Penciled In.

2005-10-01T15:09:00.000-07:00

Test post test post!

2005-04-28T10:26:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm done here...

I've switched to a WordPress account on my website, so... here you go:

Chicken Scratches

2005-04-18T17:32:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I feel the heat of the flames, the cruel tang of battery acid and rubber tires stinging the inside of my nostrils. Sometimes I feel the hair of two dogs under my arms, trying desperately to leap out of my control to establish their control elsewhere because they're scared of 65 mph bright lights in darkness, a dusk in Anaheim on fire. Sometimes I feel utterly alone in entropy, staring at the wreckage of my car.

And then I wake up and realize that was months ago.

Last week, I got eaten alive by a mosquito. I had two bites on my lip, one on my side, one on my neck, one on my forehead, one on my thigh. The two on my lip were the worst; my lips were numb and swelled up to a size that made me very much not want to go to school, particularly because it happened the morning of the first day of two that I was going to be high-profile: giving tours of the GrC department and the Screen Printing lab.

Going to the health center on Friday afternoon was nice, particularly with the doctor saying "You just need to learn to not be so delicious!" Ahhhh, taste me, I'm delicious! But they gave me Allegra, which has helped.

Giving tours of the screen printing lab all day during Open House was fun, but tiring. I swear, I must have given the same spiel maybe 30-40 times. My throat was definitely hoarse by the end of it.

The best part about it, though, was when I was showing the light table we image screens on to a seven year old, and he looked at me and said "What if you were to look straight into the lightbulb when it goes off?"

I look at him, and I say in my most menacing voice: "Your eyes would liquifyyyyeeeee. It would be like a science experiment gone wrong."

I miss telling the youth a bunch of untruth. Particularly teasing my little sister. Definitely miss that.

2005-04-11T10:06:00.000-07:00

Hallelujah!!! The car started!!! IT'S ALIVE!!!!

but...

all the problems it used to have are still there, such as not going above 15 mph when I really want it to, which is all the time.

2005-04-07T01:16:00.000-07:00

This is my favorite poem right now:

Artichoke by Joe Hutchinson
O heart weighed down by so many wings.

2005-04-02T18:07:00.000-08:00

Well,

A new quarter begins. This one will be pretty neat, methinks. I walked into my ES X335 class with wonder: it felt like High School again, but with a filipino Mr. Lunsford. "The Filipino/a American Experience" is a seminar oriented, not lecture oriented class, and boy does it feel like sitting down back at Morse, in a very good way.

I'm only taking 13 units this quarter, so it seems like it'll be a bit easier than of late. This seems like a good quarter to get into two different internships. I've already started my first quarter at UGS, the on-campus printing company run entirely by students, and I'm really excited to get an interview pretty soon with Big Images, a wide format printer on Broad St. run by the guy who used to live in my room. If I get the internship, it'll make my day. The guy told Jim he's looking for somebody to learn the ropes so they can eventually be an actual employee. If all goes well, I'll be able to stay in the area after graduation next year, and that sounds swell!

2005-03-22T18:48:00.000-08:00

And it rains again. This time, in the city of angels.

Hanging out with Abe for a couple of days has been definite good times... I really felt like I had to get the heck out of Dodge after finals week finished. I was getting... restless and bored.

I'll be arriving back on the Central Coast tomorrow, helping Kristen move back from her victory over the UCLA educational system.

Ciao.

2005-03-19T20:08:00.000-08:00

Sigh. It's finally over.

Finals week was a monstrous labyrinth. Fire, ogres, pain sticks, hot MAGMA!!! And I survived. With black hair, no less.

That's right. Kristen helped dye my hair black. It's pretty freakin' cool.

Mom told me about the new Moby album coming out next week, and lo! and behold! Two hours later I have it! Tis pretty decent. Very 80's new wave.

Now, I'm in that part of the year where it's the all-of-a-sudden death stop. Going going going in class, and then STOP. I don't want to do anything with my days, but I feel I should be doing something. Sigh...

It's not so bad, though. Just rainy.

2005-03-06T23:46:00.000-08:00

Shotgun rain

Every day this week I've felt
the cool steel of the Winchester.
My knuckles, white,
gripped hard over metal
and envied my innocent eyes.
After all,
on this dark morning
when the clouds cover us like taxpayer dollars,
a steady eye cannot be faulted...

If I fail, it is the trigger finger that should crawl away in shame.

So I walk past cherry blossom trees
and move straight to crimson roses.
I stop where I can get a
straight bead on the sky,
fill a chamber with verse
and let fly.

After a glancing shot, the sky bleeds the ground.
I find no part of my body innocent,
and in me, no remorse.
Consider this poetic justice:

In this world of blossoming black umbrellas
rotating swiftly in clockwork fashion
above the heads of the protected,
when a girl turns to her neighbor in the crowd
and says,
"the rain just kills me inside sometimes."

I wish I was there to say back
"It seems like you're always just waiting for it."

And I carry my Winchester, sans umbrella,
down the street, turning right
and find the second house on the left.
I'll sit down in my chair, eyes closed,
and just listen to the wounded animal in the sky above.

2005-03-04T23:22:00.000-08:00

Today, I purchased a phonograph player from Dave. I figure that everybody else is doing up their music all digital-like, and so the new trend is to go hyper-analog. And that's just what I've done.

I made my first record purchase today since I purchased Paul Simon's Graceland back in tenth grade. Both of the Ryan Adams' Love is Hell EPs have been floating circularly around my life these past few hours. These EPs are the new Rush of Blood to the Head, and just as good, if not better. Just listen to the songs "Political Scientists" or his cover of "Wonderwall" or even "World War 24." My attention is a needle in it's groove.

Another LP purchase of the day is Crowded House's self-titled album... you know Crowded House... Don't Dream it's Over. The song that Sixpence None the Richer recently covered. It's a pretty decent album, reminds me a bit of INXS, with a little less flair.

I am so tired.

2005-03-01T11:20:00.000-08:00

Sun Tzu's The Art of War. Sigh. Why Sun Tzu's The Art of War?

It's printing right now. No real problems, just a head cold and I'm here at the lab later than I expected.

Many of you probably have already heard the news: Enterprise has been canceled, and the last episode shows sometime in May. It's sad, especially with how good this season has been, but I think I can say that as long as the new Battlestar Galactica continues, my world will still be complete. It's tough to put into words just how good that series is. It's like taking speed. Not that I would know, but I guess it's like how I'd imagine taking speed. But yeah, BSG starts it's second season this next summer.

And then the Goblet of Fire comes out this November. I read on SciFi Wire (thanks to my brother's suggestion that I keep a close eye on that site) that the Weird Sisters, who are the band that play during the Yule Ball, are going to have members of Radiohead in it. This news pleases Kristen to no end, she's the biggest Radiohead fan I've ever met.

Me? I'm fine. Still alive. The stomach flu has gone away, but is being replaced by a pretty killer head cold. I think my body's ganging up against me.

This is what happens when I write on the whiteboard that I'm "the life of the afterlife" and that "it's time to love myself all over again." I just thought it was funny. Seriously.

Now I'm rambling.

Somebody smack me.

2005-02-20T14:38:00.000-08:00

The Animation Show was truly impressive. I can't remember the last time that I've seen so much amazingly well-done and unique animation. There wasn't a single piece this year that wasn't brilliant.

And to top it all off, Don Hertzfeld himself answered some questions after the show... The guy looks just like Johnny Depp. It's bizarre.

Anyhow, if you have the opportunity, check out that quaint little animation show. It's a hell of a lot better than that icky Spike and Mike's.

Oh, and in other news, I survived this last week! Go team me!!!

But I think I have the stomach flu!!! Good times. Good times.

2005-02-16T00:28:00.000-08:00

I should be sleeping, but instead I'm winding down. It's been a long week so far, and it's only Tuesday.

This weekend was wonderful. Absolutely unbelievably wonderful. Hearst castle in the mid-afternoon, the clouds roll and gray skies patchwork themselves across a sky over a landscape better suited for the green highlands of Scotland. And there, a literal castle. I walk marble steps and contemplate the curiosity of someone long dead collecting ceilings.

Paso Robles hot springs, on the end of a 7:45 pm deserted windy road. I careen down it with no power steering. Somehow, it's better that way.

Valentine's Day... has never been the greatest of days for me. Every year I'm either alone or in a fight. This year, still not as good but for different reasons. Trying to drive to Santa Maria can be frightening sometimes. Particularly when the car decides, all of a sudden and quite rudely I might add, that it will not go above 15 miles an hour. Not on the highway, not on the road. Precious revs are lost. And I'm not angry in my little red baron, no... just disappointed. I feel like a father unable to reconcile with a teenage son. It's a shame.

So, I spend the better moments of the day on the phone. Yet another shame.

Perhaps I feel like I should be dead to the world. All the signs are there, written in my assignment book, as dark as a headstone engraving...

Three midterms and six projects due this week.

My God, but wasn't Neon Joseph just the sh*t last Thursday? I sat on the rug at the Dwelling, looking up at Joel Tolbert in a dark red suit and a fauxhawk, as he points to the ceiling showing the christmas lights hanging, picture perfect swinging in the bass breeze of the venue.

You look like a Saturday Night
A verified boulevard
Let's do this town up right
In vintage christmas lights
Stand just a little bit close to me
Stand just a little bit clo-ho-se
Stand just a little bit close to me
Let's dance

And I'm blown away. Oh, to be back there right now.

2005-02-09T22:56:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, Brian's dog Annie was hit by a car and died. I thought you should know.

Brian's been a wreck... Brian's been a wreck and all I can think about is how I have no idea what to say to people in these situations. I have no idea the words they need or want to hear. It bothers me mainly because I feel like there was a time that I knew how to deal with people that were going through adverse situations. Now, it's more uncomfortable silence.

Or, in the case of this evening, I walked up to Brian and I hugged him. And I found that was exactly what I needed to say.

2005-02-06T01:21:00.000-08:00

My room's never seen as much change. It's as if the entire fabric of reality is tearing. Seriously, when the black hole that erupts from the impossibilty of my clean and completely reorganized room starts sucking down neighbors houses, let this be fair warning.

Unfortunately, this morning my reinvisioned room was no comfort. Not only was I in the midst of the first hangover of my life, but I was in a strange room, staring at a ceiling on the opposite side of my room than I am used to. My head. My poor, poor head.

As if that amount of change wasn't enough, I now have a website. An actual, honest-to-goodness website. An actual PenciledIn.com. Nothing really there yet, but soon.

