Whitechapel - Saturday Night Open Mic (4dec10)

Saturday Night Open Mic (4dec10)

2010-12-04T13:56:41-08:00

It's Saturday night, and we are open for venting, incoherent shrieking, Proclamations and furious masturbation while speaking in tongues and firing yams out of your bum. And if you don't have any of that, tell me your name, show me your face, and tell me about your week.

Saturday Night Open Mic (4dec10)

2010-12-04T14:16:21-08:00

Okay.
My mate and I plus two girls (close friends of ours for ages) are expecting one baby. A girl, her name will be Rose.
I'm the biological dad but the two mums will be the inner circle around the toddler, as agreed before starting it all.
We almost lost her two weeks ago so we were scared, really scared.
She's rather safe now because her lungs are finished but it's a bit too soon anyway.
She's Expected in February, she was conceived last May 12th which is gonna be the day we'll celebrate her birthday if she finds it witty to be born on Dec 24.
We first wanted to adopt a child since we got money time and energy to help a person to grow up in harmony but since we didn't want to hide from civil servants the fact we are a gay couple things went nasty very soon. It seems lying would have been a better idea but for us it was not an option.

So there.

Saturday Night Open Mic (4dec10)

2010-12-04T14:33:19-08:00

As of next week I will no longer be working for Northcliffe East Midlands. I can tell you as an insider that local newspapers in the UK, over the next five years, will become culturally insignificant and will fade into obsolescence. I should probably change my username actually. In retrospect it was a terrible idea to name myself after my alleged profession. But yes, I will be officially redundant on Friday. Luckily I am insured for unemployment so the house is safe for a year. Unfortunately this means attending the Job Centre once a week unless I can find a job before next Friday.

I'm waiting on word from a place about a Web Content Editor job. The interview with them went quite well and I can only hope that the other candidates completely fucking fluffed their chances. They were meant to have come to a decision yesterday but the snow may have delayed this. I have also put myself forward for a six-month magazine design job. Not as long term as the other job but it is at least design relevant, which is the way I roll. I've found myself considering what my calling in life is recently. Journalism/design was something to fall back on because a degree in music would've gotten me pretty much fucking nowhere. I'm a self-taught musician and quite a proficient guitarist, now all I need to do is start gigging and get signed. Even then I won't be making much money because the music I play is too strange, but at least I'll be doing something that makes me happy.

Maybe being unemployed for a year will be a good thing.

Saturday Night Open Mic (4dec10)

2010-12-04T14:43:52-08:00

face today, urrgh

body is still recovering from back to back beat downs. Last week I got a faceful of MCR. Their fans are not to be underestimated, they know how to get rowdy. I was like a wallflower in the back of the dance floor but ended up getting shoved into arm's reach of Gerard Way, haha. I haven't felt that near-death feeling since I saw NIN last year. So yeah, it was a great fucking night.
Also I encountered this guy while coming out of the stall, what the fuuu--

Wednesday I saw Faith No More's final show in the US. I went in hesitant. I love FNM but I felt like I was gonna go see some hollow nostalgia show. But I was not dissapointed and they put on the most intense performance. I stood through some opening acts nobody cared about, but when FNM came on the night became all about survival.

Anyway, I got shoved once again to the front, so hard that I got the rail and grabbed on to some hook in front of the barrier for dear life. Had a couple crowd surfers land on me. when you see the security pointing over your head THAT is the signal that shit is coming your way. so cover your head!

I didn't take this photo, but it was pretty much the same view I had all night ^__^

I could barely open my mouth to eat after that night, haha. I am ready to just sit this month out and get moar sleep. And I really miss making Space Shark and want to get some new strips done by the end of the year.

Hope the rest of WC is aiight. Take it easy, you crazy FUX

Saturday Night Open Mic (4dec10)

2010-12-04T14:46:56-08:00

@Gekko - congratulations, best of luck.

I can incoherently vent quite well this week. Weather kept me away from work for two days, which could have been great except I couldn't get the work vpn working and so didn't get much done - it's all going to hit Monday. May get stick for not making it in, but I don't think there was any reasonable or practical way to do it without risking ending up stuck in the middle without a means of going back or forward, and after getting stuc k earlier this year and crashing into a tree last year while trying to get to work - fuck it.

Then all the lights fused, and it turned out that the fusebox had been bodged by some fuckwit in an abominable way - my partner nearly fried herself when she started poking around in it in the night not realising there were live screws sticking out.

I finally gave up on my Nokia N97 last week, the thing was badly scratched, so I'd bought a new housing off the web, but typically, it turned up with a german keyboard and the front camera missing and I ended up destroying the phone in the process of trying to mend it. So as I'm a hopeless smartphone mark I bought a new N8, and so far it is a thing of utter beauty, I don't even mind the OS that people seem to be moaning about. It is my new shiny baby and I love it a great deal.

But alas, I'm a physical wreck, shambling around in layers of old clothing, my heel is splitting, have constant heartburn and I seem to have grown hugely unfit. Maybe about to die.

And the news continues to get more and more stupid. And sad. Sad and stupid.
At this point I just want to hibernate in a warm, dry bunker with several years supply of food and no way in for the outside world...

Saturday Night Open Mic (4dec10)

2010-12-04T15:02:33-08:00

For the last month I've been working behind the counter of a videogame store and wondering how I could be sufficiently retarded to think this would go well with everything else I do. So I announced my resignation for that reason, and also because I either don't get along with bosses, or my boss is an insane control freak whose blood boils upon seeing the stapler five inches from the place it's supposed to be. She tells me every five minutes that I have no sense of organization whatsoever, usually while I'm logging the day's rentals and sales with the neatest handwriting I can manage on three separate documents, or after seeing me re-arrange all the three hundred games in chronological order and equal spacing.

