:: Quiche of the Day ::

:: 9.30.2001 ::

Someone out there really doesn't want me to finish my movie, because every time I go into finish it something goes wrong. Yesterday I couldn't get it to remaster my footage, which it had no problem doing four days ago. Today, the whole system crashed. Me, I'm on cloud friggin' nine.
As a remedy, I'm watching Cartoon Network's wacky Adult Swim line up and eatting ice cream. Just got word that the system is back up again, so I've gotta go back and try and make stuff work. *sigh*
More content is coming soon. The usual fan fic + comic reviews, coming soon!
:: Aaron Humphrey 11:24 PM reply [+] ::
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Now that I'm in college and have things like waking up, doing laundry, foraging for food and protecting the tribe to keep my busy, I'm not as hip with current events than I used to be. I'm don't know what movies are coming out, and I'm frequently missing out on my daily dose of Star Wars. I've been trying to keep up with the September 11 aftermath, but it's really hard to gauge the nation's public openion when the only openions I get are from my friends, who generally share my personal openion.
I guess there's quite a bit of war-mongering going on, though. The other day I saw someone wearing a tee-shirt that said "Osama bin Laden, wanted dead or alive" with the alive part crossed out. Ha ha. Good old death. Boy we sure haven't had enough of that. Enough time has passed that it's time to take a good hard look at what exactly is going on. We might get some of that from TV and presidential addresses, but it's most certinally not the whole story. Here's where I've been finding some of my alternative news and openion:
The OC Weekly Orange County's free arts and entertainment paper. It's also got more than its share of ads featuring models and call girls in various states of undress, but since said ads pay for the frequently insightful and startling pratical editorial content all across to board, I'll deal with it. Check out Jim Washburn's columns here and here if you read nothing else. That man is my new hero. Seriously. Go!
I ran across this site today that's run by a Muslim college student. The opening page is thought provoking, and the info he has about the news footage with the Palestinian kids that everyone except me saw is a good exercise in media literacy.
Normally I'd be linking to MediaWatch all over the place here, but all they've had up for over a month is an ominous "Please stay tuned as we rebuild" message, which roughly translated probably means, "We seriously got screwed over." I'm glad I haven't had to write a research paper yet. I don't know what I'll do with out those guys.
The good news is that Gurrilla News Network is still up. Combining grass roots, alternative news and literature with a slick site design, you could do a whole lots worse than these guys. They always give me something to think about, and their coverage of "America @ War" is pretty varied and in-depth.
And I'm sure that The Onion has some funny stuff to say, but I haven't been able to load the page. Hmmm . . .
Be educated on what's up! It's that or Pokemon, kids.

:: Aaron Humphrey 2:32 PM reply [+] ::
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My friend Christina tells me that my webpage keeps getting funnier every day. I'm not sure that's an accurate interpretation of the facts, but it's best to be safe anyway. I need to put a stop to this whole "funny" thing before it gets really bad and I have people rolling on the floor, with their keyboards in a death grip typing "LOL!" over and over and over again. I've got to be careful that this whole humor thing doesn't corrupt me. There's a reason that evil people are always laughing, after all. Anyway, I uploaded some new screen shots on the Out of Hand page, so give 'em a click. You will find nothing funny there except for my poorly written captions.
:: Aaron Humphrey 11:42 PM reply [+] ::
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Rough cut of movie is finished!!! Music and sound fx still aren't all there, but man if feels good to have something tangible to show people! I'll try and get some screen shots up when I get some time, and maybe even some tinny-screen video if I can find a server that will host it. I showed it to the Kids in the Hall,er . . . kids in my hall and they all seemed to like it pretty well. Of course, they all seem to like me, too, which either means they're biased, or they have don't have particuarly good taste. Maybe both. Tomorrow it makes it debut apperence before people who aren't expected to give me high-fives after the end credits roll. More news as it breaks!
:: Aaron Humphrey 12:58 AM reply [+] ::
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Good news, true believers! I finally figured out what was wrong with my video files on Chapman's editing system and tonight -- for the first time in what has seemed like far too long (really about two days) I made some tangible progress. My irrational feeling of hope has returned, and even though I wanted to be completely finished by tonight, I was so excited to be making any kind of headway, I returned to the dorm feeling like a Triumphant a/v Warrior. My old mantra was: I will finish this timeline before I go to bed! My new, revised mantra is: I will be in bed by 1:00 tonight! You can decide which one is more worthwhile.
