jonn

2007-10-03T06:54:00.000-07:00

http://mcity.livejournal.com

2007-08-11T18:53:00.001-07:00

Meet the Woods, a family on vacation from the Bahamas. Coming down from the Carolinas, they stop at an 'El Cheapo' gas station, an establishment of somewhat dubious repute. Three members of the family are attracted by the bright lights of a nearby building, and wander toward the Formica tables planted firmly in...the Failure Zone.

Seriously. It exists.

2007-07-25T10:54:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone, did you know that the Motorola K1 KRZR is like drinking unicorn giggles?

just so you know now

2007-07-21T12:17:00.000-07:00

WARNING: Maybe-spoiler for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Work. A bit of a lull. I'm leaving on my lunch break in half an hour.

"Hey, Jonathan, want to know the ending of the next Harry Potter book?" says a previously mentioned coworker.

I feel my heart sinking; at this point, I've managed to successfully avoid any spoilers for two weeks. And since I have a pre-order, which is supposed to be picked up toady, I signed of the Internet for the homestretch.

I hadn't counted on real life spoilers.

"No," I said, and covered my ears. I couldn't think of any better signal than the ol' childhood standby. "No no no no no no." He smiled and padded off. Silly Jonathan.

A few minutes later, he asked how Harry was gonna defeat Voldemort. I said he would have to destroy the horcruxes and face off in a battle in some arena, but don't tell m-

"Nuh uh," a toadlike smirk spread across his face. "He has to kill himself."

He didn't even stay to discuss it; he just kept on with that smug smile, and wandered off, a remarkable feat in a store only slightly larger than a shoebox. As if, having spilled his emotional load, he pulled his pants and wandered off to the kitchen, leaving me with a face whose contents can only be described as "What the hell?"

I wonder what kind of a sandwich one makes oneself after verbal bukkake.

The worst part? When I asked him why, exactly, the hell did he tell me this, he bleated something about "It was on the news!"

No. No it wasn't. And if it had been, I wouldn't have needed you to tell me.

I pointed out that that was not an actual answer and asked again. He mumbled I would've found out anyway. Yes, by reading the book. I will die someday, but I'd rather die in my sleep at 75 than bleeding out from a gunshot wound to my gut in a dark alley tomorrow.

It's not so much the spoiler that bugs me-I use the Internet, I know what lengths people can go to for a lie-as the sense of violation I feel. I wanted to go into the book expecting nothing, hoping everything. A virgin reader, if you will. And now I'll have to draw that image.

The point being, whether it's true or not, the "spoiler"will color my perceptions of the book. And I like to read things as pure and untrammeled as possible.

And the strange thing is, I know why he did it. I've been there. When book five came out, I went to my sister a few dozen pages in, and informed her, over her strident protests, that Ron and Hermione had become prefects. I did not use the Internet, seeing as we were in Florida at the time, but there were doubtless no shortage of hollow trees I could yell into. Failing that, the toilet bowl. I immediately felt guilty, thinking of the times I've been spoilered, and lied, claiming I was just joshing with her. She, of course, doubted the veracity of my claims, but the point is, I felt remorse. This chucklehead felt no such regret.

See, we all have impulses that could hurt others. What distinguishes the dick from everyone else is that he regularly acts on these for his own satisfaction, without any regard for the desires of others. Some even deliberately hurt people. And when your life is geared toward that? When you pain others just because it'll make you feel better?

You're doing it wrong.

//you're on your own now believe me

2007-07-16T11:13:00.000-07:00

a340 harryPotter

It happens several times every week, if not every day. Some young whippersnapper comes in and asks if we have any Playstations.

"Do you mean PS2s?" I ask.

They look at me oddly. "Yes..."

And I give them the price.

The Playstation came out about twelve years ago, and it's already been forgotten by most of the yuth of today. Heck, they're eight, the only PS most of them have ever known was black and blue. The amount of kids asking if we have the PS2 is outstripped only by the amount who keep asking if we have GTA. And this is understandable. What's strange is the ones who come in and ask if we have the Game Boy Advance charger.

"You mean the SP?" I ask, knowing the answer.

"Yes."

"$18.99."

It is at times like this that I take my chariot home, and look over the dark forest from my tower, and the full weight of my twenty years bears heavy upon my brow. I'm so disconnected with the youth of today, their cars and clothing and hippity-hop. I've always felt a few steps off from my peers, like I was looking down a cardboard tube. I assumed I was alone in my geekery, my drawings and writings and love of obscure internet catchphrases.

Then, one day, a dude came into the store, wearing a Bleach shirt, with several other young men of the type that buy bootleg shirts with Tony Montana. Because he's the original gangsta thug.

"Is that a Bleach shirt?" I ask.

"Yes."

Time for the test.

"All your base are belong to us."

"I know that, that's from, that's from...don't tell me..."

"Zero Wing."

"Zero Wing, that was it!"

So here was a young man, who could've been me. He had friends who were not like him. That much was obvious from their sideways hat.*

I had assumed that I would never make friends who weren't geeks, and that since I had difficulty finding them, that some elder had neglected to tell me the secret handshake. Turns out they were living among us in plain sight; more than meets the eye.

*I have a theory; If there is a Man, a powerful individual determined to keep a Brother down, all he's doing is thinking up ridiculous fashions and releasing them onto an unsuspecting Black public. We do the rest.

There are two stereos in the store.

Well, actually, there are about a dozen. But we're focusing on these two. My boss regularly plays music on them, through radio or CD.

One of my coworkers has an annoying habit of turning up the radios to 24 or so. The thing is, it's impossible to conduct a conversation past twenty. And this guy is standing in front of the set when he turns up the volume.

So he's there jamming to the beat, while everyone else in the store can't hear themselves think. And when I try to turn it back down, he sneaks it back up when I'm not looking.

Dude, can't you live without bad remix Christian Reggae for eight hours? It's not that hard. Millions of people do it every day. Try it and see!

That's why I'm dressed quite neatly

2007-07-09T11:21:00.000-07:00

a350 driving practice

Dear boss,
So we found a 'best of Kelly Clarkson' CD in one of the product boxes. Most likely, a customer was holding it while looking at the product. wait, it belongs to an absent employee? Oh, well, he probably just happened to be holding it in his hand while he showed the customer the pro-wait, no don't. Don't launch into one of your little talks about how the employees need to pay attention, especially me. You've done this several times, and it grows tiresome.; you start your little quiet lecture about a perceived fault based on something that happened, and when you're corrected, you go on about the fault anyway. It's annoying.

Thank you,
-Jonn

//'Cause it's easy and discreetly they seek me

Trufax

2007-06-23T13:18:00.000-07:00

a364 woodThingie by ~u63r on deviant ART
1. If I leave for work early, say, to get a delicious breakfast from the Wendy's at the mall, the bus will be late.
2. If I go into the nearby BKs to get their overpriced crossan'wiches, the bus will come at some point between me making my order and it being delivered, no matter how long I waited.
3. I need my frakkin' license.

records, or numbers

2007-06-21T18:25:00.000-07:00

a365 sphere by ~u63r
on deviant ART

I flustered a cute hispanic girl today.

Alright, Hispanic girl comes into the store. One of my coworkers handles her; she wants to buy a cell phone. Alright. While she is being dealt with, I orbit the other customers and try not to check her out too openly. She has a friend, too, but she's ugly.

After she gets done, and the kids hanging around the games case leave, I just walk around the store for a while, under orders not to sit down while customers are in unless I look busy. I don't fully understand how it happened, but she ended up asking me how to get to the bus stop.

She didn't make it through the first sentence before giggling.

Confession: girls have broken out in giggles in my presence before. Fairly frequently in fact. It was not until some girl told me I was cute, last year, that I realized that girls did not have a malfunctioning giggle gland, that I am actually good looking.

It bugged me, because it meant I had no excuse for not having a girlfriend other than my social reticence. It also means I actually notice now when girls seem to have some sort of humourous speech impediment.

Right then, however, all I noticed were her cheekbones.

God, she has nice cheekbones.

And those eyes.

"The nearest bus stop is on the far side of [store], out by the main road." I don't know if there's a bus to get you downtown. But I can't seem to tell you that, because there's something wrong with my chest.

She gives me a smile that lights up the world, and when I can see again, she's gone.

I collapse into a chair and think hard about the phrase "prettiest girl in the world" for the first time.

Favorite songs evar;

Hotel California-the Eagles
Bohemian Rahpsody-Queen

And currently duking it out for third is Chris Cornell's You Know my Name and Klaxons' Golden Skans. Also on the list, in unspecified positions, Don't Stop Me Now-Queen, The Ultimate Battle of Ultimate Destiny-Lemon Demon, I'll follow you into the dark by Death Cab for Cutie, and Billy Talent's Try Honesty.

//or spaces still undone

I can see the city lights burn

2007-06-13T17:28:00.001-07:00

No time to look up clever lyrics. Not today.

My parents often call me into the room to watch "History being made". She does this a lot, but this time I actually cared. Because zombies.

"Alright, we need to find a black guy."

"Quiet."

I guess we've all seen the news.

We sat there for a few minutes. Then we all started moving. More on that later. Oh, and outbreak map.

There seem to be a few isolated cases of zombies trying to get home, as strange as this seems. They're wading out into the ocean, and a few of the less decomposed ones are swimming. The others just...float. Some sink. Thankfully, no one has died in out house. Or rather, no one who lived here has died. I don't think.

I hope Ali's okay.

The funny thing is, the zombies immediately kill anyone they find at their old place, then start moving out from there and killing anyone they see.

I'm fairly sure this can't be natural. To turn a phrase from scans_daily, viruses don't work that way. They can't. This must be magic or something. I'd tempted to say it's some punishment for idolatry, but that sounds too much like Jerry Falwell.

I wonder how he's doing?

The internet, of course, has imploded.

My internet has been spotty for the past week; it finally gets back to normal, just in time for the Zombie Apoclypse.

There are plenty of vids on YouTube. Every blog, every website, as turned to this, rules be damned. One of the saddest things was Brian Ashcraft posting from frikkin' Japan about what happened to his

Deep breathing exercise No 1: Inhale. Put all of your tension your fear your worry into that breath. Exhale.

LJ is staggering along, but JournalFen is slightly better. The good little soldiers over there are still posting wank about this.

LJ...has just gone nuts.

There is a zombie fandom.

There are people writing frakkin' fanfic for the zombies.

And not regular fanfic. Slash loli necrophilia fanfic. Like, what would Orochimaru do with Sasuke if

You know, I thought 4chan had inured me to this kind of thing.

Maybe because it's real now.

Incidentally;

Oh you wacky /b/ tards.

There are some crazies arguing that we should all welcome the zombie way of life. If you see any of them, dispatch them as quickly and quietly as possible.

Some others were scanning and posting bits from the Zombie Survival Handbook, or whatever it is.

My family has been barricaded inside all day. We're trying to leave tommorow. We're not far from the coast. There'll be boats.

God, let there be boats.

We're trying to get some sleep. Nothing to speak of since the dog got in. Besides the gunfire, and moaning, and some dick who tried to jack our cars screaming, of course. We live a literal stone's throw away from a major road, and...nothing. Silence.

We had just finished watching the news when there was some scratching at the back door. We opened it, and the dog walked in.

Can they smell fear?

The dog growled in a funny way, then jumped for my throat. I was holding a stick-to fight them off-and managed to throw it off without getting bit. It went for the stick, it was almost through it-the smell-when I tossed it onto the stove. It hit the backstop, and was just getting up when my sister nailed it with a cast iron skillet. Mum turned on the gas, and for a few seconds there was nothing but the sound of frying dog and our screams.

So yeah.

We're taking the laptop; if we don't make it, at least something will survive. Zombies don't seem to be too interested in checking their MySpace; they're going for people, not infrastructure.

I always thought it'd be natural causes, don't you? I'd go quietly in my bed, after spending my last few decades lucid and walking and able to wipe myself.

All that stuff I wish I did.

Of course, I might more easily be dead if I was in college. Think about it; a densly packed mass of rich, edumacated brains.

Mum keeps folding and unfolding underwear. Somehow, I don't think clean FTLs will be of much importance.

It's getting pretty stuffy in here.

If we make it, we're leaving tomorrow. If we were heading in that direction, if the bookstore in question weren't in the centre of town, I'd suggest that we stop so I could pick up the rest of the Horatio Hornblower series. I'm not going out without finishing it, not if I can help it.

Which I can't.

Pray for m

//like a thousand miles of fire

The Zen of Jonn

2007-06-06T08:08:00.000-07:00

This is phallic.

This is yonic.

This is the past few years of my life.

The phallus and the womb are the symbols of male and female, respectively. They are also, in a sense, agression and reception. The philosophy of yin and yang, which also involves these archetypes, states that there is a little bit of yin in yang, and vice versa. That's why no one is completely girly or mannish.

I don't believe in binaries.

Not many of them, anyway.

In the center between the two is a neutral state. This is the aforementioned being passive, not to be confused with being receptive. Receptiveness requires actually inviting something in. Agression does something. Both require initiative.

Passivity just...lies there.

It is easier to decay than to sustain. This is the law of entropy. We know this. A system tends toward the least expenditure of energy. We know this. We have, basically, a passive universe. A null value. The space between the zero and the one.

I've spent the past few years of my life doing what other people, mostly my parents, wanted me to do. I chose graphic design as a major because it would give me an excuse to fool around in Photoshop all day. I went to COB because they said I had to. I took the art program because it was the only thing available. I switched to computers because the art program had me skirting the edge of suicide. I quit that after two semesters when an advisor informed me that I should probably go off to school.

Last November seems so very long ago.

My parents said that if I wanted to go off, I needed to apply. Alright, I made a show of searching online, all the while pursuing my usual e-habits.(more on those later) I filled out an application for two schools, then let it sit for months. I only went for my written Driver's License test when my sister did. More than two years after most of my peers. Online, I curtailed my habits, stuck mostly to snark comms, and barely touched my own artwork or mrRB. It took me weeks to finish the "why should we let you into our school" essay. I still haven't entered the "Previous Schools" section. I was just screwing my courage to the sticking place when I noticed the Internet was down.

">Dear God;

what

-Jonn

I think part of my problem is that I have no goal to work toward. I'm going to college because I have to to get a job because I need to make a living. I'm not sure where this spine seems to have come from, but I'm going to take up Animation as a minor, at least, because random people keep telling me my art style is condusive to it. (And by "random people", I mean "people who come into the store where I work and look at my sketchbook and lying half-hidden on a shelf".) That, and I'm fairly good at imitating writing styles, albeit unconciously; why not try my hand at art? Animators need to draw on-model, and I'm too honest to be an art forger. (Perhaps I should get a perpetually irate British hobo to hit me with a stick.) If my application is too late for the October term, I'll apply for the Janurary and see about taking commisions. Paypal, dA, anything. I need the money. I'm also going to practice my painter-y digital art.

If there's anything I've learned from my two decades upon this mortal coil, it's that if you can't win, change your conditions of victory. I've had nothing to live for for all these years, but I hope to see at my birthday in 2011 free, reasonably Black,and twenty-five. I'm not sure how I'll get there, but, God wot, I'm gonna to find out.

Care to watch?

//ford every stream

D:

2007-05-30T17:45:00.000-07:00

Well. This is incredibly creepy.

//powered by ScribeFire.

it wasn't meant to mean no harm

2007-05-07T08:55:00.000-07:00

I am surrounded by jackasses.

I don't mean the pejorative curseword, oh no, I mean actual donkey, stubborn, stupid, and intractable. Mostly the individual I tangled with in my last entry. At one point today, he seemed eager to resume our debate, and I, despite my reluctance to weather the slings and arrows of outrageous arguments, found myself, inexplicably, exchanging verbal blows with him; a tango with a twit.

At one point, I pointed out that he was arguing ethics, while my original claim was about legality. He claimed that not only was piracy ethically right, it was morally right as well.

Me: How can you justify downloading Naruto episodes?
Him: Bcuz TECHNOLOGY!

Hantagod. He said that since the technology was there, then the business clearly needed to change. Never mind the actual people who's livelihood depends on this stuff, never mind that the technology exists to kill everyone on Earth in a matter of hours; he envisioned a bright, Utopian future where people never have to pay for anything. (Later, he called me an idealist.) In Soviet Bahamas, anime downloads you!

Quoting MacHall, I pointed out that people would be willing to steal content no matter who's involved in the distribution. He then made that stupid Hitler point again. Specifically, if you were a kid in Germany during Hitler's reign, would you think that killing Jews was right? I said yes, but pretty much the entire rest of the world said to Germany and it's allies "Hang a tic! You can't do that!" But he wasn't having any of that pesky 'earth logic', and asked me what's the difference between a revolutionary and a criminal. I asked what revolution, exactly, he was supporting by downloading Naruto. He said the businesses need to change. I brought up the issue of "creator's rights", and asked what, exactly, the businesses needed to change to. He said he didn't know.

All in all, a productive debate.

If there's anything I hate, it's people BSing themselves. The piracy itself is reprehensible, but what irritates me more is the self-righteous attitudes in the people who commit it. You are not a revolutionary, you are a criminal trampling all over the rights of the people who make and/or own the work. You are a dude who has Limewire. Businesses are made up of people; they are not faceless straw men. I've pirated myself, sure, but I don't pretend what I'm doing is blessed by the Pope himself.

I find it strange that no one I've seen who pirates realizes the potential of communism until after they've started. Fight the system by shafting the middleman and the thousands of workers in front of him!

There's another coworker, who I recently realized was a dick. He was talking with a customer about he, personally, would rather get a PS3 because the CBox 360 couldn't play High-Definition DVDs.

Me: The 360 has component cables.
Him(smiling smugly): But it can't play High Definition DVDs.
Me: Component can play up to 1080p.
Him: But it can't play High Definition DVDs.
Me: The Elite has HDMI output.
Him: But it can't play High Definition DVDs.
Me: The 360 has a HD-DVD add-on.
Him: But it can't play High Definition DVDs.

At this point I remembered there was no arguing with the insane, and backed away slowly. In hindsight, this guy pirated movies, music, and time rampantly, with no regard for the creators. He also has a habit of changing the TVs to Food Network and Lifetime. I like the Golden Girls as much as the next chap, but do the muted tones on their Florida house really show off the high contrast ration of a 42" Spectroniq LCD TV? And while you're at it, stop putting turning up the bass on the stereos. When you have a pop song—specifically the Kingdom Hearts 2 theme—playing so loud you can't even hear the lyrics? You have a problem.

It's not about you, it's about the customers. We're trying to sell stuff here. Having throbbing lows just makes people antsy. It also makes it hard to hear each other. I had to go and turn down the radio just to talk to a man I was standing two feet away from about his router. And the worst part is, you aren't even in that section of the store! Half the time you're helping the computer repairmen—including Dick#1—in the back of the store, using your recently-acquired degree that you're oh-so-proud of. And then you come back out front and complain about someone turning your music down. The frick?

And while we're at it, stop turning up the Bass on the music I bring in. It's my frakkin music, it sounds best with medium bass. And you cannot just play two types of music loudly and expect them to work. If you play "Ice Ice Baby" on one stereo and "Peaches and Cream" on another, the result is not a delicious dairy desert.

Oh, and Dick #1? The revolutionary is actually working toward a goal. He isn't just fighting to bring down something, he's fighting to rise up something. Whether it's bringing down an apathic nobility, overthrowing a dictatorship in favor of a Communist government, or trying to bring down the democratically elected government of a country so one can ship dem Negroes back to Africa, there's a clear end in mind, no matter how misguided that end may be. The revolutionary, in fine, is fighting for something.

The criminal? He's just fighting.

// but to think there's nothing wrong is a problem

Telling everybody oh just how to live their lives

2007-05-05T14:04:00.001-07:00

A kid, about 8 years old, must've weighed about a hundred pounds, comes waddling up to the display case. He all but presses his face to the glass, and stabs his chubby finger at a game. His mother asks him "what's that?"

"That," I say, "is Grand Theft Auto." I somehow resist the urge to add The last thing your son needs is sedentary activity.

The mother gave me a tired sort of smile, then herded her kids out of the store.

Earlier, I had been standing in the middle of a long line to buy tickets at the movie. I, clever boy, was buying tickets for next Monday two days in advance, thereby baffling the dude who would turn up at 4:15 on Monday asking for tickets for the 4:30 showing. Foiled again, Hypothetical Man.

Four people from the front of the line-I had even bought an old Reader's Digest to pass the time-a woman comes up to me and asks me to buy a child's ticket for "Are We Done Yet".

I blink.

"No."

She insists. I continue to say no, and point out that I don't even know her. I refrain from insulting her motives, her gall, her arrogance, and her shoes, and eventually, she just goes to the back of the line.

My question is this; when did my life become a childfree_bs story?

An argument

A debate is a series of arguments and counterarguments, given by each side, towards their position. As Monty Python reminded us, it is not the automatic gainsaying of everything your oppent says. An argument is presented in the following format.

If [premise/s], then [logic], therefore [conclusion].

If the premise and logic are sound, the conclusion is unassailable. The best way to assail a premise is to simply prove it false. The fastest way to assail logic, incidentally, is an analogy. Suppose Debater A said this;

If public is wrong, then why is it legal in some states?

Debater B analyzes the logic.

If [something] is wrong, then [something] would be against the law.

B inserts another something into the place of "public nudity".

By your implied logic, bestiality is right because it is legal in some states.

So if I come into the back room during lunch to call you out to the front for something, and I find you whining about how YouTube keeps taking down Naruto: Shippuden episodes, and I point out that they're doing so because it's, um, illegal under international law? Saying "It's not illegal" every time I try to make a point, then stating that "just because someone says something's illegal doesn't make it so", then asking me, in a sad attempt at rhetoric, if what Hitler did was illegal* does not an argument make. It just makes you a jackass.

*He also evaded my questions about what the frak does that have to do with anything. A few minutes in, I went "Waitaminute! You made a comparison to Nazis! You lose under Internet Law!"

//sliding down the information highway

2007-05-01T17:40:00.000-07:00

The illustration photo for this article bumps up the woobie level to over nine thousand.

Also; The Trouble With Tribbles in macros. NSF56K.

Don't you want to know how we keep starting fires?

2007-04-14T11:30:00.000-07:00

Situation; I'm at our satellite store. It's just me and the manager, and I'm getting kinda peckish. I suggest that I get lunch for both of us, and eat it behind the door to the employee area, keeping an eye out for customers that need assistance. He agrees, and I get our food.

About two seconds after I return, the place swarms with more customers than we`ve seen all day. I have just enough time to shove one ambrosial fry in my mouth before I sally forth. I`m fairly convinced they were just waiting around the corner, ordered to delay me by a shadowy figure who speaks in terse sentences. They look around the shop for several minutes, just looking, not buying. The manager is busy explaining the difference between the store and manufacturer`s warranties to an irate Hispanic man, leaving me to hover over the interlopers like a mother hen, something screaming in my head about what this will mean. Eventually, a carefully monitored sensor, pointed at a brown paper bag, is tripped, the order is given to withdraw, their dark mission accomplished. I return to my lunch, my worst fears feeding a tightness in my chest, a tightness that knows already exactly, exactly, what has happened.

My fries have gone cold.

//It's my desire

Hey, look, I'm not angsting!

2007-03-29T18:21:00.000-07:00

http://pnutjewelry.com/usa/index.aspx
So cute. And not just because of the green-eyed cutie on the front page. I'd so get the 'plain bomb' from the Large Charms page if I had that kind of money. Or maybe the star bomb. Or the skull bomb. Or the scaredy ghost. And maybe the skull key, except I'd have to learn how to put on eyeliner and I overheat in black t-shirts. Ah, there's so much to choose from!

omg onoz

2007-03-16T06:22:00.000-07:00

I'm part of several LJ comms mocking drama. On one of those, someone was using an icon I made. Specifically, this one.

When I first posted it on LJ, all I asked was credit. I noticed the icon wasn't credited. Nor were any of the others there. That should've been a sign. I went to the top entry on his LJ, and gave him my usual boilerplate.