She's also an evangelist, which is a little joke the universe plays on me regularly. My parents are religious, the first person I fell in love with was religious, and now my first boss is religious. All of them at some point or several talked down to me for being one of those filthy, immoral atheists who are responsible for everything that's wrong on planet Earth and also on Mars and some asteroids. My boss went one step further and, after saying she likes me less for being an atheist (yes, in those words), she told me I'm prejudiced against religious people.

Sadly, my contract says I have to stay for another twenty days. My fantastic sense of timing also led to all this coinciding with a GIGANTIC special issue of my webcomic PITCH BLACK. Special editions are tipically much longer than usual strips, but I got a bit carried away on the script to this one and now it's, oh, three or four times larger than the previous edition, which was almost 90 panels long. And now that I've updated PITCH BLACK's art style to a more detailed version of it, I'm getting seven or eight panels done on a good day. And on the middle of all this I get a regular fucking job because I am a moron. At least the comic's looking better than I'd expected, and I hope people will like it when it's released in February 2016.

I'll probably go back to working as a receptionist at conventions, because that's an every-now-and-then job that lasts one to five days and pays quite well. In fact, that I stopped this for a minimum wage regular job behind the counter of a videogame store hints quite emphatically at my rotting mental faculties. The most I can say for myself was that I needed the experience and also I never expected it to last long anyway.

My hair seems to be returning (so hopefully the bald spots on the upper corners of my forehead were caused solely by two-year-long stress) and the usually devastating depression symptons are coming and going in manageable doses and are, apparently, fading. Depression led to me failing two years at high school. I caught up with that and graduated a week ago, at twenty years of age. So I've been doing well recently.

But that "sleeping" thing still doesn't work properly, of course.

Saturday Night Open Mic (4dec10)

2010-12-04T15:12:41-08:00

Congratulations @Gekko! From the brief photographic glimpses we've had of your world and your friends, it looks like a beautiful circle of creativity to grow up in.

Cheers and a wonderful life to Rose!

My week has been good. I'm really moving now with plans for 2011, and the Occasional Bitslice is rolling along really well, with a surprising number of subscribers and some engaged and interesting feedback. I'm on a weekly schedule with it now, a new one going out every Wednesday. I would not have guessed that an email newsletter started on a whim would be as interesting and fulfilling a project as this has turned out to be. So thanks everyone here who signed up and emailed me replies!

I saw an opera with a gorgeous friend, devoted a larger than usual amount of time to creative thinking, got a handle on something important at work and may be finally stepping into the next phase of a better life. So, excellent week.

Saturday Night Open Mic (4dec10)

2010-12-04T15:28:12-08:00

today, we're getting heat. we went without it last winter. other things we didn't have last winter, but do have now: furniture that is not borrowed, a mortgage, and the internet.

i am terribly excited. things have been so bad for so long that right now, listening to my husband and my father-in-law beat on radiator pipes, i have nothing to vent about.

Saturday Night Open Mic (4dec10)

2010-12-04T15:42:52-08:00

Congrats Gekko and best wishes.

My name is Derek. Mark my words: "Kim Jong-Il is the new Ceiling Cat."

At one of my day jobs this week, the one that involves poking people with needles to make them feel better, we had a free clinic for artists, dancers, musicians and writers.
It was cool since those creative types don't usually have any money. =p

My band 5>1 is playing this show one week hence:

I'm really hoping this band called the Time Traveling Assassins is not just a schtick, but a straightforward denotation of their provenance.

Saturday Night Open Mic (4dec10)

2010-12-04T15:43:40-08:00

Congrats, Gekko!

This week was pretty fun. On Monday I was in Ottawa shooting a commendation for a client and spent teh rest of the week back home editing shots from said shoot. It was pretty fun to go on a business trip, but it would have been nice to have seen more of Ottawa.

And now today is my 26th birthday! From the family I got a home brewing kit, so today was spent making a dark ale with a basic recipe. My baby is now in the fermentor, where it will be for 8-14 days. Here it is: waiting

And now I'm off to dinner with the family and after that, drinking with the friends. I'll see you folks later tonight!

As for a pic, here's one I took last night:

Saturday Night Open Mic (4dec10)

2010-12-04T15:44:12-08:00

Still unemployed. Still depressed (although now that I've called it out, much easier to deal with). Going 'home' next weekend to be hugged a lot and celebrate holidays and make final packing/travel companion plans for Super Awesome Wedding Trip. Realized I don't have room in the luggage for all of the personal luggage, so would like to leave a bunch of it here. Not like it's going to evaporate or anything. Just cuz I won't be around to feed it.

Also, have become magnet for cold critters (just like all of us in the wintry world). And am cranky with the radio choices of fundamentalist church, football games, bad music 1, 2 or 3 and the occasional blip on NPR that tries to make up for it. Have decided that whether or not grad school pans out, will move to place with flat land and maybe a river and some live music and familiar cost of living.

Hope all are well, WC...

Saturday Night Open Mic (4dec10)

2010-12-04T15:49:26-08:00

Week went quickly. Productive at work, meaning I've been finding bugs in software, which doesn't endear me to folks who want to get the thing out the door.

Other than that, a mixed bag. I learned that the lump on the dog's leg wasn't cancer; also just heard that a ancient aunt passed away. I saw her in a nursing home last winter and it was horrible; a once burly woman -- she was a Pinkerton store cop -- reduced to a shrunken caricature. RIP.

Did my first Skype video chat session, with my parents and sister at the other end. Pretty cool.

Creative juices totally dried up. Or, I should say, my creative energies that make the juices flow are at a low ebb. I always come up with ideas for situations and characters, but I'm feeling zero of the holy fire it takes to get it down on paper.