I'm also getting tired of talking about my sleeping habits. While I can still think of witty spins on the mystical ying and yang of AM/PM, it no longer holds any thrill for me. And if I'm talking about getting thrills by describing sleep at the same time, something's very, very wrong. The moratorium starts here!
Went to a big ol' Christian rock concert yesterday; woo! The only other concert I've been to in my post-Raffi years was when I went with my mom to see James Taylor because my dad couldn't go, so I didn't know quite what to expect. I was going from fire and rain to fire and brimstone.
Or I would have been if that whole faith by fear thing was still in vogue. Coming from a rather traditional, more stoic (which does is not the same thing as bad or boring) church, I'm still not quite sure what to do with this new, hip evangelism. So far it's not quite as uncomfortable as I'd imagined. The concert was set up inside of a Disney Land-sized parking lot, which meant there was no shade, no chairs, and no water unless you wanted to pay two bucks (even Christians gotta make a living, I guess), but that's nothing you wouldn't find at a secular concert. In fact, except all the Jesus fish tee shirts and bumper stickers, it wasn't really that different from a "normal" concert (not that James Taylor provided me with a whole lot of perspective there). As fun as it is to call Christian rock an oxymoron, I've got an aching suspicion that it's just the same old rocker pretension. Music is about expressing oneself, and not singing about sex and drugs doesn't delegitimatize it, that's just silly. I can't understand the lyrics (secular or religious) most of the time anyway, but it's comforting to know when I'm jumping up and down and yelling rock-concert style, it's nice to know that I'm not inadvertently supporting mass murder or anything. If the music's good (and it is), it's still rock. Even though it was a Christian concert, the bass was still revebering inside my chest cavity; I still had opportunities to buy over-priced tee-shirts, and was still surrounded by plenty of rock-savvy kids with band patches safety-pinned to their backpacks who were oh-so-much hipper than I. I'd write something insightful about the weird anomaly of rock culture here, except that I can't really figure it out.
Do you like your fan fic served up on a tasty blue background? If the answer's yes, you're in luck! And "Have you ever wondered about the history of fan fiction?" If the answer is a resounding "no!" you'll be joining me in not spending a lot of time here, except to look up the meaning of a word like twincest (yeah, and it has something to do with Harry Potter fan fic).
More later!
:: Aaron Humphrey 12:58 AM reply [+] ::
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Orange County is never colder than when I'm walking back to the dorm from the editing lab, and every time I start to feel hopeful about my project something comes up that replaces it with a feeling of anxious desperation. After working until seven in the morning last night, I had my roommates make sure I didn't leave the dorm room after midnight. But of course late nights just yeild more late nights, so now it's 2 AM and bed is the farthest thing from my mind, and from the looks of it the only thing on my Ed and Grant's respective minds. I could easily sneak out and do some more work. It's a little weird because it seems like a very real and tangible possibility. If I didn't have class tomorrow . . .
Grant, in his free-media feeding frenzy has been downloading Trainspotting, Requiem for a Dream, Fear and Loathing, et al. Today he and Christina were searching in vain for a copy of Clockwork Orange to infringe some copywrite on. I keep telling him that we're at a film school, and can check out pretty much any movie ever for free without commiting felony (or a resonable facimilie), but he always seems to forget that I'm talking when I bring that up.
Of course half the time I'm talking I don't even make sence any more.
Aaron: I'm going, but I shouldn't be back before . . . no, after -- yeah. I shouldn't be back until after . . . I'll be back before after you guys are asleeps. Again, this time.
Grant: Um . . . what?
Ed: Are you sure you're OK to go out?
At this point I start v(word starts with v . . . vehemonlously? vigoursly? I'm fine really!)ly denying that there's anything wrong with me. Man, sleep's not a drug, not sleeping's a drug. I mean, jeez, half of my posts are about not sleeping in one way or another. I can't get enough of this stuff! No, really, I promise I'll quit . . . once I have less to do.
Triumphant Return of Fan Fiction! It's short.
