of what my impressions were of the event. The actual piece went nowhere, but the process behind it came to mind this morning.

The new idea is to take this same process and fade in/fade out parts of my body that I wish were different for one reason or another. Start with the face, maybe work my way up to doing the torso (God knows I have body issues to work through), or something along that line.

Either way, I have to do something I don't like doing but is not resistant to doing if needed. I have to take pictures of myself.

Thesis Reboot

My morning routine has been interrupted. It normally goes like this:

Walk the dog
Check e-mail
Check message boards
Gaia
Neopets


I've done the first to, but as I was going to check the message boards I stopped myself.

Yesterday, Brady was trolling the studios and exchanged his usual polite hello. He more than anyone last semester expressed a genuine interest in my artistic potential and tried to be as supportive as possible, often leaving me little articles in my space he would come across. I pretty much told him briefly that I feel like I've just started over, even though I know I haven't. It's starting to affect my outlook on the class and my thesis.

I didn't know how right I was.

I also talked to Kristi. It was mostly because I got her e-mail and was confused by the words she used to express how she felt about my initial proposal. I got the impression that she thought my thesis wasn't ambitious enough, that it wasn't big enough. What she really meant was that there wasn't enough meat in the proposal for her to understand what it was that I am doing, both in project content and in subject matter that I'll be exploring. From there, we (more or less) went over what may or may not have been a contributing factor to my failure to graduate last semester. It was pretty much nailed into me that I, like so many other artists, get locked into a specific style because that's all I surround myself with. It was advised that I stop looking at those things and start looking at other artists and influences. Let my guard down.

I think that's why I stopped myself from checking my message board subscriptions. To me, it's just checking another form of e-mail. But I have to deal with an interface that is over saturated with Disney characters, anime role-playing game adverts, and the occasional independent artist who was able to break out of the comic genre with a graphic style unique to themselves.

Today is also research day... if I can bring myself to actually doing it given how awkward I feel right now about having to very literally start over. At least production wise.

What did I come online for again?

I came online for something. To get something. To do something. But I can't remember what that something is.

Skippy loves his heart worm medication. He eats those chewy little pills up and then begs for more. But he hates his flea-and-tick ointment. He's rolling around on the carpet moaning in frustration and discomfort, but the formula has already done what it needs to do. The life of a dog. Sometimes I wonder if I am taking care of a dog or a two year old child who can't speak but is smart enough to let me know that he needs to go potty.

Still, his juvenile behavior is proving to be more entertaining to me right now, which is more than I can say for how my day has been. Without a proper or affective outlet for all my aggression to channel itself towards, I became that unwatched pot of boiling water that ultimately ruins the stovetop. Oh, sure, the heats been turned off, but you have to let the thing cool down before you can fix the damage. The problem is this stovetop is a model they don't make any more, so now that the damage is done, you're left with only one option: get a new stove or just deal with the broken burner. The easiest thing to do is just deal with the broken burner, but what do you do with the pot of water that caused it?

The logical answer is to let the pot of water cool before you do anything else with it. There are two ways you can go about this. The first is to cool it as aggressively as it was heated. However, this leads to thermal shock and could break the metal if not cause other permanent damage. The second is to just let the heat escape on its own and come back to it later.

Social situations don't work like kitchen troubleshooting. People always want to try to fix the problem the quickest way possible, by cooling a still-hot pot. They do this through several different methods, the most common I've seen in my life is by saying "You're wrong. Here's what's correct and why it is correct." And by my count, that only works once out of every ten situations. The rest of the time, we are pretty much the living reenactment of the story of Jesus and the crowd who are about to publicly stone a person for whatever the reason it is. We think we know better because we know more or have more experience, but we are all wrong in one sense or another. We just like to think we are right.

One of the goals every parent wants their child to learn is the difference between right and wrong. This perception changes as we age and what we sometimes are told is wrong turns out to be okay in the end. The reverse is also true. Right and wrong are just perception changes, just like truth and fact. From one point of view, it looks red. From another, it looks blue.

Now I remember what I came online for! I came online to look up Sonic level cliches like the obligatory palm tree level or the recently-added speeding highway level.

I'm Mad at The World

Three hours with my dog snuggling and playing did nothing but strengthen the bond between a boy and his dog. A big bowl of ice cream did nothing but empty out another box in the freezer and put some sugar in my system. Spending half an hour on my thesis drawing background ideas for my current work proved more frustrating than productive.

