It's official.

Hatman and I will be in Chicago from the evening of the 22nd through the afternoon of the 27th. Woohoo! It's been two whole years since I've been back, and I'm psyched.

Let me know if you want to hang out, and I'll see what I can do (Saturday is a wedding, which is the "real" reason that we're in town).

Using the Blog as an Incendiary Device

I *heart* this post.

http://wolfbaronxylo.livejournal.com/193516.html

Last week, I ate a burger that was made of four different kinds of meat - beef, chicken, bacon, and sausage. It was yummy.

Well, fine.

Remove the blog in the top spot from the following list and bump everyone up one place. Then add your blog to the bottom slot, like so:

1) Damien Scott
2) Geek Boi
3) Tom
4) Connor
5) Laura

Next select five people to tag.

1) Andrew
2) Beryl
3) Erica
4) Ryan
5) Sawyer (create a blog, dammit!)


What were you doing 10 years ago?

I was in junior high, probably sitting in class, being a huge nerd and actually taking notes. Thinking about England, because it was the time of year before I got to go, when we were doing fundraising. Oh, and dreading Valentine's Day.

What were you doing 1 year ago?

Sitting in the middle of my living room floor (but in a different apartment), frantically trying to complete a project for the Class of Doom #1, and wondering if I really wanted to be in grad school after all. Oh, and watching SciFi. That much hasn't changed.

Five snacks you enjoy:

- Chips and salsa.
- Dragonfly wafers.
- Popcorn.
- Moe's chips and queso.
- Crudite.

Five songs you know all the words to:

- Type O Negative, Black No. 1
- Queen, Bohemian Rhapsody (and a bunch of other Queen songs)
- Guns N' Roses, Sweet Child of Mine
- Major Tom, David Bowie
- Cities in Dust, Siouxsie and the Banshees

Five things you would do if you were a millionaire:

- Pay off every bit of student loan that Sawyer and I have gathered.
- Pay for the rest of school.
- Buy a new car.
- Buy a house in the Highlands (Atlanta), and a house in France.
- Buy a house for my parents.

Five bad habits:

- No tact.
- Messy as hell.
- Freaking out about absolutely everything.
- Control freak.
- Picking at my cuticles.

Five things you enjoy doing:

- Sleeping.
- Painting.
- Travelling.
- Dressing up and going to the club.
- Visiting friends.

Five things you would never wear again:

- Most pastel colors.
- Spandex bike shorts.
- My Sam Goody uniform.
- A baseball cap.
- A heart monitor (if I can avoid it).

Five favorite toys:

- My computer.
- My iPod.
- My comic books.
- My linoleum printing kit.
- My notebooks.

Weeeeeeeeeeee!

I never post here any more! Hooray!

I really do exist, I swear. I'm just busy. And it's hard to remember to post when you have three of these darn things.

Weird website for the day:

http://www.bifrost.com.au/hosting/gnomes/

Yup yup. It's amazing what random Google searches turn up.

Mmmm....

Two useful lessons for today:

Ibuprofen is a wonderful substance obviously delivered directly from the gods.

Roaster's chili congeals really, really quickly (but it's still tasty).

I think that's it. Yep.

Top 10 reasons why I haven't blogged in a while:

10. I had to wash my hair.
9. My dog ate my laptop.
8. Atlanta is so cold in the wintertime, you just wouldn't believe it.
7. Anne Rice found God and it's just devastated me.
6. Alien probes.
5. I got caught up in contemplating the "why" of everything.
4. I'm secretly my own evil twin.
3. Work and school are So Hard.
2. I just couldn't be bothered.
1. All my livejournal posts are quizzes and I didn't think anyone would be interested.

So, yeah. That's why I haven't posted here in a while. That, and all my LJ posts are things I don't want floating around the general internet. And they're not witty. I have got to be witty.

Eriudite!

I don't have the faintest clue as to whether or not I spelled that correctly.

T-H-A-T

But I digress.

I was feeling a little isolated from the snobby art world I had been involved in during my years at the U of C, so I went to the bookstore and bought a copy of an artsy newspaper, Cabinet. I don't think it's all that visually-oriented, but it contains lots and lots of art drivel that I am really excited to read. Stream-of-consciousness writing and bad philosophy about the color ivory and made-up big words and all that. I don't know why it draws me in the way it does, but I don't think I really want to find out, because if I do, it will tell me something about my personality I'd prefer to keep hidden from myself.

