Don't Fear the Blog
Why do people fear blogs?
A complex question with a complex answer no doubt. I'll try to bring it down to earth in a language that everybody here can easily understand. Like most fears the fear of blogs is based on ignorance or maybe there's just an aspect of blogging that folks don't understand. Here are some common areas of misunderstanding.
Technological ~ Some people fear blogs cause they just don't "get" computers. These people are the kind of people that have an e-mail account that they never use, maybe set up by a son or daughter or niece or nephew. These people don't just fear blogs these people fear technology in general. These people are pretty much already relegated to the fringes of our ever technologically dependent society. Their all encompassing fear of that which is new and beige will inevitably lead to an untimely death and an early grave. You will often hear these people mutter ~
"I don't need a computer, the world existed for thousands of years without the aid of computers and this silly electronet thingamajig and I don't need it and flibbity floo."
These people are often afraid of anything which might challenge their puny intellect.
Pedagogical ~ Some people fear blogs cause they don't fit into the narrow, trivial and often tiresome view of the world that these people learned from books. Books are great. I am all for them. I might write one some day. But the real world exists outside of the world of academia and blogs are one of those things that don't adhere to some strict formula for the way things are according to Encyclopedia Britannica. Here's a concept that blows these peoples minds ~
"A blog is a personal journal that is posted on the web for everyone to see."
Holy shit, short circuit, "I don't get it, how can something be both personal and public, isn't that like someone reading your diary."
Why yes you pedantic fool and no at the same time. Blogs don't have to be public but they are always posted in web space as the name implies. And yes, some people write about intensely personal things but they can choose from many levels of anonymity. It is exactly this exchange of private and personal ideas that make blogs so revolutionary and dare I say.. magical. Blogs are a revolutionary way for us to relate to one another and they have unlocked an exchange of ideas that is both public and private and can be published in real time. Dig?
The Media ~ In our media saturated society many opinions that people form are based solely and unbeknownst to them on something that they saw on TV or that they read in the paper. The media is an important tool to maintain an informed populace in a Democratic society, I'll concede that. Its just too bad that the mainstream media is hung up on their gravy train that is funded by big oil, pharmaceutical companies, and the interlocking directorate of the military industrial complex. As a result they are driven by these evil entities to maintain a level of fear and suspicion among a bewildered proletariat that is otherwise deprived of information save for the few dominant media conglomerates. Scared people are easy to rule or at least easily parted from their dollars. Blogs are quickly being recognized as a viable source of alternative media. This threatens both the media's monopoly of information and to some degree, in the long term, its economic infrastructure. So what do we do in America when something threatens the status qou,.. we demonize it. This comes from our puritanical heritage. Some blantant examples are alcohol, women's rights, civil rights, weed, public decency and on and on ad infinum. Here is an
example I saw just today albeit not from an American based media outlet.
That farticle is tricky cause they don't bash blogging outright or really say anything derogatory. What they fail to mention obviously on purpose is the name of the blog that they are talking about. They also chose a nice op-ed piece in which to highlight blogging that makes blogs seem sort of sickly and innocuous in their subject matter. As if to say ~ "Ah, look at what the cute little blogger has chosen to highlight, see people this isn't alternative media at all, this is just a hobby."
And would it have killed them to provide a
link. And the BBC is the least of our worries.
Jealousy ~ One of the most powerful human emotions right next to love and horny, jealousy can really tear us apart. Some people say "bloggers are so narcissistic"...or "bloggers are just wallowing in shameless self promotion"...or "I hate bloggers." These people are green with envy. They wish they had the guts and the vocabulary that it takes to write on regular basis. They wish they were having the life experiences that it takes to make an interesting blog. These are the same people that when asked by their parents "Well, if little Jimmy jumped off a bridge would you jump off a bridge?" they answered "No." These people are the kind of quitters that never even start anything cause they are afraid to be labeled a quitter. These people need to grab ahold of themselves and say "You are good enough and you are smart enough and doggonnit, people like you."
Listen you don't have to write a blog to enjoy the blog sphere alls I'm sayin is "don't be hatin'."
I hope I have cleared up some of the misunderstandings about blogs and bloggers and the people that be hatin' on 'em.
Alls I know is that people need beverages cause beverages bring harmony.
paz
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Worth While
The Olympics make me want to do something worth while with my life.
