California's Dark

I am now sitting in the kitchen of my parents house, a mere 43 hours since I was here last. Since I left I have turned in one take home final and designed a front page of a newspaper for another final. I am truly happy to be done with school, I finished today, but there is something strange about having free time. I just got home and I am already bored. I wish I brought home my room mates Playstation two so I could play guitar hero or something. Hell, I would even play the original Tony Hawk game if it were the only thing available.

I keep forgetting to explain the titles of my posts. So I will go back ans explain the last couple ones in case people were confused or think I was making up my own. Back when I wrote, "Happiness is a well organized iTunes," I was listening to The Beatles' White Album which was created in 1968, which has the song on it "Happiness is a warm gun." I was just busy making my itunes all nice and organized for the possible arrival of my iphone.

The post above that is titles, "Punch the keys for god's sake." This post was the first post that I had done in a while because of the hectic schedule the magazine forced myself and others to be ruled by. The title comes from the infamous website, Your the man now dog, (www.ytmnd.com) where Sean Connerey's quotes have been immortalized. This post was sparked by a discussion my friends and I had about using the Ctrl+Z command in InDesign (undo) in real life. It's a laugher to us anyway.

The next post up titled "Sing till your lungs give out" was really made by me and just came out of my reaction to the vocals of the lead singer in Paramore. She just hits all the notes and impressed me. Read the review if you want to know more.

And the post before this one's title called "When you were young" comes from The Killers' 2006 album Sam's Town. It's also on Guitar hero 3, but I kept hearing it at the wedding and it sparked my disgruntled comments about my relatives.

I understand that is post is a bunch of referrals to old posts, but maybe if people commented there would be more to discuss. I am looking forward to this winter break and I think I am going to start it now with a nice coma. Oh, before I forget, I am a huge fan of Rage Against the Machine, so I was happy to see that Tom Morello made a new album with his band the Nightwatchman. If you like Tom's stuff I would suggest picking up a copy of the album called, "One man revolution." The title of this blog is from the first track on that album and I am listening to it right now. So far I like all the songs I have heard.

When You Were Young

This last weekend was hectic to say the least. I had my first two final exams on Wednesday and Thursday and I came home after my evening final on Thursday to hang out with my girlfriend. Friday night was the rehearsal for my sister's wedding and dinner with our two huge families. On Friday I also helped my parents set up their house for the after-wedding brunch on Sunday as well as picked my brother up from the airport. Oh yeah and I was supposed to be studying and preparing for my finals today and tomorrow. Let me count the minutes I wasn't busy... 7... maybe.

Even though the weekend was hectic, it was still pretty amazing. My sister truly got her 'fairytale' wedding and is now happily sitting on the beach in Hawaii on her honeymoon. Her dress was really beautiful and the whole ceremony was quite enjoyable. I was getting kind of tired of the, "I remember when you were this tall" comments that everyone seems to say even if they don't remember you. I also felt old when they used the, "when you were young," comments. The entire affair was truly amazing. I was kinda choked up, more than I thought I was going to be, because I hadn't prepared myself to see my sister get married. It didn't hit me until the next day. The increase in family size at the brunch was also daunting.

After the wedding I helped my parents transport all the floral arrangements back to their house. Then before I was able to scoot of to bed, I was summoned to help move in tables and chairs for the brunch the following morning. Little did I know that it would mean I would be doing all of the work with my brother. So we were up till about 1 a.m setting up for the brunch and because I couldn't sleep I decided to re-visit my New Super Mario Bros. save file on my Nintendo DS.

I got to sleep around 2 a.m. and woke up around 9 a.m. that morning to get ready for the brunch. If you are wondering when I studied for my finals, I have not yet and will get to that soon. At the brunch we have about half of the entire wedding guests, about 100 people or so, show up to my parents house. I should have taken pictures, but my parent's living room was packed wall to wall with people and somehow we fit all those people in with tables and chairs. All the furniture was moved into the garage, and then replaced by my twin and I after the party.

In an attempt to be polite to the guests and help out my mom and the caterer I stayed away from my laptop and any school books for a while. When I opened them to begin studying, it was time to go pick my uncle and family up from the hotel and head out to dinner. So after dinner I gathered up my things from my parents house and drove the rainy 45 minutes back to San Jose where I began studying for my 8:30 a.m. final, at 11:00 p.m.

I got my take home final done, but it was a very long night. I took a nap around 2:30 a.m. in order to rest my eyes for a little while, sleeping through my cell phone alarm, waking up abruptly at 4 a.m. and continuing the work. The only other trouble with this weekend other than the fact that I didn't get to spend that much time with my girlfriend is that my hand is swollen from all the hand shaking. Everyone in my family and new extended family shakes with a Texas-death grip. I have black a blues in between my thumb and pointer finger as well as the area on the palm under the pinky finger. The girlfriend is in Mexico so I am trying to find things to keep me busy and off my mind being jealous of her trip.


