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October 31, 2004
Happy Halloween
Well I really wanted to go to a haunted house tonight, but the only one we could find was run by a Southern Baptist church down here. We went anyway, fully knowing we were gonna get a ride into Jack Chickville...
We were informed before entering that there would be people available for counseling if we had any questions afterwards.
They started out by putting us in a room and directing us to watch a screen, where they played a video montage of the torture scenes from Passion of the Christ while blaring really loud obnoxious death metal. The montage was very poorly made, with bad text fading in and out giving the typical message that Jesus died . . . FOR YOU! A few people burst into weeping instantly. Then Satan came out and told us not to listen to those crazy church people, and to listen to him instead. Then we were ushered into the next room.
80% of the house was basically clowns running around with chainsaws and screaming, accompanied by people screaming, "WATCH OUT FOR THE CLOWNS! DON'T GO IN THERE!" I don't know what clowns have to do with Satan... but oh well.
Then we went into a "rave." A bunch of kids were playing dead on the ground next to empy bottles of Bud Light (the raver's drink of choice). Satan was spinning, and a few devils were playing with glowsticks. I had no idea Hell was such a party...
Then we went into a white trash home. A car had crashed through the window and a mother lay dead on the couch while here daughter cried in the other room. The girls in the car also had the telltale Bud Light. This room kind of broke the mood cause the girls in the car were completely bored out of their minds and didn't really keep character. They were definitely the people who were only involved to rack up some community service points. The dead mother had been watching a 3-D animatied cartoon. Poor soul... to think that's the last thing she saw.
Then we went into the best room of the house. Two people watching The Ring. Seriously! Then we went down a hallway that looped another part of the movie, after which we turned to corner to be face to face with Sadako coming out of the well! W00t! That was awesome. Kudos to them for that.
Then we were ushered into a room where a rapper in black face was shouting "mofo" and busting caps in all directions, and a man clearly meant to be a Muslim was babbling and killing hostages. Ah, finally, the true face of Souther Baptism. Too bad there wasn't also a woman with a job! Or a Kerry supporter! I guess that would've been to scary for some people.
It was a fun house, especially for the Sadako room. I was a little offended by the room with the Muslim and black man, and especially the beginning scene with Jesus and the bad type. But it's a church so there has to be some of the latter (and it's a bad church, so there has to be a bit of the former).
I also would like to mention a very nice prank which was pulled on me this morning. Someone came by in the night and taped up pictures of the characters in Ju-On to my windows. So the first person I saw in the morning was Kayako staring into my window at me. Very nice touch. It was broad daylight, so I wasn't scared, but I do appreciate the effort and it was a clever prank. Nobody's taken credit for it yet...
Posted by dminky at 11:57 PM | TrackBack
October 26, 2004
A Link To Go With My Last Post
Another plea to Bush supporters (this one is meant to be an attack, so if you're gonna get pissy, read the previous link first):
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=17962
Please read that link. If you're intelligent it will make you want to throw up with disgust. If you're stupid, you probably already have decided not to read that link.
And if you have some spare time, browse www.workingforchange.com.
I know you probably won't, because you're happy being ignorant and blindly following Bush like a lemming... but if you have even one ounce of sanity left in that confused head of yours, then for the love of humanity, educate yourself.
Remember: A lot of Germans thought Hitler was a great guy, too.
Posted by dminky at 09:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Attn: Bush Supporters
Ok, this is not meant to be an attack so please read this post.
Why do you support Bush? Seriously. There must be someone out there who actually has a good reason.
I've been asking this question to a few of the known Bush supporters around me, and I've noticed one consistant thing: none of you have a good reason. The number one answer I get from all of you is something along the lines of, "Because Kerry is keeps changing his mind." Today I even got a reply from one that said, "I fucking HATE John Kerry."
People, what are you talking about?! Honestly, without resorting to insulting Kerry, can you really argue a good reason? I know there are people there who have reasons, because I can't believe that 50% of the country is subject to such simple brainswashing, so please tell me your reasons.
And if your reason is, like I recieved today, that you think Kerry is wishy-washy, that Kerry doesn't have morals, that Kerry doesn't have a plan... please go do a little bit of research. Visit http://factcheck.org, a nonpartisan site that will tell you the truth (good and bad) about both Bush and Kerry so you can decide for yourself why you support whom. I hate to be the one to point this out to you, but if you gave any of those 3 reasons as to why you support Bush, you've been brainwashed. You simply don't realize it. Those are the exact words that have come out of Bush's mouth for the past month more than once a day every single day. He sounds like a broken record, constantly attacking Kerry on issues that are actually just half-truths at best, outright lies at worst.
Did any of that make you angry? If it did, then you probably really have been brainwashed, because nothing I said there should have angered anyone. I won't turn this into a rant, because I really am not trying to bash anyone right now.
Please go read http://factcheck.org.
I'm gonna leave comments open on this for a while, so you can post the reasons that I asked for if you like. But please... http://factcheck.org
Posted by dminky at 06:07 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 24, 2004
What Do You See?
My most recent project for Advanced Computer Illustration was to do a postcard for Ringling's coming admissions poster. The theme was "What Do You See?" How lame is that? The only solutions I could come up with were extremely satirical and smart-ass (you know that's my sense of humor), and were not appropriate for an admissions poster. Finally, my friends convinced me to just go with one of the ideas anyway, regardless of whom I would offend and how appropriate it would be for a poster. So I decided to illustrate what I see at Ringling: my classmates. I made "The Bible Banging Bigot" first, since that's primarily what I see here at Ringling. I seriously think the Bible Belt is buckled right here at this school. Since I didn't want to offend only the right-winged nutcases, I decided to make fun of my own breed as well, the gamers. And to complete the showcase, I threw in an AnimeGrrl, since there are so many of them here and they really really piss me off.