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Workout Wonderment
I like to go to the gym.
No scratch that, I like to work out.
No that's not exactly correct either, lemme try again, I like to stay fit.
Since I tore my ACL and I haven't been able to play soccer I have been going to Golds Gym. That's been about a year now. I used to go to the gym, like when I wrassled in High School. And I used to go to the Rec Center pretty faithfully most of the way through college but at some point I got fed up with the gym and started just riding my bike and doing the things that one can do at home or outdoors to stay fit like push-ups and pull-ups and sit-ups and stuff. It was easy to stay fit when I was playing ball three times a week. So when I joined Golds I was a little wary. I knew that with my busy work schedule and the repealing of daylight savings time in the Fall that I had to do something to maintain a tolerable fitness level. Basically I had forgotten why I didn't like going to the gym, that is until yesterday.
I got to the Gold's on hwy183 on Monday at about six thirty. The place was packed, like more than usual. I wanted to do a quick leg workout some easy abs and finish with my personal fav, The Stairmaster. I wasn't really in the mood for any of that shit but after my weekend of total debauchery I couldn't in good conscience just skip out.
With the increase in bodies there seemed to be an convergent increase in tensions. I am generally pretty aware of the emotional states of the people around me. Actually for the most part I am hyper aware of the emotions of any and all humans in my range of perceptions, both boon and bane in my existence I assure you. Well it all sort of came down on me like a ton of bricks. I was so not in the mood to be there. At one point I actually went back to the locker room and got my gear in my hand and started to bounce but I got ahold of myself. I was all ~
"You have to sweat it out sucker, you're gonna feel like shit if'n you don't, c'mon man thirty minutes."
So I stayed. The Stairmasters were all occupied when I got there so I did my other shiz and kept an eye on them. As I got into my workout I just couldn't block out the whole colliding egos issue of the gym environment. This is hard to explain but I'm gonna try ~
a. there's the hot ass bitches walkin around with their snotty little totties, of course
b. there's the true buffed out "gym rats" who prance and preen and make noises at themselves in the mirror as c. they go about their business,
c. there's the slightly overweight to the obese men and women who you can tell are trying to get into a better body and it is painfully obvious how self conscious they feel,
and the thing that all these people have in common is that none of these groups is very friendly.
And then it hit me. This is what I dislike about the gym. The fact that everybody there, for one reason or another, is acting as totally aloof as possible. Oh you can tell some of the regulars know each other and there are a few words exchanged here and there but the prevailing attitude is one of too much testosterone, or too cool for school, or please don't look at my fat ass and all those produce the same effect in my emotion receptors, Icy Cold Humanity. There you are amongst one hundred and fifty people all in the same big ass smelly room and all everybody does is avoid aye contact as if you could get a case of Ebola by looking around. It kind of makes me feel isolated and frankly a little lonely.
There is this one girl. I see her almost everytime I'm there. She's not super hot but she quite cute and she's quite fit. She even seems like somebody I might be friends with in regular life. Well anyways, whenever I try to make eye contact, just simple "Hi human I see you there" kind of eye contact she either ~
a. totally blanks me ~ or
b. gives me a dirty look ~ or
c. one time I'm sure she rolled her eyes at me.
Now I could be totally off base about that but its hard to disregaurd what you've seen with your own eyes even if it doesn't jive with reason. I want to introduce myself if only to make it personal, cause its easy to hate people but its hard to hate individuals, but I'm afraid that she might just clown me.
One day I was taking care of some overdrafted account/rejected payment situation at the front desk when i tried to talk to the girl that stands at the door greeting folks. I mean she talks to me ~
"Hi, have a good workout" and "Thanks we'll see you next time"
~ why can't I talk to her? I complimented her on her smile and said that it is a pleasure to be greeted by such a lovely smile. Well she got this look on her face like I was the biggest loser in town and I had just asked if I could suck her toes. It was one of those forced smiles that is chocked full of unstated annoyance. I think she said thank you in the same manner in which one might say thank you at gunpoint. That whole incident left me with a rude feeling about the gym staff. And holy shit do those gym staff people, they do an awesome job at maintaining this aloof status quo. Its as if this mileiu is not only fostered by but set up by Gold's and their policy manual.