Black and blues, family, finals, sleeping, wedding, wedding cake

Sing Till Your Lungs Give Out

I am going to admit an embarrassing fact. In 2002 I was impressed by Avril Lavigne's album Complicated. I was in my punk swing and I thought the song "Sk8er Boi" was catchy and had some good guitar in it. Much like my opinion of "Bring me to life" by Evanescence. Avril soon found her way to MTV and my following of the band soon faded away, along with her talent. I truly struggled seeing a female vocalist make her way through the punk-pop/rock scene like Avril did, but I have found proof that I am wrong. Let's just hope this group doesn't kick the bucket after one album.

The band that impressed me is called Paramore. The lead vocalist's name is Hayley Williams and this band already has hope because they didn't name the band after her. So their album Riot! has me impressed. Their hit songs "Misery business" and "Cruchcrushcrush" are impressive to me. Take a look and listen.



The lead singer's vocal range is impressive and although I have not read her wikipedia page, I hear on live105's morning show that she is 19-years old. They preformed at Not So Silent Night and impressed most of the audience members who called in to discuss the highlights of the show. I can't say if the band will last, because these days it seems like no one hangs around for all that long. But if Paramore keeps making music like the tracks on Riot! then I feel that Paramore fans will be happy for quite a while, while most people will forget about Avril Lavigne and her Canadian ass.

Avril Lavigne, Live 105, music, Not So Silent Night, Riot!, Woody Tony Ravey,

Punch the Keys for God's Sake

Another awesome title courtesy of Sean Connery and YTMND.
My friends and I who have been working on the magazine reached a new level of procrastination. You know you have been working on something too long when you start to make jokes about the program applications that you are working with being part of real life.

In a discussion that we were having, we joked about how InDesign's Ctrl+Z command is one of the most glorious inventions. Not only that, but how it would be awesome if you could Ctrl+Z something in a real life situation. The immediate quick fix I thought of was for when that pick-up line fail miserably. Ctrl+Z that baby and poof, your back to where you were before you mentioned the line to try another one in your repituare. But it would have other applications as well.

Another example that comes to mind is like in the movie "Click" where is boss is being a jerk and he just pauses time, hits him across the face and then rewinds. Well I think of it like that, but you could hit him in the face and then see the reaction THEN Ctrl+Z and laugh about it later. But yes, the possibilities are endless with what you could Ctrl-Z. As a designer it makes me laugh at the possible applications of programs in real life.

Cut and paste? Duplicate? Transform? Rotate? The whole effects drop menu? I mean, I know that only Adobe users know what I am talking about, but at least we thought it was funny.

Happiness Is A Well Organized iTunes

As some of you may know, I am really hoping for the man in the big red coat to get me an iPhone for the holidays. Well, in preparation for the event whether it happens or not, it motivated me to create a balanced, organized and awesome iTunes library which my iPhone could sync to. This means I want everything to be ready for easy sorting and syncing. Yes everything, album art, and all the fields filled in (minus ratings). So I copied non-iTunes store music over to my laptop from my desktop and started the process of filling in the loose ends.

The reason I am trying to get all the album art working, is because on the iPhone you use the newer cover flow method of viewing your music. In my case I was trying to get all the music under one album to go under one image for the cover art. The problem, is even if I copy all the same information to easy song except for the title of the song, I can not get some of the music to go under one album. For example, I have the Legion of Doom's album "Incorporated" and even though I have ripped the music directly from the CD, the album art splits into two images for the one album.

I would understand this if there were multiple CDs to the album, like Metallica's S&M 1 and 2, but they just split, and like I said, even after all the data in the entry being the same. I could ask my friend at the apple store but I was going to try and figure it out before I asked an "Apple Genius." He knows how much I loath apple computers. Although I have to say they make some fine other products.

CDs, iphone, ipod, itunes, legion of doom, metallica, organized, anal retentive, obsessive compulsive

Always Last Minute

Have you ever wondered what motivates people to not do something till there is barely enough time to finish the task? Procrastination works in marvelous ways. Thanksgiving always cracks me up. Don't get me wrong, it is by far one of the greatest holidays in my opinion, but people just take it a little too seriously.

I went to Safeway the other day to get batteries for the wireless Guitar Hero controller and already the madness of the Thanksgiving shopping had begun. I was not surprised, but was does surprise me, is how long some people wait to get that turkey and can of corn. When I used to work for Safeway there were many things that puzzled me, but one that always stood out was why people never shopped for the things they needed for Thanksgiving in advance? Don't leave me a comment saying that people just forget, or that they have busy lives that keep them from going shopping. If someone has time to put of load laundry in the washing machine, then they have time to shop early.

The week that the Halloween candy disappears from the shelves (which is actually the night of Halloween) they start loading the turkeys into the open freezers. This would be the opportune time to go out and get one, stick it in the freezer and not have to worry about it for a month. Sure, some people don't know how many people are coming for Thanksgiving, but you know... you could call them? Oh wait, we live in a society that is afraid to pick up the phone. (myself included) Also, it is not like you couldn't get a second turkey if you needed it. Everyone these days has one of those stupid "Set it and forget it" things.