With my door locked, I tried in vain to come down from this overflow of anger. Doing so is like trying to prevent a volcanic eruption along The Ring of Fire. You just can't. You can stop one from blowing up, but that pressure has to go somewhere. The Law of Conservation of Mass kind of insures that.

I don't know what's going on with me. I'm so angry that I have come up with a way terrorist can effectively take over our country right now. I mean, if the guy in charge of the country of Georgia was asking John McCain for aid and not the actual President still in office several months ago during that conflict they had with Russia, that right there is a good sign to attack. Think about it: This country has essentially lost faith in who is in office right now. The rest of the world now sees him as a nobody. And maybe we have the media to blame for shining the spotlight on two bright beacons of hope and optimism. Or maybe it is because nobody gives a rat's ass about who is in the chair right now knowing he won't be there for long. Now would be the perfect time to take advantage of it and just strike hard and strike big.

I've never been a violent person. The only times I've resorted to those kind of actions was when I didn't have a choice or when I was brought to a point where my rage took over my actions. All morning long, however, everything that I read or is said to me just completely pisses me off.

The reason? What reason? To give a reason is to give an excuse, and those get fired down or attacked or whatever several times a day. Just do. Just act. Just be. A reason gives purpose, but there is no purpose in that which started without any. And that's anger. It just happens. Provoked? You can say the exact same thing to a person with the same up-bringing as me in the same family dynamic, but that won't mean you'll get the same reaction.

There's no control. We think the world revolves in a perfect circle unaware we are slowing orbiting away from our sun. We praise athletic achievements while academic ones get only a three-inch article in the paper, unless the discovery is something monumental like the cure for AIDS. We want everyone to believe in a higher power but are extremely disappointed when they either don't believe in one or believe in a doctrine that we don't agree with. Conservative families giving birth to liberal offsprings. Asians dating Mexicans. Black Jews. Hell, I know a Chinese Jew! And he's very fun to be around! But I know people will look at that and go, "What the fuck? How can you be Chinese and Jewish?"

Spore has a feature where you can fire a planetary laser that causes an entire planet to explode. It also has an Easter Egg where you could find the planet Earth and our own little solar system. I'm looking forward to these two features. Some cultures are just not meant to pro-create.

I've always said this world is going to Hell in a hand basket, and I'd love to be the one to deliver it to Satan.

Then again, I've always said things I've regretted within the hour but cannot take back. The damage has been done and not even a delete key can fix it, so why bother trying if it can't be fixed? I've done that, and it only made the situation worse.

That's why every friend I've ever made I end up loosing. I can make friends, but keeping them? It's only a matter of time before I end up offending Jason and then POOF! He's gone, and I won't hear from him ever again.

It's times like these I'm glad I don't drink. God knows what alcohol would do to me in this state of mind.

Boiling Point

"You think you can get away with things by yelling. That's so disrespectful."

My mom's words.

Controlling my anger is starting to become more and more difficult the more I become the target for other people's ignorance. I get the impression that they believe I know everything, that I can control anything, and that it is my fault for someone else's misgivings or mistakes. And in some respect, I may have presented myself as such. But not to my own family. They should know me better than anyone. They've had to put up with me for twenty-five years, for Christ's sake!

And the reason I yell? It's because nobody will listen to me!

Sometimes I wonder how our family dynamic would be if I never talked to them and just let them blame me for the things I didn't do. I'd rather get attention for the things I've done rather than the things I didn't do, but I guess that's acting too much from people who have expectations that are locked into a culture I have no clue about. After all, I didn't grow up in a post-war, third-world, developing country. I'm growing up in a technology-obsessed, media-watching, my-way-or-the-highway culture in a country that is losing its economic and political power in the world.

Inside Voice Coming Out

Should I be surprised that I can't do certain things in Photoshop since I'm a student? No. I should be thankful. It forces me to draw better instead of relying on fancy digital tricks.

But why is it that I cannot come up with a background for a character drawing of myself as a Sonic the Hedgehog character? Do I need one? I don't know. I should put something in there to ground the character at the very least. Something abstract, maybe, like what I did with my first one.

I wonder why I got that warning about there being a memory issue with CS3 when I tried to save a JPEG. Then again, I wonder why I can't use the "Save As" option to do that. TIFF files are great for printing, but not for digital portfolios or archiving on to my USB drive. Have to have something universal and can be read by all machines.