Road Rage

I sat at an intersection this morning for 15 minutes, waiting for it to clear so that I could go on to sit at another traffic light. Now, mind you, 15 minutes is my standard travel time from my home to work, on a good day. Today was the day that everybody and their dualie decided that they didn't need to make sure that oncoming traffic could make it through when the light changed. No... They pulled on through the intersection, blocking all lanes of oncoming traffic, so that through four changes of the light, we all sat there and waited. And waited. I finally pulled up and blocked the intersection, just so I wouldn't have to wait any longer. Therefore, I was still blocking the intersection when the other light changed. I could have moved out of the way if the idiot in front of me had gone into the open lane instead of waiting so he could cut across traffic. Then somebody in a Passat cut me off, instead of letting me go so I could clear the intersection.

I hate Atlanta traffic, but I think this wins the prize.

0 energy + much exercise = bad

I got off my butt this weekend (and away from the television) in order to go biking to the park. The first time, which would be Saturday, I forgot to eat anything beforehand, so I got halfway to the park and had to stop and lie down for a while, lest I pass out. Note to the wise: make sure your body is fueled before strenuous excercise. I did make it to the park, though, and bought some Gatorade, and ate lunch, and so the way back home was much easier. Yesterday I felt motivated to do the same, so I made sure to eat and drink plenty before heading out, and packed an energy drink and bar. I had no problems. I even forgot to eat the energy bar (so I had it at home as a treat). I think I might make a habit of this excercise thing, especially since Hatman will participate.
I decided to start taking some St. John's Wort in an attempt to relieve stress. I haven't seen a great change so far, but I have noticed that it's easier to talk myself down from a panic attack lately. I have to tell myself that I am just fine, nothing is wrong with me, and that I'm not having a heart attack. I'm getting better at it. I am even able to talk myself out of caffeine jitters, since I'm convinced that caffeine doesn't bother me as much as my subconscious thinks it does, especially when the caffeine I'm drinking is mixed with half a cup of milk (i.e. coffee).

Also, I saw The Brothers Grimm, and I agree - the kitten was unnecessary. But I was entertained, mostly.

DragonCon

But it was awesome while it lasted. Sawyer dressed as Lobster Johnson from the Hellboy comics and will most likely be online soon (I'll post a link when I find it). He even had a crazy fan, who found him three times and made a point to talk to him for long periods of time. Also, when we went by the Dark Horse booth, Hellboy's editor was super excited about the costume, so he took some photos of it and plans on posting it in the letters section in the BPRD comic. So keep an eye out for it. I dressed as Miho from the Sin City comic, but unfortunately it is more obscure than the film and so therefore only two people recognized me. I saw some movie Sin City characters later, even a movie Miho. It made me feel a little better. There was a comic version of Nancy, so I guess that's alright. However, I got more photos taken of me in my falls and corset than in the costume, so I was happy anyway. Instant celebrity!
Things I did: Saw the Cruxshadows, saw Voltaire, got Voltaire to sign my copy of Oh My Goth, saw amateur wrestling, met Sid Haig, met Lloyd Kaufman (who, by the way, is awesome and the nicest guy ever and told me I was too pretty and intelligent to be liking Troma films), met the guys who do Homestar Runner, bought more dice, took pictures of people in costume, made eye contact with the guy who played Chewbacca, and bought Jennie Breeden her first ever Dilly Bar. And I lost my voice. And went to the Future, which is a decent club. It reminded me of Erica. Meridith and I attempted to buy a Jack Sparrow a drink, but I think he thought we were really drunk and declined (politely). I think I made a friend with a guy whom I didn't recognize the last time I saw him because all other times we spoke he was dressed in, well, a dress. Once it was black and vinyl, and the second time it was pink and vinyl. Weird.
Now I miss people again, especially Meridith and Chris (I miss Lisa, too, but I hope to be able to see her again in another couple of weeks, since she lives relatively close to me). I kept trying to convince them to move down here, with little success. I'll keep trying.
Then I slept for three hours and am now freaking out because all my schoolwork is due (read: finals) this week, and I didn't get anything done on it this weekend. I will be sleeping very little for the next couple of nights.

Eek.

Sawyer has gone out.