What peeves me the most about last minute shoppers is that they always do it two to zero days before Thanksgiving. This causes people to stand in checkout lines that extend all the way down isles to the back of the store sometimes. This only further slows down the process, because people are fighting for positions with their fully-loaded karts while other shoppers are just trying to reach merchandise on the shelves. The isles are barely large enough for two shopping karts let a lone a whole checkout line full of them.

If I could offer some words of advice to you shoppers. Avoid the day time. Just go at three in the morning and get your shopping done if you absolutely need to shop before Thanksgiving. There is no one in the store and the shelves are stocked since the night crew has been hard at work filling the empty spaces that eager shoppers have created in the day. Also if you are going to go, leave your kids at home, there is no point in bringing your rug-rats into the store so they can kick and scream and make you look like a bad parent for not buying them a whole two liter of orange soda. I know, I love it too... I do, I do, I do ooo. Have some respect for the other pissed off shoppers. Chances are they have been sitting in the same crazy-ass line you have also been waiting in. Also treat the employees with respect, if you treat them like crap, I guaren-damn-tee they are not going to want to lift a finger to help you locate the organic stuffing mix. (It is in produce for some reason) Then again, you could avoid all of those things by going at three in the morning.

Even though it sounds like I have disgust for the holiday, Thanksgiving is actually one of my favorites. By the way, the lady at the register forgot to bag my batteries, so I will have to go back, but I will bring my camera and take some pictures. So be safe this holiday break, eat lots of good food, watch some football games and don't yell at your family members. I know I will be holding back the urge to. Happy Thanksgiving.

Procrastination, Safeway, long lines, Thanksgiving, Turkey, Holiday, Shopping, Guitar Hero,

Pinball Wizard

It has been confirmed. I officially have no life. That or no exciting games to play. Over the past day I have had a Space Cadet Pinball game open. Oh yeah, I had re-discovered the game after realizing that I need to always be doing three things at once. Multitasking has become my normal mode. Living and being on the computer were just not enough. So I was playing and just wondering how long I could keep the game going.

I looked at the high scores and sort of laughed at myself, thinking that I could do better. Well... I have. And in doing so I have proven that you CAN spend more time at your computer than you want playing a stupid game. I did that before with WoW, but this is something that comes installed on your computer. This has to be some record. I have never seen a high score like it. I played this single round, on and off for the entire day. F3 pauses the game and came in handy.

I literally got every medal that I think you can get. I activated the gravity field and multi ball mode numerous times. The missions keep getting harder but the points are insane. On the second to last mission that I completed, I was awarded ten million points for completing it. I am just going to sit back and enjoy the site of this high score. 414,120,250 points. Here is my screen capture.

That took so long to do, I might never open that program again. I really need something else, other than blogging and computer pinball to waste my time on. Got any suggestions?

Are You F@#$ing Kidding Me?

I try to keep from swearing in public and also not using vulgar language when I write, but I have just got to vocalize how much I hate censored music or "clean" editions. When you buy something in iTunes that is edited for adult content it puts a little [clean] icon next to your music. For music that has adult lyrics the also put in a [explicit] next to the song. But no offense to Apple, but that is the type of thing that makes a teenager listen to it.

I just recently got Sugarcult's album "Lights Out" and I was disappointed to find out that it was the clean version. I am 21 years old. There is no reason for there even to be clean versions of music available for me to search for. I want to listen in the original form that it was created, in all its obscenity goodness.

I do my online music shopping by getting ideas from Pandora.com which is an online music sampling space. They don't let you hear songs again once you have heard them, or let you choose songs for that matter.The Idea behind Pandora is to make the user experience music by breaking it down by genre and style of the music you like. Oh yeah, and they don't censor their music. With the whole Sugarcult thing, I was more disappointed than Chris Rock when he bought a clean Jay-Z album. Then again, being able to watch vulgar stand-up comedy acts, make people laugh like this one, (Only Click If You are 18+ years old. Adult Content)



How hypocritical of me to even give you a warning.
So again, the whole concept of cleaning up music confuses me. Kids are not listening to music and then going out and yelling obscenities because they hear them in songs. This is my same argument for video games. Kids are not going out and killing people with guns because they learned how to shoot in a video game. The thing is, everything a kid is going to learn is from the family and school environment they grow up in. So why the hell are we still putting warning labels and making clean versions of music? And don't even think of leaving me a comment about the warning labels on cigarettes. People who smoke choose to smoke also choose to cash their lease on life in early.

Inspiration On Demand

It is amazing what can happen in one day. Yesterday a comment was left by a moderator of jackbook.com, the website who was hosting the iPhone template I commented about not working. In the comment I got a copy-pasted how-to guide of how to fix the template. Even though I didn't mention it in my last post, I had taken the necessary steps to host the images for the template on my own and properly inserted them into the HTML editor. The comment felt like a weak attempt of saying "It's not our fault you're stupid."

I deleted the comment because I have moved on from the whole iPhone template and decided that it is easier to make small changes to the blogger templates in order to make it different but personalized. I am not HTML retarded for the record. I know how to make all the changes to the template to get it to work, but the comment left by the jackbook rep made me realize that they think I am.