That icon you're using was made by me. Would you please add credit in the "comments" section?

Most of the time, the user is happy to. Occasionally, we get the dicks.

His response.

I found this arbitrarily on a WoW forum somewhere. It's certainly made it's rounds of the internet. You know you made it, and that's what counts. Basically what I'm saying is, no, stay the fuck out of my journal, and I don't care if you *claim* to have made this gif I'm using it anyway. It's the internet, get used to it.

Anyone else notice that the people who go "it's just the Internet" never seem to have done anything worthwhile of their own? No, wait, lemme qualify that; they never seem to have worked hard on anything creative. They're the ones commenting on posts about how an artist's work was stolen about how they would be flattered if someone stole their art. They're never the ones with art worth stealing.

Anyway, when I tried to respond

Um, by that logic, I should be able to repost everything in your journal. It's just the Internet, right?

I find that he has banned me from his LJ and deleted my comment and his response. This dovetails nicely with the last time this happened, where the user refused to let any attention not be on them. Ironic that he refuses to credit, yet has this image on his LJ. In fact, most of his posts are borrowed quotes and images. So not only is he unoriginal, he refuses to give credit. And he's a anime pirate too, how lovely.

Seriously, the best piece in his dA gallery is a generic t-shirt design. The entire gallery looks like someone without any imagination whatsoever lifted it from the C.O. Pypasta guide to Being An Intertubes Artist. Bravo, you pioneer, you.

//but it's sad and its sweet and I knew it complete

It's exactly what it looks like.

2007-02-24T06:41:00.000-08:00

//And that, children, is the end of the story of how Daddy first tried Dulcolax.

Illustration Friday- sprout

2007-02-06T19:11:00.000-08:00

Illustration Friday- red

2007-01-26T18:15:00.000-08:00

Admittedly, I just reread Dune.

//do you know what you'll give

2007-01-17T16:38:00.000-08:00

I watch several drama-mocking communities on LJ. On one of those, I can't find which, there was a post in the community for some major city that's experiencing lots of snow right now, let's say...Denver. There have been several posts in the comm about complaining about said snow, and the user tnib(See how clever I am at hiding how I feel about people?) made a post complaining about all the complaints about the snow. I noticed she was using the OMG ONOZ icon I made, so I made a post on her personal LJ asking her to credit.

Read more...

mcity
Would you mind crediting me for that icon in the 'comment' field? Where'd you find it?

This is my standard approach when asking someone to credit that icon. It clearly says in my userinfo that the only compensation I ask for reuse is credit. It's basically under a Creative Commons Attributive license, though I didn't realize it until recently.

tnib
Read my user info. I do not credit for icons. I've had this one for well over a year and have no clue where I found it.

I'm not sure why she felt the need to tell me when she found it, but whatever. I toodled off to her userinfo.

The unfunny cartoon at the top gave me an inkling of what to expect. (Oh, an animated .GIF of a man beating a dead horse with 'This Topic' written on it. How droll. How very amusing.) Random photo, random photo, more random photos, photo of Tnib pretending to be a murder victim-oh, here's that actual content. I C/P'd and responded.

mcity
unless you have created the entire icon from scratch with photos you took, brushes you created et alia, you've stolen too. unless you own the copyrights to all parts of your icon (be it photos, song lyrics, or even fonts and brushes), you don't own the icon. you shouldn't even have the icon since its existence alone is breaking the copyright laws. the amount of time you've put into making an icon doesn't matter in the eyes of the law, and neither do the modifications you've made.
I made that icon from scratch, so it qualifies. The only thing I didn't do was make the font.

Somehow, I doubt that you care.

Truth be told, I was expecting some flames and vitriol, something I could really sink my time into. Except that I wouldn't. I'd just say "Good day, ma'am."(See how clever I am?) and stop responding. I've recently imposed a three-post per wank limit on myself, so that would just meet it.

tnib
No, not really.

Crap.

The relevant portions of the userinfo.

regarding stealing your work:
unless you have created the entire icon from scratch with photos you took, brushes you created et alia, you've stolen too. unless you own the copyrights to all parts of your icon (be it photos, song lyrics, or even fonts and brushes), you don't own the icon.

Fonts and brushes. Fonts and brushes. You know, those things are distributed free and often come with the programs they're used in. It's like saying the Mona Lisa wasn't Da Vinci's because he didn't actually make the pigments for the paints himself, or carve the wood and pluck the hair for the brushes, or have sex with a woman and wait a few decades until she became a pretty Italian woman with nice breasts, big hands, and a cute smile. Or Michaelangelo's David isn't his because he didn't make the hammer and chisels he used, or for that matter, hew the marble from the quarry, rough out the form, and let it sit for two and a half decades, then draw it hundreds of miles on a sledge made from wood he cut himself-from trees he planted the seeds for-to Florence from Northern Italy. It basically says that you can't claim ownership on something you made unless you made and produced the tools and materials you made it with.

I hope I don't have to point out the irony in the fact that she posted this on LiveJournal from a computer.

After reading that section originally, I began to suspect that I was dealing with a raging tnib.

regarding stealing your bandwith:
unless you're hosting the images on a server that you pay actual money for, you can't complain. not only is it mind-boggling of you to assume that something you're not paying anything for is your sole property, that assumption is also incorrect.

There's a hole in the logic, dear Liza, dear Liza. Should I start be pointing out that paying for something or not does not necessarily determine ownership?

photobucket (along with other similar providers of free hosting) have the right to terminate your account at any time for any given reason. they have power over your account, they own it.

Ooh, so close. Said image providers do own your account, they do have power over it, but one still has sole responsibility over what one does with it.

you are only borrowing their bandwith. if you are paying for your own bandwith, i understand in a way, but then again - livejournal icons are 40kb or less. even if it adds up over time, that's not going to make a huge dent in your bandwith. also, you can block your images from being picked up by the feed.

This is like saying that if one's house has been robbed, one should have had a burglar alarm. If you had one and it was bypassed, you need a better alarm. If your neighbours ignored the alarm, you should be living in a better neighbourhood.

regarding posting your images without permission:
if you don't want your images posted on the internet, don't post them on the internet.

Fallacy: Straw man. What most people don't want is anyone else posting their images online, with some exceptions. (Creative Commons, for example.) It's called 'copyright'. Funny how that whole 'legality' thing was dropped two sections back.

livejournal has provided the feed service to you, this community is only taking advantage of an already existing program. if you have a problem with the program, complain to livejournal and ask them to terminate the feed service. even then, all of your publically posted photos can be found on google and there's nothing you can do to stop that. (you could code a robot block for your page but livejournal doesn't allow javascript so you're shit out of luck.)

there are plenty of other sites around that take advantage of the livejournal feed. here's a few examples:

http://www.toothpastefordinner.com/livejournal-pictures.php
"http://www.livejournal.com/stats/latest-img.bml
http://www.perturb.org/lj_images.php
http://www.portalofevil.com/lj.php
http://livejournal.dougstewart.org/livejournal-images/livejournal-images.php
http://what.was.the.question.whyblog.org/lj/

your icons show up on every single one of these pages (and the others that i haven't linked, the amount of them is probably at least in the hundreds). this community functions exactly the same way as these other sites, it just filters the images that are suitable for icons (≤ 100px X 100px, ≤ 40kb). the maintainer is not going through thousands of posts a day just to pick out your less-than-pleasant-to-look-at icons. which brings me to another point: having your icon posted here doesn't mean that you're special or that your icons are exceedingly good. it just means you posted them publically and they met the criteria for an icon. i wish you'd stop thinking each of your shitty icons is like a caravaggio or (insert your favorite artist here) painting.

Wait, what?

get over it. they're fucking icons, alright?

(yes, i use stolen icons and no, i never credit.)
(Words by [info][censored] from ~~[info]iconscraper~~

Well, this is ironic. She cut-and-pasted most of the text in her profile from the profile of a community. When she was going on about how people who make icons have no grounds to ask for credit. And she credited same text. And the community she C/P'd from is deleted. Evidently, she must get asked about the icon thing a lot. I love that the icons she ganks are good enough for use, but the creator is automatically not good enough for credit, by virtue of her arbitrary and nonsensical rules that are basically an excuse for her not to give any attention to anyone. What's more, they probably get people to flame her, thus giving her more attention...

See where this is going?

The post in the Denver comm was titled 'Xposted by request'. This meant that someone had actually wanted here to repost this screed;

If you're going to complain about how OMGZ DENVER CAN'T HANDLE THE SNOW! OMGZ WHY CAN'T THEY PREPARE FOR THIS!

Quit whining.

We get snow maybe once every 3-5 years. To purchase and maintain equipment that will clear off all the city streets, side streets, and freeways would cost tax payers much more than you apparently have considered. Yes, Chicago and New York deal with the snow in a timely fashion. They get it every year for weeks/months and thus have a reason to purchase and maintain the equipment.

If you can't handle the fact that this region has a hard time with snow for a few days out of each decade, move.

"See, you'll probably get shot only once in your lifetime. Stop crying and clutching your leg. No, don't bother begging for your life. You should be grateful; there are people who get shot at all the time. Doesn't that make you feel grateful? Doesn't it?"

you have a hard time navigating or dealing with others who can't navigate on the roads, call out for the day and stay home. If you think you can't afford that, suck it up and quit bitching about it. Bitching about it just makes you look ignorant and petty.

I'm sick of everyone whining about this. It's simple to me. If I can't feasibly make it to work, I call out. Since I can make it to work (either on a crowded, slow bus or on my own two feet), I don't complain. I grabsome coffee and enjoy knowing that I will make it when I make it, and that I will be excused if I am late. No rush=no stress. I have compassion for those who ride the bus and have to walk further in the snow in order to navigate around. The most complains are coming from people who have cars and are acting pretty self-centered about the entire thing.

This expecially goes for the guy who was whining non-stop about how crowded the bus was, that SCCC better not be closed cause of an inch of snow, how stupid the city was for not being prepared, but then he only rode 3 BLOCKS on the bus instead of walking to the college. Grow up.

Yes, I am being snarky about this. I'm sick of the constant whining about this winter.

So she says that they should stop complaining about being sick of the snow because it rarely snows in Se-whoops-Denver, and they should be happy it doesn't snow more. And she's complaining that she's sick of their complaining. You should be grateful that they aren't complaining all the time. Imagine if the Denver comm was an endless font of troubles, all year, every year. You know, like the Pittsburg comm.
From the post on her journal.

Person
I'm with you..

Weather happens, and until someone figures out a way to control the weather (yeah right) then people need to just quit whining about and indeed move to a place that accommodates their preferences if they can't take the weather conditions..

me, I like the snow.. the frantic pace of life slows down a little.. that's a good thing.

Yes, that's right. Everyone who doesn't like the weather should just move out of the city entirely. That's actually what they said.

Person
Wow, that's some serious irritation. Being the devil's advocate that I am, and because I am faced with the other side of this, I want to point out a few things:

"If you can't handle the fact that this region has a hard time with snow for a few days out of each decade, move. If you have a hard time navigating or dealing with others who can't navigate on the roads, call out for the day and stay home. If you think you can't afford that, suck it up and quit bitching about it. Bitching about it just makes you look ignorant and petty."

The thing is, many companies are not so forgiving about extreme conditions, so a lot of people are out there driving in the snow because they lack a better option. I think those people are pretty justified to be irritated with the weather, the drivers, and the overall situation.

My roomate got into an accident because we didn't close the center in time, due the company being similiarly apathetic about people with cars. He was thrust into the worst of the storm. Those of us that are driving are most certainly validated to be fearful of the roads, afterall, just as you said, it's pretty rare for us to get snow and ice like this.

If I had an easy bus route in to work, hell, I'd probably take it. But when you work until 11pm (and at times to midnight if you get stuck on a call), you don't have the same options for public transportation. You have to drive. My employees complain all the time, but in my eyes, they have every right to. What other option do they really have? You can't just miss days because you don't feel like taking the risk if you want to keep your job.

Don't get me wrong, I totally get what you're saying, and I'm irritated by a lot of the same talk, but I think there's a large amount of people who are pretty justified if they want to vent and let their frustration out.

Food for thought. :)

tnib
Oh, I wasn't nearly as irritable as I sounded. I've just been pretty stressed about everything lately and it's coming through in my posts.

I am TOTALLY NOT TAKING THIS SERIOUSLY.

I am of the mind that everyone has options.

Fascinating insight. Do go on.

I never specified if they were good for the long term or short term, but you have options. You can chose safety over a job, or learn new ways to deal with bad drivers, etc. It's all in your mind.

Call me crazy, but I and most people'd rather risk injury than lose their frakking job.

You can't just miss days because you don't feel like taking the risk if you want to keep your job.
That's just it. You have options. There are other places of employment out there. Sure, some pay less (but probably have less stress and better benefits) or pay more but is outside your normal field. It's up to us to at the very least, consider that there are choices all around us and it is our obligation to ourselves to decide to take them or not.

The reason I vented is that people seem very unaware that they all have choices.

No, that's how you interpreted it. People know they have choices, they're just complaining about hardships which are a result of their choices. You're 0-for-infinity this life, aintcha?

Sure, I could say that I have no choice but to go into work, but I do. Yes, I'll lose part of my bonus ($2 an hour extra on top of my base pay) if I call out for the day and the office was open, and if I do it too often I may lose my job, but I have that option if I feel I need to take it. I also have the option of dropping out of the employment field altogether and go to school full time. Or, I have the option of finding another job somewhere else. Options. It's up to me to decide what I want to do and how I can work towards achieving that.

Too many times, we get stuck in the "I have to do this, I have no choice" mindset. Choices are all around. It's also our perception of our choices. I can either "force myself to go into work today because it's expected of me and I have no other choice" or "I can go into work today and listen to some pretty outrageous calls which resulted in one possibly two agents being removed from the phones for customer service-related issues, made money, and actually got out of my apartment for more than the 20 minutes it takes to walk to Caffe Ladro and back". I choose to see it in the latter perspective.

I did react with irritation to the multitude of posts and conversations regarding this subject. So I'll end this rambling comment with something that Carl loves to say, combined with some of my own philosophy for the moment : "Someone else doesn't make you feel a particular emotion. You made yourself feel that particular emotion. No one forces you to feel anything, it's all about you perceive and react to an external stimulus. Change your perception and/or reaction, and you change your emotional response to a given stimulus."

Like Captain America said, "You know what I hate about the modern world? The Psychobabble.

On the post in Denver.

sycophant
see. everyone agrees. i TOLD you to post it here. TOTALLY NOT KIDDING. I WOULD NOT KID!

This is the fourth post, mind you.

Dude
It's my job to drive around, snow or no snow, so I don't have the option of staying home. Do I still get to complain about other drivers?

tnib
You always have an option. You just chose to think that you don't.

She's right, you know. He could just choose not to have a job.

Dude
Well of course I have the option, nobody owns me. However, our clients pay a premium for our service, and that includes reliability. If I don't go to work people miss planes and meetings and weddings and funerals and our reputation goes down the drain, and my job along with it.

Anyway, I'm over complaining about other drivers, nothing people do behind the wheel of a car surprises me anymore. I'm just glad I'm alive at the end of the day.

I called it!

tnib
Me too. I like your icon.

*dramatic violin screech*

Dude
Wow. The only thing dumber than complaining about something that you can't change, e.g., the weather, is complaining ABOUT people who complain too much.

In other words, you might wanna try some of that "Quit bitching" advice yourself. Don't like the talk in the community about the snow? Leave the community. :P

Or, you know, just sort of skim over the posts with the word "snow" in them. Difficult, I know, but as you oh-so-scientifically asserted, we only get snow once every 3-5 years, so it shouldn't be that big of an imposition on your obviously busy lifestyle.

WINNAR.

tnib
Wow, you took my post too seriously. Are you new here? Do you know who you're talking to? I can handle the posts. In fact, I do skim them. This was originally posted in my LJ regarding posts from my friends and had requests from local folk to post it here. It seems to be well-received. Just run along, honey. Run along.

If you hear a squeaking noise, that's just backpedalling. Pay no mind.

The rest of the thread is her pretending to be a /b/tard. And not even a good one. Everyone likes to think they're funny, but unfunny people refuse to believe they're not. The worst of those are people who randomly quote from /b/.

Later on, it's revealed that she's a psychology major. That explains a lot. She also responds to almost every post, even those clearly not directed at her.

Other Sycophant
Good post.

I does suck that the majority of whining people are over-privileged buttwipes in the first place.

Thank you for at least having a balanced, expressed opinion, something you don't see in Denver too often.

Well, it's expressed, so he's kinda right...

She posts in the post on a sporking comm(not necessarily the one I got the link from), pretending she doesn't care. Someone responds.

Another Sycophant
Hi "tnib".
I didn't read the whole thing but from what I did read I don't remember you blaming anybody for anything. I thought you were just stating the mere fact that peoples' lives are the products of the choices they've made. And, that people ALWAYS have choices. I do not understand why that pisses so many people off.

Point duly missed.

sporker
Because the word "choices" infers that there are multiple favorable outcomes for every decision someone has to make. Like, "do I eat sausages, or do I eat pancakes?"

Some people don't have as many options. The consternation is over tnib's ignorance and refusal to believe that not everyone has the same tools in their toolboxes.

tnib
I'm sorry, but I'm not making you think that the definition for choices "infers that there are multiple favorable outcomes for every decision someone has to make". That seems to be your personal definition.

Ookay, that post said absolutely nothing.

sporker
You're turning this into a semantics problem. It would seem to me that you're a moron and that you want to hide behind words and theories instead of addressing the fact that some people are inconvenienced by some things and that not everyone can decide to opt out based on the weather.

tnib
Um, no. You're pushing meaning into my words that I hadn't intended. You also missed the entire point of my post and are, instead, focusing on only a fraction of the "conversation" that occurred.

Cute how she never actually corrects her.

And tnib's response to Another Sycophant's post.

tnib
I think that people in those situations feel trapped and that there are no options. They are looking for blame. Honestly, Denver does not get enough snow on a yearly basis to warrant keeping equipment on hand every year, only to be used 1-3 days out of a year. Someone mentioned that Denver averages 7 inches of snow per year. Places on the East Coast average 115inches. No comparison.

People just don't like being told that they should point part of that finger at themselves.

"You eat that food right now, young man! There are people starving in Africa!"

I commented on the post about her profile. She commented asking if I 'still had sand in [my] vahjayjay'. I replied that she was mistaken; I had no 'hoo-ha'. She replied 'lollers'. I'm not C&Ping it because my hands hurt.

In conclusion, she's an attention-whoring, wannabe-/b/tard with a huge ego. She's like Zeriara, except she can't draw, and doesn't live in the south.

On earth as it is in heaven.

2006-12-25T12:07:00.000-08:00

The mall is a funny place at Christmas.

If you work in an electronics store, there are dozens of girls in short skirts coming in to ask where the cell phones and digital cameras are.

Give us this day our daily bread.

There in the case over by the front of the door, ma'am.

Strangely enough, most of these ladies wear very short skirts. Or maybe not so strange; this is the warmest winter I can remember. I'm sitting here in shorts and a vest.

And forgive us our trespasses,

I've been running around like a chicken with no head. My boss has been scouring every hiding place to get some people on the floor.

As we forgive those who trespass against us.

With all the girls going in and out, and knowing that one will never be caught doing otherwise, it's remarkably hard to keep one's eyes above eye level.

And lead us not into temptation...

Attention, people of Naruto-kun.com!

2006-12-07T07:29:00.000-08:00

Stop being stupid!

Seriously. I go in for some Avatar information, and I find a retard rodeo. Periods are not optional people, nor do they usually come in packs of three! And are you trying to cause seizures ith your stupid sig images?! How long does it take to copy/paste four words into Google? And why do you make the same point three times?! Sweet Christmas, is that Times New Roman in your poorly-resized sig that you ganked from dA? Why are you calling Aang 'generic' for being a twelve-year old boy? You guys can't even quote your own sig right. Wait, their are people who still think the series is Japanese? Which part of the "Michael Dante DiMarteno" and "Bryan Konietzko" at the end of the opening title that they put at the beginning of every episode of the series looked Japanese to you?! And you make a valid point, but would you please learn to spell and loose the cliched sigs? What's with putting a random anime image over some fractal and then increasing the saturation?

I need a drink.

and tend to go nowhere

2006-11-12T14:03:00.000-08:00

Girls I do adore.

The security guards at my workplace rotate, and are thus addressed collectively as "Secu". The latest in this august line is a tall, dark-skinned individual who wanted me to meet his sister. I, having recently decided to be more aggressive, accepted. Sometime the next evening, a girl showed up and asked me to buy her a cell phone.

Cue twenty minutes of me trying to avoid conflict, and her running her hands all over my body, trying to get me to spend $329 on a pink PEBL.

Needless to say, there wasn't any chemistry.

As I explained to my bemused coworker the next day, we may be living/in a material world/but I don't want material girls.

Part of my problem is that I'm to passive, to submissive*. I almost never stand up for myself, preferring to dodge conflict, confrontation**. This had stood me rather poorly in life. As mentioned last entry, I hate the state of my life.

F- commented yesterday that I need to get some-

"Assertiveness? Backbone? Balls?" I suggested.

"That last one."

*Hence the illustration.
**Apparently, I'm an Airbender. :D

//they grow right back inside

Motivation

2006-11-06T15:03:00.000-08:00

[link]
It's been an odd weekend.

My parents and I had another fight, about the low grades I'm getting. My last test in the only class I'm taking this semester got a score of 63. My parents were disappointed, and rant rant rant. I pointed out that they never listened to me. They asked what I wanted to say.

I had nothing.

I told them that I didn't know what to talk about, and they said I should talk about that. I honestly don't know where I want to go, or what to do to get there.

I know where I want to end up. There's a difference.

A few days ago, one of the ex-workers at our store came in and asked if we had FF12. I had no idea what his name was. I knew who he was, I remembered his face, he had only stopped working there two months ago, and bupkis. After he left, I went home asking myself what the heck was wrong with me. This is not an isolated occurence; people frequently come into the store that I met in COB earlier this year, and I don't even remember their faces.

I doubt it's because I'm a right-brainer. It's because I don't care. I can't bring myself to care much about anyone who isn't me. Without caring, it doesn't register.

It's also why I get no schoolwork done.

As my mother has told me several times, I need to stop coasting.

I'm smart. I know this. Yes I've spent the entirety of my life leaving what little studying or work there was to be done until the last minute. Not a winning strategy. I always promised myself I'd two it two weeks out. Then one week. Then three days. Then I'm brushing my teeth and the sight of a textbook jogs my memory.

The thing is, I haven't been able to make myself try. I haven't been able to care enough about my work to get up off my rear and get 'r done. Until recently.

I've been buildng up frustration over how little work I've been getting done, and using it to power me through said work. I get 'r done so I won't have to do it. Not healthy.

His name was Antwone.

Several years ago, my parents informed me that they wouldn't let me go off to school right after HS because I wasn't mature enough. I wonder what would've happened if I had yell, and screamed, and tried to make myself mature so I could prove them wrong.

If I had cared.

And here I find myself taking courses I hate, in a college that sucks, and dividing mytime between a mediocre job, useless schoolwork, and perpetually-unfinished art. My family doesn't have nearly enough money to get me through college, I don't know what I'd do once I'd have the degree, and I have no real friends.

What I need is to make myself care.

Maybe I should start to cook.

// to the left, to the left

2006-09-22T05:49:00.000-07:00

The assistant manager of the store, whom I shall call F-, has been asking me about my sexual habits each day since, oh, I've started working there. I've devided to, largely, ignore him. The manager and finance manager have directed nothing more then half-hearted "Lay off Jonathan" equivalents at him.

countertactics

A week or two ago, my mother came to pick me up, and I walked out, as I had done many times, leaving a half-finished reorder list. He called me back and started berating me about work ethics, and leaving my job unfinished.

Something snapped.

I yelled at him. Something about responsibilty, and decency, and asking after my dick every five seconds. Then I walked out.

