and he hoppin' away!

Today on my drive back to work from lunch, I was behind a car with the vanity plate "MSTRJEDI"

I watched the documentary "How to draw a bunny" tonight. It is about the artist Ray Johnson. He was a friend of Andy Warhol's but had been making odd work well before him and after him, into 1995. His mind was fabulous. His last piece was exceptionally intriguing but I don't want to spoil it. Rent this movie for sure. If your local video store doesn't have it, ask them to order it for you. I asked East Coast and now they have it for me to rent a second and third time. Or get Netflix or a friend with Netflix.

The road is clear and laid out ahead of me.

I watched the Darjeeling Limited this weekend. It was very enjoyable. Not as good as Royal Tenebaums (will anything ever be) but I want to watch it again and again, so that's a good sign I think. The train car sequence near the end that follows up on all of the side characters was amazing. It made me very happy with its cleverness.

My roommate is almost all of the way moved out. I'm interested in his empty room so that I can come home and go into complete sensory deprivation. I think that will be pleasant, but we'll see. It may make me more detached than I already feel.

This passage of this Bright Eyes song came on the iPod on my drive today. It really sums up my whole reasoning for a secret trip to Raleigh. There are bits of hope in these seemingly hopeless songs that I really find comforting.

I'll get home and meet my friends at our favorite bar.
We'll get some lighter heads for our heavy hearts.
And we will share a drink.
Yeah we will share our fears
and they will know how I love them.
They will know how I love.
They will know how I love them.
I am nothing without their love.

-

I am feeling really dizzy all of the sudden.

velveeta goldmine

I think I just one-upped The Boy Who Lived With The Boy Who Lived. Check this freakin' brilliant wordplay/idea out:

MY NAME IS URL.

Whoo that's a good one.

Also, what about this:

Drawings or Photos or Paintings or some form of artistic expression that depicts Stick Figures trying to live in our modern real world. Stick figures looking for jobs. Stick figures on the subway (& eating subway - high five, kyle). Stick figures looking at stock figures. Stick figure celebrities. Stick figures being racially profiled. Etc. No one ever thinks about the stick figure and his feelings anymore.

That's really it. I wanted to jot those ideas down. Tonights ideas were born while chatting with Kyle Chalk. Blame him if they sucked. His chatting made me think or this garbage.

PEACE.

10-4.

In the post Jarvis street shooting I find it somewhat humorous that while walking after my run tonight, a large group of teenage and younger kids stood in the intersection past my house dancing around to rap music and yelling at each other to "come smoke this" and "your butt stinks!". The funny part is that while walking by, since they are in my path and why would I turn back, one of the youngest starts yelling "hey white man, why you in my hood?!". He was probably 10 if he was lucky. He was the smallest 10 year old I ever saw. Maybe I'll change my route, but probably I won't.

According to puddlegum.net which seems like some sort of elitist indie music site without many articles, this is how you are supposed to listen to the new Radiohead album (in rainbows) -- by weaving in parts of the supposedly complementing OK Computer.

Here's their playlist. It does actually sound nice together.

Radiohead - 01 and 10 playlist:
1. Airbag (OK Computer)
2. 15 Step (In Rainbows)
3. Paranoid Android (OK Computer)
4. Bodysnatchers (In Rainbows)
5. Subterranean Homesick Alien (OK Computer)
6. Nude (In Rainbows)
7. Exit Music (For A Film) (OK Computer)
8. Weird Fishes/Arpeggi (In Rainbows)
9. Let Down (OK Computer)
10. All I Need (In Rainbows)
11. Karma Police (OK Computer)
12. Fitter Happier (OK Computer)
13. Faust Arp (In Rainbows)
14. Electioneering (OK Computer)
15. Reckoner (In Rainbows)
16. Climbing Up The Walls (OK Computer)
17. House Of Cards (In Rainbows)
18. No Surprises (OK Computer)
19. Jigsaw Falling Into Place (In Rainbows)
20. Lucky (OK Computer)
21. Videotape (In Rainbows)
22. The Tourist (OK Computer)

According to Lorna, the humorfest piece looks ridiculous in a good way. I get to see it tomorrow and maybe I can snap some photos (I just sat here and negotiated which to type: pix or pics).

penic(h)illin'.

I can eat! Thank Fleming, I'm cured! Food has never tasted so good.

Well, actually it tastes just as I remember it.

Things I have come to realize in the past weeks:

Heroes now sucks. The Office now sucks. 30 Rock is teetering on sucking. I needed free time, so these things are good for me. But bad for people that watch still.



