FUCK YOU, 2003

PERSONAL SURVEY
Good:SDCC2003. Fuck yeah, that whole SUMMER, was just... one of the best I could ever hope for.
Bad: GIRLS. Sure, I've had a fair share of good moments, BUT, that does not redeem the overwhelming retardedness of what I put up with. Now, I don't really blame myself...I BLAME THEM. Fucking girls.
Ugly: 1992 Ford Thunderbird. OH YEAH, the "G-Ride." It comes up with more problems than I can get money to fix it. It is currently sitting in the driveway with HALF AN ENGINE. Fuck that shit.

MEDIA and SHIT
DIE A HORRIBLE DEATH:American Idol 'stars.' And all current pop sensations in general, except for those I list. And Chingy. And Lil Jon. And the Eastside Boyz. And the Ying Yang Twinzzzz.
YOU DON'T ROCK: Limp Bizkit. Just stop, seriously.

Guilty Pleasure: Justin Timberlake (Fuck you haters, hahhaha)
Best Show I've been to: Hieroglyphics @ Sac State. Although this was the ONLY show I've been to all year, it still rocked on numerous levels.
Thank GOD for: Brand New, as well as Hot Hot Heat. Everything else that played on the airwaves this year was just hardrock assburps that all sounded the same.

Best Album/s: The Black Album (Jay-Z), Speakerboxxx/The Love Below (OutKast). Hip Hop is given a slight breath of new life, which makes these picks best.
Runner Ups: Turn on the Bright Lights (Interpol), Deja Entendu (Brand New), Give Up (The Postal Service), Absolution (Muse), Sleeping With Ghosts (Placebo), Transatlanticism (Death Cab For Cutie). All of these ROCKED on equal levels. Too hard for me to put them up over the "Best Albums" I picked.

Best of TV: Hah, I watched less TV this year than last year, which is good. So ALL of it sucks, except for cartoons.
Best Movie/s: Kill Bill, Return of the King, The Last Samurai, X-Men 2
Best Actor/s: Johnny Depp. Hands down.
Best Actress/es: Halle Berry. She kind of sucked in X-Men 2, but she's still tops.
Worst Movie/s:Matrix Reloaded/Revolutions. MOST OVERHYPED, EXPENSIVE piece of shit EVER.
Surprisingly Good Movie: The Rundown.
Hottest Girl: Keira Knightley
Hottest Guy: Tom Cruise.
Porn Star: Charmane Star/Kaylani Lei

Game of the Year: Soul Calibur 2. BIYATCH!
OMGOMG: Viewtiful Joe, Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Final Fantasy Tactics, Boktai
Best Gaming Platform/s: Xbox and Gamecube are tied. PS2 sucks.
Multiplayer Madness: Mariokart Doubledash!! OH SHIT, it's insane.

Best Comicbook/s: 1602 (Neil Gaiman, Andy Kubert)
Best Story: Batman "Hush" (Jeph Loeb, Jim Lee)
Best Manga/s: Naruto (Masashi Kishimoto), One Piece (Eiichiro Oda). Thank you Shonen Jump. Priest (Min-Woo Hyung)
Coolest Character: Roronoa Zoro (One Piece)

HIGHLIGHTS
Defining Moment: August 13th, 2003. This one day alone is the reason why I hate and love girls at the same time.
The Most HAMMERED: December 19th, 2003. Jaclyn's Graduation Party. Played Super Street Fighter 2 for shots. HAHA.
The Least Hammered: Residence Inn on July 3rd with family. Played "Spoons," drank quite a bit, yet was not as faded as I thought.
Best Party: August 8th. Diana's 20th birthday party. 10 hours of party/kickit/drinking.
Worst Party: Amador's friend's apartment. A packed apartment downtown, and I knew a total of 1 person there. YAY.
Marathon of: Sleeplessness:July 2-4, 2003. Awake for 40 hours on a trip to LA/Orange County, which was followed by "The Least Hammered" that night.
Most/Least Wealthy: Earlier this year, I bought a $1400 iBook, while working nearly full-time for the state at $8.30 an hour. Currently, I am jobless, hah!

