Month: October 2002

  • Finally I get in after five tries. Internet Explorer kept getting errors and closing after the window popped up.


    I thought regular message boards were bad. Then last night, thanks to Marisa, I discovered photo forums. THAT was downright scary.


    I have decided that complaining about it isn't enough and I'm going to combat it with a little passive resistance. I joined two boards, one that's populated by those freaky people, and one that I hope to save from freaky people (and they deal with two completely different subjects). It's going kinda slow right now, because one refuses to believe that my password's right and the other one's an absolute maze to get through.


    I am proud to say that I am not as pathetic as the freaky fans. I'll just leave it at that.


    If you're going to splice pictures, at least learn how to use Photoshop correctly.


    Anyways, I also learned that staying up all night is not a good idea.


    By the way, I'd like to officially welcome AbbyNormal to my world of insanity.


    My order has been shipped, and it's on its way, so I'll soon have my Neverending Story DVD.


    I guess that's all for now. I want to get back to writing my Vampire (Ariel & Josh) narrative. See ya!


    "Co-inkie-dinkie!" --Marisa

  • I am still in need of venting, so how about we get that over and done with so we can get on to the good stuff? I wish I could go into more detail on some of these, but I don't want to offend anyone, and besides, Marisa already knows (or thinks she knows, depending on the subject) too much...


    Anyways, today's laments are:


    1. I seem to like torturing myself by going to more forums.


    2. The least they could do is let you know the original topic post date without entering the thread.


    3. Yesterday, I felt disillusioned, but I didn't know why. Today I feel like something that I was close to achieving is now slipping away, but I don't know what. You'd think I'd at least be able to analyze this stuff. Is it the forums? Only time will tell...


    4. Am I a bad person if I don't want someone to become famous? No, Marisa, it's not who you think it is.


    5. I said this one yesterday, but I feel the intense need to elaborate. Some celebrities have really freaky fans, and they're not always the celebrities you'd expect to have freaky fans. Said freaky fans do things like call themselves cheesy names ("Stygians" being the exception), come up with cheesy phrases, and talk to the celebrity on his/her message board like they've known him/her for years.


    6. Sometimes it's hard to tell if a person actually knows said celebrity, or if they're just another freaky fan. This is even harder if both groups congregate in the same place.


    7. Posts such as "Ohmygod! Ohmygod! I have the first reply! Yea!!!!! It's mine!!!" (or words to that effect) should be banned from message boards.


    8. My order has not been shipped yet.


    9. I would like to talk to my best friend, with whom I can be more detailed because her mind hasn't been poisoned with opinions of the reasons behind my incessant talking yet.


    10. Unfortunately, I can't call her until Friday.


    11. Marisa, please wake up and go to class.


    12. Xanga won't put a picture by my "Now Playing" links, so it looks like I just typed the link myself (which I didn't).


    13. Go visit AbbyNormal after you're done here. She had a more interesting weekend than I did.


    Okay, I feel better now.


    Well, I've been trying to fix the picture I drew in Photoshop. My interest in it has waned a little, because I can't get it to look any better. I'll post it just as soon as I can get Xanga to understand that my drawing is not on a website. Anyways, now I'm in the process of drawing four more pictures of the same characters, now named Ariel Dusseau and Josh Grant (Yeah, I know it's obvious). We had a slight problem where the drawing looked so much like Josh Groban that no other name fit it. Finally Marisa threw up her hands in frustration and yelled, "Just name him Josh!" Since we were already being obvious with that, I decided to go right over the edge and give him the last name of "Grant." Contrary to popular belief, my interest in the real Josh Groban does not go beyond admiration (from one artist to another), respect, and intrigue (Something about guys who can sing always seems to intrigue me, which ends up making me look bad. It's never the same thing, either), so grow up, you people.


    On a similar vein, I've been working on the narrative that the drawing is based on. It's coming along pretty well. I would post it, but I'm writing it out of order so it would just be confusing. Plus, I've got song lyrics written in it, so I'll probably get in trouble for copyright infringement or something like that. Once I get back to editing my website (HA!), I'll post another story of mine that's actually finished and was recently titled "Code." Marisa likes it, Chris does not, so I guess you'll just have to look for yourself. Once it's up (which may take a while).