On the other hand, I'm totally cranked on making candy for the holidays. As soon as I'm done here I'm going to candy up some walnuts. Later, they'll go into rocky road fudge.

I don't have the energy for getting out the camera.

Saturday Night Open Mic (4dec10)

2010-12-04T15:57:02-08:00

@Gekko - Congrats!
@oddbill - I've really enjoyed The Occasional Bitslice so far. Keep 'em coming!
@oldhat - Happy Birthday!

This week was pretty big for me, as it involved the official launch of a software project I've been working on for the past 6 months:
The Magnificent Playlist Producer

It's a Windows application I wrote in response to Warren's blog post about the difficulty of assembling The 4 AM. Essentially a mixtape creator, it lets you build a playlist (from pretty much any kind of audio files) and export the whole thing to a combined MP3.

I've released it as shareware, and now need to adjust my headspace from programming/web-development mode into marketing mode. The biggest thing I'm struggling with is the line between "getting the word out" and "shamelessly spamming"....

Anyhow, I invite anyone here to check it out if it sounds interesting to you. (Warren -- I sent an email to your gmail account regarding using it for The 4 AM if you ever choose to make new episodes.)

Also this week: I finally got glasses, which now enable me to see when I drive, and I picked up a spiffy pocket HD video camera (Kodak Zi8) that I'm having loads of fun with.

Overall -- an excellent week!

Saturday Night Open Mic (4dec10)

2010-12-04T16:56:04-08:00

Take 2. Need to make this quick because if I get any later as a Brit it would be cheating to do this on sunday.

Name: Adam (Presumably you don't want the whole thing)

Face: Have a new photo but had issues putting it up from Flickr and am unused to putting pictures on a forum since I stopped using the pic hosting site with the yellow frog mascot.

Week: Has been a good week for me. Parents are away this weekend. I have had my first taste of real work and find it strangely addictive especially since it is mindnumbing but hard reppetitive labour. Even so. It feels good to have worked but now I need to find more due to only temping. Can't slow down not after having tasted what it's like to be a usful and grown up-ish human being. Next week will hopefully be all about sorting this out and hopfully I can start being productive.

Would like to take this oppertunity to thank Warren and WC as a whole for providing inspiration and motivation and stuff. Thanks for being there/here.

Saturday Night Open Mic (4dec10)

2010-12-04T17:05:16-08:00

@oldhat Happy Birthday. May it be full of Ellisian level debauchery.

As for me, I have come up with a new fiction scheme after seeing people's TinyLetter things. Hope to start that in the New Year once I nail down the plot.
But before that I am going back to what I started on the ROTOR thing suggested years ago. All I need to do is corral one of my web savvy friends to make me a site on the (free) cheap.

Right now, I'm drinking beer and watching Vertigo. I have also learnt that drinking beer then eating sherbet does silly things to your breathing patterns and encourages hiccups. So I won't do that again.

Saturday Night Open Mic (4dec10)

2010-12-04T17:24:43-08:00

Congratulations @gekko! Happy birthday @oldhat!

For once I can't say the week has been squandered as I've been shoving as much Japanese into my brain as I possibly can while still keeping on top of the wikileaks story and keeping an eye on Washington shenanigans regarding tax cuts & unemployment pay. The Japanese study is a big like trying to down all of Thanksgiving dinner in ten minutes or less. I have to keep reminding myself to slow down and chew or I'm just going to toss it back soon. The news... well not too long ago I thought I should try giving cynicism the heave-ho. But somehow that's not working with my regular consumption of news. More and more Assange sounds like he's a mad social scientist, running an unethical experiment on the world with no control group and only the flimsiest thesis. Lots of friends love it because they somehow equate embarrassing the government with a process to end war. I don't see the process bearing out, but I can't say that I think we would be better off not knowing that the US bombed a Qatari encampment and the Qatari government was all to eager to take the credit, or that the U.S. is pushing a strict copyright law in Spain, or that other Emerites are going along with American foreign policy in the hopes of scoring drone jets, let alone confirmation that China has been hacking American Web sites & services (including official state & defense apparata) and that American embassies secured spies among state bodies in other countries, notably Germany.

See, in the end I'm an infojunkie. Which sounds bad when pronounced aloud. Never mind. I'm still not sure if it's a good idea, really to expose all this. Secrets aren't inherently bad. Bad action is bad. Well, I guess the historical lesson is that it's not the sin that will bring down a person, but the coverup. See ref Watergate, also Al Capone. Still. The whole thing leaves me very... conflicted. And while I dig for more information and turn over the ideas of authority, influence, diplomacy and the benefit or foolishness in relegating power to an elite body... I don't study. Argh.

When I don't do these, though, there's been some sadness creeping around. I at least know that it's attracted to stress. The more stressed I am the more that shit comes in, creeps up my spine, insinuates itself into my joints, slows me down till I can't get out of bed and I lose days to watching videos I've already watched a dozen times. Doing what I can to not give in, which just goes back to studying.

The only people I've seen have been classmates, family and my ophthalmologist (left eye was fucked at the beginning of the week, but the new drug is marvelous; I may have more or less normal vision again in a week). Haven't seen any friends in...a long time. Realizing that tipped me into a darker place for a while. No one calls or writes. It's not even a thing, really. With the Twitter & facebook we tell ourselves that we are keeping in touch. And with the holidays we're rather busy anyway. I don't blame them, I haven't thought about trying to make something happen in months, my own self. But once I recognized the loneliness it's been sitting lightly on my shoulder like a very well trained little lizard.