Final Verdict: Pirating wireless cable internet is grand. BitTorrent ROCKS.

2004 OUTLOOK
Winter: El Cabino/Cabin Fever. OHYEAH. APE in February, hopefully my first mini-comic will be made. Freelance work hopefully pays for a new website.
Spring:Work work work. Earn money to spend, maybe save some for the inevitable BIG MOVE. Las Vegas trip, hopefully. The BIGBAD21 goes down. Shit'chyeah.
Summer: SAN DIEGO, here I come. Woop woop!
Fall: Gear up for some serious snowboarding in the '04-05 season. I need a board/bindings/boots.
Movies I will definitely watch: Troy. Spiderman 2. Hellboy! Kill Bill vol.2. The Passion of the Christ (maybe). Hidalgo. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. I, Robot. The Bourne Supremacy (maybe).

I KNOW. I promised I'd be done with this, but circumstances grew out of my control, as riotform.net went down permanently earlier in December 2003. you just had to put in one last jab at me, didn't you, MR. BIGBAD '03.

But this is it. Some final words on that horrible year, and maybe a look at 2004 can be. I've had enough of the 2003 and the crap it assaulted me with, so OPTICA has it's last stand here and now. Whether it survives the final grips of 2003 is yet to be known.

tomorrow i'll be making a(nother) blog hosted on my riotform website. adios, blogger!

recap of the past few days.
sunday: afternoon kick it with the confed heads @ borders. followed by a thorough 7 hour marathon of soul calibur 2 at joe koko-nuts hizzay. OWNAGE in EVERY direction. i get home at 3am. fun.
monday: mowed lawn :( sucky weather. jen's b-day kickit @ her house. plenty of stoners stoned, i am exempt. tekken 4 tournament commences, i OWN everyone due to being the least intoxicated. STEVE ate everyone's children. hot-girls-that-don't-look-their-age-but-are-really-16 mess with my head, but i didnt smoke. home at 3am once more.
tuesday: school, but not really. got ryan to skip his noon class to play soul calibur 2 with us at koko-nuts house. RAPHAEL friggin OWNED. no question. except the occasional ring out by some bastard ass fighters like Voldo and Kilik.

life is pretty good, despite the absence of a woman's warmth. bahhhhhhhhhhh.

this sucks hairy goat balls. speaking of goats, theres one caged up next door that's been keeping me annoyed all day. my uncle needs to cook that fucker up already and get it over with.
and yeah.
this looks to be a boring ass labor day weekend. it's probably going to turn out to be more of a homework weekend, when i should really be avoiding school work. bahh. none of the usual crowd seem to be doing anything, and to top it off, i think my older sister is going out and having fun more than me lately. now that is just BULL. i remember on friday, we were just chillin at the CRC's cafeteria hall, and I ask, "what are we gonna do now?" and all we did was roll deep to my house and crowd up my room. it was cool to kick it with about 8 people stuffed in my small ass room, but shit, thats all i did that day. nothing came through yesterday and today. sure, i could have gone with Amador to see American Splendor, but maaaan...i didn't know if it would only be me and him going to see it. now that would be suspect.

but to debunk any suspicions...the girl that was my focus for the past few weeks just told it to me straight yesterday night.
i totally understand, i do. she had broken up with her boyfriend of about a year (?), and she told me she wanted to enjoy the single life. crud. seems like i always have to be the understanding one, and sit idly by until the girl makes up her mind. dammit.
well, there goes all the confidence i built up since the "incident" and the "moment." at least i can say, that for once, i didn't sit idly by, that i made something out of a situation and tried to keep it alive. bah.
off to the hunt i go once more. it's all good, i've got something of a "list" of girls, and i'm going to take my chances and run through the game all over again with each of them. woop-pah.

