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.

Hot Horn Dog

If I needed any kind of reminder that this is the last week of summer, it was what I saw today.

In a very rare situation, I was put on usher duty. While patrolling, I caught several teenage couples having sex in the theatre. One in Space Chimps, one in WALL-E, and the last was in The Dark Knight.

The pair in Space Chimps is only an assumption. I saw them cuddling during my first walk, as well as growing very comfortable during my second walk. If they had sex is unknown to me, but their actions on both my walks were "interrupted" when I looked over in their direction.

The pair in WALL-E I discovered as I was waiting for them to leave so I can clean the theatre. I know they were probably doing something because all during the credits they were playing tongue twister with hand movements being indicated by the way their shoulders were ungilating. When they saw that I was watching them, the young boy made the movement that implied he was putting his pants back on while trying to look like he was sitting.

The pair in The Dark Knight we ultimately kicked out. When I first saw them, they were on one side of the theatre in a dark corner. I, apparently, spooked them to the point where they moved to the other side to a not-so-dark corner. It was on my second walk where I caught them in the act. The boy with his pants around his ankles; the girl sitting on his lap. I told my manager on my way out for my break. I saw them sitting on a bench outside of the parking garage smiling and talking softly to each other. They were probably no older than 16.

This same couple left me $10 where they were sitting when I went to clean the theatre two hours after we kicked them out. And to be honest, that wasn't so much a fair compensation as it was just funny. And by that, I mean I need to get laid like I've never had sex before.