---

DISGUSTED

I ordered a Long Island iced tea tonight. What I got was a travesty to refined alcoholic tastes. I watched the bartender grab a plastic cup and fill it with ice, then grab that universal nozzle contraption and press this magic button which dispensed a pre-mixed concoction that "tastes" like Long Island iced tea, topped with the obligatory jewel of soda. Never again. It is a depressing circumstance when a staple of liquor beverages is replaced with a factory blend. So I propose this replacement to your store-bought mixed drink:

28 years of social interaction

Barraging my mom with questions as a child. Staying up late/getting up early to watch Sailor Moon with my older sister. Playing Nintendo with family. Summer water fighting and breakdancing with the Warheadz. Writing letters to my pen-pal Micah. Walking home from school with the first best friends. Passing notes with classmates in high school. Underage drinking games. AOL chatrooms and spitting digital game at girls that may live in my neighborhood. Getting pwned on Battle.net Warcraft 2. Phone calls with the first girlfriend. Lunch period cliques. sQuiD! crew chat battles. Random drives with Bertrand. Geeky horseplay in the computer labs and every other hallway on campus. Piling into Lando's car and skipping class to eat fast food. High school graduation night and LAN parties. Waiting in line at the Warped Tour. Discovering the town and the city in the backseat of Ron's car. Tennis with Bryan. Shotgun rules and Rosario's Logic. Inventing new phrases and jokes with Ryan. Racquet club pimpin. Road trips with cousins. CRC shenanigans and Taco Tuesdays. Kickin it at Alex's place on Q st (and T st). San Diego Comic-con. A real glimpse of women at CSUS. Bars and clubs and bars and clubs and a rave. Late night pow-wows with the experienced guy cousins. Westcoast Brewfest. Driving to San Diego and L.A. with the men that I call my brothers. House parties at the Monkeyhouse, the Compound and West Sacramento. Text messaging. Trying to date a coworker. Bulls on Parade (birthday partying in the month of May). Online comic battles and forum trolling before the term was coined. Cabin trips and gathering as many of our friends together outside of the hometown. Dating on Myspace. Going to Las Vegas without parental supervision. Finally being behind our own table at a comic convention. Meeting Canadians, an Australian, and an Indonesian. Chicago cab drivers and driving to Seattle with Alex + Yuka to see James, Marley, and Rey. Whizzbang. Endless nights of Halo, Guilty Gear, Street Fighter, Tekken, Soul Calibur, Def Jam: Fight for NY, etc., or, How to Get Really Good At Trash-talking. The war room at Hoppy Brewery. Hitting on every other hot piece of female ass that walked thru the door at Utrecht (and spying on the gaggle of bitches that go to the sushi place next door). West coast sharkin' with the boys. Pillow talk. The unholy draw of Facebook. Convincing an exotic dancer to give me a discount. Unexpected mini-reunions at BJ's Restaurant and Brewhouse. Being the Mariposa hall's lab tech stud. Sessioning with Adam and Pat. The Bitter End, Buckshots and Fairfield county lockup. City Comes Loud and Second Saturdays. The Tiger Cage. Bringing Respark together to produce comic books and grazing the lips of majestic triumph/learning I am horrible as a leader. Smash and crash in Paragon City a.k.a. building a hermit shell via the City of Heroes mmorpg. Vandal runs in the daytime. The shape-shifting, recurrent Unicorn. Discussing theoretical physics on the light rail and talking down a drug dealer (and stealing their pipe). Having a whole conversation with my nieces and nephews. Drink and Draw. Relearning the first language I spoke (and lost) on a family trip to the Philippines; Learning that G.R.O.s speak better English after three beers. Conquering my traumatic spelling flaw with the word "unknown" and thus owning my voice and opinion. Discussions about Zeitgeist, the singularity, and other jargon. Separating the wheat from the chaff. Hookah intellectualism. Skype debates. Google+ hangouts.

Learnin' somethin' every other day

Even though I wasn't able to taste the fabled goodness of their Swedish meatballs, I discovered a perverted appreciation for IKEA. Despite the offensively foreign nature of their product signage, and the ridiculously Walmart-esque "super store" expansiveness of that building, my first visit was a truly manchildish experience. Sure, 500 Days of Summer ringed painfuly close to my conscious perception as I wandered about with Ron and Khonnie (heretoforeverafter referred to as The KhRonnie), I could not help but attempt to maximize the last hour before closing in as many ways possible.

Dated June, 2009
I begin this entry with the intent of continuing my series of internal dialogues of life and an artist's perspective as I know it so far. Although I'm concurrently assembling another playlist of tracks that will run non-stop tonight as I embark on a quest that will likely destroy the next few days of my life. There is no gain without sacrifice, I believe, so I will have to offer sleep in exchange for glory. Okay, enough pre-asides.

I made a move today. It wasn't the most bold or heroic of attempts, but it was still a motion out of my natural, hum-drum daily routine. It was a well-intended and simple gift, tinged with a shade of snobbish, know-it-all sincerity that comes with almost every sentence I deliver. That is more than likely the problem with the way I act in most encounters with the opposite sex. Either I'm not douchebag and cool enough to play the part, or too mild and uninteresting to pull it off. I obviously don't smile like a rampant toss of the joker card. My flaws are more than public. Unexpected stutters, vicious silences, schizophrenic belligerence, an oddly common habit of looking off into some interesting distant scene when speaking to others (a.k.a. bad eye contact), and laborious insertions of vocabulary exclusively used by intelligencia paint a basic picture of my eccentricism. I don't know what to do, and I probably may never will. Though, for the little trouble of

Allow me to set the stage. This will be a rant. I drank/drunk 5 beers and a hot shot of Cutty Sark. While chain-smoking the rest of my pack of Camel filters and downing said beers, I formulated this idea.
Artists are purely an emotional lot. That's not to say no other professional archetype employ some form of passion. However, the artist nowadays is moved by a specifically primal state of mind. As I see it, I cannot FORCE work when I'm in some kind of funk. There's very little point to push myself when I am not mentally and emotionally inclined to it. However, I am most likely wrong in trying to generalize my predecessors or contemporaries. Though the concept remains that we are in a ready state when we are at some kind of brink or motivating instance that compels us to produce. Just like our will to make love or fight, these things don't readily appear because it is conveniently 5:04 in the afternoon on a Friday. There is some kind of impetus.

Psychological Morphology

Any form is the diagram* resulting from the adaptation of the moving internal energies to obstacles created by the environment. The morphology of swirls, osmotic growths, periodic precipitates, indicates the diagram of non-miscible bodies, such as stains of car oil in damp streets, or the layout of two Ripolin* colors. Time would be for us a medium* comparable to a gelatinous water accepting in a rhythmical way transformations occurring with high or less high speeds. The eye is tuned on a certain speed only. Psychologically, a morphology of optical images only relates to the theoretical sections* made at a given moment in the morphological age of the object. I call psychological morphology the diagram of the transformations according to the absorption and the transmission, of the energies in the object from its initial aspect until it reaches its final form in the geodesic psychological medium*. This medium, psychological space-time, is a symbolic congruence of the Euclidian space. The object located in a given moment-point of this medium intercepts the pulsations which are proposing transformations according to an infinity of directions. It is located at the impact point between this encounter and each transformation. The infinity of the chances of interpenetrations missed by the object increases the intensity of the further pulsations during all the time the object will follow this morphological direction.

The concept of a psychological-time medium in which the objects are transforming, leads to compare it with an Euclidian space caught in a rotative and pulsatile transformation in which the object, with each risk of interpenetration may oscillate from point-volume to moment-eternity, from attraction-repulsion to past-future, from light-shadow to matter-movement. The fourth dimension would be the diagram of the risks encountered during the complete duration of the transformations.

In the area of consciousness, a morphological psychology would be the diagram of ideas. It should be conceived before optical images may give us the form of ideas if we want to stay in the transforming medium. The optical image is only a theoretical section* within the morphological fall of the object.

The image is retained* to calm the anxiety. Only one among the possible forms of the object is preserved.

Reality is the sequence of the explosive convulsions modeled in a pulsatile and rotative medium exposed to rhythms. The eye as the agent of memory is a means to simplify. The consciousness of the development of a psychological morphology in the passional or spiritual sense* leads to a pneumo-optics of the object. This pneumo-optics, which is a congruence of perspective, generates the creation of specific sciences. So, the diagram of the idea of a snow ball thrown on a flame shall be a splitting in two without deformation*, whereas the emotional libido awakened by a river or a tree shall be expressed by an osmotic growth in the geodesic psychological medium, true gelatin of blood stained milk in periodic precipitate.

Such a morphology shall be perceived when the eye and the consciousness shall draw the immediate and impulsive diagrams of man's convulsive emotion in a new art. The perception of the growth and of the accidents of objects when achieved simultaneously shall allow to feel the psychological biology of the object. The co-psychology of the opposites in a single idea-object remains pulsatile without deformation* in a psychological morphology, whereas the symbolist trials called paranoia-critique are based on a transformation of optical images in a caricatural sense*. The same happens with the forms of the so-called abstract art.

Roberto Matta, 1938

Matta and Psychological Morphology

Roberto Matta art

...something like karma

I have a theory. Well, I have many odd perspectives about the reality I am experiencing.

...

As I go forth, I look back

The past was so much more limited and safe. Everything about the future excites me and fills me with fear. So I stay still, comfy in the static presence of the now. This is truly the lowest age of my life, because I yearn for nothing. It is a good thing the world moves along to its own beat. I wish I could hear that song; I love to whistle.

Perhaps the worst part of these days is that I sleep and do not dream.

If I see another div or span tag appear out of nowhere, I'll cut someone.