I wonder how I'll favor as far as my productivity goes when Spore comes out. I'm already starting to see a drop in that right now, and the game isn't out yet. Hopefully, Jason can help me out. If not him, then someone can get me inspired to actually work on my thesis and not on playing God.

Games with omniscient controlling abilities. Being addicted to them must be a sign that I feel I have no control over my own life.

Burned at Burning Step

Well, I met my goal and was able to complete the Fan DVD. However, because of the amount of video and all the little quality-assuring extras, I need a duel-layer DVD-R disc before I can call the entire project done. Go figure Murphy and that damn law would strike.

At least I met my goal, so it's not a total loss. Now I can do some work on my thesis tomorrow and Labor Day.

Weak-end Project

So here I am on the Mac fresh from finishing a two-and-a-half minute loop I've edited together. Not for my thesis. Not even for my mom who has been tossing around the idea of exploiting my DVD production abilities. But for a Fan DVD that I'll be producing one copy of, for myself only, of the Sea of Dreams short films that premiered during Tokyo DisneySea's 5th anniversary. The only things left to do is to figure out what images to use in the main menu, since iDVD has given me several options there, as well as how to set up the individual short films menus. The goal is to be finished by Sunday that way I can spend Labor Day on my thesis.

Linking the religious meaning of an avatar with the contemporary meaning of it while trying to not alienate those who are not a member of those subcultures using nothing but a visual media. Now there's a challenge worthy of my attention, yet not of my obsession.

Murakami on my iPod

Remember how this past summer I went to New York to visit the Murakami Retrospective and how I was blown away by the animation style he used in Kanye West's video? Well, iTunes just released the video for download. It's the clean version of the song, which I could care less about. I just bought it because I wanted one of Murakami's animation at my fingertips for studying. That, and they didn't sell a DVD featuring it and the two episode of Kaikai & Kiki featured in the show.

I think the reason why the music video was only released now had something to do with contracts and debuting rights, but at least now the MTV crowd (what little there is that hasn't been over saturated by reality shows starring the shallow and self-absorbed) will get to see some really innovative animation from Japan that isn't anime.

Motivation on a Rainy Day

I have several task I could do, but because of the grey weather, I seem to have no motivation to do any of them.

The first and most important is to plug my USB Drive in and work on my thesis. I'm on the final stages of my second avatar portrait, which only involves settling on a background and then up-scaling it. In theory, I could have done that yesterday, but I was busy at school getting my computer familiar with the network and downloading software that the school has that I don't for future projects.

The second option is to give Skippy a bath. He's about five months past due.

The third and least important until the week of September 9 is buying a new USB optical mouse for my computer. The one I'm using now keeps doubling-clicking by itself, which means something got dirty inside the body of the mouse. Rather than break into it and potentially destroy it trying to clean it, I'm better off getting a new one. The reason why it is the least important until the 9th is because that's when I'll get my order of Spore in the mail. The last thing I want to happen in my game is for me to accidentally drop an alien I'm abducting because my mouse failed to realize I was still holding down the button.

I kind of wish I had a three-sided dice so I can pull a Two-Face kind of stunt to help be decide what to do.

FinalCut It Out Because You Can Do Better

If there is one thing about myself I should have known but keep falling over into doing, it is that my ambition clearly out weights my ability and commitment to almost anything. I have piles of video games left unfinished as evidence to that.

However, my biggest moment of failure in this area happened last night. While going though iDVD to see what new offerings 7.0 had, I accidentally revived my Sea of Dreams Fan DVD project. A long story short, I ended up discovering that iDVD doesn't like Windows Media files even with Flip4Mac installed. It also gets extremely buggy when my ambition wanted the DVD to be in wide screen format. One thing lead to another, and when it was all said and done, I cancelled the project for another day and time risking the loss of five short movies and all their extras to something as simple as a static shock.

Everyone says I'm good at video work. I don't see it. The last thing I ever did on Final Cut was a selective fading out of photographs I took from my Study Abroad class. While nothing fancy, it was simple enough to get an artistic message across. But then you have all my personal stuff like an abandoned fireworks project which may end up being put through FinalCut simply because I want to have a credits crawl and a dedication block that I cannot do in Movie Maker. Finding that balance of use is going to be difficult for someone who is, for lack of a better description, a media junkie.

I had this great idea for a sculpture piece based on this side of me. It was going to be a toilet with an arm rest that folded out into a desk. There would be a bank of monitors that would wrap around in a 180 degree pan, each displaying something different. It would sit on a pedestal just so I could hide all the DVD players and make the form more simple. What killed the project was cost in material and construction.