Twining with the loneliness is the realization of some fear, a slippery cold knot in my belly, that I'm just making shit up and hoping it all works out. Which is how I normally work, except that this goes beyond me. I don't just need this to work - this whole reinventing myself and my career - because I've been unemployed and useless as a human being but because I'm weighing other people down the longer I don't get up on my own two feet. It was ok to try this and that when I had money all those years ago. Now my mom has the largest portion of my debt (she payed off my credit card - see, I'm useless) and while that's nice because I don't owe her interest, I do owe her repayment. She hasn't given me a deadline, because she's kind, etc. But the guilt is inescapable. And what if something goes wrong for her? Then not only is she screwed because of the $$ she put out for me, the rest of my family - my retired dad and two brothers who live with us while they attend college - will be in trouble. I can almost handle feeling like deadweight. Well, not exactly, but I was getting used to it. But the new plans I've made, studying Japanese & voice acting and pushing my translating abilities ahead of copy writing & editing, need to work. They just have to. I'm terrified they won't. I'm scared to death that I was right in saying I'll never be employed again.

What if i've lost the ability to be employed? I can't even get myself to go to sleep by 3am. Most days its a ridiculous fight to get up before 10am. sticking to one endeavor that doesn't have a deadline is just about impossible. I can't whip myself into shape, how can I hope to convince an employer I'm a solid investment?

Fuck, fuck, fuck I just have to push forward. I've taken to pronouncing much of my Japanese out loud as much to get used to the rhythms of whole words as to drown out the continuous mutterings of my superego.

My room is a mess.

Saturday Night Open Mic (4dec10)

2010-12-04T17:32:13-08:00

Have finally decided to see someone about being A Bit Fucking Mental. Talked to a doctor yesterday. Next up: Referral.
Wish me luck, WhiteChapel.

I can tell you as an insider that local newspapers in the UK, over the next five years, will become culturally insignificant and will fade into obsolescence.

"Become"?

Saturday Night Open Mic (4dec10)

2010-12-04T17:39:12-08:00

@razrangel - I have been in the place you are now, I know absolutely the ugly slow panic of feeling like you've fallen off the train everyone else is riding, and no idea if another will ever come along, and being beholden to family for debt, and the way that dependence undermines a sense of self-worth. I know that so well.

I just want to ask you to believe that there is no such thing as a useless human being. Human beings aren't made to be used, you are not measured in value against your usefulness.

All of civilization is an amazing trick we play, where we all give each other things and somehow that all adds up to more than it seems we had to start with. Just stay engaged, keep putting action and intention out into the outside world, and something will happen.

Employability is a bigger thing than whether you can land a corporate or clerking job. Some people can't fit in that kind of routine. Some of those people who don't fit are quite successful. Just keep doing, and be fearless, and you'll see.

Saturday Night Open Mic (4dec10)

2010-12-04T17:51:10-08:00

Turns out I'm too drunk for Vertigo.

So I have moved on to the last few episodes of The A-Team season 3. I love this show in a wholly unironic way.

Saturday Night Open Mic (4dec10)

2010-12-04T18:07:58-08:00

CONGRATULATIONS GEKKO!!!!!! :D!!!!! HOW EXCITING :O!!

I havent shaved in a bit. I dont think Ive let it grow this much ever, and I dont think Im gonna shave for a while and see how it goes :S

Hello Whitechapel. My name is Cameron. I doodle comics with the talent of a five year old :3 I send them out through here before they go elsewhere. I'm working on my 3rd ~30 page minicomic. This one will be partially in color (Each has short stories in them, so some of the stories will be color, but probably not all just yet). I also have them for sale on storenvy, which is pretty nice (I prefer it to etsy, but etsy gives lots more random passer by sales). Storenvy allows for sales to be made by people without storenvy accounts (and depending on your paypal account type, they dont have to have a paypal account, either).

my week... hmmmm...

It was sorta boring. I doodled comics alone in my room. I applied for some more jobs I probably wont get. My best friend for the last 3 years still wont talk to me. Last we spoke was on sunday, we texted a bit. She seems mad/upset with me, but says otherwise and wont really talk to me. It kinda super hurts. Living in the desert for a year and a half didnt leave me with many buddies, but she was there for me. In the last year or so specifically I think I sort of started to think of her as a sister sort of, and now Im not sure if we'll ever talk much anymore. Im hoping sometime before christmas we'll hang out, but i dont know. I made her a comic for christmas >< she had mentioned briefly previously that she wanted me to make her one, so :s

Living with my father has been alright, but I feel disgusting that I'm not on my own still. Back when iw as working and paying rent and sleeping in the living room of a small shitty apartment occupied by two people that I didnt like I had more self respect :/

Now I need to go by some coffee D:<

Saturday Night Open Mic (4dec10)

2010-12-04T18:10:49-08:00

@256, good point. I do still see redeeming qualities in local news (reporting of great fuck-off incinerators being built near residential areas, keeping their respective councils in line and ensuring they don't get away with bloody murder, etc) but the vast majority of it is just useless filler now. I consider myself lucky that I'll be out of that waning, shitty industry very soon... even if I was forced out by even greater cuts. Time to get into a better industry/career.

Saturday Night Open Mic (4dec10)

2010-12-04T18:14:14-08:00

@Gekko: Congrats and may the birth be simple and healthy!

@Andre: Ouch. Regardless how frustrating the people around you are... we like you quite a bit! You'll get through it.

@Oldhat: Happy Happy Birthday! I hope your weekend has been/will be all sorts of fun.

@StefanJ: "I always come up with ideas for situations and characters, but I'm feeling zero of the holy fire it takes to get it down on paper." You're not the only one. I've been trying to teach myself to force myself to start working on projects. Can't say I've done all that well, but maybe I'll get better at it. Maybe you too? I hope so. That sort of exhaustion is very difficult to get out of.

@razrangel: *Hugs* Don't worry about whether you can or can't do it. I've found it just makes it harder to do. If you can find some encouragement, take it. And no matter what, there are people who care about you.

