Wednesday, March 30, 2005

More of my dog

Here are 2 more pictures of my dog. This time they are from Januauy 1988.

I swear he had 4 legs really. And I think this might have been one of his cowboy days.


I have no idea how we wrestled him into a t-shirt and yes that is me in the background.

Me at 7

I played baseball when I was younger and I recently found a baseball card with me on it from 1989.

Stats
Age: 7
Height: 4ft 4in
Weight: 55lbs



All I can say is tight jeans, big hat and velcro shoes.

I would also add that this is prolly one of the youngest pictures of me some of you have ever seen.

Tuesday, March 29, 2005

Reasons my mother is insane

#105 - She insists that I not roll the bottom of my pant legs. She claims I look retarded. I like the look and have not met a single other person that has a problem with it. What the hell else are you supposed to do is the legs are too long and you would rather not get frayed edges? Hem them? Fuck that. The only pants a guy wears that might ever need to be hemmed would be dress pants. Ever time she sees them she can not help but comment about how stupid it looks. I asked her if she had ever considered that maybe I wanted to look as she says "stupid" or "retarded". To which she replied that that would be retarded. Which lets me know she has not valid reason for her agitation.

#142 - Occasionally I will wear an under shirt under a t-shirt or just around the house if I am feeling lazy and don't want to find a regular shirt to wear. I get them from a pile which lends to them being wrinkled. This irritates my mother to no end. She can not stand wrinkles. OCD if you ask me. She told me that it needs to stop and that I need to keep them folded. I told her that most of the time when I wear and under shirt, it is covered by either a t-shirt or a dress shirt. She said that is does not matter it should not be wrinkled. To me this is complete nonsense. For me it does not matter what the understructure of something looks like as long as it serves it purpose, and if being worn, offer some amount of comfort. She has threated to throw them away and buy new ones in order to preserve their wrinkle free state, I guess, which is all I can do because she makes no sense.

My childhood pet

This is a picture of my dog circa Febuary 1989. He was an Irish Setter named Kallahan. Had him for about 7 or 8 years. He is buried where my clubhouse once stood.

Friday, March 25, 2005

Scruffy




Have not shaved in a week, I guess this result was expected.

Wednesday, March 23, 2005

3 things

I was in a book store today, minding my own business, when the cashier picked up the phone and ordered herself a tossed salad. I had to walk a few aisle over because I could not contain my laughter.

I had a doctor's appointment today. The doctor was a big guy, I mean he had a lot of volume. I kept having the thought, "Dude you are huge. I could climb in you and where you as a Halloween costume with room to spare. Damn man."

Now that I have bought new batteries for my digicam, my old ones seem to be working just fine. Little bastards.

Tuesday, March 22, 2005

death of a chair

The chair I bought to destroy was quite a deceptive mistress. Hidden screws and buried staples oh how you tried to thwart me. 3 hrs it took for me to beat it into a submission.

At about the 2 and a half hour mark my mom decided to interject her two cents with the suggestion of sawing it apart. I had most of the chair apart by this point and had a formed a working system. I replied with the look of death.

The floral seat pad that I did not want to begin with became one of my most used tools in the demolition. I used it as a buffer between the chair and the hammer strikes as to avoid more marks then there were already. Now I shall wipe my ass with it and cast it aside like the whore that it once must have been.

One would think that destroying would go quicker than creating. Not so when you have to careful and maticulaous in order to create something out of the remanants of a former chair in this case.

I am still waiting for the fun part to start.

yahoo maps will rue the day

So I took a trip this past weekend. Not the first time I have made the trip but I had direction there and back nonetheless. From point A to point B with a few steps inbetween and the reverse to get home. Sounds simple enough. I always get there fine with the A to B part but sure enough every time I fuck up the return trip. Usually I miss the turn I am looking for and end up riding 422 into Hershey. No biggie just the trip is a bit longer time and mileage wise. This time being a little over anxious I turned too soon and ended up on the Business route of 222. Thanks yahoomaps for that warning. Curse you and your vague and often cryptic directions. Well I thought to myself, if I keep heading west how lost can I get right? Well after 15 minutes and nothing to help to reassure you that all is well you would prolly turn around, especially if you had a passenger that wanted you to do just that. I was alone so I pressed on into the unknown. I was commited to the idea that the only way I would ask for directions is if I would have to by act of God have to stop for gas. This in mind I admired the towns I was passing through wondering to myself "Where the fuck am I?". I then saw a sign for Rt. 61. I had heard of that road. So on a whim I took it. Much time passed before I found out that I had somehow guessed corrected and was indeed on the path homeward.

