scotch_magictape's Xanga

This also just in... as well.

Wed, 14 Jun 2006 03:20:36 GMT

I have been sitting here for a period of time that can only be described as "multiple hours." And yet, as I periodically avert my gaze down to the clock readout in the corner of my screen, invariably, it is as follows:

Me: (looks down at clock)
"It is 10:06 PM."

Me: (continues to peruse the Internet(s) for what seems to be a multitudinous number of hours)

Me: (again, looks down at the clock)
"It is 10:24 PM."

Me: (begins acruing a growing fear he may be trapped in a tesseract of space-time)

This Just In...

Wed, 14 Jun 2006 03:11:24 GMT

Sting's voice is oddly hypnotizing. The government should look into this. Seriously, this has some Manchurian Candidate-caliber potential.

Sting: (singing) "Shoooooot the prime minister of Cambooooodia..."
You: "Must... obey... Sting..."
Sniper Rifle: *BLAM!*
Prime Minister of Cambodia: "AAARGH! Damn you... Sting! Damn... you...!" (dies)

"Mr. Data, lay in a new course..."

Wed, 14 Jun 2006 01:54:21 GMT

Holy Macanoly... it appears that I have been quite neglectful of my little blog. Well, no longer!

My oh my oh my... what has happened since last we met? I suppose the largest slab of news is that I have finally arrived at a date for my return to the Land of Corn, The Northern Realm of Iowa. In just under two weeks (June 23rd) I will be leaving Dallas and pointing myself north. My experiment in self-employment has proved itself a general success, and will, in the end, I believe, afford me the ability to maintain myself in a manner befitting a human being.

While I am excited about the move back home, I also realize the truth that it will involve leaving behind a few very important elements here in Dallas, without which my daily routine will seem... skewed, if only slightly. There will be an adjustment period... to be sure. After spending three years in the trenches, those with whom you fought along side with become irreplaceable. I have been lucky in my life to aquire surrogate family members along the way, and I will leave here with a sister I didn't have three years ago. After everything is said and done from all this, that will be the greatest result. So, gone is certainly not forgotten, and this World of Tomorrow, with its phones and emails and Internet(s), will keep it that way.

I am looking forward to being back home. I am looking forward to the feeling of relaxation that I hope I will find there. I am looking forward to actual seasons; storms, Fall, snow, and breezes. I am looking forward to smiling faces that don't conceal hidden intents. I am looking forward to not having to spend my nearly every waking moment concerned with bills and money. I am looking forward to seeing the big white "Welcome to Iowa" sign as I cross the border from Missouri, and knowing that I'm there to stay. I am looking forward to breathing deeply. I am looking forward to knowing where I am, and where I fit. I am looking forward to increased simplicity, in all things. I am looking forward to being back home.

I went to see A Prairie Home Companion with Mere and Ivan last night, the radio version of which I am an unapologetic fan. The movie version is awesome as well. Simple messages are, invariably, the best. All things must end. All things will, in time. Enjoy them while you can, learn what you are able to, and take the memories with you when you go.

I have, I did, and I will.

Make ye ready, Iowa. I will be among you soon.

The Entertainment Report

Mon, 20 Mar 2006 18:07:32 GMT

Since I've started working at home, I've become familiar with the perils of non-cable daytime TV, home to soap operas, mid-day news, and talk shows. Fortunately, here in Dallas, there is KFWD Channel 52. Starting at 1:00 in the afternoon, their programming block is as follows:

1:00 - The Rockford Files
2:00 - The A-TEAM
3:00 - Kojak
4:00 - Magnum, P.I.

Is there a better line-up of TV known to mankind? I submit that there is not!!

In other news, go, right now, and see "V for Vendetta." Don't question it, just go!

Feelin' Hot Hot Hot

Mon, 13 Mar 2006 02:54:24 GMT

My AC seems to not want to do it's job... It runs constantly, and yet produces the same result as if I had somebody blowling gently onto me through a sock. Which is to say, no result at all except the continuation of my apartment being annoyingly muggy and warm. I went and told the folks at the office about it today, and supposedly somebody's coming tomorrow to fix it. I surely hope so. The alternative is to open up my front door, and the sliding glass door to my balcony and get a cross-breeze going through, which is all well and good until giant Texas-sized wasps come hovering around and get themselves stuck between the panes of glass in the sliding door. My only recourse, then, is to spray an ungodly amount of multi-purpose cleanser into the space in an attempt to kill it by a.) drowning or b.) inducing brain damage via cleanser fumes.

I eventually lost track of it, so I'm assuming he found his way out and droned on his way to another gig of being a wasp and, therefore, an evil blight on the world. That's what I choose to believe... I do not choose to believe that, in closing the sliding door, I enabled his escape into the confines of my shoebox of an apartment, and that I will find him later on, hovering around my bathroom sink, or circling 'round my bed just as I have snuggled myself in for what I thought was to be a pleasant, terror-free sleep.

P.S. First Choice Studios is now live and in glorious color! Mostly blue. This is the site I made for Stan, so he can sell more design work for me to do... soon to be seen by Hollywood big-wigs... or, their marketing departments at least, who also, I assume, are sporting rather large wigs themselves.