All sorts of exciting, action-packed stuff on my Chapman friendz' web pages. Christina's got a picture of me (scroll down) mixin' it up deejay style, Ed talks about my movie and in some inexplicable typo says he's been giving me a hard time, and Grant decides to give up on his web page in order to have more time to download Michael Jackson videos.
Next time: something interesting, honest!
Now: it's yummy insomina time!!!
:: Aaron Humphrey 2:28 AM reply [+] ::
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I'm not going to say how late I stayed up last night, because I know my mom reads this web page. Let's just say that I'm no longer clear when night stops and day begins anymore, or vice versa. The old Busy Machine is chugging along as fast as ever, but so far everything's running on schedule. It's not much, but I started a section for my films the other day and forgot to make a post about it. There's a little bit of info about the movie I'm working on now, but not much else. I think I've got a set-up going that will serve as a good template if or when there's a lot of content on there. I haven't had anything to eat all day except for a bowl of cereal, but that's probably because I slept though lunch (um . . . hi, Mom!). Gonna go get nourishment now.
:: Aaron Humphrey 6:17 PM reply [+] ::
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My Uncle Jim suggested that I put a reply button at the end of my posts, so I decided to put my mad hacking skillz to the test and attempt that brave feat. Everybody reply and tell me if it works, OK?
So that this post isn't all about me, check this: The Hunger Site is back online! These guys put Internet banners to good use, and helps save starving kids -- how cool is that? Go donate some free food! Scope out The Breast Cancer Site while you're there, and also drop by The Ecology Fund. All it takes is a couple seconds and a willingness to look at banners for businesses that at least pretend to have some humaintarian interests. It's easy -- arm chair activism.
More later!
:: Aaron Humphrey 1:10 AM reply [+] ::
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As we all hurtle through the Forest of Fate on our Wheelbarrows of Destiny, there's no way to tell where we'll end up in the end. Even the corn flakes-boring animated Indian Princess knew that the (proverbial, and I guess also physical) "river's always changing. Always flowing." That said, I'm pretty sure that if my life continues on the route it's recently been traversing, I know one thing for certian: by the end of next week I will never sleep again.
My bedtime keeps being drastically pushed back into the realm of the obserd -- last night I didn't get back from editing until almost five. AM. That means that waking up at ten yields only a paltry five hours of sleep. It'd be OK if I knew that this was a one (or two, or three) time thing, but the wild part is that I plan on doing it again tonight. So far my late-night excursions have yeilded no fangs or bloodlust, and I've yet to shrivel up when faced with sunlight (although I do tend to close the blinds when I get home, because these days that when it starts getting light again), so I'm doing well in the Not Being a Vampire category, but I'll keep you updated.
Oh -- check this out! Here down in sunny, smoggy CA if there's one thing people luv, it's their stupid cars and parking spaces. It's all a big waste, if you ask me, and even for all its potential for getting me lost, I still prefer the bus. Anyway, I meant to mention this sooner, but Car Free Day is this Friday, so go out and show your support of alternative transportation methods by not driving. The truth is that no matter how much you like your car, you probably don't actually need it, especially if you live in la ciudad. Adbusters also has all sorts of sweet posters and bumper stickers to print out. Go there and get in tune with your grass roots!
Speaking of grass roots, I've inspired my roommates Grant and Ed to put up their own Blogger pages. Is this what they call copycat crimes? Anyway, scope them out -- it won't be long before they start dishing on me and you'll finally unearth all my deep, dark secrets. My friend Neil also updated his web page!
Fan fic!
My friend Peter doesn't have a web page, so I just steal his stuff and post it on mine.
:: Aaron Humphrey 2:20 PM reply [+] ::
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Cargo shorts rule. They're like purses for guys! You know those make-up commericals where the girl holds up her purse, dumps it out on the table and says, "this is my life in here, so I need to wear tough eye-liner," or something like that? Yeah, for me, it's the same thing, except with my cargo shorts. And that whole eye-liner thing. Right now I've got my wallet (which also holds a good portion of my life), two floppy disks, a MiniDV tape, some change, my sun glasses, my regular glasses (in glasses case!), my keys, and my ID card for the cafeteria all hanging out quite comfortably in my big old huge pockets, and I've still got four more pockets to put stuff in!!