@256: I'm crossing my fingers for you. :)

Saturday Night Open Mic (4dec10)

2010-12-04T18:24:25-08:00

@Oddbill: thanks for saying that, it's really good to hear, er, read. *sniffle* (I'm NOT crying. Just got something in my eye. You jerk. thank you.)

@Trini_naenae: thank you }:>

Saturday Night Open Mic (4dec10)

2010-12-04T18:41:47-08:00

(Photo recycled from SPIT)

So, clearly I was at a friend's wedding this week. It was a nice, vegetarian affair. And I won't lie: It felt great to get compliments about my looks, mostly because I'm usually a disheveled bastard (though, for some reasons, only drunk people seem to truly appreciate the awesomeness of my bow tie).

Next week, I'll be enjoying heading to Nerd Prom Singapore (note: not what it's actually called), where I'll get to meet Matt Fraction, Salvador Larroca, Ivan Brandon, Giuseppe Camuncoli, David Lloyd and Alex Maleev! I'm actually more excited about this than pretty much any gig or concert I've been to this year.

Saturday Night Open Mic (4dec10)

2010-12-04T18:43:38-08:00

Hi guys!
I've succeeded in learning how to crochet. Sorta. As I wrote in blogs, this involves a lot of swearing and makes my fingers tired. I swear knitting was a lot easier to learn, even though everyone has told me crochet is easier (yet no one I know IRL, despite being able to say its easier, knew how to crochet..we all can knit. haha)

Work hours have been cut, so I'm back into winter crafting mode, which means also knitting (something I'm a bit less horrid at than crocheting), reading, drawing and whatnot. I might be poor at the moment, but hell - There's still a lot of stuff I can do.

I'm sorry I haven't been that chatty online lately. I've just felt distant, and I've been spending more time in the Outside World, crafting and doing the introvert thing. Sorry if I worried anyone!

As usual, I hate winter. And yes, Winter's come up to where I live, and we hired a small adorable child that escaped some hallmark card to come help shovel snow on bad days. He's too little to do a lot of work, but every bit of help....helps. And he really does look like he escaped from some greeting card world, where saint Augustine's devil-children have never set foot, and all kids do is behave.

The kitties also hate winter, and this year the outside kitty's decided she likes the inside a lot more than she did last year; so both cats are inside (and shedding) most of the time, and demanding that I pet them most of the time, leaving my belongings covered in cat hair .... most of the time.

Hope you're all having a decent week, and the Holiday Hell hasn't gotten to you. As for myself, I haven't quite been driven insane by Holiday music, but we all know it's only a matter of time... :)

Saturday Night Open Mic (4dec10)

2010-12-04T18:59:25-08:00

@razrangel: :D

Picture, from a couple weeks ago, but I still like it very much. Even if it's blurry.

Venting: There are always things I can vent about. My dad continues to be an ass, but that's nothing new. I've found that a certain Artist/Album on my ipod has been triggering memories of taking my mom to the hospital because of her crazy memory blackout for a night. While talking to my mom about it, and my dad's incredibly lack of emotional maturity (or his utter emotional stupidity), I was wondering if there were guys out there who were better/different than my dad, or if his behaviors were normal for men in general. Seems like romantic relationships/marriage just isn't worth it. Interesting to hear my mom actually agree with me on that one. She also was thinking about other people she knew and was wondering about their marriages and if theirs were better or not, and if it was her or my dad who was responsible.

Was particularly exhausted this week. Do no like that. Tomorrow is my sister's birthday, and this weekend one of her friends was supposed to fly here to spend the weekend and there were plans ordered around that. Yesterday morning, we found out that the friend wasn't clever enough to buy the tickets in advance because she didn't have money, and thought that if she looked up the info and had it on hand, she could buy the tickets a couple days before. Yes. Really. Needless to say, my sister was very disappointed. So my mom and I have been trying to make things extra fun to make up for the not so clever friend that doesn't know the basics of buying affordable plane tickets.

I mean, is it really too difficult to grasp that you don't plan to visit your friends until you have money for the plane tickets? I figure some people are just inexplicably stupid. Interestingly, I had a somewhat similar experience in the beginning of the year (I was trying to plan a trip a couple months ahead and my friend who I was hoping to stay with couldn't see why I felt it was so urgent to figure things out with her).

And right now I have a nasty sinus headache at the bridge of my nose and between my eyes so I've been inhaling steam in hopes of loosening up the gunk in my sinuses. Ow ow ow.

As for the non-venting part of my week... I've been working on forcing myself to work on my creative projects. The exhaustion has been making it particularly hard, but I think eventually I'll be able to work on stuff consistently. I was giving a former crush advice on girls (Which girl to go for, basically) and later on when I asked him about it, I was pleasantly surprised that he went for Cute instead of Stunning, because Cute was intelligent, educated and had a good personality. That coming from a guy who can usually get any girl he wants... it was really nice. The idea that being incredibly beautiful wasn't a requirement for him? That a girl like me just maybe maybe could have a chance with a guy like him? Wow.

I think this is it for now.

Saturday Night Open Mic (4dec10)

2010-12-04T19:06:19-08:00

@Gekko - Holy AWESOMES, and tons of joy & happiness
@oldhat - Happy b-day, present to follow
@sgrsickness - YEAR OF THE BEARD

Hello, Warren & al.

My name is Risto, and I have this drinking problem where I try to pour rosé (nod at the naming convention, there) bubbly directly into my pineal gland in hopes of idunnosomethingpositive?

My week has been filled with debauchery, and tonight I think I became the DJ for a women's roller derby team. Their theme song vacillates between Electric 6's "Gay Bar" and LCD Soundsystem's "Drunk Girls", and on the latter note tonight's after-bout party (after getting their/our heinies kicked by the London Rockin' Rollers) featured the following:

- "The award for the best team-spirit boosting goes to Sniff Poppers! Where are the fucking ice cream coupons?!"
- A game of "Point At Two People", in which you point at two people in a crowded bar. There are no steps after this.

