50,712 words later

Another year attempted, another year succeeded.  In spite of hiatuses such as NekoCon and a lengthy trip out to Arizona, I still managed to get my 50,000 words done, for another year.

The Baseball Gods Must Be Crazy, a story about Texas Rangers manager Ron Washington, the agony of defeat, torment from the intangible Pressure, and the pursuit of Salvation; from a highly unexpected and ambitious source.  I’m not going to lie, much of this is putrid, so I won’t be bothering to share it with the rest of the world.  But I’m still pleased, nonetheless, at my ability to actually put forth the effort and get 50,000 words out in the allotted time span, despite my hurky-jerky schedule these days.

So with this literary challenge successfully traversed for another year, I’m free to pursue other things again, like writing on my brog, updating my baseball park site and reading books and works of far talented, successful and legitimate authors, instead of hacking away at my own swill.  Also, I’ll be delving into Dead Island.  That is, when I can wrest Xbox time away from Jen, who’s playing Skyrim.

So you want to be a graphic designer 101

Where’d you go to school?  Savannah?  Parsons?  Ringling?  The Art Institutes of Blank?  Awesome, that’s a great start.  I assume you have mastery of one or several Adobe programs?  Excellent, that’s good to know.

Well guess what?  None of that means absolutely shit when you’re in the REAL working world, because 90% of the jobs you’ll be doing on a regular basis in working America will involve you primarily working with Microsoft Office products!  The holy grail of computer software, that can do absolutely nothing everything for absolutely nobody everyone!!!!!!!

Adobe InDesign may have trounced Quark as the standard within the Creative class when it comes to layout and publishing, but in the Corporate class, InDesign isn’t even worthy enough to take the soiled tissues that the almighty POWERPOINT uses to wipe its ass, and drop it into the toilet for it.  I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it’s the sad and unfortunate truth.  PowerPoint is the crown jewel of software greatness, as it’s WAY “easier” than Flash at embedding/playing video files, and so MUCH more “efficient” when it comes to creating forms and performing layout tasks!!

Adobe Photoshop may be an efficient tool amongst you nerds for making your memes and cheezeburgers, editing pictures of cats and putting esoteric jokes on top of existing graphics, but when it comes to true graphic design excellence, look no further than MICROSOFT WORD as the gold standard when it comes to getting shit done.  It only takes a genius level intellect to realize that none of the functions are decipherable without the assistance of Google to look up how the most logical of ideas are executed.  Word does everything.  Photoshop can only crank out lame jokes, while Word CAN WRITE.  Not only can it write, it comes with a library of pre-existing CLIP ART which are fail-proof when it comes to accentuating points and messages.  And you can drag and drop graphics from the internet RIGHT INTO Word, without needing to concern yourself about copyrights and photographic rights!

It’s cute that you guys went to art school or have a wealth of experience when it comes to using “design pro-grams,” but let’s get real, you guys.  If you want to make it in the real world, you got to be able to use the almighty Microsoft products in order to get there.

Photos: Thanksgiving for the wayward

Blue Steel says it all.

Thanksgivings have been great since I started staying home for them, instead of traveling.  This year was no exception.  The destrucity of a 27 lb. turkey, successful Black Friday shopping, and the near completion of my Nanowrimo for the fourth time, all while sleeping in gratuitous amounts.  My kind of weekend.

Continue reading “Photos: Thanksgiving for the wayward”

Another successful Black Friday

Too easy.  It’s like being pitched a grapefruit to hit.

Although, it was something that kept me laughing for the better part of the day.

I don’t know why I’m writing about Black Friday first, when I’ve got other things that I should be writing first, like my Nanowrimo story that I’m falling behind the pace with, or the baseball column I write every week, but here we stand.

I’ve been awake since 3:00 a.m., and I’ve probably spent around $600 over the last 24 hours.  Some of it is for gift purposes, some of it is for personal indulgence, and some for simply house or useful purposes.  But the good news is that the whole Black Friday experience, which naturally has a very high chance of disappointment, was once again fortuitous for me this year, as it was the last few years I’ve spent Thanksgiving at home, and not traveling.

