H i s t o r i c O r a n g e !

Hey! Remember that time I indirectly sold contraband to a rapist?

2007-06-14T23:09:00.001-04:00

Oh, yeah, that time. Haha. What a weird thing! Wow, gosh, how weird was that? How about I provide a timeline of the events?

///TimeLine\\\

I was putting a bunch of CDs up for sale that I had lost interest in or just didn't want to keep the hard copy of since I had ripped all of my music to my computer.
One of my CDs sold to a person in Ohio. Nice! Money for something I don't want, always a good feeling.
When I was initially wrapping this CD, I thought there was something amiss with the address. Of course I wasn't going to complain since the address doesn't matter, its the money, which I already received.
"Whatever" I said, and promptly paid for my postage and let USPS do the rest.
A week later, I was returned my package with the word "CONTRABAND" stamped in red ink on it.
Befuddled, bewildered and bemoaned, I had to figure out why this address would send back a package that said "CONTRABAND" on it.
I put in the address into Google and to my surprise, came up with the "Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction" website. In other words, my buyer was most likely in jail.
So what does one do? Your buyer is in jail and you're supposed to be nice to them?
I then decided to look up the guy since there is a "Offender Search", which is actually kind of odd to me.
Anyways, turns out that my buyer is in jail for rape and kidnapping. So now I have a moral dilemma: Should I be nice and refund the money? I mean, he's a rapist. WTF?

So, at this time, I haven't thought through what I will really do, but I don't think its going to be easy. The first thing I'm wondering is if this guy has my address and if I don't return the money, is he going to come and rape me after his time is up?

I'll update if I have an update worth mentioning. But honestly, What. The. Fuck.

and all the styrofoam began to melt away

2007-01-24T21:48:00.000-05:00

No, this is how it works
You peer inside yourself
You take the things you like
And try to love the things you took
And then you take that love you made
And stick it into some
Someone else's heart
Pumping someone else's blood
And walking arm in arm
You hope it don't get harmed
But even if it does
You'll just do it all again

- Regina Spektor

Get this video and more at MySpace.com

Do they have "Beards" for Nords that aren't metal enough?

2006-09-06T11:18:00.000-04:00

You know. How when a gay guy/girl is for whatever reason embarrassed to be somewhere where they are going and they bring along a girl or a guy to be their "beard" so that they

Don't appear to be gay
People think they're dating or with this girl/guy

I kinda wish they had "beards" for all types of things.

This is how I view myself sans-beard:

Underneath my brown hair, is blonde hair.

And underneath my non-beard, is a pelage of coarse hair that bears and even hairy crabs envy.

I can drum on at a rapid pace for hours and I can write lyrics that use the words "destroy" and "Mjolnir" without feeling remorseful. Because the last thing I am is remorseful. (Ghey!)

These possesions of which I speak are my true nature. MY NORDIC NATURE.

In Short, I can do the variety of Cookie Monster-esque voices that are oft-associated with Death Metal, Black Metal and Neo-Metal. I have also learned to to that Emocore screaming (albeit only one note. although i suppose there doesn't have to be more than one note) thats made a few kids with terrible acne make some bank in the Jeffersons and Eisenhowers.

But here is my problem. As brought up by Conor, its too late in our lives to dye our hair and whatnot. We're past the time when we can do these things with teenageawkwardawesome disregard for our appearance. Although I defiantly did try out some of those things (ie. Jncos)

Thusly, thoughtwroughtly and perpendicularly, I cannot look cool and be a metal singer. I just can't. No matter how much I practice (in my car, alone, on empty roads) I will never look cool/be able to perform without genuine and just mockery of me, a doofus, able to act Nordic, sound Nordic, but not look Nordic.

Maybe I can grow a beard, get blonde hair and bulk up like the singer of Amon Amarth, Johan Hegg.

Or not. I'm pretty sure that I'd attract the vixens you'd expect to drink Budweiser and say that "Mah Daddy is the only man in my life".

I'd have to say my last problem with this issue is that ANYONE CAN WRITE METAL LYRICS.

A N Y O N E

example: Metal Heart by Dimmu Borgir. A song about your metal heart. Oh, and how death is immenent.

Here's an experiment. Find your Mad Libs book that is probably still in the family car since thats the only place people actually use those things.

Forget the blanks for now. Just write out the words as they are. If there are any names, replace with "Satan" or "Odin" or "Gorgons". If there are any places, replace them with "Hell" and most likely, since this is Norse myth we're talking about, "Ragnarök". Adjust other words to relate to who your talking about and so things make sense. Then fill in the blanks with the same set of parameters.

Oh, make sure you include at least one cuss word. For some reason Metal lyricists don't like to swear as much as rappers. From "penguingroup.com" I took this Mad Lib about Copernicus and I made my edits. Here is what I came up with:

Copernicus

Four hundred years ago people knew little about our
___ universe. They thought that the earth was the
center of the entire ___ and that the sun and all of the
___ revolved around it. But then a/an
___ named Copernicus discovered the truth.
The earth revolves around the ___
___ times a year.

Copernicus, whose last name was ___, was born
in Warsaw, and he used one of the first ___
telescopes, which was invented by ___.
This primitive telescope was little more than two pieces of
___ stuck on each end of a/an ___.
In 1600 an Italian ___ named Galileo
expanded Copernicus's ___ theories, but during the
Inquisition in Italy he was ___ arrested. After
___ for six months in jail, Galileo was
forced to ___.

My version goes as follows:

Thor's Uprising

Four hundred years ago people knew little about our
FUCKING universe. They thought that the earth was the
center of the entire UNIVERSE and that the sun and all of the
PITIFUL HUMANS revolved around it. But then a GOD
named THOR discovered the truth.
The FROZEN earth revolves around the RAGNARÖK.

THOR, whose last name was MIGHTY, was born
in FIRE, and he used one of the first
LEGENDARY HAMMERS, which was invented by ODIN.
This LEGENDARY HAMMER was little more than two pieces of
MOLTEN ROCK stuck on each end of a REDWOOD
In 600 BC a DEMON named SATAN
SPREAD THOR'S theories, but during the
Inquisition in HELL he was MADE KING. After
six months in HELL, SATAN was
forced to KILL EVERYONE.

And there you go! No real need of Norse Mythology knowledge. Just know some names and channel the darkess within, or something. Also, remember that this isn't a poem, its a TRAGIC DEATH BALLAD.

Well, Thats really about it. I want to do metal because its in my nature. I'll just have to keep practicing in my car when my metal music comes on. BTW, its kinda fun to do that with Bob Dylan as well.

Its official

2006-09-01T11:17:00.000-04:00

YOU ALL NOW CAN BE A PART OF THE "HISTORIC ORANGE!" CLUB. NO MONEY NEEDED TO BECOME A MEMBER. WE LOVE FREE TURKEY DINNERS. HAM IS OK BUT ONLY A SUBSTITUTE ONCE. GET YOUR FREE OFFICIAL SEAL OF APPROVAL OF MEMBERSHIP TO THIS PRESTIGIOUS CLUB-OF-SORTS.

or you can start your own fucking club. assholes.

Leonardo defiling a bowling pin

2006-08-13T22:40:00.000-04:00

Found this in the Bowie Toy Company store.

Front: He looks so happy...

and Back: Strike!!!

Also, "R2, have a strange feeling about this chocolate..."

The guy at the store later tried to sell me one of those prank flashlights that shock you when you flip the switch. After giving the man the pleasure of seeing me zapped, he told me how people with carpal tunnel syndrome find relief when they use these things to shock their wrists. "Oh, uh, how...odd?"

I hate Shadow of the Colossus

2006-07-31T22:43:00.000-04:00

Shadow of the Colossus is one of those games that really just gets under your skin. Most critics I read said that the game was a cinematic and gaming masterpiece. I'm convinced to say its over rated. That is because I got to the 4th boss and I already became so frustrated that I was inclined to curse repeatedly (as quiet as possible as I only have about 40 square feet to say "you fucking fuck fuck fuck!!! Get on your fucking horse!!!")

My reasons:

I can't get on my horse unless I hit the triangle button repeatedly. I have to keep doing this because the horse either keeps rearing into the air or the camera puts me looking straight at the horse and turns a different direction as I continue to hit the button over and over just jumping and jumping again and again.
The horse has an idiot AI. It runs away when you're trying to call it. It gets stuck behind trees. It runs away over and over and over again. If I wanted to play the game "FIND YOUR FUCKING HORSE!" I would have been happy to do this for 5 minutes every time I attempt at getting on the fucking thing.
The camera only shows the artsy side of myself that is, instead of a top down 3/4 view I have a horizontal 3/4 view meaning I only see the character and horse at the very left or right edge of the screen and everything else to its side. This means I have little concept of location,depth or relative speed. I end up running into walls, trees, the colossus, running over cliffs all as I'm just trying to figure out what is to my left.
There is an included "press L1 to look at the colossus". All this does is focus the camera at the colossus' head which only gives me a stylized look at the character and the colossus meaning that I just get a confusing look at what I'm going after which really only makes it harder to figure out your method of attack.