Hope this finds you well.

Saturday Night Open Mic (4dec10)

2010-12-04T19:18:00-08:00

@ Gekko - Hooray! I will be.. um... wishing for your child, since I don't pray. Here is some information that may lessen your fears:

I am someone who was born three months premature, weighting 2lb 3oz (a little under 1kilogram). My parents were told that I'd a 5% chance to live, that if I did survive I'd likely be blind and severely intellectually deficient. I lived, and was reading at a fourth grade level when in the first grade. So there.

I also have the staggeringly craptacular birthday of December 24th, I applaud and support your decision to celebrate your future child's potential birthday at a kinder date. I've had only one birthday party in my life. It was in 2003, held on the projected date of my birth (March 24th), and it was amazing. Something I'd never ever experienced before. Having a day that most children get to have devoted to them as instead a day where everyone gets to open presents is psychologically rough on an 8 year old.

Saturday Night Open Mic (4dec10)

2010-12-04T19:22:31-08:00

I'm the one on the left. My friend Zach and I showed up at an event wearing the exact same thing last night, all the way down to the guyliner. This sort of thing happens to us enough that people are having trouble believing we don't coordinate our outfits.

Met a girl last night. She's in medicine, but looks like she's in a band or somesuch. We geeked out about horrible things, like parasites (on my part) and children with their chests open and their hearts exposed (her). I am, naturally, quite smitten. So this is the cue for @lx to pop in and tell me she's crazy, which is the usual course of events for me taking an interest in his female friends. He hasn't been wrong yet, of course.

Last Friday I worked a few hours at Pioneer Courthouse Square here in Portland, before the Christmas tree lightning ceremony. I got off at 3 pm. At 5:40pm a guy parked a van with six barrels of what he thought were explosives by the edge of the Square, directly behind where I stood when I worked the tree lighting last year. Then he went to the train station and tried to detonate it all with a cellphone, only to discover — whups, fooled you! It was an FBI sting the all along! So that was odd. Then I worked 16 hours Saturday, 8 hours Sunday, went drinking with Joss Whedon's brother and some Dark Horse staffers on Tuesday, confirmed I'm almost definitely probably surely T.A.ing for Brian Bendis' comics writing class starting in January on Wednesday, went to a strip club and then got abducted by pirates on Thursday (one of the pirates asked me very nicely not to go home with his ex, as it's only been two weeks and the wounds are fresh; I acquiesced)... and then met the lady yesterday. Next week isn't looking much slower. What the hell kind of December *is* this?

Because your eyes are slant and slow, Because your hair is sweet to touch, My heart is high again; but oh, I doubt if this will get me much.

Saturday Night Open Mic (4dec10)

2010-12-04T20:49:07-08:00

Lost a couple of months, and not in an interesting or entertaining way - Ray Milan had it better than I these past couple of lost months - back on the horse, as it were, with a new living/working situation, now in the "nicer" parts of the Tenderloin in San Francisco - pics to come soon - aside from this, now have a renewed drive to Get Shit Done. And no, no pic of me at the moment....

Saturday Night Open Mic (4dec10)

2010-12-04T20:58:34-08:00

I purchased "I, Robot" on blu-ray for $5 on Black Friday, and I'm about to break the three laws all over myself.

Saturday Night Open Mic (4dec10)

2010-12-04T21:01:59-08:00

I quit my job.

11 years selling books to people and I've had enough. It was a simple job, and I love books - but It was slowly eating at me.
I've many plans though. I've got mad crazy creatures to sew up and sell, art work to work on, a haus to re-invent. Scary enough, my Husband is all for it. I love him for it.

Saturday Night Open Mic (4dec10)

2010-12-04T21:03:29-08:00

@Gekko, congratulations!
@Oldhat, Happy Birthday, and may your beer be dark and delicious.

So binding your chest kinda hurts.
BUT I walked around and did things and had fun last night while doing so, though, and didn't have any problems until the morning after, just a bit of uncomfortableness as ribs resettled. A toe dipped nervously into new waters. It went really well, although I doubt that I 'passed'. I need to make calls about seeing a head shrinker of some kind, to get this whole huge ball rolling.
Pictured is me pushing the giant ball up the hill in a stylish sweatervest.

The rest of the week was honestly pretty blah and boring and useless and all I can think of is how fun last night was. My ears are still ringing from seeing the only tejano-punk band I've ever heard. Piñata Protest are some pretty cool guys. HEY, HO! VAMANOS!

Saturday Night Open Mic (4dec10)

2010-12-04T21:26:19-08:00

@ Brandon Cyphered - Beware. You can't edit posts once the thread is closed.

Saturday Night Open Mic (4dec10)

2010-12-04T21:28:14-08:00

Home from the office Christmas party, which was a blast. Feeling pretty good about ourselves, as we're the 33rd fastest growing software company in America this year. So yah.

Saturday Night Open Mic (4dec10)

2010-12-04T21:38:45-08:00

Last Friday I worked a few hours at Pioneer Courthouse Square here in Portland, before the Christmas tree lightning ceremony. I got off at 3 pm. At 5:40pm a guy parked a van with six barrels of what he thought were explosives by the edge of the Square, directly behind where I stood when I worked the tree lighting last year. Then he went to the train station and tried to detonate it all with a cellphone

No shit? That's trippy stuff. If it helps temper the mental clouding of the specter of death though, the FBI is actually playing these tricks on Muslims basically all the time

Gekko - beautiful story, best of luck

Oldhat - happy bday for sho

Taphead - congratulations on debauchery

Me, having great fun with the novel, which goes along well, but bringing 200,000 words to final draft status is rather more work than I am capable of understanding, seem to be halfway there though. There is a probably momentary peace of mind that possesses me here at the end of the project, to know I will have finished before ending my third decade the first science fiction novel to spend 80% of the time pondering christianity and sex, maybe? Bought me mum an Air which was pleasurable, I never buy things

Dayjob goes along, breezy but stimulating, however I also spend large stretches of time gobsmacked by process flaws in our service system, such as it is, vagueness intentional

Saturday Night Open Mic (4dec10)

2010-12-04T21:56:51-08:00

@Rachæl Tyrell — Thank you for the heads up!