(For everyone that cares, I was able to get my site for just under $15 a year, with 100 megs of storage and awesomeness. Hosting was $4.20 for the year from QualityHostOnline.com and the domain name from GoDaddy.com for $8.95 . What a steal, hunh?)

So, yeah. I'm almost finished with beanfit.com. Not quite, but very much getting there. I'm working like mad on projects for Advanced Typography and Book Design...

Life. Whodathunkit?

2005-02-01T18:10:00.000-08:00

An Infinite Number of Monkeys
by Ronald Koertge

After all the Shakespeare, the book
of poems they type is the saddest
in history.

But before they can finish it,
they have to wait for that Someone
who is always

looking to look away. Only then
can they strike the million
keys that spell

humiliation and grief, which are
the great subjects of Monkey
Literature

and not, as some people still
believe, the banana
and the tire.

2005-01-25T22:10:00.000-08:00

When I return to the shape
of a blade of grass
or
to the smell of
my phot-
osyn-
thesis
growing, throwing
a glance back
to a furious Brooklyn sun,
I will be in perpetual
nightclub twostep,
and though I
may be
a flower

I will stay as far
from the wall
as I can get.

2005-01-17T17:53:00.000-08:00

I noticed a strange sign in Fresh Choice last night. It was a listing of their core "values" for service. I found the first one to be the most interesting. It read:

1) We act guest first.

And so, when the waiter came by the next time, I asked him what it meant.

"What do you mean?" he said, his 18 year old afro jiggling like the jell-o in my bowl.

"'We act guest first.' I mean, it is your prime directive. El numero uno. And we have no idea what it means. Do you guys act like guests before we do, or what?"

Gosh, I just realized I'm a horrible customer.

2005-01-16T01:39:00.000-08:00

I guess you could say that I've watched a few movies lately. This is in sharp contrast to almost any other point in my college career, when I just... don't. This has really nothing to do with the quality of movies, but rather the depth and breadth of my wallet.

Tonight's movie, In Good Company, with Dennis Quaid, Topher Grace and Scarlett Johansson was a quirky movie that had many memorable funny moments, but in the end felt too real. Real as in... sometimes a bit boring. Because the movie was about the sterility of the corporate business environment, I can tell they were trying to reproduce that in the cinematography... but it didn't make it that interesting to look at. There was very little texture... and so, in between the extremely funny moments and heartwarming and exposing one-liners, there was little to keep my attention between the sterile visuals and boring dialogue recycled from a bunch of other movies. It was enjoyable, but I'll definitely wait until rental to see it again.

A week or two ago, it was A Very Long Engagement, Jean-Pierre Jeunets newest film, which was definitely a feast for the eyes. Now, before I discuss this film, I'd like to say I have a tremendous amount of respect for Jeunet. Every one of his films has a completely different look and style, yet he keeps it all distinctly his. Other films he has directed include Amelie, City of the Lost Children, Alien Resurection, and Delicatessen. So, when I saw the previews for this film, it looked like another Amelie, but with a war story. I guess it had that. There were many great parts... but the problem with this one was that, just as the title implies, it's long. Kinda like this blog post, except... longer. It was a fun jaunt, though, with Audrey Tautou stealing the show yet again.

Before that, was Sideways, which is being talked about by everyone, and rightfully so. I think I was drawn to this movie initially because of the fact that it takes place all along Southern and Central California, and nearly every moment was a "I've been there!" moment, with the characters driving from San Diego to Westwood and Buellton and Santa Maria. The actors were great, the laughs were heartfelt and the shocks were great. See this one. Now.

Whew. Now, that was a long post. Geez.

2005-01-13T16:22:00.000-08:00

Pitchfork has just reopened their site with a new design and plenty of new indie music reviews for crazy fools like me. What's new, though, is that they've got a quite interesting list of the 50 best singles of 2004. On it, at number six, is The Walkmen's "The Rat," which they say

In a year when "indie rock" encompassed both major label darlings and mainstream favorites, "The Rat" compelled us away from fruitless narrow classification and toward a more universal form of musical bliss. But while Hamilton Leithauser's snarling exasperation in the anthemic first verse perfectly matches the song's bookend intensity, ultimately his bravado is a red herring. "The Rat", at its core, is about ambivalence, loneliness, and disappointment. In so expressively articulating the frustration of being alone, The Walkmen speak to anyone who's ever felt disenchanted, disenfranchised, or generally lost. There's a lot of it going around, and plenty of people are eager to shout along. --David Moore

I can't tell you how many times over the last year I've stood in my room in my skivvies, air guitaring and shouting with the Walkmen at the top of my lungs

"When I used to go out, I'd know everyone I saw
now I go out alone, if I go out at all!
Can't you see me? I'm pounding on your door!!!"

And so I sit here, with Flogging Molly's "Drunken Lullabies" quietly skipping in my CD player.

Today's picture is of the beautiful 101, taken around King City a very long time ago. As many of you know, it's been closed in two places between Santa Barbara and L.A. for almost a week now because of landslides, leaving many an irate driver to drive on the 5 to the 166 or the 46 to get to the Central Coast.

Here's to those drivers. I feel your pain.

2005-01-11T20:43:00.000-08:00

ekkyklema (the destination of the blade)
Written 09.29.01 by a me that knew no better

-halt-
death pointed at my temples
on the edge of a knife, three inches away
and the sweat hovers in mid-drop
flying from warrior and prey alike

I know this, but this time
I am blind
but also a seer, and I know the destination of the blade

the curtain has been drawn
the deed has been done
and darkness falls again

2005-01-08T10:27:00.000-08:00

The bus system in San Luis isn't so bad, once you get the hang of it. Rather, once you spend about an hour trying to interpret the printed schedule they have. You see, they show all the routes, times, maps, and stops all on one foldout pamphlet. It can get a little confusing. But after you unfold its secrets and discover the holy grail of the information you wanted within, it's not so bad.

Waking up at 6 every morning is tiring, but welcome. For the past four years I've been telling myself I'd wake up and get to school early, discovering free time and reading in the library before class. Unhurried. The sun rises. The flowers bloom. And God, do I need caffeine!

My classes are going to be tremendously fun, from the upbeat and wide-open fields of Advanced Typography to the knuckle-clenching, ferocity of Book Design. From the fun and fancy free feeling of Screen Printing to the once-thought-boring-but-actually-quite-lovely Technology of Web Printing, this is going to be perhaps my last completely fun quarter. If only I could stay alive for it.

2005-01-04T20:39:00.000-08:00

On the good side, my classes look like they're going to be really cool this quarter. My Book Design lab took a "field trip" to Barnes and Noble today... I've never ordered coffee while I've been in a lab before.

On another up side, I'm trying to fix my car. The down side to this is that it needs fixing.

Sigh. Tired. And it's only Tuesday.

2004-12-26T14:20:00.000-08:00

Here are some amazing posters designed in Arabic by Reza Abedini. Crazy stuff.

2004-12-14T16:20:00.000-08:00

I've thought a lot about a few things since last I wrote.

1) Last week I started using an elaborate system of post-it notes to keep everything I needed to accomplish straight. After telling Brian about this, he said "wait. You just used the words 'post-it' and 'elaborate' in the same sentence."

He was right. Who was I kidding?

2) I want to make millions producing a workout tape entitled "Weapons of Ass Destruction."

3) Celestial Seasoning's Peppermint tea is seriously freakin' awesome.

2004-12-08T03:27:00.000-08:00

Ahhh. Now, it is up. Along with a new collection of poems, a flip of the coin.

In celebration:

Of pinball and spoilers

You go right ahead and
play your game of
pinball on the streets.
After all, the curbs are only
bumpers- loose boundaries meant
to build up your points before
you lose your cool and
the flippers stop saving your ass.

Yeah, feel free to play, kid,
down the trashed lanes where
the rich dwelled decades ago.
Up the avenue where my
neighbors' 8 year old will
flip a marble to catch and ride
the vortices of your
80 mph, red, speed-trap
screaming
of women staring with
red lipstick reflecting
your gangsta smile.

You're that 8 year olds' hero.

And when he turns the corner
and that 16 year-old finds himself
behind the wheel
of his own dream machine,
all bright and shiny
waiting for that plunger to be pulled back
so he could be let go
and find freedom in his speed,
he's gonna remember your smile.
And like a damned fool
he's gonna lose his cool
for some red lipstick
promising that old multi-ball madness
for the price of honor
found in proving his high score
against other testosterone-junkies
just like him.

He's gonna find out at death speeds
he ain't no wizard

and that's when that machine of his
will scream "TILT!!!",
the bells and whistles will die down

and he'll pray that the
extra ball light he's been saving
will return the favor,

and save him.

2004-12-06T17:00:00.000-08:00

I saw Meg Ryan Saturday. She was like, five feet away. I'd love to say that we had coffee, walked along a garden path with autumn leaves falling around our feet and declared our undying love for each other while a gaggle of fireworks exploded above us.

But sadly, there were no fireworks, it was cold, clammy and raining, and she probably hates coffee.

Here's to the dreams of movies and cinema, manifested in a strange metrosexual fascination with Jude Law and an undying adoration for flippant conversation, warm colors and beautiful camera angles with clever narration.

2004-12-01T17:56:00.001-08:00

So, for my final project for my English class, I'm writing a proposal for a video game in which fonts battle for dominance over your computer. Taken from today's draft of the proposal:

"Font on a Mission" is a side-scrolling platformer allowing the user to use selected characters from a font to fight other fonts over terrain such as notebook paper and dot matrix printouts.

In the world of computers, fonts are often taken for granted. They help to share ideas and are the root of our language in the 21^st century. However, no one quite understands that these fonts have feelings far beyond what standard emoticons ( 8-p ) show. They are born, live their life, and die in a realm of ones and zeroes.

And these fonts want to strike back.

Not against you or me, but against the other fonts on your computer. These fonts are fighting a war for dominance. A war for love. A war against the threat of deletion.

And so, this game aims to show the struggle of these fonts to take back lands that belong to them. Starting with the notebook page and fighting a relatively low-key doodle font, to fighting a blocky bitmap font on a dot matrix printer, and finally coming face to face with the dreaded mono-spaced Courier font within a jungle of code.

Why can't all my projects be like this?

And now, I have thoughts of a quiz due at midnight tonight, a lab final tomorrow, a website due next wednesday, and a whole lotta caffeine.