Anywho, I am off to the gym,
its an unfortunate situation but until humanity comes to see the err of their ways or until my contract is up I am going to go there and Sweat It Out.
In a completely unrelated story
This guy is in deep shit. Did you see the last episode?
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She Invented Blogging
Raymi
Yo, Check It, this girl knows how to spit the truth
innit?
Raymi would you like to come visit? I can pencil you in right after Misty.
Please?
We can do Canadian things.
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Hot and Hazy
E'rbody out there is all
WTF,.. where you bean Deputy?
Oh and I'm all
~Check it, even the best of bloggers gotta take a few days off from time to time. Besides, I had some hot and hazy bizness to attend to but I'm back now and I'm here to help all my peeps make it through these dog days of summer, aight dogg.~
This time I was livin large on the ever fluctuating shores of
Lake Buchanan. Boss was the host with the most and I gotta give that man a lush love life shout-out~
Thanks Boss, I had a fantastic time.
There was swimming and kayaking, there was cooking and eating, there were late night drunken Jeep rides and there was some serious gunplay, there was crazy cooter and kwality company. Besta believe some brain cells were destroyed in finest Hill Country fashion. You just never know your own personal capacity for beef and beer until they are put to the test. And seriously if you had all day Saturday, lets say it was raining the bottom out all damn day, I wonder how much Ganja one man could or would smoke? Well now I know. The word fuckload comes to mind.
In a totally unrelated story~
Dear
Misty
when you get back from Athens, would you like to come to Austin and be my guest for like a week???
We could have a hella good time.
Seriously baby, holler at me when you get back stateside.
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Vacation
Short Vey Kay
Big Ranch
Large Fun
Dirty Lake
some Gunplay
peace
and don't forget
to Rep
Your mutha fuckin Set
Respect
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Victory
A week of broken promises
yeilds the same reslut as any
celebration
I'm going to the victory parade
for Lance
in Downtown Oztin
pictures?
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Moth vs Flame
enamorado
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Truism
This is a little colloquial description of myself by myself
"I have the jaw of a pugilist and the hands of a seamstress"
lots of actual work at work has forced this short post
peace
back tomorrow
oh yeah, last weekend was pretty uneventful aside from some very special enchiladas
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Anticipation
I was at Lovejoy's on Sunday night. I was playing pool with
The Red Irishman and
Maneesh. Lovejoy's is one of my favorite bars and these are two of my best friends. Maneesh turned to me and said ~
"I would chit-chat with you about your weekend but I think I'll just wait for the details in your blog."
This is true my friends, very true. In fact if you read my blog there's no real reason to talk to me at all cause everybody knows that I spill all the beans in this space. And just to make the anticipation all the more spine tingling I'm gonna wait to talk about my weekend until Wednesday.
I can't wait.
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Future Event Anxiety
When I was on my way to go live in San Francisco I stopped to visit my Grandparents in Weatherford Texas. I stayed for about a week. I was so anxious to get on my way that I thought I might just fucking spontaneously combust. Purgatory is a hell of a place to be, 'specially for a whole week. You know that feeling when you have closed the door on one chapter of life and you have yet to darken the door of the next chapter. Its torture really.
So there I was chillin in Weatherford for about five days. I wanted to get in a good visit cause I wasn't sure when I would be back that way. I was bored and anxious and absolutely plagued by my imagination running wild about the possibilities and opportunities that I would find in SF. The thing about the future is that you can NEVER, ever actually conjure up an image in your head that has anything to with how things are actually going to turn out. No matter how hard you think and envision and fantasize about the sights, smells and events of the future you will NEVER, ever hit the nail on the head. And we know this, but yet we all still spend precious brain power on imagining the future. Its part of the horror and singularity of the human condition. Ain't nuthin' else like it.
So I was there in Weatherford and I was beset by this condition of 'future event anxiety' and so I went to the library one day to take my mind off things. Weatherford ain't the most cosmopolitan of bergs but its not the worst podunk shithole either. The library is modest and maybe a little outdated. Case in point ~ I found a book there about San Francisco, a picture book about San Francisco. I had intended to take my mind of the problem at hand but when I started thumbing through the card catalogue thinking about a topic I still could only think of my destination and my subsequent destiny. The book was printed in the early seventies. It had lots of pictures of lots of things that were still in essence San Francisco. But the pictures were old and it as it turns out a lot of things had changed in thirty years in SF. That book gave me a sense of a simpler time in SF and when I got there I found that for the most part those things and that time had been pooped on and paved over.