Which lead to my early morning (for me) post about the politeness of comments on the internet. Sure I did call the result of my attempt to make the Iphone template work on my blog, " Transformed into a ridiculous piece of garbage," but it is not like I was directly insulting the creators. It was merely a creative attempt at me voicing my opinion about the increased difficulty of installing that particular template. You know... the main reason people make blogs. To publicly share their opinion.

I was shocked in the first place that they found me (even though I linked to them) and that they were peeved enough with my comment to try and tell me how to fix my template even though I have already decided to not go with it. The whole thing just put me in a sort of funk. Now that I think about it I might put the comment back up just so you all can see how funny the whole thing is. Sure people don't read instructions when they buy things, hell I don't read instruction manuals in video games I buy. But to assume that people don't read install instructions for blog templates (especially when they are not created specifically for you blog host) is like saying people don't read the details of their "cool-down period" before buying a gun. Am I going to get it immediately... NO!

But I have better things to do, like look for presents for the holidays and research the iPhone. I am going to end this post here, I am starting to sound like the ranter of old. Comments and critiques of the new blog look are still welcome. Let me know what you think.

Rise From The Ashes

If this is your first time viewing my blog, welcome. For those of you who are coming back and wondering what happened, I have a story to tell. Yesterday I was looking for something new to make my blog stand out amongst the rest. I wanted my blogger template to resemble an iPhone because of the most likely purchase I am going to make. So I looked around the net and found a template that looked awesome. (Their image is awful.) I loaded the xml file into the template modifier in blogger and awaited the transformation. My page was transformed alright. Transformed into a ridiculous piece of garbage.

Nothing that I saw in the demo worked. Everything including my profile was erased in my eagerness to have my profile look like an iPhone. In my haste I did not create a backup of my template for blogger. Which lead to the day long process of creating a new online persona. My blog used to be called, "Rants of a Former Safeway Employee" and I was known as "Bag Boy" Chris. While I enjoy blogging about the obvious faults of the company (and I still will), it was becoming too hard to focus all my energy coming up with a Safeway related post each week, especially because I only go shopping about twice a month.

So I made this new template and online persona and from what my girlfriend said, "It is more me." I agree. You still can't see my face in my profile photo, but at least I am not wearing a bag over my head. I spent some time trying to make the blog more personal because I usually speak my mind or share about things going on in my life. This, after all, is my serious attempt of building readership and practicing writing for an audience. So, it is not an iPhone template, but I think it looks good.

I am going under a new blogger name now, "Comatose Chris." I think it works pretty well. Dictionary.com defines comatose as: (2.) In a state of deep and usually prolonged unconsciousness. I have no problem with that. Speaking of which... I am going to take a quick coma. Leave any comments about the new name, blog or layout. Anything is appreciated.

Sleeping Awake

So when I can't sleep at night and when I wake up early it is usually because of my neighbor's dogs. As I mentioned in my last post, they woke me up last night, and the morning before that, and the morning before that, etc. I can almost count on being woken up every morning around 6 a.m. No alarm clock needed.

The same thing happens every day as well. The fence in the photo of the dogs in my neighbor's backyard that faces the back of our house and more specifically my window, is supposed to keep the dogs on the left side of that fence.(click on the photo to see what I am talking about.) Well, everyday, the little black dog makes it onto the right side of the fence and the brown dog doesn't like that, so it barks for hours upon hours until it figures out how to move the fence or the little black dog pushes it open from the other side.

As you can see in the photo, the dogs managed to open the fence today, like the day before it and every day since my neighbor built the damn thing. I guess I wouldn't care if that was all they did, but they bark at anything and everything. What makes it worse is they are always outside, their owners never let them inside. I can't even stand in front of my window or have the blinds open without them barking their little heads off at the sight of me in the window. It is sad too because I have a nice view. Maybe it is time to get a pellet gun.

My Curse

Why the sad blog title? Let me tell you. In the last two days I have been working in InDesign for a total of 18 hours. I know you might not think that is a lot, but I spend time in bed, not sleeping, but sitting there wanting to. Yesterday I spent the majority of my day working on projects for two classes which consisted of almost 8 hours worth. Today has been no different. I rose early due to the neighbor's dogs barking and even though my work has been minimal, InDesign is still open and I am fighting with my designs.

Last night when I got back from class I spent the remainder of my night chatting away on AIM and picking away at my designs like tar in my teeth. No, I don't smoke. It is just a good analogy. So my hind-quarters are starting to hurt because I haven't left my chair except for that eating thing and using the facilities. I think if I tried to get up, I would find that my body has melded with my computer chair. The title of this post comes from a band called Killswitch Engage and the song is called "My Curse" off of their 2007 album, As Daylight Dies. It is stuck in my head because it is on Guitar Hero III. Speaking of GH.