2004-11-26T23:44:00.000-08:00

Because I will forget about this come tomorrow, and because I never want anyone else to forget this either, here are two links I found tonight that I want to change my life:

Hack Yourself

Hack Your Way Out of Writers' Block

2004-11-26T19:02:00.000-08:00

Soon, very soon there will be changes to my site. Meaning, there will be a site there soon.

Meaning, I'm designing it right now, and it's due before the end of the quarter...

So... It's going to happen. Really.

2004-11-23T10:51:00.000-08:00

“nadir”
written way back when... 02.08.01

it’s in the
gray
wreckage of my life
dangling on the edge
of that rain cloud
where i
found
the disappeared

they wouldn’t
let me
fall
through the forever glow
on the other side
of daylight

where my beacon rests
and warns
"keep
back from me
(for i can bite)
and i will break

and
it’s
a miracle
i can breathe at all”

until I bathe in sunlight

2004-11-17T14:13:00.000-08:00

Ben.

Ben!!!

Look at me.

Everything is going to be okay, Ben. EVERYTHING is going to be OKAY.

Honestly, it's not that bad. Just stressful.

The Swing Club website is now up and finished. Check it out here.

Sigh. And on West Wing, CJ is the new Leo. What the heck?

2004-11-08T15:15:00.000-08:00

A cloud-strewn day outside, as if the sky was a next-day battlefield and the blood of the dead was gray. It's cold here. I take a shower and a two-hour nap, and lay naked, buried under three layers of covers and a million thoughts of friends.

Keillen called me from Germany, his two-month old and wife in the background of a static-filled ear of sunshine. It's been... two years? No. It couldn't be. He, Abe and I dipped our feet in a midnight December San Diego ocean, and it was warmer than dipping feet into the hottest Central Coast day's neverending blue. Two years.

A wife and a two month-old later. Time passed, and we're on separate sides of the world.

This song plays through my speakers. I pause, and listen.

Sparta - Lines in Sand (listen to it here)

Sometimes a struggle builds you somehow
Tears you down, Leaves you dead
Time will pass, back to life
Hand on shoulders, Bigger, Better
Sunday night, Tempers flair
Fights erupt and trickle down
Apologies, threats and lies
Backing down, compromise

While this city burns
These wounds will heal.
You'll find your way,
Though lines in sand
Become a proving ground.
In time, you'll find
Who can top who is their life

Sometimes a struggle leaves you fragile
Shaken up, Shotgun shy
With heartache past, and open eyes
You'll come back stronger, Bigger, Better
Maybe this time, Things will change
Brand new day, Forgive, Forget
Time has past, back to life
Hand on shoulders, Bigger, Better

Only you with time can define your life
It's yours

2004-11-08T11:16:00.000-08:00

So, my phone's been acting up. Static and people not able to hear me at all and other such things. I think the worst problem it has is the text message I received at 2 in the morning from some 888 area code number. Every time I try to open it, the phone seems to really try to open it for about 5 minutes, then the phone reboots.

I ask the Cingular people what's up, and they say "Why don't you buy a new phone?"

And to that, I replied, "Why don't you fix the one I have right now?"

So, an apology to everyone I haven't called back that has been calling me. I'll get back to you as soon as I get said new phone.

Sigh.

2004-11-03T16:49:00.000-08:00

I'd like to say the better man won.

But sadly, that is a lie.

2004-11-01T15:43:00.000-08:00

In my English class, we're editing together a trailer for the movie we've been filming. The greatest part about all this is that we don't necessarily have to follow the plot of the actual movie. And so, we had to write a synopsis of the movie that we created the trailer for, and here is my groups synopsis:

"The Meaning of Apricot" is as mysterious as it is powerful. Revolutionary director Zaphod Beeblebrox, our two-headed friend, brings together another drama about life, love, guns and flying fish. Our hero, young Skuke Lywalker, falls in love with a mobster's hypochondriac daughter. Skuke's nightmares of sleeping with the fishes comes true after a colossal gunfight and multiple bullet wounds, a flying fish intent on drowning the world, a mobster's daughter's misunderstood diseased love and a slimy underhanded media scandal force Skuke to cry several times and wear concrete shoes in a swimming pool.

Little do they all know that Skuke had grown gills at the age of five, and now he's back to teach the world the truth about the meaning of Apricot.

In the trailer, we are introduced to Skuke, the daughter, the fish and the crazy anchorman by threading together their images like apricots on a vine. Or on a tree. Skuke's recurring waterlogged nightmares are shown throughout the trailer in three different underwater scenes. There is anger, sorrow, epiphany and humor squished into one minute of goodness. With a trailer like this, you could only imagine the five and a half hour odyssey that is our film. Our trailer also shows the lead-in to the forty-five minute gun and light saber battle in Skuke's living room, a scene that took the wizards at Industrial Light and Magic nearly three minutes to render. But above all, this is a contemplative film, one that will make every viewer walk out of the theater and into their mid-life crises, and I have to tell you, Skuke's underwater smile at the end kills me every time. It just kills me.

2004-10-26T17:41:00.000-07:00

I feel I have opened one too many umbrellas inside.

For instance: the really nice umbrella I decided to borrow from Jim today. I take it out of the closet, press the button, and not only does it open, it flies off it's own stick, in all it's dark green and blue plaid glory. Upon further inspection, it turns out it's completely unable to close again.

So... it's open. So, I use it.

Yesterday, my boss called me whilst I was in a lab.

"You're going to hate me."

"What do you mean?" I reply, a little nervous. "How could I possibly hate you, Traci?"

"Well, I forgot to approve your time card."

Truth is, I don't hate her. It's just a little strange, trying to figure out how to get paid when dealing with the man.

Just for clarification, Traci's not the man. The man exists elsewhere, keeping my money from me.

I would like to apologize to all blind people. In other news, I made my first real elbow macaroni with cheese. Real macaroni, real cheddar, real good. Real easy, too.

Check this out. I'm designing like a tornado.

2004-10-20T01:48:00.000-07:00

AAAAHHHH!!!

Before I go to bed, here is the site I've been working on for GrC 339.

All done. Sigh. Long long sigh.

2004-10-13T17:06:00.000-07:00

Yeah. I need a legion of ninjas to follow me around and perform choreographed dances. Imagine the sort of art we could make, the interpretive dance of 20 ninjas after they've been told they have more homework than they can imagine.

So, just to prove I haven't been completely ignoring people without good reason, you can all see a small part of the website I've been busting brains over for one of my classes. So, here you go.

Most Music is a company I had to make up for my class. It's a vintage music store. So... that's why. In case you were wondering.

Seriously, I need ninjas.

2004-10-12T22:00:00.000-07:00

The Dead
by Susan Mitchell

At night the dead come down to the river to drink.
They unburden themselves of their fears,
their worries for us. They take out the old photographs.
They pat the lines in our hands and tell our futures,
which are cracked and yellow.
Some dead find their way to our houses.
They go up to the attics.
They read the letters they sent us, insatiable
for signs of their love.
They tell each other stories.
They make so much noise
they wake us
as they did when we were children and they stayed up
drinking all night in the kitchen.

2004-10-08T10:30:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was my first time actually running a printing press. It was crazy; all of the four-color, Heidelburg, ink staining craziness. Setting it up, imaging the plates, inking the rollers, loading the paper, preparing the dampening solution, and running paper through... sigh. Took about 2 hours for the entire thing. Still my beating heart.

I decided to take off the gotee. People said that I looked like an a**hole with it on, and since I don't particularly find that part of human anatomy all that attractive, I murdered it.

And so, tonight's going to be a crazy night of TV watching. 6:00 is the second Presidential debate, and then the return of my life at 8:00; Star Trek: Enterprise.

And I still have so much to do.

2004-10-04T23:33:00.000-07:00

Green Day's new album rocks my socks straight off. My ears bleed, it's so good.

2004-10-01T07:38:00.000-07:00

"Today, we're going to talk about color theory. How many of you haven't had any kind of color theory teaching?"

Professor Horelick quickly scans the class, a hawk glare under thinning hair. A couple people actually raise their hands, and I wonder what classes they've not been taking that I have.

And I wanted to go to sleep, especially since it's been a rough week, and Thursdays are defined by having 5 hours of this wretched class. The torment of Sheetfed Lithography...

"So, there's two types of color theories. Can anybody tell me what they are? No? It's Additive! and Subtractive!"

As I mouth these words I along with him, these words which have haunted me through many color theory classes, not the least of which was called "Color Theory," I think Kill me now. Not another minute of this. No sir. I need sleep, and it doesn't help that I downed twenty dark chocolate covered espresso beans. You'd think I could focus on something else at the same time as this class. Something more productive.

But no. No, there I am, stuck suspended between opposite sides of an educational world. Sleep lies in orbit.

2004-09-28T14:02:00.000-07:00

I'm thinking about trying out a gotee. Nothing too extreme, especially since my facial hair hasn't exactly been known to hop to it when I scream at it in the mirror to grow.

Pretty soon, though, I may just become the mirror universe Ben. So odd.

2004-09-22T23:01:00.000-07:00

The past three days have been rough. I tried crashing 12 classes, and got 2 of them.

I think the worst feeling is being at school from 8 am to 7 pm on your first day, and getting told 9 times that I need to leave because there's no room for a poor student like me. Today was another 8 am to 7 pm day, but I finally was able to get all my classes today, so it was much better.

I have the photos of my car on fire, and I'll show them soon.

2004-09-20T23:55:00.000-07:00

Two months ago, a friend of mine told me about what she thought her heaven would be like. It was a clear day on a beach with perfect waves and noone around. And, thinking about it, I realized that my vision of heaven, from when I was a kid and thought about such stuff, was completely different. To me, heaven was not a place with things in it. It was not a place where people that had once lived reunited with me. It was not a land filled with clouds, nor a beautiful woodland scene.

I realized right then that heaven for me was a place with an absence of all the problems I had growing up. That's how it has always been, a personal truth that sounds harsh and cold and bitter when spoken, but is a simple truth nonetheless.

And so, when I moved to San Luis and found myself with problems that made sense, problems that were within my ability to fathom, problems that were pretty much heavenly comparitively, I felt I had found what I had been searching for. There was no more need for a hope in a world more perfect.

That was when my faith fell away.

I realized what was happening, and it bothered me, the way you're bothered and want to scream at someone on a movie screen who is just about to open the door with the killer stalking just behind. But it didn't change what I was doing. I was trying to run away, and I succeeded. I had had a great amount of freedom and peace suddenly thrown into my lap, and I felt that my freedoms would disappear if I found my faith again and felt guilty for the things I do.