The next day, he talked to me, while I was making that day's list. He was babbling on about how he was always "talkin' fool", and how "real men" don't walk away from fights. I could hear the edge of fear under his voice; he could report me to the owner, but then I'd have to tell the owner what he had been saying, and we'd beoth lose our jobs. I've only been there two months, he's been ten years. He's the assistant manager, I'm a sales rep. He has a wife and several kids. I'm in college. He had more to lose than I did.

I didn't react, didn't do anything, just waited until his batteries ran out, and continued to do my job.

Why? Because I'm not a dick. I don't want him fired, I just want him to stop.

humiliation

See, there's this girl who works at the office.

She been asking me if I wanted to go to the movies for several weeks now.

Always with this big grin on her face. I bobbed, weaved. I avoid confrontation like I'm playing fricking tag.

"I'm asking you a straight question, Jonathan."

"It's the answer that's complicated," I murmur. Where are those register rolls?

"What does than mean?"

"It means," chimes in the Financial Manger, from her desk, "That he doesn't want to go to the movie with you."

Thank you, Ms. K-.

"But why?"

I find the roll and scurry off.

Today, while I was in the office looking for something else, she comes up behind me (without my notice), and strokes my back, saying "Hello, Jonathan." I go "Hell—", and my autopilot disengages, and I finish with "What the frick?" I didn't go "bad touch! Bad touch!" though I could have.

After near-fighting my way out of the room-she wanted to know why, Jonathan, why won't you go to the movies with me?-I escaped, and angsted about what I thought was a come-on to a coworker. He suggested I just go out with her.

Later that day, she cornered me again. I simply told her I wasn't interested in a relationship. To my surprise, she burst out laughing. She wasn't looking for a date, she was just asking me out as friends. Golly, is my face red.

As Ms. K- informed me, I needed to work on my social skills. Gosh, I don't know how I could misinterpret repeated attempts to get me to go to the movies, affectionate little touches, and physical restraint. Must be those ol' social skills. She started blathering on about a socially-inept, 36-year old cousin, and I stopped listening entirely, after thinking Wasn't that a Steve Carell movie?

her

Thursday. Late. Girl comes in. The first thing I notice is that she's kinda cute. The second thing I notice is that she has awesome boobs.

I'm 19. These are the things I notice.

Anyway, she wants to print a few files off a floppy for her sister. To her dismay, it's seven slow-printing pages. To pass the time, she opens Explorer, and types in Fanfiction.Net in the search bar.

Thank you, Lord.

I step in at a healthy fraction of the speed of infatuation, and bring up FF.n in Firefox. We chat for a little about fanfic,(she even goes to COB!) and I showed her mine. She was just getting toward the second half of "Engorgement" when the pictures finished.

She closed the window, and walked off.

The End.

if you got something to prove//the angstdown

2006-07-25T19:10:00.000-07:00

tag_angstdown tag_angst tag_parents tag_mum tag_daddy tag_sex tag_girls tag_school tag_comic tag_art

9: blog

I don't post here enough, not enough people are reading, I sound whiny, it needs a redesign.

8: Christianity

Not good enough. Not open enough. Not practicisng enough. Willing to proclaim it from the rooftops, but you're not actually doing anything, are you, Jonathan? No. No you're not.

7: art

I spend so much time on mrRB that I don't have time for it. Unless I make simpler comic, or simpler art, somethings gotta give.

Maybe I need to start simple. Ten minutes a day. Yeah, that sounds good.

6: mrRB

Not enough hits. Sucks. Not enough character development. Needs more plot. Needs site redesign. Needs readers. Needs readers. Needs readers.

5: work

First off, I've had this little drabble in my head since the first day;

I have to "tag" printer inks. This consists of taking a small piece of paper—the ones my boss constantly insists aren't big enough—writing the product name, brand, and reorder number on it, then sticking it onto the spindle behind the inks.

Just barrels of fun.

We have certain inks that certainly aren't name brand, and are listed in our stock recieved book simply as "Compatable [brand]." They tend to have pictures of happy little trees on them. Palm trees. I imagine a fetid, dank, airless factory, where Hispanic women in tattered dresses work feverishly at making these bootleg printer inks, profoundly aware that one error, one mistake could be their last. On a ledge above the factory floor, a large, white-suited man watches them, and smiles greasily. One of them will be his tasty morsel for tonight.

That said; my boss is a dick.

4: social life

I need one.

3: girls

See above.

2: family

My relationship with my parents is...strained, at best. Whenever we have an argument, they have an annoying habit of arguing against what they want to hear, instead of what I'm actually saying. It's real-time strawmanning, folks.

Despite this, I'm trying to open up more to them.

1: education

COB sucks, I know that. My parents and I are discussing my chances of going off for next January. We had one of our usual productive discussions about me attending ITT Tech. My reaction, nutshelled, was "Hell no".

I am seriously worried about my oppurtunities. My major is still a vaguely defined "Computers", with a definite minor in Graphic Design. I'm starting to have doubts about that too. One of the new employees at our store, a young man I shall call Terry, does our flyers, and he and I have had a lot to talk about. Among other things, the harshness of critique at art schools, the prices, the difficulty, student discounts, and the Wii.

In a related note, he thinks mrRB should be published.

My parents want me to start researching colleges online. I haven't a clue where to start. Anyone?

0: change

That's really what everything on this list is about. Change. I fear it. We fear it. And we try to prevent it as much as possible. Even if events are bad, we know how to deal with them.

Change...change is unstable. Change is shifty, by its very nature. It's elusive, hard to handle.

One part of me wants things to change for the better. The other is worried they might change for the worst.

And not even my vast knowledge of pop-culture references may save me.

// if you feel the same way

2006-07-17T20:05:00.000-07:00

God bless America, please pull around to window 1.
BLINDING VOID!

//that is all

even your emotions have an echo

2006-06-15T09:20:00.000-07:00

It's been two and a half years since I first got my hot, hot little hands on a copy of Photoshop. 7.0, in fact, the last real numbered version. It had been out since the previous Fall, and now it was April. The world was staggering back to it's feet, and I had a webcomic, a term I use with much charity. Like so many webcomic authours, I had an arrogant streak a mile long, and no idea what was truly funny. Previously, I had edited my work in MS Paint. I couldn't draw very well, and like so many, thought of Photoshop as some sort of magic bullet, especially given it's enthusiastic espousing by such luminaries as Mac Hall's Ian McConville. So, the second I got a copy, I began abusing it as much as possible.

The funny thing is, I was always experimenting. I tended to use the paintbrush over poorly my scanned pencil and ink work. Farily often it came out like crap. Anyway, the series eventually ended, and I restricted my art to devianART, still experimenting.

One thing I've noted during my time on dA is that good artists tend to change their appearance fairly often. Holly "Zeriara" Ramirez pretty much does something new with her hair every other week or so. One of the best artists I know IRL-and one of the few flaming gay people I've seen in this country-changed his look often, and also dyed his hair pink. I suspect that most spend their teenage years in a search for individual identity. In the case of artists, this search is what drives their work. I wondered why I didn't display this trait.

Then I looked at my art.

Anyone who's been monitoring my dA account knows that I change styles on an irregular basis. I also modify the look of my avatar within the art. This means that I change both the method of digital arting, and my own portrayal of myself, in lieu of actually changing RL my look. Come to think of it, the aforementioned Zer has a loosly defined, variable avatar.

Maybe I'm just reading too much into it.

Oh, and my tablet died again. I'm starting to think that there's something wrong with the laptop, damaging it. I'll have to contact Dell Tech Support.

// in so much space

a day when you've lost yourself completely

2006-06-12T19:31:00.000-07:00

Saturday, June third.

I am sitting at home, alone. My sister, my mother and her friend are all out, I came back from work several hours ago, and my father is out on some errand. I am interrupted in my browsing of porn at our recently reconfigured(somehow, to be less ergonomic) laptop station, when my porn browsing is interrupted by the phone ringing.

"Hello, moto," I answer.

It's my mother, and she outlines the situation in terse, desperate terms. At local bulk retailer. Half-mile away. Car alarm fob battery dead. Spare in sock drawer. Drive up with it in old Metro. Help us, Jonathan, you are our only hope.

To reiterate; yes, I'm nineteen, and no, I don't have my license. I am capable of actually driving alone, but for parallel parking. Now it was time for the acid test.

I put the computer on standby, gathered up my various keys, and drove up. That was it. I am fully capable of driving, except, as I have claimed many times, for parallel parking. I handed the keys to my mother, and drove partway home behind her, until she turned into the shopping center near our house, whereupon I put on a burst of speed, and sped past them. As I pulled in, I sang along with All-American Rejects' "Move Along".

Move along, move along like I know you're due...

Since I had my key, I opened the door, and walked in. My singing stopped when I realized that it was raining, and I hadn't taken the clothes in.

So. Work.

Over three hundred dollars. It's almost surreal, really. I don't feel like I've done anything to deserve this, just stand around, help customers, and get yelled at all day.

About that.

I work in an electronics store. My father taught the owner, and talked to him to get me the job. The most precise description I've been able to get of it is a vague "Sales". Gee, thanks. My duties include the aforementioned customer-helping, standing-arounding, and sorting ink cartridges. They do not, however, include reading the magazines, or using the Internet without permission. The last bit is generally where the yelling comes in.

My manager, whom I shall call "Drake", because it's a cool name, has caught me online several times, and lambasted me within an inch of my job. You're a loose sales rep, Wood, an employee on the edge! One more slip up, and I'll have your burgundy!

Needless to say, I've been on my pins lately.

I recall reading in a Dilbert book that the best way to look busy is to look angry. I've tried it, while pacing up and down in the front of the store, and Drake ignores me. However, the second I stop to, say, sing along with Bud Light's "Real American Heroes" commercials, he gives me a job to do.

One of the creepy things is how he knows the prices of almost everything in the store. And I mean everything. I pull out some disused earphone covers(devices which the younger generation generally doesn't recognize), and he'll glance at it from thirty feet away, while one the telephone, and mutter "$2.99". Then his eyes slide back to the computer, where he is looking at cars.

One of the things that bugs me about the job is what people keep asking me about it. Namely, they ask me how I'm finding it. Jeez, lady, I dunno. I don't have a frame of reference. What kills me is how indignant they get. It's almost as if they can't comprehend that someone might be indifferent on something.

At work, I usually partonize the takeaway next door, or the Domino's a bit farther down. Today, I walked into the place to place my order, whereupon I would wait for it to be made. However, I paused, as on the bench to the right of the door were two young women in suits. In front of them was a laundry basket. I picked up the receipt in the basket.

"I just bought that," said the one in the skirtsuit.

Ah. Another mystery solved.

Turning to the counter, I was confronted by the back of a girl I had once had a crush on, back in, oh, sixth grade. I still thought she was cute, mind you, the flame had just faded. After she turned around, I braced for small talk. I told her where I was working, did not return the favor, placed my order, and went outside, partially because all the benches were full, partially because the awkwardness was stifling. Sitting on the bench outside, I started to work on sketches of a child Captain Kirk for an upcoming mrRB. I was minding my own business, when the pantsuited woman of the two walked outside. I was sitting next to the door, so her not-inconsiderable breasts were at precisely the height of my head. These are the little things one notices when one is nineteen.

"Hi," she said. "What are you drawing?"

James Tiberus Kirk.

"Nothing in particular."

My, but she was cute.

"Can you draw me?"

I'm sure it was more complex than that, but it didn't really sear itself into my mind.

"I don't really draw people," I said automatically, before my flirting unit, an organ thought lost by scientists, kicked in and supplied "But I'd like to draw you."

She giggled, said something now lost to the ages, and went back in. A cool, much-needed, breeze blew in. I began to think about how artists were supposedly more attractive, and I'm allegedly "cute".

Sarah left, with a brief goodbye, and so did the two girls, with no words I can recall. I went in, retrieved my Spicy Chicken Burger—ironically, I ask for no hot sauce every time—and went back outside to eat. The sandwich was largy, tasty, and with plenty of sauce. As I ate it, I thought about maturity, afulthood, and how my job wasn't so bad.

// Could be a night when your life ends

the lady in pink, when everybody else is wearing tan

2006-05-29T09:29:00.000-07:00

Sometime in April.

I was in computer class. The teacher had left, and we basically had a free lesson. We were putting it to good use, checking our eMail and stuff. At some point, I realized that the guys were talking about video games, [adult swim], and other stuff I was interested in. The clincher was when someone's cellphone rang, with a ringtone that was the Super Mario Bros. theme.

I didn't make a move.

Aside from the swearing—which I could overlook—these guys would make great friends. I didn't make a move because I don't know how to make friends. I find it hard to open up to anyone outside my immediate family(and even then a struggle) or the Internet.

I'm so sad.

More later.

//the flashy girl from Flushing

it won't cost much

2006-05-14T15:09:00.000-07:00

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4187261762769888671&q=linkin+park
This video, while technically proficient, is freakin' creepy.
http://www.hung-truong.com/blog/

//just your voice

2006-04-13T10:31:00.000-07:00

There it is.

Right there, as the bus you're riding on passes between a fabric store and a dentist's office; the deferred weight upon your eyelids, the vanguard of sleep. It was somewhat predictable, especially since you only got a mere two hours of sleep last night, working on that group project, your part of which you hadn't so much as rubbed two sticks together for until yesterday afternoon. Your usual gambit has cost you; you can feel the area underneath your eyes darkening already.

The gambit in question involves procrastinating until the night before a given project is due, then working on it in one long, sleep-deprived stretch. The stretch includes fooling around on the Internet while you should be doing your work, and at around 3:30, after several hours of Herculean effort, deciding that the grade isn't worth the trouble and half-measuring the rest of the assignment. This time, however, is different.

This time, you're not only letting yourself down.

The other two members of your group had their parts done well ahead of shedule. You had become the de facto leader, the master cog in the well-oiled machine that was to create a comprehensive set of documents for a fictional company. You knew jack-all about motorcycles, but went along with it anyway. In fact, you didn't understand the necessity of doing a group project; after all, you are a programming major.

You did the Powerpoint presentation—all but completely stifling your sense of good design, as required to use the program— and slapped on a few quick charts. The Access database was a little harder; you could think up a few dozen customer names at that time of morning, much less the required several queries and formes, or your planned idea for a frequent shopper program. And how the frick does one "design an application" in Excel? Isn't it a spreadsheet program? Nonetheless, you did less than the minimun, burned it to disk, and spent the remaining 45 minutes to your normal wakeup time putzing around on LiveJournal. Today was the last day of class, and there was no way for the teacher to return the work. With luck, they wouldn't know who doomed them.

You always vow to do better, to take notes, to actually, y'know, study. And you've been saying you'd delete those two dozen Megabytes of porn from your family's laptop—ironically, donated to your father by the church for 25 years as a pastor—but you keep finding youself, in the wee hours of the morning, staring at some 23-year old liberal Bisexual Wiccan's views of the Harry Potter fandom, with a piece of tissue paper jammed down the front of your pants and your right hand smelling distinctly of nuts.

Recently, you came to the conclusion that you hated your life.

Not hate as in "suicide", hate as in "My life sucks, and I need to change it." You spend far too much time on the computer, you have no real friends, and you've exhausted almost all of the books in the house. That leaves writing, drawing, watching TV, and talking to your parents. One of those things is not like the other.

At this point, even basic conversation with your parents has become painful. No, scratch that, you can handle basic conversation. What really grinds is the conversations with your parents about how little you're talking to them. Ironically, these tend to start with them asking why you don't talk to them, and you telling them that it's because they somehow manage to turn everything into a one-way gult trip to the blame festival. Then they defend guilt tripping as a valid parenting tool. You rebut that it should only be used as a last resort, if at all. Once again, you neglect to explain that it makes one want to act simply to get the guilt to stop, instead of any belief that action needs to be taken, or that the action itself is right.(Much like the Catholic church, eh?) At this point, they usually employ a gult trip. Fortunately, long exposure has given you a measure of immunity.

2006-04-10T13:35:00.000-07:00

I got some webspace, and started programming PHP.

What's mildly creepy is it's similarity to C++, some of which I've learned this term. I was also mildly creeped out by C++'s similarity to CSS. In fact, at one point, the teacher had basically instructed us to put a .DAT(data) file needed for a program to run in a seperate folder from the program. The program didn't run, as it couldn't find the file. I simply moved the .DAT to the right folder, and informed everone of the problem. The teacher had forgotten that, given the link syntax ("file.dat"), the files had to be in the same folder. I, with my CSS and HTML experience, immediately identified the problem. And now I find that PHP and C++, so far, vary mostly in syntax.

Click here. Since I'm used to a compiler, which identifies logical and syntax errors for me, I spent two hours on that thing because I forgot to identify the PHP file the form goes to as being from the form. I initially thought it was a problem with the switch structure, until nested ifs had the same problem. Then I corrected the error, only to stare at the screen in frustration until I realized that I had used the "equal to or lesser than" and "equal to or greater than" comparison operators, thinking they were the "less than" and "greater than" C.O.s, respectively. I also forgot to set a default option, for when the age doesn't fall within the expected parameters, but was too lazy to go back and add it. As such, the form simply spits out the "old enough" message.

I'm worried about how this will affect my web design; my usual process involves taking prearranged content and manipulating it. Heck, Blogger even provided the CSS. What I do, technically, is web page design, not web site design. I've never really made an actual site before, and I'm kinda scared, and excited. This could be fun, or I could end up staring at a screen for 12 hours trying to figure out why 42.php isn't reading from monkeyButt.php. Or did I misdefine the variables? And why isn't atom.xml updating?

So, lesee, do I map out the content, then the logic, then do the formatting? Or logic-content-formatting? Formatting-content-logic? Jeeze.

I'm probably going to move mrRB over, as soon as I know enough. And I correct that abortion of a redesign. What I have in mind will use, for the first time in any of my designs, images. It'll be all curved edges and Web 2.0 and crap. And when I move the comic, it'll have keywords! And it will be beautiful.

// thanks, sockethost

Tinypic pics!

2006-04-09T13:29:00.000-07:00

You know what? This was going to be an angsty post about the relationship between my mother and I and, by extension, my life, but I got distracted by Internet. Specifically, tinypic.com.

Yes, I am about to use this like a standard blog. Be shocked.

Look, an Asian kid getting pooped on!
I don't see no innuendo.
SO HAWT.
I honestly hope that the person made the pic this big on purpose.
Rebel without taste.
Poser.
Daawww.
Learn how to crop, woman.
Psst, cuts aren't grey.
Awesome pumpkin.
Musclin' in on ma turf.
Dude? You're a ricer.
Please stop.

Three out of five, three out of five

2006-03-12T12:58:00.001-08:00

Fo no reason I could think of, I could not focus at all during my father's sermon today. I know I stayed up 'til one watching [as], but I do that every Saturday; our VCR is broken.

This was particularly bad. I would try to focus, my mind would start wandering, and the next thing I knew, I was staring at my own lap. The funny thing is, the tiredness all but went away when the sermon was over.

It's the devil, you know.

abstruse envy

Whenever I go to Penny Arcade, under Tycho's usual verbose and unintelligible blathering—no, seriously, the frick are you talking about?—there is a small line of text. Hovering over the link reveals the name of a given band.

Most of which I've never heard of.

"Live - Pillar of Davidson". Wait, is "Live" the name of the band, or the song. I'm confused. I've...I don't know nearly that much about music. Anyone? Daddy? Why have you listened to so many more bands that I have, and so much obscurer, too? I'm younger; I'm supposed to have heard more music, dangit!

I mean, is this just me? Am I the only one with band experience this small? I mean, I live in an island nation where the most diversity the music stores have is in the oversized sports jerseys on rap stars, have no access to a credit card, don't have a job to buy music of of iTunes with, even if I did have one, and do not own, or want, an iPod. I'm happy with the tastes God gave me. And yet...

Maybye there's a pill one can take for things like this. I could've sworn I saw an ad for something like this in my email.

Seriously, I have an mrRB comic planned for exactly this.

// it's not enough

the ladies say, "yo, that kid is crazy"

2006-03-09T17:11:00.000-08:00

While walking from my second class, I happened upon some sort of fair, hosted by the COB union of students(COBUS). I was going to avoid it, and head straight to the bookstore's cafe to have my usual lunch of a hot patty(a folded circle of pastry with ground beef, chicken or vegtables inside. Originated in Jamaica.) and an amalgamation of sodium, cornmeal, and food colorings packaged in a foil-lined bag called, for lack of a better term, "cheese puffs". Instead, I heard the two most beautiful words in the English language, at least to a crowd of hungry Black college students.

"Free food!"

After the quantum singularity cleared, there were about twenty students or so in front of the booth where they were giving out the free pasta salad and meatballs. There were also burgers. Purely theoretical burgers. Schrodinger's burgers. They did not exist; they were constantly "on the grill". There were a crowd of people standing around, buns dressed in their hands, staring at the one man on the grill. Standing next to the larger grill. Which was cooking chicken. I found myself restraining an urge to go "I'll risk samonella! Just give me the @$$#in' burger!"

As the hour wears on, one's thoughts begin to drift. One considers grabbing the dude cooking the burgers by his polo shirt, pulling him close, and yelling at him over the giant speakers four yards away blasting Sean Paul clear to the beltway "At what point were you planning to actually start serving boys?" Honestly, if the second grill hadn't been fired up-because the first guy was never going to get to the twenty people with plates hanging about like begging dogs-I swear, his face would've received a delivery; a water-soaked bun, lettuce, and tomato, mixed with the
usual toppings, delivered by Right Hand Couriers, postage paid, beyotch. Mr. Shirt, who lives in the same building, may also be getting that cup of barbecue sauce he ordered.

Oh, and the burger sucked. The next-to-last hotdog*, however, was great.

March 10th//Choc_wip2.png

Background added for contrast. I've never used white as counterlighting for one of these before.

*They were just packing up when my class finished two hours later.

// the backstage betties taking more than they can get

sing a song that doesn't sin

2006-03-06T11:16:00.000-08:00

I just got this review to one of my stories. Basically, I got a review, and I checked the reviewers profile. They sucked, so I sporked them at Deleterius, linking my fic and explaining how I found the sporked one. The fic in question was started as an MPREG fic parody. Except it somehow became an actual MPREG fic. The sporking was trolled, and I suspect this is the same person, or one of their friends.

Jonn Wood,

The following review has been submitted to: Engorgement Chapter: 5

From: Wordslayer ()
-------------------

Complete and utter canon raping crap, and you consider yourself some sort of anti-sue police or "ASP"; more like "ASS". You're not serious in any way, shape or form.

Funny, I could've sworn that was the entire point.

// and it grows

Bismillah!

2006-03-03T07:58:00.000-08:00

Last night, I was allegedly studying for an exam. In theory. In reality, I was trying to get several mrRB strips down on paper. The problem, mind you, wasn't forgetting them, but remmbering them. Specifically, the mnemoic(funny word!) I used. It was described in the magazine I read as a technique for remmebering one's grocery list; simply imaginge each item in one of ten locations, moving upward from one's feet. I don'[t remmber the locations, but I use it anyway. The toes on my right foot are glowing, there's a bandanna wrapped around my left big toe with the word "unlimited" on it, a baby rattle sticking out of my right ankle, a flyer flapping against my left, a coupon stuck to my right calf, a red scarf wrapped around the left, and both a stick and a penis sticking out of my right knee. And no, I will not explain. You'll have to read the comic.

Nonetheless, I basically sktched out outlines until EVA came on. I had already brushed my teeth and stuff, and was pretty much asleep by the time the show was over. Did I mention that my fandom has serious Daddy issues? And overabundance of obscure symbolism? But mostly serious Daddy issues?

I realized that I was too zoned to even start studying-yes, I'm that lazy-and decided to wake up early in the morning. And so, a whole half-hour before my usual wakeup time, I got up and studied the lone column of Marx. Great. Done, time to check my Gmail.

