reflections on a dead show

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

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

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

a drawring

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

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'?

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

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

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

that is all.

crappy anniversary

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

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?

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?

@#%@$J@#X$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?

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

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

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

the edge

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

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

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

• 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)

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.