Recently, I think He's been tapping me on the shoulder, whispering in my ear "Look, Ben. I'm not gonna kill you, but check this out." And shazaam!, my car bursts into flame. A train derails. Hurricanes touch ground thousands of miles away and I feel it. Not that I feel I've been punished, but that perhaps all this has been a reminder that no matter how free I am, the world is so much bigger than my freedoms.

And then I came face to face with my reasons for not wanting to try faith again. The wanting to live with freedoms that I had believed were wrong earlier in my life, the reasons for my old faith and how ashamed I was of it, the need to be accepted by everyone. And I realized all that was crap. It was hollow, vapid, stupid reasons for me not to believe.

I spent Saturday night like I've spent so many days this Summer, lying on my bed staring at the ceiling. But the questions I asked myself changed, and the being I was asking them to changed. Could I become a better person? Why have I not been concerned with being a better person over the past three years? Why am I so conceited to think that I had everything right inside? Can I be taken back, and feel the faith I felt so long ago? And I cried. And I had a moment of clarity, a feeling that I could no longer seek wisdom if I was still looking inside myself for it.

The next morning, at church, the first verse of the day's reading spoke to me, forcing me to think that providence could easily be confused for coincidence. It was 1 John 3:4.

"Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness."

And I suppose that sounds like such a silly thing for me to bring up, something that's more parody than anything else, especially for someone as Lawless as me. But it still spoke to me.

So, I think I'm going to work on this. Going to work on being a better person, and finding faith again.
___________________________________________

A Noiseless Patient Spider
by Walt Whitman

A noiseless patient spider,
I marked where on a little promontory it stood isolated,
Marked how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launched forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be formed, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.

2004-09-17T14:18:00.000-07:00

Supposedly, my roommate left his camera in San Diego, so I am just waiting for his mom to bring them up so that I may be able to share with you the joys of watching your baby burst into flame. There's something about the smell of a car burning, something so different than the crackling of a fireplace, something that replaces the feeling of home with the feeling of loss.

The Anaheim fire department has been forcing me to deal with their overabundance of bureaucratic bullcrap. I called them on Saturday to ask them to fax the fire report to Geico, but unfortunately had to leave a message because they don't have their offices open during weekends. This leads me to think of the fact that of course! fires only work 9 to 5, Monday through Friday. And I bet they take off early on Friday too.

So, they didn't call me back. I call back on Monday, and I get transferred to another answering machine. Leaving a message with my name and number, I then decide to call back, to see if I can speak to anyone that actually exists.

Woman: Hello?
Me: Hi, yeah, I just called and was sent to a voicemail. I would like to talk about a fire my car had on Friday... is there anybody-
Woman: (Rudely interrupting) I'm sorry, sir. (Not sounding sorry) You're just going to have to wait for her to call you back.
Me: Alright, thanks.

And that's it. Until Tuesday morning, when I try again. And again, I leave a message. And again, I call back.

Woman: Hello?
Me: Hello, I've been leaving voicemails for who you've been sending me to, and I was wondering if I could speak with a supervisor perhaps?
Woman: I'm sorry, you'll just have to wait for her.
Me: I'm sorry, and I don't think you understand me. My car was in a fire last Friday, and I need to get all this taken care of, and the sooner the better.

And it's at this point that I realize I'm talking to dead air. She's already hung up on me.

Later that afternoon, I finally get called back. This lady is much nicer. Much. However, there's still that faint tang of bureaucratic balogna I was mentioning earlier. Turns out the Anaheim fire department can't fax out copies of it's reports because they need to be paid for before they are printed.

"How much will it cost?" I ask.

"Oh, well... it's about ten cents a page, and the report will probably be about four pages at most. So, if you want two copies, that'll be eighty cents."

"And how would you like me to pay you? Can I give you my credit card information?"

"Um, no. We don't do that, sir. What you can do is wait for me to call you later this week with the exact number of pages, then you can send us a check for the amount-"

"The whole eighty cents?"

"Yes, possibly. And you'd have to send it with a self-addressed stamped envelope. But you can't do anything until after I've called you with the amount."

And so, it's Friday afternoon, and they haven't called me yet to tell me how many pages the report is, the report that, as my understanding goes, has been finished for a week.

I don't really think I've liked this past week so much.

2004-09-13T01:53:00.000-07:00

I had a completely different thing in mind when I started planning out this post, but considering all that's happened to me this last weekend, I think I'm going to have to put it in a list. All times are approximate.

Thursday, September 9
8:00 pm: Decide to caravan down to San Diego with my roommate Jim and his brother, Matt. They want to leave at 11:30 the next morning. I agree.

Friday, September 10

9 - 10:30 am: Work at IEP finishing putting together 105 different packets for incoming students from other countries. Nothing strange there.

11:00 am - 1:00 pm: Major amounts of drama with patching up both of my flat back tires on my car. Finally, we leave for San Diego, with two of Jim's dogs in my car.

1:30 pm: A couple miles north of Santa Maria, one of my patched tires blows out, causing damage to the driver's side bumper and another panel. I am on the side of the road. Jim and Matt get a little irked that I'm keeping them from missing L.A. traffic.

1:30 pm - 3:00 pm: Put the donut on the wheel and buy a new $50 tire at Big-O Tires. Jim says in some crazy sing song voice "Life is a journey," to which I reply, "then wake me when we get there." We get back on the road.

3:00 pm - 7:45 pm: Driving. Lots of traffic in L.A., and it's all my fault.

8:00 pm: A mile away from Disneyland on the 5, I see a light come on my dashboard I've never seen before. It says "Anti-Lock." I decide to pull over to the slow side shoulder from the fast lane. One by one, the different electrical systems in my car die; First I'm not able to accelerate, then the in cabin lights dim, then the turn signal stops clicking, then my headlights go out. I manage to get all the way over, while people behind me are hitting their brakes and flashing their brights at me. I get over and am unable to start the car again... there's just no power.

I call Jim and Matt, telling them they'll need to double back to get to me. So, I head out of my car to wait for them outside, when I notice a glowing orange light under my car. I look under the engine and see flames. Grabbing the dogs by the collars, I run down the side of the freeway about 200 feet, call 911 and tell them I have a car on fire.

Jim and Matt arrive, then the CHP, and then a fire truck. They close down two lanes of the five and by the time they force open the hood, there are eight foot flames coming out of my engine block. I look at Jim and say "I just know my rent's going up. I just know it."

It takes them a long time before they extinguish my car, but it's totalled. What must have happened was a small oil leak ignited. Most of the front frame is either charred or melted. I leave the deed in the cabin, grab all the rest of my junk out of my car, and let the tow truck take it to the junkyard, while Jim and Matt take me to their parents' house in Mission Viejo for the night.

Saturday, September 11

8:00 am: Lucky for me, I have comprehensive coverage, so I'll get more money from the fiery destruction of my vehicle than I would have if I sold it. Geico tries to get me to claim the damage caused by the tire blowout, but since I had patched it, they try to tell me I'm at fault for the blowout, so not only did I buy a new tire for my car that's completely dead, I also would have to pay the $500 deductible and my insurance would go up from $600 - $719.90 every six months. I decide to not claim the damage from the blowout.

1:30 pm: I finally get into San Diego, and end up hanging out with my brother.

I figure that the best way for me to get back to SLO is to take the train, leaving Sunday at 12:00 noon and arriving at 8:30 pm.

Sunday, September 12

12:00 noon: I hop onto train 775, departing San Diego for a straight run up the coast to San Luis.

3:45 pm: The conductor announces on the loudspeaker that there's been an accident in Ventura. Another train has run into a truck and a trailer and the train derailed. You can read about it here.

3:45 pm - 6:30 pm: We're stuck at the Oxnard station, waiting for word to continue. They finally decide to put us on a series of buses. I board a bus heading towards Santa Barbara.

7:15 pm - 9:00 pm: Waiting in Santa Barbara with 250 other displaced people for our way out of our own personal hell. Think waiting in line was bad? Yeah, I did too. Finally, I get on a bus.

9:00 pm - 11:00 pm: On the bus, I sit next to former World Extreme Cagefighter Jesse Heck, who is coming back to San Luis after a year in a prison in Bakersfield. We talk about life, love, and happiness. He's probably the wisest, most well-spoken, true person I think I've ever talked to. We talk about everything, from the virtues of talking without having to swear, to the perils of prison life, to the problems of not having a solid father figure to build a life on. And I might design a site for his World Extreme Cagefighting team he's putting together. And I think I'd put it on my resume too.

11:15 pm: I walk into my room, and find the remnants of what was in my car strewn across my bed. Probably one of the most depressing sights I've seen, with the exception of my car on fire.

I want to sleep for years.

2004-09-10T13:33:00.000-07:00

San Diego.

2004-09-09T00:05:00.000-07:00

Buried myself in work, that's what I've done. And it's almost like I have four jobs. Not bad for someone who just quit one of them.

Hunter, my old roommate from the Mansion, wants me to redesign his Sustainable Agriculture Resource Consortium site. Sometime in the next two weeks. Meaning, I've got too much to design and too little time, what with that and the posters for the Study Abroad Fair. Oh, and the fading rollover menu on that site, that's mine too.

I'm a designing fool.

If only I could get more than five hours of sleep a night, then I'd be a little happier. Not much, but a little.

2004-09-03T16:03:00.000-07:00

Today is my grandfather's birthday. I don't talk to them much on the phone since they moved to Arkansas, but during my lunch break at the Study Abroad office, I gave them a call.

It's difficult for me to imagine the kind of life they must lead now. Arkansas seems to me to be a much more colorful place than I had ever imagined. With the stories of the kindness of neighbors, the five day rain storm earlier this year that left many homes flooded and cattle dead, the drive to the nearest airport which takes about two hours, Grandpa's brother (whom Jean Marie said was "more alien than human", which makes Grandpa at least half alien as well), I guess it's quite easy to romanticisize life out there. Especially since I loved my trips to South Dakota so much.

It seems like a much different world than I'm in now; it seems a world of muffled sounds forcing their way through the earpiece of my cell phone into my imagination. A world of half-understood, muted words spoken by my Grandma, who had to say goodbye because one of the neighbors is approaching the door with a cake for Grandpa.

The world is so much bigger sometimes. So much bigger it hurts.

_______________________________________

P.S., I need to save this link so I won't forget it:
mw2mw.
Particularly interesting is the Shape of Song project, linked off of there.

2004-08-31T14:03:00.000-07:00

I feel like a rat.

2004-08-26T16:22:00.000-07:00

Query
by Jean Burden

I asked the birds
who sing at night
where they learned their songs,
and what they sang about.