To buy gas. The pipeline that supplies the city with most of its oil (I don't know exactly how this works) has been inoperative for the past couple of days, so it looks like Atlanta will be without gas for Labor Day weekend. If it has gas, the gas will be really really expensive. So Sawyer went out tonight to fill up the tank before we can't get any gas. We don't want to strand any of the people to whom we've promised rides this weekend, and, well, the trains don't run after 1am, so we'd like some reliable mode of transportation other than a taxi cab.

Mr. Miyagi is on TV, but he's not Mr. Miyagi. He's some weird physics professor fighting the devil. Evidently he has to prove some eeeeeevil equation in order to stop Satan from taking over the world. I knew math was evil. I just knew it.

Sniffles.

I left my kleenex at home and I really could use one right now. It's been a week since I bought the darn things to take to work.

However, it is mostly okay because Meridith, Lisa, and (last but not at all least) Fyvel will all be here in 3 or four days (depending on the person). Most will be here in three days. I'm really really excited. Oh, and my brother will be here. Yeah.

I just hope I can get all my homework done before the Con...

Zzzzzz....

I can't wait for the weekend to start.

I am actually going to go to a bar with people my own age (other than Hatman) for the first time since I moved to Atlanta. I'm both apprehensive and excited at the same time.

Numberology

I have discovered that I have a strange sort of OCD... I seem to only like things in groups of prime numbers. For example, I'll go out of my way to make sure that I never have an even number of things, though I seem to make an exception for multiples of three and five. I find this odd. Hatman noticed it the other day. I'd never noticed it before.

Bruce f****n' Campbell

Bruce Campbell is currently touring along with the release of his new movie, Man with the Screaming Brain. Last week, I picked up the local free paper and noticed that, lo and behold, he'd be at the neighborhood arts cinema doing a book signing and a Q&A before three exclusive showings of the film. So Sawyer and I played hooky for the evening and went to see the movie. Actually, first we went to dinner at an Indian restaurant I'll definitely return to and then had ice cream at Jake's and then saw the movie, but you get the idea. We had to settle for the 11pm showing, as all the others were sold out, but it ended up being okay. No book signings, though; we decided to wait and buy the book later, then catch Mr. Campbell at a convention or something. Even though it was at 11 on a school night, the theatre was packed. We met one of the local goths while in line (he was with a group of younger people who were having a lengthy conversation about poo). Bruce was awesome, though. I'm used to him being a total jackass to his fans, but he was really cool this time. He talked about living in Oregon, and the documentary he and his wife are making about what you should do in public places, and about the state of Hollywood today. He said some things I really agree with, about how Hollywood thinks that certain poor box office returns are due to piracy, when in fact they're just due to really crappy movies. I wanted to ask about his opinions on Troma films, but I wasn't sure it was appropriate.
The movie was... strange. It was filmed in Bulgaria, and along with Bruce, starred Stacey Keach and Sam Raimi. I felt that it was far above a Sci-Fi channel quality (even though it was filmed primarily for that purpose - catch it September 10th). I'm not sure how it will translate to the small screen, though. Now, mind you, it wasn't terrific. It was a solid B film. However, it was thoroughly entertaining, and I'd watch it again.

I sort of hoped that Bruce would recognize Sawyer from the ScavHunt video (which some fan might have sent in the mail, thinking it was cool), but it didn't happen. He did brush past me while I was standing in the lobby, though.

Yeah.

LEAST COMPETENT PEOPLE:

"Citing the high quality of the workforce in Ontario, Toyota decided recently to build a second plant in the province even though Ontario was offering only about half the subsidy offered by Mississippi and Alabama to build the plant in one of those states. According to a July Canadian Press story, a Toyota spokesman said it had learned from Nissan and Honda, which had found the work force in the U.S. South to be often untrained and illiterate, and that, in Alabama, trainers had to use pictorials to teach some workers how to use the equipment."

I don't think they even approached Arkansas about this. Anyway, it's all self-perpetuating, and is why Arkansas, Alabama, and Mississippi remain the three crappiest states in the Union.

I'll post something more positive later on.

It's getting dark outside...

I planned on riding my bike to the park today, but it looks as thought either I'm going to have to wait a while before I go, or I'm not going to get to go at all. It's about 5pm right now and I could swear that it looks more like it's 7 or 8. just before the sun goes down. There are some storms moving through the area and the one over us right now is particularly heavy. Very soon, we will lose the satellite signal on the television, and I will be left with doing work on the computer (which is really what I should be doing, after all). I will enjoy Carey Grant while he is there, or perhaps change the channel and see if there's something better on another channel.