Here's the thing. You're supposed to play a game because its fun. The first 3 bosses were fun and challenging. The fourth? Its completely impossible. I've seen Youtube videos showing how to do it and I keep trying and it makes no sense that I can actually do what is shown in the video. I'm sure its possible, but its not actually. I managed to get on the second ledge on the back legs but because the damned thing won't stop moving I can't managed to move without losing my grip and hanging on and getting my grip back and then losing it because the colossus moves again and I lose the grip and hang on and yadda yadda yadda.

Its not at all intuitive as the suggested strategy is to hide in a hole until the colossus goes digging for you. Here is the problem: You have to actually lure the thing (like a fish) slowly and surely into place (the correct place that is) and if you decide to creep around the tunnels below and out of one of the other holes, the thing sees you even though you're hidden behind the entrance.

I could go on and I could write it as poorly as I've written this. But honestly all that matters is that while Shadow of the Colossus is a good game in terms of graphics and concept, the game play makes me want to have an aneurysm because all the guy who created the game wanted to see pretty things while you're trying to FUCKING DO ANYTHING!!!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Update: While I later have defeated the 4th Colossus, I'm now on the 9th but still feel the same about this game. Its hearalded for its "realism", but I still feel like its no more than a cool idea wrapped up in the inconsistencies and incompatabilities of artsists who think of pretty things but don't remember that this is being played by a kids who say "pwned" and "lolz" and not art critics.

People who I know who I refer to with proper nouns!

2006-07-14T16:05:00.000-04:00

I happened upon some of my former classmates work from Comm 383. I hope they don't mind me putting some of that up here. I'll give you credit guys. But I highly doubt you will find this page anyways. Am I talking to myself?

Peter Siestrzewitowski, Mario Troia, Nigel McFarlane: Rusty Cage
(I was involved with this one for about a day)

Jorge Herrera & Matt Hance: The Beat Down

Jonathan Fernandez: The Admiral & Betrayal

Is it lame to post videos? I mean, they're quite entertaining and absolutly all the rage on the Internet (why is it capitalized by the way? I mean, I guess its a proper noun, but so is pickle and thats not capitalized) [wait, is pickle a proper noun?] {uhhhhhh.......}

Update: Mollie tells me "hahahahhaa pickle is a simple noun because there are lots of them. there is only one internet. rock"

This post is intended to lessen the seriousness of the previous post

2006-07-14T12:49:00.000-04:00

Because I don't want to be completely bummed out and have only a bummer of a post, I thought I should hand out some entertaining YouTube clips to even it out.

There's...

Charmin:

Trivium:

and Germans:

Also, don't forget a maze that was cut into a field in the shape of recognizable Star Trek icons.

Dear John,

2006-07-14T09:56:00.000-04:00

Hey,

I just wanted to tell you that I had a dream last night. I was in a different version of "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". Basically, it was yourself, myself, Mollie, Tory and a few others who I think were just placeholders to keep the story interesting and moving. The story was different in just about every way because it had nothing to do with the entire story.

In anycase, we were traveling through the world (it was really quite linear) doing the adventure thing. But for some reason, you and Tory were always trailing us and kept your distance at all times. We'd be walking through some museum curated by an ecstatic older fellow who claimed to be the proprietor and display maker of the museum (turns out he was) but she and you would be distant and trailing the rest of us. There also was the dressy dinner on a hill with a steep incline where they served alcoholic Jones soda and Chocolate Milk. I ended up sitting by myself (Mollie wasn't there for some reason). It was odd because you both were so distant and I couldn't manage to get your attention or even try to figure out what was going on between you two.

What is really sad is that this isn't a dream. Or at least the whole distance thing, because I'd be all over alcoholic Jones soda. Seriously though. What the fuck man? Whats going on? Why the distance? All I want to do is help and maybe tell you that I wish I was at your birthday bar hop and I wish that you and Tory would stop all this internet feuding (Myspace isn't a secret hideout, its just been deemed most frequented on the internet [source: hitwise]).

Just talk to me sometime ok? I want to be your friend. Friends want to help and support.

Later,

Todd.

ps. Do you like Virginian Ham?

Trip the shrooms fantastic

2006-07-07T12:34:00.000-04:00

Dreams to me are usually not something that I really put much weight into because of the crock ideas used to analyze them (ie. bathing means I want to go back into the womb. I mean WTF?). Even further, I don't really understand my dreams whatsoever in such a way that I don't even know if they're worth looking into because they're often full of absurd things that should be kept secret since my brain likes to dream about things like ice cream monsters and the like.

In addition to bogus dreams, I also get prophetic dreams. The ones where later you see the event you dreamed about in your mind. These freak you out ("freak ouuuttt!" ~ Rob Cooper) and the people you tell that you dreamed of that very moment. Although what makes last night's dream interesting is how prophetic the Internet was today as this is what I came across:

Sleeping...

Wasted...

and Hallucinating

Björk also had a part in this whole thing as she and her performance-artist butt seems to just want to make the world even stranger. As well as making Pandas sexy. (see right)

Anyways, the dream I had last night is worth repeating. I'm going to keep it simple so that I don't confuse you:

I was at the wedding of Paris Hilton and some person who I thought was Tom Blowe.
I was there with Chris and some girl who looked like someone I knew but I couldn't pinpoint it.
We were sitting in the pews of a very laid back chapel with lots of windows and lots of green paint.
At some point the ceremony started but it wasn't being conducted by a religious official but rather by Paris and the Tom Blowe guy.
It was really loose ended as they didn't really finish the rituals very well which were usually hurried or skipped over, kind of like a rehearsal, but I was fully dressed for a wedding, not a rehearsal.
Suddenly the whole congregation's wrists and ankles were latched onto by metal clasps that held us in our seats. For whatever reason I was the only one protesting.
At that moment, Paris and Tom started walking towards the back of the chapel and drew a large quantity of medical syringes from a canvas Army bag and started to distribute injections to all of the attendees.
As they got to me they just coldly looked at me and started to inject me while I was trying to get their attention and ask them what they were doing.
I struggled while they injected me. But it did no go as in a matter of moments as the room started to spin I could see that the rest of the people there had passed out and they were giving the injection to Chris who could have cared less that he was being restrained and drugged.
When I came to, the clasps retracted and I noticed almost everyone in the chapel had left except for a few dazed people, still sitting, Chris and the girl.
Paris and Tom were packing up things that were set up for the wedding into a red convertible that was freshly driven through the wall as the dust cloud was still lingering in the room.
I started to scream at them for doing what they did to us. I tried getting up but my head felt like it was filled with concrete as were my feet.
I continued to scream asking "why did you do this?", "who are you?", and my favorite "I'm only 21! I'm too young to be involved with religious interrogative drugging or governmental corruption!" There was also lots of swearing.
I asked Chris and the girl if they knew what had happened and they more or less gave me a cold shoulder saying that they didn't know and we should go to lunch.
I looked down and noticed that there was a prescription receipt on my lap (which for whatever reason I told myself that I knew that everyone else who was injected had one too).
The receipt was for a drug called "Triceptices".
As I left the chapel I saw outside the doors two large canvas bags like the ones that the needles were kept in, opened one and saw that there was a great deal of cash in the bag.
Chris and the girl went ahead of me and I walked around for a while.
I went to Shoneys (which had been the place we went to the day after Cary and Paul's wedding) to meet with Chris and the girl.
The Maître d' (why Shoneys had one is beyond me) was dressed in a nurse's scrubs. Thinking she'd know what the drug was that I was prescribed on the receipt I asked if she could tell me about it.
Apparently (in her words), Triceptices is some sort of amalgamation of Iron, Sodium, Rubber, Sulfur and a wide variety of other materials made up the drug and had two forms.

Outside the Body - When dropped on blood outside the body, this drug quickly forms a sphere of Iron the size of a basket ball. In mere seconds round balloons start protruding from one side of the ball and longer more animal balloon like balloons protrude from the other side forming a dreadfully wicked looking formation that floats until it dissolves after expelling all of its energy which is generated by the original blood pumping through the long balloons to the round balloons in a way that resembles a heart.
Inside the Body - A similar occurence forms within the body but at a much smaller scale as the blood that is available is both moving within the veins and there is more blood to go around. While this formation is replicating in your bloodstream you yourself will start to float much like the balloon. The real use of the drug is to give you a sense of elation (which is awfully punny if I must say) and complete forgetfulness. Often patients take the drug to forget their problems.

I was not going to take this drug under any circumstances. Thankfully no one was holding down my wrists and ankles or forcing the medication in me anymore. Although I wasn't sure if I could be sure of what had been injected into me before.
I sat down at a table that was populated by Chris, the girl, Tyson Beck (a friend of Joe Friend's), and a fat guy who looked like Joe Gross. (see right)
I started to eat some food (of all the details here I can't remember what I was eating) when all of the sudden I passed out.

From there I woke up from my dream a whole two hours after I wanted to get up in the first place. This is the sort of stuff that my dreams are made of. Although this one was actually really involving and actually quite scary.

Mollie says that the dreams that keep her awake are the ones that feel like you're swirling around (which I would equate with dizziness). But I don't feel like when I have any dreams that I lose sleep. In fact I think I probably gain sleep as my dreams keep me involved with what is going on.

I'd like to differ with scientists who think dreaming is the brains way of rejuvenating or just random synapses firing which happen to only occur during the REM stage of sleep which is supposed to only last a half hour. My dreams seem like a completely different world that last for far longer than a half hour. If there is anything that I believe is that it is random because I know that a few parts of my dream were from this weekend's wedding retreat.