After arrving at the midterm a clean half-hour late, I took the test paper. We had a choice between outlining Marx's theory of social equality and class struggle, among other things, or writing about Freud's theories of development. Freud was a freak, and the info had only been given orally by the teacher, and I hadn't made notes, and I was to lazy to look it up online, and I wasn't going to study anyway, so I didn't do that one. So I wrote half a page, and took it up to the teacher.

"Did you say do one or both?"

"I said choose one."

"I apoligize for writing so little then, but I just don't think there's that much to say." I had written everything I could remember from my cramming studying.

"This...is too short."

"It said outline."

"You need to elaborate."

"I don't see what else there is to say."

"Well, if you're sure..."

I was sure, and I was acutely aware of the titters behind me. I wasn't the first in the room to finish, but I was making the largest spectacle. As I walked to the door, thinking that I needed an exit line, she called out after me "You won't pass the course like this!"

I paused.

"But I can try."

There was the usual half-second gap, then the class started laughing. It didn't matter if I made myself look like an idiot; I got the last word.

Truth be told, I am honestly worried about my chances of finishing this class; we have no assignments but for exams and the term paper, which I should've started. And the teacher just reads from the book in class. If...when I fail the midterm, that's at least a quarter of my grade, gone.

My problem is that I don't have the willpower to get myself to study. In fine; I slack off until it's too late. That's why, despite my potentially genius level intellect*, I have only once reached the Honour Roll.

I understand the need to study, but I simply can't motivate myself to do it, short of taking a hiatus from the Internet until April. And then all of next term. And until the end of my academic career.

I don't even need to be taking Sociology; I'm a Comp. Sci. major, for cryin' out loud. Nor to I need to be taking Finite Math, which, like all Higher Math, has no practical use everyday life whatsoever. I should've suspected it from the "Finite" which is Acadamia for "built on concepts you learned years ago and forgot which we will now reteach you in order to teach you new concepts which will not work no matter how hard you try and the text book is useless and the teacher too aimiable to ask for help".

I don't even need to take either of those courses; my brother pressured me into adding them to fill out my schedule. The onlt courses I need to take are Intro to Programming and Computer Applications 2, whcih, among other things, involves learning how to design web sites in Word. Yes, I know. Observers tell me blood started to trickle out of my nose.

More on that, and what else I've been up to, later.

*My parents refuse to tell me what my IQ is, other than it being well-above average.

//no, we will not let him go!

win the Superbowl and drive off in a Hyundai

2006-01-24T16:42:00.000-08:00

Well, that's odd. While walking to the bus stop around 6 this afternoon, I find myself thinking about how Kanye West portrays himself as a devout Christian, an inspiration to College Dropouts everywhere, and generally the creative and financial saviour of the rap industry. Then he turns around, samples from all and sundry-come up with an original beat, wouldya?-and swears like a French merchant sailor.

I get home and find out that he's posing as Jesus for Rolling Stone. He's also hooked on smut.

//She was s'pos'd to buy ya shorty TYCO with ya money

Best Ping-Pong ever.

2006-01-18T13:55:00.000-08:00

[link]
Cloud Strife has a mySpace.

in black and white

2006-01-07T12:35:00.000-08:00

On the way to Church, you drove, since you had recently gotten my permit renewed. Your brother, in the passanger seat, busies himself with shattering your confidence. He does this by railing at me for each mistake you make, until, trying to split focus between him and the road, you make another mistake. Repeat one.

You recently turned 19, and since the earliest one can get a permit is 17, you are something of a joke among oury peers. More accurately, your younger sister's peers; she takes every oppurtunity to tell anyone within earshot that you've had your permit for two years, when several of your classmates have bought cars¹. And now she has her permit. You got them at the same time. They both expire in six months. Your mother has stated that, after this one, she won't pay for any more. Onoz.

We pull up at church, Ali still b—whining about how bad a driver I was. I got out of the car, and started to walk away. He tells me not to walk away, and mentions how angry he was when you threatened his parents. You show how it wasn't a threat. He says that's not the point, that you shouldn't point out your anger like that, some other illogical things, and you go into the church.

No, seriously.

// they really really ought to know

now bring it on back

2005-12-23T21:33:00.000-08:00

I spend five minutes I should be writing this entry looking for appropriate song lyrics. Shows where my priorities lie.

A little past midnight, my mother wanted an escort to pick up my sister. I had been cheerfully enjoying two comics made from popular video games, and scans of questionable legality from popular comic books. My sister had been co-hosting the party of a guy who shares my birthday(December 18th, a Sunday this year, hence the party today), except his was two years later. She made fondue. Dude had over twenty people there. I had one birthday party in the second grade, and I've only been invited to one since Primary School ended.

Earlier today, I went to a bookstore. One of my classmates from COB's art program was the cashier. I later went across to the DQ in that same shopping centre. Another classmate. I din't get a job at an electronics place-and I'm a CIS major, mind you-because I waited until the 11th or so to ask. I had a chance to ask back in December.

So, yeah. I'm feeling like a loser right now.

// break it down

people always told me be careful of what you do

2005-11-28T11:48:00.000-08:00

This is getting creepy.

A few weeks ago, my mother asked if I knew a certain man who lived nearby. I didn't but replied "let me guess....he died a few weeks ago". She hesitated, and confirmed it, then asked if Daddy had told me. He hadn't.

Earlier today, I had the seat next to the door in CIS 106. This class tends to have a dozen-odd students coming in late, and several had indeed walked in since the teacher had stepped out. I was facing the front of the room, and the door was behind me, yet I though "it's him" the exact moment the teacher came through the door.

Last week, I checked the LiveJournal of acclaimed webcomicist(?) Faith E. Hicks, and was spoiled for the movie Serenity. In my reply to her post, I promised great vengeance for spoilering. (In case you were wondering, it was out in the open, not behind a cut, and she was going on about He-Man and Skeletor and characters being killed. It was one of those "I just can't keep it pent up anymore!" spoilers.)

I wasn't going to stone you until you pointed out that you had written a spoiler. Then I automatically went back to look for it. By the time I realized that I shouldn't, it was too late.

My vengeance shall be swift and unmerciful. If you wanted to spoiler, scream into an old hollow tree, or a washing machine, or something.

Yeah, I know, kinda creepy. The plan was for me to create a joke flame image and post it. Which I did, sans the actual posting. That's it on the left. What's on the right is today's Applegeeks. Check out the last panel.

For years now, I've wondered if I'm psychic. The only thing I've had to go on was a feeling of Deja Vu for the first time I did something, then again the second time. It's just weird, really. Too bad I can't consciously use this power, or whatever it is, if it actually is anything.

EDIT//December 2nd

The following contains spoilers for the Book/Season 1: Water finale of Avatar: The Last Airbender. Proceed at your own risk.

While watching the Season 1 finale for Avatar, I thought, for no reason I could think of; "Dulce Et Decorum Est". I recognized the line; I learned it in eighth grade, from the eponymous poem. The full phrase is "Dulce et decorum est/Pro patria mori" and is a line from Horace meaning "it is sweet and noble to die for one's country". I automatically associated this line with Zuko, and figured that it would make a nice icon. Except Zuko's not dead, and if I slapped it in 12pt Palatino Linotype over a ganked graphic of whatever character were to die, it would be an instant spoiler to anyone who recognized the phrase. I filed it away.

Later on in the episode, one of the characters in the episode effectively dies. The chances that I would remember a line from one of, if not the best of, my favorite WW2 poeems in an show dealing with classical Greek elements with strong Chinese influences is unlikely, to say the least, but not particularly improbable.

And besides that: is it just me, or does the editor of this video seem a little smug?

//and don't go around breaking young girls' hearts

"A funny thing happened on the way to the Internet" OR "Jonathan killed the DSL star: A play in 3 acts.

2005-11-22T11:24:00.000-08:00

Act 1: In which the calamity is discovered

Scene I

JONN
Here I am, using the Internet.

POWER
*goes out*

STORM
Mwuhaha!

JONN
Blast.

POWER
*comes back on*

JONN
I shall resume using the Internet.

MODEM
*is broken*

JONN
Lo, what hid'ous fate is this? Horror, horror, toungue nor heart canst conceive nor name thee!

AUDIENCE
Dude, chill.

Scene II

ISP TECH SUPPORT
ISP tech support.

JONN
My DSL is out.

ISP TECH SUPPORT
We'll send someone around.

Act 2: In which the situation is apparently remedied

Act 2: In which the situation is apparently remedied

Scene I

(several weeks later)

MR. WOOD enters. He is carrying a replacement modem.

MR. WOOD
I got a replacement modem.

FAMILY
Huzzah!

JONN plugs in the replacement modem.

JONN
What fresh hell is this? Damn'd device, thou hast reneged on thy promise of broadband Internet access! I curse thee once, I curse thee twice, I curse thee once again!

AUDIENCE
Dude, chill,

Act 3: In which the storm passes over

Act 3: In which the storm passes over

Scene I

(several weeks later)
ISP REPRESENTATIVE
Hello, I'm an ISP representative, calling for directions to your house.

JONN
Might mine deliverance from this dial-up hell be at hand? Oh, frabjous day! Calloh! Callah!

AUDIENCE
Dude, ch-wait, what?

Scene II

MODERATELY PRETTY YOUNG REPAIR LADY pulls up.

REPAIR LADY
Hello.

JONN
Right this way. And just give me a second to get on my smoking jacket.

REPAIR LADY
What?

JONN
Nothing.

REAPIR LADY
It seems that someone toggled this setting to "Disable". The modem itself working fine. You could've been back on the DSL weeks ago.

JONN
But I'm the only one in the family who even knows about that section.

That means...

Seems I had done an hellish thing,
And it would work me woe:
I, such a fool! had kill'd the tool
That made the smut to flow.

REPAIR LADY
Wait, what?

AUDIENCE
Yeah, what?

JONN
I regret nothing!

FIN

//pictures came and broke your heart

like prisoners, helpless

2005-11-18T09:46:00.000-08:00

I drew a picture.

In a way, it's a bit of a homecoming. I went back to the first actual rules-based "style" I used on dA. I had forgotten how easy it was. So simple. So pure. This is the first time I've actually wanted to make a tutorial on something.

Teacher: And so, we come to what is called "the Final Stretch".
Me: Or, "the Green Mile".
Classmate: *sporfle*

I screwed up a math test on Tuesday. The sad part is that I knew it was coming, and forgot about it entirely. It involved spiralingly complex formulas, theorems, and trailers. Tables, sorry. Shows what my mind is on.

We have a houseguest this week. A pastor from Haiti; a small, affable, chmmy man named Bro. E_. He's staying in my room. It's strange, because usually my brother sleeps in that bed, when he's home from college. My father didn't tell anyone until the morning of last Saturday, forcing us to clean house in less than 12 hours.

EDIT: Nov 19th

A few nights ago, we were taking an older pastor, a blind man, home. My father was driving, said pastor was in the passanger seat, and Bro. E_ and I were sharing the back seat. As we drew closer to my house, I began to think that Daddy was going to spring an uninvited HG on us again. He didn't, as he was simply dropping me off, but as I got home today I found a large man, with no small resemblance to Bro. E_, talking with him on our front porch and eating takeout chicken-in-the-bag¹. I said hello, went inside, and my mother and sister informed me that he was Bro. E_'s son, staying for a day. Thank goodness it was just one. I may have gone stark raving mad from the disruption, otherwise. Houseguests are a lot like a brick thrown into a bees' nest; they may not like it, and they may be angry about it, but they can't really get it out and just have to work around it for a while.

A Bahamian takeout dish, usually consisting of a piece or two fried chicken, some French Fries, and a bun, placed on a disposable plate, wrapped in token wax paper and placed inside a large brown paper bag. The most popular seller of these is the Bamboo Shack. If you're ever in the Bahamas, try it; it's the authentic Bahamian experience.

//'til someone comes along on a mission

what a feelin'

2005-10-13T09:53:00.000-07:00

I have three days of midterm from COB. I should be using this time to research my upcoming English essay, and catch up on other missed homework. Instead, I've made several posts on a comm dedicated to wank, none of which were actually wanky. Last night, I also got myself banned from Metaquotes for posting a locked post without permission. I'd like to think that I should've gotten a warning, and then had the post deleted, but it was stupid of me to make the mistake in the first place.

I'm an Internet addict. Right now, I'm in a pair of shorts sitting in front of a computer at one PM in the afternoon. I got up at 10:45, and have eaten nothing. We currently only have dialup. I have come to realizze that, maybye, just maybe, I should take a break from all but the sparest use of the web for a while. And, oddly enough, this has provoked a small feeling in the pit of my stomach, not unlike the one I get when I'm angry. Except this one is composed of raw sadness. I know I need to interact with Reality, but my emotions aren't listening.

My amount of art production has gone way down, from the alltime spike it hit before I set up our old dialup. With this has come the startling revelation that the Internet itself, the thing that inspired me to pick up my pencil again a few years back, after a half-decade's truancy , is actually the biggest impediment to my creativity. I keep trying to force work out for the sake of my dA account. "I can't disappoint the people devwatching me!" I think. I know that forcing art only leads to creative drought-much akin to overworking the soil on one's farm-, but I try it anyway.

This above all: to thine own self be true.

-Hamlet

I have the Internet above my art, and my art above my schoolwork and future. My schoolwork is important in the shortrun, and my art more important in the longrun. And the Net? I hate to admit it, but it's just a distraction. I'm cutting back to a few webcomics, comms, and blogs per week. I must focus on my schoolwork, getting a job, and my Driver's Licence. I'm in my second year of eligibility; there ar epeople who graduated after I did who have theirs. Heck, my little sister turns 17 this December, and aside from the rather terrifying prospect of having to kill some poor guy in the near future, this means that my sister will have her permit at the same time as me.Earlier today, I passed up a perfectly good oppurtunity to go driving with my dad to make this post. Clearly, I need help, probably professional.

I need to find my reset button, and hit it, hard. Jonathan is broken. Time to take the machine into the shop for repairs, possibly an upgrade.

//tied up in ancient history

i wish could tie you up in my shoes

2005-10-10T10:02:00.000-07:00

It is about seven o'clock on a cool early October afternoon. The nights are still late in coming, due to the Bahamas' extended summer. You are wrapping up a long day of surfing the web and making pretty pictures. It has been a fun day, despite the fact that you are forced to use dial-up, as the technicians from your ISP have yet to fix the DSL knocked out in a storm several weeks earlier. Even compared to the slow cable connection available at your school, it's roughly equivalent to Jeff Gordon stepping out of his car at work, stepping straight into a Kia, and driving home. Your sister has told you that she needs to use the phone at eight o'clock, and you are inclined to acquiesce to her request. After all, you've been online all day, and are tying up your loose ends when your mother calls you.

You enter the room that she shares with your father. He is lying on the bed in his standard issue wifebeater, and your mother is dressed for church on her side of the king-sized bed. She informs you that you need to get offline, as there could be calls coming through to your father. Fair enough. You turn to go back to the laptop and disconnect the line, when your mother calls your back. She goes on about how selfish you are, blah, blah, blah, while you get increasingly frustrated. You point out that she's being hypocritical. You try to leave, saying something along the lines of you hope she's listening to herself. Miiistake.

Your father calls you back, and theyboth launch into their standard spiel about how you will find yourself alone in life-not projecting at all-including your mother's usual vaguely threatening "you'll find out, someday", delivered after glaring at you in silence for several seconds after you've just pointed out another flaw in another generic arguement. You perform argueably, finding more holes in their claims than a swiss cheese target at an NRA convention, but they refue to budge, and so do you. At one point, shortly before your mother leaves the room, you grow tired of this rigamarole and advance on your father, keeping your face nutral, saying nothing, and cutting him off in mid sentence.

After a few seconds of silence, he wants to know why you have that look on your face. You stare out the window at the darkening twilight, trying to keep your smile off of your lips. He's afraid of you. Your psychological ploy to put him on the defensive worked. It probaly doesn't help him that his head is just below the level of your penis. You point out the irony in the fact that you were called in to get off the line, and they're preventing you from getting off the line. He claims that it's "irrelevant", and the dance goes on.

Your mother comes in, which is strange, as you don't remember when she left. She has just received a call on her outdated cellphone (why, oh, why, do your parents seem adverse to the idea of flip-phones?) from the person she was supposed to pick up, and said person couldn't get trhough. She blames you for tying up the line. At this point, you realize that that has just tipped you over into borderline psychotic. You announce that you need to leave before you hit one of them.

She immediately shuts off her phone and blocks you from leaving the room. He get off the bed, walks over, and now they have you cornered against their dresser, and the slatted door to their closet, the latter of which you could probably, at this point, Hulk straight through. Your hindbrain does not like this. Hackles, blood pressure, adrenaline, up! They begin double-team berating you, calling what you have just said a threat. Nevermind that a threat is annunciation of the intent to cause harm, rather than the annunciation of the desire to cause harm as a reason for removing oneself from another's presence. (In fact, that should be considered psychologically responsible behavior.) She indicates that—no, they don't want to hear your objections—you should probably go off and pray, just pray, and ask the Lord to give you guidance. She also reminds you that you are 18, and therefore can legally be cut loose. He claims that it's literally "their way or the driveway", and graciously offers to set you up in his old car. She points out that they could give you plastic bags with your clothes. He points out that the clothes are legally theirs, but that they'd let you have them anyway. Sometime later, your forebrain will retrospectively analyse this as an appeal to fear logical fallacy. But at the time, it is rather occupied with closing your eyes, crossing your hands, and exerting reserves of self-control you did not know you posessed in order to drown out your own parents and prevent what would most likely be a double homicide.

After they're finished, you go to the laptop and put it on standby, disconnecting the phone line. You close the screen down, and go to your room in order to lie angrily, in the dark, with the fan on. Your mother has already left, after banning you and your sister from going on the computer or turning on the television, and you imagine what you woould say if your father decided to impart one last word of advice before heading off to—ha, ha—church. Daddy, you would say in tones of ice, "I am angry to the point of being borderline psychotic. For the sake of the mental and physical health of both of us, turn around and walk away without saying another word." And then he would protest your rudeness, and then you'd stand up, and then you'd go to jail. Thankfully, he leaves without saying anything further to you. You lay in bed for some time more. Then you get up, walk to the laptop, and open the lid. You bring it out of standby, open Notepad, and begin to type.

//make you feel unpretty too

but most of all....

2005-09-15T12:19:00.000-07:00

Who's watching...?

The question keeps bouncing around in your head. Since the storm Sunday knocked out the modem, two TVs, a fan, and a cordless phone, you've been forced to use COB's crappy cable connection. On their crappy computers. This means that there's no Firefox, no Photoshop, and the popups cut through IE6's token blocker like a hot knife through butter. Worst of all, of course, is the paranoia. That girl on the terminal to your left. Is she looking at you? Don't turn you head. Don't. Your ego knows, knows full well, that she's not, that she's staring intently at her screen, wondering if you're looking at her work. Your id reuses to believe that. It tells you to guard your screen jealously, to cover it with an overcoat, if you even owned one.

Stop it, says logic. They don't care about you, They're not spying, it's all in your head.

But what if They were? argues your psychosis fiercely. What it they're watching your every move, just waiting, waiting, waiting, to pounce? I want to impress upon you the need for extreme watchfulness. The enemy may come individually, or he may come in strength.

If the whole world is a trap, just a simulation, then my resistance would be futile, your ego replies tiredly. Shut up. I need to finish looking at pretty pictures. A samurai is not coming to kill me as I sleep, and a pillow would not stop him if he did. Be quiet. Stop checking our email for replies to our Livejournal comments. I will get a girlfriend, and my skin will clear up, whether you will believe it or not. If a man with 80% burns can get a woman, so can I.

Your psychosis subsides into a low grumble, and you get on with updating your blog.

//yeah.../most of all...

heard they crowded the floor

2005-09-13T08:00:00.000-07:00

We had another power outage on Sunday night. The result being that we now have only one functioning TV left. My mother wasted no time in informing my sister that she had been reminded to unplug the TV in her room, which was supposed to have been removed when school started. Another, more important calamity occurred.

Parents: We have gone to the dinner for a local pastor’s 85th birthday. However, it is already six o’clock, so we will proceed directly to the evening church service, which all of four people besides us will attend.
Me: What? No! I have to go home and study for my First Assignment Of The Year in this particular class!
Parents: Stop being selfish.
Lights: [go out]
Me: Frick no.
Family: [goes home]
Lights: [come back on]
Me: Oh well, it’s only 10:30. I can still check my email for info from my other teammates regarding the First Assignment Of The Year.
DSL Modem: Negro, please.
Me: KHAAAANNNN!

My mother, of course, took the opportunity to lay a guilt trip on me.

Mum (verbatim): Stop complaining. There are people in New Orleans who haven’t had power in days.
Me: Which has what to do with me?
Mum: That’s a very selfish attitude.
Me: What does the misfortune of people whom I cannot help have to do with my problem?
Mum(verbatim): You always argue with everything I say.
Me (verbatim): No, that’s not arguing. I just want to know what the benefit of one course of action is over the other.
Mum (verbatim): You don’t need to know. You just need to act.
Me (verbatim): I’m 18. (paraphrase)I think I’ve earned the right to question things. (verbatim) Why do you treat me like a child?
Mum (verbatim): Because you’re not mature enough. Look, just this afternoon Daddy pointed out that you didn’t know how to cash a check.
Me (verbatim): I’ve never gotten a check before.
Mum (verbatim): You always want to do exactly opposite of what I say. When I say go left, you go right.
Me (verbatim): Quite the persecution complex you have.
Mum (verbatim): Whatever you say, Mr. Psychologist.
Me (implied): So for you to start treating me like an adult, I have to obey like a child?
Mum (implied): Yes.
Me (implied): Someone set me up the bomb.

//couldn't bear it without you

on we sweep with threshing oar

2005-09-10T20:30:00.000-07:00

Me: Boy, oh boy, it's 7PM! I can't wait for the one-hour Naruto premiere at 10 on Cartoon Network! Finally, I get to see what the fuss is about! I must remember to load my shotgun, should any crazy people try to take the TV away from me.
God: *uses storm to knock out power until precisely 11:30*
Me: KHAAAAANNNNN!

Seriously. I was just starting to close the windows so I could go to bed. My parents took the opportunity to lay a huge guilt trip on me for not talking to them. It started when they asked me why I didn't talk to them. I told them it was because they tried to turn every conversation into a guilt trip. No joke. They also discussed my addiction to computers. I denied it. (Yes, I know I have an addiction, but I wasn't going to tell them that!) They said that denial is the first sign of addiction. Which makes no sense. 1. If someone wasn't an addict, they'd deny being an addict. 2. If it's the first sign, why was there an accusation in the first place?

Yeah, my family is dysfunctional, I know.

//our only goal will be the western shore

I've traveled the world and the seven seas

2005-09-03T11:17:00.000-07:00

I've been a baaad Jonn.

It's been over two weeks since I've updated this journal. That would be an excuse were I still in Miami and one that benighted AOL connection. But I've been back with good ol' DSL since the 19th. Haul:

Gorillaz-Demon Days
Killers - Hot Fuss
Zelda: Windwaker
Metal Arms: Glitch in the System
Beyond Good and Evil
Viewtiful Joe
The Circle Opens quartet, by Tamora Pierce, sans #4, Shatterglass, which I already have.
Wicked-Gregory Maguire
Lirael-Garth Nix
A box of SweeTarts
Steamboy
Some new clothes.

I had the choice between Steamboy and Spirited Away. Guess which one I regret not getting. Steamboy is pretty, but otherwise mediocre. Oh well.

My sister picked up the Black-Eyed Peas' Monkey Buisness, which is a ripoff: it contains no actual monkeys. Not. A . One. She also bought the "Don't Phunk With My Heart" single—yes, the song that's already on Monkey Buisness—, and Rob Thomas' Lonely No More single.

The tablet I bought from Amazon, which I mentioned in the previous post, has not, as expected, broken my art slump. It's possible that it didn't because I expected it not to. Still, it's useful for doodles. And the cordless mouse is nice. Ali said Flight Vols. 1&2, which I also ordered, were delivered to him while he was in Florida. Incidentally, they had shipped while in Florida, even though I ordered them in early July. He mailed them to me already.