yoohoo! i dont where it came from, but we've got an ample supply of it. dont tell me your biased opinion of this oh-so-good chocolate milk drink. hell, this is probably the only kind of milk i'd ever want to drink. and thats saying a lot.
well, a lot of the plans that we had for today went kaput, seeing as how a bunch of things fell out of place. now here i am, chillin on my roof, wishing i were having fun. bah.

by the count, we've got the following people confirmed for the coming artRIOT
Khris: anthology (X) worldwide edition (x) sdcc04 (x)
Seth: anthology (X) worldwide edition (x) sdcc04 (?)
Alpha: anthology (X) worldwide edition (x) sdcc04 (?)
Travis: anthology (x) worldwide edition (0) sdcc04 (?)
Alex/Adam: anthology (X) worldwide edition (0) sdcc04 (?)
Shelde: anthology (0) worldwide edition (0) sdcc04 (0)
Reggie: anthology (0) worldwide edition (?) sdcc04 (0)
Joe: anthology (x) worldwide edition (0) sdcc04 (0)
Knome: anthology (X) worldwide edition (x) sdcc04 (?)

Ryan and I are heading most of this, so of course we're in.

business and pleasure is getting better by the day, it seems. i'm on a pretty badass upswing from the downward spiral i went through early this year.
finished the pencils to my first page of sequential art. first time i've messed with sequentials in almost a year. looks like i haven't lost a thing, more like gained a dozen new ones. once i get the second page done, i can officially say i'm back in my art groove.
and business...it's not raking any money my way, not yet that is. but the fact is that gears are finally in motion, and the artRIOT is almost underway. i'll be adding three new additions to the roster, one of them being my old icon, Chris Lee. Alex and Adam are jumping on for the meantime, too. i think they're getting back into their swing, and i'm helping them transition. lastly, is the talented "Xenogia" that Ryan came upon. He'll be hosted once they coordinate the plan for his website. on the horizon, i'm looking forward to hooking up with Jim, and seeing what he can do. and the chick we met in San Diego is a prospective recruit, which'll rock a-plenty. i still need to find some willing female artists to join the crew...

and pleasure...oh, the pleasure aspect... i'll keep this part a relative secret until i know that things are working my way. until then, know that i'm living it up...big time...-sniff- hm, i think i still have her scent on me still... hahaha.

Epiphany #348
I have an almost subconscious jones for Chinese girls. I don't know what it is, but I have more often than not gravitated towards Asian girls half the time, and generally not just any Asian girls. They're either Chinese, or some killer mix of Chinese, or maybe they're a flaming hot Korean girl.
The earliest example I can probably remember is Jen, and she's mixed Chinese/White. Another example is this one girl I met at summer school a ways back... smokin Korean babe. gahhh. Next one would probably be Anh from working at FTB. Yet another example would be that one Chinese, possibly mixed, girl from a class I had the other semester. And then there's my senior ball date, Nikki (My). Also, there's, this girl named Amy, who I tried to get at senior year. If this is any indication, I think I should either stop NOW while I have the chance, or get some kind of help for this.

OHGAWD. Friendster is like some kind of evil system out to destroy my self-esteem. All I have to do is type in a name of say...a girl I was crushing on back in the day, and for some odd reason, the particular person I'm looking for actually exists on Friendster. Seriously. I've found just about EACH girl I just mentioned, and that is not good for the memories I'm trying hard to forget. FUCKFUCKFUCKFRIENDSTER.
And I thought Sacramento was too small of a world, the Internet just got even smaller. GDAMMIT.

hm. i just dropped my history class, leaving my tues/thurs open to do WHATEVER. good.
before i forget, this is a list of all the songs i can attempt to play, or am practicing on my guitar. this is for future reference, so i can burn a CD of this playlist for practice.