Last night I couldn't sleep and then I got up this morning, and while my computer was warming up I played more GH III. Haha, that makes it sound like a drug. I got through the second to last set on hard and then decided to come back to my computer and begin design work. I avoided getting online because the internet has been acting up all day. As it is right now, I am saving after every paragraph just in case I go to publish and the wireless dies again. Well as you can see above, I have decided to use my own images more now that I am designing layouts. I should be getting better with my point-and-shoot camera so I can become better in my field overall. Oh well. That is it for now. Onto more InDesign work. Adobe, if you are out there, I need a job.(Wink)

Dangerous Business Since 1986

I have come to the same conclusion as Ms. Puddin', that I have nothing to write about these days. There is too much going on in my life to find time to sit down and come up with something creative, other than what I have done in the past few days. I seldom speak of the things I do, but I haven't done it in a while, so I will describe my awesome weekend in Arizona visiting my girlfriend.

Have you ever just been in a funk? Well last week was like that. I was sick on Monday and didn't feel one hundred percent until Wednesday. Then I spent the remainder of the week doing work for classes in order to have nothing to do for the long weekend. My goal was accomplished but I was more exhausted than an asthmatic after running the mile.

I drove to my parents house after my night class on Thursday in order to get picked up by a car to take me to Oakland airport the next morning. My flight was early in the morning, 9a.m. Well, that is early for me. I had trouble keeping my eyes open, but was unable to fall asleep due to the large man that sat next to me. I don't understand it either. It was a Southwest flight, you know, the one where you pick where you want to sit. Who would want to sit next to me? A shady, up-to-nothing college student with a hefty pack full of electronic equipment.

I tried to reach my iPod, but the hefty man made that impossible. I was lucky enough to have put my copy of Wired in the seat pocket in from of me. It kept me occupied until we got to San Diego where I had to de-plane and board the connecting flight to Tuscon. On the second flight I was able to sit with no one next to me, but I was too awake from the whole experience that I just didn't bother trying to sleep.

So this past weekend I got to spend an amazing amount of time with my girlfriend. We went to some great restaurants, some of which I wish were here in the South Bay. We rented Fracture, which was a great movie. We also went and saw American Gangster, which was also a great movie, long but great. My girlfriend also took me to see the University of Arizona Icecats (their hockey team) pummel the Long Beach State 49ers. If you can't tell, I love hockey, and it was awesome to go with her, since she had never been to a hockey game before.

I was sad that I had to go home, it felt like a short amount of time spent together but I am not going to complain about the opportunity to travel for the weekend. So it is only a week from Thanksgiving tomorrow, and I couldn't want to start a diet more. Maybe it will be my New Year's resolution. You know... after I eat all that great holiday meals. After we finish the eleven pounds of left-over Halloween candy. Well I need to start working on my design project due tomorrow as well as the TOC and masthead for Access.

Long Long Way From Home

I just finished up another difficult Thursday. Last night I spent most of my time editing papers and start and finishing my design project. The ones you have seen in the past. This week's was a "letter to the editor" page. Finally I caught a break. Men's Health magazine doesn't have such a page, instead they have a bunch of ask experts questions. So I grabbed my beloved Wired Magazine and was overjoyed that I could re-produce their letters, or "Rants" page. If you can't tell from my title, I like rants.

I spent most of my night working on the spacing as you will see if you look at my page below. I stayed up and messed around with it until it looked almost right. Then I got up the this morning and was at it again. Doing those little unnoticeable things that make it a step above ordinary. Also making sure Optimus Prime was happy in the upper left-hand corner.

I am going to Arizona this long weekend to see my girlfriend and get away from all the "workity-workity" I have been doing. After fighting off a cold and still producing more than average work, I am ready for a break. And because I couldn't wait till Thanksgiving to visit her. I would like to thank Things-n-Stuff's "A" for making me the San Jose Shark's 2007 logo sticker. (Looks like the top left of my post) It is proudly displayed on my laptop for all to be jealous of. Anyway, I am going to bed so I can be up early enough to catch my flight. As always, comments and criticisms are encouraged. But go easy, this is my "Precious Wired" you are talking about.

MMORPG's: Like Cocain for Kids

I am what you could call a reformed massive multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) player. I used to spend hours of my day letting my hind-quarters meld with leather of my computer chair, playing World of Warcraft (My undead warlock on Crushridge server). It became a waste of time and as many other World of Warcraft former players will tell you, "just not fun anymore." I kicked the habit over a year ago now, and I have to say that it was one of the best decisions I have ever made.

I had more time to do homework that I wasn't doing in the first place. I studied more and spent more time doing work to my best ability. I started writing more, which probably lead to the creation of this blog. If I was still raiding and PVPing, forget it, I would be two more years away from graduating and 200 pounds heavier.

Now that you know where I am coming from, I figured I could buy Guitar Hero 3: Rock Legends and be able to put it down, with all my mental power and all. Well I can't. I think I have found something more addicting than MMORPGs and that is rhythm games. I looked back on the games that I have played in the past and there are a few that stick out in my head that make me realize I was addicted way before I even thought possible.

I was one of the first kids in my neighborhood to have a Nintendo power pad. This is not a rhythm game, but many people know where this is leading to. I was also one of the first kids to have those flimsy Dance Dance Revolution plastic pads for Playstation. I was hooked on rhythm games and I didn't even know it yet.

