Me not dead

Hey I am alive and not dead. It's final project crunch time, so I'm working away at that. Procrastinating here, though.

Quick up to date things:

Music - Thin Lizzy, Some earlier Iron and Wine, Lots of Astronautalis and P.O.S as well as a decent amount of Tori Amos I hadn't been familiar with.

Movies - Wayne's World is still incredible, still having attempts to watch Wayne's World 2 thwarted at every turn.

TV - Modern Family, Big Bang Theory, 30 Rock, Married With Children, 3rd Rock From the Sun, Stargate Universe, Boardwalk Empire, all great. So good.

Books - Uhhhhhhhhhh, I'm working on it.

Drawing some comics, be news soon I hope.

Tonight I felt something I haven't in a long time, and it reminded me of my step-dad and I almost lost it. I am not having a good time right now. In other news, I am glad my friends are awesome and keep me from going crazy in situations such as these, and are willing to go out into cold to do so, my friends are the best.

Speaking of friends, Mary is back! Not very good conditions of her return, which is sucky, but as much as I'd like to claim otherwise, I did miss her.

Also, almost winter break, looking for work, sleep, etc.

Its contents watched by sycorax, and patagon in paralax

So I finally fixed the sound card on my piece of shit computer. And by that I mean that my friend Rory suggested something really simple and obvious and it worked right away because I am useless.

Anyway the point is that now I've got access to a working sound-card and would like to use it to my advantage somehow, but I can't think of a way to. So yeah.

In the way of music, I've got a few things to talk about, I think.

First of all is Pearl Jam. I always hated those guys, just based on the few songs I had ever heard on the radio I always wrote them off as annoying and just not my thing. Again, after talking to Rory a lot, I decided to give them an actual chance and downloaded their first album "Ten". I am an idiot. I will never immediately write a band off again without listening to at least an album by them. Ten is great, even songs like Even Flow (which I used to despise) are so good in context. I am going to give the rest of these guys' discography a listen, anyhow.

Next up is The Decemberists, I've liked these guys for a while, but I had never thought to mention them to anybody, just one of those situations where I listened to them enough that I assumed everyone else had as well. They have a sort of a folk sensibility and almost like a 'sea shanty' type feel sometimes, while simultaneously rocking you so very very hard. I would suggest listening to The Crane Wife if you are unsure. Their albums vary as much as any band I suppose, but I think the sound of that album is what hooked me. Very good.

In the way of indie music, I saw a band called Arc The Line play last weekend and they were fantastic. I always like it when I go out to see one band that I like (Max Galactic, in this case) and I end up discovering more awesome bands like this. I haven't given their album a listen yet but I plan to in the very near future, so I'll get back to you on that.

I saw UP, twice. I loved it. I think that it might be as good as Wall-E in my books, I was tempted to say better for a while, but they're just too different I think to really compare in that general a sense (read: I don't know which one I liked more so this is how I bitch out of making a decision).

I am going to see Sonic Youth at the end of the month, apparently, so that should be fun. I am not familiar enough with them to say anything definitively about how I feel about them, but from what I know about them the show promises to be kick-ass. I'll tell you how that went, too.

Then of course there's the Zappa/Dream Theater show at the end of the summer, I am looking forward to that like nobody's business. I will talk more about that later, too.

That's about all I've got right now. I am planning on getting back into Starcraft, so anybody who wants to do that with me should let me know.

Ja

Jeremy Spoke in Class Today

Hey, so I have moved into 67, and spent a night there so far. Other than the fact that sleeping on my bed is like sleeping on the floor but worse, it's pretty okay. The shower is weird and the kitchen is small but those seem like nitpicky things to get mad about when I am only going to be there for a couple of months until I move into 69 in August.

Camping was pretty good. The ranger wanted to find a reason to kick us out the whole time (which she did on the last day because some raccoons got into our garbage) but overall it was pretty fun. There are large portions of the weekend that I don't really recall so that's good.

I went running last night with Rory and Andrew, and am sorry to say that I am way way out of shape. I had to stop like long before anyone else did, and I was pretty well dead after it was done, so that was kinda crappy, but all in all I guess it's a good thing, we just need to keep it up and stuff.

Conan is remaining hilarious.

I saw UP in 3D the other day when we got back from camping. Holy Shit, so damn good. I think it might be as good as Wall-E, maybe (at least in my books) better. Just everything about it was perfect, the colours, the characters, the landscapes, the music, the story, everything was beautiful. Pixar is easily my favourite movie studio right now.

Also, I don't remember if I've ranted about Mother Mother yet, but if I haven't, here it is. Mother Mother is a fantastic band, everyone owes it to themselves to look into their albums 'Touch Up' and 'O My Heart'. They're just front to back amazing.

Speaking of music, I think I am going to see Sonic Youth? I don't know too much about them but I've liked most of what I've heard, and the tickets were decently priced and I don't have anything else going on, so I guess I am down for that.

Gantz looks like it might be coming to a close sometime soon ... it's getting even weirder than I thought it could, which is saying something.

I've done a couple of sketches over the last few days on my tablet, not for any particular reason, just practicing different styles and stuff. Maybe I'll post a couple when I get home from work or something. I don't know.