I finally reached my house somehow only having driven 7 extra miles than the trip out. My return took close to 2 hrs, which is way longer than it should have taken. In about 4 to 6 weeks time I hope to have another shot at getting it right.

Friday, March 18, 2005

One step closer to eating glue and wearing a pocket protector

I am such a geek. I obtained a copy of the first episode of the new Doctor Who series that starts soon. I don’t know if any of you know this but this is season 27. That is ridiculous. I have always been interested in the show but never took the time to watch or look up anything about it, although I do seem to recall watching it when I was a tike back in the mid 80s. To me this is one of those series that officially gets you into the inner sanctum of nerds and losers. You might as well be branded with the name “DORK” on your forehead once it gets out that you watch the show because no one will want to know you anymore. The same goes for Battlestar Galactica, except it is not as bad but it is still up there.

Both of these series have gotten to see the light of day again by being re-imagined and re-packaged for a new audience. I have watched most of the new Battlestar series, which is way better than the original and it’s sequel series, and if it is at all possible I will probably watch the new Doctor Who series as well.

So yes I am a geek and there is no way for me to deny it so I am not even going to try.

Tuesday, March 15, 2005

Giger dude

The closest title I could find for the orginal statue is "Birth Machine Baby". If all goes well, I will have this put onto a t-shirt just because I think it is that cool. Makes me wish I could see life in funny colors. This was not the final version but it is close enough to it.


unknown quest

Last night or early this morning, my sleeping habits make it hard to tell the difference, I had an odd dream. I was looking through a pile of books; I assume looking for a new one to read. Some of the books were familiar, while others I had never heard of. One particular one caught my attention. I was called “Alchemy”. I thought to myself, “Hey, maybe this book will tell me what the symbols mean that I have been seeing in the Full Metal Alchemist anime.” There was a bookmark that stuck out of the pages all the way around like it was not meant to be in the book. I opened to the book and read the inserted page. There was only on word typed at the top. It said, “SEARCH”. After reading this the dream dissolved into black and it was over.

Not sure what to make of it myself.


Saturday, March 12, 2005

Guerilla Art

I came across this picture while looking up pictures of the Netherlands. To me it almost seems like a form of Project Mayhem, except in reverse. I would like someday to be cool enough to pull off some such feat myself.

Amsterdam, the Netherlands
This was secretly left inside of the opera/ballet auditorium in Amsterdam. No one knows who put it there, though some people think it was the Queen (who is an artist, but not of this style). There are many other pieces of art like this that some unknown artist leaves around the city. Speculation says that the artist is quite famous and doesn't want to make a big stir by publicly announcing his/her artwork. One of the pieces is a nipple and breast with a hand approaching it. Appropriately enough, that is located in the red light district.

Thursday, March 10, 2005

dreamin of pizza

I had this dream last night where I and some unknown friends where at what I think was a house warming party. I overheard one of my friends telling his girlfriend that he was annoyed that he was going bald and was jealous of my long hair. At that point I decided to rub it in by as if on cue, move my head around resulting in the flowing of my locks.

Later it came time to leave and I looked around and noticed that the top of every surface was cover in pizza. Every possible type imaginable was represented, adorning all the objects around the house. Upon further inspection I noticed that that some of the peppers were purple, so purple in fact that they verged on blue.

As we were getting ready to leave, me and my balding friend were in the kitchen consuming pizza before we left. We had to choose carefully at the discretion of the host, Kevin James. Yes the "yucky toes" guy himself. He could not stress enough the fact that his wife would be mighty angry if we did not leave the right kinds and amounts of pizza behind.

Then I woke up because the phone rang. On top of that there was no one there on the other end. So I will never find out how that dream would have ended since I could not possibly imagine where it was going or it purpose.

The Choice

I need to get a wooden chair to hack up and make not look like a chair. I mean I have on that I can use but it is not a very interesting one, quite dull actually. I have searched a few places and have come up with nothing better. I have my mom and sister suggesting places to go look for cheap chairs. I even got offered someone’s extra chair they were not going to use. I checked it out but did not get the impression that I had to have it. It looked like your typical kitchen chair. I told her I would get back to her about it.

After that meeting, I ventured to the local Goodwill just to see if my some strange reason they might have one. I had to go in the room marked “Bargain Bin”, where everything was in huge piles you had to rummage through and $0.50 except of course the furniture. I found 3 chairs, which surprised me. One was out immediately because it was too plain. The other 2 I thought quite a while about going back and forth between them. One was light and decorative; the other was big and burly. As I was looking at the heavy mother fuckin one I was considering getting both but wondered what I would do with the chair I did not use, so I decided on just the small light one. I turned around to find a lady sitting in it. I started cursing her out in my head. Could she not see that I had just been looking at it and was still standing next to it? She got up a few minutes later and I immediately swooped in to take it, pay my $5 and get out.