Also, this happened.

And that's about it. I'll talk about Katrina and COB later.

// everybody's looking for something

what's the worst that I could say?

2005-08-11T08:01:00.000-07:00

The spamware on this thing has even infected Firefox. It can't do much more than change the homepage, but still. Grarr.

My parents are flying home tomorrow to attend the funeral of one of our church's deacons who had been suffering from a heart condition for a while. I know I was stunned when I took the call on Saturday evening from one of our other deacons. (My mother and sister, MJ, were out, and my father and brother wouldn't arrive until Monday)Apparently, he died quietly while in the hospital at around 6:30. I didn't tell my mother until a half-hour after she came home, 'cause I fergot. Needless to say, Mumsie was pissed.

Also, shortly before we left, I was informed that one of my classmates had been killed in a car crash. Coming home from a party where all the participants were allegedly required to wear white—in accordance with the universe's laws concerning irony—, and hit a tree. As I recall, she was the girl who had been to the best party last night, and was always willing to talk about it. She was also an alleged bisexual. She certainly looked butch when I saw her one day at C.O.B.

In terms of purchases, I've picked up Gorillaz' Demon Days, the Killers' Hot Fuss, and Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. Also, I blew forty bucks exactly, plus tax, on Book 1, 2, and 3 in The Circle Opens series by Tamora Pierce. (Yes, I already own Shatterglass.) Oh, and I got my Graphire3 6x8 tablet when my brother came Monday. I forgot that it came with Painter Elements, which makes me go "Squee". "Squee", I say unto you, "squee".

//things are better if I stay

all that noise, and all that sound

2005-08-06T16:19:00.000-07:00

I hate dialup.

It is 2005. My cousin has somehow been able to function with AOL's crappy browser and connection for over two years. Forget IE: it's so buggy with spy and adware that it is nearly unusable. I opened it up, just to confirm my suspicions, and it did indeed have a useless "toolbar", and popups. I closed it down, and ended up with a popup five minutes later. I actually ninja-installed Firefox.

There as some people who should be criminally barred from using a computer. My cousin, K, is one of them. This sucker is loaded with spadware. And the spadware he gets to remove that spadware. And we're all mad together.

//all those places I got found

you can't step in the same river twice

2005-08-03T10:37:00.000-07:00

I'm going to Miami starting tomorrow, the fourth of August. I will be away til the 18th, I believe. I hope to come back with a Wacom Graphire 6x8 and a copy of Zelda:Wind Waker. And maybye some new books. We'll see.

While I'm away, I won't have internet access, just AOL. And the computer in question has no art software on it. So I'm boned for new work. Bye.

EDIT: So...Ben...let me get this straight...you do a comic about you spoilering HBP...with a spoiler for HBP...with no sort of warning or buffer whatsoever.

We get it. You're a dick.

//the water's always changing, always flowing

when she dances she goes and goes

2005-07-22T15:57:00.000-07:00

GRAHH. MUST SMASH IDOT SPOILERS.

I've been using Livejournal a lot lately. One of the things that's been going around is people asking others to refrain from spoilers for Half-Blood Prince.

The amount of 'tards ignoring this is astounding. For example, one guy had an icon, which was purportedly a spoiler. He said that he didn't know it was a spoiler. Got it? Good. Then some guy posted, stating that it was indeed, a spoiler.

If you are the one confirming that something which may be a spoiler, you are a spoiler. And everytime you spoil, domo-kun eats a kitten.

Also, pandas cry.

Do you want crying pandas on your conscience? DO YOU?

Even worse, another idiot had a picture of major character "R—", the one who died, with the poorly Paint-added caption of, I quote "*iz ded*". As his default icon. On a public journal.

It's gotten so bad that when I went to the Wikipedia page for Fawkes the phoenix, and there was a spoiler at the bottom, I literally went "Meh."

Jeez, some people aren't even going to see the book for several months. I won't see it for another few weeks, probably. Is it too much to ask you to use some courtesy and common sense?

Incidentally, WP's spoiler system is stupid. The Fawkes page distinctly said that there were spoilers about HBP. At the top of the page. Instead of ahead of the one line with the actual spoiler. This means that the page is effectively rendered useless. And what good is the spoiler warning if it renders the page useless?

Incidentally, I did a parody of the whole thing. Contains no actual spoilersas far as I know. I especially like the look on Blue's face in panel 4.

//beer through the nose on an inside joke

please beware of snakes

2005-07-13T06:50:00.000-07:00

My sister called this morning from France. Where she is.

My father handed me the cordless, and I took it sleepily. This was one of the rare days where I was up before noon. Around 8, to be exact. As my sister informed me, her roommate thought I was cute.

Inner Jonnathan: Squee!
Outer Jonathan (sleepily): That's nice.

Then I listened in for another ten minutes while she talket to my mother. According to Mum, one of the girls there broke down and begged to be sent home. Some one is either emotionally dependant upon their family, has a controlling family, or both.

Still: random underage girl who I've never met thinks I'm cute! It gives me hope that I won't die alone and unloved.

//they come in all shapes and sizes

another landscape, is my mandate

2005-07-06T11:17:00.000-07:00

As you can see, I finished the redesign. I have about a half dozen other unfinished designs just sitting around on my flash disk, desktop, and my fathr's laptop, which I'm working on. It'd like to finish them and put them up, but it'll be a while, if ever. Some of the designs have flaws that I want to keep. Like that "powered by blogger" <DIV> up there; it was supposed to be flush with the header, but it came out that way when testing it on Blogger. I kept it 'cause it looks good, and I can easily stick a banner in that gap if needs be. I really need to finish my redesign of OCP. Scratch that: I need to start my redesign of OCP.

Ordered the 6x8 Graphire3, and Flight comics VOLs. 1 & 2. Or, at least, my brother was supposed to. I certainly transferred the money. But my Amazon account is still showing the items in a saved cart. Grr. He was probably distracted by the bombings. And college. And stuff.

Obi-Wan and Mace Windu playing electric guitar. Yoda on the drums. Stormtroopers doing Rock Concert Movement No. 2. Click here. [IE5+, WM9+ required]

//I’m highly animated even though I’m decomposing

no one to tell us no

2005-07-01T15:12:00.000-07:00

You know those people who post a thread on a forum, apparently to ask for an intelligent debate, and then ignore all evidence indicating that they are wrong?

A thread was started on dA about whether there could be Christian porn.

Yes, I said Christian Porn.

Read more...
*Laurion wanted to know whether Christian Smut could be made. She was promptly flamed by both Christians,Atheists, and secularists. There were, of course, the handful of people saying that her critics shouldn't be using such offensive language. There are always people who are more concerned with the presentation than with the message.

First post:

Okay, so a friend and I we're talking about the huge impact of Christianity in our consumer culture. You know ...how we have Christian music, Christian novels, Christian television and cable shows, and even Christian video-games. So she mentioned ~Christian erotica~, and I said, "No WAAAYY!". But sure enough, I did a Google search just now, and turned up like over 700 sites with the keywords "Christian erotica". And guess what? The key words "Christian porn" turned up over 9,000 sites!

Hey, okay. It's not like Christians don't like sex, is it? And the Song of Solomon is pretty sexy stuff, considering it's in the Bible and all that. And when I baby-sat for Christian families and snooped around in the parents' bedrooms, more times than not I found some really steamy illustrated sex guides, and sometimes some neat toys, in the nightstand drawer or the top bureau drawer. So I have a real serious question.

What if I want to draw or photograph Christian erotica? Or even just write about Christian erotica? What limits of taste or decorum do YOU think I should follow in order to keep it Christian?

And what about Christian porn? I mean, I really don't want to do THAT, at least not yet. But WHY can't we reach out to the world through Christian Porn, just like Christian Rock has reached a whole generation of seeking teens? How can we make a clear and faithful distinction between Christian porn and secular porn? I mean, really, this seems like a great opportunity to share Christian values about love, family and sexuality with people who may not be saved! And why let the heathen pornographers have all that money when they're just spending it on worldy things and liberal political causes? Not like that's my main concern or anything, though, you know.

Any ideas?

The main purpose of porn is to titilate. One of semitism's most important principles concerns lust without love. There are other details, but others more articulate than I have shown that porn and Christianity are mutually exclusive.

First reply:

~lovelorn
so wait.. you snooped in these peoples drawers?

*laurion
Well of course. It's not like my parents actually taught me that stuff.

~lovelorn
Where the [censored] do you get off!?!?!?!
It doesn't matter if your parents taught you about sex or you missed the day of class were they had sex ed, you still have no right to snoop in anyones personables, esp. people who are entrusting you to care for their children. It is none of your d___ business what is in anyones bedroom except your own. You should be watching the child not the dads porn.

*Laurion
Couldn't care less about Dad's porn. Mum's was the fun stuff. I really don't wanna talk about the toys any more either ... but I will say that sharing is a basic precept of Christianity. ;)

And so is respect for that which belongs to others.

~lovelorn
still THE POINT IS YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO BE IN THOSE PEOPLES DRAWERS LIKE A SNOOPING LITTLE BRAT

*Laurion
Like I already confessed that sin like 10 messages ago, ya know. Can you forgive me already? I forgive you for accusing me ... well, it's not like it's a false accusation or anything I s'pose, so you're not sinning I guess. But wait a minute yur judging me aren't you? K. I forgive you for judging me. I wanna talk about CHRISTIAN PORN not snooping??? Please?

Yes, she did it. She used the whole passive-aggressive, "I forgive you for something you have a right to do." tack. Ussually used for "judging" or "accusing". It almost sounds like an apology. I like how she just gets more smug as LL gets more irritated. It's like she takes accusations as confirmation of her rightness.

~lovelorn
:shaking head icon:

=bloknayrb
i think the best word to express what i think youre feeling is "oy"

=yokom
She's not [censored]ing judging you. She's pointing out that you were going through others stuff, and that it was wrong and unethical.

No more, no less. :roll:

*Laurion
Like I thought so too after ALL those people jumped like down my throat about it shhesh it's not like they ever baby-sat huh! But I thought I sinned. Now I just remembered Acts 4:32!! YAAAYYYY!!!!! I'm NOT a sinner anymore! We we're sharing those neat toys in common, just like the apostles and the NT church!!! :hugsmyself:

So, I looked it up.

Acts 4: 32
The community of believers was of one heart and mind, and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they had everything in common.

Not relevant, is it? She also uses an ad homenim, by saying that since the people accusing her are also sinners, their accusations are groundless. Um, no. That means you're both sinners. Whoopsie.

~strawberryp0cky
Acts 4:32 is regarding the Holy Spirit, and says: "And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul..."

So far, you don't sound like one of the "multitude of them that believed" so you are excluded from having "all things common."

*Laurion
What? I have to pass your church's Dogma Quiz now before I'm a Christian!!?? I don't think so! :roll: My Christianity is between me and Jesus, so don't go judging on me no more please. That song don't go "They shall know we are Christians cuz we're busybodies." It goes "They shall know we are Christians by our LOVE." :rolleyes icon:

What does violating the privacy of others have to do with love?

~StrawberryP0cky
My Christianity is between me and Jesus, so don't go judging on me no more please.
You are forgetting a little thing called "fellowship." We are to encourage and help fellow Christians become better Christians. When you mention things like this, you should expect and even hope to be Biblically judged by other Christians. Asking people not to judge you is asking them to ignore the Bible. It says that we are to judge other Christians. You're thinking that it's a negative, derogatory thing that people are pointing out your flaws, but in fact it's what we are instructed to do. We are to judge each other in that we are to help each other. I'm not supposed to sit here and wag my finger at you, I'm supposed to say "What you are doing is wrong and here is why and I can pray with you on this matter if you'd like." You say "they will know us by our love" to insinuate that I am being unloving by telling you what's in God's Word to answer your question. If God is love, and God tells us to judge each other, then I am loving you through judging you. I am not condemning you, I am telling you what it says in the Bible. If I posted something like "I am Christian and would like to draw orgies with Christian participants," I hope and pray that people would judge me for that. In our society, they say that judging is bad, and yet we could not function properly if we judged nothing. You judge food to see if it is good. You judge utensils to see if they are clean. You judge actions to see if they are lawful. You judge situations to see if they are safe. Judging is not a bad thing, and Biblical judging amongst Christians is supposed to happen. It says so right in the Bible.

They will know us by our love, but they will also know us by our actions. By acting this way, you are not telling the world you are Christian. By asking about Christian porn and erotica, and then becoming defensive when people tell you that it's unbiblical, how is that acting Christian? And, for that matter, why are you asking about this subject here and not turning to the Bible for the answer? It's all over the place, in the Old and New Testaments.

You started this topic asking for suggestions. You never asked if it was Biblical, or if God had anything to say against it. You just assumed that it was a good, godly thing to do and asked for help executing it. This is why you are on the defensive. You have already told yourself that it is okay without ever consulting the Bible, and when people are telling you it's unbiblical, you are getting defensive because you assume we're calling you a bad Christian and a bad person. We all make mistakes, just because you forgot to consult the Bible before asking how to do something doesn't make you a bad Christian or a bad person.

~strawberryP0cky
Just to let you know, people have consistantly misused that "judge not" passage. You are just another one of those people. The passage goes "Judge not, lest ye be judged," which means that if I am guilty of the same thing you are, then I cannot judge you. If we're both alcoholics, for example, I shouldn't be telling you not to drink. But if I am not an alcoholic and tell you not to drink, you cannot say "You're judging me, you're not supposed to because you're a Christian!"

*Laurion
which means that if I am guilty of the same thing you are, then I cannot judge you.
That's not true. If you're guilty of even the teeeniest weeeniest little sin, you should not go judging on other people. That's what Jesus meant, and that's why they didn't throw rocks at that hooker when he was doodling in the dirt. God is the judge; you are not, i am not, and even your pastor is not.

On a side note, I think it's rather gross that you look through your mom's porn and toys.
Why? It's not like she hasn't snooped around in my room and found mine toys ya know! Sheeshs! :roll:

the only point you're proving is that you shouldn't be hired as a babysitter
Well my customers love me and think I'm a great sitter!

~strawberryP0cky
That's not true. If you're guilty of even the teeeniest weeeniest little sin, you should not go judging on other people.
"Do not take the speck of sawdust out of your brother's eye and ignore the plank in your own." The sawdust and plank are the same thing: wood. One person has more of it (plank) than the other (sawdust), but they are both with wood in their eye. This means that you should not try to pick at someone's sin if you both are suffering from the same sin. Tell me, how are we as Christians supposed to fellowship and help each other grow in the Lord if we are not to say anything about the bad we are doing?

and that's why they didn't throw rocks at that hooker when he was doodling in the dirt.
That's a different passage, and He said "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." I am not casting stones at you, I am not trying to kill you, I am not even trying to condemn you. I am giving you Biblical truth. It is not the same thing. As Christians, we are supposed to help each other not sin, not just look the other way when it happens. What would you tell a murderer who professed to be Christian? Would you not say anything? What about a Christian who is on drugs? Would you let her wallow in her sin and die?

You might not wear my shoes, but that don't mean they don't fit me you know!
So, you're saying to each his own? That's not Biblical, either.

Why? It's not like she hasn't snooped around in my room and found mine toys ya know! Sheeshs!
Haha

*Laurion
"Do not take the speck of sawdust out of your brother's eye and ignore the plank in your own." The sawdust and plank are the same thing: wood. One person has more of it (plank) than the other (sawdust), but they are both with wood in their eye.
Oh c'mon. That sounds like you took that line from a Monty Python movie. I may not be as smart as some peeples who are talking down on me but I learned this real good big word called "casuistry" so go look it up and I think you'll know what I mean about what you're saying here.

Christianity is about loving people and especially sinners and being nice and loving to them and not judging them.

Apparently: Love=Not judging.

Jesus like ate with the IRS agents and the pimps and the hookers and the peeple with really nasty pimples and sores on their skin and when he got around to judging people after dinner he always started by judging the Pharisees and the Saducees who were standing around outside wanting to judge him and those sinners he was eating with. That's why he said judge not lest ye be judged.

The original statement concerned hypocrisy. It didn't justify anything.

how are we as Christians supposed to fellowship
Yeah but fellowship don't mean backbiting and judgin on each other though.

Why does love mean no judging?

As Christians, we are supposed to help each other not sin, not just look the other way when it happens.
I know and respect that and that's why Im trying to help you see that Porn doesn't have to be a sin when it's Christian Porn.

Except for the part where it's fundamentally impossible.

You might not wear my shoes, but that don't mean they don't fit me you know!
So, you're saying to each his own? That's not Biblical, either.

No I'm saying that especially if you wanna judge on peeple you have to learn to be really empathetic or they're gonna just turn you off and stop listening.

Empathic=/=not judging.

I can't go on: here. What's amusing is that she has admitted that she sinned, yet she's still defending her actions.

And another sub thread:

=paperstars
thats nasty...you used some other womans sex toys? eww... i mean when was the last time she like really cleaned those..not to mention you could get like aids or stds or something nasty.....you are gross.

*Laurion
Eeeewww. I hadnt thought of that. Do you think i should like, you know, tell her that I forgot to clean them after I used them too?

Thank goodness the part of my brain responsible for involuntarily generating images can be blocked.

=paperstars
you are disgusting little whore..you should go turn yourself in to some mental institution.

*Laurion
There you go again. Sex is a gift from God and I fer one am gonna enjoy that gift every chance I get! And so I'm psycho 'cuz I forgot to wash an effing dildo?? Well, and that plugy thingy too, I guess. And that cool thing with rubber feather tips all over it that went round and round but that one didn't get too dirty tho. Any way what was I saying oh yeah so SUE me!!

And it goes on. I also thought this one was hilarious.

~nedotter
Mwahahaha! :)

People are so up tight.

I mean...even if you did hump a door knob, I think that's hallarious. It's a good story. Haha.

And so what if someone goes through someone elses crap, what they don't know won't hurt them.

World hunger is a bigger outrage then messing around with someone else's sex toys. Besides the fact, that wasn't even what the post was about.

I rest my case.

Oh yeah, and Jesus is against judging and I could list all the passages it says that but I just don't care enough.

Have a great day! ;)

My thread on the subject.

~u63r
"And what about Christian porn? I mean, I really don't want to do THAT, at least not yet. But WHY can't we reach out to the world through Christian Porn, just like Christian Rock has reached a whole generation of seeking teens?"
The difference being that there is nothing inheriently wrong with rock music, according to Christianity. But according tro Christianity, there is something inherently wrong with smut.

"How can we make a clear and faithful distinction between Christian porn and secular porn? I mean, really, this seems like a great opportunity to share Christian values about love, family and sexuality with people who may not be saved!" Except that the Christian values on love, family, and sex are in opposition to that expressed in porn.

*Laurion
But according tro Christianity, there is something inherently wrong with smut.
What about the Song of Solomon? By strict definitions, it is smut, in that it contains erotic and fairly explicit depictions of sexual lust, sexual foreplay and sexual intercourse.

Except that the Christian values on love, family, and sex are in opposition to that expressed in porn.
Exactly. Secular porn despises family values. That's why I wonder if Christian porn might not be a benefit to society? The question revolves around whether there is anything intrinsically evil about a graphic depiction of sexual activity, in literature or film?

I never said that. I never made any distinction between secular porn and hypothetical Christian porn. My point, in fact, was that it's impossible to have Christian Porn. The question isn't about whether it's evil: It's about whether it's possible to make Christian Porn.

~u63r
What about the Song of Solomon? By strict definitions, it is smut, in that it contains erotic and fairly explicit depictions of sexual lust, sexual foreplay and sexual intercourse.
I fail to see how anyone could get their rocks off from 'breasts like roe deer'.

Songs was written as a love song. Not to titilate, which is what porn's main purpose is. It was a tribute.

Exactly. Secular porn despises family values. That's why I wonder if Christian porn might not be a benefit to society? The question revolves around whether there is anything intrinsically evil about a graphic depiction of sexual activity, in literature or film?
The question revolves around whether Christianity is compatable with porn. Since the two have values in direct opposition to each other, no.

*Laurion
I fail to see how anyone could get their rocks off from 'breasts like roe deer'.
Well, that's the KJV translation, iirc. I understand that King James got his rocks off on a lot of ... ummmm ... unconventional things.

Songs was written as a love song. Not to titilate, which is what porn's main purpose is. It was a tribute.
Whatever. Song of Solomon (or Song of Songs if you prefer) is erotica by any definition. It can be titilating, or it can be deeply anagogical, depending on how you approach it.

Yes. Secular porn's main goal is to titilate (and immorally, I might add). Who says that Christian porn has to follow that pattern to the letter?

The question revolves around whether Christianity is compatable with porn. Since the two have values in direct opposition to each other, no.
Again, my music metaphor is not without use in this matter. In the 70's and 80's, rock music by and large had values that were antithetical to Christianity. Then some Christians made an effort to Christianize rock music, and that resulted in the birth of a new genre: Christian rock.

I think that if you strip away the aspects of porn that are antithetical to Christianity, you may be left wth something on which to build a new and useful genre.

That's my opinion, and while it's not fully fleshed out, it's starting to make more and more sense to me.

I slowly began to suspect that I was conversing with a nut.

~u63r
Whatever. Song of Solomon (or Song of Songs if you prefer) is erotica by any definition. It can be titilating, or it can be deeply anagogical, depending on how you approach it.
Just because something can be titilating doesn't make it porn.

If it wasn't titilatting, then it wouldn't be porn.

Again, my music metaphor is not without use in this matter. In the 70's and 80's, rock music by and large had values that were antithetical to Christianity. Then some Christians made an effort to Christianize rock music, and that resulted in the birth of a new genre: Christian rock.
Musical genres are based on style, not content. 'Christian rock' is a subdivision-based on content-within a genre. Analogy fails.

I think that if you strip away the aspects of porn that are antithetical to Christianity, you may be left wth something on which to build a new and useful genre.
If you strip away the disagreeable-to Christians-parts of porn, you're left with nothing.

*Laurion
Just because something can be titilating doesn't make it porn.
Well, that is a step away from your previous definition. Perhaps we are making some progress?
[Editor's note: Amazing how the rest of my statement went poof.]
If you strip away the disagreeable-to Christians-parts of porn, you're left with nothing.
Ah, yes. This is the soul of the matter. There are some 33,000+ different kinds of Christians. I'm sure that ~everything~ is disagreeable to at least some of them. My goal is to create a Christian erotica, to possibly include explicit erotica, that is not only ~not~ offensive to at least a significant number of Christians (since I can't please ~all~ Christians), but that is actually useful and edifying to them.

I'm sure that some Christians will object, and protest, and even claim that I am not a Christian for harboring such a goal. Perhaps other Christians will receive this project more favorably.

The bottom line is that while adultery is unChristian, [censored]ing is not. Nor is lust itself unChristian, as Paul makes quite clear in 1 Corinthians 7; the trick is to create an erotica that does not lead lust astray, but rather directs it into its proper channels. That's where I had hoped this thread would go, towards an artistic discussion of such techniques. Sadly, it has remained mired in a discussion of proof-texts and 19th-century mores.

Maybe we'll just start simple, and film the Song of Songs.

Eeeeyup. She's crazy.

~u63r
Well, that is a step away from your previous definition. Perhaps we are making some progress?
No. My previous definition was 'porn=titilation'. Then I said 'titilation does not always equal porn'.

*Laurion
Sorry. My bad for the fallacy, then. (All lawyers are liars, but not all liars are lawyers?).

Can you envision, then, any Christian writing or film that includes titillation? If so, how far down the path of titillation would you be comfortable seeing it go?

This is where I realized that I would never get any where with this girl. Not until someone invented the mystical "Clue Bat." Oh, and check out her journal entry.[NSFW] The one on the right [NSFW] won the DD. It sucks.Fittingly enough, there have been complaints about the lack of good DDs lately.

//or where to go

Nobody said this stuff makes any sense

2005-06-13T12:52:00.000-07:00

I went driving today.