I wanted the text to be more vitriolic, but I didn't finish until 5:30 AM the day they were due, so the text is a bit lacking (not to mention writing in Times New Roman doesn't have the same effect as handwriting it, which I wanted to do). I may eventually do more of these and if I do, I'll fix these guys up to be more sarcastic and look better. But in the meantime, enjoy:
Posted by dminky at 10:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 19, 2004
I *Hate* Texas Hold 'Em
And not for the reasons you may think... well, I do think it is a very dumb game. I don't see how a game which takes no skill at all other than bluffing could become so popular so quickly... anyway that's not my point.
I hate Texas Hold 'Em because I just got, in under 1 hour, over 400 comment spams about fucking Texas Hold 'Em. They just kept coming and I couldn't delete them fast enough. I only know just finish closing comments on *all* of my previous posts, and I will likely not open comments at all anymore, except for maybe a short period of time after making a new post.
God damn all of you morons who play online Texas Hold 'Em. And who buy Viagra and Cialis online. And natural breast enhancement pills. All of you can go to hell. It's your fault we have so much spam.
Posted by dminky at 01:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 18, 2004
John Stewart on CNN's Crossfire
I can't really take credit for this news blurb, so I'm going to link you to Slashdot, where you can find links to the torrent files to download so you can watch this show.
If you're sick of politics, you should see this video. It will make you so happy.
Posted by dminky at 10:50 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The Last Political Rant
Hmmm... well OK, that's probably not true. There'll be more I'm sure. But this one is of a different nature.
After being consistently unimpressed with the Democratic Party's lack of backbone and quickness to cave in to conservative demands for the sake of popularity, I discovered the Libertarian Party. Until now I'd been torn whether or not I should vote for Kerry in order to keep Bush from getting into office or voting my heart, which doesn't echo the ideals of the Democratic Party. To me, that party is nothing more than a slightly less conservative Republican Party. And they both pander to the same special interests.
I'm not going to write a long rant plugging another party. If you are interested in politics at all, or plan on voting in the next election (which I hope you do), then may I suggest taking a look at the following websites: http://www.lp.org, http://www.gp.org. Feel free not to change your political views or your vote, but please just take a look at these very interesting and refreshingly different parties that are rapidly growing in popularity and drawing votes equally from both Republicans and Democrafts. (In fact, there are a lot of high-up Republican senators who have said they plan on voting for Badnarik instead of Bush this year.)
Just FYI, there are 38 people running for president this year! Do your duty as an American to learn what each of them stands for. Don't limit yourself to the two big parties. I'm still researching other parties, but I can tell you this: I will vote for the one I truly believe in.
Posted by dminky at 01:41 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The Chickens
Well they're long overdue, but here are The Baron and Doctor von Kluck, as promised.
They both need a few touch ups, but I haven't had the time yet. I'll make an announcement when I update the images.
Posted by dminky at 01:18 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 12, 2004
Hello *Echo Echo*
Sorry that it's been so long since I've last written here. I've been extremely busy and only now have a little bit of free time to say what's been going on. Even now, I still am kin dof busy so this post will probably be a little short.
Here are some of the latest digital pieces I've done:
cover art for "Clue" board game
hot sauce label
I also touched up my monkey Business Card and made a letterhead out of it, but I don't think I'll be reposting that. If you buy a painting from me, you'll get an invoice written on the stationery. ;-)
The Clue one needs some work, but I think it was a step in the right direction. The Devil's Drawers piece was recieved really well by my teacher, and it's probably what the Clue piece would look more like if I were to redo it. So far I've been really successful with my cartoony pieces done digitally, but the pieces I've tried to render haven't been all the way there. While I still want to practice developing the ability to fully render a painting in digital media (this is pretty difficult for me), I've recently discovered that I can combine cartoon and a bit of painted rendering for a decent piece, like in the 2nd piece up there.
So enough critique... I'm sure you don't want to read that anyway. What else have I been up to?
Well, catching up on emails for one. I also finished the deal with Showtime, so that has made me really happy (and really able to pay off some bills... oy). The movie is still being worked on in my spare time. I'm currently starting a fantasy painting for Illustration class, and working on a postcard idea for the Ringling admissions poster for my Digital Illustration class. I also need to do a self portrait and two self-directed pieces in my free time.
And now for the best news: Frances came back! No, not the hurricane. The real deal! Fulanshisu visited me this weekend; the perfect vacation I needed after the most stressful week of the year. It was great -- and even better, it was the first weekend of the whole year that didn't fly by in an instant. I hadn't seen her since Japan, so it was really amazing to finally be with her on this side of the planet. We went to Sarasota Jungle Gardens, a few nice restaraunts down here, and watched movies. She also had to study a bit since she has midterms this week. Ahh it was so nice to be able to see her again. Hopefully we'll be able to visit again soon, before the year is up.
Erik's wedding is soon, and I really have to prepare a speech for that. I also have to create a professional website really soon, not just a blog with a link to a shitty html file for hanging bad jpegs of my art.
...Zoinks... looks like I'm actually a lot busier than I thought.
Posted by dminky at 09:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 05, 2004
Bzzt Bzzt
That's the sound of stress manifesting itself above my head in the form of cartoon yellow lightning bolts.
Right now I'm trying to balance 5 classes, a big midterm project, 2 jobs, a freelance contract, my house breaking down in a different way every week, and a boatload of roommate troubles.
Blah. Other than that I don't know what to write. I need to catch up on work...
Posted by dminky at 11:14 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack