rampant douchebaggery

a time without mirrors

2011-07-22T15:59:00.002-05:00

about a week ago on Twitter, I believe it was Jamie Keiles (for whom I uploaded a pic on Flickr devoted to her Seventeen Magazine project) who mentioned the blog A Year Without Mirrors. its gist is, the woman behind it got so sick of obsessing over her looks while shopping for a wedding dress that, six months before the wedding, she decided to avoid mirrors for a full year. that takes guts regardless of the massive fuss involved with planning a traditional wedding.

at one point she had a poll in the sidebar, asking how often you look at yourself in the mirror: never, rarely, sometimes, or all the time. with sheepishness, I realized I belonged to the last category. despite my lifelong struggles with body image and identity, I check myself out in the mirror at every turn. see, I never used to think I was "hot." I was prepared to wallow in fat obscurity for the rest of my life. then someone I found attractive found me equally attractive. I figured he was the kind of guy who could get any woman he wanted, and he chose me, however temporarily.

it's been downhill ever since. not only am I still not happy with my body, I'm strangely vain about it anyway. I feel okay with finding myself attractive, but if another shares the sentiment, I wonder what's wrong with them, or that it must be a joke. mirrors have helped fuel this narcissism. I dress up, I put on makeup, I strut out the door thinking "damn I look good"...and if no one else seems to feel the same way, I come home crushed and regretful. I'm sick of constantly checking my face for new laugh lines or making sure my cleavage is just so. I'm sick of trying to emulate models or actresses or even tarted-up cartoons. none of those is real, but I am. the two concepts don't jibe.

so I took down the huge mirror screwed to my front hallway wall. if the super complains I'll put it back up, but with curtains covering it. (I hope he doesn't, I found an old painted-over mirror panel behind the hung mirror!) I need to figure out how to cover up my triple-mirrored medicine cabinet doors; fabric scraps should take care of that. the only real problem I see is, I often use myself for reference whilst drawing comics. I think I can handle a utilitarian glimpse now and then in my portable half-length mirror.

I can't help but feel this will be incredibly freeing. I'll still look the same overall, only now I won't be a slave to that fact. I'm also hoping to get in touch with my body, in a way; to feel its inner strength for myself, instead of relying on my eyes. I want to love myself on a level beyond physicality. most of all, I just want to be.

a long, full life

2011-07-17T18:41:00.003-05:00

my grandmother on my mother's side, Marion, passed away this morning. she'd just turned 90 on Thursday. she was the only grandparent I had left. my sister wrote a wonderful post about her on her blog. I considered letting that speak for the both of us, but I had a different experience, different memories, and a different reaction.

my memories of Grandma are, unfortunately, piecemeal. we lived in Michigan when I was born, while my grandma lived in Wisconsin. since it was about a five-hour drive, I didn't get to see her very often.

then in '87, we moved to the Chicago suburbs. with the drive pared down to two hours, I got to see a lot more of Grandma. I remember fussing over me when I was little, which I wasn't used to. mom and dad didn't act that way towards me. but a grandparent, who only had to stand me for a few hours at most, could hug and kiss and give me all the candy she wanted.

I remember her old house very well. I played with Lincoln Logs and old purses in the back room. sleeping in the spare bedroom was kinda creepy; the bed was way too high for me back then. the basement would get loud when lots of company forced the overflow down there. the men would watch sports and drink beer. I'd go back behind the dry bar, but not very often; I got the sense that it was an "adult" thing that I didn't quite get. there was a strange cabinet in the basement that must have been a broom closet or a coverup for pipes or something, a tall wooden thing with a gold mesh screen on top. my young mind imagined there was a killer robot that would come to life and destroy us all one day. a few years ago my sister found the house for sale on a website. now I'll never know for sure what was in that closet.

Grandma struck me as a no-nonsense type, at least according to the stories her children told me. raising four kids (two of them twins!) must have turned her into quite the ballbuster. by the time she got to me she had mellowed considerably, but I could still tell she wasn't to take any guff from my aunt and uncles (and mom, of course). not that there was really any guff to take. we weren't a family of drama, just one that got together from time to time and shot the shit, reminiscing about the old stories again and again.

Grandma moved down to St. Augustine in Florida in the early '90s, so I didn't get to spend that much time with her. I remember visiting a few times, dates unknown. I re-met my younger cousin Laura down there when she was 12; I must have been 15 or 16. even though I was an aloof teenager, she seemed pretty cool for her age. :) Grandma lived in a mobile home and seemed very satisfied with it. she wasn't the type of woman that we had to worry about, even when my grandpa had to be put in a home. she just carried on.

less than a year ago - I don't remember the timing, just that it was a ways from her 90th - I got word that Grandma was in the hospital. I held my breath that she would be all right, and she was, though compromised. due to a stroke, she couldn't take things on by herself anymore. after her 90th birthday party, she got very bad very fast, and passed away this morning.

I'm getting all this information secondhand because I...just don't talk to anyone outside the immediate family. if not for Facebook, I wouldn't have known Grandma was in the ER at all. such is the nature of a low-key family. we may not have knock-down, drag-out fights, but we're also barely connected to each other in some ways. Kim and I always talked about going down there to see her one last time, just to spend some time with her. my memories of her were always pleasant and I think I could have learned a lot from her. now...

I regret feeling uncomfortable talking to her. I held her in the untouchable reverence of the very young. that's what's upsetting me so right now: that I was the one that could have broken through. I knew there was more to find than just a doting memory; there was a woman with a long, full life of which I only saw glimpses.

I'm sorry I never got to know you better, Grandma. I hope you didn't suffer, and that you were surrounded by people who knew how to love you better than I. rest in peace.

the dating game

2011-01-11T11:58:00.004-06:00

time to bring douchebaggery back.

so I've been on OkCupid, the dating site, for a long time. I actually joined while I was still dating one of my exes, if that gives you any indication of how great that went. (interestingly enough, while never at any point would I describe myself as a heavy drinker, I apparently marked myself as such in my profile. not a great coupling, that.)

for the past eight months or so, I've tried to use it as a legitimate service, with dismal results. some highlights:

the guy in the Army who, right this second, is stationed in Afghanistan. he also cannot live without his gun.

the guy into "postmodern theory," who most likely would only get along with others who are into postmodern theory, because the rest of us don't know or care what the fuck it is.

those who can barely string two sentences together, usually intimating sex. double if they claim they write as a hobby.

guys that rattle off the three words that describe them. it's very stilted and usually not reflected in the rest of their profile anyway.

is there an unwritten rule that everyone and their godmother has to travel to at least three continents?

how many variations on "bearsfan" or "chiguy" can there possibly be? how does that distinguish you in the least? this means your defining characteristic is either that you like sports or that you exist.

those are just the ones I can remember. keep in mind these are the guys the service has picked for me. also, how is it that I can't choose to not be paired with guys who have kids, especially when I've specified I don't want kids? seems like kind of a big deal.

so far I haven't gotten a single date out of the thing, but in lieu of a steady stream of men waiting outside my door, I'll stay with it...

collapse

2010-11-29T01:43:00.000-06:00

i don't know how this is going to sound. i had a bit of a breakdown tonight. i've doubled my workload on the comic voluntarily the past few weeks and have experienced some growing pains, to say the least. my therapist questioned drawing double what i'd been doing when what i'd been doing was killing me, but i didn't really listen. cartoonists are supposed to be crazy anyway, but i wonder if they're supposed to be this crazy.

i was trying to draw a blueprint and kept having to do it over and over, when i started saying to myself, why did i even start doing this? why did i bother? i could have gotten another job, a job i liked, instead of trying to do something i can't do twice a week. something i'll never do as well as the people whose work i love. not even as well as people whose work i hate. and in the midst of all that self-doubt, i heard an old, familiar voice: my father yelling at me. real old, like when i was really little. i don't even know what about, but the tone was clear: you're lazy. you're worthless. you can't do anything right. you're a pain in my ass.

i've spent most of my life buying into that message. i didn't know any better. it showed in my lack of direction in life; my failure to enroll at not one, but two colleges; most of all, my poor choice of boyfriends. i always expected men to turn on me somehow, even as i tried to pick men the furthest from my father as possible, at least on paper.

i've tried to deal with it through humor. whenever my sister or my mother and i talk about my father, there's bitterness, but it's always tempered by eyerolling. as if reducing him to a joke takes away his power. yes, it works. but when it's a Bandaid to cover up a seeping wound, sometimes the pain still bleeds through. i really think i believed it would never get me again. the worst thing is...i don't know how an adult who suffered emotional/verbal abuse as a kid is supposed to feel. am i supposed to be this screwed up? just from that? from something that was always around as long as i could remember? i really have no concept of how deep the hurt can go or even the extent of what i suffered. even typing "suffered" seems over the top, like i'm trying to trump up things in my own journal.

if i had a car, this would be where i would take a long, long drive, but i don't. i still have a comic to finish, too. will i throw on another sheen of balm just to get things done? i don't have the strength right now to refute the voices in my head. and who knows how i'm going to get to sleep tonight.

reassessment

2010-11-23T15:07:00.002-06:00

I started my own webcomic in November of 2009. I did a four-panel strip twice a week. after work, I'd go pencil in my studio, or ink at my computer desk. it didn't leave much room for a social life, and I did tend to slack and play games sometimes instead of draw, but I got things done.

I quit my day job in February. the hours and environment had always been repugnant, but it paid well. so I took the money that I'd saved and said "sayonara." I still think about them sometimes, fondly here, not so fondly there. they'll be doing that job (or something like it) until they retire or die, and more power to them. it just wasn't my scene.

my biggest fear when I quit my old job was that I would turn into a Howard Hughes-type recluse and basically lose all my marbles. I went through a very rough patch after high school; my friends went onto college, while my plans fell through. I holed myself up in my room all day, not seeing anyone but my mother for weeks at a time. I withdrew into IRC and video games, making shotgun friends with people across the country while knowing no one in my town, questioning my sanity at every turn. I became a shell of a human being, culturally dead, useful to no one.

deep in my heart, I was terrified the same thing would happen again, once I doffed my work shackles and concentrated solely on the comic. indeed, it has been...difficult. I try to get out of the house by going to Starbucks or just for picturesque walks. despite doing the comic for over a year now, I still don't have a decent work (or sleep) schedule worked out. risk/reward has fallen heavily towards the former so far.

over the past few weeks, I made a decision to make my comic more of a full-page thing, rather than just four panels. (I start out with an eight-panel layout and mess with it until I get something I like.) I'd wanted to do it for a very long time, but wasn't sure I could pull it off. after a year's passage yielded only two chapters, I wanted to try the change.

so far I've done three of these super-sized comics, still on my biweekly schedule. although the format gives more room to tell the story I want to tell, once again, I haven't figured out scheduling yet. I wrote an outline for the entire chapter on Saturday, something I haven't done before, which felt really good. but. this meant less time for drawing, so I spent all of Sunday - and a large chunk of Monday - penciling and inking this comic.

the next one is due on Thanksgiving. I've got several new characters to sketch out. I still need to learn perspective. soon I have to design floorplans and decorate a five-story lighthouse from scratch. I also have to do laundry, shop for groceries and bake a pie. I've been going to bed at 4 and 5 am. the thought of going out with friends is a joke. the only thing keeping me from going completely bonkers at this point is music and MST3K.

and yet, in the middle of being exhausted, lonely and always feeling on the edge of tears, I don't want to give it up. it still feels like if I can only get my act together, I can really make this work. from the outside, it almost looks like a form of self-torture, but I would rather do this than go back to the corporate world. I've met some great people as a result of this endeavor, with more yet to come. most of all, I've found I really want to tell my story, if not just to please others, then to prove to myself that I could.

experimenting

2010-05-31T17:08:00.004-05:00

this past weekend, I went camping out in Iowa, very near the state line. I'd been gearing up for it all week; my excitement was doubled by a new recipe I was trying out on my fellow camp-goers, homemade Pop Tarts* with breakfast treats in them (eggs, bacon, and cheese). when I find myself looking forward to something with great relish, it tends to overwhelm my consciousness at night, making it hard to get to sleep. I had the same problem during my Rush period. (their calmer songs were too upsetting for my taste.)

couple that with the fact that I sleep lousy on camping trips in general, and you got a very cranky Shannon come Saturday morning. my sister informed me that Benadryl or Xanax would put one out not unlike a light when sleepytime is nigh. she just happened to have a Xanax with her, of which I took half on Saturday night. I was curious as to what it would do with my anxiety, too, as well as what it would have done if I'd wanted to stay awake, but that's another situation for another day.

I took the half, as layperson-prescribed. the first thing I noticed was that yes, it did indeed make me sleepy. the second thing was that as soon as I closed my eyes, I saw pre-dreams I'd never seen before. usually my hypnogogia is chaotic, stream-of-consciousness and, due to looking at small screens almost all day long, only takes up a portion of my inner field of view. when my head dropped on the pillow, great fractal-like visions filled the entirety of my eyelids. my subconscious spit out calm, organized images, tessellated to the edges of my brain. and brother, once it was over, I slept. I slept like Bob Seger.

now that I'm back home, I keep seeing the monitor in front of me as a tiny slice of a huge swatch...that my Paint the Line wallpaper is indicative of a voluminous landscape. add that to the rolling contours of eastern Iowa and the disconnect of webpages becomes fascinating again...

* if you make those homemade tarts, do not use that dough recipe. that thing was conceived, literally, in Hell's Kitchen. find something with less butter.

the tradeoff

2010-05-17T17:21:00.002-05:00

long, long ago - I know not through what channels - I started reading an offensive, bong water-soaked webcomic using Microsoft Comic Chat as its medium. it was called Jerkcity, and its name was apt. stock MS characters joked about how queer they were, how many cocks they could gobble in a minute, how much Windows/Netscape/IE/et al sucked. (the funniest joke ever strip is still one of my favorites.) it was counter to everything decent in society, and I ate it up. it's still a guilty pleasure, though the quality has diminished somewhat, IMO.

part of the draw of Jerkcity is: who would write this mindless garbage? was it one guy? a bunch of guys? sometimes there'd be a fuzzy .gif image of an unshaven man lurking in a panel here or there, usually ingesting copious amounts of ganja. was this the guy, or a red herring roommate or friend?

poking amongst the Jerkcity links, I found a blog purportedly from one of the characters, Rands. and what do you know - even if he was the main proponent behind Jerkcity, he wasn't a total nimrod. something about his obsession with and personal mastery of Vegas spoke to me. his description of Nerd Attention Deficit Disorder (or N.A.D.D.) eerily shadowed my own habits. I still knew almost nothing about the guy besides his inclination towards strippers, but I liked what I was reading.

fast forward a few years to the Twitter age. I joined up last summer our of curiosity and potential self-promotion. not long after, I discovered Rands had a Twitter account. cue futher mystique breakdown. most of his tweets deal with design and office management (the latter a little hard to swallow due to my last job), a pithy missive here, a well-timed link there. it's a link to his own blog that prompted this blog post.

after perusing his latest post, a wish for the perfect store unhampered by anonymity and marketing jackals, I noticed he had a link to his Amazon wish list on his sidebar. curious, I took a look. I now know more about him, his tastes, and even his state of mind than I ever dreamed possible. the Internet has bridged the gap between creator and audience, stranger and stranger, possible friend and potential stalker. no privacy was invaded; he put up the list on his website for public browsing. undoubtedly, he has preferences and hatreds he has not shared with the public at large. still, I can't help but feel a little weird at this peek inside someone I'll never know in person.

the final countdown (c'mon, i had to)

2010-02-11T22:22:00.010-06:00

so...it's Quitting Day Eve. I can't believe it's really happening. I've been more emotional than I expected about this whole thing. but then again...it was nearly six years of my life. six years of 9+ hour days, waking up WELL before my Circadian rhythm demanded, working in a field I never cared about. let's get the crap stuff out of the way first.

what I won't miss:

the constant blather of CNBC in the background.
lack of privacy.
tone-deaf warbling along with the classic rock station.
having to drop everything for the most important thing ever, only to be trumped by the next most important thing ever 30 seconds later.
the grandiose stories of getting hammered, wasted and/or shitfaced.
MI-waiting-to-happen coworker's struggle to breathe whenever she moved.
the resulting numerous late or sick days from the preceding.
dressing really nice and no one noticing. hey, maybe I DO enjoy being ogled once in a while. ever think of that, mr. businessman? sheesh.
carrying ten drinks from Starbucks at a time.
not having the day after Thanksgiving off. can't do it cuz people need to have access to their money cuz of the 1929 market crash. now that ATMs are always reachable, how lame is that?
the obnoxious New Yawk coworker's nasal tone over the hoot 'n' holler.
ordering Christmas gifts, though I've gotten out of it the past two years.
staying ungodly hours to do IT work, since I can't do it while everyone is working.
no lunch breaks.
going to Brigg's (RIP) or Marquette Inn for a greasy breakfast hangover run.
worship of money above all else.
feeling cheated out of a social life due to early bedtimes.
not connecting with my workmates on any kind of deep level.
lack of creativity.
being so stressed my mind is obliterated.
feeling helpless trying to explain just how much this job has affected me.

what I will miss:

the best paycheck and bonuses I'll ever have.
not having to budget myself.
jock coworker's zealous, incongruous use of the word "glorious."
the sense of routine.
being forced to socialize due to office structure and the nature of my job.
the occasional kickass Youtube vid or rock song on the radio.
"rally songs" in the morning, though we haven't done that in years (that I know of). mine was "Mamma Said Knock You Out."
free lunch and breakfast. so many tasty Loop lunch joints!
the genuinely nice, interesting people who made it worthwhile.
no one to bake goods for.
smirking self-righteously at the boys after a big night out.
the occasional bursting into of song.
March Madness.
carrying ten drinks from Starbucks at a time. (it does kinda make me feel like a badass.)
knowing what everyone's usual is.
the fact that I knew how to deal with my rich, arrogant masters.
kicking ass at a highly strenuous job I never would have taken if I'd known.

it's really over, and I will grieve. but there's so much to look forward to I can't even begin. I surprised myself when I took this job. now it's time to surprise myself after it.

the inevitable

2010-02-01T17:04:00.003-06:00

I woke up this morning, groggy and incoherent for the umpteenth time after a night spent ill at ease. it’s always this way on a Sunday night; my 5:20 am wake-up time comes far too early, truncating my nights and prolonging my days.

as I struggled to jump-start my day via Starbucks and thrusting myself into my work, I came upon a CNN article (thanks, Joe). it was about four young black men in Greensboro, NC who sat at a white diner counter at Woolworth’s fifty year ago today. I’d probably heard of them in passing, part of a grouping of factoids in American history class.

but the interview garnered from one of the protestors struck a few chords in my heart. the fact that the Greensboro Four were terrified to do what they did, but they did it anyway. the fact that although they got support from some classmates, most of the people they petitioned thought they were crazy. the title of the article says it all: “Never request permission to start a revolution.”

so I quit my job.

it was not a true revolution, per se. I didn’t confer with anyone before acting, partially so I wouldn’t lose my nerve, mostly so I wouldn’t be convinced I was as crazy as I knew I was. it was a personal revolution, something that needed to be done. and it still scared the hell out of me. I’m scared stiff as I write this, ready to burst into tears again at the thought of the wide open space underneath me.

the article can’t take all the credit; I’ve wanted to do this for a long, long time now. I remember starting as a temp and hoping earnestly that I’d be hired to get my benefits, wondering at the same time how long I’d actually stay. my fourth official year ended yesterday. (my unofficial sixth year would have passed in April.) last March I got a wild hair and started to peruse job listings, updated my résumé, wanted more than anything to get out of this place…except I forgot to quit. I don’t think I quite forgave myself for that. luckily it was a fantastic year and staying on meant I could pay for wonderful things like PAX and SPX and three CP cons…but the fact that I’m getting more and more into those wonderful things meant something had to give.

besides improving Wighthouse, I don’t know what I’m going to do now. this is the dumbest and smartest thing I've ever done. I've got the usual two weeks; there’s the technical stuff, like making sure my health insurance is extended and wrapping up loose ends with my coworkers. I am convinced I will not be paralyzed by this change, but energized by this freedom. eventually.

I still have to freak out just a little.

status report

2010-01-12T13:28:00.008-06:00

I got less than five hours of sleep last night, thanks to chatting on Skype. I daresay it was worth it, though.

I'm also still quite sick from contracting some minor plague over New Year's. it’s reached the lung infestation stage, to the point where I welcome productive coughs so that I will be rid of it. also, I’m gross.

there’s an email from Kris Straub sitting in my mailbox I’m scared to read, for its mere presence implies rejection…in my mind, at least. (I asked for permission to use something from CSS in my own comic.)

I need a smartphone oh so badly. according to T-Mobile I’m not eligible for a Nexus One upgrade yet, but I’m not sure I’d want one anyway, what with them jerking their long-time customers around in exchange for new ones. I hate Blackberry, and I’d rather have Android than iPhone cuz I’m not a Mac person and it just makes sense…I dunno. options look slim.

I've been playing games again, but I'll cover that elsewhere.

can’t stand being at work today. however, part of the reason I’m still here is I’m allergic to job post jargon. me opening up Craigslist is eerily akin to Bart reading about the Supreme Court.

today feels like the kind of day where, 20 years ago, I’d be curled up at the family PC with piles of my dad’s Big Blue Disks and UpTimes (which I still have). oh Dungeons of Kroz and Moraff’s Revenge, how I miss you. shit, that's how I came upon Zoarre, too. *sniffle*

those that giveth

2009-12-24T16:44:00.002-06:00

what's the coolest gift you've ever gotten from a significant other?

i've been given gifts in the past by boyfriends. seeing as how i frequently date poor guys from other states, they haven't been numerous. but i was reading about the chaotic nature of Christmas ornaments, and was reminded of a gift i was given in junior high by my first huge, life-changing crush.

it was a 3.5" floppy disk with a program on it that made fractals. i don't know if he thought i would like it or if he just thought it was cool himself.. it seemed an unusual choice. he didn't seem particularly science-minded; as i recall, his main interests were industrial/metal music and slacking. but here was this disk, with a nifty program on it on a subject i enjoyed, that he didn't even have to give me. i'd say that qualifies.

of course, if some enterprising young man were to bequeath an Intuos unto me, i'd have to change my mind...

grinding along

2009-10-23T11:37:00.001-05:00

well. I seem to be going through a bit of depression. pretty bad this time. now this is by no means a recent phenomenon – in fact, feel free to file it under “not news” – but suffering through it in the context of a webcomic launch…it puts a different spin on it. so what do I do?

in fourth grade I had an incident in the lunchroom. food was placed before me and I didn’t want to eat it. just the thought of ingesting it repulsed me to no end. that refusal, and the following outburst, wound me up in the principal’s office. I felt the same repulsion last night when I sat down at my desk to work on my comic. my brain balked entirely; I would have rather canvassed the neighborhood with a gaggle of Mormons. I just couldn’t take it.

but I’m logical enough to know that if I don’t plow through it, even if my mind is throwing a tantrum, nothing will ever get done. back on the horse, full speed ahead, etc. etc. no one said this was going to be easy…in fact, all evidence I’ve heard has been to the contrary. got to concentrate on the good things, no matter how out of reach they seem right now.

the ABCs of webcomics

2009-10-13T15:36:00.003-05:00

so I plowed through my first weekend of hardcore comic-making. as an exercise in self-ass-kickery, I choose a launch date relatively soon, forcing myself to stop dicking around and get my bearings. it worked…for the most part. my observations on webcomicking so far:

Webcomics.com and Blambot are awesome resources. it’s great that some of the biggest in the field want to lend a hand with the up-and-coming. very helpful indeed.

a tight updo contributes to eyestrain headaches.

I’ve written more scripts than I thought, but I need more, always more.

the Chicago Board of Trade building is a BITCH to draw in Photoshop. first I drew it by hand, scanned it and tried to ink it in PS. I didn’t like how it looked, so I inked over a couple reference photos instead. not 100% pleased with how those looked either. process: two entire days. I’m not too fond of the straight, clean lines of Art Deco anymore…

when in doubt in PS, zoom the fuck in. while doing the CBOT, I got the urge to make a huge banner over my desk that screamed “ZOOM IN, YOU TWAT.” wonder if Kinko’s could help me with that.

with “inside time” maximized, I became more domestic than ever. I cooked far more than usual; did my laundry with only a weeks’ worth of clothes; threw out my six-month-old pizza boxes; cleaned the litter box; painted my nails about a thousand times, trying to get rid of bad colors…lengthy drawing periods necessitate many breaks, allowing for small cleaning breaks and other things to break up monotony. the important thing is to not get too distracted by, say, TV or YouTube or vidja games.

speaking of distractions, I turned down an invite to a bar. a friend came over to borrow my Internet while hers was down. I mentioned a new place with a good-looking menu (Allagash White and Lindeman’s Framboise on tap? mmm mm!), saying we had to go there sometime. her response: “are you hungry now?” I was, but I politely declined and made my own (scrumptious) pizza instead. this…this will pay off one day.

despite basically doing the same things I’d do otherwise on a typical weekend (sitting at my desk, barely going outside, etc), I felt 10x lonelier. I don’t know if it was the constant drawing, listening to podcasts instead of a live stream like last.fm, or not giving myself the option to go outside if I felt like it. maybe I get out of the house more than I realize. this leads me to consider taking on a roommate with similar interests.

now to repeat, ad nauseum.

choose wisely

2009-10-10T21:17:00.000-05:00

"You need to get out more," says my therapist. "It's hard to find someone to date locally if you don't put yourself out there."

She's right, of course. I'm not going to meet anyone in this city if I sit around at home. So I do what comes naturally: I devise plans for a webcomic, thereby eliminating all possible free time for encounters of the opposite sex. Brilliant, no?

I think I'll have some more wine.

even softer worlds

2009-09-19T13:53:00.006-05:00

Joe started a TF2-themed hash for a softer world on Twitter, so naturally I had to follow... (click for full size)

a softer world tribute

2009-09-16T22:51:00.004-05:00

I'd been pointed towards a softer world before, but I never really got into it. however, now that I'm going to SPX at the end of the month (where the authors will be too!), I figured I should brush up.

I'm digging it more than I thought I would. it could easily lend itself to emo hipster douchebaggery, but mostly it's really funny in a cutting way. it also lends itself to easy parodies... (click for full size.)

brain leakage

2009-08-12T07:53:00.001-05:00

la la la.. I have no idea what I'm doing.. whee hee..

okay. somewhere, somehow, I got the following brillian idea: hey, I'm hanging out with all these webcomic peoples, I'm really getting into this medium again...I know! I'll make my own webcomic! not just any webcomic, but a relatively complicated one involving an architectural docent in Chicago who inherits a historical lighthouse that turns out to be haunted, thus insuring a plot-driven story!

oh wait, Twitter and the collective Internet has destroyed my attention span. also, I haven't really written anything since I took some community college English classes back in '02. plus frequent late nights mixed with work and stress are destroying my thought process slowly but surely. and whenever I read anything remotely clever, my brain shrivels up and dies from intellectual jealousy.

welp, I know what I need to do to make this thing successful: steal, steal, steal.

chainsawsuit tribute

2009-07-19T15:22:00.005-05:00

so the past few months, I've become a huge fan of Kris Straub. he's one of the old vanguard of webcomic artists; he's an alumnus of Checkerboard Nightmare and currently draws Starslip and chainsawsuit. Starslip is a self-advertised science-fiction comedy with a continuous storyline; chainsawsuit is completely random weirdness with boobs and naughty words. the latter definitely appeals to my "wtf" side.

long story short, I woke up this morning with an idea... (click for slightly larger version)

this is quite possibly the grossest thing I've ever drawn, if not in actuality, then in spirit. you're welcome.

Mark me

2009-07-14T10:03:00.002-05:00

I believe that, in general, there are two kinds of hauntings. One is brought on by a singular, intense event, such as a murder. Take Resurrection Mary: girl goes to dance, girl gets killed, girl spends rest of eternity haunting nearby stretch of road. The other is disturbance of the dead. Bachelor's Grove is another good example. There was nothing wrong with BG until people stopped taking care of it, inviting vandals and thieves to wreak havoc. Now it's reputedly one of the most haunted sites in Chicago.

That's exactly what's going to happen to Burr Oak Cemetery. Hell, only the gravestones were desecrated at Bachelor's Grove; rumors of disinterrment are thought to be unfounded, the wishful thinking of a morbid public. But when 300 bodies are dug up and tossed into a disused part of the cemetery? That's fucking Poltergeist.

This place...this place is going to turn into a vortex of tortured souls. It defies all logic how the accused could discard dozens of human remains for something as meaningless as money. It absolutely destroys me. Despite my nonreligious stance, I cannot deny that those bones have power. I hope that power literally comes back to haunt them. You just don't fuck with the dead.

musing

2009-07-03T17:53:00.002-05:00

there's a song called "Your Mind Belongs to the State" by Meat Beat Manifesto that i skip past a lot on my iPod. it makes me uncomfortable. not because of the subject matter, which deals with individuality, insanity, violence, etc., subjects that might rub someone the wrong way in their own right. my discomfort comes from a sampled sentence repeated every so often of a man asking simply, "what do you want from the rest of your life?"

i never know how to answer that.

having delved so far into Joe's Ustream (i'm pretty much a fixture at this point, sun-thurs) and getting caught up in drawing again, it reminds me of how many people told me i should draw for a living. my parents would get me character-drawing books. my grandfather wanted me to send me something i'd drawn. (i never did; too paranoid.) my sketchbook was a matter of public record from 5th grade through high school, passed around and doodled in by all manner of friends. so why the slowdown? i'm kind of angry at myself, not so much for the flurry of activity now...but why the dry-up for months, years beforehand? and what's keeping me from taking it on seriously?

(flashback to living with druggie ex, both unemployed, making a point to draw every day on the rooftop of our building...i did it once and never again)

thinking about it, though.. it's not just drawing that gets me. my true desire is to make people laugh. drawing (and storytelling) is a means to that end. there is also the fact that several of the webcomics i read are much bigger on story than graphics...but i think i'd end up frustrated and unsatisfied if i took that route.

no matter what, it's something only the strong can survive. am i ready to test that strength?

reflections on a dead show

2009-06-30T15:31:00.000-05:00

so I finally finished the last two episodes of "Firefly" I had outstanding. I know, I'm horrible at watching things I love, shut up.

of course it was an amazing show; of course it was. what struck me more was the "making of" vignette. they all knew it was special as it was happening. they knew they were a part of something bigger. which led me to thinking about my own future. Joss remarked that the fans of the show just "got it," and that was the singular reason for making art. that.. that resonated.

so say I'm an artist. where does that leave me? say I'm not an artist, that I merely ride others' coattails...is there a life to be had in that? I don't even feel comfortable asking that question, so no. but what path am I going to carve? I have no compass, no blueprints, no guidelines.

I envy those who block out the noise, the thousands of possibilities, and make their own goals. i really do. I just have to wonder...do they ever regret their choice? do they ever think "what if"? their iota of doubt makes me not feel so alone.

another drawring

2009-06-10T22:09:00.003-05:00

done in pen in five minutes in my work's conference room. inked over in Photoshop. obviously a character sketch(es); there may be some fleshing-out possibilities.

chili vs. burrito

2009-06-05T16:10:00.003-05:00

it only vaguely reminds me of my margarita drawing, but i'm stlil light-headed from laughing at this.

a drawring

2009-06-02T21:43:00.006-05:00

click for larger size.

note to self: ink the drawing before scanning it. stupid thing took me three days to clean up. i think it made me a little better with my Graphire, though.

killjoy

2009-06-02T12:01:00.007-05:00

so as a result of going to Play On Con over Memorial Day, i met a couple of webcomic artists, Art Frederick and Joe Hills. they work together on Jack of All Blades, a twisted, complicated strip whose unique universe has spilled over into other comics, yet still finds time for dick jokes and mentally handicapped magicians. (really, what more could you ask for?) i compared notes on the webcomics i read with one of them (they visited the New England Webcomics Weekend back in March) and discovered a few that i didn't know.

once i got back home, i started reading JaB from the beginning. i'm still working through it; i keep getting distracted by the other webcomics they mention in the newsposts. so far i've read through all of Industrial Revolutionary and am trickling through Starslip Crisis and chainsawsuit. it's been very enlightening and intriguing, considering (god i love gerunds) i had dreams of drawing a webcomic so very, very long ago.

so i'm reading through all of these great things, right, doubling over with laughter at a chainsawsuit comic, when i glance up at work-mandated CNBC*:

Banking on the Banks

Is Leverage Back?

Playing the China Rebound

i swear to christ.. if humor is orgasmic, bond trading is chemical castration.

* disclaimer: to CNBC's credit, they have been covering parts of E3 this week, but only the most boring stuff, and inaccurately so.

getcher motor runnin'?

2009-06-01T13:13:00.008-05:00

i've lived in Chicago for six and a half years now. just lately, something strange has come over me...the oddest feeling, the queer urge to...buy a car. agh, i feel dirty just typing it.

so far i've gotten along by riding the rails and patronizing taxis, but i think my wanderlust is acting up. relying upon Kim to chauffeur me everywhere is neither reliable nor fair. sure, if she ditches her stick and buys an automatic, i could drive that... it's not the same.

*cue rantings of typical greedy American, a car for every person, etc* seriously. lemme give a positive rundown:

i'd be able to go anywhere i wanted at any time.

i'd finally learn to drive via trial by fire.

it'd be a lot easier on Kim.

i could take mini-vacations outside the city without having to fly or figure out train schedules.
being able to contribute better on road trips.

with enough practice, i could level up to visiting friends out-of-state.

i wouldn't feel like i'm tied to a major city anymore, thereby opening up my options for the future.

naturally there are bad things:

car payments.

license sticker fees.

parking meter fees.

car insurance.

gas prices.

Chicago traffic.

Chicago winters.

parking/street sweeping tickets.

repairs and upkeep.

i suck at driving.

wow, that's a lot more negatives than i anticipated. this requires some serious thought.

isolation

2009-05-29T19:57:00.003-05:00

i am the pinnacle of this web 2.0 iteration. the ultimate output. bombarded by tweets and FB statuses, i am entertained utterly without having to interface with anyone on a face-to-face basis. why have RL friends when you have crappy quiz after crappy quiz? why search for anything that piques your interest when it's handed to you via multiple Tweetdecks? i never even have to go anywhere again, as long as i have "friends" all over the world posting to Flickr, Tumblr and YouTube. one day the need for real human interaction will be a distant memory. maybe then i will finally be happy.

a brief missive

2009-04-28T08:41:00.003-05:00

THERE ARE SHITLOADS OF GIRLS ON THE INTERNET GET USED TO IT YOU UNWASHED ANUSJOCKEYS

that is all.

crappy anniversary

2009-04-13T20:33:00.003-05:00

how fitting that i made a bittersweet pudding pie for my fifth anniversary at work today. i've had the best and the worst times of my life due to, and sometimes in spite of, my current place of employment...which i wish desperately to leave.

i temped there for almost two years before they finally let me on board. just because the previous two temps turned out to be duds, it didn't mean i was, but no matter. now those two are gone, one off to grad school, the other fired. god, she was something else. in my weaker moments i understand her ever-growing spaciness, which many attributed to drugs.. she wasn't of their ilk either, yet she insisted on staying in the industry, i hear. if you're not 100% devoted to finance - and you're low on vacation time - working there will literally drive you mad.

i'm so exhausted all the time, i just want someone to take over my life so i don't have to think about it anymore. guide me, direct me, i'll do whatever you want, as long as you actually give a shit about my well-being and not just about money. that's all we do. we serve no other purpose except to make ourselves money. that is our greater good. in this economy we're doing a damned good job of it, but i've got to let it go. i've got to convince myself that i'm capable of breaking the tether, of doing something else besides what i've done for the past five years, even if it's sweeping up hair clippings or prepping the hog-rendering vat.

the catch-22, of course, is i'm so stressed i don't know what i can do anymore. i want to stop now, which is such a bad idea on so many levels...it makes me want to sleep. for a really, really long time. and not wake up until there's someone standing over me who will stroke my hair and take me away from all of it.

these are dark times.

because we are not "owed" flowers and jewelry

2009-02-04T09:28:00.002-06:00

one of these years i'd like to have a boyfriend during Valentine's Day, just so i can participate in the great practice that is Steak and a Blowjob Day. seriously, people, i'm all about equality.

sentience?

2009-01-12T20:31:00.003-06:00

my Rush obsession has come back to bite me in the ass, with a little help from Apple.

i uploaded a double live disc onto my iPod last week. something went wrong somewhere, as that album has replaced several songs. i've found two so far, both different artists. it plays as if it's Rush, but the tag info and duration show up for the "host" song on the screen. i've never had this happen in any other circumstance. just fuckin' weird.

a cautionary tale?

2009-01-10T14:27:00.003-06:00

@#%@$J@#X$I@J#RW#OIJQX@IO#$JAW IRJA#I%YVOW%$JYIW$J%^J#$XIQO#RJSAEOI%TJ$^IOJhy!!!!

now that i have that out of my system...

it's snowing like bastard here and has been all night. in weather like this, my brain sometimes takes a leave of absence and i get the urge to go out in it and take pictures. i formulated a plan to travel to Graceland Cemetery, which is extraordinarily pretty in the snow.

since i'm such a lazy bugger, my memory card was still full from my trip to Seattle in September. i never reinstalled my Canon-sanctioned software for downloading my pictures, so i used Picasa instead. i picked a directory that i'd been using with Picasa before, so there were some pics already in it. one of the options was, "after photos are downloaded, what do we do with the card?" naturally i picked "wipe," since 1. i wanted to make room for dead people, and 2. i'm a massive bonehead.

photos downloaded, card was wiped, hooray. i went to check out my photos. ...except... where's the directory i just put them in? Picasa had deleted the whole thing. not moved, not put them somewhere else, not put the folder in the recycling bin, it deleted them all. why? why the fuck would it do this? why wouldn't it at least recycle them? and why did i have an outside program delete all my precious goddamn photos? now i have to see if i can recover them using some deletion recovery program which will probably eat half my hard drive. and, i'm not outside with dead people. fuck.

update: i managed to recover all photos off my mem card using FreeUndelete. mega-whew. Picasa, however, is now on my shit list.

CNBC: wtf?

2009-01-06T16:00:00.002-06:00

it baffles me that CNBC, presumably one of the more high-profile finance channels geared towards bigwigs, would run scads and scads of infomercials. Billy Mays? gold dollar coins? the Snuggie? i've seen classier commericals during sporting events. with men in them.

rawrrr

2009-01-05T12:00:00.004-06:00

it's the new year, and somehow i'm bereft of pithy clichés. highly unusual.

new(er) bits in the house of geekgrrl:

i finally sold my soul and joined Facebook. the worst part? it's not that bad. i haven't put up any "flair" or thrown "snowballs" or "octopi" or anything at my "friends," mostly because i can't figure out how to get those things on my page. (i have poked someone, but that's a private matter.) i joined to legitmately flesh out the network of people i know. so far it's gone all right.

i took up a 21-day trial at Fitness Formula Clubs, courtesy of my boss. looks like you get a lot of shit, but it also costs a lot of dough. it'd be nice to swim daily or take as many classes as i want, but i really don't know if it's worth $113 a month, especially when my office gym costs $20.

my Rush obsession continues unabated. i tend towards compulsive thinking, but this is ridiculous: it's been almost non-stop since Thanksgiving. i've d/l'd several albums; i bought the "Moving Pictures" Rock Band 2 bundle; i have an all-Rush radio station running through my head. i'm even enjoying "Presto" (sorry Scott). it's really, really weird - and not very like me - to "rediscover" something like this, a band i've grown up with all my life. sure, i've grown up with the Beatles and the Who too, but this feels different.. a missing, yet omnipresent soundtrack to all the geek stuff that defines me. everything's clicking: the sound, the lyrics, the vocals, the musicianship, the subject matter.. it's all i want to listen to right now. to me it's beautiful and gives fire to my imagination. most of my obsessions fade out as quickly as they come on, disappearing as soon as something else grabs me. i hope this one sticks around.

i've given brief thought to returning to school. very brief, in fact; i don't even know what i'd want to do yet. but a very generous Xmas bonus may propel me towards a refined education. stay tuned?

old bit:

i still fuck up the first time i try to code lists.

lifetime guarantee

2008-12-17T22:09:00.002-06:00

it's good to know that after all these years, "The Pass" by Rush still brings me to my knees.

the edge

2008-11-12T20:58:00.004-06:00

finished House of Leaves today. i also just reinstalled Photoshop, after an unfortunate happenstance (read: i fucked up) prompted me to give Windows a do-over. one of my favorite things to do in PS is fuss around with text. i fired up a clean, new image and started typing.

now fucking Courier is making me hyperventilate.

adventurism

2008-10-24T05:50:00.003-05:00

a concatenation of guilt, emotional hurt and internal personality disorders can lead to some new, interesting experiences.

like, for example, drinking an entire bottle of wine in two hours.

it's gonna be a long day.

a long, bleak stretch

2008-09-10T13:34:00.005-05:00

so i went to Seattle for PAX over Labor Day weekend. for those not in the know, PAX is a convention for gamers put on by the guys from Penny Arcade. it was an incredible experience, but the actual con could have been better, i felt. i spent a lot of time waiting in lines (which had its own social dynamic) and not enough time actually enjoying games. or gamers.

for i knew when i went to this thing, one of the main positives would be that i would be amongst...my people. yes, gamers can be elitest, fanatical, vulgar and dangerously unkempt, but they just get it as far as games are concerned. somehow or another, games drew us all to that nexus for three interminably short days. by a vast margin, everyone was cool with each other; i didn't see any fights or even serious disagreements, mostly support and enjoyment.

perfect example: i met up with my Team Fortress 2 clanmate Steve (aka mentok1982) from Baltimore. he'd been to PAX last year and was a hugely rabid Penny Arcade fan. for once i didn't feel like a complete freak for knowing certain comics by heart; here was someone filling in my sentences. we listened to many a PA podcast over the duration (shamefully, i had only listened to one all the way through). he rekindled my love of Korn and gothiness. we went on about TF2, Fallout 3, Prince of Persia, Left 4 Dead, Far Cry 2.. he watched me headshot an expert gamer chick in Unreal Tournament 3, along with a smallish crowd. it was pretty damn cool. i was simply drenched in everything that i love, and i was among people who felt the same way i did.

since it was chilly in Seattle (mid-60s compared to Chicago's mid-80s), Steve kept letting me borrow his cozy Black Mantle hoodie, sprung full-force from this strip, which is one of my faves. i can't explain it; it almost makes me hallucinate with twisted laughter. anyway, when i got home i got the bright idea to buy one for work, since i'm always freezing my ass off. it just came today, all black and forboding and inside-jokey.

and that's what's getting me. i had a strong suspicion that depression would settle upon me once i got back, but the full reality hasn't hit me until now.. until i'm sitting here at work, behoodied, with no one — no one who gets the joke. goddammit, do i really have to wait another year to feel like i belong somewhere again?

snapshots of breakfast at corner bakery

2008-08-06T13:58:00.003-05:00

standing at the counter waiting for them to finally ring up my shit. i saw a couple come up to the counter, a young girl and an elderly man. the man asked for a cinnamon raisin bagel, then immediately repeated his order, loudly. counter girl asked him if he wanted it toasted. the man asked, "does that cost extra?"

a very obese woman languished at the counter, waiting on her order. this would not be notable if she had not been wearing black socks with little snowmen on them. in august. i realize that maybe sometimes you don't care what you throw on...but seriously?

highlight of my day (so far)

2008-08-02T14:03:00.002-05:00

hearing Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine sing the 7th inning stretch at Wrigley Field. there's so much wrong with that statement, it's beautiful. i knew he was local, but i never thought... it just sets up the old dynamic of him vs. Zack de la Rocha. i can see both of them in my mind, Zack with this really pissed off look on his face, about to punch someone; and i pan over to Tom, lounging on a sofa playing Xbox, telling him to chill and not be such a douche. on a very basic level, i love that man.

sick of everything

2008-07-28T16:53:00.002-05:00

seriously. my ipod's dragging, my tried-and-true movie faves don't appeal.. i've even come down off my Horrible high. (fun while it lasted!) i did see a music vid (they still have those?) on friday that stayed with me the whole weekend. it's an Australian band called Eskimo Joe. never heard of em, but they've got an '80s/early '90s rock sound with a touch of the creepy. i dig the guy's voice, too. i'm sure my endorsement will make them happier than they've ever been.

other than that obsession...bleh. i want to get out and consume some new media!

for one week only!

2008-07-16T21:40:00.003-05:00

okay. it won't make a lick of difference, but as someone working her way through "Firefly" and an occasional blogger, i have to do this:

a supervillian musical with Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion and.. you know what, just watch it. it's less than 14 minutes long and it's really fucking funny.

growing up

2008-07-08T14:43:00.002-05:00

is it bad that i still count my age in months? as of tomorrow, i will be 28 and 10 months old. god, that looks so queer...like i'm gearing up for an old-timey headstone.

remind me...

2008-07-07T11:59:00.003-05:00

...never to eat eggs again. oh my lard, i feel horrible. like i did 5,000 situps yesterday and drank vodka in lieu of sleeping.

speaking of aching body parts, strangely enough, i danced at neo on saturday and i feel fine. so far. there's still a chance i will be kicked in the ass by ~~lactic acid buildup~~ "delayed onset muscle soreness." (shit, wikipedia tells me lactic acid isn't a valid excuse for sore muscles anymore. AP biology? debunkt!) it was a fun time regardless.. i knew far too few songs on the dance floor, even though i doubt they played anything past 2003. hell, they played "shake the disease," which i would hardly consider dancable. (it was early.)

whenever i go, i'm consistently amazed at how some of the angriest music ever made makes me so happy. the pounding bass, the tortured screams, the clang of synthesizers...it's all so lovely. i really am a very violent person. i dance violent, in a "get the fuck away from me" manner. it takes on a cleansing property, which indicates i'm getting out some very bad stuff...or i need massive amounts of intense therapy. probably both.

another QotD

2008-06-27T09:36:00.001-05:00

from a Chicagoist post on 6/26:

"In the eternal battle of Ninjas v. Pirates, the dark-horse winner is always Vikings."

now that i think about it, this makes total fucking sense.

crises

2008-06-17T08:59:00.003-05:00

lately i've been feeling the drag of time upon me. with the passing of kristin's grandmother, several friends getting married, and my 29th birthday soon to come, i have to wonder just what makes a life. rather, what makes my life. if i waste it, is it such a huge deal? what makes another person's accomplishments that much grander, on the timewise scale of humanity?* not to be trippy or morbid, but we are all just blips in the universe. it could give less of a shit about us. (that's why i love Douglas Adams so much.)

back to earth. i've noticed that my pervasive feeling of uselessness and boredom is most prominent at work. (shocker.) this used to be a high-stress job. i'd come in at quarter to 7, be a flurry of activity for most of the day with much sweating and teeth-gnashing, and not get out until at least 5. now i'm lucky if i get data entry stuff to put in once an hour. the rest of the time is gobbled up by refreshing my bookmarks ad nauseum. and yet...the stress continues. due to the early hours and what i assume is my recent exercising, i've been more and more of a zombie at my job. i'm just...not...here. i can barely function. it's pretty damn concerning.

well, get another job, you say. fine. except:
- it pays well. i've got money saved, but i'm terrified of losing it all. on the other hand, sometimes i wonder why i have money saved at all; i never do anything with it.
- i'm not qualified for anything else. hell, i got this gig through a temp agency. there's no way i could have snagged this on my own; i think i'm the only one in my office without a college education. what's the solution to that? either:
- going to school full-time, which costs tons of money, or
- taking night classes, which.. well, if i'm a zombie now, i dread to think of what would become of me then. i don't have the drive.

now i'm starting to sound like a whiner. which is valid. but i just don't know how to balance what i need with what i want...especially when the former impedes upon knowing the latter.

* i almost typed "hunanity," which made me hungry for lo mein.

QotD*

2008-06-04T14:10:00.003-05:00

"Day 184. Still can’t go outside. Monkeys waiting to fist me with robot arms."

* nevermind that it was written on the 29th, i haven't read it in a while.

good lord i'm 30 (in another year and three months)

2008-05-27T16:42:00.003-05:00

i just realized today that i will turn 30 on 9/9/09. or, to put it a spookier way, 09/09/09. (aside: does this mean i'm the antichrist? or the antiantichrist? if that's the case, y'all are fucked.)

as much as i hate to dwell on my rapidly approaching milestone, i can't help but think i have to do something batshit crazy to celebrate that date. maybe if i save up now, i can book one of those individual flights to the moon...good luck to my party guests on pulling that one off.

current obsessions

2008-02-17T23:54:00.007-06:00

lindsay buckingham - 'go insane.' heard it on the radio last week for about five seconds and had to get it. i'm sure i've heard it at some other point in my life, cuz it sounded vaaaaguely familiar. the chorus is so fuckin' catchy i think i've got an infection.

little debbie nutty bars. i had a dream about these things a few weeks ago.. i was eating a chocolate/wafer/peanut butter bar but i didn't know what it was. one of those itchings in the back of your brain, y'know? well, i went to the store today and locked eyes with the object of my obsession. didn't get any after seeing the unholy amounts of fat in them, but it's good to know what they are!

caffeine. i think i'm back on the horse again.. and just when kim quits starbucks. thanks for nothing.

games in general. i haven't gamed this much in a long time.. PC, wii, emulator, and oh yeah.. i got the DS. squee!

note: obsessions subject to change at any time. if you do not agree with current obsessions, please wait half an hour.

consume, consume, CONSUUUUUME!!

2008-02-05T12:28:00.000-06:00

i sure hope the senate passes that there economic stimulus package, cuz i gots me somethin' to buy:

http://kotaku.com/351504/its-official-nintendo-announces-cobaltblack-ds-lite

and of course, once that's in my grubby little mitts, it's only natural to wanna do this:

http://frodo.dyn.gno.org/~brettk/NetHackDS

yeehaaw!

genius

2008-01-22T14:10:00.001-06:00

funniest, most awesome, seemingly non-sensical sentence i've read today:

'his special move is to walk out and lick his cathole, causing one point of damage to all enemies.'

this is, of course, describing the upcoming 'penny arcade adventures episode 1: on the rain-slick precipice of darkness.' if you'll excuse me, i have to run to the bathroom now, weeping with hilarity.

memory loss

2008-01-22T12:27:00.000-06:00

(excuse the capitals...MS Werd overrode my dashing style)

I was doing my daily crossword on the train this morning when I came across something odd. For the life of me, I couldn’t remember the capital of Oregon. Not only did I not remember it, it was one of those things I couldn’t recall ever knowing, even though I know I knew it. (what a mental mouthful.) The only city I could even think of in Oregon is Eugene, and that’s because it was mentioned in a Futurama episode I saw last night.

This is seriously disturbing. I pride myself on my rote memorization ability, and to find it’s disintegrated? And over something as simple as state capitals? I wish this were something new, but it’s not. I often have conversations, then can’t recall what I said five minutes later. (This was particularly true of convos with my abusive ex. Made defending myself hell on earth.) Thoughts of the A-word have popped up in my head from time to time. My step-grandfather died from it, but he wasn’t blood, so I thought I was safe.. until I found out recently that my paternal grandfather died from it, too. On top of that, I know my memory has gone steadily downhill, probably since I graduated high school. I figured part of it might be because I didn’t really _have_ to memorize anything anymore, at least not for memorization’s sake. Another part of it might be the amount of games I play and the degree I get swallowed by them, not taking in any other information.

Then I read this.

Sadly, it makes a lot of sense. I’ve been listless and mopey the past couple days.. coupled with my unique flavor of tired, it’s not as jarring that I couldn’t remember Salem. (it still sounds weird to me, though.) The pros are I don’t think I have to worry about Alzheimer’s quite yet, and there may be a legitimate reason for my mental lapses. The cons? Well…what am I going to do about it?

all in the name of pretty girl science

2007-12-17T21:02:00.000-06:00

i just did something incredibly silly and extremely geeky.

i'm on a venture brothers kick lately. my ex patrick first introduced me to them over the summer. i was instantly hooked by the ultra-violence, obscure pop culture references and classic comic book drawing style. there are so many great characters, but the monarch and dr. girlfriend are just such an awesome, awesome pairing.

in one episode, dr. girlfriend is asked what shade of lipstick she wears. she replies, 'pink poodle...it's a MAC color.' i love her lipstick on the show, so i paid special attention to this...the makeup worn by a fictional cartoon character. yeah, i need help.* forever after, MAC cosmetics - which i knew was a high-end line, but that's about it - has become linked in my mind with the venture brothers. for further strengthening, saturday night i stumbled upon a mockup on co-creator doc hammer's deviantart page for a DIY triana orpheus costume. what lipstick does she wear? MAC's cyber. not just any cheapass purple lipstick put out by walgreens at halloween, like you'd expect from a proper goth teenager! no, she wears a $14 tube of lipcolor i've never heard of. hilarious.

so tonight my xmas shopping took me to (ugh) macy's, where they have a MAC counter. every time i passed it i smirked to myself. when i was done with consuming, i passed by one more time.. and thought, why not? why not try to find cyber and pink poodle, for some S&G? cyber was easy enough; the counter girl looked like she ate it for breakfast and pointed it right out when i asked. and there, at the top of the lipglass display, was a very pink poodle. mirthed, i had no reason to stay...except they all looked like really nice colors, especially that one there, the mattene shade.. can i try it on even if i have a cold? i can? how's it look? ...sigh, yeah, i'll take it.

long story short, i blew $14.50 on lipstick that i never, ever would have bought if it weren't for that meddling TV show. on the bright side, it's really nice stuff, and i think it looks damn good on me. it just better justify its cost in the long run.

* what really got me was listening to the directors' commentary on the DVD.. doc hammer, who voices dr. girlfriend, thought they might get free product out of the mention. they didn't, but i found it highly amusing that two raunchy, smartass guys were hoping to get free makeup out of a plug on their show.

snapshots of a work christmas party

2007-12-12T17:34:00.000-06:00

our party was at the 10 pin lounge next to the house of blues. it's the third year in a row we've done bowling. some thoughts on the evening:

- the party was slated to start at 6; most of the guys were going to go downstairs after work at 4. eric went on a beer run around 2. cuz two extra hours of drinking isn't enough.
- i left later than the others.. took a cab to the joint and looked around. no one there.
- found the boys in an opulent lounge off the sax hotel. this is the kind of joint you do opium in. they even offered an absinthe cocktail (absente, sugar and water), about which i inquired intensely, but declined when the waitress said no one she'd served it to yet had liked it, and that it tasted like 'rubbing alcohol.' not a good choice for the first drink of the night.
- instead, i got the girliest drink on the planet, a lotus martini. dark pink drink with a pink flower for garnish. which, naturally, i wore.
- the big boss in dallas made us all bowling shirts, replete with names (and a pocket!). pretty snazzy.
- treated to the sight of a hunky coworker changing into his shirt right there in the alley. he was wearing an undershirt, but he was nice enough to take that off too. wish i'd gotten a picture.
- we took a group picture in our shirts, in the hopes of making it into our holiday card. a glass was broken during the proceedings. no matter; they just knelt amongst the shards. good thing, too, or else those pictures would never have been taken.
- someone chose three tool songs from the video jukebox. i never thought i'd see 'prison sex' in any setting with my coworkers. thanks to whoever did that; no joke.
- couldn't breathe for most of the night. i carried my hand sanitizer everywhere i went. like i'm not enough of a dork already.
- i bowled a 34, which i'm blaming squarely on my horrible cold.
- at one point a pin got stuck in the gutter. mark asked one of our waitresses to go down and fix it. so she hauled her skinny gum-smacking ass down to the end of the lane to the tune of catcalls and hooting. upon returning, she got a hearty outbreak of applause. in that instant, i hated the entirety of earth.
- near the end of the night, i got into a conversation with wallace, one of our guys out in cali. he mentioned that he writes, and we got on the subject of poetry and hemingway. he's actually convinced me i might have to go back and check hemingway out again. patrick will be so proud.

my regrets? having this stupid cold, only having two drinks because of this stupid cold, missing work today so i can't see how the hangovers turned out/who showed up. that's usually the best part. oh well.. there's always next year.

a warning

2007-12-07T10:15:00.000-06:00

do not fall asleep with a cold-eez lozenge in your mouth. ever. i'll be lucky if i taste anything else ever again.

gingerblog 2007: gaming edition

2007-12-05T19:22:00.000-06:00

so last year i did this gingerbread thing, right. you might have read about it. since i like questioning my sanity every once in a while, i decided to keep the tradition alive again this year. the only thing is...the 'test market' is a remarkably small audience. not as small as it was a few months ago, but no one in my immediate physical circle (except one) will understand what the eff i'm doing. in short, this one's for me. (and my gaming clan, and my online friends, and a few thousand kotaku readers.)

a longass time ago, i played an online computer game called mega team fortress. when i say played it, i mean i played the fuck out of that bitch. i had no job, was out of school.. i was the archetypical nerd living with her mom and staying up until 5 am playing a mod of a mod of a mod of quake 1. (funny, the more i write, the less nostalgic i become.) i got involved in the community, created my own maps.. even my first four boyfriends (ever!) came out of playing this game. to say i loved mega was probably an understatement.

i started playing in november '98; it had already been around for a while before that. it started out with people playing many different maps, a different map for every server, if you will. as the years wore on, the number of popular maps dwindled, until most capture-the-flag servers were playing a map called 2fort5. two forts facing each other, one for the red team, the other for blue. simple enough. that and a few scant other maps were still being played when i left the scene. (to show what it looked like, a thoughtful fellow put up a mega TF 2fort5 rampage up on youtube. i never thought i'd see the day!)

skip forward to october, 2007. slavering geeks everywhere went mad with ecstasy over the orange box, which included a little game called team fortress 2. i was one of those geeks, secretly pining for my own TF days of yore. sure, i played a variation of TF, but who's counting? naturally since 2fort5 had been so popular in the first Team Fortress (and i'm guessing team fortress classic for half-life, but i never played that), valve decided to remake the old standard, complete with intelligence rooms, chicken wire and cows. aside from a few minor differences, it's the same 2fort i love, hate and know to an embarrassing degree.

that degree's going to get even more embarrassing when i undertake this year's holiday project: 2fort, gingerbread style.

now that's all well and good. it shouldn't be *too* tough.. no ceiling, two stories (three if i can figure out how that would work).. a structure not unlike a dollhouse with sniper decks. for the most part, i'm forgoing the fanciness of the new 2fort and kind of getting back to basics. what i'm really digging on are the nine different character classes in TF2. valve executed them with such graphical and stylistic brilliance that i want to bring them into my little gingerbread world. so, to go along with 2fortgb, i will attempt to render each of the nine classes in fondant. this is where i take flight and delve deep into the heart of madness.

however, to show it's not impossible (and how much i need a date), i gave the pyro a go a couple nights ago. keep in mind this is ONLY A PROTOTYPE. the finished pyro will lookd a damn sight better. if not, i'm feeding them all to neighborhood cats and taking up cross-stitch.

shame on you, wamu

2007-10-30T13:54:00.000-05:00

a washington mutual saga:

bought a glut of computer parts at the end of september. shipment was delayed due to mismatched address. huh.. i switched my address over in may 2006 with no problems. whatever. resubmitted the orders.

tried to buy a separate LCD monitor. same problem: address didn't match. i couldn't seem to buy anything else online, either.. my card wasn't being accepted.

visited wamu directly. they told me my problems stemmed from my debit card expiring in november, and that they sent out a new card oct. 1.

waited three weeks. worried about chicago's craptastic mail system misdelivering my card, or perhaps losing it entirely.

visited wamu again. this time they told me two things:
1. somehow the active period on my card for my old address had been changed from 2004-2006 to 2004-2056, trumping my current address; and
2. they never sent the new card.
got them to fix the address mess and get the new card sent.

tried to get money yesterday from two different machines. both told me 'unauthorized access.' had to put off buying new gaming headphones, not to mention getting cash (without huge fees), paying for things, etc. until my new card arrives.

thankfully, the new card was in my mailbox when i got home. but what if it hadn't been? my CTA card's almost empty, my wallet's packing nothing but flies, and i sure as hell ain't carrying around checks with me. and if my card had been put into the wrong hands, say so long to my bank account. fucking anyone could have activated it. they don't ask for anything person-specific, just for you to call from your home number (which i didn't - i used my cell, which still worked). besides, the old card shouldn't have been deactivated until the new one was active anyway. thanks, wamu, you should know better than this.

the Zeusaphone

2007-10-21T19:13:00.000-05:00

here's one of those instances where i find something cool - not just kinda cool, forgettably cool, but intensely, blow-you-away, kick-my-ass cool. i was researching brass instruments on wikipedia in a move that will hopefully become apparent soon, when one of the related links pointed to something called a 'zeusaphone.' in a nutshell, it's a tesla coil engineered to produce sounds with every discharge of electricity. oh my jesus, is it cool. i guess it was just invented/discovered this year by a U of I electrical engineering student. (woo illinois! and such) a description would not be complete without the appropriate visual aids:

there's also a more linear youtube vid with two (2!) coils playing out 'dance of the sugar plum faeries.' i'd totally pay to see this; this guy should do a tour. ..except maybe he should skip rhode island.

the universe can stop shitting on me now

2007-10-01T21:10:00.000-05:00

earlier today i wrote about how i poured almost a paycheck's worth of money into a new gaming rig. i bought all the stuff through newegg, which is pretty much my go-to for all things computer (now that fucking comp usa up and left). i come home from work tonight to find an email in my yahoo inbox. it's more than just a 'we received your order and it's in process.' it's more of a 'there was a problem and we need you to verify that your shipping information is the same as what your card has on file, even though you've ordered plenty of stuff with us before through the same card with no problems.' now maybe this is my mistake, since i can't check yahoo at work and now have to wait a whole extra day, but.. no. it's THEIR fuckup. this is $1200 worth of merchandise they're now sitting on for no logical reason. and i put a rush fucking order on it, too, so i'd have it in time to game for the three-day weekend. four days left, fuckos.

next item of business in karmic fuckery: the cubs game on wednesday? you know, the first game of the post-season, of which the cubs (the cubs!!) are a part? 9 pm CST start time. so i get to watch about an hour of it, maybe an hour and a half, before i have to sleep. brilliant decision there. i know programmers and the MLB are counting on nationwide cubs fans to stay glued to their sets until midnight, but come the fuck on. that's just not fair. and what about people on the east coast? talk about screwed. how can you appreciate the adrenaline of playoff baseball when your eyelids keep drooping? dumb.

finally (for now), i was flipping through my handful of HD channels i can get over-air with my antenna. one of my favorite discoveries when i first got my HDTV was a channel called The Tube. it's kinda like how MTV used to be, back when they actually played music. all videos, some old, some new, most i hadn't seen in forever ('orange crush,' anyone?). i just saw a commercial on WGN for the Tube last night, advertising it as 9.2 on your digital stations. that's what made it so unbelievable that when i flipped to the Tube just now, i was greeted by a screen that said it was now off the air. a trip to their website confirms it. what the fuck? i can accept that it's off the air (give me a few days, though.. that really sucks), but why show a commercial a day before yanking it? why bother? 'there's this cool music channel out there that you might not know about, and guess what? you never will! hahaha!'

i don't fucking get it.

dangerous living

2007-10-01T09:22:00.000-05:00

last night was very special. i did it. i took the plunge. it'd been a few years coming...but i finally got around to buying parts for a new computer. i feel so much better now. (well i would if i'd gotten a decent sleep last night.)

only about $1200 all told. however, that's before i drop more coin on a flatscreen LCD monitor (i'm thinkin' 19", or whoever has the best deal) and, naturally, games. i've done this twice before.. the morning after is usually spent still sifting through computer websites, hoping desperately that i made the right choices. we will see in a few days!

very, VERY belated thanks to mr. becker...

2007-09-28T17:13:00.001-05:00

remember that little gingerbread house i cooked up nearly a year ago? i just found out today that lynn becker, chicago architectural critic extraordinare, mentioned me in his blog. why oh why didn't anybody tell me? i feel like a goon. never again will i speak ill of those who google themselves, for otherwise i NEVER would have known.

ah, wilderness!

2007-09-26T13:58:00.000-05:00

so i went camping this weekend. it's something kim and our mutual friend kristin do every year, but i've never gone with until now. and up until this point, the only camping i've done are the cabin and RV kind. i haven't blogged about it until this point because i've been laid up with se-vere bug bites on my ankle. (more on that later.) we went to lake kegonsa state park, a very pretty slice of land in southeast wisconsin. a few highlights:

after a hectic half-day at work, we set off for wisconsin. thankfully our campsite was gorgeous, although we can't say the same for our neighbors. we became very familiar with the exploits of one 'skylar' and her hardcore wisconsin mother. oi. the weather seemed hot, but otherwise perfect.. until kim broke out the weather radio. severe thunderstorms, it said. heading our way, it said (in its creepy text-to-speech voice). maybe they'll miss us, we said. alas, it was not to be. rain started falling while we ate our salmon dinner; it was all over after that. it probably didn't stop until around 11, with us falling asleep far before that. we still got in a few ghost stories, though. not the best thing to read before sleeping. i should know that by now, right?

our main activity for saturday was visiting with my aunt judie and cousins micki and dan. i saw judie and micki after christmas, but i hadn't seen dan for about 25 years. yeah. we met at a mcdonald's in janesville, about 25 miles from our campsite, and then went to our family graveyard. jesus, that's weird to write. i've never seen anyone buried that i'm related to, but apparently at westville cemetery near elkhorn, i'm related to everybody there. wild, huh? westville was named after a bunch of folks named west, who intermarried with another family named hodges. a ton of them are buried there, along with some interlopers i don't know about, but who are undoubtedly a part of the family. some time ago, a woman gave my aunt a book that detailed three families, one of them being the hodges; i think it was my paternal grandmother's maiden name. in the book were photos taken of the cemetery in the early '80s, when the book was done. so, in effect, we were able to compare westville today to the westville of 20+ years ago. it was amazing. my little cousins (once removed? i forget how that works when they're the kids of your first cousin), isabelle and zoe, ran around doing crayon rubbings of gravestones, which i've always wanted to do. it's so great to instill a sense of history and familiarity with cemeteries in youngsters. does my black heart good.

we ate lunch in abbel's corners, just a stone's throw away from the cemetery, then went to an ice cream shoppe in whitewater. for some reason i thought a malt would give me less ice cream than two scoops or whatever, so i ordered a blue moon malt. christ, they must have put seven bloody scoops in there. it was good, but i couldn't finish it for the life of me. down the street we found a consignment shop that also had three cats up for adoption. that was where i met my first autistic kitten (which, if it weren't kinda sad, would make a great band name). at least, the shop owner *said* he was autistic (and not to touch him), but i'd never heard of such a thing, nor did i find any info on the 'net when i got home. he was an adorably tiny stripey thing who never stopped moving and hardly ever made eye contact.. he looked ADHD to me. i hope he gets a good, caring home, i really do.

since the weekend was pretty nice (save for the rain), it wouldn't have been complete without a total cluster saturday night. i was a little tweaked mentally.. visiting a family boneyard was a lot to take in, plus i wasn't looking forward to sleeping in a tent in a pitch dark campground again. friday night was effing spooky for me. kristin and kim wanted to take me out to a field to see all the stars. sounded cool. we swung by the flush toilets in the car on the way. while kristin did her business, kim and i sat outside.. and wondered wtf was happening when kristin's car alarm started going off. turns out she dropped her key fob in the toilet. the fob was shot; none of the buttons would work, including the panic button. kim got pissed at the constant alarm and slammed kristin's door, which pissed her off in turn; i just felt creeped out and a little nauseous and wished to god i was in my own bed back home. after a few minutes of floundering, a ranger showed up, summoned by angry campers. thank goodness he did, too; we were on the outskirts of the camp, and it would have been a bitch to find the rangers' office in the dark. he disabled the audible part of the alarm, but the lights still kept going crazy inside the car, especially when kristin tried to start it. no dice. the deactivation switch didn't work and the alarm book had no code or instructions on disarmament. fun. eventually the ranger dug in under the steering wheel, removing fuses one by one and seeing if that would do it. it did. huzzah! thank you so much, ranger brian. i hope kristin made good on her promise to send you a fruit basket. :) and kristin: just thank your lucky stars it wasn't a pit toilet.

overall, i guess i'd give camping a 7 out of 10. yay for nature, getting away, hard work, barns and horsies, flame-grilled burgers, pumpkin farms and helpful rangers...nay to car mishaps, spontaneous t-storms, hungry insects, putting away tents and my own easily spooked self. those damned bugs.. they really went to town on me. i could barely walk yesterday. all the more reason to sit on my ever-widening ass.

did anyone see the decade that hit me?

2007-08-03T11:45:00.000-05:00

on wednesday, i got the dreaded email. it was from a girl i hadn't seen in many, many years. ten, to be exact. she was informing me of Fremd's 10-year high school reunion. dear god, did this day come so soon? sure, i think about my old school chumpals sometimes. and i figured, graduating in '97, that it should be coming sooner or later. but not, like, in reality! and definitely not now, at the near-nadir of my social life.

i've been fighting chronic lower back pain for about a month. don't know what i did. the only thing i can think is lifting my a/c unit into my window, then doing some crawling IT work at the office. even with that, after a few days of rest it should dissipate, correct? no dice. i don't care what anyone says, 27 is too young to get this kind of pain day after day. the ~~quack~~ doc put me on a naproxen regimen, basically superpowered aleve dosages twice a day for three weeks. so far the pain is still present.

as a result, i haven't wanted to do anything, including exercise. i haven't had too good a track record ever since the wedding; i'm starting to feel like a tub. i was pretty much a tub in high school, too, but damn if that isn't what i want to present. the thing's in roughly three weeks. three stinkin' weeks! i dunno, man. it's also $55 without a guest. i knew my school was well-off, but jeez. barring any unforseen events, i think i'll skip out. my only worry is i'll go to my 15th or 20th reunion instead...and have a heart attack when i see how old everyone is.

my day at pitchfork

2007-07-16T15:38:00.001-05:00

so. i ended up at pitchfork this saturday. somewhere along the way i got the lineup mixed up with lollapalooza's, and consequently thought there were much cooler bands (or at least ones better known to me) at the show. i absolutely knew i wanted to see Battles.. mark turned me onto them a few weeks ago and i got hooked on 'atlas' hardcore. plus he got me all hyped up by going on about how he saw them live and how mind-blowing it was. (damn him.) so when the opportunity to snag a press pass came up thru chicagoist, i jumped on it. i also wanted to see Girl Talk, but knew 90% of the crowd would want to see him/them too.

if it had been any other weekend, things might have turned out differently. i accepted the pass wednesday, then got slammed at work thursday and friday.. i had to cover for not one, but two people that were out. both days. not a happy camper was i. beyond that, my lower back and right ankle have been giving me problems, so i wasn't the most mobile of peeps. not what you want to have going on when you go to a huge rock festival. if i had a nickel for every broken branch i nearly rolled my ankle on, i'd be writing this on an iphone.

the weather was fantastic, but in my typical cloud of pessimism, i brought my umbrella just in case. skilling and all. i saw the first band, the Twilight Sad, a scottish band who had the lovely distinction of being called the Cunts in their homeland. if we weren't such pussies, they'd be called the Cunts over here, too. ..unless there's already a band called the Cunts here, which is a possibility. anyway, they were okay.. the frontman had a accent so thick you needed galoshes. feminine sigh.

i saw at least one girl who came prepared in that respect. dear god, some of the most questionable fashion choices went down on those grounds. oversized sunglasses? check. tweed fedoras? check. wide white studded belts? check. cowboy boots with shorts and skirts? check. neckerchiefs? check. feathered hair? check. long Journey-style hair? check. and so on. i felt like drew barrymore in 'never been kissed' or something, trying to infiltrate the valley of the hipsters in my pink gauzy blouse (yes, a legitimate blouse) and jean skort (oh yes, a skort). in retrospect, though, i'm glad i didn't have anything in my wardrobe that would have made me fit in. and you know what? while standing in line at various points, i could hear people behind me making fun of other people. sooo.. why dress like idiots again if no one believes in it? who exactly are you trying to impress?

after the Twilight Sad i lost interest in the stage and wandered around union park. i plunked down some cash for whatever Pinback CDs WLUW had for sale, trying to assuage my guilt on knowing most of their catalogue but not paying for any of it. *sheepish look* i took a look around at the crafts people had.. it smacked of the same ironic lemming mentality of everything else. a table proclaimed 'i love potatoes' and had pictures of potatoes shaped like hearts. that's great. this costs money? then there were the mounds of ironic tees and posters and fugly purses. i was interested in one guy's version of CTA signs; pretty good condition. but $40? for an 8"x10", when i could get my hands on a 12"x16" that was actually up in a station at some point, for half the money? they were in good condition would have been a great apartment addition, but come on. and shit, is that even legal? was the CTA getting a cut of his stuff? i didn't even check the prices on most other tables, for nothing really caught my eye.. until i came to a little comic book niche. figures i'd get sucked in by comics. i toyed with the idea of picking up gangsta rap coloring book, but got a little surprise for kim & scott instead. (shh!)

yeah, i felt old, which should not happen. i was just completely out of my element. and tired. and grumpy. and alone. it didn't help that i didn't know 95% of the bands playing. seriously, i like going to shows, but the huge outdoor fest isn't my style. hugeass lines, festering port-o-potties, swarms upon waves of people EVERYwhere. and i didn't even stay for the worst of it. i crammed my way in to see Battles, who totally rocked my sockless ass - 'fucking sick loops' i believe is how one guy described their style - and decided i'd review the food and go home. (the press pass didn't come NSA.. i had an article to write and wanted to cover as much as possible. oh yeah, i also felt like a tool in the press tent, since that's where people did interviews with the bands. you know, actual journalists.) i guess after i left it got mega packed, with basically nowhere to go if you didn't want to see a particular band. i can only imagine the lines to the ATM (just one), food vendors and port-o-potties. yuck.

it's the kind of thing i regret going to, but if i hadn't gone, i wouldn't know just how much i'd regret it. think i'll stick to club shows from now on. i just pray Pinback doesn't headline one of these things. oh, the dilemma..

what i do in my spare time

2007-06-22T22:34:00.000-05:00

every now and then i check out thinkgeek.com to see what fun, shiny things i would buy if i actually sold stuff on ebay. i will get a friggin shirt from there eventually, i swear. they sell a lot of stuff from penny arcade and they used to have a nifty blanket from megatokyo. amongst their wonderful geekery is das keyboard. i coveted that thing from the moment i saw it. what geek wouldn't want to display her prodigious typing skillz after she's used a computer day in day out for the past 15 years? i would have snapped one up but for the price: 80 skins. yeah, a blank black keyboard is cool and all, but to pay $80 for it? hell, i thought, i could make a keyboard like that.

...make a blank keyboard, you say?

like anyone wishing to take on a project, i turned to the internet. i quickly found this little tutorial on a site called sane asylum from a guy who had experienced the same indignance when faced with das keyboard's hefty price. being the pack rat that i am, i had an extra keyboard laying around that worked okay, except the spacebar is kinda jacked and leans to one side. perfect for experimentation.

i followed the steps as well as i could. i started out in summer of '05, i believe, then lost the verve and put it away for a while. lately i've been bit by the project bug again, so i dug the old beast out again and finished what little i had left to do tonight. behold, the final creation.

having done the entire tutorial, i'd like to review/simplify/decant it here:

1. clean. pry up all the keys with a flathead screwdriver (be careful with the big ones, there's probably something extra keeping them tethered) and clean it all out underneath, preferably with compressed air. wash the keys if you have to, i know i did. use gloves for all your tasks.
2. sand. 150 grit sandpaper works great. cut it up into strips and wrap it around a cylindrical object. i found a spray paint can worked best for me. caveat: you can't do this for any keys that have bumps, like F, J and 5 on the number pad. i accidentally sanded down my F key before i realized what i was doing. now i feel kind of lopsided. you also can't do this for big keys, like the space bar and backspace. you just have to sand evenly by hand and make sure to keep a smoothly curved surface. another thing: make sure to sand in whatever direction you want the end product to be in. i sanded my regular keys vertically and my space bar/ctrl/alt/etc keys horizontally. it was easier and it looks better.
3. smooth. here's where i differ from sane asylum, but only by circumstance. he advises 600 grit sandpaper to smooth out the roughness created by the heavy-duty second step, but even at the hardware store, the highest i could find was 320 grit. no matter, it worked fine.
4. shine. ultra fine steel wool put a nice gloss on the keys (that unfortunately is hard to show in pictures). i forwent the pliers and just held the keys in my hand, working them against the wool. easier to keep a straight line that way. the more shine, the more satiny and heavenly the keys feel as you type.

i'm really, really digging my new, fully-funtional toy. the keys feel extra nice in a way i've never noticed in a keyboard. i'm finding i still look to know what key i'm pressing, like in a cut/paste situation, but it's as if i instantly envision it in my mind anyway. my only regret is that i didn't practice on my lone black kb first, cuz that would have looked ultra sweet. but this way, i can mod it with paint or glaze and not have to worry about priming it. now i have the confidence to experiment with other keyboards for some antiquated steampunk effects... muahahah.

the creepy crawlies are here!

2007-06-19T17:53:00.000-05:00

it's about damn time! i'm finally seeing cicadas, almost a month into the invasion of brood xiii. however, the weird thing is, i'm seeing them downtown.

see, the creepy red-eyed buggers (unless they've got blue eyes.. huh, reminds me of a new order song) are out in droves, but only in certain parts of the city and suburbs. beverly in the south? check. downers grove? check. park ridge? my coworker lives there and man, do they gross her out. but around my neighborhood, i've seen nothing. neither have a lot of city-dwellers.

the theory is that brood xiii cicadas kind of got displaced during their 17-year hibernation due to 1. lack of a thorough root system (they burrow into the roots of trees), and 2. increased construction and ground turnover. easily believable, with the amount of development i see in some places. so in my mind, it would make sense if the severity of the swarm was ringed out in the burbs where there's more stable greenery, then lessening and lessening as you get closer to the epicenter of chicago, the loop.

like i said, it's all theory.. which was blown out of the water yesterday when i saw a live cicada in my office building lobby, right outside the elevators. i actually nudged it with my shoe, not knowing what it was and thinking it was dead. since i hadn't seen one, i didn't know it was a cicada at the time. then today after work, i saw another live one crawling near an underground parking ramp. i went to take a pic, but i forgot my non-digital macro sucks, so it flew away before i got a chance. i saw two more on my way to the train station, their bodies mangled by traffic.

it's weird, but pretty amazing at the same time. i lived out in the burbs during the last cicada freakout, but i don't remember a thing about it. it either wasn't that great or i was living in the wrong burb. but now, i can say yeah, i saw cicadas. i was part of the process. why, though, am i seeing them in what should be a cicada ghost town?

hatesong

2007-06-17T01:39:00.000-05:00

grrrrrrrrrrrrrr. so i had nothing going on this weekend, aside from some mucking around with my computer/tv setup. i haven't gone to the club for a while, so i thought, hey, why don't i go to the club? my legs hurt friday, so i put it off till saturday. and put it off.. and put it off.. until i was wide awake at midnight (damn iced raspberry mocha) and bored as shit. i figured, what the hell? i'd been jonesing for it for a few days, and they start the really good music after midnight as it is.

i got all dolled up and headed down to neo. little did i know i stumbled into an aftershow party for some band i've never heard of. seats were chained off. music was unfamiliar and worse, sub-par. worst of all, the dance floor was swarming, absolutely packed, with douchebags. it was as if they joined together to form one huge undulating douchebag. except they didn't undulate that much. i can't fucking stand when people get on the dance floor and don't dance. utterly foreign concept here. i don't care if you're drunk. if you're drunk you should be dancing more. and put that fucking sidekick away or i'm ramming it up your nose job.

goddamn. i go to neo to get AWAY from these fucking people. i could see goths around the fringes, watching instead of dancing. i wanted to walk up to someone and say 'wtf?' i left after about 25 minutes. was gonna walk home, but i could see the endless parade of soused yahoos shouting at me from beer gardens and threw in the towel. oh, and my cabbie was nice and creepy: after i got in, he sang 'pretty woman' in a very off-kilter voice. thank god he shut up after that.

$15 down the drain. left in my apt at 2 am to seethe and bitch. hey, craigslist is 24 hours, isn't it...

right up there with the 'bag-o-glass'

2007-06-16T21:34:00.001-05:00

in the spirit of chicagoist, i feel the need to recycle all the wonderful things i've seen on the internets lately. here's a blog post from a former associate editor of the aforementioned local website. i don't plan on having kids - i'd rather stick my head inside a hive of killer bees - but it makes me happy to see people like matt reproduce. we desperately need a new generation of well-read smartasses.

thomas the tank engine recall

but camo is SO out this year!

2007-06-16T01:51:00.001-05:00

ran across this while perusing the online version of the fortean times:

A Berkeley watchdog organization that tracks military spending said it uncovered a strange U.S. military proposal to create a hormone bomb that could purportedly turn enemy soldiers into homosexuals and make them more interested in sex than fighting.

Pentagon officials on Friday confirmed to CBS 5 that military leaders had considered, and then subsquently rejected, building the so-called "Gay Bomb."

[...] "The notion was that a chemical that would probably be pleasant in the human body in low quantities could be identified, and by virtue of either breathing or having their skin exposed to this chemical, the notion was that soliders would become gay," explained Hammond.

...

we have got some SERIOUS FUCKING PROBLEMS with this stupid asshole country.

the search continues

2007-06-15T12:49:00.000-05:00

crushing on a guy. pretty badly, in fact. quiet, works hard, some would say boring. i would say he's got great eyes, a sharp tongue and a wonderful scent (a mixture of fresh laundry and burberry). single, too, an amazing rarity.

he's also moving to new york in two weeks and won't be back for a long, long time.

back to the drawing board...

a white wedding

2007-06-04T16:10:00.000-05:00

so my sisty ugler got married yesterday. if anyone out there knows my sister, you know she's the goofiest, least fussiest, bullshit-less woman out there. she married scott, a man totally her equal. their wedding totally reflected their personalities. yeah, there was some behind-the-scenes drama and whatnot (her blog has some of those details), and i had to deal with being in the same state as my estranged father and his wife, but even that wasn't as bad as i feared it would be.

friday kim and i were going to pamper ourselves at a salon. she was due for a massage and mani, i was going for a mani and pedi. i took friday afternoon off, aiming to leave beteween 1 and 1:30 to get to a 2:10 vet appointment, then jetting to the 3:30 spa jobber. work problems meant i couldn't leave till 1:30 when i wanted to leave at 1:15, making me about 20 minutes late to the vet. even though i called ahead, i spent 45 minutes in the vet's waiting room, with the actual appointment taking about 20 minutes. long story short, i got to the salon at 4:20, forcefully missing the pedi entirely. yeah, the mani was the real reason i went, but i was sooo looking forward for high-paid slaves to work my callused feet to a buttery pulp. the topper? they made me pay for the pedi i missed. yay. (i went and got a much cheaper one the next day.)

saturday i got a ride from annette, a fellow bridesmaid, up to illinois beach resort in zion, where the wedding was taking place. really nice spot, steps away from a windswept beach. we went thru the rehearsal (think herding cats) then did the chancery for dinner (think tomato lemon cream angel hair pasta with italian sausage). mm. scott and a bunch of his friends from maine hung out till the wee hours with booze, but i left them to their own devices pretty early.

sunday we got all fussed up with makeup and hair. after all that noise was done, we were greeted with a beautiful june morning. we flew through the ceremony (clocked at an amazing nine minutes), but not so fast i didn't get a chance to hear the waves breaking behind us and an opportunity to put my waterproof mascara to the test. then, suddenly, a married couple was presented to us, traipsing down the aisle to sonic youth's version of the simpsons theme. it was glorious.

asides: i've been dieting hardcore to fit into this awesome dress i bought for $10 at a garage sale that just happened to be the same color as the other bridesmaid dresses. with the right application of shapewear, i managed to pull it off...all except for sitting down. ugh. so the reception was a bit difficult. i still managed to pack away a decent amount of french toast and sausage. brunch food ftw. did i also mention aunt flo decided to drop by that day too? oh well. also, i'm extra super thankful to patrick for coming as my date even though he'd worked a double shift at bubba gump shrimp co. to make up for time off sunday. i didn't get too many pictures since i was in the bridal party, but i got one of each bridesmaid, as well as kim, mom and plenty of my bouquet.

i ended up taking today off, not because i'm hung over (although patrick did scare me up a mighty nice piña colada), but because my damn throat hurt like a bastard from allergies and talking so much. i must now rest, and by rest i mean play mortal kombat. kim and scott go to disneyworld (yes, disneyworld) tomorrow for their honeymoon. i desperately want them to come back with a picture of scott splitting a 40 with mickey.

mortal kockup

2007-05-30T18:59:00.001-05:00

i don't blog much. and i usually don't blog about stuff that just took place. but i have to blow off some steam.

i've been waiting on mortal kombat: armageddon for the wii for ages now. pretty much since it was announced, at least since december. i put myself down for preorder at gamestop. the release date said sometime in february. no prob, i can wait a little while, right? while i waited (and waited and waited) i saw what all they were planning on doing with the wii controller. looked like some pretty nice shit. simple interface, good way to integrate the motion sensing capability. needless to say, i was stoked.

yesterday i got the call: it came in. since peapod came last night and i had to wait for it, i went out today instead and snapped it up. what i found when i got home was greatly disappointing.

it doesn't work with the wiimote.

i thought it was something i was doing. i even shut off the wii and turned it back on again. but no. i can bring up the wii 'home' page with the wiimote from within the game, i can navigate just fine with the thing outside of the game.. but the stupid game doesn't work with the innovative piece of machinery around which it was engineered. i finally got it to work with the gamecube controller, but who the fuck wants to do that? i bought it so i could rip out a man's spine out merely by waving my controller back and forth on a whim, not mashing buttons like every other gimpass figher!

i'm hoping i'm still at fault somehow. i'm gonna look around this morass called the internet and see if anyone's having the same problem. you'd think since nintendo pushed the release date so far back, they'd have put out something that works. i expect this kinda shit from sony or microsoft, not nintendo.

UPDATE: sigh.. false alarm. nowhere in the manual did it say to unplug any gamecube controllers if you wanted to use the wiimote. i unplugged it and voila. works like a charm (pretty much). now i gotta learn all those moves...

call me ms. augustus gloop

2007-05-27T20:09:00.000-05:00

been a while. i don't know what it is about blogging that makes me not want to do it. i figured i'd have filled up half the internet by now with crap from my brain.

my sister's getting married in exactly a week. yesterday we threw her her bachelorette party. we didn't bar-hop, we didn't hire a stripper, we didn't go to a wolves game (an act we have done in the past). what'd we do? we went on a chocolate tour of chicago. and omg, it was the best damn idea ever.

the entire tour took place in the gold coast/river north area of the city, all along michigan avenue. our tour guide was a spritely, animated woman that i never would believe ate a piece of chocolate in her life, just by looking at her. listening to her talk, though, you could definitely sense her passion for it. we hit six shops in about three hours, all giving out samples of some sort:

- teuscher, 900 n. michigan. sample: champagne truffles. it's a tiny shop with cute little european hand-made figurines that have chocolates inside. i'd never heard of the place, but it's what you think a typical small swiss chocolate place would be like. i bought a bar of 88% dark chcolate. they had 99%, but that plunge is just too deep right now.

- lindt, water tower place. sample: choice of raspberry, orange or dark truffles, along with a "spring" truffle of white and dark chocolate. one wall was floor-to-ceiling truffles, the rich, creamy truffles lindt is known for. a mother and her two kids kept darting in and out of our group, which got kind of annoying, but the truffles made everything bad melt away. i came away with a peanut butter truffle that i ate on the spot, a cherry & chilli dark chocolate bar, and a chocolate crème brûlée bar.

- godiva, water tower place. sample: chocolixir, a blended drink kind of like a frappucino without the coffee. holy SHIT. everything had been delicious up to this point, but the chocolixir blew me away. it was pure liquid chocolate that went down smooooth. nathan, one of the godiva workers, was very nice and looked quite good too...until he said he and his partner had just adopted triplets. goodbye, sex drive. i didn't buy anything, but am kicking myself for not getting their chocolate-covered raspberries.

- hershey's, 822 n. michigan. sample: reese's crispy crunchy bar. this was a marked step down from the other stops in terms of both atmosphere and selection, i felt. it was geared much more towards kids than the typical artistic chocolate shops, kinda like the disney of chocolate stores. plus the only thing that made our sample stick out was that it was new. i didn't turn it down, though.

- vosges, 520 n. michigan. sample: pieces of goji chocolate bars, which are made with goji berries and pink sea salt. this is the real reason i wanted to go on this tour. i've loved vosges ever since i picked up a naga bar from binny's on a whim. vosges is known for very unusual chocolate combinations, like olives, wasabi and curry powder. i blew the most money here with four bars: calindia, woolloomooloo, red fire, and mo's bacon, which had just debuted the day before. that's right, peeps, motherfuckin' bacon. (maybe that's what the "mo's" stands for?)

- moonstruck, 320 n. michigan. sample: an espresso-laden daisy made from dark chocolate. seats!! thank god they had seats, i was about to fall over from standing and walking and standing some more. moonstruck's a full-fledged café with lots of room, and not a few delicious truffles. i bought two truffles, amaretto and honey caramel, and was disappointed only when they were gone. if i hadn't been full up with sweets and nothing else, i would have gone for a peanut butter milkshake. oh well.

after the whole thing was over, we headed to goose island on clybourn for some much-needed real food. i ate so much yesterday after being on a diet for two months, i don't know how i wasn't majorly sick. i needed it bad, though. to be without chocolate for so long.. oh, the torture. the shame! now i just have to get through another week before i can start nibbling away at the treasures in my fridge...

fashion backward (and loving it)

2007-05-03T21:03:00.000-05:00

kim says i have an obsession with mary janes.

i say baby, i'm just gettin' started.

eureka!

2007-04-16T22:05:00.000-05:00

some time ago, i obtained my very first HDTV. silly me, i didn't really equip it with the right firepower, so it's been a very shiny, sleek paperweight as far as TV is concerned. games look orgasmic, but i've still had to hook up the old rabbit ears if i want to watch anything live.. and it comes in as well as on my sister's old hand-me-down rustbucket.

then i went to a droolery party on sunday at kristin's. her tech-savvy boy was on hand, scattering when we really got down to business. before he did, though, we got to talking about the fantastic reception they got on their own HDTV. (the cubs sucked with that much greater clarity!) rudy informed me that before they caved and got comcast digital, they'd had an HD antenna to pick up local channels. of all that i'd read about HDTVs, i didn't know it was possible to do such a thing, and without sacrificing a big chunk of my money and patience dealing with middleman satellite companies. i can't get directv through normal channels due to a partnership my landlords have.. and naturally the consumer connectivity with that middleman sucks donk.

fascinated by the idea that i don't have to settle for beautifully-rendered static, i went to radioshack to get an HD antenna. when i asked the guy if they had any, he said that *any* antenna would work to get HD channels. i resisted the urge to call bullshit, but resolved to try it at home.

with the help of antennaweb.org, i figured out what local HD channels correspond to what numbers. fox's normal chicago channel, for example, is 32; their HD channel is 31. and i swear, i'll be damned if i didn't connect my ancient rabbit ears, flip on 31...and see a crystal clear picture. granted, i forgot that they've moved the simpsons to 10:35, but i digress. it fuckin' worked! not only does that mean i can watch programs and not feel like a gimp.. it means i could have watched the entirety of March Madness while taking full advantage of my equipment. talk about mixed feelings.

someone left a cake out in the snow

2007-04-11T11:16:00.000-05:00

been a while. i'm still doing stuff, but i hardly ever feel like blogging about it. this, however, was too good to pass up.

it's my three-year anniversary at my job on thursday. at least, unofficially. i've been coming to this office day after day for three years, but my company didn't hire me permanently until jan '06. so technically, i've only worked there for a year and a quarter. *snicker* tell that to my graying hair and frequent headaches.

anyway, what i've done for the past two years (i think) was buy a cinnamon bundt cake from corner bakery. nothing wrong with that in the least. but whilst looking for dessert recipes for easter, i had a hankering for something lemony. (i went with peanut butter & chocolate, the latter to placate kim.) so i decided to suck it up (hrhr), buy some actual lemons, and make a lemon layer cake, complete with frosting.

tuesday's my workout day, so that took me to 6. i stopped at the store on the way home, so that took me to 7. then when i got home, i could barely stand up, so i rested till 7:30. ok! time to roll up my sleeves and bake a cake before 10. no sweat. ...except i didn't even start on the filling till 9:30. said filling required boiling, and in order to get the two cake layers to stay without slipping off one another, it had to be competely cool. i ended up sticking it in the fridge and, because it was still so gloppy, i frosted the outside of the cake with it, rendering the actual frosting obsolete. whee.

went to bed at 11:15. got up at 5 to wash my hair. after surveying the heap of pale yellow crap on my kitchen table, i decided to break out the frosting after all and coated it right there. so i had a freshly frosted cake...but no cake carrier. the best i could do was a disposable pizza pan with no bag big enough to hold the whole ensemble. with time slipping away, i decided to carry it until i could catch a cab. so what if it was exposed to the elements for five minutes? it'd be better than the stares i'd get on the train.

that's when i saw the blizzard outside...

it took me several minutes and an ATM stop to catch a freaking southbound cab. i almost wound up taking the train anyway. thankfully my cake didn't capsize, but it did end up a little soggy. i don't think that will make much difference in the final taste. i'm almost glad i'm on a diet, so if anything's wrong with it, only my coworkers will suffer. hooray!

this could be big

2007-03-30T10:23:00.000-05:00

i was poking around the internet, looking for the source of the movie quote "note to self: feed the fish mayonnaise"* (like you do), when i stumbled upon an old entry on a blog called Erudite Redneck that i felt i should share with you. for you see, some ideas are bigger than all of us.

the gist? a "searchable database for the best strip clubs in the country." the name? Lapquest. shit, how i wish i'd thought of that one.

* it was "night shift" with michael keaton, not to be confused with the classic stephen king short story collection of the same name.

ashes to ashes, crust to crust

2007-03-28T21:13:00.000-05:00

by some miracle, i actually made my own dinner tonight, a yummy taco salad. while slicing green peppers i pondered my gingerbread house, which was still sitting on my kitchen table, in the exact spot it's been for about four months. (i never could figure out what to do with it.) i thought i noticed the chimney starting to come away from the roof a bit, and wondered when the whole thing would just pack it in.

i didn't have to wait long for my question to be answered. whilst devouring my salad and watching futurama, i heard a loud crash come from the kitchen. figuring my cat to be involved somehow, i checked out the situation and found this:

i guess that's it then.

after singing an impromptu rendition of "the end," i immortalized the moment (see above) and went back to my salad. i heard another crash a few minutes later. more of the roof had collapsed, so that i had to take the entire top apart. the royal icing had become so brittle nothing would stay together. i knew this day would come, if not by my hands than by nature. although a couple people suggested i light the thing on fire (both named scott, oddly), i couldn't bear to do such, since that's what doomed its inspiration. oh well. it was a good ride. i hope to continue my new tradition by making something equally batshit crazy this holiday season. my only hinderance is my imagination! (and my patience, and my social calendar, and my dependency on food for life, etc.)

credit where credit is (over)due

2007-03-23T12:33:00.000-05:00

so i'm sitting at work, minding my own business, when my boss comes up to me and hands me some stuff. we have this thing at my work called the 'superstar' program, where people can nominate you for doing a fantastic job above and beyond for whatever. lo and behold, i was nominated to be a superstar for helping one of our gals in dallas! i ended up with a notepad, a yellow star-shaped stress squeezie, and a fitty dolla bill. not too shabby, considering my company. after all, the only other superstar in our office went to the silly bitch of whom i've spoken before. the girl who used to fall asleep at her desk. for some reason, that caused me not to have much faith in the whole superstar thing.

however, i am letting bygones be bygones. hell, 50 bucks is 50 bucks, correct? correct. woohoo!

YDKJ

2007-03-20T21:37:00.000-05:00

remember "you don't know jack"? i sure do. i'm sure a few key family members do as well. well, i just read that there are now full-on YDKJ episodes available online, one a day, in addition to several DisorDats (pick and choose minigames). one more thing to make me reconsider killing myself! woohoo!

meh 'n' stuff

2007-03-20T20:41:00.000-05:00

saw "300" last night, on imax. holy flircking snit, was it awesome. i was a little apprehensive, since i'm not familiar with the comic at all, i didn't get in on the hype, and i heard mixed reviews all over. but it was so utterly worth it. the only way to see it is on imax, too. warriors thirty feet high...leperous councilmen displaying every misshapen wart...blood splattering every conceivable surface. just thinking about it releases my endorphins all over again.

other than that, i've been really tired lately. various muscles always seem to be sore for whatever reason, and i'm not even working out as hard as usual. last week it felt as if my quads were rotting from the inside out. i started to pretend my bottom half was nonfunctional in order to rest it. so i haven't felt up to much. i predict that will change now that the relatively sultry 60° weather is becoming more frequent. springward ho!

more of the same

2007-03-06T16:23:00.000-06:00

coworker 1: did you see 'talladega nights'? did you know Borat's the Perrier racer?

coworker 2: you're really not that smart, are you?

adults say the darndest things

2007-03-02T15:10:00.000-06:00

overheard at work today...

Coworker: Mike, why don't you go ahead and yell out that name we call each other? Starts with a "W", ends with an "L", got a couple of "O"s in there?

Boss: ..."Wookiee"?

a new addition to the family

2007-02-28T22:33:00.000-06:00

with my old CRT TV really hitting the skids (the sound got fuzzier and fuzzier until it was fuzzy all the time), i finally, finally broke down and got an HDTV. samsung, 32", LCD, from amazon. $1000 with free shipping. and oh my is it ever sweet.

i did not receive it without some tribulations, however. the delivery guy kept asking me out, even going so far as to hug me (!) and kiss me on the neck (!!!) after he set up the box. very, very surreal. unfortunately 1. i wasn't interested and 2. i wanted to dive into 720p goodness. he seemed to be okay with it.. it felt like a 'hey, i'll give it a shot' kind of situation. still, ultra weird on my end.

but! the set's looking great so far. checked out a couple movies on it (even made washed-out london look decent), played some wii with new component cables (not really made for HD, but i'll take it), and i discovered an extra-long S-video cable that works from my computer's vid card. verdict? i can watch downloaded stuff on my new HDTV:

so. honking. jazzed.

bone china, let the summer come again

2007-02-27T22:55:00.000-06:00

i keep a personal start page on my PC with lots of links i visit frequently. it beats google's plain jane website; plus i get to use self-made graphic tiles that i wouldn't ordinarily get to see in practice. anyway, i haven't updated it in months upon months, so i was rolling through various websites and blogs looking for links. i came across olivia's personal (well, business, too) website, which i didn't know existed. somewhere within that quiet mass of beauty and technical prowess, i saw this photo. click on it, i'll wait.

now tell me you can't see the huge, puffy clouds hanging overhead, stark against a velvet blue sky.. feel the strong late summer sun beating down upon your body, as sure as the wind slices through your bones today. this photo, despite its seemingly grim subject matter, is so evocative of the coming seasons that i just.. can't.. i simply can't wait till it's summer. and yet, without this hideous winter.. i wouldn't want summer nearly this much. bright, shiny days, you will be mine again...someday.

farewell, carson's

2007-02-21T21:30:00.000-06:00

i didn't work out today, so i figured i'd make up for it by walking to avenue and buying some pants. (infallible logic, i know.) however, on the way there, i got sucked into the tragedy that was carson pirie scott's final day. i didn't know it would come so quickly; reports i'd read said the 28th was last call, but i guess today was the final day you could buy retail merchandise. not that there was much left:

in fact, the only merchandise left was some fur coats, seriously slashed at 80% off. if i didn't hate fur i would have been all over that shit.

as sad as the ground floor was, the basement was.. well, crazy. they had an amazing amount of stuff for sale down there, just not the typical retail things. a table of angels went for $225 each. a fetching pair of bamboo-style screens could be mine for $300. there were nails, a half-used steno pad (which i seriously considered buying), old printer ribbons, mattresses and box springs, torsos on hooks, cabinets, etc. it was like a garage sale, but eerier. i felt as if i were in an abandoned building with a bunch of other people, just looking for wreckage to scavenge.

i made out with two signs, a red christmas banner and a square blue sign that just says "F", cuz i'm mature like that. i toyed with the idea of just walking out with them, since they didn't have prices. according to one of the associates, they were worth a buck together. okay, fine, good deal, sez i.. until i had to dig out another dime. they charged me tax on two flippin' wasteass signs they weren't even planning on selling. in addition, they attached two ugly orange stickers that i probably won't be able to get off completely. thanks. whatever.. i'm just pissed i didn't see that this clock was for sale earlier. it only costs as much as the HDTV i just bought...if i were richard nickel, i would have canceled my order and bought the damn clock. who needs a ceiling fan anyway?

i'll miss carson's. i'll miss the jewelry section to the utmost. i'll miss being able to look out of curved glass onto downtown state street at night. i'll miss the retail experience without the extreme snootiness. but most of all i'll miss, at least for a little while, being able to walk into a functioning, breathtaking piece of art.

kitty wellness

2007-02-18T02:11:00.000-06:00

i took my troubled kitty to the vet yesterday. it's been almost a month since her last transfusion (god that sounds so unreal), and i wanted to see how she was doing. intially, the vet gave me a diagnosis of myelodysplasia, a rare blood disease where bone marrow makes only immature red blood cells. a semi-effective cure in humans is a bone marrow transplant, but i was told those aren't done on cats. not knowing what to do, i kept feeding her the meds they gave me and hoped she wouldn't bottom out again.

when i asked for advice, the vet said i should get in touch with U of I down in champaign-urbana, since they have a great vet program. they talked back and forth with my vet, and thankfully, they talked right before my appointment yesterday. turns out the problem's not with her bone marrow, but with her autoimmune system: it's attacking her red blood cells before they have a chance to mature. big difference between that and not ever making any mature RBCs. as a trial, the meds bailey's been taking function to stop the faulty immune system from destroying those RBCs. the vet did a blood count, which ended up right smack dab in the 'normal' range! so far, my kitty's okay! finally, a vet session that didn't end with some crushing, horrible news. i just wanted to share. yay!

black wednesday

2007-02-14T21:38:00.000-06:00

another valentine's day come and (almost) gone. i celebrated in true single fashion by blowing a nice chunk of money at lord & taylor and nibbling on a 72% dark chocolate ghirardelli bar. oh, and getting toasted.. nicely toasted.

speaking of toasts, this brainwashed holiday reminds me of a favorite toast of mine, of unknown origin:

here's to the men we love,
and here's to the men who love us.
but the men we love aren't the men who love us,
so screw them all,
and here's to us.

keep the faith, sistas.

winter wonderland

2007-02-13T10:01:00.000-06:00

i am so not here today. how can anyone work with this beautiful weather? and i mean that with all sincerity. when i walked out this morning, the snow was all virgin in the vast expanse of my courtyard, pure confectioner's sugar, cold to the tongue. i threw on some old police stuff onto my ipod - cuz i'm a bandwagon jumper like that - and drifted off into some enchanted world. i was probably the only one smiling throughout my entire commute. this wonderful snow is what keeps a little light burning in my heart for chicago winters. i hope it never stops.

..provided i don't have to drive in it, anyway.

piddling pooches prohibited

2007-02-10T13:46:00.000-06:00

a crappy companion cartoon to a story i did on chicagoist about dogs pissing on those huge headless statues in grant park.

unspeakable hearts

2007-02-09T23:55:00.000-06:00

okay, i've been drinking, so bear with me. apparently kim enjoyed my hearts very much, of which i am very proud. we made plans to get together tomorrow (saturday). getting ready to go home from work today, i get one of those damnable ideas, much like building a freaking gingerbread house, that won't go away until realized. i pick up a package of godawful chalk hearts (made from bone meal & earwig honey) and aim to do a little candy graffiti...

my materials.

how i got the sloppy slogans off.

someone at necco has an unhealthy obsession with the '80s.

some scraped hearts.

words, words, words...

and finally, the fruits of my labor. (obviously, best viewed large.)

two more late entries.

i need help.

those most blackest of ♥s

2007-02-05T16:33:00.000-06:00

now that the super bowl is history, the media is free to focus on my most hated holiday: valentine's day. case in point: even as i write this my coworker next to me has been talking to his sigoth for what seems like two hours. makes for a very fine ipecac. verily, the only way to get through this hellacious sugar-soaked mush fest is to riff on it mercilessly. so to prove to myself i still have the mind of a 10-year-old who just discovered swearing, i went over to the good ol' candy heart generator. you know those goddamned "conversation hearts" that are good for nothing but chalk substitution in inner city schools? (fuck, there's an idea...) borrowing heavily from bittersweets, mst3k and a lovely site highlighting the substance behind these tasteless atrocities, i put the machine to work:






classy, eh?

stephen colbert wants his elephant

2007-02-03T20:26:00.000-06:00

so i did a chicagoist post today about wikipedia. the gist of the story is that wikipedia is being cited more and more in legal cases as a legitimate resource. i want to know who was smoking what when the first case went through citing anything from a website where anyone in the freaking world can write anything they want. hell, wikipedia itself lays out a disclaimer on their site saying they're responsible for absolutely no information posted in any articles. how on earth can that be cited as legal precedent? are judges and paralegals looking at a wiki article and saying to themselves, "hm, that looks about right"?

wikipedia's been made fun of a lot in the past. and sure, broad satire or blatant revisions can be funny (or lame - i remember seeing brian urlacher's entry a couple weeks ago where strippers were mentioned in every sentence), but easily fixed. it's the subtle twisting of facts that worries me.. facts that may or may not be true, but inserted quietly enough into an entry to where it seems believable. the whole thing boggles my mind. a completely democratic website with very little accountability just cannot stand up in the legal system as far as i'm concerned. it's ridiculous.

who am i, though.

off to finish my jaw-droppingly delicious homemade pizza and watch mst3k's "the day the earth froze." appropriate for this weather, no?

attention all philanthropists

2007-01-30T22:18:00.000-06:00

k.. i know what i want for my birthday/christmas/whateverthefuckelse present:

bloc-weekend festival

clark? two lone swordsmen? bola? autechre (though it's really hard to be excited about that really)? kool keith? shittons of other idm/electronic/weirdass music? in england? in an indoor off-season ski park??

kill me now so i can go to heaven.

...

2007-01-30T14:35:00.000-06:00

so very depressed. hate winter. hate cold. falling to the communists. so cold. so depressed. don't want to do anything. can barely move. so tired. went to bed at 7 last night. so, so tired. so depressed. want to curl up in bed and cuddle. no one to cuddle with. hate earth. hate universe. go to hell.

to HD or not to HD?

2007-01-29T13:01:00.000-06:00

i need a new tv. there's no question about that. the sound starts to go fuzzy after an hour (getting worse from there) and it's too damn dark overall.

here's the thing, though: to what do i upgrade? i don't feel i 'deserve' an HDTV, as much as i want one, cuz i don't have cable/satellite and hardly watch tv as it is. unless i got HD-capable channels, i'd feel like i was wasting it. i've seen so-called 'enhanced' tvs, somewhere between standard CRTs and HDTVs, but those seem like a cheap copout.

when i got my xmas bonus last year, i swore i'd use part of it to nab an LCD HDTV. as the months wore on and i couldn't commit to a model, i talked myself out of it. but now that i'm thinking of it.. i bet zelda would look pretty sweet on one of those things, even if the wii isn't truly HD-compatible. i bet i'd be able to see things at night, too. what a concept. but the money.. oh, i don't know...

sweet dreams

2007-01-28T10:46:00.000-06:00

last night i dreamt i slept through the superbowl. i went to take a nap and slept right through the damn thing. when i woke up i turned on the tv and they'd won. so pissed i was. not really that i'd missed the game, but that i'd have to put up with dozens upon dozens of smug, self-satisfied bears fans for the next year and, possibly, the next two decades. the white sox winning in 2005 was one thing. cubs and sox fans are split up pretty evenly around the city, i'd say. but fucking everyone is a bears fan around here, except for a smattering of cheeseheads and other out-of-towners. whatever. i should bear down for misery either way. they win, fans brag and get drunk and rub it in your face. they lose, fans get angry and grumble for the entire year. what's funny to me is, whether they win or lose, there will probably be rioting around here. we silly gooses in chicago can't tell the difference!

meh

2007-01-21T18:02:00.000-06:00

i know it's been a while since i rapped at ya, people. a lot has happened and i haven't felt like recording it on the interweb. first i got a little stomach virus the weekend after the new year's 5k. couldn't hold down water. it blew.

then i learned my kitty has relapsed. she was taking medicine for her stubborn blood parasite, but her blood count dropped so much she needed another transfusion, so that means the meds weren't working. fearing the worst, the vets took a bone marrow sample, the results of which i should hear early next week. she's a health mess, but she's home and getting feistier, since she's got all that other kitty blood in her now. i hope she's all right.

for some good news (fuckin' finally), kim got engaged! YAYYYY! it's been a long time coming. i figure if she and scott have put up with each other long enough, lived together since may, and they haven't killed each other by now, they gotta tie the knot. many many congratulations to them both!

i also went to a bears game viewing party at a tiny little theater on the south side today. i'm not a bears fan, but i tend to get caught up in the mass hysteria of chicago sometimes when it comes to sports. 'twas fun. the first half we had to watch it like this:

but in the second half, they got it set up like this:

i love technology.

crazy in crazytown

2007-01-01T21:38:00.000-06:00

one of my new year's resolutions this year is to keep doing crazier and crazier shit. i seemed to set a good precedent with the gingerbread house, which was pretty fuckin' crazy. what's even crazier, i thought? doing a 5k walk on new year's day.

i'd never done one before. i've been working out lately - not as much as when i was doing the house, since i was on a diet at the same time. (surrounded by cookies and candy + hardcore diet = crazy.) but i figured, 5k is a little over three miles. i have to walk two miles to get groceries in the summer, so this shouldn't be all THAT bad. note that i say "in the summer." the weather today sucked teats. cold, windy, dreary. it could have been worse, but it was still miserable. on the other hand, it was the perfect weather for the race organizers to be blaring "new year's day" by u2 over the speakers. very desolate. to make things worse, my monthly visitor tagged along and tagged hard. not the best of circumstances. i was also surprised at the lack of water or nutrition bars at the end of the thing, since it was sponsored by powerbar. i hear they give away a ton of free shit at these things. oh well. i'd do another one for sure.. just at a different time of the year and month. i should have my artifical knee installed by then. they'll have to chop this one out if it doesn't stop throbbing.

rundown

2006-12-28T09:21:00.000-06:00

what am i doing right this second?

- being bored off my ass.
- trying to decide if i want to do a 5k walk on new year's day. i've never done one and am not sure how mad my body would be with me the day after. my decision hinges upon what day the fed will take a day off out of respect for gerald ford. if it's tuesday, the day of the funeral, then i'm golden.. but the fed doesn't like to have four days off in a row. that whole '29 stock crash disaster and whatnot makes them very wary of banks being closed for more than 72 consecutive hours. why there'd be a stock market crash on a holiday weekend, when the fed is explicitly closed, i have no idea. i say, fuck it man, it's the 21st century. atms are rampant. unless we get a belated y2k and everything electric goes haywire, people can get to their money just fine.
- writhing in agony from having the 'so long, farewell' song stuck in my head. damned kia commercial.
- scouring my mind for albums that i bought/listened to in the past year. all the 'best of' lists out right now had me thinking, what new stuff did i hear last year? answer: not a whole lot.
girl talk.
um.. i skipped dj shadow since i had it on good authority that it blew monkey chunks.
the deaths? i only kept one song from that album. too classic rock.
oh, duh, clark. of course.
i s'pose 'nautical antiques' from pinback, too, but that was more of a b-side/demo compilation.
black heart procession. bad timing for that one. came out in the summer, but was definitely an autumn/winter album.
dabrye. the instrumental version was much more tolerable than the rap-infused one.
i'm sure there's, like, one more that i can't think of. i was updating myself on music for a while there, but when there's no one in your day-to-day life to glean ideas from and bounce them off of, the 0-day interest wanes pretty fast.