"Remember to Breathe" Dashboard Confessional
"Ender Will Save Us All" Dashboard Confessional
"Like I Love You" Justin Timberlake (the mariachi-sounding main riff)
"Come as You Are" Nirvana (bassline riff)
"Clint Eastwood" Gorillaz (bassline riff)
"Outside" Staind
"Fat Lip" Sum41 (needs practice)
"Drive" Incubus (needs lots of work)
"Half-Crazy" Musiq Soulchild
"Seven Nation Army" The White Stripes (bassline riff)
"U Remind Me" Usher (main tune)

just learned, "Rivers of Babylon," Sublimes version of the Bob Marley song.

hah. i think i HELLA overexaggerated on the "half a million words of written work this semester" statement. i believe the correct amount is somewhere around 50,000 words? next time, i should probably calculate my "educated guesses." but anyway. in other news...
riotform.net is doing well, i've almost got the original roster back up, sans one annoying little bugger that goes by the name of Timo. i offered, and saved him space, but being the 14-15 year old walking-wedgie that he is, has neglected it, as well as my advice. that, my friends is the best way to piss me off, if ANY. ignoring my good graces is a one way trip to WRATH OF ROD (3WW, Sorcery. Destroy all pre-pubescent, cack-a-roach fucks and their promised webhostage.)
the five barons of FUNK met up friday night at lai wah, and we discussed our "business" trip to san diego next year. from the book, merch, hotel, to the proposed las vegas trip right after SDCC, we are slowlying planning out the first big step. i'm not so sure if the five of us can still be called "sQuiD" seeing as how we haven't completed a thing in the name of squid since...we graduated high school. ron even said it himself, saying something like we're more like a loosely connected alliance. a CONFEDERATION. true, we are nowhere near the size of a real confederacy, but its a catchy label. i'll probably refer to us as the CONFEDs from now on.
other than a few little timos slowing the pace, business is going well. i've still got alpha's website to work on, but i can get that done in no time. i just wish i could get a bit of commission for work from time to time. eh.

now, onto the "pleasure" part of this update.
friday was a cool little kick-it day, where the likes of Leo and Brian Tillo made quick cameos. hell, my padawan learner (Leo) even hooked Jaime and I with some smokes and lighters that he stole from work. good job. Ryan (Rai) needed to get his severance pay from the club, so we scooted over there to fetch it, and lo & behold, we meet Adam MacDonald there. after Adam MacD got off work, he said he'd meet us at in n out for lunch. rai, jai, and i (ahhh shit. FUNKadelic) then went to the comic shop to check out stuff, and poompoppow, we ran into Jim Shepherd. we hadn't seen Jimbo since we bumped into him at SDCC, and it was good to see that he was working at cards and comics now. i told him about the artRIOT (riotform.net) project, and he seemed down to participate in it.
it's funny. ryan, who knows full well about the artRIOT project and is supposed to be co-spearheading it with me and Amador, would usually meet a cool artist friend of ours and tell them about the gig, yet he would refer them to me for the full explanation.
anyways, after the comics store, we met Adam "Big Soft" MacDonald at in n out around the way, chilled, laughed, and had a good time there. i dont want to sound too mushy, but i miss the guy; he's one of my favorite former co-worker at LCRC. when we were done at in n out, we rolled out to borders to chill some more. we kicked it for the most part, didnt get much done, but eh. while there, ryan then found Daryl Watson there, and told him about artRIOT, and referred him to me for the skinny of the project. hah. Daryl and i talked biznass, mostly comic book industry related stuff. we told him about the book we were going to publish, and he gave us some words of advice, and even elaborated about his future plans of self-publication. grooviness.
the day ended with dinner at lai wah, as previously mentioned.

saturday, was a bit of a jumbled day. i THINK i chilled at home until 9pm, i dont remember. the events that occured after 9pm was reason enough for me to forget the mundane details of the day. we were supposed to go to oakland that morning, but instead the trip was cancelled. eh. ok, here's the deal: it was Elissa's 21st b-day party that night, but the plan had not gone as originally planned; the house that was to be the party location was unavailable, many invitees bailed, the party was moved to ex-boyfriend James' place. James bails early for a rave, the party is transferred to Jen Fong's house. 11:30pm. the party arrives at Jen's. Alex calls, Rai goes with me to pick him up for the party. plenty of Kaligula-esque escapades ensue after we return. i call up Diana, she rolls by, joy is me. Rai no feel good, a quandary arrives. problem resolved, Rai gets home later than normally allowed, and so do i. in the graces of near-strangers, i return home to crash. time is: 4:45am.