And the best part is that unlike girly purses, us guys (generally) don't have to worry about leaving our shorts anywhere! I still manage to somehow take my keys out of my pocket and leave them somewhere every single time I walk into the dorm room, and then forget to pick them up again when I leave, which is really annoying when it's 2:30 in the morning and my roommates are asleep, but at least I know that I still have my sunglasses!
Site updates!
I update the archive section over there on the side a couple of days ago. Even though September isn't over yet, some of my posts were getting scrolled off the page, but fear not! Just head over to the September archiveto read all my now-classic posts from earlier this month. Oh, and check out that counter on the side over there, too! It's only been running for a couple of weeks and I already have almost 400 hits, which probably means somebody's been hitting the refresh button an unhealthy ammount of times, but it still looks impressive!
Fan Fic!
Here's another Zelda one! I was gonna say something else about it , but I forgot.
:: Aaron Humphrey 10:54 AM reply [+] ::
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Well, kids, it's been a pretty crazy week, hasn't it? Right now there's too much college and not enough me, so I'm not gonna type too much today. Stayed up until 3:30 last night editing, got back to the dorms and realized that I had left my tape in one of the VCRs. Grant and Ed are sound asleep when I get back, but a slumbering Grant sits straight up in bed, as is his habit. "Left tape in lab," I mutter, hoping that he'll be kind enough to go get it for me. Of course, he's less in tune with that part of the brain that allows you to make sence than even I am, and collapses back into his sheets. I briefly think about how much I like ice cream, knock Ed's guitar over twice, climb into my bed, remember to brush my teeth, and then climb back into bed again, fall asleep and dream about how Brazil's going to start World War 3 by forcing everyone to learn Portugese.
Today I'm not much more cognizant, and I've spent most of the day trying to get through my huge reading assignment for science, which was partially about all the cool ways you can die from thirst. Unfortunatly, it's all gone down-hill in the "interesting" category since I finished that part.
Fan Fic! My friend Peter does a couple of things better than me. One of them is being smart, and the other is playing video games. There are a bunch of geeky kids on the Internet who also do a couple of things better than me. One of them is lacking any basic skills that don't have to do with video games (such as writing, talking to girls and finding food), and the other is . . . playing video games. These kids like to try and expand their horizons by making up stories about video games (fan fiction) and posting them on the Internet. These cracked Peter and me up, so we started writing our own. I only wrote a couple, but he kept at it, and the result is a series of engaging (if rather short) adventures the life of your favorite video game characters using such thrilling literary devices as theme and variation, nouns, verbs, and poor sentence structure. I'll post some pretty reguarly until I run out of them. More later!
:: Aaron Humphrey 8:46 PM reply [+] ::
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Remember that promise I made about yummy fan fiction? Well, it's not happening tonight. I'm trying to finish editing my first video project for my Visual Storytelling class, but it turns out I did something wrong the last time I saved it, and now that I'm on a different computer and can't access it. If I could get into the room across the hall for like five minutes I'd be able to get to it from any computer I wanted to, but some girl's working on her video project in there, or rather, some guy is working on some girl's video project in there and he doesn't seem to think that me, my happiness, or my well being are things worth turning away from the computer screen for. She said they'd be done in about half an hour, but it doesn't sound like a whole lot of editing is going on in there -- he seems to be giving her lessons on basic editing and how easy it is to annoy others (namely me) through laugher (namely his). blah.
At least now I've got time to do some reading for science!
:: Aaron Humphrey 11:55 PM reply [+] ::
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Whose idea was it to make California so dang hot? I'd like to have word with them.
I guess it's only been three days since . . . what do you call it? The incident? Usually you don't even have to say anything and people know what you mean. I'm still not sure how to deal with the whole thing. Tuesday dragged on for so long that I had to keep reminding myself that yes, a couple of airplanes did explode into the World Trade Center, and yes the buildings did indeed collapse like concrete sand castles, and yes it all happened this morning. It was weird to walk around campus and know that everyone was thinking about exactly the same thing. I tried to listen to some CDs and read some comics to unclog the World Trade Center, the Petagon, the airplanes and everything else from my mind, but it all seemed so petty and trivial.