Whatever. I'm glad I got to remember this dream as long as I have. I just never really get to hold onto the ones where I eat the entire ice cream monster where I don't even care if I get fat.

Encumbered _____________

2006-07-05T17:46:00.000-04:00

The Fourth of July was fun.
Its all I can say.

By the way, on the ride home Mollie and I came up with a most immature redux of a word that was actually brought up quite a bit this weekend at Cary's wedding (which I will post on later).

For example "I was researching the fundamentals of internet memes so that I could stay abreast in today's technological society." Our redux is very simple: "I was researching the fundamentals of internet memes so that I could stay aboobie in today's technological society."

Lastly, there were buckets of Jones' soda. Bubble gum, Berry, Cream Soda. It was totally great because of this and also the copius amounts of hot dogs, mile high club sandwiches and whoopee pies.

Something you may not know about Mollie is that she is really quite messy and barbaric with crabs.

My short statement of the whole thing was that it was filled with people of a wide variety of donation amounts as well as those who are yet to be a part of this grand almsgiving. They are very nice people and awfully well dressed as well as patriotic as they know what is right for this country.*

*affabilty for safety encased in a candy delicious jibe

Hormones in the Headphones (no I'm not overtly sexual, blame Victor Wooten)

2006-06-14T16:09:00.000-04:00

Ok, now that I'm on the hunt for jobs and such and seeing as I have established a certain domain in which I should get a job, I have established an office. This is my office.

Although, this wasn't always my office. Originally I had been working from my front yard in a adirondac chair underneath the Crabapple tree. My existence there was less enjoyable as you can only make phone calls in your pajamas, sitting in your front yard, for everyone to see, for so long.

It was by suggestion by my mother to move into the garage where the tool bench was. Its slightly moody and slightly annoying that no one knows I'm sitting right there when they come out to get a drink. Whatever. But the greatest part of this is less the fact that I'm back at my own computer so that I can do my own thing once again. Rather, I am more excited to have at my ready a surefire set of headphones to play my music. And what headphones they are.

They're a bit big. Not in the bad way. Just, they've got one heck of a cross beam to, I dunno, keep my head safe from falling objects?

Either way, they are great. I live for being able to have comfortable, quality headphones. Yes, I do know that Mollie did give me a kickass pair for Christmas. But we already figured that out. I wanted to make the choice myself and I wanted to replace my busted headphones and I had some money to spend that I should spend on myself and not rent or phone bills.

Anyways, my office hours are 8:00AM till PartyTimePm. Also, I'll have to update like nuts once I actually have a job and actually have something worth blogging. Cause y'all know this was pointless except for the gratuitous shot of my noggin.

The world, On fire

2006-05-01T20:58:00.000-04:00

You go to work and people say "the mountain is on fire" and you suddenly want to be on fire yourself 'cause your mind is fucking blown. The mountain Tussey was indeed on fire all day long and plumed a gaseous cloud wafting into town raining flakes of burnt carbon ten miles away.

Rightious. Also, I think Smokey the Bear has died in the blaze.

Tai Chi & Manikin

2006-04-26T09:04:00.000-04:00

Alright, so this is my final video piece for my college career. Basically I made what you see here as an opportunity to further my editing skills for a demo DVD to use when applying for jobs in the future.

Tai Chi - This is an exploration into the concepts of Tai Chi where you are attempting to use the form to find a sense of peace and generally push away all of the world's distractions. The heart beat is what I thought would be Tai Chi's natural music as the swirling/wooshing sounds are the sound of the Earth (that being that the Earth emits frequencies that we cannot hear, the recording is actually a recording of outer space). Everything else is the sound of the world around you which you are attempting to tune out. Another thing with this video is the fact that everything is blurry until the end where things are clearer. Again, this is to represent a change from distraction by the modern world to a state of calm.

Manikin - So this whole thing is really just a cheesy little narrative that I made to attempt the voice over thing as well as to establish more areas of development in editing. There really wasn't much of a concept here except for "little guy in big world" so don't go trying to find some meaning here as its pretty blatant.

So, thats about that. Watch it.

Adblock

Love/Stink

2006-04-22T22:02:00.000-04:00

Using a quaint tool called "Say What" I was able to animate the animate without mouths using some Diesel Sweeties sytle speech bubbles.

In light of speech bubbles, I think there is a great deal of possiblities for their application into other things than comics. Speech bubble telephones (I can't find the website right now, its a cellphone that is in the shape of a speech bubble that displays the name of the caller on the bubble area, if anyone can find it, send it to me)? Speech bubble public art?
Certainly there could be more uses for speech bubbles.

In any case, I wanted to capitallze on the fact that my foot says something that I typically say as Mollie's foot says something she typically says.

Thats all.

Please draw your attention to the sidebar

2006-04-17T09:33:00.000-04:00

I have a new toy on ye ol' damn blog. Its my saved items on Google Reader. Its very fancy and should be read like you paid for my site to exist.
Go ahead and read it. Or don't, I can drop you like I dropped my Third Eye Blind cd.

Xfire

2006-04-14T15:32:00.000-04:00

After the weeks that arduously drew on and on trying to complete a music video for my Comm 383 class I have finally finished a long awaited project that has taken far too long to finish.
I had blamed my partner and I blamed myself for allowing him to step out of the responsibility of editing and shooting the damn thing. Now I don't feel so strange about this project. It is done and it is as good as it is going to get. Yet, I still watch it and notice that there are things that are still wrong and could use tweaking but I figure the internet is not home to perfection. If you do notice things working or appearing perfectly then its a miracle and is probably worth noting. Does that make for my own work to be marginalized with the rest of the moderate quality internet content? Its good, but its not great. Is that fair?
Well anyways, its been too long for this project to continue running its course on me, so I'll let you see it and just judge on your own its quality.
enjoy.

Laundry of Greyskull

2006-04-02T13:26:00.000-04:00

So, have you ever smelled the scent of decade, or more, old action figures? The decay of plastic that has been through many children's hands, rolled in dirt, sand or grass and most defiantly played with in the bathtub. If you know the smell then I congratulate you for your tenure as a child who had the opportunity to entertain oneself with plastic toys that must have smelt of new cars, or something much like it when they were freshly released from their $8.00 enclosure.

Now that I have refreshed your memories of days gone by, I want to draw your attention to my pants. The pants I am wearing right now, at this moment. Not sitting at the computer in my underwears or naked, no, not at all.

Back to my pants. My pants, for whatever reason only known by the contents of a bottle of detergent with bleach, have taken upon the smell of what I remember my brother's He-Man action figures to smell like. How da fuck did dis happen?

The problem with this is not so much the smell, as I am likely to be someone who isn't offended by it. Rather, my olfactory centers are peeved primarily because I put these particular jeans in the wash to purge the putrid smell of tobacco smoke that permeated them from last Friday when I partook in some partying with Dave, Forest and Steve. Now they smell like the stale funk of action figures. Also, you should know that the bottle said that it was scented "Mountain Fresh" which I suppose what they really mean is a fresh pile of old toys. Not all of my laundry reeks at the same degree as my jeans, although I suspect that is because jeans are denser than t-shirts and underwears.

So, how do I end this? Should I say, "buy this detergent, it makes you smell like decrepit Ninja Turtles"? Or should I just say, "don't use dat shizz"? Really, I feel like I should say both but I actually want to say that my jeans just smell like crap.

Crap. The scent of my pants.

whomp whomp

2006-03-30T18:38:00.000-05:00

Todd: :o(
Todd: -10
Mollie: no!
Mollie: you cant dock points!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Mollie: SHEESH!!!!!!
Todd: :o(
Mollie: odd
Mollie: todd
Mollie: why r u depressed?
Todd: cause i can't get out of my well
Todd: i need a rope
Todd: find: rope
Mollie: /hands rope
Todd: there is no rope, exits are south and west
Todd: go south
Mollie: sees a door!
Todd: you see a skeleton and a birthday present
Mollie: pick up birthday present
Todd: take skeleton
Todd: say: skeleton you are now my best friend
Mollie: /dance
Todd: skeleton falls a part and you're forced to take birthday present
Todd: open present
Todd: opening present reveals another box
Todd: open box
Todd: box reveals school supplies
Todd: you lose, want to play well of depression again?
Mollie: omg you are the funniest person i KNOW
Mollie: maybe lets play tomorrow
Todd: ok

Worthless post

2006-03-23T09:40:00.000-05:00

Often times overheard conversations tend to be the most humorless. That is to say, most people are talking gossip or completely inappropriate discussions for public settings. You never really hear anyone having a public discourse of how paint sticks to walls or whether or not gravity allows you to pour water down one nostril and have it come out the other. I mean, those are usually semi-humorus or more likely "entertaining". They'll at least be something to chortle at when walking with friends. Its the passing banter that is completely obscured by some other noise, that cuts off the meanings of sentences and whatnot to suprise you with oddities that are really the most humorus.

So, all that build up comes to this: I heard someone say as I was sitting at work, "The latest issues are 'Jaw Surgery' and 'Ed'"

But really, I just wanted to say that "Jaw Surgery and Ed" is a great band name.

Degrees I don't have yet

2006-03-17T09:39:00.000-05:00

I've had a list of occupations I've always wanted to try:

Drummer
Stunt man
Hand model
Game show host
Zookeeper
Ninja (obviously)

And today I add another job to that list.

Once there was the thought of creating an all vocal death metal band back in high school. This was something that puttered around John and mine own heads as something we could and should do. Well, no luck, there is no one (in this country at least) who can keep up that kind of cookie monster voice anyhow. However, upon recepit of my new batch of feeds when I hit the refresh button on my reader, my dreams of a death metal band consisting of only voices flew out the window as I realized a better occupation.
This is the future. Or rather, it happened a long, long time ago...
But now I know what to add to that list. Sound track vocal remixist.
(its Virt by the way)

Although I won't ever be a vocal death metalist, I think I could settle for seeing Alf set to death metal music.

Tribute

2006-03-02T23:53:00.000-05:00

Seeing as its the 20th anniversary of the cult of Zelda I decided to dedicate my free time this week (which was scarce really) to recalling my favorite of the series to my computer screen and beating it for the umpteenth time.

Ah, it feels good to complete one of these games again. I think I'll actually finish Final Fantasy II sometime soon.

So I guess a cheery "Happy Birthday" and scathing "Boo! Lame!" is in order.

That or I should really just forget about free time if it means that its really just time that I don't get anything done for school.

Whatevs!

The Age of Philosophical Identity

2006-02-01T19:12:00.000-05:00

From a discussion in my African Novel class I had the idea to come up with a concept for either the screen or stage. The discussion we were having was on the teleological process that the European powers foisted upon Africa in its early stages of colonization. The prof was saying that it was specifically the ideals that flourished after the European Age of Reason that were/are teleologically promoted throughout Africa and the rest of the world. Specifically it was their enlightenment to areas such as logic, science, progress, reason and democracy. So here's my idea: 17th Century Europe, as new concepts in logic, science, progress, reason and democracy are standardizing amongst intellectuals and littering the many nations of the European world, a minor amount of bitter groups of philosophers become exceedingly enraptured with only one of area of the enlightenment. Suddenly, philosophers and teachers become dedicated to the study and transition of their entire life's values/behaviors within the singular realm of enlightenment forming the five nations of thought: Logisticians, Scientists, Progressives, Rationalists and Democrats. Somehow the movement towards incorporating each of these realms into a unified theory somehow was lost when the world's first advertiser decided that to promote this new movement was best done through flyers and door-to-door evangelists.
Now the European world has been divided amongst regionalized philosophical credence rather than language. But it is the time of colonization. America and Africa are under the whim of these nations of theory. When normal colonization discourse including migration of people and missionary action cannot occur when opposing nations encounter each other, debates form the base military strategy to win over the territory and inhabitants.
Somehow a story should be made of this. Either from the perspective of each of the 5 groups as they convene to the point of total destruction or discovery of the Matrix or the perspective of one group that must deal with the rest of the nations, I think this story has the ability to grow some sort of legs. Maybe just an ass...

Britons...

2005-12-12T15:44:00.000-05:00

not as interesting when they're trying to negotiate a Macintosh.

I feel like I should think the same about "The Office".

THE GOVERMENT IS A CROCK OF SHIT...

2005-12-11T00:13:00.000-05:00

is anyone listening?

Patton Oswalt makes it a point to make me wish I had his childhood...

2005-12-02T09:50:00.000-05:00

I found an interview with Patton Oswalt and reached a point where I had to stop and post a section because its so brilliantly funny:

isoS: [laughs] So what movies did you like growing up?

PO: I loved horror movies. My first movie memory ever was [laughing], I was five years old, I was living in Tustin Meadows, California -- we were a military family, so we moved a lot. It’s Halloween, kids activity day at the local library. So they have us in the library, and we’re making crafts, and hearing ghost stories, and making pumpkin cookies. And then they showed us the original silent film Nosferatu. Which I guess at the time -- it’s 1974, and they must have thought, “Well, it’s an old black and white silent movie, it’s fine for kids, they were tame back then,” not realizing what a deep, primal nightmare that movie is. It’s all images, and especially to a kid’s brain, which is this frightened sponge -- a very eager sponge, but an easily frightened sponge -- kids were just … sitting in the dark in this library, it’s two o’clock on a Sunday afternoon, they, you know, put curtains on the windows, and kids were just sitting there crying and screaming and unable to move. And I just remembered thinking, sitting there -- and I was terrified too, but I was like, Wow, all they did was turn on this fucking box in the back of a library, and twelve of my friends are screaming, like, louder than we would scream if we were being chased by a bee, or if there was a thunderstorm, or if there was a bully about to beat us up. I don’t know why, but I was like, “Oh, I wanna do that.”

Now, I am a true human being...

2005-11-24T01:50:00.000-05:00

because I have recieved my first offer to be ridded of my money by a Nigerian Bank Scammer. I wanted to share this with everyone I know because of how important it is to me that I be involved in the rest of the world's plight and be able to live to tell about it.

I've let my Flickr notes speak for the letter itself. I only hope all of the other scam emails are as plesant as this one.

Home again, Home again, Jiggity jig

2005-11-21T00:54:00.000-05:00

To Do in DC: TESTED: NOVAM Fashion show benefiting AIDS patients and providing AIDS awareness to local youth

2005-11-09T21:39:00.000-05:00

In hope that someone will stumble across this who may be from the DC area, I'm going to post about the NOVAM fashion show that Steph is involved in. If you're reading this and you're able to get your ass to DC, I would recommend it.
TESTED is the Northern Virginia AIDS Ministry's fashion show at Nations (Nov 19th) in the District to benefit AIDS patients and help raise AIDS awareness/prevention to local youth. Fashion Designers from Marymount University and local talent will be cat walking and auctioning Haute Couture for Men and Women, Day/Evening wear for Men and Women as well as Sportswear. All ticket and auction proceeds go to NOVAM for AIDS support and awareness. Modeled by tall beautiful men and women and drag queens alike, TESTED is going to be ultra fun.

GO!!!

And finally...

2005-11-07T12:55:00.000-05:00

The Skunk who doesn't care for his own smell. The costume was poorly made but it was effective in bearing the most questions asked about it's meaning. Although, a costume that requires a full sentance to describe it may not be a costume at all.

Chris may have the best idea of all that may remedy this issue. Rather than one person being a complex characer, have the whole group have very simple costumes that toghether will require a sentence or two to explain.

I really don't care to wear a costume that doesn't need some explanation. Unless that costume is some amazing replication of some image. Otherwise it seems boring to be a Pirate or "Superhero".

I'm not judging if you feel otherwise, its more that I can't bear making it simple

I know what my Halloween costume is...

2005-10-21T19:27:00.000-04:00

I don't know why I thought of this earlier. Wasn't there a Looney Toons episode that had him wear a gas mask? Either way, thats my Halloween costume. hopefully i'll be the creepiest Pepe out there.

Four new topics:

2005-10-11T22:37:00.000-04:00

Number One:

I cannot get used to the words "milquetoast" and "ombudsman". I honestly don't believe these should be legitimate words because they're completely terrible and mean nothing important. If our language is confusing and has stupid words like these I wonder what the Finnish language has. (Finnish is supposed to be one of the most complex of the alphabetic languages folks)

Number Two:

My name has been, for twenty one years, Moday. Although this is not technically my choice of name because it was one of the numerous names that became "americanized" once my precedents came to Ellis Island where they made their debut within United States territory. The original being "Madej" and sounding nearly the same as Moday with more foriegn zeal and fragrence.

My brother and I were talking about this over the weekend. He wants to change Moday to Madej along with me. Yet I raised the question "well, we're Modays now, but what happens to the Moday name after we're seperated from it after the name change? Will there ever be another Moday?" To which he reminded me that there are other Modays out there and that in fact there were other Madejs who came to America after the Ellis Island incident and decided to keep the Madej name. This first means I have relatives that are in America and most likely have little idea that we Modays exist.

So here's the question, should I do it? and if so, how do I go about it?
Jon says that he thinks it would be a short process. I've already tried signing my name as Madej in both cursive and normal style and I think that would be a short process to go through as well.

I want to do this, I'm nervous I suppose.

Number Three:

Upon realizing my flaw as an isolationist, I want to change somehow. I've quit Phroth and will try to do other things. However, isn't it isolation out of a group as much as it is in a group? Now i've become split upon that decision. Should I go back? They have nothing to offer and I would just sit there being an observer rather than a participator. What if I become more secluded at home and never find another place to go to avoid isolation? Yes, but its better than knowing you'll be isolated amongst a large group of people; thats just pathetic.

So I need to make a decision. Maybe get involved with the Russian literature enthusiasts that Dave told me about OR go back to Phroth for fear of complete isolation all year with little social interaction?

Number Four:

Having just discussed my isolation and active/passive research into the phenomena of personal internet exposé, will you do something for me? If I ever become a whore, a complete fake, a macho-man-randy-savage-type, a slut, a victim of bad plastic surgery, (and in that case) a victim of bad tanning salon use, a "model", an Emo/Hardcore/"Punk" kid, fat, obsessed with cars and finally "cool" please direct me to Myspace.com. I am certain that my isolation problem might be resolved once I complete my jouney into humanity devoid of humanity and need a place to display my pecs, boobs, ass, cars, backwards pink/black hair, "funny picture" and my complete life's story in 30 words which will allow me to unveil myself to the real world of un-isolated cuntbags who have also made the transition into realworldlycuntdom. Oh, and please remind me to not know what the fuck I'm doing when I'm designing it and make the cursor a fucking crosshair.