They said, "We learn from
birds who sing by day,
but what we sing about
is hard for us to say.

"Only those with beak
and wing can fathom joy
in dark and doubt.
The sky may turn to evening
and the sun to moon,
but we sing
of what you do not speak—
how night is sometimes noon,
how any season of the soul
can, with time, be coaxed to spring."

2004-08-24T16:12:00.000-07:00

Some links for perusal

Sometimes, I run across things online that I just enjoy the heck out of. Sometimes, I catch them at work, so, I can't find them later on at home... because I'm an idiot. So, here's my personal collection of the cool and bizarre of the net, an August the 24th edition.

Things to see, hear, and do:
Amazing art from 1920's and 1930's Japanese children's magazines.
Watch Planet of the Apes turned into an episode of the Twilight Zone.
Nuclear Elephant's growing File Sharing Experiment.
Historical election speeches reformed as techno songs.
Strange but true image of KKK members riding Ferris Wheel. Sickening.

Odd news stories:
480-pound woman dies after six months on couch.
Halo video game tournament held at theater.

What a wonderful world.

2004-08-23T16:35:00.000-07:00

Many of my friends know I used to be into Magic: The Gathering. It's a dark secret from a darker past... yeah, right.

Anyhow, one of the kids came in today showing off his new Yu-Gi-Oh cards, a game which I don't pretend at all to know anything about. So, the first card I picked up is this:

"Sealed Dark Big Rabbi

[Usage Blackart Race/Effect]
The card superadd(sealed left feet & right feet & left hand & right hand), so far as all ghost collected together on the hand's cards, victory will been decided."
(that's exactly what the card says, I swear)

WHAT?!??!?!?! I have no idea what the heck they could be talking about. And from the picture on the front, this "rabbi" looks pretty mean, and furry.

And this is what kids are learning their grammer from. Ouch.

2004-08-20T15:36:00.000-07:00

Shadow
by Billy Collins

The sun finally goes down like the end
of the Russian novel, and the blinding darkness
over the continent makes me realize

how tired I am of reading and writing,
tired of watching all the dull, horse-drawn sentences
as they plough through fields of paper,

tired of being dragged on a leash of words
by an author I can never look up and see,
tired of examining the exposed spines of books,

I want to be far from the shores of language,
a boat without passengers, lost at sea,
no correspondence, no thesaurus,

not even a name painted across the bow.
Nothing but silence, the kind that falls
whenever I walk outside with a notebook
and a passing cloud darkens my page.

2004-08-17T21:30:00.000-07:00

Right now, the worst part of a long-distance relationship are those times when I just want to hold and be held, and not say a single word.

There's no way to do that over the telephone.

2004-08-14T12:16:00.000-07:00

My God! Why didn't anyone tell me before?!?!?!

Radiohead's OK Computer!!! My God, My ears!!!

2004-08-11T16:20:00.000-07:00

This weekend, as with most others lately, ended with me thinking "Gosh, my car is broke." The completely unfortunate thing is that this is not a new phenomenon for me for this Summer. There was the entire "chip thing" that my car decided to pull in San Diego; there was the "please Ben, for the love of God replace my water pump!!!" thing before I went to San Jose last weekend; and then on Saturday, showing up at my brother's house, my car is leaking antifreeze all over the place. And that's not what I'd call a good thing.

My brother, doing the brotherly thing, took me and my car to some Lube and Tune place. They looked at it and said "Yup, it's leaking." So, they told me I'd probably have to replace my radiator when I get back to SLO and then sent me on my way.

Well, after I get home, the next morning, I decide to just stare at it for a while. Typically, this doesn't really cross my mind because I figure my mechanical aptitude covers pushing down the button on a toaster, and that usually doesn't help on cars. Cars need muscle. Cars have movable parts. Cars could kill me, if they'd want to. These are the thoughts that usually cross my mind.

But, eh! I figure. Why not? Actually staring it into submission might do the trick. I might as well, seeing as a new radiator could cost me the $150 bucks that I don't have. The funny thing is that it totally works this time.

I looked at it. Then I turned it on and off. Then I looked at it some more. Sure enough, there was some leakage. But the leakage wasn't coming from anywhere above one of the hoses. And it's a hose that I personally took care of putting back on when I replaced my water pump. So, that means I probably screwed it up. Which is totally possible. So, I talk to one of my roommates, and he says something to the effect of "Well, is it tightened?" To which I say, "Well, I didn't tighten it, so I have no idea... How do you tighten a hose anyway?"

So, a dumb ape called Ben and a screwdriver attack my car, and I actually kept a good weight in my wallet.

Sounds like reality's totally messed up.

2004-08-05T16:31:00.000-07:00

96 Vandam by Gerald Stern

I am going to carry my bed into New York City tonight
complete with dangling sheets and ripped blankets;
I am going to push it across three dark highways
or coast along under 600,000 faint stars.
I want to have it with me so I don't have to beg
for too much shelter from my weak and exhausted friends.
I want to be as close as possible to my pillow
in case a dream or a fantasy should pass by.
I want to fall asleep on my own fire escape
and wake up dazed and hungry
to the sound of garbage grinding in the street below
and the smell of coffee cooking in the window above.

2004-08-03T16:47:00.000-07:00

Today has been a very long day at work. And it's mainly because I actually started working on my site redesign this morning. That's right! I'm really doing something!

And so, yes. Really long day. Tum tee tee, tee tum.

2004-08-01T22:21:00.000-07:00

I watched the road ahead. Finally, I am on my way to San Jose. It had been a long week, and the sun and wind sprinting through the cab of my Ford, in and out of every car window down.

My back burned. Skin had just the day before decided to peel from the sunburn I gained the Sunday prior. I had worked for seven and a half hours on my neighbors lawn, and on my tan. Unfortunately, such things get to be overdone, but $75 was definitely worth a half-week's worth of pain. Particularly in months like this, when half of the work I've been doing over the last month I won't be paid for until September.

But all this is a moot point. I had two and a half hour drive ahead of me, before Sarah and I were to be reunited.

Things seldom work out the way I think they will.

So, I hear a pop and then a grating sound from my engine. After I pull over to the side of the road and open the hood, the grating hasn't stopped. Meaning it had something to do with some fan that was trying to cool down the engine. Not only this, but there's a great deal of antifreeze that has exploded all over the engine.

Well, great, says I. Guess I'll head home. And so I did. And on the way home, the engine started screeching and the power steering went out for a short time. I was not pleased.

So, the next morning I drove down to Autozone to purchase a new water pump, which was what broke in the first place, and roommate Brian and I spent four hours replacing the part.

But then I made it to San Jose last night, in time to see Sufjan Stevens.

I've never seen a concert like it. Period.

Now, whenever I've read about recent Sufjan Stevens shows, I hear he doesn't do many songs off of his album Greetings from Michigan, the Great Lakes State (which just happens to be my favorite of his four albums), and opts to perform most of his material off his latest album Seven Swans which is bare-bones folk.

Well, he came out last night with his backup band, the Michigan Militia, and played a jazz-inspired folk oddysee through the great dual-peninsula state. Every song sounded perfect, every tear-jerking note painfully and beautifully performed to a near-flawless degree, every story behind every song adding up to an unbelievable feel of depth to an album that's as deep as the sea. The band members exchanged instruments with each other almost constantly, with the organ, drums, guitars, bass, trumpets, trombones and xylophones changing hands quite frequently.

Needless to say now, is that I was most pleased.

And a belated birthday is in order for my mom. I completely forgot that yesterday was in fact her birthday. Well, I remembered that the 31st was her birthday, but I had no idea that yesterday was the 31st, until this morning. So, an apology and good wishes to her are definitely in effect.

Now, to make it back to San Luis.

2004-07-29T12:34:00.000-07:00

And so, many interesting things have happened. I was able to get work study back, and with the addition of work study, I was able to get $2700 bumped out of my loan for this year, so this year I'll only have about $1500 worth of loans, which is definitely good for the future.

Other than that, I've been working. Alot. And it's been good, for the most part. And I've been trying to write, and read more. It has it's moments.

Reflections, 1981 (by yours truly)

I lost myself inside a Rothenburg tonight
and it felt like Finally!
Finally it is more than just
my unopened text on the shelf.
Finally, I am being dared to keep
this page open, like
a secret that I can't contain.

Admittedly, it's been awhile
since I've had one of those.

And so, Reflections, 1981, haunts me
from page 328 of Art Fundamentals.
It is the jab from a prize fighter
tearing eyelid from eyelid with
his uppercut
so that I might see.
It is the drip in the faucet
down the hall that is keeping
me from
slumber. A drip that suddenly knows

I will drown in this tempest,
this Oil on canvas storm.
The water is so gray I realize there is
no reflection at all. Two yachts
nearly collide, and a third finds itself
far, far away,
emerging from the waveward wall

haunting the crews of the other ships
like the textbook page haunts me.

Unless, yes... I get it!
That third ship... That apparition
with it's furled sail, like the frightened ships nearer,
it is but a mirror image
playing across gargantuan faces
of God's good ocean
gone wrong.

Next to the picture, a caption
freezes my thoughts with how
the text likes to play it's
know-it-all game with me,
likes to show it's superiority
with its knowledge that
Susan Rothenberg became famous
for her early impastoed,
monochromatic horse paintings
in the 70's. Looking at it now,
I can easily see why she
changed her mind
in the 80's, and why I must
hold my opinion tighter
than ever before:
no horse, however monochromatic,
would survive on a ship
caught in the middle
of a wide-eyed,
abstract,
throw-the-paint-across-the canvas,
toss-the-viewer-into-oblivion,
kind of storm

like this.

2004-07-22T15:25:00.000-07:00

Sarah's probably going to say "I told you so", but seriously, I wish I could write lyrics like Chris from Saves the Day. After seeing them last night with Brian, that's pretty much my only thought filling my head. Other than the fact that they are seriously unbelievable. And so, this post is dedicated to them.

Saves the Day - Drag in D Flat

If every limb were broken,
tires had all worn thin
and my toes are all in pieces,
do you know
what I would do?
I would play can you drag yourself
200 miles
with just your fingernails?
A little game that I made up.

Do you know that I never ever lose?

There is nothing to
keep me from coming back to you
cause I can picture all the pictures of you
and me on your walls.

What would it take to make you mine forever?
Just your fingernails,
a little game that I made up.

Do you know, that I never ever lose?

Could I cut out my liver,
and make a special potion
two parts my heart,
three parts my heart?
Yeah, you know that I would do it in a second.
With just my fingernails,
a little game that I made up.