We're assuming, for the sake of conversation, that the series of discrete actions I performed while in command of a motor vehicle could be construed as "driving". I do not think it merits the term because my brother was in passanger seat, and while I was "driving", he busied himself riding roughshod over my self esteem.

After the drive, he took the time to carefully inform me of faults in the way I drive, react, and think. He did this while seated in the car, while I was standing in a sandpile in our yard whose sole purpose is to become a receptacale for the collective dog crap of the neighbourhood. THe situation was not unlike that of a young officer who is called on the carpet before his captain. He responds entirely on autopilot. The only real difference was that the captain didn't threaten the officer with assault if he walked away, and the officer probably isn't thinking Don't cry. Ignore the stricture in your throat. Do not rush Captain Bligh and choke him to death with your keychain. Probably.

Frankly, I'm shocked that I have so much self-esteem tied up in my driving skills. Or maybye it's not that, it's that Ali was yelling at me, not my driving. Throughout the ride, he kept asking me what my problem is!?! and after I pulled into our yard, I informed him that it was some guy yelling at me in the passenger seat.

Come to think of it, I'm not sure if the tightness in my throat was due to anger, frustration, or emotional injury. Like I said before, we are one screwed up family. Telling someone what they did wrong does not equal helping. Whining about the advice you gave not being taken is not helping. [Mum, I'm looking at you.] Yelling at someone because 'it seems to be the only thing that works' != helping. Heck, it doesn't make sense. Have you tried anything else, Ali?

I shudder to think what my children will be like at my age.

//we're hooked again

a fool off his guard

2005-05-25T10:39:00.000-07:00

So.
We now have a dog.
So to speak.

Last sunday, I was at home from Church with some strange migraine. I get strange migraines all the time, but I took some asprin and went to sleep, and when I woke up around 11.5 or so, it was gone. So I went outside, took the clothes in, set the table for lunch, put the clothes out, opened the front door to let some breeze blow in, and went online.

Later, my mother came home.

"Did you know there's a dog there?" she asked.

There was a puppy waiting patiently on our front porch. He seemed cowed, as my mother pointed out. I could see his ribs, but he seemed friendly enough. He didn't try to come inside, and was obviously house trained. Later in the day, he went out of his way to poop on the lawn.

I hate it when this happens.

See, this has happened before. With a black and white pregnant cat. Our house is near the road, so any animal thrown or left in the vacant lots nearby—one of which actually borders our house—will find it's way to our home first. There is another house roughly the same distance from the road, but they're fenced off, and any animal trying to get there would have to walk though overgrown bush, compared to the walk to my house, which was partially cleared a few months ago.

|
2h|
L |
cL+——
cL | cL h cL
cL| L 3h

Where h is my house, 2h is the second house, 3h is the house due west of mine, L is an overgrown lot, cL is a cleared lot, { | }and { — }are roads, and { + } is an intersection.

In case you were wondering what happened to Whisky, we took her and her kittens to the local Humane Society, where they presumably were killed. Oddly enough, one kitten seems to have escaped, and is living happily in the bush around our home on lizards and such.

It's been said that one could put a pack of terriers in the Artic, and within a week, they'd be living in caves and bringing down caribou.¹ The case could also be made for domestic cats, who could survive quite happily on birds, mice, and lizards. However, if a dog has known nothing but reliance on humans, it may find it difficult to go wild. There are packs of self-sufficent dogs roaming Nassau, some with collars on. If their feeding by humans were to be taken away, they could survive, easily. The dog near our house is not so independent. Beaten and starved, he has come to rely on people for food.

In a sense, the same could be said for some human relationships, especially abusive ones. The abuser makes the victim emotionally dependant, so that they are metaphorically unable to survive wihout the abuser. The difference being that the dog doesn't know what's being done to it is wrong. The human knows, but rationalizes it because they are simply unable to leave.

This dog is going to be a real pain.

Specifically, by Harry Pearson, in Racing pigs and Giant Marrows.

//could fall and fall hard

Somnium adamo.

2005-05-23T10:31:00.000-07:00

I was at a party.

The party seemed to be some sort of MTV-style event calle Butterfly, Butterfly. Complete with a garish, pink, 70s-esque logo across everything. All that was missing was an effervescent Ryan Seacrest.

The part was being held in some sort of large, well-lit room, somewhere in the tropics. The big side doors were open, presumably to let the breeze blow through. Wood panelling. I seemed to be the only Black guy. The rest were Beach House blonde airheads and ripped, oddly shirtless boys with spiked or feathered hair.

The catchphrase was "butterfly, butterfly".

It was being used in much the same way some blacks use motherf_er. Someone getting down yells "Butterfly butterfly-ee!" and later, after the cop comes, a fluttering horizontal motion is made under the chin while glancing at the stereo, whispering "Butterfly, butterfly."

I left when the cop showed up, though the actual leaving escapes me.

I walk along a second-story veranda, house on my right, cool night on my left. The party is presumably behind me. Presumably: I don't look back.

Through a window on my right is a family at a dinner table, backlit by a lone lamp. The table is rectangular, parallel to the window. Stiff. The father is on the left. Glasses; thinning hair gone to white; bald spot; careworn lines in his face. His wife, a fading brunette, has her hair up. The two children, on the wide part of the table, seem to be living, breathing replicas of Dick and Jane. The boy has his back to me. His pigtailed sister is staring at him, he at her. They don't notice me, a dark presence looming over their window, dark against the sky darkening to midnight.

I walk on.

There is a room at the end. No staircase. The room is darkly painted, with a single lamp behind the group of people playing Scrabble, or some other board game, on the coffee table. Wicker sofas and chairs, thinly cushioned. A blonde stand up from the chair farthest from me, stretches, smiles. I, clumsily—as usual—, ask for a ride. She says something about giving a ride to another guy. She takes my hand.

Takes my hand.

We walk along some sort of, um, walkway. Concrete pillars on the left, shade above, some sort of monolithic grey structure on the right. I don't know what's beyond the pillars, besides blinding light. She's on the outside. Our fingers seem to grow arond each other, curling of their own accord. There is a ramp leading forward and down, turning right, forward and down. Into darkness. Oblivion. She tells me to cut through the building, meet her at 15. Through? Sure enough, there's a glass door on my right.

I don't remember letting go. I should rememmber letting go.

I cut through the building—an airport, it seems—and ask someone where 15 is. He mentions the last line of an old gospel song. I exit the building.

The building the man mentioned is right in front of me. It is on a huge green lawn, transversed by gravel paths, not unlike a college campus. I cross to the building, walk on to the parking lot on the other side, look for her car.

She's not there.

And I don't know what her car looks like.

After a while-I don't know how long-I turn around and find that the campus is gone, that the parking lot fronts directly onto the grey building. I go back in.

The building seems to have gotten much larger. Some soft, golden-lit dinner is being held ther. An old man is telling his grandson how he met his grandmother at that very table, 20 years ago. I go back outside.

This is roughly where I feel compelled to wake up. In fact, I am already a third awake. I fight to stay in the dream, desperately searching the suddenly-empty lot for the girl, who I may be in love with. I think I catch a glimpse of her, in the distance, but that's all I remember before I wake up.

Now.

The glimpse I caught of the girl actually seemed to be the Bride from Kill Bill, dressed the way she was when she went to kill Vernita Green. The typography used for the 'Butterfly, Butterfly' logo is identical to that used for the Pussy Wagon. I've alaways been partial to blondes. The ramp the girl was descending represented a descent into oblivion, into Conrad's fabled Heart of Darkness. THe fact that it was a ramp, not stairs, indicates that the descent would be all that easier. ALmost all the cars in the parking lot were silver.

I need someone to help me figure out what it means.

both a little scared

2005-05-18T17:21:00.000-07:00

April 27th.

I consider it rather ironic that I get more work done bereft of internet access than any other time during our ownership of this computer. Seriously; I believe I have finished at least six Photoshop art pieces, a short essay, all-but finished one blog design, started another, began working on a fantasy anthology, improved my vector skills, taught myself to Riverdance, opened a small brokerage house, and balanced my taxes.

Okay, okay, I'm exaggerating. (It was only five pieces.) But still! I'm bored out of my mind. Since I'm broke, can't drive, and have no idea where my ATM card is—my mother hid it—seriously—I cannnot even go to the nearby theatre. School is out till, what, July? And since nothing but reruns, soaps, and trashy talk shows (and worse Maury) play in the daytime, and I have no Interweb access or incoming phone lines, I'm effectively boned for things to do. I'm'a goin' stir crazy. Thank goodness I can telepathically connect to Blogger to vent, or the boredom would start to affect me mentally.

Family guy on Sunday? At a decent time? With a better promo and production budget? With Fox still refusing to admit they bought it back because of high Adult Swim ratings and crediting it to "high DVD sales"? With Fox airing the spots for it on every cable network with a strong 18-35 male prescence but [AS], the undisputed king of its demographic? Well, okay. It's better than nothing.

Thursday, May 5th.

Oh, right, the Star Wars Ep. 3 game was released today. In two weeks, the most anticipated redundant prequel by a has-been EVAR will be released! Yay!

So, I went up to the College and picked up my transciprt for the past term. I failed two courses, 3D design with Mrs. B_, and my Arguementative Writing class. Strange: I can debate like Billy-O online—if stretching the definition of the word so Gaia Online can qualify—, but I can't write a real-life arguementative essay to save my life. I got C's in my other two classes. [Actually, one was C+, the other C-.] I am also now on academic probation, and have to repeat said courses.

Needless to say, my parents were pissed.

Allow me to tell me something about my parents; their idea of discussing my grades is to make me stand up while they tell me—often from two different parts of the room, in order to split my attention—and tell me, in no uncertain terms, that I f—ed up. This is a fact that I am usually aware of as soon as I see my report card/transcript, and I have yet to figure out why they feel the need to tell me, at length, at volume, for the duration of a half-hour, while asking more rhetorical questions than Socrates used in his life.

Mum: How do you expect me to feel!?!?
Me: Angry, frustrated, betrayed.
Mum (deflated slightly): Well, um, yes, all of those things.

I thought it intresting that they kept trying to tell me that I was responsible for the grades, even after I pointed out that it was my future on the line, I had made the choices, knowing full well the possible consequences, and that said future was worth more than their paltry _00 dollars¹

One particular point my mother made involved all the times I could've come to her for help, and all the times she offered to help. I replied² that she was utterly incapable of actual productive advice; that her idea of help was to sling blame around wildly, and to take any criticism of her suggestions as a vicious, barbed, attack on her, her intelligence, her family, and her cooking skills, followed by withdrawing her support entirely, on the grounds that I was always criticisizing her.³ She never bothered to explain why I should take a suggested course of action, and later admitted that she didn't see the need.

And yes, this is a woman three times my age, who frequently cites her 'greater experience' as justification for all of her suggestions, actions, and basically anything that she does or says that I criticisize at all.

Indeed, the woman is passive-agressive, and I know this. A week ago, I decided not to see a local production of "West Side Story", despite much protest from my mother. She even tried the "what if I had already bought the ticket?" gambit.⁴ Several days later, she was still grumbling about it. I wanted to ask her how she found the play, knowing full well how she'd respond. Nonetheless, I popped the question⁵, over lunch last Sunday, and she responded as expected; "If you wanted to know, you should've gone and seen it."⁶

In case you don't get it, she was not trying to make me feel guilty for missing a good play; she was trying to make me feel guilty for turning down her offer to see the play. She had taken it personally.⁷ Machinations which would shame both Marie Baronne and Machivelli.

The worst part is that she has my sister doing the same thing; slowly turning her into a minature guilt-triping, insecure, and narcisisstic shrew.

</rant>

Whenever we—by which I mean my parents—have these arguements, I always act logical while they get more and more irritated, wondering if my lack of emotional demonstration indicates a lack of actual emotion.⁸ The only addressing of my postion comes in the form of asking me whether I don't feel anything. To which I should reply, yes, but I am striving to look at this from a strictly logcal point of view, in order to reduce the likelihood of mistakes. I'll vent later, in a long, gramatically correct blog entry with scads of subtle jokes and asides. I don't actually say this. Partially because my parents are opposed to me taking to anyone online, outside of the bounds of Christian sites.⁹ Partially because they don't know that I keep a blog, as they told me to stop keeping my old online journal. Partially because they don't know what a "blog" is, and I'd have to explain it.

In these discussions, sooner or later, they start going on about my 'potential'. They remind me of all they times they've told me that I have the most potential of all their children. Oddly enough, I can never remember this happening, ever. The one time I asked Mum, point-blank, for my IQ number, she refused to tell me. I can certainly remember them telling me that they've told me about my potential but the original occasion, if there ever was one, escapes me. If I didn't know better, I'd say it didn't exist.

Also mysteriously, they never offer any solutions. They just tell me what I did wrong, over and over again. I've learned to block these, well, whinings out. Unfortunately, I also block out any criticism as well. According to two seperate art teachers, this is my main problem. Heck, in my first semester at COB [last winter/fall] I had the teacher and an entire class tell me so. It got through, I took it personally, and I went home crying. My teacher and the class told me so again this semester [hence the C+]. My parents just row for a half-hour, and then go off muttering about how they're 'very disappointed'. My mother barely talks to me for two days. Everytime she sees me, she mentiones how I'm 'not [her] favorite person right now' and I'd 'better stay out of [her] way'.

Another mystery is why my father never offers anything more that a token mumbling criticism until we have these little discussions. At which point he pretty does nothing except talk about how he's very angry with me, and make snide remakes about my apparent maturity, and how I don't really want to do X. In this case, X=Art. He mentioned how I never did any art neatly. I pointed out that art is about expression, not 'neatness'. He got angry, since I had made a valid point thta he had no rebuttal for and could not dismiss as irrelevant. Oddly enough, he never actually asks me what I think, and only mutter when I'm not looking at him.

I could go on, but I have enough material for a Comedy Central Presents here already, and my sister needs to use the computer. I have to go now.¹⁰

May 12th

I just¹¹ realized something. Something about parenting.

A parent's job description covers, but is not limited to, censoring their child's intake of media, instilling values, and enabling the child to make their own decisions. It is the second Item I'd like to explore.

A parent instills morals by telling their child what they think is right or wrong. When the child is young, this is sufficent. Parents usually fall into the trap of believing that everything they say should go unchallanged, simply because they are parents. Some parents do not even focus on teaching their kids what is wrong, so much as they focus on making the child feel guilty, such as my parents have done. This may lead to insecurity and psychological instability in the child.¹²

My parents have done both: thinking they do not have to justify their positions to their children, and focusing on blame and guilt rather than right and wrong. Indeed, my mother feels I am challenging everything which leaves her mouth (which I am) simply be cause it is leaving her mouth (which I'm not). When I explain why I'm doing this—I want justification of one course of action over another/the claims she makes, before I believe them—she gets angry and declares that she doesn't have to justify herself. [note that I specifically referred to the claims she makes, not her.] I retort that I don't have to believe in what she says. This falls under the third point: empowering one's child to make their own decisions. My paents believe I should make my own decisions—as long as they approve of them. This kind of structure isn't good for any family. Just look at the Barrones.¹³

As I said before ¹⁰, my family has problems. What other families need to do is learn from our mistakes; instill morals by showing what you believe to be right or wrong, not guilt. If your children question your statements, defend them, and do not take it personally. Never tell your kids to stop challenging you just because you feel they have no valid points. Trust in the truth of the statement to ensure victory.

Actually, I forgot to make this last point. Which is ironic, because I knew that I was failing these courses before I even finished them, and had been mulling over what I was going to say for weeks.

Again, weeks of consideration.

Ironically, she took the criticism of the way she helps personally.

For reference's sake, the correct reply is that it was their fault for buying you a ticket without actually asking you if you wanted to go. In essence, "that's not my problem".

Oepidal pun absolutely intended.

I have fantasized, since, about carfully moving her glass and any other obstructions out of the way, and then grabbing her by her collar and making her tell me how...she liked..the f—ing...play.

This is the same woman, who, without a trace of irony, will guilt-trip me for not talking to people—read: her—more. She does so no matter how many times I point out that we share no intrests whatsoever. The dynamic is not unlike being stalked by a woman you dated once, and have nothing in common with, except more than 120lbs heavier than any woman I ever hope to date.

Quite the opposite. If I were to get demonstrative, I'd probably kill someone. Then someone else. Then myself. Probably.

Since the Interweb at large is populated with perverts, pagans, and Aetheists. All of whom are trying to get me to stop believing in God. And start wearing black. And eyeshadow. And become a transsexual prostitiute named Natty. All the Christians online are sitting in their nice little Christian websites, eating nice little Christian lunch biscuits, drinking nice little Christian cups of cocoa, and discussing nice little Christian matters. Which is exactly what I should be doing. Heaven forbid I communicate with people who respect my opinions and offer valid arguements. We all know it's impossible for anyone Non-Christian to have a valid perspective on Christian matters. Just like white people don't know how black people live.

Yes, my f—ing family is f—ing dysfunctional! Yes, I need f—ing therapy! What the f— was your first clue?!? < /vent >

And by 'just', I mean several days ago.

I certainly know I've got issues.

Incidentally, Everybody Loves Raymond sucks.

//neither one prepared

do you see what I see?

2005-04-03T20:04:00.000-07:00

If you read my old blog, you already know that I have issues with my mother. What I have neglected to mention then, or since, is something I aev realized only in the past few weeks; my mother is a selfish, narcissistic, self-absorbed, smothering, overcontrolling perfectionist Nazi. Though this is not confirmed, experts believe this may indeed be the case. However, we will have to wait for the offficial confirmation from the office of the President before taking action.

For example: She refuses to admit the flaw in her stratagy of watching several minutes, per week of my media intake, assuming that it therefore entirely cartoons, and thereby announcing that she does not want to see me watching any more of these things. When pressed for specifics, she states that she doesn't need to provide any. When asked what she knows about the actual content of my TV intake, she states that I don't read as much anymore, she doesn't know anything about what I watch, reminisces about my childhood, and how I "used to solve problems when you were little", then asks me to tell her about what I watch. In no way does she how it is wrong to make judgements without all the pertinent information, and why she bears the burden of proof, not the person she's making the decision about. At no point does she, or my father, ever ask me what I think about the issue.

And yes, this is buisness as usual.

Earlier tonight, I stood there, just stood there, why she railed at me on what she would do to me if I ever raised a hand to her. This was provoked by her calling me 'thinskinned', when I got irritated at her pointing out that I should do something I was already in the act of doing, again, and me then responding that if I was thin skinned, I would've hit her.

Earlier, she used the 'when you graduate college, you'll see where I was right' analogy to avoid addressing an arguement. Maybye I will then, but right now I'm asking you to explain it to me. And you're refusing to do so, essentially because you think I'm still a child. Or rather, you want me to be. If you lose control of me, you're losing control of one more thing. And if you lose control of anything, your world will crumble, right?

After the broadsides had ceased, I walked away from the kitchen, silently catalouging what I could've done differently, as usual. The Swiss army knife was closer to her, and the ice pick, and the bag of nails [seriously]. But closer to me was a pair of scissors, a chair, and the dinner knives, which were still on the table.

Oh, and the pizza cutter.

In case you were wondering, she did use the "shh, shh, don't try and argue" of people with intrinsically flawed arguements.¹She also said I could easily walk out the door, where we keep our gas tank. And power line. And water pump... What I should've done was grab her by the ugly lapels, and talk to her in a low, threat'ning voice.

I have the reach, speed, and coolheadedness. My mother has nothing but weight. [Insert obligatory fat joke here.] She tried to hit me, last spring, and never laid a hand on me. I just kept blocking her sloppy punches. She keeps asserting that I'm a minor, and I will be until 21. Not according to the law of Great Britain and the Commonwealth of the Bahamas, I'm not.

And I know, for a fact, if she ever angered me enough to hit her, I wouldn't stop until at least one of us was dead.

1.In case you were wondering, she commanded me to stop blogging, and talk to her and Daddy about my problems. Which consist mainly, of, oh, them. So I can't talk to them about my problems, or my classmates, or my brother and sister, and that leaves the beautiful, faceless internet. Hi Internet.

//do you hear what i hear

hammer my bones

2005-04-02T15:01:00.000-08:00

My sister, and my mother, can't debate.

Me: Eh, Jordan can't play anymore.
MJ: He could beat you in a game.

Ad hominem.

Me: Yes he could. What does that have to do with it?
MJ. He can beat you!

Circular reasoning./Begging the question.

Me: Explain: What does my inability to beat him in a game of basketball have anything to do with my ability to judge the quality of his playing? I'm not qualified to be Prime Minister, but the law says I'm qualified to judge who is.
MJ: Actually¹, the law says you're qualified to choose.
Me: I have to judge to choose.

Semantics.

MJ: [lip curls slightly]Jonathan...don't even try.

An earlier arguement with my mother;

Mum: [agitated]You always disagree with everthing I tell you to do!
Me: No I don't.
Mum: See! You're doing it now!
Me: Because you're wrong.
Mum: My point is that you always disagree with me!
Me: No I don't!
Mum: There you go again!

[repeat]

It was eerily similar to the arguement's in Bill Cosby's "Love and Marriage".²

Cmille: That's not my point!
Bill: Then what are you saying?
Camille: I'm saying that that's not my point!

Mind you, this isnt just my sister's go-to arguement, it's basically her only arguement. Which is kinda sad, if you think about it. Especially considering that she has better grades that I did at her level.

1.She always says this. Always.
2. No Amazon link here, folks. Move along.

//in the anvil of daylight

there isn’t any let up

2005-03-14T15:18:00.000-08:00

Okay, now they're making stuff up. Warning, not for kids.

I hooked up with a guy I had been dating for a about a week and he went down on me for 1/2 an hour in his living room and then his dad walked in but we didn't noticed to i contiuned orgasiming and Ben was still between my legs but his did was wacking off to us. Then when we found out his dad was getting off Ben, his dad and I had a 3 way hook up. Really kinky and wierd but I totally got off to it

The frick kinda Electra complex does SHE have?

//I hear them calling calling

I am selfish I am wrong

2005-03-08T11:09:00.000-08:00

I had just spent the entire morning crying. Well, about an hour and a half or so. I had finally got it under control, and spent the better part of my first lesson period sitting in the office of Dr. J. Novus.1 I had, by the way, no real reason for crying. I just started blubbering for no concious reason. Dr. Novus said stress was involved, and I made an appoinment for the following day. She suggested I quit the course that's been bugging me. I spend the entire lunch period trying, and failing, to complete an overdue assignment. Over the weekend, I had tried finding out what information I had missed by emailing the teacher. Yes, that teacher. This assignment. The assignment she had given us, according to my classmates, was way too easy. Here are the transcripts.

+Transcripts+

See why I was so frustrated? See?

So I walked into class, after waiting to use some dude's pickax for the entire lunch period, and tell the teacher that she hadn't told us what the assignent was ahead of time. She insisted that she had. I insisted that she hadn't. She insisted that she had. I insisted that she hadn't. She insisted she had. I insisted I had an alibi for the night of the murder. Seriously,
I stared at her, packed up and walked out.

I thank God I don't drive. I would undobtedly have killed someone. Likely a kitten. And I like kittens.

By the time I reached the bus stop, I could bharely see through my tears. And when I cry, I get a migrane. And when I get a migrane, Bad Things Happen. That is all.

About a third of the way home, I realized that I was likely going to be physically sick. I was going to have to cry"BusstipI go'n'bedick" and then lunge for the door, which would open just a little too slow, in slow motion. Then I'd get outside, retch in the gutter, look up, and Agent Smith would try and shoot me.

Sorry,where was I?
Right.

I made it home, turned off the alarm, closed the door, stripped off my shirt, dropped my bag, danced the can can, and stumbled into my bathroom. I ran my head under the shower for a while, and eventually stopped crying. Then, because I'm an addict, I went online.

When my father got home, I told him my decision.

I was quitting the class.

[part 2 forthcoming]
1. Not actually her real name.
//I am right, I swear i'm right, swear I knew it all along.