I wish I could control my mind enough to refrain from thinking too hard about the future. I think that is part of the serenity of living in the now. I'm leaving work and going to the gym in about half an hour. No matter how hard I try I have images of what that is going to be like and inevitably those images will be different from how things will actually play out.
fascination
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Register
I have mentioned it before.
I have a problem with minutiae. You know, dealing with all the little details that compose and determine the important outcomes of your finite human life. I will put things off till they are overdue or past due or until I've missed out completely or until I owe late charges. For instance, I need to go to the dentist. I have a cavity, but I won't get to it until the cavity is gaping and making my head pound.
When I moved out to California I never registered to vote. I didn't have any idea what was going on in local politics and overall I was not that much of a "civic minded person." I pulled the old disenfranchised hippy routine in the 2000 election. I didn't vote. I didn't think it mattered one bit seeing as how the country is really run by big oil, pharmaceutical companies and the Military Industrial Complex. At the time I felt like the vote was mostly just a way to passify citizens into thinking that they had some say in the rule of the country. I exercised my right not to vote. I was also in a Clinton era daze whereby I thought peace and prosperity was the norm and I thought nothing could change that, not even a republican.
Boy howdy was I wrong. Well I wasn't wrong abut the oil, pharmaceutical, interlocking directorates thing. And I wasn't wrong about feeling disenfranchised, I still do just in a different way. But what I was wrong about is the importance of the democratic process and how it does give power to the people and I was also wrong in thinking that peace and prosperity is the norm.
GWB has given us all a lot to think about. I think he has shown how much one president can change the course of a country and not necessarily for the better. I know there were some pretty substantial outside forces that caused the president to act in his now characteristic "whoo hoo, bring it on, evil doers" manner. I know that Dubya thinks that his policies are the right thing to do and I know he truly thinks that God is on his side. But none of that changes the outcomes of his decisions. We have all had to live with the effects of the things that he has created or destroyed. I know I'm gonna vote this time and I'm not gonna throw my vote away on the Green Party like I did in 1996. I'm not affiliated with one of the big two parties, I consider myself an independent, but I think I'm going to vote for John Kerry. The things that I hold dear about America have trampled on by the Bush administration and the least I can do is stand up for the other guy.
But what I needed to do was register to vote again here in Travis County. That's what has just occurred in the picture above. That was also last week at First Thursday. Isn't that a cute girl who was out doing the voter registration? I encourage everyone to get out and vote and I am a disillusioned hipster no-good-nik type. If I can get my shit together enough to go to the polls so can you.
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Debut
This is me
At First Thursday
at 7:30
Groovin to the
Reggae Chicano Sounds
of Gustavo
Rodriquez
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Breathe part 4
This hangs on my bedroom wall
I think Its important to breathe
in and out
Every
Day
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What's "Gaggaccticca?"
Well that's a good question. The origins of Gaggaccticca are really quite simple, some might even say retarded.
Its kind of a play on words.
Its like
Gattaca, you know the movie with Ethan and Uma and Jude. Not a great movie but I think a clever title. Gattaca is a play on the first letters of the
nitrogenous bases that form the building blocks of the human
genetic sequence. When you're looking at a representation of a DNA sequence you'll see a succession of letters (a, g, c, t) which correspond to the nitrogenous bases (
adenine,
cytosine,
guanine,
thymine). If you squint your eyes you can see the word Gattaca. If you take a tab of X and follow it with a shot of vodka an eyedropper full of GHB and wait about half an hour you might see the word Gaggaccticca. It definitely takes chemical stimuli to get the gist.
In that movie that I mentioned they use that play on the first letters of the things that form the building blocks of life cause they are trying to make a subtle reference to cloning. I am trying to make a subtle reference to chemical alterations or more to the point "getting fucked up." I added an I for the ego, cause it could only be the human ego that would compel a person to habitually put nefarious substances into these beautiful machines that we have been blessed with so that our souls don't float off into space.
They say "write what you know." So there ya go. Savvy?