Oh well, once a dreamer always a dreamer.

All Set! Kind of...

I'm typing this blog entry from the MacBook I just finished getting everything set up. That includes things like downloading MacTheRipper (God, that was a difficult server to find.) for any DVD editing needs from my library. No, I'm not going to rip something and then upload it onto YouTube. I was going to download Flip4Mac for all my WMV video files I want to edit on here, but I'm confused as to what the deal is with that program. I honestly thought it was a free program, but the trial version you get is like the trial version for Fraps in that it leaves watermarks all over the place of your video you are trying to capture/convert. I'll have to talk to my film friends about what to do about that.

I guess there isn't much of anything left for me to do other than to get used to this skin I bought to protect the keyboard from my greasy hands. The texture of it is inhibiting my typing speed, but at lease now I won't have to worry about the M key losing its letter.

iCollect Too Much Crap

Today was to be the day where I consolidated all my technology into one nice Swiss Gear backpack designed specifically for this kind of iLife style our society has become.

Things were going great so far. I got up early, actually cleaned my PC tower from all the dust and dog hair, and I was able to put my iPod touch into a very sleek and stylish leather case to protect it. I even started the foundation of how my bag will be organized once everything is in there, with accessories for the iPod in one pocket while marking a location for a few software CD with the features card that came with the bag.

I then proceeded to get rid of all the Amazon.com orders that have found a home near the computer. Or at least the ones that my OCD would allow me to take to my room.

That's when I realized I had another underlying problem. I have no space for my media. The movies I bought and watched are stacked one on top of the other in a dangerous balancing act on top of books that I meant to read but were too lazy to even break open. More money to the author, I guess. I even tried to fix this problem only to find out that I collect way too much crap because of my own quirks. Happy Meal toys for color, plushies for warmth, video games for what used to be entertainment.

I don't know what I should do with all this stuff. I can't seem to bring myself to sell most of them for one reason or another, and even if I could, some of them are so old I probably won't get more than $5 for them unless they are in REALLY rare numbers.

I guess that's what eBay is for. People like me who want top dollar for crap they don't want. Now if only I can bring myself to part with it... or bring myself to buy a bigger book shelf.

Splog

I should be going over my thesis and preparing for the semester that starts this coming Monday. Instead, I spent all week making this.

Out of Uniform, Out of Character

I am now the proud owner of a brand new, 15 inch MacBook Pro. With Final Cut 4 Express and the Adobe Publishing Suite for all my video and graphic needs. I was also able to cash in on a Back to School promotion and was able to buy a 32 GB iPod Touch.

And since that day, my mannerisms have been rather different. I went to see two movies I wouldn't normally see alone. And I enjoyed them. I actually had fun by myself. I even bought a box of over-priced candy from the concession stand!

And to top it all off? I treated my parents to dinner!

These are the things that I don't normally do for one reason or another. The most common reason is because I'm just too damn cheap.

The thing is, I have been looking forward to this day for the better part of this week. I was looking forward to making my first big ticket purchase in a long time. And I was looking forward to having a double feature at the theatre before my school leave activated.

The only thing that could have made it better was if my calls to an old friend were returned. I left a rather unorthodox message on their voice mail, essentially saying that it would be the last time they will probably hear from me unless they call back.

Now, normally, instead of blogging, I would be cracking open that cardboard box and getting my new machine set up to my liking. However, I feel like I need to come back down to Earth, so I'm putting that off until I've had some sleep. The entire day today, I was acting as if I was made out of money.

And it felt good. I don't remember ever feeling like I could own the world before, but it felt so good.

More Ramblings from an Inner Mad Man

Laziness, insecurities, distractions, hormones, lust, fantasy, reality, and all these things are like birds drinking lemons while frogs dance to the song that is the latest hit from an artist long since dead.

A yawn turns into a scream midway and then is silenced by the the closing action of the eyes by a hand that is neither comforting or forgiving but is in no way connected to the crime.

A woman with two lives finds that she cannot live without a third but the second refuses to have any part in what has become a sit-com reality show that doctors analyze because it is being broadcasted into their patron's brains while they slip surrounded by their money.

Dreams of friends turn into nightmares of departure where good-bye means hello and the only words you understand is "No," which is said upon your forward advances to find out what is wrong with the reception on your wireless connection to life and God.