Saturday Night Open Mic (4dec10)

2010-12-04T22:32:38-08:00

Thank you for having me, Dark Jedi Master Ellis

happy b-day Oldhat and congrats to Gekko on the new person entering your world... and to the others who are taking new directions, new jobs, new hobbies. I dig open night. Cheers to you all

tonight is sponsored by Dr Whiskey

why were all the best remake/remodels and other cool things to do- all happening during Nanowrimo?
I mean come on! /end rant

last year I got the book but I was sick and I could not focus to read it. It got shuffled away, buried under mountains of procrastinated projects, fossils, old DvDs and/or junk.

I got reminded. I put on a haz-mat suit. I fought evil reptile beasts and then I emerged with this...

Its delicious and I intend to actually finish it now.
...reading it, not eating it.

Saturday Night Open Mic (4dec10)

2010-12-04T22:57:16-08:00

Same as it ever was. Nothing ever seems to get better (though that's probably not helped by my feet-shuffling as far as getting into therapy or into a new and exciting career). My life isn't going bad, it's just I can't seem to be happy w/ it.
And, damn it, I can't seem to shake the thought that maybe I'd be happier if I (and those I care about) could handle polyamory. I don't want to elaborate, I just have nowhere else to get this thought out w/out feeling like I'm a bad person.

(Why, yes, this picture's a year old. Still feels appropriate, though.)

Saturday Night Open Mic (4dec10)

2010-12-05T00:21:53-08:00

I'm happy for Gekko and his family. A family kids are wanted is good. We'll hold you and yours in our thoughts.

Just had a lazy happy day with the family & our Franco-Japanese friends with their twin boys and darling two year daughter - I gather I do not manage suave ... the not-santa beard disguise is still holding. ... Tot is showing some appreciation for Hanukah candles - and thankfully has stopped bitching about wanting a Xmas party. I won't kill a tree for anyone imaginary this year.

I got fired from a job I had for almost 5 years two months back. I suspect different culture was the biggest problem. And somehow I had more funds anyway. Life is staying odd.

Saturday Night Open Mic (4dec10)

2010-12-05T00:43:18-08:00

I am still working on the same projects that I have been working on for over a year. All three are nearing completion and I can confidently expect to release new work in January, February, and March. But honestly all of this stuff should have been done six months ago. On the upside, I’ve learned my lesson. Once this massive batch of “what was I thinking” is finally out the door I’m scaling down to smaller and more varied projects for at least a year, and hopefully several.

The small projects thing is happening because I’ve realized that, as a type designer, I’m never going to really grow unless I can get past systematic design styles and methods. Systematic design would be fine if I could just be happy with it; it’s what made some of the best type so great. But I really feel the need to move on and get back to the fun stuff I was doing before I got hung up on design systems in art school.

I’ve now sketched up over 300 logos based on the title’s of Shakespeare’s plays. From those I plan to develop 29 prototype fonts for conceptual practice and then finish all of them. To keep my left brain happy along the way I have two simple systematic projects that I can probably drag out for a few years, releasing the work in batches. It scares me that I’m starting to plan out years worth of creative work in advance. Oh fuck, I’ve made a system of system out of my plan to stop being so systematic…

Saturday Night Open Mic (4dec10)

2010-12-05T00:53:32-08:00

I've been around all night long and only now I find the thread when it's Sunday morning. Go figure.

Been stocking up on Moebius and Druillet.

Got the Polish edition of Moebius' Aedena/Edena (whichever spelling you prefer, the original's titled Le Monde d'Edena) for slightly over half the price (and still shrinkwrapped). It's a beautiful double hardcover edition, a total of 400 pages. Still waiting for my second purchase, a book with short stories (including Arzach and Is Man Good? stuff and some others), also in Polish.
As for Druillet, I got the Dragon's Dream's Lone Sloane/Delirius book Dark Horse's edition of Nosferatu. Both are sadly smaller than the originals (and Nosferatu is even comic book sized, which is slightly depressing) but hey, at least they're in a language I can READ!

Both (and Stokoe's Murderbullets) have rejuvenated my need to draw so I've been keeping up with the sketchbook drawings and have just doodled two short comic layouts (and wrote an outline for a 20+ page tale).

I decided to do away with attempts at "month of writing/drawing" approach and will just try to work daily, no matter what. Using December as a warmup so I can hit the ground running come January 1st. The goal? One page of art for every working day and at least one (preferably two or three) for every free day. That's for b&w comics, not sure how I'll approach color stuff yet. Maybe go with "one page spread across two days" on working days and one full page on off days?

Meanwhile, back to drawing strage dudes and dudettes in the sketchbook!

Also, I hate my work: 12 hour shifts for a full week straight? OVERKILL! Next week it's all night shift, then a week of 12 hour shifts and then two weeks off (unpaid, since I'm on temp contracts so I just don't get mine extended and MAYBE they'll send me a message to go back on the 3rd, maybe not).

TWO WEEKS OF DRAWING COMICS!

I better not get sick or anything... *goes off to grab some vitamins or something*

EDIT:

Also, this is my LAST TIME talking here about wanting to draw comics. NEXT TIME I either bring in the goods (actual pages) or I shut up about wanting to draw!