I bring it home and show it too my mom, who agrees that it is a good chair to use. On a whim that it may be an antique she flipped it over to look at the bottom. And to both our astonishment there is a stamp in printed in the wood. It says: “S. Bert Bros Inc, 1867, Gardner, Mass.” This leads to the question of it’s possible worth being as how it could either be from slightly after the time of the Civil War or that is the year the company was founded. I could not find the specific one exactly, but to ones I did find, range from $50 to $200, approximately I could be wrong.

I am now left with a choice. A) Find a new chair and try to sell this one at some point to make some money, which I could use right now or B) Use the chair, possibly destroying an antique worth something just for the sake of art, showing that expression is more important than any amount of money.

Honestly at this point, I am leaning toward the later chose unless I can find a different by Monday, because well how often do you get to destroy a piece of history/nostalgia with your own hands.

Okay that was a lot longer than I wanted it to be and this is not helping.

Tuesday, March 08, 2005

Zombie Jesus

After watching Futurama last night and hearing Professor Farnsworth say the unforgetable line, "Sweet Zombie Jesus!", I was curious what would come up in a google search. I think this image really captures the vividness of the phrase.


Sunday, March 06, 2005

10 Facts about me

1) First Rated “R” movie I ever saw was THE LOST BOYS

2) TV show that most influenced my childhood was MACGYVER

3) I have been told me favorite 80s cartoon was SHIRT TALES. I am going to have to with GI JOE or TRANSFORMERS myself. But they all used to be on the Cartoon Express on USA back in the day so who really knows. Remember Jem, Thundarr the Barbarian, Paw Paws, Snorks, old Scooby doo, Centurians, MASK, He-Man, She-Ra, Captain Caveman, they were all on there too, at least I think so.

4) I used to have a Return of the Jedi top sheet for my bed.

5) In 8th I made the conscious decision to learn names and faces of celebrities. Before that time, I would have no idea who people were talking about when they used names of people in movies.

6) My favorite color was red when I was younger. For a while people thought there might be something wrong with me since I would not follow directions stated and put it ahead of all other colors, especially yellow.

7) First novel that I ever actually read cover to cover was Where the Red Fern Grows in 8th grade.

8) I ate so many hot dogs as a kid I can’t ever stand the smell of them now. I ate so many tomatoes one time that I burned the sides of my mouth and did not willingly eat them again for about 15yrs.

9) I had a stuffed monkey named Zippy and a Cabbage Patch Kid Cat named Beaker.

10) I used to sit in a wash basket on the floor next to my sister in a chair and pretend it was the sidecar to a motorcycle.

Lost in the Flood

Last Friday night I went to see my sister’s baby’s daddy’s band, LOST IN THE FLOOD. It was one of those last minute decisions; like I had known about it weeks before hand but as the time approached I was feeling more and more reluctant to go. So I ended up going. It was at The Silo in Reading, PA, and somehow I knew how to get there having never been there in my before, ever.

One of the guitarists, who left before everyone else in the caravan of cars, got lost on the way and did not end up getting there until about 10 minutes before the performance. In the meantime while all the equipment was being set up I was hanging around with my sister and her friend. A security guard was walking around looking at people’s hands to make sure there were supposed to me inside and not waiting outside to have to pay to get in. I was never officially on the guest list so I never said anything when he came by. They did and I guess he took that as an all clear and moved on. So I was happy I did not have to pay the $9 cover. I found a sharpie and marked my own hand and then I ended up drinking my entrance fee instead.

We stayed for most of the bands; there were 4 in total I think. We left soon after that last band started to play. At that point all of the band members and a few other people followed a guy named Mushmouth to his apartment. Soon afterward, more alcohol was consumed and weed was smoked by most. I ended up commenting on a girl’s background image on her laptop and got into an anime conversation for the better part of about 2 hours. I don’t know her name, or even how old she was but it didn’t really matter. Everyone else was in another room smoking and there I was trying desperately to hold my own with a real anime fan, like Otakon patron. I think things went well, I mean she did not seem like she wanted to get away from me since I could not match her skills. I might run into her again someday, I guess that would depend if I go to anymore performances.

I gonna try to get my sister to hook me up with some free shirts since she makes them. I might even try to get her to pay me to design a few. I have an advertisement card I made but I don’t think they are going to use it as such. Maybe I can recoup that as a shirt design.

Friday, March 04, 2005

Apparition my ass

Thinking about screen burn and my drawing from a few weeks ago, reminded me of something my sister showed me. She says she sees Charles Manson but I think most people see someone else.