    Okay, okay, you all can wake up now. I'm done babbling. Bye for now (Keep your teeth clean-little inside joke).

  • This is gonna be a short entry, as I need to get back to writing my lab, but I need to vent a little (vaguely), and Marisa's not cooperating (I can't say I blame her). So, here goes:


    1. I learned today that I still hate forums.


    2. Why can't forums ever be sorted in the order of when the thread was first started, not when the last comment was made?


    3. There are a lot of idiots on forums.


    4. Some celebrities have really freaky fans (okay, so that's an older one).


    5. It's nice to know that some celebrities actually post weblogs/forum messages on their websites on a regular or semi-regular basis.


    6. Unfortunately, this kind gesture is often drowned out by their freaky fans.


    7. Fortunately, this will never happen on MY favorite band's website.


    8. My favorite band needs to make more TV appearances.


    9. What's wrong with touring? I wish I knew, because my intuition doesn't seem to want anyone except my favorite band to tour.


    10. What if they play a slow song I like?


    11. Why isn't there someone out there who doesn't have a life and posts old weekly top 40 charts from the past six months?


    12. I ordered the Neverending Story on DVD.


    13. Talking incessantly about a person/thing does not carry an emotional tag.


    14. I'm gonna be sound board operator for Raft of the Medusa after all.


    15. Good-bye!

  • Okay, first I'd like to thank Marisa for making that weekend sound like an all-out soap opera (note the last statement dripping with sarcasm). It's not a soap opera as my character's POV would not be fairly and accurately represented anywhere. Oh, well. I have a feeling it'll be better now that he's not here. Besides, now I have other things to serve as distractions...


    Right now I am addicted to Photoshop. I drew a picture one weekend and it turned out well enough that I wanted to clean it up and improve upon it, so I scanned it into one of the computers in the Digital Media Lab and took off on Photoshop. I'll post the finished product (if it ever gets finished). I wanted to post the original (scanned) drawing, but I'm at home right now and I'm having trouble accessing my U drive from here, so it'll have to wait. What's more impressive is the long story behind the drawing. Marisa was looking over some Vampire (the RPG) characters I had created, and she wanted to play one named Ariel Dusseau. Ariel was one of my most developed characters, but I sadly had no use for her in this particular chronicle. Marisa still wants to play her, but the jury is still out on that one. Among other things (Ariel is a VERY complex character), Ariel is in love with a mortal, which is forbidden by the Masquerade (which basically says that you can't reveal your vampire nature to mortals). I had designed this particular plot point several months ago, but I had not determined who the mortal was or what he looked like, only that he was either a theater or music student. Last weekend I was inspired to draw the two together, so I needed an appearance. Recently Marisa, thanks to me, has been somewhat smitten with a singer named Josh Groban (a 21-year-old with an incredible baritone voice). I decided to tease her and use a picture of him as the basis for my drawing (Actually, he's not that bad-looking, for a guy with really curly hair). To my surprise, the drawing ended up actually looking like him (I did not expect this, since I am significantly better at drawing females than males). Marisa introduced herself to the drawing, so I guess she approves. Right now on Photoshop I have the picture colored and I'm trying to work on making it more 3-dimensional.


    My other project right now is to determine which music to use for specific purposes. Here's what I have right now:


    To create energetic and/or violent euphoria: Styx


    Anger Management: Styx (Especially "Come Sail Away")


    To summon romantic creativity: Survivor (WARNING: Romantic creativity is intended for story-writing purposes only and should be used very very sparingly)


    To summon regular creativity: Ed Van Fleet, Josh Groban, John Williams, Other Symphonic Movie Soundtracks, Holst, Mahler


    To feel dramatic: Andrew Lloyd Weber, Jekyll & Hyde, Les Miserables, Lion King


    To feel charitable: Rent


    Emotional Overload Management: Styx


    Emotional Release: Used to be "Dear John" by Styx, but I've since grown stoic to it


    To create mellow/quiet euphoria: Anything with a crescendo


    To relax: Josh Groban


    I've been needing a lot of creativity, emotional overload management, and relaxing lately...


    Okay, this is long enough, and I have to go to bed. I'm going back down to Denison tomorrow, where I'll get the now much-talked about drawing posted. Bye.