It still kind of does, and I guess it still really is, but I need the surface of my life to retain the illusion of normalicy, because I don't know how to keep ahold of those ambiguous Things that Really Matter. I still can't come to grips with the idea of Thousands of People Dead.
Man, I was gonna write something funny for today. Maybe next time.
To be encouraging, give some blood, donate some cash, light some candles, do anything that will help, as I'm sure you already are. Nearly all of my bookmarked activism sites haven't updated recently, probably for a number of reasons. Like everyone else, I'm sure the editors there aren't quite sure what to do, but anti-corporate web sites have got to be even more careful -- they're primarily against what the WTC and the Petagon stood/stand for. More fundamentally they're against violence and repression (hey, who isn't?), and it's clear that the growing anti-globalization movement had nothing to do with Tuesday's events, but everyone's got to be a lot more careful now. I may write more about this later, but I think that a lot of what we've been seeing over the last couple of days has been another kind of activism, and not necessarily a bad kind. It's just too bad that it takes a major attack on our country to get most people stirred up enough to make a statement, and it's also disconcerting that participating seems, if not mandatory, at least expected if you're any kind of real American. I'm all for the whole "united front" thing, but it's not clear what we're uniting against. It's like saying "Woo, America! We rock! Now what?"
Next time: Fan Fiction! I promise!
Last time: I managed to spell "own" wrong. sorry . . .
:: Aaron Humphrey 5:35 PM reply [+] ::
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Got a phone call at about 7:30 this morning, which is usually one of my favorite times to be asleep. It was a wrong number, some lady trying to call her daughter's cell phone. Here's my side of the conversation that my roommates heard: "Hello? . . . no, this is 714-516-5356 (don't know if that's right, can't remember my oewn phone number). Yeah, I think you have the wrong number . . . What? They blew up the World Trade Center? . . . ok . . . thanks."
Crimeney, that sounds like a joke that would end "and then I went back to bed." Either that or some recycled sci-fi. Jeez . . .
Everybody do some praying, ok?
:: Aaron Humphrey 8:35 AM reply [+] ::
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Before I left for college, my mom got me two ten dollar rolls of quarters so that I could easily do my laundry, thereby not smelling like something had crawled up my shirt, made a nest out of rotten meat, and invited all its friends to do the same, except with other, fouler smelling, nestable materials, like my old clothes. Now that I'm actually in college, I like to keep those two rolls of quarters in my desk drawer, safe and unmolested because I can't use them!
For some reason the big wigs at my college must have been doing that "institution of higher learning" thing by getting mind-blowingly high on hallucinogens, then forgetting that they had anything to do with learning, or being smart for that matter. The aftermath of this trip down impractical lane spewed upon our doorsteps in the shape of a flier informing us that the washing machines on campus had been streamlined and would no longer take our shiny twenty-five cent pieces that they had told us to bring expressly for the purpose of washing our clothes. Now the system runs on debit cards that you actually have to first pay money for, and then take to a machine in order to transfer cash onto them, and then finally put the card in the washing machine to have your money transfer off of it. Fortuatly, you can use the same card for washers and driers. Unfortunatly, someone who was helping "streamline" the system came up with the bright idea, "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if the cards only accepted five dollar bills?!" and amazingly no one nearby told him, "NO IT WOULDN'T, IT WOULD SUCK!!" So even though I have twenty freaking dollars in laundy money, actually doing my laundry often involves a trip to the bank before I can even start thinking about wearing clean clothes. And then there's the whole sorting and folding part of doing laundry, too. And that weird "light" and "dark" thing. Frankly, I don't have time for that kind of crap. And what's really more important, my time or the way I smell? Yeah, that's what I thought.
Disturbed about the way America's quickly becoming a corporateocracy (look, Mom, I made a new word!), and also have too much time on your hands? Theyrule.net holds the potential to both a) make you more disturbed and b) quickly dispence of any free time you've got. I mean, if you're into that kind of thing.