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Happy Birthday Blog
Today, on the sixth day of the eighth month of the year twenty aught four anno domani we celebrate the birthday of this blog, my blog, whose official unabriged title is ~
Gaggaccticca County Proper, Party Town USA
~ and so I say to this my humble blog, what brings me such joy and reciprocal satisfaction, and what now contains 120 posts and over 50,000 words
Happy Birthday
Happy Happy Happy Day.
three cheers for my blog, hizzah. Its not your Unbirthday today, for today is your Birthday,
Hooray, Hooray
Here's a little blog background that might help you celebrate this momentous occasion.
This isn't my first blog. If you'll notice in my profile it says that I have been on blogger since March 2002. At first you think, well blogger must have made a mistake cause
a. they often do and
b. the archives only go back to August of 2003. The simple explanation for this discrepancy is that I have fallen victim to a terrorist plot. The truthful explanation is that I had a blog back in San Francisco. It was actually a proper website called thedeputy.net. It featured my artwork and some electronica tunes I was working on. There was some writing. The most memorable post was a review of the Marshall Mathers LP in which I personally thanked Eminem for bringing back into vogue the use of "the finger" which had sort of fallen out of fashion among bourgeois youth.
Mat Honan called it the definitive Eminem review. You're too kind Honando.
But alas thedeputy.net's days were numbered. You see kids, I was on drugs, and by September of 2002 my ivory tower of crystal power had begun to crumble. I got arrested and I quit my job and it was San Francisco in the middle of the worst recession since the depression and I simply couldn't find another job. The bridges had already been burned. I was running out of money and my sanity was shot. So I decided to do the hard thing, the worst case scenario. I decided that I better come back to Texas where I didn't know where to get my hand on hard drugs and maybe just maybe I would live to blog another day.
It took almost a year for me to get back into a healthy enough state that I even wanted to blog. I had let my server space and domain name expire so thedeputy.net was just a memory. By this time I had found another proper professional job. Not only that but it was a print design job so I was now employed for the use of my stellar graphic art skillz, and I was all "Hells yeah bro I got a super sweet design job...hootenanny." Most of my graphic creativity is sucked into the swirling vortex of beer sign and banners that I design and print each day. I have always needed a creative outlet and although I love my job it isn't the kind of outlet where I can express Myself as myself. So last summer In a kind of preternatural awakening, I started a new blog. I have always fancied my self a bit of a wordsmithe. I have always thought that someday when my surging testosterone ebbs a bit I might be able to focus enough to do some serious writing. Although the testosterone flow is still like the inner workings of the Hoover Dam I have trained my feeble mind to focus enough to do some substantial writing i.e. this blog.
The first post was an
observational ditty that seems a little provincial now. But they say that a journey of a thousand steps starts with a trip to Walmart to cop some cheap kicks so you can just throw them away when you're done cause they are gonna stink...
or something to that effect.
Thank you for reading. I will write some more. If my skills start to slip or the posts go all stale let me know.
If something I have said something that rocked your day or made you tingle, let me know.
If you like the cut of jib,..let me know.
Remeber you can't spell feedback without feed.
Happy Day
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First Thursday
Here's where I'm gonna be tonite.
As I googled First Thursdays I realized that a lot of organizations and groups and places have special gatherings on the first Thursday of the month.
This is an especially wicked time here in Austin because its one of the few places where you can walk around on the street and see your friends and neighbors face to face. The rest of the time people seem to be trapped in their plastic and glass bubbles.
During August you just don't see a lot of pedestrians.
They melted.
I miss that about SF, not the temprate climate although I miss that too, I miss that whole actually seeing the proletariat face to face thing.
Fucked up infrastructure I tell ya.
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Wanted: Suckas
This is a rant in the same vein as Mat's
Screw You Mr. Writer post about how people are always trying to take advantage of writers.
Wanted: Graphic artists who want to live out the remainder of their lives below the poverty line
That's what the title of
this post should say.
I mean seriously
What The Fuck is wrong with these people. They want you to have your own computer equipment. It says Mac and software (I guess PC ain't gonna cut it for this small uppity Ausitn based publishing company). They want you to work from home and ~
Must be creative and be able to design with multiple looks. Great career starter. This ad sounds swell until you check out the compensation. Nine American dollars per hour. Nine dollars an hour? You may find a person who owns a Mac but they didn't purchase that Mac making Nine dollars an hour. Also notice how in the second sentence they totally misspelled artist.