Man your own Jackhammer

A quick post before class starts just to fill all negative thirty of you who actually read this.

I am no longer behind on work, per se. I am however swamped in it, it's just that I am keeping up at this point. I would feel worse about my situation, but since the strike everyone has been behind, so it's not like I am just significantly worse of a student or anything.

I saw Dragonball:Evolution, aka "The Perfect Movie". Yeah, it was that good (read:terrible). I swear it's like they took the names of some of the characters and wrote something completely unrelated. It was awesome.

Also for some reason they kept calling their ki blasts "Airbending", which leads me to believe that the writers of this movie got Dragonball confused with Avatar. Which is a hilarious concept.

Anyway, prof just showed up, so I'ma go do that thing I pay 8k a year to do.

Ja Ne

"You're locked in here with me!"

So I saw the Watchmen movie, twice actually. Needless to say I loved it (despite having seen it the first time with a group of people who despised it), but I will write a separate blog entry about the movie later, as I want to talk about it for more time than I have right now.

The reason I am in a hurry is because I have class at 8:30 today, and then afterwards I have an interview for an actual factual job as a graphic designer for the school's student centre. As I understand it, I would be designing graphics for events and such that were taking place in the student centre at york. I am pretty hopeful about this, so I hope I get it. If I did, it would mean that I have a job and therefore wouldn't be so screwed for money.

I also have a job interview downtown on Sunday afternoon, this one is for a position as graphic designer for a company that distributes games and movies. It sounds really awesome, but due to travel time and such, if I got the York job I would have to turn this one down.

Anyway, I gotta be heading out, wish me luck!

Your heat is rising

So I started my new classes for semester 2 yesterday, pretty cool I guess. In my Interactivity Design class I figured out how to program a little Java applet that is essentially the Facebook graffiti application, so that's pretty cool, I am working on a program that will let me draw into it with my tablet, and produce vectored lines with varying line weights depending on the pen pressure. Sure, I have a whole set of software that already does that, but this is more fun and I get to design it :)

My design & colour class was ... a joke. We got our first assignment (a look at additive and subtractive colour spectrums and how they relate to colour and light), it was literally the Illustrator equivalent of a paint by numbers. It was awful, but at least it's the easiest assignment I've had to do since grade 7

I also applied for a position as Graphic Designer at the Student Centre here at York. With any luck I will hear from them in the next couple of days and my money problems might be taken care of, then again, I don't have any luck.

I guess I am going to see Watchmen tonight. I am excited as hell for this movie, and I know that it's going to flop financially (maybe even critically) but you gotta admire Snyder for making an adaptation so close to the source material that it will alienate non-fans and, and not give a shit about what it will do to his career, ballsy, that motherfucker.

Cruel Cruel World

So I bought an iBook from my friend Claire the other day. Thus far, it's been pretty good, and I haven't had any problems with it, so that's good. I think the only problem I have with iBooks is the same problem that I have with all laptops, battery life. Battery life is pretty bad with most laptops though, even the newer macbooks, and I can usually get 4 hours or so out of this thing, so I don't really have any complaints!

I finished up the front cover and character profile back page this morning, so that should all be in order as well. If all goes as planned it will be uploaded and waiting for the printers by monday evening.

Anyway, I saw the hulk, twice. It wasn't without it's flaws, but it was still completely fucking awesome. I can truthfully say that it made me forget the old one existed, which is both a pretty astounding feat and a very very good thing.

I listened to Prozzak's new(ish) album finally, and all of the tracks (save one with some girl doing vocals) were awesome beyond my expectations. Unfortunately though, it is still only the second best album by them, Hot Show was just far too awesome. I mean come on, Europa? Milo's Night Out? fuggeddaboudit.

Anyway, I am going to go do a little bit of writing for various comics and projects. I might be going to see Kung Fu Panda or some shit tomorrow, I'll update you on how that goes.

P.S. Everybody watch the movie Monster House, holy shit.

Did you just call me a superhero?

So I saw Iron Man last night, and I couldn't have been more thrilled with it. It is easily the best superhero movie since the first Spider Man, and was actually even better. I agree with everybody who refuses to call it a good superhero movie, because it was a good movie, plain and simple. Robert Downey Jr. was born to play Tony Stark.

I can't wait for Iron Man 2 (which has been given the green light) and I sure as fuck can't wait for the impending Avengers movie.

Also, anybody who goes to see this movie, make sure you stick around until after the credits. Trust me, anybody who knows anything about the Marvel Universe will shit their pants. As a matter of fact, I'm going to post it here, do not highlight the next line unless you want spoilers.

SPOILERS!!!
Nick Fury is there, played by Samuel L Jackson Holy Fuck!
END SPOILERS!!!

It's rare that a movie I see now a days makes me immediately go home and change my wallpaper, and not only have I done this, I have also started to study Iron Man for what will be a fuck ton of fan art to come.

Obviously I will be seeing this movie again at the nearest possible opportunity.

In other news ... well, I don't really have any other news, I just needed to blog about the nerdgasm that was Iron Man.

Ja.