:: Aaron Humphrey 9:09 PM reply [+] ::
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For those of you who've been following our riviting angst-filled, epic story of college life since day one and have found it lacking all the drama, angst and epicness (epicicity?) you were expecting, let me recomend the now classic WB show Felicity! For those of you who don't really care about being rivited, but have still read a couple of our newsposts, you might (or might not) be interested to know that I've finally filled the empty place that's been tearing up my heart since this site's nativity (that link continues today's teeny-bopper theme, and the sheer amount of info there is frankly disturbing -- now's a good time to mention that I'm not responcible for any outside content). In other words, I finally found some comic books I was actually looking for!
Still haven't gotten anyone to drive me to an actual comic book store, but the local Virgin Megastore actually stocks a mighty impressive selection of hi-quality graphix novelz. The only other mainstream chain I've found that carries my drug of choice is Borders, but whoever orders their stuff obviously doesn't actually read it, since it's mostly all Batman, Star Wars and manga. Virgin's selection was a lot more balanced -- about 1/3 manga, 1/3 capes and tights and 1/3 other stuff. I was surprised to find most of the books and series I had ever considered looking into and lots of other stuff I decided that I should have. Ended up with a cheap, pre-movie Ghost World TPB, a yummy, Eisner-award winning Usagi collection, and the creepy The Coffin, a book that grabbed me by the face and screamed "Read me!!" the first time we made contact. Bad news: I've actually got homework and projects to work on now, so I may not get to start, or for that matter finish, these comix for the unquantifiable period of "some time." Good news: I won't waste time or cash buying comics again for a some time either. Still need to catch up on my favorite monthly books tho . . .
Once I dig into these recent aquisitions to my Fun Collection, I'll get something like a comicx review section up on my web page. I'm also gonna try and get my friend Peter's insane, and not entierly un-brilliant fan-fic parodies up soon. Whoo! Actual content!
Oh crap, I still have laundry to do! More later!
:: Aaron Humphrey 12:56 AM reply [+] ::
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Hey, it's after midnight! Um . . . I was gonna post my expose (that's friggin' sweet noun ex-pos-EH, not the lame-o verb ex-POHS) on the alt-burgers here on campus, but I don't really want to sleep in until 10:30 again tomorrow morning, as has become my habit when I stay up until two, which has become my habit, ah . . . because I can? Now I really dig that old Ben Franklin guy, and I'd appreciate it if you'd send me any of those green rectangular papers with his picture on them that you have. See, I'm kind of collecting them. I've got lots of Washingtons and a coulple of Lincolns if you wanna trade . . .
Now where was I going? Yeah, Ben Franklin -- that was one frood who really knew where his towel was, 'cause not only was he a father of our doggone country, he also invented lots of stuff, and he said that one thing about "early to bed, early to rise," et al. Lately my rising's been a little out of the "early" sector, and my bedding's not scoring too well either, and I can really see old Frankie's therory holding some weight. I had a headache most of the day and even felt a little nauseous in the morning (which I guess would be normal if I was pregnant -- but I'm not), so there goes the whole "healthy" part. I'm also far removed from "wealthy," but I've gotta be wise if they let me into college, right? Right?
Crap, I forgot the point I was trying to make again. Oh yeah -- it's late, I'm tired, I'm going to bed. Blah. That's all you really wanted to read anyway.
More later, and I was going to write something else funny about Ben "Frankie" Franklin here, but that hinged on anything else I said about him being funny, and . . . I really have no excuse for any of this. Good old Internet.
:: Aaron Humphrey 12:52 AM reply [+] ::
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In only a few short days of inhabiting the Web, I've noticed a very startling trend, which is that
all of my posts seem to grow by a factor of something very large compared to the previous day's post. It's time to put and end to this disturbing word cancer once and for all! Fortunatly, this happens at a very good time for me, since the network is moving at the speed something closely resembling a 14.4 kbs modem crawling up a mountin of gravel with its legs cut off, probably because people have gotten very good, perhaps too good, at hacking past the server's firewall to download things like copywrited movies, copywrited music and porn (which I guess is also probably copywrited), and plus I have homework to do, and some other reason that I forgot about while I was spending too many words describing my sluggish Internet connection.
Right, so -- I don't have too much to say tonight.
This should make my mom happy, though. Any time I've watched a movie with here where one of the characters is smoking, even if it's, say Satan or someone with similar evil qualities, she'll invariably comment on how the movie is setting a bad example and that lighting up is completely unnecessary for the movie to work. She's probably right (and she's also probably reading this -- hi, Mom!), but I'd hate to watch a film noir with her. Anyway, our pals at the recently quite ground-breaking Marvel Comics have finally caught on to what my Mom's been saying for years, and they're making all their comics smoke-free except for those in their new, "adult" MAX line.