...the wind brushes through your hair and as you shiver your way into warmth you see one of those shadowy figures in the corner of your eye. Turning to make sure that you are still sane, you spot the shadowy figure come to life, hailing you with the sign of peace. But you rush along to your original destination and never speak of it to anyone. The poor guy. What did he do to you other than wish you well?

sigils in use.

I am sick. It's pretty sucky.


A.

Here's an idea I had tonight while watching TV. An animated movie where all the trailers/promos/clips released prior to the movie's release are not animated but instead acted out by real people dressed as characters from the movie and among real life recreations of sets from the movie.

OR

The exact opposite of that. Real move, animated trailers/promotion.

That would be fun.

B.

I watched An Inconvenient Truth tonight. Quite interesting. It gave me an idea which is as follows: The Flat Earth Society was right. Our Earth is flat and is indeed surrounded by a massive impassable ice wall. Global warming strikes this flat Earth. The ice wall begins to melt. Water levels rise, somehow people survive this. But what is on the other side of the wall? The rest of our earth which is round and this was just a flat portion of? Monsters? Devils? A land mass similar but different from the flat Earth's? Just an idea I had while watching a movie that was warning me of our pending death. I should have probably been paying more attention. This can be said of every school lesson ever.

C.



Dear Jim Woodring,

This is great. I love it.

Signed,

Billy

the room with THE view.

For about a month now I've been wondering about the great nothing that happens when you die. Won't it be so strange to be aware (mentally/physically/metaphysically) one moment and then all of the sudden...not? There really isn't a way to describe that, right? Especially if you (too) don't believe in the afterlife or rebirth or anything fancy like that. As far as nature and science goes - that's it. Worm food. But while driving back to work after lunch today (driving the same paths everyday makes my mind wander) I got to wondering (wandering) - Matter can't be created or destroyed. What is our consciousness? Our mind is creating self-awareness, sapience and our conscience...does that count as matter? I know that it isn't a phyiscal thing that exists in one of our defined states of matter but it is something isn't it? Anyways. That made me wonder what really happens at the end. I don't recall a whole lot from science classes so maybe I'm thinking about all of this wrong.

But really, while thinking this my real idea came about. You may or may not know the old clayamation christian TV show Davey & Goliath. I only know about it because my dad used to talk about it a lot and we got him some VHS of it one xmas. If you haven't seen it, Goliath is a dog that can talk to Davey and acts as a conscience to him. So I was thinking what if there were a similar thing with a boy and a conscience sidekick/friend/thing but in this idea the sidekick/friend/thing was a submarine. I know that sub conscience isn't a word but it sounds similar enough (for me) to subconscious to be a good/stupid idea. Anyways. That's really it. Maybe the submarine would talk via some sort of walkietalking/sonar/radio frequency or something. The kid would have to live near a lot of water too, for this submarine to really prove to be any help.

A week without any ideas and that's the best I've got? Ick.

I went to the mall yesterday to find a pair of running shoes. Mall should be the 8th deadly sin. Someone figure out how to change the 7 deadly sins to include Mall. In Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV) the town the show takes place in is located on a Hellmouth (a gateway to hell). Well in Greenville the Colonial Mall is located on and most likely IN a hellmouth. I walked into the Foot Locker where there were 3 employees. One behind the counter, one leaning on the counter and one standing near the Jordans. I could tell where the children's sneakers were but aside from that I wasn't sure what I was looking at. We don't have a Lady Foot Locker and to me most running shoes look like girls shows (is that racist?) so I was really lost. But no matter what, not one employee actually moved or acknowledged me. I got really nervous by that and walked out. Luckily there is a rackroom shoes right outside the mall and all the ladies there were helpful and at least talked and acted like they had a job in a store where their job was to sell something.

Also last night I watched Sunshine. It reminded me a lot of Alien due to the creepy dark space ship and the eerie shots and things. Even without the Alien connection this movie was really really awesome to me. The idea was cool (reignite our dying sun 50 years in the future so that mankind can continue to live) and the spaceship was cool too. They have a giant solar panel shield attached to their payload (the bomb to reignite the sun) which the ship hides behind. They are close enough to the sun that their ship/skin would burst into flames with even a second's exposure. Really cool movie. Can't wait for the DVD to see what kind of commentary/other things there are. First the Fountian (on DVD), now Sunshine. There has been some really good Sci-Fi for me in 2007. Next I think I'll rent 2001 (How haven't I seen this?) and probably get caught up on Battlestar Galactica before it ends.