There!

Saturday Night Open Mic (4dec10)

2010-12-05T01:57:52-08:00

Huh. I just got a photo gig for Monday (at Times Square?). That's pretty fabulous.

I'm kicking myself for not thinking of advertising myself as a designer/photographer for hire to make people's tacky family Christmas Cards.

An old friend of mine seems to be plotting some (hitherto unknown and vauge) machinations for helping my life. All I know is he's plotting, and it's somewhat illegal. *shrug* I've got no problems with that.

I've been going a bit tumblr crazy. I've got my regular tumblr where I post my own stuff... but I felt I should be sharing some of the wierd oddities I come across, and posting and spreading the work of people I think deserve more visibility, so I started another one for various miscellany: diplopic. I'm making an effort to find work (especially from folks here) to post, instead of being just another reposting blog.

And THEN I started a tumblr for my wacky research into psychological and medical issues, spliced with my own anecdotes, observations, conclusions and such: psyckly. Thus far, it's mostly focusing on Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Mommy Dearest indeed.

And THEN I started a private tumblr that's a place for me to write to somebody I miss terribly. Things are broken between us, and I can't write emails, or call... but I did send along the url and the password. In case he wants to read. I don't know if he will. I guess it's like a blog version of letters in bottles. I guess I'm a hopeless romantic.

Here's a crappily tweaked out-take from my Lynch/Spiderman attempt. I've not taken any photographs of myself since then.

It seems I am thus far successful in my plans to grow back my natural blonde hair, and natural monstrous eyebrows.

Anyone free on Christmas Eve? Or Christmas? I'd like to go and see Mummenshanz in NYC for my birthday. Or that play that Teller wrote. Or James Earl Jones and Vanessa Redgrave in Driving Miss Daisy. Tickets are over $250 apiece, though! Or The Addams Family with Nathan Lane and Bebe Newirth, at $361 apiece!! Waaaant!!!

Saturday Night Open Mic (4dec10)

2010-12-05T03:26:31-08:00

Finished work for the year now. All the insane deadlines that happen in the year you launch a videogame meant that there was little chance to take more than the odd long weekend, so it all mounts up and gets dumped onto December instead.

I really don't like snow, and for most of the ten years I've lived down here in Guildford we've been free of it (it's the South! It's not meant to snow here!). Needless to say getting a second significant dumping of it in the same year has left me miserable.

And my hot water is buggered. And cause of the snow the plumber hasn't been able to get here to look at it.

As for the 24th December being a poor birthday to have, mine is the 25th... I think I turn 34 this year, I had to actually work that out, weird that I didn't instantly know how old I was. Hmm.

Saturday Night Open Mic (4dec10)

2010-12-05T03:32:46-08:00

@ Flabyo - gosh, we're practically the same age! I.... keep forgetting that I'm turning.... 34? Yes, I'm turning 34 as well. I've got that habit to think about how old I'm about to be for so long that I start to think I AM that age. Or at least, the certainty gets blurred. Then again, I was trying to think of what year it was recently, and I thought it was 2003. The notion that it was 2010 was suddenly quite shocking.

Saturday Night Open Mic (4dec10)

2010-12-05T04:17:34-08:00

I got nothing this week.

Saturday Night Open Mic (4dec10)

2010-12-05T04:39:21-08:00

Hey, the post arrived!

As did the postcards I sent my parents from my trip to London. Eight days ago.

Saturday Night Open Mic (4dec10)

2010-12-05T04:43:11-08:00

@trini - Cheers. It means a lot.

On the Sunday Morning read-thru of Saturday Night, everything looks ok, doesn't it? We Whitechaplains have got some problems... some issues... but we've also got plans, and projects, and some amazing shit coming down the pipeline.

Chins up, fellows.

Rgrds,
256.

Saturday Night Open Mic (4dec10)

2010-12-05T05:15:51-08:00

Afternoon everyone. Man it's cold up here...

first of all lets get the greeting and salutations out of the way....

Gekko - Congratulations man. I'm sure you're going to be a great daddy to the little ball of joy!

Robin - Happy Birthday! I certainly hope that it all went well....

Taphead - Your DJ'ing exploits sounds like a rather bizarre dream i keep having.

Radioguy - I´m so going to try that piece of software!

Ok i'm feeling a little slow today. I went to my Wifes Xmas party at work last night. The food was lovely (reindeer fillet with Honey and thyme anyone?), but i positively HATE these things as you almost never know anyone, people just spend their time yakking about nothing important or stuff you don't get, and the music is also really awful. I managed to last until midnight until Sigga practically ordered me to leave as the tears of boredom seemed to be bringing everybody down. So i went to the pub instead and danced to some music. Also there may have been armed criminals with guns, but i will need to check that out first. Things got a little blurry.

We both also got paid and the cupboards are full of food and nice things. Oh and Sigga is getting a nice christmas bonus, so that's the presents sorted then.

Right now i'm just continuing the writing. I got a big boost of confidence from my friend, who is a REAL journalist and stuff. She has stated that she expects me to be able to make a living out of this ind of thing within the next 18 months. That sounded wonderful but a little scary. I also found out that when i first started writing reviews, a lot people thought i didn't actually exist and that my name was a pseudonym for an Icelander instead. That is a little eerie, but still kinda cool.

OK back to my cups of tea and music reviews. Keep up the good work you lovely people....

Saturday Night Open Mic (4dec10)

2010-12-05T05:16:45-08:00

To everybody who said gongrats, thank you from the deepest of my heart.
I really mean it.

(and by the way, Rachael, if there's something you obviously are not, it's intellectually deficient, har har har. You are one of the most finest characters I've ever come across (most of them, mind you, happen to gather here by the way)