The box smiles at you with a coy intent asking to be opened only to reveal that it has no soul or mind and yet is able to offer things that you don't have like super powers and the ability to close your mind to the point where you're a bad racists who doesn't know what the stereotypes are yet you do them anyways.

Cheeseburgers deep-fried in a flower tortilla garnished with a blue ribbon because a pig was able to jump through a ring of fire that actually shoots bubbles from a rubber cement shoe molded by the toy mafia.

Fiction becomes reality which becomes work but isn't the work of what should be done because it is fun but now has become a question of contingency that time nor space can confirm or deny because of things we cannot have but want to share.

The mirror reflects not what we see but what we want to see which is not what we want to see because we see what we want on the television on those channels Mom & Dad don't want us to watch because of their idea of what is right and what is proper.

Down the rabbit hole lives a mole who stole his wares from a sloth to concerned about trying to cross a river where salmon play until a bear decides it wants to spoil the fun only to have the eagle rush in at the last second to ruin it for every country it has ever flown over.

Legs fall asleep, turn purple, and then die only to become the body of a white hair, yellow eye, green giant that tries to get kids to eat their vegetables because their mom keeps buying them the brightly colored sugar cubes from the bargain bin at the department store that isn't a department store or a place of commercial distribution.

The black market is white.

Fur tails droop down depressed that they've become paint brushes for the ancients that believe flowers are art and will call it their own even though the original creator is never given credit, and so they become thieves.

Empty mind to mine and will never find an idea of what it means to be rich in thought.

Is it recess yet?

It's that time of year again.

Orientation. First day jitters. The excitement of seeing friends you haven't seen all summer long. The fear of not being able to get through the day for one reason or another. The strange first impressions from people you may or may not have heard about.

But for me? It's round two in my graduating class. A new group of peers to, silently it would seem, compete with and learn from. A new teacher to oversee the creative process.

What do I have to show for it going in? Shattered preparation and abandoned summer projects. Second thoughts on ideas that came out of stress and panic. Not even one epiphany in the last three months I've been out of the studio. Just a collection of 230 (and grown) creatures I've thrown together in the starter kit for a god game coming this September that will, no doubt, be my ultimate distraction.

What will I be doing in preparation for the class? Some time this week, I'll be biting the bullet and making a sales appointment at the Apple Store so I can buy the best iBook for me and what I want to do. That's pretty much it. After securing that purchase, it's all a matter of find my old equipment from Time Base Media.

What should I have been doing? Oh, where to begin this long list! Driving and transportation has been moved to the front burners, so I'll be hearing a lot of that in the coming months. The abandoned Muppet project, which I'm still looking at with second guesses luring in the back of my mind on if it was a good idea or not. The lack of thesis adjustments, or for that matter continuing the research I already started. Entries into juried shows. Registrations with art sites that help exhibit new artists. And so on and so on and down the line we go like a bottle in a soda factory.

What have I done? Spend about one paycheck on entertainment, another on fast food, and yet another paying off the monthly fees on my outstanding loans. Not including the hours of violent masturbation watching porn in between playing video games which feature tools that amplify my creativity rather than my creative thinking.

Can I relate these things to art? There is a way, but I'm blind to it right now. Hell, I don't even remember what my original thesis was. All I know is that my current one involves the idea of self-created avatars in a culture heavily influenced by popular media.

Needless to say and as dangerous as it is to admit this, I'd rather be doing other things than thinking about my thesis and producing gallery worthy art.

Rape-a-Thesis

Several weeks ago, close to a month at this point, I caught wind of a documentary film that we would get at the theatre. It was art related. By the time I went to see it, I already ran into two people I knew from Watkins. One was a member of the board, the other was a recent graduate student whom I was going to graduate with.

The film was titled The Rape of Europa. It was a three-hour art history class, but it put World War 2 into a different perspective for me.

The way they teach you about the war in public school is that it was all religious genocide by the Nazis. As you go up the levels of grades, they expand on this a little more saying things like how the Nazis found the Jewish religion primitive and "lower than human" and other disgusting things.

What they don't tell you is that wasn't the start of The Holocaust. They don't tell you that Hitler applied for an art school where some of the great European masters of his time would be brought out. They don't even tell you that he had plans for a giant art museum consisting of art that he fancied. They don't even tell you that whatever art he didn't like was going to be burned and destroyed.