Fallen back in hate with the Internet

Yeah, I see you. Don't think you can hide in your obscure domain name. I've sat in this work-out bench that I call my computer chair for the better portion of this day, torturing my brain in the pursuit of understanding you once more. No amount of music that I love could soothe the swarming frustrations I felt just to figure out how web sites are designed. The familiarity is returning, but it is far too painful to fool myself into believing I can do this well. Hell, I just now realized what div tags do, after all this time. Still don't know how to manipulate them on my own, but I know they function less mysteriously than before. A part of me feels slightly dirty because I had to use a template to glean these kernels of knowledge. Anyway, I still loathe you, Internet.

Sweet revelations, bitter replies.

During my recent trip back to my hometown of San Diego, I attended my cousin's 18th birthday debut. At the party, which was a romantic event staged in a Spanish-style miniature villa in the Otay Lakes area of south San Diego, one of my aunts remarked that I looked like my uncle Jun. I've been growing out my hair to a lustrous style lately, thus the reference would be fitting considering this look is a slight homage to 80's glamor. However, after this compliment was paid, I quickly asked whether that description was a good thing or a bad thing. So maybe this estranged relative of mine once looked dashing in the 80's hey-day, but I could not help but immediately recall some negative image out of that statement. In my mom's side of the family, we have a highly diverse lineage, almost every family unit has followed the tracks to the American Dream except perhaps this uncle. On my dad's side, my surname lineage is squeeky clean, so I feel comfortable being the posterboy of black sheep badass for my Sacramento family. However, getting mentioned that way in conjunction with my other family left me with a stinging after-taste. That uncle, the last holder of my grandfather's name, has all but been disowned in some way by my own mom. In many ways, I am slightly on the same course, and that is a growing fear I can't live with. I am reckless and without a solid bearing that will dictate the next 20 years. These things I am very aware of, and I don't often care about the end results of my existence. I am just afraid that these nightmarish self-induced prophecies will come true just because I believe they will.

Parody of a Parody?

I watched this recently throughout a series of sporadic encounters with various guests during that day. Firstly, it was inspiring in a ridiculously similar way to my own life. Except I don't get to sing duets with Her #52 while battling my arch-nemesis twice. I think I may try vlogging on odd days when I feel the urge to be artistically productive. In this way, I can induct myself into the elusive world of cinema. Or maybe I should find a way to get a scanner set up and redesign my website enema. Dun Dun Dun.

Too many things to consider. Retropolitan, Slumberjack, LOG://MKII-CZ, Void, Zuda, painting, and mostly sleep. I will have to find out really soon how many days in a row I can stay awake.
Though I can't make one right now, I know a fairly intelligent decision will be to delete Facebook. Hopefully I won't have to remove Myspace. Less fake socializing is healthy, I think. NEED MORE BRAIN POWER.

I'll sleep when I'm dead

It's been a blur lately. I've begun the past couple of weeks with all-nighters; Sunday into Monday, Tuesday into Wednesday. Yesterday, I took a nap at 9pm and woke up around midnight. Knowing I can no longer afford to rest, I hunker'd down at this computer and typed out 7 pages of an overdue research paper. Not bad, though I've done better without the need for caffeine or pharmaceutical assistance. At that point, I was up. No turning back or lying down. I was able to actually catch the bus on time for a change. Called Alex at the RT station, hopped on the train, did the 16th street boogie, and had time to spare on the walk to campus. Today, I remembered to bring an oil paint pen with me, and somehow Fate cast a wicked smile in my direction.

One last thing

I'm a hater. Not an overt hater, just a cynical, critical, and highly jaded individual. And these features are fairly visible in my character. I hate on the majority of contemporary/pop music, guys with cute girls, korean-made sushi, even the institution of art that I am currently trying to claw my way into. Essentially, most things produced are related to modern society. What I don't hate on (too much) is science and those true factors in this universe that immediately validate our existence. That being said, I adore minimalism in art and the visible light spectrum. I figure, if one can see, they oughta appreciate the tangible beauty of reality. I would hate (and sincerely pity) blindness. Or the lack of any senses that contribute to empirical reasoning.

It occurred somewhere between 7:30am and 8:45am. I awoke and by the time the afternoon had arrived, a family party was in effect at my relative's house. My parents and aunts and uncles were going to leave for the airport to catch their P.I. flight. On the news, headlines were being made: across the globe on the dark side of the planet, the moon had filled to a deep, blood red. Cities were filled with growing chaos, fears of the end of days were rife. Everyone in the house was filled with the same feeling of dread. I asked my mom, "Are you guys still going to get on that flight?" She answered with a familiar annoyance, yet serious aggravation, "I don't know, ask your Dad." I find him, and immediately take him into the car and leave, saying, "I have to find out if this is for real." We drive several hours out of town, to a spot near the coast that I once saw. The sun was setting on the western coast, it's dusk glow bathing the foothilled horizon. I could vaguely make out the sudden appearance of buildings that dotted the hills, the mysterious translucence both awe-inspiring and creepy. Where did these buildings come from? There was nothing out here. I turn into the quiet lake that I once promised myself to come to for self-reflection. A lonely church next to a lonely lake. We step out, and I inspect the grounds. What was I looking for? I knew He did not live in this house anymore. There was nothing here for me. I started walking away, and another man appeared out of the woods outside the grounds. "Are you waiting here, too? Patience, child." He sounded vaguely like Christopher Walken and looked strikingly like what paintings depict of Thomas Jefferson. This event startled me, but the next moments would continue to stretch my consciousness. An old classmate appears next to me, looks down and grins. More lost, familiar faces come from the path beyond my car. Along with them, hundreds of people begin to congregate in the clearing next to the lake. Many sit down and converse, continuing where they must have once left off. I follow suit and sit down. I can only marvel at the scenery and crowd. The mysterious buildings in the distance shimmer a soothing blue in contrast to the darkening sky. I spot one face that shouldn't be there. Someone dead and gone from my past. Once I realized that, another shock came. Flanking me on both sides were Jaime and Ryan. They both sat down. I felt relief, but still an overwhelming amount of dumbfoundedness. How can this be? Is this it, Heaven has come to Earth? Those ghostly buildings must be for the last chosen. This is the Rapture. Did I escape the Wrath of God? What about everyone else? I could not help but break down and cry, my hands covering my eyes, the tears so warm and salty as they fell from my eyes. I could see each single drop hit the dirt, and I could only focus on the certain reality of those tears and nothing of my friends and the others around me. Ryan and Jaime picked me up, and proceeded to show me to the church. The inside of the church was a resort. Anything you could want to do was all infinitely and maddeningly housed within the house of the Lord. Yoga, crafts, buffets, tumbling, spas, libraries, anything. Everyone looked so content and blissful. I couldn't bear the thought of the end of the world, and could only leave as quickly as I came into the building. As I left the church, I fell to my knees, screaming at myself, God, and the world. Ryan and Jaime were quick to comfort me as I continued to break down. Jaime first said one thing that decimated the rest of my reality on the spot, "It's okay now, I know I've been gone a while, but now we'll be kickin it for the rest of eternity."
"You've been gone???"
Ryan added, "Yeah, don't you remember? He died two years ago..."
"WHAT?!"
I was fully delusional. As it sank in, I replied, "I must have been living my life so deluded... All this time, I always thought we had been hanging out with Jaime, too... Are you dead, too?"
"Yeah."
"Since when?"
"2010."

And then I woke up. The dream was so real. I could feel, see, hear every real moment. I had never experienced lucidity like this. The entire event was wholly believable to me. My parents were in fact leaving on a plane this same day. Maybe this concocted scenario had something to do with the conversations about God that I had with Van the day prior. Or the subconscious fears of the end of days at 2012. Or perhaps it has to do with the people who are leaving my life for extended periods of time, a form of surreal separation anxiety. I'm sure my recent experience of witnessing a partial lunar eclipse unseated some kind of hidden cosmic paranoia. The craziest part of this dream was that it was completely in the first person perspective. Usually, my dreams flow between first and third, in a fairly cinematic way. This time it was jarring, visceral even. I just hope this isn't some kind of portent.

The Score.

I'm the only one that ever reads this. The expected outcome is at least 30 minutes wasted perusing the inferred states of my mind over the years as verified by the backlog of entries. Oh well.

This is tentatively (and officially declared) the last year of undergraduate schooling in my life. Before the calendars change over to 2009, I will have commenced and finally liberated myself of nearly two decades of American academic institutions. However, this spring semester will be the most ball-grinding, protracted experience I'll ever have. Six classes, nineteen units. Medieval Art, Italian, sculpture, printmaking studio, art of china/japan, and an independent study. It's all there, ready for me to demolish: expectations, conventions, sanity. On top of that, a commission for a mural painting in the client's house. My greatest apprehensions and fears lie in the independant study and the art history courses. Last semester, I cruised through sixteen units/five classes, with par performance in the ethnicities and art history classes. AND I was blazed most of the time. Who would've thought the sweet chiba would actually do the opposite and keep my head above water, eh?

Okay, so, this is the score:

-a 10 page paper + several written assignments and tests for ART 105
-another 10 pager and exams for ART 117B
-in class sculpture works (although it is implied that we'll need to work on our pieces outside of ASL as well)
-about 11 prints for ART 145 (a combination of serigraphy, intaglio/engraving, and relief prints)
-six 80" drawings of a sequential narrative (Destiny/Soul) with a 36+ page graphic novella in support (file:\mk. II-CZ
-11x4' mural painting

You ready?

unplug

This is harder than I thought. School, work, everything in between. It all seems so hopeless at times; an endless race to meet other people's expectations, when I have none of my own. Actually, whenever I have expectations or aspirations, they're of the ego-feeding variety, when the ominous truth is that I will live and die unknown. It's funny that word came up, "unknown." In elementary school, I entered the school spelling bee and was tangled up on that word. U-N-K-O-W-N. That was the first immensely humiliating experience I can remember. It was almost traumatic, because I can never spell, "unknown" without second-guessing my ability to spell it correctly, especially considering I pride myself in my competence of the English language. Life is a humbling experience, a tormenting cycle of my consistent failures. It's always one poor decision here, a hasty transaction there, and the inevitable encounter with a great girl that either has a boyfriend (or girlfriend) or just. doesn't. want. me. However, what business do I have being content? I don't deserve such reward, nor would I appreciate it. I can barely tolerate routine, whether it be the daily grind, or saying, "I love you," at the end of a phone call. It's true, familiarity, predictability, breeds contempt. I need a permanent vacation.