Do you know that I never ever lose?

With just my fingernails,
a little game that I made up.

Do you know that I never ever lose?
Never lose.

2004-07-19T13:15:00.000-07:00

I think I'm ready for a vacation.

In other news, my FAFSA was processed, and I'm getting a good amount next year. In fact, I'm getting more aid than I have in previous years, even though they haven't given me any work study and a smaller loan. I'm going to call them about the work study thing because if I don't have work study, I might not be able to work at my jobs. And I like my jobs.

But I'm very thankful for this chance to resume my life. It's a good feeling.

2004-07-13T16:14:00.000-07:00

Break
by Dorianne Laux

We put the puzzle together piece
by piece, loving how one curved
notch fits so sweetly with another.
A yellow smudge becomes
the brush of a broom, and two blue arms
fill in the last of the sky.
We patch together porch swings and autumn
trees, matching gold to gold. We hold
the eyes of deer in our palms, a pair
of brown shoes. We do this as the child
circles her room, impatient
with her blossoming, tired
of the neat house, the made bed,
the good food. We let her brood
as we shuffle through the pieces,
setting each one into place with a satisfied
tap, our backs turned for a few hours
to a world that is crumbling, a sky
that is falling, the pieces
we are required to return to.

2004-07-06T18:18:00.000-07:00

And so, here is a new splash screen for my site. I'm redesigning it. At least, that's the final conclusion I've come to within the last hour.

Tomorrow, I'll be in Ventura for the Vans Warped Tour. I'm ready for my ears to turn to jelly.

2004-07-04T22:55:00.000-07:00

This is the future. Two years ago, when I first started in Graphic Communication at Cal Poly, Dr. Levenson, the head of my department, used the promise of this technology as a "wow-er" for all the new GrC students.

The concept is quite simple: E-Ink is a new way to read books, using a digital display to shift pixels along and flip pages in the book. One AAA battery holds enough juice for 10,000 page flips. Insanity.

Anyhow, read up on it. You won't be sorry.

2004-07-03T20:54:00.000-07:00

Dover Beach
by Matthew Arnold

The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits;--on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanch'd land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the {AE}gean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

2004-07-02T16:39:00.000-07:00

I think the greatest thing I could learn at this moment regarding art is to let it go.

Today, I made chalk drawings on the ground outside the lab with the kids. I really wish I could keep some of my drawings. One, my first, is of a dragon breathing fire onto a castle, and a knight rushing out to vanquish it. And then there's my robot on treaded wheels saying "SPACE ROBOT!!!" (That one is my personal favorite. One of the kids told me what the robot would say. She also did this strange robot dance. I tried doing my own robot dance... namely, the robot, and she told me I was doing it all wrong. Sheesh, kids.)

And so, there's really no way for me to scrape my drawings off the pavement and take them home with me. So, I learn that perhaps not everything I do under the sun is fantastic, or worthy of keeping.

Too bad. I should draw in chalk more often.

2004-06-29T16:07:00.000-07:00

Where did this come from? I asked myself last night. The one-too-many Zima's collided with the cranberry Smirnoff's - I had never before felt this way. So, I sat in front of my computer, all lights off in the hallway, and the one thought in my head is where did I go wrong?

The tragedy, I have realized, is that my writing has lost some edge. Certainly, it has gained a wittiness, a more complete understanding of where to begin and end a story, and that my work should be stories... however, there are no stars colliding. No eclipsed afternoons watching the shimmer of the sea. There are no planets anymore between me and the sun. There is no reckoning of what happened at the beginning of the universe or pleas for God to cannonball into the depths of my mind.

And very little of what I write now is simply an exploration of the english language. I miss that.

2004-06-24T17:53:00.000-07:00

Yesterday started out fine enough.

Here I am, my birthday. Not bad. You know, just chilling out. About to head to work.

My boss from my job I usually have during the school year calls. "Ben," she says, "I don't know if you're aware of this, but it looks as if you don't have any work study funds for next year." The unspoken part of this is which means you can't work and can't eat. So, I call the financial aid office. Their news was much more dire: "To us, it doesn't look as if we got a FAFSA application for you."

Well, I say, I'll show you! I finished my application, and I've got all the evidence of this on my computer. I'll just head home before work, find my confirmation email, and then everything will be sorted out.

Ha! is my cry to battle. This is but a minor screw-up.

'Fraid not.

I get home, and there is no evidence that I even attempted to start a FAFSA application. None. Zip. Nada. The FAFSA website says that I don't even exist. And this is a funny thing, seeing as I had taken two weeks to gather all the information I needed to submit it on it's due date, March 2nd. I had been very proud of myself.

So, I actually call the phoneline for the FAFSA, and they tell me that what might have happened was that I had input all my information, but never actually clicked the "Submit" button. And since saved forms are deleted after 45 days on their website, and I filled in all my information around early March... well, you can see what happened.

So, as it is right now, I'm uncertain about how much aid I'll be able to receive next year. I resubmitted a new FAFSA application online last night, as soon as I got home from work and before I allowed any of my friends to drag me out for celebrations.

But that wasn't the end of my birthday, and thank God for that. I had a fantastic time trying one of those Texas-sized Margaritas at Hudson's, and then headed over to the Sycamore Hot Springs in Avila Beach for some sulfur-smelling, hot-tub action.

My friends are so cool. I'd forgotten all my troubles, and it was great.

2004-06-22T16:43:00.000-07:00

The day before my birthday, and I need a swimsuit.

One thing that many do not know is that there is more than one children's program running concurrent with the Learning Center computer lab that I've worked at for about two and a half years. This other program is called CWIP, the Children's Work Incentive Program. It's a great program. Usually the most I see of it is when volunteers from Cal Poly come into the lab to meet before they take the kids out gardening, or picking up trash, or going swimming with the kids during the summer.

Unfortunately, I've never been able to do any of this stuff. I even asked if I could have a shirt over two years ago, and Traci, believing that I'd not be working there as long as I have, said that since I wasn't involved with that particular program, I shouldn't get a shirt.

Anyhow, I'm still not getting a shirt, but I think I'm getting something better. Yesterday, my boss asked me if I'd like to take a day a week and go swimming with the kids. This would mean I'd get paid $9 an hour for being in the sun, swimming. I wouldn't have to worry about kids that are drowning too much because there are lifeguards around. Basically, my only concern would be to keep the kids from escaping (but seriously, what kind of a kid would try to escape a swimming pool in the middle of the summer? It's lunacy. Particularly since those kids aren't required to go at all!)

So, no surprise, I said "hell yes, Traci. Woot woot." Well, more or less.

Go team me.

2004-06-16T16:51:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I was in San Jose, helping Sarah and her mom move the first load of materials into her new apartment. The sunlight had an odd feeling, as if it were a perfect frame for a sad, but joyful event. Sarah's taking a new step in her life. No more will she have mornings of walking to school where she will be the student.

There's a great amount of security in being the student. Security in the ability to sit back and learn, with no great demand on you for anything but your attention. Certainly, she'll be learning quite a bit as a teacher, but she will be sharing quite a bit of knowledge.

I guess it's just one more step.

2004-06-15T15:35:00.000-07:00

And so, the next day calls me a liar. Turns out that, as Jim was looking at the wiring for the internet, he managed to exclaim "Oh geez!"

"What?" I ask.

"Here's the problem. Some dipstick, when they were messing around back here, forgot to screw in the cord that runs from the modem to our cable outlet."

"What a dipstick!" I proclaimed.

And that's how it was. The internet is back, and now I can finally finish getting the final season of Quantum Leap.

I have an internet addiction... Not really, just a downloading addiction. I wonder what the percentage of things I've actually watched is compared to how much I've downloaded.

Some other good news today: the Study Abroad office at Cal Poly has emailed me back. Lee says I'll be able to have 15 hours a week for two weeks in mid-July. This will be very good. Added to my 20 hours at the lab a week, it's maybe not so good for sleeping, but very good for my money making.

Woo hoo.

2004-06-14T15:52:00.000-07:00

The reason why I have ceased to exist online is simply thus: there has been no internet at my house for just over a week now. So, I'm still alive. Just living an internet-free life. I have no idea when the internet will return, but till then, I'll try to update this during slow times at work.

So, my summer hours have begun at the Computer Lab: 1 - 5 pm every weekday. Today's been hectic, but fun. So, far, we've had 12 kids in, and it's only 4 now. I set up a time on Tuesdays and Thursdays to tutor one of the kids in Algebra, which will be pretty cool, and unexpected.

Sarah graduated on Saturday. So, now she's officially old as dirt. And I'm on my way to that goal as well.

Congratulations, Sarah.

2004-06-11T16:07:00.000-07:00

Well, it's over. The smoke has cleared. And there's still plenty to do.

I woke up yesterday morning with a swollen eyelid, and a humongous spider bite on my forehead. Today's visit to the health center (after it had, in fact, not cleared up) was pretty good. They gave me all sorts of creams, pills, and other things to help keep down my "allergic reaction." Basically they said that the stuff from my bug bite was draining into my eyelid...

okay, how disgusting is that?

But seriously, I have very little to complain about. Things are going alright. Not too good, but certainly not bad.

Maybe that's the way they should be.

2004-06-07T11:35:00.000-07:00

Now, it starts.

Monday 4-7pm: Art 133 Final
Tuesday 7-10pm: GrC 470P Final
Wednesday 7-10am: FSN 230 Final

Wow.

2004-06-05T11:11:00.000-07:00

This morning, in the car on my way to work, I heard an ad for a hair-growth system that was guaranteed to work, after all, it had "been awarded a U.S. patent!" Something seems fishy about that statement to me.

I realize I have not updated this thing in quite a while. The truth of the matter is, I realized that this quarter, even though I only have 4 classes, I happen to be smack-dab in the middle of 9 finals.

Let's see, last week, there were my two lab finals, then on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, I had three final group projects due... and then wrapped up my week with an actual final yesterday. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of next week I happen to be "blessed" with a final each of those days. But after that: sweet, blissful summer.

Pushpin was yesterday. It's where all the art and design majors put up the work they made througout the corner all throughout the Dexter building, and where crazy Graphic Communication majors like me try to pretend to be as cool as the Art majors, if only for one evening. I put up a couple of my pieces from this quarter, including our iPatch series of ads from one of my group projects. One of the most amazing things I saw there, though, was when I was turning the corner to walk down a hallway, and the floor suddenly turned to dirt and grass and flowers... It was weird. I ended up deciding not to walk down that hall.