And the sky keeps getting darker. This is going to be a big rain.

'Kay, then.

An awesome website: Bugs!

Also, please do not bank with Wachovia. In the six months I have had my account, they have done nothing to make me want to keep an account with them. In fact, they make me want to take my money away from them and then punch their CEO for making things so difficult for me the past couple of months. Since when is it standard bank practice to hold checks from clearing (payroll checks, mind you) for a week because an account is less than six months old? And then they charged both me and Hatman a bunch of overdraft fees that we could have avoided if Wachovia hadn't dicked us around about them.

So, yes. Bank with Citibank, if you have to. It's better than Wachovia.

Gah.

Today is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

Wachovia can suck it.

Holy crap! Happy quarter-century, Xylo!

Now you can pay less for rental cars. Isn't that momentous?

Ohio

I slept a lot right after we returned. The trip to Zanesville ended up being really quite interesting. We got in early Friday afternoon, and assumed that nobody else was there yet (though found out later that Milligan had been there as long as we had). We drove around Zanesville for most of the day, and feel that we saw pretty much all of it. We've driven across the famous Y Bridge several times now. At the end of our exploration (after taking pictures of Ohio Route 666 road signs) we found the Zanesville mall. There, we went to an awesome comic book/video game/used movie place, and discovered that Zanesville appears to have the largest group of high school-aged goth kids anywhere that I've seen within the United States so far.
The next day we went to Jess and Connor's wedding, which was beautiful. Millit looked absolutely gorgeous in her dress, and the ceremony went pretty smoothly, except for when the ring bearer didn't make it down the aisle because he was too interested in picking his nose to continue any further. After the ceremony we went to an outdoor reception with loads of UofC people we know, and dancing, and pizza. It was nice to see all the people I haven't seen in a while, but would like to see more often. Okay, so maybe not all of them, but a decent number, at least. Following the reception, Ridith, Gemma, Milligan, Hatman and I went back to the mall for a round of blacklight putt putt. Though none of us was really very good at it, it was indeed fun. Then (ah, faithful readers, the night was not nearly over) we drove to Columbus, picked up some more people (aka Carla) and went to the Church, which is the Goth night in Columbus. I wore The Boots and danced my ass off (perhaps even a little literally). I hadn't been to a goth club in over a year, so this was fantastic. It's weird, though, because the clubs in Columbus are non-smoking, so it had a very smoky and crowded back patio that I only glimpsed. It also had a water cooler with free water for patrons. I think that LDO would like it a lot (it even had an LDO-esque person, whom I determined to be inferior based on the quality of her dancing and her lack of Hair and Pants). RIght. So I think I will go back, if I'm ever in Columbus again.
And then it was back to Zanesville and sleep. We had breakfast at the Cracker Barrel, and tried to find the Longeberger Basket Factory (unsuccessfully), and then went on our way home.

All in all, even though I feel guilty for having done no homework all weekend, it was completely satisfactory.

New thing.

From now on, the LJ posts will be cross-posted here, for the benefit of those who don't have an LJ. (All LJ-specific posts will be posted only on LJ).

Design rants.

I've become something of a snob about advertising campaigns, especially branding campaigns, ever since I started design school. So when I heard that the company I work for part-time (as an administrative assistant, not a designer) was starting a branding campaign to redesign their image for their annual meeting next year, I was interested in seeing what they've dug up. I did some research and found out that the company they've hired is from Chicago, the same company, in fact, that designed the advertising campaign to promote Chicago tourism that's going up in O'Hare and Midway. I was hoping that my company would hire somebody fresh and cutting-edge, but I find myself disappointed. I'm a type fiend; I was looking at the type on the ads and am solidly unimpressed. The type decision is not fun (one of the things the ads seem to be attempting to convey) and it's not classy (the other thing the ads are aiming at). In fact, it's one of the most bland type choices you could possibly make. That, and all the ads have a very static arrangement with a photo and then some blocks of color and text in one of the blocks. Nothing to draw your eye, or catch your attention. Perhaps I do not understand, as I am not an art director and am merely a designer. However, I think that I might show the stuff to the design department head and see what he thinks about it. Holy crap. I'm only two quarters in and already I think I know something.