I am constantly seeing want ads seeking highly qualified professionals with a whole battery of skills and usually education credentials and a quality portfolio and maybe a bit of experience and some dumb ass muther fucker wants to pay the perspective employee two dollars an hour over minimum wage. Where are the unions for artists? Why do the fat cats think they can totally financially rape anybody who is foolish enough to want to put their artistic talents to use in the private sector? Oooh ooh Mr Kotter,...Mister Kotter I know why. Alright Horshach, enlighten us...
Its because they CAN and because they are only thinking about the bottom line which makes for a good fiscal rational, but we make you and your product or service look good. Everybody needs quality market presence. If you could do it yourself you would, but you couldn't find your ass with both hands much less find your way around an effective layout or ad.
I know what most people think. Why should I adequately compensate someone who is essentially doing arts and crafts? This is a good question. Once again its because you can't do it yourself. You either don't have the time or the know how or the color sense and that is why you have placed the ad. Try not to insult and alienate all the freelance artists out there... suckas. Waiters and waitresses clear nine dollars an hour at even the most craptacular of establishments after tips. Why should an artist submit to such a pittance? I'll tell you why, because (especially in this economy) there are so few opportunities. Its like I mentioned in the My Job post it is a dream of some of us to make our livings doing the things we love, for me that's graphic arts. Somebody who just happens to have a Mac and the software and maybe the skills is going to apply for that job. They won't be the small publishing firm's ideal candidate artistically but since they are willing to accept the pauper's salary they will be the one that lands that sweet Graphic Artist post at the Burger Flipper's wage. I hate our culture of contracts going to the lowest bidder. I know its a function of capitalism but dammit that's the reason that the capitalist pigs will one day pay for their crimes.
I don't usually rant, I don't think it suits me very well
but sometimes
YAR.
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Hey Look What We Found
Man
I am gonna be so
pissed
if the Republicans
turn up with a
captured Osama
right before the election
Cause I know for sure that a lot of my voting age bretheren do not have the wits and the necessary wherewithal to distinguish between actual factual natural courses of events and those events that have been so obviously carefully staged and subsequently leaked to the public at optimum intervals for maximum political gain.
I am gonna be so pissed.
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Quiz Time
I Love a good quiz, I know ya'll do too.
Let's get to know me a little better.
1. WHAT COLOR ARE YOUR BEDROOM WALLS? plain white
2. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW?
Bonfire of the Vanities Tom Wolfe
3. WHAT’S ON YOUR MOUSE PAD? Digital Media Warehouse
4. FAVORITE BOARD GAME? Trivial Pursuit (I rule at that game)
5. FAVORITE MAGAZINE? National Geographic
6. FAVORITE SMELL? herb and sex
7. FAVORITE COLOR? grey
8. LEAST FAVORITE COLOR? beige
9. HOW MANY RINGS BEFORE YOUR ANSWERING MACHINE PICKS UP? six
10. MOST IMPORTANT MATERIAL THING IN MY LIFE? my stupid car
11. FAVORITE FLAVOR OF ICE CREAM? pralines and cream
12. DO YOU BREAK THE SPEED LIMIT DAILY? nope, I drive like your grandpa
13. DO YOU HAVE A STUFFED ANIMAL IN YOUR ROOM SOMEWHERE? yes. the sock monkey that Lum made for me
14. STORMS - COOL OR SCARY? super cool especially in Texas
15. FAVORITE DRINK? two words Bloody f'n Mary
16. WHEN IS YOUR BIRTHDAY? Cinco de mayo... true
17. FAVORITE VEGETABLES? Romaine Lettuce
18. IF YOU COULD HAVE ANY JOB, WHAT WOULD IT BE? Wildly Popular Novelist
19. IF YOU COULD HAVE ANY COLOR HAIR, WHAT WOULD IT BE? black
20. HAVE YOU EVER BEEN IN LOVE? Yes and I'm still a little woozy from it
21. TOP THREE FAVORITE MOVIES (IN ORDER)? Die Hard, The Jerk, True Romance (all the best movies have two words in their title or two words and a preposition, like Dances with Wolves)
22. DO YOU TYPE WITH YOUR FINGERS ON THE RIGHT KEYS? Yes but I have to look at the keyboard
23. WHAT’S UNDER YOUR BED? my drawings and spiders
24. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE NUMBER? 5