As a comic book fan, this deeply upsets me. Wolverine's cigar is a major part of his characters! And what will Spider-Man comics be like if JJ isn't lighting up in the newsroom all the time? Huh?? This is a major step backwards for Marvel, and they should be ashamed! Next thing you know they'll be publishing comics without any colors! Then we're all done for. All of us. (In case you didn't catch it, I'm kidding)
Argh, post is already to long. Must . . . study . . .
:: Aaron Humphrey 8:24 PM reply [+] ::
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Alright, how am I gonna start this thing? How "HOLY FREAKING COW, YOU WOULD NOT BELIEVE WHAT JUST HAPPENED TO ME!!!"?
Nah, that's a bit over-done. But jeez! Ok, now that I got that out of my system, sit back and enjoy Aaron's Amazing Comic Book Adventure!! (note after the fact: this gets really long. You may just want to skip to the part at the end where the building blows up and they escape in on the magic pony)
It was not too long ago that I was whining about wanted to go to a comic book store but not being able to get to one, blah blah blah, so today I decided to put an end to that and take matters into my own hands -- I asked Grant if he would drive me to one. I had the name and directions to the closest comic book store in the phone book, and he had a car, so that was really no way anyone could stop us. The biggest problem was that I forgot to write down the actual address of the store, but I figured it would be easy to spot. Wrong! The street it was on turned out to be just a bunch of construction places, auto body shops and office buildings. Plus, it wasn't long before I realized that I had no idea what I was looking for. I guess I had assumed that there'd just be a big sign that said COMICS with an arrow pointing to it. There wasn't.
Eventually, I suggested my favorite solution for getting un-lost: asking to borrow somebody's phone book. The first place we tried was a reputable looking building with lots of beat up cars out front and no lights on inside. They were either closed, or a front for some crime ring. Either way, I couldn't seem to open the dead-bolted front door. We moved on.
The next place we decided to stop had a sign hanging across the building that said "Thermal Examination," or something to that effect. They had nice looking fake trees in the lobby though, so I figured that they must do something very corporate and probably pretty boring. But there was no one at the front desk, so I figured that they were probably pretty closed, too. But if they were, they forgot to lock the door.
No one appeared to be close by, but I still didn't want to go digging through the receptionist's desk, since "I was looking for a phone book!" probably wouldn't sound like the most legit excuse in the world. Instead I wandered around the office. I didn't have to go very far before I found what I was looking for. As far as I know, there are no phone books anywhere on the Chapman campus, except for some abridged Spanish versions, so I briefly thought about liberating this yellow-paged tome from its life of corporate drugery, but instead I just ripped it out the page with the comic book directory on it. As I left I noticed an untouched roll of Spree, a stapler, a computer, various Important Documents and lots of other fun stuff sitting out on the receptionist's desk, which I also I thought about taking before someone more unsavory came in with the same idea, but I wanted to get out of there before someone showed up and started asking emberassing questions about why I violated their phone book.
The address in the phone book was 1071, so we drove until we found a large building containing many different stores and offices that had a large 1070 printed on it. We looked around the entire area, and even checked out similar nearby buildings labled 1010 and 1060, but found no comic book store. What we did find was a whole lot of open offices with no one in them. By the time we actually found an occupied computer store, Grant and I had started to wonder if somehow the Rapture had come and no one had bothered to tell us about it. Then we noticed a guy making copies in an office that had a Jesus fish on the sign, so we knew that we were OK as far as Eternal Salvation goes.
We were not, however, any closer to finding the comic book store. Until someone started our brains and we realized that unlike 1070, 1071 is an odd number, and would therefore be on the other side of the street!
Sure enough, we found the building we were looking for, but it didn't look like what we were looking for. No sign that said Comics Here! or Comic Books! or Sequential Art! or even any sign that didn't say Western Air. Figuring that these travel kids could at least tell us what happened to our comic book store, we went in anyway. It looked just like every other empty office we'd been in so far. We looked around, trying to find something comics related, or at least someone to talk to. As I looked up and down the hallways of Western Air's office building I had this dawning realization that all of the posters on the walls either had Spawn on them or some other fantasy/sci-fi related theme.