Well, that's it for now. I'm not dead yet, just silent, thanks to Cal Poly. Oh, I'll get you back one of these days, my alma mater. Just you wait.

2004-05-28T13:31:00.000-07:00

I love how, at Cal Poly, I can already have finished two finals, yet none of my classes are done. It's spec-freakin-tacular.

But they're lab finals. Go figure.

Now, to work on my three group projects that are due on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Miles to go before I sleep. Many miles.

2004-05-25T20:58:00.000-07:00

Marginalia by Billy Collins

Sometimes the notes are ferocious,
skirmishes against the author
raging along the borders of every page
in tiny black script.
If I could just get my hands on you,
Kierkegaard, or Conor Cruise O'Brien,
they seem to say,
I would bolt the door and beat some logic into your head.

Other comments are more offhand, dismissive-
"Nonsense," "Please!" "HA!!"-
that kind of thing.
I remember once looking up from my reading,
my thumb as a bookmark,
trying to imagine what the person must look like
who wrote "Don't be a ninny"
alongside a paragraph in The Life of Emily Dickinson.

Students are more modest
needing to leave only their splayed footprints
along the shore of the page.
One scrawls "Metaphor" next to a stanza of Eliot's.
Another notes the presence of "Irony"
fifty times outside the paragraphs of A Modest Proposal.

Or they are fans who cheer from the empty bleachers,
hands cupped around their mouths.
"Absolutely," they shout
to Duns Scotus and James Baldwin.
"Yes." "Bull's-eye." "My man!"
Check marks, asterisks, and exclamation points
rain down along the sidelines.

And if you have managed to graduate from college
without ever having written "Man vs. Nature"
in a margin, perhaps now
is the time to take one step forward.

We have all seized the white perimeter as our own
and reached for a pen if only to show
we did not just laze in an armchair turning pages;
we pressed a thought into the wayside,
planted an impression along the verge.

Even Irish monks in their cold scriptoria
jotted along the borders of the Gospels
brief asides about the pains of copying,
a bird singing near their window,
or the sunlight that illuminated their page-
anonymous men catching a ride into the future
on a vessel more lasting than themselves.

And you have not read Joshua Reynolds,
they say, until you have read him
enwreathed with Blake's furious scribbling.

Yet the one I think of most often,
the one that dangles from me like a locket,
was written in the copy of Catcher in the Rye
I borrowed from the local library
one slow, hot summer.
I was just beginning high school then,
reading books on a davenport in my parents' living room,
and I cannot tell you
how vastly my loneliness was deepened,
how poignant and amplified the world before me seemed,
when I found on one page

a few greasy looking smears
and next to them, written in soft pencil-
by a beautiful girl, I could tell,
whom I would never meet-
"Pardon the egg salad stains, but I'm in love."

2004-05-24T09:36:00.000-07:00

This weekend has been strange. My friend Andrea was in a pretty extreme car accident this last Friday. She's okay, a little bruised and battered, but fine. You're in my prayers, Andrea.

And it got me thinking about my accident almost two years ago. And it got me thinking that I shouldn't think of it.

Saturday was crazy. Here's my schedule for that day:

9 am - GrC 470 meeting at Linnaea's
11 am - Work (HASLO)
2:30 pm - Art 133 meeting at Emily's
5:30 pm - GrC Post-Golf Tournament Banquet
8:00 pm - Dance at the Newman Center (kindly arranged by Carolyn)

It was pretty hectic. Not very often that a Saturday is busier than the rest of the week.

Then, last night, I went with Matt to the concert Mat Pica Pi was putting on in Chumash, with Neon Joseph, Briertone and Sherwood. I guess I haven't told any of you about this... but I came up with the name for it ("Three bands, one night... awesome"). They kinda ditched my favorite idea, though, which was "I am a rock show, I need love."

Anyhow, the show rocked. Neon Joseph are currently my local rock gods. They'll be playing at Briertone's cd release party this Friday at the Oddfellow's Hall, and I'll be there if I don't end up going to San Diego for the Mat Pica Pi end-of-the-year-trip... but I'm probably not going on it anyway, cause it's 40 bucks, and I think I might have a bunch of homework this upcoming weekend.

2004-05-21T13:22:00.000-07:00

Alas, that's how it goes. I get too busy with everything that happens, that I have no time to blog about everything that's happened. And now, with about a half an hour to spare before work, I finally can reappear.

I climbed to the top of Bishop's Peak last week. Climbed and crawled over, under and through rocks and poison oak to get there. And there, standing on the edge of the world, with the sunset cooing sweet nothings into the seven sister's ears, I admired.

And then I spit over the edge. It was a long way down.

I had the promise of having a third job for this summer. A simple matter of converting raster art into vectors for a t-shirt design company. $10 an hour, four hours a week. It would've been perfect. Somebody else got to it before I did, though. And so, I'll have to only work two jobs this summer... poor me.

I was elected one of the two screen printing officers for Mat Pica Pi for next year. Basically, I'll be screen printing shirts for different clients to raise money for the club. Last night was my first training session, printing out the Cal Poly Film Club's shirts. It was pretty bad-ass.

My poetry lately has been quite bitter. From discussing getting mugged on El Cajon Blvd in Junior High, to watching a bullet cut a swath through reality, it's getting a bit dark. I like it that way. Here's another one:

San Diego, I have no more love for you.
Your lies,
your skyscrapers scratching through the blue,
your endless consumption,

your very heart.

You watched me hurt, my hometown.
You saw me cry, bleed and crawl
through your sunny depths.

And, being your torn lover, I left.
I spent a burning 60 dollars, sat on a Greyhound,
and watched a rainy day turn to night.

And that's when I found
I hate L.A. more.

2004-05-19T16:28:00.000-07:00

Dire News

Lee sent this to me today. I'm a bit startled about it, especially given my history with the armed forces.

And so, I'm just letting as many people know about this as I can.

------------------------------------------

There is pending legislation in the House and Senate (twin bills: S 89 and HR 163) which will time the program's initiation so the draft can begin at early as Spring 2005 -- just after the 2004 presidential election. The administration is quietly trying to get these bills passed now, while the public's attention is on the elections, so our action on this is needed immediately. Details and links follow.

Even those voters who currently support us. Actions abroad may still object to this move, knowing their own children or grandchildren will not have a say about whether to fight. Not that it should make a difference, but this plan, among other things, eliminates higher education as a shelter and includes women in the draft -- Also, crossing into Canada has already been made very difficult.

Actions, actions, actions:
Please send this on to all the parents and teachers you know, and all the aunts and uncles, grandparents, godparents.... And let your children know -- it's their future, and they can be a powerful voice for change!

Please also contact your representatives to ask them why they aren't telling their constituents about these bills -- and contact newspapers and other media outlets to ask them why they're not covering this important story.

The draft

$28 million has been added to the 2004 selective service system (sss) budget to prepare for a military draft that could start as early as June 15, 2005. Selective Service must report to Bush on March 31, 2005 that the system, which has lain dormant for decades, is ready for activation.

Please see website: www.sss.gov/perfplan_fy2004.html to view the sss annual performance plan - fiscal year 2004. The pentagon has quietly begun a public campaign to fill all
10,350 draft board positions and 11,070 appeals board slots nationwide.. Though this is an unpopular election year topic, military experts and influential members of congress are suggesting that if Rumsfeld's prediction of a "long, hard slog" in Iraq and Afghanistan [and a permanent state of war on "terrorism"] proves accurate, the U.S. may have no choice but to draft.

www.sss.gov/perfplan_fy2004.html

Congress brought twin bills, S. 89 and HR 163 forward this year, www.hslda.org/legislation/na...s89/default.asp entitled the Universal National Service Act of 2003, "to provide for the common defense by requiring that all young persons [age 18--26] in the United States, including women, perform a period of military service or a period of civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, and for other purposes." These active bills currently sit in the committee on armed services.

Dodging the draft will be more difficult than those from the Vietnam era. College and Canada will not be options. In December 2001, Canada and the U.S. signed a "smart border declaration," which could be used to keep would-be draft dodgers in. Signed by Canada's minister of foreign affairs, John Manley, and U.S. Homeland Security director, Tom Ridge, the declaration involves a 30-point plan which implements, among other things, a "pre-clearance agreement" of people entering and departing each country. Reforms aimed at making the draft more equitable along gender and class lines also eliminates higher education as a shelter. Underclassmen would only be able to postpone service until the end of their current semester. Seniors would have until the end of the academic year.

WHAT TO DO:

- Tell all your friends

- Call the Mercury News (Newsdesk) 408-920-5000

- E-mail the SF Chronicle at: Tbyrne@sfchronicle.com

- Contact your Senators and tell them to oppose these bills.
Barbara Boxer: 415-403-0100
Diane Feinstein: 415/393-0707
Anna Eshoo: 202/225-8104
Nancy Pelosi: sf.nancy@mail.house.gov

For the full list of representatives (53) and websites, go to:

www.visi.com/juan/congress/c...te=ctc&state=ca

We just can't sit and pretend that by ignoring it, it will go away. We must voice our concerns and create the world we want to live in for our children and their children's children.

Sophie Lapaire

2004-05-14T09:42:00.000-07:00

I feel I must have woken up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. I just didn't want to go to my 8 a.m. class. And it's been happening more and more lately... Perhaps it's because summer is in the air (along with a whole bunch of nasty allergens... I HATE YOU ALLERGENS!!!!), or perhaps because I just realized I've spent the last seven quarters in school. It's really not that much, I suppose, compared to others. But it's impressive to say.

So, I walked into the Avenue (an eatery on campus) and I purchase an apple. At the checkout stand, the guy, after he rings me up, says "Holy Jesus," and looks at the price. I stare at the price as well, and I agree, "Holy Jesus." Turns out that the CSU system likes to charge 75 cents an apple. If I had any strong moral foundation at 9 in the morning anymore, I probably would have left that apple right there on the counter. But I'm not quite ready for corporate guerrilla warfare. So I enjoyed my extremely overpriced apple. I enjoyed the heck out of it. Thoughts of perhaps setting it on President Baker's head, and then working out my first attempt at archery on it ran through my addled mind... But no, again, I am not the soldier in the anti-overpriced-apple-army quite yet.

Just you wait, Baker. Just you wait.

2004-05-12T15:29:00.000-07:00

Lee, my boss at the study abroad office, has a sign, typical of many businesses, that says "will return" with a clock face underneath. The minute hand is now broken, so in accordance with part of my job, I was charged with the task of ordering another from Office Depot online. Unfortunately, I ran into a little stumbling block...