You can join if you ever feel like becoming one of the aforementioned personality types.

Thanks.
Love, Todd

(Thats four things! My favorite/lucky number!)

Here come the Bastards...here they come...

2005-07-01T21:56:00.000-04:00

My dad has created this flock of Gnomes to be distributed amongst the masses who will attend a Swedish Midsummer dinner party at our house. Mom has also created a 21 pound feast of kilbasa, meat flows within this house (and it's freezer) so much that PETA has decided to paint our house RED.

Mollie was such a good sport during this despite her wearyness and the fact that only moments later she had a ton of lasagna and M&M's. We are soon to release the second in this terrifying series of photos: "Gulliver's Travels".

Whirrrrrrrrr!! WHEEEEEE!! Beep.

2005-06-23T10:50:00.000-04:00

How Lovely!

I dominate with my giant jaw.

2005-05-12T20:20:00.000-04:00

Yes, I did have surgery on my face. That is to say that I had surgery on my foolish wisdom teeth. What clowns they are. Anyways, it was a surprise to me that when I was injected with the Sodium Penethol, that my consciousness was lost only moments after the fact that my orthodontist said "you might feel a pressure or warmth when this starts going into your blood stream." Afterwards, Mollie helped me out of the place when it was all over, before which I was actually crying because of how confused I was.

Although, here's the best part about my surgery: For 3-5 days I will be eligible to be EITHER a Robert Z'Dar (Maniac Cop rulez) or Ron Pearlman impersonator. I mean, how many people get to have the mandible of a thousand men? Man I'm lucky.

Really, the surgery was a breeze. No complications, no snoring or even embarrassing morning wood. I'd say that the worst part about it is running out of movies to watch and having to hold ice on my face for long periods of time.

In conclusion, I look awesome.

Home again, home again

2005-05-08T00:29:00.000-04:00

And now, I am home. I will be here for the summer and whatnot.

So yes, going to college is most definatly a different experience. However, you must assume that your college experience is the most typical of all experiences.

I have had the opportunity to live that generic lifestyle: Neighbors who talk to you all the time, Loud noises at 3am, idiots who say "Woo College!" and/or "Woo beer!", neighbors faking a drunken relationship with a girl whom you do not know, etc. I am glad that I decided to stay in the dorms mostly because of the fact that I have felt so isolated. Given, I do not like most people I meet and I do not intend on staying in touch with every single person that contact is made with.

It is only one more week when I can consider myself "home for the summer". Interviews, gouging of teeth and unpacking are only circumstances of work to get back home. You can visit if you like.

Boooooring

2005-05-02T12:52:00.000-04:00

Since I have nothing better to post, I'll divulge upon you my latest complete mix. There was a concept to it this time. I made the mix by randomly picking a point at which to start listening as my songs shuffeled and wrote 20 of them down. My shuffling music library came up with the songs I would use for the mix and I would allow my self a few liberties in finalizing it. First, I could disregard any songs that directly did not sit well with the other songs and repeats of an artist. Second, I could add two songs and change two of the songs to other songs of my choice by the same artist. Lastly, I was to make a regular music CD, so I could omit anything I wanted to make it fit in a mix, although I didn't need to use this really since all 20+2 songs fit on my CD (also, I didn't follow the rules that strictly, more like guidelines*). I don't like the name that I came up with it so much, but if there are any suggestions blahblahblah:

Update: I think I came up with a better title than "It Just Fell Out of My Head"

"Generated Shufflely"
David Bowie - Queen Bitch
XTC - Spinning Top
Spoon - Take A Walk
Republica - Ready To Go
The Zutons - Dirty Dancehall
Operation Ivy - Healthy Body
The Faint - Drop Kick the Punks
The Walkmen - The North Pole
Plasket - This One's For Pie
Neutral Milk Hotel - Communist Daughter
Pinback - Some Voices
Air - Another Day
Radiohead - Planet Telex
The Rolling Stones - She's a Rainbow
Animal Collective - Sweet Road
The Beatles - Got to Get You Into My Life
The Creatures - Standing There
The White Stripes - You've Got Her In Your Pocket
James Cotton - Cotton Crop Blues
R.E.M. - Bang and Blame
The Birthday Party - Jennifer's Veil
Beck - Side Of The Road
Amon Tobin - Lighthouse

*Fucking Pirates of the Caribbean

Assignment 2

2005-05-01T01:37:00.000-04:00

I'm finally done with my last project for Intro to MIDI. This time its actually a MIDI song, but don't worry, it doesn't really sound like one. I also decided to name it "Impossible Funk" because the theme of the project was to take a pre-existing song titled "Nite Funk" and alter it in some way. Its "impossible" because if you were to actually write it down on ledger paper, it would probably be pretty damn difficult to play. Here is the original song: Nite Funk and this is my mix: Impossible Funk.

Trying to "eschmile"

2005-04-30T00:15:00.000-04:00

I was feeling angry and depressed when I made this. There is no reason why you couldn't say it reflected my mood, but then again, I'm not a blob. The shadow could use some work, but I got tired of MS Paint's lack of real life canvas feel and gave up trying.

Wham, Ram, Thank you Ma'am!

2005-04-25T20:52:00.000-04:00

Todd: i forgot to tell you, my morning rocked hardcore
Todd: i was riding on the bus back from work
Chris: You made it on time?
Todd: and i saw two sheep butt each other in the head
Todd: yea
Chris: Sweet
Todd: they were all getting ready and i was like "no fucking way!!" out loud
Todd: and they totally did it
Todd: if only that happened earlier in the year i would want to go to work everyday
Chris: That is unspeakably cool
Todd: i know, and it was sheep
Todd: not like big ol' horned rams
Chris: Did they fall over?
Todd: little fluffy things
Todd: no
Todd: they were perfectly matched
Todd: i wish i could have stayed
Todd: i wanted to see who won
Todd: cause you know after that they were gonna fuck someone

"Rat Boy found ALIVE!"

2005-04-20T14:57:00.000-04:00

Making headlines across the world as wide as it is tall, Bat Boy (more recently referred by the mix of his human name and stage name "Rat Boy") has become the Catholic's newest leader of denouncing change, the Pope. How long has it been since we saw his sweet face on the cover of The Weekly World News? Probably not long, but in any case, he has overcome the struggles of being a complete freak, numerous plastic surgeries and years of study of the Christian faith, our beloved Rat Boy has reached the pinnacle.

Although, his history of Nazi affiliation has brooded questioning of his stance on human rights and justification for his new position in the Vatican. However, the fact does remain, hardship, after hardship, Rat Boy has grown from a media starlet to a global faith-founded king.

May his new reign over the Catholics be a fulfilling and his papacy as the sixteenth Benedict one of renewed life within the freakish world.

Thursday through Saturday

2005-04-18T11:55:00.000-04:00

That Guy ---------------------------------->
is Cyro Baptista (kinda looks like Les Claypool)
Me and Mollie went out on Saturday night to see this him and his band at the Bowery Ballroom. Put Victor Von Frankenstien and his monster on a stage with nearly all percussive instruments ever. PVC pipe, buzz saw, pots and pans, fire hydrant, daiko drums, synth pad, bells, drum set, djembe, tambourines, and a vast assortment of little shakers and such. Get some persian looking guy who channels Bootsie Collins in on keyboards/harmonium, a chick who can shred and pound (while wearing a Viking helmet) as well as Cyro himself (clad in a NASA jumpsuit, russian fur hat and Rec Specs) and the massive amount of rock/tribal/brazillian percussive/melodic undergrowth and you've got this band.

This weekend was awesome (read: well deserved vacation, not that I was the most deserving). Comedy ballet, Upright Citizens Brigade shows, Brothers, ten hour bus ride, five hour train ride, Milkshakes, Cacti titled "Bald Old Men" (when they obviously had hair), Grass stains, Felicity (shut up), 2am taxi ride to arrive at Mollie jumping up and down with a sandwich in reward for crossing the street (pear and lemonade extra).

Good Weekend Period (although that appears as "Good Weekend." with the punctuation vocalized)

Montgomery County

2005-04-07T18:18:00.000-04:00

No T-shirt could have endorsed Maryland (or at least a part of it) better than the one that had this image on it. The only other ones i've seen are "Maryland: I've got crabs!" or "Maryland Matters!". I want one for Anne Arundel, but I can't think of one as sweet as this.

bitchin.

Portrait #13

2005-04-06T23:17:00.001-04:00

A.) If you can't be happy where you are, you can't be happy anywhere. Discuss, with examples from your own life

B.) Hell is Other People. Do you agree? Demonstrate how this might or might not apply in the case of:
i) The Armenian Massacres of 1915
ii) Either the life of Algernon Charles Swinburne or the death of Walt Disney
iii) The darkness before creation
(answer two of three.)

C.) Construct an analogy using the saline nature of either tears or the sea and the salt that makes a dish palatable and adds piquance and savour.
(Examinees are encouraged to refer to either the third daughter of Llyr or Lot's wife, but not both.)

