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. . . ahh, screw it.
— Nahum: posted 17:28
There is some heavy military action going on along the U.S./Mexico border. The U.S. Border Patrol is regularly attacked by the Mexican Army (or fragments of). High-ranking officials deny the claims, but Patrol agents insist that such attacks are probably covers for drug smugglers, working in cooperation with the Mexican military on various levels. Park Rangers are also feeling the heat, as the wide expanses of woodland conceal drug traffic. Those who haven't lost their lives find it hard to convince the government and media of the dangers posed by the cartels and corrupt Mexican Army officials. (Is this ignorance symptomatic of corruption in our own ranks?)
Along with the obvious threat to border patrollers and park rangers, the drugs eventually find their way into American cities, tearing up our lands along the way. Tons of litter and abandoned vehicles make a mess of national wildlife refuges, monuments, parks , and forests. There has also been a rise in drug harvesting on park lands, mainly in the form of marijuana and opium crops, often guarded with force.
Messing around with the coding again, and I know I missed a few things. It'll all be taken care of. Meanwhile, with the heat dissipating (83°F), I'll be back on track with the stuff I really intended to work on. It's pretty unprofessional to sweat on artwork, see?
I also rearranged my desk, mainly to get the scanner out of the sun. This of course involved moving every piece of heavy electronics. My monitor now sits on top of my DVD player, with the speakers now beside them, all squarely in front of me. The VCR is tucked away in the keyboard hold, and the TV is on top of the CD tower. The scanner has plenty of room and little to no direct sunlight upon it, which should make the digital conversions more reliable. Sadly, I'm short a spot for my dinners.
Outside Low: 59°F
Inside High: 85.6°F
While I was getting stuff at Sam Goody, I also bought volume 1 of Karekano/His and Her Circumstances, a Japanese broadcast anime series. It's the story of the romance between two overachieving high-school students. What distinguishes Yukina and Arima's story are all the emotional backdrops behind what would otherwise be the average falling-in-love story. Remember, puberty makes a thrill ride out of life—Karekano goes about this in a particularly hyper fashion.
Coming into the freshman class with high aspirations, image-minded Yukina finds herself outdone by Arima. Her plot to dethrone the untouchable Arima becomes a revelation of her adoration, all while Arima finds out what drives his own achievements.
The DVD version is pretty thorough, giving both Japanese and English voicing, and a mix of English or Spanish subtitles and translations. The opening titles and ending teasers even come in Japanese or English angles. An exhaustive producer's journal, notes by the producer and translator, and storyboards are also available. The only objections I have are to the iffy subtitles (which occasionally seem too formal) and to Christopher Nicholas' bland English rendition of Arima. In contrast, Chihiro Suzuki's Arima is as lively as any anime male lead.
You know Craigslist, the indie job/housing post page, right? Well, Zealot Pictures is fishing out some choice posts for one of their documentaries. Whether the documentary is about Craigslist or simply part of the selection process remains to be seen, but this seems interesting.
Went and bought some Bright Eyes and Radiohead. I had already downloaded a few Bright Eyes songs after hearing some on KSJS. All the detail he couldn't pack into his songs went into the album—the liner notes for Lifted or The Story Is In The Soil, Keep Your Ears To The Ground read like a novel; the CD proper is packaged much like a keepsake storybook, boxcover and such. I really enjoy this album. It'll be a while until I get to Hail To The Thief.
92.1°F as of midnight. Mosquitoes, too.
So yeah, just before I left work for the day, I spent some tense moments scoping a couple of shadies. The guy was pretty rough-looking by himself, but his girl was the one filtering through the pen displays. One of each, handfuls of which went into her pockets. They played the back-and-forth game, wandering back to the book aisles to cover up their crime. They didn't always wait until they reached the books—one pocketful went inside right in front of me. Acting as oblivious as only I can, I would have waited until they were cleanly walking out the door—in other words, obviously commiting a crime. I'd turn off the ignorance and call their ploy, probably fighting down the guy. From there, the police I would have called over would have taken over, and everything would be fine.
My only mistake was letting other employees in on the plan. Nick turned it into a psychological game, which caused some confusion until Robyn finally confronted the couple and made her empty her pocket. Judging by the handful I put back, I knew the job was incomplete. But by then, they were allowed to drive off, laughing.