I’ve tried so not to give in

2005-03-04T18:10:00.000-08:00

It is prodigiously difficult to be a selfish b____d when all these people keep caring about me.

Details tomorrow. Just be aware it involves that post I was putting off writing, and did, but forgot to tell you about it.

//I’ve said to myself this affair never will go so well

it's lonely out in space

2005-03-02T19:22:00.000-08:00

My sister has a nasty habit of installing programs willy-nilly with no regad for the effect they have on other users. That is, she will download every piece of spyware, adware, and junkware she can find, and argue violently that it needs to stay on the computer.

For example, a few years ago, she downloaded a program which rotates wallpapers, known as Webshots!. Most of said wallpapers suck. She did not download it onto our home computer, however, but onto our mother's office computer. It is still there to this day, merrily cycling through ugly wallpapers to its heart's content. I'm glad we were able to give the poor thing a home. She still has nighmares sometimes... There there, poppet, you're safe with mummy now.

My point being that MJ's programs almost always impose upon other users of the computer. I somehow go the better part of six years without interering with that computer's operation. She had two months before she started downloading wallpapers and such. I've had to delete Comet Cursor from three different computers; the one in my mother's office, this home one, and our schools new secretaries. That was in early Feburary. The woman had been there since, oh, last fall.

The most recent incident of such was earlier tonight, when she installed a buddy icon program, courtesy a link sent by my brother through MSN Messanger. Why such a level-headed individual would even consider using such a program is beyond me, but the upshot of the situation what that I saw what it had done to IE when she opened a link through Messanger to show me a picture of a girl dancing.

"What is that?" I asked.

"Um..." she replied.

"Get it off," I said.

She refused. I pointed out that it was adware, and nonessential. She asked if I really needed Photoshop.1 I replied that, yes, I did, for the sake of my future job. I added that Photoshop doesn't impose on anyone. She said it took up space which by some twisted logic, is an imposition. I pointed out that I needed it, and asked her to draw a paralell between career practice and buddy icons. She used other poor arguements. I pointed out that I had actually asked my parents to install Photoshop two years back this spring. She used "It's not your computer!" I pointed out that if it wasn't my computer, then it wan't hers either, and asked her why her right to install the program trumps my right to remove it. She didn't answer, aside from threatening to remove Photoshop. Aw, that's so cute, would you like to kick me in the shin and pull my sweatervest up over my head while you're there? I'll wait.

Sad thing is, I swore I'd never fall for the hypocite gambit again, since it means that all you have to do is admit you're wrong to defeat your opponent. It's alway's MJ's first line of offense, and I have never seen through it, even when, it retrospect, it's as plain as day.
pie
I've had that dang Level commercial in my head all day. If you haven't seen it, Level is a "perfectly balanced vodka". The world's first, in fact. The commercial entails a couple eating on a platform held on stilts by waiters. Waiters on the platform serve the vodka, and the glass isn't level. They slide down the two poles in unison, and one waiter takes a matchbook out of his pocket and tucks it under the sole of one of one of the pole holders. The glass balances. Then the copy and tagline. All grayscale.

I think it has something to do with my own instability.

1. Which is asking if a fish needs water. It could survive without it, but not for long and it's not recomended by your physician. Ask your doctor before starting a no-Potoshop regimen.
//on such a timeless fligh

I wanted to be aquaman when I was a kid

2005-03-02T10:19:00.000-08:00

So.
My father got a new Dell laptop on Sunday from the Church, in order to celebrate his X years in the ministry and Y years as a pastor at our church. Please note that I do not call it a "computer", which is an undeserved honourific for any Dell product.

The initial startup screen read that we had to hit any key to agree to the EULA. The End-User Liscence Agreement is standard for installing almost any commercial piece of software. Ours was supposed to be included in the packaging.

It wasn't.

I took a risk and hit a key.

Several screens later, I came across a box with the actual EULA. There was a story a few weeks ago about a guy who was actually reading his EULA and won a thousand bucks. The Screen Savers hid a similar thousand K claim in some product Kevin R. sold on eBay(I don't know the specifics), and it's still unclaimed. So I started to read the EULA.

My sister reached over and hit Next.

I promptly reamed her out for not actually giving me a chance to read the message. I had no idea what she had just agreed to, on behalf of my father. Then I hit Back.

It took me to the screen before the EULA. I hit forward. It took me to the screen after the EULA.

This means that not only might the EULA be omitted from the documentation which came with the product, once you agree to it in the software, you can never see it again. It is not on the Dell website, or Microsoft's. I'm guessing that if you send Dell a letter, they will not send you a copy of the EULA.

The agreements for signing up for websites are almost always cramped into a small box, with paragraph structure that seems designed to hinder reading. With a simple cut and paste, one can read the text in Notepad, but some websites actively disable cut n' paste in these boxes. In short, they do everything they can-short of breaking the law-to keep you from reading the contract your signing. It's electronic fine print, but it requires a microscope-and possibly Firefox-to read.

Two years ago, when I searched for stuff, I got inane result on EZboards. Now I'm getting inane results off of blogs, and when it is forums, its usually PhbBB. I'm not sure what my point is, but I know it was irrelevant.

//back when Batman was all the rage

how high? real high

2005-02-23T10:35:00.000-08:00

Get this. I'm using the COB library computer, just browsing Diaryland, when I find the system infected with adware. Diaryland doesn't do adware. Diaryland doesn't even do ads. Which means that someone managed to install a program on a system which only allows admins to install programs.

It boggles the mind.

They have, apparently, built a better idiot.

In other breaking news, I discovered Livejournal's community Jumpingpictures . Odd how a fivehundreth of a second exposure of someone in midair is indistinguishable in some cases from levitation.
//cause I'm just so fly

when are all my troubles going to end

2005-02-21T19:52:00.000-08:00

Post upcoming. Several actually. And FYI: I hate college.

EDIT: It just occured to me that if I wor hard and sacrifice my mental and physical health, I could end up with a lifetime of debt and skills I already have. Ain't college grand?

EDIT: Yes, your friends call you Lumpy. And you're cute and have a British accent. Now shut up already. Thanks.

//I'm understanding now that·we are only friends

you can check out any time you like

2005-02-21T15:03:00.000-08:00

Over the past weekend, with some assistance¹ from Mr Carroll, I have come to realize that I am suffering from depression.

One really irritating facet of the entire thing is that I keep thinking: "Maybe I should kill myself".

"But Jonathan," says a voice which sounds like Roma Downey towards the second season of Touched By An Angel. "You're morally opposed to suicide, euthanasia, and abortion! Besides, you've considered this before. For almost five minutes on end. During that really boring summer."

It's right, actually. That was the last summer I ever felt anything like that, because that was the winter I discovered the Interweb.

My point being that I have several potential reasons to go on, none of which I can currently summon to mind, but I'm sure they'll come to me in a few months.² In the cold. In the dark.

I'm taking-and failing-COB's art program, who's primary attribute could be described as "bass-ackwards", but not to it's face. I have a half term vacation coming up only slightly longer than my average weekend, , I can't drive-though I want to by the end of next month-and from what I saw of actual Graphic Designers during my work study last summer, I could be doing their job, and still have time to work on a webcomic and ironic t-shirt webshop I already have about two dozen designs just sitting there, in a notebook.

Boy, do I need a PDA.

1.Regarding which, I find it singularly unoriginal to mae reference to Linkin Park when referring to angst. Innumerable posts on innumerable forums reading merely "CRAWLING INNNNNN MY SKIN!!!!!!" lead to no small amount of frustration on the part of those L.P. fans-a number which I count myself among-who know that, aside from the ridiculous title, CMS is actually one of Linkin Park's better singles. P.o.D is angstier that Linkin Park. Skillet is angstier than LP, and they're a Christian group.

To that end, I propose that anyone, except webcartoonists, who makes extended and bigoted references to Linkin Park on any message board or blog, especially if they demonstrably know nothing of the band other than the song title "Crawling In My Skin", the subject will instantly and summarily be banned from the Internet pending investigation, and issues a certificate stating that they fail at life.

Mr Speaker, honourable Members of the House, I thank you for your time.
2. Dear Lord. I must be the most cheerful depressive south of Milwaukee. The original footnote read Tallahasee, but Milwaukee sounds funnier.
//but you just can't leave

when the horizon darkens most

2005-02-19T13:13:00.000-08:00

So I spend a few hours-spread over weeks, I tell you-wrestling with Blogger's code, trying to wrest a brand new template into existance from whence there once was merely void.

Then I suddenly realize that the design I had in mind could be created with a few deft modifications to Blogger's Minima Black, which I'm already using.

//we all need to believe there is hope

God bless the child that can hold his own

2005-02-16T08:51:00.000-08:00

I am an 18-year old, not-unattractive male. I live in one or the brightest, shiniest countries in the world. It's a sunny day, and the birds are singing. I have no pressing concerns, and a sick day off from school.

Boy, am I depressed.

I have an assignment due I don't know when, an essay to work on, and Photoshop work just sitting there. I have no appitite or intrest in anything, though the former can be ascribed to the perscription cough medicine the doctor perscribed, which tastes like vanilla. Horrible, horrible vanilla. I'm doing mediocrely to bad in school, and worst of all, I'm feeling an emotional disconnect from everything. You know how one goes on autopilot when one has a really bad migrane? Yeah, that's me.

I get sick so easily, it's frustrating. I have the worst immune system in my immediate family, and withing the acquaintance of said immediate family. My sister shook this thing off in a day. It's a week and I've still got a hacking cough, which is actually the least of my syptoms, what with the earaches, migranes, and joint pain.

Worst of all is COB's actively retarded Arts program. Our 3D Design teacher thinks teaching is telling us to go make something around a certain principle expressed by a brief definition in the book is 'teaching'. To be honest, I've been slacking. There's some work I should be doing even now.

All my percieved faults and inadequacies and deadlines and needless assignments come crashing down, funneling my head into a deep dark pit of despair.

I wish I was the kind of person who would use this juncture to get drunk.
//cause when it's on it' s on

someone picked you from the bunch

2005-02-12T07:48:00.000-08:00

My mother has a distinct inability to accept change or admit she's wrong.

For example, my homework for Monday involves covering a picture frame in little "accessories" so that it looks "Baroque". This is the same teacher, mind you, who dissed my installation piece two entries back. I find a definition on Wikipedia , and highlight the first paragraph. While she's reading it, accidentally un-highlight it.

She throws a fit.

There is a sort of irony here: she is constantly criticizing my lack of maturity; yet refuses to admit when she has a flawed arguement, choosing instead to characterize my pointing it out as "rude". Whenever I ask for clarification/justification of some statement she's made, she starts complaining about how I disagree with her and my father out of spite. Whenever I do implement one of her suggestions, I'm always doing it wrong. If I prove her wrong about anything, she ignores it. And whenever the slightest detail of her life is changed, I shouldn't have. The woman has been known to trip out over someone changing the television channel. Which she had on mute. Which she wasn't watching. Protesting vehemently over a toy she wasn't using but someone else wants to play with...does that sound like the behavior of a woman more than three times my age?

In this particular case, I waited for a few minutes of her ranting before pointing out the fact that I could easily have highlit the text again by now, and she would've finished reading it. She said that that wasn't the point. The point was that I was rude for de highlighting it. I pointed out that I had unlit it by accident. She pointed out that my hands shouldn't have been near the keyboard or mouse. Yes Mum. I shouldn't have been touching the primary input devices for the computer while I was inputting data. Real Nobel-winning logic there.

What I find the most ironic is that she's the one left foaming at the mouth in these 'discussions' while I'm the calm one. The more illogical she gets, the calmer I get. She sees this as 'arrogance'. Then again, she also frequently wonders why I don't panic when faced with last minute deadlines, no matter how much I explain to her that panicing never helps.

I suppose, at some point, everyone feels the urge to slap some sense into one of their parents.
//one glance is all it took

the keys are just collecting dust

2005-02-10T17:12:00.000-08:00

+spews+
"What do people with big pen1ses eat for breakfast? I bet you d..."
How'd they know?

//but I can't close the lid

swimming through sick lullabies

2005-02-09T11:19:00.000-08:00

I think my teacher hates me.

We were to critique a series of outdoor pieces. The assignment of myself and several others was to "activate the surrounding space". In the most basic terms possible, the piece's presence had to be larger than that of the space it occupied. The other half of the group had to change the scale of an object. The first piece was a large hairbrush. My opinion wasn't asked. The second was a four-foot red lollipop. In my critique, I gave it a B-, or as Adam and Morgan would say, a four...out of five.

"Jonathan, what are your reasons for giving this a lower mark than everyone else?"

Excuse me?!? You want extra justification simply because I have a different opinion? Do you hate me or something?

I fumbled through a shoddy explaination, but, truthfully, I was going on aesthetics alone. I wasn't a teacher. I didn't need to objetively evaluate another's work.

"Sorry, Jonathan, since you can't justify yourself, I'm not counting that."

WTF?

I flipped her off behind my back, which worries me. I'm starting to do stuff like that more and more now.

Next piece.

"Jonathan, why do you give something like this a higher grade than everyone else?"

Uh.

"I'm going to strike this one too."

Y'know, if I had some kind of persecution complex, I'd think she hated me. Oh wait: I do, and she does.

Then we got to my piece. Ccall me crazy, but I think ripping off pieces of the installation may have been a bit melodramatic. Was there nothing redeeming about the piece?

"But I like the idea."

Oh, well, one time pays for all, then.

She then called me lazy, and sent me to the library to look up Andre Calder⁰.

"That's cute. Really. As long as we're throwing names around, you're a witch who seems to dislike me, and by extension my work, through no fault of my own. This course serves little practical use pertaining to my chosen field, and I have difficulty believing that at some point you plan to perfom your job by instilling in your students skills through a process you may have dimly heard of, known as "teaching". I will now leave this course, and never return again, freeing up my Monday and Wednesday afternoons for something more productive than this which only qualifies teaching under the loosest possible defintion of the word found in the English language. Good day to you, madame, if indeed that is your title.¹

+leaves with shocked gasps of admiration from his classmates and stunned silence from his lecturer+

Don't I wish.

Really, I don't see her as an authourity figure. More as a small shrill woman with a bad haircut, worse taste in clothes, and serious insecurity issues. Ahh. That felt good.²

0. It was actually Alexander Calder. When I Googled Andre Calder I kept getting helicopters.
1. This paragraph should not be taken seriously by anyone, and grammar be hanged.
2. This paragraph should not be taken seriously under any circumstances.
//choking on your alibis

fling you out into orbit; no one's going to hear you shout

2005-02-07T13:30:00.000-08:00

This entry was written on paper, in school, and then typed up.

Today, there was another exciting episode of the hit game show "Who wants Jonn Wood's money!" With your host, the Art Department of the College of the Bahamas! Today's contestant; Jonn Wood, who enjoys living, breathing, and fervently regretting his decision to become an art major! The rules are simple: omit the price of the materials he'd need for this lesson, and let him come to class with too little money!Come on down!

Listening to: Rufus Wainwright - Hallelujah

Based on the estimate my teacher gave the of how much money we'd need today, I bought X amount of money to class, only the find that I really needed Y amount. Coupled with Z amount-for a handout I need to buy for Arguementative Writing-and I am now officially up S, creek, without P, paddle. On the other hand, the Bible says fasting is good for the soul.

Watching: my blood drip slowly from my fingertips; crimson falling¹, end over end, down to ear-seriously, Yahoo! LAUNCH music videos.

The galling part² of it all is twofold: firstly: I've bought this upon myself. I probably wouldn't be in such dire straits³ if I had gotten a job, bought the handout when we were told of it's existance, and learned to drive last spring so I wouldn't have to spend two bucks a day on the bus. Secondly, I am a graphic Design/illustration major, and to date none-a word which here means "Jack diddly"- of my classes have prepared me one bit. Not even 2D design, which seemed to involve all but working in two dimensions, and more buying expensive art supplies which would only be used once.

Like Ian said: Ideas you can get anywhere. Skills to express those ideas are what I need.

Actually, what I need is a Wacom Graphire3 4x5 or larger. Or a Mac Mini. Or the Amazon gift certificate for the worth therof. Pretty please.

Because you know you've always want to blow hundreds on a complete stranger.

LATER-Hmm. The lady at the next easel wants to pay me half the price of the pack to share it for the duration of the lesson. Um...sure.

LATER {2:10 PM}-My second class today, from one to four, effectively finished at two. I stared at the table for ten minutes until she told me to go to the library and do research online.

Yes, ME.

Assgning me to do a task online is roughly equivalent to giving a junkie a pipe, a book of matches, a pound of Jamacian uncut, and and a Bob Marley CD.⁴

So now I have two hours of web time.

Which my parents are paying for.

Mwahaha.

It's possibly just my medication wearing off⁵, but it seems that I'm more attractive to girls now. I was leaving the copy center earlier, and a girl said "come here". I paused with one foot in the air, looking for all the world like a black Fabio.

She had a strange smile.

"No," I said, and went to Wendy's.

LATER-I really, really want to see Cursed. Which is odd, because I'm far more excited by some dude's rippling ads I saw in the trailer than a straight guy should be. Of course, I got excited at the bed scene in the trailer for Americal Werewolf in Paris. You know, the one where Julie Deply pushed Tom Everett scott onto the bed, straddles him, then pulls up her shirt to reveal she's a werewolf. Of course, I was all of ten years old at the time. Which, in retrospect, is really creepy, but I also recall collecting pictures of women in thongs⁶ at seven or so.

1. Which sounds like a DeviantART photography title. If you have to ask, you won't get it.
2. Which sounds like a new Good Charlotte single.
3. Which sounds like a hot new emo band, world premeiring their hot new single 'Parlez-vous le anglais en que?' right now, on TRL.
...
I'll stop now.
4. Not that I have anything against Bob Marley or Rastas. My best friend is Chinese.
5. Don't I wish.
6. If you must know, they were on our churches front lawn, and I wouldn't learn what masturbation really was for another seven/eight years or so.

//and fools aren't going to follow·you don't send the sleaze about

he drinks a whisky drink·he drinks a vodka drink

2005-02-01T13:59:00.000-08:00

Whenever a car approaches me, I evaluate the skill of the driver within, and thus its chances of hitting me based on several factors.

1. The depth of the winshield tint, the extent to which it covers the winshield, and whether it is the traditional black or purple.

2.The proximity of the lowest edge of the front and rear bumbers to the ground. If they seem dangerously low because of modifications, then the risk goes up.

3. The volume of the music eminating from the car, which, if it meets the qualifications above, is almost invariably rap or reggae. No Mozart found here. Rap implied a slightly etter driver than reggae, but not by much. Any reggae mentioning 'Jah', 'rain', 'Zion', or 'Babylon' is especially perilous.

4. Whether the driver is wearing a do-rag under a baseball cap, and or a Tupac or Bob Marley t-shirt, especially if the later also features a lion, if he is male.

4b. The height of the driver's hair, and it's practicality, as well as the length of her nails, if she is female.

5. The shininess and apparent cost of the car's hubcaps.

There are several other factors, such as whether or not the driver has a moustache, and how thick it is. The upholstery of the seats. The age of the driver. But the ones listed are the easiest.

//he drinks a lager drink·he drinks a cider drink

What I really meant to say

2005-01-16T16:33:00.000-08:00

My brother is leaving for college today. Since he may or may not return this summer, he may be away 'til next December. I will officially Not See Him until this summer, at least. Coupled with this is the facct that my sister recently won a French scholarship and will be away for the entire month of July. I will have our PC just to myself for an entire month.

I need to learn how to drive by then.

My 'road test' was yesterday. I made a lot of mistakes, and my brother said that he got his license two weeks after getting his permit°. I pointed out that he had been training since thirteen at the time, meaning four years experience. I had barely been training a year, and only rarely. He changed the subject: Maybe I would like to drive an automatic first?

That really stung.

This, of course, occured after I narrowly missed a police car while pulling out.

I am going to learn how to drive by March. My mother said she will stop paying bus fare by then,° and I'm sick of those things anyway.

My point is, I need to become more independant. I need to stop slacking on school work, and get a job. Most importantly, I need a small army of ninjas.°

P.S.: Wait...Ali can buy me a Jump/Flash Drive and a Wacom. Yesss.

1. Required by law in the Bahamas.
2. I'm not sure what effect that would have, as she doesn't pay bus fare now.
3. Just as long as I meet no pirates.
//is that I'm sorry for the way I am

14 01 05 Breakup.

2005-01-14T13:32:00.000-08:00

I was watching VH1's Top 20 Video Countdown. My brother came in and Told me that Brad and Rachel broke up.

Hilarity ensued.
//to everyone he meets, he stays a stranger.

090105 Ohcrap

2005-01-10T07:28:00.000-08:00

Earlier today, like, minutes ago, I was enveloped in an effusive huge by a large, middle-aged black woman.

I hate hugs by a large, middle-aged black women.

Including my mother.

The woman in question, to be sure, is on my list of "good people", a list which also includes Bill Cosby and Mace Windu. She's a devout Baptist, a good cook, and sends my family food sometimes, especially when my brother is home from college.

But she hugs too much.

My theory is that she views my brother as a son.* When he's away, I become the surrogate Ali, even though I'm taller by an inch, and he has 25 pounds on me. Whatever the cause, she hugs me in a way that I don't let my own mother. The only bosoms I ever want to lay my weary head upon belong to Jesus, my future wife, and Cameron Diaz.* I trust issues I think I have can only be exacerbated by assault glomping by a woman twice my size and weight.* Eventually, I'll turn into Tony Shaloub's Monk. Hopefully I'll dress better.

In lcal news, a local 18 year old is finding himself seriously challanged to find motivation for his art. More at

One of our deacons just got carried out of church.[hr]

The entry above, including the foootnotes, was written yesterday in church. The deacon in question underwent a quintuple bypass several years ago. I remmber the sory, because my mother used it to convince me not to eat another egg. Seriously. I believe I was ten. The guy was 50 then. In retrospect, a quint bypass might not have been immediately precipitated by one more egg.

1.Yes, she has a son. But he's ten or so. My brother's, what, 23?
2.Preferably in reverse order.
3.Conservatively.

//everytime you walk into the room·I'm afraid to move

G4 has lost it's freaking mind.

2005-01-05T11:38:00.000-08:00

I did not, originally, type "freaking" in the title.

Ahem.

When Read or Die aired on Adult Swim a week or two ago, I was pleasantly surprised. R.o.D. was actually pretty good, and I could really empathize with the main character, Yomiko Readman, a girl so engrossed in books that her house is lined in them she ignores a car accident happening right in front of her. That, of course, has never happened to me, though I have nearly caused several accidents through my bibliophilia. Watching the Movie was key to understanding the event in R.o.D the TV(OAV), or in plain English, the series.

This series was airing on G4TechTv's "Anime Unleashed." Monday night I turn on my television to find family guy returned to it's regular time slot.(They always switch it with Futurama during sweeps, and I don't know why.) I was also surprised to find Unscrewed missing, as well as AU. No one seemed to have informed TV Guide channel of the change, however.

This leaves the program formerly known as The Screen Savers, and X-Play, which G4 is also slowly chipping away at. They started by giving them a new set which wouldn't be so bad if I was colourblind. The elements of that thing all clash. And what are they doing with the bar? Kids watch the show! They don't need a bar! Exclamation mark!

Also, the name is being changed back to G4 in the spring. They are dropping all pretense now.

EDIT: Hmm. They seem to have moved it to 1 AM in the morning. Strange. XPlay and AU were all they had to compete with Adult Swim, the Daily Show, and other late night stuff.

//why don't we gyre and gimble in the wabe

Disasters and artists.

2004-12-29T14:11:00.000-08:00

The numbers keep climbing.

I am an undemonstrative man. [Legally, I'm barely a man, having just turned 18 on the, um, 18th.] I however, moved by the recent disasters in the East. On these occasions, acts such as this snap into sharp focus. Clio Chang is also participating an auction, proceeds toward the Red Cross.

It really, really make me want to do something.