sunday, i wake up at 3pm. we missed church. Rai is on lockdown, i'm told. Jaime and Alex are still at Jen's asking me when i'll roll by. i finish homework. Orlando tells me he's rollin over to Jen's. i get ready and drop by. a cute girl is there, and it's not jen. oh well. we play tekken 4. i once again realize why i hate tekken. a small jam session with guitars happens. Rob rocks it on the acoustic. cute girl plays bass. Orlando leaves, we (Jaime, Alex, and i) follow. instead of the drop-off, we meet up at Alex's and chill for a bit. from Alex's, the four of us head over to a vietnamese/chinese restaurant for dinner, orlando's treat. conversation ranges from the plague of women, to biznass. after dinner, we head back, and get to meet Alex's roomie Liz. we watch the movie Go, and then go home. after Jaime's drop-off, i drop by Amador's place to pick up the illustrations he wants me to tone. i kick it for a bit, we catch up on how he got fired recently, among other things. he tells me about house of 1000 corpses, and i borrow it from him. come home. typed this up. yay.

this is crazy. of all my coming classwork combined, i will undoubtedly write half a million words this semester. i might be in over my head. way over my head.
at least i got my car back from the shop, and can go and do my own thing now. eh.

i had 4 and a half hours of sleep yesterday night/morning. and it was the night/morning before the first day of school, which is one of the busier days of a semester. i'm hardcore.

...and just as Karma gives me a pat on the back to say, "Hey, you deserve a bit of a reward for all the crap you've had to put up with," it instantly smacks me upside the head, telling me," What a dumbass, did you think you could really get away with it?" I mean, I've once again missed a very amazing opportunity lain on my lap, yet I flub it like a Michael Jordan dunk (sorry about the basketball reference, I've been playing NBA Street vol.2 almost nonstop lately). this missed chance isn't necessarily the only chance i have left at some kind of contentment, but was definitely a sure-shot missed nonetheless.
what to do, what to do? just a rhetorical question, i don't expect an answer anytime soon.

holllllllllly shiiiiiiiiiit.

Karma is a great thing. it really is. well, sometimes it isnt. but for the most part it is. right now, karma is gracing me with some goodness, although the "unemployement stone," as my friends have dubbed it, has been handed to me, and i am currently the only member of the group without a job. but without a job, i have been given much more time to pursue a life with relatively few hindrances. i feel more free than i have in years. there are a couple of things i can do now that i wasnt able to do 5 months ago. that, my friends, is GOOD.

heres your uncommon update. these past few days have been fairly busy, and today has been my recharge day. i took a couple of naps, achieving nothing at all, waking up just in time to catch the east coast showing of FLCL on Adult Swim. what a weird, but great show.
anyway.
Friday, kicked the weekend off with this GREAT party @ Diana's for her birthday, along with Roberta's. I, along with those that rolled with me that night, were the first ones in, last ones out...so to speak. didn't go home until 7am the next day. fun fun fun.
Saturday, slept most of the day, and got back up to get ready for an art show. the first set of plans to get there fell through, and i ended up stranded for a while, with no way to get to J. Street. finally, Amador came through and i rolled with him the rest of the night. after the art walk, we hit up a small kickback. not that bad of a night, but it could have been better.
Sunday, woke up early and once again rolled with Amador to San Francisco for a Zinefest. the fest wasn't that great, so we cruised over to Haight-Asbury with Amador's friend James. we met up with Matt Leunig after hitting up the KidRobot store, and from there we went to the Isotope comic store and kicked it until we left. after San Francisco, we went to Walnut Creek for a Japanese cultural festival with Amador's dad. we stopped by Flying Color's comic store while there, and got lost on the way back. fun times.
so it was a weird three days. first off, it was like a step into my past, meeting a bunch of old school friends and acquaintances. i even had a moment, albeit a drunken one, at the party on friday. hopefully that moment wasnt some isolated incident that was alchol-induced. a day and a half of some of the best moments of my life, and i switch over to step into the world of my friend Amador. met some of his folks, kicked it with circles of people in his social. makes me realize how small my world is. but anyway, met some of his kind of people, and a special "friend" of his, as well as his Dad and half-brother.
great weekend, but now i'm pretty fuckin tired. bah.