The problem with loss control at work is that no one is really clear how we can deal with thieves. When can we arrest them? At what point can we even touch them? What if it turns violent?
Robyn is content with the job we did, which means few improvements are in order. This is fucked up. Never mind that people out there consider it their birthright to abuse their selfishness. I can't stand it when we allow shit like this to happen because we're not as daring as the villains.
Where's the line between minor loss and stolen property? How can we prevent crime without resorting to it? While we consider these, fuckers like the couple this afternoon will continue to thrash our society. And so long as we judge more harshly those who step beyond order than those who already stand beyond, this won't change.
[add.] When does the Constitution protect a potential victim, and when does it empower the righteous?
As I design the browser pages for the comics, I find it appalling that I'm still getting different (and wrong) renderings in both Netscape 7 and IE 6. I use HMTL 4.0 and CSS, pretty much down to the letter. Seems that both major browsers still don't fully support these standards. These are simple, basic elements I'm trying to coordinate here.
Heat fucks me up. I do not like it at all. Here at my apartment, my old darkroom thermometer says it's 95°F. That's on top of my bed. Barring a mysterious spike in heater usage (which doesn't reach my room), the house has some godawful insulation problems. This is the same room in the house that drops below the outside temperature in winter (about when I moved in).
Too tired to do anything else (even prepare to spend the day somewhere cooler), I dropped in bed, downwind of the fan, and lost myself in some thoughts I prefered not to have. See, every now and then I terrorize myself by reliving some bad memories and exploring the ways that they could worsen. Violence is often present and lives are placed in danger. Why I would even want to lay helpless to vicious memories is beyond me—I seem to enjoy this in some way, in much the same fashion one is transfixed by the sight of some horrible tragedy unfurling. I'm not generally a fan of horror movies.
The same sort of abominable thoughts played out in my dreams, one of an airliner spiraling out of control and crashing in the heart of a city, the other of a compelling teacher being ignored by his students. Eventually, I had to excuse myself because I really wanted to get photos of the crash. (The kids seemed to be taken up with other pursuits.) I don't recall what the teacher was trying to say—instead, I remember how the camera I was loading had a small vanity light/LED in the film compartment, and how I made sure to use 800 speed film because it was getting dark.
Moments later, I was awake, and the room was much warmer than before. Lacking a decent freezer and proper air conditioning, I only have a few small cold drink boxes/cans and money for colder stuff at the corner market. I'm flinching a lot because of the threat of mosquitoes visiting. This likely won't be a fun night.
As we watch Noah become more proficient with his drawing, Mom took some time to remind us of our own talent in development. By her position, Mom was able to watch as my own early drawings of the nearby streetlamp become more detailed—simple circles became profile views, complete with the distinctive curved hoods of 80's era lamps, and front views with attention paid to the gridlike spread pattern of the colored light covers and various rivets. Likely not something I would have remembered on my own, but I'm glad that I do to some capacity. I can even imagine myself taking to page after page with crayons or pencils or whatever made a mark. Supposedly, Mom keeps some of my old drawings. Where I might be able to find them is a mystery I hope to solve the next time I go home.
Eddie liked to put happy faces on the various things he drew. (I suspect that Nintendo had a lot to do with this.) Jerry, though he doesn't express himself much through drawing, had acquired a distinct manga style. On the other hand, Allan was clearly influenced by American comics, mostly Marvel X-series. Dinah, who decided to take a lone art class senior year, managed to outpace the rest of her classmates after a semester.
As for my own work, I'm currently developing Illiterati and Lost Cause, the latter of which I shelved for a while until I recently figured out some of the more important aspects of the plot and characterization. I also need some stellar spacecraft and mecha designs to make things work. The first script is coming along—I'm actually trying to write this like a conventional film or TV script. Going about it this way, instead of doing it in conjunction with the artwork, seems to make things easier. It's still going to be a while until I complete anything, since I'm also storming for many other projects and ideas.
For those of you astonished and amused by those (infect-)truth commercials, a little story about Big Tobacco up to its no-goods.
How many different products and features are cross-promoting with each other? It's real cool when you see a commercial for something actually turn out to be for something else—a sort of red herring type deal. But lately, we're seeing movies and drinks and things willingly...