D.) If I was God I would abolish...............

Complete in 250 words or less. Physical practicalities and human nature are to be respected. The Law of Conservation of Happiness may not be violated.
(Counts for 50% of your final score.)

-Excerpt from Neil Gaimen's Book "Endless Nights" out of the chapter "15 Portraits of Despair".

Humoring myself with MS Paint

2005-03-30T17:18:00.000-05:00

Yes, where is that damn beef? I want to know?
It reminds me of those Burger King commercials that were oddly popular, with the old lady (is that where this sticker is from? eh?). Or was it Wendy's? Whatever, find me that beef.

Do it. Do it now.

Its Devestatin' Dave mashed with a sticker from X-Entertainment's Sticker Album. Someone asked Mollie if i'm a graphic arts major. No, in fact graphic arts majors don't suck at what they do. I am rather bad at this. Meaning, I took far too long working on this and it still looks like crap.

As seen on some guy's arm...

2005-03-27T23:22:00.000-05:00

Yea, so, I got to see this kid putting clean dishes away at the dining commons and he had a really sad tattoo on his tricep (the picture is only an artist's rendition). Now I can't judge why this kid got this, however, its not exactly what you would call classy or even cool. Now, I do know that New Jersey is the ass end of just as many unecessary jokes as the Polish might recognize, but to endorse the town you're from in New Jersey on the back of your arm is a trifle lame and pitable especially in an outline of the state and a crappy star identifying from where in the state you are from, as if someone would be able to recognize exactly what town it was by its geographic location (its was about as big as the mock-up is).

I'm thinking that if you really want to "represent dawg", that you'd have better luck (and maybe some class) with getting a tattoo of maybe the name of the town or maybe some sort of cred that proves you came from that town or something. But honestly, Jersey isn't exactly what you would call "style".

Anyways, too bad some kid had this, I give it a 1 out of 10 for pity's sake.

Bugger, Mate's in New Zealand

2005-03-23T15:11:00.000-05:00

Recently: Rob Cooper, has and is currently gone to/in (respectively), New Zealand. He has also started a blog in which he puts his daily/best experiences into english about how he has infiltrated and is attempting to assume social norms through the process of acquiring the rudimentry language incontinuities that exist between American english and New Zealand english. He has also put forth the effort of solving the cultural differences by mating with their women which will, hopefully dissolve our boundaries so that in time, they will understand each other's cultures (OMG, its like my life story LOL!).
Well, anyways, I think Señor Cooper has inspired me to travel abroad and/or at least become a more natural human. I need to put the living in concrete boxes and consuming easy-to-cook food aside and start eating more earthy dishes. I should be a modest person, but have extravagant experiences and vibrant memories. Most certainly have I dug myself a grave into feeling like I should be more simple and spiteful of Earth and its continents, yet, I could change that with a little effort put into the travel and nomadics department.
I'm not saying that I want to become a friggin hippie or some sort of hippie scientologist, its just that I want to become more naturally human and feel like I can be as comfortable outside in hundreds of different situations as I am with being a 20 year old male in American life.

So, I hate waxing romantic on the subject of something that is completely and utterly idyllic that I sound like a philosophy class, however, I do like attempting to utilize my vocabulary and truncate the idiocy that I tend to sway towards which is how I think this sounds all philosophical.

Anyhoo, I've been recently thinking of things I want to do with myself and one thing has stuck. I want to do some archery. I have no idea why, I guess its the fact that I like archery and think it'd be damn cool to say that you have skills with a bow and arrow.

Also, I decided to start wearing my springtime lighter coat today when it was 40 degrees and snowing heavily.

CSI has the stupidest soundtracks to it. It feels like I'm watching a student film where the kid who made it is a giant music snob and decided that if the music is hip/obscure/difficult to listen to enough then it should make up for the shitty plot they crapped out. Putting this crap against better or worse visuals makes the film just look like its of no priority to the person who made it and that they only want to promote their awesomeness.

I've ranted too much.

In their elegant black suits...

2005-03-22T01:19:00.000-05:00

"There are four simple was for the observant to tell Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar apart: first, Mr. Vandemar is two and a half heads taller than Mr. Croup; second, Mr. Croup has eyes of a faded china blue, while Mr. Vandemar's eyes are brown; third, while Mr. Vandemar fashioned the rings he wears on his right hand out of the skulls of four ravens, Mr. Croup has no obvious jewelery; fourth, Mr. Croup likes words, while Mr. Vandemar is always hungry. Also, they look nothing at all alike."

This is from "Neverwhere" by Neil Gaimen, the book i'm currently working on reading, and is most definatly my favorite part so far.

Also, I just finished reading the "Sandman" series he wrote. It was good enough to cause me to purposely stop reading because it was such a good story that I tried to prolong the time that it would take to finish it.

After "Neverwhere" is going to be "Blindness" by José Saramago. After that its the "Preacher" series by Garth Ennis, if I can get my hands on all of the issues.

Transience

2005-03-22T00:26:00.000-05:00

Another desktop. This time its another artist's image, from Deviant Art. I don't know who did it at the moment, but i'm too lazy to find it right now.

Good job, whoever you are.

Usurpemo

2005-03-19T03:21:00.000-05:00

So, in spite of recent talks about the fact that updating blogs is something no one should anticipate to happen everyday, unless you're incredibly boring or depressed, this update ignores reality and submits its own. I'm going to be incredibly boring today since no one, and here's proof, wants to read a depressing blog.

-I was called "four eyes" for the first time in my life tonight, it was followed by "yea, go study". To be honest, while I should put this in the "ignore" category, I still don't react well to this kind of flack from strangers. Its probably because i've heard it all before in elementary/middle school.

-Today I finished a film called "Tampopo" (Japanese for Dandelion) which had to do with a like named woman who starts a ramen restaurant in Japan after her husband has died. There isn't much interesting to say about this film save the unnamed character in the white suit. He has nothing to do with the story but he sort of represents human nature's deep attachment to food. His scenes are intermittantly shown in the film and tend to show quite laughable but "sensual", if you want to call it that, nature of food.
Scene 1: Girl he's with dips her boob into whipped cream and then into his mouth. Squeezing a lemon on her boob and then sucking it off. Placing live shrimp into soy sauce onto her stomach and then placing a bowl overtop, the shrimp flip the fuck out and start flailing, girl laughs due to ticklish feeling.
Scene 2: Encounters women harvesting oysters, attempts to eat an oyster without cutting the creature from its shell and cuts his lip on the shell. For whatever reason the chick feels this is hot stuff, so she starts to lick his wound.
Scene 3: Guy and girl he's with start passing an egg yolk between their mouths, for like 4 minutes.
Scene 5: Someone is shooting the guy and with his dying breath, he tells the girl he's with about how in winter if you go hunting and kill a boar you should immediately take its intestines out, stuff them with yams and cook them over a fire. He asks her if this sounds good, and she says "yea, that sounds good, like a yam sausage" and then he dies.
Theres not much else to that, the movie was good and funny, too bad the director killed himself.

What else...?

-I want to start a section where I take pictures of people that look strikingly like people I know. The obvious problem is how to ask someone if I can take their picture because they look like someone I know then explain that I will then put them up on my website.
-I want Spagetti-O's, I have missed the opportunity to have them about 3 times this year.
-Sean is a kid in my hall and I have bet him $1,000,000 that he can't teach elementary school in Brooklyn for a year. Sucker.
-When I have all the proper materials for a silk screening project, I'm going to start making shirts about really shitty fashion or just big ass images. For example: Front:"Irritatingly large sunglasses and year-round scarves" Back:"You suck."
-Give me a goddamn internship.
-When time permits I will make a giant post about how my roomate is in fact America's dirtiest motherfucker.
-$13 bucks and i'll have a giant whiteboard to put in my apartment. All I need now is something to draw on it.
-I plan on listening to more hip-hop. Now on the playlist: Nas, Wu-Tang Clan, Outkast, A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Pharcyde, Q-Tip, and Talib Kweli. Occurances of Kid Koala and Invizibl Skratch Piklz would not be a rarity.

I'm drained of ideas. Goodnight.

Assignment #1

2005-03-02T21:39:00.000-05:00

It has taken a total of 24 hours working on this project for Intro to MIDI and Electronic Music. I'm totally allowing you to download it. Its a minute and a half song consiting of three parts and using square wave tones and clips from video games. Its pretty sloppy, but I don't mind.

While I have the time, I will yet again, manipulate Mollie's face.

2005-02-20T01:36:00.000-05:00

Communist femme fatale. The people's vixen.

Its just too bad you can't see that she's just talking on the phone and never intended to look scandalous.

Beware...

2005-02-19T19:03:00.000-05:00

More photo manipulation of Mollie...oh well.

by the way, I don't really know what i'm doing when I do any manipulation. If you care to know.