Agenda- Requiem of 2006

Thanksgiving break: November 23-26th

Winter break: December 25th-January 26th

Next time I am for certain returning to San Diego: New Years

It is within any of these given time frames that I intend to take at least one drive to Southern California for a sabbatical. Possible destinations include San Diego, Chula Vista, National City, Pacific Beach, Irvine, Fullerton, and Mammoth Mountain. Although, the Thanksgiving break may not be such a great opportunity considering that the Nintendo Wii will have just been released less than a week prior. I may just have to camp it out at home and play the Wii until I gain insomnia.

Flip the switch.

Here we go. In one fell swoop (although it was technically a two month transition) I went from unemployed for over a year, surviving on a dwindling severance pay and expanding credit card debt as well as being a washed up community college super junior art major to being handed a flexible job at an art supply store, transferring to a university with a sufficient art program, and inheriting a job as the lab assistant for said university's graphic design department computer labs. It's not as overwhelming as I think it is, but the drastic change in behavior has been the oddest thing to cope with. At the height of this summer, I slept to nearly dawn and woke up at around noon. Just in time to watch Star Trek: The Next Generation on SpikeTv and shower before heading to Utrecht for work. Now I have to wake up at around seven in the morning to get to school, which is then followed immediately by work. The time I spend at home to myself has become rare opportunities for rest. As it stands, I spend at least one hour on the road every day to get to school and/or work. School every weekday, work every day. On top of that, I'm still a washed up artist, now I get to look forward to being a burnt out art student. Therefore, I have decided to reverse just about every routine, habit , and usual facet of mine. I can no longer allot time for art other than that which is relevant to my classes. I can no longer live nocturnally and prowl after dusk. I can no longer waste my life. I can no longer neglect my priorities.

Game Over. You Lose.

Continue?

Satisfying Dialogue.

Her: Do you have t-squares bigger than this?
Me: Yeah, over here.
Her: Ohhh, okay. Twelve dollars?? Thats too much.
Me: Huh? T-squares aren't cheap.
Her: Oh, no, I mean I can't be spending that much. I already spent $26 on lunch today.
Me: Daaamn. You didn't spend $26 on lunch for yourself, did you?
Her: Yeah! And it sucks because it wasn't even happy hour!
Me: Where?
Her: Tokyo Fros.
Me: I suppose thats alright, now is one of the last chances to get smashed in the semester before midterms hit.
Her: Oh, I wasn't smashed. I just had a couple of beers.

Testes the size of a Jupiter moon.

At the height of this afternoon, in the swirling commotion of the bustling University Union at Sac State, I plugged in headphones, wacom tablet mouse, opened the CD tray and popped in a disc into my laptop. I played Diablo 2 while sharing a table with an older lady and hot girls studied and everyone else stressed out. Bowazon, bitches.

Crushed: a revelation that I am lacking.

The first week of school is almost over. It is sensory overload out here. I am burnt out. The walkway in front of Mariposa and Kadema is teeming with so many beautiful women that my eyes have worn themselves out over the course of two days. Even worse, is that most of these gorgeous girls come into Utrecht right afterward. I've been missing out on this kind of attraction for far too long. It's hard coping with my dumbfounded awe. Although, I think working at Utrecht is helping; working retail forces me to interact with strangers, smiling, and saying, "Hello" and, "Have a good day" constantly is putting me into a social mode I have not experienced in ages. This combined first week and work at Utrecht has got me. I quickly fell in love on Wednesday. She walked in at the height of our back-to-school sale rush, a 5'6" blonde muse in a green sundress. I said hi, and eagerly attempted to aid Her shopping spree. She told me She'd figure things out because Her syllabus had a course materials list. I paced the floor helping other cute girls. Most of the girls would concede that they needed my help, and I gladly did. Whenever I finished assisting a customer, I would pace around, and ask Her again if She would like my help. More customers began to suffocate the store; both registers were in non-stop point of sale for Christine and Malia. In time, some of my classmates for Drawing came in, and I practically shopped for one of them. I asked Her again if she was doing alright and finding her materials. She declined my help once more. A cute girl from my Color class asked me where some of the acrylics we needed were, and I grabbed them for her. I asked Her once more, and was again declined. It was then the closing hour, and I checked up on Her. She finally said She was ready for my help. After picking out items for Her, we began to chat, and I was soon enraptured by Her. Her raspy voice, Her sass and spunk. I couldn't get enough, although our time was getting short. Inevitably, I was unable to work up the courage to even ask Her name. I'm sure She would've given it to me, at the very least. My only hope is that one day this semester I can bump into Her in front of Mariposa Hall.

RESTART.

I thought it was game over, but its now back to square one. Although this square one isn't exactly starting from scratch or with a cleaned slate. Figuratively speaking, I died about a year ago, but I've just been reincarnated, back for redemption. ROD vs. EDUCATION 2. This is the main even title bout rematch, and I'm hungering for blood. Here we go again.

Every now and then, I get a flaring pain in my right wrist. This has nothing to do with your perception of me masturbating too much, because my wrist is all jacked from some unknown injury I must have had. I suspect it was one of the times I bit it real bad while snowboarding a while back, because a bit of the tibia or fibia juts out of the outside of my wrist. Normally, it just makes push-ups and any kind of flat palm pushing a pain, but now.. the flares are happening much more frequently. It's been a week and a day or so between what I'm thinking is an inflamed wrist tendon. Maybe theres a pattern here, because it's been a week between nights of being tanked. It sucks.

Such contradictions in life. I seem to be extremely unlucky. Yet, I am extremely fortunate. I guess thats the compromise. As hard as I may try to prevail, I never really do. And as much as I act as a failure, I am able to keep it together. Even a simple gesture of affection gets me nowhere, and risking my life driving drunk turns out to be a success. I think I'm going to have to do all the bad things more often since I get better results.

Disclaimer:
I am full of bullshit, a hypocrite. No person on this planet should be able to claim otherwise. Whatever I've said in the past, does not fully correspond to who I am now; I am a wholly different lump of perspective in this here-and-now than in the then-and-gone.

Moving on.

Like before, I'll be veering away from using blogger in favor of a site-based weblog system (grey-matter). I've got a slight handle on how the cgi works, so I'll be jumping into FINALLY constructing my little site on respark. I'll probably continue to use revizion and artofact for their own specific purposes, but once I get soul up and running, I'll be focusing on updating it more so than the others.

In other news (if you would consider anything I mention news), I'll be setting my eyes on developing this comic book and just upping my game in general. I haven't been consistent with my art in months, so now is the time to get out of my laziness. To support productivity, I have resolved to draw all the current Void fighters from A to Z. Including the two fighters that start their names with fighters (0roch1 and 2.4). Hopefully I can draw a fighter per lunch break at work, which is about 3 per week.

I've lost a lot of faith in most people.

Which only strengthens my resolve to segregate myself from everyone else. Just about everything about socializing has lost appeal, and I find little use to do so now. I've always been a solo mind wandering around, even when I had this great group of friends called sQuiD, and even back in the days when it was just me, Jon, Kris, and Eeron kicking it. Now the fact that I am, and probably always will be, alone is becoming more apparent. I'm beginning to think there's no use in keeping friends when it's more than likely they'll let you down. And then whats the use of being able to rely on someone if you know they'll disregard you. Too many times have I felt unimportant when I've tried my damnedest to be a reliable person. Sometimes I am clearly at the center of things, but I still feel like I'm on the outside looking in. I am no one.

This sounds like a really bad rant I once wrote.

Well, damn.

It's been a minute since I last logged in. Considering a lot of shit has gone down since I last recorded my thoughts here, I have some explaining to do.

So first, the kickback. My family left me at home while they went off to San Diego. I rounded up as many of my close friends together to hang out at my house on Saturday. They brought the grill, and Rob (for the majority of the time) barbecqued chicken and hamburgers. We threw back beers, and smoked cigs and blunts in the backyard, frontyard, and garage. The night was capped with some more beer and plenty of gamecube participation. Sunday was more of the same, but other than barbecqueing, we deepfried fish sticks and fries. More gaming. It was good.

Then my family came back on Monday night to a somewhat dirty house. That was pretty bad.

I've been playing way too much Def Jam: Fight for NY lately. That's bad, too.

I finished one page of my comic. One out of 9. With only a week or two left before our deadline. Thats REALLY bad.

Started work with FTB again. That's just all around bad. But money is involved, so its OK.

There's something immense weighing on my mind. Emo magnitude. That's plain UGLY.

CAN I KICK IT?

yes, you can.

This weekend was chill, and dare I say, AWESOME? It was fairly haphazard, as far as I can tell. Friday, did the normal thing, school bleh bleh bleh. Kicked it with Lazell after class, happily accepted cigarettes from her while we hung out at CRC. The rest of Friday is lost in my memory somewhere. I probably slept through most of it.

Saturday was a blast, forrealz. Woke up early after only 2 hours of sleep. I blame it on my willingness to stay up and talk to Claudia online. I'm a sucker for her sometimes. Dropped off the younger sister to Elk Grove High for some reason, went home, ate a fat breakfast, waited expectingly for Ron. An hour and a half after he said he'd come pick me up, I wake up on the living room couch to his doorbell. It's around 10:30am now, but the loss of time didn't matter because we were going to snowboard for free anyway. By the time we got to Lincoln, I was passed out; woke up in Truckee on the way to Northstar. Suited up, grabbed the board, strolled up into Northstar like badasses. Ron went into the rental shop and got our lift ticket hook-ups.