I bought a new home theater system, since my previous one crapped out on me; note to all, it was a RCA unit, meaning all RCA products are now dead to me.  And the verdict is instantaneously an improvement, as the surround sound on this Panasonic unit is exquisite.  The rest of the stuff I spent money on were mostly clothing, housewares, and miscellaneous things needed around the house, but all in all, I feel good about this Black Friday, and felt an impulse to write about it.  It’s nice to be one not seeking a new television, video game console, computer, tablet or three-item Crock pot, because then the chances of landing what you really want seem slightly better.

Although I thought there would be more for me to write about, apparently there isn’t.  Either fatigue is fucking with my head, or really beyond the ironically humorous visual provided, there really wasn’t that much for me to have written about when I should be saving these words for Nanowrimo instead.

Walking Dead’s Glenn episode ftw

Episode six of Walking Dead season 2 was probably the best episode evar.  Dating back to episode four, I’m ecstatic to see that my Atlanta-based, Korean-American boy, Glenn, is getting some significant character development and face time this season.  Furthermore, my heart and my fandom rejoices for the character, when he gets to have some post-zombie apocalyptic spontaneous sex action with the hot farmer’s daughter, Maggie.

This makes me happy in a myriad of ways:

  • Stephen Yeun playing Glenn is fantastically awesome.  Lauren Cohan playing Maggie is ridiculously hot.
  • It’s always been perceived as kind of taboo to have Asian people actually getting any makeout scenes with non-Asian people.  More so for Asian guys than Asian women.  And even more so for television than in movies.  It took forever for physical affection between interracial pairings to be portrayed in movies, and even longer for it to make it to television.  What I’m trying to say is that this kind of pairing, on cable television, feels like somewhat of an evolution of tolerance and acceptance of this kind of occurrence actually getting to happen.
  • Subsequently, mentally I’m thinking “fuck yeah Glenn, way to score with the hot farmer’s daughter!” which is kind of like living vicariously through a potential fantasy.
  • The Glenn character is getting some much deserved spotlight, and is a refreshing reprieve from ambiguous pregnancy, eventual heel turn and angsty gun-hungry cunt.  He wasn’t just the greaseman for once and was actually getting some lines, action, and a chance to portray a hero and a friend.

But mostly, I’m really just crushing hard on the Maggie character.  I will not look forward to the “mid-season break” that the show will embark on after Sunday, although I understand why it’s being done.  At least the wait won’t be that long, and that they’re not pulling the Sopranos bullshit, of not really letting anyone know when any new episodes would air at all.

What kind of coffee machines cost over $4,000?

So in preparation for Thanksgiving and the subsequent tradition of utilizing odd hours of the night or morning to hope to get some good deals on already overpriced luxuries, I’ve been doing a lot of sniffing around on Black Friday websites, making a list of things that I’d like to attempt to acquire.  One of those things is a Keurig coffee maker, since I like coffee.

Upon looking through one well-known retailer’s circular, I couldn’t help but notice some of the pricing they claim on their regularly-priced coffee makers.  As well as the “sale” price range of these “discounted” coffee makers.  Special $5.99 – $2,520.00. Wait what?  Two thousand five hundred twenty dollars for a coffee maker?  Down from four thousand two hundred dollars?  What in the fuck coffee maker costs $4,000?

If I’m paying $4,200, there better be Colombian coffee farmers harvesting those beans fresh, crushing them by hand, and making my coffee while the hot farmer’s daughter is fellating me while the luscious scent of a fresh cup of coffee is wafting through the morning air.  Every day.

I can understand fabricating a slightly higher price to dupe the consumer into thinking they’re getting some kind of robbery of a steal, but there’s such a thing as a little too exaggerated for their own good.

Bryce Harper’s Monster Truck

In short, the Arizona Fall League has more or less ruined me as far as live baseball experiences are concerned.  Parking is free at all these small, intimate ballparks.  There are only general admission tickets that are $7 a pop, and allow you to sit anywhere you want, including right behind home plate.  And unlike in Spring Training where there are veterans loafing it and not taking the games seriously, the Arizona Fall League is nothing but 19-25 year olds playing their hearts out, because every ounce of effort could possible get noticed and get them called up to the Majors sooner rather than later.  Baseball at it’s most pure and innocent, and frankly, most beautiful.

I also shagged five baseballs because hardly anyone is at these games, and got into one game free, because a stadium worker just didn’t really care and let us in, but it’s instances like getting to go right up to Bryce Harper’s douchy monster truck and take my picture next to it that is really awesome.

I look forward to going to Arizona again in the future, even if it’s boring as fuck outside of baseball.  At least the food is really good.