long day. too long. early morning: went to the funeral of my uncle Frank. the prospect of passing on from this life has me in all kinds of mental straits. i don't want to wallow in complacency and normality. no more wallowing, dammit. i don't want my life to flash before my eyes and realize i accomplished none of my goals and dreams. i've had a taste of my own meager mortality, and i do not want to quietly lose it.
so now, i am looking forward, and eagerly grasping toward life in all it's possibilities.

first order of business on my life's agenda is to push for the evolution of my creative self, in any way possible. since san diego, ryan and i have toyed with the idea of expanding our artistic spheres of influence. i have no idea how far we can take it, but we hope to self-publish some kind of compiled work of ours, and any others willing to join in the effort. and since the san diego comic convention, amador and i have been experimenting with a project that can emulate an artistic commune we've experienced, and ideally unite the artistic populace of our little town. the basic idea is something that can be considered an art jam session: a crowd of artists under one roof, kickin back, drawing in sketchbooks, whether it be theirs or someone elses. not only can local artists meet each other, but we can feed off the energy from so many ideas and creative minds that we can all reap and prosper from the experience: connections, friendships, inspirations.
right now, this project is in the very beginning stages, and we met up tonight to lay down the groundwork for this. i'll be heading up the basic website deal, while noir will get the flyer produced. these flyers will be distributed to as many comic shops and hang outs of potential participants in the greater sacramento area. noir will try to secure a nice, neutral place where the first of hopefully many jam sessions can take place, and we'll be the rockin' hosts for this.
when jaime and i got to borders tonight to meet amador (noir), we ran into chris lee, my old school icon from the valley high days. got to see some of his works, and was told about an art show he's in this saturday. we clued him into the art jam idea, and hopefully he can be a part of it. that would rock.
but anyway, i'm psyched about the "sketchbook sessions" project, and already, i've got several folks who could take part in it. i thought at first that this thing wouldn't get to "succesful" size, but then i realized that i know of more art folks in the area than i first believed. this will work, i can feel it.

My uncle Frank died today. He was a good man, and I could barely see this coming, although our family did feel that his time was growing nearer by the day. I can only hope Robbie and Eileen are doing ok at this time. Rest in peace, uncle.

i dont know.
got back from san diego, and i'm shitassfucked tired. don't know if thats a correct compounding of the words i want to describe my physical state.
took plenty of photos and video, but i'm starting to hate my digital camera. don't know if it's because i'm nearly broke because of it, or it doesnt take pictures at a quality as good as ones i've seen online.
i think i'll sleep in all the crap i neglected to put away when we got home. i didnt even bother to move my bags, just threw them down. it feels filthy around here, maybe its just the heat.
i don't know.

Return of the King, biyatch
Well, in a little under 7 hours, i'll be on bus to San Diego. Home. And in about 24 hours, the San Diego International Comic Convention will be under way, to the glee of thousands of fanboys and comic superstars. woop woop.

This past Saturday was Ron's 23rd birthday picnic out in William Land Park. It was one of the longest days I've had since L.A. a week prior. I barely took any pictures, even though I was there from 12pm to 6pm. The pictures that were taken are here. After the picnic, we (sQuiD plus Alex) went to see League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. One of the best days of this summer.