Sorry...I'm just looking for that s-word which means "laying oneself below for the benefit of another". The Merriam-Webster isn't being any help, if only because I'm not throwing the right approximations at it.
For my (exceptional) writing skills, I have a lot of trouble with certain words. Take for instance the following list:
These aren't synonyms. Well, not all of them. I think... The problem I have with these is that the ones that sound a lot like each other often have very different meanings. Polar opposition. I tend to choose words not only for their literal meaning, but also for their sound. The word I'm looking for sounds well in the sentence I'm trying to finish, but so do a lot of others. Anyway...
...themselves in another's commercial. And sometimes, it's not clear at all which one is supposed to be more prominent. It seems like cheating to me. Am I being antique?
I might have to contend with this later on. Think about it: what would youadvertise? How might that change once you become celebrated/famous/reknowned? Popularity makes for great leverage (duh), but you're also somewhat responsible for how you influence people. Some follow you blindly; some accuse you of selling out. How many of us are unaware of this, or worse yet, apathetic?
It just occured to me that I've been doing this online thing for about two years now. Like, hooray...or something.
I receive quite a few job announcements (many of which I'm not yet qualified for) through the department mail group. One notable posting is asking for a cameraman/sound team to document a Women's Pro-Tackle Football game. Aside from the thought that sports are usually not the focus of documentaries, it seems that women's football has slipped into the national consciousness. Chicago is sending out their Force to compete against the Sacramento Sirens this weekend. The event is being shopped to ESPN, Lifetime, and Oxygen for airing, though nothing specific is mentioned beyond the documentary's existence.
Another trend in the TRFT listings are the productions situated in Vallejo ("V-towne", the "V-hole"). Since Mare Island Naval Shipyard closed about a decade ago, plans for its redevelopment included renting out various buildings and locales to interested film production companies. Underwater scenes for Sphere, a Hoffman/Stone/L. Jackson bomb about a submerged UFO, was shot in the old drydocks. (Sorta reminds me: just down the river at Treasure Island, scenes for Flubber were shot. I was an extra.) In Control Of All Things and Fifty First Kisses are also filming/filmed in Vallejo. Hopefully for the local economy, Vallejo will become a viable alternative to the Hollywood backlots.
The telephone system at work got fried sometime yesterday, leaving the store unable to access the outside lines and paging/intercom system today. The search is on now for either a replacement/refurbished switchbox or a new system. In the meanwhile, I get to take all the calls on the single incoming line (rigged to a bare-bones phone) and forward them to the right people the old-fashioned way: hollering. It has an air of cheapness about it, for sure. Just another reminder how dependent we are on technology.
It baffles me how many people are so confused by the (simple!) layout of the store that they believe that the book section is actually another, separate store. And despite the fact that I am an employee, some people don't believe me when I direct them to the book section in the back, pointing to shelves full of books past the aisles of office supplies. I don't think the Spartan Bookstore people ever have this problem, never mind that all their books are hidden a floor below the storefront.
It's like I'm only there to deceive them. There are plenty of idiots I would like to mislead into a pit of death and despair—sadly, our store lacks one.
Welcome to this moment's edition of My Inbox, where we have a look at my e-mail. Let's get started!
You have 225 new messages.
. . . ahh, screw it.
We've hit the busy portion of our year's shipping, which is making the days go by a lot faster. On top of that, I get to distract myself with a little carpentry. I'm working on a small hutch, a job complicated by the fact that I'm reusing portions of the art board display that Nick is tearing down. It wasn't too sloppily built, but getting all the useless pieces of nails and wood out of the way makes things tedious. The power tools are only slightly helpful. I use one to cut down the planks, and another to straighten the cuts. When it's all finished, it's going to look beautiful, if only because I made it. Just a bit of drama between now and then.
If I may expand on my fascination with the dorm construction, customers at work are becoming more inquisitive about the project. This week, they seem to be pouring a floor near ground level, as evidenced by the broad planks of wood. The columns continue to rise in a fashion that reminds me of my old Legos.