We took the Vista lift to avoid the slow gondola ride to mid-mountain, and cut straight to the waypoint. Checked our backpacks in, and took the Pioneer lift to make a blazingly quick run down the bunnyhill for a warm-up. And when I say quick, I mean we zipped through the open hill with no stops and pure speed. At the bottom of the run, we hit up Pioneer lift again, but this time we went down the backdoor trail which led straight to the back side. After the corridor transferred onto the main runs, it dropped into this crazy hill dotted with ridges and bumps like a broken mogul. I actually think I went down part of a mogul. Should've listened to Ron when he said to stick to the side of the hill. The back side lift took us to the summit, and from there we hit the backside again. By the time I caught up to Ron, we were exhausted enough to get lunch. We called it quits after the meal, and once again Ron led the way to a faster and efficient trail to the village. Productive to say the least, Painful to say the most.

When I got home, I sat my ass down to rest, then got ready to hang out with the cousins for Jr's birthday. ate, went home, slept. Woke up again, this time for church, got home, slept again.
Woke up at 7pm (hell yeah), realized there was nothing good to eat at home, put on some clothes, left to get food. It started raining, but I was too hungry to let that stop me. Made a quick stop at the Monkey House, said whassup to Kiel, Jasmine, and Jaime. Reclaimed my zippo lighter, then went to grab some grub. Carne Asada fries from Carolina's. A forty ounce of King Cobra and MGD from the local liquor store. Gave the 40oz to Kiel and ate my fries ecstaticly. Rob and Jen had come home by the time I returned, and they brought liquor with them, as well. Two bottles of wine from their trip to Sonoma. Pat waltzed in minutes later, with a bottle of E&J. Just another night hanging out at the Monkey House.

THE FOUR HUNDRED MILE FABLE, continued

It was bananas. Pure and unadulterated raucous rock. I recounted the basic events of the trip to LA and San Diego, but I didn't capture the apeshit craziness that happened over the two and a half days we were away. These are the memories I take with me of our So.Cal Vandal Tour.

Once again, we played Eagles of Death Metal on a roadtrip, and me and Alex violently rocked the front seats of the car for an hour of insane glory.

This time, Alex stayed up the whole night while I drove, which added a good amount of laughs and entertainment for 5 straight hours.

At around midnight on the way down, while most of us were still asleep, Alex randomly blurted out the "kininnigan" inside-joke of ours and we resolved to repeat the joke every other hour. Which we actually did, hahahaha.

I probably would have been just as content watching the Indiana Jones trilogy on Saturday and Sunday rather than go out on the town.

Dave and Busters is a cool place, but they only had Tekken 4 and a rom arcade machine for fighting games. WTF.

I tried to get a hold of LJ (fellefel) to kick it, but my call was too late and we were too far away from where he lived to kick it on Saturday night.

Alex noticed that So.Cal girls looked hot, but didn't have an acceptable amount of junk in the trunk for our tastes. I attributed it to the, "2-D Booty Phenomenon."

I'm starting to think that girls down south are far more personable a.k.a. skankyslut than the girls up here. Seriously, a random girl around here wouldn't give me the time of day, but out there they'd come onto you first. CRAZY.

Adam and the rest of the cats living in that house are totally sedate, and its awesome. When we arrived, Mike was on his way to buying some beer and the rest were watching Futurama episodes.

Mike and Adam showed me the motorcycle that they 'stole' which was probably originally stolen and abandoned at the Ramada Inn across the street from their house.

Most of of the day we were at the San Diego house, me, Alex, and Jaime would crack all kinds of Anchorman reference jokes. What struck me was that not a damn person in that house laughed along with us, because only one of them actually saw the movie. Those guys are dead inside or something.

Downtown San Diego is crawling with hotties. And it was only a Sunday night. For future references, always remember that the Gaslamp District has the best bars/clubs on 5th street (and F street). Everything that would be of interest is located on that strip, it even goes all the way down to the Convention Center.

The C Lounge was the highlight of the entire trip. Imagine a hip hop club that actually played good hip hop. Chick in the Fatal Fury hat caught both me and Alex's eye that night, as she was this blazin' young latina with a massive vibe that everyone there felt.

There was this amazingly cute chick that sat on a couch across from the one me and Jaime were sitting on, whom caught my eye. We exchanged glances, a quick smile. Some guy was buggin her, and eventually he was led out by security right in front of us. She gave me that relieved and annoyed look when dude was led away. We exchanged a few words, and that was it for now. She eventually wandered off and talked to a bunch of different guys that night. When the DJ gave up the mic for a freestyle session, I stopped by the bar to grab a beer. I felt a tap on my arm, and saw her right next to me. She asked if I were buying a shot, I told her I was ordering a Heineken. She then asked me if I would like to take a shot with her, because she didnt want to take one alone. She had just stopped talking to some guy a few minutes before I got my beer, so I felt honored. She had taken some other shots that night, so she asked me to choose. The bartender didn't have the right ingredients to make Liquid Cocaine, so I let the bartender pick one. Washington Apple. I insisted on buying our beers and shots, but she was a persistent one. I'm pretty sure the bartender never rung either us up for my beer, ROCK. She said to make a toast, to make the shot seem fitting. I toasted to "Hip Hop", she toasted "it don't stop." We flirted for a few minutes. I was getting caught up in her. Strike one. She thought I looked familiar, but I told her I'm not from around here. Strike two. I tried to get her to get on the dancefloor with me, but she said something like "I dont really dance, only when the mood and right song is on." Strike three. I was out of there. It was pathetic how I let the moment fail, but whatever. Only in San Diego.

Vandalizing San Diego and Fullerton was the most liberating feeling of the entire trip. Seeing Taft and Huey Newton on some random wall or street corner was great.

Watching Kung Fu Hustle while high made it seem like the greatest martial arts movie ever filmed. And I'm pretty sure it is.

Mike suplexed Alex, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA.

After we left the San Diego house, I got lost 3 times leaving SD, 2 times leaving Fullerton. I claimed that I didn't really get lost, and that I was merely, "looking for something."

This store down the street from Gema's apartment had this giant window signage that said "Puppies, only $25." We rushed in and fell in love with all the cute puppies inside. I started to notice that each puppy was pure-bred and none of them were cheaper than $500. We eventually left, and I thought that all $25 puppies were probably already bought. When we walked out the door, Cheryl noticed the smaller print on the signage that read: "per month." DAMMITT!!

Before we left Fullerton, I started taking swigs from Alex's bottle of Jagermeister, which quickly had me buzzin before we even hit the road.

During the holdup on the foothill highway to Grapevine, I spontaneously ran out of the car in a fit of madness, flailed my way to the next car in front, then back to the car, all the while screaming incoherent shouts.

After my moment of insanity, a guy in a truck ahead of us got out of his car and approached me, we talked for a few minutes. At the end of the conversation he asked me if I had "stuff," and I laughed and said that we smoked back in San Diego. He left and said that if anyone walked by and offered to sell any, to send the guy to him. Potheads are funny.

When the traffic finally started moving again, I noticed that the cute girl in the car next to us fell asleep in her car. I hesitated, but didn't knock on her window to tell her that the roadblock had lifted. As I pulled away, I noticed that her headlights never came back on.

Though we got back in South Sac by 7:30am, we didn't actually leave Jaime's house until after 10am.

EPIC

TROUBLES A-BREWIN

ROADTRIP.

so the plan during president's day weekend is to drive down to the other half of the state, the side I like more; a trip that will take us to orange county and to san diego. as it stands, those going will be me driving the explorer, my sister, and my cousin geno, and hopefully Alex can get the days off to come along with. i'm just glad that i'll have a chance to get out of this city. the change of setting will hopefully clear my head.

in light of this, i had this idea that one day, i want to gather together as many of the VOID artists that i know of residing in California and basically spend several days just kicking it with them. for instance, i could go get Zato, his brother Kura, Ju-Ju, and QTR and take them all down south to meet up with Fel, Molotov, Robosockmonkey, Jay, Pi, and whomever else lives in the southern area. it would be great. maybe this could happen when San Diego Comic-con hits, but i was thinking more like a time outside of a con; a RALLY of artists that i share a loyalty for VOID with.

I fear this day more so than my own birthday.

Apathy, self-loathing, spite, angst, bitterness, all that shit rolled into one within a span of 24 hours. And I thought the fear of turning 22 would get to me. Nope. Its the fear of being completely alone at a table of friends. Goddamn Bright Eyes lyrics are creeping into the back of my skull.

So what am I going to do. Last year, It was a weekend, so I was able to just meet up with my cousins and kick it with a few drinks. This time, its a fuckin Monday, the most inopportune day of the week. Eh, we'll see how the day unfolds. I really just want it to be done and over with, so that the President's Day weekend San Diego trip can be NOW. Actually, I just wish summer were now. Or at least year 40. Pull a string, fast forward through life, like that Saturday afternoon cartoon special. I thought I was done with that "EMO" thing. Guess I was wrong, eh? Hear I am, listening to a completely SOMBER album by Bright Eyes, having just drawn the most twisted thing my mind could conceive and wallowing.

WALLOWING LIKE FUCK.



This cough is killing me, made my thoughts scrambled. I went downstairs and consumed a cocktail of medicines to fight this hacking and sneezing. The scariest thing is, I stood there and contemplated taking 12 too many aspirin and whatever lay in front of me. And then I thought. No. Don't do that.

What would I have lived for? WHAT DO I LIVE FOR NOW?