And now a word about a computer/360 game, so stop reading here if that bores you --

Half-Life 2: Orange Box came out today (last night if you pre-ordered from the Steam client - I did). Aside from the greatness that is Half-Life 2 (+Episodes 1 & 2) and Team Fortress 2 you also get Portal. Portal was a senior project done at a college where Valve (creators of HL2) comes to your final crit and reviews your game. Valve hired the Portal kids after seeing their final project. With the somewhat long training under my belt I can tell you that they made the best decision ever. In Portal you have this Portal device where your left click creates a blue portal and your right click creates an orange portal. When you walk into one, you come out of the other. Momentum carries over between portals too, so if you put one high on a wall and one 20 feet below you and then jump into the lower one, you launch out of the top one with the speed you had entering the first. The neatest effect to me tho is that you can look into one portal and see out of the other one. So if you shoot one on a ceiling and one on a wall, when you look into the wall one you can see yourself from above. A few times I have almost thrown-up from the vertigo caused by this game. Seriously.

Anywhoo. That's about it. Hopefully more soon...possibly before 7 days from now.

Stop me if you've heard this one...

I've been slacking a bit here. I have had a vast lack of things to say so I didn't say anything. Anyways. I have some things to say now.

Been playing some Halo with Hani (Hanlo) the past couple days. That also explains the lack of posts. Hani is getting good tho, and that's nice.

So here are some ideas. Please tell me if these are horrible.

1. "Chuggy Cheese" -- This would be a bar themed around a grown up version of Chuck E Cheese (Previously: Showbiz Pizza, where a kid can be a kid). The mechanical rat (Chuggy) would be a drunken doppleganger of himself with beer belly and rat coozie. Maybe there would be pizza here. I think there should be in order to have the "cheese" portion of the name make sense. But the pizza would be better then what I remember Chuck E's being like. Along with pizza there would be an arcade with Skee Ball and Wheel 'em In and other assorted games that earned you tickets. Instead of the crappy "rubber ball" or "foam airplane" or "candy" from a Chuck E Cheese gift showcase, Chuggy's would have beer and bigger beers and shots and things like this. 100 tickets nets you a tallboy. 300 earns you a pitcher. Some sort of system where it wasn't a complete rip off, but the place was still making some money off of the quarters and things. Also, make the games spill proof. Cover them in grandma's couch plastic.

While typing this, a possibly better idea came to mind: Chuck D Cheese. You'd go there to eat pizza and learn about fighting the power through the magic of Public Enemy. And the mechanical rat would be a mechanical Flava Flav. Yeaahhhh Boyyyyyyy.

2. "Ocean's 7-11" -- This would be a prequel to Ocean's 11 where Danny and the gang (as kids: Picture the lil' rascals) set up a really elaborate scheme involving masks and training sessions and EMPs (barney rubble; trouble!) in order to steal a slushie or a slim jim or something insignifigant. But not money. This would be how they learn to work together as a team and there wouldn't be any love interests involved because they would be certain that girls have cooties. And they are right. Maybe the girls in the movie would be playing Cootie or Cootie Jr. at some point in the movie. What was really the point of Cootie Jr. anyways? Other then the tiny eye pieces, a little kid could play Cootie Sr. no problem. I don't remember how you earned the right to accessorize your Cootie, but I'll bet it wasn't fun. The only fun was building the Cootie. It was the opposite of Mouse Trap. If building a Cootie would set up your mouse trap for you then I think everyone would have a lot more fun. I've lost the point of the #2. tho. So yea. Prequel.

3. This one only really (and barely) works as a visual, so try to envision it. I want to draw this up as a little one/multi page short comic type thing. But there's no real plot at the moment, only this idea: A blind guy. Simple enough. But since this is a comic, he has to speak in word balloons, right? Well in this case when he opens his mouth to talk, the word ballons are shaped like big eyeballs and so while he is talking/making sound he can see. Sort of like sonar but with eyeball word balloons. So the comic would involve that and some sort of simple plot/story for him to follow for a couple pages and that's it. It would probably end sad or something. Maybe smoke gets in his eyeballoons or something.

4. South Park Season 11(A) started tonight. The idea behind the episode (Cartman gets Tourettes) was awesome sounding. The episode was alright but not as good as some older South Parks. But the Tourettes leader guy that couldn't stop yelling "Piss!" was hilarious to me.

Finished up my drawing for the upcoming ECU Humorfest. It isn't funny, but still. Will be mailing it to Lorna Wang this week and she will be putting that wax on it. I'd like to come up with a way to say she'll be doing encaustics and also make it sound like she is a rap record producer and is doing whatever phrase it is that they do with wax. Nice going on that one memory.

A side note: Greenville NC will not have the Darjeeling Limited this week. That is complete bullcrap.