Meme from Green Speedo Dave

2005-02-16T23:26:00.000-05:00

On Green Speedo Dave's LJ -
How many songs total?
8681 songs (legitimate!), 23.5 days, 36.29GB

Sort by song name - first and last:
00'00" - Karlheinz Stockhausen
Zwitter - Rammstein

Sort by Artist - first and last:
...And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead (if you don't consider ellipses then its 2 Skinniee J's)
The Zutons

Sort by Time - first and last:
Yo Victa - Victor Wooten (00:07)
Cassandra Gemini - Mars Volta (37:18)

Sort by Album - first and last
() - Sigur Rós (again with punctuation, then it would be 1 - Black Heart Procession)
Zoo Psychology - Ex Models

Top Ten Played Songs:
1. "Crutch" - Pinback
2. "Teenager" - Deftones
3. "Best of Me" - American Football
4. "Do You Realize?? - Flaming Lips
5. "Rose Parade" - Elliott Smith
6. "Dreamland" - 311
7. "Hollywood Freaks" - Beck
8. "Two Dolphins" - The Sea and Cake
9. "Karma Coma" - Massive Attack
10. "Weekend Sex Change" - Dillenger Escape Plan

Last Ten Songs Played:
1. "Smoking in A Minor" - Officer May
2. "Painful" - Sin
3. "Against th' Law" - Billy Bragg
4. "Three Imaginary Boys" - The Cure
5. "Step Ahead" - The Comeback Kid
6. "The Girls of Porn" - Mr. Bungle
7. "Who Me?" - Buckethead
8. "Bad Stone" - Crystal Method
9. "Six Pack" - Tortoise
10. "Une Année Sans Lumière" - The Arcade Fire

Find "sex," how many songs show up? 29

Find "death," how many songs show up? 27

Find "love," how many songs show up? 250

Find "peace", how many songs show up? 4

Find "rock", how many songs show up? 132

One last thing...

2005-02-09T01:39:00.000-05:00

Our Lady Peace used to be good.
By good, I mean really fucking good.
And that is all I have to say about that.

(3 posts in one day, not bad.)

You are all clowns.

2005-02-08T21:32:00.000-05:00

Republicans are in fact idiots. That is to say, that Repubs are one major division of political work. So if you are part of the Republican party, you're not an idiot. I'll clarify. The Republicans that I am speaking of are the ones who constitute the main source of members of the party. Now I know this doesn't make much sense, but what I am saying is that there are those who are a part of the Republican party and those who say they are Republicans; Members and groupies. Get it?

Anyways, the Republican party is a group of great people, people who have concepts that they hold fast as a way of life in and operation of a nation. Republicans are those who have no idea what the party wants and just goes with the flow of moral and dialogue of pundits. Here is a good example. The people who are members of the Republican party first, conservative or liberals next, who lobby and/or serve in the government. Republicans are the kids in my hall who think that if you see someone in army camo, that you should drop what you are thinking and doing to applaud them. Do they know why they are applauding them? What if the things the army is doing something you don't agree with? What if in fact the army does things that don't protect our "freedom"? Do you still want to clap? Just cause the commercials say so, these people believe that its our American job to do such. Nonsense.

As Americans, by which I mean citizens since I have no patriotism or pride since both of those things could be considered some of the worst sin, we do have certain responsibilities due to our democracy. The nation that is built by the people, not for the people like communism (which by the way, I support the theory, not the actual thing since it is inherently flawed). We should be happy that there are men and women who essentially (they don't intend on being heros from day one) put their lives out there on a limb for the "protection" of the country. Which can be confusing, because in a war where we weren't threatened by the country we invaded, I don't understand what is being protected by hurting them. I swear it was Afganistan. Our other duties are comprised of things like being courteous to the nation and do our duty to support it and the people within it as well as be informed about the situation of the country and vote for issues, presidents, senators, house representatives and the like for the things that are clearly evident as benefits for the nation as a whole. Not for the selfish few who feel their concepts are easily considered the best for the nation.

Here is where I get really mad. One position voters, conservatives with things on their agenda higher than the common people, liberals who feel that breaking down all forms of conservatisitism is important, conservatives who do the same about liberalism, people who vote the green party simply because of marijuana issues as well as innumerous other people who really have nothing to do with political persuasion who just bug the hell out of me. Its just these people who don't do a service to the nation that bring this place down. I know its easy to be a fucking retard and not care about anything else but one fucking issue or what their morals are. You can all go to hell because I care about more than one thing and I put more of my time into figuring out who I am and not what my party says to decide that I am going to vote for so and so, than those who decide that they don't like gay people or they don't want the Mexicans to "took our jobs". By the way, there isn't a party whose agenda is to be racist. Well, except for the KKK, but not even crazy christians like the KKK. So if you happen to be racist and vote, you might as well go hang your-fucking-self since its the most heinous thing you could ever do is to be racist. A sense of humor about race is good, but superiority or domination due to race is one of the lowest things in life.

I can't forget to mention the teacher that was talking to her students in the linear editing lab. A student did a video essay on what they expect of President Bush in his next four years as a second term president. Most of the replies were "I don't expect much" or "I just hope for the best" or "I am not exactly proud of everything he has done, but I hope he focuses on more localized issues". The student said to her teacher that "most of who I interviewed didn't really like Bush, I was suprised." I don't know the teacher, but she replied "well, its a college town". What in the fucking world does that mean? That educated people or people in a educational setting will just follow suit and babble out a stereotyped liberal issue banter? I was ready to burst out and say just that "what do you even mean by that?". I wouldn't be suprised that most educated people would have major issues with Bush because of clearly defined opinions formed through their experience at college. Not all of course since there are plenty of dummies here. By the way, Moby once found research on IQ by state and most midwest (red) states have substantially lower IQ's than east and west coast (blue) states.

If a lot of this is jibber jabber then it is because I am frustrated with many things in life right now dealing with the fact that most of the people who I wish I could talk to without feeling like I need to conform to their simple minds/limited depth thinking are absent from my life and these things that I am talking about are issues that easily anger me. Anger is a big thing in my life I wish I could relieve myself from. Its a dangerous thing anger, it can restrict your vision and slander your entire character despite your actual behavior towards others. I love this world and I love just about every human I meet because down deep inside they are good people who might have confused intentions. I am no better than the people who I believe are idiots since I am flawed as well. My intentions never have been to make myself feel or appear better than others. I wish that when I feel the same passion that I do for writing this down tonight I will elaborate upon the subject of this frustration. Don't hate me.

You're damn right its me.

2005-02-08T17:04:00.000-05:00

So after being a total asshole to my girlfriend at 1:00am, I decided it was for the best to blast classical music into my headphones to help concentrate and calm down while I resumed to write down each detail from my programming book in hopes to actually get a good grade on my weekly quiz. However, when 348-350 of Handel's Water Music Suites came on I started to notice something. Mike was in bed and sleeping (although still making his damn moaning noises) and I heard something rustling in the room. I thought maybe the window was open and Mike left some trash on the window sill, which I wouldn't doubt to happen because he is one dirty fucker.

But it wasn't that. In fact as soon as I took off my headphones to hear it better I stopped hearing it. Odd...So I put my headphones back on and heard it again. It then struck me that it was coming from the music I was listening to. I thought it was maybe something wrong in the recording; Static or something near the microphone that the engineers did not hear. The first thing that struck me was that it could be pages flipping in the recording. Although, how would someone not notice that. Its pretty loud, meaning the microphone was awfully close to the paper and the.....CONDUCTOR! The realization that some dummy could make that mistake in such a delicate recording.

So yea, it was the sound of the conductor flipping the pages of his score, quickly might I add. That has actually been the first time I felt like I discovered something that not many others know about. A true discovery, like finding an anchient village or to find some food oddity in your bag O' food items. I've always wanted to have a discovery. Its like an adventure.

Here is my real point. Adventures are the best and I really can't say that there isn't anyone I like having them best with than my girlfriend. I really hate that I bitched at her and felt like I was getting revenge. But its really great that she understands that I can blow-up easily and that she'll understand if I don't really mean to be cruel and when I apoligize she knows its not just so I can rebalance the world between me and her and still feel angry. It feels good to have someone who cares like her and who can see past my flaws.

Thanks dude. I certainly appreciate it.

Newest Desktop.

2005-02-05T01:54:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite hobbies is to make desktop themes. I have a ton of pictures to make into themes, but I never put the time into actually doing them as I used to.

This one is the most recent. With the addition of icon making software these are becoming more like art to me. Although I'm certainly no artist.

Stole'd

2005-02-02T19:24:00.000-05:00

This is just a response to the meme on chris' live journal.
1) Open your music folder/iTunes/etc.
2) List the first artist you have under A, then under B, and so on until you have listed the whole alphabet.
3) If you wish to include artists starting with numbers, put them first.
2 Skinnee J's
The Advantage
The B-52's
Cake
Dag Nasty
Eels
The Failed Alliance
G. Love & Special Sauce
Heavy Vegetable
Iggy Pop
James Brown
The Kills
Led Zeppelin
M.I.R.V.
N.E.R.D.
Officer May
The Paybacks
Queen
Ra
S Prcess
Talking Heads
U2
Van Halen
Weather Report
X
Yngwie J. Malmsteen
Zebrahead

Where am I?!?!?!.....

2005-02-02T01:42:00.000-05:00

Honestly folks, where the hell are you when you see this poster? I mean, if I were "Mr. Joe Goes To All The Parties Even Though I Wasn't Specifically Invited" then I might find myself feeling like I was stuck in the same fucking room all night. If you party and/or live around a college, you might as well bring a damn map with you. Its all because of this poster. You know that you've gone somewhere and seen the poster and left and been somewhere in the same night and seen the fucking thing again, thinking "Wait, is this Chris' place? I could have sworn I just saw that on Mark's wall. Wait, wasn't I just at Marks?!? No way. Let me consult my "Animal House Sightings Map".