25. FAVORITE SPORT TO WATCH ON TV & IN PERSON? soccer
26. WHAT IS YOUR SINGLE BIGGEST FEAR? abandonment
27. FAVORITE CD OF ALL TIME & RIGHT NOW? tie Beatles
White Album & Mos Def,
Black on Both Sides
28. FAVORITE TV SHOW OF ALL TIME & RIGHT NOW? Chappelle's Show
29. HAMBURGERS OR HOT DOGS? Burgers
30. THE COOLEST PLACES YOU’VE EVER BEEN? Lenin's Tomb in Red Square... true
31. WHAT WALLPAPER AND/OR SCREENSAVER IS ON YOUR COMPUTER RIGHT NOW? its all black
32. DOES MCDONALD’S SKIMP ON YOUR FRIES & DO YOU CARE? Nah, they always dole out a lot of fries
33. FAVORITE CHAIN RESTAURANT(s)? In and Out Burger ~ but they don't have em in Texas so I'm jonesing for one
34. IF YOU HAVE A BOY (OR HAVE ANOTHER BOY) WHAT WOULD YOU NAME HIM? Browning
35. IF YOU COULD LEARN TO PLAY ONE INSTRUMENT OVERNIGHT, WHAT WOULD IT BE? piano
36. WHERE DID YOU GET THIS FROM?
Tony
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My Job part 1
My job is pretty cool. That's not just me have a positive attitude either. I'm pretty much a hardline realist. I don't look on the bright side of things just for the sake of irrepressible optimism. Some things require belief and some things require doubt. So when I say that "My job is pretty cool." That's what I fuckin mean.
Let me give you some background information and maybe some examples.
I do Graphic Design for a beer distributor. What does that mean?, I presume you might ask. Well, I design all kinds of custom signs and banners that adorn our accounts. Our accounts include bars, restaurants, grocery stores, convenience stores, and some special events such as car shows or the rodeo. I make all shape and size of point of sale,or POS materials. So when I write POS, I mean point of sale not piece of shit. Some things are as straight forward as a price sign eg. Coors Light Longnecks $2.00 from 4-6pm. Other things are custom orders from thematic enterprises such as Hooters like the jet ski that I am decorating with beer logos for their new lake location. And yet other things require actual design skills and creative motivation like when a salesman says that there is a grocery store with a space on a wall this wide and this high and I need to design something to those specifications that incorporates all our products that the store carries. I can either print things with my 42" HP designjet5000 or I can cut vinyl letters with my ancient Roland PNC-950 plotter. The vinyl can be applied to imprintable banners that we get from the respective breweries or it can be applied to the side of vehicles or anything else that is going to be exposed to the elements.
So having said that, here is a short list of some things that rock about my job.
1.
Very Little Supervision My job is based on production. As long as the salesmen and supervisors are receiving their sign orders in a timely fashion and they in turn do not complain to the big bosses then I am pretty much left to my devices. No one ever comes into my office just to see if I am working and furthermore no one really cares what time I come in or what time I leave as long as my work is getting done.
2.
My Own Office That's right, not a cube, not an ajoining space, I have my own office. Granted it is an old locker room that in the past was used by the delivery drivers, nonetheless my own space. There are pros and cons to working in an old locker room. Their are no windows, it is poorly ventilated, and the lighting is flourescent and pretty terrible. A short and tolerable cons category methinks. For the pros, you can't just walk by and see what's going on, the entrance is down a small hall. Also, I have the use of my own private bathroom. Sometimes other people try to use it but I put a stop to that by telling the would be pisser that this bathroom is not on the cleaning grid and I have to clean it myself so I'll be damned if I'm gonna open it up for a parade of fools. 'nuff said.
3.
Perks These include but are not limited to ~ keychains, koozys, hats, caps, visors and all manner of other giveaway advertising crap, free lunches on occasion, the opportunity to meet some hot promo girls, free beer for extra work done for supervisors (kids team banners mostly), free beer after work, free beer at bars (I have a standing deal with one of my supervisors where I can go into any bar in town and drink Dos Equis till I can't walk and he reimburses me as long as he gets an itemized receipt), and the biggest perk I have gotten so far was a kayak with smirnoff ice emblazoned on the side.