I'll admit it.

One of the few guilty pleasures I have in life is this one television show on the WB, One Tree Hill. I probably watch 1 and a half hours of television a week. And it's most likely me watching an episode of that show.

That's it. I'm done.

Shit's been way too hectic as of late. I can't stand it, really. I'm so behind in everything it's a wonder if I were to make a miraculous comeback. But I took steps to remedy my stagnant position. I dropped off the gamecube and resident evil 4 at Jaime's, to give him the curse of video gaming for the time being while I recoup. Hopefully, and thats a big hopefully, I can get on track or find my vibe again. DRAW OR DIE.

I lost my handy dandy list of the new music I'd either buy or download, so I'm putting it up here so I wont forget.

The Knife- Deep Cuts
Electronica duo, euro dance pop. I saw the CD at Tower Records, but it was about $19 (it came with a DVD). HMMM.

The Fiery Furnaces: Blueberry Boat
Havent seen it anywhere, but then again I didnt actually look for it yet.

The Shocking Pinks: Dance the Dance Electric
The album title sounds cool enough to make me want to buy it. HAHAH.

The Yellowswans a.k.a. D Yellow Swans: Bring the Neon War Home
It was distributed as a CD-R somewhere, but I saw a copy of it at Tower for 14. FOURTEEN DOLLARS for FIVE TRACKS. It probably sounds great.

Rogue Wave: Out of the Shadow
Saw a copy at The Beat downtown. Its on the Sub Pop label, which is a plus. It actually sounds kind of good from the little bits I've heard.

Comets on Fire: Blue Cathedral
Another Sub Pop signee, also in the Bay Area. Heavy rock sound, me likey. Theres a copy of the album at Tower.

The Citizens: Are We There Yet
NYC rock band, reminds me of Interpol. Chill music, for sure. There SHOULD be a copy at Tower, but there wasn't. Those fuckers.

Prince Po: The Slickness
Solo album away from his group Organized Konfusion. Production help from Raekwon, Madlib, and Danger Mouse makes me want to bump this hardcore.

The Foreign Exchange: Connected
A rapper from North Carolina and a beatmaker from the Netherlands teamed up to make this album, and they never even met before.

De La Soul: The Grind Date
It's De La Soul. I don't need to rationalize why I should get it, its a must.

The most random 7 hours of my life
I woke up around 2pm, I think. I first remember being told to get ready because we were going to a house warming party at my cousins. I then remembered that Filipinos love to cook a ton of food at parties. I got ready in 10 minutes flat (thats INCLUDING a shower).
2:30 pm rolled by, and the priest came to do the blessings and what not. 15 minutes later, I'm given the signal to pig out. And that I did.
An hour later, my cousin' Melissa's boyfriend Darin offered to make me a margarita. Belvedere vodka. Hell yes. By 4pm, I had the slightest of loose buzzes creeping up. Someone put The Passion of the Christ on dvd, and I sat there immersed. 6pm finally arrives, and I go home to figure out the rest of my night.
When I got home, I burned a copy of Bright Eyes "Digital Ash in a Digital Urn" and The Mars Volta "Frances the Mute" for Pat and Alex, respectively. I got to the Monkeyhouse by 7pm, just missing a visit from Jen's London flatmates. Rob, Lazell, Nick, Kiel, Jasmine, Pat, and Audrey were there, chillin as per the usual routine. Half and hour later, Jaime comes home and commented on how "sharp" I looked that day (black ribbed turtleneck sweater, khaki pants & jacket, casual dress shoes, and a bowler cap). The hype is brewing.
After a few smokes with Kiel and designating him as a professional paragrapher, Alex gives me and Jaime a call. He just got off work and is hanging out at the Monkeybar. Nick and Pat went on a run for an 1/8th, and returned with quite a handful. He rolled a blunt, and I sparked a bowl from the hookah. I took a hit in rotation, then coaxed Jaime into going out tonight after he talked to Alex. It didnt take much, and soon he was ready to cruise the town. We said our goodbyes to the group we left at the house and journeyed forth.

Now here's where the random begins.

As I pulled onto Center parkway, Jaime gave Orlando a call to see if he was still down to come out tonight. Apparently, Lando changed his mind, but there was no changing mine. He thought I was joking, but I went straight to his house and ordered him to get outside and into my car. Jaime said something, some magic string of words that flipped his entire position. 10 minutes later, he's in my car and we're on our way downtown.
To my dismay, the crowd at the Monkeybar had thinned out from when I last talked to Alex, and ol' boy was just chillin in an apartment above the bar. Luckily, I found parking just a scant 30 feet away from the front door of the bar. Alex saw us through the window above, and called us over. A bit of deliberation, and we waltz into the bar. I get Lando a jack & coke, Jaime a black & tan, myself a pint of Sierra Nevada. Though the crowd at the bar turned haggard, there was a dope jazz band playing live in Cafe Bernardos, which is connected to the Monkeybar.
We sat for a good 15 minutes, and then another bone was thrown our way. Alex got word from his coworker that 2MEX was playing a show in Roseville. I was down, and so was Lando and Jaime. We finished our drinks, then headed back to my car. As I drove down 28th street, Jaime gave Ryan a call, knowing that Rai liked 2Mex from listening to the Visionaries. Fortunately, Ryan was on his way back from Davis, so we diverted his path home to meet us on a lonely street corner on N st. By 11:30pm, we had assembled the 5 man crew that would quest its way to Owl Club to see 2Mex rock the house.
By 11:45, the blunt hit started to kick in, as well as the brandy shot from Jaime's house. We got lost in downtown Roseville for about half an hour. The best part, however, was the fact that it was technically a 8 dollar cover for the show, but we actually strutted into the club and saw the performance without dropping a dime for the charge.
Regardless, 2Mex was dope. We caught the last half of the set, but it was still great. We left the Owl Club at 1:30am, with no more than an idea of what to do next. Upon leaving, Jaime spotted a 7 Eleven at the very moment that we unanimously agreed we needed beer. Not only did we purchase a 40 oz of beer per person, but we actually had extra. 4 MGD's, a Steel Reserve, MD 20/20, and a 6 pack of Sierra Nevada.
I bumped The Mars Volta the way back home and Jaime drank his 40. I dropped Ryan off at his car, and Lando rode with him. It turns out Ryan dropped Lando home, but Ryan came to Jaime's anyway. SOLDIER. From 2am to 5am, the stragglers from that night drank 40s and laughed until we became sleepy. Steel Reserve is the devil's nectar.

THREE NAMES YOU GO BY:
1. Rodney
2. Rod
3. Vision/Viz

THREE SCREEN NAMES YOU HAVE HAD:
1. ii2ome0
2. v1z10n
3. resparksoul

THREE PARTS OF YOUR HERITAGE:
1. Filipino
2. American
3. Californian

THREE THINGS THAT SCARE YOU:
1. silverfish
2. ghosts
3. suicidal thoughts

THREE OF YOUR EVERYDAY ESSENTIALS:
1. laptop
2. creativity
3. logic

THREE THINGS YOU ARE WEARING RIGHT NOW:
1. fleece pants
2. boxer briefs
3. quarashi shirt

THREE OF YOUR FAVOURITE BANDS/ARTISTS RIGHT NOW:
1. the faint
2. the mars volta
3. the blood brothers

THREE OF YOUR FAVOURITE SONGS AT PRESENT:
1. the blood brothers- crimes
2. dead prez- they schools
3. outerspace- grand groove 2

THREE NEW THINGS YOU WANT TO TRY IN THE NEXT 12 MONTHS:
1. finish a full length comic
2. publish a compilation book
3. find a meaning to my life

THREE THINGS YOU WANT IN A RELATIONSHIP(besides love):
1. to be able to be a badass jerk to the girl and know she wont hold it against me
2. say everything and anything i want
3. unpredicatability

TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE:
1. under the gruff and rough exterior, i'm a softy at heart
2. i would trade my entire life and livelihood for peace
3. i hate most people, with the exception of maybe Alex and my Respark Army

THREE PHYSICAL THINGS ABOUT THE OPPOSITE (or same) SEX THAT APPEAL TO YOU:
1. eyes
2. smile
3. curves

THREE THINGS YOU JUST CAN'T DO:
1. the opposite of procrastinate
2. spit game to random girls in public
3. shop for periods of time longer than 3 hours.

THREE OF YOUR FAVOURITE HOBBIES:
1. art
2. snowboard
3. video games

THREE THINGS YOU WANT TO DO REALLY BADLY RIGHT NOW:
1. smoke a cigarette
2. be anywhere but in sacramento
3. get drunk

THREE CAREERS YOU ARE CONSIDERING:
1. illustrator/designer/comic artist
2. entrepeneur
3. drug dealer

THREE PLACES YOU WANT TO GO ON VACATION:
1. san diego
2. toronto
3. chicago

THREE KID'S NAMES:
1. xavier
2. max
3. nereid

THREE THINGS YOU WANT TO DO BEFORE YOU DIE:
1. ride a dinosaur
2. own a helicopter
3. infiltrate montauk

THREE PEOPLE WHO HAVE TO TAKE THIS QUIZ NOW OR DIE PAINFULLY:
1. it
2. dont
3. matta

The internet I've been pirating from my cousin next door has been acting up for the past week, mainly the DNS protocols being whacked out. It works now, and I am whole once more. Seriously, I missed a fuckton of things in this past week and a half of not using the internet. It's a crazier world out there now, and I want to be insane to be normal part of it.

2004 out the door

What a interestingly weird year. Long story short, I partied hard, and have more of an idea of what kind of a person I'm going to be for the next 5 or so years. I've picked up snowboarding once more, I'm a wise alchoholic, I am Respark. Fuck the manifesto, on to the countdown.