Then I wandered into a relatively plain, boring looking room that was pretty empty except for some office furniture and shelves with nothing but action figures on them. Then Bingo! It all made sence! The comic book store we were looking for was called Image Comics, but I hadn't thought that it actually would be the office building of THE Image Comics!
Me: "Freaking a! I can't believe they actually let us in here!"
Grant: "That Spawn guy looks really cool."
I'd accepted the fact there there would be no new comix for Aaron today, and I didn't usually read Image stuff, but dang, this was cool! We hung out in the lobby area for a while, but still didn't see any real people. There was a big rack of Image comics next to the receptionist's desk that we looked at for a while before Grant noticed a sign that said "Help yourself" hanging on it.
At this point, Aaron is completely blow away. He's wishing that he was better at cussing, because now would be a perfect time to do some. All those smooth glossy covers and yummy art-and-word-filled insides . . . crap, it's like giving away ice cream or puppies or something! OK, maybe not puppies. Maybe, friggin' comic books!!
Aaron turns away, because frankly, I can't believe it. There's no way-- you just don't-- I had just tore a page out of someone else's phone book, but there was no way I was going to steal someone else's comics!
Then a guy comes over to us and asks what's up. We, or rather, I explained that we were new and just looking for a good comic book store. He suggested a couple and then motioned to the rack of comic books we were looking though and said "take all the comics you want."
Made my freaking day. No more words! I've got lots of free comics to read!!!
:: Aaron Humphrey 6:45 PM reply [+] ::
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You know what's dumb about Labor Day? Nothing works! I'm sure the rest of y'all check to make sure the metro is running before you a) buy a ticket, b) race all the way down to the station trying to catch it, the have to c) race back home once again in order to call your friend to tell him not to take the bus and meet you at the station, only to find that he's already left, before finally d) collapsing on the floor, sweaty, frustrated and thinking that "Big Stupid Piece of Crap Day" would be a more appropriate name for the holiday, but I didn't, so I was kind of screwed.
On top of that the school's eattin' joints were all either closed or opperating on weird hours and because the banks were also locked up and I had spent most of my cash on an invalid metro ticket I couldn't get food from any resturant that wouldn't smile and say "thanks, take what ever you want," when I showed them my student ID, which rather limited my ability to gain nourishment, or eat for that matter. Of course, if the our postal workers hadn't been taking their precious two day vaccacion, I'd have gotten the food-filled care package from my family yesterday when I was starving instead of today when I just ate it because it was there.
So my labor day stunk. Labor Evening wasn't too bad, though. I foreged around the dorm room and managed to dig up some ice cream and goldfish crackers, so things turned out OK. Pretty much everything that my mom taught me about nutrition and balanced meals has been flung recklessly out the window after only two weeks at college. Sorry, Mom! At least I still brush my teeth and take a shower every morning, right?
Oh, you want something worthwhile? Take a look at this. My biggest beef with pornographers has generally been the way they keep sending me stupid e-mails with thinly veiled subject lines, but when you really think about it, it's a horrible way to treat women. And when you really think about it, you probably don't realize how many businesses and companies you support also support pornography. It's food for thought if nothing else.
More later.
:: Aaron Humphrey 5:38 PM reply [+] ::
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I'm hanging out here in my dorm room, opperating under the probably false pretense that I'm hip enough to have my own web page. But then, I've seen plenty of web pages that give new meaning to the phrase "everything but hip," so as long if they can do it, then by jingo, so can I! I'm jonesing for some new comic books, but sadly I'm stranded in the only town I know named after a color, with nothing even resembeling a car. Not that I like cars, but I wish that I at least had a bike or something. Oh well. Gonna have to work up the nerve to take the bus again one of these days. Otherwise, how am I going to satisfy my craving for cheap, independent expression? I'm open to suggesions, but so far, black and white comics are the best way I've found to take a hit. Huh, is information really like a drug? It makes for a good analogy anyway. Here's a similar one.
More later.
:: Aaron Humphrey 9:26 PM reply [+] ::
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