Modern construction is very modular in nature. With all the machines doing heavy work, the workers themselves busy themselves with their operation, fine-tuning, and oversight. In many cases, nothing that goes into the building is larger than a piece of rebar tower. These things are fitted into each other like pipework, with concrete poured around them to form the building. Sometimes, an element is built or prefabricated to be fitted later—for the most part, this hasn't yet been the case. About the only freeform part of construction is the building itself. Everything else is planned out and organized to a stunning degree.
I'd love to work in one of those crane towers. Simply coming in to work is an adventure, as you would have to climb a few hundred feet of stairs in open air (OSHA precautions permitting). They tug around everything from small mixers to rebar to the occasional person. I imagine the view from up high is quite scenic. The air is probably also much purer, sitting above the smog.
For those of you who had trouble visiting Monday night, I apologize. I'm not sure what happened. Being the generous host Angelfire is, there is no place to look for status updates. I imagined for a moment that perhaps my site was deleted. (I can imagine all sorts of reasons.) However, all the files were intact on the server, which was letting no one touch them. Getting it to even acknowledge their existence was troublesome. But hopefully, things are fine again.
Construction at the future SJSU dorms has reached ground level. The concrete pillars they've been stacking for a while now reach a story above ground. I'm a little baffled as to how the whole thing might end up looking. From what I can make out, the excavation is fully concrete sealed, with pillars lining the Tenth Street side. There are various machines in the floor of the site, as well as the three tower cranes lifting rebar and equipment into the site. The concrete trucks still arrive daily, dispersing their contents through those cool-looking pump cranes, which allow precise concrete pours within about a 50 yard radius.
The plans seem to call for an underground parking structure beneath the dormitories. Where such cars would actually fit, and to what extent, are beyond me. So long as I pass by Tenth street, the project will stay in my mind.
The big news of last week? Some guy remembered me from my days at the AS Print Shop. That was half a decade ago. I fiddled around with copiers, bound theses, printed up course readers, and then they fired me. I suppose I gained in some way, but memories of that place are more shaming than I would prefer.
Anyhow, my beard has, again, become my one defining feature. It would be nice to be distinguished by something more reverential, but I'll take this. If I've grown since then, it's all fine. But I don't seem to be doing anything more important than then. I also seem to be coming in just as late each day, too.
That's all. Fuck everything. Fuck me. Good night.
Went to visit some relatives for the day. Ron Jr. or someone or other's graduation deal. Watching Cirque du Soleil: Varekai and Fame on Bravo was cool, but that seemed to be it. The point is, after so many years, I still don't know any of my relatives well. Vice versa. The only one who seems to care what's happening in any capacity is Kuya Ben, if only because I rented out a room of his for a few years. I can barely remember anyone else's name, and it seems that I've forgotten a few since last we met.
It makes little sense, and it seems so fuckin' unfair. My father's relatives are quite the close-knit community. They pretty much do everything together. Meanwhile, my family and I have been around doing our own thing. The sentiment seems to remain. Expectedly, I'm the least involved of the clan. If that doesn't already isolate me enough, I seem to be the only one who can grow a decent beard. That was the only thing anyone mentioned. That and getting my ass thoroughly kicked in Halo by my cousins. Didn't help that the last gaming system I owned was a SNES and that I don't play games much.
How am I supposed to relate to such significant people if I can barely bring myself into their company? I feel like shit for even trying to talk to them—I'm so beyond them. What sort of role are they going to play in my later life? Will I even let them be a presence?
I think I'll stay with this blogging system for now. It has its problems, but ultimately, I don't care. So long as it does it's core thing well, I'm game.
Sometimes, I forget just how young and liberal I am. Last night, I was watching the Tony Awards with freshly-returned Dinah. Broadway actors up to their usual antics. It took me a day and a news article to remind me how progressive the whole thing was. "Gay men, kissing on CBS," remarked one attendee. Seems all the sexual liberties are still fresh fodder for cultural dissection.
While the networks are busy dealing with this "new development"/"new threat", some senators are busy linking homosexuality to as many vices as they can (because living a Christian life is the only "right way"). Debates rage and people have their say—meanwhile, gay people carry on as well as any. It has pretty much become a joke how homosexuals dominate the theater scene.
Will there ever come in my lifetime national acceptance of the gay lifestyle? Will America ever become post-gay? What effect might this have upon the world?
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