Just what is the dang thing called? Do any of you know the name of one of those things? See, this is a problem when you're searching for things on the Office Depot website. They didn't have an entry for any kind of text we found on the sign, nor for just "door time sign".

This made me start thinking: how many things do we run across in our day that we don't have names for?

My head hurts.

2004-05-10T18:39:00.000-07:00

Once by the Pacific
by Robert Lee Frost

The shattered water made a misty din.
Great waves looked over others coming in,
And thought of doing something to the shore
That water never did to land before.
The clouds were low and hairy in the skies,
Like locks blown forward in the gleam of eyes.
You could not tell, and yet it looked as if
The shore was lucky in being backed by cliff,
The cliff in being backed by continent;
It looked as if a night of dark intent
Was coming, and not only a night, an age.
Someone had better be prepared for rage.
There would be more than ocean-water broken
Before God's last Put out the Light was spoken.

2004-05-09T23:48:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the new blogger interface, I've been able to find a few posts that have been lost to time. Here's the first of them, dating back from Dec 1, 2003. Luckily, it hasn't happened to me in a long time.

Lately, I've been having a few recurring dreams:

1) I "wake up" in my dream to find that my room is strewn with humongous strands of cobwebs. I manage to clean all of them up and go to sleep and that's when... I really wake up because my alarm goes off, leaving me with the feeling I got no rest at all.

2) I start off my dream doing something. It doesn't really matter what because it changes every time I have this dream. Someone disapproves of what I do, and so my dream starts over, and I change what I'm doing to make the person happy. But this change upsets someone else... and it goes on and on, restarting my dream until I eventually do nothing.

2004-05-07T17:26:00.000-07:00

So, Muse played in San Francisco yesterday, at the Popscene. I called the number for the Popscene a day beforehand to ask how early we should be to get in line. They said 7.

So, we drive by the front door of the place at 2:30 pm, and there's already a 20-person line there. Good thing I never listen to people on the telephone. So, we wait.

The doors open at 10 pm, and after waiting 6 1/2 hours, we're glad to get inside. Unfortunately, they don't decide to let Muse start playing until 11:45, because they wanted to get as many people into the club as possible. For almost two hours, Dan, John and I watch closed-captioned "Better Off Dead" (with a very young John Cusack) and listen to gawdawful electronic disco music. The people pack in tighter, the air gets warmer and thinner, and I start feeling claustrophobic.

But finally, they come out. And they rock. There's no better term for it; the venue might suck, but this is Muse, and they put on a show I would have paid much more than $10 to see (especially if it was in a better venue).

I was tremendously glad, because they didn't just stick to their tracks off of Absolution; they played a great assortment of material from all three of their albums (though they did bum me out by not playing "Dead Star", one of my favorites off of one of their EP's).

They also weren't on a platform, they were on the same level as the audience, which meant I wasn't really able to see them all the time, except when Matt Bellamy or Dom would step up onto one of the speakers and start wailing. And there was a definite lack of a merch table. Plus, I've never been around so many disgustingly sweaty moshers.

But all in all, they played a fantastic set. And at the end of it all, they did what I can only describe as a kind of guitar-slinging improvisational heavy metal shootoff, in which Matt would start a riff with the band backing him up, and then Dom would match that on the bass.

Suffice it to say, I had a blast. Hanging out with Dan and John made the 9 1/4 hours we waited to see them more than easy to deal with.

If you get the chance, see Muse. I doubt you'll regret it.

2004-04-30T23:28:00.000-07:00

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Damn, it feels good to be a gangsta.

So, my first art project from this quarter is hanging in a glass case in the Dexter building. And Chuck said that my latest project was "a strange way to solve the problem". I think that's good. Nix that, I hope that's good.

I don't update this thing as often as I should.

2004-04-29T16:52:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, I had a wonderful surprise. In the middle of what I saw on weather.com as 100 degree heat in San Luis, I had my Food Processing lab.

Professor Niku glanced around the room after lecturing to us about the procedures required with the freeze-drying of the foods we'd be experimenting on for that lab. "You may have noticed how warm it is today." A series of gutteral moaning from the class. "Luckily for you, a company has donated a large amount of organic sorbet to our department, and since we can't sell it all, be sure to take a case with you when you leave today."

So, as I was stepping into the walk-in freezer, I couldn't help but notice the amount of steam coming off of my entire body. Sure, it was cold in there, but it felt like heaven. I regretfully left that freezer, with a very nice case of 24 organic lemon sorbets under my arm.

I became Santa Claus for a day when I walked into the office where I work (even though I wasn't scheduled to) and offered all my co-workers icy deliciousness. Boy, did that feel good.

2004-04-26T07:20:00.000-07:00

So, last night, I ended up going to bed at 1 am. After tossing and turning for a while, I looked at my clock and it said 2. You've got to be kidding me, I thought. I have class at 8 this morning!

But somehow, I woke up feeling pretty darned energized. Maybe it's several different things like the new version of Windows XP on my computer, thus new installs of old programs. Maybe I'm just a nerd (actually, there's no maybe to that), but I really like having the chance to start over again with my computer; to be able to set up my system in new ways. Maybe I'm feeling energized because I finished the brochure I've been designing for the Housing Authority, and getting paid $13.50 an hour for it is not bad. Maybe it's because I completed a piece of 3d modeling for an art critique I have today.

Again, maybe I'm just a nerd.

2004-04-23T17:30:00.000-07:00

I sleep well now. This is a welcome change. Last quarter, I did not.

But with the newfound sense of slumber, I'm finding the sunlight streaming in just a little more enjoyable. Maybe it's because it's Spring. Or maybe I just can't go back to sleep with the allergies that like to attack me at this time of the year.

Let me tell you one thing: Claritin is a godsend. It doesn't help out all of the time, but it destroys about 80 - 90% of my allergy attacks, which is definitely a good thing.

See, Ben? Drugs can help.

2004-04-20T19:48:00.000-07:00

So, because my roommates are probably getting sick of this joke, I figure I'll put it here. I came up with it last night, and I thought it was quite clever.

So, the Dahmer party is hanging out one night, and one of them says to the other, "you're stupid."

The other one replies, "eat me."

After just now doing a search and reading a little bit of the history of Jeffrey Dahmer, I find that joke much less funny. But I'll keep it here, because it's still clever.

2004-04-19T11:33:00.000-07:00

Alone, I should never have found the garden -- except, perhaps, for the big yellow pumpkins that lay about unprotected by their withering vines -- and I felt very little interest in it when I got there. I wanted to walk straight on through the red grass and over the edge of the world, which could not be very far away. The light air about me told me that the world ended here: only the ground and sun and sky were left, and if one went a little farther there would be only sun and sky, and one would float off into them, like the tawny hawks which sailed over our heads making slow shadows on the grass.

- Willa Cather, My Antonia

And so, midnight struck, and I read the last line of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix... I couldn't help but feel slightly disappointed in one very small fact, the probable many years it will take J.K. Rowling to write the next one.

I turned in my first art project of the quarter about an hour ago. It turned out very well, and as has been the case throughout this project I am both amazed and disgusted by my work. It's so completely different from everyone else's, and that worries me a little. It's as if one of the Art and Design majors will stand up in the middle of a crit, point at me with a pitchfork, and scream

"IT'S HIM!!! HE'S THE ONE!!! HE'S NOT IN OUR MAJOR!!!!"

or perhaps Chuck, with his beady bespectacled grimace, would realize he forgot to tell me before the due date that my work was crap.

But none of that happened, and so, we are to start on the next project for me to do something completely off of what the rest of the class is up to. I think I'm up for that challenge... I haven't been scared away from it yet.

Reminder to self: Jason Collett = Good music.

2004-04-15T17:53:00.000-07:00

accident - A condition of affairs in which presence of mind is good, but absence of body better.
(From The Foolish Dictionary by Gideon Wurdz)

That definition perfectly describes this post. Ironically, it was the same definition I had at the beginning of the post I was originally writing, but didn't save before I closed my browser. Thus, that very long, very winding description of how my entire day was pretty much an opus of mistake, a symphony of sweet disaster if you will, is lost and forgotten in the same spirit as the rest of my day.

I almost wish that when I had woken up this morning, it was to a different day. Strangely enough, I'm still pretty happy. I'm a delusional fool.

2004-04-14T01:53:00.000-07:00

A spam e-mail sent to me today, with the subject line "Free Ipod Mini":

Thick walls are important. I was just thinking. Are you getting pieces of this? The same thing we do every night, he replied.

I'd thought it was sad to hate the forest the way she'd done. There were many examples of animals all around. And someone was waiting for me, just around the corner. Don't do that, the cat pointed out.

Love what you do and do what you love What is the answer? There were many examples of animals all around. That could well be the answer.

The same thing we do every night, he replied. I'm evil. But under the circumstances, I'd do it again. What is the answer? This is what I like, I'd tell myself.
bWV0cm9waGlsaWFjQHlhaG9vLmNvbQ==

I realized it was so true.

2004-04-13T11:29:00.000-07:00

Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it's queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there's some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

2004-04-07T12:50:00.000-07:00

I find the most precious part of spring cleaning is the morning after the work is done. Not simply because of all the work that is no longer perched on the mantle, waiting for you with demon eyes, but rather because of the moment when I awaken and find I don't recognize my own room.

Certainly, I have a bit more to do. There's the matter of rearranging my closet to make a bit more sense, hanging up some posters (I've done quite a bit of this already), maybe getting a few photos framed for hanging (particularly a couple of panoramic photos I've either made or acquired), and some cleaning of my window.

I don't exactly know why I started cleaning this last weekend. Certainly I needed it, it's now the cleanest I've ever had it, and it feels, six months later, that I've finally moved in. I wanted to feel like it's home, and I think I really wanted Sarah to feel comfortable spending time at my place. It also gave me a good excuse to keep from working on my first art project.

Today was the first of three critiques for said art project. It's supposed to be a piece that demonstrates simultaneous contrast in color... don't worry, I won't barrage you with color theory, but I will tell you that I started out this project working with the idea of droplets, then it changed to skeletal structures, and now it's all fallen apart.

We'll see what happens with it before Monday.

2004-04-04T20:05:00.000-07:00

So, this evening, I decided to try something new. I used Google's Image Search to search for my first name, and so, I received quite a few results, from

cute and even cuter, to
pretty cool, to
kind of strange, to
pretty scary, and then
downright morbid.

Try it. You will probably be a little surprised.