4.
Respect Most people here don't really understand what I do, there are very few technophiles that work here and even fewer artists. To some people who really don't understand what I do I am some kind of magician. More importantly I get things done. I am in the business of making IT happen. I am respected by many, feared by most.
5.
Fulfilling my Dream I have always wanted to work as an artist, more or less that's what I am doing.
This is only a partial list of things that rock about my job. There should be more to come.
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Lake LBJ
I went out to the Krier Kabin this weekend. The Krier Kabin is at Lake
LBJ. The Krier's are a family from Lubbock that I do dearly love. Jay Krier is my homie. He is my age, we graduated from high school together. Jay is living in Lubbock, poor Jay. The Krier's bought this house on Lake LBJ when we were in College. It has been the scene of many a wicked good time and/or wild retreat. I missed going out there on the Fourth of July weekend so when Jay called on Saturday to tell me to get my ass out there I obliged.
As I was leaving town I wasn't sure if my car was gonna make it. The AC hasn't been working and my gauges seem to go out when the mercury soars but I was determined to get my ass out there as I had been instructed. Once I got out on the open road the gauges came back to life and the AC actually started blowing cold air, albeit only from the defrost vents.
When I arrived all the kids were out on the boat. Steve, the patriarch of the Krier Klan was down at the dock. I snagged a couple cold beers from the fridge and went down and had a long chat with Senor Steve. He kept lookin at his watch thinking that I was anxious for Jay and the kids to get back but I was happy as a clam chatting with Steve. I have mucho respect for this man. I think he is an excellent example of what a father is supposed to be. We got to talking about dinner. He said that the boys were talking about a cookout, grill em up, maybe steaks on the barbie style din din. He made some quick calculations and by his reckoning if we were to wait for them no good niks to come back on the boat and let them do the shopping then it would surely be ten oclock before we ever sat down to dinner. So we decided to do the hero thing and nip it in the bud and so we went to the store to handle the shopping. We got salad and steaks and corn and some chips and salsa.
By the time we got back the youngins had returned from boating. The occasion, besides basic summer fun, was for Sam's buddy Chris Espino. It was a going away party weekend in Chris' honor because he is moving to New York City, a very dangerous place by all accounts. I like Sam's crew, they are four years younger than us but they are way more fun than we ever were. Many of my lake memories involve Sam's Crew. The kids that were out at the lake included Sam, Chris, Travis, Wyatt, Dan, Wilson and Chris's old girlfriend Crystal. Those kids are a hoot. I think at this point with me and Jay going over the hill and them just right in the middle of their 20's party fun, I think that those guys can out drink me and Jay or at least me.
So anyways we went out to
The Slab. The Slab is a part of the Llano River where it cuts under a roadway and there is a low water crossing. Its like in the song
American Pie, its a place where you can drive your Chevy to and good old boys go to drink whiskey and rye except there's no levee and you can swim. Or at least you can wade and lounge in water that's pretty shallow. There is a lot of sand out there and lots of granite outcrops. We usually go just up river from that first picture on that link page. So when were out there drinkin and smokin and just having a grand time. The sun was setting and the clouds and the light were painting the most brilliant sky. I would make some rash statement like "it was the most beautiful sunset I had ever seen," but I've seen a lot of grand sunsets so to make a statement like that would be just foolish. But it really was beautiful and lounging in that water like that, and having friends all around, and gazing up at the valley and the trees and all of nature, and maybe it was the Vodka talking but I had this moment where I was so glad to be from Texas. And even though this land has belonged to other people. And even though we shed blood to take this land by force from the Indians and then the Mexicans. Well, some days I'm glad this land is the place I call home.
And then yesterday the thermometer reached like 98 and the heat index must have been 110 and like I say
busted AC
and I had to go to work
then I was like, why God , why me, why would you allow my peephole to open in a place that is so damned hot when you know that I function better in cooler climates
why God
why
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Upstairs
As I was getting into my car this morning
~ you know, my car
the car in which the AC done busted
lush~
and the cute redheaded girl
that lives upstairs from me
told me I should come upstairs for a beer sometime
and I was all
How's about today
and she was all
that would be great, see you after work
so I got that going for me
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blah blah blog
blah
meh
mao
feh
Yar
too hot to blog, brain shut down shortly after noon.
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