Several years ago, after the 9/11 attacks, several recording artists participated in benifit concerts. I was not a member of DA at the time-in fact, I was only dimly aware of it's existance-but I suppose there was a similar reaction. The scale, also, in much greater. Less than ten thousand died on the 11th. The current, rising death toll is over 70,000. There was also a difference in causes. A tragedy precipitated by nature always feels much more arbitrary that that brought about by human intellegence-or rather, evil. All the attacks destroyed was two skyscrapers, sereral planes, and a portion of the Pentagon. The floods have left behind farmland art property which will be unusable for month.

Nonetheless, this is not a time for contemplation, but a time for action. I urge you to donate wherever you can.

Merry Christmas.

2004-12-25T14:21:00.000-08:00

Tidings of comfort, joy, and substance abuse¡

//a little less conversation·a little more action

Concerning parents.

2004-12-23T22:37:00.000-08:00

And their wicked, theivsing ways. Gollum.

Of late, my parents have begun to criticize my lack of social skills. I will freely admit that I possess only the most basic skills when dealing with my elders. I can, however, make friends amnong my peers quite easily. That said, when my friends are not around, I usually have my head in a book. My brother, who used to work at COB looked up his friends there upon his return from college, and returned home criticizing me for not hailing anyone because I am always reading. But I like to read. I have, however, found Ali's name to be a grease to loosen stuck bueracracy in some cases, and when someone stares at me and asks my name, I usually supply it, with the addendum that I am Ali's little brother.

But I digress.

The most recent occurance came about around one when I decided to stay inside. Please note that I had spent most of yesterday afternoon outside, and the only place my mother was going today was to return aluminium pans to several locations. The one motivation I might have for going out was that one of the people the pans were being returned to may or may not have Halo 2. Even then, I would only experience minutes therof. Minutes, I say.

Screw it. I went anyway.

//people believe anything you tell 'em to

201204

2004-12-20T15:09:00.000-08:00

There are points when a usually fun task becomes just another task, just another "to do". When this occurs, it is best to stop doing said thing to mine. I say this because I have become burned out on my eLife. It comprises mainly My DeviantArt account, my Gaia online account, and miscellaneous forums and webcomics I patronize. However, the fact remains that I barely touched the computer for the past two days, and my fingers still hurt after mere minutes of typing. I'm going to finish a Gaia commision, and that's it.

When I was younger, my family had no cable. We watched the local public access channel. Singular. Whenever we went to Solomon's, the local SuperStore, I used to sneak in after my mother and sister went in, watch as much cable as I safely could, then try to meet Mum and MJ at the cashier. I often came too late, or far too early. For some reason, when I recall these days, they are tinged with blue, like the scenes when everyone is in the real world.* Just like the world seems to be these days.

Childhood memories are impervious to cold.

I can recall running around in the dead of winter in shorts with ashy legs, my sister literally assault-lotioning me fom the front seat of the car, specifically because it bothered me. I am currently wearing a beanie. Inside. Everytime I venture outdors for even seconds, I emerge chanting "Cold. Cold." as some sort of talisman, to ward off the cold. *The air is once more tinged with blue, and I half expect Morpheus to emerge from some canaverous spider's web of machinery in a tettered shirt, wiping his hands on a rag and announcing that we need to get to broadcast depth. Which is silly. We lost our antenna ten klicks back running from that Sentinel. Our only hope now is to get to Zion before the Matrix finds us again.

According to Weather.com, the temperature is currently 66°F, but it feels like, um, 66°F. I'd talk more, but a Nasenex commercal about a bee with pollen allergies just came on, and I have to go laugh at it.

//there is one tree left in kyoto

Livejournaling for fun and profit. Execpt it's not fun. And there no actual "profit", per se.

2004-12-04T16:29:00.000-08:00

Let's talk about LiveJournals.

I have one. That is not to say I actually use it, oh no. I keep it solely for the friendslist. No-one I have on there is actually an angsty teenager. If I wanted that, I'd look in the mirror. (*rimshot*) In fact I doubt any of them have any personal problems at all, with the exception of Yuki_Onna.* But she's a writer. It's in her job description, immediately preceding "wear large flowing dresses in in dark colours and expensive fabrics", following "live in a gothic/victorian/colonial-inspired manse", and two items below "drink heavily". I also have an artist/webcartoonist, another artist/webcartoonist, an artist/webcartoonist/film buff/activist, and a photographer with works of such skill that they will cause your jaw to hang open and you to stagger slightly to the left upon seeing them.

Several thousand were shocked recently when a LJer killed her mother. (Allegedly) Well, not so much "shocked" as "I told you so". The story rapidly circulated through messageboards, and there were even news stories. The strange part is that the story is real. The entries in her journal have been slowly disappearing, even the ones without pertinent evidence, like some eldritch mist or rumors about the next Harry Potter book.

This further corrobrates the story, since a girl matching the profile has been bought to court on a murder charge. It is reasonable to assume she gave her lawyer...or...someone...her password. In fact, in her last post, she stated that she would be "away for a while".

I digress.

A week or two ago, I decided to move from my longtime residence at Diaryland. I had initially joined Blogspot for the fake Mendacium blog. Then I abandoned that and went, "Well, I have an account, why not really use it?" And thus, the Pundit was born. And then the move. There are several areas in which Blogger kicks DL in the short n' curlies, knocks it into a cocked hat, runs it over with a steamroller, and pees on its grave. One is the interface. To add a DL entry, one must;

Go to diaryland.com.

Click Sign In

Realize the caret isn't even in the Username box by default.

Position the caret in the Username box.

Enter username.

Hit Tab.

Enter Password.

Hit Enter.

Click on "Add an Entry".

Nine keystrokes. Nine long keystrokes. Blogger:

Go to Blogger.com.

Enter username.

Hit Tab.

Enter Password.

Hit enter.

Click on the plus sign next to the appropriate blog.
Done. 5 strokes. DL takes three pages. Blogger takes two. The format is better too. Th e only place where DL could concievably have an edge over Blogger is in template simplicity. DL's templates involve simple HTML with a few special commands. Blogger templates are a frightening melange of comments, tables, and unfriendly special commands, and random capitals, with their key hidden somewhere in the fathomless pit known as Blogger Help. Men have gone in and ended up in psychiatric institutes, lying on their side in thin white cotton jackets with long sleeves, mumbling incoherently about "AdSense". I plan to take it on as soon as I have a stiff drink. Or three. Strictly medicinal, you understand. For my nerves.

*I do not think Ms. Valentine actually has personal problems. I just needed a joke to go there.
//like toy soldiers

I have one thing to say...

2004-12-03T13:35:00.000-08:00

Frick yes.

In my worikings with Powerpoint at this COB lab* for my presentation on Minimalism on monday, I seem to have developed a new design style. Fittingly enough, it's uber-minmalist, and I could use it for webpages easily. In fact, I think 'll scare up some templates once I get home.

Happy happy, joy, joy.

*I came here specifically to use these computers. I even brought a floppy. Naturally, the PC I'm on doesn't have one. I'll have to upload the file to my website, and download it onto the computer I'm borrowing for the presentation.

Humor.

2004-11-29T16:48:00.000-08:00

I have observed that my humor, like my art, comes easier when I stop trying. It was observed today in class today by one of my compatriots that I was trying too hard. Don't I know it.

Admidst several complications, I have accuired a substansial backup of half done PhotoShop projects. I have a Halloween piece which is still just a sketch.. Yes, that's Halloween I said. My PC is buggier than ever. I have homework up the wing-wang*. Finals in a week, and none of my courses have quantative knowledge evaluations, oh no. I have to do a presentation in one week, which I have not yet begun to write. I have evaluations in both 2d design and Drawing Fundamentals, and I have an in-class reflective essay for English. As well as one to write for tommorow. And one due last Thursday, saved only by the good graces of my DF teacher, whom I really like. Unfortunately, my Figure Drawing class next semester entails Sue Bennet, a highly militant lecturer. Not militant feminist , or militant rightist, just militant. She allegedly paints over students' canvases with white if she doesn't like the work. Apparently some of her students are on their third acrylic set this year. I'm still on my first, and my black is almost full.

My 2D teacher asked me what I'm talking next semester. I replied, "Hopefully, Prozac."

Laughter.

My mother has issued an ultimatum. If I don't learn to drive by March, she won't pay bus fare. Strangely enough, my father pays for bus fare now. I plan to enlist my brother and father's help, failing her. I also plan to play the Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, when we visit the US next year. I also want to buy a tablet. One of these things is not like the other.

*And believe me, it's hard to get up my wing-wang. Trust me.

stopthebloodyLaughing

2004-11-18T13:59:00.000-08:00

I close my eyes, put pencil to paper.

I have an alter-ego, that goes in and out with me.

Stevenson's throbbing in my head as I pull myself to my fight. "Who's there?" I call, and the room filled with darkness, spins dizzily away from me.

Suddenly I realaze that there's no light, but I can see myself perfectly clearly.

"Ah," I say. "Dream."

Suddenly, I'm looking at my alter-ego.

He wears, of course, a dark blue hat and t-shirt, the former bearing the legend "63", the latter bearing a pseudoChinese symbol I made up, both in white. His long-sleeved undershirt, his slacks, his shoes-all black.

I can't see his eyes.

<>He won't stop grinning.

'What are you smiling for?' I ask, feeling a simmering rage building. 'You're behind on your schoolwork, your artwork, your school artwork, and several other things. You're too shy to ask for a perfectly good job, you haven't played your videogames in months, and you have a crap PC. You haven't worked on your new comic in about that time, your parents won't let you buy a graphics tablet, and you've done no prep for your future career.'

He keeps smiling.

Jagged lines, smug son of-a-

'Answer me!' I grap his shoulders and shake, not bothering to bite back My Rage, focusing it all on him. 'Answer me!'

He shifts, twists, and blows away, like so much dust.

I stand silent.

"Of course," I say.

That lump entry I promised.

2001-10-03T16:00:00.000-07:00

Get comfortable. You're gonna be here for a while.

July 2nd 2001
12:49
I went into M-J's room to get my GBC outta there. I snagged it, along with a
book I wanted to read, and ran out with M-J hot on my tail. But
halfway there she turned back, went into her room and slammed the door.
Mummy went down there and M-J didn't open the door at first. Five
minutes later (after the door was opened), M-J had to clean the room
in 30 minutes, or else. 45 minutes later both Mum
and M-J were asleep. But M-J's room was clean. For twice.

July 6th, 2001M-J is getting
more sarcastic, rude, and generally je ne sais pas (I don't know what) by the day, minute,
second..choose your time increment. Anyway, she keeps insulting me, Alistair,and other innocents. I was looking
over her shoulder today as she was @ chickclick.com and she was looking at an article about how your
birth order may affect one's personality. The lil'est child (which
M-J is) was said to be a perfect angel half the time, and the other
half..not. Or was it the middle child. (J'ai oubliere)
Regardless, M-J's like that. In public, she's nearly perfect,
if a bit to obsessed with "Tetris" and a bit ready to mouth off
to her acquaintances to/about me. A privat she's
horrid, except without the curl in the middle of her forehead. Even as
I enter this from the text, she's probably hanging arond, begging me
to go to "one site, just one, please. I promise I won't take long."

About the second line, when you click on it, it'll take you a
collection of...interesting...pictures. Just keep entering consecutive
numbers in the place of the "1", that is, between the "gallery/"
and the ".jpg" until you get to "69."

QUotE: What was the name of the fat man in
"Popeye", who said, I'll gladly pay you Tuesday?"

July 5th, 2001

UNUSUAL
CIRCUMSTANCE; So there I was, arriving @ the food store. As we pulled up I saw two girls and a boy. I did
what any 14-year old, pubesccent boy would do; and we all know what that is. One
girl was talking on the public phone,with the boy leaning against it. The one
I'm focusing on was wearing a red top and had a tatoo on her right arm. As we
pulled up, I cdould have sworn she gave me an appraising Look. It was also a
"Come Hither" Look. Even if I imagined it, she still gave me a Look. I was, at
the time, wearing one of those safari hats, with khaki "camy" fabric; a 'Bok
shirt, and Tommy jeans.

Halfway to the door, Mummy asked me if I had "secured"
her door. About five seconds later I was heading back to turn up her window and
lock her door. I swear, the girl was Looking at me on a wholesale basis (We're
talkin' Staring folks.). So I went inside and walked around trying to
throw M-J off the cart by stopping it suddenly, until Mummy got fed up and
pulled it herself, after which, I soon got my hand on a copy of "Electonic Gaming Monthly". What intrested me was
the "Sonic Adventure 2" poster
contaned within the plastic wrap. A while later, while Mummy was at the
counter, I slipped around to the next, unused counter with a copy of "The Spectacular Spider-Man" A fly landed on it,
right on the page when Peter Parker and Ezekiel "Sims" are talking in the cafe.
J.Mike Stratosphere (I mean than as a compliment.)is doing a dem good job as
writer, a dem fine job.

Annotations: Nov 18th 2004; Wow, I was horny then.

Question of the entry: Why does Spider-Man usually fight animal types?

Prayer Marathon

July 9th, 2001
09:13 PM
Here I am with a pillow on my lap, at an annual prayer marathon, in my church, This marathon seems to drag on. And on. And on. I went in the back with Dennise, from my last entry; M-J, my sister; Giselle, two 'l's, and she's not a model; and several "indiscriminates" younger than I. It took a good half-hour to write this down and Dennard, Dennise's lil
brother (6); and 'Nikki (pronnounced Nicki, full name Tanginique, about the same age) crawling around, and yelling, and jumping me don't help. The Three Grrlketeers, are just chatting about girl stuff. If you like games like the Zelda series, that take quite a while to play, click on the next line down.

'Nard just threw one of Nikki's dolls into the ceiling fan by accident (He was playing catch with himself). Naturally, it nearly kills me.

If the link on the horizontal line above fails, Click Here.

My bro' Alistair just set up the Church's VCR and TV. So we (M-J, Giselle, Dennise & I) are going to watch Chicken Run, which I, personally, like; and found that you can watch the local public access channel through the VCR. It (the image)is covered with static, because the TV has no antenna, but it's better than nothing. Anything more than "ZNS, Channel 13" and you have to get Cable/A Satellite Dish/DirecTV/etc. My mum's cousin has the first two and I think he has the third. He also uses his MSN messanger service to make long distance calls, for free. (Incedentally, the "cheap, fast, and reliable" I.S.P.s (if you are reading this, you should know what that is.) are springing up in these here parts like Jar Jar Binks hate sites after Star Wars Episode one: The Phantom Menace. (Episode Two is nearing completion.)

Now I'm sitting in the church library, with a copy of Peter Lerangis 'WATCHERS #1: Last Stop' published by Scholastic Press, publishers of the (un)acclaimed series EVERWORLD, by Animorphs' author K.A.Applegate. More later. On the floor is a copy of 'The Monster in the Third Dresser Drawer' by Janice Lee Smith. Back to EVERWORLD. Two copies (II, whose title I forget |-( and VII, "Gateway to the Gods", I think). This series has the same "multiple first-person" narration, and unlike Animorphs, there are three boys, but only one girl, none of which are related to each other, but their reason is trust worthy. Also unlike Animorphs, this series takes religious, racial, moral and other issues by the throat, wrestles them to the ground, and pummels about half of them into submission. But more importantly, either the A- of B- words appears at least once a book. You heard me... QUotE: What are you opinions and views (I didn't want to say "What do you think".) on the "Dark" turn Scholastic has been making in recently, specifically, their increase in Sci-Fi and Fantasy books. E-Mail G-book Twofer: QUotE for July 10th, 2001: Have you ever had a 'kinky' dream or fantasy about some one you never thought of as "sexy" before? How did you feel about them afterward?

July 10th, 2001

(Time Unknown)

Situation;
I've been buzzin' to go by Denny [Not her real name] for close to
half a year- really, a whole year, since she got her Donkey Kong
64, N64 with DK64 Game
Pak and an Expansion Pak. She also has Mickey's Speedway (N64),
Mario Party (N64), Pokemon RED and Blue (GBC), The PowerPuff Girls
Paint the Townsville Green (GBC) and DirecTV. This may not
seem like much without the fact that I have only Pokemon RED, BLUE,
Tetris, (the single bestselling game for the Game Boy) a lone Game
Boy Color, and one- count 'em- one public access channel, Where the
only things not in reruns are A) The 7 and 11 o'clock news, and B)
The soaps. Did I mention that she has two a-dorable little
puppies, and the only "pets" (ha!) i have are the three small puppies
that sneaked here through the neighbors fence-only once, the wild
cats that sometimes pop out of the "bush" on one side of our house-
and quickly pop right back in, and the lizards thant sneak in
through ajar doors, windows, and an improperly attached edge in our
screen window. Also, Denny's family is getting a swimming pool,
probably to be completed sometime next year. Suffice it to say, we
don't. I can feel the jaws of boredom closing on my throat. (Sigh.>|-
.

How
I missed out: Coupled with the fact that I bought
my cupcake from M-J and Denny (they have a thriving little
buisness), and went to sit in the minivan (A Mazda
MPV, to be sure.); and the fact that my father
(Who also happens to be my Pastor) was standing against the door,
holding it open, and shaking the hands of everyone who came through
-pastor stuff; and the fact that M-J and Denny were peddlin' thar
wares right next to the door; and the fact that I wasn't there to
see her ask Daddy to go by Denny's; and I wasn't there to see Daddy
say yes.

I didn't find out until I realized that
M-J was getting in the Newkirks' (Not the real name of "Denny"s
Family either.) car and not our own. "Isn't M-J coming with us?'
I asked my brother Ali. "No," he replied. "Weren't you paying
attention?" He then told me what I just told you. I then
proceded to lean back in my seat and attempt to identify the
feeling gnawing at me. I finally
identified it, which took awhile, since I had never really felt it
before. It was, I think, envy
("What?!", you say.), tinged with an (un)healthy dose of
regret. It seemed strange to me that it took me most of the 5+
mile ride home to figure it out. And then I thought, Pulse
wouldn't have this problem. More on him later.

QUotE: If
you ever wished you were a superhero(ine), what were your
powers and name?>E-Mail G-Book

Dream

July 17th,2001

4:37 PM

I had the strangest dream last night. I went in the back of our church, and some how took a shower. our church has no shower, and never has, so you should know that this dream was strange. Then I went back to the main section of the church, wearing nothing but a towel around my waist, and sat in the pew. When I stood up to sing, my towel fell of. In reality, I would have covered myself up, or at least sat down, but this wasn't reality. I kept singing, no one reacted. This was strange.

5:09 PM My third cousin Noah has just arrived. He is two, and when I last saw him (a year past) he was at the staring stage. And now he's at the watching-your-every-move, laughing-when-he-falls-down, but-still-can't-drink-from-a-cup stage. So far today, I've heard him say one word; "Gimme!" M-J is delighted with him. She's a baby person. I like babies, but am more of a computer person. (Here's a question that'll keep ya awake @ night: does ".com" stand for "computer", "company", or "communications.") His mum's name is "Laura" and his dad's name is "Henry". Mum's white, Dad's black. By the way, Noah is British. He speaks Baby with a neutral accent.

8:29 PMThey've gone to sleep, because its 1:30 London time. When Noah was put to bed, (5:10)he wailed for about 45 minutes, stopping whenever he saw so much as an arm, leg, or eyeball, (through the slightly open door, through which he could see everything that went on in the narrow hallway, which he was at the end of)and starting up again when it left. Then he shifted into a "I still see you" mode when he watched intently, for someone, anyone, and when they left, looked intently in the direction they departed for a few minutes, and then resumed his general looking for a "growed-up," his vigil broken only to pick his nose, a trait which must be genetic because...uh..not that I'm saying I do that..[sweat]. I was caught leaving our (I share it with Alistair) room and as soon as I saw Noah's eyes on me, I froze, and began to laugh hysterically after..oh..three seconds, but as quietly as possible, along with Alistair, who managed to gasp "stuck!" during the ten seconds before I stumbled into the bathroom, which is (Duh!) futher away from the room Noah was in than our room. Anyhow, he then downshifted into "I'm not tired at all!" where he lay on his back, looking up at the ceiling, but rolling over at the slighest sound. Then he shifted up, then down again. Then up again. Then down. Then down, into "wake me when my bottle's ready", at last.

QUotE: It's it more fun to have a "dumb baby", a"big kid", a "baby growed-up", a "growed-up", or a "really really old person" around. Which is best in general, to have? And why?E-mail G-book

After not being seen for a long time, teenager writes entry in online diary!

2001-08-17T23:53:00.000-07:00

Yo!

Whassup?
Well, you haven't seen me in a while. Well, a lot has been happening in my life.
->The new Sonic Adventure 2 game coming out and my sub-sequential discovery of the discontinue of the manufacture of the Sega Dreamcast. (And you just visited my diary and discovered that.)

->My acessing my e-mail and discovering that s'more people had signed my guestbook.

Annotations: Nov 18th 2004; What the frick is "s"? Is it a Roman numeral?

->My going to see Planet of the Apes and Jurassic Park III with the McLeans, speaking of which...

I wrote a bunch of entries on the computer Daddy borrowed from his school. (Don't worry, they know he has it.) Without benefit of so much as Microsoft FrontPage, I used Notepad to edit it, and did pretty well. In fact, I'm writing this from memory (of the HTML, that is). But as I was dialouguing(saying), I was planning to cut and paste the entries, in individal entries, to Diaryland. But the way my life is going, I thonk I'm going to have to just do it in one l-o-o-o-ngg entry. (Sigh.)

Ciao!

('tever that means)

Jonathan

QUestion Of The Entry:To find out what th' heck that is, watch this space.....

Annotations: Nov 18th 2004; You wouldn't believe how many open tags I left in this thing. BS must've found about 10. Mostly <DIV> and <font>

Ramblings

2001-07-03T13:29:00.000-07:00

Today, I am a teenager. You may not see me, but I'm right here. A few minutes ago. I added a chat room to this page (just scroll down) from multcity.com. (I

can see all y'all perkin' up ya ears right now)The current traffic, given the usual traffic through this site, should be..

none. Just you really. So now I'd like to share a few of my simple tricks are for kids..

I mean for pumping up traffic to your site.

Sign every guest book you can find that requires you input your website. ("Wait a minute! We've been tricked!" I hear you say.)
Send links to your website, by e-mail to your family, friends, enemies (if you're desperate), and the cleaning lady who talks to everyone.
When the teacher calls on you, stand up, thrust out your chest and clearly say, [Insert website URL here].

Annotations; Nov 18th 2004: I really like that one.

This may/may not get you in the dog house, but it's worth it.

Eventually, you'll have so many visitors that you'll be selling ads to e-bay.

J.K.

By the way, does anyone know why.. uh, I forget.

Annotations; Nov 18th 2004: I'm surprised I even knew what the style tag did, back then. I'm also surprised at my overuse of it and Arial Black. Good thing I didn't know what forums were then. *shudder* —Jonn

A very strange movie-I mean, dream. Yes, dream.

2001-06-22T13:26:00.000-07:00

Entry:

Last night I dreamt I went to Miami. My mummy's (In the Bahamas you can be 85 and still call her "Mummy")cousin, Aunt Jessie (false name) lives there, so we usually stay at her house. (Incidental) Her two daughters and two grandchildren live with her. Her husband is dead, and her two sons live by themselves. None of her children are married. Anyway, the basement bedroom and the Upstairs room are both reached by the same landing. As I was going upstairs, I decided to go down a bit, and check on NeeCee (False name). (I'm saying all this cause I try to be honest...even to myself.)As I got there she was just waking up. She was wearing only a white bra and very short white shorts. **Kinky Alert**
I hugged her and felt through my shirt how soft and warm her breasts were. I'm sitting here writing, and getting turned on by the thought. One thing led to another, and let's just say that when I woke up, I rolled over, because my brother was sleeping across the room. I'd like to know what this dream meant. Did it symbolize the pubescent desire to reach out and...you know some one, or was it in some way, just a wet dream, which, actually, wasn't very "wet" when I awoke. Just write any ideas (About the dream.) in my guest book.