The game room on my parent's house was built and upon its completion it was graced by the presence of our very own DDR machine. Thats right people, I own one. I played every day and just didn't think about how hooked I was. How nice to be hooked on something that is exercise. When I moved away to college I couldn't bring my machine with me, so I picked up Guitar Hero.
This became the fatal flaw of my rhythm game addiction. First I played the first edition, laughing at anyone who could achieve such high scores and beat expert songs. Heck, I couldn't even fathom hitting more than three buttons. Who needed four, or even five? Then Guitar Hero 2 came out and that was the final blow. I played that game more than Ellen Degeneres likes to dance on her show. It was phenomenal.

To make the long story short, I have purchased GH3 as you might have read before, and I still can't put it down. It has been more than a week and I find myself drawn to play it with every waking moment. I could see myself buying the next one, but now that Neversoft owns the company, I feel like they will pump out newer versions every year and destroy the series. I mean, look at Tony Hawk, what game is he on now? Eleven?

Can't You Hear Me Knocking?

Like I mentioned before, Halloween is my second-least-favorite holiday. Yes there is free candy and costumes and if you live in Santa Barbra, ST D's and Blackouts. But still it is not in my top five. I should have been motivated earlier on in the week to finish my InDesign project for my magazine design class, but like usual procrastination got the best of me. As well as Guitar Hero III. (Link is to a flash site.)

I arrived home after class and realized that I could spend just two or three songs worth of time playing. I mean, I just wanted to face slash on expert mode, how hard could it be? So after three hours I put the game down and started working on the project I had started in class. While playing I got the pleasure of listening to room mates complain about stupid things and develop a headache, but work still had to get done.

I worked through the temptation to hop back on Guitar Hero and show them who really was a "rock legend," but I had to keep pushing through with the work, because soon the trick-or-treaters would be here. So I scarfed down dinner and then procrastination got the best of me. I went with my room mate to get more candy because we ran out.

We went to Safeway, where the candy was now on sale, and picked up a few bags. I was going to buy some Patron Silver to have for this weekend, but because of the 5.6 earthquake that rocked us in the South Bay, they had none to sell. So we went to the liquor store down the street from our place and picked one up. Best $50 investment I have made in a while. So anyway, got home, unwrapped it and then hid it away for the weekend.

Came back upstairs and churned out the rest of the project. This is my replication of Men's Health's table of contents. The photos are watermarked with other people's companies so they look funny, but oh well. Here it is.
Again, any comments or criticisms would be greatly appreciated.

Damn Orange Fret!

I just read this on Ctrl-Alt-Del, and it sums up all my troubles with Guitar Hero. The character on the left is Ethan and he is the creator of Zeke, the character on his right, who is a robot constructed out of xbox and xbox 360 parts. His faithful but not fully understanding companion.

Push It To The Limit

Everyone has experienced the pain of a crappy shopping cart. Many problems may be found with the carts: there are only three wheels, one of the wheels has not been oiled since oil was invented, an infant has pooped in or around the child seat area, someone has struck your cart with a vehicle in the parking lot, and anything else you could imagine being wrong with the carts. There seems to be no shopping cart that is even remotely enjoyable to push.

I believe that the crappy shopping cart adds to the frustration of shopping. Shoppers who settle for the hand baskets know what I am talking about. There is little frustration when it comes to finding and operating a little hand basket. Sure you can't put your forty pack of toilet paper in it, but at least you know that you won't be rupturing the ear drums of fellow shoppers with your squeaky cart, dubbed "Tin Man."

I understand that people who use the hand baskets are only shopping for a few things, but my post is not a way to help you fix your crappy cart, or tell you a way to fit your two weeks of shopping into a hand basket. Instead my post is to tell you that I had a completely, amazingly average cart today and it brightened up my day.

So there my room mates and I were, standing in front of the evil empire's fortress, #316. I don't know about you, but does anyone else always forget a kart until they are inside the store? (And I am going to spell cart, "kart", from now on because of my allegiance to Mario Bros.) I know... I am a nerd. Anyway, it took forever to find a kart.

When we re-entered we were instantly provoked by the candy section set up for Halloween. Halloween is my second least-favorite holiday, for your information. We each got a bag of candy to give out on Halloween to the children in our neighborhood. The only problem with that is, we might not have any candy left by the time trick-or-treaters ring our doorbell on Wednesday.

Sorry about the candy tangent. So my kart was just spectacularly average. I was thrilled. There was nothing obviously wrong with my kart. I glided from aisle to aisle with ease and comfort. Sure I didn't know what type of bacteria was on the hand grips, but I didn't care. I was happier than Tanya Harding with a steel pipe in her hands. I would like to tell you that I found something to rant about on this trip, but I was so overwhelmed by the outstanding, non-squeaking glory of my kart, that the negatives slipped my mind.

Next time you go shopping, donate to whatever cause they are promoting. I donated five dollars to breast cancer research today. I normally would, but I was more likely to give more, probably because my kart was just so exceptionally not disappointing.