Highlights of the Year
1. San Diego Comicon Internationl 2004 (July): fun for all ages. Mostly for the legal drunk age. A two-level hotel suite and a score of artsy cats getting crunk. Nothing really beats that.
2. El Cabino 2004 (Jan): a week long get-away of pure debauchery and snow. My gut still rumbles from the thought of the drunken nights in Tahoe.
3. Halloween Party/Zombie Soiree (Oct): zombies, liquor, and intentional cosplay. One of the most fun nights I've had all year.

Most Hammered
1. Happy Garden/Elk Grove Club (Aug): nights out to the bar/club with cousins? Nothing can truly beat that. Even though I was semi-broke at the time, I still was able to get drunk courtesy of my awesome family.
2. Chico Party (Mar): a triple shot of Jack after eating three pizzas to start off a night of drunkeness with my old classmates. I can only remember kicking it in the street, and the extra strong puke I dumped into Shannon's sink. Yum.
3. El Cabino 2004 (Jan): I lost a game of Kings that was upped to the extreme ante of clearing out a table of unfinished drinks. Fast forward 6 hours later and I wake up with my head in a bathroom tub.

Notches
1. Road Warrior Status: I made it to and from San Diego in one piece. Except the drive back nearly killed all of us because me and my back-up drivers were sleepy as hell, hahahahah.
2. Respark's Soul: I built it, and they came. Respark has risen over what I originally intended when I wanted to be a hosting ring, it's BETTER than anything I ever dreamed.
3. Drunk Driver: I've demonstrated many times over the summer that I could drive myself and others around town while being reasonable shit-faced. So don't ever be afraid to ask for a ride from me when I've downed at least 5 shots of hard liquor. BECAUSE I'LL MAKE YOU BE MY PASSENGER.

Theres actually much more to this list, but I don't quite remember what feats I pulled off this year. Thank you, liquor and drugs.

Tonight is the last night of my enslavement to corporate servitude. And I'm 10x as glad it's tonight. Last night was a tedious night of cleaning up the warehouse section of the store, which is quite a big chunk of real estate. I probably inhaled an ounce of concrete particles and dust the whole 7 hours, and I get to pay for that with a disgusting machine-gun hack and cough this morning. FINALLY THIS INSANE EXPERIENCE IS GOING TO BE OVER.

God, the last half of this year seemed to have flown by. I'm already thinking of what I'm going to write in my year-end synopsis/review of how 2004 was for me. Damn.

I am a stagnant and loathing cunt of a man.

Swaggering around the edges of the end

This past week...hell, the past day or two...have been extremely hectic. It's insane to think that I've just about redeemed two months of hard work for one night of hard play. And every day blended into one due to my zombie work status. Thursday, though. Thursday was a night that was pure bananas.

I didn't get any sleep Wednesday night, because I slept all day after work, and barely woke up in time to hang out with some of the usuals at the Monkeyhouse. I got home around 3am, having felt nice and toasty with a couple of beers and a session with the Scag Baron himself. I tried to sleep, but couldn't force myself to add another 3 hours to the grand total of 14 or so hours of sleep. 6am finally rolled by, and it was high time for me to roll out for the first half of my day of rockin out.

I picked up Leo and Brian, and drove the three of us to Boreal for an afternoon's ride. The snow was hard packed, but the day was great all around. It hurt, but the pain I inflicted on myself kept the adrenaline flowing and the recklessness in gear. We capped the trip with In n Out in Auburn and three times the rush hour traffic.

When I got home from kicking it at Leo's house, I barely got the chance to take a shower before the calls started coming in about tonight's bar plans. I first heard Pinecove, then Streets of London, and mixed opinions of when and where. Eventually, we rolled out to Streets early so we could sneak Nick into the bar. Needless to say, the plan worked and he got to side-step the rules. Stouts upon stouts were consumed by me and my friends, and by 11pm, the whole lot of us had a group-wide beer buzz. After my first guinness, I walked with Diana, Jaime, and Van to Mikuni's for a quick shot (since Streets of London didn't have a full bar). Being the generously rich sap that I am (or was), I fronted the bill for just about any drink my homeskizzles wanted. Four shots of Johnnie Walker Black Label cost me 30. I probably picked up the tab for half of the pints ordered. The eventual late night meal at Shari's cost me about 10 for Diana's quesadillas. The rum, gin, tequila, and triple sec at the Monkeyhouse set me back around $50. A night of instant-classic moments eventually ended at 5am for me, and it was great.

Friday would become my first day of Christmas shopping, with my first purchase going to my little sister (who wanted some $40 pea coat), and Orlando and Jaime's gifts. Being Saturday now, I fucked up once more and forgot to shop for the other people on my list, like my own mom. Oh well, shopping continues tomorrow. As well as the slow descent into brokedness.

DAMNIT

I went to sleep at 7pm or so, and woke up at 4am. This is what happens when I get random weekdays off. My bad, Alex. However, when I woke up at 4am, I ate an 8-hours-too-late dinner, and proceeded to smoke a cig afterwards in the early morning rain. As I inhaled the addictive fumes, I realized I could and SHOULD drive my ass straight to north Tahoe and snowboard solo. The timing was almost perfect; it was a few hours away from the standard opening times of ski resorts, and it was raining in the valley (which meant there would be a new layer of snow in the mountains. All I needed was to tune (wax) my board, and I was ready to hit whatever the mountain threw at me.

Alas, I realized I had some shit to straighten out today, and ignoring this business would be bad. Next week, definitely. Or at least Saturday. Ride Or Die season commences.

Dear Rod,

I'm sorry I've been absent lately, but it just seems like I'm not really needed right now. You've ignored my advice recently, and it resulted in nearly a thousand dollars of credit card charges in a mere three days. I think it would be best if we didn't hang out so often anymore, because you might actually get me into some serious trouble, too. I mean, its great we're like partners and all, but you and me combined could be epicly retarded. Like deciding to work a graveyard shift, dropping out of useful college classes, and trying to publish a book? As I said, idiotic to the highest degree.
Admittedly, I know we have a lot of work left to do together, but right now, I got to do things for me. Give me some time, things will be okay in a week or so. Eh, what the hell, I'm lying. You're screwed after three hours without my help. Fuck it, I'm out of here.

Sincerely,
Your brain

CBMM

Tomorrow will be one of the best days of the year. The long awaited COMIC BOOK MOVIE MARATHON can finally come to fruition for nerds worldwide. MUTHAFUCKIN SPIDERMAN2 COMES OUT ON DVD. WHAT WHAT.

Here's a sample line-up of movies that can be played for at least 24 hours of geeky drooling. Let's start with the crappiest, and then work up to the best of the superhero inspired cinema.

Daredevil (2003)
I kind of liked this movie at first, although there were many stylistic changes to the concept. It worked on the basic level, but altogether it didn't make me love comics as much as the other movies.

The Hulk (2003)
I wanted to give this movie a chance, hell, Ang Lee even experimented with sequential panel cinematography. However, it was a failure in experimentation, as the stylized paneling detracted from the experience. Plus the acting was quite whack.

The Punisher (2003)
This movie ALMOST had me fooled as being badass, but alas, there is no way to make The Punisher a true hardcore savage in live action. I suppose no one realizes that the real Punisher is a machine of death and vengeance, not some emo/rock soundtrack.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003)
I liked it. Fuck, I liked this movie a lot. Although it didn't stay completely true to the Alan Moore books, it was a treat to witness legendary fiction heroes duke it out in classic fashion.

Blade (1998)
NOW the movie line-up is getting intense. Blade was the first in a new generation of comic book movies that stayed true to its roots as well as brought a level of modern rockstar quality to a franchise. Thankfully, the half-vampire, half-human Midnight Son wasn't a household name, so there was plenty of sauce that the movie could bring to the table.

Blade 2 (2002)
Cherish a movie if it can turn out to be better than it's prequel. Not only did this sequel introduce a fresh new angle to the Blade story, but it added a sexy amount of CG that didn't make the movie too cheesy. Although the whole movie had the hint of mozarella flowing through each scene, it still made me laugh and cry, "OH SHIT" at the same time.

X-Men (2000)
Instant Classic. Cult Hit. Genre Defining. Name it, this movie has got it. Bryan Singer took a relatively young franchise (though highly popular) and reshaped it to suit a new generation. It was anti-hero and boyscout at the same time. It was white knuckle and thought provoking. An ensemble cast, as well as ingenious imagery made this movie a flagship of comic book cinema.

X-Men 2 (2003)
Once again, the sequel just about outshines the first. Not only that, but the sequel almost redefined that which sought to redefine itself. Anyway, the X-Men sequel kicked ass and took names.

Hellboy (2004)
If it werent for the fact that Spiderman came out before this movie, it would have defintely taken the highest honors in my mind. True to text plot, beautiful imagery, irresistable dialogue, inside jokes galore. If you're an avid Hellboy/Mignola fan, this movie would have you hooked. Until Sin City comes out, Guillermo Del Toro and Mike Mignola combined produced a perfect comic book film.

Spiderman (2002)
The greatest comic book movie since Tim Burton's Batman. It was sublime in it's take on the Spiderman mythology, insanely great in execution, and overall made my inner-geek splooge all over the walls of my brain membrane. Sam Raimi rocked this movie out.

Spiderman 2 (2004)
I'd say its a beautiful streak that the comic book movie sequels have been top-notch in comparison to their predecessors. Better than the first in every category that the previous movie excelled in. The fights were glorious, the story was dramatic and gripping, the nerd factor was raised to x50. Bonus points on the Evil Dead homage, Sam Raimi.

I think I fucked up...real bad

I woke up with a crick in my neck, must be from the 17 hours of sleep I had last night. 12 of those hours were wasted that could have been used to write up my essay. Now, I'm actually planning for the worst, since its already past the deadline to drop classes. It's 9:17am, and I've written ONE SENTENCE for a 10 page paper due at 10am today. What the fuck happened to me?