Up in the air

Sun, 12 Mar 2006 05:05:52 GMT

Well kids, it's that time on the show where all the various elements in my life are currently spinning, amorphously out in the middle of space, and all I can do is wait until they align their heat-tile-covered underbellies back towards Earth, begin their decent, and cross my fingers they don't burn up on re-entry. It's like that feeling you get when you drive over a steep hill too quickly, and your stomach and your... "undercarriage"... find their way northward and make friends with your spleen. Only it's all the time, so it loses its luster pretty quickly, and you might think twice next time about begging the bus driver to hit the gas as he goes under that poorly-surveyed underpass on your way home from school.

It amounts to this: on Monday, Stan will be flying to Los Angeles with Jean Marc (see previous posts for background info on these two gentlemen), and they'll be meeting with people from The Weinstein Company in L.A. to discuss the possibility of us doing design work for them...

This is what we like to call a VERY BIG DEAL.

I'm currently putting the finishing touches on a web site for Stan, so that he'll have a portfolio of sorts to use as a marketing tool for this, and future business opportunities. If he can work his salesman magic, they could turn out to be the ultimate "backbone" client; something that could ensure the success of my whole freelance idea, and all points thereafter.

But, again, I won't find anything out for another few days, and in the meantime am left to fidget, tap pencils rapidly upon objects, bounce my knees in a succession of staccato patterns, and wonder why I only get voicemail...

More to come on or around Tuesday... Stay tuned.

Sound clips

Wed, 01 Mar 2006 03:45:16 GMT

Oh, money. You are a wicked, and vile mistress. And yet, what would I ever do without you? Oh, wait... that's right. I am already all too familiar with the answer to that question. The reason I bring this up is that my rent is due tomorrow... or "tomorrow" if you like (they have a bit of a grace period). But, "Hark! Hark!" harkened I... tomorrow is also when I am supposedly going to get my first big fat deposit for my work for the French. So, assuming everything goes the way it's supposed to tomorrow, I'll be dandy. Bob will be my uncle and whatnot. Even though my uncles are named Fred and Larry... Bob will somehow sneak in there for the time being.

In other news, it's Fat Tuesday! So... "Heureux Mardi Gras, mes amis!" To celebrate, I am currently on my... 5th Newcastle... so I do apologize for any typos or incoherence you may happen upon during the reading of this post. One of these days, I figure me and whoever wants to go with me, will have to make our way to N'aw'l'ans for the festivities. Kinda' one fo those things it seems like a person should do at least once... like going to Vegas. Speaking of which, we should all go to Vegas sometime...

Good gravy... how long have I been typing this? Mostly, I've been trying to find Zydeco music clips to link to... but they all want me to pay money in order to access them. Aaaand... we come back around to where we started.

Offensively defensive driving

Tue, 28 Feb 2006 22:14:09 GMT

I find this to be flat-out awesome...

...except, of course, if I were to have been driving behind them that day.

Mid-Night Rambling

Tue, 28 Feb 2006 07:19:17 GMT

I hate nights like this. One of those nights when my mind won't shut up and let me sleep. Thinking about everything and nothing at the same time... rapid-fire thoughts, one leading into another, without so much as a pause or a chance to bring any one of them to a conclusion. Snippets of songs, random thoughts, images, nonsense... all on a loop in my mind. As if my subconcious is deliberately trying to keep me awake. As if it knows that if I sleep, I'll miss something important. As if I should be doing something constructive, or at least something that will help ensure... something... everything... Hell if I know.

I guess I worry that I don't do enough. That there's always something more I could do or say... that I could make everything fine if I'd just do this or that, and that the one little thing I've overlooked is ultimately going to prove to be what brings it all crashing down...

I hate the fact that it's dark. Everything feels too small when it's dark... too enclosed and limited. Things are so much more active during the day. Things are possible when it's light out. Things can be taken care of or fixed. At night, the world stops, and all you can do is wait for morning... and think. And when the thinking finally stops, sleep...

Which, now that I've been typing and re-typing for an hour or so... sleep sounds like a better, and more attainable, idea. Morning will get here soon enough, I suppose.

The waiting... is the hardest part

Mon, 27 Feb 2006 04:18:34 GMT

Tomorrow begins my first full week of self-employment. I am currently sitting at my trusty drafting table, typing on my "new" (as of August of last year) Tablet PC... old meets new, and all that jazz. I've cleared a good majority of the debris off the desk and moved the internet connection over, in an attempt to create some sort of "office" for myself.

What you are looking at, by the way, is a good full 1/3 of my entire living room. I live in a space classified in some circles as a "cubicle."

At any rate, it's cool to have my office in my home. Now I just need to get my home moved, which I hope to be doing in the very near future. Things still look good for me getting some kind of a retainer from Ever Elusive. But I can't help but have that lingering doubt in the back of my mind that says "What if you don't?" I guess I'm just being a little paranoid because things seem to be going a little too well lately, and I am reminded all too well of past experience, when things that seemed to good to be true... actually were. I'm hoping and praying that this whole endeavour isn't one of those.

Don't get me wrong though... by far, this is the best I've felt in a long time. And that little voice of doubt isn't really all that loud... but he does have a tendency for biting every once in a while. I'm just excited about the idea of moving back home. I want it all to happen now, dangit! Now that I've actually made the leap, I guess I'm expecting immediate results. Honestly, though, I really only see it being another couple months, if things go according to plan.

Oh, in case anyone's wondering, here's the link to The Ever Elusive Productions web site, which I just got done with the other day: http://www.everelusive.biz. This company is a big part of the "plan" that things are hopefully going to go according to.

GAH... ants in my pants dance!