After the film, as an art student, I left realizing that what I was producing and am trying to produce is not just something you can hang on a wall or project on a screen. Its the very culture that I live and breathe! They are not so much representations of ideas but rather a representation of an entire community, a subculture group that nobody who considers themselves above that social circle would otherwise be exposed to. That's why there was a Murakami Retrospective for the people who don't like anime. That's why there was a graffiti exhibit for the people who don't consider that art. That's why there are films being shown in a gallery space because the movie theatres don't want to show it.

...

I haven't touched my thesis since I moved out of my studio, which was just before I watched the film. I've been obsessing with Spore's Creature Creator and producing fantastic life. Some of the designs I'm happy with, while others I want to see in the game just so I can have the pleasure of hunting them into extinction. The game, by design, has recharged a science interest I forgot I had.

But like Will Wright has said several times at his talks about Spore, science and creativity have a common ground. And creativity doesn't limit itself to drawings or photographs or movies or even games. It's inherently deconstructive and will constantly double back on itself. And to have this creative loop in an area of scientific ideas will only generate a learning process equal to the Montessori teaching method.

In some way, I feel like the best art I've produced is through the Montessori method. By playing, failing, and still enjoying myself during the process. How I can get back into that mind-set without being bogged down by a thesis this semester is beyond me.

Ramblings of an Inner Mad Man

Uninhibited boredom leads to introspective thoughts which lead to bouts with depression.

Experiences I should have experienced but will never experience because of experience in things no one should experience.

Should've turns into would've turn into could've turn into didn't do and back again on the circle that is procrastination. Which is the only thing that it does productively.

Phone calls made unanswered and made again but still remain unanswered causing dates to fall from the calender tree like stars that really are just balls of rock and ice from Heaven's refrigerator.

Prophetic thoughts from the mind of a child who fails to learn to write them down because there is no pencil and only paper around.

A riddle this is. A riddle of madness. Logic and illogic, sane and insane, able and unable, polar and union, different and similar, alike and dislike.

Backwards, forwards, up, and down. They're all the same thing: directions!

Ah, but where to go? Directions have no significents without a destination. You cannot know where to go if you do not look at where you are going because you do not know where to look or how to find it.

Though you have eyes, you cannot see. Though you have ears, you cannot hear.

Holy words. But what is so wholesome about these words? Written before now in a very long time ago. Does that make them sacred? Does age make value to things of no value like words?

Words have no value. If they did, we wouldn't be giving them out to everyone who can read or see or listen or understand. Monetary gain is none. Special quality is none.

None is none and all is the same with nothing being everything and all of this together is normal insanity through which contradictions leads the way towards damnation and salvation as if in a three-legged race against the one-legged man that won the ass-kicking contest.

The pretty pink dog dances with a white cat in overalls and a bow while the dragon flies with a monkey sitting on a cloud over purple mountains shooting rockets with red glares, and all this is digital. It's real to us but fake to us, and we call it reality.

What we call fantasy is not but reality exaggerated to the point of ridiculous commodification through the moving picture as displayed upside-down in the back of our minds in a dark room where the race of Man go to become the living dead for two hours as they feast on styrofoam and wax.

There is no fantasy when words and images can make tangible intangibles and expand while contracting a focus so tight it is broad in scope but not by content.

Birds sing, flies buzz, dogs bark, but silent thoughts make a symphony that plays enterally muted by bone and flesh and the proper order of society. Even these things we cannot control. We cannot fight the noise or the silence by means of immediate satisfaction. Because they'll just start back up again in five minutes!

To live is to act upon emotion and feelings of irrational and spontaneity to the point where chaos replaces order and order because anarchy. The rationalists are right and wrong while the Dadaists are normal and sane and the Modernists are insane and too cheap to come up with a different material for a metal box that ultimately has been recycled to produce cell phones for their clients who admired their stupidity.

...

Ah, peace. So beautiful this idea and feeling, but it is nothing but death. To be at peace, to have peace, Peace on Earth and Good Will towards Men! That's a death wish! Conflict shall always be and has always been. A competition of dominance by incompetence and then won out by those of favor and charm, and they are not worthy to lead because of faults that blind them to their own faults unless someone points them out.

But reason is never good enough or bad enough or indifferent enough or correct enough or incorrect enough. A reason without intent is nothing more than manipulation misguided. A smile means friendship to everyone but a gorilla who sees it as an act of aggression and would soon destroy your bones unless he is sexually attracted to your screaming for help from on top of the world's tallest structure.

A primitive lust amplified through nothing more than fantasy constructed out of depression as a result of being unable or unwilling to combat the powers of boredom.