How Much Is Too Much?

First and foremost, my girlfriend gave me the idea for this post. She was shopping at Safeway and noticed that Diet Coke fridge 12 packs had a buy two get three free sale. I thought to myself, "Now that is one silly ass 'sale' they are having." How much soda does one person need to buy? I understand if you live with a group of people or your family, but that is just a lot of soda. It took me a while to get the courage to bring my camera into Safeway, but tonight on a quick trip for chili powder, I took my camera along and snapped a few sales that had me think twice about how much I was saving.


The first sale was for coke products, which was at buy two get two free, instead of three free. Cheap bastards. Sales are created so they can create a shortage of what was last week's surplus product. Pepsi has a sale one week, guaren-damn-tee it that Coke will have one the following. I just could never buy that much soda. I am personally trying to kick the nasty addiction, but I couldn't see me picking up four or five cases of soda and putting them on the conveyor belt. Is this the line to get adult diabetes?

So the other few products I took snapshots of were, the Campbell's Soup at Hand sale as well as Bumble Bee Tuna and Contadina Tomato Sauce. And this brings me to the title of my post: How much is too much? Honestly? Do you need to buy 40 cans of tomato soup so that when it is not on sale, you can think you stuck it to the "man." Sales like I said before are ways for companies to reduce the amount the store has in stock, in a way creating artificial shortages. People think they are saving money but their savings is just a way for the store to move the product.

Buy one get one free, two for six dollars, ten for four dollars, it doesn't matter what the sale is, you would be happy with the normal price anyway. A sale is just a reason to buy nicer things and think you are saving money. So the next time ramen noodles go on sale, think to yourself, "How much is too much?"

I would suggest that you take double paper bags the next time you go shopping, but I was informed that most Safeway stores frown or say they have run out of paper bags when you ask for them. So until then, get triple plastic.

What I've Done

Today in class I finished my editor's page, which is for my newspaper/magazine design class that I am taking with professional magazine aficionado, Tim Mitchell. He is spearheading the class now that we have entered the magazine portion of the material.

For our first assignment he wanted us to re-produce an editor's page from a magazine we like to read. I had Wired, Motor Trend and Men's Health and the only one with a distinguishable editor's page was Men's Health. So I opened to page 28 to start diagnosing the project that I would have to undertake. The first words out of my mouth were, "Oh shit!" For such a tabloid magazine, I was surprised at the amount of design that went into their pages. My understanding of InDesign and Photoshop is limited and there were some things I was going to need help with. One of those things as you will see in my design were the top header bar and the bottom page and label bar. They took the longest amount of time to do.

Here is my re-production of the Men's Health editor's page. I don't know if the real one is online, but I forgot to scan the real one today so you could see what it looks like. Oh yeah, thanks to Andrew and Megan for helping me get InDesign figured out.
So once again, I ask you for your comments. I spent a total of six hours on this, trying to get it right. The images and text are purely of the placeholder variety. Literally, seriously.

Thanks for Nothing

I am about to write a blog about nothing. I didn't get to blog this last weekend because of studying, a bachelor party, and an NFL football game. So here it goes.

Thanks for nothing she said. I had this dream about a love eternal, but I couldn't breathe. I felt a little bit lonely, but I couldn't get the theme song for H Street out of my head. Simple pages were in my mind and it seemed to anger the bloody rage of the titans. I was told to be somebody, but I continued to ask, Hear You Me? I would say I told you so, but that would be a fire coming out of the monkey's head.

Weapons of mass distortion kept me awake, making sleeping a,here without you, moment. But I was A.S.A.O.K. with the thoughts of let you down memories. Uptight feelings lead to a downpour of emotion that could only have felt like tonight. New York, NY was where I wanted to go, but holding me back was the drugs for me.

I told myself she will be loved but I couldn't run from the singled out, kiwi, form of not being myself. Our time is now, and nothing but backwards could take that away. Bad stone is the reason the white boy is back and we just hope to dial nine-one-one to anyone. Good riddance to all the people that do not believe comin' back is an option. 10,000 days is too long, by the way there was a Stockholm syndrome case of frightening Sunday's best.

I have a secret I wish to share with you. Hyper music is the reason fidelity and helping the poor exist. Bliss makes me bad and only makes me feel starless. Someone should issue a missing person's notice for sun rays and Saturdays. Back to the good old days when we were broken, escape, six, and "I'm like a lawyer with the way I'm trying to get you off."

I believe I am getting tired of this growing stronger and into something like a song for the deaf. Stories like these make you want to look at what you've done and just add a --The End--

I needed to write something and so I did. So I wrote a story using my motivation, my girlfriend and the songs on my random iTunes list. I took a song name and then wrote a partial sentence, then added another song name. Song titles are in alternating bold and italics. I tried to change them slightly to make this grammatically correct. So if you read this far, you are probably thinking... Thanks for nothing.

Autobots ... Rollout!