You'll recognize the feeling of déjà vu when you see that John 'Bluto' Blutarsky's face happens resembles yours when you see it again. "Huhwhaa?". Like a case of Fugue Amnesia, you'll just disappear and re-appear in the same damn room and feel like time has just flown by but you don't realize you just traveled from one place to another. Maybe even cross-country.

Although, it could be similar to one of those movies where the main character just thinks its a coincidence that its there and in fact its actually some sort of dimensional rift that you walk through everytime but you never pay any attention to since you're desensitized to seeing John Belushi's tubby/dead torso in every room that you trapse into.

Okay, Okay, so, maybe its just cause it says "COLLEGE" that attracts the college kids. Yet, maybe its more because its from a movie about college. Or it could be that it costs $4.95 plus tax and comes in a wide variety of sizes.

Either way, I'm still proud of my "Dr. Funkenstein" and "Bad Brains" posters. I just wish I never lost my "Dr. Funkenstein" iron-on tshirt transfer, I'd be fucking tops man.

Mighty Morphin Power Mollie...booooo! Hisssss!

2005-01-30T20:17:00.000-05:00

I would hate to say that using Mollie's face for photo-manipulation is what i'm going to do all the time. However, its pretty cool using this java application to upload the picture and let the thing fly on its own.
Link--> Face Transformer

College of Communications: College of Suckers

2005-01-30T20:13:00.000-05:00

Ever since I started attending this godforsaken college of mine, i've found that if you are an out of state student you are going to be fucked over. Not only do you get that whole "out of state tuition" thing which has boggled me since the time my letter of acceptance arrived in the mail. You also get, for whatever reason, the short end of the straw. That straw also happens to be covered in nuerous types of feces and is held out to you by Dennis Quaid, worst actor ever (see right). I've been put in situations that I shouldn't have been placed in. I've been lied to and been told the wrong things by incompetant advisors.

Regardless of all of this, I have also found myself in one of the severely comprimised colleges here. The communications college is not a great one, it is decent since it has a good deal of well rounded educators. Yet, the school is still only average. Despite the school's general status in the communications field, this school likes to stick rusty iron rods up the college's well lubricated ass.

Almost the entire college of communications has been relocated to a place off campus nearly unreachable by any on campus or off campus student. The only way to get there is if you have a car or to take the bus. Now, why would you ever do this to the students? Make a relativly unaccessable place the mecca of our classes and outside work, while all of the other students here are able to have their classes on campus? Seems pretty unfair to me.

In addition to all of this, the Dean of the school has said that he would like to see that the school becomes a "walking school" again. By this he means that he would make us pay to ride the buses on campus. He might as well make students in the college of communications buy a vat of K/Y Jelly at the bookstore each semester.

We are all suckers. I just hope to get out of here soon.

Blood

2005-01-21T15:22:00.000-05:00

It starts with a cigarette, next its stealing and eventually gang signs become creed for identity. After a while the young man cannot do much but confuse the heck out of the family around him while he flashes his compact disc chains and leaves the house to kill some punkass Crips.

Holy shit...

2005-01-21T09:06:00.000-05:00

...its art!

P is for the PUUUGHHHH in philosophy

2005-01-20T01:37:00.000-05:00

So, if we all have something to prove to the world, wouldn't it make sense that we would all inherently have something to offer the world from conception of life? Like how the X-Men were born with supernatural gifts to use for the benefit or detriment of man-kind. Although, its certain that we cannot possilby know what we are going to do to acheive greatness. However, I think it depresses me that I don't fully feel like I have been challenged by the world (other than to accept others) and the greatness I think we are all supposed to be destined for is in reality either a bit part of a larger good (or evil) or it is only a improvement for a narrow band of people. It seems like if we are going to be one of the people who individually acheives greatness that there should be some sort of sign that we are well on our way to doing something impressive if not worldly but personally. My example is that I want to be someone who is recognized and who can teach some people about the facinating concept of sound. However, I haven't applied to a billion internships, or had one for that matter, and nor have I done something that shows that I am a worthy person to achieve greatness in some area. I certainly know people who are so dedicated to something that they want to get that feeling of an accomplished goal that they have already done some things that are proof of destined quality in their life's pursuits. Robert, for one, is a man who is seen as being a slug in a rabbit race of getting things done and out of the way. Robert is a extremely efficient sloth who chews through his work so dilligently and so carefully that he seemingly cannot fail. Of course we all are not perfect, but Robert certainly shows that his dedication to something and his already proven natural genius is there.

I don't think I feel like his achievements hinder mine, nor do any others, and I most surely do not feel like I can't produce anything of worth. I just don't understand if we are supposed to know or understand when we are doing something of merit. Maybe Einstein or Dostoyevsky or Duchamp just thought they were doing something but never thought "this is it! this is what my life's work will condense into in which proves my value and esteem."

Maybe that is why artists become more famous for their work until after they are dead.

let's leave at sunrise, let's live by the ocean

2005-01-19T23:08:00.000-05:00

Beck - Mellow Gold, Ben Folds Five - Self Titled, David Bowie - Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders From Mars, Doves - The Last Broadcast, Elbow - Cast of Thousands, The Fall - The Peel Sessions, Guided By Voices - Do the Collapse!, Jeff Buckley - Grace, Pinback - Blue Screen Life, and Pinback - Self Titled. The simplest, greatest, singable, generally mellow rockin' mix that I have ever made. I cannot really stop listening to it since it flows so sinuously from song to song and just makes me feel like if I could play it in all environments, that the place in which I was listening would brighten up completely. Everything is at its apex when "Pounding" by Doves comes on and I feel like running as fast as I can. Although, as soon as I decide to turn off the mix I end up coming back to my songs and going directly to the death metal or noise rock or hip-hop. I love that music too, I guess its sort of a way to clense my pallet to listen to the mix again.
I'm sure I feel just as proud of the mixes I make as a down-in-the-mouth kid in elementary school gets an A on a test he didn't expect to do well on. I want to show everyone them. I suppose this would be the time to list them and the track listing and the art that i've made for them. However, that would take forever since two of my mixes are 160+ songs. Let it be known that I choose every song; I never just stick random songs in there, at least not anymore. High School was the perfect time to build a mix simply by the songs you craved listening to or the ones you wanted your friends to hear since you were on the cusp of all things musical. No, i'm not talking about myself, all my friends did that at one point, if not on a CD, then on their computer they'd just play the song they wanted. Nowadays, a mix is less of a thing and more of a piece of art that you personally create and become as deeply involved as something that actually matters to the world outside your head.
Speaking of "outside your head", I learned about a concept in Confucianism today that said that we as humans are constantly trying to gain inner peace and fully explore our genius by calming the monkey in our head. I don't believe this is just some middle school way of saying how we are all geniuses, we have to just calm a monkey in our head simply because saying the word "monkey" was something that easily caused laughter much like Scooby Doo did (Scooby Doo wasn't entertaining, only if it was retarded it was funny [ex. Shaggy exclaming "Gaaaangwaaaay!" occasionally drew a laugh, not much though]). In conclusion, I like to bring peace to my mind (tame the monkey) by making a mix, its a nice get away from the world outside my brain and personal bubble.

Downtown Annapolis

2005-01-19T01:19:00.000-05:00

orange
Originally uploaded by Historic Orange.

The story behind Historic Orange is not exactly mine but since no one holds the copyright to the name I suppose its not a crime to use it on my own. It really stems from the experiences of a young woman who would visit Downtown Annapolis frequently with her friends where they discovered and held a fast liking to a orange-tinted fence on which was scribed (in green paint) "Historic Orange". To my knowledge that fence is in fact gone from existance since the fence merely stood where it did due to the fact that behind the fence was an open area where a building had previously burned down. No one I know remember how long ago the fence and it's title appeared; I think that it had been there for quite a long time, 10 years is my optimistic guess. The story held that they would eventually start a Riot Grrl band and call themselves the name of which I have mentioned. I have no right to claim the name on my own but in fact should be given to the genius who painted that on the fence. Its questionable whether or not the fence was orange previous to the painting of "Historic Orange" or if it was accomplished in one fell swoop. I like to think that the fence was not actually tossed into a heap in some dump or whatever, but rather that someone, who had such strong feelings like the young woman and her friends or myself, decided that they would wait till the day that construction crews would start on the building that would occupy the space behind the fence and put forth the effort to salvage the fence and possibly reconstruct it somewhere else. Howerver, the reality is most likely that the fence's remains are eternally lost. There really is no way to explain how wonderful it was to walk downtown late at night (possibly in the rain) and see this fence in a low glow of scarce street lights and think of all the people who must pass it each day and get a giggle or a "humm, well how about that!". Only one picture of it exists as I know of. Yet, since many people live and have lived in Annapolis for decades, there must be more.

Since this is my first entry I decided to dedicate the entry to that fence and all the people who it had some sort of happy effect on.

R.I.P. Historic Orange.

UPDATE: Mollie must have been awfully curious if there were any pictures of Historic Orange on the web. Well, being the biggest fan of Google, she found exactly what she set out to find. Some guy, a decent photographer snapped the picture somewhere along his travels.