"At what price?" I once asked myself. At what price is it worth sacrificing my education just for some cash? Apparently, at the price of $7.50 an hour. God, I'm such an idiot.

SUPERCONSUMER

I've charged up a shitstorm onto my credit card lately. Although I've never hit my card limit, this is nigh the closest I've gotten to excessive spending in a long while. Yesterday, I went to a ski/snowboard swap @ Cal Expo. Bought myself a parka impulsively, and then bought a snowboard on a whim. Grand total: $300

Today, I plan to drop by Toys R Us and buy a Nintendo DS, which just came out. Afterward, I've got to get some gas; another exorbitant expense. If I don't run into more things to buy, the prospective grand total would be $190.

And by the time I'm done with work (assuming I don't get fired before then), I might end up buying an Xbox + 4 controllers + Halo2, as well as around 5 Gamecube games + 2 controllers. Possible total: $700. Plus, I've got a cabin trip, snowboard boots + bindings, and a book publishing to pay for. Yay.

5am Shakedown

It was 4am, Saturday morning, November 13. The second night in a row at Jaime's house that me and about 12 friends got together to play Halo2 until we fell unconscious (or got sick of being fragged). The last survivors of the night were me, Jaime, Nolan, and Nick. Rob was sleeping on the couch in the family room. We decided to play one last match of free-for-all murderspree, 50 kills wins. After about 20 minutes, we're all tense with agitation, as the frags become frequent and the gameplay turns into a white-knuckle adrenaline rush of button mashing and cursing each other.

KNOCK KNOCK.

And let me tell you, that knock was no where near as tame as it sounds. It was more like a BAM BAM on the door. Nolan gets up to answer the door, while the rest of us breath in more slowly for the pause in gameplay. The door opens, and I can barely make out a navy jacket and one tell-tale icon patched to the jacket: POLICE. I was running on 33 hours without sleep, but still alert. Seeing the two officers at the door almost pushed me into paranoia. The white cop asks if they could 'come in and talk,' and I almost wanted to tell them to have their 'talk' outside. Instead, Jaime lets them in and thus begins the most ridiculous police encounter I've ever had. They ask if Nolan, as well as the rest of us, knew this Diana/Deana girl. For a split second I imagined that they were referring to my friend Diana. However, Nick stepped up and said that this particular girl was his co-worker (she had come to Jaime's house to kick-it, although I never knew her name), and he asked whether she was in trouble. This is the part where the thought of "Fuck the Police," comes to mind. Rather than answer a simple question coming from my friend, the white cop (there was an asian/filipino cop with him) switches into DRAGNET mode and begins to turn the questions around on him and implicate that he was at fault.

Nick: "Whats wrong, is she okay? Is she in trouble?"
Cop: "Why do YOU think she would be in trouble?"
Nick: "I don't know, MAYBE because you're in here asking us about her?"

Believe me, the girl seemed just fine the entire time she was at Jaime's. She had mysteriously left the house 30 or so minutes before the cops came, and it looked like both an ambulance and fire engine were outside because of her.

Cop: "So what's going on here, you guys partying?"
Jaime: "Uh...we're just hanging out and playing video games, sir"

The room was dark, no music was playing, and only four nocturnal souls were huddled around a big screen TV with Halo2 in pause. I don't believe thats called partying at 4 in the morning.

Cop #2 looks at Jaime's hookah and asks: "Well, what is this?"
Jaime: "Its...uh..something to smoke tobacco out of"

You must be a dumb police officer if you've never seen a hookah. We only use hookahs to smoke tobacco, we have plenty of pipes to smoke weed out of.

So the interrogation continued, but the white cop took Nick and their Q&A session into the kitchen while Nolan, Jaime, and I were left with the asian cop in the living room. The asian cop's questions were basic, and had no hint of entrapment in his voice. In the kitchen, I could hear the other cop asking Nick more questions, as well as Rob's snores. Eventually, I heard Nick's voice rise, which probably meant Nick was becoming frustrated by the cop's questions.
When they finished their chat, the cops went outside to reconvene, or exchange notes or whatever it is that cops do when they harass a bunch of guys playing Halo2.

They were gone for about 20 minutes, and the first few minutes after the door closed was the most agitating moment of silence I've ever had. The four of us just sat there, dumb-founded. Apparently, this girl had left the house in a fit, 911 was called, police thought that someone slipped a drug into her drink.

Nolan picked up his controller, and started to move around. I did the same, then Jaime did, too. Nick started to protest, saying that he can't play with such a heavy burden on his mind. He kept apologizing to Jaime because the cops came by on account of his co-worker. We tell him to loosen up, and to get his mind off it. I start to melee hit his idle character to get him to start playing again. After 6 or so melee strikes, his character dies, and he finally gets back into the mood to kill. Another 20 minutes pass by, and we're all back in the mood to shoot and kill; our minds are almost completely off the matter.

KNOCK KNOCK (more like THUD THUD).

Jaime opens the door, and we stop playing once more. The two cops have returned, but this time they made up their minds to tell us what crimes they assumed we had committed. So we're told the probably had a bad reaction to the hookah or weed smoke, and had most likely called the 911 thinking someone had dropped a date-rape drug into her drink. I almost felt glad it wasn't as worse as it could have been. But, the police encounter didn't end there.

Cop: "You kids need to watch who you party with, or next time there'll be trouble."

Okay, I probably shouldn't party with gamers next time, or I'd probably end up in jail because of them.

Before they left, the white cop, WITHOUT GIVING REASON, singled me out and told me to stand up. Then he told Nick to stand up again. We both looked at each other like, "WHAT THE FUCK?"

We're told to turn around. I almost, instinctively, put my hands on my head and began to move towards the wall with my legs spread apart. READY FOR THE PAT DOWN. I think Nick was ready to do that, too. Instead, the cop tells us to keep our hands at our side. With my back to the police, I felt kind of out of place. Either pat me down or slap some cuffs on, because I sure as hell dont look like Nick. He tells us to turn around, face front. I could see on Nolan and Jaime's faces, that they were also in a silent "WTF?" gesture.

Cop: "I hope you guys learned a valuable lesson tonight."

The four of us were still dumb-founded. What lesson? That girls will think they're dying and call the police? Not to have Halo2 gaming parties? That the police have nothing better to do at 5 in the morning then interrogate four guys who aren't making a large ruckus?

But the last thing the white cop said was the tipping point. He looked at me and Nick and left with some of the most idiotic words ever uttered out of a police officer's mouth.

Cop: "Wow. You guys are totally stoned. Hah hah."

FUCKING HELL.

NONE OF US were stoned at all. Probably 3 hours ago, but not at 5am. We were only high on adrenaline. I sure as hell wasn't even high on anything. I've been passing everytime it came to me for the past 5 months. He must have mistaken my vacant look for euphoria, when it was actually the fact that I hadn't slept since Thursday night (It was Saturday morning).

What a waste of playing time. In the end, I won the "50 Kill" match, with Jaime a close second place.

CORPORATE ZOMBIEDOM

It's 7am in the morning, and I'm wide awake. I didnt sleep, actually. An hour ago was the end of my first week of work for the great retail tycoon that is Toys R Us. It's not as glamorous as expected. Hell, what's so glam about working an overnight stocking shift? I'm up all night playing with toys and the massive boxes they come in, I sleep in specific time frames during the day time, go to school and zone out for an hour, and essentially sacrifice a standard social life. This is what it is to be a corporate zombie.

But its not that bad, really. I found that I'm more able to survive a graveyard shift than I originally thought. Plus, my current crew of co-workers aren't so bad at all. Francisco is this cool cat from my hood that carpools with me, the shift manager is generally laidback, the new Toys R Us store is pretty badass, the male co-workers (like Ali, Mike, Phoung, Steve) are guys like me, and theres a pretty cute girl that works with us to boot. Unfortunately, it looks like I'll eventually be laid off right after Christmas ends, as my job is essentially seasonal. However, if I do a pretty good job of it, that could be bonus points for me if/when I try to re-apply for a standard daytime position.

The worst thing is that I don't get Friday nights to have fun. For instance, last night was the re-start of my cousins DJ'ing at Los Nopales, which is basically a free club in a bar/restaurant down in Old Sac.

Damn, the sun is starting to be more luminous, I better hibernate.

INSOMNIMANIA

I pushed myself to go 40 hours without sleep.

Woke up at 11am on Friday and tried to get ready for a job interview. Needless to say, the liquor from the night before took its toll on my bowels and sleep pattern. I was unprepared for the the interview, but whatever. Afterward, I dropped by Ryan's house and watched him and Jaime play their own games of Fable. Eventually, I dropped by Alex's place and we headed back to Ryan's to begin a night of 9+ video gaming hours. At one point in the night, we were at Denny's or something, but that was a brief meal interlude for the hardcore Guilty Gear XX battling. At around 3am, we started watching movies, and after Evil Dead finished, Alex, and I followed Jaime back to his place to continue the night-long sleep rebellion.

Thus far, I've tied the last insomniac streak of 40 hours (2003 trip to LA for Independance Day). I'm still trying to go for the 48 hours of "Fuck Sleep" parade, but the opportunities are too rare to attempt that.

TEQUILA SUNRISE

2 shots Tequila
4 oz. Orange Juice
1 oz of Grenadine

Pour tequila and orange juice into a glass half filled with ice. Pour in grenadine and allow to settle at bottom. Before drinking, stir.

This has become my favorite drink lately, especially since theres a big bottle of Jose Cuervo Especial lying around and I just bought some grenadine. Getting fairly buzzed at home is a good way to combat the emo that's threatening to invade.