I just bought Transformers: The Movie on DVD and I have to say, I couldn't be more excited. When the movie came out in theaters I ended up seeing it three times. Not because of anything related to not seeing the whole movie, but solely because I didn't mind seeing it again.

So I went to target and bought the movie yesterday and was slightly disappointed with what I bought. Not the movie, but when I opened the package and put the DVD in my player, it seems that you have to buy the special edition package in order to get the behind the scenes footage and anything else other than just the movie. In the package I bought for $25ish dollars, I got the DVD and a small comic book that prefaces the movie. On the DVD there was only the choice of playing the movie or selecting the scenes and languages. Yup, like I said before, nothing extra.

Back to the movie. I grew up watching the cartoons and even though it is not true to the form, the director Michael Bay made an honest attempt not to destroy our childhood memories. If anything my peeve with the movie, is that Shai LaBeouf is the lead roll. There is no reason that he should be lucky enough to get and drive around in the 2009 Chevrolet Camaro prototype. It just isn't fair. Everyone who knows me, knows that I am the rightful owner of the first production model to roll off the assembly line in Detroit. So here is a little clip from the movie.

Down On The Street

The title of this blog comes from a song on Rage Against the Machine's album Renegades which was produced in 2000. The song title works well with this post because I have been inspired by a conversation about illusions. I like to consider myself an "artsy" person, but just when I thought I was good at something, I saw something that made me consider going back to art school.

The discussion began with a website that tells you which side of your brain you use more. I would link it, but I don't remember the Web site. So after seeing the test, I thought about the types of illusions I used to enjoy when I was younger. The "young or old woman" example came to mind; I would put the image in, but I want to save space for the better examples.

So I was looking online for illusions and there was an image of a sidewalk painter who creates visual illusions, some of which I have to show you:

In these examples the artist has placed himself in the image, more specifically with the one on the right. I like also how he has created an edge on the concrete, making it look like this is going on below the pavement. For the "Batman and Robin" art, I love how he used the wall to be a part of his artwork, as a window sill outside of the burning building. In the above image he also impressed me by using the stairs as part of his waterfall. It just shows that a lot more went into this are than the idea and time.

Sidewalk art has always been an amazing sight to see in person, but never have I ever seen anything this extreme or well thought out. In these samples you can see that more has gone into the art than the thought. The placement and incorporation of the surroundings is awesome. So these images have made me a little more interested in picking up my sketch pad again. Seeing something like this on the street would just make me stare in awe for hours.

I really like this one with the sailboat. You can see the reflection of the surrounding buildings in the water. Absolutely amazing. Everything about this one is just great, I was mainly drawn in by the way he makes the ground look like it moves into a sinkhole where the water has gathered. I can't say enough about how much I like this type of art.

A Day In The Life

The song title for this post comes from The Beatles 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. It makes sense for this post because I haven't posted since my sleep deprived night a couple days ago and also because I have been busy. One of the things that has been keeping me busy is my newspaper and magazine design class. We only meet once a week but all week i practice and work out the details for creating a decent page, in my case it was for my midterm I took on Thursday. It was the final portion of the newspaper design portion and we had two hours to pick the news stories, design the page and add promos if we wanted. This is what I came up with using inspiration from the slightly un-orthodox newspaper the Los Angeles Times.
So thats what I came up with. Not so bad for my second major project on InDesign. Let me know what you think. Sorry about the quality. It looked better in acrobat reader.

Insomnia: Now I Gotta Let You Know

"What's got me insane oh-oh
Cause I can't stand the rain eh-ey
It's hitting my window pane
A little too much
And now I gotta let you know..."

Yes I know that it's a lyric from a rap song. In fact it is called "The Rain" by Akon off the Konvicited album, and I am too tired but too awake to look up the year it was made in. So I am up at this glorious hour of the morning because I am having trouble sleeping. The rain has decided to fall and instead of it being an absolutely wonderful experience, I have found some flaws with the house I live in.

The gutters might be clogged and the wretched noise that they make when water is trying to drain off the roof it just awful. It sounds like someone is releasing diarrhea in the bathroom adjacent to my bedroom. Not to mention, not only is it coming from our house, but if I open my window to let in some of the cool air, I have to deal with the same noises coming from my neighbors house. Which one? All of them. This is proving to make me and insomniac.

I have bit my daily limit of fresh necks on the vampire application on Facebook and I have fought and defeated most of the chumps that I can for one day. They funny part is I will have nothing to do to kill time tomorrow between classes. This is just absurd. I have never had this much trouble falling asleep. In my trip to Arizona last weekend, I was sharing a bed with my girlfriend, and even though I hadn't done that in a long time, it was still easier to fall asleep. Even with the "where do i put my arm when we cuddle face to face?" predicament. So I am awake, and at this point, staying up all night sounds like a better idea than going to sleep for three or four hours.

This post obviously has nothing to do with working at Safeway and if you have read this far, you should have figured it out by now. But, I am getting tired of holding my keyboard on my lap in bed hoping to make myself tired. Ugh, but in the paraphrased words of Akon, sometimes I can't stand the rain... its got me insane. Night all you other insomniacs. I will try to go to sleep now.