I have included instruction on what to do.

Stare at the blue dots while you count slowly to 30.
Now close your eyes and tilt your head back. A circle of light will slowly appear. Focus on it, and look into it.
What do you see?
Try this again, but look at a white wall after 30 seconds. Do you still see it?

screen burn

Have you ever worked with something for so long or intently that even when you get away from it a phantom image lingers on the interior of your eyelids?

I usually do this with video games. I can't tell you the number of times I have closed my eyes only to be confronted with little people running around gunning each other down or casting spells on each other. So many units in formation marching across my corneias. I have even does this with Snood. That is worse I think. They just make angry faces except for the blue guy that my niece says is Grover. That little bastard smiles like a donut.

Anyway, recently I have been making this picture in photoshop, and I have been working on it so long that when I close my eyes all I see in the orange and blue background from the image. I don't know why it has such a hypnotic quality but it consumes my landscape when my eyes shut. In time it will fade but right now it bugs the shit out of me. As long as it does not superimpose itself on things when my eyes are open things are smoove.

The following image is the picture in question. It is not exactly what I have been staring at since there was another image in the foreground but this is what is engrained itself upon retinas. It may not look like much but stared at it for a hours a day for a few days and you will see it too.


Wednesday, March 02, 2005

tendercrisp cock in my mouth

So I had a craving for a fried chicken sandwich today. Following the advice of Darius Rucker, yes apparently Hootie has got the way of Justin Timberlake in order to hock fast food merch, I went to Burger King. I don’t usually got to Burger King, but the Chicken Tendercrisp Bacon Cheddar Ranch looked and sounded so good.

First of all I have to say this sandwich is huge, not as big as the one Brooke Burke is holding the commercial but still equally huge. I can only approximate it to the size of a CD with the thickness of a roll of duct tape.

I was highly disappointed with this. After shelling out six bucks for the combo meal I expect something good, worth getting again in the future. Unfortunately this just reminded me why I don’t go to Burger King. The chicken was a little undersized and the 2 pieces of soggy bacon where about 2 inches each. There was the standard lettuce and tomato and the spattering of onion as well. I think the cheese was good even though I could not taste it over the sauce. This ranch sauce they used reminded me of the taste of salami. How the fuck does that happen? That ain’t natural. That coupled with it’s lukewarm temperature, made me wish I had stopped somewhere else for food. I think I actually saw the “slow” guy assembling the sandwiches in the back.

It has been about six months since I was there last, and it will probably be at least that long until I go there again.

Oh and I also found out that:

Burger King song was sampled from “Big Rock Candy Mountain” by Harry Kirby McClintock

Fun with plaster

To get away from the shape of the infamous party cup, the following three people came up with ideas to start off with a different base from which to construct their plaster sculptures.

The first was a girl who decided to use a bag in order to start off with a very none symmetrical shape. Believing this could end up getting quite messy, she chose to perform this procedure at home. She placed the bag in the kitchen sink and the poured the plaster slurry into it. Realizing that she did not want it to be wide and flat when it hardened, she picked up the bag to move it to a better location for the shape she desired. Upon lifting the bag beyond the boundaries of the sink, one of the seams split open releasing the full contents of the vessel. The result was an awful large white mess all over the sink and surrounding floor space.

The second was a guy who had the intrepid idea of placing the plaster in a balloon. The question then arises, “How do you get it in there?” Well, his solution was to use a funnel in the mouth of the balloon. This worked in theory, of course, another assumption went with this. This weight of the liquid plaster would be enough to expand the balloon to the desired size. Well everything started out going well, until the balloon has reached it’s capacity in it’s rested state. It turned out that the plaster was not heavy enough after all. The balloon filled and the plaster began to fill the funnel instead of proceeding forward. Thus the idea came to mind to squeeze the balloon to help things along. The result was the unforeseen expulsion of the contents of the balloon directly toward the guy’s face. This covered him with wet plaster. Again it was a hell of a mess.

The third fellow was a little more thoughtful in his choice of containers. He quickly decided the bag was a bad idea and moved on to his next choice, a condom. This being much more flexible than a regular balloon was an obviously better choice. His first mistake came when he added too much water to his batch of plaster. This extended the drying time significantly. He placed the soupy mixture in the condom and left it in the dining room table. Over an hour later, he returned to find that a film of water was collecting on the top of the plaster in the condom. He just had to find a way to get it out. This is where his genius kicked in. He took a pin and put a hole in it to alleviate the moisture. Instantly the condom burst open letting loose a tidal wave of white gunk all over the table.

Of the three of them, only the third was unable to recover from his devastating blow to his creative urge.