REPLAY

ONCE AGAIN. once a-fuckin-gain, the overwhelming feeling of disjointedness, the feeling of being lost, STRIKES me. like i'm a lightning rod in a shitstorm.

i dropped a crucial class, color theory. if i had kept it and been able to complete the class work, it would have been an advantage for me in the long run. alas, this is what i get for bad decisions.

whats worse, is that i had this goal to be able to churn out AT LEAST a page of sequential art every one and a half days. i did well for the first 4 days, and then the steam and fervor started to dwindle. if i can't get to work on my comic project, i will fall deeper into limbo. add to this doldrum of creativity the ever-changing circumstances of the BIG PICTURE, and i'm in some serious mental straits. i'm trying to unite the rag-tag group of internet artists i'm allied with to produce a BOOK, but things seem to keep slipping from my control. a good chunk of my crew, LJ/Travis/Sheldon/Stefan/Jakub are contributing to a book of equal immenseness, Void PULPO. so many factors keep skewing the plan. Vince has no scanner, Jonathan's reliability falters because he works too much, Danny is off the radar, Alpha is usually MIA, Seth barely draws anymore, Joe is a slack, Khris' schooling is higher priority, and Ryan is...Ryan. The only person i know that is willing to throw down is Steve.

i'm not sure what i can do anymore.

I just got to the end of one of my ropes. Back to sub-par academic performance.

Jaime's house must hate me or something.

ABSINTHE FUCKIN ROCKS.

and girls are always a disappointment.

Fuck all this EMO bullshit that seems to be dropkicking me in the head every other month. All it seems to do is put me at odds with my logical and sentimental sides. And all the while, it just slows down the development that I need. I'm going to just go hardcore and draw comics for the next few weeks, enough of the cat and mouse games. If I don't churn out a couple of pages of sequentials by Labor Day weekend, then I am officially brain dead.

Heatwave Blues.

The past few days has had some of the muggiest weather all summer. Incidentally, these past few days have also been permanently recorded as some of craziest I've had all year. Rewind, forreals.

I'll have to take it back about A YEAR ago. There's this girl, whom I've referenced in the past, that I used to casually date. Hell, I even like her enough to deeply care about her. Preposterous, but true. I tried to make the move last year, but was spurned and burned. Badly. Skip to winter, things get more confusing between her and I. But despite the weird circumstances that transpired, she and I are on pretty good terms. WHICH ADDS TO THE CONFUSION. Now, its a little more than a year after the times that we went out. I missed her birthday party bonanza. Intentionally. I didn't really want to further complicate this feeling of clarity I've had for the past three weeks. Things were starting to look promising for the path I was walking... I was partying, clubbing, bar-hopping with my older cousins throughout the summer...soaking in the kind of fun that my own friends can't offer...

THEN.

I get a call from her. And as you should know, her calling me is a rare event, and not without good reason. So she's at a bar with a friend or two. She's calling me out to meet her there. I'm at home in my boxers drawing (YES, I'm drawing again), getting back into an art groove. It really seems like she wants me to come out to the bar she's at. It's like a Wednesday, or something. I politely decline, saying something about school in the morning and blahblahblah. Truth is that I had been drinking back to back weekends through August, and I wanted to give the liver a rest for a change. So she sounds dejected, so I give her an alternative choice. It was my cousin's birthday party at some restaurant/bar downtown, and the DJ cousins of mine were also spinning for the night. The restaurant is converted into a bar/club on Fridays like these, with no cover charge. I tell her that we'll make up for the fact that I missed her birthday by meeting up Friday night. I figured, I can kill two birds with one stone by going to the birthday party and having her meet me there. Friday rolls by, and everything just about goes according to plan. By the time she arrived I had already finished a Long Island and two beers. We hit a Kamikaze shot together, and chill at the bar. I tell her to head to the small dancefloor and cut a rug. We dance the night away. The night is done at roughly 5am after a meal at a 24 hour diner with her, her friend Roberta, and my cousin Geno. Things look O.K. thus far, neutral and all that.

Sunday night is a big party for a friend's going-away to London. The usual crowd is there, and then some. I didnt drink much, several cups of juice mixed with vodka, a shot of Hennessey, shot of Vodka, two Bacardi 151 jello shots, a couple of beers. I'm in a comfy state of inebriation. Everyone else gets fairly smashed, except for Jaime and Eric. The dilemma presents itself. The details are sketchy, but for the most part of the night, she is extremely more flirty than I expect. And it doesnt even seem like it's completely directed towards me. Ok, so towards the end of the night, her charm is direct towards me. No big deal, I can hold my liquor as well as my inhibitions with expertise. Although the madness of the night MOST CERTAINLY did not revolve around her and I, the moment that plagued me the rest of the night (and even now) is the instance in which I tried to dive in and kiss her...INSTEAD, she kisses me.

The point of contention here is this: in all the moves I've made towards her, each time I was met with some kind of defiance from her. When I tried to kiss her before, the moment never succeeded. On Sunday night, she welcomed and beckoned my advances. Granted, there were others that night that attempted the same as I, but my intent was far more noble than theirs. Hell, even after the unexpected kiss, I had opportunities to CAPITALIZE. But I didn't. I just sat there. And pondered what goes on in her head.

True, she was drunk. Her inhibitions may have faltered that night. But the truth is, she's been just as drunk in times past, and she can handle herself as well as I. Perhaps even better on occasion. As I'm told from another friend, someone tried to make it with her at one point in the night; they kissed, but she pushed him back (allegedly). What does that mean for me? I'm not sure I want to know, or whether I should try to know. As I said before, I was set in my ways before this; I was sure there was nothing between us anymore...Hell, I was trying to get with a girl I met at a club before this came up (though that attempt was neglible).

Another thing that startles me about that kiss is this: the very same thing happened with me and Claudia. She had resisted me until one odd night that she just reciprocated my kiss. Now, a girl whom I hold in even higher esteem than Claudia is giving me feelings of bad ju-ju and deja-vu. Why am I hesitating?

COLD BLOODED.

rick james died today. one of my favorite duets of all time, fire and desire, can no longer sound as sweet now.

i'm a baaaad man. things are spiraling. chaos is right outside my door. ARGH
probably shouldnt have gotten drunk last night at the club.

Jeezus.

It's been what, two weeks since I got back from San Diego? Consider this the first time I've actually gotten on track with ANYTHING since I got back. The trip was too much for words, and I definitely wish I were still in San Diego...at least for the rest of the summer or something.

However, returning to Sacramento life has gotten much more important lately, as a couple of major events are coming together in which I have a part to play.

For one, a major business venture/partnership has formed between my group and Terence's group. Essentially, Terence wants to help us get our names out in the art world. I'm still around 10% unsure about how everything will work out, but I'm game to actually get the ball rolling here.

Secondly, Alex's art show starts next saturday, at the Red Square Cafe off of Alhambra (in midtown). Although I fail to keep in touch with him and work on the details of the inaugural night of the art show, I'm sure we'll work it out and put together a great event. So far, I'm told at least two acts will perform at the cafe for the night of the art show, and we've got a dozen and one other things to go over to make the show more than a flop.

Anyway.

The summer blues has been setting in, and I'm sleeping in more often, and doing hardly anything productive now that I'm out of a job. On top of that, video games have been dominating my waking hours. School starts in a mere two weeks.

THREE DAYS LEFT.

and San Diego will feel the drunken wrath of Respark.

i bought this EPIC game for my gamecube called Tales of Symphonia on thursday...you'd think that i'd just spend my waking hours immersing myself in this beautiful game, right? sadly, i've only played about 25 minutes worth of the game thus far. work and lack of sleep has been kicking the ass of my freetime lately. but hotfuckingdamn, this game has full clips of splendid anime and awe-inspiring graphics. it ALMOST beats out FFCC in terms of OMG factor.

in other news, my work term ends this coming tuesday, meaning i can only expect one last paycheck in august and it'll be off to claim unemployment. but the best part is that my seasonal position will potentially end RIGHT before i leave for SDCC. the worse part is that i'll be leaving behind a CACHE of hot chicks that work at FTB. dammit.

HOT FUCKINGTON.

work today was...for some odd reason, one of the best ones. today was the third to the last day of work for me, and as usual, the cool things ALWAYS seem to happen at the latest possible moments. firstly, i got NOTHING done today, i basically zoned out for 8 hours straight. awesome. i probably DID get something done, but i can't remember because i was barely conscious.
normally, i'm anti-social at work, and i rarely talk to any of the people around me, only to laugh if i overhear a joke or something. today, however, i actually chatted with everyone around me, which probably added to my lack of production. oh well. talked to some of the cute asian girls that sit near me, took three too many smoke breaks, essentially i was the posterboy of bad employee. but it doesnt matter anymore, because my supervisor is gone, and the supervisor that was assigned to watch over us is somewhere deep in the cubicles out of sight. every other student assistant there dozed off on their desks.

OK, highlight of the work day: so there's this new starbucks stand outside of the nearby cafeteria, and for the past week or three, i've been eyeing the new girl they hired. cute, really cute. so i bought some random drink and basically talked to her for the whole of a break. her voice, oh god. basically, she's a cool cat, and was easy to talk to. and yeah.

but the real highlight of the day was sleeping in the chair out in the patio on the far side of the building. at 6am, NO ONE cares if you sleep in a chair during break or on top of your work. hahahahhahaha.

I shall be creating a blog of some form where I will jot down and showcase the various rhymes I concoct (and have concocted). This way, I will get better used to the patterns I create and figure out how to master my style. Be forewarned, when I transform into a bloodthirsty emcee, it gets vicious; a side of me that I normally stifle roams wild and devours the enemy. I call him Artofact.

Fuck. Watched Spider-man 2 on Thursday AND Friday. Awesome movie. Just like the first, the concepts of the movie are hitting me hard once more. I'd explain how...but I'm just not up to it now, its waaaay too emo.